{"id":18795,"date":"2019-02-10T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-02-10T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sugar-land-bible-church.local\/sermon\/law-grace-017-intro-to-the-gospel-of-matthew-part-1\/"},"modified":"2022-02-23T10:44:39","modified_gmt":"2022-02-23T16:44:39","slug":"law-grace-017-intro-to-the-gospel-of-matthew-part-1","status":"publish","type":"sermon","link":"https:\/\/slbc.org\/es\/sermon\/law-grace-017-intro-to-the-gospel-of-matthew-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Law & Grace 017: Intro. to the Gospel of Matthew Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","book":[85],"series_event":[477],"sermon_service_type":[],"speaker":[152],"class_list":["post-18795","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","hentry","book-matthew","series_event-law-grace","speaker-dr-jim-mcgowan","no-post-thumbnail"],"acf":{"sermon_title":"Law & Grace 017: Intro. to the Gospel of Matthew Part 1","sermon_date":"20190210","sermon_month":"","sermon_year":"2019","sermon_notes":6428,"sermon_slides":6427,"sermon_mp3":6431,"sermon_id":"21019143425255","series_or_event":477,"service_type":false,"speaker":152,"books_of_the_bible":85,"chapter_and_verse":"10:1, 5-6; 15:21-24","sermon_transcript":"Sugar Land Bible Church\n\nDr. Jim McGowan\n\nLaw and Grace 17, Intro. to the Gospel of Matthew Part 1\n\n2-10-19\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Matthew 10: 1, 5-6; 15:21-24 \u00a0Law & Grace<\/a>\n\nWelcome to Sugar Land Bible Church, once again it\u2019s a pleasure to be in the house of the Lord, we are the house of the Lord so we bring our house with us, don\u2019t we?\u00a0 It\u2019s wonderful to be together, I like your house, I hope you like my house, if not we can talk about remodeling later.\u00a0 If you would like to do so you can turn over to Matthew chapter 10 and just be looking there for a moment, we\u2019re going to get there in just a moment.\u00a0 If you did\u00a0 not receive a handout please raise your hand and we\u2019ll make sure that you get one because we have our good brother Ron back there ready to sprint to whoever needs one.\u00a0 So praise the Lord for that.\u00a0 All right.\n\nWell, as you can probably surmise Pastor Andy is not here today, that\u2019s because\u00a0 he and his family are still in Israel, we\u2019re hoping and praying that they\u2019re going to come back\u2026 that\u2019s a joke.\u00a0 No, if you\u2019ve ever been to Israel it\u2019s kind of hard to get back on the plane and come home but in any case we look forward to that time when they\u2019ll be with us next Sunday.\u00a0 And praise the Lord for what we\u2019re going to receive when they are back here.\u00a0 We want to thank you all who are viewing online for tuning in, we pray that this time will be a time of blessing and encouragement to you as also for those of you here present this morning.\u00a0 And I don\u2019t know, what do we do about this weather.\u00a0 You know it\u2019s either too cold or too how and this morning it\u2019s sort of somewhere in between so probably as they say in Texas, wait ten minutes and the weather will change.\u00a0 Let\u2019s get started, shall we.\n\nWe\u2019re doing a series on Law and Grace, and here is our very brief outline.\u00a0 We\u2019re going to look at our purpose, aim and objective as we typically do and then we\u2019re going to start today with an introduction to the Gospel of Matthew.\u00a0 This will be a two part intro\u00adduction and I\u2019m going to give you quite a bit of general information and make just a few concluding remarks at the end.\n\nSo general purpose, why in the world, as we say over and over again, do we even care about this issue of law and grace?\u00a0 And it\u2019s because we want to make sure that we, as New Testament believers, understand that there is a very, very strong distinction and differentiation between these two.\u00a0 That\u2019s critically important, especially when we begin to talk about doctrine and theology it impacts us greatly in those two areas.\u00a0 And C. I. Scofield once again warned us back, way back in the 1900\u2019s I guess it is when he wrote these things and he said you know, the problem in the church, and this was at his time, imagine how much worse it is today,\u00a0 he said that we\u2019re living really under a form of Galationism and of course you remember from the Book of Galatians that one of the big problems that they had there was the fact that the Judaizers were coming in and were laying burdens upon the believers that they weren\u2019t able to handle.\u00a0 And so the Apostle Paul even had to go so far as to confront Peter on that issue.\n\nSo this is a thing that Dr. Scofield was addressing here, and he\u2019s saying there toward the bottom, he says, \u201cwe are kept under the law as a rule of life despite the plain declaration, \u201cSin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace\u201d [Rom. 6:14]\u00a0 So what does it mean to be \u201cunder grace.\u201d\n\nWilliam R. Newell also adds some very great commentary and I\u2019ve referred to this many times.\u00a0 If you do not have his commentary, Romans Verse-by-Verse, it\u2019s downloadable if you\u2019ll just search on Romans verse by verse.\u00a0 It\u2019s a [can't understand word] that you can get and put right on your computer or your handheld device, whatever the case may be.\n\nHe says, \u201cThe Law is no more a rule of life than it is a means of righteousness. Walking in the Spirit has now taken the place of walking by ordinances.\u201d<\/strong>\n\n[\u201cIt is because Reformed theology has kept us Gentiles under the Law,\u2014if not as a means of righteousness, then as \u201ca rule of life,\u201d that all the trouble has arisen. The Law is no more a rule of life than it is a means of righteousness. Walking in the Spirit has now taken the place of walking by ordinances<\/u>. <\/strong>God has another principle under which He has put his saints: \u201cYe are not under law, but, under grace!\u201d (italics mine)\u00a0 [William R. Newell, Romans Verse-by-Verse (p. 274).\u00a0 Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library.]\n\nSo if these things are true it behooves us to do a study from time to time in law and grace and what the distinctions are.\u00a0 So let\u2019s move into our introduction here.\u00a0 I had you turn to Matthew chapter 10, verse 1 and we\u2019re going to look at verse 1 and 5 and 6.\u00a0 So here is Jesus summoning the twelve disciples and it says [Verse 1] He \u201cgave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every kind of disease and every kind of sickness.\u201d\u00a0 And then notice verse 5, \u201cThese twelve Jesus sent out after instructing them: \u2018Do not go in the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter any city of the Samaritans; [6] but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.