DECEMBER 21 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#1-33 SUMMARY-07 The Gospel of Matthew: A Study of the Life, Death, Burial, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ

 

DECEMBER 21  THE JESUS QUESTIONS  JQ#1-33 SUMMARY-07

  The Gospel of Matthew: A Study of the Life, 

Death, Burial, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ 

LIVING FOR JESUS - Daily Prayer    

JESUS, today I pray, “I am Yours, save me” as was prayed by Martin Luther,

 a prayer that must have been a great glory to Your Name and a great time

 of “coming out of darkness” into the LIGHT of YOUR WORD! O Lord, 

there is a new ‘Spiritual Dark Ages’ for our nation as America continues

 down this disastrous course of “separation of church and state” 

and if America continues to drift from our faith in God, we will lose

 the religious freedom established by our Creator 

and acknowledged by our Christian forefathers. 

Lord we simply cannot allow Christ to be taken out of Christmas

 and let “Happy-Holidays-Gift-Buying” replace “Merry-Christmas-Gift-Giving”

 in our lives, especially in our schools and public places. 

Lord, I pray for the Holy Spirit to lead “believers in Christ” to do 

something about this evil and vile situation that is removing Your Name 

from so many things that have made our nation great.” 

 Like many Americans who have felt the the need for unity in Christ,

 my prayer is that Christ will be allowed back into our schools and public

 places and that as a nation that we will once again proclaim 

“IN GOD WE TRUST” and from a Joyous heart proclaim, “Peace on Earth —

 Merry Christmas to ALL”!!!!    AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus has now been connected to 4 prophecies that point to Him as

 the Messiah and yet it is our “faith” that will actually seat Him on

 the “throne” of our heart!!! It is a simple TRUTH of this world that all

 the evidence in the world will not be sufficient to enlighten those worldly

 ones that want to trust in the “doctrines and traditions of man” and not

 the “commands of God”! Jesus adamantly demonstrated against the

 hypocrisy of abandoning God’s Light for man’s darkness throughout 

His earthly ministry and especially after making His “Triumphal Entry”

 into Jerusalem. During the Passover Week Jesus was very specific 

as He is quoted as saying:

 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!

 For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, 

and when he is won, 

you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.” 

(Matthew 23:15) 

With statements like that from Jesus which attacked power hungry 

religious leaders of Israel and called them out with such great 

condemnation (and especially being called out like that in Jerusalem

 during the Passover Week) that they as “national leaders” would

 certainly not want Jesus to be confirmed as the Messiah for that 

would expose their greed for control of the people and would be 

Divine confirmation of them being “sons of hell”! 

That particular problem still exists today among people greedy for power 

that still refute the claim that Jesus is not the “Messiah” and they still today

 go so far as to say that the word “Messiah” has been defiled by translation ———

 those believing that the “mashiach” (“the anointed one”) has not yet come

 to this earth even today argue that the “mashiach” (according to the

 traditions of men) is not “God” but that the “mashiach” is a “human” 

that will be a warrior king like David. 

Those dedicated to this “Messianic Idea in Judaism” base their

 arguments on arguments put forth in such writings as 

“Rambam’s 13 Principals of Faith” which are in their own words

 “the minimum requirements of Jewish belief” and when they refer

 to God’s Holy Scriptures these that are so dedicated to “Judaism”

 use the same prophets that declared the coming of the “Messiah” 

and “signs” of His Coming through their interpretation of the Scriptures,

 use those same prophets and Scriptures to claim that the Scriptures

 “prove” that Jesus is not the “mashiach”. It was this claim of their side

  that the Scriptures prove Jesus who was standing before them 

fulfilling prophecy was not the Messiah, was the basis therefore

 for Jesus rightfully called them “hypocrites” for these misguided 

leaders claim to know the Scriptures better than God Himself!  

This is the exact same problem that Jesus questioned the scribes 

and Pharisees from Jerusalem who had sought out Jesus because of

 His “Works” (the “Works” that Jesus had done were “miraculous” by

 any definition) and when Jesus answered their question 

with a Question of His own, 

“Why do you transgress the commandment of God 

because of your tradition?” (Matthew 15:3) 

and called them “hypocrites” by referring to the prophet Isaiah: 

“Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying, 

‘These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me

 with their lips, but their heart is far from Me, and in vain they worship Me,

 teaching as doctrines the commandments of men’” 

(Matthew 15:7-9) 

So if those that claim Jesus is not the Messiah do so by quoting 

“commandments of men” such as “Rambam’s 13 Principals of Faith” 

then I will let each of you make your own decision and review 

the “evidence” yourself, but each individual must still come

 to the same point of decision put forth by Joshua — 

“Choose this day whom you will serve!” 

(Joshua 24:15)

DECEMBER 20 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#1-33 SUMMARY-06 The Gospel of Matthew: A Study of the Life, Death, Burial, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ

 

DECEMBER 20  THE JESUS QUESTIONS  JQ#1-33 SUMMARY-06

   The Gospel of Matthew: A Study of the Life, 

Death, Burial, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ 

LIVING FOR JESUS - Daily Prayer   

JESUS, today is another day with the Light that You have provided for all. 

