Christ and His Various Cameos

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Okay, any questions crop up as a result of the sermon? You know, the

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Good Samaritan text, you'll notice that if you've heard sermons on the

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Good Samaritan text, oftentimes people will turn it into you need to go and be kind to your neighbor kind of text, you know.

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But the emphasis is really on Christ and His mercy when you kind of, when you find Jesus in there properly.

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Kind of a false start today, but any questions, any questions then about the sermon?

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The texts? Now, were you aware that Levites were not permitted to make themselves unclean with corpses that weren't really close relatives?

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A lot of people didn't know that. Yeah, yes we are. In fact, you'll notice that I have

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Leviticus right there on the screen, and we're in chapter 19. Funny thing because our

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Old Testament text today was from Leviticus 19. I consider that to be, you know,

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God saying, Leviticus, get back to Leviticus. No, I'm kidding.

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Okay, why did they not like each other? This is, I'll give you the flight 10 ,000, 5 ,000, no, maybe 30 ,000 flight over.

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So with the death of Solomon, when Solomon died, because he had sinned so grievously,

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God basically told him he was going to tear the kingdom apart. And so you have the kingdom of Israel after the death of Solomon and the ascension of his son

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Rehoboam, when he comes to the throne, then everything is just torn apart.

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So you have the ten northern tribes, they peel off from Judah and Benjamin.

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And what ends up happening is that the first political leader in the northern kingdom, he makes an intentional move to not have the people in the northern kingdom worship in Jerusalem.

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And we know that his motive, because it's stated in Scripture, because he thought that if they traveled to Jerusalem to go to the temple to worship, that their hearts would be, you know, warm and united towards the, you know,

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Judah and Benjamin, and he didn't want that. And so he intentionally set up idolatrous practices, even enlisted the help of a

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Levite, to kind of get their religious practices going. And they eventually would build their own competing worship center, and their competing worship center was on the top of Mount Gerizim.

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And so that's where it starts. They were eventually conquered, intermarried, and just wandered off into the weeds, you know, biblically, theologically, and other things.

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And so from that time forward, there's this tension between Jews and Samaritans, because Samaritans are then, they're related genetically to Jews, but they're also,

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I think they got Syrian and some other things in them. And by the way, there are Samaritans who exist to this day.

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However, as a people group, they are really dwindling quickly, very quickly. So very few

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Samaritans left, but they, you know, so that kind of talks about why the fight.

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Self -righteous, you know, the works -righteous approach to all the Proverbs and all the teachings.

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I read this, what must I do? You know, is how I learned all this growing up, because most of the

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Lutherans didn't want to talk about it. And so this is yet another, this is like the second parable, or teaching in a row, where you've turned it back to, this is about Christ and what

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Christ has done. Is there a resource you can recommend, a book of, no, this is really about Jesus, you know, looking at the parables, and like, you know,

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King David and Goliath, all the famous, you know, I think it was Mount Horeb, when

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I was young, pointing to Christ, and I was like, phew, wine equals blood, you know, is, short of going to seminary, where do

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I get hold of, that, because, here's the thing, I didn't, right, so I didn't pick up this

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Christ -centered approach from a particular book. If I can tell you, kind of, how

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I came about it, and then, you know, I can point you to some resources, and you can patchwork it together, kind of the way

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I did, but, so, years ago, when my kids were knee -high to a grasshopper, so Faith was five years old, so, hard to believe she's married, and, you know, and she's, she's not here today, she's not feeling, actually,

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Alex isn't feeling well, so, so, our family tradition was, when dinner was finished, before we took the dishes off the table, out comes the family

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Bible, and I would read the Bible to the kids, and so, this particular day, we are working our way through the book of Daniel, and we get to the great story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and, as I'm reading out the story, as I'm reading out the story, in fact, let me, let's take a look at it in Daniel, it's not looking good for Leviticus today, by the way, so,

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Daniel chapter, what is it, three, yeah, here it is, Daniel three, and so,

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I'm reading this text out to my family, and it says, the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the justices, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces gathered for the dedication of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up, and they stood before the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up, and the herald proclaimed aloud, you are commanded, oh peoples, and I remember reading this out when

