Disclaimer: This transcription is provided for informational purposes, reference, and convenience. Please note that it may contain errors, omissions, or spelling mistakes due to the nature of live audio transcriptions. While we strive for accuracy, this document should not be considered a fully authoritative record of the sermon. For clarification, we recommend referring to the original source. Thank you for your understanding and patience. 

Will you take your Bibles now and turn to Luke's Gospel, chapter three. We are going to be looking at verses 23 through 38 as we once again return to our study of this wonderful gospel. This is the genealogy of Jesus Christ. This is what I typically call a flyover passage. You know what fly over states are in our country. You know that these are the states that typically people ignore, and this is a passage that people typically ignore. In fact, I think it would be safe to say that you've probably never heard a sermon preached on this passage, but I want you to remember that all scripture is inspired by God, as we read in Second Timothy 31:6 and it is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be adequately equipped for every good work. So even this passage of scripture has been placed in the canon of scripture by the Spirit of God himself for our edification and encouragement, and by God's grace, I will help you mine some of the priceless gems that lie just beneath the surface of this text- this amazing genealogy -  so that you might treasure these truths in your heart.

Now, before I read it to you, may I remind you that it is customary in biblical genealogies to skip generations, to compress or abridge generations to aid in memory, because they would typically memorize these; and as you will see, genealogies were extremely important in those days, and I might also add that the term "son," where you see "the son of," does not exist in the original language in the Greek text, it is merely inserted in order to link the first named individual with the second, and so it could be translated with the sense of the descendant of the first individual named, and I might also add, unless you panic, I am not going to go through and explain every one of these names and link them all together, because frankly, we don't know who most of these people were.

Let me read the text to you, and then we will look at it and other texts surrounding it, to help understand what the Spirit of God has for us in this passage. Luke three, beginning with verse 23,

"When He," referring to Jesus,

“When He began His ministry, Jesus Himself was about thirty years of age, being, as was supposed, the son of Joseph, the son of Eli, 

“the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Melchi, the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph,

“the son of Mattathias, the son of Amos, the son of Nahum, the son of Hesli, the son of Naggai,

“the son of Maath, the son of Mattathias, the son of Semein, the son of Josech, the son of Joda, 

“the son of Joanan, the son of Rhesa, the son of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, the son of Neri, 

“the son of Melchi, the son of Addi, the son of Cosam, the son of Elmadam, the son of Er, 

“the son of Joshua, the son of Eliezer, the son of Jorim, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, 

“the son of Simeon, the son of Judah, the son of Joseph, the son of Jonam, the son of Eliakim, 

“the son of Melea, the son of Menna, the son of Mattatha, the son of Nathan, the son of David, 

“the son of Jesse, the son of Obed, the son of Boaz, the son of Salmon, the son of Nahshon, 

“the son of Amminadab, the son of Admin, the son of Ram, the son of Hezron, the son of Perez, the son of Judah, 

“the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, the son of Terah, the son of Nahor, 

“the son of Serug, the son of Reu, the son of Peleg, the son of Heber, the son of Shelah, 

“the son of Cainan, the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, the son of Noah, the son of Lamech, 

“the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalaleel, the son of Cainan, 

“the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.”

So who is Jesus Christ? It says here that he is the son of Adam, who was the son of God. And what is the significance of that question? There are many answers to that question by many different people. 25% of the world's population belong to the religion of Islam, and they believe that Jesus was a great prophet, but not divine; he was not the Son of God, and that there is no such thing is a trinity. The Jehovah's Witness cult believed that Jesus was created by Jehovah as the archangel Michael before the physical world existed, and he is a lesser, though a mighty god, small "g," the Mormon cult believes that Jesus was the spirit child of a heavenly father and a heavenly mother, that Jesus was actually the product of what they would call divine procreation, the firstborn of many spirit children made by heavenly parents. They are polytheists, if you will. They believe in millions of gods, and every time a baby is born, there is more gods being born. They believe the Bible is corrupt, and only they have the right interpretation, much like Hindus, and so forth.

