Introduction

One of aspects of the incarnation that I love to meditate upon is the incredible humiliation of God the Son. It is mind-blowing that God would do this. Many people don't realize that one of God's attributes is humility. And they might think, “Really?! How could the greatest Being in the Universe be humble?” But He is. And He can be humble because of His foundational attribute of aseity - that God needs nothing and that He is 100% self-existing and self-sufficient. God doesn't need you to glorify Him. He doesn’t crave your glory. Not at all. Instead, He wants you to become more and more like Him in thinking of others ahead of yourself. And within the Godhead this is what each Person of the Godhead does. For example, God the Father and God the Holy Spirit love to glorify the Son, and the Son loves to Glorify the Father and the Spirit. Because the three Persons of the one true God have no need, they are always outflowing in giving to each other and in giving to others. God is not self-centered like the God of Islam who is one person only, and so can only be self-loving. The same is true of the false god of modern Talmudic Judaism. When you study the false theology of those two religions you see that a selfish and demonic false god leads its followers to be selfish. The Trinity’s love is radically different. This is one of many beautiful applications of the doctrine of the Trinity.

And I won't have time in this introduction to show the extent of the humiliation of God the Son, but consider seven examples of it.

1. In the Incarnation God the Son came into the womb of an unknown virgin - Mary. While God the Son was upholding every cell in Mary's body, Mary's womb was upholding and providing life for the humanity of Jesus.
2. Likewise, he was born into poverty.
3. There was no room for him in the inn, so He was born in a stable, with his bed being hay in a manger designed for cattle. Can you imagine Mary giving birth in a barn? They couldn't find room in any inn, which means that Jesus was initially born homeless.
4. His first visitors were shepherds.
5. His human father was a carpenter, not a king.
6. In Matthew 2:13-15, his parents had to flee with the baby Jesus to Egypt in order to escape King Herod's attempt to kill Him. In other words, he was the Son of refugees who were displaced.
7. And throughout the rest of His life he illustrated in so many ways that His humiliation was part of His plan to identify with us and to save us.

But the passage we just read highlights yet another facet of His humiliation. Shortly after his parents returned from Egypt to Israel, they moved to Nazareth - a very lowly town - so lowly that it made the Pharisees look down on Him and His followers. Let me now read Acts 24:1-5 to illustrate how Christians gladly identified with the despised Jesus, even taking on His despised identification as a Nazarene. It is Acts 24:1-5.

Acts 24:1 Now after five days Ananias the high priest came down with the elders and a certain orator named Tertullus. These gave evidence to the governor against Paul. 2 And when he was called upon, Tertullus began his accusation, saying: “Seeing that through you we enjoy great peace, and prosperity is being brought to this nation by your foresight, 3 we accept it always and in all places, most noble Felix, with all thankfulness. 4 Nevertheless, not to be tedious to you any further, I beg you to hear, by your courtesy, a few words from us. 5 For we have found this man a plague, a creator of dissension among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes.

In order to even be Christians, you and I have to identify with Him being a Nazarene — a despised person. And if we are ashamed of Him in public, He will be ashamed of us.

The controversy over the phrase, "He shall be called a Nazarene"

Quotes of those who are troubled by this statement

But returning to Matthew 2:23, I find a great deal of comfort in the applications of this verse. I would love to get straight to the applications, but before I can do that, I do need to resolve a controversy that has arisen over this verse. And I think you will find it edifying for me to deal with this controversy.

Liberals claim that the so-called quote in verse 23 is either a mistake or a deliberate deception. And many evangelicals have been at a loss on knowing how to respond to those liberals. Let me read the verse in question again. It's Matthew 2:23. It says, "And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, ‘He shall be called a Nazarene.’" That seems like a straightforward quotation of prophecy, doesn’t it? And the New King James actually puts quotation marks around the phrase, "He shall be called a Nazarene." It shouldn't, but it does. You can cross out the quotation marks because they are definitely not in the original. And I will demonstrate that in a bit.

