Matthew 8
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gha002
Language
EN
Total length
00:51:55
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1
Bible references
Matthew 8
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unknown
Automatic transcript:
…
It's Matthew chapter 8 that I've had laid on my heart for many months now and I would like to
spend the majority of our time together looking at this chapter and some of the things that this
chapter teaches us. I would like us to try and answer the question of why is it that the Holy
Spirit has put together in this particular chapter the events and the stories and the miracles and
the discussions that he had with various people and put them together in this particular chapter.
If we have time I'd like also to briefly look at some of the events in chapter 9 and see if we can
get some idea of why those events have been placed in that order and in that particular location in
Matthew's gospel. Perhaps we could read together then Matthew chapter 8. When he was come down from
the mountain great multitudes followed him and behold there came a leper and worshipped him
saying Lord if thou wilt thou can make me clean and Jesus put forth his hand and touched him saying
I will be thou clean and immediately his leprosy was cleansed and Jesus said unto him see thou tell
no man but go thy way show thyself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded for a
testimony unto them and when Jesus was entered into Capernaum there came unto him a centurion
beseeching him and saying Lord my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy grievously to entered
and Jesus said unto him I will come and heal him the centurion answered and said Lord I am not worthy
that thou shouldest come under my roof but speak the word only and my servant shall be healed for
I am a man under authority having soldiers under me and I say to this man go and he goeth and to
another come and he cometh and to my servants do this and he doeth it when Jesus heard it he
marveled and said to them that followed verily I say unto you I have not found so great faith no
not in Israel and I say unto you that many shall come from the east and the west and ship shall sit
down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven but the children of the kingdom
shall be cast out into outer darkness there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth and Jesus said
unto the centurion go thy way and as thou hast believed so be it done unto thee and his servant
was healed in the selfsame hour and when Jesus was coming to Peter's house he saw his wife's mother
laid and sick of a fever and he touched her hand and the fever left her and she arose and ministered
unto them when the even was come they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils and he
cast out the spirits with his word and healed all that were sick that it might be fulfilled which
has spoken by Isaiah's the Prophet saying himself took our infirmities and bear our sicknesses now
when Jesus saw great multitudes about him he gave commandment to depart unto the other side and a
certain scribe came and said unto him master I will follow thee with us wherever thou goest and
Jesus said unto him the foxes of holes and the birds of the air have nests but the son of man
hath not where to lay his head and another of his disciples said unto him Lord suffer me first to go
and bury my father but Jesus said unto him follow me and let the dead bury their dead and when he
was entered into a ship his disciples followed him and behold there arose a great tempest in
the sea insomuch that the ship was covered with waves but he was asleep and his disciples came
to him and awoke him saying Lord save us we perish and he saith unto them why fearful oh ye of little
faith then he arose and rebuked the winds and the sea and there was a great calm but the men
marveled saying what manner of man is this that even the winds and the sea obey him and when he
was come to the other side into the country of the Gorgosians there met him two possessed with devils
coming out of the tombs exceeding fierce so that no man might pass by that way and behold they cried
out saying what have we to do with thee Jesus thou son of God art thou come hither to torment us
before the time and there was a good way off from them a herd of many swine feeding so the devils
besought him saying if thou cast us out suffer us to go away into the herd of swine and he said
unto them go and when they were come out they went into the herd of swine and behold the whole herd
of swine ran violently down into a steep place into the sea and perished in the waters and they
that kept them fled and went their ways into the city and told them everything and what was before
them to be the possessed of the devils and behold the whole city came out to meet Jesus and when
they saw him they besought him that he would depart out of their coasts so as we've read through this
eighth chapter of Matthew's gospel I would like us to try and put stories together and have a good
idea of the stories that are mentioned in this chapter almost all of them are very well known
