Matthew 4:23-25; more than a record of events!

Opening Announcements, Community Support, and Ministry Updates

Hey, good evening. This is truth and love video ministry. Thank you for joining me. I really appreciate it. That intro music, I believe, is one of those that you either love it or hate it, possibly. But I think it's pretty good.

Thank you for joining with me. My desire is to get and communicate the Word of God to our community through social media, the best way that I know how, and I would love to have your support if you would give these videos a heart, would you give them a like, a share, would you comment?

Let me know that you're watching. I would love to hear from you. If I can pray for you, let me know that I can do that. All you have to do is type me. I'll see that and I can pray for you. I can pray for you at the end of the video.

I can pray for you later. Whenever I see the notification, love to go do that. I'd love to interact with you. If you have any questions, you want to talk about the Bible, about church, any questions that you might have, send them my way, put it in the comment, and we'll see if we can have a discussion about it.

Truth and love, of course, comes from Ephesians chapter 4, verse 15. But speaking the truth and love, we are to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head, even Christ. So that's our goal. That's our aim is to speak truth and love and to grow up in all things into Christ.

Thank you for watching again. I hope that you will interact with me and participate as we go through God's word together, as we share the gospel with our community, as we share God's word with the community so that other people can come to know Christ and be disciples and be saved, go to heaven, have joy in this life.

We want to obey Christ in getting his gospel out and getting his message out and being his ambassadors. So would you join with me in doing that? I know this is a Wednesday night and I don't normally do Wednesday nights because our dear churches, some of our dear churches and our dear pastors have services on Wednesday nights and I don't want to interfere or have a conflict of timing with those services going on.

So I don't normally do Wednesday night, but we had something going on last night. So thank you for watching and joining me. If you could share the video and support me in that, pray for me as I try to get the gospel of Jesus Christ out to our community.

A couple of things that I wanted to share with you. I want to try to do my part and help our community with families and ending abortion, stopping abortion, you know, whatever we can do as we do our own individual part.

Sometimes we do things individually. Sometimes we work together doing things. I would like to share some things with you and continue to share some things with you until we can get the ball rolling in ending abortion in our state and in our country.

One of those efforts is if you watched a video that I had before. Hey, Abs, are we doing well? If you watch the video that I did before, I share this with you. Love Life, if you can see it there at the bottom, Love Life.

It's a ministry founded, started, based in Charlotte, North Carolina. And now they have ministry all over the United States and they have more ministry bases opening up. And so look them up, see if there's one in your area.

Hook up with them. They don't protest. They don't hold up signs. What they do is they pray and worship and they meet with those who are willing to meet with them. And it's not just about ending an abortion that day.

They want to help mothers. They want to help fathers. They want to help families and encourage them and support them from that day forward, discipling them, helping them in whatever means that they are able to help them, financially or whatever it may be.

Hook them up with a church. Hook them up with people who can help them. But it's about ending abortion and it's about loving people, loving families, loving mothers and fathers and babies. So it's all-encompassing.

It's not just one aspect of it. So this is a great ministry if you can get involved in that. Another ministry that I wanted to share with you that I'm trying to get involved in, in my specific community, it's a nationwide ministry organization.

And then you have your state-based organizations and then you have your even more local organizations called Personhood Alliance. And I want to get my county involved. If you are in my county and want to help me end abortion, make our county a safe sanctuary county for families, please contact me.

Have your pastor contact me. We need as many pastors, church members, Christian business leaders that we can to gather together. It's not going to cost you money.

Just a little bit of time.

Nobody is asking you to go out and protest, counsel. Nobody is asking you to do any of that stuff. We need to fill up some petition pages and present a resolution to our county commissioners. That's what we need to do.

And it's as simple as that. Starting simple, starting grassroots and moving out and having it grow. Creating what they call local laws. That doesn't even have to go to Raleigh. But then we want to speak to Raleigh through what we're doing, to our elected officials about what we're doing.

