Transcription downloaded from https://sermonarchive.gfcbremen.com/sermons/82438/christ-through-all-scripture/.

Disclaimer: this is an automatically generated machine transcription - there may be small errors or mistranscriptions.
Please refer to the original audio if you are in any doubt.


[0:00] Before our brother Stan comes to preach, I'll read a brief passage from Luke chapter 24,! which will serve as an introduction to the sermon, if you will. This is where Jesus appears! to some of his disciples following his resurrection, but they don't initially recognize him.

[0:20] And he walks them through the scriptures. And Luke 24, starting with verse 25 says, And he said to them, O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!

[0:33] 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." Come ahead, brother, and preach.

[0:51] It's a blessing to start the day with you, and now to finish the day with you. I'm going to be preaching about seeing Christ in all of scripture with a particular focus on the Old Testament and 1 Samuel 17, where we see David and Goliath. But the principles that we're going to touch on are valid for the New Testament as well. And as we'll see, we can often preach from the Old Testament without Christ, but we can also preach from the New Testament without Christ. As we get started, what do you think of when you hear about David and Goliath? If it was a Sunday school class, we could have it out loud and write it on the board and so forth. But what do you think about when you think about David and Goliath? Well, we're going to go through the text, 1 Samuel 17, and ask what this text is about, and we'll consider some common errors first. Then we'll see that all scripture does point us to Christ. We'll take a look at biblical theology and how do we see Christ in all of scripture in a legitimate way. And then we will look at 1 Samuel 17 and then close.

[2:38] So let's go through 1 Samuel 17. It's a long text, so I'll be summarizing and reading critical portions.

[2:50] 1 Samuel 17. The Philistines. The Philistines are grouping within Israel and are getting ready to attack Israel. And time is passing and tension is building. Goliath, the giant, is on the scene. In this text, he's almost 10 feet tall. And he comes out in bronze armor. And I will note that the word for bronze in Hebrew is similar to the word for snake. And he is armored in scale armor. He's defying Israel Israel and Israel's God. And he challenges the Israelite army to representative combat. Let one stand for all.

[3:54] Saul and Israel are dismayed and they're greatly afraid. And that's repeated.

[4:05] Saul and Israel is dismayed and they're greatly afraid. This goes on for 40 days, we learn in verse 16. And the tension is building and the fear of the people is increasing. Three brothers of David are present.

[4:26] David makes his way to the camp with supplies and hears Goliath. And as David hears Goliath and is not afraid, we note that Israel's army is afraid again. Then in verse 26, we see David's heart as he says, who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should taunt the armies of the living God.

[5:05] David has God's glory on his heart. David's brother disparages David. Saul meets with David. And David tells Saul in verse 32, let no man's heart fail on account of him. Your servant will go fight with this Philistine.

[5:34] And then in verse 36, your servant has killed both the lion and the bear. And this uncircumcised Philistine. And uncircumcised is repeated and it's significant.

[5:48] One who has not submitted to God will be like one of them since he has taunted the armies of the living God.

[6:00] And then verse 37, and David said, the Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear, he, God, will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.

[6:18] And Saul said to David, go and the Lord be with you. Saul clothes David with his armor, but David takes it off.

[6:29] And then we see the combat in verse 41. Then the Philistine came on and approached David with the shield bearer in front of him.

[6:41] When the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him for he was but a youth and ruddy with a handsome appearance. The Philistine said to David, am I a dog that you come to me with sticks?

[6:56] And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. The Philistine also said to David, come to me and I will give your flesh to the birds of the sky and the beasts of the field.

[7:10] Then David said to David, you come to me with sword, a spear and a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have taunted.

[7:27] This day the Lord will deliver you up into my hands and I will strike you down and remove your head from you.

[7:39] And I will give the dead bodies of the army of the Philistines this day to the birds of the sky and the wild beasts of the earth. That all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel and that all this assembly, the Israelite army, may know that the Lord does not deliver by sword or by spear, for the battle is the Lord's and he will give you into my hands.

[8:11] That it happened when the Philistine rose and came and drew near to meet David, that David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet the Philistine.

[8:21] And David put his hand into his bag and took from it a stone and slung it and struck the Philistine on his forehead and the stone sank into his forehead so that he fell on his face to the ground.

[8:36] Thus David prevailed over the Philistine with sling and stone and he struck the Philistine and killed him. But there was no sword in David's hand.

[8:49] Then David ran and stood over the Philistine and took his sword and drew it out of its sheath and killed him and cut off his head with it. When the Philistine saw that their champion was dead, they fled.

