I was out with a dear brother who was nearly 90 years old on Friday out in the sunshine by a lovely little stream And I tell you buddy, there's no flies on him. He's right far. He is in the case you didn't understand my Newfoundland English In a nutshell brother Bob is agile for 88 years old I myself actually was the one who slipped on the rock who got a twig in the head Bob had minimal minimal difficulty on the rocky shoreline and Bob rates highly with me as a companion for any such thing He recites scripture. He recites hymns.
He recites poetry Notices the changes in the vegetation and in the stream all of which is very enriching to me and I greatly enjoy So he's very high on my list to go anywhere anytime, you know Another way in the car and he goes physical exercise Propheteth a little we'd had an active day we were all day then yesterday I'm playing squash with a brother a brother who hasn't got an ounce of fat on him and he's about six foot five He's in this room and after 45 minutes. He was sitting down lean up against the wall I said how old are you he goes twenty five? I thought yeah, a little physical exercise profit that the little I remember Bob said yesterday It's nice to get out in the good weather into escape the Canadian winter and to begin to I don't know breathe more freely This morning. I'm going to be speaking on Jesus the Messiah.
Let us begin with a word of prayer our father We're thankful that we can worship a Savior who has worked a salvation Which is complete and that we know that we can be going home to you whether you return and call us to yourself Or whether we pass my natural or other means and come to your arms and are embraced by our Savior We know that we will be coming home to our Savior If there's anyone here this morning who does not know this and cannot say this may your words speak to their hearts May your spirit deal with them and cause them to desire to come to know Jesus the Messiah we pray in his name amen So we're taking a break from the Ten Commandments I'll hit you with the fourth installment of the Ten Commandments on Victoria Day weekend when I get back from a little vacation with my wife We're going to be thinking about Jesus the Messiah and It is my tendency to have an undercurrent of apologetics in my sermons and the word apologetic and apologetics kind of has has two meanings one of which you want to avoid you never ever need to apologize for being a Christian or for Believing in the Lord Jesus Christ you never ever need to apologize for that on the other hand the word apologetics is an entire realm of Defense of the Christian faith Sometimes people may wonder why I would be alluding to such things because they would say well I'm already a believer what I need is more like emotional encouragement I need encouragement of the heart and I already believe these things Why are you pretending that we need to challenge them and think about them? Well, you are made up of heart and mind and your mind needs to be in agreement with your heart and your heart works with what's in your mind So we do need to strengthen our minds and strengthen how we think about our faith in a rational way the word apologetics Has log in it you have words like dialogue reasoning between people you have Logic and the Lord Jesus him cry himself the Lord Jesus Christ is referred to as the logos in John chapter one verse one and that sense of Logic or reasoning or meaning contained in the LOG when you put apple in front of it That is a prefix in both languages in Greek and in English which intensifies the meaning so when we're thinking of apologetics We are thinking of an intensified reasoning that takes place Peter in first Peter 3 15 said but sanctify the Lord God in your heart and be ready always to give a reason For the hope that is within you with meekness and fear the right attitude So that is another reason beyond the fact that our hearts and our minds have to work together and be on the same page as they say We also need to be ready because we live in a world that is shockingly ignorant of the Bible and of Christian truth And it is always good to know that we have Many what you might call back stops We have many things which are ours as Christians with a Bible that are actually I would say impossible to refute These are things which buttress our faith and enable us to really approach I would say any situation with confidence and with peace and we need them the guidance of the Holy Spirit in actually what we would say I Think of the verse in Isaiah chapter one. What an amazing juxtaposition of thoughts 118 the Lord says this come now and let us reason together Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow Though they be read like crimson. They shall be like well calm.
Let us reason together There is a starting point What your starting point may have been when you came to the Lord? I do not know there's a vast variety of experiences when it comes to people being converted to Christ some are Working things out in their minds others less so and have a tremendous conviction of sin in their hearts But what a juxtaposition God says come let us reason together and you your heart can be washed white as snow What a wonderful truth your Bible is all about the Lord Jesus Christ from Genesis Revelation your Bible has Predictions about the coming Messiah throughout the Old Testament from the Pentateuch from Genesis chapter 3 2 I will refer to Deuteronomy 18 this morning on through the prefiguring with David in second Samuel on through to the Psalms 150 chapters and it is very evident that sometimes King David spoke in the spirit and wrote in the spirit Do you remember when the Lord Jesus used that phrase that's in Matthew 22? That's very very interesting So that even if as we have here we were to limit our apologetics to the book of Psalms We would find multiple perspectives on how the prophecies point toward the Lord Jesus Christ as Messiah this morning It was read by brother e may a verse which is the same a Thousand years before it happened some twenty two one my God my God Why has thou forsaken me Psalm 22 one? This is David speaking in the spirit there it is We read it this morning You have in Psalm 16 an illusion to the resurrection the body of the Holy One that is the context of Psalm 16 will not see corruption If I die an ordinary death and I'm buried My body will become corrupt It will rot it will begin to smell I was disturbed to learn about the Demographics of the country of Japan where they have fewer and fewer young people 55% of the population is over 45 and Every year in Japan here's a sobering thought because we have similar demographics in Nova Scotia 30,000 elderly people are found dead in their apartments or condos How are they found dead?