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I read it out to the kids, they enjoyed it, if I would take on a character, so, I kind of envisioned this kind of nerdy, you know, slimy government official going, you are commanded, oh peoples, nations, and languages, you know, it flies a little better with five -year -olds when you do it that way, when you hear the sound of the horn, the pipe, the lyre, the trigon, the harp, the bagpipe, and every kind of music, you are to fall down and worship the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up, whoever does not fall down and worship shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace, and of course, you know, you have to kind of explain this, so kids, this is basically what's going on here, they have to engage in idolatry, and they have a choice, you can either worship this false god, or voila, you can choose to die in a fiery furnace, and faith at this point, you know, she's into the story, she's really into the story, and you could tell she's a little bit nervous for those people who wouldn't bow down to this idol, so therefore, as soon as all the people heard the sound of the horn, the pipe, the lyre, the trigon, the harp, the bagpipe, and every kind of music, all the peoples, and the nations, and languages, they fell down and worshiped the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up, therefore, at that time, certain

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Chaldeans came forward and maliciously accused the Jews, they declared to King Nebuchadnezzar, O King, live forever, you,

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O King, have made a decree that every man who hears the sound of the horn, the pipe, the lyre, the trigon, the harp, the bagpipe, and every kind of music, shall fall down and worship the golden image, and whoever does not fall down and worship shall be cast into the burning fiery furnace, there are certain

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Jews whom you have appointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, these men,

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O King, they pay no attention to you, they do not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up, then

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Nebuchadnezzar, in a furious rage, commanded that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego be brought, so they brought these men before the king,

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Nebuchadnezzar answered and said to them, is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the golden image that I have set up, now if you are ready, when you hear the sound of the horn, the pipe, the lyre, the trigon, the harp, the bagpipe, and every kind of music, to fall down and worship the image that I have made, well and good, but if you do not worship, you shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace, now trust me this has everything to do with your question, but you can kind of see what's going on here, so who is the god who will deliver you out of my hands,

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Nebuchadnezzar asks, great question, right, so Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they answered and said to the king,

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O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter, if this be so, our god whom we serve, he is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand,

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O king, but if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up, so then

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Nebuchadnezzar was filled with fury, the expression on his face was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, he ordered the furnace to be heated seven times more than it usually was heated, he ordered some of the mighty men of his army to bind

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Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and cast them into the burning fiery furnace, then these men were bound in their cloaks, and their tunics, their hats, and their other garments, and they were thrown into the burning fiery furnace, at this point my daughter, five years old, she goes, audible gasp, dad, are they, did they die, do you want me to keep reading, uh -huh, right,

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I mean she was just gripped and totally engaged in this story, and she lets out this audible gasp, what happens next though, gives me the gasp, so they fell into the fiery furnace, then king

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Nebuchadnezzar was astonished, he rose up in haste, he declared to his counselors, did we not cast three men bound into the fire, they answered and said to the king, true oh king, and he answered and said, but I see four men unbound walking in the midst of the fire, and they're not hurt, and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods, to this my five -year -old jumps up from her seat, does something like a celebration dance, and says, daddy,

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Jesus came and saved them, that hit, and I mean it hit me hard, and of course at the moment

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I can only say, yes dear, of course Jesus came and saved them, but the thing is she was right, and I had never seen it,

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I'd never seen it, that was Christ who showed up, so the story continues, so Nebuchadnezzar came near to the door of the burning fiery furnace, and he declared,

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Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out, come here, so Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out from the fire, and the satraps, and the prefects, and the governors, and the kings, and the counselors together, and all saw that the fire had not any power over the bodies of those men, the hair of their heads was not singed, their cloaks were not harmed, and no smell of fire had come upon them,

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Nebuchadnezzar answered and said, blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel and delivered his servants, who trusted him, and set aside the king's command, and yielded up their bodies, rather than serve and worship any god except for their own, therefore

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I make a decree, any people, nations, or language that speaks anything against the goddess Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, shall be torn limb from limb, and their houses laid in ruins, for there is no other god who is able to rescue in this way, then the king promoted

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Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the province of Babylon, so I read the story, finished the story, faith was gripped by the story, and her little blurting out that Jesus came to save them, just tore me apart, so that night after she went to bed, and after Barb went to sleep,

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I pulled out my bible, and I reread the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and sure enough, there was

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Jesus in the fire with them, it was as if he was looking at me through the flames going, hi, didn't expect to see me here, did you?

