If you've ever noticed, even those hymns that we sing in a minor key, which is very appropriate at times. I can only imagine that many of the psalms, especially of Lamentation, were in a minor key. But that final amen, it's one of the benefits of singing that amen at the end. It modulates from a minor to a major key, ending on that note of hope, even as that last verse does as well. Hopefully you'll see in a moment how appropriate that hymn was as we turn our attention to the Word of God now. In Matthew chapter 2, this is our fourth sermon here in Matthew chapter 2, we kind of took a break from our regular series through Colossians. Lord willing, we're returning to that in two weeks' time. But we looked at the visit of the wise men, and that's what I kind of entitled this series. Now, technically, our passage for today is sort of just the epilogue, the aftermath of the visit of the wise men, but very closely related, and so I wanted to finish up Matthew chapter 2 before we move back into Colossians. But our passage for this morning will be in Matthew chapter 2, verses 13. to the end of the chapter, verse 23. So let's give our attention to this now as it is certainly the word of God and absolute truth itself. Matthew 2, verse 13. Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, rise, take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt and remain there until I tell you for Herod is about to search for the child to destroy him. And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, out of Egypt I called my son. Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah. A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping in loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children. She refused to be comforted because they are no more. But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, Rise, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child's life are dead. And he rose and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in the place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And being warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee. And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, so that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, that he would be called a Nazarene." Let's ask for God's help as we look at this portion of his word. Our Heavenly Father, we read in Your Word that for those who do not have Your Spirit, who are outside of Christ, when they read the Scriptures, particularly the Old Testament, a veil lies over their hearts that they cannot see, they cannot understand it rightly. But that by Your Spirit, that veil is taken away. And so we pray, Father, that even as we look at this passage of the New Testament, but one that relies heavily upon the Old Testament, that You would cause that veil that naturally lies over all of our hearts, that keeps us from understanding the true import of Your Word, and particularly hides from us Jesus Christ who is revealed in Your Word. Father, give us all Your Spirit today to take away that veil. Help us to see our Savior Jesus Christ as He was portrayed and prophesied and foretold and proclaimed even in the Old Testament. And finally, 2,000 years ago, Cain was born, lived, died, rose again, ascended into heaven for us. Help us to understand more of Him. and to be comforted, and to rejoice in what we learn of him through this passage of your holy word. We pray in his name, amen. I happen to like geography. I realize that geography is one of those subjects that people tend either to love or to hate. I taught geography to ninth graders my first year out of college, and I think every single one of those ninth graders hated geography. I attempted to convince them that it was interesting. But I, ever since I was a child, loved geography. I would pore over maps and atlases and just kind of daydream about what those places looked like, following the courses of rivers and mountain ranges and imagining what it would be like to live in those places, what kind of animals and people lived there. If you've ever read or seen a movie based on Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, the youngest daughter in that family loved to, as I said, play with her atlas all the time. And I know what that means. That's what I used to do as a child. I would play with atlases. Now, I don't know how many of you like geography as well, but I hope that you all do to a certain extent. Because geography is often very important in the Bible. It really is. There's a lot of geography in the scriptures. It's important in biblical interpretation. I've thought from time to time about teaching a brief series of Sunday school lessons on biblical geography, just to give kind of a basic overlay of the Bible lands and the different places that are important. Maybe we'll do so after we finish the catechism, if we ever finish the catechism. But it is, it's so important. I mean, time after time in the Bible we read about geographic features, you know, cities, countries, mountains, rivers. And oftentimes those things are mentioned to make very vital and fascinating points. But we tend, kind of like we