Matthew (Session 2) Chapter 2

we are in session two of the gospel of matthew and we'll be undertaking a chapter chapter two and uh i'd like to sort of review where we are matthew mark and luke and john we have four gospels presenting jesus christ from four different points of view and it's interesting to number one understand that to understand each gospel but it's also provocative in a number of ways matthew is jewish he's a levite he presents jesus christ as the meshiach nagy the messiah the king mark who's really the secretary for peter we believe um is really focuses on jesus christ as the suffering servant many of the jews felt there were two messiahs in the old testament the suffering servant and the reigning king and that's really what matthew talks about the reigning king very clearly mark really focuses on the suffering servant and it many rabbis have finally realized that their perception of two messiahs really is two comings of the same messiah but in any case luke is a gentile doctor he's not interested particularly in the jewish roots he's interested in his humanity and john of course is the mystic he presents him as the son of god now because of that focus there are three of the four gospels have genealogies that are different incidentally matthew presents his genealogy starting with the first jew abraham takes it down to through david down to joseph the legal father of jesus christ mark is not interested in pedigree for his purposes so he doesn't have a genealogy luke being a doctor starts from adam the first man and carries it all the way through through mary uh the mother of christ and uh john has a genealogy most people don't recognize the first three verses are the genealogy of the pre-existent one and uh in any case matthew emphasized what jesus said proving that he was a fulfillment of the old testament mark what jesus did the gospel of mark is like a shooting script he doesn't speak of grass it's green grass and so forth if you notice that it's always action and so forth and you can hear peter all through it luke was interested in his humanity he emphasized what jesus felt his compassion and so forth and john focuses unquestionably on who jesus was or we should say is mel gibson did a remarkable job with his movie the passion but one of the things that can't get across i don't know how you would really is not is that the crucifixion is not a tragedy it was an achievement and the whole issue is who he was and of course the son of god continuing this the matthew thus is speaking to the jew mark to the roman luke to the greek and john to the church in that spirit then the first miracle in matthew's a very jewish thing the the cleansing of a leper leper being symbolic of course of sin among other things both mark and luke being gentile and their focus is demons expelled and each of them is the first miracle john's first miracle is a strange one to be a first miracle the water into wine but it's a very mystical thing demonstrating that jesus was the lord of the torah among other things again matthew ends with a very jewish thing the resurrection mark the ascension luke the promise of the spirit setting up of course his sequel which is that luke volume 2 called the book of acts and john ends his gospel with the promise of return which sets up his sequel which of course is the book of revelation so we see structure there we see the fingerprints of the holy spirit all over these things when we started the camp of israel when we're going through the torah we noticed that the four the twelve tribes were camped in four camps on the east west south and north and uh the ensign of those four camps the lead tribe in the uh east side was of course judah which had as ensign as the lion the lion of the tribe of judah on the west was ephraim which had as his ensign the ox on the south ruben that man and on the north we had dan which was originally a serpent but then a serpent with an eagles mouth and ultimately the eagle and so we have those four faces which of course we recognize as the four faces of the cherubim every time we see the throne of god we see these cherubim with the four faces the lion the ox the man and the eagle and of course so one of the things that we of course we're not going to go through all of these but just to give you a quick focus you'll see how matthew singles out presenting jesus christ as the messiah of israel and uh okay one of the basic things in our whole approach to the bible in general the gospel in particular is we're dealing with 66 separate books penned by 40 different guys who didn't even know each other over several thousand years and yet we understand it's an it we discover it's an integrated message and that integrated design anticipates in detail events before they happen which proves in fact you can demonstrate that the origin of this message system is from outside the dimensionality of time you can prove it you can't prove the bible yes you can if you do your homework demonstrates integrity even though it's 66 books by 40 guys and discover that it is organized in incredible detail incredible precision our whole epistemological approach is the first to establish the integrity of that design and we'll do that probably on every page as we go through it and from that design then it presents the reality of jesus christ and once you establish his deity and his identity he of course authenticates the package and so that's our approach we went through the genealogies in chapter one may remember those of you been with us in genesis remember that the first ten names spell out a message that man is appointed mortal sorrow but the blessed god shall come down teaching that his death whose death god's death shall bring the despairing comfort and so this is a this is you'll never convince me that a group of jewish rabbis contrived to hide a summary of the christian gospel in a genealogy in the torah never never in any case and of course noah being comfort arrest okay matthew being jewish he starts he goes from abraham to david and luke of course in his genealogy it goes it's in luke 3 by the way i forgot to mention that last time where is it it's not in luke i don't see any genealogy luke 1 no matthew 1 luke has his gene genealogy in three and he goes backwards he takes back to uh uh adam is the son of god but so they're they're identical up to david but then some strange things occur we also talk about boaz obed and jesse and david which are predicted in the book of judges in the time of the judges in the book of ruth and are also encrypted behind the text in genesis 38 we took that last time but in lu in ruth we have this strange prediction which depends on the fact that a bastard cannot inherit for ten generations and we go through perez which is detailed there in the prophecy the tenth generation is none other than david so here we have a prediction in effect of david long before samuel in the time of the judges and again those four are encrypted in in general in genesis 38 a key pivotal verse what we touched last time was jeremiah 22 30 where god pronounces a blood curse on the royal line after from following jeconiah which is a very provocative verse to confront a rabbi with because according to that blood curse none of uh none following um jack and i and the throne will accede to the throne of david well the messiah has to be an exception somehow and he is the only way you can have an exception is to have a virgin birth if you examine this there's no other conclusion you come to that this is a another one of those prophecies that point to a virgin birth and jack and i also called konaya and sometimes called jehoiakim but the house of david when both luke and matthew get to the house of david they take different turns matthew goes through the first surviving son of bathsheba through solomon and he takes his right on through to the legal uh father of joseph the legal father of jesus christ luke does a strange thing when he gets to david he takes a left turn so to speak he goes through