The King Fulfilled Prophecy
Book of Matthew Chapter 12
We should understand that there will always be some who reject the message of Christ Jesus because they reject the person of Christ Jesus!
There will be opposition to Christianity because it does not fit into the themes of this world.
The religious world in the day of Jesus were in a position in which they might have known much about the Messiah.
It is Christ Jesus who made this world we live in!
Col 1:16 For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, "and for him":
It is the Lord Jesus Christ who has preserved this world.
What is the greatest of all sin? The greatest of all sin is to be ignorant of the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is a sin where there is no excuse.
We have our creation written down and described to us.
We have a God who continuously preserves our world up to this point.
We have a Savior who has revealed Himself according to His written Word.
As we begin this chapter in the Book of Matthew where we will witness the religious crowd of Israel begin to show their hatred for their own Scriptures and the truth of them.
Everything Jesus has done so far has proved that He was the promised Messiah, but hatred enters where belief should have been.
The blind saw.
Lepers were cleansed.
Demons were driven out.
People were raised from the dead.
There could be only one explanation for this, for only God could have done these things.
The Old Testament prophecies were being fulfilled before their eyes.
There could be only one explanation for this, the Messiah had come just as the Word of God had said.
These people just refused to believe what their eyes saw!
They remained cold and indifferent to the truth that was before them.
They had no heart for the truth of the Scriptures they so acknowledged came from Jehovah God.
We will witness as Jesus begins to break His relationship with these Jews and begin His turn to all the world which was also prophesied.
*****Mat 12:1 At that time Jesus went on the sabbath day through the corn; and his disciples were an hungred, and began to pluck the ears of corn, and to eat.
Mat 12:2 But when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto him, Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the sabbath day.
The meaning of Sabbath is to rest from labor.
The Sabbath is the seventh day and is something essentially Jewish.
The keeping of it, is one of the laws given to the Jews by Jehovah.
Exo 20:8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Exo 20:10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
Exo 20:11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
The Sabbath was not a day that was given to the Church, even though the Lord does still teach us we need to rest at least one day of the week.
The Church observes the Lord's Day. The Lord came out of that tomb on Sunday, known as the Lord's Day.
Rev 1:10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet,
The Church was given no specific day to worship, because we are to worship the Lord every day!
There is no law written to the Church about when to worship the Lord!
It was not the 613 commandments given to the Jews that got the Lord in trouble with His opposition, especially the Pharisees.
It was the "oral laws", "man's laws" that had been added, claiming to be the Word of God!
As our Creator and the same One who gave us the Word of God, then we should accept that Jesus knew all the Word of God better than anyone.
To be clear then, if the Jesus is the Lord of my life, then He is Lord of the Sabbath and Lord of everyday that I exist!
We already know that in the lifetime of our Savior, He did not sin, so it is evident He obeyed all those 613 laws written in the Word of God.
Jesus was not obligated to keep any law that violated His own words, even though He also kept the laws of the government that was in place.
He certainly was not obligated to keep the legalistic oral law of the Pharisee! Or the Sadducee or the Scribes, or any other human being.
We must understand the Word of God in the "context" in which it was written!
These disciples had broken no law as they passed through this corn field and taken enough to satisfy their hunger.
Deu 23:25 When thou comest into the standing corn of thy neighbour, then thou mayest pluck the ears with thine hand; but thou shalt not move a sickle unto thy neighbour's standing corn.
They were not harvesting they were only satisfying their hunger!
These Pharisee saw it as their job to enforce these "oral laws" which were no more than traditions that had become outrageous and considered to be of greater influence that the Word of God itself.
Exo 35:2 Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you an holy day, a sabbath of rest to the LORD: whosoever doeth work therein shall be put to death.
No one was expected to go without a meal on the Sabbath!
If you are following the Lord Jesus, you will move when He moved, whether you had eaten or not.
How did the Lord Jesus respond?
