The following recording is made available by Faith Community Bible Church. Information on how to obtain additional messages will be given at the end of the message. We are in 2 Timothy chapter 2. We're looking just at verses 8 and 9. Last Sunday evening in our study on Christianity Explored, we were reminded of the wonderful and the glorious truth of the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, which is the bedrock, the foundation of the Christian faith. It was the resurrection of Jesus Christ that secured for us our justification. Paul said in Romans 4.25, speaking of Jesus, that He was delivered for our offenses and that He was raised again for our justification. That is why he could also say in 1 Corinthians 15.14, that if Christ be not risen, then our preaching is vain and your faith is also vain. We know also that the resurrection of Jesus is our hope, our only hope for the life to come. 1 Corinthians 15, the 19th verse. In this life only, if we had hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. But now, Paul says, is Christ risen from the dead, and He has become the first fruits of those that slept, or those who died. Death is the inevitable consequence of life. It's like they say, nobody gets out alive. And as Paul waited his own death, he exhorted Timothy to be prepared for suffering and hardships in this life. That's what we have been reading about so far in our study in 2 Timothy. But along with that exhortation comes words of encouragement to Timothy. First, in 2 Timothy 2, verse 8, he is told to think upon the power of Christ's resurrection. It says, remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised from the dead according to my gospel. Reading in Romans 1, Paul declares himself, in the first verse, to be a servant of Jesus Christ. Called, he says, to be an apostle. And then he says that he was separated unto the gospel of God, which he had promised before. in the Prophets by the Holy Scriptures concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead. He was declared to be the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection of the dead. What if Timothy had to pay the ultimate price for being a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ, which he did? That would not deter him in the least if he truly believed that God has the ultimate power over death. Abraham was willing to offer up his son Isaac, his beloved son, the son of promise, the son through whom the covenant that God made with him would be fulfilled, why was Abraham willing to lay it all on the altar? Because he believed that God would raise Isaac from the dead. He would bring him back to life. Now, raised from the dead here in verse eight is a statement about the omnipotent power of God. No man can raise himself from the dead. No man could raise another man from the dead except God's power be upon him. Paul wanted more than anything else in his life, he said in the book of Philippians, he wanted to know the power of Christ's resurrection in his life. And I wonder, brothers and sisters, if we ever pray like that. God, help us to know the power of the resurrected Christ in our life. You know, no other religion in the world has a resurrection. And that's why no other religion in the world, other than Christianity, has power. They don't have any power. They only have power to send souls to damnation, not to save them. The religions of the world cannot save a single soul, because they have no acceptable sacrifice for sin, and they have no power over death. They have no gospel. Because the gospel is what? The death, burial, and what? Resurrection of Jesus Christ. They have no gospel. They have no good news. Now, Paul mentions here in verse 8 that Jesus, who was raised from the dead, was the seed of David by birth. And the seed of David highlights Christ's humanity. But I think it does much more than that. The mention of Christ's Davidic ancestry identifies Him with the promise that God made to King David that one of His descendants would rule over an eternal kingdom. In 2 Samuel chapter 7, we have one of the great covenants in the Bible, the Davidic covenant. It was given by God to David through the prophet Nathan. And the key promise in the Davidic covenant is found in verses 12 and 13. In 2 Samuel 7, 12 it says, And when thy days be fulfilled, speaking to David, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seat after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. He will build a house for my name." Now, the immediate fulfillment came with who? With King Solomon. But notice it says, "...and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever." In other words, the throne rights belong to His descendants forever. In Psalm 89 verse 34, beginning at verse 34, My covenant will I not break, God says, nor alter the thing that is gone out of My lips. God is not man that He should lie, right? What his mouth has spoken, he performs. And he says in verse 35, Once I have sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David, his seed shall endure forever, and his throne as the sun before me, it shall be established forever as the moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven, Selah. What God is saying is that the legal rights to the throne of David would come through the line of Solomon, his immediate descendant. But there is a problem. And you have to put your thinking caps on with me for a moment, alright? Hopefully everybody's awake. In the line of Solomon, there was a very wicked king. And his name was Jehoiakim. And he refused to believe that Judah, the southern kingdom of Israel, was heading for judgment from the Babylonians, despite repeated warnings by the prophet Jeremiah. He didn't like the news that Jeremiah preached, so he had Jeremiah imprisoned. But that did not silence Jeremiah. Turn with me to the book of Jeremiah in chapter 36. We'll just read a portion of this chapter. Verse 1, And it came to pass in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, that this word came unto Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the words that I have spoken unto thee against Israel. and against Judah, and against all the nations from the day I spake unto