The Gospel in the Old Testament

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The Gospel Through the Old Testament

Here is a message that I had preached at Beulah Baptist Church in Winter Garden, Florida. I hope this will be encouraging to you. It was a message delivered before Christmas, and it is basically the Gospel through the Old Testament.

Something that we don't often see discussed, but I hope this will encourage you as we look at the Gospel throughout the Old Testament.

Welcome to The Rap Report with your host, Andrew Rappaport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application. This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

Human Sinfulness and the Foolishness of Atheism

So let me give you a little background on me, just so you know who I am, because I'm probably new to most of you. My name's Andrew Rappaport. I grew up in a Jewish home that seems to impress people, but the reality is I got saved the same way everyone else did.

So there's nothing special there. But the reality is that many of us don't spend too much time in the Old Testament. And so when Pastor Casey asked me what I wanted to focus on, I figured, well, we don't really go through the Old Testament enough and think about the Gospel that is in the Old Testament.

So that's where I want to focus some of the time. I do travel quite a bit, and there's this thing, I don't know if you guys heard of it down here that's kind of hindered some of that. Do you ever hear COVID?

Any of you down here? Okay, maybe it's just up north. But it has hindered some of the travel, but in God's providence, it has allowed me. We're pastoring a church up in Pennsylvania, and so I've been at that pulpit pretty much nonstop since March.

So with that, let us dig into looking at Scripture. I want to start with a word of prayer, and I'm going to challenge you because we're going to jump through a bunch of passages in the Old Testament, okay?

I know some of you, you know, some people, they read their Bible, and you know, it's Genesis, Exodus, Psalms, Matthew, right, you know, there's some books in between there that sometimes we skip. So let's go to the Lord in prayer and look what the Old Testament has to say about the Gospel message.

Heavenly Father, we come before you, and we are amazed at what you do. The fact that you give us breath in our lungs is more than we deserve. Lord, you are so gracious to us. You are so kind to us. You are so loving to us.

And those attributes are even more highlighted because we know how holy you are and how just you are, and even, Lord, how wrathful you are because of your justice and your holiness. Lord, we are grateful for the mercy and grace you've shown to us.

And on this day, at this time of the year, that we think most about you coming to earth as a man, that we would fixate upon that, that greatest gift as was already mentioned, that we would focus on you and see how all of Scripture was pointing to that moment, all of history was pointing to this moment, that you would enter humanity to do what only you could do.

We ask that that would be burned into our minds in this hour, in Christ's name, amen. Well, I would like to start with bad news for you. That's always great to do, but that means that we're going to eventually get to good news, which is something to look forward to.

But I'd like to ask you to open to Psalm 14. We're going to read some large portions of Scripture, and what we want to focus on, and I know that I'm going to ask you to turn to some of these passages because you're not going to be able to read them on the screen, but I want you to be able to look in your own copy of God's Word.

But Psalm 14, I want to read verses 1 through 7 because it teaches us some things that we see even in our day and age. Psalm 14 starts off by saying, the fool says in his heart there is no God. Have any of us heard that one before?

In fact, that's exactly what's being forced in all of our schools. The fool says in his heart there is no God. They are corrupt. They have committed abominable deeds. There is no one who does good. The Lord has looked down from heaven upon his sons of men to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God.

They have all turned aside. Together they have become corrupt. There is no one who does good, not even one. Now, do all the workers of wickedness not know who eats up my people as they eat bread? And do not call upon the Lord, for they are in great dread.

For God is with the righteous generation. You would put to shame the counsel of the afflicted, but the Lord is his refuge. Oh, that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion when the Lord restores his captive people.

Jacob will rejoice. Israel will be glad. So what do we end up seeing? Right from here we see, basically, we could look at this and say, he's speaking to our generation. The fool says in his heart there is no God.

And you say, well, wait a minute. Is God calling people fools? Well, actually, yes. With good reason. Let's think about this just for a second. What does it take to say there is no God? Well, you first have to have an ability to reason, right?