*****Mat 12:3 But he said unto them, "Have ye not read" what David did, when he was an hungred, and they that were with him;
Mat 12:4 How he entered into the house of God, and did eat the shewbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests?
Do you know the biggest problem with all those who claim to be God's people? They refuse to read the Word of God themselves!
We need to read what God says!
We need to study what God says!
We need to understand what God says!
2Ti 2:15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
Jesus asked these hypocrites, "have ye not read".
David was forced to go on the run by Saul, even though David was God's anointed King of Israel.
Be careful or you will miss the typology here.
David was hungry and those with him were hungry just as those who were with the Lord Jesus on that day.
If David, the King anointed by God had been rejected while he was a fugitive, the holy things connected with these ceremonial things given to Israel by Jehovah, would have ceased to be holy!
When King Jesus is rejected, then all the things of the Church are then common and no longer holy.
1Sa 21:5 And David answered the priest, and said unto him, Of a truth women have been kept from us about these three days, since I came out, and the vessels of the young men are holy, "and the bread is in a manner common, yea, though it were sanctified this day in the vessel".
There is nothing holy with a so-called Church where the Lord Jesus Christ is rejected!
There is no part of that so-called church that is holy.
They may say, "we do not reject Jesus", yet when they reject the teachings of the Word of God, they have rejected our Savior and everything He stands for and stands against!
These Pharisee had rejected the Lord Jesus Christ and what He stood for!
It is ridiculous to speak of Sabbath keeping, when the Lord of the Sabbath is rejected!
It is ridiculous to speak of a personal relationship with the Lord when you reject the truth of the Word of God or you try to twist the Word of God in an attempt to change its meaning!
How did Jesus feel about these super religious men?
Mat 23:23 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.
Mat 23:24 Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.
That "shewbread" symbolized the presence of God who is the "Bread of Life". Twelve loaves of bread were brought to the House of God as a symbolized offering to God.
It was a thanksgiving offering!
Those loaves symbolized an everlasting covenant between God and His people: that God would see to it that His people had whatever food was necessary to sustain His people.
They were changed every week the old loaves given to the priests.
King David had a legitimate need.
The Lord Jesus Christ promises to meet our needs!
Hypocrites will always insist on their own observations without having understood the truth of the Bible!
Again Jesus asks "have ye not read".
*****Mat 12:5 Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless?
We should understand the Lord Jesus here.
We have the perfectly written Word of God, but we must accept these words in the context they were written!
According to their interpret ion of the Sabbath by these hypocritical Pharisees, even the priests at the Temple should be stoned to death for doing what the priests were given to do according to the same Word of God.
We must never go against the Word of God!
Doing good according to the Word of God, is never a sin under any circumstances!
The worship of the Lord is a necessary thing!
It does not matter what the government says!
It was necessary for the Jews to worship according to the laws given to them which included animal sacrifices.
Remember their sin was only forgiven for one year, if they did what God had said to do in those three feasts that were required by God.
Today we know the Lord Jesus Christ put an end to animal sacrifice by sacrificing Himself which upon your "faith" forgiveness is eternal.
Heb 9:12 Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us
Then Jesus told them it was not the Temple that was important, it is the One who paid our sin debt that is the most important!
Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath because He is the Lord of life!
*****Mat 12:6 But I say unto you, That in this place is one greater than the temple.
Mat 12:7 But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless.
Mat 12:8 For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day.
As long as the Church exists there will be some who think their learning has surpassed the Word of God, and the things said by the Lord Jesus Christ, and they will become adversaries unto Christ Jesus and His disciples!
For the super religious in Jerusalem and all of Israel, the Temple was the most important place in all the world.
Many today feel like Rome is the most important place in all Christianity!
What did Jesus teach? Jesus said, "It is not in a building"!
The Lord Jesus Christ is what Christianity is all about!
You cannot remove the Lord Jesus and still have Christianity!
You cannot remove the importance of the disciples of Jesus Christ and still say you are a Church!
Buildings are just places for the people of God to gather to worship the One True God and fellowship with other disciples of Jesus Christ!
