Amen. All right, if you've turned
in your Bible to Acts chapter 12 I'm gonna read starting at
verse 6 and then I'll go through again verse 12 and that's where
we will stop and we'll work through our outline which will probably
cover us through verse 11 For tonight if we can get there Verse
6 and when Herod would have brought him forth the same night Peter
was sleeping between two soldiers bound with chains, and the keepers
before the door kept the prison. And behold, the angel of the
Lord came upon him, and a light shined in the prison. And he
smote Peter on the side and raised him up, saying, arise quickly,
arise up quickly. And his chains fell off from
his hands. And the angel said unto him,
gird thyself and bind on your sandals. And so he did. And he
said unto him, cast your garments about you and follow me. And
he went out and followed him, not knowing whether it was true
or not that which was done by the angel, but thought he saw
a vision. And when they were past the first
and second ward, they came unto the iron gate that leads unto
the city, which opened to them of its own accord. And they went
out and passed on through one street and forthwith the angel
departed from him. And when Peter was come to himself,
He said, now I know of a surety that the Lord has sent his angel
and has delivered me out of the hand of Herod and from all the
expectation of the people of the Jews. And when he had considered
the thing, he came to the house of Mary, the mother of John,
whose surname was Mark, where many were gathered together praying. And we'll stop right there. If
you have your outline, you can follow me under our third point. Quickly rehearsing points number
one and two, which we developed fully last week as we looked
at Herod, the one who was precipitating the persecution against the apostles. And we saw that this was part
of the legacy of the Herodian dynasty to persecute the apostles,
to persecute Christ, and to persecute John the Baptist. So this covered
a period from about 80 26 to 80 35 6 or 7 right about now we might
be in around the year 80 37 in Acts chapter 12 so 80 26 to 80
37 is a good 10 or 11 years a decade of hostility on the part of the
Herodians in the book of Matthews we considered the Herodian who
wanted to kill Jesus as a baby child We considered in the gospel
of Matthew and Luke the Herodian Herod who did actually behead
John the Baptist. And then we considered last week
as we're looking at now this particular Herod who is seeking
to kill the apostles. That trend is in them because
we are dealing with a spiritual reality and that spiritual reality
is this, that the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light
are not mutual kingdoms There's nothing about the two systems
that can be harmonized. And wherever Jesus is communicated
as Lord and Savior, political systems are threatened. Wherever
Christ is communicated as actual monarch, king, and sovereign,
political authorities are threatened. So if you don't know that, you
need to understand that mankind outside of a right relationship
with God is an enemy of God. And because he's an enemy of
God, he is threatened by the rule of God, threatened by the
sovereignty of God, threatened by the monarchial majesty of
God. Unsaved man does not mind the
depiction of God, as long as he's nice and kind and gentle. And this is why the predominant
adjective or description of God today in the West is he's a loving
God, because we cannot tolerate a God who is holy and just and
punishes sin because that makes us all culpable and all vulnerable
to the judgment of God. So we'd rather paint a picture
of God as being benevolent, kind, gentle, and fundamentally harmless. And because that is the propensity
in the heart of mankind, the only kind of religion that politics
will tolerate is a religion that does not have any kind of judicial
component to it on the part of a deity, any kind of of reprimand
or judgment or vindication of a violation of God's law. They
can't tolerate that because mankind functions as a monarch himself.
He functions as a king and a ruler, a despot. He functions as a an
authority over people and the moment that he has to contemplate
another king another monarch then he himself is put on a judgment
seat just like the rest of us and so politically you can understand
that if if American Christianity took a position of believing
that our kingdom was of this world and a physical kingdom
to be had by force or by authority because we recognize Jesus Christ
as Kyrios or Lord, it would follow that governments would be scared
of the church because the church then would press home the logical
consequence of the Lordship of Christ. And this is why with
Islam taking a caliphate position of wanting to impose Sharia law
on humanity as if that was the God-ordained means by which people
are to be governed, the logical consequence of that system is
topple government, destroy princes and rulers, force people to submit
themselves to Sharia law. That is a logical conclusion
if you define your system, your kingdom, the institution that
you're a part of as political. Why would you serve a God whose
worldview given to you through whatever revelation he gives
you is to be in literal and absolute control over all peoples of the
world, even rulers, even governments, even powers that exist on a political
level and not push that theology to its ultimate end. And so you
can see how viewing Christianity or viewing any kind of religion
where there's a a monarch, a sovereign ruler in control, that if you
don't define the nature and character of that kingdom in a way that
does not actually conflict with political kingdoms, the necessary
outcome is hostility between earthly kingdoms and this religious
system that you're a part of. Even with Christianity, there
is a kind of recognition that we are in a battle. there's a
kind of recognition that we are at war with the systems of this
world. Is that true? there's a real
understanding that we are waging warfare against this world system. But because Christ clearly defined
the fundamental objective and nature of the kingdom of God
as expressed in the church as being spiritual and not of this
world, we have rightly adduced from that proposition that we
don't fight with fleshly swords, We don't fight with material
weapons. We are not engaged in a carnal warfare. We're not trying
to topple governments so that they bow the knee to Jesus Christ
on a political level. The kingdom of God is a kingdom
that is spiritual in nature and its objective is to change the
hearts of men. The kingdom of God is spiritual
in nature and therefore its objective is to change the hearts of men. With that being the case, while
on the part of the Christian who is very clear that my role
is not to be a threat to a government, but my role is to influence men
and women to live for Christ for eternity and time on a new
ethic, on a new moral based upon a right relationship with God
so that our character change. our behavior changes, our affections
change, and our relationship with our fellow man is one largely
that is positive, meaning that we behave towards our fellow
man in a manner that amounts to love. And when the Bible says
love works no ill towards its neighbor, that's what we mean.
So the kingdom of God being righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost
has as its foundation, our premise, charity. So the people of God,
their objective is to love men into an understanding of who
God is, not hate them, and certainly not destroy them in the flesh,
knowing that if we were to kill men physically with the sword
prior to our weapons, prior to their conversion, we aid and
abet their damnation. You follow that logic? If I feel
as if somehow I'm doing God's bidding because I'm taking people
and killing them Before they are converted and come to know
the Lord in a true state of regeneration I'm aiding and abetting and I
am advancing their destruction How does that glorify the cross
work of the God-man who died for all nations of men? It actually
militates against it, doesn't it? If somehow I have an ethic
that the more we kill, the quicker people will subdue under us,
that ethic would militate against what we're trying to do, and
that is reach the hearts of men and women, reach the hearts.
