Sunday, March 24, 2024
Matthew 10:17-18
Good morning Church
Today we have the privilege of being able to gather here and worship our Lord together on this palm sunday marking for us as followers of Christ, the beginning of Holy week. the week leading us up to good friday and resurrection sunday. Today we remember Christs’ triumphal entry into the city of Jerusalem.
Palm Sunday is deeply significant to our faith as followers of Jesus Christ, even demonstrated from being one of the rare events that is recorded in all four of the gospel accounts.
And given the importance of Palm Sunday, today is a very timely opportunity for us to spend some time highlighting what makes this day so special. Which will give way for the second half of this message, that will perhaps lend to a more unique perspective of the next two verses in our evangelism series, verses 17-18 of chapter 10 of matthew which reads
17 Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues, 18 and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles.
At a first glance these two verses we just read in Matthew and the triumphal entry of Christ, seem rather antithetical to each other, like they are two opposing bookends.
On the one hand, we have our text verses 17-18, where we have Jesus speaking directly to the kind of persecution the apostles are going to face because they represent him.
Then on the other hand we have the day we are celebrating today being palm sunday, marking the day we call Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem
And even though these two topics of our discussion could not seem further apart from each other, there is one indisputable underlying trait that is frankly essential for us to further explore if we are seeking to learn of the significance of either of these two things, and that trait is prophecy.
Prophecy at its most foundational level of meaning, is a message that God wants to communicate to man, in the old testament we can read about how God raised up men to be prophets like Elijah, Isaiah and others who would act as vessels used by God to communicate messages the Lord would want to share with a specific audience.
The prophets of the old testament that we would read of, would often begin with saying something like “thus says the Lord” letting the audience know that it would not be their words to follow but God’s words.
A prophecy, or a message from God to man, would come in one of two potential forms
Most often the form of prophecy that people will encounter, both historically and currently, is called forthtelling, this is when the Holy Spirit is using someone to speak truth for the purposes of encouragement, consoling, or admonition for a specific person or people group to be heard at a specific time.
There is no rule making it a requirement to be quoting scripture directly for it to be considered prophecy, but it is a rule that the message will never stand in contradiction to scripture, and the truth behind the words will always be able to be confirmed through the testimony or witness of scripture.
The most common place that you are exposed to this form of prophecy is through Holy Spirit led preaching from the word of God. Where a faithful preacher will never say “thus says the Lord” without quoting scripture directly.
But the form of prophecy we are going to be spending the majority of our time today on is considered foretelling.
Foretelling is when God speaks through someone for the purposes of unveiling the details of a specific event or thing to take place. God is never ambiguous or unclear with his details in regards to how an event might unfold,
We can see in scripture where some prophecies were to be fulfilled rather quickly and some would take many many years, before they would be fulfilled
In scripture we see a pattern often emerge where God will often give a prophetic word of things that will come to pass rather quickly, building credibility, that the one who is speaking his word is conveying it on God’s behalf and not his own.
So that those who would witness this prophecy coming to pass would hold onto with a faithful expectation of the fulfillment of the long term prophecies. All this serves the purpose of the building of confidence and faith that God’s word will come to pass.
A quick example of this foretelling form of prophecy would be when Jesus told Peter that he would deny him 3 times before the rooster crowed, then shortly after it was spoken we can read in Luke 22 after the third time the rooster crowed Peter denied the Lord 3 times as was spoken from Jesus.
Another quick example to help you have a better grasp of prophecy might look like in your own life,
Each week we pray every time before one of the elders comes up here to preach, commonly we will pray to God over the speaker that day, asking that it would not be the words of the speaker that would be spoken through the message
But they would be God’s words that he has prepared ahead of time for the speaker to be able to speak
That is an example of how we seek after prophecy, a message from God spoken by man, whether it would be something prepared ahead of time or spontaneous generated by the Spirit.
