Matthew (Session 10) Chapters 14-15

we are in session 10 of the gospel of matthew and we're going to take two chapters chapters 14 and 15. but by way of just background again matthew of course is one of the four gospels and each of the four gospels presents a specific perspective of jesus christ and matthew's focus is that he's presenting the messiah mark and luke and john have a slightly different focus his genealogy supports that presentation he emphasizes that what jesus said and again and again and again and again some 60 times i believe it's it it's it gives a reference from the old testament that he's drawing from matthew of course is directing his talk to the jew and his first miracle the concluding episodes and so forth all support that presentation in the first section we looked through we saw the genealogy the birth of christ the baptism of christ the temptation of christ and then the manifesto of the king in the sermon on the mount chapters five six and seven then we got to section two you calm the storm the demoniac at gadara that's also recorded it recorded the call of matthew himself to as a disciple we also encountered a couple of interesting healings that were sort of mystically linked jairus daughter and then this woman which we believe was a gentile with an issue of blood both linked by a 12-year time factor how fascinating and then we saw the 12 sent out and then we had the response to john the baptist and then in chapter 12 we dealt with the sabbath issues and encountered the unpardonable sin but the main point of section 2 or i should say maybe chapter 12 is that ends it's a major major turning point in the entire gospel of matthew because from that point on he speaks only in parables and it that up until then he's presenting the kingdom to israel and he's rejected not just at the cross far in advance that when they start attributing when the leadership attributes his miracles to satan and so that's when jesus shifts gears and from that point on speaks only in parables when he's speaking to the public and so uh and that leads you to the chapter 13 we had last time the seven kingdom parables the sower and the four soils the tares and the wheat most of us heard i've heard a lot of sermons on those that are probably right on the mark but then we get to a couple of strange ones the mustard seed the small plant that becomes monstrosity so even the birds of the air come in its branches the woman in the leaven who does the horrifying thing of putting leaven in the three measures of meal the fellowship offering and then the treasure in the field and this very strange one the pearl of a great price a pearl being non-kosher a non-jewish thing and these the last several of course turn out if studied carefully from a jewish point of view have typically the very opposite insights that are usually brought out in sunday school type sermons and then they drag that pretty straightforward what we also took a look at and we refreshed ourselves a little bit on revelation two and three the seven letters seven churches and we noted how they since they were written by the same guy that's giving the um seven parables there's no surprise perhaps that there's some very provocative parallels between those and we went through all that last time and we also highlighted the perspective that those seven churches that jesus wrote letters to profile strangely there are four levels of meaning direct local they did then they're also admonitory all churches are to read all seven letters because they have elements of all of their good and bad points and the third thing then was personally that there's a lesson free let he that hath and here let him hear what the spirit says in other words every one of us individually have an individual application those are three straightforward things but there's a fourth level that's rather startling and that we discover that they also lay out the history of the church in advance if they were in any other order it wouldn't work but the apostolic church was followed by the persecuted church and what satan couldn't accomplish by persecuting the church he accomplished by having the church marry the world and the pergamos speaks to that and from there we go to the medieval church the denominational church the missionary church and probably one that's the script of our day the apostate church anyway as we look at the seven churches we also discovered paul wrote seven churches 13 letters three were doubles three of and the three of the addresses were pastors that leave seven churches and strangely enough they also have an astonishing parallel to each one of these that we could take time but i won't you can read this is by way of just warm up and review in this lesson we're going to encounter the family of herod and if you're reading your bible and you get confused uh which herod are we talking about and who is the uh descendant of whom you shouldn't be surprised because there are all kinds in this family that have the same names you have nieces marrying their uncles grand uncles you have so much murder so much cross intrigues that it is a a a study in its own right if you care to go really through that and i thought i'd try to get a good summary of it just to get us a perspective and i couldn't believe the bramble bush that you plunge into but i'll try to help you a little bit obviously the key guy that they're all echoes of is herod the great son of antipater and humane and what do you mean that's an edomite let's realize that all the herods were basically they pretended to be jews they gave lip service to being adopting judaism but you need to really you won't understand what's going on unless you recognize that from the beginning edom was the enemy of israel and uh herod acquired his power by his intrigues with rome the hasmonean empire so to speak you know after after the attacks epiphanies event abomination of desolation maccabean revolt took place the tasmanians took over and they had their heyday but they're now in starting to fall apart and the rome rome is on the rise and many of these intriguers take advantage of the fact they recognize the power of rome and they ingratiated themselves to rome and so they're really in between rome and the jews take and maneuvering themselves in a position of personal advantage herod the great being the most exemplar of that and uh so in 47 bc julius caesar made antipater a who he called a wily edu man procurator of judea and he divided his territories in turn with among his four sons and of those territories galilee fell in the lot of herod one of his four sons by the time you get to bc40 he's appointed tetrarch of judea by mark antony and also king of judea by the roman senate and there's a whole intrigued behind the scenes as to how he uh why matt anthony saw in herod some an avenue of advantage to rome in doing so but herod was very stern very cruel and he was a brutish and a stranger to all humanity this guy was incredibly a large guy very tall very powerful very assertive apparently had his way of being winston when he needed to be but a classic despot if you will and in fact he was the one you may recall in matthew chapter 2 that when he heard from the magi about where is he that's born king of the jews that was a calculated put down by the magi to him because he's not uh he wasn't born king at all he was appointed by rome and he certainly wasn't jewish he's on a slippery rock in a sense so when he he followed up that interview by of course killing all the children that might fit the description so he stole all the children that were in bethlehem and in all the coasts thereof not just bethlehem but uh that whole region and uh he he did a lot of other things he rebuilt the city of caesarea on the coast which is quite a place when