Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas
Jeremy approaches Bible teaching with a passion for getting the basic doctrines explained so that the individual can understand them and then apply them to circumstances in their life. These basic and important lessons are nestled in a framework of history and progression of revelation from the Bible so the whole of Scripture can be applied to your physical and spiritual life.
Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas
NT Framework - Dwelling
Living with the one you love is both wonderful and hard. It's wonderful sharing life together but it is hard when you disagree. It's not much different between us and God, the difference is that He is never wrong and so when we find ourselves wrestling with something He is teaching us, we need to lay aside our ego to learn. Jacob wrestled with God and was commended for it. God understands our limitations and wants us to grow which is why He has laid out His plan in the Bible for us, to believe in Christ and then receive the Holy Spirit so He can be with us.
More information about Beyond the Walls, including additional resources can be found at www.beyondthewalls-ministry.com
This series included graphics to illustrate what is being taught, if you would like to watch the teachings you can do so on Rumble (https://rumble.com/user/SpokaneBibleChurch) or on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtV_KhFVZ_waBcnuywiRKIyEcDkiujRqP).
Jeremy Thomas is the pastor at Spokane Bible Church in Spokane, Washington and a professor at Chafer Theological Seminary. He has been teaching the Bible for over 20 years, always seeking to present its truths in a clear and understandable manner.
Welcome to Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas and our series on the New Testament Framework. Today, the full lesson from Jeremy Thomas. Here's a hint of what's to come.
Speaker 2:There's no theologians who, well, I reject the virgin birth, but I believe in the you know dividing of the fish and lobe. No, if you reject the one, you're going to reject all the others too.
Speaker 1:When you love someone, you just want to be near them. You want to be in their presence to talk with them.
Speaker 1:This is what love is all about being with the one you love, not being distant from them. God is the same with us, he loves us and he wants to be with us. He wants to be in our presence. This desire of his has manifested itself differently throughout history. You can look back and think about the various times God came into this creation to be with the creatures he created. It's a mind-boggling thing. When you think about the extent to which God wants to be with us.
Speaker 1:And when you apply this idea to your Christian relationship, your relationship with God, and you relate it to a marriage relationship, you can see that being this close to another person sometimes creates strife. It's a difference of opinion and in every good marriage there is strife, because the man is not always right and the woman is not always right, and sometimes they are both wrong. But by being together and talking you learn and you grow. Jacob did this with God. It's how he got his name changed to Israel. He wrestled with God. Now put these two concepts together. We can't wrestle with God and learn from him. We can't correct our thinking and our behavior unless we are close to him, unless we are close to him. Close to him by reading the Bible, studying, praying, confessing sin, being in right relationship. So today the encouragement is to dwell, to choose to dwell with God, because he wants to dwell with you, and to wrestle with His Word, to learn more about Him and to deepen, really deepen, your relationship.
Speaker 2:Last time I went through the responses to the event of the virgin birth and particularly I looked at the Jewish response and I looked at the Gentile response. You might remember that the Jewish response is one of basically initial excitement. I took you to the shepherds near Bethlehem as they went and they were excited and they told other people about this and it was an amazing thing and people were all excited. But then that initial excitement wore off and you wonder, through the early pages of the Gospels, why there's really nothing about Jesus's early life or discussion of people following his career in Israel. Because you know he is the Messiah, he's the Savior, he's been born, so why is there not an interest? And the next thing you see he's 12 years old now. At the temple, right, he's shocking the teachers by his understanding of the Hebrew Old Testament and of course the excitement had worn off and so they didn't have a very good response and that response gets duplicated during his ministry. But we'll talk more about that. Then we also talked about the Gentile response to the birth and this is very interesting too because you see, in Matthew, chapter 2, one of the sub-themes of the Gospel of Matthew is the Gentile response. So usually he's talking about the Jewish response, but periodically he'll inject a story about a Gentile or a group of Gentiles. And the interesting one at his birth is you know, the Magi, the astronomers from the East who come in Matthew, chapter 2, looking for the king of the Jews. Why are these Gentile nobility coming so far to see a Jewish king? And so there's this initial excitement among Gentiles. And then you have a great story in chapter 8 of Matthew of the centurion and the centurion who needed someone to be healed in his home. And he tells the Lord says well, take me to him and I'll see about this matter. And he says you don't have to do that, all you have to do is say the word. I'm a man like you, a man of authority. If I tell someone in my ranks, you go and do this, he goes and does it. I tell another soldier, go, do that, he goes and he does it. He says all you have to do is say the word and he'll be healed. And Jesus says I haven't seen such great faith, even in all Israel. So there's this shock and interest among Gentiles in the Jewish Messiah. And then the Syrophoenician woman. Remember, she's a Gentile and she's asking for something from him and he ignores her. And she asks again and he says you know, we don't throw bread to the dogs, to Gentiles, to unclean people. And she says what she says. Well, even the dogs eat the crumbs from the master's table. So there's this hunger among the gentile world for the jewish messiah as we unfold the book of matthew. And so it's an interesting response that you have from both groups, and we know that as the church began on pentecost, it began all jewish right. But not long after that you've got cornelius and Gentiles from his household coming in, and then Paul is going to the Gentiles and you have a tremendous Gentile response and the book of Romans describes this period as the fullness of the Gentiles coming in. And so the predominant group who has believed in the Messiahship of Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, have actually been Gentiles, even though of course Jews can still of course, be saved. But this is the interesting thing that all kind of began at the birth and the responses to the birth, so we highlighted those.
