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Our Father, in the quietness of this time, we want to come before Your Throne of Grace, and we are over-amazed and just in awe and wonder that we can approach the Throne of Grace, no longer a throne of judgment, no longer terror or fear in our souls, because we have now peace with our God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
We thank You for Your wonderful gift of salvation. We thank You for Your great care for us, Your people. It is amazing to us that You would think upon us and care for us and so love us, and we are just grateful.
The time that we now spend in this building this morning, in this place, we ask that You'd bless it. We'd ask that You'd teach us, God, that You would mold us and shape us into the people You desire for us to be.
Pray that the Holy Spirit would teach us, Lord, truth from Your Word or to reinforce the things that we have learned in the past, and, Lord, more, illumine our hearts that we might rejoice in the truth and we might love the truth.
And in it, of course, is that our hearts and our passion and our one desire, as David would say, one thing that I desire of the Lord, and that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord forever, to have a close fellowship and communion with You.
Oh, Lord, we pray that You would just deal with us in such a way today that our hearts would be aflame and aglow and on fire and have a passion for Christ. We pray in His name, amen. Introduction to the gospels.
The English word gospel is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word godspell, which can mean either a story about God or a good story. But the latter meaning is in harmony with the Greek word translated gospel in the New Testament, which is euangelion, which means good news.
We've all heard that before. Gospel means good news. And of course, God is bringing to the attention of all people of all time with the recorded God-inspired, the Holy Spirit-breathed word of God of the New Testament concerning Jesus Christ, His Son, the truth of His Son.
And that's what we see in these four gospels. In the secular Greek, euangelion or gospel refers to a good report about an important event. Now, the four gospels, as I've said, are good news about the most significant events in all of our history, and those would include the life, the sacrificial death, and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Jesus of the scriptures.
The gospels aren't biographies as we would think of a biography today because a biography would cover the whole life of an individual. But in the gospels, do not present a complete life, nor do they intend to present the complete life of Jesus apart from His birth.
The birth narratives, they give little information about the first 30 years of the Lord Jesus. They mainly deal with His ministry over the last three years of His life, and particularly the focus or attention is on the last week of His life.
Though they are completely accurate historically, and they present important biographical details about Jesus' life, the primary purposes of the gospels are to teach theology or to teach us about God, to teach us about His Son, Jesus Christ, and they are apologetic, which means to me they provide authoritative answers to any questions about the life of Jesus Christ.
You want to know about Christ, go to the scriptures. Particularly where? Go to the gospels. They will tell us of the life of Jesus. And they can, and written in this way too, and we ought to think this way as believers, that they strengthen the believer's assurance regarding the reality of our faith, who it is that we're trusting in.
We're trusting in the Christ of the scriptures, not another Jesus that people will purport from other false religions, but the Jesus of the scriptures. Now, there are a lot of things that you can cover when you overview the gospels as far as who wrote what, who copied who.
I'm not going to get into that because of the sake of time, but there are people who believe that Mark wrote the first account, and Matthew and Luke in particular copied their accounts, that's why they're so similar.
But to me, that's not the issue, that's not the point. They try to, of course, at times pull apart the scriptures and pull apart the veracity and the authenticity of the scriptures. But to me, they are the scriptures given to us by God.
They're the ones that have been recorded and kept for us. And in all four accounts, there are no contradictions, they're just complementary. They speak to each other. As you've heard probably the synoptic gospels or coming from the Greek word sin, which means together, and optic has to do with seeing, seeing together.
They share common points of view. They show that there's harmony, there's no contradictions, as some would try to purport, but that they are complementary. Each gospel writer wrote for a specific, unique point of view and perspective, and they wrote for a different audience.
And we're going to see that as we look at the book of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. As a result, each gospel contains its own distinctive elements based upon the writer. And I'll kind of give you a little overview as far as Matthew.
But taken together, all four of the gospels form a complete testimony of Jesus Christ and a testimony that is so set by God that we can trust our very souls to the veracity of this truth. We can rest upon it by faith that what God has told us about his son here in these books is absolutely 100 true.
There are no errors and no contradictions, and we are blessed to have these scriptures. Now, Matthew. Matthew wrote primarily to a Jewish audience presenting Jesus of Nazareth as Israel's long-awaited Messiah.
