Welcome to the last message in our series on a walk through the Old Testament. We've been doing this now for a long time, I think probably a year and a half, but we are finally at the end. I've been looking forward to this message, this particular lesson for a long time where we're going to take a step back and just do a bird's eye view of everything we've talked about. I'm going to suggest to you what I think the message of the Old Testament is. And what I think it is, is a revelation of the person and works of Yahuwah. In other words, we wouldn't know who God was, what He's like, And what He does, what His plan is, without what we've learned in the Old Testament. And my supposition in this is that when Christ was born in Bethlehem, Israel should have known exactly who He was. They should have known what Yahweh is like and then they would have understood that Christ is Yahweh in human flesh. The whole Old Testament prepares for our Savior's first advent. Alright, let's take a look first of all at the revelation of God's character. His character is the foundation of His works. Everything he does is based on who he is. Of course, that's the way it is with all of us. What we do is simply the outflow of what we are. Are you a kind individual? Then you will do and say kind things. Are you an industrious person? Then you will do industrious things. Are you a skillful person? You'll do skillful things in a particular area. All right, so this is what the foundation of everything is, who God is. And we've said repeatedly that He is holy. God's holiness is the incomparable and therefore unique, infinite perfection of God's character. All that He is, is His holiness. And of course, I am picking only a couple of verses to illustrate each point we could We could find numerous examples of all these things, but remember back in Exodus chapter 15, verse 11, as Moses is celebrating all the great things God has done for his people in delivering them from Egypt and then delivering them through the Red Sea safely. Moses says, who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Answer, no one. He is unique. Who is like you, majestic in holiness? Answer, no one's like God, majestic in holiness. None of the other false gods even rate on the same scale. He is unique, incomparable in the greatness of his infinite perfections. And then Isaiah 6. Out of all the things the seraphs could have said about God as the prophet is standing there before the divine throne, what do they say? Well, they say not just once, but three times. Apparently, they never cease to declare God's holiness. Isaiah 6.3. And one called to another and said, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. And probably a better translation of that, following the natural word order of the Hebrew is, the fullness of all the earth is his glory. In other words, God's glory is the honor due to him. And the fact that he created all the world gives eloquent testimony to his glory. His honor, his magnificence, his revealed character is his glory. And so basically, I would argue then that the entire Old Testament is an exposition of God's unique character. We learn about it propositionally as here with what the seraphs declare. We learn about God's unique holiness as we look at how he interfaces with his people Israel and how he reacts to unsaved people. All the different ways God reacts to people shows His holiness. It tells us something more about Him. So whether we're in narrative sections of the Old Testament or poetic sections or prophetic sections, we learn much about God's character as we see Him in action and as people make propositional statements concerning who He is. And then the next overarching element of his character, this is a subset of his holiness. Remember, because God is holy, that means all of his revealed attributes are uniquely great. Nobody has a righteousness like God. His righteousness is perfect. No one has a justice like God. His justice is perfect. No one loves the way God loves. His love is perfect and infinite in its multifaceted scope. Of course, we mentioned especially Psalm 136 in this regard. Perhaps you recall this psalm. And basically here what we have is 26 verses in a row. We have the repeated refrain, for his steadfast love endures forever. The word steadfast love could be translated covenantal love or loyal love. It is love that's based on a covenantal relationship. This is something that God manifests to those who know him. And notice, 26 times in a row, the psalmist makes much of this love. This is the love that will not let his people go. Yesterday, one of my Facebook friends, who is a covenantal theologian, had a Facebook post about some lecture that G.K. Beale delivered. and was making fun of dispensationalists. And I suppose these guys think this sort of thing is funny. I don't think it's funny. I refrained from making a snide comment on the post. Now, Beal is a terrific fellow. He's got a lot of things straight. But his lecture was on Romans 11 to supposedly replacement theology, that the church has supplanted Israel. Now God has no program for Israel. He's done with them. We take their place. Wow. If you can read your Bible and come up with that conclusion, you must be a whole lot more educated than I