tend to read right past the genealogical information in scripture, we kind of don't recognize the names immediately, and so we read right past them, don't stop to think about, okay, why is this being mentioned here? What point is being mentioned here? We'll read right over those and miss the points. If we don't immediately recognize the name of the place, or sometimes even if we do, We don't stop to ask ourselves, why is the author mentioning this? What is the significance here? What's the connection, the connotation to this place? Well, geography is important for the proper understanding of our passage for this morning. Now, perhaps I've bit off a little more than I can chew in attempting to finish up this second chapter of Matthew all in one sermon today. Again, we've spent our past three Sundays considering this visit of the wise men in verses 1 through 12. The rest of this chapter, Matthew chapter 2, narrates the events that come immediately after the visit of the wise men, and they're related closely. In verses 1 through 12, though, as we've been studying through it over the past month, we've especially been focusing on Matthew's use of the Old Testament. And hopefully by now you've come to a deeper understanding and appreciation of the visit of the wise men and what we learn about Christ through that. We saw how, again, Matthew here not only emphasizes the fulfillment of explicit Old Testament prophecies and quotations, but You know, also of broader Old Testament themes and motifs as well to teach us about Jesus Christ. We saw in those verses 1-12 how, again, that star identifies Jesus as that star out of Jacob, that warrior king that was prophesied in Numbers 24. How the fact that he was born in Bethlehem identifies him as that shepherd king. who would regather the exiles of his people in Micah chapter 5, how the gifts of the wise men identify him as that great and true king who was to come, the one who was greater even than Solomon, who received gifts of gold and spices from the Queen of Sheba, and who was also prophesied of in Psalm 72 and Isaiah 60. Matthew continues in that vein throughout the rest of chapter 2. And as we read, you saw at least two, the last one we'll talk about, but at least two explicit quotations from Old Testament prophecies that he says are fulfilled in Jesus Christ. But in addition to these explicit Old Testament quotations, also continues to give us more subtle allusions to the Old Testament to reveal to us more of the nature of this Christ child whose birth we've just celebrated. And he does this primarily by means of geography. All these different place names. As we just read, we see in this passage all these different places, places to which Christ and his family traveled in the early days of his life. And Moses teaches us that these places reveal something more to us about him. And so that's what we'll be looking at. What do these places reveal to us more about the nature of Christ? And the first thing that Matthew reveals to us about Christ, as he portrays Christ here, in this chapter as the new Israel. Christ as the new Israel. This is really in verses 13 to 15. Now, again, I apologize to those of you who, like me, tend to err on the side of over-thoroughness, if you haven't noticed that yet. But we will have to move through some of these points fairly quickly this morning for the sake of time. But we see Christ here presented to us as the new Israel in verses 13 to 15. Read these again. Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, and said, Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child to destroy him. And he rose and took the child and his mother by night, and departed to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. And then as Matthew tells us, this was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, out of Egypt I called my son. Here we see a pattern that continues throughout this chapter. Joseph is instructed in a dream to move his family to a certain location and then he obeys and he takes them. And here he's instructed in verse 13 to take his family to Egypt. In verses 19 and 20, we see the same thing. An angel appearing to him in a dream, telling him to take his family back to the land of Israel. And then in verse 22, in a dream instructed to move specifically to the village of Nazareth. But note that each of these moves, each of these locations, is specifically appointed and commanded By God himself. God is moving Christ and his family to these places. And as Matthew helps us see, this is to fulfill prophecy. And again, to help us understand who Christ is and what he came to do a little bit more. Well, the first of these dream instructions is for Joseph to move his family and flee to Egypt. Because Herod is going to try to find Jesus and kill him. Now why Egypt specifically? It's kind of an interesting choice, especially in that day and given the political climate of that day. But Matthew tells us why Egypt. It wasn't that it was just a convenient location or it was the safest place for them. He tells us that it was to fulfill an Old Testament prophecy. The first quotation that Matthew gives us in this