I want you to turn back in your
Bibles to the book of Revelation briefly. We will also be going
to the book of Isaiah, which will be our pointer passage for
the text in Revelation chapter 3. As we hasten to conclude this
third reflection upon this sixth church that our Lord Jesus Christ
has written to, the church in Philadelphia, we quickly come
upon His his clear concern to make sure
that the church in Philadelphia understands just how much he
loves her. We read in verse nine, behold,
I will make them of the synagogue of Satan would say they are Jews
and or not, but do lie. Behold, I will make them to come
and worship before your feet and to know that I have loved
you. said the Lord. What a God. What a promise. And what a comfort
for the Savior to speak specifically to the church in Philadelphia,
these words. Now, as we closed out last week,
I intimated that when our Lord used this term, I have loved
you, that it was an Old Testament phrase that was rooted in covenant. That is to say that when he said,
I have loved you, he was speaking to Philadelphians in Asia Minor
who were a congregation of mixed people, Jews and Gentiles. And
the Jews in that church would have understood that he quoted
from Jeremiah. When Jeremiah plainly declared
in chapter 31, I have loved you with an everlasting love and
therefore with loving kindness have I drawn you to myself. They
would have understood that this was covenant language that fundamentally
and contextually applied to national Israel, but is now adopted by
our master and employed in his relationship to his church. This is covenant language that
speaks to the nuptial agreement and commitment of a husband to
his bride. I have loved you. And I will
show everyone that you are my highest goal and objective. You, the church at Philadelphia,
for all that you have done to magnify my name and to preach
my gospel and to enter into the open doors of witness and preaching
and teaching and evangelizing and telling everyone that I am
Lord, I will stand in defense of you against those who pretend
to be Jews, but are not. And they will know that I have
loved you. This is our Lord passionately
speaking to the church at Philadelphia about what he knows she is suffering. As you and I dealt with the whole
idea of open doors last week, one portion of scripture I did
not call your attention to, and that was 1 Corinthians 16, around
verse nine, where the apostle said, There are there is an effectual
door opened unto me whereby I might preach the gospel But there are
many adversaries I do want to let you know this when God opens
the door for you to preach the Word of God You are never going
to be preaching the gospel in a place where everyone listening
to you agrees with what you say you are never going to preach
Christ to a crowd where everyone per capita is Consents to your
preaching consents to your Savior Embraces your God you're gonna
always have when you are preaching the true gospel adversaries For
those who are true servants of Christ, you will always have
an adversary in any door you go into because the devil is
relentless in his opposition of biblical truth. Remember what
we understood is that the gospel breaks barriers. The gospel penetrates
hearts. The gospel tears us under the
bars of hell and brings sinners out of darkness into God's marvelous
light. The gospel itself assaults the
kingdom of darkness. Do you think the enemy is going
to just let sinners just walk out of his prison under the preaching
of the gospel and not attack you, not pursue you, to stop
you and thwart you? No one of God's servants who
have ever preached Christ ever imagined that they would be preaching
to whole assemblies of people who are ready to bow the knee
to Christ. Most of the time, when we preach
the Word of God, what we do know, in fact, is there are a number
of people among us who are hostile to our message. Very hostile
to the message. Because by nature, we will have
no one to be Lord over our life. By nature, we will have no one
to be Lord over our life. By nature, we will have no one
to be Lord over our life. If someone's going to be Lord
over your life, they must dominate you. They must subdue you. And this is why, for us, the
preaching of the gospel is not merely an offer. It's not merely
a set of ideas that we negotiate with people around. Like, we
never! And you never hear it in the
Word of God! ever say to you, will you accept Jesus Christ
as your Lord and Savior? Because that is to demean the
proposition. The proposition is never an offer,
it's always a command. And do you know what it says?
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. And if
you don't, you will perish under the wrath of God. Now what that
means, ladies and gentlemen, is Jesus is a Lord. When He comes
to sinners, He comes to them telling them to believe on Him.
And when His servants preach as ambassadors of Christ, we
are preaching as an ambassador of kings to offending subjects
in His kingdom. We're all under the Lordship
of Christ. Every one of us. You, me, all
of us are under the Lordship of Christ. Those who don't even
know Him are. Those who rebel against Him are. And when we come to them, we
say to them, do you know the Lord Jesus? Have you submitted
to His crown rights? Have you bowed the knee to King
Jesus? Hey, you are in trouble with
God. And Christ is Lord of all. Believe
on him that you may escape the consequences of your sins. Now,
a lot of people are not going to buy that proposition. But
God's elect will. Every one of God's sheep will
hear his voice and the authoritative voice of Christ will penetrate
the heart And it would be such good news when they hear that
the Savior has showed up to deliver them out of the darkness of hell
They don't care if Christ screams at them They're ready to go when
he comes get them because they understand this is love This
is sovereign love to call men and women out of darkness I say
that to say this that the promises here given in verse nine, the
set of context are given to the church by Jesus Christ. And they are the product of prophetic
fulfillment in Christ. What did he say? He says, and
I will make them to come and worship before your feet and
to know that I have loved you. I will make those who say they
are Jews but are not, but do lie. Behold, I will make them.
Do you see that? Doesn't seem like he's going
to bargain with them. The verb form is powerful. Boy, yeah.
It means to subdue them. I will cause them to do this.
Now this is quite fascinating if you slow down and let the
text kind of work itself out. Christ sees that there is a constituency,
an antagonism against the gospel. He knows who the people group
are. I told you who they are. We're getting ready to go through
texts of scripture to affirm it. They were the Jews. We called
them in the New Testament Judaizers. They were the ones who went everywhere
Paul was preaching opposing Paul's gospel of free grace. Everywhere
Christ went, or Paul went, or the Apostles went, wherever they
preached the truth of the grace of God freely given to sinners
by faith alone apart from works, Jews came along and said no!
