One of the things we get hung up on when we come to the prophets is the historical background. Well, I don't know much about the king of Egypt. I don't know much about the king of Tyre and Sidon. I don't know much about the Amalekites or the Moabites, and God is is prophesying judgment on those nations, not just on Israel. And he's prophesying judgment on his own covenant people for being covenant breakers. And so you can get bogged down in the historical details, which I don't think we're meant to do. Obviously, we want to know them. But we want to get the theological, what is God teaching? And then how is that? What did the prophets say to us today? And one of the things we're going to want to avoid that I'm going to try to teach us tonight is I think one way that we try to make the prophets relevant to us is we say, well, there are these very clear prophecies about Jesus. For instance, Isaiah 53, which is just so abundantly clearly about Jesus, the suffering servant. And we say, well, that's for us. But all that stuff about Israel getting covenant curses, that's not for us. And so what we inevitably do is we take these clear messianic prophecies about Christ that the New Testament writers appeal to everywhere. And we say, well, I get that. That's for us. That's about Jesus. And we sort of take those out of the rest of the content of the message of the prophets and what that does is that that leaves a whole bunch of stuff that for us we're like well that doesn't have any relevance or A mistake a lot of people do is they go to the prophets and they see God railing on them and then they apply it in a sort of God and country political way to America. That's very common. That's an attempt actually for Christians to try to make the message of the prophets relevant to us and I would argue it's a mistaken way to do that. But it's a way they're trying to make, it has to have something to say to me besides just these clear prophecies. And so naturally in America, now in Russia that's not going to work. In a communist nation you're not going to have a bunch of God and country Christians. So we have to in a sense step back and say wait a minute, if I don't live in America am I going to do that? Well no, I'm not going to do that. Let me say this just to end this kind of preface and then we'll pray. I think it does speak to nations, because God is judging other nations outside of Israel. So I don't want to overreact, but I don't think that's the central message of a political, theological, God and country, America needs to return to its roots. That's not why God wrote the major and minor prophets, that he wrote them for people like us to see our need for Christ in the richness. One old Puritan said, I need the whole Bible for the whole Christ. So if I can't preach Christ out of Nehemiah in his redemptive glory, then there's a part of Christ that I'm not giving the people that God wants me to give them. So the whole Bible is about the whole Christ. And that means even Amos, Obadiah, those hard prophets, there's something in there. I'm going to give you tonight what I believe to be the easy key, the simple key. There's a very simple key, and yet it also is very deep. And that's going to have to do with judgment and salvation, death and resurrection, exile and restoration. We've kind of touched on that in the past. Let me pray for us and then let's read Isaiah 1 and then Isaiah 53. Father, we need your wisdom and your guidance. We need your Holy Spirit. We lack so much wisdom and understanding, and we lack power. We would ask tonight that you would not just sharpen our minds, but that you would Soften our hearts and that you would cause us to fall on your son Jesus Christ and that we would be broken over our sin and that we would find him to be altogether lovely and The one who has made a curse for us that we might be blessed in him. We might find him to be the source of our life and our joy We pray that you would be glorified in what is said and taught and we pray these things in Jesus name Amen Isaiah 1, the vision of Isaiah the son of Amos, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah kings of Judah. Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken. Children I have reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me." There the Lord is talking about Israel. The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master's crib, but Israel does not know. My people do not understand. Israel is spiritually blind. They do not get the redemptive purposes and reality of God, of Yahweh. Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly. They have forsaken the Lord. They have despised the Holy One of Israel. They have utterly estranged. Why will you still be struck down? Why will you continue to rebel? The whole head is sick and the whole heart faint from the sole of the foot, even to the head. That's how depraved men are by nature from the sole of the foot to the head. He's saying the totality, all of them, all of Israel, all of us by nature is spiritually sick and corrupt. There is no soundness in it but bruises and sores and raw wounds. They are not pressed out or bound up or softened with oil. Your country lies desolate. Your cities are burned with fire. In your very presence, foreigners devour your land. It is desolate as overthrown by foreigners. And the daughter of Zion is left like a booth in a vineyard, like a lodge in a cucumber field, like a besieged city. If the Lord of Hosts had not left us a remnant, we should have been like Sodom, and become like Gomorrah. Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom. Give ear to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah. What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices, says the Lord? I have had enough of burnt offerings, of rams, and the fat of well-fed beasts. I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts? Bring no more vain offerings. Incense is an abomination to me. New moons and Sabbath and the calling of convocations, I cannot endure iniquity and the solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feast my soul hates. They have become a burden to me. That's what God thinks about religion that's not pure and undefiled from the heart. That's how much God hates. religion, in the external sense, if it's not done out of faith and love toward Christ. He says, your new moons, God appointed them. Your appointed feasts, my soul hates. They have become a burden to me. I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you. Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves. Make yourselves clean. Remove your evil deeds from before my eyes. Cease to do evil. Learn to do good. Seek justice. Correct oppression. Bring justice to the fatherless. Plead the widow's cause. Come now. Let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall become white like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land. But if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. How the faithful city has become a whore, she who was full of justice, righteousness lodged in her, but now murderers. Your silver has become dross, your best wine mixed with water. Your princes are rebels and companions of thieves, everyone loves a bribe and runs after gifts. They do not bring justice to the fatherless and the widow's cause does not come to them. Therefore, the Lord declares, the Lord of hosts, the mighty one of Israel, I will get relief from my enemies and avenge myself on my foes. I will turn my hand against you. I will smelt away your dross as with lye and remove all your alloy. I will restore your judges as at the first and your counselors as at the beginning. Afterward, you shall be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city. Zion shall be redeemed by justice, and those in her who repent by righteousness, but sinners and rebels shall be broken together. Those who forsake the Lord shall be consumed, they shall be ashamed of the oaks that you desired. You shall blush for the gardens that you have chosen. You shall be like an oak whose leaf withers, and like a garden without water. And the strong shall become tender, and his work a spark, and both of them shall burn together, and none to quench them. Now, turn over to Isaiah 40, and I'll just read a verse or two at the beginning there, and then Isaiah 53. If you read straight through Isaiah, you would find tons of judgment, yet there are these little glimmers of hope mixed in with the judgments, but it's predominantly judgment until we come to chapter 40, and then everything turns. And this is what we hear, Isaiah 40 verse 1, comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem. Cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins. And then turn over to Isaiah 53. And what you have from Isaiah 40 to the end of the book is prophecy of restoration and how that restoration is going to be achieved to 55 roughly. And that is, those are the prophecies of the servant of Yahweh, the Ebed Yahweh, who is Jesus. These are the clear messianic prophecies. How is the warfare going to be ended? How is the iniquity going to be pardoned? How can God turn from the judgment and suddenly say, I'm going to restore you. You're going to be called a people of righteousness. You're going to be oaks, like planted oaks of righteousness. I'm going to restore your fortune spiritually, all those figures. And the answer is found specifically in 53. And there Isaiah says, who has believed what he has heard from us? To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? The arm of the Lord is his saving strength. It's just a metaphor. for his saving strength. He grew up before him. like a young plant, like a root out of dry ground. He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And as one from whom men hid their faces, he was despised, 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 was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away, and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? They made his grave with the wicked, but with a rich man in his death. Although he had none, no violence, there was no deceit in his mouth, yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him. He has put him to grief. When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring. He shall prolong his day. The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied. By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous. and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors. Yet he bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors. I thought a lot about what to read because how do you tackle all the prophets? You can't tackle all the prophets in one sitting in 45 minutes to an hour, but what we can do is we can look at the broad outline as we just did of Isaiah. There's the broad theme, judgment for rebellion, the just punishment of sin, and covenant breaking, the promise of restoration, and then how that restoration occurs. What you have to understand is historically, the prophets are prophesying to Israel before the exile into Babylon, during the exile in Babylon, and then after the exile. Malachi would be one after, for instance, about 70 years after. So you have prophets telling them, judgment's coming, exile's coming, God is long-suffering, but Israel's rebellious. Then you have prophets like Ezekiel who are prophesying inside of Babylon, inside the captivity. You also find Daniel, though that's a historical narrative more or less hybrid with prophecy. That's happening within the Babylonian captivity with Nebuchadnezzar and everything going on. Israel's oppressed. They've had, and this is very important, The exile is covenant reversal. God took Abraham out of where? Where did God call Abraham out of? Genesis 11. Ur of the Chaldees, which is Babylon. And he enters into covenant with Abraham and his offspring. And he promises to send a Redeemer and he deals in a very special way with Israel, the Old Covenant Church. That's the Old Covenant Church. He deals very specially with them. giving them his word, his worship, his promises, his warnings, his covenant, his chastisement, his protection. And yet Israel, every generation of Israel, is in one sense worse than the nations because most of Israel are unregenerate. They don't know the Lord. Their hearts are not, they don't have circumcised hearts, God says. And so ultimately what happens is the covenant curses that God gives to Israel in Deuteronomy, when you read through the book, the Torah, Genesis to Deuteronomy, you come to the end of Deuteronomy and it's cursed is you if this happens, cursed will you be if this happens, cursed if you do this, cursed if you do this. And the big curse is that you will be cut off from the land. And that, is reminiscent to Adam being exiled out of Eden. Remember, Adam sins and God kicks him out into the far country into the wilderness, from the garden to the wilderness. That's the big paradigm to get. Adam is exiled. He's put away from the presence of God. That's a picture of hell itself. You know, people often talk about their life being like hell. Well, there's one reason for that is life away from God here and now is a tiny picture of being exiled for eternity in hell. So Adam is exiled out of the garden. And yet God promises to restore Adam and his descendants through that promise of Genesis 3.15. When he creates Israel, remember Adam's the son of God. Israel is then the son of God. Israel's called my son, remember Exodus 4.22, Hosea 11.1. God calls Israel in the nation my son, but ultimately the son is Jesus. But just like Adam, the son of God, was exiled for his disobedience, Israel, the son of God, God's son, is exiled out of the promised land, which is a picture of the restoration of the garden. And they are exiled into the far country of oppression, away from the presence of God, into Babylon. And it's covenant reversal. What God is doing is he is undoing in a sense, though temporarily we know that, he is reversing his covenant with Abraham and he's sending them back into the pagan land from which he called them out to be oppressed and afflicted. Exile really, exile structures the prophets. You've got to get exile if you're going to understand the prophets. And you've got to get the being away from Israel means being away from the temple. the Ark of the Covenant, so the place of the worship of God, the typical thing that showed forth that God was with you. And what being away from Israel and the Old Covenant meant was God is not with you. You're forsaken. God is not with you. That's what being away from Israel means. If you were an Israelite, functionally, your experience would be like God has forsaken us. We have forsaken God. God is not with us. We are not God's people. He is, in a sense, saying, you are no longer my people. Now, we'll see in the prophets that he'll come back and say, I'm going to call you my people again. And he's going to call Remnant out. And he is also going to restore. And so what you find in the prophets, you find the promise of judgment leading to exile. And then you find the promise of restoration. Now, God does restore Israel to the land. That's what the books Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, that's what those books are about. Zechariah, the rebuilding of the temple, the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem, Nehemiah. These are all restoration books in the history of Israel when God is restoring his people. In Haggai and Zechariah, they are coming back to the land, they are rebuilding the temple, that God is, in a sense, restoring his people. But then what we find, when we come to