Matthew 4:12-25

Instead, Jesus used the word of God.

He fought this battle as fully man, and He drew on no “special resources” that’re unavailable to us. He chose to say, ‘It is written.’

You and I resist temptation in the same way Jesus did: by countering Satan’s seduction and deception by shining the light of God’s truth upon them. If we’re ignorant of God’s truth, we’re poorly armed in the fight against temptation and against such an enemy, we’ll lose every time.

This is why we’ve undertaken this Why God home bible study, to try and present the bible as what it is, a perfectly integrated message system from God Himself where every tiny and seemingly unimportant detail is purposefully placed there for a reason, and that reason is to reveal Jesus Christ to us.

 

We also got another insight from the temptations of Satan and that is that Satan knows the Word of God and He knows it better than you and me, but he’s also a master at twisting it. Jesus understood this from His knowledge of the whole counsel of God. He knew how to rightly divide the word of truth as we ourselves are instructed to do in 2 Timothy 2 verse 15. That passage reads,

Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. 

Sadly, many of us are willing to believe anyone who quotes from the Bible today. A preacher can pretty much say whatever he wants if he quotes a few texts to back it up, and people will assume that he’s really speaking from the Bible.

It’s so important for each Christian to know the Bible for themselves, and not to be deceived by someone who quotes the Bible but doesn’t quote it accurately or uses the wrong application.

The saddest thing to watch today are Christians who’ve been set free by the precious blood of Jesus living in romance with very little reality, fantasy with no fact.

Also, it’s valuable for us to see before we start off today’s verse an insight from the previous passages of Satan’s motivation which is clearly displayed there.

All Jesus had to do to escape temptation, and indeed the journey of the cross, was to give Satan what he’s been longing for ever since he fell from his once glorious position. That’s worship and recognition, and actually obedience, from God Himself.

It’s a very revealing insight into Satan’s heart and what makes him tick.

Worship and recognition are far more precious to him than the possession of the kingdoms of the world and their glory.

He’s the one who looked at himself in the eons of time past and was captivated by his own glory and as a result said, “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High. We see that in Isaiah 14 verses 13 to 14.

He desperately craves to be worshiped like God.

We saw another very important fact. Satan genuinely has authority over this world and its governments. He truly is the god of this world as he’s called in 2 Corinthians 4 verse 4.

 

Our study continues today in Matthew 4 starting at verse 12 and we’ll see more old testament prophecy fulfilled and we’ll also see more of what the phrase the “kingdom of heaven is at hand” means. We’ll also see Jesus begin His public ministry at Capernaum.

 

Starting now at Matthew 4:12-13,

Now when Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, He departed to Galilee. 

And leaving Nazareth, He came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is by the sea, in the regions of Zebulun and Naphtali, 

 

Jesus withdrew from the Jerusalem area because John had been taken by Herod and put in prison.

Now we have the Lord Jesus shifting His headquarters from the south to the north and from Nazareth, His hometown, over to Capernaum.

Matthew doesn’t give us the details of this move in his record, and this is another example of the fact that the four Gospel records don’t attempt to parrot each other. One’s not a carbon copy of any of the others.

When an attempt is made to harmonise the Gospels, as is often the case, it’s a mistake.

J Vernon McGee wrote a booklet about this entitled “Why Four Gospels” which is an expansion of what we’ve already said about each one being for a specific purpose and for a specific audience. We’ve included this booklet in the notes below these broadcasts.

None of the Gospels was intended to be a biography of the Lord Jesus. No one could ever write that.

Each book is designed to reach a certain part of the human family. Matthew was written to reach the religious element and it’s primarily for the nation of Israel. Actually, many scholars believe it was actually originally written in Hebrew.

Although Matthew doesn’t give us any details of Jesus’s move to Capernaum, we do learn from other Gospels that He had been rejected by His hometown. Capernaum became His headquarters and continued to be, as far as we know, until He went to Jerusalem for the final time to be crucified.

