Lesson 37

So if you take your vinyls and turn the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 2, the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 2. This morning we're going to be looking at Jesus fulfilling and superseding the Old Testament shadows of Him. And as we get into this, in order to believe next week, we'll get into the betrayal and arrest of Christ. Mark, Chapter 2. We'll try to keep things mostly in Mark at first, so it'll be easy for us to turn. If you look here in verse 23, Mark 2, 23, it says, "And it came to pass that he went through the cornfields on the Sabbath day. And his disciples began as they went to pluck the ears of corn. And behold, the Pharisee said unto him, Behold, why do they on the Sabbath day that which is not lawful?" And Jesus was always doing things on the Sabbath day. He was always working on the Sabbath day. The Old Testament law, they were not supposed to work on the Sabbath day. Jesus comes and He's working on the Sabbath day as the disciples are doing things on the Sabbath day. And Jesus does it almost as an in-your-face kind of thing to the Pharisees. And there's a reason for it. When we think back to the Sabbath rest in the Old Testament, God said, let me find my chalk here, "Six days you'll labor and do all your work, but the Sabbath day is what?" Rest. "The day of rest is the Sabbath to the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work on that Sabbath day." Okay. So here's how the week was set up. You had six days of work, then you had one day of rest. Now, tomorrow I go back to work, Lord willing. And when I go back to work, almost everybody will say, "Brother Brandon, I know I don't have my microphone, thank you, but it's broke, so we're just having to do it the old-fashioned way this morning, but thank you for letting me know." So the Old Testament Sabbath, you had six days of work, you had one day of rest, and when I go back to work tomorrow, people are going to say, "How was your weekend?" And you know what most people say? It was good, but it wasn't what? Long enough. It wasn't long enough. So people enjoy the weekend, but it's never long enough. And that's been going on since the seven-day week here in the Old Testament. Six days to get your work done, the seventh day you rest, but after that seventh day, what happens? You start the process all over again. You go right back into a cycle of six more days of work, which brings you right back to a cycle of one more day of rest, which takes you right back into a cycle of working all over again. Not only that, think about that Old Testament high priest. You had a high priest. That high priest had to offer sacrifice first for his own sense before he could offer a sacrifice for everybody else. And that high priest, even though he could offer sacrifice, let's say he offered that sacrifice in the Day of Atonement for the one goat's blood went to the mercy seat and the other goat was taken away to remove the sin. That's wonderful, but look how that works. [clears throat] They had about 360-day calendar on the Jewish calendar. So you'd have one day of Atonement, and then guess what would happen the next day? They start racking up the sins again for the entire next year that brings them back to that next one day of Atonement, which takes them then back to the next 359 days or whatever that brings them back to the next day of Atonement. So the sacrifice that the priest made had to be repeated over and over and over and over. The Sabbath rest the law gave had to be repeated over and over and over and over. The rest was never a permanent rest. The Atonement was never a permanent Atonement. The priest was never a permanent priest. Because guess what would happen? Not only would the sacrifice the priest made have to be repeated, but that priest, being a sinner himself, would ultimately what? Die. So then they had yet another priest, and they'd have to adorn him. Then he'd have to start this endless cycle of sacrifice, sacrifice, sin, sacrifice, sin, sacrifice, sin, sacrifice. So when Jesus comes on the scene, there's got to be an end to the madness. There's going to be an end to the never-ending need for rest. I was tired yesterday. I told my wife we had a... I worked five days at work. I come home and I had to meet a man and then counsel the man. And when I got through counseling the man, I didn't work on my book. I get through working on my book. I get up in the morning. I go over my sermon. I come here. I work. Then I go... It's just a never-ending. I catch up on my rest. I take me in after. Then what happens? I have to get up further to go back to work again. When Jesus comes, there is a world that should be craving a sacrifice that does not have to be repeated. A high priest that does not have to be replaced. A rest that will never end in working again. And so when Jesus comes, he begins doing work on the day that they thought they should have been resting. What can Jesus prove by working on a day when they were commanded to rest? Wouldn't he be violating the law? In some sense, unless he was fulfilling the law. You see? And by working on a day of rest, he was showing them that true permanent rest would not come by them working, but by him working. You see? They've been working six days for hundreds of years. Thousands of years. And they couldn't get but one day of rest out of it. They've been sacrificing for hundreds of years. And they couldn't get a complete sacrifice. They had to keep being repeated. Now Jesus is coming. He's going to show, "Look, I'm going to work on the Sabbath