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It's like, what are you doing there, Jesus? And at that point,

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I realized that I still had a lot to learn about the scriptures.

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Then you think of what Jesus says in John chapter 5. In John chapter 5, he says to the Jews, he says, you diligently search the scriptures, because you think that in them you have life.

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He's talking about the Tanakh. You diligently search the scriptures, because you think that in them you have life, yet they are the very scriptures that testify about me, and you refuse to come to me that you might have life.

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Now granted, you can look at the prophecies regarding the virgin birth, you can look at the prophecies about where Jesus will be born, but I don't think that's the totality of what

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Christ was talking about. These are the scriptures that testify about him. So it was at that point that I began a search for kind of understanding theophanies.

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Theophanies are the appearances of the pre -incarnate Christ. One of the starkest ones, and one of the most amazing ones, is the story of when

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Christ appears to the parents of Samson.

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It's an amazing story. At breakfast, there was that story about all three persons, and Isaac.

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Yeah, no, and Abraham in Genesis 19. I've never caught that before.

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Yeah, no, there's weird things in the Bible. There's really weird things. And then, and so this is where I went next, is kind of looking at theophanies.

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And that, I didn't think, filled it out. And then, kind of concurrent with that,

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I read Lenski's commentaries. If you have Lenski, his New Testament commentaries are fantastic.

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What's really funny is, is that I remember years ago, John MacArthur was asked, you know, how does he prepare his sermons?

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And Lenski is one of the commentary series that he, you know, intentionally reads.

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He calls him a sacramentarian though, and it's like, no, I don't think that word means what you think it means. But yeah, he was a Lutheran.

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I think it was an old ALS guy. But, so Lenski started kind of pointing me in the right direction.

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But where I really started to bump up against biblical typology was in the writings of the

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Church Fathers, and then a friend of mine in the ministry whose name is Mark Buto. And so this is going on maybe 11 years ago now.

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I was brought on to the Board of Directors for Higher Things, and the

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Reverend Buto was on, you know, was employed by Higher Things at the time. And everybody thinks he's kind of a little bit like a screw loose, you know, something weird because of the way he talks.

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And so he's, you know, so we're at dinner one night after one of our board meetings, and he says,

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Roseboro. Yes, Buto, what? He goes, what do you think about this idea? What idea,

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Mark? He goes, so there's Moses, right? They're in the wilderness. And it's like, remember when he struck the rock at Horeb?

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Yeah, I remember when he struck the rock at Horeb. Remember the second time he struck the rock? I said, yeah, that was the time he couldn't go into the promised land because he struck the rock a second time.

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He's supposed to speak to it the second time. I'm all, yeah. He's all, well, Paul says the rock is Christ.

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So you can't strike Jesus twice. And I'm thinking, you're an idiot. Okay, where are you getting this?

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It's like, I've never heard this kind of talk before. He's all, it's in the Bible, man. You just got to listen to what the

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Bible's saying. Right. And it's like, and it just bugged me.

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So don't tell him this. And if you point him to this audio, I'll deny that I said any of this.

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So after that, it's like, so I went and did some research. Moses, rock, strike twice,

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Google and stuff like that, found resources. I have a pretty good library on Lagos. And it's like, there's church fathers that talk this way.

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And it's the weirdest thing. So that's where I really began to start to read all the sermons

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I can get a hold of, of the church fathers. So from like, you know, from like Irenaeus to Augustine, you know, after Augustine, it starts to get a little sketchy, you know.

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And you have to kind of take Augustine with a grain of salt because he's so into Plato and it's weird, some of the stuff he does.