So if you are in my community and you can help me be involved in doing our part in any abortion in our state and hopefully in our country and around the world, please contact me. We need as many people as possible filling up these petition forms.

And then the last thing that I want to announce, because folks want me to announce this on my video, this is another local event for my community. So if you're not in my community, I apologize. But it's Love Your Neighbor event.

Back to School Blessing. It's not going to be this Sunday, but it's going to be next Sunday at Vertical Life Church in Newton, North Carolina. Love Your Neighbor, Back to School Blessing. It's a community event.

So if you're in the Newton, Conover area, look up Vertical Life Church in Newton. Come to this event. Share it with your neighbor. It's a free event. There are going to be free things there. I think there's going to be haircuts, face paint probably, games, food, snacks.

So we're going to have everything. It's a back to school event for the family and for your kids. So if you're in the Newton, Conover area, search up Vertical Life Church. Now with all those announcements out of the way, those things that I wanted to share with you, I want to get into God's Word and spend some time there with you.

As long as you'll stay with me, I know my videos go pretty long, but that's okay. People can pop in and pop out when they are able, and I appreciate that when they do. And again, I apologize for my camera that autofocuses continuously.

I want to pursue excellence in what I do, and hopefully we can work on fixing that issue eventually. But I'm walking through Matthew, and we are up to Matthew 4, verses 23 -25. If you have your Bible, if you want to follow along, if you just want to listen, we are in Matthew 4, verses 23 -25.

Let me read it for us. And Jesus was going about in all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people.

And the news about him went out into all Syria, and they brought to him all who were ill, taken with various disease and pains and demoniacs, epileptics, paralytics, and he healed them, and great multitudes followed him from Galilee, and Decapolis, and Jerusalem, and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.

Matthew’s Gospel as a Record of Jesus the King

So what's been going on in Matthew? What we need to be reminded of when we're looking at Matthew is that Matthew is pointing us to Jesus. His theme, as he writes, is pointed to Jesus as king, as the Messiah, the anointed one, the one who was to come.

So as Matthew writes, he is pointing us in that direction. So that's how we need to read as we look at Matthew. The Bible is an historical record. It is factual, and it gives us a record of history. But it's more than that.

It's God's history. It's God's plan. And the writers, God used these writers to have.

Specific purposes.

As they wrote, and here Matthew says, to point to Jesus as king. And as we've looked at Matthew 1 -4 so far, especially in Matthew 1 -2, we saw that Matthew was specifically pointing to Old Testament prophecies.

And how.

Jesus fulfilled those prophecies. And actually, in my opinion, I think that continues here. I think it will, of course, continue throughout the book, but it continues here as well. He's not as specific as he was in some of the other passages where he says, as the prophet said in chapter 2, verse 5, for so it has been written by the prophet.

So he's specific there and pointing out, this is what I'm talking about. But here I think he is continuing, and I don't think it's always pointed out to us that that's what they're doing. Their audience was familiar with the Scripture, with the Old Testament, so when they would use that language or when they would speak of those passages, they would know, in our modern day, we must do more study, we must spend more time understanding the Scripture, having a biblical theology, a systematic theology, looking at the references and letting Scripture interpret itself.

Letting Scripture interpret Scripture.

So.

We know what Jesus is talking about, we know what Matthew and Paul and all the other New Testament believers, we know what they were talking about when they used certain language to reference certain passages in the Old Testament.

And that's the direction that I'm going here in Matthew chapter 4, verses 23 -25, that Matthew continues to look at the Old Testament pointing to Jesus fulfilling the prophecies, fulfilling what was written in the Old Testament about the Messiah, about the Anointed One.

We have Jesus calling his disciples in chapter 4, verses 18 -22. He calls Simon, who was called Peter, Andrew his brother, James and John, who were with their father Zebedee and of course they were all fishing, well Peter and Andrew were fishing, James and John were tending or mending their nets.

But Jesus was there and called them, told them to follow him. And of course we talked about last time how they did immediately. And so he was in Galilee, he was by the Sea of Galilee. And verse 23 says Jesus was going about in all of Galilee.