the end of the Old Testament, is that something's wrong. God doesn't care about that temple that's being built. And he seems to not be with his people. He doesn't come down after the construction of it. Like he came down on Solomon's Temple in the pillar of cloud to show his presence. He doesn't come down. And what God is saying is that it's not about Old Covenant National Israel. I'm done. with Old Covenant National Israel. And when you read Malachi, the last book, that's abundantly clear. Seventy years, and he's like, your priests are all profane. They're all profaning my temple. They're taking bribes, the whole nation. Nothing's different in Israel. And all of that is pushing you to say, what will happen? What is God going to do? Then you have that 400 period of silence, and then the Redeemer comes. And when the Redeemer comes, God fulfills everything that the Old Testament is about. Now, the question we're left with is, okay, judgment on Israel, judgment on the nations around Israel, restoration of, promise of restoration, restoration, but then God's telling us that wasn't what it was ultimately about, the physical restoration of Israel and the land was never what it was ultimately about. And then Jesus comes, and then the new covenant just bursts open in all the blessings of God to the nations and the redemption of his people throughout the world. And the question we're left with is, what do we do with the prophets? What did we do when I have a quiet time with the prophets? And what bearing does that have on me? Is that just a nice historiography about Israel? And is it like, oh, that's nice that God dealt with those people that way. Or does this book have something to say to me in all of its parts? And what I want to argue tonight is that this book has something to say to us in all of its parts. And that message is not just shape up and stop doing evil. Repent is part of that message. Shape up and stop doing evil is not the message of the prophets. The message of the prophets is God has restored his people spiritually through the exile and restoration that was experienced in the death and resurrection of Jesus. So Jesus undergoes exile at the cross. We say oftentimes in the Apostles' Creed, he descended into hell. We don't believe he actually went to hell. That's not taught anywhere in the Bible. I know there are well-meaning evangelicals that believe it is, but what we do believe is that he endured the pains of hell at Calvary. that God endured the equivalent of hell because Jesus is an eternal being, taking an eternal punishment for his people. Isaiah 53 says he was wounded for our transgressions. And so, and the big verse is Isaiah 53 8, he was cut off. from the land of the living. I actually would argue that might be the most important verse in Isaiah 53 other than wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities. Cut off from the land of the living. The Lord bruised him. Jesus became a covenant curse. Paul will say in Galatians 3, he became a curse for you so that you don't get the eternal curse of God. Israel's judgment in Babylon was a picture, it was a picture prophecy of the greater judgment to come. So again, we don't ever want to stumble on thinking this is just about Israel, this special theocratic nation. We want to see that God's dealings with them were always pointing beyond the nation of Israel to the greater judgment to come, the judgment day, the judgment of the prophets. When we read, and this is the first principle I'd say, When we read the judgment that God is prophesying on the prophets, the first thing we should see is that God is going to bring judgment on all the nations. That one day, there is a judgment day, and nobody's going to escape that. Doesn't matter how much they suppress the truth. It doesn't matter how much they say, I'm spiritual, but I'm not a Christian. It doesn't matter how much good stuff they try to do. There's a judgment day coming. And what the prophets teach us first is that judgment is going to come on all workers of iniquity who are still in Adam, exiled from the garden, exiled from God's presence, and who are not in Christ. That's the first thing it teaches. The second thing it teaches is that for those who repent and believe, they'll be saved. It's very clear. Joel, the prophet Joel says, whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Jonah. goes to Nineveh, prophesies judgment. Is it because God wants some angry homeless street preacher holding up the end is near? No. God sent Jonah to Nineveh to prophesy judgment so that the Ninevites would repent and receive mercy and grace. So the point of God even telling them about judgment was that he might show mercy to those who would repent. And that's a principle that goes out through the whole New Covenant. I want to come back to what makes that possible as we close out. But let me go back now and say this. Last time we were together, we talked about the Psalms, the Proverbs, and the Song of Songs, and Christ in all of those things, and how to see Christ and the principles there. What did we say? What covenantal period did the Psalms the Proverbs and the Song of Songs fall. They fell under the rubric of the Davidic