It's amazing, isn't it, how words
jump out at you sometimes? The hymn writer Edward Mode wrote,
I dare not trust the sweetest frame. So often I've been, in
our journey in this world, inclined to trust the sweetest frame and
think that the sweetest frames are a cause for evidence. I dare
not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. Let's go back to Acts 26. I'll
read these two verses. I want to concentrate on the
great shoulds. We saw earlier that he preached
that they should repent. It's a reasonable thing to do. They should change their mind
about who God is. They should repent and turn to
God. But therefore, verse 22, having therefore obtained help
of God, I continue unto this day, witnessing to both small
and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets
and Moses did say should come. I want us to look at these shoulds
this morning. Moses, all of which Moses should come, that Christ should
suffer, and that he should be the first, that should rise from
the dead, and should show light unto the people and unto the
Gentiles. This is what all the prophets
are saying. All Scripture is God breathed. You know that verse
from 2 Timothy 3.16. All Scripture is God God's breathed and is profitable. He goes on in 2 Timothy chapter
4 to have a simple declaration of what he had commissioned Timothy
to do. Preach the word. Just preach
the word. Preach the word. In season and
out season you preach the word. Preach the word, be instant,
in season and out of season. When you have a lot of people
and when you have none around, preach the word. When it feels
as if you have some warrant for speaking, when there are other
times when it feels as if there's so much opposition, Paul preached
the word in season and out of season. And here we have before
us, I want you to recall, Paul standing as it were on trial
before this crowd, and there was quite a, A large crowd of
people gathered there. They were gathered from the city
as well as from the judiciary, as it were, and Ripa standing
as the king there in judgment, and Festus as well, standing
there. And all of that entourage of
all of these people in pomp and ceremony and the Jews there looking
on, waiting and hoping. And this, as I've reminded you
before, is the last written apostolic testimony in the land of Judah
before the destruction of Jerusalem. opportunities Paul has to defend
himself before these who would have him put to death if necessary,
if possible. And what does he say? His whole
ministry is based on this simple thing, isn't it? That he is to
declare The whole counsel of God is to declare the Lord Jesus
Christ and him crucified. He has no warrant to give his
opinion about anything, nor does any one of God's preachers. They
just simply declare, this is what God says. And to highlight
the seriousness of it, there's a verse that we quote out of
Isaiah chapter 8 verse 20, he says in verse 16 of that chapter
Isaiah 8, he says, bind up the testament. You have the testament
of God. You bind it up and you treat
it as something which is precious. You bind it up as diamonds in
a bag to hold them. You bind up the testament and
seal the law among my disciples. And then he says, if they speak
not, It is because there is a little
bit of light in them that needs to be corrected. Is that what
the verse says? If they speak not according to
this word, there is no light in them. If there is no light
in them, all that there is in them is darkness. And as the Lord Jesus Christ
said, if the light that be in you be darkness, how great is
that darkness. The greatest darkness and the
greatest delusion that can come into anyone in this world is
to have this word and have it manipulated before you. And the
Lord Jesus Christ clouded from the glory of his character and
his being. Peter warns, he says that no
scripture in 2 Peter, he says, no scripture is a private interpretation. The fellow I spoke to last week
who has a church here in opposition to us said that everyone, there
are so many different interpretations. Everyone has their own interpretation.
I have my interpretation. You have your interpretation.
And we can all have our interpretation and we can all sit together with
our interpretations. The scripture says absolutely
no way. Scripture is not of private interpretation. This book, interprets itself,
brothers and sisters in Christ. This book is complete and finished.
We don't have anything to add to it. We don't want to take
anything away from it. We just have to declare it. It's not
a private interpretation. That word private interpretation
could be imagination. So you can imagine all sorts
of things, can't you? The world imagines all sorts of things
about the Lord Jesus Christ that he's wandering around the halls
of heaven at the moment, Wrigging his hands, saying, how on earth
am I going to get these people saved? I've done the best I can,
and I can't get them saved. They're so disobedient, and if
I can just get them, these days, if I can just get them to understand
that I love them, and I've died for them, and I can then get
them to say their sinner's prayer, then all of a sudden, out will
pop, from all this hocus pocus, out will pop something that they'll
call salvation, and they'll cling onto it. How many countless millions
of people are taking before the Lord today the fact that they
pray the sinner's prayer and they no longer live a life that
they used to live? They stopped doing bad things
and they started doing good things and they come before God with all of their activities. They are the most sobering words.