you're in israel that's one of the things you do want to visit and every time we visit there it's bigger because they continually uncover more and more and uh you also the city of samaria which he called sylvester the in honor of augustus he always did everything he could to ingratiate himself to the roman authorities which were distant but powerful he restored the temple he took the zerubbabel temple and really totally remodeled doubled the size of the the the temple area and uh he started this in about 19 bc and it wasn't really finished until after his death in fact not until about 64 a.d just before the the fall of it all together and so we're going to talk about a gals in the picture by the name of salome and don't be confused there are several of them in history so this don't assume that when you read salome it's necessarily salome you might have in mind this solomias is a sister was ever neck deep in the intrigues of the herodian family very cunning and she succeeded in having herod believe in her unchangeable loyalty although the king had killed her own son-in-law and her nephew marastrobots and his own son the will of herod made shortly before his death is convincing proof of his regard for his sister that that will is a much debated document even back then and uh we but the main point i bring this up there are two salomes you want to be aware of salome number one has nothing to do with this story she was the wife of zebedee the mother of james and john the sons of sons of zebedee she's among the women that followed jesus from galilee ministering unto him in matthew 27 and also recorded in mark 15. she's also the one that requested two seats of honor for for her sons when christ comes in his kingdom have one on the right and one on the left and of course christ rebuked her and and she shared that rebuke obviously this all will occur when we get to matthew 20. but she would never was nevertheless not zealous ellis in an attachment to christ she was at his crucifixion beholding far off she was at his sepulchre early dawn so this salome is a good gal don't confuse her with the character that shows up in the herodian context some scholars assume that she's mary's sister in john that's at the crew of the cross but there's other scholars there's other scholars that make good points why that she's probably not it's just a it's a question of of uh scholastic ambiguity as to whether she's that same one or not the salome we're going to encounter in tonight's study is herodius's daughter by her former husband herrod phillip with herodia she got to keep track of her husbands with a scorecard okay and uh so and this salome is the one that danced before herod antipas at her mother's instigation asked for the head of john the baptist we'll see that tonight she also married first philip tetruck of traconitis and then her who was her paternal uncle and then the rest of us the king of chalices these are later guys and later anyway herod the great after the death of the sons of one of his wives mary and me mariam mini augustus has said to augustus this is back in rome he is recorded as having exclaimed it would be better to be one of herod's swine than herod's son that's a very famous quote in history by augustus and what he meant by that was you see it's a pun actually in the greek because the terms for swine is hoos and the word for son is julios they sound very much the same but this point was herod the great slaughtered so many of his relatives anybody that could possibly be can he was very paranoid very suspicious and uh you you didn't have to do much to be on his list and see herod he was a not a jew but he was a professed jew his swine were being unclean were saved from death but his sons were not that's that's the irony that augustus is leaning on here with this little remark it'd be better to be one of his heroes and swine than his sons because if you're a swine in harris house he's not going to kill you he's because they don't eat swine but if your son you are attempting your potential rival to the throne and you don't have you got a very very limited career anyway bc4 after a troubled reign of 37 years he died at jericho amid great agonies both of body and mind and that's a whole story in its own right but after his death his kingdom was divided among his three sons philip had the land east of the jordan between caesarea philippi that we'll encounter uh in in this evening and uh bethebar and the second son was antipas named antipas and he got galilee and peria and archelaus who got judea and samaria so these three sons of herod are also called herod obviously herod phillip herrera antipas herod accolades okay and what makes that even a little more complicated herod the great had another son called phillip so there's two phillips sons of herod to cause further confusion if you're going in the literature but all the herods had edomite blood in their veins and hated the jews they were treacherous rulers every one of them and and in the bible they're really considered types as the god of this age and the spirit of the antichrist and like satan all of them were liars and murderers and that was and that was not unique that was very typical of the leaders in in in those days in general but they certainly now to give you a little better perspective here's herod the great and here he had a son by the name of antipater aristophos alexander herod phillip harrod antivis archelaus and then another herod philip strangely enough and uh there's a lot of confusion when you're trying to compare records from from josephus with biblical and others so it's it's a non-trivial but herod the great was the one that was king of judea from 37 bc to about 4 bc we found in matthew 2 and luke 1 specifically mentioned anthon peter was the son of another of the wives out of doris anthologist was the son of marianne and me which is a another one alexander also another son of the same mother but then we get to herod phillip and uh he's also a son of marianne of simon 4 bc to 34 a.d she he is the first husband of herodias and he's referred to in matthew 14 in tonight's lesson and he's also in mark 6. but and then we get to herod antipas um tetrarch of galilee he's the one that killed john the baptist he's also the one before whom jesus is silent we'll encounter that um in a subsequent time and then another son is archelaus who's the ethnic of judea and you see see these are kings but they're not kings of the whole area they're that's why come tetrax or something they're they're they're uh partial uh rulers and uh then we have herod phillip son of cleopatra another gal and he also ended up ruling for a while um okay but the key line that we're interested in aristotle's his son he had three sons the key one i should say two sons and a daughter uh the key one is herod agrippa the first just uh when you hear herod agrippa in the gospel of the acts there's two of those because herod agrippa has a son who he calls herod agrippa the second so i want to just be just be sensitive to that no big deal but um the heritage chalices is we'll later on marry this young gal we're going to talk about shortly by the name of naomi it's actually he marries his niece seem to be very fashionable in those days it occurs several places herod agrippa the first king of judea he's the one that killed james in about 62 a.d which is an interesting thing that that is not mentioned anywhere in the gospels which implies that the gospels were written before 62 a.d because they certainly would have mentioned it he's also the one that imprisoned peter that is mentioned in acts and so 37 about 44 a.d then we get to this gal herodias she had married her uncle philip and decided he had this guy antipas apparently was a pretty persuasive guy because he she divorces