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The Gospel of Matthew

Matthew Defining The Kingdom Part 4

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Today we’re going to place more of our puzzle pieces together to get the picture of where the Body of Christs fits in with the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven.

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Matthew Defining the Kingdom Part 4 – Transcript

We’re moving now toward our reason for taking this interlude from the Gospel of Matthew study, and that’s to get an understanding of the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven that Matthew focuses so much on. We also want to know what our own destiny as The Church, The Body of Christ is and how we’re placed in relation to these Kingdoms.

We’ve established, hopefully beyond doubt, that there is most definitely a coming Kingdom on earth that’ll be ruled by none other than Christ Himself, The King of Kings, and Lord of Lords.

That Kingdom is a long term unbreakable promise of God and as such it must and will happen.

Last time we left off in Acts 2 verse 5 where we saw that after Our Lord had ascended back into Glory, It was a Jewish feast day, the Feast of Pentecost; and Jews have gathered from every nation in the then known world to come to the Temple for the Feast, as they did for all the feasts throughout the year.  There’s a mass meeting of Jews from every nation at this Feast of Pentecost.

Acts 2:5,

And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven. 

We saw that these were devout men, devout about what?

They’re devout about the Law. They’re keeping the Temple worship, the sacrifices, all that was Judaism, and we noted that they’re from every nation under heaven.

They were from India and Persia, which is present day Iran, and from present day Arabia and present day Iraq, which were Babylon and Syria and Egypt and North Africa.

They’d gathered from every part of the then known world for this Feast of Pentecost and they’re all Jews.

 

Now let’s continue at Acts 2:6

And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together, and were confused, because everyone heard them speak in his own language. 

First, what sound occurred?

It was the sound as described in verse 2 of this chapter,

And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of (or like) a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. 

As a side note we’re not going to study this at this moment because it’s a large study by itself. For the purpose of what we’re trying to understand, which is the Body of Christ and its relationship to the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven.

Here’ verse 6 again,

And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together, and were confused, because everyone heard them speak in his own language. 

You see whatever region these people came from, whether it was North Africa or India or Persia, wherever, they heard them speak in his own language.

Now, I’m sure that for all of us that’s very plain and easy to understand.

In other words, if they were from Syria, they heard it in the local language of the Syrians.

The Jews had been there now for generations, and the second, third, and fourth generation started speaking the local languages and had largely forgotten their Hebrew.  I’m sure many would’ve remembered a ceremonial type version of the ancient Hebrew but generally, if they came from Turkey, they were speaking the Turkish language and so on.  Every Jew gathered there in that Pentecostal crowd was hearing the Apostles, especially Peter, James, and John, speak in their own language.

 

Acts 2:7

Then they were all amazed and marvelled, saying to one another, “Look, are not all these who speak Galileans? 

In other words, they’re asking themselves how come all these speakers are Galileans and yet they’re speaking to us in our own languages?

Now notice, are there any Gentiles involved?  No, not one. There’s not a Gentile in the place.

The people who were present were Torah-keeping, Law-abiding Jewish people from every nation under heaven.

It’s a totally Jewish feast, and we shouldn’t forget that.

 

Now we come down to verse 22 where Peter says,

Men of Israel, (That’s Jews.) hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know— 

And then he goes through who Jesus was and what had happened and how God had raised Him up, and in verse 30 that His destiny was still to sit on David’s throne in this glorious kingdom that’s been promised through the Old Testament.

 

So, all through these early chapters we’re seeing that we’re in a pivotal part of Scripture.

We’re moving from Israel under the Law and Judaism to the beginning of the Church.

However, and it’s a big however, It’s still a Church made up of Jews. Verse 41 tells us that 3,00 souls were added to the number of believers that very day and verse 47 tells us that the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.

 

Now there may have been the odd Gentile included in these vast numbers who were being saved and added to the church, but we’re not told of any here. But we are told time and again that the people involved were Jews.

 

We’re now moving to the place where the Apostle Paul comes on the scene and is sent by Jesus Himself to the Gentile world because of Israel’s rejection.

 

We move to Acts chapter 3 and Peter’s again preaching to the Nation of Israel.

Peter and John had just healed a lame man there at the Temple and the Jews are all greatly amazed, and the deeper meaning is that they were utterly astounded.  Where did these blokes get the power to heal this guy who’s been lame for 40 years?

This is just two months after Jesus probably performed His last miracle, and the people can’t figure it out.  “How did you do this”? they ask.

 

In Verse 12 and 13, Peter saw this astonishment and amazement of the people and we read,

So when Peter saw it, he responded to the people: “Men of Israel, (again, how many Gentiles are in that statement?  Not one.) why do you marvel at this? Or why look so intently at us, as though by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? 

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His Servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let Him go. 

 

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers.

Did that mean anything to the average Gentile?  No, nothing! But to a Jew? Everything!

 

Now remember we’re trying to establish how we as Gentiles and as the Body of Christ fit into God’s eternal plan.

 

Now Acts 3:13 to 15,

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His Servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let Him go. 

But you denied the Holy One and the Just, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses. 

 

Now, let’s look closely.  Peter never associates the salvation of these Jews on that finished work of the cross.

All Peter is showing here is the one that they demanded be put to death is alive and can still fulfill the promises.

A dead man can’t rule as a king. But He’s not dead. The tomb is empty! He’s alive. And Peter’s proving that.  He can still be the King.

 

Now, what did Israel have to do?  Well, nothing has changed so far as the Nation is concerned.

Let’s drop down to verse 19.  Notice the first word?

 

Acts 3:19

Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. 

How did John the Baptist start his ministry?  Repent.  Nothing’s changed.

Repent therefore and be converted or have a change of mind concerning who?  Jesus of Nazareth.  That’s the problem. That’s what these Jews are to repent of now. They need to repent, change their minds of the killing and the rejection the Promised Messiah.

 

What’s the times of refreshing?  The King and His Kingdom!  Heaven on earth.

Refreshing is a calming sort of word and that’s what he says.  They could have it all if they would just confess and repent of the sin of having rejected their Messiah.

Now, we look at verse 20 to clarify this.  What would God do if Israel would repent?

 

Acts 3:20

and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, 

So He, God, may send Jesus Christ, the same one of the earthly ministry just ended who was before preached to you, To be the king.

But now there’s a period of time that has to be fulfilled from the Old Testament prophecies before the King can come again.  And what time is that?  Tribulation. Seven years of horror must now come. We can’t skip them.  And this is what the next verse says, Acts 3:21,

whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began. 

The Whom is the same Jesus Christ the heaven must receive, or hold, as Psalms 110 said,

The LORD said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand, Till I make Your enemies Your footstool.” 

 

So, heaven must hold Him until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.

Well, what’s the time of restitution? After the seven years of the horrors of the Tribulation and all the destruction and terror has happened and this old planet is reduced to ashes, will come a glorious new planet—like the Garden of Eden again.

 

Then he goes on to say, now remember, this is all the Old Testament promises being rehearsed before the Nation of Israel, Acts 3:22,

For Moses truly said to the fathers, ‘THE LORD YOUR GOD WILL RAISE UP FOR YOU A PROPHET LIKE ME FROM YOUR BRETHREN. HIM YOU SHALL HEAR IN ALL THINGS, WHATEVER HE SAYS TO YOU. 

You see, He will be a fellow Jew, as Jesus was, of course. Like me; (In other words, as Moses was a deliverer, so Christ at His Second Coming will be a deliverer. HIM YOU SHALL HEAR IN ALL THINGS, WHATEVER HE SAYS TO YOU.  Because He’s going to be your king.”

 

Acts 3:23

AND IT SHALL BE THAT EVERY SOUL WHO WILL NOT HEAR THAT PROPHET SHALL BE UTTERLY DESTROYED FROM AMONG THE PEOPLE.’ 

This is because there’re no unbelievers going into the Kingdom.  None, they’ll be removed.

And Jesus made that so plain in His earthly ministry that they’ll go to their perdition or their damnation or condemnation, and the believers will go into the Kingdom.

 

Acts 3:24

Yes, and all the prophets, from Samuel and those who follow, as many as have spoken, have also foretold these days. 

All the prophets were foretelling to Israel the coming of this glorious Kingdom.

But now, before the Kingdom can come, the wrath of God must precede it.

 

Acts 3:25

You are sons of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘AND IN YOUR SEED ALL THE FAMILIES OF THE EARTH SHALL BE BLESSED.’ 

Now again who’s Peter talking to?

Jews.  No Gentiles here.

Who did God make the covenant with? Abraham! This all started with Abraham and the appearance of the Nation of Israel.

Then, again to Abraham, God says AND IN YOUR SEED (That is in the offspring of Abraham.) ALL THE FAMILIES OF THE EARTH SHALL BE BLESSED.

Here we see just one little glimpse, just a tiny part of all that this Book, The Bible is about, we see us, all the families of the earth being blessed in the Seed of Abraham, Jesus Christ.

This Book came from the offspring of Abraham.  That’s part of what he’s talking about.

Where would this world be without this Book?  It’s bad enough as it is, but how much worse would it be without this Book.

This is where we draw all our comfort, and it all came by the prophets and the coming of the Nation of Israel, whom God used to give us the printed Word.

 

Then, in Acts 3:26

To you first, God, having raised up His Servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities.” 

To you first (the Nation of Israel with all of their promises, with all of their written Scriptures) God, having raised up his Servant, or Son, Jesus.

Now remember what the “raised up” meant.

He was raised from the dead.  He’s no longer dead. He’s alive and well. He sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities.”  But did Israel turn?  No!

Now we’re moving to Acts chapter 7, where Stephen’s addressing the high priest and some of the other religious leaders of Israel.

This is Israel’s last opportunity to repent of having killed their Messiah and to finally recognise Him for What and Who He was.

So, Stephen lays it all out on the line throughout chapter 7.

And if there’s any doubt that He’s talking to Jews we just need to look at verse 51.

He’s winding up his message, a message that’s all Holy Spirit inspired, it’s all God’s Word.

Stephen says to these religious leaders in Acts 7:51-52,

“You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you. 

Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers, 

 

See, this lot were circumcised in the flesh but not in the heart which is the true circumcision according to Paul in Romans 2:29.

In other words, all the way through Israel’s history when the prophets would come and warn them of the chastisement to come and the blessings that could follow, what would they do?  They’d kill the messenger—over and over again it happened.

Stephen’s reminding them of that.

 

Is this the message that you hear given today?  You killed the Messiah.  Repent of it.  No.  But for Israel, that was their dilemma.

In unbelief they’d rejected their Messiah and killed Him. That’s what they were guilty of. For you and me, it’s the other side of the coin – He loved us and died for us.

That’s the big difference.

Now in Acts 7:53-54 Stephen continues,

who have received the law (So you know he’s talking to Jews.) by the direction of angels and have not kept it.” 

When they heard these things they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed at him with their teeth. 

They were convicted.  But they didn’t respond the way they should have. They should have responded in repentance and sorrow for what they’d done, but instead they even rejected Stephen, the messenger, just as always, and they’re now going to put him to death.

 

Acts 7:55

But he (Stephen), being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.

Now, every other Scripture says He’s seated; He’s sitting. Why here is He standing?

Well, these old priests of Israel knew scripture and they knew the Psalms especially Psalms 68.

As soon as Stephen said, I see Him standing, they related to this Psalm.  And it infuriated them, and it may have scared them at the same time.

 

Let’s look at it. Psalms 68:1

Let God arise, Let His enemies be scattered; Let those also who hate Him flee before Him. 

What were these priests of Israel?  Enemies!  They hated Him. Let them also that hate him flee before him.

Verse 2.

As smoke is driven away, So drive them away; As wax melts before the fire, So let the wicked perish at the presence of God. 

Did that sound lovely to these Jews?  No way. Their anger was simply stirred all the more, and that caused them then to cry out.

 

Now to Acts 7:57-58,

Then they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, (see, they didn’t want to hear another word like that.) and ran at him with one accord; and they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. 

Let’s highlight that name, Saul.  He’s the next player on this stage, this soon to be, new Apostle. who’ll later be called Paul.

 

Acts 7:59-60

And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” 

Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not charge them with this sin.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep. He died physically.

This really is the last Hurrah of Israel’s rejection. They’re stating in no uncertain terms, “We will not have Jesus of Nazareth as our Messiah and King!”

 

Now go into chapter 8.  And again, here’s where we see Saul’s name coming to the top.

 

Now we move to Acts 8:1,

Now Saul was consenting to his death. At that time a great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.

Now we need to notice something important.

The church stated here is the church at Jerusalem and it’s a Jewish church as all the churches were at this time. These churches are at this time made up of Jewish believers who had believed that Jesus was the promised Messiah. There’s no Gentiles amongst them. Oh, there may have been the odd one here and there but generally these congregations were made up of Jews.

Why do we always take pains to point out the separation between Jew and gentile?

Because it’s vital to our understanding of where and how we as Gentiles fit into the church.

This was the church composed of believing Jews who’d embraced Jesus as the Messiah.  They formed the local Jerusalem Jewish church starting on the Day of Pentecost.

They’re law-keeping Jews, but they are Messianic Jews.  They’re not Paul’s Gentiles, and we need to be aware of that or we’ll keep getting confused.

This Jerusalem church was under great persecution by Saul and the rest of the Jerusalem priesthood.

 

Let’s take a moment to understand these Jewish believers who in spite of this persecution from Saul and the Jewish elders, firmly stood on their belief that Jesus was in fact the Messiah.

They would have recognised all the fulfilled prophecy associated with His coming, all the promises God had made about Him. They understood that only God could have caused the many thousands of miraculous events that had occurred.

They would’ve either been eyewitnesses to all the events surrounding Jesus’s life, death, burial, and resurrection, or heard from eyewitnesses.

Everyone knew about these events. So, in believing that Jesus was the Messiah they’re also virtually automatically believing in his death, burial and resurrection.

The Gentiles who would soon start coming into the church under Paul’s ministry were different in the sense that they generally knew very little of the Jewish prophecies or God’s promises to the Jewish Nation. They didn’t follow the Mosaic law at all, nor the feats and customs of the Jew and they certainly didn’t go through the ritual of circumcision.

They didn’t know about the promised Messiah who would set up a Kingdom on earth.

Around the time of Christ, the Gentile nations believed in a variety of gods and idols. The ancient Greeks and Romans worshipped gods and goddesses, such as Zeus, Apollo, and Venus. The Egyptians worshipped gods and goddesses, such as Ra, Osiris, and Isis. The Babylonians and Assyrians worshipped Marduk and Ishtar. The Canaanites worshipped Baal and Asherah. The Persians worshipped Ahura Mazda and the list goes on.

 

So, back to Acts 8:1

 

“…and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.”

You see, The Apostles didn’t leave.

They didn’t go out into the Gentile world.  They stayed right there at Jerusalem.

Then to Acts 8:3.

As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering every house, and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison.

See, Saul continues his incredible persecution against these believing Jews.

 

Paul had to live with that for the rest of his life and it plagued him. It’s one reason he was able to cope with all the hardships of his ministry.  He could never forget the misery he’d caused the followers of Jesus of Nazareth.

Drop down to Acts 26:7 and it’s Paul speaking to King Agrippa,

To this promise our twelve tribes, earnestly serving God night and day, hope to attain. For this hope’s sake, King Agrippa, I am accused by the Jews. 

In other words, there’s still the hope of this coming King and His Kingdom.

 

Then verses 8 and 9 and its still Paul speaking,

Why should it be thought incredible by you that God raises the dead? 

Indeed, I myself thought I must do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth

He’s saying, “Agrippa, you’ve got enough knowledge of Scripture to know that resurrection is a part of our Jewish belief. But what I did in those days to the believers is what brought on this hate and persecution.

 

Now to Acts 26:10,

This I also did in Jerusalem, and many of the saints I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests; and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them. 

That was the Jewish believers. These Jewish believers who’d been imprisoned and then committed to death and Pauls saying I gave my vote against them.

 

Verse 11-12,

And I punished them often in every synagogue and compelled them to blaspheme; and being exceedingly enraged against them, I persecuted them even to foreign cities. 

He’d go in and arrest them if they were gathered together in the worship of their Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth.

He “compelled them to blaspheme” could indicate torture.

Verse 12,

While thus occupied, as I journeyed to Damascus with authority and commission from the chief priests, 

And then of course he tells, as he did many times, of his Damascus Road experience.

 

Now let’s look at Acts chapter 10.

Pauls now had his Damascus Road salvation experience back in chapter 9, and the Lord has led him out to the backside of the desert. possibly even to the same mountain where Moses received the Law.

But in the three years while Paul’s out in the desert, God’s doing something to get ready for another future event.

He’s getting Peter ready for a great conference in Jerusalem twelve years later.

Had Peter not had this experience in Acts chapter 10, it’s doubtful if he’d have ever come to Paul’s defence in Acts 15 and Galatians 2, where they finally agreed that Paul would be the Apostle of the Gentiles.

Peter would have never agreed to that.  But here God had to supernaturally bring Peter to an understanding that God was going to save Gentiles.

 

Now remember, a Jew could never understand that. It was beyond them.

From the time Israel came out of Egypt, what was their constant instruction concerning the Gentiles around them?  Have nothing to do with them! Nothing!

Don’t intermarry with them. Don’t do anything, because if you do, they’re going to convince you to worship their pagan gods and you’ll go down with them.  So, stay away from them!

 

Well, that stayed with the Jew all the way through. Even though they rebelled and disobeyed, it was still God’s teaching that the Jew was to have nothing to do with the Gentile.  Nothing.

They were never told to go out and evangelise the Gentile; they were to stay separated and insulated from them.

So now God has to show Peter that this is now changed.

He’s going to go to the Gentiles, but not through Israel.

It’s going to be through one little Jew, not through the Nation. It’ll be through one man, Saul of Tarsus.

So, while Saul’s out there in the desert being dealt with by the Lord Jesus Himself, teaching him all the things pertaining to this next dispensation that’s going to follow the dispensation of the Law, God deals with Peter.

 

Here we go with Acts 10:7.

An angel has appeared unto this Roman officer, up there in Caesarea on the sea, up there on the Mediterranean seacoast. The angel tells him to send for Peter down in Joppa and at the same time, the Lord works on Peter from the other end, and he brings the two together.

 

Acts 10:7-8

And when the angel who spoke to him had departed, Cornelius called two of his household servants and a devout soldier from among those who waited on him continually. So, when he had explained all these things to them, he sent them to Joppa.

 

In other words, this Roman officer’s going to send a couple of his underlings down to Joppa to tell Peter that he has to come up and fulfill God’s obligation.

Okay, now at the same time, you see, down at Joppa, God’s going to deal with Peter in verses 9 and 10,

The next day, as they went on their journey and drew near the city, Peter went up on the housetop to pray, about the sixth hour (or midday). 

Then he became very hungry and wanted to eat (It was lunch time, but lunch wasn’t ready yet); but while they made ready (this would be the women of the house), he (Peter) fell into a trance.

This is all happening in a matter of minutes at midday.

 

Acts 10:11-13

and saw heaven opened and an object like a great sheet bound at the four corners, descending to him and let down to the earth. 

In it were all kinds of four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, creeping things, and birds of the air. 

And a voice came to him, “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” 

So, here’s this great mix of all the unclean things that a Jew would never think of eating. Then what does God say? Rise, Peter; kill, and eat.”

What a despicable, loathsome thing for a Jew.  Look at Peter’s response in verse 14,

But Peter said, “Not so, Lord! For I have never eaten anything common or unclean.” 

Why not?  Because he was a law-keeping Jew.  He wouldn’t eat pork or birds of prey or anything like that.

Verse 15,

And a voice spoke to him again the second time, “What God has cleansed you must not call common.” 

This was done three times.

Well, to summarise the story, Peter is now forced by an act of God to go with the messengers from Cornelius back up to Caesarea.

Peter didn’t want to go any more than Jonah the prophet wanted to go to Ninevah.

Peter’s a good Jew who knows better than to try to have anything to do with Gentiles.

But God forced the issue, and so Peter gets there.

 

Now, just to display how legalistic he is let’s go to verse 28 and we’re in Acts 10.

He’s now entering into this house of these Romans. Can we imagine how that good Jew must have felt?

Then he said to them, “You know how unlawful it is for a Jewish man to keep company with or go to one of another nation. But God has shown me that I should not call any man common or unclean. 

What’s he saying?  Cornelius, you know enough of our Jewish customs that I can’t rightfully come to a Gentile house.  It’s unlawful.  And I’m not a lawbreaker. But God has shown me that I should not call any man common or unclean.

Since when?  Since right now that God’s ready to go to the Gentile world with salvation.

He’d never done this before, except in exceptions – when He sent Jonah to Nineveh and a few other exceptions where Gentiles were brought in, but that was always on the basis of Jewish law.

On the whole they, the Jews, could have nothing to do with anything other than Jewish people.

Now until next time my friends where we’ll keep those puzzle pieces coming together and finally put the whole picture together of The Kingdom of God, The kingdom of Heaven and the Body of Christ, may God richly bless you.

The Gospel of Matthew

Matthew Defining The Kingdom Part 3a

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In this episode we continue our exploration of just what are the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of heaven that the Bible talks so much about.

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Matthew Defining the Kingdom Part 3 – Transcript

Ok, we left off the last episode with a basic outline of what the Kingdom of God is. It’s that all-encompassing Kingdom which is everything that’s under God’s sovereign control. Then we saw that the Kingdom of Heaven was the reign of the heavens over the earth, over which Christ will rule from David’s throne from Mount Zion in Jerusalem. This Kingdom of Heaven will initially reign for 1000 years after Christ’s second coming and then after the events that occur after that 1000 years will go into eternity and will never be destroyed. The we defined the Body of Christ which consists of every called out believer in the last 2000 years. These are those who have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and in His taking on flesh and suffering Death and burial for our sin and then rising from the dead.

There’s a huge quantity of information available today that’s simply at odds with God’s Word, especially on the internet and doubly especially on social media and YouTube.

It seems people can get a large following so easily on these resources by publishing the sensational and pandering to people’s unwillingness to just pick up their Bible and check things out. It seems like these formats have become the new Bible Study format, which can be a good thing, but it’s up to each one of us to make sure that what we’re hearing is actually God’s Word. By that I mean the whole Word, The whole counsel of God, not doctrines built on a selected few verses, especially when they’re taken out of context.

This all fits exactly with scripture where the great Apostle Paul says in 2 Timothy 4:3-4

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. 

Today, our study may put pressure on some of our preconceptions but we’re going to be looking only at what God’s Word says and although it takes study and effort to pull out the great truths of the Bible it’s always the first and last source of truth.

Numbers 23:19 says,

God is not a man that He should lie nor a son of man that He should change His mind.

 

So far in this sideline or interlude to our study of the Gospel of Matthew we’ve seen that there’ll be a Kingdom set up on earth, heaven on earth, after the horrific period of time we know of as the Great tribulation.

But what about the Body of Christ, The Church?

How do we, the called out believers, that body of people who have believed and trusted in the salvation of God through Jesus Christ, how do we fit into the picture of this coming Kingdom?

Well, one things for certain. The Kingdom of Heaven and the Body of Christ have completely different destinies.

The trouble is that its almost impossible to see these differences in just a couple of Bible verses. There’s a background, a jigsaw puzzle if you like, of which all the pieces have been readily available for thousands of years.

So, to understand the different destiny of the Body of Christ from that of the Kingdom of Heaven we need to look at those puzzle pieces and bring them together to form the whole picture.

The starting point is with something that not everyone’s familiar with, dispensations or ages. It’s almost impossible to get our puzzle together without those key pieces, the dispensations.

If you’ll recall, we’ve spoken before about the dispensations of the Bible, or time slots if you like. A dispensation is a period of time during which God deals with the human race in a particular way. It also refers to man’s administration or the stewardship of God’s plan of salvation throughout history.

For example, in I Corinthians 99:17, where Paul writes,

For if I do this willingly, I have a reward; but if against my will, I have been entrusted with a stewardship. 

The King James version, along with a number of others, translates this verse,

For if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward: but if against my will, a dispensation of the gospel is committed unto me.

In both cases Paul’s saying that the administration, or stewardship of this part of God’s plan was entrusted to him.

In Ephesians 1 verse 10 Paul says,

That in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth—in Him. 

Some other translations have the word “dispensation” here as “divine plan”. The overall meaning is the same.

Then we go to Colossians 1:24-26,

I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God which was given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God, the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints. 

