Covenant Theology: The Covenant of Grace in the Old Testament (Part Four)

In this section, we are going to be covering the covenant of grace, and I can tell you we are excited.

We are trying to figure out how to get everything we want to say into such a small time.

Because this is an introduction, we're not going to give you an exhaustive view of this, so let's jump right in.

We talk about this all of the time, and so we are going to do our best to keep this as an introduction.

As we've done with the covenant of works, we're going to do it again. The covenant of grace is actually different.

It's an unconditional covenant, meaning that if we look at the two parties involved, we have

God and us, the elect people of God, and then the one acting is

God, and all of the conditions are placed upon God. He will do this.

He is the one who has all of the conditions that must be met, which we will get into. For us, the reason why it's unconditional is that there's nothing placed on us.

This is why we use the language of grace. Sometimes people confuse mercy and grace.

Mercy is to not receive what you deserve, and grace is to receive that which you don't deserve.

When we talk about the covenant of grace, God is making this promise. He's putting conditions upon himself, and we are the recipients of it.

What that is, is we are going to receive forgiveness of our sins through Jesus Christ, and we're going to receive the righteousness or the obedience of Jesus Christ.

All of that comes to us by grace through faith alone. That's what we'd say is a quick definition and overview of the covenant of grace.

In particular, in the covenant of grace, when we talk about what it is that we are receiving, we are receiving the merits of Christ.

He has satisfied for our sin. He's atoned for it. He has provided us positively with righteousness, and everything that is his is ours.

That includes an inheritance of a new creation, and we will be a part of his people forever in that sense.

It might be good right now to explain the term covenant of grace even further, in that someone may ask legitimately, why do you guys call it the covenant of grace?

Why don't you just call it the new covenant or the old covenant? Why do you use this language? A couple of thoughts here.

One, the covenant of grace is a helpful term in that it makes very clear the contrast of grace and works that we see found throughout the

New Testament. One other thought here is that the covenant of grace is promised before the new covenant comes.

It's helpful for us because there is one covenant in all of Scripture, through which all of God's people from all time are saved, under which all of God's people of all time are saved.

It's useful to use this covenant language, the covenant of grace, because it helps us to explain that united one plan of salvation that God has always had.

Old and New Testament people are saved by the same covenant. They are trusting in the promises of God realized in Messiah, which will explain further.

As any good Bible student or theology student will go, we need to explain or show where this covenant of grace is revealed in Scripture and taught about in Scripture.

Where we need to begin I think is in Genesis 3, specifically

Genesis 3 verse 15, where what we see is what is known as the

Proto -Evangelion or the first gospel. It is the announcement or the promise that is made to Adam and Eve that though the serpent has won the battle that day, he will ultimately not win the war.

There will come one from the line of Eve that will crush the head of the serpent.

In essence, this contrasts it with the covenant of works. There will come someone from the line of the woman who will do this for his people.

That's the first place to go. This really kicks off this whole idea that we see throughout the

Old Testament. We've mentioned this before in previous sessions of this idea of types and shadows. That's good,

Jimmy. Before we even start talking more specifically about types and shadows, for the sake of clarity, we want to be really precise in how we understand the covenant of grace.

We understand that the covenant of grace is promised and revealed beginning in Genesis 3 verse 15, as Jimmy just stated.

It is continued to be revealed through farther steps throughout the rest of the

Old Testament. Then the covenant of grace proper is established and accomplished through Christ in the new covenant.

It is promised and revealed in the Old Testament beginning in Genesis 3 verse 15. Through farther steps, it becomes more clear.

It is increasingly clear as we get to Abraham and Moses and David.

It becomes more clear until finally we get to Christ. The covenant of grace is established and accomplished through Him in the new covenant.

That's right. That language of promise becomes really important. Just to start the role and move it forward, in this promise to Adam and Eve in the

Old Testament, you will always hear the seed of. It's always in reference to the seed of the man.

What's interesting is that in this promise that God gives Eve, He does not say the seed of Adam, because if it was, that means that the sin of Adam would be passed down and he couldn't be the replacement.

He would have to pay for his own sin. He says something very fascinating. He says the seed of Eve.

