Unity of OT/NT and an Exhortation

Introduction: The Third Course of the Sermon Series

0:02 The following sermon was delivered on Sunday evening, May 24th, 1998, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey.

0:13 Now, believing that God has heard the prayer that together we have offered in His presence, that He would attend the preacher and the hearer, I'm not going to ask that we pray again, though there would certainly be no sin in so doing. But as we come to the ministry of the Word tonight, in a very real sense, our study in the Scriptures is the final course of a three-course meal. The food for this meal has been taken from the marketplace of 1 Peter 1, verses 10-12, verses in which Peter, magnifying the great salvation which God has given to His people, considers, Concerning that salvation, writes, Concerning which salvation the prophets sought and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you, searching what time or manner of time the Spirit of Christ, who was in them, did point unto, when testifying beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow them, to whom it was revealed that not unto themselves, but unto you, did they say, They minister these things, which now have been announced unto you through them that preach the gospel unto you

1:37 by the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven, which things angels desire to look into. Now I say, with the meal comprised of the stuff gathered in the marketplace of these three verses, in our first course I sought to expound these verses, that is, to open up the minds, the mind of God as contained in them, and, acknowledging my indebtedness to the commentator, Edmund Hebert, I sought to open up that passage under the three heads of salvation magnified by prophetic searching, salvation magnified by gospel preaching, and salvation magnified by angelic inquiring. Then in our second course, that was the ministry this morning, we went back to the verses and sought to underscore two categories of truth contained in them. First of all, the affirmations of several basic Christian doctrines contained in these verses, and we saw Peter's affirmation of the doctrine of special revelation, the doctrine of the preexistence and deity of our

2:53 Lord Jesus Christ, and the doctrine of the definitive outpouring of the Spirit at the Pentecost. And then the second category of truth that we saw in the verses was what I call the introduction to a basic theme of genuine Christian experience. When Peter writes that the Spirit dwelling in the prophets, working in the prophets, testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow them, he is introducing this major motif, not only within his epistle, but in the New Testament doctrine of the Christian life. And that motif is that suffering precedes glory, not only in the procurement of our salvation in the life history of the Lord Jesus, but in the application of that salvation to every true believer in union with Christ. His lot is suffering now and glory to come. And as surely as suffering precedes glory, glory will consummate and crown suffering in union with Christ. Now we come to the third course, and in our third course, in this meal composed of the stuff of verses 10 through 12, I want you to

Articulation of the Central Truths of the Gospel

4:17 note with me three other categories of truth in our time together this evening. In addition to the affirmation of several basic doctrines of the Christian faith and this introduction of a basic reality of Christian experience, we have in the third place, in these verses, the articulation of the central truths of the gospel. The articulation of the central truths of the gospel. Now according to Romans 1 and verse 16, the gospel is the only divinely ordained means by which God affects the salvation of the world. And that is the only divine means by which God affects the salvation of the world.

4:59 the salvation of hell-deserving sinners. Most of us are familiar with Romans 1.16. The Apostle writes, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ or the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes.

5:18 It is the power of God unto salvation. Since this is so, few questions are of greater importance than this question, what truths has God revealed as foundational and indispensable to this saving gospel? If the gospel is the divinely ordained instrument of man's salvation, then surely few questions are of greater importance than is this question, what are the truths without which there is no saving gospel? Well, if you look at our passage in verse 12, we read that, to these prophets it was revealed that not unto themselves but unto you did they minister these things which now, that is, these things revealed to them which now have been announced unto you through them, and then in our English versions, preached the gospel. This is a translation of one Greek word. These people preached the gospel unto you. Now, in preaching the gospel, Peter says, they trafficked in these things.

6:36 What things? The things that they were searching into. The things which the prophets spoke about, but which they did not fully understand. And those things are identified in verse 11 as the sufferings of Christ and the glories which should follow them.

6:59 Now, do you see that connection between the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow and the things that comprise the gospel preaching to which these scattered believers in Asia Minor were exposed? To these very prophets who received revelatory data about the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow, things they couldn't fit together identifying precisely the person or the times in which they would be fulfilled. But what God did reveal to them was that these things would not come to pass in their days, but in gospel days. These things, he says, have now been announced unto you through those who preached the gospel. So, preaching the gospel is an announcing of these things. And the these things are the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow. And so, in underscoring that this was the heart of gospel preaching, the Spirit of God has given to us in these verses, what I am calling an articulation of the central truths of the gospel.

