Perhaps it was a pleasant day just like this in the Galilee when Jesus spoke to an assembled multitude. It's unlikely that anyone in the audience understood the importance of what they were about to hear.

The Gospel of Matthew, Mark, and Luke open the New Testament like three mountain peaks revealing different aspects of the Messiah. Keep your eyes open, you won't want to miss what these Gospels reveal about Jesus Christ.

Alright, you ready for the New Testament? Let's get going. Hay! You finished the Old Testament. How many of you were here for the Old Testament you stayed with us throughout? Look at that, congratulations. I bet there were more of you; you're too lazily to raise your hands; that's okay too.

Turn to the New Testament, Gospel of Matthew. Now tonight I'm aiming to go through Matthew, Mark and Luke. So that plane is going fast tonight. Now we're just going to glance out the window a few times, and here's why, it's because those three gospels are very similar.

By the end of the night you're going to understand the differences and similarities between them. Now here's the difference between the Old and the New Testament, at least one of them, you have a document the Old Testament, the 39 books of the Old Testament that were written over thousands of years, hundreds, almost 1500 or so years, it was arranged, written, complied. The New Testament is different, it was written and complied in a single lifetime, it's a very short period of time. The Old Testament has promises and anticipates, while the New Testament fulfills those prediction and anticipations.

Now there is a little formula that will help you in how the New Testament and the Old Testament interface and it goes like this. The New is in the Old contained, while the Old is in the New explained. That is, the New is in the Old contained, there's hints and predictions and hopes in the Old Testament for the fulfillment that will come later on, so the New Testament, the New is in the Old contained. The Old is in the New explained, when you read through the New Testament you go, I get it now. All of those unanswered predictions have nice little bows tied on them in the New Testament; so all 39 books of the Old Testament have anticipated this, the New Testament and the coming of the Messiah.

Now in between Malachi, where we left off last time, and Matthew are about 400 years. They are called 400 silent years. Now when it says silent years, it's not because there was nothing going on, there's a lot going on, it's that God wasn't speaking until now. Four hundred years God said nothing, suddenly He breaks on the scene with an angel giving a message to a guy named Zacharias in the temple about a boy named John who's going to be born and be the forerunner of Jesus Christ.

Those 400 years, a lot happened and I want to give you a thumbnail sketch because when we left the Old Testament who was in charge of the world? The Medo-Persian Empire was in charge of the world and suddenly we come to the New Testament and everything is different. We read about Rome, we read about Herod, we find out that the Jews in Israel are speaking a new language, the language of Aramaic and they are reading a version of the Bible that's different from the Old Testament and that is, they're reading the Greek version or the Septuagint version of the Old Testament.

So what has happened? Let me give you a quick sketch. Remember that Ezra, Nehemiah and who's the guy with the word name? Zerubbabel brought a group of 50,000 people back to Jerusalem to rebuild the city and the temple. See you already know the answers to these questions, this is great. While they were doing this, the people grew lax; they didn't want to build any more. So two prophets were raised up Haggai and Zechariah to stimulate them to continue the job that God had called them to do and so they finished it.

The last prediction of the Old Testament or one of the them was that a person was coming and Elisha like forerunner to turn the people's heart back to God. It was anticipating John the Baptist. Meanwhile, over in Macedonia a guy by the name of Philip of Macedon was struggling against the Medo-Persian Empire. The Persians assassinated Philip and in Philip's place a young man by the name of Alexander, who would be Alexander the Great, rose to power. Now Alexander was not a fighting man, he was a bookworm. In fact, his personal tutor was one by the name of Aristotle. He didn't want to fight but when his dad was killed he got really ticked off and he decided to take vengeance, if he could on the Medo-Persian Empire and very quickly he took an army and he went east against the Medes and the Persians.

Well, within ten years he conquered the world and so now it's a Greek speaking world. He conquers it; people are speaking Greek after a while everywhere. He dies at age 31 in Babylon. When he dies they say, who's going to take over your kingdom? He says, give it to the strong. They divide up the kingdom between four generals of Alexander the Great, you follow me so far?

And I'll give you their names, you don't have to remember them, you won't be quizzed. Lysimachus, Cassander, Ptolemy and Seleucus, weird names; those were the four generals. There were two notable generals that had empires that effected Israel. Up north, the Syrian Empire under Seleucus called the Seleucid Dynasty and down south and Egypt under Ptolomy called the Ptolemaic Dynasty and they had sons and they had sons and they had sons and they kept fighting each other, north and south. Sandwiched in between north and south was Israel. So they always got the brunt of the battles. Now Daniel predicted all of this already.

