

Matthew 1:1-12
The Family Tree of Jesus
00;00;00;00 – 00;00;29;06
Because this is part of our verse by verse. I have great news. We’re not going to skip a verse. But I also have bad news. Look at verses one through 16 and pray for your pastor. I started rehearsing these names years ago. I memorized the phonetic Bible phonetic chart in the front of my Bible years ago so that I could learn how to pronounce these names.
00;00;29;08 – 00;00;45;15
I think any pastor who is worth his salt ought to do his best and not just to read the Bible, but but be able to pronounce it correctly. So at the end of tonight’s reading, we’re going to have a round of applause for your pastor if he gets it right. If you’re brave enough, you can try to read along out loud with me.
00;00;45;15 – 00;01;02;19
But it might sound like we’re all speaking in tongues before it’s over with. So be very brave. This passage of Scripture is the genealogy of Jesus Christ. It is Bible. Can I get a witness on that? It is Bible. And there’s a lot of lessons that we can learn from it, and we want to try to learn those tonight.
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We’re actually going to read from verses one down through verse 17. That’s a lot of names. So be patient, Matthew, Chapter one, verse one, if you have your place there tonight, church, where you see him in the Book of the Generation of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham begot Isaac and Isaac begat Jacob, and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren and Judas begat Faeries and Zera of Tamar and fairies begat from and from begat Aram and Aram begat a minute ebb and a minute that begat Nathan and Mason begat Solomon and Solomon begat Boaz out of Ray Cab and Boaz begat Abed of Ruth, and Abed begat Jesse and Jesse
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begat David, the King and David the King begat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Uriah in Solomon begat Begat Robo Woman Reborn begat abaya, and Abaya begat Aissa and Isa begat Josephina and Joseph Beget Joram and John begat Osias, and Moses begat Joe Fam and Joe Fam begat Acres, and Acres begat as a Caius and Hezekiah’s begat Manassas.
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And Manassas begat Ammon. And Ammon begat Josiah and Josiah beget Genius and his brethren about the time they were carried away to Babylon. And after they were brought to Babylon, Jack and I begat Sally Field, and Sally Field begat zero by Bill and zero by Bill begat Abyad and Abyad begat Eliakim and Eliakim begat Azer in Azar begat Sadar and Sade begat Akeem Akin begat a lion.
00;02;36;10 – 00;03;07;12
A lion begat Eliezer and Ali Azar begat Matt. Diane and Matt then begat Jacob. And Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who was called Christ. Now look at verse 17. So all the generations from Abraham to David are 14 generations. And from David until the carrying away into Babylon are 14 generations. And from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are 14 generations.
00;03;07;15 – 00;03;33;11
I’m going to stop their line to be seated this evening. And please keep your Bibles handy and open. I don’t have an outline to follow for obvious reasons. It would be next to impossible to really go through every name in this list. There are two of these lists four gospels, but only two of these lists. Just looking at the other one in Luke three.
00;03;33;14 – 00;03;59;12
I didn’t plan to do that, but in Luke three, the list is a little bit different beginning at verse 23. You’ll notice it talks about Jesus. The Book of Luke begins differently. It actually begins with the Gospel of Mark, begins with the story of Zacharias and Elizabeth. The Book of Luke begins the story with the Romans and the taxation and the pilgrimage of Mary and Joseph down to Egypt and so on and so forth.
00;03;59;14 – 00;04;34;20
And when we get to Luke three, verse 23, a similar genealogy is given. It is different in only one facet. It actually goes backwards and it goes all the way back to Adam. So if you’ll look at that one verse 23, Jesus himself began to be about 30 years of age being as was supposed, the son of Joseph, which was a son of Eli, which was a son of Matt, Matt May math hat, which was the son of Levi, which was the son of M.K., which was the son of Janna, which was the son of Joseph, which was the son of Matthias, which was the son of Amos, which was the son of name, which
00;04;34;20 – 00;04;58;11
was a son of Eli. And it goes on and on and on and on and on, if you’ll pardon me, rather than reading all of those, it actually goes all the way. If you drop down to about verse number 35, it begins talking about those who were in the generations even closer to Adam. And it closes down at verse 38 within us, which was the son of.
