Matthew 3-4 Chapter Study
As we come to ch. 3, some 30
years have passed between v. 1 of ch. 3 and the last verse of ch. 2.
Chapter
2 ends with Jesus as just an infant in
We
really know nothing of the intervening years of his life from then till the
start of His mission 30 years later.
Luke
tells us about an event that took place when he was 12 when His family took a
trip to
Then
we read that during these years he grew in stature with both God and man, but
other than that we have no insight into what are referred to as the hidden
years of Christ.
Now,
there are some fanciful stories that were written many, many years later that
forgers tried to pass off as genuine records of Jesus’ life during this time
but they’ve all been shown to be gross frauds.
Tonight we’re going to be in
the ‘II’ section and here’s what we’ll be covering . . .
1In those days
Meaning the days just
preceding the arrival of Jesus to begin His work as the Messiah.
John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, 2and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” 3For 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 paths straight.’”
4Now John himself was clothed in camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist; and his food was locusts and wild honey. 5Then Jerusalem, all Judea, and all the region around the Jordan went out to him 6and were baptized by him in the Jordan, confessing their sins.
If I had walked out here
tonight wearing a smock of camel’s hair, tied around the waist with a rough
leather belt, and munching on a locust, licking honey-covered fingers, and
every so often shouting, “Repent!” who
would you have known I was trying to imitate?
That’s what John did – he was
imitating someone – and that someone
was the first of the prophets – Elijah.
Just
like John, Elijah had come out of no-where to preach a message of repentance.
He
spent a good deal of his time in the wilderness.
He’s
described in 2 Kings 1:8 as a hairy man who wore a leather belt.
And
his food was what came to hand in the wilderness.
The other gospels tell us
that it was obvious to the people
that John was reprising the role of Elijah, so the priests and Levites asked him
to identify himself – just who was he claiming to be?
John
made it clear that he was NOT the
Messiah – only His forerunner.
He
said, “I am a voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of
the Lord.’”
John didn’t want the focus to
be on him; he wanted the people to
hear and heed the message.
They
asked, “Who ARE YOU?” And he replied, “Who I am is not im
John’s method was to preach – to proclaim!
Preaching
and teaching are two different things!
Teaching
aims at making the message understood by
explanation; it focuses on the mind, the intellect.
Preaching
isn’t so concerned with explaining as
with simple, clear proclamation.
It
aims at the heart, the will, seeking to effect change.
As you review the Bible
teachers you’ve been most influenced by over the years, you can probably place
them in either more of a teaching or preaching vein.
What’s
usually most effective is a good combination of each style, both teaching and
preaching.
If
all you hear is teaching, then your
head gets full, but it may not get converted into action, into follow through.
If
all you get is preaching, then you’re
highly motivated to do something, but you’re not quite sure what, how, when or
where.
John’s ministry was a simple
one of preaching, because his message
didn’t need any interpretation,
explanation, parsing, or development.
John
had one sermon and he preached it everywhere he went and every time he spoke – “Repent
– NOW!”
There’s an old rule for
giving a sermon which says that you have to have an introduction, a body with
three
Here’s
John’s approach to sermons:
1)
Introduction – “Repent!”
2)
Body: Point 1 – Repent Now! / Point 2 – Not Tomorrow! / Point 3 – Repent Today!
3)
Conclusion – “Repent!”
Matthew tells us in v. 3 that
John was the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy in 40:3 of one who would come as
the forerunner of the Messiah.
Matthew
drew this from John’s own claiming
this about himself in John 1:23.
As we said on Sunday, it was
the practice in the ancient world for a king to send out an official herald to
go along the route his royal entourage would take and forewarn people that
their sovereign would visit their city.
The
people would then repair the roads and spiff up their businesses & homes
for the kings arrival.
Isaiah said that prior to the
Messiah’s arrival, a herald would come who would announce the coming of their
King to inaugurate the
What
the people needed to do in preparation for the Messiah’s coming was to get morally ready!
Now, here’s what’s amazing
about John’s mission and message; it resonated in the hearts of the common
people – so much so that it sparked a revival.
As
v. 5 says – the entire region flocked out to the wilderness to hear John and to
follow through on their response.
This
follow through was done in the form of baptism,
which as we saw on Sunday was something Jews did not do – baptism was for Gentiles who converted to Judaism.
