Prophet Priest and King

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So, I'm going to pass out some handouts.
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They are references to descriptions that we'll look at tonight, and it should help from maybe having to try to look at every one of them, so you can go back on them, you can write notes on them.
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Might not be enough on one side, but I think there should be enough copies.
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So, I am thankful that I have the opportunity to take the night.
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Ma'am? Oh, I'm getting applause before I start, that's good.
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I did tell Brother Keith, I thought it was, I did laugh and said, would you fill in? I said, sure, I'd be happy to do that, and he said, it's only prophet, priest, and king.
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And I said, yeah, that's easy to look at in 40 minutes, but that is what I want to do tonight, but I'd really like to do it in a way, more of an overview, if you will, because it is such a large topic to discuss these great offices that the Lord Jesus Christ holds, and he holds them as no one else ever did.
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And so, again, the handouts you can look at later, I will try to stick to my notes, because I want to go through a lot of material, and make sure that we can cover at least basic thoughts concerning prophet, priest, and king.
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So let me start with this, and I want to make a few remarks before we look at the scriptures, and hopefully it'll help to set the tone for consideration of Christ as prophet, and priest, and king.
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And the first one is this, the importance of understanding progressive revelation.
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What I mean by that is, you know how in the book of Hebrews it says, God, who at sundry times and in various ways spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken to us by the son, that the office of prophet, priest, and king, as it's revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ, has been progressively revealed by God from the beginning, down through redemptive history, and that it has come to us in a way that it had to be unfolded, or unpacked, if you will.
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In other words, God gives it to us here a little and there a little, and that's what progressive revelation really is setting forth, that God, in the beginning, gives us sometimes the seed, and then through the unfolding of history, and certainly through the use of Israel, and through the use of even secular history, he begins to unfold it further, and then you get the blade, and then you get the ear, and even as the Lord Jesus Christ said, ultimately, the fruit develops.
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So it's important for us to understand that, especially in the subject of prophet and priest and king.
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Okay, second remark.
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With rare exception, the offices that the Lord Jesus Christ holds of prophet, priest, and king, with rare exception, throughout the unfolding of God's revelation, was kept in very distinct groups.
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In other words, there were prophets, then there were priests, and then there were kings, and you would be very hard-pressed to try to find anyone revealed in the scriptures other than Jesus, where you would see the fulfillment of those three specific offices, prophet, priest, and king.
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I suppose if you pressed to look for someone, perhaps Moses would come close.
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He was to Israel, in many ways, prophet, priest, and king, and yet, even in that, it's incomplete.
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So the point is that, as we consider this, and we see it unfold in the person of Christ, it is to the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ that he and he alone holds these three offices in completeness, in fulfillment, and in totality, and that everything else that before him led up to that truth.
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And again, I say to you, that gives the greater weight to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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All right.
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Third point is just simply this.
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We're only going to look at certain scriptures.
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There are too many to look at in depth concerning Christ only as prophet, and certainly as priest and as king.
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So the handouts that I gave you are the ones we will consider.
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There are many more that could and truly should be spoken of, but it should give us a foundation.
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And that's the thing about studying, is that we don't always get everything at once.
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Thank God we don't, because we couldn't handle it.
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But it should give us a foundational truth to work through as we consider these three offices.
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The fourth point I want to make is this.
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We must remember that only in the Lord Jesus Christ is the prophet, priest, and king completely seen, but that we need the Lord Jesus Christ to have all these offices within himself, because without that, without him being the prophet, the priest, and the king, salvation would be impossible.
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And I hope to show you that and make it clearer as we go through this.
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In other words, it is intricately tied to the person in work of who he was and who he is and what he accomplished on Calvary's cross.
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And we need to understand that as we go through this.
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Think of it this way.
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Let me break it out into three categories that we're going to look at.
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In other words, we need a prophet.
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We need a prophet to be delivered from the ignorance of sin.
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In other words, we need someone to relay to us what is true, and especially in the sense that we as sinful beings, we're ignorant many times of the offenses that we have before God.
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And so we need a prophet to deliver us from the ignorance of sin.
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And then we need a priest, brothers and sisters.
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We need a priest to deliver us from the guilt of sin.
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So we need a prophet to deliver us from the ignorance of sin.
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We need a priest to deliver us from the guilt of sin.
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And then we need a king to deliver us from the dominion of sin.
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So if you think of it that way and you begin to to look at the scriptures in that way of how the Lord Jesus Christ, in being prophet, priest, and king, it's not merely names attached to him, and it's not even merely offices that are attached to him.
