Verse by Verse Matthew 28

[0:00] Amen. And you can find in your Bibles the last chapter of the book of Matthew.

[0:30] And... Should be some kind of last chapter of the book of Matthew. The last 20 verses, the last few chapters have been a lot longer than that.

[0:48] And I don't believe we'll have any trouble finishing up this morning. So, Matthew chapter 28. And by now, as we've studied, the Lord Jesus Christ is dead and in the tomb.

[1:08] We read last week about those men that took his body. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus as well. And others prepared him for the burial and so forth.

[1:20] But they buried his body. And verse number 1. In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn, toward the first day of the week came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulcher.

[1:36] Now, this is not the first mention of these Marys. They were mentioned back in chapter 27, verse 61. They were also mentioned in verse 56. Now, they're around. And if there's some Marys that are hanging around and that are in love of the Lord Jesus Christ, it's these ones right here.

[1:53] And the only reason I say that is because for some awkward and ungodly reason, there's another Mary who's been adored and elevated and lifted up high above any other Mary.

[2:06] And she's called the mother of God, which is a lie. Not a biblical term at all. She's the mother of the man, Jesus, the son of man. But she's not the mother of God.

[2:18] And she's nowhere to be found. And, matter of fact, nobody's huddling up with her and seeking her instructions. What do we do now, Mary? Nobody's doing any of that.

[2:29] And so they're going to the sepulcher. They're paying homage and heading that way early in the morning. Now, this is the first day of the week, it says, in verse 1.

[2:40] So that's Sunday. No problem with that. Now, back up to chapter 27. And look at verse number 62. After Christ is dead. Chapter 27, verse 62.

[2:51] Now, the next day that followed the day of the preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate. Now, this is after Christ is dead. And it says it followed the day of the preparation.

[3:05] And they're coming to speak with Pilate, worried about him, his disciples stealing him out of the tomb and all of these things. Now, the question comes, what day is this? Now, keep your place and go to Mark.

[3:17] Let's see what Mark says. Mark chapter 15. Because these men, I'm sorry, these women, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, they go to the sepulcher and he's already out.

[3:37] And he's nowhere to be found. And simple math will tell you that Jesus Christ was not crucified on Friday.

[3:50] And counting Friday, Saturday, Sunday is three days and three nights because Sunday you can't count at all. The 6 a.m. begins the new day.

[4:03] The evening begins at 6 p.m. on Saturday. And that would be the end of the, or the, well, anyway. He's already long gone. Now, Mark 15, and let's look at verse number 42.

[4:17] Right after they crucify him, they realize that he's dead. Verse 42 says, And now when the even was come, because it was the preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath, these men show up and say, we've got to get this body down off of this tree because it currently is the day of preparation before the Sabbath.

[4:39] And we've got to handle all of these things before the Sabbath begins at 6 p.m. We can't be touching a dead body. We can't be doing this labor. So they've got to have everything finished and completed so that they can observe the Sabbath.

[4:56] But there's a problem then. That sounds like Friday night, doesn't it? Sounds like it's getting close to 6 o'clock Friday night because the Sabbath will begin. Well, as always, the Word of God, flawless, come to John 19.

[5:08] As flawless as this book is, as holy as this book is, it always inserts the truth. And it gives you the evidence that you need if you want to find out the truth.

[5:20] But it doesn't always put it glaringly in front of your face. It requires something of you. It requires some reading. It requires some diligent study as well.

[5:33] And the truth is there. It's always there. The question is, if it's Friday night and they've got to get them down before Saturday, then how is that three days and three nights? There's a mistake somewhere. Or is there?

[5:45] John chapter 19. And John throws in this little parenthetical statement that unlocks the whole thing. In John 19 verse 31, the previous verse, Christ dies.

[5:59] In verse 31, the Jews, therefore, because it was the preparation that the body should not remain on the cross on the Sabbath day, for that Sabbath day was an high day.

[6:14] Why would John say that? Why would he say that at all? If it's just the seventh day of the week, like everybody presumes. Matthew, Mark, Luke, anytime reading through there, you just kind of presume they're referring to the seventh day of the week, Saturday, the Sabbath day.

[6:32] John inserts something that Matthew doesn't insert. Why would he insert it if it's just the seventh day of the week? There's no need to say anything about a high day. Why is that particular Saturday more important than any other Saturday?