am. Because, frankly, that does violence to the covenantal love of God. He made Israel promises, and He will fulfill every single one of them just the way He gave them. If you come to any other conclusion, I just think you're plain wrong. You can make fun of me as a dispensationalist all you want. We'll see who's right about this someday. It's not really a question of who's right, is it? The question is, what's right? Let's not get, you know, we don't want to get personal, personally offended in these theological discussions. God will judge sinners because of who he is. One of his main two works is judging sinners. And even within Israel, God is going to judge those who even in the community of people, many of whom are committed to the covenant, there are those who are not. They are just simply along for the ride. They belong to Israel, but they do not take the covenant seriously. They have not responded personally from the heart to the Mosaic covenant. Notice what God is going to do to these people. Verse 15 of Deuteronomy 28, but if you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God, or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you this day, then all these curses will come upon you and overtake you. Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed you shall be in the field. Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Cursed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of the ground, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. Cursed shall you be when you come in and cursed shall you be when you go out. The Lord will send on you curses, confusion and frustration and all that you undertake to do until you are destroyed. and perish quickly on account of the evil of your deeds, because you have forsaken me." Now, there wasn't a single Israelite that fulfilled keeping all of God's commandments 100% of the time, but he hadn't forsaken the God of the covenant. He knew there was provision for his sin in the sacrificial system. He knew that God someday was going to send Messiah to take care of sin once for all, as we see in Isaiah 53. But some people had just forsaken God Oh, who is God to tell me what to do? I could care less about the Mosaic Covenant. And even though they existed within the nation of Israel, they were headed for nothing but judgment. What a sad thing. There are some people in churches today, and they're a part of maybe even a Bible-believing church. They've heard the gospel over and over and over again, but they have never responded personally from the heart to trust Christ as personal Lord and Savior. A very sad fact. No doubt, there are unregenerate people even in the best of our churches. God will also judge the nations. Here's the Old Testament background to the word Gentile that Pastor Riemers talked about today, about how worldly people who are committed to the world system are going to be judged as well. And we have over and over and over again the major emphasis in the Scripture. that God is going to judge lost people who are not within a particular Bible-believing church. They're just out there. They don't know the Lord, and they don't care that they don't know the Lord. And they are doing what Pastor Reimers enunciated this morning. They're walking in sexual immorality and drunkenness and lawless idolatry. That's what their lives are all about. And so here we have in Isaiah, chapters 13 through 23, a whole section of the book geared to nothing but specific judgments that are coming on entire countries like this that have turned their back on God. And then, of course, someday God is just going to judge the entire world, and He's going to destroy the world." Chapter 24, verse 1 of Isaiah. Behold, the Lord will empty the earth and make it desolate, and he will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants. And it shall be as with the people, so with the priest, as with the slaves, so with his master, as with the maid, so with her mistress. As with a buyer, so with a seller. As with a lender, so with a borrower. As with a creditor, so with a debtor. It doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter what your societal standing. This judgment someday is coming upon all. Notice verse three. The earth shall be utterly empty and utterly plundered for the Lord has spoken this word. The earth mourns and withers. The world languishes and withers. The highest people of the earth languish. The earth lies defiled under its inhabitants, for they have transgressed the law, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore, a curse devours the earth, and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt. Therefore, the inhabitants of the earth are scorched and few men are left. Read about what's going to happen someday in the book of Revelation. As the sun gets many times hotter, men are scorched on the face of the earth and rather than repent, they simply curse God. Notice, all kinds of desolation falls. on the earth. In fact, the earth is completely and utterly destroyed. Notice verse 17, "'Terror and the pit and the snare are upon you, O inhabitant of the earth. He who flees at the sound of the terror shall fall into the pit, and he who climbs out of the pit shall be caught in the snare. For the windows of heaven