Many Jews believe that Jesus was a historical teacher, and most believe that he was a failed Messiah, that he was not the Son of God, and certainly not one with God. Many of them believe that he failed to establish an earthly kingdom, so he couldn't have been the Messiah. He didn't bring in an era of universal peace. He didn't gather the Jewish diaspora to Israel, rebuild the Jerusalem temple, and all of those types of things, so he couldn't have been God, the Messiah. Many people, in general, just believe he was a historical teacher or a sage. Many believe he was a great social reformer. Others believe he was an apocalyptic prophet. Hindus and Buddhists and new age people believe that he was an enlightened master or an avatar, a guru who attained ultimate spiritual consciousness and taught universal love, but he wasn't God; and many people believe that he was just a mythological non historical figure.

I was reading a study from the Barna Group, and they said that the vast majority of Americans believe that Jesus was a real person, and they said that younger generations are increasingly less likely to believe Jesus was God. But in Matthew 16, Jesus asked his disciples, beginning in verse 13,

 "'Who do people say that the Son of Man is?'

And they said, 'Some say John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; but still others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.'

"He said to them, 'But who do you say that I am?'

"Simon Peter answered, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.'

"And Jesus said to him, 'Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.'"

What is remarkable with that statement is that despite all of the miracles the disciples saw Jesus perform, despite his amazing teaching, it took two and a half years for them to come to this place of conviction as to who Jesus really was, who he really is; and 1000s of others witnessed the same thing, but they were still  unconvinced, and I might submit to you that some of you are probably unconvinced or simply indifferent, or perhaps you, like many others, just reject who he is and really don't even want to talk about it. Of course, in First Corinthians 2:14 we read that a natural man, an unsaved man, does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, because they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because he is spiritually appraised, he has no capacity to grasp the truth, to embrace it with all of his heart, because of his depravity, and as Jesus said in the text that I just read, the Father himself must reveal this truth of who Jesus is to a person. You see, he alone can bring understanding to a darkened mind, as we see in Scripture. People apart from Christ are at enmity with God. They are spiritually dead. They have no understanding of really who he is, and apart from the Spirit-empowered miracle of regeneration, they will continue to not understand, and willingly so.

So it requires the Spirit of God to open the sinner's mind and heart, so that they can see the horror of their guilt before a holy God, and the divine judgment that awaits them, and the gift of grace through faith that can only come through Christ. As Paul declared in Romans 10 verse 17, "faith comes from hearing, and hearing by what the word of Christ." As we continue to gaze into his glory, we see that we are transformed more and more into his image; and Paul said in Colossians 3:10 that the new self, the new man in Christ, the new woman in Christ, when we come to saving faith in Christ, "the new self is being renewed through it to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him."

Beloved, please understand this: without a proper understanding of who Jesus is, no man or woman can ever be saved, and they will perish in their sins. In Acts 4:12 we read that, "there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved." I'm always reminded of that passage in Acts 16 you will recall that Paul and Silas were flogged because of their preaching and the way they stirred everything up with the people there in Philippi. They were thrown into the innermost part of the prison, probably some kind of a dungeon. There, the text says that their feet were fastened in stocks and Paul and Silas, we read, were praying, singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Can you imagine what that scene would have been like? And then suddenly, at midnight, there was this great earthquake that God brought, and the jailer awoke and saw that the prison doors were open, and he thought, "Oh no, I'm toast, right? That's not what the scripture says, but you can kind of fill that in, right? Because he said, "I've got... I'm going to kill myself. And then we read that Paul cries out to him, "Do not harm yourself, for we are all here." And then in verse 29 we read,

It goes on to say that Paul and Silas, "spoke the word of the Lord to him, together with all who were in his house.

"And he called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear, he fell down before Paul and Silas,

"and after he brought them out, he said, 'Sirs, what must I do to be saved?'

"And they said, catch this now, 'Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.'"

"And he took them that very hour of the night, and washed their wounds, and immediately he was baptized, he and all his household believe on the Lord Jesus Christ."

Well, believe what? Believe that he existed? No, no, no, it's far more than that. The belief has to be far more than an intellectual agreement or some kind of an assent to a proposition. It demands a transformative faith and personal commitment to the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, the Greek term for "belief," - "pisteuo" - really means it can be translated to "believe," but it carries the idea of being absolutely convinced of something that is true, to believe that he is the Son of God, that he is the Messiah, the one who alone can forgive sin and save sinners who trust in him. That's why we read in Romans 10, beginning at verse nine, "If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation."

So dear friends, without a proper understanding of who Jesus is, no man or woman can be saved, and without a proper understanding of His word and submission to its authority, no man or woman will ever grow into the likeness of Christ, which will be the passionate desire of every person who is truly born again, and if it's not the passionate desire of a person who professes Christ, they have no basis to claim genuine saving faith.

