Sermon Tone Analysis

WHY STUDY THE 400 YEARS BETWEEN MALICHI AND MATHEW?

1.

Why talk about books that are not part of the Bible?

2.     We don’t know enough about the Bible why study material not in the Bible?

3.     Why talk about some books called the Apocrypha?

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4.     Why Talk About A Family Named Maccabees?

1.

These books gives a clear insight into the spiritual, philosophical and intellectual life of Judaism in the period between Malachi and Mathew.

2.      There is a period of 400 years when God did not speak by a prophet to people, what happened during that time period?

1.

When the book of MALACHI closes you have a nation of people who are in love with idolatry, they want to worship the idols and gods of the heathen.

They want to be as much like the world and the heathen as they can.

They want to live by man’s law not the law of God.

2. But when you start the book of Matthew you find a nation of people who are worshiping one God and they are out to destroy every hint of idolatry.

1.

When the book of Malachi ends you have the Jews seeking to be part of the pagan culture.

2.      When you get to Matthew the Jews have rioted

Because of Herod creating buildings for the pagan culture.

Because of statues, and images of people on the new building.

1.

When you leave Malachi there is very little or no interest in the Messiah.

2. But when you come to Matthew there is great interest & they are looking for the Messiah.

There have been a number of people who have claimed to be the Messiah.

1.

When you leave Malachi you have the Babylonians taking Judah into captivity.

2.   When you get to Matthew you have the Roman’s in charge.

a.       How did the Roman’s get involved?

b.

How did Herod get to rule?

1.

With the close of  Malachi  there are no religious and political parties.

2. But in Matthew you find a number of Opposing political parties:

The Pharisee, Saducees, Herodians, Essens, Zelots, of which James and John were members.

Also you had your Qumram Community from which we get the Dead Sea Scrolls.

1.

When you close Malachi there are no Synagogues

2.   When you open Matthew there are Synagogues in almost every Jewish town.

70 in Jerusalem

In the OT all worship was centered on the Temple

In the NT the worship was centered around the Synagogue and Temple

1.

With the close of Malachi you find one school of thought.

2.   With Matthew you have 2 main Jewish Schools the School of  Rabbi Hilial, and the School of Rabbi Shama

In Malachi the spiritual leader are PRIEST but in Matthew they are RABBIS .

1. Internally the nation was divided by different parties.

2. Externally they struggled with an old never ending war.

The Jews were descendents of Jacob - 12 tribes.

The descendents of THE 12 ARAB NATIONS , the Palestinians, refuse to live in peace with Israel.

ANTIOCHUS EPHAPANES

A Gentile came to power Which Daniel had predicted.

His name was Antiochus Ephapanes.

He was an Arab and under His leadership he was determined to wipe out the Jewish religion altogether 168 BC.

Just like Hamon wanted to do 150+ yrs before during the time of Esther the Queen.

Under Antiochus Ephapanes

ALL JEWISH SACRIFICES WERE FORBIDDEN

1.

The rite of circumcision was to cease;

Any mother who allowed her son to be circumcised, the baby was killed and hung around the mother’s neck.

Then she was killed later.

2. The Sabbath and feast days were no longer to be observed.

Disobedience in any of these respects carried the penalty of death.

3.

All books of the law were ripped apart or destroyed by fire.

4. Jews were forced to eat swine's flesh and to sacrifice at idolatrous altars set up throughout the land.

5. Then to crown his deeds of infamy Antiochus erected an altar to the Olympian Zeus with an image of the god probably bearing the features of Antiochus himself, on the altar of burn offerings within the Temple court.

6.

That was not bad enough but he sacrifice a pig on the alter and sprinkled its blood and pig broth over everything in the temple.

I Maccabbees 1:54.

1.

This was prophesied in the Book of Daniel called "THE ABOMINATION THE DESOLATES

2. Jesus refers to the historical even as a type [picture] of what will happen in the future just before He comes again in He calls it THE ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION.

3.      It will be fulfilled in the middle of the Tribulation period when the Anti-Christ sets up his idol in the temple in Jerusalem and demands that all people worship it.

During the 400 years of silence there was severe persecution in which many were put to death I Maccabbees 1:57-64 This was a time much like Germany under Hitler.

In which the government was hunting down Jews to kill them.

They wanted to stomp Judaism off the face of the earth.

Many Jews had to hid in small towns and the Mountains.

But even there people betrayed them.

THE 400 YRS BETWEEN THE OLD AND N.T.

At the close of the book of Malachi in the O.T. the Nation of Israel is back again in the land of Palestine after the Babylonian captivity, but they are under the domination of the great world power of that day, Persia and the Medio-Persian empire.

In Jerusalem, the temple had been restored, although it was a much smaller building than the one that Solomon had built and decorated in such marvelous glory.

Within the temple the line of Aaronic priests was still worshiping and carrying on the sacred rites as they had been ordered to do by the law of Moses.

There was a direct line of descendancy in the priesthood that could be traced back to Aaron.

But the royal line of David had fallen on evil days.

The people knew who the rightful successor to David was, and in the book of Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, his name is given to us.

It was ZERUBBABEL, the royal prince.

Yet there was no king on the throne of Israel, they were a puppet nation, under the domination of Persia.

Nevertheless, although they were beset with weakness and formalism as the prophets have shown us, the people were united.

There were no political schism or factions among them, nor were they divided into groups or parties.

1ST  when you open the N.T to the book of Matthew, you discover an entirely different atmosphere-almost a different world.

2ND.

Rome is now the dominant power of the earth.

The Roman legions have spread throughout the length and breadth of the civilized world.

The center of power has shifted from the East to the West, Babylon to Rome.

Palestine is still a puppet state-the Jews never did regain their own sovereignty- but now there is a king on the throne.

3RD.

But this king is the descendant of Esau instead of Jacob, and his name is Herod the Great.

4TH Furthermore, the high priests who now sit in the seat of religious authority in the nation are no longer from the line of Aaron.

They cannot trace their descendency back, rather, they are hired priests to whom the office is sold as political patronage.

5TH.

The temple is still the center of Jewish worship, although the building has been partially destroyed and rebuilt about a half dozen times since the close of the O.T. 

6TH.

But during this 400 year period synagogues sprung up in every city were there are families of Jews living.

A dramatic change took place: from the emphasis on the TEMPLE  to the Emphases on the.

= The Torah is not a lawn mower.

The Torah was in two parts, written and oral.

1st The law of Moses, & the prophets.

2nd the Oral, the Mishnah= ('Exegesis", or interpretaion) & Shanah TALMUD (lit.

'learning") is a compilation consisting of the Mishnah, or accepted body of traditional law, together with the subsequent discussions or traditions (the Gemara, Lit, "completion") concerning it which arose in the Jewish 'schools'/

There are two Talmuds, the Paleestinian and the Babylonian.

In common usage reference is usually to the Babylonian Talmud which is fuller then the Palestiianian.

MIDRASH  was divided into two sections.

1ST.