Because you have to reason that there is no God. You have to know that there's truth, because the claim there is no God is a truth statement. So you need certain things that also have to be true, like logic, because that's a logical claim.

It has to fit within laws of logic. Now let me tell you something about all three of those things I just mentioned. The ability to reason, truth. We could also put in there knowledge, because this is a knowledge claim.

You could put the laws of logic. All of those are immaterial things. If there is no God, guess what? There is no immaterial. We are just chemical reactions. Chemical reactions do not produce immaterial things like the laws of logic, knowledge, truth, and an ability to reason.

Therefore, when someone says there is no God, they're using their God-given ability to reason to deny the God that gave them an ability to reason. Do you see why God says that's foolish? They need to rely on God to claim God doesn't exist.

And what does it do when they claim that God doesn't exist? Well, the passage tells us they're corrupt. They've committed abominable deeds. Now, this is not just to that person like Adolf Hitler or, you know, Saddam Hussein or someone bad like that.

No, no. It says there is no one that does good. So guess what? That includes all of us. Every one of us. None of us do good. In fact, it says that none of us seek after God. We're corrupt. Now, does that mean we are as corrupt as we possibly could be?

No. We can all be a lot more corrupt. We should be glad that there is a system of justice because that restrains people because they say, you know what? I would like to do bad, but I'm not going to do bad because the police are going to arrest me.

This is why we see what happens in some of the cities when they remove the police and they're going, why are the cities burning? I can't imagine. Corrupt people doing corrupt things because you've removed their strength.

They all do workers of wickedness. Now, God's not painting a pretty picture of us, is he? Guess what? God is the one who knows every thought of our mind, every intention we ever had. He knows our heart better than we do.

And this is how he describes us. In another psalm, if you turn over your stone psalms, turn to Psalm 53, you're going to see some similarities here. As you're turning, you think about, you know, this is why some people have dubbed April 1st National Atheist Day.

The fool says in his heart, there is no God. Psalm 53, verses 1 to 6. The fool has said in his heart, there is no God. They are corrupt. They have committed abominable injustice. There is no one who does good.

God looks down from heaven upon the sons of man to see if anyone who understands, who seeks after God, every one of them turns aside together. They have become corrupt. Sounds similar, doesn't it? So what we end up seeing here is that in two different psalms, we end up seeing that God is declaring that we do not do good.

We are not people that we would think we are. If you ask most people, and I do this on the streets all around the country, well, let me correct that, all around the world, because I do travel international, but everywhere I go, I ask people one question.

Do you think you're good enough to go to heaven? Ninety percent of the people will tell me yes. Eight percent will tell me they're awesome. And two percent are honest. But even though they may say they're not a good person, they really don't think about how wicked they are in God's sight.

In fact, I would argue that for all the people that say that they die and go to heaven and come back to earth, you see all these books that are written to this effect, there's a simple reason why I often don't believe them.

There's one book I remember back in the 80s or 90s. I remember reading a guy who was shaving in the mirror, and he saw Jesus. How do I know he didn't see Jesus? Very simple. He kept shaving. You don't keep shaving when you see God.

You fall on your knees and recognize your sin like Isaiah did, like Daniel did. These people that say they went to heaven and come back to earth, and they have no care for the lost, then they didn't go to heaven.

Because the only thing you'd end up seeing when you get back to earth is how wicked we are. And you'd see the need that all of us have because we're sinners in God's sight. See, that's the telltale sign to me that these people haven't actually been to heaven.

The people that claim they went to hell, when I really don't believe them, when they're not concerned about where people are going to go when they die. But you know, we had a promised Messiah who all throughout the Old Testament, we end up seeing this.

For those who are here in the Sunday school hour, and you heard Dr. Silvestro teach out of Genesis, and for those who weren't here, we have a running joke with Dr. Silvestro. He knows of one book of the Bible.

It's called Genesis. Because it almost doesn't matter what text of Scripture you give him to preach, he's going to get back to Genesis. So he'll be happy that we'll start in Genesis with the promised Messiah in Genesis 3 .15.