When God is speaking his words through man that is prophecy
This topic of prophecy is especially fitting for our series on evangelism because the entire goal behind the use of the Holy Spirit inspired gift of prophecy in any of its forms, is to increase faith and confidence in God.
And as we discussed many times over in this series, evangelism boils down to helping people get just one step closer in their relationship with Jesus.
And prophecy is a tool that God will use all the time to achieve that goal of people growing one step closer to Christ.
So for this sermon today on Palm Sunday, we are not just going to look at its significance, but more specifically we are going to take a look into its significance through the lens of prophetic fulfillment.
Then we will switch gears for the second half of the message looking at the words that Jesus is prophetically speaking over his apostles of how in the future they will face persecution and suffering for his namesake and show you through scripture exactly those two verses in Matthew become fulfilled.
First though, I want to be clear with the goal that the Lord has put on my heart for this sermon,
I want you to leave here seeing to a greater degree just how perfect his word truly is, and because of that being filled with a greater joy, and that in that joy your lives would serve to point others to the source of that joy, Jesus Christ.
This message is being recorded and my notes are available, I say this as a small disclosure for you, because we have a lot of ground to cover
But know this, the promises of God are true Church, if you seek after him he will reveal himself to you, and that is the goal of not just this message but behind prophecy as well.
So Palm Sunday.
Palm Sunday is primarily recognized for the day of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. This day marks for us the beginning of Holy Week, putting us one week away from resurrection Sunday or easter.
This was the day the Lord allowed for the Jewish people to recognize that Jesus was the one that was sent from God to fulfill the prophecies of a savior that throughout the law and the prophets was foretold of.
Three years after Jesus began his earthly ministry would been when this triumphal entry into Jerusalem, happening just days before the passover celebration for the Jews,
The Passover feast was to serve for the Jews as a memorial, commanded by the Lord for them to do annually, so they would not forget the deliverance of their ancestors from slavery in Egypt and also be reminded of the future deliverance that would be promised to them.
The feast is known as the seder dinner, which as many of you have already signed up for. Vine church will be having a seder dinner this good friday, and it will be done a bit differently than how the Jews would have done it because as followers of Christ, we believe that Jesus fulfilled much of the prophecies that the Jews are still waiting for.
But for our context today it is important to know that palm sunday occurred just days before Jesus would celebrate his last Seder meal, or what we know as the last supper with his apostles.
Palm Sunday is one of those rare events covered in all four of the gospel accounts
If you want to turn to Matthew’s account of the palm sunday you can find it in chapter 21:1-11
And while some of you are getting there, the book of Matthew is an excellent source for studying prophecy. The apostle Matthew is a Jew, who is writing this gospel to show the kingship of Jesus and he does this primarily through clearly showing how Christ is the direct fulfillment of prophecies. So palm sunday from Matthew’s account
Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, 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. If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and he will send them at once.” This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying,
“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.’”
The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them. Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 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!” And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?” And the crowds said, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.”
Palm Sunday the Jews were openly worshiping Jesus as their savior, even so, they still had completely missed the boat of what they thought they needed saving from.
There is nothing new under the sun, this is still the case where people are claiming the name of Jesus as King and Lord of their lives, but they really have no idea of what that means.
Moses, the first prophet that God had raised up for Israel gave a prophecy in Deuteronomy 15
The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen
Another like Moses? You mean like the ten plagues Moses? The guy who God used to split the red sea to make a walking path for 3 million of Jewish men women and children to leave Egypt by foot, while Pharaoh and his army of chariots got stuck in the mud and drowned? the guy that gave our ancestors food for 40 years in the desert?
during Jesus’ triumphal entry was when the Jews recognized Jesus as the fulfillment of prophecy. The savior that was promised to them by God.
But they thought he was going to be saving them from Rome, none alive that day would know anything other than Roman rule. Rome had occupied and controlled Israel for close to a century.
