May 21, 2023
Matthew 4:12-24

The Title of the Sermon is “The Light Dawns by the Sea.”
OUTLINE
1 The Light dawns by the Sea of Galilee.
2 Jesus heals the sick.
3 The “Follow Me” call.

When one compares John’s account of the gospel to Matthew’s account, it seems that Jesus may have “ministered for about a year before John the Baptist’s arrest.” John the Baptist was arrested because he had criticized Herod Antipas taking his brother Philip’s wife. A very wicked thing indeed. ¶ Jesus ministered first in Galilee, then in Judea, then He “returned to Galilee by way of Samaria … Why did Matthew begin his account of Jesus’ ministry with John’s arrest? John’s arrest by Herod signaled the beginning of a new phase of Jesus’ ministry. The forerunner’s work was now complete. It was time for the King to appear publicly.” (Constable)

12 Now when he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee. 13 And leaving Nazareth he went and lived in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, 14 so that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: 15 “The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles

• In the same “style” as the opening of his book, Matthew here closes the introduction to this new section centering around a “fulfillment quotation” in verse 15. (Blomberg, p 87)
  • Jesus’ move to Capernaum fulfilled Isaiah 9:1.
  • "When Isaiah spoke the prophesy, the Galilee area was under the heavy threat of the Assyrians who would ultimately concur the area in 722 AD. Isaiah predicted that Messiah would free the people living there. [cf. 378, Barnabas Lindars, New Testament Apologetic, p. 198] (cf. Constable)
  • Nazareth is in Zebulun territory.
  • Capernaum is in Naphtali territory.
  • But “By New Testament times, the old tribal divisions had little actual relevance” [377, France, The Gospel …, p. 141]
• From Nazareth to Capernaum is 25 miles northeast as a bird flies.
  • Capernaum was Peter’s hometown; this would be base camp for the rest of Jesus’ ministry.

— 16 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.”

• “In Matthew 4:16, Matthew quoted Isaiah (see Isa. 9:1–2). The prophet wrote about people who ‘walked’ in darkness, but by the time Matthew quoted the passage, the situation was so discouraging that the people were sitting in darkness!” (Wiersbe, p 2:17).
• The northern tribes were know for their idolatry. Idolatry and sin is what places people in the shadow of death.
• Dawned points to the opportunity for things to change, sinful things to change.
• “Matthew no doubt sees” “a foreshadowing of Christian ministry to those who were not Jews” here (Blomberg, p 88). He may have only fully recognized this however after Jesus’ ministry was mostly finished or even after the Great Commission was given.
• You see “In Galilee there was a mixed population that was somewhat despised by the racially ‘pure’ citizens of Judea.” (Wiersbe, p 2:17) >>>>>
• But whereas Galilee was a dark place on one hand, on the other hand Jerusalem was even darker due to their self-righteousness. “There, hostility to Jesus was much greater, but in Galilee the people heard Jesus gladly.” (Constable)

17 From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

• “From that time Jesus began to” …
  • The Greek word for “began” (erxato) “indicates the beginning of an action that continues,” or “describes a new phase in the narrative, wherever it occurs.” [384, McNeile, p. 45]
  • Matthew uses this phrase to mark this section of his account of the gospel; the next time we will see it will mark when Jesus begins to teach that He must suffer in Jerusalem. (cf. Blomberg, p 89).
  • NOTE: it’s important to know that Matthew moves between chronological accounts and accounts arranged by theme.
• Matthew points to Jesus’ preaching as having the same exact simple theme as John had, “repent.” He gives a simple reason for such decisiveness: “for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Constable)
  • And remember, “repent” in the OT = turning from sin.
  • “Repent” in the NT = changing your mind with actions to follow.
• simple reason: “for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
  • The phrase “kingdom of heaven” is found 32 times in Matthew account of the gospel. To same it is one of his major themes is almost an understatement. Also, the phrase “kingdom of God” is found five times. (Wiersbe, p 2:17)
  • What does this phrase “the kingdom of heaven is at hand” point to?
  • “Alva McClain listed and explained five different [, named views …] that Bible scholars have given to the questions: Was this Kingdom identical with the Kingdom of Old Testament prophecy? Or was it something different?” (Constable) I will not belabor you here.
  • I agree with his conclusion, “If a majority of scholars have approached a consensus, it is that the Kingdom is in some real sense both present and future.” [392, Ladd, p. 59]
  • “Modern scholarship is quite unanimous in the opinion that the Kingdom of God was the central message of Jesus.” [383, Ladd, p. 57] ¶ This fact must be remembered by all students of the life of Christ, because, in our day, the tendency is to emphasize other things that Jesus taught and did, such as showing compassion, healing the sick, feeding needy people, etc. (Constable)

