Episode Transcript
[00:00:24] Speaker A: Hello. I'm Josh.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: And I'm Gabriel.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: And today on reading the Gospel, we are studying the event Jesus foretells his death. This is found in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 20, verse 17 through 19. It's also found in Mark, 1032 34 and Luke, chapter 18, verse 31 through 34. Follow along with us as we read out of Matthew, chapter 20, beginning in verse 17.
[00:00:55] Speaker B: And as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside. And on the way he said to.
[00:01:04] Speaker A: Them, see, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the son of man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be raised on a third day.
This is a very short, brief, jarring event. Is this the first time Jesus has told his disciples that he's going to die?
[00:01:35] Speaker B: No. In fact, this is the third time.
The first time was in Matthew, chapter 16, that turning point in Jesus ministry called Caesarea Philippi, when Jesus Christ asked his disciples, who do you think that I am? And Peter had that amazing statement of faith. You are Messiah, the son of the living God.
And from that moment on, Jesus trusted his disciple with this new revelation that he will be betrayed and he will suffer and he will die. The second one was in Matthew, chapter 17, in verse 2022 and 23, it's a gathering in Galilee. And Jesus said, the son of man is about to be delivered into the hands of men and they will kill him and he will be raised on the third day.
The first time, Peter kind of rejected that and said, God forbids. I mean, I'm here to protect you. That will never happen. This time, the end of verse 23, it says, and they were greatly distressed. And now for the third time, it's right here in Matthew, chapter 20.
[00:02:56] Speaker A: And Jesus goes into great details. We would call this a prophecy because this had not happened yet. Jesus is prophesying about what will happen just over a week from now, coming up as the events that will unfold.
[00:03:14] Speaker B: And I like that you call this prophecy because in this sequence of three, we can identify one of the fundamental principles of reading prophecy. That is, in the beginning, the prophecy is distant, and you don't have that many details. As we approach to that time, more details are visible. Maybe they were there in the text, but we could not correlate them with real life, with politics and history. So this time, the third time, we have the most details. That is, the chief priests and the scribes.
They will condemn him to death and he will be delivery to the Gentiles, to the Romans, that he will be mocked and flogged and crucified.
It's like a sequence of all those events on Friday. Very well detailed.
[00:04:15] Speaker A: So this repeat and expand is happening here when, just another example, we find it in Daniel two, the image of Daniel.
It goes over the history of this earth from Daniel's point on. And then Daniel seven and Daniel chapter eight. We have two other prophecies that expand and enlarge that there's four beasts in one, and then there's a ram and a goat in another, and there's more descriptions.
So this is the same thing. And we find it in revelation. Two more descriptions. Jesus is being very plain because his disciples are about to go through a traumatic event.
They're about to lose their leader. They're still, I think, at this point, waiting for Jesus to become the earthly Messiah, to restore the nation of Israel.
And I think we see this in the very next event that we're going to study.
They're still fighting over position, but Jesus is trying to be very explicit so they will be prepared for what coming.
[00:05:31] Speaker B: As we get closer to something specific in life, the external evidence in the prophecy, in the scripture, in God's providence, starts to correlate with the internal evidence. What the Holy Spirit is telling us, what the heart is understanding, those whispers or impressions of the spirit. So the internal reality harmonizes with the external reality as we get closer to that event.
[00:06:04] Speaker A: Yeah. And so for the disciples, these are the ones who wrote many of these stories, wrote the Bible and shared it with others who wrote it down.
When they're looking back, they see, oh, he was telling us this.
[00:06:19] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:06:20] Speaker A: He was preparing us for this.
[00:06:22] Speaker B: In hindsight, you see more details.
You see, you get the right perspective.
[00:06:29] Speaker A: But as you're living through it, it's sometimes hard.
[00:06:32] Speaker B: It's hard to see.
[00:06:34] Speaker A: I guess you could use that illustration, see the forest through the trees, where we're so focused on what's right in front of us that we miss the big picture.
[00:06:44] Speaker B: I like to say a couple of words about internal evidence that I mentioned. I see in the beginning Jesus Christ is hinting to these events, describing them as distant.
This time, Jesus Christ talks about something that is imminent, and not only that is imminent and external, that something that he has already embraced, that is part of who he is. Jesus knows that he was born to die and he knows that that moment is very. Is very close.
He understands the meaning of his death. He's dying for us, not for himself.
And he, as he gets closer to this event, I understand that he communicated with his father more about this topic and that communication. I mean, those nights of prayer climaxing with that amazing prayer in the garden of Gethsemane.
So those conversations have established this truth as an internal evidence in his heart.