the second surviving son of bathsheba down through the genealogy that ends up with eli the father of mary so matthew has the the male line and luke has the bloodline and uh the dodge zeliphad very important exception in the torah to understand that the daughters can inherit if there's no sons to a father the only daughters if the daughter marries in the tribe the father of the bride could adopt the husband as a son and thus establish inheritance that was requested of moses in numbers 27 granted by joshua in joshua 17 and most commentators don't catch the fact that the claims of christ hang on that exception because the husband's adopted by the father bride and that's exactly how um joseph becomes the son of hela he's the son-in-law of heli and so it's in in luke 3 23 it says nomizo in the greek in the text which means recognized by law we call it the son-in-law anyway the virgin birth hint of that in the garden of eden prophesied by isaiah of course with 7 14 and required if in effect by the blood curse in the royal line in jeremiah 22 30. so now matthew points out there's 14 generations from abraham to david and then there's 14 generations from solomon to the babylonian captivity and 14 from the babylon captivity to joseph but if you count them you'll discover there's 17 not 14 in that line because three of them are blotted out because they were they died they were killed because of idol worship and uh the other two jihadicam and high chin were the ones that are under the blood curse of course there are two that are in common to both strangely enough people get confused by this because solidfield and zerubbabel are appear in both genealogies now it's conceivable that they were too too of the same name but more than likely what the situation is is that since jihadi chin or jihadic uh yeah chin jaconiah uh has the blood curse uh had they uh when they returned from uh from babylon um i believe that salafiel was the adopted uh son of uh of uh chin not not the bloodline and but the bloodline continues to down to mary because he was the son of neri we find out from luke and so forth anyway those are small points but let's move on that's our basic premise 66 books penned by 40 guys over several thousand years why we accept the bible because we because of its authentication of jesus christ the septuagint the greek translation three centuries before christ was born details over 300 specifications that his life fulfilled in the daniel 70 weeks prophecy alone predicts the exact day he'd present himself as to jesus as the uh the messiah the king once you realize who he is the authentication by christ of the torah of daniel and in fact the whole old testament is uh ties it all together integrated design transcending time altogether now there are many specifications that you're aware of of course the born of a virgin and he was it said he would be born in bethlehem and he was and he would be taken into egypt and he was he would seal the sick and make and make people whole of course he did that he would be crucified that's predicted in detail in the old testament and of course he was and he would die for our sins was predicted and he did and he'd be that he would be raised from the dead and he was there over 300 of these i'll spare you the rest let's move on chapter two is going to deal with the visit of the magi what are the magi many people are confused about that the massacre of bethlehem the flight to egypt and then the return of nazareth is going to be our primary themes here in chapter 2. let's back up a little bit and get a biblical perspective of the world empires because there's a piece that's missing in most people's background obviously it all starts in babylon which eventually becomes the babylonian empire in about the sixth century bc they get conquered by the persians the persian empire goes from 539 to about 332 an alley a young upstart alexander the great conquers the persian empire now in the persian empire they had a a hereditary uh priesthood of the medes and they were called the maguey and it's an ancient that's a greek transliteration of the persian original rab mag is the chief of the wrap of the magi there were some in nebuchadnezzar's court serving him and it was one of the titles that daniel gets in his writings in daniel chapter 4 and daniel chapter 5. daniel was appointed as chief of the magi now that doesn't go over so well with the priests that are he's in charge of because they're used to a hereditary priesthood that's what sets up the lion's den situation under under dyrus the persian so there's a whole background there we'll keep moving here if you you want to understand these magi oniremancy was their main skill not astrology that's the interpretation of dreams that that's what they were into they knew a lot about astronomy but they're not they were not astrologers herodotus makes that clear in his writings they established the state religion and persia by dryrus the great after some of the magi were considered to be expert in the interpretation of dreams that had been attached to the median court that all could have started with daniel's skill in daniel chapter 2 that became enhanced the reputation of the magi they incidentally were not followers of zoroaster many of your books say that was the original belief no psychology britannica and others will point out that came later but imagine religion versus judaism it's interesting that the magian religion was very close to judaism in many ways they're both monotheistic of a beneficent creator author of all good and so forth they they each had a hereditary priesthood they had the medes the magi the jews had their levites and the blood sacrifice and so forth each depend on the wisdom of a priesthood in divination each held concepts of clean and unclean forms of life each involved a hereditary priesthood and so forth the magi were the priestly cast during the seleucid that's the empire that is when alexander the greek empire breaks up and then the parthian and the sasania periods now some political background since the days of daniel it's interesting to understand the fortunes of both persia and the jewish nation had been closely intertwined many people don't realize this both nations had their turn of falling under the seleucid dominion this remember the alexander the great died his four of his generals took over the four parts one was was ptolemy he took egypt the south the seleucid empire took primarily the east and ptolemies and the solutions follow over judea because it was a buffer state in those days and subsequently and so but it's interesting both had regained their independence by the time you get to the roman period to some extent the jews were under the maccabean leadership until pompeii finally conquered judea and the persians had had a dominating ruling group after the persian empire fell apart the parthian empire and we need to understand that it was at this time that the magi and their dual they had a dual role of being both priests and government administrators that's where we get the term magistrate comes from that same background and they compose the upper council of the majestines whose duties included absolute choice and election of the king of the realm when the king died the magistrates picked the next king the magis did get the picture there's some background here that's important to understand what's going to happen in chapter 2. it was this dual capacity of priest and counselor that was invested in this religious authority so the magi became the supreme priestly cast of the parthian empire in fact there's a very famous cliff carving called at the histone darius the first uh this is 522 to 46 bc darius the great wrote had it's written in three languages elamite acadian and old persian or aramaic the same things are written in those three languages it's like a gigantic rosetta stone rawlinson is famous for having climbed the cliffs and copied it all and translated it it is it has as as much impact in the linguistic world as a rosetta