People love to delve into mysteries
and feel that they are privy to special information. This
is no less true among the people of God, and that natural inclination
is often used by Satan to distract them from the simplicity which
is in Christ. This tendency shows itself rather
prominently in the desire to know the future. Therefore, among
professed Christians, there is a significant emphasis placed
on the prophetic scriptures, and there are many famous preachers
who have made themselves famous by claiming to have some special
insight into the scripture's prophetic passages. I was raised
in a system of theology called dispensationalism, but I've not
held that position since my years in Bible school. There is not
sufficient time to give a full explanation of dispensationalism,
but it is most widely known for its belief that there will be
a sort of twofold second coming of the Lord Jesus. First, a rapture
in which Christ will take all of the Christians out of the
world. Next will come seven years of tribulation, followed by the
second coming of Christ to rule on a literal throne in Jerusalem
for 1,000 years. After this millennium, there
will be a final judgment. Now, essential to this system
of theology is the belief that there are yet unfulfilled promises
to Israel. It is said that these promises
will be fulfilled only in that millennial age when the nation
of Israel will be restored to its promised land and the Lord
Jesus, the Son of David, will sit on the throne of David in
Jerusalem. But when preaching to the synagogue
in Antioch of Pisidia, Paul made this remarkable statement to
the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles that were present there
on that Sabbath day. It is recorded for us in Acts
chapter 13, verses 32 and 33. Paul said, and we bring you the
good news, and that's the word normally translated gospel. So
we could say that Paul said, and we bring you the gospel,
that what God promised to the fathers, this he has fulfilled
to us, their children, by raising Jesus. Paul is speaking to a
group of Jews, his kinsmen according to the flesh, and he tells them
that all they were to look for and hope for according to God's
promise has been fulfilled by the resurrection of the Lord
Jesus. Paul reduced all the individual's promises made over the entire
span of Jewish history into a single promise, the promise made to
the fathers. and this single, all-encompassing
promise was fulfilled by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Paul repeats this concept in 2 Corinthians 1, verse 20. For however many promises of
God there are, in Christ is the yes. Note that it does not say
that in Christ are the yeses. It is a singular yes, for it
was a singular promise. Every promise of God was a promise
of Christ. Even the patriarchs understood
this. In Hebrews 11, verses 8-10, we find, By faith Abraham, when
he was called to go out into a place which he should after
receive for an inheritance, obeyed, and went out, not knowing whether
he went. by faith he sojourned in the
land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tents with
Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. For
he looked for a city which has foundations, whose builder and
maker is God." And then if we go down a few more verses, verses
13 to 16, we find, "...these all died in faith, not having
received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were
persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they
were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." Note that they were
right in the so-called land of promise, but they did not consider
it to be home. In fact, nowhere on earth was
home for these faithful believers in God's promise. Hebrews continues,
For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek
a country. And truly, if they had been mindful
of that country from whence they came, they might have had opportunity
to have returned. But now they desire a better
country, that is, an heavenly country. Wherefore God is not
ashamed to be called their God, for He hath prepared for them
a city. Now there it is, as plain as
day. Not even Abraham thought the
promise of God about a land would find fulfillment in the possession
of Mideastern real estate. Abraham saw Christ's day, said
the Lord Jesus, and he rejoiced in what he saw. Abraham was not
looking for land in this world. Even if he had come into possession
of all the land that God showed him, he would not have been satisfied. He would not have considered
it the fulfillment of what God had promised. Now all of this
is not for the purpose of disproving dispensationalism. The harm of
dispensationalism is not so much in what it leads us to believe,
but what it distracts us from. Let me illustrate. Back in 2002,
we had a house fire. Rather than repair our house,
we tore it down and built another. In between tearing the old one
down and building the new one, someone passed by the empty lot. This person commented to my wife,
I never knew what a beautiful view you had from your backyard. Now the beautiful view was there
all along, but the house had obstructed that view from everyone
but us and our neighbors. Once the house was out of the
way, everyone could see it. It's the same way with many of
the theological structures that we build in the mistaken notion
that they enhance our view of the truth. they obstruct the
glory of God's truth in Christ. And so it is with dispensationalism.