[6:46] Because it's not Saturday. That's why. It's a Sabbath day. But it's not the seventh day of the week. It's a special day. It's a holy day. And if you go back and study through Exodus, you study in Leviticus, you'll see these Jews had certain feasts.

[7:02] And this is around the Passover. And in 1 Corinthians 5, Paul says that Christ is our Passover. And he died as that Passover lamb, as the lamb of God, just taketh away the sins of the world.

[7:13] And in their Passover, there's also the days of unleavened bread. And there's holy convocations in those days of unleavened bread. And this day that follows the crucifixion was called a Sabbath day, was called an high day.

[7:29] Not a normal Saturday Sabbath. This wasn't Saturday at all. So it was Thursday. And for that Sabbath day, it was an high day. And so they got to get him off the cross because they're observing some special Jewish traditions and feasts.

[7:46] And it's the Sabbath day to then. Now come to Colossians chapter 2. Look what Paul says about this. He mentions something in the King James Bible where this perfect book can always shed a little light here and a little light there.

[8:03] Like in Isaiah, it says here a little, there a little. It's like a puzzle. You've got to put it together and study it and show yourself approved unto God. Colossians 2.

[8:19] Notice verse 16. Paul says, Is that days in italics in your King James Bible?

[8:36] It is. I didn't go looking through the other versions to see what they have to say or if they even include it or if they change the wording of it. But I want you to notice that the days, Sabbath days, are plural.

[8:49] Now you might say, well, that's because there's more than one Sabbath in the Jewish month or year. And, you know, there's all these seventh days. But no. In verse 16, he says, Let no man judge you, therefore judge you in singular, in meat.

[9:03] Is that just one meat? No. In drink, in respect of an holy day, singular, or of the new moon. Everything's singular until he gets to Sabbath because there's not just a Saturday Sabbath.

[9:14] There's multiple Sabbath days. A day of rest. There's multiple days on their calendar that are holy convocations unto the Lord. And that's what's falling here at this time of the crucifixion with the Lord Jesus Christ, as John points out.

[9:31] And so what we got here when we studied carefully and when we let the Bible teach itself and be accurate and presume it innocent before trying to find fault with it, we find out that Christ was crucified on Wednesday.

[9:43] And by Wednesday p.m., 6 p.m., he's got to be in the tomb. And when you time it out, you've got a night, a day, a night, a day, a night, a day, three days, three nights, and he's out of there.

[9:57] Not at Sunday at sunrise at 6 o'clock does he burst forth. He's been out before that. If you read these gospel accounts, it says they're on their way when it was dark.

[10:10] Some says it began to dawn. And he's already long gone. And so to keep the timing accurate, it seems as though three days, three nights, if that's an exact mention of 12-hour periods, then Saturday at 6 p.m. he would have come up.

[10:28] And so in the end of the Sabbath, as they're still observing this, probably waiting for 6 a.m. so they can travel to the tomb, it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, then Mary and those two Marys come to see the sepulcher.

[10:46] And so verse number two, it says, And behold, there was a great earthquake. For the angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone from the door and sat upon it. Now, he didn't roll back the stone so that Jesus could come out.

[11:00] He wasn't saying, Jesus, are you still here? You can come out now. He was gone. He wasn't in that tomb. The angel didn't open that for him to come out. He opened that thing for them to go in and to see.

[11:12] And behold, he's not here. The Lord Jesus Christ didn't wait for the stone to be rolled away. He wasn't held captive by a stone. Not even close. As a matter of fact, later we see in one account that the disciples are in a room and it's shut up and he appears in the midst of them.

[11:29] So his resurrected body could pass through stone. It could pass through walls. It could pass through the universe as it did. All right. So verse number three is countenance.

[11:40] This is the angel of the Lord. His countenance was like lightning and his raiment white as snow. That ought to sound familiar to you. Something we read back in Matthew 17 with the Lord Jesus Christ.

[11:50] And in verse four, and for fear of him, the keepers did shake and became as dead men. That's exactly what Peter, James, and John did back in Matthew 17 when Christ was transfigured.

[12:01] That's exactly what Daniel does and Ezekiel. And anybody who has an encounter with a supernatural being that's in their glory, their physical body just short circuits.

[12:14] It cannot handle that kind of power. And they just drop. They're knocked out cold. Fear of the keepers did shake. They became, these are grown men soldiers.

