Immanuel Sermon Audio
Matthew (40:66)
We'll find a Bible, find Matthew, we're going to look through the book tonight. Really, at the end of our time is when we're going to start digging through. I'm going to give you a lot of information about Matthew and some of the gospels. The challenge, you'll understand this better. Some of you may already know what I'm talking about, you'll understand it better in a minute. The challenge when you're doing a series like this and you come to Matthew, Mark, and Luke is that they're so common, I don't want you to hear me stand up three weeks in a row and say the exact same thing three weeks in a row and so we're going to look at each book a little bit differently just to kind of to mix it up a little bit. I want you to think about Hollywood, I want you to think about the stories told by Hollywood, whether that's Hollywood's love for true stories, they love to say that this is a true story this is based on a true story and that seems to be something very popular. I think that Hollywood likes that because they don't have to think up the story very much, they just get the story and then they can embellish it a little bit to make it better, they always got to change something in the story but they make a lot of movies about based on a true story. Another thing Hollywood really loves to do, we talked about this a couple of weeks ago, is they love sequels and they love series, they love to be able to take one story and stretch it out to multiple movies because what that means for them is money right, they take one story, they could put it all in one movie and you go once or they can break it up and put it into four movies and you go four times and they make four times the money. So they love sequels, they love series and so in honor of Hollywood and series coming out think with me about Star Wars, any Star Wars fans, anybody, how many of you have already bought your Star Wars tickets? Anybody? No, I know some guys who have their Star Wars tickets already, they're excited. Here's the episode list of Star Wars, I'm not a Star Wars fan but you got three movies that were made, they're right in the middle, four, five and six made in '77, '80 and '83, that's the original but it's not the beginning of the story, they're tried really hard to confuse non-Star Wars people but it fits right there in the middle and then you got the last series made, '99, 2002, 2005, those are the beginning of the story and then 789 coming out this year in '17 and in '19 and Disney's about to make a whole lot of money on this, they've already made a lot of money on it, they have made $4.38 billion in ticket sales on these movies already and so you can see, you just, you take one story and you spread it out and you just multiply the dollars and it's a great thing for whoever's getting the paycheck. Also read this week that Star Wars is the most profitable movie franchise when you look at licensing and all the products that they sell so they sell Legos and they sell lunch boxes and they sell costumes and they sell all these things and they get a little chunk of that. I'll put the next picture up yet, Julie, hold on for just a minute on that, I was surprised when I read $4.38 billion for Star Wars and movie tickets, it's not the top grossing movie series of all time, it's not number one, it's not number two or number three or number four, it's number five, number five, any guesses as to the four movie series that are ahead of Star Wars, this is useless trivia, I know but I like useless trivia, Harry Potter is up there, what else? Lord of the Rings is up there, you're mumbling, back to the future, Rocky, I wish, Twilight, get real, Marvel comic movies is number one, put the picture up, Marvel is number one, Harry Potter is number two, James Bond is number three, new Bond movie coming out soon and Lord of the Rings number four, now to be fair, to be fair, Star Wars has six movies in their series, right? Marvel has 12, Harry Potter has eight, James Bond, you know how many Bond movies there are, 26, so I don't know, they're up there but they got a lot of movies, Lord of the Rings includes the Hobbit in that series Lord of the Rings Hobbit, so they got seven, so there you go, Star Wars is number five, so when you go to a Christmas party and you're playing trivia game and somebody says, what is the fifth, greatest, grossing movie series story of all time, you just buzz right in, Star Wars, you know it, easy peasy, okay? The reason I bring that up is not just to give you useless trivia, but to say, if you're going to understand Star Wars, the new ones, you really need to know what came before it, right? And this is where a guy like me gets confused on Star Wars because I've seen each of the other six one time, and so one time through, you don't pick up a lot of stuff, and so if I was to go to this new Star Wars, I'd be sitting there and Corey's already got his tickets, he's got his 3D pre-order tickets, and if he had got me a ticket, I'd be sitting there by Corey and he'd be watching it, he'd be so excited and I'd be saying, who's that guy? What's he doing? Why is he mad at that guy? What did he do to him? And Corey would get up and he'd move somewhere else because he doesn't want to listen to that. And the same thing is true when you get to the New Testament, right? We have a tendency in our brains to think, well you read the Old Testament, and then you read the New Testament, and you read about these guys who lived a long time ago, and you read about Joseph, and you learn how to be a faithful guy, and you read about Daniel, and you learn how to be a courageous guy, and you read about Noah, and you learn how to have faith, and we just sort of put them all