Understanding Old Testament Prophecy

Always encouraged by the song service.

Isn't that good? It's just something about that, and no wonder God put such an emphasis, especially in ancient Israel, of doing their music right and excellently, but most of all spirit empowered in their music. I appreciate Brother Tom's leadership in all of those ways. We're going to begin the Book of Zephaniah this morning, so turn to Revelation. Chapter 19, if you would. And I had a considerable amount of work done in Zephaniah, and I feel, I sense, that I was apprehended by the Holy Spirit to do something a little different, to kick off our exposition of this Book of the Minor Prophets called Zephaniah. Just what is Old Testament prophecy, and how should we view Old Testament prophecy is sort of where we're coming from, all right? And there's a lot of points.

I don't do this very often. This would be a little more like a, maybe a theological classroom setting today, but I think it is very important, especially for our small group leaders, that you get the outline of these points, and we'll have them printed up and written up for you, okay? And remember these things as you're teaching Old Testament books, but primarily and particularly teaching the Old Testament prophets, whether it be one of the major prophets or like Zephaniah, one of the minor prophets. But first we want to kick off with this verse from Revelation chapter 19, verse 10. The context is that the angel has been showing John some of the marvels and the glories of the coming eternal state.

When Christ will reign on the earth with his glorified church. And so John is overwhelmed with this, and not an act of sinful rebellion, but he does something wrong in the emotion, in the awe of the moment. Revelation 19, 10 says, Then I fell at his feet to worship him. That's John on the Isle of Patmos, seeing this vision from the angel, and then falling to worship the angel.

But he, the angel, said to me, Do not do that. I am a fellow servant of yours and your brethren who hold to the testimony of Jesus. He's saying here, Now John, don't worship me. I'm just like all the rest of you and all the faithful brethren you've known, contemporary and in the past.

We're all those who are just testifiers of Jesus. The old preacher said one time as he began the service, Get out your hymn book. And they all begin to reach for the song book. He said, No, not that book. He said this book. It's all about him.

Come cover to cover. Jesus is the central theme. He is the preeminent one pointed to by the totality of scripture and particularly the prophetic scripture. Then he continues in Revelation 19, 10. For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

You can amplify this out. The idea is Christ lived in the Old Testament prophets in the person of the Holy Spirit and was revealing to them the things of himself to those Old Testament prophets, just like he's like he's been revealed to us through the scriptures in today's world. So Christ is the centerpiece. He is the fountainhead of all that comes out of scripture and all that came out of the prophets. It all centers in Christ.

You might break it down this way. It centers in Christ person that we might treasure and joy in him above all others. It centers in his pardon.

We must know that we have received forgiveness through the provision of Christ. And it centers in his purposes. And the center of his purposes is his work of building his church.

In today's world, that's local New Testament churches until he returns and establishes the eternal state will be one glorious gathered church with him forever and ever and ever. Now, with that in mind, let me think about some things or give you some of my thoughts on the Old Testament and particularly the nation of Israel and God's purposes. The nation of Israel was established to glorify God in the earth, to manifest his light and his truth. Matter of fact, the theme of Isaiah should be the servant of God, where the prophet writes that God ordained Israel to be his servant, to shine his light and truth to all of the world, but Israel failed. And so Isaiah prophesied, so instead of looking to Israel to be his light and his truth, God sent his own son to be his servant.

And he is the light and truth of God in the world. Now, to maintain, if you will, or sustain the religious life of Israel, God ordained priest and Levitical priest. You had to be of the tribe of Levi. God believed in nepotism. Matter of fact, you had to be kin to one another to be a spiritual leader in ancient Israel.

You had to be of the tribe of Levi. But unfortunately, even if the priest did well, and often they did not, often they were rebellious themselves. Unfortunately, the nation often fell into degeneration. They fell into sin and idolatry. Now, there were three main fault lines, if you will, of this degenerate state they would fall into.

First of all, they became a shell without the substance. Their hearts were cold. Their hearts were carnal. Their hearts were worldly, even though they kept up the outward facade of the religious order of Judaism. Now, do we not see that in today's world? In Christendom, there's so many who just know the shell without the very real substance.