[9:02] The men of Israel and Judah arose and shouted and pursued the Philistines as far as the valley and to the gates of Ekron and the slain Philistines lay along the way to Shariah, even to Gath and Ekron.

[9:22] The sons of Israel returned from chasing the Philistines and plundered their camps. Then David took the Philistines' head and brought it to Jerusalem, but he put his weapons in his tent.

[9:37] 1 Samuel 17. What is this about? What's this text about?

[9:48] What is the practical application for me? What does this text tell me to do?

[9:59] And I've already asked you some trick questions, and I've already smuggled in wrong notions, which we'll see later. We're going to be going over some typical mistakes, and there's a lot of overlap here.

[10:16] And all these mistakes can take place when we're looking at New Testament texts as well. A lot of these mistakes have some truth to them.

[10:27] Or to put it another way, a lot of the mistakes are true, but not necessarily true for that text, or not the main point. And we want to understand what is the main point out of the text, and what does God have for us.

[10:46] And so the first wrong approach is what we would call a moralistic approach, or moralism. Taking the glorious text and reducing it to one simple moral or principle, as if it were an Aesop's fable.

[11:07] You know what Aesop's fables are? The famous stories with animals that teach us a lesson. The tortoise and the hare. You know, you think the hare is going to win, the rabbit, but the tortoise wins, in fact.

[11:23] And so the moral of the story is, and Aesop's fables always have that, the moral of the story is, slow and steady wins the race.

[11:35] The ant and the grasshopper. Planning pays off. The fox and the sour grapes. The fox wants to reach the grapes, can't reach them, and then says, ah, they were sour anyway.

[11:51] And so the moral is how to face disappointment. The lion and the mouse. The lion spares the mouse's life, and the mouse promises that he'll return the favor, and the lion says, how could you ever return the favor?

[12:10] But one day the lion is tied up in ropes, and the mouse gnaws through the ropes. Kindness. Kindness. Counts. So those are Aesop's fables.

[12:23] Excuse me here. There must be a moral in this, about how to put on the microphone, or how to move around. Well, scripture texts certainly have general principles in them, and we should note those along the way.

[12:40] But scripture is so much more than a general principle. And don't be content to stop with a true general principle that may be found in a text.

[12:57] Scripture is more than Aesop's fable or a Hollywood movie. You can choose a good moral from a Hollywood movie. But scripture is more than that.

[13:07] When we stop at only extracting a moral truth, we're trivializing scripture. We're ignoring Christ.

[13:19] We're ignoring the gospel. We're ignoring God's great purpose, and the reason he gave us his word. And so that's moralism in general, and some examples of moralism would be, oh, this story is about the smaller can conquer the greater.

[13:40] And there's all kinds of variations of that. A relatively obscure lawyer taking on a big corporation, a small business, a weak schoolboy defending himself against a bully.

[13:53] And lots of unbelievers will remember this story and talk about it in that way. But no, this text is not about the small conquering the great.

[14:12] Where is Christ in that? Where is God's plan and purpose in that? Oh, I see.

[14:23] Let's add Christ. With God's help, the small can conquer the great. No. Adding Christ isn't how we see Christ.

[14:37] This is not what the text is about. Another misconception. This story calls me to conquer the giants in my life.

[14:51] The giant of self-despair, the giant of gluttony, the giant of pride, fear, the lack of self-confidence, yes, even sin.

[15:03] Well, God does want us to mortify sin, certainly, but that's not what this text is about. Where is Christ?

[15:14] In talking about conquering the giants in my life. Okay, let's add Christ. With Christ's help, I can conquer the giants in my life. Well, yes, with Christ's help, I can mortify sin, but that's not what this text is about.

[15:31] And we want to be careful of making the text all about me. You know, what am I supposed to do? How am I in this text? This text isn't about David accomplishing his own will, and it's not about me accomplishing my own will.

[15:52] Another wrong approach is oversimplification and a call to be like that figure in history.

[16:03] So you should be like David. Dare to be a Daniel. David was brave. You be brave, too.

[16:14] Well, there's some truth to that, and we'll get to that, but that's not what the text is about. And that's an oversimplification, and we don't want to oversimplify and miss the bigger points.

[16:31] What about David's sin? Should we be like David? And where is Christ? We can have some application on a secondary level, but first we want to see what God has intended.

[16:52] What does the text really tell us? Those are some. Another one is an overemphasis on practicality.