stone does it's just another thing like that because you've got the same thing in three languages it gives you a way to translate those new languages old languages that are new to you now see it's this happens to speak of the speedy and final triumph of a revolt of the magi in 522. so these magi got out of hand apparently darius straightened that out in any case the greek empire succeeds the persian empire and uh it it eventually divides and when alexander the great dies cassandra takes the far west lycimicus takes that area that we think of as turkey and uh so lucas took the east and ptolemy took the south and uh solomon and ptolemy and seleucus of course this struggle fight over the over four centuries uh fight over this buffer state that's we know as judea they speak of 400 silent years between the old and new testament that's what you'll find books written about what happened in the so-called silent years what everybody overlooks is those silent years are in the bible they were written in advance daniel chapter 5 through 35 is a is a a such a detailed layout of the struggles between the ptolemies the circus that the the critics have said that has that had to be written later they deny its authenticity they neglect the notice that daniel was translating the greek three centuries before christ was born so we won't go go down that path tear down obviously the roman empire succeeds the greek empire we even speak of the greco-roman culture and so forth and from the roman empire on most of us are familiar with the history especially its biblical implications what most of us are probably not aware of unless we've done some unusual homework what happened to the persian empire when the greek empire starts to fall apart there is a empire that arises from about 250 bc to about 224 a.d so it was about four centuries there bracketing the christian period of the parthian empire the parthians are very uh similar to the scithians in a sense who developed archery to such a fine uh skill the the scissors could uh were proud of the fact that they could bring down a bird in flight while at a full gallop even shooting behind them that was one of the symbols of a skiffian air the parthians tried to emulate that they didn't they didn't quite make it uh there is a thing called the parthian shot you've probably heard that term that comes from the idea in retreat they were very skillful at developing retreats that would suck their enemy into the retreat and then close just just the way the scythians did anyway that's the parthians now and incidentally there the area that we're interested in namely israel is again again finds itself in a buffer zone between two empires the romans on the one hand who ultimately succeed of course in that area and the parthians who also have a claim so parthia is an ancient empire that of what is now iran and afghanistan and they were scythian descent they adopted media undress and aaron speech because they were really you know vestiges of the old persian empire and uh they were subject to successfully the assyrians the medes the persians the macedonians alexander the great then the seleucids but they broke loose from that about 250 bc they succeeded in founding an independent kingdom and during the first century bc they grew into an empire extending from the euphrates river to the indus river and from the axis river to the indian ocean so roughly the spot that i showed you on the map there that's that that that but you know we're virtually to india roughly from the euphrates to india in rough terms and so that was a non-trivial piece of history judea is a buffer zone about the middle of the first century parthia was a rival of rome and several wars occurred between them pompei the first roman conqueror of jerusalem in 63 bc attacked the armenian art post of parthia made a big mistake in 55 bc crassus led roman legions in sacking jerusalem and is a subsequent attack on parthia proper the romans were decisively defeated at the battle of khari with a loss of 30 000 troops including their commander this was a disaster for the romans the parthians counter-attacked with the token invasion of armenia syria and palestine nominal roman rule was reestablished of antipater the father of herod who in turn retreated before a parthian invasion in 40 bc now once you get the picture here the point is there's a struggle going on who controls the land you've got to check the calendar because sometimes it's roman sometimes parthian okay mark anthony reestablished roman sovereignty in 37 bc and let karsus before him he embarked on a similarly ill-fated parthian expedition his disastrous defeat was followed by another wave of invading parthians which swept all roman oppositions completely out of palestine including herod himself who had to flee to alexandria then to rome so herod's in rome three years he's a king of the jews but it's not in judea it's in rome it's he is a political appointee he's not even jewish he's he demanded he might so with parthian collaboration jewish sovereignty was restored and jerusalem was fortified with the jewish garrison it's interesting to see a history here or a tradition of comfort between the jews and the persians we sometimes don't if you study persian history you'll be astonished how often there are jewish people that are in keep key jobs and even ruling it from time to time the history is is very interesting it's not as anti-semitic if you will as some of these other cultures were but let's go keep moving here herod by this time secured from augusta caesar the title king of the jews however is not for three years including a five-month siege by roman troops that the king was able to occupy his own capital city so you get the picture it's a very unstable parrot is on a slippery rock the reason he's there is because of roman might so he gained the throne of a rebellious buffer state situated between two mighty contending empires that's the picture that i want you to understand as we move in to chapter two of matthew which will give you a different perspective that most people have see at any time carrots own subjects might conspire in bringing the parthians to their age for all the jews are under his rule but you can just imagine the kind of intrigues or rumors he that's why he was so paranoid he built masada and 12 others like it not as elaborate as masada now let's take a look at the roman side augustus was also aged rome since the retirement of tiberius was without any experienced military commander so they're weak militarily pro now armenia in the meantime was proparthia and they were fermenting a revolt against rome and to within two years they succeeded in throwing off the roman yoke but at the time of the birth of christ you know the herod was pretty close to his final illness because he dies within a a a very short to that very near invert and there's some debate exactly when but i won't get into that here so the time's ripe for another parthian invasion of the buffer provinces except for the fact on the parthian side they got their problems because their their kings are they're the freidy's the fourth was unpopular in aging he'd been once deposed it was not improbable the persian magi were already involved in the political maneuvering requisite to choosing his successor so you've got instability going on in both camps the romans are not the strongest point and parthia is not in the strongest point at this time it's this time now that the magi and recognize these aren't three guys riding camels these are the king makers of the persian empire and there's there's no reason to believe there are only three we think we've that's a church traditional come back to but uh they're they're they're in the uh the uh the absolute choosers of the next king so it's a group of persian parthian king makers who enter jerusalem in the latter days of the reign of herod it's conceivable you can understand how people might assume that the magi might have taken advantage of the king's lack of popularity to further