\u2019\u201d\n\nAnd then if we just turn over to chapter 15 we find something rather interesting here, not only does he give this command to the disciples, but notice, this is the case of the Canaanites, a Syrohoenician woman I believe it is, says, \u201cJesus went away from there, and withdrew into the district of Tyre and Sidon. [22] \u00a0And a Canaanite woman from that region came out and began to cry out, saying, \u2018Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed.\u2019 \u00a0[23] \u00a0But He did not answer her a word.\u00a0 And His disciples came and implored Him, saying, \u2018Send her away, because she keeps shouting at us.\u2019\u00a0 And so Jesus turns to her and\u00a0 [24] \u201cHe answered and said, \u2018I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.\u201d\n\nSo we\u2019re going to talk about this here in just a moment, that sets the stage for us.\u00a0 A couple of comments I would like to make here is to give us some perspective, of course we have now for some months been looking at the Book of Exodus, you recall that, and we actually went all the way through Deuteronomy talking about this theme of law and grace.\u00a0 And we spent time considering the Book of Joshua more recently and in fact in our last session we looked at the Book of Isaiah, all under this\u00a0 idea or with this theme\u00a0 in mind of the law and grace, law vs. grace of law and grace.\n\nBut this morning in this session we\u2019re turning a corner, I mentioned that we would be doing this, we\u2019re moving on into the New Testament now starting with the Book of Matthew; we\u2019ll be going through the entire Book of Matthew as a part of our Law and Grace series.\u00a0 So I have a little Bible bookcase up there, hopefully you can see that.\u00a0 So welcome to the Gospel of Matthew as we begin exploring the Gospel of Matthew it\u2019s vitally important that we understand and recognize that we have now come to a momentous and pivotal turning point in the Scriptures.\u00a0 The Gospel that was written by the Apostle Matthew is strategically placed at the head of all the other New Testament books.\u00a0 So while Matthew is the first New Testament book we could say that the four Gospels, that would be Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, are actually the last of the Old Testament books.\u00a0 And what do I mean by that?\u00a0 Well, stand by, stay tuned and we\u2019re going to try to explain that here.\n\nBut first of all let\u2019s talk about what Matthew\u2019s purpose is.\u00a0 It\u2019s very helpful in terms of under\u00adstanding the distinctions between Law and grace.\u00a0 And you\u2019ll notice we have here, the first thing, the first purpose, one of three purposes is to explain that Jesus, in whom they had believed, these Jews, was the long awaited Jewish Messiah.\u00a0 Now remember that Matthew is writing his gospel for a Jewish audience, we\u2019re going to go more into that in just a moment, and he\u2019s writing sometime after the death of Christ.\u00a0 So He\u2019s coming back, remember Jews are thinking well if Jesus is the Messiah, the Messiah is supposed to bring the kingdom in, so what\u2019s going on here.\u00a0 Matthew\u2019s purpose is to clear up and clarify these issues.\u00a0 He\u2019s also writing to explain why the kingdom had been postponed despite the fact that the King had arrived.\u00a0 And also to explain the interim program of God during the\u00a0 King\u2019s absence, kingdom\u2019s absence, right?\n\nWhat else?\u00a0 Well, he was going to address in his gospel the issues of the kingdom being offered, the kingdom being rejected, and where was the kingdom rejected?\u00a0 Where in Matthew, in what part of Matthew do we find that rejection.\u00a0 Everybody should know that.\u00a0\u00a0 Matthew chapter 12, right, and the kingdom was rejected, but of course, unlike some other theologians teach that doesn\u2019t mean that the kingdom was suddenly transferred over to the church but what?\u00a0 The kingdom was postponed, right, and we\u2019re doing this little exercise to make Andy happy when he tunes in, right.\u00a0\u00a0 And also he wants to address this issue that there will come a time ultimately when the kingdom will be accepted by the Jewish nation.\u00a0\u00a0 And then he\u2019s going to address the interim program which we talked about quite extensively in our kingdom series and anyone who\u2019s tuning in who is not aware of what we\u2019re talking about I would challenge\u00a0 you, encourage you to be motivated to go check it out, the Kingdom series that Pastor Woods is doing on Wednesday evening.\n\nSo Jesus is the predicted Jewish King who ushered in an interim program by building the sons of the kingdom into the church in between Israel\u2019s past rejection and future acceptance of her King.\u00a0 Now you will remember, hopefully, from our last session that we briefly discussed the Seraphim, the Cherubim, and the four living beings that were mentioned in Isaiah 6, Ezekiel 1 and 10, and Revelation chapter 4.\u00a0 And in fact, this is the chart that I gave you.\u00a0 Now let me make a disclaimer quickly here, that while I do not intend to be dogmatic about what I\u2019m about to say I think it\u2019s very, very interesting to note how well the description of the living beings match up with the individual Gospels and their respective audiences.\u00a0 Let\u2019s take a look a look at that for a second.\n\nI think this is interesting.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a chart of a comparison in contrast in the gospels, so you\u2019ll notice first of all that Matthew is written specifically to a Jewish audience and that the first face of the living beings in Ezekiel 1 and Revelation 4 is said to be the face of a lion.\u00a0 This matches up very well with the representation of Christ as the Lion of Judah, the King of Israel.\u00a0 If we go on to the Book of Mark what we notice is that Mark is written to a Roman audience and one of the prominent features that we find throughout the Book of Mark is a sense of immediacy.\u00a0 And in fact, the word \u201cimmediately\u201d is found forty times in the Gospel of Mark.\u00a0 The idea that Mark presents is that Jesus was someone who was busy and got things done.\u00a0 The second face of the living beings in Ezekiel 1 and Revelation 4 is said to be the face of an ox or a calf because this is the animal that was used to get things done and to accomplish work.\u00a0 If we go on and we look at Luke you\u2019ll notice that Luke is written to a Greek audience and the prominent feature in Luke is the full humanity of Jesus.\u00a0 And the third face of the living beings in Ezekiel 1 and Revelation 4 is said to be the face of a man.\u00a0 And then finally we look at John and notice that the Gospel of John\u2019s audience is all inclusive.\u00a0 In fact, the prominent theme of his gospel is stated in chapter 20, verse 31 where he says that these things \u201care written\u201d for what purpose, \u201cthat you might believe.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0[John 20:31, \u201cBut these are written so that you may believe Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and by believing you may have life in His name.