This blog serves as an outreach for Pastor Randy Powell of the First Baptist Church of Franklin, PA. Feel free to ask questions or send me an e-mail at pastorpowell@hotmail.com
It is all about the mercy. Salvation depends utterly upon the mercy of God, thanks be to God for that. The Apostle Paul uses the example of Jacob and Esau (twin brothers) to demonstrate that God's mercy does not depend upon our character or effort, he gives it to whom he chooses.
Why is this a conclusion to be praised rather than a cause for alarm about freewill? Because God's love, mercy, and grace will always be greater, more reliable, and more effective than any human effort.
Having extolled the wonders of God's love for those who have been called to faith in Jesus in chapter 8, the Apostle Paul begins a 3 chapter exploration of those close to his heart who have not believed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God: His own people.
What kept the first century Israelites from accepting Jesus as the Messiah?
It wasn't a lack of preparation, Paul runs through that extensive list. And it wasn't a failure on God's part to fulfill his Word, as Jesus was the ultimate fulfillment of prophecy after prophecy. So what happened?
In this introductory message we see that far from being a unique generation, the one that rejected Jesus is symptomatic of not only the Israelites as a whole throughout their history, but importantly, of humanity as a whole too. The reaction to Jesus would have been similar in any nation in any generation.
What do we do? Love those who have not yet believed, witness to them, and keep praying for them.
But you've been told this is just a Bible Study, its just about learning the Jewish roots of the scriptures and Jesus. Don't take my word for it, listen to what FFOZ's leadership has to say...
{All quotes below comes from the video recordings of the Malchut 2022 Conference, a gathering of Torah Club leaders and financial backers, in other words, this is what they tell the insiders, the true believers.}
Quotations are in italics, emphasis in bold is my own addition, commentary in {brackets} is my own.
One of our dreams as an organization is to see post-supersessionist Christianity. A Christianity that is restored to a proper theology with Israel to the Torah and to the Kingdom. Most of us started our journey to post-supersessionist Christianity in the church. And while many of us still attend the church we see it differently now, we see it through different eyes. We see that something is missing. (Boaz Micael - And Then the End Will Come, 8:27ff)
{Participation in FFOZ
starts with people who are in the Church, there’s no reason for them to stay
there once they’ve had their “eyes opened.”}
So, the responsibility of this message falls on us, a small minority of God‘s people who’ve come to an understanding of the gospel of the kingdom and whose lives are being transformed by the undiluted power of Yeshua’s message. And we’re called to take this gospel of message to the kingdoms, repent for the kingdom of God is it at hand. And this prophetic movement has only become possible in our generation. It’s our responsibility. (Boaz Michael - And Then the End Will Come, 23:11ff)
{We alone can save the Church? A reform not possible in any point of Church history until now?}
Imagine having your home filled with Christians, experiencing the renewal of their salvation, bringing them into an understanding of the gospel of the kingdom, increasing their devotion to king Messiah, assisting them alongside yourself of becoming agents of the kingdom alongside Israel. And this is all through your mission and efforts where HaShem has placed you. (Boaz Michael - And Then the End Will Come, 38:20ff)
{Why belong to the Church if the real Kingdom work is only happening in Torah Clubs?}
We’re going to return to the Torah and find that its wisdom is the antidote to the fractured and confused world that we live in and a fractured and confused church that we are part of. Some of you might feel like your Torah clubs groups are in some way subversive. Like they’re supplanting the local church. Like they’re not legitimate expressions or legitimate places of communal fellowship. Now I want to tell you the opposite is true. Many people say, many people say, I don’t wanna say it because someone might say, “you said that.“ So I’m just going to say many people say that the institutional church that we have known is not recoverable. It’s not coming back the way it was. It’s going to change, and perhaps a Torah Club or some type of home base communities are the pattern for the future. But know this and be confident in this, the institutional churches’ issues are not a result of your efforts in the Torah Club. They are a result of various cultural and generational shifts. And perhaps it’s the result of sharing a tired message that has not resulted in what it has promised. (Boaz Michael - And Then the End Will Come, 39:52ff)
{FFOZ proclaims the Church to be dead, groups like the Torah Clubs are the future.}
