Life Lessons from a Donkey
- Skip Heitzig
- Mar 21, 2016
- 31 min read
Updated: Jul 30
Life Lessons from a Donkey: Palm Sunday
Skip Heitzig
The luckiest donkey in the world was the donkey who carried Jesus on his back. He was fulfilling Old Testament having the Messiah
.
Donkey’s favorite pastime: rolling on the ground. Why do they long ears? Cools them. Hears up to miles away.
More people are killed by people annually that in air crashes.
Month of Nissan select the lamb for Passover. In that day it was Aprii 6, 32 A.D.
This Palm Sunday message by Pastor Skip Heitzig (0:39) explores Jesus' triumphal entry into
Jerusalem, focusing on the final week of His life as detailed in John 12. The message contrasts the superficial nature of religion with a genuine, personal relationship with Christ.
Key takeaways from the message:
Jesus over Religion: People are drawn to Jesus more than to rigid religious systems (7:13). While religion focuses on outward rituals and prohibitions, Jesus emphasizes the inward heart and offers a relationship based on grace rather than works (12:59 - 15:47). •
Scripture vs. Opinion: The Bible is a more reliable source of truth than human opinion (17:41). The message highlights how Jesus fulfilled specific Old Testament prophecies, such as entering Jerusalem on a donkey as predicted in Zechariah 9:9 (20:00 - 20:30). •
Following vs. Inspecting: It is more important to actively follow Jesus than to merely observe or study Him from a distance (31:12). The disciples had to move from simply witnessing miracles to truly understanding and surrendering to Christ after His resurrection (28:50).
Life Application:
• The message challenges listeners to trust God with their struggles and surrender their lives to Him, just as the compliant donkey carried Jesus (36:59).
• The video concludes with an invitation for viewers to accept Christ as their Savior and
embark on a new way of living (40:02).
You know, sometimes it's good to compare things with other things. Does that look familiar to anybody?
But what a comparison -- the old and the new. And when you make these comparisons, 1:28
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you start understanding how far you've come from and which is mroe preferable to the other.
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I'm going to give you out of John Chapter 12 today three comparisons. We're going to compare three things to three other things,
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and see why those things are more preferable to the others. Now we're in John Chapter 12 and this is interesting.
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Already in John Chapter 12 we're dealing with the final week of Jesus Christ on the earth.
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That's Chapter 12.
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There are 21 chapters in John, so almost half of John is dedicated to the final week of Jesus' life on earth.
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If you were to look at Matthew, two-fifths of the gospel of Matthew is devoted to that final week.
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Three-fifths of the gospel of Mark is devoted to that final week. In the gospel of Luke, one-third is devoted to the final week,
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and in John, just about one-half.
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that just lets you understand the kind of importance that gospel writers placed on what is called Passion Week,
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the week that we are entering into starting today.
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So in the four gospels, there are 89 chapters all together that are written in those four gospels.
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Of those 89 chapters, four of the chapters cover the first 30 years of Jesus' life,
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while 85 chapters cover the last 3 and a half years of His life, and 29 of those 85 cover the last week.
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So we begin the Passion Week with an event that is mentioned in all four gospel records,
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We're going to begin in Chapter 12 beginning in Verse 12.
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It says, "The next day a great multitude had come to the feast when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem.
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They took palm branches or branches of palm trees and went out to meet Him and cried out
Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord,
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the King of Israel. Then Jesus, when he had found a young donkey,
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sat on it as it is written, fear not daughter of Zion behold your King is coming sitting on a
donkey's colt.
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His disciples did not understand these things at first,
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but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written about Him and that they had done these things to Him.
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"Therefore, the people who were with Him when He called Lazarus out of his tomb and raised him from the dead bore witness.
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For this reason, the people also met Him because they heard that He had done this sign.
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The Pharisees, therefore, said among themselves, you see that you are accomplishing nothing.
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Look, the world has gone after Him."
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Now can I just say for the record this is like the luckiest donkey in the world.
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To have on its back the Son of God fulfilling Old Testament prophecy while He is being led into Jerusalem on this beast of burden.
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We have a gal on staff who owns a couple of donkeys, and I med this week donkeys live
between 30 to 40 years of age.
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Some can live up to 60 years old. And so I did a little donkey investigation this week.
