Hyssops A Plenty

Eternal God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, grant us your Holy Spirit who writes the preached word

into our hearts, so that we may receive it and believe it and be gladded and comforted by it in

eternity.

Glorify your word in our hearts, make it so bright and warm that we may find pleasure in it.

Through your inspiration, think what is right, and by your power, fulfill the word.

For the sake of Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord.

Amen.

Okay, we are working our way through the book of Leviticus.

Last week, we took an occasion to talk about some of the

typology.

And I was trying to think, if I were to explain to somebody how biblical typology works,

do you all ever play memory with your small kids or your grandkids?

We have a memory game that we used to play.

It's a card -based game, but it's not just cards.

You would have pictures of frogs and sheep and a giraffe and stuff like that.

You flip them over, so you take your turn.

You've got a frog and then you've got a cricket.

It's like, oh, bummer, so you have to close it.

You've got to remember where the frog was.

Kid takes his turn, and he turns over a sheep and a gorilla, and so he's got to try to

remember where those are.

Then you flip over a frog, and you go, oh, yeah, I remember the frog.

It's right there, but where was it over here?

Biblical typology, oddly enough, is kind of like that.

The Bible is self -referential.

Oftentimes, it's a word or a concept.

Last week, as we were working our way through the book of Leviticus, Leviticus 14,

again, we're in one of my least favorite portions of Leviticus, the skin diseases and leprosy

section, which is just, yay, what a great topic.

Again, I am so happy and thankful that I am not a Levitical priest, that I'm a

New Covenant pastor.

Leviticus 14, here's our review.

Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, this shall be the law of leprous person for the

day of his cleansing.

This has to relate, then, to the cleansing of leprous person.

The priest shall go out of the camp.

The priest shall look.

Then, if the case of the leprous disease is healed in the leprous person, the priest shall command them to take for him

who is to be cleansed two live, clean birds and cedarwood, scarlet yarn, and

hyssop.

These three things also appear in the book of Numbers in relation to

the sacrifice of the red heifer, whose ashes then get added to a mixture of water.

It's for the purpose of taking somebody who's come in contact with a dead body so that

they can be cleansed.

It's a fascinating concept.

A little bit of a note here.

You'll note that Jesus touched dead bodies.

He had this thing that he did.

But it seems like every time he touched a dead body, the person ceased to be a dead person.

They became alive.

Jesus raised them from the grave.

That's a great thing.

Last week, we talked about the cedarwood.

I think we can just say that this is a reference, then, to the wood of the cross.

This is how the church fathers deal with it.

Last week, we went on an extended excursion into the book of Judges and took a look

at what's with scarlet yarn.

What is that all about?

We took a look at the story from the book of Joshua regarding Rahab,

the prostitute, the harlot of Jericho.

We read out the story of the fall of Jericho and noted that in type and shadow,

because of the appearance of the shout, because of the appearance of the trumpets, and

because this is going into the promised land, and we note promised land is like one of those memory cards.

Promised land.

It's mentioned in the Old Testament.

But it's also mentioned in the New.

The New tells us explicitly that the promised land is not a postage stamp -sized piece

of real estate in the Middle East, but the promised land that's in the Middle East in the Old Testament is a type and

shadow of the promised land, which is the New Earth for all Christians, for all believers.

That being the case, in the Old Covenant, in the Old Testament, when we have the children of Israel coming into the promised

land, the first order of business is the destruction of Jericho.

We noted then that because of the details of it and some of the memory words that show

up, trumpet, shout, trumpet, shout appear in the New Covenant, in the New Testament,

that this was kind of a dress rehearsal in the ancient world for the destruction of the

world itself.

The day when Jesus comes again with glory to judge the living and the dead, and only those who

are protected by the scarlet cord, only those who are protected

by the scarlet cord survive the ordeal.

The scarlet cord is a reference then to the blood of Christ, because only those who have been

forgiven by Christ, whose sins, though they be as scarlet, their

robes are made white in the blood of the Lamb.

Only those who have that are saved.

And then Rahab herself is a type and shadow of the

bride of Jesus Christ, because not only does she survive, we also

then learned from the Gospel of Matthew, she marries the guy who's next in line

for the Messiah.

This is just crazy -go -nuts stuff.

Now, what about hyssop?

Hyssop, again, think of it like our analogy here.

The word hyssop, it appears a few times in Scripture, and there's references to

it.

So here we've got somebody who's been cleansed of a leprous disease.

Leprosy and those leprous diseases are a picture of the effects of sin, if you would,

on people.

So when somebody's cleansed, they've got to take cedar wood, scarlet yarn,

hyssop, and dip them in the live bird, in the blood of the bird that was

killed over the fresh water, and he shall sprinkle it seven times on him who is to be cleansed.

So here we've got the interesting thing.

Hyssop being dipped in blood, then this being sprinkled in water, and then this

water being used for cleansing.

Hmm.

Okay.

So hyssop makes its first appearance, and it only makes a few appearances, and I mean this, like just a very few

limited number of appearances in Scripture in the book of Exodus.

Now, I should do this.