One of the notable Syrian kings, Seleucid kings was a guy by the name of Antiochus Epiphanes who slaughtered the Jews, murdered them, sacrificed a pig in the altar of the temple that Zerrubabel had built and it was really, really a problem, until; I'm making it very short, until the Syrians came to a town down in Judah called Modin, and there they announced to the whole city, you're going to worship Zeus, you're going to turn away from your God Yahweh, you're going the worship our god under the pain of death.

The chieftain of the city agrees saying, we'll do whatever you want, we'll worship any God that you want. At that point a Hasmonean Priest by the name of Mattathias kills the chieftain of the city for blasphemy; starts a revolt. His son, later on Judas Maccabeus continues the revolt. It's known as the Maccabean Revolt and now they are able to take back Israel and take back the temple that had been desecrated, by the way, the Jews call that the Abomination of Desolation.

They were able to take it back and now Israel was under Hasmonean rule, Jewish rule, until 63 BC when a guy by the name of Pompey, a Roman took over the world and moved his way throughout the empire including Israel. So Romans are in power. Also, Judaism, because of the Romans, has a new temple. It's right, the guy by the name of the Herod; he's a megalomaniac by the way, shot guy with a, with a big vision, and he decides to take the temple do a favor to the Jews, take that little temple that Zerrubabel made into a 35 acre complex and so the Jews now worship in a newly refurbished temple, and in something called a synagogue which never existed in the Old Testament until they came back from the captivity. So there's synagogues everywhere, they worship in a temple and they're reading from a Greek Bible called the Septuagint.

About 285 B.C. a group of scholars in Alexandria, Egypt were very exact to take the Hebrew Scriptures into the common language of the people which was now Greek, you could speak Greek and get by anywhere in the world at that time. So all of these changes have been happening in 400 silent years, they're not so silent as you see; very, very busy and very active.

Now we come to the Gospels. The word Gospel comes from an old Anglo-Saxon word Godspel, that's where it comes from Godspel and it means good news. The original word or the word that is used in the Greek language is euangelion, euangelion and it means to, to have good news or to proclaim good news, same idea. We have four Gospels, four utterances of good news. Now these are not really four biographies as much as four testimonials by four different people and they have an agenda. Before I tell you their individual agenda, I'm going to tell you their big picture agenda, their common agenda.

They're trying to get something across. They give historical information that will convey a biographical explanation that will lead to personal transformation. That's their big agenda, they want to give you the facts of history, but they want to convey the life of Jesus, the person of Jesus and hopes that people who read and are in contact with this information and explanation will be changed, personally transformed in fact, John we will see next week, writes as much toward the end of his Gospel. These things are written, that you may believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that by believing you may have life in His name.

Now tonight, I said we're going to cover Matthew, Mark and Luke. We call these three Gospels, the Synoptic Gospels because they follow a common outline or synopsis, same grid, same style of writing in all three, they follow the same basic geographical outline, early part is the Galilean Ministry latter part is the Judean Ministry and then the betrayal, the crucifixion and the resurrection. It's the same kind of grid, pattern or outline, same basic order. John in his Gospel is entirely different. So next week we will study his Gospel alone.

Look at the Gospel as a fourfold picture of Jesus Christ. If you like music, think of it as a String Quartet. They all have different instruments but they are all playing in beautiful harmony with each other. Gorgeous song is complied with these four gospel writers or if you're into movies, think of it as the Holy Spirit being the set director with 4 different camera angles. They all have different points of view and so one may emphasis the expressions on the face, the other might shoot a B-roll and shoot the crowds and their reaction.

Another might emphasize another characteristic etcetera, etcetera. Okay, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. Matthew was written for the Jews, Matthew portrays Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of Jewish prophecy, the lion of the tribe of Judah, and so the keyword in Matthew is the word "fulfilled", that it might be "fulfilled", Matthew will say, which was written by the prophet and he will then quote it.

The Gospel of Mark was written for the Romans, for the Romans and Jesus is portrayed in Mark as the obedient servant. The keyword in that book is the word "immediately." Now, I'll explain that in a just a minute. Luke was Gospel written for the Greeks and the key phrase in that book is the phrase, "Son of Man", I'll explain that in just a moment.

John was written for some say the church, others say, the world in general, because it's portraying Jesus Christ in such a way that people will receive him and believe in his name as I just quote it. Matthew emphasizes what Jesus said, okay, what He said, there's three great discourses that you find nowhere else in the entirety that Matthew portrays them. So Matthew will emphasize for the Jews what Jesus said. The Gospel of Mark records what Jesus did, that's his emphasize, what He did he's filled with action, he's wanting to get things done.