Speaker 2:I wanted to give a few principles of unbelief as we start today and then get into these three streams of Revelation. First of all, just asking a question. You know why do men have a problem with the virgin birth? This wasn't just a problem, you know, among Jews in the first centuries. It's, of course, come down to our own day.
Speaker 2:If you turn to John, chapter 3, we get some principles of unbelief in this gospel. Actually, there's only one gospel, right? Let me repeat that there's not four gospels. You didn't know that right. Let me repeat that there's not four gospels. You didn't know that right. I mean, everybody talks about the four gospels, but actually in the early church they were known as the fourfold gospel, singular, because there's really only one gospel. It was only later that people discussed them in terms of the gospels. But there's not four gospels, there's one, and that highlights that all four of the Gospel actually agree with one another in terms of what the Gospel is. They're just looking at the life of Jesus from different perspectives and giving His teachings and His works.
Speaker 2:So John, chapter 3, we all know verse 16, right, one of the most famous verses in the world, probably the most famous, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. This is in the story with Nicodemus right, where Nicodemus came to him at night because he didn't want to be seen by the other Pharisees. He was ashamed and he wanted to know what good thing he had to do in order to enter into the kingdom. And Jesus, of course, tells him you cannot see the kingdom unless you're born again. You're born from above.
Speaker 2:So this is in that context of the story with Nicodemus, and as he gives him the answer of how someone can be born again here in verse 16, you know, which is simply through believing right, believing in Him, believing in Jesus, who's the only begotten Son of God, he then begins to explain why he comes in verse 17. And that's obviously talking about the incarnation, the virgin birth, for God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in him is not judged. He who does not believe has been judged already. Why? Because he's not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
Speaker 2:So this is highlighting like if you are in this world right now and you not believe, you're standing under a judgment of condemnation and the reason is because you've not believed. It's not because Jesus didn't die for your sins. He did. He died for your sins, but you've yet to believe in him, and so you're standing under a death sentence, meaning you'll be separated from God forever if you don't believe in him. But you always have the opportunity to believe in him, right? I mean, even verse 17 says he didn't come into the world to judge, but to save the world. Okay, he came to save men. He didn't just come in here just to judge people. He wants people to believe in him so they aren't judged, right? Verse 19,. This is the judgment, and this is why people in our modern day and in the ancient world, ancient day, in our modern day and in the ancient world, ancient day, have trouble with the virgin birth. This is the judgment that the light has come into the world. I mean, jesus is the light of the world. Right, but men loved darkness rather than the light. Men loved darkness rather than the light. Why? For their deeds were evil.
Speaker 2:I'm going to share this. Robin, she told me yesterday I don't know this firsthand, this is coming from her Country western singer, jason Aldean. I guess you all know what's going on. He wrote this story, this song. It's a story about you know, you can't get away with stuff in small towns. I've lived in lots of small towns. I grew up in Paris, texas. We had 25,000 people. I think there's still 25,000 people there. I lived in Fredericksburg had 10,000 people. I've lived in a lot of small towns. You can't get away with stuff because everybody else holds you accountable. I mean, try stealing someone's car and see how that works for you. It's not going to go over so well, and then you're a marked person in the whole community. So you know, you just can't get away with stuff, right? Crime is low. Well, he writes this song, right? Apparently he's getting a lot of flack for it.
Speaker 2:And I'm thinking why would you be against? You know this type of idea that you can't get away with evil. Well, it's because of something like verse 19. Men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil. See, they're a part of this wickedness and they don't like this accountability. They don't like being caught. They want to be able to do evil whenever they want and not have to suffer the consequences. Don't like being caught. They want to be able to do evil whenever they want and not have to suffer the consequences. But this is citing why people are troubled by the Lord Jesus.
Speaker 2:Okay, verse 20 also continues this theme For everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light. Why? For fear that his deeds will be exposed. This is the number one problem. I always use the example of the IRS. If you don't pay your taxes, who are the last people you want to see? I mean, are you really going to go to the IRS and walk in the building if you haven't been paying your taxes for the last 10 years? No, why? Because you're fearful that your failure to pay taxes will be exposed and then you'll have to pay them, that your failure to pay taxes will be exposed and then you'll have to pay them. So people have short accounts with God. They realize that they don't want to be exposed. They don't want to step into his presence because that's a fearful proposition. And then verse 21,. The converse for the believer. But he who practices the truth comes to the light. Why do we come to the light? Because so that our deeds may be manifested as having been wrought by God, in other words, god's at work in us. So we're not ashamed to step into his presence to come to the light.
Speaker 2:So this is one of the basic reasons that people are opposed to the virgin birth? It's because, when you see the virgin birth, you're looking at a unique person who came into the world. This isn't just a normal birth. This is a birth of someone who was born of a virgin and avoided, imputed sin, inherited sin and, through his life, avoided all personal sin, being tempted in all things as we, and yet found without sin. So it's not just here's the thing, it's not just the virgin birth that has been so rejected in history, because the virgin birth is obviously a miracle. Right, everybody agree it's a miracle, it's all miracles, it's all miracles that are really opposed to.
Speaker 2:There's no theologians who, well, I reject the virgin birth, but I believe in the dividing of the fish and lobe. No, if you reject the one, you're going to reject all the others too. Because of what? Because of natural law. That's why I was a scientist. I had five years working in plant physiology, a degree in biology and chemistry and very familiar with evolutionary theory, both in physics, chemistry and biology.