Matthew will give us the reason He moved His headquarters from Nazareth to Capernaum. The other Gospel writers don’t tell us this, but Matthew does in order to show that in everything the Lord Jesus did, He was fulfilling Old Testament prophecies.

 

Matthew 4:14-16,

that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: 

“THE LAND OF ZEBULUN AND THE LAND OF NAPHTALI, BY THE WAY OF THE SEA, BEYOND THE JORDAN, GALILEE OF THE GENTILES: THE PEOPLE WHO SAT IN DARKNESS HAVE SEEN A GREAT LIGHT, AND UPON THOSE WHO SAT IN THE REGION AND SHADOW OF DEATH LIGHT HAS DAWNED.”

 

Here we go again with Matthew showing where these events were prophesied in the Old Testament. I don’t mean to harp on this but to me it’s just astounding to see how intricate and how accurate these Old Testament prophecies are.

We find this particular prophecy in Isaiah 9 verses 1 and 2 and Isaiah 42 verses 6 to 7.

We won’t take the time to go into the background of this area called Galilee of the Gentiles, but if anyone wants to do some research, you’ll find it very profitable to see the condition of that area at the time the Lord Jesus was there.

He also spent His boyhood there. It was called Gentile country because many people had migrated there from the Roman Empire. There was a beautiful resort section around the Sea of Galilee, but it was a very worldly and even wicked place where the people were far away from God. Maybe very much like a lot of the world today, even our own country?

The great light that was the Lord Jesus broke out and shone upon them, and His very presence created a challenge for them. They witnessed many of His miracles, but there was little response.

Later, in Mattew 11:20-24, we’ll see that He pronounces judgment upon them when He says, “Woe unto thee, Chorazin!”

Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum, God’s judgment was fulfilled against these cities. Each one of them was destroyed long ago and has been desolate for generations upon generations.

These cities didn’t openly attack Jesus Christ; they didn’t drive him from their gates, and they didn’t seek to crucify him. They simply ignored Him. They disregarded him. You see neglect can kill as much as persecution can.

In Capernaum Jesus picked up right where John the Baptist left off.

 

Verse 17,

From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” 

 

Jesus began to preach we’re told here by Matthew.

Jesus’ message was, “Repent, turn around, change your mind and come to Me, the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

This was Jesus’ main occupation here on earth. Sure, He healed and ministered miracles to many, but on the whole, Jesus was a preacher and teacher who healed rather than a healer who preached and taught.

This is the priority of Jesus’ ministry as we’ll see in verse 23.

The gospel Jesus preached began where the gospel of John the Baptist began, with a call to repentance as we saw in chapter 3 verse 2.

As John was now in prison, Jesus probably picked up where John left off except that He’d go much further than John ever did, because John announced the coming of the Messiah, and Jesus is the Messiah.

Some people try to make elaborate and complicated explanations between the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God, but there’s actually no difference at all. There’s a Jewish custom where God’s not named directly, but instead He’s referred to by the place where He lives, heaven, and this is a custom that Matthew, a Jew writing to Jews, often employs.

The Kingdom of Heaven was at hand in the person of the King, of course, they couldn’t have the Kingdom of Heaven without Him. As we’ve seen the Kingdom of Heaven, simply stated, is the reign of the heavens over the earth.

This is what the Lord Jesus will bring to this earth someday. This earth will become “heaven” for Israel. See they’re an earthly people, they’re eternally tied to the land, and they’ll go into eternity here on earth and in that land.

The church has a heavenly hope, but the earthly hope of the nation Israel is also a marvellous hope, and it’s the hope of the Old Testament.

Now we need to remember what we discussed two episodes ago relating to repenting.

When dealing with the Bible we need to be specific, we need to understand the intention and the meaning that the Lord’s giving us instead of the meanings we often place on words in our modern day.

Repentance is one of these words. We tend to picture this word in our minds a bit differently to the way it’s intended in scripture.