Hang on a second here.

Let me see.

T, and I want my

SSOP.

We talk about hyssop.

What are we talking about?

Of course, my Internet out here is not all that reliable.

There we go, and I want images of hyssop.

My apologies.

We can sing camp songs while we're waiting for the Internet.

It's like dial -up out here, man.

Remember those days?

H -Y -S -S -O -P.

So hyssop itself, if we look at it in its native flourishing form,

looks a lot like lavender.

It's like a shrubbery or some kind of shrub.

And what the children of Israel did is that they would take

bunches of hyssop together, and then make something like a branch out of it, and you can paint

with it, apparently.

But that was the idea.

So this is what it looks like when it's growing.

It's got a really pretty purple -y kind of color to it.

But here's where it makes its first appearance.

Exodus 12, then talking about the Exodus.

Yahweh said to Moses and to Aaron in the land of Egypt, This month shall be for

you the beginning of months.

It shall be the first month of the year for you.

Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month, every man shall

take a lamb according to their father's houses, a lamb for a household,

and if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his

nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons, according to what

each can eat, you shall make your count for the lamb.

Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male, a year old.

You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the month

when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.

Twilight is three in the afternoon.

That's when twilight begins.

Then they shall take some of the blood, put it on the two doorposts and the lintel

of the houses in which they eat.

So doorposts are those, you know, over here we have an example,

visual aid, yes.

Doorpost. Doorpost.

Lintel.

So the idea then is you're going to take some of this blood, you're going to put it on the two doorposts, and you're

going to put it on the lintel.

And funny enough, visually, this will create the points of

a cross.

Kind of a fascinating thing when you put it on both sides.

So you've got blood on the right, blood on the left, blood on the top, and just draw some lines, and you've got yourself a cross.

Fascinating how that works.

So they shall take some of the blood, put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat.

They shall eat the flesh that night, roast it on the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.

They shall eat it.

Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, roasted with its legs and its inner parts.

You shall let none of it remain until the morning.

Anything that remains until the morning, you shall burn.

In this manner, you shall eat it with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, your staff in your hand.

And you shall eat it in haste.

It is Yahweh's Passover.

And I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and

beast, and on all the gods of Egypt, I will execute judgment.

I am Yahweh.

The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the

blood, notice who's the destroyer then, God is.

When I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you when I

strike the land of Egypt.

This day shall be a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to Yahweh throughout your generations,

a statute forever.

You shall keep it as a feast.

Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread.

On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses, for if anyone eats what is

leavened from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel.

On the first day you shall hold a holy assembly, and on the seventh day a holy assembly.

No work shall be done on those days, but what everyone needs to eat, that alone may be

prepared by you.

And you shall observe the feast of unleavened bread, for on this very day I brought you and your hosts out of the land of Egypt.

Therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations, as a statute forever.

On the first month, the fourteenth day of the month, at evening you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty

-first day of the month at evening.

For seven days no leaven is to be found in your houses.

If anyone eats what is leavened, that person will be cut off from the congregation.

Now leaven here, kind of doing our, again, doing our little memory game,

this is kind of how typology works.

Let me show you that one real quick.

Leaven, L -E -A -V -E -N.

And I want it in the New Testament.

Listen to this, Jesus says, and he cautioned them, watch out, beware of the leaven of the

Pharisees, and the leaven of Herod.

And then, so you'll note that leaven shows up in a negative context.

And then 1 Corinthians 5, 6.

Your boasting is not good.

Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?

Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened, for Christ our Passover

lamb has been sacrificed.

So, leaven itself, yeast, which is a really, it's a bummer if you

think about it, because you've got to get rid of all the leaven that you've had in your house for a year.

And if anyone's been making a sourdough, they've got a good sourdough starter.

That's a mysterious dark art, learning how to make a sourdough starter.

Could you imagine having to, finally you've got a perfect sourdough starter, and then you've got to throw that thing out.

But the whole point of the leaven, then, is that it's symbolic of false teaching,

of false belief, of sin.

And so, the Apostle Paul, in 1 Corinthians 5, in fact, let me get the

whole context in 1 Corinthians 5, so you can kind of see how this plays out.

As you read 1 Corinthians, it's an awkward book because the Apostle Paul

is correcting, just, how shall we put it, some

weird, bizarre things that are happening in this church.

And you're thinking, how can this be?

Well, here's one of the weirder ones.

So, Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 5, it's actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you,

which that's not supposed to be happening.

And this is of a kind that is not tolerated even among the pagans.

So, it's like, not only is there sexual immorality, but this one's really kind of out there.

And here's what's going on.

A man has his father's wife.

What?

What?

And you're arrogant.

Ought you not rather to mourn?

Let him who has done this be removed from among you.

So, this guy has to be punished because he's an impenitent.

For though absent in body, I am present in spirit.

And as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing.

When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus, and my spirit is present with the power of our

Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so

that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.

Look at that.

The Apostle Paul is present with him in spirit,.

Even without the internet.

That's weird.

So, you're boasting though, he says then, is not good.

They're actually boasting.

Yeah, we're so forgiven, man.

