Redemptive History (Part 1)

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

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Apostle Paul said, but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

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King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. My name is Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry.

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Today is our continuing series of splicing up sermons, our messages that I preached at the conference put on by the

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Nebraska Gospel Network. Yes, they actually have the gospel in Nebraska. It's not a coalition, it's a network, see?

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There's a big difference between the Gospel Coalition and the Gospel Network now, isn't there? Well, today is a message that I taught there in Nebraska, 2011, in step with the gospel at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Kearney, and today is part one, the gospel and redemptive history.

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What is redemptive history? Why is it important? And how we preach the

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Old Testament. Lots of different factors here, and so you wanna tune in today for part one, the gospel and redemptive history put on by the

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Nebraska Gospel Network. You might wanna Google them and see what they're doing there and important work in the

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Midwest, in the middle of Nebraska. God bless you. And I was thinking about what some of the men were saying.

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Here's a paradigm that I want you to get, and I think you probably understand it, but if you don't get it,

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I think it's important that you do. What you know about God theology determines your methodology or how you do things, which eventually affects your doxology.

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So in every one of those words, we have ology with L -O -G in there, a word.

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A word about God determines what you do about your methods, the word about methods, which determines how much weight you give to God and how much you glorify

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Him. And so what we do, if we're thinking properly, is if you examine your methodologies, why you do what you do, if I were to examine your methodology,

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I could determine what you believe. That's why so many times preaching and so many times conferences focuses on theology and what you believe, because if you can determine what you believe, it will automatically flow into what you do.

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Even if the word repentance, the word repentance means to change your mind. And if you change your mind, everything else will change in your life.

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So I love these theological conferences. And people say, well, we don't want a whole lot of doctrine, doctrine divides.

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It sure does, it divides truth from error. And doctrine just means something that's true about God. And so we learn today about theology, then that determines our methodology.

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For instance, if the gospel is be good and be better, and God wants you to have purpose in your life, then you'll tell people, these are the steps to have purpose in your life.

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But if the gospel is theologically driven, here's who God is, and here's what he's done in his son.

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Then we talk about that and the people's response to it, which then affects doxology and praise.

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And so I love that. Get that paradigm down in your mind and then analyze yourself. Well, I'm doing this,

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I do it because I believe it. Let me just give you one more since this is my session and now

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I'm getting to know you a little bit. There's another paradigm in your Christian life you should get, revelation and response.

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That is to say when God reveals himself, let's start in history first, in natural revelation rather, in the moon and the stars and the sky, when

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God reveals himself, there's a response to that. And what's the response? Wow, what a sunset.

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That's amazing. When my children were born, what's the response to this revelation, the natural revelation that God is this great creator?

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When my kids came out of my wife, I usually said ain't evolution grand to all the nurses and doctors because this has nothing to do with evolution.

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So response follows revelation. And so when God reveals himself in his word, then there's a response, admiration, expectancy, obedience, there's all kinds of things.

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And by the way, that's why lots of times in a church worship service, it's orchestrated in such a way that we'll hear from God in his word, scripture reading, and then there's a response, maybe singing, maybe an offering.

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There's preaching, and after preaching in many services, then you sing because you've learned something about God, and then it makes you want to do something.

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Somebody said to me just after my last session, well, I've learned this now, what do I do? I thought, well, now you preach, now you admire, now you sing.

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So those are just two free paradigms today, theology, methodology, doxology, and revelation and response.

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Well, the topic at hand now is the gospel and redemptive history. And so I have a question for you to start.

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How many people here teach the Bible in one way, shape, or form to your kids, to unbelievers and evangelism,

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Bible study, homeschooling, any kind of way? Who teaches the

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Bible here? Many of you do. All right, good. If someone sat in on one of your lessons when you're teaching the

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Old Testament, how about a Jewish rabbi were to sit in? Would that Jewish rabbi agree with your message?

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Teaching on Abraham or maybe David and Goliath, would that Jewish rabbi say, oh yeah, I believe that?

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How about if you're teaching a lesson and a Mormon was in there, and would they agree with the message?

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I have taught, sadly, many passages of the Bible, and I thought, you know, at the very end of the day, if a

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Jewish rabbi sat in the pews, he would say, I agree with that message. Something was missing.

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I taught too often, dare to be a Daniel. I taught too often, be like Caleb.

