I want you to turn in your Bibles
this morning, and I want to read one verse in the last book of
the Bible and in the last chapter, and that is the book of Revelation,
chapter 22. And this book has been used to
deceive so many and to distract them away from the One that it
is about. But while you're turning there,
I want to read the first verse of the book of the Revelation. The Revelation of Jesus Christ,
which God gave unto Him to show unto His servants things which
must shortly come to pass. and he sent and signified it
by his angel unto his servant John." In other words, whatever
that we might learn about in this last book of the Bible,
it is about Jesus Christ. This is the revelation of Jesus
Christ. The emphasis is Jesus Christ,
not beasts or dragons or any other such thing that might be
used to signify something. And I want you to look in Revelation
22 at the 16th verse where it says, I, Jesus, have sent mine angel
to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root
and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star."
Now, there will be a lot of preaching that goes on today in this world. And there will be one named Jesus
who will be spoken of. But all the preaching of the
gospel, all the preaching about somebody called Jesus is totally
in vain apart from the Spirit of God and the Word or truth
of God. An angel such as is mentioned
here is simply a messenger. Christ himself is called the
angel of the covenant or the messenger of the covenant. And every angel sent of God to
his people bears a witness or a testimony concerning the Lord
Jesus Christ. He says, I've sent him to testify,
to bear witness of these things, these things concerning Christ. He says, to the churches, and
in these things that we find testified or borne witness to
by divinely sent messengers has to do with Christ. If it is good news from God to
sinners, it is about Him because all the promises of God, That
is, every single promise of His grace is said to be yes and amen
in Christ. That is, they originate in Him,
they flow out of Him, they are bound up inseparably to Him,
they are made sure in the Lord Jesus Christ. And all those promises,
every single promise of God, the purpose that we read about
in Scripture of God, they all hang on one fundamental and essential
truth about this man, Jesus Christ. And that has to do with who He
is. That has to do with His glorious
person. Because if He is not who He said
He was, and who the prophets and apostles said He was, we
have no Savior. You can feel anything until you're
numb. But we have no Savior. You can believe what you want
to believe until you go out into eternity. But we'll have no Savior. We'll have no salvation. We'll have no real hope. no right to expect any good from
God whatsoever. And in this verse that we've
read this morning is a kind of summary in just a few words as
to who this Jesus Christ is revealed in Scripture to be. It's not my opinion, or your
opinion, or some denomination's opinion, or some old theologian's
opinion. It is what He has revealed in
Scripture to be and stated by Himself that He is. If you look at this verse, He
says, I am the root, and the offspring of David." I am the
root and offspring of David. Now, this man David was a very
special man. And I say that he was special
by God's grace. He revealed in himself the same
weaknesses, frailties of all humanity, but he was a blessed
man. He's described as the man after
God's own heart. But the One who is speaking here,
the One spoken of in all of Holy Scripture, He is the unique One. He is the One that is like no
other. And He has to be this unique
One in order to perform this unique task that God requires. And I got to thinking about this,
He is, and this is the title of this message, He is the Creator
and the Created Son. He is, this man Jesus Christ
is the Creator And at the same time, without
any contradiction, he is set forth in the Bible as a created
one's son. He is the root and the offspring
of David. And that's what he is exactly
stated to be, not just in this one verse, but everywhere throughout
Scripture. Because we say in man's wisdom
and man's imagined knowledge that such a thing as this cannot
be so. Because what is being said here
is something like this, he is both the parent and at the same
time the child. But more than that, He is, and
I like to write it like this, as one word. And I like to spell
the G with a capital G and break in it with an M in the capital
N. He is, as one, the God-man. The God-man. And He has to be
the God-man. absolutely God and absolutely
man, not half God and half man, but as one in His entirety, the
God-man. And while this is exactly the
opposite of what we think by nature, the exact opposite of
what so-called science would tell us, the exact opposite of
what we actually want to believe by nature. This is what the Scriptures
declare, and this is what God-given faith receives and believes. He is the root and the offspring
of David. This is Jesus Christ, or Jesus