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That sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God. So we have two genealogies of Jesus. These are like first and second Chronicles. They’re hard to read. If you’re like me, when you get the first and second Chronicles, you do some catching up. If you’ve been behind you just glance over one page and you glance over another page and glance over another page until you get way back to the end of those two historical books.
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And it begins to tell some of the stories of the Kings. Well, Matthew, one was very important to the Jew. You must understand that the Jewish Bible, which is the Old Testament, it did contain 39 books, but they are not in the order that our Old Testament is in our Old Testament. Genesis. Exodus, Leviticus. Numbers. Do you want me, Joshua?
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Judge Ruth First, Second Samuel First. Second. Kings First Chronicles. Ezra Nehemiah. Esther Job Psalms. Proverbs. Ecclesiastes. The Song of Solomon. Isaiah. Jeremiah Lamentations. Ezekiel Daniel Joseph. Joel. Amos. Obadiah. Jonah. Micah Now whom have back. Joseph and I have got Zachary and Malachi. And I must confess to you, it is woefully out of order. The Old Testament chronologically should end with the book of Nehemiah that is the gathering of the Jews back to the city of Jerusalem.
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The chronology of the story ends with the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the temple. The Jewish Old Testament, however, ends with, you guessed it, first and second Chronicles. Why? Because every Jew had to know his genealogy. They memorized the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch, Matthew Martin, Luke, excuse me, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.
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They memorize all of those books. Genesis 50 chapters, Exodus 40 chapter, so on and so forth. They memorized every word, every line, and they also memorized the section of the Old Testament historical books of First and Second Chronicles that was related to their tribe. Why is this important? Three reasons. Number one, if you did not know what tribe you were from, you had no claim to the land that you were to inherit.
00;07;37;08 – 00;08;07;09
Levi, Judah, Manasa, Ephraim, Gad, Reuben. All of these tribes had certain lands that had been doled out to them and that had been distributed and rationed out to them. And you had to know what tribe you were from so that at the year of Jubilee, you could re inherit land that you had potentially been dispossessed from. You also had to know your genealogy just in case you were from two special tribes.
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Levi Which is where the priest came from and Judah, which is where the Kings came from. If you are not from Judah, you are not qualified to be a king. If you were not from Levi, you were not qualified to be a priest. You couldn’t have your land. You could not express your calling as a priest. You could not express your royalty as king or potential heir to the throne if you did not know your genealogy.
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So the genealogy was very important. I found out some information about my genealogy, and I’m going to share it with you tonight. How many of you remember Sister Beverly Hollowell, that precious, precious lady that speaks annually in our lady’s conference? Sister Beverly. You all know and love her, don’t you? Come to find out. We are fourth cousins, twice removed.
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I don’t even know what that means. But I must confess, she bears the Bayley craziness. I knew we were kin somehow or another because we both have just a little bit of silly in us. According to the genealogy of the Hollow Wells. It turns out that they are related to a family out of Colquitt County, Georgia, called. The Weeks, weeks and the weeks are akin to the Castleberry house.
00;09;37;21 – 00;10;05;21
The castle berries were. That’s my grandparents Ben and Lizzie Ree Castleberry on my mother’s side. And it turns out that my Bailey name that is connected to the castle berries in the weeks my Bailey name can actually be traced back to a couple of preachers. We always thought our family was full of whiskey runners and criminals, but that’s not the case.
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We do have to preachers. According to Sister Hollowell, Will. One of them was a lay preacher from South Georgia, and the other one, turns out, actually built a relatively large church out of state. And that church started about 150 years ago. Still there today, a Baptist church growing and thriving. So finding out about your genealogy can be very entertaining.