him and marries herod antipas john the baptist publicly denounces that whole issue and that didn't go very well with um herodias didn't care for that so much antipas uh wanted to kill him but was afraid to because of the the people regarding him as a prophet so he imprisons him in uh the macharis prison or which is a fortress that had a dungeon under it it's a waste of the jordan it's over in that area in any case uh on his birthday he has a party and we're gonna hear all about that and uh so herodias has has a an angle so anyway heritage gripper the first has a son by the name of herod agrippa the second and also two gals one bernice who became the concert of her brother and herod agrippa the second who was a tetrarch the northern territory and he's the one before whom paul is tried when you get to acts 25 and following and then we have drusilla who married felix that procured procreator judea dating isn't exactly precise but it's at roughly the time of acts 24. but herodias meanwhile has a daughter and this daughter is going to be a major player in our affairs tonight she'll be recorded not just in math 11 verses in matthew 14 they're about to enter but also in mark 6. so that's intended to be a little background and perspective and if nothing else at least warn you that you'll get confused when you start tracking some of these things down because they're all called herod and uh so forth anyway matthew chapter 14 verse 1 at that time herod the tetrarch heard of the fame of jesus and said unto his servants this is john the baptist he has risen from the dead and therefore mighty works to show forth themselves in him now what you're what follows doesn't happen then it's a flashback the reason he thinks that when he hears about jesus that it's john the baptist raised from the dead because long before this john the baptist has been killed you with me what we now have is like a little flashback scene going back to explain why he thinks john the baptist has risen from the dead you follow me so when you get when you get to verse three it's like a a flashback for you and i that's pretty typical you hardly can see a movie these days without a flashback you know it's a common technique in communication but for many people let's get they get confused because they don't realize that this is not chronological this is a look back now going back for herod had laid hold on john and bound him and put him in prison for herodia's sake his brother philip's wife she had divorced philip and and uh was the consort as we would consider of herod and john the baptist made a public thing of that like john had said to him it is not lawful for thee to have her and um it was just it was these the herod the herodians were professing to be jewish they weren't really but they would subscribe uh at least to the appearances of jewish law and this was prohibited in the law and john the baptist is calling out on this it was not a politically correct thing to do john the baptist never graduated from seminary and got never had any benefit of how to engineer a user-friendly sermon okay john had herald the coming of the king and had faithfully preached god's truth christ must increase and he must decrease remember in john chapter 3. any christian who is faithful to the word of god as john was will suffer persecution one of the things we need to be need to recognize whenever a pulpit starts to get really popular that in itself isn't bad but it's a flag you want to check carefully why is it popular is it shaving the gospel is it compromising the gospel there are bible translations that are incredibly popular today they would say well they're paraphrases and i can still hear walter martin bellow from a pulpit once would you paraphrase god the paraphrases are useful they sometimes can be read and gain insight but there's a huge huge bridge you've got to cross if you're going to call it the word of god when you say the word of god what you're implying is that it's god's word now admittedly he didn't speak english it's hebrew and greek in the text but you're then faced with simply how faithful is that translation and some of these paraphrases may be very useful very comfortable very and have appropriate places many in many places but they should be accompanied with some diligence to discern the difference between a paraphrase of a story and the word of god especially as you really study the word of god you find that it is laced with word play it's laced with deliberate puns and it's been designed deliberately by god himself to have several layers of meaning so when you try to transfer when you try to translate anything even in one level you gotta you gotta a lot in your hands and so does that mean you have to know hebrew and greek to get the most out of it no not today because there are all kinds of techniques that you can use to find out what the text really said and through a good exposition or exegetical commentary and uh so that's there's god always rewards diligence but any case getting back to the issue here the world is not the friend of the christian who's the god of this world i didn't hear you satan you bet you okay and we need to remember that one of the things that especially in these days as we watch the news as we watch the return of elections not just in the us but in other countries it's it's we need to remind ourselves that all of this that's going on is spiritual warfare and as we watch the strange decisions sometimes that it seems comes out of the courts or out of the congress you need to realize that all those things are the result of spiritual warfare some place sometimes we win sometimes we lose in a sense or at least on the face of it as we worry about israel as we force them into untenable positions and as their thirst for peace raises up leadership that has no backbone no strength certainly no sense of god's will you do get the impression there's not enough people that go to the knesset that are carrying bibles not like the old days so those are all issues you need to remember that the world is not the friend of the christian the world is not the friend of god's people israel either let's be just aware of that let's move on the world rejected the king and will also reject his messengers it should not surprise us that that what satan accomplished back there will be things he'll try to accomplish here right moving on matthew chapter 14 verse 5 speaking of herod and his dilemmas what to do with john the baptist is when he would have put him to death he feared the multitude because they counted him as a prophet so strangely enough that john the baptist preached the gospel and it's interesting the crowds so many crowds came to see his baptisms you may recall that the temple had to send an inquiry team find out what's going on now it makes that impressive if you've been to israel and have gone from jerusalem to bethabara to jericho area you know that's about 20 miles of tough desert and people on foot they didn't have a rental car in those days people that left jerusalem the temple area to go here john the baptist went 20 miles on foot and there were so many doing that that the temple sent an inquiry team so john the baptist despite his main fact and probably because of his his uncompromising style had drawn a real crowd and still did and beca so that even though the leadership like herod would love to have got him out of the way he was nervous because the multitude was a voice to be reckoned with too it's interesting too that even today uh we read these articles to the magazines that are confused uh they can't understand why the denominational churches are sort of drying up and yet these mega churches are blossoming the dots they don't connect is the mega church says blossoming are typically ones that are preaching the