God On A Donkey

Jesus gave instructions to two of his disciples. They are told to go to the village of Bethphage and find a mother donkey and her colt tied up. They are to untie them and bring them to Jesus. They are not told what the donkeys will be used for, only that Jesus needs the animals (Matthew 21:1-11). Jesus also tells them if anyone asks you what you are doing, “Tell them the Lord needs them.”

We wonder if Jesus had some prearrangement with the owner. Did an angel visit him during the night, explaining what would happen? Was the man simply a follower of Christ? We don’t know. We know that what Jesus told the disciples to expect happened precisely as he said it would.

The Lord told his disciples that he needed the donkeys. He did not need them to ride because Jesus had walked all over Israel from one end to the other. The reason Jesus needed the animals was to reveal who he was. They time had come to announce that he was the Messiah.

Matthew is the only one of the four Gospel writers who quotes Zechariah; this took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet: “Say to Daughter Zion, ‘See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’” (Matt 21:4-5).

Five hundred years had passed since Zechariah wrote those words. Jesus asked for a colt, and he was brought one and sat on it. Jesus fulfilled the prophesy of Zechariah. Matthew says, “They brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on” (Matt 21:7). The donkey had never been ridden before but was steady under the Messiah.

Jesus rode into Jerusalem that Palm Sunday, announcing that Israel’s Messiah had arrived, just as Zechariah had said he would. By mounting that small animal, Jesus said, “If you want to know to whom the prophet was referring, he was writing about me.” 

He had begun his ministry in his home town of Nazareth the same way. He went to the synagogue where everyone would have known him. He took up the scroll of Isaiah, read it, sat down to teach, and said, “Isaiah the prophet was writing about me. I am the Messiah. The people were so offended they tried to kill Jesus.”

Today, people will admire Jesus as a good example, a teacher who taught sound moral principles to live by. But Jesus will not have us thinking he is just a good teacher. He is the Messiah, or he is a lunatic because his claims were either valid or outrageous. But the gospels do not show us a lunatic or fanatic. On the contrary, they show us a man who is balanced in every way. When Jesus rode that donkey into Jerusalem, thousands believed and received him as the Messiah. What will you do?

Heaven

People everywhere, even Christians, wonder if there is anything else to look forward to in life. Sometimes, we feel the best has come and gone. Is there anything left to long for?

In a world that is depressing with terrible news, we are bombarded by the number of murders, killings, robberies, rapes, and on and on the list goes. Turning our attention to the heaven God has prepared for us is imperative. The Bible speaks of heaven from beginning to end. John’s description informs us with exciting descriptions.

We all have experienced the injustice and impurity of this world through betrayal, treachery, and duplicity. But here is a place where no impurity or injustice exists. There will be no shame, guilt, or muck and mire of sin.

We sometimes hear stories that are so cruel they have to be authored by demons from hell. The brutality, the violation of women and children, and the complete disregard for life sicken us. People who have suffered these things, such as the hostages from Israel, will need the rest of their lives to heal, and that will not be enough. In this heaven, God has prepared, and those things do not exist because there is no sin, and nothing impure can enter.

John records hearing a loud voice from the throne, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God” (Rev 21:4).

This is more than our brains can comprehend. The stain of all the sinners—the wrecked lives and accumulated pain is gone. And, in its place, there is a heaven that has never been contaminated by sin and never will be. And why is this? Because God lives there with his people. John writes, “There will be no more death, mourning, crying, or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Rev 21:4).

God’s presence prevents sin and disallows death, mourning, crying, and pain. This describes what every heart longs for but can’t find on this earth. We wonder what can happen. Where will the next evil come from? There is always the fear of some lurking danger, the fear of our greatest enemy, sickness, and death. Here is heaven—a new heaven and earth, a holy city, the presence of God, comfort for all sorrow, and protection from any future pain.

John writes: “To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life” (Rev 21:6). This promise is designed to make us thirst for the water of life more than we thirst for anything else. We will be satisfied when we drink.

Our Resurrected Bodies

The Corinthians found it hard to believe that all Christians would be raised in a resurrected body. Just because Christ was raised in a resurrected body doesn’t mean we will be. They thought perhaps the soul lived on indefinitely, but death was the end for the body. Some of them believed the soul was pure while the body was sinful. Death was the moment they could get rid of the filthy body so the soul could experience purity. Many today believe this. The soul ascends to some other world where individuals can finally be free. This is Eastern Religion, pure and simple. Paul confronted this misunderstanding about the body with the foundational understanding of the resurrected body in 1 Corinthians 15:1-58.

Paul uses the example of a seed that sprouts into something that looks completely different than it originally did. The seed undergoes a burial and is later transformed. The seed’s DNA is built inside the seed but is not visible; later, there is an alternate change. This transformation process is out of our control. The seed is buried and left to forces outside of its control. If it has good soil, water, and sunlight, it will grow because God is the one who makes the seed grow and transform. How amazing this is every spring! Likewise, we, as believers, are buried at death like a seed. Still, God will accomplish the transformation of our bodies at the resurrection.