are opened and the foundations of the earth tremble. The earth is utterly broken. The earth is split apart. The earth is violently shaken. The earth staggers like a drunken man. It sways like a hut. Its transgression lies heavy upon it, and it falls and will not rise again." How can the earth fall? What is there about the transgression of the earth being heavy upon it? I can't insist on this, but it would appear that the earth's ultimate destiny is a degradation of its orbit around the sun to the point where finally it just falls right into the sun. and is utterly and completely and once for all incinerated. And then God will make a new heaven and a new earth. On this basis, Peter says, in consideration of these things, what manner of people ought we to be in all holiness and godliness, not caught up in the idolatry, the mad pursuit for things the world all around us is caught up in. The bigger this, the better that. The grander image, because image is everything, right? Yeah, if you're in the ad industry, I guess it is. But the other main work of God is salvation. God will save those who trust him. And so he graciously invites us to experience salvation. While we're in the book of Isaiah, turn over, if you would please, to chapter 55. And here we have the offer of a street vendor. The offer of salvation is pictured in the picture of a fellow who would go around the streets of Jerusalem with a cart selling water milk, wine, the three main elements of hydration available in the ancient world. And you could purchase some of these wares that he was hawking. He would go through the street and he would say, come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. He who has no money, come. Buy and eat. Oops, wait a minute. That's not what a street vendor would say. He who has no money, come buy? Oh, no. The street vendor always charged for what he sold. He didn't just give it away. Otherwise, he'd starve to death. That was how he made his living. And so, this is no street vendor. This is the Lord Himself offering something, some life-giving liquid here, pictured as a liquid, a life-giving relationship with Him that no man can pay for because the price is too high. No man can redeem his soul. because the price of redemption is too high for us to pay. And so God himself paid the price. And now he offers the ultimate water of life freely without charge to those who will come and respond to his gracious invitation. Why do you spend your money, verse two says, for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me and eat what is good and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear and come to me here that your soul may live. The word soul here is a reference to your entire being. here and your entire being will live. And I will make with you an everlasting covenant. Oh, this is a covenant, not like the Mosaic covenant. This is a covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. What was the key element of the Davidic covenant as God promised it to him in 2 Samuel 7? Was it unconditional or conditional? This Davidic covenant, it was unconditional. The Mosaic covenant was conditioned upon people's obedience. Now, this new covenant that God will make with his people and with everyone else who wants to respond to this gracious invitation, This covenant is unconditional. This is the absolutely steadfast promises God made to David, that there would never fail to be a person sitting on his throne to all eternity. And that person is our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. there's a new covenant coming. This is the same covenant that Jeremiah talks about in chapter 31. This is the same covenant that Ezekiel talks about in Ezekiel chapters 34 through 36. This is what Israel looked forward to. This is what we, by faith in Christ, are participants of by God's grace. We who were born as Gentiles, aliens from the promises and covenants of God, now are grafted into the olive root. We who were by nature wild olive branches. And God has now offered this invitation to all, no matter what their nationality. And He implores us, seek the Lord while He may be found." A better translation of that that's reflective of this use of the Hebrew verb would be, seek the Lord while He allows Himself to be found. Call upon Him while He is near. You see, the offer of salvation will someday, not today, but will someday come to an end. And then it will be irrevocably too late. If we don't learn anything from the Old Testament, from the revelation of who God is, it is that the free offer of salvation is going to come to an end someday. And then there will be only judgment. on those who have refused to respond to the invitation. Seek the Lord while he allows himself to be found. Verse 7, let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his slots. Let him return to the Lord that he may have compassion on him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. In context, the reason why God's thoughts are not our thoughts is because in our thinking, we have to earn our salvation, but in God's plan, He gives it to us for free. It cost our Savior everything. It cost the Father, His only begotten Son, but that salvation is free to us. Who would have ever come up with a plan like that? God's thoughts