Faith Walk / William Carroll
We will be talking about the word of God and how he moved in my life as I stood on his word. His signs and wonders that I have seen during the last forty years praying for my needs and the needs of others. I hope to encourage a new generation of believers to pray the word of God and to believe that He will move on their behalf. God answers prayers!
Faith Walk / William Carroll
Ep 78 Jesus’ Triumphant Entry
Have you ever been so focused on looking for something that you completely missed it right in front of you? In this thought-provoking exploration of Matthew 21, we journey through Jesus's triumphant entry into Jerusalem—that pivotal moment when crowds laid palm branches at His feet while religious leaders remained oblivious to the Messiah they'd been desperately praying for.
The imagery is striking: Jesus riding humbly on a donkey, fulfilling ancient prophecy as common people recognize His authority and authenticity. Meanwhile, in the temple, religious scholars who had dedicated their lives to studying Messianic prophecies completely miss His arrival because it doesn't match their expectations. They wanted a warrior-king to overthrow Roman occupation, not a humble teacher arriving on a colt. Their desire to maintain religious power blinded them to the very miracle they claimed to seek.
This powerful parallel resonates deeply with modern church experience. How often do we miss God's movements simply because they don't align with our denominational expectations or traditions? I share a poignant conversation with an elderly church member who remembered Baptist tent revivals from decades ago that "were more Pentecostal than Pentecostal churches today"—a sobering reminder that God's Spirit transcends our religious categories and labels. The challenge for all believers remains the same: will we recognize God's work even when it doesn't match our preconceived notions of how revival should look?
Join us in praying, "Lord, start a fire in me that might spread like wildfire" to our churches and communities. When we open ourselves to God's unexpected movements, we create space for transformative revival that goes beyond our limited understanding. Listen now and discover how to avoid becoming so religious that you miss the Messiah in your midst.
Well, welcome to Faith Walk Podcast, episode 78. And we finished up Matthew, chapter 20, so we're going to be looking at Matthew, chapter 21. And I really love this chapter. I really love the text that we're going to be talking about, because I can picture it in my mind. Let's say our faith walk prayer. Lord, open our eyes to see as you see. Open our ears to hear as you hear. Open our mouth to speak as you speak. Open our heart, lord, to feel what you feel. Lord, let my hands and my feet be your hands and feet. Lord to go into the world to serve others, to share your word with them, father, to put a smile on their face, to lift them up in Jesus's name, amen. So let's go ahead and get into the word. It says Matthew.
Speaker 1:Gospel of Matthew, chapter 21, verse 1,. It says now, when they drew near Jerusalem and came to Bethpage at the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples. He says go into the village opposite of you and immediately you'll find a donkey and a colt with her. Loose them and bring them to me and if anyone says anything to you, say the Lord has need of them and immediately they will send you with them. This was done that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophets saying tell the daughter as I behold your king is coming to you, lowly and sitting on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey. So the disciples went and did as Jesus commanded and they brought the donkey in the cult and they laid them on their clothes and they set him. They laid their clothes on them and they set him on them and a very great multitude spread their clothes on the road. Others cut down branches from the trees and spread them on the road. Then the, the multitudes who went before them, those who followed out, cried saying Hosanna to the Son of David, blessed, is he who comes in the name of the Lord Hosanna in the highest. And when he had come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved saying who is this? So the multitudes said this is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth of Galilee.
Speaker 1:And I'm going to stop right there because I want to talk about this a little bit. Listen, this is one of my. I love this scripture, I love this text right here, and this is talking about what we celebrate Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Easter. This is where Jesus came in triumphantly unto the city of Jerusalem and he was fulfilling prophecy, which we read, that he would come in on an ass and the colt of a donkey. And so, when he came in, they got him the colt, they put their clothes on him and people that were following, people that knew Jesus, the multitudes, began cutting down palm leaves and leaves off the tree and placing them in the way. And listen, this happened a lot of times.
Speaker 1:This was the way you celebrated a king, you celebrated somebody in authority, and the common people recognized that Jesus was not like the Pharisees and the Sadducees. They recognized that Jesus was something special, that Jesus was something. See, they called him a prophet here. They said who is this? And they said this is Jesus, the prophet from Galilee, from Nazareth of Galilee. Well, they did recognize him as a prophet, but they also recognized him as a Messiah because he taught with authority the Sadducees and the Pharisees and the priests and the Levites. They had lost their authority because they were corrupt.