It will be the child of Eve, which jumps to Luke 2. You have a virgin who comes and says the

Spirit will come and bring that seed. The question is, who's the father going to be? You are seeing a connection now between the covenant of redemption and the covenant of grace.

The covenant of redemption says God will come and save His people. Then you see this little tiny promise.

It's not there yet. The covenant of grace is not there. The actual covenant that saves people is not there yet, but it's promised to Eve.

Then you have this big question. How do we know which one?

Justin Perdue Who is this promised seed? That's really what the rest of the Old Testament is getting us ready for. It's bringing increasing amounts of clarity to that question.

Jon Moffitt There's drama in the story because all these people start getting born. The world is growing and all of them have the rebellious nature of Adam.

It's clearly none of these people. It's so bad that God wipes out the earth but still keeps the promise.

What did He say? It has to come through the line of Eve. Noah is preserved, so now we know it's coming at least through Noah.

God said, I'm never going to destroy everyone, otherwise He would go back on His promise.

Justin Perdue When He's going to sustain the creation because the Redeemer is coming, the seed of Eve is coming.

I'm going to make sure that the world into which that seed is going to be born is going to be sustained.

That's the purpose of the Noahic covenant in that regard. Jon Moffitt All those who believed the promise that came from Adam and Eve, which

I'm sure they told their children, when we say the first mission of the gospel, if they believed that, then it was accounted to them and they were saved.

We'll learn more about this as we get into the New Testament. Romans says that God passed over former sins, reenacting the covenant of grace.

Justin Perdue Shortly after Noah, we get to Abraham. Jon Moffitt Which is the next massive milestone.

Justin Perdue It's a huge mile marker here. Justin Perdue Beginning in Genesis chapter 12, we hear of a man, initially his name is

Abram. God changes his name later to Abraham. We'll just refer to him as Abraham throughout this time. Jon Moffitt I want to make one little interjection here before we go forward.

What we're about to explain to you is our perspective of the covenant of grace and our perspective of the covenant of Abraham.

I will tell you, up to this point, if you were to take the Westminster Confession, the Savoy, if you take

Reformed Theology and Understanding Covenant Theology with very small adjustments on how things are said, we are in almost 100 % agreement on covenant of works, covenant of redemption, and that there are two covenants by covenantalism.

This is where in 1689, there's even some more broad language that would allow some variance here.

During the time of it being formulated, for Baptists, there was a full commitment to understanding how the new covenant works.

Where you're going to see us, there's going to be some differences in how we're going to explain the Abrahamic covenant. Our view is a historic view called the 1689

Federalism view. It was the view that was held by the majority of those during the time of the confession being made.

This is also where you're going to see some change between us and the Presbyterian view.

You can make that comparison later. That's not really what this podcast is for. We want to give an overview of what we would say is the majority view of the 1689.

Before we go into Abraham, this is where we can pick up. Jon Moffitt Sure. Let's pick up with Abraham.

Beginning in Genesis 12, we see that God calls

Abraham out and he makes a promise to him in Genesis 12 that we would see as the promise of the covenant of grace.

Paul will even pick up on this in Galatians chapter 3 and say the gospel was preached beforehand to Abraham, and he cites

Genesis 12. He believed he was justified. There is the promise of the covenant of grace made to Abraham.

Then there is a covenant formally made with him, Genesis 15, Genesis 17, in particular

Genesis 17, where there is land promised to Abraham. He has promised that kings will come from him, from his line, and rulers will come from him.

It's important that we see that God promises that these things will happen.

I'm going to make sure that a nation comes from you, that rulers come from you, and that a land will be given to your offspring.

It's unconditional in that sense. Then there is a conditional piece of this covenant of circumcision established in Genesis 17, where it's very clear that individuals may be cut off from the people of God through disobedience.

If they are not circumcised, they are cut off. There's an unconditional promise to the nation, land, rulers, people, and there is a conditional promise to individuals underneath the covenant of circumcision.

Alongside that with Abraham, we see the promise of the covenant of grace that is unconditional. It is to the elect, to the seed of Abraham.

That's our understanding. Jon Moffitt So when he makes the promise from your seed, all the nations of the world will be blessed.

Justin Perdue He's talking about Jesus. Jon Moffitt You're hearing that language of seed again. Eve is protected in the

Noahic, and now we're knowing it's coming through Abraham through this nation.