of Nazareth, as He is called. And as man, He is the offspring
of David. Now, we had hints of this concerning
the Messiah before our parents were ever cast out of the garden. Because when God Himself, who
is called by old theologians, the Proto-Evangel, and that simply
means He is the first one, God Himself is the first one to herald
the gospel, the good news to these sinners who have just fallen
and their race. Because when He speaks concerning
the serpent, He speaks also of someone else. He says, "...and
I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy
seed and her seed." Now, that has to do with a special physical
relation with Adam and Eve. But it has to do more so of a
spiritual people pictured, and he says, "...it shall bruise
thy head." This one who is called the woman seed. He will bruise
the serpent's head or crush his head, though the serpent shall
bruise his heel." You might get bitten by a very poisonous stake
on the heel and surely you'll live. But one bite to the head,
you'll surely die. He will crush the serpent. And that means that Jesus Christ,
He is Jesus who is this offspring of David, and as such is God
in flesh. The Creator is the one who is
described here as one in a body. that God has given him. Paul
writes to Timothy, and this is what he says. This is always
an amazing verse. He says, and without controversy,
great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. justified in the Spirit, seen
of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the
world, received up into glory." He was manifested in the flesh. When Paul calls this a mystery,
a mystery in the biblical sense simply means something that has
to be revealed or made manifest. In other words, He was always
to be this as the Savior and Redeemer and Messiah. But this mystery has now been
made manifest and revealed, God Almighty Himself, not someone
lesser, and not for a brief period of time. Because it says here,
as such, He was received up into glory. But God Himself was manifested
in the flesh. Turn over to Matthew's Gospel,
the book of Matthew and chapter 22. Matthew chapter 22, and listen
to what is said around verse 45. when they are questioning Christ,
and He turns on them and asks them a question. Matthew 22,
verse 41, "...while the Pharisees gathered together, and they were
always asking Him questions." They were always thinking they
had Him tricked by their questions. But He always had the answer
and He always turned their questions on them. It says, "...Jesus asked
them, saying, What think ye of Christ? Whose Son is He?" Well,
they had the answer. They knew according to the Scriptures. They say unto Him, the Son of
David. You can ask us anything. We can
tell you. We know the facts. We know what
is true about the Messiah, though they did not know the truth about
the Messiah. He saith unto them, How then
doth David in spirit call him Lord? Now wait a minute. The one that you so easily describe
as the son of David. Why is it then that David, is
the one who also called him Lord, saying, The Lord said unto my
Lord, Sit thou on my right hand till I make thine enemies thy
footstool. If David then called him Lord,
how is he his son?" How can he be David's Lord? and at the same
time be David's son? How can David, by the leadership
of the Spirit of God, own him and confess him to be his Lord,
and at the same time, by the Spirit allow him to be called
David's son. And no man was able to answer
him a word, neither durst any man from that day forth ask him
any more question." I've always thought, if the Lord is pleased,
to teach us concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, this man Jesus
of Nazareth, if He's pleased to teach us how He is both David's
Lord and David's Son, He might well be pleased to teach us the
truth of the gospel, because it begins with who He is. Instead of us just simply swallowing
hook, line, and sinker that we are to believe on somebody by
the name of Jesus, or if we're to be found among those who will
simply believe on another Jesus who is not really the Christ
of God at all. Don't we first have to find out
who the Jesus really is? And the Bible says that He's
none other than God manifest in the flesh. He's the offspring
of David. But because we fell in a man,
and because as men we fell, And only one, therefore, in our nature
can save us, because only one in our nature can represent us
before God. No angel, such as those were
created in the beginning, can do so. No animal, I don't care
how many are slain on Jewish altars to picture Him, none of
them can save us. You see, we fell in Adam who
is called the first Adam, but the Lord Jesus Christ is by this
name shown to be the only other one that God would use to bring
us out of this state. He's called the last Adam. The
first man that represented us was a man. The second man that
represents God's people, He is a man. When you read Romans 5,
it says, "...for if by one man..." That's always the way it is.
