Passion Week // The Triumphal Entry // Matthew 21 // Pastor Josh Evans

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Thanks for listening this Truth Network Podcast is playing now. Right. We have two exits that are really close together. Okay. And when you pull up there and there happens to be a car on the other exit how many of you have at some point in your time felt it's been hard to see around that car.

Okay. We've all been there and it's something that we probably should have done a long time ago but we are pulling the trigger and we are going to actually be closing off that exit completely. So the one nearest the cemetery and and so that we only have one main exit. I know that that is for some of you who are dying to get out of here as fast as you possibly can.

I hope that's none of you. And but for some of you who are dying to get to lunch and that kind of thing. I get it. It's going to take you a little bit more time probably to get in and out. But here's what I want you to know. It's just for the safety of our people leaving every Sunday. The more cars that we have on here it'll just help us. And then also for our school and I wasn't going to mention this but if you need a little bit more.

We actually had an accident with a kid from our school about a month and a half ago because of that very reason. And so if you're 10 minutes late to your lunch I would say that's well worth the safety of our people. Okay. And that's why we're doing it. And so I just wanted to bring some context. So you're going to see that being happening.

So many of you are like what are you doing out here and stuff like that. So the parking right in front of our cemetery over here is still going to exist. We're going to have a little bit of a lane. We're going to have arrows out there. It'll make sense.

So don't it's in the works right now. We'll have arrows where you can still park over there and still there's going to be a little lane that's going to get you into the main exit. OK. So if you park every week and I know many of you have your same parking spot for the last 30 years. You know who you are.

If that's you. What you can do is still park there. You're just going to it's going to be closed off. There'll be a lane that you would use to get into the main exit traffic and that kind of thing. And so if you could just bear with us.

It's just for safety. I wanted to mention that because there's a lot of people that have been asking what is going on out there. And I wanted to make mention of that if we would. Well, listen, Matthew Chapter 28. We are starting a brand new series today. And I'm excited about this series because I can't believe that we're almost to this point. But in six weeks, it is Easter Sunday.

Can you believe that we're already there? March 31st, Easter Sunday, it is coming. And in preps for Easter Sunday, I wanted to take some time over really the next five weeks. And then on the sixth week will be Easter Sunday. I wanted to take the next five weeks to look at what is called in tradition. Passion Week or many refer to this as Holy Week. And for the next five weeks, we are going to look at the different events leading up.

It's one week. We're going to look at the different events that lead up to the greatest day in history for you and for me. And that's Easter Sunday, Resurrection Sunday.

And so we are going to do that over the next five, five weeks. So I'm glad that you are here. It's always a good day to be here on the very beginning of the series because you kind of kickstart everything and things like that. But when we prepare for Easter, it is one of those things all of us prepare in a lot of different ways. Easter is what I like to call the Super Bowl of church in the year.

Right. It's the biggest day for us. Attendance is going to be big. We're going to add some fun elements and stuff. And all of us are going to prepare in some way.

We're going to have like an egg hunt for the kids after the 10 a.m. service. And it's going to be a lot of fun. And when we think about Easter and all the preparations, many of you are going to wear like your best.

Right. And and many of you are going to go out and find a new outfit. And many of you families are going to do what guys absolutely love. You're going to family coordinate your outfits and it's going to be marvelous and awesome. And and we do all of this in preps for Easter Sunday.

Right. It's this big, big day. And so over the next few weeks, I just want to look at what the preparations that Jesus took leading up to Easter Sunday. Now, to understand this, I want to kind of go back to the very beginning. You don't have to turn there, but I really want you to understand this here today.

And I want to paint a picture. And if you've been a part of our church, you've heard us paint this picture a little bit lately. Because as a pastor, you know, this is something that has really God has been speaking to me. But I want to go way back to the very beginning when God created the world, because that is the reason why this week is so important and why this series is so, so important. If you look back at the very beginning, Genesis Chapter one, God created the whole world. OK. And when he created the whole world, he created man.

Right. And out of many created woman. And here's what I want you to understand. Why you're like, why in the world are we talking about creation going into Holy Week?

What's the what's the kind of the deal here and what's the connection? Here's the point. And if you if you're new to church or and you kind of haven't really read the Bible, you don't understand a whole lot of this.