back there in their own category, and then we say, now we're to the New Testament to the really important stuff, but if you just hop into Matthew, and you haven't paid attention to Genesis through Malachi, you start reading in the very first chapter, and you're like, who are these people? Why do I need to know all these names? What a terrible way to begin a book with a list of names? Why would you do this? And so you got to understand Matthew is a continuation of the same story we've been talking about for all these months on Wednesday nights. It's the same story all the way from Genesis up to the New Testament. So with that being said, let's talk about Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These four guys are the four canonical gospels, canonical gospels. You probably don't use that word a lot in everyday conversation, but it's an important word, and it means these are the four gospels that made or are included in the canon of Scripture. And then you trace back the meaning of this word canon. It's not the thing that's on the Texas flag that says come and take it, and we're so proud of it, but it means a rule or a standard, right? This is the standard, the canon of Scripture. These are the books that are in the canon of Scripture. Now, how many of you have read or seen the movie DaVinci Code? You've heard about it, maybe you've read it, maybe you've seen it. How many of you have ever watched the National Geographic channel or the History channel on TV? Okay? You listen to Mr. Dan Brown, you read the DaVinci Code, some of the guys that he's buddies with, you watch the History channel or National Geographic, and one of the things that they want to say to you, and they want you to believe, is that way, way, way, way, way, back, like in around 100 AD or 300 AD or 500 AD, depending on the scholar, way, way, way back long time ago, that a bunch of corrupt politicians got together in Rome and made a power play move about what would be included in the Bible and what would be excluded from the Bible. So they want you to believe that Constantine and all his cronies got together and they had this sort of secretive closed-door meeting and they sat down and they sort of said, okay, this book is out, this book is in, and they had reasons for doing that, and they say, well, they were trying to suppress women or they were trying to suppress minorities or they wanted to persecute this religious group, they want you to believe all this stuff. And one of the things you'll hear is that in addition to the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Mark, the Gospel of Luke, the Gospel of John, that there's lots of other Gospels, and you know what? They're right. Look at this slide. That's a few of the ones I could put up there. Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of the four heavenly realms, Gospel of Mary, Judas, the great Gospel of the Egyptians. That sounds pretty exciting, right? Gospel of the Hebrews, Gospel of the 12, Eve is over there somehow, Gospel of Eve, that's impressive if you know the storyline of Scripture. Gospel of Barnabas, Gospel of Peter, Syriac, infancy Gospel, I'm telling you, you could just fill five slides with all these things. And what some of these people, History Channel, National Geographic, Dan Brown, what they want you to believe is, they went into this meeting and they had all of these on a list and they were all equal contenders. And they came out with only four. And they cut all of these out because they were a bunch of corrupt male chauvinistic jerks. Let me tell you something about a lot of these compared to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were all written within about 50 to 60 years of Jesus dying on the cross. We're going to talk about why that's important in just a little bit, but just file that number away, 50 to 60 years. The earliest of these was written about 200 years after Jesus died on the cross and some of these were written a thousand years after Jesus died on the cross. Much, much, much later. I'll be honest with you, as your pastor, I'm not afraid for you to read these because here's what's going to happen. You sit down and you read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and then you pick whatever you want to read off this list and you're going to come back to me and say, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are kind of all the same. These guys are really weird. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, they tell some incredible stories, but they all kind of seem to be on the same page. These guys are talking about stuff. I don't even understand what they're saying half the time, and I'm going to say, of course you don't. These guys were not inspired by the Holy Spirit of God to write these books. They're very, very different in their makeup. A lot of what they write is just sort of meaningless gibberish and you would open it up and you would read it and you would say, I have no idea what he's talking about and nobody does. They were written much later. They contradict a lot of what you find in the rest of the Bible, not just the rest of the gospels, but the rest of the Bible. It didn't happen like Dan Brown wants you to think it happened. It was not Constantine the corrupt Roman emperor imposing this sort of new Orthodox Christianity. Within about 90 years of Jesus dying on the cross, you have Christian leaders writing letters and we have these letters. You can find them. You have guys like Athanasius. Athanasius is writing letters to people and he's saying, these are the books of the Bible and he lists them all out just like we have them today. There was no debate about it. There was no argument about it. There was