So that's one of the fault lines, if you will, and these certainly connect and overlap. But secondly, a syncretism with the world. They would take some of the major external aspects of Judaism and add to it the worship of Asherah, Ashimesh, and most likely Baal, and all of these religions centered around human fleshly indulgence, sensuality. You always find sexual immoralities worshipped and praised and celebrated in false or bad theology.

And that's why our doctrine is very important. But they would syncretize. They would keep some of the outward motions of genuine religion, but actually be participating in the sensualities of Baal worship. So much so that some Old Testament scholars called it the Jehovah-Bail cult, bringing the two together. Why do you think, like the United Methodist Church has done recently, where they are now ordaining homosexuals to be in the ministry?

This is syncretizing. They're holding to some of the old orthodox systems, but they're adding to it Baal worship. Gun-godly, fleshly sensualities. So not only just the shell without the substance, and not only a syncretism of idolatry and wicked practices with orthodox systems, but thirdly, often they just fell into raw, brazen idolatry, just abandoning completely the rules and the regulations and the scriptural teachings given them by Moses in falling into the idolatry of the pagan nations that surrounded them. So because of this tendency to fall into sinful degradation and decline, God ordained another office in Israel, and that is the office of prophet. The prophets were unique. The prophets were different.

They went to no human authority. They got their message from God. They were commissioned by God to give God's message to Israel that they might turn back to their forsaken God who bought them, birthed them, and had provided for them. Now when we have the 17 books of prophecy in the Bible containing the major prophets and the minor prophets, now the minor prophet just means they were shorter, just shorter books.

That's all that means. But when they wrote those books, they're not giving us their messages verbatim, but you might say the gist or the core elements of the preaching that they were given to these people. They recorded these messages, and these messages became a part of what we have as our Old Testament. These Old Testament prophets were always men of noble character, spiritual vibrancy, and endued with a special faith and courage. You cannot imagine the context of some of these men, like Amos who is just a very rural, remote country preacher, if you will, and he goes up to cosmopolitan, sophisticated Bethel, where they've got the Jehovah Bell cult in full expression, if you will, and the people are loving it, and it's working, and the crowds are great.

And little Amos from nowhere, from out in the country, walks in and just denounces them to the core. Courage, tenacity, and conviction of these Old Testament prophets. They knew that they were on a divine mission and that God had sent them, and they knew they were not going to win a popularity contest. A matter of fact, the record of scripture points out that most of them were murdered. The people loved the degradation and the downgrade of where they had brought religion.

They loved that their fleshly sensualities and carnalities could be blessed by the official church of the day, and so they did not want anybody calling their attention to the error of their practices. So, with that in mind, let's think about Old Testament prophecy and how to understand it, all right? Now, Old Testament prophecy generally contains several things. Now, I say generally, what I want you to know here is not every section of prophecy in the Old Testament has all of these explicitly in them, but I think most of the time at least the seed, the germ, if you will, of all of these are present. And as I'll show you at the end, there is one element that comes out in Old Testament prophecy that is the preeminent and most important element, but we'll get that in a moment. But as you teach through a prophetic book or understand a prophetic book, notice first of all the denunciation of sin is always there. The denunciation of sin. And often as these prophets preach, you're going to see graphic, forceful, and cutting denunciations of sin. Sometimes people say, well, you shouldn't be crude or you shouldn't be crass or you shouldn't be sarcastic.

Well, if that's true, you're going to rule out just about all the Old Testament prophets. I mean, they said some tough stuff. Embarrassing, even sarcastic, and very cutting from time to time.

Just a couple of quick examples. There's some better ones than this, but in Amos chapter 4 verse 1, as the prophet is declaring against the sinful, indulgent, and wicked women of the nation who are growing fat in their luxuries, he calls them the cows of Bashan. Now, ladies, is that very nice? You're a bunch of cows. Now, do you know what a cow looks like?

They just kind of lay around there, just a bunch of slobs and just self-indulgent. Just vivid, just the cutting nature of that rebuke. And another one, for example, in Jeremiah 3-2, he talks about how they have polluted the land with their vile whoredoms. You see it there at the last of that verse.

What a cutting and graphic and piercing view. Certainly it's not talking about literal whoredoms, though that was far too often the case in idolatry. Matter of fact, almost always was the case when you get into pagan idolatries.