Maybe somebody invited you and you're just kind of slipping in and you've not been in church your whole life. I want you to get that the point of the Bible. OK, the point of your life.

Is to have a relationship with a holy God. And in the very beginning, here's what you find. God created man. And here's what he did. He created this garden for man and woman to live in.

It's beautiful. And he created this garden, this environment for them to live in. And you know what? They could walk and talk with God in that garden. That's the way that that was God's design. That's why he created man so that they could be in relationship with him. And when he created him, everything was good. And they walked and talked with God.

They had a relationship with him. They had communion with him. But everything changed in Genesis chapter number three. When Adam and Eve sinned, here's what happened. That garden experience that they were in where they walked and talked with God according to his perfect design. Because of their sin, you know what happened to Adam and Eve? They had the garden. They were cast out of the garden. So they were cast out of the presence of God.

And you know what happened? There was a sword. There were angels sent to guard the garden with a sword. They would guard the garden so that the protection of the presence of God could not come in with man.

And here's why. Holy God, sinful man, does not go together. So you had man's sin leading to God's sword and the only thing missing to get man back to the original design where we can be in fellowship and relationship with him. The only thing missing was a sacrifice.

The only thing missing was a sacrifice. And what he did was he started, and you read all these Old Testament stories about how he told man to build a tabernacle. And they built this tabernacle. And a lot of times, if you've ever committed to reading the Bible through any gear, this is kind of about when you stop. You get to Exodus, Leviticus, and you're like, OK, I don't get all this and that kind of thing. But it's so important because the whole story of the Bible is God redeeming man back into fellowship with him. That's the point. That's the point of scripture.

That's the point of your life so that you can have a relationship with him. So he created the tabernacle. In the tabernacle, you had a high priest. The high priest could go into the presence of God one time of year, the day of atonement, to atone for the sins of all of Israel.

One time a year. But you know what? There was a veil separating the presence of God with man. Remember the garden? There were angels separating the presence of God from man, from sinful man. And now you have a veil separating them from the presence of God. That leads us all the way to the temple, Solomon's temple.

Same thing. And that leads us to this week when everything changed, where God would give his life, his only begotten son. And the reason he did that is so that he could redeem us, you, me, back into relationship.

His original design, he wanted a relationship with you. And because of our sin, all of us are cast out of that relationship. This week is so important for you and for me because it is a way that God redeemed us back into relationship.

That's what's so important. So with that in mind that God has built you for relationship, I want you to think the whole series about that. About that purpose, God's original design.

I want you to think about that as we work our way through this so that you can understand the significance and the meaning and the reason behind what he went through to purchase you back into relationship. Matthew chapter number 21. We're going to read the first 11 verses today. It says this, And when they drew nigh unto Jerusalem, and were come to Bethphage unto the mount of Olives, then sent Jesus to disciples, saying unto them, Go to the village over against you, and straightway ye shall find a donkey tied and a colt with her. Loose them, and bring them unto me. And then in verse number three, he says this, Jesus says, If any man say, ought unto you, ye shall say, The Lord hath need of them. And straightway he will send them.

Isn't that good? Jesus says, hey listen, if anybody asks questions about you grabbing this donkey and kind of taking it or whatever, just tell them that the Lord hath need of it, and they won't bother you anymore. By the way, Luke's Gospel, and this story is recorded in all four Gospels, so you can look at the different accounts of this story, but in Luke's Gospel, it says specifically, actually in Mark and Luke, it says that this colt, this donkey, had never been ridden before.

Never been ridden before. And so it's the first time, and so here it comes back, verse number four, All this was done, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophet, saying, Tell ye the daughter of Zion, behold, thy king cometh. If you mark in your Bible, that's so important. And we'll come back to this verse here in a minute. Thy king cometh unto thee, meek and sitting upon a donkey in a colt, the foal of a donkey. And the disciples went and did as Jesus commanded them, and brought the donkey in the colt and put on them their clothes, and they set him thereon. And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way.

Others cut down branches from the trees and strawed them in the way. And the multitudes that went before and that followed cried, saying, Hosanna to the son of David. Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest. When he was coming to Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, Who is this?

The multitude said, This is Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee. That question, verse number 10, Who is this? is the most important question that you or I could ever answer. And the question, Who is this man? I want, not out loud, but I want you to answer in your heart this morning. Who is he to you? Who is he to you? And we know this story is such an important story.

