Bible Survey Course 2024-2025 - Day 7

And then we're going to hear from a couple of the students, and then we're going to um, hear from the Word, and then carry on with our day. So let's begin with prayer.

Our Father in heaven, thank you for this day, a day that you've given us to glorify you. So may we do that; may we glorify you in what we do today, in our time here, and the attention we give to um, studying and looking at your Word. Lord, will you bless us now as we come to you, um, giving our worship to you, expressing our gratitude for our great salvation in Christ? We thank you for that, and we just want you to be pleased with us as we uh, live for your glory because of all that you've done for us. You've changed us; you've made us new. And so, Lord, we give our worship as we give our hearts to you. Please bless your Word as it is preached. We pray this for Jesus' sake. Amen. Amen.

You can stand, and we will sing. We will [Music]

And can it be that I should gain

An interest in the Savior's blood?

Died he for me, who caused his pain?

For me, who him to death pursued?

Amazing love, how can it be

That thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

Amazing love, how can it be

That thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

He left his Father's throne above,

So free, so infinite his grace;

Emptied himself of all but love,

And bled for Adam's helpless race.

His mercy, oh, how free, oh my God, it found out me.

Oh, immense and free, oh my God, it found out me.

Long my imprisoned spirit lay,

Fast bound in sin and nature's night;

Thy light diffused a quickening ray,

I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;

My chains fell off, my heart was free;

I rose, went forth, and followed thee.

My chains fell off, my heart was free;

I rose, went forth, and followed thee.

No condemnation now I dread;

Jesus, and all in him, is mine;

Alive in him, my living head,

And clothed in righteousness divine.

Lord, I approach the eternal throne,

And claim the crown through Christ my own.

Lord, I approach the eternal throne,

And claim the crown through Christ my own.

But I approach the eternal throne,

And claim the crown through Christ my own.

I stand amazed in the presence of Jesus the Nazerene,

And wonder how He could love me, a sinner condemned, unclean.

How marvelous, how wonderful, and my song shall ever be,

How marvelous, how wonderful is my Savior's love for me.

He took my sins and my sorrows, He made them His very own;

He bore the burden to Calvary, and suffered and died. [Music]

How marvelous, how wonderful, and my song shall ever be,

How marvelous, how wonderful is my Savior's love for me.

When with the ransomed in glory his face I at last shall see,

'Twill be my joy through the ages to sing of his love for me.

How marvelous, how wonderful, and my song shall ever be,

How marvelous, how wonderful is my Savior's love for me.

How marvelous, how wonderful, and my song shall ever be,

How marvelous, how wonderful is my Savior's love for me.

You can be seated. [Music]

What two great songs, songs that we should know that express indeed what Christ has accomplished for us and then how we worship Him because of that. Just wonderful truths in those songs. I love both of them.

Well, uh, I told you guys to be ready as we're going to have a couple of students come up and uh, speak to us about what they're learning this year. So we'll start with Maria, and then you can come up after. I gave them a time limit this time. Oh boy.

Well, good morning. First of all, um, second of all, uh, with regards to year two specifically, this has been such a blessing um, of a year thus far. I'm very grateful for all the things that we're learning. As you know, it's hermeneutics and theology, uh, but I think the the thing that I'm encouraged by the most is how practical um, the courses are, and and there's a lot of effort behind that, um, both from the theology standpoint and learning the different doctrines that we stand by and also the alternatives in how people interpret things differently and arrive at different conclusions. Um, but it's also helpful to digest what we believe in to an extent or to to the degree that we would be able to explain it to others, um, which I find extremely helpful because there's so many things that I knew where I stood, but I didn't necessarily know why or I couldn't necessarily explain it um, with detail to someone else, and now I think I can do that with with several doctrines, and for that I'm very grateful. And then um, with hermeneutics, um, it's practical in the sense that you're getting the tools to read your Word and and understand the Word and interpret the Word faithfully, um, and in that same path understanding why other people arrive at a different conclusion, which was something that I personally was struggling with—not understanding why we all have the same scriptures but we arrived at different conclusions, and there's such different camps and such different perspectives on the same verse. Um, now being able to understand why and being able to to also read the Word confidently and in the faithful pursuit to understand what the author intended, which is the Lord, um, so I'm very grateful to be given those tools and and and to be able to apply those tools in my personal life, but also in how I share my walk in the Lord with others, and I'm very encouraged by them. So I would encourage you all to as well um, consider year two if you are considering it and persevere um, if you are already taking it. Yeah, that's it. Thank you.

I um, haven't thought for it for the last 10 minutes. Um, uh, Hermeneutics has been so far a blessing in um, so many ways, but the most impactful, um, I had to repent from um, believing things about God that I that are not true. So studying theology properly um, was a blessing. I didn't uh, understand how good God was, how perfect and holy He was, um, and that changed and clarified a lot of doubts and uh, um, spiritual issues that I had, um, anxiety, um, just out of understanding clearly who God is, um, and then it's been a blessing in um, hermeneutics to uh, understand the doctrine of um, the clarity of Scripture. We talk about the sufficiency of Scripture; we talk about a lot about um, um, that word a lot, but um, we don't talk about enough about the clarity of Scripture and how Scripture is clear um, in it of itself; it's self-explanatory. Um, I was worried when I started that um, we were going to learn a way of interpreting the Bible and like we're going to learn, oh, why do we believe this, and and yes, there's some sense of of of that, but I loved, for the first month, to understand that we just approach Scripture as Scripture itself tells us how to approach it, um, so Scripture itself tells us how um, how to interpret it itself, um, and that's wonderful because that gives you such uh, confidence and assurance and in the right interpretation of Scripture, um, and studying church history is this uh, not church history, but the history of hermeneutics—realizing the impact of your uh, uh, hermeneutics, how that has impacted the church throughout centuries and how important it is to have the right um, way of interpreting the Bible, um, even though there's been disagreements, um, I think if you go for the hermeneutics class you'll realize, yeah, people have made mistakes, but it's the Bible is very clear, and you can have full confidence that you have the right interpretation, although people may disagree with you.

Good. Well, it's good for you guys in uh, well, in year one and in year two to think about what you're learning and and the impact of it. You're not just going through, uh, hey, let me just learn more of the Bible, but actually thinking about, what do I do with this? It's good to hear from both of you that it's actually shaping the way you think about God, the way you think about the Bible, and your confidence in those in God and in His Word. So that's good to hear, certainly. All right, thank you. Thank you. All right, let's pray, and then we will look at the scriptures.

Well, Father, we do thank you that people are learning and growing, that it is shaping their lives, and Lord, we would expect nothing different for those who are yours and who are looking in your Word. Lord, you reveal yourself through your Word in a particular way that can't be found any other way, and so we are just so grateful for the opportunity to look, to look intently and and deeply and to learn these principles of of how to study your Word, to to see the summation of doctrine in your Word. And Lord, we thank you that we get to learn this with other people, that we can um, share these truths with, and we thank you for those who instruct us. We thank you for just the privilege of studying even on our own, and then we thank you, Lord, for these opportunities to uh, sit in chapel and just think about the application of your Word. Lord, will you bless us now as we come and open together the sacred scriptures, and may we be more like Jesus—that is always our goal, or should be—and so may that happen now. We ask, Amen.

All right, well, take your Bibles and let's go to Matthew 14. Matthew 14, to a a familiar account in the Gospels. It's the only—well, the only account um, pre uh, Passion Week that is recorded four times—the only miracle that is recorded four times uh, before the Passion Week—and that being the feeding of the 5,000. Matthew uh, chapter 14, beginning in verse 13, and it says, "Now when Jesus heard this"—that being the uh, that John the Baptist had been uh, beheaded—"Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick. Now when it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, 'This is a desolate place and the day is now over; send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves.' But Jesus said, 'They need not go away; you give them something to eat.' They said to him, 'We have only five loaves here and two fish.' And he said, 'Bring them here to me.' Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass and taking the five loaves and the two fish he looked up to heaven and said, 'A blessing.' Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds, and they all ate and were satisfied; and they took up 12 baskets full of the broken pieces left over. And those who ate were about 5,000 men besides women and children."

Well, there's many books on um, leadership principles, even principles of of discipleship um, and things of that nature, uh, there are many philosophies in general, how to get a a group of people moving in a particular direction, um, and and that's um, can be helpful depending on what the principle is, but how do you get a whole group of people moving in the same direction? And the answer is you have to affect their thinking; you have to get them thinking a particular way. Um, Dave Breese, in his book *Seven Men Who Rule the World from the Grave*, uh, he's helpful here in describing it like this, and listen carefully to this. He says, "Any ruler, no matter how numerous his weapons or great his wealth, must finally, finally rule by other means; he must rule by persuasion—the ultimate weapon through which influence of a culture is produced and sustained. The truly powerful leader must influence the minds of men." And then he says this: "To do this, he must produce in the minds of others something more, something stronger, something more compelling than what we normally call an idea. This thing he must produce within the minds of others actually exists, but in the form of a mental construct; it is an image. The influencer sets up in the minds of others an image that can become an object of occupation and then of concentration, and then, dare we say it, of veneration." End quote there. And history is full of people, and the argument he's making—Dave Breese is making in his book—is that history is is full of people who have proposed certain philosophies which have have led to ideologies by which societies and even nations have have been shaped, uh, and we know these different types of philosophies that have uh, have come into the world uh, because of that. Uh, these people who propose these philosophies do not do so innocently, but they're they're trying to rule by affecting the mind, for better or for worse; they're trying to rule by affecting the mind. And if you want to have a lasting rule over people, that's what you have to do; there has to be a rule that compels the minds of the people with a single idea or belief—belief. And so you think of the main philosophical ideas, like he argues in the books like Darwin's theory of evolution, or or Marxist socialism, or even Freud's psychoanalysis. These things have shaped nations, many nations; they've even shaped this nation; they no doubt played a a factor in your own education, um, and what was the goal of all these people is um, to gain control through affecting your mind. It's interesting though, if you think of those guys and you look into their lives, their lives are actually a mess. So if you were to look at their lives, you would you wouldn't follow them, but they don't present themselves right; they present an idea; they don't want you to follow them; they want you to follow the idea they put out um, before you. But when we come to the Gospel of Matthew, and obviously the Gospels particularly or or as a whole, but even in the Gospel of Matthew, if Jesus is a king, and He is, and if He has a kingdom, He does, um, where He where His people are are to lovingly submit to His rule, it's not enough to rule over a people as as Dave Breese says, but He wants willing subjects. Jesus doesn't want—He's not trying to drag people into the kingdom and they sit there disgruntled because they're in there. Jesus wants people who want to be in His kingdom. And so how does He do that? Well, He does that through captivating their minds and with something that cannot only be an object of occupation or of concentration, but it needs to go all the all the way to veneration or adoration for Him. He must offer them something more compelling than what they have. And as we say, as other philosophies, they try to captivate the minds through an idea, but Jesus Himself, He presents something more than an idea; He actually presents Himself, right? In other in other beliefs they say, "Think on this idea, but don't really look at me, right? Cuz if you look at them, you're going to say, 'This doesn't seem to be going too well for you.'" No, Jesus says, "No, actually look at me, right? Look at me; I am I am the thing to focus on." And that's what's going on in the life of Jesus. We are to look particularly at Him because in Him He doesn't just have an idea to think on; He has Himself to present to us that we would worship Him, that we would adore Him, and this is what He wants. When we read the Gospels, the life of Jesus as King and Messiah of the Jews is the compelling thing that Jesus presented to the people, but what makes His kingship something to embrace is that the attributes of a good king are unsurpassed by Him; that He Himself is impressive. And what's impressive about Him? Well, in the Gospel of Matthew, it is certainly His compassion and His power, or the word Matthew uses is His authority. Now this is the very opposite of what has been presented by Israel's leaders—the Pharisees, the scribes; they present ideas, um, and matter of fact, this section, this whole section is built around uh, the failure of the scribes and Pharisees. This is a—I believe that the feeding of the 5,000 is actually the beginning of a chiasm, and you guys know what a chiasm is; we've talked about it before, right? You have these parallel structures beginning on the outside and then working its way all the way to the inside. And if you just look and just scan chapters 14 and 15 with me very quickly, you'll you'll see what I mean. So in chapter 14:13-21, you have the feeding of the 5,000. You go to the end of chapter 15; you have the feeding of the 4,000. The 5,000 is a is a Jewish congregation, right, crowd; the 4,000 is a Gentile congregation, okay? And then you just look after the feeding of the 5,000; you have Jesus walking on water, and you have the disciples uh, afraid, them crying out in in fear, um, and then notice how it ends in verse 31: "Jesus immediately reached out His hand and took hold of him, saying to him, 'Oh, you of little faith, why did you doubt?'" Right? And then they conclude that He is the Son of God based on all of this; they worship Him in light of that. Well, look before the feeding of the 4,000; you have the Canaanite, the faith of the Canaanite woman. Now she herself, she begins crying out to Him; she cries out as well—they cried out uh, when they saw Him walking on the water—she cries out for help herself because of her demon-oppressed daughter, and she from the very beginning says, "Oh, Lord, Son of David." And then she demonstrates faith, so that in chapter 15:28, Jesus says to her, "Then Jesus answered her, 'Oh, woman, great is your faith.'" So you see the contrast there: "Oh, you of little faith," and then on the other side, "Great is your faith," okay? And what's in the middle? Well, what's in the middle here is chapter, beginning of chapter 15: "Traditions and Commandments," as is uh, written in in my Bible, or at least the heading they put in there, right? What are the Pharisees presenting? They're presenting to the people traditions that are actually silencing the actual commandments of God, and what they're doing then is offering a is um, verse 29: "In vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men." So Jesus is then laying out to His disciples in this section how not to operate by the traditions of the Pharisees and scribes, but how to operate by the principles that He lays out, but He doesn't just lay out as an idea, but He actually practices. And so this whole section then seems to be focused on that reality—Jesus shifting their mindset away from the the Pharisaic thinking about things into the way He would have them think and lead His people. Matter of fact, all of this after the feeding of the 4,000, it goes into chapter 16, where He tells them, "Be careful of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees." And that's where all this is building up to: Hey, don't operate by their traditions; follow Me; follow Me; operate by the way uh, by what you've seen from Me and what He has taught them. Now um, all that being said, um, in Matthew 14:13, there there's obviously a change in His ministry; we understand what's going on here, um, and chapters 11 and 12, Jesus speaks about the rejection that He has received. Chapter 13 is the parables of the kingdom by which He hides truth from those who have rejected Him and reveals truth to those who are following Him. Jesus is rejected in Nazareth by His own people; John the Baptist has been put to death in the beginning of chapter 14, and Jesus knows now that the end—that His own death is impending; His time with the disciples is short. So He needs to impress upon them what is true principles of leadership, and we can say even of discipleship. How does He want to affect their minds? What should they be pulling from Him? And we're going to look at this, and we'll just simply see three things um, that they are to pull from Jesus' ministry. They should understand His compassion for His people, the responsibility for His people, and then the authority or power to meet His people's needs. So let's look at this passage from those three angles. First, the compassion for the people is what He demonstrates and wants them to learn. Now verse 13: "Now when Jesus heard this"—heard that John the Baptist has been put to death—"he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns." Is interesting; in Mark, when he records this, he says that Jesus tells His disciples, "Come away with Me," but Matthew particularly focuses on Jesus Himself pulling away from the crowds; He doesn't mention the disciples even though the disciples are there with Him, and we find that out a little later, um, but He pulls away because of what He has heard: John the Baptist has been put to death, and now Jesus Himself knows that, okay, they've killed the forerunner, and now it's going to be Him in the near future. But He's not withdrawing out of fear, um, we can attribute this to Him removing Himself from potential hostility and wanting time to think, pray, and be with His disciples as He needed to do, um, and Jesus will eventually get along with His disciples in the next section in verses in verse 23 and following, um, and in Mark 6:30, it says that it is the return of the 12 after being sent as we said that led to Him even um, withdrawing. Mark 6:31 tells us as well uh, that many were coming and going and they had no leisure even to eat. So Jesus is tired; He has been going through His ministry; He's been feeding—this is just a son—it's not me being anything else, okay, just side note here, um, but um, that Jesus has been feeding the 5,000; He's been teaching; He's been doing all these things, and the disciples have been sent away to do ministry, like was recorded in Matthew chapter 10. They come back, and He pulls them away on reflection, on rest, on recovery, um, Jesus was constantly working for the people, over and over; He was constantly um, exhausting Himself for the sake of His people, and we know that that's recorded in the Gospels how often He did that, um, not just healing them, but teaching them and all that goes with it. So He wants to retreat with His disciples; that's that's clear enough here. But think about this, that He goes to a desolate place by Himself, um, a place where He can be alone, a place where He can even be alone with His disciples, a place where they can rest, where they can reflect, maybe where He can pour into them individually, um, a place to pray even. He gets there; it says in verse 13, "in a boat," so He's trying to go kind of the maybe a quicker route, um, just to get there, get away from the crowds quickly before they can um, follow Him in boats as they had done before, um, it would take Him out of the region of Galilee, out of away from the people, thinking maybe they won't follow Him into a a Gentile territory; it would also take Him out of Herod's jurisdiction, so Herod couldn't catch Him and put Him to death then, as His time had not yet come. But notice the words here at the end of 13: "But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns." Um, Mark 6:33: "Now many saw them going and recognized them"—that being Jesus and the disciples—"and they ran there on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them." How desperate are these people that they would take off running and beat Jesus there? They just they need to get to Him. The people see them leaving, and they they they're running for it. Now Jesus is looking for a little R&R, right? Jesus is looking for a holiday; He's looking for a break, time with His disciples, time to get away from the crowds, but they chase after Him. Um, John 6:2 tells us why they're coming: "A great multitude was following Him because they were seeing the signs which He was performing on those who were sick," right? They wanted more of Jesus' healing ministry; they weren't thinking of why He was leaving, if He needed time alone, if He needed to catch His breath; they were thinking of their needs, their desperation to have His His help. And so verse 14 then says, "When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd." And think about that for a second: You've you've went away; you've uh, you've made plans; you've you've said, "Look, don't bother me; don't call me; don't send me a letter; I'm not even going to tell you where I'm going, right? Leave me alone," um, as we sometimes need and sometimes want to do. Jesus is going for a reprieve; He gets to His destination thinking that He'll have time alone to pray, to reflect, to pour into His disciples, and they're waiting on Him; they're waiting on Him. Once again, we could we can imagine this: Think, "Okay, guys, I'm not coming in to work for the next week; I'm I I need to get away; I've I've worked; I'm taking my time." And then you do get an email or a phone call or something, um, or even a friend calls you, right, that needs counsel or is an issue within your own family. You're thinking, you guys couldn't have had this issue like two weeks ago before I got here, um, and the frustration that can be built up because of that, right? Figure out your own problems; like it can wait till I get back. Why don't they go to someone else for their issues? Who gave them my number, right? Who gave them my number? Maybe that's a pastoral thing, right? Who gave them my number? Um, don't they know how late it is or how early it is? Don't they know what I'm going through myself? Don't they kn—know I need time to pull myself together? What Jesus could say: Don't you know I'm tired? Don't you know my friend just died? Don't you know my my forerunner, the one who was preparing the way from Me, my own family member? Don't you know that Herod is seeking My life? Right? Jesus has His own issues, so to speak, things that He could appeal to. But notice what it says in verse 14 at the end: "And when he went ashore, he saw a great crowd, and what does he do? And he had compassion on them and healed their sick." He had compassion on them. Now when we hear that word compassion, our minds can really just go back to Matthew chapter 9, or chapter 9:36, when He saw the c—actually, this is as He was going through healing, verse 35: "And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages teaching in the synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. When He saw the crowds, He had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd." Because they were like sheep without a shepherd. Mark 6, the same account in Mark, it actually says says that it it connects this compassion to the same reason: they were like sheep without a shepherd. What did Israel need? What did the crowd need? They needed a shepherd, right? They needed someone or some ones who would indeed take responsibility for them. We know this goes all the way back to Moses, and we know that Matthew constantly is picking up on the the Moses connection between Moses and Jesus. Moses says in in Numbers 27, um, beginning in verse 26: "Let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint a man over the congregation." Moses knows He's going to die, that He won't be around anymore, okay? But God, You can't leave them without someone to lead them forward. Well, what kind of man do they need? He says, "A man who shall go out before them and come in before them, who shall lead them out and bring them in, that the congregation of the Lord may not be as sheep who have no shepherd." We know that Joshua would be the next man up that God would appoint to that role, but Moses's point is that they need a shepherd; they need someone to lead them forward, and not just any shepherd. Matter of fact, Ezekiel tells us what happens when they have guys who are not true shepherds, and this is the same leadership that they have now at the time of Jesus. They fed themselves.

They closed themselves; they lived off the sheep. They did not care for their needs; they gave them no direction, and they did not pursue those that were lost. They were not true shepherds. And so in Ezekiel 34, after that 11-16, God says, "I will be their shepherd; I will be their shepherd."

And then if you just go and look at the language, there is the language of someone who will lead a new exodus and will bring them into the land that God has promised. But the lack of spiritual leadership has ruined them. Zechariah 10:2 says, "They are afflicted because there is no shepherd."

So Jesus' compassion for the multitudes is because they have no shepherd, no one to lead them and attend to their needs. If He's to turn them away, where do they go? Right? Where do they go if He is to turn them away? And so Jesus feels compassion on them. And even in His tiredness, even in His—He just lost John the Baptist—even in His disciples just returning and Him looking for a time to to be alone with them, in all of this He does what a true shepherd does: He models compassion, and He expects His sheep, His disciples even, to follow His lead. He wants them to know and to see His compassion so that they will have compassion driving their ministry.

I mean, you know, some people, "How are you doing?" and the answer is, "I'm I'm tired." Anybody in here tired? I'm going to get out of the sun. Just okay, right? It's like, is that—I tell people, I say, "Yeah, we're all tired, aren't we? We're all tired." Well, maybe not all of us; maybe some of you are doing better than others, but it's like, what's going to drive you to serve? What's going to drive you to to help, to stay involved? The answer is compassion; compassion—seeing the needs of the people, the needs of God's people, seeing their state. He showed compassion. Jesus was human; He knew tiredness, weariness, wanting to retreat, wanting to get away. Doesn't mean there isn't a time to do those things, but at this point Jesus said, "No, they still need a shepherd." And so He does that, and so He expects His disciples to embrace the same thing—not like the Pharisees and scribes who were willing to teach and to take, but those who were to actually have compassion on the people and not think of themselves, but to think of the people. So that's compassion.

Not only is He setting a model of showing compassion for the people, but taking responsibility for the people. Notice verse 15: "Now when it was evening, the disciples came to Him and said, 'This is a desolate place and the day is now over; send the crowds away to go into the village, the villages and buy food for themselves.'" So saying it was—it was now when it was evening—that tells us that it seems to be like an all-day affair that He is healing; He is teaching. This is another busy day for Jesus. When Jesus had gone to have a few days off, He ends up working most of the day to meet their needs. And the disciples recognize the situation that they are in—that they don't have enough to feed the crowds, um, thousands of people who need dinner. The day is almost gone; they're in a desolate place; they have no place close to to buy food, and even they don't even see the resources to even get the food to the people. And so what's the option? The option is send them away and let them figure it out for themselves. And that seems, on a practical level, that seems sensible—just send them away and let them figure it out. Why the people didn't have food, we don't know. They obviously ran quite quickly to catch up with Jesus; they may have left everything behind because of their their desperation to find Him, um, or whatever the situation may be. The obvious thing is that they needed food, but the disciples didn't see that as necessarily their problem. Let them go figure it out. They say, "Send the crowds away; send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves."

And so once again, we shouldn't be too hard on them; that seems a sensible thing to do, um, for in an average situation. But this wasn't an average situation because they were with Jesus, and they were with Jesus. And so there is then other ways to think about it that they weren't thinking through. And sometimes it is easy to think about the natural option response even in situations, um, instead of thinking about what could Jesus do in this situation. And so Jesus won't let them do this. Verse 16: "But Jesus said, 'They need not go away; you give them something to eat.'" Right? No, you're not just sending them away. Part of the training they needed to understand was this is their responsibility, and true shepherding, true even leadership is saying, "No, these people are my responsibility." Jesus puts it on them to meet the needs of the people. They weren't to be like Israel's shepherds before; they weren't to be like the Pharisees and the scribes who were happy to teach them in as much as would be beneficial, um, to themselves. They needed to take responsibility for the people. And so Jesus does this. John even tells us that Jesus knows what already what He's going to do, but He puts them in this impossible situation so that they learn two things: one is to learn that they can trust Jesus in the situation. It's almost gone. Oh, I thought it was leaving me. Never mind. Um, so that they can learn that they could trust Jesus in the situation, and that they themselves must take responsibility for the people. This is almost a rebuke of them: Don't send them to fend for themselves; you feed them. And this whole scene, this whole this whole scene of feeding the 5,000 goes back to 2 Kings 4:43. We remember that whole scene with Elisha where He feeds the the hundred men with 20 loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain, 2 Kings chapter 4. And obviously Jesus here, by doing what He's doing, is showing Himself as the superior prophet, right? Elisha can—Elisha could feed a hundred; Jesus can feed thousands. Elisha had 20 loaves of barley bread; Jesus had five loaves. And so Jesus is doing more, much more of what Moses did than what Elisha did, with manna coming from heaven and even meat coming as well when the quail came down. But Moses prayed and asked God to bring it; Jesus Himself does it with His own hands. So Jesus Himself is not is not just another prophet; He is the prophet; He is the prophet, the greater Moses, the King of Israel. But the disciples are still learning, and we know this is building up to chapter 16: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." But Jesus is setting in principles now for them to understand, understand what that means. And so then verse 16: "Jesus said, 'They need not go away; you give them something to eat.'" And yet the disciples recognize, but they said to Him, "We only have five loaves here and two fish." An impossible situation. Matter of fact, Mark 6:37 says, "And they said to Him, 'Shall we go and spend 200 denarii on bread and give them something to eat?'" Like, where are we going to find this money? Where are we going to find these resources? How are we going to do this? Two-thirds of a year's wages; we don't have that kind of money. And yet Jesus says, "No, it's still your responsibility." And His response in verse 18 is, "And He said, 'Bring them here to Me; bring them to Me.'"

So the compassion for the people, the responsibility for the pe—for the people, but this all is really culminating, climaxing even even with the authority or the power to meet the people's needs—not in the disciples, but in Jesus Himself. So verse 18: "Bring them here to Me." As the disciples couldn't figure this out, but the best place to put their impossible situation was in the hands of Jesus. Yes, I'm putting the responsibility on you, but this is not for you to think that the power is in you. So He says, "Bring them here to Me." Jesus is in charge of the situation the whole time, as we said in John 6; Jesus already knows what He's going to do, but He is teaching the disciples something here—that their inability was an opportunity for Jesus to reveal His own authority. So verse 19: "Then He ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass or to recline or lay down, like a good shepherd who who makes His sheep lie down on green pastures, right? And taking the five loaves and the two fish, He looked up to heaven and said a blessing. Then He broke the loaves and gave them to the pe—to the disciples, and disciples gave them to the crowds." Um, certainly giving thanks, re—recognizing that this is from God, right? Blessing God for the provision that He has given. But what I—when I read this passage, the thing I I constantly think on, um, is His involvement of the disciples. I mean, Jesus could have said, "Tell them to line up, right? Line up and just circle around and I'll just—Right? Or just tell them to—or just tell them to open their hands, right? He could have just said that—open their hands and they—Whoa! He's filled my plate. But He doesn't do that. He broke the loaves, gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds, right? This is—this is any ministry that you and I will ever be a part of, right? We don't do the work; we just serve what Jesus has done, right? Jesus does the work, and He just graciously lets us be involved. I mean, we should be amazed by that—that He He takes what He has done and says, "Okay, you know, you guys—" And it is just this way. We're—we're sitting there thinking, you go to a counseling situation or a discipleship situation or even preaching or teaching or whatever the Lord would have you do, you say, "I don't know what to do here; what do I—what do I do?" And the answer is, well, the power is not in you, right? Power is in Jesus, who just allows you to be involved. So what do I need to do then is to get them connected to Jesus and let Him work; let Him work and then thank Him that He allows me to even serve what He has done. Verse 20: "And they all ate and were satisfied." They all ate and were satisfied. He ordered the crowd; He involved the disciples; and then He provided with abundance—not just barely, but with abundance. How much? Well, "And they took up 12 baskets full of the broken pieces left over," right? They ate; they were full; they were stuffed with no room to eat anymore. They couldn't have found a better meal anywhere else. If they had gone and bought and and bought food from the villages, they wouldn't have been fed like this. But Jesus does the work; Jesus does the work. How big of a work was this? Verse 25: "And those who ate were about 5,000 men besides women and children." As you've heard before, it could have been anywhere from 10 to 25,000 people in that congregation, in that crowd. This is beyond what the disciples can do. They—if Jesus is not there, if Jesus is not involved, they are helpless. They are—matter of fact, they're the ones that need compassion like the rest of them, except God chooses to—Jesus chooses to use them and involve them in this great work that He is going to do. So yes, Jesus Himself is the compassionate shepherd who not only takes responsibility for meeting the needs of His people, but shows that He is able to do it, to accomplish all that He promises to those who love Him. And this once again is just a taste of what it means to be—to have the hope of the kingdom that will come with Him. And this is what marked His whole—Jesus' whole ministry: compassion, responsibility, and authority. In the end of Jesus' life, He'll be mocked on the cross: "If You are the Son of God, come down." You say, "Why didn't He come down?" Because of compassion for the people, responsibility for the people, and He Himself, who had all authority, kept Himself on the cross for you and me. And so that makes Him compelling, doesn't it? He's not just presenting an idea; He's presenting Himself. He's presenting Himself to shape us so that we would all follow Him and follow His lead. And that's what He would have us do—that He would be a King worthy of occupation, of concentration, and then of course of veneration.

Let's pray. Father, we thank You that You allow us to be involved in the work that You are doing. We are like the disciples, helpless to meet anybody's needs, to do anything for You, to do anything for Your people, but we thank You for Jesus who saves us and then, Lord, by Your grace allows us to even be involved. May we follow His lead; may we have that kind of compassion that is demonstrated in the life of Jesus, taking responsibility for the people that You have given us to serve with or to to lead. And, Lord, to remember the power is not in us; it is in Him. May we keep that in mind, Lord, as we move forward with whatever You have for us. We pray this for the glory of Jesus. Amen. All right. 9:10, and we can get started in the classes. Something good to be back. Yeah. You doing well? Yeah, thank you. Yeah, good to be back. Yeah.

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[Music] Yeah, what side does He put it on? Does it matter what side does He—Does He put on the left? We usually put it on the left. What side do you prefer your whiteboard? On this side.

[Music] Cool. Sure. Sure. So there's a number of options here. Oh, this is—this has been a perennial issue, I know. Does that mean back in nursing? He looks like a nursing—Wow, didn't see that coming. But okay, what's that? Oh, no. Now—now I just—Yeah, I'm dressing like you guys now. We're coming down.

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[Music] You can see something; I think you can't—How are you? We retake the test? What? We retake the test? Why do you want to retake the test? Retake it? Why is that? Um, just—I mean, it didn't go well. My mic's not on there. Just—All right. We're doing well. Yeah. Sorry, I think so. I'm all right. How was—What? Oh, it was good. Yeah, it was all right. Yep. It's a lot of shepherds. There—there was a conference, so it went well. Yeah, I would have brought you all something back, but you said cornbread. Wow, that's—I was thinking books. He was thinking cornbread. That's great. Uh, then I knew—Oh, no, I did bring it. All right. Uh, good. Well, it's good to be back. Um, today, um, I'm going to do halfish, and then someone else is going to do the other half. You guys know Ben Bradford? Some of you might remember him. He'll be here to do Mark and John, so he'll do the second half of the day, so you'll be free from my tyranny for a little bit, and then uh he'll—he'll set straight whatever I make crooked. Um, so yeah, I'll do the first half; he'll do the second half, and we'll go from there. All right. Hi to Tesco. Did anybody feel good about it? I haven't seen—I haven't looked at the scores, so I—I couldn't even tell you like what you did. Some were good. Okay. You mean as a whole or just a few? Oh, as a whole. Okay. So he's not talking about all of you; just—just a few of you. Okay. Well, there's another one, so you have a second chance. It's not really a second chance, but you know, um, but you have an idea what it's going to be like—the New Testament exam—and you know, hopefully you'll know how to prepare. Um, yeah. All right. You guys encouraged, excited, ready to roll? All right. Well, let's pray and then get going. Lord, thank You now for this uh day. We pray, Lord, that You would help us to certainly see the message of the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, and John—today, um, that our souls will be fed as we look at Jesus—Jesus revealed to us—all that we've been reading before in the Old Testament and the promises and the expectation, Lord, all—all built up to His life. So may we see, Lord, and may we be transformed; may this be useful to us to even be able to uh use Your word certainly in our own spiritual growth, but to help others to uh make disciples, to show people the glory of Christ in Your word. So will You do that work for us? We pray. Amen.

