The Kingdom in Essence - The Offer Declined - NT - Part 1 — Donald Armstrong

The Gospel of Matthew and the Person of Christ

Now, can you turn with me please to the Gospel by Matthew? Our brother John this morning took us 2 ,400 years, is that right? And then our brother Brody has taken us about 1 ,000 to 1 ,400. I'm going to cover 36 years, and that doesn't mean that we're going to have a doddle, because what we've got to try and get through in an hour and a half is crammed full of the person of Christ.

And one of the things that I would love that we can do this afternoon, maybe in this reading more than any others, is to grasp something of the wonderful person of Christ. That's the pinnacle of all ministry.

That's the one who our hearts love. And despite us trying to look at this whole idea of the kingdom and when it's finished and when it'll come again in the great future, if you and I can get something just of the feeling of Christ in our hearts, these Bible readings will have been well worthwhile.

So turn with me please to Matthew chapter 1. What I'm going to do is read a number of scattered verses throughout the book. I apologize that they are scattered, but it maybe will be the verses that we will pick up in the discussion and seek to learn something about our Savior.

Matthew chapter 1, verse 1. The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Drop your eye down to verse number 6. And Jesse begat David the king, and David the king begat Solomon, of her that had been the wife of Uriah the Hittite.

Verse number 20. But when he thought on these things that Joseph, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee, marry thy wife.

For that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of by the Lord, by the prophet saying, behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is God with us.

Now chapter 2, verse 1. Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he that is born, king of the Jews?

For we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. When Herod the king heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ or the Christ should be born.

And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judea. For thus it is written by the prophets, And thou, Bethlehem in the land of Judah, art not the least among the princes of Judah, for out of these shall come a governor, which shall rule my people Israel.

Now chapter 3, please. Verse 1. In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and saying, Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.

Chapter 4. Verse 17. Matthew 4, 17. From that time, Jesus began to preach and to say, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Verse 23. And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.

The Kingdom Proclaimed to Israel

Now go forward, please, to chapter 10. Matthew chapter 10. Verse 1. Matthew 10, verse 1. And when he had called unto him his disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits to cast them out and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease.

Go down to verse 5. These twelve Jesus sent forth and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles and into any city of the Samaritans, enter ye not. But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils. Freely ye have received. Freely give. Drop your eye down to verse 14.

And whosoever shall not receive you nor hear your words when you depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust off your feet. Verily I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city.

Now into the next chapter, chapter 11. And it came to pass when Jesus had made an end of commanding his disciples, his twelve disciples, he departed thence to teach and to preach in their cities. Now when John had heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples and said unto him, Art thou he that should come?

Or do we look for another? Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and show John again the things which ye do hear and see. The blind receive their sight. The lame walk. The lepers are cleansed. The deaf hear.

The dead are raised up. And the poor have the gospel preached unto them. Verse 11. Verily I say unto you, among them that are born of women there hath not risen greater than John the Baptist, notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

And from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force. Now go down to verse 28. Come unto me, all ye that labour under heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart. And ye shall find rest unto your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Chapter 12, verse 1. At that time, Jesus went on the Sabbath day through the corn and his disciples were unhungered and began to pluck the ears of corn to eat.

But when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto him, Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do on the Sabbath day. Verse 9. And when he was departed thence, he went into their synagogue. And behold, there was a man which had his hand withered.

And they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day, that they might accuse him? And down, please, to verse number 14. Then the Pharisees went out and held counsel against him, that they might destroy him.

Verse 50. For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother and sister and mother. On the same day, Jesus went out of the house and sat by the seaside, and great multitudes were gathered together unto him, so that he went into a ship and sat, and the whole multitude stood on the shore.

And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, as so were when forth to sow. Verse 10. And the disciples came and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.

But to them it is not given. Verse 14. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah with Seth, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand, and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive. For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their hearts, and should be converted, and I should heal them.

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, and will utter things which have been kept hidden from the foundation of the world.

The Messiah’s Suffering and Future Coming

Now go over please to chapter 16. Just one verse. Verse 21. From that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples that he must go unto Jerusalem, and to suffer many things of the elders, and chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and raised up again the third day.

Now chapter 24. We're near the end of the reading, so thank you for your patience. Chapter 24, verse 3. And as he sat upon the Mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be?

And what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you, for many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ, or I am the Christ, and shall deceive many.