As soon as sin entered the world, we have the first promise of a Savior. Genesis 3 .15, God says that I will put enmity between you, speaking to a servant, referring to Satan, I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed.

He will bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. So right after sin, Adam and Eve have disobeyed God. They took of the fruit that they should not have taken of. Sin entered the world, and in fact, not only did it just affect mankind, but if you read in Romans chapter 8, you end up seeing that sin affected the whole universe, because the universe is groaning because of the effect of sin.

This was the consequence of Adam and Eve disobeying God. The pastor started the service with a whole lot of questions that people ask, questions that some think are hard to answer. You know, why is there sin in the world?

God allowed sin, and that puzzles us, because in our mind, we think, well, if God's all-knowing, and God's all-loving, then He should give us everything we want. Wait, who's the focus on then? It's on us.

We think God should give us. Why did God allow sin? Well, He gives us a reason right here, because He had a plan for a Savior. You ever think about the fact that God could not put His attributes on display if He never allowed for sin?

If He didn't create a creation, and give them the ability to be disobedient to Him, how would He ever show what His true love looked like? Would we understand His justice? His holiness? His wrath? His grace?

His mercy? See, these things are only known when we understand them in light of our own sinfulness. And so we have a promise of a Messiah. But there was more about this promised Messiah. In Deuteronomy 18 .15, you know, that's in those books that you skip over.

But if you didn't skip over it, you may have read this, that the Lord said this to Moses, The Lord will raise up for you a prophet like Me from among your countrymen, so you listen to Him. So God told Moses, and Moses now tells the people, the book of Deuteronomy is being written just before Israel enters into the promised land.

This is Moses' final explanation to them. Final law giving to them. In fact, if you know anything about the book of Deuteronomy, it's actually a covenant format. And so here is Moses giving this covenant, and within it is a promise.

They look to Moses as their leader, and he is saying, God has said there is one greater coming. In fact, that's the very question they asked of Jesus. Are you the prophet? What prophet? The prophet that Moses spoke about in the law.

The prophet that they looked to, who God would raise up for them like a prophet from their countrymen. And what does he say? They should listen to Him. Unfortunately, my people did not listen. The promises don't stop there.

So we see that right from the get-go, we see that this promised Messiah would be one who would conquer Satan. We see that this promised Messiah would be a prophet from His own people, the Jewish people.

The Promised Messiah: Bethlehem, Eternity, and the Branch of David

In Micah chapter 5, that's really close to the Old Testament. That's in those minor prophets that you skip over. But it's really close to the Old New Testament. So let's start at the New Testament and go back a little bit.

But Micah chapter 5, 2 to 5 says this. Micah chapter 5, verses 2 to 5. But as for you, Bethlehem, Ephraim, too little to be among the clans of Judah. From you, one will go forth for me to be ruler in Israel.

His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity. Therefore He will give them up until the time when she who is in labor is born of child. Then the remainder of His brethren will return to the sons of Israel.

And He will arise and shepherd His flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord His God. And He will remain, because at that time He will be great to the ends of the earth.

This one will be our peace. When the Assyrians invade our land, when He tramples on the citadels, then we will rise again with Him seven shepherds and eight leaders of men. So as we look at this promise, this is a period just before the period of 400 years of silence of Scripture.

When the prophets will be silent until one voice in the wilderness, known as John the Baptist, will call out. But there is this prophecy that the one who will come, that prophet of old, speaking of by Moses, will come from Bethlehem.

This small little town, a little town that wouldn't be seen as having the claims that Judah would have. Judah, which had the kings come from there, where the king of Israel would rule. And yet the king, and notice the description, that the king is from the days of old.

How old? The Scripture says from the days of eternity. What does that tell us about this prophesied Messiah? This prophesied Messiah is eternal. That puts this person in a very different camp than you and I.

This is no mere man. He is eternal. And when he reigns, that reign will also be eternal. He will one day return to Israel. Now this is one of the things you end up seeing with Scripture. You end up seeing prophecies that are near and far, both together.

