Luke chapter 19 - Palm Sunday was a triumph

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The publicans were often tax collectors, who mercilessly squeezed extra money out of the people for themselves, and thus became rich. In Jericho a short publican, Zacchaeus, climbed a tree to see Jesus, who was surrounded by a crowd. Jesus called him down and went to his house, which shocked everyone that He would visit such a sinner

LUKE 19:8   And Zacchaeus stood, and said unto the Lord; Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold.

:9    And Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation come to this house, forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham.

:10    For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.

The rich Zacchaeus offered to give away half his money, and more than restore any money he had wrongly squeezed out of any person.

Luke hereby shows the influence that Jesus had on a rich man who immediately wanted to be honest and share his wealth with the poor. Meeting Jesus, the ideal Man, makes us take our eyes off ourselves and makes us considerate of others.

Luke now tells a hard lesson.  A nobleman went far away to get a kingdom for himself. He left servants to look after what he owned. But the people there hated the nobleman and did not want him to rule over them. He left his servants each with one pound.

Jesus was speaking of when He would go to Heaven to prepare a place for us, but left us Christians to evangelize and preach the truth to a world that basically hates truth, and does not want to be subject to Jesus.

LUKE 19:11   And as they heard these things, he added and spake a parable, because he was nigh to Jerusalem, and because they thought that the kingdom of God should immediately appear.

They were looking for Jesus to immediately set up a Jewish kingdom on earth by getting rid of the Romans who ruled them. They were basically looking for a political kingdom in the near future.

There was confusion over the appearing of the Lord.  Jesus had to go away first for seven church ages. Then at His Second Coming, He will appear to us after He has raised the dead, and changed our vile bodies into eternal bodies like unto His own.
I JOHN 2:28   And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming.

He is the Word. Only those who have been restored back to the New Testament faith will be changed. The rest of the saved Christians will be very ashamed of their denominational "churchianity" when they realize that they have been left behind.
I JOHN 3:2   Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.

When Jesus returns, He will put the true believers into new bodies.

:12   He said therefore, A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return.

Jesus speaks of the nobleman going far away. Thus it would be a long time before he returned. There was going to be no quick fix . "A far country" implies a spiritual kingdom of the millenium that is run on principles that are far above the greed and selfishness and hatreds of our earthly kingdoms.

:13   And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come.

Christians were given the New Testament to live by. We were not told to change anything in the New Testament, just to occupy and keep it as the apostles wrote it, until Jesus returns. The Bible is the basic resource that God has given to Christians so that they can take Scriptural salvation and Bible truths to the people.

:14   But his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, We will not have this man to reign over us.

But the people of the world hate being in subjection to the Bible. Eventually church systems were set up that only kept bits of the Bible, and rejected other parts. Human rights rose up, and people demanded to be able to live for their own lusts and selfish desires that suited themselves. Why must they be restricted by the Bible that had too many rules that curbed human behaviour. People wanted scientific theories of evolution to prove they came from animals, and not God. A massive unknown explosion of the Big Bang was a clever guess, which meant that the universe did not need a God to create it. Having no need for God in their lives, people's morals deteriorated until they revelled in disgusting practices.

Pagan beliefs and traditions were cleverly infiltrated into Christian doctrines. The church became married to politics and the pursuit of wealth. Hundreds of Bible translations successfully blur the original truths of the New Testament. People rejected the idea of believing what was written in the Bible. If Luke said that the wise men went into a house, then people changed that to them going into a stable. The Bible never told us to celebrate His birth, but we "know better" now, so we make this the main Christian festival of the year. Are we not very clever? We are telling God what we want to do. We will even tell Him when we want to do it, on 25 December. God must be so impressed with our brilliant ideas as we worship Him our way, and thus we can call ourselves Christians, even when we change what is in the Bible. Jeremiah Chapter 10 told us not to cut down a tree and decorate it with gold and silver, but we know better. Everyone loves our christmas trees.

Jeremiah said we should not do it. Why must he tell us what to do? We are the modern clever age.
JEREMIAH 10:2   Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.  

(Signs of the zodiac -- Your stars foretell your future. Many Christians believe this)

:3   For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe.

:4   They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.

So Christians have moved away from the Bible, and the Scripture no longer rules over us. We are "liberated".