8:24 It is the things which focus upon the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow them. And it is right that this should be so because this is precisely what Jesus said was to comprise the very heart of gospel preaching. Turn, please, to Luke chapter 24.

8:49 In Luke chapter 24, and remember, Peter was among those to whom the Lord spoke. We read in Luke 24, in verse 44, in this post, resurrection ministry of the Lord Jesus to his own. He said unto them, These are the words which I spoke unto you while I was yet with you, that all things must needs be fulfilled which are written in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms concerning me. Then opened he their mind that they might understand the scriptures.

9:25 And he said unto them, Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and rise again from the dead the third day. That's part of the glories that follow his suffering, the glory of his resurrection. And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name, that is, in the light of the revelation of God's character and works and ways in the person and work of Jesus Christ, particularly his death and resurrection, repentance and remission of sins preached in his name unto all the nations beginning from Jerusalem. Now notice, you are witnesses of these things. These things. And as our Lord tells them that a message is to be preached in his name among all the nations beginning from Jerusalem, it is clear that that message is to focus upon the realities that cluster around the death and the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, that is, his sufferings and the glories to follow. In keeping with that Christ-given commission, it should not surprise us to see the Apostle Paul bearing his witness to these realities

10:53 when in 1 Corinthians 2, reviewing his gospel ministry among the Corinthians, a place where he had preached and taught for some 18 months. He writes in 1 Corinthians 2, 1, And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determine not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and him as crucified. And then many of you are familiar with a parallel passage in chapter 15, where his great concern is to defend the doctrine of bodily resurrection, and he says at the very heart of the gospel that I preached are these simple truths. Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. He was buried, was raised again from the dead on the third day according to the scriptures. Now, again, as I did this morning, you may ask, why pause to understand the

12:27 and to bring them to the consummate glories of the presence of God. And to the face of Jesus Christ. This is why the apostle Paul, the model of tremendous pastoral compassion, evangelistic passion and patience and long-suffering, willing to become like a Jew to win the Jews, willing to become as a Gentile to win the Gentiles. Yet when anyone would tamper with the content of the gospel, one almost wonders if his quill melted when he wrote Galatians, Galatians chapter 1, if he wrote it with his own hand.

13:06 For he says, I say unto you, though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be, and he uses the word anathema, accursed of God. And then as though someone might say, well, Paul, you were carried away in a bit of rhetorical passion, were you not? He says, again I say to you, he repeats the same words and says, though we, or an angel from heaven, preach unto you any other gospel, let him be accursed. You see, the maintenance of the purity of the gospel is not a matter of taste and emphasis, it's a matter of life and death.

13:47 And it's the duty of every child of God to be willing to contend earnestly for the maintenance of its purity. Jude and verse 3, Jude says, I was about to write a positive pastoral opinion and I was constrained to write to you, or I desired to write to you along these lines, but he said, I was constrained to write to you and to exhort you to earnestly contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. The maintenance of gospel purity is a matter of life and death. The responsibility to maintain gospel purity rests upon every single individual believer and nothing is a more accurate indicator of the purity of the gospel. Of the purity of our gospel than the degree to which the significance of the sufferings of Christ and the following glories are maintained. May I repeat that? Nothing is a more accurate indicator of the purity of our gospel than the degree to which the biblical significance of the sufferings of Christ and the following glories are maintained.

15:02 The centrality of the death of Jesus as explained by the Bible is the touchstone of gospel purity. You see, in chapter 3 in verse 18, the emphasis on Christ's suffering is very, very clear. Christ suffered for sins. Christ suffered once.

15:29 Christ suffered the righteous for the unrighteous. Christ suffered that He might bring us to God. You see, it's not just some nebulous statement, Christ died. That's the gospel.

15:43 No, no. It is Christ died for sins.

15:51 To the extent that sin is a reality to us, the gospel maintains its purity in the deepest recesses of our hearts. Christ died for sins. Christ suffered for sins once. There is a completeness, a finality in the death of Christ.

16:14 When He cried, Tetelestai, it stands accomplished. There is no addition to the sufferings of Christ with respect to satisfying the justice of Almighty God. Christ suffered for sins. Christ suffered for sins once.

16:32 Christ suffered the righteous. For the unrighteous. Here is the biblical doctrine of imputation. Our sins were imputed to Christ.

16:44 He died in the room and in the stead of the sinners who ought to have died. The grand old doctrine of our solidarity in Adam as in Adam all died. As by through one man sin entered the world, so through the one man Christ righteousness is provided. And He died for sins, He died, suffered once, He suffered righteous for unrighteous, to what end?