You are the creators. You are the doers. You are the ones that God has chosen to proclaim this gospel, the gospel of the kingdom, to all nations. What an amazing burden that HaShem has placed upon us. You’ve dedicated yourself to a mission. You might not have the biggest Torah Club. You might not even think of yourself as qualified to teach others about the gospel of the kingdom and yet you are here. And yet your eyes have been opened. (Boaz Michael - And Then the End Will Come)
{Michael Boaz believes his followers are the only ones chosen by God to spread the true Gospel, that they will bring about the End Times. This sort of cult-like zeal is very dangerous, and will inevitably lead to those who buy into it leaving the Church.}
At the end of the day we are a disruptive movement. We’re disruptors. And a disruptive movement is an ideological idea that’s connected to community to prevent something from continuing or operating in a normal way. We’re introducing an idea that is intended to challenge and to transform the status quo. We’re not satisfied with, and we’ve not been inspired by the direction that the institutional church has gone for the most part over the past 2000 years. (Boaz Michael - What's your IQ? p.1)
{The Church throughout its history doesn’t suit them, so they’ll disrupt it.}
We have to be disruptors that are very patient in our disruption. We have disruptive ideas. A disruptive idea is a perspective, the introduction of an idea that opposes an entrenched view, process, or perspective. This disruptive idea of ours, it attempts to displace the opinion of the majority in a particular field and transform the status quo. So we are a disruptive movement full of disruptive ideas. And we believe that the church or perhaps disciples must be re-introduced to the Jewish Messiah. And this re-introduction will result in radical changes to their worldview, to their theology, to their practice of faith as disciples of Yeshua. (Boaz Michael - What's your IQ? p. 1-2)
{FFOZ’s goal is radical change to both the faith and practice of the Church.}
So these ideas, they are disruptive. And to some degree they’re confrontational. They are threatening to established organizations And structures of power. So it should come as no surprise that we should encounter opposition. That we feel suppressed. (Boaz Michael - What's your IQ p.3)
{FFOZ knows that their ideas are a threat to the Church, to dismantle/overthrow the Church is the end goal.}
Likewise, were in a similar situation right now where we realize that the whole body of Messiah, the whole church, is a mission field as well. (Daniel Lancaster - Band of Survivors, 1:14ff)
{The Church is the mission field because in FFOZ’s belief system, the Church is full of people who don’t know the true Gospel.}
The leadership of FFOZ believes that the Church is moribund, that they, and they alone, have their "eyes opened" to the true Gospel and that God has called them to change the world with it. Is it any wonder that the bonds of fellowship and Christian brotherhood have been strained, and at times broken, by this movement? The Franklin Christian Ministerium's effort against the FFOZ is also a commitment to support and encourage our brothers and sisters in Christ throughout the larger Christian community. If your church is being confronted with these teachings, if members of your congregation have opened themselves up to it, don't hesitate to contact any one of our pastors, there's no need to stand alone against this, we're ready to stand with you.
It really isn't a big deal if FFOZ (Torah Clubs) reinterprets the Gospel message in a way unknown throughout Church History, is it? If that's what you think, you may not be familiar with the Apostle Paul's dire warning to the churches in Galatia.
Galatians 1:6-9 (NIV)
6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! 9 As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!
This is indeed a big deal, to those of us who claim Jesus Christ as Savior, its everything. Listen, I know that in Church History there have been plenty of examples where would-be reformers were falsely labeled as heretics preaching a 'different Gospel', these steep overreactions from the Church have been deeply tragic. That caution lest we repeat the mistakes of our ancestors in the faith in mind, we cannot allow a new version of the Gospel to go unchallenged, we cannot ere so far on the side of caution that we ignore false teaching.
How do I know that FFOZ (Torah Clubs) is teaching a new Gospel? They readily admit it. They know what they are teaching is new to the Church, the radical nature of what they are trying to convince others of is a big part of their motivation. Let their own words bear witness...
{All quotes below comes from the video recordings of the Malchut 2022 Conference, a gathering of Torah Club leaders and financial backers, in other words, this is what they tell the insiders, the true believers.}
Direct quotes will be in italics, added emphasis in bold is mine, my commentary in {brackets}.