But listen to the following commentaries as they wrestle over this verse. Willoughby Allen says, "This verse contains a still unexplained difficulty."¹ Well, he hasn't read very extensively because Edersheim and other conservatives have explained it well. I’ll go into more detail than Edersheim did, but Allen is wrong when he says that this is a still unexplained difficulty. What is it that he finds so difficult? Leon Morris explains the difficulty this way:

...it is not easy to find the words he will be called a Nazarene in any of the prophetical books, or for that matter, anywhere in the Old Testament. No passage even resembles this.²

So liberals use this passage to show that the Bible makes mistakes. They claim that Matthew is pretending to quote the Old Testament, when (they claim) he is actually fabricating the quote out of thin air. And Evangelicals have often not been very helpful in their comments. Albert Barnes, said, "The words here are not found in any of the books of the Old Testament, and there has been much difficulty in ascertaining the meaning of this passage."³ Plummer states, "The difficulty about the prophecy quoted in ver. 23 is one which our present knowledge does not enable us to solve."⁴ In other words, he can't figure it out. D.A. Carson, a very prominent evangelical says, “these words are found nowhere in the OT.”⁵ John Barry gives his opinion in the Faithlife Study Bible, saying, "The source of this quotation is unknown and it seems that Jewish people at the time did not expect the Messiah to come from Nazareth..."⁶ Just one more quote; this one from R. T. France. He says,

“He shall be called a Nazorean” does not in fact occur anywhere in the OT, nor, as far as we know, in any other contemporary literature. As a matter of fact Nazareth, as a relatively newly founded settlement, is never mentioned in the OT, or indeed in any other non-Christian Jewish writing before it appears in an inscription listing priestly courses in the third or fourth century A.D. The search for a specific OT source for “He shall be called a Nazorean” is therefore likely to be futile.⁷

Wow!

A Biblical response that shows that Matthew was right on!

Note that the text says prophets, not prophet

How should we respond? Well, the first thing to notice is that this is not a direct quote at all: Matthew speaks of "prophets" (plural), whereas every other time he gives a direct quote he uses the singular word "prophet." And that is why many solid Evangelical scholars conclude that he is summarizing what a number of prophets have said would happen, not giving a direct quote.

There are no quotation markers in the Greek (no λέγων preceding a ὅτι)

Second, Lenski points out that the Greek makes it crystal clear that Matthew was not intending to quote any one passage. Speaking of the Greek, he says, "No λέγων precedes ὅτι [λέγων and ὅτι are two Greek words that are used to indicate a direct quotation, so he says, "No λέγων precedes ὅτι"], which shuts out not only a direct quotation but also an indirect prophetic utterance."⁸ Lenski says that the grammar mandates that there be no quotation marks.

The meaning of Nazareth points to seven Old Testament passages regarding the Messiah

Third, if you understand what the name of the city (Nazareth) means, then there are at least seven Old Testament prophecies that mandated that Jesus somehow be called a Nazarene - not a Nazarite (that's a totally different word that makes some artists bogusly give Him long hair - so He was not a Narite), but a Nazarene. The city name means “shoot, sprout or branch” and was a reference to a small twig that sprouts. A little branch growing out. Edersheim points out (II., 222-223) that there were two Old Testament words meaning branch, tsemach and netser, and both synonyms referred to the despised Messiah who would grow up in obscurity and weakness but would eventually grow into a glorious tree.

So Matthew is right on the mark! He is 100% accurate. There were indeed prophets (plural) whose prophesies mandated that Jesus move to Nazareth and that Jesus be called a Nazarene. And I will explain why those prophetic passages absolutely necessitated that Jesus move to Nazareth.

Zechariah 6:12 with all the other "branch" passages

Zechariah 6:12 calls Jesus, "the Man whose name is Branch…" It says that the Messiah would be a Man, and He would have the title "Branch" given to Him. Isaiah 11 does not use the synonym for branch but the actual word for Nazareth, Netzer, when it refers to him as a Branch. So Edersheim says that all of the Branch passages really form the background to Matthew 2:23. And we are going to be looking at them this morning.

Now let me clarify that while these passages say that Jesus would have the title of Netzer, it was referring to the title of a person, not the title of a town. In fact, if it had been the name for a town in Isaiah 11:1, the Pharisees probably would not have used that as a title of derision and scorn for Jesus because they would have recognized that the Messiah would come from Nazareth. It appears that Nazareth did not even exist when Isaiah wrote that passage.

And the fact that the Pharisees felt comfortable calling Jesus a Nazarene shows that God has a sense of humor. How is God going to orchestrate getting the very people who would reject Jesus as Messiah to call Jesus by a Messianic title that shows their disrespect? The Pharisees never consciously called Jesus by any Messianic title. In fact, they got mad every time Jesus took one of those titles to Himself.