day. I want to do my work on the Sabbath day. And by so doing and my work, you'll have a rest that will never end." That's what he's showing here. That's what the people needed. He's going to offer a sacrifice and atonement on the cross. And by his atonement, as a permanent high priest, he will be the high priest that never has to be replaced. And given a sacrifice, it never has to be repeated. And that's the only way we can have true rest, right? Is if our day of atonement does not then start over with racking up sin all over again. Another day of atonement has to be repeated. But that he could die in providing atonement for sin once for all. Our past sins, our present sins, our future sins. The day of atonement in the Old Testament, atoned for the past sins of the previous year, but couldn't touch the sins of the next year. The day of atonement that the new priests would give and the new rest that would come as a result of it, that would never have to be repeated. It would be provided for the people in the past, the people in the future, and the present rather, and the sins in the future. So we can get up every day if our rest is in Christ and know that our sins of our past, the sins of our youth have been atoned for, the sins I'll commit today have already been atoned for, the sins I'll commit if I live to be 80 years old or 90 years old or already atoned for. Now that's true rest. That's a rest that doesn't have me worrying and wringing my hands at night. What am I going to do tomorrow that may get me kicked out of God's kingdom? That's true rest. Now if you'll look here back in Mark chapter 2 and verse 24 it says in the first he said, "And then behold, what new day on the Sabbath day, that which is not lawful?" And he said, "And then have you never read what David did when he had need and wasn't hungry? He and they that were with him? How he went into the house of God and the days of Eviechthah the high priest, and did eat the showbread, which is not lawful to eat, but for the priest, and gave also to them which were with him? And he said unto them, The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Therefore the Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath." It seems a little murky what he said, doesn't it? The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Therefore the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. What kind of talk is that? Well think about what Jesus is saying. God gave the Sabbath to man so he could have a day of rest. It was not good that man should be alone in the garden. It wasn't good that man should work seven days a week and never have a day of rest. Rest is good for you. And so Jesus said the Sabbath was made for man. God made the Sabbath for man. He did not make man for the Sabbath. Because God made the Sabbath for man, Jesus the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. You even got an idea what he's going to be talking about there? What do you know? John was raised his hand so we know you don't know. Because God rested in the garden of Eden. No, I don't know. I know how those older people feel. God gave the Sabbath for man. That Sabbath did not provide any eternal rest. What did God do next? Since the Sabbath is made for man, who was Jesus made for? God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting, everlasting, everlasting life, everlasting rest, everlasting peace, and everlasting priesthood. The Sabbath was made for man. Jesus was made for man. God became flesh for man that we would not perish but have everlasting life. Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath because He is the true Sabbath rest. He is the God of the Sabbath. He as God made an anointed a special day to give man one day of rest. So God anointed a special person, which is what the word Christ means, anointed. God anointed a special person to give man an eternal rest. Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. The Sabbath is not the Lord of Christ. It can't be. Jesus is going to come in and fulfill that Sabbath rest and replace it by giving us a permanent rest. And so He is Lord of the Sabbath. Now, when the people, David and his men, when they ate the showbread, and that was permitted at that time, which technically was not lawful, but they were about to perish for hunger, and they ate the showbread, which all the priests were supposed to eat. And God was merciful to show that it's not about the law. The law is about giving man money. And so we're not going to use the law to deprive the showbread to cause man to die. And who was that, what was that showbread a picture of? Jesus the Bread of Life. So here he is again, as David and his men got to eat bread and live from the tabernacle, or from the tabernacle, that was contrary to the technical law. So Jesus is coming, and people can eat Him, even though He's given contrary to that tabernacle law, because He's replacing it. He's better than it. He's the Lord of it. He's the one who gave the law to begin with, all outside. So He has the right to fulfill it, to abrogate it, whatever He chooses to do with it. Now if you'll look here in Mark chapter 3, turn to Mark chapter 3. First one, He entered again to the synagogue, and there was a man there which had a withered hand. And they watched Him, whether He would heal him on the Sabbath day, that they might accuse Him. And He saith unto the man which had the withered hand, stand forth, and He saith unto them, Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath days, or to do evil, to save life, or to kill? But they held their