And ye shall hear of wars, and rumors of wars, and see that ye be not troubled. For all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nations shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there shall be famines, and pestilence, and earthquakes in diverse places.

But all these things are the beginning of sorrows. Verse 21. For then shall be great tribulation, such as would not since the beginning of the world to this time know, nor ever shall be. Verse number 29.

Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. Then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. Chapter 25. We're almost finished. Verse 1.

Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps and went forth to meet the bridegroom. Verse 13. Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of Man cometh.

Now that's our reading, and we look to the Lord to bless it, scattered though it was, to all our hearts. Quite a number of years have rolled since 538 BC. Our brother Brody took us to the point where the nation of Israel, first with Assyria and then with Judah, were brought down into captivity.

And we saw in the last Bible reading how that what God was doing in that captivity was taking an idolatrous nation and placing it in the very center of idolatry to teach them what idolatry was really like.

And in 538, we find that they come back up out of idolatry, that little remnant, back to Judah, and they come to Jerusalem, and they start to build a temple, and they set up the altar, and they're starting again to build for God.

Encouraging, isn't it? And one of the things, I think our brother William highlighted it earlier on, and that is that great things for God often start with very small beginnings. And if you look down through the history of evangelism and the history of the work of God, you'll find very often that that which became great for him, it started with just a one or a two.

It started with small numbers. And so we have this little number, and they've come back up into Judah, and they have started to build, they've set up the altar, and they've started to build a house of God, around about, I think it was 538 B .C.

When we come to 520 B .C., we find the building's not going very well. They've been persecuted. They've been built their own homes. They've got themselves cast down, and really, that which they had came to do to build for God has just stopped.

The Restoration of Israel after Captivity

God sends them along in 520, two prophets, one called Haggai, an older man, another called Zechariah, a younger man, and they had two messages. One message was, turn unto the Lord, and he will turn unto you, so that we could grasp that ourselves.

And the other message that he gave them was that, you've got to get on with the building. And so we find that the children of Israel, they had a will to work, and they built the temple. It wasn't as grand as that which had been there before, but they built the temple.

A wee while later on came along Nehemiah, and he encouraged them not now to build the temple it was built, but he encouraged them to build the wall. And the remarkable thing about Nehemiah's ministry was that the people had a mind to work, and the wall was built, I think, in something like 52 days.

So it took them far longer to build the temple than it took them to build the wall. You would say we're going well. They've got rid of their idolatry. They've got the temple built. They've got the altar built.

Ezra has been encouraging them back into the Word of God, and things are going to go well. And then Malachi comes along maybe 15 to 30 years later, and he's another message. And his message to them is, you're not really turning to the Lord.

You're robbing God. And what really had happened is this, that when they went down into Babylon, into the center of idolatry, and they came back up out again, they never touched the idols again, but they made an idol of themselves.

They never went after the false gods, but they became so preoccupied with themselves. We are the people of God. We are the people that God has chosen us. We are different to everybody else, that they actually made an idol out of their own nation, and they could see no further than themselves.

And brethren and sisters, that's just where Israel is today. You know, whenever God made the covenant promise to Abraham, and God told him that out of him would come kings, and God told him that I would make of thee a great nation, and God told him that in him and in his seed, all nations or all families of the earth would be blessed, Israel forgot that.

Israel forgot that they were not the focus of God's attention for themselves, but they were the focus of God's attention, that they would be the instrument through which this great kingdom that God has promised, that it would actually come into fruition.

And that's where we come to as you draw to the end of the Old Testament. We have a nation, and they are robbing God, they've become preoccupied with themselves, and we find that suddenly everything goes silent.

It's not a word from heaven. Malachi's word is ceased, and no more prophets. And then we arrive at Matthew chapter 1. When we arrive at Matthew chapter 1, what do we get? We get here the announcement or the proximity of the king.

There's a message that goes out here to a man called Joseph. Who's Joseph? He's a man of the house of David. The generation that's going to be listed out here, and it's the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David.

Isn't it wonderful after over 400 years? After all of the failure, the kingdom's certainly not in existence. And you know, we can differ as to when the kingdom stopped. I personally think that it finished in Eden, and all that you have are little pictures of it.

You could say that it finished whenever they were taken into captivity. Wherever it stopped, what we find is that when we come back into Matthew chapter 1 and Matthew chapter 2, God is starting to work again.

Lovely to think of it, isn't it? And so we find that in Matthew chapter 1 and chapter 2, we have the announcement of the king, and we have the kingdom coming very near. Moving on from that, when we get into chapters 3, 4, and 10, we find here now not the proximity of the kingdom, but we find the proclamation of the kingdom.