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It's the truths that are related in those offices of what he accomplished for us on Calvary's cross.
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Think of this, too, before we look at the individual offices.
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First is prophet.
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The prophet was one who, as we see it specifically in the Old Testament and even as is related so much in the New Testament, but specifically the Old Testament, the prophet was someone who did what? He, sister, he certainly that was one of the things he did, and we're going to get into that.
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He did tell the future.
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But the prophet mainly was sent by God to speak for God.
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Right.
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So the prophet was one who spoke for God in that sense was the spokesman for God.
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And not only did he speak for God, but he spoke for God to us.
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Again, going on what I said previously, that we need a prophet to teach us, to reveal to us because of the ignorance of our sin.
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So a prophet speaks for God to us.
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The priest, as he holds the office of the priest, he speaks to God for us.
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In other words, the prophet, he speaks from God to us as priest, he speaks to God for us.
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He is the the mediator, if you will, or even as it's given to us in the scriptures, he's the umpire, as we would think of an umpire being a mediator, if you will, a go between.
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So the prophet speaks for God, the prophet speaks for God to us, the priest speaks to God for us.
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And then as king, he he stands as the ruler over the the kingdom of heaven.
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So he is prophet, priest and king.
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And that's why I say to you at the outset that if we do not understand these three offices and we do not understand how the Lord Jesus Christ is not only a prophet, priest and king, but he's the prophet, the priest and the king, then we are going to miss this great salvation that has been given to us.
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So, again, I just wanted to give us a couple of remarks to work through as we go through this.
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And as he stands really in the gap for us, because if we set our minds to the great truth of the infinite eternality and holiness of God and us being finite, sinful creatures without a prophet, priest and king, we're lost.
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So as we go through these things, think of it in that way, it's it's it's not only a teaching concerning the truths that the Bible revealed of the Lord Jesus Christ, but it's the great truth that you and I most desperately need in our daily lives.
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I need a prophet.
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I need someone to to teach.
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And then I most certainly need a priest.
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And in the right sense, not in the wrong sense, having been brought up in Catholic school, been an altar boy, did the mass in Latin, which will tell you I'm not as young as I look.
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Not in the wrong sense, but in the right sense, and I certainly need a king, I need a king daily to rule over my life because of who I am.
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All right.
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So with that in mind, then let's look at these specific offices for a few minutes.
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And again, you have the handouts and I'm going to quote a couple of scriptures and maybe we'll look at one or two as we get through it.
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I want to be mindful of the time, but the office of prophet.
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So as we begin to think about this and Sister Anne said it, what does a prophet do? And certainly you brought up one.
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You said that a prophet foretells, in that sense, the future.
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Tells us of things that have yet to come to pass in the prophetic sense.
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And so certainly that is one function of a prophet.
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And certainly if you consider the Lord Jesus Christ in that sense, he truly was one that did that, didn't he? He foretold that which was yet to come.
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The Gospels speak abundantly of the Lord Jesus Christ, speaking of things that were to take place.
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So he fulfills in that in that capacity, the office of prophet.
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What else does a prophet do? Yeah, I mean, he reveals the future or he unfolds what is yet to come, but he's also a teacher, right? A prophet is a teacher.
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Certainly in the New Testament, that's one of the main ways in which we would look at a prophet, not so much someone, and even today, not someone that would be foretelling the future or events that didn't come to pass, but rather someone who teaches.
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So a prophet is not only a foreteller of things yet to come, but he is an instructor.
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And so as you think about that, the first scripture that I had on the list concerning the prophet was Deuteronomy 18, probably one of the more familiar scriptures.
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Let me read it to you.
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And I'm going to read it in a group of verses.
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Sometimes if you take one verse and it could be a great verse, but if you take one verse and you just remember that one verse and you don't kind of understand what went on before, who went on after, it loses some of its luster.
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It loses some of its real meaning.
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So let me read this to you.
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It's in Deuteronomy 18.
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I'm reading from verse nine.
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If you can't turn, if not just listen.
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And this is Moses and this is Moses speaking to the children of Israel and Moses being a prophet is foretelling of the coming of Christ in the office of prophet.
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And he says this to the children of Israel.
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When you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not follow the abominations of those nations.
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There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire or one who practices witchcraft or a soothsayer or one who interprets omens or a sorcerer or one who conjures spells or a medium or a spiritist or one who calls up from the dead.
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For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord.
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And because of these abominations, the Lord your God drives them out from before you.