You know, we call this, you know, the palm experience. You know, we celebrate Palm Sunday and the triumphal entry of Jesus making his way into Jerusalem. But the way that he portrays himself is so, so important for you and for me.

And the question that we have to answer is, Who is this man? Now, the Gospel of Matthew, all the Gospels kind of portray Jesus or depict Jesus in a little bit of a different way. And one of the things that is very well known about the Gospel of Matthew is that Matthew depicts Jesus throughout the entire book as king.

In fact, you see this from the very beginning. Matthew chapter one, you see the royal genealogy of Jesus and the fact that, and you see it here again, that he is the son of David. You see that in chapter one, talking about how he came from a royal genealogy, a royal family. Matthew chapter two, if you remember Herod, who was looking for Jesus, what did he ask? He says, Where is he that is born king of the Jews? John the Baptist, when he came onto this scene proclaiming and paving the way for Jesus to come, he proclaimed this thought. The kingdom of heaven is at hand in Matthew chapter number three. Over the cross, what we're going to see over the next couple of weeks was a sign that said, This is Jesus, the king of the Jews.

And then here in verse number five, the king cometh. Here's what I want you to understand is that Jesus is king. Jesus is king. And as we look at this, the question that I want you to ask is, Is he your king? Is he your king? It's not enough for him just to be your parents' king. It's not enough for him to just be your pastors' king. It's not enough for him to just be your Bible fellowship teachers' king. No, the question is, Is he your king? Is he your personal lord and king of your life? I want to point out three things about the fact that Jesus is king right here from Matthew chapter 21 that I think are super, super important.

The first thing that I want you to see here is this. Jesus is first, the prophesied king. The prophesied king. This is super important. You find this in verse number four and five.

So Jesus gives instructions to two of his disciples to go and get this donkey, and they're bringing it back and everything. And you think, Why is that significant? Why does that matter?

We've heard this story dozens and dozens of times. Why is that important and why does that matter? The reason why that matters is because Jesus doing that is a direct prophecy of something that was said and written about hundreds of years ago. Hundreds of years before this, it was penned by Zechariah the prophet. Zechariah actually prophesied, and you can read all of this, Zechariah chapter nine in your own time. Zechariah chapter nine.

Zechariah was one of the prophets that came during the time of Nehemiah. If you remember the book of Nehemiah, and we went through this on a Wednesday night in our Bible study as a church, but Nehemiah, if you remember, some of his family and friends came to visit him, and Nehemiah actually went and saw the city of Jerusalem that it was just completely destroyed. After the Babylonians had just kind of captured it, the city was destroyed.

And if you want to know why that's significant, it's this. It's because for the Israelites, for Nehemiah and his family, this broke them. Because in Jerusalem, that was the place where God was to dwell. In other words, seeing that city destroyed, it meant that the presence of God had nowhere to even rest anymore.

So we know the story. Zechariah goes back and he rebuilds the city and he rebuilds the walls around the city and all of this. Well, at the time that all of that is happening, Zechariah the prophet is actually prophesying. He's prophesying to the remnant of the Israelites that had returned back to Jerusalem after the exile to rebuild the city. So he's talking to them, and so if you think about it in context, many of them had traveled back into Jerusalem.

They were sad. In fact, Nehemiah wept like crazy when he saw the city. And Zechariah is sent by God in the midst of that, and he's prophesying to that remnant there in Nehemiah. All these Israelites that had traveled back, and they're discouraged, and they're broken, and they're mourning, and they're sad because of what has happened to the city where God was supposed to dwell and where God's people were supposed to live, and they're all discouraged and frustrated, and God gives Zechariah a word, and he comes proclaiming. You find it in verse number nine of Zechariah chapter nine, and here's what it says. Behold, thy king cometh unto thee. He is just and having salvation lowly and riding upon a donkey and upon a colt the full of a donkey.

Here's the point. It's way back when, hundreds of years before, as all of these Israelites traveled back, and all of them, you know, they're picking up the rubble of the wall that had been just completely destroyed, and it's just like a terrible place and nothing standing, and everything's been knocked down. Babylon destroyed it all, and it's all laying there, and as they pick up the pieces and they look, and they're going through things to try to put the city back together, they're discouraged, and here comes a prophet, and he says this. In fact, in verse number nine, the first two words says it all.