chapter, or this section of this chapter, is from the prophet Hosea. Chapter 11, verse 1, in particular. Turn there. This is what we're going to be doing, as we've done in the past. We're going to look back at these Old Testament quotations and see that it's not just these, it's how we tend to think of Old Testament prophecy and the fulfillment. That it's kind of one specific verse, one explicit prophecy, it's fulfilled, and There, we're over and done with. But no, we've seen time and time again, we'll see how, especially in Matthew, this happens, that the one verse that's quoted is meant to point us back to the entire original context. And it's there in that original context that we see, in broader themes, broader typology, what is being communicated to us about Christ. So turn to Hosea. Hosea 11, chapter 1. This is one of those Old Testament prophecies that we probably wouldn't have read and thought of Christ on our own. We probably wouldn't have seen it even as a prophecy of Christ, except for the fact that Matthew points it out to us. But it's appropriate, and we'll see that. Hosea 11, chapter 11, verse 1. When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. What is this a reference to? The Exodus, right? Again, the reference here is explicitly Israel. God is talking about Israel. The prophet Hosea is talking about Israel. When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. It's the Exodus, plain and simple. He's reminding the Israelites that he brought them out of Egypt. Now this is one of the places, one of the few places in the Old Testament in which Israel is said to be God's son. There are several of those places, but relatively few. Now Hosea, of course, is famous for his imagery of Israel as... A wife, right? An unfaithful wife. Or rather, his portrayal of God as Israel's husband. An Israel who commits adultery, who goes after foreign gods, and is likened to an adulterous wife, despite God's faithfulness and his patient love for them. But here in chapter 11, this imagery switches, and Israel is no longer an unfaithful wife, Israel is now a rebellious son. And you can see how both images are very fitting, given the history of Israel. But read verses 2 to 4, and you see this imagery develop even more. Verse 2, the more they were called, the more they went away. They kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim, another name for Israel, to walk. I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with the cords of kindness, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them." You see the parenting imagery throughout this. Again, it's one of those glorious Old Testament passages that just show the love and compassion of God for His people. It's unparalleled with Psalm 103, you know, as the father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him. And here, this parenting imagery, he feeds his children. He's gentle with them and loving with them. Even that, in verse 3, you know, it was I who taught Ephraim to walk. I took them up by their arms. This is imagery that really resonates with me right now, because Audrey just started learning how to walk. And you know, what do you do to teach a child to walk? What do you do? You walk around, you hold them up by their arms, and they take those first tentative steps and learn. It's just this very tender imagery. And really, it's directly applicable to us as God's people. God is our Father. He's compassionate and loving and patient. gentle with us in our weaknesses, and gently helping us to learn how to walk, feeding us, providing for us. Yet, Hosea's point in all of this is that despite God's loving fatherhood, Israel rebelled like a stubborn teenage son. Notice the consequences then in verse 5. He says, they shall not return to the land of Egypt, which sounds good, but Assyria shall be their king, because they have refused to return to me. Interesting reference to Egypt here. It started with the reference to the Exodus. God brought them out of slavery in Egypt. He's promised he would never return them into slavery in Egypt, but he's gonna sell them in exile into slavery to another nation, to Assyria. really in kind of a second Egypt. It's a reversal of the Exodus. He's saying, I called you out of Egypt, but you rebelled. Even though I was a loving father to you, like a stubborn son, you rebelled against me. And now I'm not going to send you back to Egypt, but I'm going to sell you into slavery to Assyria, which happened just a few years after this prophecy. Again, this is one of those passages where we might not see an immediate reference to Christ. We might not read Hosea 11.1 and think, that's a prophecy of Jesus. But Matthew, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, did. And the point that he makes here is really brilliant when you stop to think about it. Christ is the new Israel. He's the true Son of God. The One who, unlike the old Israel, would be faithful and fully obedient to the will of His Father. Who would fulfill the covenant that the old Israel had broken so utterly and repeatedly. And this is really just the beginning of this new Israel typology within the Gospel of Matthew