Bible Survey - Matthew

Well, this morning we're crossing the artificial threshold between the Old and New Testament as we divide it in the scriptures. We're going to take a look at Matthew. Matthew is actually, for all intents and purposes, still part of the Old Testament. There is an Old Testament context. It is the story, obviously, according to Matthew, of the life of Christ, the death and burial and resurrection of Christ. But because the Church hasn't started yet, it is still recording things in light of the Old Testament law.

Matthew wrote the book to Jews. That was his primary audience. The first paragraph that we've got on the handout here, I started off, you'll have to forgive my slightly snarky starting sentence here, but it says, while it took about 750 or so years for the skeptics to doubt Matthew's authorship of the Gospel of Matthew, there is no reason not to believe that Matthew was the author. All the historical evidence points to Matthew being the author. The thing that skeptics say is that anyone could have written Matthew, but it was probably not Matthew, which is really not an argument. There's no internal evidence that Matthew wasn't the author. There's nothing about it that should lead us to not believing Matthew wrote the book of Matthew.

I'm sure that's not a surprise in a conservative church like this, but I did go to a church one time and guest speak and get told by a guy that was an elder at that church that you'd be a fool for literally interpreting the Bible and believing that we could really rely on it. It was strange to me that he was an elder in a church, but hey, gnarly people look for power positions, I guess.

This book was written somewhere between 40 and 60 A.D. It's highly unlikely given the genealogy that's in Matthew that it was after 70 A.D. because after 70 A.D. the temple was destroyed in 70 A.D. and so there's some relationship there. Just because the temple was destroyed doesn't mean that Matthew would have no reason to put the genealogy. The Jews would still care. But it would be harder to double check after the temple and the records are destroyed. So, there's a quick introduction to Matthew.

Then the thing that I always like to do is take the fastest drag racing version of going over the whole book in as quick a time as I can and then I've got some highlights to cover. What? What? I don't understand what you're saying. I'm shifting my body? Oh, okay. Okay. Alright. I'll try to be stationary. It's my Fitbit. I get all the steps if I walk back and forth. I'm just kidding.

So anyways, Matthew starts with the genealogy, as I mentioned, and he goes through 14 generations and covers the generations there. It does appear that maybe a few A few folks might have been skipped along the lines, but it connects the dots between the very beginning of Israel from the patriarchs down through Joseph. Now it goes through Joseph on the father's side, and we see that in, I believe it's Luke, we get Mary's side of the genealogy. So then we come in and in verse 18 of chapter 1 we get the birth of Christ being foretold and the foretelling story is always a little daunting. As a husband I always think of that. That would be really gnarly for Mary and it would be really gnarly for Joseph. The angel appears to Joseph and says, keep Mary as your wife, and so he does. So we get this foretelling.

Then in chapter 2, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, he just jumps right to, okay, Jesus was born. Some of the narratives kind of interweave together and some of them go into more detail about things like, well, they had to go and do the census. This is like, all right, Jesus was born. The census part wasn't important, but now we skip here.

So the Magi come. Of course, King Herod's not very happy about that. The Magi come and they bring their gifts and then the angel of the Lord appears to Joseph and says, skedaddle to Egypt. So they take off. And then the angel says, okay, come back to Israel. The thing that I love about that is it's always like this line item in the gospel stories. Hey, they went to Egypt, then they came back. But that was not a minor undertaking.

When I drive out from Washington State, we'll leave Thursday, we're going to do three days because we've got a moving truck. But it's only three days and we've got a moving truck. If you move your family and You probably don't have a U-Haul. I don't know if the New Testament equivalent of a U-Haul would be other than like an entire family with a caravan. You're going to be picky about what you bring and he's got to move because obviously his child's life is in danger. So yeah, a very serious undertaking but it's just kind of a quick line item in the description of the Gospels.

Next we get introduced to John the Baptist, and of course John the Baptist was the first Baptist, and that's why we have the Baptist denomination, right? So we have John the Baptist comes, and John the Baptist was a fulfillment of what prophecy? Does anybody know off the top of their heads? Stan? Probably Micah. Okay, but what was the specific prophecy?

