Sermon: My Journey to Hope for the Future

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It's probably not good to start off with a confession about how old I am, but we moved to the state of Pennsylvania in the late 1960s.

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And my grandmother lived in a small town called Kinsley, Kansas.

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And so, each summer, my family would climb into our old used car, hope to make it through Ohio.

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If something was going to go wrong with the car, it was Ohio. We hated Ohio. That was our bad luck state, and we just breathed a sigh of relief as soon as we crossed the border out of Ohio.

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We knew we were going to make it. But somewhere in the early 70s, we joined the

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AAA, and we started ordering something called a triptych. And this was before the internet, for you young folks.

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You might not realize there was a day before the internet. And cell phones and things like that.

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And you used something called a map. This was a large paper thing, okay?

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And the real big maps were dangerous, because they were so big, you could not possibly see where you were going.

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And I remember very clearly my mom and dad having an argument once in the middle of the night somewhere in New England about where we were going.

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And my mom said, we are right here, and her finger went right through the map, and so we had no idea where we were after that.

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And so, they weren't, they were, and by the way, they were designed so you could never fold them back up the way they originally came, okay?

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That's just the way a map is. And so, these triptychs, what you do is you contact

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AAA, we say we're starting here, we're ending here, we want to see these places along the way.

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And what they would do is they would build you this really nifty thing where you would have a map, it was just about yay big, on one page, and they would take a yellow marker, and you'd go here, and you'd turn here, and then when it got down to the bottom, you flipped it over, and hey, that's where you are, you can keep going, and when it would turn, you'd go that way, then you'd go to a new one, and they would send this to you for your trip, going and coming, and you just have this one thing, and nobody had to fight over it, you couldn't stick your finger through it, and it would work really, really well, and that's how we got from Pennsylvania to Kinsley, Kansas, and back again, over and over and over again.

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Now, each page, however, of that document was dependent upon where you started and when you were finishing.

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If you didn't tell them where you were starting from, but only where you were going, how could they build you one?

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If you didn't tell them every place you wanted to stop, how could they build you one? You had to have certain foundational principles in place for this thing to work, and if you wandered off of it, well, then nothing was going to work at all.

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Eschatology, for many people, the study of last things, is little more than an interesting appendage.

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For cessationists, it's sort of the only time we get to dabble in prophecy, when you think about it.

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Prophecy conferences, wow, packed out, wall to wall. I remember, especially back in the heyday of Hal Lindsey and late great planet

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Earth and stuff like that, he would pack them in, and I remember very clearly the first time

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I ever heard anyone explaining what 666 was, somehow they had figured out who the beast was, and it was

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Henry Kissinger. Now that was so long ago, a bunch of you are sitting there going, who?

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Never even heard of him. He's still alive. Can you believe that? Yeah, I think he's 137, but he's still out there.

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Eschatology, for most people, is just a thing you attach onto the rest of your theology.

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It doesn't really have a lot to do with the central aspects about what you believe.

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Arguments about beasts and revelation or obscure passages in Daniel predominate much of these discussions.

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And for me, those conversations led me to wrongly,

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I confess today, avoid the topic for many years. Yet even during a period of time when

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I called myself a pan -millennialist, it'll all pan out in the end, I kept running into its importance and having a full -orbed biblical theology.

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Developments over the past few years have forced me to face the question of the relationship of the church to the state.

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I've also been forced to be doing a lot of thinking about our long -range purposes. What is the intention of the church?

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What should it be as we look to the future and to the many challenges that are coming our direction?

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Global, secular totalitarianism will surely focus one's mind in a way that no left -behind book ever could, because while many of those books were written clearly on the basis of what we would call newspaper eschatology, people looking at the latest developments between Russia and Israel and all that kind of stuff, now we are talking about a radical rapid major movement of the entire globe toward a secular anti -Christian mindset and governmental system that seeks to control our thoughts, our expressions, and especially seeks the minds of our children.

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What I discovered is that just as with the Trinity, just as with the deity of Christ, just as with the doctrine of election, atonement, et cetera, there are certain texts that provide the superstructure, the guiding principles that produce coherence and harmony in the text of Scripture.

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When I teach on the Trinity, I lay out what the Bible teaches. There are three foundational truths.

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The Bible teaches there is one true God, the creator of all things. He knows of no other gods, and He has eternally been

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God. Yet the Bible introduces us to three divine persons who have eternally existed.

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They're distinguished from one another. They speak to one another. Each one's identified as Yahweh in Scripture.

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And yet the Bible then teaches their equality and personality. That's why I'm a Trinitarian.

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I believe all that the Bible teaches when it speaks to that particular issue. So there are certain texts you go to that give order and coherence to a doctrine such as the doctrine of the

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Trinity. The same thing with election, atonement, whatever else it might be. Until recently,

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I did not find a consistent emphasis upon an overarching theme that gives unity and consistency to the

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Scriptural teaching about God's purposes, especially as we look to the future.