When He called Himself the "I AM," the Jews were ready to stone Him. When He called Himself the "chief corner stone," they were offended. It was clear that that was a Messianic title. When He called Himself the "Son of God," they called it blasphemy. When He said that He was "the Son of Man coming on the clouds" (a reference to Daniel 7), they called that blasphemy because they knew that this was a title of the Messiah. In John 10 they refused to acknowledge that He was "the good Shepherd" prophesied by Ezekiel to reform the shepherding of Israel (which desperately needed reforming), and at the end of that chapter they sought to stone Him.

So how does God get the Pharisees to call Jesus the “branch or sprout” without realizing they were calling Him the Messiah? Well, God marvelously did it by having Jesus live in a city whose name meant “branch or sprout.” Everyone in that city was called a Branchite or a Nazarene.

But the plot gets even better. Every Old Testament prophet that called the Messiah a branch, whether they used the word Netzer or Tsemach, consistently portrayed this branch as being despised and rejected. And so there is a double play on this term. It’s a Messianic title, but it is also a title that the prophets predicted would be despised by the leaders of His generation.

You couldn’t get more disrespect in Israel than to be a citizen of Nazareth. Interestingly, just like Sodom became a synonym for homosexuality and to Corinthianize meant to fornicate because of how much immorality there was in the city of Corinth, the NIV study Bible points out, the term “Nazarene was virtually a synonym for despised.” That’s why Nathaniel in John 1 says, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" The Greek indicates that he doubted it. One way to ensure that Jesus would be called the Branch, and to be despised, and to be rejected (exactly as prophesied) was to make sure that he grew up in Nazareth.

So Matthew shows us the marvelous way that God got the Jews of that day (and for that matter, even to this day) to call Jesus and Christians Natzri (or Nazarenes). You can read about the name Natzri in the Talmud and other Jewish literature. Christians are called Nazarenes in the Jewish Talmud.

Here is how Wilbur Pickering translates this verse: "And upon arriving he settled in a city called Nasareth (Branch-town], so that what was spoken through the prophets should be fulfilled, that He would be called a Natsorean [Branch-man].”⁹ And before we apply this term "Nazarene" let's look at some of the background "branch" or "Nazarene" passages.

Isaiah 11

I'm going to have you go ahead and turn to Isaiah 11 because we are going to spend a fair bit of time on this passage. Even though I'm going to bounce back and forth, keep your Bibles open here. This is the main prophecy that we will look at. Isaiah 11, beginning at verse 1.

Is. 11:1 There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse, And a Branch shall grow out of his roots. 2 The Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon Him, The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, The Spirit of counsel and might, The Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD.

Verse 1 refers to the stump of Israel. Chapter 6 has already identified this stump as being the remnant of Israel that would return from Babylon. The tree of Israel had been cut down, but Isaiah says that the stump represents the remnant of Israel and that Israel hasn’t been completely forsaken. There would be new life that would come out of the stump, representing the remnant. So that was in chapter 6.

Well now, once again using this image of a stump with shoots growing out of it, he says in verse 1. "There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse…" Of all the parts and branches of this stump that he focuses on, the prophet says that the Messiah would be a shoot coming out of the part of the stump representing Jesse. Now, when Isaiah wrote this, Jesse has been dead for hundreds of years. Jesse was the father of David, right? So this prophecy could refer to the fact that Jesus would be from the genetic line of Jesse and David.

But there is more to it than that. Geographically that is a reference to Bethlehem. Seven times in the Old Testament Jesse is either called “Jesse of Bethlehem” or “Jesse was from Bethlehem.” And commentaries point out that Jesse and Bethlehem are virtually synonyms. Jesse is a name for Bethlehem. That was David’s home town and that was his father Jesse's home town. If Jesus was to come out of the part of the stump of Israel (geographically) pertaining to Jesse, then God had to orchestrate some way of getting Mary and Joseph to leave their town of Nazareth and go to Bethlehem to be born. He had to be a Nazarene (or a Branch) born in Bethlehem, but then Jesus has to go all the way from Bethlehem back to Nazareth (with a detour along the way).

And the detour is a prophecy that I won't take the time read this moring, but it prophesies that the Messiah would come out of Egypt before He goes to Nazareth. So it is a complicated plot that God is weaving.

But how does He get to be born in Bethlehem? Before Jesus was born (while He was still in Mary's womb) His parents were all the way on the other side of the nation. And of course, Luke tells us that this was why Caesar Augustus made the unreasonable demand that people would have to be registered in the town of their ancestry. This was an incredibly disruptive decree, with migrations of people all over the empire back to their home towns. Some of those towns became way overcrowded during this registration. But God orchestrated it because Jesus had to be born in the town of His ancestry: Bethlehem; the town of Jesse. And He ensured that the Roman empire would document that fact. He ensured that everything would get documented.