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You shall be blameless before the Lord your God for these nations, which you will dispossess.
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Listen to soothsayers and diviners.
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But as for you, the Lord your God has not appointed such for you.
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The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren, him you shall hear.
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And again, that is probably one of the key scriptures to think about concerning the announcement or the further announcement of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in the office of prophet.
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Remember last week when Brother Keith was teaching and he was teaching on the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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And he brought up the fact that the words of Christ are full of authority and they're full of authority because he is not only prophet, he's also the king.
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And so when you think about that and you begin to consider Christ in the office, you think about it in the Gospels and how often and even Brother Keith had mentioned this last week, how often when Jesus spoke, the people were amazed.
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They were actually they were dazed even when he was 12 years old.
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You remember the account of him going in and being in the being with the teachers and those who were supposed to be the the the big shots, if you will, and how they were amazed.
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Remember when they said, how does this kid know all this stuff? And again, this thought of him being the prophet and him coming forth and not only speaking for God, but speaking for God to us, that he, as the prophet, fulfills that office in absolute completeness.
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John 17, it says that Jesus said this and he's speaking in his high priestly prayer of his coming crucifixion and ultimately of his coming back and returning to his rightful throne.
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In John 17, it says this.
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Jesus said, I have given them the words you gave me.
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Again, there it is.
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There's the prophet.
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God gives him words and then he takes those words and he gives them.
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I have given them the words you gave me.
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They have received them and have known surely that I came forth from you and they believe that you have sent me.
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There he is in the office of prophet speaking for God, speaking for God to us in Matthew, chapter 11.
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And again, I'm going quickly, but just to make us think about it in Matthew, chapter 11, you remember the the the disciples of John are sent and John says to go and see if he is the one that was to come.
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And the disciples of John asked and they asked Jesus, they said, are you the one who was to come? And Jesus answered with absolute clarity and power and authority.
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Yes.
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And you remember what he also said.
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He said, look at the works that I did, look at the things that I have said and they speak of me.
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So again, there he is.
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And they were looking for this one.
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They were looking for this prophet.
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They were looking for this one who even in Deuteronomy was spoken of that was to come in Acts chapter, Acts chapter three.
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And again, this is a little bit bigger section, but you'll see it.
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The key verse is there.
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But I'm in Acts chapter three.
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And I want to read to you from verse 17 through 26, because in the book of Acts at this point, the apostles take that revelation that was given in Deuteronomy 18 and they bring it back again.
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They bring it into into focus and it's in focus with Christ.
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In other words, whenever you think about the prophet, even as it comes through, as I said, redemptive history, it's always pointing to Christ.
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Listen, everything points to Christ.
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But this is what they said.
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Yet now, brethren, I'm in Acts chapter three, verse 17.
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Yet now, brethren, I know you did it in ignorance.
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And by the way, I read from the New King James.
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So if you don't have a New King James, you need to get one.
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I'm kidding.
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I know this is ESV church.
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So yet now, brethren, I know that you did it in ignorance, as did also your rulers.
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But now listen to what he says.
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But those things which God foretold by the mouth of all his prophets, that the Christ would suffer, he has thus fulfilled.
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Repent, therefore, be converted, that your sins may be blotted out so that the times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord and that he may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the time of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.
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OK, there's the thought of prophets having been spokesmen for God and having taken God's truth and given it to to the ones that God sent them to do.
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And then here it comes.
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Verse 22, for Moses truly said to the fathers, the Lord, your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren, him you shall hear in all things, whatever he says to you.
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And it shall be that every soul who will not hear that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.
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Again, very clearly, very distinctly by the apostles speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, not only as a prophet, but as the prophet.
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And again, that's the great issue with those who do not have faith.
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They have refused.
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In essence, they have refused God's prophet.
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They have refused the one that God sent into this world.
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And Jesus did fulfill that office and alone.
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And in absolute completeness, we must consider him as the great prophet who was to come and he comes in all the authority of God.
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And you and I ought to be, in a sense, overcome by that truth that we have not just a spokesman from God, but ultimately we have God manifest in the flesh who came as both God and man, and he speaks to us as the great prophet.
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OK, so that very quickly is a basic understanding or basic overview of the office of the prophet as it concerns the Lord Jesus Christ.
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OK, so let's think for a moment about Jesus as he fulfills the office of the great high priest.
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So remember.
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Remember what we said that that a priest is one.
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Well, let me ask you, I'll put it to you in the form of a question.
