The Genesis of Jesus, Part 2

What compelled Matthew to start his New Testament book with a rather laborious list of names?

Why would he choose to drag us through someone else's family tree with foreign names we can barely pronounce? Well today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll presents a clarifying study of Matthew chapter 1 in which he'll explain, in a fashion that's easy to grasp, the power and significance behind the genealogy of Jesus. We're just getting started in a brand new study of Matthew called The King's Arrival.

Chuck titled today's message, The Genesis of Jesus. You are so many things to us, our Father. You are our anchor in a world that seems awash, having lost its way centuries ago. Thank you for anchoring us to truth and giving us the North Star of your word to guide us, unerringly through the path that at times seems somewhere between confusing and disturbing. You are also, Father, the reminder of an abiding love that is not fickle. Your love doesn't change when our love toward you changes.

It is never conditional based upon how we're living or what we're doing. The one who knows us best, loves us the most. Thank you for being that presence of love. You are our protection. The Lord is our light and our salvation.

Whom shall we fear? The Lord is the strength of our life, of whom shall we be afraid. You're watching over those warriors, those faithful men and women, serving you in uniform in all the corners of this globe, all around and beyond these United States, in the difficult places where life is hard and existence is risky. Thank you for protecting us, our Father, and giving us the hope of liberty continuing. And Lord, you also are the one who overrules when we pray foolish prayers. You know when to say no, and we're grateful. And you know how to handle those times, Lord, when we simply do not know and we cry out help and you guide us.

Thank you for being that stabilizing presence along with your protection, your love, the anchor of our life, and your anchor of our lives. Be our vision, Father. Expand our minds beyond our own backyard. Deliver us from selfishness and a limited perspective. Show us the world for which your son has died and give us a love for those who've never ever trusted in you. Guard us from impatience, from judgmentalism, from partiality and prejudice, and may we remember again and again that you found us when we were terribly unlovely and unattractive. And even to this day when we are, your grace abounds. Because of this and a thousand other reasons, we give you our offerings today. Grateful Father for your stability and protection, for your provision, and for your vision. In the name of Christ, we pray and we give. And everyone said, amen.

You're listening to Insight for Living. To study the book of Matthew with Chuck Swindoll, be sure to download his Searching the Scriptures studies by going to insightworld.org slash studies. And now let's resume the message titled The Genesis of Jesus. There are three segments of history worth noting. And if you have not observed them, you can rush to the end and find them listed for you at verse 17. All those listed above include 14 generations, here's the first segment, from Abraham to David, and then there are 14 generations from David to Babylon or the Babylonian exile, and then 14 from the exile to the Messiah. Those may not mean much to you because you're not Jewish. You're not a student of Jewish history, most likely. But because Matthew was and because anyone who would write a record of his life certainly needed to be, those things are important. Let's go to the three. First, from Abraham to David, that's verses two through six.

You see it for yourself. Abraham, Abraham, the father of Isaac, all the way down, verse six, Jesse, the father of the one who was to be king, the most significant king in the history of Israel. They named the city, the king, the city of David. They still call the flag, the flag of David. The symbol is the crown of David, still the most significant. This could be called, and we might write this in our notes, the period of the patriarchs.

It's a period of wandering and enslavement in foreign land, a period of deliverance from slavery, of covenant making, law giving, a period of conquest as well as victory and defeat. By the end of the era, Israel has become a powerful nation. Under David, they were in fact that. As great as David was, he was not Messiah, nor were any of those in his progeny mentioned in verses two through six. And so David, through Bathsheba, give birth to Solomon. Solomon then is the father of Rehoboam, who oversees the beginning of a divided kingdom, Jeroboam fighting with Rehoboam, and now we see a decline, a period of the kings. We call the first one the period of the patriarchs.

Call this next 14-generation era the period of the kings. There is infighting. There is competition. There is a civil war, of all things. The divided kingdom now comes in place of the United Kingdom. What was once strong under David now is weakened through the multiple wives of Solomon who led him astray. And from that come these warring figures, those of the north and those of the south.

And there is a decline. There is degeneracy. There is apostasy.

There is idolatry. You reach the end of this time, which is called the time of the exile, and you realize that it's a national disaster, so weak that when Babylon marches in, there's hardly a fight to defend itself. And the city of David falls, and the temple of David is in ruins.

It is a horrendous tragedy that can hardly be put into words. And when you read the the lamentations of Jeremiah, unless you read it through the eyes of a broken-hearted prophet, it will not make much sense. He's stumbling his way through the ruins of Jerusalem, having known it when it was in its heyday, at least something of it in its heyday.

In its heyday, Jeremiah has now lived to see it as it passes into ruin. And then ultimately, the exile. You and I read that as we come to verse 12 or verse, I should say verse 11, where it first mentions the exile to Babylon and then the Babylonian exile, itself, which lasts seven decades. You have never lived in exile, nor have I, thank God, not yet.