Some of the most sobering words in all the scripture, aren't
they? And they are being echoed today. As the Lord says to people,
depart from me, I never knew you. You turn up there with all
of your good works. You turn up there with all of
your good works and all of your good deeds and all of your changed
life. Depart from me. We declare We
declare alongside Paul and all the apostles, we just have this
witness, that God created God, given witness of who our great
God is. All the prophets, all the prophets,
you see what that says? That we declare none other things
than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come.
That Christ should come. Christ should suffer, that Christ
should die, that Christ should rise, that Christ should be the
one that shows light, that Christ should come by the blessed Holy
Spirit and preach himself to people. That Christ should come. There is a divine necessity in
the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. His coming is a reflection of
the fact that he existed before he came. When that famous verse
in John 3.16 that's thrown at us all the time to prove that
God loves everyone. For God so loved the world. It's
a glorious, glorious verse, isn't it? For God so loved the world,
that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth
in him, whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have
everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into
the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him
might be saved. And of course the word world
there refers to the world of his elect. Our God doesn't try
to do anything. He doesn't try to do anything.
He is. That glorious verse in Revelation
38 becomes more and more significant the more You think about it,
isn't it? He's the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. He came because of a covenant.
We read that verse in Hebrews 13, 20 so often. I hope you know
it off by heart. Now the God of peace that brought
again from the dead, our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of
the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant. He came because of an everlasting
covenant. He came because of those covenant
promises made from the foundation of the world. So this creation
exists for the revelation of the glory of God, and the revelation
of the glory of God is seen in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ.
This creation is not here by accident. This creation is a
creation which has a purpose. The existence of this creation
has a purpose. It's sustaining until this day
has a purpose, and all of that purpose is about the Lord Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. This creation was made so that
He could come, that He could be crucified outside of Jerusalem,
upon that tree, hanging there, shedding His last blood under
the wrath of God. under the curse of God's law. And this creation exists right
now because of what happened on Calvary's tree. It's the only
reason for this creation to exist. He sustains, as Hebrews 1 says,
he sustains all things by his power. And so all he has to do
is to withdraw that and this creation will fold up in a heartbeat. Known unto God are all his works
from the foundation of the world. Our God is absolutely sovereign.
So when he says Christ should come, he comes as a sovereign,
he comes with a purpose. He does all things according
to the counsel of his own will. Hebrews 4.3 says the works were
finished before the foundation of the world. In Acts chapter
15, they said, no one unto God, Acts 15.10, no one unto God,
Acts 15.18, no one unto God are all his works from the beginning
of the world. No one unto God. Is there anything
unknown unto God? God can't learn anything. Nothing
takes him by surprise. There is nothing new for our
God. No one unto God are all his works
from the foundation. He does as he willed in the armies
of heaven and amongst the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay
his head and say unto him, What doest thou? Everywhere the scriptures declare
a God of sovereign purpose. As I said, He existed before
He came. The Lord Jesus Christ never had a beginning. He never
had a beginning. He never had an ending. It's
an eternal covenant that He has. It's an eternity, an eternal
covenant that we're involved in. This creation exists. The fall exists. The sustaining
of man through all of this, all of this history of Moses and
the prophets, is all about the Lord Jesus Christ and him crucified. It's all about the display of
God's divine attributes. And if you want to have a look
and find where God's attributes are most clearly seen, you go
to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. You see the determinate
counseling for the knowledge of God in everything that happened.
