SPEAKER_00: Matthew chapter four, verses twelve through seventeen.
SPEAKER_00: Now when he, being Jesus, heard that John, John the Baptist, had been arrested, Jesus withdrew into Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: And leaving Nazareth, he went and lived to Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled.
SPEAKER_00: And now the next two verses are a quote from Isaiah 9, verses 1 and 2 the land of Zebulun and the land of Napoli, the way of the sea beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.
SPEAKER_00: From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
SPEAKER_00: One of the most foundational themes of the Bible is the tension between light and darkness.
SPEAKER_00: And I say foundational because this is really the first theme revealed in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: When you go back to Genesis 1, the earth was formless and void, and then God enters into creation.
SPEAKER_00: And he enters into creation by revealing the contrast between light and darkness.
SPEAKER_00: And so when I say enters into creation, this is what I mean.
SPEAKER_00: That for all eternity in the past, for all time, God has been overflowing with love and with life and with light, but to himself, the Father has given life and light and love to his son, and the Father and Son have given life and light and love to the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And so God has magnified himself.
SPEAKER_00: He is overflowed with love towards himself.
SPEAKER_00: So for all time, in eternity past, before there even is time, God is completely overflowing with life and love and just delight, communion, fellowship, infinite happiness to himself, from himself, for himself.
SPEAKER_00: Everything is contained.
SPEAKER_00: And at some point, the Father, Son, and Spirit decide to no longer be confined to the Trinity, but to break out into something outside of himself.
SPEAKER_00: So again, God has infinitely been sharing himself, revealing himself, loving himself, and then enters into a world.
SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, for God to enter into a world, he has to create the world.
SPEAKER_00: So he creates the world.
SPEAKER_00: He begins with the canvas that is formless and void, Genesis 1 says, 1-1.
SPEAKER_00: And then the first thing that happens as God enters into the world is light and darkness are separated.
SPEAKER_00: So light is from God.
SPEAKER_00: God declares, let there be light, and there is light.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, light is illuminatory.
SPEAKER_00: Light proceeds from God.
SPEAKER_00: God is light.
SPEAKER_00: And so when he declares, let there be light, God is revealing himself to his creation, which at this point consists of nothing.
SPEAKER_00: But there's light.
SPEAKER_00: And the light is from God.
SPEAKER_00: God is called light because God is pure action.
SPEAKER_00: Light is pure action.
SPEAKER_00: God is energy as opposed to body.
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't have a body.
SPEAKER_00: He is spirit.
SPEAKER_00: He like light is shining.
SPEAKER_00: Light never is static.
SPEAKER_00: Light just is illuminating.
SPEAKER_00: Light reveals.
SPEAKER_00: It penetrates.
SPEAKER_00: Light has heat.
SPEAKER_00: Light has energy.
SPEAKER_00: That's what light is.
SPEAKER_00: That's why God is described as light, because he is pure action, pure love, pure life.
SPEAKER_00: He's just radiating.
SPEAKER_00: Again, an eternity past, radiating to himself.
SPEAKER_00: And then in Genesis 1, he bursts into creation by making creation to create light, to reveal himself.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I love that God is called light because the only way to see light is by light.
SPEAKER_00: The only way to see God is by God revealing himself.
SPEAKER_00: So God is the source, he's the luminary, but he's also the revealer.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to know what God is like, you have to listen to God.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to know what God is like, you have to take his word for it.
SPEAKER_00: Because you haven't seen him, you haven't met him, unless he reveals himself.
SPEAKER_00: Just at this most basic level, if God didn't want to share himself with creation, you and I would not exist.
SPEAKER_00: You understand that?
SPEAKER_00: You exist because God made you, and he made you to receive his self-revelation.
SPEAKER_00: He reveals to you who he is.
SPEAKER_00: So God opens the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible is the book of revelation of God.
SPEAKER_00: It's the scriptures, God's writing inspired by the Holy Spirit, infallible, to reveal himself to us.
SPEAKER_00: So the Bible begins with God revealing himself to us.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't begin with what God was doing before time, because that's not for us.
SPEAKER_00: It begins with God entering into time because that is for us.
SPEAKER_00: It's God revealing himself to us.
SPEAKER_00: So the first thing we see, God enters into his creation by making it and then separating light from darkness.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Let there be light, light over here, darkness over there, light is good.
SPEAKER_00: Then there was evening and morning day one.
SPEAKER_00: So it's foundational.
SPEAKER_00: Before there was a sun, before there were stars, before there was any luminary, there's just God, and God is light.
SPEAKER_00: And that defines creation.
SPEAKER_00: I have had people ask me, how can there be a day one unless there is a sun?
SPEAKER_00: And my answer to that is that not everything revolves around the earth, you know?
SPEAKER_00: Or to be more astronomically precise, not everything revolves around the sun.
SPEAKER_00: The sun and the earth are not the most important features in the universe.
SPEAKER_00: The most important feature in the universe is God, who's making everything else.
SPEAKER_00: God gives everything else their meaning.
SPEAKER_00: So God can measure time by Himself.
SPEAKER_00: And I believe in six of the old days of creation, of course, and if you are insist on there having to be some kind of rotation for there to be evening and morning, fine.
SPEAKER_00: The earth is revolving around the light source, which is God.
SPEAKER_00: God gives the earth the sense of time, God gives the evening and morning.
SPEAKER_00: It is God who is the source of revelation and light.
SPEAKER_00: So God makes light at the beginning.
SPEAKER_00: This is why it's so foundational.
SPEAKER_00: Understanding the universe does not begin with understanding the earth's relationship to the sun.
SPEAKER_00: Understanding the universe begins with understanding that God reveals himself to his creation.