no contest. It would sort of be like if you were looking at, I think there's a presidential debate tonight, right, and you got all these guys up on the stage and some of them are maybe more serious than other, but they're all kind of serious and it would be like if you're looking at that stage and you're seeing all these politicians and these important guys and then you're scanning down and then you say, oh, look, Christian Aikens is standing on the stage. Christian Aikens has no chance of winning the presidency of the United States. I love him. I really like Christian. I've shared a room with him in Kenya. It was fantastic. He's a great guy, but he's not going to win. No one would think that he has a chance to win and you would say, well, what if Christian says he's running? Doesn't he have as much chance as the next guy? No, he doesn't. He's not even close. And you look back at these gospels and all those I put up there and you say, well, didn't the gospel of Thomas have a chance to get in? No, it didn't. No one was arguing for it. Nobody said it should be in there. Some of these guys just want to go back and rewrite history. So these are the four canonical gospels. They're the four that belong there. We're not missing any. You don't need to rush out to Barnes and Noble and buy extra gospels and supplement them and glue them into your Bible. You're missing nothing that God wanted you to have, okay? Those are the four. Now, add to that, Matthew Mark and Luke are known as the synoptic gospels. John is different. We'll talk about him in a couple of weeks, but Matthew Mark and Luke are known as the synoptic gospels. S-Y-N is a Latin prefix that means with or together and optic means you see, right? You go to the optometrist or the optometristian or whatever they're called and what scholars are saying here, the synoptic gospels, they're saying these three guys see it together. They see the story together. And here's a graphic that kind of explains what it means that these are synoptic gospels. I know that's confusing when you first look at it, but take a breath and look right in the middle in the purple. It says triple tradition, okay? Those parts of the pies all around there are exactly the same regardless of which gospel you look at. Same stories, same accounts. It's all exactly the same, meaning the vast majority of Mark, 76% is found in Matthew or Luke. And then you can go over in the orange and you can say Mark and Luke share this part, just the two of them, and Mark and Matthew and then down in the bottom in the blue, Luke and Matthew. And then you can see up at the very top, Mark, only 3% of what you read in Mark is only found in Mark. Almost all the rest of Mark, 97%, you can read somewhere else in the gospels. For Luke, it's 35%, and for Matthew, who we're talking about tonight, 20% of what you read in Matthew is only found in Matthew. Now, here's something that I think is really interesting. Some people think is just kind of ridiculous, but when you look at that and you say, okay, look at how much they have in common, right? All that purple, they have just almost word for word. Scholars like to sit around and drink their coffee and do whatever scholars do and say, well, why do they have that? All the exact same. How did it happen that way? Did they know each other? Did Matthew, Mark and Luke interact somehow? Did they read each other? Who wrote first? Who wrote second? Who wrote third? And so they come up with stuff like this that I think is kind of interesting. Put this next picture up for me. Okay, look over on the left. Some of them say Mark wrote first and then Matthew wrote and he stole some of what Mark had, right? It was okay. They don't have plagiarism laws or rules like we do today. They just sort of did this. And then Luke wrote later and he took a little bit of Matthew and a little bit of Mark. Then you got some guys over here on the right that say, no, no, no, no, Mark wrote first and then Luke and then Matthew borrowed from both of them. But what most scholars put, circle that middle one, what most scholars say is Mark wrote first, somebody else for some reason they call him Q wrote a book about Jesus and then Matthew took some of Q and some of Mark and Luke took some of Mark and some of Q and they sort of piece their story together and they change things or left things out or added stuff in to make a point or to show emphasis or to try to communicate something to their readers. But most people say that this is how these three books came about. If you don't like any of those three, then you can pick from one of these. Take your pick. Okay. Somehow the three of these guys saw it together. Okay. And what most scholars think is one wrote first and then they sort of borrowed and they referenced and they took some from this and they combined it into their own version. And what you see in the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke is very important for Christianity because some people talk about the early years of Christianity and they want you to believe that the apostles got together and started this sort of man's club and set up all these rules and created the whole thing out of thin air so that they could have power and influence and money and et cetera, et cetera. There's two problems with that theory. One problem is that all of those guys, the apostles, did not get power or money or influence. They all got killed for what they believed. So if their plan was to create some deal where they would be some big powerful bishop, their plan was really not successful because they all died as a martyr. The other problem with the plan is they weren't very good at getting on the exact same page. And so you read stories in