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And I made some interesting discoveries about these creatures. Guess what a donkey's favorite pastime is?
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Eating is what most people say, but it's actually rolling on the ground, rolling in the dirt.
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It's his favorite pastime, which helps me understand Eeyore now in Winnie the Pooh, why he's
always grumpy.
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Donkeys have long ears. Why do they have long ears? For two reasons. It keeps the animal cool sort of like donkey radiators,
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and it helps that animal hear up to miles away.
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And then the most bizarre fact I discovered comes from the London Times where they reported more people are killed annually by donkeys than in airplane crashes.
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I don't know how on earth they discovered that,
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or why anybody would want to investigate that but that's a fact. So this is traditionally called
Palm Sunday.
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It celebrates this event that we are reading, the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem.
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But in the Jewish calendar it was the 10th day of Nisan, not the car, the month.
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The month of Nisan in the Jewish calendar on the 10th day of the month was the day when
Jewish families would select the lamb
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that on the 14th the day of Nisan they would sacrifice for the Passover.
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Interesting that it's on this very day that the Lamb of God is riding into Jerusalem on a donkey
presenting himself,
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as it were, to the nation. That's the 10th of Nisan. In our calendar, it would be April the 6th,
32AD.
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Now we're going to look again at some of these verses, and I want to give you some lessons that I've discovered,
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some observations and principles that come from this little donkey ride that Jesus takes. And
here's the first.
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Jesus is more appealing than religion.
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Jesus Christ, the person, is more appealing to people then religion.
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It was then, it's the same today. Look at Verse 12. "The next day a great multitude had come to the feast.
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When they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, they took branches of palm trees, went out to meet Him, and cried out Hosanna!
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Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel." Now who's this crowd?
It's a crowd of religious people,
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therefore, here in Jerusalem for a religious festival, the festival of Passover.
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There were three mandatory feasts that every Jewish person was required to be in Jerusalem for if you lived in a certain distance from the city-- Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles.
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This was their Passover.
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This is when they celebrated the deliverance of their forefathers from the bondage of Egypt
through a succession of 10 plagues that happened in their past history.
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It had now become the focal point of Jewish history. But every year it was the same thing.
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Every year they took the same routes up to Jerusalem. Every year they went through the same rituals. Every year they made the same prescribed prayers.
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And, frankly, for a whole lot of people, it had just gotten old,
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and they were clamoring for something more than what their religion was offering. They found out Jesus was in town,
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and they all gravitated to Him. And they spontaneously start shouting, Hosanna, save now.
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Deliver us now. Give us what our religion cannot give us, because Jesus is more appealing than religion.
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You know, Jesus was a breath of fresh air in a climate of stagnant, stale, religious experience.
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One of my favorite verses of scripture is in Mark Chapter 12. It's a simple verse.
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It just says, "and the common people heard him gladly."
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The everyday folk heard him gladly. In that chapter he gives parable after parable,
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story after story, and then has a confrontation with the religious elite, and the common people we're hearing and seeing it all.
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And they listen to Him gladly.
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Jesus was to them much more appealing than even their hollowed religion itself.
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I've always loved what General Booth of the Salvation Army used to say. He said, I want my
religion. I like my religion like my tea.
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I want it hot. And I think if you were to ask most people, they would say if I'm going to have any spirituality at all, I want it hot.
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I want it real. I want it authentic. I want it vibrant. I don't want just some makeshift ceremonial
stuff.
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I want my religion like my tea, I want it hot.
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And because of that, there was a clash between the old and the new, between the old religious system and the new stuff Jesus was offering.
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There was a clash and it happened more than once, but a classic highlight is shown in Matthew Chapter 15.
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You don't have to turn there. I'll just tell you the story, and you'll recall it when I do.
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In that chapter Matthew 15, the religious leaders come and they find Jesus and they're miffed.
They're upset.
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This what they say, your disciples are transgressing the traditions of the elders.
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Because they don't wash their hands ceremonially before they eat bread.
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I love Jesus' response to them.
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He said, why is it that you transgress the commandment of God by your traditions?
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And then he said this, well did Esaias prophesy of you hypocrites, saying this people honors me with their lips,
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but their heart is far from me.
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In vain do they worship me teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
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There was this clash between Jesus as a person and the religion that people were practicing.