[12:27] They didn't, they're not like in the ROTC program. And they're not weekend warriors. These guys are, they're the men of the Roman, whatever they call that thing, their army.

[12:38] And they're set there to keep a watch. Verse number five says, Now these ladies get excited.

[13:07] In verse eight, they departed quickly from the sepulcher with fear and great joy and did run and bring his disciples word. It's interesting to compare all the gospels and try to piece this all together, how it took place exactly.

[13:25] Because they show up, Mary shows up to Peter and John and she's like, they took him. And I don't know where he is. And so at this moment, I don't know that she fully believes what she's seeing or hearing.

[13:40] It's not uncommon when other men see and hear things. Peter, when he's in jail and gets out by angel of the Lord, he's not sure if he's still in a dream or what. Until he gets completely out and he realizes, oh, this is real.

[13:53] So don't underestimate how you would react if something supernatural like this took place in your own vision and eyes and hearing. And you may not react in faith and believe it either.

[14:06] Now, they say the best news the world ever heard came from a graveyard. And that statement is, he is not here, for he is risen, as he said.

[14:16] And just like he said, once again, Jesus Christ is right. His word is true. Even when it seemed it was impossible. Even when his followers, his own disciples were doubting and not sure.

[14:28] Through the events of this morning, Peter comes to the grave. And it says, I think in John, it might even be Luke as well. He's doubting. He's doubting what is going on.

[14:38] He goes in to see the grave close and he's thinking, what happened? No faith? Definitely not believing on the Lord Jesus Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, was he?

[14:50] He's not even, is he seeing it in front of his eyes and not even sure if it's true? In one case, it says they believed not. I think that's in, I think, I don't know. I think it's in Luke.

[15:01] All right. The resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ is without question the foundational doctrine of the New Testament, of Christianity.

[15:12] It all hinges on this right here, this exact thing. For a man to be put to death, we understand what that does and accomplishes for our sins. We get that, the atonement and the blood of Christ.

[15:25] But if he doesn't come back up, then it's worthless. It's just another dead man. He's just another martyr. In Romans chapter 1, he's declared to be the son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead.

[15:39] And so he declares who he is by this event right here. It is the foundational doctrine. Not only was his body missing and never recovered, but he was also seen, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, of above 500 witnesses at one time.

[15:55] He was seen of a crowd, a mass crowd. And as he writes that letter in 1 Corinthians 15, many of those people were still alive and could verify that. If his body was stolen, let's see if it's in John.

[16:11] Come to John 20. Yeah. John chapter 20. If he didn't resurrect, and as they say and claimed, and as we'll see here in Matthew, they made this story up, and then it was even reported unto this day as Matthew writes it, years later, they're still reporting that his disciples stole the body.

[16:35] If they, in fact, did pull off some super ninja move where they got, you'd have to say that the soldiers were asleep.

[16:46] You'd have to say that they passed out, they couldn't handle it, these Roman soldiers. I kind of doubt that. But that would be one thing you'd have to say. If his body was taken and stolen away like they claimed, and look at John chapter 20.

[17:02] This is awful peculiar. Verse 3 says, Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple came to the sepulcher. So they ran both together, and the other disciple did outrun Peter and came first to the sepulcher.

[17:13] And he, stooping down, looking in, saw the linen clothes lying. Why would they, why would the linen clothes be in that tomb if they just stole his body away? Yet went he not in.

[17:26] Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulcher, and seeth the linen clothes lie. And the napkin that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.

[17:37] This is odd for the disciples to be in this, you know, operation, steal the body, and go in and then unwrap his body there.

[17:50] I mean, isn't that awful risky? Waste of time or whatever it could possibly be. And then, I think it's in Luke, he says it folded the napkin. The napkin's folded. That's some strange stuff to think that they were taking care of the certain details of this thing to make it, to stage the scene as they're sneaking quietly behind the backs of these soldiers or if they're sleeping or whatever.

[18:14] It's just all folly, and it doesn't add up at all. So the resurrection, it sets Christianity apart from every religion that this world, that man has ever conjured up.

[18:26] And anything he ever follows, this thing here has not been duplicated, and it's not been proven false either. As I mentioned, his body was never recovered, and he was witnessed to be alive and performed miracles and so forth.

[18:44] All right, Matthew 28, in verse number 8, says, They departed quickly from the sepulcher with fear and great joy, and did run to bring his disciples' word.