17:14 That He might make us happy all the time? Not primarily. That He might give us internal peace? Not primarily.

17:21 That He might bring us to God. You see the God-centeredness in the Gospel. Sin is offense against God. God's law must be satisfied.

17:33 Why? God's justice must be placated. God has sent His Son, the righteous one, for the unrighteous. God punishes His Son.

17:43 And the great end God has in view does not terminate upon the sinner, but upon God. He suffered that He might bring us to God. You see, the purity of the Gospel is bound up in these basic categories that Peter just rattles off in one sentence. And he said, But it is these things that were preached unto you.

18:07 Those things that center in the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow them. The glories that follow are His resurrection, His reception, and His donation of the Spirit as the abiding gift to the new covenant people of God. And all of the blessings that He secures by His present intercession. And that He will confer in His ultimate manifestation of glory when He comes in power in His second coming.

18:43 Dear people, this is the stuff of the Gospel. And listen carefully to what I'm about to say. Not only is the maintenance of the purity of the Gospel vital for the salvation of sinners, it is vital for the maturation of saints. The Gospel which births...

19:04 ...the Christian and births the Church, nurtures the Christian and nurtures the Church.

19:10 We never grow from the Gospel. We grow in our appreciation of the Gospel. We grow in our understanding of the demands and implications and provisions of the Gospel. But if the Gospel in its essential elements is distorted at any point, it not only becomes a stumbling block to the unconverted, it not only becomes a stumbling block to the unconverted, it not only becomes a stumbling block to the unconverted, it becomes an impediment to the growth and to the maturation of the people of God.

19:41 And so in going back over these verses, it is well for us to fix in our minds that when Peter is magnifying the great salvation that God had given to His people, and he magnifies it in terms of Gospel preaching, in so doing, we find this articulation of the... ...basic truths of the Gospel.

Demonstration of the Basic Unity of the Old and New Testaments

20:08 But then there is a fourth category of truth that I want us to note in these verses, and it is this. We have a demonstration of the basic unity of the Old and the New Testaments. A demonstration of the basic unity of the Old and the New Testaments in these verses 10 through 12. Now that unity is demonstrated in two categories.

20:33 The categories are these. They, that is the Old and the New Testament, have the same author. Both are the witness of Christ. And secondly, they have the same central theme.

20:45 Both are a witness to Christ. Now that shouldn't be so hard to remember, should it? Both are the witness of Christ. And both bear witness to Christ.

20:58 Now let's take a few minutes to unpack that from our passage. Here's a demonstration of the basic unity of the Old and the New Testaments. Here's a demonstration of the basic unity of the Old and the New Testaments. They are unified in that they have the same author.

21:11 Who was the author of the Old Testament prophetic utterances? Well, we've already seen who the author was. "...concerning which salvation the prophets sought and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come to you, searching what time or manner of time the Spirit of Christ who was in them did point to when testifying beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow them?" It was the Spirit of Christ bearing witness to the sufferings and the glories of Christ. That's very clear from the text. And we saw that in some detail in the exposition last or two Lord's Day mornings ago.

21:55 But now when we ask the question, who is the author of the New Testament Scriptures? Turn to the Gospel of John. There are passages that should be familiar to many of you who were here for Pastor Lamar's expositions of the Upper Room Discourse. When Jesus is promising that after His departure from this earth, He would send another Helper, and in sending the Helper, the Comforter, the Paraclete, He would come and the Father would come.

22:25 In John 14 and in verse 26 we read, "...but the Comforter, the Helper, even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you." Here a major dimension of the Spirit's ministry is focused upon by our Lord. He said the Spirit who comes will bring to your remembrance the things that I've spoken unto you. He will infallibly secure an operation upon their minds, and upon their utterance and their writing, that they will transmit as a permanent deposit to the people of God, the things that Christ desired His people to have to the end of the age. Not only would He bring to remembrance what He had already revealed to them, but in chapter 16 and verse 13, He says that the same Spirit will be operative

23:28 to guide them into the full compass of truth, and He will declare things that are to come. Verse 13 of chapter 16, "...However, when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He shall guide you into all the truth. For He shall not speak from Himself, but what things soever He shall hear, these shall He speak. And He shall declare unto you the things that are to come. He shall glorify Me, for He shall take of Mine, and shall declare it unto you." So you see, it is not only the Spirit of Christ in the Old Testament prophets, so moving upon their minds and upon their utterance and upon their writing, that Christ bears witness to His own sufferings and the glories to follow by His own presence through the Spirit in the Old Testament prophets. He said a similar operation will be present upon these apostles, that they will have brought to remembrance what He has already said, and the Spirit will reveal things to come, and in so doing He will take the things of Christ and convey them to them.