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And we see it over and over again. And do you know, because of that, people like tax collectors, and prostitutes, and murderers,
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they found it easy to hang out with Jesus. They gravitated toward Jesus.
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And we so often find Jesus soothing, forgiving, loving words to the very lowest people in
society.
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While our Lord Jesus most scathing words weren't to murderers, weren't to prostitutes,
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weren't to drunkards, but to religious people. Matthew 23, several times in a row, whoa unto you hypocrites.
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And He unloads on them. And the common people heard him gladly and hear,
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once again at Passover, Jesus is in town let's go find Him. And they surrounded Him.
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Question, why the appeal? What's really the big difference between Jesus, the person, and the practice of religion?
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Well, there are several differences. Let me give a few to you. Number one, religion emphasizes the outward, Jesus emphasizes what?
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Tell me. The inward. Isn't that right? He always emphasizes the inward. He said, why are you
thinking evil in your hearts?
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Or from the abundance of the heart the mouth speak.
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Jesus was always more concerned with what was going on on the inside of a person than how a person looked on the outside.
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Religion is about the outward, Jesus was always about the inward. Here's the second difference.
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Religion is often about what you can't do. Jesus is about what you can do.
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Religion is about prohibition, thou shalt not. It seems like Jesus' approach was, you know what?
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Just come as you are, and watch what I can do through your life. That's what we find.
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That's the big difference.
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I know some people, their whole spiritual experience is one of negatives. Well, I don't do this,
and I don't do that,
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and I don't do the other thing. Like the old fundamentalist poem.
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I don't smoke, and I don't chew, and I don't go with girls that do. And I say, what whoop-de-do.
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What do you do? I mean, if you're just talking about what you don't do, but there's nothing in
your life that shows what you're doing,
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that's the big difference. There's a third difference. Religion puts up barriers, Jesus pulls down barriers.
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If you and I were in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago, and we went up to worship at the temple, we
couldn't go anywhere we wanted to go. There were certain courts for people like us.
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Us non-Jewish people like me, I couldn't even get close to the temple itself.
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I would be confined to the outer court known as the court of the Gentiles. People that are
spiritual cooties like me, that's where I hang out.
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If I was a Jewish woman, I could go further. If I was a Jewish male, I could go further. If I was a
Jewish priest, I could go even closer.
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But there were courts and there were walls that kept people out.
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And I've discovered that religion is really good at keeping people out.
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How different is Jesus who said, Come unto me all of you who labor and are heavy laden,
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and I will give you rest. So willing to include people.
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And fourth, religion typically says you have to work your way to God where Jesus
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will say I am the way to God. I have seen, I have talked to religious people,
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I have been a religious person long enough to know that most all world religions are all about
what you have to do to work your way to God.
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Things you have to do, prayers you have to say, et cetera, et cetera. That is the religion of human achievement.
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That is not the gospel. The gospel is the approach of divine accomplishment.
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Religion says you must do. God says I have done for you. It is finished.
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Now you've just received as a free gift what I have done, and there will be a transformation in the process.
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So Jesus is more appealing than religion. So they gather around Him, and they shout Hosanna.
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As I mentioned, the word in Hebrew,
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Na Hoshiah Na, Hosanna translated in English means deliver us now, save us now Lord.
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The crowd clamors around Him so much so, did you hear what the Pharisees said in Verse 19?
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"You see that you're accomplishing nothing. Look the whole world has gone after Him." Jesus
was their biggest nightmare,
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because what they have discovered is that people are more attracted to Jesus then their religious system.
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And now there's competition.
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Jesus was that tipping point that drove people to a personal relationship with God through Him rather than through that ritualistic system.
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Here's the second observation, second life lesson on this donkey ride.
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Scripture is more reliable than opinion.
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So Jesus is more appealing than religion and now scripture's more reliable than opinion.
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Look back with me at Verse 14 if you will.
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"Then Jesus, when he had found a young donkey, sat on it as it
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is written, fear not daughter of Zion behold your King is coming sitting on a donkey's colt."
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His disciples did not understand these things at first,
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but when Jesus was glorified then they remembered that these things were written about Him,
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and that they had done these things to Him.
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Have you found that just about everybody you meet has some opinion of Jesus? Everybody has an opinion of Jesus.
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People had opinions of Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago.
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Do you recall when our Lord took His disciples up to Caesarea Phillipi, and He said, who do
men say that I, the Son of Man, am?
