Good evening.
Good to see everybody this evening.
Before we get started with the class, we'll go ahead and uh start with a word of prayer.
Let's bow.
Dear Lord, our Father in heaven, we thank you so very much for this wonderful time of year that we get to spend together with our family and friends and the comfort of our home
being surrounded by our loved ones.
We thank you also, Lord God, for the ability to come here tonight and learn from your inspired word and for all those that wrote down your gospel for us to have today.
Lord God, may we always take to heart the lessons that we learn and apply it in our daily lives so that we can become stronger, more faithful Christians unto You and hopefully lead
others to the gospel and to Your saving grace.
And so, we pray to Thee in Jesus' name, amen.
So, last week, well, I guess it was this week, Sunday we had went over and started going through the book of Matthew.
where we had uh given you guys the key verses, key ideas, and we had taken notes down and broken up every chapter into verse sections to help it make a little bit more sense.
When last we left off, we left off at the end of chapter one and we were talking about the Order of Malchisedec.
And so, we had an issue there where uh you can't have a priest in the Old Testament
not be from the tribe of Levi.
He had to be from the tribe of Levi.
And so, we had come and I started talking about how we solve this, and we presented one argument, but then we were going to go over the Jesus priesthood and what it means to be
from the order of Malchizedek.
ah Matthew proves that Jesus is the King, but Hebrews explains Jesus is also our High Priest.
So, how can He both be King and High Priest?
In the Old Testament, that was kind of unheard of.
The problem is that Jesus is from Judah, not the tribe of Levi.
So, there's a huge difference there.
Priests have to come from Levi.
The solution ah is found in Hebrews chapter 5 and verse 6.
We'll go ahead and have somebody read that for us.
Hebrews chapter 5 and verse 6.
after the order of Malchizedek.
We can also read this if you skip ahead and also read chapter 6 and verse 20.
Fast forward another chapter, chapter 7 and verse 17.
see, Hebrews is telling us over and over and over again how he can be both priest and king.
Okay, so to...
To get a little bit more insight, we would need to turn back all the way to Genesis chapter 14.
Genesis chapter 14 is where you're going to read about Melchizedek and what happens there and who he is.
So, a brief background about Melchizedek because we're trying to get into chapter 2 and 3 tonight if time wills.
ah Melchizedek was the king of Salem.
At the time it was known as Salem, it would be known as Jerusalem later on.
He was a priest of the Most High God.
And very important here, it's kind of the whole reason for this argument is, he received tithes from Abraham.
Something else to note is that Melchizedek appears very suddenly in Scripture.
Unlike Matthew's account in chapter 1, we don't have a genealogy for Melchizedek like we did for Jesus.
It's just not there.
We don't know his background, we just know ah that he's both king and priest because we don't have any recorded genealogy there anywhere in the Bible.
His priesthood is mysterious ah and it's shown to be superior as well.
And Hebrews 7 explains that
which we read just a moment ago, Abraham acknowledges Malchisedec's greatness.
If you have to pay tithes to someone, we pay tithes to the government, don't we?
Are we greater than the government or is the government greater than us individually?
The lesser always pays tithes or gives tribute to the greater.
And so Abraham
gives, uh I'm trying to say this correctly, Abraham gives Melchizedek tithes because he's the lesser of the two.
Yeah, all these names, saying them over and over again gets you tongue tied.
Therefore, Levi with Abraham's lineage would also have to acknowledge that, right?
Because they're further down in the line of Abraham.
Melchizedek's priesthood is older and higher than Levi's.
is very interesting.
Now we're told in another spot in the Bible that He could make children of Abraham from these rocks.
God has the ability to do whatever He wants, uh but there's a lot of uh parallels between Melchizedek and Jesus.
uh Melchizedek is royal, m
Melchizedek is priestly and Melchizedek was also appointed directly by God.
Thus, his priesthood is perfect.
Same as Jesus.
So, that's how we answer that if someone ever comes to us and says, well, Jesus couldn't have been the high priest of the Almighty God.
He can't be both priest and king because he'd have to come from Levi.
It's not true at all because the Levites were lesser than the lineage of Melchizedek, which we know from his genealogy that we have.
