Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Prayer Meeting Lesson Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/pm/pm20130508.htm

THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
Matthew: Jesus As Israel's Messiah And His Kingdom
Part XV: Christ As Israel's Messiah Seen By The Opposition To His Ministry, Matthew 11:2-16:12
G. Christ As Israel's Messiah By His Select Fellowship With Scriptural Believers
(Matthew 12:38-50)
  1. Introduction
    1. Matthew's Gospel reveals that Jesus is God's Messiah to Israel though He did not establish His Messianic Kingdom at His first advent because Israel had rejected Him. (Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, 1978, p. 1337, "Introduction to the Gospel According to Matthew;" Bible Know. Com., N. T., p. 16)
    2. To validate Jesus' identity as Messiah regardless of this rejection, Matthew 12:38-50 reveals He had no fellowship with unbelievers while fellowshipping with Scriptural believers unlike a false messiah:
  2. Christ As Israel's Messiah By His Select Fellowship With Scriptural Believers, Matthew 12:38-50.
    1. The scribes and Pharisees, leaders in Israel, would be people that a false, politically-motivated messiah would want to please to gain influence. However, when they asked Jesus for a miraculous sign to prove He was the Messiah, Jesus refused them as they had rejected Biblical signs on the issue, Matt. 12:38-40:
      1. Jesus had just exorcised a man from a demon who had left him deaf and mute so that the man both saw and spoke, Matthew 12:22. This great miracle fulfilled the Isaiah 35:4-6 Messianic prophecy, what the onlooking crowd realized and concluded meant that Jesus was the Messiah, Matt. 12:23 with 11:2-6.
      2. However, the Pharisees reacted by claiming Jesus exorcised demons by Satan's power, Matthew 12:24.
      3. Thus, when the Scribes and Pharisees asked Jesus for "one good sign" from Him (Ibid., p. 47; Matt. 12:38), He called them a spiritually evil and "adulterous" generation, and gave them the sign of Jonah who was three days and three nights in the fish as a symbol of His coming three days and nights in the grave, Matthew 12:39-40. At that time, following His death, the offer of His Messianic Kingdom would be past for His questioners (Ibid.), so Jesus was refusing to offer blessing and He was turning down any fellowship with these lost leaders in Israel unlike a false messiah!
    2. Jesus continued to condemn that generation that failed to trust Scripture regarding Him, Matt. 12:41-45:
      1. In Matthew 12:41-42, Jesus said the Gentiles of Nineveh and the Gentile Queen of Sheba would rise up to judge Jesus' generation of Hebrews, for those Gentiles had believed God's messenger in Jonah and Solomon respectively, men who were less than Jesus whom the Hebrews of Jesus' era had rejected.
      2. Jesus continued to describe the spiritually deteriorating condition of His Hebrew rejecters were they to continue in their unbelief in Scripture regarding Him, Matthew 12:43-45:
        1. If a man had been exorcised of an evil spirit, but had tried to set in order his life's affairs by way of his own man-made efforts of "religion" like Israel's scribes and Pharisees, he was subject to demonic possession once again since he was still an unbeliever, Matthew 12:43-44; Ibid.
        2. Accordingly, like the demon who had been exorcised would take seven other evil spirits more wicked than himself and enter into the still unsaved, exorcised man to dwell in him, making the man's latter state worse than the first, so would that unbelieving generation in Israel suffer a deteriorating spiritual state for holding to a false "religion" versus trusting in Christ, Matthew 12:45; Ibid. Israel's leaders would thus go from bad to worse the longer they refused to trust in Jesus.
    3. Yet, in sharp contrast, Christ delighted in fellowship with lowly Scriptural believers, Matthew 12:46-50:
      1. When Jesus was teaching the people and one told Him that His earthly mother and brothers stood outside to meet Him, He asked, "Who is my mother? and who are my brethren?" (Matthew 12:46-48)
      2. To answer His question, Jesus stretched out His hand toward His lowly disciples, and said, "Behold my mother and my brothers," adding that those like them who did God's will by trusting in Him in line with prophesied Scripture unlike Israel's leaders were His brother, sister and mother, Matt. 12:49-50.
Lesson: Jesus condemned and refused the fellowship of Israel's faithless, spiritually increasingly destitute leaders while fellowshipping with lowly Biblical believers, showing He was the true Messiah.

Application: May we who trust in Christ realize we are in a very discriminative, blessed fellowship that is outside the realm of an ever-worsening spiritual darkness, 1 John 1:5-7. May we value obeying God regardless of the limit of the circle of fellowship involved, for it is the only constructive route to take!