By
being baptized, these Jews were admitting that when it came to spiritual
things, they were no better than Gentiles – than rank unbelievers.
This
was a radical thing to admit, and it
wasn’t long until the movement around John and the radical step of renewal and
recommitment he was calling the people to, raised the hostility of the
religious experts & leaders.
7But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, 9and do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.
Since this was our text last
Sunday, I’ll be more summary with it tonight.
Until John began his mission,
it was the Pharisees & Sadducees who enjoyed the religious limelight.
And
they were jealous of all the attention that had been diverted from them and
their approach to religious piety, to this new upstart nobody.
They
weren’t about to let the new movement just go on without some opposition, so
they joined the crowds going out to see the Baptizer, masking their hostility
behind a thin veneer of curiosity.
But
John knew their motives weren’t pure
and nailed them with a stern rebuke.
Notice
in v. 9, John speaks out what they were only
thinking!
. . . and do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’
They heard John’s call to repentance
and baptism and said to themselves, “We’re Pharisees and that means we’re righteous, so we don’t need to repent. And we’re Jews,
so we don’t need to get wet!”
They
believed that being Jewish automatically
meant they were saved.
The Jews considered Abraham
utterly unique among all men who have ever lived.
So
righteous was he and so in God’s favor that it was thought his merits covered
all of his descendants.[1]
Writings from that time
reveal it was a common belief that Abraham sat just outside the gate into
Hades, making sure that none of his descendants through his grandson Jacob,
went there.
John blasts this kind of
thinking – being a physical descendant
of Abraham no more earns you heaven than being a stone does!
Salvation
is an issue of the spirit, the heart; not the flesh, or any cutting
done in one of the body’s members!
And
one man’s spiritual capital, his merits, cannot be inherited by another.
Coupled to the message of
repentance, John attached a sense of urgency.
He
said, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” it’s at the door.
As
he rebuked the Pharisees & Sadducees, he did so with the same sense of immediacy.
This
wasn’t the time to enter in to a religious debate or to argue the fine points
of genealogy -
10And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
He had just told them to bear
fruit that was the proof of genuine repentance. The talk must be validated by
the walk.
Now
he urges them to lay aside their petty disputes and to get serious with God.
Bear
fruit right now, not tomorrow, not
when it’s “more” convenient, but now,
because the axe of God’s judgment is already on its downward arc and if you’re
a tree without fruit, you’re destined for judgment!
I want to pause here and
issue a warning & plea to anyone here who’re stuck in a place of unbelief and
have failed to commit themselves to Jesus because they have questions.
Over
the years, I’ve had the chance to talk with lots of people who have questions
and doubts.
These
people fall into two basic categories;
1)
those with honest questions who once you answer them, the barriers to faith are
removed and they move into faith in Christ.
2)
& those whose questions aren’t really
honest – they’re excuses for not
coming to faith.
Even
though you answer them – they move no closer to God; they just raise another objection, another question, then another,
and another, as though the abundance of questions is in itself ample
support for their rejection of Christ.
This is the position the true
agnostic takes.
The
agnostic says that not only does he not believe,
it’s impossible to believe because
it’s impossible to know.
When
the agnostic asks a question, he’s not interested in discovering truth – only
in proving his
He’s
a skeptic, so even when he is
presented with proof, he dismisses it as only one person’s perception or
interpretation.
We’ve all met these people –
they ask a question, and we answer it with what we know is absolute truth &
proof, and it’s as if they’re deaf.
They
just divert and ask another question.
If I’ve just described you –
you’re an agnostic, a skeptic. So realize that no amount of
proof will persuade you because for you it’s NOT about wanting to discover truth – but only to reinforce your unbelief and rejection
of Christ.
Be
honest with yourself – look inward at your own
motives.
Ask
yourself why, when your doubts are
shown to be groundless and your questions are answered, you don’t really listen, but just raise another objection.
I
can say categorically that all the proof rests in favor of the gospel, in the
claims of the Person and Work of Jesus Christ, in the inspiration of Scripture
and the truth of the Christian faith.
You
don’t need more proof, you need to accept the evidence you’ve already been
given.
And with John, I urge you to
do it quickly!