and within the Scriptures. Christ will go on in Matthew, like Israel, to be tested, tempted in the wilderness. Once again, where Israel failed so miserably, Christ will prevail. Christ will enter the promised land. He will purify it from its defilement, like Israel was supposed to do, by casting out demons, by cleansing the temple. Ironically enough, the people of Israel become the defilement that has to be removed from the land itself. But unlike Israel, who had failed to drive out all of the Canaanites, and on and on, in every way that Israel failed, as the Son of God, Christ will succeed, and thus prove Himself to be the true Son, and the rightful heir, then, to all of the blessings of the covenant, and the promises to Abraham. He is that seed, and in Him, then, as we are united by faith to Him, And we too inherit those blessings. We too become sons of God and part of the new Israel. Okay, let's make this one Old Testament quotation, revealing all of this to us about the nature of Christ, the true Son of God, the new and the true Israel. Matthew next presents to us Christ, not just as the new Israel, but Christ also then as the new Moses. It's the new Moses. Turn back to Matthew chapter two, verses 16 through 20. Let's read these verses again. And look here for the parallels between Christ and Moses. Matthew two, verse 16. Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious. And he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah. A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping in loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children. She refused to be comforted because they are no more. But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt saying, rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel for those who sought the child's life are dead. Here we see, in case we couldn't have guessed it earlier, here we see Herod's true intention in trying to ascertain the location of the birth of Christ and having the wise men asking him to go and report back to him where this king of the Jews had been found. He really didn't want to worship him as well as he had told the wise men. He wanted to destroy him. When the wise men, in obedience to the instructions that they received in a dream, depart home another way, don't report back to Herod. Herod, in a fit of anger and paranoia, murders or orders the murder of all of the male children two years old and under in and around Bethlehem. This is perfectly in keeping with what we know of Herod, especially toward the end of his reign. I talked about him a couple of weeks ago, what an absolute monster he was. To do something like this, to remove a rival king, to murder innocent children, infants, was certainly not beyond him at all. But to the biblically literate, one cannot help read of this incident without immediately thinking of What character in the Old Testament? A pharaoh in and around the time of the birth of Moses. And he too ordered the slaughter of all of the male children in Israel in order to minimize a threat to his rule. It was the same thing. Now, according to the Bible, he did this because the children of Israel were becoming too numerous. He feared a slave uprising and revolt, and so he ordered the midwives to kill all of the male children who would be born. But, and it's important, it's kind of helpful in that respect to know this, there actually was a Jewish tradition at the time of Christ. that Pharaoh had ordered that slaughter of the male children specifically because his wise men, his court magicians, had prophesied the birth of a deliverer, of Moses. And so that Pharaoh wasn't just minimizing a general threat, he was trying to eradicate a very real specific threat to his rule. Now, whether that's true or not, it was Jewish tradition at the time, but fascinating parallels with what we see here happening with Moses and with these three wise men. But either way, the parallel I think is clear enough, and it's confirmed later in verse 20, when this angel appears to Joseph in a dream and says, rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel. For those who sought the child's life are dead. Again, if you remember your Old Testament well, this is an almost direct quotation from Exodus 419, where God says to the exiled Moses, go back to Egypt for all those who are seeking your life are dead. Now Christ comes and Jesus here is the new Moses. the new and greater deliverer of God's people, who will lead them in a new and greater exodus, a deliverance from spiritual slavery. But Matthew sees in Herod's slaughter of the innocents here, and in Christ's flight to Egypt, a fulfillment of another Old Testament prophecy. Again, a prophecy that we probably wouldn't have noticed apart from Matthew's help, But once again, the original context is key. We see in verse 17 and 18 that he quotes a prophecy, and here he actually names the prophet, it's Jeremiah. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah. A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children. She refused to be comforted because they are. No more. So turn to the prophet Jeremiah and to the 31st chapter, which should hopefully strike you as interesting. What comes in Jeremiah 31? Why is Jeremiah 31 famous? Well, it's the prophecy of the new covenant in verses 31 and following. Our quotation in Matthew is from verse 15. Let's read it while we're here. Jeremiah 31 15. Overall, Jeremiah 31 is actually a very positive and glorious chapter. The only hint of sorrow that we get is in verse 15. And yet, interestingly, this is a verse that Matthew chooses to quote, again, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Overall, though, chapter 31 of Jeremiah is prophesying the future return from exile. Now again, Jeremiah prophesies a lot that Israel is going to go into exile for her sins. But here in chapter 31, Jeremiah changes and he begins to talk about the return from exile, the salvation and the joy that will come after the exile and that day of salvation. It also prophesies again this future return from exile and the new eternal unbreakable covenant that God will make with his people on that day. Their sorrow will be taken away, they will have joy instead. Again, verse 15 is just about the only dark spot in the chapter. And here, what Jeremiah is doing is he's, it's poetic, and you have to understand that. He's depicting the sorrow of the exile, of the coming exile, By means of Rachel's ghost weeping over her children. Now that's a point that he's making. These children, her children, Rachel's children, she's one of the mothers of the tribes of Israel. And so she sees her children and they're going into exile and she weeps over them because they're going away, they are no more. Rama is mentioned for a couple of reasons in particular. Now again, this is where you have to know your Old Testament geography. Rama is just a few miles away from Bethlehem and Jerusalem. It's in that same general area. And the Old Testament teaches us in Genesis that Rama, it was in between Rama and Bethlehem, somewhere in between there, where Rachel died and was buried. And so here you have, she's buried in this general vicinity and Rama then we read later in Jeremiah 40 was actually the point too where all of the exiles from Jerusalem were taken before being exiled to Babylon. And so here you have these exiles gathering in Rama and Jeremiah depicts the ghost of Rachel weeping over them from her grave, which is nearby. So how is this fulfilled by the events of Matthew chapter two? Well, not only here do we find further children of Rachel being slaughtered, but here also in Matthew chapter two, we see her ultimate child, the ultimate son of Israel, Christ, being thrust into exile just as her children have been in the Babylonian deportation. He is then being forced to go to Egypt. But Matthew, I think, wants us to understand not just the fulfillment of verse 15, but the overall original context as well. Again, the prophesied glorious return from exile and the establishment of the unbreakable new covenant, which is also there depicted in Jeremiah 31 as a kind of second exodus. We see, you know, make a covenant with them, not like the covenant that I made with them, like took them by the hand and brought them out of Egypt, but a covenant that they broke, but a new covenant that I will make with them in this return from exile and what will happen after that. Again, we get a glimpse of this Christ child has that new Moses. who is going to lead this return from exile, this new and greater Exodus, and will establish for his people a new and better covenant in his blood. Again, there's so much here, all these broad prophecy themes that converge with these specific places. But here, Christ as the new Israel, Christ then as the new Moses, who's going to lead this return from exile, the second and greater exodus, and establish this new and better covenant prophesied in Jeremiah 31. But we need to move on. We see, and I'll draw some applications in a moment, please be patient, but we move on to see Christ in Matthew chapter two portrayed not just as the new Israel, not just as the new Moses, But thirdly, Christ as the new nobody. Christ as the new nobody. I'll explain what I mean. Now, if you thought that the quotations from Hosea 11 and Jeremiah 31 so far were obscure, Just wait for this one. Read verses 21 to 23. This is the third and final movement that we see in this chapter in prophecy fulfillment. Verse 21, and he rose and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in the place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And being warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee. and he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, so that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, that he would be called a Nazarene." This last Old Testament reference has given interpreters no end of trouble. Primarily because if you go hunting through your Old Testament for the words, he will be called a Nazarene, you'll be hunting for the rest of your life because it's not there. In fact, if you even look for a reference to the city of Nazareth in the Old Testament, you'll be hunting for the rest of your life, because it wasn't there. For the simple reason that in the Old Testament times, Nazareth