But that it was a spiritual whoredom. You're chasing after the vile and wicked and unclean things when you could be treasuring me, Jehovah, or Yahweh, the one true God. So number one, the denunciation of sin. A second thing that's generally found in Old Testament prophecy is the proclamation of punishment.

Again, this one is almost always set forth. And there was the most serious and dire consequences announced by the prophets for the persistent sins of the people. Remember in the Immanuel child motif of Isaiah 7, 8, and 9 that we looked at before Christmas. We have the Ahaz and the remnant of Judah who've fallen into sin and they make an alliance with Assyria to protect them instead of trusting God to protect them.

And God said, okay, you like Assyria? And metaphorically speaking, he said, so I'm going to send the mighty Euphrates, that's a great river, into Assyria, in Assyria. And he said, I'm going to let that river flood upon you with a raging torrent and it's going to reach all the way up to the neck. In other words, it's going to be difficult. It's going to be painful. It's going to be devastating. You ever been in a raging torrent, a flood that almost came up to your lips?

Horrifying. So these proclamations of punishment were from the Lord and they were carried out to the full. Number three, a third thing that you'll find in Old Testament prophecies is a sure hope of forgiveness and restoration if they would repent and return to their God forsaking their sin. What a gracious and wonderful thing that as we look at these Old Testament prophecies we see these cutting, coarse, harsh, terrifying prophecies of punishment. And then out of nowhere the prophet comes back with the tenderest kindness mercies where he'll say in effect, if you'll just return, if you'll just repent, there's forgiveness and there's restoration. Now the gods of the nations of the ancient world had wrath. The gods of the nations of the ancient world had retribution and punishment they would render out, but they never had that note of tender compassion, mercies, and forgiveness that we see mingled throughout the prophecies of our God given in the Old Testament. So not only the denunciation of sin, the proclamation of punishment, and a sure hope of forgiveness and restoration if they repent and forsake their sin.

Number four, there were deadlines. I'm not saying they're always spelled out, but it was clear that there were deadlines that if those deadlines are crossed, God will not relent in bringing punishment. Ezekiel 3 19 says, if he does not turn back from his wickedness, he shall die in his iniquity.

In other words, I have a deadline. There's a point where if he is not turned back, then I will bring the punishment. He will die in his iniquity. Ezekiel 3 19. So we see that throughout the text of Scripture in one form or fashion and one way or the other, God says, I've got a line in the sand, and if you don't deal with what you're doing and deal righteously in repentance, I will come, and I will not relent of the judgment I promised to bring against you. Number five, a fifth generally contained aspect of prophecy is that God would bring judgment on Israel, and I put Judah in parentheses for when they were the divided kingdom. You have the southern kingdom Judah, northern kingdom, still called Israel, but he said, I will bring judgment on them, but also, interestingly so, God would use the nations like Babylon or Egypt or Assyria as his tool to punish Israel and Judah, but then turn right around and say, now I'm going to punish you for your wickedness.

So he kind of lumps them together very often. I will judge my own people, but I'll certainly bring judgment, and I will bring wrath upon the wickedness of the surrounding nations. Just as a side note, as the thoughts come to me as we live in this world, brothers and sisters, and we're a part of the church, there are going to be seasons and times where it looks like we're not winning. There will be seasons and times where it looks like God's hand of displeasure is upon us. It looks like God maybe is not with us like we thought he should be with us, but God does that because in love he's purging us. In love he's purifying us. In love he's drawing us back near unto himself, but when he judges the wicked he's not purifying. When he judges the wicked nations he's not drawing them back to himself. There's an everlasting judgment.

It's a very different thing. Number six, when looking at Old Testament prophecy, remember it should have a meaning for the original audience. Some of the brethren have their eschatological charts, and they have those charts all rendered out.

I've never been able to do that because I don't think you can nail it down in those concise, tight little categories and and flow of events. Scriptures just don't allow it in my opinion. And sometimes they go to Old Testament prophecies and they're so enamored with what the ultimate fulfillment is, they forget to also teach it had a application to the people of that day and that time.