So he had to be a man, and he is this one who stands as our
Savior, the man Christ Jesus. Paul, when he begins to write
in Romans 1, he begins to lay out these solid principles, these
solid doctrines of the gospel. And he identifies himself as
an angel or as a messenger that is sent from God. And he's sent
to preach this gospel. Well, what kind of gospel is
it? Concerning His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made
of the seed of David according to the flesh. We're not preaching
a fantasy. We're not declaring some mystical
person that you might be able somehow in a cloud of smoke or
something, reach out and be able to see or envision, we're preaching
this One who was made after the seed of David according to the
flesh. There is not a word in Scripture
that is so plain and so clear as to show us the necessity of
knowing Him. of relying on Him alone, of trusting
Christ alone. We read that verse in Acts 4,
"...neither is there any other name given under heaven among
men whereby we must be saved. One name, and it is the man Christ
Jesus." Why? Paul says, "...for there is one
God, and one Mediator between God and men." I'm not your Mediator. You could come after a service
and shake my hands a million times, walk up and down an aisle,
make your decision, do all these kind of things that people so
blindly are led to believe is the basis of their salvation. He says, for there is one Mediator
between God and men, Who is he? The man, not a man, the man,
Christ Jesus. He's the man Christ Jesus. He was so ordinary in his looks
that men and women walked by him and they just said, this
is just the carpenter's son. He is so plain. Isaiah described
him as a root out of a dry ground, having no comeliness that we
should in any way just look at him naturally and desire him. He had no halo around his head. He had no glow about him. But as a man, he had something
unique among men. You can gather up your best man,
You can gather up your highest standard among men, you can make
them the rule and measure by which to measure up how Jesus
Christ is in His person, and they'll all fall really short.
Because he's the only sinless man. Because he's the one without
spot and without blemish. He's the man who had no ill motive
in him. He's the one man who loved God
with all his heart, mind, soul, and spirit. He is that one who's
harmless and holy and undefiled and separate from sinners. He's
the perfect man. The prophet Samuel would say,
"...and when thy days be fulfilled, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers. I will set up thy seed after
thee, who shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish
his kingdoms." Plural. He's a man. Comes forth as the
seed of man. Acts 13, "...of this man's seed
hath God, according to His promise, raised unto Israel a Savior,
Jesus." I'm sure everybody is familiar with these verses in
Luke 1. I don't know how many times I
heard what was written in Luke 1 and Luke 2 when I was a kid
growing up. involved in all the religion
without God, without any knowledge of the truth, just parading that
little fairytale story at Christmas time and all these kind of things.
And behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth
a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. Little Jesus boy, you
know. He shall be great. and shall be called the Son of
the Highest. And the Lord God shall give unto
him the throne of his father David, and he shall reign over
the house of Jacob for ever." The house of Jacob? Jacob was
a wretched sinner. But thou shalt call his name
Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins. He'll come into this world. He'll
come according to the will and purpose of God, which is His
will also. He'll save all His people from
their sins. They're all sinners. You're a
sinner. I'm a sinner. And of His kingdom there shall
be no end. David as a man, that can never
be said of his kingdom, or Solomon, or any of the kings that we read
about in the Old Testament. This is the man Christ Jesus.
This is the Son of God. Luke 2, And the angel said unto
them, Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy,
which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day
in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord." The
Savior, which is Christ the Lord, was born a finite woman, brought
forth in the purpose and power of God the infinite Son of God
in flesh. He had needs such as hunger and
thirst. He sat down because He got tired. He drank water because He was
thirsty. Turn back to Isaiah chapter 9.
Isaiah 9 and verse 6. He says, "...for unto us a child
is born." Look at that next statement. Unto us a Son is given." The
one who's the child born is the Son who's not born, He's given. He's the God-Man. "...and the
government shall be upon His shoulder, and His name shall
be called Wonderful Counselor..." What does that say? The Mighty
God. The Everlasting Father. the Prince
of Peace, of the increase of His government and peace, there
shall be no end. Upon the throne of David and
upon His kingdom to order it and to establish it with judgment
and with justice from henceforth even forever. The zeal of the
Lord of hosts will perform this. Look over in chapter 11, verse
10, and in that day, That day appointed by God. That day ordained
of God. In that day there shall be a
root of Jesse. Somebody that will come out of
the household and lineage and loins of Jesse. Who is Jesse? David's father. Which shall stand
for an ensign to the people. What's that? A banner? Whenever
that flag is raised in the battle and that trumpet is sounded and
the men would run to the flag, to it shall the Gentiles seek
and His rest, be sure you get this part, and His rest shall
be glory. There's a man The Old Testament
prophets described him as a hiding place. A man shall be a covert
from the storm. A man shall be like a shelter,
a rock in the hot summertime. A man shall be as a refuge. When you read in the first chapter
of the Gospel of John, that 14th verse, he says, capital letters,
was made flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld His glory,
the glory as the only begotten of the Father, full of grace
and truth." He's the offspring of David. He's the man Christ
Jesus. And with great reason. But also, and at the same time,
and in the same person, He's the root of David. It always
amazes me in our day how people can just speak of the name of
Jesus, roll it off their tongues as if they had spoken of no more
than just some ordinary being. He's just Jesus. He's the root
of David. You see, the root is the hidden
source of life. The root is the cause of life. The root is the source of everything
that comes forth in life. So He's the Creator. He is the
Creator. He's the Creator God. In this
first chapter of John, in verse 3, it says of Him, "...all things
were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that
was made." That's just the way it is. That's as plain as it
can get. There was not anything that was
made that was not made by Him. You ever wonder, when you stop
and think about it, why men cling to and try to hold on to and
try to perpetuate notions and principles about a creation that
somehow evolved out of nothing? Why is that? Why? There's no
one but a fool would believe that. It's as if I looked on
my wrist and I found a watch and I said, well, that just happened
to be. It must have just evolved on
my arm somehow there. No, somebody made this watch. And when you open it up and you
look at the intricacies of everything in that watch, nothing but blind,
foolish unbelief could ever believe that it just somehow came into
being. No. But it is an attempt to cease
from God. Number one, His very existence. Number two, the truth that He
created all things and therefore all things are accountable to
Him, most especially because He did so in this person of the
Lord Jesus Christ. He's God. In Revelation 5 it
says, "...and one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not. Behold, the line of the tribe
of Judah, the root of David, hath prevailed." to open the
book and to loose the seven seals thereof." What book is that?