word of god people are hungry for the word that's that's one of the reasons that so many people are meeting in homes because they want to learn their bible and you can't do that with a 45-minute sermon once a week and so there's a groundswell not just in the us all over the world of people meeting in homes small fellowships um pray together have a fella have a potluck meal and then go through the word with god verse beverage book by book anyway when when herod's birthday was kept the daughter of herodias danced before them and pleased herod and whereupon he promised with an oath to give her whatsoever she would ask his birthday big party and it was very typical these parties to really try to do something really well and i'll explain a little bit more about her in a minute but anyway uh in the enthusiasm of the performance he promised with an oath that he give her whatever she would ask and mark even says he said up to half the kingdom they mean that literally or was that just a party gesture well she being before instructed of her mother said give me here john baptist's head in a charger charger being a large plate kind of thing trey ferrara in his life of christ summarizes i think elegantly i'm quoting him here here is a princess showing up herod's own niece a granddaughter of herod the great and of maryamnie a descendant therefore of simon the high priest and the great line of the machiavellian princes a princess who afterwards became the wife of the tetrarch philip the tetrarch of taconitis and the mother of a king honoring them by degrading herself into acidic dancer she was a personage to be reckoned with and you get the impression that herod was startled that she would offer herself for this entertainment and everyone there would know who she was granddaughter of the great herod descendant of the very distinguished line of maccabean princes including sam the high priest and she later would be married into royalty and she offered this performance you know as i was going through the whole background not of just this but there's one anecdote after another all through the herodian era hollywood's asleep they want some good scripts all they have to do is do take some history lessons can you imagine what they do with this one anyway well the king was sorry because he made a promise you know nevertheless for the oath sake and and them which sat with him at deep meet he commanded to be given her and he sent and beheaded john in the prison and his head was brought in on a charger and given to the damsel and she brought it to her mother brief tragic shock waves throughout the land and his disciples came and took up the body and buried it and went and told jesus when jesus heard of it he departed thence by ship into a desert place apart and when the people had heard thereof they followed him on foot out of the cities they get the picture here as a result of this jesus went into our retreat distance wilderness place deliberately but the people followed him there that creates problems not only did he lose his privacy i'm gonna talk about that you're suddenly got a large crowd of people that are not logistically supported and that's a reality but we'll get to that in a minute just to summarize the herod since as we leave this part herod the great he's the guy that slew the children of bethlehem herodotus he's the younger son of herod the great not really a king but a tetrarch okay he had john the baptist killed and he's also the one that formed jesus was silent back in when we get to luke later herod agrippa slew james and he's the one in prison peter in acts 12. he was a grandson so we got the son of the grandson now herod agrippa the second is the great grandson he's the one before whom paul was tried these are the four you want to be sensitive to a lot of the rest are just going to add confusion as you as you wait through it these are the four key guys that you will encounter as you go through the gospel in the book of acts okay so we're out in the desert here jesus went forth and saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion toward them and he healed their sick and when it was evening his disciples came to them saying this is a desert place and the time has now passed send the multitude away that they may go into the villages and buy themselves vittles do you said on them they need not depart give them to eat they're probably thinking the how they said on them we have here but five loaves and two fishes he said bring them hither to me work with what you got right and he commanded the multitude sit down on the grass and took the five loaves and the two fishes and looking up to heaven he blessed and break and gave the loaves to his disciples and the disciples to the multitude and they did all eat and were filled wow and they took up of the fragments that remained 12 baskets full they that had eaten were about 5 000 men beside women and children they call this the feeling of the five thousand sounds to me more like it's between ten and fifteen you got five thousand men i'm assuming there's going to be about the same number of women and are some number of of children apparently the feeding of the five thousand as they call it and straightway jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship and to go before him unto the other side while he sent the multitudes away in other words he sent them on the ship he didn't go with him he can he constrained his disciples to get into a ship they didn't want to why they knew a storm was coming probably huh these guys are fishermen they're fools they don't want to go on a ship well but he says so okay okay okay you can straighten to get into a ship and to go before him onto the other side the other side of the sea of galilee while he sent the multitudes away and when he sent the multitudes away he went up into a mountain to pray he went up into a mountain apart to pray and when the evening was come he was there alone disciples out in the middle of the sea right crossing the lake but the ship was now in the midst of the sea tossed with waves for the wind was contrary you can almost hear them mumbling i told yourself and in the fourth watch of the night jesus went unto them walking on the sea and when the disciples saw him walking on the sea they were troubled saying it's a spirit and they cried out for fear i can understand that how would you feel huh but straightway jesus spoken to them saying be of good cheers aye be not afraid we were just on the sea of galilee here a few weeks ago and uh we had an unusually large crowd we had about 170 people with us and so we wouldn't fit in one of the usual boats they used we usually always go one of these boats get out the sea and do a little bible study and then cross over and have some what they call st peter's fish on the over up on the north edge and uh well in this case because we had so many we had two two boats or ships and uh um because we usually do a teaching out there they have well we put the two they lasted they tied them together for a while and i'm one of these guys i always explained being a naval academy guy how always i was always so disappointed when i see the sea of galilee when i first i should say the first time i saw the sea of galilee i was disappointed because it looked so small nice but seven miles across 13 miles long that's a it's not a sea it's a lake in fact that it really is it's mistranslated it it's really a lake honestly but anyway that's what everybody calls it and so they okay but um i could never understand how these fishermen would experience storms that were life-threatening on a little lake like that and it's always been explained to me that on the north west corner of the lake there are two very large mountains called the horns of hattin and a venturi can a wind