\n\nSo the fourth face of the living beings in Ezekiel 1 and Revelation 4 is said to be the face of an eagle representing the deity of Jesus, which comes out strongly all through the Gospel of John.\u00a0 You might recall the numerous \u201cI am\u201d declarations that Jesus makes.\u00a0 So again I\u2019m not saying this to be dogmatic in any way and I\u2019m not suggesting that we go out and start a new church of the living beings.\u00a0 But I just thought it was an interesting point and so I thought I would share that with you.\n\nNow first of all we want to address this issue of who this Book is written to and as we stated, the gospel of Matthew is written to the Jews or better the people of Israel who are sometimes also referred to as the Hebrews.\u00a0 And these terms are basically synonymous, however, they do each have a slightly different emphasis.\u00a0 Matthew\u2019s Gospel begins with a Jewish genealogy and no other Gospel does this.\u00a0 This is pretty interesting.\u00a0 It begins like this, notice the Scripture there, \u201cThe record of the genealogy of Jesus, the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.\u201d\u00a0 [Matthew 1:1, \u201cThe record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham:\u201d]\n\nNow of course the name \u201cJesus\u201d in Hebrew is Yeshua, but did you know that actually if we were correct in our translation of that it would be the name Joshua meaning what?\u00a0 God saves.\u00a0 The Messiah in Greek is Christos<\/em>, meaning the anointed one.\u00a0 And the transliteration of this Greek term is what we have come to use and that is Christ, it\u2019s become the prominent term\u00a0 used throughout the Gentile dominated church.\u00a0 \u201cSon of David\u201d is a vitally important title because this identifies Jesus as the promised seed of the Davidic line, which is a promise that was made by God through the prophet Nathan to David that one of his descendants would reign on the millennial throne of David in Jerusalem.\u00a0 And then finally, the son of Abraham speaks to the fact that Jesus is from the lineage of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the lineage of promise and covenant.\n\nSo you can see from the get-go in Matthew\u2019s Gospel that he is identifying Jesus in a manner that would validate His claim to be the expected Jewish Messiah.\u00a0 So this again is evidence for us that Matthew is speaking of writing to the Jewish nation.\n\nBut there\u2019s more, until the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem in\u00a0 70 A.D., you might find this interesting, by the Romans that is, the Jews could assemble and check and verify genealogies from the records kept and made available at the temple.\u00a0 Did you know that?\u00a0 Here\u2019s a model of what the temple looked like.\u00a0 So if someone in Jesus' time said I\u2019m a descendant from this person or that person or if they tried to identify themselves with a particular tribe it could actually be proven and demonstrated from the records that were available at the temple.\u00a0\u00a0 This was especially important if there was a claim between opposing parties over things like an inheritance.\u00a0 Would\u00a0 it be beneficial to be able to go to the records of the temple and say hey, this is my property and this guy\u2019s claiming it, it would be nice to be able to go and pull up the records.\u00a0 I mean, we don\u2019t ever do those kinds of things today, do we?\u00a0 Of course we do!\u00a0 Being able to prove your genealogy also impacted\u2026 think about this, the roles that you could have based upon your tribe in the nation of Israel.\u00a0 What if somebody came up and claimed to be of the tribe of Levi and wanted to begin doing priestly functions in the temple?\u00a0 Maybe we need to verify that, would that not be an important thing to do?\u00a0 Sure it would.\n\nSo the records were available at the temple and in this picture you see it is a view into the inter temple area, and if you look toward the front there\u2026 or I should say generally speaking Jewish men and women were allowed access to the front area of the temple, that you can see in the lower part of that picture.\u00a0 However, this is interesting, there were some who were excluded and this also becomes quite important.\u00a0 For example, a person who was proven to be illegitimately born was denied access to the temple for ten generations.\u00a0 You might think ahead a little bit about what were some of the things that the Jewish leadership were trying to do, accusations they were bringing against Jesus.\u00a0\u00a0 That\u2019s an interesting thought.\u00a0\u00a0 In the top of the picture you see the area where only the priests were allowed access and they consisted of Jewish men who were specifically qualified.\n\nNow if you look off to the right you will see, designated by the man pointing there, that was where in fact the genealogical records were kept, and as I\u2019ve already mentioned people could go in and check those genealogies.\u00a0 So the temple was important to remember for different reasons; normally we think in terms of the sacrifices and such but this is another thing that was a critically important function of the temple.\n\nNow this brings us to this interesting point, and that is that this is why, for example, in Hebrews 7:14 that I have displayed here, notice what it says.\u00a0 It says, \u201cFor it is evident<\/u> that our Lord was descended from Judah, [a tribe with reference to which Moses spoke nothing concerning priests.]\u201d\u00a0 The question would be why would the writer of Hebrews say that it was \u201cevident\u201d?\u00a0 And the reason was because anyone who wanted to could go to the temple and check the records for themselves.\u00a0 And something else that\u2019s interesting that you might have missed when you read this before is that this statement also gives us a bit of a clue as to when the Book of Hebrews was written.\u00a0 Right?\u00a0 So when would it have had to have been written?\u00a0 Certainly before the destruction of the temple because once the temple was destroyed you couldn\u2019t go check the record any more, could you?\n\nAll right, so continuing on along this line, so Jesus tells the twelve disciples to go only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.\u201d [Matthew 10:6] \u00a0\u00a0I think that\u2019s interesting.\u00a0 By the way, did Jesus stay with that strategy? I mean, He gave that command and did the apostles follow that command without wavering once the church was birthed?\u00a0 No they didn\u2019t!\u00a0 Now it is true that they did have a little bit of difficulty and perhaps were a little slow in terms of their understanding of God\u2019s greater plan for the church but once they received further revelation they included the Gentiles, didn\u2019t they?\u00a0 And those of us here today who are Gentiles should be very grateful for that, shouldn\u2019t we?