Isn't it remarkable? As if all those Jews had a script
before them that was written out for them. Now you do this
Caiaphas, and you go and do that Judas, and you take that money
back, and this is what these people will say, and that's what
they'll buy because of that money. The remarkable thing about the
Lord Jesus Christ is that the promises concerning him were
fulfilled before he was born on this earth. And they were
fulfilled after he died. fulfilling promises when he was
hanging on the cross. They were fulfilling promises
when he was taken down dead and buried. They were fulfilling
promises all the time. The purpose of God, he should
come. I love what Micah says of the
Lord Jesus Christ. He shall come forth unto me.
That is to be the ruler of Israel whose goings forth have been
from simply a declaration of our God. This creation exists that we
might see the glory of God, we might see the glory of His sovereignty,
we might see the glory of His holiness, we might see the glory
of His love, we might see the glory And he loves sinners not because
of anything that's in them. He loves them because he loves
them, because the love's in him. So it all was there before he
came. It shows us also that this creation
has, in a sense, a meaning in existence before it came into
being. It also shows us that man has a meaning in the existence,
which is way, way, way beyond all this earthly creation that
we see. As Isaiah 43, 7 says, for everyone
that is called by my name, I have created him for my glory. I formed him, I've made him.
There are people in this world, all over this world exist, there'll
be a people in this world who'll live to the praise and the glory
of his grace. Because of his sovereign activity,
Christ should come He existed before he came. He had a purpose
in his coming. There was a covenant engagement
in which were determined all the events of this creation.
There's nothing accidental here ever. I wish we could expunge
the word luck from our vocabulary and wash our mouths out of the
soap every time we say it. And be gentle in rebuking those
who say it. There's no such thing. Proverbs 16 says that the most
random thing we can do, almost, is you pick up a couple of dice
when you're playing cards next time, next time you're having
a game of Monopoly or something, and you pick up the dice and
you throw them across the table and they bounce all over the
place, and where they land, the numbers that come up on top,
God determined them. And God determined them before
the foundation of the world. You can read it in Proverbs 16,
verse 30. I love it. Don't you love the
fact that you can look around this creation and every little
tiny thing is a God. God. God. God is it. God's will be done. Thy will be done. God will have his God-given bride
in the hands of his dear and darling son. And they'll live
in this new creation, and that will be the home of the righteous,
and we'll get to see him as he is. That's what David says, isn't
it? When I awake, I'll be satisfied, because I'll be like him. I'll see him as he is, says 1
John 3. He declares, as Isaiah 46.10
says, he declares the end from the beginning. He declared it
at the beginning. He starts with what is completed. His beginning is the new creation
where all of his people live to the praise and the glory of
his grace and all of his people get to see the Lord Jesus Christ
in his glory. Do you look forward to that?
Do you look forward to the day? And you'll see him as he is.
And only those, the only ones who will ever see him as he is
are those who are made like him. We will have the God-given creation,
that new creation, that new physical creation, which is equipped by
God to live in the presence of God with delight, in a real creation, should come, the blessed triune
God in all the glory of his attributes will be revealed. It's revealed
to the Church of God. Our God doesn't come and try
and do anything. I love those verses in Daniel
7 where it says Daniel says, I saw her in the night vision,
Daniel 7.13. I saw her in the night visions, and behold, one
like the Son of Man. When you read that in the scriptures,
one like the Son of Man, there is only one that's like the Son
of Man, and that's the Son of Man himself. It's always the one
who's like the Son of Man. He is the Son of Man. There's
no one like him. came with the clouds of heaven
and came under the ancient of days and they brought him near
before him and it was given him, it was given this one, he was
like the son of man, it was given him dominion. He has dominion
over all things, there is nothing wriggling in this universe, brothers
and sisters, outside of his dominion. Given him dominion and glory
and a kingdom with the result that all people, nations, and
languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting
dominion which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which
shall not be destroyed. He came. He came. He came. Our glorious Savior
came. And while you're in there, while
you're there in Daniel over in chapter nine, and Daniel has
this great vision, which was probably the cause of the wise
men coming from the East. They probably heard Daniel and
they probably read Daniel. But it says in verse 24 of chapter
9, 70 weeks are determined, are determined, upon thy people and
upon thine holy city. It's a determined God who comes. To finish transgression and to
make an end of sins and to make reconciliation for iniquity.
