Luke chapter 1, and then we'll
look at Matthew chapter 2, but we'll look at this one first.
We'll read several verses. Luke chapter 1, verse 26 through
35. And in the sixth month, the angel
Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee named Nazareth. 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 in unto her
and said, Hail, thou art highly favored. The Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was
troubled at his saying and cast in her mind what manner of salutation
this should be. And the angel said unto her,
Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favor with God. And behold,
thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt
call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall
be called the Son of the Highest, and the Lord God shall give unto
him the throne of his father David. And he shall reign over
the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom there shall be no
end. Then said Mary unto the angel,
How shall this being seen? I know not a man. And the angel
answered her and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon
thee, and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee. Therefore
also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called
the Son of God. Now turn with me to Matthew chapter
2. Now we know that Mary The birth of the Lord was at
Bethlehem, but she was conceived at Nazareth. The Holy Ghost came
upon her in Nazareth. And then you remember they had
to flee, and they went to Bethlehem, and then the birth of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And it states this a little clearer
in Matthew chapter 2. Matthew chapter 2 and one verse,
the last verse. Well, let's look. they fled and they were birthing
and they end up coming back to Nazareth. And verse 23, And he
came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, which it might be fulfilled
which was spoken by the prophets. He shall be called a Nazarene. He shall be called a Nazarene.
And that's what I want to look at. I've never really looked
at this in depth. The Nazarene. Simply the Nazarene. So let us First, before we look
at this specific Nazarene, the Lord Jesus Christ, let's look
at another one, Samson. Turn with me to Judges chapter
13. Judges chapter 13. First we're
going to look at Samson as a type of Christ. Samson as a type of
Christ. the Nazarite. Judges chapter
13 verse 1, And the children of
Israel did evil again in the sight of the LORD, and the LORD
delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty years.
And there was a certain man of Zorah, of the family of Dananites,
whose name was Manoah. And his wife was barren and bare
not. And 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 bear a son. Now,
therefore, beware, I pray thee, and drink not wine, nor strong
drink, and eat not anything unclean thing. For lo, thou shalt conceive
and bear a son, and no razor shall come on his head. For the
child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb. and He shall
begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines."
This passage in Judges is a snapshot of our Lord Jesus Christ. The
wording, and I don't know if you noticed it, but the wording
between the angel speaking to Manoah's wife and the angel speaking
to Mary The wording is very, very similar. But thou shalt conceive and bear
a son. Lo, thou shalt conceive and bear
a son. That's exactly the same wording.
It's almost identical to what the angel said to Mary. Okay, so the illustration between
Samson and the birth of Samson and the birth of our Lord is
very striking. The word Nazarite, Nazarene, is from the Hebrew
word Nazar, or simply means to separate, to be separate, or
to separate. Now, as Samson was, as it were,
first it says that he's separated in his mother's womb to be holy
unto God. Who's that sound like? Lord Jesus
Christ. And secondly, what he was told
he was going to do was going to be a deliverer or a savior
of his people. Those two things sound familiar. And if you want to look at the
vows and the whatnots, the historical account of the Nazarene, you
would look at Numbers 6, which we won't turn there. But Numbers
6 and verse 2, it says, not to shave their hair, but they're
to be separated unto God for the work which He would have
them do. First of all, Christ our Lord was holy, harmless,
and undefiled. It says he was separate from
sinners. Specifically, Hebrews 7 verse 26. Christ is that pure
one, that lovely one, the immaculate one, the holy one of God. And
I quote Scott Richardson. Beautiful quote in one of the
bulletins I got this week. The voice of the cross did not
summon men to do, but to be satisfied with what was done. Now listen
to this. it is finished. The sacrifice
of the Lord Jesus Christ is the only perfect thing which has
ever been presented to God on man's behalf. The sacrifice of the Lord Jesus
Christ is the only perfect thing which has ever been presented
to God on man's behalf and indeed Leviticus chapter 22 and verse
21 says, And whosoever offered the sacrifice, a peace offering
to the Lord, to accomplish his vow, or a freewill offering in
beefs or sheep, it shall be perfect. to be accepted. The sacrifice
shall be perfect to be accepted. There shall be no blemish therein. That's Leviticus 22 and verse
21. That's the first thing. Christ
was separated unto God from birth, before birth. Secondly, He, Christ, as Samson
was prophesied or spoken of in the Law and the Prophets, was
to deliver His people. Well, as this book states over
and over and over again, in Matthew 121, Christ was brought forth
and He was going to save His people from their sins. So this
is the second area in which Samson is a type of Christ. Christ has
either saved or done so successfully or he did not do it unsuccessfully. There's not a partial savior. He either saved his people from
their sins successfully or he was unsuccessful. And one after
another, the Scriptures declares that He hath put away sin by
the sacrifice, perfect sacrifice of Himself. Hebrews 9, 26. Isaiah
53, 11 says that He shall see the travail of His soul and be
satisfied. He will justify many. And then
in verse 12, that Christ bear the sin of many and made intercession
for the transgressors. So, we've seen this one Samson
as He portrays our blessed Sovereign, the Lord Jesus Christ. Set aside, and He was going to deliver.
