Keep your Bible handy there, turn to Matthew chapter two, second half, we’ll deal with this morning. Matthew chapter two, but before we go to the Lord, let’s pray to him once more and ask his blessing upon the reading, the preaching and the hearing of that word, let’s pray. Dear Lord, our Heavenly Father, we confess again, this is your word, breathed out by you and given to us as your covenant people. And yet, Lord God, we are often hard of hearing. And so we ask that your gracious spirit would grant us grace this day, that you would give us ears to hear and hearts that are ready and willing to believe. We pray, Lord God, that you would magnify your son in our midst. that the good news of the gospel as it’s presented in him would come to us, and Lord, that we would find hope and life in believing. And so we ask grace for your people and for the one who speaks on your behalf in order that your name might be magnified in all the earth. In all this we pray in Christ’s name and all God’s people said, amen. Amen.

Sounds kind of hot. Is the mic kind of loud for you guys? Is that okay? All right, very good. Self-consciousness, please now hear Matthew chapter two starting verse 13 to the end of the chapter.

Matthew 2, 13, please give your full attention, this is the word of God. Speaking of the Magi, it says, now when they, the Magi, had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, rise, take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt. Remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child to destroy him. And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, out of Egypt, I called my son. And then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem. and in all the region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah. A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children. She refused to be comforted, because they are no more. When Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, rise, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child’s life are dead. And he rose, and he took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. When he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judah in the place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there, and being warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee. and went and lived in a city called Nazareth, so that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, that he would be called a Nazarene. So for the reading of God’s word, grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever. May he add his blessing upon it at this time.

What we saw in the first half of Matthew chapter two, This tale of two kings, we called it, tale of two kings, a pretender king, Herod, not a Jew, not born in the lineage of a king, not born in the right place. And we saw the perfect king, the Lord Jesus Christ, the true king of the Jews, who fulfilled all of those requirements. And we saw the Gentiles, these magi, these wise men, searching for the Messiah. And they say, where is he who was born the king of the Jews, confronting the pretender king? and that Christ’s coming, his taking on flesh, his entering into his creation, right? Remember, all things that were made were made through him, but this we saw was the fulfillment of Scripture from the beginning, right? God’s divine design, the construction of his word, it pointed to and pictured and predicted, pregnant with anticipation and expectation. Matthew 2 is full of this. It’s full of Scripture being fulfilled. We often miss these things with our familiarity of the story that we’ve heard most of our life, most of us. So let’s continue and we’ll see here that what the Lord has for us in this text, Matthew 13 and following. And my prayer is that you will learn something, that you’ll make some connections as we go, but most of that you will worship the Lord Jesus Christ, even now as we do so, as you take in his word. And so these two chapters, Matthew 1 and 2, notice throughout there’s this repetition, the names of places, geography, all over the text. And we see that this journey that’s taken place is tracked. It’s almost like a travel journal that we see. And we see the Magi. They’re led very carefully, very precisely by the angel of the Lord. And just like the Israelites went through the wilderness, led by a pillar of fire, and led by the angel in dreams, right? This journey that marks the fulfillment of scripture similarly takes place as we’ve seen. We see the fulfillment of biblical geography here, from Bethlehem to Egypt, and then back into the Holy Land, and then warning not to stay in Judea, but to go up north to Galilee and Nazareth. And right in the middle of this whole thing, we have Herod crazed, ordering the slaughter of the young children. He is so furious, it says. And so we think of this particular detail, and we know that it’s not really fitting for the season, culturally. It doesn’t make it on many cards, this portion of Scripture. It doesn’t make it on the stitchery or the newsletters that we send. Terror, weeping, lamentation. What is the Lord doing here? What is the Lord doing in giving us this geography and giving us these details? Well, he’s powerfully declaring how all of redemptive history has been fulfilled by Jesus Christ. He’s telling us that no, God’s word is not a collection of moralisms. It is not a baptized version of Aesop’s fables. It’s not disconnected happyisms or a buffet where we choose to take or leave what we want, whatever fits our fancies. rather God’s revelation in history of the covenantal history of redemption from start to finish is about the Lord Jesus Christ. All that’s been laid down, all that’s happened, all that’s been preserved and pointed to, it all pointed to the one that was to come, this one who would fulfill all of it. It all pointed to Christ, the one who was indeed the true Moses, the true Israel in the complete full exile as he suffers for his people. This is what it’s all about, right? This is what this passage will teach us, right? This passage is so charged with this. It’s easy for us to miss because of familiarity with cultural things that go on at this time of year. But this passage will answer for us a number of questions. It’ll answer for us, how is Jesus the fulfillment of history, of scripture? How is he the climax and culmination and full satisfaction and archetype of what the Lord has given us throughout time? And we see again that Jesus is the true Moses, Israel in exile. Of course, we can only scratch the surface of this huge topic this morning, but let’s see these three answers as we find them in our text today in Matthew 2, 13 to 23.