TRANSITION

• This brings us to an end of the first major section of Matthew’s account of the gospel (1:1- 4:16).
• Matthew has proved to his audience that Jesus is the Messiah (the Anointed One) who fulfilled Scripture.
• “He has foreshadowed Jesus’ rejection and the hostility that would arise against him from among his own people.”
• He proved that the voice in the wilderness from the Old Testament was John the Baptist. John the Baptist prepared the way for Jesus.
• We have seen how Jesus started His ministry, and the primary message he was preaching at the time. This message mirrored what John was preaching exactly.
• We will now see phase two of Jesus’ ministry. (Blomberg, p 88)

Covering the passages in a different order. Let’s first look at the effect of Jesus ministry: verse 23 And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. 24 So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, those having seizures, and paralytics, and he healed them. 25 And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.

• Jesus’ area of popularity --at this time-- was in the region of Galilee; it covered an area of “roughly 70 by 40 miles” that was home to “approximately 3,000,000 people who lived in 204 cities and villages.” [405, Josephus, The Wars …, 3:3:2] (Constable)
• Jesus preached in the synagogues in the area, proclaiming the gospel —the good news— of the kingdom.
  • This is … Matthew’s first of only four uses of euangelion [phonic: you-on-gell-eon] (“gospel,” “good news,” cf. 9:35; 24:14; 26:13).
• Doing miracles of mercy.
  • Healing people of every disease and every affliction, diseases, pains, seizures, paralyzed, and oppressed by demons.
  • Contrary to what the developed world believes today, "the ancient world regularly and carefully distinguished between afflictions ascribed to demons and other forms of illness."⁵
  • Go into a Super Max prison and look into the eyes of many, and most will be convinced the reality remains.
• “The evangelist wants us quickly to sense the great excitement surrounding Jesus at the beginning of his ministry.” [413, Hagner, Matthew 1—13, p. 81] (Constable)

APPLICATION

• Whenever the church is carrying out the work of the Kingdom dark forces will loose their grip and healing of all kinds will come to the hearts, minds and bodies of the Church.

Jesus Calls the First Disciples

18 While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. 19 And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” 20 Immediately they left their nets and followed him. 21 And going on from there he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and he called them. 22 Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.