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As you understand, what is the office of a priest? What does the priest do? And then again, I'm not talking about the Catholic priest or any of those other priests.
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Yes.
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Oh, absolutely right.
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He is the the mediator, if you will.
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And he he is the one who does what? What was the function of the priest as we're given it to us in such great detail in Leviticus and in the Old Testament? What was his main function? Go right.
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So he was the one who was to offer the sacrifice on behalf of the people.
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So again, he is the the go between.
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And between God.
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Who, because of sin, has separated himself from man, right, people get that all wrong.
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It's God who separated from us because of our sin.
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But the priest is one who offers a sacrifice for the sins of the people, and certainly we see that as it was laid out throughout the whole Old Testament, not only with the Levites who acted as priests in the temple, but certainly with the sons of Aaron and Aaron being the high priest and him going in once a year specifically to offer the the atonement for the people.
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So a priest is certainly someone who sacrifices for the sins of the people.
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And don't ever forget that every priest other than Christ had to do something before he offered a sacrifice for the sins of the people.
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And what was that? Well, so they had to be cleansed.
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And not only did he have to be cleansed ceremonially, but that was the picture.
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So he had to offer a sacrifice for himself, right, because he was unclean.
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Remember, even the priest, if you remember, the priest had to wear the little bells on the bottom of their clothes in case God killed them when they went in.
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Yeah, so the priest had to first offer sacrifice.
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When we come to the Lord Jesus Christ as priest, we will see.
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And it's it's the amazing truth.
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Not only does he offer a sacrifice, he himself is the sacrifice.
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Right.
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So not only that, but think about this.
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The priest also acts as an intermediator, if you will, to intercede.
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For the people to God, remember all those hate using the word stories, all those events that are given to us in the Old Testament, specific, especially when Israel was going through the wilderness and even after that.
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And how many times did Israel provoke God? There's not enough fingers and toes to count.
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Right.
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Three days out of Egypt.
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And they're already crying about cucumbers and onions.
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And I divided the Red Sea.
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And you guys are worried about onions.
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And when Moses went up on the mountain and Moses up on the mountain, what are they doing? Building calves.
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Remember what God said? Basically, God says to Moses, get away from them.
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I'll destroy them.
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And I'll give you new people.
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What does Moses do? He intercedes.
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Right.
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And he intercedes.
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As he intercedes, what's really cool, if you think about it, he's not just really concerned only for the sake of the people, but he's concerned about God's glory.
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If you remember how many times he says it, he says, if you destroy these people, what will the other nations think, that you brought them out of the wilderness, but you weren't able to maintain them? So, again, when you think about it, the priest is someone who offers sacrifices for our sins before God, and then he is also the intercessory or the interceder.
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I don't think interceder is a word.
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It sounds good.
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It's a northern word.
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Intercessor.
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Intercessor.
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He wanted those.
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He stands.
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Huh? Yeah, you understand, right? Okay.
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All right.
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Let's consider a couple of scriptures with the Lord Jesus Christ as priest.
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And, again, basic, fundamental, foundational scriptures, Psalm 110, and you can read that Psalm and you ought to read that Psalm, but in Psalm 110, verse 4, it says, the Lord has sworn and he will not relent.
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Speaking of Christ, speaking of Christ before he came, you are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.
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We don't have time now.
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Even as the writer of Hebrews says, there's not enough time to go into those things right now.
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But if you think about it, remember how Abraham was met by this King of Salem, this Melchizedek, and he had no beginning, he had no end, he had no generational history.
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He is met by Abraham, and ultimately, if you think about it, Abraham does what? Abraham pays tithes to Melchizedek, because Melchizedek stands far above Abraham, and Abraham offers him in worship.
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And if you think about it, even as Paul brings it out, he says that because Abraham did that, his kids, right, his descendants being still in his loins or still within his descendancy, that they also pay tithes to Melchizedek.
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But the point is that this is a prophecy of the coming of this priest who's unlike any other priest.
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And again, Jesus is unlike any other prophet.
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Jesus is like any, like no other priest.
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In Psalm 40, we read this, and this, again, prophetic, yes, but it points to Christ.
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That's one of the coolest things about the Old Testament to me.
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If you look at it, and if you have your mind where it ought to be, there's only one road, and that road leads to Christ.
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But in Psalm 40, it says this, in verse 6, it says, sacrifices and offering you did not desire, you did not desire, my ears you have opened.
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Burnt offering and sin offering you did not require, then I said, behold, I come.
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It's the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Behold, I come.