And you'll see at the top of your sheet, as far as the theme there, across from the title, I put the theme of the book. He is the promised, the long-awaited Messiah who has the right to be king. And he is the rightful king.
His genealogy is in Chapter 1, and we're going to see that. It is unlike Luke's genealogy, which focuses on Jesus' royal descent from Israel's greatest king. It's interspersed throughout Matthew are quotes from the Old Testament, which we're going to look at presenting various aspects of Jesus' life.
And it is a tremendous book. There's just so much to try to cover in one class, but I'll do my best. Again, Jesus is the promised king and Messiah. And Matthew focuses on teaching his fellow Jews that their hopes have been answered in Christ, in Jesus.
And by repeatedly, over and over again, I'm going to show you some of these examples. Repeatedly quoting from the Old Testament, Matthew validates Christ's claims to who he is. In fact, the prophesied Messiah or the anointed one of God, the chosen one, the sent one of God.
It's authored, this book is authored by Matthew sometime between 50 and 70 A .D. And we all have remembered the account where near Capernaum, Jesus passes by the tax collector's table and he calls Matthew to follow him.
And Matthew, whose name is also known as Levi, immediately leaves everything to join himself with Jesus Christ. But Matthew, just like all the other writers, are not puppets on strings, just like us today.
Even though God saves us, we don't all go through a cookie stamp and we don't all speak the same. We don't all think the same. We don't all have the same vocabulary. There's a uniqueness about us, and that's what's so neat when it comes to the individuality that remains with us.
Because God takes us for who we are and he shapes us for his glory, the image of Christ. But there's our personality, our vocabulary, our characteristics about us still stay with us and we're unique. And when people look at us, they can see that God has taken the individual and has raised us up to be seated with Christ in heavenly places.
And we are Christians, yes, but we are us. And God hasn't taken away that and made us puppets on a string. He's given us the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and we are new creatures in Christ Jesus. But Dave Jeffries is still Dave Jeffries, Charlie Crane is still Charlie Crane, and you will see that God has taken us and so changed us so that we come in line with the will of God and we become what we were created to be, worshippers of God, lovers of God.
And yet, we are those who we take and we are allowed to bring into this thing of being called a Christian certain personal characteristics. And the same is true with Matthew. And what his characteristics are affect the way that he writes and affect the way that he spoke and how he put it down on paper.
He was a disciple who put his, so to speak, his tax collecting experience to a unique use when he compiled this testimony of Jesus that he wrote. He would approach it from an accountant's mind the way that he even put the book together.
You'll notice that Matthew, as compared to all the other books, is not chronological. Matthew deals with topics. He deals with subject matter. And it might be that he deals with one subject and he writes through the life of Christ about that subject.
Then he deals with another subject and he writes through different accounts in the life of Christ, but they're not in order like you will see in the other Gospels. His version of Christ's life placed a higher priority on, as I said, subject matters or categories than on chronologically.
So, consequently, his parables, miracles, and sayings tend to be grouped like that, sharing those characteristics and not by when the events actually occurred. Matthew took a lot of pains in his account.
I don't know if you've ever written a letter and you try to get detailed and you try to get precise to put all the information in it. And Matthew was careful under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, particularly when it comes to this idea of quoting or the fact of quoting Old Testament Scripture.
He's very careful. And you'll see that as he goes through and he speaks about the life of Christ and he's going through and dealing with different aspects of the life of Christ, he's touching and recording these things.
He's very careful to come right behind it and say that it might be fulfilled. And the word fulfilled is a key word in the book of Matthew, because what he's saying is, is all that the Jews had heard about in the Old Testament concerning this Messiah that would come.
Matthew is is unquestionably coming to the place where he's going to say, Jesus is the one who fulfilled these scriptures. And it's over and over again, 60 plus times that he does that. And I want to show some of them to you, because that is very important.
And like I said earlier, I don't know if you've written a letter and tried to be precise. It takes it takes some work to do that and to be accurate in that in that way. Of course, he's led by the Holy Spirit.
No mistake is going to be made. But I just think that it is a tremendous blessing for us, particularly not only as we think about who this book is written to. It's written for the Jews, not only to strengthen the faith of Jewish believers of that time, but also a tremendous evangelistic tool in the hand of any Christian to deal with someone who is Jewish.
