A Day, a Donkey, a Deliverer, and a Decision - Part A

This was the day the households picked the Lamb for sacrifice. It is not insignificant then that for the first and only time Jesus Christ presents himself as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world to the nation of Israel.

Welcome to Connect with Skip Weekend Edition. If you were in a philosophy or history class, you'll find many strong and fascinating characters. History is filled with men and women who changed the world through their ideas, passions, and creations. But only one person came with a kingdom built on the principle of love and actually changed the world because of it. And as Pastor Skip shows us today, that is only one factor that makes Jesus stand out from the rest of humanity. And with today's message, a day, a donkey, a deliverer, and a decision, we'll see why as we join Skip Heitzig for more. Sometimes it's helpful to make a comparison.

We're going to do that today in the Gospel of John. We're going to look at a few different comparisons. When you compare one thing with another thing, it helps you realize how far you've come. For example, if you were to compare your modern cell phone, the one that you have, with the first or one of the first mobile phones. This was the Motorola brick phone.

And it was quite sizable, but if I recall, it didn't drop calls. But what a difference, what a comparison between your slim cell phone that has apps on it with that thing. Or if you were to compare your laptop computer, if you have one, with one of the first computers. What a comparison. See, we laugh at that, and that wasn't long ago.

By the way, that brick phone, I found it, I found one at an antique sale. Or if you were to compare your modern kitchen appliances with what your grandmother had, her refrigerator. What a difference. When you make comparisons like that, you are able to see why one is more preferable than the other. And we're going to do that in the Gospel of John, chapter 12.

There are three comparisons that we look at this morning. Before we get to that, let me help you frame some of the material that is written by the Gospel writers. We're in chapter 12 of John. We're dealing with the final week of Jesus on the earth.

He lived 33 and a half years. The final week of Jesus upon the earth begins in chapter 11. Chapter 12 really is the beginning of that last week of his life.

But you'll notice that we're only in chapter 12. So what's important is that John, in terms of literary real estate, devotes one half, almost one half, of the entire book to the last week of Jesus on earth. Matthew devotes two-fifths of his words and chapters to the last week.

Gospel of Mark, three-fifths. Luke devotes one-third of all of his words to the last week. That's the focus, because that's the week that redemption occurred, the death on the cross. And all of those events that lead up to it are highly significant.

Here's another way to look at it. If you were to tally up Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, you would discover there's only four chapters in all four Gospels that cover the first 30 years of Jesus' life. 85 deal with the last three and a half years, and of that 85, 29 are focused upon the last week. We're now at one of the most significant events, and that is the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. We call it Palm Sunday. That's the day we think it happened. The week before the Passover, the week before his crucifixion, probably was a Sunday.

Something else. This event is one of the few events covered by all four Gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John covered this event, and there's only a few of Jesus' events of his life that are told in all four Gospels.

Now, I look at it this way. Any time God repeats something four times, it's pretty important. Sometimes Jesus will say things twice, like verily, verily.

The disciples knew that meant listen up. Sometimes God will introduce himself three times, holy, holy, holy in Isaiah 6. But here in the Gospels, this story, this event is mentioned four times.

He wants us to really get this. Verse 12, we begin. The next day, a great multitude that had come to the feast when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took 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, the King of Israel. Then Jesus, when he had found a young donkey, sat on it as it is written, fear not, daughter of Zion.

Behold, your King is coming, sitting on a donkey's colt. His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written about him and that they had done these things to him. Therefore, the people who were with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead bore witness. For this reason, the people also met him because they were with him because they heard that he had done this sign.

The Pharisees, therefore, said among themselves, you see that you are accomplishing nothing. Look, the world has gone after him. So we have a day, a specific day I want to tell you about. We have a donkey. We have sitting on the donkey, the deliverer for the sins of the world, and we have a decision, Jesus, in fact, forces people to make with this presentation.

He has made many claims, he has done many signs. Now, for the first and only time, he presents himself as their Messiah, forcing their hand to make a decision regarding him. A day, a donkey, a deliverer, a decision. Now, as I look at it, this is like the world's luckiest donkey. Of all the donkeys in the fold, wherever that little town across on the Mount of Olives was, this donkey was like the luckiest donkey. On his back rides the Son of God, fulfilling ancient prophecy. I've always loved this story.

This is one of my favorite stories in all of Scripture, hands down. I did a little donkey research this week, Unknown Donkey Facts. Fact number one, did you know the donkey's average lifespan is between 25 to 40 years? Sometimes, if you take care of your donkey, they'll live 60 years of age.

I have quite a hefty lifespan. George Washington owned the first donkeys in America, and he became a donkey breeder. Your first president was into donkeys. Donkeys' favorite pastime?

Rolling in the dirt. They love to do that more than anything else. That's why when you touch them, this cloud goes around them of dust. This probably explains the personality of Eeyore better than any other fact. They love to roll in the dirt. Donkeys, as you know, have long ears for two reasons. It enables them to hear miles away, and interestingly enough, it keeps them cool, like a radiator.