And the census had to come at just the right time for Mary to give birth in what Micah refers to as Bethlehem, least among the thousands of Judah - emphasis again on least and humiliation. But the bottom line of that first phrase is that He had to be a Branch (a Nazarene in the Hebrew), and yet spring up first of all in the region of Jesse (Bethlehem).

But verse 1 of Isaiah 11 goes on to say that "a Branch shall grow out of his roots." Not only will he be from a small spot, Bethlehem, but He Himself will be a small fry: a netzer, a twig, a shoot, a branch.

In Zechariah 6:12 it calls Jesus "the Man whose name is Branch." But in order for this to happen, God has to orchestrate some events. God gets Jesus out of Bethlehem through the persecution of Herod who makes the family flee to Egypt, and when Joseph and Mary want to return from Egypt to Bethlehem, he makes sure that they can't. He makes sure that they providentially have to go the other direction to Nazareth of Galilee. So they settled in a place where Christ could earn the nickname of "Nazarene." If this despised branch had been allowed to stay in Bethlehem you can bet that Christ’s enemies would never have called him a Branch. We’ll come back to this passage, but let’s first take a quick look at some other branch passages. Let’s start with Isaiah 53:2, and then I'll come back to Isaiah 11.

Isaiah 53

The Weakness Of This Plant

Isaiah 53:2 says,

For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men….

There are just two points that I want to highlight here: First, this verse says that Christ was a tender plant. The literal Hebrew for that word is to suckle or nurse. It is mostly used of babies nursing. So weirdly, it is here used of a little branch that is nursing. The emphasis was on how small, dependent and weak Christ was in the incarnation. Why does God have Christ come as a baby? It was to identify with us in all that we go through. He identified with babies in the womb, in birth, and in the suckling stage. He knew what it meant to learn walk, and talk, and to grow up. True, He never ceased to be God. As God He ruled the world while His humanity was in the cradle. In fact, I like to say that at the very time that Mary was cuddling baby Jesus in her arms, He (as God) was holding Mary in His arms. But despite the fact that He was the omnipotent God who continued to uphold all things by the word of His power, He did not use His divinity to take away the weakness, dependence and tenderness of His humanity.

For example, the Gospels tell us that He hungered and thirsted. He experienced pain. And this whole chapter of Isaiah 53 goes on to describe the life and crucifixion of Jesus. It vividly describes how tender and vulnerable Christ really was. The Gospels tell us that after fasting for forty days that He was so weak and He had to be physically strengthened by angels. In other words, the incarnation was not an illusion. It was real. He staggered under the load of the cross because He had limited strength in His human body. He knew what it meant to be weak and to suffer pain and can minister to those who have such weakness. Christ was a tender plant. And this chapter is a long catalog of the various ways in which that weakness was seen. It was a true incarnation.

The Miraculous Growth of This Plant

But back to Isaiah 11, let's look at the miraculous growth of this tender twig. It says, "For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground." This particular root and twig did not grow because there is luscious soil and moisture in which to thrive. Instead, there is desert. The Hebrew word for dry means drought or parched. It is something growing in the desert. Now even the desert can grow when there is rain. But this passage says that it is growing even though there was no rain. Notice that it says the root grows "out of dry ground." It does not get its life from the environment around it. So it is a picture of something unnatural happening. Against all nature, a tender plant grows where no plant could grow. It is a hostile environment, and this chapter shows the hostility of the world against Christ.

Like that tender branch out of dry ground, Jesus received no support from His hostile surroundings. He received it from God and thus verse 2 says, "For He shall grow up before Him…" - in other words, before God. We will be applying this to ourselves later, but it is important to realize that Jesus grew where no plant could grow. The glory of Israel had long since vanished. And among Jews, Galileans were disdained. To be a Galilean was dry ground. The Pharisees denied that any teacher could come out of Galilee. And within Galilee, Nazareth was the off-scouring of the nation. So bad was Nazareth’s reputation that even Nathaniel - in whom was no guile (or no deceitfulness) could say, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” He was not exaggerating when he expressed his doubt. Nazareth was dry, barren ground. Who would have expected anything good to come from Nazareth? It’s not the way we would have done it.

And where this passage indicates that the plant will supernaturally grow without the aid of its environment, and where verse 12 indicates that He will have the victory despite appearing to be weak, the other branch passages show the awesome growth of the branch. And I am going to quickly give a survey of the other passages in your outline.

