Jesus Christ in the Old Testament | Mark 12:35-37 | Pastor Daniel Batarseh (Gospel of Mark Bible Study Series)

I encourage you to meet me in the Gospel of Mark in chapter

12, please. And today our portion will be

two verses that we trust will suffice.

And our understanding of this brilliant passage Mark 12, verse

Mark 12:35

35. And as Jesus taught in the

temple, he said, How can the scribes say that the Christ is

the son of David, Dave himself in the Holy Spirit Declared the

Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I put your

enemies under your feet. David himself calls him Lord.

So how is he his son? And the great throng heard him

gladly. Lord, bless the reading and the

preaching of your word. Bless our hearts, and receiving

and applying it open the eyes of our hearts.

Oh, Lord, even as we hear what you have to say.

May it wash away all troubles, all fears, all anxieties, all

indifference. It may affordify our faith

afresh. We ask these things in the name

that is above every other name, the living name, the name of

Jesus Christ. Amen.

I hope you remember what we've been discussing the past few

weeks, where there have been a series of interrogations that

Jesus experienced. We saw the Pharisees with the

Herodians approach Christ following them.

We saw the Sadducees the same day, and following the Sadducees

we left off with the scribes who came to Christ as well.

But after those questions were without any effort really were

answered by Christ, these groups now stood stupefied in the

presence of the wisdom of God in the person of Jesus.

And now the tables are about to turn because Jesus has his own

question. He has this question now that he

is going to target towards these religious leaders.

And the essence of this question deals with the true identity of

the Messiah that has been promised from of old as revealed

in the scriptures. And the reason why the Lord

asked this question is because the contentious religious

leaders not only prove their ignorance of the general

application and understanding of the Word of God, they missed

what the Messiah was all about and who he would be.

And so Christ now wants to really expose the underlying

issue of the hostility of these men.

He's now going to get to the centre of it.

The the real reason why they approached them with such

aggression and abuse is because they do not understand what the

Bible has to say about the Messiah.

They are sorely ignorant, and Christ is about to reveal that

and compound that yet again. And reading this exchange and

Mark, as you just did with me, we see that the format of Jesus

teaching here seems to be general, like he's just sharing

it to whoever is there. But when you read it from

Matthew's account, he targets this question toward the

Pharisees. He's speaking to them.

Now why is he doing that? Because if there was anyone who

should have understood the prophecies and the descriptions

of the anointed One who has to come the saviour of the people

of Israel, it was the Pharisees. There was if there was anyone

who was supposed to get it, it was this band of men.

But unfortunately that wasn't the case.

Instead, they're abusing the very one who fulfilled them.

And Christ is about to challenge their faulty thinking Yet once

more, and what we see here is Jesus going to the Old

Testament. He is going to go to the Hebrew

Scriptures to make his case. And when you hear this teaching

today, you're going to feel as though there's been a golden a,

a glistening nugget that's been placed in your hand that we get

to look at and enjoy. But it's much more than that.

This passage that you and I are holding in our hands is a key.

It's a key that should encourage you and I to unlock a world of

treasures. The world that I speak of is the

Old Testament, and the treasures that I'm referring to are the

vast pictures and prophecies concerning Jesus Christ of

Nazareth. And that's where we're headed

today. You and I are just going to have

a glimpse of this world of where we might have overlooked Christ.

And my my simple prayer in today's message is that there

would be this heightened reverence for the word of God,

that your heart would be stirred to see the divine authorship of

this book and how it has in fact been given to us by the

Almighty. And that you would relish in it,

and you would rejoice in it, and more than that, you would submit

to it to a greater degree. And so let's do that.

Together. We come back to our text in

verse 35. And before the Lord does

anything, he acknowledges that the scribes believed and taught

that the chosen one of God would in fact be the descendant of

David. So we don't have to turn that.

But when you read the same account from Matthew's

perspective, Jesus asked the question to the Pharisees.

He says it this way. What do you think about the

Christ whose son is he? And the Pharisees rightly answer

the Son of David? They weren't wrong in their

answer, but they were not entirely right.

Because what the Lord is about to now convey is that the

Messiah is more than just a descendant of David.