incidents in the life of our Lord Jesus many of the children will have already have heard of these
wonderful stories that we read of in Matthew chapter 28 so Matthew chapter 8 sorry the sheet
that I've produced for you on the first side that's labeled Matthew's gospel chapter 8 tries
to show the order of these events that took place chronologically the order that they actually
happened in the time that they occurred with our Lord and those stories there if we look perhaps
down the column which is entitled events or miracles we can see that the order in which
they actually happened is greatly different from the order that Matthew gives them to us so there
must be a reason why Matthew has put these events in a different order if we look down the headings
that I've tried to show for Mark's gospel and Luke's gospel we can see that in Luke's gospel all
of these events are indicated but in what we think basing it mainly perhaps on Mark's gospel the
chronological order Mark leaves out the centurion servants and he leaves out the last few verses
about the scribe and disciple coming to the Lord but Luke gives us all these stories but in a
different order so why is it that these actually took place in a different order and Matthew's got
them in a alternative order if we look at the chronological order we can see that what happened
first of all was the healing of Peter's mother-in-law that event according to the stories
we've got in our chapter took place the very first and perhaps took place before the actual sermon of
the mount we've just read chapter 8 which talks about events and they come in Matthew's gospel
after the sermon of the mount if we look at the calming of the storm on the lake that event took
place after the parables the seven parables of the kingdom that Matthew talks about in Matthew 13 so
even Matthew gets orders differently so if we start off and look at the first of these stories
the leper on many different levels we can get a great deal of blessing from these different
incidents in the life of our Lord Jesus we know that leprosy speaks of sin that in particular
leprosy speaks of the corrupting nature of sin that leprosy here can be thought of as a type a
type of the moral condition of Israel at that time in particular in the presence of their Messiah the
children of Israel the people of God were in a very poor spiritual state this leper knew something
of the worthiness of the Lord Jesus Christ and he came to the Lord Jesus and was wanting to know
whether the Lord was willing to make him clean the leper could acknowledge the person of the Lord
Jesus Christ but he wanted to know whether the Lord was willing to make him clean if Israel as a
nation as the people of the Jews had come to the Lord Jesus and asked him to make them clean then
the Lord had come to do that very task he had come to the Jews to the Jews first of all and this story
surely shows us the grace of the Lord Jesus the power of the Lord Jesus and the undefilable holiness
of the Lord Jesus the grace of the Lord Jesus that he was willing to come that he was willing to live
amongst mankind the power and that he was able to cleanse this leper of his leprosy and the
undefilable holiness that he was a man who could come and walk in this world that he could not be
tainted by sin and he could reach out and touch the leper and not be made sin because of his
touching with this uncleanness the Jews knew that God was the only one who could cure leprosy that
God was the only one who could cure leprosy that the Lord Jesus here in their midst healed that man
of his leprosy what were they going to think what was their action and reaction going to be to this
wonderful miracle done in their midst we're obviously reading of a time before the cross
and the Lord Jesus sought to maintain the law and he sent the healed leper to the priest so the
priest could authenticate that the leprosy had been cured that was one of the most important
signs to the people of Israel that the Messiah was here we perhaps read the story we don't realize
the full consequence perhaps of the Lord healing the leper and that was the very one of the very
signs that the Jews knew that the Messiah was amongst them so what was the reaction of the
Jews the Jews didn't own him and they would not own him and it's one of the features as we look
through this chapter and through the whole of Matthew's gospel that we see the Lord being
rejected on every hand he was rejected time and time and time again he came unto his own and his
own received him not so if we move on to the story of the centurion we've got the leper out of
chronological order opening this chapter for us after Matthew has told us about the Sermon of
the Mount so the story of the centurion is I think fairly clear it's fairly obvious the main
purpose of this story and the reason why it's put into this chapter at this particular place the
event had taken place a considerable time after the healing of the leper if perhaps for a moment
you wanted to have a look at that column that I added called event number on the left-hand side
I've used to call Bruins book as just an example really where he's gone through all the stories in
the Gospels all the events and most of them and put them in what he thought was chronological
