1437 - "Understanding the Big Picture" Genesis 1-2; Romans 1:18ff; Revelation 4-5

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Each weekday, Dr. Crisp will be discussing biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Tune in daily to start your day right and deepen your understanding of how to better walk the way and enjoy the journey. Here's your host, Dr. Tony Crisp.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Welcome to On the Way. This is Tony Crisp, and this is Podcast 1437. Well, today I want to introduce you to what will be a new paradigm for some of you, a new template to understanding the Bible. It is this broad spectrum, it is this panorama of biblical reality, the history of the Bible, the history of creation, the history of redemption. I call it the story of God, the story of the crimson river. Because from Genesis to Revelation, there is God creating, man messing up, man falling, becoming corrupt and sinful and depraved. And God in his great mercy and grace, already knowing what was going to happen, prepared a plan of redemption that the Bible says was prepared before the foundation of the world. Now don't try to figure that out, just accept it. That God is transcendent and he knows more than we do, and he knows all things. He is omniscient. That means there is nothing that he doesn't know. He is the one that created all knowledge. He is knowledge. He is the uncaused cause, as philosophers say. And so you can't get into even understanding that because you and I are finite. He is infinite. We are bound by time. He is not bound by time. He created time. He's the great creator. But he's also the redeemer. He's the recreator. Man didn't mess up his plan. Satan didn't mess up his plan. God created the heavens and the earth. And through man's choices of choosing to go his own way and live independently from God in rebellion against God, even as Adam did in the garden, the entire human race, and not only that, but the entire universe was plunged into sin and depravity and corruption. And when Adam fell, the entire universe fell. And this is why in the book of Romans, for instance, the Apostle Paul says that the entire creation groans, is moaning and groaning, and just can't wait until the final redemption of the sons of God. Why? Because when that happens, there's going to be a new heaven and a new earth, and in that there will be no sin whatsoever. You see, God is the one that created the heavens and the earth and created man, and God has provided a way for man to be made new, brand new. And that's exactly what he is going to do. The word for creation is the same word that is used about the new creation. The Bible says, if any man be in Christ, if any man be in Christ, that means that you are in a relationship with Jesus, a saving relationship with him, exercising saving faith. You are placed by the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ. That's not something you feel, that's not something you experience. That is something that God does for you. It has to do with standing. You are in Christ. And in Christ, God is going to continually on this earth make you a new creation, but one day you will be like Jesus. Not in his omniscience, not in his omnipresence, not in his omnipotence, no. But you will be like him as a new creation that he creates us to be. This is why John the apostle said, Beloved, right now are we the sons of God, the adult sons of God. We are adopted into his family. Right now are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be. I mean who can figure this out looking at us now, presently, even the best of us, even the most godly of us. It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him. We shall be like him for we shall see him as he is. You see, the same word for a new heaven and a new earth is the same word for a new creation in Christ. And so God is able to create and recreate. But the devil didn't thwart his plan, and we cannot thwart his plan. I mean, who are we and who is any created being, and that's what Satan, Lucifer was, and all the Angelic hosts, and every order and power and principality under heaven. They are all created beings. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, existing as one has no beginning or he has no end. This is the reality that the Scripture presents to us. So I want to look at this idea of creation and redemption. Because this is the way that God presents it, and down through the annals of God's dealings with man, certainly through the first eleven chapters of Genesis, but it shifts into another gear with Abraham. It shifts into another gear at Mount Sinai, when the nation of Israel as a nation was constituted and instituted as a nation, not just informal tribes and brothers now existing together, but existing as a nation under God. And so there was the constitutional law that was given on Mount Sinai. Now the reason I'm telling you this is because that was when Shabbat and all the Moadim, these special holidays or holy days that we call feast, festivals, and fast days, when they were instituted in the book of Leviticus, that is, the Levitical code of how the Levites were to lead the people, how the tribe of Levi and especially the house of Aaron was to lead the people as mediators to tell the people about what God wanted and to go as intermediaries before God with the people's request and offerings and so forth. All of this is laid out in what we call the Torah, the first five books of Moses. Now, the reason I'm telling you that is because of all the great Moadim, the one that is to be observed weekly is the one that has to do with creation. You see, the purpose of Shabbat, the purpose of the Sabbath, is to celebrate God as the creator. The first thing that you saw as you went into the tabernacle in the wilderness, the great worship center, which the Bible says in the book of Hebrews was patterned after the one in heaven. You say, wait a minute, is there a worship center in heaven? Obviously there is, because the Bible says that the worship center here on earth, the tabernacle, the temporary worship center that was in Shiloh, in Shiloh, before the temple for 369 years, just in one area. Then it was in a more solid foundational mode with the temple, the first temple and the second temple. They were to teach man about God. But the first thing you saw when you walked into the tabernacle or the temple was the light, that which gave light, and that was a seven branched menorah, a lampstand. Now why seven branches? The seven days of creation. The first thing your eyes would focus on before you ever got to the Holy of Holies where redemption was, you would see that God is the