Hopefully never. But when you talk to those who have gone through the exile or an exile, they'll tell you a story that'll grip your heart. In fact, turn quickly, hold your place, and go to Psalm 137, and you'll hear the words of the people of the Jews going into exile. It's a heartbreaking Psalm.

Beside the rivers of Babylon, we sat and wept. As we thought of Jerusalem, we put away our harps. The Jews are musical people. Wherever they go, you'll find them with their musical instruments to this day. But here, we hung our harps on the branches of the willow or the poplar trees. Our captors demanded a song from us.

Look at the sarcasm. Our tormentors insisted on a joyful hymn. Sing us one of those songs.

How about blessed assurance? Jesus is mine. Let's hear you sing. Revive us again.

Or how about crown him with many crowns? Why, look at that fourth verse. How can we sing the songs of the Lord in a pagan land? Not only is there no song sung, there is no prophet who writes.

Oh, a little bit here and there, but nothing to speak of. It's the exile. Still, there's no Messiah.

Still, they wait. And if there was ever a people that longed for a deliverer, it would be the people of the exile. The closest we can get to it is the Holocaust. If you have not read Elie Wiesel's work, brief and pungent, titled Night, part of your education is missing. As a teenager, he went into the Holocaust. And when he got out, he wrote about it.

I draw a few excerpts. Elie Wiesel's book, Night, is not for the faint hearted. In terse, tightly packed sentences, Wiesel describes one of the most horrible chapters ever endured by mankind, the Nazi-led Holocaust, of the Jews in World War II, for he spent his teenage years as only a boy. He saw all the Jews in his village quarantined in the Holocaust. And when he got out, he wrote about his families crushed together in a ghetto, then loaded into cattle cars, where a third of them died before they reached the destination. He later saw his mother, his little sister, and finally all of his family disappear into an oven, fueled with human flesh. He saw babies pitchforked, children hanged, weak and broken men beaten and killed by fellow prisoners of molded bread, he himself escaping death only by accident. The first night his train pulled up at Birkenau, coils of ominous black smoke belched from tall chimneys, from massive ovens below. First time in his young life Elie smelled the stench of burning humans. Never shall I forget that night, he writes, that smoke which deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams into dust.

Never. That's the exile. You and I read through the account and we come to the word and we pass it off. It's just another ancient term that fits into an uninteresting section, but it is a significant part of the Jewish history. But still there's no Messiah. Still there's no Deliverer. And Matthew, St. Stylus, perhaps a fresh piece of parchment, he continues the story as they're waiting for Messiah.

And he takes us from the exile in Babylon where they had hung their harps on the willows. He takes us through these generations and we hardly know a name. Look at the list. Look at them.

It's doubtful you've ever heard a sermon on any one of them. We know nothing of them. They are nameless faces like those that looked out of the bars when they delivered those dear people from Dachau and Birkenau and the other places in the Holocaust.

These are Holocaust victims. This is the period of the Dark Ages. Dark. Dark.

Like a thousand midnights in a cypress swamp. One person after another, after another, after another, and then along comes Jacob, the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary. Nobodies. Mary's a teenage Jewess living in Nazareth. Nobody ever heard of her or even of her family. We have made her into something that some religions worship. But she is just a handmaid, as she calls herself in the account that Luke writes. And Jacob, fathering Joseph, you know nothing of Jacob. And here is Joseph, who's tapped on the shoulder by the angel and says, don't put her away.

Don't divorce her. The one who is in her womb is of God. Messiah. He's come.

He's arrived. But there is no blare of trumpet. There's no fanfare. There's no parade, even in the streets of Jerusalem. It's in a backwater town called Bethlehem. It's in a backwater town called Bethlehem. House of bread. On the outskirts of Jerusalem.

It's in the stable of all places. And from the hollow eyes of the exile, we find the faces of these dear young Jews, as Joseph looks into the face of God in infant form. I think it is worth noting, though it may seem pedantic at this moment, that verse 16, look again, needs to be handled from a literal rendering, literally from the Greek. And Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary, not the father of Jesus, for he was not.

The husband of Mary, says the original, from whom was born Jesus, the one called Christ, or Messiah. See the word whom, w-h-o-m, you pass over it quickly. Even in the Greek, ex, heis, two letters meaning out from among, heis. Feminine, singular.

Look at that. Not, not, not, not plural. The infant wasn't born from the two of them, but from her. Singular, feminine, even guarding the virgin birth to the very tiny word, heis. Had Jesus been born of both Mary and Joseph, it would be plural.

It isn't. And since he comes only from Mary, it is feminine, of course. A small, in fact, only two-letter part of speech, but a detail accurately written by the detail-minded Jewish writer, Matthew. Trained in recording detailed financial numbers as a tax collector, he is a careful linguist, ex, heis, from whom. It's the climax of the account, for this means they no longer wait. Messiah has been born.