And they did all they could to persecute them. The church at
Philadelphia during this time maybe around 90 AD, was experiencing
a great deal of opposition by the Jews. And the Jews had written
decrees, they had written statements that fundamentally amounted to
this, wherever there are those pretending Jews who call themselves
Christians, let them be anathema. That was the tenor of their discourse
about men and women who saw Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of
all the scriptures. Their tenor was, let them be
accursed. So there was a furious opposition
on the part of these Judaizers against Christians and certainly
the ones who were originally or indigenously Jewish. Remember
what I said last week? I said that when Christ called
people to himself, he didn't play church like we do. What
he said to men and women was, now if you're going to follow
me, if you're going to follow me, you're going to have to take
up your cross and you're going to have to deny yourself. You're
going to have to deny yourself and you're going to have to take
up your cross and you got to actually follow me. You know what that
means? That means you have to now take
an excursion that is similar to the life and pattern of Jesus
Christ. And when he said, you've got
to actually follow me, what he was saying is you're going to
suffer like I did. Listen, he said, the servant is not greater
than the master. If they did this to me, you got
to take your hits too. So what happens is when a man
or woman is truly born again, and the love of God is shed abroad
in your heart by the Holy Ghost, you are made to know how much
Christ took the hit for you. And the impact of that revelation
ought to have a corresponding response on your part to be ready
to take the hit for Christ. That's called love. That's called
love. That's why Paul could say in
Acts chapter 22, when they said, Paul, it's before chapter 22,
Paul, you're headed to Jerusalem, but we've already received the
prophecy that you're going to be bound there. They're going
to they're going to capture you. You know what he said? I'm not
only ready to be bound, I'm ready to die for Christ. And see, what we're talking about
is the normative faith of every true believer in Christ. I'm
setting the context to help you understand that when our Lord
uses this language in Revelation chapter 9, I will make them to
come and worship before your feet and to know that I have
loved you. He has adopted language out of Isaiah chapter 45 and
Isaiah chapter 60, which we're going to look at, that historically
and contextually appears to apply to national Israel. and the sort
of superiority of Israel over the nations. Contextually, when
we look at Isaiah 45 and Isaiah 60, the promises that God gave
to Israel through the prophets appear to say that Israel would
be the head and all the other nations would be the tail, and
those that persecuted you would bow down to your feet and worship
you. You guys know the tenor of that
language if you study your Bible, right? Problem is, biblical revelation
does not end at Malachi. It ends at the book of Revelation.
And between Malachi and the book of Revelation, there's a new
covenant that's established. And when that new covenant is
established, it's established upon better principles, and it
actually brings to fulfillment things that were talked about
in the Old Testament and changes the paradigm, though it uses
the same structure. I've taught you that with regards
to the book of Revelation. I've said, when we go through
the book of Revelation, you must be able to interpret Old Testament
symbolism under New Testament principles. And because our Lord
Jesus is speaking presently to the Church of Philadelphia, he's
saying to her, go back to Isaiah 45 and let me show you where
that promise is. That's what he's saying to her. Go back to
Isaiah 45 and let me show you where the promise is for you.
Go back to Isaiah 60 and let me show you where the promise
is for you. And that's what I want you to
do now. Go back to Isaiah 45. Let me show you how important
it is for you to be able to interpret scripture from a Christocentric
New Testament apostolic premise in order to have a coherent understanding
of the gospel. Otherwise, you will be making
a huge mistake that has perilous consequences when it comes to
the will of God, particularly in the area of interpretation.
Under the first point in our outline, as we head to Isaiah
45, I want you to know this. Biblical Judaism Christ in you
the hope of glory biblical Judaism is Christ in you the hope of
glory biblical Judaism biblical Judaism
not ancient Judaism not modern Judaism not ethnic Judaism biblical
Judaism so like if you're a Christian that actually believes your Bible
biblical Judaism has been established upon multiple principles of scripture
to be crystal centric in its reality and manifested in its
fullness by Jews and Gentiles in one body called the church.
When you violate that principle, you now disconnect the old from
the new and destroy the aim of scripture in its application
to Jesus Christ who as we're about to see is the only true
Jew in the world. Biblical Judaism is Christ in
you, the hope of glory. And when that's true, the Spirit
of God works through sound principles of interpretation to allow you
to go back to the Old Testament and see that Old Testament passages
that had an appearance of having fulfillment in Judaism could
only really be fulfilled by the church of the living God, the
body of Christ, of which he is the head. In Isaiah chapter 45,
I want you to see how this works. under our first point fulfilled
in Christ by the church biblical Judaism is Christ in you the
hope of glory fulfilled in Christ do you see the source and sphere
and rim of fulfillment it's in Christ right Christ is the one
who fulfills the scripture. Do you believe that you read
your New Testament Matthew Mark Luke and John and you know the
word that you see frequently in those passages as Jesus makes
its excursion from Galilee Capernaum all the way to finally Jerusalem
The word is that the scriptures might be what that the scriptures
might be fulfilled that the scriptures might be fulfilled and our glorious
Magnificent lovely Savior is hanging on the cross And he does
one last act He says I thirst and they gave him vinegar to
drink and you know what the text is that the scriptures might
be fulfilled Christ is the sum and substance of the Word of
God Lo I come in the volume of the book is written of me to
do your will Oh God That's why I say he's the only true Jew
because he a true Jew does the will of God But I can't find
a true Jew on planet earth neither in the Old Testament nor the
new I And we're going to see that here in a moment. So what
we say as New Testament expositors is when we submit ourselves to
biblical teaching, the apostles have taught us, they have taught
us that Christ is the key to the scriptures and that Christ's
goal upon his ascension to heaven is to work out all of the promises
of God through the church. So you guys do know 2 Corinthians
chapter 120, long ago, one of our memory verses, all the promises
of God. Now, what does the word all mean?