And so the ministry of Christianity has to be one that that understands
that we are seeking to penetrate the enmity between God and man
on a spiritual level. And so for us, it's a matter
of words. And for us, it's a matter of
behavior. For us, it's a matter of communicating biblical truth,
trusting that the spirit of God would use God's word to change
the hearts of men and women. We have not come to that portion
of the book of Acts yet, but we will, where Paul will be standing
before dignitaries on a par of senators and presidents, and
he will be sharing the word of God with them. That is something
that we should all want to occur. that all of our leaders, whether
they are congressmen, mayors, senators, governors, presidents,
would be confronted with someone who is truly a child of God,
who knows biblical truth, and has the wisdom to communicate
to them on that level of their responsibility. so that they
might be confronted with the truth of the scriptures, be converted,
and therefore be used of God in a positive way even in this
world system. Since we've already accepted
the premise that the apostles set down in Romans 13, that every
government that is set up is a government that's set up under
the supervision of God. that those governments therefore
answer to God ultimately for what they do. And the Christian
is there to actually assist governments in how to do their job in a fashion
that actually benefits humanity. I say all that to say this, Peter
is in a situation where Herod, like his father and his grandfather,
is threatened by the ministry of the gospel and threatened
by this one name, Jesus. Because Jesus is Lord in the
mind of this growing band of believers all throughout Jerusalem,
Judea and Samaria, because Jesus is Lord, Herod is worried about
a movement becoming so massive that it could topple his little
peonic kingdom. And so what is he doing? He's
playing politics, as we learned last week, because it pleased
the Jews. He killed some and he put Peter
in prison. Remember that? So we dealt with
that under points number one and two. They will lay hands
on you, point number two, the unbelieving Jew contrary to all
men. And now we're at point number three in our outline right here,
the providence of prison, a type of our spiritual condition. So
I want to now begin to develop what's taking place in this portion
of scripture. Now, this actually gets into
biblical interpretation as we are working through in our women's
theology class. And you guys might as well If
you haven't been exposed to our method of hermeneutic, you might
as well be exposed to it now. When you read your Bible, you
must understand the context in which you are reading it, the
genre of the language, the history, the culture, the times. But you
also must also understand that there is a redemptive implication
in everything that the scripture says, that out of the narrative,
or out of the prose or out of the writings is a message that
is spiritual in nature to be derived. So out of the accounts
that occur as fantastic as they may be, they may be very exciting.
The Book of Acts is a wonderful narrative. I enjoy it thoroughly
just on a historical level. But if I were to simply tell
you that what we're dealing with in Acts chapter 12 is the persecution
and molestation of the apostles and leave it at that, there would
be no application to you and I. Why would I say that? Because
you and I are not in prison, as I prayed. You and I are not
being threatened by government rulers, as I pray. You and I
are not being put in a position where capital punishment is a
threat hanging over our head. You and I are not in this context
on a literal level. So how do we take away, infer? How do we understand the implications
of that text on a practical level? The way you do it is recognize
that the Bible is redemptive in its nature. In other words,
it has a spiritual message to us to be apprehended and comprehended
when we read the scriptures. What is the message of redemption? What is the lesson that we take
away from the text? What's his lesson and what's
its application? When you are reading your Bible
like that, you are being what we call rhetorical in terms of
rules of grammar. God is speaking. He said something. But now what is he saying to
me? That's what we always want to do as Christians. We don't
only want to read the text in terms of its historical information
and say, that's interesting. That's fine. We want to say,
but what is God saying to me through that? And so as we deal
with, um, the account that's before us, there's a type of
our, this is a type of our spiritual condition. Peter in prison is
a type of our spiritual condition prior to our conversion. And
this is an interesting proposition that I'm about to share with
you. Sometimes what God does, and I actually mean, I actually
believe he does it frequently, is he'll take believers in the
scriptures and put them in situations that will prefigure or represent
or typify our unregenerate state or our lost state to show us
through them how God delivers us out of our lost state into
a state of right standing with God and blessing before God.
He will take his believers through that. And sometimes you'll be
wondering why the believer in the scripture will be making
certain comments and statements about themselves And all it is,
is that God is simply in His providence using them as a model
and an example to us. A verse for you to keep in mind
with regards to that is Romans 15, 4. Romans 15, 4. And this
is what I meant by a rhetorical reflection of Scripture. When
you read the Scriptures, you ask, what is God saying to me? You're not asking, what do I
think about this passage? What's my opinion and view about
this passage? God's not asking you your opinion
or your view What the Spirit of God would have you to do because
you are a covenant child is raised the question Lord. What are you
saying to me? Well, I was talking with my sisters
upstairs shortly before the class and we were talking about how
people have different methods and approaches to reading the
Bible in a whole year, covering Genesis to Revelation in a whole
year. And we were talking about how difficult it is to read your
Bible consistently daily to cover the whole of the Bible in one
year. And what I shared with them is that, you know, there
is no one-size-fits-all method for reading your Bible in one
year. You'll get all kinds of techniques and methods from different
people on how to do this. Start with Genesis. Read Genesis
1 through 3. Then read Matthews 1 through
2. Then read, you know, 1 Corinthians 3 through 5. Then go back and
do something else. You will never ever achieve that
goal if you are somebody that's not indolent, lazy, sitting around
doing nothing all day long. If you're a hardworking person,
are given to industry, and have things to do on a daily basis,
you will never read your Bible in one year. And if you want
to, you can take that shackle off right now and say, thank
you, Jesus. Because, as I have taught this class, and this is
a key for you, the Bible was meant to be heard more than read. The Bible was meant to be heard
more than read. Let that sink into your hearing.
Yes, reading is a privilege. Reading is a benefit. Reading
is a joy. Reading is a responsibility for
those of us who live in this kind of first world country where
we can have five and 10 and different Bibles and, and, and study helps
of all sorts. Yes, it's a privilege and we
should do it. If we want to be diligent in
the word, we've got to put our time in. Yes. If we're going
to be people that Go about telling other people about the Bible
and communicating to people accurately biblical truth. We better get
to know the Bible and we better get to know how the Bible is
put together, what its message is and how to communicate that
truth to people cogently. This is what we're learning in
our women's theology class. And so you're going to have to
learn how to spend time in the word of God in order to be able
to rightly communicate biblical truth. You got to know the narrative
of all of scripture. You got to be able to know the
Bible from Genesis to Revelation because it's a running narrative.