All right. Well, we've been looking at the Old Testament, and now uh we come to the New. And in coming to the New, I'll say this again next month if uh if I end up teaching next month—u—that one thing you can't do when you come to the New Testament, um, is forget what you've learned in the Old Testament. Okay? You can't be like, "Okay, well, that was the old; now something different." And then if—when you read Matthew, it reads almost like an Old Testament book focused on the life of Christ, but it's right—all the language and the things that are being said. Matter of fact, it begins with the genealogy to pull in the Old Testament and all of this, um, so it's not operating on different principles; it's not reinterpreting anything—whatever said in the Old Testament now—it's—you should be looking at the life of Jesus and saying, "Ah, this makes a lot more sense to me now because I've understood the Old Testament." Um, so you don't come to the New Testament and then say, "Okay, well, that was that part; now let me grab this part." It's like, "No, this continues the story," okay? And that's how we read this—this is a continuation of the story, and it's all been building up to the coming of Jesus Christ and His first coming, and then obviously it's building up eventually to our expectation of His second coming. Now, in the introduction to the New Testament in your notes there, you see how the books can be grouped togethers—grouped together so that you have the Gospels and the connection between the uh letters between them with Matthew and James—Matthew being the earliest Gospel written, um, which could have been anywhere to the uh mid to late 40s, um, being written, and then James being the first letter written, it would seem, um, both of them written to Christians when the church is still primarily um Jewish, um, and even the language that James uses coincides in the topics he talks about. When you read it, you realize, "Oh, he's actually talking about a lot of the same topics that are recorded in Matthew, even in the Sermon on the Mount." So there's a lot of overlap there, but we'll see that when we come to the book of James. And then Mark—Mark writing, um, it would seem on the testimony of Peter, um, Peter's testimony, evangelistic testimony concerning the person of Christ. And so he writes, um, it was seen based on that testimony, and that'll be talked about when you come to the book of Mark. But then obviously Second Peter and Jude having that overlap—uh, if you're familiar with the book of Jude, as he refers to things that were written about in the book of Second Peter. So it seemed that you have the same audience in First Peter, Second Peter, and then eventually in Jude, um, and Mark obviously writing on the testimony of Peter Himself. You see the correspondence there. Luke was a travel companion of Paul, and so the um the connection between Luke and his writings—Luke and Acts—and then Paul's letters, um, at least through Philemon, and then whether he wrote Hebrews or not, we don't fully know, but maybe not Luke, but Paul that is—uh—may very well have written Hebrews. And so you see the correspondence there. And then John is obviously John; He wrote all the same—the same John that wrote the Gospels wrote the—wrote the Gospel, wrote the letters, and then obviously that same John wrote Revelation. So the genres of the New Testament: you have the historical narrative of the Gospels and Acts; you have the letters or the epistles as we call them, of Romans to Revelation, um, and then you have prophecy in the book of Revelation as well. It is a book of prophecy, as we'll see in June—the me—excuse me—the message of the New Testament is that God fulfilled some of His promises concerning the Messiah, Christ, in the first coming of Jesus, His suffering and death—or His life, suffering and death, we could say—and will fulfill the rest of His promises concerning the Messiah, Christ, at the second coming of Jesus. So you have the revelation of—of all that was going to happen in His first coming. Now, remember the Old Testament prophets, they didn't divide it this way; they didn't say He was coming once to do this and He'll come again. They just said He's going to do all these things, and Peter talks about that in First Peter 1, um, that yes, they—they knew what they were talking about, but the times of when this was going to take place and circumstances they weren't sure of. So you've—you've seen the uh, you know, Old Testament prophecy, um, to us or to the prophets just looked like—if that was a mountain range—have you seen this picture before?—but—and actually it's kind of like when you're way far away from a mountain range, and that's basically what it looks like, right? Looks like, "Oh, I see a big mountain," and then the closer you get, you realize, "Oh, there's this—oh, yeah," and then there's this here, and then there's this part here, right? And that's how they're looking at it, right? The Old Testament prophets, all they know is something's going to happen, right? Or these things are going to happen, but then as things play out and as you get closer to them is revealed, you understand that, "Okay, there's going to be a first coming and a second coming," right? There're going to be different aspects of this, but all the same events are still happening. Yes? No? Maybe? So how did I get here? Who am I? Okay. So Jesus did some in His first coming; He'll do the rest in His second coming. And all that God promised will be fulfilled, and that's what even the New Testament is going to say. As you read the Gospels, you read Matthew 24, right? They say, "When are these things going to happen?" And Jesus doesn't say, "Well, I know—no one ever talked to you about this before, so let me—Right." He says, "The abomination of desolation, even as Daniel spoke about," right? He's talking about the same events that they were expecting that they would expect from the Old Testament. So He's saying, "Yeah, these same things are going to happen." Now, let me just shed some more light of how that's going to play out, and the details of it is that—Yes? No? Okay. All right. So God is at work during this age in the church, which is united to the Messiah, Christ Jesus, the Lord—especially noted in uh the epistles. So we're in this age of the church in which the uh the church is united as the body of Christ, uh united under His head, Jesus Christ, um, and then we'll talk about that more as we get to Acts and the letters. Then God will fulfill His kingdom promises through the Messiah, Christ, to Israel and the church in the future at the return of Jesus—especially noted in Revelation. All right. So with that, then our introduction to the Gospels and Acts, as we look at these highly um narrative um portions of the New Testament and realize that they are almost 60% of the New Testament. As we like to—when we think of the New Testament, people run to Paul's letters, um, but actually the weight of the New Testament is on these first five books—uh—the Gospel—the four Gospels gave narrative accounts of the life of Jesus Christ. The book of Acts was a second volume written by Luke to Theophilus, and that's why we do Luke Acts together next month, right? That's why we separate them at them out because they are two books uh that are connected—not just by author, but by the—it's a one argument between Luke and Acts. A major theme in the Gospels and Acts is Jesus as the promised Messiah of the Old Testament and His messianic kingdom presented to and rejected by by Israel. Why don't we have the kingdom now? Because Israel rejected it, and it's not until they embrace it will Jesus bring His kingdom, as we know all the way back—all the way back even to Torah, right? That's Deuteronomy chapter 30: that when Israel turns, God will bring the fullness of His promises. The Gospels and Acts demonstrate that salvation is necessary for entrance into the kingdom that Jesus was presenting, and so salvation is what's needed is what's uh needed—what is a Gospel? You guys have that in your notes. What is a Gospel? Okay. The Gospel, uh, as it says there, was in the titles attached to historical narratives in early church tradition, probably based on Mark 1:1: "the be—the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God," um, so the Gospels are not just simply history, and they're not simply memoirs; they're not just biographies, um, they are unique within themselves; they involve all those things, but that they're not just that; they are their own genre to themselves, and they read once again much like Old Testament narratives as we've read, uh, but God raised up men directed by the Holy Spirit to write a narrative of what God has done in the past as foundational to an understanding of what God has or was communicating to Israel and the nations in a present generation, uh, much like the narrative of Torah set the basis for everything else you understand by the—about the Old Testament. So the narratives of the Gospels and Acts sets the basis for how you understand the rest of the New Testament, uh, particularly the Gospels, um, Gospels weren't once again just biographies, you know, you got the biography of Lloyd Jones and Spurgeon and Jesus—it's like, "Well, no—" Gospels were something to actually be preached, right? To be heralded; they were—they were something to be taken out to be proclaimed so that people would believe something. And so in the second century, these four Gospels were representative of what was heralded about Jesus and His disciples or by Jesus and His disciples in the early church while they were on the earth. This is what was preached; this is an accurate recording—four accurate recordings, inspired recordings—of what is to be preached concerning Jesus. So you have a record of that. I mean, if this was—you can imagine just having oral tradition, and we know what happens with oral tradition, right? I mean, things get embellished or uh things that are important don't get said, u—but the Gospels say, "No, this is an accurate record of what happened and who Jesus is." And as people have said before, as you take these Gospels, um, and you look at them, you recognize these are not things that people would have come up with, u—especially the people who wrote them, um, they don't represent the people involved—well, the only person who who comes out the hero is Jesus; everybody else looks not so good, even His disciples, right? Things are said about them you would imagine they would have said, "Maybe not; maybe I don't tell that story; that makes—that makes us look a little silly," um, but they read as men who believe these things and understood these things as a right and accurate record. So each of the four Gospels and Acts recorded historical events and words. Each of the four Gospels and Acts used a narrative story style to communicate this history. Why four Gospels? Uh, well, one reason is because they each have a unique purpose. You read Matthew and then you read Mark, and you think, "I feel like I'm reading the same thing over again." Then you read Luke; it's like he's got a few new things, but I—I've read a lot of this before, right? Then you get to John, and you're like, "Oh, did he even know what they said? Like, is he—does he even know these guys?" Right? But they're each writing, and the—how they say stuff—what they—

Say it is presented in a certain way to make a particular point about Jesus and what all this means concerning him. So each gospel writer had a unique purpose and unique audience for their narrative about Jesus Christ, and we shouldn't be surprised to have these kinds of stories about events.

As we talked about in the Old Testament, we have Samuel and Kings, and we have Chronicles. We talked about how Chronicles contains somewhere between 45% to 50% of what Samuel and Kings has, um, and then the rest of it is new stuff. Um, so we shouldn't be surprised at having similar or the same event described, and then details filled in depending on the purpose of the author.

Um, if you know, if my wife wrote a story about me, and then each of my kids wrote a story about me, and then one of you wrote a story about me, there would be some overlap, wouldn't it? Right? As you guys shared events that I was there, you all may—you're going to tell some of the same story. And then it also depends on who you're writing to.

Um, so if my wife was writing a record to share with our kids and grandkids, well, she's going to include certain things and not other things. If somebody at the church was writing, talking about my ministry here at Grace Life or in Hermana, they're going to include certain things and not include other things, right? And so it is true; it depends on who you're writing to and what your purpose is and what you're writing. So it is true with the four gospels.

But to have four of them, we shouldn't be surprised as well, because when you have a particular event that's important, then it's going to get recorded more than once. We think of the Davidic covenant, 2 Samuel 7, 1st Chronicles 17. Right? That's a significant event. Or even the destruction of Jerusalem in the temple, which is mentioned—how many times? Get out four. Okay, four times. Right? Okay, so the test didn't go well. Okay, that's okay. Twice in Jeremiah, in Chronicles, and then in Kings, maybe not. Okay.

Um, so something so significant gets recorded four times in the Old Testament, uh, not to mention even that it's, you know, it's the subject of lamentation. Right? So something that significant is going to get recorded over and over. And so when it comes to Jesus coming into the world, the incarnation of God himself, the Messiah that all the Old Testament has been pointed to, we shouldn't be surprised that there is more than one narrative concerning that event, the four accounts of this most important event.

Um, and even Luke 1, I mean, you just look at the words of Luke 1 there, um, at the very beginning: "In as much as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us." Right? A lot of people have been writing the stuff down.

Verse two: "Just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us." Right? So these are not the only records that would have been out there. Other people were trying to put stuff down, and as they were hearing the gospel and making records of these things. But what we have are the Spirit-inspired records that record exactly what God wants recorded concerning the life, death, um, burial, and resurrection of his son.

And then we know that Luke himself doesn't take a previous uh source and then just give it to us. He himself goes and searches things out. And as you read the Gospel of Luke, if you haven't read it already, you will—you can kind of see the people he would have probably talked to, even Mary herself, right, when it makes these comments that she treasured these things in her heart and things like that. Right? That he went out, he talked to primary sources; he talked to people who would have been there and seen and heard. And so he investigates, well, what happened, and then writes out a comprehensive account for a particular reason that we'll talk about next month.

Um, so there were other narratives written down; they're not inherent; they're not canonical. If we found them today, they'd be interesting to read, but we wouldn't take them and say, "Oh, we got a fifth gospel, like so in my pop." No, we wouldn't do that. We would say, okay, that's interesting, but these are the ones we have; these are the ones we have that were validated by apostles, all of them connected to apostles, um, and all have been trusted by the church since the first century. All right. But God leaves us four gospels uh that give what we need to know. Uh, they're inherent; they are written by those inspired by the Holy Spirit. I hate to mess up my artwork like this; it's like—it's like erasing a Mona Lisa. Right there, it was painful, wasn't it? All right. So we have uh four gospels, and you have the chart there, don't you? Right?

Um, so we have—How do you do that? I forgot how to do this. I don't know; it doesn't matter, does it? Yeah, let's just do it this way. Uh, so you have Matthew, that's an M, really, it is Matthew, who has a primarily what kind of audience? Jewish. Right? That's an I. And then uh, what do you think? Believers or unbelievers? Unbelievers? Believers? You guys just making up stuff, taking a guess? Let's go believers. Okay, okay.

Um, then you got Mark. It tells you there is what kind of audience? Gentile. And you can tell Mark is Gentile by the way he writes and the way he explains things, the Jewish culture that Matthew doesn't do. Matthew, he just—like this happened, you should get it, right? You read Mark, and you realize he's given explan—even in the Matthew 15 passages about the uh traditions and all that, you read Mark's account, and he has this whole thing on, oh, this is why they did this, and this is—they used to do all these different things because of who he's writing to, and they are unbelievers. Right? Yeah, I'll take nonbeliever is not—yeah, okay. And then we got Luke, and he's writing to Gentiles, and they are believers. Right? We know that from the beginning of the gospel. And then John, and John, you should just know by the end of John chapter 20, Jew or Gentile? Jewish group audience, and they are unbelievers. Right? "I write this that you may believe." Right? That's what he said, unbelievers.

So if you think about this, I write this out just to make this simple point: Okay, we have Jewish believers and then we have Jewish unbelievers, right? And then you have Gentile believers and Gentile unbelievers. Now, um, how many people groups are there in the Bible, in large scale? There's just two, right? You're either Jew or Gentile, right? And then you're either a believer or an unbeliever. And so in these four gospels, everybody is covered, right? Jewish believers, Jewish unbelievers, Gentile believers, Gentile unbelievers; everybody's covered, every type of person.

Now, does this mean that, you know, if I'm—that I can't talk to a Gentile unbeliever about the Gospel of Matthew? No. But if I was—if—if an unbeliever said, "Hey, you know, you know, you said, 'Hey, you want to do a Bible study? Let's look at the Bible.'" And they say yes, then I'm probably going to—I would probably think more in the realm of Mark or even John, um, than Matthew or Luke, right? And Mark, once again, is written for that simple, to the point, straightforward. It's a gospel that just goes—right, you read it, and it's just—it just flows uh without a lot of stopping, and it doesn't have all the like big teachings of Jesus. Right? Mark just—there's a lot of action in it. Okay? And then he did this, and then he did that, and it's written that way because it's just showing you Jesus, like this is what he did; this is how he proves what he—Mark says at the very beginning of the gospel, right, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, that he is indeed the Messiah, the son of God. And then he makes—from beginning to end, he makes that argument.

Um, so that when you come to the end of the crucifixion, right, who—what is—there's a guy there who's a—who's at the cross, he's a—who's at the cross, not on the cross; he's—he's watching, and he speaks at the end. Centurion. Okay, good. And what does he say? He says, "Truly this man is the son of God." Right? Is he a—is he a Jew or Gentile? He's a Gentile. Right? So Mark begins his gospel, "This is the beginning of the gospel, Jesus Christ, the son of God," and then he's convincing you of that, and then you come to the end of the gospel, and who pronounces it? A Gentile unbeliever who then sees it and says, this is un—this is undeniable; he is the son of God. Right? Okay. So they're making arguments; they're all making arguments throughout their book like that so that they're building up to something that even what Jesus does at the end of his life makes the whole point in each case. Um, all right, does that make sense? You with me? All right.

Um, so you read Matthew's gospel; it obviously has a—a—a definitive uh Jewish tone to it, with a genealogy that would have been a—a Jewish way of writing, as we saw in the Old Testament. Uh, who uses genealogies like that? Well, uh, Jewish writings do, like Genesis and Chronicles and such. Um, the fulfillment of the Old Testament uh that's laid out in the book of Matthew uh that's not laid out in the book of Mark. Um, and even the language there, "Kingdom of heaven has drawn near," sounds like the prophets. Um, and "Kingdom of heaven" is not defined. Right? You get to Mark; he talks more; he uses "Kingdom of God." Um, but Matthew assumes that you know what the kingdom of heaven is. Sorry. Um, yeah, the great discourses in the book of Matthew, I know we're kind of getting ahead of ourselves here, but he has five of them, right?

Um, and so we think of, once again, the Old Testament [Music] Um, if the structure of Torah, obviously Torah is one book, but even if there's structure among the way that it's been divided up in the five books, but we know the Psalms itself is divided into five books, and the Psalms is uh mainly focused around David, who is a—who is a king. And how does Matthew begin his gospel? "The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David." And then he has these five sermons—5–7, and then chapter 10, and then so on, 13, and where am I? I forgot one in there. Wait, 5–7, 10, 13—oh, yeah, 18, and then 24 and 25. Yeah, so he has those five. But as we said, Mark doesn't have that; he doesn't have that same didactic emphasis, the same teaching that he has. Um, he has some, but they're—they're shorter than Matthew's and has fewer of them. Right? So Mark is focused more on what Jesus did, while Matthew is making correlation between what he said and did. And then you come to the end of Matthew, and what does it say? "Go make disciples," right, "baptizing them and teaching them." Right? What are you to teach them? To observe all that I've commanded you. What did he command? Well, he gave five main sessions, didn't he? And so those sessions are given by Matthew to say, "Guys, you need to know what Jesus said, right? And you need to understand that and live by it if you are truly his disciple."

All right. Um, Luke has a lot of discourses in them, written to a Gentile, as Luke 1:3 says. John has discourses, but John specifically tells us the purpose for which he wrote and is still writing to a Jewish audience, um, so they would understand some of those things quite well. Uh, and even John's mention of the feast uh and so on, the customs there just kind of in passing. Uh, all right. So once again, then you have four gospels who cover all the people in the world: the believing Jew, the unbelieving Jew, the uh believing Gentile, the unbelieving Gentile, Christian and non-Christian, Jew and Gentile; everybody's covered by these four gospels. [Music] Um, let's see. [Music] Um, I'll save that for later. Matthew, written early, the earliest one written, I'll say more about that later, um, before the church was predominantly Gentile. Matthew wrote his—Mark, written to believers at Rome to be used um as their test—as testimony of Jesus Christ during the Herodian persecution, even when Peter was killed. Um, Luke, written before Acts, obviously, um, and we know when Acts was written by the way it ends, so somewhere in that 61–62, uh his imprisonment in around 62 AD, uh and that first imprisonment, not the one that would lead to his death. And then we have John; we know that he—he wrote as late as the mid-80s and or early 90s.

Um, now let me just uh make a—I don't know how many of you have read commentaries on the gospels or done any study in it or anything. Okay. So sometimes when you read commentaries, depends on who you read. If you read just kind of your MacArthur or Boyce or, you know, even J.C. Ryle commentaries to use, then you won't see those. If you use more uh other commentaries, I'll just say it that way, however, however you want to take that, uh, and not all purely bad, um, they do this thing where they talk about where events came from or why the gospel writers wrote what they wrote. Um, so when we think—maybe I can say it this way: So sometimes we think of something like evolution, Darwinian evolution, and you think, oh, yeah, that's connected to creation, right? And it is not denying that part of it, but the same philosophy carried forth in different areas, including in how people interpret the New Testament, particularly the gospels. So what does Darwinian evolution say? You have a single-cell organism, and then it developed, right? You've seen that uh the thing with the like little thing, and it turns into a monkey, and then a big gorilla, and then you have like the guy, and you're right, you seen the—right? And then uh they have the one where the guy's—you have the human at the end, and he's looking back and saying, "Stop following me." Okay, I thought it was funny, anyway. So um, in that—Mark, okay, Mark is the shortest gospel, right? And we know that Mark and John have similarities, a lot of similarity—not Mark and John, Mark and Matthew. Mark and Matthew. Now, Mark is pretty short, relatively speaking, and so what they say—many would say—is, well, that means Mark was the first gospel written because it is the smallest, right? Same diff—same philosophy; if it's smaller, then it must be the first. Um, and so then they'll say, well, Matthew—what he did is he took Mark's writing, and then he just added to it. Now, obviously there's problems there, considering Matthew was an eyewitness and an apostle and inspiration and all these kind of things that coincide with this. So they do that, and they'll say, well, well, Mark must have been the first one because it's smaller, and then Matthew took that and he developed it and made it into what it was, and then Luke, and sometimes they talk about this document you heard about Q, the Q document, maybe if you've looked into all that stuff, if not, don't waste your time; save yourself from the agony. Um, and so there's this—there's this made-up document called Q, and if you say where did they come up with Q? Well, the whole thing is that if you say where is Q, and the answer is no one knows. Right? But they say there must be another document that like Matthew is pulling from and Luke is pulling from, and that's how they come up with their other information. Okay. The only reason I'm telling you this is so that if you read a commentary out there and you see this kind of stuff, then you know—okay, all that part is made up; it's like they're just making up all this stuff; it's that simple. But when you get enough degrees, you can make up stuff, and people buy it. So that's kind of how it works. So church history—throughout church history, it's always been taken as Matthew was the first gospel. Right? It's not only—it's not until kind of the late 18th century until now that people have started to think different—all the German liberalism that went to England and then came to the US. [Music] Um, that's how we ended up with that kind of stuff. But throughout church history, Matthew has always been the first—considered the first gospel written. And the problem with them doing that kind of stuff is that obviously it—it does counteract with the doctrine of inspiration. So we would say each one of these gospels are individual, Holy Spirit-inspired testimonies of the life of Jesus. Because if you have someone who's just taking what someone else has said and just manipulating it to try to fit their needs, then you have obvious problems with that. Okay? So we want to read these gospels as individual testimonies of Jesus Christ, knowing uh the audience that they're writing to and that how these gospels then factor into that. Uh, I don't know if that makes sense, but I feel better. All right, let's keep going then. Ch—I think we're right there. Okay, let's take a break. Anybody got questions? Yeah, do you have a microphone? Do you need a microphone? We got one up here; just throw it at—Never mind, don't throw it. I was going to say throw it at his head, but that may not go well.

You were talking about German liberalism; what was—What was that about? I mean, you said questions—no, that's—I mean, it's a good question; it's just I wish I hadn't said it. Um, so in the 18th century, um, some schools of thought came from Germany. Uh, you'd have to—I can't—let me see—how do I summarize this? Um, I don't know if I can't summarize it, but I'll have to. So we think of the Reformation, okay? And you think of uh Bible translation and all these different things that were taking place during that kind of reforming period, right? In Germany, it started in Germany, right, with Luther, and then you have Switzerland with Calvin and all these other guys. And so we think of the Reformation, we think, yes, the church—things were reformed; things got better. But there was a larger thing going on there that was actually giving people access to the Bible, but not all of them were believers. Right? I mean, everybody was getting access to the Bible, whether you're a believer or non-believer. And so many of those who were non-believers took the Bible and they started studying it like it was any other book and coming up with theories and things about that, particularly in Germany where the Reformation started. Uh, so schools there—basically very liberal schools, very uh just full of non-believers—they were taking the Bible and doing all kinds of things with it, and that basically got passed from Germany on through the rest of the—of the uh Western world. Um, and so now many of the things that are said uh kind of come out of um kind of 18th-century German liberalism that started the arguments. Yeah, that's the general idea. Yeah. So then you—Yeah, you had all kinds of theories and things like this—this kind of stuff that came out. Is this about German liberalism? No, no, German liberal uh liberalism—it's just a couple questions. One is really short; is I just never understand why whenever I read sort of um Christian um like historic stuff—I can't find the word for it—but we always use the word Palestine, and obviously that has connotations today. I just wonder where—like why so many Christians when they're writing things to do with the Bible and they're describing like the history of it, they use that—that name instead of Israel or Judea. I don't know.

Yeah, I think some do it; I think some do it because it's just become the common way of talking. Okay? So they'll say something like a Palestinian Jew, which means a—a Jewish person that lived in the land of Israel. Right? So they'll say Palestinian Jew. Um, and others do it because that's kind of the uh academic way to talk; it's become—once again, it's just one of those things where it's—it's become the way to talk—of speaking of the land of Palestine, which in itself has some—Yeah—some uh undermining of—of it being Israel's land that God has promised to them. So yeah, that's—I mean, the—the basic thing is some people do it because that's just the common way—I mean, I guess telling on my own self here—actually an early sermon I was preaching through Matthew, and I actually—just because that's why I've been reading commentaries and stuff—and I just said, "Oh, yeah, they were a Palestinian Jew." Someone actually talked to me about it at the end of the sermon; they were like, "Why did you say that?" You know? And that's what made me think about it and say, "Yeah, why do we call it Palestinian Jew as opposed to just saying they lived in the land of Israel, since it is technically their land?" Um, so yeah, I mean, they do it either because that's what everybody else is saying, or they do it intentionally because they don't really hold to a—that it is Israel's land, as a way of kind of saying—Cool. Just another quick one. Um, so in Matthew's uh genealogy, he's obviously writing to Jews, like you just said, um, but he uses Jeconiah in his genealogy, which—just intuitively, that sounds like that would kind of cause the Jews that he's writing to to be like, whoa, Jeconiah—he—Jesus can't be the Messiah because Jeconiah is cursed, and nobody can come from it. Is it Jeconiah that I'm thinking of? Yeah, I know you took that. Yeah. Um, so then—but then Luke doesn't use Jeconiah, and he uses a different line, which I think I've heard many people say that that's kind of the line that gives Jesus the right because it's through um—I don't know—David's son Nathan, and then it ends up in Mary. So I just wonder why Matthew, writing to Jews, would use Jeconiah, because wouldn't that kind of cause Jews to have their backs up to say that's a problem? But then Luke is—Yeah, I don't know; I don't hope I'm making sense. Okay.

Setting Luke aside and just looking at Matthew's use of that, I mean, Matthew uses it intentionally because, once again, that's when—when that curse is made in Jeremiah 27 [Music] Um, it is a big problem, right? 'Cause he's in the line of the Messiah; he's in the Davidic line that if he can't have a son sit on the throne, then this all falls apart. But Matthew goes through Jeconiah, making the point that Jesus solves that because it goes to Joseph, but he wasn't a biological son of Joseph, so he could still be king. Right? So I think Matthew uses it actually to present Jesus as the solution to the problem presented by the curse on Jeconiah. Does that make sense? Please don't—no, I'm joking; I'm joking. All right, are we good? Uh, oh, we're stuck. [Music] I—I don't have a question; I just wanted to—You want to sing a song? What's that? You said, "What's me?" The person I thought—Yeah, wait, what did you just say? So I don't have a question to say; I just wanted to—to his question or to the answer—kind—I just wanted—Okay, so maybe it's a question. So let's see where this goes. Okay, I thought like—um, Jeconiah's curse was kind of broken, wasn't it? Like broken in Zerubbabel? Wasn't it? Well, he wasn't a king, was he? Yeah, he wasn't. But yeah, it just seemed like that kind of was redeemed, sort of like—I don't think so. Okay, it's just—Yeah, you guys need to follow her lead; it's like no. Okay. Um, Yeah, no, I don't—I don't think it was—it was—but uh 'cause he wasn't actually a king sitting on the throne of David, right? Which is what the curse says—Are you Googling? No. Okay, we'll get a Google question; just go to GotQuestions; it'll answer—No, no, I'm not even on there right now. Um, you talked about James was the earliest book written; could you explain that a little bit? The earliest epistle written—what do you want me to explain about? I mean, I think you went too fast; I don't—You just—I mean, I'm just saying that it was—it seems to be the earliest epistle written, with a Jewish—it—it obviously has a Jewish audience uh but still talking to the church uh overlap with uh Sermon on the Mount topics, so it seems that it fits well to be the earliest letter written. Yeah, I'm just asking because I never knew that. Yeah, oh, okay. Yeah, anyway, you put the mic down. Yeah. All right. Oh, I mean, it's not a bad question; it's just—All right, you guys doing all right? All right, should we go till—just take 10, go to 10:18. You all right? I guess—I think—Maybe I'm just—It's not too bad. Sorry, it's good still. And I read—I looked into significant—Let me—Yeah, all right, we should jump back into it. [Music] Yeah, accept. [Music] I take this as not being ready. All right, let's roll. So we can fit in what we need to fit in, the overview of the life of Jesus Christ, as you have in your notes there. Beginning—this is just a summation of the four gospels and how his life is ordered. Um, the birth and childhood of Jesus, as obviously John 1 goes back to the incarnation, and then Matthew to his as well as Luke to his physical descent, and then you have his actual uh the advent um recorded in Luke 1:5 to uh or Luke 1, and then getting into Matthew as well, uh the preceding events, and then the birth of Jesus, the infancy of Jesus, uh and then his childhood as well, the small glimpse of his childhood and the end of Luke chapter 2, and then his public ministry, the beginning of it, um beginning with his forerunner, John, Jesus' baptism, temptation, testimony of John the Baptist, and the ministry of Jesus um at the first uh Passover in the Gospel of John, and then his early ministry, um the early Judean in John 3, and then his Samaritan ministry, Galilean ministry, and so on. So you see that there it's just an outline of his ministry to—great Galilean ministry that is really focused on in the Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and then the last year, the year of opposition, the last week, or what we call Passion Week, and then even the ascension mentioned uh in at least a couple of the gospels. A couple of resources to think about, just to compare the gospels—you guys probably already know these—or harmony of the gospels—you guys know that—where it basically takes all the events, Matthew, Mark, and Luke—let me see if I can find a good page of it. Uh, well, any of these where—Okay, signs of—let's go to something else. So if you go to the uh what did we talk about this morning? Feeding of the 5000, and you bring it up in here—Oh, I didn't go far enough. Let me see—Oh, there you go. And then you see how it just takes all the gospels and puts them beside so you can compare the gospels, like how they—what they say about that event. And so this could be a—a helpful resource just in comparing, um, because when you're studying the gospels, if you were studying to teach uh the gospels, then comparing them tells you—helps you see what the focus of that gospel is. So you're looking—saying, "Oh, that guy didn't say that." Uh, but this one does—particularly makes a point to mention this statement or this part of the narrative, and then you ask the question, what is he getting—getting at in doing that? What is he pointing out? That helps you then bring to life what's going on in the passage. Then, One Perfect Life—you guys probably know this—yeah, no, do you guys read your Bibles? You guys—okay. One Perfect Life—instead of taking it and dividing it into different sections, it actually just takes all the four gospels and puts it together as one flowing narrative. So that's what that does. Um, so it takes all the information because different gospels give you different parts of it, right, at times. And so it takes all the information, puts it in one place, and makes it read like one story. So that could be helpful as well, just to get a full account of everything that happened, let's say in feeding the 5000, or uh—

What happened during the crucifixion? Or whatever you can, you can read that, and then you can get, and it actually marks in there what, which part of, or which gospel it came from as you get to that section. All right, so there's two things to think about: uh, the harmony of the gospels. There's different harmonies of the gospel; I know that one's a good one, and then one, "Perfect Life." It's been out a few years now, but that could be very helpful to you. All right, so something to think about as you look at the gospels.

Now let's talk about the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Man. That's a lot of stuff. All right, let's just talk; I'll look at that later, see what your notes look like. All right, the Gospel of Matthew. Um, interesting facts about the Gospel of Matthew: the it was the favorite gospel of the early church, considered the first gospel. Um, once again, church history tells us it was the first gospel written, and even finishing, you know, the way we went through the Old Testament, finishing with Chronicles and then picking up with Matthew, it should be kind of a natural progression into the New Testament. It was one of the two gospels written directly by one of Christ's apostles, Matthew and John.

Okay, so there's a major connecting link between the Old Testament and New Testament, an emphasis on Jesus' fulfillment of God's messianic promises. So all that's been said in the Old Testament, now Matthew is saying this is being fulfilled in this person, and we'll talk about why he does that in a little bit. The most heard, read, studied, and preached book of the New Testament throughout the history of the church. Um, which is interesting because people don't preach Matthew so much anymore, uh, particularly people who, um, maybe have a different, uh, how do you say it, hermeneutical, uh, emphasis, to say it kindly, um, because Matthew makes you confronts you with certain things about Israel and the future that you just have to deal with; uh, you can't dismiss. Uh, so people are more likely to preach Mark and Luke, um, it seems these days than than other gospels, but Matthew is, if you're coming from the Old Testament, is actually quite a rich book to pick up on. And then, as this French biblical scholar has said, or what he believes is the most important book ever written. They're all good. All right, so, uh, take that for what it is.

Basic facts concerning the Gospel of Matthew: who the author, according to the early church fathers, was Matthew, um, the disciple, apostle of Jesus. We know of Matthew's uh calling to follow Jesus in Matthew 9, um, and maybe you've heard this, maybe you haven't, that Matthew himself, in Matthew 9:9, as Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew. If you read the other gospels that record this, they call him Levi. Right? So Matthew uses his gentile name while the other men, Mark and Luke, use his Jewish name. Um, and people have associated that with Matthew being willing to, um, confront or to deal with the reality of who of who he was, uh, as a tax collector. Now, was nothing wrong with being a tax collector in and of itself; the problem was the way they were operating. Right? Um, but the first audience was the first generation Christian Jews of the Christian Jews, um, dispersed from Jerusalem. So it would seem about the time that Matthew wrote it would have been a time when the church is beginning to suffer persecution, and this will get into the, uh, the why of the book, um, but holding on from there, we know that, as we said, it is a Jewish audience. He uses Jewish vocabulary, or "Father in heaven," um, the kingdom of heaven, untransated Aramaic terms, uh, like in 5:22 or 27:6 or so on. Uh, he has a Jewish genealogy, as we said, which wouldn't be common in Greek, uh, ro, Roman Greco-Roman culture, uh, and he presupposed Jewish information, stuff that he just expects them to already know, unlike, uh, Luke or Mark. So the book was written pretty early, uh, at least in my notes, what does it say? 35 to 50? Is that what your notes say? Yeah, so probably somewhere in the 40 A.D., maybe, would have been the time when it was written, when this type of book is is needed, particularly for a a group of people being persecuted by the, um, uh, by the Jews and even beyond. Um, but early Christian, early church tradition seems to imply there were versions in Aramaic and Greek; uh, that's debatable though. Only the Greek version has survived. So written before the destruction of Jerusalem then, because that would have happened in A.D. 70. Um, so early church fathers believe he wrote from the land of Israel or from Antioch, um, um, before Paul's ministry even. We mentioned the similarities between James, the half-brother of Jesus, the book that he wrote, and this gospel, uh, and James wrote to the diaspora Jews, those dispersed, uh, because of what was happening in that time, and James himself being the leader of the church in Jerusalem.

So Matthew writes to give understanding then of why the Messiah has come and the Jews remain under Gentiles instead of in the kingdom ruled by the Messiah, the king. And so he is explaining all that, but I'll say that when we get to the, or explain more of that when we get to the why, where the early church fathers located Matthew's writing in Israel, um, and then why Matthew wrote to supply proof that Jesus was the Messiah predicted in the Old Testament. He is indeed the Messiah, although Israel had rejected his messianic claims and had turned him over to Rome to be crucified. Jesus has been raised from the dead and one day will return to the earth to establish God's kingdom. And so this was to give confidence in in Jesus' sovereign authority and to give boldness to Christians to continue spreading the gospel to the nations in order to make disciples as they anticipate the coming of his kingdom. If you're if you're facing persecution and you're being dispersed from your home, then you're thinking, "Wait, is this is this really what we signed up for?" Matter of fact, Matthew 11, when John the Baptist, right, he asked that question, "Are you the one? Right? Are you the expectant one, or should we look for another?" And that would have been the same mindset we would say even of those who were who were dealing with the persecution. John sends his disciples to ask that of Jesus while he is in prison. Right? Okay, did we get this right? I mean, if I'm going to suffer for this, we we got this right? And the answer is yes, he is the Messiah; he does have a kingdom; and what's your responsibility? Well, Matthew 28, right, 18 to 20, "Go make disciples," right, of the nations. So don't don't sit around waiting for the kingdom; you have the right Messiah; it is Jesus; he does have a kingdom; go make disciples while you're waiting for that kingdom to be established, and it will be established, just not at this time. So Matthew is then writing to give them that confidence that what they have heard concerning Jesus is true. Matter of fact, is it true? It's worth dying for. The kingdom is coming in the future, but it's not now. Right now is the time to go make disciples. Yes, the Messiah was rejected, u, so the kingdom will not be established yet, um, but go make disciples. The ending of the book is the point: hey, you have the right, you have the right guy, trust him, and make disciples until the time when God brings the kingdom.

All right, essential themes in the Gospel of Matthew: that Jesus was the fulfillment of the Old Testament messianic predictions, and you see that throughout the gospel, that Jesus fulfills the Old Testament. Actually, a book just came out called, "How Jesus Fills the Old Testament," something like that, by Michael Vlock. It's a short book talking about us understanding what the Bible means or what the gospels mean when they use the word "fulfill," um, so that could be helpful to you. But that Jesus was the fulfillment of the Old Testament messianic predictions and therefore you can trust that he is the one; he is the expected one. Not only that, but Jesus was the son of David, or is the son of David, we should say, and that's how this gospel begins, that he is the son of David, Jesus the Messiah, the son of David. You can't ex, you can't separate those two things; the Messiah is to be the son of David, according to the Old Testament fulfillment, as we see in the genealogy, as we see in the Davidic covenant, uh, as we see in Psalm 2 and Psalm 89, and all this expectation of the son of David that is to come, Jeremiah 23, Ezekiel 34. The son of David has to come, and he will be he will be the one to restore things.

Jesus taught and acted with authority, and you can't miss that, considering that's the Sermon on the Mount, that is his miracles that he did; he even gave authority to his apostles whom he sent out. So from five to, um, the end of 10-ish or beginning of 11, however you look at that, the word that echoes in all of that is "authority," right? Right? You come to the end of the Sermon on the Mount; he spoke as one who had authority, and then he does the miracles, um, where he speaks again of the type of authority that he has, even with the centurion there in chapter 8, who understands authority, um, and then when Jesus says to the paralytic, "Your sins are forgiven," right, but that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, and then in chapter 10, verse one, and he called to him his 12 disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to cast them out and to heal every disease and every affliction. So his early ministry here is all about him showing his authority, demonstrating that he has the authority to do these things on a greater level than anyone else has ever been able to do. He speaks with authority; he acts with authority; he is able to convey authority to others to act on his behalf, and so on.

Jesus' message centered on the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God, the message of, um, John the Baptist, which is setting up for that, chapter 3:2, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand," and then Jesus, um, picks up on that in 4:17, "From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.'" What is the response to the kingdom of heaven being at hand? It is repentance. You must repent if you are to be in God's kingdom; you have to repent. The presence of Jesus brought a manifestation of the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God, and that's why he could say it's at hand. Jesus, or Israel, rejected Jesus' messianic claims, thus the manifestation of the kingdom departed from them; they were no longer able to benefit of it benefit from it because they rejected. And then Jesus will return to establish the kingdom in the future. They rejected him in his first coming when he said the kingdom of heaven is at hand; I am your king; repent; believe that you may experience the full the fullness of the blessings of the kingdom that God will bring, but they rejected him as their Messiah; therefore, they cannot receive the kingdom.

Other things that come out of the gospels, just very quickly, is that Jesus is God; that's in chapter one, but that would have been understood; that should have been understood by the Jews, right, that if he is the Messiah, if he is the the son of David, not a son of David, but the son of David, then he is God; he is the Son of God. Okay, so his deity comes out of that, um, and how many times Jesus speaks of God as the Father and so on, that he Jesus himself called the Son, the son of God, Son of David, the Son of Abraham, the Son of Man, um, the Christ, the King of the Jews, the King of Israel, but the emphasis, the main emphasis in this book is that he is the Son, and obviously, see, you have the Spirit as well. We talked about the emphasis on the kingdom; there's an emphasis on the Gentiles and their embracing; if the if the point, once again, going to the end of Matthew, "Go make disciples of the nations," right? Um, Matthew is tracing in here also the superior faith from the nations that goes all the way to chapter two, doesn't it? The Magi show up, and they're saying, "Where is he?" Right? Where is the King of the Jews? Where is the King of Israel? And uh, Herod gathers the Jews and says, "Wait, tell me about this king; where is he supposed to be born?" Right? But they don't go; the Magi go; they go with gifts; the Jews don't embrace that reality. And then in Matthew 8, when Jesus makes these statements of of faith, like in Matthew 8, he makes it of a centurion. Um, Jesus' own mission stated in Matthew 12 about taking the gospel to the nations, Matthew 15, the Canaanite woman who had great faith, Jesus showed compassion to the 4,000, which would have been a gentile crowd, and then even the centurion in Matthew 27, the same one that Mark records, that is him who recognizes that this man is the Son of God. And so all that goes to the end of Matthew when he then says, "Go make disciples of all the nations." All right, um, it's 10:42; I guess we can start working through the book, at least the first part of it, and then go from there.