[17:07] An overemphasis. Tell me what I should do. Give me ten steps. Every text is practical, but not in the way that I think sometimes.

[17:24] We need to have in mind different kinds of texts. Imperative texts and indicative texts, or narrative texts.

[17:37] Imperative texts are where we have a command. And when we have a command, the text tells us what we should do.

[17:49] We don't need to make it up. And then the preacher should open up and help people how to do what the text says in various situations.

[18:01] But when the text is in the indicative, meaning just describing a status, or a narrative telling the story, there's no explicit command given to us to do anything.

[18:13] And we need to be careful not to trivialize a glorious story that's telling us about God and to make it all about me and ten things that I should do.

[18:24] We need to see what God has done. We need to see Christ. We need to see the place of the text in the history of redemption.

[18:38] We need to be drawn into the story. And then a practical application is to glorify God. A practical application is to understand God's working in history.

[18:52] A practical application is to see that God brought Christ and the gospel, to thank God, to meditate. And then, on a secondary level, we can make other applications.

[19:08] But we want to see first, where is that story in the history of redemption? How does it point to Christ? Now, in our home, we would have family devotions.

[19:23] We still do, but they're a little different. And we would read a Bible story to the children, and then we would ask the children, what is this story about?

[19:36] And there was a classic default answer. I don't know how it is with your children, but the classic default answer, what is this story about? It's about God.

[19:48] It's about God. And then we would say, yes, that's true. Can we have some more specificity? Jesus! The story's about Jesus.

[20:00] Okay, yes, but how? But really, that child's answer is the right answer. What is all of Scripture about? It's about God.

[20:12] And what is all of Scripture about? It's about Jesus. But then, of course, we want to see in more detail how. So let's take a look at some great principles.

[20:25] But first, you know, let's be convinced in our hearts that all of Scripture does point us to Christ. And we heard, read, about the disciples on the way to Emmaus.

[20:38] Moses and Jesus told them that they were slow to believe, and all the prophets have spoken. And then it says, beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, the whole Scripture, he explained to them all things concerning himself in all the Scriptures.

[20:59] Now, when Jesus uses the term Scriptures, which Scriptures is he referring to? He's referring to the Old Testament. And so Jesus very clearly tells us that the whole Old Testament points to him and is about him.

[21:16] He repeats this, again, in Luke 24 later. These are in verse 44 of 24. These are my words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.

[21:37] In John, Jesus says, you search the Scriptures, the Old Testament Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is they that bear witness about me.

[21:50] In Acts 3, and likewise, all the prophets who have spoken from Samuel, our text today, and his successors onward, also announced these days.

[22:04] And there are many, many more texts that tell us that the Scriptures, all of them, are about Jesus. Throughout the New Testament, preaching is preaching Christ, and preaching Christ from the Scriptures, which in the New Testament, for the most part, are the Old Testament Scriptures.

[22:29] And so, as we look at the Old Testament, we need to see Christ. And if we don't see Christ, we're doing no better than a rabbi.

[22:42] You see that? If we don't see where the Scripture points to Christ, we're just being like a rabbi. And we're not talking about being subjective or allegorical, but really, in a scriptural way, seeing Christ.

[22:58] The New Testament presupposes the Old, and without the Old Testament, we don't have a complete picture, and something will be missing in our understanding.

[23:10] So, it's very clear that Jesus himself tells us that all of Scripture points to him, primarily at that point, having in mind the Old Testament, but of course, it's true of the New Testament.

[23:26] Well, some general principles regarding seeing Christ as he is. We call this biblical theology, a theology distinct from systematic theology.

[23:39] It's a huge subject. There's a lot of good books on it. I'm just going to touch upon it. Systematic theology is biblical as well. But systematic theology looks at a topic and looks at, finds all the texts that are about that topic, and then systematizes and puts together how to understand a topic like sin, for instance, which is called Hallmark theology, or how to understand Christ, Christology, or salvation, soteriology.

[24:11] Biblical theology sees and looks at the unfolding of God's big story, the history of redemption, which is all about Christ, and so biblical theology likes to see Christ.

[24:26] How is Christ in that unfolding? Not adding Christ, but seeing Christ who is there. seeing the particular place that a text has in the flow of history, in the flow of redemption, is part of that.

[24:48] All of history, the whole Bible, ends in Christ and is about Christ, so where in that text is this, where in that history is this text, and in what way is it linked to what went behind and what follows, and what follows is going to be the coming of Christ.

[25:14] Biblical theology and seeing Christ involves identifying big themes throughout Scripture that are inseparably connected with Christ.