covenant. That's the last covenant in the Old Testament. The kingdom is established. God promises David he's going to establish his throne and establish one of David's sons on his throne forever. And we saw that's Christ, but that's also David's descendants typically until Christ comes. So Solomon is a type of the one to come, the greater Solomon Jesus. But Jesus sits on the throne of David, so the Davidic Covenant is about the establishment of God's kingdom. Part of that establishment includes the city of Jerusalem, in the Old Covenant, and specifically all those things related to Israel's worship in the Old Covenant. So the temple, the kingship, the priesthood, all of those things that happen within Jerusalem, the city of the king. And what God promises in the Davidic Covenant is that his promises to David will not fail. that becomes super important because when we're reading through the prophets you'll come to like the worst king of israel one of the worst kings of israel isaiah chapter seven let me just point this out to you it's very very very important and if you took a uh if you wanted to do just a very detailed study on your own go through the prophets take a red pen and every reference to david or things pertaining to the davidic covenant underline them and you would see how substantial role that plays in God's dealings with Israel, His covenant faithfulness. Ahaz, one of the most wicked kings in Israel, and you all know the the great prophecy of Emmanuel, Isaiah 7 14, and I'm not going to read all this to you, but what I want to show you is he God comes to Ahaz. Ahaz is king of Israel. He's one of the worst kings. He has all kinds of corrupt dealings with the pagan nations. He functionally is like a pagan king, but he's the king of the old covenant church at this point. And God comes to Ahaz and he says in verse 10, ask a sign of the Lord your God. Let it be as deep as Sheol or as high as the heavens. So God is basically saying to Ahaz, I am going to keep my promises. And even though you deserve destruction, I'm going to remember my promises. And I'm going to be faithful to my covenant. Ask me a sign. And Ahaz is so wicked. He's like, oh, far be it from me. I could never ask a sign of the Lord. He's all humble when God's telling him, ask me a sign. And Ahaz says, I will not ask. I will not put the Lord to the task. And then notice verse 13, the Lord said, Here then, O house of David, is it too little for you to weary men that you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. The virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Emmanuel. And then he'll talk about establishing the house of David and the house of Judah. All of that is intimately related to the Davidic covenant. So one of the things you want to get in understanding the prophets is God is always saying, I am going to remember my promises that I made to David. Sometimes you'll find him going back to Abraham, to the Abrahamic covenant too. So Israel has broken the Mosaic Covenant. They've broken the law. Covenant and law play a major role in the judgment that they receive. And yet, God is saying, in my grace and my mercy, I'm going to remember my promises. I'm going to preserve Jerusalem, and we'll come to that in a second. And I'm going to preserve the promise of a king who will come and sit on the throne forever. Now, when we come to the New Testament, we very quickly learn it's not about physical Jerusalem. In fact, the New Testament, it's almost absent any talk of the land of Israel at all. Once the gospel goes out, outside the gospels, and you start to read the rest of the New Testament, you're hard pressed. You don't find any reference to the land of Israel in any of the epistles. But what you do find, the Jerusalem above, Paul says in Galatians, is mother of us all. And in the book of Hebrews, the writer says, the heavenly Zion. And so what you realize is that the earthly Jerusalem was a type of the heavenly Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of God, the city that has foundations that the writer of Hebrews talks about. And that the king who dwells in Zion and the people that dwell in Zion are Jesus and those who are with him. And so everything that the prophets are telling us about God setting back up the tabernacle of David, and establishing the kingdom of David, and remembering his promises to David, and giving a son in promise to the house of David, is that he's bringing a redeemer who's going to establish the holy city, which is glory, and his people in glory. And when you read the New Testament, unless you have been completely brainwashed by that theology, it's impossible for you not to get that. It's impossible that everything is heavenly and spiritual and Old Testament, earthly, typical, preparatory, new covenant, fulfilling Christ, the full spiritual realization, the heavenly, I'm going to use the big word, eschatological, end time, the goal, where it's all moving. So the prophets are all speaking eschatologically. They're all speaking about what's going to happen in consummation And when they tell us that, and the whole Bible's doing that, when they tell us that, at the center of that is the person and the work of Jesus. So it's