Not try to do anything. Not ifs. There are no ifs in
salvation. And to bring in everlasting righteousness
and to seal up the vision and prophecy and to anoint the most
holy. The Christ should come. The Christ
should come. That's what the prophets are
talking about. When you read the Old Testament
scriptures, it's about Christ who should come. And what did
Moses and the prophets say about the Christ should come? The Christ
should suffer, verse 23 of Acts 26. The Christ should suffer.
It is, as Peter says in 1 Peter 1, verse 11, it is a summary,
in a sense, of the Old Testament, isn't it? The Spirit of Christ,
the Holy Spirit, Christ himself, they were searching these old
prophets. They were searching about this
salvation. The prophets have inquired and
searched diligently, he prophesied of the grace that should come
unto you. Searching water in what manner
of time? The spirit of Christ which was
in them did signify when it testified beforehand. This is what the
Old Testament scriptures are all about, aren't they? It testified
beforehand the sufferings of Christ. and the glory that should
follow. The sufferings of Christ and
the glory that should follow. Lord Jesus Christ on his way
to Calvary again and again spoke to his disciples who were as
blind as bats. As blind as bats, I'm so thankful
for their ignorance because they asked them those remarkable questions
and they showed us He reveals, and not about how clever we are,
but He says, doesn't He? He says, the Son of Man must,
He must suffer many things. He must be rejected of the elders
and the chief priests and the scribes. He must be killed. He must be slain. And after three days rise. He
must, Mark 8, He must be set at naught. He must be considered
as nothing. When this religious world considers
you as a nothing, don't forget that that's how they considered
your Saviour. They set Him as someone who was
worthless to be cast aside as a nothing. He must be delivered
into the hands of sinful men. He must be crucified. And He must be lifted up on a
cross. Again and again the Lord Jesus
Christ said and it is written isn't it it is written he says
i say unto you he spoke in the most glorious ways all the prophets
said but he says i say unto you he took upon himself the authority
of one who spoke the very words of god and he spoke the prophecies
of god but he was actually just saying again and again what the
Old Testament Scriptures have said, that Christ came, this
world existed. Crucifixion was invented by the
Romans not very long before these events, and crucifixion by nailing,
which caused there to be blood rather than tying them up with
ropes, was invented by the Romans just before the crucifixion of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything in this creation happened
that the Lord Jesus would be crucified. But why? Why must he suffer? We spoke earlier about that eternal
union he had with his bride. The wages of sin is death. Now
God will reveal the fact that he's holy. He's a just God and a saviour. He's always going to be just. In the salvation of your souls,
brothers and sisters in Christ, our God is going to display his
holiness and his justice and his faithfulness. Justice, the
justice of God. Put the cup, the cup into the
hands of the Savior. You might recall his words in
the garden. He says, Father, if this cup may not pass away, I will be done. What was in the
cup? There can be no question from
the scriptures what was in the cup, brothers and sisters. People
say it was the wrath of God. Well, for the wrath of God to
be holy and just wrath, it had to fix itself upon something.
What was in that cup? was all of the sins of all of
the children of God, from Adam and Eve until the last one to
be born on this planet. He looked in to that cup with
the eyes of omniscience and was absolutely horrified. in his garden. Did you hear what
he said? This cup may not pass away from
me except I drink it. I drink it. We can say the words, can't we?
