Redemptive History (part 1)

Tonight I'd like to talk about the gospel and redemptive history. The gospel and redemptive history.

When you teach the Old Testament, would a Jewish rabbi agree with everything you taught?

So for instance, let's say you're teaching Genesis chapter 22. Isaac offered up.

Would the rabbi agree with everything you talked about? Let me ask you a question congregation to make sure you're awake tonight.

What could you talk about in a context like that that a rabbi wouldn't agree with?

What would make it difficult for a rabbi to agree with? How would that message turn into a Christian message?

If you look down, I'm gonna call on you. Yeah, Barry.

It would be very easy to teach that passage and just talk about the data and the authorial intent and stop there, but it would be just as easy to say, and more right, if you taught that and then said, fast forward 1 ,500 years at Mount Moriah, there was, in metaphor, picturesque terms, another father that was going to slay his son and the knife went up and this time, as R .C.

Sproul said, no one yelled stop. And you could easily talk about the son's sacrificial death.

So tonight I want to talk to you about how do you teach the Old Testament in a redemptive historical way?

In other words, teaching the Bible to make sure it's very Christian. Is, in fact, the

Bible all Christian? Is this a Jewish Old Testament and a Christian New Testament? Are all the scriptures

Christian? How many Bible characters do you think we have? If you just teach

Bible characters, dare to be a Daniel, be a leader like Nehemiah, be courageous like Joshua, how many characters do we have in the

Bible? Any guesses? Hundreds, probably. Yes?

Would you venture thousands? About 2 ,300 Bible characters?

Now we'll talk about this a little bit. It's not wrong to say when it comes to sexual sin, flee like Joseph did.

I think that's an easy thing to talk about in 1 Corinthians chapter 6. But tonight

I want to make sure when you open up the Bible, let's put it simply, when you teach your children the

Bible, when you teach Sunday school, Awana, when you evangelize, when you teach your family the

Bible, when you preach from the pulpit, every message you preach should speak of Christ Jesus.

In one way or another, I want you to preach Christ. That's going to be my goal tonight and we're going to talk about this redemptive historical gospel centered preaching.

So tonight I want you to see how all of history speaks of Christ Jesus. And I want you to know that you can, in fact, keep authorial intent and teach that Jesus is the hero.

Let's turn our Bibles to Matthew chapter 4 tonight, Matthew chapter 4, and I'm going to show you an illustration of exactly that thing.

And I like this illustration because if we're not careful, we will teach this in a man -centered way.

Strike that. You'll give an application in a man -centered way. I think most people, when they teach

Matthew chapter 4, the temptation of Christ, they teach it properly. It's the application that goes awry.

Haddon Robinson used to say that 95 percent of all heresy that comes out of evangelical pulpits comes out during the time of application.

So let's go to this passage for two reasons. One, this is an awesome passage about Jesus. And when you watch this, you think there's nobody else like Christ.

He's a great Savior. And then the other thing, as I'm teaching through this, ask yourself the question, what's the application?

You know, we are kind of get -or -done people and we want to have an application. Tell me something to do.

But sometimes you teach the Bible and you don't tell people what to do. You just tell people to say, look at who

Christ is. And so we're going to go through Matthew chapter 4. What happened just before Matthew 4?

Well, the baptism of Jesus. And remember, there's a voice from heaven, chapter 3, verse 17.

This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. The Spirit of God descended like a dove coming to rest on Him.

Verse 16, and as Arkand Hughes says, first heaven opened for the baptism.

And now, Arkand Hughes says, hell opens. This is a fascinating passage.

Let's look at these temptations and ask ourselves the question, who is the hero and what is this trying to teach us?

I'll just tell you ahead of time. If the default mode is, look at how Jesus overcomes temptations, you can overcome temptations too.

How does Jesus overcome temptation? He quotes Scripture each time. You can overcome Scripture, overcome

Scripture. Well, you can never overcome Scripture. But if you're tired as I am, you could be an overcomer, a hooper

Nike. You can overcome temptation by using Scripture. Are those valid things to say?

Primarily, no, but secondarily, yes. This is about Jesus. I'll just tell you ahead of time because I told you this morning.