Is it not? It's a running narrative from
the beginning of time to the end of time in order to communicate
biblical truth accurately You got to know the beginning of
the story and the end of the story and the progressions in
between That means a primary Preoccupation of the student
of scripture. It's just reading the Bible just
to know what it says That's the first part of how God communicates
to you. When you read your Bible, not
to analytically and exegetically tear it apart to try to find
out what it means, you read it so that you can hear from God. So that you can acquire in your
mind a memory of Genesis and Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers
and Deuteronomy and all of the books of the Bible that we have
preciously bound together in our canon. You read it so that
you can be familiar with this narrative. So when you hear the
Bible communicated like you are doing right now, you are not
completely lost. Am I making some sense? Let me
drive home that point, this particular point that I'm settling in your
soul for people who also are at a disadvantage by nature. Everyone is not inclined to reading. As Solomon said in Ecclesiastes,
Much study wearies the flesh. Some people, at the thought of
opening their Bible, start getting sleepy. It's just true. Right. And you can know that that is
either a part of your natural disposition or whether or not
it's sin. Here's how you can know whether
it's a part of your natural disposition or it's sin. If you can read
all kinds of other books, and stay excited about other books,
it's sin. It's sin that you're not reading
your Bible. Are you hearing me? But if every time you open up
any book, you start sawing wood, it's a natural disposition to
you that you don't have an inclination to read. So you can discern whether
or not you're in sin Whether it could see if you don't have
a priority to know God, but you you're ready to stick your nose
and all kind of other as it were extracurriculum activities and
and Novelties and you're ready to read all day and you got your
light on and you can't wait till you get in the car Now you're
in sin because now you have prioritized this world over the things of
God especially when and I'm getting ready to drive home a point you
and I are privileged to have Bibles and I've shared with us
before as we work through biblical theology, not biblical theology,
but bibliology, the vast majority of the Christian world has lived
and died without Bibles in their hands. The vast majority. This is true. Think it through.
Can you imagine in your mind from the first century throughout
church history to this present time, can you even conceive of
it being actual, factual, that every Christian had a Bible in
their hand? A full 66 volume book of the word of God. Can
you conceive of that? If you can, you're conceiving
a myth, a myth. The vast majority of Christians
never even have the possibility of having the word of God in
their hand. And yet we've had Christians
thriving and functioning in every country around the world. Why?
Because leadership was called to know the word of God. And
leadership was called to communicate biblical truth to the sheep who
were privileged to hear. Because faith comes by what?
And hearing by what? So if leadership was faithfully
communicating biblical truth, the Spirit of God is using that
truth to communicate to the sheep Now they're living for Jesus
walking with Jesus How be it limited in their ability to reflect
upon what was taught because they have no Bible to study But
they do have Jesus and they do have the Spirit of the Living
God. Am I making some sense to you? so so you can you can ask
yourself, you know, how do I How do I feed on God's word and how
do I feed on biblical truth? How do I grow largely in terms
of the method and instrumentality that God uses for me? Brings
to me in my life for sanctification and growth. Well, if you are
a person like I am I love reading It's the Word of God. It's study
helps and exegetical helps and commentaries I just love that
but I do that with other disciplines as well. I also love hearing
and And I enjoy the fact that technology allows us to hear
information all the time. We have such a plethora of good
material to listen to, to watch and to read in the world like
no other time in human history. Knowledge has increased. And
so it's available to us if we are persons who are committed
to growth in character, because growth in character only comes
through knowledge. You don't grow in your character by sitting
around navel gazing and putting your fingers together, humming,
you know, meditational prayers. You only grow in character by
feeding on truth. Wisdom comes propositionally,
it comes experientially, and it comes what we call evidentially
or by testimonies. So we are listening to wise person
peoples telling us about things that are important in our life.
And our character is shaped by that. Is that not so? Our character
is shaped by knowledge. So the Proverbs would talk about
fools feeding on folly. But the wise man's head, wise
man's head is in his heart or his heart is in his head. And
we tend to those things that are above. So the goal of wise
men and women is to spend large portions of their diet, spiritual
diet, growing in grace and in the knowledge of God, because
you don't change without it. So with that kind of a scale,
you know that we can find ourselves growing and advancing in our
knowledge of God, or we can be very slow and very retarded in
our growth, depending on our slothfulness or diligence, correct?
Okay, so I say that to say that when you are reading your Bible,
you are privileged to have your eyes on the text like you did
when we read. And what we want to say to God is, God, what are
you saying? And the privilege of being in a first world country
like you and I are, is that we have all kinds of study helps
and gifts, such as teachers, to be able to help us understand
what God is saying. Here's a five-fold rule, and
some of you guys, you can write this down if you want to. We
may have copies in the background, but in terms of biblical interpretation,
there are five approaches that are important if you're going
to be a good communicator of the truth, at least an accurate
communication. of the truth, biblical interpretation.
You're going to have to be committed to understanding the scriptures
in terms of their literal meaning. And you got to know what that
means too. So you probably better get our CDs to know what that
means. But then also after the literal, understand the historical
context involve the historical meaning. There are meanings inside
the history That's critical. And then we deal with what is
called grammar, having some grammar understanding and those rules
are available. Our fourth one we call theological. So we deal with a five. full
system, call a theological interpretation, and then ultimately our redemptive
interpretation, literal, historical, grammatical, theological, and
redemptive. That five-fold approach is what you are conscious of
when you read your Bible. What is it saying? What is the
time in which these things are written? What covenants are in
view? To whom is God talking? What is God doing in this text? How is he operating? How is he
moving? I'm not reading Reader's Digest. I'm not reading, you
know, any of Hamlet's prose. I'm not reading any Aesop's fables. I'm reading the Word of God.
So behind the narrative, God is acting and I want to know
what God is up to. And finally, I want to understand
the gospel in that text. I want to understand the gospel.
Where's Christ in these scriptures? So as we're getting ready to
do now, we're going to be dealing with the redemptive connotation. I can actually quickly show you
how we followed already the literal. We have dealt with the historical.
I dealt with that last week with Reherod. Remember that? We went
through that. We understand the timetable that
we're dealing with, the culture that we're in. I often deal with
grammar when I call your attention to nuances in the original language.
The theological component is where we say, see what God is
up to, what God is up to in that text. I want to know what God
is doing. And finally, I want to see how he brings forth some
aspect of his redemptive purpose for us in Christ. Those questions
are critical to your reading the Bible and benefiting from
it and benefiting from it. So we are now going to contemplate
how that and historical text. now serves as a model of redemptive
truths by which you and I are taught over and over again, how
God saves us and then make his application to us. So as I quoted
in Romans 15, four, those things that were written a four time
were written for our learning. Those things that were written
before time were written for our learning, not just for our
awareness, but our learning so that we through patience and
consolation of the scriptures might have hope just like the
Old Testament saints. The Old Testament saints gave
their lives. The Holy Ghost wrote those things down. He gave them
to us. And he said to us, read how they
were kept by God, how they were used by God, how they were saved
by God, how they were delivered by God and use it as a paradigm
in your own life. That's what we mean by application
of those truths. So here are a couple of points
under verse six, look at verse six with me in chapter 12. And
I'll be using all five rules all the time seamlessly and I
want to call attention to them because that's just part of my
system. Peter, therefore, was kept in prison. Do you guys see
that? But prayer was made without ceasing of the church under God
for him in verse four. And when he had apprehended Peter,
that is Herod, he put him in prison and delivered him to four
quaternions of soldiers to keep him intending after Easter to
bring him forth to the people. Peter therefore was kept in prison,
kept in prison. Who captured Peter? Herod. What did he do? He put him in
the prison. How did he secure Peter? By a
quaternium of soldiers. At that point, I have to know
a little bit about grammar. Because if I use the word quaternium
to you, it's over your head unless you've already studied it. But
you expect me as your teacher to know that you possibly do
not know what a quaternium is. Well, we break the word down
phonetically, break it down etymologically. We know we're dealing with what?