24:39 So there is one author of both the Old and the New Testament scriptures. Christ has always been the great prophet, revealing the mind of God to men in special revelation. He is the author of the whole, of Scripture. This is why Peter can begin his letter by saying, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ.

25:08 What is the big deal? To read a letter from an apostle of Jesus Christ? Well, Jesus Christ has commissioned His apostles, promised to them a unique degree of the Spirit's operation, that they will convey the mind and will of Christ to His people. And so there is this demonstration of the basic unity of the Old and the New Testaments, because they have the same author.

25:37 But not only do they have the same author, they are unified in that they have the same central theme. What was the theme of the prophets, not the exclusive theme, but the theme highlighted in these verses? Again, I remind you, it was the Spirit of Christ in them, pointing unto, testifying beforehand, the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow them. That central theme of the prophets, highlighted by Peter, is the theme of the person and the work of Jesus Christ.

26:21 You remember what Jesus said in John 5.39. He said, To the Jews in His day you searched the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life. These are they which testify of Me.

26:35 But you will not come to Me that you may have life. Revelation 19.10 says, The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. And from that first prophetic utterance in Genesis 3.15, God comes as an inquisitor to sinning Adam and Eve, and to the tenter himself. And He speaks to the serpent and says, I will put enmity between you and the woman. The woman had aligned herself with the devil. She had disaligned herself from God.

27:09 She had repudiated her attachment to God. She had aligned herself with the serpent. What a tragic thing. And that would have been the existence of every one of us until we all ended up in hell if God hadn't intervened.

27:23 God says, I'm going to inject enmity. There is now amity, affinity. You, Eve, have sold yourself to the devil. You, Adam, have sold yourself to the devil.

27:35 But in grace I will intervene. I will put enmity between you, the serpent, the devil, and the woman between your seed and her seed. And the one seed will bruise the heel of the other, but the other shall crush the head of the serpent. And from that prophetic utterance in Genesis 3.15, the central theme of the Old Testament is Jesus Christ, not the exclusive theme. As we were reminded in one of the lessons on principles of studying the Bible, you must not seek to find Christ where God has not put Him. But God has put Him everywhere in the Old Testament Scriptures. Not in every single text.

28:26 But Jesus Himself says, These are they which testify of Me. And we've already read in Luke 24, He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. And He showed them in every major section of the Old Testament, in the books of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms, the things concerning Himself. And here when Peter writes, magnifying new testimonies, the Old Testament salvation, to New Testament Christians living in Asia Minor with a pagan background, what is he concerned to do?

29:04 He is concerned that early in their Christian experience, they understand the basic unity of the Old Testament with this New Testament salvation that they've received by verbal witness. They are just for the first time holding some of the parchments that will become part of our New Testament. There was no New Testament in the churches there, in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, and those other Roman provinces in Asia Minor. They would have access to the Greek translation of the Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures.

29:39 And in any synagogues that may have been there, they would have access to Hebrew copies of the Old Testament. But he wants these believers to know that in the unfolding of all the glorious truths surrounding the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow, that there was a basic organic unity between the Old and the New Testament revelatory data given by God. A unity because they have the same author. A unity because they have the same central theme.

30:14 Look at one other text in the Luke's Gospel, chapter 24. Remember in dealing with those two didactics, those two rejected men on the road to Emmaus, our Lord Jesus begins to minister to them. And he says in verse 25 of Luke 24, And he said unto them, O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken, was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things, and to enter into his glory? He asks them a question after rebuking them.

30:56 He says, O foolish men, and slow of heart, you have not believed all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary for Christ to suffer and enter into his glory? The very language of 1 Peter chapter 1. Then what did Jesus do?

31:11 And beginning from Moses, and from all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. What a Bible study that must have been on that road that day. No wonder they later reflected and said, Did not our hearts burn within us? While he did what?

31:35 Verse 32. Was not our heart burning within us while he spoke to us in the way, and he opened to us the scriptures? The author of the scriptures is expounding the scriptures, demonstrating the scriptures, the central theme of the scriptures, his own glorious person, and the necessity of his suffering and his entering into glory. What a Bible study.

