Once again, taking your Bibles and turn to Matthew chapter 21. We're going to be looking at the first 32 verses. I'm going to come break this up a little bit. I'm going to start verse one. When they drew nigh unto Jerusalem and were come to Bethphage, Bethphage, unto the Mount of Olives, they sent Jesus to disciples. saying unto them, go into the village over against you, and straightaway ye shall find an ass tied in a colt with her. Loose them and bring them unto me. And if any man say aught unto you, he shall say the Lord hath need of them, and straightaway he will send them. The title this morning is The All-Knowing Christ, The All-Knowing Christ. There is a story of a farmer and his little boy. The farmer went over to his neighbor's field to steal some potatoes and took his little boy with him. He first looked every way, north, south, east, and west. Then he began to put the potatoes in the bag. The little boy wisely said, father, you forgot to look one way. You forgot to look up. We must never forget to look up. He sees everything we do. He knows all about us and he will call us to account of every deed done in this life. 2 Corinthians chapter five and verse 10 says, for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ that everyone may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. Of course, Paul's talking to the church there at Corinth. Some, like Spurgeon and some other ones, believe in a general judgment. And this is not talking about a general judgment. It's talking about the judgment seat of Christ, the behemoth seat of Christ that Christians, only Christians, will stand before. So the final judgment is the great white throne judgment where All lost will be judged and cast into the lake of fire. This is not that place. And there is a difference between this judgment and that judgment that will happen to the lost. We will be judged by Christ, not for our sins, because they are repaid for on the cross, but for our works, what we have done or not done in the flesh. So according to that, Paul is writing again to a church. He's not writing to every person on the face of the earth. This is a direct letter to that church and explaining to them what's going to happen to the Christian person. Next, we notice how prophecy was fulfilled in the life of Christ 450 years before the time. Zechariah 9, 9 prophesied that Christ would come into Jerusalem riding on a donkey, and it happened just as he prophesied. Zechariah 9, 9 says, rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion, shout, O daughter of Jerusalem, behold, the King cometh unto thee. He is just and having salvation lowly and riding upon an ass and upon a colt, the foal of an ass. we can know surely that the prophecy of his second coming will be as literal as his first. The Lord Jesus Christ knew all things. He knew God's will for him. He knew why he came into the world. As we study this 21st chapter this morning, we can understand that he knew his earthly ministry was drawing to a close. He knew the hour was approaching when he must finish the work the Father gave him to do. By dying on the cross, we see him presenting himself to the people as the Messiah and King. We will see three things in this 21st chapter this morning, wonderful things were done And there were tears of joy and singing Hosanna, which is an explanation used in praise of God or Christ to the son of David. Now, true worship has been restored to the house of God and the Lord is blessing once again. A great revival will always break out when God's people repent and do things the right way. I am a stickler on this, folks, that when we do these things, that when we do these things, I kind of got ahead of myself there, but I turned two pages instead of one. But I'll just stop there a minute and say that I really get aggravated. I mean, really get aggravated at our preachers, our Baptist preachers that want to say that America needs revival. America does not need revival. America needs to repent. You cannot revive unless you have repented. And I cannot get that in their heads. They want to argue that. And they can argue it. Let them go ahead and argue it. But you can never have revival if there isn't repentance. Got to have it first. So America needs to repent. Christian people in America need to repent because they have sinned against the Holy Sovereign God. Until they recognize that, until they see that, there will never be a revival in this country or in the church. You'll never have revival. You know, we have churches that are having revivals. That's fine. We have churches that have Bible conferences. That's fine too. But if the church isn't in repentance, It's not gonna be revived. You can have all the revivals you want, and they will not be because they're not repented. So what we wanna see here in the first 11 verses is presentation in verses one through 11, which I'll read. Then we wanna see the purification in verses 12 through 17, and then the parable here in verses 28 through 32. So let's look at the presentation. We've already read the first three verses here, so let's read on. All this was done that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophet, saying, Tell you the daughter of Zion, behold, the king cometh unto thee, meek and sitting on an ass, and a colt, the foal of an ass. And the disciples went and did as Jesus commanded them. and brought the ass and the colt and put on them their clothes, and they set him thereon. And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way. Others cut down branches from the trees and strawed them in the way. And the multitude that went before And that followed, cried St. Hosanna to the son of David, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest. And when he was come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, who is this? And the multitude said, this is Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth of Jerusalem. Galilee now just pause there for a minute. You know, I was raised a Lutheran for 11 years and this kind of stuff was Basically rehearsed and it was done and there's in other countries. This is continually done and You know they're they're rehearsing something that was already done and it was done one time for a reason and It doesn't need to be kept doing over and over. And that's what the Catholics do. They keep doing it over and over and over again. You know, you want to put Christ back on the cross. Well, he's not there. You know, you know, the folks that are hearing this, listen, this