You see, when the word of God is rejected, so too is the God of the word, and the result is catastrophic. Just look at all of the civilizations that have come and gone; they all collapse under the weight of their sin. And we see that even in Romans one and the wrath of divine abandonment, you will recall in Romans one, there is a three-stage development of that wrath. The first stage in that progression is that of sordid immorality, a violation of God's moral order. Then from there it moves to shameless homosexuality, which is an inversion of God's created order, and then finally the last stage is that of shocking depravity, which is a disposition of godless corruption. That's what we see in our world today, especially in our country, that's why we read in Romans one verse 28 and following, "...and just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over..." there's the abandonment,

"...God gave them over to a depraved mind to do those things which are not proper,

"being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips,

"slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,

"without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful;

"and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death. They not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them."

A depraved mind, the term is very telling, it denotes the sheer irrationality and the insanity that dominates a mind that has been given over to the consequences of their iniquity; and certainly, this is our American culture, the Greek term for "depraved" means unapproved, worthless, useless. That's what it originally meant. In fact, it was originally used, as I recall, to describe worthless metals that were rejected by refiners due to impurity. So in this context it reveals what happens to a man or a woman who ignores the evidence of creation, the evidence of conscience, and refuses to approve of God, and that person will be given over to an unapproved mind that is utterly worthless, again a disposition of godless corruption.

We see this even in the moral divide in America that manifests itself in the two political parties. I was reading recently some articles, especially in a Gallup study, and it said that Democrats believe individual autonomy should take precedence over traditional moral restraints held by Republicans. It says Democrats, especially, reject the objective truths of biblical morality that have served as the bedrock of morality in our culture. It said, "according to Gallup, 73% of Democrats now view abortion as morally acceptable, compared to just 18% of Republicans." It went on to say, "60% of Democrats say changing one's gender is morally acceptable, while only 5% of Republicans agree." He went on to say, how the divide across a wide range of issues just deepens. 81% of Democrats consider gay or lesbian relationships morally acceptable, compared to 35% of Republicans. 47% of Democrats view pornography as morally acceptable, versus 19% of Republicans, and more than half of Democrats even consider sex between teenagers morally acceptable, while only a small fraction of Republicans agree.

Folks, this is what happens when divine truth is replaced with human relativism. You see, when the authority of scripture is superseded by the authority of individual autonomy, the culture will descend into an abyss of nihilism and eventually be destroyed by the wrath of divine abandonment and by God's judgment. God will judge nations in time and eternity. We read, for example, in Psalm two and verse nine that a day is coming when the Lord Jesus Christ, "shall break them," referring to the nations, "with a rod of iron and shall shatter them like earthenware." That's where America and all the nations of the world are headed.

Psalm nine, verse 17, "The wicked will return to Sheol, even all the nations who forget God."

And in Isaiah 13, beginning in verse nine, "Behold, the day of the LORD is coming, cruel with fury and burning anger to make the land a desolation; and he will exterminate its sinners from it."

Then, in verse 11, we read, "Thus I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will also put an end to the arrogance of the proud and abase the haughtiness of the ruthless."

So beloved, all of this to say, this is why we study the scriptures. This is why we submit to the authority of scripture, and this is why we study all of the scriptures. We don't just hop over the ones that don't want to pay any attention to that, that's kind of boring, because all of them are like a piece of a magnificent jigsaw puzzle. I remember my mom and my sister used to like to do jigsaw puzzles, and it was always my habit to walk by and take at least one piece and hide it in my pocket, and within a few days I could watch the panic setting in. Folks, we don't want to leave out one piece of the puzzle, not at all. And because people do this, much of even evangelicalism is apostate today.

Now with that long introduction, let's mine some of the priceless gems here in this genealogy. Now, let me give you a little bit of background. Jews were meticulous in their genealogical records. We all like genealogies, right? I remember when we did the whole DNA thing, I forget the company that you send the DNA off, maybe you've done that, and, and I remember I've had relatives that....they've gone into all of our records, and some of it's fascinating. I remember one, it's interesting how is they always point out the good guys in your background, right? The bank robbers and the horse thieves and the corrupt, you don't hear about them. I remember one was John I. Harrell. He was one of 12 captains that crossed the Delaware with George Washington and was at Cornwallis' when he surrendered, and our family was given land grants throughout North Carolina and Tennessee after the Revolutionary War. So you hear these things, you think, "Oh, isn't that great?" But you don't hear about all the bad guys, you know.