their own interests the establishment of a new dynasty if they could find a suitable contender in herod's mind he doesn't know that they're not there to foment some kind of parthian intrigue especially since there's problems in parthia and problems in rome at the time so that all plays so there's the parthian empire and suddenly you find this entourage and by the way i don't think it's three guys on a camel i think is a group of them along with military escorts they're making a penetration into a hostile empire's domain a contested domain at best and so they're there with troops as a diplomatic mission apparently obviously but the whole the the clue to all of this is in matthew the whole city is troubled by their arrival not just hera and his gang the whole city so they're traveling in force as you can imagine all the persian pomp and ceremony with adequate uh cavalry escort to ensure safe penetration roman territory and that has to alarm herod and the entire city of jerusalem as it'll say so in verse 3. and you can understand that herod was frightened when he understand the rivalry in the background that prevailed during his lifetime the fact that he's on a slippery rock so okay now we're ready to jump into chapter 2 the birth of jesus christ now when the jesus was born in bethlehem of judea in the days of herod the king behold there came wise men from the east to jerusalem saying where is he that is born king of the jews for we have seen a star in the east and are come to worship him you've all heard this around christmas time great but what you may not realize is their question of herod is an intended insult herod is appointed by rome and they're coming see where is he that's born king of the jews not you turkey where's the king that we understand has been born now it's interesting these are gentiles and they know that a king has been born and they know that because they've seen a star do you start to cross them connect some dots here without getting into even more tedious background i'll tell you what i believe i may not be correct but i believe in the traditions that i've come understand that daniel when he was head of the magi in the persian empire developed a cabal a close group of people people he could trust and entrusted to them a prophecy that had to do with the star and what to do when they saw the star and that prophecy given to them in secret this cabal was carried down for five centuries four centuries anyway yeah um and i believe they're they're they're they are aware that they are fulfill they've seen a fulfillment of prophecy now the question of this star will get into i do not believe it was conjunction with jupiter kepler and others have written there's a number of papers that's conjectured look for astronomical explanations and they don't fit and i'll tell you i i i think i've unlocked that i'll come to that in a minute at least at least from my own perspective so anyway we've seen a star in the east he's they know he's a king they know he has a some kind of supernatural star and they've come to do what worship him that this is this is not a political move these guys are on a different kind of mission here now when herod the king had heard these things he was troubled but i can imagine and paranoid as can be and with good reason when herod the king had heard these things it was troubled and all jerusalem with him that phrase is the clue this isn't just a group of guys that happen to show up these are guys that had access to the king the whole town is unglued now it's interesting the first question the new testament where is he that's born king of the jews the first quotation of the old testament when god called to abraham where art thou those are the first questions in both cases right it's interesting the first question in the old testament deals with the first adam and the first question in the new testament deals with the last adam that wild yeah yeah yeah i get goosebumps when i finally lift yeah first corinthians 15 paul uses that expression of jesus christ that he's the last adam and uh i think the reason these things fascinate me they're they're subtle confirmations of the design you begin to sense these things and when you begin to see them predictably then you begin to realize there's the fingerprints of the holy spirit all over this stuff okay continue and when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together he demanded of them where christ should be born hey guys check your prophecies tell me where this guy's supposed to be born they said on them in bethlehem of judea for it is for thus it is written by the prophet and then he quotes and thou bethlehem in the land of judah are are not the least among the princes of judah for out of thee shall come a governor that shall rule my people israel they're quoting from micah chapter five verse 2. let's take a look at micah 5 2. see how it records in our translation of the masoretic but thou bethlehem ephrathah because there are two bethlehem one up north in ephraim if this is the one that's in the south in judea bethlehem ephrathah though thou be little among the thousands of judah not a big burg by the way maximum population a few thousand yadav shall they come forth unto me that is to be ruler in israel uh here's the line that you don't want to miss whose goings forth have been from old from everlasting he's going to be born in bethlehem but he's been around forever he's supernatural see shall come forth into me but he's he's he's the pre-existent one the messiah of course so then herod when he had privately called the wise men inquired of them diligently what time the star appeared he's going to add some margin for error there and kill all the babies that are two years old and younger because he's not going to let this you that's coming of course most of you know okay but that's one of the reasons we that's not when christ was born it's when the star appeared we don't know the star appeared apparently we're guessing from that remark probably a year or more before and and that's they took a travel time too so okay and he sent them to bethlehem and said go and search diligently for the young child and when you found him bring me word again that i may come and worship him also there are two kinds of people here as there are in any room those that have hatred and those that are paying homage you won't be neutral if you understand who he is you love him if you don't love him you'll hate him two kinds of people two kinds of people and it's interesting um that the ones we have no record of any of herod's guys coming to worship anybody we understand the soldiers came to slaughter all the male children two years and younger later in as soon as he could get at it anyway when they had heard the king that he parted and lo the star which they saw in the east went before them till it came and stood over where the young child was now notice this is not astronomy this is not navigation you can with very relatively simple tools find your spot on the planet earth by doing a celestial fix and those technologies were emergent in the region but that's not what we're talking about here because they missed the town they came to jerusalem and they had to be told from the scripture that it was bethlehem follow me people missed that this is not a an astronomy or a astrological kind of thing at all these guys were not astrologers anyway they were naramancers dream interpreters anyway um when they saw the star they rejoiced with exceeding great joy boy i can imagine and when they were coming into the house they saw the young child with notice where there's no stable now they're in a house the stable thing that first night with the shepherds was because it was crowded there's a registration going on what have you we don't know if it was the next day or the next week or a few months or even a year later we don't know they were apparently able to find more suitable quarters they're now in a house when they were coming to the house they saw the young child with