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The blind will see, they will cry again to touch The river of offense given, then somehow Jesus gave And come to me now in glory All victory in Jesus, Christ in glory forever He sought me and got me so with His breathing Hallelujah, in the air I knew Him And all my love is healing He wants me to victory He did the things He loved I heard about a nation we had still free in glory Where we heard about the streets of gold Beyond the crystal sea All about the angels singing And the o'er the angels story As those we may ask He appeared A strong and faithful King All victory in Jesus, Christ in glory forever He sought me and got me so with His breathing He sought me and got me so with His breathing All victory in Jesus, Christ in glory forever He sought me and got me so with His breathing All victory in Jesus, Christ in glory forever It's coming the day when the heartache shall come No more clouds in the sky No more tears in the eye All is peace forevermore On that happy golden shore What a day, glorious day that will be What a day that will be When my Jesus eyes shall see When I look upon His face The One who saved me by His grace When He takes me by that hand And leads me through the promised land What a day, glorious day that will be There'll be no sorrow there No more burdens to bear No more sickness, no pain No more party over here And forever I will be With the One who died for me What a day, glorious day that will be What a day that will be When my Jesus eyes shall see When I look upon His face The One who saved me by His grace When He takes me by that hand And leads me through the promised land What a day, glorious day that will be I have a song I love to sing Since I have been redeemed Of thy Redeemer, Savior, King Since I have been redeemed Since I have been redeemed Since I have been redeemed I will glory in His name Since I have been redeemed I will glory in my Savior's name I have a price that satisfies Since I have been redeemed To do this will my highest price Since I have been redeemed Since I have been redeemed Since I have been redeemed I will glory in His name Since I have been redeemed I will glory in my Savior's name Be my glory ever Till my raptured soul shall find Rest beyond the river At the cross I stood one day All at mercy found me There the pride and glory sought Shareth things around me In the cross, in the cross Be my glory ever Till my raptured soul shall find Rest beyond the river Near the cross, O Lamb of God Brings its seeds with glory Help me, Lord, from day to day In this shadow of glory In the cross, in the cross Be my glory ever Till my raptured soul shall find Rest beyond the river Near the cross, I'll wash Him away Open trust together Till I reach the Lord of His hand Rest beyond the river In the cross, in the cross Be my glory ever Till my raptured soul shall find Rest beyond the river Oh, now I see the crimson wave The fountain deep and wild Jesus, my Lord, my Jesus, say Voice to His word inside The cleansing stream I see, I see, I see Oh, it blends with me Oh, praise the Lord it blends with me It blends with me, yes, blends with me I see the new creation rise I hear the speaking blood It speaks colors in nature I see it speak the crimson flood The cleansing stream I see, I see, I'm the gentle Oh, it blends with me Oh, praise the Lord it blends with me It blends with me, yes, blends with me I rise to walk in heaven's own light Above the world and sin With hearts made pure and harvest white And blessed from within The cleansing stream I see, I see, I'm the gentle Oh, it blends with me Oh, praise the Lord it blends with me It blends with me, yes, blends with me All the last amazing graces will be known To feel the blood of life And Jesus only, Jesus known By Jesus crucified The cleansing stream I see, I see, I'm the gentle Oh, it blends with me Oh, praise the Lord it blends with me It blends with me, yes, blends with me O land of rest for the ice I win Will the moment come When I shall lay my arm burn I am well in peace at home Will work till Jesus comes Will work till Jesus comes Will work till Jesus comes And we'll be gathered home Till Jesus Christ I pray for As we pay in his peace to come And before supper on his breast He'll be inducted home Will work till Jesus comes Will work till Jesus comes Will work till Jesus comes And we'll be gathered home I saw that once my Savior's side The Lord was and shall come With him I'll pray, yes, still he died And reach my heavenly home Will work till Jesus comes Will work till Jesus comes Will work till Jesus comes And we'll be gathered home When upon life's billows You are tempest-tossed When you are discouraged Thinking all is lost Count your many blessings Leave them one by one And it will surprise you What the Lord hath done Count your blessings Leave them one by one Count your blessings See what God hath done Count your blessings Leave them one by one Count your many blessings See what God hath done Are you ever burdened with a load of care? Does the cross seem heavy? You are called to bear Count your many blessings Every doubt will fly And you will be singing As the days go by Count your blessings Leave them one by one Count your blessings See what God hath done Count your blessings Leave them one by one Count your many blessings See what God hath done When you look at others With their limbs and gold They've been promising Their wealth untold Count your many blessings That they cannot buy You're rewarded And they've earned Your hold on high Count your blessings Leave them one by one Count your blessings See what God hath done Count your blessings Leave them one by one Count your many blessings See what God hath done So amid the conflict Whether great or small Do not be discouraged God is over all Count your many blessings Angels will attend Help and comfort Forgive you to your journeys and Count your blessings Name them one by one Count your blessings See what God hath done Count your blessings Name them one by one Count your many blessings See what God hath done In the dark of the midnight Have I awked in my face While the storms howl above me And there's no hiding place In the grass, in the thunder Place is warm in the quiet Keep me safe till the storm passes by Till the storm passes over Till the thunder sounds for more Till the clouds roll forever From the sky Holy glass, let me stand In the hollow of my hand Keep me safe till the storm passes by Many times Satan whispers There is no place to try For there's no end of sorrow There's no hope by and by But I know thou art with me There's no wrong or right Where the storm never died In the sky Where the storm passes over Till the thunder sounds for more Till the clouds roll forever From the sky Holy glass, let me stand In the hollow of my hand Keep me safe till the storm passes by When the long night When the long night is ended When the storms come for more Then keep me safe in the grasses Soft and bright, peaceful soil In the land there is a place Where the clouds were made of Till the storm passes by Till the storm passes over Till the storm passes by Till the thunder sounds for more Till the clouds roll forever From the sky Holy glass, let me stand In the hollow of my hand Keep me safe till the storm passes by Can you go back on that very first verse? This is just, we don't want to rush right through this. This is encouraging in the middle of the week. Any part of the week, really, if you think about it. Verse one begins in the dark of the midnight. Have I oft hid my face? We've been there. Lift it up from your heart. We're gonna let the instruments drop out on the chorus and just sing to your Lord tonight. On that first verse all together now. Give the Lord of the midnight Have I oft hid my face From the storms of the lovely Then restore the mighty In the grass of the thunder In the grass of the thunder Bless the Lord, hear my cry Keep me safe till the storm passes by Till the storm passes over Till the thunder sounds for more Till the clouds roll forever From the sky Oh, we last let me stand In the hollow of my hand Keep me safe till the storm passes by As I travel through the snow The thunder is a friend who walks with me Leads me safely through the singing Seven is the price of Calvary This would be my prayer, dear Lord Each day to help me do the best I can For I need thine eye to guide me day and night Blessed Jesus, hold my hand Blessed Jesus, hold my hand Yes, I need Thee every hour Through this land this will happen God be by us here tonight Hear, Lord, hear my plea Oh, we last let me stand In the hollow of my hand Keep me safe till the storm passes by As I travel through the snow The thunder is a friend who walks with me Leads me safely through the singing Seven is the price of Calvary This would be my prayer, dear Lord Each day to help me do the best I can I will be a soldier, brave and true And never firmly take a stand As I walk, work, go, and daily weep above Blessed Jesus, hold my hand Blessed Jesus, hold my hand Good evening, everyone. Welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you could all find your seats, we're going to go ahead and get started. Once you've found a seat, go ahead and grab a hymnal. We're going to start in song number 216, Surely Goodness and Mercy. Song 216. Surely Goodness and Mercy. Let's sing it out real loud unto the Lord. A pilgrim was I and a one tree In the cold night of sin I did roll Bring Jesus the kind shepherd from me And now I am on my way home Surely Goodness and Mercy shall follow me All the days, all the days of my life Surely Goodness and Mercy shall follow me All the days, all the days of my life He restoreth my soul when I'm weary He giveth me strength day by day He leads me beside the still waters He guards me, leads them both away Surely Goodness and Mercy shall follow me All the days, all the days of my life Surely Goodness and Mercy shall follow me All the days, all the days of my life When I walk through the dark lonesome valley My Savior will walk with me there My Savior is great and will be To the missions He's come to prepare Surely Goodness and Mercy shall follow me All the days, all the days of my life Surely Goodness and Mercy shall follow me All the days, all the days of my life And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever And I shall feast at the table spread for me Surely Goodness and Mercy shall follow me All the days, all the days of my life It's great singing, everybody. Let's go ahead and bow our heads for a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for Steadfast Baptist Church. We thank you for everyone that's gathered here. Lord God, we ask that you fill Pastor Shelley with your Holy Spirit so we can preach an edifying sermon unto us and help us to walk out better Christians and we came in for your honor and glory. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Alright, next up we have song number 258. It's one of my favorites. 