Alright so this is a Matthew for
Beginners, lesson number three. We're in narrative number one and if you're
following along in your Bibles you need to open them to Matthew chapter one and
we'll be looking at that (Whoops, there we go) So let's do a little review, shall we? Just the "what we've done so far."
Gospel of Matthew was written by Matthew, former tax collector, publican, who was
personally called by Jesus to be one of his apostles. The early church leaders
and historians of that period say that Matthew wrote this gospel somewhere
between 64 and 69 AD. This gospel was widely circulated in the early church,
generally accepted by the church at that time as an inspired work by one of
Jesus' chosen apostles, Matthew. I've also mentioned that Matthew wrote this
work and intended it to be a defense of the faith for Jewish readers, because
he's very careful to note how Jesus' actions and words fulfill specific
prophecies about the Jewish Messiah. A lot of the other writers don't bother
saying "when Jesus did this it fulfills the prophecy of so and so," they just go
ahead and give the narrative, but Matthew is very, very careful to say when
Jesus does this thing or says this thing it is to fulfill according to the
prophet so-and-so. And so a Gentile would not be interested in that type of proof,
but a Jewish reader would be very interested in that type of proof,
that's why he provides it. He's also careful to answer potential questions
that Jews would naturally raise concerning the Sabbath and the manner
that Jesus was executed; He was crucified and for a Jew someone nailed to a tree,
this was a curse, so he's careful to explain that this is
done again according to what was said concerning the Messiah. We also noted
that Matthew's work is extremely well organized, consisting of six narrative sections. Remember I said narratives are when
someone describes; he went here, he said this, he did that, so on and so forth;
alternating with five discourses. The discourses are conversations, dialogue,
monologues, that Jesus has. So you have a narrative, a discourse, a narrative, a
discourse, a narrative, a discourse. Very well organized work. This organization of
material made the book easier to study and memorize and consequently it was
often used by the early church as a training manual for new Christians, so
not only Jewish readers found it beneficial, the early church also
found it a useful tool to teach young Christians. So in our study
I've asked you to read ahead because we won't have time to read all the verses
in our class period. And so in today's lesson I'm going to be commenting on the
material written in narrative number one which includes Matthew 1 verse 1 to
Matthew 4 verse 23 and I hope that you've already read this on your own. So
let's start with narrative number 1 which talks about the genealogy of Jesus,
Matthew chapter 1 verses 1 to 17. Now Matthew begins with Jesus' genealogy
for a purpose. He begins with the genealogy to demonstrate that He, Jesus,
is a legal descendant and heir of King David through Jesus' earthly father
Joseph, that's why the genealogy is there. Now you need to understand that at that
time genealogical records were needed to prove land ownership which had been
allotted to the original 12 tribes when Joshua came in to the Promised Land,
the twelve tribes were allotted certain sections of land
according to their size and number and so on and so forth. Well
genealogical records were kept throughout the ages so that each
successive generation would know whose land belongs to who. Where do I
live? What land do I own? So on and so forth. That's how you could prove
something, through the genealogical records. Now what's interesting is that
you also prove through the genealogical records who could serve as priests,
because the priests all came from one tribe, the tribe of Levi, and certain
families, so if somebody was going to serve as a priest he had to prove
through the genealogical records that his family tree went all the way back to
Levi. An interesting thing happened in 70 AD when the Romans came in and destroyed
the city of Jerusalem, they not only burned the city and tore down the house
and tore down the temple, they also destroyed the genealogical records that
were contained in the temple and so that meant after that time the Jews could no
longer prove through the records, through the written records, which tribe they
belonged in, not only for the ownership of land, but no one could prove that they
actually belong to the tribe of Levi using the genealogical records, and so
the priesthood was decimated largely because of this act in 70 AD.
