Sermon
Jesus Offers Heaven
Matthew 4: 12-17
FABC of Longmont
September 15, 2019
Hunter Irvine
= Matthew 4: 12-17 When Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, he returned to Galilee. Leaving Nazareth, he went and lived in Capernaum, which was by the lake in the area of Zebulun and Naphtali—to fulfill what was said through the prophet Isaiah:
“Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, the way to the sea, along the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.”
From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near” (NIV).
Why not Galilee of the Jewish people??:
Why is the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali called “Galilee of the Gentiles?”
After all, Zebulun and Naphtali were two of the twelve tribes of Israel, and their land was part of Israel.
In 931 B.C., there was a split in Israel – the northern kingdom, Israel, and the southern kingdom, Judah. The northern kingdom had 10 tribes, and the southern kingdom had 2 tribes.
After the split, there was much disobedience by kings and many Israelites in the northern kingdom, year after year. God warned them to stop turning to false gods and doing other sins, including violence. But the leaders did not listen, so God allowed the invasion of the Assyrians. Isaiah gave a specific prophecy that Assyria would conquer Israel.
In 722 B.C., the Assyrians conquered Israel, the northern kingdom.
The Assyrians were terrible. They would conquer a country, and then to reduce the chance of that country rebelling later on, they would deport most of the people to another country they had conquered. Then they would send foreigners from the other country to live in the newly conquered country. So they were not only conquering countries, they were ripping people out of their homeland.
Thus much of the area which had been Israel became filled with people from another country, or countries.
Later on Judah was conquered by Babylon, and then came the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C., which I will not get into because that is a complete sermon in and of itself.
Some Jewish people did return, but…:
So Galilee was inhabited by Gentiles, however, there may have been a few Jewish people who were able to remain in 722 B.C., but moreso, a few centuries before the time of Christ, some Jewish people were able to return to their homeland in Israel, in addition to all of the Jewish people who continued to return to Judea from Babylon.
And as the Roman Empire expanded, the roads made travel easier, and people were able to more easily move. Some Jewish people who had been dispersed all over the place returned to their native land.
Thus in the region of Galilee, you had both Jewish people and Gentiles.
Yet this Scripture lets us know the area was dominated by “Gentiles.”
A religious mess:
Now Gentiles were any people who were not Jewish. This sounds rather racist to be segregating people by such terms. However, the Biblical distinction was concerned not with ethnicity, rather with false religion versus the one true God.
The ancient world was filled with devotion to a plethora of false gods. I learned in my Western Civilization class at CCU that most people in the ancient world were polytheistic, meaning they believed in the existence of many gods. Monotheism, the belief in a sole God, was an attribute which set the beliefs of the Israelites apart from other people of other nations. (There was one ancient Egyptian king who advocated monotheism, which really set him apart in history.)
God wanted the Jewish people to be set apart from the people of other nations in order to preserve their relationship with Himself, Yahweh, the true God!
But rather than devotion to Yahweh in Galilee, besides a minority of people who were Jewish, the region was filled with a whole bunch of people with devotion to a whole bunch of false gods. And all this was under the Roman Empire, which had its own pantheon of false gods, most of which were false Greek gods with different names.
It was a religious mess.
Jesus offered heaven:
And in the midst of the religious mess, Jesus started preaching about heaven.
Heaven is the offer of Jesus!
Yes God wants good things for us in this world, and He has made other promises to us, such as He will be with His children up to the end of the age. Yet His primary offer is heaven!
In the Sermon on the Mount, in parables, and in other places, Jesus taught about heaven!!
Heaven is His offer to us!
Memorial services:
Being a person called to vocational ministry, I have known many people who have died.
And I have been to many memorial services.
Once in a church, we had three members die in a period of only a few months. It was a rough time for our church family.
Yet what a blessing to know all of those people who turned to Jesus are now in heaven.
Heaven is for real, made possible by Jesus Christ!
+ The Gospel
Jesus Christ died on a cross for the forgiveness of sins of anyone. He was the substitute for the consequence of sins, which is spiritual death. Then He was resurrected. If you believe in Jesus as your Savior and Lord, you will have eternal life with Him in heaven.
+ Invitation
If you do not know Jesus as your Savior and Lord, I invite you today to give your heart to Jesus. You can receive Him by simply believing. Believe in Jesus, and you will spend eternity in heaven.
Jesus loves you!!!
