All right, any praise report? Found the key, praise the Lord. I agree. Something was lost. Something was found and we get to rejoice, amen. That's right, that's right. Something of value and needful was lost and found. So let us praise. Yes. It's hard to believe we're already in October, right? Man, already here. But we have jumped into the gospel of Matthew, the gospel of Matthew. But y'all know we can be anywhere if God is really giving you something that you've been done latched on to and grabbed a hold of that you just got to talk about. You gotta share it. We wanna hear it. That's how we get to keep a thing when we get to talk about it and pass it on to each other, amen? I don't know how many times I've read Matthew. And you start reading, you go, yeah, I know that. Yeah, I remember that. So, but this time I really wanted to kind of slow it down. Yeah, yeah, uh-huh. You got the generation. Right, this genealogy that we have here. I had just now dawned on me, I don't know why. Uh-huh. That Rahab. Yeah. Was the mother of Boaz. Come on. and Ruth were together. That's just one generation behind each other. I just didn't realize that that was how that was. One thing that this does, now you want to keep this in mind. There's a reason, obviously, there's nothing lost in how God would inspire this message, including this genealogy. There are people missing in the genealogy. What he does is keep it in here with 14 generations from Abraham to David, from David to the Babylonian captivity, and then from the Babylonian captivity to Jesus. 14, 14, 14, 42 generations. And I'll just point out in here that it's not all there, meaning there were other people in between. Just take for an example, if you look in verse number seven, just look in verse number seven. Solomon begot Rehoboam, Rehoboam begot Abijah, and Abijah begot Asa, Asa begot Jehoshaphat. Now all those are in sequence. Jehoshaphat begot Joram and Joram begot Uzziah. Now what's missing between Joram and Uzziah is four generations. That's not listed in this. But no matter how you look at it, we're dealing with a direct line. And that's how the scriptures would often do that. For an example, Zerah is mentioned in verse number three. Well, Zerah is mentioned over in the book of Joshua as being the father of Achan. Well, he was actually not his father, but a great, great, great grandfather. but he's still direct line in connection to, and that happens in this lineage. So that's important for us to acknowledge and recognize because the objective of this lineage is to take Jesus back to David and Abraham. Okay, that's the point because what Matthew's objective is to proclaim that Jesus is the legal heir to the throne and that he lines up in that legal line even though his stepfather in this line is not his daddy. but still from a legal standpoint, you can refer to this as the lineage of adoption. because that's what we see several adoptions in this lineage. Matter of fact, as I was going through it this week and I jot it down and this is just a short list of how we can utilize this lineage. It's a lineage of the covenants, and I'll point that out in a moment. Not all of them are brought to light, but enough of them are brought to light. It's a genealogy of scandal. Because there's some scandal in here. You got David and Bathsheba. He doesn't even list her name in here, does it? Does the wife of? Now Uriah's brought to light, but Uriah's not in the line. Okay, but why is he brought to light? Because there was a scandal there. Not only was that a scandal, but where's another scandal in here? Judah and Tamar was a scandal. Remember, Tamar was his daughter-in-law. And she was promised a future son because her husband died. And then another boy died. And he said, I'm going to give you another son. But that was years down the road. And what did she do? She disguised herself, played the harlot. And then Judah had intimacy with her. She gets pregnant, has twins. Man, that's a scandal. That's a scandal. And I'd imagine all the way through, you can find a few more in there as well. Let's think about when you talk about scandalous, you're talking about a Moabite, right? Ruth's in here. And Ruth married who? Boaz. He took her under his wing as a kinsman redeemer, but she was a Moabite. And by law, you couldn't have a Moabite in the lineage for 10 generations. So it's a genealogy of scandal. It's a genealogy of promise. Why? And that goes back to the covenant. God made a promise to Abraham. God made a promise to David. God reaffirmed those promises. God made a promise to Jacob and to Isaac. And then their children, I mean, it's just, these are genealogies that if we begin to break it down, it's a genealogy of adultery. We got adultery involved in the scandal. It's a genealogy of sin. Every one of them is littered with sin, right? It's a genealogy of providence. And that's what you really wanna keep in mind is that God providentially preserved the seed from Abraham all the way to Abraham's son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember, he's the seed that Genesis talked