Matthew, Mark and Luke. And when you read them in the three, you say they're very, very similar, but sometimes they're a little bit different. Like sometimes you read in the Gospels, you remember where Jesus got off at the Gatorines and there was a demoniac in the tombs and he came running at Jesus and he was naked and he was breaking all these chains and he was all cut up from blood. You remember that story? Well, one of the synoptic writers tells us that there was actually two guys, not just one. There was two, one. And some scholars look at that and they say, oh, see, they can't even agree. They don't even remember right. They're just making it up. They're not on the same page. What you have there is not a contradiction but a complimentary account and you have most of them saying, look, there was this one main guy that was really, really crazy and he came running up to Jesus and it was the wildest thing you've ever seen, rip and chains and cutting himself and all this stuff. And then you have one of the other writers who's writing what happened and he says, you know, it was crazy. There's this one crazy guy. There's actually two that came and there's another guy sort of behind him. It's not a contradiction. It's a complimentary account. And so you see that in the three synoptic gospels. Here's some characteristics about Matthew, things that make him unique. It is written from a Jewish Christian perspective. 45 times in the gospel of Matthew, the author quotes the Old Testament. 45 quotes from the Old Testament. He knew it. Whoever wrote it knew the Old Testament. And over half of those quotes are only found in Matthew. Mark doesn't quote that. Luke doesn't quote that. They don't make that Old Testament connection. But Matthew does that over and over and over again. 45 times. Nine times, we're going to end talking about this. Nine times, Matthew says, this happened so that it would be fulfilled what the scripture said. Nine times. Eight times, he calls Jesus the son of David. That title, son of David, is only found one time outside of Matthew. And it happens to be the passage we're going to talk about Sunday in the gospel of Luke. It's mentioned one time in Luke. Every other time that title is found, the son of David, it's in Matthew. He begins with this genealogy. And who are the two people he singles out in verse one, the son of David and the son of Abraham, two of the most important Jewish heroes. And he says he's right in this line. Lots of other things I could tell you, but he writes the book from a Jewish Christian perspective. Secondly, he writes with a global outlook. So even though he's a Jew and he's talking about the Old Testament a lot in the same story, he's trying to say to you, this is the same story. This is not something brand new. It's just God's continuing what he's been doing. He also has a view to look to the entire world. And so you see it in things like, who is the only gospel writer that tells us that wise men came from Persia to worship Jesus? Matthew does. He tells us that. Who is the one who includes the great commission at the end where he says, go make disciples of all the nations? Matthew does. Who's the one that includes a story about the wheat and the terrors. And in the parable of Jesus, he says, the wheat is going to grow up. And the terrors are going to grow up. And in the end there's going to be this separation. And Jesus explains that parable in Matthew. And he says, the field is the whole world. And you have believers in the world. And you have Christians in the world. And in the end, there's going to be this separation. Interesting. In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus says only twice to somebody. You have great faith. Only two times. And both times, he says that to a Gentile. So yes, he talks about the Old Testament a lot in this Jewish story, but he has a bigger view than that. He has a global outlook. Third, the only gospel written with the anticipation of the church. In fact, it's the only one of the four gospels that even has the word church in the text. And you can read it in Matthew 16 and Matthew 18. Jesus talks about the church in both of those passages. Number four, written with an emphasis on eschatology. Eschatology is the doctrine of the last things, the doctrine of the end. And Matthew has an emphasis on that. Look with me at Matthew 24 real quick. Matthew 24 verse three says, "As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, 'Tell us, when will these things be?' That these things is when is the temple going to get torn down? And they ask another question. When is the temple going to be torn down? And what will be the sign of your coming at the close of the age in the end? What's the sign that you're coming back? In this story, this sermon that follows in Matthew 24, you find it in Mark and you find it in Luke. But when Matthew talks about this sermon of Jesus right here, it's three times longer than Mark and Luke's version. So he has this extra emphasis on how things are going to go at the end. Number five, written with an emphasis on discourse, meaning sermons. Jesus is preaching. That is an emphasis in Matthew and we'll see next week in Mark that is not an emphasis in Mark, but it's an emphasis in Matthew. And on that note, let's talk about the outline of the book. It's really, really simple. In the red, you see five major sermons in Matthew. That's the hinge that this book moves on. Chapter five to seven is the Sermon on the Mount. Chapter 10 is a sermon about missions. Chapter 13 is a bunch of parables about the kingdom of God. Chapter 18 is a sermon on humility. And chapter 23 to 25 that we just looked at one verse in there is known as the Olivet Discourse