[18:54] And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came and held him by the feet and worshipped him. Now in John, he tells them, Mary says, Touch me not, for I'm not yet ascended to my father.

[19:09] And they're touching him here. So again, you have to put all these gospel narratives together and piece by piece to understand which sequence happened. And Matthew doesn't give it all from start to finish.

[19:22] You put all these accounts together and you learn there was, this took place after the John 20 mention. And he said he had to ascend to his father, but here he's allowing them to touch and hold him by the feet.

[19:34] So it seems like he must have ascended to the father in between. And it couldn't have been much time that had taken place between the two meetings in the morning here. He had to ascend.

[19:46] We read that in Hebrews chapter 9, I think, last week about him entering into the holy places, not made with hands, but into heaven itself. Verse number 10, Now Galilee is up north.

[20:07] That's his hometown. And that's where these guys are from. You may remember the angel in Acts chapter 1 when Jesus Christ ascends. He says, the two angels are there and he says, you men of Galilee, why look ye up into heaven's gaze?

[20:22] So these guys, that's their hometown. He's heading back up that way and he's getting out of Jerusalem and getting away from Judea and saying, you're going to meet me up there. We're going to rendezvous up in the north country.

[20:34] Now there's some other appearances that we can read about through the other gospels with the two in Luke 24 on the road to Emmaus. It's with Peter himself. One time he appears and Thomas is not present.

[20:47] Another time he appears, Thomas is present at the end of John's gospel. In chapter 28, verse 11, Now when they were going, behold, some of the watch came into the city and showed unto the chief priest all the things that were done.

[21:02] And then when they were assembled with the elders and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers. Isn't that it? Money will fix it all. Saying, say ye, his disciples came by night and stole him away while he slept.

[21:16] So these men that wouldn't touch the money from Judas Iscariot, the pieces of silver, because it's the price of blood and it's unclean, it's profane and we are priests of the Lord.

[21:29] They were willing to offer money to Gentiles and have them lie and that's okay. And Jesus Christ calls them hypocrites and it shows up all the time.

[21:42] Every time they show up, you see hypocrisy just spewing from them. They were assembled with the elders. They took counsel. So they gave large money unto the soldiers saying, say ye, his disciples came by night and stole him away while we slept.

[21:55] And if this come to the governor's ears, we will persuade him and secure you. So they took the money and did as they were taught. This saying is commonly reported among the Jews unto this day.

[22:06] So it's kind of a far-fetched idea there to think that these professional Roman soldiers were asleep on the job, all of them, and that they would admit to that, number two, that's just no way.

[22:21] Secondly, to think that they slept through the disciples rolling this stone away and that didn't wake any of them up? I mean, they must have been partying, huh? They must have been really knocked out.

[22:33] That's what we'd have to assume. Furthermore, if they're sleeping, look at Acts chapter 12. I think this would be a common consequence of their actions in failing in their duty.

[22:56] Look at Acts chapter 12. Peter's in prison and he's got 16 soldiers, four quaternions of soldiers keeping him. And Peter gets out of prison.

[23:09] And he's nowhere to be found. Verse 19, when Herod had sought for him and found him not, he examined the keepers and did what? Commanded that they should be put to death.

[23:21] That's how you treat a prisoner who fails on his job. You had one job. Keep that man. So it's pretty far-fetched to assume that this was just an acceptable thing.

[23:36] That, yeah, we were sleeping. You were sleeping? Yeah, I fell asleep. You slept? Yeah, I fell asleep. Did you fall asleep? I fell asleep. Yeah, I don't know. They must have stolen while we were sleeping.

[23:46] Okay. All right, go home. It's okay. You think that's how it went down? What a lie. This whole thing's a farce, obviously.

[23:58] Again, they stole him and unwrapped his body in the tomb. Another crazy thing. And if they were sleeping, here's another question.

[24:10] If they were asleep, how would they know who stole the body? While we were sleeping, his disciples came. How do you know that?

[24:22] Ugh. Because they gave us money and told us to tell you that. That doesn't make sense either, does it? So they're putting their life on the line, their careers, their reputations on the line to lie for these Pharisees.

[24:36] I told you before, they're powerful men, without a doubt. And they took the money. All right, verse 16. And then the 11 disciples went away into Galilee and into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them.

[24:49] Now, in John 21, it describes this post-resurrection scene up north and them fishing on that sea of Galilee up there. And the fire on the shore and Christ talking to Peter, lovest thou me?