00;10;29;12 – 00;10;48;23
I remember one time my wife and I, on one of our anniversary trips, we were walking the streets of Fernandina Beach, a beautiful place. If you’ve never been up there to Amelia Island, and if you’ve never been to, you know, down a little further south of that to Saint Augustine and some of the other places around there, you owe it to yourself.
00;10;48;23 – 00;11;12;25
It’s very historical, very important part of our state. And while we were working, walking the streets of Fernandina Beach, we happened upon this little shop just kind of tucked away to the side and a hole there. And and they had in this little shop, Chris And they would tell you what your family crest was. I thought mine was going to be a skull and crossbones.
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Turns out my family crest is very entertaining. My name is a law enforcement name. Bailey. Same word that bailiff comes from. And I can tell you there’s not a Bailey that’s ever been a bailiff, but there’s been a few. They’ve been arrested by a bailiff. I can promise you that. So it’s interesting, isn’t it? There’s a new movement.
00;11;37;28 – 00;11;57;09
There’s a lot of websites where you can go online and find out about your generations, find out who met who and who the parents and who, the children and grandchildren, so on and so forth. Until it comes down to you, that’s not as important to us. It’s more or less entertainment for us. But for Jesus, it was critical.
00;11;57;11 – 00;12;30;09
You see, when we read Matthew chapter one, there are verses one through 16 specifically. There are three things that stand out. Three dozens of names, but three distinct things. That stand out. First of all, when we read the Old Testament, we read Mr. So-and-so begat so-and-so Sons, and he lived and died. And then Mr. So-and-so begat so-and-so sons.
00;12;30;09 – 00;13;04;01
And then he lived and died. And this man and this man and this man and this man. The heads of family, these are chronicled for us in the Old Testament. Almost never is a woman’s name included in the Old Testament genealogies? Why? Because women did not carry the name. Because women were in the Old Testament frowned upon. In fact, they didn’t even bother naming their daughters.
00;13;04;03 – 00;13;38;21
Women. Girls back in those days were just called one, two, three, four, five. However, many of the family had pretty convenient, isn’t it? They didn’t have any rights. They didn’t have any. They didn’t have any claim to legal representation. They could not be a witness in court, all because they were women. And by the way, that same boneheaded chauvinism exists in a lot of churches today.
00;13;38;24 – 00;14;07;07
Sadly, there are a lot of churches where women are classified as unimportant. And I’m telling you this if you want your church to live and die, you forget the women in it. Here’s what you’re going to find out about the genealogy of Jesus. Five women. You can count them yourself. The first one you’ll notice in your Bible, as mentioned for us early in the list.
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Verse three Judas begat fairies and zebra. Here’s our first woman of Tamar. The second ones are mentioned together in verse five. Solomon. Solomon begat Boaz of Rae Cab. If you don’t know who that is, take the sea out and you’ll know. And Boaz begat. Oh, Beard of woman number three. Ruth dropped down to verse six. Jessie begat David the King and David the king begat Solomon.
00;14;40;10 – 00;15;06;04
Here’s a nameless woman of her that had been the wife of Uriah. You know who that is, don’t you? And then if you drop all the way down to the end of the list, our fifth woman, as mentioned, verse 16. Jacob beget Joseph, the husband of Mary five, is an interesting number, isn’t it? I don’t think it’s an accident that five women are included.
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These five women have interesting stories. I want to give you the brief version of it. Are you ready? The first one, back up in the early part of the list. Verse three. Her name is Tamar. Tamar. Genesis 38 tells her story. Her husband died, and because her husband died and she was childless. Tamar placed upon herself the garments of a prostitute.
00;15;34;23 – 00;16;08;00
She dressed up like a harlot. She went into the marketplace seeking companionship from her father in law. Can you imagine that? Before this message is over tonight, you’re going to have to remember this. God can still draw a straight line with a crooked stick. In the story of Jesus, family tree is not exactly spotless. Does that surprise us?
