Before we read Matthew, I want
to... Actually, let's read Matthew chapter 2, and then I'll refer
to those verses in Luke 24. Matthew opens up in chapter 1
with the generation of Jesus Christ, the genealogy of Jesus
Christ. And we saw in the studies, on
the opening studies of this book, that this generation of Jesus
Christ teaches us several things. But as I was thinking about it
this week, it became more apparent to me through a verse in the
Old Testament, something about this genealogy that I didn't
bring out. And I'll mention that now at
the outset. And that was David at the end
of his life, King David. It says that Jesus was the son
of David, which was necessary for him to fulfill all that he
came to do as the Christ and to reign on the throne God had
promised he would reign over his people. But David at the
end of his life said in 2 Samuel 23 that his house was not, as
all of the promises that God had referred to, was not so.
In other words, His house was not the house that would fulfill
those promises. It was the house of His Son,
His Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ. And that was what King David
said was all of his hope and all of his desire to see that
covenant fulfilled for him by Christ. And so let's pick up
now in chapter 2, the change, the flow so far has been those
that God used in the history of Christ, His genealogies, those
that were His used to bring forth Christ into the world, and then
the promise of the Lord Jesus coming into the world to Joseph
here is made in the end of chapter 1. And then the great declaration
in verse 21 of why He would come He would come to save His people
from their sins, but all throughout this is who He is. The Lord Jesus
Christ is the Son of David, the Son of Abraham, the Son of God,
God with us. And so, now let's pick it up
in chapter 2, the actual birth of Jesus. Now, when Jesus was
born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold,
there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem. saying, Where
is he that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star
in the east, and are come to worship him. When Herod the king
had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with
him. And when he had gathered all
the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded
of them where Christ should be born. And they said to him, In
Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet,
And thou, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, art not the least among
the princes of Judah, for out of thee shall come a governor
that shall rule my people Israel. Then Herod, when he had privily
called the wise men, inquired of them diligently what time
the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem
and said to the wise men, go and search diligently for the
young child. And when you have found him,
bring me word again that I may come and worship him also. When
they had heard the king, they departed. And lo, the star which
they saw in the east went before them till it came and stood over
where the young child was. And when they saw the star, they
rejoiced and with exceeding joy. And when they were come into
the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and
fell down, and worshipped him. And when they had opened their
treasures, they presented unto him gifts, gold, and frankincense,
and myrrh. And being warned of God in a
dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into
their own country another way. And when they were departed,
behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream,
saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee
to Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word, for Herod
will seek the young child to destroy him. When he arose, he
took the young child and his mother by night, and departed
to Egypt. and was there until the death of Herod that it might
be fulfilled, which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying,
Out of Egypt have I called my son. Then Herod, when he saw
that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wrath, and
sent forth and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in
all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according
to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men. then
was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet
saying in Ramah there was a voice there was there a voice heard
lamentation and weeping and great mourning Rachel weeping for her
children and would not be comforted because they are not what a sad
sad end to those verses all these children under two years of age
murdered mercilessly cruelly by this evil King Herod And for
one reason, one reason only, that he might destroy the Lord's
Christ. And now, as I mentioned, I'm
going to read, I'll just refer to this. Let me say this to you. The Bible, divided up into the
Old Testament and the New Testament, has a single message. Sometimes
we wonder what the message of something is. What are you trying
to say? We might say something like that. What do you mean?
What's your point? If I were to describe my wedding
day, the flowers and the people who were there, the people who
were with Denise and her dress and all these things, you might
ask me, what's your point? What's the message? And I would
have to say, well, the message is Denise. I want to tell you
about her. and her great love for me and my love for her and
so on. The Bible has a message. The
message of the Bible, we can't miss this now. If we miss this,
there's no point in even hearing the Bible. The message of the
Bible is Jesus Christ. It's about Him, it's about what
He has done, it's about where He is now, why He did it, what
He accomplished and what He did. Listen to these two verses in
Luke 24. These are the words of the Lord Jesus Himself. It
says in Luke 24, 25, Jesus said to those two men on the road
to Emmaus, He said in verse 25 of Luke 24, O fools and slow
of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken." Notice
the inclusion, "...all that the prophets have spoken." And then
he tells them the summary of that, "...ought not Christ to
have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory?" And
beginning at Moses, the book of Genesis, all the way through
Deuteronomy and on through the prophets, he expounded unto them
in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. You see that?
And then one more verse I'll read to you from the book of
Acts along these same lines. It's in Acts 10, 43. He says
in verse 42, This is the preaching of Peter. He says, He commanded us to preach,
Jesus commanded Peter to preach to the people and to testify
that it is He, Christ, who was ordained of God to be judge,
the judge of quick and dead, to Him, listen, to give Him,
give all the prophets witness that through His name, whosoever
believeth in Him shall receive remission of sins. Now that is
the message of Scripture. If you miss anything else today,
perhaps that will stick with you, that Christ And what He
did, that He had to suffer, that He had to rise again, and that
because of His rising again, remission of sins would be preached
to the people, so that whosoever believes would receive the remission
of sins, that is the message of the Old Testament Scriptures,
the message of the New, and the message of the Epistles and the
Book of Revelation. And that's what we're going to
see then in every chapter of Scripture. When we look at chapter
1 of Matthew, we see Christ, don't we? We see His generation.
