Prophecy Has a Point (Part C)

You're not learning Christianity to please Mom and Dad. It's for you. You will stand before Christ.

You will not get a stunt double to stand for you at judgment. So learn what it means. The Old Testament is not a lower class of God's word, but it is in the support role of the New Testament now. It is every bit of God's word, but it is in the support role of the New Testament now. It doesn't lay out enough plan of salvation, because if it did, there'd be no need for the New Testament, but there is.

Specifically, how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Now, here's Pastor Rick in the book of Acts chapter 13 with his message called, Prophecy has a Point. And Paul then starts addressing his audience. In verse 25, he's talking about John. He's quoting John. And then, in that verse, after that verse, in verse 26, he now addresses his audience. He says, okay, that's the prophecy of the last prophet of Israel. You knew John, the baptizer, to be a prophet. Well, then you're going to have to do something with what John was preaching, won't you? It makes perfect sense.

And yet, most of them have not. Paul is attaching his message to the prophets of Judaism. He is saying to them, this Christ that we follow is not a sect. It's not something we've concocted.

It is tied in. At some point, the Bible promises Messiah will come. Well, he has come.

What is so difficult to understand about that? Do you think these prophecies just are there and they're never going to be fulfilled? At some point, it's going to be sandals on the ground. And they were in Christ. And so this logical first step to preach this to the Jews, the fulfillment of their prophecies, Peter did the same thing, Acts chapter 3. Those things which God foretold by the mouth of all his prophets that the Christ would suffer, he has thus fulfilled.

I think when we share the gospel with people, it's okay to use prophecy also in our message, predictive prophecy, end time prophecy. But you've got to tie it in. You've got to say these things.

You've got to make a call. If our God is the God who gives us prophecy and he is that sovereign to do so, wouldn't it be crazy to ignore everything else he has to say? Doesn't it make sense that there's a point to his prophetic word and it is to me personally? Peter, when he wrote his letter, he said, so we have the prophetic word confirmed which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place.

There's an understatement for you. You do well to hear what the scripture has to say. All of the scripture is prophetic. Not all of it is predictably prophetic. But it's inseparable.

It all belongs to the same canon. Verse 27, for those who dwell in Jerusalem and their rulers because they did not know him nor even the voices of the prophets which are read every Sabbath have fulfilled them in condemning him. Well, this is just what you call an anointed sermon. He's still saying they should have known their Messiah, these leaders who tout being doctors of the law.

Well, there's precedence for this in their own law. Hosea, the prophet, chapter 4, God speaking through him, my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. This is true of Christians. There are Christians that don't know the Bible, but I'm a Christian. And they do things and you say, you know what, the Bible says don't do this.

It's right here. And then they continue to do it anyway. There's no, not out of weakness, I don't know what it is out of. But anyway, he says, my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge because you have rejected knowledge. I also will reject you from being priest for me because you have forgotten the law of your God.

I also will forget your children. Well, that's predictive. That's far reaching. And that prophecy has much fulfillment in the days of the apostles when they were turning their back on inescapable truths. They had the kind of ignorance that led to guilt. There's an ignorance where, okay, you're still wrong, but we understand your motives were not wrong. And then there's an ignorance that is guilty because the motives are wrong.

And I'll come to some of this. He says here in verse 27, Nor even the voices of the prophets which are read every Sabbath have fulfilled them in condemning him. And that's where Paul is saying their scriptures, their scriptures, their scriptures was packed with predictions of Messiah's coming. And in these predictions, in these things about Messiah, they characterized his life, his death, and beyond that death. They were without excuse.

Isaiah 9, Isaiah 53, Psalm 2, Psalm 16, Psalm 22, Daniel 9, Psalm 69, Zechariah 13. That's just some of the messianic prophecies. What is their excuse? Well, they don't want to be too, you know, again, self-righteous and judgmental, but you can't turn your back on the facts either. They ignorantly fulfilled the prophecies that they knew by heart because they lost the point. The Bible study has a point.

It's supposed to penetrate. If you just sit there listening and say, I don't follow. Well, what's your problem? Why don't you follow the word? Because you're not in the word.