32:05 What a burning heart. And how could the Lord do this? Because there was this unity between the Old Testament revelation and all that Christ had come to do and all that Christ would continue to do as he ascends to the right hand of the Father and sends the Holy Spirit. Now again, I ask, as some of you may be asking, Well, that's all nice and true, but why take the time to underscore and press the fact?

32:32 Well, again, for the simple reason that the church has been plagued throughout her history by those who would pit the Old Testament against the New and the New against the Old. In the second century there was a heretic by the name of Marcion, and he wanted to get rid of the whole Old Testament and only maintain several epistles of Paul as being regulative for New Testament believers. And that tendency has existed in the church to a greater or lesser degree in every generation of her existence. God in his wisdom has given us a whole organic unit of revelatory data, special revelation from Genesis to the book of the Revelation, and we need the whole of the Bible to make us whole Christians. All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, in order that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly furnished unto every good work. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. We need a whole Bible to make us whole Christians.

33:43 One commentator very quaintly expressed it this way, and you kids perhaps can think of this in your own imagination. He said, half of a sunbeam, because only the rays that warm your face are relevant to you. Can you see a little kid out tomorrow, if it's a nice sunny day, running around with scissors, snapping the scissors, and you say, what are you doing? He said, well, I'm trying to cut off the sunbeam.

34:06 I don't need all that beam that goes from the sun to the top of the trees. It's only the beams that touch my face that warm me. It's only the beams that light up the flowers that cheer me. I don't need the beam that stretches all the way from the sun to the top of the trees.

34:23 It's only the last few feet of the rays of the sun that I really need. You say to that child, no, you'd have no warmth of the sun upon your cheek, no light of the sun to illuminate and make glorious the sight of the flowers, unless that light stretched all the way back to the sun. Well, in the same way, the gospel comes to us in terms of those glorious truths that are on the very surface of the new covenant documents. But they are like the rays of the sun.

34:54 They start way back in Genesis 1, and we need every single element in those rays of light that come out from the God of light. And we must never cut ourselves off from our Old Testament as though it were irrelevant, inconsequential, unnecessary. Another has expressed it this way, as the fingers of the Old Testament all point forward, and as the fingers of the New Testament point backward to the life history, the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and describe the mighty operations of the Spirit of God subsequent to Pentecost, all the fingers that point forward in the Old, and all the fingers that point backward from the New, all point to one central personage and to one central theme, God's glorious work in the person of His own dear Son. And as I was reflecting upon it, trying again to think of illustrations that will make it stick, I thought of the rising of the sun. When I'm up early enough to see the sun just break over the eastern horizon, it has nowhere near the blinding force of the sun at its meridian at noonday. But it's the same sun, and the sun that breaks over that eastern horizon, and sends forth its relatively gentle rays,

36:20 is the same sun that at noonday, when it's just above us, strikes down upon us with burning rays that we cannot glance upon without doing harm to ourselves. But it is one and the same sun. And so it is that the rays of light begin to break over the horizon in the early chapters of Genesis. And they rise more and more through the Old Testament until when we come into the Gospels and the Epistles, the sun is at noonday.

36:48 But it's the same sun! And it's shining upon the same glorious object, even our Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, there is progression. There is what we call progressive revelation.

37:04 Types and shadows and prophecies and foretellings burst into realities and substance and clear explanation. But there is an organic life and unity between our Old and New Testaments. Peter understood it. Peter could write as he did because this was part of his visceral convictions and understanding.

Exhortation Based on the Whole Text: Prophets' Diligent Searching

37:28 And it is the mind of the Spirit of God that the people of God understand and appreciate that basic unity of the Old and the New Testaments. Well, we've seen tonight that we have an articulation of the central truths of the Gospel in this passage. We have a demonstration of the basic unity of the Old and the New Testaments. Now we come thirdly for tonight and finally, we have an exhortation based on the whole text.

37:58 An exhortation based upon the whole text. That is, verses 10 through 12. I remind you again, how does this passage begin? It begins with the prophets seeking diligently and searching diligently Remember when we expounded it?

