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Matthew_1_-_Introduction.wma
영어메시지 1 (마태복음 개요)
Matthew – Introduction May, 2003, by Pastor Branton Matthew is talking about the Kingdom of God. Matthew is one of the books that you can think the phrase of ‘kingdom of God’. Matthew presents Christ as a king. If you notice Mat chapter 1 and verse 1, the book of the generation of Jesus Christ, you can see the reversed order like ‘the son of David, the son of Abraham’. Why in this verse is the order reversed? Because, to the Jews, this would be significant. The Jews immediately realize, ‘Oh, this means the Jesus came through the kingly line of David. And this is following God’s promise to the King David that his kingdom, his thrown would be forever. And so that’s significant here, in this first verse, kind of a summary of the genealogy of Christ, that David is mentioned before Abraham. Jesus is the king of kings. Let’s turn to Matthew chapter 19, for a moment. When we talk about the kingdom of God, what does that mean? Notice verse 16, “And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?” This man is asking what he has to do good enough to get eternal life. Now, Jesus revealed him what was he really trusting. Even though he was a good, obedient person and even tried to keep the law, he did not love God. And that’s why he went away sorrowful, for he loved more his treasures. “Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”(19:23). And what was the response of the disciples? They were exceedingly amazed and said, “Who then can be saved?” Here in the Bible, eternal life, kingdom of heaven, kingdom of God and being saved are all used synonymously in these verses. So how do you enter into the kingdom of God? By being saved, by trusting the Lord Jesus Christ. Can you imagine someone getting saved from a ‘two-words’ sermon? Now let’s turn to Mat 9:9 and notice Matthew’s conversion. “And as Jesus passed forth from thence, he saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he saith unto him, Follow me. And he arose, and followed him.” That’s Matthew’s salvation testimony, right there. Christ said ‘Follow me”, and Matthew arose and followed him. He was a publican, a tax collector who worked for Roman Government. They betrayed their own country. They could up the price of tax, basically up to whatever they wanted to do, and they have the Roman soldiers right there to help them out in force. Therefore, they were hated by other Jews. Matthew was a rich man, and every tax collector was because they could really take from the people by doubling, tripling the tax price. But when Jesus called ‘Follow up’, he just left everything behind him. And he had a great feast with his fellow publicans, inviting Jesus and His disciples at his house When the Pharisees saw that Jesus was sitting with many publicans and sinners, they said to the disciples, “Why eateth your master with publicans and sinners?” Jesus answered to them “They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” What a great thing that is Matthew truly founded the Lord: God truly saved this Matthew. Not let us turn back to Matthew chapter 1. We just want to notice a few points about the birth of the king. You see, Matthew would be a very import book to the Jews because the Jews would be going to be wondering, ‘OK. if this Jesus is the true Messiah, then what happen to his kingdom? and where is his kingdom?’ So Matthew is writing this book to help the Jews to understand why the kingdom of the king, supposed only has not come yet. In Jews mind, then kingdom had not come but we know that Jesus was the king. Chapter 1 tells us a beautiful story about the birth of Jesus Christ. Look at verse 18. “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily. But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins. Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.” Now let’s notice several things. First of all, Jesus was born of a virgin. Why is that so important? It’s important because it fulfilled prophecy. But more than that, it means that, because he was born of a woman, was able to be completely a man and completely God. But because he did not have any earthly father, he does not have the sin that was passed to us from Adam. Adam’s sin, we all have sinned. But because Jesus was born of the seed of a woman, just as was promised in Genesis 3:15, Jesus does not have sin. Therefore he is the only one who can truly be our savior. Because we are men who have offended God, the holy God, infinite God, we need savior who is both man and God, who stands in between men and God as a mediator, and that is the man, who is Jesus Christ. The Jews normally engaged one year. For one year, even they are called husband and wife, they stay with their parents, they did not yet live together. Part of that is a kind of proving time, a testing time, to see this girl was truly pure. And so we can imagine when Joseph as was expecting just a normal marriage, and all of a sudden heard that Mary was pregnant, he must have been concerned, very troubled by this. But God in his grace, sent an angel to tell him what was going on, to tell him that this was of the Lord, that this child in Mary’s womb, according to the plan of God, conceived by the Holy Spirit. This was the first of four times that God sent an angel to let Joseph know what’s going on. God was infinitely interested in this event and wanted to easy Joseph’s troubled mind, and make it just and right. Sometimes we wish God to send his angel to tell us what we need to do, go this way or that way. But you what, we have a more sure word of prophecy, the written words of God right on our laps. We could open it every day, we can read writings here that were thousands of years old Moses writing 14 to 15 hundred years before Christ, Isaiah writing 700 years before Christ. Look at verse 22, 23 “Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet. Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.” There are approximately 50 times of quote from old testimony and another 75 allusions to the old testimony in the book of Matthew. The phrase ‘to fulfill the prophecy’ in Matthew is a very key phrase. And by the way, we have a quote from Isaiah 7:14. Sometimes you have some people ask you, “How do you know that the Bible is true?” The Bible is just another book.” One of the things that you can tell them is pointing out just a simple verse like this and say “You know what, Isaiah in its documinits, its historical fact, lived 700 devoted years before Christ was born and yet he said in very clear terms that the Christ would be born of a virgin. And Matthew quotes that, he is showing us the Bible fulfills itself, the Bible fulfills its own prophecy. Notice that Jesus was to have the name ‘Jesus’, and it is the same with the name of Joshua from the old testaments which means ‘Jehovah Saves’. Saves from what? Saves from our sins; then also the special name ‘Immanuel’ which is translated as ‘God with us’. Is Jesus the true God? Yes, he is. His name is God: God with us, Immanuel. Every other religion has the god that somewhere: up there, out there, far remote from mankind. Now men try to bring those gods there by making idols and statues and put them on temples or churches or whatever. But you know what, those gods are somewhere distant, far remoted. We have Immanuel, God with us. If you are Christians, God is with you, and is with you forever. Isn’t that a blessing? God said ‘I’ll never leave or forsake you.’ No matter where you are, based on this word, God is with you. So first of all, the king Jesus was born of a virgin. Secondly, we want to notice that foreign kings came to worship the Lord. We call these kings, typically ‘Magi’, wise men. They came from the east, journey a long way, being led by the star. They probably studied the book of Numbers that God would send a star out of Judea. These men came in expectation, seeking the king of Jews. Notice verse 11, “And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.” Jesus at that time was in a house, not in the stable, probably two years old or less, and these men came in and they worship him. If Jesus is not God, these men are committing sin, a most fatal sin, because they were bowing down not only to another human being, but a child. Can you imagine? These grown men, who were obviously rich and wise, made a great effort to seek the Lord and fall down before a child and worship him… I’m sure this was a great surprise even to Joseph and Mary, but this shows us that Jesus is the true God. Bible says ‘You shall have no other gods before me.’ Even in the book of Revelation when John wanted to bow before one of the angels, the angel said, ‘Get up, I’m only a servant of the Lord just as you are.’ We don’t worship other people, we don’t worship angels; we only worship the Lord. And these foreign kings is bowing down and worshipping the Lord. What a great thing this is. But isn’t it interesting? The foreign kings came to worship the king of Jews but the Jews rejected their king. We find here Herod called in the Magi and said ‘Bring word back to me when you find him, so I can come and worship him also.’ He was lying to the wise men and the Lord re-directed them, and they went home another way. Jerusalem was only about 13 km from Bethlehem. Here’s Herod, the king known as the king of Jews, close by. If any king should have worshipped Christ, it should have been Herod. If any king should have understood what the Bible says about the coming Messiah, it should have been Herod. But he refused to believe Jesus Christ. In fact, he tried to kill Jesus. He sent his soldiers down to Bethlehem to kill all the male children of two years old or younger. This is not recorded in other historical archives. Why is it that Josephus, a secular historian would not record this? Probably because it’s insignificant to the other thing that Herod had done. You know what one person said? He said that it’s better to be Herod’s sow (pig) than to be his son. Herod killed some of his wives. Herod killed some of his sons. So you have more chance to survive if you were a pig of Herod. So to kill the young children of a small village, was probably a less evil, not a big deal among the line of Herod’s crimes and also a trivial thing to a secular historian. Anyway, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying ‘Arise, and take the young child and his mother and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will see the young child to destroy him.” (2:15) Herod hated Christ. He wanted to kill him. Satan is behind evil men. We have a very clear example of Satan in our world in a very recent history. In this country, people know very well what is like to face a Satanic person, named Pol Pot. Of course, behind him was Satan. Why? He hates men, he wants to kill and destroy men. He wanted to destroy Jesus. But today, Jesus is alive, and Herod is dead. When we see evil men in this world, of course there will be evil men in next generations to come, there will be evil people continually, but remember, their days is coming. I remember what was said in the paper the day after Pol Pot died, that was just about the New Year time, April 17 to 19, 1998, the Cambodia Daily, on its front page, said ‘Pol Pot escapes justice.’ You know what I said, ‘No, they got it wrong.’ Pol Pot didn’t escape, he went to judgment. He would face the judgment of God for what he had done. And we need to remember, when we see some evil man comes up and oppress the people, that their day will come. Even if no one brings them to justice here in this world, God will. Notice the last verse of chapter 2. “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.” Nazarene was a little, tiny, small, insignificant village. “Can any good things come out from Nazarene?” That was a common saying of that time. It means that in his birth, or in his early live, Jesus, the king of kings, identified with us. He wasn’t born in Jerusalem, he wasn’t raised in Jerusalem; he was born and raised in a little small town. Don’t ever think that yourselves insignificant, or so small, or so untalented that God doesn’t care of you. God loves each of us. God cares for us. Immanuel, God with us. Let’s bow and have some prayer. Father, we thank you for your words. We thank you that you are Creator God, that you are king of kings. Lord you are still Immanuel, God with us. Lord we thank you that you have never left us but you’ve sent us the Comforter, and he convinced us when we confront the test as Christians. Lord I pray for some Christians here tonight, who is facing some particular trial, some unusual burdens, I pray that the Holy Spirit to be their comfort, to guide them according to your will. And Lord, I pray for those who are unsaved, Lord, you work in their hearts, and your spirit that inspired us in our spirit, would convince those heart and we pray that those precious souls will be saved, even tonight. Lord, I pay that you would help all of us to rejoice in what you have done for this world, and in what you are continuing to do and in what you will do. We prayed this in Jesus name, Amen.
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