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That's a great question to ask if I'm an ordination panel and I get to ask questions. How do you preach the life of Caleb?

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Because if you don't think in a redemptive way, a redemptive historical way, you preach Caleb by be strong, be courageous.

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Is it good to be strong? Is it good to be courageous? Is it good to be like Daniel? I guess it is.

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But if we want to preach the Gospel, if we want to preach Christ Jesus, if there is redemptive history in this book, then it should affect the way we preach.

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So theologically, if we say, this book has one unified purpose, because it has one author, and that unified purpose finds its culmination in Christ, through promises of the

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Old Testament, through predictions, through symbolism, through types, one purpose, talking about one person, then it should flesh itself out in the way

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I teach the Bible. And my challenge this morning is going to be this, that if you teach the

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Bible in any way, shape or form, and you exclude Christ from your message,

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I think you're doing a disservice to the Bible. And so the good news is about repentance, you change your mind and you just, you repent and you stop.

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And I thought to myself the other day, I taught through all of Genesis verse by verse, taught all through Exodus verse by verse, all through Esther verse by verse.

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I did Obadiah just in one night, because I want to say that's one more book of the Bible I taught through. I've taught through lots of books.

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And I used to say to our web team, where are all those messages? We could be having all kinds of messages up online, and I know

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I'm not the greatest preacher, but it's a valuable truth, let's get those things up. And now I can tell you, I am so glad most of those

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Old Testament messages are not posted, because I'm embarrassed. I do things with so much atomistic insight on what the passage was saying in authorial intent, that I forgot the grand scheme of redemption.

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So the purpose of this session today is, if you don't get anything else, it's this, that the hero of the

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Bible is not one of the 2 ,241 characters. The hero of the

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Bible is Jesus. And please, if you teach Sunday school, and a visitor comes in and I, the pastor, say, oh, you know, here's a visitor, and we have some

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Sunday school classes going on over here, I want you, the Sunday school teacher, to talk about Jesus and His redemption.

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I don't want you to say, be like Joseph, and that's it. Or you could say, because of what

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Jesus has done, be like Joseph and flee immorality. I'm not saying you can't do that, but you need to tell them who

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Jesus is. And I'm gonna try to prove today from the Bible that there's one great unifying theme in Scripture that has

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Jesus at the center, and I want you to be like Paul. Sometime, here's your homework before we even start.

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Don't do this while I'm preaching, but read Acts in the next day or two, and watch what Paul did, watch what

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Peter did. This grand scope of redemption, and so this is a very important topic, redemptive historical preaching, and let's turn our

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Bibles to Matthew chapter four to first illustrate a way that we shouldn't teach the Bible, and then we'll look at what redemptive history is, and some hints on how to look at the

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Bible in a redemptive historical way. I have to say this at the beginning. This is probably about a 10 -hour lecture.

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What is redemptive history? What is redemptive historical preaching? How far back does it go?

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What does Gerhard Voss say? I mean, the list goes on and on and on, so what I'm going to do today is assume that we are evangelical

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Christians here who understand A, the Gospel, B, why it's important, right?

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We got that down, and I'll just try to show you that your desire should be to preach who

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Jesus is every time you preach. I'm not saying he's in every verse of the

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Bible. I don't think I view the Bible in some kind of Martin Luther way, but I think just in a grand scheme, you should preach

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Christ every single time. And I don't mean just add on an altar call, kind of call to salvation at the end, but who

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Jesus is. So again, today we're going to look at the big scheme, simply why it's important, but we're going to start off with a passage that is probably familiar to you, and that is

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Matthew chapter four. This is what I call the temptation of Jesus right after heaven opened.

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Remember, this is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. Heaven opened, and now R. Kent Hughes says, hell opens.

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And certainly when God is working, Satan is there to try to do the opposite. Then Jesus was led up by the

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Spirit, impelled, one translation says, into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

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And after he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, then he became hungry. Moses fasted that long.

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Elijah fasted that long. Luke says he ate nothing. And here comes the first temptation, distrust the

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Father. Perfect moment for Satan's bidding, and the tempter came and said to him, verse three, if you are the

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Son of God, command these stones to become bread. Kind of a harmless thing to say, isn't it?

