Sermon

The Harrowing of Hell

Frontier Church

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  1. Well, good evening. Thank you, thank you.

  2. If I have, don't know you. My name is Andrew me.

  3. And my wife, and our three kids. We used to be a part of Frontier

  4. church. And about a year and a half ago,

  5. we moved down to Texas where we are currently serving in student

  6. Ministry down there. So we've just been here for a

  7. handful of days and it's been a joy to be with you.

  8. So thank you for allowing me this privilege to teach tonight.

  9. And to talk about something that is often misunderstood or is

  10. just not thought about it all. I've got a couple of goals for

  11. us tonight and hopefully you've seen.

  12. I'm still on the frontier Church text messaging list so I know

  13. Cole has been blasting you with. Hey, here's what's coming up?

  14. Here's some articles to read. So I know that you hopefully

  15. understand what, what what tonight is about.

  16. But we're going to be talking about the harrowing of Hell or

  17. the dissensus, or the Christ descent into the underworld, or

  18. his descent into hell. And we're going to unpack that

  19. here in just a little bit. But on the outset of teaching, I

  20. just want to give you my two goals for the tonight.

  21. I've got two goals, the first goal.

  22. Is I want you to have handles to hold on to this doctrine of

  23. Christ descent things that you can hold on, you say, okay.

  24. I know what this is. I understand it.

  25. I know how this impacts my life. That's goal.

  26. Number one and the goal. Number two is, I want you to see

  27. how Christ descent gives us joy. How Christ is sent should cause

  28. us to worship Him and love him. And follow him, more closely to

  29. simple goals. And then a disclaimer, there is

  30. a lot of content about this doctrine of Christ to Ending

  31. into hell tons of it. I've got 30 minutes tonight.

  32. Hopefully, I will stay within that those boundaries, but I've

  33. sent through a lot of coal sermons or he went over the

  34. boundaries of 30 minutes or 50 minutes.

  35. So I might get to just drop a nuke tonight and he gets to deal

  36. with all the Pastoral ramifications of that.

  37. But anyway, so there should be some things.

  38. There should be some rocks that were not going to uncover and

  39. see what's hiding under those rocks.

  40. But what I want to do tonight is to give you an overview of what

  41. this Doctrine is. And how this leads us to find

  42. our joy in Jesus and to follow him.

  43. So I'm going to pray and they were to look at a few passages

  44. of scripture and that what I want to show us is how this

  45. actually impacts our daily lives how this impacts the way we

  46. think about Jesus and how this impacts the way that we think

  47. about ourselves. So let's pray and I'm going to

  48. dig into God's word together. Father, I thank you so much for

  49. this church. I think you that after a year

  50. and a half, I get to return and see how this church family has

  51. grown, and is flourishing. And not just because they have a

  52. building. But because of people who are

  53. investing in people in this church, I think you for this

  54. pastoral team in Frontier and how they, they feed the flock,

  55. and how they shepherd, the flock of God, and how they understand

  56. that, they are under Shepherds who were being shepherded by

  57. Jesus. I think you for the people who

  58. loudly they are truths through song on Sunday morning.

  59. It's a beautiful picture to see people who come from different

  60. walks of life and different backgrounds and come together as

  61. God's people and worship. And declare that Jesus is king

  62. of kings. And he's the Lord of lords that

  63. he is, Sovereign over all. And so, I think you for the

  64. blessing that Frontier church, has been to my family and how

  65. they've been a blessing to the city of Des Moines.

  66. And so I pray that you would continue to bless them that you

  67. would give them Grace and that you would continue to show them

  68. your kindness. In the powerful name of Jesus

  69. that we declare these things and ask these things of you, amen.

  70. All right, so tonight we are talking about Christ descent.

  71. We're talking about him, going down into the underworld after

  72. he's crucified. And I've been, I was a part of

  73. Frontier for about five and a half years and pretty much from

  74. day one. We've competitive confessed, the

  75. Apostles Creed, we did that tonight and you see this phrase

  76. pop up? He descended into hell.

  77. I don't know if you're like me, I grew up Baptist.

  78. I was Southern Baptist my entire life.

  79. I serve in a Southern Baptist Church now, and I would bump

  80. into That phrase, he descended into hell and that would freak

  81. me out. Like, what are you toeses think?

  82. Talking about you, Tommy the Jesus descended into hell, and

  83. that's because I believed my only understanding of that word

  84. h-e-l-l-o meant a place of eternal torment and so I did

  85. hear that and be like families. Catholics are weird.

