The difference between his coming to redeem and his coming to reign is laid out in the prophecies, but they could not tie them together. The rabbis, some of them, even went so far as to say, well, there's two messiahs coming. One will come and suffer for Israel and the other will come and reign, be sovereign for Israel.
See, they couldn't understand what they were doing. With the information that they had, it was one messiah. We understand that it's two comings.
More information about Cross Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. And now here's Pastor Rick with his continuing study called The Spirit of Christ, taken from 1 Peter chapter 1. We say, that's the Spirit of Jesus in her. When Ruth makes that speech, your God will be my God, your people will be my people, what Christian does not stand up in their heart and say, yeah, yeah, that's me too. Because the Spirit of Christ was in the lives of those people, bringing about these effects, and he's with us now.
They faced hardship and they faced suffering just like you and I do. Naomi had to be saying to herself, what is going on? Her husband died, her two sons died, she's left with two daughters-in-law, one of them leaves her, and Ruth, what does Ruth have to offer? Allegiance. That's what Christ wants from you and me. Allegiance. Loyalty. To stick with him no matter what. So when he says, I will never leave you or forsake you, we answer back and I will never leave you nor forsake you. We are married. We are together. We are joined. What God has joined together, let no man tear apart, not even myself.
That is the idea. It was indicating when he testified beforehand, the Spirit informing the prophets, indicating, it is a grotesque thought again, to say that God cannot speak to humanity through men. It is grotesque because it leads to the doom of souls, human beings, real people.
We have a lot of people on this planet, they act like they care more about people and animals, and we need to care for people and animals, I'm certainly not against any of that. But not at the exclusion of the Maker, not at the exclusion of God and his Word. It's a big planet.
There's a lot of people on it. There are many people that follow false religions that have never heard the Gospel, and they're decent people as people go. God will do right when it comes to their day of judgment.
That's all you and I need to know. He will do right. Paul talks about this in Romans, in the early chapters of Romans. God is not unmindful of these things, but we are responsible for the light we have and we ought to shine it when we can and fight the good fight. And there are many fights, but there's only one good one.
There's only one worth investing the life in. He mentions here now in verse 11 the sufferings of Christ. That's what they spoke about. The Jews call it the sorrows of the Messiah. That's his cross. As I mentioned, Psalm 22, Isaiah 53. Lay out the cross. None of my bones are broken, David writes.
The things in Psalm 22 could have been written about no experience in David's life. They fit perfectly into the crucifixion. Isaiah 53, I mean, he was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our sins.
Who are you going to say that about? Somebody could say, I was bruised for your transgressions. Yeah, but you didn't take them away. You just got bruised for them.
I need someone to take them away. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. John the Baptist recognized it and he heralded it. He shouted it out. They were given a considerable, considerable body of truth, but it lacked high definition.
But without what they had, there would be no high definition. It was so structured by God that when these things were finally fulfilled, the apostles, they got it. And so many others did also. But the Jews could not understand when it mentions, when Peter says, he mentions here the sufferings of Christ. He will mention that several times through his two letters because he was there to see it. And he tells us that he was a witness of the sufferings. Yeah, I know, they all ran. But from a distance, Peter could see enough.
We'll cover that when we get to it. The difference between his coming to redeem and his coming to reign is laid out in the prophecies, but they could not tie them together. The rabbis, some of them, even went so far as to say, well, there's two messiahs coming. One will come and suffer for Israel and the other will come and reign, be sovereign for Israel.
See, they couldn't understand with the information that they had. It was one messiah. We understand that there's two comings. There is the first coming of Christ when he came to redeem us.
There will be the second coming of Christ when he comes to reign over the earth. Luke's gospel, Jesus, expecting the Jews to have known this. He expected his disciples to have figured this out just from the writings of the prophets. And so he says, Luke 24, Then he said to them, O foolish ones, how many times has Jesus said that about you?
I didn't want to say how many times he said about me, because my counter is broken when it comes to that. But, O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken, ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory? Because the prophets wrote it.
That's what he's referencing here. And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them all the scriptures, the things concerning himself. Side note, if Christ took the time to expound all the scriptures, should not pastors do the same? Or should they just leave out?