When we look at chapter 2, we see the Lord Jesus Christ again,
His birth. And we see in chapter 2, especially,
three different groups of people. And if you can identify these
three, at least these three, there's more than three really,
but I want to focus on these three today, because it's impossible
for me to give you all the details in Matthew 2. It's impossible
for me to understand all of them, first of all. And I would weary
you to try to do that all in one sermon, but there's three
groups of people here in Matthew chapter 2, and I want to talk
about each of these three in turn. First, there are these
wise worshipers. I hope that you find yourself
in that category today, wise worshipers. And then second,
there are what I call the unbelieving scribes. And then third, there's
this evil king. And if you see these three groups
of people, actually what you'll see is that these groups characterize
all people. Really, there's two groups of
people. The unbelieving and the believing of Christ. Those who
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and those who do not. And in
that latter group, those who do not believe on him, there
are various kinds of people. People who don't care. People
who do care, or seem to care, and know a lot about the scripture,
more or less. Some know a little, some know
a lot, like these scribes. And then there's these others
who are openly opposed to the Lord Jesus Christ. And what we'll
see today is that these two last groups actually collaborate together. They work together. Sometimes
consciously and deliberately. And sometimes the middle group,
the scribes, they're not realizing that they're pawns in the purpose
of this evil king. But this is the way Scripture
works. Throughout Scripture, you'll see this. Now, when we
read through Matthew chapter 2, one thing you notice right
away is that Jesus was born. And then there were wise men
who saw a star. These wise men were in the east
when they saw the star. They saw his star in the east
and they came to worship him. And then you see the wise men
traveling the great distance from where they were to where
Jesus was born to see him. But when they get there, they
have to search out where he actually is. They know he was going to
be born somewhere near the star, but the star led them to, and
it was God's purpose, it led them to inquire. And Herod heard
about them, he heard about their coming. I don't know how many
wise men there were, it doesn't really matter. I know there were
at least two, probably more like a caravan, not just three. At
least there's no evidence there were only three. Whatever the
case is, these men sought for Christ. Herod heard about it.
He consults with these men who understood scripture, called
scribes. These men who were the experts
in the scripture. And he asked them where Christ
would be born. Because if he knew where he was going to be
born, then he knew where he could find him. And his purpose was
to kill the Lord Jesus. Why? Why did he want to kill
him? Well, on the surface, because he was the promised king. Herod
was a king. He was not a Jew. He was a Gentile. He knew about the kings who had,
in history, been kings over Jerusalem and over Israel. And he knew
that some of them were very powerful and that God was with them. David,
for example. And Solomon, in his reign, reigned
all the way from Egypt to the utter end of the land of Canaan
to the river borders. And everyone came and honored
those kings. They were that strong and had
great wealth. God bless them. So Herod naturally
would have feared him. But as is always the case in
scripture, the message is not about the historical physical
events. It's about the spiritual message within those events. So here we see these worshipers
of Christ, those whom God has drawn, those who come to Christ.
And then we see those who have knowledge of scripture who don't
believe. And then we see this man, Herod,
who represents all those who openly oppose the Lord Jesus
Christ. We see this history repeated
throughout scripture. Remember in Exodus when we were
studying there, which we'll hopefully get back to one of these days?
Pharaoh was concerned that Israel was growing too fast. His own
people were going to be the slaves of Israel, and he wanted to remain
the masters over those slaves, the Israelites. So he ordered
the midwives to kill all the male children. And you remember
that Moses was hid in a basket by his mother, and his sister
waited as Pharaoh's daughter comes to the river's edge to
find him. This is repeated here, isn't it? The evil king seeking
to destroy the one that God sent to be the deliverer, just like
God sent Moses to be the deliverer. And then later in the book of
Revelation you see this repeated again. I'm not going to go there
now, but you see how this dragon, this serpent, rises up to try
to destroy the seed of the woman. And the woman and the child,
the man-child born to the woman is caught up to heaven. And then
this woman is hid in the wilderness. And then the evil dragon and
the serpent try to destroy her and cast a flood of waters out.
And then God protects her and his people are saved. All this
happens throughout history over and over again. Because the reason
why God gives us these things in a repeated fashion is to teach
us something. is to teach us the conquest of
the Lord Jesus Christ in the face of opposition. The certainty
of the fact that what Christ, why Christ came, what He would
do, would actually and really be accomplished. And that the
glory of God would be made known, not only in the saving of His
people, but in the destruction of His enemies in the face of
their crafty counsel and devious means to try to destroy Him.
This you see throughout Scripture. The success of the Gospel. the
salvation of Christ's people, the exaltation of the Lord Jesus
Christ to power, the subjugation of his enemies, even though in
the process there's all sorts of trouble and turmoil in the
world. Nevertheless, in the end, in
the end, we see Christ being triumphant. He always wins. There's never a time when the
Lord Jesus Christ does not prevail. And that's the message of Scripture.
And it's meant to comfort us, isn't it? So let's go through
this here. in a little more detail. What
do we learn from all of this? Look first in the few verses
of Matthew chapter 2. It says, When Jesus was born
in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold,
there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, Where
is he that is born of the king of the Jews? For we have seen
his star in the east, and are come to worship him. Who was
it that they came for, why did they come? It was the one who
was promised, who had been promised and foretold to them by this
sign of the star. And the one that they came to
worship was going to be the king, and they came to worship him.
Now, where did this star come from? There's been so much speculation. Wow, what did it look like? Was
it a low-flying star? A high-flying star? Or, you know,
it moved about? This is very strange. Well, clearly,
God doesn't give us enough physical information here to understand
the physics of the star. That's not the message here.
Remember, the message is what? The Lord Jesus Christ and Him
crucified. What do stars do? God created
the stars in Genesis 1 and He created them for a purpose, like
the moon and the sun, to give light upon the earth To divide
the darkness from the light, the day from the night, and to
be for signs and season for days and years. And to rule over the
day and over the night. Those were the reasons God gave
the lights. And stars in scripture have a
signification. They signify something. They,
at first, I mean, the main point here is that stars shed light.