SPEAKER_00: There's a creator and a creature distinction.
SPEAKER_00: God reveals himself.
SPEAKER_00: That's light.
SPEAKER_00: You want to know about God?
SPEAKER_00: You look to God.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 4, verse 6 says this: Let the light of your face shine upon us, O Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: Very foundational prayer.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to learn about God, you pray to God and say, God, please reveal yourself to us.
SPEAKER_00: Let the light of your face shine on us.
SPEAKER_00: James describes God as the father of light.
SPEAKER_00: Think about what that means.
SPEAKER_00: There is no light unless it comes from God.
SPEAKER_00: Father is the word for source.
SPEAKER_00: Father gives the life, he's the source of it.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Father means.
SPEAKER_00: God is the father of lights.
SPEAKER_00: Lights come from Him.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, there is no true beauty, there is no true morality, there is no true revelation or illumination unless it comes from God.
SPEAKER_00: If there's anything beautiful or praiseworthy or glorifying God in the whole universe, anything is noble, anything is true in the whole universe, it has its source in God.
SPEAKER_00: That's why Psalm 36, verse 9, declares to God, In your light do we see light.
SPEAKER_00: It sounds like a tautology, but it's true.
SPEAKER_00: In God's light you see light.
SPEAKER_00: You need light to see light.
SPEAKER_00: Only with the revelation of God can you behold light.
SPEAKER_00: It's God who illumines everything else.
SPEAKER_00: That's why Psalm 56, verse 13, calls God the light of life.
SPEAKER_00: Life comes from God because light comes from God.
SPEAKER_00: You understand this in the botanical sense.
SPEAKER_00: A plant needs light.
SPEAKER_00: You keep a plant in your closet, your plant will die because the light has energy, it has heat, the plant leaf absorbs the light and the energy, it mixes that light with the water that is drawn up through the roots, it creates a you know a cellular sugar, like a glucose that gives the plant its green hue and energizes the plant and allows it to continue to grow.
SPEAKER_00: It needs the air and it needs the light and it needs the water.
SPEAKER_00: You remove the light, it doesn't matter what else you have, it's not going to live because the light gives life.
SPEAKER_00: And this is how it is spiritually as well.
SPEAKER_00: For you to have any kind of spiritual life, the light of God has to shine on you.
SPEAKER_00: That's why the Bible refers to God as light, as the fountain of light, as the source of light, as the Lord of light, as the light of light.
SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, those are all titles attributed to God in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: The contrast to that, by the way, is that if light is life, then darkness is death.
SPEAKER_00: That's the contrast.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible refers to darkness as death.
SPEAKER_00: Job, when you was born dead, when he wished he was stillborn, he said, then I would have gone to the land of darkness.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Then I would have made my bed in the land of darkness and death.
SPEAKER_00: If you're in a hotel room, you want them to be dark so you can sleep.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Job was picturing death as, to go to the place of darkness without revelation.
SPEAKER_00: That's Job 17.
SPEAKER_00: This dichotomy is picked up in Matthew.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, when Jesus is transfigured at the Mount Hebron, he's brought up with his three disciples, and they go up, they go up there and they behold Jesus transfigured with Moses and Elijah, but it is Jesus who is illuminating.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that Jesus is under the spotlight, rather, Jesus's clothes are radiant, he is shining from the inside out because Jesus is the light of the world.
SPEAKER_00: He illumines all other things.
SPEAKER_00: Moses and Elijah have light because they are illuminated by Jesus, who is the source.
SPEAKER_00: He is the light.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, when he is crucified, when the light of the world is crucified, darkness falls over the land.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew, Matthew 4, begins Jesus' ministry in the land of darkness.
SPEAKER_00: In the land of darkness.
SPEAKER_00: This is nighttime for the whole world.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 16, the people are dwelling in darkness.
SPEAKER_00: At the end of verse 16, they're living in a place that's called the shadow of death.
SPEAKER_00: This is picking up language back from Genesis 1.
SPEAKER_00: Again, God is light.
SPEAKER_00: There's a division between light and darkness.
SPEAKER_00: The Garden of Eden had life in it.
SPEAKER_00: They had the tree of life.
SPEAKER_00: They could eat the tree of life and live.
SPEAKER_00: And yet when the devil approached Adam and Eve and tempted them, they believed that they got to define what good and evil was.
SPEAKER_00: They ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil so that they could define what was good and what was evil independent of God.
SPEAKER_00: And that separation is sin, and that separation is death.
SPEAKER_00: And that separation is darkness.
SPEAKER_00: The idea that you can see for yourself what is morally pure and what is sinful, that is darkness.
SPEAKER_00: It's folly, it's foolishness.
SPEAKER_00: It's equivalent to somebody saying, I can read with the lights in the house off.
SPEAKER_00: I don't need light to read.
SPEAKER_00: I'm my own light.
SPEAKER_00: It's folly and foolishness.
SPEAKER_00: That's nighttime for the world.
SPEAKER_00: Adam and Eve sinned and are thrown out of the garden into darkness.
SPEAKER_00: They're left grasping.
SPEAKER_00: That's how Paul describes it in Acts 17.
SPEAKER_00: The nations of the world went their own way, grasping for truth, looking for the light.
SPEAKER_00: People are left to go on their own.
SPEAKER_00: And they've been going on their own ever since.
SPEAKER_00: The world has been thrust into darkness.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus encounters that darkness in John chapter 4.
SPEAKER_00: I mean in Matthew chapter 4, verse 12, he heard that John had been arrested.
SPEAKER_00: This is after the temptation.
SPEAKER_00: He's coming out of the Judean wilderness.
SPEAKER_00: For 40 days he's been cut off from the world.