didn't even exist. It wasn't even a city yet. And yet, Matthew can hearsay that the prophets spoke and said that Jesus, this Christ, this Messiah child, would be called a Nazarene. Now, Various interpretations have been suggested. Some have argued that Matthew is intending a reference here to Isaiah 11, verse 1, which is that prophecy of the shoot that would spring out of the stump of Jesse, you know, that fallen tree of the Davidic dynasty, and the shoot, this branch that would come out, because the Hebrew word for branch, for shoot, has the consonants N, Z, and R in them. If you know Hebrew, anything about Hebrew, it's dependent on consonants primarily, so N, Z, and R, which you can see in Nazareth, Nazarene. To me that's a little bit of a stretch. I don't think especially Matthew writing in Greek would have intended all of his readers to recognize, you know, this one prophecy in Isaiah 11 of this Others then have tried to argue that this is a play on the word Nazarite. You remember what the Nazarites were in Old Testament Israel. They were those kind of holy men who were to abstain from alcohol, from all unclean things, from even haircuts. And the Greek word Nazarene and the Greek word for Nazarite differ only in one letter. So maybe it's a little bit closer in that sense. And so on that understanding, Christ is perhaps being depicted here as a new Samson. or one of the other Nazarites in the Old Testament. You know, Samson in particular, who was a Nazarite, a savior figure. Well, that seems a little bit more likely to me, but I still think it's kind of a stretch, and it makes the whole geographic reference to the city of Nazareth seem rather superficial. Because again, what's been driving these Old Testament prophecies and this depiction of Christ and his typology has been geography. And I think that Matthew wants us to understand something significant in the fact that Jesus went to Nazareth. And so I think that really a different approach altogether is better. And again, this is where We normally think of Old Testament prophecies and fulfillment in terms of here's a specific verse and here it's being fulfilled. But rather, as Matthew has been doing in this section, to think less in terms of specific verses and more in terms of broad themes of typology, kind of what We've called before when we were doing our Sunday school series on biblical interpretation and what Graham Goldsworthy calls macro-typology, kind of the big picture typology of the Old Testament. And I think that Matthew indicates that this should be our approach in this. In the three previous direct quotations of Old Testament prophecies, and in this section we have several, Matthew has introduced all of those in a very specific way. Look at Matthew chapter one, verse 22. He says, all of this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet. And then in the ESV, we're given quotation marks, but it's really in that sense that literally it says, you know, this was to fulfill what that, which was spoken by the prophet saying, and then giving. It's got the word saying in there. Some of your translations might keep that word saying there. Well, he does the same thing in chapter 2, verse 15. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, saying. Again, you don't see that in the ESV. And then also in verse 17, this was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, and here he lists Jeremiah, saying, and then quotes it. Well, he does something different in verse 23. Here he writes, so that which was spoken by the prophets, plural, before he's been mentioning specific prophets because he's referring to one specific prophecy within those places, but what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, and then he doesn't say saying, he just says that, that he would be called a Nazarene. I think by doing this, Matthew indicates that he's not quoting from one specific place in the Old Testament, but rather he's summarizing a broader prophetic theme that runs through the writings of various Old Testament prophets. And what might that theme be? Well, I think that that depends on the nature of the city of Nazareth and what it meant to be a Nazarene in Christ's day. We mentioned a couple weeks ago how insignificant a town Bethlehem was. Well, if Bethlehem was insignificant, Nazareth barely even existed. It was significantly smaller. It didn't even have any historical associations like Bethlehem did with the city of David. Again, it had only existed for a hundred years or so at this point. It was tiny. I mean, maybe 400 people at this point. It was nowhere. It wasn't the middle of nowhere. It was on the furthest, extreme, obscure edges, fringes of nowhere. Probably most people in Israel had never even heard of the town of Nazareth. Remember, we see this even in scripture. Remember what Nathanael said at the end of John chapter 1 when Philip came to him? And what does Philip say? Philip says, we found him of whom Moses and the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth. And what is Philip's response? And he's like, good, come out of Nazareth? Nazareth is nowhere. We see the similar idea at the end of