Stars shed light. That's obvious. Any child would
see that. And they're beautiful to look
upon, aren't they? And so, in the scriptures, if
you look at Revelation 1.20, it says that, in fact, let's
look at that just briefly, so that you have some, you don't
just take my word for it, but Revelation chapter 1, the book
of Revelation is full of these indirect references to truth
through physical things, and he says this in Revelation chapter
1 verse 20. The mystery of the seven stars
which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks,
That's what, this is what the mystery is. The seven stars are
the angels of the seven churches and the seven candlesticks which
thou sawest are the seven churches. So here what you see is the Lord
Jesus Christ in Revelation is holding a candlestick with seven,
seven golden candlestick and seven stars are in his right
hand. And he says clearly there that the seven stars mean he
says they are the seven stars when you say stars what it means
is the seven uh... messengers of the seven angels
to the seven churches you see that and the word angels means
messengers so the stars in revelation one twenty have to do with the
ministers of god sent to give his message to his people you
see that the churches are the people of god The stars give
light. What light do they give? The
light is the message of God. In the beginning, God said, let
there be light. Before He spoke, there was no
light. You couldn't see. Until God speaks,
we are in darkness. We can't understand anything.
Have you ever been confused about something, and then someone comes
along with more knowledge, and they speak to you plainly and
clearly about that thing, and suddenly you realize, oh man,
thank you, that just cleared my mind. Now I can see clearly
what I was completely confused about. It seems so simple and
ordered now. That's a very small example of what the light of
God's Word does. God speaks and it clears our
confusion. Our confusion is from sin. We
don't understand God. We're confused by our sin. And
God speaks and dispels the darkness. He removes the darkness. That's
called light. That's the action of light. Now
in creation when God spoke the light, He did that on the very
first day. And when He speaks on the first
day and then creates the world, it teaches us something. It teaches
us that everything that God did could not be seen until God first
gave light so that it could be seen for what it was. You see,
what God does with light, it shines upon His works and makes
what He does apparent and beautiful to us who see it. You couldn't
see the plants, the plants couldn't grow either, and the birds and
the fish and the people and all these things unless God turned
the lights on. So God did that. He said at the
beginning, let there be light. And it's interesting that God
had light created first, and then created the sun, moon, and
stars. Because those things are the
instruments of light. But the light comes from God.
The light is in Him. And we have to understand that
even though God uses instruments to shine light, that we are never
to look at the things that God uses as an end in themselves. Never think of the sun, moon,
and stars as what upholds this world and everything that's in
it. It's the Word of Christ. Isn't that what it says in Hebrews
chapter 1? He says, His Word upholds all things. By His power,
He upholds all things by His Word. Not only does He uphold
all things by His Word, but in speaking His Word, He gives us
wisdom and understanding, and causes us to see the beauty and
the greatness of Himself in His own work. And so those are some
of the things about light. The other thing we see about
light is that it always divides the darkness from the light.
It separates things that are, to us, are not apparent. But
when God speaks, then the error becomes apparent in light of
the truth. And nothing makes apparent the
error more, nothing makes it clearer to us what is error than
when He speaks to us about the truth in the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no time when the darkness
of our mind and the error that's in our heart, the belief that
we have of things about God is dispelled and cleared up, but
when God shows who the Lord Jesus Christ is and what He actually
did. Not understanding Him is darkness itself. If you have
the sun, then you have the light of the world. Look at a few verses
with me. Look at John chapter 1. The gospel of John chapter 1.
I want to take you to these things because light is such a prevalent
subject in scripture that we're going to see here that the stars
given to the wise men were just pointers to the great light.
He says in John chapter 1 verse 4. Speaking of our Lord Jesus
Christ, it says, "...in Him was life..." L-I-F-E, life. "...and the life was the light
of men." The life of Christ is the light of men. When the Spirit
of God comes to us and gives us life, then His life in us
brings with it the gift of faith, and faith holds up Christ to
our eyes as the object of all we see and trust in. And our
souls are flooded with light. That's what he's saying here.
And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended
it not. The sun can shine, the moon or
the stars. And they might shine on me. But
unless I have eyes to see, it doesn't do me any good, does
it? Except the fact that it warms me and makes things around me
grow and those sorts of things. But a blind man can have the
full light of noon and yet stumble around and look for the door.
God has to not only give light, but he has to give us eyes to
perceive that light. And so here he says in verse
5, and the light shines in darkness, the darkness comprehended it
not. The only, and we are all naturally in darkness. Naturally
we're born into this world in darkness. It says in Romans 3,
there's none that understandeth. That's darkness. We lack an understanding
of who God is, and what He requires of us, and His holiness, and
our sinfulness. All those things are completely,
we're in the dark on that. But notice in verse 6, God sent
a man, his name was John. The same came for a witness,
to bear witness of the light. Do you see that? That all men
through him might believe, the light. That is, all men through
the light might believe. You see, John was like a star. Revelation 120. The seven stars
are the seven angels or the seven messengers to the churches. John
was one of those stars. He shone. And he was God's star
because he shone light on the true light which was Christ himself.
And so he says, he was sent to bear witness of the light. Verse
8 says about John, he was not that light. John was not the
light he spoke of, but he was sent to bear witness of that
light, the Lord Jesus Christ. That was the true light which
lighteth every man that cometh into the world. The Lord Jesus
Christ is the only one who actually gives men light. He gives light
because He is the light and He gives light because He turns
our eyes on so we can see it. Look at John chapter 8. I'm taking you to a few verses
so you can appreciate our Lord Jesus Christ in the analogies that God uses through
these things like stars and sun and moon and things like that.