mary's mother and fell down and worshiped him and when they had opened their treasures they presented him with gifts gold and frankincense and myrrh and being warned of god in a dream see he took the form of communication that would be comfortable to them they were known as onyromancers so he doesn't communicate them with he communicates to them in ways they could relate to and being warned of god in a dream that they should not return to herod they departed into their own country another way can you imagine herod's reaction when he began to realize that he'd been snubbed now these gifts by the way by the way these aren't the only gifts these are just the three that are mentioned it's perfectly reasonable that these were three among a number of things why are these three mentioned because they're prophetic gold for his deity frankincense is the the uh spice and so forth that's used in the priesthood in several ways it's mixed into the show bred by the priests the show bread every sabbath they make twelve loaves and so forth uh frankincense is a it has its identity with a priesthood and myrrh has its primary role as a burial ointment you crush it as an ointment for burial which is important to understand if you're going to understand the letter to the church at smyrna in the book of revelation and so forth a little background so these three things why because they speak of prophet priest and king these are the three primary offices that are uniquely in one person here all through the old testament you have priests you have prophets and you have kings you don't mix them normally there are prophets that were there were prophets that were priests ezekiel and others but that's that but you don't find kings and priests judah if you're king you're from judah if you're a priest you're from levi you're with me it was different unless you were melchizedek or unless you're jesus christ okay now the magi traditions there all kinds of church traditions emerged we celebrate christmas on december 25th because of the in 354 that calendar and it was a institution of the fourth century the eastern traditions that's a roman tradition western church the eastern church has a 12-day thing their christmas is on january 6th and i remember i was a president i had a chairman of a public company we had a very critical project for the department of defense we were subject to sabotage espionage that destroyed it but our guys to make a deadline had to work around the clock to reconstruct software that had been stolen but i remember proudly reporting to the board of directors that our guys our whole software team worked through the christmas holidays to make the deadline we did what i didn't tell the the board is that it happens that the key guys were eastern orthodox their christmas was january 6th but anyway i i can fight it out maybe anyway in the third century there there were traditions that uh these these were not just wise men they were kings bearing gifts so it was three king we three kings of orient are as a church tradition um there are relics that were attributed to them that were discovered in the fourth century that were attributed and they were transferred to constantinople in the fifth century and there's a whole traditional background here that doesn't have scriptural support the western tradition of course is that the three of these guys an epiphany as we call is january 6. in the 6th century chronicle a very key one they were even given names uh mythocera melchior and gathaspa and there's various variations of that through various culture cultural traditions and then the seventh century they become the sons of noah or relate to the sons of noah shem ham and japheth representing asia and africa and europe in the minds of some you'll find these things these are just church embellishments and traditions in the 14th century they now built bethesda is the king of arabia and melchior is the king of persian gaspar the king of india and on it goes these are all just traditions without biblical support but what about the star bethlehem you know every time you go to a planetarium show or every time there's around christmas some of the magazines will try to run some articles that sometimes there was a prophecy in by balaam about the star and jacob it's interesting that numbers 24 is not quoted by matthew matthew never misses a chance to actually put in a quote where it's relevant i think it's significant that he doesn't link the star of bethlehem to the star comment made by balaam some people spring from isaiah and talk that a conjunction between the planets and kepler and others have there you'll find articles along that line that are easily shredded by the way but that's neither here kepler suggests the conjunction of jupiter and saturn in the constellation of pisces and 7 bc it turns out he did it from an erroneous reference in josephus there's a wrong date it's still several years off but even so it doesn't fit i don't believe that the star was a natural phenomenon because it was a natural phenomenon it would not have alarmed any competent astronomer because they're they spent a lot of time studying these things and this one caused a real stir no i think it's something else we talk about in the scripture a thing that called the shekinah the glory of god it accounts for the creation in genesis 1. that there was dark you know the darkness on the face of the deep and so forth but the spirit of god brooded or fluttered over the water the first mention of the holy spirit when we get to the abrahamic covenant in genesis 15. god himself seals the covenant with abraham baby by having abraham set up the two the uh splitting up an offering as they did in those days in which the two participants to a sacred commitment to themselves would re going to figure eight between them repeating repeating the terms of it he has god has abram set that all up and puts abram in deep sleep and god himself goes through the procedure to make the point that his covenant is non-conditional it's a one-way deal and he does it in the appearance of a flame there in in just 15. exodus 3 the burning bush all these things are usually typed by um expositors as the evidence is the visible manifestation of the glory of god in the form of fire or flame and when they go in the wilderness wandering in exodus 13 and following we have the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night what is it again they typically call it the shekinah the visible manifest manifestation of the holy spirit acts chapter 2 and the flames of uh at the flames that uh a fire in pentecost why not here why why is it not reasonable to presume that the star of bethlehem as we call it is a visible um illumination or or signpost if you will by the holy spirit himself leading these um magi to the birthplace and this makes more sense and it also the very fact that it moved and showed them where to go tells me it's not some star in the heavens okay all right anyway moving on and when they were departed behold the angel of the lord appeared to joseph in a dream again a dream saying arise and take the young child and his mother and flee into egypt and be thou there until i bring the word for herod will seek the young child to destroy him so joseph packs up his bags and they split and i suspect they'd they did before morning and they were on their way and he arose and took the young child and his mother by night and departed into egypt and was there until the death of herod that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of of the lord by the prophet saying out of egypt have i called my son this is one of another one of these little interesting things if you if you track that down he apparently is quoting from hosea chapter 11 first verse when israel was a child then i loved him and i called my son out of egypt big deal no this is a very key hermeneutical lesson here one of the things that you'll hear many preach on is context context context and that's very good advice for many many things but there's