Luke said to me today, he said, Dad, you were pretty fired up about wanting to preach this message tonight, weren't you? I said

I was. Because it just shows who Christ is. This is not about our temptations.

This is how Israel failed the temptations. Go back farther, Adam failed the temptations, and we have one who, as our representative, doesn't fail on temptations.

If I ask people here, how many people fail on temptations? This is going to be a good passage for you to say, but I have a

Savior who never did. This isn't how to overcome temptations. This is how Jesus overcome temptations.

So what I'm trying to do as I teach you this, is when you read a passage like this, especially in the

Gospels, that you don't read it with a high school yearbook mentality. How do you read a high school yearbook?

They're hot off the press, you get your copy from the principal, he hands it to you, or your homeroom teacher, or whatever, your mom, if you make one up at home, if you're homeschooler, you get that, and what's the first thing you want to do?

Maybe a church, maybe the church yearbook, if we had such a thing. What do you look for? Everybody who's smiling knows exactly what you look for.

Where am I? Where am I in the temptation of Jesus narrative? Do you know where you are?

You aren't even born yet. That's where you are. You're nowhere to be found. We aren't here. And so the hero of this story isn't me, it isn't you, it isn't

John Owen. The hero of the story is Jesus. And so that's what we want to make sure we do.

If you then explain all that and then tell the children, it's good to know Scripture so you too can overcome temptation.

It's hard to resist temptation when you don't know the Word. I'm fine with all of that, but the primary issue here is

Christ. So this is a good illustration to show you what

I'm talking about. Matthew chapter 4 verse 1, certainly when the

Spirit of God is involved, Satan is working hard to go against God's work.

Chapter 4 verse 1, then Jesus was led up, another passage says, impelled by the

Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting 40 days and nights, he was hungry.

So isn't this interesting? The Spirit of God pushing Jesus out to be tempted. I find that fascinating when

I think about the sovereignty of God. And now Jesus is to be tempted. He's fasted 40 days.

Luke 4 says he ate nothing. I don't know about you when I don't eat. I think

I'm more susceptible to trials. Jesus is at his weakest humanly here.

And Satan comes along and he gives the first temptation. Don't trust your father.

That's the first temptation. Distrust your father. Perfect moment for Satan. Verse 3, and the tempter came and said to him, if you are the

Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread. What's the big deal?

You're hungry? Eat. You're the Son of God. You're starving. Is there anything wrong with eating when you're really hungry?

I don't think Satan knows this, but certainly we know it. In the future, Jesus is going to make bread for 4 ,000 men and then 5 ,000 men plus kids, so 10 ,000 people.

He could easily do it. And I think there's a little mocking here. You're the

Son of God and you're hungry. Boy, that's a slam on your father. Born in a barn, living in a little village, and you can't even eat.

Well, this was a big deal because this is not the will of the Father. The Spirit of God impels Jesus into the wilderness to obey his

Father. And it's going to be the paradigm of Christ's life. It's not going to be glory first, crown first.

It's going to be suffering and obedience first, cross, then crown. Jesus has the power to meet his own needs, but not if it goes outside the will of the

Father. So Satan says, provide for your own needs. Who cares what your father says?

What does Jesus say? So far, have you seen yourself in the text at all?

Where's Waldo? I don't see me in there. And by the way, when you start to get engaged in the text and read it and think about it, one of the things about Bible teaching

I notice is I forget about myself. Forget about all the issues that I have because I'm so mesmerized by who this person is.

The first response from Jesus is, some things are more important than food. That's a good response.

Verse 4, but he answered, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

I'm not going to act independently from the Father's will. I'm not going to go it on my own.

It's better to obey God and starve. It's better to obey God and go hungry.

Every response Jesus gives comes from Deuteronomy. I'll read you

Deuteronomy 8, verses 2 and 3. Don't turn there, just listen. And you shall remember all the way which the

Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these 40 years, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.

And he humbled you and let you be hungry and fed you with manna which you did not know. Nor did your fathers know that he might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the

Lord. God allowing Israel to be hungry, so he might feed them.

God allowing Israel to go without, so he might give them manna and provide for all their needs.

They failed to respond. Remember all the complaining? By the way, don't miss out on the book of Numbers.