Why are they found dead the smell? There are so many elderly who have no one to look in on them how tragic how terrible they say that if there's a car accident The body is left in the car in the off the road somewhere that you'll never be able to sell that car if the body decays in that place You will never get the smell you can strip everything out of the car you'll never get the smell of death the smell of death out of that place Not happening with the Lord Jesus Christ. No, no, no David speaking in the spirit in Psalm 16. He will not see corruption Peter preached it in Acts chapter 2 Paul preached it in The city and Antioch and Acts chapter 13.
They've had the same understanding these two major figures of the Old Testament the same understanding of David speaking in the spirit in Psalm 16 Today, I'm going to focus on Psalm 110 Which turns out to be the single most referred to quoted and alluded to Psalm in your New Testament more than any other Psalm Psalm 110 is referenced in your New Testament as we will see This morning we briefly thought about Psalm 118 in the context of the Passover celebration and the singing and when we come to verse 14 He has become my salvation imagine that the Lord Jesus sang that with his disciples before he became their salvation And they blithely sang that without fully understanding what it would mean, but they would come to understand what it would mean So we need not spend too much time on the on the first two I want to speak a little on the position of Christ as established by his Testimony when he went to the synagogue in Luke chapter 4 It's one of my favorite passages in the New Testament the intensity of the drama of that event is amazing And we sang it this morning a few minutes ago about freeing the captives Isaiah 61 And the Lord Jesus referenced that We'll think briefly about his person and then thirdly about this paradox this wonderful paradox Where Psalm 110 is quoted by the Lord Jesus himself in answering back to the Pharisees the doctors of the law No, we are not going to read all of that But we see that the Lord Jesus in that synagogue on that Sunday He was given the scroll And he stood up and he read the spirit of the Lord is upon me Because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor He had sent me to heal the brokenhearted and preach deliverance to the captives to preach the acceptable year of the Lord And he stops mid-sentence and Isaiah 61 because the day of vengeance of our God is coming the Lord is coming back But he stopped there and he closed the book and he gave it to the minister and sat down and everybody was fixing their eyes on him in The drama of that moment there must have been some Powerful way in which he was communicating this as being applicable to himself, but more than that He said to them as I haven't read this day this scripture is fulfilled in your ears In the broad expanse of God's plan in human history this day This scripture you sitting here your ears are hearing it. I am the Messiah I am the one being referred to in Isaiah 61 And if you read on You find as we see here that somebody some of them said we know this is Joseph's son This is confusing to us some of them marveled at his teaching and some of them tried to push him off the brow of a hill That's quite a mix of reactions. Is it not? It requires any thinking person to come to a conclusion multiple reactions The Lord Jesus was claiming to be the Messiah In terms of the apologetics of this Isaiah is written 750 to 800 years before Jesus said I am the person being referred to here The Psalms were written a thousand years before the Lord Jesus revealed himself in Matthew 22 To be the one that that psalm applies to at all so many of the psalms 41 times in the Psalms you read the right hand of God the right hand of God the right hand of God the right hand of God That's the Lord Jesus.
You might say that the Lord Jesus is the executive branch of the Trinity He is God's operative power And in that operative power he went to the cross and achieved and acquired and purchased your salvation What about his person? Well, we need not spend too much time on this too, but It is good background for Psalm 110 and Matthew 22 You know when we think of what a hypocrite is We think automatically of a person whose deeds and whose words don't match And when we think of the average sinner and we look at the deeds and those deeds some of them are outright sins And we listen to what they say And some of what they say and what I say are outright sins And that matches and both of them condemn me as a sinner But the Lord Jesus was without sin And everything that he did was good and everything that he said was true As we see here in in red as my father has taught me I speak these things Jesus words came from God Jesus deeds came from God for I do always those things that please him He made the blind to see the deaf to hear the lame to walk All of these were wonderful testimonies that he was the Messiah And his teachings and his love and his compassion toward the poor and the sick and the maimed and the demon possessed Were in complete harmony complete harmony as a person He claimed to be the promised Messiah in Luke 4 His life his deeds were unique and his life as action by his Miracles and as demonstrated by his teaching which which one person said no one has ever taught like this man One of the Romans Romans centurions. No one ever spoke like this man They were in complete harmony For example, you have Isaiah 42 Prediction of the coming Messiah's work. I have a typo to open the blind eyes to bring out the prisoners from prison And set them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.
