Finding Christ and Life in the Scriptures

Well, good morning. I trust everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving week. I have a family. I ask that you would open your Bibles to John chapter 5, please. John chapter 5. We're kind of in the middle right now.

Usually we would continue on to John chapter 6, but with December upon us and the Advent season, we're going to preach a few sermons celebrating the first coming of Jesus. And so I didn't want to start John 6 and then take a long break. So, we kind of have this one Lord's Day here as we prepare for that. And so, I thought it would be good for us to just take a thought here, or take a truth that we have seen in John 5 and explore a little bit more as more of a topical sermon.

I think one of the, we've had a good reaction, I think, in the last generation of expositing and exegeting the text of scripture verse by verse through the entire books of the bible but i think one of the things that the reformed world has lost or can lose sight of is that it's important to be able to preach topical messages as well and especially topical messages that kind of grab all of scripture and bring them together it's kind of like doing a border of the puzzle first right before you put the innards and if we can only exegete verse by verse through the books of the Bible. We can do the innards perhaps, but we need to be able to do the border too. And so this morning I was hoping to grab a sentence that Jesus said and really look into it deeper.

There's going to be a lot of things that we've already talked about, and so there'll be some repetition, but I think we'll be able to grab hold of the text as we look at it together. And so that text that we're going to utilize is John 5, verse 39. Let me read it, and then we'll go to the Lord in prayer. John 5, verse 39. Jesus says, You search the Scriptures because you think that in the Scriptures you have eternal life.

And it is they that bear witness about me. Let us pray. Well, Father, we thank you for Jesus Christ our Lord, and we're thankful that everything, all of history, all of scripture, all of our lives are pointed to him, his glory, his majesty, his work, his kingdom. So I pray, God, that you would help us to look at the scriptures as Jesus did, to look at it as understanding that it is pointing to the work that Christ would come to fulfill and it is pointing to a work that Jesus is doing in us even today.

So help us, Lord, to see the scriptures rightly, to grab hold of them, Lord, and let it excite our spirits. I pray that you'd be glorified as we look at that topic now this morning. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. You remember in John 5, we are in the middle of this argument, you can say, between Jesus and the Pharisees. And one of the things that Jesus, an accusation that Jesus lays against the religious leaders is that you think you have life as you look to the word of God, but it is the scriptures that point or bear witness to me.

And thus, since they didn't believe in Jesus, they actually did not have life. And so I thought it would be good for us to spend the next few minutes looking at how exactly, it's a good study to have, how exactly do the scriptures bear witness to Jesus? How does that actually work? Because one of the things that I think can happen as we look to the scriptures, and what he has in mind is the entirety of the Old Testament, is we can look at all the detail, and we can be overcome by it, overwhelmed.

How is this telling one story? How is this pointing in one direction? And we can get lost in the detail. And so as we look, Jesus is very clear, and he says, it all points to me. so I wanted to see and spend most of our morning here looking at how do how do the scriptures bear witness to Jesus and then I want to look at as a way of conclusion really how did the pharisees think they had life from the scriptures and how do we have life from the scriptures as they point to Jesus so how do the scriptures bear witness to Jesus this requires us to know and to handle the old testament well which is a daunting task anyone who has ever started reading the scripture through and they start with genesis it's oftentimes they get so discouraged by the middle of leviticus numbers deuteronomy we make a joke about it now and it is kind of funny but at the same time it isn't because it is telling something very specific and if we get lost in it, so overwhelmed that we stop doing the study of it, well, we lose the fact that they are pointing and telling one story about Jesus.

It can seem like an impossible task to understand the endless detail of the Old Testament, and here Jesus makes it very simple. A very simple statement, they bear witness to me. That is a great summary statement of the Old Testament. But how? I think it's really important as we start this discussion, I think it's important to understand it like perhaps have the picture of a delta in your mind.

And what I mean by delta is it's a system in which a river is running into a big body of water. And before that one source, that one river hits that body of water, it runs and has a bunch of different streams that goes off of it. And then it hits that big body of water. This is what a delta is. A very famous delta is of course the Nile The Nile River starts in the south runs up to the Mediterranean and before it gets there it just splinters off in all these little streams before it gets into that big body of water the Mediterranean And that delta is the reason why the Egyptian empire was so strong.