are not our thoughts. They're way higher than our thoughts because His love is infinite. His mercy is infinite. His infinite justice now satisfied in Christ, in Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. His righteousness manifested in Christ and all who respond to the invitation are now in Christ and Christ's perfect righteousness has been put to our account. Who could have ever come up with an idea like that? Way beyond what we could ever imagine as lost human beings. God never intended Israel to turn the law into a works religion as if they thought they could live fastidiously enough to merit God's approval to actually achieve their own righteousness. All we have to do is just turn to passages like Deuteronomy chapter 6 and we realize just exactly how deficient we are. in our obedience to any part of the law. Notice here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. Okay, who has ever fulfilled that? Only one person, our Savior. In his earthly ministry and his life on planet Earth, he fulfilled Deuteronomy 6, 4 and 5 perfectly. And now in him, we have fulfilled this perfectly and we are called upon to every single day we live, respond to this divine imperative in our lives not to earn our salvation, which we could never do, but rather to manifest that we have salvation. And so, Paul says in Galatians, you know, by works of the law shall no flesh be justified. No one ever We're all sheep who have gone astray. We've each turned to our own way. And God has laid on him, that is Christ, the iniquity of us all. And of course, that brings us to the fact that Messiah is the agent of salvation. If you want to think about it this way, the whole Bible is the outworking of God's promise to Eve in Genesis 3.15, that the seed of the woman is going to crush the serpent's head. And then, of course, we learn all kinds of things about the seed of the woman, the one we call the Messiah. In Genesis 49.10, we learn that he will be from the tribe of Judah. In Micah 5 too, we learn He'll be born in Bethlehem, and we learn many, many, many more things about Messiah throughout the Old Testament. And in Luke 24, as Christ is walking on the road to Emmaus, and He's joined several disciples who are headed that way. He tells them, well, the Bible tells us that beginning at Moses, he preached to them himself from the Old Testament. And so, therefore, the entire Old Testament is a testimony to the person and works of Christ as the second person of the Trinity. He is going to be Yahweh in human flesh. We've already seen that. in Isaiah 9.6. So the entire Old Testament is messianic. Christ fulfills the vicarious atonement, the Levitical priesthood pictured. There would be a time where He would die for sin once for all and would do away with the Aaronic priesthood. And he would become a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Turn, if you would please, to Psalm 110. And notice verse 4. The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind. You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. And of course, this entire Psalm is speaking of the rule of Messiah. Notice Psalm 110.1, the Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. And so basically, this is a verse that our Savior asked the Pharisees to interpret for him And they couldn't do it. Christ says, so tell me, who is David's Lord? The first Lord, you'll notice, is one that's all in capital letters there. That is, Yahweh says to my Adonai, my master. Well, so Christ says, if Messiah, and everybody back in Christ's day took this to be a messianic verse, he asked them, Who is this person who is David's Lord? You say he's David's son, and he is. But how is it that David calls him Lord? And they were speechless. They had no answer. The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies. The people of Christ's day had verse 2 down really well. Why? Because they wanted deliverance from the hated Romans. They knew Messiah someday would rule over the entire world. And so, if Christ wouldn't do that, then he couldn't possibly be Messiah. Right? Wrong. Why? Well, verse 4. we see what Christ came to do at his first advent. You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek, not after the order of Aaron. The Aaronic priesthood has passed away and all the Aaronic Levitical sacrifices now have ceased as well because Christ is the one who fulfilled them all. by dying once to shed his blood for the payment of all sin of all time. And now there is no more need for propitiatory sacrifice. It's gone. Now Christ is a priest according to a different order, an order of a person that seems very mysterious to us. He meets Abraham in Genesis 14. We don't know where he came from. We do know he's the king of Salem. He's the king of peace. Abraham offers him tithes. Ooh, that's interesting. Why would Abraham do that? Well, this one Melchizedek represents an entirely different class of priesthood. This now is the priesthood of the divine person and Messiah then stands as one who is eternally a priest, our only priest with the only sacrifice that matters, which is His shed blood. All right, what's the goal of all of Old Testament revelation? Well, it is to know God. Now, to know is not just simply to know some facts about. I know some facts