I think it's important that you did a really good job there explaining the difference of the conditional and unconditional parts of it.

Abraham and this land are going to start becoming a type and a shadow. It's not the actual substance.

It's not the actual covenant yet, but it is giving us a shadow. It's not the covenant of grace yet.

It's a covenant of circumcision with Abraham that has conditions that the people must meet, but it's a shadow of that which is to come.

When the covenant of grace comes, what is

Canaan a type of? It's the new heaven and the new earth. The land by which Hebrews says they were looking forward to.

Rulers will come from you, Abraham. What is that a type of? It's a type of the great king named Jesus who's going to come.

We could do this for a while. Well, to that point, even later on, right before they go into Egypt, you are given through Judah saying, through you,

Judah, will come a king. Before that happens, you're going to spend 400 years in captivity, and then

I'm going to redeem you out. You have these little promises, and if you're reading your

Bible and you don't have this covenant, you're anticipating what's going on. It's kind of a jumbled mess.

That's how I always read it. It was a jumbled mess, but now you're understanding it's all connected.

There is this great fine line that's connecting every single word, and it has a purpose and it's rolling along in its narrative.

I think this is where it's helpful to understand and have this covenantal language and this covenantal framework.

What does it prevent us from doing? It prevents us from looking at Abraham as an end in himself, that Abraham is some great hero of the faith.

Certainly, Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness, which is a pattern that Paul sets up for us for redemption in the book of Romans.

However, what's interesting to note in Jesus' conversation with the

Pharisees is that we are children of Abraham, and how does Jesus respond? He says,

I can turn rocks into children. What's important to note is that ultimately,

I think in Jesus' mind, in that moment, he's saying, essentially, fools, this is about me.

That promise was made to Abraham because ultimately, I'm coming from Abraham. Abraham looks to me.

Justin Perdue is on the scene and he's telling them that the

Son, meaning himself, will set them free. They're like, look, we're children of Abraham.

Why do you say we will become free? He even says to them, I know that you're the offspring of Abraham, but yet you seek to kill me because my words find no place in you, aka, you are the physical seed of Abraham.

But then he goes on just a few verses later. This is John 8 .39. The Jewish audience says,

Abraham is our father, and Jesus says, if you were Abraham's children, you'd be doing what Abraham did, meaning if you were his spiritual seed.

Then later on, to your point, Jimmy, he says, your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day.

He saw it and was glad. You fools are geeked up about Abraham. Abraham was excited about me.

Abraham rejoiced to see my day and he saw it. What is that? The gospel was preached beforehand to Abraham.

A seed has come. Abraham believed the promises of God to be realized in Messiah and therefore was saved.

Even the story of Abraham shows us how God, in the covenant of grace, works in spite of people.

What does Abraham immediately do? He goes to the slave woman and essentially takes matters into his own hands.

That's what these religious leaders, the Pharisees, are contrasting themselves with. We are not sons of the slave woman.

We are sons of the free woman. Jesus says, you have no idea what it means to be free.

You are slaves to your own self -salvation and self -righteousness project. Jesus says,

I can make anything children of Abraham. It's so important for us to circle back to what

I said in the beginning. When we have this covenantal framework, we see how gracious God is.

Even in light of Abraham, who looked forward imperfectly, is still saved under that promise.

Also, it prevents us from looking at Abraham as the Pharisees and religious leaders did.

He is the one we look to. Jesus is like, no,

Abraham is a mirror that ultimately points to me. What matters is not whether you are related to Abraham physically.

What matters is whether you have Abraham's faith. That's Galatians 3.

Those who have faith are the sons of Abraham, Galatians 3. Then you also have Romans 4, where Paul says that Abraham was trusting in the one who justifies the ungodly.

He's trusting in God who justifies ungodly people, which is a scandalous message that no other religion preaches.

That is the pattern of Abraham that is going to carry over into the new covenant, where the covenant of grace is established.

The story keeps moving. You have these unbelievable promises.

You have a man in his 90s, a woman in her 90s, a baron, they have no children, and the most unbelievable promise is that he's going to bless all the nations of the world.

They're going to have a nation that is larger than the sands of the sea. Abraham is hearing all this going, you're nuts.