SPEAKER_00: 40 days he's been fasting.
SPEAKER_00: 40 days he's been independent of the world.
SPEAKER_00: No CNN out there.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's a little bit of a joke, but a little bit of a truth.
SPEAKER_00: Remember in the temptation, he was, I said over and over again, he was operating, he's being tempted as man.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, the second temptation in particular was to the devil trying to get him to fall back on his deity and withstand temptation as God rather than as man.
SPEAKER_00: Had he done that, we would have not had an advocate.
SPEAKER_00: We would not have had a second Adam who was truly human who could stand against the devil and be righteous in our place, because we would have had God who can stand against the devil.
SPEAKER_00: And God, of course, is righteousness, but that's not what we needed in an advocate.
SPEAKER_00: We needed the God man.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus was tempted as God, I mean, sorry, tempted as man, he withstood the temptations as man, and now he's descending from the mountain, and he again is operating in his humanity.
SPEAKER_00: He learned, he heard that John had been arrested.
SPEAKER_00: As God, Jesus is omniscient, of course.
SPEAKER_00: He knows all things.
SPEAKER_00: As God, Jesus is the author of providence.
SPEAKER_00: He wrote world history.
SPEAKER_00: All things happen according to his permissive or explicit will.
SPEAKER_00: Everything that happens in the world happens according to providence.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the author of that.
SPEAKER_00: So in that sense, in his deity, he knows John has been arrested.
SPEAKER_00: But this is the pattern throughout his life.
SPEAKER_00: He's operating for the most part in his life as a man.
SPEAKER_00: So that he can lead a sinless life.
SPEAKER_00: For his life to be sinless and a substitute in our place, it has to be a human life.
SPEAKER_00: So here, he's not relying on his omniscience to know that John was arrested.
SPEAKER_00: He's limited by his incarnation in that sense.
SPEAKER_00: He freely limited himself.
SPEAKER_00: And he walks down from the wilderness and hears that John had been arrested.
SPEAKER_00: The news is spreading.
SPEAKER_00: Ryan brought that out a few weeks ago in his sermon series in John 1.
SPEAKER_00: Those powerful messages reminded us that John had spoken publicly to more people than anybody else alive at that time.
SPEAKER_00: Tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people had gone out to the wilderness to see John.
SPEAKER_00: He was famous in that sense.
SPEAKER_00: He was opposed to the Pharisees.
SPEAKER_00: The Pharisees didn't like him because the Pharisees guarded Judaism.
SPEAKER_00: John was outside of what they permitted.
SPEAKER_00: John was not operating in Jerusalem or in Caesarea Maritime, which was the largest Roman city there in Israel.
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't there.
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't in Egypt, of course.
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't obviously in Rome.
SPEAKER_00: He went to the Judean wilderness, the middle of nowhere, outside of Jericho, the Jordan River, going from the Sea of Galilee down to the Dead Sea.
SPEAKER_00: That's where John went, baptizing people in the dirty Jordan River.
SPEAKER_00: This was absurd, of course.
SPEAKER_00: That's where he went, and everybody came to him.
SPEAKER_00: And then he baptized Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That was 40 days ago.
SPEAKER_00: He baptized Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And then everything changes.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' disciples, we're going to meet them next week.
SPEAKER_00: They start baptizing people.
SPEAKER_00: More people start going to Jesus and his disciples for baptism than to John.
SPEAKER_00: That's okay with John.
SPEAKER_00: John says in John chapter 1, he's going to grow greater.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus will grow greater.
SPEAKER_00: I'll grow less.
SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
SPEAKER_00: So what does John do?
SPEAKER_00: He goes back up to Galilee, which is a largely Gentile area along the Sea of Galilee, to Tiberias, which is the Jewish, or the Roman capital of that region.
SPEAKER_00: It's a massive city.
SPEAKER_00: He goes there and he confronts Herod for Herod's marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Not Herod the Great.
SPEAKER_00: Herod the Great, someone who butchered all the babies back in Matthew 2.
SPEAKER_00: This is a different Herod.
SPEAKER_00: Herod the Great, when he died, split his kingdom up among his sons, all of whom were named Herod, just to drive history majors crazy.
SPEAKER_00: Herod's sons then had a power struggle with each other.
SPEAKER_00: One of them divorced his wife, Herod Antipas, divorced his wife, and married his brother's wife instead.
SPEAKER_00: Herod Agrippa.
SPEAKER_00: Herod Agrippa ruled what's modern-day Syria.
SPEAKER_00: Herod Antipas ruled Tiberius in the Galilee region.
SPEAKER_00: And that Herod left his wife and stole his brother's wife.
SPEAKER_00: That's like a Roman king power play right there.
SPEAKER_00: You want to know how powerful I am?
SPEAKER_00: All of Herod's descendants are vying for power.
SPEAKER_00: And this Herod says, I'll show you who the strongest Herod is.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to take that other Herod's wife.
SPEAKER_00: And nobody can do anything about it.
SPEAKER_00: So John leaves the wilderness, marches up to Tiberius, and confronts him.
SPEAKER_00: And says, That's not lawful.
SPEAKER_00: You don't get to define marriage for yourself.
SPEAKER_00: You don't get to marry whoever you want to.
SPEAKER_00: God defines marriage, and you're going to submit to his rule because you're a creature, not the creator.
SPEAKER_00: And Herod locks John in prison.
SPEAKER_00: Eventually, likely a year later or so, he's going to take off his head.
SPEAKER_00: John is going to be a martyr for confronting Herod about marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Well, Jesus comes out of the mountain and hears about this.
SPEAKER_00: Knows that John's in prison.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus doesn't turn right to go to Jericho.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't turn right.