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But that has changed. And with the rise of some of the greatest challenges the body of Christ has ever faced,

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I have had to come to decisions that impact and, in fact, determine the course of action and emphasis that must be mine and ours in these challenging days.

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Now, if you do not agree with the conclusions I've come to, I ask only that you hear me out and, most importantly, consider the inspired words of God.

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I want to look specifically at four what I would call guiding definitional texts.

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Now, you might say immediately, well, how do you get to choose that? What we will see is that not only are these texts intimately related to one another in their themes, but that the

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New Testament writers use the Old Testament texts as indicative of God's overarching purposes.

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These texts will plainly be related to one another and when brought together with one another, express a consistent whole as to what

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God's overarching purposes in all of creation really are.

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To what do I refer? I refer to the second Psalm. I refer to Psalm 110.

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I refer to Isaiah chapter 42, verses 1 through 4, and in the New Testament, 1

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Corinthians chapter 15, verses 20 through 27. Let's start with the second Psalm.

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Psalm 2, 1 through 2, is quoted by the church in their great prayer after persecution began.

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Remember? When they were told not to preach in the name of Jesus. In fact, when the early church prayed and says that Pilate and Herod and the

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Jews and the Romans were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus to do whatever your hand and your purpose predestined to occur, what was the

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Old Testament text they quoted before they said that? Psalm 2. Psalm 2. It is a messianic

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Psalm. Psalm 2, 7 is quoted in Acts chapter 13, verse 33, as being fulfilled in the resurrection of Jesus.

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It's also quoted in Hebrews 1, 5 as an illustration of Jesus' superiority to the angels.

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And Hebrews 5, 5 is evidence that Jesus' position is determined by the Father and not by self -exaltation.

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So let's look at Psalm 2. Why are the nations in an uproar, and the peoples devising a vain thing?

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The kings of the earth take their stand, and the rulers take counsel together against Yahweh, remember,

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L -O -R -D in caps, Yahweh. Yahweh, and against His anointed, His Mashiach, His Messiah.

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Let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us. He who sits in the heavens laughs.

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The Lord scoffs at them. Then He will speak to them in His anger and terrify them in His fury.

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But as for me, I have installed my king upon Zion, my holy mountain.

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I will surely tell the decree of Yahweh. He said to me, You are my son, today

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I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will surely give the nations as thine inheritance, and the very ends of the earth as thy possession.

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Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron, thou shalt shatter them like earthenware. Now therefore,

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O kings, show discernment. Take warning, O judges of the earth. Worship Yahweh with reverence, and rejoice with trembling.

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Do homage to the Son, lest He become angry, and you perish in the way. For His wrath may soon be kindled.

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How blessed are all who take refuge in Him." Now what do we have in these words?

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I have to be very brief. We will not be able to do the exegetical work that we would normally do in only looking just at a few verses of a psalm such as this.

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But I want you to see the overarching themes. Why are the nations in an uproar?

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These are the nations of the earth and the peoples devising a vain thing. The kings of the earth, these are people in authority, take their stand.

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The rulers take counsel together, what? Against Yahweh and against His Messiah.

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Well, I thought the Messiah was only for the Jewish people. Seems like the Messiah has a broader reach of authority, doesn't

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He? Why would the nations be in an uproar? The nations say, let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us.

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Oh, it sounds like there's something going on here where God has authority over these nations and they're in rebellion.

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Why else would they be saying, let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us? But he who sits in the heavens laughs.

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The Lord scoffs at them. Then He will speak to them in His anger and terrify them in His fury.

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God's going to judge nations, rebellious governments? Yes, He will.

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But as for me, God says, I have installed my king upon Zion, my holy mountain.

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Oh, the Messiah is given an earthly throne that has earthly authority and the nations of the earth cannot overthrow this.

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I will surely tell the decree of Yahweh. And then you have these words, which are almost

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God's favorite verse, close, cited so many times in the New Testament. He said to me, thou art my son, today

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I have begotten thee. And what does Acts 13 tell us? This is about the resurrection.

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This is about raising the Messiah from the dead, the acceptance of His sacrificial death,

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His exaltation to His right hand, the position of power. That's probably what

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Daniel chapter 7 is about as well. We don't have time to get into that, but that will be something for the future to look at as well.

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And then upon His exaltation, what does,

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I would say, the Father say to the Son? Ask of me, and I will surely give what as thine inheritance?

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Surely ask of me, and I will give you defeat, loss, and a few people out of a few places.

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No. Ask of me, and I will surely give the nations as thine inheritance.

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This is to the resurrected one, the resurrected Messiah. And the very ends of the earth as what?

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Your possession. Does God have that right?

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Does the Father have that power? What an audacious thing to say.

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Isn't that up to the nations? God says, ask of me, I will surely give the nations as thine inheritance, and the very ends of the earth as thy possession.