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And immediately they spouted off all the opinions. Some say that you're John the Baptist.
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Some say you're Elijah, or Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. Those are all opinions as to who
Jesus Christ was.
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John the Apostle in this book shares a few more opinions that people had.
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In John Chapter 9, for example, some were saying this man is not from God. Can you imagine
saying that about God?
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This man is not from God, because he does not keep the Sabbath.
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Others had this opinion, he's a prophet.
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In John Chapter 10 another group said, he has a demon and is mad. Now let me ask you a
question.
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Of all those opinions that I just rattled off to you, were any of them accurate? Not really.
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I mean, the closest most accurate was a group that's said He's a prophet, but He was much more than that.
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So there was a myriad of opinions, but notice what John does here. He twice quotes scripture
from the Old Testament.
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One, in Psalm 118 when the people said, Hosanna. Blessed is He who comes in the name the
Lord. That's a direct quote.
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And then Zechariah Chapter 9, Verse 9, where it says,
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"Fear not, daughter of Zion, behold your King is coming sitting on a donkey's colt."
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So whatever opinions people had of Jesus, here's what the scripture says about Jesus.
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And here's why I'm bringing this up because what the scripture says He is more reliable than
what people think He is.
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God's revelation is more reliable than people's estimation.
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Scripture is more reliable than opinion. Question.
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Why a donkey? What's up with the donkey? You know, in the other gospel records,
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Jesus actually tells His disciples as they're on the Mount of Olives,
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you know, stop, go to the next town and you're going to find a donkey. Bring that donkey here. Why?
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Did He just like donkey rides? Why a donkey? Now listen carefully. The donkey showed His
identity.
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Listen again, and you can read it for yourself in Verse 15
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quoting Zechariah 9, "Behold your King comes to you sitting on a donkey's colt."
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In other words, you have a King, He is going to come to you, and when He comes to you, He's coming to you on a donkey.
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So Jesus asked for a donkey, because He is presenting himself to them as their King. By the way, King's road donkeys in times of peace.
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When they wanted to offer terms of peace to a people group, they would mount a donkey. It was considered an animal of peace.
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When a King would come to wage war, he would ride a horse. And this is why in Revelation 19
when Jesus comes again,
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He rides a horse. And the Bible says He comes to judge and to make war. But here He is, the
Prince of Peace,
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and He's offering terms of peace to them.
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So the donkey represents the reliability of scripture 500 years before Zechariah predicted your King is coming to you on a donkey's colt.
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OK, so this is John's rendition of this event. It is mentioned, as I said, four times in all four
gospels.
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This one of the few events of Jesus' life that all four gospel writers have recorded. I want you to go back one book to the gospel of Luke.
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Turn with me in your Bibles to Luke Chapter 19. And that is because John records the event.
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Luke records what Jesus said to them during this event, and it's important that you get this at this
point. Luke Chapter 19.
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Are you there, Luke 19? Look at Verse 41, Luke Chapter 19 Verse 41.
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"Now as He drew near, He saw the city of Jerusalem,
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and He wept over it."
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You know, we were just on the Mount of Olives a couple weeks ago, some of us, and before us
was the city of Jerusalem. We weren't weeping over it.
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We were smiling and taking pictures of it. But not Jesus. He comes and He sees it, and He starts crying.
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He starts weeping out loud, saying Verse 42,
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"If you had known, even you, especially,"
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watch this, "in this your day the things that make for your peace.
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But now they are hidden from your eyes for the days will come upon you when your enemies
will build an embankment around you, surround you, and close you
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in on every side, and level you and your children within you to the ground.
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And they will not leave in you one stone upon another because you did not know the time of
your visitation."
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Jesus, get the scene, He's weeping over the city that He's seeing from the Mount of Olives.
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He weeps over it, and He predicts their fall, their destruction.
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Somebody's going to level this to the ground and destroy the city and the people in it. That
happened, by the way, in 70AD.
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Years later it happened. The Romans surrounded Jerusalem and leveled it to the ground.
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And notice what Jesus said in Verse 44, "because you did not know the time of your visitation."
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What on earth is He talking about? When he says, your day, , this is your day, Verse 42,
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this is the time of your visitation.
