If you turn with me to the book
of Judges chapter 13, we're going to spend a little time here in
this book, but most of our study will be in the New Testament
tonight. In the book of Judges chapter 13, we have the events
that lead up or are surrounding Samson's birth. And it's announced
in this chapter, his birth is not in this chapter, it will
be in the next one. And the angel of the Lord in
verse three shares with us. Now, just remember the condition
that Israel is in at this time. Verse one is a flood of information. And then we find that the Lord
appears unto two people out of all the people of Israel. And
not only does he appear with a vision, but he appears as himself
the Lord, the angel of the Lord. And we know him as the pre-incarnate
Christ. And he's coming here, and it
tells us in verse three that the angel of the Lord appeared
unto the woman. Now, I mentioned before, but
it is interesting that her name is never mentioned in these four
chapters. She is Manoah's wife. She is a woman. And I think that
that tells a tale, it tells a story that kind of relates to that
passage over there in the book of Genesis when God was speaking
to Adam and Eve, the seed of the woman. Now, Samuel is going
to be somewhat a great picture of Christ. So the seed of the
woman is going to be a deliver for Israel. It goes on here in
Judges chapter 13, verse three, the angel of the Lord appeared
unto the woman and said unto her, behold now thou art barren,
and barest not, but thou shalt conceive and bare a son. Now
therefore beware, I pray thee, to drink not wine nor strong
drink, and eat not any unclean thing. For lo, thou shalt conceive
and bear a son, and no razor shall come upon his head, for
the child shall be a Nazarite, unto the God from the womb. and
he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hands of the Philistines."
Well, we're gonna stop there for reading right now. Did you notice with me who appeared
in this verse of scripture? It is the angel of the Lord.
And did you notice with me who he appeared to? He appeared unto
an unnamed woman, the mother or the wife of Manoah. And we
notice here that he spoke directly to her there in verse three,
He appeared unto the woman and said unto her, now it doesn't
appear right now that Manoah is here to overhear this conversation.
He's speaking to her and how indicative that is, how pictorial
that is, how declarative that is, that when the Lord appears,
comes to one of his elect children, he appears and speaks to them
directly. He comes to them directly. He
does not shotgun his people. He just doesn't come. He comes
individually to every one of his lost sheep and declares unto
them the gospel as it's been preached from the pulpit. He
reveals it to them and then he calls them his everlasting child. So we have him appearing unto
only her. We notice the message. You have
been barren but And you bore not, but what a message he, but
thou shall conceive and bear a son. And so he announces to
her that she's going to conceive and without a reveal party, he
declares unto her, she's going to have a son. Now she has no
children before this and we know of, I don't think that she has
any children after this. Don't quote me on, I'll have
to read a little more of that. So the child was to become a
Nazarite, tells us there in verses, latter part of verse four and
five. He's going to be a Nazarite.
The child shall be a Nazarite to God. Now, when we went through
the book of Numbers, some time ago, chapter six, verses one
through 21, it tells us about the law of the Nazarite. And
that is where this is going to be picked up. Now, we're not
going to read that tonight, but we are going to go to, Look at the difference between
a Nazirite and a Nazarene. Now, I've read several commentaries
and they say that Jesus was a Nazirite. No, he was not. He did drink
strong drink. He did drink wine and he probably
did not have long hair. There were several things, but
in the fullest essence, he is the truest Nazirite, truest dedicated
to God person of all. But he's a Nazarene. I wish to
look at the difference between a Nazirite and a Nazarene. Now,
a Nazirite is not to be confused with a Nazarene. And if you'll
turn with me over to the book of Matthew chapter 23, there
is a wonderful reason that Jesus grew up in Nazareth, and he's
called a Nazarene. It's a wonderful thing, and I'd
like to just trail this out for a bit, rabbit trail tonight for
a little while, on the subject of Jesus the Nazarene. In the
book of Matthew, Matthew chapter two, we read, and it's in the
last verse of that chapter. Now we're gonna be back here
in the book of Matthew a couple of times, and probably in the
same chapter, but we wanna read this first as we find and over there, we find this
comment about the Lord Jesus, Matthew 2, verse 23. And he came and dwelt in a city
called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken
by the prophets, he shall be called a Nazarene. Now, if you
go looking for that prophecy, you will not find it direct.