You say, I don't want to miss out on Numbers because the whole thing's about numbering. I can just see the non -math people not liking

Numbers. If you can get through the first six to seven to eight chapters and you start reading Numbers, it will change your world when you think about complaining and everything else.

We need sustenance, but here it's the word before physical food.

Listen to what William Hendrickson said. I like the way he phrases this. By the way, you can get

William Hendrickson's commentaries electronically. Matthew through Revelation for about $65.

Everybody here should be able to get a copy of that. Those are excellent commentaries. Presbyterian.

Tempter, you are proceeding upon the false assumption that for a man in order to appease hunger and keep alive bread is absolutely necessary.

Over against this erroneous idea, I now declare that not bread but the creative, energizing, and sustaining power of my

Father is the only indispensable source of my and of man's life and well -being.

What a far cry is Jesus from Oscar Wilde. I can resist everything except temptation.

There's another temptation to presume on the Father's care. Presuming that the Father loves him by testing.

Look at verses five and six. Here's the second temptation. Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, if you are the son of God, throw yourself down for it is written he will command his angels concerning you and on their hands they will bear you up lest you strike your foot against a stone.

Oh, I see, son of God, you trust the Father so much. Now I want you to show everybody just in fact how much you really trust him.

You trust God? Prove it. Prove your confidence in God's protection.

You know what I would say growing up? I'd say put your money where your mouth is. So what does the

Satan do? He takes him up to this pinnacle of the temple, literally a wing in the

Greek. Some people think it's the southeast corner of this whole complex and we don't know exactly how tall that was, but some scholars say 400, 500 feet up.

Throw yourself off. Jump. That's the spot where the historian Eusebius said

Christ's half -brother James was thrown down. By the way, if you thought you were the

Messiah, one of the ways that you thought you could prove it is go to this part of the temple area and jump off.

And so many people over history, before Jesus came along, would say, I'm the Messiah and I'm going to show you and in three days, kind of like Evel Knievel kind of thing, you know, in three days

I'll jump the Snake River Canyon and make it successful. Well, in three days I'm going to go to this pinnacle and I'm going to jump off and pretty much, well not pretty much, it's a figure of speech.

Everybody that jumped off, guess what happened? They proved they were not the Messiah. And so Jesus says, think about it, man shall not live by bread alone, but every word that proceeds from the mouth of the

Father. Okay, Satan says, you live on God's Word, let me give you some verses. I'm going to give you some

Bible verses. You want verses? I've got a verse or two for you. If you're God's son, he's going to take care of you.

Those are my verses. This is Bible drill for Satan. And he quotes from Psalm 91, but let me give you the full quote.

For he will give his angels charge concerning you to guard you in all your ways. They will bear you up in their hands, lest you strike your foot against the stone.

What's the difference between what I read you and what Satan really said? Satan did two things to God's Word.

One, he admitted the phrase, guarding in all your ways.

Number two, he twisted the meaning. And he twisted the meaning of trusting

God to test God. As Todd Friel calls this, this is called lack -o -Jesus.

It's not ex -o -Jesus, it's is -o -Jesus or lack -o -Jesus. This is a complete hermeneutical switcheroo.

There's a psalm that says, trust God, and now Satan torques it, and twists it, and perverts it to say, now you test

God. God's going to protect you no matter what you do. Just presume on him.

Put yourself in danger. This is messing around with the providence of God. Well, what's the response?

I love the response. Who responds like this? It's a good little response back there in the back.

Jesus said to him, verse 7, again, it is written, you shall not put your

God to the test. You shall not put the Lord your God to the test. He quotes from Deuteronomy 6 .16.

I'll read it for you. You shall not put the Lord your God to the test as you tested him at Massa.

Grumbling Israelites, putting God to the test. We want water in the wilderness.

And then the final temptation, Satan brings out the big guns. Here comes the howitzers. The other day,

Luke and I went with Michael Andadeo, and he let us shoot his M1 Garand. It was a lot of fun, and it would just give us one of these deals.

And now, forget the M1, now Satan brings out some kind of huge howitzer, some kind of huge gun.

I don't know guns that well, but whatever the biggest gun you could think of, that's what he's bringing out. He's going to get to the bottom line.

It's almost as if all this other stuff was preliminary. Pulled punches, disguised.