Zechariah tells them in the midst of that. Rejoice always. Rejoice always, and then right after is what I just read to you. Here's why there's rejoicing in the midst of sorrow, in the midst of pain, in the midst of mourning, in the midst of all the discouragement.

We can rejoice. Why? Because the king cometh.

That's the reason. And Zechariah, that's what we find here. The king cometh. The king cometh, and not only is he going to come, he actually predicted the exact way that he would come. He predicted and prophesied about the exact way that he would come riding on a donkey.

500 years before Jesus came, a word from heaven came down and said, hey, listen, hope is not lost. Hope is to come because the king is coming. So who is this man? Who is he to you? He's the prophesied king. You see, the Bible from cover to cover is pointing to this moment. He's the messianic king, the one that from the very beginning that everyone has been waiting for.

This is it. And that's what every prophet and everybody's been saying, hey, listen, wait, hope is on the way. The king is going to come. And what we read in Matthew chapter 21 is the fulfillment that the king is finally here. He's finally here, so not only is he the prophesied king, but the second thing we find here in our story is this, is that Jesus is the savior king. He's the prophesied king, the one that many Old Testament writers, in fact, there's over 300 Old Testament prophecies that prophesy about this moment. Hundreds of them from hundreds of years before are telling us about what we are reading about today. And here's why it's something that was written about and something that was proclaimed is because Jesus came to be the savior king.

You see that in two ways here in our text. The first one is this, Hosanna. Verse number nine, the multitudes that went before and that followed, they cried saying, Hosanna to the son of David.

Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. Now, in Psalm chapter 118, this was a direct quote from the psalmist in Psalm 118 because the word Hosanna, it literally is a cry for help.

The word Hosanna, if you look at it in the Greek, here's what the word literally means. Save us. Save us. And so if you think about it, any time we look at the word Hosanna, it's important for us to understand that as Jesus came riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, here's all of these people that had gathered and I'm gonna talk about why there were so many people gathered, that's super important and we're gonna get to that here in a moment, but all of these people, thousands of people have gathered together and they're taking these palm branches and they're laying them down and many of them, they're taking off their cloaks and their clothes and they're laying them down, paving the way for this king to come in and in that moment, they're shouting, Hosanna. In other words, they're shouting, all of these people are shouting, save us, save us, blessed is the name of the Lord, save us. You see, the point is this is a direct thing, Psalm 118 verses 25 and 26 says, save now, I beg thee, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. You see, the reason this was so important for them is that they, he was a king, we'd heard about him, but this meant something to them because they knew that he was the one that could save them and by the way, he's the only one that can save you. He's the only one that could save any of us. So we see that he's the savior king by what they were shouting, Hosanna, save us. But the second thing that I want you to see here is just the reason why there were so many people. You see, the reason why there was a lot of people is everybody had been traveling into Jerusalem for a purpose, for a reason. And by the way, don't ever think that there's coincidences with God.

There's not. God has everything orchestrated all the way down to where you're gonna be able to find the donkey. God has everything laid out, okay?

It's in his plan. And in the midst of this, all these people had gathered. You say, why in the world was Jerusalem so loud? Why was Jerusalem so crowded?

Why were there so many people there? The reason is, is because they had all traveled into Jerusalem for one of the key Jewish feasts that they were gonna be observing in just a few days. Everybody had come there to observe a key feast on the Jewish calendar called Passover. We just looked at this on a Wednesday night in our Bible study, Passover. And once a year, here's what would happen, is all of the Jews would travel into Jerusalem. It's one of three Jewish feasts on the Jewish calendar that required for every Jewish boy to attend. In other words, some of the Jewish feasts, they could celebrate right there in their hometowns.

This was not one of those. This was one that for many of them had to pack up their stuff, and they had to travel into Jerusalem to celebrate Passover. Say, what is Passover? If you remember the story in the Old Testament, and if you grew up in church, you're gonna remember this. Remember when the children of Israel were in captivity in Egypt, right? And they're in captivity in Egypt, and while they're there, Pharaoh would never let them go.