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But, you know, and sure enough, I mean, every sermon I got a hold of, especially when they're referencing

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Old Testament texts, they're finding Jesus like under every rock and tree. And sometimes they overcook their typology.

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And so I set out to prove that you can't do this with the Bible. And somebody politely pointed out to me and said, yeah, but the

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New Testament tells you to do this with the Bible. And I said, where? Where does it teach you to do this?

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Well, John 5 is a good place to start. But then you look at, you know, like Colossians 2, you know, don't let anyone judge you regarding a new moon, a

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Sabbath, or a festival, right? These are a shadow. The substance is in Christ, right?

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And then you think of, then you look at 1 Peter 3. Let's take a look at that one real quick. This is a fascinating text because it teaches you, if you listen to the

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Bible, it'll tell you how to understand these things. So here's our, 1

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Peter 3 .18, and you'll note that this is one of those scant texts, you know, that we have so little information, what we confess in the creeds when we say that Christ descended into hell.

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Here we have one of these texts that actually addresses the topic. And, you know, again, there's so little that's written, but Peter says this,

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Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey when

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God's patience waited in the days of Noah. So you'll note here, we can see

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Christ's descent into hell, and what's his descent into hell for? It's for the purpose of what?

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Caruso, to proclaim, to preach to the spirits in prison, and this would be Sheol, because they formerly did not obey when

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God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared in which a few, that is eight persons, were brought safely through water.

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And then you have to take a look at the Greek here. And so he says, baptism, which corresponds, is that baptism is the antitupon, it's the antitype of what?

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The ark being the type. So, so, which is an antitype to the flood, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience.

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So the idea then here is, is that this text is clearly teaching that the salvation theme of Noah and his family in the ark is that the antitype, is the, is the type, and that our baptism is the type.

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So it is the antitype to it, so you've got type and antitype. So this is where you come up with tuposkia, types and shadows.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you look at the creation of the tabernacle itself.

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It is a perfect replica of the original.

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And so you're starting to see something here. And, and so the way the ancient church read the

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Old Testament was, when you look at the story of Noah and the flood, they saw it, because of this text, as a type and shadow of our salvation, which is exactly what

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Peter is saying. And so you can kind of work the details out in this way. You can say, just as Noah was, and his family were saved by being put into the ark, and they were saved through the flood, our baptism now saves us, because in our baptisms, we are put into Christ.

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All right? And the church fathers, when you read their sermons on this, especially the older ones, they talk about the door of the ark being the wound of Christ in his side.

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That's, that's how far they go in their typology. Right?

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Okay. And then on top of it, they would even point out, and the ark looks a lot like a coffin. This is how they talk.

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And you sit there, and you go, this is an interesting thing. So what they're seeing is, is that, that that story of the global flood is a picture of our salvation, and that we are saved through water.

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Now add into the mix. What other water salvation themes can you think of? Oh, I know, the

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Red Sea. And funny enough, the New Testament calls the Red Sea a baptism.

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And you're going, wait a second, isn't this some kind of a weird allegorical way of reading the text?

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Answer, this is not real allegory. You know, and I've really struggled with this, because I, I am,

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I don't like allegorizing the texts. But instead, what you have to do is, you have to let both of them kind of speak for themselves.

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And so when you're teaching in the Old Testament, you look for those connection points where you can then hang the details of Christ on it.

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Because he's ultimately going to be the fulfillment of it. And so the way I kind of liken it to, and I've never done this, because I'm way too overweight.

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You think of those climbing walls, right? You know, you get up on the climbing wall, and you got the hand plate, you put your hand here, you can put your foot there, and climb up.

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And so the Old Testament is like a climbing wall. And you can literally perfectly fit the details of Christ, certain parts of Christ's life and our salvation, onto that climbing wall, because they're made to hook onto there.

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And so that you bring the two together. So you don't want to allegorize the story. The story stands by itself.

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It's a true historical story. And at the same time, the implications theologically have everything to do with what

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Christ has done for us. And you can then connect it back to Christ. So Christ is the way you pull the

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Old and the New Testament together. And it's true that the Old Testament testifies about Christ in so many ways, that when you start looking for kind of the themes.