Speaker 2:And there's all this talk about natural law and how things must work according to these laws and principles. Right, in that view of reality, there's no room for miracles. I mean, you can't have virgin births, you can't have people walking in water. You can't have people turning water into wine. This just doesn't work in that worldview.
Speaker 2:So people with that conception, that worldview, when they come to the virgin birth, they automatically reject it. Why do they reject it? Because they've rejected God. They've rejected a God who, in the Noahic covenant, said His Word would control nature. Isn't that one of the most abundantly clear things in the gospels? As Jesus goes out on the Sea of Galilee and it's all tossing and it's crazy, because all this wind would sweep over from the eastern side down onto that lake and it would stir it up and it was dangerous. A lot of people lost their life on that lake. And then he just speaks to the waters and he rebukes them, right, and they become still instantaneously.
Speaker 2:What's it saying? It's saying that he, his word, controls nature. There's no such thing as natural law. Okay, that's just there. Besides, what would that be anyway? Natural law? I mean, as far as I can tell from everywhere I look, people make laws, people make laws. Nature doesn't make laws.
Speaker 2:The question is, who made the laws by which nature basically functions in a normal sense? Nobody asked that question. Isn't there a person behind nature who is controlling it, and the normal way he does so is if I step out of the boat I'm going to sink. But couldn't that person who controls nature also say that when I step out of the boat I'm going to sink? But couldn't that person who controls nature also say that when I step out of the boat, like Peter, did I get to actually stand on it?
Speaker 2:If that person controls nature, then he can say what is and what is not, and that creates the opportunity for what we might call miracles. Right, like a virgin birth. But men don't want to face that because that means there's a supernatural realm, that means there's a God they're going to have to face. That means, because of their short accounts, they don't want to face that God. So there's this resistance to the virgin birth, as well as all the miraculous things in the Bible. So what they end up doing? Turn to Romans 1. What people end up doing is rejecting the truth of God, but that doesn't come without accepting a lie. Okay, romans 1 is talking about this concept in verses 18 through 32. That everyone knows God.
Speaker 2:Verse 18,. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Men suppress the truth in unrighteousness. That means they know it, but they're suppressing it, they're holding it down. I used to use the example of have you ever been to the swimming pool in the summer and there's a bunch of kids with a beach ball and they bat it around and then after a while they're trying to hold it underwater, you know, and stuff like that. It keeps popping up. It always comes back up, right? That's the suppression technique.
Speaker 2:People try to hold down their knowledge of God. They try to suppress it it, but it keeps popping up in life. They keep having little confrontations with him here and there, sometimes through you, sometimes through me, sometimes by the northern lights, right, where there's moments where they just are in awe and they know that god is there. But they're suppressing all that. They don't want to think about that because men love darkness rather than light, right? So verse 19, he explains because that which is known about God is evident within them. Okay, it's evident inside of people, for God made it evident to them. In other words, people know God because they have what is called a God consciousness. God creates that in every individual.
Speaker 2:Is there anybody who doesn't know God exists, according to these verses, no, everybody knows God exists. We don't have to prove God's existence. We don't have to use the ten arguments for the existence of God the teleological argument, the cosmological argument, all these great. The ontological argument. You can go through all that. It's very interesting things, but you don't really have to prove the existence of God to anyone, because they already know. But what's happening is they're suppressing. So what you're trying to do with people is get them to let their guard down a minute so that you can expose them to God, so that they can understand the free gift of salvation in Christ and so they can believe and come to have eternal life. But they know, god made it evident to them Verse 20,.
Speaker 2:Then he explains for since the creation of the world is that kind of a long time ago, I mean, I think that encompasses everybody right in the human race. You know, nobody was before the creation of the world. So since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen. I always love this part Invisible attributes, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen. I always love this part Invisible things have been clearly seen. Actually, the Greek is aiorita, kata, aiorita. It's exactly the same word, but with a prefix on the front of the second word. In other words, invisible things are visible to men. That's what it's saying. The invisible God is highly visible to everyone. That's what this verse is saying. How, through what he has made, through creation. We've got God consciousness, verse 19. We've got creation in verse 20. It's understood, it's clearly seen. It's not just cloudy, it's clearly seen, we would say, with 20-20 vision being understood through what has been made, so that they are without what Excuse?
Speaker 2:In other words, if people you know do have to stand before God at the great white throne judgment, are they going to be able to make the excuse? You know, your existence just wasn't clear to me. Is that going to work? Is that going to be a good argument? Is God going to say you know, I haven't thought of that one, you know, and nobody else has come up here and said that either. A lot of people are going to say that and he's going to say, no, I made it clear. Notice this occasion on your life where you're actually looking at creation and you say, gosh, there's got to be something greater than me, greater than all of this. Who made this? You this? Who made this.
Speaker 2:You know, everybody has looked at it and has said that. Whether they told you about it or not, they have looked at it and realized there's a God. So they're suppressing that though. Okay, and that's why ideas like the virgin birth are just not tasteful to people who don't believe. They're not going to accept that. What does that say about the events like the virgin birth? It doesn't say anything about them. What does it say about them? It says they don't believe. That's all it says. They're giving a self-commentary. They're saying I don't believe in that. I believe in natural law, I believe all this is just there, really. But you know, you know, and that's where you look for the opportunities when they actually reveal that they do know, or you challenge. For example, when people say and everybody does that's right.