John chapter seven. Remember, there are all these people who are wondering, might this Jesus, might he be the Messiah? But then they say, wait, no, he's from Galilee, right? No prophet comes from Galilee. Look in the scriptures. You know, Galilee is nowhere, so he can't be the Messiah. Confuse them, it hindered their faith. But we also see later in the early days of the church, Nazarene really became used as a derogatory term for Christians. were called Nazarenes. They were from nowhere. We see that in Acts 24.5, Paul is accused by the Jews of being a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes. And you see in the early days of the church, the church fathers testified to this, that people would call them Nazarenes, and it was a derogatory term. It's what we still do today. If we want to kind of cast doubt on someone or discredit someone today, We can insult them by referring to the insignificance of their birthplace or their place of origin. If someone comes from a very rural setting, you can just say, well, he's from Hickville, Alabama, or wherever that might be, or Nowheresville, Kansas. We do that. And what are we doing? We're trying to undermine that person to say, they come from nowhere, so let's dismiss them. That's what the term Nazarene meant in Christ's day and shortly thereafter. To say, as Matthew does here, that the prophets wrote that the Messiah would be called a Nazarene, I believe it means that the prophets were prophesying that the Messiah would be obscure, unrecognized, despised, rejected. And that certainly is a broad prophetic theme that runs through much of the Old Testament. We could list any number of these, but think of Psalm 226, But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people." Or places like Psalm 69 or Zechariah 9-14, that humble king who would be rejected. Or especially, and here, turn to Isaiah 53. I could probably quote this section from memory. Isaiah 53 certainly refers to the obscurity and the rejection of this coming. servant of the Lord. Let's just read verses 1 through 3. And Isaiah starts out, Who has believed what he has heard from us? To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? I think, who's gonna believe this report that I'm about to give? For he, verse 2, grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground. What's the point being made here? It comes where you least expect it. You know, like a shoot, a young plant, a root coming out of dry, barren ground. And the same point made later in that verse. He had no form or majesty that we would look at him. No beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Again, this is the Messiah. that the Old Testaments prophesy. Yes, they prophesy of His glory, but they also prophesy of His obscurity, of His rejection, of His sorrow, His suffering. This is what Matthew means here. This Messiah, this King of the Jews, this fulfiller of all of these Old Testament prophecies, this new Israel and new Moses, who would fulfill the covenant and lead His people in a new exodus, he would nevertheless be obscure, be dismissed and rejected, ultimately be tortured and executed. But even that was prophesied in the Old Testament. And so this Jesus from Nazareth was in truth also the Messiah from Bethlehem. That's the point that Matthew is making in tracing this geography of the movement of Christ in his early days. Yeah, he makes the point, he was born in Bethlehem, but he became known as Jesus from Nazareth. And that's how he's known, Jesus of Nazareth, of Nowheresville. Nothing that we would desire him or expect anything from him, shoot a root out of dry ground, he would be called a Nazarene, a nobody. Well, I told you that we were biting off a little bit more than we could chew, but we need to close with a few brief applications. Now, as I studied all of this out and meditated on it over the past week, three things struck me as beautifully illustrated in this chapter. And we could list more, but we'll limit myself to three. First, how sovereign our God is. How sovereign our God is. It really is amazing when you think about it. I mean, all of this, down to the minutest detail, time and place, All of this was prophesied hundreds of years before the events occurred, and then God ensured that each one of them would take place precisely as He had foretold. I mean, bringing Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem to fulfill the prophecy of Micah 5, sending them down to Egypt to fulfill the prophecies of Hosea 11 and Jeremiah 31, and then bringing them back to the obscure village of Nazareth to fulfill that overall prophetic theme of the Messiah's obscurity and rejection. Each and every step along the way was planned and executed by God and for very specific reasons. And this is true, not just in the life of Christ, but in every one of our lives as well. God is in control. He's sovereignly planning and directing every last detail of our lives in order to bring about His perfect will in and for us. And this includes the dark and difficult things. It includes the flights to Egypt. It includes even the slaughter of the innocents. It includes the cancer diagnoses and