There you go, you can even get that right going to government
school all the promises of God are yes and amen in him to the
glory of God the Father by us That's an axiom of biblical interpretation
around the promises of God you guys got that all of them are
fulfilled in him and to the glorious of his father by us. They are
yes, they are affirmed, they are to be completed and realized
only in Jesus Christ. He is the key, he's the center,
he's the foundation, he's the plumb line, he's the source,
he's the matrix, he's the substratum, he's the basis upon which all
the promises come to pass. the church becomes the realization
of this glorious vision of which the book of Revelation is here
speaking fulfilled in Christ by the church watch this in Isaiah
chapter 45 where you just were our Lord Jehovah is Speaking
to the people of God called the Jews and once again, they are
in trouble with God Nevertheless, he has always had a people for
his namesake. Is that true? It doesn't care
It doesn't matter how many rebels are in the church Old Testament
or new It doesn't matter how many people merely profess His
name. Old Testament or New. There's always a remnant according
to the election of grace who do God's will. It doesn't matter
how many people apostatize and depart from the faith and adopt
new religions or twist the scriptures or chop up the New Testament
and deny the Old Testament. It doesn't matter. There's gonna
always be a people who believe the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.
Always. And if people fall away all around
you, family, friend, and foe, there will always be one who
will say, as we will sing today, I will follow Jesus. I will follow Jesus. I will follow
Jesus. And it's to them that he's writing. And here's what he says over
in Isaiah chapter 45, verse 22. Are you here? Here's another
verse for you to memorize. Look unto me and be saved all
the ends of the earth for I am Elohim and there is none else. Do you see that? Look unto me
all the ends of the earth and be saved for I am God and there
is none else. I will assert and submit to you
that if you do not look to Christ, you cannot be saved. If you and
I are not looking to Jesus, who is the author and finisher of
our faith, we can't be saved. And if you and I are not seeing
Jesus high and lifted up, as he said in John chapter six,
and this is the will of him that sent me, that all that seeth
the son, do you see him? Are you looking? Is Christ made
manifest in your heart? Do you revel in the reality that
God has manifested His glory to you in Jesus? Isn't Jesus
a beautiful vision to your soul? In your contemplation daily,
isn't Christ the one person with whom you ruminate and meditate
upon and cogitate and think upon constantly as the object of your
adoration and love? Isn't Christ the mystery of your
hope? Isn't He the center of your aspirations? Don't you want
to know Him and know Him more fully and more intimately? And more perfectly, because He's
been revealed to you as the Savior. Now mark this now, if you've
seen the Son, you've seen the Father. And there's no way to
see the Father except in the Son. For the Father is an invisible
being, incomprehensible to the eyes, and imperceivable with
the mind. He is unapproachable. He is invisible. He is only comprehended and understood
in his son, Jesus Christ. For Christ is the revelation
of the invisible God. He is the revelation of the invisible
God. So if I'm going to ever know
anything about God, I've got to know Christ. And thus he plainly
said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes unto
the Father but by me. That is an exclusive revelatory
fact of which, apart from that revelation, you can't know God. And when this text tells us,
look unto me, all ye ends of the earth, for I am God and there
is none other, you know what that teaches me? That Jesus Christ
bears the same nature of his Father. Equal with his father
and becomes the only way in which men can see God. He is God in
the flesh You guys got that he is God in the flesh and he's
the exclusive means and I would suggest to you that if you have
over the last weeks and months and years lost a vision of Christ
Get back on your knees Because you are in trouble Listen to
what it goes on to sell and show you what I meant by in our opening
passages that this idea of biblical Judaism is Christ in you the
hope of glory Fulfilled in Christ by the church verse 13 verse
23 says this for I have sworn by myself Do you see that I have
sworn? By myself the word is going out
of my mouth in righteousness and shall not return Here it
is that unto who? Now this is remarkable to me,
because if I'm going to be exegetically consistent, the person talking
in verse 22 is God Almighty, and he tells me I've got to look
to Him, but in verse 23 it says that every knee is going to bow
to Him. Do you see that? Listen to what
he says, I have sworn by myself the words going out of my mouth
in righteousness and shall not return, that unto me, Every knee
shall bow and every tongue shall what? Did not the Apostle Paul
adopt this language and anchor it in Philippians chapter 2 in
the person of Jesus Christ Did he not say did he not say that
God had given him a name above every name that at the name of
what? Jesus Every knee should bow and
every tongue shall swear and confess That Jesus Christ is
Lord to the glory of God You know what the passage teaches
me here in Isaiah? It teaches me that if I'm going to understand
Isaiah fully, I've got to go to the New Testament. Because
the person who is Christless in their revelation will conclude
that we're merely dealing with God the Father. But it's impossible
to deal with God the Father without dealing with whom? God the Son.
