Luke 6:1 - 5: What Is This That You Have Done?

Thrilled to hear the baptismal testimonies about Christ Jesus, thrilled to be back in.

The pulpit again.

Thank you for praying with me, praying for me, and thrilled to be back in the gospel.

Of Luke.

If you've got a Bible, turn to Luke chapter 1 this morning. We've been marching our way through Luke. We're in chapter 6, but I want you to go to chapter 1 to start. But my introductory question this morning is this, is there a way or a mindset that could possibly, from the human perspective, make Luke more thrilling than it already is?

Obviously it's thrilling. It's about the Lord Jesus and who He is, this great Son of Man, the Son of God. But is there a way, from our perspective, that we could learn or see through a certain lens to make Luke even more compelling?

I think the answer is yes. What we do, and of course it's right for us, to parachute into Luke chapter 1 and read.

About the Lord Jesus.

But there have been many centuries of things going on before that, types and shadows and anticipation of the Lord going to show up. And many failed messiahs, unquote, end quote. So what I'd like to do this morning is, I'd like to read verses 1 through 4, because as you know, this is really the interpretive key to the gospel of Luke.

This is the hermeneutical issue that if you don't know verses 1 to 4, it's hard to get the rest. So let's look at Luke chapter 1, verses 1 to 4, and then we're going to see how we could possibly appreciate Luke more than we already do.

Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who have been, excuse me, just from those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, for what purpose?

That you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught. And of course, we come to Luke and we realize he's taken time, he's taken effort, he's talked to eyewitnesses, and he wants to make sure that the unbeliever who reads this passage, these passages in Luke, would say, this truly is the Son of God.

And he also wants to make sure that Christians, when they go through difficulties or when they're having joys and wonderful things happen to them, they keep on believing in this risen.

Savior.

But I think that if you remember what's gone on in the Old Testament, and the years of waiting for a Messiah, the years of hopes crushed because you thought someone would be a Messiah and they're not, waiting for the promise of God, the Messiah would come.

If you remember those things in the Old Testament, and you remember all the failed Messiahs, when you get to Luke chapter 1 where the real Messiah shows up, you're going to say, yes, and finally. In other words, for a long, long time, you read the Bible and you think, here's another man who had great promise and then failed.

Is there going to be a man who is going to perfectly, entirely, exactly, perpetually obey, who's come to do the will of God, Hebrews chapter 10. And then you open up the book of Luke, the Gospel of Jesus according to Luke, and you realize finally this Messiah has come.

And you realize it in his birth, you realize it with John the Baptist, the forerunner, you realize when he forgives sins. So this morning, we're going to take an overview essentially of the Bible and look at the promise of the Messiah, and why we need the Messiah, a bunch of failed Messiahs, then we'll get to Luke where we finally get the promised Messiah, and you'll think, yes and amen.

So let's do this, let's turn our Bibles to Genesis chapter 2, and we are going to work our way through the promise and need of the Messiah, a bunch of potential Messiahs, and then the perfect Messiah.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, if you're new, not sure where we're going, you will soon find out, and I think you're going to love it. Not because of my sermon, but because of the text. Genesis chapter 2, the bliss, the joy, remember, Edenic.

Genesis 2 .15, the Lord God took the man, put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep.

It.

And the Lord God commanded the man saying, you may surely eat of every tree of the Garden. What generosity, what goodness. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. From the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.

And the Lord God said to him, it's not good that man should be alone, I will make a helper fit for him. Continued goodness, continued generosity of God. Verse 21, so the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs, closed it up, its place with flesh.

And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. And then the man said, and this is poetry, this is joy, this is exaltation, this is at last bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh, she shall be called woman because she's taken out of man.

Therefore, man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife, interestingly, were both naked and were not ashamed. And of course, Adam, by obeying God, he would be loving God, he would be a loving neighbor.

And then of course, we realize what happens in Genesis chapter 6, and we call it the fall. And if you, Genesis chapter 3, excuse me, we'll get to Genesis chapter 6 soon enough. If I make any mistakes, I'm just blaming it on COVID, that's all, it's foggy.

