How many of you aware that God speaks to us in patterns in the Scripture? The natural Jew has a saying that history is unfulfilled prophecy. Prophecy is unfulfilled history. Everything just keeps on revolving. It’s the same cycle, only it's mentioned in different ways.We have here a picture in Matthew 21. We have established so far that David’s Tabernacle will be restored. The principle in that restoration that we are majoring on today, is the presence of the Lord — the manifested presence of the Lord. His glory is returning to the temple which is the church.
In Matthew 21 we have this record of Jesus riding into Jerusalem in his triumphal entry. And it gives a picture of what is to come. Yes it did actually happen, but it is also a prophetic picture and panoramic projection of what is to come.
Matthew 21: 1 And when they drew nigh unto Jerusalem, and were come to Bethphage, unto the mount of Olives, then sent Jesus two disciples,Is that what you want? The end result of all this great procession was, “The Whole City was Moved!”
2 Saying unto them, Go into the village over against you, and straightway ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her: loose them, and bring them unto me.
3 And if any man say ought unto you, ye shall say, The Lord hath need of them; and straightway he will send them.
4 All this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying
5 Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass.
6 And the disciples went, and did as Jesus commanded them,
7 And brought the ass, and the colt, and put on them their clothes, and they set him thereon.
8 And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way; others cut down branches from the trees, and strewed them in the way.
9 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.
10 And when he was come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, Who is this?What does this city picture? It's Jerusalem. Galatians Chapter 4 says we are not part of that natural Jerusalem, we are part of the Jerusalem which is above, the mother of us all. The church is the heavenly Jerusalem. We are part of that heavenly Jerusalem. Could it be that this pictures Jesus’ presence returning to the temple? Could it be that we are looking at a cycle and what we see in Matthew 21 will also be unfolded as Jesus comes into the Temple, the church, as we look for Him? I believe that to be true.
Here's the thing I want you to see. The vehicle upon which He came into the city is what I want to talk to you about for a little while.
"He road upon an ASS the colt, and the foal of an ass."
An animal. The vehicle upon which He came into was these two creatures. With that in mind, go to Exodus chapter 13.
Chapter 13 of the book of Exodus is kind of a parenthesis of this story. The children of Israel partook of Passover and unleavened bread and they were on their way to “Succoth”, whose name means “booths.” We’ll get into that later.
While they were there, God revealed some things.
1 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,So the first thing God did is an interesting thing. It had just been the night before when all the firstborn of Egypt died. — when the lamb’s death was the death that saved the physical firstborn.
2 Sanctify unto me all the firstborn, whatsoever openeth the womb among the children of Israel, both of man and of beast: it is mine.So they got out of Egypt, and instead of leaving behind those first boy babies, they brought them out and stopped at Succoth, this first resting place.
God then said, “I want you to know something. That firstborn is mine. He's alive, but he is not your’s anymore. He belongs to me.
God claims those whom He sanctifies, and those whom He saves. We belong to Him. That is what He said.
The rest of the verses make pretty good sense until you come to the 13th verse.
And every firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb; and if thou wilt not redeem it, then thou shalt break his neck: and all the firstborn of man among thy children shalt thou redeem.
Then He goes back and talks about this other stuff. Right in the middle of all this, here comes a little one-verse scripture about how to redeem the ass or how to redeem this wild animal. We need to learn that when there seems to be a scripture out of place, there is always a great nugget of truth in there.
How do you redeem this ass? You redeem the thing with a lamb. That sounds a whole lot like Jesus to me.
What does this speak of?
Look first of all at Job chapter 11. We’re going to study out this creature. First of all, you need to realize that in our society the ass is not a very highly favored animal. But it is very valuable in the eastern countries. It is an animal of peace. But it has a problem — it needs to be trained and disciplined.
In Job the eleventh chapter, follow along with me because in this little verse 12 is a beautiful picture of spiritual growth. Because we're born again, were saved, our spirits are re-created, but there is a residue of the old flesh-man that has to be restrained. He has to be controlled, he has to be disciplined.
Job 11:12 12 For vain (empty) man would be wise, though man be born like a wild ass’ colt.We see here, that this animal is likened to or hooked up to a man who has no wisdom. He says a man who is born, or Adam, wants to be wise, but he is empty. He's just like this young ass’ colt. He says that one way to connect this with man is that just as this animal is empty of knowledge, and doesn't have a great deal of intelligence, so also is unregenerate man.Look over into Epehsians 4 here and we will see what we’re talking about.
Ephesians 4:17 This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,Jesus rode into Jerusalem on this creature. We believe it pictures the vehicle upon which He is coming back into the church in His presence.
18 Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:People have and are being tamed. Isn't it amazing that this naturally untamed animal would allow the Lord to be seated upon him and ride into Jerusalem with no problems, just riding peaceably?
Something happened to this ignorant animal. It's important that we understand how we relate to that.
You cannot know God naturally. There are a lot of people out there in the world who are lost, and they think they know just as much about God as anybody. And the Bible says they’re alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them.
And this is an admonition that the church not be like them.
Psalm 73: 22 So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee.That's the unregenerate man, the beast nature.