And I think the reason for it is we have the S on the word,
end of the word prophet. This prophecy about the Lord
Jesus is so full throughout all of the prophets of the Old Testament. So there's no way you're gonna
go and find this direct quote, but we're gonna go and find the
principle of this quote over and over in the Old Testament.
that he is a Nazarene, that he is from Nazareth. And what does
that symbolize? We'll look at that in just a
moment. A Nazarene was a person from Nazareth. Oregonians are
from Oregon. That's just as simple as I can
make it. It was, he was a Nazarene from
Nazareth that it might be fulfilled what the prophets wrote about
concerning his person and concerning his work of grace here upon this
world. Now we do know this with regard
to the Lord Jesus, that he was conceived in Nazareth. Turn with
me if you will to the book of Luke chapter one. In the book
of Luke chapter one, Elizabeth is six months pregnant and the
angel appears unto Mary. Luke chapter one, verse 26. And in the sixth month, the angel
Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee named Nazareth. Now we're going to find out that
Mary and Joseph are residents of this town. They are only going
to go to Bethlehem because there is a decree sent out by Caesar
Augustus that they needed to go there for the enrollment for
taxation. And we know that that was by
the providence of God. He stirred up Caesar Augustus
to make that decree so that Joseph and Mary would be in the right
place when her baby was born, when Jesus was born, and it had
been prophesied through the Old Testament that he'd be born in
Bethlehem. All right, it says here in verse
27, to a virgin a spouse, to a man whose name was Joseph of
the house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary. And The angel
came unto her and said, Hail thou that art highly favored.
Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women.
Now, the angel said this about her, but she never said it about
herself. She was highly favored. Every
elect person is. My goodness, when you think about
it, the favor of God upon his people is eternal and everlasting
and gracious and great. And in this appearance, it's
no big thing that he appeared to her and called her that and
said, she's blessed. But she never once expected that
kind of response out of people towards her. And when she saw
him, she was troubled at the saying and cast her mind at the
manner of the salutation. And the angel said unto her,
fear not Mary, for thou has found favor with God, which is grace.
And she didn't find favor because she was a good person. She found
favor or grace because God is gracious, and it's the same way
he deals with us. We read about Noah. I don't know
how many times I've heard people say he was just a little better
person than all the rest of the people on the earth at the time,
and that's why God appeared unto him. No way. He would admit just
like we would, and Paul, the apostle, oh wretched man that
I am, and it was the grace of God that came to me and lifted
me out of the septic tank of sin. Behold, thou shalt conceive
in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name
Jesus. So she is going to conceive,
and that conception is going to take place here in the city
of Nazareth. Why? It's their hometown. But
it's very significant when we follow this out for just a little
bit. The Lord brought that about, and if you'll turn with me to
the book of Luke chapter 2, verse 3 through 7. Luke chapter 2,
verse 3. It tells us here, and it came
to pass in those days that there went out a decree from Caesar
Augustus. We know that. Taxing was going to be the result
of it. We know that. And in verse three,
they went to be taxed. Everyone to his own city. And
Joseph also went up from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth into
Judea. unto the city of David to Bethlehem,
and we know it is here that she bears her son, the Lord Jesus. It is because it's been prophesied,
decreed, and declared in the Old Testament and in the Council
Halls of Eternity in the covenant of grace that he's going to be
born in Bethlehem, which is the city of David, but it also has
very great significance in the meaning of its name, house of
bread. He truly is the bread of life,
and it starts right at the very beginning, and it's declared
throughout the Old Testament just as well. So Joseph went
up out of Galilee, and out of the city of Nazareth and goes
down there. It's quite evident that God Almighty
chose where Mary and Joseph would reside, Nazareth. It's quite plain by the age of
Jesus, from a babe to a young child, that Joseph and Mary and
Jesus were living in Nazareth when the Magi visited. In the
book of Luke, it says the babe was wrapped in swaddling clothes
and laying in a manger. When the Magi come, it's a young
child. So where would they normally
go after they spent their time in Bethlehem? That's back home. And in the book of Luke, again,
chapter 2, verse 22, you'll drop down there. Luke chapter two, verse 22, and
when the days of purification according to the law of Moses
were accomplished, this is his circumcision on the eighth day.
He's taken up to the temple in Jerusalem. It's also where we
have him meet or that great prophet, meet him. And he declared to
him, this is my salvation. It was every male that opened
the womb shall be holy to the Lord. They offered the appropriate
sacrifice and Simeon came. And dropping down through there,
what is it? Verse 40, I believe. Oh, verse 39. And when they had performed
all things according to the law of the Lord, That's interesting
to me, the law of the Lord, and here he is as a babe going into
the temple. It's his law. And they returned
into Galilee to their own city, Nazareth. Now it is from here,
after the Magi come to visit, that they are warned of an angel
to get out of Dodge, to leave Nazareth and go down into Egypt. I'll save you, deliver you in
Egypt. And it also says that it might be fulfilled what was
prophesied. I will call my son out of Egypt.