You know you get a COVID fog, don't you? And now we come to Genesis chapter 3, the fall. Oh, what's wrong here? Now the serpent was more crafty than any of their beasts of the field that the Lord God had made.

Notice in chapter 2, Lord God, Yahweh, covenant, loving God, God Elohim, God the creator, the great covenant-keeping creator God, and all of a sudden Satan just torques the name. He doesn't use the name Lord God.

What does he say? He said to the woman, did God actually say? Did the big guy upstairs actually say? You shall not eat of any tree in the garden. Instead of front-loading the promise that God did, you can have everything you want except this one.

Now he's said this God, Satan is saying this God is restrictive. He's holding out. Did God actually say, you, plural, should not eat of any tree in the garden? We didn't say that because he said it only to Adam.

And here comes Satan, crafty, slick. Did God really say? Is God really good? I mean, let's just talk about God a little bit, nice comparative religion class. Surely a good God wouldn't have said that.

Doubt is introduced. I mean, he's holding out, miserly God, maybe a dark God, maybe a mysterious God. Good gods don't withhold. And the woman said to Adam, help. Adam said, get thee behind me, Satan. Sadly, the woman said to the servant, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, now she's using the same name for God that Satan did.

You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that's in the midst of the garden. Neither shall you touch it, lest you die. But the servant said to the woman, you shall not surely die. Threat is hollow. God's not going to judge.

First line all the Bible about judgment. And some of the commentators would say, the Jewish rabbis would teach that the second Satan said, you'll surely not die. He, Satan, the serpent, pushes the woman into the tree to touch it.

See, you didn't die.

God's not that good. Sin's not that bad. Verse five, for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened. See he's holding out, and you'll be like God. He doesn't want competition, knowing good and evil.

Oh, Adam, where are you? So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and there was a delight to the eyes, the lust of the eyes, and that the tree was desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.

And she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. And as one man said, Eve followed the snake, Adam followed Eve, and no one followed God. Paul would say later in Romans five, therefore, just as sin entered through the world through one man, and death through sin, in this way death came to all men, because all sinned.

And instead of being naked and not ashamed, what are the effects of sin? Verse seven, the eyes of them both were opened. They knew they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

And by the way the Hebrew is, she hid herself, he hid himself. They were no longer a couple, no longer holding fast. Sin isolates, and off they went alone to hide. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden, in the cool of the day.

And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees in the garden. They certainly weren't walking around on the stage or down the runway of the fashion display, what do you call, fashion show, saying, look at my fig leaves.

But thankfully, God is a God of grace, God is the God who initiates, and He gives demerited favor on traitors, rebels, and even Adam and Eve. But the Lord God called to the man, the federal head, Adam, and said to him, where are you?

Singular. And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, I was afraid, because I was naked and I hid myself. Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?

And the man said, essentially, God, you sinned, it's your fault. The text says, the woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree and I ate. And then I want you to see something in verse 13 that you might overlook, but if you understand this phrase, you're going to get a lot of the Old Testament.

I want you to remember Genesis chapter 3, verse 13. The Lord God said to the woman, what is this that you have done? That's the key phrase, what is this you have done? The woman said, the serpent deceived me.

I don't know what the serpent looked like before, but I imagine Adam and Eve see some kind of mutation, some kind of total destruction of what the serpent looked like, and now they realize judgment could be coming on them.

But amazingly and wonderfully, here comes what we call the first gospel. It's found in chapter 3, verse 15. I will put enmity between you, Satan, and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring.

He shall bruise your head, think snake on the ground language, and you shall bruise.

His heel.

There's going to be a seed of a woman. Sound familiar? Galatians chapter 4, born of a woman. There's going to be a seed of the woman who's going to come and crush Satan. Sound familiar? Galatians 3, 16.

The promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring, who is Christ. And then if you skip down to verse 21, it just shows again the provision by God, the sovereign initiation of His good grace. And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skin and clothed them.

And it's easy to see that there's only two religions in the world, self-made garments like fig leaves of works and civil goodness and moral goodness, and then the covering from God. And you can go to Zechariah chapter 3, can you not?

