Isn't the Old Testament...just old?

 

“The Bible was not given to increase our knowledge 
but to change our lives.” D.L. Moody

 

Have you ever had a TV show that for you was a “must see”? I’ve had a few; 24, Star Trek Next Generation and Band of Brothers. The only one with depth and life lessons would be Band of Brothers. The others were just “entertainment.” The Bible is so different. It’s life changing, both for this life and eternity. 

  This morning we’re picking up our series in 2 Samuel with chapter 5. Unlike most TV shows, Scripture doesn’t have happy endings. The heroes often act terribly unheroic – just like us. And rarely do most TV shows have an ongoing story. Everything is tied up in a nice, neat package in less than an hour. But life isn’t like that. Our failures often have long-term consequences, affecting us and our descendants. So, 2 Samuel, like the rest of the Bible, isn’t about good people. It’s about a great and gracious God.

  Like us, David truly loves God and wants to do the right thing, but he has a sin nature. When he succumbs to sin, it has huge ramifications. God though loves to take our messes and transform them into His masterpieces. It’s why we need a Savior and someone to rescue us…from ourselves. As we work through 2 Samuel, I hope it encourages you to read and study not just 2 Samuel but all of the Old Testament. So, here are some reasons why New Testament Christians should study the Old Testament.  

  The Old Testament was Jesus’s only Bible and makes up 75% of our Bibles. If word count says anything, the Old Testament matters to God. The Old Testament was His first special revelation. It sets the foundation for the fulfillment that we find in Jesus in the New Testament. The Old Testament was the Bible of Jesus and the early church (e.g., Luke 24:44; Acts 24:14; 2 Timothy 3:15). It’s a major part of our Bible. Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17). “The Law and the Prophets” that Jesus is referring to is the Old Testament.

  The God of the Old Testament is the same God of the New Testament. The book of Hebrews begins: “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son” (Hebrews 1:1-2). The same God who spoke through Old Testament prophets like Moses, Isaiah, and Malachi speaks through Jesus! The same God who had His hand on David’s life is the same God who had His hand on the early church in the book of Acts.

  Sometimes someone will ask, “Isn’t the Old Testament’s God one of wrath and judgement, but the God of the New Testament is about grace and freedom?” Yet God is as just and wrathful in the New Testament as He is in the Old. That’s because He’s holy and has perfect justice. Certainly, there are numerous expressions of God’s righteous anger in the Old Testament, just as there are massive manifestations of blood-bought mercy in the New Testament. Wonderfully, in Jesus all saving grace reaches its climax. In the whole Bible we meet a God who is faithful to His promises. He takes both sin and repentance seriously, and so should we!

  The Old Testament announces the same “Good News” that New Testament Christians enjoy. The word gospel means “good news.” It refers to the truth that, through Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection, God reigns over all and rescues sinners who commit their lives to Him. Paul wrote, “the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed’” (Galatians 3:8). Abraham knew of the message of global salvation that we enjoy. Prophets, like Isaiah, anticipated the day when the Messiah, and the many servants identified with Him, would share comforting news to the poor and broken, news that the saving God reigns through His coming King and deliverer. Reading the Old Testament is one of God’s ways for us to better grasp and cherish the gospel.

  Jesus said that all the Old Testament points to Him. After his first meeting with Jesus, Philip told Nathanael, “We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote” (John 1:45). Do you want to know as much about Jesus as you can? The Old Testament authors wrote about Him! Speaking of the Old Testament, Jesus said, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about Me” (John 5:39). Following His resurrection, “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, [Jesus] interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself” (Luke 24:27).

  That doesn’t mean we limit teaching about Jesus’ to a few messianic prophecies about His first coming. The Old Testament clearly anticipates both the first and second coming of Jesus, David’s greater Son. If you want to know Jesus, read the Old Testament as well as the New. It’s vital that we read, teach, study and live out the Old Testament like Jesus and the Apostles did for our own personal spiritual growth and the good and spiritual growth of God’s church.

  New Testament authors expect us to read and study the Old Testament. The New Testament quotes the Old Testament in ways that encourage us to look back to the original context. For example, Matthew 27-28, portrays Christ’s pain and triumph at the cross by referring back to Psalm 22. To fully understand their words, New Testament authors lead us back to the Old Testament through their quotations, references and allusions.

  In our study of 2 Samuel, we’ll see both the highs and lows of a man of God. We’ll see the heavy destruction of giving into temptation. We’ll discover that like us; David needed a Savior. From a human perspective David had it all – power, fame, wealth – but like us, without Jesus, it’s never enough. 

Can we help you spiritually? Please check out more resources on our church's web page, Gracechurchwi.org. Or call us at 262.763.3021. If you'd like to know more about how Jesus can change your life, I'd love to mail you a copy of how Jesus changed my life in "My Story." E-mail me at Carson@gracechurchwi.org to request a free copy. Please include your mailing address. 

Why study "shadows"?