And there's a whole lot of history in between these verses. We're there. We're in between. Right? We can look at this and he's going to mention Assyria. That's in the times of his day. He's going to mention the coming of the king, this one from eternity past.

And then he's going to talk about when this king is going to return and all Israel will return to him. Right now Israel hasn't turned to Christ, have they? They haven't turned to their Messiah. But there's a time coming for that.

We're kind of in between those verses right there. A lot of history there. But what do we end up seeing? That this promised Messiah would be one of eternity past. Very interesting to see what his name will be.

If you turn to Jeremiah chapter 23. Jeremiah 23. This is, by the way, I have a book in the back on world religions, and so I studied world religions. This is my favorite passage to bring up with Jehovah Witnesses, if you know anything about Jehovah Witnesses.

They don't believe that Jesus Christ is God. So what I do, I ask them to read Jeremiah 23 verse 5. I don't have them read verse 6. I just have them read verse 5, and then I'm going to have them read verse 6, and I'll show you why.

So here's what Jeremiah 23 verse 5 says. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch, and he will reign as king and act wisely and do justly and righteousness in the land.

And I always ask, who is this branch of David? It's amazing. They always give me the right answer. Jesus. Really. So this is speaking of Jesus. Because what does this tell us about this person that we're looking at as Messiah?

He's of the line of David. What's so special about it? That is the line, the divinic line, is where there was a promised king that would reign for all eternity. And when this righteous branch of David takes that throne, he will never give it up.

He will reign there for eternity. And so then you read verse 6. What's his name? In those days Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell securely. And this is his name by which he will be called. Yahweh Sikhenu.

The Lord our righteousness. Now for Jehovah's Witnesses, they put special emphasis on the word Jehovah. Jehovah Sikhenu. His name will be God. This word for God is a special word. In fact, it's so holy with the Jewish people that they do not, for those who don't know, when we have the Hebrew writing, we do not write formally, we don't write the vowels.

Okay, you have to guess that. And the only way you can guess that is by knowing the Hebrew, to know what vowels to fit in. But this name was so holy, they didn't want to break the commandment of using the Lord's name in vain, so they never spoke it.

In fact, what we would end up doing, and most of the time when we pray, we'd be praying, Brachata Adonai. Maybe you know the term Adonai, it means Lord. But that's not the word that we'd be praying. It's the word in Hebrew that we'd pronounce as Yahweh or Jehovah.

Why? Because we don't want to say that name in vain. So we replace the word Adonai instead of Yahweh. So guess what? We don't know what the vowels should be. And that's why you see that we just have consonants for it.

And so what we end up seeing is that this is the name that God would say is I Am. The self-existent One. That He is who He is. Now you can see that there's three names for God. El, or Elohim. Adonai, and what we'd say is Yahweh.

And when we look at those three names, we would see that one means Lord. That's Adonai. One means God. So Lord is also used as men. Just saying, My Lord. But you see... Sorry, that's... Did I say Elohim?

That was wrong if I said that. But Adonai means Lord. Elohim is a name for God. It's only used once of men. Only once. And that is in a passage where men are acting in God's position as judges. And then you have this name.

This most reverent name. This most holy name. In fact, here's a little tidbit for you. When the Jewish scribes would write the scriptures and make a copy of the scriptures, when they came to this name for God, what they would do is have to go and wash themselves before writing that name.

And then they'd have to go wash themselves after writing that name before they can come back to copying the scriptures. Because that's how holy they held this name. This is the name of the promised Messiah.

He is called God. Not just God, but the most holy name for God that the Jewish people would have. But there's more of a description that we have of this promised Messiah. We see this in Isaiah 9. This is familiar because this is a passage many of us would read at this time of year.

Isaiah 9, verses 6 and 7. We're not going to just stop at verse 6. For a child will be born to us. A son will be given to us. And the government will rest on his shoulders. And his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, and Prince of Peace.

There will be no end to the increase of his government or of peace on the throne of David over his kingdom to establish it and to hold it up with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore.