It's because it was a fertile structure system to create life for the Egyptians. And I think it's an important way to look at the scriptures. The scriptures start with one stream. A simple stream, really. And if we just look at that, we say, why can't it always be that simple? And then all of a sudden it breaks off into all these different streams that go off of it.

That's creating a structure for us to understand the big body of water that it's running into. That is Christ Jesus, the Lord. And so I think as we look to how do the scriptures point to Jesus, consider a delta. Consider that it starts with a single stream. And that single stream that it starts with, we can locate, open your Bibles to, you guessed it, Genesis 3.15.

Genesis 3.15. And we see this is like, it's a very simple thing to grab hold of. That's why Genesis is so fun, right? It seems to be telling a clear, simple story. One story, one particular stream, if you will. And we see this in Genesis 3.15, we can really grab a hold of that. when this is after God created the garden, had sweet fellowship with Adam and Eve in the garden, and then the devil screwed up or ruined the life that was there by bringing death.

And then what God says creates that single stream that's going to end eventually in the big body of water of Christ when he says, I will put enmity between you, serpent, and the woman, between your offspring serpent and her offspring, he, that is Christ, that is her offspring, shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. And essentially what's being said here is that Satan, you have brought death upon creation, you have brought life to end, and I'm going to bring someone who's going to undo the death that you have started. You see, and the way we can understand that, and you'll see why it's going to come out and play as we look at that delta structure after this one stream, is that Satan, the way he has brought not life but death, is through lies, shame, and being kicked out of the garden.

If you want to know what life is, well, the opposite of life is to be filled with lies. That is, death is to be filled with lies, to be covered in shame and to be banished from the presence of God. That is what death is. And this is what the devil brought. And this is what God is saying. I'm going to bring someone who's going to undo those three things that you just did.

It's a single source, a single river, a promise, an offspring of the woman who's going to undo this tragedy. And we see, interesting enough, the immediate partial fulfillment that this stream that would bring the offspring that would lead to Christ would come true. In other words, they were just told a bunch of lies, and now God in the garden told them a bunch of truth.

And this would tell them that what he has said is going to happen. Where Satan told lies, God told truth. And we see the beginning, the partial fulfillment of this truth that he gave them, even immediately. You remember what he said? Snake, you're going to go on your belly, right? You're going to slither around on your belly.

Remember what he said? The woman, your pain will increase. And guess what happened shortly after that? Her pain increased when she gave birth to Cain and Abel. Remember what he told the wife? He said that you're going to have marital problems with your husband.

And I'm pretty sure that started pretty quickly after that. Adam was told the ground was going be hard to work and that experience was evident and that death would happen to all in which they experienced that and so the point is is that where satan told lies that led to death god says i'm going to provide someone to undo this by telling the truth and that truth even began in the moment that these curses fell down on them how about the shame part right satan brought shame in the garden and God says that there's this stream, this river, this promise that's going to undo it. And we see that in the garden they were filled with shame.

Their eyes were open when they sinned. When they heard the sound of God, they hid themselves out of their shame. And we see in Genesis 3.21, the Lord made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and covered their shame. And so this is like God saying, I'm going to make good on this promise promise of one who's going to undo what the devil has just did.

And of course, being kicked out of the garden, right? That was part of the death that the devil brought, being banished from God's presence. And how does God say, again, I'm going to undo that, and it's going to be in part right now, you're going to get a taste of that. Well, have you ever noticed in Genesis 3.24, he drove them out of the garden. There's the banishment that Satan brought by sin, as Adam and Eve sinned, And at the east of the garden of Eden, he placed a cherubim, like an angel of sorts, and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

The point is, you're not welcome into the presence of God anymore. But notice, God did not destroy the garden, did he? He could have blown that sucker up and said, this is what you get. You're not allowed to be with me anymore. And it's gone. But why doesn't he do that?

He doesn't destroy it. He instead guards it from their own presence. It's like he's saying remember my promise Remember what I said, there's one that's going to come he's gonna undo what Satan has done He is going to allow you to come back into the garden that sword will no longer be a problem Instead that angel or that cherubim will welcome you in to the garden So we see this again think of a river Delta big body of water of Christ That stream is saying there one to come who will bring life to undo what Satan has done And we even begin to see the beginnings of that here.