That's why. You should be in the scripture. You don't have to be, you know, you can't quit your job and just stay home and read the Bible. Although, there are those that are always learning, never coming into the knowledge. They still do things that are prohibited. Their ignorance was a guilty ignorance. How could they have missed their Messiah with all that's written about him and they're reading it every Sabbath? Mishandling of scripture.

Part of their history. 2 Chronicles chapter 15. For a long time, Israel has been without a true God, without a teaching priest, and without law. Well, the prophet said there'd be a famine, but not a food of God's word.

Why? Because he wasn't going to cast pearl before swine. If they weren't going to handle his word properly, then they weren't going to get his word. Here we are in America, we have the word of God everywhere. There are other places, there are no Bibles. Where in Yemen can you go down and buy a Bible, you know, a study Bible?

Where is downtown Yemen? Have you gone to a store and said, where can I find a good study Bible? You got anything here by A.W.

Tozier or Dave Hunt? You'd probably be stoned shortly after. But here, we've got the word, and we need to tell people, why should you get to hear the gospel message over and over and over and reject it? Over and over and over. And then there are other people that don't get to hear it once. Well, the tribulation period is going to change all that, but it's going to be hard. Listening to men without listening to God, that's how they got there. They listened to men talk about the scriptures without listening to God. Until finally the men just talked about the men who talked about the men who talked about the scripture. The Mishnah and the Talmud are evidence of these things.

Why did they need the Mishnah and the Talmud? They had the scripture. And it's practiced in Christianity too. Christodom, I should say. The lowly fishermen, they knew Christ. The detestable tax collectors, many of them came to Christ. What about some of the outcast women?

If you knew what kind of woman it was that was washing your feet, you wouldn't have any part of this. Well, Simon, I got something to say to you too. That's how Jesus responded to that. Jesus read his mind. Here he is, the woman, this outcast woman is weeping over the Christ because of his mercy and his love for her.

Genuine love. And there's this Pharisee, all smug about the whole thing. And Christ says, from the moment I came in here, you'd not show me any affection.

Listen, you know, in those days you talk about, you know, washing the feet. Well, there were animals all over the place. I don't mean people. I don't mean metaphorically.

I mean, that was funny. Anyway, you had livestock. And what does livestock do? They make a mess of things. Then we eat them for it.

All right. Even the devil recognized he was the Holy One. We know who you are, the Holy One of Israel.

Why did they miss it? Matthew chapter 8, and I say to you that many will come from the east and west and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness.

There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. He's saying to this, you got the scriptures, you call yourself custodian of the scripture, and you're not even getting the point of them because here I am right in front of you. Doing things nobody else can do in Yahweh's name. Violating no part of the law, upholding all of it. And you still can't connect the dots because you don't want to.

Man, that's hard. By unbelief, the Jews fulfilled their own prophecies against themselves. We beheld him, we did not esteem him.

By rejecting the one they said they were looking for, they executed him. Matthew 22, Jesus answered and said to them, you are mistaking, you are mistaking not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God. This is a routine practice nowadays. I have noticed that there seems to be a movement of expository, a fresh movement of expository teaching in other churches. If it is genuine, I certainly applaud it.

I hope it is genuine. Because without it, we will be those who don't get the point from God's word, a word that says there are consequences to missing the point scripture is laying out. There's no excuse for this. Scripture was in harmony with Jesus of Nazareth being Messiah, why weren't the rest of the people? Verse 28, and though they found no cause for death in him, they asked Pilate that he should be put to death. So the religious leaders who had the scriptures used the courts of justice to withhold justice and to execute a foe, to be their hit man.

This is crazy. And then go to the hour of prayer right after. Go to morning prayer, go to afternoon prayer, go to evening prayer while they're having an innocent man executed.

Because he will not respect them as religious authorities, in spite of all the dirt that they were doing. Verse 29, sin can mess somebody up so badly. I mean look at King David, I mean he's such a dynamo and he gets tripped up. And yet, where sin abounded, grace did much more. Again, don't ever forget, the messianic kingdom in the millennial reign is directly associated with King David.