Stay with me now so we can learn some things, because this is
quite fascinating to me. We are told here that every new
will bow to God the Father in the person of Jesus Christ. Is
that true? Every knee will bow to God the father in the person
of Jesus Christ and yet ladies and gentlemen What we are told
in revelation chapter 3 verse 9 Is that they will bow the knee
to us? Isn't that wild They will bow
the knee. I will make them bow before your
feet What is he talking about? Well, he's talking about what
I've laid out in your outline that in the fulfillment of Old Testament
prophecy in the person of Jesus Christ, every human being is
going to bow before him. But in a very, very, very enormously
humbling way, Christ has stated that that would happen to him
through the church. So let's work this through a
little bit. What Christ is saying is men and women in this present
hour, Do bow the knee to him But they do it through the church
How do they do it through the church by the church's faithful
commitment to biblical preaching? by the church's faithful commitment
to witnessing by the church's faithful witness to sound biblical
exposition and a life committed to jesus watch this christ has
always intended for men and women to come to him As God the Father
has always intended for men and women to come to Him by Christ,
Christ has always intended for men and women to come to Him
through the church. Do you see the connection, ladies
and gentlemen? Do you see the connection? And this is an inexorable
connection. In other words, you cannot separate
Christ from the church in terms of His objective to get the job
done. And what He's saying to the church
so beautifully in Revelation 9 is this, I will have some of
those Jews who say they are true and they're not, they're going
to be mines, but they're going to come through your loving labors
and proclamation of the gospel. The ones that are telling you
that you're not right with God, God doesn't love you. You can't
be a Jew unless you're circumcised and keep the Sabbath and keep
the law. You can't be a Jew and therefore you cannot have the
love of God. What Christ says to the churches, no, they are
liars. We're going to unpack that in
a moment. Go back to the text. He says that promise is to me
and my father through the church For the last 2 000 years therefore
then men and women have been coming to the lord jesus through
the church For the last 2 000 years then men and women have
been coming to god the father through the lord jesus by what
the church See, this is why i'm teaching you at grace to love
the church rightly Because i've told you i said this on friday
night this twisted notion in the head of Christians to operate
autonomously and disjointed or disconnected from the body of
Christ and thinking you can go directly to Christ and not through
the church? That's a complete myth. It's not even possible
for you to even understand Jesus apart from the church. Can I
argue that point for a minute? The Bible you have in your hand,
we call it the what? Word of God. Did God throw that
Bible down from heaven and hit you on the head with it? Did
it land on the floor of your womb? God gave me his word. Because
that's how some people act. Some people act like God threw
the Bible down from heaven on their head and then they picked
it up and now they got their Bible. But we would argue with
you in terms of what we call bibliology, how the Bible was
put together was by God the Father, through God the Son, in the mouth
of all his prophets. They were all written down and
they were bind together by the collective labors of the church.
Isaiah, our Psalm 68 verse 11, the Lord gave us his word, great
was the company of those that what? Published it. So God uses
means to reveal himself to people, right? And so we preach the Word
because the Word has been given to us by God the Father, through
God the Son, and by the enablement of the Spirit of God do we commend
you to the grace of God and to the Word of God that can build
you up and give you an inheritance among those that are sanctified.
Now, when you come to be children of God, when God has made you
born again by that incorruptible seed planted in your heart, thank
God for the person or the people that He used to preach the gospel
to you. Don't neglect, don't neglect
the hand that fed you. And then when you become a member
in the church of Jesus Christ, the true church, serve God with
the church and love the church like Christ loved the church.
Or you might just find yourself outside of the church. Are you
hearing me? Because see, John plainly said
it. If you say you love God, whom you can't even see, but you don't love them who are
of God, who you do see, how does the love of God dwell in you?
Am I making some sense, ladies and gentlemen? See, what John
said in 1 John 5 too was, if you love him, and you know, everybody
likes to talk about, I love God. Now watch this. If you love him,
you love them that are born of him also. Am I making some sense? I want
to make sure you don't end up in hell under a false notion
of loving God, but not loving the people of God. See, and so
what Jesus is plainly telling us in our text here is that He
is the object of worship, but it's through the means of preaching
the gospel. What a powerful, powerful point.
Look at verse 24. Surely one shall say in the Lord
have I righteousness and strength even to him shall men come and
all that are incensed Against him shall be ashamed in the Lord
shall all the seed of Israel be Justified go back to Isaiah
45 verse 13. I want you to see something here.
I The prophet is speaking now, again, it appears to be to Israel,
but there's going to be some really interesting language here
that is worth our marking here. And in fact, I want you to start
at verse 15, not verse 13, start at verse 15. I'll leave that
alone for a moment. Verily, you are a God that hides yourself,
O God of Israel, the Savior. They shall be ashamed and all
soul confounded, all of them, they shall go to confusion together
that are makers of idols. But Israel shall be saved in
the Lord with an everlasting salvation. You shall not be ashamed
nor confounded. Notice the language that Isaiah
uses here. Are you ready? World without end. World without end. Now this construction
that closes out this sentence is adopted by the Apostle Paul
in the book of Ephesians. where Paul plainly attaches this
eternal world to the church of the living God. Go in your Bible
to Ephesians, I want you to see it. Because if you stay in the
historical context here, you may believe that what God is
talking about is Israel being an eternal habitation. That is
ethnic Israel or national Israel. But I would beg to differ with
you. You would have to overcome or avoid New Testament language. In Ephesians chapter 3 listen
to how the Apostle Paul puts it now, you know Ephesians 3
is about the revelation of the mystery of Christ in the ministry
of Paul how that Christ had hidden in the Old Testament the reality
of Gentiles who would also enter into the Commonwealth of Israel,
right and 9. And to make all men see what
the fellowship of the mystery is, which from the beginning
of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by
Jesus Christ. 8. Unto me, who am less than
the least of all the saints, is this grace given, that I should
preach among the Gentiles, the unsearchable riches of Christ. And he goes on to develop the
nature of the church as being the vehicle by which God's glory
is revealed and manifested in this universal way until the
end of time. And the language is lofty about
the church. He says over in verse 17 that
he prayed that Christ might dwell in your heart by faith. That
you being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend
with all the saints What is the breath? Length depth and height
ladies and gentlemen, what are we describing here tools to measure
a house? The house that we are measuring
is the church of the living god i.e more specifically the temple
of the living god and more nominatively, in terms of nomenclature, the
New Jerusalem. The body of Christ is the New
Jerusalem. And God has prayed that all the
saints would grasp the depth, the width, the breadth, the height,
the length, the significance of the Church of Christ. And
then this is how he closes out. I want you to see it. Listen
to what he says. Over in verse 19 and to know
the love of christ Don't you want to know the love of christ?