Speaker 2:As much as this culture is about relativism, moral relativism you will still hear every single person on the planet say that's wrong or that's right. How many people would like to come out and stand up here on stage and give a dissertation as to why what the Nazis did in the 1930s and 40s was right? Won't most people on the planet say what happened was wrong? Well, let me ask you a question where does that come from, this innate sense that that is wrong? How can that be? See, everybody knows, and this is just an opportunity for you to say well, if there's no such thing as right and wrong and everything's relative, then what's right for you may be wrong for me, and who cares? Then you know. But they obviously do care, because, jason Aldean, we can't have songs like that. That's wrong. You don't have any basis for making these moral judgments, yet you make them all the time. Where does that come from? So everybody knows God?
Speaker 2:Now I'll read a quote about and this is coming from quite a long time ago, in the 20th century, there was a move in theological circles called liberalism, and liberalism was theological liberalism. These are people who didn't believe in the virgin birth, they didn't believe in the miracles and stuff and so forth. Here is one famous Unitarian theologian. Unitarians are people who are not Trinitarian, so they're can you say, christians that don't believe in the Trinity, but they're Unitarian. Okay, he was the president of Harvard in the Trinity, but they're Unitarian. Okay, he was the president of Harvard at the time, charles Eliot.
Speaker 2:And this is what he says about the new conception of God and what it will be like in the 20th and 21st centuries. He says the new thought of God will be its most characteristic element. This ideal will comprehend the Jewish Jehovah, the Christian universal father, the modern physicist's omnipresent and exhaustless energy and the biological conception of a vital force. He says this is the new conception of God. It's just melding of all these things together into what we would just basically say God is. You know, like the God of Einstein. Einstein said you know, god exists. There's no possibility for God not to exist. But the question is, what did he mean by that? He wasn't talking about the Trinity. He wasn't talking about the Christian God. He wasn't talking about the Jewish God. He wasn't talking about anything like that. He was talking about he said God does not play dice with the universe. Remember that. He meant the universe is God. That's what he's talking about. It's a conception of God that he is the universe.
Speaker 2:This is why it's so difficult to talk to people about God anymore, because there are so many different conceptions of who God is. In biology, he's the evolutionary process. In physics, he's exhaustive energy, see not the infinite personal God. They're talking about impersonal processes. This is why in the 1940s and 50s, when Francis Schaeffer was over in Switzerland at Labrie. Labrie was basically a haven for anyone to come and he would address their issues as college students in the area. They would come and as long as they pitched in and worked around the house, they could stay as long as they wanted. Can you imagine opening your house to like 55 college students and you can stay as long as you want. You have to go to these evening discussions and we'll discuss anything, and he was open to discuss any ideas and of course he's a biblical theologian type guy.
Speaker 2:But he had people that came through there and here's what they believed. They had entrusted their lives to Jesus but they didn't believe God existed. In your mind you say what? How can you entrust your life to Jesus but not believe in God, in the existence of God? The categories are so muddled in our world that when you present Jesus to them, it's like that song that came out in the 90s who's she Jesus, who's she? They don't even know if they're male or female.
Speaker 2:This is why we're taking the time to try to understand what the Bible says about who Jesus is, because the world has been very busy, under satanic influences, explaining God away as just physics or exhaustive energy or evolutionary process, and Jesus explained him or her right away with it, so that people don't really know even who he is and definitely don't know what he did. So that said, how the world explains truth away and what we're really up against when we take the gospel. Thankfully it's the power of God unto salvation, right. But you still have to, when you talk to people, explain who God is. You still have to, when you talk to people, explain who Jesus is and what he did. These things have to be explained because otherwise you're just talking right past people if you haven't defined your term. Defining terms is super important, especially today when everything's been redefined.
Speaker 2:So now I'm going to take you to the Old Testament. I'm going to show you how the world should have been ready. I want you to go to the book of Genesis. When I was in seminary, one of my professors said Stanley Toussaint. He said that the most fundamental idea in the Bible is this concept that God wants to dwell with man. So I'm going to talk about three streams of evidence. One is dwelling, this concept of dwelling. The other one is going to be God and the other one will be man. But you put them all together this concept that God wants to dwell with man. And these are three stories that are going on in the Old Testament. You will see these stories very quickly. Even if you've not been a Christian very long, you'll be able to catch these ideas.
Speaker 2:So the first one if you look at Genesis, chapter 2 and verse 6 and 7, we have the creation of man. Verse 6 and 7, a mist used to rise from the earth and water the whole surface of the ground. We're talking about the earth. Right. Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being or soul. And this being, this soul, is made in the image of God. Right, for what purpose? Well, obviously, to have a relationship with God, the one whose image he bears. Now, if you look in verse 15, it says the Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to cultivate and keep it. So question was the man made, created inside the Garden of Eden or was he created outside the Garden of Eden, outside? Now you have to start to think with me, okay, about the Garden of Eden itself, what it must have been like. So it's definitely within a space and there's space outside that garden, right, we know that, because he made Adam outside, he put him in it, okay, and the question becomes what is this garden really? Is this not where God wants to dwell with man? In this garden, I'm going to call it a garden temple.
Speaker 2:In the ancient world they had the hanging gardens of Babylon. It was basically a garden park. Many kings of the ancient world had these to go and to relax in, to enjoy times of respite. They were gorgeous. I mean, you can imagine. What do you think the Garden of Eden is? It's one of these pleasure parks. It's a place where you could dwell with God. It's where you communed with God. In fact, chapter 3, verse 8 says what? Chapter 3, verse 8. After the fall, they've sowed their fig leaves.