I mean, as this evangelical I did not understand the full scope of the gospel message. That is for sure. Especially as it pertained to Israel. But I would say as it pertained to any human being, but especially as it pertained to Israel. Instead, I learn to divide the world, as I’m sure many of you did, into two types of people: the saved and the unsaved, right? Those who have been born again by accepting Jesus into their hearts for a personal relationship went into a category we called the saved, that is the Christians. And those without Jesus, the unsaved, the non-Christians. And so the onus was on those of us who are the saved, that we have a responsibility and a mission to save the unsaved and persuade them to become Christians. Which seems reasonable. In this respect this approach to evangelism, you know from what I’m looking at it now, was a little naïve and largely a misunderstanding of the gospel message. I mean, this is just not what Yeshua taught. We thought the gospel message was believe in Jesus so that you will go to heaven when you die. I mean, really, that was it. So believing the right things about Jesus. That was our sacrament. Having the right things in your head about Jesus, that was the thing that saved you. But that’s not what Yeshua said and that’s not what he taught. When I started to learn the New Testament from a Jewish perspective and to study the teachings of the Jewish Yeshua, I discovered a totally different gospel message. In fact, it used to trouble me that he never said anything about becoming Christians. Didn’t it trouble anyone else? I mean, it really troubled me. I mean, I’m talking as a teenager reading. I remember throwing the Bible across the room because it just seemed like everything contradicted, everything in the Bible contradicted everything I was learning in church. (Daniel Lancaster - Missionaries, 24:10ff)
{Daniel Lancaster, who grew up as an Evangelical Baptist, admits that he rejects the Church’s understanding that the people of the world can be divided into the saved (those who trust in Jesus) and the unsaved (those who do not trust in Jesus). Lancaster then goes on to describe a very poor Straw Man version of what the Church has always taught about the Gospel, rejects this, and proclaims that he "discovered a totally different gospel message." through Judaism.}
His message had nothing to do with consenting to a creed. He didn’t introduce a new religion. Instead, he called for repentance within the religion that he was already in. (Daniel Lancaster - Missionaries, 26:37ff)
{Again, Lancaster proclaims that FFOZ’s version of the Gospel has nothing to do with what you believe about Jesus, is NOT a new religion, but only a reform movement that was intended to and must remain within Judaism.}
Going to heaven and escaping from hell, in other words, dealing with the world of souls, these are corollaries. They’re related ideas. But not at all the focus, and never presented as the measure by which humanity can be divided into two categories, or that we could divide humanity into two categories, saved and unsaved. Wow! You know for somebody who grew up as an old Evangelical like me, that’s a big shift. It’s taken most of a lifetime for me to absorb the implications there, and I am still to this day trying to process it. I mean, it’s another one of those complete reshuffling of the cards, right? The Jewish gospel as I just described it is far more nuanced and at the same time far more robust, far more sweeping than rescuing a few fortunate souls from the fires of perdition. But, if you’re like me, and I’m assuming a lot of you are, coming from an evangelical background like me and accustomed to a simple formula message that divides the world into black-and-white, saved and lost, who is in and who is out, then this broader, deeper, wider message of the gospel actually leaves you feeling a little tongue-tied when it comes to evangelism and articulating the mission. (Daniel Lancaster - Missionaries, 30:13ff)
{Here Lancaster fully develops the Straw Man version of the Gospel, one that only cares about souls and Heaven and has nothing to say about repentance and how we live this life (Who is preaching this nonsense? Virtually nobody). By creating the deficient Straw Man, now Lancaster can reject the traditional Gospel in favor of what FFOZ intends to replace it with.}
I hope tonight to communicate clearly that the message that all of us have heard, the gospel message that all of us have heard, is not the message of the gospel of the kingdom. It’s a gospel in fact devoid of the kingdom, a gospel that has in fact obscured the kingdom. (Boaz Michael - And Then the End Will Come, 8:27ff)
{The Founder and President of FFOZ proclaiming that the Gospel message taught by the Church is NOT what God intended.}