SPEAKER_00: You could go to Jericho and then over to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: That's where you might expect him to go.
SPEAKER_00: He's just been baptized in the river.
SPEAKER_00: You would expect him to march to Jerusalem, which is the Jewish capital.
SPEAKER_00: All the Jews are there.
SPEAKER_00: The Pharisees are there.
SPEAKER_00: If he's going to be unveiled as the Messiah, that's where he should go.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody would tell you that.
SPEAKER_00: No, he goes left and he goes up to Galilee, which is, you know, isolated.
SPEAKER_00: Galilee is not, as far as the Jews are concerned, Galilee is practically apostate.
SPEAKER_00: Back in the Old Testament, when Israel and Judah were split, Israel was the ten tribes of the north.
SPEAKER_00: That's where Jesus went.
SPEAKER_00: They had Galilee, they had Samaria, they did not have the temple, they did not have the Pharisees, they did not have the Ark of the Covenant, they didn't have the priests, they didn't have the Davidic king.
SPEAKER_00: The Davidic king was in Jerusalem, not in Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: That's where Jesus went.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, John's arrest is a picture of the spiritual darkness of the area, but the area was spiritually dark before Jesus went there, before John was arrested.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 13, it says, oh verse 12, he says he withdrew to Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: This is going to be a big deal in his ministry, remember?
SPEAKER_00: Once Jesus starts to become famous himself, once he starts preaching and doing miracles, the Pharisees hear about it and they say, but he can't be the Messiah because he is from Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember that exchange?
SPEAKER_00: No prophets come from Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus had been called out of Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: He spent early part of his life in Egypt, so that it would fulfill the scripture, out of Egypt I called my son.
SPEAKER_00: He did not go back to Bethlehem where he was born.
SPEAKER_00: He did not go back to Judah, where his family line was from.
SPEAKER_00: He went instead to Nazareth, which is up on the north side of the valley of Armageddon, the valley of Megiddo.
SPEAKER_00: That's where he went.
SPEAKER_00: Again, super isolated in the heart of Samaria.
SPEAKER_00: Now that he's starting his ministry, baptized, filled with the Spirit, the voice from heaven declared who he is.
SPEAKER_00: John is in jail, by the way, so now there is no, there's no rival.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is it.
SPEAKER_00: And he goes to Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: That's an obscure place, and it's a strange choice.
SPEAKER_00: It's hard to think of an American parallel to that.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we have a little bit of a concept of, you know, if you want to be president or if you want to be a powerful politician or Supreme Court justice or a CEO of a Fortune 500 company, there's really only a handful of colleges or universities that you can go to.
SPEAKER_00: You're going to go to an Ivy League school or maybe this or that business school, but that's it.
SPEAKER_00: So imagine somebody who graduates valedictorian and offered a full ride at Harvard and says life goal to be a Supreme Court justice, and he can go.
SPEAKER_00: To Harvard, or he could go to Yale, or but instead he's like, no, I'm gonna, because I'm gonna, on a path to greatness, I'm gonna be a Supreme Court justice or president or whatever, I'm gonna go to a small, obscure Christian college down in the south somewhere that no one's heard of.
SPEAKER_00: That's this kind of choice.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't make a lot of sense for what he says his goal is gonna be.
SPEAKER_00: If he's the Messiah, he got to go to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: But no, he goes to Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: Galilee is sort of populated, lots of little towns, a lot of farming.
SPEAKER_00: The main highways through Israel go through there.
SPEAKER_00: If you're gonna go from Egypt up to Syria or Damascus, you would go by Galilee, you'd follow the Jordan River up and go through Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: If you go along the Mediterranean coast, the highway cuts in at the Valley of Armageddon or Megiddo and it joins there.
SPEAKER_00: So this is like the mixing bowl.
SPEAKER_00: This is the Israelite mixing bowl.
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean by that, where all the freeways come together.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Capernaum is.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Galilee is.
SPEAKER_00: That's where he goes.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't go to Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: He goes to the where the freeways meet.
SPEAKER_00: Out in Noerville.
SPEAKER_00: It's largely Gentile.
SPEAKER_00: It's Gentile because if you remember the Israelites did not follow the law.
SPEAKER_00: The two tribes, Judah and Benjamin, they had the temple, but the other tribes broke off and did their own thing.
SPEAKER_00: They worshipped idols.
SPEAKER_00: They made cows and worshipped idols.
SPEAKER_00: They made their own capital city.
SPEAKER_00: They called themselves the Samaritans.
SPEAKER_00: They're from Samaria.
SPEAKER_00: The first two of those tribes, by the way, if you go to the book of Judges, I mean the book of Joshua, the first two of those tribes were Naphtali and Zebulun.
SPEAKER_00: And they should have taken over that land.
SPEAKER_00: This is the land that belonged to them.
SPEAKER_00: Naphtali, Zebulun, and Dan.
SPEAKER_00: Those are the three tribes that had that land, but they didn't defeat the Amalekites.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't defeat the Hittites.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't go to war like they were supposed to.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, they let the Amalekites and the Hittites stay there, and they just tried to coexist with them.
SPEAKER_00: Dan went homeless, if you remember in Judges, Dan is wandering through the trees like a homeless tribe.
SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, Naphtali and Zebulun never, ever establish themselves.
SPEAKER_00: They totally intermarry with the Gentiles that are there, and it becomes a dark place that Israel never really has control of.
SPEAKER_00: That's this place.
SPEAKER_00: It's known for idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: Again, they built actual golden calves to worship, and they named their calves Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: That's them.
SPEAKER_00: And when the Assyrians came and drug them into captivity, scattered them into Nineveh, a few of them remained and they became the Samaritans and lived in the hills.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, the Jews and the Samaritans hated each other.