Who is this king? And what about him? Who is the one to come and save his people? Well, first we see he is the fulfillment of Scripture, and that Jesus is the true Moses, the greater Moses. You have an outline briefly in the back of your bulletin. But recall Moses, right? Recall Moses in the Old Testament. In Deuteronomy 18, Moses tells the people this. The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers. It is to him you shall listen. Just as you desired of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of assembly when you said, let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God or see the great fire anymore lest I die. And the Lord said to me, this is right in what you have spoken. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers and I’ll put my words in his mouth and he shall speak to them all that I command him. Moses is the greatest prophet of the Old Testament. He is the key figure in the Old Testament. And he says, one is coming who is greater than me. That Christ is this one, this prophet, this greater than Moses to come, it’s all over the New Testament as we read what it has for us there. Consider John 1. Speaking of John the Baptist, it says, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, who are you? He, John the Baptist, confessed, I am not the Christ. And they asked him, what then, are you Elijah? Are you the prophet? And he answered, no. And they asked him, then why are you baptizing if you’re neither Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet? There it is. And then at the baptism of the Lord, In Matthew 3, when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up in the water, you remember, and he says, and behold, a voice from heaven said, this is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. And as we read in Mark 9, at the transfiguration, right, this voice adds this, a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud, this is my beloved Son, listen to him. And then this text from Deuteronomy 18 is quoted. Peter quotes this in his sermon at Pentecost in Acts chapter three. Stephen quotes it in Acts chapter seven. We find Moses all over the New Testament. 78 times we see Moses mentioned. The book of Hebrews, for example, as well emphasizes that Jesus is the greater Moses. He’s the true Moses. the one to come, and we see this already in our text here this morning. All right, how do we see that? Well, first we see the repeated mention of Egypt, right, in the text, the repeated mention of Egypt. And this brings to mind, of course, Moses and the Exodus, right? And this, of course, the Exodus was the key redemptive events in the Old Testament, the key redemptive act of God in the Old Covenant for the people of God, right? Moses was God’s instrument in this. And the minds of all who heard or read this in Matthew would be drawn to this. They would make this connection, because Matthew’s making this connection. The whole thing is deliberate, the whole thing is purposeful. And even prior to the Exodus, remember Moses, his story. He’s divinely saved from slaughter of infants in Egypt. And just as Pharaoh condemned all the male children of the Hebrews, Herod condemns all the male children of Bethlehem. And as Moses was delivered through that slaughter, Jesus is delivered through this slaughter. And this also demonstrates what? It tells us something more of Herod, right? Herod, the king of the Jews, has become just as bad as Pharaoh was to the Jews, right? Startling. The horror of that. The king of the Jews has become Pharaoh. And so is God laying down a pattern and fulfilling it? Or was he preparing a people throughout time for the one who would come to fulfill all things, to satisfy all these connections? Oh, yes he did, and he was.