Jesus has forgiven all of our sins.

Dude, check this out.

That guy right there, he's been sleeping with his dad's wife.

Isn't that great?

Jesus forgives us and loves us, dude.

And you're sitting there going, what?

He did not forgive us and set us free to be slaves to sin.

He set us free from being slaves to sin.

So, he then says, your boasting is not good.

And here we then see the typology.

Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?

Cleanse out the old leaven.

You know, this is invoking then what we were just reading in Exodus about leaven.

Why do you get rid of the leaven?

It's a symbol of sin.

Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump as you really are unleavened.

And here's the reason why.

Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.

Alright?

So, those little Passover lambs that are sacrificed

point to Jesus.

Point to Jesus.

So, let us therefore celebrate the festival not with the old leaven, the leaven of

malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of

sincerity and truth.

Huh.

Alright.

So, leaven then is a picture of sin.

Unleavened bread is a picture of sincerity, truth,

spotlessness, sinlessness in Christ.

That's kind of the idea.

That's the picture.

So, we see how then the typology works.

Then, coming back.

So, you shall eat nothing leavened.

In all of your dwelling places you shall eat unleavened bread.

So, then Moses called all the elders of Israel, said to them, Go, select lambs for yourselves according to your clans.

Kill the Passover lamb.

And here's where the first appearance of hyssop is in the Bible.

Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, touch the lintel

and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin.

None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning.

And Yahweh will pass through to strike the Egyptians.

And when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass

over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you.

And you shall observe this right as a statute for you and for your sons forever.

And when you come to the land that the Lord your God will give you, as he promised, you shall keep

this service.

And when your children say to you, What do you mean by this service?

You shall say, It is the sacrifice of the Lord's Passover.

For he passed over the houses of the people of Israel and Egypt when he struck the Egyptians, but spared

our houses.

And the people bowed their heads and they worshipped.

So, the Passover itself is a symbol pointing to Christ.

We know what the leaven is all about.

So, the hyssop shows up because this is the thing where you dip the blood, you dip the hyssop

in the blood and you paint your thing and hyssop appears.

So, the hyssop appears here.

Hyssop appears in our Leviticus text.

Hyssop appears again in the book of Numbers.

And then hyssop appears at all places, at all the places in the

Gospel of John.

And so, Jesus is on the cross, John 19, 28.

After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said, to fulfill the Scripture, I

thirst.

A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they took a sponge full of the sour wine.

The sour wine, bitter herbs, notice kind of the themes here, and full of sour wine.

And they put it on a hyssop branch, held it to his mouth.

So, there's your hyssop.

And when Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, it is finished.

He bowed his head and he gave up his spirit.

So, hyssop makes its last appearance then at the cross.

So, you connect all the dots here.

And everything is, this whole river is flowing to Lake Jesus.

And so, how does this all work out then?

Well, you kind of put all the pieces together.

Jesus is our Passover lamb.

It is his blood that God has sprinkled over us.

And on the Day of Judgment, you can say the Lord takes a look at humanity.

Egypt then is a type and shadow of the sinful world, the unbelieving sinful world.

And so, the destroyer goes out on the Day of Judgment and looks.

And those who have the blood of the Passover lamb on them,

the destroyer passes over.

They are forgiven.

They are cleansed.

And so, everything points to Christ in that way.

Yes, sir?

You know, when you're reading Exodus, the

depressing it is to read that because

abide by it.

Right.

And then, I feel that this hyssop branch is

a vehicle.

Okay?

It is like a paintbrush.

It is the vehicle to paint the wall.

It is a vehicle.

They used it the same way most of the time in here.

And it is so wonderful.

That we follow.

This rather than the Mosaic Covenant.

Right.

And the New Covenant is it can just put a smile on everybody's face because your heart is there.

Yeah. Yeah.

Under the Mosaic Covenant, you have no chance because you can't...

There is no chance.

You can't keep...

Yeah.

If you want to be saved by the law, you have to keep it perfectly from the moment you are conceived

to the moment you draw your last breath.

If you want to be saved by the law, you have to keep it perfectly.

And God does not grade on a curve.

And so, it is not like he looks across all of humanity and goes, okay, here is Adam.

Here is the last guy who dies, the man of lawlessness on the last day.

We will take all of humanity together.

We have got 10 commandments.

How did everybody do?

And we come up with this nice bell curve, right?

And so, everyone, you know, like within 10 percentage points, on the right or the left of the median, they are

in.

And all of the outliers, you guys are gone.

Right.

It is not how that works.

Okay.

There is only two scores when it comes to salvation by the law.

And they are pass or fail.

And anybody who has committed one sin.

Fails.

End of story.

You are doomed.

Now what?

Right.

Now what?

Well, this is where the great exchange becomes so vital.

Because Christ, who is the sinless one, he kept God's law

perfectly.

Not so he can go, neener, neener, neener, I am more holier than you are.

No.

He keeps God's law perfectly.

And then what happens is that God lays on him the iniquity of us all.

So Jesus becomes the singular sinner of all of humanity.