So, now we're going to move on to Chapter 2.
ah which the memory verse that I typically like to assign at this point, especially for the teens and stuff, would be Matthew 2 and verse 11.
And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother and fell down and worshiped him.
It's a great verse.
It's kind of the whole idea, the theme of this chapter.
So if you wanted to write a title at the top of chapter two, you would write something along the lines of, Jesus is worth seeking.
This is what I wrote in mine because I feel like it's the theme of the chapter.
We see the the wise men going to visit Jesus.
Here we have the search for the king.
Matthew 2 continues the story, begun in chapter 1, but it focused the shifts dramatically.
Chapter 1 showed us who Jesus is, who's the rightful king, the promised Messiah, God with us.
Chapter 2 is going to show us how the world responds to him.
So we have uh
uh beginning story of where He started and now it's now that He started what's everyone's reaction to it.
Jesus is worth seeking no matter the distance, no matter the difficulty, and as we see here no matter the cost.
This chapter is going to contain things like movement, worship, fear, prophecy, uh but
I do have a roadmap for our study.
So I've done the same thing that we did for Chapter 1, and I broke down the verses into different headings that you're welcome to write down, or if any of you, I've already been
requested once to print this out.
Happy to print out tonight's class.
for Matthew 2 and 3, which I have currently.
So you guys are welcome to get a copy of that.
uh But the section wrote that verses 1 through 10.
And again, I like to just put a little bracket around verses 1 through 10, just the verse headers there.
And then I write along that line.
And I called that following the star.
Verses 11 through 12 is the next section.
We're going to have five sections total.
Section two, verses 11 through 12 is gifts for a king.
verses 13 through 15 will be the third section and that's going to be the flight into Egypt.
Verses 16 through 18 is the story of how Rachel weeps and verses 19 through 23 we're going to learn about Jesus' hometown.
So let's go ahead and start in section one.
We'll start by reading verses one through ten and I'll go ahead and read that from here.
The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
Abraham begat Isaac and Isaac begat Jacob.
I'm in Matthew chapter 1.
What am I doing?
Love it when that happens, technology.
Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem, that's much better, of Judah in the days of Herod the king, behold there came a wise man from the east to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he
that is born of the king of the Jews?
For we have seen a star in the east, and are come to worship him.
Well, when Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.
And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born.
Now there's a difference in translation between the new King James
and the King James, which will go there.
Raise your hand if your translation says he requested of them or something along those lines.
Inquired, OK.
We'll get on that.
Continuing on.
they said unto him in Bethlehem of Judea, For thus it is written by the prophet, and thou, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, art not the least among the princes of Judah.
For out of thee shall come a governor that shall rule my people Israel.
Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, inquired of them diligently what time the star appeared.
And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and search diligently for the young child.
And when you have found
So here we have them following the star.
The wise men or
Magi, as they would have been called, would have been scholars, astronomers, advisors, things of that nature, likely taught from Persia or Babylon, which were the centers of
learning back in that day.
They traveled a great distance because they knew the newborn king of the Jews was, again, in line with the theme of the chapter, worth seeking.
m
Now Herod the King, historical background, uh we know him mostly as Herod the Great.
Herod the Great was a master builder.
We know this because he expanded the temple.
He did a lot of good building there, but he was also suspicious.
He was paranoid and he was incredibly violent.
He murdered several of his own sons.
He murdered his favorite wife whose name I'm not going to attempt to pronounce.
I'm not going to pronounce it.
He murdered her mother and then near his death he ordered leading Jewish men to be killed so the nation would cry when he died.
know, back then this was a time where you could hire people as professional mourners.
It was a job back in ancient Jewish culture.
uh You would have a whole group of people almost like a choir.
And instead of paying for the band to show up at the wedding, you pay for the band to show up at your funeral and they would cry for you, make loud screams, make it feel like, you
know, someone actually missed you.
It's a really weird job title.
It's something we don't think of today.
But it was very much part of their culture.
He rolled through fear, cruelty, especially in his late
years which we see in verses 15 through 16.
So, biblically Herod appears as a king threatened by prophecy.
You saw where it said all
all the nation was afraid when they had heard of the newborn king.