So try to always find that. Teaching your classes, this had an application for ancient Judah or Israel in the day it was written, or at least in the years around that day, of course the following next years. Sometimes it may go a century or so, maybe two centuries, but it had to do, it had a meaning for the people of that era that day, but also has an ultimate fulfillment, which we'll talk about in just a few moments. Now, when I talk about Israel, I just want to mention this at this point. I still believe there is a literal plan for the literal ethnic Jews, that God will return in the person of Jesus Christ, and he will bring a redeemed remnant of national Israel together, thus called the Millennial Kingdom. Now I know there's good brothers and sisters who don't agree with that, and that's fine.

That's not a point of fellowship whatsoever between brothers and sisters. We can disagree on those things, but I don't see any way you can hold, matter of fact, it's impossible to hold to the academics of proper exegesis of the text that we so strongly live in, verse by verse, chapter by chapter, understanding the Greek and the Hebrew, interpreting in its grammatical, historical, and contextual, and systematic context. If you do that with the Old Testament text, you see promise after promise after promise after promise, literally to national Israel, and I just don't think you can say every single one of them was just figurative and metaphorical, that really don't apply to them at all. I still believe that there's a future plan for Israel, so that comes under that original audience was to the Jews, and God has a future for the Jews.

All right, now number seven. Another item that generally comes out in prophetic books is a promise to preserve an elect remnant. Whatever else God does, whatever else God says, whatever punishes He promises, whatever punishment and judgment He brings on His people, His elect nation Israel, He always seems to mention, yet a remnant shall remain. I will keep my promise to my elect chosen people to whom I initiated a covenant. Of course, in all of these things do we not see a foreshadowing of all of His dealings with us, the church, but we'll talk about that in a moment. I'm bad to get ahead of myself.

I don't want to do that. Again, when we talked about the judgment on Judah where mighty Assyria would come in like a raging flood and the waters would come up to the neck, there's a reason why it only comes up to the neck, because He's not going to completely devour Judah. He'll be faithful to preserve an elect remnant. Isaiah 9 27, for example, says Israel is like the sins of the sea.

Now that's a lot of people. They're going to be a great nation, but He says it is the remnant that will be saved. Not all of Israel, but I will preserve a remnant of my people because I'll be faithful to keep Israel as mine forever.

All right, did y'all get those first seven? We're talking about denunciation of sin, proclamation of punishment, praise the Lord, a sure hope of forgiveness and restoration if they repent and return to God. Number four, that there are deadlines. If they're crossed, He would not relent in the judgment He promised to bring. Number five, judgment on Israel and Judah and including judgment on the surrounding nations. There is a meaning in there for the original audience.

There's always a promise to preserve an elect remnant. Then number eight, here's where it gets real good, a foreshadowing of ultimate fulfillment in Christ and His work. Spurgeon used to say that every road in the British empire leads to London.

If you follow it all out, you can get to London from any road in all the British empire. And every verse of scripture in the Bible leads to Jesus. Every verse in the entire Bible leads to Christ, His pardon, His person, and His purposes. If you interpret Old Testament scripture and you don't see repeatedly a pointing to Christ, His pardon, His purpose, His person, and His purposes, you are missing the pinnacle, the climactic conclusion God meant for you to come to. Now, as we think about this foreshadowing, and foreshadowing just means there's a expression beforehand of the truth or the reality of this coming Savior and all of His work.

So let's break it down this way. First of all, the foreshadowing that there is a God-sent divine Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Over and over and over and over as the Old Testament prophets wrote, they give us splashes and glimpses and shadows that God has a Messiah, God has a Savior, and He's not like the other quote Saviors that you have.

Often they would think in terms of great kings like Josiah or Hezekiah who were saving the nation in a sense, or David, the pinnacle example of a good and great king, but he writes it in such a way that there has to be more than just another human king. These prophecies point to one who is a divine, fully God, and God-sent Savior to the people. Jesus, for example, said in John 539, you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, it is these that testify about me. When you look at the old part of the book, they're testifying about me coming and all the work that I would do in saving God's children. And then 1 Peter chapter 1 verses 10 through 12 tells us, as to this salvation, the salvation brought by Jesus, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, made careful searches and inquiries. In other words, the old testament prophets, they couldn't see as clearly as we could see on this side of the cross of Jesus, but they knew something special was coming. They knew someone special with something, and they studied, and they inquired, and they prayed, and the Spirit of Christ in them were making these things real to them, but not vividly clear yet. So Peter writes, New Testament dispensation here, Peter's writing from, Jesus has already come, already died, already buried, I rose again, already ascended up into heaven. And he's saying, you know, when you look back on the prophets, they knew this day of grace was coming.