because when he preached it, he was standing on the Mount of Olives. So it's called the Olivet Discourse. At the beginning of the book, you have the story of Jesus being born, the Christmas story. At the end, you have the story of the resurrection. And then the rest of the book is just goes back and forth. Matthew tells you this is some of the stuff Jesus did, then it gives you a sermon. Here's some stuff that Jesus did, sermon. Here's some stuff Jesus did, sermon. And so that's the basic structure of the book. When you look at that, and I have you fill in the blanks on those sermons, I don't want you to think the narrative that's in black is not important because it is important. And in those narratives, Matthew is the only one to tell us about Joseph and his role in the Christmas story. Only one to tell us about the wise men. Only one to tell us that they had to escape to Egypt. And the only one to mention that the babies in Bethlehem were slaughtered. None of the others mentioned that. Only one, the Gospel of Matthew, is the only one that tells us that when Jesus rose from the dead, that when he died at this end of his life, that many saints were raised from the dead. This is worth looking at. I'm not going to explain it to you because I have no explanation for this. But look what Matthew says in Matthew 27 verse 51. He's the only Gospel writer to include this detail. And he gives zero explanation. And no other book in the Bible talks about this. I wish I could tell you what exactly happened. But Matthew 27, 51, behold. This is right when Jesus died. Behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two. You know about that from top to bottom. And the earth shook and the rocks were split. Look at this. Verse 52. The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. And coming out of the tombs after his resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many. And you read that and you're like, who? Isaiah? Moses? Jeremiah? David? Who was it? And then he just goes on. Verse 54. When the centurion and those who were with him, keep a watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake. What took place? They were filled with awe and they said, truly this was the Son of God. No explanation given. And you read that and you say, raised from the dead, like, raised from the dead, like Lazarus, where they eventually died again. Like they had another life. They lived another 80 years and then they died. Or raised from the dead, like in a resurrection body. And then they, they're in heaven and they're waiting. We don't know. Matthew is the only one who includes that detail. And so when you get to heaven, you can ask him, Matthew, why didn't you tell us more? Why didn't you explain that? And he's going to say, well, the Holy Spirit didn't inspire me to. He wanted you to ask on a Wednesday night. Well, I didn't do that. And it's not in there. But you needed to know that for some reason. This amazing thing happened. Jesus dies, the curtain of the temples torn into, and dead people get out of the ground and walk into Jerusalem and start talking to everybody. Amazing. So there's some interesting things that happen in the narrative. Now, let me ask you this question. Who wrote the gospel of Matthew? Three votes for Matthew. Any other votes? How do you know Matthew wrote it? It's named after him. Do you so question, when you turn to Matthew 1, it says right up there in big print, the gospel according to Matthew. Do you think that when he sat down and wrote this book, if you looked at the original manuscript that that title is right there, centered in the middle, big, bold print, extra large letters, it's not there, right? No books of the Bible have a title like that when you read them in the manuscripts. All those titles, we have named these books those things. Sometimes you take it from a word in the book or the first word in the book or the first sentence or something like that. All four gospels are anonymous. We don't know who wrote them. If you're a Greek scholar and you get out the best manuscript of Matthew, Mark or Luke or John that we have and you start reading through it, there is no name at the end. Like when you read Paul's letters, you know how he starts out? Paul, an apostle, writing to you, the church, it's such and such. He says, okay, we know Paul wrote this. When you read Matthew, Mark, Luke or John, there's nothing. It just jumps right in, ends, no name attached whatsoever. Tradition says that it was Matthew whose other name was Levi who wrote it. When you read all the early church fathers, they say Matthew was the one who wrote it. Here's what we do know, okay? The guy who wrote this book was very organized. He was a godly man. He was organized. Type A, the way God made people to be. We know that because when you look at the structure of the book, it's nice and neat, right? It's perfect. You got a little beginning, you got a little end, and then you just go narrative sermon, narrative sermon, narrative sermon. If he was a type B personality, he would have said narrative sermon, sermon, narrative narrative narrative sermon, and you would just lose your mind reading it. It would drive you crazy because it's not organized, but he's type A, he's logical, he lays it out like that. We know he's well educated because his writing style is very sophisticated. Like when you compare Matthew to the gospel of John, you read Matthew and you say, this guy's been to school. He's been trained. He's a smart guy. You read John and you're like, this guy works down at the garage. He's just a regular old guy. He's not stupid, but he's just a regular guy. He just doesn't talk the way Matthew talks. You can tell the difference. He was biblically