00;16;08;03 – 00;16;41;01
It’s not exactly perfect. Tamar dressed up like a harlot. She wore a veil over her face. She was romantic with her father in law. Judah. Judah took her and bore incestuous children with his daughter in law. His widowed daughter in law, Tamar. That’s how her name got in there. Wow. Not exactly a great story, is it? Next name, No.
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Better rehab. She’s called recap here. We know her as the Jericho Woman prostitute, harlot, Woman of the night. Rehab. How in the world does rehab fit into the story? It’s beautiful. It’s one of the greatest stories of redemption you’ve ever read. And all the Old Testament spies were sent to Jericho. These spies were housed and hidden by a prostitute named Rehab.
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When the authorities came looking for the spies, they asked rehab, which way did they go? And in some way or another, she expressed, They went this way when in fact they were hiding under the flats on her rooftop flats. Was one of the tools of the prostitutes trade. While the flax was drying on the roof, the spies lay down under the flags and were hiding under their.
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In rehab was told by the spies. Thank you for concealing us. Thank you for having us. They told her that they would reward her by sparing her household. Only if she did. What? Only if she dangled a scarlet thread outside the window of her apartment. Huh? So there she had it. They came through. They destroyed Jericho. It was.
00;18;13;11 – 00;18;40;25
It was a bloody, gory mess. But rehab was spared. And everybody in her house because she dangled that scarlet thread outside of her window. That’s not the end of the story. Rehab fell in love with a man who we see in verse number five named Solomon. If you’re choosing the name of a baby, that’s a good one. Selman.
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Selman, as it turns out, is one of the spies. He is, as it turns out, one of the men who rehab had hidden. He and rehab develop a romance. Their romance produces a child. His name Boaz. That sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Boaz fell in love with another woman in our list, verse five. Ruth, who also is not a Jew and a mo about us.
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Boaz and Ruth have a son and they name him. Are you ready? Oh, bed. Oh, bed. As it turns out, has a son. And he named him David. David becomes the king of Israel. And the story of the Royal line in Matthew begins from there. Strangely, it does not begin with Saul, the first king of Israel. It starts with David and that royal line continues.
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You can read it if you like. Again, verse six. Jesse begat David, the King. David the king begat. We know this man, Solomon. I’ve heard that he’d been the wife of Uriah. That’s our one, two, three, our fourth woman. And it’s not a good story either. Tamar, dressed up like a harlot, seduced her father in law and had children.
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Rehab was a harlot by trade. Fell in love with a Jew. Salomon. Ruth Amoah bad. It’s not a good story there. And then there is this unnamed person. But we know her name. Verse six her that had been the wife of you Rise. You know this story, don’t you? It’s Bathsheba. Notice here she’s called the wife of your rise.
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God did not recognize her marriage with David. There he was. Every time we find the name of Bathsheba or an insinuation or something that talks about Bathsheba, we always find her being classified as the wife of Uriah the Hittite. Same story in Matthew one. Then Esau goes on verse seven. Solomon begat Rabbo. Then we know him as Rehoboam and Rabbo, and beget abaya and abaya beget Isaiah and Isaiah beget Joshua Fat and Joshua beget Jerome and John begat Osias and Aziz beget Joe Pham and jotham beget acres and acres beget.
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Here’s an interesting fella Ezekiel, as you know him as Hezekiah. He turned the nation back to God. But then he had a fellow named Manasa. He’s listed here verse ten Manasa a wicked king. Manasa is the one who killed the prophet Isaiah. Great chapter, isn’t it? Great chapter. What’s interesting, number one about the story of Jesus genealogy is it has both genders.
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No other genealogy contains there. Why? Watch this with me and mark it down if you can’t remember it. One of the most important parts of the Christmas story are the women right? Now, some of y’all look like you could be knocked over with a feather. Women more important. Before he was born to him, women were important at his birth.
00;22;25;02 – 00;22;53;07
For obvious reasons. Women were important. Listen to this. During his earthly ministry, if it had not been for a handful of widows who partnered with Jesus in ministry and literally financed his ministry, the Ministry of Jesus, the earthly Ministry of Jesus would not have survived financially. It was Joanna. It was Mary and Martha who were widows. They had a brother named Lazarus, You recall.