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What Jesus is referring to is a prediction made by their own prophet, the Jewish prophet, Daniel,
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in Daniel Chapter 9 where Daniel gives in two verses an exact precise timetable for the coming of their Messiah.
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Daniel Chapter 9 Verse 26 and 27, a heavenly messenger tells Daniel this from the going fourth of the commandment
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to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Messiah, the Prince,
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will be 483 years. Then it says, and the Messiah will be killed,
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will be cut off. It's a very odd but precise scripture.
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From the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem until the Messiah, the Prince, will be 483 years,
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and then the Messiah will be killed.
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So that must mean that you would be able to count at whatever time the commandment was
given to restore and build Jerusalem, you'd
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be able to count 483 years and you should come to some event about the Messiah after which He would be killed.
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It's plain.
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Well, several scholars have looked at this, including this brilliant criminal investigation guy, Sir
Robert Anderson.
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He was the head of Scotland Yard's criminal investigation. And he wrote a book on that
prophecy called, The Coming Prince.
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So he discovered that the date in history when a commandment was given to the Jews to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, after it had fallen,
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was March 14, 445BC. On that date, Artaxerxes, the Persian monarch, Artaxerxes Longimanus, told the Jews,
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go back and rebuild Jerusalem. Nehemiah and his buddies did that.
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And then he decided, I'm going to count from March 14, 445BC 483 years and find out what
date that is.
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Not only that, but he did it in precise numbers in this book, The Coming Prince.
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He took not the Julian calendar, our calendar is 365 and a third days per year. The old
Babylonian/Jewish calendar has 360 days.
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It's a lunar year, not a solar year. So he took years of 360 days, 483 of those years,
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according to the prophecy, discovered that equals to 173,880 days.
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Follow me so far? So he began at March 14, 445BC and counted 173,880 days,
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and he decided now what day of the year was that on?
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It happened to be April 6, 32AD, the 10th of the Jewish calendar
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month of Nisan, the day when Jesus with his disciples comes to the Mount of Olives, and he
goes, OK, boys, now wait a minute.
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Don't go yet. There's a donkey next door. Bring that donkey to me.
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And for the very first and only time Jesus presents himself as their King to the nation.
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You see, up to this point, every time Jesus did some miracle that would have made Him famous,
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you know what He told people? Shh, don't tell anybody. It's not the time yet. The time hasn't
come yet.
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It'll be revealed in the time, but not today. Don't tell anybody this. He kept telling people to keep it quiet.
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But now, on this day, on this day He presents himself as their King according to the prophecy of Daniel,
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according to the prophecy of Zechariah. He presents himself. Now the disciples didn't get it.
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They didn't understand what is happening until after Jesus' Resurrection and ascension. Look at Verse 16.
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His disciples did not understand these things at first,
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but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written about Him. And that they had done these things to Him.
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You know what?
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When I read that verse, it was one of the best verses I ever read.
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I read this week and for the first time I started really understanding it. I felt the sigh of relief that the disciples,
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Jesus' own disciples, didn't understand it at first. The reason I get encouraged, because I read the Bible a lot,
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and I don't always get it. It's not until the second, or third, or 52nd time I read it,
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I go, oh, now I get it. Now I see it, and now I see how precise and accurate it is.
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So the disciples weren't getting it all yet. But they will later.
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And they will discover just how reliable the scripture is, especially when you compare that to
people's opinions. Yeah, everybody had an opinion as to who Jesus was.
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But these disciples would go back and read the scriptures and see how reliable and accurate they are.
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I appreciate people's opinions, but I don't always have a lot of patience for it. They'll listen and go, yeah, I know,
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you're talking about the Bible this and the Bible that. You know but my opinion is. I don't really care what your opinion is.
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When your opinion is as accurate and reliable as the scripture I'm quoting to you, then we can
talk.
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But if you want a source of confidence in your life, and if you want real security, listen,
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real security comes when your life is governed by God's word,
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not when it's governed by man's word, not when it's governed by people's opinions. Everybody's
always worried about, what will they think of me?
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Does this look good on me?
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And how-- the real freedom and security comes when you realize my life is governed by God's word.
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So Jesus is more appealing than religion. Scripture is more reliable than opinion. Let me close with a third.
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Thank you five for appreciating that.
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Let me give you a third, a final observation about this little donkey ride. Following is more
important than inspection.
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Following, following Jesus is more important than inspection or observation.