Fours. a group of four soldiers. That's what a quaternium is.
However, this is four times four, which means there are 16 soldiers
that Herod put as an assignment to hold Peter in prison. Now,
these four would occupy four watches in a 24-hour period,
which means each watch would be consistent of how many hours?
Six hours. So for six hours, four soldiers
are watching Peter. The next six hours, another four.
The next six hours, another four after that. Herod is quite concerned
with Peter possibly escaping to put that many soldiers around
one man. So the term quaternium means a set of four soldiers.
Two are inside the prison actually tied to Peter. Two are right
outside the gate watching Peter in the gate. That's how serious
Herod is about keeping this dude and bringing him out before the
bloodthirsty Jews as a lamb to be slaughtered the next day. You guys get the picture? You
get the picture? And this is where grammar is
critical in understanding what's going on. Because you read your
Bible, you read verses and statements in your Bible you don't understand.
You got to go to work and find out what that means. Or your
teacher better be sharp enough to tell you what's going on.
And so when he had apprehended, he caught Peter, he put him in
prison, and he delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers
to keep him intending after Easter. The word Easter, there's a bad
translation. I'm back to grammar rules again.
It's a bad translation. Pascha is the word for Paschal
from which we get Passover. It should be translated Passover.
They did not observe Easter. Whose fault is that? That's King
James fault. Our Bibles are English Bibles
written in the 17th century, around 1609 through 1613, 1415,
several different editions. But they chose to use the word
Easter because they were doing what most artists do, taking
liberties. They weren't waiting for Easter.
Who is waiting for Jesus' resurrection? These are Jews. They're observing
Passover. We already know that because
unleavened bread is simultaneously tied to the Passover feast, which
you also are learning in your women's theology class. This
is why this stuff is important. So I'm talking to you historically
and grammatically right now, also literally, because I have
not conveyed any kind of symbolic or typological interpretation.
I'm just giving you a historical, a literal and a grammatical interpretation. Is that true? That's all we're
doing. And it's not hard when you know the rules, but it's
important if I'm going to paint a picture for you. Because I
want you to be able to see. So the teacher labors so that
you can see. And explaining words accurately
and putting them together in a cogent fashion helps you see. So you and I are seeing that
Herod is desperate and he's putting a host of soldiers around Peter.
I'll talk about that a little bit more down the line when we
deal with the idea of our deliverance. But he does this. And Peter therefore
was kept in prison, but prayer was made without ceasing unto
the church. So let's just deal with point number three. Point
number three, you can pull that back up. The providence of prison,
the providence of prison. What do I mean by that? Prison
sentences is what God has instituted from the foundation of the world
under what we call the law mandate. He gave mankind rights and privileges
and blessings in Adam. And he told Adam, you can have
everything, but there's a boundary. There's a limitation. There's
a limit to what you can do because I'm God and not you. Now, the
moment that you lose your mind, Adam, and start thinking you're
God, you're going to jail. I'm just going to use that analogy
right now. The moment you start clowning God, you're going to
jail. Now, let's quickly make an application to you and me,
because this can be taken on as an application. The moment
you think that you can clown God, you are going to jail. You know how we play Monopoly
and violate the rules? You go straight to what? Jail.
Whenever you sin against God, you are going to jail. Is that
true? See, obedience to Christ renders
freedom. Disobedience to Christ renders
bondage. So I'm just making the application
right now. I won't deal with the characteristics of that application.
Your soul already knows what I'm saying is true. And so, contentually,
what we have here is a spiritual condition of our status before
being regenerate or being born again. Every man, woman, and
child, apart from Christ, is a slave of sin. Do you guys believe
that? That's our first proposition, slaves of sin. So, in Romans
chapter 6, verse 20 through 23, I want you to see how the apostle
sets this down, and we'll get a chance in our Sunday series
to work through this most eloquently. But here's what the apostle says
in verse 20, as he reflects upon our condition prior to conversion. He says, for when you were the
slaves of what? Slaves of sin, you were free
from righteousness. You guys see that? Now that statement
needs to be explained. I'm not gonna take a long time
to develop it. Well, what that means is there was no intrinsic
goodness in you while you were unsaved. Free from righteousness
means that you and I never ever did anything good. So right here
I can argue against a whole lot of the false assumptions that
are established in Christianity around the basic goodness of
mankind. Mankind outside of Christ is
a slave. He's free from righteousness. He's not free to righteousness
nor free in righteousness. That's ours when we're saved.
While as yet we are unsaved, we are slaves of sin. You know
what that means? All we do is sin. We're in the bondage of
sin, the bondage of iniquity. We think sinful thoughts, we
have sinful motives, and we engage in sinful acts when we don't
know God, because we are a slave of the devil. Is that true? You'll
hear it again on Sunday, but I'll tell it to you now. Jesus
said to the rulers of the church, you are of your father, the devil,
and because you are of your father, the devil, the works of your
father, you must do. Every tree bears fruit of its
own kind. So where a man or a woman is
detached from Disconnected from the true source of life. The
only fruit we can bear is death And that's what romans 6 affirms
clearly that the fruit that men bear outside of christ are fruits
of death For when you were the service of sin, you were free
from righteousness. Just look at verse 21 What fruit had you then
in those things where of you are now what? see Now even that
term ashamed is what we would call an evangelical fruit Because
when you are unsaved, you're not ashamed of your sin. You
gloat in your sin. You love your sin. You boast
in your sin. Unsaved people boast in their
transgressions and in their iniquities. Until you are converted and are
given the same kind of nature of God, you love sin and hate
righteousness. until you are converted and given
God's nature so that you think God's thoughts after him and
agree with God from a state of being born again. Because the
only way you can think like God thinks is to be born again. The
only way you can love what God loves is to be born again. The
only way you can enjoy the things that God enjoys is to have the
nature of God in you. When men and women are truly
born again, they have the nature of God in them. Oh, how love
I thy law. It is my meditation all the day
long. I enjoy, I love, I delight, I
rejoice in your statutes and in your precepts. I love everything
about God when I'm born again. A new nature does that. Because
he's my father, I love him. I'm his child. I am born of God
and thus, by nature, I love the things of God. Is that true?
Yes, indeed. That's one of the ways, you know,
you're born of God one of the ways and so while as you and
I am not saved I'm free from righteousness, which means I
can't do good. That means I have no power to
do good. I don't want to do good. That means my will is in bondage
to sin. It's not free to obey God. So
the notion of free will is a myth while as yet you are a slave
to sin. Let me ask you a question. When
a man or a woman is a slave in any kind of sense, do they have
the prerogative of exercising their own will? That's right.