Speaker 1:Now, listen, they were looking. The religious sect was looking for Jesus to come as a king, to restore Jerusalem, to come back to put the Romans out of power. I mean, come in with an army and just destroy the place, you know, and take it back over. But Jesus, the Messiah came in lowly, lowly, on a donkey, on the coat of a donkey, on the back of a donkey, in the coat of a donkey. Listen, the back of a donkey and the coat of a donkey, listen. They had to get both of them because the mother had to leave, because the small donkey would follow the mother. Now I'm not for sure if they put the coats on the back of the donkey or on the back of the coat. I think it was on the back of the coat because it said none had ever ridden it before and they led the mother in. Jesus wrote on the back of the coat.
Speaker 1:Well, listen, this whole time. I can picture this in my mind palm leaves all over the ground. People are singing, they're're shouting Hosanna, hosanna to God in the highest, and they're worshiping, they're praising that Jesus has entered Jerusalem. The whole time, the religious people are in the temple praying for the Messiah Lord, when's the Messiah coming? Send the Messiah Lord, send him to come over and take over these Romans and to cast them out of Israel. And they were praying for the Messiah when, the whole time, they missed the Messiah.
Speaker 1:So many times we in the church miss what God's doing, because we say, well, we've never seen it like that, I've never seen God work like that. Have you ever seen God work? No, I hadn't. So we build our denominations based on things that we believe and other peoples believe with us. They begin to believe with us those things. So we create a group of people that we can look at this other church over here and we can say that's not God. Well, that's what the religious folk of that day were doing.
Speaker 1:You know, somebody may have come in, a messenger, come in and said hey, man, they're having a triumph and Jesus is coming in, a triumph on the back of a foal. See, they should have been able to realize, because they knew the scripture, they studied this scripture every day. They should have known that it was the messiah. But they missed the messiah because they didn't want their power to go. And how could this man, jesus, even though he's healing the blind, he's opening the eyes of the blind, the, the lame are walking. He's healing the leprosy, he's healing those that are sick, he's healing and he's preaching and teaching the word of God with authority. How can he be the Messiah? He's nothing, he's nothing. We don't want him as our Messiah so many times. That's what we do in the church. We don't want that movement, we don't want that power of God that's moving at this church. We don't want that. That's not of God. You see how we are. Sometimes we can be religious. What I want to encourage you is let's not be religious, let's not judge things on the surface. You know, we don't have to run here and run there. Jesus said if they say he's in the desert, you know the Messiah's in there, we don't have to go to the desert, but let's be open to the move of God. Man, I have been in some moves of God. That was just.
Speaker 1:I asked a little lady one time at our church and I said have you ever seen anything like this? We were having a great revival in our church. Man, people were getting saved, people was getting filled with the Holy Ghost, people were getting healed, and I mean people didn't want to leave the church. We were just having a great time in the Lord. Man, god was adding to the church, you know. And I asked her. I said have you ever seen this? And I said I said you know, what do you think about this? And she said well, she said you know.
Speaker 1:She said I want to tell you something. She said back here in Panola County. She said back in the day we used to have Baptist tent revivals and he said they were more Pentecostal than the Pentecostal churches today. He said people were crying out because of their sin, people was falling out because of the sin in their life and calling on God. And she said man, she said, and that was at a Baptist tent revival, that was before all the churches were built around here. And she said now we got all these churches and now, you know, a lot of times we don't see revival except every once in a while.
Speaker 1:And she said I just pray that God does this everywhere, in every church in Panola County, that God sets a fire in Panola County and the counties around us and it starts in East Texas. You know it's got to start in our heart. So our prayer has to be Lord, start a fire in me, start a fire in my heart that it might spread like wildfire to the church, to my church, to other churches. That you might be glorified, father. That you might open eyes of the blind, open deaf ears. That you might cause the lame to walk. That you might cause the lost to come to you, to know you in a new way. In Jesus' name. Until next time, god bless.