The book of God's purpose. The book of redemption. The Lamb's
book of life. Just one. He alone is the one
who is kind of like, I liken him to a Cinderella slipper.
Do you remember Cinderella? When the prince went looking
for her after the ball to find out that one special unique one,
the only one who could wear this slipper, and he tried the slipper
on all the maidens in the land and none would fit until Cinderella
was tested. Those in her own family said,
not her. Nobody in the kingdom thought
her. And this book, with all its prophecies, all its promises,
if it's only one, and that's Jesus Christ. Because He's the
only one who's not only perfect, sinless, holy man, but is the
very God-man Himself. He hath prevailed. When John,
in the first chapter of John, said, the Word was made flesh
and dwelt among us, he said that after he says what he says in
the first verse. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. You say, preacher, can you explain
all that to me? The Incarnation. of Jesus Christ
in human flesh, the God-man in human flesh, that's way beyond
me. And if I could only benefit from
that which I could define and describe and explain, I'll be
honest with you, I wouldn't have anything much in the natural
world. I don't understand exactly how a substance can be water
and vapor and ice, a solid at the same time. I don't understand
how you can flip a switch when you walk through that door, and
before you can even get in the room, the light comes on. This
is what we're commanded to believe in Scripture. Because this is
the Word of God. This is the Word of God. The
Word was with God, made flesh, and yet God. And on every hand
an assault goes on concerning this truth. Some advance it or
seek to advance it, such as Unitarian notions. to somehow do away with
the deity or the Godhood of Jesus Christ. They do it in subtle
ways. They do it through seminaries. They do it through all the various
writings and all these kind of things. Why? Because men by nature
want to believe that. They can advance it like that.
Some, like the Muslims, take and make Him no more a prophet
or really less than a prophet from a whole lot of other people.
And they'll use the sword to advance that belief if necessary.
It doesn't change the fact of what He is, Ron. He is none other
than God. You'll bear forth a child and
you'll call His name Immanuel. That's what the prophet said.
He said, which being interpreted is God with us. God with us. He's deity. And the reason being,
Because God, this inflexibly just and holy God that we have
sinned against, this God who said, the soul that sins shall
surely die. The wages of sin is death. only God can satisfy. The debt of sin for the multitude
of the sins of all God's elect over all of time is such a price,
is such a debt, is such a death that only one who is the God-man
and satisfy God. That's why nowadays people don't
know what Jesus Christ is doing on the cross. They don't know
what happens when He says, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken
Me? He didn't say that because He
didn't know. He said that in order for His
people to find out what His death was about, and that the fact
that the Lord had laid on Him, or charged to His account, all
the sins of His people, and He was now being separated from
God because of that, and would be separated in death. He wanted
me to hear that. You say, was He really dying
for my sin? He had none of His own. There
was no reason in Himself personally for God to separate Himself from
Him. But this holy, thrice holy God,
who cannot look upon sin, turned His eyes away from the Savior,
hanging there on that cross as a man, because only a man can
die. Only a man can die. What's the
price for sin? Death. What's required of my
sin? Die. But only a man can die. But if he's a man like me, I
wish sometimes people in there thinking about these things,
about imputation and all, I wish they would just... Remember the
obvious from this book, and that is, a sinner cannot die for a
sinner. A sinner cannot save a sinner. If it could happen, there'd be
no need for Christ to have ever become a man. He's not only a
man, He's the infinite God. So the worth and the value of
His sacrifice, you need not even talk about it. Because the Bible
never speaks of it in that sense. It always speaks of it in a particular
way. Now, if you want to know something
about the God-man, who is, even as a man, hanging on the cross,
the absolute sovereign of the universe, it says, He gave up
the ghost. Things were not out of control
on that cross. They were in His control. The
nails did not bind him to that cross. He bound himself to that
cross. He said, I laid down my life
for He purchases the church with His own blood. When Paul said
that, he was saying He is God and He is man, and being such,
He was able to purchase or redeem the church. with his own. They gathered around him when
he said to a man that he was about to raise up from a bed
as a man who'd been there paralyzed all his days. He said, thy sins
be forgiven thee. Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.