SPEAKER_00: That's Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: That's this place.
SPEAKER_00: And that's where Jesus goes.
SPEAKER_00: They're spiritually dark.
SPEAKER_00: They're Jewish.
SPEAKER_00: Many of them are Jewish.
SPEAKER_00: They're Gentile.
SPEAKER_00: There's a massive Roman city there, Tiberius.
SPEAKER_00: I remember coming to Emmanuel a few years ago.
SPEAKER_00: And I had somebody tell me, you're not going to last at Emmanuel Bible church.
SPEAKER_00: Because you are from California.
SPEAKER_00: Liberal California.
SPEAKER_00: Galilee is like California.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you hear it and you're like, oh, that place.
SPEAKER_00: That's where Jesus went.
SPEAKER_00: Right into the heart of darkness.
SPEAKER_00: And when I call it the heart of darkness, I'm not exaggerating.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 16.
SPEAKER_00: The people who are living there are living in darkness.
SPEAKER_00: The end of verse 16 calls it the shadow of death.
SPEAKER_00: That's this culture.
SPEAKER_00: And I know that every culture, here's the point of starting back with the Garden of Eden, every culture in the world is in darkness.
SPEAKER_00: Do you understand that?
SPEAKER_00: Every culture.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of a zero-sum game here to say this culture is worse than that culture or worse than that culture.
SPEAKER_00: Every culture is in darkness.
SPEAKER_00: You think of some of the Asian cultures that devalue human life and what it means to be in the image of God and just ruins by poverty and indifference to extreme suffering.
SPEAKER_00: You think of some of the African cultures that drive people to worship the creation rather than the creator.
SPEAKER_00: But obviously the American culture is a culture of darkness as well.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's the one we're most familiar with.
SPEAKER_00: The way it devalues life, human life through abortion, the way it attacks family and attacks law and attacks justice and attacks even work ethic.
SPEAKER_00: You know, working hard in our culture is sometimes seen as a vice, not as a virtue.
SPEAKER_00: We tell kids they need self-esteem.
SPEAKER_00: The most important thing about you is that you're happy and you have a good self-esteem and you realize who you are authentically, that's the true you and live it out, and that'll be happiness.
SPEAKER_00: And then we make all the things that would lead to human happiness and flourishing immoral.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we tell we tell kids, you know, grow up to be who you want to be, but you know, hard work is bad and family is bad and law is bad and education is bad, but go be happy.
SPEAKER_00: Think of our culture's attack on gender.
SPEAKER_00: This just stands out as the most obvious example of this.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you tell kids you need to be happy.
SPEAKER_00: Grow into who you are and be happy as you are.
SPEAKER_00: But the most foundational thing about a person is that they're made in the image of God, male and female.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's the most basic level.
SPEAKER_00: So, you know what, you really need to be happy in life, but don't believe in God and don't believe in gender.
SPEAKER_00: We saw somebody, my wife and I saw somebody that we love very much with their own gender pronouns attached to them.
SPEAKER_00: And our heart breaks for that person because that life is not going to lead to happiness.
SPEAKER_00: If you think if I follow my own, I I think I'll be happy if I can attack my body.
SPEAKER_00: I think I'll be happy if I can stop being who I am.
SPEAKER_00: There's no happiness in that.
SPEAKER_00: That's the the gerbil on the wheel.
SPEAKER_00: There is no happiness in that.
SPEAKER_00: If you think you can be happy by going to a war against your own body, there's no winner in that war.
SPEAKER_00: And all this comes down to evolution, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: I think.
SPEAKER_00: Our culture fully embraces evolution.
SPEAKER_00: Fully embraces it.
SPEAKER_00: And then says that there's no such thing as gender.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's about as stupid as you get.
SPEAKER_00: Evolution is true, but gender isn't.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's no meeting with those two.
SPEAKER_00: And yet they're both embraced as tenets of our society.
SPEAKER_00: That is darkness.
SPEAKER_00: It's an attack on light, it's an attack on truth, and it leads to a culture of death.
SPEAKER_00: I'm picking in our culture because that's where we live, but like I said, don't hear me saying like this is the worst culture in the history of the world.
SPEAKER_00: No, every culture is in darkness.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone.
SPEAKER_00: And this takes you back to Genesis, I mean back to Isaiah chapter 9, where the Israelites were in darkness.
SPEAKER_00: Zebulun and Naphtali had never taken over the land.
SPEAKER_00: They were as dark and as hopeless as it comes.
SPEAKER_00: So much so.
SPEAKER_00: Capernaum was a city of total depravity as well, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: It was Jewish, but it was a city of depravity.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, their king divorced his wife to marry his brother's wife.
SPEAKER_00: That's what was happening in this city.
SPEAKER_00: Every commentary in Matthew just about uses the example of the Pharisees saying you could divorce your wife if she put too much salt on your food.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's a real example used in commentaries.
SPEAKER_00: That's the culture of Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: That's these people.
SPEAKER_00: That's where this is taking place.
SPEAKER_00: The Sermon on the Mount happens here with these people.
SPEAKER_00: That marriage is insignificant.
SPEAKER_00: You can define marriage as you want to.
SPEAKER_00: Kids are an obstacle, by the way, even in this Jewish culture, and you see it in the American culture too.
SPEAKER_00: Kids just get in the way of your happiness to get in the way of your success.
SPEAKER_00: Your marriage is probably an obstacle to your happiness.
SPEAKER_00: Get rid of that spouse, get a new one, avoid your kids, marry that wife over there.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's this Jewish world.
SPEAKER_00: And it is described here in verse 16 as the shadow of death.
