Jesus and the Gentiles

Original URL   Sunday, May 21, 2023

Transcript

okay uh obviously as the PowerPoint says we are going to take a look at uh Jesus and the Gentiles

um I know my last couple classes have been on um you know like Jesus and the Samaritans I think I did Jesus and the scribes

uh Jesus and the tax collectors so we're going to give Jesus in the Gentiles the uh a shot um today so let's let's talk about the class in general uh number one obviously we'll take a look at um you know some new testament passages that apply to this I think where God is telling the children of Israel hundreds and hundreds of years before Christ is born that there will be a messiah that there is a path uh for the Gentiles to gain salvation we'll take a look at that we're going to look at um you know Jesus's uh interaction some of his first interactions with the Gentiles uh and then if we have time I think we will I have a uh a video about

some of the ancient remedies uh that the ancient Jews and other people uh in Israel would use to try to get better a lot of the uh you know the Superstition and stuff like that some of the more um I don't know maybe gruesome remedies or oftentimes the remedy was worse than the uh than the actual uh issue that they were having hi Judy oh hi you too you would you thought you were gonna sneak in you're not sneaking in

we always love to see you Judy all right um so first of all we know from Jesus's interactions and he said this to the Samaritan woman uh that he was sent uh I think he sent this I sent this to the Pharaohs uh to the Canaanite woman uh but he was sent to the lost sheep of the House of Israel that was his primary goal was to preach the gospel message of hope uh to his fellow Jews that's who he was sent to he was a Jew himself we know this and he was sent to his own people to tell them to come back to God to turn back to God uh that there was a hope of this you know just think about the suffering and the oppression that he was going that um the children of Israel were going through with uh you know with the Romans and so the Romans always kind of play A Part they're always in the mix oftentimes in the background but they're still there and they were really the oppressive Gentiles

right you had a group of Gentiles that were oppressing the children of God and so we you know we've talked about this too about the different factions that came out of this time period right there was a faction uh of of people called the zealots that were just hardcore and they wanted to get rid of all any influence from the Greeks or or the Romans within Israel they wanted you know Israel for you know Judea for the Jews so to speak right type of thing okay so where where do we get this idea that the Gentiles are also uh you know God has a plan and purpose for the Gentiles well I mean you could say that it's found from the very beginning in Genesis right but we'll take a look at a couple uh from uh the prophet Isaiah Isaiah the second chapter

this is one that should be familiar to us right this is also found in Micah the fourth chapter uh so we've actually we've actually got two prophets that speak of this and actually use a lot of the same verbiage uh as far as a future hope a future time when God uh through his son will reign through the Earth uh verse two and it shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the Lord's House shall be established in the top of the mountains and shall be exalted above the hills in all nations shall flow unto it and many people shall go and say Come Ye let us go up to the mountain of the Lord to the house of the god of Jacob he will teach us of his ways

we'll walk in his paths for out of the law our Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem and he shall judge among the Nations and shall rebuke many people and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their Spears into pruning hooks Nations shall not lift up sword against Nation neither shall they learn War anymore o House of Jacob

and let us walk in the light of the Lord so that's that's a great prophecy right it's talking about a future time when God's will would be done throughout all the Earth all the wars that we see now the tumult that we see now is going to be done away with and God will reign in righteousness through his son um and so that was an important part of the Old Testament there is uh there's several of these right where God is kind of telling the children of Israel through His prophets that this isn't just your hope

yes the Oracles of God were given to you yes the law of Moses was the foundation uh of this wonderful hope but it's going to be expanded not just to the Jews but also to the Gentiles as well and who's at the center point of that well even though he was sent to the lost sheep of the tribes of Israel Christ is at the center of this he is going to be the catalyst by which the Gentiles are grafted in as Paul tells us in Romans right they're grafted in into the Hope um the hope that was given to the Jews as well okay Isaiah Isaiah was still in Isaiah 56. very similar words 56. um