That's exactly right. That's the typical picture that's
taking place here with Peter. Like if Peter had his prerogative,
he'd walk out of that prison. But there's another power so
controlling Peter that he cannot do. But what that power is compelling
him to do. Is that true? As a type, as a
type, he's saved. So he wants out. But if he were
not safe, he wouldn't have a problem being in prison. Unsaved people
don't mind being in prison. They they make the best of it.
Yes, they do. They make the best of it. Our
world is a prison system since a sentence. Our life is a prison
sentence. Don't you know from the moment
that we are born, we are going downhill? And if you don't believe
me, just look in the mirror. Please, quickly gather that you
are a slave under powers of polarity that are physical in nature,
bringing you to the dust. As long, as much as you want
to live a long, healthy, prosperous life, you're sinking, sinking. sinking in the bondage and the
corruption of sin. We all are on a physical level.
Even if we are believers, we understand that the outward man
is what? Perishing. It's a bondage. So the illusion
of freedom is dispelled when we understand the scriptures
accurately. It's a type of our spiritual condition. Listen to
it now. Verse 22, but now being made free from sin and becoming,
well, let me finish the last part of verse 21. I don't think
I did. What fruit had you then in those things wearing you are
now ashamed for the end of those things is what? That's exactly
right. In verse 23, which is attached
to it for the wages of sin is what? But the gift of God is
eternal life through Jesus Christ. So the scriptures are very clear.
Didn't want to develop it too much. Very clear that what Peter
is experiencing being in that prison is a type of the spiritual
condition of all mankind until God does something for him. The
second thing that I want you to see in this text, And notice
with me now in our text, going back to Acts chapter 12, that
it tells us over in verse six and seven, and when Herod, who
would have brought him forth, the same night Peter was sleeping
between two soldiers. Do you see that? Bound with two
chains and the keepers before the door kept the prison. And
so in terms of the objective of Herod, Herod is a type of
Satan and Satan controls the whole world and every one of
his subjects are slaves. Satan controls the whole world
and every one of his subjects are slaves. And guess what? When
you are still unregenerate and unsaved, you are in a state of
spiritual sleep. You are asleep spiritually. Now,
also, as we're working through these rules of interpretation
in our other class, I talk about methods or figures of speech. And this here is what we would
call a euphemism. And what is that euphemism?
Sleep. What is sleep? Sleep is a synonym
or an analogy of death. It's a synonym or analogy of
death. But it's a kind of analogy of
death that says this. One day you're going to wake
up. So when we say that men and women are asleep spiritually,
what we are saying is while they're dead in trespasses and sins,
they are asleep spiritually because one day God's going to wake them
up. Everyone's going to wake up on the last day. The hour
is coming when all that are in the graves are going to hear
the voice of the Son of God and they're going to rise up and
their eyes are going to be opened. Whereas right now in our unsafe
state, we walk in darkness, We are sleepwalkers. First Thessalonians
chapter five. We walk in darkness and we are
sleepwalkers. We are asleep in the delusion
of sin so that we are not walking in the day and therefore walking
in the light because we are children of the night. We are asleep and
therefore we are asleep to spiritual things and sleep to the kingdom
of God and therefore are not participants in the kingdom.
Sleepwalkers is what we are our were prior to conversion. Am
I making some sense? And so our text affirms that
in Ephesians chapter 5 11 through 14 I want you to see that and
then I want to share with you the implications out of that
Now, you know, what a euphemism is just in case you don't know
the little word our prefix here You always it's a word. That
means what good? so when I do eulogies I am I
Taking words logia is the route to words log off you log off
meaning good words when you talk about someone who has passed
away and highlight their Characteristics on a positive note you are eulogizing
them you are speaking good words By the way, you don't have to
wait till people die to eulogize them God would have us to do
that with one another all the time That's a good one. You better
write that down. Don't wait till people die to
talk good. You know how you talk bad about them all while they live
it. And then when they die, Oh, he was so good. No, you didn't,
you didn't say that while he was living. Now he did, you wanna
talk about how good he is? No, God would have the saints
to speak well of one another now, to eulogize one another
now, snatch it up out of his cultural traditional context,
assuming that we gotta wait till people die or are in dire straits
or sick before we speak well of them. Isn't that interesting?
Isn't that what we do? They get in trouble, then we talk about,
you know, he's a blessing. While he's healthy, while he's fine,
that knucklehead, right? Eulogizing people comes from
a place in the soul where we recognize their worth in their
value And we acknowledge that especially if they have been
an asset to us ladies hint hint For those of you who are in our
theology class on Wednesdays assets versus what? Liabilities,
that's right. All this plays a role in relationships
If I'm a liability to you, you are all in all likelihood not
going to speak well of me If I'm an asset to you, you're going
to speak well of me and people in the kingdom ought to be assets
to one another and not liabilities. Am I making some sense? So what
I'm doing right now is what we call application in the teaching,
application. I'm establishing spiritual principles,
but I'm doing application. Ephesians chapter five, verses
11 through 14 underscores my basic argument that we are spiritually
sleep until God wakes us up. And we are going to all wake
up on the last day one way or the other, If we don't wake up
in conversion and renewal and in grace So we read in ephesians
chapter 5 these words and i'm going to start at verse 11. Are
you there? Have no fellowship. No koinea. No union with the
unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them It was
one of the indications that you are truly born again Is you love
righteousness? What that means is you are not
identified with sinful behavior or the unfruitful works of darkness,
which is the same thing. Read verses one through nine
and you'll understand the unfruitful works of darkness. Not only will
you not do those things, but you will reprove those things.
You will say that's wrong. That's what the new nature will
say. That's wrong. And when you are going, that's
wrong. Guess what you're doing? Walking in the light. You're
cutting the lights on in the room of darkness where everybody
is saying, this is right. You say, no, it's wrong. Every
way of man is right in his own eyes, and that can't be. There's
a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are
the ways of what? We're telling you that that behavior,
that attitude, that conduct is wrong. And you know what they
say to us? Cut that light off. Isn't that
what they say? Cut that light off. Because men
love what? and they'd rather be asleep than
to wake up. But listen to what the text goes
on to say. For it is a shame even to speak of those things
which they are doing in secret. This is true, isn't it? Some
of those, you can't even repeat the stuff that they do. But all
things that are reproved are made manifest by the what? For
whatsoever doth make manifest is light. So he's using the light
metaphor. Now he's getting ready to move into waking up because
it's daytime. Awake wherefore he said awake
thou that what? See the metaphor and watch how
he ties it to being spiritually dead and arise from the dead See a dead man and a sleep man
are exactly the same With this exception that a sleep man has
the possibility of waking up So when he uses the metaphor
of a sleep, he's saying that while you are living, you have
the possibility of being awakened out of your sleep so that you
become spiritually aware of your sinful condition and your radical
need of salvation and therefore your urgent need to run to Christ. Meet a man or woman who has truly
been awakened and we use this term in old sort of Puritan writings. the awakened center, the awakened
center. Years ago, I taught three stages,
the dead center. That's the state that you're
in when the seed is sown on the wayside and it doesn't do a thing.