SPEAKER_00: And if you think that's an exaggeration, look around you at the American culture.
SPEAKER_00: It is in many ways a culture of death.
SPEAKER_00: I like this turn of phrase.
SPEAKER_00: It is a culture of a shadow of death.
SPEAKER_00: That's the whole world.
SPEAKER_00: It's darkness.
SPEAKER_00: It's not unique to Galilee or Capernaum or America.
SPEAKER_00: And it's hopelessness.
SPEAKER_00: I was a chaplain with the LA Sheriff's Department.
SPEAKER_00: The saddest thing to do would be to go to a funeral of a non-believer.
SPEAKER_00: They're trying to shine light, but they don't have a flashlight.
SPEAKER_00: You know, they're an angel now.
SPEAKER_00: And he asked the person, Do you believe in angels?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: It's real hopeful right there.
SPEAKER_00: Real sincere.
SPEAKER_00: That's the shadow of death.
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews 2 says this kind of hopeless person is enslaved to the fear of death.
SPEAKER_00: So slavery is not too strong of a word for this.
SPEAKER_00: They're a slave to the fear of death because they don't have hope in the face of death.
SPEAKER_00: They're living in the shadow of death.
SPEAKER_00: Again, what a powerful turn of phrase.
SPEAKER_00: People who live their life with the shadow of death over it, and they don't have any hope to face it.
SPEAKER_00: They're stuck in darkness.
SPEAKER_00: And that's where Jesus went.
SPEAKER_00: And when Jesus went there, you see the sun start to shine.
SPEAKER_00: You see morning in Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: What happens here in verses 14 and 15 and 16 is that Isaiah 9 is fulfilled.
SPEAKER_00: You wonder why did Jesus go to Capernaum?
SPEAKER_00: Well, Matthew tells you he went there to fulfill the prophecy in Isaiah 9.
SPEAKER_00: Now, in my mind, before the sermon, we would have so much time right now, we could go to Isaiah 9 and slowly work our way through it, but you'll just have to trust me.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 7, 8, and 9, that's where the story takes place.
SPEAKER_00: Israel is in darkness, of course.
SPEAKER_00: Judah is in darkness where Jerusalem is, but the Israelites are in darkness in their own right in the northern part of the country, in Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: And then Isaiah says, There will be a king born to you that your darkness won't last forever.
SPEAKER_00: There's going to be a sign.
SPEAKER_00: In the future, there will be a child born who is both God and man.
SPEAKER_00: He will be born in a miraculous birth to a virgin.
SPEAKER_00: And he will grow up.
SPEAKER_00: And you remember Isaiah 9?
SPEAKER_00: JJ read it earlier.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to grow up, and the governments will be upon his shoulders.
SPEAKER_00: He'll be the prince of peace, mighty counselor, everlasting God.
SPEAKER_00: That's who this person will be.
SPEAKER_00: He's God in human flesh.
SPEAKER_00: And when he comes, he's going to come to Zebulun and to Napptali, the very places the Jews could never take over for themselves.
SPEAKER_00: They could never extinguish the darkness there.
SPEAKER_00: They tried to shine the light there and they failed miserably and they became darkness themselves.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus is going to go to that part of Israel, and he's going to turn the lights on where the lights have never been on before.
SPEAKER_00: That's the prophecy.
SPEAKER_00: The Savior will come and he'll be born in Bethlehem.
SPEAKER_00: He'll be a Nazarene.
SPEAKER_00: But he will go to Naphtali and Zebulun.
SPEAKER_00: So that he can be a light to the nations.
SPEAKER_00: That's the full prophecy.
SPEAKER_00: That he will be a light.
SPEAKER_00: The governments of the world will be on his shoulders.
SPEAKER_00: He will be a light to the nations.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus comes from Nazareth so that the scripture would be fulfilled, Matthew chapter 2, he'll be called a Nazarene.
SPEAKER_00: And remember, there is no Bible passage that says the Savior will be called a Nazarene.
SPEAKER_00: So when Matthew says that, he's speaking of the insignificance of the Savior, that the Savior will go up to Galilee to a place where other prophets don't come from, so that he can have an insignificant existence for 30 years of his life.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know anything about it, really, other than he came from Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
SPEAKER_00: That's why he will be called a Nazarenes.
SPEAKER_00: He will be insignificant, totally different than the Pharisees who have pompous hats and parade themselves around and blow trumpets all their days.
SPEAKER_00: He'll be totally different than that.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to be from Galilee, Capernaum.
SPEAKER_00: And he's going to be a light to the nations.
SPEAKER_00: And when the Pharisees hear about this, and Jesus is healing everybody, they say he cannot be the Messiah because no prophet comes from Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: And you're reading that and you say, pause.
SPEAKER_00: Is that true?
SPEAKER_00: Is there another prophet from Galilee in the Old Testament?
SPEAKER_00: The answer is yes.
SPEAKER_00: The other prophet from Galilee was Jonah.
SPEAKER_00: Who was a prophet for the nations and sent to Nineveh, where the Israelites were exiled to.
SPEAKER_00: That's where Jonah went.
SPEAKER_00: He was the prophet for the nations.
SPEAKER_00: That's Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That's where God sent him.
SPEAKER_00: That's where he goes.
SPEAKER_00: He goes to verse 15: the way of the sea, that's the word for the highway, the highway that goes along the Mediterranean was called the way of the sea.
SPEAKER_00: And beyond the Jordan, the highway that goes along the Jordan is that phrase.
SPEAKER_00: So those two highways come together.
SPEAKER_00: That's where he goes.
SPEAKER_00: It's Galilee of the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_00: As I said, Tiberias was the biggest city there.