258. Christ receiveth sinful men. Song 258. Sing it. Sinners Jesus will receive. Sound his word of praise to all. Through the heavenly pathway leave. All who linger, all who fall. Sing it o'er and o'er again. Christ receiveth sinful men. Make the message clear and plain. Christ receiveth sinful men. Come and he will give you rest. Trust him for his word is plain. He will take the sinful last. Christ receiveth sinful men. Sing it o'er and o'er again. Christ receiveth sinful men. Make the message clear and plain. Christ receiveth sinful men. Thou my heart condemns me not. Pure before the lost and. He who cleansed me from all spot. Satisfied its last demand. Sing it o'er and o'er again. Christ receiveth sinful men. Make the message clear and plain. Christ receiveth sinful men. On the last. Christ receiveth sinful men. Even me with all my sin. Perched from every spot insane. And with him I enter in. Sing it o'er and o'er again. Christ receiveth sinful men. Make the message clear and plain. Christ receiveth sinful men. Great singing. Thank you for coming to steadfast Baptist Church. If you need a bulletin you can lift up your hand nice and high. One of our ushers can come by and get you guys. They ate all the bulletins. So I guess I'll just have to read it for you. Bible memory passage. Jonah chapter 2. We're finishing Jonah chapter 2. We'll still have a grace week. So we're on the last verse. But if you can quote this. If you're 18 and under you can still get the prize. And then also if you can quote the entire chapter. Jonah chapter 2. You can receive a prize for that as well. Inside we have our service. Soul winning times. Just to get an idea. Who already completed Jonah chapter number 2? Just to have an idea. Who's going to get it done? Okay. You want to be shown up by your whole family. I get it. All right. We have also our church stats. Make sure you're sending that in to your soul winning. Or into the soul winning group chat. Also if you have maps make sure you're marking those. Please help us with that. We've been working on that. Improving that. And so we want to make sure that we're really doing a good job on getting our maps updated. On the right we have a list of expecting ladies. I'm going to skip our prayer list and come back to it. On the back we have a special event turkey bowl. That's the details there right here. It's going to be December 7th. That's a Saturday. And so we're going to have a couple different opportunities. I think we're kind of having like a younger kids football game skirmish. And then we'll have an older, the teens and the men. That's when we'll really figure out who can hold their own. And so it will be a lot of fun. We did this a year ago approximately. And I was actually injured. I had hurt my ankle and we still won. So this year I don't know. I'm just kidding. I'm looking forward to it. It's a lot of fun. And so if you'd like to throw the football around, of course you can come and watch us hurt ourselves. And that would be a lot of fun. Upcoming events also. This Friday and Saturday some of the people from our church are going out to the Miami, Florida area. And we're doing a soul winning marathon out there. I put a video out there as far as the exact locations we're going to be meeting and the addresses. I believe on Friday afternoon they're going to be meeting kind of in the northern West Palm area. And then as far as Saturday we're meeting in Fort Lauderdale. And we, again, have those addresses on our signup sheet as well as there's a video that has that information. And so even if you're not able to participate, please just pray that everything will go smoothly and that we can get a lot of people saved over there. I'm looking forward to seeing some of the brethren out there. And I'm going to try. I need to be reminded. Where is Tanner's here? Right. Remind me. I wanted to bring a bunch of our Baptist Bias shirts. So people that are visiting out there with us, we'll try to hook them up with some Baptist Bias shirts and some merch. And we'll be bringing all our church material, Spanish Bibles and stuff like that. And so really looking forward to visiting out there in Miami with some of the brethren and going soul winning out there. So looking forward to that. November 24th is the ordination service for Brother Oz at Oklahoma City. And so really looking forward to being able to go up there and having that church transition to Anchor Baptist Church. And so if you just pray that that would go smoothly. December 6th is our ladies' Christmas party. As we get a little bit closer, probably, maybe even this Sunday we might have the details as far as what that looks like. But of course it's a free event. Dinner is provided and we encourage all the ladies to attend. December 9th is our Christmas caroling. December 25th is our Christmas cookie bake off. January 1st is the men's preaching night and pizza. In times past we've kind of had like a New Year's Eve party, but this year we're just kind of, we're skipping that and just kind of combining that with the first. And so if you'd like to celebrate with us on that Wednesday, you can. As far as our prayer list, we have several here that we've been continuing to pray for. We're praying for the name's grandmother continually, for the Carlson's mother also for both of their health. Ms. Miller's friend also has cancer treatment. We've been praying for brother Scott, his parents. Brother Scott also is struggling with some cancer and we've been praying for his mother for her nerve pain. So just continue to pray for them. Mrs. Garcia's daughter is pregnant, which is exciting. We're praying for her. And then also pray for brother Tony for his health and his work. Been praying for brother Foley's fiance and their union. We've been praying for also a couple other things, his coworker's infant who's improving, but we're still just praying that they'll have a full recovery. Also pray for brother Rich and for his back. We've been praying for brother Alex for his work. We've been praying for Ms. Warner for her brother had a serious injury and we've been praying for him. Also if you'd pray for the Hernandez's grandmother who's recovering from a surgery, please continue to pray for the Cooper family for healing. And a lot of people have been, the sickness has been passed around. We all get to feel that one. But just continue to pray. Also the Goodwins, if you'd pray for their friend, Ms. Sarah, who's also having surgery. So a lot of prayer requests there. We'll just say a quick word of prayer as a church family now. Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for Steadfast Baptist Church and thank you for what these ladies are expecting. I pray that you'd please help them with their pregnancies. Please also just help all of our friends and our family that are struggling with cancer and with illness and those who need surgery. I pray that you'd just please be with them. Please, if possible, give them just a full recovery. Give them grace. Help them to have comfort in their tribulation and in their difficulty. I pray that you'd also just bless our church family that needs either something for work or for travel or for just their relationships. I pray that those prayer requests, that you would just please give them favor. And I pray that you would just continue to use our church as a testimony for the gospel, that we would be a bright and shining light in such a dark world and that you would please bless our upcoming missions trip and all of our future events for this season. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. That's all I had for announcements. That's all I had for announcements. We're going to sing our Psalm of the Week, Psalm 149. If you can use your special handouts, it's usually the easiest. Psalm 149. Alright, that's Psalm 149. Sing it out together. . Praise He the Lord, sing unto the Lord a new song, and His praise in the congregation of saints. Let Israel rejoice in Him that made Him, let the children of Zion be joyful their King. Let them praise His name in the dance, let them sing praises unto Him with a timble and harp, for the Lord taketh pleasure in His people, He will beautify them in salvation. Let the saints be joyful in glory, let them sing aloud upon their beds, let the high praises of God be in their mouth, like a two-edged sword in their hand, to execute vengeance upon the heathen, and punishments upon the people, to bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with the turns of iron, to execute upon them the judgment written, this honor have all His saints praising the Lord. Great singing everybody. As the offering place you're going around, would you please turn your Bibles to Matthew chapter number one. Matthew chapter number one. Matthew chapter number one. Matthew chapter number one, the Bible reads, the book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham, Abraham begat Isaac, and Isaac begat Jacob, and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren, and Judas begat Phares, and Zerah of Thamar, and Phares begat Esrom, and Esrom begat Aram, and Abraham begat Amminadab, and Amminadab begat Nahusan, and Nahusan begat Solomon, and Solomon begat Boaz of Rechab, and Boaz begat Obed of Ruth, and Obed begat Jesse, and Jesse begat David the king, and David the king begat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Uriah, and Solomon begat Roboham, and Roboham begat Abiah, and Abiah begat Asa, and Asa begat Josephat, and Josephat begat Joram, and Joram begat Uzzias, and Uzzias begat Joatham, and Joatham begat Achaz, and Achaz begat Ezekiel, and Ezekiel begat Manasseh, and Manasseh begat Ammon, and Ammon begat Josiah, and Josiah begat Jeconias and his brethren. About the time they were carried away to Babylon, and after they were brought to Babylon, Jeconias begat Silathiel, and Silathiel begat Zerubbabel, and Zerubbabel begat Abiud, and Abiud begat Eliakim, and Eliakim begat Azor, and Azor begat Sadok, and Sadok begat Achim, and Achim begat Eliud, and Eliud begat Eleazar, and Eleazar begat Mathan, and Mathan begat Jacob, and Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ. So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations, and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations, and from the carrying away into Babylon into Christ are fourteen generations. Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise, when as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily. But while he thought on these things, behold the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost, and she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, which being interpreted is God with us. Then Joseph being raised from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife, and knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son, and he called his name Jesus. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you for said fast, fast Baptist Church, Lord, and thank you for what you're doing in this church and through this church. I pray that you'd be with Pastor Shelley, that you'd bless him and fill him with your Holy Spirit, Lord, to preach unto us your word and help us to have a receptive heart to hear and apply it in our lives. Praise in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. So we're starting a new Bible study, and we're starting in Matthew, and honestly, Matthew is probably one of the most famous books in the Bible, just simply from the fact that most people don't really want to read the Old Testament, and they usually start at the beginning, and so a lot of people just start in the book of Matthew, and so Matthew is a very famous gospel. It's very well read. It's very familiar for a lot of people, and it's very powerful when you think about what's being communicated in the book of Matthew, and admittedly, one of the cool things about Matthew for me is how it seems like it helps you explain the entire Old Testament in just this first opening sequence, because it just brings up all these important characters that we've read about in all of the Old Testament. It kind of puts them in a perfect mosaic for us to understand, like, oh, that's why all of these people are followed through history. That's why all of these people were significant and important, because they literally led us to the Lord Jesus Christ, and so these people that we just read about in the Old Testament, it was not random. It was not arbitrary. It was not just a coincidence, but God knew the beginning from the end, and of course, Jesus Christ is the root and offspring of David, is what the Bible teaches, and we literally have that here in the text, where we're going from Abraham up to David, and then David under the Lord Jesus Christ, and we kind of see that thread that was tied through the entire Bible was really just a thread of the Lord Jesus Christ. The whole Bible is about Jesus Christ, and not only is it about the Lord Jesus Christ, according to the text, it is Jesus Christ, and so it's interesting how Matthew starts out with this particular lineage and genealogy, and people really love genealogies today when they talk about them being Jewish, but really the only genealogies that matter in the New Testament are the genealogies of Jesus Christ found in Matthew 1 and in Luke 3. Those are the genealogies that really matter and have significance to us today. Now, it says here in the very beginning, it says the book of the generation of Jesus Christ, and so that's how Matthew starts, is by giving us the lineage and the descendancy of Jesus Christ. This is important to establish a lot of different things, though. Not only does it help us understand the Old Testament narrative, it also helps us realize that God is going to fulfill his promises and his prophecy concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, that he would be a son of David. Not only is the Lord Jesus Christ a son of David, but it was prophesied that there would be a specific lineage on the throne of Judah all the way up to the Lord Jesus Christ. Not only that, you have specific prophecies from the book of Daniel talking about the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, and specifically a timeline. Now, many people have studied a lot of these different, interesting future prophecies of the Lord Jesus Christ. I believe Sir Isaac Newton was very concerned with Daniel's 70 weeks and all of that timeline, and understanding the interesting phenomenon surrounding around the Lord Jesus Christ and the timing of him coming from the proclamation of Cyrus. Well, you really can't get away from the fact that if you believe the Bible is true at all, that this is the only option for the Lord Jesus Christ because that's what fits that specific prophecy of the book of Daniel. You know, there's weirdos today that will say, like, oh, I'm Jesus, or I'm the first coming of Jesus, but you know what, how do you fit the Daniel's 70 week prophecy? How do you fulfill the lineage of the specific kings of Judah coming all the way down the pike unto the Lord Jesus Christ? How do you have this specific genealogy fitting that person? It doesn't fit. The Lord Jesus Christ fits literally hundreds, hundreds of prophecies that were made about him in times past in the Old Testament, and specifically this genealogy is one of those specific fulfillments. And it doesn't fulfill just one aspect. It fulfills many of the promises, many of the things that the Lord Jesus Christ had to be in order to be the Christ. And so this is a very specific and important generation and genealogy that's being described. Three things that are interesting in verse one. Number one is that he is the son of David, and notice additionally he's also the son of Abraham. So here's the thing. He's Jesus Christ, which Christ meaning Messiah, which meaning the anointed one. He is the anointed one. He's also the son of David, and he's also the son of Abraham. These are all specific and important points about the Lord Jesus Christ that are fulfilled throughout the gospels, and we constantly hear about him being the son of David or Abraham, and even says things like before Abraham was, I am. So even though he's the son of Abraham, even though he's the son of David, he's still the root of David, and he's still before David, and he's before Abraham, and those things are significant. They talk about seeing David, and they talk about his grave and his sepulcher, and they talk about Abraham. So these are important things. Obviously Abraham is the father of faith. David is also another significant person for the kingdom and the lineage coming through Judah, and we have a lot of different pictures there. But we start in verse number two with this specific lineage. It has Abraham begat Isaac, and Isaac begat Jacob, and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren, and Judas begat Phares and Zerah of Thamar, and Phares begat Esram, and Esram begat Aram. Now, as we read through this, you'll notice another thing that's pretty significant is how the names that we read here are a little different in some cases. They're not always exactly the same way we read it in the Old Testament, and that's because, first of all, we have to understand that the New Testament was written in Greek. It was not written in Hebrew, okay? And so when you're coming from a different language, sometimes the names have a little bit of a different form or a different variation, even though it's the same name. In fact, depending on which King James Bible you have, some of them will say Timotheus, and some of them will say Timothy in the exact same passages. Now, you've got to figure out which one's the real one, otherwise you don't have a real King James, you know what I mean? I'm of course kidding, because it does not matter, okay? But you have also many names in the New Testament, like we think of Noah, but the New Testament will say Noe. But it's the same person, obviously, okay? And so we have to understand that the Bible transcends culture and all these different things, and just because it uses a more vulgar tongue name or a more common name or the name that's associated with them then, it's still the same. And we have this even today where sometimes people have a name that can be said in different ways, especially when I think about Spanish, because you have the name James, and it could be like Yocobo, or it could be Santiago, and apparently that's both James somehow. You even have this in the New Testament where you have Joshua and you have Jesus, but actually they're coming from the same root. And so you can have variations of the exact same name that are still the same name in essence. And so we're talking about the same people. When we look at names here in the Bible, sometimes they're going to be spelled a little bit different. Instead of being Judah, it's Judas here, as we kind of see that little variation, but it's the same name, and so it does that consistently through the text here. And that also helps you understand that the New Testament was not written in Hebrew, okay? Some people have this weird idea, and it's weird, that the New Testament was written in Hebrew or another language. I even heard someone say it was written in Latin originally, and it's just like, no, it was obviously written in Greek, and then of course we have that coming into English, and so that's why we have a little bit of difference when it comes to some of these names. Now, one of the names brought up here is Phares and Zeira of Thamar. Now, I'm going to go to a few different places. Let's keep your finger and go to Genesis chapter 38, because this is significant. It's pretty much just going like man to man to man to man to man, but then occasionally it'll tell you what the wife was or who the woman was that was mentioned in this specific lineage. This is also interesting because modern-day Judaism determines their lineage based on their mothers, whereas the Bible, when it's doing genealogies, it's pretty much only the men. You have occasionally here, it'll bring up the mother, it'll bring up a woman, but it's generally accounted by man when we go through the Bible, but in modern-day Judaism, they use the woman because they're of the devil. Okay, that's how you understand that. Genesis 38, look at verse number 6. It says, And Judah took a wife for Air his firstborn, whose name was Tamar. Now, just don't name your kids Air, all right? I mean, it's like, that's kind of funny. His name's literally Air, and he's literally wicked, and God just killed him. And, you know, that just happens sometimes, and frankly speaking, honestly, if you actually read the Bible, you'll understand that there's a lot of bad kids in the Bible, and, you know, you'd be a bad kid, God could just kill you. Now, it says, And Air, Judah's firstborn, was wicked on the side of the Lord, and the Lord slew him. So Air's just a bad kid, God just literally kills him. Another weird pattern in the Bible, and I'm not saying this is for sure, but it's just, you kind of notice it, is how the firstborn is almost always the worst. And it's not always the worst, but almost. It's kind of this weird pattern that you see. It's like Cain, Air, Reuben. I mean, you just go down the list, you look at Absalom, you look at, you know, I mean, you just look at all these different sons, Amnon is a bad kid, and again, when they have multiple wives, it's kind of like, you know, weird, too. But I'm just saying, like, you kind of look at a lot of the different people in the Bible. The firstborns often are not very good. Now, here's some exceptions. Jesus, he's the firstborn. Obviously, he's exceptional, and he's great. So you can have exceptions to that rule. But I'm just saying, it's kind of an interesting phenomenon where you see the firstborn being kind of a wicked person. Now, he had taken a wife, Tamar. Now, so Tamar would be his daughter-in-law, Judah's daughter-in-law, and he ends up getting tricked by her. She plays the harlot, and he lies with her, and the Bible says a little bit, if we skip down, I want to go just kind of to the end of this passage. It says in verse 27, And it came to pass in the time of her travail, that behold, twins were in a room. So not only did he lie with her, but she became pregnant, and she ends up having twins. It says that it came to pass when she was travailed, and one put out his hand, and the midwife took and bound upon his hand a scarlet thread, saying, This came out first. And it came to pass, as he drew back his hand, that behold, his brother came out, and she said, How hast thou broken forth? This breach be upon thee. Therefore his name was called Phares. And afterward came out his brother, that had the scarlet thread upon his hand, and his name was called Zerah. So the first woman that's mentioned in the lineage of the Lord Jesus Christ has twins. We have Zerah sticks his hand out, gets a scarlet thread tied around it, so that they can figure out which one it is, and it ends up the other baby somehow comes out first. His name is Phares, which is kind of, especially in Hebrew, a lot of names have a meaning, and the Bible is saying meaning, it's like a breach, or something was broken. And he comes out first, then the one with the scarlet thread, and it's almost like the Bible is already giving us some kind of a prophecy about the Lord Jesus Christ, and now the first is going to be a breach, and then the second is going to have that scarlet thread. I think there's at least two, there's probably multiple applications to this. One you could look at would be how the first man, Adam, was the breach, in a sense that he is the sinner, and that the Lord Jesus Christ coming behind is going to repair that through his shed blood, and that's where you have that scarlet thread. Additionally, it could just be only the Lord Jesus Christ that we're looking at, how the Lord Jesus Christ is going to take our