Look at verse 12. Then Jesus, then spake Jesus
again to them, to those people who were there when He was met
with these men who wanted to stone an adulterous woman, and
actually they wanted to kill Christ in the process, and make
Him seem like He was nothing, and tested Him by this woman
who was taken in adultery. But He said to them again, He
said, the light of the world." Do you see that? He that followeth
me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. When the Lord Jesus Christ spoke
these words, it was because He had said something so profound
that it requires us to understand that only in Him can we understand
how God could do what He did here. In John 8, 1 through 11,
This adulterous woman was brought to Christ. She was guilty. Her
accusers thought they had him because they required him to
either side with Moses and stone her or let her go and show that
he was not sent from God. How could you let her go and
not be just with this woman? This is the age-old question.
This is the fundamental question that God answers in Scripture.
How can God be both just and justify the ungodly. How can
He do it? And Jesus is the light of the
world. He's the one who makes known to us how that is. He's
the one who allows God in His very nature to deal with sinners
and yet deal with them in a way that magnifies His goodness and
His justice towards them because He does that in the Lord Jesus
Christ, the light of the world. Look at another verse of scripture
in Revelation chapter 21. I'm just taking you to some of
these so you can see these things that our Lord Jesus Christ is.
He is the light this world. He is the light that all of Scripture
speaks of. In Revelation chapter 21, verse
16, he says this, I think, I'm sorry, 22, 16, He says, I, Jesus, have sent
mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches.
Now he speaks of himself. This is Jesus talking. I am the
root and the offspring of David and the bright and morning star.
I'm David's Lord and I'm David's son. And he says that he's the
bright and morning star. Do you see that? What is the
morning star? You think about that phrase, the morning star. While you're thinking about it,
turn to 2 Peter, and I'll tell you. The morning star is the
star you see in the morning. And what happens in the morning
is that the sun rises, or at least it appears to rise from
our perspective. It rises and gives light on the
earth, doesn't it? The Lord Jesus Christ is that
morning star. The morning star then would correspond
to the sun, right? He's the sun. And what is the
brightest star? What is the light that God created
to rule over the day? The sun. The sun is the brightest
star. When the sun comes up, what happens to the stars? They're
still there. When I was a kid, I didn't realize
that. I thought the stars somehow, like the moon, they went away.
They hid somewhere else. But the stars are still there.
But see, that's the point of the stars. The stars speak of
the greater light. But they themselves are just
a small little voice, a small little light compared to the
sun. The sun eclipses all of that. And that's what the Lord
Jesus Christ is. John said, when he came, he says,
the one who has the bride is the bridegroom. He must increase. I must decrease. Because He is
the bright and morning star. He's the Son. And it even calls
Him the Son of Righteousness in Malachi 4.2. But here in 2
Peter 1, look at this. He says in verse 19, we have
also a more sure word of prophecy. Where unto you do well that you
take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place." The
sure word of prophecy is the light that shines in a dark place. What is the dark place? It's
the night time. What shines in the night time? The moon and
the stars, right? God created those to divide the
light, to give light upon the earth, to be for signs and seasons
and days and years. And God sends His men to speak
His Word, the Scriptures, which contain the Gospel. And in speaking
the Scriptures and the Gospel, they shed light on the earth
in its darkness. The earth of men, the world of
men. And then he says, until the day
dawn and the day star arise in your hearts. You see, when the
day dawns, what rises? The sun. And what is that called
here? The day star. But he's not speaking
about the sun that's in the sky. He's speaking about the Lord
Jesus Christ. He says, God's people are sent
to minister His message from Him concerning, out of His Word,
the Scriptures, concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is
reflected by the sun and the stars and the moon and the sun
in Scripture, in Genesis. And when it gets to the sun,
it's speaking about the Lord Jesus Christ. And Peter is saying,
we have a sure word of prophecy. It's more sure than our experiences. It's our foundation. And that
sure word of prophecy has a message. That message is Christ and Him
crucified. And that message has got to come
to us, each one of us, in our hearts and rise up like the sun
in the daytime and give light to us. And so when he speaks
about being the light of the world, we see this now. We see
that this is what God is talking about when he speaks about the
Lord Jesus Christ. And so back in Luke, I'm sorry,
Matthew chapter 2, the wise men saw a star in the east. And these
wise men, it really means magi, like magicians or astrologers
or scientists who studied things like the world about them. And so they were interested in
things like this. But there's a case where you could make it,
and I think this is clear from scripture, that if you look back
at the book of Numbers, there was a man who was a false prophet,
a soothsayer, who God actually spoke through, really spoke his
word through him. His name was Balaam. If you remember
Balaam, Balaam was called for by a wicked man who was the king
of the Moabites. And the Moabites were afraid
because he looked at all the nation of Israel. They were huge.
They were spread all out. And he was afraid they were going
to come and destroy all these nations. And he was worried about
that. So he calls for this soothsayer
from the east. His name was Balaam. It says
in Numbers chapter 24, Actually, Numbers chapter 23,
verse 7, it says that Balaam was from the east. And then later
in verse 14 of Numbers 24, it says that Balaam prophesied of
the latter days. And then finally in verse 17
of Numbers chapter 24, I'll read that to you. You don't have to
turn there, but if you want to, you certainly can. Numbers 24,
let me read that to you. Listen to these words. Now remember
this, that when Balaam spoke, He was just a mouthpiece. He
was actually a wicked man. It says later in the scripture
that he was a wicked man. He was a false prophet in himself. But God compelled him so that
when he spoke, he actually spoke God's word. And so in Numbers
24, 17, he says this while he's speaking. He says in Numbers
24, 17, he says, I shall see him, but not now. I shall behold him, but not nigh."