And then when we are brought to faith in Christ, and this repentance and faith is a gift given by God, when we are brought to faith

in Christ, his perfect righteousness is then given to us, and we

are clothed in the righteousness of Christ.

You know, kind of in a strange way, you remember the story of how Jacob deceived

his father, Isaac, in order to get the blessing that

he was going to give to Esau.

You know, it's one of these stories that is just so utterly scandalous that you just sit

there and you go, how can anything good come of this story?

But I would tell you that that, in weird type and shadow,

is the whole scandal of the forgiveness of our sins.

So we come before God, the Father, dressed in our brother's clothes,

in brother Jesus' clothes.

And the Father says, is that you, Jesus?

Yes, it's me.

Well, you sound like Chris.

You don't sound like Jesus.

Right?

Come close to me, my son.

Okay.

Well, and then he touches me.

Well, you smell like Jesus.

You feel like Jesus.

You sound like Chris.

But really, I'm Jesus.

Right?

Again, it's a type and shadow.

And it's scandalous when you think about it.

It's utterly scandalous that a sinner like me, a sinner like you, that we

receive the blessing of the Father, the forgiveness of sins, reconciliation, and the inheritance.

We're in the will, man.

We got the full inheritance as part of this.

And we're wearing Jesus' clothes, covering up our own filth,

our own stink, so we smell and look like him.

That's kind of the picture of salvation.

And so this is, again, this is one of the wonderful pictures of how the gospel works.

But, yeah, it gives us hope.

And that's the thing.

We Christians not only, you know, kind of trepidatiously have hope.

Yeah, I'm kind of hoping for eternal life.

You know, cross your fingers.

Hope to die.

No, no, no, no, no.

We have confidence.

We have actual confident hope because God never lies.

Christ never lies.

You are in Christ.

You are forgiven.

Your sins are gone.

You're covered in the righteousness of Christ.

And it's totally scandalous.

And, you know, like I always like to say, man, I'm telling you, when I walk into

the kingdom, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going to go, oh, good night.

Jesus is letting anybody in now.

Right?

They're going to be scandalized by my presence.

But that's the idea.

That's the idea.

Is that chief of sinners though I be, Jesus shed his blood for me.

Right?

And that faith is even given as a gift.

Michael.

Yeah.

Okay.

That's a great question.

There's a technical answer to it.

So the Hebrew word is olam.

The Hebrew word is olam.

And olam is going to have several different meanings.

And so we read in the cross references regarding the types and shadows.

So let me kind of help you out here.

I'm going to give you a New Testament text and then we'll talk about how olam works.

In Colossians chapter 2, we have a clear text that tells us something

about these feast days.

So,.

Here we've got this wonderful picture in the middle portion of Colossians 2, saying to us,

starting at verse 13, you, you Christians at Colossae, and all of us who are in Christ, you were

dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh.

God has made you alive together with Christ, having forgiven us all of our trespasses by

canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.

This he set aside nailing to the cross.

He disarmed the rulers and authorities, put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him.

So here we've got this picture then.

And so the picture then of salvation and what Christ did is that in the books we've got this record of

debt and of course in the digital age they've created Excel spreadsheets.

This is why spreadsheets are evil.

And there's a whole table.

There's a whole table in your Excel spreadsheet that says record of debt.

And so what Jesus has done is he's gone into that table in your Excel spreadsheet, he's printed the

whole thing out,.

And he's.

Taken that, these reams of paper, he's taken it and he's nailed it to the cross,

and it says debt paid in full, and you can write it out in his blood.

So this is a picture of salvation.

He's cancelled the record of debt, nailed it to the cross, so you are totally forgiven, totally free.

There is nothing that you've done that can accuse you now because Christ has paid the full debt for this.

Yes?

No, he can't.

You see, in good accounting you always need to have an audit trail.

Right?

So you've got to have an audit trail.

So Jesus has taken that, nailed it to the cross, says debt paid in full, so we've got the receipt, if you would.

And then here's the therefore.

So Paul then says this, therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of

food, drink, with regard to a festival, a new moon, or a Sabbath.

So he's now making reference then to the covenant feast days, new moon festivals, and the

Shabbat itself, the Sabbath.

And here's what he explicitly says.

These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

So Passover, according to Colossians 2 .17, is a

type, it's a shadow.

It's not the real thing.

And so we've been working our way then, we've kind of plumbed out the meaning, the substance belongs to Christ, Jesus is our

Passover lamb, 1 Corinthians 5 says that explicitly.

The leaven is a type and shadow of sin, 1 Corinthians 5 says that explicitly.

So Jesus is the fulfillment of it, work everything around Him, you've got it.

Now, why then does it say in Scripture that this is a statute forever, Olam?

Well, in the cross references you're going to have a little caveat that goes along with Olam, forever.

This is a statute forever throughout your generations, as long as the

Mosaic Covenant is in effect.

But see, the Mosaic Covenant was never intended to be a permanent covenant.

It's a type and shadow covenant, pointing to Christ, and it's been done away with.

So then the question comes up, is it, well, if somebody invites me to a Seder dinner, can I go?