56 verse 6. well first um you know verse 56 thus say in verse one let's say at the Lord keep ye judgment

in do justice for my salvation is near to come in my righteousness to be revealed well that's talking about Christ isn't it right here are those themes again that we find out find throughout both the Major Prophets and also the Minor Prophets this idea of keep ye judgment in do justice right Mike is going to talk about that and Micah 6 6 very similar words for my righteousness

is about to be revealed okay and you know there's uh there's a little whiff of John the Baptist and that as well right which Isaiah talks about as well but let's take a look at verse six also

the sons of the stranger that join themselves to the Lord to serve him and to love the name of the Lord to be his servants everyone that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it and taketh hold of my Covenant even them will I bring to my Holy Mountain and make them joyful In My House of Prayer their burnt offerings in their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine Altar for mine how shall be called The House of Prayer

for all people okay and we know that Christ is actually going to use this right when he's when is he going to use this he's going to quote here and uh from uh Isaiah and also from Jeremiah by the way but when does he use these these words

say again Jim

the variety purges the temple right he's gonna when he purges the temple these are the words that he's going to use okay which is pretty which is pretty good okay so even when he's kind of clearing the temple which was in the court of the Gentiles by the way it was where the Gentiles were supposed to go to worship okay it was the closest that they could get to the temple of God and what was in the what was in the um the court of the Gentiles well uh the the money changes had taken it over okay and they had animals and everything else and so the Gentiles had no place to worship okay and this is one of the things that Jesus was concerned about okay so again was Jesus sent to the lost sheep of the tribes of Israel absolutely did that mean he had no dealings with the Gentiles of course not all right and then lastly in Isaiah the 60th chapter

yeah this is this is a good one

uh we're gonna look at uh verses one through five okay uh arise Shine for thy light is come in the glory of the Lord is risen upon me for Behold The Darkness shall cover the Earth and gross Darkness to people but the Lord shall arise upon thee in his glory shall be seen upon thee and the Gentile shall come to thy light in Kings to the brightness of thy Rising lift up thine eyes round about and see all they gather themselves together they come to thee thy son shall come from far and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side then Thou shalt see and flow together and thine heart shall fear and be enlarged because the abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee the forces of the Gentile shall come unto thee so the Gentiles are mentioned quite a bit and it's there's some wonderful imagery that is used here right about Darkness and Light that God revealed his light to Mankind through his son and where did that happen it happened obviously in the in the land of Israel right the world was in darkness

they didn't know the way of God

and so God in his love and in his Mercy provides the light for the first the children of Israel but also to the Gentiles and we know brothers and sisters that

uh Christ is going to even though he has said these words right he says look I was sent to the lost sheep of the tribe of Israel that was that's my primary mission okay but he also was sent to All Mankind and uh let's let's take a look at this in math uh actually in um the end

yeah in Acts chapter one

uh

not sorry mock

try mark

yeah uh Mark 16 in verse 15 and he said unto them go ye into the world and preach the gospel to Every Creature he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved but he that believeth not shall be damned and these signs shall follow thee that believe in my name shall they cast out Devils they shall speak with new tongues they shall take up serpents and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover and so this was Christ's commission uh to the children of uh to to his disciples go out into the world preach the gospel okay so even though he had a very specific primary

um primary commission to the Jewish people now he's telling his followers not just the Jewish people anymore go out to all of the world and we know that Paul is going to be the great Apostle to the Gentiles but we know from looking at the acts he always started in synagogues right so he's he's going to use the the Jewish people and kind of their infrastructure to um you know to kind of start that process of preaching to the genitals because they were Gentiles that were very interested in what the Jews had to preach they were very interested in this idea of monotheism

it was so completely different than what was going on in the world at that time which had no lie tens of thousands of different gauze that you had to keep track of right most people didn't keep track of them they had you know a handful of different gods that they really focused in on but this idea of monotheism who were these Jews these Jewish people they got their synagogue they're very different right they're very kind of anti-establishment a little bit right this had this had an impact on a certain amount of people and there were Believers of of God I think uh Paul Paul um styles them that they weren't Jews but they were Gentiles that were interested in the gospel and this is where you know slowly but surely you know after uh you know so much confrontation with the Jewish people uh or the Jewish leaders in these different synagogues he says look we you know I turn to I turn to the Gentiles I'm going to go to the Gentiles and from that point on we're going to see a separation aren't we from the Jewish synagogues with Paul going in a different direction focusing mainly

uh on uh Gentile conference

all right any questions comments

yes brother Steve

when you go right back to the promises to Abraham you know the promise to Abraham was that all nations would be blessed through him yes and so this is this is not like an add-on right it was like oh let's also remember these people right I mean the whole plan was that all the Earth would be filled with the glory of God the whole plan was that all nations would be blessed right yeah yeah that's good point Steve thank you

yes absolutely brother Chris

since since we have a break sure is this on definitely so we we often think of Jesus trying to bring us you know back to God uh but in fact you mentioned the idea that he was revealing something he was the light of the world he was uh bringing to light something that was hidden in the Old Testament but he was trying to bring them forward the the law was a Schoolmaster to bring us forward to Christ so something we can learn from that is uh you know Jesus is trying to bring us forward to God not trying to bring us back and that was the problem with the Jews is they wanted to go back to the law they didn't want to go forward and why they wouldn't uh accept his message okay so he's trying to reveal something while they're trying to hold on to the Past you know so whenever we use the terms back and forward we should think of God as bringing us forward