And so God calls Moses, he says, you're gonna be the one to deliver my people out of Egypt. And so the way that I remember this is like growing up in Sunday school, you know, I was a part of it. We usually had a flannelgraph. How many of you remember flannelgraphs? Okay, they were awesome.

And for some reason, things just wouldn't stick as well as they should on those flannelgraphs sometimes. But I remember specifically, you know, it was like Moses, you know, was called by God, and so you have a little thing of a fire somewhere, and Moses is there, and then you take Moses and you put him in front of Pharaoh, and then you throw all of these plagues up there like locusts and all this stuff, you know? And then the last plague makes all the difference if you remember the death of the firstborn. And remember in Egypt, Pharaoh kept his heart was so hard towards the things of God, and so God was leading them, and God was telling, you know, Moses, keep going, him and Aaron, keep going, keep going, keep going.

But the last one inflicted all the harm that they needed. He said, you're gonna have to, to the Israelites, kill a lamb, put the blood over the doorpost, and at night, the angel is gonna come through, and if you have the blood over your doorpost, the angel's gonna pass over. So of course, Egypt, they're not God's chosen people.

None of them had blood over their doorpost. You know what the scripture says? Is that every single household woke up the next day with a death in their household.

Could you imagine? The wailing, the weeping there in Egypt. It was in that moment that the children of Israel were driven out. So God, in Leviticus chapter 23, he instituted a feast, a bunch of different feasts for them to commemorate, for them to remember. One of those was Passover. Every single year, everybody travels into Jerusalem, and they remember the sacrifice of a lamb, and they have to sacrifice a lamb, and when they sacrifice a lamb, they're supposed to every night, or every Passover, put the blood over the doorpost, and here's the reason, so that they will never forget the sacrifice that was made to deliver them out of Egypt. And here's the thing. All of that is gonna be fulfilled in just a few days.

Every single bit of it. So all these people had come to celebrate and to commemorate what God did, delivering them out of Egypt, and all of them were gathered together. They're in the city of Jerusalem, looking to God, remembering the salvation that they had experienced out of Egypt. And what they did not know, man, is that right in front of them was the greatest savior that was ever to come, not just to deliver them from Egypt, but to deliver them from something far greater, the sin in their life that they could never, ever find deliverance from. You see, if you remember the beginning story that I mentioned to you from the very beginning, God is trying to redeem you and me back into that relationship. For lack of a better way of putting it, He's trying to redeem you back to the garden. That experience where He could walk with you and He can talk with you and He can have a relationship with you, but because of your sin, you cannot be in the presence of Almighty God, of a holy, righteous God. Therefore, there had to be a sacrifice.

There had to be a sacrifice in order to bring you back into relationship with Him. You see, Jesus is the prophesied king, but He also came to be the savior. He's the prophesied king, He's the savior king. And then real quickly, number three, Jesus is the coming king. And this is where it gets real. And this is where we all have to recognize this. Jesus is not only, He didn't just come once, He's coming again.

And what we have to understand is that for us today, what does that mean? Are you ready for His second coming? Are you ready for His second coming? I used to think, and I want you to know, because I think sometimes the church, sometimes I think we get so complacent, and sometimes we live, and we just don't even think about the second coming of Jesus. We just go through our motions and rituals and day-to-day schedule, and some of us aren't even looking for Him to come back.

Right? We're not ready. Some of you, you know, you're thinking, man, I got this, this, this, I got a lot of things I want to do before He returns, and sometimes we don't even think about it. We don't even process, we don't meditate about it.

It's not even a thought in our mind. When I was, Abby and I, just before we had kids, we wanted to watch a show as something we could watch together, and so we wanted to kind of find something to watch, you know, in the evenings and stuff, and so we kind of put something, I still remember this, we put something out there like, hey, you know, what show should we start and everything, and this has been years ago, and so somebody suggested to us, and this is like my favorite person in the world, but they suggested to watch a show called 24. How many of you have ever watched 24? I've used this in illustration several times, and it's my favorite show of all time, and so I've seen this through like over and over, and I love it.

Jack Bauer is like one of my heroes, and so, and here's the thing, if you don't know who Jack Bauer is, you need to go watch it seriously, like when you get home, go ahead and start it, and I love it, and I could talk about it all day. So I remember, you know, it was a big buzz back in the day about this show, and so we got it, and this is before Netflix. This is before Hulu.