“God gave the prophecies, not to gratify men’s curiosity by enabling them to foreknow things, but that after they were fulfilled they might be interpreted by the event, and His own providence, not the interpreters, be thereby manifested to the world.” Sir Isaac Newton

Periodically, I’ll be in a store and see a Mom shopping with several young children and my mind will flood with a thousand memories. As a child, I remember being dragged along by my mother with my two older sisters to go shopping. I’m not sure that I’d even heard the word, but I know I felt it – B-O-R-I-N-G! Soon I’d be distracted, find something more intriguing than dresses or other feminine paraphernalia and wander off.

  Though my Mom wasn’t very tall, just a bit over five feet, I could almost always find her. Back then many women wore a hairstyle known as the beehive. I think my Mom had one that was nearly a foot high. I’d peer over racks looking for that familiar beehive. But sometimes I’d wander too far, couldn’t find her and would go into panic mode. I remember on at least one occasion having a kind store employee help me find her.

  Suppose though, that happened and in terror, I’d run to the end of an aisle. Just before full panic hits, I saw a shadow on the floor at the end of the aisle that looked like my Mom. There’d be a sense of relief and hope. Yet, which is better? The happiness of seeing the shadow, or having my Mom step around the corner and it’s really her?

  Did you know that’s what Christmas is? It’s the replacement of shadows with the real thing. In the Old Testament, God gave us shadows, lots of them. When Jesus came the shadow of prophecy was fulfilled with the coming of the Christ Child. Yet, most Christians are unfamiliar with the Old Testament. For most, it’s less than 10% of their Bible reading. If you remove Psalms and Proverbs, it might drop to less than 5%. But the Old Testament makes up 60% of our Bibles. We will never understand the New Testament and miss many of the blessings of Christ’s first coming, if we’re unfamiliar with the prophetic promises of His incarnation.

  Today we begin a new series, Christmas in the Old Testament. The Old Testament promises about Christ’s incarnation are a source of great blessing and encouragement for us. Here are a few reasons this Christmas Season we’re studying some Old Testament incarnation promises.  

  God planned for Jesus to come because of God the Father’s patient,  tenacious love. The Old Testament unfolds over thousands of years. The New Testament spans less than 100 years. In the Old Testament we encounter people much like us: sinful, stubborn, prone to blow off God and make dumb choices. And yet, we continually see a loving God who chooses to stick it out with this messed-up group of people. Reading through God’s interactions with people in the Old Testament helps us remember how amazingly steadfast God’s love is.

  The Old Testament reveals Christ. It doesn’t just “point forward” to Christ; it reveals Him. It’s not just a series of signposts to Christ; Jesus’ revealing shadow falls on virtually every page, cultivating faith and love in believing hearts. But why linger in Old Testament shadows when we have New Testament sunlight? Because there’s refreshment in the shade. Without the shadows of the Old, we’d never appreciate the sunshine of the incarnation. The dawn is beautiful, but the sunrise is absolutely stunning!

  The Bible is incomplete without the Old Testament. Both the Old and New Testaments make up the Scriptures. The New Testament wasn’t to replace the Old but to complete its story. The first book, Genesis, records how a curse came on humanity because of sin. The last, Revelation, completes the story by recording how God, through the sacrifice of Jesus, removed the curse of sin. The story of redemption is incomplete without both Testaments revealing the beginning and end of the curse.

  The Old Testament provides the historical setting out of which Christianity emerged. Christianity didn’t materialize out of a vacuum. God was moving to bring forth the Messiah who would provide pardon from the judgment that came on us because of sin. Early New Testament preachers like Stephen (Acts 7) and Paul (Acts 13:16-41) made frequent use of the Old Testament to share God’s love and plan for salvation.

  The Old Testament lays the foundation for biblical prophecy. It’s there that we find God’s covenant promises. In the Abrahamic Covenant, God promises a land, a nation, and a blessing that will extend from Israel to all the nations of the earth (Gen. 12:2-3). In the Davidic Covenant, He promises that King David will have a descendant who will sit on his throne and rule and reign forever (2 Sam. 7:12-16). The Prophets reveal how the blessing promised to Abraham and his descendants will be ultimately realized through the Lord Jesus (Jer. 31:31-34, Ezek. 36:25-28).

  Take Jesus out and the Bible makes no sense. The Old Testament gives us expectations about the promised Messiah. His birth, death, resurrection, return and Kingdom are all revealed in the Old Testament (Luke 24:44-46). If you truly want to know Jesus, you can’t disregard the Old Testament.

  The Old Testament demonstrates that God ALWAYS keeps His promises. From Genesis to Malachi, God promised again and again that He would send a Messiah, One who would save His people from their sins …and He did. Most people have a hard time trusting others. We’ve had many break their promises to us or simply lied. God always keeps His promises! As He kept His promises about Jesus’ first coming, He’ll keep all of His promises about the future. Christmas in the Old Testament reminds us that when God promises a “gift card,” we can count on cashing it in. Join us each Sunday to see anew that God always keeps His promises!

Can we help you spiritually? Can we help you know Jesus better? Please check out more resources on our church's web page, Gracechurchwi.org. Or, call us at 262.763.3021. If you'd like to know more about how Jesus can change your life, I'd love to mail you a copy of how Jesus changed my life in "My Story." E-mail me at Carson@gracechurchwi.org to request a free copy. Please include your mailing address. 