Bible translators are about evenly divided here with the word dispensation and stewardship both being used, but the overall meaning is the same and that is that God has given Paul a ministry, a stewardship over a particular dispensation or age and that stewardship is a ministry to the Gentiles in the Body of Christ.

It’s very interesting to note that the term “The Body of Christ” only ever appears in Paul’s writings.

 

From Adam in the Garden of Eden down through to today we see these dispensations or periods of time or ages during which God deals with the human race in a particular way.

The Age of Innocence – Man and Woman are created innocent and enjoy unrestricted fellowship with God. This dispensation ends with sin and death as the man and woman disobey God.

The Age of Conscience – This is the dispensation where conscience guides man’s life and blood sacrifices are given to cover man’s consciousness of sin.

The Age of Human Government – is the dispensation of man governing themselves. Capital punishment is introduced, and man is scattered over the earth at the Tower of Babel.

The Age of Promise – Here God makes an everlasting covenant with Abraham with many blessings promised to Abraham’s heirs who believed and who obeyed the terms of the covenant.

The Age of Law – God makes a covenant with Israel that governed all aspects of life and exposed man’s sin nature and how impossible it was for man’s works to please God.

The Age of Grace or the Church Age – This is the present dispensation where God shows His great love and grace to man by redeeming him with His own blood and bringing in a new covenant written on the hearts of all who believe by faith. Those who believe and accept His salvation by faith become sons of God and become part of the Body of Christ, The Church, of which Christ is the head. As a side note God has always dealt with rebellious mankind through His Grace or we would have been wiped out as race long ago.

The Kingdom Age or The Millennial Kingdom of Christ – This is the dispensation that we’ve talked so much about in the last few episodes. The soon coming return of Christ to reign on the earth where He Himself will rule for 1000 years. Peace and righteousness will reign. It’s the reign of Heaven over the earth.

This Kingdom will fulfill the prophecy to the Jewish nation that Christ will return and be their King. We, the Church, will reign with Him.

Satan is bound during this 1,000 year period which ends with the final judgment of Revelation 20:11-14, with what’s known as the Great White Throne judgement.

The old world is destroyed by fire, and the eternal New Heaven and New Earth of Revelation 21 and 22 will begin.

 

The Bible becomes very confusing unless we recognise these portions of time or dispensations or ages in which God deals with the human race in particular ways.

To disregard these ages is like taking all the events that have happened through the Bible like the fall of man, the flood, the tower of babel, the reign of the kings such as David and Solomon, the captivities of Israel, the coming of Christ, The church, and the Kingdom of Heaven etc., and putting them all into a huge blender. After blending them for a while an unrecognisable substance is poured out and it’s no longer possible to separate individual events or see the importance of each one of them in God’s plan. Everything’s just sort of all lumped together.

We never see God working that way, not in His creation, nor in His Word. With God everything’s perfectly ordered and sequenced.

 

Now if we go back to our ages and see the Age or the Dispensation of Law, beginning at the time where Israel comes out of Egypt, we see Moses on Mt Sinai and God giving him the Law which included the ten Commandments which was the directions of God for the nation.

They were also given instructions on how to deal with sin, and how to approach God through the priesthood with sacrifices.  That was all part of their directions.  And as long as they maintained that God’s wrath didn’t really fall.

 

Then, after 1,500 years, their Messiah appeared fulfilling all the promises of God.  He was the whole reason the Law was given.

After 1,500 years of practicing the religion of Law, or Judaism, now God comes in with extra responsibility for Israel, and that was to recognise that Jesus of Nazareth was the Promised Messiah.

The Messiah promised to Israel!

 

Look at Romans 15:8 and this is the Apostle Paul writing some years after the promised Messiah had come.,

Now I say that Jesus Christ has become a servant, or minister, to the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the fathers, 

We’ve got to read this carefully. So, who was He, Jesus, a minister to? The circumcision!  Israel!  The Jew!

We mustn’t miss that.  He was a minister to Israel, and what was the purpose?

To confirm, or to fulfill, to bring to reality, the promises made to the fathers.

So, who were the Fathers?  Old Testament Israel – Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and then on up to David and Solomon and the Prophets, Isaiah, Jermiah, Ezekiel etc., etc.

 

Every one of them was looking forward to the time when God would send a Redeemer, a Messiah, and a King to the Nation of Israel to fulfill all the promises.

These promises were primarily this glorious earthly Kingdom that Israel was looking for.  Solomon’s Kingdom was just a little preview, a foretaste, of the glory that was waiting for Israel.

But they’d need to be obedient and believe Who their Messiah was when He came.

 

When Christ came should Israel have known who He was?  Absolutely, they should have!  The Old Testament was full of prophecy relating to His coming.  The miracles proved it. But did they recognise Him?

For the most part – no.

 

Let’s look at Matthew 16:1-3 again and we see how the Jews were always looking for signs and then we see Jesus’s answer,

Then the Pharisees and Sadducees came and testing Him asked that He would show them a sign from heaven. 

He answered and said to them, “When it is evening you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red’; and in the morning, ‘It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times.

 

Do you see what He’s telling them?

He’s saying, “You hypocrites, you can foretell tomorrow’s weather, yet you can’t discern the signs of the times?”

He was referring to His own presence.

Behind what the Lord is saying is that the signs of His coming were just as plain, just as recognisable as the red sky in the morning, sailors warning, red sky at night sailor’s delight signs.

They should’ve understood that they were now in the fourth of Daniel’s empires. The Babylonians had come and gone, so had the Medes and the Persians, and the Greeks, and now the Romans were there.

They were actually living in that sign.

The Romans ruled over Jerusalem and that was the number one sign that should’ve told them that this was the time to look for the Messiah.  But they didn’t have a clue.

They should’ve been able to foretell who He was and what He was doing on the basis of the Scriptures.  But they couldn’t.

 

It’s the same way today.  We’re living under the exact same kind of circumstances.  The signs of the times are everywhere but few people are awake enough to see them.

What’s the number one sign that points to us living in the end times and that Christ’s coming is not that far off?

Israel’s back in the land!

That should be screaming at everybody. The Jews have miraculously come back to the Land

After the diaspora, the sacking of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple in 70 AD when the Jews dispersed among every nation under heaven, they’re now back in their own land against all odds.  They should never have succeeded.  But they did!

They didn’t do it of course.  God did it!  Because the Word says, “after you’ve been scattered to every nation under heaven, you will return.”

That’s in Deuteronomy written by Moses 3,500 years ago and now here it is.  The number one sign of the times – Israel back in the land.

No matter how much Israel’s opposed and how much they’re hated, by every nation surrounding them and the repeated attempts of those nations to annihilate them yet they’re there.  Despite the hatred towards them from the inept and useless United Nations, there they are, prosperous and strong, because they’re there by God’s design.

That doesn’t mean they’re anywhere near that promised Kingdom yet. Nor does it mean they’re back in the entire land that was promised. Not at all!

They’re still as hardheaded and in denial and rejection of their Messiah as they were when He walked amongst them. And they won’t have peace and freedom from their enemies until after things have deteriorated far, far more than today.

They won’t have what’s been unconditionally promised to them by God until they recognise Jesus Christ as the Messiah Who’s already come. Thankfully, one day, maybe not too far off, they will do this.

 

There are other signs.

The understanding of end time scriptures, although not spoken of much in churches, has become much more of a topic today than it ever was. That started to take root in the early 20th century.

There’s also a massive upsurge in New Age philosophies and the occult. Millions of people, especially younger ones are coming under their influence.

Of course, very few people in the 1960s, 70s, and even the 80s could have imagined a world full of technology that’s capable of ruling the entire global money system and from a device as small as a laptop computer. Or an almost foolproof methos of personal identification that has the possibilities to allow or deny a person access to the necessities of life.

 

So now we see that Christ was the minister of the circumcision, the Jews, for the truth of God.

Now, to put our puzzle pieces together to get the big picture.

We want to see the Body of Christ clearly and how it will be called out from this world before the setting up of the promised Kingdom of Heaven.

 

To do this we’ll need to go all the way back to Genesis chapter 12, because unless we understand Israel’s role in God’s economy or The Kingdom of God, we’ll never understand the Bible or our place, as the Body of Christ, in it.

Israel’s the key player.  They have been from day one, and they will be on into eternity, and we mustn’t forget that.

 

The first eleven chapters of Genesis were God dealing with one race of people. And it wasn’t a pretty picture. There’s hardly a single good point in the first eleven chapters. After Adam and Eve were created, the first thing they did was rebel.  We don’t know how long they were in the Garden before they rebelled, but they did. They’re disobedient, and they’re cast out of the Garden.

 

Then the kids come along, and one kills the other and then it’s just one awful thing after another.  It just kept getting worse and worse and until God finally destroyed all but eight of the population in the flood.

Then after the flood, God starts again with Noah and his three sons and their wives.  It still doesn’t get any better, because 200 years later they’re gathered at the Tower of Babel.

That was another great rebellion against God, with mankind establishing of their own human gods and goddesses and beginning to worship these idols, a practice that’s never stopped right up till today.

Then after another 200 years, where everything just continues to spiral downhill, God steps in once more and brings out one man, Abram.   And here’s the big change in Scripture.

From chapter 12 of Genesis, until we go into eternity, Israel becomes the focus of all of God’s dealings with the human race.

They’re at the core of everything.  And of course, Satan knew that then and he knows it today.

As a result, he’s been attacking that nation ceaselessly ever since, trying to destroy them.

Satan knows if he can knock out Israel, then God’s program for the human race falls apart.

OK, Genesis 12:1-3

Now the LORD had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you. 

I will make you a great nation (which of course is Israel); I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. 

I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; (And now here’s the promise that brings us, you and me, into the picture) And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” 

 

Now let’s jump to Genesis 1:7 and we see the humanity of this man, Abram.

He was just as human as we are.  Gods just promised him all these things. He said to Abram:

“I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to inherit it.” 

 

Now remember, they’re already standing in the land of Canaan, and God says, “I’ll give you this land to inherit it.”

 

Then in verse 8 Abram said,

“Lord GOD, how shall I know that I will inherit it?” 

“How do I know You’ll do what You say?”

Well, God says, I’ll deed it to you.

So, you come down to the end of the chapter, verse 18, God goes through the process of transferring the title deed as the ancients did it. And we read,

On the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying: “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates. 

God deeded the whole Middle East, from the Nile River to the Euphrates, to Israel. That’s the word of God. It’s His promise.

 

That’s what all the Old Testament promises rest on.  That this whole Middle East was deeded to the man Abram, and that it was to be the homeland of the Jew for as long as this planet functions.  And that’s never been rescinded. That promise is as real today as it was the day it was made; you and I can be certain of that.

This is the land from where the King will reign over The kingdom of Heaven from Mount Zion in Jerusalem.

 

So, to understand how this amazing dispensation that we live in today, The Age of Grace, came about which will then lead us to understand where we as the Body of Christ fit into God’s plan, we need to go back to the last dispensation for a moment, The Age of the Law.

We’ll look at Exodus chapter 19 where the nation of Israel has just come out of Egypt.  This is where they became a Nation and now they’re gathered around the mountain in the wilderness of Sinai.  Moses has gone up to meet with the Lord face to face.  We read about it in Exodus 19 from verse 3,

 

And Moses went up to God, (that is up into Mount Sinai) and the LORD called to him from the mountain, saying, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel: 

In other words, the whole Nation of the Twelve Tribes.

Now God says in verse 4,

‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself.”

In other words, He brought them out of Egypt and through the Red Sea miraculously, and then brought them down around Mount Sinai.

Verse 5,

Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. 

Now, this should ring a bell relating to Adam and Eve.

What were they to do in regard to that forbidden tree? Be obedient. And were they? No! It wasn’t the eating of the fruit that would destroy them, it was disobedience, rebellion against God’s Word.

Now it’s the same way with Israel.

If they’re obedient to His Voice and keep His covenant, that’s the Ten Commandments and all that’s associated with them that He’s going to give them in chapter 20, the next chapter, then they, the Nation Israel, will be a special treasure, a jewel above all people.

 

Here we see the Sovereignty of God declare Israel as the favoured Nation, the Nation that’s above all other nations in every category imaginable.

The reason God can do it is because He’s Sovereign. “For all the earth is Mine, I can do what I want”, He says.

Exodus 19:6 is the key verse.

And you (remember, that’s Israel) shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words which you (Moses) shall speak to the children of Israel.” 

Now, What do you need in order to have a kingdom?  A king!  What’s the king without a kingdom?  A King of Nothing.  And what’s a kingdom without a king?  Well, it can’t be a Kingdom can it?

So, you’ve got to bring the two together. Here Israel is promised to be a kingdom, but later in that promise there’ll be king coming.

 

Now let’s jump to Zechariah chapter 14 and it’s so plain it’s very hard to miss it.

Zechariah 14:9

And the LORD (Now remember, that’s all capitalized, so that’s Jehovah, or God the Son, Israel’s Messiah.) The Lord shall (that means a day in the future from this writing) The Lord shall be King over all the earth. In that day it shall be “The LORD is one,” And His name one. 

How could it be clearer? He isn’t yet, but He’s going to. He’s going to be the King of Kings and Lord of Lords over planet earth.

 

It’ll be a completely renovated surface of the earth. Yes, it’ll still orbit around the sun.  It’s still going to be functioning as a planet, but the surface is going to be totally renovated.

God Himself will Plow everything under and from it’ll come that glorious 1,000 year millennial reign of Christ on a renovated, regenerated, earth.

 

For those of us who recognise the power of God. For those of us that see His power and majesty all around us in every created thing we have no problem with this at all.

Let’s read the verse once more.

 

Zechariah 14:9

And the LORD shall be King over all the earth. In that day it shall be “The LORD is one,” And His name one. 

What does “In that day” refer to? That time starting with His Second Coming to the Mount of Olives. Of course, this fits perfectly with Revelation 19 verse 16,

And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS. 

 

Now we come back to Matthew were we see Christ appear at His first coming.

Before He appears, we have John the Baptist, the herald.  He’s going to announce to the Nation of Israel that their King is in their midst.

Israel has now been under the Law, Temple worship, and Judaism for 1,500 years.  Now the Messiah makes His appearance in strict accordance with hundreds of prophecies.

 

Matthew 3:1-2

In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” 

What’s he talking about?  The earthly kingdom that Zechariah was just talking about and over which the Son of God, Israel’s Messiah, will rule and reign.

It’s finally ready to come about.

 

So, now Israel is at a major crossroad.

Are they going to believe it?  Are they going to accept it?  Or are they going to reject it?

We can liken this to Kadesh-Barnea when Israel came to the border of the Promised Land.

What did God tell them?  There’s Promised Land.  It’s all yours, with all its production and all of its farming land and orchards and pastures, a land flowing with milk and honey. That means everything that it would take to produce huge amounts of dairy milk.

That would require fresh water and grass and all the other things that it takes to produce milk, and what does it take to produce honey?  Flowers and blooms and all the things that bees can use.  Well, you put all that together and what kind of a landscape does it give you?  Beautiful!  Productive!

So that’s what they were looking at.  But did they take it?  No!

In unbelief they said, thanks, but no thanks. And they went back into the desert and died like flies. How sad is that story?

 

But here, they’re confronted again.

The King’s in their midst, can they believe it?

No, they can’t believe it, and so they turned God’s promise down again.  The whole concept then of Jesus Christ’s earthly ministry was to prove to the Nation of Israel who He was.

This’s why He performed the miracles – to prove that He was the Promised Messiah.

But Israel wouldn’t buy it and they rejected Him, they rejected their promised Kingdom, they just rejected it all, but most of all, they rejected God.

Now let’s move to the Book of Acts.

Let’s look at Acts 1:6.  The Lord’s just been resurrected and spent 40 days in His resurrected body with the apostles, on the roadways of ancient Israel from Galilee to Jerusalem.

He was proving that He’s alive, that He was the Son of God with all of His power.  Even now, after the religious leaders murdered Him, He’s still able to be the King promised to Israel.

 

After those 40 days are over, they’re all assembled up on the Mount of Olives with Him.

Of course, they don’t know that He’s going to suddenly take off from their midst and go back to glory, but they’re talking here on the Mount of Olives at the end of the 40 days, and we read in verse 6 of Acts 1,

Therefore, when they had come together (that’s Jesus and the Eleven. Remember Judas is dead.), they asked Him, saying, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” 

 

They ask, Lord, are you ready to bring in the Kingdom?

Well, He couldn’t as long as Israel was in unbelief.  Because the whole thing is tied to Israel’s recognising who He is.  Otherwise, He can’t bring it about. Now in verse 7, Jesus doesn’t ridicule their question.  It was a valid question.  Look at  what He says.

 

Acts 1:7

And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority.  

Today we’d say, it’s not for you to know the where and when.

Now, let’s go to chapter 2 of Acts.

The Lord has now ascended back to Glory.  He’s established with the Eleven that He’s alive and well and He can still fulfill the promise of a Kingdom.

It was a Jewish feast day, the Feast of Pentecost; and Jews have gathered from every nation in the then known world to come to the Temple for the Feast, as they did for all the feasts throughout the year.  So, we have this mass meeting of Jews from every nation and then we have the miracle of Pentecost.

Acts 2:5

And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven. 

Now, these were devout according to the Law, remember. They’re keeping the Temple worship, the sacrifices, all of it and we need to carefully note that they’re from every nation under heaven.

 

In other words, from as far away as India and Persia, which is present day Iran, and from what’s present day Arabia and present day Iraq, which were Babylon and Syria and Egypt and North Africa.

They’d gathered from every part of the then known world for this Feast of Pentecost.

But they’re all Jews. Jews from every nation under heaven.

Next time we’re going to place more of our puzzle pieces together so the picture of where the Body of Christs fits in with the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven becomes recognisable.

Until them may God bless you richly my friends.

The Gospel of Matthew

Matthew Defining The Kingdom Part 2

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In this episode we continue our exploration of just what are the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of heaven that the Bible talks so much about.

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Matthew Defining the Kingdom Part 2 – Transcript

Ok, we left off the last episode with a basic outline of what the Kingdom of God is. It’s that all-encompassing Kingdom which is everything that’s under God’s sovereign control. Then we saw that the Kingdom of Heaven was the reign of the heavens over the earth, over which Christ will rule from David’s throne from Mount Zion in Jerusalem. This Kingdom of Heaven will initially reign for 1000 years after Christ’s second coming and then after the events that occur after that 1000 years will go into eternity and will never be destroyed. The we defined the Body of Christ which consists of every called out believer in the last 2000 years. These are those who have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and in His taking on flesh and suffering Death and burial for our sin and then rising from the dead.

All those who believe by faith are the Body of Christ.

But we saw that the three entities, the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven, and the Body of Christ are not all the same thing.

Then we pointed out the importance of seeing this so we can see correctly understand the Bible.

We looked at the image of Nebuchadnezzar’s vision, which God gave the prophet Daniel the interpretation of, and we saw that this image represented all the main Gentile Kingdoms of history back to the Babylonian empire. That was king Nebuchadnezzar’s own kingdom.

At the second coming of Jesus Christ, who we saw was the stone cut out without hands, He would smash the images feet made of a mixture of iron and clay and every detail of all those Gentile kingdoms would collapse and cease to exist.

The feet represent the Gentile kingdom that’ll be in place at Christ’s return.

Not one tiny scrap of these kingdoms will remain, and they’ll be gone forever. They’ll be replaced with this incredible Kingdom of Heaven, Christ’s Kingdom on earth.

It’s interesting to note how each of these Gentile kingdoms depicted in Nebuchadnezzar’s image, as powerful as they were, are losing quality and value as they’re each established.

Nebuchadnezzar’s own kingdom, the Babylonian empire, was gold. It was strong but od solid gold quality.

The Medio Persian empire was silver, still high quality but just that bit less of a kingdom than the Babylonians.

By the time the Greeks come along the quality of government has dropped substantially to brass or bronze.

Then the Roman empire is iron, a huge downward scale form gold.

Finally, the revived Roman empire that will be the empire and world government on the earth when Christ returns is a mixture of clay and iron. That’s a very unstable mix and it shows the incredibly poor quality of government that’ll be in existence then.

The world is quickly moving to that quality of government as we speak.

Now, I know that a lot of what we say in these studies is repetition.

Somebody once said in a quote “Repetition of the same thought or physical action develops into a habit which, repeated frequently enough, becomes an automatic reflex.”

If we repeatedly hear these concepts of God through His Word one day they’ll suddenly just open up.

After all Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God as Paul tells us in Romans 10:17.

 

So, we begin with Daniel who’s writing down his own vision concerning the end time.

He’s seen a vision from God also but, unlike Nebuchadnezzar’s that came as an image of a fearful man, Daniels vision came in the form of four animals.

We’re in Daniel 7:13-14

I was watching in the night visions, And behold, One like the Son of Man (That’s, of course, God the Son, Jesus Christ of the New Testament.), Coming with the clouds of heaven! He came to the Ancient of Days (Which is a reference to God the Father.), And they brought Him near before Him. 

Then to Him was given dominion and glory …,

 

Now, let’s have a look at what we’ve got so far.

Who was first given dominion over this planet?

Adam!

Adam was given dominion over everything on the planet. Everything that lived and moved was under Adam’s dominion. But he lost that dominion because of his rebellion against when he ate of the tree.

All the things wondrous things that Adam had under his dominion far exceed what we can imagine today. Just one thing was forbidden amongst all that incredible beauty and provision, “Don’t eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Just one thing. What a picture of humanity right down through our history to today.

Of all the wonderful things we have to choose from to do, the incredible choices we have, we always desire that which is forbidden to us more.

Now, here we are about 6000 or more years later, and another Adam comes on the scene. This is the One that apostle Paul calls the Last Adam in 1 Corinthians 15 verse 45 or the Second Man in verse 47 of the same passage.

The Last Adam’s going to take back what the first Adam lost. That’s why we use the same word – “dominion.”

Let’s continue reading these verses, verse 14,

Then to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, That all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him.

In other words, His Kingdom’s going to cover the whole globe – not just Israel – not just the Middle East. This’s literal and we need to read it for what it says.

 

Israel will always be the apple of God’s eye, His favoured nation. It’ll be the head of the nations.

But that control’s going to be over the whole planet. It’s going to literally be heaven on earth, beyond description. Even the animals won’t prey on other animals anymore and even the fiercest of animals will be tame and peaceful and will enjoy close relationships with humans.

Isaiah 11:6 gives us a small glimpse of what it’ll be like,

The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, The leopard shall lie down with the young goat, The calf and the young lion and the fatling together; And a little child shall lead them. 

So does Satan is bound up. There’s no more sin, or death, or sickness. As we said, it’s Heaven on earth or an earthly heaven if you like..

So, let’s finish verse 14.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion, Which shall not pass away, And His kingdom the one Which shall not be destroyed. 

 

Now as we see here and as we saw at the close of the last episode, the Old Testament doesn’t put a time frame on this Kingdom, but the Book of Revelation does. One thousand years. But hold on, this verse here, Daniel 14:7, says His Kingdom’s going to reign forever.

What’s going to happen?

Well, there are some events that’ll take place at the end of those 1000 years but the Kingdom itself won’t stop. It’s not going to cease. It’s going to continue through those events and after they’ve taken place it’ll just slide on into eternity. It’ll pass into timelessness where time itself will be no more.

 

What’ll happen when the thousand years are over and the Kingdom goes into eternity, will everything somehow come together and be sort of mixed in together as one?

It doesn’t seem like that’ll happen if we look at Revelation 21-1,

Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.

This speaks of an entirely new universe. It’s not a renovation as will likely be the case at Christ’s second coming. That renovation will last for 1000 years. You see we’re still in the time dimension, not eternity.

The new universe is a complete renewal not a renovation and it’ll be able to hold up and remain perfect for eternity.

It’s worth adding a quick word here about eternity. Eternity’s not a long time. As soon as we use that word “time” it’s not eternity. Eternity is completely outside of our time dimension altogether. God Himself is Eternal meaning He’s outside of the time dimension that we as humans on this earth live in today. To us everything relates to a timeline.

Ecclesiastes chapter 3 tells us, there’s a time for everything. Let’s quickly look at Ecclesiastes 3:1-3 there,

To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven: 

A time to be born, And a time to die; A time to plant, And a time to pluck what is planted; 

A time to kill, And a time to heal; A time to break down, And a time to build up; 

A time to weep, And a time to laugh; A time to mourn, And a time to dance; 

As great as the human imagination is it’s completely unable to really grasp what living outside of time really looks like. We can’t understand any dimension outside of matter, energy, time, and space yet we know scientifically that other dimensions do exist.

