Sunday School: The Lineage of the King (Matthew 1:1-17)

You are listening to the teaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday on this podcast, we feature 20 minutes of Bible study through a

New Testament book. On Thursday is a study in the Old Testament and then we answer questions from the listeners on Friday.

Each Sunday we are pleased to share our sermon series. Here's Pastor Gabe. Today we're going to look at the lineage of the

King. We're going to look at the genealogy of Christ in Matthew 1, verses 1 -17.

Next week, the birth of the King is what I'll end up posting to my podcast page.

And then after that, the Kings visit the King and we'll hear about the Magi in Matthew 2.

So that's kind of how I'll do this over the next couple of Sundays. But let's look here at Matthew 1.

I'm going to begin by reading in verse 1 through verse 11, and then we'll break there and pray.

This is Matthew 1, beginning at the very start of the New Testament.

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram, and Ram the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nashon, and Nashon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David the king.

And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asaph.

And Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz.

and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, and Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the deportation to Babylon.

Let's stop there and pray. Heavenly Father, as we look at a genealogy this morning, usually the parts of the

Bible that we tend to skip, we tend not to pay attention to, and full of a bunch of names we're not even sure we can really pronounce.

And yet what we see in this very genealogy is a promise of light coming into the world, and Jesus Christ being that light to shine in a dark place.

Father, as we read here about a genealogy of the coming of a king, may we also hear in this message here a promise of a kingship that we have all been granted in Jesus Christ, becoming heirs of the eternal kingdom of our

Lord and Savior, so that we might live even as kingdom people in this world as we wait for and anticipate the coming kingdom of our

Lord, where we will dwell with Him forever in glory. It's in name that we pray, amen.

Now right at the very start of the New Testament, right at the very beginning, we read these words, very first words of the

New Testament, the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

A few years ago, Andy Stanley made news saying something ridiculous once again, as he's want to do, but he had said that the virgin birth is really not that important.

He said, if a man predicted that he was going to rise from the dead and then did it,

I'm more interested in that story than I am interested in how he came into the world. And I said, really, not important, even though it's literally the first event we read about at the start of the

New Testament. The promise of the birth of the Savior, that he would be virgin born and then he is.

And of course, where we go from here, when we get to the virgin birth in verse 18, is you have the angel that appears to Mary, you have her being with child, though she is a virgin,

Joseph deciding that he was going to divorce her, and then the angel appearing to Joseph in a dream and saying, do not be afraid to take

Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name

Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

As I pointed out in a recent What? video, the virgin birth is every bit as important as the death and resurrection of Jesus.

There are no parts of the story that you can really cut out and say, well, this one isn't as big a deal, so we can put this aside.

If you're not going to accept that Jesus is virgin born, you're not going to accept that a man can rise from the dead. I don't know why one is easier to believe than the other.

But anyway, before we get there, before we get to the virgin birth, we have this look back at the lineage of Jesus.

And it's interesting to consider that this is how the whole New Testament begins.

John MacArthur wrote a book called Twelve Extraordinary Men. I don't know if you've heard of that book, but it's about the twelve disciples and these twelve men that Jesus had called to follow him.

And one of the things that MacArthur says in that book about Matthew is, in the Gospels, Matthew the person, the man, is never quoted.

So in the dialogue that we see Jesus have with any of his disciples, Matthew never speaks up.

We don't have any word from Matthew anywhere in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. And yet it would be this man who was also called, what was another name for Matthew?

His Hebrew name. Anybody know what Matthew's Hebrew name was?

As the tax collector? Levi. I think I heard it. Yeah, Levi. Levi the tax collector. But this man,

Levi, though he was a tax collector, and though he never even speaks up anywhere in the

Gospels, yet Jesus was going to use this man to pen the very first book of the

New Testament. You're gonna open the New Testament for me. And this man, who was no doubt very versed in Hebrew ways and the

Hebrew Scriptures, and you could tell just from the first two chapters of Matthew just how well he knew the

Hebrew Scriptures. Constantly making references back to, this fulfilled the word of the prophets that said such -and -such.

For example, in verse 23, all this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophets.

Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel. God would use this man, this tax collector, to open up the

New Testament for us. And he does so with a genealogy. Now, you may not really consider this about the

New Testament, but it begins the same way the Old Testament does. Why not think of it being that way?

Because the words aren't exactly the same. How does the Old Testament start? In the beginning,

God created the heavens and the earth. Who doesn't know that? If you went out onto the street and stopped any

Joe Schmo and said, quote me a verse of the Bible, that's probably what they're gonna give you, right? Genesis 1 .1.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. How does Matthew begin? The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the

Son of David, the Son of Abraham. Do you know what the word is for, another word for genealogy?

Genesis. This is literally the genesis of Jesus Christ, the beginning of Jesus Christ, the

Son of David, the Son of Abraham. Now, when we say the beginning of Jesus Christ, we're not talking about his deity.

For Jesus, as the Son of God, is eternal as the Father is eternal. But when it comes to his incarnation, the

Son who was given to us, God putting on human flesh and dwelling among us, we begin that story by looking at his lineage.

And notice that the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ begins as the

Son of David, the Son of Abraham, even though the genealogy starts, verse 2, with which person?

Abraham. But he says first the Son of David, the Son of Abraham, but then starts the genealogy with Abraham.

Why that order? Why would he say the Son of David, the Son of Abraham? Anybody have any guesses?

Why would he go in that order? Yeah, right.

What we're reading here is a king's lineage. So the whole point of Matthew laying this out is to show us that he is the

Son of David. That seems to be primary to also showing us that he is the

Son of Abraham. But this is for Matthew to show us that he is the son of promise.

He is the promised son that was said would come from the line of Abraham. He is the promised king that was said would come from the line of David.

But because what we have here in Matthew's genealogy is a succession of kingship, you have the line of kings that are referenced here, therefore it is to understand that Jesus is the rightful heir to the throne of David.

Pastor Tom's going to talk about this in his sermon as well if you haven't heard him yet, if you weren't here for first service.

So Jesus Christ is the Son of David. He belongs to the throne of David.

He is the rightful heir of this throne. That's what Matthew means to lay out with this. And over the course of the next four chapters really, chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4, showing how

Jesus is not only the heir of David's throne, not only the son of Abraham, but is even the fulfillment of all of those things that Israel did not do well.

Jesus did and he accomplished those things that Israel was not able to accomplish. So saying he is the true son, he is the promised son, the one who did what no other before him could have done.

And we see in this particular genealogy, you'll notice that the genealogy is divided into three parts.

And we really just covered two in our reading this morning. So in the first part, you have from Abraham to David.

In the next part, you have from David to the deportation to Babylon. And then part three is from the deportation to Babylon to Joseph and Mary, of whom

Jesus was born, who is called Christ. And notice in verse 17, it says, so all the generations from Abraham to David were 14 generations.

And from David to the deportation to Babylon, 14 generations. And from the deportation to Babylon to Christ, 14 generations.

Now there are different scholars who will say different things about this particular genealogy, but it is to, but, but, you know, whichever angle they come at it from, it is necessary for us to recognize there are holes in this genealogy.

It's not direct dissension because Matthew is more concerned here with the harmonization of it more so than doing an exact line.

We as Americans, as Western world thinkers, we want things in an exact succession. We want things like right to the point.

And if they don't line up with exactly the way that we think that they are supposed to be, then there's something illegitimate about it and it isn't true.

But that's not the way that Hebrews consider their genealogies. And it's not the way reason why

Matthew wrote down the way that he wrote down here. There's nothing missing in what

Matthew intended to convey just because he might skip a grandfather in there or something like that.

In Hebrew, there was no Hebrew word for grandfather. So you'll see it, you'll see it said throughout the lineage of the

Kings in first and second Kings and in first and second Chronicles, it'll say something like, you know,

Josiah, when he did righteously, it'll say that he did just as his father

David had done. David was hundreds of years before Josiah. He wasn't

Josiah's father, but he was father in the sense that Josiah was a descendant of David.

And so again, no Hebrew word for grandfather. There wasn't Hebrew words for great, great, great grandfather, you know, having to be that precise with exactly where they are in the lineage.

So just to show that this person was descended was enough for Matthew. And he has this wonderful symmetry that that exists in this particular genealogy of these sets of threes.