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And the other way I liken it, my kids, they used to play this game called memory, all right? So we had special cards for memory.

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So you got the animal ones, I think. You got cards, two of them have a picture of a frog on it, and one's got giraffes and stuff like that.

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It's kind of like that. Oftentimes you can see that it'll be a word or a theme that is going to be consistent between the two, and you can connect them together.

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And then you can't understand the Bible apart from the gospel itself. If you don't get salvation by grace through faith alone, then you're going to start mixing your covenants.

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You're going to start mixing. You're going to improperly not divide the scriptures so that you'll end up messing it up.

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So that it'll end up becoming an allegory about you rather than about Christ. And it's not even an allegory, it's a type and shadow of him.

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So does that answer your question? All right. So Lenski is a good place to go.

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Anything you can get a hold of by Mark Buto, he's a pastor in Illinois, and he's written extensively for Higher Things.

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He introduced me to the concept a little bit deeper, and like I said, I bristled against it.

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Tried to prove him wrong and found out that he was right. I'm a little confused about how baptism and the story of Noah connects, because the waters of that baptism saves you, but the waters of the flood didn't save you.

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It's just the opposite. Right. So here's the idea then. You have to rightly understand who the bad guys are in the types and shadows.

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So when you come to the story of the Exodus, Pharaoh, who is a god -king, a false god -king, a cruel tyrannical god -king, who has enslaved the people of God.

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Does this sound familiar to you? Right. It's his forces that are drowned when

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Israel is baptized. So years ago when I would teach this in Sunday school class to the youth, when

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I was teaching the youth, I'd take them up, I'd say, all right, let's read the story, read the account of the children of Israel passing through the

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Red Sea. And I said, what happened to the forces of Pharaoh? Oh, the whole army was drowned, and their bodies and their corpses washed up on the shore.

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And I said, come on up to the altar. Let's go up to the baptismal font. So we go up to the baptismal font and open it up.

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What do you guys see? Nothing. I said, look closer. Look around the rim here.

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You see all the corpses of the demons right here on the edge of the baptismal font? That's kind of the point.

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So what's salvation for us is ultimately destruction and defeat for the devil.

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So the idea then is, and this is what Peter says, baptism now saves you.

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It's not a washing of water for the removal of dirt from the body, but again, it's an appeal to God for a clean conscience.

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How so? Because in our baptism, we are united with Christ in his death and his resurrection. And there's themes then that go all the way back then to the beginning chapter of Genesis.

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And this is kind of an interesting one. And when you kind of flesh out some of the more nitty -gritty details, come back to the very first chapter.

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In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And listen to this next part.

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The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the home, over the deep. And the

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Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters, the mayim.

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And so here, kind of bookend it here. So in the beginning here, you've got, God takes like a dump truck of matter, right?

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And he creates it right at the beginning. And just like a good project, you know, like if you're doing landscaping in your yard, you go and you got a bunch of dirt, you got a bunch of plants, you got a shovel, a wheelbarrow, all this kind of stuff.

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And it doesn't look like nothing, right? And so the picture here is that there's a Spirit of God brooding, hovering over the face of the waters, and it's chaos.

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The tohu obohu, this deep, and you know, then it's just complete mess. And then

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God creates order out of it. So we're created out of water. And the

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Spirit was intimately involved, and Christ was there because he spoke, because he's the Word of God, right? Let there be light, and there was light.

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And then, now fast forward, that same theme then picks up in the flood of Noah.

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Because after the flood, while they're still in the ark, you know, when they're waiting for the waters to subside, what does

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Noah throw out of the ark to go see if there's any dry land? A dove, right?

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Fast forward to Jesus's baptism. There he goes into the waters, right?

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And now the heavens open up and hears the voice of the Father saying, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. And now the

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Spirit descends on him like a what? A dove. Okay, so here you've got this new, you've got creation, new creation theme.

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Now you're baptized into Christ, and then water appears again then at the very end of the book.

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No longer is it the tohu, abohu, and the to home, and the deep, and the chaos. Instead, there is no sea.