He was a manipulator.
He was a liar.
He was a man of ulterior motives as well as we're going to see.
So let's go down through the verses because Herod fears Jesus because Jesus is the King.
He's the true King.
Now he didn't understand that he was the King of a spiritual kingdom and not a physical kingdom but we'll get into that.
Verse 2, a question that is asked is where is he?
Notice the wise men do not ask
is He born?
They ask where is He?
They firmly believe He's here on this planet.
They ask where is He that is born King of the Jews?
They never question the fact, only the location, which shows that they had faith in the prophecy of Jesus being born.
They also saw His star as a sign God used to draw them closer to Christ.
Continuing on to verse 3, can see Herod is troubled.
The Greek indicates agitation or uh shaking whenever it says fear there.
Herod's terrified at the idea of rival king and as it says in the scripture, all Jerusalem with him was troubled because typically when Herod got upset, people died, right?
He was a very violent king and you don't want a violent king to be afraid of something or be shaking with fear.
Verse 4, Herod demands information, important detail.
And again, there's the translation there.
What king do you know of that asks their subject nicely for information?
Do kings typically request things from people?
Can you deny a king in this day and age?
Not this day and age, but the day and age back then?
No, look at what happened to the queen of Sheba.
He demanded that the chief priests and scribes tell him where Christ should be born.
didn't want to share it with them, which I think was smart on their part.
Also note, Jesus is not yet named Jesus to the chief priests because they had no idea who He was.
Remember, they're in a totally different area from Joseph and Mary and all that going on.
They had no idea that His name was Jesus so they couldn't provide a name to help Herod locate.
They just knew that Christ was being born so they had to go and find Him.
They only knew the Christ in the prophecy.
Which brings us on to verse 6, which can be paralleled with Micah 5-2.
If someone will go ahead over to Micah 5-2, we'll get that in a second.
But the scribes quote the prophecy in Micah 5-2.
Jesus will be born in Bethlehem.
Alright, let's go ahead and get Micah 5 and verse 2.
Gotta keep it from jumping up.
All right.
Now we see there where they're mimicking that, where they're paralleling the verse in Micah.
Something I found interesting when doing this study is who here can tell me the meaning of the word Bethlehem?
Like the meaning of my name, Justin, means justice.
Most names associated with them have a meaning behind them, uh Angelica could be angelic, things like that.
Bethlehem, when I looked up the meaning of it, means house of bread of all things.
It's quite fitting for someone who called themselves the bread of life, right?
I just found that kind of neat.
The prophecy says a ruler will come forth, but the word rule carries the Hebrew idea of shepherding.
It's not ruling with an ironclad fist, way Herod did, threatening his people, but as a shepherd would shepherd his sheep, caring, tending for the flock, leading them,
participating with, being an example for.
Christ is not only King, we know Him as the shepherd.
So let's move on to verse seven.
Herod calls the wise men, privily.
Can anyone tell me what privily means?
Privately.
Yep.
He summons them in secret.
Why?
Now we can't say for certain why, but we can assume that it's because he didn't want the Jews to know that the prophecy was being fulfilled.
He wants to keep his reign as king, right?
He doesn't want to give that up.
He'd be giving up power.
He'd be giving up wealth.
m
The king Herod had ulterior motives, absolutely.
So he lies to the wise men, pretending he wants to worship Christ.
Oh, tell me when you found him, I'd love to go and worship him.
He's not fooling anybody.
They know Herod from his past actions.
His real intention was to kill him, and we see that later on.
Verses nine through 10, we see the star leading them.
the star reappears leading them to the exact location.
Now this wasn't...
A lot of times we read, at least if you Google it, you'll see references to the North Star.
This would not necessarily be the North Star because it said they saw the star to the east.
This was something that we can assume was put there by God, the star of Bethlehem.
It was something that God put into the world for a temporary time to showcase and lead them, kind of like how we have the parallel with everyone evacuating Egypt.
They had the pillar of fire by night.
cloud of smoke by day, they would do the same thing here.
Which brings us to section two, gifts for a king.
This is verses 11 through 12.
Let's have someone go ahead and read Matthew chapter 2, 11 through 12.
gifts of gold, of incense, and of myrrh.
