Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Lessons from Jesus's Genealogy | Christmas | Matthew 1:1-17

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to Tim Minna Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life in the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. I'm Tanya Wilmuth. And I'm Patrick Miller. We're in the middle of our Christmas series right now. We're exploring the stories around Jesus's birth and the prophecies pointing forward to it. We have a spiritual adversary, a spiritual enemy. First Peter 5.8 says, be self-controlled and alert.

Starting point is 00:00:32 In other words, be watchful, be on guard. keep your eyes open. Why? Well, it goes on to say, your enemy, the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. The word devil literally means adversary. And so what we're told is that our adversary is prowling around, sneaking up on people, kind of like a roaring lion would stalk its prey. And our adversary is looking for someone to devourer. vower. And that someone might be us, unless we are self-controlled and alert like Peter warns us to be. So the biblical reality that we have an adversary that wishes to do us harm is lingering in the background of 1st King's Chapter 11. So a quick refresher in case you got lost in the story,

Starting point is 00:01:28 God installed Solomon as king after his father David dies. Solomon asks God for wisdom, and God grants wisdom and wealth and other blessings too. Solomon develops into a great leader who builds the temple and a palace, but after a while, his heart turns to worship idols instead of God. Now, up to that point, God had been putting choices in front of Solomon and telling him the consequences of the choices he'd make. He kept saying to Solomon, look, choose to submit to the Lord. Don't rebel. But now that Solomon has turned away from God, the language has changed. Instead of saying, if you walk with me, if you obey me, now God is saying, since you haven't, hear the consequences. 1 Kings 1111. So the Lord said to Solomon, since this is your attitude and you have not kept my covenant,

Starting point is 00:02:27 my decrees, which I commanded you, I will most certainly tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your subordinates. 1 Kings 11 tells us the story of two adversaries God raises up against Solomon and both adversaries are raised up as a consequence of Solomon's sin. Here's 1 Kings 11 14. Then the Lord raised up against Solomon an adversary, Haddad, the Edomite from the royal line of Edom. The Edomites were descendants of Esau and ever since the time of Jacob and Esau, There had always been bad blood between these two groups. So First Kings 11 tells the story of Haddad, how during one particular fight between the Edomites and Israel,

Starting point is 00:03:15 this boy had fled to Egypt, where he grew up in Pharaoh's court. Haddad had it good in Egypt, but he never forgot how the Israelites had attacked his people, and Haddad wanted to return to the area to get revenge. Now, why does the Bible tell us this story about Haddad? I think it's because he wants us to see that this adversarial relationship and the problems Haddad is causing is directly related to Solomon's sin. Our sin always has consequences.

Starting point is 00:03:46 Sin always eventually makes you miserable. Sin steals your joy. Sin saps your spiritual energy. Sin pulls you away from God. Sin pulls you away from the good life that God has for you. But there's more to it than that. The story of Haddad in Egypt follows the same outline as the story of Israel in Egypt centuries earlier.

Starting point is 00:04:12 So God had delivered Israel out of slavery in Egypt. And now God has delivered Haddad out of Egypt. He's raised him up to oppose Solomon. Later in the chapter in verse 23, it tells us that God raised up another adversary against Solomon. His name is Rezan. and he was in the north. Rizan and his men were engaging in guerrilla warfare, not completely different than what happens in many parts of the world today.

Starting point is 00:04:44 So on one level, this story is about politics and military might. It's the normal kind of stuff you'd find in foreign relations in any time period and in any part of the world. On another level, this story is about God, raising up spiritual enemies as a consequence of Solomon's sin. We know that because First Kings tells us that God is the one who is behind all this. He's the one who is orchestrating it. It's wise for us to see that sin has consequences in our life.

Starting point is 00:05:15 Because I'm afraid that we gloss over sin too quickly. We move by sin far too easily. We're not sobered or convicted by sin like we should be. At least most of us aren't. I'm not. We say things like, yeah, God will forgive me. it's not that big of a deal. My job is to sin. God's job is to forgive. Sometimes we even think that the greater our sin is than the greater God's grace is, and maybe God likes it that way. It is true.

Starting point is 00:05:47 It's precious truth that in Jesus God forgives sinners. That is good news. But that doesn't mean that sin doesn't have real effects. It doesn't mean that sin doesn't do real damages. in our life. Remember 1st Peter 58? We have a spiritual enemy, an adversary, who prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. How will we defeat our spiritual enemy? How will we protect ourselves from his attacks from being devoured? One of the bloodiest days in the Civil War was the Battle of Antietam. It happened in 1862 and it lasted 12 hours. There were 10,000 Confederate casualties and even more on the union side. Though military historians called this battle a draw, the reality is the union won. And the reason we think of it as a win for the union is because a very

Starting point is 00:06:45 mediocre general, a guy named George McClellan, was able to end the career of Robert E. Lee, the Confederacy's greatest general. In fact, he caused Lee to retreat back across the Potomac River. So how did the mediocre General McClellan defeat the military genius Robert E. Lee? Well, two Union soldiers had found a copy of Lee's battle plans and had delivered them to McClellan before the engagement. It turns out you've got a lot better chance against your enemy if you have your enemy's battle plans before the battle even begins. Imagine if a football coach had the opposing team's playbook, the impover. opposing teams game plan before the game actually began. There'd be some advantages to that. So in some respects, we are in a similar position to General McClellan. We're no match for our

Starting point is 00:07:41 adversary. We're told to be wary of Satan. But his plan, Satan's plans have fallen into our hands by way of the Bible. We have Satan's war plans. And when you open up his plan, what you find is that Satan's main weapon against us is deception. 2 Corinthians 113, the Apostle Paul says, But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. So what is it that Paul thinks will lead us away from Jesus? What are Satan's strategies to pull us away from Jesus?

Starting point is 00:08:26 Christ. And that strategy is deception. Satan is a liar. In fact, Jesus says that Satan, our spiritual enemy, is the father of lies. So what does Satan want to deceive us into doing? Or how does he want to trick us? Or what lies does he tell us? Well, he tells us, just like he told Eve back in the garden, that God is not good, that God cannot be trusted, that God is withholding something from us, that sin will make us happier, sin will bring joy to our life. In fact, Satan told Eve that there would be no consequences for sin. Remember, he said, you will not surely die when you eat the fruit. See, Satan wants us to believe that the good life is found, apart from God. That is his lie. That is his deception. That is his strategy. And unfortunately,

Starting point is 00:09:27 it works too often. It worked in Solomon's life. He was able to deceive Solomon so that Solomon began to worship idols instead of the true God so that Solomon chose to walk away from God thinking that disobedience would bring him joy in life. But even in the midst of God's judgment, against Solomon, there is still mercy. Verse 13, yet I will not tear the whole kingdom from him. So what God is saying here is that even though Solomon has rejected God, even though he has chosen to walk away from God, still God will not tear the whole kingdom from him, but instead will give him one tribe for the sake of David, my servant, and for the sake of Jerusalem, which I have

Starting point is 00:10:17 chosen. See, God remembered that he had promised David an everlasting kingdom ruled over by one of his descendants. And because God always keeps his promises, he preserved the royal lineage through the tribe of Judah. Jesus is the son of Solomon and therefore the heir of David's throne. Jesus is the one who came to give his life to pay for our sin. He is the one who came who, through His death and resurrection defeated all of his spiritual enemies and all of ours as well. So while there are always consequences to our sin, God always extends mercy toward those who will receive it. This passage is a warning and a promise. Turn from your sin and find grace and mercy in King Jesus.

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Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Lessons from Jesus's Genealogy | Christmas | Matthew 1:1-17

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