And then secondly, we see it’s interesting, as we read Matthew chapter two, when the angel of the Lord calls Joseph to take his family to the land of Israel, Matthew uses the language of going into the land to dwell there. And God’s call to Joseph in this dream is almost verbatim to Exodus 4, verse 19. You’ll recall at that point in redemptive history, in Exodus 4, Moses had fled because he had killed this Egyptian. He had fled, and they were seeking to kill him. And then in Exodus 4, Moses has a dream where he’s told to return to Egypt because, it says, those who were seeking his life are dead. It’s almost an exact quote that Matthew gives us to Joseph. Matthew’s language is purposefully Exodus-linked, right? It’s linked to Exodus. And notice what it says, Matthew 2.20, notice what it says. And you can see this in the footnote of some of your Bibles, right? Starting at verse 19, it says this. But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, rise, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child’s life are dead. Right, do you see that? Who’s seeking the child’s life? It’s Herod. Why does it say those, in plural? Those who sought the child’s life are dead. Very interesting, right? Matthew is quoting Exodus 4.19 directly for a purpose. He’s making this connection, right? Herod is Pharaoh, and the people have left the one who delivered them. And in the birth of Christ, God ushers in redemptive historical fulfillment in bringing their salvation. And the Old Testament pattern comes again in the birth of Christ in Bethlehem, and in the flight in return. That’s the Moses connection, the great deliverer, the mediator, the prophet of the Old Testament. It was all preparatory, a shadow, a type of the true and fullest and greater deliverer, moderator, and prophet, Jesus Christ, who, by the way, is also priest and king. When we think about these things, fulfillment, Christ is the fulfillment. Our text says three times, so that what the Lord had spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, or to fulfill what the Lord has spoken by the prophets, right? Three times Matthew uses this language. And it’s important to understand the full import of that word, that concept, that meaning, right? It doesn’t mean merely coming to pass, right, fulfillment. It doesn’t merely mean validating or proving who Christ is. It does that, to be sure. but it’s more, right? The idea of fulfillment is much fuller than that in Scripture. And we sell it very short if we think it merely in those terms. But the biblical idea of fulfillment is completion, right? It’s fullness, the goal, right? The telos, the target having been reached, that’s fulfillment. And from the Gospels all the way to Revelation 22, And all throughout, they all proclaim that Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the Old Testament. The one who was to come. The one who was shadowed. The one who was promised. And when they do this, they’re saying what? That he fulfills it. He fulfills it. His relation to it is real. It is actual. The pictures and shadows cast in the Old Testament are of and cast by a real Christ, the Christ, right? Those promises and patterns were something bigger, were of something bigger that was coming. In the whole of history, God’s people from the garden into Egypt, the tyranny of Pharaoh, they all instruct us of something and instruct us about the bondage and tyranny of sin and death. And the deliverance of Moses, right, again, his mighty miracles God performs through him, the plagues, the covenant, the law, God’s law, the goal of all of these things, wasn’t a little patch of land in the Middle East. What a sad failure if the earth is all that there is. Think of all the promises given to Abraham. He never saw those earthly promises come to fruition in his lifetime. Those things were about something more. They were about a heavenly kingdom, a new covenant, a true covenant, right? And think of the victories and the riches and the rule of the great kings, Solomon and David, and the peace and the flourishing wealth and the prosperity, remember, such that the queen of Sheba was left breathless when she saw them. And she only spoke of the half of them, right? And they should leave us breathless about Christ. His rule, his reign in glory, his victory, final and full. And when we look at the Old Testament, it kind of ends with a fizzle. It seems like it sputters out. History is kind of left hanging. Yes, they return from exile. Yes, they rebuild. But it’s not only unimpressive, it’s depressive. In comparison to the former glory of the kingdom that was. And that’s why we read that the older people, when the rebuilding was completed, remember what they did? They wept. They wept. They remembered and were crushed at its smallness. It was nothing of the former glory. Moses prophesied about a prophet that was greater, that was to come, that was greater than himself, because he knew that’s what the people needed. Moses knew he wasn’t the man. He knew that the law could not save them. He knew that the plans of the tabernacle, he was given on the mountain of the temple that he saw. He knew the reality of that was truly and actually in heaven. And Matthew tells us in this threefold fulfillment, fulfillment, fulfillment, that Jesus is the end of the story. He is the telos. The end has been inaugurated. The end has been launched, so to speak. Christ fulfills scripture. He’s the greater Moses. And then how else is Jesus the fulfillment of scripture? We see that Jesus is also the true Israel. The true Israel. Jesus goes into Egypt and he comes out of Egypt. He goes in and he comes out. This is another part of the story that doesn’t get much focus. Why is this here? What does it mean? Why rehearse this? Why does the Lord have this happen? He goes into Egypt, Jesus, and then he comes back. What’s going on? It seems kind of strange if we’re not paying attention. What does that have to do with who Jesus is? Well, in this amazing, what Matthew does here, he quotes Hosea 11, right? That’s why we read it for Old Testament reading. Quotes Hosea 11 chapter, verse one, rather. And