This is a Messiah's work Going back to Deuteronomy 18. It's interesting that Muslims will cite this verse repeatedly as referring to Muhammad It cannot refer to Muhammad first of all the descendants of Esau And the descendants of the descendants Were not the brothers. They were at best the cousins and secondly When you say from amongst your brethren as a euphemism it means from amongst yourselves as in when you pick a king You pick a king from among your brethren from amongst yourselves. It's a euphemism but we have here the prediction that Jesus in a sense will be like Moses and he will speak the words of God And he will speak the things that God gives him as we just read in john chapter eight So with regard to the position of Christ as Messiah with regard to the person of Christ as Messiah the Lord Jesus Jesus Christ of Nazareth Is unmatched and he is unique Now we come to a very interesting psalm Psalm 110 says the Lord said unto my lord sith thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion rule thou in the midst of thine enemies thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power In the beauty of holiness from the womb of the morning thou has the do of thy youth The Lord hath sworn and will not repent thou were to priest forever after the order of milk his adek What an interesting psalm It would appear that this thousand year old statement Was not understood by the doctors of the law and the interaction between Jesus and the Pharisees on this psalm occurs in mark 26 Maybe that's 20 22 mark 12 mark 14 Luke 20 this this this aspect is recorded in all of these and it represents a paradox How can two apparently contradictory things be true at the same time?
That's what a paradox is And it is quite interesting That they said well, you know these these doctors of the law were quite determined to try to make the Lord Jesus trip On some aspect of scripture and they said, you know, who should we pay taxes to and the Lord Jesus said well What what belongs to Caesar give to Caesar? Oh, and oh Okay, so um What about marriage in heaven when we die and then who will we be married to and the Lord Jesus said you do air greatly For in heaven we are neither married nor given in marriage. Oh What's the greatest commandment to love the Lord thy God and to love thy neighbor as thyself? Oh, yeah, that's What do we then?
The Lord Jesus says it's almost as though he's saying let us stop playing around You have been peppering me with things that are intended to trip me up But I have a question for you the Lord Jesus says to the Pharisees So let's look at this While the Pharisees were gathered together Jesus asked him saying what think he of Christ whose son is he they say unto him the son of David He say a thun to them how then doth David in the spirit Call him lord saying the lord said unto my lord sit down on my right hand till I make that enemies thy footstool If David then called him lord, how is he his son? And no man was able to answer him a word Neither durs any man from that day forth ask him any more questions He put it back to them That's Psalm 110 portrayed a paradox a thousand-year-old paradox And in the same way that he stood up in the synagogue in Luke chapter four and said I who speak to you am he Here he is standing before them They know he's joseph son. They know that genealogy. This is not open to dispute.
It is a matter of legal record And he is saying I am both david's descendant and david's lord The lord Jesus came as the son of god as god the son and came into this earth And revealed himself as david's lord If you would but see it if you would but admit it and you won't and they would not Some of them tried to push him off the brow of a hill Some of them upon hearing this Shrank back and we will look at some verses in Hebrews They didn't dare ask him any more questions after that They were full of things to try to trip him up But he came back and presented to them saw 110 which like Isaiah 61 applied to the person standing right in front of them and they were silent They were silent Hebrews says they shrank back. I would say Mm-hmm in Hebrews it's amazing when we look further in our New testaments and look for other allusions to some 110 The idea that the lord jesus upon finishing his work sat down on the right hand of god as we had in some 110 We have this in Romans 834 We have it in effusions 120 set him at his right hand We have it in colossians 3 that the lord jesus sits on the right hand of god We have it in first peter 3 who's gone into heaven and is on the right hand of god So the apostle paul And the apostle peter again our incomplete agreement as to the significance of samah 110 and how it did indeed apply to the risen christ Where else well? How did the early church look at it peter is preaching in acts two He quotes samah 110 For david is not ascended into the heavens as it says in verse 34 But he'd sayeth himself the lord said unto my lord sit thou it might right hand Until I make life o's thy foot still therefore let all the house of israel know Assuredly that god hath made this same jesus whom ye have crucified both lord and christ And the church began and the church began with that understanding of samah 110 and the fact that the lord jesus was the fulfillment of sam 110 further we have Here in hebrews now you have the Matthew 22 in person Dialogic interaction between the lord jesus and the Pharisees as a matter of Revelation of eyewitness revelation it was witnessed you have in the early church in acts two the acceptance of this by the early church As a matter of you might say church practice or church belief incorporated into the beliefs the creed of the early church And then you have a book like hebrews Which is one of the most theological books in the new testament and which explains a great deal to us about the old testament Hebrews 113 but to which of the angels said he at any time said it my right hand Until I make thine enemies thy foot still none no angels never said to an angel Hebrews 8 1 now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum We have such an high priest to his set on the right hand of the throne of majesty in the heavens This is much you might say formal theology for jewish digestion. This is the letter to the hebrews Now here's quite a significant thing Again, sorry, we're going to go to um Hebrews 10 yet again Reminding us that a human priest as you might read about in Leviticus Is it has a repetitive job?