  86. Why are we reading this Apostles Creed thing, and those press,

  87. those, those anglicans, they are some weird Falk.

  88. They believe that Jesus descended into hell, what, what

  89. is going on here? But as I've grown and come to a

  90. Understand the scriptures more richly and understanding what

  91. the Apostles Creed is trying to accomplish.

  92. It gave me a broader view of what Jesus did on behalf of

  93. those who would follow him. And so we're looking at the

  94. dissension of Christ into hell. We're looking at him going into

  95. the Afterlife and I want to flush that out here more in just

  96. a second but we all know about Good Friday.

  97. Good Friday, we may wear black clothing.

  98. You try to take on a more somber tone.

  99. We turn the lights down, we leave in silence and so we

  100. celebrate, and we mourn our sin and know that Jesus has been

  101. crucified on behalf of the faithful.

  102. We know that. And then we have this Saturday,

  103. they were like well I guess we're just waiting.

  104. We just going to fill these Easter baskets baskets on

  105. Saturday night. So the kids can have them and we

  106. really don't know what to do with Saturday and then and then

  107. Easter Sunday morning, we could celebrate and sing our guts out

  108. about Christ. Resurrection, but there's this

  109. time in between that we neglect often in our theology, in our

  110. understanding of Christ's Ministry that that, that we can

  111. squeeze out more joy out of it. And so this this day Saturday

  112. which throughout church history has been known as Holy Saturday.

  113. We look at what Jesus did whenever he was dead.

  114. We'd look at we're all pretty familiar with Christ died and

  115. then Christ was resurrected, but what do you do on the

  116. in-between? What's what He accomplished

  117. while his body was dead, while his lungs had no breath in them

  118. while his heart had no beet inside his chest.

  119. What is Christ at work doing? What does he accomplishing in

  120. his death and this doctrine of Christ descending into hell?

  121. The dissensus, the harrowing of hell, we see that Christ even

  122. though his body is dead, his spirit is at work on behalf of

  123. God's people and God's glory and God's judgment over the forces

  124. of evil. There's so much that we can

  125. learn. From this one day this Holy

  126. Saturday and understand what Jesus was doing for us.

  127. And I love this Doctrine, just really a few years ago is

  128. whenever I started to understand it and really fall in love with

  129. with this Doctrine. And so I hope that tonight what

  130. we accomplished here in these next, few moments will be

  131. helpful for you and that whenever you get to Holly

  132. Saturday here in a few weeks that it your Holy Saturday won't

  133. be wasted but that you'll actually know what to do.

  134. You'll know what to celebrate on that Saturday before Easter

  135. Sunday it. So we're going to look at three

  136. passages here and what I really want to do is present you kind

  137. of with what one of my favorite theologians will call a matrix

  138. of ideas, how all these ideas operate with one another and

  139. present us with information about who Jesus is?

  140. So the first pass is going to look at and if you want to turn

  141. there and your scriptures or turn on your glowy screen and

  142. and figure out what's going on there, you can turn to

  143. Revelation 1 and we'll look at 7 verses 17 and 18, Revelation, 1

  144. 17 and 18. But we're going to start here,

  145. and we're going to kind of use this as a launching pad.

  146. And as I said earlier, there's a whole mine that we can dig and

  147. bring things back up to the surface and the passages that

  148. we're look at tonight, we're not going to have time to do all of

  149. that. And I'll if you want to catch me

  150. after we're done tonight, I can give you some more resources,

  151. Point some books out to you that have been really helpful for me.

  152. But we're to look at these passages and scrape the surface

  153. and then I get to leave and then I get to hear about what

  154. Frontier does next year on Holy Saturday.

  155. And how you guys are Going down into the mines, digging up these

  156. jewels that we find in these passages.

  157. Let me read read for us here. When I saw him, I fell at his

  158. feet as though dead, but he laid his right hand on me saying,

  159. fear not. I am the first and the last and

  160. the living one, I died and behold.

  161. I am alive for Evermore and I have the keys of death and

  162. Hades. Two verses there that I probably

  163. read. I don't know how many times in

  164. my life in the Bible reading plan or just me being bored.

  165. Like, let's look at this kooky stuff and Revelation these two

  166. simple versus here. Kind of set the stage for us.

  167. So we have John, who is given this Revelation by God, and he

  168. is encountering Jesus. And he's having this

  169. conversation with Jesus and John falls down at Jesus feet and

  170. he's freaking out. He says I it was basically like

  171. I was dead. I just fell on my face.

  172. Face and then Jesus lays his right hand on John.

  173. And he says, fear not. Why is he not supposed to fear,

  174. will? He unpacks and things but he

  175. says, behold I have the keys of death and Hades.