Didn't I say that earlier? But do you notice he's saying that
the way we know the love of christ is its manifestation in the church
To know the love of christ which passes knowledge that you might
be filled with all the fullness of god now verse 20 now unto
him Who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we
ask or think according to the power that works where? According
to the power that works where now again, you might want to
take this verse and make it personal but in reality It's a verse that
applies to the sufficiency of God's inexhaustible grace Given
to the church to do what the church has been called to do
in terms of glorified God the Father through God the Son See
Paul has never he never writes talking to you as an individual
separate from the church. I When he says you, he's speaking
in the first person singular of the church at large, but then
he's also speaking in the third person singular, our second person
plural to the church collectively as individuals. You all, you
all, that's what he's saying. You all, I am binding you to
a consideration of your relationship to Christ and God the Father
with regards to the church, because that's what's important in our
consideration. Now notice what he says. Now
unto Him be glory. Who? God the Father. So I'm going
to keep you consistent in your understanding the relationship
of the triune God and the church connected to it. Now unto Him
be glory. Unto who? God the Father. But
how is God the Father going to be glorified? In God the Son.
by Christ. But how is Christ going to be
glorified in the church? Are you ready? World without
end. Do you see it? Do you see the
passage? Do you see the relationship between
the Old Testament prophetic passage appearing to relate to ethnic
Israel, national Israel, Judaism in that region of the world,
but only having its ultimate fulfillment in one entity, the
body of Christ, the body of Christ, the body of a phenomenal path. Now, ladies and gentlemen, if
I wanted to take the time today and demonstrate that multiple
passages of scripture in the Old Testament, which appear,
appear, appear to have their fulfillment in Israel, in fact,
only could be fulfilled in the church, I could show you. I could
show you how Paul's hermeneutic, how his method of interpretation
would be taking Old Testament passages of scripture and say,
hey, this is not about the ten northern tribes. This is not
about the two southern tribes. This is about the church of the
living God. He understood that Because Jesus
understood that. You remember what Jesus said
in John chapter 8? When he was fighting with the
rulers himself. He says, now I know you are Abraham's
sperm. Don't get all moved by that.
That's biology. I know you're Abraham's sperma. You're his
physical seed. But you are not Abraham's tecna.
Because if you were Abraham's tecna, you would act like it. See, now the word techna means
family resemblance and behavior patterns consistent with being
part of the family. Y'all know what I'm talking about,
Dad. Mama, don't you know what I'm talking about? You know how
you tell those knuckleheads who you brought into the world? Now
you're a Gistan. You're a Smith. You're a Johnson. Act like it. Am I making some
sense? Now, when they cease to act like
the family, they're no longer a techna. They are merely a sperma. And this is why Christ would
say to the rulers, you are of your father, the devil. And we
know how, because of the way you act. There's no way, there's
no way you could be Abraham's seed Because Abraham believed
on me. Am I making some sense? Am I
building my argument? Because see, I can tell you where
we're going in the apostasy of the church, where we're going
in the apostasy of the church is a minimizing of the church
and a maximizing of ethnic Israel. You don't know it, but it's happening
even in Western Christianity. And in as much as you have that
kind of unbiblical sympathy, For ethnic Israel, you are endangering
detaching yourself from Christ. You are endangering adopting
a hermeneutic that will destroy your only hope for glory, which
is the grace of God in Jesus Christ. So let me say it like
this. If the enemy could, he would
take the head off your shoulders, get rid of it, so that you could
be a dead body politic. Am I making some sense? If the
enemy could, he would get you to cease to understand that Christ
is not the penultimate glory. He's the ultimate glory for the
church and that he's indispensable to who we are and what we do
and where we're going. Without Christ, I'm nothing.
And without Christ, you're nothing. And may I say this, that as we
continue to work through this text, that the history and the
destiny of the church is glory. The history and destiny of the
church is glory. But to get there, you've got
to go the same route Jesus did. Are you hearing me? You've got
to be despised and rejected of men. You've got to be hated and
scorned. You've got to be ridiculed, and
you've got to be esteemed, stricken, and smitten, and afflicted of
God, just like Christ was. You got to be misunderstood by
the world. You got to be viewed as an extremist, failing to understand
modern thinking. You have to be called a ringleader
of a sect. You have to be called demonized.
You have to be called a child of fornication. You have to be
rejected by this God-hating world, which will not have Christ. That's
why I opened up with my message. We do not ask people to accept
Jesus into their heart. Ambassadors don't talk like that.
Sorry. Yeah, ambassadors talk. You better
believe. Now the king is already here
and the kingdom is already here. And right now the kingdom is
opening the door for sinners to enter into the kingdom. But
it's not an option. If you don't, you perish. Am
I making some sense, brothers and sisters? The kingdom is open.
The kingdom is present. The Word is present, the Spirit
is present, the Church is present, preaching the Word everywhere.
Enter into the Kingdom! It's a warning. If you delay,
you perish at your own will. If you hesitate, you perish at
your own undoing. Enter into the Kingdom. I know
that's going to mess up your evangelism, but I'm sorry. Let's
work our way on through our text a little bit more. So when I
say, when I say, I'm going to show you something else here.
When I say that biblical Judaism is Christ in you, the hope of
glory, it's fulfilled in Christ by the church. It is true apostolic
doctrine. And here is how we know this.
Go with me in your Bible to Isaiah chapter 60. Show you in Isaiah
60 this capitulation and this yielding, this bowing the knee
of which Christ said would occur on the part of these Jewish antagonists. Was fulfilled in Isaiah chapter.