Alright now there's a difference between Matthew's genealogy and Luke. Luke also
records a genealogy in Luke chapter 3 and the differences between the two
genealogies are the following; if you've ever wondered why is Matthew
providing a genealogy and then Luke provides because they don't usually try
to cover the same material, but when you look at the two genealogies, they're
different, they're not the same. So why are they different? Well, here's a couple
of reasons. Number one, Luke begins with Jesus and he works his
way backwards to Adam; Matthew on the other hand begins with
Abraham and he works his way down to Jesus, OK, one difference. Second difference, Luke traces back through David's son
Nathan and Matthew traces through David's son Solomon. Now one reason for
this, perhaps, is that Matthew gives the legal lineage through Joseph's
descendants and Luke may be giving the lineage via the blood lineage of
marriage. Royal ascendancy was based on the maternal relationship in that
culture and not the paternal one, OK. Also Matthew records five women in his
genealogy also to demonstrate the royal character of the lineage and also to
demonstrate that women were very much part of God's plan. One other reason he
may have mentioned these women is to defend against attacks on Mary and her
suspected fornication. Remember Mary was with child before she was
married to Joseph by the power of the Holy Spirit and Joseph needed a
dream, God needed to speak to him to tell him it was OK to go ahead and
marry, but this was known in the community that Mary was pregnant before she was
married to Joseph, and so there may have been some talk, there may have been some
gossip, may have been some negative things said about her. So Matthew
includes, very interesting, he includes five women in his genealogy, but you
notice the ones that I've put asterisks next to their name. Tamar, for example,
what did she do? And what did Rahab? What was Rahab? And what did
Bathsheba do? Were these upstanding women? If I recall Bathsheba was the woman who
slept with King David while she was married. Now we know by that story that
the king seduced her, but nevertheless, she was a marked woman,
she is not a woman of high moral character, let's put it that way.
And Rahab, what was Rahab's profession? Well, she was a prostitute. And
Tamar also had a relationship with her father-in-law. So, what's Matthew doing here? Well Matthew is showing that God used even
women who had been guilty of fornication, yet He used these women anyway in
bringing Christ into the world, so if He would use women who were guilty of
fornication, certainly He could also use a woman who was accused of being guilty,
Mary, but in fact was not guilty. So it's a way of kind of tempering any type of
negative talk concerning the mother of Jesus who was pronounced as the Messiah.
Alright, so let's go on. So the little preliminary stuff. Let's go on to the
announcement of the birth that would be the next heading, chapter 1 verses 18 to
25. So you see how I'm doing this? I'm doing the narrative and then I'm hitting
the big points here and commenting on each and allowing you
to kind of fill in the notes here. So Matthew claims that this is a
fulfillment of prophecy found in Isaiah 7:14, the idea that the birth
of Jesus is announced. Matthew begins immediately demonstrating how every
facet of Jesus' life was in line with everything spoken about the Messiah
by the prophets. So everything they said about the Messiah in the Old Testament
Matthew wants to demonstrate that Jesus fulfilled every single one of those
things, alright? I want you to note also that in verse 25 Matthew says that
Joseph kept Mary a virgin until the birth of Jesus and so just the way the
sentence is put together it assumes that this was not to be the case afterwards
and this is contrary to teaching in the Roman Catholic Church of Mary's
perpetual virginity, this is taught in the Catholic Church, but it is in
contradiction to what Matthew teaches here, actually goes out of his way to say
that she was kept a virgin until the birth, which assumes... And of course we
know in Mark, Jesus, or you know Mark mentions the name, the people name
the names of Jesus' brothers and mentions that the sisters that he had
lived in that town. Alright, the next heading is the wise men, right? Genealogy,
then birth, and wise men, Matthew 2 verses 1 to 12. The term Magi, I think that's the... I've toyed with a lot of different
pronunciations in English, looked at all kinds of books, Magi is the
closest one I can come to. The Magi refers to a class of priests and
counselors and astrologers who served as royal counselors in Persia.
So Maybelle was asking me that before and she was accurately describing them.