It helps keep their bodies cool. Something else, donkeys are not just used to transport people or burdens. Did you know that in some places, donkeys are used as guard animals?

Now, I never knew this. I've never seen a sign, beware of donkey. I never thought of donkeys being used, but apparently in certain parts of the world, to guard sheep, donkeys are used. Final fact, according to the London Times, more people are killed annually by donkeys than die in airplane crashes. So if you're afraid to fly, just think of riding a donkey.

It might help you. Now, I don't know if that's really true. That's what the London Times reported, but I don't know honestly who's keeping track of annual donkey deaths around the world.

But nonetheless, those are considered the facts. This event takes place on a Sunday, as I mentioned, Palm Sunday. That's what it's traditionally referred to as, but it was a special day, and you're going to notice that, I hope, during this little message. It was the 10th day of Nisan in the Jewish calendar.

Why is that important? On the 10th day of Nisan, the Jewish families, that was the day they would select the lamb and bring it into the family that would be sacrificed on the 14th of Nisan the day of Passover. This was the day the households picked the lamb for sacrifice.

It is not insignificant then that for the first and only time, Jesus Christ presents himself as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world to the nation of Israel. Now, we're going to notice three comparisons in our text, and you'll notice in your worship folder, you have an outline, and this week I cheated a little bit. I didn't give you the full sentence. You have to fill in the blank.

I want you to be engaged. So jot this down. Here's the first comparison. Jesus is more appealing than religion.

That's the first comparison. Jesus is more appealing than religion. Look at verse 12. The next day, a great multitude, and I'll describe that multitude in a moment, that had come to the feast when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took 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, the King of Israel.

All right, these people are religious people. They have come to Jerusalem for a religious feast. The feast is Passover, we're told back in verse one. Passover, one of the three mandatory feasts, that is, if you lived within a certain range of Jerusalem, it was compulsory that you went up to Jerusalem for three feasts, and one of them was Passover. Passover celebrated the deliverance of the children of Israel through 10 plagues in the book of Exodus that forced the children of Israel out into the wilderness and into a new land. Passover was the focal point of their history. Their calendar revolved around their redemption. The calendar changed once Passover was instituted, but it was the same thing every year.

When they went up to Jerusalem, people took the same route every year. And the people, frankly, by and large, wanted something more than their religion was giving them, more than endless rituals, more than prescribed prayers, more than the same sacraments and ceremonies. They wanted something more. Max Lucado has written many great books, and one of his books, he calls it the musings of a shepherd, one little piece. It's as if the shepherd, one of them, is watching what is happening at Passover during Jerusalem.

I'll read it to you. He sits on a slope, places a blade of grass in his mouth. He looks beyond the flock down at the road below, for over a week a river of pilgrims has streamed through this valley, bustling down the road with animals and loaded carts. For days he has watched them from his perch.

He knew where they were going and why. They were going to Jerusalem, and they were going to sacrifice lambs in the temple. The celebration strikes him as ironic. Streets jammed with people, marketplaces full of sounds, of the bleeding of goats and the selling of bird, endless observances. The people relish these festivities.

They awaken early and retire late. They find strange fulfillment in this pageantry, but not him. What kind of God would be appeased by the death of any animal? Oh, the shepherd's doubts are never voiced anywhere except on that hillside, but on this day they shout.

It isn't the slaughter of animals that disturbs him. It's the endlessness of it all. How many years has he seen people come and go? How many caravans? How many sacrifices?

How many bloody carcasses? Lamb after lamb, Passover after Passover, he turns his head, looks again at the sky and says, Will the blood of yet another lamb really matter? That's how a lot of those people felt. They wanted something more than religion. They wanted reality.

And that's why so many of them, this crowd gathers around Jesus and say what they said to him. They wanted something real. John Wesley used to say, I want my religion like my tea. I want it hot. In other words, I don't want some cold, perfunctory, ritualistic, dead religious thing. I want reality.

I want it hot. Jesus Christ was a breath of fresh air in the malaise of dead religion. There was a time, Matthew 15 records, that the scribes and Pharisees came from Jerusalem to wherever Jesus was.

And it's an interesting conversation. It still puzzles me to this day. They come to Jesus and they say, why do your disciples transgress the traditions of the elders? They don't wash their hands the right way before they eat. I say I'm puzzled because evidently, this group was highly motivated to take a trip all the way from Jerusalem to wherever Jesus was to tell him that, to be like tattletale. Your disciples don't wash their hands right. They break the tradition of our religion. What's interesting is what Jesus said to them. He said, why is it that you, by your tradition, are breaking the commandments of God? Now, had I been in the crowd, I would have gone, yes, finally somebody stands up to these nitwits who are all about their little traditions and their little religious stuff and hear Jesus saying, we need reality.