Moses said from the Jewish people God would raise up another person like himself, well the Jews looking in and experiencing Jesus’ ministry would surely see the things that were undeniably from God,
During Jesus’ ministry he fed thousands of people from one little boy’s lunch, he is walked on water, casted out countless demons, cleansed lepers, gave sight to the blind, commanded the lame to get up and walk, he healed all those who had come to him, and just before he rode into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey was the resurrection of Lazarus.
Jesus did all of these things while he openly taught anyone who would listen, and openly corrected bad teachings from those who have missed the heart behind what the law and the prophets were intended to get across.
Of course, we have the gift of hindsight, we have the opportunity to flip through the pages of scripture and see how the entire story of the bible was pointing and leading up to Jesus.
Not only that but we have the testimony of four different people who either lived with Jesus or studied his life and investigated it thoroughly and wrote down for us, what we call the four gospels Matthew Mark Luke and John, who this man claimed to be, all the things that he had said and done and how people reacted to him.
Above all else as followers of Christ, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, are able to recognize Jesus as the fulfillment of the prophecies of a savior from a far greater enemy than Rome, but from death itself
Through the whole counsel of God’s word that we are able to see the narrative of God’s story play out for us. How God had made all of the earth and everything in it, how man was the pinnacle of his creation made him in his image,
He gave man a job of preparing the whole world to look like the example that God made in the garden of Eden, preparing the Earth for God to dwell with man, and Man was to fill the earth with other fellow image bearers of God.
But then man became lost, man sinned, ignoring the words that God even prophesied how if we were to sin we would surely die, of course what God says will come to pass will come to pass.
And as much as one might try to fight death, it will come to every man, just as God said it would. Death was the final blow of sin, and as long as we owe this debt of death to God because of the sinfulness in our hearts, we would forever be separated from God.
The Jews didn’t need a savior from Rome, they needed a savior from their sin. But that truth was so far from their minds on that palm sunday, and they saw Jesus as someone who could make this their best life now,
Which upon hearing that should make us ask ourselves, how do we view Jesus?
All of the law and prophets pointed to sin being our enemy ever since the garden, but the jews were stuck in a cycle of thinking that this life now was the only thing that mattered.
In studying prophecy, one of the things you never want to do is isolate scripture from the rest of scripture. For instance if you would just read Zechariah 9:9 and then Matthew’s account of Palm Sunday it would not really be that impressive
Zechariah wrote this down roughly 500 years before Palm Sunday took place. I would find it hard to believe that in 500 years there has been no one else who was humbly riding on a donkey getting into jerusalem?
Matthew in verse 5 is quoting directly from the book of Zechariah chapter 9 verse 9 showing
directly how Jesus fulfilled this prophecy
Maybe it would have been more noteworthy if he said the King would riding a giraffe,
Joking aside, roughly 2 million jews would come to the city of Jerusalem to sacrifice their passover lamb, it is hard to believe that there would be no one else even on that day who might have been riding into Jerusalem on a donkey.
So what made the people recognize Christ as their savior then?
His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him. The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness. The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard he had done this sign.
God is the reason behind it, it was God who stirred up in their hearts this act of worship, it was all according to His timing and His plan that he spoke of 500 years before this would even take place
Ezekiel 12:25
For I am the LORD; I will speak the word that I will speak, and it will be performed.
John said in his recording of this event, that both he and the rest of the apostles had no clue at first of what was going on, they were just following Jesus’ lead and along for the ride.
But that tells us If the disciples didn’t recognize prophecy while it was happening, then you can bet that no one who was there shouting Hosanna and laying down their cloaks and palm branches would have known either
Zecheriah 9:9 was not the only prophecy that was fulfilled that day, it was certainly the most well known.
And in this holy week there are so many more prophecies fulfilled 33 on good friday alone, and if this is something of interest to you, my wife Molly will be going over these during vines seder celebration.