Luke was written about what Jesus felt, and it was written by guy name Dr. Luke, who was a physician and he writes about the compassion of Jesus Christ and there's more miracles of healing, in the Gospel of Luke than any other of the four gospels and then John speaks about who Jesus was that you may believe that Jesus is the Son of God, John chapter 20. So one about what Jesus said, what He did what He felt and who He was.

Again like a set director with 4 different camera angles or a String Quartet. Now Matthew, the Gospel of Matthew and again, we're just going to skim tonight, looking at a few things and then go to the next book. Matthew is writing to the Jewish people about their Messiah, Salvation has come to Jews to the house of Israel, He's the son of Abraham, He's the son of David, He's the fulfillment of the promises and the anticipation of the historic Jewish people. Now Matthew organizes his material into five great sections, five great sections. Some are geographical, some are biographical, five great sections, one of the most famous is the Sermon on the Mount.

Now Matthew had another name. His name originally was Levee, Levi, he was Jewish. He escaped from the priesthood, he was probably a PK, a priest kid and he decided he would become a tax collector, one of the most hated occupations in the land, working at a toll booth in Galilee, when Jesus called him. Chapter 9 of Matthew records his calling, when Jesus came up to him and said, "Matthew follow me" and he left his customs toll house booth and he followed Jesus Christ. Matthew chapter 1 verse 1 begins this way, "The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham." Genealogy, Genesis, the beginning, the origin, Matthew is careful to give us the pedigree, the genealogical record of Jesus Christ, why? Because he's picturing Jesus as the King of the Jews, as the Messiah, the fulfillment.

Now that's very important because if somebody claims to be the King of the Jews, claims to be the Messiah, the first question out of a Jewish person's mouth is really? What tribe are you from and where were you born? Because there are some predictions that that person has to fulfill. They're going to want to know these things. Few years ago, I had a guy come into the church when the church was in a different location than it is here, much earlier on. And he claimed to be Jesus and one my assistant pastors said, Skip, there's a guy name Jesus, he says, he is the Jesus and he wants to see you and I thought, I always wanted to meet Jesus, bring it on. So first question I asked him is, "What tribe are you from?" And he went -- I said, let me ask you another question, "Where were you born?" Now if he said Bethlehem in Judea, okay, I will ask you another question, when I said, "Where were you born?" He said, "Pittsburgh."

I pointed him to the door and I said, "Get out of here". See there's some very definite fulfillment of predictions that were made, the Messiah has to fulfill and so this is the genealogy. Now look at verse 17 without going through it, "All the generations, from Abraham to David, are 14 generations; and from David to the captivity of Babylon are 14 generations; from the captivity in Babylon until the Christ, are 14 generations."

So we have three sections of 14 generations, this is called literary symmetry. Now what Matthew is doing, again for the Jewish person, is bringing out 3 great epic periods in their history. The first being, the Patriarchy from Abraham to David, by the way, both Abraham and David were given Messianic promises. The second great period of history is the Monarchy, from Israel's greatest King David unto exile to Babylon.

The third period, the Captivity and he follows from the exile all the way up to the time of Jesus Christ. Now in verse 18, look how it begins, "Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows:" A note about the term, the name Jesus Christ. Don't think that Christ is His last name. I know by the way some people misuse His name and they'll even put an "H" between Jesus and Christ sometimes, when they want to swear. People get the idea that His first name was Jesus and He was of the Christ family and the Christ family lives in this street, here's their address. That's not what it was; they didn't have those kinds of names. He was Jesus, son of Joseph from Nazareth. Christ is the Greek word Christos the Hebrew equivalent is Mashiach which means Messiah, so what does Messiah really means, simply "Anointed One."

Now the origin of the term Messiah or Anointed One or Christ, comes from a Hebrew word that means to rub or to smear and the idea came from a certain ceremony when priest and kings were initiated, they inaugurated their ministry, they smeared their head or sometimes poured olive oil, which would signify that God, the Holy Spirit was coming upon them and, and making them suitable to do minister.

So for generations, the Jewish anticipation was for the deliverer, called the Messiah, the Anointed One of God, the one who would deliver us, deliver our people, set up His kingdom. In fact, a common Jewish prayer that was uttered by the very orthodox every morning went like this, "I believe in the coming of Messiah and even though He tarries, yet, I will wait for Him every coming day." So now we're having the origins, the genealogy and the birth of Jesus Christ.