And we see the single source, the single river carrying out through Genesis to Abraham. And if you turn to your Bible, Genesis 17, 7 through 8. There's this covenant made with Abraham. And again, you're going good in your Bible study, right? Starting from Genesis, working your way through. You say, hey, this is pretty easy, pretty simple.

That's simple stream. We get to Abraham. And we hear this promise to Abraham. Hear the echoes of the promise given to Adam and Eve, right? of an offspring to come to undo Satan's work. And look at Genesis 17, 7 through 8. And I will establish my covenant between me, that is God, and you, that is Abraham, and your offspring, after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your offspring after you.

I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, and everlasting possession, and I will be their God. Again, we should hear the echoes, right? There's this land of promise again. You're welcome back in. And it's all based off of this offspring that would come and do this work. Paul says about this.

He says in Galatians 3.16, Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say and to offsprings, plural, referring to many, but to one and to your offspring who is Christ. So there's that one river, that one stream flowing towards Christ. And it's a very simple one indeed. The one would come. But here is where it gets tricky in our Bible study, where we can get lost in the detail.

Is that the promise didn't just go Adam, Eve, Abraham, and then Jesus. And then he does his work. But instead what happens is that there's a promise given to Abraham, there'd be one to come. But it's in the structural system of a whole nation, multitudes of people, an endless detail of that history. in fact look at genesis 17 again look at verses one and two before we even get to that part that we just read when abram was 99 years old the lord appeared to abram and said to him i am god almighty walk walk before me and be blameless that i may make my covenant between me and you it may multiply you greatly and so what we have here is this stream it's going to go off into many directions with multitude of people, a vast nation.

And as we read that history, it can confuse us. Why are there so many stories, narration? And we can think so that we can teach our kids in Sunday school so they'll have all these stories and they'll be good for the rest of their life. But it's all a structure. It's like the delta with a structure, a stream going off in all these directions to feed or to go into a big body of water.

What you have here at the end is a promise pointed to one person, but it comes forth from a multitude of people and a nation or a structure. So the story of the scriptures or the Old Testament, scriptures speak, bear witness to me, Jesus says, is this one person will do the work needed for life, but he enters the scene in a structure created to reveal his work. You get what I'm saying there?

The stream is going to break up into a delta that creates an environment fertile to reveal the life Christ was bringing. So it's not just like Jesus just appears on the scene and does the work. But God creates this whole nation, this whole structure system to reveal the work that he was going to do and then places his son in it to do that work. And that's why Jesus can say the scriptures bear witness to me.

He's not simply saying one little prophecy here, one little prophecy there. He's saying the whole thing is a structure created just for me to come and fulfill. Israel is that structure. Israel is that fertile structure, the many streams going off to feed into Christ. and the revealing from that nation the revealing from that nation is the structure of a prophet who tells the truth of a priest who covers shame by sacrifice and a king who conquers and brings the people back to the garden.

Again, all the ways that Satan has completely destroyed life by lies and shame and banishment God creates this beautiful structure of Israel to fulfill the role of prophet for truth, priest for shame, and king for conquering and bringing back into the land. So as you see the unfolding of the scriptures, you are seeing the unfolding of the history of Israel. And it is important that you do not get lost in those details and lose your worship.

All the details are revealing a structure that is established for the promise of the one seed that would come and bring life to you, to fallen humanity, to his people, Jesus, which all the scriptures point to for life. So let's see the structure. Let's take a time to look at this delta. I know if you ever look at the delta of the Nile Delta from like a bird's eye view, it can look very, very crazy.

It looks beautiful but it can look very very crazy but and that's the way the Old Testament from on high can look but as you get to see Jesus through it you can also then see the organization and see it beautifully how it's revealing our need for this king for this priest for this prophet so let look at prophet first how does Israel reveal the office of prophet that Jesus would come to fulfill to give life Well, Abraham's grandson Jacob ended up in Egypt with his sons, you remember that, including Joseph by the time he dies. He had escaped the severe famine by God, taking care of him in order to make good on the promise to Abraham to make of him a great nation. We already read that, a multitude of people.

So 400 years into being in Egypt, escaping the famine, the people have grown numerous and face another problem. Pharaoh is threatened by the numerous people of Israel. The very promise of God becomes an offense to this pagan nation. And this, of course, kickstarts the Exodus, in which we see in Genesis and Exodus, the people escape their enemies, and the nation of Israel begins after this work of God to bring them out, in which they are established on the law of God, they structure.