Speaker 2:It says they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. They heard the sound of the Lord God walking the word for movement, like to and fro. We have a question what is this? Is this a force? Is this the person of God in pre-incarnate form as the Messiah who would come daily to commune with him, to walk with him inside this garden, to dwell with man. It tempts us to think this way Verses 22 to 24, 322.
Speaker 2:What happened after the curses are given to the serpent, to the woman, to the man, it says? Then the Lord God said Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. Now he might stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever. And you see, usually a dashed line there, which is what there's three indications of the meaning in Hebrew, one of which is that the sentence does not complete, which is basically my perspective. It's like saying something and you stop mid-sentence because everybody knows the rest of the sentence. You don't need to say it, but it's a very horrible thing, so just don't say it. In other words, the very horrible thing is that if man could eat from this tree and live forever in a sinful body, how terrible would that be, that we would always go on living in these sinful body. How terrible would that be that we would always go on living in these sinful bodies. How terrible would the world become, as we just acted on our sinful impulses. So it's just kind of left off.
Speaker 2:And so what did he do? Verse 24, so he drove the man out out of what? Out of the garden right and at the east of the garden of Eden. He stationed the cherry bee angels and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life. So, in other words, no access, but isn't it interesting? He drove them out east. When you get to the end of the story with Cain and Abel, cain murders his brother Abel. He goes east to the land of Nod.
Speaker 2:Throughout the Bible. If you study east, well, let's say more about east the tabernacle that is later set up by Israelites in the wilderness and later the temple that was built in Jerusalem. How many entrances were there to the tabernacle in the temple? Just one, and you entered from the east and you were going west. Moving west was moving toward God in the most holy place. But if you moved east, you were going which way? Away from God, away from God. He put them out of the garden, away to the east. Cain went east to the land, away from God. Where did the Gentile astronomers come from? They come from the east, but they went which way West toward God.
Speaker 2:This is significant in biblical ideas and the idea here is that now you've got a garden temple where God dwelled with man, communed with man, and now he is removed from that garden area, that garden temple, and he cannot come in to enter to commune with God there. Right, because there's these angels that are stationed there with a flaming sword, which is a sign for capital punishment. Try to come in here and that's it. You're dead. Right? They're guarding the way to the tree of life. So there's this concept that God wants to dwell with man from the very beginning of the Scripture.
Speaker 2:Now go to Genesis 12. Genesis 12. I'm trying, but probably not succeeding, at enlarging your views of ideas in the Bible. One of the things God promised Israel, well, three of the things. I'll give you a land, a seed, and I'll make you a worldwide blessing. Right, these aren't just promises that are put into a covenant. Verse 1,. Now the Lord said to Abram Go forth from your country, from your relatives, from your father's house, to the land. I will show you why does he want him to go to a land, to dwell with him in that land, in what will eventually be the tabernacle. Isn't that the whole purpose of the land? Isn't it like he's almost setting up another garden?
Speaker 2:Let's go to Exodus 3, verse 8. Exodus 3, verse 8. To see a little bit about this land, it's described this way Exodus 3, verse 8. To see a little bit about this land, it's described this way Exodus 3, verse 8, the story of Moses. Moses has already fled Egypt and he's down in the Sinai tending his father-in-law's sheep. In Exodus 3, verse 8,. In the story of the burning bush, it says in verse 8, so I have come down to deliver them. In the story of the burning bush, it says in verse 8, so I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians and bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with what? Milk and honey. Don't you get the sense that this is like a restored Eden? It's a place for Israel to dwell that is full of abundance of fruits and goodness, right, and cows and goats for milk and all these bees to make honey. Okay, don't you see that this land is a little different from all the other land on the earth, kind of like the Garden of Eden was different from every other place outside of it.
Speaker 2:That God is setting up a space. He calls it a spacious land, a place to dwell with man. That's what's going on with the land thing. It's not incidental. And then Exodus 25, verse 8. What are they supposed to construct? Exodus 25, verse 8. They're supposed to construct a sanctuary, a tabernacle, right, exodus 25, verse 8. Let them construct a sanctuary for me, that I may.
Speaker 2:What dwell among this is one of the most basic themes of the bible is God's desire to dwell among men and the way that he eventually makes that possible. So this word dwell from skene, this root, the word shekinah is actually from this root too, shekinah. So, like the shekinah glory that dwelled in the temple, you know the fire by night, the cloud by day. Okay, this same root here. So he's setting up a place to dwell with man, and it's his house. The tabernacle is God's house, right, it has furniture. You know the lampstand it's got you know all these things. It's basically like furniture, it's like his home, so to speak. But he wants to dwell among men. Now, it is actually a really strange thing, isn't it? I mean, why would god want to dwell with us? Um, but he made us in his own image and now, now that we're fallen, that relationship has been breached. And the rest of the story of the bible is how god is trying to bring us back into union with him, so we can commune with him. Okay, so, garden, temple, abrahamic covenant, the land in the land, there's going to be a tabernacle. God is going to dwell in that tabernacle, among them.
Speaker 2:And then we come to 1 Kings 8. 1 Kings 8. 1 Kings 8. This is the dedication of the temple. Remember, david wanted to build the temple, right, but the Lord said he wouldn't do it because he was a bloody man, he was a man of war. So it would be left to his son, solomon, to build the temple. Now, david got pretty much everything ready In builder's terminology. He'd had all the construction materials on site, almost just waiting, you know. But it was to be left to Solomon to build the temple. This is the day of the dedication of the temple.