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Why would we believe the words we find in the Psalter when they're about Christ's sacrificial death or His resurrection or things like that?

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But we won't believe this, because it runs into man's vaunted free will.

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Now therefore, O kings, in light of the promise of the Father to the Son, show discernment.

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Take warning, O judges of the earth. Who are kings and judges? They're people in authority.

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Show discernment. Take warning. Worship Yahweh with reverence.

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Why would God command all nations to worship Him? Because He sustains them, that's why.

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Because every breath of their mouth and every beat of their heart comes from His hand. He's their maker.

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He keeps His universe from flying apart into chaos. And so in light of the promise, they are to show discernment.

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They are to take warning. Worship Yahweh with reverence and rejoice with trembling. Do homage to the

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Son, lest He become angry and you perish in the way.

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For His wrath may soon be kindled, how blessed are all who take refuge in Him. The Son, this is a picture of the powerful, enthroned, resurrected

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Jesus, the same Jesus we see in Revelation chapter 1, who rules the nations with a rod of iron.

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Keep those, this is, New Testament says this is messianic, this is about Jesus.

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If you accept the Bible as God's revelation, you can't get around what is found in the second

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Psalm. That's how the apostles interpreted these words. So with that in mind, let's go to a

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Psalm that you think you know everything about. You think you know everything about it because, well, we've been quoting the first two verses.

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And it's only seven verses long, it's only 65 Hebrew words. It's not long. But as Pastor Jeff likes to say, it's

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God's favorite Bible verse because he quotes it more times than any other in the New Testament. You may recall in three of the

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Gospels, in the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus stumped His opponents by asking them how

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David's Lord could be David's son. I find it interesting that in both

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Matthew and Mark, when Jesus asks this question of the Jews and silences them, the way

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He introduces it goes along these lines. How is it that David in the

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Holy Spirit said these words? Isn't that interesting? That struck me in my preparations this week.

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Because Jesus was applying these words to Himself. And when you think about it, if you didn't know the end of the book, and you have some itinerant coming from Galilee, applying this

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Psalm to Himself, that's a pretty amazing thing, isn't it? He is either a complete false prophet, or He is who

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He claimed He was. There is no middle ground. There is no middle ground. And so you have

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Jesus asking, how can David's son be His Lord? And they didn't know how to answer because they didn't understand the nature of the

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Messiah. The writer of the Hebrews used the opening words as a demonstration of Jesus' superiority to the angels.

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He likewise focused much attention on verse 4 and the concept of the priesthood of Melchizedek.

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He demonstrated that there is only one holder of the Melchizedek priesthood, Jesus. If you're going to claim the hold of the

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Melchizedek priesthood according to the Bible, you have to have an instructable life, and no father or mother. Good luck on that.

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And the Melchizedek priest is able to save to the uttermost those who are drawn nigh unto

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God by Him. That's the teaching of Scripture. And it's drawn from Psalm 110. So let's look at Psalm 110.

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Yahweh says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make thine enemies a footstool for thy feet. Yahweh will stretch forth thy strong scepter from Zion, saying, rule in the midst of thine enemies.

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Thy people will volunteer freely in the day of thy power. In holy array from the womb of the dawn, thy youth are to thee as they do.

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Yahweh has sworn and will not change His mind. Thou art a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. The Lord is at thy right hand.

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He will shatter kings in the day of His wrath. He will judge among the nations. He will fill them with corpses.

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He will shatter the chief men over a broad country. He will drink from the brook by the wayside. Therefore He will lift up His head.

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Sixty -five Hebrew words. Doesn't take long, does it? So what do we see here?

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Yahweh says to my Lord. A distinction is being made. There are times when the Father is identified as Yahweh.

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There are times when the Son is identified as Yahweh, the Spirit of Yahweh. But here, Jesus is being seen as Messiah.

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Yahweh says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until when? Until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.

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That is a common way of speaking of subduing and destroying the enemies of a king.

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The king would come and place his feet upon a representative soldier, maybe even the king of the nation that he's defeated.

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He puts his foot upon them to demonstrate they have been subjected, their power has been destroyed. And here,

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Yahweh says to my Lord, the Father says to the Son, sit at my right hand.

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This again, exaltation. Until when? I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.

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This is the promise of what is taking place upon the resurrection of Jesus.

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There is a subduing of his enemies. We saw the enemies in Psalm 2, did we not?

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They're in an uproar. They don't want the chains that are upon them.

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That is the chains of obedience to their Creator. The Lord will stretch forth your strong scepter from Zion.

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This is that one who is ruling from Zion, and he has a scepter of strength, of power.

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And it's Yahweh who will stretch forth that scepter from Zion. And what does he say?

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This is a symbol of rulership. This is a symbol of authority. Rule in the midst of your enemies.

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Rule in the midst of your enemies. Does Jesus fulfill this commandment?