So there's a reason that he went down. He was spared. His life
was spared. Now we know that the Lord was
protecting him. God was protecting him. He was
not going to allow him to have any harm until that day that
he gave himself over for crucifixion. But for us to see that God in
leading Joseph to take his stepson and his wife down to Egypt for
protection. How long? I suppose you could
find out from the time that Herod made the decree to kill all the
baby boys until the time he died. It's probably written somewhere
in some place in some site on the internet, but I didn't look
it up. But I do know this, that after Herod died, Joseph is also
informed that to go back home. They went to Nazareth and then when all this was fuss from Nazareth,
what is all of this fuss about Nazareth? You know, that just
struck me, how much is said, and that he's gonna be called
a Nazarene, and we're gonna be spending some time with Samson,
and also Samuel, and probably some about John the Baptist,
doesn't come out and say exactly that he was a Nazarite, but he
has some of the things about him that is a Nazarite. So, we'll
just touch on that in a future time. But the fuss is, Bethlehem
means house of bread, but Nazareth means, a shoot or a branch. Now Thayer uses a different definition
for that, and I don't know where he found it. But A.T. Robertson,
in his big thick book on definitions of words in the New Testament,
it means a shoot or a branch. And Mr. M.R. Vincent, another
person that spent a lot of time bringing out the meanings of
words from the Greek, means a sprout or a shoot. And this very thing
about Nazareth and being a Nazarene shares with us a lot of fulfillment
of prophecy in the Old Testament. Where we find, turn with me if you would to
John chapter one. John chapter 1 verse 45. Now we're going to read here
several places that there was a lot of derision about anybody
that came out of Nazareth. It was not the place to be from.
And this man here that God is going to call, and Jesus said
he had very high standards. without guile. God calls him
without guile. The Lord calls him without guile,
but the words out of his mouth declare this. In John chapter
1 verse 45, We read about someone who knew the gospel coming to
someone else who didn't know the gospel. Philip findeth Nathanael
and saith unto him, we have found him of whom Moses in the Law
and the Prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.
Now from his standpoint, we understand why he said that. He's a natural
man. He's just looking at things as
they appear. And yet Nathanael said unto him, can there be Can
there any good thing come out of Nazareth? And Philip said
of him, come and see. And Jesus saw Nathanael coming
to him, saith of him, behold, an Israelite indeed is whom is
no guile. But the words out of his mouth
share with us the common feeling among people that were from Nazareth.
If you are from Bethlehem, you are elevated. If you are from
Nazareth, you are derided. The feeling towards you is just
summed up by this man, and he's speaking the truth from his viewpoint. Can any good thing come out of
Nazareth? Well, this is going to be, I
don't want to use the term, going to plague Jesus, all of his ministry.
He's from Nazareth. He's from Galilee. He's from
Nazareth, that sprout of a town, that twig of a town. But we're
gonna go over to the Old Testament and find out that that particular
word identifies someone that is very important to our salvation,
that he is identified as a root, as a sprout, as a twig. All right. In verse 52 of this chapter,
oh no, John 7, excuse me, John 7. Go with me to John 7 and there
in verse 40. John 7 and verse 40. Many people, therefore, when
they heard this saying of a truth, this is the Prophet. Did you
notice the capital P there? Well, the translators wanted
us to understand that this Prophet is the one that Moses mentioned
over in the Old Testament, in the Pentateuch. It is the prophet. God will raise up a prophet,
the prophet, and him you shall hear. So they're saying that
Jesus is this prophet. Others said this is Christ, but
some said, shall Christ come out of Galilee? Out of Nazareth? Hath not the
scripture said that Christ cometh of the seed of David out of the
town of Bethlehem, where David was? Well, he did, he was. So there was a division among
the people because of him, and some of them would have taken
him, but no man laid hands on him. All right, as we find this,
that the Nazarene was a term of contempt and was well known
for some bad quality or deed. I read somewhere that in 1830,
someone went to visit Nazareth and it was a town of about 3,000
people. So probably at the time of Christ,
it was a quite small burg, New Pine Creek. a very small place,
but that had a notoriety about it. It was not a good place to
be from. It was on the other side of the tracks. And yet it
is this place that Jesus Christ is raised and raised on purpose. His parents Mary and his stepdad
Joseph, they are residents of this place and God Almighty put
them there on purpose to be the one that would raise him in Nazareth
and suffer all this consternation about his heritage being in Nazareth. So as we follow this up, Yet
every time this word was used with regards to the Lord Jesus,
it is a fulfillment of two passages in the book of Isaiah. So I'd
like to go over there because this, every time they say this,
Jesus of Nazareth, they're talking about a twig. They're talking
about a sprout. They're talking about the fulfillment
of God's word. So the book of Isaiah chapter
11, in Isaiah chapter 11, Isaiah chapter 11 and verse 1. And there shall come forth a
rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of
his roots. So when this verse of scripture
came out, it's a prophesying about the coming of the Lord.