They were interpreters of signs, so through... they interpreted signs for the
kings and for high government officials and they did this through magic arts or
divination, they used to read, you know how you read tea leaves? You talk about people who take tea leaves. I remember in
my family one of my aunts could claim that she could read tea leaves and what
you do is (of course you couldn't use a tea bag obviously), she made natural tea with tea leaves and then there are always leaves at
the bottom of your cup. When you finish drinking you turn the cup over and
then she would spin it three times then she'd look
at the leaves and she would say, "oh, I see here you're gonna go on a trip," or
whatever. She'd read tea leaves, my aunt Madeleine used to do that,
Madeleine. Well, the Magi, they would not read tea leaves, they would read organs;
livers, things like that, human organs or animal organs and get a
reading about the future or about the condition of the state or something to
do with the king from their readings. They also determined by the stars the
birth of a Jewish king, very interesting. They brought gifts with them. We don't
know if it's three Magi or 50 Magi. We know there were three gifts. There's some
historical confirmation of the star that they saw in some history. The conjunction
of Jupiter and Saturn somewhere around 7 BC. The evanescent star that was
reported in Chinese records around 4 BC. They're always people trying to
give natural explanations to miraculous things, so there's there some writings
that talked about some sort of unusual happening in the heavens at around that
time. These Magi were ignorant of Herod's political situation. Herod was
the king at that time, very evil man. We need to note the fact that the exact
location was not determined by the star, but by the Word of God. The star was a
sign, but it merely confirmed the word, because when they wanted to know where
the Messiah was to be born, they didn't look at the star and try to figure it
that out, they went to the word, they went to Micah chapter 5 verse 2 and in
Micah chapter 5 verse 2 they found that the prophet had said that the
Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, OK? Also note that it was Herod who sent
them to Bethlehem. He said, "well you go ahead and you find the child you let
me know where he is," I think it's a familiar story. So their presence also
symbolized the importance of the birth of Christ to the Gentile world as well
and also their worship of Him signified His divine and royal character, OK? So
there's a little bit of background about the Magi, the wise men. Next heading,
escape to Egypt and the return. Matthew 2 verse 13 to 23. This is
about a 200 mile trip. some scholars think they may have gone
to Alexandria, because there was a large Jewish population in Alexandria at the
time in Egypt. The prophet Hosea chapter 11 verse 1, this is the Old Testament
prophecy that Matthew claims is fulfilled. Matthew is saying the fact
that the baby Jesus had to escape to Egypt and then come back out, he says
this trip, this event here, was prophesied, was spoken of by Hosea chapter 11 verse
1. And so there's a parallel here between Israel, right, through Joseph's role.
Israel, I mean Joseph, Jacob's son, not Joseph Jesus' dad, but
Jacob's son, what happened to him? He went into Egypt, he was sold into
slavery, and then eventually he came out didn't he? They brought his bones out ,so
there's a parallel. Jesus went into Egypt to escape so on and so forth and
then eventually He came back, He came back out. Now it's mentioned in Matthew
that Archelaus who was Herod's son was on the throne. So Herod dies, Joseph and
Mary figure, "OK, it's safe to go back," because they were told to escape
while Herod was there, because Herod wanted to kill the baby. Herod dies,
Joseph decides to go back. Archelaus is Herod's son, also wicked, this man had
killed over 3,000 people during the Passover in revenge for opposition to him, so Joseph avoided settling in
or around Jerusalem for fear of this ruler. Again in a dream he finds out and
you think why would he go back to Jerusalem to settle? He's not
from Jerusalem, he was born in Bethlehem, he lived up in the north, why would he go
back to Jerusalem? And the thought is well he's had a time, a couple of years,
now to think about this baby Jesus and the miraculous way that
He's born, the Magi coming to Him and worshiping Him that he's beginning
to get the idea that this is a king, this is an important person,
this is the Messiah. Well you know if you're a dad and you're in
charge of the Messiah, where do you think is a good place to settle and live? Well
if it was me, I figure, well we might as well go live near the temple, we might as
well go live at the center of Jewish religious life. I mean if my son
is going to be the Savior, surely this is where He needs
to be and so he's warned in a dream and so he avoids Jerusalem and they go back
to Nazareth and in doing this, going back to Nazareth, the prophecy concerning what
Jesus would be known as is fulfilled. He was going to be known as the Nazarene,
but He wouldn't have been known as the Nazarene had He settled in Jerusalem. So
you have the wisdom of man versus the wisdom of God here OK. Interesting also
is that the term "Nazarene" ultimately became a term of derision by the
Jews in reference to Christians. The Talmud calls Jesus (remember we
talked about the Talmud, writings that comment on the Torah
which is the law, OK. There were Jewish writings commentaries)
in the Talmud when they refer to Jesus, they refer to Him as "the Nazarene."