Should they just pass over? If they're not going to go through the whole Bible verse by verse, then at least let the Bible go through them verse by verse. There have been many great men of God who did not preach verse by verse, but they went through the Bible verse by verse, and they preached out of that. That is what Christ is talking about. And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, that's Genesis all the way to Malachi, he expounded to them in all the scriptures, the things concerning himself. It is all about Jesus. So we have a victorious Messiah in Psalm 2, for example, in Isaiah 11, for example, and as I've referenced already, the suffering Messiah in Psalms and Isaiah also.
Currently, we are between the two appearances. The church age, which none of the prophets saw. Christ saw it. The apostles even struggled to get it. Paul was so blind to it, he was killing Christians, because he didn't get it. The ancient prophets, they chose to believe what they saw, what they knew to be true, yet unclear, they held to what they knew was true.
And that which was unclear did not knock them off the truth, as we see happen so often to people. We must choose to believe Christ unseen, and that's why I went back and read that portion of the Peter where he says, Having not seen you love, that is faith. 1 Peter 1.8, whom having not seen you love, though now you do not see him, yet believing you rejoice with joy, inexpressible, full of glory.
Some of that should find your way into your singing in the assembly. And the glories, we're now at the bottom of verse 11, and the glories that would follow. The resurrection, the ascension, the birth of the church, the salvation age that we are in of the Gentiles. Isaiah 53 verse 11, he shall see the labor of his soul and be satisfied. In other words, the cross was worth it to him. He continues, Isaiah does, by his knowledge, my righteous servant shall justify many.
See, the Jews, when they saw that many, they weren't thinking Gentiles, they just thought many Jews. God was thinking many Jews and many Gentiles. And then he says, for he shall bear their iniquities. Christ so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. When he says he gave his only begotten son, he doesn't mean that he loaned him to us to sort of hang out. He means he took him to the altar and there presented him as the lamb of God, a sacrifice in the place of sinners for sinners. Christ died on the cross as me, the sinner in my place.
I am Barabbas. I should have been crucified. I should have been sentenced and judged.
I should have bore my guilt. And Christ took it for me. And he took it for anyone else who would come and receive it. And so the prophets, they saw the world beyond the church age, but not the church age. They saw a world where everyone worshiped Jesus Christ. Isaiah chapter 11 verse 9, again Isaiah 11 portrays Christ as sovereign and ruler, reigning as opposed to Isaiah 53 which portrays him crucified. They shall not hurt nor destroy in my holy mountain for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
That's that first generation of the millennial age, but in the passage of time there will be those that will grow restless and tired of the restrictions of holiness and they will rebel and they will be dealt with. Verse 12 now, now that's the introduction, now we can start. To them it was revealed that not to themselves but to us they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit, sent from heaven things which angels desire to look into.
To them it was revealed. There's no other way that man could know anything about God. You will never stumble into salvation.
You will never say, huh, I figured it out. It is either given or you don't get it. That's what makes the Bible the scripture. To them, the writers of the Old Testament and the New, but he's talking about the Old now, and Peter, his humble spirit comes out because he doesn't mention himself. He has an opportunity in this 12th verse to say, and I'm one of the Bible teachers, but he doesn't.
He is truly in the zone where he needs to be as the apostle that he is. When they saw what God showed them, it was not abstract, but it was unfinished. They had tracks or large pieces of the puzzle in place, but not all the puzzle. They could make out a silhouette, a sketch, but they lacked the details, even though they were given so many details. Again, I've been referring to Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 concerning the suffering of our Lord, the details in there that they received, but there was so much still they were lacking. And as we watch Jesus move through the Gospels, we see that the Jews still did not get it. Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, they were scholars of Judaism, and they didn't get it at first. In fact, it wasn't until he was crucified that all of a sudden they realized this is something bigger than everybody.
And so the vital pieces of the puzzles, the puzzles of truth, revealed truth, they had that much. They had much to say about the millennial kingdom, Christ ruling on his throne from Jerusalem. If you've ever read through Ezekiel, you know, okay, I get it.