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It was the other Mary. The Bible calls her, and it goes on and on, talking about women, the surrounded the Ministry of Jesus Christ. That’s nothing new. They were in his heritage. They were in his genealogy. There are five of them. And by the way, if you drop down to the last one way down at verse 16, the last one is Mary and even her story in the eyes of the world was questionable.
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How would you like that if every woman in your heritage was either incestuous or a harlot, a foreigner, or accused of fornication? That’s the genealogy of Jesus Christ. Why, Pastor, Why in the world would these things be included in this important real estate? Matthew, Chapter one Why are they there? I’ll tell you exactly why is because in the genealogy of Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, there is grace.
00;23;52;13 – 00;24;32;23
It is not racially pure. Don’t stagger it there. Don’t lose sight of that. The genealogy of Jesus Christ is not racially pure. There are both genders and there are, as I understand it, just from Matthew one, verses one through 16, three different races, two of them forbidden. What are those races? Well, there’s rehab. She’s a Canaanite. What is she doing here?
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Canaanites were by appearance, dark skin and rehab caught the eye of Solomon, her Jewish suitor. And when rehab caught his eye, I’m sure there were whispers. I’m sure there were people who were doubtful that this type of relationship should exist. But you can’t watch this with me. Church Don’t choke on this, all right? Don’t die on me. Tonight.
00;25;02;28 – 00;25;28;02
I’ll unload birth barrels. I’ll turn out all the lights and I’ll come sit in your lap. Stay with me here. All right. Don’t miss the point. Rehabs story is included. And not only is rehab story included, but you’ll notice that her story is blessed. If it had not been for rehab, there would have been no Boaz. If it had not been for Boaz, there’d be no obit.
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There’d be no Ruth. And if there had been no Ruth, there’d be no Jesse. There’d be no David. And I’m here to report to you. If you work your way down through the list, there’d be no Jesus. Thank God for rehab. And we need to take a timeout and punctuate that by saying thank God that he can take a crooked stick and draw a straight line with it.
00;25;49;20 – 00;26;35;09
He’s not looking for perfect people. He’s not looking for pure pedigrees. He’s not looking for someone who is who is utterly hung on their genealogy. His genealogy contains two genders. It contains three races, one of them Canaanite. What’s the other one? Abide. Even worse, Elimelech was out of God’s wheel when he went down the Moab, Elimelech Melon. Jillian and and Naomi were out of God’s will, foursquare out of God’s will when they went to Moab.
00;26;35;12 – 00;27;06;17
The mistake of going to Moab is incalculable. Males died, Kilian died, and so did Elimelech. She went to three funerals, but she had two weddings. Her sons, Mahlon and Caleb, on married a pair of girls named Ruth and Yaupon. And you might recall that in the in the Book of Ruth chapter one, when Naomi decides to go back to Bethlehem, Judah, she does everything in our power to talk Ruth and Auba into staying in Moab.
00;27;06;17 – 00;27;37;18
Why? Well, there was a problem with the Moa bites. The more bites you might not know, but there was an occasion when the children of Israel were in their pilgrim journey that they that 2 million head congregation of people came to the borders of Moab and requested passage through Moab. And the more bites refused. They refused with in today’s terminology we would say it like this We don’t want you drinking from our fountains.
00;27;37;18 – 00;28;11;04
We don’t want you using our restrooms. We don’t want you absorbing our resources. No, you cannot pass through this way. And God marked the land of Moab and he told the children of Israel, listen to this. He said, Do not marry Moab. It’s not for any racial reason, but because God had curse the land of Moab At that time it became known as Are you ready for this God’s wash pot, God’s wash pot.
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MOAB And when there was a famine in Bethlehem, Judah Elimelech took his two sons and his wife and they, the Bible say, went down to Moab. There Elimelech died, Mahlon died, Kalyan died, or Appa agreed to remain, but Ruth came back to Bethlehem. Judah And when she came back to Bethlehem Judah, she met Boaz and Boaz and Ruth had obeyed.