I prophesied in Isaiah chapter 60 verses 3 5 11 and 14 I want
you to simply mark the language and I want to show you that with
Apostolic eyes New Testament eyes crystal centric eyes the
passage is clear without it. You can't see it verse 1 of Isaiah
60 arise and shine For your light is come and the glory of the
Lord is risen upon thee. Now for me, brothers and sisters,
as soon as I hear a statement like that, you know who I'm thinking
about? Jesus! A rise and shine teaches me the
resurrection. Because the sun sets in the what?
And rises in the what? And Christ is the light of the
world, is he not? He's the son of righteousness
with healing in his wings, is he not? Israel certainly is not.
You and I are certainly not. He's the true light that lighteth
every man that comes into the world. But if you bound yourself
to the text, you may think that the text is speaking to Israel
rising as a light. And that's because your mind
has been so permeated with an ethnocentric hermeneutic that
that's all you can see. But Jesus abruptly and rudely
told Israel, I know that you think the scriptures are about
you, but they're about me. I'm sorry. John 539, you are
searching the scriptures and in them you think you have eternal
life, but they are they which testify of me. Verse one. Arise and shine for your light
has come and the glory of the Lord is upon you For behold the
darkness shall cover the earth gross darkness to people, but
the Lord shall arise upon thee His glory shall be seen upon
thee verse 3. Here it is and the Gentiles shall
come to your light Whoa and kings to the brightness of your shining
now ladies and gentlemen brightness of your eyes ladies and gentlemen
Could this even remotely? be referring to national Israel?
Could it? Is national Israel a light intrinsic
to itself? Does it possess any saving revelation,
any saving capacity at all? Are the Gentiles pouring into
ethnic Israel? Are they pouring into national
Israel? Are they pouring into Palestine?
Have they been pouring into Palestine over the last 2,000 years? Or
have they been pouring into the church of Jesus Christ? church
of Christ. Is that true? The church of Christ.
Which means as I said earlier, to come to Christ, you gotta
come to the church. Now, watch how the language affirms
what I'm saying. Look at verse four. Lift up your
eyes round about you and see. All they gather themselves together.
They come to thee. Your son shall come from afar.
Your daughters shall be nursed at your side. Then you shall
see Flow together and your heart shall fear and be enlarged in
a good sense Because the abundance of the seas shall be converted
unto thee the seas are a metaphor of the Gentiles the forces of
the Gentiles Shall come unto you. Do you see that? Now, who
is this? Is this the Millennium to come
where the Gentiles would just pour into Jerusalem? I beg not
I say not listen again to what the scriptures are saying in
Isaiah chapter 63 verse 11. Here it is. I And this is what
he says, I'm gonna, let me start at verse nine, or verse 10. And
the sons of strangers shall build up your walls and their king
shall minister unto thee, for in my wrath I smote thee, but
in my favor I have had mercy on you. Therefore your gates
shall be open continually. What do we mean by gates here?
Temple gates, temple gates, right? Therefore your gates shall be
open. The gates of Jerusalem, the gates of Zion shall be open
continually. They shall not be shut, day or
night that men may bring unto thee the forces of the Gentiles
and that their kings may be brought. Verse 12, here it is, for the
nation and the kingdom that will not serve thee shall what? Now, ladies and gentlemen, could
this text even remotely be applying to ethnic Israel and not Christ? It's speaking to Christ. Now
watch this, but it's speaking to Christ in the imagery of a
temple, of a city, and that city is called Jerusalem. Do you see
that? Of a temple, of a city, and that
city is called Jerusalem. Now watch the language. Here
it is. Here's the terminology that you and I must look at here. Over in verse 13, notice what
it says. Isaiah, verse 14. Here it is. Watch this. The sons also of
them that afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee. And all
they that despise thee shall bow themselves at the soles of
thy feet, and they shall call thee, here it is, the city of
the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel. Do you see that? This is the language that Christ
is using in Revelation chapter three about those who are calling
themselves true Jews but are not, who ultimately will bow
the knee to Christ through the church. Now let's go back and
deal with a few more points under this thought. Biblical Judaism
is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Stop with me in Romans
chapter 2, Romans chapter 2 verse 28 and 29. I want you to see
the clear and explicit New Testament language. Now I know some of
you already know these truths, but I want you to see them again.
Why do you want us to see them again? So when you are confronted
with the notion that this is an ethnocentric book and that
Judaism is about bloodlines and circumcision, you can demolish
that notion by the scriptures. In Romans chapter 2, out of all
people, guess who's talking? The Apostle Paul. What is he
saying? He's saying, I know you Jews
are boasting that you're right with God, but you're not. He
starts off in verse 17 with this argument. Are you called a what?
Are you called a Jew? Do you see that? And are you
trusting in the law? That's what it means to be Jewish
or a Judaizer or a legalist. Do you call yourself a Jew and
are you trusting in the law? And do you make your boast of
God? See it? You make your boast of God. I'm
a Jew. I rest in the works of the law
and I know God and you don't. And he says in verse 18, and
you know his will and you approve of the things that are more excellent
being instructed out of the law. Now, Paul could use this argument
because he was formerly what? A Pharisee. And you are confident
that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to them
that are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish. a teacher of
babes, which have a form of the knowledge of the truth and the
law, you therefore which teach another, do you not teach yourself? You that preach a man should
not steal, does thou steal? You that say a man should not
commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You that abhor idols,
do you not commit sacrilege? Thou that makest thy boast of
the law, through breaking the law, you dishonor God. Now watch
this, for the name of God is blasphemed Among the Gentiles
through you as it is written verse 25 for circumcision really
only profits here It is if you what ah, this is what I said
to you earlier I haven't found one Jew on planet earth except
a man named Jesus Why because to be a true Jew you have to
keep God's law perfectly This is why Jesus told them you are
of your father the devil and you have not kept the law. I
To be a true Jew, you must keep God's law perfectly. Are you
guys following? See, circumcision means to be consecrated to God.