You have, which are essentially three sets of pairs of sevens, because seven was a pretty important number to Hebrews.

What does seven mean in the Bible? The number of completion.

Some call it the number of God. Yes, seven often associated with God, but seven more specifically or to the point is the number of completion.

Hence why we have seven days in a week. God created all things in six days and rested on the seventh.

That's the completion of the week. So you have seven being the number of completion. So Matthew very strategically lays out this genealogy, not by going through every single name from Abraham to Joseph and Mary, but he lays this out in this perfect sort of a layout so that you've got three sets of pairs of sevens to kind of signify this is a complete genealogy.

14, 14, 14 is understanding six sevens basically. And there's also something to the number six.

Six is the number of man. So we think of seven being the number of God, six is the number of man.

Jesus being born in the likeness of man, he is the son of man, which he will be referred to in Matthew in particular.

And so he is with that pairing of six sevens or that matching of six sevens, he is the

God -man, he who was born to be the Savior of the world. So again we start the genealogy with a

Genesis, the genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham. And this first set, when

I preached on this a number of years ago, this first set of names, I had titled that sermon,

Light in the Genealogy. And then in the second part, I had titled it

Darkness in the Genealogy, and you'll understand why when we get to that in just a moment. When I was preparing for this message this morning,

I was thinking about this last night, and I was like, I remember titling the first part, Light in the

Genealogy, and the second part, Darkness in the Genealogy, but I couldn't remember what I titled the third part. What was part three?

So I had to go back to my sermons from years back to figure out what was the title of this. I just got real lazy with that third one apparently.

So I just put Part Three of the Genealogy. Okay, I didn't come up with a creative title for that one apparently.

But so we have Light in the Genealogy here at the very start. And notice verse two,

Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers.

What do we call Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? What are they referred to as? Say what?

The forefathers? There's another name for that. Patriarchs. Yeah, they're the patriarchs.

Even Judah is in some sense considered a patriarch because he would be the father of the nation of Judah, and it's from the line of Judah, of course, that Jesus is born.

So we have Abraham, we have Isaac, and we have Jacob. And already we're starting out here with an understanding of sons of promise.

Because remember, God appeared to Abraham and said, I will make you, what?

The father of many nations, right? I'm gonna make you the father of many nations. Abraham had how many children at that time?

None. Zero children. He and his wife Sarah had had no children.

He would be a hundred years old and she would be 90 by the time that they would have their first child.

And they named him Isaac, which means what? Laughter. You remember why, right?

This was when Jesus, or when Jesus, I'm going pre -incarnate Christ here, and anyway,

God came and appeared to Abraham at the Oaks of Mamre. It's God in the form of a man.

It wasn't like an incarnation because he wasn't born man. He was just appearing to Abraham in that way.

And he had two other men with him. We know those two men would be the angels that would go into Sodom to rescue

Lot before the judgment of God came down on the cities of the plains. But God appears there to Abraham at the

Oaks of Mamre. And Abraham prepares a meal for him and they sit down at the Oaks and they eat.

And God says, this time next year I'll return to you and you'll have a son. And Sarah is in the tent and she hears that and she laughs.

And God is looking at Abraham going, why'd your wife laugh? And she goes,

I didn't laugh. He goes, yeah, you did. You laughed. And so it was because they laughed and God's promise when he said,

I will give you a son, they laughed at that. It was kind of like, joke's on you, right?

And a year later when they had that son, they named him Laughter because they thought it was ridiculous that God could give them a son in their old age.

But as Pastor Tom just said in the sermon in first service, and you'll hear him again in the second if you didn't hear him yet, nothing is impossible with what?

With God. All things are possible with God. And so God gave Abraham and Sarah a son and he would be

Isaac. Now, before that happened, of course, God had given this promise to Abraham before.

And Sarah said, well, I can't give you a son. So here's my maidservant Hagar. And Abraham had a son with Hagar.

What was his name? Ishmael. Yeah. That didn't go so well. And in fact, the descendants of Ishmael would be in conflict with the descendants of Isaac for centuries upon centuries, even to this very day.

Unrest that still exists in the Middle East is a result of that. Yes, sir. Yeah.