And did you notice in verse two, and the spirit of the Lord shall
rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, this
sprout, this branch, this root is also the one that the spirit
of the Lord shall rest upon, the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel. and might, the spirit of knowledge
and the fear of the Lord. The Holy Spirit would rest on
this one like he rested on no other one that ever had been
on this earth. And as a result of that, the
Holy Spirit can rest on his elect, can indwell the elect, can be
part of the elect. So the spirit of the Lord was
upon this one, but he is a rod out of the stem of Jesse. He's
a nobody in many respects. He is a, well, we're gonna find
out how they followed him around. We be not of fornication like
you. We have all kinds of the accusations. And when we go to the book of
Isaiah chapter 53, it wasn't just the people across the streets
that was doing that. It was you and I doing that. I visited with a young fellow
the other day He's always bringing up the errors of the Mormons
and the Jehovah's Witnesses and some other group. And I said,
you know, they're not even in the running when it comes to
nonsense. They're so far out, they're not
even in the running. 99.9% of Baptists are in that
group. They're in the wrong. They're in heresy. They're teaching
ill truth. So we don't have to worry about
those guys. We have grave concern. Well, I remember that Brother
Henry was asked by a friend that somebody was going to build a
church building right next to his friend's church building.
He said, you're not in competition. So we're just not in competition.
Anyway, the Spirit of the Lord is upon him, and we're going
to find out that that passage of scripture is going to be quoted
over in the New Testament by the Lord Jesus. And Isaiah chapter
60, if you'd turn there with me, Isaiah chapter 60, as we
find out, he's a Nazarene. He's not a Nazarite, but he's
a Nazarene, and he's a Nazarene on purpose. The Lord God Almighty
could have had him born and raised in Bethlehem if he so desired. But he was born in Bethlehem
and raised in Nazareth, and that's where most of the people thought
he was from. They did not know that he was
from Bethlehem, born in Bethlehem. You know, I raised my hand a
lot of times and said, I'm born in Oregon. I lived there about
three days before my dad and mom took me down to California.
But I can be born in Oregon. And Jesus, I was born in Bethlehem,
but I grew up in that wretched place called Nazareth. And you
know what? He was the star of all of that
went on there. Nobody could find any fault with
this son of Joseph and Mary. They never had to have someone
come home and say, I wanna tell you what your son has been doing.
It was just the opposite. He knew what they were doing.
When he went to the temple when 12 years old, he knew what the
thoughts of those great doctors of the law was. Don't think for
a moment he didn't know the hearts and minds of everybody in the
city of Nazareth that he grew up with, and he's the only one
that could say, I'm holy. The rest were just fallen children
of Adam, but he grew up among them. Why? Because he was a friend
of sinners. and he is low. He never was running
for mayor. He never run for a public office. He had much bigger fish to fry. He had much better things to
do. So here in the book of Isaiah
chapter 60 and verse 21, we read this about this branch, this
planting, this shoot, Thy people also shall be all righteous.
They shall inherit the land forever, the branch of my planting, the
work of my hands, that I may be glorified. A little one shall
become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation. I, the Lord,
will hasten it in His time. So the people shall be righteous.
They shall inherit the land forever, the branch of my planting, the
work of my hands, that I may be glorified. So we have here
that even the church is summed up in this low condition. The
master is, the Lord is, he's a Nazarene. He's from Nazareth,
contemptible, made fun of and mocked. Unbeknownst to the users
that were identifying the Lord Jesus as a Nazirite or a Nazarene,
we find in the scriptures that there were some that knew what
that meant. And you know, they're not all
believers. One of the most outstanding statements about someone who
believes that Jesus is the Son of God is a demon. So just by
saying I believe that Jesus is the Son of God from a historical
standpoint means absolutely nothing. Turn with me if you would over
there to the book of Mark chapter one. He is very identified as
Jesus of Nazareth in these verses of scripture. The book of Mark
chapter one and verse 24. Mark chapter one verse 24 and
we read this. The Lord comes and this demon
says, let us alone. What have we to do with thee,
thou Jesus of Nazareth? Art thou come to destroy us?
