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15 But when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that He did, and the children crying out in the temple and saying, "Hosanna to the Son of David!" 16 They were indignant and said to Him, "Do You hear what these are saying?" And Jesus said to them, "Yes. Have you never read, 'Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants you have perfected praise?'" 17 Then He left them and went out of the city to Bethany, and He lodged there. ~ Matthew 21:15-17
Today, we return to our study of Matthew 21 which chronicles the fulfillment of an age old prophecy from the mouths of Isaiah and Zechariah of the coming of the Prince of Peace who rode into Jerusalem on a colt of a donkey to pronounce forgiveness of sin through His death on the cross of Calvary. As we will see many prophecies were fulfilled in this chapter including the hard heartedness of those who should have known better. The problem the religious leaders of Israel had was they were more committed to their arrogant understanding of things than they were the very Word of God. Since they didn't view things through God's culture they were blinded by the deceit of the serpent who slithered his way into man's existence in the Garden of Eden.
In v.15 of today's passage we read, "But when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that He did, and the children crying out in the temple and saying, 'Hosanna to the Son of David!'"
One evidence in the Bible that the Lord Jesus is God is He accepted worship from people. Right in the middle of all that was happening there at the Temple in Jerusalem that day were these children old enough to come to the Passover were crying out "Hosanna to the son of David." They worshipped the Lord Jesus. While the religious leaders of Israel did not recognize the Lord Jesus for who He was, the children saw it. The evidence that the Lord Jesus is the Christ was overwhelming. All of the people had seen that He healed people. They had seen that He delivered people from demon possession. They had seen that He had raised people from the dead. But, it is one thing to see with our eyes and it is another to see with our hearts. Therefore, seeing isn't believing. No, believing, in the economy of God, is seeing because the heart is engaged.
The children identified the Lord Jesus as the Son of David because they had heard their parents say this the day before. As parents and grandparents we must be daily aware of the fact that our children and our grandchildren keenly watch us. They watch our attitudes toward God, they watch our commitment toward reading the Bible, they watch our earnestness toward our devotions, and they watch things we say about God or/and to God. They listen very carefully. The best way to parent is to model what we desire to see in our children and grandchildren. And, we do very well to remember that more is caught than is taught.
In v.16-17 of today's passage we read, "16 They (the religious leaders of Israel) were indignant and said to Him, 'Do You hear what these are saying?' And Jesus said to them, 'Yes. Have you never read, 'Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants you have perfected praise?' 17 Then He left them and went out of the city to Bethany, and He lodged there.'"
Here, we have two ends of one spectrum, the praise of children and the anger of adults. To the praise of children and the intense anger of the Jewish religious leaders, the Lord Jesus quoted scripture. We must be diligent to be defined by God's definitions of things. The children had learned from their parents. They were echoing what they heard the day before. Their parents just the day before shouted, "Hosanna to the son of David, the one coming in the name of the Lord; hosanna in the highest." And, their praise had been perfected when it was given to the Lord Jesus as its object. The highest form of praise is when we are being defined by God.
In Luke’s account of His triumphal entry, the religious leaders of Israel came to the Lord Jesus and told Him to stop the people from hailing Him as the Promised Messiah. To that the Lord Jesus quoted Psalm 8:2 which reads, "Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants you have perfected praise." Those two Hebrew words, "babes" and "nursing infants," the Lord Jesus used to refer to children under the age of three. It was the practice of the Hebrew mothers to nurse their babies until they were about three years of age. Even little babies praised the Lord Jesus as God. If God will not be praised out of the mouths of the mature, He will be praised out of the mouths of the immature.
At this point the Lord Jesus departed from the Temple. Herein is yet another thing that proves Him to be God. He left the religious leaders of Israel because they rejected Him. This had been predicted over and over in the Old Testament. These religious leaders were defined by the self rather than by the God of the Bible. As a result, they rejected the Lord Jesus as He consistently confronted their sin. Had they been being defined by God, they would have recognized the Lord Jesus as their long awaited Messiah but they chose to not embrace Him as their Savior.
The Lord Jesus is the Promised King, but He is a different kind of a king. He came in a way that most don't recognize. He came in a lowly and a humble way. He came as the Promised Lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world. He came to defeat the enemies of sin and death on the cross of Calvary. And His cross changes everything. On the third day after His death He rose again from the dead, breaking forever the destiny of death for those who choose to believe in Him as our Savior. As a result, the cross has changed our allegiance. This only happens when we discover the preciousness of the Savior which most often comes to us on the heels of learning of the emptiness of everything else.