about Barack Obama. but I don't know him, and he doesn't know me. He doesn't know me, he doesn't know my name, doesn't know anything about me, and I, you know, the fact that I know a few facts about him does not mean I know him in the sense of an intimate relationship, a relational knowledge that the Bible makes much about. Turn over to Jeremiah chapter nine. Here we have perhaps one of the clearest expressions of something that is explicitly stated and implicitly proven throughout the Old Testament, that people must have a relational knowledge with the true God. Thus says the Lord, verse 23 of Jeremiah 9 says, let not the wise man boast in his wisdom. Let not the mighty man boast in his might. Let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight, declares the Lord. There it is. Notice the emphasis that Jeremiah gives to who God is. He's a God who practices covenantal love and justice and righteousness. And those who are saved individuals have come into a personal relationship with him. That's what the difference between all false religion and true religion always comes down to. True religion is an experiential knowledge of the God of heaven as he has revealed himself through the scriptures. And all false religion is based on what I think a false god can do for me, based on what I'd like that false god to be, so that I can feel comfortable that he's just like me, only a little more powerful. which is what all the false gods were. Knowing God is the essence of the fear of Yahweh. Over and over again, the fear of the Lord is emphasized in Scripture. It is one of the main emphases of Scripture. And I can think of no clearer verse to illustrate the meaning of the fear of the Lord than Proverbs 9.10. In this synonymous parallelism between the two lines, notice that in the first line, the fear of the Lord is parallel in the second line to the knowledge of the Holy One. Yes, indeed. And I would argue once again that this knowledge in the second line of verse 10 is an experiential knowledge. Salvation is not a thing. It's not a transaction. It's a relationship with a person. A growing relationship. One that over the years of our salvation, we come to appreciate more and more. And over our entire lives of reading the scripture, We gain a better understanding of what our God is like as he has revealed himself, not as we imagine him to be. And so, the question is, just as all questions like this, how is your relationship with the true God of heaven? Have you come to the point in your life where you have responded personally to the offer of salvation? Have you put your trust in Christ's work on Calvary's cross as your only hope of righteousness before a holy God? And are you growing in that relationship daily? It's the same kind of question We could ask of any relationship of life. How's your relationship with your wife or your husband, your spouse? You've either got a really good relationship or a mediocre relationship or a crummy relationship. No matter what you would determine your relationship is, you are still married. All right? It's like that with a believer. What's the status of your relationship with the true God of heaven? Has there ever been a time in your life where this relationship was more vibrant and dynamic and growing than it is right now? Well, repentance is in order then. Repentance, where we change our mind about how we're living. We confess. How we're not living right. And we return to the Lord. We seek Him while He allows Himself to be found. Because whoever will seek the Lord will find Him in the pages of Scripture. And we can draw near to Him. He invites us. As he puts it in Revelation 320, any man that hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and sup with him and he with me. Enjoy a fellowship meal. He bids us come. It's only our own stubborn self-will and love of sin that keeps us from coming. Time to forsake that. Time to turn our backs on sin. Reckon ourselves dead to sin and alive in Christ. What a foundation for the New Testament we have. I would challenge each one of us, let's get to know the Old Testament better. All right, we are now done. Can you believe that? After all this time of looking at all the different books from a bird's eye view, now we're done looking at the whole Old Testament from a bird's eye view. What are we going to do next? I don't know. Next week, we'll meet as a class probably all the way through May. I don't remember exactly how Pastor Riemers works this. We'll let everybody know in plenty of time when we're off for the summer. And I don't know whether there are going to be elective classes this summer like there was last summer. I think there probably will be. So I'll do probably small, bite-sized pieces of study. I won't launch into another year and a half study. Don't worry. Because then we just get started and we have to break for the summer. So, if you think about it, pray for me that I know what to do the next few weeks. It'll be a surprise to me, too. All right, let's pray. Our Father, we're thankful for your Word, for the instruction of the Scriptures. We're thankful for the way the Old Testament reveals to us our Savior. Now help us, I pray, as we seek to love Him and walk with Him and obey Him. I pray in Jesus' name, amen.