Episode 62 Matthew 4:1-11 The King’s Victory

Dan: (00:00)
Hi, everyone. And welcome to training for life redeemed. I’m your host, Dan, as always, I am joined by my father, David Jackson, and it is nice Dad to be back in your office here, sitting next to you, chatting and doing this rather than being on zoom. So that’s, that’s exciting. Dad, we are continuing to look through the book of Matthew and today we are up to chapter three in the book and in chapter three, we have John the Baptist coming out, doing some preaching, Israel coming out to listen to him from fulfilments of prophecy. And then we’re gonna look at the baptism of Jesus within that as well. So can you start us off? Why is it so exciting for Israel to be going out to John the Baptist and for him to be drawing a crowd when he’s out at the Jordan river, which is actually a fair way outta town and there’s not much around except for the Jordan river. so what, how, how, why is he getting a crowd what’s going on?

David: (00:53)
Yeah, he’s, Israel’s been around 3 or, 400 years without a prophet. So you’ve got this big crisis in Israel, particularly in Judea, God left the building in 586. There’s been an empty temple sitting there since,. basically Herod rebuilt the thing and he’s still rebuilding the thing, but it’s empty. God hasn’t returned and the other temple, that Haggai and Zechariah and Zerubbabel put together. it’s just been an empty box sitting on a hill. They’re still going through the motions, still doing the sacrifices, but they’re talking to an empty box. Where is the Lord? and they’re in crisis, because you’ve got all these old Testament prophets saying, God will come back. You know, Isaiah’s out there promising people that Yahweh is going to return and he’s gonna prepare his way through the wilderness and you know, the desert’s gonna blossom and the roads are all gonna be flat. And you know, you’re not gonna be trudging uphill with your refugee pack anymore.

Dan: (01:57)
Which means a lot in Israel. If you’ve seen Israel, it’s, it’s kind of like, you know, we live in Sydney and there’s a blue mountain just out at Sydney’s. Jerusalem’s kind of like up in the blue mountains. And so you’re traveling up and down Hills to get to rivers and stuff.

David: (02:09)
Anybody who’s hiked that thing with a pack on your back, going up and down, up and down. I remember it. Well, a nice freeway is cool. Yeah. So God made all these promises, but instead of the promises being fulfilled, you’ve had an invasion by the Babylonians, the Persians, and the Greeks and now the Romans are here and the Jews are saying, you know, have we been so terribly bad that God’s given up on us? We are done. We’re cooked. So there’s been no prophe. The Temple’s empty, God hasn’t reappeared in the temple. And then suddenly this guy turns up and the last prophet, the last thing he said was that God would send Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord. And now you’ve got a guy that looks like Elijah.

Dan: (03:00)
Yeah.

David: (03:00)
Running around telling you that the kingdom of God is about to land and you better get your act cleaned up. And people are going down there saying if we’ve got a prophet again, you know, what’s happening, let’s go down and check him out. So yeah,

Dan: (03:13)
I gotta say like most prophets, he’s not overly nice to the leadership of Jerusalem at the time. So we have the Pharisees and the Sadducees head out to John at the Jordan river. and he’s not exactly welcoming of them. I don’t think

David: (03:32)
Well, if you remember, Genesis three 15 is, God speaking to the serpent Satan. And he says, the offspring of the woman’s gonna crush the head of your offspring and your offspring are gonna strike him on the heel. Snake bit, You’re dead. So the offspring of the woman is coming and John turns around and calls the Pharisees and the Sadducees the offspring of the snake, I mean, in today’s language, you know, we have other ways of saying in English, American talk, you are the offspring of an unclean animal. Yeah. And it usually happens to talk about female dogs. So this is really in your face stuff. And it’s not, it’s not expected that you would turn anybody away who came out to be baptised or repenting, but he spots these guys as hypocrites.