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Now in this little paragraph we're considering,
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there are four different groups of people that John mentions here who are there that day.
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And he shows the response of these four groups of people. By the way, this is a peculiar
hallmark of John's authorship.
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Often in his book we find Jesus doing something or saying something, and then John records
what the different people who are seeing and hearing around,
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what their response was to it. He does that here for us. The first group are the disciples. They're
mentioned in Verse 16.
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These are the guys who've been following Jesus 3 and half years. They're really followers of His. They're learners.
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Verse 16, "His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified,
then they remembered."
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The second group were the eyewitnesses who were there when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. They're mentioned in Verse 17.
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They saw the miracle with their own eyes.
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"Therefore, the people who were with Him when He called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead bore witness."
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Bore witness means they saw it. They observed it. They inspected it. They're checking this out.
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The third group of people are those who heard from the eyewitnesses who were there when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.
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They weren't there themselves but they heard their testimony. That's Verse 18.
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"For this reason, the people also met Him because they heard that He had done this sign."
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And then the fourth group that is mentioned is in Verse 19. Those are the religious folks, the
Pharisees. "Therefore, they said among themselves,
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you see that you're accomplishing nothing. Look the world has gone after Him."
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So four different groups of people, all four groups were observing the same event.
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They were all inspecting the same event,
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but there was only one group that was really following Jesus. Those were the disciples.
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They didn't quite get what was happening that day. They will get it later on.
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They're going to have a time of their faith being tried but that doesn't matter. They're going to
keep following Jesus throughout the years.
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Listen, it's good to observe.
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I commend an observer, but your observations must lead to your conclusions.
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And the conclusion of these disciples is that He's still worthy of following. You know, I know
some people who love to study, study, study, read, read, read.
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I'm one of them. I love to do it. I love to study. I love history. I love language.
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But a lot of us love to study, study, study short of actually following the one we're studying
about.
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Oh, no, give me more charts, man, give me more in-time stuff. I want to know more stuff.
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There comes a point when what you observe and inspect must be translated into what you do.
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Will you follow?
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So my question is how will you respond in the day of your visitation when God, through His
Holy Spirit, by His word,
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makes this day your day? Just like Jesus said to those people, this is your day. This is the time of your visitation.
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So following is more important than inspection.
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And then there's this donkey in the story. You know it's interesting, think about this.
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The donkey is the most compliant one in the entire story.
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The other gospel accounts show us that this is an unbroken donkey on which never a man sat.
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Jesus gets on this donkey, and this donkey compliantly leads Jesus into the city of Jerusalem. The donkey's the most compliant one in the story.
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There's a great old poem years ago written by G. K. Chesterton. Some of you remember him. A great writer, scholar, poet.
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G. K. Chesterton wrote a little poem called, The Donkey.
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And it's about this donkey, as if-- he wrote it from the perspective as if the donkey understood what was happening.
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It goes like this. When fishes flew, and forests walked, and figs grew upon a thorn, some
moment when the moon was blood,
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then surely I was born. With monstrous head and sickening cry,
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and ears like errant wings, the devil's walking parity of all four-footed things.
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The tattered outlaw of the earth of ancient crooked will, starve, scourge, deride me, I am dumb,
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but I keep my secret still. Fools, for I also had my hour one far fierce hour and sweet,
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there was a shout about my ears and palms before my feet.
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Now, I don't think this donkey in the story really got that.
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But can you imagine if that donkey could understand? On my back is the one fulfilling scripture.
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He's fulfilling Zechariah 9:9. He's the guy spoken about in Zechariah 9:9, and I'm the donkey of Zechariah 9:9.
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Let me ask you this question in closing.
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The same God who engineered this donkey and engineered these exact dates that Jesus fulfilled,
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do you think He can take care of your life, your struggles, your issues, your problems?
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Do you think of all the people, all of the persons, all of the entities, all of the belief systems,
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do you think that this God it's worthy of you surrendering your life to? I dare say, yes and amen, he is.
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He can handle you, and He can change you, and this is the day of your visitation. But you know what?
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There's no difference between us and the people of ancient Jerusalem. Some were disciples and some were not. Some just observed and listened and some did not.
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And so we conclude, after having made the observations,
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we are led to the inevitable conclusion, this God is worth following. Would you pray with me?