So we're still in the same vicinity, in the same geographical area and Jesus now, Matthew says, is in all of Galilee teaching in their synagogues. A lot of times we're familiar with.

Jesus.

Speaking on the Mount of Olives, the Olivet Discord, the Beatitudes, teaching on a boat, having everyone sit.

Down.

And the disciples put them in groups and feeding them. You know, we're familiar, used to hearing about Jesus teaching and preaching outside. But Jesus also, as Matthew tells us here, was teaching in their synagogues and they recognized Jesus as a rabbi, as a teacher.

And they would let him, as tradition would have it, as they would do in their synagogues. Now, this wasn't the temple. The temple was in Jerusalem. Every city had their own synagogue, you know, as we have our own churches here and there in our area.

This wasn't the temple, but it was their synagogue, the place where they would gather for worship,.

For teaching.

And prayer in their local.

Community.

And so Jesus was there in all of Galilee in their synagogues, their churches, and what they would do is they would have a rabbi,.

A teacher.

To.

Read the.

Scripture, exposit or explain the scriptures. And that's why.

I'm a big.

Proponent of expository preaching. I think it's.

The best.

I wanted to say only, but I know there's times where we can preach other styles and types of sermons,.

But I think as a.

Main diet. That expository preaching is the best type and style of preaching because we see that as the example in scripture. You know, we see that because we know how they did it in their synagogues and their temple.

They would read the scripture and they would explain it. We have the account in Nehemiah where.

The.

Law was rediscovered and he stood up and had elders there with him and they had a podium. He was up in front of the people and he read and then he explained the scriptures. That's the example that we see in scripture.

And that's how we stay on course is a good diet.

Of.

Hearing the word of God and hearing the word of God explained as we gather.

And.

I'm convinced, of course, that that's what Jesus was doing here in the synagogue since that was what they practiced.

Jesus.

Maybe was called up or he went up and he read a portion of the scriptures and then he.

Explained it. And it's interesting.

That.

It.

Says he was teaching in their synagogues. So there you have that portion.

Of what we were.

Just talking about where a rabbi would get up, read, and explain the text. It seems to me that's what Matthew was describing here. Jesus read and explained the text and in the same breath as he was reading, explaining the text, he was proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom.

And so it makes me think of Jesus as he was on the road to Emmaus. He met these two gentlemen who was distraught because of what was going on in Jerusalem. Jesus had died but now he had risen from the dead and he was walking with these men and he began to explain the scriptures to them showing himself in the Old Testament.

And here I can't help but think the same thing was happening early on in his ministry that he would be in the synagogues reading the text, explaining the text, and in that he was proclaiming the good news of the kingdom.

Now,.

This was.

Already occurring in Matthew. You have in Matthew chapter 3, you have John the Baptist who was preaching in the wilderness, repent, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And then you have.

Jesus.

After that transition, Jesus begins to preach in Matthew 4, verse 17, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And now Jesus to the people in the synagogue, the Jews in the synagogue, he's going to his people reading, explaining the text, and showing them the good news of the kingdom, I believe, in the text.

Like I tried to mention in my description,.

These.

Passages in Scripture.

And.

Specifically the ones we're reading tonight, we can read past them, read through them, look over them as just a historical record. This is what happened next in Jesus' life. And really not get anything out of it.

But there's so much more to the text as if we look.

At.

What God was doing from the beginning to the end. And we see the pattern, we see the consistency.

There's.

A thread, and Jesus is the main thread of the tapestry. You may have heard it said and talked about how.

From the.

Old Testament to the New Testament, and they cite the passage of Jesus on the road to Emmaus, how Jesus is a thread that is weaved all through the Old Testament and New Testament. But that's the whole tapestry.

The whole timeline, it's not two separate timelines. The Old Covenant, New Covenant, Old Testament, New Testament, it's not two separate timelines. This is God's creation. This is God's history. This is God's timeline, His plan, His work.

