Matthew: Connecting the Covenants Part 5: The Testing of Messiah in the Wilderness

I should hardly have to write about the connection to the Hebrew scriptures in Matthew chapter 4, because Matthew recorded them for us regarding the testing of Yeshua in the wilderness.  But what if there was more than meets the eye that took place?

Matthw 4:1-2 says, Then Yeshua was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.  And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.

Nerd note: the Greek word for tempted is the same word as tested. The Blue Letter Bible says it this way: To make trial of, for the purpose of ascertaining his quality, or what he thinks, or how he will behave himself.

Immediately, we have a connection to the nation of Israel as they were led out of Egypt and into the wilderness.  1 Corinthians 10:1-4 makes a spiritual connection to Moses:  Our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink.  For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Messiah.

Yeshua was identifying with His people by reenacting the Exodus, being led (actually driven) by the Spirit into the wilderness and then fasting for 40 days and 40 nights – a symbolic picture of the Israelites' 40 years in the wilderness following their baptism through the Red Sea. But as we will see, the Messiah passed the time of testing, unlike the Israelites who failed many times while in the wilderness (and if I had been there, I’d have failed as well. I would have been the loudest whiner when hungry and thirsty).

Satan wasted no time to come at the Lord, who was hungry after 40 foodless days. If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.  If?  Who is the devil kidding?  He knows exactly who Yeshua is. Yeshua quoted Deuteronomy 8:3, that man should not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

Side note: In the Lord’s prayer, we are told to ask for our daily bread.  I don’t believe that Yeshua meant physical food, since a few verses later we are told not to worry about what we will eat.  He meant the daily bread of the Word of God. 

In this test, we are also shown a connection between rocks and bread. Messiah is our spiritual rock.  He provided the bread (manna) to the Israelites while they were in the wilderness, as well as water that gushed out of a rock. Satan pointed out that Yeshua could have turned those wilderness rocks into bread. (Another scripture just popped into my head: Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?  But that's a few chapters away yet).

Moving on to the next test, the devil took Yeshua to the pinnacle of the temple, quoting Psalm 91:11-12 out of context – For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.  On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.

Satan was trying to get Yeshua to take a shortcut to His kingdom, by suggesting that His angels supernaturally carry Him from the top of the temple to the midst of His people, to become their king.  Yeshua knew that the shortcut would not work, because He first had to suffer, die, and rise so He could free them from their sin.  But the temptation to bypass that suffering had to have been real for Him. However, Yeshua rebuked the devil with Deuteronomy 6:16 – You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.  (Did you catch that Yeshua equaled Himself to God here?)

The shortcut that the devil offered to Yeshua was similar to the shortcut that Israel could have taken after their deliverance from Egypt. In Exodus 13, the Lord would not allow the Israelites to take that shortcut to the promised land.  They were not ready for warfare, being newly freed slaves, and their time of testing in the wilderness would not be bypassed.

Satan gave one last effort and took Yeshua to a high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world.  All Yeshua had to do was bow down and worship the devil. The ultimate test… you don’t have to go through all that suffering!  Just put me in charge and I’ll give you all these kingdoms.  Of course, the father of lies was lying. The whole world would have been lost forever had Yeshua succumbed to this final temptation.

Good things come to those who wait.  Revelation 11:15 tells us, The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he shall reign forever and ever. Can you imagine?  His perfect kingdom, here on earth. No nonsense, no turmoil, no elections every four years! I can hardly wait!

The Millennial Kingdom - I don't know what it 
will look like, but I know where it will be.
Jerusalem.

Some commentators have compared the three temptations to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life as stated in 1 John 2:16. Food for thought.

Having passed the time of testing, Yeshua was now ready to begin His ministry. That will be the subject of my next post.

Sukkot and the Great Harvest to come

I interrupt my trek through Matthew's gospel to bring you a holiday greeting. 

Happy Sukkot!  Happy Feast of Booths!  Happy Feast of Tabernacles!

A sukkah - a temporary dwelling during Sukkot.

Sukkot is the final of the seven appointed times of Yahweh.  The seven mo'edim (appointments in Hebrew, often translated as feasts) are a beautiful picture of the complete work of Messiah.

At our ladies bible study yesterday, we began with a conversation about gardening (probably because I have tomatoes and peppers all over my counters), which led to a conversation about biblical agriculture.  Scripture often uses agricultural stories, parables, and comparisons to express God's truths, because in those days, agriculture was central to survival. 

Costco did not yet exist.

The feasts of the spring - Passover, Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits, and Pentecost - were fulfilled by Yeshua at His first coming, through His death, burial, resurrection, and sending of His Holy Spirit.  These appointed times took place during the barley and wheat harvests, respectively.

