Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Palm Sunday Parade

Good Morning and a thank you kids and parents for demonstrating the Palm Sunday event for us all this morning.

As many of you probably know, this is the beginning of the most significant week in the Christian Calendar.

We traditionally referred to this week as Holy Week.

It begins by commemorating the “Triumphal Entry” when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the foal of a donkey to the shouts and praises of large crowds.

The Gospel writer Matthew tells this story in this way:

Matthew 21

and then a few verses later we find children taking what they saw their parents do and bringing the same declaration into the halls of the Temple.

This is exactly like children isn’t it?

The adults were too prim and proper to keep following Jesus into the Temple with their declarations of Hosanna, but the kids were fine with this.

Of course the religious leaders were not going to let these things go unchallenged.

They might not have been able to do anything to stop the public cry of the people in the streets, but they did see an opportunity to put a stop the voices of these children…but Jesus had another perspective to offer.

Some people believe that in a religious setting children should be seen but not heard, that is not how Jesus saw it.

And that is not how we see things here at Friendship Church either.

We love that children are actively involved in our services each Sunday and especially today...

Matthew 21:14-16

So thank you kids for your demonstration, Jesus is proud of the praise that you have given Him this morning.

And of course we know the rest of the story of this week in history.

We know that the energy and excitement over Jesus as He came into Jerusalem would be short lived.

Not just for the religious leaders, they were never excited about Jesus’ presence, but for the people who proclaimed “Hosanna”.

Even the parents of the children who were just emulating their parents in declaring their “Hosannas” will less than a week later drastically changed their tune.

The crowds in Jerusalem went from declaring Jesus to be blessed with cries of “Hosanna” to declaring him to be cursed with cries of “Crucify Him”.

Talk about a major pendulum shift.

Tension

This kind of shift is not unfamiliar to us is it?

As we have been working our way through the first 5 books of the Bible in the “Gospel Project” we have often found the children of Israel going from one extreme to another.

At one point they are singing songs of blessings as the LORD has sent them a rescuer named Moses to lead them out of slavery in Egypt and in a very short while they are grumbling against the same Moses, declaring that blessing to be a curse… “Oh that we could be back in Egypt!” they would say.

This cycle went on throughout their journey from Egypt... to the mountain of God... until finally they reached the edge of the promised land.

And despite all that God did for them, last week we saw how 10 of the 12 spies that were sent into the promised land brought back a “bad” report of both the land and the people who lived there.

So they refuse to follow the LORD into the land that He had promised to give them.

Remember this had been the plan all along.

Many generations ago the LORD had promised Abraham, Isaac and Jacob

Their

That He would make them into a people - they were a mighty people, known throughout the world as the People of God

He would make them into a people - and He did.

He would make them into a people - and He did.

He appoint a new leader to l and once again they attempted to reject Moses and the LORD and appoint a new leader and head back to Egypt.

That He would give them a place - they were standing on the edge of it

That He would give them His presence as a blessing that would radiate out to every family in the world - they had followed that presence to this very point and time...

But just as they were about to receive everything that LORD had promised - they refused to follow Him one more step.

They rejected the leadership of the LORD.

They rejected His appointed leader, Moses.

The decided to appoint a New Leader and make their way back to Egypt.

So once again the LORD declares to Moses His desire to wipe out all these people and start over.

And once again we find Moses interceding on behalf of the people for the glory of name of the LORd and once again we find the LORD relenting form His desire to wipe them all out.

But in His justice He can not reward their rebellion.

So once again the LORD declares to Moses His desire to wipe out all these people and start over.

And once again we find Moses interceding on behalf of the people for the glory of the LORD.

This group of former slaves had become a people.

They were the Isrealite people and the fame of their God YHWY was known througout the World.

Moses cries out to the LORD to not tarnish His name by destroying His people.

And the LORD relents once again, but in His justice He can not reward their rebellion.

Each of these times, Moses cries out to the LORD to not destroy the people.