 

Remember that our focus here is to understand that there’s going to be an earthly Kingdom setup that’ll be ruled from Mount Zion in Jerusalem from the ancient throne of David by The Lord Jesus Christ.

We’ll go back now to the book of Isaiah 2:1-2

The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. 

Now it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the LORD’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains And shall be exalted above the hills; And all nations shall flow to it. 

 

First, notice the words “Now it shall come to pass…”

This means that it’s GOING to happen. There’re no maybes about it. It’s going to happen because God said it’s going to happen.

It’ll happen after human history has finally run its course.

 

Now verse 2 goes on to say that the mountain of the LORD’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains.

We saw in the last episode that a kingdom in the Old Testament is described as a mountain. So, this kingdom is going to be established as the overriding, the top, kingdom that’ll be over all other kingdoms.

The verse continues with, “And shall be exalted above the hills; And all nations shall flow to it.”

The hills are the smaller kingdoms or the other nations of the world. This kingdom with its capital in Jerusalem where the King of Kings will be ruling and reigning will be a place where all the nations will flow into.

In other words, it’s going to be the hub of all of planet earth’s activity.

Let’s jump to Isaiah chapter 9.

Have look at the language. It’s very self-explanatory, even though it’s written 700 years before Christ and 2,700 years before our day today. That’s a long time ago and yet the accuracy is astounding.

 

Isaiah 9:6-7. We’ll read the whole and then break it down “Precept upon precept, precept upon precept, Line upon line, line upon line, Here a little, there a little,” That’s the way that spiritual truth was taught, slowly and patiently according to Isaiah 28:13.

So, let’s read it first and we all know the verse,

For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 

Of the increase of His government and peace There will be no end, Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, To order it and establish it with judgment and justice From that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. 

So, let’s break it down,

 

“For unto us (that’s of course the Nation of Israel,) a child is born, (Now, that’s a reference to Christ’s birth at Bethlehem.) unto us a son is given:…” At the beginning of His earthly ministry before His rejection by Israel, “He came unto his own and His own received Him not,” says the Gospel of John in chapter 1 verse 11.

Who were His own? Israel. He was given for their benefit.

Now back to our text in verse 6.

“…and the government…” What’s the purpose of government? Control of the masses. No human centred government has been or ever will be able to get the right mix of control and justice, but this One will.

We continue,

“…and the government will be upon his shoulder: (Whose shoulder? The Son that’s given, in the first part of the verse. The Son Who is given is Jesus of Nazareth.)

and his name (When He comes to be King of Kings and Lord of Lords.) shall be called Wonderful Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”

See, He’s totally and completely God. Now to break down verse 7,

 

“Of the increase of His government and peace There will be no end,…” In other words, His government’s going to be totally in control of planet earth as well as, the rest of the universe, and “There’ll be no end to that government.” As we’ve already said, it’s going to slip on into eternity.

Now, look where The King’s going to rule this government from.

“…upon the throne of David,…” Where was David’s throne? Mount Zion in Jerusalem. And that’s exactly where Christ is going to set up His rule and reign when He returns. He’s going to rule from Mt. Zion in Jerusalem.

“To order it and establish it with judgment and justice From that time forward, even forever…” Now, the word judgment as it’s used in this context is not meting out punishment. The word judgment means “righteous rule.”

When we see the word judgment in this kind of setting, it’s not the sentencing of people to punishment. It’s a righteous, Godly rule. We’ll see the punishment type of justice in a moment.

“The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.”

This is what everything’s moving forward to – the return of Christ and the setting up of His Kingdom.

Now, all this doesn’t have so much to do with you and me as members of the Body of Christ, but this is the promise made to Israel. They’re the ones that’re looking forward to this glorious Kingdom.

Let’s go a little further into the Old Testament to Zechariah 14 and there we’ll see what’s going to happen before the coming of this glorious heaven on earth Kingdom.

 

Zechariah 14:1

Behold, the day of the LORD is coming, And your spoil will be divided in your midst. 

Now, the majority of those who read these verses don’t really know what they mean. But the day of the Lord always refers to the Tribulation.

That’s those final seven years, from Daniel’s 70 weeks prophecy in Daniel 9 verse 24, where it’s going to be the most horrible period of time the world ‘s ever experienced. It’s called the day of the Lord, and the order of that day will be Judgment, Wrath and Punishment.

“your spoil will be divided in your midst”. In other words, Israel is going to be overrun by her enemies.

By the way we’ll be looking at Daniel’s 70 week prophecy soon.

 

Zechariah 14:2

For I (God) will gather (by His sovereign control) all the nations to battle against Jerusalem; The city shall be taken, The houses rifled, And the women ravished. Half of the city shall go into captivity, But the remnant of the people shall not be cut off from the city. 

Now, let’s compare Scripture with Scripture. This is line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, there a little.

We look to Matthew 24 where it’s the Lord Jesus Himself speaking.

But let’s don’t lose our train of thought from Zechariah, because we’ll be back there in a moment.

Matthew 24 is all about the Tribulation. Everything Jesus speaks of here is going to take place once that final seven years that we know of as the Tribulation begins.

So, we read verse 7, and again, this is Jesus Himself speaking.

 

Matthew 24:7

“For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places.”

Now, this all sounds familiar doesn’t it? But we’re not there yet. Even though we’re seeing a lot of this, it isn’t this prophecy being fulfilled yet.

It’s going to be far, far worse than anything we’re seeing today. Even though all that’s happening in this world today lets the person with wisdom know that we’re coming closer and closer.

It’s interesting to me personally that almost all the great bible scholars and teachers who’ve influenced my own Christian journey made statements that the state of the world led them to believe that this time we’re speaking of here was due to start.

Many, if not most of them, believed that the great snatching up of the Church, the Rapture, would take place before they had to face death.

Most of those blokes are now dead.

I have an answer for that and the only way I could have understood this is because of old age.

To explain, we saw last episode in the representation of the Gentile kingdoms in the image of king Nebuchadnezzar that each kingdom lost quality and value as they took over from the previous one. Today, with the revived Roman empire beginning to emerge we see a very fragile, weak, and ineffective government system.

This is depicted in the image by the feet of a mixture of clay and iron, two compounds that just don’t mix.

Now as these government systems of today continue to grow more and more ineffective and get weaker almost by the day, those who grew up in a generation earlier are very aware of the fast paced downhill deep dive of the current government systems.

You see we have a foot in two camps if you could put it that way.

We saw a government and a world system that was stronger than today, even though what we saw was much weaker than the generation before us.

So, as we make these comparisons between our early years and today we see a huge gulf, a massive downward slide from the system we grew up in.

The speed of that slide is quite astounding.

I believe this comparison is why many of those old scholars believed they’d see the rapture and not have to taste death.

For myself, I’m also truly astounded at the collapse of wisdom and justice within government, the news media and all those in authority over us.

However, when I look at the descriptions from the Bible of the state the world will be in after the Church has been taken from this earth, I realise that even what we’re seeing today is nowhere near as bad as it’ll soon get.

In this I dearly hope I’m wrong. I hope that The Lord calls us out before this podcast is published.

 

Matthew 24:8

All these are the beginning of sorrows. 

All these (these disasters and catastrophes) are the (What?) beginning of sorrows.

Now, some translations use the word “travail”. Some use the words “birth pains”, because it’s a reference to the woman approaching childbirth or delivery.

The world or the earth is approaching the delivery from the curse. And the only way God can bring it about is to bring in this utter devastation upon Christ-rejecting mankind.

So, all of these things that we’re seeing today are just the beginning.

Once it does start, it’ll be like the woman approaching delivery.

 

Matthew 24:9

“Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake.”

It’s vital to remember that Jesus is speaking to the apostles who’re representative of the Nation of Israel. He says that they shall deliver you (That’s the Jewish people.) up to be afflicted and shall kill you. (That should sound familiar to anyone having even a little knowledge of history. It’s Hitler and the Nazis all over again, only much worse.)

And you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. Notice the term? Hated by all nations for my Name’s sake.

There won’t be a single nation on earth that’ll come to Israel’s defence like many nations have today.

Even America, Great Britain, and we ourselves in Australia will turn against Israel.

All the nations of the world will turn against them.

Then it goes on like this until finally, in verse 21, Jesus steps into the midst of all these prophetic events.

 

Matthew 24:21

For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. 

Remember this is Jesus speaking and He’s speaking to the Jewish Nation.

In other words, when He’s speaking there in 28-29 AD, He’s saying that this is going to be the most horrible seven-year period in all of human history.

Currently this self-assured, sophisticated world just laughs at the thought of it.

But you and I should be as certain as it’s possible to be because God’s Word said it.

Do we believe God and His Word?

Do we believe God doesn’t and can’t lie?

If we do then we know that these things are shortly going to take place.

If we don’t believe God and His Word, then we should just continue to skip our way merrily through this wonderful life and believe it’ll all come good when the right political party gets in or something else we can’t define will happen and all will be good.

 

Now, let’s go back to Zechariah 14:2. This prophecy is what Jesus was referring to,

For I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem; The city shall be taken, The houses rifled, And the women ravished. Half of the city shall go into captivity, But the remnant of the people shall not be cut off from the city. 

 

God says in this prophecy, “For I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem; (For war, not for peace, there’s no United nations road map to peace or a bunch of grandstanding politicians getting involved for their own self interests.

This is for a total destruction of the Jewish people.

The city shall be taken, The houses rifled, (or ransacked), And the women ravished, (Or raped. It’s going to worse than anything any of us have seen or heard of, much worse than the Nazi holocaust.

 

Half of the city shall go into captivity, (That’s Jerusalem, remember.) “But the remnant of the people shall not be cut off from the city.”

In other words, it’s going to be complete mayhem for the city of Jerusalem.

 

Then verse 3, before the city and the Jews are totally destroyed, we read, and it’s Zechariah 14:3,

Then the LORD will go forth And fight against those nations, As He fights in the day of battle. 

The first word in the verse, “Then” refers to a precise moment.

We don’t know the day, the month, or the year, but God does.

At that very moment the Deliverer, the Lord Jesus Christ, God the Son, Israel’s Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, arrives.

Israel’s help won’t come from the north or south or east or west, their help will come from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.

“Then the LORD will go forth And fight against those nations.”

When all the nations of the world have come to the Middle East for the sole purpose of destroying and removing the Jewish people, God Himself intervenes.

He’s going to come in what we call the Second Coming, and it’s going to be with wrath and destruction.

He’s going to come “as when he fought in the day of battle.” This refers to when the Lord fought for, Israel against the Egyptians, in Exodus 14:25 and afterwards against the Canaanites, when they entered the land of Canaan under Joshua.

 

Here’s how The Lord arrives. Zechariah 14:4,

And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, Which faces Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives shall be split in two, From east to west, Making a very large valley; Half of the mountain shall move toward the north And half of it toward the south. 

In other words, He’s going to return bodily, physically, visibly; just like He left from the Mount of Olives in Acts chapter 1.

He’ll come back in that day to stand on the Mount of Olives again. That’s in Jerusalem today.

Then the Mount of Olives itself will be split in two from east and to west. That’ll form a great river valley that’ll go from the Mediterranean to the Dead Sea and there’ll be a huge valley; as half of the mountain moves toward the north, and half to the south.

These truly are events that are far beyond our human ability to even imagine let alone explain the mechanics of it all.

It’ll be by the power of God. and if we believe in Him there’s no problem in being sure that it’ll all happen as He said.

 

Then you pick it up in verse 8. After this valley is formed, going right through the middle of the Mount of Olives headed out to the Dead Sea, it will create a great river of supernaturally fresh water. It’s going to be so supernaturally fresh that it will clean up the Dead Sea. All right now verse 8.

 

Zechariah 14:8-9

And in that day it shall be—That living waters shall flow from Jerusalem, Half of them toward the eastern sea And half of them toward the western sea; In both summer and winter it shall occur. 

And the LORD shall be King over all the earth. In that day it shall be “The LORD is one,” And His name one. 

 

And in that day it shall be. This is when Christ returns to Jerusalem. living waters shall flow from Jerusalem itself via these supernaturally created valleys.

Half of this supernatural, pure living water will flow from Jerusalem out to the Mediterranean and half to the Dead Sea.

In both summer and winter, it shall occur.

Now, the final result of all this is that the LORD shall be king over all the earth. Not just Israel. Not just Jerusalem.

He’s going to be King of Kings and Lord of Lords over the whole planet. The passage reads, In that day it shall be “The LORD is one,”

So, this is the whole, prophetic picture of the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven.

 

Now let’s jump up to Acts chapter 1 for a moment.

This is where Jesus and the Eleven are now meeting at the end of His time on earth, and He’s ready to ascend back to Glory. Look at verse 6,

Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” 

Now, what Kingdom did they have in their mind?

Solomons Kingdom. That’s when the nation of Israel was at it’s greatest.

Was Israel then ready to have that kind of a kingdom again?

Well, look at Jesus’ answer in Acts 1:7,

And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. 

See, Jesus didn’t say it wasn’t going to happen, He just said it’s not for you to know when. But it will come.

Now, look at verses 9 to 11, and the setting is they’re standing on the Mount of Olives talking about things relating to this coming kingdom,

Now when He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. 

And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, who also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.” 

 

So, this is the apostles watching as Jesus was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.

Now look what the angels told them.

It’s exactly what we’ve just seen in Zechariah.

Why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.”

Jesus will come again in His glorified, resurrected body and His feet will touch down on the Mount of Olives from where He left all those centuries ago.

Until the next episode my friends, where we’ll look at the next important entity in the picture of the Kingdom which is the Body of Christ, The Church, may God open His Word to you and you to His Word.

The Gospel of Matthew

Matthew Defining The Kingdom Part 1

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In the next few episodes, we’re going to take an interlude from the verse by verse study of the Gospel of Matthew to examine in more detail the entity that Matthew is almost exclusively presenting, The Kingdom of Heaven.

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Matthew Defining the Kingdom Part 1 – Transcript

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Dispensational Chart – Press on image to open larger view

As we said in the introduction, before we resume our verse by verse study of the Gospel of Matthew, we’re going to take time out to look at the Kingdom of Heaven. The Kingdom of Heaven and the King are the primary focus of this book.

As we’ve said many times, Matthew is written to the Jewish nation. They are the focus and all the words that Jesus spoke; He preached to and taught the Jew under the Mosaic law. This is mentioned many times throughout the book.

There’re only two exceptions. One is in Matthew 8 verse 5 to 13 where Jesus heals the servant of the Roman centurion and Matthew 15 verses 21 to 28 where He heals the Canaanite woman who displayed great faith.

Other than those exceptions it was all to Jews and was primarily about this coming Kingdom.

This in no way means that this book, along the majority of the books of the Bible that were written to the Jewish nation, are not for us, the Church today. They absolutely are for us, they’re just not to us.

 

As we look deeper into this mysterious Kingdom that was continually presented by Jesus and was spoken about time and again by the Old Testament prophets, we’re going to look nowhere but God’s Word. This means we’ll be jumping around the whole bible.

Now, I’ve found that if I listen to someone like a teacher or commentator speaking the Word of God it has an impact. However, when I follow those spoken words in the bible itself or on one of my bible apps, the impact seems even greater somehow.

Because of this and because we’re going to be using a lot of scripture, I’ve made a series of videos to match the commentary so that the words themselves can be seen. The videos are available underneath the list of audio episodes as each one is completed and also as separate articles in the Articles section of the Why God website.

 

Now, I don’t know about you but personally I’ve never encountered and in depth teaching on the Kingdom in all my many years as a Christian.

Of course, I’d heard of it but there was always a mystery surrounding it and it always seemed to me to be sort of mixed in with the Body of Christ somehow, a sort of spiritual Kingdom. And that’s exactly what the Jehovah’s Witnesses say about it, that it’s a quote, “spiritual kingdom”.

I really don’t know why there’s not much discussion on it because the whole bible focuses on it.

God has been setting up a physical and visible Kingdom on this earth ever since the fall of man transferred his God given dominion over that creation, that we see in Genesis 1:26 – 28, to Satan who was from then until today the prince or the god of this world as we see in John 12:31, John 14:30, 2 Corinthians 4:4 and in many other places.

All the way through the Old Testament, and especially in the writings of the Prophets, this Kingdom, this thousand-year reign of Christ on the earth, which will then go on into eternity, is set before us.

Now this may be a surprise but there’s more Scripture on this subject than on any other subject in the Bible.

 

Everything’s moving to the day when Christ will return, not just to end everything but to establish this earthly kingdom, with flesh and blood people, with animals, children, and homes. And beauty far beyond our current ability to describe.

It’s a truly wonderful, uplifting, and joyous study.

 

The Kingdom!

Through the Bible we have a number of phrases relating to the Kingdom.

We have the Kingdom, The Kingdom of God, The Kingdom of Christ, The Kingdom of His dear Son, and the Kingdom of heaven, and in the old testament there’s more including the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of my father.

The phrase, The Kingdom of Heaven, is only found in the Gospel of Matthew and it occurs here 32 times. The word Kingdom by itself occurs 50 times and Kingdom of God 3 times in Matthew.

Then, we also have the Body of Christ, the Church.

Are they all the same thing?

Many theologians and Bible scholars think they are, and it’s put a confusing veil over these phrases and all that’s succeeded in doing is to make what’s very simple complicated.

So, if these terms don’t all refer to the same thing what do they mean?

My friends, a correct interpretation of these terms, is vital to understanding this Gospel of Matthew and also the whole Bible.

 

Now, here’s where we need to be clear!

The Kingdom of God, The Kingdom of Heaven, and the Body of Christ, are not all the same thing.

If we don’t see that a lot of confusion will surround our quest to understand the Bible.

We’ll see all this from scripture as we go on, but The Kingdom of God is the overall, overriding area of God’s Sovereignty and influence.

It includes everything in heaven. It includes the angelic hosts. It includes the believers from day one to the end of time. It includes everything relating to the Word of God.

When we talk about spiritual things, we’re talking about things that have to do with the Kingdom of God.

The Kingdom of Heaven, simply stated, is the reign of the heavens over the earth.

This is that earthly Kingdom over which Christ will rule and reign over in the future from David’s throne in Jerusalem.

Christ does not reign over the earth today as I’m sure you’re all aware. All things are upheld by Him or else the universe would simply collapse but He’s not ruling over the physical earth.

The Kingdom of Heaven is in the Kingdom of God, but it’s not the entire Kingdom of God.

 

The Church, The Body of Christ, is not the Kingdom of God. Nor is it the Kingdom of Heaven. The Body of Christ is the called out believers who have believed the Gospel of Salvation and trust in the completed work of Jesus Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection.

It includes you and I as believers today.

 

It’s just like Brisbane is a permanent part Queensland and Queensland is a part Australia, but Brisbane is not Queensland and Queensland is not Australia.

Same with the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven, and the Body of Christ.

The Body of Christ, The Church, is in the Kingdom of God but it’s not the kingdom of God, just as the Kingdom of Heaven is not the Kingdom of God but it’s in the Kingdom of God.

We’ll see that more as we go on.

 

A very simple way of looking at it is to draw a large circle and call it the Kingdom of God.

That represents the whole of God’s Sovereignty and influence. It includes everything in heaven. It includes the angelic hosts. It includes the believers from day one to the end of time. It includes everything relating to the Word of God. It includes the Body of Christ. It includes you and I as believers today. As we’ve already said, when we talk about spiritual things, we’re talking about things that have to do with the Kingdom of God.

Now, if we draw another circle inside the main circle of the Kingdom of God, we have the Kingdom of Heaven.

So, this is the reign of the heavens over the earth and it’s inside the all-encompassing Kingdom of God.  This is that earthly Kingdom over which Christ will rule and reign from David’s throne in Jerusalem.

 

So, we then draw another circle inside our main circle representing the Kingdom of God. This one represents the Body of Christ. This is that present day Body of called out of believers. Every true believer becomes a member of the Body of Christ. Now, the Body of Christ is also in that all-encompassing Kingdom of God. If we wanted to get a truer image we could overlap the Kingdom of Heaven circle with the Body of Christ circle because as we’ll see they have a great influence on each other.

 

Now today, our number one priority is not to fill the Kingdom as many churches and their pastors and teachers tell us.

We’re working today to fill the Body of Christ! When the Body of Christ is full, and God knows the exact number, we’re out of here! It’s just that simple! We’re going to be snatched up, raptured to meet the Lord and to forever be with Him!

 

Now some might say why is it that this term the Kingdom of Heaven is only spoken of in Matthew, and we don’t hear the term anywhere else in the bible?

To understand that we need to be aware that each of the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, present the same Lord, Jesus Christ, but each presents Him in a unique way.

 

Matthew presents Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, the long prophesied King, who fulfills all of the Old Testament prophecies and covenants and heralds in the long promised Kingdom of Heaven. Matthew is written for the religious man.

Mark Portrays Jesus as the suffering Son of God, who offers himself as a sacrifice for sins. Mark’s Gospel is brief and blunt and very like the tough, hard Romans who ruled Judea at the time. Mark is written for the strong man.

Luke Presents Jesus as the Savior of all people, who brings salvation to all nations and people groups. Luke is written for the Thinking Man.

John Portrays Jesus as the eternal Son of God, the image of God the Father, who came to bring eternal life to all who believe. John is written for the wretched man who’s aware of His sin nature and is also aware that he can do nothing himself to change it.

Each Gospel has its own unique theme, but they all form one Gospel and they all present the same Jesus.

Again, the Kingdom of Heaven and its reign of the heavens over the earth and the King who rules it is the great theme of this Gospel of Matthew. The One Who’s going to establish that Kingdom on the earth is the Lord Jesus.

The three major discourses, or speeches if you like, in the Gospel of Matthew all concern the Kingdom.

You have the so called sermon on the mount which is the law of the Kingdom of Heaven and it’s probably only a partial list.

Then we have the Mystery Parables in Matthew 13 that concern the Kingdom. The Lord said the Kingdom is like a Sower, and the Kingdom is like a mustard seed and so on.

And then we have the great Olivet discourse which looks forward to the establishment of the Kingdom here on this earth. This is so important for us to see.

 

So, let’s start our scripture journey through these Kingdoms at Matthew chapter 6. The verse we want is verse 33, but let’s go back to verse 28 to get the flavour of what Jesus is saying to His listeners, who are, of course, Jews still under the Old Testament dispensation or age.

Matthew 6:28-33 and it’s, of course, Jesus Himself speaking,

“So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin. 

and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 

Now if God so clothes the grass of the field (the lilies), which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, (or it just disappear) will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 

“Therefore, do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 

For after all these things the Gentiles seek.

For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 

But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. 

Now, the casual reader usually doesn’t recognise this, but see, He’s talking to Jews, and He’s using those outside Gentiles as an example of how they are not to be. So, He says, “Don’t be like those Gentiles. Be different.”

Notice the words “your heavenly Father…”

The Gentiles couldn’t say that. The Gentiles didn’t call God their Father. The only gods they had were the idols and the pagan, mythological gods, and goddesses. They didn’t know the God of the Bible, and this points out that fact.

Then Jesus says, “For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.” 

And here’s what we’re building up to.

Instead of being concerned about earthly, material, and physical things they’re told to, “seek first the kingdom of God”.

Now this doesn’t mean to sit and do nothing but take some sort of spiritual trip. You still have to work and make a living. But it’s about priorities. Jesus says here that the first priority should be to “seek the kingdom of God.”

Again, so we can avoid confusion, we’ll point out that the Kingdom of God is the whole sphere of God’s Sovereignty over which He’s in total control. This includes the heavens, the angelic hosts, all believers from day one until the end of time and anything concerning the Word of God. It’s all concerning the Kingdom of God because it’s under His Sovereign grace and control. Anything under God’s Sovereign control is in the Kingdom of God.

Now to understand the term “Kingdom of Heaven” which as we’ve said is entirely in Matthew, we should understand how this Kingdom of Heaven can sometimes be referred to as the Kingdom of God, because it is; it’s within that circle of God’s influence.

Let’s look at an example. Let’s go to Acts 1:2-3.

This is the Lord Jesus meeting with the Eleven after His resurrection. Judas is no longer with them. He’s committed suicide after betraying Jesus.

This is at the end of the forty days of His being with the Eleven just before He ascends back to His Glory in heaven.

 

Acts 1 verses 2-3,

…until the day in which He was taken up, after He through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom He had chosen, 

to whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. 

But all right, what kingdom were these Eleven interested in? The earthly Kingdom of Heaven that Christ was one day going to set up!

