Well, today is Palm Sunday. It is a day that helps us to remember the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and what He accomplished for His people, and so we are very thankful to God around this time of the year. It is just like Christmas in a sense, when Christmas comes around, and we are reminded that God became man, and entered into the human race, and for that whole season for a few weeks, we are thinking about these truths and those facts that, God did humble Himself, and He did enter into the human race and became a human being.
So, around Easter time, Palm Sunday, and Resurrection Sunday, we are reminded that God came into the human race for a very definite purpose, which was to redeem a people for Himself, to take the sins of His elect, His chosen ones upon Himself, and to die for those sins on the cross.
Do we know today is Palm Sunday? I remember when I grew up, that there was talk about Palm Sunday, and Good Friday, and Easter Sunday, and I know I had to get dressed up, and I had to do certain things. It was one of the few times maybe I would even go to church, or you go visit family and you show off your new suit. I was just thinking of some of the suits we had back then. But it was not much more than that. Of course, you had Easter candy, and you would go see Grandma, and she gave you a chocolate Easter bunny and you colored the eggs. But what did I really know about this time of year?
To tell you the truth, I did not know anything. I do not think the people in my family knew anything, and I do not think the people around us knew much of anything. Of course, you never know who could have been a believer in the neighborhood or anything like that. It is only God’s people, because God opens up their eyes to really come to the truth of what the Bible says.
Palm Sunday really is a wonderful day; it is a glorious day to remember what Jesus did. For instance, let us go to Mark 11. We are just going to read this passage, and then we will try to understand it. In Mark 11, beginning in verse 1, it says:
And when they came nigh to Jerusalem, unto Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount of Olives, he sendeth forth two of his disciples, And saith unto them, Go your way into the village over against you: and as soon as ye be entered into it, ye shall find a colt tied, whereon never man sat; loose him, and bring him. And if any man say unto you, Why do ye this? say ye that the Lord hath need of him; and straightway he will send him hither. And they went their way, and found the colt tied by the door without in a place where two ways met; and they loose him. And certain of them that stood there said unto them, What do ye, loosing the colt? And they said unto them even as Jesus had commanded: and they let them go. And they brought the colt to Jesus, and cast their garments on him; and he sat upon him. And many spread their garments in the way: and others cut down branches off the trees, and strawed them in the way. And they that went before, and they that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna; Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord: Blessed be the kingdom of our father David, that cometh in the name of the Lord: Hosanna in the highest. And Jesus entered into Jerusalem, and into the temple: and when he had looked round about upon all things, and now the eventide was come, he went out unto Bethany with the twelve.
That is the ending of that passage that describes the Lord Jesus Christ’s triumphal entry. That is how it is known, as theologians have described it, the Lord Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and that is what it was. It really was a glorious triumphal entry, and many people, the Jews (we know the leaders were not doing this) they were casting down their garments and spreading the palm tree branches in front of Him and crying out:
Hosanna; Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord:
Well, that is what happened historically nearly two thousand years ago. But what was the purpose of it? Why did it happen? What did God have in mind here? This was the time of the Passover season. The Passover season was soon approaching, and pretty soon, actually that very week, that very week, Jesus would be eating the Passover supper with His disciples in the upper room, and at that supper, He would give the sup to Judas. Judas who was infilled with Satan would go out to betray Him. A little later the Lord Jesus would go into the Garden of Gethsemane, and that would be Thursday evening by the way.
That is one of the reasons why I want to talk about this, because there are some individuals that are trying to come up with a different timeline as far as the three days and three nights that the Lord Jesus was suffering for the sins of His people. They are trying to say that certain things did not happen in the order that we have understood them that they happened.
For instance, that Jesus began to suffer Thursday evening in the Garden of Gethsemane. And we are going to see (today maybe not so much, but into next Sunday) a pretty precise order of events beginning with Palm Sunday into the holy week. And I say holy because, with the Lord Jesus, who is Holy God taking upon Himself the sins of unholy sinners, and dying for them such a wonderful death in paying for their sins, that it certainly was holy in the sense that God has set it apart from any other week.