The word conjures up the image of a medieval monk in a stone walled room and a stone floor whipping himself until he’s bleeding or otherwise harming himself in an attempt to atone for his sin.

There’s no doubt this was a common practice in the dark ages before the common person had access to the Word of God and even today this practice is more widespread than we think.

It’s very important for us who have free access to the Word of God

To understand how absolutely wrong this is. Nothing you or I can do to punish ourselves for the sin we know is in us can atone for that sin. That is not in any way repentance and it’s a terrible misunderstanding of the word.

Only the shed blood of Jesus can take away sin as the old hymn says,

Not the labours of my hands

Can fulfill thy law’s demands.

Could my zeal no respite know

Could my tears forever flow,

All for sin could not atone.

Thou must save, and thou alone.

Nothing in my hand I bring,

Simply to the cross I cling.

Naked, come to thee for dress.

Helpless, look to thee for grace.

Foul, I to the fountain fly.

Wash me, Savior, or I die..

No, friends, the Greek word used for repent is metanoiā and it means to think differently, to change our mind.

In other words, we think something is true then we find it’s not. We learn that something else other than what we thought is the truth, so, we change our mind so that now we believe in that something which we’ve now learned is the real truth.

That’s what repentance means.

There is a further meaning to the Greek metanoiā which is to change one’s mind for better and heartily to amend with abhorrence of one’s past sins.

This is a repentance for after we’ve believed. When we see Christ for Who He really is and we get the revelation of the incredible lengths He’s gone to for our salvation, we begin to detest the sin that it seems we can’t help but commit. We yearn to turn from that sin which we hate in ourselves. We turn to 1 John 1:9, the Christian’s bar of soap, and we confess our sin to God and He cleanses us from all unrighteousness. This is the repentance of the believer. We turn from our sin back to Him.

 

In this verse of Matthew Jesus, just the same as John the Baptist before Him, is speaking to Jews. The church wasn’t even in existence at that time.

He’s telling them to repent or turn back to God, back to God’s Word, back to that which they know (or should know) is the truth.

Only by doing that can they understand the massive changes that are soon to impact humanity. Only by turning back to God and the Words and the prophecies of their ancient heritage could they understand correctly the soon to come world changing events.

We’ve revisited the subject of repentance again because it’s so vital for us to see it exactly for what it is.

 

Now Jesus begins to gather disciples about Him. Notice the following verses. Verses 18 and 19,

 

And Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. 

Then He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” 

 

In the Gospels the Lord makes at least three calls to these men, or perhaps it’d be more accurate to say that three meetings took place between Jesus and these men.

The first meeting took place in Jerusalem, and we see that recorded in detail in John 1 verses 35 to 42.

Their second meeting took place by the Sea of Galilee, and apparently this is the record of it in this verse.

They’d seen Him before this, but at that time He hadn’t called them to be with Him.

Now, here at the Sea of Galilee when He meets them again and He calls them to follow Him. And then we’ll find that they went back to fishing and the Gospels of Mark and Luke give us that detail.

Then,  finally, He called them again, and that was to their posts as apostles.

The wonder, and I guess the beauty of it all is that Jesus called men like this. Ordinary, sinful, apt to fail men, far from perfect.

I find this comforting and refreshing, even motivating because if He called imperfect men like the disciples were, He may be able to use me, and He may be able to use you.

It’s encouraging to know that we don’t have to be super saints to be used by Him. Whatever business we’re engaged in, He can use us.

Whatever our talent may be, if we’ll turn it over to Him, He can use it.

I know a wonderful lady who tends to get tongue–tied when it comes to telling people about Christ, but she’s the most marvellous organiser I know, with astounding attention to detail! She sometimes dislikes the fact that she finds it hard to talk about the Lord, especially to unbelievers, but everyone that’s ever known her cannot help seeing her firm and steadfast yet simple faith in the Lord and His guidance. She never fails to give glory to God’s guiding hand over her amazing skill set of organisation and detail that so many benefit from. God uses her every bit as much as a world renown preacher.