Well, as we said, Matthew is built, at least the body of Matthew, kind of the middle part of Matthew, is built around these five major discourses, as they've been called, five major sermons or teaching sessions of Jesus, uh, unlike Mark who focuses on more on the miracle side of it, Jesus, or Matthew focuses more on Jesus and what he said, and that's what his disciples are to be taught. So we're not, you know, we think of discipleship in parts, you know, oh, I'm I'm a Christian now; I want to be discipled. Well, discipleship, according to Jesus, according to Matthew 28, is conversion all the way till the end, right, even baptism, right, "Go make disciples, baptizing them," that is that is a making a disciple; teaching them is also making a disciple; all of that from the initial approach with the gospel to the, um, the the act of baptism to the teaching them to, um, obey what God what Jesus has taught, all of that is part of the discipleship process. Um, anyway, I don't even know why I said that, but it feels good. All right, well, let's keep going. Uh, the prologue, the birth of the king, in the prologue here in Jesus' birth, it begins with the genealogy, um, or actually let's just start with one, one, "The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham," connecting David to Abraham and the Abraham or the Davidic covenant with the Abrahamic covenant, which, by the way, the Abrahamic covenant is, "Through you all the nations of the earth will be blessed," right? Well, how's that going to happen? Well, Israel needs to be what it's going to be, but that's going to happen through a king, right, a king who is going to make them what they should be. So you have the Son of David, the Son of Abraham, and then you have this, uh, genealogy here, which is not comprehensive of every name that could be in there, um, but you have these names, um, in 14s, if I can say it that way. How do you, I'm not finished; I know, I know. It's okay; I forgive you. Did you ask forgiveness? Um, so don't answer that. Um, so in the genealogy you have these names, um, and it's not comprehensive; it is selective, and let's see how much do I want to say about that; uh, I don't know. It goes from Abraham, let's just go from Abraham to David, and then, uh, from David you get to the deportation, and then from the deportation you get to Joseph. So you have kind of three sections here. Um, so Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, uh, Judah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, uh, Perez, uh, Hezron, there we go, Ram, Abinadab, Nation, Salmon, I always want to say Salmon, but you know, you guys do too; I know, Boaz, uh, by Rahab, Oed, Jesse, David. Now you have you have three sections in there, and they're all built around, or the way it is is David, and you know how like in, uh, you know how in, I think we've said this before, in, uh, in Hebrew you don't have vowels, right? Okay, if you didn't know that, you don't have vowels. So with, I'm doing this from an English perspective, okay? So it would be like they would write something like that, but then they would have like these DVD, okay, what's wrong with these people, and then they would have like dots or lines or stuff like that would tell you what the vowel sounds are in between. Okay, that's how Hebrew works. Now, but also names and their letters also have numerical represent, uh, representation. So if you were going to say a number, then you would put it in, you wouldn't, you would put it in letter form. And so the name David would repres would be the name the number 14. Okay, don't tell me to work all that out, but it'd be the number 14, and then when you count in the different sections of the genealogy, you have three sections. Okay, you do, you can look at it later, and in each section it has 14 names, another way of emphasizing this book is about Jesus being the Son of David. Okay, and if you, once again, if you compare the genealogies, you'll realize that he doesn't mention absolutely every name in there, and in genealogies you don't have to. Um, so you have from Abraham to David, from David to the deportation, and then you have from the deportation to Joseph. So it's divided into three sections, which Abraham divides things, or not Abraham, uh, Matthew divides things into three sections. All right, uh, we talked about the Jeaniah thing, so I won't bring that up, you know, about the, uh, you know, Judah and Tamar and Boaz and Rahab and, um, who are the other ones I'm thinking of? Uh, David and Bashiba, yeah, that's the name I was just testing it, uh, Yziah and Bashiba, um, and then what's the four, there's a fourth one, I forget all these, oh, Ruth, wait, I said Bo, it's supposed to be Boaz and Ruth, sorry, that's what I'm getting mixed up there. So you have Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Basheba. Okay, that's the point I was trying to make, mentioned in there as well. Um, some more to say about that, but for the sake of time, we're going to keep moving. We talked about the Jeaniah curse and how Jesus, that's resolved in Jesus, because he is not the biological, um, son of Joseph, therefore, he's he doesn't fall under the Jeaniah curse, but Joseph embracing Jesus as his son, I guess adopting him as a son, still puts him in the line of David, the legal line to be the King of the Jews, the Son of David. Um, so it says there in verse 17, kind of the point that's being made here. So all the generations from Abraham to David were 14 generations, from David to the deportation to Babylon, 14 generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ, 14 generations. Okay, so three sections that is divided in, um, and then from there you have the birth of Jesus. Now, this section or this end of chapter one shouldn't be thrown away or just kind of passed over, I guess I should say, and that this, um, is actually quite important because, once again, if Joseph is not on board with this, then this whole thing falls apart because he is in the line of the Messiah. So if Joseph doesn't embrace Jesus, then that takes Jesus outside the line of being the Messiah. So Joseph has to be on board here, and he is; Joseph is a righteous man, and he responds rightly to what is told him, um, and that's why it says there in verse 20, "Joseph, son of David," right, "Joseph, son of David," and then we find out there in verse 21, "Call him Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins," that is his mission, um, and then what is he fulfilling? Verse 23, "The virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel," which means "God with us." So he's the Son of David; he is God who will save his people from their sins. So Joseph obeys that, and the narrative in even in chapter 2, um, when Jesus has to be moved, the angel speaks to Joseph to have him move him. Now, thinking about all that, that really just gets you into chapter two, because when the Magi come, it's interesting that when they come and they say, um, "Where is he who's been born King of the Jews?" And they see the star, right, and that shouldn't surprise us because we've read what Numbers, right, with Balaam's whole prophecy about the stars shall rise and all that stuff. Yeah, connected with the king who will come from the line of Judah, who will have the scepter, who will crush the head of Moab and subdue all the nations and all that kind of stuff in Numbers 24. So we have the star that rises; we have these wise men, but notice what they say; they are looking for the King of the Jews, and then at the end of verse two, they say, "For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him," which tells us that they see the King of the Jews, the Son of David, as God himself. You don't worship a king; you worship God. So they've come; they understand that the Son of David, the King of the Jews, would be divine himself, um, and so the star leads them, um, to Jerusalem, that the really a way of pronouncing that this is happening, and yet Israel does not respond, and we know what happens with Herod; just makes him want to kill him because he doesn't want a rival, uh, which Herod did with a lot of people actually; he actually killed his own family members, uh, when he saw them as a threat, even if they didn't propose, uh, not propose, uh, present a threat to him; he was not all there in the head, um, which you know, that considering he's willing to kill all these children as well. So they fell down and they worshiped him, verse 11, as not just the king but as God himself. [Music] Um, and then from there we see how he gets from there all the way to Nazareth, the flight to Egypt, and so we have, uh, the fu, uh, the fulfillment there of, "Out of Egypt I have called my son," Jesus himself born into exile, right? The King of Israel has to be born in exile, right? Corporate solidarity; that's where Israel is now, in exile. Yeah, they might be in their land, but under enemy oppression, but he himself is born in exile, even taken to Egypt, um, corporate solidarity to bring them out, right, that he's going to bring them out in a greater Exodus, as we know from the Old Testament, so that shouldn't be a surprise to us, um, and then once again, this whole thing in verses, uh, 16 to 18, um, that when Herod had been saw that he had been, uh, tricked, and he gets angry, and then he's going to kill all the children, uh, who are two years old and under, um, this connects us back to Jeremiah 31 and that whole section all about actually the new covenant, uh, so there's going to be weeping; there was going to be lamentation, but, uh, Jesus himself is going to be the one who brings that comfort, which reminds us once again of even Isaiah and Israel and Babylon under enemy oppression, but it being God promises to bring comfort to his people. So Jesus is being born in the circumstances of his people, in some ways recapitulating what they're what they've gone through in order that he might, um, have solidarity with them and bring them out of what they are in, and then eventually, um, they end up in Nazareth, verses 19 to 23. You can't go back to Bethlehem; go to Nazareth, and that is, once again, fulfilling what the prophets agreed on, that he would be called a Nazarene, a Nazarene, a branch, a one not born in in luxury but born in poverty; he would be a chute. Uh, anything else I want to say about that? Uh, nope. All right, so chapter 3, let's see, it's almost 11 o'clock; any questions, comments, anything you guys need so far, um, on chapter two, with the wise men? How could they tell that this star meant Jesus is born? Like, how could they see a star and say, "Yep, the king is here." How is that possible? Is my question. But how, I don't know. How can you still see a star and say, "Yeah, this the one." Yeah, and I would say it must have not been a normal star, considering the way it was moving; I mean, considering it's just like, uh, moves to a certain place and stops; I mean, they would have been people who would have seen the stars, who would have been, uh, what's the word? Astronomers. Yeah, those things, right? They would they would have been those who the Magi, the wise men, would have been very, um, knowledgeable of the how the heavens, um, moved, and so they were recognized one star that's unlike the rest, especially one that's moving the way it's moving and stopping and all these kind of things. So that's the simple answer of that, as well as that's what they would have been looking for because they know the Old Testament, which they could have learned from Daniel, right, who was kind of a bridge between the Jews and Gentiles in that way. So from that standpoint, their expectation of that and looking out for it, and then this being a star unlike any other star, um, so, um, someone has suggested, I'll say this, you can take it or leave it, that when you look at the narrative, even going back to, I think, do they go back to, uh, yeah, I'm guessing I'm thinking they do actually go back to, uh, chapter 1, verse 18, and they just argue from the structure, you have Joseph visited by an angel, right, who directs them on what to do, and then chapters 2:1-2, you have the star directing them and them following the star, but then you look at 13 to 15, once again the angel shows up and directs where to go and what to do next, and then in 19 through 23, once again you have an angel of the Lord appearing, and so it has been suggested that that star was an angelic being moving that way, right? And the structure of the passage, right, it's it's possible, but the passage doesn't say it. So in the end, we'll just call it a star. That's probably a weird question, and I know, just if you talk about how the first coming Jesus came with the with the kingdom or came to came to actually establish the kingdom on on earth, the first coming, wait, he came to do what? To set the kingdom up, but he got rejected, and that's why he didn't set it up. Is that what you're trying to say? The first coming, I would say he came offering the kingdom and was rejected. So what if he was actually accepted? Would he have, what happened then? Yeah, and I would say those hypotheticals, we we take out back and shoot them; that's what we do. Not not the person, just the hypothetical, okay, unless the person doesn't let go of the hypothetical, then anyway. So, um, yeah, in the end he still had to die for their sins, right? He still had to die, so no matter what, that wouldn't have changed, like, so so then it's not more about the offer then, cuz it's like, if you accept it, you don't accept it; I still have to come back later. No, I didn't say he had to come back later; I said he had to die for their sins, but the offer is, I'm I'm here with the kingdom, so if you accept it, the kingdom will be here, right? So let's, because now I guess you're saying what what you're saying is that if they accept it or or they don't accept it, they still have to die and and be raised again and then come back, the second coming. Well, he would still be here, right? He died and raised again, not till he ascended, the second coming. All right, I see what you're saying. Yeah, yeah. Okay, that makes sense. You still got a question? Yeah, just a quick one about, um, quotes from the Old Testament, um, so the early church, they use the Septuagint, right, for the most part, or is that sometimes? Okay, not all.

The time, not all the time. Okay, fair enough. Well, that kind of defeats most questions then. Oh good, all right. I was just going to ask why—why we don't um use it, 'cause I, I thought that was their sort of main, main Bible, the Septuagint.

Yeah, just like if they were happy to use it, um, I guess why do we uh prefer the Hebrew when we're translating the Old Testament instead of uh—it's not wrong to look at the Septuagint. Okay, um, I've never heard anyone really use—Well, even when we like when, when Tom or some of us preach and we're saying, "Oh, you see, you know, in the New Testament we say, 'Oh, you see this word, this is actually the same word used.'" Well, it's not—we can't do that between Hebrew and Greek; we're doing it between Greek and Greek, right? So we're saying, actually, when we went back and looked at it in Greek, it was the same word used. So sometimes we do do that, but it, but overall we think it's better to translate the Old Testament from Hebrew to English rather than from the Septuagint to English. Uh, I think [Music] um, kind of like we argued with the structure from at the beginning, like Jesus using the structure uh from Luke 24, you know, the law, the prophets, and the writings, or the psalms, or whatever. Um, it's not to say that the Hebrew is that we shouldn't look at the Hebrew, right. Um, so [Music] uh, yeah, I would say the New Testament uses both. Like you could tell that they're looking at just at, at different times they're looking at a different thing. So I would say they're both useful. I mean, good. Yeah, yeah. Get comfortable, guys.

Regarding the Septuagint, would you say it's inspired in any way? Yes. I mean, I say my English Bible is, is inspired in as much as it—I mean, the—I guess the, the uh classic way of saying it is, this is God's word in as much as it reflects the original, right? So if I came to the end of Mark and it had that longer part, I would say, well, that doesn't belong there, so that's not God's word, right, um, or whatever. But I would say this does reflect the original overall; therefore, I could say this is God's word. And I think actually having this Septuagint uh and the other translations of the uh of the Hebrew, um, and the reality that the New Testament writers did use that uh tells us that they did see it as God's word by the way they used—They were willing to use the Greek translation of the Old Testament, and we can have that same thing in other translations if it's reflecting rightly the original. Yeah, that'd be my take on it. Hopefully it's quick. Um, it won't be—You talked about the um deportations, deportations, and then genealogies. Could you go through that again? There were three. So the quotation from Babylon, the first one, Juda, second one, 14—well, it's just verse 17 which really gives it to us, right? Okay, verse 17 is divided into three sections: the genealogy from Abraham to David, from David to the deportation, from the deportation to Jesus, all with 14 names in them, right?

14. Yeah, got it. Okay, good. All right, we ready for another stretch, stretch break? All right, let's do it. We'll pick up from there, from uh what they said—What a cheeky 20. Oh, um, okay, let's take a normal 10, how about that? All right, 11:18. Yep. Um, the body of this letter—of this gospel rather—beginning in 31, uh, there we go, in the public ministry of the king, what he did and what he taught, taking us all the way to the end of chapter 25. So his introduction and authentication, and three to much of 24, there—all of 24 there. John the Baptist, obviously, if he is the Messiah, he must have the forerunner as God has said he would send, and John the Baptist is that forerunner: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." He is the voice of one crying in the wilderness, "Prepare the way of the Lord, make his path straight." And we are familiar with those uh passages there in Isaiah. Um, and so he comes in the—you have a few passages come together here; you have Isaiah 40, you have Malachi: "Now a garment of camel's hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey." So coming like Elijah, uh, calling the people to repentance. And then, "Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him," and he's baptizing them as they confess their sins. But the Pharisees and Sadducees come to be baptized, but it was seen they don't come to actually confess their sins, and he exposes them: "You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" Let me back up for a second and say this: he's okay, he's in the wilderness and um, let's see, he's preaching in the wilderness of Judea, or we would say—let me see—maybe more in the other gospels—I'll just make the point now since I'm not doing the other gospels. So once again, let's uh let's draw my little map here. This is uh the Dead Sea, and this is uh—that's really—Yeah. Okay, then you have the Jordan River, and so John, right, is baptizing right around the Jordan River in the wilderness of the Jordan, which should make us think, right, a little bit—the Jordan River. What happened around the Jordan River, anybody? And some water. Yeah, Joshua, right? And you had the people passing over into the river, into the promised land and all that kind of stuff. And so you have this imagery here of people being baptized, associating themselves—if he's saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand," and they're being baptized through the water, showing in order to say, okay, we're people of the kingdom. Um, then what is John doing? He's basically, in some ways, given a picture of that: okay, we're in the wilderness uh around the Jordan, and you're be—you're passing through the water, right, to say that you're people of the kingdom. Yeah, does that kind of make sense? Sort of? Maybe? Who am I? How did I get here? Okay, so uh so the Pharisees and Sadducees show up, and he says, "You v—you brood of vipers, who warned you to flee the wrath to come, bear fruit in keeping with repentance." Okay, um, so you can't appeal that we have Abraham as our father; not impressive, but judgment is coming. Um, so you need to make sure this is real. Then John says in chapter 11—or in verse 11, not chapter 11—"I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I'm not worthy to carry; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire." I know what kind of churches you guys came from, right? I know that baptism of fire, you guys—I see some of you getting ready to get up now. Yeah, but if you just look at the context here, right, look at the context—"He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire," and then verse 12 says, "His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire." So this fire here is not a good fire, right? Some will get the Holy Spirit, and others are going to get the fire, right? These are those who are his people and those who are going to receive his judgment. Okay, and when he starts talking about the um the chaff, then we should be thinking about—Yes, and we learn about it in Psalms, Psalm one, right? Because you have those who—Yeah, yeah, at those guys—you have the righteous and the wicked, right? Those who will stand in the judgment and those who won't. And Psalm one is connected with Psalm two, right? You remember that? Maybe, hopefully. Okay, and Psalm two is all about the Messiah, the anointed one—"Kiss the sun," right? Embrace the sun. What's the difference between the righteous and the wicked? Obviously, those who receive God's word and those who don't, but it's also those who—Psalm two—who receive God's son and bows to him, and those who don't. So Jesus is coming; John is preparing for him, but Jesus is the one who will bring the Holy Spirit and fire, and so preparation for that is needed. And then from there, then in verses 13 to 17, then you have further authentic—authentific—authent—say it—authentication—authentication—authentication—get out! All right. Um, and his baptism. So Jesus comes, and he's baptized. Now, once again, we just have to think back to what's happening here, as far as it's already told us that this baptism is one where people are confessing their sins, right? Where people are, are repenting. This is a baptism of repentance that John is offering. Then Jesus shows up and says, "Well, I'm here to be baptized." And John says, "I don't know about this, Jesus; I kind of feel like you should be baptizing me." And then Jesus says, "Let it be so, now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness, or to do all that is right." Once again, this has to do with the king and his association with his people, right? We use the word, once again, as corporate solidarity, that he goes in where his people are to bring them out of it. And so Jesus is baptized, and the spirit descends on him and rests on him, and that shouldn't surprise us because we've read the Old Testament and we know he needs to be spirit-anointed, spirit-empowered—the Messiah would be. And then this voice from heaven that speaks and says, "This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased." Okay, "This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased." So this is stated right at the beginning of Jesus' ministry, before he has really done anything in regards to his ministry, that the spirit has anointed him, that the father has—and we mentioned already Psalm two—some of this language is taken from Psalm 2—"This is my beloved son"—he is my stamp of approval is on him from the—which is interesting because that takes us into chapter four and the temptation of—here, where the temptation um that the devil brings to him um begins with, "If you are the son of God," right? God said, "This is my son." And Satan says, "Oh, are you God's son?" Well, let's see how this goes, right? So he puts them in the wilderness, and the temptation accounts—Matthew, Mark, and Luke all present the temptation in, in different ways—that I guess I shouldn't try to um deal with the other books now, but in general, let's just talk in general. Then, in general, the temptations—when we think of temptations in the wilderness, we should be thinking of a few different people: we should be thinking of Adam, right? We should be thinking of David. Okay, I'll take that—there's someone else who went into the wilderness for 40 years—or Israel—that's three—and Moses, okay? Right? Maybe? Okay, all right. Um, 40 days and 40 nights, and he was hungry. So um, Adam tempted in the garden and failed—would put them out, right? Jesus tempted—out, right? So he could bring them in. Okay, also him being Moses or the, the new Moses—greater Moses—greater David. And once again, him showing solidarity with his people. Um, then he goes out into the wilderness, but he doesn't fail. Everybody else has their challenges in the wilderness, but Jesus himself shows himself um as indeed the son of God with the three of these here—not—I don't have time to go through a ball, but the ordering of them um puts the last one as um the one where he shows him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory and then calls on him, Jesus, to worship the devil, but Jesus obviously does not do that and appeals to the book of Deuteronomy each time. And so he is the obedient son of God, and uh the angels came and ministered to him, and so they fulfilled their purpose as ministering spirits to him as opposed to what happened to Adam in the garden when he was kicked out. What did they do? They guarded him from going back in, right? All right, what's that stank face you got on? Oh, okay, you had on the—You had a—Okay, you had a face that said different—his like, what did I do? I thought I was getting beat up over here. All right. So John is arrested; Jesus is beginning his ministry, um, and so you have this quote from in 12-17 or 15 to 16—goes back to Isaiah chapter 9. And we still got our map here, so that's good. You remember Isaiah chapter 9—"People in darkness saw a great light," all that stuff. You guys did read Isaiah, right? That's in your Bible. Okay, so—and so—um, "The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphali, by the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles." And what has been happening in Israel's history when Israel is attacked, right? Babylon, Assyria, right? People are coming from the north down, right? But now Jesus, he's starting here, right? So what is Jesus bringing? Conquest, right? In the same way they came, right, to overtake—Jesus is saying, "Well, now I'm here to overtake, right? But when they did it, they did it to conquer and tear the, the nation down." But Jesus is coming to bring blessing, right? Yeah, Isaiah 9—sort of—I don't know what your looks mean, but uh I wish I could just take a picture and like, this was you—this was you. We're going to start putting a camera up here, looking at you guys; see how you like it. Yeah. All right, I feel better now. Um, so from there, then he calls his disciples: Peter, Andrew, James, and John, um, who were fishermen, um, which should remind us of something said in Jeremiah, right? About fishers of men. Maybe go back and read it; it's in there. Okay, so that there would be those who um are then fishers—then Jesus calls these men who will be fishers of men uh to follow him, and they will do that—his first disciples. So from there, Jesus begins to minister throughout Galilee. He's teaching; he's healing; he's doing all these things. Great crowds are following him um from all around. And so chapter 5: "Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain." By the way, this is a thing we don't talk about much in Matthew is going up on the mountain, kind of like Moses, right? And Moses goes up on the mountain to receive the law, right? And Moses was a lawgiver, right? But now Jesus goes up on the mountain, not to receive the law, to bring it to the people, but he's actually the one that just gives it, right? And if you track Matthew, how many times he talks about Jesus going up on the mountain, just like Moses went up on the mountain. All right, anyway, but he comes here—the one who has come to fulfill all that had been spoken before. Now, in the Sermon on the Mount, it's important, guys, just that you understand this is not a how-to become a disciple of Jesus. Okay, that's not what the Sermon on the Mount is about. This is about who is a disciple of Jesus, right? This is not a how-to sermon, right? This is—this is what a true disciple is, what he looks like. Um, and so yeah, uh, we can't really go through it all, but just to make that general point there—feel like I'm skipping, skipping stuff, but it's okay. You guys didn't need to know all that stuff anyway; you'll just be tested on it later. All right. Um, yeah, I think we're getting the main stuff, all right? Then let's keep going. So this sermon is given, um, summing up the law and the prophets; uh, it corrects misunderstandings and misinterpretations given by the, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, um, what true righteousness is. This is true righteousness—the Sermon on the Mount. And so he's teaching—then, if you notice 5:1, right? He went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. He is teaching his disciples here; the crowds are listening; the crowds are there, but particularly to his disciples. Um, and 7:28, you find that that the multitudes were listening. Um, and so he is correcting what the experts were teaching wrong. Obviously, this is the most popular sermon, as people know it today. Um, and so just understanding that this is not for salvation, this is not how to be saved; this is for those who are following him—what does it mean to be truly his disciple, to have true righteousness? 5:20: "For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." So this is the superior righteousness—following Jesus' teaching—then which gets to—and when he deals with the stuff about anger and murder and lust and adultery, right, it does take it to a superior righteousness; it takes the law to its end, to what it was always getting to, not just to this uh surface-level understanding or surface-level obedience—"Well, I guess I, you know, I didn't do that; I hate the person, but you know, at least I didn't kill them." It's like, no—what was the point of the law? Is that you don't even hate them; you love your neighbor as yourself, right? Well, I can, you know, I don't know how many times I, I've heard this in the past—"I can look but not touch," when it comes to a man looking at a woman—and Jesus says, "If you're looking, then that's in your heart; the adultery is in your heart, and therefore you need to deal with that." So there is a superior righteousness being laid out here. Um, he is talking to his disciples who are already following him to instruct them on how they are to act if they're going to truly be his disciples. And so the idea here is more of a sanctifying effect than a salvific one—unless the—what happens is that um they are uh—you find out that you're not truly saved, then obviously you need to repent. Um, all right, so the Sermon on the Mount is there; uh, that's probably as much as I want to say about that—him correcting—not just—not correcting the Old Testament, but correcting the interpretations that have been given by the Pharisees and scribes, and then correcting the behavior in chapter 6 that they're doing their stuff to be seen by others instead of it being a, a true righteous behavior that gives—that gives alms, that prays to the Lord, not to be seen, um, but so that God will hear and, and—true righteousness in regard to fasting, that you fast not to be seen by others but because of your relationship—in relationship to God rather. So then, "Lay up your treasures in heaven," um, but you need to choose: are you going to serve the world, or are you going to serve Christ? You can't serve both, right? You can't seek all that you can from the world and think that you're seeking all that God has to offer you. Um, then the issue of anxiety, right? "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and trust God to provide everything else for you." And then, you know, most of your life verse here—"Judge not, that you be not judged," right? All right, so I mean, obviously there's some counseling principles in there that should be used often, um, that um, as far as the next part there is what I'm thinking of but not saying, as far as uh seeing the speck in someone else's eye while you have a log in your own eye. And so, before you address someone else's sin, address your own—that's some good marriage counseling in there that'll, that'll help in your—if you uh are dealing with someone and they're, and they're talking about all the stuff that their, their spouse is doing wrong, and just say, just—just ask them to make a list of their sins before—say, make a list of your own sins and address those and ask forgiveness from your spouse of those before you bring up theirs. Then all the counseling just goes away; it's just like—right? Doesn't exactly go away, but uh Jesus dealing with a serious principle there in general of relationships, even relationships within the church—that I deal with my own sin um before I address someone else's, which doesn't mean I never address someone else's sin, obviously. With that, then um be willing to ask—in the end, treat people the way you want to be treated, not the way you are treated, right? The Golden Rule, right? Not the way they treat me, but the way I want them to treat me. Matter of fact, when someone doesn't treat me right, um, and I feel that, and it hurts, that should tell me, oh, I do know how to treat other people, right? I do know—and the fact that I feel the, the consequences of other people not following that should tell me then that I do know the right way to treat them, and in that is the law and the prophets. Chapter 7:12: "So go the right way—the narrow gate," um, "not the wide gate." Um, there's the bomb going off. Okay. Um, I was trying to figure out which window I was going through—got nervous. Okay. Um, "Beware of false prophets; you'll know them by their fruit." Realize what—how Jesus will recognize his own—those who do the will of his father who is in heaven, right? Those who demonstrate—those who are acting in the righteousness that he has taught them to act in, not those who just do big things for him—prophesied in his name, cast out um demons in his name and all these mighty works—Jesus is unoppressed um if that is accompanied with lawlessness. And so, "Build your house upon the rock," which is his words—his, the truth that Jesus gives—and build your house upon that, not upon the sand. And in all this, it all goes down to Jesus' authority—that they recognize that he speaks, once again, not as someone who is speaking what has been told him, but he speaks as someone who has the authority in himself—not as their scribes. So he speaks with authority, but then he acts with authority—the miracles he has there and, and what he's showing there, and even kind of the—well, let's just work through it. But if you look at chapter 8, he demonstrates the authority, and chapter 9 we see the principles that, that come out of that, right? So chapter 8: what is the authority that Jesus has? Well, he cleanses a leper, right? He can make the unclean clean. And this was not something done commonly in the Old Testament; um, this was a prophetic work, but once again, you think about Naaman, right? "Go dip seven times in the Jordan." What does Jesus do? Jesus touches them, right? Which, in anyone else, it would have made them unclean, but Jesus makes the unclean clean. He—something is changed in the person of Jesus—the way that they're, they're used to things operating—with the centurion—the authority that he demonstrates there with the centurion—the centurion, his faith that is recognized by Jesus um is shown, and that the centurion understands the depths of Jesus' authority—that you don't even have to be there, Jesus—you don't have to go see him, you can just do it—"Don't come be defiled in my—this Gentile's home"—and Jesus says, "I haven't seen this kind of faith in Israel." So the centurion, this Gentile, recognizes Jesus' authority—that he can heal; he doesn't even have to touch someone; he can do it from a distance. And then in 14-17 with Peter's mother-in-law—I'm trying to refrain myself from making a mother-in-law joke here—but um for Peter's mother-in-law, and you notice verse 15—"He touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she rose and began to serve him." What he did was immediate—that she gained strength immediately and was able to serve immediately. Well, this all sounds good, but there is a cost to following Jesus, and he lays that out, and then he goes into calming the storm, um, and then healing the two demons—is interesting here, by the way, looking at um this passage—that what seems to be kind of in the heart of the passage is the cost of following Jesus. What I mean by that—you see the faith of the centurion—"Truly I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith"—and then when Jesus calms the storm, what does he say? "Oh, you of little faith!" So you see the contrast there, and in the middle is the cost of following Jesus—what does it really mean to follow him? H—the healing of the two demons—I'm sure you'll hear about that more in Mark—Mark gives a more extensive uh um record of that, but once again, the fact that his legion and his many—it shows just how um powerful—how much authority Jesus has—it's not that he can just heal a demon here and a demon there; he can heal a whole legion of them, um, and so he does that. All right. Now, in chapter 9, then we start to learn the lessons of what this means—what does this mean that Jesus is doing these things? What should we be learning from his miracles? Just that he's very powerful? Just that he's able to do some pretty big things? Well, 9:1-8 tells us that these miracles show us what else he can do—he can forgive sins. If he can do these things, he can actually deal with the, the, the real need of the people—certainly they need uh these things that they're going through and facing that he is healing them of are, are impressive and they're good and they are right, but don't miss the point that he has authority on earth to forgive sins. And then from there, what else do we need to understand is that he's not here just to help those who think they're okay—that he uh came not to call the righteous but sinners. And so in 14-17, you have this whole thing of the fasting and why don't they fast, and Jesus makes the overall point—"I am"—in the coming of Jesus, everything changes—this is a whole new thing here. And so what—they, they would be happy with Jesus if he fit into their schemes, right? And their plans, right? If they could take Jesus and he would just operate by their rules, they would love him, but Jesus says it doesn't work that way—you can't put new wine in old wineskins, right? Like, "No, no, no, I didn't come to be part of your system; I didn't come to be the status quo; I came to bring something completely new." And so new wine is to be put into fresh wineskins. And then there you have the um woman with the bleed—12 years—you'll notice there—um, let me see—this might be in another gospel—I should have just taught the other gospels—um, because I'm just skipping things now—oh, actually—oh, I did skip something—do I want to say that? All right, let's just back up for a second; I just want to say it because it'll make me feel better—this is all about me, right? Um, so Jesus presenting himself as the one who has authority as the, the prophet, right? The superior prophet. Um, back in chapter 8, um, and think of what's happening here—verse 23, when he calms the storm—23-27—they're in a boat; there's a great storm, right? And Jesus is asleep—reminding us of Jonah, right? In a boat—great storm—Jesus is asleep—deep—and everybody on the boat is going crazy except the one asleep. But with Jonah, it was an act of disobedience because he didn't want to go to the Gentiles, right? Um, and so the only way to calm the storm there was to throw him overboard, while Jesus himself is the one who calms the storm. And then in verse 28, he ends up—Jesus is actually on a boat to go to the land of the Gentiles, which is where that land is. So while Jonah's whole situation was out of disobedience because he didn't want to go to the Gentiles, Jesus himself has the power himself to calm the storm on his way to bring the truth to the Gentiles himself. All right, now I do feel better. All right, let's keep going. Um, and then you have the two blind men there, uh, and Jesus doing the miracles in general. Okay, we got to speed.

Up, so Jesus is doing the miracles, um, and what you notice in chapter 9:33, when the demon had been cast out, um, the mute man spoke, and the crowds marveled, saying, "Never has anything like this—never was anything like this seen in Israel." Right? This is a completely new thing that everyone is to recognize and submit to. But the hostility of the Pharisees—in verse 34 of chapter 9—"He cast out demons by the prince of demons"—and already you have a taste of their rejection of him. All right.

Then Jesus himself, as he's going out doing all that he's doing, he has compassion on them because they are, or they were, harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. And that causes him then to, uh, call the twelve apostles and prepare them to go out and to give authority to them. So once again, 5-7, he spoke with authority or taught with authority. Uh, 8 and 9, he demonstrates this authority through the miracles he's done, but not just the authority to do miracles, but to forgive sins—that this is a whole new thing happening through Jesus. And then he sends out his apostles with authority in chapter 10, that they would go and, uh, preach the gospel to Israel and do the, uh, miracles—heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons—the same thing that he's been doing, um, and to recognize that when you do this, persecution will come, but those who participate in what Jesus is doing in God's plan, they will indeed receive a reward from God. But what is—uh, so that's the manifestation of his authority, and then the opposition to the king beginning in chapter 11.

In chapter 11, obviously John the Baptist being put in prison, uh, needs confirmation, and Jesus gives that to him. Um, he speaks of the greatness of John the Baptist, but then he goes from there and speaks of the rejection of the people—that they rejected John who came in one way; they rejected Jesus who came in a different way. Um, but yet in the end, wisdom is justified by her deeds, and so he pronounces woe on the cities who had the opportunity to hear but didn't repent. Um, but Jesus still gives the offer, in 25 to 27, of, "Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest." So the offer is still there for Israel; they are rejecting, but all those who won't rest are to come to Jesus.