And what he's saying is that I'm speaking to you about someone
who's called him. And I'm going to see him, but
not now. This is for a future time. And I shall behold him. I, personally, shall behold him. But I'm not going to come near
to him. Because when Balaam beholds the
Lord Jesus Christ, of whom he's speaking here, he's going to
see him in judgment. And in judgment, he's going to
be separated from him. And then he says, and there shall
come a star out of Jacob. And a scepter shall rise out
of Israel. A scepter. That's the thing that
a king would hold to signify his rule as a king, his right
as a king. And so, Balaam looks in his prophecy
and he says, I shall see him But not now, and I will behold
him, but not near to him. But when he rises, he's going
to rise like a star, and he'll be a king. That's what he's saying.
And so, since Balaam was from the east, and since he spoke
this prophecy of a star rising, and he said in his prophecy that
he would be a king who would rule with a scepter, then I'm... persuaded that the wise men here
would have had that knowledge, having also been from the East. And not only that, but all of
the Old Testament documents, how the Israelites were carried
into Babylon, and Persia, and all these places into the East.
So they would have had copies of the Scripture. So the point
is this, what the wise men saw was a star. The way they heard
about Christ was through the Scriptures, through God's Word.
Now, how do you know about the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you get
an intuition? Do you have some kind of an experience?
No, it's only through the Word of God. You see, faith comes
only by one way. How is that? Look at Romans chapter
10. You see these things in scripture
and it's important that we see them because when we get to the
scribes and to Herod in chapter 2 here, we're going to see the
distinction. And remember, What is the message of scripture?
The Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Now look at this in
Romans chapter 10 verse 16. He says here, But they have not all obeyed,
what? The gospel. Do you see that?
For Isaiah saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? Do you see that? What is the
report? The gospel. Who spoke it? Isaiah. Where did he speak it? Isaiah
53. That's the first verse of Isaiah
53. He says, Who hath believed our report? And to whom is the
arm of the Lord revealed? What is the arm of the Lord?
God's strength. God's power. And what was that
arm? Christ for his people. Suffering as their sin bearer. Satisfying the justice of God. in suffering, in their place,
answering to God for them, justifying them, bringing them to God by
His death. That's what he's speaking about.
This was the report. This is the gospel. And so, when
he speaks here in Romans 10, 16, he says, "...they have not
all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah saith, Lord, who hath
believed our report?" So then, faith cometh by hearing, and
hearing by the word of God. How do we see? In scripture,
our souls see. It says in Isaiah 55, hear and
your soul shall live. Here and your soul shall live.
And what is life? The life leads to the light of
life. So we hear the gospel. In hearing
the gospel, God gives us eyes to see, just like a blind man.
Eyes to see Christ and Him crucified. And in seeing Him and in hearing
Him, then we have the light of life. And that's what He's saying
here. Faith comes by this hearing.
and hearing by this gospel. The point is, here back in Matthew
chapter 2, is that when God speaks about the star, He's speaking
about His Word. These wise men could only understand
about Christ being King through the Word of God. We can only
understand about Christ being King and about what he did and
what he accomplished through the gospel. Through the gospel.
And when we hear the gospel and we see Christ, that's like the
star leading us to him. And so he says in Matthew chapter
2, they said, we've seen his star in the east and we've come
to worship him. What does the light of the stars
and what does the light of the gospel do if it's brought to
us? How do we know that we have the
light of the gospel? How do we know that we have the
true gospel? Because if we don't have the
true gospel, then we can't be saved. To believe a false gospel
is to believe a lie. How do we know we have the true
gospel? What is the true gospel? And this is important that we
know, because this is where our eternity hangs, isn't it? What
is the gospel? What is the true gospel? How
do we know we have it? Well, in Matthew chapter 2, what
you see here is that the reason the wise men, we knew the wise
men had the right star, is because it led them to Christ. You see
that? It led them to Christ, and not
only did it lead them to Christ, but when they found, they actually
sought Him, and found Him, and when they saw Him, they worshipped
Him. They worshipped Him. How did they see the Lord Jesus
Christ? When they walked in the stable, there He was, lying in
a manger, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and here's His mother
and Joseph, and And what do they do? They come in and they immediately
fall down and they worship Him. Do you see? Do you see that's
what they did? Do you remember the scripture we read? They fall
down and they worship Him. They fall down and they worship
Him. They didn't worship Mary. They didn't pay off His parents.
They gave Him gifts. They gave Him gold and frankincense
and myrrh. God brought them to Christ. God
led them to Him. God taught them who He was. And
they saw Him. And when they saw Him in His
appearance, what did He look like? Strong. He looked like
a king, didn't He? He had a crown on His head. A
scepter in His right hand. And He's sitting on a throne.
Not at all. He's in total weakness. Total weakness. The humiliation
of a child. absolutely vulnerable. You see,
when God leads us to Christ, we have to see Him in two ways.
We have to see Him, both of these ways are in the eyes of faith.
We have to see Him as Isaiah describes Him, in His humiliation. Having come into this world He
who is in the form of God thought it not robbery to be made equal
with God. He made himself of no reputation. He took upon himself
the form of a servant, and being found in fashion as a man, he
humbled himself and became obedient to death, even the death of the
cross. The Lord Jesus Christ was in his weakness, and God's
sight he gives to us must give us an eye to see him in his total
weakness. that he became weak. He says
in I think it's 1 Corinthians 8, 9, he says, You know the grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, though he
was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through
his poverty might be made rich. Here Christ is made poor and
weak and humbled in the form of a man, in a baby, and they
see him that way. But they had another sight given
to them by God, and that's that they saw Him as the Lord's Christ. They didn't just see Him as a
baby. He wasn't just a man, and He wasn't just a little man.