about. Also, God promised David he would have a son that would be on the throne. And that son is talking about Jesus that we're referring to. So it's also a genealogy of grace, isn't it? It's the genealogy of grace because God just in His graciousness the entire time of His providence was bringing about a Redeemer to the world and He preserved that. I jotted down a little note in this new Bible of mine. This is the providential priority of God to see that His promised seed would come in the fullness of time. For the fullness of our trust. and for the fullness of his treasure, and for the fullness of his triumph throughout this time and all eternity, amen. This is so much more than just names in a book. So much more than just a lineage to get us under Jesus. I mean, there's a lot there. Now, one of the things you wanna keep in mind in those four generations, and I'll give them to you who's actually missing in that, Jehoram, had a wife and his wife's name was Athaliah. Does that sound familiar to y'all? Y'all know of Athaliah? Y'all know who Athaliah, who she was? She was Ahab and Jezebel's daughter. And man, you know what you're gonna get out of that, right? We talking about scandal here. When her son When he died, what did she do? Anybody know what she did? She killed all the grandkids. She killed all the kids so that she could take over the throne. That's exactly right. That's what she did. Trying to do everything she could to seize power. Power hungry. So Athaliah reigned as queen but she's not mentioned. Ahaziah, Joash, Amaziah were all involved in those generations between Jehoram and Uzziah. But you see the scriptures left those out And kept it in the direct, and kept 14, 14, and 14. Now there's a reason why that is, and we could probably break it down in here tonight. One thing that they wanted people to always remember, everything they did, they wanted you to be able to remember things. And not everybody had a copy of this. So they want to be able to remember. And the key to it is that every Hebrew word had a numerical number that went along with it. For an example, a letter, when I say word, a letter had a numerical number with it. Well, you could take David's name, for an example, and take the numerical numbers of David's name and put them together, and what you get is four, six, four. what that winds up being is what? Four plus six plus four equals what? Fourteen. Fourteen, fourteen, fourteen. The whole point is is saying that this line is the line of David. He would be the heir. The other thing you want to keep in mind is that there was a young man who was the king in Jeremiah's day, and his name, they give him several names in the Older Testament. One was Jeconiah, one was Jehoiachin, and one was Coniah, but he's talking about the same person. Well, God placed a curse upon him and said that none of his descendants shall sit upon the throne of Israel. You might as well write him down as being childless because none of his descendants will ever sit upon the throne of Israel. And is he mentioned in here? Let's see. Yeah, he is. Look in verse number 12. And after they were brought to Babylon, Jeconiah begot who? Shelah-tel. And Shelah-tel begot who? Zerubbabel. Okay. Now, Jeremiah 22 tells us that Jeconiah, though he had children, None of his kids will ever be on the throne. Now one thing you want to keep in mind is that, remember, this takes us to whose lineage? Joseph. And Joseph didn't have a boy by the name of Jesus, did he? He's not of his blood, is he? He's different. But at the same time, if you went over the Luke's lineage, There is Shelah tell again and Zerubbabel is listed again, but there's somebody else in that. So that tells me if that being the case in Mary's line, we've got Shelah tell and Zerubbabel somewhere down the line. When you take 1 Chronicles chapter three, 1 Chronicles chapter three tells us that Zerubbabel actually had another daddy. So you then begin to ask the question, well, how does all this play out then? Because I mean, I trust the integrity of the word, don't you? You know what that has to mean then is that it has to then come to the conclusion no different than Joseph who was quote unquote adopted Jesus that these men like these other fellas when you're dealing with Shelah Tell and Zerubbabel they fall into adoption as well. Because the Bible ascribes them with other parents. That something happened to their dad and then another brother or a relative took them under their wing and adopted them and you see where Jeconiah was one of those with that Shelah Tell and Zerubbabel. That's why I say it's a lineage of adoption. You see, Jesus was adopted. I believe these other two characters in there will also fall in that adoption, come under the wing of another person. So if you went back to 1 Chronicles 3, and you went over to Jeremiah 22, and you start putting all these things together, you come to the conclusion with the Luke chapter three, that there had to be something take place in there that something else worked out for it to be the way that it is. Because not one descendant of