Sure, that's a fascinating thing to look at, but you don't go to it looking, treating it as a

substance, but really kind of getting more information as to how the Seder would have worked in pointing to Jesus.

There's stuff that you can learn in that sense.

Yes. Okay.

Yeah.

Right, the type and shadow is given away to the substance, and here's a beautiful picture of the way it works then.

Alright, so Christ, our Passover lamb, has been slain.

Right?

On those Sundays when we have the Lord's Supper, we hear these strange words.

On the night that.

Jesus was betrayed, he took bread.

He had given thanks, broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, take eat, this is my body,

which is given for you.

And remember, the Passover lamb is consumed, it's eaten.

And then you hear these words.

In the same way also, he took the cup after supper, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, drink of it, all of you.

This cup is the New Testament in my blood, which is shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins.

This do as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

So now, what happens is you come to the altar, come to the rail,.

And on your knees, you.

Receive the body and blood of Jesus Christ, given and shed for you, for the forgiveness of your sins, and your

mouth is considered to be like the door of your body.

And so now, the blood of Christ has been placed on the door of your body, in your mouth, on your lips, on your tongue.

And,.

Do this in remembrance of me, this is covenantal talk.

So, what happens then is that you are then to remember the promises of the new covenant.

What are the promises of the new covenant?

That you're forgiven.

That all your sins have been bled for and died for.

That Christ, your Passover Lamb, has been slain for you.

And so, you remember the promises that you have been reconciled to the Father, forgiven in Christ.

That you are a new creation, that you are a hagioi, that you are a saint, and that God has

made you this.

These are all the promises, right?

But, here's the other thing, is that, remember, covenants go two ways in this way.

The new covenant goes in two directions.

The other person who is party to this, then, is God himself.

And so, God himself seeing you and seeing the blood of Christ

in your mouth says, I forgive you.

You're forgiven.

I remember your sins no more.

I know your name, but I can't remember your sins.

That's kind of a fuzzy thing.

It's gone.

In fact, there's nothing.

You seem to be clothed in Jesus's clothing.

But, you smell like Nikki.

But, you look and smell a lot like Jesus.

You see kind of how it all works.

Yeah.

We can't read the Old Testament and the New Testament separately.

We have to see that it's kind of like the drama that's going on in the Old Testament leads up to

the New Testament.

And, it's like Paul Harvey.

You've got to get.

The rest of the story.

You've got to get the rest of the story.

That's right.

And so, there's a lot of confusion about the Bible because our first impulse as

Christians.

Is, well, that's in the Old Testament.

Why do I need to study that?

Because it's about Christ.

Well, how could it be about Christ?

He's not mentioned.

And so, this is the other scandal of it.

There's an entire school of theological thought that really is bristling against this idea of Biblical

typology.

They sit there and go, it can't be about Jesus unless the Bible explicitly says it's about Jesus.

Well, Jesus says all of the scriptures are written about me.

That's in John 5.

So, I'm just going to go with, it's all about Jesus.

So,.

You know, it's that silly Sunday school answer.

You ask your Sunday school kids, you know, what is this story about?

It's about Jesus, right?

Correct.

It's about Jesus.

The story of Rahab, it's about Jesus.

The story of the fall of Jericho, it's about Jesus.

All of this stuff is about Jesus.

And Jesus himself, if you're not clear about it, he keeps showing up all over the Old Testament.

What's he doing there?

He's all over the place in the Old Testament.

Right?

You know, another type and shadow that's at least worth looking at in this regard, and this is

totally just going to seem off track, but it's just so good, is

the type and shadow as it relates to our prayers.

And let me find this.

Let me see.

I think it's Genesis 32.

No.

Let me find it real quick.

Russell.

Okay.

Yeah, it is 32. Genesis 32.

Alright, so Genesis 32.

So, since we've been talking about.

Jacob, Yaakov,.

Yaakov.

In Hebrew, heel grabber or deceiver.

What a great name.

How would you like to be called deceiver?

It's like, yeah, that's.

A bad name.

Anyway,.

So,.

If you recall the story,.

Isaac.

Marries Rebekah.

Rebekah is pregnant with twins.

And these twins are duking it out in utero, and she thinks there's something wrong.

I mean, she's walking around all the tussling.

It's bizarre what's going on.

So she goes to find out, to hear from the Lord, to get a word from the Lord as to what's going on.

And she hears a prophecy, and the prophecy is that she has twins, and that the older will

serve the younger.

God himself specifically says that, and which means that God's basically saying, I know here on

planet Earth at this time in the ancient world, the oldest son gets everything, the youngest son gets

practically nothing, but God says, I don't care about that.

The older is going to serve the younger.

The younger is going to be the one who has the blessing, who has the promise.

And it's through the younger son that Jesus comes.

And so his name, because he was born second, but he was hanging on to his

brother.

So out comes his brother Esau, who's red and hairy, and out then comes Jacob, and

he's hanging on to his brother's heel, so he gets the name Yaakob, heel grabber, or deceiver.

And so that goes.

But there's a fight then between Isaac and Rebekah, because.

Rebekah.