He was God Himself, and they saw that, and they worshipped
Him. They worshipped This little baby,
because they knew this baby was God with us. God promised the
star that would rise out of Jacob and have the scepter, the rule
over not only God's people, but the rule over all things in heaven
and earth. They understood that. You see
this same pattern throughout scripture. Remember the thief
on the cross? He sees Christ in his weakness, utterly beaten,
spit upon, bloody, naked, and hanging there helpless before
men who mocked him, and kings who imagined they had power over
him. And he's hanging there, dying. And the thief looks at
him and he says, Lord, Lord, do you see that? That's seeing
Him with eyes of faith, both in His weakness and in His humiliation
for me. And His victory and triumph over
sin and death for me. That's seeing Christ both in
His weakness and His strength. And you see it in several ways. Remember when I'm thinking of Thomas when Thomas
said, I won't believe until I see the print of the nails in his
hands and put my hand right into his side where they thrust the
spear. And Jesus says, appears and he says, Thomas, look at
my hands and see the nail prints and put your hand there and put
your hand in my side and don't be faithless but believing. And
Thomas looks upon the Lord Jesus Christ with his wounds and he
says, My Lord! My God! And He fell down and
worshipped Him. You see, we have to see Christ
both in His work for us and made humble in order to pay for our
sins and satisfy God and fulfill all righteousness for us and
we must see Him in His power having conquered sin. And so
this is what the Gospel is, you see. The Gospel is often defined
by many things, but Scripture makes it abundantly clear. What
is the Gospel? The Gospel is how Christ died
for our sins, according to the Scripture. It's about how He
was buried and how He rose again the third day according to the
Scripture. That's 1 Corinthians 1. 15 verse 1 through 4, it speaks
there specifically what the gospel is. And it's not just the fact
that he died, it's what he accomplished by his death. The gospel is the
good news about who Jesus is and what he did in And not only
what he did physically, but what he accomplished by it. You see
a lot of people interested in the death of Christ. Oh my, they
hang crosses around their neck. And here they have a picture
or some kind of a thing on the cross. And they even have these
things on his head. And he's bloody and all these
things. And they want to conjure up in your mind this picture
of Jesus and all these things. Those are idolatry. That is idolatry. Christ is not on the cross. He's
on the throne. He actually accomplished what
God sent him to do. It's not the blood and the gore.
It's the substitution for sin. Who required the death of Christ? God himself. It was answering
to God's justice. It was God's will that he came
to fulfill. It was God's will. And it was
God's justice he came to satisfy. God set him forth as a propitiation
for our sins. God set him forth. Remember when,
in the book of Exodus, when were the children of Israel brought
out of Egypt? When God saw the blood. He said,
when I see the blood, I'll pass over you. It's what God thinks
of Christ that makes all the difference. That's what the gospel
is. It's about what he accomplished
and what God thought of what he did. It's about him. Not only
is this spoken of in 1 Corinthians 15, but another place I think
the gospel is concisely defined is, and I want you to see this.
Perhaps you would memorize this verse, even today as you think
about it. Think about this verse. Take
it home and mull it over in your mind. What is being said here?
This is phenomenal. It's amazing. Let the light of
Scripture, like the moon, reflect The brightness of the sun in
your heart and let Christ rise in your heart. Look at this in
Romans chapter 8. He says, verse 34. You know what the devil's name
is? The accuser, the slanderer. That's what devil and Satan means.
The devil's job, his operation is to accuse and to slander God's
people, to accuse them before God. And so, not only does he
do this, but his servants do this. And they want to not only
accuse God's people, but in accusing them they want to accuse God
of an injustice. And God sets up the courtroom
right here in Romans chapter 8. And He brings forth all of
those who would speak against His people. You're all gathered
here. Who is He that condemneth? It
is Christ that died. Who died? Christ died. The King. The one who is the judge. The
righteous judge who rules over all things. He laid down his
life. He became a servant. He became
a man. And he bore the sins of his people.
And he actually purged them from their sins. He took them away.
And not only that, he says, yea rather, that is risen again. If God required the death of
Christ, Who raised Him from the dead? It was God, wasn't it?
If God raised Him from the dead, whose death He required, what
is God saying by that? Everything that God required
of Him in His death was completely and satisfactorily fulfilled
by Him. He did all He had to do in order
to put sin away in order to remove the curse of the law, in order
to destroy death, in order to destroy the works of the devil.
He did that all. He rose again. And then it says,
not only did he rise again, he's even at the right hand of God.
And he also makes intercession for us. There he stands. The
one who shed his blood. The one who served God. Who said
in his heart, I love my master. I love my wife. I love my children.