And it's from beginning to end, as we're going to see here in a minute, God is over it all.

And we.

Overlook so much by just reading passages like this.

And viewing.

Them as just historical events.

And things that happen.

In Jesus' life and what happened next, because there's so much more involved than what is on the surface.

And here,.

As I was explaining, when Matthew's telling us that Jesus was teaching in the synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, or the gospel of the kingdom,.

This.

Was their pattern. This was their practice. He read, talked, and he proclaimed the gospel or the good news of the kingdom. And this is where I want to have the meat of our discussion. To get more out of the text, we've got to ask ourselves questions.

What does He mean? What is the gospel of the kingdom? We've heard the gospel. We've heard the good news.

We've heard.

The sinner's prayer, the Roman road. That's kind of what we think of, but here, Jesus is preaching the gospel of the kingdom. Why don't we speak that language.

In church?

We're mainly familiar, like I said, with a gospel message, a sinner's prayer, a Roman's road, whatever it may be. But we're not familiar with this kingdom language.

Jesus.

Is not just familiar with it.

He is it.

He's proclaiming the gospel, the good news of the kingdom. Not just the gospel message of salvation, but the gospel of the kingdom. Of course, we think about the audience. As we talked about before, they were familiar with the scriptures.

They were familiar with what he was talking about,.

This idea.

Of a kingdom.

They are.

Familiar. Their ancestors.

Were.

Part of a kingdom, a kingdom that succeeded, a kingdom that failed, a kingdom that had its ups and downs, that was taken into captivity, that was taken into the wilderness, that sinned and disobeyed God and then turned back to God.

But they had a kingdom. They had kings as we're going to look at. They were familiar with this concept. But Jesus was proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom. Why was he doing that?

Another thing.

That I wanted to point out, too,.

Is that Jesus wasn't.

Proclaiming a new kingdom. This isn't some new thing that God is doing. It's basically how I wanted to phrase it. Jesus isn't doing a brand new thing. There's a plan.

B.

It's probably a more clear way to explain what I'm trying to convey. This isn't a plan B. This isn't a new kingdom. This was a concept and a plan that has been in place from eternity past. That's what Jesus was proclaiming, the gospel of the kingdom.

What were they familiar with?

I want to walk.

Through some articles.

That if you go to Ligonier .com, this is R .C. Sproul's ministry, Ligonier .org. These articles were written by Ben.

Dunson.

This kingdom idea goes all the way back to the beginning. The concept of God's kingship is present throughout the Old.

Testament.

And is vital if we are going to make sense of Jesus' preaching about the kingdom of God. Jesus simply announces that the kingdom is at hand.

Assuming that.

His hearers had some grasp of what he meant, even if he knew that they did not fully understand. The first thing that he points out is that God is king over all creation.

Psalm.

10 .16 2 Chronicles 20 .6. I don't have time to read all these verses or we would be together for so long. Psalm 10 .16 2 Chronicles 20 .6. Isaiah 37 .16. Psalm 93 .1 -2.

God.

Began as ruler and king over everything. That's the standard. That's the mark that never moves. That's the constant that has always been and always will be. That God is king over everything. I know we're not familiar with that concept because we're Americans.

We live in America.

We are.

So focused on our individual freedom and individual rights that we really don't know what it's like to live under an earthly kingship monarchy.

That's.

The way the Old Testament God reveals himself as.

Ruler, as.

King over the whole universe. This idea, this understanding of kingdom was familiar to Matthew's audience and the Old Testament Israelites. This was the pattern. Of course, that's why you see that's the main form of government in early history for such a long time is because it's patterned after its creator.

Our governments are patterned after its creator.

That's.

Why you see that. The second thing that I mentioned is that the Old Testament portrays God as king over Israel in a special way. Of course, we know that 1 Samuel 8 verses 4 -9, 1 Samuel 12, 12 -13. We're familiar with God's relationship with Israel.