Now all the cards are out on this high stakes game. They're all on the table. Verse 8, again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.

And he said to him, all these I will give you if you fall down and worship me. One genuflection.

That's all you have to do. Rome, Egypt, Greece, Persia, Jerusalem.

You say, well, how did this really happen? Was it vision? Was it real? Luke says he led him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.

Just worship me. Here again, just the crown before the cross.

Just go for the glory. You don't have to suffer. Shortcut Savior, take it now.

You deserve it. You deserve a break today. Jesus knew about the

Father's will. Later in the garden, he says, my Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me yet not as I will, but as thou wilt.

The ruler of the world, Satan, shows him these things, the God of the age. And what did Jesus say?

I love what he says. If I was the message Bible translator, I would say, and Jesus said, pack it up, pal.

That's how I would translate it. Don't be hanging out at Sin Saloon. What's the response?

From the Bible? From Deuteronomy? Where Israel failed, Jesus succeeds?

And where's Waldo? This is all about Christ. He cites and paraphrases

Deuteronomy 6. Let me read it for you. You shall fear only the Lord your God, and you shall worship him and swear by his name.

You shall not follow other gods, any of the gods of the peoples who surround you. Israel led into the wilderness by God.

Jesus led into the wilderness by the Spirit of God. Test, failure for Israel.

Test, failure for Israel. Test, failure for Israel. Christ Jesus impelled into the wilderness by the

Spirit. Test, past. Test, past. And here again, test, past.

He's not going to worship any so -called God like Israel did of the surrounding nations.

And so what does Satan do? Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.

Now, this is worth it. This is worth it tonight. If you come only and hear this, in my mind, this would be worth it.

The very verse that Satan tries to pervert earlier in Psalm 91, that very verse is now applied by God himself to take care of the

Son. In other words, the angels come and minister to Jesus.

In the perfect timing of God, MacArthur says, the verse

Satan tried to twist was thus fulfilled in God's way. It's interesting, it was an imperfect tense meaning they kept on ministering, they kept on ministering, they kept on ministering.

The same God who impelled him now has his angels minister to the

Son. If I was going to write Scripture, I would say, and again, the Father said, just like he said at the end of chapter three, this is my beloved

Son in whom I'm well pleased. Out in the wilderness, listen to Mark 1 about the wilderness.

He was in the wilderness 40 days being tempted by Satan, and he was with the wild beasts, and the angels were ministering to him.

In the roughest situation, in the harshest circumstances, Jesus is qualified for his messianic mission.

God inaugurates the mission of Jesus at the baptism, and now he's confirmed that he is, in fact, the

Messiah. By the way, the Jews were impressed, if you could go to the wilderness and live out there for 40 days. Just live out there, not get killed or attacked.

The wild beasts, the fierceness, and now we have the angels ministering.

It's kind of dopey, but it's interesting, and you guys look like you need me to help you pay attention. Kind of a dopey commentary said that the angels gave

Jesus some angel food, some manna. See, now you're paying attention again.

He is fully God, yes, but he is fully man, and now needs to be ministered to. And if we're not careful, we go to this passage, as I said earlier, and we forget that the star is

Jesus. As we watch, the star is Christ Jesus. Israel failed, Israel failed,

Israel failed, and now Jesus succeeds all three times. You can go back farther with Adam. Where Adam fails,

Jesus succeeded. The first Adam fails in his temptation.

God the Son, the last Adam, does not fail in any of his temptations. One writer called this wilderness anti -Eden.

Jesus succeeds. So when it comes to teaching a passage like this,

I want you to teach that Jesus is the star. One of the great things about preaching through the gospel of any

Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, it shows you who Christ is. I think I've told you this before, and I know we have a pastor here, and he might be a pastor of a church here soon, not just interim.

When I first got to a church, here was my philosophy. It wasn't any church, it was this church.

It was 1997. Here's my philosophy. Should I give you a no -compromise style or a kindly style, a kind style?

Let's do no -compromise style. I got here and I thought, I'm not talking about Mark here.

Who else was here when I got here? Anybody else? Mark's the only one. I've driven everybody else out. Mark, you're the only one.

You are the elect. We are just elect. You are the elect, a definite article.