And coming from that perspective, just relying only upon the Old Testament. Well, here they have this book, the Old Testament, which speaks of of what God did when he created and all the history of Abraham and all the way through.
And then it speaks of this Messiah. It speaks of this one who will come. It speaks of this Messiah and this king who will come. And what Matthew does is says Jesus is the one who fulfilled all those prophecies.
A tremendous just if you just think about even prophecy being fulfilled like that, it is just tremendous because this is not something that someone could just scheme and think. Jesus, a person comes on the scene and thinks about I'm going to self-proclaim myself as the Messiah and have all of these things lined up.
And I'm going to say that I that I fulfilled what Jeremiah wrote hundreds of years ago, or I fulfilled what Isaiah wrote hundreds of years ago. And you look at the life of Christ and it's absolutely impossible for a person to do that, to to pick the fact of the place that they were going to be born, to be virgin born.
You know, these just so many prophecies being fulfilled in Christ. It's a it's an amazement and it's it's a wonder and ought to be to us. And really, if we step back and just look at as we look at some of these scriptures, we ought to be just so assured and so blessed that God has spoken concerning his son.
And the foundation is there that we can stand upon. And it is unshakable. It is unmovable. This is something that it's it's irreverent, a verbal truth. It can't it can't be undone. It is absolutely clear that Jesus is the Messiah.
The background and setting, again, the Jewish flavor of Matthew's gospel, as I've been trying to say, is remarkable. Even the opening genealogy traces Jesus's lineage back to Abraham. And if you look in Chapter one of Matthew and in verse one, the scripture says the book of the generation or the record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham, right from the get go.
So, Matthew, he's not holding back at all. He is saying that this record, this genealogy concerning Jesus Christ, who is the son of David and the son of Abraham, his genealogy is traced back to Abraham.
Why Abraham? Somebody tell me, why is he going back to Abraham? Because the audience is Jewish. And of course, Father Abraham, the father of the Jewish faith and belief of Israel, he's going back there.
He's writing to the Jews about the king of the Jews, about the Messiah. And his Matthew's genealogy traces the line of descent through Joseph. But he's coming. He begins with Abraham, since his concern is to do with the Jewish connection with Christ and God's plan of salvation.
The Jewish connection of Christ with God's plan of salvation, the Messiah, the one who through the seed of Abraham, many would be blessed, that the one who would sit on the throne of David forever and ever, you got Abraham and the David connection, and Matthew is pinning this straight to Jesus Christ.
No ambiguity here. It's clear. It's in the open. And he's saying this, what Matthew is laying out are the Messiah's credentials. I work in the insurance industry, and we have contractors come in to do programming or analytical work for us.
And one of the things that we require of them is not just to walk in when they interview and just say, yes, I am a programmer and I know this language or I'm a business analyst and I can help you out in this area.
And they just say it. But we we ask them to show us their credentials, to show us their resume, to show us and give us references so that we can prove it, so that we can check it out, so we can know that what they are saying is valid.
And they must give us their credentials so that we can then go ahead and contract them to work to work for us. And what Matthew is doing here is he's showing the Messiah's credentials. He's laying them out, the Messiah's credentials.
And, you know, you might read this chapter. I don't know if you've ever done this. You come there and you say the book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham, Abraham begat Isaac and Isaac begat Jacob and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren and Judas begat Pharaoh.
And you go, look at all these names. Where do the names end? Oh, over here. Oh, yeah. Verse 16 looks good. Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who was called Christ. Now I can get into the real scripture here and I'm going to get something out of this.
So all the generations for Amy and the 14. Now, the birth of Jesus, verse 18, Christ was on this wise when as his mother, Mary, and then he get into the account of his birth. No, no, no, no. Don't do that.
The genealogies are there for a purpose. The genealogies are there for a reason. Why does God take the time to carefully record all of these names? It can get boring. Yes. And it can be to where we might want to skip over it.
Yes. But God, as I said, has a reason for this. And it is to prove that Jesus is the Messiah. That's what it's there for. It is to show him to give his credentials. If Jesus is not the Messiah, not has not fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies concerning that which were spoken of about the Messiah.
If the if Jesus is not the Messiah, then the Jews have no Messiah. And of course, for one to to make the claims, the genealogy must be there. Now, the difficulty is that the Messiah has to be able to prove that he is the literal physical descendant of David.