So then, it was right after the Passover dinner that the disciples were eating on Thursday evening that Jesus went out into the Garden. So, Jesus actually began to suffer in the Garden of Gethsemane on the Passover, it was the Passover day, Thursday evening was the Passover. And then, as He was in the Garden, Judas leading the band of the Jews, came to Him, and Christ of course said, “Whom seek ye?” and they fell backwards, and yet they took Him, because He had to be taken to the high priest’s house, Caiaphas, and for the rest of Thursday night, He was in the high priest’s house being questioned and mocked and grievously afflicted by the Jewish leaders, and the soldiers that were with them until the cock crowed. Remember that is what He had said to Peter:
…in this night, before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice.
And at the second crowing of the cock, Peter had just got done denying Him the third time, and the Lord Jesus looked at him as he was still in the high priest’s house. He turned and He looked right at Peter who had just got done denying Him, and then Peter went out and wept.
And the cock crowing then is the same as a cock crowing today, is it not? When does the cock crow? At the dawning of the day, the dawning of the day. So Jesus was in the high priest’s house all night, they wanted to take care of business, they wanted to get this matter done with, and once the cock crew, Peter denied Him. It was very soon after that, that they took Him directly to Pilate, early Friday morning. We do not know exactly what time it was, as far as 5:00am, 5:30am, we do not know that information. We know it was the dawning of Friday morning, Passover. Passover went from Thursday night to the next evening. So it was Friday, still the Passover. As a matter of fact, the Jewish leaders went to Pilate.
Let us go to John 18. In John 18:27-28, it says:
Peter then denied again: and immediately the cock crew. Then led they Jesus from Caiaphas unto the hall of judgment: and it was early; and they themselves went not into the judgment hall, lest they should be defiled; but that they might eat the passover.
They had not eaten the Passover yet. Jesus had His Passover dinner with the disciples in the upper room the previous evening, before He went into the Garden of Gethsemane. But it is all the Passover day, from sundown on Thursday, till the next evening, that would be the Passover.
So at this point, as these were the Jewish leaders, and they would be the ones responsible for slaying the Passover lamb, and this would be the big feast that maybe all the people would come to, even though everyone perhaps had their own type of Passover feast, like Jesus with the disciples, all on the Passover day. But here, they want to get this taken care of, they have to have their own Passover feast and eat the Passover, and so, they did not want to go “into the judgment hall, lest they should be defiled.”
So then Jesus is before Pilate on early Friday morning, the wee hours of the morning, the wee hours of the morning, and a lot takes places, a lot of events take place early Friday morning. The Jews are bringing Jesus to Pilate, and Pilate is questioning them. During the questioning, Pilate finds out that He is a “Galilean,” which is good news for him because he wants nothing really to do with Him. He already sees that He is innocent, so he sends Him to Herod early Friday morning.
Herod happens to be in Jerusalem that day with some of his soldiers, and he is very happy, and Jesus comes before him and Herod questions Him, “many words,” so it was not just a couple of minutes. Jesus is brought to Herod, and we do not know how far, what kind of distance it was from the “judgment hall” of Pilate, but He is taken to Herod, and Herod is asking Him all kinds of things, hoping to see some miracle performed by Him, but Jesus does not say anything. Herod persists, he is asking this, and asking that, until finally he throws up his hands, Jesus is not going to speak to Herod, He is not going to say anything to him. Herod’s soldiers mock Him, and then return Him back to Pilate, all early Friday morning. And then Herod also likewise finds no fault in Him, and Pilate says that later, and then Pilate begins questioning Him again. His wife sends a messenger to him saying:
…Have thou nothing to do with that just man: for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him.
Then Pilate, already he is nervous, he does not like the situation, he does not like where he is in the situation, and he is being forced to make this judgment, and so he is trying to delay it. He is questioning Jesus, then he goes to the Jews, and he is trying to have Jesus be the one released at the feast, and that feast is the Passover, it is the Passover Feast, and they have a custom that one would be released.
Now they have two notable prisoners, Barabbas, and the Lord Jesus Christ. And so Pilate is really leaning, he wants to release Jesus. “Will ye that I release unto you the King of the Jews?” See he is saying, “This One, this is the One.” And yet, the rulers of the Jews, and the chief priests, were having the people say no, not him but Barabbas, Barabbas. They were insistent that Barabbas be the one to be released. Well, what shall I do with the “King of the Jews”? “Crucify him,” “Crucify him” they called out, very definitely and persistently, “Crucify him.”