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Does he or doesn't he? That is a commandment. Rule. Not rule over their heads.

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Not rule in heaven while they rule on earth. Rule in the midst of your enemies.

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In almost any eschatological system that's out there, you either have

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Christ coming back and just simply doing the Armageddon thing, just insta -zap of the enemies, blood to the horses, bridles, and stuff like that.

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It says, zap -o, and now I rule, but my enemies are already gone. Or the ruling is just up in heaven.

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It's just a spiritual thing. The enemies are just doing what the enemies do, and they don't really notice it, don't really care. And there's really nothing about it that would cause them to be in rebellion like in Psalm 2.

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So, how do we understand this? Rule in the midst of your enemies. This is an ongoing thing.

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Not above them, not away from them. And by the way, this is a command. It's an imperative command. Isn't it interesting?

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We, who are Reformed, will go to John chapter 6, and we will see that the

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Son will always do the will of the Father, and the will of the Father is that He lose none of His, that has been given to Him, but raise

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Him up on the last day. And we're all like, oh yeah, oh yeah. God saves, and He saves powerfully.

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He doesn't lose any of His elect. We go, yes. Do we believe this too? It's the

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Father and the Son. It's the same, same situation. On the one, we're like, oh yes.

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The other, it's like, well, not so sure. Rule in the midst of your enemies.

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Your people will volunteer freely in the day of your power. That's what we're doing. Anybody put a gun to your head to come here today?

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Hope not. I was looking forward to it. In holy array from the womb of the dawn, thy youth are to thee as the dew.

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Yahweh has sworn and will not change His mind. You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. Not only does this demonstrate, once again, we are talking about a messianic psalm here.

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But the salvific work of Christ, His perfect, unique priesthood, which

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Hebrews 7 .24 says, He has no successor in, none, operabaton.

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He holds it forever. That priesthood makes

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Him our one high priest because He is our high priest. We have perfect access to God.

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And so His perfect soteriological work in saving His people is connected inextricably with His kingship and the uniqueness of the power that He has upon His earth.

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The Lord is at your right hand. He will shatter kings in the day of His wrath. He will judge among the nations.

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What does that sound like? Didn't we just read that in Psalm 2? Couldn't the writer have come up with something new?

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No, his point is that even this one who is spoken of as a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek, the

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Lord is at his right hand and He will shatter kings in the day of His wrath. He will judge among the nations.

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He will fill them with corpses. He will shatter the chief over a broad country. And then you just need to understand that last verse.

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He will drink from the brook by the wayside, therefore you'll lift up his head. What in the world is that all about? Look up, lift up your head.

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For example, in Psalm 27 .6, when you lift up someone's head, it's not what you might think, as in the

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French way of doing so during the revolution. Lifting up one's head refers to victory over one's enemies.

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A person who is subdued is bowed down. His head is down. The person whose head is lifted up is in victory.

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And so he drinks by the brook. He's not in any rush. He is refreshed. And his head is lifted up.

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He will be victorious. That's how Psalm 110 ends. A psalm that began with direct messianic application even according to Jesus' own interpretation three times in the

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Synoptic Gospels. But like I said, we only have so much time tonight.

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Isaiah chapter 42. Isaiah chapter 42. You know where this is?

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This is in the midst of what we call the trial of the false gods. If you want to know a lot about the one

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God of the Bible, read Isaiah 40 through 48. The gods, the peoples are put on trial.

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And God says, there ain't a God besides me. There's no God. I know not any. I am the first.

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I am the last. All the gods of the peoples are idols. I create everything.

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I know the beginning from the end. I'm the creator of time itself. This is the one true God of the

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Bible. But in the midst of this trial of the false gods, we have some servant songs.

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And sometimes the servant is Israel, and then sometimes Israel is the one who needs the servant.

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Now we know that Isaiah chapter 42 is very important to the

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New Testament writers. I can't help but think about what happens after the resurrection when

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Jesus takes the disciples, and he begins with Moses, and he goes all the way through the prophets, demonstrating from beginning to end, this was what was about me.

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This is what you should be doing. This is what you should have been able to see. And I'm sure the section on Isaiah 42 lasted a while, probably well past dinner.

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These verses comprise an important part of the text the New Testament used to fill out the prophetic ministry of Jesus. Matthew quotes the first three verses completely,

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I mean, just in order, having their fulfillment in Jesus' ministry in Matthew chapter 12, verses 18 through 21.

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Echoes of the chosen language are found in the Father's words to the Son at His baptism. This is my Son, my beloved

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Son, whom I have chosen. And also on the Mount of Transfiguration, you have the same type of language being drawn from Isaiah 42.

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So let's see what's important, especially in these first four verses. Behold, my servant whom

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I uphold, my chosen one in whom my soul delights, I have put my spirit upon him.

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He will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry out or raise his voice, nor make his voice heard in the street.