He has to show evidence of it all. Of course, the genealogies, as we are told, were destroyed in 70 A .D. And there are none today. But this Bible record that we have in our hands, brethren, is proof that Jesus meets the requirements to be the Messiah.
God had it recorded to validate Jesus's claims to be the Messiah. And we read through it and we go through it and we can take it and we can look here in the New Testament, in this chapter, and we can parallel the Old Testament and we can see for a fact that it goes.
Parent by parent, family by family, and it is accurate and it proves who Jesus is and what is kind of wonderful here. I mean, you think about our salvation. God chooses to save sinners. And of course, for us, the gospel has come to us, the Gentiles.
And it's a wonder that God included us. And you kind of get a you kind of get a peek of that as you go down. And you would miss this if you just said, oh, I read this. And come on, some of you have skipped it, right?
You go through and you skip some of those because it just doesn't it just doesn't seem to have a meaning. I hope if at least here in the New Testament, when you come to it, it's there's a reason concerning Christ.
It's for the glory of God to show who his son is. But even think about this and consider the graciousness of the pedigree. Notice what God says in in verse five. Salmon begat Boaz of who? Rahab. And Boaz begat Obed of Ruth and Obed begat Jesse and Jesse begat David.
Rahab here is mentioned even up in third and Judah begat Phares and Sarah of Tamar. Even the story of the account there back back in Genesis, where she is not given this one of the sons of Judah. And she she tricks Judah and and he comes to her under the cloak of her being a harlot.
And he takes her and she becomes pregnant with these two children, Phares and Sarah. But she is included in this pedigree. Notice another one. Also, I read it in verse five. What is the other amazing name of a woman in there?
Well, Rahab, the other one. What's the second one? Ruth, right? In verse five, Boaz begat Obed of Ruth. You notice how they mention all the father's names are being mentioned here. But God is specifically for purpose and for a reason showing that God is a gracious God.
And he includes Gentiles and he includes people like like Ruth, the Moabite, I believe, even concerning Rahab. I could I mean, don't absolutely 100 percent quote me on this one. But I think in this place here is one of the only places in scriptures where it doesn't say Rahab the harlot.
It just says Rahab and God is good and God is gracious. What the other one I really love to notice in verse six, Jesse begat David, the king, and David begat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Uriah.
Uriah is mentioned. God is not going to forget those who stood righteous before him. And God is God is including in this pedigree the names of of people that he wanted to be known. I mean, it's almost like the account of the woman who brought the alabaster box of ointment and broke it.
And Jesus said that when it when the record concerning him, the account of what this woman has done for me will never be forgotten. It will be recorded. God does that. Now, what if you think about that, if God is in this genealogy, if he is not only in it showing the credentials and the validation that Jesus, his son, Jesus is the Messiah who fulfilled the Old Testament scriptures, it's proving that he's the Messiah.
But in the list of the genealogies and how important it is that God is is showing in this pedigree, God is showing his graciousness and he's including the names of these people for all time for it to be known that God is is a God who is, as as the Jews would think, God is a God who strictly and only deals with the Jewish nation.
And we're the ones where the top dogs were in the in crowd where this we're in the inner circle with God. Like the Pharisees, when they were dealing with Jesus, you know, they were saying, you're illegitimate.
You know, you're you're outside of of us. We are of our father, Abraham. That's what they would say. Their claim was that. But God shows us over and over and over again, even in the Old Testament, when not only when you had the tabernacle with the worship of of the nation Israel, who also was allowed to come in, the stranger was allowed to come in and connect themselves and associate themselves with the people of God and the worship of God.
And here in the Old Testament, from the get go, from the first paragraphs coming in the Old Testament, we see that God is gracious to the the Moabites, the idolaters, the Gentiles, the outcasts. And we see that in the life of Jesus, the ones that the Jews, the ones that the Pharisees, the ones that the religious leaders would not deal with, the winebibbers, the harlots, the tax collectors, those that would be considered the low lifers of the day.
Jesus embraces them and he comes to them and he saves them. And what does that tell us? If God is specifically recording these names here in chapter one in this genealogy and God so thinks upon people like that, that's why when I was praying before the class and an amazement about how God thinks upon us, we have God thinking upon us the same way.