We’ve seen something that most Christians haven’t. Most followers of Yeshua have accepted him as their Savior, maybe as their Lord, but they have yet to see him as a humble rabbi from Nazareth, a teacher of Judaism who upheld the Torah and the Jewish way of life. Missing these critical aspects of Yeshua’s life and ministry doesn’t just mean missing out on Shabbat or Passover. It means we are missing the very corner stone of his message, the gospel of the kingdom. In fact the biggest difference, the biggest tension between post-supersessionist Christianity and Christianity, mainstream Christianity, isn’t what holidays we keep or the kind of food we eat. It’s not the biggest difference. It’s our understanding of what Yeshua ultimately came to teach and accomplish. The church’s gospel, the church’s interpretation of Yeshua‘s core message, has been incomplete for nearly 2000 years. (Boaz Michael - And Then the End Will Come, 8:27ff)
{FFOZ believes they are the first ones in Church History to teach the “complete” Gospel, the hubris involved and the blanket condemnation of the entire Church is astounding.}
Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. It’s a message to Israel and it’s a message that doesn’t make sense without Torah, without Judaism, without Jewish people, and without Jewish, like, identity. It’s a promise of restored monarchy, restored Sanhedrin, restored nation of Israel. (Boaz Michael - And Then the End Will Come, 8:27ff)
{A Gospel without obeying Torah, practicing Judaism, and adopting Jewish identity doesn’t make any sense?? It is clear where FFOZ stands.}
Every house needs a firm foundation. The church has built its entire mission on an incomplete foundation on a partial gospel. This process began early, early, early when church theologians intentionally, intentionally stripped away the Jewish context of the New Testament. (Boaz Michael - And Then the End Will Come, 8:27ff)
{According to FFOZ, the Early Church intentionally warped the Gospel message.}
The church today is floundering in the waves of cultural change with no Torah to guide them, no clear direction, and no concrete moral compass. Like shattered glass, thousands of denominations and independent churches fight each other over theology and practice because their core message is missing something. The gospel of the kingdom has been replace with an oversimplified distortion of Yeshua‘s message. (Boaz Michael - And Then the End Will Come, 16:53ff)
{Boaz blames a non-unified Church on a delinquent Gospel message.}
The same Christians who propagated this incomplete gospel also translated the Bible into languages all of us can understand. The whole world knows about the Messiah of Israel because of missionaries and their efforts. But they were only telling a small part of a much larger story. Perhaps HaShem has ordered that for a time, let’s consider this. It’s temporary. The gospel of the kingdom needed to be watered down. It needed to be simplified so that at least some part of Yeshua’s message, his name, would travel as far as possible. And reach as many people as possible...But I believe that gospel and that time is coming to an end. I believe that the missionary efforts of the church have paved the way for the original gospel of the kingdom, repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. (Boaz Michael - And Then the End Will Come, 16:53ff)
{Why did God allow the Church to “flounder” with a “watered down” Gospel for 2,000 years, and why were missionaries so successful in spreading it? Boaz thinks that it made evangelism easier, so God allowed it, but now the world is finally ready for the “real Gospel”. FYI, God doesn’t operate like this, how could this be the Church that Jesus promised was coming and the Spirit came at Pentecost to empower?}
This gospel that has gone forth is only a tiny sliver of an idea but yet it was able to spread like wildfire and drew billions of people into the church. But, without Torah, without Israel, without repentance, it’s not the gospel of the kingdom. The whole world knows at this point, from my perspective, the whole world has heard or seen, knows the name Jesus, perhaps even Yeshua. They know the classic formula for what it means to believe or to go to heaven. Everyone has heard it. But the work isn’t finished. It’s just beginning. (Boaz Michael - And Then the End Will Come, 19:10ff)
{Is it sufficiently clear yet that FFOZ firmly believes that what the Church has taught for 2,000 years is NOT the true Gospel, and that they alone have the wisdom to replace it?}
Bringing Yeshua’s message to Gentiles is the whole purpose of the Torah Club. If you’re a Torah Club leader or student you’re part of this prophetic movement to proclaim the gospel of the kingdom to all nations. Even if it’s not happening at pulpits and churches or in theological textbooks or in alter calls, it’s happening in your living room. Gentile Christians are finally discovering Yeshua’s message (Boaz Michael - And Then the End Will Come, 33:19ff)
{According to FFOZ, The Church is not bringing the message of Jesus to the world, only FFOZ is, for this first time, in this generation.}
I believe that there is a seed already planted by the gospel message that has been sent out, that is ready to be watered, ready to be nurtured so that it blossoms into the gospel of the kingdom. And as kingdom goes from something that looks dry and dead to something that is green, plush and beautiful. (Boaz Michael - And Then the End Will Come, 46:21ff)