\u00a0 I\u2019m grateful; are you grateful this morning?\u00a0 Yes\u2026amen!\n\nAll right, look at Matthew 10:1 and 5 and 6 again.\u00a0 We just read this and Jesus gives this command to His disciples to go only \u201cto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.\u201d\u00a0 So this command was unique and in effect specifically during the time of Jesus\u2019 earthly ministry early on.\u00a0 [Matthew 10:1, \u201cJesus summoned His twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every kind of disease and every kind of sickness.\u00a0 [1:5-7 \u201cThese twelve Jesus sent out after instructing them: \u201cDo not go in the<\/em> way of the<\/em> Gentiles, and do not enter any<\/em> city of the Samaritans; [6]<\/a><\/strong> but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.\u201d]\n\nIn Matthew 10 he told them to go only \u201cto the lost sheep of the house of Israel\u201d and in fact, let\u2019s look at the rest of what it says there, he tells them \u201cDo not go in the<\/em> way of the<\/em> Gentiles, and do not enter any<\/em> city of the Samaritans;\u201d so look what he just said to them, He said don\u2019t even take a road that leads to the Gentiles; stay off of it!\u00a0 Right.\u00a0 Don\u2019t even go to a town populated by the Samaritans.\u00a0 Wow, that\u2019s a little heavier, isn\u2019t it?\n\nMatthew 15 again, the point I made here was the fact that Jesus, when He is now dealing with this Canaanite woman He says\u2026 now this is Him speaking and He\u2019s talking about Himself now, isn\u2019t He, and He says what?\u00a0 I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.\u00a0\u00a0 [Matthew 15:24, \u201cBut He answered and said, \u201cI was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.\u201d]\u00a0 He said this to a Canaanite woman who was a Gentile, (wasn\u2019t she) when she came pleading for him to deliver her daughter from demon possession.\n\nSo in both cases here that we\u2019ve mentioned Jesus instructions to the disciples when He sent them out two by two as well as His own response to the Canaanite woman regarding His purpose as Israel\u2019s Messiah, in doing so He made it clear that He and they were sent only to Israel, to the Jews, to the Hebrews.\u00a0 Okay.\u00a0 So this is again evidence that what Matthew is talking about here, he\u2019s speaking and writing to Jews.\u00a0 Jews would understand this.\n\nNow we might ask the question where did this term \u201clost sheep\u201d originate?\u00a0 Let\u2019s look at that for a moment.\u00a0 Jeremiah 50:6 is where it actually comes from, it says, \u201cMy people\u201d referring to Israel, \u201chave become lost sheep; their shepherds have led them astray. They have made them turn aside on the mountains; they have gone along from mountain to hill and have forgotten their resting place.\u201d\u00a0 You know, that\u2019s almost a description of what was going on in Jesus\u2019 day, the leaders, the ones who should have been directing them to the Law and to the proper keeping of the Law were not doing that.\u00a0 They, in fact, had led the people astray.\u00a0 My reference is Ezekiel 34 here, if you look at verses 11 and 16 it says, [11] \u201cFor thus says the Lord GOD, \u2018Behold, I Myself will search for My sheep and seek them out.\u2019\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 [16] \u201cI will seek the lost, bring back the scattered, [bind up the broken and strengthen the sick; but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with judgment.\u201d]\u00a0 And of course Ezekiel 34 is in context addressing the still coming reign of Christ during the millennial kingdom.\u00a0 So this is speaking to the issue of the regathering of the remnant of Israel.\n\nAll right, only in the land of Israel and to the people of Israel, it\u2019s very interesting, I don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve ever considered this but apart from Jesus\u2019 brief stay in Egypt as an infant His entire life, and His entire ministry, from the records that we have was spent only within the land of Israel.\u00a0 That is, He only went to areas that had originally been taken during the conquest of Canaan or areas that had been promised to Israel but not previously possessed.\u00a0 The encounter with the Canaanite woman is one of those instances where Jesus went outside the then established boundaries of Israel because that area was in fact part of the land promised to Israel but not yet possessed.\u00a0 Have you ever thought about that?\n\nIn Matthew we see that Christ is going to direct the people of Israel back to the original intent of the Law of Moses.\u00a0 This is a theme particularly that shows up in Matthew chapter 5, the first part of which is called the Sermon on the Mount.\u00a0 And in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus three times said, \u201cYou have heard that it was said,\u201d and two times He said, \u201cYou have heard that the ancients were told.\u201d\u00a0 And in each of those instances He followed that phrase up with this, He comes back and He says, \u201cBut I<\/strong> say to you\u2026.\u201d In this manner Jesus corrects the imposed Pharisaical layers of tradition that have nullified the original intent of the Law of Moses.\u00a0 And I have a number of references there that you can look at if you\u2019d like.\n\nSo some of their traditions, that is the traditions of the leaders of the religion there, some of their traditions are added to the Scripture, some of them took away from the Scriptures and some of them distorted what the Scriptures said.\u00a0 In each of these cases Jesus pointed to the religious leaders specifically and the common people generally back to the original intent of the Law.\u00a0 He warned the Jews not to get all caught up in the additions and subtractions and distortions.\u00a0 So that\u2019s important when we\u2019re reading through the Gospel of Matthew, it\u2019s important for us to look for these kinds of clues.\n\n \n\nThere are two other expressions now that it\u2019s important for us to understand because we\u2019re going to be encountering them and those two terms are the \u201ckingdom of God\u201d and the \u201ckingdom of heaven.\u201d\n\nOnly Matthew uses the term \u201ckingdom of heaven\u201d and he does so thirty-two times in his gospel as recorded in the New American Standard Version of the Bible.\u00a0 The other gospel writers, watch this, don\u2019t include that phrase at all and in fact that phrase is not found anywhere else in Scripture.\u00a0 Now down the road we\u2019ll take a closer look at this but I just wanted to introduce that concept to you right now.\u00a0 The main reason that Matthew replaced the more common expression \u201ckingdom of God\u201d with a euphemism \u201ckingdom of heaven\u201d is due to the unfortunate Pharisaical tradition or better said, the unnatural phobia associated with using the name of God in vain.