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A bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not extinguish. He will faithfully bring forth justice.

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He will not be disheartened or crushed until he has established justice in the earth.

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And the coastlands will wait expectantly for his law.

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Now once again, we know this is messianic, Matthew tells us that. This is the servant who has the spirit upon him.

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And when he has the spirit upon him, what's the result? He will bring forth justice to the nations.

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He will bring forth justice to the nations.

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And then notice, just down below, he will faithfully bring forth justice at the end of verse three.

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And then verse four, he will not be disheartened or crushed until he has established justice. This is the Hebrew term mishpat, mishpat.

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A lot of talk about justice today. We should never, ever hesitate to talk about justice, but we must demand this justice as God defines it, not as Neo -Marxism defines it.

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Because the one who is going to bring forth justice is this

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Messiah. This spirit -anointed servant of Yahweh. He will bring forth justice to the nations.

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He will not cry out or raise his voice, nor make his voice heard in the street. A bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not extinguish.

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He will faithfully bring forth justice. Now I'm going to be perfectly honest with you. I've been preaching and teaching the word of God for a number of decades now.

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I am so glad that Brother Luke is now in his fifth decade. Because maybe he will sort of back off on some of the, tell us more about Martin Luther because you were there, right?

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Type conversations that we have all the time. Because he's starting to get there himself.

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And when I have seen this text cited in the

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New Testament, I read it. I knew it was from Isaiah. And I just sort of went, yeah,

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Jesus was meek and lowly. I never really had a bead on what's being said here.

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Because it doesn't really fit the, yeah, Jesus was like really just kind and everything he said thing.

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Because then I read Matthew 23 and I was like, well, that doesn't fit. Because if you read Matthew chapter 23, I can guarantee you the

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Jewish leaders who were on the barbed end of his shots would not have accepted that was a meaningful interpretation.

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It wasn't until preparing this week that I went, oh, duh. Look at it.

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He will bring forth justice to the nations. Then at the end of verse three, he will faithfully bring forth justice. How does he do so?

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Well, once you start realizing the narrative, Psalm 2,

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Psalm 110, Christ obediently fulfilling the will of the

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Father, extending that royal scepter, ruling and reigning over the nations.

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How is justice being brought into this world? For a lot of Christians, it's only going to happen again by the nuclear option, the

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Armageddon nukem option. Until then, it's just going to be really bad. May I suggest something to you?

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When you go home tonight and you're kind to your wife and you discipline your children and you honor

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Christ tomorrow at work and in your conversations with your neighbors,

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Christ is bringing justice to the nations in everything you do as a believer that seeks to honor and glorify

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Him. It's not, as one person likes to put it, the kingdom doesn't come like the 101st airborne.

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It doesn't blow out even a wick that's about to be extinguished, just a flickering flame.

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It comes slowly. It comes gently. That's what he's talking about.

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How does he bring forth justice? By living his life, by his spirit in his people, and that's us.

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Did you know by being here today, I'm going to pick on him again because he loves it when

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I do it. But Elliot, Elliot's not feeling so hot today.

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He's having to pop a few cough drops along the way, which isn't easy when you're singing, by the way.

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Puts a little pressure on you. Did you know you're bringing justice to the nations today? Thank you for doing that.

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Every one of you serving, folded the bulletins, prepared the supper, you're bringing forth justice to the nation today by living in obedience to Christ and living out his life in this world.

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And those words were written when there is basically no meaningful civilization in this valley at all.

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And here we are. Here we are. He will faithfully bring forth justice.

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But then verse four struck me so hard this week. He will not be disheartened or crushed until he has established justice in the earth and the coastlands will wait expectantly for his law.

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Think about that. Why would the Messiah ever be disheartened or crushed unless he was actually seeking and striving through his people to establish justice?

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When you look at some of the eschatological systems, what they say is that's all down there someplace.

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We're in a 2 ,000 -year hole in history. Kingdom isn't here yet or the kingdom's just spiritual.

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Then why would he be disheartened or crushed at anything that's going on down here? He hasn't started to try to fix anything yet.

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No, he will not be disheartened or crushed until he has established justice in the earth.

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That means it's something he's doing. And he will continue to do it.

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And he has the power to accomplish it. And the coastlands will await expectantly his law.

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That means they had to have had a changed heart, huh? Because any other heart runs from God's law.

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You getting the themes? You getting the ideas now? This is a process. This is the subjugation of his enemies under his feet.

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And it's not done in just one flash shot. First Corinthians chapter 15.

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First Corinthians chapter 15. Now I know what we could have done is done each one of these a different week.

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That's certainly how Jeff would do it, but he's not here. First Corinthians chapter 15.

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You simply cannot get much more big picture than this portion of Paul's letter.

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In verses 20 through 26.

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We could go farther, but there's just only so much time. Here, you have death, resurrection, and the wrapping up of all things.