So Moses becomes the start of the prophetic tradition in Israel. Moses is the person who reveals God's law to the people. Coming from a world that has fallen into the lies and falsehood of Satan, he brings Israel into truth with the law of God. Where God gave a law to Adam and Eve not to eat the tree, God speaks through Moses, a law, system of how the people of Israel were to enjoy the promised land of Canaan.

And a promise is made by Moses himself when he says in Deuteronomy 18, 15, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you. From among your brothers, it is him you shall listen. So we have this prophetic tradition beginning in Israel, right? this role or this office of prophets that developed with Moses and after Moses. It was one that would warn Israel when they were misbehaving and sinning like Adam in the garden as they disregarded the law given to them.

And it was also a prophetic office of promise. There's one to come who will be a prophet to you, who will tell you the truth, who will bring you unto truth. we see this develop and we could spend each of these things could be a whole series by isaiah 11 verses 1 through 2 we see this development there with the prophet isaiah in his book 11 chapter 11 verses 1 and 2 there shall come forth a shoot from the stump of jesse we'll talk about that in a minute and a branch from his shoots will bear fruit and the spirit of the lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom, understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And so when Jesus comes in on the scene hundreds of years later and preaches a sermon on the mount, the law of the kingdom of heaven, the people respond knowing that he is something special that Moses promised.

When we see in Matthew 7, 28 through 29, when Jesus finished his sermon on the mount at the beginning of his ministry, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority and not as their scribes. You see, the people there recognize that there is a prophetic office being fulfilled here by this Jesus as he gives the law of his kingdom, the kingdom of grace. So this is the prophetic office, the one who would tell truth that began with Moses, continued on through the prophetic voice, and was accomplished in Jesus.

And we see also the priests. Remember, Adam and Eve were told lies in the garden and needed truth being told to them. Adam and Eve were filled with shame and guilt, and so they needed to have a covering for that shame. And this is why the priestly office was created in Israel, overcoming the shame that Satan brought at the garden. It was God's gracious plan to get Israel from enslavement in Egypt to life in the promised land.

He brought them out of Egypt by Moses and through him the covenant of life for Israel was given. But yet even before they got to the promised land, they broke this covenant in Moses, when Moses was away, by worshiping the golden calf, an idol. And so as Adam and Eve became guilty and were covered in shame, so Israel became guilty and covered in shame.

To the point that God said that he's going to destroy them. Remember in Exodus 32.10, God says, leave me alone to Moses, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them in order that I may make a great nation of you. And remember what Moses had to do. He had to intercede. he says in exodus 32 11 he said oh lord why does your wrath burn hot against your people whom you have brought out of the land of egypt with great power with a mighty hand why should the egyptians say with an evil intent he brought them out to kill them so turn away from your anger and relent from this disaster against your people so god said that he would get them there into the promised land but he wouldn't be with them remember that it's kind of a progression from god okay i won't destroy them, I'll bring them to the land, but I'm not going to be with them.

And we see this in Exodus 33, verse 3. He says, go up to the land flowing with milk and honey. Okay, Moses, but I will not go among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people. And Moses intercedes again and says, oh God, we need your presence too. Not enough that you just bring us, we need your presence. In fact, if we don't have your presence, this is all for naught.

And so in Exodus 33, verse 14, Moses says my presence will go with you and I'll give you rest and so and we talked about this recently how does God do this you remember God started off by saying I need to destroy them they're covenant breakers they're sinners they're full of shame guilt and then he relents by the interceding of Moses and says okay I'll not only bring you to the land of promise I'll bring you back in the garden speak, but I will even be with you as my princess will go with them. And the question is how? And there was a whole sermon I gave on that's a whole nature and the rest of Exodus about the tabernacle.

And the fact is, is that if you look at after this event in Exodus 33 and the rest of the book of Exodus, you see it's a re-given of the law, the 10 commandments, and then it is a law of the tabernacle which highlighted the sacrifice needed of the animal sacrifices to cover the shame of Israel so that God's presence will be with them in the land and so this is creating and fulfilling the office of priest so after Israel took the promised land as was promised by God they build a permanent temple where the tabernacle would be and this is a place of sacrificed by the priests so that Israel's sins would be would be covered their shame would be covered and they would be able to stay in the land of promise but this system of the priesthood in Israel was not the final reality that would bring eternal life that God had prepared for lost humanity it was simply the structure that revealed the final thing that Jesus would produce this was simply a temporary structure to prepare the way for Jesus who would come and provide a greater sacrifice for a greater salvation. Not a salvation from a slayment from Egypt to life in the land of Canaan, but a slayment to the devil and sin and life eternal with God forever with their shame and guilt taken care of. So not animals given on an altar, but Christ himself as the priestly work to offer himself to cover our shame and guilt.