You can go to Isaiah chapter 61. Covering with robes is often language of salvation and God's goodness. But to remind you again of verse 13, what is this that you have done? All right. So we need a Messiah.

There's a promised Messiah. And so when we read the Bible from Genesis 3 on, we should be looking for a Messiah. Now of course we already know we have the Messiah. We've been going through Luke. But I want to try to show you through Scripture the buildup in the Old Testament.

Because you're getting so hopeful there's going to be a Messiah, and then that Messiah.

Fails.

And then another one, and then another one, and then another one, and then another one, and then another one, and then another one. Will the Messiah ever show up? I know God keeps His promises, but come on.

So when you finally get to Luke, and you get an orderly account, and you get the eyewitnesses, and you get to see the person of Christ and the work of Christ, you go, yes. So let's look at all the failures first so we can get to the right Messiah.

So what do you think follows Genesis chapter 3? Genesis chapter 4. Good job. We need a Messiah. There's a promised Messiah. Let's look at some of the potential Messiahs. I was reading an article by Shane Rosenthal, and he helped crystallize this in my mind.

It was an excellent article called, A Search for a Second Adam, A New Way of Reading Scripture. Well let's go to Genesis 4. I mean, here comes the Messiah, right? What would you be thinking if you were reading the Bible?

What would you be thinking if you were Adam and Eve? Now Adam knew his wife Eve. Genesis 4, once she conceived, bore Cain, saying, I've gotten a man with the help of the Lord. Seed of the woman, seed of the woman, yes, Messiah's here to crush.

And again, she bore his brother Abel. Abel was a keeper of sheep, Cain a worker of the ground. Of course, Cain and Abel had a disagreement. Cain's offering was rejected. Cain was very angry, verse 5, and on his face he fell.

And the Lord said to Cain, why are you angry? Why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? If you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.

Cain spoke to Abel, his brother, and when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. And the Lord God said to Cain, where is Abel, your brother? He said, I do not know.

Am I my brother's keeper? Does this sound familiar? And the Lord said to him, what have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. Eve, what have you done? Adam, what have you done?

Cain, what have you done? Well God keeps his word, so maybe there's someone else that could be the Messiah. Let's go to Genesis chapter 6. Oh, Noah is the man. There's going to be a flood of the world.

There's going to be a flood of God's judgment, and Noah is the man. Matter of fact, we see a lot of wonderful things about Noah. While in verse 5 there's wickedness, evil continually, God is regretting from the human perspective language that he made man, blotting man out.

Verse 8, okay, here's the Messiah. We finally have someone. But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man. You'll need that to be a Messiah.

Blameless in his generation, you'll need that to be a Messiah. And Noah walked with God. Yes, yes. Chapter 8, we even see some more echoes of Eden. We see some more echoes of the promise of God in chapter 2 of Genesis.

God said to Noah, go out of the ark, you and your wife, your sons, your sons' wives with.

You.

Bring out every living thing that's with you, birds and animals, almost like a repopulation of the garden. Every creeping thing that creeps, that they may swarm on the earth. And does this not sound familiar?

And be fruitful and what? Multiply on the earth. Sound familiar? Be fruitful. Be multiplying. But sadly, there's some fruit involved. There's some nakedness involved. And there's some shame involved. Verse 8, it still looks pretty good at this time.

God said to Noah and his sons, I'm going to establish my covenant with you. Verse 12, this is the sign of the covenant I make between me and you and every living creature and all future generations. I've set my bow in the cloud and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the.

Earth.

Oh, this is the right one until we get to Genesis 9 .20. So promising until now. You're reading the Bible for the first time. You know God's going to provide a Messiah. It's not Cain, it's Noah, rescue, deliverance from sin.

Now Noah began to be a man of the soil. He planted a vineyard, Genesis 9 .20. He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent. Ham, the father of Cain, and saw the nakedness of his father.

I mean, you're thinking fruit, you're thinking nakedness, and soon we're going to see shame. Shem and Japheth, verse 23, took a garment, laid it both on their shoulders, walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father.

Their faces were turned backward and they did not see their father's nakedness.