We have the God of of heaven and earth considering. I mean, can you imagine in Acts chapter 13 when it says that the that the Jews refused to hear the gospel and the apostles and Paul was going to go out and preach the gospel to the Gentiles?
Do you remember what it said about the Gentiles, what their what their response to that was? Anybody remember the word or phrase kind of like in Acts chapter 13? Then were the Gentiles glad they were glad that the gospel was coming to them because all along, most likely maybe they thought and heard also that this was exclusively for the Jews, this whole religion, this thing about God.
But the Gentile, the Gentiles were glad because the gospel was coming to them and their hearts were being changed. Their lives were being recreated. They were being born from above and they were. And when Philip went to Samaria in Acts chapter eight, it says that they rejoiced when they became Christians.
They were happy. They were glad in the in the next chapter, too. You see them eating and meeting and fellowship being together and eating their bread with singleness and gladness of heart, with this exuberance and with this joy.
And brethren, shouldn't we be thinking the same thing? It's so easy for us to be able to go through the motions. It's so easy for us to be able to get the kids ready and get our clothes on and get get gas in the car or whatever, and get in the car and drive to to church on a Sunday morning and just think that we're just going to sit here.
We're going to go through and sing the songs and kind of just do what we need to do. And we can do that and go through the motions and not be engaged in our hearts and not have our hearts aflame with a passion and a love for Christ and for the things of God.
And, you know, I when I when I study a book and I get ready for Sunday school, there are just so many facts and there's so many things to try to bring across and you just can't possibly do it all. And what I want to try to do when I when I teach through the books is really to get our hearts connected to the word of God, to just love what God has delivered to us in the scriptures.
And as we as we consider what God has written for us, even you could learn to love a genealogy like in Matthew, chapter one, I hope you never look at you never get to look at the genealogy again the same way it is precious.
It is wonderful. It is absolutely amazing. And it is accurate. It is precise and it is completely true. And it points to Jesus Christ. And when it gets down to the end of it in verse 16, Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.
It comes right down. It comes right down to Jesus. I was thinking what I'll probably do as I as I teach through the books is maybe like in Matthew, we'll deal with the genealogy and a little bit about the the prophecies concerning Christ and then maybe deal with the birth of Christ.
And Luke probably might be better in that and mark the life of Christ and maybe the death of Christ. And in John, I'm not sure, but just to try to excuse me as we're going through the books, deal with deal with the subject matter so we can somehow get the chronological outline of of of the life of Christ on your sheets.
I'll let you look at this for later. But there are different key doctrines that are listed. Key persons. Some of the key words would be good to look at on pay on the second side. The flip side, Jesus, Jesus in there in the Greek is the equivalent to the Hebrew name Yeshua or Joshua, where the name Joshua comes from.
The Lord shall save Christ literally meaning the anointed one. Some people think that Jesus Christ crisis is last name. It's not a name. It's a title. It's who it's it's a title of of really of what it is that we're believing in.
We're believing our confession is that Jesus is our Christ, our anointed one or the anointed one of God whom we believe upon. It's a title for him. You can see through the overview, the quick outline in points two through six.
You will see that there is a discourse and then there is the narrative discourse followed by the narrative, the Sermon on the Mount, which Pastor Mike is dealing with. And as I understand, I met Mike in the hallway this morning, Pastor Mike, and he said, I'm going to be doing an overview of the book of Matthew.
So you're getting a double dose today. So we can see if we kind of align align with each other and hopefully it's not repetitive. I have no idea what what pastor is going to teach on. But you'll see the Sermon on the Mount where Mike is teaching and preaching from the commissioning of the twelve, the kingdom parables, the child likeness of the believer in the all of it discourse as we go through the book.
Now, what I want to do is on page one, if you'll notice under the background and setting section there. As I said before, Matthew's purpose is a bit it's a narrow focus. What he wants to do is demonstrate again that Jesus is the Christ, the king and messiah of Israel.
And he does this by more than 60 times in his book, quoting from the Old Testament prophetic passages there, emphasizing again, the key word in the book of Matthew is what? I guess fulfillment is that Jesus has fulfilled these these scriptures, these promises.
And again, hard to set this up on your own, hard to instigate some type of a thing where you can fool people based upon the types of prophecies that we have here in that Jesus fulfilled. And I want to I want us to look at a few of these if we could notice what it says.