brokenness, take our breach, and take our transgression upon himself, and die, and then be resurrected, and that's where you have that second baby coming in to picture the Lord Jesus Christ's resurrection. Either way, it's definitely symbolic of the prophecy of the Lord Jesus Christ, and what's crazy is how this conception is through wicked means, and how it's through a very sinful situation that God is able to use that to bring about this particular birth and this particular lineage, and that lineage is going to lead us to the Lord Jesus Christ specifically. Now, go back to Matthew, and we'll keep reading here. So we have, specifically, Feres of Thamar, or Tamar, as we understand in the Old Testament, and Feres begat Ezra, and Ezra begat Aram, and Aram begat Amenadab, and Amenadab begat Nahassan, and Nahassan begat Salman, and Salman begat Boaz of Rakab, and Boaz begat Obed of Ruth, and Obed begat Jesse. So here in verse 5, we also get another two mentions of a mother specifically. It's kind of like Boaz as we kind of think of in the Old Testament, but notice it's interesting that Boaz, being the great guy that he is, he actually came from, who we know in the Old Testament as Rahab. Now, we typically refer to her as Rahab the harlot, because that's what the Bible describes her as, specifically as a harlot. Let's go there just to read the verse. Let's go to Joshua chapter 2, and again, keep your fingers, we're coming right back, but the Bible tells us that when the children of Israel come out of the wilderness, and they've marched through the land for 40 years, then they cross over the Jordan, they're going to go to the first battle to conquer the Promised Land, that they're encompassing a particular city, and this is Jericho, and Jericho is this symbolic picture of the first victory of the children of Israel in the Promised Land, and they send spies into Jericho to spy out the land when they are going to find a place to stay. The Bible says, Joshua chapter 2 verse 1, And Joshua the son of Nun sent out of Shittim two men to spy secretly, saying, Go, view the land, even Jericho. And they went and came into a harlot's house, named Rahab, and lodged there. So, of course, being spies, they may have used this because they kind of need a cover, and so maybe that's why they're kind of saying, you know, we're going here, that's why we're here, not to spy or something, but they go to a harlot's house, and the harlot's name is Rahab. The story is clear that Rahab ends up making a deal with the spies, sends them out another way, she ends up tying another scarlet thread out the window, and whenever they march around Jericho and blast the trumpets after seven times, all the walls fall down, and basically everyone is killed except for Rahab and those that were in her house. And so we see another picture of salvation, and what's interesting, think about this, it's like God is almost being too blunt. He's like, hey, I'm going to tie some literal scarlet threads throughout the Bible to help you understand that there's a scarlet thread throughout the Bible. Isn't that interesting? It's kind of funny, it's like, hey, there's a literal scarlet thread just being constantly woven through the text, but it's like a literal scarlet thread on top of the metaphor and the language that's being used here for these particular people that we kind of constantly see. Now, go if you would to Ruth too, go to Ruth chapter 1. So we had Tamar plays the harlot and performs harlotry, then we have Rahab the harlot, both of these women are the first two mentions of women in the lineage of the Lord Jesus Christ, the man without sin, God in the flesh. That already is significant by itself, just to tell you that God can literally use anyone. God can use anyone and even very sinful people to fulfill His will, and even if you've made mistakes in the past, that God's not necessarily even done with you. That God can use people, now, again, that's not to justify sin, that's not to say please sin or do these wicked actions, it's simply saying that God still wants to use people no matter where they're at in life, and that God can use them. Now, Ruth chapter 1, verse 4 says this, it's talking about Malon and Chilion, and they took them wives of the women of Moab, the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth, and they dwelled there about ten years. Now, Malon and Chilion die, if I remember correctly, I'm pretty sure that Ruth is Malon's wife, I think it says later in the text somewhere, but someone can correct me if I'm wrong. Yeah, verse 10 of chapter 4, I just wanted to verify, it says, moreover, Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Malon. So, Ruth is the wife of Malon, but they die, they had fled essentially their homeland, they fled the promised land due to famine, marry heathen women, God kills them. And it's probably suggested by the fact that they're kind of running away from God, not really serving him, that he punishes them. But, Ruth is still someone that loves God and decides to go back with her mother-in-law, Naomi, and she ends up serving God, she ends up marrying Boaz, and it's kind of a funny union if you think about it, because it's like, Boaz was the son of a harlot, and then Ruth is a Moabitess, which is of a heathen nation, of false religion, of false gods, and then they come together, and that's what's giving us the Lord Jesus Christ. Now think about what we're saying. Is Jesus have a perfect genealogy as far as bloodline? Because everybody wants to make a big deal about genetics and bloodlines, so far we know for a fact that 50% of his bloodline was mixed with Rahab the harlot, which was a Canaanite of Jericho. Then, not very long after this, we have specifically a Moabitess coming in, so another 50% heathen just coming and mixing. I mean, that's putting his DNA percentage lower than 50% Hebrew. I mean, if you have your grandmother being 50%, I mean, if you're Native American, you know what I'm talking about, because you get, like, casino rights and all this weird stuff, but it's like, if you have, like, certain percentage of, like, Cherokee or Native American or, you know, all kinds of different ethnicities and stuff, there's all these government programs, right? If your grandmother is 50%, like, a specific ethnicity, and then your mom is 50%, another one, like, you're not that Hebrew. I mean, think about it. Even the Lord Jesus Christ, just from a pure genetic perspective, from a pure DNA, bloodline, whatever, it's not really having all that Hebrew that you want it to have. And again, it's only those that are into this, like, tor-observing Christianity or this over-the-top Judaism or this over-the-top racism, really is what it is, to have this idea that you have to have this, like, perfect bloodline, perfect, you know, DNA or something. Jesus Christ is just the same as the rest of us. We're all mixed. We're all of one blood, is what the Bible says. There's no such thing. And in fact, the children of Israel, when they came out of Egypt, they were a mixed multitude. Joseph, his two wives were not Hebrews. In fact, pretty much the 12 tribes of Israel, look, they didn't marry their sisters, folks. They married whoever. And we don't even know, who's Tamar? I'm just, I don't know what to put Tamar category in, but I would say it's probably safe. She also wasn't. So you'd probably had 50 mixed in with Tamar, then 50 mixed in with Rahab, then 50 mixed in with Ruth, the Moabitess. I mean, this is not just some pure DNA lineage, and people will be like, you're a traitor to the white nation because you believe in mixed marriages or something. Well, if I don't believe in mixed marriages, how do you even explain the Lord Jesus Christ? I mean, the Lord Jesus Christ is for sure mixed. And look, it's so simple-minded to just say, like, all white people are the same. I mean, all white people are not the same either. There's a big difference between Irish, Spanish, German, Hungarian. I mean, there's a lot of variance even within white people. And just to go, oh, with their European, okay, but there's still major differences. Just like if you talk to Asian people, they do not think they're all the same. Japanese people do not like Chinese people and vice versa. North Korea doesn't even like South Korea, okay? And they're not necessarily friends. And you can offend Asian people very quickly when you say, like, y'all are all the same, or, like, you look... If you tell someone that's Japanese they look Chinese, they'll get mad at you, okay? So you've got to be careful, you know, on this. And look, even black people, they're not all the same either. There is a giant difference between black people that are from certain African countries, black people that are from the Caribbean, black people that are from Houston, black people that are from Chicago, black people that are from the UK. These are all not the same black people, okay? And so it's not fair to just boil everything down to a simple five colors that you got in a Crayola paint can or something. You know, you get that little kid's Crayola, like, five colors to paint with. You know, that's what some people want to do with races and stuff like this. That is not real. It's not legitimate. It doesn't make any sense. And just as much as the Lord Jesus Christ is mixed, you know, we're all mixed too. I know you want to think that you're this special, like, no, you don't understand, Pastor Shelley, I am of the superior race, me and Adolf or whatever, you know. You're not a superior race. There isn't such a thing. We're all of one blood, one kind. And look, if you have a preference, I'm all for your preference. But do not tell me that it is sinful or wrong for someone to marry another person. If it's male and female, it's right. If it's male and male, then it's wrong, okay? That's obviously wrong. But hey, if it's male and female, that's how God made it, and it works. Now look, is there sometimes consequences when you marry somebody that's completely different than you? Yeah. That's why a lot of people prefer marrying people that are similar to them and have common interests and maybe common upbringing, common culture. You know, if I married someone that makes Indian food, it might not work out. Just saying. Like, you know, there might be a major cultural clash there, and I'm not really for that. And of course, the Bible makes it clear that as saved Christians, we should never marry outside of Christianity. But these people, you know, even though they're mixed, they still have that thread of loving God. You see Rahab the harlot being mentioned in James 2 as a great woman of faith. You see Ruth being a great example of faith. I don't know about Tamar, she's a little sketch, but in general, you kind of see them still at least being Christian, at least loving God, or having some kind of a faithful religion. And so it's more important to marry someone that loves Jesus than has all of your same cultural background or the exact same skin color or something like that. You know, don't be so carnal to worry about those things because those things matter very little. What matters most is loving God and loving the Lord Jesus Christ. And you know what? You could even get over sinful pasts because notice the past of these people and how they're still used by God. So the most important thing, really, is do they love God now, and is that the direction they're headed in? And that's what we should really consider. Now, go, if you would, back to this genealogy and to this particular list. Again, you know, I don't necessarily recommend, you know, you should be careful marrying