They inquired about it and searched about it. Verse 11 now, 1 Peter chapter 1, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow. So they said they knew this Christ was coming, this divinely sent Savior was coming, and he would save his people and lead up to a future in eternal glory. Now we're living in that glory right now. There is a glory of Christ's work all around you. Every single one of you saved, redeemed, cleansed, regenerated Christians are to the glory of God.

Every one of us. And so those Old Testament prophets, they didn't understand it completely. They knew something that this one is coming and the glories of his work are going to be, well, glorious. And that's what's happening.

It's a glory beyond anything we can understand. But you might say, and we'll unpackage this in a moment, they could see dimly what we can now see clearly. Verse 12, 1 Peter 1, it was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves. They knew in writing these prophecies, they were writing about a future people, the church age, and a future time. They were not serving themselves, but you.

Who's he mean? Well, the people who were contemporaries of him, those in the church age, those who were saved in these local churches. And these things which now have been announced to you through those who preach the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sit from heaven. Same Holy Spirit that was helping the prophets see it in the distance. That's Holy Spirit in us now preaching it clearly on this side of Calvary. Things into which angels long to look.

I love that idea. Angels knew some things, but they're not omniscient. They didn't know everything.

They were limited, so they knew some things. And as it unfolded on earth, God's premier purpose of glorifying himself through the work of the premier person, his son Jesus Christ, and the premier work of the son is the church. And the angels knew something about this, but as it started to unfold, the angels got on there at the edge of heaven and just looked and looked and said, I can't believe this. What a wonder it is.

What a marvel it is. What a glory it is that we've heard the Old Testament prophets throw out shadows and types and pictures, but it wasn't real clear, but boy it's getting clear now. As people are getting saved, as Jesus has come and he's risen again, he's sent his Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is accompanying the preaching of the gospel and it's converting souls and they're being saved and added to the church and God's getting glory.

By the way, that's why we do what we do. Yes, we long to see precious souls saved from hell. That should always motivate us, but second to God being glorified through his work of saving the lost. We have the suffering servant chapter, Isaiah 53, where the Old Testament prophet prophesies of a divine suffering servant sent from God who would redeem the children, who would see his offspring, who would divide the spoil or keep the spoil of his work unto himself. That was all prophetic to Jesus' work. So we have a God-sent divine savior as one of the things that's always foreshadowed in the prophet's writings and preachings.

Now secondly, breaking this down, we have the church age. I've really talked a lot about that already, but we have glimpses and insights and shadows of this day of grace. Obviously the Old Testament covenant was a covenant of law, and the Jews made much of that and glory in the law, and they missed the forest for the trees because the law could never make one righteous. It was meant to point them to the promised coming divine savior, Jesus. And so there was the prophetic expression all throughout the Old Testament, there's an age coming when men are going to be saved through this divine savior by grace.

Grace meaning it's a favor, a blessing we couldn't earn or deserve in any way and through faith. Mark chapter 1, verses 14 and 15. After John had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, that's this new age, and saying, the time is fulfilled.

In other words, it's come to its completion. Everything, everything, the old historical books, you're starting Nehemiah in small groups, that's a historical book. And actually it's the history of far later than Zephaniah is prophesying about. Zephaniah is prophesying about the sin that led them into bondage and into captivity. Nehemiah is talking about the return back to the promised land, all right?

So you're chronologically down the road from Zephaniah. But when Jesus said the time is fulfilled, he means it all comes to its fruition. It all pointed to me and this gospel I'm preaching to you. Sometimes pastors might be guilty of seeing Jesus too often, but I don't hardly think it's possible. Even in all the glorious promises to Israel, all the glorious covenant keeping promise of God to keep Israel at least a remnant of Israel, in all of those we have the foreshadowing of the premier work of Jesus building and keeping his church.