In. When the angel had come. Speaking to Joseph. In verse 20, it says, while Joseph thought on these things that he had heard, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take on the Mary, thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.
And she shall bring forth a son and thou shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. Notice verse 22. Very, very important. Now, all this was done that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken of the Lord by the prophets.
God had the prophets declare the things that were true, that God wanted to be spoken. And it says here, all this was done that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken of the Lord by the prophets, saying, behold, a virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which is interpreted, which being interpreted is God with us.
And we see here in this in this whole text here. That Jesus was born of a virgin prophesied in the Old Testament, Isaiah 714 and and Matthew, not only not Matthew doesn't do this, he doesn't just state verse 18.
Now, the birth of Jesus Christ was in this wise when, as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph before they came together, which means before they had intimate relationships. She is a virgin. She was found with child of the Holy Ghost.
And he doesn't go through and just make that statement and then go on to the next point. He makes a statement concerning the life of Christ. And then he ties it to the Old Testament promise or the Old Testament prophecy in verse 22.
All this was done that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken to the Lord by the prophet saying that is wonderful to me. I mean, that just kind of ties the whole book together. You remember when we were studying the Old Testament, the whole theme is the redemptive plan of God for mankind, for his people.
God being a God for his people, saving a group for his own that would worship him, getting him out of Egypt, having them go into the wilderness so that they could worship him and serve and serve him. This whole plan, God sparing and saving and protecting that whole line, that seed from the promise all the way back from Genesis, chapter three from with Adam and Eve, that someone would rule.
And it was it's just shown there all the way through. And we come to the New Testament. We see it unfolding on the pages. Let me show you some other examples. Notice in in chapter two, Herod rises up, killed it.
He wants to to to kill the the firstborn. I think that one comes after this one. But look, look what it says here in in verse five. When when when the. See. I think what happens here, the wise men come to Herod and Herod finds out that they've come to worship the king of the Jews.
And Herod wants to know where he is. It says in verse five, they say to him, the wise men answer back to Herod in Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet. And that prophet, of course, is Micah.
And now Bethlehem in the land of Judah are not the least among the princes of Judah. For out of these shall come a governor, a ruler that shall rule my people Israel. Notice there in verse five, it says, for thus it is written by the prophets.
He just doesn't make the statement and skim over it, but he ties it back to the Old Testament scriptures. Notice in verse 16, the wise men had gone to Jesus. They did not come back to Herod. And when he saw that he was mocked, verse 16, he was exceeding wrath and he sent forth those to to slay or to kill the children of Bethlehem and all the coast.
From two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men. Notice verse 17 again, then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremiah, the prophet saying again.
And we see Isaiah being quoted. We see Jeremiah being quoted. We see Micah being quoted over and over again, going back to the scriptures, not just relying upon one, but many of the Old Testament prophets.
And then he quotes the scripture there again. Notice in when when Joseph is forewarned of a dream that that of what's going to take place, that he's going to take Jesus over, over to Egypt, it says in verse 22.
But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judea in the room of his father, he was afraid to go thither, notwithstanding being one of God in a dream. He turned aside into the parts of Galilee and he came and dwelt in the city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophets again.
It shows it again. I know there's another. Maybe it's I had confused it with one of the other accounts. No, here it is up in verse 15. I skipped it. When Herod was going to do it and and he was there until the death of Herod, they went and they flee to Egypt till the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled.
Verse 15, which was spoken of the Lord. I like that phrase there because it's not just which was spoken by the prophet, but God directed the prophet to speak this. A true prophet of God was a spokesperson for God, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the Lord of the Lord, by the prophet saying out of Egypt, have I called my son?
I'll show you another one in chapter four. It says in verse 13 and leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the seacoast and the borders of Zebulun and Neftali. And it says in verse 14 that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by Isaiah, the prophet saying again, notice in chapter eight in chapter eight.
I mean, that's those speak of the virgin birth. It speaks of the flight to Egypt. It speaks. There's those that speak to the ministry in Egypt in in chapter eight. We will see in verse 17. Well, read verse 16 when even when it's come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils.
And he cast out spirits with his word and healed all that were sick, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by Isaiah, the prophet saying himself, took our infirmities and bear our sicknesses from chapter what?