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There's just a glassy sea. Everything calm before the throne of God. So you can kind of see how the themes work out.

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Does that make sense? Am I just, you know, too much learning?

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Right, I like the way you said that. It may more be like Don Quixote, you know, his brain was fried in the sun, you know.

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But you kind of get what I'm saying here. But as soon as you can start seeing all of this, you can see how all of the scriptures now are ordered and completely center around the high mass of gravity, which is

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Christ. In one way or another, you can connect all these texts back to him.

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And you're rightly reading it when you do, and you're rightly distinguishing law and gospel. Yeah, I haven't figured that out yet.

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I actually don't know. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. So there's a part of me that thinks that because the devil can't create anything, he can only pervert the things that are.

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You think of some of the ancient mythos regarding death, you know, when you die, you cross the river

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Styx, you know, or even pharaohs, you know, we as Christians, sometimes in our parlance, and you can even find it in some of our hymnody, we talk about death as the crossing of the

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Jordan. And there's a reason for that. That one actually works. The reason why it works is because, kind of now work the typology out, if the

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Exodus is a type and shadow of God's salvation of humanity, his conquering and defeat of the devil, and we are baptized into Christ, no sooner are we baptized into Christ that we go and we go into a wilderness wandering.

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Now, the question is, what does that represent? Well, it's 40 years. It's a generation -long kind of thing.

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All right. And so the idea then is, I think a proper way of understanding then the wilderness wanderings is that currently, right now, post -baptism, each and every one of us are wandering in the wilderness as we are heading towards the promised land, which

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Hebrews 11 makes it perfectly clear has nothing to do with a postage stamp piece of property in the

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Middle East. The promised land is the new earth. With the heavenly Jerusalem come down from heaven, the city whose builder is

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God itself. That was the thing that Abraham was looking for, Hebrews says. Right? When you start to kind of put all the pieces together, then you sit there and you say, oh, so death is when

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I cross the Jordan into the promised land. Yes. All right.

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Now you kind of see how that works. Yeah. Is there any baptism typology to be gained about the story where Peter walks on water and makes his eyes off Jesus?

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Baptized into foolishness. I have never worked out that typology, and I don't want to do it on the fly.

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I think I'd mess it up because I'm not sure that's the right theme. I would say this, though.

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The fact that Christ is walking on the water is seen by the ancient church as his conquering of Leviathan.

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Okay. And there you can see Jesus, again, on the chaos, walking on the deep, conquering

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Leviathan, which is this mythic beast that supposedly goes along with the chaos of the sea and stuff like that.

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Christ is conquering him by walking on the water. And so if you're going to work the typology along those lines, you'll note that Peter is incapable of doing such a thing, and that he only is given to do so by faith and keeping his eyes on Christ.

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You know, you can kind of work it in that way. So let me show you one other story.

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In Daniel, I want you to consider this one. Let me find it here. It might be nine.

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Well, I got to hunt this down. Hang on a second here. Where's the story of Daniel in the lion's den?

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Is it six? It is six.

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Okay. Check this story out. Okay. So if what Paul says, if what

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Peter says are true, and then adding into the heavy Christ that these texts testify about Jesus, let's take a look at this historical account of Daniel being thrown into the lion's den, and let's see how we can connect this back to Christ.

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See if it makes any sense. So here's what it says. Well, everybody knows in politics and things like that, there's jealousies and stuff like that that come about.

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So this Daniel became distinguished above all the other high officials. The satraps, because an excellent spirit was in him, and the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom.

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Then the high officials, the satraps, sought to find a ground for complaint against Daniel with regard to the kingdom, but they could find no ground for complaint or any fault because he was faithful.

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A little bit of a note here. You'll note that immediately we can make a connection. I can think of another fellow who they were looking for grounds to bring a charge against him, but he was faultless.

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And this sounds a lot like the trial of Christ, right? So you can make that connection.

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So there's a similarity between the two, and in some way this story is pointing us to Christ.

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So no error or fault was found in him, it says of Daniel, and yet I could say the same thing about Jesus, right?