So the overall thesis of this message is every promise God
has made is Christ. And every such promise was fulfilled
in the resurrection of Christ. None of what the believer looks
for and hopes for is in this world. We look for a heavenly
country, a celestial city, heavenly treasure, and a home in the presence
of the Father. And all of that was purchased
by the life and death of Christ and was guaranteed to all God's
elect from every nation when God raised Christ from the dead.
Indeed, Paul was correct when he said, God has blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ. For the remainder of this message,
I want to look at some of the major promises of the Old Testament
and see how they were fulfilled in the resurrection of Jesus
Christ. After Adam sinned and the entire human race fell in
him, God issued some curses and a promise. He promised that the
seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. We know
that the serpent was Satan, the accuser of the brethren. His
hatred for Christ compels him to trouble the people of Christ
by first dragging them into sin, then accusing them of that sin
before God. If he can make just one of the
Lord's people to come under the Lord's condemnation for sin,
then he shall have won the victory over Christ. For if even one
of Christ's sheep can be lost, then none of his sheep can have
any confidence of eternal life. But Christ came into this world
born of a woman, the seed of the woman, and he was born under
the law by which the devil tries to drag us into a sense of condemnation. As one born under the law, he
came under its obligations, which he fulfilled perfectly and earned
all those blessings of life that are due unto the righteous. But
instead of grasping those blessings, he surrendered them and became
a curse. willingly absorbing within himself
all that being cursed by God means. This came to its apex
in the crucifixion. There the serpent raised up in
the hearts of wicked men and struck the heel of our Lord according
to the word of the Lord given in the Garden of Eden. But God
raised Christ from the dead. And when Christ was raised from
the dead, He crushed the head of that serpent. Never again
can that wicked one touch the Lord or any of his people so
as to bring them into God's disfavor. Satan's kingdom has been overcome. A couple of thousand years later,
God made this promise to Abraham. Go from your country and your
kindred and your father's house to a land that I will show you.
And I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you and
make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will
bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will
curse. And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."
People have taken these promises in a strictly literal way and
think that God has given to the natural descendants of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob a special protection in this world, so much so that
they believe that any nation which stands against the natural
nation of Israel will come under God's curse. But it is not the
Israel of Jacob that is protected in this way, but the Israel of
God. It is not all the natural descendants
that are so protected, but one seed in particular, the Lord
Jesus Christ. Paul calls Christ the seed of
Abraham, as it is written in the book of Galatians. Now to
Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He did not say
and to seeds in the plural, but in the singular, and to thy seed,
which is Christ." The promises of God to Abraham were not fulfilled
in a large and prosperous nation of Israel. They were fulfilled
in Christ when God raised Him from the dead. When Christ died
and rose again, the Israel of God was in Him, and they died
and rose with Him. Christ rose in a new and spiritual
kingdom, and the church, the Israel of God, rose with Him. According to the book of Hebrews,
these Old Testament words are put into the mouth of Christ,
I and the children you have given me. The innumerable seed of Abraham
is not to be found in his natural descendants, but in his spiritual
ones. All of those in Christ for through
Christ it is we who believe in him who are the seed of Abraham,
and we possess the land. And this world is judged by how
it treats us, the church of God. In the book of Revelation, it
is said on at least two occasions that the judgments which God
sends on the earth are in response to the world's treatment of the
church. God promised David that there
would always be one of His descendants on the throne of Israel. As Paul
continued in Acts chapter 13, he showed that the promise to
David was fulfilled in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christ's resurrection
was not simply His coming out of the tomb. In fact, the word
translated raised up can mean more than simply being raised
from death. It includes He is being raised
to the right hand of God to sit there until God makes all his
enemies a footstool for his feet. God has set his king on his holy
hill. Jesus Christ is enthroned as
king over all of God's creation, this old creation and the new
creation. The earth is our Lord's and everything
in it. He is a king priest who will
never die. Therefore He is able to save
to the uttermost them who come to God by Him, seeing He ever
lives, to intercede for Him." Brothers and sisters, there is
nothing to look for beyond the Lord Jesus Christ. All God's
promises are yes in Him. Every promise of God is fulfilled
in His being raised to the throne of heaven. And the only response
we dare give to that is found in the very psalm that Paul quotes
in Acts chapter 13. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry,
and you perish in the way.