Fifty three. Right. Isaiah, chapter fifty three. Go with me to chapter twelve and chapter twelve. Of course, that one there speaks of Jesus suffering vicariously or suffering for for us in in chapter twelve.
Notice in verse fifteen, but when Jesus knew it, he withdrew himself from dance and great multitudes followed him and he healed them all and charged them that they should not make him known that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by Isaiah, the prophet saying, behold, my servant whom whom I have chosen, my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased.
I will put my spirit upon him and he shall show judgment unto the Gentiles. He shall not strive nor cry. Neither shall any man hear his voice in the street. A bruised reed shall he not break and a spoke smoking flax, shall he not quench till he send forth judgment to victory and in his name shall the Gentiles trust.
And the Jews thought differently when they looked in the Old Testament. They thought what they wanted was political deliverance. What they wanted was someone to come on the scene and with might and with power and we see that God's plan is different.
God sends his son Jesus and the Messiah that God would send would not come with a political agenda. He would not come with great fanfare. He would not come with a military campaign, but he would come with gentleness and meekness, declaring righteousness even unto the Gentiles.
God's plan, not like man's. Let's turn with me to 13 and again you saw that it might be fulfilled, that it might be fulfilled. You see this being driven home. 13, I believe it's around verse 35. It says in verse 34, all these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables, and without a parable spake he not unto them that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet saying, I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.
Chapter 21, I just want you to see this is threaded straight through the book of Matthew. 21, for the sake of time, I'm just going to read those portions. 21 verse 4, all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet saying, tell ye the daughter of Zion, behold, thy king cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt, the foal of an ass, or a donkey.
We see here as Jesus is preparing to come in on the entry, what is Matthew doing? He is saying that Jesus coming into Jerusalem, he is going to be sitting humbly on this mean beggarly animal. Matthew is saying, behold your king, the king that God is sending, the true Messiah of God.
Really this is a verse which really just kind of blossoms or describes the theme of this book. Matthew 21 verse 5, your king comes, and the king is the Messiah, the promised Messiah king. A couple more, 26, chapter 26, you'll notice in verse 55, in the same hour Jesus said, Jesus to the multitudes, are you come out as against the thief with swords and staves for to take me?
I sat daily with you teaching in the temple, and you did not lay hand on me. Verse 56, but all this was done that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled, that all the disciples forsook him and fled.
And I think I have one last one in 27, there are I think others, but I'm just bringing out these that there are other prophecies fulfilled in Matthew. Remember there's 60 accounts, and we're only looking at maybe 8 or 10 of them, but there are 60 of them fulfilled, and many of them Matthew doesn't use the words that it might be fulfilled what's the prophet said, but I'm showing you those, just so you tie it together, you see exactly what Matthew is doing.
This speaks to the crucifixion of Christ, they gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall, and verse 34, and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink. And verse 35, and they crucified him, and parted his garments, casting lots, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets.
There it is again, they parted my garments among them, and upon my vestures did they cast lots. Can you imagine somebody coming up with a scheme, so that they could self-proclaim themselves as a Messiah, so that they could get influence, so they could have power, and oh, by the way, one of the points is that you're going to be crucified between sinners, and they're going to part your garments, and you're going to die.
I mean, one, you'd have to be crazy to do that, because really the idea is to have life and power, and to be alive to be able to do it. But two, all of these things that were prophesied and foretold in the Old Testament, hundreds of years before this is actually taking place, and here in this case, here that his garments would be parted, that he would be crucified between thieves, that he would be buried with the rich in his death.
I mean, all of that is not something that someone could do on their own. Only one that could do that is God. God orchestrated all of these things concerning his son, and we have this wonderful account.
Just in closing for this morning, and I'll give you an opportunity to ask any questions, but some of the places that you could go to in this book that are remarkable, Matthew 4 .19 to me is one of the most challenging verses, where Jesus said to the disciples, Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.
That phrase alone just kind of sticks away at me, or just kind of compels me in life to think about what my life is all about and what we've been called to do. And if I said to you, or if you went to a sportsman club in town and talked to a fisherman, and you asked him, Hey, how long have you been fishing?
Forty-five years. And then you ask him, Have you caught anything? And he said, No, I haven't caught anything. Would you kind of scratch your head and you'd think, I thought he was a fisherman. I thought the whole idea was to get all the things that you get, the pole, the bait and all that, and get a boat and go and catch fish.