Do you know what the Pharisees said? They said, who can forgive
sin but God alone? He said, just to show you which
is greater. He said, son, you take up your
bed and walk. As God, He not only had the power. to raise Him up, control over
the natural bodies of men, the elements of the air such as the
storm, all that, but also He alone as God can forgive sin. And He hangs on that cross, bearing
the sins of His people in His own body on that tree. My wretchedness,
and it seems like the older I get, the more wretched I get, the
more I find myself in myself being so totally and impossibly
what God could have any favor of." He's hanging on that cross.
He's saying, thy sins be forgiven. They said, if you were really
the Christ, you'd come down from that cross. Oh, no. If you're
the Christ, You're going to be on that cross. And that's why
what this gospel is about is not me telling you how good you
are, or my telling you what you're to do. The gospel has to do with
me telling you who He is, and telling you what He's done for
sinners, and how He has this God-man to do it. Somebody always asks, how can
one man? You're always talking about Jesus
Christ. Got like one note on a piano, just hammering that
one. How can one man have ever accomplished the salvation of
a multitude of sinners? because of who He is. That's
why I want to know and be reminded of again and again who He is,
because unbelief is as natural to me as a sneeze and a sniffle. Tell me who He is, so I can rest
in what He's done. I can confidently rest in Him
who of whom it was said, He said before Abraham was, I am. Micah said He's from everlasting.
He's David's Son, and He's David's Lord, and He's now on the throne,
having conquered, having saved, having brought in righteousness. So the Gospel command is, believe
on Him. Well, I believe in Him, Preacher.
It's not what it says. It says the devils believe in
Him, and they tremble. It says, believe on the Lord
Jesus. That means, trust all in. Rest all. Come unto me, all ye
that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." And
I'm confident of this. Everyone that the Spirit of God
brings to know themselves as the sinners they are, they will,
everyone, rest in and trust in only Christ. They will not plead
their works before God, which are altogether tainted with sin. They'll plead His blood. They'll
trust in what He accomplished in His life and death on their
behalf. And they'll find rest for their souls. We rest in what
He accomplished. The whole work of salvation.
That whole work of righteousness. Because of who He is. Because
He's able to save to the uttermost. Them that come to God by Him. He's the root and the offspring
of David. He's the only Savior there is.
He's the only hope there is. We're coming to a point in this
world in which I don't know exactly what to expect. I really don't.
I don't know what you and I, or our children, or our grandchildren,
will be faced with. Things are happening that are
just totally out of reason, but there's one stable thing, and
that's the man Christ Jesus. He sits on the throne as the
God-man, and He's made that throne to be a throne of grace, and
He commands His people, He says, to the throne of grace in your
times of need that you might find help. Do you need any help?
I need a lot of help. Number one with myself. Do you
need mercy? Grace? Savior? There he is. Enthroned as God in the person
of a man. the man Christ Jesus. You remember
what those angels said about His coming? This same Jesus,
He's going to come again. Christ said, when I come again,
I'll receive you unto Myself. God helped us to look to Christ
and not have our minds, our hopes, our trust directed toward anything
else but Him. Father, this day we give you
praise and thanksgiving for the blessed Lord Jesus that you made
to be the Savior and Redeemer and righteousness of your people,
counted us to be as His branches what He is, Lord, as the root
and offspring of David. We thank you for your mercies.
Save and help and comfort your people for His sake. We pray
in His name. Amen.