it says, when Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Edith I called my son. Most of you have been taught and you know that when a portion or the beginning of something is quoted in scripture, it stands for the whole, right? And we see this in places like, for instance, at the end of Luke, there’s a reference, Jesus says, all that was written in the law, the prophets, and the writings. What does that mean? That stands for the whole of the Old Testament. Those are the three categories, as you’ve learned. And elsewhere it says, the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms. Well, why does it say Psalms? Well, that’s the first book of the writings. It stands for the whole of the writings. Again, we see this in the Psalms. A psalm is quoted, and it’s standing for the whole of a psalm. A first line is given. Well, it’s the same here. When Matthew quotes Hosea 11.1, he knows that his listeners and his readers will hear and see the whole chapter. They were raised on this. At home, they heard it in the synagogue. And they likely will be thinking of the whole book of Hosea, frankly. And we remember Hosea, this cautionary tale, and this is a very disturbing incident, right? Hosea is the prophet who God commanded to marry a prostitute. Again, not on the Christmas cards, but this is very strange to us, right? But God is saying what? He’s saying, Hosea, my man, go marry a prostitute. And that will teach the people what it’s like to be their God. So they know what it’s like to marry a prostitute who cheats and cheats and cheats and whores after foreigners. That’s what it’s like being their God. And throughout the Old Testament, Israel is called God’s son, his beloved. And the point of Hosea 11 is that God is saying, I raised you, I brought you out, I carried you in my arms, I delivered you, I defeated your enemies, I protected you in ways you never knew were even there. I wiped your face, I changed you, I gave you life, and I promised myself to you, and you treat me like this. You constantly abandoned me. And then the next verse that the people would hear in their minds, when Matthew quotes Hosea 11.1, Hosea 2 and 3, it says this. I’m gonna read the whole thing. I commend you to meditate on it later. It’s a glorious chapter. The next thing that would come to the mind, it’s just heartbreaking, right? He says this, the more they were called, the more they went away. They kept sacrificing to Baal and burning offerings to idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk. I took them in my arms, but they did not know that I healed them.” And he goes on and he describes all the care and kindness and love that God flooded them with, the people. And they’re like a child pulling from their mother, trying to rip free of her protective grip, running perilously into the busy street. God is saving them from running into their death. And so God’s response is what? He says this, they must go into exile. They are bent on turning away from me and they keep disobeying me like a rebellious son running into their death. Exile is the punishment for disobedience. But note the overall message of Hosea 11 is what? It’s that exile is not permanent. Right? Even as good parents, discipline for a moment. The Lord will not end and bring final wrath on his people. Listen to what he says. A beautiful passage, Hosea 11, verse eight and nine. He says, how can I give you up? How can I hand you over, O Israel? My heart recoils within me. My compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my burning anger. I will not again destroy Ephraim. For I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath. It’s overwhelming, that kind of love that we read, right? And this should put to bed forever this foolish idea that the God of the Old Testament is just a God of wrath. You wanna know what forgiveness is? You wanna know what love is? This is forgiveness. I am the holy one in your midst. I will not come in wrath. And that is altogether glorious and comforting. And so when Matthew says, out of Israel I have called my son, this whole prophecy floods into the minds of the Jews who heard the gospel for the very first time. Wow, it’s amazing. And this comes again and again as we move through Matthew, this idea, this connection between the Exodus and that Jesus is the greater Moses and he’s the true Israel. Right, remember the next chapter, Matthew 3, what happens? After he’s baptized, the Lord, remember, and John says, wait, I can’t baptize you, you’re the holy one of Israel. And Jesus tells him what? No, you must do so, for this is how I become holy and fulfill all righteousness. Matthew 4. After the baptism, this patterning and identifying with Israel, Jesus is sent into the wilderness, right, for 40 days, like the 40-year wilderness wandering of Israel. But what’s the difference? Jesus is the greater, the true Israel. He does not fail, he does not grumble. He is faithful, he does not falter. He does what Israel did not and could not. And then Matthew chapter five, Jesus embodies this pattern again. And like Moses, he goes on a mountain and he teaches the people. And he teaches as the new Moses about the new kingdom. And he says, a new commandment I give to you. And it would seem, you know, we look at these things that on a physical earthly level, it all happened with diminished glory and spectacle from what the shadow was. But this even teaches us something, right? What kind of King and Christ were they looking for? What kind of king in Christ are you looking for? Because his baptism, for instance, wasn’t quite the spectacle of the exodus, the crossing of the Red Sea. To be sure, the baptism was glorious. There’s the voice of God in the thunder and the dove descending. But there were no armies crushed and drowned in the water. There weren’t thousands of Egyptians and nations, people drowning and crushed by the water. It wasn’t a great military conquest on an earthly level. What was it? is one man getting wet. That’s the Messiah who came to save you from your sins. Jesus is the true Israelite who enters into the experience of his people to save them.