Right. Exactly. From the descendants of the Ishmaelites. Yeah. So Abraham, father's

Ishmael, but he was not the promised son because he's not the one who's going to come from Sarah. Only God has the power to make a barren woman able to bear fruit.

And so he gives conception to Sarah, who has a son and his name is

Isaac. So we begin the genealogy with a miracle birth. It's not a virgin birth, but it's still a miracle birth.

And we end the genealogy with a miracle birth with the virgin birth that was foretold would be with Mary.

So Abraham, the father of Isaac, Isaac is the father of Jacob. And there you even had two sons that were in war.

They were at war in Rebecca's womb. Remember that? And which one would become the son of promise, but Jacob.

Now, neither Esau nor Jacob were good men. When you read about Jacob, he wasn't a good guy.

And oftentimes we think, well, Esau was kind of a punk and Jacob was the one that pleased God. So he's the one that got all the favor.

No, they both were pretty wretched brothers to one another. There wasn't anything good about Jacob. In fact, his name is called

Cheater. That's what Jacob means. So God gave him a new name and called him Israel.

But it's because God chose one. It's because God chose, not because one was more worthy than the other, but his favor was upon Jacob.

You read about that in Romans 9. Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. Jacob became the father of Judah and his brothers.

Judah was the fourth born. Judah was not the favorite son of Jacob. Who was Jacob's favorite son?

Joseph was the favorite son. You know, it's wild to consider the story of Joseph. Joseph's story is the longest story in the book of Genesis, even longer than Abraham's.

More chapters are given to what happens in Joseph's life than anybody else. But you know the story of Joseph, right?

This man who was hated by his brothers, a teenager, hated by his brothers. They plotted to kill him.

Reuben prevented them from killing him, but they end up selling him into slavery and he goes off into Egypt as a slave.

He's wrongly accused there of making moves on Potiphar's wife, which she blames what he didn't really do.

He ran away from the sin, did not give in to the sin, but yet Potiphar was incensed with him and threw him into prison.

Even in prison God blessed Joseph and Joseph became like the head jailer's chief guy, watching over the prisoners and everything.

And then he interprets a couple of dreams from the wine taster or the cup bearer and the baker.

And then somewhere down the line, eventually it's remembered, oh yeah, Joseph has this ability to interpret dreams.

And so he interprets a couple of dreams for Pharaoh. And out of these dreams that he interprets, he gets placed second in command over Egypt, overseeing the collection of food in preparation for the seven years of famine that would come upon them.

Seven years of plenty, seven years of famine, and Joseph was exalted to that position that he would oversee those things.

And you know, Joseph's brothers ended up coming to Egypt to get food. And you had the whole game that played out there with Joseph eventually revealing to them that he was still alive.

He was the brother that they had sold into slavery. But in Genesis chapter 50, after their father had died, after Jacob had died, the brothers were afraid, now that Jacob's gone, now our brother

Joseph is going to get revenge on us. And so they go and they try to plead with him not to enact vengeance upon them because of what they did to him all those years ago.

And Joseph wept over it because his brothers would feel this way about him, because they would actually think that he might take revenge on them.

And he wept about it. It's in Genesis 50 .20 that he said to them, You meant this for evil, but God meant it for good, so that he might save many people.

This whole thing happened to Joseph, covering 13 chapters of the book of Genesis, this whole thing happened so that Joseph would preserve the line of Judah.

And so that through the line of Judah would come the Savior of the world.

And so we read about how the Lord so providentially worked all of these things for our good and for his glory, so that even in the evil of man,

God is working to accomplish the greatest good that would ever be accomplished in human history.

The giving of his son and even the death of his son on the cross for our sins. Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar.

I'm not going to go into the details of that story, but that was another you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.

And Perez the father of Hezrin, and Hezrin the father of Ram, and Ram the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nashon, and Nashon the father of Salmon, and Salmon are hearing all these names that a lot of us probably aren't too familiar with unless you're really well versed in some of those genealogies in the

Old Testament. But then we get here to Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David the

King. Ah! There's some names that I recognize. And so who are these?

Who are these persons? Obed the father of Jesse, Jesse the father of David the

King. Well we know the answer to those questions. It was it was Jesse who had the sons brought before Samuel, and Samuel is watching all these warrior sons of Jesse pass before him.