If you want to see that in more detail, look at Hebrews 9, 6 through 15. This is a major point of the writer to the Hebrews as he says that Jesus came to fulfill the priestly work of the old covenant as the greater priest, the greater high priest, because he offered himself not to cover our outside cleanliness so we can keep a land on the outside, but to actually cover the shame of our consciences, of our guilty conscience of our souls, to forgive us of our souls so that we can have an eternal salvation, be welcomed together with God as friends and no longer as enemies. So when we say that the Old Testament worship was incomplete or not eternal, we don't mean it didn't matter.

It doesn't matter. It matters as it was the structure, the explanation of what Jesus was coming to do. Think of Delta, the Delta again. as a priest would offer animal sacrifices to cover the shame of the people so that they could stay in the land so it pointed to the work of jesus would do and sacrifice in himself so that those who belong to him would have their sins covered no more shame and welcome back into the presence of god in the garden so we see the office of prophets begin in israel and we see it pointed to Jesus, who is our great prophet, we see the priestly office started in Israel, and it could be filled with so many laws and regulations that we can get lost and we can get cross-eyed to forget.

This is pointed to the fact that the greater priest would come and offer himself lawfully to forgive us of our sins. And now we have this final role that is the kingly office that Jesus came to fulfill, the one who would conquer the garden for his people. the one who would do away with the flaming sword, the one who would do away with guarding it against us and rather open it up for us. This is what the kingly office was revealing to us in Israel.

The development of the office of king in Israel came with the advancement of Israel's enemies on Israel itself. Israel had taken a lot of the promised land but failed to reach its full borders. And meanwhile, the enemies of Israel were encroaching. So if you read the beginning of 1 Samuel, which is really the start of the monarchy of Israel and the promise given to David, we see the Philistines even take the Ark of God itself in 1 Samuel, a place where the priests met with God to atone for Israel's sins.

It was a problem. So it's not long before Israel demands a king and gets Saul, who immediately conquers. There's a reason for that. Immediately conquers. And beats back the enemies of Israel. But just as quickly as we see Saul, we just as quickly see Saul fail to obey God, which leads to God choosing David and his line to be king over Israel.

And look at this covenant, this promise in 2 Samuel. Go there real quick. 2 Samuel chapter 7, verses 12 through 16. God says to David who he chooses to be king over Israel after Saul He says when your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers I will raise up for your offspring after you who shall come from your own body and I will establish his kingdom He shall build a house for my name and I'll establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

You should hear Christ. You should see the Mediterranean Sea there and Christ right there. But it's not before there's all these different rivers as well. I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son. And when he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men and the stripes of the sons of men. But my steadfast love will not depart from him as I took him from Saul, whom I put away from before you.

And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever. So as you see, you should see the eternal throne of Christ, the king who would come. But you should also see the fact that he has to discipline these sub-kings who sin. So that's not obviously Christ, but it's within the structure of that kingly role that Christ would come and fulfill and establish his eternal kingdom.

So it's a similar thing that this kingly role is being created in the nation of Israel to reveal the role of Jesus to be king over all the world. So David's entire life is one of conquest. for Israel where its borders reach far and wide and his son Solomon reigns with and fulfills wisdom and wealth to where by the start of or by the end of Solomon's reign Israel is one of the most powerful nations in the world at that time but the kings after Solomon typically do not reach the same caliber most are wicked and most lead Israel not to greatness but sin and decay as a nation. So there is left, as we read through the history of Israel, a need for a godly king that will lead his people to prosperity and godliness.

And we see this from the prophets who prophesy of a coming king. Jeremiah 23 5 says, Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land a king that would conquer but also do the role of a prophet and speak the truth and teach truth we see in isaiah 11 1 through 5 there shall come forth a shoot from the stump of jesse that is david a branch from his roots shall bear fruit and the spirit of the lord will rest on him the spirit of wisdom and understanding the spirit of counsel and might the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the lord and his delight shall be in the fear of You see, what we have here is a king promise that fulfills the role of the prophets. He speaks truth.