But then, sadly, Jesus returns and holds us to account. He wants to know what we have done with His New Testament beliefs on which He founded the first church age.

He returns for the harvest. The seed that is harvested at the end is identical to the seed that was planted in the beginning, in the first church age that wrote the New Testament.

LUKE 19:15   And it came to pass, that when he was returned, having received the kingdom, then he commanded these servants to be called unto him, to whom he had given the money, that he might know how much every man had gained by trading.

:16   Then came the first, saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained ten pounds.

:17   And he said unto him, Well, thou good servant: because thou hast been faithful in a very little, have thou authority over ten cities.

This servant had restored many to the New Testament beliefs and he would rule many cities in the millennium.

:18   And the second came, saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained five pounds.

:19   And he said likewise to him, Be thou also over five cities.

This servant had restored fewer back to the original beliefs of the apostles but this was still good and he would also rule cities in the millennium, although not as many as the first servant who had tried harder.

LUKE 19:20   And another came, saying, Lord, behold, here is thy pound, which I have kept laid up in a napkin:

You sent a prophet as the seventh church age messenger to finish the mystery of God by restoring us back to the Biblical teachings of the first church age. But the churches do not agree with that, so in order to remain popular and not upset them, I just kept all the revelations of the truth wrapped up and hidden in a table napkin that is used at meal times. That way I secured my meal ticket from the churches, because I only told them what they wanted to hear.

LUKE 19:21   For I feared thee, because thou art an austere man: thou takest up that thou layedst not down, and reapest that thou didst not sow.

An austere man; A strict man. Stay with the Bible just the way it is written. But this servant knew that people did not like that.

The Lord refuses to compromise with the modern age of religious pleasure and disco music entertainment in the churches. The Lord would not accept baptism in three titles of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost when He required a Name. The apostles told us that the name was Jesus Christ, but if we say that then we will be unpopular with the churches who do not want to be restored to the teachings of the apostles.

The Lord is a hard teacher and simply rejects the word Trinity because it is not in the Bible. And that really upsets the churches. So the third servant never upset anyone, and never told anyone the basic truths of the New Testament.

LUKE 19:22   And he saith unto him, Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant. Thou knewest that I was an austere man, taking up that I laid not down, and reaping that I did not sow:

God is hard. God took Saul, who had been trained for many years by the Jews until he was mentally matured as the top Pharisee, and then God captured him and changed him to Paul, who became the top Christian and the main enemy of the Pharisees. The Devil complained that God was not playing fair.

God is hard. The Catholic church trained up Martin Luther to be their best and most courageous monk, and then God took him from them and used him to undermine the Roman Catholic system that had developed his talents. The Devil could only mutter that this was again very unfair.

God is hard. King Henry VIII was a bad man who married six times and killed two wives. The Roman Catholic church refused to allow him to divorce and remarry, which was the correct (Biblical) decision. So Henry separated from the Roman church for all the wrong reasons, in order to divorce and re-marry, and made England a Protestant nation in the process. The terribly unjust anger of this wicked king thus achieved God's will in making England Protestant. Satan muttered about unfairness.

Hitler killed six million Jews in the second World War because he hated them and wanted to exterminate them. This made the world briefly feel sorry for the Jews, and the United Nations voted in 1947 to give them a homeland in Palestine. So thanks to all the evil that Hitler did, the Jews got a homeland. Both Hitler and Satan muttered that this was very unfair.

So God will use the good or the bad to achieve His purpose.

God is hard and strict. He wants to rule our lives His way. He is not interested in our opinions and our desires to compromise. He wants us to obey His Bible just the way it is written. He has a precise end-time plan that needs to fit together like clockwork, and we are of no use to Him unless each of us becomes an obedient cog in His complex operation.

LUKE 19:23   Wherefore then gavest not thou my money into the bank, that at my coming I might have required mine own with usury?

Giving the money to the bank would have enabled someone else to use it profitably. If he wasn't prepared to do anything himself, why did he not back and help someone else who was prepared to restore people back to the Bible faith of the early church?

Now Luke records a very hard principle whereby God deals with us.

The world knows this as "What you do not use, you lose".

What does this mean spiritually?

The end time prophet taught us to take his revelations back to Scripture, and prove his ideas by lining up the relevant Bible verses.