He says, while it is true that God alone is the ultimate king of Israel and over all creation, human kings have a key role to play in God's kingdom. In fact, God built human kingship into creation itself.

Which is.

What I'm talking about. In Genesis 1 -2, Adam is clearly portrayed as king.

This.

Is seen most clearly in the commission that God gives Adam in Genesis 1 -26 -30. Here are the commands that God gives Adam that shows us that maybe it doesn't word for word say that God anoints him as king of the earth, but the description of his obligations, his commands that God has given him clearly points to him as being the ruler.

God has set him up as ruler over the earth. Kingship is part of the heart of the commission that God gives to Adam. He has granted dominion over all animal life on the earth. He is told to have many children in order to subdue the earth and take dominion over it.

He has given control over all plant life, and again over every animal on earth. In short, Adam is to rule over the whole world as a subordinate king underneath God, the true king over all. So that's the way it was set up originally.

God is the king over all, and then God sets up a king to manage his.

Earth,.

To take dominion, to rule, and subdue it.

Some of.

You may not be familiar with this, but one name of this is called the creation mandate that God gave to Adam to subdue it and to fill it and have dominion over it. A lot of times as we try to study or as we review this story that we're so familiar with, we're stuck in the garden.

Do you find yourself stuck in the garden? That's where the story of Adam and Eve takes place. In the garden of Eden. And then because of their disobedience, they're kicked out. But the part of the story that we really need to remember is this part.

God's kingship over all. God sets up a king underneath him to take dominion, to subdue the earth, and rule over it. The earth. Not just the garden. They were to take their rule and dominion and authority and spread it over the whole earth.

They were representing God. And we're supposed to do that all over the earth. But of course their disobedience in the garden forbid them or stopped them from fulfilling that creation mandate. But that was their mandate.

And we can't look past, can't look over that aspect. We've got to get out of the garden and remember the creation mandate. That it was for the whole earth. And since that didn't happen, you have Abram, later named Abraham, come along.

Ben Dunson says.

That.

He says, as I mentioned, despite Adam's sin and failure, God does not abandon his intention to rule over.

The earth through.

A human king. In fact, although one can sometimes get the wrong impression, reading 1 Samuel, that Israel's desire for a king was purely sinful. Already in the book of Deuteronomy, God through Moses promised Israel that they would one day have.

A king.

So this promise, you know, you have the, and I can never pronounce this, the euangelion, the first gospel in Genesis, that God says that he is going to.

The seated.

Woman is going to crush the head of.

Satan.

Satan will bruise his heel, but he will crush Satan's head. The first gospel. And here, early on in Deuteronomy, through Moses, Israel is promised a king. They would one day have a king. However, the true king, he says, God is the one who sets up the terms for Israel's future king, and then he gives the list of qualifications that this king must meet for him to be a king.

Dunstan goes on to say, Adam's specific commission from God to take dominion over the earth is also not abandoned because of his sin. So this promise of a king is not abandoned. God does not abandon him.

God does not abandon his plan of him being king over all, and then God having someone underneath him or others underneath him ruling and having authority and dominion. He doesn't abandon that plan. He doesn't abandon it because of Adam's sin.

This creation mandate is not abandoned. They are to take dominion over the whole earth. Although Adam certainly forfeits his role as king with the call of Abram in Genesis 12, we see a renewed commitment on God's part to rule over the entire world through his chosen means.

So God is continuing this plan, a plan that is not abandoned.

That's why I wanted.

Us to focus on Matthew chapter 4 verse 23. Jesus is preaching the gospel of the kingdom.

This.

Is not a new concept. This is God not abandoning his plan, not abandoning his people, and not abandoning the mandate to have rule and dominion through his means over all the earth. And so we continue.

God will bless Abraham abundantly and make him through his descendants into a great nation that God will bless so that they in turn can be a blessing to all families of the earth, Genesis 12, Genesis 17.

The dominion mandate originally given to Adam is renewed with Abraham,.

Now called Abraham.

