Matthew (Part 7)(BST 11-4-07)

Matthew (Part 7)
Bible Study Time 11-4-07

The past few weeks we have been looking at Matthew’s gospel. We have seen that the Lord Jesus was the Promised Seed. He was the Promised Seed of the Woman, and He was the Promised Seed of Abraham and David. He did miracles, wonders and signs as a confirmation to the nation of Israel that He truly was the Promised One. He was the Promised Seed. He was the Promised Prophet. He was the Promised Messiah.

This was good news for the nation of Israel. Israel had long awaited the day when the Promised Seed would come. However, there was one big problem. Jesus came unto His own but His own received Him not. The nation of Israel refused to recognize Jesus as the Promised Messiah.

The life of Joseph in the Old Testament had served as a prophetic picture of what the life of the Messiah would be. Joseph went to his brothers, speaking the truth, but his brothers simply refused to listen. Instead, they hated Joseph and plotted to kill him. Likewise, Jesus did great miracles and spoke the truth of God, but rather than rejoice, the Jewish leaders hated Jesus and plotted to kill Him.

The rejection of the Messiah was also pictured in the rejection of Moses when he first presented himself to the nation of Israel. When he tried to intervene in a quarrel between two Jewish men, the Jewish men said, “Who made you ruler and judge over us?”

So, when Jesus came the first time, He too was rejected by His own people, and more specifically He was rejected by the Jewish religious leaders. When Jesus came riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, the common people of Jerusalem gathered palm leaves and placed them in His path. They shouted praises to God, saying:

Matthew 21:9 NKJV
9 . . . "Hosanna to the Son of David! 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!'* Hosanna in the highest!"

When the children in the temple area shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” the religious leaders came to Jesus and asked, “Do you hear what these children are saying?” In reply, Jesus said, “

Matthew 21:16 NKJV
16 . . . "Yes. Have you never read, 'Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants You have perfected praise'?"*

Obviously, the Lord Jesus was not intimidated by these religious leaders. He was always ready and willing to offer proof that He was the Messiah.

All that God required of the Jews was faith. God wasn’t asking them to keep the Law more perfectly. (They had already proven themselves to be incapable of keeping the Law.) God wasn’t asking them to raise an army to attack the Romans. God wasn’t even asking them to make Jesus their King.

No, God was simply asking them to believe. If they could have just found it within themselves to believe that Jesus was the Christ, God would have taken care of everything else. God would have delivered them from their sin. God would have delivered them from the Romans. God would have done it all, if they had just believed that Jesus was the Christ. But that was not to be.

Matthew says that shortly after Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Jesus was once again entering the city. Because He was hungry, He drew near a fig tree, but when He found no fruit on the tree, He said, “Let no fruit grow on you ever again.” Immediately, the fig tree withered.

This fig tree is a picture of the nation of Israel. The Jews had all of the outward signs of a living, vital faith in God. They went to the temple to pay and pray. (The tithes and the public prayers were a top priority for them.) They kept the Sabbath and all of the feast days. They did all of these things, but they had no fruit.

They had an outward show of faith, but genuine faith is much more than that. Genuine faith is a matter of the heart. If the Jews had truly believed in God, they would have believed in Jesus also. Jesus told His disciples, “You believe in God, believe also in me.” But Jesus asked the unbelieving Jews this question: “How can you believe? You receive honor from one another, but you do not seek the honor that comes from God.”

This is what keeps many people from coming to Jesus with genuine faith. They love the praise of men more that they love the praise of God. God’s thoughts are far above man’s thoughts, and God’s ways are far above man’s ways. The honor that comes from man is based on outward deeds which are more definable and more achievable for human beings. God, on the other hand, is looking for the abstract, spiritual qualities that flow from the Holy Spirit into the heart of those who believe.

Jesus could see through all of the shallow religiosity of the Jewish leaders. He said:

John 5:45-47 NKJV
45 Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father; there is one who accuses you — Moses, in whom you trust.
46 For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me.
47 But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?"

The Jews put Moses on a pedestal, but they refused to believe what Moses said. Moses gave the Law, but the Jews twisted and distorted the Law to fit their own political agenda. Moses said that God would send the Prophet who would do great miracles like those of Moses, but the Jews refused to believe in Jesus in spite of His miracles. Through Moses, God had promised that the nation of Israel would become a nation of priests, serving and blessing the Gentile nations, but because of Israel’s unbelief, the nation of Israel was destined to remain a tree without fruit.

When Jesus spoke to and pronounced judgment upon the fig tree, it immediately withered, and Matthew says that the disciples marveled and asked, “How did the fig tree wither away so soon?”

Matthew 21:21-22 NKJV
21 So Jesus answered and said to them, "Assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, 'Be removed and be cast into the sea,' it will be done.
22 And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive."

I love this passage. Isn’t that beautiful? This passage encourages me to take full advantage of the power of prayer. I sometimes need to be reminded that God wants me to cast all of my cares upon Him. He is never too busy to hear my petitions or to comfort me when my heart aches. Even more often, I need to be reminded that God is never too angry with me to hear my confession and forgive my sin. Indeed, this passage does help me to remember that God always answers the prayer that is offered in faith.

In Jesus’ day, God was looking for people with faith, and today, God is still looking for people with faith. In Jesus’ day, God required people to believe that Jesus was the Christ. Today, God requires people to believe that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. If we have faith, we will believe what God has said.

There are spiritual mountains that keep people from surrendering their lives to Christ. Sometimes it’s pride. Sometimes it’s doubt. Sometimes it’s past experiences that leave people with calloused hearts.

All of these things can be spiritual barriers that stand like mountains between the unbeliever and Christ. But these mountains can be torn down by simply believing what God has said in His word. If we believe that God wants all people to be saved, and if we believe that God is able to save us because of Christ’s death on the cross, if we believe those mountains will disappear forever. They will be as if they were cast into the sea.