Moses, the one the people were grumbling against, repeatedly acts as a mediator and steps in to appeal to the LORD on behalf of the people who were rejecting both him and the LORD.

And when Moses cries out, the LORD relents once again, but in His justice He does not reward their rebellion.

So the leaders who were trying to lead the people away from the LORD were struck down immediately (Leaders are always held to a higher standard) and the rest of the people who refused to enter into the promised land were sentenced to wander in the wilderness for the rest of their lives.

So the 10 leaders who were trying to lead the people away from the LORD and back to Egypt were struck down immediately.

Throughout Scripture God is clear that He holds the leaders of His people to a higher standard.

And the rest of the people who refused to enter into the promised land were sentenced to wander in the wilderness for the remainder of their lives.

This circles us back to our Palm Sunday Parade, because their children would be allowed to enter the promised land.

They would all wander in the wilderness for the 40 years, but eventually when every one of the parents had passed away, their children will return to find themselves in a similar scenario.

As a parent, there is little that frightens me more than to imagine what kind of things my children will face after I am gone.

I am sure I am not the only parent that does this, but sometimes I see cultural, social or moral trends in our society and I wonder if my children will have they need to stand against those wrong things in 10, 15 or 20 years.

What are the things that I can and should be impressing on my children right now that will help them to make the right decisions when the time comes.

I think those are healthy questions for any parent to ask.

I wonder if the Israelite parents asked that question.

I wonder if in their better days, they took their children aside and told them the story of the “10 were bad and 2 were good”.

Maybe not with the hand motions, but at least reminded them of the consequences that came with the mistakes that they made against the LORD and his servant Moses.

In our text for today, we have moved forward through those 40 years of wandering.

The people of the Israel that we encounter in our text today are the Children of the people that we were talking about last week.

As we read through the text, we get some idea that the children might have learned something from the mistakes of the parents, but more than that, we will be introduced to one of the most vivid pictures of the Gospel in the entire Old Testament.

Today we are going to look at a story in the book of Numbers that makes it seem that the children of those who left Egypt did in fact learn some things from their parents on how to respond to the instructions of the LORD.

And more than that, we will see one of the most vivid pictures of the Gospel in all the the Old Testament.

I love how God is able to weave these kinds of things together - trust me I do not have the foresight to make this kind of thing happen.

It is only God’s grace on all of us that the message on would be such a great picture of Easter week.

I love how God is able to weave these kinds of things together - trust me I do not have the foresight to make this kind of thing happen.

It is only God’s grace on all of us that the message on would have such a rich connection to our Easter week.

So turn there with me if you will, (P.

184), Ill pray and we will dive into the smash up of these two great stories together.

Truth

As I said in the introduction, at this point God’s People are very close to the promised land again, only these are the children of the Children of Israel from last week.

These children, now grown up, encounter a similar challenge that their parents did and at first they respond just like their parents - but then... they do something their parents never really found their way to:

Numbers 21:4-

Here is a question, “How can you loathe food when there isn’t any?”

Again we find the same nonsensical response from the grown children.

They are not thinking clearly, they have become impatient with this whole thing and the begin grumbling just like their parents.

We should not be too quick to judge them, as we get “impatient” when the line at the grocery store is longer than we have time for.

They are impatient because they have haven’t seen a market in 40 years and have been eating the same food…every day.

When was the last time you ate the same food for two meals in a row?

Still, that is not excuse to accuse the LORD or his appointed leader Moses.

They were not the ones that brought this on.

They would ready to enter the Promise land 40 years earlier.

In fact, it was those that they were accusing that kept them from dying by providing the “worthless food”.

The idea of “biting the hand that feeds you” comes to mind.

And speaking of biting, God is not slow in sending his judgement for their rebellion:

But the parents are gone, can’t blame them so they speak against the only leadership they can.

This was as bad of a decision for them as it was for their parents.

Numbers 21:6

The idea that judgement comes in response to sin and rebellion is not new, but sending out snakes is.