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In the scroll of the book it is written of me, I delight to do your will, oh, my God, and your law is in my heart.
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As I said to you, and as I will say over and over again to all of us, the Lord Jesus Christ in the office of priest, not just priest, high priest, that he is not only the one who offers the sacrifice on our behalf, but that he himself is the sacrifice.
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And again, there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we can and must be saved, because there is no other priest who can do what he did.
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The same way there is no other prophet that can be like the Lord Jesus Christ.
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In Hebrews 5, and again, I'm just giving you some background scriptures.
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If you can't get there, just listen.
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Hebrews 5 says this, for every high priest taken from among men is appointed for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sin, and he can have compassion on those who are ignorant and going astray, since he himself is subject to weakness.
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Speaking of the priest that had gone before the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Because of this, he is required as for the people, so also for himself to offer sacrifices for sins, and no man takes his honor to himself, but he who is called by God, just as Aaron was.
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So also Christ did not glorify himself to become high priest, but it was he who said to him, you are my son today, I have begotten you.
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Again, the great reality of the coming of the ministry, the death, the burial, the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, is that he is the sent one.
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He is the one that, even as we read, he is the lamb of God, what? Slain when? Before the foundation of the world.
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And we will consider that a little bit more as you think about it in this reality of the Lord Jesus Christ didn't fall into the office of prophet.
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He didn't stumble into the office of priest, and he didn't happily wind up being the king.
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This was something that was, if you will, in the arrangement of the eternal counsels of God.
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Before you and I were even, in that sense, in any way, shape, or form visible to any extent, God had ordained all this to be brought to pass, and be brought to pass in bits and pieces throughout history, but ultimately at the point when the Lord Jesus Christ comes forth.
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Behold the lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.
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This is that prophet.
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This is that one.
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He's the anointed one.
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He's the Messiah.
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It could be none other.
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You ever read those, sometimes you'll find a statistic of, if you were to put it together, all the prophecies concerning the coming of Christ together, I forgot the number, but it's some astronomical number.
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In other words, that he was from this tribe, and he would come from this town, and he would come at this time.
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There's some really phenomenal number that this could all be fulfilled in one person.
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And people use that to say, well, you see, it must be true.
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And I suppose that's okay, but I'd rather look at it this way.
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Prophet, priest, king, it could only be Christ.
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And the reality of it coming to pass could only come to pass under the hands of a sovereign God.
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And remember now, even as Jesus said, they stoned the prophets.
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They did everything, even the devil did everything he could to get rid of the prophets.
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Even the children of Israel did everything they could to get rid of the prophets.
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And the priest and all those things, and ultimately here he is, right before us.
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Prophet, priest, and king.
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All right, but again, continuing the thought of Christ being the priest and offering a sacrifice on our behalf to God, and also interceding in 1 John 2.2, it says, he is the propitiation for what? He's the propitiation for our sins.
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See, he's the sacrifice offered to appease God.
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See, men don't think that today, do they? Men don't think that God has to be appeased.
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As a matter of fact, men think if they do anything for God, they're doing God a favor, and God ought to be thankful to man.
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No, no, that's the truth, right? You talk to people like that.
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Especially when people are so self-righteous, and they really think they're doing, what did the Pharisees think? They thought they were doing God a favor.
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He's the propitiation for our sins, and he's the sacrifice offered to appease God who is offended by sin.
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1 Peter 3.18 says this, For Christ also suffered once for sin, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God.
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Substitutionary atonement.
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Offered himself, willingly, right? Remember, he said, no one takes my life from me, I lay it down of myself.
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And if I lay it down of myself, I have the power to take it again.
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And at the very same time, as we read in Psalm 40, he came to do the Father's will.
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The Father's will being that he would be the substitute for sin.
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And even as you brought up about the goat being, the sins being placed on the scapegoat, being sent out of the camp.
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And we know from the book of Hebrews, the blood of bulls and goats can never take away sin.
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So there he is, the substitute.
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In Romans 5.11 we read this, we glory, Paul says, we glory in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we now have received the atonement.
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Well, I wish I had some time because I'd really like to stop here and talk about the atonement.
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And I'd like to talk about particular redemption.
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I'd like to talk about limited atonement.
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That when that priest offered himself as a sacrifice for sins, sins were gone.
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Three of the greatest words in all the Bible.
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It is finished.
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Three of the greatest words of the child of God could ever understand.
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And understanding Christ as prophet and understanding Christ as priest and understanding Christ as King just makes it brighter and more glorious.
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In Hebrews 7, it says he ever lives.