All of these guys were soldiers. He's like, surely this guy, and the oldest comes to Samuel, and Samuel thinks this is the guy.

Surely, look at this man. Yeah, this is the guy that God is going to choose as the king to lead

Israel. And in 1st Samuel chapter 15, what did the Lord say to him? Man looks at the outward appearance, but God does not look at the outward appearance.

God looks at the heart, and it says that the Lord rejected him, but it would be the youngest son that would eventually be brought in from shepherding.

Bring David in, and he comes before Samuel, and Samuel says this is he, and anoints

David to be the successor of Solomon, or sorry, successor of Saul, not

Solomon. Solomon would be David's successor. David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah.

We understand the dark chapter that had happened there as I preached on Psalm 51 earlier this year.

Solomon was the father of Rehoboam. So you have David the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, of course, who's

Bathsheba, and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and you would have the split kingdoms that would occur with the sons of Solomon.

Now this begins a dark section of the genealogy. In the first section, we have a genealogy of light.

We're kind of increasing a hope and an expectation of a kingdom here on earth. That happens with David.

David, the most successful, most exalted king in Israel's history. Of course, by the time

David assumes the throne, there had only been two. There was Saul, and there was David, but everybody assumed

David was the guy. And of course, we have the the promise, the Davidic covenant that God made with David in 2

Samuel chapter 7. On your throne, I will establish my kingdom for how long?

Forever, right. The Lord said to David, on your throne, I will establish my kingdom forever. Now you have to wonder if understanding that covenant, the people of Israel thought

Solomon was the guy. Because after all, in the covenant, it talks about a son.

And on his throne, I will establish my kingdom forever. It's got to be Solomon. All the way through that first section of the genealogy, we had these sons of promise.

And this promised seed began back in Genesis chapter 3. The promised seed wasn't when

God promised Abraham that he would be the father of many nations. The promised seed began with what we call the

Evangelion, which was the first declaration of the gospel in Genesis 3 15. Remember the curse that was given upon the serpent after the fall, after Adam and Eve had disobeyed and eaten of the fruit that God told them not to eat?

When Eve says, the serpent deceived me and I ate, God says to the serpent, cursed are you from all other animals on the earth.

On your belly you shall go, eating the dust of the earth all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between your offspring and the woman's offspring.

You will bruise his heel, but he will crush your head. And that's a promise.

There's a promised seed there. There's one who's going to come from the woman who is the son of promise.

And when you recognize something about what the names of her sons mean,

Cain, Abel, and then later Seth, after Abel was killed, there was an expectation there that Eve really thought

Cain was the guy that was going to be the fulfillment of this promise that was given even in the curse upon the serpent.

But what happens with Cain? Cain kills his brother Abel. Another son is born,

Seth. And you see a division in the genealogies. You see Cain is kind of wickedness and goes off this way.

Seth are considered sons of righteousness until somewhere down the line the genealogies converge and then everybody is just brought into sin, which the wickedness of mankind is compounded.

God regrets that he has made man on the earth and then decides to purge the evil of mankind with the flood.

So that's what we have there at the beginning of Genesis. But the expectation, the thought was

Cain must be the promised seed. And then as you see those genealogies in Genesis, you see over and over and over again a different son that rises up that is even more disappointing than the one previous.

Maybe this is going to be the guy. Maybe this is going to be the guy. And it's not. One after the other they all sin and fall short.

Even to the point of Noah. There was one righteous man named Noah. You think this is the guy. The whole earth is purged in a flood save for Noah and his wife, his three sons, and their wives.

But then what happens immediately after they disembark the ark? Noah goes and gets drunk.

And so that's not the guy. So over and over again you see this succession of promised seed that never becomes the

Savior. The fulfillment of that promise that was given in Genesis 3 .15. But then you get to the

Kings and it's the same sort of thing. There's a promised King who is going to come.

Who's going to be the successor that's going to save us? The Davidic covenant was given to David.

So it must be David's son since that's what said there in the David covenant in 2nd

Samuel chapter 7. So it must be Solomon. David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah.

But what happened with Solomon? Did Solomon remain faithful? Everything was going so well, wasn't it?