So here the “Kingdom of God” is a reference to the earthly Kingdom of Heaven, even though it’s called the Kingdom of God.

How can we say that?

Let’s go to verse 6 in this same chapter.

Acts 1 verse 6,

“Therefore, when they had come together, (That’s Jesus and the Eleven.) they asked Him, saying, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”

What kingdom are they talking about? The earthly Kingdom! That earthly Kingdom that’s been promised ever since, the call of Abraham. The day that would come when God the Son, the Messiah of Israel, would return to the planet and establish His throne in Jerusalem on Mount Zion, and would rule over an earthly Kingdom.

 

The Church in general seems to be unaware of all this.

But this is the whole Bible has everything moving to the day when Christ will return, not just to end everything but to establish an earthly kingdom, with flesh and blood people, with animals, kids, children, and homes.

It’s going to be like Heaven, because Satan’s bound, so there’s no sin and no death.

It’ll be a glorious earthly Kingdom. That’s the Kingdom of Heaven.

It’s absolutely in the Kingdom of God because it’s in God’s Sovereignty.

Whenever we see the term ‘the Kingdom of God,’ we should look at it in the text in which it’s located.

Is it talking about the earthly Kingdom, or it is talking about that invisible sphere of God’s influence. It’s not that hard to do.

 

Now, let’s go back to the Old Testament and see how this earthly Kingdom unfolds.

There seems to be a great lack of understanding amongst Christians of this earthly Kingdom over which Christ will rule and reign as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

However, the Old Testament is full of it. That’s what Israel was looking for.

We’ll start at Daniel 2:31 and the prophet Daniel’s addressing King Nebuchadnezzar about his dream.

Daniel says to Nebuchadnezzar,

“You, O king, were watching; and behold, a great image (or a likeness)! This great image, whose splendour was excellent (or frightening, or terrifying), stood before you; and its form was awesome (or frightening).

 

Now, you’ve got to use a little imagination. Nebuchadnezzar sees a huge likeness of a man, probably a military type and it was a frightening image even for the great King Nebuchadnezzar.

 

Now to Daniel 2:32-33,

This image’s head was of fine gold, its chest (or his shoulder area) and arms of silver, its belly (or his torso) and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay.

 

Now, do you get the picture?

We’ve included this image in our video presentation of this episode.

So, Nebuchadnezzar sees this massive statue probably in the likeness of a military figure, with a head of gold, a chest of silver, a belly of brass, legs of iron, and feet of iron and clay.

 

Now, we know from the rest of Scripture that it was a prophecy of the Gentile Empires that would be coming down through history starting with Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian Empire in 606 BC. Then came the Medes and the Persians. They were overrun by the Greeks, and the Greeks in turn were defeated by the Romans.

So, here are the four empires of prophecy, and then the feet of iron and clay would be what we’re seeing in Europe today, a Revived Roman Empire.

So, in this amazing prophetic incident we have Gentile history, coming down from 606 BC up to the time of Christ and beyond when the Roman Empire disappeared.

But now, 1900 years later, here it comes back on the scene in the form of the European Union.

Now, let’s go on to Daniels Verse 34 where Daniel tells Nebuchadnezzar that in his dream he saw this huge image, standing there in front of him.

Daniel 2:34

“You watched while a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on its feet of iron and clay and broke them in pieces.”

Now, there’s only one power that could cut out a stone without the use of human hands. God’s power.

Who is the ‘stone’ that all of Scripture talks about?

Jesus Christ. So, you see here we have in prophecy the coming of Jesus Christ, who is going to literally crush every scrap of these Gentile Empires.

Daniel makes a detailed interpretation of what the dream means going right down to verse 45 but we’ve short circuited this for now.

 

Now, why does the stone strike the feet?

Because that’s the empire that’ll be ruling at the Second Coming of the stone, Christ.

So, at the Second Coming of Christ He’ll strike the empire that’s visible and operating at that time, which’ll be the revived Roman Empire coming out of Europe and the Mediterranean area.

That stone in this image is a symbol of Christ, and it is symbolism, but it’s a literal fact that as that stone strikes the feet, the revived Roman Empire, it’s going to crush the iron and the clay that those feet are made of.

Then, in verse 35, the legs and then the brass and then the silver and the gold will collapse together. In other words, that whole consortium of Gentile Empires will collapse.

Daniel 2:34-35 Daniel speaking to Nebuchadnezzar,

You watched while a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on its feet of iron and clay and broke them in pieces. 

Then the iron, the clay, the bronze (That’s all the way up now to the Greek Empire), the silver (the Medo Persian Empire), and the gold (the Ancient Babylonian Empire) were crushed together and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors; the wind carried them away so that no trace of them was found. (What is chaff? It just blows away and disappears.) And the stone that struck the image (Christ at His Second Coming) became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.

So, Christ sets up a kingdom and filled the whole earth.

How do we know the mountain refers to the Kingdom?

Verse 44 tells us,

And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. 

Daniel gives Nebuchadnezzar a detailed interpretation of the image but as we’ve said we’ve summarised it here for the purpose of this study.

 

Now, if we slip over to flip over to Daniel chapter 7, we see Daniel’s own vision of the same dream, but instead of metals, he has carnivorous animals, but the end result is the same.

We’re establishing that there’s an earthly Kingdom coming over which Christ will rule and reign.

 

Daniel 7:13-14 Daniel speaking,

“I was watching in the night visions, And behold, One like the Son of Man (No question that this is none other than Jesus Christ), Coming with the clouds of heaven! He came to the Ancient of Days (He comes before the Father), And they brought Him near before Him. 

Then to Him (the Son) was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, That all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him. (Now, don’t miss the rest of the verse.) His dominion (that’s His rule, His Kingship) is an everlasting dominion, Which shall not pass away, And His kingdom (is going to be) the one Which shall not be destroyed.

Now, the Old Testament doesn’t give us a time frame like the New Testament does, but it is going to be a thousand year reign of Christ.

Until the next episode, part 2 of Defining the Kingdom may God bless and keep you.

The Gospel of Matthew

Matthew 13:1-23

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We’ve now arrived at Matthew chapter 13 which is the chapter containing the so called mystery parables of the Kingdom of Heaven which show the direction of the Kingdom after Israel’s rejection of it until the King returns to establish the Kingdom of Heaven on the earth.

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Matthew 13:1-23 – Transcript

The Gospel of Matthew is a vital key to the Bible because it opens the door of the Old Testament to set the foundation for the New Testament.

Then, in turn, chapter 13 is the key to the Gospel of Matthew. It’s one of those all-important chapters of the bible.

Chapter 13 gives us a better understanding of what the Kingdom of Heaven is than any other place in the Book.

See, these parables relate to the Kingdom of Heaven that is now future after the Nation of Israel rejected the King who would usher in that Kingdom.

This chapter is known as the Mystery Parables Discourse, and it’s one of the three major discourses or communications spoken by the Lord Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew.

 

The first discourse was The Sermon on the Mount which clarifies the Mosaic law to the level that God sees it and they’re the values for the land in the coming kingdom.

 

Next there’s The Mystery Parables Discourse which we’ve arrived at now which reveals the condition of the Kingdom of Heaven in the world during the present age.

Then there’s the Olivet Discourse in Matthew chapters 24 and 25 which looks to the future, to the return of the King and the things beyond this present age that we live in today.

 

We’ve seen that our Lord followed John the Baptist in preaching, “… Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” Matthew 4:17. And we saw Him state the values and law of that Kingdom, in the Sermon on the Mount.

Then He demonstrated that He had the power and the authority to uphold those values because He was the King. You can’t have a kingdom without a king.

After that He sent His disciples out with the message that the King of the long promised, glorious Kingdom of Heaven on earth had finally arrived but, the message was met by rejection. Israel rejected its King.

 

Therefore, our Lord hands down a judgment against the cities where His mighty works had been done and against the religious rulers. When they asked Him for a sign, He said that no sign would be given to them except that of Jonah. Jonah was a resurrection sign, and they were to have that fulfilled in Christ very soon after this.

Finally, He gave that very personal invitation that we saw in Matthew 11:28, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest or literally, “rest you””.

Now there’s a question to be answered. What’ll happen to the Kingdom of Heaven?

It’s apparent that Jesus will now not establish it on the earth at His first coming. So, what’ll happen to the Kingdom of Heaven during the interval between the suffering of Christ and His return in glory?

Well, in the Mystery Parables Discourse that we’ve arrived at here our Lord sets out the Kingdom of Heaven and the conditions on earth during this interval. He does that by, using parables.

They’re called the Mystery Parables because in the Word of God a mystery is something hidden or secret up to a certain time and then revealed.

The church was a mystery then because it wasn’t revealed in the Old Testament. It wasn’t revealed in the New Testament either until after the death and resurrection of Christ and, in fact, there couldn’t possibly be a church until Christ died and rose again.

The church was a mystery to everyone but God. He had it in mind before the foundation of the world, before the beginning of time itself and He loved it even though it wasn’t revealed to man and wasn’t yet a reality in our physical realm. Ephesians 5:25 says that “… Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it.”

It’s critically important for us to see that the Kingdom of Heaven is not the church nor is the church the Kingdom of Heaven.

These Mystery Parables show the Kingdom after it’d been offered to Israel, as was promised for many centuries, and rejected by them.

They reveal what’s going to take place between the time of Christ’s rejection by Israel and the time when He returns to the earth as King which He definitely will. Israel’s rejection doesn’t stop the Lord’s plans.

With these parables our Lord covers the entire period between His rejection by Israel and His return to the earth to establish that Kingdom. This is vital for we, as the church, to understand.

We’ll take a quick preview of the next few verses so as to see this very critical point.

In verse 11 Jesus answered the disciples when they asked Him why He spoke in parables and He said to them,

Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.

In verse 19 Jesus explains what the seed is,

When anyone hears the word of the kingdom.

In verse 24 Jesus introduces the parable of the weeds by saying,

The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field.

Then we have verse 31 where Jesus opens the parable of the mustard seed saying,

The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, 

Then in verse 33 Jesus opens the parable of the leaven and He says,

The kingdom of heaven is like leaven.

Then verse 44 the parable of the hidden treasure opens with this,

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field.

Then verse 45 and the parable of the pearl of great price,

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls. 

Then verse 47 and the parable of the net,

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet that was cast into the sea and gathered some of every kind. 

Finally in verse 51 and 52 Jesus said to them,

“Have you understood all these things?” They said to Him, “Yes, Lord.” 

Then He said to them, “Therefore every scribe instructed concerning the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure things new and old.”

 

How could it be possible to misunderstand the fact that these parables all relate to the coming glorious Kingdom of Heaven which can be a bit foreign to our ears as Gentiles living in today’s world, but was an all-consuming, undisputed fact to the nation of Israel even up until today.

The thing is though they completely missed it when they rejected the King who would rule that Kingdom when He arrived 2000 years ago.

This is the purpose of the Book of Matthew to reveal the mystery of the Kingdom of Heaven.

 

We open this parables section with Matthew 13:1-2

On the same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the sea. 

And great multitudes were gathered together to Him, so that He got into a boat and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore.

 

This carries on directly from the last verse in the last chapter.

Jesus was in the house where the miracles were performed that caused the Pharisees to accuse Him of being in league with Satan and He soundly rebukes those Pharisees.

He goes out of the house to sit by the seaside. Either He’s weary, or He’s going to talk to His mother and brothers. We saw that they’d come on the scene.

He may have gone out to intentionally preach to the multitudes of people that were always present.

This spot was beside the sea of Galilee, sometimes called the sea of Tiberias.

 

Although Jesus gives several parables in this chapter, He only interprets two of them: this one, the parable of the Sower, and the parable of the wheat and tares.

His interpretation is a guide to the interpretation of the other parables.

Jesus backs this up before His explanation of the parable of the Sower in Mark 4 verse 10 and verse 13. In verse 10 He says,

But when He was alone, those around Him with the twelve asked Him about the parable.

Then in verse 13 we hear,

And He said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? 

Now this becomes even more critical when we jump forward a bit to Matthew 13 verse 34 that reads,

All these things Jesus spoke to the multitude in parables; and without a parable He did not speak to them,

Jesus spoke to His followers about the Kingdom of Heaven only in parables. And since most of what Jesus said was either directly about the Kingdom or Kingdom related it was doubly important for his followers to understand these parables by interpreting them correctly.

So, to illustrate, the birds in this parable represent the evil one or the wicked one as some versions translate it. This is Satan and his minions.

So, from now on, when He uses the symbol of birds in other parables, we know that they don’t represent anything good. We need to be consistent and not allow confusion, so we follow our Lord’s interpretation.

So then, the parable of the Sower is the first of the Mystery Parables and the foundation for understanding them all.

 

Here’s the parable of the Sower from verse 3 to verse 8,

Then He spoke many things to them in parables, saying: “Behold, a Sower went out to sow. 

And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them. 

Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. 

But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away. 

And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. 

But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. 

 

Then in verse 9 Jesus finishes the parable by saying,

He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” 

Let’s look at this verse first before we look closer at the parable and then hear Jesus interpret it.

I think most of us realise that Jesus is not just talking here about hearing the sounds of His voice through the ear gate. He’s talking about hearing in a much deeper sense. He’s talking about hearing with understanding. He wants them to hear and understand to the degree that they get the importance of what’s being spoken. He wants them to not just hear but see and understand what’s being spoken.

 

Sowing seed was familiar to everyone in those day’s pretty much everywhere in the world really, but definitely to these people in this area. It was an agricultural society.

Jesus takes what’s very familiar and uses it to paint a word picture to explain something that’s not familiar or that’s not easy to understand. In other words, He’s simplifying the thing He’s talking about to make it easy to understand. That’s exactly what a parable is and as we’ve already said, Jesus only spoke from here on in these parables.

Now Jesus explains the reason why He speaks in parables and even this, as we’ll see, is a fulfilment of prophecy.

 

Now to Matthew 13:10 and we read now,

And the disciples came and said to Him, “Why do You speak to them in parables?” 

The account in the Gospel of Mark tells us that it wasn’t just the twelve who come to him separately, but others who believed in him.

Notice they asked, “why do you speak to them”. Jesus spoke to his closest followers more directly but to the multitudes He only spoke in parables.

Now in verses 11 to 13, Jesus answers the question they put to Him,

He answered and said to them, “Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.

For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. 

Therefore, I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. 

 

Jesus was always ready to give an answer to his disciples, which shows great respect to them.

He explains that parables hide the truth from those who’re either too lazy to think or too blinded by their prejudice to see.

It puts the responsibility directly onto the individual. In other words, the parables reveal truth to the one who desires truth and conceals truth from the who doesn’t want it.

 

Now in verses 14 and 15 Matthew again homes in on the fact that Jesus Himself now says that He’s fulfilling prophecy with the parables.

And we read, realising of course, that we’re carrying on directly from the last verse,

And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says: ‘HEARING YOU WILL HEAR AND SHALL NOT UNDERSTAND, AND SEEING YOU WILL SEE AND NOT PERCEIVE; 

FOR THE HEARTS OF THIS PEOPLE HAVE GROWN DULL. THEIR EARS ARE HARD OF HEARING, AND THEIR EYES THEY HAVE CLOSED, LEST THEY SHOULD SEE WITH THEIR EYES AND HEAR WITH THEIR EARS, LEST THEY SHOULD UNDERSTAND WITH THEIR HEARTS AND TURN, SO THAT I SHOULD HEAL THEM.’ 

 

This prophecy is Isaiah 6:9, which is quite a frightening but accurate picture of the nation Israel at this time. In fact, the picture still hasn’t changed 2000 years down the track. Israel is still in the same state of rejecting the Messiah now even though God hasn’t forgotten them and they’ll still, one day, come into the promised Kingdom.

Sadly, though they’ll sufferer terribly before that happens with the prophet Zechariah foretelling in Zechariah 13:8

And it shall come to pass in all the land,” Says the LORD, “That two-thirds in it shall be cut off and die, But one-third shall be left in it. 

 

Matthew 13:16-17

But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear; for assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it. 

 

Jesus is saying that these people before Him are blessed because they see and hear with more than just their eyes and ears, they see and hear with the heart. We might say they quote, “got it”.

He’s also pointing out that many of the prophets and righteous men of old had no clue about what they were prophesying.

A great example of this is the prophet Daniel.

In Daniel 12:8-9, after He’d written down all that the Lord told him to, he says,

Although I heard, I did not understand. Then I said, “My lord, what shall be the end of these things?” 

And he said, “Go your way, Daniel, for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. 

He pleads with the Lord to be given the meaning of what he’s been writing but The Lord tells him no. In fact, God sealed the whole book relating to this prophecy until the time of the end. The time of the end is the time we’re living in right now.

This is after Daniels just written Daniel 9, 10 and 11, one of the greatest prophesies of all time, the 70 weeks of Daniel.

You see the prophets had no idea of what they were writing about even though they searched diligently to find out.

1 Peter 1:10-12 also tells us how the prophets inquired and searched diligently but the answer was not found by them.

Jesus is highlighting just how blessed these folk were to have this mystery revealed to them and we today are the same because the mystery is revealed to us as well.

 

Now Jesus gives the disciples the explanation of the parable of the Sower.

 

Before we go into Jesus’s explanation we should point out that this parable has been picked up by the Word of Faith movement and the prosperity gospel and used as a major foundation for their teaching.

I don’t want to derail our study of this important parable, but I can speak about this movement since I was caught up in it for years as a young Christian.

I learned a great deal from these preachers and teachers but as the focus of that movement turned more and more into a self-help, “live your best life today”, positive mental attitude type movement I began to question it.

This movement, which is behind the majority of Christian television programs and is marked by mega sized churches with astoundingly wealthy leaders is far from the teaching that I received, and I’ve watch it turn and twist scripture, especially the parable of the Sower, into something it just isn’t.

Nothing marks the word of faith and the prosperity gospel more than the teaching that God’s Word is a seed that relates to anything a person wants and craves for in this world today.

A person’s material, financial and physical desires, no matter how big or outlandish they may be, can be all be a reality by sowing a seed and then “watering” it by faith. And when it doesn’t come of it’s that person’s fault because they didn’t plant a big enough seed and then have enough to make it grow. They will blatantly announce to all who listen to them that the seed is a cheque made out to them and the bigger the cheque, the seed, the bigger your harvest of wealth and riches.

I began to see many desperate people with life threatening illnesses and huge financial problems get worse as they sowed their seed and prayed the prayer of faith.

I saw 2 of my brothers die even though they had the prayer of faith and the seed of the word regarding healing sown. I saw a precious lady with more faith than I’d ever seen suffer and die of cancer waiting for seed relating to healing to grow as she watered it with great faith. I saw Christians friends die and financial situations worsen. And don’t ever try and tell me they lacked faith that they failed because their faith wasn’t strong enough or the seed they planted wasn’t big enough.

I can honestly say I saw hundreds, if not thousands of desperate people fail to get what they so badly wanted. I began to see that in the years I’d been involved I personally did not see in all those hundreds of people a miraculous answer to their problems. I didn’t see one verifiable case where a person had a certified doctor state that they had a life threating illness then certify that after they had attended a healing line or after prayer the illness was completely healed.

I hope everyone who hears this understands that I’m not saying it doesn’t happen and I’m most definitely not saying that the Lord doesn’t heal. I’m saying that of all these people I personally saw, not one could display the level of healing that Jesus performed in these passages we’re studying.

Thousand were healed. In fact, everyone, every person who came to Him was healed. And they weren’t just the odd emotional problem, they were paralysed people who walked, 100% blind people who could see, deaf people could hear and many who suffered the awful disease of leprosy were completely healed with their skin totally cleared up. Add to that those who were raised from the dead.

I don’t mean to rock anybody’s boat, but I personally saw nothing even remotely like this in my years in that movement. You may have seen it but I, personally, have not.

In my own life, I encountered the spectre of cancer. I know that the only reason I stand here today instead of with my mother, my brothers, and all those wonderful friends in heaven is because of God. He guided me twice by His grace where I ended up under the hands of two of the best of the best surgeons and He’s never left me.

 

I came to the point where I had to admit something was wrong with the word of faith/prosperity movement.

The more I thought about it the more it didn’t add up. What about those powerful Christians in the 1st century who were hideously tortured and murdered, especially under emperor Nero. Were none of them faith filled Christians who believed unswervingly in God’s Word or were they just badly taught?

Then there were the hundreds of millions who were tortured, murdered, maimed, disease ridden and who lost their wealth throughout history’s wars. Were there no Bible believing Christians among them?

Then I looked at the person who knew God’s Word better than any person who has ever lived, The Apostle Paul. He had more revelation in his little finger than the modern day word of faith, prosperity gospel preachers.

Here’s just a snippet from his life from 2 Corinthians 11:23-28 from the New Living Translation, :

Are they servants of Christ? I know I sound like a madman, but I have served him far more! I have worked harder, been put in prison more often, been whipped times without number, and faced death again and again. 

Five different times the Jewish leaders gave me thirty-nine lashes. 

Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. Once I spent a whole night and a day adrift at sea. 

I have travelled on many long journeys. I have faced danger from rivers and from robbers. I have faced danger from my own people, the Jews, as well as from the Gentiles. I have faced danger in the cities, in the deserts, and on the seas. And I have faced danger from men who claim to be believers but are not. 

I have worked hard and long, enduring many sleepless nights. I have been hungry and thirsty and have often gone without food. I have shivered in the cold, without enough clothing to keep me warm. 

Then, besides all this, I have the daily burden of my concern for all the churches. 

 

Did the incredible man lack faith? Didn’t he sow enough?

I couldn’t ever bring myself to believe that it was God or His Word that was wrong, so it had to be the messengers who’d got the message wrong.

After a period of distancing myself from the whole church movement, and from the Word, I entered into a very dry and barren place where the things of God were concerned. However, I began to crave for God and His Word, and I knew full well that He’d never left me or forsaken me.

I began to study the entire Word and go back to the absolute foundation if you like and chuck out all my preconceptions not just about healing and prosperity but everything. I wanted God’s Word and nothing else. I become concerned only with what He said, and I found that when I took the whole counsel of God, the whole book, it was a whole lot different than what I’d thought and believed.

I hope you guys will forgive this sidebar.

 

Matthew 13:18-19

Therefore, hear the parable of the Sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside. 

 

What is it that’s being sown here in the heart? It’s the Word of the Kingdom. We always remember that it’s Jews who’re being spoken to and the whole scene is still centred around the Kingdom of Heaven.

So, we clearly see here the seed that was sown was the Word of the Kingdom and it was sown in the heart of the ones who heard it.

Now, I’m convinced that today, when we hear the Word relating to the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus to the forgiveness of sin, in other words the Gospel of Grace, that the exact same process takes place as Jesus is showing here with the Word of the Kingdom.

Jesus says here that when a person doesn’t understand that Word, Satan, the wicked one comes and snatches it away from the heart. Satan obviously has this ability.

 

 

Mattew 13:20-21

But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles.

 

Notice that the persecution here arises quote, “for the Word’s sake”.

These rocky–ground folk are the opposite of the first group.

It was the Devil who took the Word away from them, but the flesh is the culprit with this group.

This person’s not an accidental hearer of the Word, like the last one. He’s heard it, receives it and understands, to a degree, what he hears. He’s often the one that gets all the historical facts right and will even talk about His belief in the Word.

The trouble here is that there’s no real softness of heart where the Word can take root. Instead, there’s a hardness of heart, a pride, which is never broken by the word.

Just like the ones who Jesus is referring to here who received the Word of the Kingdom, the picture also fits the stony ground Christian today.

They go along to church warm and fuzzy, and emotional. They often shed tears and they’re outwardly very moved by the message or the music. There’s a lot of outward froth and bubble but they never let the Word take root in them. They like church and the social aspect but don’t fully accept the Word of God. This is also true of serial churchgoers who religiously attend church out of a sense of duty or tradition habit. These ones sit in the pew year after year but never get the real reason church even exists, much less become firmly grounded in the Word.

Then when the circumstances of life bring tribulation or persecution their way these people buckle and turn from the Word.

 

Now to Matthew 13:22

Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful.

With these folk the world crowds out the Word of God like weeds in a flower bed.

The Devil got the wayside folk, and the flesh took care of the rocky–ground folk, but the world chokes out the Word for this class of hearers. The cares of the world move in. Sometimes it’s poverty, and other times it’s the deceitfulness of riches.

What’s going on in the world about them grasps these ones by the throat and they become obsessed with those things.

Many people in the day when Jesus gave this parable let the cares of the world crowd out the Word of God and it’s just as true today.