I got here and I thought, you know, there's a lot of talk in evangelicalism and in this particular church body about Christianity, but let's see if you're really

Christians or not. So let's go through the book of the Bible that challenges your Christianity. That is the book of James.

What does James say? You call yourself a Christian? Prove it. And of course, in the providence of God, that was the right book.

But now as I tell people, are they asking me questions? What should I preach? When I first get to a church,

I tell them, preach Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John and show them Christ every single week.

When you preach through James, by the way, James, interesting book. How many verses? That's right.

I think what that person just said, was that Micah? Micah just said, I think he said 104. Don't you get that?

104? 52 imperatives. And you know what? How much does it talk about the

Lord Jesus Christ in the book of James? Does it talk about his resurrection? No. Does it talk about substitutionary atonement?

No. It talks about Christ a little in chapter two, but instead of talking about what is saving faith,

I should much rather have preached through John or Matthew or Mark or Luke to tell them who the object of their faith should be.

Faith should be. So now I think if you're a new pastor, preach a gospel and show them

Christ Jesus, and it will be easy to show them the son of God. It was years ago,

I'm preaching through the book of Mark, and I went to Scotland with my family. This was the year 2000.

And I went to St. George's Tron in Glasgow. I think there's some

Scottish people here up front. In Glasgow, Eric Alexander used to be the pastor, and they had a new pastor, and his name was

Sinclair Ferguson. Sinclair Fergus was there, and he walked up these big pulpit steps.

I'll never forget it as far as long as I live. He got up and lots of times when

I visit churches, I'm sorry to tell you this, when the pastor says, let us pray, I keep my eyes open because I'm trying to just see what's going on.

I'm just curious what people, what the church does, and what's going on in the background. It's like that time when that lady was yelling to John MacArthur, and she was saying,

John, stop it, quit it. She's in the congregation during the Shepherd's Conference, and some of you were here. John, I can't take it anymore.

And John said, let's just pray for this poor lady. And every head went down. But mine didn't because I wanted to see how the cops would treat her.

They were going to rough her up or what was going on. So when Sinclair Ferguson got up to that pulpit, and he said, let us pray.

And then he put his hands out like this. My head should have been down, but I saw his hands up like this.

And I was thinking about 1 Timothy chapter 2, and lifting up holy hands with prayer.

I just thought, oh, and just to listen to him pray. And he knows God and was talking to the

Father. Well, he's written a commentary on Mark. So I said afterwards, I waited.

And I said, Dr. Ferguson, I'm a pastor in America. I just have a question for you. He was very kind.

And he had congregation to minister to. But he took time from me. And I said, I'm preaching through Mark verse by verse.

And I'm kind of running out of application. I don't know what to do. I preach through the passages.

I know it's about Jesus. And then what do I tell the congregation to do? Because sometimes people would say,

I need to do something. I've learned, and now I need to do. And then he said,

Mike. He said, what's wrong with showing them the glories of Christ every single week?

Well, what was I supposed to say? I thought, you know what? That's right. Sometimes the sermon's response, your response is not due.

It's to know. It's to learn. It's to experience. It's to give wonder and awe and assent.

So redemptive history is a concept that's in churches now.

Gospel -driven ministry, I could call it. And it's trying to make sure that people understand.

If you're in an isolated passage, if I could explain it simply, redemptive historical preaching simply says, let's just step back a little bit out of these four verses in 1

Corinthians 9. And see how it fits in to all of redemption. Friends, mark it down.

It's very simple. There is one purpose to this book right here. Central purpose.

And it's culminated in one person. And if there's one purpose and one person, then shouldn't every time we preach, shouldn't this section fit within that one purpose and that one person's exaltation?

And the answer should be yes. Now, it's kind of tricky because the extreme is being

Lutheran. And so when you have a proverb, a dog returns to its own vomit, how does that preach of Christ?

Well, if you're Spurgeon or Luther, they're demanding every verse preaches of Christ Jesus.

Well, I don't think that verse preaches about Christ Jesus. But you know what? When I read that verse, what does it say to me?

It tells me since I am just like a dog that returns to its own vomit, I need

Jesus. So I think you can preach the Christ Jesus from the text, not necessarily out of the text in every particular case.

Let me give you two definitions of redemptive history. And by the way, my watch battery went out.