Here's a man, John the Baptist, a rare-looking man. Strange in his dress, strange in his food, strange in his manner. He didn't find a big auditorium and go and preach to people in it, no. He preached and the people all came out to him in the wilderness.

And he's got a message, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. What was he doing? Was he telling them the kingdom had arrived? No. What he was saying was the king is coming. He was a forerunner of the Messiah himself, and he's speaking to this nation that has been lax and full of idolatry about itself, and he's saying, now you need to repent because the king is coming.

That's his message. Go from chapter 3 into chapter 4, and we'll find then that the message hasn't changed much, but the person proclaiming it is. Because when we get into chapter 4, we find here now that it's the Messiah himself who's saying it.

He's preaching, and he's saying, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. What is he really saying here? What do we mean when we look at that phrase, the kingdom of heaven is at hand? Does it mean the kingdom has arrived?

No. It means that the kingdom has drawn near. That's really what the word means. How has it drawn near? It's drawn near in the sense that the king is here at last. And the great test of Matthew's gospel is this.

This nation that God has chosen to be an instrument through which the kingdom will ultimately come in, and Mark will take us to that tomorrow, is going to first of all accept the king. That's what the great message is.

And so the Lord Jesus Christ, he is not only proclaiming the kingdom, but he is actually showing by his miracles and by his preaching and by his teaching that he is indeed the Messiah that was promised.

And the responsibility falls upon the nation that they will, in fact, accept him the Messiah, and thus the kingdom. When we get to chapter 10 then, we're skipping out a lot. When we get to chapter 10, we find then that the message is proclaimed again.

The Lord is now not, the message is not now being proclaimed by the forerunner, nor is the message being proclaimed by the Messiah, but the Lord has selected out 12 messengers, and he is sending them out, and he is sending them out with power for miracles.

And what's the message he sent? Now, you go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and what are you going to tell them? The kingdom of heaven is at hand. So that in the forerunner and in the Messiah himself and in the 12 disciples who have gone out proclaiming the message, what is the message that is going out throughout all of Galilee and all of Judea?

What is it? That the king is here and the kingdom of heaven is at hand. What a great opportunity for the nation. You would say that's good. You would say things are going in the right direction. You would say that this is really what the nation was looking for, that we're longing for the Messiah.

The prophets talked about it, the nation longed for it, and surely everything is just going to go great. Sadly, no. When we get into chapters 11 and 12, I have called them the rejection chapters. You would have thought with all the evidence, you would have thought with all the preaching, you would have thought with all the signs and wonders.

You would have thought that here is one who has demonstrated emphatically his legal claim to the throne and his ability as the Messiah of fulfilling the prophecies. You would have said they would have just thrown their arms around him.

Israel’s Rejection of the King

Chapter 11 and 12 shows no. We find first of all, they take the very first messenger, John the Baptist, and they put him in prison and they put him to death. And then whenever we get to chapter 12, verse 14, isn't it?

We find that they took counsel that they might destroy him. Sad, isn't it? That the very one who came as their king, the very one who had the right to reign and the one who will reign, that the very leaders of the people, they decided that we're going to destroy him.

What's wrong with them? They still see themselves as the only thing that matters. They still see themselves as the very idol of their soul, and they have no time for the Lord of glory, and they have no time for the great Messiah.

So we find that they reject the king. Then we come to chapter 13. Chapter 13 marks a big change in the gospel, by the way. Up to chapter 13, you have no parables at all. And then we get to chapter 13, we have seven, or William would suggest eight.

I've already talked to him about it. We have eight parables. Now listen carefully. These parables are not about the kingdom changing. These parables are not the kingdom in mystery. These parables are the mysteries of the kingdom.

Now listen very carefully. It has come from Reformed theology basis that when Israel rejected the kingdom, that God brought in a whole new idea. That instead of this literal kingdom of Israel, God is now going to have a spiritual kingdom, that is the church.

And that the church replaces or succeeds Israel, and that the promises made to Israel are now being made to the church. Dear brother and sister, I don't believe it. That's what scripture teaches. The promises of the kingdom never changed.

The promises of the kingdom were never diluted. And what God promised in the Old Testament in relation to the kingdom, He will fulfill literally upon this earth. It has a physical content. It has a spiritual content.