Jeconiah would ever sit upon the throne of Israel by way of a curse. So there was another way God worked it out. And because of God's grace, he's able to do it, amen? And that's what we see that, hey, curses fall, but grace comes. and God is a God of redemption. So I see this as a genealogy of adoption, that in it, we see it, we see it. For an example, just read that about Jesus, verse 16. And Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called the Christ. You know, you go over to Mark's gospel, Mark, if I'm not mistaken, I could be wrong on this, but from my past studies, I'm just kind of drawing this out of doing this and walking through these scriptures. Mark never refers to, or he only refers to his Jesus as being the son of Mary. son of Mary. He don't talk about the virgin birth like Matthew and Luke will bring the light about being conceived of the Holy Spirit, but he never brings Joseph into the picture. It's always the son of Mary, so not directly, but indirectly, he's doing exactly what they're doing, validating to us that Jesus was supernaturally born, and Jesus didn't have an earthly father, amen? So when you take all that in account, I just think it's extremely interesting. Notice how verse one starts, the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, notice what it does, the son of who? And the son of? See, these are covenant keeping men, that God established one, the Abrahamic covenant. When you walk through these lineages, both in Matthew and Luke, you have to remember that God is a God of covenant, that he makes a covenant with Abraham. And what did he tell Abraham? That I was gonna what? I'm gonna bless you. And I'm gonna make you a father of? many nations, and God always, what, fulfills His end of the covenant. And that's what we see in this line, the Abrahamic covenant. But we also see the Mosaic covenant, because it was doing the Mosaic covenant when you're gonna have verse number four, like, Ram begot Abednadab, and Abednagab begot Nashon, and Nashon begot Salmon, and Salmon begot Boaz, and by Rahab and Boaz begot Obed and Ruth, you're dealing with a Mosaic covenant during the timeframe when God what? Introduced the law to Israel. But why did the law come? Why was there a Mosaic covenant? To validate that men were what? Sinful and they needed a Savior. It was to bring us to Christ. And then you get into verse number six, the Davidic covenant, the covenant with David. What did he tell David? David said, Lord, I want to build you a house. And the Lord said, I tell you what, David, I'm going to let your son build me a house, but this is what I'm going to do for you. I'm going to build a house out of you. and I'm gonna give you a son and he's gonna sit upon the throne forever. And God established a Davidic royal reign of his promise of having one upon the throne who will reign and rule forever. And we see that in this lineage, God was fulfilling his promises to David. He was fulfilling his promises to Abraham. And that's why it started off that way, that he is the son of David, and the son of Abraham as he told Abraham you got a seed coming and that seed is gonna bless the nations and we know who that seed is, right? It was, was it Isaac? No, though Isaac was a son of promise, but the seed looked beyond Isaac and saw who? Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Man, these things are just, there's so much more than just, like I said, names on a page and so much more than just this historical record. Man, this is God's providence at work. This is God fulfilling his promises that he made and that he would fulfill and do. And also we see in this the Palestinian covenant or the land covenant. Remember God told them in both Deuteronomy 28 and Leviticus 26, if you will obey me and follow me, I will always bless you. But if you choose to go your way, curses would come upon you. And God made a covenant with the land and because they disobeyed his covenant, what did God do? He stripped it from them and sent them into what? Captivity in Babylon. And after 70 years of captivity in Babylon, what did he do? He let the land rest. for those 70 years, why? Because they did not fulfill his promises of doing the Sabbath rest upon the land. So for 490 years, they missed their Sabbath, which equaled 70 years worth of Sabbath. So God took them out and put them over in Babylon for those 70 years because God's faithful to his word. He's faithful and he made a covenant. with the land that He would preserve and protect and keep. And that covenant still exists today, because God's bringing His people back. He's made that promise. We see that even when we see Jesus. Remember when Jesus went into Egypt, when Herod was going to try to kill Him? and then God restored him and brought him back? Well, that's just a prophetic foreshadowing that his people were gonna be spread out again, but one day, what is he gonna do? He's gonna call them back home. He's gonna bring them back. So we see the land covenant, the Palestinian covenant, all in his lineage right here. It's all there of God doing what God has always