Jesus himself, in chapter 12, where the, uh, rejection is really solidified when he does heal these people, uh, or when you have the issue with him and the Sabbath. Once again, if you control the Sabbath, you control everything, and Jesus says the Son of Man—Him, he himself—is Lord of the Sabbath, and so they are obviously very upset with him, and they feel like they're going to catch him on the Sabbath to show that he doesn't—he doesn't have this authority because he can't even keep the Sabbath. Um, and so what they want to catch him doing is to do something on the Sabbath that says he is working on the Sabbath. So in verses 9 to 14, Jesus knows what they're planning to do. So in verse 13, and remember what they want him to do is to reach out and to touch, grab, do something that he's been doing to demonstrate, right, that he works on the Sabbath, but verse 13 it says, "Then he said to the man, 'Stretch out your hand.'" And the man stretched it out, and it was restored. So they're waiting for Jesus to—to stretch out and touch the man, and Jesus is just like, "I don't have to do that, right? Because the issue was never the Sabbath, was it? The issue is that he has authority that they were trying to hold for themselves." So verse 14, "But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him how to destroy him," with 15 to 21 picking up from Isaiah and showing the ministry of Jesus, how he is fulfilling these words of Isaiah, um, with the spirit anointed, uh, servant of Yahweh, uh, proclaiming justice to the Gentiles, and he will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets; a bruised reed he will not break; a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory. So his mercy, his humility, all of these things coming out, and in his name the Gentiles will hope—a ministry even to the Gentiles. And it's interesting to put it here as the Jews are rejecting him, and the ultimate rejection being in chapter 12, uh, the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit—that they have seen his miracles, they've seen what he's done, they can't—it's undeniable who he is—even as the people were amazed in verse 23 that he is the son—or asking, "Is this the Son of David?" Like, how can this not be? And then they attribute what is undeniable to be eligible, and that being then the unpardonable sin, contributing the work of the Holy Spirit to, uh, Satan. So Jesus lets them know to do that is the unpardonable sin—that you will not be forgiven of—and so their fruit is evident—all they have is the sign of Jonah—now that he will, uh, spend three days and three nights in the belly or, uh, in the heart of the earth as Jonah did in the belly of the fish—and that is their son; they have all the evidence they need; in the end they just don't believe. And so Jesus, while he is—verses 43 to 45—he is doing all these things, but in the end, um, because they don't believe, everything is just going to go back to the way things were. But everything comes back to who are Jesus' people—there are those who do the will of his Father in heaven—that is his brother and sister and mother. So because they've rejected in chapters 11, 12, then 13, they don't get further revelation; instead, you have the parables of the kingdom. And then the parables of the kingdom—Jesus is teaching those who are embracing him through parables what things will be like, um, in the coming of the kingdom—that the gospel will go forth, it will fall on different types of soil or different types of hearts. And, uh, only those who bear fruit are the true ones; there will be the weeds that will come up with the wheat, um, and it will be that way until the time of gathering, until the end, where some of those who are amongst the wheat are—will find—will see that there are only weeds, and they will be thrown into judgment. Uh, the kingdom of heaven will start small; those who are his citizens will start small, but will branch out, um, where the nations will rest in that, and it just keeps going from there with the explanations Jesus gives to his disciples, uh, the parable of the hidden treasure, of the pearl of great price, uh, what does it mean to embrace, uh, the truth of the kingdom of heaven? It is to give up everything for it, um, and so on. Now, out of that, then [Music] um, 123, yeah, here we are, uh, the withdrawal of the king because they have rejected him. Now Jesus turns his attention away from all of Israel and onto particularly his disciples. Nazareth rejects him; John the Baptist is put to death. Now the passage we looked at this morning, which I do believe is kiastic, um, and did you guys understand what I was saying? Were you guys awake during the sermon? A few of you I saw nodding. I won't say who—well, maybe I will. Um, but you guys got the whole kiastic structure thing? Maybe? Yes? No? Do I need to say it again? We got it, but we didn't get it. So you didn't get it. I got it, but I didn't get it. Okay, so, uh, I'll take that. I should probably—I don't want to get rid of my map though; I worked really hard on that. I don't want to flip the board like that either. So let's just do it like this. I'm sure they make them to flip, but it's all weird. All right, so, um, 13 to 21—well, I'll just put—you have the feeding of the 5,000, uh, feeding of 5,000. Right? Should have put 5K, but—so you have that, and then you have the walking on water. [Music] Um, walking on water, and, uh, the whole little faith—we'll just put little faith—and there's other connections, but I'll just focus on that one. And then what's in the middle is the traditions and commandments, right, and commands. And then you have the, uh, Canaanite woman, right, uh, who had great faith. Yeah, maybe it's the huffing and puffing back there who did that—confess your sins. Okay. All right. And then you have the feeding of the 4,000, right? And so you have this in the middle, right? Yeah. Does that make sense? Doesn't look clear; you can't read it—traditions—traditions. Yes, you can ask if I write something, you—I'm glad you blamed it on you and not my writing. [Music] Uh, and so these are interesting because these are Gentiles, right? Two Gentiles—these are feeding Jewish crowds, and the disciples walking on water exposing their little faith while a Gentile had great faith. Yeah, maybe. All right, take it home and think about it. Good. Which means the focus of the passage is on the traditions and commands and the, uh, defilement of the heart, right? All of that going together in one section from verse 1 to 20 of chapter 15. So that's what the focus is on in all of this, right? They operate by traditions instead of by the commandments, uh, of God; they—they operate by the commandments of men, and they actually have defiled hearts, um, and so Jesus then is demonstrating to them the compassion or compassionate authority, right? And that, um, the issue of faith. Yeah. All right. All right. Well, that covers all that. All right, let's stop here. We need to take a break. Yeah, you guys need a break—a break from me—just want to see what you say. We don't have any questions, do we? We're all good? Okay. Wait, raise your hand if you have a question. Okay, so we're taking these three and no more. Did you have your hand up? What's that? That's not a hand. Okay, we have these four; I'm gonna answer them super quick. Okay, who's first?

Um, chapter—chapter 3, um, on the baptism of John—was that something that was new to the New Testament, or it was an Old Testament thing? Because I don't think that we saw it in the Old Testament. No, we didn't. But then I think you read it, talk about how the Pharisees were also getting involved in it, in the baptism. So how did that—is that—was that something new—they were just getting involved in, or they thought John—this is something old you're doing, so you're just going to come along, cuz I know they did—well, today, uh, yeah, uh, I would say that this was unique to John's ministry—I mean, not baptism, obviously; it carries forward, um, yeah, but I don't think—could be wrong—but I don't think it was something that they were just doing a whole lot of. But I think the connection of what I was saying about John in the wilderness of Judea, baptizing—the passing through water—all that kind of stuff—is understood as, um, being right with God and being in—being those who will be in the kingdom and all that kind of stuff. Mhm. So, um, but they're listening to what he's saying, seeing how he looks, and they're saying, "Okay, we need to respond to this." Yeah. And one final one, um, again, on—on John—what did he send and his, um, disciple to go and ask Jesus about if he's truly the Son of—of God—if he himself did baptize him, and a whole Holy Spirit coming down, and you got everything happening, but you still—well, I mean, once again, I mean, why did Peter deny him? Why, right? Why did all the disciples leave him, right? And the pressures of persecution, right? John is looking for is assurance, um, so I would just say in the end, he's saying, "Okay, you're the king. Yeah, I saw those things, but I'm not seeing the rest of it, so why—why don't we have the rest of it?" And Jesus says, you know, tell him all the things I've done, and then so on. Yeah. Yeah. My question is on the Sermon on the Mount, okay? And, um, so this is what a believer—a saved person—is how they are meant to behave, right? Like this is like—Yeah. Um, so when Jesus says, "It is better that you lose one of your members than your whole body be thrown into hell," and when he says, "You therefore must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect," is that for the—Well, I guess it is for us believers to pay attention to that, right? But is there also a purpose about showing unbelievers something in what he says? Or—Oh, yeah, yeah, uh, I would say that we probably misuse that verse quite a bit. I don't think he actually—the word there for perfect, um, is used in other places like in the book of James that has the concept of behold, not necessarily of perfect without sin, but to be everything—to be all that's required of you, um, um, to be everything that God requires of you. Maybe I would say it—so I think sometimes we use that as a perfection—we say it that way in an evangelistic way—"Oh, what does God—"Well, you're to be perfect as God is perfect," um, in a way that, uh, um, my mind's going two different ways, uh, yeah, in a way of saying, "Oh, but you're not perfect, are you?" As opposed to—to maybe Jesus saying—let me see if I can find what I'm looking for—and in James 1, "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness, and let steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect, complete, lacking in nothing," right? Um, so it's the—the principle—I—I guess I would say it this way—it's a principle of us pursuing not perfection, but everything that we should be in regards to living righteously—not necessarily—"Oh, you must be perfect in order to be his disciple." I don't know if that makes sense, right? So even with respect to—"If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out," and all of that—like, in terms of—"It's better—"What about that? I'm not understanding that part. No, even—even that, right? Let's say, okay, um, "It is better to lose one of your members than your whole body go into hell," right? That doesn't mean, right? Because one could read that and say, "Oh, does that mean that if I complete my life with still lingering sins that I haven't cut my arms for, I'm going to be thrown into hell?" Does that make sense? Sorry, if I complete my life here, but I still have lingering sins—like, if someone reads that in—in like in isolation—well, I—I think people should take the warning that if you're living an unrepentant sin, knowingly, just—just doing that, but once again, the whole thing of the, uh, perfecting of the believer is a sanctification thing, right? So it's one thing to be pursuing sanctification; it's another thing to be saying, "Well, you know, if I—if I, uh, do whatever"—I guess that's even in the—comes right after the adultery thing, right?—"To pluck out your eye and cut off your right hand," and all that—that someone should take that as, "Hey, if I can just do this and not pursue repentance, I should be thinking—I should be questioning whether I'm his disciple," um, so it's the old Piper thing—Piper said a couple—you know, came to him—wait, was—I think it was maybe an individual, uh, saying, "Oh, I'm living with my girlfriend," and so on, and he's, you know, basically—"I'm a Christian, but I'm living with my girlfriend," and he's just saying, "Oh, you should be afraid—you're going to hell if you can do that with no—"Oh, God will forgive me." Right? Jesus is saying, "No, that's not what a disciple does." A disciple says, "This is sin—how do I rid myself of it?" Right? And if you're not saying that, once again, it doesn't mean you've—you're not going to die without any sin in your life, right? But Christians battle that, and I think that's the point he's getting to here; he's saying, "Okay, you want to know how serious you are about sin—what have you done to rid yourself of it?" Once again, not plucking out my eye and then my heart's no different—that's not the point, right? But it's—okay, that's a sin—let me figure out what I need to do not to go back that way, and I should be constantly as a believer thinking about, "Where is there sin in my life? How do I combat that?" Mhm. So, yeah, I think still it's a—it's a pursuit of that—of—it's a sanctifying pursuit, or pursuit of sanctification, not necessarily saying, "Oh, you're going to be per—you're—you're going to be perfect." Yeah, that's—that's the way I would take it, but you know, I could be wrong. Thank you. I'm not—I'm joking. Go ahead. Romans 7, right? Yeah, I do not do the good I want—but it depends on how you take Romans 7, but I got you. If you take it that way, then yes. Yeah, I got you. Um, up here, Sarah, you still have one, or somebody? Okay, so I—I wanted to just ask if, you know, the baptism you were talking about—the Holy Ghost baptism—when you were talking about baptism with the Spirit and fire, and I want to understand your point if you meant the fire is like, um, judgmental fire. Well, I was just saying the next verse says it's judgment—the next verse in chap—in verse 12, I think it's verse 12, says speaks of the fire that he's talking about, and it's—it's a judgment; it's a fire of judgment. So I would just say in the context that's how we should interpret it—that there's the Holy Spirit; some will be baptized with the Holy Spirit, and others they will suffer fire, right? But what about the clothing—tongues of fire that came on? Well, that's Acts; we're not in Acts. Yeah, but I'm just saying, like, does that not, like, relate to this at all? No. Okay. Ah, I feel better now. No, he—he said he's good. All right, let's call it—Can we do five minutes? Let's do five minutes, cuz that's three minutes quick, is it? So it's actually 12:17, so let's do three minutes. [Laughter] Uh, all right, five minutes, guys, five minutes—you can do everything you need to do—when that clock says 12:25, I'm going to start talking again, cuz you don't have long before lunch; you'll be okay. All right, you guys have delayed me long enough; let's do it. [Music] All right, we have less than 30 minutes to do the rest of the book, so here we go. Um, we finished chapter 15, so chapter 16 then, um, Pharisees and scribes looking for a sign. Jesus rejects that and warns the disciples of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees, taking you back once again to the traditions and commandments of men that the Pharisees operate on. And so as the Pharisees and Sadducees have rejected him, Jesus now in chapter 16 gives his own disciples the opportunity to state where they are—they—they do—they give an opportunity to state where they are or what they believe concerning Jesus, and people have different opinions—Elijah, Jeremiah, one of the prophets—but then Peter speaks up and says—when Jesus asks, "Who do you say I am?"—he says, "You're the Christ, the Son of the living God." And from that point then Jesus goes in to say, "Okay, let me give you what this means—I have to go die, um, I'm going to be put to death and raised again on the third day," um, to which Peter doesn't like to hear and rebukes him, but then we know that this causes Jesus to then rebuke him with some very strong words and to make the point that if you're going to be my disciple, you have to be on board, and you actually have to go as well—you have to take up your cross and follow me. So it's not just a thing, Peter, of you saying, "I—no, don't let me go, or don't—that Jesus shouldn't go"—it's like Peter—actually discipleship is following in Jesus' footsteps and taking up your cross and following him, um, denying yourself and being willing to lose your life, uh, and not save your life. Um, with that then you have the transfiguration, which comes right out of this—"Jesus says that some of you will not taste death until you see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom"—and that's what the transfiguration is—what Jesus will look like in the coming of his kingdom when he returns. And so he takes Peter, James, and John—he takes them up on the mountain, uh, once again going up on a mountain, and he is transfigured, um, Moses and Elijah are there, um, and Peter speaks up and he says, "Lord, um"—he doesn't say that—"he says, 'Lord, it is good that we are here, if you wish.'" Uh, three tents here, uh, one for you, Moses, and Elijah—and that points to—"Why does he say that?"—"Feast of Booths"—who said that? You—okay, so somebody else—I would have given them points, and I figured I was—you never mind—just kidding, I wouldn't have given points to anyone, um, and so what is—what is Peter saying? He's saying, "Hey, this is it—this is the coming of your kingdom." And then God the Father speaks up and he says, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased—listen to him." And what is it that Peter needs to listen to? What Jesus said before—"I'm going to die—no, I can't stay up here," right? Listen to what he's saying, Peter—he has to go and die and raise on the third day, and if you are going to be his disciple, you have to go and do the same. When they come down the mountain, the disciples are complete failures; they are, um, thinking that their authority—it seems—not—or they're not embracing the reality of the authority comes from Jesus, and that's why they can't heal [Music] um, this boy, right, um, because it comes through faith, it comes through prayer—that they are to trust God in this and not just think they can go out and do this on their own. So Jesus again tells them that he's going to the cross. You have this issue of the temple tax, and then Jesus—third—wait, fourth—teaching—extended teaching in chapter 18, which is instigated by the disciples and their discussion of who is the greatest, and then Jesus lays out there, um, what it means to be the greatest—that actually it is humility; it is becoming like a child; and then watching your life that you don't—not just as he said in the Sermon on the Mount—sin yourself, but cause others to sin, and then are also looking to restore those who are in sin, and that gets into that passage of 15 through 20 on, uh, church discipline or church restoration, whatever you want to call it, and the parable of the unforgiving servant—this is how the community of God's people acts. Right? They don't seek the greatest; they don't seek greatness as in, uh, the way that unbelievers do; they seek greatness through humility and keeping themselves from sin and pursuing those who are in sin while forgiving those who sin against them. Jesus is confronted, um, with this teaching on, uh, divorce, trying to—them testing him, and, um, Jesus confronts them with the law of Moses, once again showing that they themselves don't understand the heart of the law—what—what the law is getting at—and so they themselves have taken advantage of the law for their own means instead of seeking God's purposes in the law—to have a superior righteousness, um, in 13 to 15 you have the little children coming to me, um, and that the ch—the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these—those who are humble and embrace the kingdom for what it is as it's been presented to them by Jesus. But then you have this guy—the rich young ruler—who is the antithesis of that, right? He comes and he's saying to him, "What—what must I do to have eternal life?" And so Jesus is confronting him, um, showing that he doesn't have the, um, the mindset, or he—he is not coming as a little child to embrace the kingdom, and so it is hard to get into the kingdom, particularly for those who have much in this life and are holding on to much in this life, but given the promise that those who are willing to, uh, give up in this life will have much more in the future, but whatever they will have in chapter 20, 1-16, is of grace. So you have that parable of the laborers there—that they come at different times, and the owner of the v—of the, uh, vineyard pays them all the same—why? Because all they get is of grace; it was not by works. And so Jesus tells a third time of his death, and then, um, James and John send their mother to do the dirty work in 20:20, and Jesus teaches a lesson on serving—not as the Gentiles, but like the Son of Man who came not to be served but to serve and give his life a ransom for many. He heals the two blind men, which is—which is the problem with Israel, as we found out in chapter 13, that they are blind, right? Because if you can truly see, then you see that Jesus is the Son of David—matter of fact, right before the triumphal entry, as he enters as their king as the Son of David—and this healing of the blind men—they, though they can't see, can see that he can see the obvious, right? These blind men can see that he's the Son of David, and David restores their sight, but Israel itself is blind and will not see what's right in front of them. So Jesus comes as their messianic king; he comes in, um, into Jerusalem, um, as was, uh, said in Zechariah that would happen—he comes riding on a donkey, um, coming into this—the city—and certainly, uh, praised and embraced by some, uh, while others don't understand what's happening, and it being said in 21:1, and then—and the crowd said to those who are asking, "Who is this?"—"This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee." And then in 12-17, he, um, cleanses the temple, um, showing himself as the Son of David, as the greater David. So verse—let's see—verse 14—"The blind and the lame came to him in the temple and he healed them"—that goes back to—we don't have time to go to it now—to, uh, 2 Samuel 5, when Jes—when David first went to take Jerusalem, and just to remind you of the story in—in general, um, that, um, the king in Jerusalem said, "Even the blind and the lame will keep you out," and David said, uh, after that he says, "Because of that, no more shall the blind and the lame be allowed in the city," but when Jesus comes, the way he deals with the blind and the lame but is by healing them as opposed to keeping them out. All right, he is indeed the Son of David. And then you have chap—verse 15 or verse 16, I guess both pointing back to Psalm 8—"Out of the mouth of infants and nurses—babies or nursing babies—you have prepared praise"—if you compare that with Psalm 8, you'll see that in Jesus saying that he is—he is, uh, calling those who are rejecting him his—the enemies of God—once again, just make a note of that; I don't have time to go back and draw all that out. So Jesus curses the fig tree because that's what's going to happen with, uh, Israel. U, and then—no surprise—or we shouldn't be surprised that the authority of Jesus is challenged—the issue has always been authority—Jesus has demonstrated his authority in his words, in his miracles, in the sending out of the 12, right? Everybody is seeing this; everyone's understanding this, but now what do they do? They are—they, um, oppose his authority, and so they—and so Jesus then shows his superior authority by turning it back to them and putting them in a situation where they wouldn't answer concerning the ministry of John, um, showing that they actually know; they just don't want to embrace him. So then he gives them these three parables—the parables of the two sons—showing, um, that tax collectors and prostitutes are actually in—

Line with God's purposes more than they are the parable of the talents, going back to the Old Testament. Um, even Psalm 118, that they themselves are the ones who have abused God's prophets, God's servants, and even God's son, as they were getting ready to do, and how therefore they will not get the kingdom of God. It will be given to others who will embrace the truth of who Jesus is, uh, who do see him as the cornerstone and will be built on him.

And then you have the parable of the wedding feast, that those who were invited didn't come, and so there were others who wouldn't have normally been invited who were who were invited and came in and were able to enjoy the benefits of the wedding feast. With this one man who came in but was not dressed in the right garments, and therefore he had to go out to judgment as well. And so with that, then with after the three parables in chapter 22, you have three um, plots, I guess you could say, or or times of testing Jesus and trying to catch him in his words—paying taxes to Caesar, which Jesus answers well. Uh, the the um, Pharisees bring that, and then the Sadducees try their best effort bringing the resurrection as a as an issue, and Jesus shows them that they don't understand the scriptures or the power of God.

And then you have uh this one lawyer who comes and once again Jesus answers him about the greatest commandment. So Jesus silences us all with um this verses 41-46: how can um the son of David be David's Lord, going to Psalm 110? And they realized that they were outmatched and they knew that they couldn't catch him in his words, so they back away. Uh, 23 are the the seven woes against them, leading to Jesus' lament over the city, realizing that they have fully rejected him and therefore they are going to have to face God's judgment. And the reality is is that they do not get the blessings until verse 39, until they say, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord." When will Israel be restored? When they acknowledge that Jesus is the Messiah, meia. That's when they will see him again.

So in 24 and 25, Jesus is asked by his disciples about these events—events that will take place—um, the destruction of the temple and his second coming. And so Jesus explains that in the language that, I guess looking back, goes back to Daniel in those seven weeks, the seven or seven weeks of Daniel 9, or the seven years of tribulation, um, laid out even in the book of Revelation. With, if you just compare the book of Revelation to what he says in chapter 24, there's parallels there—the first three and a half years coming and then um the antichrist coming with the abomination of desolation spoken of it by Daniel, the the the prophet Daniel, um, which is going to lead to uh the great tribulation period uh described in 15-28. And then after the tribulation, uh the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give us light, stars will fall from heavens, the powers of the heaven heavens will be shaken, and then the son of man will come back. And so the details there, but no one knows the day or the hour. And then he gives a series of parables to explain uh the fact that you just must be ready, right? You must be ready for Christ to return, because when he comes, judgment comes with him.

All that takes us to chapters 26 to 28 and really the uh where all this is leading. And if you compare the gospels, it's interesting to actually compare the gospels in this and the in their endings, uh, because the way they begin tells you what their focus is on. For instance, Matthew in or begins uh Matthew 26, you know, 26:2, you know that after two day days, Jesus saying this, you know that after two days the Passover is coming, the son of man will be delivered up to be crucified. Um, so from the very beginning what's being established is that Jesus knows what's coming and that this has to happen in Matthew. Mark doesn't begin that way; you'll see this in the later hours. Mark begins simply kind of where verse three of this chapter begins: the chief priest and the elders and plotting against Jesus. So while Matthew is trying to, and he just kind of comes out as he goes through these chapters that Jesus is going through this in order to fulfill scripture, Mark does it in such a way to just show the tragedy of what takes place. Um, I mean it's hard to read Mark's and not have tears in your eyes, saying something's wrong, right? Matthew, you have Jesus is in complete control. You read Mark and is saying this is all wrong. You read Luke and he talks about uh the Passover, the the echo of chapter 22 is begins with the Passover Passover, and then when you get into the trial of Jesus, the echo is that he is innocent, right? He's the spotless lamb, right? So he's drawing that out in Luke. And then John has his own purposes as well as him—um, Jesus. Uh, what was I going to say there? That's Jesus fixing everything, going back all the way to Genesis to the beginning. So anyway, that's a a summary overview of that, but just to say in in Matthew's gospel then what he is presenting is that Jesus is in control the whole time. Jesus is doing this in order to fulfill scripture. So Jesus knows what's coming, and we know what happens after—or he even states this. This woman that anoints his head in verses 6 to 13 does this in preparation for his burial. He's not under any uh delusion here, but this woman using this costly ointment is what causes Judas then to go to the chief priest and to see what kind of money he can get for betraying Jesus, because this event recorded in 6 through 13, we know from the gospel of John, actually happened um at the beginning of Passover week or even before Passover week, but it's put is put here to make the connection between that's why Judas was going to betray uh ended up betraying Jesus. But Jesus knows this. Jesus knows that Judas is going to betray him; that's why he doesn't make it known where they're going to celebrate the Passover. Verses 17 really uh could go almost down to 35 there, because if Judas knows that Jesus is going to betray him or yeah, if Judas knows the place where they're going to celebrate the Passover, then he can betray Jesus there, right? But Jesus withholds that information, and we know from the other gospels that um Peter and John are the ones sent out to get the room and get it make sure it's prepared for them, um but not Judas, who was the one who held the money, because Jesus knows, once again, he Jesus is working through this according to plan, and he doesn't even expose Judas until this point. And once he exposes him, then Judas goes out. When he goes out, verses 26 to 29, Jesus institutes the Lord's supper, um, and then when they head to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus Jesus tells them that you're going to betray me, of which Peter and the rest deny that. So once again, Jesus throughout this is saying, "Guys, I I know this; I know how this goes," right? He's in complete control the whole time. He gets to the Garden of Gethsemane, and in the Garden of Gethsemane he is praying in agony, showing that this is not this is not some superficial thing that he's going through; this is um this is real; this is the worst of all, and not necessarily even the physical pain, but the reality of being separated from his father in this way and suffering the wrath of God. And so Jesus prays and calls on the disciples to pray as well. The other thing that's clear in this gospel is the contrast between what Jesus does and the disciples do, and you see that even here that Jesus says, "Pray um pray with me, pray that you don't fall into temptation." And then Jesus himself prays, and you say, "How did Jesus get all the way to the cross?" Well, we could say it was God's plan; we can say um he was God's son; we can say a lot of things, but what the gospels are arguing and even Matthew is arguing here is actually because of the garden of Gethsemane, right? Why did the disciples not last? Because they didn't pray. Why did Jesus last? Is because he prayed, right? Yes, maybe, okay, think about it. Um, so with that then, um that happens three times. On the third time, Jesus uh sees Judas and the crowd coming and tells them, "Okay, no time to pray now; pick yourself up; it's happening." And so Judas comes; he betrays him with a kiss, and once again you have the contrast between Jesus and the disciples—Jesus willing to submit to this and his arrest while the disciples are ready to fight. And Peter, it doesn't say Peter here, but in the in John, Peter cuts off the uh soldier's ear, and Jesus u tells him that's not what we're doing here—it's the message, okay. Um, and so once again, if Jesus says, "Look, I if I wanted if I wanted something different, I could have I could once again uh call for 12 legions of angels, right? I could do something different." But why doesn't he? Because he is verse 54 fulfilling scripture. And once the disciples realize, oh, we're not going to fight our way out of this, they all they all leave him, and that fulfills scripture in itself—Zechariah 13. Now at the end of this passage of verse 2 of chapter 26, what's interesting here is you have the trial of Jesus and you have the denial of Peter. And what if you're following those, if you're following the story, the denial of Peter and the trial of Jesus are are set in contrast, okay? Those two things are put together like they are uh for a reason. So I'll just give you a sense of this, okay. Um, so we'll say Jesus, right? It's Jesus' trial and then Peter, okay? So here we go. [Music] Um, two witnesses against Jesus, right? There was two witnesses. Yeah, maybe you guys, did you guys read this, right? And then you remember there was two servant girls, right? Two servant girls before the final thing. Um, I got to remember all this now. Let me see; I'll remember once I see it. Um, obviously Peter is outside in the courtyard; Jesus is in in we'll just say in huh priest's home. And the thing about the the two witnesses and the two servant girls, I'll say that in a second, hold on, uh outside is that um when it says two servant or it says one servant girl and then the second servant girl, it it actually says one, like it's almost like it would be almost like saying one little girl, right? As opposed to with Jesus, they were looking for witnesses, right? As he is standing trial, and then Peter is approached by a little girl and then another little girl, right? And so Jesus is obviously under much more attack than uh Peter is. Um, I mean I'm just going to throw some stuff out here—they were false witnesses here, weren't they? But actually these two girls here were true witnesses, right? What they were saying about Peter was actually true. Um, Jesus was uh Jesus was silent, right? And Peter spoke from the beginning, and I had another thought there—it goes right along with it. Come on, think, think, think. He was silent. Oh, he was put under an oath, but what did Peter do? He put himself under an oath, right? In order to try to argue for his innocence, and then um Jesus, what did he do? He [Music] um come on, he uh spoke the truth. We can say that's a oh, spoke the truth, um which led to his death, right? And Peter lied in order to save himself, right? So there's all these contrasts going on here, and really to paint the light on the on I guess on two things: one of just how bad what Peter did was, but also to. So no one else could do what Jesus did, right? I mean, Peter, you once again, you think Peter, right? Um, and Peter was so confident, but you but actually there's only one hero, right? Only one person could go through this and come out of it. Are you taking a selfie or you taking a picture of the board? I was just joking with you; I was waiting for you to kind of lean back; I catch you. Okay, right? And so you can make these different connections, right? Jesus versus Peter, and that's what I was saying throughout the passage. You see Jesus prayed; Peter and the disciples did not. When it came to Judas betraying him, Jesus submitted to that; the disciples wanted to fight, right? And when they couldn't, they left. Jesus is put on trial, and when he's put on trial it was false witnesses—um, two false witnesses. Jesus remained silent until they finally put him under oath, and he spoke the truth concerning himself, while Peter was confronted by two little servant girls, right? Outside where he still could have run away—the witness about him was actually true; you're one of them, right? But he argued from the beginning that he wasn't uh putting himself under an oath and then even lied, and when he lied he did that cursing and swearing, right? As opposed to Jesus, when he spoke the truth, he spoke the greatest truth, and you will see the son of man coming on the clouds. That there's only one hero in this story, and that is Jesus. The disciples, right? They they they need Jesus to do this, and he's the only one who can go to the cross. So Jesus goes; Judas hangs himself; the whole thing with the potter's field and all that, securing Israel's judgment, um, connecting to Jeremiah and Zachariah and all of that. Um, Peter goes or Jesus is held before Pilate, um, and there's yeah, there's more to it, but basically, oh, by the way, I'll just say this much. So in some uh what do you call manuscripts, it's uh Barabbas, right? How you spell Barabbas like that? Is it two B's, two Rs? What are y'all? Two B's? That London education? No, just kidding. No, is it two Ps? That looks so weird, right? He's actually called Jesus Barabbas, right? In some manuscripts it actually says Jesus Barabbas, and you could you can understand why they wouldn't put that in verse 16 of chapter 27. Now why would they call him, why would it be Jesus Barabbas? Well, that very well could have been Jesus wasn't a like one person named Jesus, right? Because it's the in the Old Testament it's Joshua, right? So um let me see—I'm going to have to find it now; I don't have time for this—but you get the general point, right? Who do you want me to release? Jesus Barabbas or Jesus the king of the Jews? Which Jesus do you want, right? They had every opportunity, right? Especially Barabbas being um someone who had who had brought about insurrection. I mean, he's he's the ideal candidate to be crucified because Romans crucified people who who did particularly heinous things that were going to cause other people to follow him. Like, why did you crucify somebody? Why did you march them through the streets? You did that so that everybody would see and say, "Whoa, let's back up here; let's not we don't want any of this," right? That's why you crucify somebody—so that they don't follow that guy. So if someone's bringing an insurrection, I mean, you can turn the whole Roman government against the the Jews; that would be the ideal guy to crucify. This guy's going to get us all in trouble. They had every reason to choose to release Jesus and to crucify Barabbas, but they did the exact opposite. They said, "Let him be crucified." And so Pilate says, "Well, I am innocent of this man's blood." And the Jews say, "His blood be on us and our children." And the answer is, "Yes, it will be," right? Yes, it will be. All right, quick story: Jesus is mocked; he's crucified; um, he dies; uh, skip skip uh cried out a cried out again with a loud voice—you get the significance of that—yielded up his spirit. And then Matthew points out the curtain was torn in two from top to bottom, and the earth shook, and the rock split, and the tombs were also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection; they went into the holy city and appeared to many. And then the centurion and those who were with them keeping watch over Jesus saw the earthquake and what took place; so they saw the bodies come out; they saw all the stuff that was taking place, even how he died. One of the other gospels say that even how he breathed his last—I don't know if it's Mark or Luke; it's one of the two—and he concludes, "Truly this was the son of God," right? This was him; this was the son of God. Well, Joseph of Arimathea, he um asks for his body; he gets the courage to ask for the body; buries him—Isaiah 53:9—that he's buried in a rich man's tomb or buried with the rich man, uh, and then they try to secure the tomb, which actually just proves that it wasn't the body wasn't stolen; that this was a genuine resurrection. And from there, the great commission: the 11 disciples went to Galilee to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them a couple of chapters earlier that he would meet them in Galilee, and when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And then and behold, I am with you always to the end of the age"—a claim that could only be made by God himself. So therefore, those who are reading this, they are to take the gospel, take the good news, and take it to the nations with full confidence that Jesus is the Messiah; he has a kingdom, but it hasn't come yet because Israel has rejected their Messiah. So now is the time to go and make disciples of the nations, um, as they've been called to do with the message that they've been given and concerning Jesus. And that's how it all ends. They do that knowing that Jesus is with them and is helping them um go about the great commission. All right, we're good. Are we hungry? Are there questions? All right, I do that so everybody else will hate you when you ask. Just kidding, just kidding. They don't hate you. Well, maybe. All right, why in the Gospels spec—um, so the question is, I guess because there's some people online, yeah, the question is why do we see demon possession uh particularly in the gospels uh when we didn't see it in the Old Testament? Um, and I don't know what you said about now, but it's just weird. No one's people are not casting out demons; it's great. Say depends on who you ask. Um, um, why we didn't see it in Old Testament, I don't have a great answer for why we didn't see it in the Old Testament, um, other than we saw it in the New Testament. We see it in the New Testament to make the point of the condition of Israel, even in that is Mark's gospel at the beginning; you see a demon-possessed man even in the synagogue that no one even recognizes until Jesus comes and the guy yells out at Jesus. So it shows the condition of Israel and their need of Jesus and being freed from that uh of demonic power within their uh their nation and their system, and obviously for Jesus to demonstrate his power over it. Other than that, I don't know if I have a good answer right now. I mean, as far as demon possession today, I'm not sure. Certain people argue against whether it can happen today; I would probably be of the opinion that it can and does. Um, I'm not of the opinion that we're going to you know that we can cast it out. Um, so yeah, what'd you say by who? Wait, by who? Satan cast out? That's the book uh okay, that's the last recommendation we're allowing. No, I don't know. Look, they're looking it up now. Can you Can you spell that uh last? Wait, what? Oh, what about it? He talks about it; he's written the book. Oh, that guy. Okay, okay. I just heard lady and I'm just thinking le. Okay, yeah, L E A H E Y, right? Okay, okay. Now now there's some credibility before you had you had me worried. All right, what's his first name? Frederick? Frederick? Is that what you were saying? I was hearing something, so I was hearing something; I don't know; it's not you; it's me. All right, so somebody read it and do a book review. All right, any other questions? Everything else pretty straightforward. All right, last one here. Last one; I'll just say it and I'll repeat it unless we get a mic. Just say it. Go ahead. Hey, so in chapter 17 it says um around verse 20 um Jesus was talking about um the his disciples and how they didn't have how they had little faith, and and he said that uh for truly I say to you if you have faith like a grain of a mustard seed you will um you say to this mountain move from here and to there and it will. Go ahead. So you kind of know what I'm going to ask, right? No, go ahead; let it out. So is he mostly um talking about like is this being applied to the disciples since we do know he he did give them um authority to like heal um to go out and heal um sicknesses and to spread? Is that just apply to the disciples, or is it in general? That's kind of my question. Um, oh, no, no. Okay, no; I was trying to think of. Yeah, at the end of the where they couldn't cast out the boy, the demon and the boy and all that. Um, well, obviously uh I think I think because he uses the same language in chapter 21 when it comes to the cursing of the fig tree, right? Um, so I would say in general he's making a principle about faith, right? That that can be made to anyone, um, right? I mean, we're not saying that the disciples were um moving mountains and those kind of things, right? Uh, despite what the songs say. [Music] Um, so uh yeah, I would just take it as a a general principle that you know if you have faith in general, but not to do all the things that he hasn't given us to do, right? Once again, that could and it is sadly applied to like silly things. Hey, if you want a red convertible, have faith like a mustard seed or have have. Yeah, if you have faith like a mustard seed and that kind of stuff, uh, but I think the principle of having faith uh is still there, but just applied in the right way to anyone. So but uh don't you guys try to find demon-possessed people and think you know I got this one, right? That's not going to go well. Like we you have no power to cast out demons. Um, what about binding them? Who said it? Who said it? Who said it? Okay, who's going to hold them and who's going to beat them? Wait, hold on, hold on. All right, I think it's lunch time. Wait, oh yeah, yeah, let's just let's just go to lunch before they say anything else. On that note, um uh are y'all still on that? Have we moved on? Okay, please. All right. All right. So um Ben Bradford, who was just here, he'll be taking over, doing Mark and John. If he says anything that counters what I said, I don't know; we'll see who's right. No, uh, but he'll have the notes that we have, so uh it should all be fitting well, uh, other than that, I hope the rest of the day goes well. I'm out of here; I'm going to get my tan on the beach. Uh, do you say while what do you mean I can't? Which? Check Instagram later. Okay. Um. All right, so with that we're done. Enjoy your lunch. Am I missing something? Oh, come back at uh 2:15. So here's the thing: you can come back later, but the later you come back, the later you got to stay. What time? What? Oh, well, I've I've I've asked him to make 6:30 a heartbreak, but I've told him I've told him that you guys will love him if he finishes by 6, so we'll see if he wants to be loved or not. 5:30? Why y'all trying to get out of stuff? Five? Do I hear four? Do I hear four? Anyone? What are we talking about? Y'all don't have anywhere to be. Um, yep. Who's talking about um that people who had um have demon possession, they can't be casted out? That's not what I said; I said we have no power to cast it out. Isn't that what I said? No, you said um. Yeah, but you think you wouldn't be against it happening today, right? People being possessed today? Oh, I think. Yeah, I. Thank you. Um, was I going to ask something else? Is that supposed to be like that or should I? I think so; I think that's. Yeah. Um, did Adam like? Do I need to introduce myself? Should I introduce myself? Go for it. Yeah, he did mention that he's Mark's brother, you know. Okay, I don't know if he said that actually; maybe I'm imagining that. Do it. Go for it. Go for it. Lead into it, cuz how many here are from your church? 70%? Okay, it's quite actually. Maybe since you did it, it's. Yeah, there's this guy in the gray hoodie in the middle next to the guy in the blue. Does he go to your ship? Yes. So I recognize him. Um, and I think the girl at the far right, do I recognize her? Yeah, she's actually done the course already; is just coming back. Oh, is that Joseph who we were talking to earlier? Okay, yeah, yeah. So a lot of the guys are out, so the brother here is a he just stepped down from being an elder, not for any bad reasons; he's had an unbiblical church, and he's come here, and I'm really blitzing it. Really humble guy called Abishek. Okay, David here, on Charles over there in the check. Okay, he's a pastor uh from Um naughty. Oh, okay. All right. And that's the guy next to him; that's the guy he's training to be his replacement. Oh, sweet. Yeah, lovely guy; that's awesome. Super sweet. And he's in. The guy next to him is in year two. Okay. Oh, great. Okay. Yeah, but there's a few others scattered around. Okay, great. I'm going to grab a bottle of water; where would I get that? Uh, in the office actually, down in the. I'll just get a cup; I I just get it. [Music] When they jump out, you. Oh yeah. [Music] I think I think. Was that white? I remember that answer. [Music] What is this? [Music] You're right; I got that. Say that broadcast. [Music] Oh yeah, that's yours. Oh uh oh great. I will actually. Yeah. Oh, thanks. I guess I'm always. [Music] [Music] It's a right; you all right, mate? You. Was it too many? Well, everyone, we're going to make a start in about 2 minutes, just so you know. Two-minute warning. All right, see you. [Music] How. [Music] You said. Yeah, somebody. That's what happens. I don't believe that. One more answer. One more answer. [Music] It's a false management like down the pressure. Have you ever said which? Yes. Okay. Everyone, let's make a start, shall we? Uh, it's great to be with you; it's it's really my pleasure, uh, and I'm sure I will have most of the pleasure throughout this whole time rather than you guys. I know it's getting late in the day, and it's right after lunch. Um, uh, my name is Ben Bradford; I'm the pastor of Southam Road Evangelical Church in Bambury. Um, yeah, Bambury. Who knows where Bambury is? Oxford, near just near Oxford. Um, so uh I graduated from TMS last year in May, uh, and have the privilege of serving back here in the UK, uh, which is awesome. Um, yeah, so I I'm just really excited to be able to get started with you today uh with the Gospel of Mark. I'd love to have an opportunity to to chat with you guys in breaks and things like that. Uh, I understand we'll be leaving questions till the end, and I'll I'll stop a few minutes before the end for questions, uh, and if the questions are too hard, I'll move very quickly on. Uh, so we'll uh let's pray, uh, and then let's get into this awesome.