can really because of the topography there can really turn up that water and okay great i have never had a big storm there but i almost thought one was going to start when we were there that time right some people yeah finally get my wish yeah several people that are here were with us there then and it got it it got rough enough that people got a little concerned just but it was interesting because we had we had a little taste of what we're talking about here and it wasn't that big a deal but still it was it made the point and uh i should mention something else though for the for that whole day which was raining in general there was a little patch of sky open blue sky with sun that would follow us we went on the north yeah wherever we were and we went all the way around the lake for other things to to do the baptism stuff uh we were fi and and everybody was oh wow you know and i i just said sure we called ahead no problem and so anyway but here it is it's night i assume it may be lightning flashing and so forth it's a stormy type it's a very turbulent time and g they spot jesus at night walking across the water and that was that disturbance and here's peter of course peter answered him said lord if it be thou bid me come to come unto thee in the water he want to play you want to do that hey let me do that too you know that's that's peter isn't it and we always call him ready fire aim peter you know um we always say he had foot and mouth disease the only time he opened his mouth was to change feet you know he but uh but this case uh he's just enthusiastic and that's great you know and and in fact it's it's it's to be encouraged and jesus said so come come on peter great the water's fine you know and when peter was coming down out of the ship he walked on the water to go to jesus so far so good wouldn't you like to have tried that would you know can you pick yourself in the boat with a bunch of buddies and jesus coming in would you rather go say hey if if that's you call me i'll not come too i won't ask for a show of hands you know i think some of us would want to do that someone would say well i'll read about it tomorrow that's fine and when he saw the wind boisterous speaker peter and he was afraid and beginning to sink he cried lord save me and immediately jesus stretched forth his hand and caught him and said on him a vow of little a vow of little faith wherefore did thou doubt it's interesting that peter as long as he had his eye on the lord no sweat he was walking it wasn't an illusion he was walking on the water but when he looked around and realized where he was he got shook up i think there's some lessons for all of us here and i think it's so straightforward it harley deserves a lot of elaboration think you and i when we're in a storm as long as we're keeping an eye on him we're in good shape that's easily said but it takes focus it takes commitment we need to remind ourselves what it's really all about and it's always always always all about him lord save me he said and jesus did immediately jesus had stretched forth his hand caught him said unto him without little faith wherefore it is thou doubt and when they were coming to the ship the wind ceased interesting episode it's it's it's it's the more you try to actually visualize it the more amusing it really becomes can you imagine these guys in the wind and the rain and watch him so many people make jokes about the just walking in the water we were having a bible study lesson about the gnostics and the gnostics the gnostics in the first second century had all these strange ideas about christ that he he you know really wasn't christ and and some said he really wasn't in flesh he was just a spirit in fact he didn't leave footprints when he walked that sort of thing that was those some of the peculiar notions the gnostics try to apply and during the bible says i said well we know there's at least one case when you didn't leave footprints what where well matthew 14. you just need footprints walk in the water he didn't leave it then they which were in the ship came and worshiped him saying of a truth thou art the son of god it's interesting that these guys may have missed some points here and there and we sometimes get frustrated by the fact they somehow often just didn't get it on the one hand on the other end can you imagine being there in the presence of a person that was the one that created the universe in the first place can we imagine that can we imagine what it was like sitting around a fire on the beach with him catching the nuances catching the humor and then can you imagine an experience like this where he commands the storms i mean wild wild stuff people say gee you really believe those stories about walking water absolutely we don't believe he was the christ because he walked on water we believe he walked on water because he was the christ people get that backwards you can establish that as christ on absolute grounds apological grounds once you come there then these things take on a whole new meaning and when they were gone over they came into the land of genezer and when the men of that place had knowledge of him they sent out unto all that country round about and brought unto him all that were diseased and besought him that they might only touch the hem of his garment and as many as touched were made perfectly whole man i i like to underscore all that were diseased as many as touched him and so forth you know we have these little episodes recorded in the gospels we shouldn't get the impression that they were the only times he did this they were ones that had certain points to be made he apparently healed everywhere he went in large scale and large-scale basis and here again we have the hem of his garment this should echo back that story the study we had about hymns the woman with the issue of blood and so forth again the hymn being the emblem of rank in that community and touching the hem of his garment is analogous to to the to to touching his the outward expression of his rank and uh okay now there's a story we've had we've had we've had a little episodes here right and those are fine those are solid no problem but you may recall in in the hebrew hermeneutics see the uh pattern is what the prophecy is pattern and matthew is a jew and he is writing to a jewish audience so we might be alert a little bit here for what's called a remnants you may recall they had there's four four levels in the in the jewish hermeneutic yeah the pashat which is the direct meaning of the story there's the the um remes which is the allegorical hint of something deeper there's the dirache which is the personal application of the story and we can nothing here is escapes us we pretty much get the idea of how these might apply to our lives but often there is a fourth level a mystical level and the remez which can be me which basically means a hint of something deeper let's explore that why are these stories we have here in this particular order these aren't necessarily precisely the order they occurred as we compare gospel of the gospel in chapter 12 the main event there was jesus is rejected by israel right we made that point in chapter 12. chapter 13 were introduced to a mystery that had been hidden before the foundation of the world the church expressed in in seven kingdom parables right that's by way of review in this chapter we have a couple of stories occur and is it possible that in in in the jewish mentality at least there is and some layers of insight that are tucked underneath these stories that we might miss if we don't if we go too quickly let's pause for a little bit herod where does he fit in well herod is a usurper he's the king of this age and incidentally he's living in open adultery really what has that got to do with anything then he