Zechariah 6:12-13

Zezhariah 6:12-13 says,

Then speak to him, saying, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, saying: ‘Behold, the Man whose name is the Branch! From His place He shall branch out. And He shall build the temple of the LORD; yes, He shall build the temple of the LORD. He shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule on His throne; So He shall be a priest on His throne, and the counsel of peace shall be between them both.

Though this man named Branch starts small, He will branch out (or grow) until His glory fills the earth.

Jeremiah 23:5

The next passage is Jeremiah 23:5. It says this:

‘Behold, the days are coming,’ says the LORD, ‘that I will raise to David a Branch of righteousness; a King shall reign and prosper, and execute judgment and righteousness in the earth. In His days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell safely; now this is His name by which He will be called: THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.

Again, this branch (or despised Nazarene) will be caused to prosper.

Jeremiah 33:15-16

The next passage in your outline is Jeremiah 33:15-16. It says this:

Jer. 33:15 “In those days and at that time I will cause to grow up to David A Branch of righteousness; He shall execute judgment and righteousness in the earth. 16 In those days Judah will be saved, And Jerusalem will dwell safely. And this is the name by which she will be called: THE Lord OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.’

That passage is saying that the very nation and city that was executed by Jesus in AD 70 will eventually be saved and dwell safely. It's a miraculous reversal that the Branch will eventually cause to happen. You might think, "It is impossible for hostile Israel to be converted." No, no, no, no. God prophesied that a nation called Israel will eventually be 100% converted.

Isaiah 11 again

Well, let’s turn back to Isaiah 11 again and let's see how this unlikely Nazarene from Bethlehem would turn the world upside down. Isaiah 11. I’m not going to read the verses. If you just scan your eyes over the verses in Isaiah 11, you will see what I am saying. Verse 1 talks about the Netzer branch. Verse 2 speaks of what empowered Him in His ministry: the Holy Spirit. Verses 3-5 speak of His rule in the midst of His enemies, and His overcoming of those enemies. Verses 6-9 speak of the lion lying down with the lamb. Verses 10-16 speak of the world wide submission to the Gospel. So there is a gradual growth of the kingdom from the first century to the end of history.

In other words, the wilderness doesn’t stay a wilderness forever; Christ doesn’t stay a tender shoot forever. He becomes the dominant force in the world. He is destined to turn desert into paradise. I love the title of David Chilton's book, Paradise Restored. He’s got his problems, but that book has a number of useful things.

In any case, where the word Nazarene was used as a title of derision, it has become a title of honor for us. Where Jews still use the title Netzri or little branch as a title of contempt for Christians, it will one day be a name that the Jewish nation will gladly bear (at least on my Postmillennial understanding of eschatology).

So to sum up the meaning of Matthew 2:23, Matthew is not making a stretch when he says that Jesus needed to move to Nazareth for the prophecies (plural) to be fulfilled that Jesus would be called Netzer - as a title of contempt. Again, let me give you Wilbur Pickering's much more accurate translation. "And upon arriving he settled in a city called Nazareth [Branch-town], so that what was spoken through the prophets should be fulfilled, that He would be called a Natsorean [Branch-man].”

Application For Today

We can trust God's Word

What applications can we draw from these Branch passages? First, we can trust the Bible. I think that’s the most obvious application. It is so easy for unbelieving critics to criticize the Bible out of ignorance. You now know how to answer those objections. But you know what? - even if I didn't know the explanation, I have learned long ago to take God at His Word without ever questioning Him. It is the critics who will always be proved wrong and God Who will always have the last laugh. So I think this little passage illustrates why we should trust the Bible completely in everything that it says, and to ignore so-called scholars who say that this was a mistake.

We can trust God's providence

Second, we can trust His providence. Caesar Augustus mandated one of the most unusual and most inconvenient movements of people ever. Even one year before Christ was born, if anyone had predicted that Caesar would make a decree like this (that everyone had to travel to his town of origin) people would have laughed at you and said that no emperor would ever be that crazy. This mandate must have been an incredible pain in the neck. His advisors probably recommended that he not do it. But God's prophecies had to be fulfilled, and somehow God got Caesar Augustus to make this insane decree.

When you face similar insanity from our current administration, or you face inconveniences that the civil government has imposed upon you (even if it means being thrown in jail), do you trust God's providence? How many believers in the first century might have been tempted to wonder "Where is God in all of this inconvenience? Lord, why are you absent?" But He wasn’t absent; He was right there all along, orchestrating it all perfectly.