Does anybody know how what time I started tonight? I have no idea what time I started. Are you kidding me?

6 .32. Do you know what? He does this to me every week. When I'm like 43 minutes in, he starts putting these cards up.

This card means you have five minutes to go. The smaller card means you have one minute to go. Just kidding.

You do. Okay. But then

I rambled for seven minutes. You know, that's why Steve, when he says, Mike, when it's my turn to preach, can I just get up there and preach pretty please?

Because if you get up there and ramble for seven minutes in, that's what happens. Okay. So that gives me 6 .32.

So we're what? Half hour in? All right. That gives me an idea. Steve, when should

I finish tonight? 6 .35. Okay.

That is right. One time I was in Los Angeles and it was an all black church, Harley's church.

And I was going to be preaching. I was preaching Revelation 19. And I said to Harley, it's kind of a question you ask pastors.

How long do you normally preach? So then we submit ourselves and fall in line and preach the same amount of time.

It's bad form to preach longer than the senior pastor. And so I asked him and he said, when you're done, how long do

I preach when you're done? Yeah, yeah. You know, that's interesting. But when? He said, when you're done.

He said, if you go over 45 minutes, this was back in the stone age. You just look over the tape guy.

He'll take the 92 minute cassette after 46 minutes, flip it over and go.

And he said, you just go till you're done. I said, well, how long do you normally preach on a Sunday night? He said, 90 minutes.

So I preached 90 minutes. They never asked me back. Okay. Let me just say it again so we understand.

Here's the thing. What we're going to try to do, especially at our church, we are so used to going verse by verse, phrase by phrase, pixel by pixel.

You know, it's like MacArthur when he was going to preach through Romans. Paul, Romans one, one.

Sorry, beloved. That's as far as we're going to get today. Paul, that's one word, the first word.

It's right to preach verse by verse, sequentially authorial intent. But it's wrong to do that if you don't see the context immediately, the context of the book, first Corinthians, the context of the new

Testament slash new covenant, and the context of the entire Bible. You want to see how everything fits together.

So sometimes when people say, well, you know what, Mike, you just gave 10 minutes of a background of first Corinthians.

I do that because I want you to see how it's fit in there. I do that because if we're at an imperative section like today, run, run to win, run with sweat and toil and self -sacrifice.

If you weren't, if I wasn't careful and someone came in as a visitor, we did have some visitors today.

They would probably think, you know what? He's preaching a moralistic message. It's just another to -do church. It's just five more how -tos.

So redemptive history is going to pull back and say, how does this fit in? Of course, do the verse by verse and then say, how does this fit into God's redemptive plan?

Two definitions of redemptive historical. Like all my other sermons, if you want these definitions, email me.

I'll be glad to send them. I'm going to speak too fast for you to write them down. John Frame, one.

You know what that's translated it by? That's translated is that it's 708.

You're three minutes over. Redemptive history is that series of events by which

God redeems His people from sin. A narrative filled in Christ, it is the principal subject matter of Scripture.

Definition two, Sidney Gradanus. Redemptive history views the whole counsel of God with all its teachings, laws, prophecies and visions in the light of Jesus Christ.

If the Old Testament indeed witnesses to Christ, then we are faithful preachers only when we do justice to this dimension in our interpretation and preaching of the

Old Testament. Let's turn our Bibles to Luke 24 just quickly.

Luke 24, so I can show you what Jesus, in fact, said. Luke 24, verses 25 through 27 and then 44 through 48.

Redemptive historical preaching, of course, deals with the passage.

But that preaching also shows the congregation where that passage fits in the whole.

Christ is appearing to the disciples after His resurrection. And He's going to tell us, at least to some degree, this is generally our to what degree we'll have to talk about next time.

But you can't argue with the general tenor of what He says. And He said to them,

O foolish ones, Luke 24, 25, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.

Was it not necessary that Christ should suffer these things, the Messiah, and enter into His glory?

And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, from Genesis to 2

Chronicles, from Genesis to Malachi, He interpreted to them in all the

Scriptures the things concerning Himself. Maybe even with a little more degree of clarity, verses 44 through 48,

Jesus says, Then He said to them, These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about Me in the law of Moses, the prophets and the

Psalms, you can have the law of Moses as Genesis through Deuteronomy, the prophets, former prophets, historical books like Joshua and Judges, latter prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah, and now the

Psalms, which the Jews could call the writings, when it comes to the Old Testament, must be fulfilled.

Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, Thus it is written, that the

Christ should suffer, and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sin should be proclaimed in His name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

You are witnesses of these things. Well, while I'm thinking about it, why don't you turn your

Bibles to John chapter 5. John chapter 5. I'm not going to get to talk much about biographical preaching tonight, moralistic preaching, character studies, psychology, pragmatism.

We're going to do that next time, I want you to at least think in your mind, should

I or should I not be an advocate of this redemptive historical preaching, where Christ is the hero of the

Bible. The Bible is about one person mainly. John chapter 5 verse 39.

You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is they that bear witness about me.

Now, what Scriptures was He talking about at the time? Now, you could say by implication, it is through the book of Revelation.

That's true. But these Scriptures He's talking about are in fact Moses, the writings, the

Psalms, whichever way you want to break them up with whatever vernacular, it's the Old Testament to us.

They bear witness about me, verse 39. Then it goes into verse 40. Yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.

So redemptive historical preaching, make sure we see the theme of redemption in Christ when we preach.

Why don't you turn your Bibles to... Well, let's see, what are we going to do?

I don't think we're going to be able to do much. All right, Ephesians chapter 3, maybe last passage.

Maybe not, as I said to the discipleship group this morning, remember when Paul said to the church of Philippi, finally, remember he said that?

When did he say finally? Finally, brethren, chapter 3, verse 1. He had all of chapter 3 left and all of chapter 4 left.

And by the way, since this is a Sunday night crowd and you're the double elect people, double elect usually like longer preaching.

So we just preach till we're done. While you're turning there, this is a major issue in evangelicalism right now.

It's more difficult to figure out exactly how to preach Christ from Esther How do you preach

Christ from a proverb? It's easy to say, how do I preach Christ from Genesis 2 in the fall?

How do I preach Christ from Psalm 110, a messianic psalm? How do I preach Christ from Psalm 2?

Easy. It becomes very difficult when you're in other parts of the passages, like how about David and Goliath?

What's the story of David and Goliath and how would you preach that? Well, you might say to yourself, the way

I preach it is, David didn't have very much faith because he picked up more than one stone. Have you ever preached it that way?

By the way, let me say it this way. If you don't preach redemptive historically, the sermons end up being as creative as the teacher is.

The ingenuity that the teacher has becomes the message. What's the story of David and Goliath?

And how many stones did he pick up? Five? Does that matter? You know what five represents?

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus. That's kind of origin, how he translates, how he interprets the

Bible. You know, I know congregation has been a rough week and you've probably got a few Goliaths in your life this week, don't you?

Some real giants of a problem. Is that the issue? What do you do with passages like that?

Well, you have to come back next time because I'm not going to talk about it tonight. But I'm telling you, redemptive historical teaching and preaching is going to be the solution.

So Philippians, excuse me, Ephesians chapter three, verse 11. As I was saying before, there's one purpose to scripture.

There's one person who is the pinnacle of that purpose. And I think this verse shows both of those.

One purpose, one person. Christ, especially his work on the cross is the climax of history.

And when you think about God, he doesn't have plans. It's one plan. So let me just read Ephesians 3, 11.

This was in accordance with the eternal purpose, which he carried out in Christ Jesus, our

Lord. One purpose. Remember, in God's mind, there are not purposes.

There are not plans. There are not procedures. There are not if -thens. It's singular.

God's word, you can see it even there, with the eternal purpose. There's a book about God as king, and it says this.

The most incredible aspect of the noun decree, our purpose, is its grammatical number.

Shockingly, the Bible consistently uses the singular when speaking of God's decree, our purpose.

In other words, the Bible proclaims that the divine king has one and only one decree. In God's supreme mind, there are no plan

Bs, no if -thens, and no what -ifs. God has no flowchart tracing human history that contains lines and arrows pointing in lots of crazy different directions.

More than that, he certainly does not have a plan that is in need of an eraser so that he can make changes to his edict when the unexpected happens.

God never needs any whiteout. If God were a chess player strategizing against human history, he would never hear check or checkmate for that matter from humanity.