order there's a few areas that there might be discussions about but if you look at the numbers
that are there it gives you some idea of how the gospel writer inspired by the Holy Spirit has
picked out a story here has picked out another story there another one over there hasn't kept
them in the same order but put them in an alternative order there must be a reason as to
why that has happened and this story of the centurion servant and seats call it ten events
happened certainly a while after this story of the leper but Matthew gives us no indication of
sequence if you look at where this event starts most of them begin with the phrase and behold
and when unlike mark who is often using sequential time so the centurion had been given by God a far
greater and fuller sense of the person of our Lord Jesus Christ this centurion appreciated that the
bodily presence of the Lord Jesus wasn't needed he was a man who was used to commanding troops
and the very hearing of his word of his command even if he wasn't present would activate the
action he knew the Lord Jesus could heal his servants and he was bothered about his servant
I don't think many centurions would have been but he knew that the Lord could heal his servants so
we see that in this case there was no touching that was required there was no need for the Lord
Jesus to go and to touch this servant the very word spoken by the Lord was able to heal that
person what a wonderful thing that is the Lord could just speak and the man could be healed it
tells us as we look down to verse 11 the reason why this story is put in because that many shall
come from the east and the west and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom
of heaven but the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness and there shall
be weeping and gnashing of teeth so from the east and the west the centurion being a Gentile not of
Israel but he was going to be and many like him were going to come from the east and west and
they shall be part of this kingdom of heaven but the children of the kingdom the Jews would be
cast out where there would be weeping and gnashing of teeth so if we go back to the story of the
leper we've got the story of the leper representing the Lord Jesus coming to his people the Jews
they were full of sin the leper speaking of that but the next story put in speaks of the centurion
the Gentiles and the Lord says here that the Gentiles would be brought in so we have the Lord
going to the Jews which we know he did and then going to the Gentiles and I presume that most of
us here in this room are Gentiles and that we have received that blessing of the gospel coming
to us that it went out to the Jews first of all but the Jews rejected their Messiah and the gospel
has been proclaimed thankfully throughout this world and this story of the centurion suggests
this sequence of events so it foreshadows the incoming of millions upon millions of Gentiles
who have trusted the Lord Jesus and the faith that the centurion used is characteristic of the
Gentiles who did not see the Lord did not touch the Lord we noticed that the Lord didn't go to
touch the servants in this instance and so it speaks of the Gentiles who believe but then if
we move on to the third story that we've got in Matthew chapter 8 this in fact was the very first
story chronologically but Matthew puts it in here as the third story in this chapter why well it's
a few verses that tell us about the healing of Peter's mother-in-law why is this being put in
at this particular place well throughout this chapter we some see something of the grace of
our Lord Jesus Christ grace in going to Israel grace in going to the Gentiles but this story is
perhaps put in here at this particular position because the Matthew didn't want the Jews to feel
that they had been completely cast aside but he comes back to Peter's mother-in-law who needed
healing that the story here speaks of the good news going to the Jews again as well that the
Jews haven't been completely cast aside that the rejection the continued rejection that they meet
it out to our Lord Jesus Christ the thorough unbelief that characterized the Jewish nation
that this would not alienate the heart of the Lord and we see the Lord's continuing love and grace as
he reaches out in this story here to Peter's mother-in-law we might ask why Peter's mother-in-law
just wonder but Peter was the Apostle to the circumcision that seems to emphasize this fact
that the Jews are still in mind that the natural time that the Lord has to Israel is brought back
into prominence that God has not forgotten Israel but though they've rejected him God has not
forgotten them and that the scriptures full of promises to God's earthly people the Jews that
those will be fulfilled and that those will be brought into fruition and we are privileged enough
to live in a time where we see these things or some of these things happening and building up
to the return of our Lord Jesus Christ so the healing of Peter's mother-in-law could perhaps
represent the Lord's continuing love for Israel even though they rejected him and had no heart
for him so if we move on and look at what is obviously just a few verses from we have the