And we can repeat the words. means. We drink iniquity like
water. We live in sin like the fish
live in the ocean. We have no idea of the depth
of our sin. The one place where sin is seen
as sin in its gruesome reality is when the Lord Jesus Christ
was delivered to their will. What the exposure of man. Pilate said he is the sin that the Lord Jesus
Christ looked in and saw in that cup. So God's justice put the
cup into the hands of our blessed surety because of what he promised
him before the foundation of the world. He promised us that
surety, I'll bring them back to you, Father. I'll bring them
back holy and spotless and unblameable, unreprovable, and the only way
I can do that, and the only way possible for that to happen,
is that all of their sins are put on me. and all of your holy
wrath is extended upon me, and I bear their sins in my own body
on the tree." It's a glorious salvation that
comes free to us, but the cost to our Saviour was extraordinary,
wasn't it? He bore our sins. In the face and in the presence
of a just and holy God can only be in one place at one time. Our God is holy and our God is
just and if they're on him and he drank them then you can't
drink them and if he put them away God says they're gone forever. That's what it is to be justified,
isn't it? Is to have never sinned. That's what it is to have his
righteousness. The Lord our righteousness. A
righteousness which is holy righteousness. A righteousness at the hands
of our Saviour. He must suffer. God's holiness
and God's law determine the brew. God the Son's love for his father's
glory and love for his bride took him to Calvary's tree. Thy
will be done. That's what Moses and the prophets
said. There's no love like it, brothers
and sisters. There are no words to describe
it. We just have the testimony of
God. We have the testimony of Moses
and the prophets, and you can read it again and again and again
throughout the scriptures. All the Psalms speak of it. All
of the sacrifices speak of it. Everything in the Old Testament,
from the slaying of that lamb in the Garden of Eden, to Noah's
Ark, to the lamb that was a substitute on Mount Moriah Abraham picked
up that knife to slay his son to the Passover. All of them
speak of the Christ who should suffer. Christ who should suffer. Or in their immutability, in
their unchangeableness, the law is set in stone. The weight of
wrath in all its dreadful appearance, sin in its just demerit, and cruelty and the dear Redeemer
in the highest act of unparalleled obedience went to the cross of
Calvary and he bore our sins. The should says that there's
a necessity. The should says that there's
a result of it and he bore them away. That's the glory of him
rising. But there's something else in
this suffering that I want to quickly look at before we move
on. That word suffering is the word pathos that you might hear
often. And pathos means someone who
is capable of feeling. When you're in the presence of
unfeeling people, it's very, very cruel, isn't it? When you're
in the presence of people who have no sensitivity to the pain
that you are bearing, it's extraordinarily cruel. To have pathos, that word
suffering, is to be capable of feeling. It also means to be
subject to the necessity of suffering, destined to suffer. But our Lord
Jesus Christ, if you turn quickly to Hebrews chapter two with me,
there's a glorious description of him which covers something
of what we have said and something of the must of him coming and
something of the must and the should of him suffering. It says
in Hebrews 2 verse 10, it says, For it became him for whom are
all things and by whom are all things, that's the sovereignty
of our God, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain
of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both he that
sanctifier and they who are sanctified, and that is in the perfect passive
tense, that sanctification, it cannot be added to and it cannot
be diminished, and it's not something that you do, it's something that
God does, are all of one. They're not near each other.
They're not like each other. It says they're all of one. That's
what God says. This is what Moses and the prophets
are saying. For which cause? Because of his oneness with us,
because of his union with his people, He says, for which cause
he is not ashamed to call them brothers, brethren. That means
children born of the same womb. Jerusalem above is a mother of
us all, says Galatians 4. He's not ashamed to call us brethren.
There is no shame in the Lord Jesus Christ calling the likes
of you and I, brothers and sisters, calling us brethren. saying I
shall I will declare thy name unto my brethren in the midst
of the church I will sing praise unto thee and again I will put
my trust in him and again behold I and the children which God
hath given me For as much then as the children
uptake as the flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took
part of the saying, that through death he might destroy him who
had the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver on
him the seed of Abraham. He didn't take on him the seed
of Adam, he took on him the seed of Abraham. All the faith children,
the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things it was
necessary for him to be made like unto his brethren, that
he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining
to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. Not make an offer of reconciliation
for the sins of the people, but to make reconciliation for the
sins of the people. The people are the children of
God, the seed of Abraham. Not the world, but the people
of God. For in that he himself suffered
being tempted, listen to this, he is able to succor them that
are tempted. We can't blame God for any of our
temptations. But what a saviour we have, a
merciful and faithful high priest. You know what that word succor
means? It means to run to the cry of to help. Lord save me,
Lord if you're willing you can make me whole. He runs, he runs to the cry. He runs to the cross. Well, we
need to just turn over to that verse that we quote often in
Hebrews chapter four. It says, let's start at verse 14.
Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is, past in
the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. Let us hold fast what we proclaim
about him. For we have not a high priest
which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities,
but is in all points like as we are, yet without sin. Therefore, let us come boldly
unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find
grace to help in times of need. It says he's touched. He's touched. There is no temptation ever before
in you, brothers and sisters, and no experience that you will
ever have in this world with which your Savior is not intimately
familiar in a far more intense way. But he's touched. That word touch is the word we
get sympathy from. That word is sympathy. That's
what that word says. Sympathy. Someone who is affected
with the same feelings. Someone who is able to feel and
to have compassion. Moses and the prophets said that
he should come. Moses and the prophets said that
he should come and he should suffer. Moses and the prophets
did say that Christ should be the first that should rise from
the dead. He should be the first. The word
first is the word that we have proto, you might think of prototypes,
the very first of all. It means the preeminent one.
It means the first in time, the chief, the principal. It also
means the best. He's the proto, the firstfruits. He's the first that should rise
from the dead. See, Moses and the prophets speak
of him. You recall those verses in Isaiah 53. He shall see the
travail of his soul and be satisfied. He shall see, God the Father
shall see the travail of the Son and be satisfied. God the
Son will see. I'll read a couple that we don't
read so often that relate to his resurrection. Hosea 6 verse 1 says, Come let
us return unto the Lord, for He hath torn, and He will heal
us. He hath smitten, and He will
bind us up. After two days will He revive
us, and in the third day He will raise us up. We're resurrected
with Him. We were crucified with Him. We
were buried with Him. We were baptized with Him. We
were circumcised with Him. We were raised up with Him. He'll
raise us up. He'll raise us up. That's the
promise from Isaiah. Hundreds and hundreds of years
beforehand. And then he goes on to say, our friend Hosea,
he says, and we shall live in his light. Isn't that glorious? Isaiah 26 verse 19, it says,
thy dead men shall live. ...of his dead body. The Lord Jesus Christ in Colossians
1.8 and Revelation 1.5 is spoken as the first born from the dead,
the first begotten from the dead. He's the first that should rise. In his rising is the guarantee
of the rising of all of his people, the guarantee of the rising of
all humanity. He should rise from the dead. Let's turn to 1 Corinthians 15.
We don't spend enough time reading this chapter, do we? We're not
going to read very much of it, but I want you to just look at
some of these glorious verses. I love how Paul begins 1 Corinthians
15. He's going on to talk about the
resurrection. He first wants to talk to us about the gospel,
and it's the gospel that he was preached in verse 1. He's declaring
again the gospel which was preached. He's declaring what he declares
to you. We keep declaring the same thing. Come here, Lord willing,
next week and the week after, we'll be talking about Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. Which I preached unto you, which
you also have received, wherein you stand. We stand in what has
been preached. We stand in what the Lord Jesus
Christ was preached. We stand in what Moses and the
prophets preached. We stand in what the apostles
preached about Him. By which also you are saved.
If ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed
in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I
also received. He wasn't delivering something
that he'd made up. He was delivering what he'd received from the Lord
Jesus Christ. How that Christ died for our sins according to
the Scriptures. Christ died for our sins according
to the scriptures. That word for is a little word
that I love to think about. It means someone that stands
over, bending over, standing over, bending over, shielding
and sheltering the one that he would defend And he consumed the sacrifice,
consumed the fire from God's throne of glory and grace. But
he did it all according to the scriptures. You notice it's according
to the scriptures, according to the scriptures. And he goes
on to say about the risen Lord Jesus Christ, verse 12. Now,
if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some
among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be
no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. And
if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is vain. Our preaching
is empty. The basis and the strength and
the power of all of our preaching is the fact that Christ Jesus
rose from the dead and lives and reigns and rules And if Christ
be not risen, then our preaching is vain, and your faith is empty. Your faith is empty. It's extraordinary. I met a translator in the Philippines
many years ago, and he didn't believe. If Christ didn't rise,
then your preaching is vain and your faith is vain. Yea, and
we have also found false witnesses of God, because we have testified
of God that he raised up Christ. God. We have God's testimony
about God. We have God's testimony about
God the Son. You can read that in 1 John 5.