Solomon begins his kingship building the temple of God. Something that God told

David he would not get the chance to do because he was a king of war. He had blood on his hands. So David was not going to be the king.

But Solomon during his reign of peace would have that opportunity to build the temple. And when you read about it in 1st and 2nd

Chronicles, David had prepared all the materials. He got all of that together. Basically everything in preparation for building the temple except for actually building it.

That's the one thing David didn't get the chance to oversee. But he made sure that Solomon had everything that he needed.

Solomon built the temple. And remember Solomon was the one who as a king priest was there and asked that God would bless this temple that he had made.

And what a wonderful prayer Solomon raised up. Like what is this small place for us to have built that you would actually come and dwell in it?

But God listened to his prayer and his presence filled the temple with fire that came down from heaven.

So great that the priest couldn't even stand in the place or it would kill them. And then that night in a dream, well after all the festivities had happened and everything like that,

Israel rejoices because God is with us. This temple has been built. We're a kingdom of peace.

We're prospering so well. And then God appears to Solomon in a dream and says if my people, you know this one right?

2nd Chronicles 7 14. If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and turn from their wicked ways and seek my face, then

I will hear from heaven and I will forgive their sin and I will heal their land.

God promising I will be with you. If you sin against me and you turn back to me,

I will be with you. I will forgive your sin and I will heal your land. But everything there was looking like from the very beginning of Solomon's reign, it was all looking like this is the guy,

David's successor. And on his throne, God's establishing his kingdom forever.

But what happened with Solomon? Married way too many wives, first of all.

700 wives, 300 concubines. But because of these women that he married who were pagan, he sympathized with them and their pagan gods and he built high places to those pagan gods.

And so the Lord said to Solomon that because you have done this I'm going to tear the kingdom. Not from him, but it would be during the reigns of his sons.

And so Rehoboam becomes the first, at least in the succession that's mentioned there. Solomon the father of Rehoboam and then

Rehoboam the father of Abijah, Abijah the father of Asaph. So now what we have is this succession of kings and we can read about these kings in 1st and 2nd

Kings and in 1st and 2nd Chronicles. Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, Joram the father of Uzziah, Uzziah the father of Jotham, Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, Manasseh the father of Amos, Amos the father of Josiah, and Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers.

What is it that makes this list so dark? Verses 7 to 11.

I mentioned light is in verses 1 through 6, but then we've got darkness in 7 through 11.

What makes this list of the genealogy so dark? I'm sorry?

Exactly. They did evil in the sight of the Lord. And you see in those kings they get worse and worse and worse.

Let's go to 2nd Kings 21. So turn with me to 2nd

Kings 21. Manasseh was really bad.

That's who we're gonna read about here. 2nd Kings 21. Manasseh was 12 years old when he began to reign.

That was already a mistake. And he reigned 55 years in Jerusalem.

His mother's name was Hezabah. You know, here in the United States of America we like to think of elections that come about every four years as like a chance at a fresh start.

Maybe this guy will be better than the last one. I don't know that that necessarily works out that way. The upside in Israel is if he had a good righteous king he was gonna be there for decades and that was gonna be awesome for everybody.

If he had a wicked king, same problem. He's gonna be there for decades. And in Manasseh's case, he was there for 55 years.

Verse 2, he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord according to the despicable practices of the nations whom the

Lord drove out before the people of Israel. Nothing could have been worse for Israel. Nothing could have been worse than that they look just like all the pagans that are around them.

The same warnings that we get as Christians, by the way. We as Christians are called to be set apart.

We've been called out from the world to be followers of Jesus Christ and we've been called to be holy. You understand that the word church is derived from the

Greek word ekklesia which means a called -out assembly. So we are an assembly of God's people that have been called out from the world to Himself.

We're not to look like the rest of the world. We're called to be holy. This began with God calling

Israel out of Egypt just like Israel was called out of slavery and given a promised land.

We have been called out of slavery to sin and been given a heavenly kingdom, the promised land that is to come, which is talked about in Hebrews chapter 11.

It's not a land on earth that we are anticipating. It is the heavenly kingdom of God.

But here you have Israel looking just like the pagans that were around them, forgetting what it was that God their father had called them to.