incident perhaps just quickly in verse 16 where the Lord at even time many he says were possessed
with devils and he cast out the spirits with his word and healed all that were sick they rejected
him but still people came and they came with all the problems that they had and he healed them all
it says here how many times just a wonder do we feel rejected and not wanted and we might say right
I'll have nothing to do with them don't want anything to do with them anymore but these people
kept coming to the Lord Jesus they kept rejecting him but he kept doing these wonderful miracles in
their midst and nothing would stop him from keep on with his work and showing him that he was the
Messiah so when we look at verse 19 in particular of this scribe that came to the Lord Jesus now if
we found the comparable passage in Luke we can see it's Luke chapter 9 and that in fact is after the
transfiguration a considerable time afterwards and that might help us to understand why these few
words were mentioned in that after the mount of the transfiguration this scribe this Jew wanted
selfishly a place of honor for himself that something of the Lord's glory he had understood
and the Jew wanted some honorable place with the Lord Jesus now this Jew was just a carnal Jew a
Jew that wanted a good place with the Messiah he was concerned with present earthly things and
therefore we'll notice that the Lord just speaks to him about earthly things and he talks at that
famous and well-known verse the foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests but the Son
of Man hath not where to lay his head the scribe was given perhaps we could say an earthly and he
offered to follow the Lord Jesus but he wasn't called and perhaps we might think that those
who are not called might think that they can do anything or go anywhere for the Lord Jesus but
if we look verse 21 another of his disciples someone who was a disciple and he was called
but this disciple feels something of the difficulty and pleads the natural duty of burying his father
something that earthly speaking we would think of as of the most highest importance but he pleads
that duty before following the Lord Jesus and the Lord Jesus says to him follow me so we find the
man who isn't called the scribe promises to go anywhere and do anything in his own strength but
the man who is called the disciple feels the difficulty and pleads this natural duty and so
after we've had the three previous stories of the leper the Lord going to Israel the centurion the
Lord then going to the Gentiles the healing of Peter's mother-in-law the Lord still going to
the Jews we see here discipleship and following the Lord Jesus brought in to show those that of
the cost of discipleship and how it is something that must be seriously and truly embarked upon
so from verse 23 we've got the well-known story of the storm on the lake now this story this event
actually happened after the telling of the seven parables of the kingdom the seven parables of the
kingdom well known and well talked about in Matthew chapter 13 we would expect this story
even in Matthew's gospel to follow Matthew chapter 13 but Matthew was put it in this particular place
why well we know the great comfort that this story can bring we know that it tells us and speaks to
us of how the disciples followed the Lord Jesus that they were with him in the boat that troubles
calamities the storm in this particular instance came upon them and they asked the Lord to help
them now it's a wonderful story isn't it that we can remember and use when we have present difficulties
and problems and issues that we need help with that the Lord is there in the boat with us that
he can calm the storm that he can come in for us and calm the problems and help us to cope with
the problems sometimes even miraculously no making them go away how wonderful it is that I'm sure each
of us in this room who's trusted the Savior know something of going to the Lord when we've got
difficulties and problems of asking him to help us and he miraculously sorts things out that
something that was a real issue to us that it goes away it's solved it's not such a bigger problem
the Lord helps us to get through well thankfully we can take that encouragement and that heart
from that story but the story speaking here of the disciples speaks obviously of in the first
instance of Jewish disciples of the disciples being tested by a storm that apparently their
master knew nothing about and this would speak to us of the godly part of Israel those that we often
refer to as the remnants that the Jews there being separated to the Lord Jesus being with the Lord
Jesus in the boat not expecting everything to be a bed of roses but we know that remnant of Israel
will go through that tribulation as a primary instance and that the Lord Jesus will be with
them and will guide them and help them as they're exposed to their enemies and as they suffer
terrible tribulation at that time but the Lord acts in power for them just as he can do so for
us today so the last incident that we've got in Matthew chapter 8 another very well-known story
carrying on we think just afterwards and when they'd come to the other side into the country