We're saying that God raised up Christ. Whom he raised up
not, if so be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not,
then Christ is not raised. And if Christ is not raised,
your faith is vain, and you are yet in your sins. And they which have fallen asleep
in Christ perish. Christ was raised from the dead. He should rise from the dead.
It's necessary that he rise from the dead. It's absolutely essential
that he rise from the dead. The character of God demands
that he be risen from the dead. I love that verse in Romans 4.25. He was delivered for our offences. He was delivered to all of this
that we've been talking about. He was delivered because of our
offences and was raised again because of our justification. God is just. Our Saviour saw
no corruption because there was nothing in Him to cause corruption
when He was in that tomb for three days. Our Saviour must
rise from the dead. He must rise from the dead. The
justice, the holiness, the truthfulness, the faithfulness of our God demands
that He rise from the dead. The eternal covenant of grace
demands that He rise from the dead. The scriptures demand that
He rise from the dead. This is what the prophets say. It's just as on that morning
when Mary went to that tomb, the rising from the dead. Mary went there with Spice's
anointment, thinking that she was going to be dealing with
a dead body. None of them, none of them, even though he had told
them again and again and again. It's a great evidence, isn't
it, of the fact that what we know, we know by revelation of
God. And we have a God who reveals
himself. God is light. God is holy. God is love. God is glorious. He should show light. He should
show light. That word showing light is like
the word preaching. It means to declare. He came
forth and he declared himself to them, didn't he? He says,
here I am. Here I am. And I remind you again,
brothers and sisters, he had the most remarkable opportunity
to march down to Caiaphas Hall and say, well, here I am, you
jolly Sanhedrin. And he had the opportunity, didn't
he, to go down to Pilate's Judgment Hall and say, well, here I am,
you Romans. And he didn't. There is not one resurrection
appearance in all of the scriptures to any other than his people,
and so He will show light. He will declare
light. He will announce light. He'll
publicly proclaim light. He'll make it known. That's what
that word means. He'll make it known. The glory
of him showing light, of course, is that the light already exists.
He was already risen from the dead long before Mary saw him. He was already risen from the
dead. And he shows himself. is revealing what already exists.
That's the glory of the revelation of the Old Testament Scriptures,
isn't it? It's the glory of the revelation that comes to people
as the gospel comes with power from on high, and that light
that's shone around Paul is a light that shines on the word of God,
and we see the Lord Jesus Christ in the Scriptures, and we see
him in a way that we've never seen him before. That's what
Paul said on the Damascus Road. He says, who are you? He could
have written a PhD thesis on the Christ of God and the character
of God. He didn't have a clue. And so
it is with all of us. We preach to dead people. We
preach Christ to dead people. Knowing that God will show light. To show light is a divine necessity. To show light is a divine revelation. To show light is God shows light. is to do something that only
God can do in creativity, in the hearts of people. I do read
those verses out of 2 Corinthians 4, often, and you might go and
study them and find the light. It says, if our gospel is hid,
it's hid to them that lost, in whom the God of this world has
blinded the minds of them which believe not lest the light of
the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should
shine unto them. But we preach not ourselves,
But Christ Jesus, the Lord, and ourselves, your servants, for
Jesus' sake. For God, who commanded light
to shine out of darkness, he's referencing the first words of
God. The first words of our God were, light be and light was. And that light penetrates the
darkness as nothing else can. God, who commanded light to shine
out of darkness, has shined in our hearts. God shines in the
hearts of his people through the preaching of the gospel to
give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. Anyone that ever talks about
God and doesn't talk about him and his glory in the face of
Jesus Christ is talking about another God. Another God who's
the figment of man's imagination and the contrivance of Satan
and his angels of light. On Mount Transfiguration, the
Lord Jesus Christ showed that light, didn't he? In the most
extraordinary example we have in the New Testament, him revealing
himself in a way, particularly and especially, the veil of humanity
was torn apart, as it were, and the glory of who he really was
shone through. And what were they talking about? What were Moses and Elijah? All
the prophets were talking about the deceased. That word deceased
is the exodus that he should accomplish at Jerusalem. Moses
and the prophets never talked about God trying to do something.