What did Manasseh do? Verse 3, he rebuilt the high places that Hezekiah, his father, had destroyed.

And he erected altars for Baal and made an Asherah as Ahab, king of Israel, had done and worshipped all the hosts of heaven and served them.

And he built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, in Jerusalem I will put my name.

And he built altars for all the hosts of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. And he burned his son as an offering, and used fortune -telling and omens, and dealt with mediums and necromancers.

He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking Him to anger. And the carved image of Asherah that he had made, he set in the house of which the

Lord had said to David and Solomon, his son, in this house and in Jerusalem which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever.

And I will not cause the feet of Israel to wander anymore out of the land that I gave to their fathers, if they only will be careful to do according to all that I have commanded them, and according to all the law that my servant

Moses commanded them. But they did not listen, and Manasseh led them to do more evil than the nations had done, whom the

Lord destroyed before the people of Israel." So just as Matt said, Manasseh was a bad dude.

Just how bad in 55 years had led Israel to do worse than even the nations that were around them.

But his son didn't do any better. Skip down to verse 19. Ammon, who is listed as Amos in the genealogy, but is the same man,

Ammon was 22 years old when he began to reign, and he reigned two years in Jerusalem.

Not bad. Maybe we can get some improvement here. It's only two years. His mother's name was

Meshulameth, the daughter of Heruz of Jobath. And he did what was evil in the sight of the

Lord, as Manasseh his father had done. He walked in all the way which his father had walked, and served the idols that his father served, and worshiped them.

He abandoned the Lord, the God of his fathers, and did not walk in the way of the Lord. And the servants of Ammon conspired against him, and put the king to death in his own house.

But the people of the land struck down all those who had conspired against King Ammon, and the people of the land made

Josiah his son king in his place. Now the rest of the acts of Ammon and all that he did are they written in the book of the

Chronicles of the kings of Judah. And he was buried in his tomb in the garden of Uzzah, and Josiah his son reigned in his place.

So you see here in just these two kings things getting progressively worse in Israel, or in Judah in particular.

Manasseh the father, coming back to the genealogy, if you'll turn back with me to Matthew 1. Manasseh the father of Amos, Amos the father of Josiah.

Now Josiah was a really good king. He actually put away all of the wicked stuff that had been raised up by his previous two dads.

Amos his father, and then Manasseh his grandfather. Josiah got rid of all of that.

There was sweeping revival in Israel. In fact it was the greatest revival that had ever happened in Israel's history.

But though Josiah was faithful and had done righteously, the

Lord said to him that Israel's wickedness is too great, and they're gonna go right back to doing what they had done before.

But he would bless Josiah for his faithfulness, and Josiah as we see listed here would become one of the ancestors of Jesus the

Christ. But as soon as Josiah died,

Judah went right back to doing it again. They went right back to doing the same stuff that had been going on during Manasseh and Amos's reign.

And so because the wickedness was so pervasive, the Lord punished Judah by turning them over to the hands of their enemies, and we have the deportation to Babylon.

Now it was because of that deportation to Babylon that the writings of many

Hebrew prophets would go along with them, and something would happen hundreds of years later when

Magi from the east would come looking for the Christ child. And that event that we're gonna read about in Matthew 2, that would not have happened if not for the deportation of Babylon, in which the writings of these

Hebrew prophets would come into the libraries of these wise men of the of the kings of Babylon and then the kings of Persia.

And because they had those scriptures, they knew about this Messiah, this child that was to be born.

But before we get there, looking at the remainder of this genealogy, we have a never mentioned anywhere else in the

Bible. Now some of them are. So you have this next section of the genealogy, verse 12.

After the deportation to Babylon, Jeconiah was the father of Sheltiel, and Sheltiel the father of Zerubbabel.

Well, we know those names, as when you read about it in Ezra and Nehemiah and those books with regards to the return of Judah from exile back into the land of promise.

God delivers them just as he promised, that he said that he would. They come back, they rebuild the temple, they rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, they try to be again the city that God had intended them to be.

But we know that the people never really came back to a true restoration. Though the temple was rebuilt,

God never inhabits that temple again. Solomon had asked that God would bless the temple, and the presence of God comes down in a pillar of fire and fills the place.