thee, from the days of Josiah even unto this day. It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the evil which I purpose or intend to do unto them, that they may return every man from his evil way, that I may forgive their iniquity, and their sin. Let's just stop there for a moment. Verse 3 is a call to repentance. You know what that is? It's a word of grace, isn't it? Write to them. Tell them what's coming. Perhaps they will repent and turn from their wicked ways. and I will forgive their sin." That's grace. And in verse 4 it says, Then Jeremiah called Baruch the son of Nuriah. And Baruch the scribe wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the Lord which he had spoken unto him upon a roll of a book. Now jump down all the way to verse 21 with me. So the king sent Jehudi to fetch the scroll. And he took it out of Eli Shema, the scribe's chamber, and Jehudi, who was an officer of King Jehoiachin, read it in the ears of the king and in the ears of all the princes which stood beside the king. Now the king sat in the winter house in the ninth month, And there was a fire on the hearth burning before him. And it came to pass that when Jehudi had read three or four leaves, he cut it with the penknife and cast it into the fire that was on the hearth, until all the roll was consumed in the fire that was on the hearth. You know what that is called? Rebellion. Rebellion. We're gonna continue reading in verse 24. Yet they were not afraid, nor rent their garments, neither did the king nor any of his servants that heard all these words. How many people have you spoken to? told them the Word of God, told them the plan of salvation. They would not hear you. They, in fact, despised the Word that you spoke to them. Nevertheless, Elnathan and Gemariah had made intercession to the king that he would not burn the roll, but he would not hear them. But the king commanded, Jeremiel the son of Hemelech, and Saraiah the son of Azrael, and Shalamiah the son of Abdeel, to take Baruch the scribe and Jeremiah the prophet. But the Lord hid them. Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, after that the king had burned the roll, and the words which Baruch wrote at the mouth of Jeremiah, saying, Take thee again another roll. and write in it all the former words that were in the first roll which Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, had burned. And thou shalt say unto Jehoiakim, king of Judah, pay attention now, Thus saith the Lord. Thou hast burned this roll, saying, Why hast thou written therein, saying, The king of Babylon shall certainly come and destroy this land, and shall cause to cease from thence man and beast? Therefore thou sayest, The Lord of Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, he shall have none to sit upon the throne of David. And his dead body will be cast out in the day to the heat and in the night to the frost, just as he cast aside the word of the Lord and burned it. And I will punish him and his seed and his servants, and I will bring upon them and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem and upon the men of Judah all the evil that I have pronounced against them, but they hearkened not. Then took Jeremiah another roll, and gave it to Baruch the scribe, the son of Neriah, who wrote therein from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the book, which Jehoiachin, the king of Judah, had burned in the fire, and there were added besides unto them many like those words." So God tells him that none of his descendants would sit upon the throne. In other words, it means that none of his descendants would occupy the throne to establish it. They would not rule. when Jehoiakim was disposed, and he was sent off to Babylon, his son, who was named Jehoiachin, also called Coniah, and in the New Testament, Jeconiah, he became king. But he did not really rule. He was just there for three months and ten days, and then he was taken off into Babylon for 36 years. Now I want you to notice this scripture in Jeremiah chapter 22 and verse 30. Thus saith the Lord, Write this man, speaking of Coniah, the son of Jehoiakim, who was a descendant of Solomon, who was a descendant of David, who was promised an eternal throne, write this man childless. a man that shall not prosper in his days. For no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David, and ruling anymore in Judah." It says, write this man childless. It didn't say that he would be childless. Koniah or Jehoiachin in fact had seven children. But what this means is when God says, write him childless, it means God would treat him as childless in the sense that he would not accept any of his offspring to rule over Israel. And that's in fact exactly what happened. Now here's where it gets really interesting. Joseph of Nazareth was the direct descendant of Jehoiachin, Coniah. You could read the genealogy in Matthew chapter 1, and you will find the name of Jehoiachin in the line of Joseph. What does that mean? It means that Joseph was under the curse of Coniah. that none of his sons would be able to rule upon the throne of David. His sons, James, Judah, Joseph, and Simon, who are mentioned in Matthew 13.55, were also under that curse. They could not rule as king. But Joseph had an adopted son who was not under the curse, because he was not the genetic son of Joseph, the biological son of Joseph. And his name was Jesus. And that gave Jesus the legal right to the throne of David without falling victim to the curse put on Coniah to all of the blood descendants, the biological sons of Jehoiakim. So it's a pretty amazing thing. But Jesus still needed to have the bloodline going back to David in order to have the right to rule as King of Israel forever. King forever. So how did that happen? Well, that came through Mary, who was also, if you trace the genealogy in Luke, she was a descendant of Nathan, the other son, another son of David. She was a member of the house of David, totally apart from Jeconiah. Now look in Luke chapter one. This is why we have the virgin birth, is it not? In Luke 1, verse 26, And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David, And the virgin's name was Mary. And the angel came to her