  176. What is, what does that mean? We could do a whole study on

  177. language of keys in the Old Testament and the ancient world

  178. and the Greco-Roman culture of the study of keys.

  179. We're not, we don't have the time for that tonight, but what

  180. Jesus is saying, is that I have ownership over death, and over

  181. Hades, Hades is the Greek word for hell and not just a place of

  182. eternal torment. But the place where, when you I

  183. your soul goes somewhere, your spirit goes somewhere, and to

  184. understand this more fully. We have to think about how

  185. people conceptualize the world. And this time frame, they view

  186. the world as a, it was a three, tiered Cosmos.

  187. There were the heavens, there's the Earth, and there's the realm

  188. under the Earth and that realm under the Earth is where your

  189. soul goes to after you die. And for God's people, his

  190. faithful people in the Old Testament, we see them expecting

  191. something to happen. After they died, when their soul

  192. is separated from their bodies, they they have hope that God is

  193. going to reunite their bodies and their souls.

  194. And in Revelation, we see this unfold that one day, there's a

  195. new heavens and a new Earth. But but where do where do these

  196. souls go? When they die, will they go into

  197. the underworld? If you were to ask someone 5,000

  198. years ago, four thousand years ago, three thousand years ago,

  199. two thousand years ago. What happens when you die, they

  200. would tell you, well our souls, leave our bodies because we If

  201. that we're not just we're not just sacks of flesh but there's

  202. something that inhabits our bodies.

  203. And when we die, when our blood isn't getting pumped through our

  204. bodies, whenever our lungs aren't pushing air in and out

  205. our souls depart somewhere and it goes into the underworld, it

  206. goes into Shale is the Hebrew word for this and the Hebrew

  207. understanding or it goes into Hades which is the Greek

  208. understanding of the afterlife but you'll see this language of

  209. Underworld. So when I swear I'm going to use

  210. these words very interchangeably tonight but Shale Hades

  211. underworld Realm of the dead. It's this this concept of when

  212. you die, your soul goes somewhere, you don't just cease

  213. to exist. You don't just you're not just

  214. annihilated. But you, your soul goes

  215. somewhere in the hope for God's faithful people.

  216. And the Old Testament is that God would resurrect you.

  217. He would reunite your body and your soul and you would Rule and

  218. reign with him forever. So that's come to understanding

  219. of, okay? There's this three-tiered Cosmos

  220. Heaven Earth, the underworld where you go when you die.

  221. And you're there. And it's not, it's not that

  222. you're being punished as an Unfaithful as a faithful

  223. follower of God, but you're in this, not Purgatory, but your

  224. soul goes somewhere and is waiting for something.

  225. And now we see in this Revelation to John, that Jesus

  226. says, I hold the keys of death and Hades.

  227. I have ownership. I can unlock these Gates.

  228. I am the title holder here. If you want to, you want to see

  229. the deed to this property? I got this deed to this

  230. property. I own the these things.

  231. Jesus tells him this because it tells John this to, hey, don't

  232. be fearful. Don't be afraid.

  233. I own death. I own the underworld.

  234. I own these things. I have rule over these things.

  235. I have sovereignty over these things and that should comfort

  236. you, John, and today, that should comfort us knowing that

  237. Jesus has authority over all things, the little things and

  238. the big things, he's authority over all of those things.

  239. And so, I wanted us to jump into this passage first.

  240. Just to show us, Jesus has authority over.

  241. Life and death. And the Underworld, the place

  242. that your soul goes when you die or at least in one cover.

  243. This more in a little bit. I'm getting ahead of myself, but

  244. we see, Jesus Authority, that should give us joy.

  245. When we see Jesus, Jesus have authority over all things.

  246. I don't know about you, but my life has been out of control a

  247. time or two people that I love and know their lives have been

  248. out of control after a time or two, but the hope that we have,

  249. as followers of Jesus is that he He is in control of all things.

  250. Nothing is a surprise to him. So, John is being comforted

  251. with, with the knowledge of Jesus Authority, his ownership,

  252. his holding the keys, Over Hades and death.

  253. I used to have a key to Noche were Frontier gathered a while

  254. back. I had this since kind of sense

  255. of ownership but I don't own that building Frontier.