I will not go out free. And he laid his life down a ransom. for his people, purchased them
with his own blood. And there he stands before God
in his justice. And God in his very nature, he
finds in his very nature this justice that must condemn sin. Must condemn sin. But also in
God's nature is this He cannot not be gracious. He
has to be gracious. And in order to reconcile these
things, Christ steps forward. He makes peace between God and
us. He satisfies God's justice and
makes a way for Him to be both just and the justifier of him
that believeth in Jesus. And this is what Christ did,
and so God has highly exalted Him and given Him a name, which
is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee
should bow. This is what the Magi saw. This
is the Gospel. Now I want to point this out
about the Gospel, and this is important. There were two men,
two men who have made an impact on all of creation, all of humanity. These two men, Adam and Christ. And I want you to think about
this now, because this is something that I think it would be helpful
for us to understand in order to understand the gospel. This
is what the gospel is. Adam lived for 900 and some years,
I don't remember. But there was only a short interval
of his life in the garden where God made him stand for all those
who would ever be born to Adam. And made him stand as their representative
and gave him one commandment. Do not eat of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil. And when Adam sinned and he took
that fruit and ate of that tree, everyone he represented fell
into sin, became guilty. And when they were born, received
from him a corrupt and sinful nature. And they came under the
condemnation of sin. So that the sentence of God's
death was upon them. They spiritually died. They were
going to physically die. And they were going to live,
they were going to eternally die too. This is Adam. It was
a history. Adam had a history. He had a
people. All that were in him. were dealt
with in his history. When he fell, they fell. When
he sinned, they sinned. When he became guilty, they became
guilty. When he died, they died. As in
Adam, 1 Corinthians 15, 22, all die. As in Adam, all die. Not one
exception. Every man in Adam is dead and
the nature they receive is darkness. There is none that understandeth,
none that doeth good. Darkness. Now I mention Adam
because the Lord Jesus Christ is the second, the last Adam. He also had a history. In the course of human history,
there's Adam. And from him flows the whole
human race. And in that stream of human history,
God sends forth his son, the second, the last Adam. God also
places him as the representative of his people. Not every man,
only his people. And he stands for them. Everything
God required of them, he would have to do. But unlike Adam,
the Lord Jesus Christ had a much greater load to bear. Adam, he
started out without sin and he only had to avoid one tree. Christ had to come and bear the
obligations, all the penalty of sin, all the guilt and the
shame of sin that his people had incurred to Adam. And so
he bore that, but in bearing that, that would be the fulfillment
of the obedience that God required from his people. Everything Christ
did was all that God required of them. And Christ's history,
his birth, his life, his sufferings, his temptations, His beatings,
his death, his burial and his resurrection is the history that
is counted and charged to his people. Do you see this? This
is the gospel. The gospel is about the history
of one man and all those in him whom he represented. So when
Christ stood and acted for his people, All that he did, God
received from him with them. He did it in their name and he
did it to God. He did it according to God's
requirement. It was God that required it and
God received it. When he raised Christ from the
dead, all God required was fulfilled. There's two things about this
history I want you to know. And know this well too. Because
in the history of the Lord Jesus Christ, it happened in a slot
of time, an interval of time. There was a beginning and there
was an end. And at the end of his life, when he hung on the
cross, what were the last words that he said? It is finished. It is finished. He had completed
the will of God, done it all. And his history with his people
was completed. And not only was it finished,
but what God required was perfectly fulfilled by him. It was not
only completed, but it was perfect. By one offering, he hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified. In his history, he had a much
greater load to bring, a much greater requirement. He had to
establish not only a righteousness, but an everlasting righteousness.
Not only did he have to, unlike Adam who came in perfect, he
came in and had to reconcile God to his people. He had to
bear the weight of their sin. And He did all of this. And when
He cried, it is finished, it was done. They were reconciled. God was reconciled to them. Justice
was satisfied. Look at Isaiah 53. I want you
to see these things. This is the gospel. It's important.
It's essential. This is the light God's speaking
about. If we miss this light, we miss
Christ. Isaiah chapter 53. He says this. There in verse 10 through 12,
look at this, verse 10 through 12. It pleased the Lord to bruise
him. God hath put him to grief. When
it says he, it means God. God the Father put him to grief
when thou shalt make his soul, not just his body, but his human
soul an offering for sin. He shall see his seed. That means
his descendants, his children. He shall prolong his days, eternal
life, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
Everything that pleases God would be fully met by what Christ did. He shall see the travail of his
soul and shall be satisfied. By his knowledge, the Lord Jesus
Christ, by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify
many." How? He shall bear their iniquity. Do you see that? This is wonderful. This is amazing and surprising
beyond words that God would fix. He would reconcile all things
for His people with Himself. Declare His name and shine the
light of the gospel and do His work and shine the light on it
in this one thing which Christ did. He justified His people
by His death, by bearing their sins away from God. Blessed is
the man whose sins are forgiven and whose iniquities are purged. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord will not impute sin. And that is what God has done
here in the Lord Jesus Christ. He imputed our sin to Christ,
and He imputed Christ's righteousness to us. He hath made Him to be
sin for us. He who knew no sin, that we might
be made, we who knew no righteousness, made the righteousness of God
in Him. Christ has done it all. The history,
it's done. God declares this. Stand still,
Moses said to the Israelites at the Red Sea, and see the salvation
of the Lord. That's what the gospel is. It
says stand still, sit down, and look. Look at Christ and Him
crucified. That's the gospel. And when God
gives us the light of this in our souls, it's His light shining. Look at 2 Corinthians chapter
4. I'm running out of time here to get to the second two points.
Perhaps I'll touch on them next time. This is the important thing. I want you to see this. There's
the opposition. We won't have time to get to that today, but
look at 2 Corinthians 4, in verse 4. In fact, look at verse 3. If our gospel be hid, it is hid
to them that are lost. in whom the God of this world
hath blinded the minds of them which believe not." You see,
our minds are blind when we don't believe. You see that? If we
believe, we see. If we do not believe, we're blind.
That's what it's saying. Anyway, the God of this world
has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light
of the glorious gospel of Christ Who is the image of God should
shine to them. For we preach not ourselves.
We're the stars. We point to the light. But Christ
Jesus the Lord and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake.
How do you know the difference between a true star, a good star,
a God-sent star, and a wandering star? Like it says in Jude. The difference is that a false
gospel, a false message will always do two things. It will
lead you to look at something in addition to or other than
Christ and it will bring recognition to the one who's preaching it.
It will bring attention to them. It will exalt them. This is the
whole thrust of religion. Religion does this, which is
opposed to God. The greatest sin that men commit,
according to Martin Luther, is religious sin. And that's true. I think he was right on that.
