Now when they drew near
to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two
disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go
into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied,
and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, you shall
say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and he will send them
at once.” 4 This took place to fulfill what was spoken by
the prophet, saying,
5 “Say to the daughter of
Zion,
‘Behold,
your king is coming to you,
humble, and mounted on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’”
6 The disciples went and
did as Jesus had directed them. 7 They brought the donkey and the colt and put
on them their cloaks, and he sat on them. 8 Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the
road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 And the crowds that went before him and that
followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he
who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” 10 And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city
was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?” 11 And the crowds said, “This
is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.”
12 And Jesus entered the
temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned
the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. 13 He said to them, “It
is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den
of robbers.”
14 And the blind and the
lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. 15 But when the chief priests and the scribes
saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the
temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant, 16 and they said to him, “Do
you hear what these are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes;
have you never read,
“‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies
you have prepared praise’?”
There are so many thing in this
passage that time would fail us to cover this in the amount we have today, but
for the sake of learning and also to make us aware of how to read God’s word with understanding, let’s take a few of these beginning
verses and open them up before we get corpus of the message.
We see Jesus is on His way to
Jerusalem and stops in a town called Bethphage.
This is the very week 2000 years ago Jesus was in this town and like
everything Jesus did, this has many purposes.
Many are aware that the cities, peoples names, and so on have meanings
associated with them. For example,
Ichabod got his name when the enemy took the Ark from Israel and means “The Glory of the Lord has departed”.
How would you like to be named that or maybe “Racist” because you were born during the Civil Rights
movement? This was not only a custom,
but God also used the names of people and places to represent things in His
plans and fulfill His word. Are you
wondering what Bethphage means yet? It
means “House
of Unripe Figs”. You might be saying to yourselves, “so, Jesus was an unrip fig”?
No, but a little background study reveals some amazing things about why
Jesus stopped here before entering into Jerusalem. Rabbinic sources[1] tell us that the “Tree of Good and Evil” was a fig tree.
While we can never be certain this side of Heaven, it is known that at
that time, Kohanim (Priests) made Bethphage their home and tended to the “clean place”
on the Mount of Olives. The reasoning was because the figs never
ripened so there was no chance of repeating Adam’s sin.[2] In addition to
this, Fausset’s
Bible Dictionary alleges that the sacrificial victims were kept there.[3]
Putting this altogether, Jesus, our
High Priest, comes to the town of unripe figs or “Tree of Good and Evil” untouched, were they are holding the sacrifices and becomes
the antitypical sacrifice to undo the curse of sin laid on us from by Adam
eating the fruit and clothing himself with its leafs!
Oh, if we only had the time, I show
you that later on in verse 17, Jesus goes on to Bethany, which means “Ripened Figs”
and curses the fig tree that has
leaves only but no figs. There are
literally endless meanings that we could draw from these few verses that would
provoke the most intelligent scholars.
We haven’t
even gotten to the message yet and I am overwhelmed with the truth of God’s word. Lets move on to the text for today’s word.
After Bethphage, Jesus has the
disciples get a donkey and colt so He can ride it into Jerusalem and fulfills a
prophetic scripture from Zech 9:9. Afterwards He comes to the temple and begins
to drive out the people who were selling “pure” sacrificial
animals and the people who were buying them as well as those who were change
money for people to be able to pay the tax.
He calls them to true prayer, and begins to heal all who will come. This act causes the young to begin praising
Him.
What can we take from this passage
today that will bring us into a closer relationship with God? Lets examine these things one at a time. Jesus cleanses the temple of some specific
types of people.
1.
Cleanses Our Hearts
A.
Idolatry
B.
Hypocrisy
C.
