December 16, 2018

 For Unto You… Messiah
December 16, 2018
Pastor Jonathan Falwell

 

Open:

When is a time that you were supposed to be waiting for someone, perhaps a long-lost friend, relative or even someone else’s kin, and were stressed, afraid you would not recognize them at that moment of your responsibility? Can you share an example?

We have been looking at prophecies from the Old Testament concerning the Messiah and find that Jesus fulfilled all of those about the birth of the promised Savior. Today we are going to read passages that seem to contradict other scripture concerning His birth, but find both true. Jesus is without a doubt the Messiah who came into the world to take away the sins of those who would come to Him. We will also see that His lineage includes both Jews and Gentiles, and characters both good and bad—an inspiration to us all that God can use anyone, at any time, no matter the past sins we carry.

 

Discuss:

Messiah Will Be in the Line of David:

• Read 2 Samuel 7:12-16. Whose seed was the Messiah to come from? How long would this promise endure?
• Read Jeremiah 23:5-6. How did God reinforce His promise nearly 400 years later?

Messiah Will Not Be in the Line of Jehoiachin

• Read Jeremiah 22:24-30. God was fed up with the sins of Jechoniah, king of Judah and David’s offspring through Solomon. Yet we know God does not make mistakes, nor does His word contain errors. What is the worldly issue (from the sermon) that people say indicates Jesus did not come from the line of David?
• Comparing the lineage of Christ in Matthew 1 and Luke 3 shows discrepancies. Can someone explain where the blood lines separate, and where the truth lies?

Messiah Will Be in the Line of the Good [People]:

• Look at Matthew 1. Who are some of the people listed in this lineage whose faith was great?
• Look at Luke 3, beginning at verse 23. Whom do you see listed here, whose lives reflected a living faith in the One, True God?

Messiah Will Be in the Line of the Bad [People]:

• Look again at both Matthew and Luke. Who are some you note whose history recorded in the Bible included sins that had to be dealt with?
• Why do you suppose God permitted them to be in the Messianic line?

Messiah Can Use Anyone at Any Time to Change the World:

• What had Abraham, Isaac and Jacob all done? What had Judah done?
• What was Rahab’s profession? Whom did she marry? What was her relationship to David?
• What, had David, “a man after God’s own heart,” done that was despicable?
• What had Bathsheba done? Opinion only, but could she possibly have been aware, living next to the palace, that her display of nudity might be seen?
• Solomon, the wisest man on earth, at the end of his life had become incredibly weak in the flesh. What were his sins?
• ARE YOU ALLOWING HIM TO USE YOU, or are you spending much of your time beating yourself over the back for your past, thinking your sins have been so great that He cannot use you? Read that list again, if so!

 

 

 

Close:

The lineage of Jesus Christ does not leave room to doubt that He was a direct descendant of David, whether you read Matthew or Luke, or any option that might present itself. No one has ever lived except Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, who fulfills the 300+ prophecies of the Old Testament concerning Messiah. In the virgin Birth alone, not one woman who has “not known a man” has ever conceived and bore a son (although certainly many girls have probably tried that tactic to avoid punishment!) For one man to fulfill even a few of them is not possible. We can not get sidetracked into a worldly argument that Jesus was only a “good man.” His fulfillment is so far beyond miraculous as to fill us with awe and wonder.

It is a conundrum that we take the genealogy in Matthew 1 and in Luke 3 both to be true, but separating at the sons of David, Nathan and Solomon. When faced with something we can’t understand from scripture, it is well to go the earlier Church fathers. Here is a direct quote from Matthew Henry’s Commentary on Luke, Chapter 3, verses 23-38:

The difference between the two evangelists in the genealogy of Christ has been a stumbling-block to infidels that cavil at the word, but such a one as has been removed by the labors of learned men, both in the early ages of the church and in latter times, to which we refer ourselves. Matthew draws the pedigree from Solomon, whose natural line ending in Jechoniah, the legal right was transferred to Salathiel, who was of the house of Nathan, another son of David, which line Luke here pursues, and so leaves out all the kings of Judah. It is well for us that our salvation doth not depend upon our being able to solve all these difficulties, nor is the divine authority of the gospels at all weakened by them; for the evangelists are not supposed to write these genealogies either of their own knowledge or by divine inspiration, but to have copied them out of the authentic records of the genealogies among the Jews, the heralds’ books, which therefore they were obliged to follow; and in them they found the pedigree of Jacob, the father of Joseph, to be as it is set down in Matthew; and the pedigree of Heli, the father of Mary, to be as it is set down here in Luke. And this is the meaning of hos enomizeto (Luke 3:23), not, as it was supposed, referring only to Joseph, but uti sancitum est lege—as it is entered into the books, as we find it upon record; by which is appeared that Jesus was both by father and mother’s side the Son of David, witness this extract out of their own records, which any one might at that time have liberty to compare with the original, and further the evangelists needed not to go; nay, had they varied from that, they had not gained their point. Its not being contradicted at that time is satisfaction enough to us now that it is a true copy, as it is further worthy of observation, that, when those records of the Jewish genealogies had continued thirty or forty years after these extracts out of them, long enough to justify the evangelists therein, they were all lost and destroyed with the Jewish state and nation; for now there was no more occasion for them.

KEY VERSE: “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His Name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6.