Gospel: Our Father, we know that whenever we approach Your word, we need Your help. Uh, we need Your help to enlighten our dull minds, uh, to wake us, uh, from the stupor that we so often are in, to be able to see Your glory, to be able to see Your majesty, to be able to see Your wonderful Son. And as we approach this gospel, these two gospels for the rest of the day today, we just ask that You would open them up to us, that You would help me as I attempt, uh, to just be a guide for these brothers and sisters. And, and Lord, that You would be my guide, uh, as we walk through this gospel. And may we honor You by our attention, uh, and by our focus, uh, may we be caught up, uh, in a deeper love with Christ as a result of this today. Ask for Your help, Lord, in all of this. Amen. All right.

Well, I don't know if you've ever read a book that really kind of captured your imagination, uh, when you were reading something, and, and you, you could just picture it; you could imagine it. You know, people talk about things like *Lord of the Rings* and things like that, where you can imagine the world, where you're there. And the reason that happens is because the author uses certain techniques or certain things to imprint this in your mind, to enable you to be able to get the picture, uh, and they, and, and this is exactly what we see with the Gospel of Mark.

So as we look at the Gospel of Mark, although it's a short gospel, it packs a lot of punch; there's a lot combined into this short space of time, these 16 chapters, uh, and Mark does an incredible job of being the most vivid gospel that we'll look at, uh, and he does this in, in a number of different ways. He uses things to help us get the picture, uh, so it is mostly narrative; so, so he's explaining the story, he's walking us through, uh, what's going on, but he also has some of the most full accounts of certain things that happen. Uh, now, being a shorter gospel, obviously there are things that aren't there; uh, for instance, things like, uh, discourses of Jesus. So he only has three of those in, in chapter 4, 9, and 13, whereas other gospels like John have extended discourses. Um, so although he's the shortest, in what he does give us, he gives us a huge amount of detail. I just want to give you one example of some of the cool detail that Mark gives us. If you turn to chapter 6 and go to verse 39, and it, it might be, so these are things that are so innocuous that, that we just pass them by often. Mark 6:39. So it's the feeding of the 5,000, and we, we all know the story, but I wonder if you've ever thought about the picture that you get. And I always had this picture of lush grass and people sat down all comfy, but if you've ever been to Israel or if you've been to the Middle East at all, it's barren most of the time; you know, it's, it's really dusty and, and horrible. So why do I have this image in my head? Mark 6:39: "And he commanded them all to sit down by groups on the green grass." He gives us this detail, this color, and it might seem like a bit of a strange thing to point out, but he does this throughout the book. There are times when he adds these adjectives, uh, to, to various scenes, and he gives us detail like things happened very early in the morning, or there are certain colors about the grass, and that color of the grass is important because actually it helps us line up, uh, or, or just verify what Mark is saying, because we, we think this probably happened early in the year, probably around April, close to past Passover time, and that is the time of year when the grass would have been green; they would have had the winter rains, and rather than a barren landscape, you probably would have had green grass. So it's not just the addition of a color; Mark is painting a picture for you; he's drawing us in, and he's saying, "Look, this is a, a real account of a real thing that happened." And he uses something as simple as color to explain it.

He does other things; he has other features that he uses in the gospel as well, and he uses, and you've probably seen this if you, if, if you're reading, if you're a highlighter, then I am, like I am, you might have highlighted this word repeatedly throughout the book. What word might that be? Immediately. Exactly. So immediately. So it's Mark has often been referred to as the gospel go, go, go, go, because he's fast-paced, uh, which I'm going to try not to be, uh, today, um, and it, and it happens over around 42 times; he uses this, and it's a marker to show that something is happening either with complete succession, so immediately this happened, or with quick, um, with quickness. And so, yeah, as I said, uh, it's coined as the gospel, and you'll notice also what we call verbs of motion linked with this. So throughout the book Mark is using lots of verbs of motion: Jesus went, Jesus came, they left, they arrived; he's constantly explaining for us the movement of Jesus. And I want us just to look at chapter 1, and we're going to walk through the book as a whole later, but I want us just to look at chapter 1 to highlight, uh, some of these elements. And so first of all, just look at, um, some of the verbs of motion there: Jesus said to them, "Follow me, make you fishers of men." And immediately, verse 18, they left their nets; verse 19, going on a little farther; verse 20, immediately he called them, and left; they left their father Zebedee in the boat, and they went into Capernaum; and immediately on the Sabbath he entered the synagogue. And you're just getting these verbs of motion coupled with the use of immediately, and it's just driving us constantly. Just look at the number of times he uses immediately in chapter 1: verse 10, verse 12, verse 18, verse 20, uh, verse 21, verse 28, verse 29, verse 30, verse 43; he's driving us forward; these things happened in quick succession, uh, and this is what he's getting across.

Now, now one of the other things that he factors in, uh, with immediately, uh, which is a common use in narrative, is the idea of what's called the historical present. Okay, so the historical present is a feature that the author or narrator uses to draw you into the moment. So the historical present is where, in the Greek text, it will be in the present tense; so it's like it's happening right now, but he's actually talking about the past, right? So we can, we can see a simple example of that, uh, in Mark [Music] 1:12: "Immediately the spirit impelled him to go out into the wilderness." Now that might be asterisked in your Bible, um, and that's normally a, that's the sign often, particularly in the NASB, for the historical present. So you can see here, uh, it's not in, uh, the past, is it? Immediately the spirit impelled him, uh, to go out into the wilderness. Sorry, is in the past; it's saying, you know, this happened previously; he impelled him, rather than he is impelling him, or right now, whereas in the Greek it's in, uh, it is in the present. And the easiest way of describing this is if I'm telling you a story about my son. So if I say, okay, you know, I got home and my wife says, you know, Seth's upstairs in the room, and I'm telling you the story, and I say, okay, and now I'm going into the room, and as I, I'm, I'm in the room, and he's there, and he's reading the Greek New Testament, and I'm amazed, right? So I'm saying my son doesn't read the Greek New Testament, but, um, but I'm using the present, aren't I? But I wasn't, this isn't actually happening in the moment; it happened in the past. So this is the use of the historical present, and he does it to draw us into the moment, and, and we're going to just look at a couple of other examples. Verse 21, uh, of chapter 1: "They went into Capernaum." So what the English translations are doing with the asterisk is they're, they're saying, look, we've put it in the past tense: he went, but in the Greek text it's actually in the present: he is going, or he's in, you know, it's happening right now in the way he's describing it, and it gives vividness. So this is an another layer that Mark uses to draw us into the story line. And, and Mark uses it more than anyone else; so he uses it about 151 times; Matthew only uses it 93 times, and John uses it 162 times, so even more than Mark, but then you get to the Gospel of Luke, and Luke only uses it 11 times. And really it's because this feature is often only used in narrative, because he's drawing you into a story, whereas Luke is more concerned with, with a historical presentation, right? So he's more giving you kind of data; Mark, John, they're trying to draw you into the storyline that they're bringing you through. So that's just by way of a, of a little bit of introduction into, into the book of Mark, and, and what we're looking at; we're looking at a real recollection of a real thing that happened, and he's drawing us into this storyline.

So just a couple of interesting facts about the Gospel of Mark: as we've already said, it's the shortest, and it's got the least, uh, amount of unique information, um, so whereas when we get to John, we'll see John has 93% uh, new information, whereas Mark really only has about three unique paragraphs, uh, to, to his, um, to his rendition. So most of everything else we've seen in other gospels, and Mark itself interestingly was ignored until about the 1800s with the arrival, arrival of liberal criticism, um, and basically it was considered, um, a shortening or an abridgement of Matthew and Luke, but now the kind of thinking has shifted with, with modern scholarship to, to thinking about what's called Markan priority, the idea that Mark was actually the first written gospel, um, and we would reject that, but, uh, that's what you'll find with most kind of liberal scholarship, um, because basically prior to the 18th century, the church understood the Gospel of Matthew as the first written gospel, which is what, uh, we would consider now the early church, um, tradition stated that Mark's account was based on Peter, uh, and we're going to see a little bit of that, uh, when we talk a little bit about Mark in a while, uh, and we'll see how he's linked in with Peter, uh, now under that next heading you've probably got there: Basic facts concerning, uh, the Gospel of Mark: who, so who is this guy? Who is Mark? Because as we read through the gospel story, you don't see him; well, we do, we'll get to that later, but we don't really see him; his name isn't, isn't really mentioned much, uh, so who is Mark? So if you turn to Acts chapter 12, um, I, I assume that we're allowed to go outside of the book that we're talking about, uh, Acts chapter 12, uh, and verse 12, and we get a bit of an introduction, uh, to this guy Mark. Acts 12:12: So after Peter's arrest, uh, we get this instance, and it says, uh, so Peter came, came to himself, and, and then he goes out, and it says, when he realized this, he went to the house of Mary the mother of John, who was also called Mark, where many were gathered together and were praying. And incidentally, it seems like Mark's house was a bit of a hub for the church, uh, that it was a place where people would go; Peter obviously went there because he knew it was a safe space, uh, and the brethren would be gathering there. So we get Mark introduced there. Drop down to verse 25, uh, we then get death of Herod, and then verse 25: "And Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem when they had fulfilled their mission, taking along with them John who was also called Mark." So we know Mark was a companion of, of Paul and Barnabas. So then, uh, turn over to chapter 13 of Acts and look at verse 5: "So when they reached Salamis they began to proclaim the word of God in the synagogue of the Jews, and they also had John, John Mark as their helper." So Mark is accompanying Paul and Barnabas. And verse 13, we get to kind of a bit of a dark portion in Mark's time, a bit of a mystery now. Paul and his component companions put out to sea from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia, but John left them and returned to Jerusalem, and we're not told why; we don't know what the deal is; we're just told that he leaves, and that's really important. Go on to chapter 15 of Acts and verse 37: "Barnabas wanted to take John called Mark along with them also." So this is getting ready for Paul's second missionary journey, uh, they say, "Look, let's go back and let's check in, uh, with these churches that we've started, these people we want to go and encourage; who should we take?" And Barnabas says, "Yeah, let's take Mark." But Paul says, "No way; he deserted us last time; don't you remember?" And we're not, again, we're not given any more information other than this caused such a divide between Barnabas and Paul, um, that they separated. And we understand from Colossians 4:10 that the reason is primarily Mark was Barnabas's cousin, so there's that familial link there, and he's ready to give him another chance, and Paul's not. 2 Timothy 4:11: We get a really interesting switch. So bearing in mind 2 Timothy is the last thing Paul writes, so we're right at the very end of Paul's life, so a lot of time has passed, but 2 Timothy 4:11: "Only Luke is with me." So he's writing at the end; these are his last instructions to Timothy; he's, he's going to die soon, and he writes, and he says, verse 11: "Only Luke is with me; pick up Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for service." So what a change, going from way back in the beginning of Acts where Paul says no way, he deserted us, and then he splits with Barnabas, to now Mark has obviously redeemed himself, and now he's useful to Paul, uh, for, for service. And then in, uh, Philemon verse 24, Paul actually calls him a fellow worker. So we get this incredible picture of this guy, uh, and the last kind of real piece for, for, for, uh, Mark is 1 Peter chapter 5, and this really is where we start drawing into the context of, of where Mark's writing and, and all of this. 1 Peter 5:13: "She who is in Babylon, chosen together with you, sends you greetings, and so does my son Mark." My son; he's gone from rejected to fellow laborer, useful for service, my son. And obviously this isn't Paul talking now; this is Peter, but Peter's saying he's my son in the faith, just like Paul refers to Timothy; Peter calls him his son in the faith; he is useful to him now. "She who is in Babylon," um, the church, and we think this is referring to Rome, uh, and we'll, we'll maybe come to that a little bit later, but Tom Schreiner speaks about this as, uh, Babylon referring to Rome; it's not the literal Babylon, uh, but it's a reference there, thinking about the use of in Revelation 17 and 18, um, and this is where we think Mark is, is writing from; we'll get to that in just, just a few moments, but that shows his connection with Peter: my son, rejected, uh, rejected helper, to my son in the faith.

Now back to the actual gospel Mark, uh, his name isn't mentioned, um, but he was recognized by the early church community as the author. So Papias, who was a disciple of John the apostle John, he was bishop of Hierapolis; he wrote in A.D. 40—this I'm just going to quote—"and the elders, the apostle John said this: Mark, who had become Peter's coworker, wrote down exactly what the latter remembered; however, he did not reproduce the sayings and deeds of Christ in their exact order, for he neither heard the Lord personally nor was he one of his companions, but later, as I said, Peter accompanied, directing his teachings to the need of his hearers, though not with the intention of giving a proper account of the Lord's discourse; thus Mark made no mistake in recording things from memory, since he took special care in one thing: he omitted nothing from what he had heard and added nothing of his own devising to what he had said." So this is Papias, a direct disciple of the apostle John, writing in the, in the early 2nd century—and he's saying—yeah, 3rd century—and he's saying, uh, he's attesting to Mark's writing of this account. So then the question is, who was he writing to? And as we saw from 1 Peter 5, we think he was writing to the church at Rome, um, and there's a couple of reasons why we think he was writing to Roman Christians particularly, uh, is because of a number of aspects. So if you turn to Mark 7:2–4, this is—I'm not going to go through all possible examples, but this is just one example where Mark actually explains Jewish customs, um, chapter 7: verses 2 and 4, um, I'll start from verse 1: "The Pharisees and some of the scribes gathered around him when they, when they had come from Jerusalem and had seen that some of his disciples were eating their bread with impure hands, that is, unwashed [brackets explanatory], for the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they carefully wash their hands, thus observing the traditions of the elders." Now if he was writing to Jews who were familiar with Jewish, um, order and law and tradition, he wouldn't need to put that explanatory comment in there. So this is one among a number of different examples that makes us think that he was writing certainly to non-Jews, but he also translates some Aramaic expressions. You might remember, uh, with the raising of Jairus's daughter, that you pro—it's maybe one of the few Hebrew expressions that you know, *talitha kumi*, right? That he explains what that means; whereas if he's writing to Hebrew speakers, why would he need to explain it? So, so there are some of these aspects, but then one of those aspects is also that he uses some Latin terms, um, so for instance, in chapter 6, we can quickly turn back there, chapter 6:27: "Immediately the king sent an executioner, uh, and commanded him to bring back his head." And that term "executioner" is *speculator*, uh, which—now I don't speak Latin, but apparently that's Latin, um, and not Greek. So he's using the Latin term, which obviously was spoken in Rome, and he does this a number of times, uh, in, in chapter 12:14, he speaks about the poll tax and he uses the word *census*, uh, which wasn't a Greek term, uh, and then various other things he uses like certain coins, where he, he calls the coins in 12:42 a *quadrans*, which is a Latin term and not a Greek one. So it begs the question, okay, well, where's Latin spoken? Spoken in Rome, uh, so it's likely that he's writing there. And then when we combine what we said about 1 Peter 5, um, that is, uh, which is in a Roman context, and Peter ministering in Rome, it makes sense that that's where he's writing to or from, uh, and he also uses Roman time as well, um, so if you look at chapter 6, there's a lot in chapter 6, chapter 6:48, he says, um, this is, uh, Jesus walking on the water and the disciples are rowing, and they're straining at the oars, and he says, "Seeing them straining at the oars, for the wind was against them, at about the fourth watch of the night he came to them walking on the sea." Now the Romans split time into four quadrants or four sections, whereas the Jews only split it into three, um, so he's using Roman time there. So it's just another example of how Mark, um, is using kind of Roman references, and, and there are others, but we'll, we'll move on. So when, then when did this all happen? So the, the events narrated, so what's actually happening is we think happening around 28 to 33 A.D., uh, but the book was written much later, uh, from 65 to 68, uh, during the persecution, um, basically directed at Christians as a result of Nero, because if we remember what happened in 64, which is the burning of Rome, um, and the, the persecution that was incited because of that. So that gives us a sense, a little bit about what's going on at the time, um, persecution and all of this, and he's writing into that moment where, so events took place in Judea, Perea, Galilee, uh, and as I said before, early church writers attest that Mark wrote from Rome.

So one of the important questions when we look at any book is why was it written? What's the purpose? What's Mark trying to do for us, to us? Um, and clearly Mark is trying to demonstrate that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah who was the Son of God. And we get that, Mark 1:1: "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God," and we're going to talk about that, uh, a little bit later, but it's very clear that that is one of his purposes, uh, and Mark's here is we're challenged to believe in Jesus and follow him. But we also get another glimpse, uh, at Mark's purpose, or it's been used as a purpose statement in Mark, um, in Mark 10:45. Mark 10:45: "Jesus says, 'For even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.'" So we can see 1:1 and 10:45 as a kind of a combined, or combined mission statements of what Jesus is doing. 10:45, Jesus is very clearly saying this is why I came; Mark records those words. So there's an element of servant hood, uh, to what Jesus is doing, um, and so that's something we're going to hold, uh, in our minds, uh, just as we move on.

So then essential themes: Stay in 1:1: "The beginning of the gospel," the gospel, the good news. Now remember, so in modern parliament today, we call these written things these four books the gospel, don't we? Um, but it's a bit of an, an anachronism, that, that's when we read back our things into the past to say that's what they were thinking. When, when Mark writes the gospel, he means a verbal proclamation of the good news of Messiah, right? This, this isn't written down, right, at this point. So when, when he's saying the beginning of the gospel, he's talking about the beginning of Jesus' ministry, where he's proclaiming, proclaiming himself to the people and bringing them the good news, uh, that Messiah should bring. So it's a verbal proclamation, and that term is used throughout, and I think you have those references there as to, as to where the term is used. Then we've also got this—it's not a dichotomy; it's a, it's, it's really a joining of ideas of the Son of God and Messiah. So he is the Jewish Messiah, as we see, uh, in 1:1, um, but then also, uh, he is the Son of God, which we also see, 1:1. So Christ, that's the Messiah, the one who Israel had been waiting for all of this time, since all the way back to, to—I mean, well, you could go back to the garden, but at least since Abraham, Genesis 12, the promises to Abraham; that's who they'd been waiting for. But not only is he the Jewish Messiah, he is the Son of God. And then we have themes of belief, which follow throughout the whole book, uh, that he is to be believed; he is to be looked upon with faith. And all of the gospels really, when we read them in context, they make a distinction between cognitive belief, so mental ascent: yes, I agree that Jesus is God, and then actual faith, the kind of faith that Romans 9:10 speaks about, which prompts—it's faith, true faith in the heart, the depths of the heart, that we can confess from. So believing in Jesus is important; following him. And one of the things that I'm going to point out as we walk through the book constantly is authority. We're going to see this constantly, and it's cool; I've got it in pink in my Bible, and it just jumps off every page as we go through, almost every page: Jesus asserting his authority in a number of different ways, his authority as Messiah, his authority as the Son of God, um, and one of the interesting things, one of the reasons we relate so much, uh, to the disciples is their slowness of understanding, uh, I relate very well to that, uh, that so often, you know, you read things a thousand times, and then all of a sudden it clicks, and you think, why didn't I get this earlier? And we're very quick to judge the disciples, but we'll see as we go through, they're super slow to get it, even when Jesus is basically shouting in their face like, this is what's going to happen. But that's another theme that we'll see: they're slow to understand who Jesus was and even to understand his teaching, which brings us some level of comfort. Death. Death's a pervading theme throughout the book, uh, and we see it in the beginning, 1:1, chapter 1:14, uh, "Now after John had been taken into custody, Jesus came, uh, to Galilee preaching"—oh no, I've got the wrong reference there—yeah, sorry, 3:6, um, "the Pharisees went out immediately began conspiring with the Herodians against him as to how they might destroy him." So we see that theme from the very beginning, and then as we draw towards the end of the gospel, it just ramps up, and this theme of death keeps coming up, uh, over and over and over again, and, uh, and it, and escalates in pace as we get towards the end, uh, leading into Jesus' death. One of the, the, the last theme that I'm going to mention I think is really important, particularly when we get to the last portion of the book, in, in Mark 16, is the idea of fear. So we see fear throughout Mark's gospel, um, it comes up over and over and over again when Jesus displays his authority. So often the response to Jesus' display of, of might, of power, of his deity is fear, uh, so we can see that, just a couple of examples: Mark 4, uh, verse 1, Mark 4:41: So we had Jesus stilling the sea, and the response of the disciples: "He said to them, 'Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?'" Verse 40, verse 41: "They became very much afraid and said to one another, 'Who then is this that even the wind and the sea obey him?'" And then you could look over the page in 5:15, uh, when we have the, the instance of the Gerasene demoniac, this guy that everyone was afraid of anyway, he comes to Jesus, Jesus heals him, and he sat calm in his right mind after the demons been cast out into the pigs, and we get in verse 15: "They came to Jesus and observed the man who had been demon-possessed sitting down, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had the legion, and they became frightened." So I'm mentioning that now because this theme is going to be really important, particularly when we get to the end, but that, this is a linking theme throughout, uh, the gospel with Jesus' authority. So we're going to see authority and fear mixed in together, and it demonstrates—I'll just give the game away now—basically it demonstrates it's one of the reasons why we know that the shorter ending of Mark's gospel—I'm giving it all away—but the shorter ending of Mark's gospel is the right ending, and that the fact that it ends with their fear is not a problem for us; it's actually a theme that's pervaded the whole gospel, and it makes sense that that is the response to a man rising from the dead. So we'll come to that later, uh, so purpose and audience: so Jesus is a servant, um, so we're looking to present Jesus as the servant of man who came not to be served but to serve, as we've said already. And what Mark's gospel does is it kind of deals with some of these, it creates a dichotomy in the Roman mind, um, because the Romans believe that in order to be a god, you had to be dead, and then you were deified afterwards, um, but you had to have lived an incredible life, and you had to have a glorious…

Death, well, to the world's standards, Jesus didn't really have much of an incredible life, and he certainly didn't have a glorious death. So how can this man be God? How, how can this man who was not honored but shamed, how could he be God?

And I think, as with many things that we'll see, that's a really relevant thought today. As people look on the gospels and they look on the example of Jesus and they go, "How can this guy be God?" The way people treated him, the way he ended, and he died—you know, this guy can't really be deity, can he? And this is one of the questions, uh, that people have to wrestle with when we give them this gospel. So we're going to come to, uh, an outline, uh, of the gospel, and we're just going to walk roughly through it, uh, and then we'll we'll delve in and we'll start working with the text.

So one of the things I would say is that geography plays a big role in a lot of the gospels. Um, knowing where things are, uh, where we're told so many place names—if you go through the Gospels and then you go through Acts and you highlighted all the place names, then you'd be amazed. They, they do just jump off the page at how much detail we're given where places are, what happens. You know, why is it that whenever we're told that Jesus is going to Jerusalem, it's up to Jerusalem? Well, it's because Jerusalem's on an elevation, and so whenever you go to Jerusalem, you have to go up to it, uh, especially if you're coming from any of those surrounding villages. So, um, geography helps us, uh, and plays a real part, uh, but particularly with the gospel of Mark. Um, many have given a a very simple outline of the gospel related to geography. So if you, one, one of the simple helpful things is just to have, for every book of the Bible, if you can just have a brief outline in your mind of how the book fits together, it helps you find things, uh, and it helps you answer questions when people ask you about things.

So the very simple outline for the gospel of Mark is chapters 1 to 10, uh, is his, is this idea of him coming to serve, and that's his ministry in, in the surrounding regions around Galilee. Um, so we can use that as a geographical marker: Galilee, surrounding regions—Jesus came to serve, and that's where we see so much of what he does for people. But then, um, in chapters 11–16, uh, we see his ministry in Jerusalem or moving towards Jerusalem and in Jerusalem, and that we could call he came to save. So we look at his serving the people in Galilee and the surrounding regions, chapters 1 to 10, and then when we get from verses, chapters 11 to 16, we see him moving towards Jerusalem to fulfill his ultimate goal, which is to save. So that can be a brief outline that you can hold in your mind to help. Um, but what we'll do is we'll look now at the outline that you've got, uh, laid out in front of you. And so, uh, we see first of all the title, um, "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." That, that really is the the capstone, uh, that's what we're looking at, that's what we're going to see, that's what we're hoping to find as we go through these pages—that that this is actually what it claims to be, uh, a defense of Jesus' deity and his messiahship. And then you have the prologue, the introduction to Jesus, so verses 2 to 13, and we can see that we get this introductory material about who Jesus is. We, we're introduced to John the Baptist, um, and then we see you've, I think you've got it split down into three, uh, that he's mightier than John the Baptist, that he is the beloved Son of God, uh, and then his temptation in 12–13, uh, and then you've got the, the, the body. So rather than splitting it into two, you've got the rest of the body of the text, uh, and you have the public demonstration of the reality of who Jesus was or is, from 1:14 to 15:41. And so we're going to have to subdivide that up, uh, and and what you've got in front of you will lay that out for you: the Galilean ministry, um, uh, showing that Jesus was and is the Messiah. So this is where we see a lot of what he's doing, um, and then you've got the, the ministry in Galilee, uh, starting in verse 14, and then you've got the, the ending of the ministry in Galilee at the end of chapter 6. Then beyond Galilee, uh, and then you get, then the Jerusalem ministry, uh, from chapter 8 onwards, and I think you've got that subdivided into three as well, um, so again looking at this, on the way to Jerusalem, uh, and then at the temple, and then in and around Jerusalem. And then you have the epilogue, uh, the, the final aspect.

So what we're going to do now, uh, is we're going to start into the book, uh, and start working through some of these sections, uh, and again this is my first time teaching here, so, uh, I'm going to do my best, uh, in terms of keeping to time, um, but we're, Callum, what time were we aiming for for the this session to finish? You just earned some enemies right now. Quarter past? Right, quarter past for our first break? Okay, cool. So, uh, Mark chapter 1, verse 1: "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." Okay, so this is the, uh, the articulation of the purpose statement, uh, and we've already said about the idea of gospel being a verbal proclamation, and we see that throughout the whole book—of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the one that Israel had been waiting for, but he is also God. Now I'm going to leave some of this because when we deal with John 1:1, then we've got some real stuff to talk about. So, and we go into a little bit more depth with that, um, but suffice to say, you know, these are trinitarian christoologgical statements which are cementing who Jesus is—that he is not just a man, he is a man, but he is both truly man and truly God, and he is that second person of the trinity, uh, the one who is credited with the creation of the world, of acting on the directions of the Father from before time began and and bringing things into existence. Colossians 1 tells us about how, uh, he created all things and all things belong to him and all things were created through him and for him. So this is the one that we're talking about; this is the incredible Messiah, God incarnate. And we're told there, uh, "as it is written," as it was, uh, told to us as we know that it was going to happen—"Behold, I send my messenger ahead of you who will prepare your way—the voice of one crying in the wilderness, 'Make ready the way of the Lord, make his path straight.'" And then we're introduced to that messenger, uh, John the Baptist, who is going to lay things out, uh, for Jesus. He is going to be the one who sets the scene; he's going to be the one who prepares Israel, who calls them to repentance so that they are ready, uh, for the message that Jesus is going to bring. And we get some of this, uh, introduction here, uh, as to as to who Jesus is from verses 12 to 13. And what we see is that the one who's waited for is greater than the messenger leading up to him.