So, anyway, the Jews were meticulous, as many of us are, and there are numerous records in the Old Testament, and there are two in the New Testament - genealogies, that is - and bear in mind that they kept both private as well as public records. And if you've ever seen old Bibles, like in Europe, you'll see that there's much of a genealogy in the Bible, that's kind of where they kept a lot of that.

The original divisions of the land of Canaan among the 12 tribes were allotted according to ancestry, so you had to know who your ancestors were. You had to be able to prove that, and ancestry would even determine the right of one's inheritance. In fact, ancestry formed the basis for kinsmen redemption, where families could preserve their ancestral property. For example, if an Israelite was impoverished because of some situation in their life, and they sold the land and the rights to the land, and they needed to sell it, then by law a kinsman redeemer could keep it in the family by purchasing the property back with the redemption price that would be determined, and for the remaining years of what was called Jubilee. Every 50th year, what would happen is the land would revert back to the original owner, that way it could all stay within the family. Now, in order to do all of this, guess what, you had to have a genealogical record; you had to know who your ancestors were. And even if a destitute Israelite was forced to sell himself into slavery, a relative could redeem that person with a payment calculated according to the years remaining in the jubilee, and so forth. Ancestry was also important for determining taxation. Remember Mary and Joseph, how they had to go to Bethlehem, and so forth. It determined a man's eligibility to be a priest, and most importantly, the genealogical records, especially in the New Testament, where we find them in Matthew one and Luke three, gave proof, the essential proof necessary, for anyone who would claim to be the Messiah, and that's exactly what the genealogies of Matthew one and Luke three did and do.

You had to be a descendant of David, and Jesus was. Which, by the way, his ancestry was never one time disputed by the fastidious Pharisees and scribes; it was all well documented. And you will recall, even at Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, remember the people cried out, "Hosanna to the Son of David," right? None of the Jewish leaders refuted that ancestry.

And I might also add, when you look at a genealogical record like this, this proves that Jesus was not some self-proclaimed Messiah, like some of the errant heretical designations of who Jesus is that I read a little bit ago. And both Matthew and Luke would have had access to both the private as well as the public records that existed in their day.

On another note, this is a bit more technical, but it's important, and I know if I don't cover this, some of you are going to email me wondering why I didn't. What you see is there are some differences in the genealogies between Matthew and Luke. Matthew's genealogy traces Jesus through his legal, not his biological father, Joseph. You see, Matthew wanted to prove Jesus' legal claim to the throne of David, and it is placed at the beginning of the of his gospel, and then it flows chronologically through the life of Christ. Matthew's genealogy actually goes from the past to the present. Luke's genealogy does just the opposite, it goes from the present to the past, and so Matthew begins with Abraham, and it moves forward in time, while Luke begins with Jesus and moves backward in time all the way to Adam. And for good reason, as we will see. And Luke's genealogy traces Jesus through Mary, his biological mother. Although her name is omitted in deference to Jewish custom, and Luke's genealogy is placed a little bit later in his gospel, here in chapter three, in the context of his messianic credentials. In fact, Luke wanted to prove Jesus' biological claim to the throne of David; Mary traced her ancestry through Nathan, whereas Joseph traced his through Solomon.

Also, because Matthew's gospel was written primarily to Jewish people, it begins with Abraham and then moves forward in time, whereas Luke's gospel, you might say, is more universal in scope. It's going to be speaking as well to the Gentiles, and so he spoke of Jesus, for example, as the Son of Man, and he traces Jesus' ancestry all the way back to Adam, and this really highlights Jesus' commonality with all of humanity.

Now, this comes up from time to time. Critics will argue that Jesus could not be Israel's king, since he was a descendant of Jeconiah, this is in Matthew 1:11, but I want to cover it just for a moment. You will recall that there was a curse placed on Jeconiah in Jeremiah 22 verses 24 through 30, if you want to read it. In verse 30, in fact, of that passage, it says, "For no man of his descendants will prosper sitting on the throne of David or ruling again in Judah." But what we see in the genealogical record is that Jesus was the legal, not the physical descendant of Jeconiah through Joseph. I know this gets technical, but believe me, these people studied this. They understood all of this.