no way that you can go back to hosea and argue that that passage is messianic because clearly the context of the passage has to do with the nation israel okay it's speaking of israel as a child but it's still speaking of the nation israel yet matthew is applying this verse to that event you follow what i'm saying there's some very very provocative lessons here how can matthew who's a competent levi take a phrase that's there in the old testament referring to the nation and say that jesus was a fulfillment of that by being called out of egypt we need to understand that you and i tend to think of prophecy as prediction and fulfillment a prediction and it's fulfillment and indeed we can make lists of those and track them and there is that though is the greek model that is the gentile mind at work that's not the hebrew mind at work alone they also believe that pattern is prophetic we see that in what we call types and that sort of thing but we won't be sensitive in exodus 4 22 israel is spoken of as god's firstborn so here we have the israel treated as an individual all through isaiah the thought shifts between the nation and the messiah isaiah 41 8 abraham is a friend of god and israel is spoken of as if the nation was an individual it speaks of israel my servant it speaks of it as if the nation was a person isaiah 42 first four verses the spirit was upon him the subjects changed no longer referring to the nation but now the messiah and the place this really climaxes in isaiah 52 the end of 52 and the chapter we know is isaiah 53. the jews insist upon viewing that strictly as the nation but there it's very very clear with the personal pronouns just talking about none other than jesus christ but what you want to get once you get used to the idea that there is a pattern that's prophetic jesus will reenact israel's history they were in that they'd want voters warnings for 40 years he goes and fasts for 40 days and so forth you're going to see all kinds of patterning there and matthew will highlight those for us let's move on when herod when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men it was exceeding wrath it's easy to be exceeding wrath when your enemies are at a good distance they're out of town they can be all angry anymore and he sent forth and slew all the children that were in bethlehem and in all the coasts thereof from two years old and under according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men again matthew very characteristically he will do this 60 times in his gospel not always quite this explicitly but matthew says then was fulfilled that which was spoken of jeremiah the prophet saying in rama there was a voice heard lamentation and weeping and great mourning rachel weeping her her children and would not be comforted because they are not if he of course is quoting from jeremiah it happens from 31 15 where it reads thus saith the lord a voice was heard in rama lamentations better weeping rachel weeping for our children refused to be comforted for our children because they were not this has relevance in its context but here matthew is using it as a forecast you may you could say taking some poetic license here saying that uh rachel by the way is buried near bethlehem and she's very endeared to the so um he's building a linkage if you will between rachel rachel's thomas if you will and the children being killed it's interesting that in genesis 35 18 when rachel dies in child labor uh she she's giving birth and she calls the uh the the child that is more to her the son of my sorrow or travail son of my birthplace and jacob renames him son of my right hand benjamin it's interesting that isaiah 53 presents that the messiah is the man of sorrow and acquainted with grief psalm 2 speaks of the sun as the sun of my right hand so both labels although they came from rachel and jacob its work mouth they also have come from god's own lips in psalm two because it's the trinity talking to each other anyway matthew verse 19 and when herod was dead behold an angel of the lord appeared in a dream to joseph and jesus saying arise and take the young child and his mother and go into the land of israel for they are dead which sought the young child's life and he rose and took the young child and his mother and came into the land of israel and when he'd heard that archelaus did reign in judea in the room of his father herod he was afraid to go thither notwithstanding being warned of god in a dream he turned aside into the parts of the galilee and he came and dwelt the city called nazareth that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets he shall be called a nazarene now there's a word play on this okay and isaiah chapter 9 verse 6 you've all seen christmas cards for unto us a child is born unto us the son is given and the government shall be upon his shoulders name shall be called wonderful counselor the mighty god the everlasting father the prince of peace a child is born and a son is given those are not the same thing a child is born that's the human side the son of god is given you have tucked away in the grammar here the the dual nature if you will of jesus christ all man all god both true thoroughly now the increase of his government and peace shall be no end upon the throne of david oh boy there's a key word upon the throne of david upon the upon his kingdom to order it to establish it with judgment and with justice for from henceforth even forever and the zeal of the lord of hosts will perform this some people try to allegorize the throne of david as some you know as a poetic term i personally take the view that's very specific the throne of david is is uh he's not sitting on his throne right now he's sitting on his father's throne and he is destined to take the throne of david he couldn't take it during his ministry because it didn't exist then rome was in charge behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth a son this is luke chapter one conceivable obviously gabe were talking to mary behold i shall conceive in thy womb and bring forth the son and shall call his name jesus he shall be great and shall be called the son of the highest and the lord god shall give unto him the throne of his father david there it is again and he shall reign over the house of jacob forever and his of his kingdom there shall be no end a nazarene he's going to be a nazarene the word nazarene in the vernacular of the day implied an ignorant man that was a put down uh partly due to being a gentile area if it was a figure of speech and it implied contempt the word is netzer or branch a sprout a shoot a sprout that grows out from a stump and that's the way the prophets deal with it in isaiah 11 verse 2. there is an there are intended puns on the word netzer as a nazarene and as a branch they the word is essentially the same for both okay so he's going to be nazarene he will be a sprout from the root of david it's one of his titles one of the titles that's used in the book of revelation the root of david and now the branch of the lord is what isaiah calls it he's a royal king from the word and the word semek is also a term in hebrew for the word branch um in isaiah 4 2 that semik is used the royal king from the line of david in jeremiah 23 and also jeremiah 33 uses the same phrase the the samick is the servant of jehovah in zechariah uh he'll build the temple in zechariah 6. there are 20 words that can be translated branch but only one of them semik is used exclusively of the messiah in jeremiah 33 15 those days at that time will i cause the branch of righteousness to grow up in the david and he shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land there it is that the the timic again and zechariah 6 and speaking on thus speaketh the lord of hosts behold the man whose name is the branch and he shall grow up out of his place and he shall build the temple of the lord even he shall build the temple of the lord he shall bear the glory and he shall sit and rule upon his throne and he shall be a priest upon