of the Gergosines or the Gadarenes and there we find that the Lord is met by these two people
possessed of devils Matthew it's interesting to note speaks of two there are many instances in
Matthew's gospel where he talks about two people and the other gospel writers only speaking about
one perhaps it's obviously there were two people that were actually there but Matthew picks upon
that and mentions two because it was so important to Matthew to have a witness in Jewish terms to
agreeing together that these things did happen and so we can think of this these two men possessed
and cruel and controlled by Satan that it shows the way in which the devil controls people today
that he controls people and that we see the dreadful excesses that people are succumbed to
and controlled by and dominated by we finding it more and more in this world in which we live that
as people give themselves over to the devil to all these excesses that the devil is in control
and the dreadful things that are happening and people are succumbed to but as we see later in
this passage we can think of it also as the quiet way in which the enemy seeks to dissuade people
and in this particular instance cause the Lord Jesus to leave we live in a time where perhaps
many of us don't feel that outright antagonism against us as people of the Lord but how we often
feel that the population at large are so in their hearts and in themselves antagonistic against the
things of the Lord they're really against Christian things they might not say so aggressively openly
but if we try to mention the Lord's things if we the topic of conversation goes that way then we
see this is a surprisingly people who perhaps we otherwise get on with quite well are so against
Christian things and at the end of this story the people are asking the Lord Jesus to leave
they want nothing to do with the Lord Jesus so the Lord shows here his power in delivering these two
men from the power of Satan it was proof that it could be done proof of a future time when Christ's
power will deliver the Jewish remnant when Christ will come and rescue that remnant for himself but
how terrible it is in this story sure you thought of it many times how that the men here would rather
be found in a position or to be left with the demons rather than enjoy the presence of the Lord
Jesus how terrible that is there's a man the Messiah the Son of God was with them he'd come
to them they'd seen his power they knew these two people they'd seen his great power and yet they
wanted him to leave they'd rather be left with the demons than enjoy the presence of the Son of God
how terrible that is and so we have these devils pleading with the Lord to go and be put into that
herd of swine the swine of course shouldn't be there in the Jewish economy but here this swine
is typifying the final condition of the defiled apostate mass of Israel that the swine are those
people in that final day the people of Israel who know not the Messiah who don't want the Messiah
and these devils and it's typifying for us how that into that mass of unbelieving Jews that they
will be given up and given up to the devil and perdition and so as we come to the end of that
chapter I hope we can see this these types and this sequence of events and how this could be
the reason why the Holy Spirit has put these events from different times and different locations into
this particular order that the Lord Jesus went to the Jews first full of sin as spoken by the
leper that he went then because they rejected him to the Gentiles spoke the centurion with his great
faith that the Jews were not forgotten that the Lord healed Simon Peter's mother-in-law that if
we move on to the storm of the lake that the disciples the Jewish disciples with him in the
boat that remnant speaking of how the Lord would come in and help preserve that remnant and then
in the last story of the Legion and the devils in the Gergesen area that's here speaking of the end
of the age when the Lord Jesus will actually come and there the majority of the unbelieving Jews
are given up now I find that we often say the dispensational side of Matthew but we can see in
a number of instances in Matthew's gospel quite remarkable that this chapter is showing from a
concoction of events this theme and this thread that goes all the way through there are some other
wonderful points that we can think of in this chapter that Matthew always writes and he's
calculated to meet the conscience of Israel Luke in his gospel about the leper spoke of the leper
have been full of leprosy the Gentiles speaking the nation full of leprosy Matthew just mentions
that he was a leper we find if we compare the stories that the leper was healed by the Lord's
touch and by his word that the centurion was healed by the word only and Peter's mother-in-law was
healed by touch only that if we look at the faith if we look at the faith of the centurion the great
that's mentioned as attributed to him the disciples had little faith they were in the boat they had
little faith the leper we can perhaps think of him as having defective faith and the Gadarene's in
the last instance no faith at all but what a wonderful thing it is tremendous thing that it