You will remember, had Jesus been a physical descendant of Joseph and not born of the Virgin Mary, he couldn't have been king. And for this reason, Luke traces Jesus' physical line through Mary, who was a descendant from David through the line of his son Nathan, as we read in Luke 33:1. In fact, you will recall the angel Gabriel, when he came to Mary, he said in Luke one, beginning in verse 31, "He will be great, He will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end." And so together these things prove that Christ was not under the curse of Jeconiah.

You know, I've just got to pause for a moment, and I remember as I was thinking this stuff through once again, because this isn't always familiar, even in my mind, as I study the scriptures, because you don't deal with this a lot, but I just marvel at the infallibility of scripture, the trustworthiness of the word of God. I mean, folks, think about it, the scriptures were written over 1500 years by 40 human authors, and as we look at the Bible, we see there are approximately 2500 prophecies in the Bible, and about 2000 of them have been fulfilled, literally. In fact, over 300 messianic prophecies were fulfilled during Jesus' life and ministry, which tells you that the rest are going to be fulfilled too. And if you think about it, no human author or authors would have ever conceived of God's plan of redemption to save depraved sinners. I mean, had man concocted all of this, man would have been pretty cool, and he would have been the good guy, and he would have been the one to conquer all these things, right? They wouldn't have conceived of the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, nor could human authors predict, much less fulfill prophecies, nor could they write a document, and you think about this. Could they write a document, so that all that is said is in harmony? That all is without error in the original manuscripts? 1000s of passages woven together with incredible precision over 1500 years by 40 human authors, and none of them contradict each other. Instead, they are all precisely woven together in magnificent tapestry of divine revelation, where every passage affirms every other passage in a supernatural symmetry. Oh, how I love the word of God. I'm so thankful for it. It truly is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path, is it not? Where would we be without it?

And I might also add, I'm so thankful for each of you. You know, most people would rather die than come and listen to a Bible expositor. They're bored out of their minds with the word of God, but not you, and I'm thankful for that. In fact, I made myself a note, thinking of you and thanking the Lord for you. Just this last week, First Thessalonians 2:13 Paul says to the Thessalonians, "For this reason we also constantly thank God that when you receive the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but for what it really is the word of God, which also performs its work to you who believe."

Now I'm going to digress one more time, and then I'm going to come back to this. So, if you will bear with me, you will eventually see why this bizarre digression will eventually make sense, Lord willing. While I was gone, I was with my son Joseph and his brother-in-law David. They were shooting in this long range competition out in Wyoming, and I had a chance to interact with a number of different people, and I also heard language that I'm not used to hearing, and I have much more sympathy for those of you that must endure the vulgarity that is out there in our culture. But I was talking with a couple of guys, and they were talking about various things that we're hearing on the news, and one guy said, "You know, the problem is we just don't know who to believe, we just don't know what's true, and now with AI, we just don't know." And I made the comment that, "Yeah, the only thing that is true is the word of God." And I could tell, you know, it's like, whoa, we need to change the subject, getting hot out here, isn't it? But I was thinking about that, because once again, we're in the Word of God, we're reading absolute, pure, unadulterated truth that has been given to us from God himself, and one of the things that came up in the context of our discussion was all of this UFO extraterrestrial life stuff that you read about.

In fact, I learned, I haven't seen the movie, I don't even know if I would want to, but Steven Spielberg has got a new movie called Disclosure Day, and I'm sure we'll see some real truth there, by all means, but I was looking into this, and I read where the Department of War has released yet another batch of declassified UAP "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena" files, all right. And I read that, according to the Department of War, its UFO disclosure website has already received a staggering 1.7 billion hits worldwide since launching in May. A CBS News-U gov poll reveals that belief in extraterrestrial life continues to surge. 63% of Americans now believe intelligent life exists on other planets, up dramatically from previous decades, and nearly half expect humanity will eventually make contact with extraterrestrial beings, while one in five Americans already believe such contact has occurred.

Now, as Christians, we are well aware that we are not alone in this universe. We understand that there exists a vast spiritual realm that's inhabited by angelic beings - holy angels, as well as unholy angels - demons; Satan is called the prince in the power of the air, and he, along with his minions, can, and have manifested themselves in many different ways to thwart the purposes of God down through the course of redemptive history, and as I was thinking about this, and I was hearing these guys talking about it, it very well may be that Satan is conditioning the world to accept some kind of an alien messiah. We don't know. Certainly, he's up to something. The world is being prepared, we do know, for the rule of the Antichrist and the false prophet who will deceive the world by performing astonishing miracles right before Jesus returns in the time of the tribulation. In fact, Paul said in Second Thessalonians 2:9, the one talking about the Antichrist, "he is the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish because they did not receive the love of the truth, so as to be saved."