his throne and the council of peace shall be with them both and again his name is the branch well having said this i want to depart a little bit this is fringe night we'll we'll crawl out into a controversial area called the signs in the heavens or in the he they what we call the zodiac the hebrews called the matsuroth and uh you need to understand that there is an apparent path of the sun through the sky called the ecliptic 12 degrees on either side is a band there are 12 groups of stars in that band that have the same name in all cultures for thousands of years they have a deep root most people have no concept of where that root originally started we know that all the stars have a name psalm 147 verse 4 and isaiah 40 26 god calls them all by can you imagine you and i can't imagine how many stars there are they all have a name the zodiac as we call it comes from saudi which means the way it's the way okay the temple of denver's 2000 bc is where we get some insights how ancient these these ideas are and the temple of dendra and and and we they have a what we would call a you know a a zodiac there of these symbols with these fanciful drawings and so forth let's go to the bible and notice psalm 19 the heavens declare the glory of god and boy they do in many different ways but maybe in ways that we never even dreamed the heavens declare the glory of god and the firmament showeth his handiwork day unto day uttereth speech and night and tonight showeth knowledge there is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard wow that's pretty pretty impressive their line has gone out through all the earth their words to the end of the world in them he hath set a tabernacle for the sun which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber and rejoices as a strong man to run a race his going forth is from the end of heaven and a circuit under the ends of it and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof a lot of people quibble with this say the sun doesn't rise and set this is pretty out of date no they don't understand not talking about that our solar system itself is spiraling to the other end of the galaxy and so uh it is literally from one end of heaven to the other and the circuit under the ends of it and nothing hid from the heat thereof that's a law of thermodynamics we go into all that all energy all life owes its energy from the sun on the earth everything that light creates photosynthesis which gives us oxygen to breathe and it gives us the sugar the from which all our other foodstuffs arrive all all energy on the planet earth comes from the sun it's a shocking thing to realize there are 12 signs from virgo to leo to the in terms of classical terms from the virgin birth to lion of the to the lion of the tribe of judah and one of the most fascinating things is discover these things um a couple of back pieces background i better mention everyone's seen these planetarium shows whatever where they say that these pictures were the way the stars used to be a long time ago that's nonsense they haven't changed that much there's no way you can create the pictures from the stars you have a bent w called cassiopeia and there's no way that looks like a woman chained to a chair people have forgotten they don't understand what it was really all about in each of these groups of stars the stars have names and if you know the names of the stars in the order of brightness brightest first it spells a story the picture is to remind you of the story nothing to do with the placement of the stars follow me the trick now is to try to find out the names of the stars the ancient names not the current ones okay and we're not going to go through all of them we have a study that goes through most of them if you're interested in that called the signs of the heavens we're just going to pick one and we're not going to go into the three d cans that are associated with each constellation there's that two but let's let that go we're going to talk about the first of the series called virgo in the popular terms which means the virgin imagine that okay its primary star is uh the alpha the brightest one is called spika in the hebrew it's also called semik which is the always used of a branch but always of the messiah in arabic it's called al-shimak and in egypt it's called aspolia the seed the seed and the seed of the woman genesis 3 15 she is pictured always through the ancient times with a branch in her right hand and ears of corn in her left the branch we understand that's the stomach what's this ear of corn when jesus says a corn has to die before it can give life how interesting and there's more to the story than that but the tzara the seed is uh chapter 3 15 and by the way the seed is singular not plural and paul makes a big discussion of that in galatians 3 16. the new king james messed that up because it has it plural and then you get to correlations and paul makes a big case that it's singular not plural so that i think they may have fixed it by now but anyway the stomach means the branch it's interesting all through the the background here you discover that the branch has a dual nature in mythology in the mythological legends all these legends got corrupted at babel they had roots i believe long many the persian traditions are that adam and enoch and so forth taught their children the plan of god by the heavens it is at babel in genesis 11 that that all gets corrupted we know their names and background from pagan traditions that have been overlaid on all this you with me so we have to cut through that but semik has a dual nature it's it's god and yet he's despised well from isaiah 13 we can understand that and this insight of double nature's hint at the mythology surrounding this constellation the double nature is embedded in the idea of a sin offering of the despised one at the same time being a king so the idea that he's a king that the the virgin birth is of a king that is also made an offering for sin it's all believer in the background but here's the interesting thing in 1893 relatively recent years we discovered that the star stomach is a double star not only is it always a dual nature but even now with modern optics we've discovered the star itself as a binary i think that's kind of interesting branch of the lord royal king dilworth these are all beings the word summit jacob did a final prophecy in the book of genesis he said the scepter shall not depart from judah nor log ever from between his feet until shiloh will come and unto him shall the gathering of the people be jacob the last chapter next to the last chapter in genesis chapter 49 prophesies over each of the twelve tribes and that's really worth studying but the most important one is judah and about judah he's among other things he says the scepter shall not depart from jude until a law giver from the uh or a law giver from between between uh to his feet until shalom come unto him shall the gathering people be well the word scepter refers to their tribal identity and their right to apply and enforce mosaic laws and to adjudicate capital offenses just gladiate capital punishment and uh even during their 70 year babylon captivity the tribes retained their identity they retained their own logistics their own judges and so forth ezekiel chapter one and uh other commentators make that point the word shiloh or sheila i should say sheila is more proper means he whose it is and what this really should be translated the scepter will not depart from judah until he who counts he comes to whom it belongs okay and this has been recognized as messianic the term shiloh is understood by early rabbis and talmudic authorities as referring to the messiah in the targum ancalos the targum jonathan the targum yerushalami so the scepter departs herod the great dies herod anthony his first son had been murdered they used to quip that it was safer to be a dog in his house than a member of his family because he killed all his potential rivals including his first son so when he dies his