March 23, 2014 - The Great Commission - A Study of Matthew – Rebuking and Authority

March 23, 2014 - The Great Commission - A Study of Matthew – Rebuking and Authority

Matthew 28 - New International Version (NIV) – The Great Commission

^“18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Rebuking and Authority

Matthew 8:23-27 - New International Version (NIV)

^23 “Then he got into the boat and his disciples followed him. ²⁴ Suddenly a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. ²⁵ The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!”

²⁶ He replied, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” Then he got up and rebuked the                 winds and the waves, and it was completely calm.

²⁷ The men were amazed and asked, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the                     waves obey him!”

Where did Jesus go (verse 23)?

Who followed Him (verse 23)?

What caused waves to sweep over the boat (verse 24)?

Why did Jesus not do anything (verse 24)?

In your opinion, why did the disciples combine “Lord, save us”, a request of faith, with “We’re going to drown”, a statement without hope (verse 25)?

In your opinion, why did Jesus “rebuke” (a word of discipline) the winds and the waves (verse 26)?

What did the winds and the waves do after the rebuke (verse 26)?

How did the disciples react to the new reality (verse 27)?

In your opinion, why did they ask “What kind of man is this” (verse 27)?

In your opinion, what does this passage from Matthew 8:23-27 show us about the Great Commission?

Isaiah 37 - New International Version (NIV)

“When King Hezekiah heard this, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and went into the temple of the Lord. ² He sent Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the secretary, and the leading priests, all wearing sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz. ³ They told him, “This is what Hezekiah says: This day is a day of distress and rebuke and disgrace, as when children come to the moment of birth and there is no strength to deliver them. ⁴ It may be that the Lord your God will hear the words of the field commander, whom his master, the king of Assyria, has sent to ridicule the living God, and that he will rebuke him for the words the Lord your God has heard. Therefore pray for the remnant that still survives.”

⁵ When King Hezekiah’s officials came to Isaiah, ⁶ Isaiah said to them, “Tell your master, ‘This is what the Lord says: Do not be afraid of what you have heard—those words with which the underlings of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. ⁷ Listen! When he hears a certain report, I will make him want to return to his own country, and there I will have him cut down with the sword.’”

⁸ When the field commander heard that the king of Assyria had left Lachish, he withdrew and             found the king fighting against Libnah.

⁹ Now Sennacherib received a report that Tirhakah, the king of Cush, was marching out to fight against him. When he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah with this word: ¹⁰ “Say to Hezekiah king of Judah: Do not let the god you depend on deceive you when he says, ‘Jerusalem will not be given into the hands of the king of Assyria.’ ¹¹ Surely you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the countries, destroying them completely. And will you be delivered? ¹² Did the gods of the nations that were destroyed by my predecessors deliver them—the gods of Gozan, Harran, Rezeph and the people of Eden who were in Tel Assar? ¹³ Where is the king of Hamath or the king of Arpad? Where are the kings of Lair, Sepharvaim, Hena and Ivvah?”

¹⁴ Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it. Then he went up to the temple of the Lord and spread it out before the Lord. ¹⁵ And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord: ¹⁶ “Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. ¹⁷ Give ear, Lord, and hear; open your eyes, Lord, and see; listen to all the words Sennacherib has sent to ridicule the living God.

¹⁸ “It is true, Lord, that the Assyrian kings have laid waste all these peoples and their lands. ¹⁹ They have thrown their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods but only wood and stone, fashioned by human hands. ²⁰ Now, Lord our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, Lord, are the only God.”

²¹ Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent a message to Hezekiah: “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Because you have prayed to me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria, ²² this is the word the Lord has spoken against him:

“Virgin Daughter Zion
    despises and mocks you.
Daughter Jerusalem
    tosses her head as you flee.
²³ Who is it you have ridiculed and blasphemed?
    Against whom have you raised your voice
and lifted your eyes in pride?
    Against the Holy One of Israel!
²⁴ By your messengers
    you have ridiculed the Lord.
And you have said,
    ‘With my many chariots
I have ascended the heights of the mountains,
    the utmost heights of Lebanon.
I have cut down its tallest cedars,
    the choicest of its junipers.
I have reached its remotest heights,
    the finest of its forests.
²⁵ I have dug wells in foreign lands
    and drunk the water there.
With the soles of my feet
    I have dried up all the streams of Egypt.’

²⁶ “Have you not heard?
    Long ago I ordained it.
In days of old I planned it;
    now I have brought it to pass,
that you have turned fortified cities
    into piles of stone.
²⁷ Their people, drained of power,
    are dismayed and put to shame.
They are like plants in the field,
    like tender green shoots,
like grass sprouting on the roof,
    scorched before it grows up.

²⁸ “But I know where you are
    and when you come and go
    and how you rage against me.
²⁹ Because you rage against me
    and because your insolence has reached my ears,
I will put my hook in your nose
    and my bit in your mouth,
and I will make you return
    by the way you came.

³⁰ “This will be the sign for you, Hezekiah:

“This year you will eat what grows by itself,
    and the second year what springs from that.
But in the third year sow and reap,
    plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
³¹ Once more a remnant of the kingdom of Judah
    will take root below and bear fruit above.
³² For out of Jerusalem will come a remnant,
    and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors.
The zeal of the Lord Almighty
    will accomplish this.