And today unbelievers hate the gospel, and their self-imposed blindness leaves them vulnerable to Satan's deception, and as a result, God will continue to harden their heart and cause them to continue to go down the path of destruction that they have chosen. In fact, in Second Thessalonians 2:11 we read that, "God will send upon them a deluding influence so they will believe what is false." And Jesus warns those who will be living in the great tribulation of this danger. He said in Matthew 24 beginning in verse 24, "'For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.'" And Jesus says, "'Behold, I have told you in advance.'"

But the good news is, once a person comes to know Jesus Christ, the Spirit of God will change that heart and that mind, the very disposition of their nature, and they will love the Lord Jesus, and they will love the truth of His word, and they will not be duped by false teachers or even Satan himself. But the more we know the truth of the word, the more we will be able to spot the counterfeit, and that's why again it's important to study the word and to marvel at the intricate ways that it all fits together, because it is the God-breathed word of the living God.

Now, a few other observations as we wrap this up this morning. Luke 3:23, "When He began His ministry, Jesus himself was about 30 years of age, being, as supposed the son of Joseph..." Now a couple of thoughts here. Remember, he's been living in obscurity up to this point, although undoubtedly, he ministered to his family and others within the sphere of his influence in that little agricultural hamlet of Nazareth. By the way, they've dug it up, they can see that Nazareth was only about five to 10 acres, there were probably two to 400 people that lived there.

We know from the Bible that he worked with his father, served his parents, and his community, but then we know from scripture that the Holy Spirit led him to be baptized at around 30 years of age, which then launched his ministry. Now this is significant. You realize Ezekiel began his prophetic ministry at 30 years of age. Joseph became prime minister of Egypt at 30 years of age. David ascended to Israel's throne at 30 years of age, and priests began to serve at age 30, and we know biblically that Jesus was the perfect blending of prophet, priest, and king, and he began his ministry at age 30.

May I remind you that throughout the Old Testament, the history that we read tells us of the divine government upon the earth through a variety of mediators. They were always men who served in three offices in the theocratic kingdom of Israel, you had the prophet, the priest, and the king. They were always consecrated, set apart for God for their respective offices, all mediators between God and man; they were all messiahs, small "m." Prophets spoke truth, spoke God's truth to man. The priest brought man's burdens and sins to God, and interceded between God and man, provided sacrifice, and so forth. And then kings ruled man for God again, mediatorial rulers within the theocratic kingdom, but beloved, all three of those offices pointed to the Messiah Christ, the anointed one, and they're all merged together in the Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, he is the perfect embodiment of all three. And this was prophesied back in Jeremiah 23 verses five through 22; I won't take time to go through that, but the prophet Jeremiah made it clear that the coming Messiah would be the prophet, priest, and king, that would succeed all the ways Israel's prophets, priests, and kings had failed.

So again, when we come to Luke 3:23 we see that he began his ministry about 30 years of age, "...being, as was supposed the son of Joseph." "As was supposed," that's what they thought, I guess, he's got to be the son of Joseph. Obviously, their supposition was incorrect, because he was born of the Spirit, not of Joseph. Recall in Luke 1:35 the angel said to Mary, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. And for that reason, the Holy Child shall be called the Son of God."

It's interesting, as well, that the first prophecy concerning the virgin birth is found all the way back in Genesis chapter three and verse 15, where God cursed the serpent, saying, "I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed." Now bear in mind that there God declares war between the progeny of Eve and those of Satan. Satan's seed refers to unbelievers. In fact, Jesus addresses them in John 8:44 and says, "'You are of your father, the devil.'"

And Eve's seed refers to Christ and his children - believers - those who are in Christ. And it's also interesting that the term translated seed can be singular and therefore refer to the exclusive one of a kind glorious person, none other than the Lord Jesus himself, which is a marvelous prediction of the coming of the Messiah, and while normally a woman's seed is planted there by a man, not so with Mary, the Holy Spirit of God impregnated her with the seed of divinity, and here we also see the two seeds are going to be at war with each other constantly, and who's going to triumph? Well, it goes on to say in Genesis 3:15, "He," referring to Christ, "shall bruise you on the head." In other words, he's going to inflict a fatal blow to Satan, "...and you," referring to Satan, "...shall bruise him on the heel." In other words, you're going to cause Christ to suffer, but not destroy him. And so the seed of Adam and Eve looked beyond their immediate progeny to a child that would be both God and man.