  256. Only went up in there one son once a week on Sunday mornings.

  257. So, I had this illusion of ownership, but Jesus, there's no

  258. illusion of ownership with Jesus, he totally owns

  259. everything. He has control over Hades, the

  260. underworld He has control over death.

  261. So we're starting here because well if Jesus has the keys of

  262. Hades and death will then what does that imply?

  263. It implies that he had to go somewhere to get these keys and

  264. there's like a I'll punch a complaint.

  265. You some really helpful resources on just this concept

  266. of Jesus having the keys, there's an awesome book called

  267. The Battle of the keys. And it's about what Jesus did

  268. when he descended. And so we're starting here of

  269. Jesus, whenever he was crucified, he died as king Jimmy

  270. would say he gave up the ghost, his spirit.

  271. Descended into the underworld and he battles for the keys.

  272. He snatches the keys from Satan's grasp and now he owns

  273. it. And we'll show, I'll show you

  274. why that's important to understand him battling for the

  275. keys and having the keys in our next passage.

  276. So Jesus having these Keys implies that he went somewhere

  277. to get these keys. So the next passage I want to

  278. point us to is First Peter chapter 3 First.

    1 Peter 3 chapter mention 1 Peter 3 chapter mention

  279. Peter chapter 3 will look at verses 18 to 22.

  280. First Peter 3, 18 to 22. So kind of laid the foundation

  281. here of Jesus, is the owner of these keys of death and Hades.

  282. Well, why is that significant What's going on here?

  283. Well, in First, Peter 3, Peter is writing to a church that is

  284. suffering or they're about to experience more suffering.

  285. There's a lot of debate on exactly what's going on but

  286. there is a level of suffering that Peter is addressing in

  287. these churches that are scattered about Asia Minor and

  288. he writes to them, he addresses their suffering and then he says

  289. for Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the

  290. unrighteous that he might bring us to God, being put to death

  291. and The flesh but made alive in the spirit.

  292. Oh, that seems like we've heard that about Peter.

  293. Yeah, we've heard. We've heard you talk about some

  294. things like this before. We've heard Paul talked about

  295. some things like that before, and then he goes on in which he

  296. went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison.

  297. What are you talking about here Peter?

  298. He went to his Spirit went and he proclaimed to the spirits in

  299. prison. Where is this prison located?

  300. And he goes on to say because they formerly did not obey when

  301. God's patience waited in the days of Noah while the ark was

  302. being prepared in which a few that is eight persons were

  303. brought slave safely through water baptism which corresponds

  304. to this now saves you know as a removal of dirt from the body

  305. but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, Through the

  306. resurrection of Jesus Christ who has gone into heaven and is at

  307. the right hand of God with angels authorities and Powers

  308. having been subjected to him. There's a lot of stuff in there,

  309. like I've heard that before, then you kind of hear, he

  310. wouldn't proclaimed a Spirits in prison.

  311. What is what's going on here? There's a lot of things that

  312. Peters assuming in addressing his original audience and we can

  313. we'll pull back a couple layers here but what Peter is assuming

  314. in his audiences that they're familiar with the story and it's

  315. called first Enoch where Enoch and it's a way we could no doubt

  316. on this and spin like seven hours talking about this

  317. tonight. But I'm trying to be I'm trying

  318. to be helpful. Be helpful in If you help.

  319. Okay. But it's a story and it's a

  320. fictional story is not in the scriptures, it's not canonical,

  321. but it's the story of Enoch. He was a righteous man he walked

  322. with God and he is taken for he is not so he never tasted death

  323. and then Enoch gets summons by these spirits who were

  324. imprisoned in hell and the underworld are in the

  325. unrighteous compartment of hell and they gets he gets summoned

  326. by them so he not goes down there and he's like what's up

  327. guys? And you know and they totally

  328. knock hey Can you go tell God that?

  329. We're sorry for this whole thing that we this whole Genesis 6

  330. thing where we were the sons of the most high.

  331. We were sons of God and we came down, we made it with women.

  332. We made babies made these things called Nephilim and that guy

  333. kind of wild not a hand. We did a lot of bad stuff but

  334. please tell him that we are sorry and we'll never do it

  335. again. And so you knock goes into God's

  336. presence and he tells God hate these dudes down here.

  337. They said that they're sorry, and that they'll never do it

  338. again. And then God says, You can tell

  339. them it's just as bad and I got some bad news for you.

  340. You're not going to be released from your change.

  341. You're going to remain imprisoned, you're going to be

  342. punished, you're going to be destroyed.