And after the third time of trying to do that, after three times, and we know the number three shows itself repeatedly in the whole atoning work of Christ during the Crucifixion. There were three crosses, three thieves, there were three languages, the Hebrew, the Latin, and Greek that it was written that He is “THE KING OF THE JEWS,” again and again and again. Jesus went to pray three times in the Garden. Pilate tried to have Him released three times, and finally they would not release him, or they would not cry out that He be released as was the custom, so Pilate “washed his hands.” Then he says, okay, and the soldiers take Jesus away to be crucified.
Does Jesus immediately come out of the “judgment hall”? And is the Cross right there? No, the soldiers take him to the “Praetorium.” Right after Pilate turns Him over, He is going to be crucified, and the soldiers take him to the “Praetorium.” And in the “Praetorium,” they take off His clothes they “put on him a scarlet robe,” they put “a crown of thorns,” and they bow down mockingly, “Hail King of the Jews!” And they mock him for a period of time. Then they put His own clothes back on Him, and they take him out to be crucified, and there is a procession. We do not know exactly, at least I do not know exactly, how far it was, but you have a procession. You have soldiers, you have prisoners, and there is always crowd control, and I am sure everyone would have been gathered along the streets because this was known, this thing was known, and so it would have taken some time to have that procession. Also, at that point in time, they find Simon, who is “compelled to bear his cross,” and so Simon is carrying Christ’s cross until they get to “Calvary” or “Golgotha.” Then at “Calvary,” Jesus is crucified at “the third hour” of the day.
So from the cock crowing, which was dawn, they took Him right to Pilate, and then all those events took place in probably three or four hours, because “the third hour” of the day is 9:00am, it was still early. Look at Mark 15:21-25:
And they compel one Simon a Cyrenian, who passed by, coming out of the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear his cross. And they bring him unto the place Golgotha, which is, being interpreted, The place of a skull. And they gave him to drink wine mingled with myrrh: but he received it not. And when they had crucified him, they parted his garments, casting lots upon them, what every man should take. And it was the third hour, and they crucified him.
“It was the third hour” of the day. Now, what time was that? As far as our understanding and our clock it was 9:00am. We are helped a lot as far as the hours of the day with the parable of the labourers going into the vineyard. Remember that parable? And it uses this time, it says the owner of the vineyard went out and it was at “the third hour” and he got labourers for his vineyard. Then “he went out about the sixth and ninth hour” and he got more labourers to work in his vineyard. Then he went out “the eleventh hour” and he found some others to come work in his vineyard. Let us turn there to Matthew 20:8, after hiring all the labourers up to “the eleventh hour”:
So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward, Call the labourers, and give them their hire…
And then when that is done everyone gets the same wage, everyone whether you were hired at “the third hour,” “sixth,” “ninth” or “eleventh hour,” the last hour everyone gets the exact same wage, and so those hired earlier they do not think it is fair, it says in verses 10-12:
But when the first came, they supposed that they should have received more; and they likewise received every man a penny. And when they had received it, they murmured against the goodman of the house, Saying, These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us…
We are not going to get into the Gospel meaning of that parable, but of course we know that the wage is the same for every child of God, whether you have laboured in the Gospel since you were a child, like Samuel, or if you labour in the Gospel hardly at all, like the thief on the Cross who was saved in the last couple hours of his life and then he died. Samuel got the same wage or reward as the thief on the Cross, salvation, eternal life it is the same, “God is no respecter of persons,” everyone gets that gift of eternal life.
But the point here, to understand the references to “the third hour,” “sixth hour,” and “the ninth hour” is that when the one hired at “the eleventh hour” works until “even,” (“when even was come”), it was one hour later, it was the twelfth hour, “even” was 6:00pm, 6:00pm. So the beginning of the day Jesus said earlier, “Are there not twelve hours in the day?” That is the normal daytime; it is about twelve hours, and normally, about 6:00am begins the day 6:00am to 6:00pm that is exactly how we work today pretty much. Actually that is my work schedule; I work three twelve hour days, 6:00am to 6:00pm. So I understand exactly what Christ is saying, “Are there not twelve hours in the day” that men should work? And yes. So “the third hour” is 9:00am, “the sixth hour” is 12:00 noon. Peter was up on the rooftop “about the sixth hour,” and he got hungry because it was lunchtime.