He was going to deliver. He shall deliver. Secondly, now
this is the part that I had never really seen, never thought about. I don't know Greek. I don't know
Hebrew. So I have to use tools. But I do have an interlinear Greek Bible, which has the New
Testament and it's written out in Greek with everything, how
it was given to our forefathers. Secondly, I proffer, Christ is
the only true Nazarene. The only true Nazarene. And here's what I found referring
to Jesus of Nazareth. And you don't have to look at
these passages, I have them written down. In Matthew 26-71, Mark
1-24, Mark 10-47, Mark 14-67, John 18-5, John 19-9, Acts 2-22,
Acts 3-6, Acts 4-10, and Acts 22-8. It all says specifically,
Jesus of. Nazareth, or Jesus of Nazareth
is how it's worded. Well, let's just look at one,
John chapter 18. Verse 18, verse 4, Jesus therefore
knowing all things that should come upon him, went forth and
said unto them, Whom seek ye? And they answered him, Jesus
of Nazareth. And Jesus said unto them, I am
he. I am he. Now this passage, every place
that I've mentioned here where it says Jesus of Nazareth, I
look at that interlinear Bible and it's Jesus the Nazarene. And you know the difference between
of and thee. You know the difference between
thee, Savior, and a Savior. That means there's no other one.
There's no other name, says Acts, given among men whereby we must
be saved. I just thought this was more
than interesting. So all these passages used in
the King James Version and I even looked at the Amplified Version
and some of them had Jesus the Nazarene and some of them had
as the King James. The original in the Greek is
stated Jesus the Nazarene. Now indeed this is true because
you look at Samson and you look at it in numbers and all these
men who had the Nazarite vow, they were just men. Samson, sin,
all these different, man's heart is evil from birth and we know
that all shadows and types in the Old Testament are just that. No man, even Samson, even the
picture, that's where the pictures fall short in the types. Christ
is the fulfillment of all those. He fell, as Samson did, except
the Nazarene, except the Lord Jesus Christ, He is the embodiment
and sum and substance of what a Nazarite was to be. He was completely set apart,
never sinned, He had no sin, and He completely, perfectly
satisfied all requirements, everything the law was against us, and nailed
Him to the tree, because only He is our true Redeemer. Christ only is the Nazarene,
completely separated from sin in Himself, never did any sin,
never would sin, yet He was to deliver all His chosen ones from
sin by taking all of our sins upon Himself as our great and
glorious substitute. He laid down His life, the scripture
says, freely, freely. That's what the word is. So we
would not die eternally. This, I believe, was God's design
to give His begotten Son the preeminence, because we know
He must have the preeminence, and glory due His righteous name
as the Nazarene. He finds this perfect fulfillment
in type. Now, let's look at one of the
last things. Let's look a little further at
this place called Nazareth. Nazareth. It's a place. It's
a village. Really, literally. What was this
place and how was it viewed by the religious folks of the day,
by people of the day? We'll turn to John chapter 1.