All deserve death and were it not for Your Mercy, Your Grace, 

and Your Great Sacrifice on the Cross at Calvary to purchase our 

Redemption from the punishment of our many iniquities, we would

 still be lost in darkness — Lord let us “lean not” on our own understanding
 but give us the wisdom to let You Guide our steps and Light our path! 

Jesus we are so undeserving of the Mercies that You Renew each 

morning because of who You ARE, You shower us with blessings,

 so Lord Jesus I offer up that which I have — my praise and prayers;

 praise for You and prayers for others — keeping neither for myself

 for Your Grace is Sufficient for me! Forgive me for all the ways that

 I have failed You and keep me centered in Your Will!    

AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus was not only proven to be the Messiah by the evidence of 

His Birth to a “virgin” (a young Jewish girl who had nothing to gain

 but death from stoning by claiming her Child was the Son of the

 Most High God) Jesus was also linked to the “purpose” of the Messiah 

by outside forces that He could not have manipulated as a Child. 

The purpose of the “Messiah” in both Jewish tradition and 

today’s Christian denominations is one of “Kingship” which became

 an issue that pointed to Jesus as the “Anointed One” when the

 then King of Israel, King Herod met with the “wise men from the East”

 who had traveled to Jerusalem and were asking,

 “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? 

For we have seen His star in the East 

and have come to worship Him.” 

(Matthew 2:1-2)

This inquiry from credible “wise men” that knew of the “birth” 

of the “King of the Jews” that had seen a “sign” in the heavens 

and knew that the event had happened in Judea as noted by

 their statement “has been born” caught the attention

 of the then seated king of Judea, King Herod.

 “When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all 

Jerusalem with him. And when [Herod] had gathered all the 

chief priests and scribes of the people together, [Herod] 

inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. 

So they said to him, ‘In Bethlehem of Judea…’ and then 

the chief priests and scribes quoted the prophet Micah who wrote 

‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are not the least 

among the rulers of Judah; for out of you shall come a Ruler

 who will shepherd My people Israel.’” 

(Matthew 2:3-6 and Micah 5:2) 

Modern Jews do not accept that Jesus is the “Messiah” and their

 main argument is that the “mashiach” is a human and not God

 and will be a human leader like King David, and this human “mashiach” 

 will win great battles for Israel and not just be a “savior” who will 

save “His people from their sins”. The Judaism concept of “mashiach” 

is of a human that will rebuild the temple, re-establish traditional Jewish

 worship in the re-built temple, and also “mashiach” will establish

 a government in Jerusalem making it the center of all world government.  

Herod however was not concerned about these concepts of the

 “one born King of the Jews” but Herod was concerned about the “kingship”

 of one that had fulfilled prophecy!  Herod was concerned enough that

 he tried to enlist the services of the wise men in finding the

 “King of the Jews” but when the wise men did not return to Herod, 

Herod “sent forth [Herod’s soldiers] and put to death all the male

 children who were in Bethlehem and in all its districts, 

from two years old and under…” 

(Matthew 2:7-16) 

But this act of Herod reacting to prophecy about 

“one who has been born King of the Jews” 

was also prophetic in its execution as the prophet Jeremiah had noted

 that there would be “A voice heard in Ramah, 

lamentation, weeping, and great mourning, 

Rachel weeping for her children, 

refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”  

(Jeremiah 31:15)  

Matthew documented that “Divine Intervention” on behalf of Jesus 

came as an “angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream” after

 the wise men had bestowed gifts on the “young Child” Jesus 

and the angel said,

 “Arise take the young Child and His mother, and flee to Egypt” …

 thus fulfilling the prophecy by Hosea stating

 “Out of Egypt I called My Son” (Hosea 11:1) 

The simple fact that all these events came about while Jesus was still

 a “young Child” are events that are historical facts and had they been

 fabricated after the crucifixion of Jesus they would have been quickly 

refuted by the Jewish rulers and the chief priests and scribes that had

 called for the Crucifixion of Jesus; however, the only records that exist 

support Jesus as having fulfilled the prophecy of the “Messiah/mashiach” 

according to the prophets of old. 

So Matthew in the first 3 chapters of his Gospel of Jesus Christ

 has established as historical fact that Jesus has already, at the 

young age of 2 or 3 years old, fulfilled 4 prophecies written hundreds

 of years earlier by God’s own prophets and these 4 critical prophecies

 and their fulfillment could not have been “fabricated” without receiving

 great criticism from the chief priests and scribes! 

If it were the apostles and disciples of Jesus that had “fabricated” the 

stories after the death of Jesus, their fabrication would have resulted

 in their own deaths and the Gospel of Jesus Christ and His Divine Truth

 would not be documented so well in the New Testament which has

 been Divinely Protected for thousand of years,

 which only adds credence to the claim that 

Jesus IS CHRIST!!!