  343. And so Enoch takes his journey back down, talk to these.

  344. These homies who were in Chains and tells him hey God said that,

  345. it's cool that you're sorry but you can't undo what you have

  346. done. There is no forgiveness for you.

  347. You're going to be continued to remain and imprisoned here and

  348. so he preaches to them and then you knock goes back, elsewhere.

  349. And so, that's kind of an assumption.

  350. This was a very popular story that existed in Jewish culture

  351. and so Peter, we may not pick up on this stuff immediately, but,

  352. but Peters, audiences connect kind of have this in the back of

  353. their minds, this dissension to preach to these Spirits in

  354. prison and then Enoch goes back into God's presence.

  355. And so, what we see Peter doing here, as he says, he's using

  356. Enoch as a typology pointing to Jesus, And what Peter says is

  357. Christ, he was righteous, but he suffered for the unrighteous,

  358. and he was made dead in his flesh.

  359. But alive in his Spirit, he was made alive in his spirit, so he

  360. could go and preach to Spirits who were imprisoned.

  361. And so Jesus on, Holy Saturday, he is crucified and his Spirit

  362. descends into the underworld. And he goes on a preaching tour

  363. that we said that word proclaim here and most translations in

  364. English, but a better way to to help us understand this in a

  365. better translation. Is that he preached.

  366. So Jesus is going on this preaching to her, he shows up

  367. into the underworld and these evil spirits who rebelled

  368. against God in Genesis chapter 6, They're probably like a week

    Genesis 6 chapter mention

  369. got this, dude, he thought he could trick us, he thought he

  370. could, he thought he was gonna just be hot stuff and he was

  371. never gonna die while we got him.

  372. And Jesus says, hey, I've got some bad news for you guys.

  373. I'm only going to be up in here for just a little bit and I'm

  374. going to be resurrected and I'm gonna be the first fruit of New

  375. Creation. My, my body is dead.

  376. My spirit is alive. And so Jesus, preaching the

  377. gospel to these evil spirits, the Spiritual Beings were in

  378. prison who stepped outside of their bounds.

  379. As we see elsewhere in scripture to describe this, Yeah.

  380. But there is no hope for forgiveness for them.

  381. There is no hope for a change of heart for them, but Jesus doing

  382. is he's, I picture in my mind, he's rattling.

  383. The cages of their jail cell and saying, what you have done is

  384. going to be undone by me. I have the keys now, I could let

  385. you out if I wanted to, but I'm not going to let you out.

  386. I could do this but I'm not going to because what you have

  387. done is you've perverted Humanity?

  388. You have brought more corruption into Humanity, you have brought

  389. you or agents of the kingdom of darkness, but the king of

  390. darkness is not going to overpower the Kingdom of Light.

  391. The city of man, the evil city of man is not going to overpower

  392. the city of God. This Kingdom you tried to build

  393. is not going to be powerful enough to wage war.

  394. That is going to be that. It's going to be thwarting.

  395. The kingdom of God, Jesus has the keys.

  396. He's Jingling the keys in front of them.

  397. Hey, you guys want to get out? Oh, psych.

  398. You can't get out, but they were also what he's doing.

  399. And we see this in Ephesians chapter 4 verses 8 and 9.

    Ephesians 4:8

  400. We have a ton of time to get into that.

  401. But, but it talks about Jesus descending.

  402. There's a lot of debate on this passage and I can show you later

  403. why there's debate on this but talks about Jesus descending to

  404. the lower regions. If you have the ESV is going to

  405. say the lower regions comma the Earth.

  406. There's other translations that would say the lower regions in

  407. the earth. I just read a toll call like I

  408. would read a bunch of stuff other night and it kind of gave

  409. me too much content and I just verbally diary and up here right

  410. now as a result of that. But I think I think the more

  411. helpful translation is that he did descend into the lower

  412. regions of the earth. He goes down in there.

  413. And what he does is, he leads a host of captives and he gives

  414. gifts to men. And so Jesus, not only does he

  415. go on a preaching tour and Proclaim his victory over the

  416. principalities and over the darkness and over the evil

  417. Spiritual Beings, but he also does something else.

  418. He leads a host of captives and gives gifts to men, Luke talked

  419. about on Sunday, and I hate that he's not here because I was

  420. gonna give him a hard time about just because it's fun to do to

  421. Luke, but, but he talked about God's victory, over the Gods on

  422. the Earth. He set me up real well for

  423. tonight. God is going to destroy these

  424. gods that are on the earth that are leading God's people astray

  425. and causing them to worship idols.