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Jesus is hungry, what's the big deal? Boy, that was in effect, wasn't it? He's starving.

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Later he's going to make bread for 4 ,000 men, 5 ,000 men. Since you're the

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Son of God, you're hungry. I mean, God's Son born in a village, please. Born in a barn.

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But of course, this wasn't the will of the Father. The Spirit of God is impelling him into the wilderness to withstand these temptations and to obey the

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Father. He doesn't have the right to satisfy his own needs. That's what the bottom line was.

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Satisfy your needs apart from the Father's will. So Jesus responds like he always does here, three times from Deuteronomy.

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But he answered him and said, it is written, man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

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I will not act independently from the Father. It's better to wait, it's better to obey, it's better to suffer.

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And here he quotes Deuteronomy chapter eight, a passage that talks about God allowing

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Israel to be hungry to then be fed by the manna from God.

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God caring for his people. It's better to starve than to do the opposite of God's will.

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Commentator Hendrickson said, tempter, you are proceeding upon the false assumption that for a man, in order to appease hunger and be kept alive, bread is absolutely necessary.

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Over against this erroneous idea, I now declare that not bread, but the creative, energizing, and sustaining power of my

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Father is the only indispensable source of my and of man's life and well -being.

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Oscar Wilde said, I can resist everything except temptation. That's different here.

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Satan promising the best, paying with the worst. There's another temptation, as you know, presuming on God's care.

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Here's testing God, verse five. Then the devil took him into the holy city and had him stand on the pinnacle of the temple.

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Probably the southeast corner of the temple complex. The same spot where tradition says

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James, Christ's half -brother, was thrown down. Eusebius said that. And he said to him, verse six, if you're the son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written.

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Who's quoting Scripture now? You wanna quote Scripture? I'll quote Scripture. It stands written, he will give his angels charge concerning you, and on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.

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Oh, you only live on the word of God? I've got a verse or two for you. If you're

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God's son, he'll take care of you. Now, did Satan quote Scripture accurately there? He omitted something and twisted something.

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He omitted what? Guard in all your ways, because Psalm 91 says, he'll give you your angels charge concerning you to guard you in all your ways.

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And he also twisted its meaning. The meaning of the Scripture quoted was, you should trust

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God with everything, and Satan turns it into, you should test him in everything. From trusting to testing.

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Todd Friedel says, this kind of thing isn't exegesis, this is called lack of Jesus.

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This is just such a switcheroo. You're supposed to trust him, and now you're supposed to tempt him? God will protect you no matter how you presume on him.

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And remember, at this time, people were saying, I'm the Messiah, and to back up my messiahship,

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I'll do a miracle. How does Jesus respond? He responds with Deuteronomy 6.

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On the other hand, it is written, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test.

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Talking about Deuteronomy 6, where Israel was at Massa grumbling, they put the

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Lord to the test. We want water, angrily saying. Temptation 3,

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Satan brings the big guns out now. No punches pulled, puts all his cards on the table, this high stakes game.

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Verse 8, again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.

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Luke 4 says something interesting. It said this happened in a moment of time. Rome, Egypt, Greece, Persia, Jerusalem.

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And He said to him, all these will I give you if you only fall down and worship Me. Power, Lordship, just genuflect one time.

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Come on, the crown before the cross. Glory before suffering.

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You're worth it. You deserve it. The end without the means.

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But Jesus knew that He had to be forsaken by the Father. And He's going to pray later in His life, if possible, let this cup pass from Me yet, not as I will, but Thou will.

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So how does Jesus respond? Well, you know how He responds. Verse 10, Jesus said to him, Be gone, Satan, for it is written,

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Deuteronomy 6, You shall worship the Lord your God and serve Him only. I like that.

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There's an exclusive claim to worship. God alone is to be worshipped. Then the devil left

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Him, and behold, angels came and began to minister to Him. By the way, Psalm 91 that Satan tried to twist and did twist, get this, if you don't get anything else, this is really insightful.

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It's why I love to study the Scripture. Satan is twisting and torquing and perverting and making insane

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Psalm 91 about angels and presumption and testing. And now what happens?

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The verse that Satan tries to twist, God applies in the life of Jesus, and now the angels come and minister to Jesus.

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How neat is that? And by the way, the angelic help, in the

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NAS it says began to minister to Him. It's an imperfect tense, which most likely means the angels began to minister and kept on ministering for a long time.