38:18 We underscored that you have two verbs both of which have a preposition at the front of them that shows that the seeking and the searching was not ordinary seeking and searching but it was intense, diligent seeking and searching and a better translation would be concerning which salvation the prophets sought diligently and searched diligently who prophesied of the grace which had come to you and then another word for searching what time or manner of time. So the text begins with the prophets seeking, searching, inquiring and it ends with these words which things angels are continually yearning, lusting that's the word often translated lust in the New Testament epithumeo yearning, lusting, longing, longing to look into longing to have some perceptive deep insight into these great gospel mysteries. So if the text begins with prophets intensely probing their own prophecies actively and aggressively attempting to figure out precisely who and what they were writing about and it ends with angels constantly desiring to gain

39:44 insight into gospel mysteries surely there is an exhortation to all of us. I want you to consider with me these two strands of exhortation. First, the activity of the prophets is an exhortation to every child of God and secondly the activity of the angels is a rebuke to every unconverted person among us. First of all, the activity of the prophets is an exhortation to every child of God.

40:17 Think of what the text says. They had a limited understanding of the very things they spoke about particularly when they were speaking about the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow them. When Peter says they were searching diligently they were seeking diligently he focuses in verse 11 upon the object the peculiar object of their seeking and searching searching what time or what person and what manner of time the spirit of Christ who is in them did point to when testifying beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow them. They spoke of Christ's sufferings they spoke of his glories but they were not certain who will this Messiah be and in what epoch of God's activity will he actually come? In what epoch will the servant of the Lord be manifested who on the one hand Isaiah says shall be exalted and very high and yet his visage marred more than any man and more than the sons of man. Who is this person? When in what circumstances will he appear?

41:31 And they were not satisfied to be conscious that they were the recipients of that unique ministry of the spirit of Christ enabling them to speak beforehand of his sufferings in his glory when they had spoken and then written they didn't sit back and say well I've discharged my obligation to my gracious covenant God Jehovah I don't have a clue what I wrote about but I know I wrote under the inspiration of the spirit what I've written will stand it shall come to pass now let me get on to more important things that wasn't their attitude they didn't have a cavalier attitude with respect to what they had written about the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow there was a spirit of writtenness restlessness that moved them to this constant holy inquiry and surely brethren in that is there not an exhortation to us? Where do we live? We live this side of all those utterances being completed with the book of Malachi and then we pick up our New Testament and we read again and again this came to pass that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet saying this came to pass that it might be fulfilled this came to pass that the scriptures might be fulfilled this came to pass that this might be fulfilled we read it dozens of times in the New Testament as we work our way through first Peter we're going to see the profuse use of Old Testament

42:59 quotes, analogies, references, inferences drawn from the Old Testament brethren, does it not constitute an exhortation to us if they searched diligently who had nothing but these bare outlines of what was to come they couldn't see the full picture and yet they were not satisfied this coming suffering Messiah so captivated them that they could not take their eyes off their own writings we have the completed portrait not just a dot picture a sketchy outline and don't see all the things clearly we have the full picture how do we treat the documents in which every fair line of our Savior's face is drawn in every fair feature of the altogether lovely one and is it not true that often our Bibles are so neglected five minutes in Spurgeon's morning and evening and we feel we've done our duty dear people every time you're tempted to neglect your Bible think of those prophets pouring over their own writings who will this Messiah be when will he come what will be the circumstances when we now have in our hands

44:27 the documents that tell us this is where this prophecy fit and this one fit and this is the fruition and this is the result and these are the privileges and it's all spread before us we have as it were a carload of gold in our backyard and so often we do nothing but look down at a handful of pebbles and never explore what God has deposited in grace at our very doorstep surely there is an exhortation that living now in this full blazing light of a completed revelatory expression of the mind of God concerning His Son we ought like the Psalmist who ever wrote Psalm 119 we're not certain of the human author but surely when he says that your words were more precious to me than thousands of gold and silver he speaks of opening his mouth wide and panting and the word of God being sweeter to him than honey and the honeycomb brethren may we be exhorted by this example of the prophets to be a people who search our Bibles bless God for our book ministry bless God for the ministry of Christian literature and generally speaking those who take their Bibles seriously take good books seriously but at the end of the day dear people if we are nothing else

45:54 let us be people in whom this book in the language of Colossians 3.16 the word of Christ dwells richly not just a surface exposure Paul says let the word of Christ dwell in you richly let it have a full and ample place in all of the chambers of the soul what did we read this morning Jesus said to these religious leaders who supposedly trafficked in their Bibles you err not knowing the scriptures dear people I have been amazed through the recent trial of how ignorant some of you are of your Bibles and I don't say that to be nasty I'm saying it gently my eyes are not popping out my voice is not raised but it has grieved me and I said Lord is that all the Bible your people have absorbed over the years that they cannot put some of these fundamental trials into basic biblical categories reflexively without even thinking for example when people have gotten all nervous when numbers have been mentioned as though numbers prove something