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Obey had had Jesse and Jesse had David, and so on and so forth. It’s a beautiful story, isn’t it? Don’t skip these genealogies. They’re rich. Last point two genders, three races. Verse 17 Are you ready for 42 generations? Look at verse 17. Don’t leave it out. All the generations from Abraham to David are what, 14 and from David until the carrying away into Babylon or what?
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14 That makes 28 correct. And from the carrying away and the Babylon and to Christ are an additional 14 if my math is right, that’s 42 generations, 42 generations that the genealogy remains intact, 42 generations that there is no departing to the right hand over to the left. 42 generations where people are included, that shouldn’t have been included.
00;29;34;03 – 00;30;12;24
I got one word to say before we close the sermon. And I you know what we learn from first and second Chronicles and Matthew, Chapter one in Luke three. God loves to write names in his book. Time out to show the Bible says that we don’t rejoice because the spirits are subject to us. But we rejoice one. We rejoice rather what That our names are written every relative of Jesus, of any consequence, every relative of Jesus, of any importance, is recorded in chapter one verses one through 16.
00;30;12;26 – 00;30;50;11
Every ten person of any significance is recorded there. And then after the Gospels, new kinfolk are brought into the family. And that’s you. And that’s me. And before we get on our racial high horse, let me remind you, you’re a Gentile. We have no right to be seclusion ist. We have no right to claim racial profile. We’re gentile.
00;30;50;14 – 00;31;27;04
We shouldn’t even be a part of this salvation. Jonah said the salvation is of the Jews. And if there’s anyone who got included by sheer grace, it’s we who are Gentile Gentiles. It was always a modifier. They stuck with that word. When the Jews wanted to insult a person of race, they called us Gentile dogs. Dogs, not bulldogs, just dogs.
00;31;27;06 – 00;31;59;04
Dogs were wild when we visited Israel actually this week. Last year I was seeing some of those packs of dogs with my own eyes. We were driving around the bus and our tour guide, Mike, was pointing people this way and noticed this notice that he was pulling people’s attention in various directions, some of which I found incredibly interesting, and some of it I wanted to just Brother Paul and I, we had this sense of adventure sometimes we kind of departed from the group.
00;31;59;06 – 00;32;29;21
It’s a little dangerous because that was the same week you recall that President Trump had named Israel as a Jerusalem as the new capital of Israel, and the protesters were marching up and down the streets, burning and and carrying on like savages. And so we had to be exceptionally careful. The time that we were there. But I remember one thing that stuck out in my mind because of the the distinctions of scripture is there are still in Israel packs of wild dogs.
00;32;29;24 – 00;33;00;12
They are untamable. They have not been coddled. They have not been fed, they have not been domesticated. They’re dogs and Jews classify is Jews classified Gentiles as wild dogs, as Gentile dogs. You might remember that on one occasion there was a woman who was pleading for crumbs. Pleading for crumbs. And the response to her was, I do not give food to dogs.
00;33;00;12 – 00;33;24;29
Insinuating that that woman of Sidecar was a Gentile and her testimony was what? Yeah, but even dogs can eat the crumbs that fall from the rich man’s table. What did we get if all we got was the crumbs of grace, then we’re still beneficiaries. If all we got was the the drippings of grace, if all we got were the.
00;33;25;02 – 00;34;05;11
You want to talk about a Christmas message? If all we got was the leftovers that Israel did not want. That’s Jesus. And he’s the Jew that they hated. Why did they hate him? One reason because he loved Gentiles. I know that because of rehab. And Ruth there in his genealogy. I don’t think that’s an accident, Do you? And then Mary, a very young girl.
00;34;05;13 – 00;34;35;25
Don’t let the nativity scenes mess your mind up. Very unlikely that there were only three wise men. And it’s equally unlikely that Mary and Joseph were as old as nativity scenes depict them to be. Mary was probably under 15, probably under the age of 15. There was a bizarre strange back in those days. We have ages of consent today that kind of when we think about something like that, it kind of turns our stomach a little bit, grosses us out.