You're going to do that through me? His wife laughs. It's a wonderful story of the mercy and grace of God using incapable and messed up people.

Abraham was not a moral man. He lied a lot.

God says, Abraham, a nation is going to come from you, and the purpose of that nation is that it will produce a seed that will bless the nations.

The purpose of Abraham's nation was to produce the seed.

The Pharisees standing before Jesus totally didn't get that. They thought the blessings come through being a part of Abraham.

He said, no, the blessing comes from the seed of Abraham. So now you have the question of what

God is doing with this nation. They move into Egypt through Joseph, which is a beautiful statement from Joseph.

You meant this for evil, God meant this for good. Meaning that God is following his plan, his will.

Jimmy Buehler Yeah, famine in the land. Jacob moves his family into Egypt. Jacob's family becomes known as the nation of Israel.

The book of Exodus says they grow great in number. Egypt is threatened, and they become enslaved by Pharaoh.

They become enslaved by the people of Egypt. What does God do?

He raises up Moses, who also is a shadow and a type.

He is a mouthpiece of God. He mediates on behalf of his people.

Really, the book of Exodus is echoed all throughout Scripture. Justin Perdue Absolutely.

The greatest work of redemption before the cross, without question, is the Exodus. Jimmy Buehler As you read through the

Old Testament, particularly in the Psalms, what do the song leaders and the writers of the

Psalms constantly point back to? The Psalms are the contemporary

Christian music of their day. As we sing of the cross on Sunday mornings. What do they celebrate, and we continue to celebrate the shadow of it as well, the

Passover? It becomes part of their culture that the blood being put over the doorpost, they didn't fully understand.

Do you think they even remotely fully understood that? There's the blood of a lamb that God looks at and sees it and passes over us.

We are saved, and those who are not covered by that blood are killed. At the moment, they wanted to be out of Egypt, and they didn't want to die, so they obeyed.

But as the New Testament writers go back and explain that, they're using this glorious shadow saying that was pointing to Jesus, whom

God passes over our sins because of the blood of Jesus. This is Abraham and Isaac up on the mountain.

It's a glorious shadow that we look right past. Jon Moffitt So as the Bible progresses, ultimately

Moses leads God's people out of Egypt, as we know from the

Bible story, and parts the Red Sea. They walk through the Red Sea, which is later referenced in the

New Testament. They pass through the

Red Sea. The unbelievers are drowned in the waters of judgment, and then what we see is

Israel, after they get tired of wandering and not having bread, they want to return to slavery.

They want to go back to Egypt. They wander throughout the desert. What we don't realize is that for 400 years they don't have a

Bible. They don't have a system. They have passed down verbally the promises that your father is

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and there was a promise given of a land. We're not in there yet. We're supposed to be a great nation.

We're big now. But these people have had 400 years of paganism.

What do they do the moment Moses goes up on the mountain? Jon Moffitt That's what

I'm getting to. They get to Mount Sinai, and this is where Moses goes to meet with the Lord.

This is where we really begin to understand and see another step further in revealing this covenant of grace in the

Mosaic covenant. Not to say that the Mosaic covenant is the covenant of grace. That is not what we're saying, to be precise.

Let's maybe break that down a little bit and explain it. God, through Moses, gives the law.

This nation is being made. The people that he promised to Abraham is becoming a reality.

Now God is going to make another covenant with them. He is going to tell them essentially how they are to live.

He says, if you live this way, then you will be blessed. It is a theocratic nation.

If you violate these things, there are curses. God is at the head, which is the only nation that God has ever led, which is

Israel. God gives the law, and he says, if you do these things, then you will prosper.

You will live long in the land. If you fail to do these things and you violate these laws, then you will be cursed and you will face judgment from me.

We do not understand the Mosaic covenant to be the covenant of grace. If anything, like we said earlier, we understand that the

Mosaic covenant in one sense is almost a type of a covenant of works. It is conditioned upon the obedience of the people. There are conditions to be met, but then what does the

Mosaic covenant do in helping us better understand the covenant of grace? It makes God's requirements clear.

This is what God requires for righteousness, and it helps us understand. However we are going to be saved, there must come one.

This seed is going to need to come and do all of this in order that we might be counted righteous before the

Lord. This is where you see the Apostle Paul write extensively in places like Galatians and Romans about the law.