Now in Matthew's Gospel, remember I said, Matthew emphasizes what Jesus said to show the fulfillment of Jewish Prophecy. So there's three big Sermons or discourses in Matthew's Gospel. The first is the "Sermon on the Mount", "Sermon on the Mount" Matthew 5, 6, and 7. The second great Sermon or discourse in Matthew are the "Kingdom Parables", 7 parables given in Matthew chapter 13, very unique these writings to this Gospel and the third is called the "Olivet Discourse" given in its fullness in Matthew 24 and 25.

Now the gospel of Mark; the gospel of Mark; if you look at it just by counting chapters, it looks like it's the shortest gospel right. You know what, it's longer than Matthew. If you take out those discourses that I just mentioned, if you took out those three great discourses emphasizing what Jesus said, if you took those out and just read the historic material, Mark is actually slightly longer than the Gospel of Matthew.

Probably Mark was the first gospel that was ever written and others followed later on. Tradition says that Mark was written by a guy name John Mark but he was taking dictation from the Apostle Peter, so that Mark's Gospel is actually Peter's account as told by Peter to John Mark who wrote it down in Rome as Peter gave him the dictation.

Now it was Mark who was in the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus was arrested and ran away, he fled naked as thus, when somebody grabbed his robe he literally streaked out of the Garden of Gethsemane, he has to live that for the rest of eternity.

The early church in the book of Acts met in his mother's home, at first, when Peter was put in prison and then he was released, he came to Peter's home in Acts chapter 12. Well, John Mark seemed to have a cowardly streak in him because though he went on Paul's first missionary journey when they were Pamphylia he ran away and went back to home to his momma in Jerusalem, which really bothered Paul.

So that the second missionary journey went Barnabas, by the way, John Mark was the nephew of Barnabas the compadre of Paul, when Barnabas said, "Hey! Let's go visit people, we'll take John Mark", Paul said, "I'm not taking that guy; he ran out on us last time, it's done." This is that John Mark; he's the author of this Gospel. Okay, I want you to think of it this way, Matthew and Luke give us colored pictures of the life of Jesus, if you're a photographer, remember the old slides, color slides, they're like colors slides of the life of Jesus.

The Gospel of John is like a studied portrait. And I will explain more next week, the Gospel of Mark is like a rapidly moving motion picture and Mark views Jesus as "The Servant" "The Servant" and so the key verse is Mark chapter 10 verse 45 that says, "The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many." Notice how the Gospel of Mark begins in chapter 1 verse 1, there is no genealogy, it just says, "The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." John the Baptist is introduced and the story moves on.

Now why is that? Why does Matthew and Luke and by the way John all have a genealogy, all of them have a genealogy, even John and if you want to dispute that, wait till next week's study, I'll show you. All three have a genealogy, Mark has no genealogy. Simple, he's picturing Jesus as a servant; nobody cares about the genealogy of a slave. If the emphasis is, He's an obedient slave, a servant on the move; there's no pedigree or genealogy that is required.

Now how does Mark picture Jesus as the servant? Well, here's how. This Gospel contains less teaching and a whole lot more action then all of the others and Mark moves from one action to another action by using connective words, very, very selectively. He uses and, now, then, immediately, straight away and if you, if you just read through it, you feel like going -- reading because he's like, he didn't give it a rest. The way he connects sentences is interesting. Forty times in the first chapter, he uses the word 'and' and if you were to count up, 'now', the word 'now' and the word 'and', in all 16 chapters of the Gospel of Mark, you'd have 1331 times those words are used. And, and, now, now, immediately, I want to give you a sampling of that.

Look at chapter 1 verse 9, "It came to pass in those days, that Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized by John in the Jordan and immediately coming up out of the water, He saw the heavens party, and the spirit descending upon Him like a dove, then a voice came from heaven: 'You are my beloved Son and whom I am well-pleased, immediately the spirit drove Him into the wilderness and He was there in the wilderness forty days tempted by Satan; and was with the wild beast, and the angel ministered to Him."

"Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of kingdom of God, and saying, The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe the Gospel and as he walked by the sea of Galilee." See he's in the wilderness, now all of a sudden He's walking in Galilee. "He saw Simon and Andrew, his brother casting a net into the sea; for they were fisherman, then Jesus said to them, Follow me and I will make you become fishers of men."

"They immediately left their nets and followed Him. When he had gone a little further from there, He saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, who also were in the boat mending their nets. And immediately He called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with hired servants and went after Him. Then they went into Capernaum; and immediately on the Sabbath He entered the synagogue and taught."