The kingdom is made up of both. But what God promised in relation to Israel, He will fulfill. How do we know that? Well, we've already talked about the covenants. That which was lost and destroyed in Eden, God says, no, I'm going to bring it back.

And sequentially through history, at 400 year intervals, God brings in a covenant. First covenant is Noah. The arena is going to be secured. The second covenant is Abraham. The nation through which the future is going to be secured.

The third covenant is a Mosaic covenant. The standards that are going to apply in that new kingdom when it comes. Following on from that, we have the government of the kingdom. We've just talked about in the last reading, we have the throne of David and the one who's going to sit and reign upon the throne of David and Mark will be telling us, it's not just for a thousand years, it's forever and forever.

And then finally in Jeremiah chapter 31, we have the new covenant. What's that going to mean? Well, the God is going to take his laws and he's going to write it on the hearts. You know, Israel had showed in the Mosaic covenant that they couldn't keep God's laws.

And you and I have shown in our own lives that we couldn't either. But you know, there's a day in the future where God is going to write his law upon their hearts and there's going to be that wonderful reign that Mark's going to tell us about tomorrow in the Bible reading.

So what's Matthew 13 about then? Well, Matthew 13 is what is going to happen between the first advent of Christ and the second when he comes again. I'm not going to steal Mark's territory, I'm going to leave a lot to him.

But it's what's going to happen between it and they are parables of the kingdom. What you will notice principally if you look at them is that the focus in them really is upon what happens in the end. Now there's a problem in the parables and I'll be very interested to hear what my brethren have to say upon it.

Problem number one is this. To what period do they refer? You would say, but they refer from when he was crucified until he comes again. Okay. Now just bear in mind that the truth of the church hasn't been given until chapter 16.

So there are two views in relation to what that period is between his coming. The context in Matthew is Jewish and there are some who will suggest to us that what he's looking at is the period between the king coming in his first and coming in the second but not include the church period.

Others take it that the view takes a whole lot and I'll be very interested to hear, I'm not even saying my view on it yet, I'll be very interested to hear what our good brethren think about it and how we apply these 13 parables.

So there we have the coming of the Messiah, his announcement and his presence. We have the proximity, we have the proclamation of the Messiah, we have the prejudices of the priest and we have the rejection of the Messiah and when we get to chapter 13 then the Lord himself in parable form, he opens up what the future is going to be like, particularly what will happen in the end times.

Just very quickly before we sit down, a little bit in Matthew 13. In Matthew 13 there are two or three questions. Of those questions I would judge that the Lord doesn't specifically answer the first one.

You'll find the answer to that in Luke 21. But what he does focus upon is the last two questions and they focus upon what will happen at the end of the period of absence. Now I leave it at that, there's a lot that I haven't said, there's a lot that our brethren can chew upon and help us out with and I trust that as we go through these that one of the things that we will be able to do is see something of the wonder of the person of Christ and how he carries himself and what he says and how he deals with it.

A bruised wreath, shall he not quench, a smoking flax and so on. We'll see something of the contrast between the character of the Savior and the character of those that he came to present himself to. And I trust that we will enjoy the help of our brethren and more particularly the help of God as we try to glean something for our souls.

Matthew’s Genealogy and the Son of David

So when it comes to the opening verse of the Gospel, Brother Donald, in a sense we're following on quite neatly from the Old Testament, aren't we? Because our brethren know very well, some in the audience may not know, that in the book of Genesis there's a number of generations.

A Hebrew word, Toledoth, that occurs eleven times in the book of Genesis. Ten of those are central to the fabric of the book. These are the generations. These are the generations. These are the generations.

The first book in the Old Testament is taken up with genealogies. Our brother Mark has told us that in a Hebrew Bible, the last book in a Hebrew Bible is Chronicles. For us, it has been divided into two books, 1st and 2nd Chronicles.

For a Jewish person, it wasn't two books, it was one book. The book of Chronicles is front-loaded with genealogies. Up to chapter 9 of Chronicles, it's all genealogies. And now we step into Matthew. We have left Chronicles, 400 years of silence, we step into Matthew, and isn't this only the second time that we get the book of the generation, Donald?

I'm not sure about that. Go ahead. So it only occurs twice in Scripture. Genesis chapter 5, in verse number 1, the book of the generation of Adam. We've been moving from Genesis this morning. God's authority vested in a man.

The book of the generation of Adam, and we come now to the book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of Abraham, no, the son of David, the son of Abraham. The last Adam.