and said, Hail, thou art highly favored, the Lord is with you, blessed are you among women. And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, And cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Notice verse 31. And behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and will call his name Jesus. He will be great, and he will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David." Remember that great prophecy in Isaiah? For unto us, what? A child is born unto us, a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder." The government, the authority, the rule. His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. And of the increase of His government and peace, there will be no end upon the throne of David. and upon His kingdom to order it and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform it. He will sit upon the throne of David." In Acts, just look ahead to the book of Acts on the day of Pentecost. Peter's preaching in Acts chapter 2. He's preaching to the Jews. And look what he says in verse 29. Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulcher is with us unto this day. Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, the Davidic covenant, that the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on the throne. Donald Barnhouse said, when God the Holy Spirit begat the Lord Jesus Christ in the womb of the Virgin, without any use of a human father. The child that was born was the seed of David according to the flesh. And when Joseph married Mary, and took the unborn child under his protecting care, giving him the title that had come down to him through his ancestor Solomon, the Lord Jesus became the legal Messiah. the royal Messiah, the uncursed Messiah, the true Messiah, the only possible Messiah. The lines are exhausted. Any man that ever comes into this world professing to fulfill the conditions will be a liar and a child of the devil." Now, that presents a problem for Jews who are looking for the Messiah to come. No one qualifies. Moreover, how could they possibly identify his lineage if he did appear? When Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD, the genealogies were lost. But God preserved for us, in His Word, the proof that Jesus Christ was of the seed of David. He had the legal right to the throne without coming under the curse, put upon Coniah, because he was not genetically linked to Joseph who was linked to Coniah. One author said it this way, No other Israelite can ever claim that he is the legal heir to the throne of David, no one but Jesus of Nazareth, whose royal rights are now published in almost every language upon the earth. As a matter of fact, Jesus himself proclaimed it in Revelation chapter 22 and verse 16. I, Jesus, he says, have sent my angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. And look at these words. I am the root and the offspring of who? Of David. I am the one who has the legal rights to the throne of David and a kingdom that will endure forever. I am the bright and the morning star. And brethren, He will rule upon this earth. He is not invisibly ruling in heaven. Yes, He is in heaven. But He will rule literally upon this earth, upon the throne of David in Jerusalem. That's coming. And He will do so because He had been raised from the dead. He has been exalted to the right hand of the throne of the majesty on high. And according to His word, He is coming again. We don't know when, right? Maybe morning, maybe noon, maybe evening, maybe what? Soon. I hope it's soon, right? Yeah, I hope it's real soon. Of course, you parents who have young children, you're saying, let's just wait a little while yet. Got to get these little ones saved, right? Now, why would the fact of Christ's resurrection and His lineage be such good news to Timothy, as he suffered hardships for the sake of the gospel, possibly losing his own life? Well, look down just real quickly in 2 Timothy. Chapter 2 and verse 12, what does it say? If we what? Suffer, we will also what? Reign. He says, Timothy, if you do suffer, and he already promised Timothy that he would, if you do suffer, when you do suffer, understand this, you're also going to reign with him when he comes to establish his kingdom upon this earth as the rightful heir to the promise that God made to David. And look at verse eight, remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel. Paul also states that the resurrection truth was central to the gospel message that he preached. And the fact that God, or Paul called it here, my gospel, does not indicate that it originated with him. It serves to highlight the fact that Timothy could rest assured that the gospel message that he was to proclaim was directly linked with his spiritual father, Paul, who received it as a personal revelation from Jesus Christ and was commissioned to preach it as an apostle, a sent one of Jesus Christ. In Galatians 1.11, Paul says, I certify unto you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached to me is not after man. And I emphasize those words, not after man, for I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. He says, the gospel that I preach, the only true gospel, And then he goes on to warn that if anyone comes and preaches a different gospel, they're under God's curse. He said this gospel was not after man. Now you just think about all the gospels that are out there. Right? I mean, there's only one true gospel. But there's people who come to your door and they tell you that they have good news for you. The gospel of the watchtower, that was after man. The gospel of the Mormons is after man, Joseph Smith. The gospel of the Seventh-day Adventists is after man, Ellen G. White. You name the message that people are proclaiming as good news out there apart from the biblical gospel, and it's after man, isn't it? The gospel of Catholicism is after man. Praise God, we have the true Gospel. The only Gospel whereby any man could be saved. The good news of the death, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ according to the Scriptures. Now the second word of encouragement comes in verse 9. Paul tells Timothy or infers to Timothy to take courage in the power of God's Word. Paul was