LUKE 19:24  And he said unto them that stood by, Take from him the pound, and give it to him that hath ten pounds.

LUKE 19:25   (And they said unto him, Lord, he hath ten pounds.)

LUKE 19:26  For I say unto you, That unto every one which hath shall be given; and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him.

If God has given you a deeper insight into Scripture, and you respond to that and try to help others  to get more Scriptural, then God will reveal even more to you.

But if God reveals something to you and you do nothing with it, God will take that understanding away from you and leave you in even deeper error than what you were.

God will then focus on giving even more insight to those who already see more of the mysteries.

LUKE 19:27   But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.

Those saved Christians of today, who do not regard the Bible as their absolute, and who are thus not restored back to the faith that inspired the apostles and the early church, will go to their deaths in the great Tribulation. Why? They would not allow the Bible to rule their lives.

LUKE 19:28   And when he had thus spoken, he went before, ascending up to Jerusalem.

At His First Coming, Jesus was focused on getting to Jerusalem for the Passover so that He could die for the sins of both Jew and Gentile. At His Second Coming Jesus will remove His Gentile church, and is again focused on Jerusalem as He is getting the Jews back into their homeland of Israel so that He can reveal Himself to them as their Messiah.

World events spin around Israel as the last church age finishes. The German holocaust from 1941 - 1945, when six million Jews were gassed in concentration camps in Poland, aroused world guilt to the extent that the United Nations offered them a small homeland in Israel to be shared with a much bigger Palestinian homeland. The Arabs rejected this offer and launched four wars to eliminate the Jews, and take all of Israel for themselves. God enabled the Jews to win, and thus by military conquest they enlarged their original small homeland. Syria, Hamas in Gaza, and Hezbollah in Lebanon formed a formidable opposition against Israel. So God organized a civil war in Syria that was so severe that President Assad of Syria asked for Hezbollah to help him in the struggle. So these two powerful enemies of Israel have been locked in a fierce struggle for many years, and thus they have been forced to leave Israel in peace.

Donald Trump came from nowhere to win the American presidency in 2016 because he offered to move the American consulate to Jerusalem, and thereby recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Watch Israel. They are God's clock to tell us what hour we are living in.

God is preparing to take His church to Heaven so that He can return to the Jews.

I CORINTHIANS 15:52   In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

A vicious and bitter struggle for power in the 2016 American election has had the word "Trump" in the headlines for months. He made many mistakes, and was outperformed by Hillary Clinton in the presidential debates.

But he symbolizes the trump (trumpet) of God that sounds at the time of the resurrection of the dead.

He also wants to help Israel get Jerusalem as their capital, despite furious Arab opposition. Thus he swept to power and proved the experts wrong who had written him off. The strong favourite, Clinton, lost.

This is a wake up call for the churches. A sign of the times.

The 30 000 different types of denominational and non-denominational churches that exist today all feel that they are God's favourites because they got saved, but they all reject the need to be strictly Scriptural. So when the dead rise from the seven church ages, the big church systems will lose out, and the "little flock" who were rejected, because they were restored back to the New Testament faith of the apostles, will go to the wedding supper in Heaven.
LUKE 12:32   Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

Jesus then came back to Jerusalem in a totally unexpected manner.

He told His disciples to go to an unnamed little village that was not important in people's minds.

They were to bring a young donkey back. The owners of the donkey knew nothing about this, but agreed to the young donkey being used. The donkey carried Jesus into the city which was totally unprepared for His Coming.

The people were spontaneously happy to see Him. The religious leaders objected.

LUKE 19:29   And it came to pass, when he was come nigh to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount called the mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples,

:30   Saying, Go ye into the village over against you; in the which at your entering ye shall find a colt tied, whereon yet never man sat: loose him, and bring him hither.

:31   And if any man ask you, Why do ye loose him? thus shall ye say unto him, Because the Lord hath need of him.

:32   And they that were sent went their way, and found even as he had said unto them.

:33    And as they were loosing the colt, the owners thereof said unto them, Why loose ye the colt?

:34   And they said, The Lord hath need of him.

:35   And they brought him to Jesus: and they cast their garments upon the colt, and they set Jesus thereon.

:36   And as he went, they spread their clothes in the way.

:37   And when he was come nigh, even now at the descent of the mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen;

:38   Saying, Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord: peace in heaven, and glory in the highest.