slaughters a prophet at the request of a woman right oh that's interesting john was the closing of the old testament next people were fed in the wilderness and what's left over afterwards 12 baskets which i submit to you is somewhat of a jewish symbol when you think of 12 you think of 12 tribes right even the 12 apostles destiny was to rule the over the 12th judge the 12 tribes paul was apostle of the gentiles not of the 12 the 12 were israel so the 12 suggests it's a jewish symbol as is underscored in revelation chapter 7 where we have 12 tribes sealed the lord deliberately sets them up in a boat in the middle to go to the middle of the sea right boats typically uh typologically if you will after one boat knows art the word kefar in genesis is translated pitched but everywhere else that word is that same word in hebrew is translated atonement ooh what's going on here the sea is a type of what the gentile nations the victor the the isaiah tells us the wicked are like the trouble see when it can't rest whose waters cast up meyer and dirt in daniel 7 these gentile beasts come up out of the sea and in revelation 13 we have two players at the end time one out of the sea and one out of the earth some scholars suspect that one may be a gentile one may be jew for other reasons and what what's the lord doing while his are on the sea being tossed in this boat he's up on a mountain praying really mountain's a type of government remember daniel 2 so jesus is on the mountain interceding for a boat on a stormy sea how interesting peter is the called out one right and while the called out assembly is focused on him they are fine but when they take their eyes off him they sink right how interesting do you see a dispensational overview here i i can spell it out but uh it's it's it either at my feeling you either see it or you don't i wouldn't try to sell it on you i think it's very provocative i think that there's a parallel here a foreshadowing if you will dispensationally let's move on to chapter 15. and i'll leave you to you know it's interesting you speak of clean animals clean animals are distinguished as they chew the cut why because we are too to the cut we are to eat his words right thy words were found and i did eat them john in revelation was warned that the mouth will be sweet for the belly bitter and indeed it is some of it so we are to digest these things that's especially true of the psalms the proverbs you don't just read them you need to digest them and they'll speak to you and the same thing is true with these some of the most um i won't say dangerous but the most uh important studies are our stories we know so well we may miss their point it's nice to go over them and try to stand back and see what else they're saying to us chapter 15 we're going to see a contrast between the traditions of judaism and the commandments of god and that's going to be a recurring theme for us in our bible studies for a lot of reasons let's move in matthew 15 verse 1 then came to jesus scribes and pharisees which were of jerusalem saying now let's pause right there the pharisee headquarters are in jerusalem but so why mention that these were from jerusalem we're going to be seeing a confrontation here and also it's a very very strange um emphasis let's just we'll just jump in there with jerusalem saying why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders for they wash not their hands when they eat bread now he answered and said to them why do ye also transgress the commandment of god by your tradition washed out their hands they say you know it's interesting the bible has laws for priests yet here we're dealing with everyday orthodox jew and strangely enough there's anything about washing your hands in this sense in the old testament it doesn't mean you shouldn't but that washing is really commanded the torah for the priests they applied it to every they what we're really dealing with is not what the torah says that's a different thing what we're talking about here are there traditions certain way you do these things okay they added what they call oral traditions they sometimes dignify this by saying it's the oral law we have the written law and we have the oral law in pharisaical judaism they added the oral traditions and here's the surprise which is being called to their attention which they put above the written statutes of the torah for them to take the torah and add their own style of doing things okay as long as you don't confuse the two what what's mandatory and what's just your way of doing something right you follow me and uh avi lipkin tells of two jews that were arguing about when you say the shema you know the great you know which is the great commandment in deuteronomy 6. when you say the shema are you supposed to stand are you supposed to sit and they argue they argue they argued and we've got to get we got to go to the rabbi and get this resolved and say they go to the learned agent super rabbi available to them and and said rabbi we have a problem um we need to know do when we say the shema every day do we stand or do we sit and rabbi thought about us as well there isn't a clear leading on that one way or the other whatever you want to do is fine well gee rob that's funny because we he says we have to stand and we say we have to sit and every time we have a synagogue we fight and we argue over do we stand to sit and the rabbi says now there that's a tradition and anyway we'll move on verse 4 for god commanded saying honor thy father and mother and he that curseth his father and mother let him die the death but ye say whosoever shall say to his father or his mother it is a gift by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me and honor not his father and his mother be shall he shall be free thus have ye made the commandment of god of none effect by your tradition without some explanation this may confuse you a little bit let's back up here let's go there's a concept called corban there was a tradition underscored tradition that goods could be set aside for either of two purposes as a dedication to the temple or in reserve for the performance of a vow in other words you could take s the idea was you could take some of your goods and you could set that aside because you're planning to give it to the temple or it was a reserve that had something to do with maybe some valve that you had made to perform that was designated corban set aside for that purpose designated corban is a gift offered or to be offered to god it was a sacred treasury in effect this shows up in mark 7 incidentally corban was excluded then from any other requirements okay what they were doing is using this tradition as a ruse to evade the commandment to care for their father or the mother now there's resources that they had that could have been used to support their father and mother were set aside that's corban that's for the temple later i'll ride my ferrari right now but that's for the temple later you know whatever you get the idea and so that's really what jesus is saying here god commanded said honor thy father mother and he that curseth father mother let him die to death that was a law an injunction that carried a death penalty you need to provide for your mom and dad he said but you say whosoever shall say to his father's mother it is a gift in other words corban but whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me in other words they're designating resources that could be used in acquitting that responsibility they do this to evade the response and so jesus says and honor not his father's mother he shall be free well thus ye have made the commandment of god of none effect by your tradition here's a case where the tradition is totally obviating the command of god by this whole issue with corban and