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All in a compact section specifically giving an order that is important in Paul's mind in refuting the false teachings in Corinth about the resurrection.

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So let's look at what's said beginning in verse 20. But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruit of those who are asleep.

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For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive.

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But each in his own order, Christ the first fruits, after that those who are

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Christ at his coming, then comes the end.

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Then comes the end when he delivers up the kingdom to God, even the

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Father, when he has abolished all rule and all authority and power.

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For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.

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The last enemy that will be abolished is death.

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Now again, we could spend a long time here.

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I did warn a few mothers to bring a few extra treats today for the little ones, but we're actually doing fairly well.

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I have to be brief, I have to be focused. Notice the order of the text.

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But now Christ has been raised from the dead. So we are talking about Christ is raised, he's been ascended to the

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Father. He's the first fruits of those who are asleep, because Christ has been raised, you have the promise that if you're in him, you too will be raised.

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For since by a man came death, Adam, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead,

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Christ. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive.

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Now remember, this is the same writer who gave us Romans chapter 5. Same argument in Romans chapter 5, what's his point?

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If you're in Adam, you get only what Adam can give you, that's death. If you're in Christ, you get what

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Christ can give you, that's life. Two different humanities. Not everyone is in Christ.

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Everyone is in Adam, then there are certain people who are in Christ, and that's what he goes on to say, but each in his own order,

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Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ's at his coming. He's making a differentiation.

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And so some people have tried to confuse Romans chapter 5, a text like this, teach something called universalism, the idea that everyone's going to be saved, everyone's going to be resurrected to life, etc.,

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etc. That is not the case. But we are being given an order. But each in his own order,

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Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ's at his coming.

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So do you see the order language that is being used here? In the original language, what is being used are called chronological adverbs.

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Adverbs. They are adverbs that indicate sequence, they are sequential adverbs.

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And so when he says, verse 24, then comes the end.

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Then comes the end, he's telling us here is an order of events.

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Then comes the end when he, Christ, delivers up the kingdom to God, even the

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Father. So the end, the term here is not eschaton, it is telos.

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Sometimes telos can mean end as in the goal of something, and that would certainly fit in a sense.

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But when it's used in sequential passages such as this, here is the end, is when he delivers up the kingdom to God, even the

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Father. Well what will signal that this is taking place?

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When he has abolished all rule and all authority and power.

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What does that mean? What does it mean for him to abolish, destroy, set at naught, make something worthless?

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These are some of the ways that particular Greek term can be translated. What does that mean?

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Well it's something that Christ does. It's something he has the power and ability to do.

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And what it means, there can be no power, there can be no authority, there can be no energy, no might, nothing that continues to stand against his kingdom.

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It has all been set to naught. He has, oh, what's the term that Paul would have known?

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He has put all his enemies under his feet. He has brought justice to the whole earth.

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Yes. Everything that stood against Christ and his kingdom has been subdued.

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And who did it? Does this speak to you of some sudden cataclysmic, the world's going on, and everything's bad, and we're just losing down here, and there's just a few

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Christians left, and then whammo! Christ returns, and ta -da, I win, because I can zap you all.

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That sounds like breaking a, extinguishing the wick, and breaking the branch, and speaking out with a loud, it sounds like all the stuff that Isaiah 42 said wasn't the way the kingdom came.

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It sounds like just the opposite. This sounds like a process.

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In fact, it sounds like a long process. Because, man, there are a lot of things that stand against Christ today, a lot of things that stand against Christ.

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When he has abolished all rule, not just some, not just in the minds of a small, tiny minority of people hiding out in the mountains someplace.

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Why? Verse 25, verse 25, praise

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God for verse 25, for he must reign.

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It is necessary. That's the very same Greek particle that is used when

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Jesus said, it is necessary that I go to Jerusalem and die.

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When Jesus explained to the disciples, it is necessary that I go, and I be mistreated, and I be beaten, and I be crucified, and rise again the third day.

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Same word here, it is necessary that he should reign as king until he has put all his enemies under his feet.

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That's Psalm 110. The Lord said to my

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Lord, you've been enthroned, you've been resurrected, enemies under your feet.

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Oh, so when that's accomplished, the last enemy, verse 26, that will be abolished is death itself.

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Death itself is put to an end, and there comes the end.

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Paul draws upon the same themes, the same powerful concepts of Christ reigning and having the ability to subject all things under his feet.

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You know how often Pastor Jeff quotes the text. Matthew ends his gospel with words that should be emblazoned upon our hearts and minds.

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After the resurrection, Jesus approaches his disciples, and he says, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

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I've never thought about how audacious those words are. I mean, you don't even have a meaningful proportion of the despised

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Jewish people on your side. You're in the Roman Empire, for crying out loud.

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And you come to your disciples and say, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

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Now, I should point out, he just rose from the dead.

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He just abolished the power of death. It no longer has any touch upon him.