And we can trust His providence today. Are their huge obstacles to achieving the things God has placed upon our heart? Yes there are. But God is in the business of moving heaven and earth to accomplish His purposes. It brings great glory to His name. Don't ever be troubled by the Caesars of this world. They are pawns in His hand. Don’t look at all the negative things that stand in the way. There were enormous numbers of negative things standing in the way of prophecy being fulfilled, and yet it was fulfilled to a “t.” And prophecy always will be fulfilled to a "t." Trust God's providence.

The growth of Christ's kingdom is not dependent on moist nourishing soil

Third, the growth of Christ’s kingdom is not dependent on moist nourishing soil. It’s not dependent upon wonderful circumstances. It is not dependent upon getting the right president elected. It's not dependent upon the mainsteam media. It's not dependent upon money, politics, celebrities, fame, or notoriety. In fact, most of the great movements of Christianity down through history have received no cooperation or help from the world whatsoever. They were resisted by the world, and yet the unlikely sickly-looking plant of Christianity has continued to grow all over the world. It’s done so in the past and it will continue to do so. Actually, even right now it is doing so in most third-world countries. It's like God is by-passing the powerful and prideful West and is growing His kingdom elsewhere. I think it is because God delights in exalting the lowly - the Nazarenes. God loves to do this. And there are more Christians worldwide today than at any other time in history. Postmillennialism takes this point seriously. Amillennialism and Premillennialism does not. Both of those eschatologies look at the dry desert around them and think that these propheces either can't be taken literally or can only be fulfilled in the future. They allow the opposition of the desert to kill their faith in God's promises. But true Nazarenes have the faith to expect great things from God and to attempt great things for God.

We need to stop being pessimistic about the dry ground out there and begin remembering that Christ is an expert at growing things out of dry ground. He is a God of miracles.

This dry ground may even be your marriage. It may seem hopeless to get any green plant to flourish in the dry ground. But remember that Christ can cause a dry and dusty marriage to blossom as a rose by His grace when we are willing to be servant-Nazarenes with each other by His grace. Do you have faith to claim this promise that God can work through your weakness your attempts to love the unlovable, and turn your desert into a mini-paradise. A good marriage is not dependent on circumstances. It is dependent upon the triumph of Christ’s grace in our own lives. The question is, "Are we willing to have Him work through us, or are we more like the Pharisees - thinking that without good circumstances it can't work?"

The dry ground may be the culture in America, or the State. Can Christ cause things to grow in Washington DC - one of the most corrupt cities in America? Yes He can. And in fact, He is doing so through at least eight organizations that I know of. The Netzer passage in Isaiah 11 specifically guarantees that He will bring justice and equity in the governments of this world in His own timing. He can do it with their cooperation or without their cooperation. But the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of Christ. Amen?

Jesus identified with us in our weakness

The fourth encouragement is that these passages show that Jesus identified with us in our weakness. He came as one who was weak. You can go to Him with your weaknesses and your difficulties and your illnesses and know that He cares. By His stripes we are healed.

Jesus identified with us in our shame

Fifth, Jesus identified with our shame. He knew what it meant to be despised by unbelievers. And Hebrews 13 tells us that even when all men are ashamed of us and despise us, we still need to be willing to follow Jesus. If we are too ashamed to be identified with Him, He will be ashamed of us. We need to be willing to be despised by all as Nazarenes. Are you willing to be despised? Hebrews 13 says that Jesus

...suffered outside the gate. Therefore let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach.

And when we identify ourselves as Nazarenes, willing to be despised, Jesus delights to exalt us. He continues to be a friend of publicans and sinners willing to cleanse them from their sins.

One of the purposes of the incarnation was to cause the stump which was cut down to grow into a great and glorious tree as He builds His church and eventually turns desert into the garden of Eden. With Lorraine Boettner, R. J. Rushdoony, Martin Selbrede, BB Warfield, Meyer, and many older Postmillennialists, I believe that this will eventually be a completely converted world. And by the way, it’s not our job to grow the church. It’s our job to bring His message to dry ground and watch Him grow the church. Our job is to be Christ’s ambassador’s to this world, and to watch Him miraculously grow His kingdom. I'm watching with pleasure God bringing together a coalition of pastors to support Abolish Abortion Nebraska. It's growing out of dry ground. Praise God!

May we have faith in the Nazarene – the Branch of Righteousness who is destined to triumph. And may we have the humility to be His fellow-Nazarenes. Amen.