We need relationship. That's why people were more attracted to Jesus. He is more appealing than religion. I find it fascinating that Jesus often hung out with tax collectors, sinners they're called, prostitutes. But the most scathing words that come from Jesus lips were for religious people.

Don't you find that interesting? In fact, religious leaders, the religious elite. Classic example is Matthew chapter 23. 24 verses are devoted to scathing words. I'm just going to quote a few of them to you.

Here they are. And I quote, woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites, for you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men. Neither do you go in, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites, for you devour widows' houses, and for a pretense you make long prayers. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites, for you travel land and sea to make one proselyte. And when you convert him, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.

Ouch. That's why you can see Jesus didn't have a whole lot of space for this dead, empty religion that didn't provide anything in terms of reality for people. So you'll notice a multitude came to the feast. And when he was in Gethsemane, he was in Gethsemane, came to the feast. And when he was in Galilee, multitudes followed him. They were clamoring for this. They were hungry and thirsty for this.

Mark puts it this way, and the common people heard him gladly. Jesus was a breath of fresh air. Now, this is a great multitude came, and I'm going to give you a little hint here. Passover was a big deal. One source that we read, one source tells us that during one Passover around the time of Christ, 256,000 lambs were slain in Jerusalem for one Passover.

According to ancient Jewish law, there were 10 people required for every one lamb. That puts the population in Jerusalem at roughly 2.7 million people plus. Crowds of people.

Jesus, and I'm going to put all the, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John together. Jesus gets up in the morning in Bethany, walks toward the ascent of the Mount of Olives. Behind him gathers a crowd, a sizable multitude.

As he gets to the very top of the Mount of Olives, another crowd that has come out of the city is there to meet with him. So there are thousands of people in the city, thousands of people because of what is happening with Lazarus and now Jesus presenting himself on this donkey. And the people cried out one word, Hosanna. And also some said, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel. They're quoting Psalm 118, a messianic victory Psalm straight out of the scriptures. Now the word Hosanna means simply save now or bring salvation now. It was not a praise. It was a prayer.

It was a desire. They're saying, do for us what our religion has not done for us all these years. Save us, bring salvation, deliverance, and bring it now.

That's what they cry out. I still find Jesus Christ the most compelling figure in history. I've been saved since 1973 and I've read through the Bible on several, several occasions. And I still will stop often in my reading in the New Testament because I am just drawn and compelled and amazed at Jesus Christ. He is the most significant person in all of human history.

And I've discovered I'm not alone in that assessment. I read several different quotes. I'm going to give you just a few Napoleon Bonaparte said, I know men. And I tell you that Jesus Christ was no mere man between him and every other person in the world.

There is no possible term of comparison. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I myself have founded great empires, but Jesus Christ founded his empire upon love. And to this day, millions would die for him.

That's one ruler looking back at that one leader, Christ. Here's another from H.G. Wells, a historian and an author.

He wrote War of the Worlds and other books. Quote, I am an historian. I am not a believer, but I must confess that as a historian, that this penniless preacher from Nazareth is irrevocably the very center of all history. Jesus Christ is easily the most dominant figure in all of history. Mahatma Gandhi said of Christ, he's a man who's completely innocent. And he offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. And finally, one of my favorite authors, Fyodor Dostoevsky, a Russian novelist, writes, I believe there is no one deeper, lovelier, more sympathetic, and more perfect than Jesus. Not only is there no one else like him, there never could be any one else like him. So how would you summarize your thoughts on Christ?

You see everything to you? I hope so. And we'll continue with our study, A Day, A Donkey, A Deliverer, and A Decision, next time. And as we wrap up today's broadcast, we wanted to let you know that you can get a copy of today's study for someone you know or to listen to again later. It's available on CD for just $4, plus shipping when you contact us at 1-800-922-1888, or when you visit connectwithskip.com, or write to us at P.O.

Box 95707, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87199. Is the end near? That's a question on many minds, and that's why Pastor Skip Heitzig spent many months in 2023 presenting 26 full-length messages in his The End Is Near series. The second coming of Jesus Christ dominates the Bible. Next to the subject of faith, the coming of Christ in the future is the most discussed topic in the book. To complement this excellent series, a study guide from Skip is now available. This study guide is over 100 pages in length and covers all 26 messages in the series. The End Is Near study guide includes notes, summaries, and questions for group or personal study.

We need to understand the times, and this study guide will aid in this effort. With your gift of $50 or more to connect with Skip Heitzig, you will receive a copy of the End Is Near study guide from Skip's in-depth 26-part series. Your gift will support the production and expansion of the Connect with Skip broadcast. Call 1-800-922-1888 or go online to connectwithskip.com. That's 1-800-922-1888 or connectwithskip.com. Part two of a day, a donkey, a deliverer, and a decision is coming up next time. Right here on Connect with Skip Weekend Edition, a presentation of Connection Communications. Connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever-changing times.