John chapter 1. This shows the immensity, the
beauty, the awfulness of the humility that our Lord voluntarily
took upon Himself for us. Okay, what was this place, what
was it viewed by the folks at that time? John chapter 1 and
verse 46, and Nathanael said unto him, can there any good
thing come out of Nazareth? Can any good thing, they're talking
down about the town, they're talking down about the village.
Can anything good come out of it? Acts chapter 24. Acts chapter
24. Paul is trying to speak to Ananias
the high priest and he's going to court. And he says in verse 3 of Acts
24, Paul says, we accept it always and in all places, most noble
Felix, with all thankfulness, notwithstanding that I be not
further tedious unto thee, I pray thee that thou wouldest hear
us of thy clemency a few words. And this is the folks bringing
accusation against Paul. For he said, for we have found
this man a pestilent fellow and a mover of sedition among all
the Jews throughout the world and a ringleader of the sect
of the Nazarenes. A pestilent fellow. A ringleader
of the sect of the Nazarenes. Our Lord was in a state of humiliation
from His birth. And I didn't realize this, but
He spent 5, 6 or 83%. 83% of His life was in Nazarene. Because when
He was 30, then He went to His public ministry. So he spent most of his life
in this town, this lowly village of Nazareth. humiliation. He was in danger of execution
because he had to be born, had to flee here. So his family,
his spouse, his child, they had a child. They fled from Herod
to go to Egypt. And even as a nursing child,
the sufferings began and they rode hard upon him, even unto
death. He was always, whether he was a carpenter or not, he
was a carpenter's son. So this type of work was nothing
Great, it wasn't grand, there was no pomp and circumstance.
Nazareth was a small town in Galilee, obscure, a poor settlement,
nothing like Hebron, or Shiloh, or Bethel, which were far more
substantial and important places biblically for trade, and as
the world sees things, yet God chose this place to rear up His
child. This is humility. This is one
acquainted with grief from birth. We don't know anything about
that. We have it well here. We have it well here. There's
places Melinda and I will drive in the country and it's just
like they're just on the other side of the tracks. They're not
very attractive. People clean up their yard, do something.
It's just like why do people live that way? Nazareth was not
a It wasn't a well populated and it wasn't a prestigious town. His parents, when he was offered
at the sacrifice, they brought a pair, to Simeon as we saw last
week, they brought a pair of turtle doves to offer for him
to the priest. They had to offer something.
If you had money, you offer a lamb. If you were poor, you had turtle
doves. That's what we saw according
to the law. This was humiliation. Thirdly,
he lived in Nazareth, as I said, for 30 years or 83% of his life. You can see that in Luke 3.23. Our Redeemer's life was spent
here in Nazareth, that lowly village, that common village
among the poor of this world. Truly, this was humility. He was, so to speak, outside
the large, bustling centers of the world. As a young man, he
began his public ministry to the mockings and cruel hatred
of the majority, to then be crucified outside the camp of Jerusalem. And he did all this on purpose. On purpose. This was his predestinated
purpose. He did all this to redeem us
to God, complete perfection, redemption. He did this to honor
His Father supremely, to honor His Father. And He did this to
call a people unto Himself. He came and He finished all the
work and left nothing for us to do. O man of Nazareth, surely
we can learn of Him, follow Him, love Him, and tell others about
Him. It's not popular. There's not
a lot of pomp and circumstance. But this is Jesus the Nazarene. And I truly believe that this
book is completely about our Lord, even as we have seen here
today. I never would have thought of
it. I was reading somebody, and they
pointed that out. And I said, well, how would I know? Well,
I started looking in every place. Jesus the Nazarene, set aside
from birth, because He was the Lamb slain before the foundation
of the world. And everything He did was perfect. It had to
be perfect to be accepted of the Lord. And He did truly deliver
His people from their sin. Jesus the Nazarene. May He bless us or we will truly
not be blessed. So when you think about Bethlehem
and you think about Nazareth, it's interesting to look and
see what God says about these places. And it says something
about His character. He wasn't interested in making
a name for himself, a position. He was not interested in those
things. It says his face was set as a
flint. He was in a straight until it
was accomplished. And I am so thankful. I am so
glad now we have liberty and freedom and the love of God shed
abroad in our hearts. What an amazing Savior, the Nazarene. Nathan, would you close this?