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And because he has that power that comes from being the resurrected

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Son of God, he can meaningfully say all authority has been given to me.

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But you see, if all it said was all authority has been given to me in heaven, Jesus' disciples and his message never would have been much of a threat to the

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Roman Empire. But it doesn't say in heaven.

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It says in heaven and on earth. And so the next verse when he says, therefore, because I have all authority in heaven and on earth, therefore go and make disciples of all nations.

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You baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You teach them whatever I've commanded you, and I will be with you always to the end of the age.

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I will be with you as we establish this kingdom in this world.

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All power, all authority. That's why the Romans didn't like this message.

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That's why the Romans did not like this message at all. It brought great conflict.

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And as a result, many

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Christians have developed a division in their thinking where we're comfortable saying

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Jesus has all authority in heaven, all the angels worship him.

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But here on earth, well, that's something different.

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That's something different. This is true eschatology.

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In fact, it's interesting, the last enemy in verse 26, that verse starts with the term eschatos, from which we get eschatology, the last enemy.

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There it is. This is necessary. He must reign until he has put all enemies under his feet, because that was the prophesied words of Psalm 2, of Psalm 110, of Isaiah 42.

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He must reign for God's word to be true. Now, how can this be?

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How, in the light of global anarchy, genetic experimentation, nuclear weapons, the culture of death, how could anyone believe that Christ will rule and reign, and that the earth would be filled with the knowledge of the

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Lord? There have been many times in the past when the future looked absolutely impossibly dark.

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How could anyone watching three out of four people dying around them in a city in Europe in 1349 have imagined thousands flocking to hear

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Whitefield preach in an as -yet -to -be -discovered land, or thousands of others flocking into the

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Metropolitan Tabernacle to hear Spurgeon preach in London 500 years in the future? If I had lived in one of those cities and three out of four people around me were dying, it would have looked very dark to me.

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I could see how some of them would say, no, these promises, they just must only be spiritual. Remember something, folks, think about this with me.

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More people make a credible profession of faith in Jesus Christ in our world today, in this very year, than the entire population of the world when

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Nero became emperor in Rome. There are more

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Christians today than there are people who lived on earth when Nero was the emperor of Rome.

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Could anyone in the early church have ever imagined that? If you had said to the

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Christians fleeing Nero's persecution, did you know there's a day coming in the future?

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Will there be more people following your Lord than live in the planet today? They would have looked at you like most people look at us today.

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Remember, it was a very small group of people who heard Jesus say those words, all authority has been given to me in heaven and earth.

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And now the number who believe that is huge. Why is all this important?

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Well, we're looking at the future.

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Our world is changing rapidly. And you would think in light of what these developments include, which includes a secular worldview, a worldview that is opposed to the claims of Christ in everything, everything.

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Where did we come from? What are we? The secular worldview gives the exactly the opposite answer of Christ to every question that you can ask.

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What's marriage? You ask Jesus, you ask the secular world. Should we play around with our genetics?

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No, that's probably not a wise idea. Should we turn our 13 -year -old girls into boys?

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Well, you can't do it anyways, but nope. Should we murder the unborn?

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Well, we know the answer to that one. It would seem now would be the time for us to be creating our eschatology based upon doom and gloom, because it's looking sort of doomy and gloomy.

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But you see, it's looked doomy and gloomy many times since Jesus ascended to heaven. And people get the idea that if you have an eschatology of hope, that means it's just like this.

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It just always keeps getting better and better. That's not true. That's just not true.

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There are times of judgment, but let me just throw an idea your way, let you think about it for a second.

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What if the greatest enemy that has ever appeared on this earth in opposition to the claims of Christ is indeed the secular worldview that has produced the culture of death?

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I mean, think about it. Even the Romans at least were theists. Even the pagans at least believed in some type of supernatural.

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We literally now have a religion consuming mankind that turns mankind into one big meaningless accident.

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Wow. That's about as culture of deathy as you can get. And what if that is the greatest expression of human rebellion?

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And what if it was God's intention to allow that godless philosophy to consume years, decades, centuries, and yet we know inevitably destroy itself and leave a monument to all of mankind that forever in the future, one thing we would always know is we can't go there.

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What if that were to happen? What if Christ were to absolutely crush under His feet the very negation of who

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He is? He is the way, the truth, and the what? Life. What if He crushes the culture of death once and for all in a massive display?

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Not of raining fire down out of heaven in a valley over in Israel called

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Megiddo, but in allowing that God -denying, mankind -destroying philosophy to spread and collapse under its own weight.

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And who's waiting with a message? Who's waiting with the foundations?

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We are. Well, maybe not us, but my kids, kids, kids.

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I heard someone say something this week that really caught my attention and made me think because it challenged the way

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I've always thought. Well, we always think that we're right at the end of everything.

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We're at the pinnacle of development and technology and all those things. What if there's going to be some day when believers will look back at you and I and they'll say we lived in the early church?