not going to be Israel's obedience that gets them restored. That's one of the remarkable things about the prophets. When you're reading this, it's like, from the sole of your foot to the top of your head, wounds, bruises, putrefying sores, Never do you hear God say, because you've obeyed, because you've done so well, because you've shaped up and cleaned yourself up, I'm going to restore you. So Israel goes into exile for their disobedience, but they get restored because of God's grace. Don't miss that principle. Israel goes into exile because they deserve it and they get restored because they didn't know they don't because of God's grace. So God's covenant works this way. God's covenant has demands on all of us. that if we break, we deserve judgment. And we've all broken it, and we all deserve judgment. And His covenant works this way. He's promised blessing, and yet we can't get that blessing in what we do. All we get is cursing and judgment. And so Christ comes and represents us. and he becomes the curse, and he's cut off from the land of the living, and the cross is exile. Do not miss that. The cross is exile. The true Israel is being exiled for all those who will believe in him. And when he comes out of the tomb on the third day, All the promises of restoration in the prophets are fulfilled spiritually for us who are in union with him, who have died with him, and who have been raised with him. And so Paul in Romans 6 can say, if you've been baptized in Christ, he means spiritual baptism, you've died with Christ, you've been raised with him, you've undergone exile and restoration. If you're in Christ by faith, if you have repented of your sins, if you are repenting, if by faith you've been united to Christ, what Paul says is the reality of Christians, Jew or Gentile, who believes is that we've died with him, we've been exiled with him, we've undergone the covenant curses in his death, and when he was raised, we were raised, and that's how Paul can say we've come out as new creatures, new creation. It's the restoration. So what the prophets prophesy about restoration under the earthly preparatory figure of Israel and Jerusalem, the reality of that is experienced in believers spiritually through the resurrection of Jesus. In addition, we wait for the restoration. There's a sense where This is why the second coming of Jesus is so important. When he comes again, the Apostle Peter will say in the book of Acts that he'll bring the times of the restoration of all things, the regeneration of all things, the new heavens and the new earth where righteousness dwells. So what Jesus secured through his own exile and restoration is death and resurrection. ultimately secured not just the restoration of us spiritually, but the cosmic restoration of everything. Cosmic restoration through his death and resurrection. Now that doesn't mean that everybody's going to be there. There's a hell. Those who don't trust in Jesus and repent of their sins will not be in the new heavens and the new earth. We want to guard against a universalism when we say cosmic restoration, but when we say that we mean his death and resurrection secures the regeneration of even creation itself. So Paul can say we're waiting, creation groans and travails with birth pangs, it's ready to bring forth something new. Peter says that the elements are going to be burned with fire and the works and the earth and all its works in it are going to be destroyed. And then we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth. He's going to remake this world and all of that is because of Jesus' death and resurrection. Now this is why, and I'm going to stop in a minute because this is a lot and I want you to be able to ask questions. This is why This is why Jesus as true Israel is so important. So I want you to go and listen to that, if you can, listen to that lecture about him as true Israel. Remember, just as a little recap, Matthew 2 says he goes down into Egypt, out of Egypt, through the waters of baptism, into the wilderness, up on the mountain. Israel went down into Egypt, out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, into the wilderness. Moses went up on the mountain. Jesus recapitulates Israel was tempted in the wilderness. God gave them Deuteronomy in the wilderness. They failed. They disobeyed. Jesus is tempted in the wilderness. He defeats Satan with the very words God gave Old Covenant Israel in the wilderness. The three times Jesus quotes scripture to Satan is from Deuteronomy. He is true Israel. He's redoing what Israel failed to do. He is gaining the blessings, but he first has to relive all of Israel's history, even through his kingly ministry and the kingly period, and then he has to be exiled at the cross. The very thing that happened to Israel in the Babylonian exile has to happen to Jesus, but it has to happen to him in the fullest way. And what bearing does this have? You should care immensely about this, because here's the thing. You're going to get exiled in hell forever if you don't know Jesus. If you don't get this, it will mean eternal exile for you in hell. That's why this is so important. Now, you don't have to know all the intricate theological, you have