How do you get to be that ain't associated with me or you? This is a special arrangement that teaches us so much about God's goodness is grace towards sinners not looking to condemn, looking to give every opportunity. But this is the condemnation that men, the light is coming to the world, but men love darkness because their deeds are evil. Now when they had fulfilled all that was written concerning him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. Okay, using the tree ties it to the cross. Ties the cross to Deuteronomy chapter 21, verse 23, where cursed is he who lies on the tree. And Paul is saying, listen, his execution on the cross is just what Moses was talking about.

He became a curse for us. Now he uses a tree because that is a timeless emblem. Simon the Cyrenian, he did not carry a tree, he carried a cross. But at the time Moses wrote those words, that that form of execution was unknown to the Jews. Yet it is fulfilled in Christ. So if you lived in the days of Christ and you saw him executed on a wooden post, you would say, there's the tree because the scripture says those who are hung on a tree are a curse. And he became a curse for us and the New Testament does not let that go.

Tree is a timeless fit. Cross has got a time stamp on it, but it's the same thing. I hope I clarified that for you. Verse 30, if you're not, then I'm just going to go to verse 30 and get away from the whole thing. But God raised him from the dead. This, saying God raised him from the dead, does not exclude Jesus from being God the Son, it is inclusive of the Godhead. He was a willful participant and author and finisher of our faith. And Paul is saying, this is an act of God. It's not a phenomenon. No one in that audience shouted an objection at Paul's mention of the resurrection from the dead.

How come? How come somehow we don't believe that? The Greeks will do that when he gets to Athens. Once he mentioned the resurrection from the dead, that doesn't make any sense to us. Verse 31, he was seen for many days by those who came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are his witnesses to the people over a 40-day period. The writer to Hebrews, Paul says, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed to us by those who heard him, many of them being tortured to death, standing by what they saw. And what they saw was Christ crucified, Christ risen.

And they weren't going to let anybody take. Our whole system of jurisprudence rests on witnesses. You take witnesses out, you can't.

You've got to have a whole bunch of other evidence, which form an inanimate witness. Verse 32, we declare to you glad tidings, that promise which was made to our fathers. That Greek word, glad tidings, is where we get our English word, the good news, the gospel. Gospel means the good news.

Glad tidings here in the Greek literally means good news. And so that's a reference to the gospel. Verse 33, God has fulfilled this for us, their children, in that he has raised up Jesus, as it is also written in the second Psalm, you are my son, today I have begotten you. And so there he's quoting Psalm 2. He is taking a verse that is usually applied to the incarnation, the birth of Christ, the coming of the son of God into the world, and he is using it here to say, he was risen from the dead, he did not rot in a tomb, his body. And that is, it's wonderful to see, it's not uncommon in scripture to come across dual fulfillments from a single verse, which then hold countless applications of truth.

Verse 34, we're almost done, you're going to have to speed listen. And that he raised him up from the dead, no more to return to corruption, he has spoken thus, I will give you the sure mercies of David. What are the sure mercies of David?

Well the Bible tells us, Isaiah 55, verse 3. Incline your ear and come to me here, and your soul shall live, and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, the sure mercies of David. That is the Messiah, that is the dynasty of David into the millennial kingdom. And we don't have time, I'll just take one or two, Psalm 132, 11, Yahweh has sworn in truth to David, he will not turn from it, I will set upon your throne the fruit of your body, Jeremiah 33, 17. Well thus says Yahweh, David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel.

And that has been fulfilled, and there are others, that's sufficient. The mercies of David is God having Messiah come from him. Verse 35, therefore he also says in another Psalm, you will not allow your Holy One to see corruption, in other words his body will not rot in the tomb. Verse 36, for David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell asleep, a euphemism for he died, and was buried with his fathers and saw corruption. Verse 37, but he whom God raised up saw no corruption.

Well nobody's objecting to the resurrection, that would be the only way to escape decomposition of the body. And so they had no excuse, just think how many verses I'm not reading to you. I'm just to make that point to say the Bible is just all over this.