Moses and the prophets never talked about a God who'll do
something if you do something in response to it. This light
shines a light on the glory of a sovereign God who must have
his way and must have his will. And this light shines unto the
people. The first shining of this light
was to the Jews. As I said earlier, it was shown
to particular people at a particular time. And like those disciples
on the Emmaus road, they were walking along and the Lord Jesus
Christ first preached to them out of the word. Then he began
with Moses and the prophets. If the light's going to shine
and him's going to be revealed, it's going to be revealed through
the preaching of the word of our God. And then he showed himself
in the breaking of bread. He showed himself in his broken
body and his shed blood. And what did they say? Didn't
our hearts burn within us as he opened up the scriptures to
us? Light will shine when the Lord
Jesus Christ shines that light. There is always an intimate and
necessary connection between the light from heaven and the
very word of God. The entrance of thy word, says
Psalm 191.30, says the entrance of thy word gives light, the
unfolding and the opening. And briefly, the very word that
caused Paul to be standing before this Judge and jury, Paul spoke,
of all that the prophets and Moses did say should come, that
Christ should be a light unto the Gentiles. That very word
that two and a half years earlier had caused there to be a riot
in Jerusalem, that word Gentiles. Moses and the prophets spoke
again and again of this light. Simeon picked up that little
baby, just an eight-day-old baby. He says, now I've seen your salvation. I can go in peace. I've seen
the Lord. And he spoke of him being a light. He took him in his arms and blessed
God and said, now, Lord, let us, thy servant, depart in peace.
And according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation,
which thou hast prepared before the face of all people, a light
to lighten the Gentiles. The first declaration of him
in the temple was from Simeon and it was about the Gentiles.
A light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel. This light brings sight. Isaiah 62 verse 2 says, and the
Gentiles shall see thy righteousness and all kings thy glory. His light comes and brings revelation. The light shines on him who is
the light of the world. The light reveals a covenant
keeping and a covenant making God. but also a goal because that
covenant is fulfilled in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
You can read about him as the covenant in Isaiah 42.6 and 42.9,
and you'll see that in both those cases, he comes and will be a
light. But I love what Isaiah says, in Isaiah 60, verse three,
he says, and the Gentiles shall come to thy light and kings to
the brightness Christ is our light. Christ is our righteousness. Christ is our all. Why would
you want to preach anything else? Why would you want to preach
the opinions of men? Paul obtained help of God and
he continued witnessing both the small and great, saying none
other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say
should come. That Christ should suffer, that
he should be the first, that should rise from the dead and
should show light unto the people, unto the Gentiles. In his light, we see light, his
light. through this week. Let's pray.
Now, Heavenly Father, we pray that you might yet again cause
your word to be both spirit and life to the hearts of your people. Bless your word, Heavenly Father.
Bless your people who faithfully proclaim it in this world and
bless those, your children, Heavenly Father, who simply have a childlike
faith in the fact of who you are and what you say. And may your word, Heavenly Father,
be a lamp and a light to guide us as we go through the days
of our lives. And may we see, Heavenly Father,
that all of the light we have is a revelation that comes from
a Saviour bleeding and dying on our behalf and in our stead
and in glorious union with us. May you make, through your light,
his body broken and his blood shed. Precious to us, Heavenly
Father.