And then the third way we see Jesus as the fulfillment of scripture, and we’ll just touch on this briefly, is that Jesus is the full exile. He’s the complete exile, right? And this point of fulfillment is perhaps the most important. You need to understand, brothers and sisters, that this Messiah comes and he goes into exile for you, for you. He experienced all that that was, more than we could imagine. The exile was a picture of death, final death, nothing left. This is what Jesus does for you in exile. He says it’s finished. And that wrath that God said he would not bring upon his child because he is God and not a man, that wrath is what? It poured out on his own son, Jesus Christ. Why? So it will never be poured out on you. Again, we’ll look at the remainder of this passage and the connection, the exile in Jeremiah 31, how glorious. Next time, but for now, understand this. About that briefly, Matthew quotes Jeremiah, right? Jeremiah is a prophet of hope at the end of the day. What’s Rachel, right? And Rachel is, we’ll see, comforted by hope. And what is that hope? What is that hope? It’s that the days are coming, the Lord says, the days of Jesus, when I’ll make a new covenant. Not like the old covenant that you broke, he says, I’ll make a new covenant. And in this covenant, it’s a covenant where I put my law not on tablets of stone, but on your heart. And this is a covenant where I forgive sins. and I remember them no more. Jesus is the fulfillment of scripture, the fulfillment of redemptive history. All the regulations, all the ceremonial code, all the structures set up to regulate cleanness and holiness, all the patterns and promises, all of it is fulfilled in Christ. He is not a baby frozen in a manger. He is not a man remaining on a cross. He’s the God man. He was real. He was born. He grew. He lived a perfect life for his people, for you who entrust yourselves upon him. He died on a real cross. If you ran your hand across it, you would get splinters. It was real. He did so for you. And he rose again for you, for all who call on his name and trust him, for renewal and refreshment and cleansing and life. Who is he? Who is the one born the King of the Jews? He’s the one you’re called to worship, now and always. He fulfills all of scripture. He is the only rescue and solution from the bondage for human beings, from sin and death and the wrath of God. He is the Father’s, remember, tender, loving care and cure for his people. This is what you need to be convinced of in your own heart, right, all of us. It is true, it is right, it is real. You want freedom from your guilt and sorrow and failures and your own gripping bondage of your own sins and past and the idols in our lives. It is here. It is here in Christ and it is here alone. And the amazing thing is, all you have to do is trust in belief. The Lord gives faith, the Lord gives repentance, and it will come. That’s the call to you, repent and believe. Even this day, he will not stiff-arm anyone who comes to him in faith. That’s what the prophet said. He will not execute his burning anger. He will not again destroy, for he is God and not a man. He is the Holy One in your midst, and he will not come in wrath. What glory is that? Glory, Zechariah, one of my favorite lines in that whole book. It says, he is the wall of fire around us and the glory in our midst. That is to be our life. God will not do these things because he already has executed his burning anger and wrath on his own beloved son. So that all who are found in the son will never, ever, ever experience it. That should warm your heart alone to worship this King Jesus. And I pray as you go from here, that you have in our worshiping Christ. And as we go, may we be a worshiping people. May we take these truths with us in our hearts, in our lives and on our lips, to a world that is dead and dying, so in need of hope and salvation. Let us reflect upon all that he has done. Let us reflect on that one glorious, altogether significant point, that this one Jesus lived, he died, and he rose again for sinners, that they may live forever in him and for him. Praise your Savior, dear Christian, with all of your life.

Let’s pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you. We thank you for the Savior, Jesus Christ. We pray, Lord, that we would indeed be warmed and driven, Lord, as you warm our hearts, as you soften our hearts, to worship this one born King of the Jews, Lord. He is our King and our prophet and our priest. Lord, we praise you for the salvation won through him. Lord, we pray that you would be with us as we continue to worship you. Protect us throughout this week. and work in us, Lord, to bring glory to your name as it is spread abroad in the world. We ask this in Christ’s name, amen.