No other book in the world could tie in so many truths so frequently and flawlessly so. Verse 38, therefore let it be known to you brethren that through this man is preached to you the forgiveness of sins. Well you got to be God to forgive sins, when they broke through the ceiling and they lowered their invalid friend down, Jesus said your sins are forgiven and oh boy who is this guy to forgive sins, he says you don't think I can forgive sins?

Well I'll tell you what, I'll demonstrate it. And the guy gets up and this invalid is no longer invalid, he heals him. And so he's saying to them, well let's see you do that, only God can do that, you're not God, you can't do it, I can do it because I'm God the Son.

That's what it boils down to. The blood of Jesus Christ, his death on a cross, his exit from the tomb, his ascension into heaven, go beyond everything that is found in the Old Testament into the new. So much more to say, got to wrap it up here, I do want to quote, now you know the verses, in him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace. Verse 39, and by him everyone who believes is justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses.

That had to go off like a time bomb. He just put down Moses. He just made Moses subordinate to Christ. By him, refused salvation by him and you will be judged and condemned by him.

It is an imperative. Now these things of Moses, Hebrews 8, for if that first covenant had been faultless then no place would have been sought for a second. Jeremiah the prophet said God would make a new covenant, Paul comes along and says God did this because the first covenant, the Old Testament wasn't enough, he's given us the New Testament and it is in Christ. You can only have the new covenant by the blood of Christ. The first covenant came by the blood of animals, this one by the blood of Christ. New Testament doctrinally renders the Old Testament subordinate to the new. You teenagers, you may have just said what, I missed you like 15 verses ago. Listen to these things, learn what they mean and use them. You're not learning Christianity to please mom and dad. It's for you. You will stand before Christ.

You will not get a stunt double to stand for you at judgment. So learn what it means. The Old Testament is not a lower class of God's word, but it is in the support role of the New Testament now. It is every bit of God's word, but it doesn't lay out enough plan of salvation because if it did, there'd be no need for the New Testament, but there is. So we understand the Old Testament by the New Testament, we gain force of the New Testament from the Old Testament. I got to say this, I know I'm going late, but I've got you here. You're stuck.

Almost done. When Ezekiel talks about the millennial temple, I don't believe there are blood sacrifices taking place because they're fulfilled in Christ. And here's one of the evidences in Ezekiel 40. There are tables for the sacrifices. Who puts a sacrifice on a table? Can you get a bowl?

Let's get this guy on this table. They're symbolic. Just that little piece of scripture.

I love it. The Bible is just so clear. Anyway, we're almost done. I said that.

We're even more almost done. Verse 40, beware therefore, lest what has been spoken in the prophets come upon you. Behold, you despisers marvel and perish. He's quoting scripture now. For I will work in your days a work which you will by no means believe, though one were to declare it to you. He's quoting Habakkuk the prophet.

They're really impressed with this guy. And he is taking an Old Testament verse that talks about a moment in time where Habakkuk didn't understand why God wouldn't judge their enemies and God says, yeah, you think that's something? I'm going to use these enemies to judge my people for their idolatry. Paul comes along and says, yeah, it does mean that, but it also means that there's a consequence to rejecting what God is doing as it was for those in the time of Habakkuk, so it is for this audience that I'm preaching to now.

This is fantastic stuff. The level of theology and preaching here. They all should have became Christians. Some of the Jews do. We'll get to the next session.

The Gentiles are going to eat this up. So I close with this verse. And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them in all the scriptures to things concerning himself. Paul has been doing that throughout this section, saying prophecy's got point to it.

You can either be stuck by it or you can be moved. You've been listening to Cross Reference Radio, the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel in Mechanicsville, Virginia. As we mentioned at the beginning of today's broadcast, today's teaching is available free of charge at our website. Simply visit CrossReferenceRadio.com. That's CrossReferenceRadio.com. We'd also like to encourage you to subscribe to the Cross Reference Radio podcast. Subscribing ensures that you stay current with all the latest teachings from Pastor Rick. You can subscribe at CrossReferenceRadio.com or simply search for Cross Reference Radio in your favorite podcast app. Tune in next time as Pastor Rick continues teaching through the book of Acts, right here on Cross Reference Radio.