And having been warm in
Alright, so here we come to the heart of the chapter.
Jesus is absolutely worth seeking.
He's worth traveling for.
He's worth any price because he's given such wonderful gifts.
He's worth honoring and he's worth worshiping.
So the wise men offer gifts and there's lots of parallels and meanings for this gifts too.
If you look at antiquity and what typically these gifts would have been given to or who they would have been given for.
So gold would have represented his kingship.
Gold was typically reserved for a gift for specifically just royalty.
Then we have frankincense, usually used in priestly worship.
It's a picture of Christ's divinity, deity.
So frankincense, who can tell me what frankincense is?
Yes, basically incense, right?
So what parallel do we have in the Old Testament that they would have to do when worshiping God?
They would have to offer...
incense, sacrifices, and they always had to salt the meat, right?
So it would come up.
It's even described in the Old Testament as being a sweet savor to the Lord.
So we have a parallel there with Old Testament sacrifices showing his deity as well.
Then you have myrrh.
This was for his sacrifice.
Myrrh typically is a uh chemical used for embalming and it's a symbol of death.
ah Even at his earliest years, the gifts proclaimed exactly who he was.
that He was given proclaimed that He was King, He was God, and He was Savior.
So, we have all these parallels in the three gifts that we see there.
Which brings us to verse 12.
God warns them.
The wise men obey God rather than Herod.
Why is this?
I think it's because they were called wise men, right?
You wouldn't be too wise if you gave up the vital information to your savior to a maniacal, conniving, evil, murdering clown.
Yes, exactly, they were wise men, very much so.
So now we're going to move on to section three.
This is verses 13 through 15 in a section I titled, The Flight into Egypt.
All right, so let's go ahead and get Matthew chapter two, 13 through 15.
Now when they had the
Take the young child and his mother, flee to Egypt and stay there until I bring you word.
For Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.
When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt and was there until the death of Herod that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the
Lord through the prophet saying, out of Egypt I called my son.
All right, so God communicates through what medium?
Through a dream, through an angel through a dream.
Joseph is commanded to flee.
Why?
Because Herod's gonna seek the young child and seek to destroy him.
There's his murderous intent unfolding already.
He didn't want to worship him.
He wanted to know where he was.
And what does Joseph do?
Now what was, does anyone remember the word that we used to uh describe Joseph last time we studied?
just obedient.
Obedience was the word we chose, but just works and fits the blank just perfect.
Alright, so Joseph obeys immediately.
This is his third act of obedience that we see in only two chapters.
Joseph was an absolutely stand-up guy.
Now Herod's later cruelty historically was at the end of his life.
We know Herod became more paranoid, more violent, more unstable, more ruthless, and this fits Matthew's description perfectly.
And this is just going through history books and things like that about Herod the Great.
Not a pretty sight.
But verse 15, have prophecy fulfilled.
We have out of Egypt, have I called my son?
This connects Jesus to Israel's history.
He is the new Israel, the perfect son.
So we have parallels there.
Now we'll have section four.
This is Rachel Weeps, Matthew chapter two, 16 through 18, if someone's willing to read that.
exceedingly angry and he sent forth and put to death all male children.
All right, so someone go ahead and be turning over to Jeremiah 31 and verse 15 for me.
Get ready to read that.
What does Herod realize when we get to these verses?
What's not coming back to him?
The wise men are not returning.
So a king with those kind of anger issues, we'll call them, he's going to fly into a rage.
And we see that right here.
He orders the slaughter of all male children two years and under in Bethlehem.
So, this demographic that he chose was very specific to hunt Jesus down.
This is because he didn't want to completely deplete the workforce of all male labor, right?
He wanted specifically to target Christ, and he knew that if he said two years and under, he may be able to write it off, right?
I'm not sure what his thinking would be.
We can only assume here.
But this atrocity fulfills Jeremiah 31 in verse 15.
If someone will go ahead and read that now.
moving forward children.
Alright, so Rachel weeping for her children.
She's almost symbolizing the mothers of Israel, right?
Because when Herod sent out this order, do you think it got fulfilled?
There were a lot of dead children there through Israel.