to believe this. This is the biggest thing in human history, that he takes the punishment, that he goes through the exile, that he's forsaken of his father, that he cries out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? So that we know that he has said to us, I will never leave you nor forsake you. Remember, we said Israel, when they were in captivity, had a sense of forsakenness of God. When we look at the cross, even though we have guilty consciences from our sin, we should be able to say, God has promised, I will never leave you nor forsake you. And I know that's true because he forsook his son, and his son was exiled for me. And his son was raised, and I've been raised up with him. That also gives us this hope and anticipation. And I think when you go into the New Testament, that's why, have you ever noticed, I think people get hung up on the Old and the New Testament, and think Old Testament's all judgment, New Testament's all mercy. Well, no, the book of Revelation's pretty severe. I mean, you read the book of Revelation, that doesn't sound like all mercy to me. I mean, that sounds like a lot of judgment God's sending on the world. But think this shift where you do have these larger portions focusing on God dealing severely with his disobedient people and you have it less in the New Testament you have him killing Ananias and Sapphira for lying so he's not it's not that he's not severe and that our sin is not severe but because Jesus has been exiled and restored God's mercy is fuller and larger, and it's going to all the nations. And so we see the fruit, the fruit of Isaiah 53. in the New Covenant era. We experienced the fruit of that in a fuller degree. Now the saints in the Old Testament still experienced it, but, and this is an interesting thing, it doesn't matter whether you were a believing Israelite or not, if Israel was idolatrous and rebellious, and God sent them into exile, even if you were a Daniel, you went into exile. Whereas in the New Covenant, it seems that that way of dealing is diminished to a degree, and you gotta be careful there. Because God doesn't chase in the church for Ananias and Sapphira lying about their property and giving. He just kills them. He takes them out of the way. Whereas in the old covenant, God dealt with the covenant people corporately in a more substantial way. Although, and I'll just say this, If you come to Revelation 2 and 3, he does deal with the church collectively, the local churches. He calls everyone in it to repent. And I do think our sin can have consequences even in our families and in our churches. But I think because of the fulfillment of everything in Jesus, you do see less of that and more of the exponential glory of redemption because it's been accomplished in the death and resurrection of Jesus. Questions or comments? I mean, does that give you a little bit of a paradigm? Judgment, salvation, exile, restoration, death and resurrection. Do you all see how those things line up? Judgment followed by salvation. Exile followed by restoration. All of which is accomplished through death and resurrection. Does that make sense or no? A little bit? Okay. One other interesting thing. Israel as a nation, their first major experience and their last experience become paradigms of the redemption we have in Christ. So what's the first major experience Israel has? Redemptive experience. Yeah, the Passover and the Exodus, right? And then their last experience is the exile, followed by the restoration. Those are, you could structure, if you wrote a history of Israel in the Old Covenant, you would say the two big events were Exodus and exile restoration. And it's interesting because both of those are used throughout the prophets, the imagery of that pointing forward in Luke 9, 31, Moses and Elijah appear with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. And contrary to just making a nice story for a stained glass window with a halo Jesus, It actually gives us an avenue into the fulfillment of all things because it says, Moses and Elijah appeared with him and spoke of his exodus. Literally in Greek, it's exodon, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. So Jesus is the greater Moses and the Passover lamb, who through his death and resurrection brings his people through the judgment out to rich fulfillment. Judgment and salvation. It's an exodus. And then as Israel's last event, he is exiled and restored. So Israel's first major redemptive event, its last major covenantal event, are both paradigms for what Jesus does at the cross spiritually for us. That's huge. Getting that is huge. Because a true restoration from exile didn't come until Jesus. Right, right, right, right. So here is the book I want to recommend to you guys. And actually there's only three pages in here that you would have to read. And it's on my blog so you could just go there because I wrote a blog post about this. Page 500 to 503 of O. Palmer Robertson's Christ of the Prophets. But if you want an in-depth study of the prophets that really is like very, very, very formative in your thinking and helps you read the prophets, this book is amazing. It's worth every penny. But you have to work at reading it.