Apathy/Insincerity
“The
word translated "market" is the Greek emporion, from which we get our
English word, "emporium." The word only occurs here in John 2:16. It
means "market," "merchandise," "a place of buying and
selling." The Greek text actually reads: "Take these things from
here. Stop making my Father's house a house of merchandise.”[4]
The account of Jesus cleansing the
temple in John 2 gives us the impression that people had made the temple a
marketplace. This is why we see that he
holds both the buyers and the sellers responsible as they were creating a place
of idolatry where God was suppose to be first and only. Jesus said we couldn't serve two masters,
money being the other. God is a jealous
God and will not have any other Gods before Him. Christ is there to drive out our
idolatry. We must renounce our idolatry
and thrown them away. What is it that we
put before God; money, position, power?
We must lay down these things at the cross allowing God to have reign in
our lives.
The next set of people to be thrown
out were the using the Law to gain by exchanging the currency for travelers for
a “small
sum”. Why we do things is as if not more important
than what we do. Christ wants us to
cleanse our hearts of any hypocrisy by removing the veil showing our true
intentions. Why do we tithe? Is it out
of an act of faith and joyful obedience or is it only to use the promises of
God to receive a blessing? I’m not denying that fact that God will
give to those who give, but why do we give?
Lastly, He cleanses us of Apathy and
Insincerity. The people who sold the
doves and pigeons knew that there were many who would buy from them rather than
buying a lamb. They are banking on the
reality that although the word of God said that only if someone couldn't afford
to a lamb, they knew that many would presume without regard to income with opt
for the cheapest offering to God. This
upset the pure, perfect lamb of God who was about to pay the greatest price for
everyone one of them. This is us today
as we underestimate the cost of sin and make “I’m
sorry” prayers
to God without a knowledge of the blood of Christ or the intension of
committing the sin again.
2.
Refocuses Our Minds
We are in need of the pure lamb of
God that we take away the sins of the world, but Christ didn't stop at
cleansing us. He refocuses the us by
making us realize that we are to be a temple of prayer before God always. This is what God has always wanted, a people
to have relationship with.
3.
Heals Our Bodies
When we realize that God desires us
to be cleaned by Christ and to stand before Him, we come into a place of faith,
knowing that Christ is our healer. Many
are here today in need of healing from a lack of our God given vision or an inability
to walk on the path of truth. Jesus is
wanting to heal our eyes to see and our legs to stand on His word.
4.
Ignites Our Praises
In closing, the sum of Jesus’
work has a eternal purpose that is
not only for then, but is made for now called Worship. We were satan’s replacements. God
requires us to worship Him in spirit and in truth. You might be in the camp that says, “it’s hard to worship” or “I
don’t
feel like it”. I would ask you to quietly consider the
possibility that there my be something in your life that is holding you back from
worshiping God as a child does with pure faith.
Is there Idolatry, Hypocrisy, Apathy or Insincerity in your life? Have you spend time in prayer? Is there a lack of vision or ability to stand
strong in the Lord? If that’s you, pray with me.
[1] Midrash Rabbah - Genesis XV:7 R. Jose said: They were figs. He learns the obscure from the explicit, and [the
meaning of] a statement from its context, thus: This may be compared to a royal
prince who sinned with a slave girl, and the king on learning of it expelled
him from court. He went from door to door of the slaves, but they would not
receive him; but she who had sinned with him opened her door and received him. So when Adam ate
of that tree, He expelled him and cast him out of the garden of Eden; and he appealed to all the trees but they would not
receive him. What did they say to him? Said R. Berekiah: ‘ Behold, a deceiver
who deceived his Creator, who deceived his Master! ‘as it is written, Let not
the foot of presumption come unto me (Ps. XXXVI, 12), which
means, the foot that presumed against its Creator; And let not the hand
of the wicked shake1 me (ib.): i.e. let it not take a leaf from
me.2 But because he had eaten of its fruit, the fig-tree opened its doors and received him, as it is written,
And they sewed fig-leaves together, etc. (Gen. III, 7).
[3] Fausset, Andrew Robert M.A., D.D., "Definition
for 'Bethphage' Fausset's Bible Dictionary".
