Matthew 21

v1-11: Jesus is humble and gentle.  He is approachable.  His entrance into Jerusalem shows this.  “He did not come in wrath to take vengeance, but in mercy to bring salvation.”  He came sitting on a donkey, a creature made to carry loads, and He has carried the greatest load of all, our sin.

v12-17: Christ, as well as being the great Redeemer, is also the great Reformer.  By His Word and Spirit, He corrects ungodliness and gradually restores Christians and churches to how they are meant to be.

v18-22: True faith will produce fruit.  A false and hypocritical profession may look good for a time, there may be leaves, but it will not last and will soon come to nothing.  "A false and hypocritical profession commonly withers in this world, and this is the effect of Christ’s curse."

v23-27: Before Jesus called the temple ‘a house of prayer,’ and here He is preaching there.  Praying and preaching must go together when we gather as Christians.  "To make up fellowship with God, we must not only speak to him in prayer but also listen to what he has to say to us from his word.”  Elsewhere church leaders are commanded to give themselves both to prayer and to the ministry of the Word.

v28-32: "Many people speak good words and make fair promises in their religious faith, and make some good suggestions about what they will do, but stay there and go no further, and so come to nothing. Saying and doing are two different things, and there are many who say but do not do... Many people show much love with their mouth but have their heart going in a different direction. They have good intentions to be religious, but they always have something else to do; they find something precious to them that is too difficult to give up, and so their intentions come to nothing. Buds and blossoms are not the same as fruit."

v33-46: The Pharisees and chief priests knew Jesus was talking about them.  “A guilty conscience needs no accuser.”  When the word of God rebukes those who hear it, and they realise it is speaking about them, “if it does not do them a great deal of good, it will certainly do them a great deal of harm.  If they are not pricked to the heart with conviction and contrition, they will be cut to the heart with rage and fury."