Absolutely.
This verse originally referred to the Babylonian captivity, but Matthew applies it to Herod's massacre in this instance, right?
So, what's the meaning of Rama or Rhema?
Does anyone know?
It means high place.
So a high place.
refers to a region approximately seven miles north of Bethlehem, right?
ah This shows Matthew's careful historical accuracy as well.
So he's also giving us the demographic location of where this is happening.
It's very nice.
It's very cool to be able to pinpoint that on the map and look around.
But high place typically would be kind of like if you, uh our equivalent in the U.S.
would be like going to Bandelier National Park.
You had Bandelier National Park and up the steep grades.
uh
you'll have these dugouts.
ah I can't remember what they're called right off the top of my head, but they're little dugouts where they would have fires and things like that right on the side of the cliff
faces.
But they were high places.
They were ramo where these cities were built up there.
And if you go to Bandelier National Park today, you can actually see those.
Those are our equivalent of what they found there.
ah Section five, Jesus' hometown.
This brings us to Matthew chapter two verses 19 through 23.
I'll go ahead and read this one.
But when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, Arise, take the young child and his mother and go into the land of Israel.
For they are dead which stopped the young child's life.
And he arose and took the young child and his mother and came into the land of Israel.
But when he had heard Archelaus did reign in Judea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go further.
Notwithstanding being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee.
And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, he shall be called a Nazarene." So here we have, Harry dies, he
bites the dirt, game over, shouldn't have anybody chasing him anymore, so Joseph receives another message.
it's safe to return.
Verse 22, we read about Archelaus.
How do you want to pronounce it?
Herod the Great changed his will before he died.
So, if we look back, he removed Antipas and placed Archelaus over Judea instead.
Archelaus was considered historically the worst son.
He was violent, he was cruel, he was unstable, he was hated by the Jews.
Did Joseph have every right to fear him?
Yeah, he took after his dad.
Of course he would.
Yes, he trained him well, or trained him terribly.
One of the two.
So he fears him rightly, right?
So God directs Joseph to Galilee.
So verse 23, we see Nazareth.
Joseph settling in Nazareth.
Now the name Nazareth means shoot or could also be loosely translated branch.
This connects Jesus to the prophecies of the branch.
Let's see what I mean.
Let's have someone turn over to Isaiah chapter 11 and verse 1 and read the prophecy that Isaiah has.
oh We can read about that historically, but it's not in the
The shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse from his roots a branch.
So there we go, the shoot or branch.
Funny how that parallels with Nazareth.
Now it's important to note that he is called a Nazarene, not a Nazarite.
There's a difference here.
A Nazarite would have taken a vow.
Who else took a Nazarite vow that we read of in the Bible?
Had jawbone of donkey, slew a bunch of people, really, really strong.
Samson?
Okay.
A Nazarene.
would have been someone born from Nazareth.
So distinctions there are made.
Nazarite and Nazarene, totally different things, sound very, very similar.
ah Luke clarifies that Nazareth was Mary's hometown when we read Luke chapter 1, verses 26 through 27.
And I'll go ahead and get that.
And in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin, a spouse to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David, and
the virgin's name Mary." So here we have the clarification of Mary's hometown.
All right, so the major lesson in chapter two since we're at the end of it, Jesus' work seeking, right?
He's King, which is representative of the gold.
He's God, representative of the frankincense.
He is the savior, which is represented in the myrrh that was given to him.
Herod shows fear, deception, rebellion, while the wise men show faith, humility, and worship.
Everyone in this chapter reacts to Jesus in some way, or form.
Does everyone in the world react to Jesus in some way, shape, or form today?
Yeah.
They either reject him, ignoring something is still reacting to it.
That is still a response.
So I had a few discussion questions here.
ah How is Herod different from the wise men?
And don't say every way.
He wanted to destroy Jesus while the wise men wanted to worship Christ, right?
Alright.
So Matthew chapter two is a book of contrast, or a chapter of contrasts.
We have the wise men worshipping versus Herod Plot's murder.
We have Joseph obeying.
We have religious leaders remaining indifferent.
We have a star leaders seek.
And then we have a prophecy that condemns the wicked.