He was supposed to make straight the path. And he was to be like Elijah to come in and be the forerunner. So he was a voice crying in the wilderness and Jesus comes to him like so much of Israel and says, you've got to baptize me. And of course, John realizes that seems inappropriate given who Jesus is. But Jesus tells him to do that. And then of course, God says, this is my son. and the Spirit descends like a dove. So that's the Trinity all in one place. That's a very clear passage showing all three parts of the Trinity in one place.

And then Matthew, after the baptism jumps to the temptation of Christ, What's the interesting piece of the temptation of Christ regarding how Christ responds to the temptation? Is he just really a good guy and he just responds by quietly not doing naughty things? How does Christ respond to the temptation?

By the Word of God. By completing the statement that Satan uses as an aperture. Yes. Satan takes a piece of scripture, twists it, and then Christ responds with scripture and setting it straight doctrinally. Throughout the book of Matthew, when we look at how Christ responds to people who are using the scripture, especially the Pharisees, there's a lot of correction and a lot of it has to do with understanding the scriptures properly.

It's also a prime example of his submission to God and his humility as a man. He was God walking through the face of the earth, yet he still totally submits himself to God. Christ's abiding relationship, listening to the Spirit, or listening to the Father through the Spirit, would have been pretty remarkable. observing that from the outside. The funny thing is that Matthew doesn't talk about Christ's family very much, but obviously you've heard various comedians or people talk about the difficulty of being a sibling to this perfect person, Christ.

But yeah, the temptation comes, he responds with scripture, and then after 40 days, He returns, the angels minister to him, and then he gathers his first disciples, Peter and Andrew there. Then he begins ministering in Galilee, and we hit chapter 5, and we get to the Sermon on the Mount.

So the Sermon on the Mount, this is one of those great passages where we've probably all heard various pastors tell us what kind of character we should have, right? We can do the Sermon on the Mount and it'll tell you how you should be a good Christian with the Beatitudes, right? That's how I've heard it from various people. Fortunately, not a lot because I grew up in a primarily dispensational context, but I've still heard lots of Reformed folks covering this text from a reformed background where they try to give us a good list of things that should be our character.

But instead this is Christ dealing with Israel in the context of the law. And so the Sermon on the Mount, he goes through the Beatitudes and he begins talking about the morality of the nation. He talks about divorce and remarriage. So we get a lot of understanding of Christ's correction of the Jewish understanding that have been warped through generations and generations of bad teaching. When we went through the minor prophets and we went through the major prophets, what do we see God sending a message to the leadership of Israel about? You're not leading. You're not leading. You're not being the shepherds. You're not being the people you should be. And over time, the doctrine got weirder and weirder, or at least liberal, and losing sight of what God had put in place.

And Christ came, and he spoke with authority, and he answered things clearly that put the people in awe. Morgan, I think you had your hand up. You said that Sermon on the Mount was dealing with the Jews according to the law? Yeah, Israel or the Jews under the law. So we're going to just jump over the Sermon on the Mount like it's not a big deal, like there's not a lot of things that we could glean from that because we have so much material to cover.

Definitely lots of good stuff in there and I apologize that we're going to move so quickly through it. When we hit chapter 8, we see that Christ heals a leper. And then the centurion comes. And the centurion, I think, is a really great example. He's not apparently a Jew, right? The centurion comes and the centurion says, you can heal my servant, and I believe you. And Christ is amazed by this guy's faith. This guy understands the faith principle that Christ will say over and over throughout the book of Matthew. And so the centurion says, if you speak it, then it'll be so. And that's it. And so the servant was healed. And I think that's a pretty tremendous little snippet there.

When we look at the Gospel of Matthew, he's got a lot of themes that come through, but faith is definitely one of those. The example of the centurion also illustrates that even though Jesus came for the lost sheep of Israel, so to speak, and states that still there are places in Matthew where it goes outside the Jews to Gentiles or the Samaritan woman and so on. Yeah, and we have some good examples of Christ stepping outside of Israel on a few occasions to heal. But the first half of chapter 8 is various recordings of Christ healing various people, including Peter's mother-in-law. We see Christ, His ministries, He's going out and He is preaching to people. He's definitely surprising them. We see He walks on the water from 18 through 27. Jesus casts out demons. That's really huge.