literate. We know he was Jewish because of all these references to the Old Testament. Here's something interesting. Matthew Levi, which one is the Jewish name? Levi's the Jewish name. Matthew is the Greek name. Same guy, two names, a Jewish name and a Greek name like a lot of these people had. When you read about him in this book that we're looking at, guess what he calls himself? Matthew, when you read about the list of the apostles, his name in this first gospel is Matthew. Guess what his name is in Mark and Luke? Levi. The other guys listing the Jewish apostles say Levi, the Jew, was in here. When whoever wrote this book writes about the guy Matthew Levi, he calls him by his Greek name. Do you remember I told you that the guy that wrote this book had a global view? Wasn't just focused on the Jews. The guy that wrote it, according to tradition, when he talks about himself, he doesn't identify as a Jew, but he uses his Greek name and he calls himself Matthew. Most scholars are convinced that he wrote this book. Here's another question for you to think about as you're laying in bed tonight staring at the ceiling. You understand, because you're smart people, that Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Peter, James, Jude, these guys didn't get together and say like at a meeting, let's write a book. You write the first chapter, you write the second chapter, you write the third chapter, and we'll put them in order like this. They just wrote their book, right? And as this book has passed around, the churches say, that's inspired by the Holy Spirit of God. That's truth. And they put it in the canon. So the question is, why does Matthew get to go first? Why didn't John get to go first? What did Mark get to go first? Why didn't Dr. Luke get to go first? The answer is, when you look at Matthew 1, the early fathers, when they're putting the canon of Scripture together, they say, Matthew 1, 1-17 that I challenge you to memorize, that's the best bridge to the Old Testament that you could ever come up with. That tells you right off the bat when you read this book in this quote unquote New Testament, that this is not a new different story. This is a new story as an add-on to the old story. We're continuing the same story here, so they put Matthew first. Thinking about how old he is, there's a couple of pictures of him. Rembrandt painted the one on the left, and that's a picture of Matthew writing his gospel and who's looking over his shoulder in the picture. Anybody know? Not an angel. It's a Holy Spirit. Kind of weird, I know, but that's Rembrandt's way in art of saying the Spirit of God inspired him to write this book. So there's Matthew, and then there's a statue of Matthew over in the Vatican. He looks a lot tougher at the Vatican than he does when Rembrandt painted him, but obviously we have no clue what he looked like. Most scholars say that Matthew wrote about 60 AD if you want to know when he wrote it. 60 AD, which is interesting because you say that's only 30 years after Jesus died on the cross and was raised from the dead. Give or take, 30 years. And you say, man, that's a long time. What took him so long to write it? Well, think about it. There's no Amazon Kindle where you can hit a button and download a book instantly, right? There's no Mardell where you can go get the latest book right off the press. There's no Amazon prime to deliver it to you two days later. There's no printing press to copy these books, right? This was literally when you look at the picture and he's got pen and paper. That's what he's doing. He's writing it down or he's dictating it to a scribe or a manuensis who's writing it down. And then if you want a second copy of Matthew, somebody's got to sit down with one right here and a blank one right here and hand write it out. And it took a long time. And they went really slow because they didn't want to mess it up. They would write a page and they would get it on there. And then they would count how many words on this page and how many words on this page because they didn't want to leave one out or add one in. And then they would go back and count letters. How many letters on this page? How many letters on that page? Count them up. Do it exactly right. And Matthew is the second longest book in the New Testament. It took a long time to get a lot of copies of Matthew floating around. But what we do know is that by the year 100, everybody in the area knew about Matthew. And this is kind of a cool story. Put this next picture up. This guy's name is Ignatius of Antioch. And he was a bishop. Guess where he was a bishop at? Antioch. And he got arrested for being a Christian and they took him to Rome and they fed him to lions. That's how he died. And we know that he died in about the year 108. And here's one of the cool things about his life. In about 107-ish, they're transporting him from Antioch to Rome. That's a long trip back then. There was no direct flight. So they're moving him all the way across the Mediterranean world. And he's writing letters to different people. And we have all these different letters. And over and over and over again, Ignatius quotes Matthew over and over and over again. Which means by 108 AD when he died, people all over the Mediterranean world knew about the gospel of Matthew. And he could quote the gospel of Matthew. And he didn't explain who it was. He just quoted it because everybody knew it. This gospel had traveled all the way around. Which is an amazing thing when you think about no technology, no printing press, no FedEx, no Amazon Kindle, handwritten copies, traveling on the back of a horse or in somebody's backpack, place to place to place, copy another one, take it to the next place, copy