I get that millennial reign. We get how many chapters dealing with the millennial reign of Christ, but nothing about the church. Luke chapter 10 verse 23, Jesus speaking. Then he turned to his disciples and said privately, Blessed are the eyes which see the things you see, for I tell you that many prophets and kings have desired to see what you see and have not seen it, and to hear what you hear and have not heard it. God is able to communicate with his people. That is what Jesus is saying. Others have not seen this, but you're getting it. Moses and Elijah had to wait until Christ was glorified, transfigured, glowing in their presence.
Well, before then they got it, but that's when it was made clear to us the second part of the story. Matthew 13, Jesus said, Blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear, for surely I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see and did not see it, and to hear what you hear and did not hear it. I've read a verse, a parallel verse, for emphasis. That's why we read the verses. They're our authority. You take them away and it's all gibberish. We're just making stuff up. This is the footing.
This is the foundation of everything we do. The scripture verses should mean everything to the Christian. A sermon without scripture.
What is that? Now some men are that good, such as an AW told you. He could preach a sermon without mentioning a scripture and everything he said was based on scripture. That was his style. Mine is better.
Better for me because I can't do it that good. He continues here in verse 12, That not to themselves but to us they were ministering the things which have not been reported to you. Sometimes when I read these verses I feel like I should emphasize a point in the verse, and other times I want to hold it back so I can open it up and hopefully keep your attention that way. I don't know if it works or not.
Some of you have returned, so I think there's some success there. But he says not to themselves but to us. You see, it is relevant in every age. There have been those, even in the church, that say, well the Bible is not relevant to the culture.
That person needs to be taken out in a straitjacket and put inside of a straitjacket. Because it's crazy, it's the madness of the prophet. We'll get to that in chapter 2 Peter 2, and Peter says, Balaam went insane. He was the mad, the mad prophet. I don't mean angry, I mean he lost his mind.
But anyway, that would be a lot of fun. The Old Testament prophets wrote of the coming salvation, knowing it was a future event, I should add. And Peter, insisting that, as we should, this is now the age of grace, Paul did too, Ephesians 3, which in other ages were not made known to the sons of men, as it has been revealed by the Spirit to his holy apostles and prophets that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs of the same body and partakers of his promise in Christ through the gospel. The church was miraculously inserted into human history. When we say the church, we mean Jew and Gentile alike. There's no distinction. Once you become a Christian, you're no longer a Gentile, you're no longer a Jew, you're Christian.
Oh yeah, your ethnicity is retained by the sake of, you know, your driver's license or something. But from heaven's perspective, you are just a believer. And the church was inserted miraculously, she will be extracted miraculously, what we know as the rapture. And Jesus said, For I tell you that many prophets and kings desire to see what you see.
Do we agree with that? Do we recognize that we are seeing things that the great prophets of Scripture did not get to see? Galatians 3.13, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law. Having become a curse for us, what is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. To a Jew, that's a stumbling block unless he can understand more of his own Scripture.
But if he stays stuck on, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree, he cannot see that Jesus is the Messiah. And that was in the Old Testament, Moses speaking under the Holy Spirit, that is a prophetic verse concerning the cross. But none of the Jews knew that at the time. Paul gets it, a holy apostle, because the Lord worked in his life. The marvelous typologies in the Scripture, wrapped up in all the symbolism, pointing to Jesus, pointing to Jesus, they missed, they couldn't connect at all. The annual Jewish feast, especially the Passover, especially the Pentecost, especially the Day of Atonement, especially the Feast of Trumpets, they could not connect it to the person, Messiah, Christ. Ephesians 2, For he himself is our peace, who is made both one.