Speaker 2:In chapter 8, verse 9, there was nothing in the ark except the two tablets of stone which Moses put there at Horeb, where the Lord made a covenant with the sons of Israel when they came out of the land of Egypt. It happened that when the priest came from the holy place, the cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priest could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord. What is the Lord doing? Isn't he dwelling? Isn't he coming to dwell among them in the form of the cloud, the Shekinah glory, come down to verse 12. Then Solomon said the Lord has said that he would what Dwell? Dwell in the thick cloud. Who do you think was in that thick cloud? There's another good one I can't remember if it's in Numbers, or I think it's in Numbers when you get a really good indication that the pre-incarnate Christ may have been in the cloud and it was the light shining out of the cloud. That was his glory.
Speaker 2:Verse 13, I have surely built you a lofty house, a place for your dwelling forever. This is a major theme in the Bible, one of the most basic themes God's desire to dwell among men. Verse 23, at the dedication, solomon, standing before the altar of the Lord, in the presence of all the assembly of Israel. He spreads out his hands, in verse 22, toward heaven and he said now he's speaking toward heaven, so he's not stupid to think that God is just stuck in this little house here, this little temple that he built. He said O Lord, the God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven, above or on earth, beneath the God, who keeps covenant and shows love and kindness to your servants, who walk before you with all their heart, who have kept with your servant, my father David, that which you promised him.
Speaker 2:Verse 2. Question, verse 27. Well, I mean in a way, in a way, a way, sure, right, but look at his answer. Behold, he says no way, no way. Heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, how much less this house which I have built.
Speaker 2:You see, he had the right perspective of the temple in the gospels, oh my, they're the sadducees who controlled the temple, the pharisees, no, no, no. They did not have the right perspective of the temple. In the Gospels, oh my, the Sadducees who controlled the temple, the Pharisees, no, no, no, they did not have the proper view of the temple. That's why, whenever Jesus talked about the temple in a way, they usually didn't like it. They were the guardians.
Speaker 2:They were going to keep God in a box right there in Jerusalem. They actually thought he was in there and that's where he is, in this little box. And God's saying to them no guys, you're the one that's in a box I created you. You're in this little box called earth. I'm above all, that I sit in the heavens. Okay, you can't put me in a box, but solomon didn't have any such notion. He knew that god wasn't contained in that little temple Verse 28,.
Speaker 2:Yet have regard for the prayer of your servant and to his supplication. O Lord, my God, listen to the cry and to the prayer which your servant prays before you today, that your eyes may be opened toward this house, night and day, the place which you have said. My name shall be there To listen to the prayer which your servant shall pray toward this place. In a sense, the best I've seen from the rabbis on this concept of the temple that's accurate is the temple was for them like a portal that reached to heaven to access God through. This is why, when you read the book of Daniel, it says that three times a day he would go to this window that faced Jerusalem, and he would go to this window that faced Jerusalem and he would pray, symbolically, showing we believe that if we pray toward the temple, that our prayers go to the temple and then up through a portal to God in heaven, so to speak. This is a way to think about it. Okay, it's a human way, but it's a way to think about it. But they weren't under the impression that, oh, god is stuck in this little house. But it was where God sought to set his house among men, so he could dwell with them, because God is interesting in dwelling with man.
Speaker 2:Now we go to the incarnation. Let's just go to Isaiah 7, 14. We've been here before. Right, it's one of the most precious passages in the whole Bible because it predicts, or prophesies, the Messiah would be born of a virgin. Right, we dealt with this a few weeks ago. Isaiah 7, 14. The Lord giving a sign here to the whole house of David, not just to King Ahaz. Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call his name what Emmanuel.
Speaker 2:Now I'm going to ask you one of the most basic Bible questions in the world. What does that name mean? Is that not the dwelling concept when the virgin birth happens? You do know what that was right. That is God who has taken to himself a true humanity. This is not just a little thing. He is in this moment in time come into the world to dwell with man, to save man. It is a remarkable moment.
Speaker 2:And the liberal theologians say we don't really need that. Okay, I guess we don't need great things from God, do we? We just need the universal pathos or some kind of evolutionary process, and I bet that really turns you on, doesn't it? That really does it for you. When you die, you're just going to go into nothingness. How does that do it for you? Does that make sense of these souls that you look around and see we're nothing but just molecules thrown together in a chance way, that you're nothing more than that, that you're basically dirt. That's all you ever have been and all you ever will be. That is the evolutionary eschatology. You're nothing, so they treat us like nothing. That's how they treat people. That's why the times of the Gentiles in the book of Daniel is characterized as a time of oppression and treatment of humanity like they are nothings, and that's how we're treated in this world. So that's a lesson on politics.
Speaker 2:The incarnation is the coming of God to dwell with man, emmanuel, god with us. Now I say this is how the Bible this theme, goes all the way through. So go to Revelation, chapter 21, and see that the Bible doesn't leave us without an expectation that what God intended originally will in fact come to pass. Revelation, chapter 21. If you're ever down, read these two chapters. If you ever get down, you can read these chapters. You can read Isaiah 40s, but these are great chapters. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth passed away. There is no longer any sea Interesting and I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband, and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying Behold the tabernacle of God. Didn't we see the tabernacle a minute ago? The tabernacle of God is among men and he will dwell among them. It's the same exact theme that we saw in Genesis, that we saw in Exodus, that we saw in Kings, that we saw in the Emmanuel and what we saw in the virgin birth. And they shall be his people and God himself will be among them and he will wipe away every tear from their eyes and there will no longer be any death, there will no longer be any mourning or crying or pain, for the first things have passed away. Amen to that. So that theme, the dwelling theme, is throughout the whole Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. Now I'm going to take you to another theme is throughout the whole Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. Now I'm going to take you to another theme. Go to Genesis, chapter 32. These all converge and look to the Messiah, genesis 32.