And then he gives a summary, as only a CPA would do, huh? As he finishes his list, he comes back to summarize. All those listed above include 14 generations, Abraham, to David, the era of the patriarch. From David to the exile, the period of the kings, and from the exile to Messiah, the dark ages that suddenly burst into light as Messiah. To Messiah, the dark ages that suddenly burst into light as Messiah is born. One little hope in all of this, because I know some of you are thinking, man, I know this, I could have never been in a list like that.

I don't qualify. Well, for whatever it's worth, let me say first, every person in the list was a sinner. Every one. Except Jesus, of course. We can't name each one sin, but with David we certainly can. With Abraham, we certainly know he lied more than once.

With Isaac, who had been mentored in lying, he too lied. Jacob was known as a deceiver, and he's in the list. The ornery brothers, including Judah, not the kind of kids you want to raise. And then along came Solomon, 700 wives and 300 concubines, along with being busy, he's stupid. And they turned his heart against the Lord, and Solomon's in the list of all things. He's in the royal line.

You see, God isn't looking for perfection, he's looking for those who are redeemed. Five in the list, please don't take it the wrong way, but in the first century it would be shocking. Five are women. In that day, a woman never was included in a genealogical list. She is in this one.

And these are not your classy ladies. Tamar dressed up like a prostitute to seduce her father-in-law. Twins came as a result. Rahab was in fact a prostitute who lived in Jericho. She was a Canaanite. Bathsheba, you don't need her story told again.

They're in the list. You see, God's grace excludes no one. Every person is a sinner. Every person listed is unworthy to be listed, save Jesus himself, including Mary and Joseph. Not one deserved, humanly speaking, a place in the genealogy. The law wrote them off, grace wrote them in. The same is true for every one of us.

I love the song Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. You know there's the people wanting to change the word wretch. You know why? Well, I looked up the meaning. A wicked, despicable person. I qualify.

So do you. We were sitting at a gathering for the Museum of the Bible, such a pleasure to be there. And there was also President George W. Bush, who had a brief question-and-answer time afterwards. It was marvelous to hear him, to hear a president who was vulnerable. And one of the, well, the interviewer said to him, where would you be if you had not been president? He said, I'd be a drunk.

I like guys like that. You know why? Because he's not trying to protect his image. I'm sick of people protecting their images, as if they're kind of something on a stick, as my dad used to say.

When I asked what that something was, he said, don't ask. Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved every one of these wretches in this list. They all were lost. They've all been found. They're all in the family. And you're there too, if you have come to Christ and allowed him to become your righteousness.

Otherwise, you're still lost. Which explains why a list like this is still uninteresting to you. You have to be a part of the family to appreciate a list of the family in this great stuff. Aren't you grateful Matthew included a genealogical list?

I wasn't at first. Thank you, Father, for reminding us again and again and again and again. We're wretches. We're guilty. We're sinful. We're lost.

The only way we can ever be found is for you to tap us on the shoulder and to call us yours. Speak to us in the days ahead as we enter into the world of Messiah through the eyes of first century people who never believed him because they would not accept the truth. Give us hearts to accept it, we pray, in the name of the Messiah, Jesus.

Everyone said, amen. Today, Chuck Swindoll provided an eye-opening summary of Jesus' family tree. He titled his message, The Genesis of Jesus. You're listening to Insight for Living. And in the event you missed any program in our brand new study of Matthew, remember you can catch up by streaming the audio directly from our website.

You'll find all the information at insightworld.org. Behind the scenes, we're quite excited about this new series called The King's Arrival. We're praying that thousands, perhaps millions, of people will be able to receive the message and perhaps millions around the world will join us in this exciting introduction to Israel's long-awaited King. In the coming weeks and months, Chuck Swindoll will guide our global audience through Matthew's account of Jesus' birth, his entire ministry on earth, right through his parting words commonly known as the Great Commission. Along with the daily program, Insight for Living Ministries has prepared a number of additional resources for you. One is designed to help you dig deeper into God's Word on your own and to apply the principles to your daily life. For example, the online Searching the Scriptures study program will complement each sermon. This gives you a way to explore the passage on your own and to take notes of what you're learning.

You can even print out the document and share it with friends. To search the Scriptures with Chuck, go to insight.org slash studies. Finally, in sync with the release of this brand new series on the program, Chuck has recently completed his verse-by-verse commentary on the book of Matthew.

It comes in two hardbound volumes. Alongside the verses in Matthew, you'll also gain access to charts, maps, photos, key terms, and of course Chuck's practical insights. So to purchase Swindoll's Living Insights commentary on Matthew, call us. If you're listening in the United States, dial 1-800-772-8888. That's 1-800-772-8888 or go online to insight.org slash store. Chuck Swindoll invites us to try standing in Joseph Sandals on tomorrow's edition of Insight for Living. The preceding message, The Genesis of Jesus, was copyrighted in 2014 and 2021, and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2021 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.