A brief aside, my brother is a prison... well, he's a law official. He doesn't like to be called a guard, but I always want to call him that. But he's an officer for the state of Nevada Correctional Department. He's shared with me on several occasions that there are some really messed up people in the prison system that he said, you know, we don't hear a lot about demon possession, but there's a lot of inmates that he runs into that you just, they're not there. They're not in control of themselves. And it was one of those things where we don't hear a lot about demon possession.

It may not be functionally something that our culture interacts with a lot right now, but Christ deals with it and casts the demons out. So, we can wait for the Lord's return when all kinds of things will take place and the demons will be really upset, right?

Chapter 9, the paralytic was healed. And then in verse 9, Matthew actually records when he was called by Christ to be a disciple. It's really a short bit, but I would imagine that as the author of this book, it was pretty vibrant to him. And it would be a special thing that he would be able to record how the Lord had called him and drawn him in.

Starting or looking at verse 9-14, we see people have questions about fasting, miraculous healings, and then Christ begins to minister to the disciples and speaking to them about the difficulties they're going to face. I jumped ahead here, sorry. Christ calls in chapter 10, he calls the disciples and he prepares them to, he sends them out to minister. That's a big jump from being a follower to going out and actually acting on behalf of Christ out into the nation of Israel. That would definitely be a big change for the disciples.

We're going to see later on there's actually a demon that the disciples can't cast out. This person gets brought to Christ for the demon to be cast out because the disciples can't. But here, Christ gives them the authority to do that in this case. Christ warns them that there's going to be difficulties. and that he is going to be crucified.

So in chapter 11, John the Baptist sends his disciples, because he wants to know who this is. Are you the Messiah? And so Christ's response is to tell, go report at 11-4, go and report to John what you hear and see. The blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he who does not take offense at me.

So Christ responds by saying, here's the testimony, and these are all things that John would know lines up with who the Messiah is going to be. Then Christ tells the people who are listening to him, the people that are following him, that John is to be understood to be like Elijah.

Which is a pretty bold statement. Again, he's drawing things that they would have studied the law and they would have studied the prophets. And now he's starting to connect the dots for people. He doesn't do this with parable, he speaks it explicitly.

So, Christ is going through the grain fields, and the Pharisees see Him eating. In chapter 12, they see that He's eating some of the grain. And why is that a bad idea on the Sabbath, that He'd be eating grain? It's considered work. And I just love what the Pharisees nitpick on these little things like that. Oh, you're eating the grain, Super, super wrong in their eyes.

But Christ then brings up David who went into the temple and took the sanctified food for the priests and shuts them down. Again, the Pharisees come with some kind of legalism or twisted thing and Christ responds with the scripture to put them in their place and answer the doctrine. So the Pharisees again continue to attack Christ and Christ responds.

I want to draw note to 1230, where he says, He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters. Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him. But whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come. This is where you'll hear people talk about losing your salvation, and they talk about blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. That is not the context of this.

When my dad went through the Law and Grace series, he went through the book of Matthew, and he went into greater detail on that. I just want to highlight that, because the loss of salvation issue does come up from various people, and it's good to have a reference. This is talking about the pharisees who have rejected God's work. So moving on, we'll take a look at chapter 13.

Not to be too pharisaical, but I don't think you want a sewer there. I think you want a sower. This is a typo. Oh man. Alright. No, I don't want a sewer. You're right. I want a sower. Did I do that? That's awesome. I'm always glad when I have typos like that in there. It keeps me humble, right? No arrogance. It's like foreman from. Apologies for that. But Christ begins speaking in parables, and of course we get the parable of the sower, not the sewer. The disciples are a little befuddled by this parable, and so they ask in 13.10, Why do you speak to them in parables?

And Jesus answered them, To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted. For whoever has, to him more shall be given, and he will have an abundance. But whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him. Therefore, I speak to them in parables, because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.

And in their case, the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says, You will keep on hearing, but will not understand. You will keep on seeing, but will not perceive. For the heart of this people has become dull. With their ears they scarcely hear, and they have closed their eyes.