Sound familiar?

Ashamed? Naked?

The fruit?

We need someone who's going to cover our shame, cover our blame. It's not Noah, Noah, what have you done? But God keeps His promises. Turn to Genesis 12, Abraham, he's going to be the Messiah. We're reading the Bible like the first time we're reading it and we're thinking, I know God made a promise.

I mean, we're living on this side of Jesus and I'm thankful for that. But for so many years, types, shadows, pictures, dark room, kind of, we can't really figure things out. It's almost like a dark room and how's the picture developing?

So my contention is if you read the Bible like this, when you finally get into Luke, you're going to like Luke better because we're on this side of the cross. We realize he's the one. Genesis 12, is Abraham, is he the Messiah?

Of course, he was called Abram first. The Lord said to Abram, go from your country, kindred, your father's house, to the land I'll show you. I'll make you a great nation, I'll bless you, make your name great that you'll be a blessing.

Oh, that sounds like the Messiah to me, could be. I'll bless those who bless you, sounds like the Messiah. Him who dishonors you I'll curse, sound like the response of the Messiah. And all the families of the earth you shall be blessed.

There's even multiply fruitful language in chapter 17. Finally, we come to the last Adam, the ultimate Adam. Chapter 12, verse 10, the last Adam should protect his wife. The last Adam should provide for his wife.

The last Adam should nourish his wife and sanctify his wife. How does a Messiah treat his wife? There's a famine in the land, Abram goes down to Egypt, verse 10. He's about ready to get into Egypt, verse 11, he said to his wife, I know you're a woman beautiful in appearance, and when the Egyptians see you, they'll say, this is my wife, then they'll kill me, but they will let you live.

Say you're my sister, that it may go well with you. So you go in the harem, at least we'll both live, verse 17. But the Lord afflicted Pharaoh, his house, with great plagues, because she did go in to Pharaoh's house.

Verse 18, does this sound familiar or what? Can you hear the refrain? So Pharaoh called out to Abraham and said, what is this that you have done to me?

Sound familiar?

What have you done? You did not tell me that she was your wife. Why did you say she's my sister, so that I took her for my wife? And you know what happened in Genesis chapter 20? Take a look, the exact same thing happened, this time not with Pharaoh, but Abimelech.

This time not in Egypt, but in the Negev, Genesis chapter 20. By the way, I hear the Bible pages turning, such a wonderful sound. I want that on my app at night to sleep, Bible pages turning. All the people with iPads are in the back of the bus.

You could probably get the sound, maybe somebody can make some money off that. That when you scroll in your iPad, it sounds like the Bible's pages actually turning. Verse 8, same thing happened with Abimelech.

She's my sister, what Abraham said, Abimelech rose early in the morning, called all his servants and told them all these things. And the men were very much afraid. Then Abimelech called Abraham and said, what do you think he said?

What have you done to us? How have I sinned against you? You've brought on me and my kingdom a great sin. And you begin to read the Bible and you realize, okay, the promises for the serpent crusher. And then all of a sudden they fail, and just like Eve in the garden, and of course Adam.

Fails too.

What is this you have done? And you begin to hear that refrain, Cain, what have you done? Noah, what have you done? Abram, what have you done? But you know, thankfully God is a faithful God. He keeps His promises.

And while it might not be Abraham who's the Messiah, His son, Isaac, he's going to be the Messiah. The great picture in Genesis 22, Abraham taking Isaac up to Mount Moriah to slay on the cross. God is going to provide a sacrificial lamb, a possible Messiah,.

Genesis chapter 26. This great man named Isaiah, he is going to be the new Adam, right? Abraham might have sinned, Noah might have sinned, Cain might have sinned, Adam might have sinned, but Isaac, we can trust in him.

You hear echoes of Genesis 2 and Genesis 26, verse 4, I'll multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, I'll give to your offspring all these lands, and in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.

And then sadly, like father, like son, Isaac is in Gerar, not the Negev, and not Egypt like his father. When the men of the place ask about his wife, he says, it's a bad movie, on repeat, she's my sister.