and how difficult it would be right for a certain groups of Jews during this time

who all they see is oppression they see oppression from the religious their religious leaders right they also see oppression from the Romans the Romans were a daily reminder that they were not free

it's a daily reminder that they had Masters vicious mean Masters and they weren't free to do what they wanted they weren't free to control their own state their own nation and so that's going to bother a lot of people and it's going to culminate as we know right in ad70 there's going to be a full-on Revolt while starting in A.D 66 but there's going to be a full-on revolt against Roman uh Roman uh you know rule and the Romans are going to be merciless when they come in they're going to just you know kill tens of thousands of people they're going to destroy the temple Mount uh and they're going to scatter a lot of the Jewish people take them captive I mean there's actually a relief that you can go uh titus's Arch right you can go into Rome and you can see it and what is it depict it depicts uh Jewish um you know Jewish people enslaved being brought back to the uh to Rome to be sold in the uh you know to be sold as slaves in the slave market and you know just think about that life right uh is actually one of I I believe in that the Arch of Titus they're actually carrying uh the Candlestick right from uh from inside of the temple as a you know as a piece of booty right you know and just think about all the uh all the stuff that they brought out of the temple I mean millions of dollars worth of uh gold right that

that's right yeah brother Steve just said it paid for the Coliseum 100 correct uh and there there's um there's some evidence as well that some of the Jews Jewish slaves were actually uh brought in to work on the Coliseum as well so you know tight uh Vespasian and Titus are going to use that money to kind of you know build this Coliseum and then have all these awesome games and people are like yeah Vespasian is the best Titus is the best right and it keeps the people placated right uh bread and circuses as they said you feed them give them a little wine and then entertain them and they're going to be fine right you can tax them and they're not going to do anything all right uh so let's take a look at Matthew

Matthew chapter 8 . yeah so this is um this is this is interesting here in Matthew chapter 8 and verse 11. um so this is actually and we'll look at this probably next week but this is his interaction with the Centurion a gentile okay and this is kind of his PostScript this is what he speaks to his disciples after this event let's take a look at it uh Matthew 8 beginning in verse 11 and I say unto you that many shall come from the East and West and shall sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven but the children of the king with the children of the Kingdom shall be cast out into outer Darkness

there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth so there's there's some imagery that Christ is using right he's talking about people coming from all kinds of different places from the East and the West right which is a euphemism from everybody all nations are coming and it says that they're going to shall sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob I think other other Renditions talks about lounging right kind of the kind of you know lounging back was you're having a meal a very relaxed meal with Abraham Isaac and Jacob think about that visual okay

um but you yourself are cast out in other words the children of the Kingdom

the Jewish people Jesus is saying the children of the Kingdom would be cast out the thing that they were longing for but the Gentiles would be the ones that would be dining reclining I think that was the word reclining

at dinner with Abraham Isaac and Jacob okay and so Christ is saying this and he says this right after he heals the servant of the Centurion a Roman Centurion right

this guy's the Roman institution in in Judea was hated and this guy was a representation but we'll get into that a little bit more because he was you know he was the Centurion actually was a very he was very kind to the Jewish people and cared for them and this this happened a lot you know where where Romans you know Roman soldiers from all different places of the of the world come in there they said okay you're in the Army for 20 years right

this is where you're going to be staying and you're like yeah I'm staying in Israel you know you know nothing about it but then you know you spend a lot of time there and you acclimate yourself to the people oftentimes they would take um wives okay from from the surrounding areas from from those people so who knows we don't we're not really told to back up we'll we'll do a deep dive next next week in on the Centurion some other people okay so Jesus is using this imagery again that's taken actually brothers and sisters right from the Old Testament right right from Isaiah it's very seamless like uh you know brother Chris said this isn't something new right

um and brother Steve said the same thing okay now let's talk about the very first Gentiles okay now there is some

um controversy right uh around this you know what we're the wise men uh Jews or Gentiles okay I think they were Gentiles okay who obviously had been exposed