Otherwise they would see with their eyes, hear with their ears, and understand with their heart in return, and I would heal them. But blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear. For truly I say to you, that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it."

Al? If you think about that a little bit, or when I think about it, it reminds me that reading the Bible is not really that valuable in the sense that, OK, so I know where verses are, so I can quote x number of them. It isn't the knowing of the words, but it's the meditating on the words and the message behind them. those people who read the Bible and say, well, this isn't God's word.

This is full of contradictions. This is all myth like your dad has said. Yes, if that's how you're reading it and looking at it from a humanistic point of view, Paul makes it very clear in 1 Corinthians We need the Holy Spirit to help us understand the spiritual message and not just see the physical message. The scripture is given as a letter for our relationship with the Lord and not just text to be studied like some historical... The relational aspect and the impact aspect of what's in the text. That's definitely important.

So a parable is given to mask some truths to listeners who have not received the message that was intended for those who are on the inside. One thing that I want to draw attention to, how many times have you heard the parable of the sower taught? And there's all kinds of great illustrations of who's who in the sowing message and they try to apply it to all kinds of things. Christ explains the parable of the sower after he talks about why he's giving parables. So if anyone's explanation of the parable of the sower doesn't actually line up with Christ's explanation of the parable of the sower, it might be a really clever message, but it's not a biblical exposition of the text. It's one of those things where people think, oh man, this is so cool, and they somehow miss the fact that Christ explains it later on. They just hear that one part and unfortunately it's set aside.

So Matthew records a great series of parables throughout the chapter, chapter 13. And then in 14, we actually get a little bit of a back story. 14, 1 through 12, we see that Herod had John the Baptist killed and gets a little freaked out because he thinks maybe Jesus who's doing the miracles might be John the Baptist resurrected.

We obviously know that's not the case. One of the things that's fascinating to me is that story has kind of inside information. Yeah. And you kind of wonder how that came to be known by the disciples who actually tried to stay away from it. Yeah, there's also nuances when we get to the end of Matthew where we find that Matthew has insight into things that are going on inside of some of the governmental arenas that would require, for example, when Judas returns the 30 pieces of silver, the Pharisees have this whole conversation that is keeping things on the down low so that the Roman soldiers don't get in trouble. Well, that would require leakage of information. I think those kinds of things are fascinating where you have Matthews having some insight into things and you say, wow, he's got connections. And then you see that Joan has connections as well. And possibly Matthew may have even gotten some of that information. As a tax collector, I'm sure he had quite a few connections politically because he had to pass on some of the taxes, so that may have been part of it, but that's supposition there. So the second half of chapter 14, we see Jesus feeds the 5,000. So Jesus feeds the large groups of people twice, the 5,000, and later on we'll see he feeds the 4,000.

The Sunday school lesson for this was always like, wow, Jesus did the miracle. The thing that I really loved is this is one of multiple instances of where the scriptures describe Christ saying, Christ had compassion. Christ was compassionate. And we'll take a look at that in detail later on, if we could get through all of the text here. But this is part of Christ's compassion.

When he sees these people, he's moved. Obviously, the Father directs him through the Spirit, but he's moved, and he has compassion, and he feeds the 5,000. The miracle is an outworking of the compassionate nature of Christ. He's not just doing a show. It's not like, fed the 5,000. Pretty cool. It's the compassion leading to the miraculous.

So moving on as though we have Jesus walking in the water and Peter comes out, that's a big deal. I think it's awesome that Christ invited Peter out The miraculous nature of Peter walking is the thing that we tend to see, but Christ is like, hey, it's not a big deal. You're one of my disciples. Of course you can walk on the water with me right now.

That's not a big deal. And then the lesson of faith comes out. The boat could have been empty. Everybody could have been holding hands, skipping across the water. I mean, I don't say that to be disrespectful, because If they were disciples walking by faith, then Christ called them out.

That's an okay thing. For Christ, that's an okay thing. For us, we go, wow, that's a little intense or different or weird or whatever else. But for Christ, it's like, no, this is what I'm doing right now. This is what God has got me doing. Not a big deal. It's kind of weird to put yourself in the perspective of, hey, yeah, that's not a big deal. For Christ, it wasn't a big deal. But for us, that's a big deal. So we've got the walking on the water.