SPEAKER_00: Tiberius is never mentioned in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: The Jews hated it, built on a graveyard.
SPEAKER_00: The Jews wanted nothing to do with it.
SPEAKER_00: That's where Jesus goes.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Verse 16 answers so the people dwelling in darkness will see a great light.
SPEAKER_00: Those dwelling in the shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.
SPEAKER_00: I love the ESV rendering of the word dawned.
SPEAKER_00: It's a cool word.
SPEAKER_00: It's the light is just peeking over the horizon.
SPEAKER_00: If you've seen a sunrise, you know it.
SPEAKER_00: You know the it's it's dark and the whole horizon just slowly starts to light up, but you can't tell where the sun is yet.
SPEAKER_00: Where is it?
SPEAKER_00: Is it gonna come over there, over there, over there?
SPEAKER_00: You can't tell.
SPEAKER_00: The whole thing is kind of orange-ish, and then at one spot the little yellow light comes up, just one little tiny spot.
SPEAKER_00: That's this word that the light of Jesus is piercing the darkness right here.
SPEAKER_00: Not from the temple.
SPEAKER_00: The light of Jesus is piercing the darkness right here in Capernaum.
SPEAKER_00: That's where he's coming.
SPEAKER_00: On those people.
SPEAKER_00: Now, not everybody there is gonna believe the gospel, of course.
SPEAKER_00: The light shines in them, and those that have the light shine in their hearts are welcomed into the kingdom of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 17.
SPEAKER_00: From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
SPEAKER_00: So this is sunrise for the world.
SPEAKER_00: Sunrise for the world.
SPEAKER_00: That Jesus begins to preach, and for all those who repent, they become citizens of the light.
SPEAKER_00: A person who says they walk in darkness is still in darkness.
SPEAKER_00: A person who says they walk in light but walk in darkness is a liar and the truth isn't in them.
SPEAKER_00: But a person who repents from their sins and lives in the light, the light, the true light of the world, resides in their hearts.
SPEAKER_00: This is sunrise for the world.
SPEAKER_00: When you repent from your sins, you're welcomed into the kingdom of light.
SPEAKER_00: You know, this language is used three more times in the book of Matthew, Matthew 8 in Capernaum.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus comes back from preaching the Sermon on the Mount.
SPEAKER_00: A centurion runs out to meet him and says, My servant is home.
SPEAKER_00: The Jewish boy that lived with him is home and is injured and is dying.
SPEAKER_00: Can you heal him?
SPEAKER_00: And of course, Jesus isn't going to go into the centurion's house, and so the centurion says, Why don't you just give the command from a distance?
SPEAKER_00: I tell my sergeant to do this and that, and he does it.
SPEAKER_00: So why don't you just say for the boy to be healed from across the hill and it'll happen?
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus does so and then says, Truly I tell you, in all of Israel, I have not seen faith as much or as mature or as fulfilled full as this Roman centurion in Capernaum.
SPEAKER_00: He has more faith than all the Pharisees.
SPEAKER_00: When we get to heaven, Jesus says, you're going to see this centurion reclining on Abraham's chest at the banquet hall of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, all the religious leaders will be cast into outer darkness.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 23, Jesus tells the parable of the king who invites everybody for the wedding ceremony.
SPEAKER_00: But people don't come.
SPEAKER_00: So he tells his servants, go the highways and byways, round people up and get them to come, and it packs the place out, and it's great, and it's a big party.
SPEAKER_00: That's a rebuke of the Jews that they're not responding to the Savior, but all the Gentiles come in.
SPEAKER_00: But then the king shows up and he looks around, and one of the original guests is there, but he's not wearing a wedding suit.
SPEAKER_00: Speaking of one of the Jewish leaders, he came in.
SPEAKER_00: He made fun of the invitation, but came in just to check out anyway, but he's not wearing the right clothes.
SPEAKER_00: Remember what the king does in Matthew 23?
SPEAKER_00: Tells his servants, tie him up and throw him into the realm of outer darkness where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth.
SPEAKER_00: That parable took a turn.
SPEAKER_00: Or Matthew 25, the three servants that have their talent, and one buries it and says, I was afraid of you, so I buried the talent.
SPEAKER_00: And the king says, Fine, you're going to go to the place where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth in outer darkness.
SPEAKER_00: They're not saved.
SPEAKER_00: The light came to them, but not in them, and they didn't receive it.
SPEAKER_00: Those who did receive it are those who repent from their sins.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 4, verse 17.
SPEAKER_00: This is Jesus' first ministry.
SPEAKER_00: After his baptism, his first words in ministry are repent.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus came preaching repentance.
SPEAKER_00: Repentance is what makes the world go round.
SPEAKER_00: Repentance is what causes the sun to shine in that sense.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Corinthians 4, verse 6 says it this way it is God who causes his light to shine into darkness.
SPEAKER_00: So, speaking of Genesis 1, God caused the light to shine in that same way he causes the light of Christ to shine in our own hearts to give the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So God causes light to shine in your hearts.
SPEAKER_00: That light produces repentance because it brings with it knowledge of God.
SPEAKER_00: Repentance doesn't mean you feel sorry about your sin.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody can feel sorry about their sin.
SPEAKER_00: Repentance means that you recognize your sin as against God.
SPEAKER_00: Saul was sorry that he lost the kingdom, but he didn't repent.
SPEAKER_00: David was sorry that he sinned against Bathsheba and Uriah and Nathan and his people, and most of all, Yahweh, and he did repent.
SPEAKER_00: That's the distinction.
SPEAKER_00: You can't measure sorrow based on tears.
SPEAKER_00: True godly sorrow brings with it real repentance.