\u00a0 I am purposely using this expres\u00adsion \u201cunnatural phobia\u201d because according to The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, the tetragrammaton, what in the world is that?\u00a0 The tetragrammaton, it sounds like something to eat.\u00a0 No, the four letters YHWH that are transliterated Yahweh, all right, and generally in our Bibles, in our English Bibles when we encounter the tetragrammaton you see it in your Bible as all caps, the word LORD.\u00a0\u00a0 So when you see LORD in all caps that\u2019s what it is, it\u2019s Yahweh.\n\nSo here\u2019s the deal, this is the personal name of God, TWOT says, [Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, by R. Laird Harris and Gleason L. Archer, Jr.] and it is His most frequent design\u00ada\u00adtion in Scripture, occurring\u201d hold onto you hats here, \u201c5,321 times.\u00a0 The same tradition,\u201d that is the same tradition this unnatural phobia, \u201chas continued to today even amongst Messianic Jews.\u00a0 They will usually replace every occurrence of God in the Bible with the expression \u2018the Name.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 At any rate Matthew, being a Jew himself, substituted the kingdom of heaven for kingdom of God in order not to offend the very Jews that he was trying to reach, which if we are honest about it, it was a pretty smart thing to do.\u00a0 Right?\u00a0 You don\u2019t want to offend your audience right at the get-go, because they\u2019re not going to hear anything else you have to say.\u00a0\u00a0 Right.\n\nBut, not only that, it\u2019s inspired by the Holy Spirit, isn\u2019t it.\u00a0 And I will also point you to the bottom of the screen where I have a definition of the word euphemism.\u00a0 It basically says what is a euphemism? It\u2019s\u00a0 \u201cthe substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive expression for one that may offend\u2026\u201d [Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary.]\u00a0 So that sort of brings it all to life, doesn\u2019t it.\u00a0 Well, we\u2019re going to see Matthew is going to use \u201ckingdom of heaven\u201d because he doesn\u2019t want to offend His Jewish audience.\u00a0 Matthew alone, as I said, used this euphemism, \u201cheaven\u201d to replace the name of God which was a point of habit by that time among the Jews.\u00a0 And this is another indication that he was, in fact, writing to Jews.\n\nWhat else?\u00a0 It\u2019s interesting to note that we also utilize the same euphemism in our own language.\u00a0 In our own culture we will say things like \u201cheaven knows,\u201d instead of \u201cGod knows.\u201d\u00a0 We will say \u201cfor heaven\u2019s sake\u201d instead of \u201cfor God\u2019s sake\u201d many times, don\u2019t we?\u00a0 Sadly, some do say \u201cfor Christ\u2019s sake\u201d and usually when you hear that it\u2019s because they\u2019re upset about something, isn\u2019t it?\u00a0 Many people also say \u201coh heavens\u201d or \u201cmy heavens\u201d or \u201coh my heavens\u201d right?\u00a0 We\u2019ve heard all these as a replacement for the word \u201cGod.\u201d\u00a0 And that\u2019s not all, how about \u201coh my goodness\u201d or \u201cgoodness knows.\u201d\u00a0 So even in Gentile culture we actually have carried on an even extended that custom.\u00a0 So I guess we can\u2019t get too upset with the Jews if we\u2019re doing the same thing.\n\nSo who was Matthew?\u00a0 Who was this fellow who wrote the first book of the New Testament?\u00a0 Who is this fellow who is mentioned in the other Gospels and also at the beginning of the Book of Acts.\u00a0 Matthew was one of Christ\u2019s twelve disciples whom He Himself chose at the beginning of His three years of ministry and so Matthew of course is one of the original twelve.\u00a0 It\u2019s interesting to note that the name \u201cMatthew\u201d is a contraction and in fact theologians generally say it\u2019s really a nickname.\u00a0 Did you know that?\u00a0 Matthew is a nickname for shorthand for the name Mattathias which means gift of God.\u00a0 Matthew was also called Levi and this was interesting information for me to discover, it was common for Jews to have two names.\u00a0 Matthew was his Greek name while Levi was his Hebrew name.\u00a0 According to the Gospel of Mark in chapter 2 verse 14 he was introduced as Levi, the son of a man named Alphaeus.\u00a0 Matthew is also called Levi by Luke in Luke 5:2. [Mark 2:14, \u201cAs He passed by, He saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting in the tax booth, and He said to him, \"Follow Me!\" And he got up and followed Him.\u201d\u00a0 Luke 5:27, \u201cAfter that He went out and noticed a tax collector named Levi sitting in the tax booth, and He said to him, \"Follow Me.\u201d]\n\nNow here\u2019s an interesting point.\u00a0 It\u2019s possible, it\u2019s really quite possible that Matthew was the name Jesus gave to Levi after his conversion because this was a normal occurrence (did you know this) a normal occurrence when a Jew changed careers.\u00a0 Isn\u2019t that interesting?\u00a0 Now Matthew had been a tax collector for the hated Romans.\u00a0 We know that.\u00a0 Think about this, let\u2019s put this in good perspective now, right?\u00a0 The conquering Romans came in to Israel and introduced all kinds of vile customs and as far as the\u00a0 Jews were concerned just the eating of pigs was enough, right.\u00a0 Immediately the Romans began telling the Jews what they could and could not do and this went so far as to restrict in many, many cases their freedom of worship under the Law of Moses.\n\nYou will recall that when they wanted to crucify Jesus that Pilate said take Him and do with Him as you will, and do you know what the response was?\u00a0\u00a0 We\u2019re not able to do that, we cannot carry out the death penalty.\u00a0 What was the reason for that?\u00a0 The Romans had taken that away from them.\u00a0 The Romans instituted an oppressive system of taxation which interestingly enough led to what is historically known as the Jewish tax revolts.\u00a0 Did you know that?\u00a0 These revolts originated\u2026 now this just gets more interesting the more you study, these revolts originated in Galilee before the time of Christ and continued on for decades.\n\nStop and think about this for a second.\u00a0 These tax revolts started in Galilee which is the very place where Jesus called many of\u00a0 His disciples.\u00a0 Consider the burden on the Jews of that day?\u00a0 They were taxed to support the temple; they were taxed to support the King and who was on the throne at that time?\u00a0 Well, it had been the Herod\u2019s for quite some time and who were these Herod\u2019s?\u00a0 They were descended from the Edomites and perpetual enemies of Israel.\u00a0 They were taxed to support the Roman government and on top of that the Romans didn\u2019t care how much the tax collectors gathered beyond what was due so tax collectors could become quite wealthy at the expense of their fellow Jews\u2026 and did!\n\nSo as I said already, Matthew was hated because he was a tax collector.