in jail for what? for preaching this gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Wherein, he says, I suffer trouble as an evildoer, even unto bonds, chains. But then he says in the latter part of that verse, but the word of God is not chained. The word of God is not bound. He's saying, Timothy, I am suffering for Jesus as an evildoer. And that's a very, very strong word. It was used of the men who were crucified alongside of Jesus. Some translations refer to them as thieves, some as robbers. I think the King James malefactors, don't you like that word? It's a word that was associated with the worst of criminals. But Paul's only sin was his love and devotion to Jesus Christ. For that he was imprisoned, he was bound with chains, he was awaiting certain death. But God's Word cannot be silenced by silencing its messengers. History has borne that out. The history of the prophets. The history of those who preached following the death of Christ. All throughout church history. King Jehoiakim tried that. He tried to silence the messenger. He burned the Word of God. He threw it into the fire. But he could not extinguish its power. The Word of God is not bound and facing extinction. To the contrary, the Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and joints and marrow. And as a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the heart, the Word of God is not bound. You can silence its messengers, but you cannot silence the power of God's eternal, almighty, perfect Word. And we know that God will accomplish His purposes through His Word. Isaiah 55, verse 10. It says, For the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and it returneth not thither. But it waters the earth, and makes it bring forth in bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater. Now listen, we can take confidence from this next verse and a lot of encouragement. You men out there who just share the Word of God liberally and women freely, don't get discouraged. God says, So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto me void. but it will accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I send it." Keep preaching the Word of God. Keep sharing the Word of God. The Word of God is not bound. It cannot be changed. It will accomplish what God wills. If you have in English Bible, and I trust you all do, then you owe a debt to a man named William Tyndale. You will meet him in heaven. And when you do, you go up to him and you thank him. He is called the father of the English Bible. On October 6, 1536, he was burned at the stake. for his work in giving the Bible to the common man. He wanted the common man on the street to be able to read the Word of God in his own language. They tied Tyndale to a stake, they strangled him, and they burned his body. But the Word of God is not bound. His last prayer was, Open the King of England's eyes." It's the last words of William Tyndale. When he looked to heaven before they strangled him, he said, Lord, open the King of England's eyes. And the prayer was answered in part. Just three years later, in 1539, Henry VIII required every church in England to make a copy of the English Bible available to its parishioners. The Word of God is not bound. And you know, the attacks against God's servants, their attempts to silence them, and the attacks against His Word have not ceased. Satan is a roaring lion. seeking whom He may devour. He hates the Word of God. Hath God said? He has always challenged the credibility, the authenticity, the veracity of the Word of God. But His attacks are all in vain, are they not? Way back in 1974, Time magazine ran a cover story called How true is the Bible? You know, they've been running that every year since, right? They're always questioning the truthfulness of God's Word. It's always coming under attack by the liberal critics. But in that particular article, they surveyed the liberal attacks on the Bible's reliability and concluded that the credibility of the Bible had actually grown through all of these assaults. Now remember, they're not friends of the Bible. But here is what they wrote. The breadth, sophistication, and diversity of all this biblical investigation are impressive, but it begs the question, has it made the Bible more credible or less? Literalists who feel the ground move when a verse is challenged would have to say that credibility has suffered, doubt has been sown, faith is in jeopardy. But others who expect something else from the Bible may well conceive that its credibility has actually been enhanced. After more than two centuries of facing the heaviest scientific guns that could be brought to bear, the Bible has survived, and is perhaps all the better for the siege. It's all the better. Even on the critics' own terms, historical fact, the Scriptures seem more acceptable now than they did when the rationalists began the attack at the turn of the century. Hammer away, you hostile hands, your hammers break God's anvil stands. The Word of the Lord endureth forever. The Word of God cannot be bound. Brethren, we are on the winning side. I mean, that is the best news that I could tell you this morning in a world full of bad news. God's Word is forever settled in heaven. Not a jot nor a tittle can be altered. It will all come to pass. The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it, and it will surely come to pass." My question to you in closing this morning is simply this. Is the Word of God settled in your heart? God says it's settled in heaven. It's true. Is it settled in your heart? Do you believe it? I mean, do you really believe it? Do you live it? Because it's one thing to believe the Word of God is true. It's another thing to live out that truth in your life. Do you believe it? Do you live it? And thirdly, if you believe it, and if it has transformed your life, and you are living it, then why would you not tell everyone else about it? Do you believe it? Do you live it? And do you share it? Amen? If you would like a list of other audio messages or other resources available from Faith Community Bible Church, please write to us at 2375 Center Place, El Cajon, CA 92020. The telephone number is 619-461-2245. Thanks for listening.