Succession of thought is too human for God. And you should look at your passage in Ephesians 3.

With the eternal purpose. The eternal purpose of God helps me think redemptively because it's not multi -purposed.

It's one purpose. I could put it this way. The eternal purpose of God, the purpose of God, at the top of the list, highlights the

Great Commission. What is the Great Commission? Who can tell me? And you better not answer quickly because you're going to get it wrong. What's the

Great Commission? What do you normally think about the Great Commission? What do you think it typically is?

What's the Great Commission? Right? Going, therefore, make disciples by baptizing and by teaching.

Matthew 28. Lo, I'm with you always. Jesus is with us. That might be our

Great Commission. But as S. Lewis Johnson says, you want to know what the Great Commission really is?

The Father says to the Son in eternity past, go save the elect.

That's a Great Commission. Go redeem them as a love gift. Here it says in Ephesians 3,

He carried it out in Christ Jesus our Lord. The divine plan.

Of course, many splendored in its application. But at the top of the list, the work of Christ on earth, especially

His crucifixion and resurrection. 2 Corinthians 1, For all the promises of God find their yes in Him.

So when it comes to redemptive historical teaching, when we figure this out, we're going to see that God sent forth

His Son born of a woman born under law to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons.

That is going to be the theme. Now, here's what's happened in evangelicalism. And I think I probably should wrap this up.

How do you know it's a gospel -centered church? In the old days, here was a gospel -centered church. They give the gospel at the end of the church service.

They give an altar call at the end. They call people to salvation. And so the gospel is always given at the end.

And so you think, well, they give the gospel today, so it's a gospel -driven church. Is it wrong to give the gospel at the end of a sermon?

No, of course not. I think we've got a preacher on our hands. Can you imagine? It's fun, isn't it?

I like having kids around. I'll never forget as long as I live when we had the conference here, the RETS radio conference. And the kid over here was really bordering on too loud.

And Todd Friel said, I like that sound. We're not going to kick families out with kids. I mean, there's a time where, you know, it's the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few are one, right?

But anyway, this just sounds good. I want people to bring their kids on a Sunday night. Does anybody else mind? Who could dare raise their hand?

I mean, really, who would have the nerve? But it's not just a gospel -centered church when they give an altar call at the end or preach the gospel.

I'm glad that the gospel is talked about because it is of first importance. But when we think about this style, it can be laced throughout the message.

It could be at the beginning of the message. And that's what I've tried to do. I want you to think about this. Why does Mike do what he does?

Well, sometimes you might think, oh, he's irrational. But have you noticed, even the last year, a top -heavy emphasis on the gospel before we even get into the messages, before I tell you what you must do in light of the gospel.

It's premeditated. It's planned. It's not haphazardly thrown together. Oh, we'll talk about Jesus and then we'll talk about what you're supposed to do.

It's planned where the gospel, the whole picture of God's theme needs to be put together.

Because for too many years, true confessions, for a while, I was bugged at the tape ministry because I preached through Genesis, Exodus, Esther, Daniel.

I preached through Obadiah in one night, just to say I preached through another Old Testament book. And I couldn't believe they weren't online.

There's no Sunday night services when I got here. And so we said, we're going to do Old Testament, Genesis, Exodus, preaching verse by verse through those books.

And you know what I can say this with? True, I'm not saying this for hyperbole.

I'm so glad those messages aren't online. They were appalling. They weren't gospel -centered at all.

I'm sure Genesis 3 .15, I talked about the gospel. Genesis 15, I probably talked about the gospel.

Genesis 22, I talked about the gospel. But those things were horrible because I did not understand the concept of carrying out the eternal purpose of God in Christ Jesus, our

Lord. So I'm happy. So if you ever get any of those old things, you have to burn them. You have to get rid of them.

Or maybe Steve could edit the tapes. Or maybe we could play them on no compromise radio and see if we get any response.

Next time on Sunday night, we're going to talk about how specifically to do this. So if you're a Sunday school teacher or a

WANA teacher, how to make sure you keep authorial intent, but talk about who

Jesus is without just tacking him on at the end. I'll take that if that's it. But there are other ways to go about doing that.

And why it's important to do what we call redemptive historical teaching and how it keeps continuity.