He's more than just a son of David.

He is the Lord of David. And the way he's going to do

that is by going to one particular Psalm.

You should be familiar with the Psalm.

You know why? Because it's the most referenced

and alluded to Psalm in the New Testament, Psalm 110.

And Christ quotes the first verse of that Psalm to make his

point. And it's a brilliant point.

But I want to pause here before we explore his exposition of

that verse. Pause for a moment and consider

this. Jesus is asking a question,

right? The past few Sundays we've been

exploring questions asked to Jesus and how he would answer

them. But the Sanhedrin, the spiritual

Supreme Court of Israel's day, when they asked their questions

to Jesus, did not do so from a pure heart.

They wanted to trap Jesus. They wanted to find evidence to

arrest Jesus. But now when Christ returns the

question, he does not have the same intent.

Yes, he's going to he's going to expose their ignorance, but not

so that they can be red faced and mortified.

When is this question asked again?

When you read your Bible zoom out from time to time.

Remember, we are at the final moments before Jesus is

arrested, put on trial, and then nailed to a cross.

We're in that that last week of his earthly life.

And so we know that in just a couple of days things are going

to change drastically. In fact, this is Jesus's last

face to face conversation with the religious leaders before his

trial. This is it.

And when you consider that truth with what we learned last time,

you have a brilliant revelation concerning the heart of Christ.

What happened before Jesus asked this question?

Well, ascribe asked him a question.

What's the most important commandment?

Jesus answered it, and this was the response of the man he He

acknowledged it, and Christ says to him, Look at verse 34 of Mark

12. And when Jesus saw that he

answered wisely, he said to him, you are not far from the Kingdom

of God, and after that no one dared to ask him any more

questions. So time is running out.

And yet we also see, at least from 1 scribe, a level of

humility and hunger. And I believe these things

reveal something about Christ asking this question and giving

the answer the way that he did. I can say with confidence, and I

hope you agree with me, that Jesus is teaching here is a

final opportunity for his enemies to come to the truth.

Time is ticking, and there is a blossoming of humility from at

least one of their band members. And here's Christ now,

responding from a place of love, opening their eyes to the truth

of who the Messiah is and who he is, I'm sure, with the hope that

they would hear it, understand it, and give themselves to it.

This is the love of Jesus Christ on display right here.

This is what we see about Christ, his love, even for his

enemies. You know what they've been

trying to do on this day? Corner him, Embarrass him more

than that, find a reason to arrest him, and how does he

return the favor? His response was to give him

another chance, by opening their eyes to see the truth, not just

in the Word, but the truth Incarnate right before them.

And the way he's going to do that is by going to this text

that we're going to explore together.

What do we read here in our text to get together in verse 36?

David himself in the Holy Spirit declared.

The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I put your

enemies under your feet. I know we want to get to Psalm

110, but I have to acknowledge something else here.

Forgive me. Do you see how Jesus

acknowledges the authorship of the Bible?

What does he say? David himself?

That's the human composition in the Holy Spirit.

That is the definition of divine inspiration.

And So what you have here is exactly what the apostle Peter

builds upon in his second epistle when he says the

following. For no prophecy was ever

produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were

carried along by the Holy Spirit.

That's the consensus of the Bible.

Jesus affirmed it. The apostles that he's trained

taught it that yes, men were used to write the Bible, but God

was the one who was guiding them and inspiring them and

protecting them from error. So what we have here, yes, has

been written by man, but there is an agent behind them, and

that is God himself. Here's what we have, Psalm 110.

David wrote it. That is huge because you have

people today who want to say that David didn't write this or

try to twist it concerning David, that it was not written

by David but written for David. And I'll get to the reason why

that's important to distinguish. It's important to establish what

Listen Psalm 110 and you can get there if you want early.

I didn't not going there yet, but you can prepare Psalm 110 is

a messianic Psalm. In other words, it is a piece of

work that prophecies of the Messiah, the Anointed 1, the

chosen One that is to come to bring deliverance to the people

of Israel. And ultimately, if you

understand the wider scope of prophecy to the world.

And the reason why that is important, again as I mentioned,

is because people try to dismiss it because Christ fulfills Psalm

110. Now how do we know Psalm 110 is

about the Messiah? Very simple.