I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God. But he recognized him as Jesus
of Nazareth, the Holy One of God. Even though he is belittled
by man, he is highly honored by the Godhead. And if you'll
turn with me to the book of Mark chapter 10. Mark chapter 10,
we have another person identify him with that term. Mark chapter
10, verse 47. This is blind Bartimaeus. He
just didn't call him Jesus. He didn't call him Jesus of Bethlehem
or Jesus from Jerusalem. They always go back to where
he grew up. And here in the book of Mark chapter 10, verse 47,
it tells us that Blind Bartimaeus, when he heard that it was Jesus
of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, Jesus, thou son
of David, have mercy on me. So he is Jesus of Nazareth, but
he's also declared here to be the son of God. Blind Bartimaeus
says, who is that? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth.
And that's all he needed to know that this one is the son of God,
the son of David, have mercy on me. And we've mentioned in
the past that mercy is not something that we could command or demand,
it's something that is given. Now we plead for it and we ask
for it, but that does not mean that we will get it. It takes
the one who has the ability to give mercy, to give mercy. In
the book of Luke again, if you'd turn over there, the book of
Luke chapter four, verse 16, Luke chapter four, verse 16. This is where the Lord Jesus
goes. He came to Nazareth. It says where he had been brought
up. This is his hometown. And he went to the synagogue.
Now, this was just easier to go to the synagogue than it was
to go over to the temple. It was a place where they had
lessons and studied the word. And he stood up, it was his custom
to go there. He's from Nazareth, he's in Nazareth
at this time. And you know the rest of the
story, because he reads a passage of scripture and said, this passage
of scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. And then they plabber
a little bit and he says those wonderful words to every believer. There were many lepers in Israel,
but God delivered one who was a Gentile. That's towards the
end of this passage of scripture, verse 28, I believe. The spirit
of the Lord was upon me, anointed me to preach the gospel. He hath
sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the
captives, the recovering of sight to the blind, and set at liberty
them that are bruised, and preached the acceptable year of the Lord.
He closed the book and gave it again to the minister and sat
down, and the eyes of all of them in the synagogue were fastened
on him. You know why? He spoke with authority
and not as one of the stribes. He believed what he was reading. This day is this scripture fulfilled
in your ears. And then we drop down and he
spends some time there talking about widows and lepers. And
after that was over with, they wanted to take Jesus of Nazareth
and cast him over the brow of a hill and kill him. They were
so incensed that he would bring up God's grace to Gentiles. God's grace is only to children
of Abraham. In the book of Mark, going back
to the book of Mark chapter 16, Mark chapter 16, we find here
in Mark chapter 16 and verse six, the angel said unto these, he
said unto them, be not afraid, ye seek Jesus of Nazareth. I just find that so interesting.
He didn't just say, you're seeking Jesus, you're seeking the Savior,
you're seeking Jesus of Nazareth, that humble shoot, that one that
grew up under such rigorous, painful perfectness among the unperfect,
the only one. in that whole town, the only
one in the whole nation, the only one in all the world that
had perfect righteousness. And yet he grew up in such a
wicked place. Here it says, you see Jesus of
Nazareth, which was crucified. Now notice the answer or their
comment. He is risen. He is not here. Behold the place where they laid
him. So he's not here. He's risen. Jesus of Nazareth, that one lowly
root out of the root of Jesse, that shoot, that one from Nazareth. Now the most the most distant one from all
of Jesus's acquaintances, a Gentile, a Gentile that commanded the
crucifixion of Jesus under duress, but he still commanded the crucifixion
of Jesus. His declaration about that being
a root out of dry ground is pilot. Pilate made the grandest statement
about Jesus of Nazareth. In fact, he had it put on his
cross. This is the reason we're crucifying
him. This is the accusation against
him. And that's found over in John
chapter 19. In John chapter 19, even the
enemies of the Lord shall praise him. And he's gonna be told,
just put up there, put a little addendum up there, a few italics
words. Put up there, he said he was
king of the Jews. And Pilate said, what I've written,
I've written. You know why he wrote that? Because
he had his arm way back up here. If you don't write that, I'm
gonna break it off. God Almighty forced him to write that message
that was gonna be put up there on that cross. In the book of
John chapter 19, Verse 18, we read these words. Where they
crucified him, the two other with him on either side, one,
Jesus in the midst, and Pilate wrote a title. And if you look
up that word title, that means the accusation. This is the reason
he is being punished, crucified, this title, and put it on the
cross. And the writing was, and if you go back, what is it? Oh, and I believe it's Matthew
adds two words to this. This is, here it is, Jesus of
Nazareth, King of the Jews, all in caps, but Matthew added these
two words with that. It says, this is Jesus of Nazareth,
the King of the Jews. Now, Why he would put Nazareth
in there? He had to be pressured by the
Lord. He had to be brought up by the
Lord, because he is Jesus of Nazareth, the root out of dry
ground. He is the fulfillment of all the Old Testament prophets.