The important thing for us is to give ourselves to Him. Under His direction He won’t have us all doing the same thing because He gives us separate gifts.

The body of Christ has many members in it, and they all have different functions to perform. Just as our physical body’s made up of countless parts so is the Body of Christ. Is a leg more important in the functioning of the body than an arm is? Is a red blood cell less important than a nerve cell or neuron? No, they all work together doing their own specific duty while connecting perfectly with every other part, large and tiny.

 

Verses 20 to 22,

They immediately left their nets and followed Him. 

Going on from there, He saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets. He called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed Him. 

In that day, it was customary for a rabbi to have disciples so there was nothing cult-like about Jesus asking these men to be with Him constantly and to learn from Him.

Notice how they immediately left their nets, and also immediately left the boat and their father, and followed Him. The immediate response of these disciples is a great example to us. These first disciples did what all disciples of Jesus should do, they followed Him.

Following Jesus always means leaving some things behind.

These are very interesting men, and we’ll get better acquainted with them as we move along, especially as we see them in the other Gospel records.

 

Now remember that Jesus is in the northern section of Israel at this time.

 

Mattew 4 verse 23,

And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people. 

 

Jesus began to preach we’re told here by Matthew.

This was Jesus’ main occupation here on earth. Sure, He healed and ministered miracles to many, but on the whole, Jesus was a preacher and a teacher who healed rather than a healer who preached and taught.

This is the priority of Jesus’ ministry as we’ll see in verse 23.

Notice that Jesus is teaching in their synagogues, and He’s preaching the gospel of the Kingdom.

What is that? The gospel (good news) of the Kingdom is that it is at hand in the person of the King. They’re to accept and receive Him.

 

The gospel Jesus preached began where the gospel John the Baptist preached began, with a call to repentance as we saw in chapter 3 verse 2.

As John was now in prison, He probably picked up where John left off except that He’d go much further than John ever did, because John announced the coming of the Messiah, and Jesus is the Messiah.

Some people try to make elaborate and complicated explanations to try and separate the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God, but there’s actually no difference at all. There’s a Jewish custom where God is often not named directly, but instead He’s referred to by the place where He lives, heaven, and this is a custom that Matthew, a Jew writing to Jews, often employs.

 

Also, He’s healing their physical illnesses. Friend, there were thousands of people in that day whom Jesus healed. Matthew especially lets us know that. If we’ll pay attention to the text, we’ll find that there were not just a few isolated cases, but thousands were healed. That’s the reason the enemies of Jesus never questioned His miracles.

There were just too many of them walking around you see.

 

Today there’re many so–called faith healing preachers who claim the healing of thousands of people, but we simply don’t see the results of these miracles walking around everywhere as they should be, at least I don’t. Maybe you do. I don’t mean the ones supposedly healed of a cold or a headache or of an invisible pain somewhere, I mean the ones who’re close to death with cancer or other diseases or the crippled and the dementia and Alzheimer’s suffers. The badly burned, the amputees and the endless suffering we see as we walk through a hospital ward, not to mention the cruel disfigurements we see in India and Africa from malnourishment and other causes.

I personally believe with all my heart that Jesus can and does heal today but it’s always God’s doing and in His time and according to His ultimate and eternal purposes. One man can and should pray for another for healing, but that man is not some sort of linked up wire that God uses to pass His healing power through as many would have us believe. The Lord Himself is the only miracle worker and it’s the Lord Himself who heals according to His purposes and it’s the Lord Himself who we go to for our healing, and we go to Him directly.

 

Verse 24,

Then His fame went throughout all Syria; and they brought to Him all sick people who were afflicted with various diseases and torments, and those who were demon-possessed, epileptics, and paralytics; and He healed them.

 

All kinds of sickness and all kinds of diseases were healed.