And I'm looking at Jesus Christ as an example for us. In the same way, the external evidence, the prophecy in the Old Testament, synchronized with the internal evidence, what the father told him.
In the same way in our lives, external evidence, that is the Bible, prophecy, the world we are going through, the way we understand it, the way we perceive it, synchronizes with the internal evidence, what the Holy Spirit tells us, and that becomes one and only reality.
I remember when my mom came to me. I was far away from home. I was taking a very intensive class. And at seven in the morning, someone told me, your mom is waiting outside, she would like to talk to you. Really? It's so far away from her home.
She looked into my eyes, she gave me a hug and she said, I came to tell you that both the external evidence, what the doctors told me, as well as the internal evidence, what the Holy Spirit told me, has led to the same conclusion. I'm absolutely convinced that sometime soon I'm going to die.
And she says, I came to tell you face to face, not in a letter or over the phone. So this is how God is working in our lives. Of course, we have to be very careful to not have our other internal voices turn up too much. So we have to turn down all the noise in life, all those voices of the world around us, so we can listen to the voice of the spirit.
[00:09:33] Speaker A: And to know that we're hearing the voice of the spirit, we need to study the word of God. Yes, my son is getting older now, and he oftentimes sounds like me. And so my wife can't take for granted because someone says something in the house, it's me. It could be my son now.
And so she needs to find out from the context, from what is saying, who is talking to her.
The same thing's true for us. We can't take the thoughts and impressions of our heart alone. We must take it with scripture, test it against what we read in the word of God.
It is beautiful that God prepares us for what we have.
And it's amazing to be able to look back and see as we've gone through events, that God was there with us.
[00:10:28] Speaker B: In this passage, there is no reaction of the disciples, at least not recorded here in the first one, the first time Peter said, no, you can't do that, Lord.
In the second, they are very greatly distressed now. They realized that something great, something amazing is going to happen soon.
And as you will see in the next episode, some didnt get it. They expected it to be the coronation of the new messiah. But at the same time they realized there is something different than the expectation.
[00:11:06] Speaker A: And Luke, chapter 18, verse 34 gives us more information that Matthew doesnt. It says, but they understood. Speak you the disciples, none of these things.
This saying was hidden from them and they did not grasp what was said.
I don't know how much plainer Jesus could have gotten, but it was hidden from them. I think there are times where we allow the word of God to be hidden from us. The word of God's there, but our hearts are not in a place to receive it. I think of Pharaoh as God is revealing himself to Pharaoh through the plagues of Egypt.
Instead of the hand of God warming and melting and drawing Pharaoh's heart and drawing him close to Pharaoh, each and every plague drives him further away.
And we have that ability as well.
So it's very important for us to have an open heart to come to God and to be willing to be wrong, to be willing to be changed, to be willing to realize that what we thought was true is not actually true.
We need to be flexible when it comes to God.
[00:12:33] Speaker B: What I take from this passage is the careful, intentional way of Jesus to prepare his disciples for that bitter disappointment.
And Jesus Christ practically, he said, don't forget, in a couple of days they're going to receive us as a king and the royal court.
I'm going to do the cleansing of the temple, and nobody will be able to stand me. I'm going to show you some of the secrets of the kingdom.
The last chapters, the Gospel of Matthew before crucifixion, are spoken during that week. But don't forget, at the end of the week you will be really disappointed because this, and this is going to happen.
Jesus Christ helps us avoid developing illusions and false expectations, and he wants us to keep us away from disappointment. But we have to listen to it. The first time they listen and they said no, they reject it. The second time they are distressed. This time it seems that they are not impressed that much because their minds were on a new king and we have to get as close as possible to him.
[00:13:57] Speaker A: Yeah, and as you said, the triumphal entry is only a few days away, but I'm sure there was already a buzz. There were people excited and looking forward to what Jesus was going to do, and I'm wondering if they were caught up in that, waiting for the installation of the Messiah.
[00:14:13] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. We'll see in the next episode about a mother's request for two of Jesus disciples that they were caught into that.
[00:14:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Let's pray, Father, just as you shared so openly with the disciples, you share with us. You share with us what will take place in the near future and what will take place in the distant future. And I pray that we will be students of your word.
[00:14:45] Speaker B: Amen.
[00:14:46] Speaker A: I pray, Father, that if there are areas of the Bible that we've not understood correctly, that you will correct us and help us to see it for what it is.
[00:14:57] Speaker B: Amen.
[00:14:58] Speaker A: And I pray that if there are areas that we are blinding ourselves to because of preconceived ideas, that you will take away those blinders.
[00:15:10] Speaker B: Amen.
[00:15:12] Speaker A: Help us to be ready for when Jesus comes on that day. Help us to accept the gift of a salvation in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.