Favors.

Jacob, Isaac favors his firstborn son, Esau.

And.

So you got this back and forth, and Esau, God has rejected him.

And so that's where the story then of Jacob deceiving his father

by wearing his brother's clothes, receives the blessing, and as soon as Esau hears

what Jacob had done, how he had stolen his blessing, the way he's comforting himself is by

harboring thoughts of murdering his brother.

And so his mother and his father say, yeah, you need to go visit Uncle Laban and

get out of town, because this is not, your brother wants to kill you, and we can't exactly blame him.

And so this is where Jacob, he leaves, he heads up to, you know, back to where their relatives

are, and he heads back to visit Uncle Laban, and he falls in love with.

Rachel, who's.

The younger daughter, and Leah, it says of her she has weak eyes, which is just a

polite way of saying that, you know, when you look at her, your eyes go wobbly, and you do this kind of thing, she's not

easy to look at.

Alright?

And so he ends up with two wives, two concubines, twelve.

Sons.

And then.

The Lord says, time for you to head back.

This is Roseboro Reader's Digest version of this.

Now, before I get to that,.

What?

Esau is.

An impetuous man who makes rash decisions, and he is

not spoken of in a way where he has faith, but even before they had done

anything, God had chosen.

Jacob.

To be the primary, because it was through him that the Messiah comes.

So when we talk about God rejecting Esau and choosing Jacob, even before they had

done anything, we have to talk about that not in relation to the Calvinistic.

Categories of.

Double predestination, like he predestined Esau to hell.

That's not it at all.

The predestination here is in relation to who then would be the one through whom the Messiah would come.

And you're going to note that Jacob is not a minor character in the Old Testament.

He is a major character in the Old Testament.

He's like up there with Abraham.

Abraham is written more about than Jacob is, but Jacob has a huge

role to play, and we'll talk then about how his name is changed, but I wouldn't go so far

as to say that that's not supporting what's going on there.

I don't know.

Yeah. I don't know.

I guess I'm asking, is there something that that conveys?

Is that pointing to something?

Is that a type of shadow?

You've got to remember this,.

That.

God does choose.

God does predestine.

God does elect.

I mean, this is exactly what Ephesians 1 says.

We do not deny that.

But why He does?

I have no clue.

In fact, the Lutheran response to those who would try to speculate and answer that question, we say that you are not

permitted to climb the ladder into heaven and peek at the deus nudus.

You're not allowed to peek at the naked God.

We are not.

Privy to the decisions, the discussion, and the counsel that occurs within the one true God between the Father,

Son, and Holy Spirit.

So, I don't know why.

Why is it tough?

If the Scriptures don't tell me why, I don't know why.

I don't know why He picked Jacob over Esau.

I don't know.

But I just know that God did, even before they were born.

Alright, now let's take a look then at Genesis 32.

It's kind of working out some more of this because this is so fascinating.

So, Jacob is told by God, go back.

Go back to Canaan.

And, as he's traveling back, word is coming back

to him regarding his brother.

And, here's what it says in Genesis 32, verse 6.

Messengers returned to Yahob saying, We came to your brother Esau.

He's coming to meet you, and there are 400 men.

With him.

And, it's at this point, all the blood leaves his face.

What?

So, he's doing what God told him to do, return.

First order of business is, now we've got to deal with Esau, who wanted to murder him, and now he's

got 400 men with him.

So, Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed.

That makes sense.

So, he divided the people who were with him, and the flocks, and the herds, and the camels into two camps, thinking well, if

Esau comes to the one camp and attacks it, then the camp that is left will escape.

So, Jacob said,.

O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father.

Isaac,.

O Yahweh, who said to me, return to your country and to your kindred that I may

do good to you.

So, notice what he's doing here, and this is, again, teaching.

Us how to pray.

You take God's words.

And you pray them back.

To him.

When you see a disparity between what God's word says and what's happening in your life,

you go back to the word and then you take that word and you go,

God, you said why is this happening?

You said this, and this is happening over here.

This is a good way to pray.

I am not worthy of the least of all of the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you've shown to your servant,

for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps.

Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I

fear him.

I fear him that he may come and attack me, the mothers, the children.

Serious anxiety, serious fear.

Legitimate.

Fear, legitimate anxiety.

You see, what does it mean to have a God, Luther says, regarding the first commandment?

God is the one whom we turn to in our distress, in our need.

So who does Jacob turn to in his time of distress, fear, anxiety, need?

Right back to God.

He prays back to him what God has told him, and then he, notice he doesn't decree and declare.

I decree and declare that Esau and all of his 400 men, that they are going to turn into mushrooms.

You know, nothing like this.

Right?

It's nonsense.

He humbly please deliver me.

But you said, and watch what he does here again.

You said, I will surely do good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for a

multitude.

So he reminds him back twice in this great prayer, what God had said.

Know your Bibles.

Read your Bibles.

You see a disparity between what you're living and experiencing, and what God's word says.

You take God's word, you pray it back to him, and you say, Lord, you said these things, and this is what's happening.

Please, hear me.

Do otherwise.