He does that through the whole book. So Matthew and Luke color slides, John a studied portrait. This guy a motion picture filled with action, less saying more doing, because he's picturing Jesus not as the fulfillment of Messianic Prophecy, as much as for the Romans an obedient servant.

Now something to note about Mark, much of Mark's Gospel, nearly half is devoted to the final week of Jesus Christ's life on earth. Chapter 10 through the end of book, is that focus. Now what happens during the final week of Jesus on earth, he gets crucified, that's what happened to Him, the last week and He died on a cross, He was betrayed and then He rose from the dead and half nearly half deals with that; that's the focus and that by the way is the focus of the Gospels collectively and that by the way is the focus of the New Testament and that by the way is the focus of the whole Bible.

A guy named Graham Scroggie once put it this way, if you cut the Bible anywhere, it will bleed. We've already studied throughout the books of the Old Testament what we call 'The Scarlet Thread of Redemption'. It's all pointing, it's all focusing on the Cross, the ultimate sacrifice.

So the material compiled in the Gospel has more material about this sacrificial death than anything else and Mark really demonstrates that a lot. Why? Because the Cross wasn't an accident, it wasn't an afterthought, it wasn't God going, now what do I do? In Revelation, Jesus has called the Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world it was God's plan along. All Old Testament history anticipates the Cross, looks forward to it, all New Testament history after it looks backwards to it.

In fact, even in heaven, Jesus will be celebrated for His sacrifice. John looked and he said I saw a lamb as though it had been slain and in the anthem in heaven says, for You have redeemed us by Your blood out of every tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation. That will be our anthem in heaven, the redeemed will sing it. Now, I'll give you some figures. In the Gospels, in the Four Gospels, there are four chapters in all four gospels that deal with the first 30 years of Jesus' life.

It is not much, four chapters that deal with the first 30 years of Jesus' life. Eighty-five chapters, not four, 85 deal with the last three-and-a-half years of Jesus' life, more detail. Of those 85 chapters that deal with the last three-and-a-half years of Jesus' life, 56 of them deal with the first part up until the final week. Twenty-nine of those 85 deal with just the last week. And of those 29, 13 chapters in all four gospels focus on the final day of Jesus' life, the day of giving His life as a sacrificial lamb for the world.

So, all total, if you were to count up the verses, the events of the last day of Jesus Christ on earth are given 579 verses in all four gospels. So, that is the focus and Mark dramatically shows that. Okay, so this goes on, again, same synopsis, same outline, same grid as Matthew except the speeches are gone. So, you have the Galilean Ministry, the Judean Ministry and Mark closes with Jesus ascending into Heaven and His followers becoming servants like He was, taking up the mantel and bringing the gospel and the good news of Jesus Christ.

Now, we come to the Gospel of Luke. The Gospel of Luke is the most complete narrative of the life of Jesus of all four Gospels. It's the most complete narrative, I'll explain in a second. It's also the most natural reading narrative. If you were to go from the Old Testament and you were reading through the Bible, I would suggest after Malachi go right to Luke; because it, it follows a natural sequence, there's 400 silent years, but before that, the last prediction is a forerunner, like Elijah is going to come. And so, Luke opens up with an angel speaking to Zacharias, a priest in the temple, quoting, Malachi. So if you're reading Malachi and you go through Luke, oh, oh I get it, I see the promise and here's the fulfillment. It makes natural sequential sense.

Go to chapter 1, verse 17, the angels says to Zacharias, the priest, "He..." speaking of this forerunner, John the Baptist, "...will also go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah..." now here's the quote from Malachi, "to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." Now, I mentioned just a moment ago, the Luke is the most complete record, that's what I mean by that. Luke records 20 miracles, 7 of those 20 miracles are only found in the Gospel of Luke and nowhere else, they're unique to the Gospel of Luke. Luke records 23 parables, 18 of the parables are unique only to the Gospel of Luke and found nowhere else. I mean, really fresh, cool parables, like 'The Parable of the Prodigal Son' or 'The Parable of the Good Samaritan'.

Also, there's some great stories that are found nowhere else like, "The Road to Emmaus", the disciples after the resurrection, they're all boomed out and they're walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus about seven miles and Jesus comes up, we'll look at that in just a moment. That's also found in this gospel. There's other elements found in the Gospel of Luke -- you're with me still tonight? Okay, I mean, I know I'm going fast and saying a lot of things, are you awake? Okay, good, okay, good.

So, there's some elements that are found in the Gospel of Luke that are found nowhere else. Luke is filled with songs, songs, something called the 'Magnificat', if you've ever heard of that, remember Mary when she says, "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior." And she goes and writes or utters and it is written through a half a chapter, this beautiful song of Mary called the 'Magnificat'.