doesn't matter if there's great faith of the centurion the little faith of the disciples or
the defective faith of the leper that they all receive the blessing little defective great they
all receive the blessing that the blessing is not according to the quality of the quantity of faith
but according to the Lord's heart of grace how wonderful that is now if you can perhaps very
briefly dip into chapter 9 and point out the stories for you in chapter 9 and see mainly if
you would go away and think about it because as we look at chapter 9 there and if you've got a
Bible which has got the headings of the stories it is a lot easier but first of all we've got
Jesus healing the palsied man we know that story very very well no secondly we've got about Matthew
himself most interesting as to how Matthew speaks about himself it's interesting for instance that
Matthew doesn't say how that he gave away his money the other gospel writers tell us but Matthew
doesn't then we have a discourse about the Pharisees and the Pharisees criticizing and
complaining and saying why does the master eat with publicans and sinners we have an interesting
two verses in 16 and 17 where it speaks about the old garment and the new garment verse 17 neither
do men put new wine in no to old bottles else the bottles break and the wine runneth out and then the
well-known story in verse 18 of Jairus's daughter we know that in the middle there verse 20 for a
few verses there's a woman that comes to him with an issue of blood and that she's healed and the
Lord stops going to Jairus's daughter and heals that woman and then carries on with that story
and then at the end of the chapter we've got 27 we've got two blind men and over the page we've
got the eyes opened yes and the dumb healed as well that the demon cast out sorry now from those
stories very simply and very quickly we get a similar type of sequence we've got the palsied
palsy illness speaking of sin in this case sin that was incapable of healing himself so we could
perhaps think of the sick of the palsy of the Lord going to Israel to the Jews again just as in the
leper when we look at the call of the map of Matthew we see that increasingly it shows the
display of grace that went out Matthew was a tax collector he was hated by the Jews he was doing
an iniquitous job but the grace of the Lord Jesus went out and came to Matthew and called Matthew
that the Pharisees and one of the characteristics of this chapter is that it shows us the effect
on the religious leaders of the Jews that the presence of the Messiah had it speaks there's a
theme running through that speaks about what effect does the presence of the Messiah in Israel
have upon this religious leaders and then we have this parable of the old and the new garments and
here we have the mistake of Christendom really don't we but it's saying to us quite clearly you
cannot mix Christianity and the Jewish system you cannot mix the old and the new the new wine with
the old wine it's completely different and the economy that we now live in of faith in our Lord
Jesus Christ that if they cannot be mixed and this is being brought in as new and then Jairus's
daughter now Jesus again goes with this ruler he was one of these rulers from against the Lord Jesus
perhaps but he comes to the Lord of the dire need and the Lord deigns to go with him we see the
contrast between the Centurion the Gentile he believed that the Lord could just speak a word
but here the ruler of the Jews anxious that the Lord comes with him and stays with him and we can
connect that with the Jewish nation of the Lord being present with the Jewish nation at that time
and that when the Lord heals the daughter it speaks obviously of the restoring of the Jewish
nation but in the midst of that story in the middle we've got the woman with the issue of
blood coming out and touching the Lord's garments perhaps speaking to us of the Gentiles of the
further ways of grace that God is reaching out to whoever comes and accepts him in face that
the Lord's primary purpose is to see to come to Israel and bless Israel but the message goes out
to whosoever will and that the two blind men of the confession of Christ by Israel in a future day
when they address him as the son of David and again we've got the demon cast out and it's giving us
type after type promise after promise that Israel would not be forgotten they might keep on rejecting
him and rejecting him the Lord might keep giving them proof after proof he might in his heart of
love keep healing them and going to individuals and groups but they still didn't want to know him
how terrible that would be how terrible it is that people still do not want to know our Lord Jesus
Christ so we have in Matthew's gospel many I'm sure of you are well aware the characteristics
of Matthew's gospel that Matthew presents the Lord Jesus as a king that his gospel here is
primarily for the Jews for Israel that in Matthew's gospel there are more Old Testament scriptures
quoted and fulfilled than the rest of the Gospels put together he wanted to prove to his people that
here was truly the Messiah that Matthew's gospel is written in a dispensational order in many cases