There's no question. And religion does this, false gospels do this. They point you to everything
except Christ. And sometimes, and most of the
time, they're so subtle and deceptive in the way they do this, is they
actually take something good, and they exalt it to a point
where it rivals or surpasses the Lord Jesus Christ. If you
understand this, then you understand the last two points, which we're
not going to get to. But Paul says, we do not preach ourselves. We preach Christ the Lord. And
oh by the way, we are your servants for Jesus' sake. If you want to know a true minister
from a false one, see what he does. Does he lift up Christ
to your eyes and make Christ appear large to you? And then
step back. I don't want that recognition.
Do not give me credit. For anything, Christ is all. Or does he say, you know, you
really need me to help you understand the scripture. You really need
me to do all these things. So that you become so dependent
upon that person. And you look to that person and
begin to exalt that person. And if you get away from that
person, you think you've practically lost your salvation. No. I know
people who have made it seem like the only one who can really
understand scripture is them. That's a false Christ. That's
an antichrist. Antichrist means someone who
comes and stands in the place Christ ought to occupy. That's
what false religion does. And the way it does this is subtle,
because it takes something which seems good, and it puts it alongside
of, or in the place of, and makes it rival Christ. For example,
good works. It's important. You know, if
you don't do good works, you're not saved. And so men begin to
look at what they do and they think, well, I'm saved because
I do these things. And they begin to trust in what they do. It's
a natural development. But God never meant it that way.
Good works is the fruit, but not the cause of our salvation.
We never look To our good works we look to Christ, and in looking
to Him, good works do make themselves known. It's the works that God
has ordained we should walk in. Everything is like this. One
of the more subtle ones is, and this is something that I heard
a famous evangelist say one time. He said, the greatest news in
all the world is that you can be born again. Now that is not
the greatest news in all the world. There's even a song. I
used to listen to a group called the second chapter of Acts and
it's called the Easter songs. Hear the bells ringing, hear
the bells singing, you can be born again. That is not the gospel. The gospel is not you can be
born again. The gospel is the history of
what Christ has done. This is what the Lord Jesus Christ...
Why did God deliver His own Son up to death? In order to establish
everlasting righteousness, obtain eternal redemption, reconcile
God, perfect them, bring them to Him, the just for the unjust,
bringing us to God. This is what God has done in
Christ. To exalt anything, the experience in our lives, is to,
above Christ or even alongside it, is to put Christ to the side. We have to be careful. Guard
the Gospel. The Gospel is about what Christ
has done. The Gospel is about who He is
and what He's done. And faith always looks to Christ
in the Gospel. Isaiah 53, 1 Corinthians 15,
Romans 8-34, these things, Romans 3, 24-26, these things tell us the Gospel very
plainly. Make sure we don't miss it. It's
what God received from His Son and how God responds to what
He received from His Son. And faith, the light God gives
by His Spirit, causes us to see the glory of God. That He would do this in His
Son. The glory of Christ that He would offer Himself so willingly.
His power that He would be able to bring Himself in the courtroom
of God and get God's justice to stand on the side of the sinner
to the glory of God. That's amazing. That's what the
gospel is. And when we see the gospel, everything
else fades away. Christ becomes huge. And our
experiences become just the blessings that flow from what He's done.
But you never get the blessings by looking to the blessings.
The blessings come only by looking to Christ and Him crucified.
I hope we see that. I hope we see that. The gospel
is distorted by the devil. The gospel is lied about in false
religion. And our souls depend on understanding
Christ and Him crucified. How did the wise men know they
found Christ? God led them to Him. They heard
the word of God. They saw His light and they came
to Christ and they worshipped Him. They gave everything to
Him. No gift too great for the Lord Jesus Christ. Did they do
this in order to get something from Him? That's what we do naturally,
isn't it? We try to manipulate God by bringing
something of ourselves to Him. Get Him to think less harshly
of me by doing something good. Or we're afraid of God so we
try to make sure we avoid doing wrong so that He'll bless us.
All those things are total sinful works. The only way God can bless
us is if He blesses us in Christ. And that's it. If God could add
anything to what Christ had done, then Christ would have to die
again. God can't even add to what Christ has done. Who are
we to think that we can? Who are we to say what God declares
to be very good and clean is somehow not clean and not very
good? What Christ has done is everything.
It's a history, it's completed, and it's perfect. God has received
it, and now, because of that, His people are saved. The Holy
Spirit is poured out in order to bring the light of the gospel
to us in the weakness and helplessness of our darkness. And that's the
good news. When I hear about what Christ
has done, and that salvation depends entirely upon Him, I
just relax. I just feel so thankful in my
soul. I don't know about you, but it
just does for me what nothing else can do. I'm just so thankful. And I know that's what the wise
men, we found Him, of whom Moses and the prophets and the law
wrote, Christ. Let's pray. Father, thank you
for your Word. We pray, Lord, that we would
not be like these scribes who knew the Scriptures, but didn't
know the God of Scriptures, didn't know the Lord Jesus Christ, the
light, the message of Scripture. Lord, we pray that we would also
not be found collaborating with that wicked one. with Antichrist
and with the devil in order to rival and take the place of what
Jesus has done and who he is in his exalted glory by something
we can do or something we can produce or experience or feel
or any of these things. Lord, we live by faith alone.
Our righteousness is in heaven and we take your word when you
said of him, of yourself, are we made the righteousness of
God in him. He is our righteousness, our
redemption, our sanctification. He's everything to us. God Himself,
in all of His infinitude, has made Himself to us what He is
in Christ. And we thank you, Lord, that
all you are, you've made to your people in Christ. And all we
need from you is in Him. And all we are to you is found
in Him. We thank you and bless you and
we praise Lord that you would give us this light in our souls.
The day star rising in our souls that we might live to God for
his glory, worshiping him, believing his son, loving his people, and
going forth with the sword of his word to bring victory through
the power of his spirit and bring his sons and daughters from afar.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.