You don't have to jump through many hoops.

Some would say this is a Psalm written by Abraham's servant,

like desperate attempts to try to make this not about Jesus

Christ. Some would say again that this

was composed to declare about David.

So when it says, the Lord said to my Lord that second Lord is

David, this is about David and his covenant with God.

Well, you're going to have problems there.

Do you know why? The reason why we know that this

is the Messiah being spoken of here is because of the content

of the Psalm. You have a king who's going to

not just rule in Zion, but rule from Zion.

You have a king who also listened to.

This is a priest, and not just a priest, He's a priest who will

have his priesthood and function and an operation for eternity.

No other person fits that description of a kingly priestly

role apart from the Messiah, apart from the one that not just

David but others before and after him declared about the one

who is to come. He is going to be a king, but

he's also going to be a priest. That was illegal in the Old

covenant. If anyone attempted to do that,

they were severely disciplined by God.

But we now have this description of one who is not just only

going to be a king and a priest, but he's also going to be

exalted and praised by God himself.

So he's approved in that function.

So right there that ends the argument.

This Psalm. Psalm 110 is messianic.

Now you can turn there. So let's turn to Psalm 110.

And I want you to see something, because the Greek version of

Psalm 110 here doesn't read in the same way that the Hebrew

version does. And that's what we have in Psalm

110. What we have in the Gospels is

the Greek translation of it. But look at Psalm 110.

First verse a Psalm of David the Lord says to my Lord, set on my

right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.

Notice that the first mention of Lord is different than the

second one in terms of spelling. If it's capitalizing your Bible,

then you understand this. I hope that that is a reference

to the covenant name of God. This is God's personal name,

Yahweh, and the second mention of Lord is not the same.

It's a more general term, one that can be granted to a human

authority. So you have Yahweh says to Adon

or Adonai and that word Lord. The second mentioned simply

means master, and you have people in the Bible as examples

who are granted that a term of respect.

You're the master. You are an authoritative figure

in my life, so I will call you Lord.

So you have Yahweh, God's personal name speaking to

another figure, distinct figure and addresses him as master.

This is this is important to make it distinguished about

because it can cause a lot of confusion otherwise.

Now Jesus doesn't go further in the Psalm, right?

He just he just sticks with verse one because verse one has

enough to challenge the wrong thinking of his foes.

And why is he mentioning this? It's very simple.

In verse 37, Mark 12, he says David himself calls him Lord, so

how is he his son? Do you understand the question?

If this is a messianic Psalm and they've already established that

the Messiah is going to be a son of David, then how is it that

David can call his son his Lord? It's very simple.

David's son, naturally would be inferior to David in terms of

honor and rank. I was talking to my dad about

this last night and I said dad not in terms of human dignity

and value. We're the same in that.

But because you're my dad, you have greater honor, you have

more authority. And so if David's son is in that

way inferior, then how does David dare to call him his

master? Do you understand?

Not what Jesus is trying to convey.

Now it goes even deeper than that.

If David is the king of Israel, which he was, then there really

isn't anyone else from a human standpoint, that is above him.

He holds the highest position of authority known to man, at least

in this realm. And so for him to call anybody

his master implies that this person holds a position that's

not in this world or not of this world.

Let me make that case further. Go to Psalm 89 with me.

Here's another Psalm concerning David but his covenant with God

and his descendants. Look at Psalm 89, verse 20, just

Psalms 89:20

to make sure that we know that this Psalm is in fact about

David. Psalm 89 and we can go to verse

20 to get that clue. I have found in David my servant

with my holy oil. I have anointed him.

Now. Why don't we just read on to the

rest of it? So that my hand shall be

established with him. My arm also shall strengthen

him. The enemy shall not outwit him,

the wicked shall not humble him. I will crush his foes before him

and strike down those who hate him.

My faithfulness and my steadfast love shall be with him, and in

my name shall his horn be exalted.

I will set his hand on the sea and his right hand on the

rivers. He shall cry to me.

You are my Father, my God and the rock of my salvation.

Pause. There's a misconception among

Christians that when Jesus came, he introduced us God as Father.