and that it emphasizes the kingdom of heaven and is perhaps the only complete sketch we have of
the kingdom of heaven that Matthew wrote to the Jews because he was a Jew some of the other gospel
writers weren't Jews and that it was important that he was an eyewitness that he was actually
there when these happens to the Jews so if you just had a few seconds really or minutes to look
on the second side of the sheet that I've given you I've tried and I knew that we'd hardly get to
this particular point but I've tried to pick out their chapter by chapter in Matthew's gospel some
of the main themes to enable us to see why it is got the gospel has been put together in in such
a way the we first of all see in chapter 1 the genealogy of the Lord Jesus why is that put first
because Matthew had to show that the Messiah was son of Abraham son of David most important to give
his credentials very interestingly in Matthew's gospel we see that it although it's the gospel to
the Jews but often the Gentiles and the church are mentioned in particular ways and we find here the
Lord's birth but we find the only story or writing of the story of the Magi coming and worshiping
the Lord Jesus why is that put that in there because as the Lord went to the Jews and the
Jews rejected him the gospel goes to the Gentiles so it's put in here right at the very beginning we
have the chapters 5 6 & 7 the Sermon of the Mount giving us the principles and the laws of the
kingdom and then we come to our two chapters and we see there that it's speaking of the Lord's
presence in Israel his rejection and the results of his rejection and chapter 9 the effects of
his presence on the religious leaders but he was rejected and right the way through we see this
rejection time and time again but the heart of the grace of God shines out that in chapter 10 he
sends out the disciples to Israel that in 11 and 12 we've got a transitional state the kingdom of
heaven is set up in this mysterious form that there's a break between the Israel going to Israel
and being rejected by Israel chapter 13 we've referred to about the parables of the kingdom it
shows the character of the kingdom but it takes while the king is hidden and then chapter 14
Israel dismissed the story again the similar story of Christ on high the disciples in the
boat speaking figuratively of the Lord in heaven and the disciples on this boat on land and then
arriving at land Gennesaret and when that speaks of the world out of which he'd been expelled and
they worship him there number of types in there then 15 and 16 there these principles of the
kingdom but we noticed the Lord still feeding the Jews the Millennial Kingdom there 16 the first
instance we have of reference to the assembly in particular in this gospel that went out to the
Jews the transfiguration this the partial view of the kingdom illustrating the glory of the
rejected Son of Man and then 18 the principles again and 19 other principles that are brought
in but still in verse 20 we get the laborers in the vineyard and we get this idea of grace the
sovereignty of God that God is still acting in grace and 21 the Lord coming to Jerusalem on an
ass and the last formal presentation of Jesus as King the fig tree speaking of Israel is cursed
and we move on to the marriage feast at the grace again going out again to the Jew first and then
the Gentile and the religious leaders eventually silenced 23 the Lord still owning the existence of
Judaism but pronouncing doom upon them and then 24 the Oliver discourse where we moved into the
later times and the parable of the Virgin and the talents and the King's return the wonderful King's
return and then we get the important events of the Lord's being taken to Calvary's cross and
crucified and lastly we see no mention of the ascension in the gospel of Matthew that the
disciples were sent to the Gentiles but no mention of the Lord being ascended on heaven so as I hope
we've seen we've taken a small section of Matthew's gospel and seen that the Holy Spirit hasn't just
things into a pot and mix them all together but the reasons for that ordered dispensational reasons
that throughout Matthew's gospel things might be put out of chronological order but there are
reasons there and how this I'm sure thrills our hearts to know something of the wonders of the
Word of God to know that it is inspired by the Holy Spirit to know that we can pick it up and
read it and it can provide help for ourselves help for a present moment and a present difficulty
that we can trust the Word of God in its content and its message this wonderful message which keeps
showing the Lord Jesus going out in grace and love to his people keep being rejected but he still goes
all the way to Calvary's cross so may it be that we're each thrilled by reading and understanding
something of the Word of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ of whom it speaks so could we close by
singing hymn number 384 the sands of time are sinking the dawn of heaven breaks the summer
morn I've sighed for this fair sweet morn awakes dark dark have been the midnights but day spring
is at hand and glory glory dwelleth in Emmanuel's land hymn number 384 …