creator of all of the universe. And then as you look to your right, you would see bread. What did that represent? That God the creator is the sustainer of life. He is the bread from heaven. And then you would have the altar of incense. What were those wafting scents that wafted toward heaven, that rose toward heaven? Those represented prayers and worship to the great God of creation. And it was only behind that veil that the high priest went once a year. With what? With blood, the blood of redemption, the blood of the scapegoat, the blood of the ritual. When one goat would die, then the other one would be set free. Why? Because goats don't rise from the dead, and so you had to have two goats because one wouldn't do, because you have to sacrifice one. But you see, that's not the end of redemption and the redemption story. Because why? You had to also symbolize that now that goat was the scapegoat, was now going to carry the sins of the people symbolically into the desert, never to be seen again. It was seen going away, taking away the sin. Why? Because the blood of that goat that died on the day of atonement, Yom Kippur, the hands of the priest would be placed upon the head of that goat that would be eventually led away, taking uh symbolically the sins of all the people, including the one that was doing the offering in this case, because it was a man, they would symbolically lead that goat into the wilderness. Now I'm saying all that to say there is the symbolism has meaning. God doesn't waste symbols. Everything had a meaning in that tabernacle, and we're told what it is. In the New Testament, the New Covenant, you have that explained in great detail. Look at Hebrews chapter 9, and you'll see that. And so what I want you to see here is the paradigm, the template. God presents himself first as creator and then as redeemer. This is patterned all throughout the law, the prophets, and the writings. It's also previewed in the Gospels. It is God's method. This is the way that he does it. You see, this great God is presented as the creator. Romans, the great Magnum opus, the great volume that Paul wrote on salvation to the Romans. Look how it starts out in chapter one. The good news is the power of God unto salvation to all who will believe. But then in verse 18, he says, this is how it happens. There are none without excuse. And he starts building his case in chapter 1 and verse 18. And by the time you get through Romans 1, you realize that God in creation reveals himself to man. But God also intuitively, not just externally and objectively, through the rhythm and rhyme of nature in the moon, the stars, and the sky, do they know that there is a God? But intuitively, internally, subjectively, every person who's ever born knows there is someone greater than they are, a great designer, a great creator. They may not know his name. They certainly don't know who he is until they come to know him. But if they make one response, one move, one thought, one intention toward him, God will give them more light. You see, this is the pattern of scripture, the paradigm of scripture. Walk in the light you have, and God will give you more light. God's not going to give to a disobedient person or people more light. Why? Because they're not observing the light he's already given them. This is why we have a sin in our life that is habitual and we do not deal with that. There's not going to be any more light. If you're not doing what you know to do, God's not going to give you something else to do that you're just going to obey if you don't like it or it makes you uncomfortable. This is the pattern and paradigm of Scripture. So God presents Himself as the creator first and then as the Redeemer. And when redemption comes, there is new creation. Well, when the new heavens and new earth come, that is redemption. That's when everything's going to be made new, and you can read about that several places in the scriptures, and we will look at those, but I want you to understand that God first presents Himself as creator, then as Redeemer. And this is the way when we get to heaven, we're going to worship. Revelation chapter 4 has to do with creation. And when we get to heaven, we're going to first of all worship God according to chapter 4 as the creator. And in our next podcast, we're going to deal with chapters 4 and 5 so that you can actually see the text itself and hear it on podcast. And I will show you this is the paradigm of Scripture. This is the pattern that is consistent and confluent throughout all the Bible. God presents Himself first as the creator and then as the Redeemer. Then in redemption, there is the new creation, both of heaven and earth, and of man that he loves and gave himself for. And so Revelation chapter 4, we praise God in the scriptures. It tells us very plainly, verse 11, that the first thing we're going to praise God for when we get to heaven is that He is the creator of all things and that He created us. Chapter 5, we get into worthy is the Lamb, but that comes after chapter 4. Even if there are no chapter headings, this is the way that John wrote it. Why? Because that's the way God presents it. And that's consistent throughout the Bible. So we get the big picture, then we get the details. That's the way that God does things. He shows us the big picture, and then we get to know the details. But let me just say it is the temptation of pastor, of Bible teacher, of all of us to get into the details. What does this verse mean without knowing what the text says about the context? What we want to know without learning about the whole picture of God and getting the panorama, the 30,000 feet level first, we want to get down in the details, the nitty-gritty, and that's why once we might know one thing, we go to seed on that, and we cannot see the forest for the trees. We are in the forest and we cannot see that this is a great creation of God, and that if we can see the whole story, it'll all make sense. We're concentrating on the dots, but we cannot see that God in those dots is drawing a picture, and if we learn to connect the dots, then we will see the glory of God. We're just getting started. For on the way, this is Tony Crisp.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

Thanks for listening to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Tune in every weekday for information on biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Fridays are for your questions. Email your questions to questions at TonyCrisp.org, then just listen for your question to be answered on Friday's podcast. That's Questions at Tony C R I S P dot org. Thanks for listening and have a blessed day on the way.