Then in chapter 15, the Pharisees and scribes come to Christ, and they start pestering Christ about, oh, your disciples break the tradition of the elders when they do not wash their hands when they eat bread. And they again bring out a legalistic perspective, and Christ responds with scripture. So we have the situation where Christ is again and again dealing with the lies or the deception with scripture. Verse 21, we see the Seraphim woman who is demon possessed and Christ heals her.

She is not from Israel. So again, we have another example along the lines of the centurion, where Christ did not only stay inside of Israel, but his focus was primarily on Israel. And then in verse 15-30, Jesus begins healing the lame, the crippled, the blind, the mute, and many others as they were laid at his feet, and he healed them.

Why did he heal them? Because he's compassionate. Because he came to do the work of his father and love Israel because the shepherds who were in charge of Israel at the time weren't doing that. He came to do that as part of the ministry that God had given him.

In verse 32 we see the 4,000 are fed. In verse 32, Jesus called his disciples to him and said, I feel compassion for the people. Over and over, Matthew marks the compassion of Christ. In chapter 16, the Pharisees and Sadducees come up and test Jesus.

They ask for a sign. In Christ's response, in verse 4, an evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and a sign will not be given it except the sign of Jonah. And he left them and went away. So what's the sign of Jonah? three days and three nights. You asked on your question page about parable versus allegory. There's an example. You didn't tell a story, but you used a historical incident to illustrate a principle by allegory rather than by a common example of things they would tell. Yep.

So Christ deals with the Pharisees Then in verse 13, they get into the question of who is Christ, and Peter says that Christ is the Messiah. And then the Catholic Church is born. Okay, not really. But Jesus says, upon this rock, I'll found the church, and I'll build my church, and of course then people within the Catholic Church say, aha, Peter is the first pope, We're in line with that, but that's not the intent of what's going on there.

Verse 21, Christ tells them that he's going to be suffered, or he's going to suffer and be killed. He's not going to be suffered. That's like sewer. It's the wrong thing to say. And then Peter rebukes him. I think that Peter is one of those gutsy guys. I think he's probably the A-type personality, where he's like, you know, I'm just going to have to tell you this thing. Having been on the receiving end of A-type personality, strong spoken statements, I can tell you that often what comes out in those situations is pretty intense when there's false assumptions on the line. And so Christ has to rebuke Peter.

Yeah? Isn't there play on the word robbery at the verse that he didn't speak Christ's language at that time? There's different Greek words? Yeah. My dad is saying yes. I was going to say I don't have a recollection of the Greek on that. I'm not a Greek. I'm in the Greek class that's being taught right now, but I haven't learned.

Yeah. Yeah. When he says, on this rock I will build my church, that's a big rock. Yeah. When he says, your name is Peter, and that was Little Rock. Yeah. So yeah, we have Christ rebuking Peter, and then he's warning them that it's going to cost them as well.

Chapter 17, we see that Jesus takes Peter and James and John and takes them up onto the mountain, what we call the Mount of Transfiguration. I think it's interesting that it's just those three. Those three appear to be, in this case, ones that he selected to go with him. And he goes and, of course, he shows, behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with them. Peter said to Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here. There he is again. Hey, this is really cool. Yeah. Shut up. Jesus doesn't say that, but I'm like, okay, you're confused.

In verse 6, the disciples heard the voice of God and they fall face down on the ground and were terrified. Appropriately so. to see that the disciples knew Moses and Elijah, they probably didn't have a name tag. You know, when people talk about what's your spiritual body going to look like later, you get just vast amounts of speculation. Yeah, well, and it's possible that they could have asked Christ after the fact or anything else, but yeah, there's definitely, you know, this is Moses and Elijah. But they're identifiable in human form, so that's definitely a key thing there.

So we have Jesus healing the demoniac. I referenced earlier that the disciples brought someone who was demon-possessed to Christ and said, hey, we can't cast the demon out of this guy. And so Christ says, this is a kind that comes out only by prayer and fasting. And so Christ cast the demon out.