This is before, you know, all the different hundreds of streaming networks that there are these days. This is before all of that, and so I remember specifically, we were staying down here at the Mission House, and so we were right on the street, and we put it out there, and it was within like hours that this person, because if you like 24, you're all into it, right, and so I'm the same way, and so this person, which I'd never seen at this time, he like said, I'll be over within an hour to deliver to you the DVDs so that you can watch it, and if you're young in here, DVDs were these like circle, okay, and so we got it, and so he brought me the box of DVDs, and so we popped it in, and we started watching it, and it's like such an intense, intense show. Like it's just, it has you on the edge of your seat, and it's kind of one of those always leaves you kind of with a cliffhanger. Well, there were some times that Jack Bauer, believe it or not, did some things that were a little far-fetched, right, and he did some things, and there were some moments we would come to the end of the season, and we would think like, Jack Bauer, how is he gonna get out of this? Like, is he gonna win in the end, right? Like, I mean, at the time, and when you're watching it, you're like, man, I don't know what he's gonna do.

This is like, there's no way out. There's no winning, and it doesn't look like good is ever gonna come from the situation that he has found himself in, and then here's what always gave us peace. Just look at the fact that there's another season with his face on the box, and so when I saw that, I'm thinking, hey, I don't know how, and I don't know when, and I don't really get it, but here's what I know.

His face is on season number seven, and I know he's gonna figure a way out to win in the end. Here's what I want you to understand about this story is that for some of us, when we look out and about, we look at our life, and we look at the world, and we look at our situations, we might look out, and we say, I don't know how. I don't know when. I don't know how we're gonna do this, but here's what I can assure you and I can give you confidence in.

Things might look bad now. He's coming back, like he's coming back, and so just like I would look at the next season and the little box that they came in, and I'd be able to have assurance. Here's what I want you to know. This right here, the word of God, here's what I want to give you the assurance of. If you think it's bad today for you, look into this book because his cover is right here. This is him. Behold him. Look at him. Glance at him. Consider him. He's right here, and here's all I gotta tell you.

No matter how bad things look for your life right now, listen, good and hope is coming. It's coming. In fact, Revelation, it talks about it. Remember John chapter number one writes about this. John's vision, the apostle, he writes about it in verse number three of chapter one.

Here's what he said, and here's what I want you to leave with this and I want you to think about it. He says in verse number three of chapter one, the time is at hand. The time is at hand. He goes on in verse number seven to say this. Behold, so good. Behold, he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him. That's you.

That's me. And they also which pierced him, they're all gonna look at him when he comes back and all kindreds of the earth shall, and this is such an interesting phrase, shall wail because of him. Shall wail. Like why is there gonna be mourning and weeping?

Like what does that even mean? Because he's the king and he's coming back. Like why is there gonna be wailing? Don't you think if the king's coming back, we're gonna be rejoicing, we're gonna be celebrating.

Life's gonna be perfect. Here's the point. The reason why he's going when he comes back again while there's gonna be wailing is because Jesus' first coming into Jerusalem was as savior, but his second coming is gonna be as judge.

That's why this is important. The first time he came, he was coming to save us from our sins. He was coming to save you and to give you a relationship back with him so that you could be restored and reconciled into relationship with God. But the second coming is gonna be very different. He's coming the second time to judge the whole world. And that's something we don't like to talk about. But here's what I want you to know because I've grown up in church my whole life.

Christians are so fascinated with the end times, aren't we? I remember growing up. Remember that movie that came out?

Scared me half to death. Left Behind, you remember that? You remember? And we showed this. We're showing it to our churches and everything like that. And we do Bible studies on this kind of stuff and we love to hear about the end times.

Christians are notorious for this, and we should. We're excited about it. We love to study Revelation. I get asked about that more than anything else. When are you gonna do a series on Revelation? I love it, and we should look to it. And listen, if you're looking forward to it, you should.

That probably means you're ready. But the point of Revelation, the point of the end times, is not just to give you a book so that you can debate and speculate about his second coming. Because nobody that you talk to knows when it's gonna happen.

No one. The reason why he gave you the book of Revelation and the reason why he gave you so much and what we need to know about the end times is not so that we can speculate and debate about how that's gonna look and when that's gonna come and this and that and stuff like that. Those things are fine. The reason he gave it all to you is not for speculation. It's to motivate and inspire you to go out and tell everybody that you meet about his first coming. That's the point.