the miscarriages and the job losses. It includes everything. The big things and the little things. It includes the traffic that we got stuck in earlier this week. and that robbed us of our joy, something so minor and pitiful. The big things and the little things, the dark things, the wonderful things. I know that it's not the primary point of Matthew chapter two, but Joseph's example here is commendable. Again, no matter how disruptive and dangerous and difficult it was for him, he submitted himself to God's will and direction every step along the way. An angel would appear, tell him, go here, he went there. Go back here, he went there. Go here, he followed, he obeyed, apparently without complaint. Again, it's when we forget God's absolute sovereignty that all sorts of sins come in. It's when we forget His sovereignty that we worry, that we complain, that we make ourselves miserable. When we remember and submit to His sovereign will, And that's when we find peace and joy even in the darkest providences of life. That's what we were talking about in Sunday school. Rather than covetousness, contentment and gratitude for a lot in life. Because God has appointed it. And God knows what He's doing. And He's driving it all to the fulfillment of a perfect and glorious plan. So first, how sovereign our God is. But secondly, we also see here how perfect our Savior is, how perfect our Savior is, in every respect, in fulfillment of all of the Old Testament, the explicit prophecies, and even the more subtle, broader themes. Christ fulfilled it all, and He fulfilled it all perfectly. completely. He is, just as we've seen in this one chapter, I mean it's really astounding to think of all of the Old Testament passages that come to fulfillment just in this one chapter. He is that star out of Jacob, the messianic shepherd king of Bethlehem. He's the one greater than the greatest of Old Testament kings, Solomon. He's the new Israel and true son of God. He is the new and greater Moses, the leader of a new and better Exodus, the founder of a new and better covenant. I mean, all of this, just in this one chapter of Matthew. He was perfect in all of that, but he was also perfect in his humility and obscurity and suffering and death. He was called a Nazarene, just as we, his followers, are often called Nazarenes, despised rejected, sharing in His humility and suffering, for now, for now. And this too is a great comfort to us in times of sorrow and trial. If we suffer, we're simply sharing in the suffering of our Savior, following in His footsteps. And it means that we will also share in His glory, the glory that was also prophesied in the Old Testament. It's that hope that helps us to endure. It's amazing that we have a savior who is this, who is humble, despised, who has a great king, nevertheless born in a lowly manger, ignored, overlooked by the world. But so are we. But finally, we see how sovereign our God is, how perfect our Savior is, but we finally can see here how well-placed our faith is. How well-placed our faith is. As we just mentioned, I mean, how many proofs there are of His identity, how many explicit fulfillments of prophecy are there just in this one chapter? Jesus of Nazareth truly is this Messianic King and our only Savior. Our faith in Him is well-founded indeed. All of these fulfillments of Old Testament prophecies, explicit, direct prophecies, broader types and themes, all of them converge to show us He is the One. He is the Savior. He is the one and only object of our saving faith. And our faith in Him, therefore, is well-founded. well-placed. Let us never waver from it, even and especially in the hard times. He is whom all of Scripture, Old Testament and New Testament, testifies Him to be. Let us hold fast to Him and to Him alone by faith. May God grant us the grace to do so. Let's look to God for that grace now. Our Father, thank You. Thank You for these glorious passages of Scripture that reveal to us so much of the multifaceted person and work of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Thank You that all of Scripture converges in Him, in His birth, His life, His death, His resurrection, and His coming return. Help us, Father, to be strong in our faith in Him. never to turn aside from Him. Thank you for our perfect Savior, and even as we suffer like He suffers, we are rejected and despised increasingly by this world, to know that we're sharing in what He shared, following in His footsteps. May that help us to endure, to persevere in our faith in Him until that day when He returns and is vindicated and receives all glory as He deserves. Father, as we turn now to celebrate the Lord's Supper and remember what it was that our Savior did in His death and sacrificing His flesh and His blood for us, help us to remember Him, help us to rejoice in Him. May our faith in Him be strengthened and nourished, even as our bodies are strengthened and nourished by physical food. We pray this in His glorious name, the new Israel, the true Son of God, the new Moses, and even the one who is called Nazarene, stricken, smitten, and afflicted, but for us and for our salvation. In His name, amen.