But the awakened center is that center with whom when the word
of God comes, it penetrates his heart, penetrates her heart,
wakes them up to the reality of their damnation, and now they
are under anxiety to solve their problem. The enlightened sinner
is the individual to whom the pathway to Jesus has been illuminated. So you're dead, you are awakened,
and then you are enlightened. Now you have a beeline to make
it to the city of refuge where your high priest is. That's an
enlightened center. You guys follow the logic? And
the enlightened center is the person who is going to become
saved. I won't deal with that process
any further. I'm just showing you how and why the imperative
or the command is given for people to wake up. I can argue that
there are some people who can wake up out of sleep, intellectually,
emotionally, physiologically, and then fall right back to sleep.
How do we know that? Because Israel was a perfect
model of it. God woke them up out of Egypt,
had them to walk with God in the cool of the day and in the
glory of his light. And over time they fell back
to sleep because God brought his judgment on them because
there was light given to them and to whom much is given much
is what. And when we don't do that which is right with the
light that's given to us, he takes it away. and he'll comfortably
make your bed and let you lay down in it and pull the covers
over you while you go back to sleep and die under the wrath
of God. You see that in the book of Acts
as we make our way to chapter 13. Chapter 13 talks about it.
Chapter 28, Paul says, well, as Isaiah said, God has given
you the spirit of slumber and sleep. He's closed your eyes.
Jesus said it too. That came out of Isaiah six,
by the way, remember that? Isaiah said who shall go we think he
going to preach the gospel. God says go and close their eyes
That has everything to do with preaching the gospel to people
who are dead set or not obeying it You want to see people close
their eyes? preach the gospel to people who
have no intentions on obeying the gospel and Especially religious
folk who know everything you know what I'm saying and you
can measure that if you know them and on a personal level,
year after year after year. They get worse, they get more
stupid, they get more ignorant, they get more belligerent, they
get more blinded, they get more dumb, they get more insensitive,
they get more indifferent, more apathetic, more cold, sleep. I'm telling you the truth. So
here's what he says. Verse 14, wherefore he saith,
Awake thou that sleepest, arise from the dead, here it is, and
Christ shall give you up. That's exactly right. Now, is
that what is about to happen with Peter? Is Peter about to
be awakened? Let's go back to our text. So
this is why we look for the redemptive message in the text, so it can
teach us something about spiritual things. And you'll note that
while I am explaining, what's happening in the Acts 12 account
on a redemptive level, you'll know that I'm actually calling
our attention to a number of critical doctrinal truths in
the process. Is that so? So I want to say
this again. When we are engaged in what we
call a redemptive method of interpretation, Redemptive interpretation allows
us to address critical doctrines like the spiritual depravity
of man, like the slavery of man and sin, like the necessity of
regeneration, shedding light on the soul, wakening him up,
quickening him from the dead, illuminating his mind, the illuminating
work of the Holy Ghost. All of these are doctrines critical
to our salvation and critical to our knowledge. What allows
me to teach them is dealing with it on a redemptive level. Am
I making some sense? And those doctrines have to be
taught. These are what we call the doctrines of the gospel,
because it's at these points of doctrinal truth that the heretics
and false prophets actually deny the Lord of glory. And so we
have to recover these doctrines when we teach to help men and
women understand you're not saved because you made a decision for
Jesus. You couldn't make a decision. You were dead. You couldn't make
a decision. You were asleep. You couldn't
make a decision. You were a slave in prison until
God comes to you and enters into your prison state condition and
wakes you up and knocks the shackles off of you and give you divine
command and leads you out. You remain in bondage. Am I telling
the truth? Let's look at it and see how
this works. So in chapter 12, we read in verse six, verse seven,
and behold, the angel of the Lord came upon him. Do you see
that? Behold, the angel of the Lord came upon him. The angel
of the Lord came upon Peter, the text says, and a light shined
in the prison. Is this text affirming everything
that I have been explaining concerning what it means to be brought from
darkness to his marvelous light? But now watch this, a light has
shined in the prison and he smoked Peter on the side. Do you understand
what that means? That means that light penetrates in a way to
wake you up. It must wake you up. You remember,
you thought you were awake until God actually smoked you. And
that smiting alarmed you in a deep and penetrating way to wake you
up for the first time. and that revelation that you
were asleep was an amazing revelation because while as yet men and
women are asleep spiritually, watch this, they don't know it. You don't know when you are spiritually
asleep. You think you are awake and you
are asleep. Now do what David said in the
Psalms. Are you ready? Lord, enlighten
my eyes. Watch this now. Let me not sleep
the sleep of them that die Don't let me sleep the sleep of death
now again David is a model of an individual who may or may
not be born again, but here's what David understands sin in
the life of the believer can put him to sleep and If God doesn't
intervene you and I will go to sleep in sin And what David is
saying is Lord wake me up because I don't know when I'm going to
sleep This is true. This is true. This is absolutely
true. Oh, does anyone in here doubt
that what I'm saying is true? Because I am so ready to use
examples right now to show you, you don't know when you're asleep,
even with your eyes open. Are you with me? So now, you
know, you're rolling down the road. You swear you're awake.
You're not awake. You're asleep. And you know how
you're asleep because when something jars you now you come out of
that sleep And you can be sleep with your eyes open and you know
your sleep because when an imperative is given you can't respond Because
you're sleep with your eyes open See in order to be fully awake
all your faculties have to be ready and available to respond
to imperatives So there are people who are sitting in church with
their eyes open, but their minds closed and their souls sleep
because they cannot respond to the imperatives of Christ. You
guys are hearing me, right? That's right. It's very important
for us to know that. So the analogy is powerful. Behold, the angel
of the Lord came upon him and a light shined in the prison.
He smoked Peter on the side and raised him up. You see that clause
raised him up. That is the terminology that
we use for the resurrection. A man or a woman that's truly
born again must be raised from the dead. That's what we call
resurrection language. This is why we don't play games
with what it means to be saved. Because what it means to be saved
is nothing short of God raising you from the dead. And you can't
raise yourself from the dead, neither can a dead man raise
himself from the dead. And so you have to be raised
up by God. So the angels smote him on the side, raised him up
and then gave him a commandment, rise up quickly. And as he was
raising him up, that's the language, his chains fell off his hands. Look at God. This is where we
have the hymn by Mr. Wesley. Do you guys know it?