So the church age. Just a couple other quick verses here before we move to the second subpoint here, and that is Matthew 13 17. Truly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see. That means on this side of Christ's coming these people saw Jesus. They knew it was a historical fact about his death, his resurrection, and they didn't see it.

And to hear what you hear and they didn't hear it. They knew something about it, prophesying about it, but it hadn't come to fruition yet. Acts 10 43, of him, Jesus, all the prophets bear witness that through his name everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins. So we're building on number eight that prophecy generally contains, and on this one I need to say more than generally, always contains a foreshadowing of Christ and his work, that he's the God-sent divine savior, that there is a glorious church age where men are saved by grace, and then thirdly the work called the day of the Lord. The day of the Lord. Now when we're studying through the Old Testament prophets we see these awful seasons of retribution and graphic judgment brought upon the people. Great bloodshed and devastation.

But here's what you need to remember. All of those are a day of the Lord, but they all foreshadowed, they all pointed to the day of the Lord. That will be when Christ returns the second time to judge the earth. So see, both of them, those were literal judgments that would happen in their day, but they all pointed to the greater end time judgment called, quote, the day of the Lord.

You know as I've said many times to you, Jesus is not the answer for the world. He's going to come back and judge the world, remove the world, send what I think will be an unbelievable atomic internal explosion when he finally unleashes all the energy of all the atoms of all matter. And the New Testament says it'll just be evaporated into nothingness because of the power of it. Then he will recreate a new heaven and a new earth and he'll say to you and I, oh my precious bride, I've made us a brand new universe and you will dwell with me here forever and ever and ever in this eternal future state of glory. But first there's the day of the Lord. Now sometimes the day of the Lord in the Old Testament text is so graphically clear you're forced to conclude this is not talking about that particular day in the Old Testament. This has to be a portrait of that ultimate day of the Lord. For example, Zephaniah in our book we're going to look at next week, Lord willing. Zephaniah 1, 2, and 3, I will completely remove all things from the face of the earth, declares the Lord. That's not just pointing to a day of the Lord, that's pointing to the day of the Lord.

I'll remove man and beast. I'll remove the birds of the sky and the fish of the sea and the ruins along with the wicked. And I will cut off man from the face of the earth, declares the Lord. So the third subpoint of prophecy always, generally speaking, foreshadows the coming of Christ and the work of Christ is that He's coming again in His second coming in what's called the universal punishment of the earth, the heavens and the earth we might say, called the day of the Lord. And then the fourth subpoint under the foreshadowing of Christ in His work is a glorious, eternal future for God's elect church. Let me jump down to Isaiah 56 verse 8.

The Lord God who gathers to disperse to viscera declares, yet others I will gather to them, to those already gathered. So He says, I have those outside of Israel that I'm going to gather together one day, eternal glorified kingdom. And that's those who are God's elect out of the nations of the earth outside of Israel.

So this has to be pointing to the church. And one reason why though I believe there's a future plan for Israel on the earth, that in no way can compete with the magnanimity, the glory, the pinnacle issue of Christ's work of saving His church and dwelling with her for all eternity. Because for example, right now as evangelists we would not go to the nation of Israel and call Israel as a nation to turn to God. But we would go to Israel and preach the gospel and everyone who hears the gospel and believes on Christ, Syrian, our Jew, our Palestinian, they could come together as churches. So He has grafted in, in a sense, Israelites into the church. And that's all we're to be consumed with now. What God chooses to do with national Israel is His business.

And we joy in that. But our job from now on, since Jesus came back, yes I stand for national Israel because God has a plan for her politically and culturally speaking. But my goal is to see Jews saved and be a part of the church along with Gentiles.

That's the plan now. And that's what we're talking about in this glorious, eternal future for God's elect church. That's different than God's elect nation Israel.

For example, back in the text we looked at a few weeks ago, Isaiah 9, verses 6 and 7. For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us. And the government will rest on his shoulders. You could say, well that could be the millennial kingdom of Israel, could it?

