SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/30/2023 8:24 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 “The Exactness of Prophecy”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew 21:1b-7
Message
of the verses: “then Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying
to them, "Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find
a donkey tied there and a colt with her; untie them, and bring them
to Me. 3 “And if anyone says something to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord has
need of them,’ and immediately he will send them." 4 Now this took place
that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, 5 “SAY TO
THE DAUGHTER OF ZION, ‘BEHOLD YOUR KING IS COMING TO YOU, GENTLE, AND MOUNTED
ON A DONKEY, EVEN ON A COLT, THE FOAL OF A BEAST OF BURDEN.’" 6 And the
disciples went and did just as Jesus had directed them, 7 and brought the
donkey and the colt, and laid on them their garments, on which He sat.”
I want to begin by writing about an earlier SD that
I wrote a few years ago on the subject of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. I mentioned that Jesus Christ was totally in
control of what was happening to Him, and what time it was happening to Him. In the same vain we can see this in our text
for today as Jesus was and always is in control of what was happening in His
life while on planet earth. Jesus
initiated His own coronation when He sent two disciples to procure the two
donkeys that He would ride into Jerusalem on.
He thereby set into motion a series of climactic events that would
culminate in the voluntary gracious sacrifice of Himself on the cross that had
been divinely planned from eternity past.
MacArthur writes “From beginning to end the gospels completely belie the
contention of many liberal interpreters that Jesus was carried away by the enthusiasm
of the mob and became caught up in a tragic web of religious and political
intrigue that caught Him by surprise. He
was not a well-meaning moral teacher who went too far in rankling the Jewish
leaders and was helplessly swept away to an untimely execution.”
Let
us look more closely at what Jesus told His two disciples to do: “Jesus sent
two disciples to Go into the village opposite them, where they would immediately…
find a donkey tied… and a colt with her.”
I believe that this village was nearby but far enough away that the
disciples could not see the donkeys, for if they were very close then Jesus
would have just pointed to them. The
mother donkey was brought along to help keep her colt to cooperate. The young colt would probably not just come
along without its mother.
It
was only in His omniscience that Jesus could have known that the donkey and her
colt would at that moment have been where they were, waiting to be found by the
two disciples. The Lord would also have
known that the disciples would be questioned about taking the two donkeys. “Because He knew this He said to them “if
anyone says something to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord has need of them,’ and
immediately he will send them."
Now
as we look at both Mark and Luke the disciples were asked about taking the
donkeys, and so they told the bystanders that Jesus sent them and then it was
okay for them to take them. It seems to
me that the owners had really given permission for the Lord to use the donkeys.
Lord
willing we will continue looking at these verses in our next SD.
5/30/2023 8:52 AM
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