{The Gospel of the Church is “dry and dead”, FFOZ believes they will bring forth something new to replace it.}
Don’t think of this as a Bible study. Don’t burden yourself with the idea that, “You’re just, you know, each week…” You’re proclaiming the kingdom. You’re bringing Israel’s redemption. What we are doing is so much bigger than a Bible study. (Boaz Michael - And Then the End Will Come, 50:01ff)
{Just a Bible study? They don’t think so.}
We teach that Jesus and his disciples were all Jewish, that their religion was Judaism, that Jesus did not cancel the law, Christians don’t replace the Jewish people, and Yeshua and the Apostles didn’t start a new religion to replace an old one. (Boaz Michael - What is your IQ? p. 2)
{They believe Christianity should never have existed, only Judaism is God’s true plan.}
Because we are on a mission from God to transmit this good news unencumbered with the distractions that have beset it, the distractions of theology and supersessionism and misconstrued dogmatisms about eternal destinies. (Daniel Lancaster - Band of Survivors, 7:47ff)
{The Gospel that the Church preaches needs to be stripped of its false dogmas according to FFOZ.}
Until then, however, there’s a small remnant, right. It’s a pretty small remnant of the kingdom on earth. There’s a few of us. There’s a few of us clinging to the Commandments in the testimony of Yeshua as it says in the Book of Revelation. (Daniel Lancaster - Band of Survivors, 7:47ff)
{Any Gospel that supposedly only saves a tiny minority of those who claim Jesus as Savior is warped and twisted.}
Only a few proclaim an unencumbered gospel message like this. (Daniel Lancaster - Band of Survivors, 9:23ff)
{FFOZ knows that their version of the Gospel represents only a tiny minority, that it is NOT the same as that of the Church.}
Too often the good news of the gospel has been presented as bad news, as you know. I mean, It’s bad news for Israel, I tell you that. According to the bad news of the gospel, you know and I’m just gonna be a little facetious for a little bit, just forgive me because that’s just the way I am. It’s just part of my yetzer hara. But we need to harness the yetzer hara for the service of the kingdom. So that’s what I’m doing. According to the bad news of the gospel that missionaries ordinarily offer to Israel, Jews who don’t believe in Jesus, you know, suffer in hell for eternity. So that’s a good opening line. Along with the vast majority of humanity, so at least they won’t be lonely. But if you consent to believe in Jesus you can escape that fate in hell wherein, of course, almost all of Israel parishes but the only catch is you need to quit being Jewish because in Jesus there is no such thing as such thing as Jew and Gentile. I’m not kidding. I said I’m going to be a little facetious. But that is the message. That is the implicit message anyway that Jesus does away with Judaism and Jewish identity. (Daniel Lancaster - Band of Survivors, 17:43ff)
{Daniel Lancaster, writer of the Torah Clubs materials, speaks with disdain about the idea that believing in Jesus or not affects a person’s eternal destiny.}
Likewise, the traditional message to the world doesn’t sound like good news for the nations either. It sounds, you know, something like this. God created you to be a worthless sinner. From the moment you were conceived, God destined you to suffer in hell forever. And if you’ve ever broken a single commandment, well it doesn’t really matter because Adam did for you, but you’ve broken them all and of course you know “all have sinned and fallen short” of his impossibly high expectations and the wages of that is eternal torment along with the Jews. So, therefore, you’re consigned under God‘s eternal wrath unless you consent to a certain set of theological propositions according to one side of the church or to a specific sacramental series of rituals according to the other side of the church. (Daniel Lancaster - Band of Survivors, 19:25ff)
{Utilizing a poor Straw Man presentation of the Gospel, Lancaster again mocks the traditional message of the Gospel as “bad news.”}
OK, I’m done being facetious now. And again, I apologize. I’m just trying to make a point. When you put it like that the Gospel does, you know, it sounds pretty bleak. And it sounds a little absurd. That’s not good news for anyone. That would be bad news. And that particular formulation of the message probably did work pretty well in the Middle Ages when you could frighten people with dogmas that dangle them over hell only inches above, you know, a host of horn demons with pitchforks. It might have sold well in the Reformation when people were willing to except anything that could liberate them from the authority of Rome. But it just does not have a lot of traction with the average thinking person today. Who wants a religion like that? Who needs it? (Daniel Lancaster - Band of Survivors, 20:31ff)
{While the traditional Gospel could be sold to the less educated people of the Middle Ages and Reformation, according to FFOZ, thinking people today want no part of it. The disdain for, and mockery of, the Gospel as it has been believed since the Apostles is very thick.}