There is another reference to that “sixth hour,” it is 12:00 noon, “the ninth hour” is 3:00pm, “the twelfth hour,” the end of the work day for the labourers in the vineyard was 6:00pm, it was “even,” it was “even.” So when we read it was “the third hour” of the day, it was “the third hour,” they crucified Jesus at 9:00am, 9:00am. Let us go over to John 19. In John 19:13-14, it says:
When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought Jesus forth, and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called the Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha. And it was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour: and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King!
Then they are crying out, “Crucify him.” Look at verse 16:
Then delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified…
Now some people are totally misunderstanding this verse, and it is leading them into wrong understandings of the whole timeline of the “three days and three nights.” It is leading them astray from a proper understanding of the whole timing of that holy week, beginning with Palm Sunday up until Christ is crucified, and into the Sunday Resurrection, early Sunday morning because they are seeing, well in Mark 15 it says, “And it was the third hour, and they crucified him.” But here in John 19, it says it was “the sixth hour,” and then after that He was crucified.
We know God does this, God does this repeatedly in the Bible, He makes statements that seemingly or apparently are contradictions and they do not seem to make sense, but we also know from seeing many of these statements harmonized and brought together like pieces of a puzzle that there are no contradictions, that both statements are absolutely correct and true. That it was after “the sixth hour” or “about the sixth hour” Jesus was crucified and it was “the third hour” when Jesus was crucified. We are not going to get into that today, but this is one of the reasons why we are going to lay out the whole week, we are going to lay out the whole week beginning with Palm Sunday so we can understand this verse. So we can understand that, well, maybe we have been mistaken about some things, maybe we have been mistaken about eternal judgment and we have been mistaken about some other doctrines because God did not open up our understanding until recently, but as far as our understanding of the “three days and three nights” we have been correct, we have been correct.
Jesus began to suffer Thursday evening in the Garden, and it was finished Friday on the Cross. He was laid in the tomb Saturday, then early Sunday morning He was resurrected. That is a proper and right understanding of the “three days and three nights.”
But today is Palm Sunday, and remember Jesus is riding triumphantly into Jerusalem. Why is that going on? Let us go back to Exodus 12:1-8, where it says:
And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house: And if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbour next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls; every man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats: And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it. And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it.
And then it goes on a little further. So this historically we realize is the night when God is going to bring the plague of death upon the first born of Egypt. So He gave instruction to Moses to teach the Israelites they had to slay “a lamb.” It could not just be any lamb it had to be a perfect lamb at least as far as anything in this world could be perfect. They had to search their flock for a pure lamb “without blemish and without spot” of any kind, and that lamb they would then take and slay and take the blood of the lamb and apply it to the “door post” all around with “hyssop.” Then they had to eat the lamb, they had to eat it “with fire,” they could not eat it “raw,” and they could not eat it “sodden,” it had to be “with fire,” and they had to eat it before the day broke.
So with this historical teaching with these facts, this happened in Egypt long ago, many thousands of years ago, God is painting a picture of salvation, He is teaching us that we are sinners, and because of our sin, we are subject to die just like all the first born of Egypt, and unless we have a covering, unless we have the blood of the lamb applied to our own self, to our own life, to our own sins, unless the blood covers over our sins, we are going to die just like the first born of Egypt, we are going to perish just like they did.
So this is a beautiful picture of salvation that God gave the nation of Israel, and they were to every year observe this Passover Feast, and along with it the Feast of Unleavened Bread which would go on for seven days. They were to observe this every year in order to bring to remembrance what happened in Egypt, but more importantly, to bring to remembrance God’s Gospel plan of salvation. God was always teaching the Jews the Gospel even though they could not see it through their types and figures and sacrifices. They began to trust in the actual performing of that rather then in what they were pointing to who was Christ Himself. Like for instance, this is why in John 1:29, John the Baptist is in view here. It says:
The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
Why does He make that kind of a statement? Because Jesus is pictured, He is portrayed as “the Lamb,” He is that Passover “Lamb” actually. Go to 1 Peter 1:19, where it says:
But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:
They had to choose “a lamb” that was “without blemish.” Well, that is Jesus; He is “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” He is the “Lamb without blemish and without spot.” And we know that that is teaching that He was sinless, He was pure and holy, He had no sin in Himself, He never transgressed the law of God at any point, He was perfectly “without blemish,” so He could be qualified to be that sacrificial “Lamb,” that He could be the Passover, and the Bible actually calls Jesus the Passover, He is that “Lamb of God.”