It's not. Listen, you can study Revelation all day long, but I'm gonna be very frank with you as your pastor. You don't know a thing about the book of Revelation if it's not motivating and inspiring you to go out and tell everybody about what happened at his first coming. That's the point.

That's the point. It's the first coming that makes all the difference because when he came the first time, he came as savior. He came to be your savior. He came to be my savior.

But when he comes the second time, he's coming to judge. Jesus showed up in the first time riding on a donkey during Passover week. Paving the way for all to be saved.

But I'm just telling you this. Revelation chapter 19 says this. John's vision again. I saw heaven open and behold a white horse. He's not coming on a donkey the second time.

And he that sat upon him was called faithful and true, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. Here's what I'll tell you. If you're in here today and you don't know him, you are not ready for the second coming. If you haven't given your life to him at his second coming, it's going to be too late. It's going to be too late. Your neighbors, it's going to be too late if they don't know Jesus.

Your friends, it's going to be too late. His first coming, he came to be crucified as our king. But the second coming, he's going to be coming to be crowned forever as our king. And he's coming to make judgment and war.

You see, I want you to understand something. For you and me, who is this man? Who is he? If you're in here today and you can't say, he's my savior. If you're in here today and you say, I can't say that he is my king. He's my pastor's king. He's my teacher's king. He's my parent's king. He's my friend's king. If you're in here today and you say, I can't say that he is my king, then let me ask you today and let me challenge you to take heed and give your life to Jesus.

Give your life to him. The reason he came into Jerusalem this first time riding on a donkey, people laying palm branches down, people laying their clothes down in front of him as he rode through. Here's what's interesting.

This is so good. In the other gospel accounts, you know what it says about this moment? When he came to the mount where he looked over Jerusalem, you know what he did?

It says in the other accounts, same story, different account. It says when he looked over Jerusalem, he wept. He wept. The king who's about to come where everybody's going to recognize him as such, he wept when he looked. Why do you think he did? It's because he knew that in a week there's going to be some that are going to be one day wave a palm branch and in just a few short days they're going to be yelling crucify. And listen, we'd have been right there with him because of our sin. And he knew, I'm coming.

And put your name in there. I like to think of it personally. I think when he looked across Jerusalem, perhaps he's God. Maybe Josh Evans popped through his mind. Maybe he thought of me when he knew what the next week would look like for him. The fact that I'm going to down a cross so that Josh Evans could enter back forever into the presence of God like he originally wanted all along.

That is the significance of the triumphal injury. Can we pray together? Could you please stand?

I'm not going to belabor this. But I want you to ask this question, answer this question in your heart. Who is he to you? Who is this man? Who is this man?

Nobody's looking around. If you're in here today and you say, Pastor, right now he's not my savior. He's not my king. I don't know him as savior.

And if he was to come back before this service is over, I am not ready. If that's where you are today, listen, there is no judgment in here. I just want to pray for you. I'm not going to call you out. I'm not going to go and find you. I'm not going to do any of that. I just want to pray for you in just a few moments. If that's where you are today, I want you to be honest.

This is the biggest question you've ever been asked. If you say, man, I'm not ready. I'm not ready for that. If that's where you are today, would you please slip up your hand, anybody?

Anybody, anywhere? Be honest before God, before me. Say, I'm not ready. I'm not ever trusted in Jesus. Listen, you today can leave here knowing and ready for when Jesus comes back, because the first time he showed up, he came to be crucified for you.

When he died on a cross, he was doing that for you so that you could have a relationship with him. Looks like mostly believers in here. For some of us, you know what we need to do? We need to just go, and we need to just kneel for just a moment.

Maybe here at an altar, if you feel comfortable, or right there in your seat, and we need to say, man, what he went through so that he could bring us back into a relationship, that's how far he was willing to go to get you back into a relationship with him. Some of us, we just need to say, God, thank you. Thank you for saving us. Hosanna, God, you have saved us. And we give you praise, we give you glory.

For some of you, probably all of us, that's where we need to be. When I pray, God speaks to you, come. Father, we love you. Thank you. Thank you for being our king. We love you. Thanks to you, come.