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Hebrews 7.25, he ever lives to make intercession for us.
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And I would suggest you read the whole chapter of Hebrews.
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I actually read the whole book of Hebrews.
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But read chapter 7 until you get to that point where he's talking about the priesthood and then he says he ever lives to make intercession for us.
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I don't know about you, but well, I think I do know about you because you're not much different than me.
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We need someone to intercede for us.
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We need someone to go to God on our behalf.
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And certainly even the accuser has been dethroned.
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But yet Christ ever lives, ever lives, ever lives to make intercession for us.
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And let me say this as I think about that.
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We will not only see Christ in the scriptures in the coming, in his first coming as prophet, priest, and king.
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I believe we will see him for all eternity in those glorious offices of prophet, priest, and king.
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For we shall ever need someone to intercede for us.
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First Timothy says this, for there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man, Christ Jesus.
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This is cool stuff.
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I've gotten in trouble over the years for saying cool.
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But I don't care because I know why I'm saying cool.
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It's cool.
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All right, let me just take a minute then and just give you some thoughts about Christ as king.
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And I suppose that just about everybody has some sort of understanding of what a king is.
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You probably have a good understanding of what a bad king is versus a good king because it seems like the world is full of many bad kings.
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But the Lord Jesus Christ in the office of king.
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Now, I want to make sure I get this out and I want to say very clearly.
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The offices that Christ holds as prophet, priest, and king are inseparable to his work on Calvary's cross.
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The offices of prophet, priest, and king are inseparable from the cross.
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If you remove him from the cross, you distort and destroy prophet, priest, and king.
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If you only look at a prophet, priest, and king and don't look at the cross, you distort the work that he completed on Calvary on our behalf.
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So they're forever united in the cross.
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You cannot separate the cross from the offices without doing great damage.
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And considering the cross as central does not do any damage to the reality that Christ is the king.
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Because the truth is Christ would be the king and is the king even outside of his work on the cross.
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Is he not the second person of the Trinity? Is he not the rightful king of the universe? Because he created all things? He is the rightful king because he is God himself.
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And yet, in the office of the king as we see it in the scriptures and certainly at his coming, we see him as king in a position of being a meditatorial king.
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In other words, he holds the office of the king by right because he is God and he holds the office of king as he came truly as the son of man because he was appointed to be the ruler of the kingdom of God that God had purposed from all eternity to establish.
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He's king by his very nature and we're speaking of him now as the king, as the mediator between God and man.
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So, in light of that, there were certain prophecies that had to take place to install him as king.
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Again, remember, progressively it was unfolded.
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That's why we see all those kings in the Old Testament, right? That's why we even see the lineage of the Lord Jesus Christ and his ancestry and we can go through all kinds of scriptures.
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One of the greatest scriptures in Genesis is Genesis 49.7 where it talks about the tribe of Judah.
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It says that Shiloh will come and it talks about the scepter.
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It says the scepter shall not depart from the tribe of Judah until he comes.
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What tribe was Jesus from? So, it was given to us and it was seed form and then it came through the kings and the lions and ultimately he comes in fulfillment.
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Again, this has been that which God in all eternity had purpose to do and reveal to us that you and I might have a king to look to, a king to honor, a king to serve, a king to worship and a king to go before us, go behind us and forever intercede on our behalf.
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In Psalm 2, probably one of the more foundational scriptures, it says this and if you read the whole Psalm, remember what it talks about? It talks about how the kings of this world and the rulers of this world, they take counsel together against God and against God's anointed.
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In other words, all the kings of this world, they all seek to, if you will, snuff out the truth of the kingship of almighty God.
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And it says, God says he'll do something.
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You remember what he says? He's going to laugh, right? And then he says, I will hold him in my heart with pleasure.
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But he says this too about the Lord Jesus Christ in prophetic words.
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He says, yet I have set my king on my holy hill of Zion.
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And I will declare the decree and the Lord has said to me, you are my son.
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Today I've begotten you, ask of me and I will give you the nations for your inheritance and the ends of the earth for your possession.
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The Lord Jesus Christ is the one who's been set on that holy hill.
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The Lord Jesus Christ is the one who's been set on the throne.
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Where does he sit? He sits on the throne, the right hand of God.
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Right.
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Brother Keith, what is up last week? I'll just read it to you again, because it does help us.
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And it's Philippians chapter two, verses eight to eleven.
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It's on your reference sheet and being found in appearance as a man.
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He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even to the death of the cross.
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Then it says, therefore, God has highly exalted him and given him the name which is above every name.