Here’s what the apostle Paul says about these people Israel and it directly relates to this parable.

Romans 10:17-21,

So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. 

But I say, have they not heard? Yes indeed: “THEIR SOUND HAS GONE OUT TO ALL THE EARTH, AND THEIR WORDS TO THE ENDS OF THE WORLD.” (Paul’s quoting from Psalm 19:4 here).

But I say, did Israel not know? First Moses says: “I WILL PROVOKE YOU TO JEALOUSY BY THOSE WHO ARE NOT A NATION, I WILL MOVE YOU TO ANGER BY A FOOLISH NATION.” This is from Deuteronomy 32:22. 

But Isaiah is very bold and says: “I WAS FOUND BY THOSE WHO DID NOT SEEK ME; I WAS MADE MANIFEST TO THOSE WHO DID NOT ASK FOR ME.” (Here Paul quotes Isaiah 65:1), 

But to Israel he says: “ALL DAY LONG I HAVE STRETCHED OUT MY HANDS TO A DISOBEDIENT AND CONTRARY PEOPLE.” (Pauls quoting Isaiah again, this time 65:2).

Pauls saying here that prophecy is being fulfilled by Israel hearing the Word and rejecting it.

We should note here that these three types of soil don’t represent three types of believers. They’re not believers at all! They’ve heard the Word and have received it, but they don’t believe it.

 

Some seed fell on good ground, and The Lord interprets this for us.

Verse 23,

But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.” 

 

These are the hearers who receive the Word and understand it. Some of them don’t bring forth much fruit—only thirtyfold, but some bring forth a hundredfold!

There must be an understanding of the Word.

In Acts 8:26-0, we hear of the Ethiopian eunuch, who was reading the Word from Isaiah 53:7-8, which describes a suffering servant who is led like a lamb to the slaughter and bears the sins of many. He didn’t understand but he wanted to understand it and that was the key.

So, the Spirit of God put Philip there to ride along with the Ethiopian and explain the Word to him, that in this prophecy written 700 years before Christ came to earth, the One who was led as a sheep to the slaughter was the Lord Jesus Christ, that He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities. The Ethiopian believed and received Him.

Philip was sowing the seed of the Word of God. This is a Kingdom–of–Heaven situation as it reveals that the Sower, the Lord Jesus Christ, is sowing the seed of the Word of God in the world and that the Holy Spirit applies it to the hearts of those who want to believe.

Until next time my friend may God give each of us a clear understanding of His Word.

The Gospel of Matthew

Matthew 12:22-50

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In today’s episode the great gulf between Jesus and the religious elite continues to widen and hatred and murder continues to grow and consume these self-righteous leaders.

“Speed Slider”

Matthew 12:22-50 – Transcript

We have in our hands a Jewish book. Five sixths of it are written to the Jews.

Despite that, every line, every word is relevant to us today. It’s God’s Word and all of it is for our learning.

Even in the Jewish nation’s roller coaster ride of rejection and unbelief, then repenting and turning back to God we, the gentile nations, learn of God’s ultimate plan.

If the book was only speaking to Israel, and not to us through the examples of the Jews, how would we know anything about salvation, eternal life and how we as Gentiles become partakers of it?

In spite of Israel’s persistent disobedience, God’s faithfulness, and His absolute inability to break His covenant promises is clearly displayed for us through every verse of the Bible.

Through the long experiences with Israel, we see it revealed to us that it was always God’s plan to include all nations, Gentile, and Jew, in His plan.

His plan was that through His chosen people, Israel, there would be the revelation, the knowledge of God. They would be a testimony a light to the nations.

In Isaiah 42:6 God says,

“I am the Lord; I have called you (who? The nation Israel) in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations”.

 

Another reference to Israel being a light to the Gentiles is found in Luke 2:32, where Simeon, a devout Jew, blesses the infant Jesus and says,

“My eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all nations: a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel”.

Through this nation Jesus, the Christ, The Messiah, would come and bring salvation not only to the Jews but also to the Gentiles.

 

The prophet Malachi declares that God’s patience is coming to an end with Israel because these people who were supposed to make the One true God known and shown to the nations of the world have failed to do so.

Instead, they’ve disrespected His name. They’re not reflecting God to the nations. But God makes all things work for good and what’s impossible to man is possible with God.

God’s purpose won’t be defeated, and so now, all over the world, His name is to be known and honoured among the nations and in every place, prayers and worship are to be offered to Him as Malachi 1:11 says.. And we read,

For from the rising of the sun, even to its going down, My name shall be great among the Gentiles; In every place incense shall be offered to My name (that’s prayer), And a pure offering (that’s Christ); For My name shall be great among the nations,” Says the LORD of hosts.

 

So, in this Jewish book, the bible, we have revealed to us everything to do with life, natural and eternal. It’s all for us and our learning, every word of it. However, it’s not all TO us. The modern day church has somehow got the idea that the Old Testament is the law and is related to Israel, but the New Testament is for the church. Every verse in the New Testament is Jesus speaking to us, the church, today.

This simply is not true and the only way we can know this is by

Seeing, not just reading, but seeing the whole counsel of God. We must see the whole perspective if we’re to ever know God’s will that’s revealed in His Word.

Selected bits and pieces of scripture here and there, where the whole context is never seen, only brings more questions than answers and leads to confusion and we know from 1 Corinthians 14:33,

For God is not the author of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints.

 

All we really need to do as we delve into God’s Word is THINK.

We can’t just skim over a few verses adopt our own idea of what those verses mean and think we’re studying the Word.

We need to get back the art that’s fast disappearing today, the art of thinking. Critical thinking.

The quick sound bite, the 5 second meme, the one or two sentence comment on social media are all signs of an epidemic today that’s far more dangerous than any pandemic in the world, the epidemic of not thinking for ourselves.

So, lets walk into that peace that Paul talks about and turn from the confusion that doesn’t come from God.

 

Again, today we’ve run smack bang into another passage that’s caused confusion and error in the Christian church through misunderstanding, The Unpardonable Sin.

 

We cast off today in Matthew 12:22-23,

Then one was brought to Him who was demon-possessed, blind and mute; and He healed him, so that the blind and mute man both spoke and saw. 

And all the multitudes were amazed and said, “Could this be the Son of David?” 

 

Could this really be Him, The prophesied Son of David they ask themselves?

See, all these Jews knew about Him from scripture. They all knew that He was destined to come. There was no dispute amongst them about whether or not the prophecies were true. They knew!

With what Jesus had already done up to this point and then what the people now saw, How could they use the phrase “Could this be”? In other words, the cry should have been, “This is our Messiah, The promised One, The Son of David. He has the credentials.”

 

This was a tremendous miracle, just as great as the raising of the dead if not greater. Jesus’s continued miracles of healing and casting out demons convinced the people that He was the Son of David, the Messiah. But what did those old religious elite, the Pharisees say?

 

Verse 24,

Now when the Pharisees heard it they said, “This fellow does not cast out demons except by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons.”

 

This is leading to the unpardonable sin, and we need to carefully follow Jesus’s words.

 

Verses 25 to 27,

But Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them: “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand. 

If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? 

And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub (Satan), by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore, they shall be your judges. 

 

He says every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation.

We all know this.

Whether it’s a government, a company, a household, or a community, wherever the heads of those organisations are divided against the goal, the vision, they’ll eventually fall. We’ve seen it time and again throughout history and across homes and communities everywhere today.

Then Jesus says to this lot, If Satan cast out Satan,…. That is, if Satan, (Beelzebub), casts out himself, or in other words the very forces that he commands to be there in the first place, he’s divided against himself. He’s destroying the very thing he’s building so how is it possible for him to stand. It’s an absolutely absurd concept.

 

By whom do your sons, or children, cast them out? This is actually a masterstroke in the way Jesus handles the pompous accusations of these Pharisees.

Children, or sons of the prophets, means the disciples of the prophets. It includes most importantly the children or sons of these Pharisees, the disciples of the Pharisees.

Now, from Acts 19 verses 13 and 14, we learn that there were exorcists among the Jews, and, from our Lord’s saying here, it’s also evident that the disciples of the Pharisees did cast out demons, or, at least, those who instructed them wanted everyone to believe they had that power.

Jesus points the finger right back at the Pharisees saying, If the man who casts out demons is in partnership with Satan, then your own disciples, and you yourselves who taught them, are all of you in partnership with the devil which would mean you’re all children of the devil and partnered with him against God.

See the very acts that they were doing were judging them.

Boy, how this must have confused and befuddled this lot. We can see their self-importance and their arrogance as they stand there with their accusing, judgmental looks making this accusation as if they’re the only authority in the universe.

Then what a change there would’ve been as their faces and their whole demeanour changed to a pathetic confusion as Jesus words sunk in and the ramifications of what He said hit them.

 

Now to verse 28,

But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you. 

 

The kingdom of God is come upon you in the presence of the Messiah. Christ is saying, “l am here! I’m the One. My works are proof that I Am He that the entire scripture is about. My power to cast out demons is proof of that and it’s plain for you to see.

 

Now verses 29 to 32,

Or how can one enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house. 

He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad. 

“Therefore, I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. 

Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come. 

 

Let’s break this passage down so we can see exactly what Jesus is saying here.

Or how can one enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man,…. This is another example Jesus put to them to prove that his casting out of demons could not be by Satan, but by the Spirit of God.

It shows that unless His power was superior to Satan’s power He could never have been the master over him. He could never have commanded him, overcome him, and bound him.

Neither could Jesus have plundered Satan’s house as he did when he cast Satan’s minions out of the bodies or souls of men. He’s using a natural example to paint a picture of a supernatural act and He’s displaying the stupidity of the Pharisee’s argument.

He’s saying that if a man should enter into another, much stronger, man’s house with the purpose of plundering and stealing his goods, it would be stupidity to try and get that stronger man to help him. It couldn’t happen unless he first binds the strong man, rendering his greater strength useless.

The strong man is Satan and Christ is stronger than he is and the mere suggestion that Christ casts out demons by Satan’s assistance is completely absurd as Jesus is showing these religious rulers.

 

He that is not with me, is against me. These words again mainly refer to Satan, and are a further proof, that Christ did not cast out devils by him; since they two are as much opposites, as they can possibly be.

Satan is not on the side of Christ, but an enemy to him and that goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden.

 

And he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad.

Christ is the good shepherd, that gathers his sheep to himself. The sheep here are the lost sheep of Israel.

Satan is the wolf, that catches and scatters the sheep, and seeks to kill and destroy them.

These educated Jews knew very well of the enmity between Satan and God and therefor there’s no neutral middle ground. It’s either for Him or against him.

Therefore I say to you.

This shows that what follows is still referring to the Pharisees accusations that the miracles were performed under the influence and with the assistance Satan when they were clearly done by the Spirit of God.

“Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men.

 

For you and me as Christians today, that’s the person who’s believed and put his trust in Jesus Christ, that particular sin of blasphemy against the Spirit could not be committed.

It could only be committed when Jesus was here on the earth as He is in this passage. Again, Jesus is speaking to Jews still under the law. The Holy Spirit did not indwell the hearts of men at this time as He will after the day of Pentecost a little way down the track after Christ has been crucified, buried, raised from the dead, and ascended into heaven.

Before that the Holy Spirit came upon man but did not indwell them. He, The Holy Spirit could also leave man as we see in David’s plea to God in Psalm 51:11,

Do not cast me away from Your presence, And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. 

In our day, once we are baptised with the Holy Spirit the very moment we believe we are permanently and eternally and unconditionally sealed.

Ephesians 1:13-14 is absolutely crystal clear on this. The passage reads,

In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

Other verse tell us this as well such as 2 Corinthians 1:22, Revelation 7:3-4, and Ephesians 4:30.

So, to repeat, for the believer today that particular sin cannot be committed because it could only be committed. There is no act of sin that you could commit for which there’s no forgiveness.

Of course, if you resist the efforts of the Holy Spirit to draw you to believing, there’s no forgiveness because He’s the One bringing forgiveness.

It’s like a person with a disease that’s going to kill him, but the doctor tells him there’s a remedy for it. However, the person refuses to take the remedy. He doesn’t even believe the doctor that the remedy exists, so he dies. He doesn’t die from the disease, you see, but from refusing to take the remedy.

There is a remedy for the disease of sin, and the Holy Spirit applies it; but if you resist it, there’s no remedy. That’s the only way sin can be unpardonable today. The unforgivable sin is nothing beyond denying Jesus and can only be committed by those who have chosen to reject Jesus and His salvation. For that person their rejection is a rejection of the only means of forgiveness of sin and eternal life. In a nutshell the unpardonable sin today, in the present dispensation of Grace, is simply Unbelief.

John 3:18 says it all,

He who believes in Him (that’s Jesus) is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

 

And Romans 8:1, which is part of a larger passage where Paul talks about the role of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers further confirms it,

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

 

Now we’re at verses 33 to 37 and Jesus is still speaking to these Pharisees and He’s continuing on the subject of them saying He casts out demons by the power of Satan.

Verse 33,

Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for a tree is known by its fruit. 

 

Jesus is telling them by using an illustration of a tree. He’s saying if a tree is good then admit that the fruit it produces is good or if the tree’s bad call it’s fruit bad but don’t ever try and say that a bad tree bears good fruit or a good tree bears bad fruit.

This, of course, is exactly what these people were doing in the case of the Lord’s miracles.

Verse 34,

Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. 

You may remember that John the Baptist had called these people the same thing.

These leaders of the Jews boasted of being the seed of Abraham and although they made a show of outwardly appearing righteous, inwardly they were full of poison and evil which showed up here in their envy and bitterness.

We’ll see Jesus put it another in Matthew 23 verse 27,

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.

 

Matthew 12:35

A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. 

There’s an old saying that goes, “What’s in the well of the heart will come out through the bucket of the mouth.” This scathing attack on these religious rulers by Jesus reveals that He’s rejected them. Had they committed the unpardonable sin? At least the break with these enemies is final and it won’t be healed.

Verses 36 and 37,

But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. 

For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” 

 

By an “idle word” is meant, what the Jews call “light conversation” or “vain discourse”. It’s like frothy language and useless conversation, but these pharisees have taken that to the next level with their blasphemies against Christ, and the Spirit of Christ.

Under the law, that remember all these people are still under, this’ll bring judgment should these people fail to repent of their words and ask forgiveness.

This does not apply to the believer in the body of Christ today. Remember the audience are Jews still under the law. Our useless and prideful words are forgiven by the shed blood of Christ just like every other sin we have and will ever commit.

Now we’ve arrived at Matthew 12 verse 38 where the scribes and Pharisees demand a sign. Let’s read,

Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered, saying, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.” 

 

The scribes and Pharisees are now using another subtle approach to Jesus.

See how obsessed they are by Him? They appear to go along with Him by asking for a sign, but they’ve got no intention of believing because of a sign.

They’re trying to trap Him. Note how the Lord answers them in verse 39,

But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 

 

What was the sign of Jonah? Well, listen to Jesus in verse 40,

For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 

By the way, what could top the signs that they’d already seen in the miracles that were walking about in their thousands?

The Lord absolutely refused to grant them a sign but directed them back to two incidents in the Old Testament.

The first incident is the account of the prophet Jonah. Jonah was apparently raised from the dead when he was in the fish. God brought him out of darkness and death into light and life.

Jonah’s experience was typical of the soon coming burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ which would be the ultimate sign.

 

Verse 41,

The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here. 

 

The Ninevites received Jonah and his preaching after his miraculous deliverance from the big fish, and they repented. The acts of Israel, as a nation, place her in a much worse position because she did not receive her Messiah and did not repent.

The second incident that Jesus referred them to in verse 42 concerns King Solomon,

The queen of the South will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and indeed a greater than Solomon is here. 

 

Jesus was greater than Jonah and greater than Solomon. The queen of Sheba heard of Solomon and travelled from the ends of the earth to hear his wisdom. And the Lord Jesus Christ had come from heaven, but they would not turn to Him.

These scribes and Pharisees were educated enough in scripture to know exactly what Jesus was saying but did that make them see the futility of their desire to destroy the Messiah? NO!

He was revealed plainer for them to see than the noses on their faces but they tried every possible way to discredit Him to justify their rejection of Him.

Now in verse 43, and we’re of course in Matthew 12, Jesus gives one of the most weighty and startling parables,

“When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he (that’s the unclean spirit) goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. 

 

A man has an unclean spirit, and the unclean spirit leaves him. The man thinks he’s all cleaned up. Then what happens? Verse 44,

Then he (the unclean spirit) says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. 

 

In other words, to be reformed is no good.

My friend, we can try hard to stop doing the things we know are wrong, but that won’t make us a Christian and it won’t save us.

Trying to reform our ways without the indwelling Holy Spirit is a useless exercise and it’s not what we need. Jesus is saying here that that same old habit, that same old sin that you tried so hard to rid yourself of will come back one day with a vengeance and will start all over again.

 

Verse 45,

Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. So shall it also be with this wicked generation.” 

Not only will that sin, that habit that addiction return it will return with a vengeance, many times worse than before we tried to clean ourselves up.

Just like the Pharisees and the scribes, who Jesus is speaking to, the hardest people in the world are unsaved church members because they think they’re all right.

They believe that going off to church every Sunday and helping out with church activities cements their salvation and they have eternal life. Their cry is, “How could God reject us because look how good we are.”

They’ve undergone a self-reforming where they’ve tried to be quote, “good”. But, in reality they’re like a vacant house, and all the evil spirits have to do is move in again. The cleaned up house is just inviting the same actions, addictions, and habits to come right back in but many times worse.

These are Satan’s prized people, but they don’t recognise it. Self-Reforming means death and destruction. Regeneration means life and liberty.

The final section of this chapter is even more startling, and it’s a continuation of the same thought that we’ve just read.

There’s a relationship that’s greater than the mother and son relationship and the relationship between blood brothers!

This is a relationship which is established with God through Jesus Christ by faith in Him.

Verse 46 to 49,

While He was still talking to the multitudes, behold, His mother and brothers stood outside, seeking to speak with Him. 

Then one said to Him, “Look, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside, seeking to speak with You.” 

But He answered and said to the one who told Him, “Who is My mother and who are My brothers?” 

And He stretched out His hand toward His disciples and said, “Here are My mother and My brothers! 

 

The Lord is saying that the strongest relationship today is the relationship between Christ and a believer.

Friends, it’s a hard saying but if we’re a child of God and we have unsaved family members, we’re closer to Jesus Christ than we are to your own relations, including the mother that bore us.

We’re also more closely related to other believers than to the unsaved members of our family. This is a completely new kind of relationship.

 

Finally, Matthew 12:50

For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother.” 

And what is the will of the Father? That you hear the Lord Jesus Christ, that you accept Him and trust Him.

 

Before closing let’s look quickly at a few vital rules that we must keep in mind when studying the Word of God.

These aren’t complicated, scholarly rules. They’re simple, commonsense rules that we already know and use unconsciously every day to evaluate what others say or what we read.

 

Firstly, we have context.

Everyone knows about context. When we get a long email from a friend, we don’t do what most people do when they open the bible at say the letter to the Galatians. That is, they skip the first five chapters of the letter and read only a verse (or two). If we did that to our friend’s email, we just wouldn’t know what they were talking about. We would start at the beginning of the email and read all the way through.

For some reason, though, most of us don’t do this with the Word of God and we completely miss the context.

 

Then we have history.

Everyone knows about history.

If we’re ignorant of the history surrounding a news report or a social media post we’ll basically put our own historical meaning to it. The problem with that is that we’re almost always wrong if we just assume the history.

If we’re studying a portion of scripture that’s telling us about King David for example we should know the history that relates to the passage we’re reading otherwise we’ll get awfully confused.

 

Then there’s the audience.

We also know instinctively about an audience or who’s being spoken to when we hear or read of someone talking to someone else. However, we often disregard this very basic rule where bible study is concerned. Unless we’re aware of the who’s being spoken to it’s very easy to just assume that the verse is speaking to us today when it may well be speaking to a group or an individual hundred, even thousands of years ago and that audience may be under a completely different set of rules and living in a completely different culture to us today. What dispensation are they under? The dispensation of the Law, the dispensation of grace as you and I are under today, or the dispensation of the millennial Kingdom, the dispensation yet to come.

 

Then there’s genre or the type or style or the way we describe things. Figures of speech are included here.

Everyone knows about genre.

Let’s say there are two Aussie football teams playing, say the North Queensland Cowboys and the Sydney Roosters. The Cowboys win convincingly and the next morning the sports headlines reads, “Cowboys Smash Roosters”.

Everyone knows that a bunch of cowboys didn’t go out with baseball bats and smash a brood of roosters.

We all recognize that sports news is written in a particular style. No one is confused. For some reason, however, the same people who understand that news headlines are written in different literary styles, ignore the different literary styles of Scripture.

They mistakenly read proverbs and interpret them as promises, for example. The Bible, however, is written in at least eight different literary styles, each of which has its own principles, and we need to apply our understanding of those styles to the different literary styles (or genres) of the Bible.

 

Then we need to use Scripture to Interpret Scripture.

We also know about this. If we see an article somewhere referring to an event we’ve already learned about somewhere else and we feel it’s not quite right, we’ll go back to that original source to confirm it.

Same with scripture. God reinforces and confirms scripture, often in a number of other places.

Then there’s commentary.

And again, we all know about commentary. Commentary is incredibly important, but it often comes with the commentators’ biases. For example, we know when we listen to a commentary by a politician that he’s biased toward his own party, and we need to see through that get the value of what’s being said.

Even the most godly and intelligent commentator or preacher can be mistaken.

In Acts 17:11 we learn of the believers in Berea who were credited with being more noble because they examined the Scriptures daily to see if the things being taught by Paul were correct.

We have only one final authority for all truth, the Bible.

Next time we’ll be shoving off in chapter 13 of Matthew where we’ll see the parables of the Kingdom of Heaven which show the direction of the Kingdom after Israel’s rejection of it until the King returns to establish that Kingdom of Heaven on the earth.

Until then my friend may God reveal Himself to you in these troubled times.

The Gospel of Matthew

Matthew 11:20-12:21

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We’ve now come to a change in The Lord’s earthly ministry. Matthew reveals Jesus is the promised and prophesied King. He has given the values of His coming Kingdom, presented His credentials by performing miracles, preached the gospel that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, He has presented Himself, but His people have rejected Him and now, He rejects them.

“Speed Slider”

Matthew 11:20-12:21 – Transcript

Last episode we saw the 12 disciples sent out by Jesus into the nation of Israel, to the quote, “lost sheep of Israel”. We saw that they were to preach that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand. What was the Kingdom of Heaven and why was it now at hand?

The Kingdom was prophesied to Israel for centuries and the One who would rule over it was The King. That King was also the Messiah.

We noticed that everything about this command to the 12 was Jewish. There’s no mention of the Church. There’s no mention of this King, who’d now come, dying on the cross. No mention of His resurrection, his ascension or the coming of the Holy spirit.

These are all very familiar to the Church today but no mention of them is made in this commissioning of the apostles to go out and preach to Israel.

The apostles are given the power to heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, and cast out demons, which is a direct extension of what Jesus Himself had been doing.

These are the signs and wonders by which Israel was supposed to recognise as being only possible by the King and Messiah and His appointed.

Most of us have been bought up through Church just assuming that Matthew’s gospel, and the other 3 as well, are for the Church, and they certainly are but not in the way we generally think. Without them we’d not know about the flow of the Word that enlightens us to God’s dealings with the Jewish nation, which will ultimately lead to us Gentiles being partakers of eternal life. However, as we’ve pointed out many times, Matthew, and the other gospels with a few exceptions, are written to Israel.

 

The 12 are told to make no attempt to provide for themselves. They’re not to take money or even a change of clothes. They were to rely solely on God’s provision.

We should always keep in mind that this commission is a completely different commission than the one given to these apostles after Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection.

Here they’re specifically told NOT to go the Gentiles or the Samaritans, but there, in Acts 1:8 they’re specifically told to GO to the Samaritans and the Gentiles as well as the Jewish nation, but the message is a different one.

This commission given to the apostles carried the warning of what they were to expect and it’s a harsh message. Jesus warns the apostles that the job’s going to be far from easy and that they’d encounter many personal challenges and persecutions.

The people would even accuse them of being servants of Beelzebub, Satan, but they’re told not to fear because God will not only provide there every need, but He’d also give them the words to speak, no matter who their audience was.

They’re also told that the message they were to preach would not bring peace but would divide households even to the point where a person’ enemies would be those of his own household.