No, he didn't. God is referred to as Father in

the Old Testament as well. You just saw one example of it.

The difference is now the fatherly relationship with God

has now been extended to the Gentiles.

That's the difference. Look at verse 27.

This is the part that I want to mention.

And I will make him the first born.

Who's him? That's David.

I will make him the first born. I'm hesitant to throw a lot

here, but I'm going to do it and it's recorded so we can revisit

it if it's too much, just to chew on it more.

Was David the first born among his family?

So why is he called the first born here?

Because the Bible's Dictionary is different than ours.

First born in many cases in the Bible refers to preeminence, not

order of chronology coming into existence.

You know why that's important? Because your friendly

neighborhood, Jehovah's Witness will use Colossians to say Jesus

is the first born. He's the first created thing.

And so they'll say that Jesus was created and then through him

everything else was created. But you have to come to Psalm

Psalms 89:27

89, verse 27, to show them that first born doesn't need to mean

first to come into existence. It can also mean preeminence to

be above, to be elevated. And this is what we're being

told about David. He will be the first born, and

the second part reinforces that truth.

And I will make him the first born, the highest of the kings

of the earth. So David is not just king, he's

the highest of the kings of all the earth.

And yet, in Psalm 110, and speaking about his descendant,

he refers to the Son of David as what, my Lord?

How you're the king that's king above all the other kings on the

earth. Who is this son who by just

nature is inferior? Who is he for you to say that he

is your master? And the answer to that is when

you look at Psalm 110, that this Lord of David's is no ordinary

Lord. He's an otherworldly king and

the makeup of that king is described in Psalm 110.

Let's read, it's very brief and you will understand exactly why

David said what he said, because by the Spirit he had this

revelation. Verse 2.

The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty sceptre rule in the

midst of your enemies. Your people will offer

themselves freely on the day of your power in holy garments.

From the womb of the morning, the dew of your youth will be

yours. The Lord has sworn and will not

change His mind. You are priests forever after

the order of Melchizedek. The Lord is at your right hand.

He will shatter kings on the day of His wrath.

He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with

corpses. He will shatter chiefs over the

wide earth. He will drink from the brook, by

the way. Therefore, he will lift up his

head. When you read this, you realize

that the composition, the makeup of this king is something beyond

human. You realize that he has been

invited and summoned to sit at the right hand of God.

You realize that he's not just going to be a ruler, he's going

to be a priest. And not after the order of

Aaron. Hebrews tells us that the order

of Melchizedek, which is another sermon for another time, is

superior to that of Aaron, because the priest of Aaron died

and replaced the other. But when it comes to this

priesthood, we read what you will be priest.

How long? Forever.

So he's a human ruler over a human government.

Yes, he's been elevated to sit by the hand of right hand of

God, but he's also eternal. He doesn't cease to live.

He doesn't just rule in Zion, he rules from Zion.

And though you are convinced, I'm sure, that there is

something supernatural about this person, you come to verse 7

and you realize what? That he drinks by the brook,

denoting what? That his activity is still human

like. And this is who no other than

the person of Jesus Christ. And if you're not convinced of

that for whatever reason, realize that Jesus, in the final

book of this library of Holy Scripture, in the final chapter

reinforces and builds upon what he taught here in Mark 12.

Go to Revelation 22 and see it with your own eyes in verse 16.

I, Jesus, have sent my Angel to testify to you about these

things. For the churches, I am the root

and the descendant of David the bright morning star.

I'm not just the descendant of David.

I'm the root. I was before David and I came

after David. If the Messiah, the Christ is

David's son, why does he call him Lord?

Jesus answers it because he existed before David.

He created David, He made the covenant with David.

And at the perfect time, according to Galatians 4/4, he

came into this world born of the flesh, specifically from the

line of David, the root and the descended.

Notice that he didn't say I was the root and the descendant of

David. He says I am the root.

I am the root and descendant of David.

For him to say I am the root, I get it.

But for you to say in the present, I am the descendant.

You know what that means? Revelation 22.

Is Jesus on earth or is he in heaven?

Oh, please answer, yes, he's in heaven, right?