Remember Abraham when He was ready to offer up Isaac, and then God stopped him, and there was a ram caught in the thicket? And remember what Abraham said to Isaac, “God will provide Himself a lamb,” when Isaac had asked where is the lamb? “God will provide Himself a lamb,” and that is the Lord Jesus Christ, He is the “Lamb.” But look at Exodus 12:3 again, and it says:
Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb…
And then later it says in verse 6:
And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.
So the lamb was chosen on “the tenth day” of Nisan, and the lamb was killed on “the fourteenth day” of Nisan, which was the day of the Passover. When we search it out, and when we see the timeline in view in Mark 11, when Jesus is riding into Jerusalem on that Sunday, what day is it of the Hebrew calendar? It is not the tenth day when He rides into Jerusalem, it is the ninth day of Nisan.
Then He is being hailed, “Hosanna,” “Hosanna.” Does anyone know what “Hosanna” means? Hosanna means, Oh save. Actually the word “Oh” is a transliteration of two Hebrew words. The word translated as “Oh,” na, is also translated as “I beseech thee,” “I beseech thee,” save,” “I beseech thee,” save. You know when we say, “cry out to God, cry that He have mercy upon you, beseech Him for mercy,” it is exactly what that word means, “I beseech thee,” save,” “Hosanna” and they are crying out and they are saying in Mark 11:9:
…Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord…
“Blessed is he that cometh.” So it is really pointing to one of the greatest truths that there is, it actually is the greatest truth that God promised to send a Saviour, He promised from the very beginning, and actually “before the foundation of the world” He made provision, as Jesus was “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” Yet God, after man’s fall into sin, gave the promise early in the book of Genesis, He would send a Saviour. Yet, how long did it take before God fulfilled the promise? Over eleven thousand years. If we think we have waited too long, or we have been longsuffering patient waiting for the return of Christ, it has only been a couple thousand years since God promised that He would come back again and He would return to bring the climax to His salvation plan, and we know that it is close at hand, that it is coming very shortly in 2011.
But God first promised that He would come to save, He would come to redeem, He would come to pay the penalty for the sins of His people, and the saints of old on the other side of the Cross on the Old Testament side waited over eleven thousand years. Millennium came and millennium went, eleven thousand years, and finally in “the fulness of the time was come,” Galatians tells us, the Lord Jesus entered the human race, He became a man, and yet still He had to work out His ministry until John the Baptist proclaimed Him the Messiah, “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.” Then from that point there would be three-and-a-half years, three-and-a-half years until it would be completed, and He would pay for the actual wages of sin, which is death, and Christ did die the death for His people that substitutionary death.
So here they are crying. It is on the ninth day of Nisan, but notice in Mark 11:11:
And Jesus entered into Jerusalem, and into the temple: and when he had looked round about upon all things, and now the eventide was come, he went out unto Bethany with the twelve.
The events of the triumphal entry took all day, they were going on all day until the even, and when the even came, it was the tenth day of Nisan, it was the time to select “the Lamb,” it was the time to select “the Lamb,” and Jesus was that “Lamb.”
And so we are correct in understanding that this was the events in view when God selected Christ to be the “Lamb” that would take away His people sins, He would be the “Lamb” chosen who would die on “the fourteenth day” of Nisan, at the Passover, Jesus would die at that point in time.
There is another verse, it is complicated, but I think we need to try and work through it. Mr. Camping has written about this in Time Has an End and I think in many other places, and he has laid it out, and I recommend you go and take a look at it because I do not know if I will be able to explain it sufficiently, but let us go to Daniel 12:12. In Daniel 12:12, where it says:
Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days.