Some would receive the message they bought. Most would not.

 

Now, as we come to Matthew 11:20, we’ve come to a big change.

Remember that Jesus is the King. He’s stated the moral principle, the values of the coming Kingdom. He’s presented His credentials as the promised Messiah and King of the Jews by performing miracles, He’s preached the gospel that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.

He’s presented Himself, but His people have rejected Him.

That rejection has caused Him to make a decision, and He rejects them.

He’s the King, and the King always has the last word.

 

It’s interesting to try and figure out why these very people who the Lord came to rejected Him.

We know that some individuals did receive His message and believed Him, but the nation as a whole did not.

We’re always aware that the Word of God sometimes talks about individuals but many other times it refers to nations.

The Nation of Israel had received a great many prophecies for centuries regarding the coming of the King to rule over a glorious earthly Kingdom. Unlike us today as Gentiles, these people grew up in scripture. It wasn’t alien to their ears as it is to many of us today. Scripture was as much a part of the everyday life of a Jew as Waltzing Matilda and Vegemite is to an Australian.

 

To get an explanation of why Jesus and His message, His Gospel of the Kingdom, was rejected we should jump forward a few chapters to Matthew 16. Here the Pharisees and Sadducees, the religious elite, asked Jesus to show them a sign from heaven.

What did they want more signs from heaven for? What could be a greater sign than the blind made to see, the paralysed made to walk, lepers cleansed, and demons cast out. What sign would’ve topped that.

I don’t know about you but to me that displays a blindness by these people that could not be healed.

Here’s the exchange between these religious elite and The Lord Jesus. Matthew 16:1-4,

Then the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and testing Him asked that He would show them a sign from heaven. 

He answered and said to them, “When it is evening you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red’; and in the morning, ‘It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ So, this is the same thing we say today, “red sky at night sailor’s delight, red sky in the morning, sailors warning.” Jesus continues.

Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times. 

A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.” And He left them and departed. 

So clearly Jesus gets right in their faces here and pulls no punches.

They were supposed to know the signs of the times.

Why? Because those signs clearly showed that now was the time all the prophecies of the past had pointed to.

The number 1 reason for performing miracles and signs and wonders day in and day out for the whole three years of His ministry was to prove to Israel who Jesus was. They were undeniable proof that He was that promised Messiah.

All the way through history from 2000 BC everything is moving the nation of Israel to the place where they could have that Messiah, their Redeemer and King rule over a glorious earthly Kingdom on the planet.

Could the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the nation as a whole see that in these signs and wonders? Not a chance.

There were many signs even apart from Jesus’s miracles.

If they’d known anything of Old Testament prophecy, which they did, they should have understood that the fourth Empire in Daniels 490 year prophecy to King Nebuchadnezzar, in Daniel 2, was now with them.

They weren’t stupid!

They knew very well the history of their nation in relation to Daniel’s prophecy.

They knew the Babylonian Empire and it’s rule over them had come and gone. They knew the rule of the Medes and Persians had come and gone. They knew the Greek Empire of Alexander the Great had come and gone and they certainly knew the Romans were now occupying the nation.

So, what should that have told them? It’s time for the Messiah to come. Folks these people knew these prophecies like the back of their hands and that’s proven by the number of times they tried to challenge Jesus with scripture.

However, they couldn’t figure out what was right in front of their noses and what had to be the most obvious sign in their entire history.

The Jews are not really unlike any of us today. We’re so sign and wonder oriented. We’re so desperate for supernatural signs that we make up the most ridiculous stuff. Just look at the tripe that’s on the net, especially YouTube and social media.

Now, of course, these platforms are also packed with good messages, but they’re often hidden by the junk you need to scroll through to find them.

We’re just so just sign oriented that we can’t see the multitude of signs that’re already given.

 

Beginning today in Matthew 11:20-22 we read,

Then He began to rebuke the cities in which most of His mighty works had been done, because they did not repent: (Jesus is speaking now),

“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. 

 

Chorazin and Bethsaida were cities near Capernaum where the Lord had His headquarters. He’d performed many miracles in this area but, despite that, they rejected Him, and now He pronounces a judgment upon them.

Tyre and Sidon were part of the land promised by God to the Israelites. However, these cities were not conquered by the Israelites during the conquest of Canaan. Instead, they remained under the control of the Canaanites.

They were known for their idolatry and were often criticised by the prophets. The evil Queen Jezebel, who was married to the equally evil King Ahab of Israel, was from Sidon and was responsible for promoting the worship of the false god Baal.

Now at this time we’re talking about here they’re roman cities.

So, Jesus is saying here that even those Gentile cities that were so far away from the One True God of Israel, would have repented and turned from their idolatry if these mighty works of His were done there. But, He’s saying, in contrast you Israelites, the chosen people of God, living in the homeland God had given you, knowing the scripture of which every page spoke of Me, your reject Me. He told them this in John 5:39,

You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me.

Why would it be better for these cities of Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than these people being spoken to here?

Because God had given these people had been given every possible sign, every possible prophecy, every outward display of power that could only have come from God. They were far beyond excuse.

 

Now, in verse 23 and 24, the Lord speaks to the people of Capernaum, His headquarters,

And you, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, will be brought down to Hades; for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say to you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you.” 

 

Again, Jesus makes a comparison between Capernaum and the judged and destroyed city of Sodom, which was one of the most evil of cities. He says that even if that abomination of a place had witnessed these mighty works of Jesus, they’d still be there today. Why? Because these works would have turned even these evil cities to God. But Capernaum, that actually has the Messiah and King headquartered there had rejected Him.

Verse 25 and 26,

At that time Jesus answered and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight. 

 

The phrase “Lord of heaven” takes us back to Genesis 14:19, where God’s called the Lord of heaven and earth. Many of the most worldly wise people never learn this truth, but many babes, many simple people, understand it.

Sometimes I wonder if some of the world’s foremost preachers and bible teachers fall into this category. The technical knowledge and degrees often seem to me to cloud the simple truths of the Word.

 

Verse 27,

All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.

 

This is another way of saying what He said in John 14:6,

“… no man cometh unto the Father, but by me”.

 

Now to Matthew 11:28-30.

These verses bring a change in the Lord’s message.

Up to this point the Lord taught, “Repent, the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” He had presented His credentials and had been rejected as the Messiah. These cities which have been mentioned turned their backs upon Him, and so had Jerusalem. So far in His ministry everything’s been directed at Israel, the nation, but the nation has rejected Him.

He now turns His back on the nation Israel. He’s no longer presenting this glorious Kingdom to them.

He’s getting close to the cross, and His invitation is now to the individual.

Listen to Him,

 

Come to Me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 

Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 

For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” 

 

See how the language has changed?

This is a new message from Jesus. He turns from the corporate nation of Israel to the individual Jew and it’s like passing from a storm into a calm.

It’s no longer the national announcement about the coming of the glorious earthly Kingdom but a personal invitation to find rest.

“I will give you rest” is literally “I will rest you.” When He speaks of being “heavy laden,” He’s referring to the burden of sin.

This same thought is used by Isaiah in Isaiah 1:4,

Alas, sinful nation, A people laden with iniquity, A brood of evildoers, Children who are corrupters! They have forsaken the LORD, They have provoked to anger The Holy One of Israel, They have turned away backward. 

 

Also, Psalm 38:4 has the same thought,

For my iniquities have gone over my head; Like a heavy burden they are too heavy for me. 

 

The burden of sin is too heavy for any human to carry. For us today, the Church, The Body of Christ, we know that the only place where that burden can be removed is at the Cross of Christ. We have the next episode in the program you see.

He, The Son of God, God in the flesh, bore that burden for us, and He invites us to come and bring it to Him. He can remove it from us because on the cross He bore that burden of our sin and we can have it removed by simply believing. It’s by faith plus nothing that makes us free of that burden.

However, there’s nothing in these verses that refer to the cross or to the Church.

The church doesn’t exist yet, you see, and Jesus has not revealed the fact that He’ll soon die on that cross.

He’s moving from the nation of Israel to individual Jews. The call He’s making to the Jews is to believe that He is Who he says He is and all they need do is look to both the scriptures that they’re so familiar with and to the credentials of the king, the mighty works.

Jesus is using the yoke as a picture not only of the burden of sin but the impossible legalistic demands to the keeping of the law that the Pharisees and the religious elite were promoting and demanding.

Jesus is inviting people to take on his yoke, which is light and easy to bear, and to learn from him. Learn what? Learn a new way of life that only He can offer. First, learn who He truly is, the promised King and Messiah and then learn to trust in Him and Him alone.

 

Now we’ve arrived at Matthew chapter 12.

Again, we see that flow in the Gospel of Matthew.

Matthew’s not trying to give a biography of the life of Jesus, nor is he recording the events in chronological order. He presents Christ as King. He was born a King and gave what we call the Sermon on the Mount, which was the values of the Kingdom, the manifesto of the King.

He demonstrated in the miracles He performed that He was indeed the promised Messiah, The King. Then He sent out His apostles. The reaction was rejection! And then the King pronounced judgment on the cities.

Now things start to move quickly as there’s open a conflict between the Lord Jesus and the religious rulers of that day, the Pharisees in particular.

Apparently, they were friendly to Him at first, but now they break with Him over the question of the Sabbath day. You see, with the ones who claim that they’re the most quote “religious” are always the law keepers the ones who try to make everyone believe that they’re better than anyone else because they do what everybody else can’t do, and that’s keep the law. But of course, they don’t and never can keep the law but their massive pride and ego, their need to be more and greater than the rest, has a massive hold on them and sadly it will sentence them to eternal death.

 

Matthew 12:1

At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. And His disciples were hungry and began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. 

 

We’ll see in this incident that Jesus claims that He’s Lord of the Sabbath day.

The Sabbath day!

The arguments over the Sabbath day have been raging throughout history, ever since this incident.

But before we look at that, let’s see the reason the disciples were pulling off and eating the grain heads. Well, it’s simple, they were hungry. Jesus will defend His disciples’ actions and this’s where the break with the religious rulers comes.

 

Verse 2 to 5,

And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to Him, “Look, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath!”

But He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God and ate the showbread which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? 

Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blameless? 

 

We find the record of what David did when he and his men were hungry in 1 Samuel 21:1-6.

It was during the days of David’s rejection as king while Saul was ruling.

David took care of his men by feeding them although it meant breaking the Mosaic Law by feeding them bead, called the showbread, from the temple.

Jesus also uses the fact the priest worked on the Sabbath day and He’s referring to Numbers 28:9.

Jesus challenges them by saying, “You can recite this portion but you’re not looking at the complete scripture, and because of that you’re actually in error.”

Do you see how skilled these blokes were in scripture? Man, they knew it all and yet they completely missed what was most important. They knew the quote, “letter of the law” but not the spirit of the law. Paul, in 2 Corinthians 3:6 states,

..for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

 

Verse 6,

Yet I say to you that in this place there is One greater than the temple. 

 

Here, Jesus claimed to be greater than the most holy center of Jewish religious life, the temple. As far as the Pharisees were concerned, He’d blasphemed. He’d broken the Sabbath and now He’d blasphemed or shown great disrespect to what was holy.

 

Verse 7,

But if you had known what this means, ‘I DESIRE MERCY AND NOT SACRIFICE,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. 

 

“I will have mercy and not sacrifice” comes from Hosea 6:6 which reads,

For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, And the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. 

The Lord defends His men by saying that they didn’t break the Sabbath day. Why? Well verse 8,

For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.

 

Believe me the Lord’s now put an uncrossable gulf between Himself and the Pharisees now.

The Sabbath was the most sacred observance they had and now He says to them that He’s Lord of the Sabbath day. In the eyes of the Pharisees, He could make no greater claim. He’s basically saying He’s God just as He would a number of times between now and His death on the cross. The bitterness and hatred of the religious elite is rising to a crescendo.

Now we leave the fields where this encounter took place, and we go into the synagogue, but we’re still faced with the same Sabbath question in verse 9,

Now when He had departed from there, He went into their synagogue. 

 

Notice that “he went into their synagogue”. It’s a Jewish message to Jewish people.

 

Now verses 10 and 11,

And behold, there was a man who had a withered hand. And they asked Him, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”—that they might accuse Him. 

Then He said to them, “What man is there among you who has one sheep, and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not lay hold of it and lift it out? 

 

Notice the words, “that they might accuse Him.”

This man with the withered hand seems to have been “planted” there deliberately by the Pharisees to trap Jesus into healing him.

If so, then they’re making two very important admissions, these enemies of Jesus.

  1. They’re admitting that He had power to heal the sick. As we’ve seen, Jesus’s enemies never questioned His ability to perform miracles. You have to be two thousand years down the track from it as we are today before you can question His miracles. The Pharisees freely admitted that He had power to heal the sick otherwise there’d be no point in planting this man with the withered hand.
  2. They acknowledged that when a helpless man was placed in His pathway, He was moved by compassion to heal him, even on the Sabbath day. What an admission!

Their question about the legality of healing on the Sabbath day was designed to trap Him. But Jesus actually trapped His enemies. They had to admit that a sheep should be rescued on the Sabbath day and in fact, the Mosaic Law made allowances for that.

 

Matthew 12:12 now,

Of how much more value then is a man than a sheep? Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”

 

This is the nitty gritty of the whole matter: Should Jesus do good on the Sabbath day? He answers His own question in verse 13,

Then He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And he stretched it out, and it was restored as whole as the other. 

 

Jesus healed the man on the Sabbath day. Did He break the Law? No He didn’t break the Law.

Now we see from here on this unrepairable break between the religious rulers and Jesus widening more and more. Now they’re going to make the decision to destroy Him.

 

Matthew 12:14

Then the Pharisees went out and plotted against Him, how they might destroy Him. 

 

Up to this point the Pharisees had been reasonably friendly.

They wanted to feather their own nest by partnering with Him so that His widespread fame would rub off on them.

However, the Lord refused to go along with them, and they became His enemies. The break is made over the question of the Sabbath day, and the great gap between Jesus and these religious elite comes out in the open. From here on they’re going to look into His every word, every phrase and every action, every possible minute detail that would inflame not only their own hatred but everyone else’s. They’ll never let up until they fold their arms with their satisfied smiles as they look up at Him from beneath His cross.

They begin to plot His death, and they desperately want to arrest Him, but they are afraid of the crowds.

 

Verse 15,

But when Jesus knew it, He withdrew from there. And great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them all. 

The action of the Pharisees led Jesus to withdraw temporarily because His hour had not yet come.

These self-righteous, self-centred, conceited, arrogant, and narcissistic leaders won’t be able to touch Him until that appointed time.

It’s interesting to notice in this verse that Jesus didn’t just heal a few people in the crowd, He healed them all.

We can’t even conceive of the impression that this made in that day. It was something absolutely astounding. They had to accept or reject Him; it was impossible to sit on the fence and be neutral.

He’s still just as controversial today. The enemy is still after Him. It seems that every day another book or movie or internet article is blaspheming Him and spitting hatred at Him.

Friends, we’re either for Him or against him today. There’re no sideline seats available. He’ll either be our Savior or our Judge, but we cannot ever get rid of Him.

In verse 16 He again warns them,

Yet He warned them not to make Him known, 

Why did He warn them not to make Him known?

Verses 17 to 20 Tells us. It was to fulfill prophecy. This time a fulfilment of Isaiah 42 1 to 4. Once again Matthew is showing us Jesus, quote “coming to fulfill the law and the prophets”,

We read,

Verse 18,

“BEHOLD! MY SERVANT WHOM I HAVE CHOSEN, MY BELOVED IN WHOM MY SOUL IS WELL PLEASED! I WILL PUT MY SPIRIT UPON HIM, AND HE WILL DECLARE JUSTICE TO THE GENTILES. 

The quotation from peaks of the gentle character of the Messiah, who is the Servant of Yahweh. This was a common and important designation of Jesus.

Verse 19,

HE WILL NOT QUARREL NOR CRY OUT, NOR WILL ANYONE HEAR HIS VOICE IN THE STREETS. 

This doesn’t mean that Jesus never spoke loudly. It refers to His gentle, lowly heart, and actions. Jesus didn’t make His way by an overpowering personality and loud, overwhelming talk. Instead, Jesus made an impression upon others by the Spirit of God upon Him.

Verse 20,

A BRUISED REED HE WILL NOT BREAK, AND SMOKING FLAX HE WILL NOT QUENCH, TILL HE SENDS FORTH JUSTICE TO VICTORY. 

This is another reference to the gentle character of Jesus. A reed is a fairly fragile plant, yet if a reed is bruised the Servant will handle it so gently that He’ll not break it. And if flax, used as a wick for an oil lamp, doesn’t flame but only smokes, He won’t quench and extinguish it. Instead, He’ll will gently nourish the smoking flax, fanning it into flame again.

 

Verse 21,

AND IN HIS NAME GENTILES WILL TRUST.” 

 

This is incredible news for every gentile, you and me because not only have we been offered the salvation through the Christ that the nation Israel rejected but it’s purely by trust in His name.

This trusting in His name throughout the earth by Gentiles should shake the nation of Israel to it’s very core.

This prophecy is being fulfilled today.

Christ’s rejection by His own people led to His offer of Grace to the Gentiles.

In the Book of Acts in Acts 26:15-18, we read the account of where Jesus commissioned the great apostle Paul to be the missionary to the Gentiles.

Let’s finish off today by looking at this verse that should be a treasure to every Gentile.

Paul is in front of King Agrippa and He’s telling him about how he was interrupted by the Lord on his journey to Damascus.

Acts 26 Verse 15,

So, I said, ‘Who are You, Lord?’ And He said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. 

But rise and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to make you a minister and a witness both of the things which you have seen and of the things which I will yet reveal to you. 

I will deliver you from the Jewish people, as well as from the Gentiles, to whom I now send you, to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me.’

Until next time friend may The Lord Keep you and guide you as you trust in Him and Him alone.

The Gospel of Matthew

Matthew 10:9-11:19

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Now we’re continuing in our study of the Gospel of Matthew, and we’ve arrived at chapter 10 verse 9 where Jesus sends the apostles out to Israel to preach that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.

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Matthew 10:9-11:19 – Transcript

I hope that so far through this look at the Gospel of Matthew we can see how it fits into the whole of God’s plan.

The average believer seems to have the idea that in the bible, Matthew Chapter 1 is where Christianity begins. But that’s not the case. Even though Matthew is the first book of the New Testament, this isn’t yet Christianity

It’s still an extension of God dealing with Israel, based on all the Old Testament covenants and promises. Christ is going to come on the scene but His message at this point, and we need to clearly hear this, His message is not that He’s going to the Cross to die for the sins of the world, although that’s absolutely, certainly what’ll take place. But His message in the Gospels is that He’s going to come first to fulfill the promises made to the Nation of Israel. And He’s going to fulfill the law, every Jot and title of it. Every crossing of the T and every dotting of the I.

He must do that because no one else could!

No man ever born of Adam could fulfill it, and Jesus makes that abundantly clear in the Sermon on the Mount. Neither could any other created being fulfill it. It had to be a man. But only God Himself was both sinless and had the free will that allowed Him to either sin or not sin.

God solves His own dilemma of how to fully pay the price of breaking the law, sin, by taking on humanity Himself. He comes as fully man and at the same time fully God. Through the womb of a virgin, He breaks the line of sin passed down from Adam. You see He’s bypassed the seed of a male that carried that sin line.

So, He’s the only full man ever to be born sinless since Adam but still with the free choice of Adam to sin or not. So, with this free choice, He’s tempted just the same as any man, but He doesn’t break. He fulfills the Jewish, Mosaic law completely in His earthly ministry not breaking a single word of it. This is why death couldn’t hold Him. He simply had to be resurrected because death had no rights over Him. Thank God that we who are IN Him are partakers of His holiness and righteousness.

 

So, with a few exceptions, the Gospel of Matthew is a Jewish message.

We need to recognise that all that takes place in Matthew is all still under the Law. It’s pre the cross of Calvary. It’s before the New Covenant was ratified with the spilled blood of Christ. The Church is not yet a reality. It’s a mystery that won’t be revealed until Jesus is resurrected, ascends back to heaven and the Holy Spirit takes His place of ministry on earth.

At the time of the Gospel of Matthew the Temple is still operating and sacrifices are still being offered. The diaspora or the spreading of the Jewish people all over the world hadn’t occurred yet and the Nation Israel were still largely in their homeland. This wouldn’t happen until after the sacking of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple by Rome in 70 AD, something Jesus predicted by the way.

 

Even the Jewish people who become believers and followers of Christ during this period don’t shed their Judaism at this time. They still maintain everything that’s associated with the Law including temple worship and attendance at the synagogue. And Christ doesn’t rebuke them for it. In fact, as we saw in the case of the leper’s healing, Christ even demands it by commanding the leper to go to the priest and make the required offering that Moses commanded.

No one’s told these people that they’re not under Law, and this won’t happen until a lot further down the road with Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles. The Bible’s revelation is a process, a progression. God doesn’t just suddenly tell the Old Testament people everything that’s coming.

Of course, Old Testament prophecy reveals a great deal of what’s about to happen over the coming years after Christ death, burial, and resurrection, but we must remember that God hid some things until He saw fit to reveal them.

Let’s allow the book to say what it wants to say without our preconceived theories. Let’s look at what it really says and not what we think it says.  And let’s also remember that 5 6ths of the bible is about Israel.

 

So, let’s continue in the Gospel of Matthew where today we’re up to chapter 10. We finished off at verse 8 last time but, as usual, we need to keep firmly in mind the context of what we’re reading. Who’s being spoken to? What’s the timeline that the passage or verse relates to? Is there a specific culture that the verse or passage relates to and so on?

This entire chapter relates to Jesus sending out the 12 disciples who He now calls apostles and as we saw in the last chapter this calling is different to the one he calls them to later in Acts 1:8 after His Death, burial, and resurrection.

Here Jesus specifically commands them not to go to the Gentiles or to the Samaritans but to preach only to the quote, “Lost sheep of Israel”, whereas in Acts chapter 1:8 He specifically commands them to go to Judea, Samaria, and the whole world, both Jew and Gentile.

They’re even commanded here not to carry any money, provisions or even a change of clothes. Again, this is quite different to what they’re told in Acts 1.

Why?

Well, the dispensation at this time is still the Old Testament and the law. Jesus’s ministry is to Israel. He’s telling Israel by His words and showing Israel by His signs and miracles that He is the promised Messiah. He’s the promised King Who’ll rule on the throne of David.

It won’t be till after His death, burial, and resurrection and after the nation has rejected Him that the apostles are commanded to go to the very places they’re commanded not to go to here.

 

So, in this chapter we’re seeing Jesus give the twelve the first commandment to go to the lost sheep of Israel.

He’s going to tell them three basic things.

What they’re to do, what they can expect or how they can expect to be treated, and the level of commitment they must have, which incidentally is huge.

Now although Jesus is telling this to the apostles directly and He’s not speaking to the crowds in general or to born again believers, the Church, today, there is a lot that we can relate to today’s world.

Because this whole chapter is to the 12 apostles, and because we know Jesus didn’t speak to them in separated verses, as we have in our bible today, we need to read this whole chapter as one speech telling them of their mission.

It’s so easy for us today as the modern day church to take a verse here and a verse there and then try and apply it to our own lives, and this is where we often get horribly confused.

 

So, to get the whole commission in its right perspective we’ll start at the beginning in verse1 with the hope that we’ll all see the chapter in its correct context and not so much as a collection of different commands to the modern day church,

And when He had called His twelve disciples to Him, He gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease. 

Now the names of the twelve apostles are these: first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Lebbaeus, whose surname was Thaddaeus; 

Simon the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed Him.

These twelve Jesus sent out and commanded them, saying: “Do not go into the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter a city of the Samaritans. 

But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 

And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ 

Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give. 

Provide neither gold nor silver nor copper in your money belts, nor bag for your journey, nor two tunics, nor sandals, nor staffs; for a worker is worthy of his food. 

“Now whatever city or town you enter, inquire who in it is worthy, and stay there till you go out. 

And when you go into a household, greet it. 

If the household is worthy, let your peace come upon it. But if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. 

And whoever will not receive you nor hear your words, when you depart from that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet. 

Assuredly, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city! 

“Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils and scourge you in their synagogues. 

You will be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. 

But when they deliver you up, do not worry about how or what you should speak. For it will be given to you in that hour what you should speak; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you. 

“Now brother will deliver up brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved. 

When they persecute you in this city, flee to another. For assuredly, I say to you, you will not have gone through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes. 