He's in heaven. And yet he can say I am still

the descendant of David. You know why?

Because he's still in the flesh, glorified.

That's why. He can say I am the descendant

of David, because yes, he did take on flesh, but he also

resurrected in the flesh. We don't believe in a spiritual

resurrection. No, no, no, no.

He rose bodily, he rose bodily, and he's returning bodily.

We're not waiting for an invisible return.

Every eye will see him and they all recognize that he is the

root and descendant of David. So Jesus, just with one verse,

shows these men that the Messiah that they claim to be

anticipating is more than a man just from one verse.

From one song he stumps them and shows them and shows us that the

Messiah, who is to come from a prophecy that's been written

hundreds of years before Christ time, is in fact divine.

He holds a dual nature. He took on flesh.

And when you read the character of Christ, the interactions of

Christ, the acts of Christ, you will be amazed to realize that

he is no mere ordinary man. He proved it with his life.

And remember, I told you that this Psalm would would be like a

precious jewel deposited in our hands and we would look at it

and enjoy it. But it's more than that.

It's a truth that opens up our eyes to a world ready to be

explored concerning greater revelations of Christ,

specifically in the Old Testament.

I feel bad for Christians who do not engage with the Hebrew

Scriptures for many reasons. Let me tell you one of them You

will not know the depth of the New Testament without it, you

won't. You always limit yourself as

long as you treat the Old Testament as second to the first

or the new. Rather, you can't do that.

It's the foundation upon the truths that you and I enjoy and

I've been saved by in the New Covenant, and I just want to

take this time we we could stop here and just rejoice in in

Jesus wisdom and his understanding of the Word being

the Word Himself. But I just want to just take a

little trip with you and just travel through a few of the

neighborhoods and the streets, so to speak, of the Old

Testament, to open your appetite and to see that Christ is

everywhere, everywhere. He's everywhere.

And I'm sure many of us, because many of you here love the word

and you know the word, you can, you can shoot off references of

the Old Testament that speak of Christ.

But I even want to explore the things in the places where we

might have not seen him, but he's there.

He is there. So let's just do that.

Right. Let's do that.

This Sunday, Jesus was born where Bethlehem was, that not

prophesied by the prophets. It was Micah prophesied in Micah

5/2 that he would be born in Bethlehem.

But I want to remind you today again, we're just just having a

sample. I want to remind you there was

another significant boy who was born in Bethlehem.

And when you understand his birth, the way the scripture

mentions it, you'll realize that though it was a historical

distinguished thing, it in fact carries prophetic weight.

And I hope that cheers your heart to see Jesus even there.

OK, let's do it. Genesis 35.

I'll wait for you. Genesis 35.

Genesis 35. We're reading up here Rachel,

who is pregnant with Benjamin, but his name wasn't given yet.

She had a very difficult labour and we read about here in verse

17 of Genesis 35. And when her labour was at its

hardest, the midwife said to her, do not fear, for you have

another son. And as her soul was departing

for, she was dying. She called his name Benoni, but

his father called him Benjamin. Benjamin.

So Rachel died, and she was buried on the way to Ephrath,

that is, Bethlehem. This points to Jesus because

admit Rachel's deadly discomfort.

She chooses in her anguish, almost as a pathetic memorial,

to identify this boy as Ben Oni. You know what Ben Oni means, son

of my sorrows. And right there, Jacob, his

father interjects and says no, no, no, no, no.

He's going to be called Benjamin.

Benjamin. You know what that means, son of

the right hand. Some of you already got it.

And this boy who was once been Oni and then became Benjamin,

was born where Bethlehem, the one you and I worship, was born

in Bethlehem. And he was destined for sorrow

and suffering to the extent that, according to the Gospel of

Luke, his earthly mother would have a sword pierced through her

soul. She would be in anguish,

according to Simeon's prophecy, based on the destiny that this

boy would fulfill. And Isaiah tells us in fact that

he was a man of what sorrows? But what happens after his

atoning death? After his atoning suffering, the

Heavenly Father summons him, and he says, what in Psalm 110 sit

where? At my right hand?

And he did so by way of resurrection and ascension.