Now we, we find it so easy as people to glorify the messenger rather than the one who he's speaking about, uh, and we need to make sure that we remember that, despite the fact that John the Baptist was the first prophet in 400 years, that Jesus is better. That despite the fact that John comes out and he amazes the people with his teaching, that Jesus is better. And if we take the refrain from Hebrews, uh, well the whole book of Hebrews—"Jesus is better, Jesus is supreme, he is better" than anyone. And we see this right in the beginning. So Israel would have been taken with John because of being the first prophet in a while, but we need to look to Jesus, and this is going to be John's statement as well, isn't it—that "I must decrease and he must increase"—that John says, "No, no, no, no, no, don't focus on me, look to him." And so Jesus is mightier, uh, than John the Baptist. And we see this incredible statement in verse 7: "And he was preaching and saying, 'After me one is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals.'" And this is, this is the image of back to Deuteronomy 18, where we're told that a better prophet than Moses was going to come, and Jesus is that better prophet. John isn't the better prophet; Jesus is the one who is so much higher, uh, than, than John, uh, the Baptist. And he says, "I will baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit." An incredible promise. And then we see, uh, this amazing instance of Jesus' baptism, and we get one of our, our first, in this book, trinitarian moments, don't we? We hear the Father speaking; we see the Spirit descending on the Son, who is on earth; we see the trinity in action, and they are working, uh, as one. And now one of the things to point out there, maybe our first example of, immediately in verse 10, but is the word "like," like a dove—that's an adverbial comparative. So that's saying that the, the, the way that this happened was like a dove; it's not saying necessarily that that the Holy Spirit took the form of a dove, okay? So it's a comparison, uh, and and it's saying that this is the mode of which, or this is, this is how this happened, what that looks like. Good luck; I, I, I don't know, but what he, he, he's, he's not necessarily trying to get us to think that the Holy Spirit took the form of a dove, although that is possible; he could have done that. And then we get the voice from heaven: "You are my beloved Son." Back to 1:1, uh, you know, Mark is already proving his, his purpose statement. This is the Father; this is the God who created the universe, who dealt with everything, who, who created matter, who flung stars into space, and he says, "This man who's standing before you, he is my Son; he is one with me." This is our trinitarian moment. And then we get immediately again: "And the Spirit impelled him"—another verb of motion—"impelled him to go to the wilderness, and he was in the wilderness." And I always missed this next bit for some reason; I don't know why—for 40 days. Now I always knew he was in the desert for 40 days, but when we get the other gospel renditions, we just get three instances of temptation, don't we? And we think, "Oh, yeah, he was tempted three times; he was being tempted the whole time." That those are the three that we're told about. Now I tell you what, I don't know about you, but sometimes you, you get on yourself and you think, man, this, I'm going through temptation in some way or I'm struggling with sin in some way; this is really hard, um, and then you have a really nice period for once you've dealt with that and you move on. Jesus was tempted by Satan for 40 days. How would you have fared? Yeah, exactly, exactly. Um, so this is really important what we're seeing—Jesus, his active obedience, his, his, his willingness to submit his, himself to these temptations as our representative head, you know, just as Adam was our representative head in the beginning and he failed, Jesus submitted himself to temptation; he allowed himself—remember, the devil's not imposing his will on him, right? This is the Spirit impelled him out, so Jesus went under direction, under agreement, in, in his trinitarian will, to, to go and be tempted, and they, he allows this Satan to tempt him, and he does it much like, I believe, for the same reason that he said to John, uh, when John says about not baptizing him and says we need, I need to do this to fulfill all righteousness. Jesus had to do these things to be our representative head; he had to experience what we have experienced. And so we get this incredible moment here, and no details—move on, pace, keep going, keep going. I know that's what you're thinking too. Verse 14: "Now after John had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee preaching the gospel, uh, of God," and we get this moment now, u, where we see, uh, the, the, we're starting to see now the demonstration of who Jesus is, uh, the reality, uh, of, of his messiahship, and he starts his public ministry in in verse 14. And so it's a key introductory statement here—14 and 15, it tells us exactly what's going to come. It says that Jesus came into Galilee preaching the gospel of God and saying, "The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel." So we get the gospel articulated again, but another command, and it's the same command that John uses—repent—and it's often something that's missing from our evangelism, isn't it? So often when we speak to people, the modern idea of friendship evangelism where, uh, let's get to know people, let's be friends, and and then maybe one day in 15 years I'll get a chance to share the gospel with them. And this isn't the approach; Jesus says, "Repent and believe." Now yes, we need to think about how we say things; we need to be careful, but how often, when was the last time any of us called someone to repentance? It's a key thing that Jesus, that was a part of Jesus' ministry. He says, "Repent and believe," in what? In the gospel. And he was going—another verb of motion—along by the sea of Galilee, and we move on and we get to verse 17, and I think this is the first instance of his authority. He says, and Jesus said to them—so he finds Simon and Andrew and he says to them, "Follow me." Follow me. He commands them, and they follow him. And immediately they left their nets and followed him. And then immediately he called them, and they left their, their father Zebedee in the boat as he finds John, uh, and, and James, the brothers of Zebedee. And we get this incredible, uh, reality that Jesus is now building the picture of himself as the rabbi, right? So a rabbi needs students, uh, and so what he's now got, he's got this group of students that he's going to train. And then in verse 21, they go, uh, to Capernaum. So we've seen already the authority of Jesus early on here, um, and then we come into, uh, this next section, uh, looking through, uh, the rest of, of chapter 1, uh, and into chapter 2, and and basically, like we've, like you've got in your outline for from here to to 8, uh, we've got this, uh, section of Jesus demonstrating that he is the Messiah. So we get this instance in verse 29—another immediately—the crowds are healed, uh, uh, sorry, the crowds came out, they came to Simon and Andrew, James and John, and we get Jesus healing, uh, the mother-in-law, and he came to her and raised her up, taking by the hand, and the fever left her and she waited on them—another instance of authority. So Jesus is now showing his authority over sickness, and this is something that we're going to see, o, over and over again, um, and this is an incredible thing. And actually, the gospels, if we look for it carefully, they all do this really—verse 32: "When evening came, after the sun had set, they began bringing to him all who were ill and those who were demon-possessed, and the whole city had gathered at the door, and he healed many who were ill with various diseases and cast out many demons, and he was not permitting demons to speak because they knew who he was." And you'll find so many attestations throughout the gospel accounts that Jesus essentially eradicated illness in, in those regions where he was. We have so many times where the gospels say they brought people to him and he cured them all, he healed them all, he was casting out demons and doing this. So get that picture in your mind of, of London, maybe a little smaller region, but of London without sickness—what would that look like? I mean, what, what a witness that would be, what, what a people would be saying—what's going on? You know, all of a sudden health issues, you know, hospitals are empty, and health issues are dealt with. This is a huge sign, and this is something that Jesus does; he serves the community by doing this. Now obviously that's not the point of the miracles; the miracles are there to demonstrate his, his deity and who he is, but what an incredible act of service to that area. And as we'll highlight in chapter 15, many of these will be the people who say, "Crucify him" at the end. It's, it's something that we miss, but we, we, we have to focus in on these things—the incredible effect, uh, of having God incarnate on this earth. It's amazing. And then early in the morning, while it was still dark, verse 35: "Jesus got up, left the house and went away to a secluded place," and we see all of these verbs of motion all the way through there. They found him and said to him, "Everyone's looking for you; let's go somewhere." Uh, and we get this, this movement, uh, throughout this chapter. And then we get down to, uh, verse 41: "Moved with compassion, Jesus stretched out his hand"—this is to the leper—"and touched him and said to him, 'I am willing.'" So the leper had asked him, "If you're willing, can you make me be clean?" And Jesus says, "I am willing; be cleansed." Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed—another act of authority over illness, uh, and difficulty. And then he warns him, "See that you say nothing to anyone, but go and show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded," uh, as a testimony to them. And that's a reference back to Leviticus 13:14, 13 or 14, um, where that's what had to happen when, when you were supposedly clean again, you had to go and present yourself, and then the priest would affirm, "Yes, you're clean, and you can go back to, to ritual." So this makes sense that this is what Jesus tells him to do, but as we'll see, particularly through, through John, uh, Jesus has an hour in mind, he has a moment, he has a time when he's going to really reveal himself, and at the minute he's, he's telling the guy, "This isn't my time; keep going, uh, go and present yourself to the priests, uh, instead." Uh, so as we come into chapter 2, um, we see again more of these healings, and it's Jesus' authority again over sickness and health, uh, and we come to verse 7, and, uh, what's Jesus said? Jesus says to him, "Son, your sins are forgiven." In verse 7, we get this question: "Why does this man speak that way? He is blaspheming; who can forgive sins but God alone?" And that's exactly the question that we have to ask, isn't it? Who is this man who can forgive sin and who can heal these physical ailments? Where is this coming from? Are we going to make the wrong deduction, like the Pharisees do and so many do and say, "Oh, yeah, this is as a result of Satan," which doesn't make any sense whatsoever, or are we going to recognize exactly what these signs are pointing to—that this is the Messiah that they've been waiting for? And immediately Jesus, aware in his spirit that they were reasoning that way, he says to them, "Why are you saying these things in your heart?" And then he demonstrates, and this is the big difference with Jesus, isn't it, that it's so easy to say stuff in this day and age. If you shout loud enough and if you talk over people long enough and you, if you have enough people behind you, people will believe whatever you say, but can you back it up? And then Jesus says, "So that you may know that the Son of Man has what authority on earth to forgive sins," he said to the paralytic, "I say to you, get up, pick up your pallet and go home." This isn't just some random story; this isn't just some random moment, uh, in, in a life that, that Mark kind of decided to throw in here; this is Jesus showing us the demonstration of his authority, uh, over sin and over illness as well, so we can have confidence in him. So he goes on, and we get to this moment then in chapter 2, verse 4, where Matthew is called—so another instance of his authority—"Follow me." But now we get a moment; we get our first kind of real challenge to Jesus' authority. So we have these periods where Jesus shows his authority, and then we get a moment of challenge, and we see that, uh, in verse 15 through, uh, to chapter 3:12, and the Pharisees come and they challenge him. They say, "Why is he eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners?" Uh, and then he says, then they say, "Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples don't fast?" Verse 18. And then we get to verse 23 of chapter 2: "Look what they are doing, uh, look what they were doing is not lawful on the Sabbath," and he's talking about the fact that the disciples were picking up bits of grain to, to feed themselves on the Sabbath, and that was considered work, so they weren't allowed to do it. And Jesus, in, in front of all of this opposition, he, he demonstrates his authority by his wisdom and what he says, his response: "Have you never read"—and he, and he loves saying that—"Have you never read what David did when he was in need, and he and his companions became hungry, how he entered the house of God at the time of Abiar the high priest and he ate the consecrated bread which is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priests, and he also gave it to those who were with him?" And Jesus said, "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath; so the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath." He says, "Listen, I have authority even over your traditions, and these things that you're going to make up and add to the word of God, and and my disciples don't need to follow your traditions." Uh, and that should be a real encouragement to us. And he's going to come back to that later, uh, in Mark chapter 7 as well. Now one thing to note here, from 3:6 through to 5:1, immediately disappears. So we don't see immediately from here through, I'm pretty sure it doesn't—oh, it might appear once in, in 4:5, um, but it almost entirely disappears in this section. Now when an author uses a grammatical, uh, or, or a, yeah, a grammatical idea, uh, to draw our attention to something, when that idea disappears, we have to ask why, okay? So Mark, so far, has gone immediately, immediately, immediately, and now immediately stops, all right? So immediately is drawing us into pace, and now what Mark is doing is saying, "Slow down a second, all right?" So we're supposed to ask the question, "Why isn't it immediately there?" And the answer is, "Because I want you to slow down; I want you to think about what's coming now." And we see here, um, uh, what you've got entitled as the climax of the ministry in Galilee, and we see the full authority of Jesus displayed. And Mark's saying, "Slow down here, guys; take a little bit more time to focus on what's coming next." And the key point, which, which kind of initiates this aspect, is verse 6 of chapter 3: "The Pharisees went out and immediately"—this is the last instance apart from 4:5—"began conspiring with the Herodians against him as to how they might destroy him." So this isn't just dislike; this isn't just, "We don't like what he's teaching or what he's doing"; this is a full-on plot, or the beginnings of a plot, to destroy the man who is casting out demons, healing the sick. Where's the compassion of the Pharisees? They're supposed to be the—we think of Malachi 1, right? Where's the shepherds of Israel who are supposed to be offering proper worship up to God? Malachi 1, he says, "I, I would wish that you just shut the doors of the temple because, because your worship is, is meaningless." These are supposed to be the shepherds of the people; they should be rejoicing that Messiah has come, that, that, that the people's, um, suffering is being reduced, but no, they're so focused on their own power, they're so focused on their own ideas, their own position, they conspire to destroy the Son of God. And just pause for a moment and think about the implications of that; think about how the armies of heaven might have viewed that. It's a, it's a terrible moment. And then Jesus withdraws to the sea, uh, with his disciples, but people follow him, and he withdraws because his hour has not yet come; it's not time for him to go to the cross yet, uh, but it is time for us to take a break, uh, so as, as my American brethren would say, the segue, uh, into the, into the break. So we're going to pause there at 3:6, and we'll pick that up, um, and I'm sure we'll fit the rest of it in the next hour. So yeah, 10-minute break, and I'll see you at 2:25. Come on, yo, yeah, yeah. Do you know? Okay, everyone, let's make a start. So if you remember, if we, uh, take the simple outline of Mark, where in these first 10 chapters, which is him ser—is Jesus serving, uh, in, in around Galilee, uh, and it's this idea of him serving, and we've seen that already a number of times as we left off in 3:6, uh, and we're going to move maybe a little bit quicker, uh, as we go on. And so, uh, we came to this key point where we have the first real opposition, uh, to him, and then we get really a summary of his ministry, uh, in Galilee. And it says, he withdrew to the sea, verse 7, and, and, uh, we were withdrew to the sea with his disciples, and a great multitude from Galilee followed, and also from Judea and from Jerusalem and from Idumea and beyond the Jordan and the vicinity of Tyre and Sidon. A great number of people heard of all that he was doing and came to him. And he told the disciples that a boat should stand ready for him because the crowd, uh, so that they would not crowd him, for he had healed many, with the result that all of those who had afflictions pressed around him in order to touch him. He came to serve, and they knew that, so they were coming to him; they were coming to someone who had a solution to their problem, which is the essence of the gospel, right? Humanity's issue is sin, and the answer to that problem is the gospel. And so we see snapshots of this throughout all, all of these ideas, and and the reality is, is our world is very much like the people who come to Jesus, who want their physical needs met, and we have to be people who are ready to present the spiritual need, or the answer to the spiritual need; people don't realize that that's what they have. And this is what the gospel does. So Jesus is coming not just to heal physical wounds; Jesus is coming to save souls and to draw people to him. And we see whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they shout out who he was, and he warned them to not tell who he was. And then we get to verse 13: "And he went up on the mountain and summoned those whom he, he himself wanted, and they came to him." And then verse 15, uh, "he gave them authority to cast out demons," and we see Jesus now in this mode of discipleship, drawing the disciples to him, and and he, in his authority, is imparting that authority to them to be able to carry out the work that he was going to do. The ministry of the gospel was never going to be a one-man band, a one-man show; it was going to be a corporate thing, uh, and the gospel is going to be, in this moment, um, sent out through the disciples. And then we get to this moment of another challenge, and it comes from a really strange place—verse 20 of chapter 3: "And he came," chapter

3. And he came home, and the crowd gathered again to such an extent that they could not even eat a meal. When his own people heard of this, they went out to take custody of him, for they were saying, "He has lost his senses." Think about that for a minute—all that he's done, all that he's doing, and the people around him say he's lost his senses. But it gets worse; the scribes who came from Jerusalem were saying he's possessed by Beelzebub—he casts out demons by the ruler of demons.

And Jesus, you know he's awesome, isn't he? He gets—he he just makes clear how nonsensical this whole idea is, and he says, "How can Satan cast out Satan? So if I'm here and I'm doing this work, casting out demons, but I'm here on Satan's behest, then I'm casting out my own crew. How does that work? That doesn't make sense. You're supposed to be the leaders of Israel; you're supposed to get this stuff, people." And and they completely miss it, and they're they're so blinded by their hatred for him. And he goes on, and he explains how how this just can't work, and he logically works it through for all to hear. But then in verse 30 again, they don't listen; he they say he has an unclean spirit. And he's just answered all of these objections, all of these challenges to his authority, and even to the extent his mother and brothers come looking for him to try and take him in hand. Uh, and Jesus doesn't respond, so it's another challenge to his authority here. And then he comes into this moment where he tells uh one of the parables, and he's teaching his disciples about the kinds of hearts that they'll be experiencing as they witness as they send the gospel out. Right, this parable, the parable of the sewer and the soils, or the parable of the seed, or the power of the source, however you want to call it, uh, is a commentary on the kinds of people uh or the kinds of um receipt of the gospel. So Jesus explains the parable clearly, and he says that the seed sown is the word, and the soil are the hearts of people. And and we come across a number of different hearts. So this is part of the disciples' training uh in preparing for this evangelistic ministry that they're going to have. And we get to one of the themes that I mentioned earlier of understanding chapter 4, verse 12. Um, uh, start in verse 11, and he was saying to them, "To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but to those who are outside, everything in parables, so that while seeing they may see and not perceive, and while hearing they may hear and not understand; otherwise they might return and be forgiven." So he says, and and it's a common thing that people use; they say, "Oh, well, you know, we should just teach in parables because that's what Jesus did because that helps people understand." And Jesus says, "No, no, no. Parables are really designed for the for those who who are following me to understand, but those who aren't following me, they're not going to get it. This is designed to obfuscate the truth from those who shouldn't hear it, they so that they may hear and not understand." But the the irony of this is verse 13, and he said to them, "Do you guys understand the parable? How how how will you understand all the parables if you're not getting this one? I told you the parable; I gave you the answer, and you still don't get it," you know. And and it's a it's another sign of of the slowness of the disciples as they go through to really grasp what's going on. And sorry. And then now he explains the parable for them so that they might understand, and he finishes uh there uh in verse 25: "For whoever has, to him more shall be given; and whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him." Those who understand, those who follow me, those who are mine, to more will be added. Those who who really uh are my children, they will understand; they will grow; they will benefit. Those who do not, those who are not mine, those who reject my authority, everything will be taken away from you. And he almost in a Matthew-like way he starts talking about the kingdom of God in verse 26, and he and he carries on this theme of soil, and then we get something about faith, and again still going on about the kingdom of God, uh, and then we get to verse 35, and we get yet another explanation of his authority, and we get this instance where Jesus stills the sea. So they're on the boat; the storm comes up, and he commands the waves. So so far up to this point we've seen Jesus' command over people in general, over their hearts, calling the disciples, his authority to give them uh the ability to do the things he wants them to do. We've seen his authority over sickness uh and illness, authority over demons, and even through his resisting of the temptation right back in the beginning, his authority over Satan. And now we see his authority over the very elements of the earth, uh over wind uh and over the sea. And what happens after this demonstration of authority? Verse 40: "And he said to them, 'Why are you afraid?'" Fear in the face of this incredible thing, and they became very much afraid. And he said to them, "Who then is this?" And they said, "Even who then is this? Even the wind and sea obey him." And again, combination of authority, fear, and slowness to understand, slowness to accept. And really it's another of these important questions for anyone who reads this book: Who then is this? If this is true, if this account is real, as you present these accounts to people uh in in your gospel interactions, that's a question that we have to ask people. If these things are real, then who is this man who can command the sea and who can command demons and who can command the very hearts of men? He can be none other than the Messiah, than the Son of God, the God himself. And so that should be in our minds as we read these things; we see these questions, and we ask them, and and then we have the answer back to one one: This is Jesus; this is God incarnate.

So they came to the other side of the sea into the country of the Gerasenes. And when he got out of the boat, immediately a man from the tombs with an unclean spirit met him. And we come to another example of his authority again, and we have him uh casting the demon out. We've mentioned this uh this uh little instance already, but look at what he says in verse 13: It's not just that Jesus can can command them, but they seek his permission. And this is one of the major issues when you get on to theology and you start looking at angelology, and we start interacting with some of the false notions that we have about the spiritual realm, the idea that you know it's our job to go and cast out demons and or or to to do any of that kind of stuff. We recognize very quickly that it is only Jesus uh who has this power and that they are subjugated to him. We see that in the book of Job; we see that Satan himself can only come into God's presence when he allows him, and even when he seeks to test Job, that can only happen because God allows him. And so looked there, and he gave them permission, and coming out of the unclean spirits they entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea, about 2,000 of them, and they were drowned. Now let me head off any questions—the pigs aren't the point, right? In a sense, it it just doesn't matter. Okay, but if this helps you a little bit, um I think I'm probably most convinced by the idea that um we don't think about what happened after. So we think, "Oh, these poor people, they've lost all their animals." Well, the animals were being raised for food, and likelihood is they would have gone and fished them out of the water and still used them for food, so they didn't really lose anything. And ultimately, why pigs? Because they were there, right? There's nothing; there's no spiritual significance about this; it's nothing to do with Old Testament laws about pigs being unclean and demons entering pigs. And I tell you what, bacon is holy food, so there's there's definitely nothing about that. Um, it's true. Um, so we've just got to keep ourselves focused. And and some of the I'm like some of these things are really interesting, right? We we think about these things like, "Oh, what does this mean?" And sometimes we read far too much into some of these stories, especially parables, and we're asking questions we're not meant to ask. The pigs are not the point, but the poor farmers, they still would have been able to get their money from them; they would have fished them out, sold them, people would have eaten them—bacon all round, not for the Israelites—um, and it would have been fine. So that's my answer on that.

Then they went away and reported it in the city, and we get the same reaction again. Verse 15: They came to Jesus and observed the man who had been demon-possessed sitting down, clothed in his right mind, the very man who had the legion, and they became frightened once again—this collective response. The thing that's that makes me incredulous, though, verse 17: "And they began to implore him to leave their region." How ridiculous! Okay, he's just dealt with this guy who's been really um kind of molesting them for a long time, and and and they can see the power that he has, and it results in fear, and they ask him to leave. And I just in case I forget to talk about it later, I think it's important for us to remember this that that this is this is a natural reaction to seeing God at work in relation to our own sin. It's why whenever we see an angel appear, people respond in fear because an angel is a perfect being who exists in the very presence of God; they are sinless. So when they come and and interact with someone in the Bible, when you stand before someone or something who is sinless and perfect, their perfection is magnified, and so is your own sin. You you have that welling up, that realization of how bad you are in comparison to this perfect being. So then imagine being faced with God incarnate doing miracles, God incarnate casting out demons, God incarnate doing things that no other human could do. Fear is an understandable reaction; they are repelled by his perfection, and they're made aware of their own sin, and they respond by saying, "Away from us!" That is the reaction of the world; that is one of the intended reactions of the gospel. The gospel has two intentions: it is either going to draw or repel, and this is one of those things. If someone is not going to accept who Christ is, if someone who is not going to bow the knee to God, then the gospel will repel them, and that is what we see here—this rejection uh of him.

And then we see this not just uh authority over sickness, but now it escalates to to a whole new level uh from verse 21 onwards. We then get this incredible instance of a woman with the hemorrhage, and we get Jairus's daughter, and it's an incredible story where um Jairus comes, and he he says to Jesus, "My daughter's unwell, and I have a seven-year-old daughter, and if she was unwell, you know, I'm I'm grabbing anyone and I'm saying, 'I need you to deal with my daughter right now.'" And Jesus in in almost fashion that he does with Lazarus, he takes his time, and and he doesn't rush; he shows that he's in control, and he takes time to deal with this woman who has a hemorrhage. And we we don't often think a lot about her; she would have been an outcast; she would have been someone who, because of what she's dealing with, um she she would have been outcast from her family; she would have not been able to go to the temple; she would have not been able to worship. Um, she was someone no one would have touched because they were because she was completely unclean constantly; she would have had to have been removed and lived in her own community outside of the city walls. If she had a wife, if she had a husband and children, she wouldn't have been able to interact with them. And she comes and just desperately touches Jesus' garment, and Jesus pauses, and he gives her what she wants. Um, now maybe I'm going to I'm going to leave the question uh about um his him saying, "Who touched me?" Uh, if you want to talk about that, I'm happy to talk about that afterwards, um but it's dealing with his his deity and and essentially the reality that that Christ is both man and God, uh and he has both a human uh and and a deified uh nature, uh and we can talk about that uh after the break if you if you have or in during the break if you have questions about that because that'll take a little bit longer uh to work through. For now, um, so he goes on and he heals Jairus's daughter, and again, verse 36: "Do not be afraid any longer; only believe." And this is where we get our talakumi that we mentioned earlier on, and he shows his authority over the little girl, and it's not just over the little girl; it's over death itself. And so we have Jesus—this is just escalating, you know, as we build as we stack on top of each other all these instances of Jesus' authority—we now have him being able to categorically raise someone from the dead. That is something that only God can do, and that is something that rightly so, verse 42: "Immediately they were completely astounded." And then verse 43 gives strict orders that no one should know about this, uh and he said that something should be given her to eat. This is another little detail that Mark adds, but it's really important, isn't it? What you hear about so many of these supposed faith healings and and these um the these uh false prophets and people who claim to have raised people from the dead, you never have any attest; you never have any physical witnesses, and you never have anyone who's able to to give any kind of proof, and especially with some of these healings. Well, here, not only did he say uh "get up," but then she ate something too, so she got up, she walked around, and she ate. And these are all things that show us that this was a very real raising from the dead. They were all convinced she was dead; they knew she was dead, and now she's standing up, walking around, and eating. So Mark is just cementing uh these truths for us.

So then we come to chapter six, and we get a really interesting moment again with his hometown. Okay, and all I'm going to focus on here is verse 5: "And he could do no miracle there except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them." Okay, now this is not a demonstration that Jesus can't heal you unless you have faith in him; okay, this is not that Jesus wasn't physically able to heal them; this is he couldn't do it because there's no way he's going to reward their lack of faith. Listen to what he says about them: Um, uh, they say, "Where did this man get these things? By what is this wisdom given to him and these miracles performed?" They even claim that they're miracles and yet they're doubting uh that he's doing it. "Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary?" And they took offense at him. Okay, this is the same thing as when my son comes to me. So Monday nights we we have we used to have Friday film Friday family film night uh oh Friday family film fast food night, so we would do fast food, watch a movie alto together, right? Switched to Monday, lots of controversy, but it's okay. Um, and so this is where my middle son, who like me loves fried chicken, and he comes to me and he says, "Daddy, I want KFC; I want KFC." Now Dave's hot, which you now have here, is way better, but I'm just saying, um, he comes to me and he says, "Daddy, can I have KFC?" And and I say, "Son, your behavior today has been terrible; like your attitude has been shocking. You You didn't do school very well; you've been rude to your mother; I cannot let you have KFC." Now, of course, I physically can; I'm capable of doing it, but his behavior—there's no way I'm rewarding that. And this is what Jesus is doing here; it's not that he couldn't do the miracle because people didn't have enough faith. Why should he? Why would he? These are some of the results of their actions and reactions. Why would he bless those who are directly challenging and not even believing in him and countermanding him? And he says, "And he wondered at their unbelief." Unbelievable! I grew up with you, and you've seen the miracles I've done, and you still reject me. But he does say that he that there were some who who who he did heal in that area. So this is another rejection of Christ's authority.

So then he summons the 12, uh and he begins to send them out in pairs and gave them authority over unclean spirits. And then they get sent out, and we get this very strange recounting of of John the Baptist's death, uh which we're gonna which we're going to move over um and if there are any questions about that we can we can we can talk about that afterwards. The only thing I would point out with that is how like Pilate, Herod is so uh Herod uh doesn't he he he likes John in some way, and yet he still kills him despite the fact he he he doesn't really want to. And we're told in verse 26, "And although the king was very sorry, yet because of his oaths and because of his dinner guests, he was unwilling to refuse her." His fear of man, his fear of man, and this is exactly what we see with Pilate—it's fear of what will happen if I if I make this right choice. And you have an option; you have a you have an opportunity in this moment to turn to Christ or to turn to do the right thing, like Pilate does, uh and Herod rejects it, uh and so is the state of mankind. We get to the feeding of the 5,000 uh here at uh midway through chapter 6, uh and we see this this incredible uh account of of what Jesus does, and again his authority over the laws of physics, over the fact that he could create food out of nothing. Yes, there were some fish initially, but I don't know if your maths is particularly good, but once you've dealt with a couple of those, they're gone, and you've got to create new stuff, right? And so scientists would tell us that matter can't be created; Jesus is the one who created matter in the first place, so he is able to demonstrate his authority over the laws of physics and over matter itself. And immediately, verse 45: "Jesus made his disciples get into the boat, and after bidding farewell, he sends them out; he goes to pray." Um, and then this is another instance of them being afraid of him walking. But we get down to verse 52, which is another astonishing verse to use the the word above it—verse 51, sorry. "Then he got into the boat with them, and the wind stopped, and they were utterly astonished, for they had not gained any insight from the incident of the loaves, but their heart was hardened." They had not gained any insight, and this is a point I guess I think I'm going to make later, but I'll make it now just so we don't forget: Signs do not convince people. And here's the thing: Jesus' miracles were there to demonstrate his power, who he really was; they are very just the same as in the book of Acts, 1 Corinthians—those miracles are there to to give authority, to show the authority of the one who's presenting the gospel. Okay, they do not save, and we we get throughout the gospels over and over and over again people are presented with God-wrought miracles, and they are not changed. Now, the disciples will be eventually, but the the miracle of feeding 5,000 people with a couple of loaves and fish didn't give them any insight; it didn't demonstrate enough to them for them to get the point. So how much less do you think anyone else had a chance of of getting the point from it? So it just shows us again that the the false hope that pursuing signs and wonders will help, and act incidentally when we get to Revelation, we're shown that that that the trusting in in signs and wonders will be what deceives people uh in the end in that period of the antichrist.

So when they had crossed over, they came to the land of Gennesaret, and they got out of the boat, and immediately people recognized him, uh and this is another of these kind of summary statements. Whenever he entered villages or cities or countryside, they were laying the sick in the marketplaces and imploring him that they might just touch the fringe of his cloak; as many touched it were being cured. It's an incredible uh depiction of Jesus' power. So as we get into verse 7, we get uh I'm actually going to move more quickly now because I want to get to the the the later chapters, but we get to chapter 7, and we get this instance of of tradition again, and we've already talked about that how Christ is uh elevates his authority over the authority of traditions. These traditions were the traditions that were made by people; they were not commanded by God. And so that's where verse 7 of chapter 7 says, "Teaching as doctrines the precepts of men." And Jesus says that, "Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men." And we see this also uh in uh Colossians chapter 3, the the the plea for us not to follow legalism, for us not to get caught up in these things. And Jesus makes it clear to them: "You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition." And that's a warning for us as churchgoers, for us not to fall into that trap uh in the same way and to recognize that tradition does not save; it is only the gospel; it is only what God's word says that is going to be beneficial, that is going to draw us to him. Verse 14: "After he called the crowd to him again, he says to them, 'Listen to the to you all who understand.'" And he and he just lays it down again that it's about your heart. You can fake it till you make it, like you you can put on the best uh show at church; you can you can do all of the things like the Pharisees did, but it's about your heart. You can follow all the traditions, but it's not what comes out of you; it's what's it it's not what goes into you; it's what comes out of you or what's in your heart that defiles you. And he's making clear that the heart is the really important point. And then I think he illustrates that uh with this next kind of periscope that we see from verse 24, the Syrophoenician woman, and she in her humility uh demonstrates the right kind of heart to respond to God, uh to respond to Jesus, uh and then we get the same thing with the with this other guy uh from verse uh 31 onwards in Decapolis; we get the deaf man, um and and Jesus lays his hands on him and he heals him, and then he gives this testimony uh he or they give the testimony, the crowd: "He has done all things well; he makes even the deaf to hear and the mute to speak." And this is a key statement; demonstrate this is something that Messiah would do, right? He would—this was an evidence of his messiahship, not just that because God is the only one who can do these things again. So we have two people who kind of illustrate the point that Jesus made before um that maybe they don't follow those the traditions, but but they certainly have the right heart. We get another instance of of a large group being fed, um and as we get into here into chapter 8, I just want to lay something quickly out for—I don't have time to draw it up; I'm just going to just going to lay it out for you. So um uh Carson in his commentary, he lays out uh something for us here; it's a it's a repeated pattern that we see from chapter 8, chapter 9, and chapter 10, um and it's and it's basically this pattern of um Jesus predicting his death, the disciples misunderstanding, and then Jesus teaching about the cost of discipleship, and it happens in chapter 9, uh chapter 8, chapter 9, chapter 10. So I'm just going to give you those verses, and maybe I'll write them up during the break if you want them, or you can come and take a photo. So chapter 8:31, you get Jesus predicting his death, and then verses 32 and 33, uh if you look there, the disciples misunderstand—this is where he rebukes Peter and says, "Get behind me, Satan"—and then in verses 34 to 38, uh Jesus then teaches about the cost uh of discipleship, and really we see kind of a precursor uh to comments about Peter and Judas um denying him. And then um chapter 9:30, uh we get Jesus predicting his death: "30 and 31 again, for he was teaching the disciples and telling them, 'The Son of Man is to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him; when he has been killed, he will rise three days later.'" And this is one of a number of explicit statements Jesus makes to them, but then uh verses 32, 33, 34, they still don't get it: "Verse 32: But they did not understand this statement, and they were afraid to ask him," and then 35 to 37: "If anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all," uh and then he gives this example; he uses the child to show childlike faith in that respect, which incidentally is not uninformed uh weak faith; it's full trust, full dependence, full devotion on Christ. Um, so then that that's the the teaching about discipleship. And then chapter 10, verses 32 and 34: They're on the road going up to Jerusalem. So remember the simple delineation I gave you: 1 to 10 kind of Galilee, and then kind of 10 onwards moving towards Jerusalem. He says, "Behold, we're going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and hand him over to the Gentiles; they will mock him and spit on him and scourge him and kill him, and three days later he will rise again." And then you see uh in 35 to 40 that they just don't get it because of how they respond. How do they respond? Uh, oh yeah, um, you know, when you go to your father, you know, make sure that we're make sure we're there, you know, make sure I'm on your on your right-hand side, Jesus, we want that um bit of authority. And then he teaches about discipleship again, and he says um essentially that they're not going to be able to follow uh in his footsteps, uh but once again the idea of servanthood, verse 43: "But this is not the way among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all." And this is a recognition of any of you who are either in the ministry or want to be in the ministry: You don't get to be top dog; you get to be top servant, uh and that's the the example that our Lord set us. And I just want to make a note on verse 37: What a contrast! Because Jesus back in um back in verse 37 of chapter 9 where he talks about the children, he he commends them and says that this is how this is the attitude that we should have, but then in verse 37 of chapter 10, we see these two disciples who've been with Jesus from the beginning acting in the complete opposite of the children; they're looking to elevate themselves and place themselves in a position of authority; they're the opposite of the children that Jesus has talked about, and it's just another sign that they're just not getting the message that Jesus is giving. He keeps telling them, "I'm—"

Going to go and die, and you need to be a servant; you need to follow, and then you need to serve the people." And and they're they're thinking about, "Well, I want to be first; I want to have pride of place." And we know what John 3 says about that, uh, with Diotrophies being the one who loves to be first and the danger that comes with that. So these are warnings in in in in 8, 9, and 10 that should really push us away from these kinds of attitudes. And I realize we've skipped a lot, but I'm really pushing to try and get uh this done before we before we break. Um, so if you take that as kind of a a pattern that kind of sets through 8, 9, and 10, that brings us to 11, and we're really looking now um at at Jesus setting his sights and and coming in uh to Jerusalem.

As they approached Jerusalem at Beth Page and Bethany near the Mount of Olives, he sent his disciples in uh and he's getting a place for them to have uh um excuse me, getting getting the donkey that he's going to ride in on—this kingly image of Jesus coming in. And what's the response? What would you think would be the response? If you just read everything that we just read, you would think, well, people are going to boo him or they're just going to say, "Who's this guy on a donkey?" You know, they're not they're not going to be uh responding to him in any way. But we see that when he does come in, he's greeted with with applause and with a kingly greeting. And again, those same people who welcome him into Jerusalem like a coming king, as they should—this is a false declaration uh of of crowning him—because by the end of the week they're going to call for his death, for his blood. It's such a contrast.

Verse 12 of chapter 11, just to note it—this weird instance with the fig tree. Um, so just to not say much about it, but the fig tree, we think is the symbol of the temple—is a symbol of the temple, right? So we've got um uh this Jesus coming, seeing this fig tree, cursing it uh and and then later on we find out that it is dead uh and he says, "May no one ever eat fruit from you again." And his disciples were listening and basically going back to imagery from the Old Testament of Israel being represented—it represented by a vine uh and the use of the fig tree uh the idea, because of exactly what comes next, is that Jesus is actually speaking about the temple, the destruction of the temple um that it will be destroyed. Because then we come straight into Jerusalem and he enters the temple and began to drive out those who are buying and selling in the temple and overturning the tables. Um, and he demonstrates again his authority in his father's house. So he sends people out because of the purpose of his house. And again, that just draws my mind back to Malachi 1 uh again when we think about that and uh and we know that uh Messiah was going to have passion uh for his father.

So as we come to the end of uh chapter 11, we get another of these instances of Jesus' authority being questioned, and it's not just questioned but it's out and out rejected. Verse 28: "They began saying to him, ‘By what authority are you doing these things, or who gave you authority to do these things?’" And Jesus said to them, "I will ask you one question and answer me, then I will tell you by what authority I do these things." And it's another of these clever moments where he gives them a question that, because they're so have so much fear of man, they can't answer it, even though they they actually do get the right answer, um but they won't say it because they're so afraid of people. And then he says, "I'm not going to tell you." And this is a sign again of Jesus' judgment on them and saying, "You've had your chances; you know, I'm I'm not gonna I'm not going to give you any more opportunity." Uh, and he and they're cut off there, but then he goes into a parable, and the Pharisees know exactly who he's talking about, okay—in this parable of of the of the vine growers—of these guys who come in and it's the this is the only major parable outside of chapter 4 for Mark. And we get this instance, this this terrible story of these ter horrible vine growers who eventually kill the son uh of the one, and this is an exact depiction of what will happen to Christ. And and at the beginning we ask, who are the vine growers? Well, in verse 12, because the Pharisees immediately set out to seize him, they know exactly who he's talking about—he's talking about them; he's talking about the fact that they are doing exactly—they are plotting to do exactly what the vine growers do in the parable.

And then verse 13 onwards, we get this other interaction, and this really is a huge challenge to Jesus. We get the Pharisees, the Herodians, we get the Sadducees, and then we also get a scribe, and then the scribes, right? And the first three groups, they all challenge Jesus uh and he deals with them, and he he answers all of their questions. But then we get to verse 24, and Jesus makes a really kind of monumental statement to them, and he says, "Is this not the reason you are mistaken, that you do not understand the scriptures or the power of God?" And these are the these are the teachers—this is like what he what what um Jesus will say to Nicodemus in John 3: "Like you're the teacher of the law; you got to understand these things." And they, to their credit, they would have memorized huge portions of the Old Testament; they knew their stuff. But Jesus says, "You don't understand; you might know, but you don't understand—not just the scriptures, but the power of God." And and he and he lays out that if if they would just—he's essentially making the point—if they would just submit to his authority, if they would just open themselves up to recognize the truth that's being presented to them, then they would understand. But then we get verse 28; we get one of the scribes. Now the scribes, they were experts in interpretation; that was their deal; that was their jam; they they were known for being the the the elite exedites, right? They understood the the scriptures, and they were able to interpret them expertly. And so one of these scribes comes to him uh and Jesus, they interact, and and they both answer well. And in verse 32 uh after Jesus' response, the scribe said to him, "Right, teacher, you have truly stated," and and that's like him saying, "Well said," you know, "I agree with you; we're on the same page," absolutely. And and there's this incredible role reversal that goes on. In verse 34, Jesus responds: "He says, ‘When Jesus saw that he had answered intelligently, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”’" And this is Jesus demonstrating his authority in that he holds the keys to the kingdom of God, and he has the authority to say whether someone is close or someone is far. And it's amazing; it's a it's it's an it's an ironical twist because all of these groups came out to to challenge Jesus, to judge Jesus, and then Jesus actually ends up being the one judging the scribe, and the scribe actually is is doing a good job; he says, "You're near; you're close; keep going." Sadly, his uh Jesus then lambasts the scribes in verse 38, and he says, "Beware of the scribes who like to walk around in long robes and like respectful greetings in the marketplaces." So I would exclude the guy from from uh verse 30 uh or verse 28 from this, and it's just another example of how there were those who were faithful in amongst these unfaithful groups—take Nicodemus as an example—and we find out eventually that he does follow Jesus despite being a Pharisee.

And then we get the instance of the widow's might, and we get into chapter 13, which I would love to go slowly with you uh but we we're we just don't have time. So he—this is the ET discourse; this is the end times passage. Uh, the verse that I'll point out to you is verse 19: "For those days will be a time of tribulation such as has not occurred since the beginning of the creation which God created until now and never will." And this is uh mirrored in Matthew 24:21; Jesus says the same thing. And and notice what he's saying: "The tribulation period will be worse than anything that has happened before and anything that will come." This cannot have been fulfilled in AD 70 when Jerusalem fell; it's not possible. Jesus is saying this will be the most cataclysmic, horrendous event that you could ever possibly imagine, and it's laid out: "Unless the Lord had shortened those days, no life would have been saved." We cannot say that about any other event in history—World War I, World War II, the fall of Jerusalem. So I don't know where your esqueological leanings are, but that should help you point towards this idea that that that AD 70 isn't the place um and that we need to contend with this idea that this real tribulation is coming, and it will be an actual time and uh you can you can read about it from uh Revelation 7 onwards. Um, and again, I would just say verse 22 uh that's the passage I was referring to earlier where he says—or verse 21—and then, "If anyone says to you, ‘Behold, here is the Christ,’ or ‘Behold, he is there,’ do not believe him; for false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show signs and wonders in order to lead astray, if possible, the elect," showing again the dangerous nature of seeking out signs. Uh, now this is talking about the um the tribulation, but obviously uh that that um is relevant for us today. I'm going to move on um from that, but if you have any questions, I'd be happy to chat that through with you.

And we get to chapter 14, and what happens now is an escalation; things are going to move quickly. And what's interesting is that Mark isn't going to use immediately to escalate or to to increase the pace; he uses lots of different snippets. So we go—we get the death plot, then the Passover, Lord's Supper, Jesus in Gethsemane, betrayal and arrest, and Mark moves us on with this pace; it's like things are happening so quickly um just by the way he tells the story. And here in verses uh 1 to 11, we get a a really sad but incredible image, and what we have is we have an evil plot sandwich, right? Verse one: we've got the evil plot of the scribes and the Pharisees; verse 10 and 11: we get the evil plot of Judas; and right in the middle we get this incredible story of worship—glorious worship—in the middle of these plots. And we have Mary, the the sister of Lazarus, who anoints uh Jesus. Um, and we'll find out that in John 11:2, and we'll talk about that a little bit later, but this—that's all I'll say about that—it's just a wonderful image of of this glorious moment of worship, of of recognition of who Christ is, of bending the knee to him in the midst of these terrible plots which are happening around. And then from 12 onwards we get now the the preparation for the passion; we get this wonderful um that the Passover, which uh is really must have been for Jesus tinged with sorrow, knowing what a wonderful thing he was setting up, knowing that he was fulfilling uh all of those images uh back from Genesis and and throughout um the sacrificial system; and yet verse 21: "For the son of man is to go just as is written of him: ‘Woe to that man by whom the son of man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had not ever been born.’" To say that of one who had followed him and who had been with him—his heart must have been broken uh to know what Judas was going to go and do. And and I believe that verse is a sign that Judas was not a believer uh in any way, shape, or form. Jesus says, "It would have been better for him to have never been born." If he was going to go to heaven once he committed suicide, uh then there's no way Jesus would have said that. Um, and that's not any linking between suicide and going to heaven; that's nothing to do—those two things are nothing to do with each other. Um, but I think that's a clear sign that Jesus was was not a believer, as opposed to Peter who comes to true repentance for his actions and is restored and comes back to the Lord.