so on ye hypocrites jesus says well did isaiah prophesy of you saying this people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth and honoreth me with their lips but their heart is far from me but in vain they do worship me teaching for doctrines the commandments of men boy boy boy may we sincerely pray that we don't be guilty of the same thing we want to worship him and we don't have that encumbered by teachings that are really just traditions of men it's sobering to realize that you get in trouble by lengthening a tether it's sort of like having a pet or something staked in the yard you have a steak and a chain and a pet and a certain length it works fine but if it gets too long the pet could still get into trouble you follow that sort of clumsy example perhaps mosaic judaism is what i would call the judaism that we read in the torah the five books of moses that's um that's a there there were there were people even in relatively modern times that clung to that they were called the keroites in russia for example the khairites were jews there that rejected talmudic judaism let me before let me go on before i'll come back to that the mosaic judaism starts to get sprinkled with traditions and as we all the way especially from about the 400 from 400 bc and when they return from babylon they the there's the pharisees start to rise to power and they they they uh emphasize all kinds of rules and we'll call that that's the kind of judaism that we're encountering in the gospel period it's the kind of judaism that jesus is speaking against he's not speaking against the torah matthew five remember he said i think not that i come to um to destroy the torah or the prophets i come not to destroy but to fulfill very last enemy not one yard or one tittle shall pass from the law the torah until until all be fulfilled so he's not against mosaic judaism he is speaking all the way through here whether it's the sabbath day or these other things that are coming up he's speaking against pharisaical judaism that's too sorry about 400 bc when you get to the third through the sixth century a.d those oral laws are starting to get written down in the talmud and there's two authoritative talmuds one that's called the jerusalem talmud it wasn't in jerusalem was actually tiberius but that's neither here or there there's another one that's called that was done in babylon the babylonian talmud the academy in babylon outlasts the one in tiberius by a hundred years the the the the jerusalem talmud is from about the third to the fifth century a.d the babylonian talmud from the third to the sixth century a.d so between the two strangely the babylonian talmud is the more authoritative in the minds of most many rabbis but as you go on to time you finally get to the 12th century and by there and you've got guys that are starting to really get into what you'd call unbridled mysticism and the kabbalah as exemplified by the zohar and some of those writings um actually end up inverting what lot what the torah says the torah emphasized a a personal god that makes and keeps promises the kabbalah starts to de-personalize god it tries to look inside the the godhead and it defines ten emanations the sephirot and all that business in fact the kabbalah is doing what has exactly prohibited the torah it's trying to uncover the father's nakedness and it's in effect doing that to the godhead itself strange stuff actually but that's 12th century stuff when you get to the 18th century you get to hasidic judaism which in some respects is a correction from the kabbalah i i was startled to discover that wasn't the other way around i always thought the kabbalah was just the fringe group from the hasidics no in a sense it's almost the other way around because the kabbalah comes up in the 12th century hasidicism comes up in the 18th but the main point i'm getting here is as you go through history there's a tendency for them to venerate the writers the commentators the rabbis over the text instead of clinging to the torah itself they start incrementally more and more venerating the very the various rabbinical opinions about the text and as you lengthen that tether if you will they get into deeper and deeper trouble and that's we're seeing in the gospel period the pharisaical uh judaism being attacked by christ the mo there were people uh in the sixth seventh eighth ninth centuries in russia that rejected talmudic judaism and they went back as best they knew how to mosaic judaism they were called terrorites after the word kara in the hebrew which means literally reading later literal readings i'll tell you what's fascinating about this when i first ran into these guys is they were exempt for all the the persecutions in russia on the jew if you were jewish in russia you were doubly taxed and you were subject to the pogroms among a lot of other things that turns out that was not true of the rights it was the czar felt they were different we're not talking about them we're talking about those guys talmudic jews they're the they're the ones which were most of them of course that got caught at all cut all those troubles throughout those centuries all those things that are uh echoed if you will in in the fit are on the roof and those kinds of perspectives but the point is that that was talmudic judaism that they're aiming at interestingly enough i thought that was kind of interesting anyway moving on jesus he said he called to the multitude and said unto them hear and understand not that see they've been criticizing me washing the hands the pharisees were now he's addressing the crowd that's around he's called he called a multitude and said unto them hear and understand he's not talking to these turkeys okay not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man but that which cometh out of the mouth this defileth a man that's his point then came his disciples and said in him knowest thou that the pharisees were offended after they heard the [Laughter] i'm same i think it's fine but he answered and said every plant which my heavenly father hath not planted shall be rooted up boy let's think about that one for a minute every plant which my heavenly father has not planted shall be rooted up anything you're doing for god is good anything else is gone would hate stubble boy that one sentence we could spend an hour devotional on thinking that one through about the things in our lives our priorities in our life every plant which my father heavenly father has not planted shall be rooted up only what the father does endures if you're giving to a ministry the evidence you want is not how badly they need the money the evidence you want is there evidence that the father is in it i remember a really question i sat on a a number of boards ministries and that was one of the fascinating lessons that i learned by being on those boards because one of the things they they'd always ask to ask these questions i finally figured out what they're really after but they weren't after how badly do they need there's all there's more needs and you can than you could possibly address that's not the issue the issue is is there evidence god is in the action because he doesn't need our help we just have the opportunity to invest in what he's doing because it's going to pay real returns that's the idea it continues let them alone they be blind leaders of the blind and if the blind lead the blind both shall fall into the ditch amen then answered peter and said on him declare unto us this parable oh come on peter then answered peter yeah and said him declare unto this prayer and jesus said to him are he also yet without understanding do you sense a certain uh threat of feeling of frustration there are you are you also yet without understanding do you not yet understand that whatsoever