The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this. So what you end up seeing is, again, what is the description we have of this promised Messiah? He is eternal. Not only do we see he's from eternity past, but now we see it's never going to end with him.

He's described as being a Wonderful Counselor. That's good. Because we often need counsel, don't we? He's called Mighty God. Now, wait a minute. That would be blasphemy. Unless, of course, it's true. He's called the Eternal Father.

Again, it would be blasphemy. And the Prince of Peace. So we have this description of this promised Messiah that is coming. But there's a reason for his coming. It is because, as we go through the book of Leviticus, which I'd be so tempted to do.

For those who were here yesterday know that I love to go through the book of Leviticus. I go through the entire book of Leviticus in one hour, and you would love it. Because the Gospel is presented clearest in that book.

But let's take a look at just one phrase that we see through Leviticus. We'll end up seeing it first. Before we get there, let's first look at Exodus 31. Exodus 31, verse 13, says this. But as for you, speak to the sons of Israel, saying, You shall surely observe my Sabbaths.

For this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you. How long does God want this to be known? That it is God who sanctifies us? According to this, forever.

So okay, whenever we get to the end of forever, we can stop thinking about the fact that it is God who is the one who sanctifies us. So His promised Messiah is going to be one who is coming. He's going to be eternal.

He's going to be God. And it's Him who can sanctify us. We see this. I'm going to go through these kind of quickly. But Leviticus chapter 20, verse 8. Don't try to flip there. They'll be up on the screen.

Because I'm going to do several. Leviticus 20, verse 8. You shall keep my statutes and practice them. I am the Lord who sanctifies you. Leviticus 21, verse 23. It says, Only he shall not go up to the veil or come near the altar because he has a defect, so that he will not profane my sanctuaries.

For I am the Lord who sanctifies them. Leviticus 22, verse 9. They shall therefore keep my charge, so they will not bear sin because of it and die thereby. Because they profane it, I am the Lord who sanctifies them.

Or Leviticus 22, verse 16. And so causes them to bear punishment for guilt by eating their holy gifts. For I am the Lord who sanctifies them. It's almost as if God is trying to communicate something to the people of Israel.

That it's God who sanctifies us. Well now we have a little bit of a problem. Don't we? If it's only God who can sanctify us, that means, guess what? You and I cannot. We cannot put ourselves in a right state with God.

We're just not capable. Why? Because what he's saying is, it is only God who sanctifies. Now, this causes an issue. So what have we learned so far? We've learned that if it's God who sanctifies, we're sinners.

God's the one who sanctifies. So he has a promised Messiah that would be God. Well, it's going to have to be God. You know why? Because it's God who sanctifies. It has to be eternal. Now, if we're sinners and we're deserving of a righteous justice, that would be an offense against an infinitely holy God.

It's going to have how long of a consequence? Infinite. Can we pay infinite? We can never pay forever. How long does it take us to pay forever? Well, kind of like forever. So, if I was a perfect person, I'm not, you can ask my bride.

She's right here. But if I was, I could pay for one other person. But guess how long it would take me? All of eternity. I got news for all of you. I wouldn't pay it for any of you. I'd pay it for her.

But, the reality is, none of us are good. We've already established that, haven't we? So, a human being is not going to be able to pay this fine for anyone else. And all of us are stuck in a position where we're guilty.

So, this Messiah is going to be God. He's going to be eternal. He's going to be the one who sanctifies it. But how can he do that for human beings? He's not one of us. Can he just on a whim say, you know what?

Forgiven. That's what most world religions will teach. If you study Islam or some of the others, they'll say, oh, Allah, most merciful. But guess what? He's not most just. See, they'll say he's just, but he really can't be.

Because if he lets criminals go, he's just letting sinners off the hook. That's mercy, but that's not justice. So, you see, we've got a dilemma. How can we have a God who is both just and merciful? How can we have a God who can be the one who sanctifies us, but yet, without being one of us, how can he let us go?

See, because if he just lets us go, he's no longer just. So we have a dilemma, don't we? Well, we have a solution to that dilemma. We have that solution in a doctrine known as the Incarnation. When God became man, he walked among us.