crisis isn't there. He sits on the right hand of God, the father, he makes intercession for us. When Stephen was stoned to death, he actually stood up and received him. And I believe he does the same thing for us. So you need to keep rehearsing it and rehashing it over and over. It makes people feel religious, okay? That's what it's all it's doing, but they're not. They're any more religious than they were when they started doing it. So it's of no avail. Christ did it. It was a one-time thing. This was the purpose. There was a purpose for this. He was preparing for the cross. He's not going back here, folks. He's not going to do it again. So why keep rehearsing it over and over and over again? We want to tell the story, of course, but we want you to understand that it's not accomplishing anything. What we're after is to see lost souls saved and come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. That's what we want. So in this presentation, We had the perfect knowledge. He had the perfect knowledge of all things. He knew where the donkey was tied, or ass, whatever you want to call it. He knew that she had a colt by her side. He knew what the owner would say. Nothing is hidden from his eyes. And this is the whole thing. You know, I used to watch a TV show out of Cleveland At noontime, every time, I think it was either right before or right after the news, I can't remember, but the show was called Captain Penny. And after every show, he said, you can fool some of the people some of the times, you can fool some of the people all the time, but you can't fool mom, okay? Well, you can fool me and you can fool the congregation, you can fool somebody else, but you can't fool God, okay? He's always there all the time, never sleeps, never rests, He's there present with us. He knows exactly what's going on. He knows what our heart is thinking. He knows what our heart is feeling. He knows what we're, you know, our constant thoughts are. So we have to be careful because you can't fool him. So we have to be understanding that nothing is hid from his eyes. Today, he sees us in the daylight. He sees us in the darkness of night. He knows what's going on. He knows what's happening. We can hide from every person on the earth, but we cannot hide from him. The all-seeing eyes of God are looking and he sees every move we make. People would just get that, if I would just get that. If we would all understand it and we would all realize that when we wake up in the morning that God is there and he sees and he knows and how, if he was actually there, how would we behave? See, there's a song says, if Jesus came to your house, you know, would there be a difference? Would you dust off the Bible that's got You know, it's just a dust on it because you haven't opened it for days or weeks or months. What would you do different? So something to consider because he is. Just because we can't see him doesn't make it any less important for us. Then we see the purification here that is done and we find this kind of ironic because I've heard other preachers preach on this. You know, you guys need to go back to kindergarten because I just don't have it. I mean, I don't understand how you can read these verses scriptures and come up with something entirely different than what it says. But we see this purification being done where we see Jesus is cleansing the temple. And I just wrote an article here not too long ago when God cleans house. God cleans house. There's a reason why he cleans house. Gotta get rid of the junk, gotta get rid of the bad stuff, the dust and those who aren't doing anything, get rid of them. If they're not doing any good, then God's gonna clean the house if we don't. But it says, 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 money changers and the seats of them that sold doves. Now, there's a difference between you and I, or I won't say you, but there's a difference between me and what Jesus did. Because I would've got mad. I would've got so angry, I probably would've got so mad at what happened here, maybe would've just whipped out my gun and shot them all. But that's the difference. Jesus was angry, but he didn't do anything bad. But they knew that he was angry. They knew that he was upset. And he said unto them, it is written, my house shall be called the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves. And the blind and lame came to him in the temple and he healed them." Okay, so here in this little verse of scripture here, we see what Christ did. He cleaned it out, okay? Then what happened? Well, then there was repentance, see? There was repentance and then there was a revival, but it had to be cleaned out. And I'm sure there was a lot of them in there. And I'll get to it in a minute, because John gives us a little bit better picture of what actually happened here. And when the chief priest and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did and the children crying in the temple and saying, Hosanna to the son of David, they were sore displeased. and said unto him, hearest thou what these say? And Jesus saith unto them, yea, have ye never read out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou have perfect praise? And he left them and went out of the city into Bethany and he lodged there. So we have several things going on here. So before the church can be blessed, it must be cleansed of her sin and of those that are contrary to her beliefs." And somebody commented on my message, I don't know if it was last week or that, and he says, somebody commented, can't remember who it was, but he said, they told me, he says, you know, they locked the part where I told him, there's the door, get out, you know, there's the door. And I'm sure that when Christ was cleaning the house, there was a lot of them that, didn't have to be told what to do, they knew already. And that's why I said, when we get to John, we'll show you what actually happened there. I believe we live in a day where there is too much lack, a daisicalness in the house of God, and the lack of reverence is not there. I can take you to any given church on this block, on the next block, one over there, and I can show you where there's no reverence, what is supposedly the house of God. There's no reverence. So as we look at verse 12 and 13, we see Jesus is not happy with what is going on. For one, they were selling to fill their own pockets. That's what the house of God's for. They were selling to just, Anyone that came in no, that's not how it's done