You know the hymn, don't you? And can it be? that I might gain
an interest in the Savior's blood. Died he for me who caused his
pain, for me to whom the Savior's blood was shed. He talks about
the chains falling off and the light shining in the prison and
the gates of the door are the doors opening so that we come
out of the prison house of sin. That has to be the experience
of every true believer. We wake up to the reality that
we're prisoners We wake up to the reality that we're in bondage.
We wake up to the reality that we were asleep. We were missing
everything. And so our text explicitly develops
that for us here. He smote him on the side, the
chains fell off. And the angel said unto him, gird yourself
and bind on your sandals. And so he what? Gird yourself
and bind on your sandals. And what? So he did. You know
what that means? He was awake. You know what that
means? He's responding to the command.
You know what that means? The gospel has the power to enter
into the prison house of sin, shine the light on you specifically,
since you are the object of God's mercy and grace, smite you, wake
you up, break the chains off and give you power to rise up
and come out of that prison house. See, now Peter is actually corresponding
to the imperative, is he not? So I would argue that people
who would think somehow that the analogy is that God comes
and he raises you from the dead and he picks you up and carries
you. Nothing is further from the truth. The initial work of
regeneration is what we call a monergistic act, a solo act
on God's part. But when once he gives you life,
he calls you to a synergistic cooperation with him. What that
means is because he has given you life, he has given you capacity
to now respond to him. And so now you are working with
God, moving away from one of our further points out of that
prison situation. This is our New Year's verse. What does it say? Work out your
salvation. Is that what Peter's doing? Is
Peter working out his salvation? Now, if you want to distort the
gospel, let Peter sit there and say, man, you know what, man,
it's so cool that you're here. Would you just pick a brother
up and carry him on out so this thing can be like totally all
of grace with no synergism at all? I'd love for you to just
carry me. No. You have been awakened by the
grace of God. You must affirm your grace by
getting up. Is that what faith will do? Faith
will respond to the command. Wherefore, work out your salvation
with fear and trembling, because it is God who worketh in you
the will and to do of his good pleasure. It's all a grace. It
starts monogistically. Then it becomes an engagement
between you and him. Otherwise, commandments mean
nothing. Am I making some sense? Otherwise,
commandments mean nothing. And so here, what occurs is Peter
did so, and it goes on to say this. And he said unto Peter,
cast thy garment about thee and do what? Follow me. Is Peter
hearing in the echo of the angel, the voice of his master? Is he
hearing in the echo of the angel, the voice of his master? Is that
what Jesus calls us to do when he saves us? Does he set us free
to do whatever we want to do? Follow me. Follow me. Follow me. That's what it's about. That's what he came to those
cats about seven years earlier. They were fishing. Remember that?
He says, follow me. That's what it means to be a
believer. You follow Christ. Follow me. By the way, when it
says cast like garments about the what he's talking about with
that, he's saying, bind your garments in a way so you can
be ready to be brisk about leaving. Get your clothes on, bind them
about you. Tighten them up. Get your get your get your legs.
Because we got to roll, Peter. We got to roll. Cuz you know,
they were long Sashis and dresses get your get it up what we got
to go. Come on. We got to go. I Love it. I love it. I love it. You know
why I like this Because when a man or woman is serious about
God upon conversion, they don't make haste I mean they don't
they don't take their time they hurry up and get out of their
situation hurry up and come to Christ and You run to Christ
you run listen here. You are about to die Don't you
think it's appropriate to run out of that prison? Make haste. I love this too because they're
circumstantially the implications are amazing Circumstantially,
this is what we would call the pericope in theology the pericope
the surrounding Circumstances now the angel has come into the
prison obviously The soldiers who are called watchmen are lazy
sleeping dogs, right? Cause they all sleep. They have
to be sleep. Peter is making his way to change
and fell off. They made noise. The gates are
open and they got to be creaking. But the Lord has put such a deep
sleep on these soldiers that they out. I mean, they sawing
wood. They having dreams and visions
of their own. So he puts such a heavy dose
of sleep on them while waking up a servant at the same time.
This is how good he is. This is how good he is to his
people when he's bringing them out of bondage because he has
chosen to redeem them from all iniquity. Verse nine. And he
went out and followed him and did not know that it was true,
which was done by the angel, but thought that he had saw Vision,
let me deal with the last line on our PowerPoint the providence
of prison The providence of prison do we'll pick this up next week
There are a number of other points that I want to share with you
on that But the last line speaks of prisoners of what now this
isn't this is important for you to get This is important for
you. All of us are prisoners in sin In Adam, we all have sin. We're all slaves But there's
a people A number from every nation, kindred, tribe, and tongue
that before the foundation of the world, God placed a hope
on them. They're called prisoners of hope.
These are called God's elect. These are people who are predestined
to eternal life. Will you hear me? They're prisoners
of hope because God had already established for them a plan of
redemption before he delivered them. Not everyone is coming
out of prison. i.e. not everyone is gonna be
saved. Do you believe that? Watch this.
Not everyone is coming out of prison, i.e. not everyone wants
to. Now the people who live in this
world, love this world, we call prisoners of hopelessness. They are without hope in the
world. These are the people who die
without hope. Believers live in hope, Believers
serve in hope and believers die in hope. The whole of our salvation
is under that one term, hope. Because we have as the signal
marquee of our hope, the resurrection. It's the resurrection that underscores
every promise of God for us that is to be unpacked for us on Sunday
more fully. But resurrection terminology
is the hope that the believer has. Resurrection as an analogy
is the coming out of every death, coming out of every bondage,
coming out of every slavery, coming out of every pit, out
of every hole, out of every trap, out of every darkness, resurrection. God resurrects us every day.
He resurrects us frequently when we get into snares and jins and
traps because we are called prisoners of what? Of hope. That's true. Zechariah chapter 9, 11 and 12.
Zechariah 9, 11 and 12. Peter, a prisoner of hope? Yes,
he is. He's an absolute prisoner of
hope. Is every believer a prisoner of hope? Yes, they are. Because
even though we have been appointed to death, And even though we
have been appointed to prison, there is an appointed time in
which we are called out of our bondage. The body is a prison. The world is a prison. This world
system is a prison. Oh, wretched man that I am, who
shall deliver me from this body of death? I have hope in my death.
The righteous have hope in his death, doesn't he? Zechariah
chapter nine. Are you there? Verse 11. Let
me tell you the context. This is God, the father talking
to God, the son about those for whom Christ has died. Are you
guys following me? This is God, the father talking
to God, the son about those for whom Christ has died, promising
that they will come out of prison. Verse 11, as for you, this is
the father speaking to the son by the blood of your covenant. Do you see that? As for you,
by the blood of your covenant. Now, I don't arbitrarily assign
interpretations to passages. You guys have been taught by
me. You know how I do it. I study the word of God, right?
So if I'm going to draw a conclusion on the text of scripture, I better
have other texts of scripture to affirm that. Those passages
better be passages that affirm or confirm, both affirm and confirm
that passage of scripture in order for me to be dogmatic and
authoritative about what I'm saying. I am stating that God
the Father is speaking to God the Son about the blood that
God the Son must shed To establish a covenant of grace and redemption
for his people by which they come out of sin and bondage and
death Hebrews chapter 13 verse 20 in your own time, but remember
we are covenant people I've been telling you that the secret of
the Lord is with them that fear him and he will show them his
what? Jesus on the last day before he separated with his disciples
said this is the New Testament in my blood Which is shit for
you this doing remembers of me. Isn't that what he said? The
blood is what affects the New Covenant the New Covenant promises
liberty from bondage for all who are in it Are you guys hearing
what I'm saying? In other words, your salvation is not by accident.
It's by grace and it's on purpose and it's a consequence of the
blood of What an awful mighty price God paid to deliver your
soul from bondage. The value is the value of the
blood of the Son of God. God viewed you as such that He
would have you for Himself for all eternity by the death of
His Son. The price for your liberty, slave,
is the death of His Son. That's something that must go
deep down in our souls and make us forever indebted to grace.
Because he paid an awful price to make you a prisoner of hope
And he made you a prisoner of hope before you even knew you
were a prisoner Let alone the hope that he had given to you
in christ before the world began As for thee also by the blood
of your covenant I have sent forth I have sent forth thy prisoners
out of the pit where is is no water Do you see what your condition
was? Do you see how there was no life
in the pit? Water is a symbol of what? It's a type of the holy
ghost while as yet you and I are unsaved no spiritual life No
presence of the third person. We are spiritually dead. We're
trapped in a pit And we are corrupting and rotting Our only destiny
is continual corruption and rotting but because god has purpose to
save us and I see all three persons here in this analogy The one
that's speaking is the father The agency by which the covenant
is affected is by the incarnation of the Son of God and his shed
blood. The water there is a symbol of the Holy Ghost that will come
into our life to give us life, to raise us from the dead, and
to quench our thirst from the point of our conversion until
we actually enter into glory land. Am I making some sense?
See, if you want to kill a person, keep them from being saved. Because
without the Spirit, there's no life. It's the Spirit that quickeneth. My words are spirit and they
are live without the spirit we can do nothing. There is no life
apart from the spirit He is the water of life. You guys see the
picture, don't you? We're in a horrible condition
weren't we and you can actually look at this text and not only
describe this as what it was like when we were in the world,
but false religion dead churches churches that did not preach
the gospel and That did not make christ everything in terms of
your soul salvation that left you in a works religion That
was dry and high and hell bound You were still a slave because
you were under a system of legalism Trying to climb your way out
of the pit and you were digging it deeper Sleep to god dead in sins
living a hopeless life keeping more sand on top of your head
So, we are prisoners of hope because of that context. I'll
give you two examples. Actually, I'm just going to give
you one because I only got like one minute to go here. Dealing with hermeneutics,
biblical interpretation, I talked to you as we're dealing with
typology and symbolism and metaphor and analogy. I told you when
God wants to teach you something and he uses the rule of recapitulation
because we are what by nature? Slow. You got it. Repetition. is a critical component
to inculcate and deeply forge into his children's understanding.
True. Cause we don't get it the first
time. Do you get it the first time? And isn't our father good
to sit us down and give us a lesson over and over and over until
we get it. So when I talk about recapitulation, you'll see in
the scriptures models of the same thing happening from Genesis
to Revelation, where God is saying, this is what I do. This is what
I do. This is what I do. And this is what God does when
he's saving his people. He runs these patterns in our
lives. Well, here's an example of a
prisoner of hope. His name is Joseph. Remember, Joseph is a
great type of Christ in the Old Testament. He's going to rule
over his 11 brethren. Right. And Jacob is a type of
God, the father. And Joseph is the youngest. And
so the elder shall serve the younger. Remember, those patterns
are coming out. And so Joseph gave his brothers the vision
of the dream that he had, that he was a son and they were the
stars. And he's the rule of all them. And they hated him and
they wanted to kill him. Isn't that right? Didn't they
want to kill Jesus for envy? They wanted to kill him. And
so they put him in the pit. Remember that? And he got sold
from the pit and brought into Egypt. He was in bondage in Egypt.
And because Joseph was a handsome brother, Potiphar's wife hit
on him, and he was strong enough by the grace of God not to fall
prey to that proposition. But his obedience led him to
be put in prison, Genesis chapter 39. So as one person said, no
good deed goes unpunished. This is true. Watch this, though,
since I got your attention. When you do it God's way, There
is an initial hit by those who hate God because your obedience
cut lights on When you do it God's way there's an initial
hit you got to take for Christ That's why you're you and I call
lambs because your obedience cuts the lights on are you ready?
But your reward is inevitable Your reward is inevitable When
you and I obey the gospel, the reward comes later. The suffering
is first, the reward is later. This is why we live by faith
and suffer for the cause of Christ now, knowing that we have a reward
coming. Joseph obeyed God and found himself
in prison for an indefinite period of time. When you read the verse
in Genesis chapter 39, and Potiphar put Joseph in prison and he was
in the prison of the king. Nevertheless, are you ready? God was with him. It's amazing. You know what that means? There
were folks in prison that Joseph was supposed to preach the gospel
to. And when you read the text further, you know what the text
says? Joseph found favor with all the people in the prison.
In fact, when you follow the text all the way through, you
know what it says? And they made Joseph the keeper of the prison.
Hallelujah! And you know what else it says?
In everything that was done in the prison, Joseph was the doer
thereof. Talking about taking captivity
of the captain! This is what we mean when we
talk about preaching the gospel, because Joseph is a great type
of Christ. He had to be cast into prison
where we were in order that he might take captivity captive
and lead it to God. See, you know what that means?
I don't mind going to prison so long as Jesus is there. If
Christ is there, I can handle it. You know what that means?
I'm a prisoner of hope. I'm a prisoner of hope. If in
prison, Christ is there with me. So joseph is a great type
of it. Others are a type of it too.
Do you you understand the bible talks about deliverance a lot,
doesn't it? Yeah prisoners of hope. It's good. I'm gonna stop
right here. We'll pick this up next week You see how important
it is to see the gospel in the scriptures Do you see how important
it is to see the gospel? Because in the gospel you get
to see your savior and in the gospel you get to see your salvation
And in the gospel you get to see your hope which is in christ
over and over and over and over again And it gives us great joy
Father, thank you for this time. Thank you for your word. Thank
you for the truth of your word. Thank you for the grace that
comes through the scriptures. Thank you for our Lord teaching
us how to look for him in the word. Lo, I come in the volume
of the book is written to me to do thy will, O God. And as
Jesus plainly said, you continue in my word, you shall know the
truth and the truth shall set you free. Whomsoever the son
shall set free shall be free indeed. Help us to know that
experientially and then help us to be responsible for our
freedom. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. God bless you.