He teaches in the way of righteousness. He conquers for truth and righteousness sake. So we see these roles of king and prophet mixing together into one figure again, that is one stream again, that is one body of water, that is Christ himself. And even within this vision of Isaiah, of a prophet and a king, we see a priest who is one who suffers. Isaiah 52, 13-15, Behold, my servant shall act wisely, he shall be high and lifted up and shall be exalted as many were astonished at you his appearance was so marred beyond beyond human semblance and his form beyond that of the children of mankind so shall he sprinkle many nations king shall shut their mouths because of him for that which has been told them they see and that which they have not heard they understand And then we have in Isaiah 53, verses 1 through 12, the famous passage of the suffering servant, right?

I'll just read a few verses. When he says, eyes and we esteemed him not surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows yet we esteemed him stricken smitten by god and afflicted but he was pierced for our transgressions he was crushed for our iniquities upon him with a chastisement that brought us peace with his wounds we are healed and i encourage you to continue to read that and meditate on that this is a figure that is both prophet he is king and he is a suffering servant you understand how difficult that was to bring those three things together into one person how can you be a king and be victorious and reign and conquer and protect the people at the same time suffer greatly and die and we see that Jesus Christ since it all pointing to him that structure we see that as king he suffered and bled and died for his people So the history of Israel is a story of the Old Testament providing the structure or the delta that would establish the structure of redemption Jesus would come and accomplish as prophet, priest, and king. That's what you're seeing play out through all the pages of scripture.

And this is what it means when Jesus says, the Scriptures bear witness about me. And that's where you get life. So as we conclude now, how did the Pharisees think they had eternal life from the Scriptures? In light of this truth, as we look at the Scriptures with Christ imprinted on it, how did the Pharisees, as they didn't believe in the Christ, how did they believe that they had eternal life from the Scriptures?

Well, they get the prophet, priest, and king role of Christ all wrong. Now, if it makes you feel any better as you're reading through the endless detail of the Old Testament and you feel like, man, I'm just missing it, well, the Pharisees did the very same thing and they knew a lot about the Old Testament. It happens to the best of us or the worst. And so as they look through the Old Testament, as they look through the Scriptures, they saw these roles coming out in the nation of Israel but yet they get it all wrong.

When they look at the prophetic office and they think of themselves, They were the guardians of the law and truth in Israel. Therefore, anyone who came to fulfill this role would have to agree and champion what they taught. They were not caught in the lies of Satan, but had the truth. So immediately, anyone who came and spoke against them as teachers of truth, the prophetic office, was obviously a heretic.

When it comes to the priestly role, they got that wrong. As long as the animal sacrifices kept on flowing, their minor sins were covered, and they could keep their place in the promised land. That's what they thought. And the king, they longed for David's son to come and reign and kick out the presence of Rome. But any understanding of actually taking the garden back and providing full union with God again was lost on their brains.

But as it is, for them, they had life in the promised land now and were rich and well-respected in the land. That's enough. Surely God would continue that treatment once they die. Surely they would enter eternal life. with God. But this is what makes Jesus so offensive to the Pharisees. The truth is, they lived a life opposed to God.

They didn't know God at all. And they should only expect a life after of death and judgment and hell. This is what makes Matthew 23, 32 through 36 so offensive to them. He says, fill up then the measures of your fathers. He's talking to the Pharisees. You serpents.

He calls them a serpent. The one that came to the garden through his influence kicked everyone out of life of God. He says, you serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? Therefore I send you prophets, wise men, scribes, some of whom you'll kill, crucify, some you'll flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth from the blood of Abel to Zechariah whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar.

Truly I say to you all these things will come upon this generation. So instead of the scriptures pointing to their need for Christ, it revealed to the Pharisees their self-sufficiency. And so God says, and Jesus says, you will only receive eternal damnation. So, as we conclude now, you like how I keep on saying as we conclude? That's how I get out of it.

We're concluding now. We're concluding now. How do you get life from scriptures that bear witness to Jesus' role as prophet, priest, and king? life does not necessarily mean having peace and prosperity in the land of promise. What I mean by that is whether it is the promise of the land of Cana or the promise of the American dream in the United States, life is to be near to God, close to him in the garden where you walk and talk with God.