If the priests including the High priest, did not have to obey the laws of the Sabbath, then why would the Lord of the Sabbath have to observe some man-made law?
The Sabbath was set aside for the descendants of Israel, the ones to whom many promises were made to spend time with Jehovah.
Laws and ceremonies have no place in the House of God.
It is the Word of God that must reign supreme, and it is the Word of God that teaches us about the Messiah, who physically stood before those hypocrites that day we read about in chapter 12.
Jesus Christ, the Messiah is the true High Priest.
Jesus Christ, the Messiah is the true and only sacrifice that is acceptable to God the Father!
Jesus Christ, the Messiah is the Lord of everyday to the true believer.
There is no day greater than any other day to worship the Almighty Living God!
What we should notice is, the mercy of the Messiah to tolerate our foolishness!
Any place of worship only possesses the symbolic presence of God, now He may show up in power and strength, but only because He resides in the believer.
1Co 6:19 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
The Lord Jesus Christ possesses all the fullness of the Godhead bodily!
Col 2:8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
Col 2:9 "For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily".
Col 2:10 And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:
Col 2:11 In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ:
Col 2:12 Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.
If we cannot understand what these things mean, then how can we say we have come to worship.
They Lord Jesus Christ must be the Lord of our lives every day and every moment of every day!
*****Mat 12:9 And when he was departed thence, he went into their synagogue:
Mat 12:10 And, behold, there was a man which had his hand withered. And they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath days? that they might accuse him.
This man with the withered hand was not allowed to go into the Temple to worship or even to visit.
Nor was any other person who had some infirmity.
The Temple was no more than a worldly showcase for the world to go to visit.
Jesus Himself said it had become no more than a den of thieves and He was not talking just about the moneychangers and those who bought and sold.
Jesus was talking about those ran the Temple.
It was the synagogue where these who had infirmities could worship and the super religious hypocrites did not like this either.
We should understand that no one would hire a man with a crippled hand and this man would end up being nothing but a beggar.
This man did not know Jesus would stop by on this day, he had simply come to worship Jehovah and to hear someone read the Word of God.
Copies of the Bible were too expensive for regular people to get one and those who could afford them did not ever read them.
Jesus loved to preach in the synagogues, because there would be other like this man with this withered hand and Jesus would show compassion to them.
What a question to ask, is it lawful according to the Word of God to heal on the Jewish Sabbath days?
Jesus was hated so much by this religious crowd they would use anything against Him!
The Lord Jesus never showed fear to these adversaries!
Yes, the religious crowd were the greatest adversaries of the Lord!
When we go to the house of the Lord, we are to go to worship!
Everyone went to worship except these who claimed to obey all the Word of God!
They went to find fault in the people of God!
We should clearly understand this evil, wicked, religious crowd knew that Jesus had the power to heal. They acknowledged that they knew it.
These same men would drop what they were doing and go home to save one of their animals, even on a Sabbath.
Yet here stood a man who had damaged his hand in some fashion and was no longer able to provide for himself nor for his family in the House God to worship Jehovah showing his great faith.
This had gotten the attention of our Savior!
How could anyone believe that God had to keep Himself from doing good on any day, much less a day He had set aside for rest and worship.
Jesus showed no fear, and He answered this foolish question with action.
*****Mat 12:11 And he said unto them, What man shall there be among you, that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out?
Mat 12:12 How much then is a man better than a sheep? Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the sabbath days.
Mat 12:13 Then saith he to the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it forth; and it was restored whole, like as the other.
Jesus spoke to this crowd and said, by your own actions, you prove that it is lawful to do good on a Sabbath!
It is "faith" that is the answer to the Word of God!
We must understand that so-called religion is nothing without believers.
Jesus explained to this religious crowd that they would break their own rules to save a sheep that had fallen into a pit, no matter what day it was.
Is not a man better than a sheep? If you have the love of God in you, that answer is simple.