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That at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow of those in heaven, of those on the earth, those under the earth.
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And that every tongue should confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
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Why? Because he's the king.
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That's why.
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Every knee shall bow before the king.
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We think about it in an earthly sense.
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And how often you either read or hear, if you go into the presence of the king and you don't honor him as a king, it's basically all over for you.
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And I know I repeat it much, but I always think about Esther and how she was to go in and to ask the king for help concerning the evil desire of Haman to have Mordecai killed.
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You remember the story? And remember what Esther says? And it's that great statement, how do you know if you've come to the kingdom for such a day as this? But remember, she says, how am I going to go in before the king? Because if you're not invited and you go in and the king doesn't hold out his scepter, it's all over for you.
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But of course, the great king had purpose that the king would accept.
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But anyway, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess.
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This one I'd like you to look at if you can.
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It's in First Corinthians, chapter 15.
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If you could look at this, because I think this is one that causes some people some pain, if you will.
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And we need to understand the thought of Christ being king, not only by right as the second person of the Trinity, but as the king that was prophesied who would come, have a kingdom, and have a people.
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And that Christ fulfills the office of king, and that that's what's in view in First Corinthians, chapter 15.
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Remember, First Corinthians 15 is all about the resurrection, and how does that happen, and what kind of body, remember all the things, the celestial body, terrestrial bodies, and all those other things.
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But Paul then comes down to this, and he talks about it in verse 20, First Corinthians 15, 20.
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He talks about the order of things, and he says, but each one in his own order.
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Christ the firstfruits.
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Afterward, those who are Christ that is coming, and then it comes the end.
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When he delivers the kingdom to God the Father, the king delivers the kingdom to God the Father.
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When he puts an end to all rule, and all authority, and power, for he must reign till all his enemies, till he has put all his enemies under his feet.
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And the last enemy that will be destroyed is death.
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For he that has put all things under his feet, but when he says all things are put under him, it is evident that he who put all things under him is accepted.
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And that's where people start to get a little bit confused.
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Well, who's talking about what and who, and is God the king, is the father the king, and what's happening here? It says, now, when all these things are made subject to him, then the son himself will be subject to him who put all things under him, that God may be all in all.
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Now, without spending too much time on it, this is a key passage.
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And the reason why I believe it's a key passage, if we do not understand that Christ was installed, if you will, as the rightful king over the kingdom that God had purposed to bring to pass, if we don't understand that he is the mediatorial king over a people in a kingdom, it'll distort the interpretation of this passage.
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It'd be very hard to interpret this passage if we do not understand Christ as king, as ruler over the kingdom that God has established.
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Because it says that even the son will be subject again to the father, and we just don't have time right now to go into all that.
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But the point remains, he is the one who delivers the kingdom as the rightful king to God the father, fulfilling the eternal counsel of God.
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Remember, God did all this in eternity past, that he would have a prophet, that he would have a priest, that he would have a king, that he would have a people.
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And Jesus comes forth, and he fulfills the office of prophet, he fulfills the office of priest, and he most certainly fulfills the office of king, and he delivers the kingdom back to the father.
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And then it says even the son himself, in that setting, in that understanding, will be subject to the father that God may be all in all.
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Remember, it's a willing subjection on the part of the Lord Jesus Christ, as prophet, as priest, and as king.
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I wanted to read this scripture to you, and it's from Daniel chapter 7, and it says this, and it's probably very familiar to you, in Daniel chapter 7, verse 13, through this vision of Daniel's, it says, I was watching in the night visions, and behold, one like the son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven.
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And he came to the ancient of days, and they brought him near before him.
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Then to him was given dominion, and glory, and a kingdom.
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If you're going to be a king, you've got to have a kingdom.
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That all peoples, and nations, and languages should serve him.
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His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away.
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His kingdom, and his kingdom the one which shall not be destroyed.
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That's cool stuff.
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Can I just say one thing about that passage? Last week, when I was preaching at set three in the morning, someone asked, why is Jesus called the son of man? Why does he take that title? And I wrote, this is the passage.
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He is the son of man.
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And again, that's why, as Brother Keith's been teaching on the person of Christ, we must always try to keep our minds, that he is two distinct persons.
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And that when he came, he came, and he's God manifested in the flesh.
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He is fully God, and as Brother Keith, and so as you remember, I remember he was standing there saying, if you notice over here, Keith was saying, fully! Remember? No, you said fully.
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Fully! And he said it four or five times.
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It was pretty cool.