Every
day you delay, every new time you resist and reject your heart becomes more and
more hard and calloused to truth and to the prompting of the Spirit of God.
One more thing before we move
on – the word used for baptism in
this passage speaks of full immersion.
Among the Jews, there were
several different forms of ritual cleansings, from washing feet, to elaborate
practices of washing hands, to full baths in the ritual mikvahs.
But
the word used for baptism in this chapter means complete immersion.
I mention this because
different denominations practice different forms of baptism; from immersion to
sprinkling.
Christian
baptism, which finds its roots in what John began here, was a complete dunking.
John said -
11I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
Throughout his ministry, John
was clear in his message that he was not the focal point but only a forerunner.
His
mission was to prepare the way for the One who would come to do the Real Work.
He
was keen to keep the eyes off of himself and onto the One to come.
In
this, John provides us with a great example of what it means to be a minister –
which we all are!
Our
aim ought not to be to promote ourselves but to direct people to Jesus.
John said that his baptism
was merely a sign of repentance; it was a way for people to take a step of
identification with his call to repent.
Baptism
wasn’t repentance itself; just something
the people could do as a kind of down-payment
on their intention to turn from their sin to God.
But
when the Messiah came, the baptism He would bring would be different.
He
would immerse them in the Holy Spirit and fire.
These aren’t meant to be understood
as two different things but as the same thing – the Holy Spirit & fire!
Remember, John said they
needed to repent BECAUSE the Kingdom of heaven was at hand.
When
that Kingdom came, when the King came, the Messiah – then those who had
genuinely repented would be found in a place to receive the Kingdom into their
hearts.
Just
as they had immersed themselves in water, Christ would immerse them in the
person and power of the Spirit of God.
And
this HOLY
Spirit would consume the last dregs
of sin they had repented of, while filling them with a holy zeal and passion
for God.
It’s crucial we grasp what
John was saying--their response to his call to repentance, put them in the
spiritual place to experience God coming to them in a deeply personal way.
Remember
what the older prophets had said again and again to the people – “Return to Me, says the Lord, & I
will return to you!”
“Repent, & I will send showers of
blessing!”
We speak often about the grace of God and how He blesses us, not
based on what we do, not what we earn, but on the basis of His own sovereign
favor.
That’s
true – but it’s equally true that to enjoy the fullness of God’s grace, we must be in the place where it’s being
lavished & poured out.
You
know how to enter that place? By
repentance!
John’s message was the same
as all the prior prophets, of which he was the last.
Elijah
had been the first, and he, reprising
the role of Elijah, was the last.
And
from beginning to end, the prophetic voice cried out – “Repent! That you may
know the blessing of the Lord.”
Let’s be honest, that seems
so backward to us.
We
think that by striving for holiness and piety we will enter God’s favor.
Everything
within us urges us to aim at trying to give God reason to like us and accept us.
We
want to put God under an obligation to bless us because of how good we’re
doing.
And
so, all too often our pursuit of holiness turns into a selfish, self-centered
thing.
We
want to puff out our chest and say – “Look how good I’m doing!”
That’s
precisely where the Pharisees were!
Where God wants us is in a
place of continual repentance – not because we’re always blowing it
and so needing to ask forgiveness yet again, but in a place where we’re not
doing acts of holiness out of our own energy and attempts to put God under an
obligation of blessing.
To
repent means to turn from myself and my ways and to simply yearn for God.
If
I’m holy, I won’t really be conscious of it because I’ll be so pre-occupied
with the desire for more of God that I’ll always and only see myself through
His eyes!
John went on to speak of the
Messiah’s mission when He came -
12His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
John’s point was this – “My
message is only preparatory! I’m calling
you to a baptism of water, a sign of your desire to be straight with God.”
“If
you don’t accept my message, then the One who comes after me, the One I’ve been
sent as the forerunner of, then there’s no way you’ll be ready for Him and His
work.”
“I
only announce judgment – HE BRINGS IT!”
“If
you reject my message, His will consume
you.”
It was the teaching of the
rabbis of that time that if
John was giving voice to this
expectation when he came saying that the Lord was ready to come – they must
prepare by repenting.
The
bulk of the common people did; it was only the leaders of the nation and
religion who refused.
And
it was these same resisters who proved such an obstacle to Jesus when He
arrived.
13Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the
Though Matthew doesn’t tell
us, John & Jesus were cousins.
Their
mothers had visited each other when both were pregnant and John had been born
just a short time before Jesus.
There’s
a good chance the two men had spent time together as lads, playing &
talking about the unique circumstances of their births and calling by God.
For sure there was something
John knew about Jesus – He had no need
to repent! And the baptism John was
doing was one signifying repentance.
So
when Jesus arrived at the place where John was working, and He came along to be
dunked, John balked.
If
anything – Jesus ought to be doing the dunking and John ought to be the one getting wet.
But Jesus urged John’s
consent to let it be as it was;
John’s
mission was to preach repentance and to baptize.
Jesus’
mission was to identify with the
people.
Though
in Himself He was sinless, He came to become
sin, and to take it to the cross where sin & death would be undone.
Being
baptized, at the very outset of His mission would set Him on the right course
and serve notice that He had come to identify fully with man.
16When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. 17And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
The other gospels tell us
that this wasn’t just something Jesus saw; the crowds heard and saw it
as well.
While
Jesus voluntarily took this step of
identifying with sinful man, it was important that everyone understand that in
Himself, He was no sinner!
His
identification with sinners was so that He could carry sin to the cross and dispense with it, breaking its
death-grip on the human race.
So
the Father showed His approval of the
Son by a manifestation of divine glory & affirmation.
Exactly
what happened and how this glory was revealed isn’t made clear – but we’re left
with the impression whatever it was, it was enough to impress everyone there
that Jesus’ baptism wasn’t like anyone else who’d gotten dunked!
This is one of the very few
times in Scripture that we find all three persons of the Trinity manifested at
the same time and in the same place.
Notice
that we see Jesus coming up out of the water, the Father speaking from heaven,
and the Holy Spirit alighting upon Jesus in the form of a dove.
This
one passage effectively annihilates the false doctrine called modalism, which says there is only one
person in the Godhead who comes to man in different times in history in
different ‘modes;’ the Father
in the OT, the Son in the gospels,
and ever after as the Spirit.
Here
at the Baptism of Jesus, we see all three Persons of the Godhead as distinct, and as arranged locationally so as to get across the
idea they are separate Persons.
1Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
Immediately after His
baptism, which inaugurated His public ministry and identified Him with fallen
man, Jesus went alone into the wilderness for the express pur
Hebrews 4:15 tells us that
Jesus was tempted in all points, just as we are.
Here
in Matthew 4, we read about the consummate experience of temptation.
If
Jesus came to identify with man, with every
man, then that means the temptations He endured were on an order of magnitude
more fierce and appealing than anything we have ever known.
The
basic motivations that made the temptations real, we experience, but because of
Jesus’ potential as the Messiah, the offer was all the more enticing!
And,
since He resisted them all the way,
He knew the full-weight of them.
Think about it, who knows the
power of temptation better, the one who yields or the one who resists? The one
who resists!
When
you give in, the full weight of the temptation is never experienced – because
you gave in!
The
quicker you yield, the less of the power of the temptation you know.
The longer you resist, the greater the lure
and enticement.
Jesus resisted all the way to the end and because of
who He was, the consummate man, the
appeal of the temptation was all that much stronger because of His potential!
But this is why Jesus came –
to identify with man, fully!
What
Adam had lost – Jesus came to reclaim – so it meant facing the devil’s best
shots.
And
why not face it right at the outset of His mission?
2And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry.
Those who fast as a regular
discipline know that for most people, there’s a common pattern that occurs.
For
the first 3-5 days without food, it’s agonizing.
Then
the stomach registers it’s not going to get food and it stops sending hunger
pains.
The
metabolism switches over from burning food to burning the fat stores the body
has saved from the excess calories it’s consumed.
Once
the fat stores are depleted, depending on how much of it there is, then the
body starts cannibalizing muscle. This usually happens at about the 25th
to 35th day.
Then,
once the muscles have been depleted of nutrients, body systems start to shut
down and the body goes into a mode of preservation, keeping only the core
systems working; the main organs.
If
no food is given at this point, then between the 35th and 40th
days, the body will start converting the other tissues into energy to keep the
heart beating.
So
when it says that Jesus was hungry after 40 days, it means that he was in fact
at the point of virtual starvation.