Do not mistake in your good circumstances in this nation, the good things you have in this life as peace with God and as him being okay with you. And I think that's one of the biggest connections we can get with the Pharisees and with the typical American experience now, is that the Pharisees had it and had a high life. Obviously, God was pleased with them.

And we can fall into this same kind of complacency. I have it pretty good here. And we can lose our need for life, indeed, what it truly is, to be welcomed back in the garden. You need a prophet. Satan came and told lies to Adam and Eve. When they fell, it caused his whole posterity to be prone to lies and falsehood.

We are prone to it. We love it. We eat falsehood up like candy. If you think you know truth, and it is outside of sitting at the feet of Jesus and hearing the words from his mouth and the scriptures, you are in that system of lies even now Truth is found not in what we believe to be true not what we think is true of our own understanding but it comes from the mouth of Christ in his word.

You may even have enough religion to make you dangerous like the Pharisees, but life is found in relying on Christ the prophet to tell you the truth in his word, even when it stinks. You need a prophet. Christ is that prophet who will teach you, preach to you, tell you truth. You need a priest. Nothing will keep you from the presence of God more than being guilty and having your conscience drenched in shame.

That will keep you from the throne of God, keep you from the garden. It will cause you to run from the presence of God in the garden. Your guilt will keep you from the entrance of the garden where God's presence is. the scriptures lay out the structure of sacrifice to cover your shame, to make your conscience go from pure shame to covered in the righteous blood of Christ and to be perfect in the standing of God's law by his righteousness.

Jesus came and fulfilled it perfectly so that when he sees the sacrifice of Christ, when God sees the sacrifice of Christ, he is pleased to provide forgiveness of sins to all who believe. So that there is no more guilt, there's no more shame, there's no more flaming sword keeping you from the presence of God, from life itself. You are welcomed back in by the blood of this high priest.

You need a priest. Since you are a sinner, we are sinners. And you need a king. Jesus is king. And his rule is one of truth. And it's one of justice.

His truth will tell you of your sin and shame. His truth will tell you of his sacrifice as a priest. He has accomplished to overcome that shame. And his power as king is to overcome your sin and place this truth firmly within your heart. Even as you are struggling with sin today, his power as king is to overcome your sin and to place righteousness within you.

His reign is one of conquering the enemy of Satan and his reign of lies and shame. and he brings you to the land of eternal life, union with the Father once more. So bow down to this king and rely upon him to have life, not self or anything else. So the scriptures bear witness to Christ and the life we can have in him. It starts as a simple stream with a simple promise in the garden that one would come and undo the death the serpent has brought by lies, shame, and banishment. and after Abraham through the nation of Israel becomes a delta, a network of streams and rivers establishing the structure of our need of this prophet, priest, and king.

So bow down to this king of Israel, Christ Jesus, as he proclaims the truth that he is able to conquer your sin by his priestly work of his own sacrifice and welcome you back in the garden that he has conquered for his glory and our good. Let us pray. Oh God, we thank you for Christ Jesus, the Lord. We thank you that he can say to the Pharisees that all scriptures point to him.

And we know, God, that that's not just particular prophecies, although they do, but it's indeed the entirety of the scriptures. And I pray that as your people, you would help us to handle the scriptures rightly. And that when we see the many details of the Old Testament, when we see what Jesus saw, when he said that it all points to him we would grow in our understanding of this and see this more and more that truly it is creating that structure of a prophet priest and king that we so desperately need in our lives today truly lord we are so prone to lies ever since the lie given in the garden that was believed what a great reality it is what a truth what a wonderful promise that Christ tells truth and reigns in truth.

He's always faithful to tell us the truth. So I pray that we would hear that truth in his word of our need of a sacrifice, forgiveness of sins, our conscience cleansed, our shame dealt with, and we see that it is only found in the fact that this king, this prophet, gave up of himself so that we could be forgiven of our sins. so I pray that we would bow down to this king who has conquered sin and death conquered our greatest enemy conquered the devil himself by dealing with our shame by telling us the truth and giving us presence with you again let us believe upon this savior let us believe upon this Jesus let us confess his name let us go to him let us have our hope and joy in him even today as we are faced with many temptations to sin and different things that want to get in the way. Help us to look to Jesus instead and find our delight in him today.

In Jesus' name, amen.