It's like calling somebody by their last name. If you're gonna call Jack
Brown, Mr. Brown, well then you're giving him respect, if you're calling him Jack
well then you're familiar, but if you're just saying "hey Brown, come
over here," you're neither giving him respect nor are you showing any type of
friendliness, it's a term of derision. So the calling Jesus "the Nazarene" was a
term of derision that they used. Also the typical synagogue prayer curses
Christians as Nazarenes, so when they refer to Christians, the Jews did at the
beginning when they refer to them as Nazarenes this wasn't a term of
endearment, it was a term of derision. In Acts chapter 2 verse 45 we know that
this began very early, because the Jewish lawyer Tertullian who was accusing Paul, remember they brought lawyers to accuse
Paul and try to get him in trouble, this Jewish lawyer referred to Christians as
"the sect of the Nazarene," again a term of derision. OK, so let's go on to the next
heading which would be John the Baptist chapter 3 verses 1 to 17. The
appearance of John the Baptist was also in fulfillment of the prophecies
concerning the Messiah. In Matthew 3 or in Matthew 3 yes verse 3 it says that
the prophet said that before the Messiah would come there would be a forerunner
who would precede Him and prepare the people for His arrival Isaiah chapter 40
verses 1 to 5. So he just keeps hammering away; in Isaiah, Isaiah said there would
be someone coming before the Messiah to prepare His way and then Matthew says
well John the Baptist he's the one that fulfills that prophecy back in Isaiah 40. In describing John the Baptist, Matthew claims that he
is the one whom the prophets were referring to as the forerunner.
Interesting thing, how does John the Baptist get the authority to teach?
Like who made him a teacher all of a sudden? Well you need to think about who
he is. John was born from a priestly family; Zacharias was his father and his
father was a priest and so his right to preach and teach was never questioned by
the Jewish people because he was the son of a priest, but he did not take the
normal pathway that the priests took serving at the temple and so on and so
forth, he took another direction. Alright. He worked and lived in the style of Elijah, the Old Testament prophet Elijah,
his messages were always what they call "hell and fire," "hell and
brimstone" preaching. Elijah was a very stern and a call to repentance and John
the Baptist was similar. Some people believe that Elijah would indeed return
and Jesus tells the people in Matthew 11 that John was the embodiment of
this prophet. He wasn't Elijah resurrected, he was, he embodied
the spirit of this prophet, but John is he's not an Old Testament
prophet, he belongs to the New Testament age and his work is part of the gospel.
So we know that John prepared the way through the wilderness; he says
I'm in the wilderness, I'm preparing the way in the wilderness, kind of a
metaphor here for what was going on. The wilderness was the hardened hearts of
the people and John the Baptist prepared them through a message of repentance for
the arrival of Jesus and the good news of the kingdom. So the whole
idea of his breaking, making a straight path, or clearing the
wilderness had nothing to do with geography, it had everything to do with
the heart of the Jewish people that he was talking to. Their
hearts were the wilderness, their hearts were hard, their hearts were
crooked. He was trying to make a pathway so that Jesus can go. And God
uses us that way too sometimes, right? Now we had a young man who was baptized here
a few days ago and Ryan and the idea was there is a whole a whole host
of people in the church that ultimately helped this young man make
his decision to accept Christ in baptism, starting with the people who taught him in cradle roll and he was in Miss Jane's class for the "Time
Travelers" and Maybelle and then he went on and he was a little kid running around like all the other little kids running up and down
the stage at one time, even I can remember that. And then he was in the junior
grades and then he was with the youth group and so on. It's a lot
of people had a hand. Maybe someone, maybe Marty or someone from the
pulpit said something that just finally turned the switch on, but a lot
of people prepared the way and so in the same sense John the Baptist was there to
prepare the way for the message. And I think we need to remember that sometimes
God uses us as that last person to finally bring that
person into the water or so on, but sometimes he uses us as the first person
to just give a good example or just to... some people say, "You know what? I
started thinking about God because I was over at McDonald's and I saw a guy
sitting there and before he ate his hamburger he stopped and he prayed and
he closed his eyes for a moment and then he began to eat his hamburger and that
got me to thinking about God and so on and so forth," and five years