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He was pretty pumped up.
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Because again, if you don't understand it that way, that he's fully God and fully man, you're going to get sideways.
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John 17.2, just a couple more and we'll end it.
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John 17.2, and again, John 17 is such a great scripture.
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Read it.
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John 17, you can read it.
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You can read it a thousand times, and if your mind is opened by the spirit of God, you'll never get tired of it.
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I believe this is truly the Lord's prayer anyway.
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In John 17.2, look what, as Jesus is preparing for what's before him, and as he's speaking to his father, in verse 2, he says, you have given him power over all flesh.
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The king is all powerful.
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The king rules.
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The king has no adversaries.
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Remember even as the Lord Jesus Christ talked about how, that if you come...
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Are those the bells of heaven, sister? Remember how the Lord Jesus Christ taught, and he said that if you go into someone's house, and you want to take their good, you first have to bind the person.
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You've got to bind the strong man, or you can't...
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Well, guess what? What is Satan? He's the prince of the power of darkness, right? This is probably not good theology, but the prince is no match for the king.
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The prince is no match for the king of kings and lord of lords.
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You have given him power over all flesh.
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In Matthew chapter 28, verse 18, don't turn to it, because I'll be gone before you get there.
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It says, all power is given to me in heaven and in earth.
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That's right, brother.
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Amen.
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Luke 22, 20, it says, I, to Jesus says to the disciples, I appoint you a kingdom as my father has appointed with me.
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Remember when he was on the cross? And there was that discussion where Pilate wrote, king of the Jews.
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Hey, no, no, no.
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He said he was the king.
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And Pilate, unknowingly, probably with no desire at all, he says, would I have written? I have written.
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And guess what? He wrote the right stuff.
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And then I just wanted to reference, finally, that great prophecy of this coming king.
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And it's, again, through the progressive revelation of God in the order of the kings and the lions.
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And remember that great prophecy in 2 Samuel chapter 7.
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With David and how David desired to build the house of God.
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And God said, no, you're a man of war.
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And he says this to him.
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He says that when your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seat after you who will come from your body and I will establish his kingdom.
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Immediately who was in view there? Solomon, right? Ultimately, prophetically, in absolute truth, who was in view there? Christ.
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I will establish his kingdom and he shall build my house.
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He shall build a house in my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
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So you see, friends, the office of the Lord Jesus Christ is not just some dry doctrine to try to remember.
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It's a glorious truth.
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And that goes to anything.
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You know, even as Brother Keith teaches on theology and the person of Christ, and then as he comes to the person of spirit and goes through this whole thing, don't just look at it as some intellectual study where you're just trying to remember what verses go with what subject.
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It must apply to us in the realm of our own eternal souls.
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And any foundational truth, friends, we can never go wrong.
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I was reading something today and I just closed this.
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I know Brother Keith has the T-shirts, Theology Matters.
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I never got one and that's OK because I'm not big on stuff like that.
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But I'm big on theology, but I'm not big on it.
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I'm getting myself in a lot of trouble, so I'll just stop.
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But I was reading something by Martin Lloyd-Jones, who I truly, really enjoy.
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And he was talking about that one of the greatest problems that he saw, and he's long gone with the Lord now, probably one of the greatest preachers and teachers that the church has seen.
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And one of the things he said at the end of his ministry was that one of the greatest issues within the Church of Christ from the beginning of the church, and he thought until the end of the church, was that people did not understand that theology matters.
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And it doesn't matter for the sake of theology alone.
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It matters because theology, rightfully explained, rightfully taught, rightfully accepted, is nothing but food for the soul.
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So, I trust, I hope this helps tonight.
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And I hope we'll be able to better understand, not only for ourselves, the offices of the Lord Jesus Christ, but also as we talk to others.
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That we will be able to explain who this Jesus is that we so worship.
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So, alright, let's just close with a word of prayer.
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Our great and glorious God, thank you for your truth.
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And thank you for your son, the prophet, the priest, the king, the savior, the redeemer, the one who ever lives to make intercession for us.
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The one who said that he has gone to prepare a place for us.
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And that if he has gone to prepare a place for us, he will come again and receive us to himself, that where he is, there we may be also.
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Oh God, may we be ever amazed that you loved us.
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Even as the apostle said, behold, what manner of love is this? That the father has loved us.
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The privilege, Lord, the responsibility, and the eternal glory of being a true child of God.
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Bless us tonight, and may we grow in the grace and knowledge of the son of God, who so loved us that he gave himself for us.
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Amen.