He has broken down the middle wall of separation. Paul is trying to say there's no longer Jew or Gentile, the very thing that's stopping so many Jews from believing the Christ. It took Peter eight years, eight years after the church was born, after he was filled with the Holy Spirit, it took him eight years to understand what God wanted to do with Gentiles, by bringing them in. And that's why we read the story in Acts chapter 10, of how God first had to give him a vision, and then had to give him prophecy, and then had to finally wrap it all up with the miracle of the truth when the Holy Spirit was poured upon the Gentiles in the middle of his sermon. That's how entrenched the understanding of Judaism without the Gentile church was in the early believers. And so it took a new age of grace, a new generation of preachers, a fresh work of the Holy Spirit, a new age of history, a new word from the Holy Spirit. It took 27 additional books of the Bible to give this shape, form, and thrust that we enjoy right now. You look at John's Gospel chapter 14 through 17, you see Jesus laid it all out to them, that this would be the value, I'm not going to leave you orphans, I'm going to send the Holy Spirit, and he's going to do this, and he lays it all out for them.
Others I have, not outside of this. And in time they all did get it. To this day, Judaism cannot see Christ as the Messiah, and they've missed their opportunity. There's no other way that the prophecies can be fulfilled. That age of history is closed. Just for instance, how does anyone prove that they're from the tribe of Judah? Those records are gone. And by the time the Great Tribulation period gets here, it would be too late.
It would be irrelevant. So he finishes through, those who have preached the Gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. That's just Acts chapter 2. Paul writes this, Ephesians 2, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. He is everything.
Everything that we believe and go forward with and go up with is based on the Christ. And Satan hates it. It's the glory that he wants. That's why he said, bow down to me and I'll give you that he still wants to be treated with the respect that God gets, the reverence, the worship.
And he ain't getting it. So he is enraged over these things and hates the people of God. He hates humans to begin with.
When you become a Christian, he double hates you. Things which angels desire to look in. The angels.
You could say this is the messengers. You could, in a secondary sense, say the things that the prophets desire to look in. But he's speaking of the spiritual beings who admire the plan of salvation. Our understanding is that the fallen angels were given no such opportunity, nor should they have been. Lucifer got no opportunity to be forgiven because he dwelled in heaven with God. There was no excuse for his rebellion. And therefore, I mean there was zero.
In fact, there was every reason for him not to rebel. We have not enjoyed that privilege. We have not seen God in his throne room as the fallen angels and Lucifer did. And so the angels who did not fall, they understand that this is a meaningful thing. That sinners such as us should be redeemed by the blood of Christ, whom they witnessed leave his throne for a manger and be awarded the cross. And so the unfallen angels are not only interested in us, but they are cheering us on.
Do you believe that? Do you believe that this matter is such a spiritual thing, this matter of salvation, through the resurrection, the cross and resurrection of Christ? Do you believe it is so important, such a spiritual event, that the angels are cheering you on? Luke chapter 10, likewise Jesus speaking, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. Jesus is saying this is such big news that in heaven it is a news flash.
It is a bulletin and it is well received. The angels have been plugged in to everything we've done as human beings. cherubim in the garden making sure Adam and Eve did not prolong or extend the curse throughout eternity, took out their swords and guarded the tree of life. They shouted for joy at the creation because they're so in tune with the joy of God that it caught hold of them. And the Bible tells it that way so that it can catch hold of us and stay that way.
You won't be here forever and there may be times you may think that it's not good, it is very good. I close with this verse, Hebrews chapter 2, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? How are you going to get away from the judgment to come is what he is saying. He continues, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed to us by those who heard him. The writer of Hebrews is saying the Lord really brought the salvation that the prophets had spoken of. He brought it to its fullness and then he gave it to his apostles to organize it and deliver it. And now there's no excuse. When someone hears the gospel, you either repent or you play into the hands of Satan.
The choice is entirely up to you. We're so glad you tuned in today to study the book of 1 Peter on Cross Reference Radio. Cross Reference Radio is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel in Mechanicsville, Virginia. And we're blessed to bring you God's word with each broadcast. If you'd like more information about this program or want to listen to additional teachings from Pastor Rick, please visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. We also encourage you to subscribe to our podcast so you'll never have to miss a program. Just search for Cross Reference Radio in iTunes, Google Play Music or your favorite podcast app. We hope you'll tune in again next time to join us as we continue our study through the scriptures right here on Cross Reference Radio.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-03-23 17:36:33 / 2024-03-23 17:46:04 / 10