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So then these men said, we shall not find any ground or complaint against this

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Daniel unless we find it in connection with the law of his God. Then these high officials and satraps came by an agreement to the king and said to him,

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O King Darius, live forever. All the high officials of the kingdom, the prefects, the satraps, the counselors, the governors are agreed that the king should establish an ordinance and enforce an injunction that whoever makes petition to any

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God or man for 30 days except to you, O King, shall be cast into the den of lions.

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It's like these guys, you know, they come up with these elaborate movie set ways of killing people.

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You know, this is kind of fascinating. So now O King, establish the injunction, sign the document so that it cannot be changed according to the law of the

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Medes and the Persians, which cannot be revoked. Therefore, King Darius signed the document and the injunction.

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When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem.

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He got down on his knees three times a day and he prayed and gave thanks before his God as he had done previously.

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Then these men came by an agreement and found Daniel making petition and plea before his

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God. Then they came near and said before the king concerning the injunction, O King, did you not sign an injunction that anyone who makes petition to any

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God or man within 30 days except to you, O King, shall be cast into the den of lions?

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The king answered and said, the thing stands fast according to the law of the Medes and the Persians, which cannot be revoked.

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Then they answered and said before the king, Daniel, who is one of the exiles from Judah, pays no attention to you,

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O King, or the injunction that you have signed, but makes his petition three times a day. Then the king, when he heard these words, was much distressed and set his mind to deliver

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Daniel. And he labored till the sun went down to rescue him. And these men came by agreement to the king and said to the king, know,

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O king, that it is a law of the Medes and the Persians that no injunction or ordinance that the king establishes can be changed.

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A little bit of a note here, the details are slightly different, but there's something similar to what is happening here and Pilate.

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Pilate, who would ultimately be the one who sends Christ to the cross, sought to find a way to release him.

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And I see between Darius and Pilate at least some kind of parallel motive, some kind of theme that I can take this story and say, isn't this amazing how it's a lot like and very similar to the story we find of Christ when he was on trial?

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And so you'll note now, in the types and shadows, we know where this should go when you connect these two points.

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Where we're going to be hanging out in the gospels, if we were to connect the two, is going to be the trial and the death and even the resurrection of Christ.

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That this story in type and shadow is prefiguring that, pointing us to it. So the king commanded, and Daniel was brought and cast into the den of lions.

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Now, just so you know, if you're thrown into a lion's den, that's the end of you. That's generally how that goes.

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And usually they keep these lions pretty hungry, just a little bit, that feed them a little bit less than what they would want.

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So that when you throw a human being in there, that human being is quickly consumed. So the king declared to Daniel, may your

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God whom you serve continually deliver you. And a stone was brought and laid on the mouth of the den, and the king sealed it with his own signet, and with the signet of his lords, that nothing might be changed concerning Daniel.

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Do you see it? Yeah, this is the tomb of Christ. I mean, even with the official seal on the stone, a stone is rolled in front of the tomb, and it's sealed with a royal seal.

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They did that to Christ's tomb, and you can see the connection. And you sit there and go, so this is, but Daniel here, he would actually have to be raised from the dead if God allowed him to be torn apart by the lions.

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So his death isn't going to be a physical death, it's going to be kind of a symbolical death.

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He died, and he rose again, right? So the stone was brought, laid in the mouth of the tomb, king sealed it with his own signet, that nothing might be changed concerning Daniel.

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The king went into his palace, spent the night fasting, no diversions were brought to him, sleep fled from him.

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Then at day, at break of day, literally as soon as the sun comes up, when did

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Jesus rise from the dead? With first light, right? At the break of the day, the king rose and went in haste to the lion's den.

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As he came near to the den where Daniel was, he cried out in a tone of anguish.

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The king declared to Daniel, O Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God whom you serve continually been able to deliver you from the lions?

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Then Daniel said to the king, O king, live forever. My God sent his angel and shut the lion's mouth and they have not harmed me because I was found blameless before him and also before you.

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And in scripture, what's the reason why, there's many reasons, but some of the reasons why Christ, death was not able to hold him, is because he was faultless, blameless.