peace. Here he is again, doing something on the Sabbath day. Now here's the important part. If Jesus is a man, and there's a man with a withered hand, all right, I mean, He's got a deformity that everyone can tell. This can't be a made-up miracle. It's just, He's got atrophies, crippled, He's got a withered hand. And they're watching to see if Jesus will heal him on the Sabbath day. Jesus purposefully is going to heal him on the Sabbath day. If this man, Jesus, heals this man on the Sabbath day, what does it show about Jesus healing this man? Can a man heal another man like that in his own strength? No. Only God can provide that healing. If Jesus heals this man on the Sabbath day, then who actually is doing the work? God is. God's doing the work. And then thus, Jesus, the one who's doing the work through, is Lord of that Sabbath day. The Sabbath gives rest. But you know what? If you've got a withered hand, you're not resting from your infirmity on you. No, you're still encumbered and burdened down by that infirmity. There's no rest from that infirmity. But if Jesus can heal this man on the Sabbath day and give him rest from his infirmity, then we can see that the rest that God gives through Christ is greater than the rest that God gives to the wall. That make sense? A permanent rest, a rest that overcomes and gives us rest, not only from sin, not only from working to please God, but rest from every infirmity, rest from every burden that sin ever laid upon our shoulders. So watch. Jesus says, "Is it awful to do good on the Sabbath day or do evil?" Say, "You like her to kill, but they'll do peace." Verse 5, "When he had looked around, a vow on them with anger." What was he angry? "They would rather have seen that man stay crippled than Jesus give the credit for healing him. Being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he said unto the man, 'Stretch forth thy hand,' and he stretched out and his hand was restored whole as the other." Verse 6, "And the Pharisees went forth and straightway took counsel of the Hebrews against him, how they might destroy him." Now because Jesus has healed a man, they're wanting to destroy him. Jesus came showing, "God sent me. As God gave you the Sabbath, God gave me to you to give you a permanent rest, to recover you from all of your infirmities, to give you a perfect body, soul, spirit, and everlasting peace and acceptance with God." And here Jesus is healing the world and they're saying, "Let's get rid of them. Let's get rid of them. We can't have this." No, Jesus is getting all the attention now, see. Now if you'll take your Bibles and turn the look of Hebrews... Hebrews chapter 4. The Bible called a kingdom and land of rest. That's where they were starting to arrest their enemies. And God destroyed them. The problem is they got over there and they kept having trouble with their enemies. Let's look here now in verse 1, Hebrews 4 verse 1. "Let us therefore fear, lest the promise being left us, of entering into his rest, and you should seem to come short of it." The Pharisees sure came short of it, didn't they? They wanted to destroy the rest that God gave. They didn't rather have the rest that couldn't give rest than the rest that could. And so he said, verse 2, "For unto us was the gospel preached as well as unto them, that the word 'priest' did not profit them, not being mixed with faith, and then that hurt it." You can hear the gospel all day long. But if you reject it like the Pharisees did, if you reject it like the people leaving Egypt did and they didn't believe and go into Canaan, what good is it to hear it if you don't believe it? If you want to destroy it like the Pharisees did, if you don't want to accept it. Verse 3, "For we which have believed," that is, believed the gospel, "do enter into rest." Because the gospel of Jesus Christ is the good news of Jesus' rest. When we hear what Jesus did for us, what he's accomplished for us, we have rest. I no longer work for my salvation. That work was done by Christ. I don't work to please God. God is pleased with me through Jesus' work. I don't have to work. I went to visit Ms. Hinsley the other day in the hospital Friday. And the former pastor's wife here, she's so precious. She's laying in the hospital bed and she's about to go on hospice. She's getting ready to go home and see the Lord and see her husband. And here she is with all these infirmities that are taking her down and taking her physical life. And there's no strength in her to overcome death. Death is overcoming her. But thank God, we don't have to work to overcome sin and death. She can let death take her believing the gospel that Jesus is going to come back and overcome death and raise her body from the grave. That's rest. So she's able to rest right now believing the promise that God will overcome and give her a new body one day. Alright? And so do we. And so he says we would shan't believe to enter to rest. As he said, as I have sworn my wrath that they shall enter to my rest. Although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he spake in a certain place on the seventh day on this wise and God did rest the seventh day from all his works. And in this place again, that they shall enter to my rest. What he's saying is this. God, one day rests on the seventh day to remember that God finished his creation work in six days. So on the seventh day they rested acknowledging that God finished the work of creation in six days. So it was a commemoration of God's work of creation being completed. Now that Jesus has come, we don't rest the seventh day