later he was baptized. Well, that guy at McDonald's he was the very first one
that God used to prepare the way. Alright. So this is how John the Baptist
was used. His baptism was for the forgiveness of sin, a preparation for entry into the kingdom of God and the Spirit which
Christ would give when Jesus would come Some people say, "How did John the Baptist
baptize?" Well you know this because of the words that are used. John the Baptist
or John the immerser baptized people by immersion and we know that for several
reasons, but mainly because of the words that are used. In the Greek, which is the
language that the New Testament is written, the word to sprinkle water on
someone is the word "rhantizo," "rhantizo," so if I'm sprinkling, if
I'm baking and I have to sprinkle some something on top of my food, I
would use the word "rhantizo." In the Greek the word for pouring something is
the word" ballo." Pour me a glass of water, I "ballo" you a glass of [water], I don't
"rhantizo" you a glass of water I "ballo" you a glass of water. And
then the word "baptizo" is the Greek word used for immerse. I am going to take a
bath, I'm going to "baptizo," I'm not going to "rhantizo" myself,
I'm not taking a shower, I'm not gonna "ballo" myself,
take a jug and pour water over my head, that would be "ballo." I'm going to
"baptizo," I'm going to be in the bath, I'm going to immerse myself in the water.
And so how do we know that that's the way they baptized? Because the word
"baptizo" is the word that is used whenever the New Testament is referring
to what we call baptism. It was John the "Baptizo-er," "the
immerser" and people came to him to be immersed. In Acts chapter 2 verse 38 Peter says to the crowd repent and let
every one of you be immersed, "baptizo," in the name of Jesus for the
forgiveness of your sins and so on and so forth, OK? So Jesus' own baptism by
John was the turning point in the ministry of each of these two men. It was
the beginning of Jesus' ministry and it was the climax and the beginning of the
descent of John's ministry, not that John did anything wrong, but he had achieved
his purpose when Jesus came to him to be "baptizo," to be immersed. After that
you see that the crowds following him lessen and the crowds following Jesus
become greater. Matthew is the only gospel that records John's protest.
John says, "no, no, I'm not supposed to baptize you, you should be baptizing
me," right? Remember that? If you've read that. Matthew is the only
one that recorded that little bit of dialogue between these two men. So
Jesus' baptism was to inaugurate His public ministry and it was also to
comply with God's will in every respect, although for Him it was not for
forgiveness sake, because we know He had no sin, it was rather to acknowledge that
the kingdom of which He was the head was indeed at hand, now's the time, it's the
kickoff. So at the baptism of Jesus we see three persons of the Godhead clearly
revealed and represented, only time in Scripture where all three are clearly
seen or represented. The Father, you hear the voice from heaven; the son, Jesus is
there, incarnate, in the body of a man; and the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove. So
people who they don't believe in the triune nature of God,
bring them to Matthew show him this passage, have them explain it
to you, then why is God represented in it? Is Jesus God? Well, yeah.
The voice from heaven, the Father, is that God? Well, yeah. Well how about the Holy
Spirit, the Dove, is that God? Well, yeah. So what's your point? How do you
explain that? Well we don't have all the words, but we use the term "the
Godhead." OK? So it is the climactic point of this narrative, right here at
this spot, where the deity of Jesus is presented so clearly and it's the
culmination of Old Testament prophecy about the initial appearance of the
Messiah. I need to move just a little more quickly. Let's go from there to
the next heading which would be the temptations, Matthew 4 verses 1 to 11. So
Jesus is led by the Holy Spirit into the desert to be tested by Satan.Now Satan
has ruined the first Adam and now would use his full force to try to ruin the
Savior of the fallen Adam, which would be Jesus. He was tempted for forty days
during which time He did not eat and of which we have three recorded, we only see
three of the temptations, but He was tempted for forty days, but Matthew, the
Holy Spirit, just gives us information on three temptations. Three recorded
temptations we see Satan doing various things. In the first one, he casts doubt
upon God's Word concerning Jesus' sonship and he demands that Jesus supply
proof beyond God's Word by supplying for His own needs, in other words if you're God, if you are God, prove it to me, turn these stones into bread. Jesus
responds that God's Word is sufficient in all matters for His sonship as well
as for the provision of His need. God's Word is enough He said, I
don't need to do an extra miracle on top of what God's word says.