Yes. And again, picking up on the point that's been made on a number of occasions through the Bible readings about God's control over all this, we're told 14 generations, 14 generations, 14 generations.

So you were emphasizing just the orderly spread of the covenants through history, and we're seeing again that history is not just a random jumble of events. There's a great hand behind it all, and it's all under God's control.

I think that's wonderful, Mark, and that it's nice to see that in God's movements in history, it's not sort of plan B because plan A didn't work. It's not God reacting to what has happened because it didn't fit what happened before, but God is very clearly working to, as our brother John talked about last night, purpose, singular.

God is working to a purpose, and as you will take us through tomorrow in the Bible reading, we will see the glorious finale of that purpose. So the proximity here under essence of the kingdom, the proximity, you've encapsulated that word, the kingdom has drawn near, and that was the message that John gave, that was the message that the Lord gave, and later his disciples.

The kingdom has drawn near. What kingdom? It seems that he didn't go into any detail. I mean, we've spent hours trying to define what this kingdom is, but the kingdom has drawn near, right? Well, there are several scriptures, of course, that would coalesce that thought.

Daniel 7 would be key. There was given unto him dominion and glory and the kingdom, that all people, nations and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom, that which shall not be destroyed.

That kingdom has drawn near. Why? Because the king has come.

Yeah. And I think that that's worth emphasizing, because I agree 100 Donald, what you've said about in Matthew 13, there's not a redefinition of what the kingdom meant, and when this message was announced to a Jew who knew their Bible, they would have understood just what we've been tracing through Old Testament revelation, and I think it's a, use the language of the country, it would be a total beaten switch to redefine language so that what they were expecting when they heard the word kingdom, it was actually something else that Christ meant.

Yeah. And when you go to John 3, when the Lord spoke to Nicodemus and said, except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God, Nicodemus, he would never have blinked an eye. He would have known completely.

In fact, in all of the Gospels and in all of the interactions, there is never once anyone who questions what the kingdom is, and it's very clear that the kingdom is Christ reigning, the Messiah reigning as a man upon earth in the future.

The Offered Kingdom and the Church’s Present Calling

So you have alluded to it Donald, but I would like you to expand on it. Was there then an offer of that kingdom that Brother William has referred to from Daniel chapter 7? Was there an offer of that kingdom by the Lord Jesus?

No. Yes. Could you say that a bit louder and more emphatically?

No, there was no offer of the kingdom. There was the presence and presentation of the king. So when he came, when the Messiah came, Israel looked forward to the Messiah coming. That's what they were looking forward to, and the message is now here, the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven draweth nigh.

In what way? In what way? The Messiah himself. So that they were presented with the king, and had they accepted the king, the kingdom would have come.

But we know that they didn't do that. No, I'm very happy with that, because I've sat in Bible readings where that hasn't been made clear, and because of that you would almost think that there's some kind of theological tension, but there is no theological tension.

The kingdom was present, Luke 17, the kingdom of heaven is among you, in the sense that the king was there.

Okay, so except the man who was born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Well, there's a number of people here today, and we're born again. Can we see this kingdom? You will. I will. And I'm born again now.

Yeah, but you will see the kingdom of God. In a coming day. In a coming day. You happy with that? Yes, absolutely. So we are a people prepared now for that coming kingdom. Yeah, yeah. Right, yeah. So let us be very clear that we don't know the Lord Jesus Christ as our king, okay?

We don't go out as messengers of the king. We don't go out to change this world as a kingdom. We know him as our Lord and Savior. That's our relationship with him. We are linked to him, Christ the head, us the body.

We are not, as it were, propagating the kingdom, but we are proclaiming a Savior. What is it?

Sorry, Brudy. Go ahead. No, I'm just thinking, John emphasized for us in chapter 1, verse 1, the son of David, the son of Abraham. And I think it's good for us to understand that there can be no righteous basis for the establishment of the kingdom under the new covenant without the cross, right?

So it's the son of David first until chapter 16 when he begins to tell them what things he must suffer and be raised again from the dead. Then he's the son of Abraham. The son of David presented as the son to the throne in the first part, again, not a presentation of the literal kingdom, but then the sufferings are necessary as the son of Abraham.

I think that's a very important point, Brother Brody, because you and I, when we go into the Old Testament, whether we look at the prophecy of Isaiah, we see that Christ must suffer, chapter 53. Whether we look at the prophecy of Daniel, in the 70 weeks, Messiah shall be cut off, but not for himself.