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Father, on this welcome weekend, we
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can't help but think how welcoming you were and are to whosoever will let Him come.
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To come all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
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And you will find rest for your souls. Lord, with such invitations from this gracious one,
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we hear and some will respond.
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I pray there we will all, whether we have been following you for years and years, and studied,
and inspected, and observed will trust more.
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And for those who have never really personally trusted Jesus would do so for the first time.
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With our heads bowed, I now want to give those of you who
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have heard this an opportunity to personally come to the one that we're speaking about.
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The one who gave such gracious promises.
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Jesus said as many as received Him,
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He would give them the power, the authority, the right to become His children. To those who
would just believe in His name,
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if you've come here and you come from a religious background,
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come from a very scholastic an observant background,
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from whatever background you come from, if you haven't yet personally surrendered your life to Jesus Christ I want to give you the opportunity to do so.
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It's very simple.
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Others of you have had some experience in the past with the Lord. You've wandered away from Him for whatever reasons,
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but your heart is, well, it's aching. It's empty.
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And you've actually wondered, could this be true? Could this happen?
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Is this just another religious experience that preachers' tout, or is this God real, and is He alive, and can He change my life?
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Well you'll never know unless you come, unless you ask.
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And so I want to give you the opportunity to do that.
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If you've never surrendered your life to Jesus personally,
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or if you've wandered away from whatever religious experience you have, but you want to come to Him and surrender your life to Him, I'll give you that opportunity.
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I want you to raise your hand up in the air. Just raise it, keep it up for just a few moments, so I
can see and acknowledge you. God bless you, ma'am, right there in the middle.
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Anyone else raise your hand up high. You're just saying, Skip, pray for me, here's my hand. God bless you, right in the front. Who else?
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Right over there to my right. It begins just with that simple acknowledgement. Anybody else?
God bless you in the very back.
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Anyone in the family room, just raise your hand up. Or in the balcony, raise that hand up so I can see it.
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Right up here. Sorry I missed you.
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Right up here and to my left.
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And there in the middle and the back in the middle toward the front. In the middle again. Right on the side, right in the middle.
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In the back to my left. Couple of you, thank you, Lord. It's a simple acknowledgement.
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I need God, I need forgiveness. I want to go to heaven. Life isn't what I thought it would be up to this point. There's got to be something more.
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I want to surrender my life to Him. Anyone else, raise your hand up. Anyone else?
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Right up here in the middle toward the front.
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Thank you, Father, for a number of lives that have made this indication. Lord, we pray for them.
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We're so thankful for them.
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We want to celebrate this, because this decision is more than just any choice. It is the choice.
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And You have given us opportunity just like You gave people back then opportunity.
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Lord, I pray for a peace, a joy that transcends even human experience, something that is felt in the very depths of their being,
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their soul where there's a freedom as the burden,
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the guilt is alleviated because of what Jesus has done for them.
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Now do through them great things, we ask in His name, Amen. Would you stand up, please, to your feet? We're going to sing a song, close with a song.
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If you raised your hand, and I saw a number of hands around this auditorium. You know, when Jesus called people, He often called them publicly.
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And we believe it's going to do you a world of good when you have us cheering for you as you make this decision. I'm going to lead you in a prayer.
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As we sing this song, I'm going to ask those of you who raised your hand to come right up to the front. Stand right up here. I'm going to lead you in a simple prayer to receive Jesus,
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and then you can go back with your friends and family as we close. But just come right up here as we sing. Right up to the front.
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Maybe a counselor could show us how it's supposed to get done. Just come and stand right up here.
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[SINGING]
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That's right.
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[SINGING]
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If you're in the family room, there's a door right up to the front on your right. If you raise your
hand-- you know what?
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Even if you didn't raise your hand, but you know, I need to be up here. I need a new start.
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I need to know that when I die I'm going to heaven. I need to know that. Whether you're in the family room, or balcony, or in the main house,
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or outside, or in the overflow, a pastor will walk you over. You come and stand right up here.
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Listen, listen, let go of this. Let go of this. These days are over.
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There's a whole new way of living here. So let go of the old and let God give you a brand new
life.
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Anybody else? Don't just observe today, come and follow Jesus. Come and follow Him.
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Be a follower, be a disciple, stand up and be counted for Jesus Christ.
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We'll sing it through one more time, give you that opportunity to come.