Not it could. And his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. But here's the complication. The millennial is called the millennial because it has a beginning and an end. But this text says there will be no end to the increase of his government or of peace. So if this does speak of the millennial kingdom of the Jews, it ultimately speaks of the eternal and glorious future that Jesus will have with his church. Because that has no end. On the throne of David, I'm in verse 7, and over his kingdom to establish it and uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore. That's eternal. That's not just a millennial kingdom now, that's eternal. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this. Now before I conclude with a couple of thoughts, can I challenge you, don't get caught up on neatly packaged, categorized, chronological flow of events.

Did you get all those words? Neatly packaged categories of events. It's kind of interesting that God in his wisdom just blows our charts up.

We can generally know, I think it's true Israel, God has a plan for Israel, but the pinnacle work is God's plan of gathering his church out of all the nations in the eternal state he'll have with them, which will include a lot of Jews, but not national Israel, not at that point. So be careful with having a rigid, chronologically structured system of eschatology. Have some grace for your brethren that are not as wise as you are.

Or send them to me and I'll straighten them out, all right? And honestly, I'm not a great Bible scholar or anything else, but you have given me an enormous number of hours over these 40-something years to study and execute the text. I don't know that I would have been prepared to preach this unless I had these four decades under my belt. And one of the things I learned under four decades was, stupid, don't have a neat categorized structure of chronology to your eschatology. It just doesn't quite fit that way.

I didn't call you stupid, I'm calling me stupid. In conclusion, a couple of verses and we're done. 2 Peter 1 19, Peter writes to the church and says, so we have the prophetic word wrapping up in that all the former prophecies of all the Old Testament age. We have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you would do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your heart.

Let's unpack this. 1 Peter says, we have the prophetic word made more sure. The idea is confirmed. He says, we've confirmed it now. There might have been some question beforehand and so what exactly were the prophets pointing to? But we know now they're pointing to Jesus of Nazareth. They were pointing to this Christ born of the Virgin Mary. They were pointing to his birth and his death and his resurrection and all the things he talked and the promises he gave us of returning again. We've confirmed it now.

Brothers and sisters, we're on this side of Calvary. It's been confirmed what God was up to, what he was telling us in all the Old Testament text. Beforehand, we had faith in the written word of the prophets, but now we have faith and the historical fact that Jesus has come and he has died and he rose again.

So we've got it confirmed. Secondly, he says, like a lamp shining in a dark place. We have the prophetic word made more sure to which you do well rather to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place.

That's a beautiful metaphorical statement. He said, the Old Testament prophets were like an old oil lamp. When it became dark in the ancient world, you had a lamp or two and it was still quite dim. It was true light, it wasn't just a lot of light. He said, that's what we had before. It was true.

Wasn't a lot of it yet. It was like a lamp shining in a very dark place. And then he says in verse 19, until, that's what we had, until the day dawns. The day dawn is the full, brilliant light of sunrise. That's a billion times brighter and clearer than an old oil lamp in a darkened hut.

That's Jesus' arrival, Jesus' birth, Jesus' teaching ministry, Jesus' death, his burial, his resurrection, and all that he taught us about his coming again. He said, we have the brilliant light. He's the light of the world, the Bible says.

We usually have, used to have just a dim oil lamp. Now we've got the brilliant and true light of Jesus Christ. Then he says something interesting, and you're not going to get it. You're not going to see it.

You're not going to grasp it. You'll still have blind eyes until the morning star arises in you. If there's something in you this morning as I preach these things that gives you a stirring of joy, gives you a stirring of blessing, and gives you a hearty amen, I know that's right.

You know what that is? That's because the morning star has arisen in your heart, and you see the light. That old gospel tune, I saw the light, is a true gospel tune. Can't explain how that happens. Jesus told Nicodemus, you must be born again, and it's like the wind. We don't know where it's going, where it's coming from, but you must be. I don't know how it happens, but somehow under the preaching of Jesus, the Spirit of God infuses light in your soul, and you begin to see it.

Well, probably before you may have even hated it, despised it, or it was just boring to you. That's because the morning star had not yet arisen in your heart. We can look back on Old Testament prophecy now, and we can study the Old Testament prophets now, and see more clearly than ever before all that they were up to telling us.

Because the morning star has given us illumination and understanding. They, the Old Testament prophets, had a kindled flame, but we had the full torch light that they foretold of. We know more surely, more fully, all that they meant, because we have the full light of New Testament revelation.