um to Jewish thought and Jewish ideas and Jewish uh religion as well um because we know there was uh you know the Jews were brought to Babylon the majority of Jews brothers and sisters in Babylon stayed in Babylon they didn't go back to Jerusalem they acclimated themselves they stayed there and there's there was a Jewish presence in this area uh I think until very recently I think like the last Jew in Baghdad finally died it was driven out or something like that like 10 years ago I think but during this time uh there was a sizable population of Jewish people living in Babylon and so you know that uh you know they would have obviously come in contact with these people had conversations with them but so the wise men from the East are going to be the very first Gentiles that are going to uh uh they're going to see Jesus you know the Shepherds see him obviously first out in the fields and then uh you know later on we're really not told you know how how long afterward but anyways uh you know and we there's you know how many wise men were there well traditionally you know it says the three wise the Bible doesn't really say that there were three wise men doesn't give us a number but we know that they brought three gifts so you know not a big deal either way they're coming from the East they see this light right so just think about that you know oftentimes in scripture we can read the words but we don't really internalize the meaning of those words I'll give you an example the wise men came from the East

well what does that mean the wise men coming from the East well it means that they have to travel like five six hundred miles following this star right and wherever it's going so there's a tremendous amount of curiosity number one courage

but you know obviously they're really committed to finding out what the deal is with this uh with this stop what's going on this was this was something incredible that they saw now these mad guy okay uh they were ancient Persian priests there was an there is and it's still around today there's an ancient Persian religion called zoroastrin and they they they're

um the kind of monotheistic

in a way their main god or their only God is a horror Mazda and they've been worshiping him for thousands and thousands of years uh there's still some uh there's still some zarastrians around uh in is not Israeli out in Iran today but most of them were wiped out when the uh when the Arabs came up in um what 700s they came up there and they you know they converted to Islam all of them by force mostly anyways um so let's just take a look at Daniel uh the fifth chapter here

I haven't turned to Daniel in a while this is the first Daniel turn

Ezekiel oh here we are all right Daniel chapter five

and verse 11. so it's gonna the these are who they're talking about here these the wise men okay

um this is when uh belshazzar sees the you know mini mini Tiko you frassen he sees and he's like what's going on we need guys I don't know what's going on please and send for the uh the holy the holy wise men okay verse 11 there is a man in thy kingdom in whom is the spirit of the Holy Gods he's speaking about Daniel and in the days of thy father light and understanding and wisdom like the wisdom of the Gods was found in him whom the King Nebuchadnezzar thy father the king I say thy father made master

of The Magicians astrologers Chaldeans and soothsayers right and so Daniel was recognized as the head of all the wise men okay he was he was put in charge of all of these different people they were really the advisors for the king of Babylon at this time but you know there's a lot of other stuff going on here too astrologers magicians soothsayers

so they had a wide variety of knowledge okay that they could share with people these are the type of people uh that that are coming to see Jesus so uh I think it's kind of a foreshadow right when you look at what Isaiah is talking about all the people they shall come from the East and West right well where the Magi come from they came from the East they're already coming into the land of Israel to see the Messiah right at his birth you know we have this kind of happening uh the Prophecies of Isaiah and Micah and other places are coming coming to pass with the birth of Jesus

um all right in Matthew chapter 2 there's a couple things we can take a look at here we know that uh Jesus is Jesus you know Mary and Joseph are going to go down into Egypt again

there is a sizable population of Jews that lived in Egypt particularly in Alexandria um but in other places and so that would make sense right for Joseph and Mary to go down there but one of the things I want to get get at is

um

you know Jesus is going to come in contact with all types of different people you know he's down in Egypt he's going to see Egyptians right when he's living up in Nazareth Nazareth had a lot of different people coming uh coming and going in that area Okay the further away you got from Jerusalem in Judea the more mixed and the more diverse ethnic ethnically it became all right closer to Jerusalem heavy heavy Jewish population the further away from Jerusalem oh now you get all kinds of different people particularly up north up in the up in the Galilee

um you know who knows it's a hodgepodge up there right it's kind of like the we talked about it's kind of like the Wild West in a lot of different ways all right so Jesus was not didn't live an isolated life just kind of in Jewish culture he obviously was steeped in it but he knew of other people right he saw different different types of people he came in contact with them all right um and so he would he would have seen and come across all types of different people from all over the region uh why didn't I put Matthew 2 here hold on hold on oh yeah yeah okay yeah this is about um yeah verse 11. uh and when they verse 10 and when they saw the star they rejoiced with exceeding great joy and it says you know they came into the house they worshiped Jesus and when they had opened their Treasures they presented unto him gifts gold uh gold and franks frankincense and myrrh and so they actually come it's really interesting that the wise men come down to Jerusalem and they're like hey where is I think they asked this question where is uh