enters in at the mouth goeth into the belly and is cast out into the draft i don't want to detract from the point he's making but you know every time i think about the nutritional system i'm in awe anybody knows anything about system engineering has to stand back and just be stunned with the elegance of the that which we take so for granted we have these beings us that need energy and and we can take in vegetables animals all what what's around us and our body can sift through that and pick out what it needs the minerals and the and the basics the energy and the carbohydrates of the the the not only the energy stuff but the the muscle muscle buildings all these different categories and what it doesn't need and its own waste products from its own processes gets passed out that whole the whole concept of a working fluid like that the whole concept that we have a universe of trees and plants and that are all tuned to this is staggering absolutely staggering now the the strange synergism between the leaves and the animals they make just they they take the the the co2 in the water and they create the glucose and the ex and they have uh for every one of those you've got six oxygen pairs that go out and so you got the the the the interdependence of the plants and the animals is a balance that's elegant incredibly complex and stacked and and we i just got back from from uh dealing with a bunch of students who are you know troubled because they're getting taught that all has happened by accident and and and all we want to do is institute in schools um not religion just evidence-based education all we want to do is introduce in schools the concept that these things have been designed that these are evidence of intelligence design where it goes from there is a whole other issue but no that's not politically correct today anyway moving on with his point here but those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart and they defile the man for out of the heart proceed evil thoughts and murders adulteries and fornications thefts false witness blasphemies these are the things which defile a man but to eat with unwashing hands defile if not a man i still think you should wash your hands before eating by the way okay but that's man's tradition all that then jesus went vince and departed unto the coasts of tyre and sidon and behold a woman of canaan came out of the same coast and cried on them saying have mercy on me o lord thou son of david my daughter is grievously vexed with the devil understand she's a gentile she's from tyre and science poseidon okay that's not this is we presume she's not jewish she's a woman of canaan woman of canaan came out of the same coast and cried unto him saying have mercy on me o lord thou son of david she's calling him right angie son of david that's a title of the messiah she so far has no basis to approach him he's the son of david jesus answered her not a word that surprises many people is he unkind the disciples came into psalms saying send her away for she crieth after us this wasn't a one-shot thing she's apparently he's you know she's a clinger he's hanging on here but he answered and said i am not sent but to unto the lost sheep of the house of israel jesus restating his mission statement at this point it's focused doesn't get distracted that's what he's called to it would seem then came she and worshipped him saying lord help me but he answered and said it is not me to take the children's bread and cass it to the dogs boy and she said truth lord yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table man the word here in dogs by the way is puppies little dogs it's not like it's this is greek and it's the small little puppies you notice too that she addresses him not as a son of david then came she and worshipped him saying lord help me in this case more all-inclusive here and she still he still points out there's an issue of priorities here and she said truth lord yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from the master's table then jesus answered and said unto her o woman greatest thy faith be it unto thee even as thou wilt and her daughter was made whole from that very hour the real point of all is it was an exception to the primary mission that mission is going to change of course and jesus departed from thence and came nigh unto the sea of galilee and went up into a mountain and sat down there and great multitudes came to him having with them those that were lame and blind and dumb and maimed and many others and cast them down at jesus feet and he healed them it's so much that the multi wondered when they saw the dumb to speak and the maim to be whole and the lame to walk the blind to see and they glorified the god of israel can you imagine jesus called his disciples on them and said i have compassion on the multitude because they continue with me now three days three days get this and have nothing to eat see here we are again in a logistic situation huh and i will not send them away fasting unless they faint in the way disciples said to them when should we have so much bread in the wilderness as to fill so great a multitude do you send to them how many loaves have ye he said seven and a few little fishes he commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground they took the seven loaves and the fishes and gave thanks and break them and gave to his disciples and the disciples to the multitude same pattern to the disciples disciples giving it out okay and they did all eat and were filled and they took up with the broken meat that was left seven baskets full and they did and they that did eat were four thousand men beside women and children here again they call it the feeding of the four thousands more like more than twice that and he sent away the multitude and took a ship and they came to the coast of magdala magdala's right on the northwest corner of the sea of galilee feeding the multitudes remember we had five thousand as it's called in matthew 14. they were predominantly jews these are predominantly gentiles the others the first the 5000 took place in galilee at patheta four thousand took place at decapolis on the in the gentile turf five loaves two fish in the five thousand seven loaves a few fish in the four thousand five thousand had twelve baskets left over right the four thousand had seven baskets left over what do you what do you infer from all of this one was in the spring of the year one is in the summer of the year okay in the spring of the year you have passover in the spring of the year the the 5000 very jewish all the way through you get the picture this is very gentile all the way through and it's in the summer that's why i always get so interested in the one of the seven feasts of moses there's one in the summer got the spring feasts kept the fall feasts one in the middle the feast of pentecost feast of shiva and what we're doing here one the crowd was with him one day the other the crowd was with him three days what does three days remind you of your second guess doesn't count okay okay just by way of review herod the great jesus wave review slew all the children about bethlehem herod antipas was the younger son of him not rita king he's the one that had john the baptist killed and before before whom jesus was silent herod agrippa slew james and imprisoned peter acts 12 agrippa later i think of agrippa as acts okay the grandson of herod the great see one's the son what's the grandson then herod a group of the second great grandson before whom paul was tried those are out of the bunch the four you want to sort of try to keep sorted out the next session i want you to read matthew 16-17 i want you to review revelation 11 for a surprise

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Published: Sun Oct 18 2020