Dunstan says there is, however, a very important difference between Adam's commission. This is an important point that he makes here. Adam's commission and the covenant God makes with Abraham, whereas Adam was given the responsibility to go take dominion over the earth, Abraham is told that God will grant him dominion.

God will make Abraham the father of the multitude of nations. Adam's commission was given when there was no sin to get in the way of carrying it out. After Adam's fallen to sin, if dominion over the earth is going to be possible, it must be a gift from God.

How about that?

That's significant. I think that's something that we must remember, that it's a gift from God because now sin has cursed this earth. Dunstan says with the Abrahamic promise, the stage is set for Israel's future role as God's new son.

We've talked about before, Matthew talks about this is my beloved son and who I am well pleased. We've talked about how that's not a new concept. God does not abandon his plan. Let's see here. Dunstan says, however, Israel does not actually receive an earthly king until the time of Samuel.

So here he goes on to talk about how eventually God's people.

Want an.

Earthly king. They're tired of waiting on God and they don't want to.

Live.

Under God's rulership, God's kingship, and him being their king. They want a sinful earthly king for themselves so they can be like the other nations, if you're familiar with that passage. Then you have Saul, you have David, and then you have Solomon.

After that you have the Civil War, you have the splitting between the northern and southern kingdom, Israel and Judah, and then you have the kings who were mostly downward spiraling rulers. There were some that were occasionally good, but most of them were bad.

That was the trajectory of the kingship that they requested from God, that their kings were sinful, which.

Again kept them.

From fulfilling the dominion, the creation mandate that God gave in the beginning that God is not going to abandon. Duncan says the promise to David that God will establish the throne of his kingdom forever becomes especially significant when we get to the prophets.

So,.

You've got these kings, we know what happens, they're sinful, and this dominion that's supposed to happen in the earth, over the earth, ruling over the earth, can't happen because.

Of sinful man.

But,.

God's promise of a king, God's creation mandate, dominion mandate, His plan that He does not abandon, is reiterated, and is continually discussed and shared by God. The promise.

Is.

Reminded.

To them as.

God gives us prophets. He gives Israel prophets, He gives us the prophets in the Old Testament and the writings to remind us of His thankfulness, His holiness, His dedication to His plan to have dominion over all the earth.

Using.

Men.

To carry.

That out.

So, we get to the prophets,.

And one of the passages.

Is pretty amazing that I want to share with you, and I want to share with you that passage at the end, because it ties in most directly with our three verses here, Matthew chapter 4. Let's see, Dunson says, How then were God's people to make sense of the kingly corruption and failure in Israel's history?

How especially was Israel to understand the seeming abandonment of God's kingdom that the exile represented? Here is where the prophets come in. We will turn to the Old Testament prophetic teaching about God's kingdom in our next post, so we're going to flip to the next article.

They were warned about the exile because of their sin. They were the ones who actually abandoned God. It may seem like God abandoned them because of the exile, it was a warning. It was prophesied. This is what's going to happen, and it happened.

God.

Even gave them a timeline, 70 years. We're looking at that in Daniel, the book of Daniel, with Dan in my other videos. God was specific about that timeline. It may have seemed to some that that was an abandoning of God, but it's clear throughout Scripture, God is faithful.

He's dedicated. He's holy. He doesn't abandon His plan. He doesn't abandon His promises. He doesn't abandon His people. We can bank on that, and that can give us hope and help with our anxiety. Dutson says,.

When the northern and southern kingdoms of Israel went into exile, the hope for God's rule over the earth to be manifested in an Israelite king seemed to have come to nothing. The prophets, before, during, and after the exile, however, make it clear that even with the exile, God would not and did not abandon His intention to rule over His people and His world through a Davidic king.

And here in this article,.

I didn't know.

If I would read a specific passage and get to it where He uses this term, but if you're familiar with any of our recent videos where it's been me or it's been Dan and myself, we've been talking about eschatology in things, in times, and the aspect of how we view it, what we believe in, what we believe Scripture to be saying.