  426. And now what we see in Jesus descent as him and his victory

  427. over the Spiritual Beings and the underworld under the Earth.

  428. Jesus, secures Victory on the cross whenever he is the perfect

  429. spotless atoning sacrifice. And then he goes down into the

  430. underworld and he proclaims his victory, he proclaims that.

  431. What I have done my perfect life, my sacrificial death.

  432. This was sufficient to rescue people who were in the

  433. Underworld and Usher them into God's presence.

  434. And so, Jesus goes on this preaching tour, it's like, eight

  435. pronounces, judgment pronounces that there is no hope for these

  436. rebellious Spiritual Beings, but then he also brings out.

  437. God's faithful people that are in the Underworld, I should have

  438. mentioned us earlier. And the way that people

  439. conceptualize the underworld, as there is an unrighteous

  440. compartment of this not should have put a graphic on the screen

  441. but, you know, I'm not like coal and all that graphics on screens

  442. but there's an unrighteous compartment where the people who

  443. have rejected God and the following other gods are and

  444. where evil Spiritual Beings are. And then there's the righteous

  445. compartment where the Old Testament Believers were

  446. located. But when Jesus goes down in

  447. there, he leads a host of captives.

  448. He brings God's faithful people out of this out of the

  449. underworld. Old and brings them into God's

  450. presence. He gives gifts to men.

  451. If you look at later on and if he's in chapter 4, what Jesus

  452. does is the gifts that he is giving our roles in the church

  453. that benefit the church and that build up the church where he's

  454. building up his kingdom. Within These Little mobile human

  455. beings, who are images of God and who are filled with God's

  456. presence. They are now that they're the

  457. new temples that are walking around and saw Jesus.

  458. He pronounces judgment Heap. Announces victory in the

  459. Underworld but he also rescues a group of people.

  460. And Peter also goes on here in First Peter chapter 3 he uses

    1 Peter 3 chapter mention

  461. Enoch was kind of the story of Enoch.

  462. That's in the social imagination to show that Jesus is better

  463. than Enoch. He's stronger than Enoch, he's

  464. more powerfully than Enoch. He didn't just like Enoch, he

  465. didn't, just go and preach he preached.

  466. But then, he rescued and led people out of out of the

  467. underworld and to God's presence.

  468. And that's good news for us because whenever our souls

  469. depart from our bodies Upon Our death, Is that we don't just go

  470. into the underworld? We get to be like that thief on

  471. the cross, who Jesus says today you will be with me in Paradise.

  472. We get to be in God's presence and if you know your Bibles and

  473. you know, Revelation when you know that it's not the end of

  474. Heaven is not just like Cole said the other day on our pot,

  475. on the podcast, Heaven is not the end zone.

  476. Heaven is the red zone there is going to be a day that comes

  477. whenever we die in our souls. Go to be present with Christ.

  478. There's going to be a day that comes where Heaven and Earth are

  479. going to overlap and it's going to be a new Heaven and it's

  480. gonna be a new Earth. The Whole Earth is going to be

  481. the Garden of Eden as we better than anything we could possibly

  482. imagine. But our souls, and our bodies

  483. are going to reunite all because of what Jesus has done on the

  484. cross and in his dissent. And so we have the hope that

  485. we're not just going to be this, disembodied spirit for eternity

  486. and that was still be sweet enough, right?

  487. We get to be disembodied floating around with our that

  488. looks like as a disembodied spirit with Jesus, but, but

  489. Jesus is returning back to God's.

  490. I bring returns us back to God. Odds ideal of being embodied

  491. spirits, who dwell and Rule, and Reign alongside God as a

  492. glorious reality, that Jesus has accomplished on behalf on our

  493. behalf. I don't know about you, I

  494. couldn't accomplish this, right? I've sent a couple of times as

  495. I've been here. There's a long story, but

  496. anyway. Yeah, stay up way too late every

  497. night this week. My kids have stayed up way too

  498. late every night this week, but the last text that I want to,

  499. that want to point us to. We've looked at Revelations, we

  500. looked at John. Look at First Peter, we've heard

  501. Peters encouragement of the church that hey, I know, you're

  502. suffering and suffering is gonna get worse for you.

  503. But Jesus not only suffered on the cross for you but he also

  504. descended into hell. And proclaimed his victory over

  505. over sin and over death to that, that should help you.

  506. That should help you be motivated to pursue

  507. righteousness whenever you're being persecuted.