The last point of discussion regarding palm sunday that makes this day stand out all the more was not necessarily that this was the first time that the Jews called him their King, their savior, their messiah,
We are told In the gospel according John regarding Jesus’ Triumphal entry
12:16–18, he says
But a few other less known old testament prophetic words that are fulfilled by palm sunday are
psalm 118 19-27, 2 kings 9:13, and Isaiah 62:11.
But this was the first time that he had allowed this to be publicly recognized about himself
In Matthew 8 and 9 both had accounts of people recognizing Jesus as the sent one from God, the Son of David, which that title is speaking to another prophetic qualification God had given regarding the savior he would send being a descendant of King David.
Both of these accounts Jesus performs the respective miracles requested of him, and then Jesus commands them not to tell anyone that he is the one who was prophetically foretold of as they had by faith recognized
The mark account in 1:34 is a little more unique, where it’s not men who recognize Jesus as Lord but rather all the demons who do, and as Jesus casts them out he commands them to keep quiet about it.
The reason why, was because his earthly ministry was not yet complete
palm sunday for us, as we have the gift of seeing how this whole story play out, signaled that the beginning of the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry was taking place
Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!
The pharisees even told him to get the people under control to stop them from saying these, Jesus responds with more prophecy
Back in Matthew’s palm sunday account 21:16
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’?”
Jesus here quoted psalm 8:2 to answer the pharisees
This is the verse I think about when I see my daughter raising her hands in worship, just like the people shouting hosanna to the son of david,
She has no idea what she is doing, but I am so filled with joy and hope just thinking about the days that she will be able to not just do what she sees her Mom and Dad do,
There were three separate instances in scripture where individuals recognized Jesus, for who
he was Matthew 9:30, Matthew 8 1-5, and Mark 1:34
but when she seeks after God for herself and raises her hands not as an unknowing infant but as a child of God, who sees the scriptures that command her to raise her hands up in praise to the Lord, so she does.
This description of infants and nursing babes is not far off from the apostles at the time of Christ’s ministry. By no means is that an insult, just recognizing the reality once again of what John said that they really had no idea of the significance of the things that were happening while they were going through those things.
I mean John and his brother James got the nickname Sons of Thunder, because they asked Jesus if they should call down fire down from heaven to smite the village that didn’t welcome Jesus. They clearly did not understand the heart behind evangelizing
So This gives us a good transition opportunity to now speak to the next two verses in our
evangelism series Matthew chapter 10:17-18.
17 Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues, 18 and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles.
There is zero mystery behind the words of Christ as he is preparing his disciples mentally and spiritually, for the future hardship of persecution that they will be facing for his namesake.
Really not just in these two verses though, the persecution that is to follow Jesus speaks about from verse 16-39.
Jesus is not using wishy washy words that maybe might one day kind of happen, He is straight forward with this speech, He does not phrase these verses in a way that would give him an out, if they didn’t happen the way that he had said they were going to happen.
But something that we need to keep in mind is the age of the apostles, they are teenagers right now, and Jesus is prophesying to them about the suffering that they are going to face because of His name.
Throughout the gospels we see Jesus sharing hard truths like this. These truths ultimately serve to separate the goats of this world from the sheep that belong to his flock.
A well known example of this in the book of John chapter 6, this was when Jesus ministry might have been at its height of popularity,
Second to only palm sunday. He had this massive crowd following him because he fed them. Jesus understood this, he then ended up telling his followers, not to work for the things that will
pass away like bread but to seek after the eternal things, and that the way to eternal life is through eating his flesh and drinking his blood.
And just like the crowd on palm sunday would do just days later, this crowd of people who would have at the time identified as disciples of Christ, all left him. Then we see in verse 66-69 of john 6
After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”
The 12 did not leave then, and they did not leave now after hearing Jesus tell them that they are going to face disgrace and be beaten by the ones they came to share the good news of the kingdom of heaven with for the name of Christ.