³³ “Therefore this is what the Lord says concerning the king of Assyria:

“He will not enter this city
    or shoot an arrow here.
He will not come before it with shield
    or build a siege ramp against it.
³⁴ By the way that he came he will return;
    he will not enter this city,”
declares the Lord.
³⁵ “I will defend this city and save it,
    for my sake and for the sake of David my servant!”

³⁶ Then the angel of the Lord went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning—there were all the dead bodies! ³⁷ So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there.

³⁸ One day, while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisrok, his sons Adrammelek and Sharezer killed him with the sword, and they escaped to the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son succeeded him as king.”

Who tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and went into the temple (verse 1)?

Who did Eliakim, Shebna and the leading priests go to see (verse 2)?

What kind of day did Hezekiah say it was (verse 3)?

In your opinion, why is it a day “as when children come to the moment of birth and there is no strength to deliver them” (verse 3)?

What might cause the living God to rebuke the field commander of Assyria (verse 4)?

Who is supposed to be prayed for (verse 4)?

What was the Lord’s message to Hezekiah through Isaiah (verse 6)?

What did Hezekiah take to the temple and spread out before the Lord (verse 14)?

In your opinion, how is the plea of the disciples in Matthew 8:25 “Lord, save us” similar to Hezekiah’s prayer in Isaiah 37:15-20?

In your opinion, how is Jesus response in Matthew 8:26 similar to God’s response in Isaiah 37:21-38?

In your opinion, what can we learn today from these two incidents?

In your opinion, what does this passage from Isaiah and the passage from Matthew 8:23-27 teach us about the ability of God to rebuke situations in the world today?

In your opinion, what does this passage from Isaiah show us about the Great Commission?

Jude 1:3-22 - New International Version (NIV)

³ Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people. ⁴ For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.

⁵ Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord at one time delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe. ⁶ And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day. ⁷ In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.

⁸ In the very same way, on the strength of their dreams these ungodly people pollute their own bodies, reject authority and heap abuse on celestial beings. ⁹ But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not himself dare to condemn him for slander but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” ¹⁰ Yet these people slander whatever they do not understand, and the very things they do understand by instinct—as irrational animals do—will destroy them.

¹¹ Woe to them! They have taken the way of Cain; they have rushed for profit into Balaam’s              error; they have been destroyed in Korah’s rebellion.

¹² These people are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without the slightest qualm—shepherds who feed only themselves. They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted—twice dead. ¹³ They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever.

¹⁴ Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about them: “See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones ¹⁵ to judge everyone, and to convict all of them of all the ungodly acts they have committed in their ungodliness, and of all the defiant words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” ¹⁶ These people are grumblers and faultfinders; they follow their own evil desires; they boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage.

¹⁷ But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. ¹⁸ They said to you, “In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.” ¹⁹ These are the people who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.

²⁰ But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, ²¹ keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.

²² Be merciful to those who doubt; ²³ save others by snatching them from the fire; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.

What was Jude eager to write about (verse 3)?

What was Jude compelled to write and urge (verse 3)?

Who has slipped in (verse 4)?

In your opinion, how do they “pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ” (verse 4)?

What happened to the people who were delivered from Egypt but who did not believe (verse 5)?

What happened to angels who “abandoned the proper dwelling” (verse 6)?

Who gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion and serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire (verse 7)?

In your opinion, why does Jude say “on the strength of their dreams” these ungodly people pollute their own bodies, reject authority and heap abuse on celestial beings (verse 8)?

Who said “The Lord rebuke you” when disputing with the devil for the body of Moses (verse 9)?

In your opinion, why would “the very things they do understand by instinct” destroy the people who dream and slander (verse 10)?

In your opinion, what is meant by “shepherds who feed only themselves”, “clouds without rain”, “autumn trees without fruit”, “wild waves of the sea”, and “wandering stars” (verses 12 & 13)?

What is the Lord and thousands upon thousands of his holy ones coming to do (verses 14 & 15)?

Who foretold, “In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires” (verses 17 & 18)?

How does Jude indicate that we should respond to those scoffers (verses 20-23)?

What is to be hated (verse 23)?

In your opinion, what does this passage from Jude teach us about responding to people who scoff and take without giving?

In your opinion, how do Jude’s comments here expand on Matthew 8:23-27?

In your opinion, what does this passage from Jude show us about the Great Commission?

Revelation 19:11-16 – New International Version (NIV)

^11 “I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and wages war. ¹² His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. ¹³ He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. ¹⁴ The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. ¹⁵ Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.” He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. ¹⁶ On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written:

king of kings and lord of lords.”

What stands open (verse 11)?

Who is on the white horse (verse 11)?

How does He judge and wage war (verse 11)?

In your opinion, why are His eyes described as “like blazing fire” (verse 12)?

What is His robe dipped in (verse 13)?

What is His name (verse 13)?

How are “the armies of heaven” described (verse 14)?

In your opinion, why is a sharp sword coming out of His mouth (verse 15)?

What does He tread (verse 15)?

What name is written on His robe and His thigh (verses 16)?

In your opinion, what can this passage from Revelation teach us about Jude 1:9, where the archangel Michael in his battle with the devil said “The Lord rebuke you”?

In your opinion, what does this passage from Revelation teach us about the Son of Man rebuking the winds and the waves and having authority over them in Matthew 8:23-27?

In your opinion, what does this passage from Revelation show us about the Great Commission?

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