Now, again, I’m not just trying to be controversial or irreverent. I’m just explaining to you why we need to reassess this. Why we at First Fruits of Zion and in Messianic Judaism, why we are putting the time and the effort into recovering the original good news message proclaimed by Yeshua and the Apostles. And this is why we need to understand the Gospels from a Jewish perspective (Daniel Lancaster - Band of Survivors, 21:34ff)
{FFOZ is leading a conscious ‘reassessment’ of the Gospel, replacing it with what they claim to be the original version.}
Outside of the Jewish context really, when you strip it back, doesn’t really make a lot of sense. It comes out convoluted. It comes out sideways like this which is—and it comes out in a way that really repels people rather than drawing them near to the kingdom and nearer to God. It’s rather than a message about God‘s love for Israel and his love for all of humanity. Even though that’s what we say it comes out—it sounds—when you really read between the lines of what we’re saying it sounds an awful lot like a message about God’s hatred for Israel and for human beings in general. And so, we’ve got something wrong here. (Daniel Lancaster- Band of Survivors, 21:34ff)
{In Daniel Lancaster's opinion, the traditional Gospel is the message of God’s hatred for Israel and humanity. This statement is beyond bold, it is deeply heretical, but also honest in that it reveals that FFOZ has no use for the Gospel of our ancestors in the faith.}
And when we clear the debris and uncover the truth, I don’t think it’s gonna take a lot of effort to sell the Good News, because it really is good news. But it does take a lot of effort to clear away the obstacles that are obscuring it. (Daniel Lancaster - Band of Survivors, 24:21ff)
{The Gospel, as it is, is unacceptable to them.}
Sometimes you have to believe people when they repeatedly tell you who they are and what they're trying to do. First Fruits of Zion, under the leadership of Michael Boaz and Daniel Lancaster, have gone much further in their denouncements of the Gospel and the Church when talking to the insiders at the Malchut Conference than they do in the published Torah Clubs materials. Given that they're trying to win converts from those already attending church, it is wise (and deceptive) of them to hide their true disdain for, and rejection of, the traditional Gospel message. In these direct quotations it comes through loud and clear. This is why the Franklin Christian Ministerium unanimously decided to move forward with opposing this false teaching. We may have differences on any number of other theological issues, but none of us are seeking to teach people a different Gospel than the one handed down to us. That is what is at the heart of the mission and purpose of FFOZ, and it has no place in the Church.
** An important reminder: Our contention is not with Jews, Judaism, or Messianic Judaism. FFOZ is a gentile led organization targeting gentiles, they are not associated with the Jewish people, the religion of Judaism, or the movement within Christianity known as Messianic Judaism. **
Of the many blessings and joys that the resurrection of Jesus from the dead brings to those who believe in him, one that we will all need some day is the assurance that he has opened up for us a path from death to new life. Because Jesus has risen from the dead, we too will rise. This wonderful truth offers us comfort in our times of sorrow, strength in our times of trial, and puts away fear of the future.
The superiority of Jesus, his person, his life, and his sacrifice is the central theme of the book of Hebrews. Here in Venango County, PA, our ministerium has been dealing with a challenge from an unorthodox organization, the First Fruits of Zion, whose Torah Clubs are promoting the belief that Jesus did not fulfill the Mosaic Covenant. To them, the Law of Moses remains binding on all of God's people, and always will be. Hebrews 10:14 is one passage of scripture among many that demonstrate the falsehood of this teaching. The sacrifice of Jesus is superior, in every way, to anything in the Law of Moses, and this is by design. The purity of Christ's priesthood, the power of his sacrifice, and the tenacity of its application to all of us who put our faith in him is a core tenant of the Gospel. The New Covenant established by Jesus' blood was built upon a new foundation, for it is the ultimate manifestation of God's redemptive work among humanity, fully and finally.
And now, the rest of the story. We know about the Triumphal Entry, and the clearing of the Temple that take place soon after, but don't forget about the healing of the blind and the lame accompanied by the joyous shouts of children that followed.
On the day of his triumph, Jesus took the time to heal those who came to him in faith. While the common people celebrated him as a savior, the religious leaders of the day scorned him as a threat. While adults looked at miracles and scoffed, children showered Jesus in praises.