Paul is saying that just because individuals cannot imagine a body that is different from the one they have now does not mean it isn’t possible. God has created all kinds of bodies. Each is made for its own environment: animals for the land, birds for the air, and fish for the sea. God is the  Creator God. He has demonstrated that different bodies can thrive in a particular environment. These illustrations of the natural world help us to understand the resurrection.

We all long for the imperishable; that is evident in the incessant attempts to turn back the clock. No one has been able to make perishable life imperishable. However, individuals will try anything to lengthen their lives on this earth.  However, we can’t understand how something could go from perishable to imperishable, dishonorable to glorious, weak to strong. Paul sets forth that in the resurrection, Christians’ bodies will be raised, and their bodies will be transformed from the perishable to the imperishable, from dishonor to glory, and from weakness to power. Christianity acknowledges the longing to overcome death, disease, sickness, and even decay is natural. Still, it will only be overcome by transforming the body in the resurrection! (1 Corinthian 15:42-56).

Jesus’ resurrection body is the closest thing Christians have to an encounter with a resurrected body. Jesus was human; his disciples recognized him; he had scars and ate fish. But he was also supernatural, allowing him to walk through walls and defy the laws of gravity as he ascended.

We will have new bodies that can see, taste, hear, touch, and smell what we could never have imagined. The discoveries of heaven will be incredible because we will have a resurrected body to experience them.

God Will Reclaim His Creation

Philip Bliss wrote the hymn “Hallelujah, What a Savior” in 1875. One of the verses says, “Ruined sinners to reclaim.” That is a theme of the entire Bible. God is always reclaiming what is his. God has never surrendered his title to humanity and to this earth. He owns it---and he will not relinquish it to his enemies. David wrote, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it” (Ps 24:1).

The word redeem means to buy back to restore to its original state. Redemption is just that, whether God’s wayward people or the earth itself. God will one day restore this earth to its original design, and we will be who God intended us to be. Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things” (Matt 19:28). There will be a renewal of all things. Jesus is the creator and will make his creation as it was before sin brought devastation to it.

Jesus will redeem the earth, our culture, and everything about those he has redeemed. Isaiah wrote, “Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn” (Isaiah 60:3). Drawing from these words, John wrote: “The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it” Rev 21:24). God’s work of redemption involves the purging of human arrogance and the restoration of his creation to its original beauty and splendor. Nothing is wrong with what God has made, but the misuse of those things has distorted it. Isaiah chapter 60 is a vision of heaven—the new earth. This chapter is followed by a description of the power of Jesus’ ministry to reclaim his creation in Isaiah 61:

“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners,  to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair” (Isaiah 61:1-3).

Isaac Watts wrote “Joy To The World” not for Christmas but as a poem in 1719 based on Psalm 98: “Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things; his right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him” (Ps 98:1). This psalm is a vision of the new heaven and earth.

2 Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns!

Let men their songs employ,

while fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains

 

3 No more let sins and sorrows grow,

nor thorns infest the ground;

He comes to make His blessings flow

far as the curse is found,

Finding Strength in God

David found himself in the worst situation of his life when he returned from a journey. It was about sixty miles to his home of Ziklag, about a three-day march. When he and his men arrived, they found their homes had been raided and burned and their families and livestock gone (1 Sam 30:1). David deduced that their families had been taken alive because there were no signs of killing. He and his men wept aloud for their loss until they had no strength left (1 Sam 30:4).

The men blamed David for the situation and talked of stoning him. It had been David’s idea to leave Israel and live in Philistine territory. Maybe this whole idea had now backfired, and it had all ended in a disaster because of David.

In this moment of anxiety, David was greatly distressed, “But David found strength in the Lord his God” 1 Sam 30:6). This is an extraordinary statement that is relevant today. We, too, experience stressful situations, and it is these moments that we need to turn to the Lord for help.

David took advantage of the Priest, Abiathar, and the ephod to seek God’s guidance. We don’t know how the process worked, but it gave David guidance. It was used here as a means of asking the Lord about whether or not David and his men should pursue the raiders and whether or not they could find them. God’s answer came in the affirmative (1 Sam 30:7). David obeyed the Lord and pursued the raiders. He did not know who these raiders were, but he suspected they were the Amalekites, and he was right.

They had to be weary after a three-day march, and then to begin a forced march in pursuit of the enemy was too much for 200 of the 600 men. David left those men in the Besor Valley to rest and take care of their baggage (1 Sam 30:9).

God did not give David a detailed map of where to go, but he did send him someone who would lead them to the raiders. They found an Egyptian who had been left by his master and who was starving to death (1 Sam 30:11-12). He had been part of the raiding party, and with David’s promise that he would not be harmed, he led them to the enemy. They found the enemy celebrating their spoils and launched a surprise attack that lasted 24 hours. They recovered their families and much more.

When they returned to the other 200, some troublemakers among David’s men did not want to share spoils with them. They said, “Because they did not go out with us, we will not share with them the plunder we recovered” (1 Sam 30:22). David’s response was, “No, my brothers, you must not do that with what the Lord has given us” (1 Sam 30:23). The troublemakers’ view was we did this. On the contrary, David believed that God did this, and he has given us the spoils so they will be shared with each man. That is a view of grace. There is no room to boast.