Then in the last several verses there, the tax collector comes and Christ says, hey, let's not ruffle their feathers, and he sends Peter out to go fishing. And Peter pulls out a fish that has the tax money in it. And I think that's just of importance. I'm not sure how important that is, but it is a really cool little side tidbit of like, hey, Christ is like, we're going to deal with this with a miraculous sort of a thing. If you're the tax collector, I think that might catch your attention. Hey, wait here. He's going to go fishing just for a second. Just hold on. And then he brings the tax money. That would certainly open my eyes and cause me to be shocked.

In chapter 18, The disciples asked Christ who's the most important or the greatest in the kingdom of heaven and Christ's answer was to say that they should be like the children. They should be like children. And then he warns them about being a stumbling block to children. Now why is it important that we not put a stumbling block in front of children? In this case or any other case. But why is it important that we, in this case, that we not put a stumbling block in front of the children?

Are they going to stay children? They're not going to stay children. They're the next generation. They're the ones that are going to be coming up after you, in our case, barring the rapture, the next generation. My daughters are the next generation of the church. I'm going to pass away someday if the rapture doesn't happen, and they're going to be the next generation. We've got other kids in the room here. They're the next generation. Al? You are one of the many older folks here who have been studying God's Word for a long time, and you try to pass on to the next generation the things that you've learned. And you understand that principle.

I had breakfast with two daughters who live obviously in Tennessee and Alaska yesterday morning. We spent some time around the table. As a matter of fact, we spent three hours at Perkins at that time. And we got into the Word. That's the most important thing that I can do. To share the faith and pass on the Torah.

So Christ presents this answer that they're not expecting about the kingdom. They're trying to think, hey, the kingdom, this is going to be a big deal. Who's most important in Christ's? The kids. Not what they're expecting, but an important principle that carries on And I'm running out of time here. I'm not even to the crucifixion. I feel like we've got to skip forward to the crucifixion, or else we'll be in trouble.

Chapter 21, the triumphal entry. Christ comes in. And of course, we call it the triumphal entry, but we know that Israel was in the midst of a celebration that they would have been doing anyways, whether Christ showed up on a colt or not. They were shouting out, Hosanna in the highest, whether Christ showed up on a colt or not. But of course, he did. to fulfill the scripture. So we have the triumphal entry in 21.

Christ goes into the parable of the wedding feast. In chapter 23, the Pharisees are... Christ is just very intense with the Pharisees. And he says, Scribes and Pharisees over and over and over again. Because what they're doing is destroying the nation that God has been preserving. They're ruining the doctrine and the truth that God had revealed and put forth. He has no kind words for them. They're not on his list of people that he'd like the rest of Israel to hang out with.

So then the disciples come and ask him about the end times in chapter 24. And Christ goes into great detail talking about things that are going to come and tells them, don't worry about that. This is going to come. You're going to hear about this. Don't worry about it. This is going to come. Don't worry about it. And he tells them that they need to be ready for his coming and they need to be waiting.

Then in chapter 25, chapter 25 is actually near and dear to my heart, because I was in a band in high school and we wrote a song about the ten virgins. We took it way out of context, though. We were so wrong, but I was young, so I will admit that I didn't understand it then. My eyes were not open and my ears were not hearing, apparently, right? So the parable was not to me.

But Christ speaks more parables and moves forward. And then in chapter 26, we see that the plot to capture Christ is coming into play. And Judas bargains in verse 14, and he bargains for the 30 pieces of silver. And of course, He was the money keeper, right? Judas was the money keeper.

So, 30 pieces of silver. I wonder, you know, really? Really? You betray your friend for 30 pieces of silver? But he's a money guy, so maybe that really is unfortunate. Follow the money. Yeah, follow the money. Oh boy. I've been listening to a book on business that's been talking about the distraction of not caring about people, but caring about money instead, and how that impacts our nation. That's not for this class, but boy, it's not just a small problem in our culture, and was obviously not a small problem for Judas. So we get to the Passover, and Christ, of course, says Judas is going to betray him, and Judas is like, not me!