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Ever thought that way? I hadn't. I hadn't. Let me ask you a question.

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What if the earth has that much time ahead of it? I can guarantee you one thing, the mad, secularist, destructivist worldview that predominates right now will have to have been wiped out for us to last much longer one way or the other.

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And what's the only thing that's going to take the place of a secularist worldview? Who's going to offer it?

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Simple question. Can we break out of the mindset to where we're determining where we think the church needs to go based upon what we're seeing on CNN or even, believe it or not,

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Fox News? Can we break out of that and have as much faith in the promises of Psalm 110 and Psalm 2 and Isaiah 42 and 1

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Corinthians 15 and Matthew chapter 28 as we have when we proclaim to the world Jesus Christ rose from the dead?

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Because I can guarantee you something, it's no tougher for God to accomplish bringing the nations to the foot of Jesus than it was to roll the stone away.

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It's the same power. He hasn't gotten weak. He hasn't gotten tired.

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The question is will we believe the promises? Jesus did. The apostles did.

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We need to as well. Now, last word. There's some of you sitting out there saying,

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James, we were already there. We already, we've heard this over and over again.

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Why, what? Welcome to the post -millennial club. Yeah, welcome. Thank you very much.

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Took you a while to get there. Well, let me suggest something to you. It was one thing to have fun with the little hashtags and all the rest of that kind of stuff and to have your little arguments in the

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Facebook groups and things like that. That's not what forced me to deal with this issue and to come to conclusions

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I have. I'm talking what has ordered my thought is the reality and I will,

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I do need to give, and of course this will set off all sorts of people, but I need to give credit where credit is due.

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I was driving out to man camp and I was listening, it's almost a reflex action among some of you, and I was listening to a video that I would recommend to you that I had never seen, but I'll recommend it to you now, produced in 2019, called

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On Earth As It Is in Heaven. And one of the things that had really been weighing upon me was thinking about not just my grandchildren right here, hi grandchildren right there, but their children and their children's children.

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Yeah, that's, that's you too, Janie, yeah, I'm talking about you too. That's really, but my, my mind each day turns to how do you communicate the truth, the truth of the gospel, the foundations of the gospel, the defense of the gospel in such a way that if we are going into a very dark period of judgment in which

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Christ is going to be subduing some enemies and it's going to hurt, how do we get the faith to their grandchildren?

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And there was Doug Wilson, and in an interview he's saying, most of us, most evangelical

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Christians never think about their great -grandchildren. They don't even think they're ever going to have them, so they don't think about living in such a way as to plant the truth so it will flourish for their great -grandchildren.

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And if you think that everything is just going to come to a sudden end, you're not going to be planting for your great -grandchildren.

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That's what we all have to be thinking about. That's what we have to all be giving ourselves for, being such light in our day that that light will shine so brightly that no matter how dark judgment might be upon a nation, that light will still be there to guide their children and their children's children.

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And if that doesn't give you reason to walk in holiness every day, because that's how you're bringing the kingdom, that's how you are spreading that kingdom.

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If that doesn't give you reason to worship, and I hope tonight when we gather around here after the supper, and we sing those songs, and Elliott says, let's sing the doxology together, when you raise your hand, you are participating in the destruction of the kingdom of darkness.

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Do you realize that? Raise your voice to the roof, proclaim the glory of the triune

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God, and be used of God. Be used of God to glorify

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Him, establish His kingdom in fulfillment of the promises the

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Father made to the Son. When the Son was enthroned, do you think He failed to ask of the

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Father, give me the nations as my inheritance? No. He didn't fail to do that.

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And if you can believe His promise, He's coming back for you someday, then you better believe His promise that He's building

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His kingdom. Let's pray together. Our gracious and merciful

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Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You that You have preserved it.

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We thank You that You have provided it to us. We thank You that You draw our hearts out to it. And so we can see its consistency, and we can see these themes, and it's thrilling.

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And it gives us reason to press forward, because we know

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Your Word will not return to you void. Father, if You call us to walk through a dark period of judgment, may we be a people who do so with a firm understanding that this is just a period of judgment, but that Christ will receive

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His inheritance from the Father, the inheritance of the nations, that His mighty scepter will go forth.

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He will rule in the midst of His enemies. Make us a people of faith.

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Make us to realize that if we accept the tremendous proclamation that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, then we must accept that all authority in heaven and earth has been given to Him.

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Let us not judge on the basis of news headlines. Let us judge based upon the fulfilled words of Holy Scripture.

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And now, Father, as we prepare to partake of the table, we ask,

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Lord, that You would remind us once again of the tremendous cost, the tremendous cost that was paid for our redemption, that the peace we have with You comes because the

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One who died in our place on Calvary's tree gave Himself specifically to bring about our justification.

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Bless this time, we pray in Christ's name. Amen. We will now have the tremendous opportunity.