It means to have the fallen nature cut off, the old man cut off,
and you be fully consecrated to God. And Israel never was
fully consecrated to God. They never did keep God's commandments.
They never did obey God fully. The prophets warned about that.
Moses warned about that. Jesus came along. He said, you
guys didn't keep the law. Paul said, none of you keep the
law. He says, I didn't even keep it. When it comes to the true
heart issues. All of us are sinners. That's
why Romans 3, the progression of Paul's argument in Romans
2 is this. God has concluded us all under
sin. You know what that means? Circumcised
person is no better than an uncircumcised person The only thing that matters
is a new creature in Christ and what we mean by that is have
you been born again? It's Christ in you the hope of
glory Let me go on and develop my point. I want you to see this
Here's what Paul goes on to argue. He argues over in verse 28 this
this unassailable truth here it is For he is not a Jew He
is not a Jew. Now, see, that coming from Paul
is worth credibility because he hang all his hope on his Judaism. Read Philippians. He has a legacy
as a pedigree. He has a zeal, a passion of which
he said, I fully gave myself over to this system. And now
you know what he's saying? You are not a Jew. You are not
a Jew, which is one outwardly. Demolishes works religion, demolishes
legalism, demolishes ethnocentrism, demolishes I'm Abraham see demolishes
it. You are not a Jew because you
can tie your blood lineage back to Abraham. Do you guys see that?
See, these were fighting words in the first century. This is
what calls men to commit a vow and oath to go hunt Paul down
and kill him. You see, kind begets kind. This
is why the Word of God says, if you live by the sword, you're
going to what? So see, Paul was living by the sword. God saved
him by his grace. Now the people who hold the sword
are hunting him down. Remember that? They swore they
wouldn't even eat until they kill Paul. Why? Because Paul
now is preaching the faith which he once destroyed. And he's saying
very plainly, we are not true Jews. Now, if he's right here,
that means Jesus is right back in verse 9 of chapter 3. If Paul
is right here, when we call this coherence, that means Jesus is
right in verse 9. Because in verse 9, you know
what Jesus says? They call themselves Jews, but are not. Are you guys
hearing what I'm saying? I want to bind you to the text
of scripture so that you can be consistent with its aim and
objective of teaching us that a true Jew is an ideal. It's not an ethnic people, it's
an ideal. Whose ideal has its own, its
ultimate reality in the person of Christ. For he is not a Jew
which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is
outward of the flesh. Here it is, but he is a Jew,
which is one what? And circumcision is that of the
what? In the spirit, and not in the letter, whose praise is
not of men, but of what? See, so here Paul now completely
destroys the capacity of you and I to affirm true Judaism
by what we see. He destroys it. He says, you
can't see a man's Jewishness. You don't look at his penis to
see his Jewishness. Did you get that? Yeah, you go to the bathroom. You're a Jew? You can't be done like that.
Circumcision is in the heart. And it's deeper than the heart.
It's in the spirit. And when it's operating in the spirit,
that's a sphere and rim of which only God can reach. It's a place
where the all seeing eye knows whether or not you are begotten
of God, the seed of God, the Israel of God, as Galatians 6
talks about. Of which then, when you walk
about happy because you are a true Jew, it's only you and God who
knows it. Your praise is of God. Your praise is not of men. It's
of God. God knows his sheep. He knows his elect. That's why
when Jesus came along, I loved it. I'm way off course now. I'm
going to try to wrap it up here in five minutes. But when Jesus
came on the scene, he saw some of his elect coming to him, Nathaniel
and Philip. And he says, ah, Israelites indeed. He could talk like that because
he was God and he saw the heart. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
Go with me now in your Bibles to Philippians chapter 3. I need to affirm this for some
of you who need to revolutionize your perspective on the whole
topic and conversation of Judaism, you may have it, you may formulate
your views, you may embrace and adopt an eschatology that has
as its ultimate culmination a Jewish-centered ideology and Israel dominating
the world in a thousand years of peace with Christ on his throne
in the Davidic kingdom and all the Jews being prominent over
the peoples of the world. But I would say you're wrong. Philippians chapter 3. And you're
going to have to deal with the implications of an ethnocentric
eschatology. Because what you would be doing
is you would be embracing the return of the temple in Jerusalem. And you would be embracing, once
again, the return of the high priest and the whole sacerdotal
system and the whole Jewish legalism that basically constructs or
enforces or authenticates that system. And what you would also
be doing is dividing between Jews and Gentiles. And also what
you would be doing is dividing between men and women. You would
bring up again the very walls that in Ephesians chapter 2 Christ
tore down. Because you do remember Ephesians
2 saying that God had made of the two Jew and Gentile, one,
watch this, watch, one brand new man in Christ. So stay with me now, stay with
me for a moment. This is what's so absurd for me and ludicrous
about premillennial dispensational theology. God is going to take
his son, who bears the very nature of himself, who is personally
God, Assume a human nature by which he becomes now the federal
head of a body of men and women who are partakers of the divine
nature. We are called new creatures in Christ, right? New creatures.
We bear the highest quality of the divine nature there could
ever be. And at this present time, both
Jews and Gentiles have that privilege, which makes us one in Christ,
male, female, Jew, Gentile, Greek, Gentile Greek Jew bond free all
of us are one in Christ. Is that true? This is a glorious
doctrine of unity in God by the work of Jesus Christ It demolishes
our distinctions. It makes us one now watch this
soul making peace You know the wars and the hostility and the
fighting and the conflict, you know, all that stuff is about
it's about hearts that are not right with God And that's about
trying to acquire material acquisition, lands and properties and things
that are going to perish. And really diminishing what redemption
is all about, which is the souls of men and the souls of women. And so hear what he says in verse
1, 2 and 3. I'm going to be winding this down, but I need you to
get this. Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord, To write
the same thing to you, to me, indeed is not grievous, but for
you it's safe. He said, beware of dogs. See,
that's that bad language. Beware of dogs. Now, again, this
is reverse terminology. This is the reverse terminology
that we use in Isaiah 60. Where it says and those that
afflict you afflicted you will come and bow their knee to you
Historically, we would have thought those were the gentiles who afflicted
the jews who would come bowing the knee to the jews, right?