SPEAKER_00: One of the examples that's always in my mind of false repentance is the start of the book of Judges, where Naptali and Zebulun didn't defeat their people, and God judges them, and they weep.
SPEAKER_00: They wept so much that they renamed the Valley of Megiddo, they renamed it the Valley of Bochim, of tears.
SPEAKER_00: That's how much they wept over their sin, but they did not repent.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus comes and is a light in that place to those people.
SPEAKER_00: A broken spirit and a contrite heart are the marks of repentance, and they are not despised by God.
SPEAKER_00: God despises sin, but if the result of sin is repentance, then God despises the root and not the fruit.
SPEAKER_00: The command to repent didn't begin with Jesus either.
SPEAKER_00: Back in the Old Testament, Solomon builds the temple in Jerusalem and says, There will be a time coming where the nations of the earth have gone astray, but if they turn towards this place and pray and repent from their sins, you will hear them and receive them.
SPEAKER_00: That's 1 Kings 8, verse 48.
SPEAKER_00: Solomon says, If they repent with all their mind and with all their heart, and pray to you, and you'll hear in heaven, you'll forgive your people who have sinned against you.
SPEAKER_00: Repentance is not with your feet, but with your heart.
SPEAKER_00: Luke 24, Jesus' last words of his walk on the road to Emmaus.
SPEAKER_00: He told the disciples on the road to Emmaus, don't you know it was written that this Messiah would come, would suffer for sins, rise again from the dead on the third day, and then repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached to all the nations.
SPEAKER_00: Not to the Jews only, but to all the nations.
SPEAKER_00: That's hearkening back to why he did his ministry in Galilee of the nations, Galilee of the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_00: The book of Acts.
SPEAKER_00: The sunrise goes to the world in the book of Acts.
SPEAKER_00: The first sermon in the book of Acts, the last sermon in the book of Acts are both sermons on repentance.
SPEAKER_00: Peter preaches to the Jews, and they say, What must we do to be saved?
SPEAKER_00: And Peter says, Repent and be baptized.
SPEAKER_00: The end of the book of Acts.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is preaching to King Agrippa.
SPEAKER_00: And King Agrippa, you know, quips, Do you want me to become a Christian?
SPEAKER_00: And Paul says, I wish you all became a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: I wish, and he says, Paul says Acts 27, verse 20, Paul closes out his ministry in the book of Acts by saying, I've been preaching that men everywhere should repent and turn to God, performing deeds appropriate to repentance.
SPEAKER_00: That's Acts 26, verse 20.
SPEAKER_00: So that's how the Son goes into the world.
SPEAKER_00: Through the hearts of people that Repent.
SPEAKER_00: It's shown in Capernaum, but not everybody there repented.
SPEAKER_00: It's shown in Galilee, but not every there, everybody there repented.
SPEAKER_00: It went down to Jericho, not everybody there repented.
SPEAKER_00: The blind guy outside the city, he repented.
SPEAKER_00: Bartimaeus, the others, others didn't.
SPEAKER_00: The light followed Jesus into Jerusalem, not everybody there repented.
SPEAKER_00: The crowds of people welcomed him, they didn't repent.
SPEAKER_00: And now the light goes into the world, the preaching of the Word of God.
SPEAKER_00: So you have a pretty elementary question.
SPEAKER_00: Are you in darkness?
SPEAKER_00: Are you in light?
SPEAKER_00: Darkness produces death and the fear of death.
SPEAKER_00: Darkness produces hopelessness.
SPEAKER_00: Darkness produces a hatred towards yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Darkness produces hostility towards the world.
SPEAKER_00: Darkness produces confusion, hostility towards God.
SPEAKER_00: Darkness rejects God.
SPEAKER_00: John chapter 3 says the light came in the world, but those in the darkness didn't receive it.
SPEAKER_00: They ran from the light and they hid from it.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't want their deeds exposed.
SPEAKER_00: That's darkness.
SPEAKER_00: Do you want your evil deeds exposed before God?
SPEAKER_00: If the answer is no, you're hiding from God, you're living in darkness.
SPEAKER_00: You have not repented from your sins.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have hope in the face of death.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have confidence that you're in the image of God.
SPEAKER_00: You are lost in a hopeless and dark place.
SPEAKER_00: But for all those who turn from their sin and come to the light, the light of Christ is shown in your hearts, giving you the forgiveness of sins, giving you confidence in the face of death, giving you love towards other people.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever walks in the light, loves his brothers, is there in the light.
SPEAKER_00: That is the new hope.
SPEAKER_00: That is the new birth.
SPEAKER_00: That's what is offered to those people who turn from their sin and embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ is light that dominates your life.
SPEAKER_00: You've never seen light and darkness wrestling.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a close call.
SPEAKER_00: The room is dark.
SPEAKER_00: When you turn on the light switch, the darkness doesn't put up a fight.
SPEAKER_00: The darkness books it out of there, hides behind the corner.
SPEAKER_00: Is the light on in your life?
SPEAKER_00: Has the light of Christ shone in your heart?
SPEAKER_00: God, we're thankful that you have used something as clear and as illuminating as light and darkness to drive us to you.
SPEAKER_00: We know the world is a dark place.
SPEAKER_00: We pray that you would shine the light in our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: We want the light of Christ to be big and bright.
SPEAKER_00: We want to live in love, filled with life.
SPEAKER_00: Pray for anyone here this morning that's never turned their life over to you.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that the love of Christ would be made known to them, and this morning they would repent from their sins and embrace the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: We ask this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us.
SPEAKER_00: If you're in the Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information on our church or our current service times, go to IBC.church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: location, go to TMS.edu.
SPEAKER_00: I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.