[25:01] So that stuff took place here. And in verse 17, when they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted. And possibly, I'd say, a reference to Thomas, if he's referring specifically to verse 16, the 11 disciples.

[25:14] And in verse 18, Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Amen.

[25:24] The Lord Jesus Christ is letting them know, I finished the work. I'm alive. It's been done. There's nothing that has yet to be accomplished.

[25:38] And I'm back on top fully. All power. Now, you know who claims that today? You know that there's a man on this earth that claims to have all power in heaven and earth? He's the one that claims that he is standing on this planet in the stead of Jesus Christ.

[25:55] He's standing in for Jesus for the time being until he returns. He's the vicar of Christ, they call him, the Pope, the Holy Father. And he claims he has this power.

[26:07] He claims whatever he speaks is truth, and it's from God, and man must follow and observe it. But Jesus Christ said, All power is given unto me. And he never said, I'm giving it to anybody else.

[26:20] All power is given unto me in heaven and earth. And he still has the power, and it's still his. And that's why we worship and serve and obey him. Verse 19, Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.

[26:37] And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end, the end, the end. Is that, those two words jump out at you? As we've studied, even unto the end of the world.

[26:49] Amen. Now this is what we call the Great Commission. It's become a very popular thing applied to modern missions. Go into all the world, preach the gospel, as it says in Mark.

[27:02] And what you don't, and I'm not going to split hairs too finely here, but I do want you to understand your Bible and understand truth and doctrine and the placement of everything.

[27:15] It's perfect. What's generally done is just, it's, I should say these words are generalized to say, yes, let's take the gospel to everybody.

[27:26] And amen. Everybody. Every creature. Everybody needs to hear the message, what Christ did and accomplished for them. But in the passage, this, this Matthew's gospel closes with a command to 11 disciples, a command from Christ to continue on what he has taught them and teach to others and to baptize them.

[27:51] Notice in verse 20 says, Do you understand why so many people get mixed up in some of the things Jesus said in the book of Matthew especially?

[28:07] Because they're presuming that everything he commanded is for the New Testament. And therefore we need to take all the message of Jesus Christ and the gospels and go preach it to the world and observe it.

[28:21] And you can't do it. Because some of his doctrine, we've already studied it clearly, does not apply to today. And it cannot apply to today because it crosses lines with Paul's gospel and his message to the world.

[28:34] Look at Acts chapter 15. Let me point out one little thought here. Acts chapter 15. So doctrinally at the end of Matthew, the next thing in line, as far as you might call it God's timetable for his people is a tribulation time that's coming in the near future and could come very soon.

[28:59] They had just murdered his son. And that's what's next on their timeline. And we could go back and see the commission back in Matthew 10 and show how those words are strongly connected to the tribulation and what's going to take place there.

[29:17] So he says, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. Now come to Acts 15 and look here at what they are hearing about Gentiles being turned to God.

[29:31] And see in verse 19, wherefore my sentence is that we trouble not them which from among the Gentiles are turned to God. And they give him some instructions. And I'll give you, it's a little bit later, it's better stated.

[29:43] Verse 28. For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things, that ye abstain from meats offered to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from fornication, from which if ye keep yourselves ye shall do well, fare ye well.

[30:05] That's all that they're putting on these Gentiles? Isn't that a little bit? What happened to teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you?

[30:17] What happened to teaching all of that material that he laid out that Matthew recorded? Well, I know what happened to it. It was for that age and time and place and it's going to come back to play in the kingdom when that doctrinal teaching will apply.

[30:35] But something, there's a transition which is taking place in the book of Acts. And we just picked it up right in the middle of it. What Matthew gives in his, what we call this great commission, is a pre-transition commission to the eleven disciples that begins in the book of Acts with all Jews in Judea preaching to the men of Israel and signs start popping up.

[31:00] Look at Mark chapter 15, or 16, sorry. Look at the end of Mark's gospel and how he concludes it. Right in line with where Matthew is.

[31:11] Mark ends his gospel with this commission, but he also shows us that there's some things that are accompanying this commission.

[31:24] It's the same kind of stuff that accompanied the twelve as they went out two by two, even seven, the of them at one point going out two by two, healing the sick, raising the dead.

[31:35] The signs, remember those were called signs of the kingdom. All right, Mark 16 and verse 15. And he said unto them, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.