Jesus’ ability to heal those with all different kinds of diseases shows that He has real power over the damage done by the fall of man.

His authority over demons (and those who were demon-possessed) shows He has real and genuine power over all creation.

This is the first mention of the demon-possessed in the New Testament, and the concept is rarely recorded in the Old Testament. King Saul was one example. He was troubled by a spirit, as 1 Samuel 18 verse 10 and 1 Samuel 19:9 shows us.

There is obviously much more said about demon possession in the New Testament than either the Old Testament or in the world in which we live today, especially the western world.

Many suggestions have been offered to explain this fact.

Some believe that God gave the devil greater freedom to afflict mankind in this way, in order to give greater evidence of Jesus’ credentials as the Messiah.

Some believe that God gave the devil this power to afflict man to rebuke the Sadducees, who didn’t believe in supernatural beings such as angels and demons.

Others believe that there was no special power to given to Satan at all in those days, and that there’s the same amount of demon possession around today, but it’s just not recognised as much.

Yet others believe that there’s simply far less demon possession in cultures that have been under the influence of the gospel for hundreds of years, and far more in pagan cultures that reject the One God, Jehovah, Yahweh, Elohim.

There are even some who believe that Satan himself isn’t interested in causing widespread demon possession of humans in our current world, because he finds it much more effective to be anonymous. It’s often said by these people that the most powerful deception of the Devil is his message to humans that he doesn’t exist.

All these reasons are just speculation because God hasn’t seen fit to let us in on why demon possession and demon activity seemed common during Jesus’ ministry and in the very early church while it doesn’t show up today much at all.

The only thing we really need to be aware of is the self-styled, quote, “demon hunters” who’re quite common in some churches today. In my own personal experience with these people the main motivation seems to be always self-promotion and a desire to be recognised as some sort of spiritual authority. They want people to think they have special powers that the Lord’s singled them out to possess. These people are usually easy to see through especially since they almost always possess only a very scant knowledge of the Word of God.

 

Notice the multitudes here in verse 25,

Great multitudes followed Him—from Galilee, and from Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond the Jordan. 

 

Decapolis was a district containing ten cities in the northeastern part of Galilee, east of the Jordan River.

Also, folk came up from Jerusalem and from Judea, the southernmost division of Palestine, and from beyond Jordan, which all means that people came from a long way off. Jesus is ministering in the north of Palestine.

We should keep in mind that Matthew’s not giving us a chronological record of the life of Christ. He’s presenting Jesus in his Gospel as King, and he follows a pattern bringing the King and His claims to the nation Israel.

This is important and if we miss it, we’ll miss the purpose of this Gospel.

 

Now Jesus had a purpose for allowing such dramatic miracles to attract great multitudes. He wanted to teach the multitudes, not simply to impress them with miracles. We’ve already discussed that Jesus was a preacher and a teacher who healed rather than a healer who preached and taught.

This is the priority of Jesus’ ministry. His fame was spread far and wide, but the main attraction was the miracles, the healings which were performed on ALL that were bought to Him.

These multitudes should have put 2 and 2 together and realised that only God was able to perform such signs and wonders. They should have seen past the healings and the miracles and seen the person Himself, but many did not.

The man who was born blind and healed by Jesus did exactly that. He saw the person not just the healing of his sight. When the Pharisees, the Jewish leadership grilled him he said in John 9:32 and 33, Ever since the world began, no one’s been able to open the eyes of someone born blind. If this man were not from God, he couldn’t have done it.

People from all these areas ‘followed’ Jesus says this passage.

Now this doesn’t mean they followed Him because they believed He was the promised Messiah. They didn’t follow Him in their multitudes to become His disciples. It was more for the miracles either for the fascination of them or for their desire to be healed themselves.

 

In the next episode we’ll see the beginning of the Jesus’s famous so–called Sermon on the Mount which’ll have some surprises for us.

Until then my friends may the Lord ignite a love for His precious Word in our hearts.