Also, there is a song of Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist who conceived. She also breaks forth in a song of praise. The songs of Christmas are found in the Gospel of Luke, the shepherds out in the field in chapter 2, 'The Song of Simeon' when He's presented in the temple, Jesus is presented. That's found in this Gospel. Luke chapter 1 verse 1 begins, "Inasmuch as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those things which are being fulfilled among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write to you an orderly account, most excellent Theophilus."

Something I want you to notice here about these verses. We had a question a little while ago about the Bible, how do you know the Bible is the word of God, etcetera. When you think of the Bible written, I don't want you to think that the Bible was written like, like dictation where God is in heaven and goes Isaiah, you are ready? Okay, write this, Paul, write this. Paul wrote letters, this guy wrote an account and he called research from a variety of sources, set it in order, he set, arranged it, and then presented it. So, what you have here is an example of human cooperation with divine inspiration. God is using human authors.

Now, we know what Paul wrote in Second Timothy chapter 3, verse 16, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God..." or better translation, "All Scripture is God-breathed..." the word Theopneustos, God-breathed. "...and is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, instruction in righteousness..."

So somebody asked, well, how did that happened? Again, it wasn't dictation, it wasn't what some call concept inspiration that these guys just felt really inspired or people say, boy you know I heard a song and it was really inspiring to hear the song. That's probably what it means when people say, the Bible is inspired, these guys are just filled with inspirational thoughts. No, this is how it happened.

There's a scripture in Second Peter, chapter 1, verse 21 that says this, "...holy men spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." The word move means carried along, it's a word used for sailing vessels. And here's a basic explanation, man, when he wrote, hoisted his sails and God carried that vessel along to the destination God wanted it to reach. You see, there's a God in heaven who's big enough. If a person sits down and writes under His inspiration to get the words, the nuances, the vocabulary exactly as He wanted to be spoken. They were carried along; they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

And so here is perfect example of human cooperation in writing the scripture. Now, who is Luke? Luke was a doctor. Most scholars believe he's from Troas, Troas. Could it be, some believe, that when Paul was in Troas and he saw a vision of a man from Macedonia saying come over to Macedonia and help us, some believe it was actually he saw Luke in his vision. Luke had situated himself or relocated himself to Philippi and that's the person he was looking for who later on joined Paul's mission team. We don't know for sure, but it is a thought.

Okay, so Luke is a doctor. He's a gentile doctor. He's the answer to the question that you took on your little text message moments ago. He's not Jewish, he's a gentile. He was a doctor probably owned by a guy named Theophilus, who he mentions here and also in Acts chapter 1. You go, wait a minute, a doctor being owned? Yes, get this; 2000 years ago doctors were slave, boy, things changed a lot, ha! They were actually owned and aristocrats owned a few different physicians and they were gracious to them, but probably he was owned by Theophilus.

Now, as a doctor, Luke writes as a doctor. There's a lot of medical terms in this book. In fact, here's an interesting statistic. There are more medical terms in the Gospel of Luke than in the writings of Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine. It's laden with it, in fact, just here in these verses, look at verse 2, "just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers..." you see the word eyewitness? It's the word autoptai in Greek, we get the word autopsy from it; autopsy, they were eyewitness. They dissected, if you will, the life of Jesus Christ; it's a medical term.

Look at the very next one, "and ministers." It's the Greek word huparetai, literally means under rowers used in the medical world to speak of a medical intern, the student. Here's what he's saying. We were researchers and interns of the great Physician. We studied His life, we took it apart and all of these different sources and then he writes his account. Now the emphasis in this Gospel is the humanity of Jesus Christ. As I mentioned at the beginning, Luke wrote for the Greeks and the Greeks had an idea of someone they called the perfect man, the perfect man, back in the Age of Pericles, the Golden Periclean age, they wrote and spoke often about the perfect, the ideal man and the ideal city.

Well, Luke introduces the ideal man. But, this isn't just a good man; this is the God man, fully God, fully man. And so he uses the phrase, Son of Man more often in this book than do the others. Now this perfect man has real compassion and Luke shows the compassion of Jesus Christ and as I mentioned moments ago, more miracles that Jesus performed are written about in the Gospel of Luke than Matthew and Mark put together. He's a doctor, he's going to notice this and he notices the compassion.