No way! That would have been super awkward to just think you're being secretive and the Lord just pins you. That would have been pretty nasty. We have the Garden of Gethsemane. Christ has to keep waking up His disciples. I don't know that if I were in their shoes that I would be able to just say, yeah, whatever. I'd have stayed awake. I'd have been praying with them. Clearly, they weren't. But it seems to me, based on the text and the recording that's here, they would have kind of gotten how intense Christ felt about this. But, sleep they do.

So, then Judas comes. Christ is hauled away. Peter follows and watches this mock trial where liars get up and lie about what Christ said. Peter denies Christ three times and fulfills the prophecy that Christ gave him. And then in chapter 27, Judas is remorseful about the stupid thing that he did. He takes the 30 pieces of silver and gives it back. and fulfills yet another prophecy about Judas, or that the Pharisees would buy a potter's field. So 2710 records that cross-reference for us. Jesus goes before Pilate. Pilate's wife sends a message and says, Hey, I had really, really bad dreams about this Jesus guy. Stay away from him. Pilate, being a man, didn't listen to his wife.

Whatever. I'm the boss. I'm the governor. Offers up Barnabas or Jesus. He's thinking, hey, this will be an easy trade. Nobody's going to go for Barnabas because he's a scoundrel and a wicked, wicked... I'm sorry, did I say Barnabas? Barabbas? Sewer, sower, Barnabas, Barabbas. I'm doing good this morning. Yeah, so... Barabbas is offered up. The people vote to release Barabbas because their leaders around them actually kind of force their hands.

So Christ is then tortured, put up on the cross, and is mocked by all kinds of folks, including the other people on the crosses there, the two prisoners that were beside him. And then he cries out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? and it is finished. And so the two Marys wrap him in embalming oils and perfumes and they bury him before the day is over. Jesus is buried and in chapter 28 Matthew leaves much of what happens after Christ is resurrected to other authors.

Chapter 28 is really fast. Hey, angels showed up, the guards got scared, the two Marys came, checked on him, he was gone, an angel talked to him, and Jesus saw him on the way and said, meet me at Galilee. Okay, that's it. That's like 10 verses. And then they meet him in Galilee, and Christ gives the Great Commission.

But the thing that's interesting there is that inside of that ten verses, the guards go back to the Pharisees at the governor's in 13... In verse 11, the guards go back and there's this conspiracy or this quieting and silencing of information that should have been like, nobody knows about this. But Matthew again, like my dad mentioned, has these inside connections. So we get this little recording of this backdoor deal that's going on.

In 16, the eleven disciples proceed to Galilee. They see Christ there. And he speaks to them briefly. And in verse 19 we have the great commission, the go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you.

And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. So one of the things that my dad mentioned when he went through Matthew that I think is really important, and correct me if this could be stated more clearly, but it's in your going make disciples. Am I correct with that? Yeah.

In your going make disciples of all the nations and baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. So Matthew closes with this one message that Christ gave them and that's it. That's the end of the book. And there's a bunch more stuff that we'll get to explore in some of the other Gospels.

We had this long build up. Just like they do in Hollywood where they have a movie and they leave you hanging at the end with the expectation that when they put out Rocky II, and you'll want to go see what happens next. And so Matthew leaves you without going through the Paul Harvey rest of the story. You have to wait until Acts to get to that. Yeah.

Well, I'm out of time, so we can't go over the highlights, but I think we did sort of in various ways. Matthew emphasizes the very personal, relational aspect of Christ and how He interacted with people. Conversations are recorded in great detail. Christ is a real, breathing, living person that is interacting with the world around Him. And that's an important thing.

The secular world hates Christ. They hate Jesus. They don't want Him to be real. They don't want Him to be The person who is described in Matthew, the one who is compassionate and loving and who hates the liars, who hates the people who are turning people away from God, but loves and wants all to turn to him. So Matthew is definitely a powerful book and hopefully if you haven't read it this week leading up to this weekend maybe you'll take some time this week and read it. It's definitely challenging and has some awesome material.

Let's close in prayer because the service is going to start before too long here. Heavenly Father we ask that you would just remind us throughout the week of the character of who you are and that if we abide we can listen to you just as Christ did and your spirit will direct our steps. We ask that you would give us great fellowship today during the church fellowship meal and that we would listen and have ears to hear and eyes to see as we listen during the main service. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.