The one thing that God requires of people today is faith, and the one great area where people fall short is in their faith. Today, there are literally millions of people around the world who have steadfastly refused to believe that when Jesus Christ died, He died for our sins. God has made it perfectly clear in His word that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God,

Romans 3:21-22 NKJV
21 But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed . . .
22 even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all* who believe . . .

After all, what does the Old Testament say:

Romans 10:8-10 NKJV
8 . . . "The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart"* (that is, the word of faith which we preach):
9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

Ephesians 2:8-10 KJV
8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

Faith in Jesus Christ and His finished work upon the cross opens the door to eternal life. Jesus said, I am the door, if anyone enters by me, he will be saved. If we have faith, all of the mountains that keep us from coming to Jesus will disappear, and we will see the glory of God’s salvation.

However, we do need to realize that when Jesus was talking to His disciples about casting mountains into the sea, He wasn’t specifically talking about the spiritual barriers that keep people from accepting Christ. He was talking about literal, physical mountains, and He didn’t just say to His disciples that there would be times when they would be able to cast mountains into the sea. He didn’t just say that they would be able to cast mountains into the sea if they prayed according to the will of God. He said, whatever you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive. That is absolute and very specific.

Well, does that mean that God will do whatever I ask Him to do if I just have enough faith? I have to admit that sounds pretty good to my fleshly mind, but this is where we have to rightly divide the word of truth.

If a man was hired to build a highway for the state of Oklahoma, and he knew that he would have to level a mountain in order to build that highway, I think most of us would agree that it would be God’s will for that man to do more than just pray. In fact, most of us would agree that it would be a sin for that person to do nothing but pray. We know that according to the way God works today, it would be very unusual for that mountain to be removed by prayer alone.

Today, when we ask God to help us accomplish a task, it’s understood that we will do everything He asks us to do in order to make sure that task is accomplished. We will pray that God will lead us and give us the knowledge and the skill and the motivation that we need to accomplish the task. Then, when the job is done, we will give the glory to God because we will know that it was God working in us that got the job done. But this is not what Jesus was talking about when He told His disciples that they would be able to cast mountains into the sea by simply praying in faith.

What Jesus was talking about was the literal supernatural power that the Apostles will have during the kingdom. Jesus was in a sense reinforcing what He had already told Peter. When Peter confessed that Jesus was the Christ, Jesus said, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

Jesus wanted the Apostles to know that when the kingdom does come, it will be a supernatural kingdom where supernatural things happen all the time. We live in a time in which God has chosen to limit any overt display of His supernatural power. Those who have eyes to see will see the working of God, but those who are spiritually blind will explain away the things that God does.

In our present time, rather than putting His supernatural power on display, God has chosen to give great authority and power to the devil, and we know the power of the devil will increase more and more until Christ returns to establish the kingdom. But when the kingdom does come, the mighty supernatural power of God will be made manifest all over the earth, and even the unsaved will not be able to explain it away. All the world will be astonished at the mighty power of God.

We got a glimpse of that power when Moses led the children of Israel up out of Egypt to establish the kingdom in the land of Canaan. They actually walked across the Red Sea on dry land. We also got a hint of that power in the ministry of Jesus and His disciples. As they went out preaching the gospel of the kingdom, they did great miracles to demonstrate the supernatural power of God.

As you may recall there was one time when the disciples were unable to cast out a demon. When the disciples asked Jesus why they were unable to cast out that demon, Jesus said that it was because of their unbelief.

Well, situations like that will not occur during the kingdom. At that time the faith of the Apostles will have been made perfect. By that time, they will have been resurrected from the grave, to rule and reign with Christ in glorified bodies, and there will be no limitations on the miraculous deeds they will perform. If they ask God to cast a mountain into the sea, it will be done instantaneously. Just as the fig tree immediately obeyed the voice of Jesus, all of creation will obey the word of the Apostles.

That’s exactly why it will be that during the kingdom ten men from every language of the nations will grasp the sleeve of a Jewish man, saying, “Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.” During that time, saved Gentiles and unsaved Gentiles alike will want to get in on the supernatural power that will be flowing from God through the Apostles to the nations of the world.

That’s why it will be that during the kingdom many peoples and strong nations will come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem to pray before the Lord. There will be no limit to the supernatural power that God will reveal to the world during that time.

During that time the faith of the Apostles will have been perfected. They will speak the word of faith and mountains will be cast into the sea. Whatever they bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever they loose on earth will be loose in heaven.

Today, Israel’s kingdom program has been set aside, and it is not part of God’s plan to give us that kind of power. When we pray, we pray first for God’s perfect will to be done. We still have bodies of flesh which carry certain spiritual limitations. We have limited faith and limited understanding. We cannot know what the perfect will of God is in every situation, but we can know that God’s will is perfect, and we can know that God is always good.

Second, because we are still under the curse, we know that God expects us to work to accomplish His will. If we are sick, we pray for healing, but we still go to the doctor, and we pray that God will give the doctor wisdom and skill. If we need money, we still go out and get a job, but then we pray that God will help us do the job well, and that He will help us to be good stewards of that which He gives us. This is the way God works today.

Today, our prayer of faith is one that recognizes that God’s will is more important than our own, and when we pray this prayer of faith, we will see God doing greater things than we could ever ask or think. So today, as we go to worship the Lord, let us rejoice in the power of prayer and in the goodness as well as the sovereignty of God.

Thank you for studying with me this morning. I’ll look forward to studying with you again next year at this same time.

Church links:
http://www.peacechurch-ok.org/
http://www.eleventhavenuechurch.com/
http://gracebiblechurch-fw.com/