Moses is often seen as the representative of the law.

Paul writes, the law came, and what does it do? It reveals the trespass.

The law increases the trespass. I always like to share the example like this.

When you go to a hotel and there's a sign there that says, don't splash in the pool, what is your first gut reaction?

Most likely, it is to splash in the pool because that law increases the trespass.

Initially, if that were not posted, you would splash in the pool and think, well, that's not a big deal.

That's not wrong. But then when that's posted, it's like, oh no, now I've broken something. It's a challenge.

This, again, is a good example of how the New Testament will come and further explain.

Originally, when God gave the law to Moses, it was to do things. It was to govern them in the land so that they could have peace and protection and blessing from God.

There is a gracious part of the Mosaic law, but it's not the covenant of grace.

Grace's provision is that God knew they would fail the law, and because of that,

He set up the sacrificial system by which their failure to the law could be covered, but it was always a temporary covering.

It's always moving us along farther and farther down, so the sacrificial system becomes a type of Christ.

We have violated God's law, we are guilty, we stand condemned, and now atonement must be made.

Blood must be shed. Whoever the sacrifice is must be perfect so that we then are clean.

God is teaching His people through even the gracious provision of the sacrificial system.

He's giving them law and then He's giving them teaching on atonement and how they can be made clean. It's advancing us down the field so we have a better understanding of how we're going to be redeemed.

Jimmy Buehler What's mind -boggling as we think about this is that as we're marching through the

Old Testament, as quickly as we are, we have to realize that God teaches His people through the course of generations.

Great -great -great -grandfathers are learning this and teaching it to their grandchildren and teaching it to their children and their children.

There is such an anticipation that God is building to the coming of His Son, the seed of Ehiv, who will be established from this nation.

Justin Perdue Very quick interjection. If anybody's questioning how we're thinking about the covenant with Moses and the law and the sacrificial system, just pick up the book of Hebrews and read it.

Jimmy Buehler The writer of the

Hebrews helps us make these connections. Jon Moffitt That's right. One of the ways that the law ends up being used is that how do we know we have the right seed?

You had made a quick reference to this and I want to go back to it. The Mosaic law becomes for us a fuller or another way of explaining the covenant of works.

You have Adam failing the work that was given him. You have the initial purpose of the law, which was to establish blessings and to govern the people in the land.

But then Jesus comes and He says the most amazing statement. They're all thinking, the

King is here and He's going to get rid of the law. He says, I haven't come to get rid of it or abolish it.

What does He say? When you hear Paul say the first Adam failed and the second

Adam succeeded, that's what Jesus is saying. Jimmy says in the last session, when

Christ is up on the cross and it is finished, that's what He's referencing.

What's so fun about the Old Testament is that you get a little bit more puzzle pieces.

It's not all fully there. If a guy is casting a fishing pole and you can't see where the line is going, that's what happened with the law.

The law was thrown out and there's a connection that's going to happen when Christ shows up on the scene, but we don't have that yet.

What we have to understand is that there's the original revelation of what's going on, and there's always this line, this promise that's coming.

Let's back up and make the connection so that we can keep moving on with this. The conditional promise is given to Abraham.

It's now having a fuller revelation. It's being realized in the days of Moses, but even in the passing of Moses with Joshua, who's instructed to go into the promised land.

Justin Perdue But all of these types and shadows that are established in the mosaic, the prophets are going to start pulling these things apart.

Jon Moffitt Even types and shadows that I don't think are insignificant with Moses and Joshua.

Moses, who represents the law, is not the one who will take the people into the promised land, but Yeshua is raised up to take the people into the land.

Who will be the Savior? Yeshua. Jesus.

You can't make this stuff up. It's like God wrote it. Justin Perdue I know sometimes there's a confusion with covenant theology and people say that you guys spiritualize the text.

We're trying to be very careful to show you that we're not trying to make spiritual connections. We're going to the New Testament and helping you see how they then interpreted this unfolding narrative.

Are we ready to move on to that next moment? Jon Moffitt We're kind of getting there. What we see is what we have in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.

We see the story of Israel come to be a nation. Frankly, what happens is we see

Moses disobeys. We don't have to get into details about that. Moses disobeys. He does not lead his people into the promised land, but Joshua rises up, and that's where we begin to see the people of Israel begin to take over the promised land.