“A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. 

It is enough for a disciple that he be like his teacher, and a servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more will they call those of his household! 

Therefore do not fear them. For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known. 

“Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops. 

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. 

Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. 

But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 

Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. 

“Therefore, whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. 

But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven. 

“Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. 

For I have come to ‘SET A MAN AGAINST HIS FATHER, A DAUGHTER AGAINST HER MOTHER, AND A DAUGHTER-IN-LAW AGAINST HER MOTHER-IN-LAW’; and ‘A MAN’S ENEMIES WILL BE THOSE OF HIS OWN HOUSEHOLD.’ 

He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. 

And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. 

He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it. 

“He who receives you receives Me, and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me. 

He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward. And he who receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward. 

And whoever gives one of these little ones only a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple, assuredly, I say to you, he shall by no means lose his reward.” 

 

So, there we go!

Jesus commanding the 12 apostles to go out to the lost sheep of Israel and tell them about Him, The Messiah, and how He’s now arrived.

I hope you can see how we get a different perspective from the whole passage than when we slice and dice it into mini doctrines and try to apply them to our own lives.

Yes, of course, some things naturally fit into our lives today, but Jesus is commanding the 12 apostles here and telling them what they’re to do, what reaction they can expect, and the level of commitment they must have.

In addition, Jesus is also telling the disciples what’ll happen to those who hear and accept their message and what’ll happen to those who don’t.

 

This brings us now to Matthew chapter 11 where Jesus continues His ministry.

The flow continues in this chapter. The Lord Jesus has stated the morals and the values of the coming Kingdom and He’s performed many miracles to prove He’s of God, The Promised Messiah and King of the Jews, and He’s sent His disciples out to present His claims to Israel. Now what’s the reception? What’s the reaction to His Messianic claim? Well, one word, rejection!

But we’re a little ahead of ourselves. We’ll be going down to Matthew 11:19 today.

 

verse 1,

Now it came to pass, when Jesus finished commanding His twelve disciples, that He departed from there to teach and to preach in their cities. 

 

So, you see here that this chapter is still connected to chapter 10 and Jesus has finished His chat with the twelve disciples and He leaves that place to continue on to the other cities of Israel. We assume here that after His command, the twelve had already departed on their mission. Perhaps they went to these cities before Jesus got there. Either way Jesus doesn’t stop going to the people.

 

Chapter 11 verse 2 and 3,

And when John had heard in prison about the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples  and said to Him, “Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?” 

 

Back in Matthew 4:12 we saw that John the Baptist was put in prison.

So, he’s been imprisoned for a while now, but he’s been kept informed about the movements of the Lord Jesus. John’s disciples have been watching Jesus and reporting to John.

John’s expecting the door of his prison to be opened, because he believes that Jesus is coming immediately to the throne to establish His Kingdom, something that many of the Jews who did believe Jesus was the Messiah also believed.

John’s question is logical. He has every reason to believe that the King would have assumed power by this time. He’s puzzled that the Lord is moving so slowly toward the throne.

 

Verses 4 to 6 tell us Jesus’s answer to John’s question

Jesus answered and said to them, “Go and tell John the things which you hear and see: 

The blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them. 

And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.” 

 

The answer of Jesus is remarkable and can be understood only in light of the credentials which the Old Testament said the Messiah would have.

Of course, true to form, Matthew tells us this.

Jesus’s answer is a direct reference to Isaiah 35:4-6. John, just like any Jew, would have been aware of this prophecy.

Here it is,

Say to those who are fearful-hearted, “Be strong, do not fear! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, With the recompense of God; He will come and save you.” 

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, And the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. 

Then the lame shall leap like a deer, And the tongue of the dumb sing. For waters shall burst forth in the wilderness, And streams in the desert.”

Now we don’t see waters breaking out in the wilderness or streams in the desert at this time when Jesus came do we. Why? Because He didn’t establish the physical Kingdom when He came the first time. But He was still the King, and He had the credentials of the Messiah. We notice that He purposefully didn’t include the last part of that prophecy in His answer.

John would have recognised those credentials and understood what it all meant.

In the following verses the Lord Jesus defends John in case anyone wanted to criticise him.

 

Verse 7,

As they departed, Jesus began to say to the multitudes concerning John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? 

 

This refers to Matthew 3:5 where we saw that great numbers from Jerusalem, Judea, and the country round about Jordan, went out into the wilderness of Judea, where John was preaching, to hear him, and be baptised by him.

Now The Lord asks, what was it that led them into the wilderness? Did they take John to be an unstable, man tossed like a reed shaken with every wind!

He say if you did, you were mistaken; he was firm and stable in his beliefs and his ministry, his preaching was firm and strong. He said he wasn’t the Messiah, but the Messiah’s forerunner. His testimony was always consistent and he’s the same man now he always was.

Jesus is not saying here that John was the reed shaken with the wind; but that he was the wind shaking the reeds!

Today’s preaching is often weak especially when it’s subject to political correctness and tailored to not hurt people’s tender feelings and emotions rather than project the truth.

The lifestyle message, the “live your best life now” message has invaded a great deal of preaching today.

Too often the pulpit is a reed shaken in the wind. Thank God for John the Baptist, who was a wind shaking the reeds!

Our Lord continues His commendation of John the Baptist in Verse 8,

But what did you go out to see? A man clothed in soft garments? Indeed, those who wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses. 

 

John the Baptist was a tough, rugged individual far from the prettily clothed pansies in the houses and palaces of kings.

Verse 9,

But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I say to you, and more than a prophet.

He was a prophet, but he was more than a prophet.

 

Verse 10,

For this is he of whom it is written: ‘BEHOLD, I SEND MY MESSENGER BEFORE YOUR FACE, WHO WILL PREPARE YOUR WAY BEFORE YOU.’ 

The Lord declares clearly that John is the fulfillment of Malachi 3:1, which states.

“Behold, I send My messenger, And he will prepare the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, Will suddenly come to His temple, Even the Messenger of the covenant, In whom you delight. Behold, He is coming,” Says the LORD of hosts. 

We also see Isaiah 40:3,

The voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the LORD; Make straight in the desert A highway for our God.

John was that messenger. John was specially chosen to introduce the Messiah to Israel.

 

Now to Matthew 11:11,

“Assuredly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist; but he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. 

People liked to debate the question of who was greater: Abraham, Moses, or David. Jesus declares that John is greater than anyone in the past. No one topped John the Baptist.

So then, what did Jesus mean when He said, “but he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he?”

Well, there’s a time coming, not too far off that particular moment, When The Lord Jesus will begin calling out a group of people who are even greater than John the Baptist. How can they be greater? Because they’re in Christ and clothed with His righteousness!

 

Verse 12,

And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. 

 

This is a difficult verse to interpret because the “force” mentioned can be either internal or external.  This verse is debated a lot and there seems to a wide range of ideas as to what it means. It’s also apparently made a lot more complicated by some very complex grammar so we’re going to let this verse pass.

 

Verses 13 to 15 now,

For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. 

And if you are willing to receive it, he is Elijah who is to come. 

He who has ears to hear, let him hear! 

 

John the Baptist fulfilled the prophecy of the messenger to come in Malachi 3:1 as we saw.

Now many people ask, “If Israel had accepted Christ at His first coming, would He have established the kingdom immediately, and would John the Baptist have been Elijah?”

The argument goes something like this, “Well, if Christ intended to go to the cross and die, His offer of Himself as King was not a sincere offer. And what if Israel had accepted Jesus as their King?”

Well, the point is that they didn’t and these “if” questions are pretty futile and they’re usually put forward by those who’ll do anything to discredit God and His Word.

The plain fact is that the Jews rejected the Lord.

 

The next two verses are one of the Lord’s parables and it comes with some sarcasm. The Lord didn’t give this story to hurt or to harm but to illustrate a great truth.

And we’ll read,

“But to what shall I liken this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their companions, and saying: ‘We played the flute for you, And you did not dance; We mourned to you, And you did not lament.’ 

So, this is a picture of a group of children out playing in the streets. One group says, “Let’s play funerals.” They play funerals for a while, and then soon get sick of it and then say, “Let’s play weddings.” Soon they get sick of playing weddings as well. They go from one extreme to another. Jesus is picturing spoiled children here, bored, and pouty. He’s contrasting the people to the tough unbending John the Baptist.

The generation Jesus was speaking to was like that, and our generation is also for that matter.

Verse 18,

For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ 

John was both minimalistic and severe and they didn’t feel comfortable with him. You see, he broke their script of the way people were supposed to be.

 

Verse 19,

The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ But wisdom is justified by her children.” 

 

Jesus was friendly.  He ate and drank as men usually do, lived in the common way of life, was free and sociable, went to feasts, entertainments, and weddings, when he was invited; and was approachable, courteous, sociable, and friendly to all men.

But what did many, especially the Jewish elite, say about him?

They said He was a boozer, a common drunkard. One that likes his wine and can’t get enough of it.

They called him a friend of publicans and sinners describing the notoriously bad lot He associated with.

They said He loved the company of those sorts, because he loved drinking with them and encouraged them in their revelling and drunkenness. Pretty heavy stuff!

But wisdom is justified of her children.

This means that wisdom is demonstrated by the lives of those who follow it. In other words, the wisdom of a person or an idea is proven by the outcomes that result from it.

There’s always going to be people you simply can’t please, and that was true in our Lord’s day as well. It’s better forgetting about them.

So, until the next episode my friends may the Lord enlighten you to His Word and may you grow in grace and knowledge of Him.

The Gospel of Matthew

Matthew 9:14-10:8

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We continue on today in Matthew chapter 9 and we’ll also move into chapter 10. We see Jesus perform six more miracles; He calls Matthew, the writer of this gospel and contends with the Pharisees as He continues His ministry in Galilee.

“Speed Slider”

Matthew 9:14-10:8 – Transcript

We start today in Matthew chapter 9 verse 14,

Then the disciples of John came to Him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but Your disciples do not fast?” 

Some of the disciples who were following Jesus may have originally been disciples of John the Baptist.

We know from John 1:40 that Andrew was one of Jesus’s disciples who heard John speaking and from that verse there was at least one more.

There were other disciples who still followed John, even though John’s now in prison, as we saw in Matthew 4:12, and the Messiah Who John announced had arrived.

The disciples of John the Baptist had been observing the Lord Jesus.

More than likely these disciples of John the Baptist heard of the great entertainment made at Matthew’s house for Christ. We mentioned this in the study of the last chapter.

They were either offended themselves or were influenced by the Pharisees, who also were offended at this celebration, so they came to Christ and put this question to him about why they weren’t fasting but instead were in a celebration where many hated tax collectors and publicans were having a big dinner.

It wasn’t so much that they wanted to know the reason why they and the Pharisees fasted, but Christ’s disciples didn’t. It was more of a criticism, and they felt that Christ’s disciples ought to fast like they did and not eat, and drink, and feast in the manner they were.

The Pharisees were always fasting often twice a week and sometimes more.

So, they came to Christ where he was, and put this question to him.

 

Now, John the Baptist, as we’ve previously seen, was an Old Testament prophet.

He walked out of the Old Testament into the New Testament to make the announcement that the Messiah had come.

The prophet Malachi in Malachi 3:1 had predicted that a messenger would come to prepare the way for the Lord Jesus Christ. John said, “All I’m doing is getting the road ready for the Lord. He’ll be here shortly.” And He did come as John had said.

Now our Lord is going to outline a great principle and reveal the fact that the dispensation is going to be changed. The Old testament is about to wind up and be replaced by the New Testament. Something big and brand new is about to happen.

 

Now to verse 15,

And Jesus said to them, “Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. 

 

Jesus is directing His answer to John’s disciples, but the Pharisees are also straining their necks to look in, so His answer is to both groups.

By the “bridegroom” Christ means himself. The children of the bride chamber are the disciples who were the friends of the bridegroom.

Jesus here is likening Himself and the events that are coming soon to a Jewish wedding. It was a time of joy and feasting, not of sorrow and fasting where both the bride and the bridegroom have their friends, who are known as “the children of the bride chamber”, attending them.

John, (that’s the apostle John not John the Baptist) describes himself as one of the friends of the Bridegroom in John 3:29,

He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore, this joy of mine is fulfilled.

 

This time when Christ is with his disciples, between the beginning of His public ministry, and his death, is the time all this is taking place. Jesus’s disciples had very little care and trouble and this was their rejoicing time, where they had no reason to fast and mourn. The seed of the Church, the Bride of Christ is being sown here.

But the time will come when the bridegroom will be forcefully taken away from them and put to death and then they’ll fast and mourn, and be in great distress, as John the Baptist’s disciples were now, seeing that their master’s in prison.

 

Verse 16 now,

No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and the tear is made worse. 

Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.” 

 

Jesus is saying that the old covenant, the old dispensation of law, was ending. He’d not come to improve or patch up the old system so as to continue that dispensation.

The reference to the unshrunk cloth means that if a person had a tear in a garment of clothing they wouldn’t try and patch it with a brand new piece of material that had never been washed and never had shrunk. If they did the new piece would soon shrink and rip a bigger tear in the garment than before it was patched.

Jesus had come to provide a brand new garment a robe of righteousness which He gives to those who do nothing more than to trust Him.

That’s the new dispensation of Grace and trying to patch that new dispensation over the old one of the law would simply worsen that state of the law. In other words, the new dispensation of Grace cannot be mixed with the old dispensation of the law.

That’s now about to be discarded completely once Christ has fulfilled it to the letter. Once that happens all humans, Gentile, and Jew alike, can only be saved by Grace. Works of the law can no longer save them.

The example of the wineskins has the exact same meaning.

The wineskins were bottles or jars of that day for storing wine. They were made of animal skin.

When new wine was put into a new wineskin, it would expand and easily cope with the wine inside it. But an old wineskin had reached its maximum ability to expand so if these old skins were filled with new wine, they would naturally burst open and the wine would be lost.

The Lord is saying the same thing, “I haven’t come to sew patches on an old garment or fill up an old animal skin with beautiful new wine and watch it burst and the wine disappear into the ground.

I’ve come to present a new garment, a new wineskin, something that’s completely new.

This was very radical.

John summed it up in his Gospel in John 1:17 when he said, “For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”

We come to the eighth and ninth miracles which are sort of linked together. Both are miracles of healing, and it’s an amazing scene.

 

Matthew 9 verse 18,

While He spoke these things to them, behold, a ruler came and worshiped Him, saying, “My daughter has just died, but come and lay Your hand on her and she will live.” 

 

Luke in his Gospel in Luke 8:41-42 tells us that when this ruler first came to Jesus it was to ask Him to heal his daughter. Let’s read it.

And behold, there came a man named Jairus, and he was a ruler of the synagogue. And he fell down at Jesus’ feet and begged Him to come to his house, for he had an only daughter about twelve years of age, and she was dying. But as He went, the multitudes thronged Him. 

 

This little girl was so sick she was near to death. While her father waited to talk with Jesus, a servant came and told him that the little girl had died. Notice again the large crowd gathered around Him.

 

Mat 9:19-20,

So Jesus arose and followed him, and so did His disciples. 

And suddenly, a woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years came from behind and touched the hem of His garment. 

 

Matthew 9:21

For she said to herself, “If only I may touch His garment, I shall be made well.” 

But Jesus turned around, and when He saw her He said, “Be of good cheer, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And the woman was made well from that hour. 

 

Notice what the woman did. Jesus didn’t touch her, as He did in many other miracles, but she touched Him.

There was nothing particularly holy or special about this part of Christ’s garment.

There was no promise or ritual relating to touching Jesus’s garment to bring healing.

Probably this woman believed in a sort of superstitious way. But even though her faith had bits of error and superstition, she believed in the healing power of Jesus and His garment served as a point of contact for that faith.

I suppose there’re many things we could find wrong with this woman’s faith. But it was firmly founded on Jesus and that’s much more important than the quality or even quantity of faith.

It wasn’t the method that brought about her healing; it was her faith.

This incident gives us another interesting insight though.

The New King James version leaves out a word in this verse that’s included in the Greek texts and in most other bible translations.

That word is kraspedon. Some other translations render the word as hem while others render it fringe. Fringe is the more correct form.

We see in Numbers 15:38 The Jews were commanded to wear these fringes on the borders or hems of their garments. Let’s read that and we’ll read it from the King Jimmy translation.

Speak unto the children of Israel and bid them that they make them fringes in the borders of their garments throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribband of blue. 

The Jews were commanded to wear these fringes on the borders or hems of their garments, and they placed great importance on the wearing and use of these fringes. The Pharisees, who we know loved to pretend to be more holy than everyone else, made them much bigger than they should be but the point is this was the law. It would have also been common everyday knowledge at this time.

What’s the point? Well, here we see Jesus fulfilling the law to the letter even the ceremonial law in apparel, as well as in all other things.

 

Dr. Luke gives us much more detail about this miracle, recording our Lord’s reaction to this woman’s touch and her response. Jesus then moves from this woman and continues toward the house of Jairus.

 

Now we come to verses 23 and 24,

When Jesus came into the ruler’s house, and saw the flute players and the noisy crowd wailing, 

He said to them, “Make room, for the girl is not dead, but sleeping.” And they ridiculed Him. 

 

When Jesus arrived at the home, people were already mourning for the child.

These were probably paid mourners, who in the custom of that day offered mourning for a price. It wasn’t out of sincere sorrow.

Professional mourners were hired even by poor families and like everything else, it had all been reduced to a meaningless system.

 

Jesus told them the little girl was only sleeping and not dead, and they laughed at Him and ridiculed him.

When we notice how quickly they moved from wailing to ridiculing Jesus, it showed their complete lack of sincerity.

Noone in the house believed Jesus could raise the dead, but He kept moving toward the child.

 

Verse 25,

But when the crowd was put outside, He went in and took her by the hand, and the girl arose. 

 

He went in with his three disciples, Peter, James, and John, who were taken in to be witnesses and the parents of the child.

 

He took her by the hand; just as if He were waking her from sleeping. This wasn’t all He did. We see in the account recorded in Mark’s gospel in Mark 5 verse 41 that he said to her, “Talitha cumi”, which means, “maiden, arise” and immediately the little girl arose just as if she was waking up from sleep.

 

Verse 26 now,

And the report of this went out into all that land. 

 

It just wasn’t possible for this to be hidden. So many people were involved, not only relatives, but neighbours and mourners etc., who knew full well that the girl was dead.

When they saw her alive, walking about, eating, and drinking, and talking with them , as Mark’s account records, they knew they’d been involved in a truly fantastic miracle.

How could they not relate it wherever they went? So that the fame of it spread all over the country.

 

Now to the tenth recorded miracle in Mattew 9:27,

When Jesus departed from there, two blind men followed Him, crying out and saying, “Son of David, have mercy on us!” 

 

Note that the two blind men addressed Him as the “Son of David.” This is an easily glossed over statement but it’s an important one because this whole Gospel of Matthew presents Jesus as the King.

And what’s the very first verse of this gospel, Matthew 1:1?

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

Notice Jesus with His title, Christ. Christ, Christos in Greek, The Anointed One, The Messiah. He was the son of God, and He took on humanity through Abraham and through David as the son of David. His genealogy is exactly as prophesied in the book of Isaiah in chapter 9 verses 6-7 that,

unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 

Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.

Just as Genesis 5 was the book of the generation of the first Adam, Matthew is the book of the generation of the second Adam.

 

Now to verse 28 to 30,

And when He had come into the house, the blind men came to Him. And Jesus said to them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” They said to Him, “Yes, Lord.” 

Then He touched their eyes, saying, “According to your faith let it be to you.” 

And their eyes were opened. And Jesus sternly warned them, saying, “See that no one knows it.”

 

This is another remarkable case where the Lord charges these men not to tell anyone about what happened to them.

He’s very strict with this instruction, because he’d already given commands like this before, and they’d not been obeyed.

The reason why Jesus wanted this miracle kept quiet are not very obvious, but it could simply have been that the more the news of the miracles was spread the more the crowds pressed in on Him and actually hindered Him at His work.

It may have been that He knew that hostility and resentment would quickly rise against Him, especially from the Jewish rulers.

It may have been that He foresaw the population believing He was setting up His earthly Kingdom now, seeing He was David’s son, and that He would overthrow the Roman rule over Judea. The throngs of people and the demands for healing may have stifled the real message of what Jesus was doing there at this time.

 

To Verse 31,

But when they had departed, they spread the news about Him in all that country. 

 

Whatever the reason Jesus had for requiring these blokes to keep quiet, they just couldn’t contain their joy and they spread the news everywhere.

 

We come now to the eleventh miracle where another demon–possessed man is healed. This is the third incident of demon possession recorded in these chapters of Matthew. We’re now looking at verses 32 and 33,

As they went out, behold, they brought to Him a man, mute and demon possessed. 

And when the demon was cast out, the mute spoke. And the multitudes marvelled, saying, “It was never seen like this in Israel!” 

 

Notice the reaction of the Pharisees in verse 34,

But the Pharisees said, “He casts out demons by the ruler of the demons.” 

 

They didn’t deny that Jesus had caused the mute to speak, the blind to see and the crippled to walk. What they accused Him of was that He did these things by the power of Satan.

 

Verse 35,

Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. 

 

“The gospel of the kingdom” is not the gospel of the grace of God.

This in no way says that there’re two gospels. There’s only one gospel, but there’re many facets to it. The gospel of the Kingdom was the announcement that the Kingdom of the heavens was at hand.

It meant to get ready for the King. It required a heart condition that would accept and follow the King who was soon to go to the cross.

 

“And healing every sickness and every disease among the people.” We see again and again that Matthew shows us that there were thousands of folk who were healed in that day.

This is the reason the enemy never questioned the fact that He performed miracles. It was too obvious.

Again, we look to today and see the huge numbers of people who accept the claims of those who say they have a gift of healing.

A simple and quick search through YouTube can quickly expose many of these people as simply deceivers.

In contrast to this, there were thousands of folk who had been healed by our Lord when He was here and yet even the people who are most devoted to healing ministries today would have to admit that we just don’t see this today.

The Bible teaches that God is the one who heals, and He can use various means to bring about healing including doctors and nurses. While there’re many instances of miraculous healings in the Bible, it’s important to remember that not everyone was healed in the same way or at the same time.

The Lord Jesus Christ is the Great Physician and He can heal today as well as He did yesterday, and we should have confidence in Him. But we should also look for the best medical help available to us while understanding that although medical knowledge has increased dramatically over the years, doctors are still very limited in their knowledge of the human body.

In my own encounter with cancer, I was blessed to have who I regard as the best of the best specialist but even he would, and still does, say he just doesn’t know how and why a thing happens.

There’s only so much they can do. However, the Lord Jesus is not limited but we must always be aware that He’ll deal with us according to His perfect will, and we need to give Him the credit for whatever happens.

 

Verse 36,

But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. 

This note of compassion is wonderful, isn’t it?

We see here in Jesus, the embodiment of God, the only way by which we can see God and what do we see?

Compassion!

This’s just a small insight into the compassion that drove our Lord to the cross at calvary where He would offer His life for the salvation of every person who does nothing more than believes.

 

He references shepherds here. God’s ideal kings and rulers have all been shepherds. Both Moses and David were shepherds before they led God’s people. Abraham, Issac, and Jacob were shepherds and the Lord Himself is called the Good Shepherd.

I pray that the Lord will give us the heart of a shepherd and a heart of compassion for the lost.

 

Verses 37 and 38,

Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the labourers are few. 

Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into His harvest.” 

 

As His heart is filled with pity toward these people and the sad condition they were in, He turns to his disciples.

He’s about to send them out in a more public way to preach the Gospel.

“The harvest is truly plentiful”, He says.

He’s referring to the large number of God’s elect, which were in these cities, towns, and villages, and in other places who needed to hear of the grace of God and that the spiritual part of the kingdom of heaven had arrived in Him.

He called this a harvest. The appointed weeks of the harvest, or the set time for the harvest to be gathered in, had come for those in Galilee, and other parts.

 

However, the labourers are few, He said. This is true right down through the ages. There’s not many who’re willing to dedicate their life for Christ and the true Gospel of salvation.

 

When our Lord asked the disciples to pray for labourers, He sent these very same men whom He asked to pray about it. This’s very interesting and indicates to us that we shouldn’t pray about something unless we’re also willing to follow up ourselves.

 

We’ve now come to Matthew chapter 10 and this chapter continues the flow we have seen all through the Gospel of Matthew.

Now He commissions the twelve apostles to go to the nation Israel and preach the gospel of the Kingdom.