So if God's Word tells me that I need to repent and be baptized, we're just
talking about that, if God's Word tells me you need to repent be
baptized for your sins, I don't need an additional miracle to
prove to me that this is what God wants me to do, His word is plenty. I don't need
more than that, and that's what God, that's what Jesus is saying to Satan
here. I don't need to make a miracle here. God doesn't need to make
a miracle, His word is enough. Secondly, Satan misrepresents God's word.He uses the word to say what it doesn't say, that God will protect us no
matter what we do. So Jesus responds by demonstrating His understanding of God's
Word in context. Yes, God will keep us, but we must not be presumptuous with Him. He
keeps His promises to the humble and the trusting and He brings to naught the proud,
in other words don't push your luck. We're under grace, we know that. We know
what's right. We know what's good, we're trying to do what's right and good, but
we don't presume on God's grace. We don't do that. And then number three,
very quickly, he wants Jesus or tempts Him or tries to draw Him to disobey
God's Word. So he appeals to Jesus' human nature by offering Him something
that the Word of God doesn't offer and that is a crown without a cross, "I'll
give you a crown, all the worlds kingdoms, I'll give you that
crown if you just worship me. So I'll give you a crown, but no cross. You won't
have to go to the cross. OK?" So he suggests that he is under God and has a
right to offer these things if Jesus will place himself under Satan.
So Jesus refuses to violate the first command of the law, the basic principle
of the word which is that we only worship God. And so Jesus rejects the
word of Satan for the word of God and even if it means His own death. And sometimes rejecting Satan and accepting God's Word
also means our death, not necessarily our physical death like we die, but maybe the
death of a certain pleasure that we shouldn't be having or the death of
something that we wanted but we shouldn't have. We have to accept
sometimes that in doing God's will, it will mean that it'll cause us some suffering of some kind. You know the old saying right? You don't get a crown
unless you go to the cross. And we're the people of the cross, not the
people of the crown. The crown comes later. So with his greatest temptation
spurned Satan is defeated and Jesus victoriously orders him away after which
the angels tend to His needs. You ever wonder "what were His needs?" Well He
didn't eat for forty days, how about that need? How about the fatigue? Right? He was
a man. Alright, the last heading is Matthew talks about Galilee and the
disciples, chapter 4:12-25. So by this time John is in prison, he's beheaded,
Jesus himself goes north to the area around the Sea of Galilee and this
Matthew says is the fulfillment of another prophecy in Isaiah 9 verses 1
and 2 saying that the Messiah would be from that area and that area would have
a great light, OK? So He begins His preaching around the area where He grew up and what He's preaching is pretty
much the same message that John the Baptist is preaching, "repent for the
kingdom of Heaven is at hand," that's the message that Jesus.. You ever wonder,
"what was Jesus preaching?" Well, He was preaching what John was preaching.
He builds upon John's ministry, He calls particular disciples to train, He
preaches away from Judea to the Gentiles. He goes inside of synagogues,
He performs miracles, all this done in Galilee as He begins His
very public ministry. So Matthew's very first narrative establishes Jesus
genealogy, His birth, His lordship, and His ministry all in four very short chapters.
OK. Alright, so that's the first lesson. So let's kind of understand how
we're doing this. Next week I'm gonna do discourse number one, so that means you,
if you have the time and the inclination, will read Matthew 5:1 to Matthew
7:29 and then on the sheets that I've given you tonight you will
list the headings, try to list the headings, the subjects, the things that I'm going to be talking about and also
keep a little record of the things that you discover on your own, call them
"little gold nuggets," and then next week I'll give you another sheet and you can
compare what you've done and what you've listed to what I have given you. Again,
this is a little different type. We always say Bible study, but this is
really a Bible study, you actually have to study, you actually have to read and
do a little bit of work, it'll be good for your soul and good for your
spirit. Alright, let's stop right there.