But according to all four of the gospel accounts and the book of acts, we don’t see any evidence of the persecution that Jesus was speaking to in verses 17-18 taking place.
In fact, the first time that we read of the apostles really having any chance of facing persecution for associating themselves with Christ was the night of his betrayal.
“Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered;
That verse was yet another prophecy written down found in zechariah 13:7
Jesus even gave his apostles a heads up that this one was to be fulfilled, remember the scene when Peter was so robust in proclaiming, “I’ll die for you Lord”.
But rather than us being able to witness the apostles take on the first opportunity to face persecution as mentioned we see them run in fear of persecution
The apostles really did not understand what was going on, they knew Christ to be the messiah, but they didn’t really know what that meant, just like the people who were shouting on the first palm sunday Hosanna.
The worlds of the apostles would soon be shattered, three years of their lives, as Peter said, they left everything behind to follow him.
With those same eyes that witnessed such unbelievable miracles, the apostles now were witnessing the suffering and the torment that Christ was going through leading to him being nailed to a tree.
The apostles at that time did not remember the Prophet God had raised up in their days John the Baptist, who proclaimed, “Behold the perfect lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world”
It was not a coincidence that Jesus was called the lamb of God, and that palm sunday took place days before the celebration of passover,
where the Jews would remember the time in Egypt their ancestors sacrificed a lamb, one that was to be perfect without any blemishes and cover the door frame of their home with the blood of the sacrificed lamb, so that the death that was coming to all in the land would pass over them.
No that was not a coincidence Church, that is prophecy.
But, the apostles did not understand these things and after Christ was crucified the apostles were all together, mourning and scared in a locked room, once again showing us this would not be the time that Jesus’ words of persecution for his namesake would have been fulfilled
Then starting in verse 44
He said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”
Did you notice how it said Christ had opened their minds to understand, Church, it is a supernatural gift from God to be able to recognize prophecy and to be able to place your faith in it.
In examining the life of Christ we see that there have been over 300 fulfilled prophecies, leaving no doubt for the one who searches for the truth, the Jesus is Lord, and the Christ has risen, and he will come again
I believe it was through Christ’s supernatural teaching of all of the old testament law and prophets concerning himself in Luke 24 and the giving of the Holy Spirit on pentecost, that had fully prepared these apostles to face the reality of verses of persecution for their own lives.
Then In the book of Luke chapter 24 we read that after Christ had been resurrected he had
appeared to his disciples in that locked room.
17 Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues, 18 and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles.
Every opportunity that the apostles had to face the type of persecution that Jesus had told them prophetically, that they were going to face before this, they responded as cowards. This is not to talk any level of trash on these young men,
Rather to show us the difference in their lives after Jesus had supernaturally opened their minds to the scriptures that were pointing prophetically to him and given them his Holy Spirit
Track with me for a second while we really quickly go through a few chapters of acts
Acts 2 pentecost happens, this is 50 days after the resurrection of Christ.
Peter more bold now than ever through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit of God and equipped with the knowledge of how all of the scripture was pointing to Christ as the son of God,
He preaches a sermon that resulted in 3000 people repenting of their sins and being baptized in the name of Jesus
Acts 3, Peter and John heal the lame beggar in the name of Jesus, remember Peter said, “I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!”
Quick side note on this, remember in the little commission Matthew 10:8–9
Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received without paying; give without pay. Acquire no gold or silver or copper for your belts,
Then after that miracle, Peter again preaches repentance,
Both of these sermonettes preached by Peter are examples of prophesying, not the foretelling kind we spent the majority of our time unpacking today,
but rather forthtelling of a message, speaking the message of truth by the Spirit where he is admonishing the sins of the people, and encouraging them to repent and be baptized and giving the opportunity for people to take that one step closer in a relationship with Christ.
Then Acts 4,
here is the first time we see persecution being played out in the live of the apostles, the text says that Peter and John annoyed the sadducees, because they were preaching of the resurrection of Christ from the dead
So they put them in jail, the next day Ciaphas is there, he was the high priest that year, who unknowingly in john 11 prophesied over the rulers of the Jews saying with regards to Jesus “that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.”