47:20 you can't think biblically after this many of his disciples went back and walked no more at my first defense no man stood with me all that are in Asia have forsaken me God's going to accomplish a great victory over the Midianites he says there's too many all the scaredy cats go home and when they go home God says there's still too many he's got 300 he says now that's just about the right size now I can do work and I'll do it in such a way that everybody will know I did it you see if we're thinking biblically we don't think in terms of Madison Avenue we don't think in terms of the world's statistical analysis of success we need to have our Bibles living in us dear people the word of Christ dwelling in us richly and surely if the prophets searched diligently sought diligently were continually searching that they might fit the pieces together in that incomplete period of God's revelation when the sun had broken over the eastern horizon and was coming up toward mid-morning surely with the light of midday we ought to be those who are soaking up our Bibles but then the activity of the angels with which the passage closes is an exhortation and a rebuke

Exhortation and Rebuke: Angels' Yearning vs. Unconverted Despising

48:45 to every unconverted person among us I know the moment I say unconverted it's so easy for those of you who know you're unconverted to put up all the walls but may I plead with you for just five minutes to dare to keep the walls down I think if you know nothing else you know I have good will toward you you know I don't hate you I hope you know that I love you that's why we pray and study to try to know how to reach your mind and your heart would you listen? would you dare to listen? if you're so confident your position is right why won't you open it up to examination? isn't it a sneaking acknowledgement? if you've got a sneaking suspicion that maybe your posture is not defensible so would you leave it open for just five minutes? look at how the passage ends it ends with the statement which things that is the things that form the heart of gospel preaching the things surrounding the sufferings with Christ and the glories that should follow which things angels are constantly desiring to look into now think of these holy angels

50:11 they were not part of that rebellion in heaven the angels that were cast out they are what the bible calls elect angels they have no sin they're not part of Adam's race they were not condemned in Adam as we are and as we were they have no sin to be forgiven they have no judgment to fear their safety and happiness is as secure now as it will be in the endless ages of the new heavens and the new earth and yet it says when they became aware of the realities couched in the preaching of the gospel the truths clustering around the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow they are continually desiring to look into these things now why would they want to look into them well we can only conjecture that because they are holy beings of the highest order their minds never dulled by sin tainted by sin they stand by the throne of God waiting to do God's bidding as servants to the heirs of salvation Hebrews 1 most likely in the light of Ephesians 3.10 where we read that now unto principalities and powers in the heavenly places might be made known through the church the manifold wisdom of God most likely their motive in peering into these mysteries

51:40 is that they are so taken up with the glory of God and they know that God's fullest manifestation of his glory is in the gospel all of the glory of God revealed in the creation pales into insignificance aside the glory that is revealed in an incarnate God in the awesome scene of Golgotha in the glory of the resurrection and all of the truths surrounding the gospel so most likely they have this lust to peer into gospel realities simply because their pure minds are preoccupied with the glory of God that's enough to make them constant yearning students of the stuff of gospel truth but now look at you and look at me what is our position we are not part of a race unfallen uncondemned unjudged you and I are part of a race that fell in our first father Adam we stand condemned by almighty God this God who in the day of judgment according to the scriptures will judge us according to every deed every word every word and every thought contrary to his holy law think of the sins that accompany you into this place tonight if you are unconverted think of the many lies

53:09 you told as a little boy a little girl the many times you deceived mom and dad disobeyed them inwardly cursed them when you didn't like what they asked you to do think of the times you cheated on your exams in school think of the times when you were selfish with brother and sister think of the times when you listened to that dirty joke and passed it on to someone else and your lips were stained with filth with lies with uncleanness start thinking about your sins think of your sins and think of a holy God whose eyes are purer than to look with any pleasure upon iniquity who has said that he will have a day of judgment and when he sits in court he will judge the secrets of men's hearts he will judge men by every idle word think of what it will mean to face that God think of that think of your condition compared with these angels blissfully unconcerned about sin they have no sin to be concerned about blissfully unconcerned about judgment they have nothing to fear in the day of judgment but my friend that's not you you have everything to fear there is a holy God whom you must meet in the day of judgment it is appointed unto men once to die and after this comes judgment every one of us shall give account of himself to God and now that God comes to you with these very truths that the angels are yearning to look into and he proclaims to you