in verse um in the wise man verse one they came wise men from the east of Jerusalem saying where is he that is born King of the Jews for we have seen his star in the east and our come to worship him so they're thinking they're coming down and it's going to be like a like a big celebration that the Messiah has been born and meanwhile no one knows nothing and Herod actually is like what king of the Jews wait a minute I'm the king of the Jews right and so he's gonna you're gonna try to quash that immediately and we know that this is when um you know the death of the Innocence is going to happen he's going to send you know his troops down into um into Bethlehem and kill all the you know the toddler is two years old and and under you know it's awful situation all right last thing we'll take a look at um before we take a look at this video here in Matthew 4. and we'll we'll end with we'll end with this uh with this quote here

um yeah verse 23 chapter 4 and Jesus went about all Galilee teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the Kingdom inhaling all manner of sickness in all manner of disease among the people okay so he's healing them he's preaching the kingdom of God well who was he preaching to who is he healing well in his Fame went through all Syria huh

and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with torments

uh uh with diverse diseases and torments and those which were possessed with devils and those which were lunatic and those that had the palsy and he healed them and they followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee and from decapolis and from Jerusalem and from Judea and from Beyond Jordan

so there's people coming from all over from Syria Syria is not Israel brothers and sisters he's having Gentiles right when he starts his his ministry uh in in the Galilee immediately he's coming into contact with Gentiles immediately he's healing these people okay and so again even though he's not sent primarily to gentiles

and he'll get into this in his talk you know there's always the crumbs that fall from the Masters table right and so this I think this is a great example he's up in Sarah I got you Steve he's up in Syria and uh you know the syrians are coming people from decapolis are coming as well the capitalist was filled with Gentiles Jews and Gentiles coming to Christ to be healed it's great it's great imagery real estate so you just brought us through the temptation of Jesus and and all of these Gentiles that are sort of coming to him and right after the temptation of Jesus he's in Nazareth and and he goes into the synagogue there in Nazareth and he reads from The Scroll of Isaiah and his neighbors are like who is this guy right and Jesus replies to them and says look you know in the time of Elijah there were a lot of widows in Israel but who did Elijah heal right who did Elijah help right it was the Widow of where was it zerefest yeah Zarephath yeah you know so so it wasn't a Jew right it was a gentile yes and then he says you know in in Elijah's time there were a lot of lepers in Israel but who did he heal Naaman you know not a Jew right and I think that you know I thought that was really fast and and they're incensed over this and that's why they wanted to throw him over the cliff because they thought you know it was just for the Jews yeah absolutely it's great Steve yes and so even even when he's starting out on his ministry there's that little piece there of you know spreading the gospel of the Gentiles as well yes brother Chris

taking the same point but it's something I had I hadn't seen and it kind of goes back to you know just another way of saying something that I previously said but looking at the Magi coming uh gives us an idea that the religious Elite in Babylon was preoccupied what with the coming watching and waiting for the coming of the Messiah to fulfill Daniel's prophecy and when we compare that to what the Jewish Elite in Jerusalem was preoccupied with sweeping a house clean and trying to go back to fulfill the law which they couldn't do the first time around but they were so preoccupied with that again they refused to come forward so it's interesting to see you know again what was the at the foremost thought of those coming from the East was looking for the coming Messiah where there are those in Jerusalem were so preoccupied with the minutia that they missed the big picture entirely yeah

very good all right so we're gonna we're gonna stop there for now okay next week we'll get into the um you know some of some of the other uh instances where Jesus is going to interact with different Gentiles uh heal different Gentile peoples as well uh and we'll take a look at maybe some of the lessons right what are some of the lessons that we can take from these wonderful stories and apply into our lives okay that's always really it you know that's why they're written for us right well how do we these are wonderful stories right are they making an impact on us right that's always the question yeah we read the Bible up we know our Bibles we can quote the Bible is it is it written on our hearts are we using it as the road map to our Salvation so all right so this video right here will start we'll probably watch like 10 minutes of it somewhere around there and it's called Uh uh what is it called it's called life um know life in biblical times let me pull this up yeah yeah uh what was everyday life like when Jesus was alive it's two hours and a half okay we're not we're not reading we're gonna watch this hold on people people are dinging me right now I got I got several dings

oh

reposition my mic yes repositioning my mic

sister penny is that better thank you all right all right so with this section right here is about um some of the ancient uh

you know practices around medicine okay and what you know when Jesus was a Healer right these are the Jesus is you know he's healing all of these people so they all have different issues that they're dealing with well outside of Jesus how would you deal with an issue that you had like a some kind of medical issue well it's not great brothers and sisters right and so you can you can understand why Jesus was so popular right uh you can just imagine what these poor people went through to try to get some relief from their uh from their infirmities all right this guy's pretty good

live it