somebody from a completely different culture that you met three weeks ago or something, you know, or even a few months ago because sometimes there can be dramatic differences and you want to be careful. But you know what? It works. Men and women, it works. It also, in every marriage, there's going to be conflict because we're all sinners. So you should also not think, like, well, if I marry this person, if I marry the right person, we won't fight or something. It doesn't exist and it will never happen. But you can obviously have a better path of success. And so we want to consider those things, but at the end of the day, there's literally nothing off the table when it comes to culture or mixed, you know, mixing nations or whatever. And even in the Old Testament, they were mixing nations, folks, but what was important is not mixing religions. And we don't want to necessarily mix with the heathen. We don't want to mix with the unsaved. We don't want to get away from the Christianity that God has given us. And you know, even if they're saved, that still might not be good enough because not all saved people really want to serve God. Not all saved people really care about the things of the Bible or being a faithful Christian. And so, you know, we should go beyond just the fact that they've simply trusted Christ. You know, sometimes you want to dig a little deeper and say, like, do you have some of the same life goals as me? You know, me and my wife, I asked her lots of questions before we got married, and I knew that she wanted to have kids. I knew that she was great with kids. I said, hey, this is what I told her when we were dating, and it was probably only, she could correct me, probably only a few weeks after dating. I sat her down, and I took her to dinner. Okay, I bought dinner, of course. And then I said, look, I really like you. I can see this going somewhere, but you're going to go to whatever church that I go to. And that was an important discussion for me because her dad was a minister at a church. It was a Baptist church, but, you know, I was like, I don't want there to be a conflict, like, when we start getting married that I want to go to church here and you want to go to church there, and we can't decide. I said, look, you're going to go to church where I go to church. And I said, if you don't want to do that, then, you know, basically this relationship's over. And I told her that, and she was like, I'll go to church wherever you go. And it was already like, hey, this is someone that's going to submit to where I want to go and what I want to do. And, of course, that doesn't mean I don't consider her opinion. That doesn't mean that I'm not sensitive to what she wants. But at the end of the day, I was going to go to where I want to go to church, and she was going to go where I wanted to go to church. And that was really important to me. So that might be a tip for you young men to kind of see, like, hey, is this lady going to go where I want to go to church because that's important, where the man wants to go to church. I could preach on this all night. All right. Well, let's keep going. We also had, in verse 6, And Jesse begat David the king, and David begat Solomon, of her that had been the wife of Uriah. So we've already mentioned three women. Here's the fourth woman being mentioned, and you could mention her in a lot of ways. Think about what we've read so far. Rakab, that's just her name. We could say Thamar. We could say anything. We could say Bathsheba, because that's what we're talking about. Why did God say it this way? I mean, look at what he said. Solomon, of her that had been the wife of Uriah. It's like God wanted to specifically make it clear, hey, this was the inappropriate relationship. This was the adulterous relationship that David had had with a woman who should have never been his wife in the first place. That's even weirder when you think about what we've gone through, because some of these situations are sin. When we talk about Judah and Tamar, sin. It was kind of a gross sin. It was harlotry, but it was also an incestuous harlotry that is condemned in the Bible. Not only that, then you have Rahab the harlot. She's obviously a very sinful person. Not necessarily any sin between her and her husband and having a child. Then you have Ruth, which it was wrong for Malon to have married her, but it was not wrong for then Boaz to redeem his inheritance and then to marry her. But this is specifically talking about a relationship that David had had with a woman he should have never had, and in theory Solomon should have never even really existed. And what's interesting about Solomon is he's not the firstborn of this particular relationship, is he? What happened to the firstborn child? It had to die. And it had to die so that we could give rise to who? To Solomon, who ended up becoming the greatest king of ever. So it's the same way. It's like Jesus Christ has to be the first to die, and then we get to Solomon, spiritually speaking, because Solomon pictures the Lord Jesus Christ in his millennial reign, and in his glory, and in his wisdom, and in his peace. And so we kind of have another foreshadowing here through this particular situation, another scarlet thread that is being tied throughout all of those different stories and examples. But another example, though, clearly of grievous sin, and then God still using it. You know, we live in a culture, in a society today, where we don't have biblical laws. And not only do we not have biblical laws, everything's backwards, and everything's upside down. I mean, when you look at the crimes in America, things don't even make sense. I mean, you get zero criminal punishment for committing adultery in America. Like, there's really nothing. Now, in times past, there was punishment. And in fact, I always reference this because it's the only one I have a physical copy of, but I always bring it up. But I have the laws of Connecticut of 1673, and I often just look it up. Now, from a capital punishment perspective, the laws of Connecticut of 1673, as far as I can understand, are pretty much exactly what the Bible says in every section except for adultery. Adultery does not have the death penalty. They had a weird thing where if you committed adultery, you would get whipped. And then you'd have to wear this special halter, is what they said. You'd have to wear a special halter that signified that you had committed adultery. Now, there's books that have been written that are kind of about this, but it's not the exact same. Like, the scarlet letter. Who's ever heard of the scarlet letter? Yeah. So that's similar, but it wasn't the exact same because the scarlet letter was like an A that you had to put on you or something. It's interesting that the anarchy symbol is just an A, right? But they had an A that you'd have to wear as the scarlet letter. This is a halter, a special halter. And it said, specifically in the provision, that you had to wear it at all times in public and it had to be visible. And if you were ever seen in public without that particular halter on, then you would be whipped again in public. And so, again, it prescribes specifically the fact that you would be publicly whipped for not wearing that particular garment. Now, I don't agree with that. Personally, I think that you should either have the death penalty or probably nothing, okay? I don't really necessarily agree with this weird, like, wearing a halter and whatever, because you either punish them and it's over or you let them live it down. But this, like, not being able to live things down is not really a biblical concept. It's not really a biblical principle. And you even see Hosea having to be with an adulterous woman, paying money, and whatever. And look, if someone commits this grievous sin, because the Bible does prescribe the death penalty but we don't abide by that, there's really not anything we can do. And there's not really anything that should be done. But if someone were in that situation, I think you should just forgive and try to move on. That's really probably the best move. And I've had people literally e-mailing me before telling me that I'm wicked for what I just said. Like, because I've talked repeatedly on divorce, the Bible says, like, God hateth putting away and that God hates divorce. And I've taught every time, you should never divorce. And I believe that. Someone then e-mails me like, oh, you're green lighting adultery. I'm just like, what in the world? By saying that people shouldn't divorce, I'm green lighting people to commit grievous sin? I mean, that is the logic that some people have today, is where you'll say, if some guy came to me and said, hey, my wife committed adultery, what should I do? And I say, well, I think you should try to forgive her and just keep going with your relationship and move on. Then somebody would be like, oh, now you're condoning adultery. It's like, no, you idiot. I'm just telling them the best option the Bible has. I would obviously condemn adultery and say that it's super wicked and that person may be judged harshly by God anyways. There are times in the Bible where women committed adultery and no one could tell, and they'd have to go to the priest, and they'd have to drink water, drink a bitter drink. And then the Bible says if they had been guilty of that, God would cause their thigh and their belly to rot as a curse and as a punishment for having done that when there was no way to condemn them by the law because there's not enough witnesses. There's not enough evidence, so we can't even know. But just because there's not enough evidence and there's not enough witnesses, God still knows and God can still punish you. So we should never, ever commit these grievous sins. But if someone does, you know what, repent and move on. God can still be used by God as evidence by the fact that Bathsheba and what David did, super wicked, super evil. God says that he's going to punish them, and he did. He punished them by taking away their firstborn. But I don't think then God is like, okay, now you're just ruined forever. Now you can't do anything. No, he says now move on, and now you're going to have Solomon. And then really, frankly speaking, there was nothing holding David back, honestly, from just being successful and doing good things for the rest of his life. Now, as an additional punishment, God says that he's going to rise up his son against him, and he'd done this thing in private, so I'm going to do this thing in public, and Absalom ends up taking his wives, and there's kind of another consequence there. But it's also, if you kind of read the story, it's also a lot of David making some more bad decisions, not dealing with Amnon, doing weird things, and not dealing with Absalom correctly, and you just kind of see that David kind of makes some mistakes in the later parts of his life. But he still has Solomon, and that's good parts. And you know, we don't know what we're going to do in the future. We may mess up, we may screw up, we may do bad things, but we want to make sure that we still stay on the right course. And the Bible says a just man falls seven times and rises up again. And even if someone were to commit a horrible sin like that, you know what, don't stop serving God. Most of us will probably never commit horrible sins like that, maybe, or at least I hope not, but even if you do commit big sins or bad sins or get backslidden or do whatever, you know what, just keep serving God, because you never know how God may use you. I'm glad that Bathsheba and David still kept serving God and doing