54:37 that he so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life he comes to you and says to you in all of your guilt in all of your hell deservingness he says sinner I've given you the best of my heart I've given my son to die for the sin that I have done to die for the likes of you I punished him I caused my wrath to break upon him I was so fully satisfied with his payment for sin that I raised him from the dead and I've exalted him to my right hand and now on the ground of what he has done I offer to you full free pardon for all your sins you may look forward to judgment with joy knowing that the judgment day will simply vindicate the perfection of my salvation and now I ask you to lay down your arms to turn from your sin and take the free gift of life and salvation in my son now it's that truth that angels are constantly yearning to look into and penetrate and understand more fully and what do you do any of you sit in this place and not only do you not look into it but look before your spiritual eyes you put your hands over your face and say

56:06 shut up quiet I don't want I want my darkness and my friend you know what hell is it's called outer there comes a point where God says you want the darkness you'll have the darkness don't you see in what the angels are doing the rebuke to your folly don't you feel something of the wretchedness of the darkness of being a gospel despiser let me close by taking you to that scene in book two of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress you'll remember Christiana Christian's wife and her boys have gone out on pilgrimage and Mercy her friend is with her and they've entered the house of interpreter and interpreter shows them all the things that he showed to Christian when he came by the house of interpreter these things had been somewhat digested by Christiana and her company the interpreter takes them apart again and has them first into a room where was a man that could look no way but downward with a muck rake in his hand now you know what a muck rake is it's like a hoe a garden hoe but it's a wider

57:36 hoe it's not a rake with teeth like you rake up glass or grass or twigs but it's a muck rake and with it people would rake out the manure from a barn rake out straw and dirt on a hard surface that's what a muck rake was and now Bunyan has this picture of a man that could look no way but downward his head is down and his muck rake is in his hand now there in the house of interpreter Bunyan says there stood also a celestial crown in his hand so you get the picture here's the man looking only downward the muck rake is in his hand but above him is a celestial one with a crown in his hand and offered to give him that crown for his muck rake he stands above him saying man with the muck rake give up your muck rake in exchange for this crown the man did neither look up nor regard but raked to himself the straws the small sticks and the dust of the floor then said Christiana I persuade myself that I know something of the meaning

59:05 of this for this is a figure of a man of this world is it not good sir she's asking interpreter interpreter says where as you see him rather give heed to rake up straws and sticks and the dust of the floor than to what he says that calls to him from above with the celestial crown in his hand is to show that heaven is but as a fable to some and that things here are counted the only thing substantial now where as it was showed you that the man with power upon men's minds quite carry their hearts away from God then said Christiana oh deliver me from this mockery interpreter that prayer says the interpreter has lain by till it is almost rusty give me not riches is scarce the prayer of one of ten thousand straws and sticks and dust with most are the great things now looked after with that mercy and Christiana wept and said it is alas too true what is too true that straws and sticks and dust with most are the great

60:34 things now looked after oh my dear unconverted friend what are your straws and sticks and dust that you desire to look into what things the things of Christ his suffering for sinners his cry of dereliction my God my God why have you forsaken me his cry to sinners why will you die he stands above you in the gospel with a celestial crown and says it is yours and your dust and your straws all you claim to may God have mercy and cause you this night to say oh God what a fool life angels who have no sin to be pardoned angels who have no judgment of fear they eagerly look into these things I've treated them as though they were nothing I see my folly I must die

Closing Plea and Prayer

62:02 and go to judgment and only one thing can prepare me and that's the blessed truths bound up in the gospel I drop my muck rake and I take a crown from the hands of one pierced for sinners who offers himself to me and promises that him that comes to me I will take the crown one by another and we earnestly plead that this night may be a day for all who are in this world and who are in this world and who are in this world that this night some will cast away their muck rake and lay hold of the crown in Christ and we pray that for us your people the sight of those prophets pouring over the very

63:31 things they wrote would be a constant exhortation to us to love Jesus Holy Father we thank you for your word and pray that you will seal it to the profit and encouragement of your people and to the salvation of sinners this night seal that word to our hearts may not the enemy of our souls come and pluck away as the birds everlasting life may your blessing rest upon us as we leave this place as we think many gathering with loved ones and friends brothers and sisters on that holiday set apart tomorrow oh god may all the interaction reflect the power and the grace of the gospel may we be a people who reflect the likeness of our lord jesus in all of our relationships in the coming week thank you for being with us thank you for your word thank you for your spirit thank you for your dear son accept our praise and dismiss us with your blessing we ask in his name amen