to commemorate God's work of creation being finished. We rest in Christ to commemorate that God's work of redemption has been finished. In fact, it was finished from the foundation of the world, the Bible says. Why? Because the Bible says in another place that Jesus is the Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world. All the work of our salvation in the mind of God to the Word of God, the promise of God was accomplished before you and I were ever born, before Adam was ever created and formed from the dust of the earth. And then Jesus came along and perfected or completed in reality that great work. And so there's a rest, if you'll look here in verse 6, "See therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief." Again, he limited it a certain day saying a day today after so long a time, as it is said today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. For if Jesus, and it's Joshua, remember Joshua, Jesus' same word, for if Joshua had given them rest in the Old Testament, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day. There was Joshua spoke of a day of rest in the future, which was speaking of Jesus. "There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God." Watch this now, "For he that is entered into his rest, he also has ceased from his own works as God did from his." How do we enter into God's rest? By ceasing from our work. As they quit working on the seventh day to acknowledge that there's nothing we can do to finish creation, it's already done. So we rest on the seventh day commemorating that we had no hand in making this world at all. In the same way we rest in Christ to commemorate, we had no hand in making an atonement for us at all. We had no hand in the death, the burial, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That's how we rest. We believe that all of God's salvation work is done. In realizing, believing, as the scripture says, that it is done, then we're done. We're done with it. I'm not going to lift a little finger to try to get myself into heaven. You see? Because all the work is done. I'm not going to lift a finger to get myself into heaven any more than I'll lift a finger to create the world. That work was done before me. The work of my salvation was done before me. There's a rest for the people of God, and those who believe enter into that rest. You see? When you find someone, they say, "Well, you say, 'Are you saved? You go into heaven when you die? Well, I'm working on it.'" That person doesn't believe the gospel. That'd be like going to a person on the seventh day and saying, "Well, do you believe God's creation work is finished?" "Well, I'm working on it. I'm working on creation." You see? It doesn't work that way. It's God's work, and God's work alone. Now, if you'll go to the book of Colossians, please. Colossians 2. Turn back to your left. Colossians 2. If you'll look here with me in verse 16, it says, "Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days." Don't let anyone judge you on the Sabbath days, which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ. All right? And so, let's look here at the Sabbath days. Myles says, "The Sabbath is a shadow of things to come, and the body is of Christ." So, Christ as... Look, can you see my shadow here on the board? "That's the shadow. I'm the body. The shadow is not me. It's just a depiction of me. It's just a shadow." In the same way, the Sabbaths in the Old Testament, the rest that God gave in those Sabbaths of the Old Testament, they were just a shadow of the true rest that would come. So, those Sabbaths in the Old Testament are the shadow. Jesus is the body. Now, which is best, the shadow or the person that cast the shadow? The person that cast the shadow, of course. The shadow is nothing in reality. It only depicts the reality of the person who shadowed the cast. In the same way, today, that's what we're meeting on Sunday instead of the Sabbath day, which was yesterday. Yesterday was the seventh day, we're meeting on Sunday to commemorate Jesus and then accomplish our salvation. Our rest is now in Him. And so, He says, "Don't let anyone judge you and the Sabbaths anymore." There's some people, you know, heard of Seventh-day Adventists. They say, "Oh, we've got to worship on Saturday." And they say, "If you worship on Sundays, it's not when we worship, it's what we worship. It's why we worship. And we worship because we entered into risk. And so, they're still stuck back in the shadows, but we have the full substance and body. We understand the truth. They're still wrestling with the shadows. And it's a very sad thing. So, with that now, we'll go ahead and close today. Understand that Jesus came. He is greater than the Old Testament priest. He never dies. He never has to offer a sacrifice for Himself. He is greater than the sacrifice that they've offered. His sacrifice will never have to be repeated. And because of that, He will give not a temporary rest, but His sacrifice on the cross will give a permanent rest that will never need to be repeated. All right? With that, we'll go ahead and install. I visited a man yesterday, and he was so concerned about, "Well, what if I quit living good enough? What if I don't do good enough?" You know? And that's not rest. That's not rest at all. And so, I had to keep calling him to Jesus, saying, "Jesus has done it all. You know, all He has to do is just rest in Him and quit struggling to try to keep Himself in favor of God." With that, we'll go ahead and stop. And Lord willing, we'll see you all next door in our warm worship.