Spring: a time for grain in Israel

Then comes the long, hot summer between the spring and fall feasts, where the hard work of agriculture continues.  As the summer comes to an end, a great harvest begins to come in.  Not just the breadbox ingredients of the spring, but the extreme bounty of the final harvest.  Grapes.  Pomegranates. Olives. Dates. Figs. And many other fruits and vegetables.

Fall: a time of great bounty

Once, while in Israel, I was on a day trip to Hebron.  As our bus motored past Bethlehem (meaning house of bread), someone asked our Orthodox Jewish tour guide what the plants were in the various  fields that we were passing. She replied that the fields currently contained olives, grapes, figs, and other similar bounty, but that back in biblical times, these same fields contained wheat and barley.  

My mind was blown. But I don't think anyone else on the bus caught the significance of her statement.

What a picture of the return of Yeshua, when the harvest of the last days will be bountiful and great.  And if He fulfilled the spring feasts with such precision, it stands to reason that He will perfectly fulfill the fall feasts when He returns.

• Yom Teruah - Day of Trumpets.  The Messiah will be welcomed to earth with trumpet blasts.
• Yom Kippur - Day of Atonement.  All Israel will finally be redeemed.
• Sukkot - God will once again dwell on earth with mankind, as was His original intention in the garden of Eden.

Every tribe, tongue, nation, and people will be a part of this great harvest! Isaiah 49:6 reminds us, “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

People from all nations will worship Him in the kingdom

As I was pondering all these really cool biblical patterns and truths, a thought popped into my head.  When we celebrate communion, we are commemorating the death and resurrection of the Messiah. But with what do we remember? 

Communion features an element from each festal season - bread from the grains of spring, and wine from the grapes of the fall. And not only that, but every single Shabbat meal celebrated on Friday evenings by Jews today features... bread and wine.  It's like a dress rehearsal for His return!  In both cases, we have a complete picture of the work of Messiah Yeshua.

Matthew: Connecting the Covenants, Part 4 – Vipers and Yeshua’s Baptism

We left off in Matthew with crowds of people coming from all over Israel to hear John the Immerser and getting dunked in the river by him.

Enter the Jewish leaders – the Pharisees and Saduccees - who wanted to know what was going on down by the river.  John greeted them by calling them Brood of vipers.  (I used to think that brood just meant a bunch of something, but no... it means offspring or seed). If we go back to Genesis 3, to the first snake in scripture, we see that John was linking those leaders to the offspring of God's enemy, the serpent.

In Psalm 58:3-4, David confirms this idea: The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray from birth, speaking lies.  They have venom like the venom of a serpent, like the deaf adder that stops its ear.

Yuck! Is it coincidence that snakes
make so many people recoil?

The Jewish leaders were there for show, and to maintain their control over the people, but not for repentance.  John warned them to bear fruits worthy of repentance, and to flee from the wrath to come.  He declared that just because they were children of Abraham, they were not immune to the wrath of God that was coming. It was commonly thought back then that just because a person was Jewish, he was automatically a part of God's kingdom.

John then warned in verse 10, Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.  In verse 12, he added, His winnowing fork is in his hand, and He will clear his threshing floor and gather His wheat into the barn, but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire.

What a pair of warnings!  And sandwiched into those warnings was John's declaration that there was a more worthy One coming after him (Yeshua) who would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

Listen to these words from Malachi 4:1 and see if you detect a similarity to John’s warnings – For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble.  The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says Yahweh of hosts, so that it well leave them neither root nor branch.

Yikes.

Matthew chapter 3 wraps up with the baptism of Yeshua. John knew that Yeshua had no need for a baptism of repentance and objected.  But verse 15 says, Yeshua answered him, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”  Then [John] consented. 

Through His baptism, Yeshua identified with sinful man.  Isaiah 53:12b tells us, He was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.

Additionally, since baptism is a picture of a new beginning, it was totally appropriate for Yeshua to kick off His public ministry in such a Jewish way.

After His baptism, something happened. The very heavens opened up and the Spirit of God rested on Him like a dove, and a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.

This didn’t happen with anyone else’s dunking.  It was a significant, supernatural occurrence.

I believe the mention of the dove here is significant.  In Hebrew, the word for dove is Jonah.  Jonah ran from God, jumped into a chaotic ocean, and landed in the belly of a fish. A dove brought back an olive branch to the ark. The connection of the dove to water in these cases is unmistakable, bringing ultimate peace out of the chaos.  Even today a dove is a symbol of peace.

There are ALWAYS doves nestling in the clefts of the Western Wall
in Jerusalem. It's like they are waiting for His return!

Yeshua’s ultimate purpose was and is to bring peace out of the chaos.