We have innocent children dying.
We have the true king surviving.
We have Jesus beginning his earthly life in danger.
And yet, he fulfills every prophecy.
So lots of contrasts there.
So now let's go ahead and move on to chapter three.
I'm glad we actually have time for this.
ah The theme of the chapter I wrote down above the section header was preparing the way for the king.
All right?
So Matthew chapter three marks a major turning point in the gospel.
Chapter one and two focuses on Jesus's identity, his early life, fleeing into Egypt and so forth, his lineage, his birth, the reactions of the wise men and God's protection over him
as a child.
Now Matthew moves us forward in the beginning of Jesus's public ministry in chapter three.
But before Jesus steps onto the public stage, God sends a messenger ahead of him.
Does anybody know who that is?
m
John, John the Baptist.
This chapter answers a very important question.
How does God prepare people to receive the King?
Right?
The answer is not miracles.
The answer is not signs.
It's not popularity.
What was John's message?
Repent.
Repentance is how.
So Matthew chapter three shows us that God prepares hearts before he reveals his son, before Jesus begins teaching, before he begins healing, before he begins calling the
apostles, a voice, as it says, crying out in the wilderness, right?
Calling people to change.
So the roadmap, section roadmap, you know, I like to do these.
ah Matthew chapter two, three, it's a night.
is going to be divided into four different sections.
Section number one is going to be verses one through six.
This is the messenger in the wilderness.
Section number two will be verses seven through ten.
This we marked as the message of repentance.
Section number three will be verses 11 through 12.
That's the messenger's authority, because it doesn't matter what the message is if your messenger has no authority to get it, right?
He's got to have authority to back up what he's saying.
Then the last section, section four, is going to be verses 13 through 14, which is a message from the Father.
Jesus is baptized.
God publicly announces His Son.
Each section prepares the way for Christ and builds towards His public identification as the Messiah.
Here they announce it.
So section one, the messenger in the wilderness.
Do we have someone who's willing to read verses one through six?
those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, saying, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his path straight.
Now John himself was clothed in camel's hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locust and wild honey.
Then Jerusalem, all Judea, and all the region around the Jordan went out to him and were baptized by him and the Jordan confessing their sins.
All right, now I you to notice.
Malchizedek, how did he appear in the Bible?
Suddenly, right?
Do we have the same thing happening with John the Baptist here being introduced suddenly?
Again, no genealogy, no birth story, no background given.
John simply, as it were, preaching in the wilderness.
Doesn't mean he just...
miraculously appeared there and there we have John.
It's not how that worked, but this sudden appearance I think is intentional.
Matthew expects his Jewish readers to recognize that John is the fulfillment of prophecy.
Now which prophecy?
Let's have someone get Isaiah 40 and verse 3 and someone else look up Malachi 3 and verse 1 for me.
Isaiah 40 in verse 3 and Malachi 3 in verse 1.
All right, and Malachi 3.1.
Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me.
And the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant whom ye delight in.
Behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts." Okay, so we see the fulfillment of prophecy in both these verses.
If we're told a messenger who would come before the Messiah to prepare his way, right?
John's called the Baptist.
Why?
because baptized.
Baptism was a crucial part of his ministry, right?
It was the central part of all of it, right?
But he's not starting a new religion, is he?
He didn't just come up with the concept of baptism.
He's preparing people for the arrival of the King.
He's getting them ready for this and the ideas.
So verse two, this would be the key verse here, the memory verse if you wanted to memorize one.
This is the message.
John's message is short, it's direct, it's strong, it's powerful, it's meaningful.
Repent ye for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
What to the word repent, what does it entail?
Does it just mean being sorry for something?
You can be sorry that you did something, and then there's also being sorry you got caught for doing something, right?
Which sorry is it?
It's sorry that you did the thing.
Repentance in and of itself shows us a change of mind, a turning of direction, turning your back on that thing you used to do and becoming a new person.
You can change overnight.
Unfortunately, people's view of you will not change overnight.
It takes time.
But we also see a rejection of sin in the idea of repentance.
We see a realignment with God.
It's like getting your tires realigned.
You don't want to keep pulling you to the left.