These men don’t go as forerunners like John the Baptist did but as witnesses to the King’s arrival.

Our Lord gave them power to perform miracles, and this was their credentials.

We should notice a couple of things here.

John the Baptist never performed a miracle. Also, we notice that the title of these disciples is changed from disciple (meaning learner or a student) to apostle (meaning a delegate or a commissioner of Christ with miraculous powers).

Many cults use this chapter as their authority for some peculiar ministry or conduct. However, the instructions for Christians simply are not found in this chapter.

We need to see these instructions in the light of the circumstances, the conditions, and the context that they’re given in. Only then can interpret them accurately.

An apostle was very strictly defined in the New Testament, and the office as relates to the 12 apostles no longer exists today despite the many who claim that title.

These three conditions had to be met.

  1. The person had to have been an eyewitness to Jesus either before or after his resurrection. We see that in 1 Corinthians 9:1.
  2. They had to have been chosen by God through the Holy Spirit directly. Thats in Acts 9:15.
  3. They must minister with miraculous signs and wonders. We see that in Acts 2:43 and 2 Corinthians 12:12.

 

Mat 10:1-2

And when He had called His twelve disciples to Him, He gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease. 

Now the names of the twelve apostles are these: first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Lebbaeus, whose surname was Thaddaeus; Simon the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed Him. 

 

Jesus gave power to these men who accepted this office, and these miraculous powers were their credentials as they went to the nation Israel. The prophets of the Old Testament had said that this would be the credentials of the Messiah.

Having given them this power, they’re no longer disciples but apostles.

These men had sat at Jesus’s feet, and received his words, heard his doctrines and had seen his miracles.

They’d been trained up for public ministry and now they’re going to enter that service.

Jesus had called these twelve together privately and He gave them a commission to preach the Gospel, ordained them ministers of the word, and installed them into the office of apostleship.

 

The number “twelve” is a very important number in the Word of God and appears many times.

It’s often associated with God’s power and authority, as well as serving as a perfect foundation for government.

We haven’t got the time here to examine it properly but here’s a few examples.

There were 12 tribes of Israel, one of which is the tribe of Judah, which Jesus descended from.

Jesus had 12 recorded disciples, although Judas betrayed Jesus and was taken out of the twelve. Many believe Matthias replaced Judas but it’s more probably it was the apostle Paul.

In the Book of Revelation, there are 12 gates with 12 different jewels on the gates.

Twelve spies were sent by Moses into the land of Canaan. There’re twelve stones in Aaron’s breast plate, twelve fountains the Israelites found in the wilderness, twelve oxen on which the molten sea stood in Solomon’s temple, twelve gates in Ezekiel’s temple and the list goes on.

So, it fell on these 12 apostles to spread the Gospel to the Jewish nation.

Mat 10:5,

These twelve Jesus sent out and commanded them, saying: “Do not go into the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter a city of the Samaritans. 

But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 

 

Now if anyone’s going to take their instructions from this chapter for their personal ministry, they’ll have to limit themselves to the nation Israel. They’re instructed by Jesus to go to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel.”  and were specifically told not to go to the gentiles.

So, obviously, these verses don’t relate to our commission.

We don’t see our commission until much later in Acts 1:8 where we read,

But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you…

It’s critical to note that this is after Our Lord died on the cross and was buried and after His resurrection and just prior to His ascension into heaven.

Jesus was about to leave this earthly realm but the Holy Spirit would replace His presence on earth. They just need to wait until He came. As the rest of the verse in Acts 1:8 says,

and you (meaning and then) you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.

 

Notice that we’re to include Judea, Samaria and the end of the earth or the uttermost part of the earth in that day which hasn’t arrived at the time this commission is given and recorded in this chapter 10 of Matthew.

So, again, Jesus specifically instructed the twelve in this chapter to stay out of Samaria and not to go into the way of the Gentiles but only to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

And the message of the twelve was to be this in chapter 10 verse 7,

And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ 

 

How could the kingdom be “at hand”?

It was at hand in the person of the King. He’s in their midst.

many churches throughout history have misinterpreted their task as “building the Kingdom of Heaven” here on this earth and it hasn’t changed today.

Each group thought that they had a special contract from God to accomplish this setting up of the earthly Kingdom.

Of course, the church was never called to build the Kingdom. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself will establish the Kingdom when He returns to the earth.

The church is a called–out body from the world to show Christ and to preach His gospel throughout the world. Kingdom business is none of our business.

The Kingdom of Heaven is within us when we receive Christ, we, the Church, won’t be setting up the earthly Kingdom.

Now notice that our Lord sends out the twelve apostles to the nation Israel with the same credentials that He Himself has.

Verse 8,

Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give. 

 

So if our thought is that this is our commission today we should be able to do all four of these things and raising the dead is included! No, this was applicable to the time and circumstances under which it was given.

It’s interesting that folk today who use Matthew 10:8 as their commission ignore the next verse Matthew 10:9,

Provide neither gold nor silver nor copper in your money belts.

Until next time friends may God bless you and keep you.

The Gospel of Matthew

Matthew 8:18-9:13

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In today’s episode we continue to see the credentials of the King. In other words, the signs by which we know He is the long prophesied King and Messiah.

“Speed Slider”

Matthew 8:18-9:13 – Transcript

This is a good time to redefine what the Gospel of Matthew’s purpose is.

Here we are in Matthew 8 and in the first seven chapters we learned the genealogy of Christ the birth of Christ, the visit from the Magi, the baptism of Christ and then the Temptation Of Christ. Then we examined the well-known sermon on the mount where we saw Jesus speaking to Jews and showing them how far away humans are from fulfilling the Law through their own works.

Not only did Jesus fulfill the law completely, on every point but He also fulfilled all of the hundreds of Old Testament’s prophecies that foretold His coming. He fulfilled them to the letter.

Matthew is presenting Jesus Christ as the king who will eventually sit on the throne of David and rule from Jerusalem.

As the King Jesus would fulfill the law and all the prophecies concerning His coming and become our sacrifice and shed his own sinless blood on our behalf as he offered himself once and for all for the sins of mankind.

Everything was fulfilled before Jesus’s death on the cross when he uttered his last words, “It is finished” or “paid in full more precisely”.

Christ didn’t set aside the law of Moses. He fulfilled it for us that’s the key point of Matthew. He takes the law interprets it to the extreme and then he absolutely fulfills it for us so yours and my salvation does not rely on our ability to fulfill that law.

Because Jesus did fulfil the law, we can take on his achievement to our benefit and that’s really the gospel.

As Jesus came down from the mountain after the sermon on the mount great multitudes followed Him and we moved into the next section of Matthew’s gospel where Matthew gives us the credentials of the King.

He displays the power of God as nobody else but God Himself could by healing all the sick, making the blind to see, the deaf to hear, the paralysed to walk and the leper to be cleansed.

But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.

The text in Isaiah refers to the taking away of sin. That prophecy is Isaiah 53 verses 4 and 5 and Matthew, in referring to this prophecy right here at this point, treats the miraculous healing of the body as a type of the salvation of the soul by Christ Jesus,

 

Although this prophecy clearly refers to the payment for sin, the healing for which Jesus would pay for in His own body, this verse from Isaiah is one of the most abused verses in the scripture. Many television preachers along with many in the faith and prosperity movement use this verse to claim a power of healing, but that’s not what this is talking about.

He took our infirmities and bear our sicknesses on the cross. He’s speaking of sin, something far more serious than the kind of body illnesses and ailments these people make it refer to.

God can and does heal today. People are healed miraculously through prayer and laying upon of hands, but God is Sovereign. His will is the first and last word. There’s no formula or ritual that we can go through. God does it when it pleases Him.

Now we continue in Matthew where we see the cost of following the Lord and we continue to see His credentials as the prophesised King.

 

We shove off today in Mattew 8:18,

And when Jesus saw great multitudes about Him, He gave a command to depart to the other side. 

 

Notice the great multitudes of people about Him.

Literally, He had healed thousands of afflicted people, not just those individual cases recorded.

John verifies this in his Gospel of John when he wrote in John 20 verses 30 to 31,

And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.

See, these great miracles should point us to a belief the Jesus Christ really is the Son of God as He said He was and that by that belief we have life, eternal life.

 

In verse 19, just as Jesus was getting ready to cross to the other side, a man approached Him,

Then a certain scribe came and said to Him, “Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go.” 

This scribe may have been a young man, because it’s hard to imagine an older man acting like this.

Scribes had knowledge of the law and could draft legal documents like contracts for marriage, divorce, loans, inheritance, mortgages, the sale of land, and so on. Every village had at least one scribe.

This scribe was in the crowd, toying whether or not follow Jesus or not.

Then he saw Jesus preparing to go to the other side. The Lord and His disciples were moving toward the boat, and he had to make up his mind. So, he came out from the crowd and said, “I’ll follow You wherever You go.”

The scribe had made his decision.

Verse 20 tells us the Lord’s reaction,

And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” 

 

In effect, the Lord Jesus was saying to this bloke, “Have you counted the cost? Check out the destination before you buy the ticket.”

Our Lord was revealing His poverty while he was here on this earth.

The young man had opened his heart, so, our Lord opens His heart.

He’s saying that they don’t have a place to stay. That even the birds have nests, and the foxes have holes, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay His head. This poverty of the Lord Jesus is part of the curse that He bore.

We’re not told if this young man followed Christ in spite of this warning.

I like to think that he did, that when that boat pulled out, there was a young man in it who’d decided to follow Him.

 

Now in verse21 there’s another potential follower,

Then another of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” 

 

Here’s a young man who’s also made a decision to follow the Lord, but he wants to go and bury his father first. This incident has been greatly misunderstood. We get the impression that the old fella had just died, and that the family was getting ready to hold the funeral service and Our Lord seems very harsh when He replies in verse 22,

But Jesus said to him, “Follow Me, and let the dead bury their own dead.” 

 

What does the Lord mean by this? How could the dead bury the dead?

Well, firstly this is not necessarily referring to the father being already dead.

We could subconsciously read this as if this man will simply go and bury his father, then he’ll come back to become a disciple of Jesus in a few hours or maybe a day or two.

The expression of “going to bury their father” was a common saying at that time. It often meant that a person wanted to stay with their father until his end. He may have been sick, or it could mean they wanted to be with the father during the time he had left in order to be sure to get their inheritance.

So, you see this bloke’s father may well have been still alive and may not even have been close to death.

We shouldn’t think that Jesus is speaking against burying the dead or that He has no respect for the man’s feelings for his father.

Clearly, what this man meant was that the cares of this world, the things of this world were more pressing to him than following Jesus. He wanted to get his ducks in a row, to get everything in his natural earthly life sorted before committing to becoming a disciple of our Lord and Savior.

You’re either all-in or you’re like this man who wanted to have just a little bit more fun on Earth before focusing on eternity.

In a sense, it’s like people who say, “I have enough time, I’ll think about God when I’m old”. This is pure foolishness.

None of us is promised tomorrow and we don’t know what tomorrow brings. Our lives are nothing but mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes so says James 4:14.

By saying “let the dead bury the dead”, Jesus is clearly speaking about individuals who are spiritually dead.

Who are the spiritually dead?

These are all the unsaved people who are not interested in the free gift of salvation through faith in Christ.

These are those who value the things of this world more than eternal life.

So, when Christ told this man to leave the works of the (spiritually) dead and follow Him, He was implying that there’s something of greater importance.

But this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t honour our father and mother! It just means that our number one priority should always be Jesus Christ.

This chap who wanted to bury his father first was clearly torn between eternal life and temporary, secular life. Note that he didn’t decline Jesus’ offer to follow Him, so he must’ve been at least interested in doing this.

However strange and odd this phrase may sound to our ears; it was easily understood by a Jew and it’s Jews that Jesus is still dealing with here.

Our Lord was coaxing this young man to decide. Was he going to put Christ first?

When the young man made that decision, the Lord Jesus more than likely said to him, “Then you go back home and take care of your father.”

 

Now we’ve arrived at Matthew 8:23 and the fifth recorded miracle which has nothing to do with healing a body but is a physical miracle over nature.

Here the power of the Lord Jesus over the physical universe is demonstrated. His power and authority over creation is displayed here, further adding to the credentials of the King.

Adam would have had that same power before he lost his dominion over the earth. Now we see in this miracle a display of this power and authority the Lord Jesus, who is the last Adam, had over the earth.

1 Corinthians 15:45-47 tells us about this relationship Jesus Christ had with Adam.

And so it is written, “THE FIRST MAN ADAM BECAME A LIVING BEING.” (This is referring to Genesis 2:7 by the way) The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual.

The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven.

Scripture not only explains the differences, but also the connections between the natural-born body of Christians and the resurrection bodies of those same believers in eternity.

Paul wrote in the previous verse that if there is a natural body, the one we live in now, then there’s also a “spiritual body.” In this context, he means the one we’ll be raised into after God transforms us. In other words, we go through a process from the natural body, built to live on earth, to the spiritual body, which will be built to exist in heaven and eternity. We should be aware that this means we’ll be transformed a spiritual body not a spirit. Our spiritual body will have all that the resurrected body of Jesus had.

This is simply impossible for us to fully understand as 1 John 3:2 tells us.

Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. 

So, on with verses 23 and 25,

Now when He got into a boat, His disciples followed Him. And suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea, so that the boat was covered with the waves. But He was asleep. 

Then His disciples came to Him and awoke Him, saying, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!” 

 

This was no ordinary storm.

This storm was possibly supernatural in its origin and was an attempt by Satan to destroy the Lord.

The Bible doesn’t explicitly mention which of the disciples in the boat were fishermen. However, according to Matthew 4:18-22, Simon Peter and his brother Andrew were casting a net into the sea when Jesus called them to follow him, saying, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” James and John, the sons of Zebedee, were also fishermen and were called by Jesus to follow him 3. Therefore, it’s more than likely that at least some of the disciples in the boat with Jesus were fishermen. The point being that not only were these blokes tough, rugged individuals but they were very familiar with the weather conditions in that area and yet here they are in gripping fear and screaming for the Lord to save them.

Notice how He handled the situation.

He was asleep. This is one of the most human scenes Matthew gives us. Jesus was so weary that even in a storm He could sleep! He could sleep in a storm, unconcerned about it.

In my years as a fisherman, I could never get used to storms. I always loved the wild, untamed beauty of a storm at sea, but it was always nerve racking. It would keep my focus for hours on end and I could never ever sleep in a storm even if it lasted for days.

 

Verse 26,

But He said to them, “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. 

 

He rebuked the disciples for their lack of faith, then He rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was calm!

It’s true that these men exhibited very little faith at this time but there did come a day when the storms of persecution broke over the lives of all these men and we don’t see any evidence of them panicking and crying out to the Lord to save them.

Rather, we read in Acts 4:29 that they said,

Now, Lord, look on their threats, and grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word.

That became the most important thing to them.

Don’t we need that kind of courage and conviction today!

Notice the profound impression this incident made on the disciples by this miracle over nature in verse 27,

So, the men marvelled, saying, “Who can this be, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?”

 

You see the King, The One who displays His credentials by His power and authority over nature causes these tough men to recognise that they were dealing with Someone special, Someone who was unlike any other individual. They would eventually see Him for Who He really was, The King, The long promised Messiah, The Lord, God incarnate, God in flesh.

 

The sixth miracle is a tremendous one. And it demonstrates the power of the King over the supernatural world, the world outside of the dimensions we’re aware of as we live in on this earth. Here we see the casting out of demons.

 

Matthew 8:28,

When He had come to the other side, to the country of the Gergesenes, there met Him two demon-possessed men, coming out of the tombs, exceedingly fierce, so that no one could pass that way. 

 

Here Jesus is in Gadara, as it’s called today.

The people living here were from the tribe of Gad. In the Old Testament, when the land was being divided up among the tribes of Israel, the tribe of Gad stayed on the wrong side of the Jordan River.

What happened to them? Well, they went into the pork business, which, as Jews, they shouldn’t have done.

See, once you disobey the Lord, the next step of disobedience is not so difficult. Before long you’re walking out of His way and His will altogether.

When Jesus entered into this country, He was met by two very dangerous, demon–possessed men.

 

Verse 29,

And suddenly they cried out, saying, “What have we to do with You, Jesus, You Son of God? Have You come here to torment us before the time?” 

 

This miracle opens up a tremendous area that, unfortunately, we know so little about today.

It’s difficult for us to understand the importance of this miracle because of our lack of understanding of the demonic realm. Some commentators believe that these demon related miracles could possibly be the greatest Jesus performed.

The reference relating to “before the time” is not made clear but it’s widely regarded as a reference to the day of judgment which is reserved by God where they’ll receive their full wages of eternal torment. They apparently had some knowledge of this.

Verse 30 and 31,

Now a good way off from them there was a herd of many swine feeding. 

So the demons begged Him, saying, “If You cast us out, permit us to go away into the herd of swine.” 

 

For some reason that we don’t know about demons want to be brought into physical reality. They seem to be concerned about being materialised. They were even satisfied to indwell a herd of pigs

 

Verse 32,

And He said to them, “Go.” So when they had come out, they went into the herd of swine. And suddenly the whole herd of swine ran violently down the steep place into the sea, and perished in the water. 

 

The pigs, however, would rather die than to have the demons possess them.

Mankind is a little different.

The concept of demon possession is not explicitly mentioned in the Old Testament, and the term “demon” is not used often. However, there are several instances in the Old Testament where evil spirits are mentioned, such as in 1 Samuel 16:14-23, where an evil spirit tormented King Saul, and in Judges 9:23, where God sent an evil spirit to cause dissension between Abimelech and the citizens of Shechem.

The Bible also describes many instances of supernatural manifestations during the time of Moses and Elijah.

In today’s world demonic influence and even possession could explain much of the pure evil we see on the global scene as well as in nations and individuals.

Jesus gave these demons permission to inhabit the physical bodies of the pigs.

Without this permission, these evil spirits couldn’t enter the pigs and without that permission they can’t do anything to the bodies, souls, or the belongings of men.

Therefore, they shouldn’t be feared by people, especially by the people of God.

Some may ask, why Christ allowed the demons to enter the herd of pigs, and destroy them, which would’ve been a financial loss to the owners.

As we’ve said this area was inhabited by the tribe of Gad so the owners were more likely than not Jews and they would have been breaking the law to raise pigs. Remember all these events are still taking place prior to Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection so it’s all happening under the law. It would have been a just punishment for their breach of the law. If the pigs were owned by Gentiles, this event would show the cruelty and evil of these spirits as well as the Lord’s dominion over them. The news of the miracle would have spread even more.

 

Verse 33 and 34,

Then those who kept them fled; and they went away into the city and told everything, including what had happened to the demon-possessed men. 

And behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus. And when they saw Him, they begged Him to depart from their region. 

 

These people would rather have their pigs than Jesus. Believe me, this is not peculiar to the Gadarenes. The Jews, as a nation, are going to fail to recognise the Messiah throughout His ministry on earth and they would eventually execute him on the cross. Today, as a nation, they still reject the Messiah. Even though many individual Jews have and still are accepting Him, the nation has not. But one day, probably soon, it will. There are a multitudes of people today who prefer their “pigs” to the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Now we move to Matthew chapter 9 where Jesus performs 6 more miracles, calls Matthew, clashes with the Pharisees, and continues His ministry in Galilee.

The King has demonstrated that He has the power and authority, to rule the coming Kingdom. This continues as we see Him performing physical miracles of healing and His mastery over the spiritual realm with the miracles of the raising of the dead and casting out a demon.

 

Matthew 9:1,

So He got into a boat, crossed over, and came to His own city.

 

Jesus left the country of the Gadarenes, who didn’t want Him, and returned to Capernaum.

 

Verse 2,

Then behold, they brought to Him a paralytic lying on a bed. When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you.”

We’re given more details in Mark’s account concerning this miracle.

Mark tells us how this man was let down through the roof of a house, and the Lord both healed him and forgave him his sins. Healing and the forgiveness of sins are related.

 

To verse 3 now,

And at once some of the scribes said within themselves, “This Man blasphemes!” 

The scribes were horrified to hear Jesus forgiving sin. Only God can forgive sin. This is why they thought He was being blasphemous. How could this human forgive sin? Jesus clearly displays Who He really is here, God incarnate.

 

Verses 4 and 5,

But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts? 

For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Arise and walk’? 

 

They wouldn’t answer His question, but if they had answered, they would have had to say, “Well, to us, one is as great a deed as the other.” Forgiving sin and enabling a paralytic to arise and walk are equally the work of God alone.

 

Matthew 9:6-7

But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins”—then He said to the paralytic, “Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.” 

And he arose and departed to his house. 

 

To me this a truly wonderful verse and it brings the reality of Who Jesus is right out in the open for all who want to see.

When this paralysed man got up and walked, it meant that the One who could make him walk was the One who could forgive his sins.

No other force or created thing in universe has that power and authority except God Himself.

“But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins.” What He’s saying here is that this demonstration is for you. It’s for your eyes. It’s visible proof, it’s a demonstration specifically for your eyes to see, and that demonstration proves this. That although this One doing this work was the son of man, truly and really 100% man, He was much, much more than just a mere man. He was also truly and properly 100% God. God and man in one person, having the power on earth to forgive sins, proving not only His ability as God, but His authority as a mediator between God the Father and man. However, this audience didn’t quite get that at this time.

Then turning himself away from the scribes He was talking to back to the paralysed man and without even a prayer for healing to God but purely by His Word of command, Jesus says to him, “Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.

He ordered him to “arise” from this bed, on which he was carried in by four men, and “take up his bed”, and carry it himself, which was not only evidence that the disease had left him, but that he was in full strength, and perfect health, and to “go” to his own “house”. The multitude would see that this paralysed man who was bought in lying on a stretcher carried by others could now walk home himself. All who saw this drama outplayed had been eyewitnesses of this man’s severe illness and weakness along with his cure.

 

Verse 8,

Now when the multitudes saw it, they marvelled and glorified God, who had given such power to men. 

When the many people who were there saw this miracle performed before their eyes, when they saw the man take up his bed, and carry it home, they were struck with amazement and astonishment at this sight which they had never seen before, nor even heard of. What other conclusion could they reach but that God had given this power to a human. They attributed these events to God and they praised, and glorified God Who had given such power to a man.

See they attributed these miracles to God but notice that they still looked upon Christ as a mere man, by whom God did these wonderful things. They still didn’t know the mystery of the incarnation, God taking on flesh and entering humanity, His creation.

Verse 9,

As Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, “Follow Me.” So he arose and followed Him. 

Matthew is very modestly about himself here. He passes over his personal call with only this verse.

In Luke’s record of this calling in Luke 5 verses 27 to 29, we’re told that Matthew made a huge dinner in honour of Jesus. Evidently the incident which follows took place at this dinner. Matthew invited many of his publican friends to this dinner because he wanted them to know the Lord Jesus Christ also.

Matthew is referred to as Levi in both the gospels of Mark and Luke. The fact that he had two names (the Greek name Matthew and the Hebrew name Levi) shows that he had a place of status within the Roman community. Matthew was a tax collector by the lake of Tiberias before he gave himself over to the service of Jesus.

 

To verses 10 and 11,

Now it happened, as Jesus sat at the table in the house, that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples. 

And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to His disciples, “Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 

 

The Pharisees didn’t believe in eating with publicans and sinners. Many Christians today still have the same idea. It doesn’t hurt to invite sinners to dinner because they’re the ones who need to know about Christ. We need to have contact with sinners. It’s our calling.

 

Verse 12,

When Jesus heard that, He said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 

 

Jesus is the Great Physician. He came to heal mankind of their basic problem, which is sin.

Christians often form groups who have their bless me dinners and “fellowship” meetings and exclude the unsaved from outside their particular group.

If the unsaved do come, they’re often frozen out with meaningless Christianese chatter. Our Lord gives us a great example of mixing with those who’re shunned by so called good, upstanding Christians.

 

 

Verse 13 of chapter 9,

But go and learn what this means: ‘I DESIRE MERCY AND NOT SACRIFICE.’ For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” 

 

Matthew is at it again, showing us how everything about Jesus’s time here on earth fulfills Old Testament prophecy. This time He’s quoting Hosea 6:6 which reads,

For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, And the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. 

When Jesus said, “For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance,” the Pharisees were included because they were sinners. They just didn’t see themselves in that light. In fact, all of us are included. Romans 3:23 says, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”.

Until next time friends when we’ll see Jesus continuing to show His credentials As King through mighty miracles and parables, may God bless you and keep you from the cares of this world.