• Sea of Galilee
  • Most know that the “Hebrews referred to lakes as seas.” [cf. 396]¹
  • The Sea of Galilee, what we would call “Galilee Lake” if we were to name it , is approximately 12 miles long and 9 miles wide at its longest and broadest points.
  • The Sea of Galilee (our favorite name for it) came from the name of the district Jesus lived in as a child.
  • The Sea of Galilee had several other names in the Bible that you should be aware of:
    • The Old Testament = Sea of Chinnereth (chin-er-eth). [397]²
    • In Luke = Sea of Gennesaret, (this name “came from the plain to the northwest of the lake (Luke 5:1) and from a town on that plain: Gennesaret”).
    • In John = Sea of Tiberias. “Tiberias was the Hellenistic city that Herod the Great built on its west-southwest shore.” (Constable)
• It was at the lake that several of the Lord’s Disciples would get that first call from the Lord. Some with a simple, “Follow Me.”
  • “Disciple” needs context to be defined in the NT. The Greek word for disciple is mathētēs and is used a lot: 261 times in 246 verses. It is not used in our text here; that comes in the next chapter. CONTEXT DETERMINES MEANING.
  • In this context Matthew used the term in a classic sense, a “disciple was an adherent or follower of a master, … often learning and promoting a particular ideology.”
• Jesus called some fishermen. They, by trade, “were busy people; usually professional fishermen did not sit around doing nothing.” They sorted their catch, prepared to go out fishing, made new nets, and repaired and improved their equipment and boats. (Wiersbe, p 2:18)
  • When comparing fishing to sharing the gospel, Wiersbe wrote, “Fishermen have to be courageous and patient people. It certainly takes patience and courage to win others to Christ. Fishermen must have skill; they must learn from others where to find the fish and how to catch them. Soul-winning demands skill too. These men had to work together, and the work of the Lord demands cooperation. But most of all, fishing demands faith: fishermen cannot see the fish and are not sure their nets will enclose them. Soul-winning requires faith and alertness too …” (Wiersbe, p 2:18)
  • Jesus called the fishers, Peter and his brother Andrew.
  • He called the fishers James and John.
  • But notice; “Jesus’ commanded them. He did not invite them here. He said, “Follow Me.” This was “a summons to leave” their lives and jobs” to learn from Him. (Constable).
• Their response: Immediately (see vv. 20 & 22). This is the only proper response to God’s call. >>
  • This is how the great men of God responded to God. God says it; they do it.
  • In that day, it was regarded as one of the most sacred duties, for a Master to gather around him a circle of disciples. (Talmudic tractates Pirqey Abhoth 1. 1; and Sanhedrin 91 b)
  • Therefore, the "expression ‘Follow Me’ would be readily understood, as implying a call to become the permanent disciple of a teacher. (Talmudic tractate Erubhin 30 a)
  • There were contrasts to Jesus calling His disciples:
    • You may recall that, Jewish rabbis normally continued their trades, "but Jesus wanted His disciples to be with Him fulltime (Luke 9:61).
    • Also, in contrast to the rabbinic model, Jesus chose His disciples; typically the disciple chose the rabbi he would follow." (Constable)

New Testament discipleship started right here.

• It involved uninterrupted attendance and attention.
• Following involving at “least habitual abandonment of secular occupations…” (A. B. Bruce, p 11 f)
• For the Apostles, it involved them leaving their families for a time.
• They are the first stones of the Church, built upon the Foundation, that is Christ. >> It all started by responding to a simple sentences that had a call:
  • Two fishers heard from Jesus, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.”
  • Jesus said to a tax collector simply, “Follow me.”
  • To the multitude we will soon read, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.”

APPLICATION

What is the call again for us today?

#1 There is a common call for the Christian is to be like Jesus.

• All of us are called by the Sermon on the Mount as much today as the first century audience was, Matthew 5:48, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
• We often dismiss this general call of perfectuion because we really say to ourselves, I can’t do that.
• Your right, we can’t. But through God’s power we can.
• Have you ever acted like Jesus in a tough moment?
• Can you do it again?
• Irenaeus quoted from an unknown author when he wrote: “He spoke well who said that the infinite Father is measured in the Son.” Inge went on to say in part, “It is to this measure , not to the immeasurable, that we are bidden to aspire.” (Inge, p 193; Inge cited, Irenaeus, Contra Har, iv, 6.)
• In other words, God is not commanding us to do things only He can do (like create a universe); He is commanding us to be like His Son. Which we can do, because Jesus was fully man and He did it.
• So how did He live for God perfectly. Jesus was driven by the will of the Father and equipped by the Holy Spirit.
• Just like you and I can be driven by the will of the Father and we too are already equipped by the indwelling of the Spirit.