and I've criticized people I'm gonna tell you right now you want to get on my bad side then when you go down the road or you live in your little community and somebody's having a spaghetti social or Ice cream social and you go in there and you participate you're putting your money for their ministry Your money is supposed to back there in the box and for this church, not for them. And I'm telling you that if you do that, that is absolutely wrong, because you're supporting that organization. That's why they have it. Do you go to the Catholic rummage sale and buy stuff? You're supporting the Catholic church, because that's why they're having it. You know, one of my best friends at work, you know what he told me one time? He says, you wanna get, because he knew we was building. He knew I was a missionary down here. He says, you know the best way to get money? I said, how's that? He says, have a rubbing sale. We brought in $60,000 in one weekend. Let's cap it. I said, well, that sounds good, brother. It sounds really good. But I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that. It has to come from God's people. And that's where it came from. This building came from God's people. No one outside. And there's scripture for that, too. We were getting into that this morning. Monies brought in should be for the ties of God's people that want to see the church grow, not to make one rich materialistically. Now, turn over to John chapter two. Hold your place there, because we'll be back. John gives us, he's the only one that really gives us what happened. And I know he's sitting here, and I don't want him to get a swelled head over this, which I know he won't. But the first time I've ever seen this is Brother Ray preached it. This is the first time I've ever seen this. And John's the only one that gives us the total account of this. But in chapter two of John, verse 13, here's what happened. Now, let me get to the right place here. John 2, verse 13. And the Jews' Passover was at hand and Jesus went up to Jerusalem and he found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves and the changers of money sitting. So you get the picture of what's going on right here. And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple and the sheep and the oxen and poured out the changers money and over through the tables. So there's a little bit more going on here than what Matthew describes. So here, you gotta picture this. Picture yourself in this condition. You're there. Christ walks in. He doesn't say anything. But he starts to make this scourge. He's braiding this scourge. And as he's doing this, he's looking. Now, if you want to talk to my daughter about the look, she'll tell you about the look. Because all I had to do was look, and she'd start bawling right away. My son was a little bit different. I would have had to take two by four and knock him in the head before he would do anything. So you got these people in there. and he's making this scourge. And I can guarantee you, there was a bunch of them that, they left. They knew what they did was wrong. They knew what they were doing was wrong. But the stubborn ones, nope, they had to stay to see what was gonna happen. So the whole time that Jesus is doing this, he's giving them the opportunity to leave. So the ones who didn't leave are gonna pay the price, right? So we pick that up and we say, so he went at him. He threw over the money, he threw over the tables, and he was angry. It was a God's house. It was his father's house that they were doing this in. And he said unto them, that Saul does, take these, hence, make not my father's house a house of merchandise. And as the disciples remembered that it was written, the zeal of thine house has eaten me up. Then answered the Jews and said unto him, what signs showest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things? Jesus answered and said unto them, destroy this temple in three days, I will raise it up. Well, there's how ignorant they were. Because he wasn't talking about the materialistic temple. He's talking about himself. Then said the Jews, 40 and six years, see they didn't get it, was the temple in building and wilt thou rear it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body. When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them and they believed the scripture and the word, which Jesus had said. Now, when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover in the feast day, many believed in his name when they saw the miracles which he did. But Jesus did not commit himself unto them because he knew all men and needed not that any should testify of man for he knew what was in man. So once again, he knows what is in us. He knows what we're doing 24 seven. We can't fool him. You can try. Like I said, you can try to fool me. You can try to fool each other. That's all well and good, but you can't fool God. It just comes down to that. So then he then tells those that are left what the house of God is and what it is not. So if you're so ignorant you're gonna sit there the whole time Jesus is making this scourge, then you ain't got a sense in your head because there's no way that I would be there at that particular point in time. He start making this, he starts giving me the eye, I'm gone. And that's the way God's people should be. They should know better. They should absolutely know better. Now look what happened after the temple had been purified and was set in order on how the house of God should be used. We see a great miracle takes place. The blind and lame are healed. See, that couldn't have been done because the people would not have been in the right mind. They would have not been in the right spirit about things. He had to clean the house. So again, as I mentioned earlier, when I got ahead of myself here, wonderful things were done. And there were tears of joy and singing Hosanna and exhalation again used in praise of God or Christ to the son of David. And again, now true worship has been restored to the house of God and the Lord is blessing once again. A great revival will always break out when God's people repent and do things the right way. And again, I'll reiterate, can have all the revivals in the world, but if the church doesn't repent, or if America doesn't repent, the world doesn't repent, folks, there's no revival. You just can't have it. So, preachers that are listening, you better change your act, and you got four years to do it. Because after that, the hammer's gonna fall. If Christ don't come back in the next four years, then look out. We have an opportunity here. We have an opportunity to reach a lost world. We have an opportunity to reach a lost America. We have an opportunity to reach lost West Jefferson people. Let's take all advantage of it and use the next four years to do so. Then lastly, in our lesson here, in this message, we see the parables that are done. Look at verse 28. But what, Christ says here, but what think ye? A certain man had two sons. And he came to the first and said, son, go work today in my vineyard. He answered and said, I will not. But afterward, he repented and went. We're in Matthew 21, 21 verse, chapter 21, 28, verse 29. Again, he said, he answered and said, I will not. But after he repented and went, and he came to the second and said, likewise, and he answered and said, I go, sir, and went not. Whither of them Twain did the will of his father? They say unto him, the first, Jesus saith unto them, verily I say unto you, that the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came unto you in the way of righteousness and you believed him not, but the publicans, and the harlots believed him. And ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward that ye might believe him. So it is interesting how Jews in this parable describes many church members today. On the one hand, we see those that are a little stubborn at first, but because they listen to the leadership of the Holy Spirit, they repent and do what the Lord has called them to do. That's why the training, that's why the understanding, that's why the love and compassion. Can't expect people to come through that door and know everything we know, everything that we believe, that's be an impossibility. So we train them, we teach them, we show them, A lot better than what these other churches are doing, because they've accepted all these things that we reject. Then we see those who are all talk and no action. They talk a good game, but when it is time to get down to it, they are nowhere to be found. Who would you rather have working for you? You know how many times that I was with the pastor of the church I belonged to on visitation night? And that was it. Brother Ray would have visitation on Thursday night. You know who showed up? I did. And now I want to pat on the back. I went to another church. You know who showed up? I did. And I don't wanna pat on the back, that's not what I'm telling you this. The one church was head over 80 members. Who showed up? I did. Folks, I don't wanna hear what you're gonna do. I wanna see what you're gonna do. Don't tell me what you're gonna do, show me. Those are the people that are the ones that are gonna serve God, and as he says, be holy as I am holy, as we talked about this morning. Big difference, big difference. Then we see Jesus pointing out to them that the very ones they look down on and reject are the very ones that God has saved and used for his purpose. the most unlikely to us, right? That's why the question was asked in the forum. It says, well, how do you witness to a lesbian or a gay person the same way you would to anybody else that's lost? The same way. So we don't see that. We don't see color. We don't see, we don't, you know, we see that there's sin, but we don't, if you get to the right place in your life that you're not gonna, you're not gonna be prejudiced. You're not gonna judge that person. And I have a lot of people that, well, you're judging me. I'm not judging you. I'm just showing you what the Bible says. It's a big difference. Huge difference. God sent John the Baptist. How'd they receive him? They didn't. They rejected him. I mean, after all, wasn't he a wild man? Wasn't he dressed weird? Didn't he eat weird? Who wants to listen to him? See, the Jews had no dealings with Peloponnesians. They were scum in their eyes and could have no change to rest in God's kingdom. That's how they viewed them. But those are the very ones God will add to his kingdom. What about the good Samaritan? Isn't that what happened? Samaritans were hated by the chiefs. I mean, they were just, again, they were the scums of the earth. And the important ones of the Jewish religion that should have been doing the right thing didn't. They turned a blind eye. Dumb their nose at them and says, you ain't even worth bothering looking at. That's not what God called us. That's not why God put us in his church. In a harlot, who wants to go talk to a harlot about Jesus Christ? Well, they would never give them the time of day. What good would it do to tell them about God? They had already judged them to death, not knowing the judgment of the Lord. Basically what they're saying, oh, we don't care about what God thinks. We don't care about what Jesus thinks. We don't care about what the Lord is thinking. We know what we think and you're just scum of the earth and we ain't gonna pay you no mind. And that's the way the people treat. It is the same today. Many are deceived by the so-called religious leaders of today. You know what they wanna do? And you can see it on TV, you can see it on the internet. They fill the church building with people, and then they make out like they're some kind of prophet and healing person, and then they heal people in there, and it's not even being healed. I told you before, a couple weeks ago, if you had that power, what would you do? If you had that power, if you really had the power that the apostles had to go out and heal somebody, did Jesus tell them to go in the temple and heal them? No, he said to go out into the streets. That's what we would be doing. we would be going out there. And the ones that are sick and the ones that are afflicted, the ones that are in the hospital, those that have dementia and Alzheimer's and all this other stuff, we would be healing them if we had that power. We don't have that power, God does. It's not for show. But when we preach the gospel to a person that does not know Jesus Christ, that's what we're doing. We're healing that person. person with the gospel. I can't save them, but God sure can. Don't we many times set judgment on someone without thinking that they could possibly be one of God's elect? Sure we do. Paul said in 1 Corinthians chapter four and verse five, therefore judge, nothing before the time until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the counsel of the hearts, and then shall every man have praise to God. Let us always remember, God sees all and knows all. May God bless His word in your heart today.