I would remind you of Isaiah seven and verse 14, which predicted this event 700 years before it happened. There we read, "Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she, and she will call his name Emmanuel."

"Virgin" translates the Hebrew term "ʿalmâ,” denoting a young woman who has never had sexual relations. Oh, dear Christian, God's holy and infinite justice could never be satisfied apart from a holy and an infinite ransom, and that's who Jesus was, that could only occur by his own provision.

You see, the work of redemption required a theanthropon, a God-man, one who could supernaturally fuse the human nature with the divine and form an indissoluble bond; a man who would suffer the punishment that only God could endure, requiring both. That's why we read in the genealogies that he was the "son of Adam." Jesus was fully human. He had to take upon himself the nature of a man in order to be punished for our sin, yet he also had to be God in order to do or endure the sufferings of the elect. A perfect man had to die, but only God is holy. And as you think about it, human flesh had to go to the grave, yet only God could overcome the grave and grant us salvation through his imputed righteousness. God had to make provision to become flesh, so that He might make us partakers of the divine nature and grant us the indwelling Holy Spirit. Both the human and the divine natures had to be supernaturally woven together.

Folks, I would ask you, I mean, think about this. How could Christ be our faithful high priest and sympathize with our infirmities, unless he were both God and man? How could Christ be our mediator unless He could bridge the infinite chasm between God and man, and how could Christ be our king unless he could become united with us as man? And yet only God can reign in our hearts and have dominion over our souls for eternity. And so indeed, as we read in the genealogical record, he was the quote "son of Adam," but it also says that he was the "son of Abraham." And that was the promised seed that you read about, that was given to the patriarch, in Galatians three and verse 16. The one in whom the promised blessings of the Abrahamic covenant will be realized. And he's also described as the "son of David." Yes, indeed, because he is going to reign forever.

You remember how this was prophesied in Daniel seven and verse 14, "His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which will not pass away, and His kingdom is one which will not be destroyed." And in Revelation 11 verse 15, we read how the seventh angel sounded, and there were loud voices in heaven saying, catch this now, "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He will reign forever and ever."

Today we watch the nations of the world trying to gain power over each other. We watch even the democratic socialists and communists in our own country trying to destroy our country and gain power. You see wickedness in both the Democratic and the Republican Party. You just see it everywhere, but one day all of that wickedness is going to be exposed, all of it's going to be judged, and Christ is going to reign in perfect righteousness. My, how I long for that day.

In closing, I'm reminded of Philippians two, beginning in verse 10, "One day at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father."

 You see, dear friends, the final Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ, will gain dominion, and he will accomplish what the first Adam failed to do when he lost dominion in the garden, and this will happen when Jesus returns to establish his earthly kingdom. And furthermore, all who belong to him must successfully reign from, and over, the realm of the earth, where the first Adam was tasked to rule, but fail. You read about that in Genesis 1:26 and following. Oh my, what an amazing thing, Jesus reigning upon the earth, and his messianic rule will occur before the eternal state begins. When Jesus hands his successful mediatorial kingdom reign to God the Father, as you read about in First Corinthians 15.

Oh dear Christian, treasure your Bible, study it, meditate upon it, don't skip over the flyover passages, dig into them, see how that puzzle fits into all the rest, and be encouraged by those great truths. Defend the word of God, obey it, and proclaim it, and rejoice in the Lord Jesus Christ, who is coming soon to take us unto himself. Amen? Amen.

Let's pray,

Father, thank you for the eternal truths of your word. Impress upon them, impress us with them. Help us to see the magnificent realities of who Christ really is, and may we worship Him, and adore Him, and obey Him. And, Lord, if there be one within the sound of my voice that knows nothing of what it means to be reconciled to you as a holy God through faith in his provision, the Lord Jesus Christ, oh Lord, make them miserable until they bow before Him and cry out for the undeserved mercy that He will so quickly grant. Save them by your grace, I pray. And in all these things we give you praise and honor for Christ's sake, Amen.