Ciaphas and the other rulers order the apostles to stop preaching Christ.
Peter responds by preaching, fearlessly putting on display the Holy Spirit gift of prophecy to the same council who conspired to crucify Christ.
acts 5
Many more signs and wonders were being done in the names of Jesus, by the hands of the apostles, until scripture says the high priest got jealous, so the apostles were all arrested.
But then, an angel of the Lord broke them out and told them to keep preaching
And they did exactly that. The council knew right where to find them, they scooped them back up again and they are brought before the council,
where Peter and the apostles again begin to prophesy to them, which inflamed the pride of the council who now wanted to kill the apostles.
Until a very wise rabbi, Gamaliel told the rest of the council that if these apostles were acting on behalf of man this would fail like others that came before Jesus, but if it was from God they would not be able to stop them anyways, and would find themselves opposing God himself.
So the council took Gamaliel’s advice, gave the apostles a good beating and then sent them on
17 Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues, 18 and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles.
What is it that we need to take from this?
Every word of God proves true, in a world that is full of lies it is the only thing that we can 100% put our faith and confidence in is his word.
So as we go out from here, seeking to follow in the footsteps of Christ and reaching out to the lost sheep of the world,
their way, the apostles then left there filled with Joy the text says, because of the dishonor they
had suffered for the name of Christ.
by the power of the Holy Spirit we need to learn to lean not on our own understanding but in all our ways learn to acknowledge him and he will make straight paths.
We covered a lot today, between discussing the two different forms prophecy can take, what the purpose of prophecy is, then getting into the prophetic fulfillment of palm sunday and its significance, then showing the link of our text in matthew and how the words of Christ were prophetically fulfilled.
Maybe to say we covered a lot today would be an understatement. But if you remember the goal that the Lord had put on my heart for this message was not to build you up with knowledge,
but by God’s grace through his Spirit, I want your confidence to grow in Him, and in His word, and as a result of that confidence be filled with Joy, like the apostles even when in the midst of persecution, knowing that he is in full control of all things all the time.
As Nehimaih said, the joy of the Lord is my strength, my hope is you will let that joy of the Lord fuel your pursuits in helping people take that one step closer to Christ, regardless of the possible persecution or hardships you may find in this life.
Remember Jesus’ word John 15:18–20
“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.
Every word of God, will come to pass and for the followers of Christ persecution is going to come, and when it does come, it will be done all to the glory of God.
Today originally, I was planning to speak more about the persecution we are going to face as followers of Christ, but the Lord had other plans and led me in a different direction for this message.
The text we are expositing however will give us plenty of opportunities to cover this important topic of persecution that is a central theme of verses 16-39 so Lord willing, we certainly will.
But for now, the light of the day is still shining Church!
And I am preaching this message of God’s word speaking now about prophecy and persecution within the walls of a public school on palm sunday, How amazing is that, Church?
so do not let your heart grow cold and remember the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few, let us get to work while it is still light out!
I wanted to end this sermon with a powerful illustration of God’s love that ties together so beautifully the two main points of discussion we had for this message being verses 17-18 of Matthew 10 and Palm Sunday.
This point brought to mind for me the book of hebrew chapter 4
Verse 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin
Now back to look at our text for today,
17 Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues, 18 and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles.
As we discussed Jesus was prophesying over the sufferings these teenage boys would soon enough one day face, but before that would become a reality for them, it would be a reality for himself.
How fitting is it for us to discuss this text on Palm Sunday, where just five days from now,
our Savior will be delivered to courts, He will be flogged, He will be dragged before both Pontus Pilot and King Herod. And with the cross he bore witness to the gentiles
In Matthew 27:54
When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!”
So Church, Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. -Hebrews 4:14-16
Lets pray church