:39   And some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples.

:40   And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.

Once again it was the Pharisees, the religious leaders, who opposed what Jesus , the Word, was doing.

Today it is the church leaders who preach denominational doctrines and traditions that stop Christians from being Scriptural.

"Churchianity" replaces Christianity. People say, "I believe what my church says, not what is written in the Bible".

LUKE 19:41   And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it,

:42   Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.

Unbelief makes Jesus cry. Only faith in the Bible impresses Him.

Messiah had come, and Israel was on the verge of the millennium which is the thousand years of peace on earth with Jesus ruling as King. But the Jews were blinded by the preaching of their religious leaders. The Jews owed their loyalty to their synagogues, the Temple, and their religious leaders. If the Jewish leaders condemned Jesus, the Jews would follow their example and do likewise. Such is the futility of human leadership.

Similarly, if the church leaders condemn those who want to be strictly Scriptural, then the church members follow their example. Like the Jews, today's churches, despite accepting salvation and good works, reject being strictly Scriptural. And although their souls are saved from hell, yet their bodies head for destruction in the great Tribulation.

LUKE 19:43   For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side,

:44   And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.

In AD 70 the Roman general Titus attacked Jerusalem. The Romans built a huge earth wall around Jerusalem. Then no one could escape. 1 100 000 Jews died, both young and old. The Temple was burnt down and then destroyed. The city was ruined and left desolate. The Jews had not realized the significance of having Jesus in their midst. Opposing Him was the biggest mistake that they could make. He was in their midst, but they did not realize Who He was.

The end time prophet has revealed the mystery of the last church going back to the New Testament beliefs of the first church. But the church world cannot grasp what has happened. So they carry on in their church traditions. We do not realize that He is in our midst as the written Word.

LUKE 19:45   And he went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold therein, and them that bought;

:46   Saying unto them, It is written, My house is the house of prayer: but ye have made it a den of thieves.

Jesus could forsee that the churches would become big money in the future, which would cover Christianity in a cloud of shame. Jesus detested those people who used religion to became rich. Religious fat cats, with their snouts in the gravy train, made Him incredibly angry. But worship of gold and prosperity flourishes in the church world today.
MATTHEW 19:23   Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven.

There will be hardly any rich preachers or pastors in heaven. The richer the congregation, the harder it will be for them to make it.

LUKE 19:47   And he taught daily in the temple. But the chief priests and the scribes and the chief of the people sought to destroy him,

:48   And could not find what they might do: for all the people were very attentive to hear him.

Ordinary people love Jesus and are prepared to believe His Word, the Bible.

The church leaders have been obsessed with destroying this dedication to the Bible.

They have prepared hundreds of different Bible versions so that people have the wrong ideas right from the start. Preachers readily admit that there are "mistakes" in the Bible. The Big Bang scientific theory is used by many churches to discredit the opening chapters of Genesis. The theory explains nothing about Dark Energy and Dark Matter, which make up 96% of the universe. Thus it is an almost totally useless theory that ignores the vast majority of physical reality.

Churches propagate the theory of evolution, that means that we come from animals. Then they complain that people behave like animals. They think that believing in evolution makes them so clever. But it is a total insult to God as man was made in the image of God. There was no death before Adam sinned. So having animals die over millions of years before sin entered is nonsense. Death is the penalty for sin.

The fossils formed in the great flood of Noah when they were pressurized by the almost nine kilometers of water that covered all the highest mountains of the earth. No fossils form today, even when scientists try to make them in a laboratory. Why? Bacteria and other agents of decay destroy them before any fossilization occurs. One of the earliest fossils is a trilobite, but a trilobite was discovered inside the fossilized footprint of a man's sandal or shoe by William Meister in 1968 near Delta, Utah. Thus the so-called fossil record is not millions of years old.

Foreign words like "Trinity", "one God in three Persons", and the "second Person of the Trinity" are inserted into church beliefs, despite being unscriptural, just like the word "Christmas" and the date of "25 December". The churches are so used to believing these unscriptural doctrines that they no longer take what is written in the Bible as their absolute.

So the church leaders have very successfully separated the people from the Bible. If you believe that the wise men went into the stable to see the Baby Jesus, then the church leaders have done their job well, because you no longer believe what is written in Scripture.