In chapter 1, verse 41, something I wanted you just to notice about the ministry of John the Baptist. "It happened, when Elizabeth..." this is the aged wife of the priest Zacharias who served in the temple, "It happened when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary..." when Mary comes from Bethlehem being announced to that she is going to have Jesus, "...that the babe leaped in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit." What I want you to notice as the verses go on is that John the Baptist ministry really began when he was just about 9 inches long and about a-pound-and-a-half and he was still in the womb and it says that he was also filled with the Holy Spirit and he jumped, he leaped for joy and Elizabeth said, the babe in my womb not just moved, jumped, leaped for joy.

Now I am zeroing in on this first because if there's ever a debate as to when life begins, if you're a Christian this should end the debate. If you say, well, the life begins as soon as the child is born. No, life begins as soon as there is conception and here's the babe in the womb that Elizabeth said, by the Holy Spirit, was jumping for joy.

Now, Luke also has a genealogy over in chapter 3. So Matthew has a full on, full-blown genealogy and Luke has one too, but they're different. They're the same; the one is in reverse of the other. The names are pretty much the same until Luke gets to King David. Then he takes a left turn and does not trace the genealogy of Jesus Christ through King Solomon and the royal lineage, but through another son of David named Nathan. And most scholars believe that the Gospel of Matthew is Joseph's genealogy while the Gospel of Luke is Mary's Genealogy.

Okay, so I want to explain something to you, because this is the answer to a dilemma. In the Old Testament, the prophet said, the deliverer, the Christ, the Messiah is going to come through the royal line of Judah and through the house, the royal line of King David. Okay, but the kings of Judah, it is time when God got so fed up with their degenerative behavior, He finally says, enough is enough and He places a blood curse on King Jeconiah.

Listen to this, this is Jeremiah 22, verse 30, prophet says, by the Spirit of God, "Record this man childless, a man who will not prosper in his lifetime, none of his offspring will prosper, none will sit on the throne of David or rule in Judah anymore." Which was true, none of Jeconiah's descendants sat on the throne of David, he was succeeded by his uncle and then it was ended completely.

By the time of Jesus there had not being any kind of Davidic Dynasty for hundreds of years. So, now we have a contradiction. God says, the Messiah is going to come through the line of David, but now God curses the royal line of David, and says, none of the descendants are going to sit on that throne and we have a huge problem. It is solved by the genealogies; it's solved by the genealogies. Because Joseph was not the physical father, right, he was the stepfather. He was the legal father because he brought him under his name, into his household. So, he's not the physical but the legal father, which gives Jesus the dynastic rule since his own genealogy goes through the royal line, the kingly line back to David, but that line is cursed, okay.

So, Joseph gives Jesus the legal right to rule, but Jesus is the physical, biological descendant of Mary, because Jesus was conceived in the womb of Mary by the Holy Spirit. So, we solve a wonderful problem by not only two genealogies but by a virgin birth. Okay, I'll show you that and well, I won't show you that in just a second because we are almost out of time. But, here basically, if the royal line is cursed, then God got around His own curse by having Jesus born of a virgin fulfilling the legal dynastic right as well as the biological right of Jesus being the blood line of King David, but the royal line was cursed, but that's okay because Jesus wasn't the biological son of Joseph. Okay? Enough said.

Now go down to Luke chapter 19. We'll close this off. As you're skipping, let me tell you which you're skipping over. Luke follows the same synopsis as Matthew and as Mark, the same grid. The Galilean Ministry occupies the early part of the chapters of the Gospel of Luke up to chapter 9. In chapters 10 through 19, there's a lengthy discussion, from chapter 10 to chapter 19 of the journey and the stops and the words of Jesus Christ on the way from Galilee to Jerusalem for His final trip before the Passover during the time He teaches His disciples.

In these final chapters is the presentation of Christ as the King to the Jews and He's outlined here and spoken of here more here than in any other Gospel, Matthew or Luke chapter 19, verse 41, "Now as He drew near..." that is to Jerusalem, "...He saw the city and He wept over it, saying, "If you had only known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes, for the days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, and surround you and close you in on every side, and level you and your children within you to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation." Tie this in with a Bible study we had outside, on July 2nd we gave this explanation of Daniel chapter 9, Daniel chapter 9, and what we just read dovetail perfectly.

Because Jesus was holding them accountable to recognize a certain day; you didn't realize the day of your visitation or as one translation puts it, the day of God's coming to you, or as another translation puts it, your day that God offered you salvation. Now Daniel predicts the very day when Jesus will be presented to the Jewish nation as the Messiah. Daniel chapter 9, verse 25, 26 and 27 give that outline, I won't rehash it, here is the fulfillment of that. Now, Luke also features, and here's where we close; a post resurrection appearance of Jesus that has caused me yearning me ever since, if there's ever a sermon of Christ I wish was recorded on CD or DVD or MP3, cassette tape, an eight track would do, or even in writing, it's this one.