You want to get realigned so you go straight down the road when you let go of the steering wheel.
check your phone right?
No, don't do that.
The kingdom of heaven refers to God's rule and reign.
It's not talking about an earthly kingdom.
John is announcing God's kingdom is near because the king himself is near, right?
This verse sets the tone for the entire chapter because Christ can be received and if he's going to be received hearts are gonna have to be what?
Changed?
Right?
Absolutely.
So let's look again at verses 3 through 4.
We have the voice and the lifestyle.
Matthew identifies John as the fulfillment of Isaiah 40 in verse 3.
The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord.
John preaches in the wilderness, away from comfort.
He prepares people in places of discomfort and simplicity, doesn't he?
He's not going to the square downtown and sitting at a coffee shop.
He's out there surviving off what two foods?
Locusts.
Locusts and honey.
A regional delicacy, if you didn't know.
If you haven't tried it, I'm not going to say try, don't.
But we see a camel's hair garment, we see a leather belt, and we see locusts and wild honey.
He was not dressed to impress.
He was dressed for survival.
John's diet of locusts and wild honey.
wild honey was not strange, but specifically it wasn't sinful to Jewish culture.
Locusts were considered clean food under the law of Moses.
Let's have someone get Leviticus chapter 11 and we'll read verses 21 through 22.
We're going to take a look back at what the law of Moses specifically says about eating locusts.
Because these were something that would commonly be eaten by poor people.
The rich kings weren't eating locusts.
Alright, let's go ahead.
Yet these may ye eat of every flying creeping thing that goeth upon all four which have legs above their feet to leap with full upon the earth.
Even these of them ye may eat, the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind.
Yummy.
Amen.
Right.
So these things would have been high in protein, but specifically these things would have been easy for him to find, right?
The locusts.
Remember, we're in a desert region.
Locusts are very prevalent.
desert regions.
They're all over the place.
So it would have made very practical survival food for him.
Wild honey would have been honey gathered on the ground.
It wouldn't have been processed like we typically do today.
This would be gathered from natural hives and rocks.
It could be found in trees.
It was not processed or farmed.
It was a simple provision from the wilderness.
You can see videos of people doing this today even.
Together, locust and honey would form a very basic diet.
But it'd be a healthy one.
It would keep you sustained well.
Honey has lots of antioxidants and things.
When I was taking, I used to take...
uh
Allergy shots.
And they said if you took a spoonful, a tablespoon of local honey to your area, because it contains all the pollen from that area, it is about the same, now this was just a
comparison, this is not medical advice, but it would be about the same as getting an allergy shot once a month if you took a spoonful of it every single day.
Because you're making your body acclimate to ingesting that.
So it learns how to fight.
But this diet specifically showed that John lived simply and dependently on God.
He wasn't driven by comfort or luxury.
This is a lifestyle that matched his message of repentance.
If you're living a repentant lifestyle, that's not one of comfort.
It's not one of instant gratification.
It's one of obedience.
It's one of discipline.
Like Old Testament prophets, especially Elijah, John's simple life reinforced his role as a messenger preparing the way for the Lord.
So we move on to verses five through six.
I don't think I'll get to section two, but we'll finish section one here.
Verses five through six, we see the response.
People come from Jerusalem, Judea, all the region of Jordan.
They're coming from all over.
They confess their sins and they're baptized.
This baptism, however,
not salvation.
It was public acknowledgement of repentance and readiness for the Messiah." Right?
There's a difference between John's baptism and the baptism Christ enacted.
So, God's preparing hearts for what comes next, and hopefully I'll get a chance to continue this and you'll get to see what comes next in the next class period.
So, does anyone have any last-minute questions before we close since we're running down on two minutes?
It says people went out to him from all of your, all of you did, the whole region of the majority.
You know, must have been a lot of people.
A lot of people.
But at the top of the town.
It shows the prevailing power of word of mouth, doesn't it?
And yet God says that it's pleasing unto him to save souls by the, pay attention what he calls it, the foolishness of preaching.
Because God can take something utterly foolish and make it incredible by the might of His power.
His power is seen most prevalently in weakness.
Wonderful.
So thank you all very much for your attention this evening.