He feared to say my wife, thinking, unless the men of the place shall kill me because of Rebecca, because she was attractive in appearance. And you scroll down to verse 10, and Abimelech said, any guesses what Abimelech might have.

Said?

What is this that you have done to us? I mean, they look so good, the potential Messiah. You're reading the Bible, knowing that God is going to keep His promise, knowing that one of these is finally going to be the Messiah.

So far, so good. And then you're let down. Have God's promises failed? Well, thankfully, when you think of Abraham, you think of Isaac, and you think of another son, and I think he might be the Messiah, right?

What's his name?

Jacob. Go to chapter 28. Jacob, finally, we see even an echo of the original charge to Adam to be fruitful and multiply. Jacob's the one. Genesis chapter 28, verse 3, God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you that you'll be a company of peoples.

The writer is letting you know, okay, here we go. Recalling Genesis 2 and the promises, he's going to be the one, and you read in Genesis 28, 11 through 15, that awesome passage about the ladder set up on earth and the top reaching to heaven.

This has got to be the one that ascends and descends on the ladder. He's going to be the one that comes from God, goes to God. This is going to be the Messiah. And of course, before you know it, we see a chronicle of Jacob's future sins.

Jacob, nicknamed the deceiver. But I have to tell you, we finally, I think we make it to the Messiah. Moses, yes, Moses is going to be the Messiah. Finally, destiny, education, background, a miraculous birth encounter, a miraculous rescue of the tiny little baby out of the water, miraculous.

This is going to be the one, dramatic. And if you go to Genesis, let's go to Numbers chapter 20, I mean, this guy Moses trained by brilliant minds. This man Moses sees God, as it were, in the bush that wouldn't burn and understands the holiness of God and still lives to tell the tale.

This is the one, by the way, he's going to save Israel. God is going to use Moses to rescue Israel out of Egypt. And we're already thinking, OK, if he can rescue Israel out of Egypt, he can rescue us out of bondage.

Moses is going to be the one. If you're reading the Bible, you would think that way. And then you get to Numbers chapter 20, verse 10. Moses was supposed to tell the rock something. And instead of that, Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock.

And he said to them, here now, you rebels, shall we bring water out of this rock? Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his staff twice. Water came out abundantly. The congregation drank and their livestock, except God said, because you did not believe in me and uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore, you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.

I guess Moses isn't the Messiah. Moses, Moses, what have you done? OK, I think what we need is a miraculous birth. I think we need some kind of conception in such a way that it would yield a Messiah who could actually be the Messiah.

That's what we need. We're going to need some supernatural kind of birth, right? And so you turn to Samson, Judges chapter 13. Samson, strong like a deliverer, mighty like a deliverer, able to crush serpents' heads, able to smite Philistines with the jawbones of an ass.

Judges 13, verse 1, the people of Israel again, that was evil in the sight of the Lord. So the Lord gave them into the hand of the Philistines for 40 years. Who will rescue? There's a certain man of Zorah, the tribe of the Danites, whose name was Manoah, and his wife was barren.

See, we're going to need something spectacular. He had no children. And the angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, Behold, you're barren. You've not born children, but you shall conceive and bear a son.

Interesting language. Therefore, be careful, drink no wine, strong drink, eat nothing unclean. And then down in chapter 13, verse 18, the angel of the Lord said to him, Why do you ask my name, seeing it is wonderful?

They fall, their faces to the ground. You know what I mean? God is showing up. And it says in verse 24, The woman bore a son and called his name Samson, and the young man grew, and the Lord blessed him.

The Messiah has arrived. Tearing lions into pieces. A lion like Satan that roams back and forth seeking someone to devour. The spirit of the Lord upon Samson. Holy Spirit descends like a dove. You read all this and you think, This is going to happen, finally.

You would be reading the Bible for the first time, thinking this is finally going to be.

The one.

And then you go to chapter 16, verse 1, As you know, Samson went to Gaza. There he saw a prostitute, and he went in to her. So unlike what the Messiah would do with his bride. To keep her spotless and blameless, love her, die for her, give himself for her.

Samson, what have you done? The story just keeps going, does it not? Is God finally going to keep his promises? Well, I want you to know that you can trust God. And I want you to know there's going to be a man who's after God's own heart.