\u00a0 In fact, tax collectors were as hated as their Roman oppressors and Matthew had been a tax collector for these despised Romans.\u00a0 Are you getting the picture here?\u00a0 It\u2019s kind of interesting.\u00a0 So here is Matthew, otherwise known as Levi, whom Jesus called as recorded in Luke 5:27-31, look what it says: \u201cAfter that He\u201d that is Jesus, \u201cwent out and noticed a tax collector named Levi sitting in the tax booth, and He said to him, \u201cFollow Me.\u201d [28] And he left everything behind, and got up and began<\/em> to follow Him.\u201d\u00a0 It seems from that description that he just flat got up from he table, left everything on it and followed Jesus.\n\nIf we keep going, verse 29, \u201cAnd Levi gave a big reception for Him\u201d Jesus, in his house; and there was\u201d look at this, \u201ca great crowd of tax collectors and other people<\/em> who were reclining at the table<\/em> with them.\u201d\u00a0 Wow!\u00a0 So picture this, Jesus comes to Matthew, who is part of this hated group of tax collectors, which are the worst of the worse, right, and He called them.\u00a0 And in order to celebrate Jesus\u2019 calling of him Matthew invites, look at this, isn\u2019t this great, all of tax collector friends, right, to commemorate the end of one career and the beginning of another.\n\nOf course you know that this just made the religious crowd absolutely disgusted, didn\u2019t it?\u00a0 It tells us something about Jesus too, doesn\u2019t it?\u00a0 In the New Testament times, by the way, this expression \u201ctax collectors and sinners\u201d was in fact an expression among the Jews for those who were morally considered to be the very worst of the worst and I have the Scriptures there if you\u2019d like to look those up.\n\nWhere was Matthew from?\u00a0 He was from Capernaum at the north end of the Sea of Galilee. I have a satellite photo here for you, hope you can see that, at the top there you can see the Sea of Galilee at the north end of the Sea of Galilee, and then the Dead Sea is at the south end, and the Jordan River is between the two.\u00a0 Here\u2019s another view.\u00a0 Capernaum is located right at the north end of the Sea of Galilee and just to the west of where the Jordan River enters and feeds the Sea of Galilee.\u00a0 The Jordan River actually flows roughly north and south through the Sea of Galilee and on to the Dead Sea.\u00a0 Here\u2019s an aerial map of the Sea of Galilee.\u00a0 I\u2019ve got you another picture here, this is a view at the north end of the Sea of Galilee which provides some contextual reference points near Capernaum. \u00a0Off to the east, if you look to the far right hand side there you would find Bethsaida which was Philip\u2019s home.\u00a0 And if you go to the west you\u2019ll find the place where Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount which is identified today as the Mount of Beatitudes.\n\nYou may remember that in the Bible the Sea of Galilee is referenced in a number of different ways.\u00a0 For example, the Bible says that the Sea of Galilee is called the Sea of Chinnereth in Numbers 34:11 and Joshua 13:27. \u00a0[Numbers 34:11, \u201cand the border shall go down from Shepham to Riblah on the east side of Ain; and the border shall go down and reach to the slope on the east side of the Sea of Chinnereth.\u201d]\u00a0 It\u2019s also referred to as the Lake of Gennesaret in Luke 5:1.\u00a0 [Luke 5:1, \u201cNow it happened that while the crowd was pressing around Him and listening to the word of God, He was standing by the lake of Gennesaret;\u201d]\u00a0 It\u2019s also called the Sea of Galilee which is the Sea of Tiberias in John 6:1.\u00a0 [John 6:1, \u201cAfter these things Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee (or Tiberias).\u201d]\u00a0 So it had a number of different names\u2026 quite interesting.\n\nAll of Capernaum has been excavated by the way, and I have a picture here for you of the Caper\u00adnaum Archeological Park that you can visit on your next trip to Israel.\u00a0 You can see evidence of some of the walls that remain in some of the houses there on the left center and just mid the lower center and if you look at that carefully you realize that it was a very crowded, a very densely populated place there.\u00a0 Near the center, just below the circular building what you have there are the remains of the second century synagogue that was built on the foundation of a previous synagogue that existed during the time when Christ, Matthew and Peter were there.\u00a0 Isn\u2019t that interesting.\n\nAs a matter of fact, the circular building closer to the edge of the water, toward the top of the picture there, is actually called St. Peter\u2019s house.\u00a0 It has not been definitively proven but it seems very likely that it was in fact Peter\u2019s home.\u00a0 Now I\u2019ve been there.\u00a0 If it was Peter\u2019s home it\u2019s very interesting because they\u2019ve built it up since I was there; when I was there you could actually walk right up to the ruins and they didn\u2019t have that circular top over it, you could look down into it and what you saw was an area that would seat easily a 100 people, 100 to a 150 people.\u00a0 A pretty big house.\n\nNow why is that interesting?\u00a0 It\u2019s interesting because Peter was a fisherman, and where would you expect Peter to have a house?\u00a0 In the center of town somewhere, big city?\u00a0 No, it would be close to water, so there\u2019s one thing.\u00a0 And the next thing is that he was a successful fisherman and so it\u2019s very likely that when he brought his catch in that he did all of his separating the fish and these kind of things there in that area, so he probably had a lot of help.\u00a0 Just kind of interesting little details that we miss just from a cursory reading of the Scriptures.\n\nAll right, now let\u2019s see, I don\u2019t know if you can read that caption, let me read that to you. \u201cBeneath the foundations of the octagonal Byzantine Martyrium<\/em> Church, that\u2019s that circular building that you\u2019re looking at, \u201cat Capernaum archeologists made one of the most exciting Biblical archeological discoveries.\u00a0 A simple first century A.D. home that may have been the house of Peter, the home of Jesus in Capernaum.\u00a0 This is the picture of the church that has been built over that site today;\u00a0 that wasn\u2019t there when I visited.\u00a0 And this is what it looks like today on the inside.\u00a0 So you can actually go inside there and if you can see the railings there, the railing as you look down over into the actual excavation of the home.\u00a0 It\u2019s kind of fascinating to me.\u00a0 I like history.\n\nSo, Since Capernaum was a trade center for Galilee\u2019s fishing industry, it\u2019s certainly in the northern part, Matthew collected taxes from there, so he would sit at the main entry gate and anyone who went in and out would be taxed for any number of documented items which would include, of course, fish and animals and products of all kinds.