  508. We've looked at those those two two pieces of scripture and if

  509. you might think that, well, this is just what these guys, this

  510. was their interpretation of what Jesus had to do.

  511. They just kind of came up with this, on their own, but if we

  512. take a gander at Matthew chapter 12, we see that Jesus has this

    Matthew 12 chapter mention

  513. in his in his mind, as well. The Jesus.

  514. Talks about him descending wasn't just what some guys were

  515. like. It'd be cool if we wrote some

  516. stories about Jesus descending into hell.

  517. That wouldn't that be awesome if we talk about that?

  518. But Jesus conceptualize this as well.

  519. In Matthew chapter 12 verses 38 to 42 you probably got the

    Matthew 12:38–42

  520. heading in your scriptures that says something like the the sign

  521. of Jonah May have some different language there, but and the ESV

  522. what I've got here is the sign of Jonah.

  523. And so Jesus is talking with these fools, the scribes the

  524. Pharisees and they were talking to him and they said, hey

  525. teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.

  526. Jesus has been engaging, these scribes and the Pharisees, and

  527. they've been dogging him and trying to get them, but Jesus

  528. knows who they are and Jesus Jesus.

  529. So he is going to win and Jesus answers them an evil and

  530. adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be

  531. given to it except the sign of the prophet.

  532. Jonah for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in

  533. the belly of the great fish. So will the son of man be three

  534. days and three nights in the heart of the Earth, the men of

  535. Nineveh will rise up at the Judgment with this generation

  536. and condemn it for they repented at the preaching and behold

  537. something greater than Jonah is here.

  538. The queen of the South will rise up at the Judgment with this

  539. generation and condemn it for. She came from the ends of the

  540. Earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon and behold something

  541. greater than Solomon is here. So Jesus uses Jonah as an

  542. archetype, as a typology of what he is going to do.

  543. If you don't remember the story of Jonah, which as long as you

  544. don't remember it, as Like in terms of VeggieTales then you

  545. can kind of understand what's going on here.

  546. Jonas told to go preach to Nineveh caught, tell them to

  547. repent and Jonah says, no, I don't like those guys.

  548. And so Jonah goes, the exact opposite direction gets on a

  549. boat. The boat starts rocking in a row

  550. on. The sailors are praying to all

  551. their guys and they're like, yo, don't know, why are you asleep

  552. in this boat? Man?

  553. We're about to all about to die. I pray to your God.

  554. And so I was like, hey, this is because of me, guys.

  555. If you chunk me over the the edge of this boat will be good

  556. to go. So they tossed Jonah over the

  557. boat and he goes into the water and he's like, okay, cool.

  558. I finally Like I'm for sure, not going to Nineveh.

  559. Now I'm going to die, I'm going to drown and then this fish

  560. comes in Scoops, Jonah out. And then we see Jonah kind of

  561. come to terms. He kind of repents he prays this

  562. prayer and Jonah talks about him being in the pits, which another

  563. way to think about that as Jonah was envisioning himself.

  564. As in Shale. He was, he was in this place and

  565. he had descended down. And then he gets spewed out onto

  566. the shores and he had goes to Nineveh and preaches.

  567. And Jesus says uses this as the sign of Jonah, these scribes and

  568. Pharisees are wanting a sign they wanted Jesus to do

  569. something that and Jesus has been providing, all these signs

  570. has been healing. People casting out demons, and

  571. preaching and teaching, but they want something more in, Jesus

  572. says, what I'm going to do, I'm going to take on the sign of

  573. Jonah Jonah. Went into a fish for this amount

  574. of time but I'm going to go into the heart of the earth.

  575. So Jesus is saying I'm going to go into anyone.

  576. Say that the understanding is that he's going into the place

  577. of the dead, that's where he's going to be.

  578. He's descending down in there and then he's going to rise up

  579. again victoriously and he's going to have this preaching

  580. tour just like Jonah did Jonah went and preached around in

  581. Nova. Looks very short and what we

  582. have in the scriptures but Jesus while he's descended and why

  583. he's resurrected preaches. Then he resurrects and it is at

  584. this as a sign of the power of God that he holds the keys.

  585. That he has authority over all things that death cannot control

  586. him. That's a lot of information, a

  587. lot of content, right? There's probably some murky

  588. areas that I left there and I'm some of them.

  589. I left intentionally murky to. So you can have some follow up

  590. with coal while I'm gone. We recorded a podcast yesterday

  591. that maybe can be complementary to this.