Speaker 2:This is the story of Jacob fighting this figure. Remember this story On the hip and the socket, genesis 32, verse 24. Then Jacob was left alone and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. Take note of the word man. A man wrestled with him until daybreak. Take note of the word man. A man wrestled with him. When he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he touched the socket of his thigh. The man touched Jacob's thigh. So the socket of Jacob's thigh was dislocated while he wrestled with him.
Speaker 2:Then he said let me go, but the dawn is breaking. But he said I will not let you go unless you bless me. That's Jacob saying I'm not going to let you go unless you bless me. So he said to him what is your name? And he said Jacob. And he said your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel. This is the origin of the name Israel, which is assigned to the nation of Israel, composed of the 12 tribes. What does the name Israel mean?
Speaker 2:Well, he tells us next, for you have wrestled with God. It says striven, but I would just translate it wrestle. You have wrestled with God and with men and you have prevailed. What in the world does that mean? I thought he was wrestling a man. Now you've wrestled with God, and what is this? Now, you've wrestled with God, and what is this?
Speaker 2:People say, oh, it's good, pre-incarnate Christ. I like to say I prefer to say these are this is the God, this is God as man. This is God as man. Is it pre-incarnate Christ? Yes, probably, okay, but I like the idea of God as man because it helps you understand in the New Testament that when Jesus is born, he's God as man. It helps you understand that.
Speaker 2:So, god as man? Now it keeps going. And, by the way, so Israel means what? Wrestles with God? This is a nation that wrestles with God. They're still wrestling with God. They keep striving with God, wrestling with God. They won't give up and they're going to keep doing it until God finally breaks their will and then, okay, they'll accept him and he'll solve his plan for them. Verse where was I? Verse 30, no 27.
Speaker 2:So he said to him what's your name, jacob. He said your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel. You've striven with God and with men and have prevailed. Then Jacob asked him and said please tell me your name. But he said why is it that you ask my name? And he blessed him there. So Jacob named the place Peniel. There used to be a camp in Texas named Camp Peniel, for Christians in the hill country near where we lived, where he said I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been preserved. See, he saw God as man. He saw the pre-incarnate Christ. That's who he was wrestling with.
Speaker 2:This figure, this strange figure through the Old Testament we see multiple times. We even saw in the garden with Adam and Eve. Right, it says they heard the sound of the Lord, god walking in the garden. It's the same person, but we're given these what we call theophanies. Okay, also, angel of the Lord, don't have time for that one. But Genesis 16.1. Who is this strange figure? The angel of the Lord that you see all through the Old Testament show up on various occasions, but then suddenly, at the birth of Christ, the angel of the Lord never shows up anymore. Was that also the pre-incarnate Christ or was it just an angel. People who de-messianize the Old Testament. They will just oh, it's just an angel. No, this was the Messiah. Why are you downplaying Messiah? We don't want to look at that Now.
Speaker 2:Part of this theme of God showing up as man is another theme called kingship, that there would be a king from the house of David right. And a king from the house of David has obviously got to be a man right, a descendant of David. So look at 2 Samuel, 7. Now let's go to 1 Chronicles. That one's harder to find, but you got 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings and you got 1 and 2 Chronicles, in that order. So 1 Chronicles, 17, 10.
Speaker 2:This is where David David wanted to build the temple. Remember, he says I want to build you a house, you know God. And God says you know, you're not going to build me a house, I'm going to build you a house. David David says well, I already got a house. I built a nice house of cedar over there. I already got a house. Well, it's a different type of house 1710. Moreover, I tell you that the Lord will build a house for you when your days are fulfilled, david, that you must go to be with your fathers that I will set up one of your descendants after you. Who?
Speaker 2:will be of your sons and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build for me a house and I will establish his throne forever. I will be his father and he shall be my son, and I will not take my loving kindness away from him, as I took it away from him who was before you, but I will settle him in my house and in my kingdom forever and his throne shall be established forever. So someone from David's line will sit on a throne and rule as king forever. Right, that's a story in the Bible, a theme. Now look at Psalm 98. I'm running out of time, you've got lots of passages here you can look at Now. The Bible teaches then that there's going to be a human king who will come to rule forever. So once he takes the throne, he's going to rule forever and ever and ever. A human. But then we have passages like this psalm, this enthronement psalm, psalm 98.
Speaker 2:Oh, sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done wonderful things. His right hand, his holy arm have gained the victory for him. The Lord has made known his salvation. He has revealed his righteousness in the sight of the nations. He has remembered his loving kindness and his faithfulness to the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. Okay, when's that? Not yet. Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth, break forth and sing for joy and sing praises. Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre. With the lyre and the sound of melody, with trumpets and sound of the horn. Shout joyfully before who? The king, the Lord. Now I thought, now this is Yahweh, yahweh, lord, god. I thought man was king. Now you're telling me there's a theme in the Old Testament that God is going to be the king. How can this work? Hint, emmanuel, emmanuel, god with us, right, god as man ruling this theme. Isaiah 52, 7,. Also Psalm 93, 1, psalm 97, 1. Verse 9, he is coming, the Lord before the Lord, for he is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with equity, justice. Finally, finally, at long last, what we all, finally, at long last, what we all long for he will rule. God will rule as king during the messianic kingdom, in the land that he has set apart for Israel to dwell among men. He will do that. That's a theme.