If
He doesn’t eat soon, He will die! And He knows it.
You
see, Jesus had to come to this place of basic physical survival so that He
could face one of man’s most fundamental challenges – to trust God for His very
life!
3Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”
4But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by
bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’”
The temptation here is subtle
and we may miss it.
The
devil challenged Jesus - “If You are
the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”
Really,
the word “if” ought to be translated as “Since.”
What
the devil is saying is “Look, you’re about to die – and this is so needless –
after all, You’re God. So, perform a miracle and turn these stones here into
nice hot loaves of French Bread!”
Now, question: Why had Jesus
just been baptized? And why was He out
in the wilderness? Why was He allowing Himself to even be in the place of temptation?
TO
IDENTIFY WITH – MAN!!!!!!!!
Yet
what identity does the devil appeal to in Jesus? His being God!
Dominion of Earth had been
given to a man, had been lost by a man and could only be reclaimed by a man!
Jesus
didn’t come in His role as Messiah to defeat Satan as God, but as the Perfect
Man!
If
Jesus had turned the stones into bread to satisfy his own needs, He would not
have entrusted Himself into the hands and keeping of the Father as a man!
Adam
had failed in eating – Jesus would not go there.
And
He informed the devil that He would not be dealing with Him as God in His
mission as the Messiah – but as a Man! So
he said, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by
every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’” Quoting Deut 8:3.
5Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: ‘He shall give His angels charge over you,’ and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.’”
7Jesus said to him, “It
is written again, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’”
For the 2nd
temptation, satan brought Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple in
How this
happened isn’t explained – we just read that they were in the wilderness one
moment, and the next they were on the temple mount in
Ephesians
2:2 says that the devil is the prince of the power of the air,
and it seems he spiritually ‘transported’ the two of them to the pinnacle of
the temple because this afforded a location to add weight to his next
temptation.
The pinnacle of the temple
was the corner on the roof of the temple where a priest would blow a trumpet
each morning to announce the commencement of a new day of worship.
In
the rubble left by the destruction of the temple by the Romans in 70 AD,
they’ve found the stone which marked this place.
Engraved
on the stone are the words – “The place of the sounding of the trumpet.”
The
point is, as you looked down from this corner onto the temple grounds, you saw thousands of people both going up to the
temple to worship or leaving it after having just gone there.
There
was no place more crowded than the massive pavement that was right beneath the
pinnacle of the temple.
Now catch the scene – Jesus
is taken from the emptiness of the wilderness to what we would call the very opposite – the most crowded place –
and He’s given the challenge to jump off and experience God’s rescue.
In rebuffing the first
temptation, Jesus had responded with the Word of God, so the devil quotes Psalm
91 and says that God has promised to rescue Him.
Also,
Jesus’ whole foundation in resisting the first temptation had been to entrust
Himself to God. So the devil suggests He
really prove His trust in God by sort
of daring God. – take a leap of faith – literally!
The appeal was this – “Why
are You out in the wilderness all by Your lonesome. You’re the Messiah, and the people have been
waiting for You! Don’t take this humble
and quiet route You’re taking. Go
fulfill their desires and expectations!
They want someone who will do the spectacular! If You fly down from the pinnacle onto the
temple mount and come in for a safe landing, they will see it as a fulfillment
of Your coming from the skies in glory!
They’ll rally to You and You’ll have instant success!”
Jesus resisted the temptation
by revealing the corrupt interpretation and application of Psalm 91 the devil
had used.
God
will indeed protect His own – but
only as they faithfully follow His guidance and direction in their everyday
lives – not when they put Him to a foolish test just to prove who they are – as Deut. 6:16 rightly teaches.
In this temptation, the devil
was playing on a powerful motivation common in man – the desire to be accepted.
Remember
that Jesus had just told him that He would take His role as the Messiah as a Man, not God.
So the
devil said in effect – okay, here’s a temptation that will appeal to that
specifically.
Jesus knew what the people
wanted, what they were looking for.
If
He came in power, performing great public miracles and staging spectacular
displays they would flock to Him.
By
pleasing them and their desire for seeing the miraculous, He could gain their
acceptance.
But
if He made Himself a pleaser of men, then He could no longer be a pleaser of
God, because God’s agenda and man’s are not the same.