That's the whole idea of it. And what we have here in this statement of Jesus is, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. One of the things that is the focus and ought to be in our lives is that as we testify to the greatness of God in saving our souls and tell others the good news, the gospel, that God would use us as instruments in his hands to actually catch fish or to catch men.
And if we're not, we're not fulfilling that great commission, which is at the end of this book in Matthew 28, which is another great place to go. Matthew 7 talks about the entering into the straight gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, but narrow is the way, straight is the gate that leads to life, and few there be that find it.
And that whole idea that there's two courses in life, it's heaven or hell. It is eternal life with Jesus, with God, or eternal spiritual death separated from God in Matthew 7. Matthew 15, verse 9, speaking of the religious leaders, But in vain they do worship me.
Their whole worship, how do they worship God? For in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. At their own scheme, their own self-righteous religious efforts is their way that they think that they're worshiping God.
And Jesus comes on the scene and he says, The kingdom is not outward, the kingdom is inward. It has to do with the heart. It has to do with internal repentance. It has to do with obedience. It has to do with submission to God.
It has to do with bowing before God and claiming Christ as Lord and King. And that's what the kingdom is really all about. Jesus comes on and blows people's doors off when it comes to this message of the gospel of God.
And you'll notice anytime Jesus preaches, and when he's preaching the gospel, he never takes the gospel and kind of twists it and bends it to fit the people. Never does that. What Jesus does is he proclaims the truth of God, here's the gospel, salvation, through him, through believing upon him.
And what it is is the people have to be twisted. The people have to be bent to come in line with God. And what I'm saying there is that they need to repent. They need to turn. They need to change in order to enter into the kingdom of God, in order to be called the disciples, the followers of God.
Wow, was that a brief overview and a high-level overview of Matthew. Any questions? I don't purport to have the answers to them, or any comments this morning, things that you're thinking of. Maybe you've read Matthew and you've found something that you'd like to share or have a question.
Anyone? I mean, you get into the Olivet Discourse at the end, and it's pretty wild, the prophecies that are there. What is he talking about? And where is this? And you want to be very careful when you interpret that.
And if you need help, get some study help and look at that to see exactly what time frame and who it is that's being spoken of. I'll leave you with this. I think Jesus, at the end there in that portion that I was speaking of, I'm pretty sure it's in Matthew.
I think it's in 25. Yes, at the end there, Jesus says these sobering words. When he talks about it, people's lives are going to be judged. And you have those people who would not go and feed the hungry.
They would not give them food. When they were thirsty, they did not give them something to drink. When they were naked, they did not give them anything to wear. He's contrasting here those that are his and those that are not, those that are Christians and those that are not, those that are believers and those that are unbelievers, those that are disciples and those that would not follow Jesus.
Hear these words as we close. And these, the ones that had no proof in their life, they had no good fruit as he talked back in chapter 7. They had corrupt fruit in their life, evil, sinful, disobedience.
He said, these shall go away into everlasting punishment. Now, wait a minute. I thought Jesus, he's the one who comes on screen and everything is love and everything is mushy and everything is rosy. No, Jesus preached more on hell than he did heaven.
And he says here, these shall go away in everlasting punishment. But praise God, we have the second part of that verse, but the righteous into life eternal. That's the promise that we have and that we can stand upon, brethren.
And I know that you must rejoice with me. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your kindness to us. Thank you for your word. It is so sure and it is so complete and it is so accurate. Lord, even in the genealogy, our hearts can be thrilled when we see what you're doing there and the purpose behind it all.
Help us to remember that this book written to the Jewish audience to strengthen those who would believe but also those who would believe after and us as we have believed from being Gentiles and you being merciful and reaching down and saving us that we can see truly without a shadow of a doubt that Jesus is the promised Messiah, the one who fulfilled the Old Testament scriptures.
And we are glad that you've had it recorded for us. Help us to be increased in our faith. Help us to live like we ought, being a people who believe what God has said and resting our souls upon the recorded scriptures and to be a people of peculiar, different, a living for the glory of Christ our King.
Help us to live like he is King. Give us grace, Lord, that we might submit and obey and yet cherish the relationship also. We praise you. Please bless the remainder of the morning service and all that will take place that Christ might be honored in this place.
In Jesus' name, amen.