  592. But as I said, the beginning, I wanted to give you some

  593. information to give you handles onto this doctrine of what

  594. happened when Christ died, the you just die and go take a nap.

  595. That he died and just wait for his resurrection or was he at

  596. work? I think the scriptures have

  597. given us an information here that Jesus was at work.

  598. At First Peter 3 pack, text has become one of my favorite

  599. passages because it shows him at were even, Jesus Is So Glorious.

  600. And so powerful, that even while his body is dead, his soul is

  601. securing the hope and the destiny of the faithful.

  602. The Jesus, even when his, whenever his body is lifeless

  603. his soul. Is proclaiming victory over the

  604. kingdom of darkness. Let that sink in to your to your

  605. mind in your heart. That's how powerful our Jesus

  606. is. Our King has his Reign, never

  607. ends and even when it looks like he lost there on the cross, he

  608. didn't his economy is upside down from that than that of

  609. other kings, he died so that he could be a sacrifice, but he

  610. died. So also he could go down and

  611. Proclaim judgment over the principalities in the rulers of

  612. Darkness that are in the Underworld.

  613. That's how powerful Jesus. Is that should give us joy.

  614. That should give us, hope it does this Doctrine.

  615. I'll end with this here before we get to respond, to the power,

  616. and the Majesty of Jesus. But this, this Doctrine has been

  617. special to me and several ways. This as I talk with people who

  618. have a fear of death, as I think about my depression and anxiety,

  619. as I think about the evil that exists in this world, embracing

  620. the doctrine of Christ descent into hell.

  621. Helps me combat those things. Helps me combat where I think

  622. that things are just not going to get better.

  623. And you guys, if you were a part of Frontier year and a half ago,

  624. so I'm going to bawl my eyes out and I was just a point where I

  625. felt like nothing was ever going to get better.

  626. There's gonna be stuck in this state, embracing this doctrine

  627. of Christ descent that he suffered on my behalf and

  628. descended into the place of the dead and he pronounced victory

  629. over the rulers of Darkness. He pronounced a victory over

  630. sin. He pronounces victory.

  631. Over death, that's come. I was comforting for me to

  632. embrace him that to think that Jesus didn't just suffer.

  633. But even when he was dead, he was at work for me.

  634. Help me combat that. I kind of have this irrational

  635. fear of death at times, but then, thinking of how Jesus is

  636. Victorious over death, that death could not hold him.

  637. And the, that that the rulers of evil thought that they had

  638. defeated Jesus, but Jesus says, I'm going to be resurrected, You

  639. Don't Own Me. I own you.

  640. The helps me come combat. That it helps me.

  641. Also, give me a beautiful picture of baptism.

  642. Baptism is a picture of this story of Jesus being crucified.

  643. He's buried. Shenzhen to hell.

  644. And then he's a resurrected and brought to New Life, it gives us

  645. another angle to view baptism with there's so many

  646. implications that we have with this doctrine of Christ.

  647. The scent. I know, it's weird, right?

  648. If you think it's weird, it's okay.

  649. But if you also think that Jesus was born of a virgin, that's

  650. also pretty weird as well. So who's to say that Jesus is

  651. limited. He doesn't descend into the

  652. underworld and pronounced victory, over the spirits who

  653. are imprisoned So I hope that yeah that this content went

  654. longer than I should have but I hope of this content.

  655. Was it helpful for you? Just to kind of conceptualize

  656. what's going on and feed you with joy in Jesus.

  657. So now we get to we're going to confess the Apostles Creed again

  658. together, and then we're going to have to worship Jesus Through

  659. song after we get this Apostles Creed done.

  660. If you got questions about any of the stuff, I joked and said I

  661. was gonna do it on coals lap, but I've got some more notes and

  662. some resources that might be helpful for you, but I'm

  663. passionate about this I love it. It's changed is impacted me.

  664. It's been good for me. I've been like, oh, it's not.

  665. Do those Catholic weirdos who balloon talk about the stuff,

  666. but people for centuries, believe this in confess this and

  667. I can talk to you about the history of that.

  668. And when it changed, but I'm glad that I get to be a part of

  669. a be here in a part of this with you tonight and y'all don't look

  670. at me. Like I've got 12 heads on my

  671. shoulders right now because I've set talk about this up before

  672. and people look at me like I was a fool anyway. let's stand and

  673. can and and confess the Apostles Creed together with that with

  674. the mindset of what Christ did for us when he descended let's

  675. stand and can and and confess the Apostles Creed together with

  676. that with the mindset of what Christ did for us when he

  677. descended