If
you gain a crowd BY signs and wonders, then you have to keep them coming, and
they have to become more and more spectacular, or boredom sets in.
What’s
a miracle today becomes commonplace tomorrow.
Jesus did indeed perform
miracles, but only as simple validations of His message and humble acts of
compassion.
He never performed the miraculous just to
wow the crowds – Never!
The
miracles were always secondary – the message was the main thing.
So
Jesus resisted this temptation too – He would not yield to the desire to be accepted
by men if it would imperil His approval by the Father.
Round 3 -
8Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9And he said to Him, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.”
10Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’” [Deuteronomy 6:13]
This time it seems the devil
took Jesus to a place that was spiritual
as opposed to physical.
From
a lofty vantage point, the entire panorama of human history was displayed
before them, showing the heights to which human glory had risen – or would
rise.
And
once Jesus had feasted His eyes on it all, the devil then tried to set the hook
– “Want it? All you have to do is align yourself under Me as the first man did
– and I’ll give it all to you.”
The appeal the devil was
using was a shortcut to why Jesus
came in the first place.
Remember
when God came to Adam and Eve after the Fall, He gave the promise of the
Redeemer who would one day come to reclaim Mankind’s lost dominion – but in the
act of crushing the devil’s head, His own heel would be wounded.
The
devil here offers the Redeemer, the Promised One, a shortcut to the end: “Let’s
forget all about that crushing and wounding thing and just each of us get what
we’re after! I’ll turn dominion of
humanity and earth over to You, and You
turn Yourself over to me!”
Jesus replies – “No way,
Jose! My worship and surrender goes to no one but the One to Whom it is due –
God!”
He
would indeed reclaim Man’s lost dominion, but not be surrendering to the devil
– He would DEFEAT him and would do so by the Cross.
A couple more things to note
here before we move on:
1) In
1 John 2, John divides all temptation into 3 categories: The lust of the flesh,
the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. [v. 16]
We
see in the 3 temptations of Jesus these 3 categories.
In
the first was an appeal to the lust of
the flesh – turn stones into bread.
In
the second was the pride of life –
gain acceptance by pleasing man!
In
the third was the lust of the eyes –
the devil showed him untold riches, glory and power.
2)
How did Jesus deal with each of the three temptations; how did he resist them,
what was His weapon in the spiritual
battle he waged wit the devil?
It
was the Word of God! In response to each
temptation, Jesus held up the truth of the Word of God. He took refuge in the
Word!
And
remember, He faced these temptations AS A MAN.
This
ought to stand as a vital and important example to us of how we are to wage spiritual warfare and
resist temptation – with Scripture.
And
not just blindly quoted, but understood!
You
see, even the devil knows scripture, as we see in the second temptation – but
being the deceiver he is, he twists and distorts the truth and turns it into a
lie. This is ever his method; to twist
the truth.
Our
defense is the Word of God, rightly interpreted and applied.
11Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.
The other gospels tell us
that the devil left Him until another
time.
He
was ever on the prowl for another opportunity to sneak in and work havoc.
But
Jesus was ever vigilant, just as we must be.
I wonder when the angels came
if they didn’t bring Him a catered meal from the kitchens of heaven.
12Now when Jesus heard that John had been put in
prison, He departed to
15 “The
When Jesus returned from the
wilderness, news reached Him that John had been arrested by Herod Antipas; this
signaled a crackdown by the Romans on the revival of John and Jesus knew it
would be best to move north into the region of
Jesus moved His base of
operations from his hometown of
This
move seemed to serve as a kind of surgical
cut that separated Him from His previous life of quiet anonymity into His
new life of public exposure.
And
“They were ever fond of innovations, and by
nature disposed to changes, and delighted in seditions.”
He
said they were ever ready to follow a leader and to begin an insurrection.
They
were notoriously quick in temper and given to quarreling.
Yet
when it came to issue of character they were the most honorable of men.
Said
Josephus, “The Galileans have never been [without] of courage.
. . . Cowardice was never a characteristic of the Galileans. . . . They
were ever more anxious for honor than for gain.”[3]
We really could not think of
a better place for the Messiah to begin His work than
The
Their
garrisons & outposts ensured the safety of those who traveled along them.