Dan: (04:29)
Yeah. And in one sense, he’s prophesying. I reckon because Jesus does get killed. And it’s the Pharisees and the Sadducees who are plotting with the Herodians to, to kill him, you know, and get it, getting that happening. So then, so John’s there. These guys come out, he has to go with them and tells ’em, they’re sons of Satan basically. And then Jesus comes to be baptised. Isn’t the baptism, a sign of washing away your sins and repentance and stuff. What, why is Jesus getting baptised? Yeah. By John.

David: (04:59)
So when we, we preach the gospel to the nations and the world, we are saying repent and be baptised for the forgiveness of your sins. When, Peter was talking to the Jewish crowd in Jerusalem on Pentecost and they say, what do we have to do to be saved? He says, repent and get baptized. Now we tend to think of Baptism as a sign that I have repented. And that’s true. that is the sequence I repent. And then I get dunked. but what’s happening here is reminiscent of something of two separate things. If you like, repentance is something that goes on in my head and heart. So head, heart and hands. I change my attitude. I grieve, I emotionally grieve over my sins and I turn my lifestyle around. I follow God’s way. That’s repentance. Baptism follows that because if I have repented, now I’m in a place where I can meet God.

David: (06:00)
so I love the, the line in Isaiah. It’s a great warning. I will not hear your prayers. Don’t bother praying to me. You’ve got blood on your hands, go and wash your hands. Then come and talk to me, Isaiah 1:15, 16. So what’s happening here with the baptism is we’re going back to the old Testament where before God does anything, he says to the people go and have a bath, wash your clothes, clean up your act, get yourselves ready, consecrate yourselves. You are going to meet God. I am coming. So Mount Sinai, Joshua in his camp before, you know, we go down the hill and cross the Jordan river. And it’s interesting, John, the Baptist is on the western, sorry, the Eastern side of the Jordan river. So he is basically calling Israel to go back out of the promised land reconsecrate themselves and re-enter and stay out this whole kingdom of God process all over again. So we are consecrating ourselves to be ready to meet God. And if you look at that in new covenant terms, I repented my sins. I believe in Christ. I’m baptised into his name and I receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. God is gonna come and dwell in me. So you, baptism is a way of saying, I am going to be clean enough and holy enough in Christ as I take his name to meet God in person.

Dan: (07:29)
So does that then like Jesus is God in person. he doesn’t have the sin to be washed away. Nope. So

David: (07:36)
He’s not repenting. So

Dan: (07:37)
What is doing with his baptism?

David: (07:40)
He is the, he’s our representative head and as such, he’s first in the water and he is being consecrated. There’s a bit of irony. The man Jesus is representing us. Remember. So he set aside his prerogatives of God as a man, he steps into the water, has a bath and he’s ready to meet God. And as he’s coming outta the water, he receives the gift of the holy spirit. Yeah. and God, the holy spirit now empowers him for his future ministry. Okay. so he’s, he’s showing us the right way to approach God and doing it without sin. But you know, he is fulfilling all righteousness. He’s doing what we are supposed to do, ready for God to come and indwell our lives and set up the kingdom of God.

Dan: (08:33)
Yeah. Okay. So he’s representing us and it’s kind of more symbolic, I guess of doing this on kind of behalf of everyone else and showing them what they should be doing more than he particularly personally needs. Yeah.

David: (08:44)
It’s called follow me. Yeah. And that’s what discipleship

Dan: (08:48)
Is beautiful. Well, now that brings us to the end of chapter three. Yep. if you would like to come and grab the study notes or daily notes that go along with this section of Matthew, you can head over to trainingforliferedeemed.com/61. And you can grab all the stuff there. If you enjoyed this episode, we would love it. If you would leave us a review to let us know that you enjoyed it, and please make sure that you subscribe to the podcast and come back and join us next week. When we look at mark they’re like Matthew, keep forgetting Matthew chapter four versus one. We’re just going through to 11, I think next in our next episode. So come and come and join us for that. We’ll see you then.