[31:49] He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe. In my name shall they cast out devils.

[32:01] 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. So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, sat on the right hand of God, and they went forth and preached everywhere, like they were told, the Lord working with them and confirming the word with signs.

[32:22] The signs are right there, just like they were earlier in their ministry, when Jesus Christ sent them out in Matthew 10. And the signs went early through the book of Acts.

[32:33] And the book of Acts is a historical account of the acts, the actions, the deeds of the apostles, the acts of the apostles, recording what they did following this commission.

[32:45] And as the Jews rejected it, and the Jews rejected it, then God finally shut the door on them, and the signs that were there for those Jews to believe dried up or were rescinded and disappeared.

[32:56] And so just pointing that out at the end of the book of Matthew, this great commission has a little more Jewish slant as the entire book does.

[33:07] And I want you just to understand that. Now I'm not trying to take away worldwide mission, believe me. We need more of it. And the lost need to be saved. They need to hear the message of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection.

[33:18] They need to hear that he died for their sins, like Paul says. But they don't need to be taught to observe all things whatsoever Jesus Christ commanded his 12 disciples. All right.

[33:29] So there's the last verse in Matthew. It ends with the word, Amen, as does the book of Revelation. I want to remind you of something. We're going to close with this.

[33:40] But when we began this gospel, I got my notes from the very first Sunday morning. And I don't know when we started it, but it's been well over a year ago.

[33:52] And so I know most or some of you weren't here for this whole beginning of this thing. And I want to point out a few things that I pointed out and remind you of these. The first thing I said about the gospel according to Matthew is that when we started Matthew 1, verse 1, we were not starting the New Testament.

[34:08] The New Testament doesn't start until now, until Christ is dead, until he had accomplished what he was sent to accomplish. So most of what we read was not New Testament material.

[34:23] I also taught you that this book, and I warned you and prepared you for the study, that it was a transitional book. It was moving from the Old Testament, and the only thing the Jews ever knew at that moment was the writings of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms.

[34:41] That's all they had. And all they had was then you have to do this and do this and do this, and God's going to send his Messiah and fix everything. That's what they had.

[34:52] And so when Christ comes on a scene, he starts teaching and preaching some things that are beyond that, that are different than those things. And he kept preaching on something specifically.

[35:04] And I said, we're going to have to watch out for some things in this book. One of them is this phrase, the kingdom of heaven. And that phrase is exclusive to Matthew's gospel. He presents Jesus Christ as the king of the Jews.

[35:17] And in that book is the reference to the kingdom of heaven, 33 times, I believe. The kingdom of heaven is like this. The kingdom of heaven is like that. The whole book describes predominantly that kingdom and doctrine associated with it, sometimes in parable or mystery form, other times just plain, straight-up teaching.

[35:39] It was a transitional book that moved from the Old Testament and got turned and eyes turned toward the New Testament. The kingdom of heaven was predominant.

[35:51] I also said the things to notice was not just the phrase kingdom of heaven, but also that Matthew's very detailed in pointing out the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies by Jesus Christ.

[36:06] Every chance he got, he wanted to show that he was, in fact, the Messiah. He was the son of David as it started, the son of Abraham, the son of David. I also taught you, and this is the last thing, that this book has a strong Jewish emphasis, strong.

[36:21] From the very beginning, its genealogy goes to Abraham, but Luke's genealogy goes back to Adam. Matthew just takes it to Abraham, Jews. That's all he cares about, showing that he is a Jew.

[36:33] The teachings, the parables, the primary interpretation of all them is Jewish. The doctrine goes into the Jewish tribulation and into the Jewish kingdom. And so this book here, we're finished with it.

[36:45] I hope it was a help to you. I hope that you don't get twisted in some of the teachings that common men and preachers and teachers just hang on, because they're red words.

[36:56] They're red letters in my Bible. They're Jesus' words. They've got to be more important than anything else. And they're important to somebody. But I like to say that this Bible, I have the words of God in black.

[37:10] That's what I like to teach. Because every word of God is pure. And I don't like to see the red letters. It makes me think they're more important than the black ones. And that's not true, and it never has been. And when you study your Bible, you better get grounded in Pauline doctrine.

[37:24] If you're not grounded there, you will get messed up somewhere else. All right, so we're concluding that, Lord willing, next week. We're going to take a little break from studying verse by verse and go into, I think we're going to do a series I talked about.