You cannot lie.

So he.

Stayed there that night, and from what he had with him, he took a present for his brother Esau.

So he prays, and then he gets busy.

His thinking is, well, Esau, he's coming to kill me, man.

He's got 400 men, he's going to come kill me.

So he's going to take things into his own hands a little bit.

So he's going to butter up his brother, just a little bit, see if he can take his simmering anger,.

And bring it down.

So he stayed there that night, and so he took 200 female goats, 20 male

goats, 200 ewes, and 20 rams.

This is just a portion of his flock.

Jacob is clearly very wealthy.

30 milking camels and their calves, 40 cows, 10 bulls, 20 female

donkeys, 10 male donkeys.

These he handed over to his servants.

Every drove by itself, and he said to his servants, pass on ahead of me, and put a space

between drove and drove.

He instructed the first, when Esau, my brother, meets you and asks you, to whom do you belong?

Where are you going?

And those who are ahead of you, then you shall say, well, they belong to your servant Jacob, and they are a present sent to

my lord Esau.

And moreover, he is behind us.

He likewise instructed the second and the third, and all who followed the droves.

You shall say the same thing to Esau when you find him, and you shall say,

moreover, your servant Jacob is behind us.

For he thought I may appease him with the present that goes ahead of me, and afterwards I shall see his face.

Perhaps he will accept me.

So the present passed on ahead of him, and he himself stayed that night in the camp.

Now the same night he rose, took his two wives, his two female servants, his 11 children,

crossed the fort of the Jabbok.

He took them and sent them across the stream and everything else that he had, and Jacob was left alone.

And listen to this.

A man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day.

And we know from what comes up next, the person he's wrestling with.

Is God.

Let me.

Be more specific.

The person he's wrestling with is Jesus.

Now, we know how this is supposed to go, right?

Over here, in this side of the ring, in this corner, we have Jesus Christ, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first

and the last, the creator of the universe, who spoke the universe into existence.

In six days, he's the reigning heavyweight champion of the universe.

And over here, we have.

Jacob.

We'll pray for you,.

Brother, right?

Ten rounds of unregulated, mixed martial arts.

Wrestling.

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

Go for it, right?

We know how this is supposed to go.

Jacob's gonna.

Get pinned, destroyed by Jesus, in about .4 seconds.

That's how this is supposed to go.

And the story should read at this point, thus perished.

Jacob.

They found nothing of him afterwards, except for one burnt

whisker from his beard.

Right?

That's how this is supposed to go.

But that's not how this story goes.

And this is a picture of prayer, because remember, all of this is preceded by prayer.

And so now we're gonna see what a real picture of prayer looks like, in the types and shadows.

So the man.

Wrestled with Jacob until the breaking of the day.

This went on all night.

When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob's hip was put out of

joint as he wrestled with him.

He flat out cheated.

So, and then he said, listen to this, the man said, let me go.

The day is broken.

Jacob says, I will not let you go unless.

You bless me.

This thing.

Went on all night, and Jacob's not letting him go.

Uh -uh.

No way.

I'm not letting you go unless you bless.

Me.

So the man said, what's your name?

And he said, Yaakov.

So then he said, your name shall no longer be Yaakov, but Israel,

he who wrestles with God.

Now I want you to think about this.

We all,.

Every one of us,.

Whether or not.

We're Gentile, Jewish, Norwegian, Polish, name your nationality, doesn't matter.

Chinese, Japanese,.

Doesn't matter.

All of us in Christ, we have been what?

Grafted into Israel.

You.

Are Israel.

You.

Are the one who now wrestles.

With God.

You are.

You're now in the ring.

You're now wrestling with God.

This is a picture of prayer.

Your name will be Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and listen to this, and you've prevailed.

He beat Jesus?

Yeah.

And I want you to think, now, I want to throw something else into the mix here.

When we pray the Lord's prayer, first words, our Father

who art in heaven.

God is not our hypothetical Father.

He's not.

God is for real our Father.

Being a dad's a big deal.

But I can tell you this, being a dad, you sometimes wrestle with your son.

And in wrestling with your son, you let him win.

Because it's really.

Fun to let him win.

It's fun.

Because you want your son to grow up.

You want your son to have confidence.

You don't want your son to feel like you're unapproachable.

And so you're vulnerable with your son.

You love your son.

You wrestle with your son.

You play with your son.

Right?

I always love,.

You know, when my grandson.

Is over, he wants to play monsters.

Or pirates or something like that.

So, you know, you put on the eye patch and you grab out the sword and you come down the stairs.

Boom!

And you hear him go,.

Oh no! It's the pirate!

Right?

And so you come out and you go, I'm going to get you!

Ah!

And he runs and then he decides.

He's going to stand his ground.

And then you have a sword fight.

And what happens?

Of course, there's no way a six -year -old is going to beat, you know, a fifty -something -year -old grandpa.

But what he does, he takes his sword and he thrusts it at you and you go, Oh!

Right?

Okay?

That's what this wrestling match.

Is about.

And so the idea here is that we come to our Father, who art in heaven,

and he wants to wrestle with us.