We have the book of Judges. What we begin to see, and this is setting up where we're going next, is there becomes a cry for the people of Israel to have a leader.

Somebody lead us. I don't think that those cries are insignificant, because you have to think that in the minds of these people who have been taught for generations, in their minds, they're saying, we have been told that somebody is going to come, unite these people, and quit this mess.

The people of Israel are not on the promised land, but what do we see? Neighboring nations are creeping in.

They're defiling them. There are some pretty bad things going on, and the people begin to cry out, wait, wait, wait.

We were promised that somebody was going to come and get rid of all this mess.

That's setting us up to where we're about to go. Justin Perdue brings us to the beginning, especially in the book of 1

Samuel, where not only the prophet Samuel shows up on the scene, but there is a demand on the part of the people for a king.

Initially, they demand a king of their own making in Saul, but Saul is not the one that matters.

Samuel finds the anointed one named David. God makes a covenant with David, which is where we are now.

David's throne is established. He's a man after God's own heart. He is fallible. He makes tons of mistakes, but he is a type of the king who will come.

He is a type of Jesus, but his rule is established, his throne is established, his kingdom is established, and God in 2

Samuel 7 most makes a covenant with him. He says that somebody from your line will sit on the throne, and he is responsible to obey my law eternally if he obeys my law.

If he disobeys, I will discipline him. I will chastise him. The big thing with the

Davidic covenant is that it is conditional upon the king's obedience. It becomes quite clear now that the one who's coming is going to be a son of David, he's going to be a king, and he will represent the nation before God.

As the king goes, the nation goes. Jon Moffitt Yeah. I'm glad that you said that, because this is really setting us up for the history books of the

Old Testament. Even into the major and minor prophets.

This is where the story really begins to collapse in on itself, but I don't mean it in the way you're thinking.

It becomes this interwoven story told from different angles and through the mouths and minds of different prophets.

Exactly as you said, JP, as goes the heart of the king, so goes the heart of the nation. Well, where does that leave us in the

Old Testament? Ultimately, what we see is that God punishes the nation or rewards the nation based off of the merits of the king.

Jon Moffitt Solomon thinks it's him at one moment, and then there's a clarification that says he perfectly obeys the law.

You see the initial explanation of the law in Moses, and now you're seeing a further explanation.

You have to understand that every single one of these covenants is pushing us toward the covenant of grace.

All of them are promising and revealing. Now the people of Israel aren't looking to try and obey.

They're saying, we need someone who will do this for us. But of course, what is the story up and down until you get to a moment where there is no king?

After Solomon, because of Solomon's disobedience, the kingdom of Israel is split in two.

There's the northern kingdom called Israel still. Its capital is in Samaria. There's the southern kingdom of Judah, capital in Jerusalem.

There are now two kingdoms. None of the kings of Israel do right in the eyes of the

Lord. There are some good ones in the southern kingdom, maybe most notably Josiah. What's incredible is that even upon the southern kingdom, there comes

God's judgment. The northern kingdom is conquered by the Assyrians, but then the southern kingdom is conquered by the

Babylonians, and exile is the order of the day. We read the prophets.

Isaiah writes a lot of these things, but Jeremiah writes, as does Ezekiel, of the southern kingdom, and the exile, and oppression under Babylon.

You get words like this from Jeremiah. Everything looks lost. I'm not even going to Jeremiah 31 yet.

Everything looks lost, but what is it? There is a son of David who's coming who's going to represent the nation.

What's it going to be? Listen to Jeremiah 23, 5, and 6. Jeremiah 23, 5, and 6. Behold, the days are coming, declares the

Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch, and he shall reign as king, and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.

In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. This is the name by which he will be called.

The Lord is our righteousness. You might fall out of your chair. I have goosebumps sitting here talking about this.

The son of David is coming, and the Lord is in the midst of exile. Everything seems lost, but he's coming.

Jon Moffitt Even to add to that, the prophet Isaiah says that from Jesse is coming, and then he describes what he brings, and it's restoration in the land.

At the end of it... Justin Perdue And Jesse being David's father. Jon Moffitt Exactly. David's father.

You're having these prophecies, and then at the end of it, he's describing what this king is going to bring.