what was right, and then they have Solomon and raise at least one good son for David. I mean, David's family is a train wreck. I mean, if you think about it, Amnon the rapist is one of his children. Then you have Adonijah, you have Absalom. I mean, he just has terrible, terrible children. And this is the man after God's own heart. So, you know, it seems like even good people can have some bad kids, and David unfortunately has several. I mean, he has at least three bad children. Arguably, he could have had even more. We don't know about everybody, because really the Bible is focused in on Jesus and his lineage and his specific ascent to being born, dying, buried, resurrection, all of that. But, again, I think it's important to recognize. We have Harlot, Harlot, heathen, and adulteress all mentioned. Why is that the only women that are mentioned? Isn't that weird, too? I mean, there is probably some women in this specific lineage that were not like that, that did not commit these big sins. I think God's trying to highlight on purpose sinful situations and horrible situations to remind us of humanity, to remind us of our weakness, to remind us of the fact that none of us are perfect, to remind us that even if you commit bad actions or do bad things, you can still be used of God, and to show the humanity aspect of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because if we just heard this lineage and it's just like, perfect man, perfect woman, perfect man, perfect woman, perfect man, perfect woman, we could kind of like have weird ideas about the Lord Jesus Christ. But when we see this kind of stuff, we're thinking like this is like Jerry Springer kind of stuff. I mean, this is weird. But you know what? That's honestly life. There are some people that don't necessarily have that screwed up of a situation, but they're very few and far between. Very, very rare. And you know what? Praise God you have this amazing testimony where nothing weird has ever happened for y'all. But for the rest of us and the rest of mankind, we probably all have some screwed up, weird situations, weird family, weird family dynamics, just crazy stories and crazy... because that's just how life is. Life, sometimes reality is stranger than fiction. And honestly, most of fiction is actually just based on reality. We didn't even know it. You think that Hollywood's making up movie ideas? They're pretty much just telling you all kinds of stuff that they're doing in secret. And things that are actually happening. They didn't even come up with these things. They're just retelling either Bible stories or things that they're doing. Or sometimes predict the program, what they're going to do. And that's a different sermon for a different time. You have to understand that reality is really what drives a lot of fiction anyways. But in many cases, reality surpasses what you could even dream up. There's just crazy life situations, crazy stories. And you know, it also should encourage us to go out and reach sinful people. Hey, you knock on a door? I mean, I went soloing in Houston with Brother Sampson and we knocked on a door and some girl answered the door and she thought we were a customer. And she made it clear. And we were like, no, we want to give the gospel and she just shut the door. But hey, you know, if she wanted to hear the gospel, we would have just given her the gospel, right? And so it's not like you're not going to run into these type of people. It's not like you're not going to run into these type of situations. And hey, that person could still get saved. That person could still believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and hear the gospel. And we want to make sure that we are willing to give the gospel not just to the goody-two-shoes, but also to the harlots and to the adulterous and to the drunkards and to the sinful and people that have been in jail. I mean, sometimes people that have been to jail are the most receptive people I've ever met. I also remember in Phoenix I ran into a guy that had recently gotten out of jail and he was one of the funniest gospel presentations I've ever given in my life because very quickly in my gospel I usually get to Revelation 21. And I don't always go through lists. Sometimes I just skip straight to all liars. But this time I was just kind of going through the list. I was like, the fearful and unbelieving, the abominable and murderers. And I said, whore mongers. And he's like, what's that? And I said, that's like a guy who sleeps with women like a whore would. And he's like, you're saying like when a guy sleeps with a woman outside of marriage? And I was like, yeah. And he's like, that's a sin? And I was like, yeah. And he was just like, beep. He's like, that's everyone, man. And I was just like, okay. I didn't even have to get to liars. I was just like, whore mongers. And he was just like, what? And he was like, that's everyone. And he's like yelling at his buddy. He's like, bro, like everyone's going to hell. And I was just like, it was so funny. I was like, I did not have to convince this guy that we were sinful. Okay. I was just like, man, this is funny. But, you know, it's the world that we live in is a sinful world. And we should not just be these like ivory tower. We're so amazing Christians that we can't condescend to men of low estate and go out into a sinful and dying and lost world and reach people because look at the impact that some very sinful people had in the actual generation of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so I just didn't want to skip over that. I think it's super significant. It's kind of a theme that you notice here. We'll keep reading. The Bible says in verse 7, And Solomon begat Reboam and Reboam begat Abia and Abia begat Asa and Asa begat Josephat and Joseph begat Joram and Joram begat Ozias. Now, one significant thing about verse 8 is it's pretty much followed an unbroken chain. So when we get to Joram, we're getting Ozias. This is what we know in the Old Testament as Jehoram. And Ozias is Uzziah. But here's the thing. This is not just like father to son. This is actually several generation break. Now, one thing that I do think is significant, and we'll go there for a quick second, but go if you would to 2 Chronicles 21, is I want to take note of another thing, though, because we've kind of ragged on some of the ladies here. But you have to understand that even the men in the Lord Jesus Christ-specific lineage, not all of them were good either. Some of them were very bad. And Jehoram is not a good guy. Look at 2 Chronicles 21, verse 1. Now, Jehoshaphat slept with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the city of David, and Jehoram his son reigned and ascended. So this is how we get Jehoshaphat and specifically what the Bible is saying, Jehoram, in the New Testament. It says in verse 2, And he had brethren, the sons of Jehoshaphat, Azariah, and Jehiel, and Zechariah, and Azariah, and Michal, and Shevetiah. All these were the sons of Jehoshaphat, king of Israel. And their father gave them great gifts of silver and gold and of precious things with fenced cities in Judah. But the kingdom gave he to Jehoram because he was the firstborn. Notice again, the firstborn. And unfortunately, verse 4, Now when Jehoram was risen up to the kingdom of his father, he strengthened himself and slew all his brethren with the sword and divers also of the princes of Israel. It's interesting because Cain slew Abel. Cain is the firstborn and he slays his brother. Then we have Jehoram. I mean, do you really think that these guys have never heard the Bible? They've never heard Genesis? I mean, they don't even have a lot of the books that we read. So they're kind of more stuck on Genesis, Exodus. I mean, you're just reading the Bible about Cain and Abel and then it's just like, I'm going to do that. Jehoram slays all of his brethren. And not just Abel, all of his brethren. I mean, this is not just one murderer here. This is multiple murderers of his brethren. Now, it says in verse 5, Jehoram was thirty and two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem, and he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, like as did the house of Ahab, for he had the daughter of Ahab the wife, and he wrought that which was evil in the eyes of the Lord. The Bible just says objectively Jehoram is evil. He's wicked. He's a murderer. And this is who's in the lineage of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I'm just wanting to show this to you and show that not everybody is going to have a perfect genealogy. But that does not mean that you have to be a bad person. You know, you could literally have a horrible father, a horrible grandfather. You could have somebody that was in your lineage that was just wicked, evil, horrible, and that does not mean that you have to be horrible. You don't have to be wicked. You don't have to be like your father. It just falls all over itself to make it clear that the father should not be put to death for the sins of the sons and for the sons to be put to death for the sins of the father. Why? Because you have all kinds of crazy stories like this where you have, like, dad good, son bad, next son good, next son bad. I mean, just like, it is all over the map. And you can't necessarily think that it's always a parenting issue. Now, sometimes it is. Sometimes you can have bad parenting. Parents obviously greatly impact their children and influence them. But it's not always. I want you to think about a couple of things. Number one, the Bible makes it clear. It says, wherefore slew him? When the Bible talks about Cain, it literally asks a very specific question. Why? Wherefore slew him? And you know what it does not say? Because Adam and Eve were bad parents. You know what it says? It says because his own works were evil and his brother's righteous. It says because he was wicked. I mean, what do we have? Heir the firstborn of Judah. He was wicked, and God just killed him. God just killed Heir because Heir is the bad kid, bad son, and he just gets rid of him. Cain, bad kid, and because, I guess, God wants, therefore, to be bad people in the world, he didn't kill Cain. He just put a mark on him so that anybody that would kill him would receive sevenfold. Then you have bands like Avenged Sevenfold. That's interesting, huh? What a satanic band name. Go back to Matthew chapter 1. But I'm trying to just show you a pattern here of this genealogy. I didn't write this book. I didn't write these stories. It's kind of crazy that God is not highlighting, necessarily, just all these good people. In fact, He's highlighting a lot of bad people, a lot of sinful situations, a lot of evil things, because I think He wants us to understand that we live in a dark world, and we know that the whole world lieth in wickedness, is what the Bible says. The Bible does not paint a picture of the world just being this rosy-colored utopia. I mean, we just had a presidential election between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. It was not between David and Daniel. It was not between two good options. It was between, like, horrible Israel puppet and communist Israel puppet. And it was just like, we were all kind of like, I'm glad we didn't get the communist puppet. But at the end of the day, it's not like, you know, Donald Trump appointing all kinds of Israel first and deep state neo-cons is going to be good for our nation either. I mean, he appointed Marco Rubio to some position in the government that he's going to let... Who knows what position? I can't remember. Was it Secretary of Defense? It