We have the Lord's Supper uh and this uh this incredible meal that we still celebrate now um that you know we we should come to each—we we do it in our church each week uh and it's just a joyful time to remember what Christ has done for us. He didn't give it to us to be some ritual habit; it it's a remembrance of this reality each time of Christ living this life and dying this death for us—for you, for me. And then we come to Gethsemane, and we see Christ uh praying uh and and in such anguish over what's going on and and and this incredible verse that we always talk about um—"The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak"—and it's often used as kind of a throwaway comment today uh but it was so true in that moment. He calls his disciples to keep watching and praying that they may not come into temptation uh and they fail, and Peter particularly fails, and then he will fail again as we come to his betrayal and arrest. I will just make a comment as we get to the arrest on verse 51: "A young man was following him, wearing nothing but a linen sheet over his naked body, and they seized him, and he pulled free of the linen sheet and escaped naked." So we think this is Mark. Um, the likelihood is uh obviously he hasn't been featured at all, so the question is, well, why does Mark um add this in here? And Dr. Essex would say that he thinks that this is Mark's one opportunity because this was Mark's one instance in the life of Jesus; he's like, "Yeah, I was there; I was naked, but I was there," and and so he puts it in um but he—so he was an eyewitness to that. I quite like—I'm going to go with Dr. Essex on that; I quite like that. But equally, no one else was around; no one else saw that happen, so how else would anybody know other than we could argue the inspiration of the Holy Spirit uh but it's likely that this is Mark um and he wouldn't have been entirely naked; they would have had a loin cloth or something underneath um but because he would have been sleeping, you know, probably coming from uh the house uh where they they—so some believe that the last supper might have happened in Mark's house um and that's why he was there, and he had followed them with the sheet. So when when they had the last supper meeting in Mark's home—and we don't know that—that's speculation, but it does tie things together, and I quite I quite like that part of the story.

We get really serious now, and we get into this moment of of Jesus before his accusers. Um, and the thing that I'll point out about all of this is verse uh 61 um and then in verse 5 of 15 and then in verse oh verse 4 of 15 as well: Jesus' silence, fulfilling Isaiah 53:7. But it's such an incredible thing, isn't it, for someone with so much power and authority, for someone who had done nothing wrong, to stand there and hear these false accusations against him and to say nothing. You know, it's—we we would be in there in a minute, arguing every tooth and nail, every point. And I'm not saying that we should never u—that we should never argue uh you know, Paul did that, you know, when he called to be taken to Caesar and speak to Caesar and plead his case before Felix and all of those kind of things. So it's not wrong for us to to give an answer to things, but it is an example of Christ's devotion and of Christ's patience uh and of his holiness in these moments and his trust in his father vindicating him, because he knew he was going to victory. And so Peter's denial—and we're getting very close—Peter's denial um something we've talked about a lot, I'm sure, throughout the years; you you've heard this preached on; you've heard this mentioned um and really I think there there's just kind of one major question um that comes out of this that that Mark wants us to seek our hearts and ask: How would we fare in that moment? Would you deny him? And actually, someone only asked me this question this week: You know, when we think about the persecuted church the world over and many who are challenged to deny Christ daily uh we think of many parts of of Eratraa, places like that—think of North Korea, think of so many places all around the world where people are faced with this very real circumstance—what would we do? Would we deny him? Um, and Peter fails, but it shows that for a true believer that failure is momentary, and there is restoration and there is forgiveness. So it's not to say that anyone who um who you know who who denies Jesus in a moment is lost uh but it is a challenge to us as we read this to ask ourselves these questions. Um, and we come back then uh to kind of things pan over to Peter, and then it pans back to this to Jesus uh and his uh his trial. Um, and the chief priests accuse him. We get to this moment in in verse 12: "Answering again, Pilate said to them, ‘Then what shall I do with him whom you call King of the Jews?’" And remember back to what the picture that Mark has painted for us—this man who's come out of Nazareth who has spent his life—or spent his three years—serving people, mending the brokenhearted, building up the weak, caring for children, caring for his disciples, healing wounds, raising the dead, get rid getting rid of demons, answering questions, discipling people, just preaching the glory of God. And so many of those who just would have welcomed him in only a few days before call out, "Crucify him!" And these are the ones he had healed and blessed and taught and blessed their children, and they shouted all the more, "Crucify him!" And then, wishing to satisfy the crowd in a moment of complete shameful fear of men—fear of man—uh Pilate gives in and hands Jesus over to be crucified. And Jesus is mocked, and he is scourged. And you've probably heard this before, but by the time we get to crucifixion, most people were nearly dead anyway because of the scourging—that was a whip with with nails and with bone wound into the whip uh and they would flail basically even to the point—most people—that their spinal column would be showing at this point, and so many die from blood loss before they even get to to the cross. This is not the story we see in in the children's Bibles; this is a bloody, horrible affair born out of the the sin and the and the the horrendous mind of sinful men to commit to to to do as much agony uh as they could to someone. And they crucified him with they crucified two robbers with him, one on his right and one on his left, and those passing by were hurling abuse at him, wagging their heads and saying, "Ha, you who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild build it in three days, save yourself and come down from the cross!" And the point obviously was he wasn't going to save himself; he was going to save them—that that's why he was there uh to to to give his life as a ransom for many. And he was indeed Christ, the king of Israel, but he's also Christ, the king of the cosmos. And in this moment where Satan and the demons that he had been showing his authority over throughout the whole time um they're thinking they've won, and Jesus, as we know, is actually going to win in the end.

And we get to this moment where Jesus utters this loud cry and breathes his last, and the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, and that signifies the beginning of the end for the sac for for the temple, for the sacrificial system, but also the separation from God and man, the opportunity for us to come into relationship. And I don't know if you've ever pictured the veil—veil is a bit of a rubbish word uh in terms of describing what it is—so it's a 60-foot-high, 30-foot-wide, 4-inch-thick veil, right? So when you're talking about it being torn in two, and people say, "Oh, yeah, one of the priests cut it, or one of the disciples cut it," what—with scissors? Like, what—how did that happen? And so we have God Almighty tearing this veil in half—this this incredible barrier which separated the Holy of Holies from people, where no one could enter—and Christ says, "Enter in now; you can come into relationship with me." And that's just an incredible, wonderful image. So out of all the pain and out of all the agony uh Jesus is then died—he dies—and then is buried. And we have Joseph—this wonderful, cool image of Joseph coming—and then Nicodemus uh coming uh and and taking Jesus' body and burying him.

And probably uh the moment that we we might have all been waiting for—the end of chapter 16. Um, and what do we do with chapter 16? Well, let me tell you—just cut the rest of it off. Um, so verses 1 to 8, um and I I'll just give you a couple of reasons for it uh why um we believe that that verse verses 1 to 8's original and 9 onwards are not. Um, essentially, when we talk about manuscript evidence, um there are a couple of factors that we take into account; we look at the manuscripts and then we see the volume of manuscripts and and what do the majorities say, but then we also look at the the the dating of the manuscripts and how early they are. And often times there a couple of things will take priority, and this is secular and Christian manuscript um or textual criticism um that the shorter the manuscript, the more likely it is to be original, and the earlier the manuscript, the more likely it is to be original, okay. And so immediately the fact that 1 to 8 is shorter um that that's what the earliest manuscripts attest to—so the earliest manuscripts we have, they only have verses 1 to 8 in them, okay. And so what then we textual critics would say: Let's look at the texts, and the two main texts that that have 1 to 8—Vaticanus and Sinaiticus—and those are two main um manuscripts that we rely on for for much of our our details um and they have no knowledge of verses 9 onwards; they're not there. Um, and then we would look at the early church too. Um, so uh a couple of names for you: Clement of Alexandria—he was around in AD 120 to 215—and then Origen, who was 185 to 254 uh in their writings; they have no knowledge of verses 9 onwards—only verses 1 to 8. So we have not only the earliest manuscripts but we have earliest church history addestations saying, "No, it's just verses 1 to 8." Um, but then also we have Eusebius of Caesarea, who was in the 260s, and then Jerome himself in the 347s, and they say the same thing—that even at their time the earliest manuscripts did not have verses 1 to 8. So it's not just that the earliest manuscripts we have have 1 to 8—them being even much closer to the time—the earliest manuscripts they have access to also didn't have verses 1 to 8. Um, and it's not to say that what is written afterwards is um heretically deceptive and all—there's a reason it was added in um and and people actually—I have a I I wrote a paper on it at seminary, so I'm going to give you that paper if you'd like, and then you can uh you can look at all the other bits and pieces. But it's not to say that what is there at the end is is her heretical and terrible, but it doesn't line up with Mark. Um, there are lots of uh words—so I think there are 34 new words that have not appeared in the Gospel of Mark that are in this last little bit—and so when textual critics look at that, they say that doesn't really marry up; he's not used these words before, so this has got to be a different writer. But then also the things that are written um uh some would argue that well they're not really bad uh the thing that we're concerned about is is it original, and if it's not original then it's not authoritative, and we don't take it into account. Um, so I actually had a conversation with a guy a little while ago—I forget what verse it was—he quoted but he quoted a verse from from the last portion of 16, and I said, "You know, I'm really sorry, but I can't take that verse into account because that isn't original." Um, so it's important for us to know these things um and uh and I hope that's that's helpful there uh there at the end.

I'm going to pray, and we'll finish up, and I'll take any questions maybe during the break. I apologize; we've gone right to the right to the wire. "Father God, you are so good, and we thank you for the Gospel of Mark. Uh, we thank you for all that it tells us about your son and his authority and what it shows us about our own sin in the face of perfection. And I pray that as we go away that that next time we read this gospel that that these things would stand out to us, and that we each time we read it we would grow in our understanding of what this gospel is saying. Most importantly, Lord, may we answer these questions correctly: Is Jesus the Messiah? Is he the son of God? Is he my king? And and Lord, I pray that all of our answers here would be yes, and we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay, uh, break for 10 minutes, and then we'll start up with John. You're doing really well, guys; everyone's eyes are open. And hi, Mark—Mark, right? I'm Ben—Ben, sorry—Max. Okay, everyone, we're going to make a start very quickly. If you don't see me in the next session, I have another appointment; I'll be missing…" Yeah, cheers. Okay, let's open up to the Gospel of John 4:45. All right, we can do this, guys. I promised Adam I'd have you out here by 10, so we'll we'll carry on. Let's pray. "Father God, thank you for this next book of the Bible; thank you for the Gospel of John. Lord, there is so much here. Uh, Lord, I just give you glory. Uh, thank you for your incredible inspiration uh and that you give us these books which allow us to understand uh so much more than we than we could on our own, and we just thank you for your revelation. Help me, Lord, as I try and uh walk through this book; may we be able to to just gain a sense of your glory as we do it. Amen."

The Gospel of John—so it's been uh the second most favorite gospel throughout church history uh and one of two gospels written directly by apostles. So we have uh John um and we have Matthew, and then we have Luke and Mark who were written under the authority uh of of of apostles, as I said earlier. 93% of the content of John is not recorded in the other three gospels, so this is new stuff. So one of the questions we ask is, well, why did John include this material? Why did he put it in there? Uh, and I've got a quote from um Andreas Kostenberger, who's written an excellent book on the on the Gospel of John, and he says this: "In keeping with his purpose then, John selected material that underscored the singular and central claim in his gospel that Jesus was the Messiah and the Son of God. He included material that he believed was suited to lead his readers to put their trust in Jesus. This is borne out by the fact that the verb ‘to believe’ is found almost…"

100 times in the gospel, and that many of the gospel characters serve as figures representing either a trusting or unbelieving response towards Jesus. So that's Costenberger's answer, and I think it's a really good one. Um, that explains because authors always write within their purpose; they have a reason for writing, and then the things that they include are going to follow in line with their reason for writing.

Uh, John records a number of Passovers throughout, and this really is kind of a key, as it's called, to the chronology of Jesus' ministry. So when we see these Passovers, because Passovers are recorded, they know when they were; they know what the dates were. Um, and so these serve as historical markers for people to be able to look at the gospel and say, "Oh, okay, we know when this was all happening." And John emphasizes the ministry of Jesus in Jerusalem and Judea rather than Galilee. So, um, that's a bit of a difference from the Gospel of Mark, so that's something new. And then John is characterized by recording lengthy discourses. So if we're contrasting Mark and John, which we don't have to, but we can because we've just looked at Mark, um, it's a bit of a different, different aspect. So remember Mark only had three discourses, and John has much longer, more lengthy ones, which I think you may have those references in your notes. But John doesn't include any extended parables, uh, which is an interesting difference.

So who was this John? And according to the early church, this was John the Apostle, which we accept, but it's always good to know why we accept these things. Um, so the author refers to himself as the beloved disciple, uh, and we can see that in, in a number of places. Uh, maybe if we go John 13, that's one of them; 13:23. There there was reclining on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples whom Jesus loved. Uh, so and this is something that's, that's used constantly by John to refer to himself, uh, and, uh, really this phrase, I think, draws us towards some categorical, um, conclusive arguments to say that this is definitely John the Apostle. Uh, and I'll, I'll just kind of, uh, walk you through, uh, a little bit of my thinking on that. Um, so if you go to John 21, or so right at the end, uh, John 21:20-24. So verse 20, Peter turning around saw the disciple whom Jesus loved. So this guy is mentioned following them, the one who had also leaned on his bosom at the last supper. So this guy was next to Jesus at the last supper, whoever the disciple is that Jesus loved, and said, "Lord, who is the one who betrays you?" And so Peter seeing him said to Jesus, "Lord, uh, what about this?" Sorry, completely reading that wrong; you get the point. Verse 21. So Peter seeing him said to Jesus, "Lord, what about this man?" Verse 22. Jesus said to him, "If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me." Therefore, this saying went out amongst the brethren that that disciple, so this one who Jesus loved is a disciple who leaned against his bosom at the last supper, would not die. Yet Jesus did not say to him that he would not die, but only, "If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you?" Verse 24. This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and wrote these things, and we know that his testimony is true. That's John claiming to be that disciple. He's saying, "That's me, guys; I'm the one he's talking about; I'm the one who wrote these things." And one of the interesting aspects to it is the thing that Jesus says to him, the misunderstanding that Peter had was that they thought that he was saying that John would not die, but actually that, um, Jesus says that, "If I want him to remain, then he will," but John ends up being the last disciple alive, all by the time we get to when this was written in the '90s; all the other disciples are dead and have either been martyred or died, and John is the last remaining apostle. Uh, so it makes sense that this is the guy.

I would also, I, so Ucius has a famous quote which, which attests to John being the, um, being the author, and then Clement of Alexandria says, "John last of all composed a spiritual gospel," and then Papus, who was Papias is the one who quoted that, and Papias was a direct disciple of John. So we have lots of attestations saying, um, that John the apostle is, uh, the, the author of this book. The first audience was Jewish believers, uh, probably in the Roman province of Asia Minor. And when, so the events narrated are around 29 to 33, as we know the ministry of Jesus, but the final copy of the book, some would argue as early as 75, some would argue as late as 95. I think in the, in the, in the early 90s, uh, is, is the best date. Um, and why does this matter? Why does the date matter? Well, uh, remember all that's happened if we're talking about the early 90s, and even if it is just after 75, remember all that's happened: all the apostles are dead; John's the last remaining apostle. AD 64, burning of Rome, then we get AD 70, the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. So John writes into this moment of despair and uncertainty, and he helps the Jews see that the loss of the temple is no loss at all because Christ is the temple where we worship in spirit and in truth. And then John will also talk about the festivals, and he'll show us that the festivals are no longer necessary because Christ fulfilled all the requirements of the law on behalf of those who would turn to him, and that Jesus being the true Messiah, the Son of God, God himself, he is the one that we can turn to in these moments of struggle and trial. Because remember post AD 64, uh, with, with the initiation of Nero's persecution, you're talking about a huge amount of, of trial and hardship and displacement for the Christians, and he says, "Don't turn to a dead religion, but a living and true God, the God who created all these things." So John wrote to demonstrate that the Messiah, the Son of God, was Jesus, and belief in Jesus resulted in eternal life. Turn to John chapter 20, uh, and verses 30 and 31, and really this is John's purpose statement; he tells us, he says, "Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples which are not written in this book, but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name." As with so many of our books of the Bible, we are given a clear purpose statement as to why John wrote this: he is written so that we might believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name. And we really could spend the rest of the time just talking about the aspects of that statement. Uh, and so John wrote to convince his readers of Jesus' true identity: Jesus is the God-man, and this is a Christocentric book to the core, like we're going to see so much about who Jesus is, and, and, and you know, we, we, we just don't have time. So I don't know if you know who Mike Riccardi is, um, but, uh, he's, uh, one of the elders at Grace Community Church, and he's preaching through John right now, uh, verse by verse, um, I think he might be in chapter 2, but the first, you know, few number of weeks was just on chapter one, and this Christological focus. So if you want to listen to a series on that, I would recommend highly; no one better, uh, than going and listening to him on John.

So essential themes in the gospel, uh, signs, uh, so signs; you have a table there, I think, in your notes, um, and so you can see there that there's this correlation between signs that we see and speeches that happen afterwards. So you get water to wine, and then you get new birth; you get the royal official healed, then living water; lame man witnessed to Jesus. So you get a sign that Jesus will perform, and then there'll be a speech afterwards or a discourse, uh, that, that leads into this a little bit, and you see some of the, the, the correlations between it: 5,000 fed; bread from heaven; blind man healed; light of the world. So you, you see how this is so intentional of, of, of how these speeches marry up with the signs, uh, that are laid out, and we're going to come to them as we walk through. U, I'm going to spend a little bit less time on this introductory material now so we can spend more time in the text of John, uh, so I, I hope that's okay. Jesus was fully God and fully man, or truly God and truly man, uh, so, um, this is part of this Christological focus, this idea, uh, of, of who God is, uh, that God is one essence and three persons, uh, and that Christ being truly man had a human nature and a God nature, deified nature, uh, and then because he has two natures, he will is a predicate of nature, so he has two wills; he has his human will and his God will. Um, so this shows us who Jesus is and why he is able to interact the way he interacts and how we understand some of these difficult texts which, which seem incongruous with a, with an all-knowing God when Jesus maybe seems to somehow not have information, and that helps us understand those things. Belief in Jesus was the only way to become a child of God and receive eternal life. And one of the key things we'll see as we walk through is all of these I am statements, so seven I am statements, and we should always know when we see the number seven, uh, that that's valid and important; seven is the number of perfection, of fullness, of wholeness, um, and so when we see this, we, we, we, we need to take note of it. So, uh, and you can note these down if you want, uh, Jesus says, "I am the bread of life," and that's in John 6:35. He says, "I am the light of the world," in John 8:12. "I am the door of the sheep," John 10:7-9, uh, the, "I am the good shepherd," John 10:11 and 14. "I am the resurrection and the life," John 11:25. "I am the way, the truth, and the life," John 14:6. And "I am the true vine," verses, uh, John 15:es 1 and 5. And again, if you missed any of those, I'm happy to give those to you at the end.

Um, so we'll jump straight into, uh, an outline, and let me give you again a kind of a simplistic outline, and then we'll work with the outline that you have, um, so we can split it up really into three Ps: the public ministry of Jesus, the private ministry of Jesus, and then the passion and resurrection of Jesus. So the public ministry of Jesus, chapters 1-12; the private ministry of Jesus, chapters 13-17; and the passion and resurrection of Jesus, 18 to 21. So that's a simple outline, uh, for, for the gospel of John, uh, but we'll work with the, the, um, the outline that you have here. Um, so in your, um, outline you've got the prologue, uh, Jesus was the incarnate word, uh, chapter 1, verses 1 to 8. And the prologue is a really important aspect. Um, do we know the word chiasm? Kayazm? Yeah, I say kayazm; I think it sounds better, but chiasm. Um, so with a chiasm or a kayazm, you have, it's a grammatical technique, and what you do is you have a, you have these repeating elements. So A repeats, B repeats, and then C, the central theme, whatever happens in the middle, that's the, the kind of main focus. The kayazm is like a funnel drawing you into the middle. So there is a kayazm here in, um, in verses 1 to 18 of chapter one, uh, and I'm just going to make sure I get it right. So in, um, so you can look at your text as we talk about this, um, so in verses 1 to 5, you've got the words—oh, this is going to be too small, isn't it—the words, activity in creation, you know what, I'm just going to do the verse numbers because this is going to take too long. So that's 1:5, um, so that's our A, and then our B statement is John's witness concerning the light, and that's in 6 to 8. And then C, which is the, the focus, the central kind of key point of what he's talking about, is this incredible reality of the incarnation and of being God's children, and that's 9-14. So then the repeated theme from B, if you remember B was John's witness concerning the light, well, B here is now John's witness concerning the word's prominence, and that's in verse 15. And then A, uh, the final revelation, uh, by Jesus, and that's verses 16 to 18. And what you can see is this funnel that's bringing us to this central theme, which we'll talk about when we actually walk through the text, which is the incredible reality of the incarnation and the fact of us being, uh, having the opportunity to become God's children, uh, which is, which is absolutely wonderful, and again shows the intentionality of, of how John writes and, and of what's going on there in the text. Um, so the, the second major section that you have there is the body, uh, which is the record of the signs that should lead to belief that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. And, and that major section takes you all the way to chapter 20, verses 30, uh, 20:31. And then the final major section you've got is the, excuse me, the, um, the epilogue, uh, the commission to the disciples from the resurrected Jesus, uh, and that main body section breaks up into three, uh, and we'll, we'll come to that as we, as we walk through it. Those are the main things. So you have the, the general focus as we go, and we'll start walking through this, uh, and really, uh, trying to identify some, some key things as we go through.

So John 1, verse one: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and apart from him nothing came into being that has come into being. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it." Just an incredible, and there's so much here; we'll just say a couple of things. "In the beginning was the Word." So that word is logos in the Greek, uh, and that Greek word logos, for the Greeks, this was the logos was an impersonal force, right? It was, um, I've, I've got a quote here from MacArthur; he calls it an abstract principle of reason, of, or reason and order in the universe. So this logos for the Greek mind had huge universal importance, and it, and it was kind of like this force, this, this culminating thing which, um, made things make sense, where, and, and obviously this is a concept that was known to them. So when Jesus, or when John uses this word, he, he's leaning into the Greek culture, and, and so he's, those who were Greek and who were reading this, or those who weren't Jews at least, they would have some point of reference for this. But then the idea of the word, um, is an Old Testament idea as well, isn't it? And when we look throughout, I mean, if you just took Proverbs 1:8, or if you just took Psalm 119, you see the, the importance of the word, uh, to, to the Israelites. God discloses himself in his word; yes, he uses visions, but, but he does it through speech, uh, through his word. And now what we're being told was, "In the beginning this word isn't an impersonal force and isn't just the Father's, uh, words, but is the Word." Well, who is this, the Word? Um, the Word was there with God, and then we're told he is God himself. And so we get this incredible claim, because as we come down we're told then that Word became flesh, verse 14, and we're told that it's Jesus, verse 17; it is Jesus Christ. So John takes us on this journey from like metaphysical out there Greek craziness to actually this word is a real person, that person is one with God, and that person has now become a man and, and is incarnate, Jesus Christ. So we go from, if you, if you vision the outer reaches of space, right down to, to Nazareth and Galilee, and we have this incredible reality that John is laying out before us, and he makes these claims: "All things came into being through him, and apart from him nothing came into being that has come into being." This is God's complete independence; he is not dependent on anything else. When you get to theology, you'll see that's called aseity; that's God's, God is not dependent on anything else; he is completely self-existent; he is unmade; he is uncreated, and he is undependent; he, he needs nothing in order to be. That is God. "In him was life," he is not just, uh, he is not a recipient of life; he is not even just a bringer of life; he is life itself. And we see this even in some of the claims of Christ, uh, that life is in him and that he is life; he brings life and light to the darkness of man. And so this is just in this first few verses of John, uh, and you can almost hear John's glory, John's praise; you can, it's like a song that he's written, or, you know, or a poem, um, that is, that is exalting who Christ is. And then he jumps into his story, verse six, and we get the second, the B, uh, part of the, of the kayazm. "There came a man sent from God whose name was John." So just off the bat, I think this is one of the reasons why John doesn't name himself in the book. So like Mark, John doesn't use his name; he calls himself the disciple Jesus loved and all of that, and, and it's thought that one of the reasons is that, so there's no confusion between John the Baptist and him, right? Because otherwise he'd have to keep clarifying John the Baptist or John the Apostle or whatever, John the Son of Thunder. Um, so it may be that this is one of the reasons why John, um, doesn't use his name because he doesn't want to get confused with John the Baptist. So John the Baptist is introduced, and John the Baptist comes as a witness to testify about the light. Why? Think back to John's purpose statement: so that all might believe in Jesus through him, that John would be a vehicle for belief, that he would prepare people so that they could come to Christ. Um, and that takes us to verse nine, which is our C statement, and this really is the center of the kayazm; this is the, the purpose and the focus. And he says, "There was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man." He, remember that light is he; it's a person. "Was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know him. He came to his own, and those who were his own did not receive him, but as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God." And note that, "not of the will of man, but of God." And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory. Who's the we? John, John and his disciples; this is eyewitness attestation. So it's not that Mark is any less inspired; it's not the Mark has any less force, but this is John who was there, and he saw it for his own eyes; it's how he starts his epistle in First John; he talks about, "We were there, and we saw, and we touched, and we, and we, we experienced this." When we think about, um, historical veracity, even secular, um, uh, scholars accept eyewitness statements; the closer you were to the event, the more you saw the event, the more likely your statements are to be true. But we need to really focus on verse 12: "As many as received him, he gave the right to become children of God." Vanessa and I were talking earlier about the, the splitting of the curtain; that, that's what that's about; that we can now come into relationship; not just that we're not just grandfathered in; we're not just, okay, we're friends of the family; we are adopted as sons and daughters of God, of God himself, of the Creator; we are part of the family. And that can only happen because of what Christ has done, and we must believe in his name. And this is that, that kind of focus, as we said, uh, from; we've got to keep going back to John 20:31, that, that purpose statement; you know, John is trying to, to make it so that people can believe in Christ, and the only way to become a child of God is to believe in Jesus; the only way is to turn to him; the only way is to bow the knee; the only way is to accept that Christ is who he says he is. And the Word became flesh; unthinkable, unthinkable. And I, and I say these words, and even as these words are coming out of my mouth, I, I, I, my own mind tells me, "You don't get it," you know, that that God, perfect, eternal God, who knows everything, who's uncreated, became a human, became a man, and I know how rubbish men are; I know how weak we are; I know how fallen we are; that no matter how much we love the Lord, I know how, how much we struggle, and yet Jesus became one of us, and he did it so that he would draw us to himself. And my, my, my brain can't get it. And so we come back to, um, the final part. Oh, sorry, verse 15 is John testifying about him, so it's John's testimony in between those two, uh, and then, uh, 16-18: "For of his fullness we have all received," and this is, this is Colossians 2 terminology. If you go to Colossians 2, and we see about our identity in Christ, and we see about who Jesus is and what he has done and what he's done for us, we think back to Genesis 1:27, that we're made in God's image, and that only through a relationship with Christ can we really truly image God. This is, this is fullness, uh, that we see in, in Colossians 2, and it's amazing, uh, that that is how, if you have people that you're witnessing to who are lost or who are struggling with identity, particularly today, whether it's sexual identity or whatever, that's part of our evangelism today; the only way to find our true identity is in Christ, in him, in relationship with him. "For of his fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, he has explained him." And that's a cool term; that's where we get our term exegesis from; he has exegeted him; he has laid him out; he has stated him; and he has explained him; and he has demonstrated him. And again, Colossians 1, go look at Colossians 1 for a bit of that as well. You can tell I'm preaching Colossians right now, can't you? Um, so this is our, this is our prologue; what an intro, introduction; what an introduction to what John is going to do and is going to lay out for us, um, and, and this is, as we've seen, and, and in your structure, I know I didn't necessarily follow your structure, but you've got the word in creation, the word in history, and the word among believers, and those are, those are great thoughts too, uh, the idea of the word being among us. And so, um, as we, we get past the prologue, we get into, uh, this next section, uh, the testimony of John, and, and really, in, I think you've got, uh, the public ministry of Jesus beginning, um, and what I've put in there is this idea of leading up to the hour. So Jesus will talk about the hour, his hour coming, uh, and he tells people not to say anything because about what he's done because his hour hasn't come yet, and that will come much later. So what we're doing right now is we're leading up to the hour; we're looking towards the hour, uh, when Jesus will, um, when his hour will come. But we're told, um, that that John, his own testimony once again is not one of, uh, focusing on himself; he says, "I am the one pointing towards the one who will come." Uh, and, and in verse 28 we're told that these things took place in Bethany beyond the Jordan, uh, where John was baptizing, and that's a helpful note for later on when we get to John 10:40, um, because there are actually two Bethanies; there's Bethany beyond the Jordan, uh, and there's the other Bethany, um, which is where Lazarus was, and we'll make that distinction later. Um, and what we get is we get another testimony of John on who Jesus is: he saw Jesus coming and said, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of, of the world." And you get this incredible statement; can you imagine if your cousin said that about you? You know, like, "Oh, yeah." You know, to be able to say that about your family member; I mean, that's, it's amazing. And, and John points to him and says, "This is the one; this is the one that I've been preparing my whole life to lay things out for; this is the one; you've got to follow him." And he was before me. And then he testifies about the instance of, uh, the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and then he says, "I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God." Thought back to our, um, purpose statement again, John 20:31; this is all just John is laying all of this on top of each other right at the beginning. And then he says again, verse 36, "Behold the Lamb of God." Um, and we get this interaction; we get the disciples in there; and what we're building to, um, is, uh, the beginning of chapter 2. And the beginning of chapter 2, I don't think you have a title for that, but what many have done is split up this main body section into cycles, um, so chapter 2, um, verse, sorry, yeah, chapter 2, uh, through to, um, chapter 5 is looked at as what's called the Cana cycle, and it's called a cycle because it starts in Cana and ends in Cana, um, and so this is what we would call the start of the Cana cycle, and, um, this kind of again geographically kind of, um, helps us know where Jesus is operating. And as I said, it begins at, at Cana. And we get his first miracle, uh, at the wedding of Cana, and, um, the Cana cycle, uh, gives us a couple of signs, and you, you've got the grid for your signs, but, uh, chapter 2:es 1-12, we got the water to wine; so that's the first sign in Cana. Then we've got the clearing of the temple, uh, 13-27; that's the first Jerusalem sign. Um, and then we've got Nicodemus, uh, chapter 2:es 23-31, uh, and then we've got John's witness about Jesus, uh, chapter 3:22-36. Then we've got the Samaritan woman in chapter 4, and then the centurion's servant, which is the second Cana sign. So you have the first Cana sign and the second Cana sign, and that, and everything that happens in between is called the Cana cycle, and I'll, I'll point those things out as we go. So you've no doubt looked, uh, at the wedding at Cana a number of times, uh, and so the only thing I'll point out is verse 11, um, this beginning, this beginning, that word is our Cana; that's the same word that's in John 1:1; en arche; that's in the beginning, um, and so this is, uh, not just the beginning of Jesus' ministry, but also the beginning, the, the, or the, um, uh, the start of the signs, uh, that Jesus does, the beginning of his signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested his glory, and his disciples believed in him. And that's an, that's just this amazing...

Beginning. So even right at the beginning, what John tells us is that the disciples saw Jesus’ glory in what he did, and they believed in him. Now, we’ve already said—purpose statement—belief is a key idea. But, as I mentioned earlier, belief is an interesting concept uh, in the New Testament because we see cognitive, mental ascent—cognitive belief—but then we have true heart belief. Well, which one is this? You figure that out. Um, but as they go through it, may well be that they’re cognitively believing in him, and and their hearts have not truly turned to him yet, which would account for the rest of their unbelief, or or or the rest of their doubting as they go through.

Now, John highlights the Passovers. As I said before, they’re one of the ways we get the chronology of the gospel. So we get the first Passover, verse 13: “The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.” Um, and this is when we lead into the cleansing of the temple. Um, and I’m sure you picked up that there were two cleansings of the temple. So this one at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, uh, and the cleansing of the temple at the end of Jesus’ ministry—those are two separate cleansings; they are not the same one. Uh, so this one happens here in this first part, uh, and the one that we looked at uh, in Mark 11, that is at the end of his ministry—two separate cleansings.

Um, and we’re told in verse 18, the Jews then said to him, “What sign do you show us as your authority for doing these things?” So Jesus comes in, and it’s almost like a Mark question, you know—where’s your authority? Who who says that you can kick people out of the temple? And obviously Jesus is saying, “This is my Father’s house; I and the Father are one,” as he will say later. And Jesus said to them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It took 46 years to build this temple; will you raise it up in 3 days?” Now, that’s an interesting one because it didn’t take 46 years to build the temple. Um, so there’s a question about um, what’s actually meant here with that number 46. Um, and the best answer that I could give, or I I would say, is that what they’re referring to is that the temple was completed 46 years ago. Um, and that actually helps us with some of our dating. I think I have a note here um, in terms of how it works on our dating. So the the renovation of the temple finished in 17 BC, so plus 46 years, that makes this now 29 AD; plus 3 and a half years for Jesus’ ministry, that that leads to a crucifixion date of AD 33. So that’s why that’s how they would use that to work out kind of what time period we’re in. Um, so they knew that the temple was finished in a in in 17 BC; plus 46 years gives us AD 29. So that’s the thinking, um, certainly from Costenberger, who I mentioned earlier—that’s where I got those pieces of information from. Um, so that makes a little bit more sense, uh, rather than saying it took 46 years to build the temple. But obviously Jesus’ point isn’t the physical temple; the point is his body—that will be the sign. They’re saying, “Give us a sign,” and Jesus is saying, “I’ll show you a sign; I’m going to rise from the dead.” That that’s the sign that you’re going to have.

And now, when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover during the feast, many believed in his name, observing his signs which he was doing. And and as again as we go through, you could highlight each time you see the word “sign,” because that’s so important as we go through. But on his part, he was not entrusting himself to them, for he knew all men; and because he did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for he himself knew what was in a man. And I highlight that because of what comes next. So he’s saying he knows what’s in—John’s saying Jesus knew what’s in men’s hearts, and that’s the reason he didn’t entrust himself to many who said that they followed him because he knew what was in their hearts. Verse 3: “Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.” So he goes, “Man, man, man, he knows what’s in the heart of man,” and then we get an illustration of this exact point, because verse 3, Jesus answers the question he didn’t even ask. He says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Uh, Ricard—Nicodemus hadn’t even asked the question yet. Uh, Jesus knew what was in his heart because he was a man, and by implication, only God knows what’s in the heart of man. So Jesus is showing that he is God and man, and he knows what’s in the heart of man, and then he lays out this incredible idea of the new birth. Um, and we get this verse which many struggle over: Verse 5, Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” So what is the water and the spirit? So if you turn to Ezekiel uh, 36, you will see that really what this is is as an example of uh, cleansing. Ezekiel 36:25: “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes; and you will be careful to observe my ordinances. You will live in the land that I gave to your forefathers. So you will be my people, and I will be your God.” What Jesus is talking about—the water and the spirit—it’s not talking about the Holy Spirit—it’s capitalized in many Bibles; in yours it’s talking about the cleansing that needs to come, uh, that we need a spiritual cleansing, and and it’s the imagery from Ezekiel 36 of the sprinkling of water for cleansing, and that we need to be completely made new. And that’s actually what happens in the new birth; that’s why we need a new birth, because the only way to be fully and truly cleansed is by being born again. And this is how he can say to Nicodemus uh, in verse 10, because Nicodemus says, “How can these things be?” And Jesus says, “Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things?” In order for Jesus to say that, Nicodemus had to be able to understand it from the Old Testament; right? That’s how we know that Ezekiel 36 is the reference point, because if Jesus was talking about Christian baptism, Nicodemus has no concept of Christian baptism. So Jesus can’t say to him, “Oh, you should know this as the leader of of Israel.” He’s saying to Nicodemus, “Listen, this is in the Old Testament; this is a clear passage.” That whole idea of giving a heart of flesh—that is really key for the Israelites—and so Nicodemus should have known this, and that’s what he that’s what he’s saying there.