So as we look at the Old Testament prophets, we see that the Old Testament comes together with the full light of the New Testament. It's what we call progressive revelation. God progressively unfolds things, and that's why when it all ends, the last book's called the unveiling. That's what revelation means. He progresses to where now he unveils everything.

My glory when Jesus returns, he's going to be unveiled. And then everything we don't quite know now, we'll know then. And we know a whole lot more than the Old Testament folks knew.

Are y'all getting this? It's good stuff. We rejoice today in the Old Testament because we have the new to give us illumination on just what were the prophets up to, what were they trying to tell us. And it all comes together as one glorious sufficient book for all faith and all practice. Revelation 19 10, back to our original verse, and I'm done. John said, this angel's been showing me these things, so I was just overwhelmed, and I fell at his feet to worship him.

But he said, do not do that. I'm the fellow servant of yours, and your brethren, all the Old Testament prophets included, they had the testimony of Jesus. They held the testimony of Jesus. Worship God, for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. And there's a real reciprocal truth here.

Listen to me. As you know you've received the pardon of Jesus, and you know you are learning to joy in and treasure more the person of Jesus, and as you embrace, here's where a lot of folks miss it, I'm telling you, here's where they miss it. They stop with the person of Jesus, they kind of pull away from scripture, and they get into their emotions, and they view Jesus like a teenage girl has a crush on a boy. It's just this gooey, gushy, lovey-dovey, we make him after this wonderful, joyous, and he is wonderful and glorious. But I mean, they don't stay with scripture, because here's the next thing.

The pardon of Jesus, you treasure the person of Jesus, and the purposes of Jesus, building his church. If you tell somebody I'm devoted to you, I'm committed to go with you, you don't just make up your mind a bunch of sentimental, emotional muck about how you feel about them. You find out what are you up to in life, I want to get in on that with you, I'm committed to you. That's why a lady takes a man's name, she says, I'm joining you, and where you're going, that's where I'm going.

Your purposes are now my purposes. That's why we're called the bride of Christ. That's why I beat you to death over these decades of saying it's about the church, it's about the church, it's about the church, because you know why? He died for the church, he rose for his church, he's interceding in heaven for his church, he's coming again for his church, and he's given us a whole book on how to structure it, function in it, do it, organize it, and we're still struggling and striving, working, repeating, reforming to do it right. But I want to say, well, I'm not gonna do that.

I'm not gonna do that. So the point is, we have the foundation today for understanding prophecy more fully, more completely. That's what Peter was saying than ever before. We now have the true lens for understanding prophecy more fully and accurately. And when you know the pardon of Jesus, you treasure the person of Jesus, and you're committed to the purposes of Jesus, and then you open the old part of the book, God will give you illumination others don't have.

The Spirit of God, listen to me, will give you illumination others don't have. Why should God open your eyes if you're not about his purposes? If you deduce loving Jesus and following Jesus down to a humanly, mildly biblical, if not unbiblical thing, then why is God going to give you understanding? And brothers and sisters, there are pulpits all over this country called Christian pulpits, and that's as far as they ever get. A human, sentimental approach to Jesus, not a thoroughly biblical approach to Jesus and his purposes. But now you're looking at me this morning, is it not true that as we've been on this pilgrimage together, kind of like popcorn, the Holy Spirit of God, through your quiet times, you're reading Scripture, the preaching and teaching of the Word, all of a sudden it dawns on you, the light comes clear, and you say, I get it.

I get what he's been screaming about for all these years. I will feel good standing before my Christ, my Lord, and saying to him, Lord, I passionately taught them about your purpose, or your person I should say, your pardon, and your purposes. I believe based on the balance of Scripture and the authority of Scripture, he'll say to me, thanks for not making me out to be an idol of your subjective feelings, thanks for letting me be who I am, and teaching me that way. And small group leaders, as you teach, make sure you teach it that way. Well done, I think you'll say. With all your blunders and failures and weaknesses and need to repent, I've had plenty of those, amen? But well done, good and faithful servant. I believe that's a good outline to keep in mind as you're studying and teaching the prophecies of the Old Testament.