Being a man, he can pay a fine for us. Being God, he can pay an infinite fine. So you see, the justice and mercy are married at the cross. Because at the cross, the full weight of justice was laid upon our Savior, Jesus Christ.

All of it. By the way, if there's anyone here who's like, but you don't know some of the things I did, like even after being saved. Guess what? Every sin you've ever committed, even the ones you've yet to commit, are all future to the cross.

They were paid back then. They weren't paid when you put your faith in Christ. They weren't paid when you said, let me repent. They were paid at the cross. And at that cross, the full payment was paid.

Then is mercy. Then there is an offer of mercy. Because the payment was made. We see this in two main passages. Two that I would love to exegete in detail, but you guys probably want to go home for dinner.

Notice I didn't say lunch. Alright, so Psalm 22. I said to Pastor Casey, you know, I come to a church, 45 minutes, people are looking at their watch. I can be on the streets in New York City evangelizing for three and a half hours, not a single person leaves.

I don't know. What do we learn about ourselves? But Psalm 22, I'm not going to be able to go through the whole thing. But my God, my God, why have thou forsaken me? Does that sound familiar? Sounds familiar to a passage we read on Resurrection Sunday, right?

And no offense, but many people don't understand why Jesus quoted that on the cross. Is he saying that somehow God forsook him? Is he saying that somehow he stopped being God as some teach? That would be impossible.

In fact, that's a heresy. He never stopped being God. So what does it mean that he forsook himself? Well, actually, what it means is very simple. We never had a Psalm 22, meaning that number 22, we didn't have that until about 800 AD.

There weren't numbers to the Psalms. How did they know which Psalm to refer to? They quoted the first line. In fact, if you have a hymnal, you'll sometimes see that in the back of hymnals. They have the first line because sometimes people don't remember the name of the hymn.

They definitely don't know which hymn number it is because it's all different in different hymnals. So what do they do? In the back of most hymnals, they'll have something with the first line. First line then tells you the name and which hymn number it is, where to find it.

This is what Jesus did on the cross. He cried out, My God, my God, why have thou forsaken me? Bringing everyone there while he's on a cross, bringing everyone to the understanding of what this Psalm is saying because what this Psalm is saying was happening right before their eyes.

This Psalm is going to depict the crucifixion to a T. So much so that in the Jewish translations, they translate it differently. But as we'll look, when it says that he was pierced, the word for pierced actually, they'll translate lion because it's a term for being pierced like a lion, like a lion biting into you.

And so it doesn't read quite as well in English. I'm lion like a... So let's see what it says. We see it says, You made me to trust upon my mother's breast. Upon you, I was cast from birth. You have been my God from my mother's womb, but are not far from me, for trouble is near.

For there is none to help. Many bulls have surrounded me. Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me. And then we'll see. They open wide their mouth at me as a raving and roaring lion. I am poured out like water.

All my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It is melted within me. My strength is dried up like a patcher. And my tongue cleaves to my jaws. And you lay me in dust of death. For dogs have surrounded me.

A band of evildoers have encompassed me. They pierce me. They pierce my hands and feet. You see, it sounds kind of weird when it says, they lion my hands and feet. I can count all my bones. They look at me and stare.

They divide my garments among them. And for my clothing, they cast lots. But you, O Lord, be not far off. O you, my help, hasten my assistance. Deliver my soul from sword and my life from the power of the dog.

So you end up seeing he describes right from there. As he's hanging on a cross, he brings them to remembrance of Psalm 22 to remind them exactly what's happening. As he was pierced on his hands and feet, hanging on a cross, his bones just sliding down.

One more passage that Dr. Special mentioned in Sunday School. But most of us know of Isaiah 53, but it actually, I challenge you today to go home and read Isaiah 52, 13. Start there and then read all of Isaiah 53.

But Isaiah 53 is a passage, what we would sometimes do years ago, is we had parts of Isaiah 53, starting about verses 8 to 13, we'd put it on a placard. And we'd go in the streets. And people would say that the Bible was written by men.