another one. Amazing that it spread that fast. Now, here's the real question. And this is what we'll end with. Why did he write the book? We got two others almost exactly like him. Why write this one? And the answer is really, really simple. He wanted to convince his readers that Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah or you could say Christ. Those two words mean the exact same thing. Messiah is Hebrew, Christ is Jewish. I mean Greek, I'm sorry. Messiah is Hebrew, Christ is Greek, and they both mean the anointed one. And what Matthew wants to prove makes him different than Mark and different than Luke and different than John is he's writing to prove Jesus is the fulfillment. He's the one. He's the one. He's the one. And that's why Matthew goes first because when you read him and you understand especially the differences in Matthew from all the other gospels, he's like this big neon sign right after Malachi in your Bible saying he's here, he's here, he's here, he's here, he's here, he's here, he's here. You can't miss it when you read through Matthew. So take your Bible and we're going to look at some of the fulfillment verses. And I'm going to give you some Old Testament scriptures. If you want to jot these down, you're going to have to be quick with your pen because we're going to move fast. Matthew chapter 1 verse 22, all of this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet. And this is the prophecy, behold the virgin shall conceive and bear son and they shall call his name a manual, which means God with us. That's the fulfillment of Isaiah 7 14. And Matthew saying he's here, fulfillment is here. Look down at chapter 2 verse 5. They told him, this is the wise men to Herod, they told him in Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet. And you O Bethlehem in the land of Judah are by no means the least among the rulers of Judah, for from you from Bethlehem shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. That's the fulfillment of Micah 5 2. And Matthew's telling you he's the one, he's come, he's here. Matthew 2 verse 15 says they went to Egypt, verse 15 they remained there until the death of Herod. And why did that happen? Why did Jesus have to go to Egypt? It happened to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, quote, out of Egypt I called my son. And that's the prophecy from Hosea 11 1. And Matthew says that prophecy is telling you that the Messiah had to come out of Egypt. The true Israel had to come out of Egypt. And that's why he fled to Egypt. And then he came back to fulfill the prophecy. He's the one. This is all pointing you to the same thing. Look at chapter 2 verse 17. Then was fulfilled. What was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, a voice was heard in Rama weeping and loud lamentation. Rachel weeping for her children. She refused to be comforted because they are no more. You can go back to Genesis and read the story about Rachel for yourself. But what Jeremiah is saying is that story about Rachel is pointing you forward and telling you it's going to happen again. It's going to happen again. And why did those babies in Bethlehem have to be slaughtered so that this prophecy would be fulfilled? Matthew's saying this happened. He's the only one to tell you about these babies dying. And he's telling you about these babies dying to say this is the one. Prophecy is being fulfilled. He's come. This is the guy we've been waiting for. Jeremiah 31 15. Look at chapter 2 verse 23. He went and lived in a city called Nazareth. Why does that matter? Well that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled. He shall be called a Nazarene. Look at chapter 4 verse 14. Why did Jesus go preach in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali? Why does Matthew tell you that? Verse 14. So that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled. The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali. The way of the sea beyond the Jordan Galilee of the Gentiles. The people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light. And for those dwelling in the region a shadow of death on them a light has dawned. And that's Isaiah 9 1 to 2. And Matthew's telling you that just got fulfilled in Jesus. Look at chapter 8. This is an important one. Remember the story about Jesus healing Peter's mother-in-law? You ever thought that that was a really weird story to include? All the great things Jesus did. In fact right before he did that he just healed a whole village of people. They all lined up and one by one he just healed all of them. Like that's amazing. How great would that be to see? And then the gospels tell us then he went home and Peter's mom had a fever and he just took care of the fever. Like ah that's so impressive we have Tylenol, we have Advil. It's just a fever. What's the big deal? Matthew says in Matthew 8 17 this was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah. He took our illnesses and he bore our diseases. And that is Isaiah 53 verse 4. And Isaiah 53 is not just about Jesus taking away fevers but it's about him taking the curse. We sing about the curse and the song Joy to the World. He comes to remove the curse. Isaiah 53 is he's taking the curse upon himself. That includes sickness. That includes sin. That includes all of it. And it says he makes his glory know as far as the curse is found. Sickness, sin, all of it. He's rolling all of it back and Matthew's telling us that right here. Isaiah 53 has been fulfilled. Look at chapter 12 verse 17. 12 17 Jesus withdrew and many people followed him and he healed them and he ordered them not to make him known. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah. Behold my servant whom I've chosen my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my spirit upon him and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles. There's that global focus, the Gentiles. He will not quarrel or cry aloud nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reedy will not break a smoldering wick. He will not quench until he brings justice to victory and in his name the Gentiles will hope. That's a fulfillment of Isaiah 42 1 to 3. Matthew's again just saying this is the one. He's the promised one. Look at Matthew 21. We talked about Zechariah a couple of weeks ago. This is Jesus writing into Jerusalem and you remember he rides on the donkey and Matthew says Matthew 21 4. Why did that happen? It took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet saying say to the daughter of Zion. Behold your king is coming to you humble and mounted on a donkey and on a colt the full of a beast of burden that Zechariah 9 9 being fulfilled. We looked at all nine of the passages where Matthew says none of the other gospel writers do this. Matthew says this happened so that it would be fulfilled. He does it nine times all the way through the gospel from the birth all the way till right when he's about to ride into Jerusalem where he's going to be killed and crucified. And again it's like this neon sign just lit up at the beginning of the New Testament saying this is the one. This is the one. Yes this is quote unquote new but not new different new as in this is the one that we have been waiting for the one that's been promised. I want to show you two more or three more before we finish. These ones are a little bit different than the other nine but look at Matthew 5 verse 17 Matthew 5 17 Jesus says this is in the sermon on the Mount first sermon do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets meaning the Old Testament. I've not come to just trash the Old Testament I haven't come to abolish them. I have come to fulfill them. That's Jesus himself saying I'm the one. Have you ever read the law and the prophets? The whole thing is talking about me right there in Matthew 5. Look at chapter 11 verse 13. He's talking about John the Baptist in this passage and he said that up in verse 10 Malachi 3 1 is fulfilled in John the Baptist and then look what he says down in verse 13 all the prophets and the law prophesied until John and if you are willing to accept it he is the Elijah who is to come. Malachi told you Elijah is going to come. He told you Elijah is going to come and then the Messiah and Jesus says he's come. He's the one. Guess who's next? Me. It's all pointing you right up to me. Look at chapter 26. This is the last one we'll look at Matthew 26. The betrayal in the arrest of Jesus and Judas in this dark story where Judas totally betrays his friend. In Matthew 26.56 Jesus said all this has taken place that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. It's not a surprise. The scripture said it was going to happen and I'm the one and it's all happening from my birth to my life to my preaching to the miracles to me leaving and not talking to people taking a break from people to me being betrayed to me dying on the cross. All of it in this story is happening so that the promise and the prophecies and the scriptures might be fulfilled. So you look at that and you say he's the one. What does that mean to us? Well if you happen to be ethnically Jewish which looking around the room most of you are not but if you were what it means is this is the one. Your ancestors waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and he came and Matthew is this is what Matthew is doing in literary form. He's grabbing the Jews by the shirt collar and he's trying to shake some scents into him. Right? Remember this is 30 years later or so from Jesus dying on the cross and most of these Jews don't believe it and Matthew is like how can you miss it? Have you read Isaiah? Have you read Jeremiah? Have you read Micah? Have you read any of it? And he puts all these things in here to be fulfilled, that fulfilled, that to happen the scriptures, the law, the prophets and he's just trying to shake some scents into him. Now for those of us who are not ethnically Jewish what Matthew is saying right? He has this global focus. He's talking to the Gentiles. When he talks about himself he uses his Greek name to try to reach out and be on the same page and what he's saying is listen. Don't forget you're coming in on the middle of the story here. There's a whole lot of stuff that happened before and you are being brought into the middle of the story. Don't just go and watch the brand new Star Wars if you're a Star Wars fan. Know what happened and all the rest of it. Watch the old ones. Watch the first six so you can understand the seven and he's saying to Gentiles to Greeks like you and me. He's saying don't forget the rest of the story and he's telling us he's trying to grab us by the shirt collar like this and shake some scents into us. He's trying to say listen all that stuff Isaiah was talking about it's not just about Isaiah it's pointing you forward to Jesus and all these Bible heroes you read about in the Old Testament. It's not just a cutesy story about animals and a lot of water. It's not just a cutesy story about a guy getting thrown in with a bunch of lions. It's not just about a guy getting sold into slavery into Egypt and you learn little moral lessons from it. It's one story all the way through and it's pointing you to Jesus right at the middle of it. He's the hope. He's the point. He's the fulfillment. He's the true Israel. So there you go. That's Matthew. I'm going to pray and then we will think about missions a little bit. Father, we love you.