00;34;35;27 – 00;35;06;01
But back in that day, as soon as a young lady crossed the threshold into puberty, she was of childbearing age and she was married off by her dad in an arranged marriage and given to some suitor. Well, Mary was from a little place up there called Nazareth, and the little place where she lived, Nazareth had a Roman garrison station there.
00;35;06;03 – 00;35;32;22
And these Roman soldiers were unsupervised. They were way off up in Nazareth and up there in Nazareth. It was so vile that the lifestyle up there was so wicked and so vile. These deployed soldiers away from their spouses, they were, if you’ll pardon my language tonight, they were impregnating every woman that they could find that was willing. That’s where Mary was from.
00;35;32;24 – 00;35;59;03
So when Mary turned up expecting and had no husband, it was immediately assumed. That’s why the virgin birth was such a high. A high profile secret. I can only count for maybe five people at the most that knew about the virgin birth. Very few. When they found out about Mary’s pregnancy, they immediately assumed that she had been impregnated by a Roman.
00;35;59;05 – 00;36;27;08
It’s not. It’s again, a very unsavory story. Here’s what I want to show you. When these women when these men when these Gentiles, when these Jews are in Clinton, included in the lineage of Jesus Christ, all of that checkered past is covered by the grace of God. And that is exactly the condition of grace that he wants to be taught from the Matthew genealogy.
00;36;27;11 – 00;36;58;13
It is a genealogy of grace. Will you say that with me? It’s a genealogy of what? Grace and my friend. It is amazing that we were once blind, but now we can see we were once lost. But we now have been found. I want you to borrow your heads with me for just a moment. And just quiet reflection and very quiet reflection.
00;36;58;16 – 00;37;24;27
I want to ask you a question. Your family, your history, your heritage, your genealogy. What is it like? You may be like me. You may be here today. And you say, You know what? I don’t have a whole lot to write home about. Nothing to be proud of in my heritage. Can I invite you to come into a new family tonight?
00;37;24;29 – 00;37;51;07
If your family is sinful, beleaguered and downtrodden by the shackles of Satan and your family has nothing to be proud of. Join the club. None of us. None of us can go to heaven because of our birth family. But I’m here to report to you tonight. There’s a family that you can become a part of. And I can assure you, heaven will be your hometown.
00;37;51;09 – 00;38;21;25
Isn’t that a beautiful thought at Christmas? Change families. Join the family of God. Accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior. Would you stand with us for just a moment of imitation? Father, work in this imitation movement hearts specifically during this season of the year when generosity is so needful, when when the message of the Gospel has been so tainted and so polluted and so filled with the distractions, upbraided this evening that somehow you’ll cut through all of those distractions.
00;38;21;25 – 00;38;46;03
And for that sinner, that man, that woman, that child that doesn’t know Jesus as Savior, I pray that you would open the doors of the family and receive them tonight. Help them to repent of sin, trust Jesus as their Savior and become a child of God, be born again into this new family. We pray it in Jesus name, and for our sake we ask it.
00;38;46;06 – 00;39;05;11
Would you just join with us around the altar if you need to come? Sister Belly’s going to play a song. Have you been touched by the message of grace? Maybe you just want to come and spend a time just to be thankful for that. Maybe you’ve never been. Say, maybe you’re. You’ve never known Jesus. And you want to come this evening and trust him as your Savior.
00;39;05;11 – 00;39;24;15
We would so welcome that. We’d be so glad to open the doors of grace and allow you to be a participant in the family of God, a bona fide born again member of the family of God. Do you need to join with us tonight around the altar? If you do, make your way down right now, briefly while we wait.
00;39;24;18 – 00;39;28;16
If you need to visit the altar, we want to open that opportunity to you right now.
1118 N Parsons Ave, Brandon, FL 33510 | (813)-654-0836 | info@brandonbaptisttabernacle.com
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