Speaker 2:Last one, we're in Psalms, so go to Psalm 110, verse 1. Psalm 110, 1 and 2, the most quoted verses by the New Testament authors. They go back to this passage over and over and over, and this one is a little enigmatic, a little difficult if you think about it. Verse 1, psalm 110, the Lord says to my Lord Now, there's two different words for Lord there. The first one is Yahweh, the second one's Adonai. The Lord says to my Adonai sit at my right hand. Now David's saying this. Okay, so the Lord says to my Lord. The question is, who is David's Lord? I mean, david's the king of Israel. Who's over him? Well, apparently there's this other Lord, and the Lord Yahweh is talking to this Lord of David, this Adonai. Do you start to see there's more than one person in God in a passage like this, like there's more going on, there's just one God, but there's more than one person in this one God. You start to see that happening when we get to the doctrine for the virgin birth.
Speaker 2:Trinity is the first one we'll talk about, because it's all being set up for us in the Old Testament. I mean this should have been obvious To a Jew, this should be obvious. The Lord says Yahweh says to Adonai says David, sit at my right hand. So there's somebody sitting at the right hand, we're going sit at my right hand. So there's somebody sitting at the right hand, we're going to sit at the right hand of the Father and obviously we would all say, well, it's the Son, we wouldn't have trouble with that.
Speaker 2:But do you see this theme of God coming as a man? He's the Lord of David, he's somehow over all. Yet David's also going to have an offspring and this offspring is going to rule and sit on the throne of David. Well, who is it? They're the same person, they converge in the same person. And that's why I said these three themes dwelling, god's desire to dwell, god Himself dwelling and God as man all coming together in the Messiah, born in Bethlehem, just five miles down the road from Jerusalem, announced to the shepherds, told among the people, and they lost interest. They lost interest. Isn't it like one of the saddest stories ever? Isn't it sad that by the end of the story he's come back at John the Baptist. He enters his ministry. He obviously shows that he's the king. He's not just the king of Israel, he's the king of the whole world, and they don't want to have anything to do with him and they say we'll have no king but Caesar. Away with this man Crucify.
Speaker 2:I'm going to talk about the serious sin committed by that generation. That's why it's called in Matthew 12, the unpardonable sin. It was a generational sin committed by that generation of Israel. Because they said, oh, he did all these things by the power of Satan. Well, and Jesus said then Satan's house is divided against itself, and a house divided itself can't stand, can it? So he logically refuted him from Scripture. But they still said away with this man, give us Barabbas, we'd rather have him, and we'd rather have Caesar's king than this one. And don't put that sign over his head that says Jesus, king of the Jews. Don't put that up there.
Speaker 2:I have written. What I have written says Pilate and he wrote truth. Just as God spoke through an ass in the book of Numbers, he spoke through a Gentile, caiaphas ruler, in the New Testament. He spoke truth because he is the king, god as man. And guess what folks? He and you and I will always dwell together, doesn't the end of the psalm, psalm 23, end like that and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. That is why we are not going to throw the virgin birth out. We cling to it and every church in America has got to get back to this type of truth and not play these games anymore because it's not making God happy.
Speaker 2:And you can go, listen to those liberal ministers and you wouldn't know it 90% of the time unless you are keyed in and you are listening to what they say, because a lot of those guys they don't believe it for a second. They don't believe it for a second. Well, I'm going to tell you that if we don't believe that we're all wasting our time, we need to just go do something else, because this is a total waste. This is totally true. This is what my mentor taught me. He said he was a graduate at MIT my mentor in mathematics and he became a believer when he was at MIT. And he said he came to the conclusion he's kind of a smart guy MIT.
Speaker 2:You know you can't pick and choose what's true in here. It's either all true or it's all false, and that's right. But he says you can't play the rubber Bible technique game. You know, stretch this verse that way, stretch this in that way to all make it fit like how you want it. It is what it is. I'll tell you, the best thing about it is the way it is is the best it gets. It's not what you think, or I think that's the best. It's what this says.
Speaker 2:That is the absolute best story ever, and the reason is because it's written by an infinite author, one who speaks to our hearts, one who speaks to you here today and says you know, this is true. You know I want to dwell with you. You know that I have done everything, even coming as man myself, so that God and man might be reconciled to God through the God-man. And all you have to do to have a relationship with him is what? Just believe. That's what the Philippian jailer asked. What must I do to be saved? Was it that difficult when Paul and Silas said believe in the Lord Jesus and you shall be saved? That's it. That's all you have to do.
Speaker 2:You don't have to promise you're going to live a better life. This isn't about promising to live a better life. Jesus christ lived the perfect life. He's not asking you to do it. He's saying I did it. Will you accept my merits given to you? It's a free gift, totally free. So if you haven't believed in him today, accept his free gift. I don't offer. Don't offer it. I offer it from him to you, but I can't give it to you. He's the one who gives you everlasting, just believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining us on Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas. If you would like to see the visuals that went along with today's sermon, you can find those on Rumble and on YouTube under Spokane Bible Church. That is where Jeremy is the pastor and teacher. We hope you found today's lesson productive and useful in growing closer to God and walking more obediently with Him. If you found this podcast to be useful and helpful, then please consider rating us in your favorite podcast app, and until next time, we hope you have a blessed and wonderful day.