But after the rebuilding of the temple during the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, there's never anything like that.

The Lord doesn't come down and descend into that temple. We saw in Ezekiel that because the wickedness of Judah was so great,

God actually left the temple. And Ezekiel has a vision of God leaving the temple and mounting a chariot and going up on the hillside and watching as Jerusalem and the temple would be taken.

So you have this rebuilding of the temple, but it's still never the same. It's never the same as it was before. And even when you read about the rebuilding of that temple, the men of the oldest generation who remember what the temple used to be, they even weep over it.

Because it's like, you know, we're back in the land. God promised he would deliver us back into this land, but it's just not the same as it was before.

You should have seen the temple the way that it was before. And it never would return to that kind of glory.

And so we have this this period of uncertainty. Maybe that's what

I should have titled this third part of the genealogy, right? Have light in the genealogy, darkness in the genealogy, and then uncertainty.

What's happening here? She 'll heal the father of Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel was a governor of Judah, but he was never a king.

There would never be another king that would ascend to the throne of David after the deportation of Babylon.

Herod was not a Jew. Do you understand that about Herod? So when

Herod was the king at the time that Jesus was born, Herod was not of the line of David sitting on the throne of David.

Herod was a what? Anybody know what his genealogy was? He was an

Edomite, which means he was a descendant of whom? Esau. Not a descendant of Jacob.

He was a descendant of Esau. So there would never be another king that would sit on that throne in the line of David until Christ was born.

And then he sits on his father's throne even now. But once again, we look at this section of the genealogy.

You have Zerubbabel, never really a king, but he was a governor. And nonetheless, he would be an ancestor in the line of the

Christ. Zerubbabel, the father of Abiud. Abiud, the father of Eliakim. Eliakim, the father of Azar.

And Azar, the father of Zadok. And Zadok, the father of Achim. And Achim, the father of Eliud.

And Eliud, the father of Eleazar. And Eleazar, the father of Methan. And Methan, the father of Jacob. Still seeing a bunch of names we've never seen anywhere else in the

Bible. Because we have this silent age period, right? The three to four hundred years between the last of the prophets and then the coming of Jesus Christ.

When God has not been speaking to his people. This period of uncertainty. But then, in verse 16,

Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called the

Christ. And then 17, so all the generations from Abraham to David were 14 generations.

From David to the deportation to Babylon, 14 generations. And from the deportation to Babylon to the

Christ, 14 generations. I just have a couple of minutes left here. Let me make one quick point as we wrap this up.

Turn with me to Titus 3. Titus chapter 3. The Apostle Paul, speaking to Titus, said, for we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, and we were what?

What's the next word? Slaves. We were slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others, and hating one another.

Who is this describing? Us. Before what?

Before Christ. Right. This is us BC. Not before the birth of Christ, but before we were born again in Christ.

We were foolish. We were disobedient. We were slaves. Remember I said before, just as Israel was called out of slavery, so we have been called out of slavery.

We've been called out of slavery to our sin, to be followers of Jesus Christ.

No longer enslaved by the passions of our flesh, but desiring to live righteously as Christ is righteous.

Verse 4. But when the goodness and loving -kindness of God our Savior appeared,

He saved us. Not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the

Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our

Savior. Look at verse 7. So that, being justified by His grace, we might become what?

Heirs, according to the hope of eternal life. And I read that to you to make this point.

Christ's genealogy is our genealogy. And as Christ is the one who has ascended to the throne, so we, as fellow heirs with Him, receive all the stuff the

King gets. Is that not an amazing promise? Once we were rebels.

We had rebelled against the throne of the High King of Heaven. What we deserved for that was death and destruction.

But in Christ Jesus, we've been made fellow heirs of that eternal kingdom.

And so, my friends, live as sons and daughters of promise.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we conclude this genealogy today, as we consider the things that have been written down for us, that even in a genealogy we find instruction to understand the slavery we were once in, that we've been called out from, that we've been set free from, and in Christ Jesus have been given righteousness and eternal life.

So that even through this lesson of a genealogy, we might understand that we should no longer be sons and daughters enslaved to our sin, but we are sons and daughters of God Most High.

Teach us to live in your righteousness today and for your kingdom. It is in Jesus' name that we pray.