But this man this jesus after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever sat down on the right hand of god And henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool again psalm 110 But as you saw in verse four of 110 references made to genesis 14 where we read about this king priest priest king hyphenated Melchizedek the lord hath sworn and will not repent thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek Written a thousand years before the gospels before your new testament Hebrew 620 Weather wither sorry the forerunner is for us entered even jesus made an high priest forever after the order of Mel Melchizedek a timeless king a timeless priest fulfilled in the lord jesus fulfilling psalm 110 verse 4 we see in the book of hebrews the Reference to this it's almost as though the writer to the Hebrew saw it happen in Matthew 22 When the lord jesus gave them back psalm 110 and said you digest this they Nothing to say they turned away We cannot come face to face with you anymore. We cannot deal with you They shrank back Hypostellos the idea of shrink selling is you know to do this And as vine points out, there's a kind of a dishonest stealthiness to this. That's the under that's the hypo to shrink under I can't I can't cope with this confrontation in Matthew 22. I'm I'm shrinking away.
I'm shrinking away At the end of a monumental toward the end I should say more than 10 chapters of a monumental theological treatise It says in verse 38, but my righteous one will live by faith quoting havoc up to And if he shrinks back my soul has no pleasure in him But we are not among those who shrink back to destruction destruction But of those who have faith for the safekeeping of the soul I hope that You are not amongst those who shrink back We have in our bibles the testimony in Matthew 22 of the historical revelation And of the confrontation with the Pharisees the doctors of the law over jesus messiah ship He revealed himself as the messiah He revealed himself as the messiah in the synagogue He revealed himself as the messiah by making the eyes of the blind to see again as prophesied in isiah Which had never happened before the Old Testament has miracles. It doesn't have that one that one was reserved for the messiah And he did it he did it out of love and compassion and everything about his character and his teaching and his words was in complete harmony with that love and that compassion Some 110 was then absorbed by the early church and actively taught Enacts and then becomes part of the theology of hebrews 10 And the writer of hebrew says don't do it. Are you confronted by these things? Don't do this Don't shrink under don't shrink back.
Don't turn away It's amazing. Isn't it how sometimes I'm sure you've had the experience that you share Christ with someone and it's all kind of See ya come to terms with it Have you come to terms with it? It is a very great tragedy To face these things and to see these evidences and these fulfilled prophecies You want to go down to Shosh along near on Oxford Street and look in there in their Old Testament? Same there It's been sitting there for thousands of years and it's fulfilled.
It was fulfilled in Christ fulfilled in Christ. Ah It's not good enough The Lord Jesus confronts you the Lord Jesus confronts me. Who was he? Who is he?
He was the incarnate God He was our prophet As we learn in the Psalms He was our priest As we learn in the panitokan and the book of Hebrews He was a king that occupied the throne of David and was the descendant of David simultaneously And you know what else? That coming king Who is sitting at the right hand of God is going to stand up and he's going to come back For the believer it says that we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is What about the people that did this? Do you think they're going to be filled with joy and glory as they look on the face of the Savior? They'll be filled with terror Terror because they shrank back and turned away in the face of evidence clear evidence.
What a terrible tragedy I trust that In your desire to reach the lost That you will be strengthened and comforted by these things and that your mind will be buttressed knowing the facts Knowing the testimony knowing the word and being able to rightly divide the word of truth both for yourself and for others Shall we pray? Father you have given us your word you have Shown that your son the Lord Jesus Christ born of a woman born under the law Went to the cross for us that he was the Messiah Your chosen one your anointed one he was the Christ the anointed one We thank you we who know the Lord Jesus as our Savior those who our hearts have been redeemed and washed by that blood and made white a snow We thank you that we can look forward to his appearing and we do look forward to that day When we shall see him and we shall be like him We thank you for this time around your word and pray that our hearts and minds would be strengthened as we go out from this place And in the coming week that you would use us and help us to be your instruments we pray in Jesus name amen I believe Gabrielle has possibly selected a closing hymn