We should listen as Jesus preaches to these men. He took one point, to build upon it.
Jesus then said, if you are so willing to help an animal in jeopardy of their life, then the answer to your question is "it is lawful to do well on a Sabbath"!
For which, the animal or is it mankind that God shows the greatest love?
How much do we oppose God by twisting and turning His Holy Word to say what it does not say?
This thing takes place in many a Church today!
It is irresponsible to treat the Word of God in this fashion!
There are animal owners today who put the life of humans at risk, just to keep their animals safe.
There are people all over the world starving to death, some because of religious beliefs about animals.
Rituals and rules that jeopardize the lives of people, have no place in the House of God!
Jesus knew what was in the hearts of these men, and they had no compassion on this man with the withered hand, but their goal all along was to destroy Jesus.
The world today would rather destroy the only means of salvation and keep the world lost in its foolishness!
It does not take good eyes to see that this world is dying!
There are no true atheists!
Even an atheist worships himself or herself and they will fight you over their belief!
An atheist says, “I am my own god above all others”!
They do not want to hear anything that goes against their beliefs.
These Pharisee had become blind to the truth by using man-made rules to push the truth of God away.
In fact, in typology it was Israel at this time that is represented by this withered hand.
Israel was withered spiritually in this day of Jesus and refused to change.
The Lord Jesus had come to restore Israel to Jehovah and because of religion, they chose to remain cripples and are crippled even today!
Here stood the Living God with the power to heal, the power to cast out devils, the power to feed great multitudes, the power to restore sight to the blind and the power to heal lepers and these puny human beings thought they could destroy this man named Jesus, which would be impossible!
*****Mat 12:14 Then the Pharisees went out, and held a council against him, how they might destroy him.
Mat 12:15 But when Jesus knew it, he withdrew himself from thence: and great multitudes followed him, and he healed them all;
Mat 12:16 And charged them that they should not make him known:
Mat 12:17 That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying,
Mat 12:18 Behold my servant, whom I have chosen; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall shew judgment to the Gentiles.
The Lord Jesus Christ did not withdraw Himself because of fright!
The Lord Jesus the Messiah withdrew Himself to make sure everything happened just as written down in the Word of God and to fulfill all prophesies.
He did not come to "Judge" at this time, but He will return to Judge all those who reject Him.
We should never allow anger to rule our decisions at any time!
Jesus came to show His Mercy and His truth the first time He came!
Psa 85:10 Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
Psa 85:11 Truth shall spring out of the earth; and righteousness shall look down from heaven.
He will "Judge" according to the same Word of God we have today when He returns!
He asked those who He had healed to not make Him known.
Jesus wished to avoid confrontation with this super religious crowd until it was time to do so!
Jesus did not want the public to push Him forward as their King at this time.
These things will come later.
Jesus had not fulfilled the ministry He came to teach.
The plan of salvation by the Gospel was much more important than these other things!
We must humble ourselves before the Lord, and Jesus is our example of a humble servant during this first time He came!
One lesson Jesus was teaching which is still in place today is, "when they persecute you in one place then move to another place".
Eventually enough believers will be gathered together to take a stand on the Word of God.
This is what frightens the world governments today.
Guess what, it is going to happen when King Jesus returns in "judgment"!
Php 2:5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
Php 2:6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
Php 2:7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
Php 2:8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Jesus came to do the will of the Heavenly Father, and it included His physical death, but God is Spirit, and He cannot die!
Joh 3:34 For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him.
Joh 10:17 Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.
Joh 10:18 No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.
As Christians, we do not have to be concerned what God is going to do, He spells it out for us!
What we have to concern ourselves with is, are we going to be obedient Christians?
Both these things are explained precisely in the same Word of God!
Our Heavenly Father by the will of His Son, places the same Holy Spirit into everyone that He chooses, so we can have no fear of death!
It is the Holy Spirit who makes the changes necessary to become a Christian, being like Jesus Christ!
2Co 3:18 "But we all", with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, "are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord".
Amen