#2 Follow Me = We will see that we can choose more discipleship as the Apostles did. It is voluntary.

• We shall see that some of discipleship is a choice.
• Hagner wrote, “The call of God through Jesus is sovereign and absolute in its authority; the response of those who are called is to be both immediate and absolute, involving a complete break with old loyalties. The actual shape of this break with the past will undoubtedly vary from individual to individual, but that there must be a fundamental, radical reorientation of a person’s priorities is taken for granted.” [404, Hagner, Matthew 1—13, p. 78] (Constable)

#3 God may call us to something specific at times in our lives; I believe He absolutely will if we are paying attention.

• These calls absolutely speaks to involvement.
• We must get serious with what we already know to do and continuing to learn and apply more of Him and less of us.

Notes

¹ See the map “Palestine in the Time of Jesus” at the end of these notes to locate the places mentioned in this stage of Jesus’ ministry. As cited in Constable.

² See The New Bible Dictionary, s.v. “Chinnereth, Chinneroth, Cinneroth, Gennesaret,” by R. F. Hosking, p. 209. As cited in Constable.

³ Blomberg p 90. Blomberg cited M. Green, Matthew for Today (Dallas: Word, 1989), 67.

⁴ Blomberg p 90. Blomberg cited M. J. Wilkins, The Concept of Disciple in Matthew’s Gospel (Leiden: Brill, 1988).

⁵ Bomberg, p 92. Blomberg wrote: See esp. E. Yamauchi, “Magic or Miracle? Disease, Demons and Exorcisms,” in Gospel Persectives, ed. D. Wenham and C. Bomberg, vol. 6 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1986), 89-183.

Works Cited

Scripture quotations [unless otherwise noted] are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Click here to access the works cited web-page for this document, save those marked as “Notes” or “Other Works Cited”–if any. Most of these cited works correspond to the verses they are outlined with. In the case of general background information and references, one will find cited material with the Bible books the citations are associated with. ¶ Furthermore, there may be numbered notes that are URL linked; these are usually retained numbered notes from Thomas Constable’s, “Dr. Constable’s Expository (Bible Study) Notes.” These links are preserved “as is” at the time of this work’s formation and sometimes include other citation information from Constable.

Other Works Cited

^{Note: Not all of these resources listed below were used in this particular sermon.}

Augsburger, David. Dissident Discipleship. Brazos Press, 2006.

Blomberg, Craig L. Matthew. New American Commentary, vol. 22, ed. David S. Dockery, et al., Broadman Press, 1992. Sourced from archive.org.
(https://archive.org/details/matthew0000blom)

________. Preaching the Parables: From Responsible Interpretation to Powerful Proclamation. Baker Academic, 2004. Sourced from archive.org.
(https://archive.org/details/preachingparable0000blom/page/82/mode/2up)

Bradley, Marshell C. Matthew: Poet, Historian, Dialectician. Studies in Biblical Literature, ed. Hemchand Gossai, vol. 103, Peter Lang, 2007.

Bruce, Alexander Balmain. The Training of the Twelve. Ed., A.C. Armstrong and Son, reprint 1984, Kregel Publications, 1971 edition.

Chan, Francis. Crazy Love. David C. Cook, 2008.

Evans, Craig A. The Bible Knowledge Background Commentary: Matthew-Luke. Victor, 2003. Sourced from archive.org.
(https://archive.org/details/bibleknowledgeba00crai/mode/2up)

Hendriksen, William. New Testament Commentary: Exposition of the Gospel According to Luke. Baker Book House, 1984.

Inge, William Ralph. Christian Mysticism. Scribner’s, 1899.

Phillips, John. Exploring the Gospels: John. Loizeaux Brothers, 1988.

Platt, David. Follow Me. Tyndale, 2013.

Yancey, Philip. The Jesus I Never Knew. Zondervan, 1995.

^3.5