It's a story of a couple of disciples after Jesus was crucified and they're just sort of bumming around, walking from Jerusalem to town of Emmaus about a 7 mile walk. They're discussing what had happened, they're very disappointed, very disillusioned, very confused because they left everything to follow Jesus. One of them is named Cleopas, we don't know what the other guy's name is. They, they believed, past tense, the Jesus was their deliverer, now He's dead.

Okay, while they're talking to each other Jesus cruises up, walks next to them, incognito, they don't recognize them, joins the conversation, verse 17, "And he..." that is Jesus, "...said to them, 'What kind of conversation is this that you have with one another as you walk and are sad?' as if He didn't know. Then one whose name of Cleopas, answered and said to Him, "Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem and have you not known the things which happened there in these days?" And Jesus, He said to them, "What things?"

So, they said to Him, "the things concerning Jesus of Nazareth who was a prophet mighty indeed in word before God and all the people." Go down to verse 27 "And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning Himself." Don't you wish you have that Bible study on record? Verse 32, verse 31 "and their eyes were open and they knew Him and He vanished from their sight." Remember, He is in a resurrected body. And they said to one another, "Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road while He opened the scriptures to us?"

Okay, what I want you to notice here in closing; Jesus comes post resurrection and gives them a Bible study, a Bible study. Not, hey guys watch this! Miracle, gives them a Bible study. And it was a Prophetic Bible study beginning with Moses. I bet He went back to Genesis, the first writings of Moses. In Genesis 3 when there's a prediction of the seed of the women will bruise the head of the serpent. Probably, skip forward to Genesis 22. Remember Mount Moriah? When Abraham sacrifices his son on Mount Moriah. You know that the top of Mount Moriah is where Jesus was crucified, Golgotha. Remember the prediction in Genesis 22? "In the mountain of the Lord it shall be seen." It was, just the other day. He probably took him to the Exodus, the smearing of the blood on the lintels and the door post, took them to the tabernacle and showed how that fulfills Jesus Christ, took him to the serpent in the wilderness lifted up as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so the Son of Man should be lifted up.

So, it was a Prophetic Bible study. Also second, I want you to notice, it was an expositional Bible study, for it says, "He expounded to them in all of the scriptures." Oh, love to have had this on record. Not only that, it was about Him. For it says, "He expounded all the things concerning Himself." You see this is important. Moses, the prophets, the Psalms, all speak about Himself. Jesus was showing them how the whole Bible has Jesus Christ as its main subject. Hebrews would agree. It says as the Son said, "I have come; in the volume of the book, it is written of me."

Now in closing, and you said in closing twice now Skip, when you are going to really close? Now, notice what they said, "Did not our hearts burn within us as He spoke to us." Not "Did not our hearts burn within us as we spoke to Him" or "Did not our hearts burn within us as He looked at us with those eyes and we experienced that?" No, "Our hearts burned in us as He spoke to us." The burning of the heart, the heartburn, that they're describing, was Jesus Christ taking something very familiar, very old, the scripture they grow up with it, and applying it in a brand-new way to their hearts. And hearing what they had always heard, the scriptures, they were Jewish, they grow up with it, hearing what they always heard as explained and expounded by Jesus Christ, wow! It caused a burning of the heart.

Now, here's the point I leave you with. When Jesus Christ is revealed to you in His word, it will set your heart on fire. That's what will set your heart on fire. And I hear people all the time, I want some new experience with Jesus, I want some new this -- you don't need anything new, what you need friend is the old stuff newly applied to your situation now. That will give you a burning of the heart, set you in fire. Let's pray for that.

Father, we thank You that week by week, as we read Your word, your Holy Spirit brings something that we have read before, but in a new way to our hearts. It sets our hearts on fire. And truly as You speak to us, it can be said, did not our hearts burn within us. Lord there's nothing greater than to know the God is speaking to us. That God is a word from heaven for us, a word of instruction about what we're going through, about decisions we're going to make. And Lord when we get it, our hearts burn.

Or we want more of that, we want to understand things that have been long familiar to many of us. And I pray Lord, You would reveal more and more of Yourself, and the more You reveal, the more we would commit to obedience. Lord we lay ourselves before You tonight as living sacrifices. We give You our bodies, we want You to move through us, we know You have a plan uniquely for us, each one of us to fulfill. We pray Lord that You would speak from Your word and out of obedience we'd follow. In Jesus name, Amen!