The
most important of these roads passed right through
Roads
linking Asia with Europe and
It
was inevitable that the news of what happened in
Though
In
fact, the word ‘
The
prophet Isaiah foretold the role
17From that time Jesus began to preach and to
say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
This is the same message John
had preached, but John meant its fulfillment in the coming of Jesus.
Why then did Jesus preach the
same thing?
First
of all, Jesus wanted everyone to understand that His mission and message were extensions of John’s.
He began by preaching the same message, but
it wouldn’t end there.
He
would take the message and expand and fulfill it.
Second,
when Jesus preached this message, it was even MORE true than when John preached
it, because as the King, where Jesus was, the kingdom was.
When
the King is standing in front of you and says, “The kingdom is at hand” guess
what? IT IS!!! Right in front of you!
The Jews were looking for the
Messiah to bring the Kingdom TO
them.
When
the Messiah came, He came to bring them INTO
the Kingdom through faith in Him.
A kingdom is a “king’s domain.”
The
Kingdom of God, or heaven, as Matthew says it, is where- ever God’s reigns.
While
the Jews of Jesus’ day were looking for a political
kingdom that would rule over nations,
Jesus came to bring a spiritual
kingdom that would rule over hearts.
18And Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. 19Then He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” 20They immediately left their nets and followed Him.
21Going on from there, He saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets. He called them, 22and immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed Him.
Capernaum, where Jesus had
centered His mission at this time was a fishing town, as were most of the
cities and villages which crowded the lakeside near there.
As
He went through the region, carrying on in the wake of John the Baptist, it
wasn't long before He issued the call to some of the fishermen he found along
the banks to become his disciples.
Now, a couple quick
things.
It
was the expected pattern for an itinerant rabbi, a teacher to gather a small
band of hand-selected students who were called disciples.
When
Jesus began to call these men to follow Him,. He was making it crystal clear to
everyone that He was coming to them as a teacher who would bring a flavor of
teaching unlike anything they had heard before.
Then,
when we read that Jesus just said, “Hey, follow me,” and they dropped what they
were doing to become His disciples, we wonder what kind of personal charisma He
must have had to pull this off.
Actually,
Matthew is greatly abbreviating the story of their selection.
The
other gospels tell us the story of using Peter’s boat as a pulpit and of
telling him to lower his nets for a catch, and the miracle of the bursting nets
when he did so.
John
had been a disciple of John the Baptist prior to this and knew all about Jesus
because John had told the younger John to go and follow Jesus.
But
then Jesus had disappeared into the desert and John the Baptizer had been
arrested so the younger John went home to Capernaum and back to his occupation
as a fisherman.
Now
that Jesus is officially beginning His public ministry, He makes a formal call
on these men to lay down their careers and follow Him.
23And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people.
In every city and village of
Galilee there was a synagogue; which is the Jewish equivalent to the local
church – and at that time, there was one synagogue per town where all the
people worshiped.
It was the regular pattern to
provide traveling rabbis an opportunity to teach, so whenever Jesus arrived in
a city, He was invited to speak – and would do so.
Then,
He would minister compassion on the sick and needy by healing them.
It
doesn’t take long for news of the miraculous to spread, and pretty soon, people
were HOPING Jesus would come to their city and speak in their synagogue.
24Then His fame went throughout all Syria; and they brought to Him all sick people who were afflicted with various diseases and torments, and those who were demon-possessed, epileptics, and paralytics; and He healed them.
Syria borders the Galilee on
the Northeastern and the two regions were connected by a major highway, so it
wasn't long till people were coming from there to see and hear the New teacher
who had not only taken up where John the Baptist had left off, but was doing
much more.
Soon the crowds had swelled
and followed Him where ever He went.
25Great multitudes followed Him—from Galilee, and from Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond the Jordan.
Decapolis means “Ten-cities”
and describes a region of 10 independent Greek cities on the eastern side of
the Jordan River.
These
cities were populated, not by Jews but by Gentiles, and yet they came to Jesus.
And
He did not turn them away – He received them and spoke forth His message to all
who would listen.
God’s offer of forgiveness
and new life is for all who will listen, no mater what their background or
past.
[1]The
Gospel of Matthew : Volume. 2000, c1975 (W. Barclay, lecturer in the
[2]ibid
[3]The
Gospel of Matthew : Volume. 2000, c1975 (W. Barclay, lecturer in the