[25:27] And so we can consider law, judgment, grace, grace, sacrifice. Wherever we see those, we're being pointed to Christ.

[25:41] Law. God has given us his law. We have not kept that law. Judgment. All who have not kept the law deserve judgment.

[25:55] Sacrifice. God instituted sacrifice as a temporary measure until Christ comes. Grace.

[26:06] God has always been gracious through the Old Testament as well as the New Testament. No one was ever saved by keeping the law anywhere. But it was always through faith in what God would do.

[26:21] so wherever we see the law and we see it all over the place we have to have in view that we haven't kept the law but that Christ kept the law for us.

[26:37] Wherever we see the law wherever we see sacrifice in the Old Testament that was just a temporary measure. What is the permanent measure?

[26:48] Christ. wherever we see judgment and I'm reminded of a class I took at Westminster Seminary I was blessed to have Edmund Clowning as a professor and he's written a number of books about preaching Christ from the Old Testament books about biblical theology he was a president of Westminster at one point he's now with the Lord but someone he told us that someone challenged him okay Samuel hewed Agag to pieces before the Lord at Gilgal how do you preach Christ for that?

[27:26] Well very easily we all deserve to be hewed to pieces and the only way that we are not hewed to pieces is through Christ and so wherever we see judgment we have to understand that would be my judgment if not for Christ God with his people throughout scripture God created Adam and Eve and was with them but they fell and then the rest of the Bible is telling the story of how God will redeem his people to be with them again and then even as we saw this morning in Revelation we see that consummation that God is with his people in the image of marriage and closer the tabernacle was to show that God was with his people and the temple took the place of the tabernacle to show that

[28:33] God was with his people but how is God with his people in the most intimate way in Christ and in John 1 we read and the word became flesh and dwelt among us and you probably heard that word dwell is tabernacled same word as tabernacle tabernacled with us and then at the end of Revelation we see no more physical temple or tabernacle but the people of God that is the temple the garden and the tree of life Genesis and Revelation Adam the representative of his people Jesus the second Adam who represents his people Jesus the perfect man who does all things well the only one who fulfills the law the only one who is fully zealous so whenever we see someone zealous in the

[29:43] Old Testament but it is Christ who is fully zealous the righteous man of Psalm 1 but all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God Jesus is the only righteous man the servant of God so when we read the servant of God passages ultimately it is Christ who is the servant of God and then as we heard this morning prophet priest and king we see kings all over the place and kings are supposed to rule in the name of God but they don't and kings are supposed to be good but they're not and even the good kings have sin and we see a king and we yearn for a perfect king and that is Christ Christ the perfect priest we have priests all over the Old Testament but they can't offer a final sacrifice Christ has we see prophets but Christ is the one who perfectly communicates

[30:49] God because he is God who communicates himself so wherever we see prophets wherever we see saviors with a small s like in judges we always yearn for a fuller salvation than we see and then we have explicit texts and prophecies Genesis 315 I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed he shall bruise you on the head and you shall bruise him on the heel and he shall bruise you on the head can be crush you on the head then we see that warfare between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman and wherever we see warfare against Israel that's typical of the warfare of the seed of the serpent against God's people and Augustine wrote about that in the city of God the city of man versus the city of God one day it is coming when they will beat their swords into plowshares and there will be no more war and we see that in Revelation

[32:08] Isaiah 9 for unto us a son is given Jeremiah 31 31 the new covenant and so all over the Old Testament we see Christ in these ways and it's important to know all of scripture it's important to see that big story so that we can understand portions of it not perfectly but we need to be reading through scripture and understanding scripture so that those are some basic principles of biblical theology or how we see Christ as he is in the Old Testament well let's take a look at this specific text 1st Samuel 17 where in the history of redemption is this text

[33:09] God has promised to be with his people God has promised a kingdom and in 1st Samuel there's a transition to the king but the seed of the serpent is opposing God's kingdom God's people are not much they're cowering in fear they're not trusting in God but God is faithful and saves his people through David so that Israel will survive and the Messiah Christ will come that's where it fits in the history of redemption and then we say this salvation with the small s that David accomplished is but a picture of the greater salvation that Christ accomplishes so that's in a nutshell where in the history of redemption and the connection to

[34:20] Christ but we go a little further God delivers his people from the warfare of the snake and the snake like enemy of God is dishonoring and taunting God's people Goliath is certainly a seed of the snake but there are a few things in the text though I would not want to overemphasize them but he is clothed in bronze and bronze as I said sounds similar to the word for snake and he does have scale armor which is similar to a snake I wouldn't press that too much but it's there and then David cuts off his head his head is destroyed even as Genesis 3 15 would say but certainly we see warfare between the seed of the snake and the seed of the woman and God is granting that his people persevere