At the end of it, I get chills every time I read this, but it says in verse 11, they shall not hurt or destroy, talking about the mountain.

At the very end of it, he says this, and his, the king's, resting place shall be glorious.

All of this turmoil. The people of Israel are now feeling this. They don't live in a resting land, and Canaan is definitely not glorious in any way, shape, or form.

Jimmy Buehler To pick back up on the exile idea, what you have is a groaning people who are in Babylon, and we get

Daniel. But what does Daniel do?

He interprets dreams to leaders. One of the fantastic dreams is the kingdoms of the earth.

The kingdoms of the earth who mock, spit, destroy, thieve, and steal.

This is where Psalm 1 and 2 comes into view. You have the blessed man who does not take counsel with scoffers, but walks in the way of the righteous.

Psalm 2 says, why do the nations rage? In part of the dreams that Daniel interprets, what we see is that one is coming whose kingdom will destroy all other kingdoms.

All other kingdoms will bow down to his, and he will bless the nations. Why do the nations rage?

Who is this talking about? This is talking about what was promised to Eve, what was promised to Abraham, what we long for with Moses, who is promised in David, who is longed for throughout

Joshua, the judges, and the history of the kings, who are the prophets, who look forward and saw dimly.

Ultimately, what we get is all of these promises. We've got three pretty good concrete ellipses, like the dot dot dot of the

Old Testament. Bring us there, guys. Jon Moffitt And before we do,

I think it's just to help clarify some of our position. We believe that God fulfilled those promises to Abraham.

They are in the land. The nations are established. The kings did come from his line. You just see that every promise that God made, his condition side, he never once failed.

The nation got all that stuff, and some individuals were cut off. In certain stories in the Bible, you see the nation gets down to one person.

God preserves this, and the promise of the seed continues to go down. On top of this covenantal it is an amazing ride to see how much

Israel tried to destroy, even interwoven themselves into other nations when God tells them they need to be pure.

God continues to preserve it. We can go to the very end, right before there's going to be 400 years of silence.

You're not going to hear any more from the prophets. You're not hearing any more from God. The last thing that Malachi is going to say before the angels show up on the scene in Luke, he tells them to remember one thing.

He says, remember the law of Moses. Why? Jesus even says, the law and the prophets wrote of me.

Malachi is saying, don't forget this, because this is where the Messiah is coming. I would interpret that to say, you have seen all of these promises of the grace that's to come.

Don't forget this. This is where we get. As you travel to the end of the

Old Testament, it's easy to be depressed because it is a hot mess. You thought slavery in Egypt was bad.

What the Old Testament reveals is that physical slavery has nothing on spiritual slavery.

That is where God's people are. Their hearts are hearts of stone.

Many of you probably know where I'm going. This is where Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, the one who weeps over the exile of God's people.

This is what ultimately Jeremiah promises that we hang on to so dearly.

In Jeremiah 31, it says, Behold, the days are coming, declares the

Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.

We see contrasting language. Not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when

I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. My covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the

Lord, for this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord, that I will put my law within them.

I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

No longer shall each one teach his neighbor and his brother, saying, Know the Lord. For what? They shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the

Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." That is a great ellipsis moment that probably very few people listen to for poor

Jeremiah. He had the worst job. Being a prophet in the

Old Testament was not awesome. It was terrible. Now we'll go and actually read

Malachi chapter 4. Just for the sake of time, I'm going to read just a couple of verses. It says, remember the law of Moses, the statues and rules that I commanded him at Arab for all of Israel.

Behold, I will send you Elijah. What does that actually mean? It's a reference to someone.

Who is it? John the Baptist. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the

Lord comes. Then verse 6, he says, and he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a degree of utter destruction.

The hearts of the people will turn. Then we get 400 years of silence.

Finally, an angel shows up on the scene and talks to this woman named

Mary. He says this about the child that is going to be conceived in her by the

Holy Spirit. He will be great and will be called the son of the

Most High. The Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.

When that child is born and presented in the temple, there's a man named Simeon who sees him and says, I can die now because I have seen the salvation of the

Lord. That's where we are, and that's where we leave off. That's where we'll pick up.

If you thought that was a wild ride, this next one, I don't even know how we're going to get it in within 45 minutes, but we're going to do our best.