was like Secretary of State or something? He recently said that he would put Marco Rubio in his cabinet. And it's just like, talk about just a horrible pick. He wants to get rid of the deep state by putting in more deep state people or something. It's just like, it's bizarre. Somebody that he openly mocked. Donald Trump in 2015 openly mocked Marco Rubio and said he was an Israel puppet and that he was controlled by some lady, Adelson, who he then took all of her money, like $100 million or something from her for his campaign, and then literally appointed Marco Rubio in the position. Talk about a hypocrite. Okay, now look, I don't hate Donald Trump. I would love for Donald Trump to get saved. He's definitely not saved. And I think there's a chance. You know, with a lot of the pedophiles of the past, it didn't seem like there was a chance for Biden. That's why I preached the whole sermon called Damn Joe Biden. But with Trump, maybe there's a small, tiny sliver of a chance that he could get saved. He is the most prideful person that I've ever seen, so I say tiny. But, you know, we've seen some pretty evil people in the Bible get saved, and they're even in this lineage. Let's keep reading, because look what it says. In Ozias, we've got Jotham. In Jotham, we've got Achaz. In Achaz, we've got Ezechias. In Ezechias, we've got Manassas. In Manassas, we've got Amnon. In Amnon, we've got Josias. Manassas is Manasseh. Manasseh is one of the worst kings of the Children of Judah. Super evil guy, but later in his life, he gets saved. So if Manasseh can get saved, I guess I'm holding out for Trump, okay? That would be great. That will make America great again, okay? If we can get Trump saved, all right? So then his favorite book of the Bible is not 2 Corinthians. It's 2 Corinthians, all right? Maybe we can turn that to John 3 or something, you know? He just hasn't heard it yet. It says in verse 11, And Josias begot Jeconias and all his brethren about the time that they were carried away to Babylon. And after they were brought to Babylon, Jeconias begot Salathiel, and Salathiel begot Zerubbabel. And Zerubbabel begot Biud, and Biud begot Eliakim, and Eliakim begot Azor. Now, again, you know, you read the Bible, and it's all about this carrying away to Babylon mentioned here. Then they come back, and they appoint Zerubbabel, the basically governor of that particular area, and that is the same Zerubbabel that is being mentioned here, and he's kind of put on that throne again, in a sense, and he is the leader of that particular area again. And so all the people in the Old Testament, it wasn't an accident that we read in the book of Ezra about Zerubbabel. It's not an accident that all these minor prophets and major prophets are talking about all these specific people and all these specific events. He was specifically telling us about the Lord Jesus Christ and giving us a future prophecy of what was to come, which was that prophet. Now, verse 13, in Zerubbabel begot Abiud, and Biud begot Eliakim, and Eliakim begot Azor, and Azor begot Zadok, and Zadok begot Achim, and Achim begot Eliakim, and Eliakim begot Eleazar, and Eleazar begot Mathen, and Mathen begot Jacob, and Jacob begot Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ. So we have this genealogy. It starts from Abraham, goes all the way to the Lord Jesus Christ. And Luke, it kind of does the opposite. It starts at Jesus and goes backwards, and it takes us all the way back to the Son of God, which is Adam. And so we literally have a genealogy that goes from Jesus all the way back. It does skip a few times, even in that one. This one skips once, at least, that I'm aware of. And so we do have a few skipping. But generally, this gives us an idea. This also helps us understand that the earth is about 6,300 years old. Now, that's confirmed by studying out a lot of the ages and stuff, and that's a whole different sermon. But I always simply say, if you want to prove this, I think it's easy if you use Luke 3 and the genealogy, because you go from Jesus all the way back to Adam and Eve, and then specifically in Exodus 20, verse 11, it says, For the Lord made the heaven and the earth in six days. So you have basically, hey, six days, you have that genealogy. It can't be millions. It can't be billions. He made everything in six days. According to Exodus 20, 11, you have these genealogies. And this genealogy goes back to Abraham, but if you go to the Luke 3, it goes back from Abraham 2 all the way down, and you kind of have commonality, because we're all related at some point. When you go far enough back, we're just all running into the exact same tree and the exact same lineage. And so that's why we're all brothers and sisters, in a sense. Now, not super literally, but in a sense, we are. It says in verse 17, So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations, and from David until the carrying away and to Babylon are fourteen generations, and from the carrying away and to Babylon and to Christ are fourteen generations. That number is interesting, because they kind of overlap. You have to kind of count from Abraham to David's fourteen, but then you have to count David again, and then it's basically David to Jeconias, which is that Babylon, and then you have Babylon time, and you have to count that again all the way down to Joseph to Christ, but that's where we kind of get those fourteen. And I don't know exactly what the significance is. I think it's just maybe to help people memorize this, but again, there was a skip in some of the names, but what is a generation? Is the generation identified as just a specific beginning, or is it kind of like a timeline, like a period? But you look at other charts as far as Luke chapter 3, and you kind of have a lot of names, a lot more names, from the time of carrying away Babylon and to Christ in one side of the family than the other, and that can happen too, because my dad was 43 when I was born, whereas some people, their dad's like 18, 19, 20. So you can have situations, and especially back then, you can have times where people are having their kids later in life as opposed to younger in life, and so that can cause the number of names to increase on one side of the family as opposed to the other, but you have that particular situation. Here it's just kind of giving us, hey, there's 14, 14, and 14 in these three sections. Verse 18, now the birth of Jesus Christ was in this wise, when as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. That's significant because we have to understand that even though we have this genealogy, this genealogy is not accurate from a human perspective in one way, and that is that Jesus is not the descendant of Joseph. He is the adopted son of Joseph. The Gospel of Matthew is Joseph's lineage, and Luke is Mary's. That's always hard for me to remember. I just kind of remember that Matthew starts with an M, and Mary starts with an M, and that they're not the same. It's kind of a hard way for me to remember. If you can think of a better way to remember this, then help me, but I'm always trying to remember which one is Joseph and Mary. I just remember Matthew's M, Mary's M, and it's not the match. It's not the Father. That's how I kind of remember, but you have here specifically Jesus is actually born of the Holy Ghost. That's significant because Jesus is not only man, but he's God. And so we have kind of the God-man. We have the man, Christ Jesus, who's God in the flesh, and this is an interesting miracle. I find this really fascinating because God can really do whatever he wants, and there's nothing stopping God from having delivered his son through a human marriage. I mean, he gets to do whatever he wants, but he decided to have this unique situation where you have a virgin, and you have the Holy Ghost, and you have someone that's the Son of God, and you have someone that's the Son of Man, and that's the titles that he has. He is the Son of God, and he's the Son of Man, and that fulfills a lot of prophecy in the Bible. It fulfills a lot of different pictures, but it helps us understand the complexity. And we think about the Bible. The Bible is Jesus Christ. Well, the Bible is man, and the Bible is God. How is it man? Well, man wrote all of this, but they wrote it under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. So in the same way, the Bible is conceived, in a sense, through man, but it's also conceived, in a sense, through the Holy Ghost. And the Lord Jesus Christ is conceived, in a sense, through man, but it's also conceived through the Holy Ghost. And here's another thing. To someone looking on the outside in, they would say, oh, this is Joseph's son. Or, according to the Jewish lie, he's the son of Pantera, some Roman soldier. They deny it. And you ask somebody about the Bible. Oh, the Bible is written by man. Oh, the Bible is written by the Romans who wanted to control people. That's what they'll literally say. And it's like God, you know, God doesn't always want everything to be super obvious. God wants the spiritual to have to live by faith, and he wants to give an excuse to the unsaved. God is always giving people an excuse. God is always giving people an opportunity to believe lies. I mean, the Bible is crystal clear. God is willing to let you believe lies so much that he literally says he'll send false prophets unto you who will do miracles, and they will come to pass to test you to see if you'll turn away from God. Think about that. God is saying, I will allow a false prophet to do a miracle to try and convince you to walk away from me. That's how much God is willing to test your faith. And sometimes you have to ask yourself this question. Are the weird things that happen in life, are the crazy things that happen in life, are they trying to give you an opportunity to just walk away from Christianity, get offended, turn away from things of God? Because you can't explain them. Here's the thing. Can you explain a virgin conceiving? No, it's literally impossible. It's a miracle. You have to believe it's an exception. And I'll tell you this. I believe that God is constantly giving us exceptions that we have to believe. I mean, the Christian life is one of exception anyways because you're never going to be the majority religion. You're never going to be the majority of the group. You're always going to be the few. You have to walk by faith, not by sight. And so many times we're going to have to go through things where we don't understand it. We can't see it carnally. It doesn't make sense, but the Bible's clear. And we have to just say, you know what? I'm just going to do what the Bible's saying and just keep trusting the Lord. And that's what Joseph has to do. And this is an incredible test of faith for Joseph, if you think about this. It says in verse 19, Then Joseph, her husband, being a just man and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privately. But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. Now, think about this. Joseph has no way of ever knowing for sure that this is not a son by some other dude. He has to just trust the messenger of the Lord. He just has to believe by faith that she really has conceived by the Holy Ghost. I'm just telling you, that is a serious test of faith. I mean, for your fiancé to be expecting, and you know it's not you, that is some serious, serious test of faith. I mean, they're constantly having people on Jerry Springer trying to tell them that, and then they have the DNA test. Think about this. Jesus was at a time when DNA tests don't exist. It's probably specific. Joseph cannot know for a