He wants you to wrestle with him in prayer.

And this wrestling now, let's take the small kid analogy, let's bring it up a few age brackets.

Teenager.

Dad, can I have the car?

Okay.

You want what?

I need the car for tonight.

Oh, Lord have mercy.

Right?

The only worse words than, Dad, I'd like to borrow the car tonight are, Dad, I'm getting married.

Okay?

That's the only magnitude.

Worse words.

Okay?

And your first inclination on this account is, you know, I don't know.

And so, your son makes the case.

Dad, all my homework's done.

You took a look at my grades.

You know I'm getting good grades.

I'm not slacking off.

Here's where I'm going.

Here's where I'm going to be.

Here's who I'm going to be with.

You sit there and go, yeah, you're right.

You prevailed.

You're the keys.

Right?

This is God.

So when things are not going well in your life,.

Suffering,.

You're afraid, you're in need, you

come to your Heavenly Father and you say, we need to talk.

You said, Dad,.

This.

And this is what's happening.

And you wrestle with it.

Let me give you another example.

Another woman with great.

Faith.

Let me find it real.

Quick.

It's in our Gospel text.

That's in the Gospel of Matthew.

Here we go.

Matthew 15.

Listen to this woman and her wrestling.

With God.

Starting at verse.

21.

Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon.

So he's in pagan territory.

There's no Jews really there.

This is all Gentiles.

So behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying,.

Have.

Mercy on me,.

O Lord,.

Son of David.

My daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.

You know what that's called?

That's called a prayer.

If I've ever heard a prayer, that's a prayer.

And she even, by invoking Christ as.

O Lord,.

She even has a pretty good Christology.

She has a sneaking suspicion.

More than that, she actually has faith that Jesus is God.

And so she's praying, crying out to him, Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David.

My daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.

But he did not.

Answer her a word.

Have any of.

You all prayed?

Lord, have mercy.

Help!

Do you not care?

Hello?

Silence.

Nothing.

How long is this gonna.

Go on, God?

Hello? Do you hear me?

Have mercy on me.

My life is going down the toilet.

It's spinning around.

It's about to go through the trap.

Fish me out, Lord.

Don't you care?

Right?

Nothing.

Silence.

What's going on here?

So his disciples came and begged him, saying, Send her away.

Send her away.

She's crying out after us.

Jesus isn't answering her.

This woman won't be quiet.

I would argue she's wrestling.

She's wrestling with Christ here.

So,.

He answered, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

Be gone.

But she came.

She just wouldn't take.

No for an answer.

So she came and she knelt before him.

This sounds a lot like a prayer.

And she looks at him, saying, Lord, help me.

Who does this woman think she is?

She's a pagan Canaanite.

How dare you tell the Lord to help you?

Right?

So Jesus rebuffs her again.

Listen, it's not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.

I always like to point this out.

If this happened today, CNN and Fox News, that would be their lead story.

Jesus calls Canaanite woman a dog.

I mean, what would the hashtag.

Be on that one?

The internet.

Yeah, hashtag not all dogs.

I don't know.

But, I mean, this is just scandalous.

And here's the thing.

On the surface, it looks like a complete slap in this woman's face.

How can Jesus be so cruel?

But.

She doesn't hear a slap in the face.

She hears.

An actual promise.

This is what faith does.

So now she has the ability to catch Jesus in his own words.

Oh, you say, I'm a dog.

Guess what, Jesus?

Dogs have rights.

And I want my doggy rights.

Bow, wow, wow.

I'm a dog here.

So here's what she says.

Yes, Lord.

And even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table.

I'm a dog, yeah.

So give me.

My crumbs, Jesus.

And so Jesus answered, oh woman, whoa, great is your.

Faith.

How great was her.

Faith?

She wrestled with Jesus.

And at every attempt on his part to not be caught by her,

she stayed in the ring.

And she caught him in his.

Own words.

And he says, be it done for you as you desire.

And her daughter was healed.

Instantly.

Good stuff.

In the power of prayer,.

Such as Jesus was

not mean.

No.

But her persistence so that he can be had.

Yeah.

As far as to give him.

To bless him.

Right.

Exactly.

I mean this is, it's the same story.

It's the same story.

But that doesn't mean we can change Jesus' mind.

I mean, we can't persist.

Oh, you'd be surprised.

Can we?

You'd be surprised.

When you talk about it says over and again in scripture, God listened to the voice

of Israel.

God listened and heeded his words.

I mean,.

Come on, think about your dad.

Alright?

Think about your dad and your relationship with him.

Were there not times when your dad was set to go this way, you talked to him and he said, alright, we're gonna go your way.

That's how this works.

It is.

Not a farce that God is our father.

He wants you to pray.

He wants you to wrestle with him and in the middle of your need, you hold him accountable to the things he.

Said.

And.

Faith wrestles with him and to the point where you prevail over God.

I know.

But that's what scripture reveals our relationship with him is.

Scandalous.

And it's amazing all at the same time.

It is not a farce that you are a daughter of God and that he is your father.

It is not a farce.

Alright, we'll pick it up next week.