said he could do. You see, he's trustworthy, isn't he? Man, you can count on him in every facet and every way. He is a treasure beyond treasures. And we can be dependent upon him. And so when you look at those first 17 verses, those things are just reminding us that God has been true to Abraham. He's been true to David. he's been true to his people, he's been true to the land and that he still has a new covenant that he's going to introduce to his people and that covenant is going to be in the blood of his son and his son a pure untainted God man would sacrifice his life on our behalf. So boy, this is some rich and good stuff. Amen? Man, it blesses me. It blesses me. Every time I go through it and read it. I love that phrase in chapter one in verse number 21, where He says, and he will bring forth a son and you shall call his name Jesus. What is Jesus? What's the name mean? Yahweh saves. Yahweh saves. Salvation is of Yahweh. So every time you say the name of Jesus, you are encapsulating the gospel, aren't you? Yahweh saves. Jehovah saves. The Lord God Almighty is salvation. Jesus shall be his name. And he shall save who? His people. from their sins. Well, if you drop down the verse number six of chapter number two, notice what he says, they're not just his people, Jesus' people, God says, they're my people. Notice what he says in verse number six, but you Bethlehem and the land of Judah are not the least among the rulers of Judah for out of you shall come a ruler, governor who shall shepherd, what? My people is real. So my people is His people. His people are my people and His people are His sheep. Amen? They are His sheep. They are the believer is who He saved. That's His people. That's His people. God says, that's my people. My people is real. And I jotted that little note down, his people or my people and your people, if you are his and you are mine, amen. That's what you got to get down to. God's people are my people because Jesus' people are my people. And because I'm his people and they're his people, we are his and we belong to him. We are his sheep. We have a shepherd. Just notice a couple words in there, how he describes him. Let's see, he's done used the word Jesus, how many times in chapter one? Did y'all see that? He used it in verse one, chapter one, Jesus Christ. He used it in verse 16, shall be born Jesus, just as a historic, this record we have. And then verse 18, Now the birth of Jesus, which he's now gonna explain to us how it all came to pass, Jesus Christ, he's gonna be conceived of the Holy Spirit, and you're gonna name him Jesus. That's how he knew what to name him. He told Mary that too, if you was to look in Luke's gospel, when the angel came and spoke to her, he told her, you're gonna name him Jesus. And then we see in verse 25, where it says in, did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn son and he called his name, what? Jesus. But then let's look at how he's described in chapter two, when we see after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, behold, who came? Wise men, magi, you can write down a reference. Let me give you two of them. Numbers 24 and verse 17 and Isaiah 60 and verses 1 through 6. Isaiah 60 verse 1 through 6 in dealing with these wise men, these magi, Isaiah would use the term king. That's how we get the three kings. And even though we don't know there was three of them, we have no idea exactly how many they were. Why do they come up with three? Because of the gifts. As if just they brought each a gift, but that's no really indication how many of them, we just don't know. But notice what verse two says. Where is he who is to be born? What? King. So Jesus is born to be what? King. All right. Notice what verse four says. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and the scribes of the people, he inquired of them, where the who? Christ, the anointed one, Messiah was to be born. So we see his name's Jesus. Born to be a king and he's the anointed one, the Messiah. Let's go a little bit further, verse six again. But you, Bethlehem in the land of Judah, are not the least among the rulers of Judah, for out of you shall come a what? A governor or a ruler. So he's Jesus, God's salvation. He's a king, He's the anointed one, and He's the one to govern and rule. Amen? And then what's the other word that He uses here in that same verse? Who shall what? What shall He be? He shall rule my people but He shall what? Shepherd my people. Isn't that how it reads? For out of you shall come a ruler who will what? Shepherd or how does the translations read? rule my people, the idea is shepherd, like a ruler would, a ruler would guide is the idea. So just notice those few passages there of how it describes him right up in the front of this while he's still what? A babe, while he's still a young child, while he's still a kid, he's what? God's salvation, a king, the Messiah, That's saying that He's anointed with a purpose. God's purpose is upon Him. He's a ruler and a shepherd. Man, that's a tremendous thought of what this world and what every soul needs. They