I think he's going to be the Messiah. The man after God's own heart. Of course, it's got to be David. Turn to 1 Samuel, chapter 17. And matter of fact, Goliath with all his coat of mail that almost looks, as some would say, reptilian-like.

Finally, David kills Goliath. And instead of balking like Adam did, not cutting off serpent's head. Guess what David does when he kills Goliath? He comes over and he takes Goliath's sword and he does what to Goliath's head?

In that reptilian kind of chain mail? He cuts off his head. The Messiah has arrived. Take a look at 1 Samuel 17, verse 50. So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone, and struck the Philistine and killed him.

Killing God's enemies, the offspring of Satan and the offspring of Eve. There's no sword in the hand of David. David ran over, stood over the Philistine, took his sword, drew it out of its sheath, killed him and cut off his head with it.

Champion, last Adam, David. And when the Philistine saw that their champion was dead, they fled. Rejoice. Again I say, rejoice. 1 Samuel 19, 5, pretty much sums up David's life up to this point. David took his life in his hand and he struck down the Philistine and the Lord worked a great salvation for all of Israel.

Israel saved. Israel rescued. Certainly a picture of the greatest rescue from sin, death and hell. 1 Samuel 19, 8, and there was war again. David went out and fought with the Philistines. Seated Satan struck them with a great blow so that they fled before him.

And over and over we see mighty David, mighty David, mighty David. 2 Samuel 11, David, what is this that you've done? He should be out to war. And 2 Samuel 11, verse 2, as you know, you know all these stories, congregation.

I just want you to put them all together. Happened late one afternoon. David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king's house. He saw from the roof a woman bathing. And said, I can't sin with my eyes.

And said, I need to protect women. I don't need to use them. The list could go on and on and on. But he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful. And David sent and inquired about the woman. Is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?

She's married. So David sent messengers, took her. She came to him and he lay with her. And she conceived and told David, I'm pregnant. And then, of course, the man after God's own heart wasn't after God's own heart in this manner.

And then he kills Uriah, lies, and more. So you see what's going on here? I think you're starting to get the picture. You're getting the picture that one Messiah shows up and another Messiah shows up and another Messiah shows up until they prove that they're not Messiahs.

They don't love God perfectly and they don't love their neighbor perfectly. And you begin to read, even in the prophets, to encourage us, to remind us that God keeps His promise. Jeremiah 23, listen. Behold, the days are coming when I will raise up for David a righteous branch, and he will 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'll be called. The Messiah is still going to show up. God's promises are going to be kept. And His name is going to be called, The Lord is Our Righteousness.

So that, dear congregation, is my introduction to the Gospel of Luke. Oh, by the way, I haven't preached for weeks. So I try to preach about 45 minutes. So since I haven't preached for the last two weeks, 45 plus 45 plus today 45, that's 215.

And the pastor gives me the thumbs up. It's always scary when the pastor is sitting in the front row or two. I'm trying to remind you that when you're reading the Bible and there's so much failure, so much sin, and we realize we have sin and we've committed sins, and if we, left to ourselves, have no Messiah to bear our sins, we can't fool ourselves by thinking time cancels sin.

The way to get to heaven is just die. And all these other foolish things. No, no, we need to have a perfect righteousness provided by God, earned by a Messiah, and all our unrighteousness needs to be paid for.

And we need to have a hope and a promise via the resurrection that it's true. And so you're reading the Bible and you're like, this is never going to happen, one after another. And how many times you read about a king, some great king, and that king did what was what?

Not all together. Evil in the sight of the Lord. The kids, I always told them, if you ever want to know if the king did evil or not, there's a few exceptions that the king did good, but just say evil because you'll get it right most of the time.

Is the human race doomed? Is there going to be a Savior? What in the world is going on? And now you have at the end of Malachi, for us, 2 Chronicles for the Jewish canon, how many hundreds of years before you get to the birth of Jesus?

100? 200?

300?

No, 400 years waiting, waiting. Failed Messiah, failed Messiah, failed Messiah.

Silence.