And that is, “Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to thirteen hundred and thirty five days.” Mr. Camping has gone into detail on this, and laid it out, how he struggled with this, trying to relate that verse to the end times like the previous verse speaks of, the twelve hundred and ninety days, and that it can be related to time paths that point to the end of the world. Yet this verse, which is right after verse 11, seemingly in the same context, it is teaching something completely different. The thirteen hundred and thirty five days is looking towards Christ’s first coming, His first coming. Remember earlier in Daniel, God spoke about the offering and sacrifice ceasing “in the midst of the week,” and that is the helpful clue that enables us to solve Daniel 12:12, and its thirteen hundred and thirty five days, because “the midst of the week” is pointing to three-and-a-half years, and I am not going to get into trying to explain that, read Family Radio’s book on Daniel 9 for more information. But “the midst of the week” is three-and-a-half years, or twelve hundred and seventy eight days, and that is when Daniel 9 indicates sacrifice would cease. But what Mr. Camping discovered, and it has to be the answer, it has to be the solution is that, Jesus’ death, it really had everything to do with His sending forth the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, which came fifty days after He was in the tomb and the Resurrection. It came fifty days after that Sabbath, that Saturday Sabbath it would be seven Sundays after the Resurrection Sunday and it will be fifty days.
Now, when you add 50 to 1278, you get 1328, and it is close, but it is short of the 1335 days that Daniel 12:12 is talking about. But you see, when we saw in Exodus 12:3 that God selects the lamb on “the tenth day” of Nisan, and that is the lamb that will be slain on “the fourteenth day,” that is tying Palm Sunday, or it is tying “the tenth day” of Nisan together with Christ’s death at the Cross. And so, how Mr. Camping calculated was, you have the three-and-a-half years from the time John the Baptist signifies that Jesus has begun His ministry, you go three-and-a-half years, not to the Cross, but to Palm Sunday because, that is an integral part of the Cross, that is the 1278. Then you add 5 days from Palm Sunday to the Passover, then 1 day from the Cross that Jesus is in the tomb, then 50 days up until the Feast of Pentecost and you come to 1334 days, but sometimes, God uses numbers inclusively, inclusively.
What that means is, today is Sunday, if I wanted to count the number of days from this Sunday to next Sunday, I could say, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday = 7. Or if I start counting today, I would say, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday = 8. So there are really two methods of calculation that you can use, and God has done that on occasion with certain timelines and time paths, He has used numbers inclusively.
Now, in those cases we were dealing with years, but here it is days, and so it is a legitimate way that God has provided to just basically add to His ability to do certain things in giving us these kinds of paths, and in revealing these types of things. So inclusively from the announcement of John the Baptist, “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world” until Pentecost day in 33A.D. it was 1335 days, and it fulfills Daniel 12:12 prophecy.
So Jesus’ entry has everything to do with Him being “the Lamb” that is going to be offered as sacrifice later that week, and it also tells us that we are correct to know that Palm Sunday was the ninth day of Nisan when He first began to enter into Jerusalem, but in the evening it turned to “the tenth day,” and that helps us to date the rest of the week because, four days later you have to slay the lamb, and there is all kinds of language talking about the Passover.
We will get into more of that, Lord willing, next week, and we will try to also understand “the third hour” that He was crucified as it says in Mark 15, and the reference to “about the sixth hour” in John 19, that following that, He was crucified, we will try to get more into that.
Question: Matthew 21:12-13:
And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.
Chris: This is a reference I think in the book of Jeremiah 7:11, it is a quote from there. Christ did it two times. Early on in His ministry He overturned the tables of the moneychangers, but a different verse was quoted. I think we can read about that in the Gospel of John 15:16. Here He is overturning “the tables of the moneychangers” later in His ministry, and He is quoting this particular verse that has everything to do in the book of Jeremiah, with the end of the church age.
I think that the reason it was done twice, was because God on one hand, He finished with the nation of Israel, He finished with the nation of Israel, and then on the other hand, He established the New Testament churches, and then came to a point where He was finished with them, and that is also the reason for the different verses that are used in connection with the overturning of the tables.
In this case, Christ is coming to them; it is a picture of judgment, because they are abusing the Gospel privilege. It is a great privilege to be caretakers of the Word of God, to be able to share the Word of God with others, but they have greatly abused it, and now, Jesus is coming in judgment and anger. It is His wrath that is on display.