\u00a0 And the picture we have here\u00a0 is representing Matthew as he was collecting and recording the taxes as they came in.\u00a0 Matthew was called by Christ to follow Him as a disciple.\u00a0 Matthew seems to, from the description as we said, simply to have left his place of a tax collector, he just got up and left.\u00a0 He committed entirely to being a disciple and he followed Christ during His three years of ministry as Christ\u2019s disciple and ultimately as an apostle in the church.\n\nHere\u2019s some interesting commentary, this comes from Dr. Constable, \u201cMatthew\u2019s references to Jerusalem and the Sadducees point to a date of composition before 70 A.D. when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem.\u201d\u00a0 Now why does he mention the Sadducees?\u00a0 Because the Sadducees were in fact the group from which the high priest came from.\u00a0 All right, so he\u2019s mentioning the Sadducees so they must have still been around and in power.\u00a0 \u201cHis references to Jerusalem assume its existence\u201d you find that in the passages listed there.\u00a0 [e.g., 4:5; 27:53]\u00a0 Matthew recorded more warnings about the Sadducees than all the other New Testament writers combined, but after 70 A.D. they no longer existed as a significant authority in Israel. Consequently, Matthew probably wrote before 70 A.D.\u00a0 References in the text to the customs of the Jews continuing \u201cto this day\u201d (27:8; 28:15) imply that some time had elapsed between the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and the composition of the Gospel. Since Jesus died in 33 A.D. Matthew may have composed his Gospel perhaps a decade or more later. A date between 40 and 70 A.D. is very probable.\u201d\u00a0 [Constable, T. (2003). Tom Constable\u2019s Expository Notes on the Bible (Malachi 4:6). Galaxie Software.]\n\nAnd most conservative theologians believe that it\u2019s probably much closer to forty than it is to seventy, just to give you an idea.\u00a0 By the way, C. I. Scofield, if you like him and have a copy of the original Scofield Reference Bible he dated this, the Book of Matthew from A.D. 37.\u00a0 He said he thought that was a possible date.\n\nSo moving on here, Matthew appears to have written in Greek from some written records but also from memorized sayings and history from others.\u00a0 Here\u2019s an interesting fact you may or may not know.\u00a0 Did you know that it was the pattern of disciples, generally speaking now, in Jesus\u2019 time to drill one another with the memorized sayings of the Rabbi.\u00a0 This, in fact, would have been the very practice that would have been followed by Jesus\u2019 disciples also.\n\nSo get a picture in your mind; imagine now the getting up early in the morning and walking along the Sea of Galilee, what would they be doing?\u00a0 They would have been drilling one another regarding what Jesus had said the day before.\u00a0 And there was also no doubt that many things that they did in fact that He wrote, that He did in fact write down, so Matthew would have written his Gospel based upon a compilation of various sources.\u00a0 Matthew wasn\u2019t around at the time when the angel visited Mary so where did he get his information?\u00a0 Do you think he might have gone to Mary for that.\u00a0 I sort of think he probably did.\n\nClearly early in the Gospel of Matthew there was times when Matthew himself was not present. So for example, how did it come about that he had the history of what took place surrounding Christ\u2019s birth?\u00a0 He would get these accounts from others.\u00a0 Translations from Hebrew and Aramaic is also apparent in some portions of his gospel and occasionally from Latin as well.\u00a0 Now why would that be interesting? \u00a0When Jesus was crucified on the cross they put something over His head, right, \u201cThis is Jesus, the King of the Jews,\u201d and what language was it written in?\u00a0 Hebrew, Aramaic and Latin.\u00a0 Very interesting!\u00a0 A lot of consistency in the Word of God as you begin to dig things out.\n\nMatthew was last named in the New Testament in Acts 1:13 and in fact that is the last time a number of the apostles are also named and is also the last time that the name of Mary, Jesus\u2019 mother is mentioned.\u00a0 [Acts 1:13, \u201cWhen they had entered the city, they went up to the upper room where they were staying; that is, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James.\u201d]\n\nAfter that Matthew\u2019s only referred to, generally speaking, as one of the apostles and we can see that also in Revelation 21:14.\u00a0 [Revelation 21:14, \u201cAnd the wall of the city had twelve foundation stones, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.\u201d]\n\nSo what happened to Matthew later on?\u00a0 The only apostle whose death is actually recorded in Scripture is the Apostle James, John\u2019s brother and that\u2019s found in Acts 12.\u00a0 James was killed by the descendant of Herod the Great, actually I said John\u2019s brother, that was Jesus\u2019 brother, the brother of Jesus, I\u2019m sorry\u2026 retract there.\u00a0 [can't understand word] take back and correct it.\u00a0 That was Jesus\u2019 brother.\u00a0 On all the other deaths of the apostles are recorded outside of Scripture and liable to give accounts buried significantly.\n\nFrom extra biblical records Matthew was said to have gone to Parthia, now in that map it\u2019s kind of hard to see but the little orange section peeking out from the right hand side is Parthia.\u00a0 Parthia was the empire just to the east of the Roman Empire and it, in fact, had replaced Babylon some centuries before so many Jews still remained there.\u00a0 Several of the apostles are said to have gone to that very same area and one of the reasons that they probably did so was because everyone in that part of the world (that is Parthia) they all spoke Aramaic.\u00a0 Isn\u2019t that interesting, which of course the disciples and the apostles would have spoken.\u00a0 The extra biblical tradition is that Matthew died in Ethiopia having had wooden stakes driven through his body.\u00a0 The account goes on to say that he was yelling out the gospel as they were driving the stakes through his body.\n\nHow about a couple of concluding observations here.\u00a0 So the Gospel of Matthew we said was written to the Jews about Jesus, who Himself said that He was only sent to the Jews.\u00a0 And in point of fact, it\u2019s really only in the last parts of his book, Matthew\u2019s book, that we encounter Jesus saying anything about the church at all.\u00a0 So we might ask the question, why should we bother with this, after all, this is written to the Jews, why do we care about that, right?\u00a0 Well, \u00a0that sort of brings us full circle to what we were saying earlier when I showed you this image.