But christ is saying in revelation 3 That it's the jews who are
afflicting the christians who are going to come bow the knee
to the christians Well, do you know what gentiles were called
in the old testament dogs? Do you know whom Paul is presently
calling dogs? In verse 3, the Jews. Beware of dogs. See, that's code
language in the kingdom. Now, sometimes the word dog is
good. I got some dogs they run with
me. They my partners. But then other folks is just
right out dogs. I don't want to have nothing
to do with them. Because dogs have good attributes and dogs
have bad attributes. Isn't that right? There's some
dogs you might have around the house, but you're not going to
have them in the house. And so you've got to understand
dog in its context and with its application. Be very careful. Beware of evil workers. Beware
of the what? That's a contracted word for
circumcision. And it's really referring to
all three. The dogs, the evil workers, and
the concision are Judaizers, which were telling men and women,
you can only be right by the works of the law. Now watch the
next verse. Here it is. Are you ready? For
we, first person plural, the apostle Paul, including all of
the church at Philippi, which was made up of Jews and Gentiles.
Are you ready? We are the circumcision, not
physical. Remember what he says, circumcision
is in the what? Heart. We are the circumcision, here
it is, which worship God where? Not according to carnal commandments
and external rules and washings and diverse forms of aesthetic
commandment keeping that the Jews did and every works religion
does. We worship God in the spirit.
because our hearts have been circumcised by the Spirit of
God through the gospel. And we worship Him in spirit.
And here's what we do. We not only worship God in spirit,
sincerely, deeply from a place of regeneration, we rejoice in
Jesus Christ. Do we not? So you need to put
a big old circle around rejoice there and draw that line out
to the white margins of your Bible and write words like, Lord,
Boast. Magnify. Exalt. Glory. Just exalt in the person
of Christ. Boast in the person of Christ.
Rejoice in the person of Christ. Tell everybody about the person
of Christ. Magnify the Lord with me. That's what that means. Christ
is the center of God's people's life. He is the most beautiful
object that we could ever put our gaze upon That's what he's
saying. I know I know I know I gotta
be done here. Listen for we worship For we worship God in the spirit
and rejoice in Jesus Christ and we have no confidence in our
ethnicity You got it So on the point number one Biblical Judaism
is Christ in you the hope of glory. It's fulfilled in Christ
by the church It is true apostolic doctrine. Paul is a perfect example
of that, by the way. Is he not? Did he not persecute
Christ? Did he not try to destroy the
church? Did he not find himself falling on his face and worshiping
God through Christ by the church? And so now we read in Revelation
chapter 3. Let's go back there. And I'm going to stop for time's
sake here. Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan,
which say they are Jews and are not. But do lie. You see that
phrase, do lie? The word lie there, do lie there
is a verb. And what it means is they practice
falsehood. They are liars. That's a noun.
Well, actually, it's an adjective. They are liars because their
doctrine is wrong. But the text is saying they practice
falsehood. The word is pseudo. We get the
term pseudo Christ is Sudante. It's a verb that means that they
continue to practice falsehood where they appear to be something
that they are not. Here's what our Lord is saying.
I know they say they are Jews, but they are not. And they do
lie. Behold, I will make them come and worship before your
feet and to know that I have loved you. Point number two. I'll just introduce it in close.
A test passed and a promise given. You see that? So now, verse 10
is very closely connected exegetically to verse 9. But I want to develop
that over time. I am going to prove to your enemies
that I love you. And here's the reason that I'm
going to do it. Because you have kept the word of my patience. Do you see that? So Christ shielding
and protecting the believers at Philippi and granting them
the triumph of his own grace in the life of their antagonist,
having them to bow the knee before them. And all this really means,
now watch this, their bowing the knee before the Philippians
means that they come to know Jesus as Lord. Okay, that's all.
That's 1 Corinthians 15. They come to know Jesus as Lord.
1 Corinthians 14, by the way, where it speaks of a man coming
in unlearned or ignorant, and they hear you prophesying, proclaiming
the truth of the gospel, the secrets of their heart are made
manifest and they come to realize that you're telling the truth
and you're the people of God and they fall on their face and
say of a true God is in you and Come to worship your God because
of your service to your God through Christ our master says Because
you have kept the word of my patience. I will also keep you
from the hour of temptation We shall come upon all the world
to try them that dwell upon the earth. Here's my proposition.
I'm going to close. They kept the gospel at a point
in time where they were challenged. And our Lord is telling them
prophetically, there's an evil hour coming. And when that hour
comes, I'm going to keep you during that time. What a word
of comfort. So now I'm gonna actually unpack
this next week because I have to. He says the hour is on its
way. You don't know it. So here's
my warning to you. Every one of us face hours. Okay? Every one of us are tried. There are hours that come in
our life. The hour of temptation. The hour of seduction. The hour
of testing. The hour of suffering. The hour
of deliverance. the hour of salvation, the hour
of our death. This week I had to deal with
four people that died on me, starting with Petey last week.
Do you know why? Because Jesus said this, your
hour is always at hand. Stay with me for a moment now.
I'm closing here. How gracious is our master to tell the church,
you guys are getting ready to get tested again in a short while. But because you passed the test
earlier, I'm going to keep you in order that you might pass
the test again. Isn't that good? That you might pass the test
again. And I want to learn more about that, don't you? All right,
but I'm hungry too. We're getting ready to close.