[35:29] God delivers through a representative who is zealous for God who proclaims the name of the Lord David in verse 37 says the Lord he's the one who will deliver me in 45 David says I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts the God of the armies of Israel whom you have taunted this day the Lord will deliver you and so David is a representative of God's people and this is a supernatural and sovereign event David did not conquer Goliath merely because of his skill with a sling but God supernaturally worked in that situation and David is not fighting his psychological giants or his own battle

[36:39] David is God's champion against the great enemy of God's people people you know a good rabbi could have said much of this but then we go further David didn't fully save his people and David was not the perfect king and David did not bring the full form of the kingdom and if it all stopped with David on a human level who knows what would have happened but God was working David could not save from the ultimate enemy of sin and death and David is also a sinner and needs a savior so how is that going to happen God saves people through David that Christ would come and then the greater son of David the root and branch of David who is fully zealous who comes in the name of the

[37:42] Lord Jesus fully comes in the name of the Lord and we read about that in Psalm 118 and he's identified as such in the triumphal entry Jesus conquers sin death and the serpent on the cross Jesus conquers death and Jesus wins the victory and Jesus represents us in his life and in his death Jesus is the perfect king who brings the kingdom and will fully consummate the kingdom and this is the gospel it's about what God has done for us not what we do for God in other places God tells us what to do but in a text like this we need to appreciate what has God done for us and then understanding the gospel enables us to do the things that

[38:48] God tells us in other portion of scripture as we look at this story who are we in this story who are we like in this story who are we like well if we're not looking to Christ we're like the Philistines we're the Philistines until we look to Christ we deserve God's judgment we deserve to have our heads cut off and we're not always quick to see that but before we see ourselves as David we need to see ourselves as Philistines until we look to Christ we are God's enemies but then and God calls you to look to him if you haven't looked to him as we look to

[39:56] Christ then we can rally around Christ our Savior even as the Philistines rallied around David once we see Christ in a real way on a secondary level we can learn and imitate certain things about David 1 Corinthians 10 11 says these things happen to them as an example they were written for our instruction upon whom the ends of the ages have come Paul says the imitators of me just as I am also of Christ so after we've understood what the text is really about we can make secondary or tertiary that means lower than second third level applications and we can learn to be zealous for God's glory not not to be brave and conquer my own giants but to be zealous for the glory of God to be active in God's kingdom using the gifts that God has given us which are different from the gifts that God gave

[41:26] David and we're not David we're not in that situation but we can learn on a secondary level as we finish all scripture points us to Christ Christ is in all of scripture the Holy Spirit opens our eyes God calls you to see Christ to consider Christ to consider what God has done for you and then as you see Christ to worship to meditate to help others and then there can be secondary applications follow me as I follow Christ how is this person following God know be reading the whole

[42:26] Bible listen to good sermons know the whole story of the Bible so you can better understand each part make use of good means good books on biblical theology such as by D.A.

[42:43] Carson Greg Beal Edmund Clowney Graham Goldsworthy and then let's glorify God by seeing Christ as he is pointed to and live in him following him together when we read for ourselves when we teach others and we all have an opportunity to be teachers in Hebrews 5 it says you should be teachers by now but you need someone to teach you 1 Peter 2 9 says we're a chosen race a royal priesthood a holy nation a people for God's own possession so that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light so we should help other people see Christ and there's a very good application of this to children and bible stories we read to our children about bible stories we read children's bibles both at home and in

[43:49]  Sunday school children love bible stories and it's good for them to learn those basic bible stories because as they get older they will understand more and more what's there but even when we first teach them the basic bible story don't leave them with only a moral but help your children see Christ even in the basic bible stories god delivered us christ god delivered his people through david christ did come and jesus has saved us from the greatest enemy from sin from the snake from satan jesus is our perfect king today his kingdom is already but not yet in fullness we live in the church with christ as our king awaiting the full consummation which will come for sure because christ has accomplished it let's pray lord we see how you saved your people through david and we see that the lord jesus christ did come lord help us to see you properly as we read scripture not to make things up not to add things but help us truly to see and grow and understand your word to us help us glorify you and praise you for what you have done and then help us to see legitimate ways of following those who follow you in their examples lord be glorified amongst us we pray in jesus name amen holy