second son herod archuleas exceeds to the throne and he's appointed ethnic by caesar augustus but he's broadly rejected by the people he's finally dethroned and banished in about six or seven a.d this is all in josephus antiquities by the way when he's banished a guy by the name of caponeus is appointed prosecutor for rome and the legal power of the sanhedrin was immediately restricted and adjudication of capital cases was lost this was normal roman policy we see that operative of course in the crucifixion of christ they have to go to pilate to get permission to kill him okay when they stoned stephen that was illegal when they killed uh uh james that was illegal in fact here's from joe's antiquities let me read this to you this is a quote from josephus after the death of procreator festus when albinus was about to succeed him the high priest ananias uh considered a favorable opportunity to assemble the sanhedrin he therefore caused james the brother of jesus who was called the christ and several others to appear before this hastily assembled council and pronounced upon them the sentence of death by stoning all the wise men and strict observers of the law were at jerusalem that were expressed their disappropriation of this act some even went to al binus himself who had departed to alexandria to bring this breach of the law under his observation and to inform him that uranus had acted illegally in assembling the sanhedrin without the roman authority now how accurate is it he's a he's an eyewitness of the time but it's it's josephus for what it's worth okay what's interesting is when caponeus takes away their capital punishment authority the priests put on sackcloth and march around the city weeping because they believe that the word of god had been broken the babylonian talmud chapter 4 37 records this house woe unto us the scepter has departed from judah and the messiah has not come they've assumed that if they understand the prophecy right from jacob that it has been violated okay they believe the word of god had failed they were unaware that at that time there was a young boy growing up in nazareth and that boy would present himself as the messiah the king on the very day that was predicted by angel gabriel 500 years earlier hallelujah is right yeah i need any response good old southern response here right hallelujah yeah i thought it'd be interesting to share with you a our expedition to egypt and ethiopia and that very briefly this is miss ghana our guide prince of a guy bob kornuk set this up for us there is a documented tradition that the tabernacle was set up at elephantine island in egypt to 642 bc then it moved to town of kirkus island lake town in ethiopia and then finally to aksum where it's it with this relic that they've entrusted with whatever it is they believe it's the ark of the covenant is presently at saint myers of zion church in in exon it's destined to be presented by to them by the to the messiah by them when he rules on mount zion that's there's a whole chapter in the bible isaiah 18 on that zephaniah 3 10 and a dozen other verses so we went down the nile to i should see up the nile excuse me to elephantine island which was the capital it's a little island fortress it was the capital of egypt back in those days where feroneco had itself established we confirmed archaeologically with the german archaeologists that the the tabernacle did reside there at the right time from about 630 bc to about 430 bc but it was an advanced outpost it was a fortress it was also the capital if you will and serve the jewish colony there prior to the persian occupations about 500-400 and this is all in the official guidebook by the way of the german institute archaeology anyway moving on from there we went upriver i keep staying down because we think south down we're actually going up river as we do all this up to lake tana you go up then far enough you get to a huge huge lake tana kirkus lake tana and on that lake there are lots of islands a very large lake and a lot of islands but one of these islands is tonic kirkus island you can't get on there unless you have special uh arrangements with the monks that control it and that's where the ark of the covenant apparently uh has remained for about 800 years so we had to go visit that we went on these reed boats that are the same just like they're described in isaiah 18 by the way and uh there's town of kirkus island i haven't shown you the hippos you cross as you get there but anyway this is this is where this is one of the posts where we believe we think we saw where the tabernacle was set up back in those days there's a they they have vault of their special treasures that each time we go there they bring out a few things we haven't seen before and this is bob kernuk inspecting some of the things the offering stuff that has been left they claim from uh that period and uh this is a guy that runs the place and a neat guy but he has a now asking you earlier what is this in my hand and uh i have to show you this because this is one of the things that i don't wanna it's about it's many many centuries old so i'm not gonna pass it around gang sorry but it is an ethiopian bible anybody here read ethiopian okay well the good news is i've got a key page i want to show you that this is not this bible it's one like it but it's a what you see there you see where he's pointing the finger that's a picture of joseph and mary in a bulrush canoe type thing that they use there that they in their bible claims he visited donna kirkus island when joseph and mary were in egypt back so i think that's kind of fun thought you'd be interested in that anyway for what it's worth it's it's uh something so i don't think it's in your bible so i've got something in my bubble you don't have in yours that's okay all right and then it remained there for eight centuries and then went off to aksum where uh it is uh still being guarded to this day and they believe it's their destiny to present that to the messiah when he rules in zion and of course that we think acts eight with philip's encountering the ethiopian treasure he had gone there to check it out is the time to send it and he comes back confused because he heard the come and he's dead philip explains that he's going to come back baptizes him and he returns to queen kansas and my my my version of the story is that he tells the king he tells the queen not yet he went there to check it out to see if it's time to deliver anyway so much for that what are the major lessons from the session the messianic line you really want to understand how god has superintended that line from adam all the way down to christ and the truth is in the bible one of the lessons of that as you get into that isn't just the messianic line it's the truth is always in the details as you get into any of these details you'll discover they'll always emerge with insight and that insight will always end up being christ-centered it'll always end up pointing to jesus christ the other thing we learned over the last couple of sessions is the precision of the god-breathed text the more the more i've studied the bible over 50 years each time i've had to revise my views it's always been in the direction of taking it more literally than before i think the the it's the the precision and the truth is and details and the other lesson i think that you're beginning to get a glimmer of and that's this idea that pattern is prophecy it's a very jewish idea but we're dealing with a very jewish book given to us by a jewish king so next session i want you to read matthew three and four we'll take two chapters next time and while you're at it since that will put you in a reading mood i also want you to read john chapter one because he says so much about the same thing we're going to overlay all of that in our next session

Channel: Bible Study

Views: 1,321

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: SeO8Ull7F6c

Length: 70min 21sec (4221 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 17 2020