He is the fulfillment of all the law of Moses. The prophets,
the Psalms, and the law all declared that this is the Messiah. And so Pilate is forced by Almighty
God against his will to write this superscription above and
have it put on the cross. This is Jesus of Nazareth, the
King of the Jews. Now I mentioned that the title
was read by the Jews there in verse 20 for the place where
Jesus was crucified was night of the city and it was written
in three different languages. all of them popular in Jerusalem
at that time. One of the languages was Hebrew,
one of the languages Greek, and one of the languages was Latin. Why? So everybody could read
it. They didn't translate it, they just put it up there in
its plain Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Then said the chief priests
of the Jews to Pilate, write not the king of the Jews, but
he said, I am king of the Jews. And he says, Pilate answered,
what I have written, I have written. So God moved upon him. This is the fulfillment of all
the prophets. They shall call, he's from Nazareth,
they shall call him a Nazarene. In Isaiah 53, I want to read
a couple of verses in Isaiah 53 that share with us this issue
that natural man, you and I, had. with the Lord Jesus before
he saves us. In Isaiah 53, verse three, we
read this. He is from Nazareth. He is despised
and rejected of men. He's low life. He's looked down
the nose at, can any good thing come out of Nazareth? And yes,
the son of God was raised in Nazareth. Yes, that's the title
given to him by the angels. That's the title given to him
by the demons. That's the title given to him
by God. And that's the title that Pilate had put on that cross
when Jesus was crucified. It says here, he's a man of sorrows
and acquainted with grief, rejected of men, a man of sorrows, acquainted
with grief. We hid, as it were, our faces
from him. He was despised and esteemed not. Surely he hath
bore our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him
stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. Can any good thing
come out of Nazareth? Can any good thing come out of
Galilee? And we have to say, yes, Lord
God Almighty came out of there on purpose. And in the book of
Romans chapter one, Romans chapter one. Verse four, we read this,
Romans chapter one and verse four, that this despised and
rejected one, this Nazarene, this one from Nazareth, this
one that was looked down upon so often, rejected of men. He
came unto his own and his own received him not. He came into
the world and it knew him not. But oh, thank God, all those
that he gives the new birth to know him with wonderful knowledge. Here in the book of Romans chapter
one and verse four, it says, and declared to be the son of
God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the
resurrection from the dead. This is the son of God. This is the one that saves his
people from their sins. We will find that Jesus of Nazareth
was an absolute fulfillment of all the types of a Nazarite,
but Jesus was a Nazarene. We found in a Nazarite, they
were men set aside. He's anointed by God. He has
truly been set aside. They were frail. You know, as
we go through and study about Samson, you wonder why in the
world would God ever say he's gonna be a Nazarite from his
womb? He really acts like he's from
Nazareth. He does some really silly things,
foolish things. And yet he is a Nazirite from
his mother's womb. And we find that the Lord was anointed by God.
He was anointed as a Nazirite. They are frail in the flesh. He is the substance of what the
Nazirites were a shadow of. Hebrews 7, verse 26. What Samson and even Samuel and
John could not fulfill was this. For such a high priest became
us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made
higher than the heavens. They could not come close to
that. He is the fulfillment. He is the antitype of every Nazarite. And it's found there, and we
found this when we were going through Acts chapter 2. You men
of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved
of God. So he was a Nazarene from Nazareth. I'll get that straightened out.
On purpose, he declared his lowliness from his very beginning. and
yet He is the Son of God and, as we find over there, a man
approved of God. And as we walk by that cross
in our mind, we can look up and say, Pilate, unbeknownst to him,
wrote the greatest statement about this one. He's lowly, riding
upon a colt of an ass, but He is the Son of God. We'll stop
there tonight, and Lord willing, next week we will look at the
Nazarite.