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The scene out there in the wilderness must have been wild, a place of desolation, loneliness, animals.

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Mark 1 says He was with the wild beasts. That's not a wild beast.

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You can stay right here. I like that sound. Don't you guys like that sound? Any louder you need to go. But no,

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I don't care. Just let it go. So here's my question.

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Here's the big question, redemptive historically. How do you preach that passage? What's the main point of the passage?

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What is Matthew trying to convey? The Gospel according to Matthew is trying to convey what?

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You begin to think big picture. No, you say, you know what? Here's how I used to teach it. How would you teach it?

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You've got eight little kids there for Sunday school. You talk about this and then what do you tell them? I'll tell you what you tell them if you were me.

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This is what you'd tell them before I knew better. Now kids, we're going to learn a lesson on how to overcome temptation by using the

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Word of God. These are the three ways you can overcome temptation by using the

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Word of God. Now is there anything wrong with teaching kids how to overcome temptation? No.

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But that has nothing to do with this text. A text about Jesus has turned into a how -to text for how to overcome temptation.

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See the difference? When you get your high school yearbook, remember it was 1978 for me and I got my high school yearbook and I wasn't on the in crowd.

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I played football, I played basketball, I was in band. What else did I do? I was in Fellowship of Christian Athletes as a pagan, but that wasn't because Fellowship of Christian Athletes, that was because of me.

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And I got that thing in what I do. I'm scurrying through that because I've got to find who? Me. Sinclair Ferguson calls this the

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Where's Waldo syndrome. Where's Waldo? And we look at the Bible and where are you in Matthew chapter four, one to 12?

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Nowhere. You're not there. None of us are there. Now secondarily, can we say as Jesus used

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Scripture, we can use Scripture in 1 Corinthians 10, 13, this, that and the other. I'm not saying you can't get there.

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I'm not even saying you shouldn't preach it on a Sunday. But as a primary focus, I am saying that it shouldn't be preached on a

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Sunday. As a secondary application drawn in later, fine. This passage has everything to do with what?

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1 Deuteronomy 6 and 8, Israel failed. Where Israel failed, who succeeded?

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Jesus. That's redemptive history. And as Israel failed, someone else failed earlier.

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When my opinion, it was even more critical in their failure than Israel. The first Adam failed.

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Where the first Adam failed and sinned, Jesus, the last Adam did not fail.

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Jesus is not called the second Adam because there might be a third, but 1 Corinthians 15, the last Adam. So we look at this big picture and think, you know what, when

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Adam the federal head took that fruit and ate, we're plunged into sin.

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And God took that sin and He credited it to everyone's account. By imputation, forensically declaring what

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Adam did, he was your federal representative. By the way, do you like federal representatives?

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Here you're all shaking your head, I didn't like that one. But you do have two senators. When we went to war with Libya, you all went to war.

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We all understand federal things. But anyway, in the garden, here's the federal representative, Adam.

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And by the way, the world was not plunged into sin when Eve ate. Adam ate and then.

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Why? Because he was the federal head. God decided in His wisdom, whatever Adam did, it's gonna be credited to everyone else.

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Why did babies die? Why did anybody die before Moses? Because they were credited with Adam's sin. Now we might not like that, but we like the other side with the second

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Adam a lot better, don't we? Romans chapter five. What do we have with the second Adam?

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There's imputation with the second Adam as well. Here, by God's good pleasure, Adam was credited with our sin.

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And you say, you know what? Get this, this is classic. I wasn't there. I didn't do it. I didn't earn it.

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God's gonna credit that to Adam, credit that to me. Adam did it. I wasn't even there.

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I know. But now symmetrically, with perfect symmetry, we now look at the second

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Adam and what he did in his life and death on the cross. And do you know what? God credits to you what the second

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Adam did and you weren't there and you didn't earn it and you didn't deserve it.

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Do you like imputation better now? Of course you do. You say, well, you know what?

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This is seminal. This is Adam, you know, a seminal headship, a natural headship.

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Really? Maybe by consequence, but primarily, imputation, federal headship,

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Adam eight, credited to everyone's account and with the exact same creditation, he now forensically declares us as righteous based on the work of Christ as God imputed sin to the account of Christ.

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No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

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Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

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You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.