The Old Testament's Gospel

“The most urgent task facing evangelical Christianity today is the recovery of the Gospel”  J.I. Packer

  Many liberal Bible scholars and Bible deniers consider the Old Testament sub-Christian and not to be considered authoritative. For them, it’s a closed chapter with zero relevance for the Church and little meaning for us today. The common claim is the God of the Old Testament is harsh, brutal…even evil. Maybe you’ve heard questions like these: How could God kill all those innocent people, even children, in the Flood? Why would God send the Israelites into Canaan to exterminate the innocent Canaanites living in the land? Why did God continually require blood sacrifices?

  A logical and initial response to this can simply be, “How can a skeptic or non-Christian say God is harsh, brutal, and evil when they deny the Bible, the very book that defines harsh, brutal, and evil?” Add to that, for atheistic, materialistic or evolutionary worldviews, such things are neither morally right nor wrong because there’s no transcendent God in their view to establish what is right or wrong. It’s all subjective. Those who believe in a naturalistic worldview accept as “natural” animals raping, murdering and eating their own kind yet attack the God of the Bible and call Him evil.

  But even the most fanatical atheists have an innate sense of right and wrong, wanting justice. They’d be outraged if Omar Mateen, the Islamic Orlando shooter, had survived and were allowed to go free without facing justice or consequences for his cold blooded massacre of 49 victims. Yet, if God really doesn’t exist and the Bible isn’t His Word, then those who attack God and His Word by calling Him harsh and evil shouldn’t care. If Naturalism rules, if it’s a dog eat dog world, justice is only a cultural or subjective human derivative. For example, what is justice for us in America would be heroism for much of the Islamic world.

  It’s only in Scripture, we find true justice and grace. They go all the way back to the beginning, Creation and the Fall. From an honest human standpoint, God’s mercy is counter-intuitive. We wouldn't expect a God of perfect justice and righteousness to put up with stubborn sinners. No, we’d expect Him to stamp out evil entirely. After all, aren't we tempted to avenge ourselves for much lesser faults?

  The Old Testament is the Bible Jesus and the early church used to explain His coming, His sacrifice and God’s plan of grace. It’s what Jesus shared after His resurrection with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus: “‘O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into His glory?’ And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself” (Luke 24:25-27).

  Even many well-meaning Christians have a file cabinet view of the accounts from the Old Testament. In that paradigm, the book of Psalms contains files of reassuring words for hard times. The Genesis file folder is full of interesting moral lessons. The book of Proverbs file is useful when one needs good advice. The Law and Minor Prophets? Many aren’t sure of their purpose. The file folders containing those stories often gather dust.

  This separate file folder approach to the Old Testament misses the connections between those accounts and the Gospel that Jesus explained on the road to Emmaus. As we look for the Gospel in the Old Testament, the file folders begin to open up and the characters stumble out of our filing cabinet, joining hands from Genesis until Jesus appears in person in the New Testament. Each story feeds the next, teaching us of God’s good plan before time even began – to forgive, show grace and redeem His people.

  This morning we’re beginning a new study: The Gospel in the Old Testament. God’s plan of forgiveness and redemption is not Plan B, or a New Testament God plan. It began in the Old Testament with the Fall when our first parents disobeyed God’s one command, bringing death upon themselves and the entire human race. If God had not rescued Adam and Eve, and the human race, if there had been no death and no plan of rescue, we’d have been forced to live in a sin-cursed world for all eternity.

  It’s why the path to the Tree of Life was guarded by an angel. Yet, by dying in this sin-cursed world with Jesus Christ as our Savior, one inherits the new heaven and new earth which will be restored to perfection, where there is no curse, death, or suffering for all eternity. Death will have no sting (1 Corinthians 15:53-56) for those in Christ. That’s the seed of the Gospel and goes all the way back to Genesis 3.

  Man sinned and God acted justly by punishing that sin, yet in love God also provided three blessings: a grace period, a means of salvation and a perfect place to live an eternal life without sin, death, or the curse. The New Testament simply can’t be understood in isolation from the Old Testament. The Scriptures which Jesus and the Apostles used in the authoritative proclamation of their message were those of the Old Testament. “The Gospel of God, which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures…” Romans 1:1-2. We miss so much of the force, as well as the richness and depth of the gospel, when we fail to see it against the backdrop of the Old Testament.

  The Old Testament is written in the context of the tragic human situation. Man, who was made in the image of God to rule, to inherit thrones and dominions and to enjoy God forever, is in a dire situation. He’s enslaved, oppressed and afflicted. The Old Testament rudely reminds us we’re victim to countless disorders and prey to the cruel tyrants of sin, misery and death. But there is hope...

  The Old Testament is filled with promises and prophecies of hope. They find their fulfillment in Jesus Christ and the Gospel. The Gospel announces God has acted in Christ to fulfill what He’d promised in the Old Testament. In Jesus these promises are no longer future tense. God has acted in Christ to do all He said He would do. It’s truly The Gospel in the Old Testament. 

  Please join us each Sunday this summer as we unpack God’s wonderful plan of grace for us from the dawn of time!

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