fact, from a carnal perspective, that Jesus is conceived by the Holy Ghost. And frankly speaking, when has this ever happened before? He's having to completely walk by faith. And I'm just telling you, sometimes God will give you a test and say, hey, are you going to do it, the Bible says, are you going to walk by faith, or are you going to walk by sight? And Joseph was willing to walk by faith and not by sight, and praise God for Joseph and his courage here, because this is very difficult. This would be very hard for any man. And he didn't want to. I think that's why the Bible makes this statement here. Notice in verse 19, being a just man not willing to make her a public example was mine to put her away privately. Joseph did not want to stay with her. He was not going to stay with her. Now, he still showed in his mind a little bit of kindness, but notice what the Bible says, he was a just man. I think that's important. What is just? It's related to justice. What is justice? What the law prescribes. What the law prescribes. Now, biblically speaking, if a man finds some uncleanness in his virgin, or actually his wife even, then he has the right to give her a bill of divorcement and to put her away. That is just. There's nothing unjust about it. It is the law. But sometimes God doesn't want us to necessarily give people justice. He doesn't necessarily want us to give them what they deserve. And what God likes is mercy triumphing over justice. Because what is justice? If someone smites you on the cheek, what is justice? To smite them on the cheek. That's the law. The law says eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. Hey, someone smites you? Justice is another smiting. But what's better than justice sometimes is mercy and turning the other cheek. And so Joseph has to exercise too here the idea and the concept of specifically showing this mercy. Now, I think this is also really significant. Jesus' father is not Joseph. Joseph, being a just man, pictures something. He pictures the law. But here's the thing. The law cannot save. The law does not bring salvation. What brings salvation is mercy. And God sending his son, Jesus Christ, is a picture of mercy, who's the true father of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because the real gospel does not come from Joseph. It comes from God the Father. Because the law cannot save us, but faith through Jesus Christ and his sacrifice is what actually saves us. And so we have to understand that we cannot be saved through the works of the law. We cannot be saved through the picture of Joseph. We have to be pictured through the miracle of the Lord Jesus Christ and his sacrifice. And specifically it's saying in verse 21, For he shall save his people from their sins. So Jesus is a picture of saving us from our sins and it's not through the law, but it's through grace and it's through the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 22, Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be a child and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, which being interpreted as God with us. Jesus Christ is not just the son of God. He is God with us. And you understand the root of these particular words. Immanuel, El is God. Okay? In Hebrew, El means God and it's usually the end. So you have a lot of names like this. You know, consistently throughout the Bible you have tons of people where they have the last name El or El is kind of the ending of the name. And it's usually, it's something to do with God specifically. Okay? And here it's telling us, hey, this is Immanuel. It's meaning God is with us. It's not just the son of God, it's God. John chapter 1 verse 1, In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. So Jesus Christ is God. The Bible says, Great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. So the Lord Jesus Christ is not just the son of God. He is God. The Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians chapter number 15 that he is the Lord from heaven. He is the Lord. He is God. That is significant. Why is it significant that he had a only human mother and not earthly father? Jesus did not come into existence through conception. Jesus Christ came into existence never because he's from everlasting. His origins are from everlasting. Jesus Christ is the Lord from heaven. Now, yeah, we have what's known as the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ, meaning him becoming flesh because the Bible says the word was made flesh and dwelt among us. So something special, something unique happened here and the Bible makes that clear. Great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh, but that does not mean he didn't exist prior to this particular concept. Some people have this idea that the son is not an eternal being. But we believe, I believe, in the eternal sonship of Jesus Christ, meaning that Jesus has always been the son. He didn't become the son. He wasn't created the son. He is the son and he's always been the son. There's always been the father, the son, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one God that has always existed. And when the book of Genesis 1 starts, they say, let us make man in our image after our likeness. And they made man like Jesus Christ, and that's what we have in the beginning. Some people get offended by this. Some people get mad about this. But you know what? I'm just trying to tell you what the Bible says. Now it says in verse 24, Now, here's the thing. Catholics hate a word that we just read. It's the word till. And Jesus knew her not. Till. Catholics just want to mark out the word till and just be like, and Joseph knew her not. You know what? You know what? The Bible doesn't teach that. The Bible teaches that Joseph didn't know her till. Now, if you said the word till, it implies something, that something changed. If I said, I haven't eaten until I showed up at church, what would you think? That I ate something at church, right? If I say that and then I'm like, no, I've never eaten. You'd be like, that's weird. Because it would be weird to put a timeline on something for being true and with the word till, if it didn't actually change, if it didn't actually happen. The word till implies there was a change. There was a change in the sense that she's no longer a virgin. Sorry, Catholics, Mary's not a virgin. She was a virgin, but she's not a virgin. That's also another significant aspect. And you know what, Catholics, they have this weird doctrine, this weird idea that all, this is what they say. Joseph and Mary were these people that had dedicated themselves to being virgins in hopes that they would be picked for Jesus' coming. And then they have this weird idea that today people need to make vows of virginity for the rest of their life. Like, they need to just all make these vows. And it's like, literally, 1 Timothy 4, where it's like some doctrine of devils that they're forbidding marriage, they're abstaining from marriage, and it's just like, it's what the Bible is. I mean, Catholics are literally 1 Timothy 4, because they're commanding to abstain from meats, and they're forbidding marriage, and that's what Catholics are like. They have Lent, and they have all their weird ideas about not eating certain meats and certain foods, and then additionally they basically make it seem like marriage is bad. And one of the biggest proponents of this is Nick Fuentes. Nick Fuentes is a big person on this. He's talked really negatively about marriage. He said, like, being with women is being like a sodomite. And I'm just thinking, like, I think only sodomites think that, okay? That's super weird. You know, there's nothing wrong with marriage, and there's nothing, you know, the Bible's really clear that the bed's undefiled. Marriage is honorable and all, and the bed undefiled. But whoremongers and adulterers, God will judge, is what the Bible says. There's nothing wrong with marriage. Marriage is a good thing. We should keep getting married all the way up until the rapture, because the Bible says people will be. I mean, the Bible's saying, like, people are going to be getting married and buying gifts and doing all kinds of stuff all the way up until God shuts that door on Noah's ark. And you know what? We should be getting married all the way to the bitter end. We should encourage our children to get married. We should encourage their children to get married. We should appreciate the institution that God gave us of marriage. And just because Joseph and Mary didn't have a traditional birth for their first child, they did later. Don't let this weird story... I mean, they basically just missed the boat on every story. Don't take this story into this weird perverted idea of, like, don't get married and don't have relations with your spouse. Like, that's a bizarre, satanic, false doctrine. God wants us to have happy marriages and happy unions, and if you are a sinful person, you sinned in the past, notice how God blessed a lot of those marriages. Rahab, Tamar... Well, that was not necessarily blessed, but they used it. They have Rahab the harlot, you have Ruth, you have different situations that God still used. Even Bathsheba, they ended up having Solomon, and Solomon was a good kid in the midst of a lot of bad brethren. And so, you know, we want to make sure that we're serving God and not allowing other people to drag us down. And if we make mistakes, just keep fighting. Just keep allowing God to use you. Never stop. Because at the end of the day, we'll be dead pretty soon, and it won't matter. The only thing that matters is what we did in our spirit. Let's close in prayer. Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for this wonderful chapter that's talking about your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And thank you for giving us a glimpse into His humanity, but also His divinity. I pray that we would have a great appreciation for what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us, and that we would see that even through sinful people and through bad circumstances, you still work, and that all things work together for good to them that love God. I pray that we'd be encouraged to keep serving you no matter where life takes us. And I pray that you would just continue to bless this Bible study in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. All right, next up, we're going to do one last song. Song number 62, Saved by Grace. Song number 62. Sing it out nice and loud. Some day the silver corn will break And I know more is now shall sing But, oh, the joy when I shall wake Within the palace of the King And I shall see Him face to face And tell the story saved by grace And I shall see Him face to face And tell the story saved by grace Some day my earthly house will fall I cannot tell how soon it will be But this I know my old and old Has now a palace there for me And I shall see Him face to face And tell the story saved by grace And I shall see Him face to face And tell the story saved by grace Some day when fades the golden sun Beneath the rose He tends to rest My blessed Lord will soon well die And I shall enter into rest And I shall see Him face to face And tell the story saved by grace And I shall see Him face to face And tell the story saved by grace Some day till then I'll watch and wake My lamp all trimmed and burning bright And when my Savior holds the gate My soul to Him will take His light And I shall see Him face to face And tell the story saved by grace And I shall see Him face to face And tell the story saved by grace Great singing everybody. You are all dismissed. Thank you for watching.