need a Savior, amen. I mean, there's a lot that we could use. better of a lot of things, but what this world needs, what humanity needs, they need a savior. Humanity needs a king. Humanity needs the anointed Messiah. Humanity needs a governor, a ruler. They need a shepherd that'll guide them through life. Amen. And when we bring Jesus, that's who we bring into them. We bring in the king who wants to shepherd their life, who wants to govern the affairs of their life, who wants to, we bow the knee to as king, as ruler and ultimate authority over our life. So as I was walking through, these are just some of the things I was pondering and thinking about. Verse number 24, chapter one, before we go tonight. Notice this phrase. Then Joseph, being aroused from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord, what? Bid him or commanded him. You know who I thought about? I thought about Noah. And the reason I thought about Noah, because when you read in Genesis six and seven, the scripture says again and again, and Noah did, as the Lord commanded. Noah did as the Lord commanded. Noah did as the Lord commanded. And as a result, God preserved a people for his name. He did as he was commanded. Joseph did the same thing. With so many unknowns, And one other little note that you see from the beginning of this book, and you wanna take this every time, this is a pattern of how God works. Look in verse 22 of chapter one. So everything we read in that genealogy, and everything that we've read about the birth of Jesus, and how it's gonna come to pass, and then everything you're gonna read from there on out, you can say this is the pattern of it. So all this was done that it might be what? Fulfilled, which was spoken by who? Spoken by the Lord through his servant. That's just how God works. So whatever's spoken, whatever's done, whatever's fulfilled by the Lord will be accomplished through his servants. By the Lord, through his servants. By the Lord, through his servants. By the Lord, through his servants. And we see it. That lays the groundwork for all of it. You see it again in chapter number two in verse 15. And was there until the death of Herod that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by who? The Lord through who? The prophet saying, out of Egypt I called my son. So you see, every detail, the timing of it, we talked about timing the night with Mr. Billy finding his key. All of it was what? Perfect timing. Timing, timing. What? By the Lord, through his servant. By the Lord, through his servant. So if something's gonna be spoken, God speaks it. If something's gonna be done, God's done it. And if something's gonna be fulfilled, He's gotta do it, but He's gonna what? Speak it, do it, and fulfill it through His people. Isn't that a treat? It's just a pattern. By the Lord, through His people. That's how we wanna live our life. Hey, we do what we do by the Lord. We're just the vessel that He's done it through. but it was him. Now he doesn't use that same phrase every time. For an example, like in chapter 2, 17, then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah, the prophet. But we know it was what? By the Lord, through Jeremiah, through his servant, but it came by the Lord. And man, that's just to say, look, this is a pattern of God's grace, isn't it? By him, through his people, by him through his people. So who do we give the glory to? To the Lord. Amen. By him through his people. So man, do we have a covenant keeping God? Is he faithful to his word? Is he a treasure to behold? Yes. Is he trustworthy? Yes, he is. There's like six major covenants that we see God establishing and reaffirming through the Older and New Testament. And we see the new covenant that he makes with us in Christ Jesus through his blood. But we see this, and even in Matthew's gospel, excuse me, in Luke's gospel it takes us even back to the Adamic covenant that he made with Adam in the very beginning and then it gets us to Abraham. He got Noah in there as well and he made a covenant with Noah, didn't he? What did he tell Noah? That I'll never flood the earth again and what did he put in the He put a bow in the sky as a reminder for himself that he would never flood the world again, but he would reserve the world for what? For fire, for fire. Is God faithful? He's trustworthy. So these lineages keep all those covenants together for us that we see it, that he had greater things in store for you and me today. To him be the glory, amen. Father, we bless you, we thank you. We thank you for Jesus. We thank you for who he is, what you've done, what you've done in our life, what you're doing. And we believe today man's answer is found in him. That everybody needs a king. Everybody needs the Messiah's work. Everybody needs a governor to rule over their life and a shepherd to guide us through life. Everybody needs Jesus. So Lord, send us, make us those vessels of your praise that everybody would be able to say that it was by the Lord through his servants. And we're gonna praise you tonight in Jesus' name. Amen. Love y'all. Y'all have a good night.