So moving forward, um, we then get these lifting up comments, um, and again these are all just building this picture of of of what’s going to happen to Christ. Um, verse 14: “As Moses lifted up the serpent,” that’s in Numbers 21, “in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up,” uh, and and so Jesus is really talking about what’s going to happen uh, coming forward, uh, and we’ll see a reference to that I think in uh, chapter 8, chapter 8:28: “So Jesus said, ‘When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing on my own initiative, but speak these things as the Father taught me.’” So as Moses lift—remember there was that instance—there were serpents sent uh, to the people of Israel, um, and they would they said, “How do we get saved from this?” You know, we’re being bitten; they’re being they’re dying. They had to raise their eyes, look up to the serpent—the bronze serpent that Moses raised—and this is the image of the Son of Man. Not only will the Son of Man be lifted up on the cross, and so people will look up to him, but we need to get to put our eyes again—Colossians 3:1—we need to fix our eyes; we need to set our minds on Christ; we need to be looking to him. Th this is how belief happens—by focusing our eyes and looking to Christ as he is lifted up. He needs to be exalted, and we need to have our eyes fixed on him. And then that famous verse: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” That this is a provision for those who believe in him. This is um, “For God so loved the world,” not uh, the world uh, completely in in as much as um, salvation is given to the whole world—a universal salvation—this is given to the world, um, all people, all people groups, all skin colors, all languages, or all all social uh, um, social statuses, everything. This is salvation given to the whole world potentially, but only realized by those who believe in him. “He who believes in him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged.” Or, ready—fix your eyes on Christ, or you will be judged. And so we get uh, another reference to light uh, and and how everyone who is evil hates the light, um, as we come to the end of chapter three. Um, there’s a question, verse six uh, back a little bit, verse 16—there’s a question about whether verse 16 is John’s commentary or whether it is actually Jesus’ words. Um, I think that’s one of those questions that um, would—I certainly haven’t put enough study in, uh, and I would say if anyone asks you about that, uh, that’s something you’d have to go away and look at in more depth. I could see it both ways—that it could be a quote from Jesus, but it could also be John’s commentary on what Jesus said. So just to highlight that issue for you, and if you’re more interested in that, you could go and uh, and read a little bit more on that. That was verse—that was the famous uh, John 3:16: “For God so loved the world.” Um, so the question is whether that’s Christ saying it or whether it’s John uh, as a commentary on Christ. It is in quotation marks—spoiler—quotation marks aren’t there in the Greek, just saying. Um, so we so we don’t know exactly, uh, but it’s inspired nonetheless. But we’ll we can talk about—I know I’ve just thrown a grenade out there; I should have not said anything. We’ll we’ll talk about it on the break; we’ll talk about it on the road, okay. Um, they were still—the words are still true; they’re still said—don’t worry.

So after these things, Jesus and his disciples came into the land of Judea, and he was spending time with them and baptizing. John was also baptizing. Um, and then we get again John uh, John and this interaction with John and Jesus, and we get John’s famous words in verse 30: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” And that should be all of our mantras as Christians—that he must be exalted, and we must be less. Uh, and so then we get into uh, chapter 4, um, and Jesus moves into Galilee, uh, and what we have is we have an interesting thing in verse four where it says, “And he had to pass through Samaria.” And what we call this is we call this divine necessity, because because geographically they didn’t have to pass through Samaria—like he he could have gone around. So what does it mean? Well, it means that Jesus had a divine necessity; he wanted to go to Samaria to meet this woman. But because of the Jews’ relationship with the Samaritans—they hated them; they would they would never go through it; they would go around—it would be a much longer route. And Jesus knows he’s got an appointment with the Samaritan woman, and and he says, “I have to go this way.” So they go through uh, Samaria, and he comes to her and has this incredible interaction with her. Um, and what we have is an amazing contrast which I find really interesting uh, between um, the Samaritan woman in chapter 4 and Nicodemus in chapter 3. Um, so I’ve got a little—I’m not uh, I’m not going to draw it—I’ve got a little table for you. So if you imagine Nicodemus on one side and a woman on the other side, you’ve got Nicodemus is a man; the woman’s a woman. You got that—it was clear back then. Then you have on one side—sorry, sorry—um, on one side Nicodemus is a Jew, and the woman is a Samaritan. You’ve got Nicodemus is a teacher of Israel—like he is high profile—and we have his name. The Samaritan woman—totally unnamed. We She’s just called a woman. We we’ve got he knows scripture, but she is steeped in folklore and tradition. He’s moral; she’s very immoral. He comes at night—remember he comes under the secrecy of night. She comes in broad daylight. At the very end, Nicodemus is in silence. If you look back at at chapter chapter 3, when he when Jesus finishes talking to him, Nicodemus has nothing to say from verse—how from when he says, “How can these things be?” He has nothing to say—teacher of Israel. The woman—she runs headlong into the town and gives a gospel witness and tells everybody about what she’s heard. So you have—she’s more spiritually aware than Nicodemus. She responds in the right way. Now we know that Nicodemus does eventually—and he goes away and chews through these things—and I love the fact that we see at the end Nicodemus—hope—we we believe—coming to faith. But look at her response there. She listens, and then and even though he challenges her and all these things, look at verse 25: “The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming—He who is called Christ—that when He comes, He will declare all things to us.’ And Jesus says, ‘I who speak to you am He—I’m the one you’ve been waiting for.’ ” And what does she do? She doesn’t reject it; she doesn’t ask loads of questions. She then runs in or goes—went—I’m inferring—into the city and says to the men, “Come and see the man who told me all the things that I’ve done.” This is not the Christ—is it? This is the right reaction when faced with God—eternal—when faced with God incarnate—when faced with the Messiah—this is how they should all be responding—this is how Nicodemus and the Pharisees and everyone should be responding to him—running to him. And meanwhile the disciples—they make another great example of of just not getting it. He said to them—I have—they say, “Hey, Rabbi, eat.” And he says, “I have food to eat—you know nothing about.” And they say, “Oh, someone brought him some lunch.” No. And Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to accomplish His work.” You know, and he he’s constantly bringing them back to this idea, and it’s interesting isn’t it how we talked earlier about fixing your eyes on Jesus—how their eyes get so pulled to the world constantly, um, you know, food and sleep and bread and, you know, when Jesus talks about the leaven, they’re like, “Oh, you who who gave you bread,” you know, and and they’re constantly brought back to the world, and and Jesus is trying to lift their eyes: “Fix your eyes on me, guys; you need to be looking in my direction.” From that city, many of the Samaritans, verse 39, believed in him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me these things—I have done.” So when men—when the Samaritans came to Jesus, they were asking him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. Many more believed because of his word. I mean, just contrast that with the guys with the garrison demoniac who he healed—the demoniac—and then they said, “Get out of our region.” These guys who hate Jews, they say, “Stay; they realize what’s been going on and who he is,” and they say, “Stay; we want to talk more,” and they believed. Why? Not because of his signs—because of his word. And this is why we believe so strongly in the preaching of the word of God—that it is God’s word, as as Paul says in Romans 1:18—that it is God’s word that has the power—160—that has the power for salvation. It it isn’t what we do; it’s it’s not signs that can be performed; it is the word—the very word of God. And that was the theme throughout the Old Testament, and this is what Jesus is saying now. He says, “We have heard for our,” they say—they were saying to the woman, “We have heard for ourselves and know that this one is indeed the Savior of the world.” And then he went on into Galilee, and it’s uh, it’s just an amazing thing isn’t it to see that—to see these people who hate—who culturally should have thrown him out—who who hated him, and yet they were willing to listen and accept. And again, it’s one of these instances where a woman is used u mightily to to to have an effect there, which is fantastic.

So the Lord came again to Cana of Galilee. So we draw near to the end of the Cana cycle—this is the second repetition of Cana. Um, and Jesus says—so Jesus said to him—so they’re they’re they’re telling him they they want all these signs, and Jesus makes it clear—he just comes out and says it explicitly: “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you simply will not believe.” The royal official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” And Jesus said, “Uh, go—your son lives.” And the man believed the word that Jesus spoke and started off. So you’ve got these two instances where it’s the word that was believed, um, and not necessarily the sign. And then um, ver verse 54, uh, we end the Cana cycle, and and John tells us this is again a second sign that Jesus performed when he had come out of Judea into Galilee. So with the ending of the the the Cana cycle, what happens now is we go into what they call the festival cycle, okay, and and what we see here is multiple festivals um, throughout uh, throughout this uh, cycle. So in John 5, we have an unnamed festival in Jerusalem, and that happened in autumn. Then we have John 6; we have the Passover in Galilee. Then in John 7:8, we have the feast of tabernacles in Jerusalem. And then in John 10, we have the feast of dedication in Jerusalem. So this is why this is called the the festival cycle, because Jesus is going to go through, and he’s going to appear at all these festivals, uh, you know, really fulfilling um, his responsibilities as a Jew, um, and basically this demonstrates Jesus being better than all of those who went before him. He fulfills all of these requirements, all of these festivals, and it shows again that he is uh, he is greater than all of this. And John 5 to 10 is considered a a unit—one literary unit—um, because of what’s called inclusio, which is basically—inclusio is where you get um, it’s like it’s like if you just took these two—so if you just had a, and then loads of stuff in between, and then a—so it’s a theme, and then loads of other stuff, and then another theme—it’s like bookends, right? And the inclusio just shows that this is a unit for us to think about. And the inclusio that they think is here is John 5:18, where Jesus says, “For this reason the—well John says, ‘For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him because he not only was breaking Sabbath but he was calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.’ ” And then chapter 10, which is, you know—I mean—I was talking to someone earlier about chapter 10, verse 30, which is the key—I mean the key verse for us—if you don’t know any other verses in John, just know John 10:30: “I and the Father are one.” The Jews picked up stones to stone him, and so that’s those are the—this theme repeated—this is like it’s the bookends of this section of this uh, festival cycle.

So we have another feast, verse uh, chapter 5, verse one: “The Jews went up to Jerusalem,” and we’re gonna um, again we’re going to step up a little bit and and see if we can get all this in. Um, I think we’re going to we’re going to move on through uh, chapter 5, and again so yeah, we’ll we’ll start basically uh, verses um, 17 to 19 of chapter 5 are really key trinitarian set of script—set of verses. So Jesus says, “For this reason the—well John says, ‘For this reason the Jews were persecuting Jesus because he was doing these things on the Sabbath.’ And he answered them, ‘My Father is working until now, and I myself am working.’ For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking them all to kill him.” And we’ve already read that. And Jesus answered and was saying to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of himself unless it is something he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son does in like manner.” And what he’s saying is that the Father and the Son—they do the same works. This is the doctrine of inseparable operations, and you’ll get to that in theology, but that’s just a fancy word for saying that the Father, the Spirit, the Son—they do the same work, right? Because God is one, but he’s three persons, but he’s undivided. So that means when the Spirit is working, the Son is working; that means when the Father is working, the Spirit is working and the Son is working, because they are undivided, okay. And so what Jesus is saying here is that I’m not doing a work that’s like my Father’s in parallel to him, you know—I’m not doing the work that he’s done, and I’m doing it again. He’s saying, “What I do, the Father does; what I do, the Spirit does; they are one—truly.” And so Jesus is is just making clear again, and this is summed up in John 10:30: “I and the Father are one.” He’s not—it’s not a throwaway comment; he’s not saying, “Well, you know, we’re we’re one, and that we like the same movie, or or we like the same dinner.” We are one in everything that we do; we are truly and wholly completely one, and yet three persons. If you can figure that out, good luck. That is the joy of the Trinity, and and and in all seriousness, that’s not a copout. When we get to these things, we can only say what the text of scripture says, right? We we we can’t really go beyond that, because then we’re speculating. Jesus is making very clear that this is the reality of it, and and we’re not called to understand it; we’re called to obey it; uh, we’re called to believe it, and we’re called to live by it. And Jesus uh, Jesus says in uh, chapter 5:25, “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.” So this hour is coming; it’s it’s almost upon us; it’s like it’s now here, you know—he’s here—the the the savior is here, but the the true hour is coming, and he’s leading towards uh, this this coming—this hour. And Jesus then in verse 30, he reiterates his interaction uh, with the Father, uh, and then we get these witnesses to Jesus from John and and and then the Father and scripture, and and then we get to chapter six, where we get the 5,000, as we’ve mentioned already, and there’s what we call a narrative gap between 5:46, 47 and six, um, because he goes from being in one place, and then we’re told that um, he went away to the other side of of Galilee, um, and it’s just the fact that we’re not told how he travels at that point. It’s not a problem; it’s just John decides not to to give us the information in there. Um, and then don’t let the Sea of Tiberius throw you—that is still the Sea of Galilee; it’s just that it became known as Tiberias later on. And what it is—it’s a marker of how late John’s writing. So John writes in the 90s, and by that time it was known as the Sea of Tiberius after Tiberius Caesar, because he ruled AD 14 to AD 37, and after that time it became more and more and more known as the Sea of Tiberius. So that’s why he talks about that there. He gives us another Passover marker in 6:4. I had a—Oh, I glossed over a comment I think um, for in chapter 5, verse 4, um, the the bit about the the angels stirring the waters—so kind of like we talked about in Mark—that’s only present in later manuscripts, um, so it is rightly omitted, um, but uh, it is present in the later manuscripts, but it’s not there in the earlier ones—just in case anyone had a question uh, on that verse.

Um, and what we’ll see now uh, in chapter six is conflict uh, in Galilee at the time of Passover—you’ve got that heading there—and we get here the bread of life discourse uh, which we’re we’re coming up to, uh, and Jesus talks about being uh, the bread of life, um, and he talks about here about the sign that they saw he had performed, and they said, “This truly is the prophet who has come into the world.” Um, and there’s an implication there that this is the idea of—again I mentioned back in Mark—Deuteronomy 18—the prophet better than or maybe it was at the beginning of John—the prophet better than Moses—prophet better than John the Baptist. Um, so it seems almost to be an indication of faith for them, right? But really we know that it’s false belief, because if you turn over to 26, Jesus answered them and said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek me not because you saw signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled.” And he’s saying, “It’s not even just that you you loved the miracle; it’s just you got a full tummy, and that’s why you’re seeking me.” And and it just shows what you can say when you want to get a good meal, right? They that they’re that they’re they’re saying this stuff about him because he’s fed them, uh, and Jesus makes it clear in verse 26 uh, that that’s that’s not a true profession. And these these notes are helpful to us to remember that not every profession is a true profession—that people can very easily claim Christianity for many different reasons—and for those of us who are true believers, we we can’t imagine why you would claim it falsely, um, but some people—they get caught up in the moment, or or they have things done for them, and they do they do claim it. But it’s important for us to—as John says—to test um, whether people’s uh, professions are real or not. And he goes on, verse 30—sorry—it John goes on, and he and so they said to him, “What then do you do for a sign so that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform?” Like, what what a ridiculous thing to say after everything he’s already done, and now they say, “Okay, come on then—give us a real sign.” I mean, if you just go back and look at—he’s just fed 5,000 people and walked on water—like, what else do you need to be able to to to get for a sign? And the reality is—again, as we’ve said multiple times—a sign will not save. And then verse 35, he makes the clear statement—he’s been talking about bread—and he says, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me will not hunger; he who believes in me will never thirst.” And the reason the “I am” statements are important is that whenever God speaks about himself, we need to listen. So when Jesus says, “I am the bread of life,” he’s not just using a random analogy; this is Jesus making a claim about himself—God saying, “You can know me this way—I am the bread of”

Life. He who comes to me will not hunger, and he who believes in me will never thirst. So these are important statements that we have to take—uh—that Christ speaks. So then this, uh, discourse takes us through, really—uh—I’m, I’m going to move us on through to chapter 7, um, and and we we get to the end of we we get into chapter 7, and Jesus teaches at another feast. 7:2. Now the feast of Jews, the feast of the booths was near; therefore his brothers said to him, "Leave and go into Judea." But Jesus says, "My time is not yet here." Verse six, and then in verse 8, "My time has not yet come." But then he goes down into the feast anyway, and then again, verse 30, we get another indication about his hour not yet coming. Um, so Jesus is making it clear as he goes through; he’s, he’s intentional about what he’s doing, and he’s looking towards this hour which will come, but it’s not ready yet. Um, and then verse 32, we see some of this opposition. The Pharisees heard the crowd muttering these things about him; the chief priests and Pharisees sent officers to seize him. And then Jesus says, uh, "For a little while longer I’m with you, then I go to him who sent me. You will seek me, and you will not find me; where I am you cannot come." And that’s obviously a very true saying, that to the Pharisees that they cannot follow him. And then, uh, we get this instance of division over Jesus, uh, and at right at the end of chapter 7, uh, in verse 53 all the way down to 8:11, we get another of these instances which, um, are not should not be included. So, so this isn’t original. Um, and I mentioned before the committee who makes these decisions that they were completely unanimous that this is not original to John, that this was added later. And and the comment was—and this is from Bruce Metzger, who, who heads the committee—he said, "There is overwhelming evidence that this is not original; it’s absent from the most early and diverse manuscripts, uh, and then oral," and it’s evidence that there was an oral tradition that was added. Um, it has features of historical truth though, and so they’re not saying that this stuff is didn’t happen, um, but what he’s saying is it’s not original to the text, so it’s not inspired. They’re not, they’re not saying this couldn’t have happened, but it was an oral tradition, so it was a tradition that was passed by word of mouth, um, and that’s probably why it was added later, but this is not original. Um, so when people start saying, oh, you know, when when Jesus deals with the woman and and all of this kind of stuff and they start quoting this at you, you you can remember this actually isn’t inspired, um, so it’s not something that is authoritative for us.

Verse 12. Then Jesus spoke to them, saying, "I am the light of the world." Now let me just, just for a moment, let, let’s, let’s just recognize what’s going on here. Okay, so back, uh, in we’re told this was the feast of booths, back in 7:2. Okay, now in the feast of booths, this was a light festival. Okay, and so pe booths were, were tents, so they set up tents, um, and one of the major things that they did was they set up these four massive menorahs in the court of the women. Now a menorah is the, the Jewish, uh, candelabra; you know, it’s got all the 12, 12 candle things, you know, and, um, they set up four massive ones in the court of the women, which is the main big open court area of the temple. Okay, so you’d go in there and it would be blazing light, and, um, they did that to re-recognize and remember the Exodus and God leading them by fire through, through, uh, out of, out of Egypt and through the desert. And we get Jesus, and we’re told—let me just skip on a second—verse 20, he spoke these words in the treasury. The treasury is adjacent to the court of the women. So if you’ve got, basically, if this—you imagine a big square—if you’ve got the court of the women, if this is the holy of holies here and this is the entrance coming in, the treasuries are here. So imagine four menorahs blazing out light; Jesus is stood here, and he says, "I am the light of the world." Like, that’s cool, right? You know, he’s saying, "That’s me. You’re remembering the, the fire that led you out of Egypt; that’s me. I was the one doing that. I am the light of the world. I’m the light that led you out of Exodus, and I’m the light that will lead you into eternity." And this is, this is Jesus doing this incredible thing of standing here and saying, "Look, this is an illustration of who I am." That’s cool stuff; you got to remember that. And, and, uh, so we we get this incredible image, uh, and this incredible claim. And they were saying to him, "Who are you?" And Jesus says, "What have I been saying to you from the beginning? I have many things to speak and to judge concerning you, but he who sent me is true, and the things which I heard from him these I speak to the world." And they didn’t realize he was speaking to them about the Father, and he’s just emphasizing again all of this stuff he’s telling them comes from the Father. And then he goes on to this great section about the truth making you free, and this section really continues on, and and just for the sake of time, guys, I’m going to move on, uh, to chapter 10. And chapter 10 is, is fantastic because it’s, it’s the, it’s the shepherd chapter, right? And there’s so much truth here in this chapter about how we understand election, about how we understand who the elect are, how we understand, uh, how God views, uh, people. And Jesus has another “I am” statement, and he says, "I am the good shepherd," as opposed to the rubbish ones that you’ve got right now, the these shepherds who are supposed to be leading you, to be preparing you for Messiah to come. "I am the good shepherd," and he lays his life down for a definite group of people, the sheep, and only the sheep. And he says that, um, "He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees." And this is the Pharisees; they left the people, uh, open actually even to themselves because they’re the wolves. And Jesus says, "I am the good shepherd," again in verse 14. "I know my own, and my own know me, even as the Father knows me, and I know the Father. I lay my life down for who?" The sheep. Jesus dies only for the sheep, and this is an incredible reality. And he even tells them about his resurrection. Verse 17. "I lay my life down so that I may take it up again." And what’s the response? "These are not the sayings of one demon-possessed. A demon cannot open the eyes of the blind, can he?" So there’s this moment of a little bit of a ray of light shining through, whereas as we saw in Mark, people were claiming Jesus was demon-possessed; others were saying about him that actually no, he’s not, because they were seeing sense that a demon doesn’t cast out demons and doesn’t open the eyes of the blind, even though they were still defaming him. So again, we’re moving towards Jerusalem, uh, or we’re in Jerusalem. We got the feast of dedication, 10:22, um, and Jesus goes on with this idea of the sheep. He says, "You don’t believe because you are not of my sheep." He’s talking to the Pharisees, making very clear that not only will they not believe, they cannot believe because they are not his sheep. And then that culminating statement which finishes this section, verse 30, "I and the Father are one." And here’s the point I was making earlier to our brother over there: the Jew people say Jesus never claimed to be God. Rubbish! Absolute rubbish! Jesus says, "I and the Father are one," and now it’s an anachronism again for us to look back and say, oh, he doesn’t claim to be the Father, he doesn’t say, "I am God." Yes, he does! That is exactly what he’s saying, and we know that because verse 31, the Jews picked up stones to stone him, and they say for blasphemy, "Because you, being a man, make yourself out to be God." That’s exactly what he was saying. So for anyone to say, no, they didn’t, he wasn’t claiming to be God, the testimony of the very people who were trying to kill him is, "You are claiming to be God." So for anyone to say that Jesus never claimed to be God is completely false. Just, uh, John 10:31-32, that, that’s, that’s the only verse you, you really, if you want to go to a verse, that’s the one I would go to. So we get this conclusive statement here, and then we’re starting to move into now the culmination of this hostility, uh, against, uh, against Jesus. And we could almost—some people call this the Lazarus cycle. I think it gets a little bit silly when you—it just everything could be a cycle—but they call this the Lazarus cycle; starts with Lazarus, ends with Lazarus, and and we we’ll see that, um, but we get to this moment here in, um, sorry, in just before that, in 39 through to 42, “They were therefore seeking to seize him, and he eluded their grasp, and he went away beyond the Jordan.” So this is coming to the point now where the aggression is escalating, and they’re, they’re really ready to, to kill Jesus.

Um, you know the story of Lazarus, um, we’re going to, we’re going to move on, um, and, uh, if there are any particular questions about that, uh, then you can, um, talk to me about those at the end. Um, the question about verse six, uh, so when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed two days longer. That’s something that people struggle with: why did he do that? Well, he does that so that he has the opportunity to bless them by demonstrating, uh, the resurrection of Lazarus, uh, and it’s a clear application of prayer, of, of Jesus’ patience, um, uh, in these moments that he could have gone and healed Lazarus straight away, but he doesn’t, and he has a reason. And we often, when our prayers are go unanswered, we respond like Lazarus, uh, we respond like Mary or Martha, and we say, "If you, Lord, if you’d just done something, this wouldn’t have happened." And the response is, you know, "I’m, I’m working to my own, um, schedule here; I’m doing what’s best for you," and what was best for you was for me not to answer you or not to give you what you wanted in that moment. That’s hard for us to understand, uh, but it’s a principle that we see laid out here, because the effect of Lazarus’s resurrection is incredible, because what happens is so many people are affected by the, the resurrection of Lazarus; their believing in him and their belief in him, in, in Jesus via the resurrection of Lazarus galvanizes the Pharisees into really, like, okay, we’re going to step up our, our readiness to kill Jesus, and they even want to kill Lazarus. And the last point about Lazarus: we never hear him speak. He never says anything. And so it shows, even again this idea, you know, everyone who claims to come back from the dead in these day, these days, you know, all these stories about, "I went to h—I spent 15 minutes in heaven, or I spent 15 minutes in hell," they want to tell the world about everything. Everyone we see who comes back from the dead—Eutychus, no comments from him; Lazarus, no comments from him; Jairus’s daughter, no comments from her. We never hear them speak. Now it’s not that because they came back mute, but because I think they were instructed not to, right? Resurrection doesn’t make you mute. Jesus speaks after his resurrection. I keep digging myself into holes, right?

Um, so then we get the instance at chapter 12, um, Mary anointing Jesus, and this is Mary, Lazarus’s sister, um, and and she anoints him. We get this, this incredible, um, again, the, uh, this comment at the end, verse 9, “A large crowd of Jews then learned that he was there, and they came not for the sake, not for Jesus’ sake only, but they may also see Lazarus whom he raised from the dead. But the chief priests plan to put Lazarus to death also.” Then Jesus enters into Jerusalem, uh, and we get the, the triumphal entry and people calling out to him again. And then in verse 23, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” So now we’re at the point where Jesus is ready, and he’s moving into these final stages of what’s happening. The Son of Man, uh, is to be glorified. We see the Last Supper, uh, and we we’ve already worked through that and this instance of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet, uh, and we see that this is an example of servant hood; this isn’t an ordinance; this is not something that, uh, the early church believed or the, the apostles, um, uh, put as an ordinance from Christ. We have two ordinances: communion and baptism. This was never, this wasn’t adopted as a, as an ordinance, but it is a wonderful thing to do. Um, just do it when I’m not here. Um, you guys go ahead; that’s great. Um, but he, he’s demonstrating the idea of servant hood, and he’s saying this, this same thing that Mark emphasized all the way through his gospel, that we lead by serving, and Christ is the perfect example of that; that Christianity is not hierarchical in as much as our church operation, uh, your pastors are not your emperors; they are your servants. Um, now we have a job to do, uh, but they’re, they’re servants nonetheless. Um, and then in verse 31, we have this: “Therefore, when he had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him.’” Um, and what we have here is this, this leading out; Judas has gone out to do his dastardly work, and we’re leading into, um, Christ’s glorification which will come soon. Um, I’m really pushing to try and get to chapter 17, um, because chapter 17 is so pivotal, um, but when we get to—Yeah—when we get to, uh, 14, we see this reiteration of oneness with the Father, uh, which is, which is really helping us understand a little bit further his comments in 10:30. And we have the role of the Holy Spirit, and and this is really key for us in chapter 14, where Jesus explains that a helper will come, and he tells us what the Holy Spirit’s purpose is, and this is so helpful for our understanding, particularly of the spiritual gifts, um, and and the reason that they, they have ceased for today in terms of those three demonstrative ones. Um, and he says that the Father will give us a helper, verse 13, and “He will be in you; he will dwell within you.” And he goes on in verse 26; he tells you what the Holy Spirit will do, what the Holy Spirit’s purpose is. “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.” So the indication is that the Holy Spirit’s purpose is to bring back God’s word to us; like he will help us remember God’s word, God’s, Christ’s ministry, his purpose. And actually, if you flip over to 15:26, Jesus then gives us another piece of information which helps us even further: “When the Helper comes whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me. He will not make you testify about yourself; he will not look to edify you; he will look to glorify me.” The Holy Spirit’s purpose is always to point to Christ, and he does that through the edification of the church. He, he is not here as some force or some, uh, toy to play with, to, to, to increase ourselves. And Paul reiterates that in, in 1 Corinthians 12-14, where he says that the purpose of the, of these gifts, uh, that they’ll be given after Pentecost is for the edification of the church, uh, and and actually the whole idea of, of us glorifying ourselves or, or putting ourselves forward, um, because of, because of some spiritual gift is, is really an anathema to scripture; it’s the opposite of what he says. So if you’re ever confused about whether something is from the Holy Spirit, ask the question, “Does it point to Christ?” And if it doesn’t point to Christ, you got to ask a question as to whether it’s authentic or not. And then Jesus tells them, “It’s to your advantage that I go away,” chapter 16, verse 7, “because if I don’t go away, the Helper won’t come,” because up until that point Christ had been with them, but now the Helper would be in them, right? So not only do they not have to go to a place to worship Christ, to go to worship God, not only do they not have to do sacrifices, but not only do they not have to just kind of be side by side with Jesus, but he would be with in them by his spirit; he would be in us; he would live in us. And then verse 14 is, is the topping for all of this: the Holy Spirit’s purpose again. “He will glorify me, for he will take of mine and disclose it to you.” And that’s a glorious reality. And and I want to move us into chapter 17, and chapter 17 is—if, Yeah—if you’re not—I know obviously you’ve read it—but 17 is, is just a glorious example of, of Christ’s relationship with his Father, his oneness, the importance of prayer. I mean, we could talk about that for a whole month, um, the fact that Christ throughout his whole ministry submitted himself to private prayer before God, and and he takes us through; he prays for himself. He says, um, “Even as you give authority over all flesh, all that to whom you have given me, he may give eternal life. This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Uh, and he says, “Now, Father, glorify me together with yourself, with the glory which I had with you before the world was.” Remember that relationship. “Father, I’m looking forward to you being back in that relationship again.” But then—so again, Jesus is about to die. Now, if you were about to go to a death sentence, how intercessory would your prayer life be? You know, are you thinking, “Ah, man, I really, I forgot to pray for Rob the other day; I need to pray for him now,” right? We’re so selfish; our minds turn to our—Jesus is about to, to die; he’s about to put himself under the complete wrath of God, and he prays for his disciples, and not just his disciples, but then from verse 20 onwards, “I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for also those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, even as you, the Father are in me, and I in you, that they may also be in us, and that the world may believe that you sent me.” He prays for the union of the saints with God, and that, that’s just incredible. And he talks about his internal unity with the Father, uh, and then he talks about us being a part of that unity, uh, I mean, this is an incredible, incredible prayer, uh, and he does it right before, uh, he is betrayed, uh, and then he goes to the cross. And so what we do is when we get to chapter 18, we get to the passion narrative and then into the epilogue, and and we get, we get this—it’s actually quite a comical moment; it’s not, but it kind of is—where they’re in the garden and and Judas, having received the Roman cohort and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, came there with lanterns and torches and weapons. So they bring 100-plus soldiers, more than that, I forget the exact number—hundreds of soldiers—to him with lanterns and weapons, and there’s Jesus and the disciples standing there, the bunch of fishermen and the rabbi going, “Uh, this is overkill. You, you didn’t need this; you know, you’ve seen me walking around; you could have grabbed me any time, but now you come with all of these weapons.” Verse 6. So they’re asking, uh, and and so when he said to them, oh, go, let’s go back, um, so Jesus, uh, he says, “Who do you seek?” And they answered him, “Jesus the Nazarene.” Verse 6. “I am he. I am he.” And they drew back and they fell to the ground. Ego eimi. I am. It’s a statement of who he is, and it and it’s a a rendition of Yahweh in, in, um, in the Old Testament when Moses speaks to God and God says—and he asks God, “What name shall I give them? Who shall I tell them sent me?” And he says, “I am. I am sent me.” Jesus says, “I am.” And what reaction? They fall to the ground! That’s a claim of deity! “I am. I am one with the Father. I am God.” They fall to the ground, and then they get up, and then maybe—I, I don’t know, I don’t know how Jesus said it differently the second time, but, uh, they managed to move forward. But that’s, this is just this incredible moment of, of being faced with God. They take Jesus before the, the priests, um, and just a quick note on Annas and Caiaphas. So just to help kind of untangle verses 12 onwards, um, it can sometimes be confusing with who, who is speaking, who, but he goes to Annas first, and Annas was the chief priest; he’s like the dad, uh, and he was the chief priest from A.D. 6 to A.D. 15, and he’s really the patriarch of the family and his five sons and and Caiaphas as well, um, who was his son-in-law. They’re all, they were also became chief priests, and so as you go through, you got to distinguish whether he’s talking to Annas, who is the, who, who is still referred to as the chief priest, um, or Caiaphas. So that’s why it says later he’s taken to Caiaphas, but that he was already talking to the chief priest; that’s because Annas is still referred to as the chief priest because he’s kind of like the patriarch; he’s the, the top dog. And then he goes on to Caiaphas, who’s actually the chief priest at the time. So just to clarify that. Peter’s denials. We go on to Pilate, uh, and then we get the crown of thorns, uh, and and and again we get a reiteration in 19:7 when when Pilate says to them, uh, “Take him yourself and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him.” Pilate weighed him and found Christ, uh, guiltless. And then they say, “We have a law, and by that law he ought to die, because he made himself out to be the Son of God.” This is another categorical attestation from the people who were trying to kill him that he claimed to be God. So John is full of these references, not even from Jesus’s own mouth, that they said, “That’s what he said.” And we come to the crucifixion, and it must have been—I, I, you know, for John being so close to him, uh, being the one who reclined on him, uh, who loved him, the one who Jesus says, “Watch my mother,” to—to stand there and watch not only his, his best friend or, or his closest one, the one he, he loved so much, but his savior to die. And he says, “I love it,” verse 26. “Woman, behold your son,” and he said to the disciple, “Behold your mother.” From that hour the disciple took her into his own household. And Christ accomplishes in this moment everything that was laid out for him to do. Psalm 34:20, uh, is related to, to verse 33, that his legs were not broken; blood and water pouring out. Psalm 34:20; Zechariah 12:10, uh, Jesus fulfills even hanging on the cross with his lifeblood draining out; he fulfills more and more and more, uh, of the Old Testament, showing that he is the one who he claimed to be. And that cool verse I mentioned, verse 39: Nicodemus, who had first come to him by night, but now comes in the open; he comes and he takes Jesus’ body. The first time he came by night, under secrecy; now he comes, uh, along with Joseph of Arimathea to take Jesus’ body, uh, to imbalm it. And then we get the empty tomb, and we come into his purpose statement: why this gospel was written. “But many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples which are not written in this book.” So there’s so much more that John could have written, just like there’s so much more we could say, um, but, uh, John affirms that, that, that you—this is inexhaustible—all that Christ did; we we can’t get to the bottom of it. But as you get to the end of this gospel: do you believe? Do you submit your life to Christ? Do you accept that he is the Son of God? And that believing, you might have life in his name—eternal life. Remember that we are all eternal beings; our souls are eternal; the question is where they’re going to spend eternity; are they going to spend eternity in heaven with Christ or in hell with Satan and all the rest of the world? And that’s the question that’s asked there. And then you get the epilogue, and one of the important threads that needs to be tied up, uh, is Peter, right? Well, Jesus hasn’t dealt with Peter; Peter has denied him; Judas denied him and goes and hangs himself; Peter’s denied him, and he’s still there. He comes back. “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love, love you.” Then he said, “Tend my lambs.” Then he said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” And he said to him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. Shepherd my sheep.” And he said to him a third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” What a wonderful way of restoring Peter and then giving him responsibilities, moving forward. What a wonderful, tender, loving restoration. And then we get that instance which I mentioned before of, of Peter speaking about John, and we get, uh, we get really the gospel finishing with John, um, and him claiming that there are many other things which he did that if they were written in detail, I suppose even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written. So what we have is we have John’s testimony as the beloved one of Jesus, of what happened in the life of Christ, of who he is, that he is truly God, truly man, that he is one with the Father, that he is the Messiah, that he is the Son of God, that he fulfilled all that he came to fulfill. And I pray that that’s been an encouragement to you, to you guys today. Let’s pray. Father God, thank you so much. You are so good and so kind, uh, thank you for these words; thank you for these incredible, this incredible book that you have given us that we can trust, uh, for your, for the inspiration of your word, for what it does to our hearts. And I pray that as we go away tonight—although I thank you for these guys here; they, they’ve worked so hard today and had to, um, listen and and and soak in a lot—I pray that as they go away that you might wipe away some of the fatigue, uh, and that you might give them real peace and joy because of all that we’ve looked at. Ultimately, Lord, we just want to honor you and glorify you. Help us as we come together tomorrow, uh, to, to our churches in obedience to you, to glorify you, to honor you, to praise you, uh, and to lift up your name high. I pray that your name would be exalted here in this place, uh, for whoever’s preaching, and then for any of the churches represented, excuse me, here as well, uh, help us all, Lord, to glorify your name tomorrow. Pray for safe travels for everyone, and all of this, uh, in Jesus’ name. Amen. Thank you, guys. Have a great night. Thank you, mate. Yeah, so he’s, he’s going through the…