\n\nYou recall I stated earlier that we can say that the Gospels are the last of the Old Testament books and the reason is because much of each of the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, is directed to the Jews in the same way that the Old Testament was. \u00a0If you think about the Old Testament it\u2019s primarily directed to the formation and the growth of the Jewish nation.\u00a0 Right?\u00a0 So there exceptions as we read the Old Testament; we find exceptions where God does deal with some Gentiles.\u00a0 Right?\u00a0 Can you think of some of those?\u00a0 How about Ruth?\u00a0 And Rahab?\u00a0 What about [can't understand word] and Nebuchadnezzar?\u00a0 These were all Gentiles.\n\nBut for the most part the Old Testament is really about the Jews and it\u2019s very interesting that\u2019s the same thing we discover in the Gospels.\u00a0 So what does the Gospel of Matthew have to do with\u00a0 us who are non-Jews?\u00a0 In our next session we\u2019re going to explore the approach we\u2019re going to take with the Gospel of Matthew, that\u2019s going to be part 2, and we\u2019ll answer a couple of questions.\u00a0 One question I\u2019m going to try to answer is what did God intend for us to understand as we read the Gospel of Matthew.\n\nAnother question that we\u2019re going to ask and try to answer is how are we going to know and how are we going to apply what\u2019s written there?\u00a0 And a third question we\u2019re going to try to address is how do we determine what is written to us and what isn\u2019t.\u00a0 Those are interesting things.\u00a0 It\u2019s not all infrequent that I have people come up to me and say well how do you know what\u2019s written to us and what\u2019s written to Israel?\u00a0 And that\u2019s a valid question, isn\u2019t it.\u00a0 One that we have to get clarity on.\n\nAnd then there\u2019s another question\u2026 well, actually the last question I just mentioned is probably really more important because what we want to do is we want to avoid extremes, right?\u00a0 We want to avoid the extreme of taking everything in Matthew\u2019s Gospel as specifically directed to\u00a0 us or we want to also be careful about the other extreme which says oh well, you know, that\u2019s written to the Jews and just sort of dismiss it.\u00a0 We don\u2019t to do that either because either one of those extremes is a big problem, isn\u2019t it.\n\nSo the next time that we get together that\u2019s what we\u2019re going to examine.\u00a0 We\u2019re going to look at those questions and we\u2019re going to proceed forward with this idea of just what is this Gospel of Matthew all about anyway.\u00a0 So, let\u2019s throw this back up here.\u00a0 As we talk about the Gospel of Matthew it\u2019s going to be very important that we keep these three points foremost in our mind.\n\nAnd let\u2019s look at this one more time.\u00a0 We want to remember that the purpose of Matthew\u2026 you see, the purpose of the book dictates how we read it, it dictates everything it has to say to us.\u00a0 We don\u2019t want to superimpose something on it that deviates from the purpose that\u2019s stated.\u00a0 So purpose again, to explain that Jesus in whom they had believed, that is the believing Jews at this point, was the long awaited Jewish Messiah.\n\nThe second point to explain why the kingdom had been postponed despite the fact that the King had arrived and to explain the interim program of God during the kingdom\u2019s absence.\u00a0 Now again I think I mentioned last week, and I was trying to remember quoting what Dr.\u00a0 Ice had said, it\u2019s significant that at the birth of the church we normally, when we read the early part of Acts we see numbers like three thousand came to Christ, five thousand came to Christ, and so we kind of get that number in our head and say okay, somewhere around ten thousand Jews, and yet Dr. Ice brought out when he was here with us last Sunday that the historical research has indicated that it\u2019s more likely that those numbers were up in the vicinity of thirty thousand Jews that came to Christ in that time.\u00a0 Okay.\n\nAnd so now the apostles have to address this issue of well what happened?\u00a0 Why isn\u2019t the kingdom here? Remember, they\u2019re steeped in Judaism and the expectation that when the Messiah shows up on the scene what is He going to do?\u00a0 He is going to implement, initiate and establish the millennial kingdom, the physical kingdom.\u00a0 And of course, they had that buggered up a little bit in their minds, didn\u2019t they, because in many instances what they were doing is they were coming at it from a viewpoint that we want to be taken out from\u00a0 underneath the Roman bondage and that was what their focus was, it was political and not spiritual.\n\nSo now you have these thirty thousand Jews, right, who\u2019ve all become believers but we still have to address this question of what happened here, right?\u00a0 And so that\u2019s what Matthew is doing here.\n\nSo I hope that\u2019s helpful as we consider going forward into the Book of Matthew, the Gospel of Matthew.\u00a0 We\u2019re going to keep those purposes in mind and I think we\u2019re going to learn a lot of interesting and valuable things as we continue this distinction between law and grace in the Gospel of Matthew.\u00a0 So having said that, hey, you\u2019re going to get out five minutes early.\n\nShall we pray?\u00a0 Heavenly Father, than,\u00a0 You so much for today and for this Word and thank You for enlightening us, opening up the eyes of our understanding, Father, that we might be able to take in the very Word breathed by God into our hearts and mind, that we might understand it more fully and more completely and that we, Father, might be able to articulate it to others who need to know.\u00a0 Father God, we thank\u00a0 You so much for the privilege that\u00a0 You give us to come and attend Sugar Land Bible Church; we thank\u00a0 You that this is\u00a0 Your church and these are Your people and so we praise\u00a0 You for that.\u00a0 Lord Jesus Christ, we also want to thank You this morning because You have done some wonderful things here in the Gospel of Matthew.\u00a0 Father, we see the first coming of the Lord Jesus to earth; we see the presentation of the gospel of the kingdom to Israel, we also see in the Gospel of Matthew that you came to die for our sins, be buried and to rise again. \u00a0We want to thank\u00a0 You, Father, for the record of His appointing of the apostles of the church that we\u2019ll discover and encounter in this book, and we want to thank You that You did, in fact, establish Your church based upon the apostles.\u00a0 Father thank You for the sessions to come and Lord, really and truly it\u2019s okay if You want to go ahead and come back and take\u00a0 us.\u00a0 I think that\u00a0 You can probably do a better job of teaching us than I can but if You tarry just help us to do the best we can to share Your word so that Your people might be edified.\u00a0 And we give\u00a0 you all the praise and the honor and the glory.\u00a0 In Jesus\u2019 name, and everyone says\u2026. AMEN!","series_sermon_number":""},"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t