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Death had no claim over him. So because I was found blameless,

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O king, I have done no harm. Then the king was exceedingly glad, commanded that Daniel be taken up out of the den.

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So Daniel was taken up out of the den. No kind of harm was found on him because he had trusted in his

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God. And this is a theme regarding Christ's resurrection as well. Yes?

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So you know, Jesus makes an appearance here. We don't get to get all the details, but he sent his angel.

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So who was it that sat with Daniel that night and kept those lion's mouths closed?

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Jesus. You see it? And so once you start to see it, you can't unsee it.

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And once you listen to how the scriptures tell you, how Jesus tells you to read his word, it like opens the whole thing up.

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And it's a huge burden. So what you're saying is the Bible's not about me. Not at all, man.

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It's not about you at all. It's about him.

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This is why when we get to the parable of the Good Samaritan, you and I are the guy who's been beaten, left for dead, stripped naked, have nothing.

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And Christ does everything for us. Right? He's our

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Good Samaritan. And when you start to read the scriptures, it's like I said, the whole thing, it starts to really bend your mind.

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Let me throw this in here just to see if I can placate Dwayne a little bit.

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Here's a little bit of Leviticus. It's starting to get to joke level. Anyway, consider what our

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Old Testament reading said. It began in verse 9. You shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard, and you shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner.

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I am Yahweh, your God. This is totally about Christ.

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The question is how? Okay, yeah, that's going to be the law end of it.

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Okay, how about gospel? And I'm not saying you're wrong.

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You're absolutely right. Now work the gospel through it. Okay, yeah.

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Your neighbor needs your help. We're the sojourner. We're the poor. We're the destitute.

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Okay, perfect. God in his mercy for us, observed, provides for us despite our inability to give back.

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Now, use this text to show me where the

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Messiah was saved by this commandment being kept. Oh, making my brain do things.

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Okay. Ruth. Yes, Ruth being a sojourner, having returned out of faith and love to the

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God of Israel and her adoptive family, was provided for by the gleanings.

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She's the ancestor of Christ. Moreover, in her gathering, she draws the attention of Boaz, who then is in line to be like second in line to become her kinsman redeemer.

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They look a redeemer figure to the needy sojourner. And through this moabitess, we're not even getting into the levels of ick regarding that.

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Exactly. Um, uh, the unworthy is adopted and not just adopted, but adopted into the family of Christ himself.

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Right. And Boaz is the son of whom? Boaz is the son of whom?

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Boaz is the son of, of the guy who marries the, uh, the prostitute of Jericho.

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This is in the list of scandalous smackdown of the Pharisees in Matthew. Yeah. So, I mean, so put, so put it all together.

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So here we have a text that's telling you that not harvest all of your food, but leave some of the gleanings for the sojourner and for the poor.

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And then the Messiah himself in the loins of Boaz has mercy on the moabitess.

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And Ruth, who is a picture, a type and shadow of the bride of Christ. Uh -huh.

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And she is saved through this commandment kept by her kinsman,

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Redeemer, who is in the line of the Messiah. You see it?

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If I have another stroke, I blame you. Right.

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So the idea here is, is that the scriptures are so much better, so much better than you can possibly imagine.

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And Christ and the cross is the key to unlock the whole thing. You know?

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So, you know, I, I, I understand when somebody writes an article and says, you can't do this with the text.

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I get it. I tried to fight it, but the text itself argues that it has to be understood this way.

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And so what you don't want to do is sit there and say, so it doesn't matter whether or not Ruth was a historical person or not.

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That's just nonsense. No, what's amazing then is, is that not only does

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God, the Holy Spirit inspire prophets to write words where they, centuries ahead of time, give us details regarding the life of Christ, but that now

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God, the Holy Spirit starts writing in broad, beautiful canvas strokes using human lives and the details of their lives.

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Now, when you, when you stand back from the canvas, you sit there and go, no, that's a portrait of Jesus.

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That's what the Tanakh is. It's all these little stories painted on a canvas in human lives.

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And when you stand back, you can see that's the face of Christ. That's the idea.

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Kind of giving true history to show the future. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's enough for today.