So even in a brief glimpse of the birth of one of the sons of

Jacob, do you have prophetic perfume sprayed on it where you

have the Son of sorrows who would be the son of the right

hand and he was born in Bethlehem?

Is there more? A lot more.

How much time do you got? So much more.

One of my favorite truths about Jesus in the Old Testament in a

non obvious way is with the cities of refuge.

The cities of refuge were designated by God in the old

covenant for the people when they entered into the promised

land. There were six of them, and they

were set apart by God as a means of grace for the one

specifically who committed manslaughter involuntarily.

So the one who accidentally killed someone else with no

premeditation, with no envy or history of hatred in his heart,

could flee to one of these cities.

Because in that law you also had God giving the right to a

relative to avenge the blood of the one who was murdered by

getting the one who did kill him.

So these cities of refuge that have been placed strategically

throughout the promised Land in a way, by the way, that wherever

you are in the Promised Land, you can have access to it, no

matter where you're parked, no matter where the sin was

committed, you could find a nearby city of refuge.

You know what? That's a picture of Christ.

That no matter where you've gone with your sin, no matter how far

you are from hope and refuge, you can find it in Christ.

But it's more than that. So this man, who may be in a

workplace or maybe with with without attention or care in the

home, kill someone, was called to not delay, but flee to flee

to any of those cities of refuge.

It's also a picture of you not delaying coming to Christ the

moment that you've been made aware of your sin.

You are not to be slow in running and throwing yourself at

the foot of the cross. So this man was to flee, and

once he fled and hid behind those walls, he had the council

and the elders of that city determine his case.

And if he was proved in fact to be innocent, he was safe from

the avenger as long as he remained in the city of refuge.

Also another picture of Christ. You want to be safe.

You have to stay in Christ. So much to say about the City of

refuge. But there's one particular

verse, because you might think to yourself, well, OK, so if I

do this and I, I leave, I flee. I'm also walking away from my

home. I'm walking away from my

livelihood. I'm walking away from my

inheritance. I'm making a new way of life in

this strange place. Yes, I'm grateful that it

protects me. But is there any way for

somebody who has fled to any of these cities to be free, to be,

like, really free, and to go back to his life upon one

condition? I'm not going to give you the

answer. You got to turn there if you

want to see it in Joshua Chapter 20.

Joshua 20 · chapter mention

If you're more interested in the city of refuge than you were

before you came in, look at Joshua 20 verses one to six and

its totality. But let's just for the sake of

time, look at verse 6, Joshua 20, verse 6 and he being the

Joshua 20:6

one, the manslayer, he shall remain in that city until he has

stood before the congregation for Judgement.

Check this out until the death of him who was high priest at

the time. Then the manslayer may return to

his own town and his own home to the town from which he fled.

You would think that this was written in the New Testament.

It's not. It's in the Hebrew scriptures.

There's very little written about this, and I wonder why.

There's a lot of hush concerning this and I have a feeling,

especially from non Christian writers and theologians, this

shows us so clearly that there is something about the death of

the high priest that carries substitutionary merit for the

one who has committed involuntary murder.

How? What does the death of the high

priest have to do with me? Who has committed a sin?

Yes, accidental and allowing me to go free.

You hit a wall with your understanding, but that wall is

broken down when you understand the person and role of Jesus

Christ and listen, put that in your arsenal, please.

Because the friendly neighborhood Jewish person who

is serious about their faith will often criticize the

Christian and their core belief that there is one who has been

sent by God, who laid down his life so that through his death

and resurrection we might receive freedom from sin,

freedom from the wrath to come. And with that criticism comes

slander, that's unjust, that it's cruel, that's barbaric.

You believe in human sacrifice. And I say, have you ever read

Joshua chapter 20, verse 6? Because in the Law of Moses,

Joshua 20:6

apparently the death of the high priest grants freedom for the

manslayer. You know what that means?

Jesus coming dying on the cross for the sins of man is not

contradictory to what the Old Testament has to say.

It's consistent. You see the same truth here.

Yes, it's a breath. Yes, it's a whisper.

But when you understand a new covenant, it's a megaphone.

And here we are missing these things because I'd rather be

John than Joshua. Oh, you're missing out on John

because you're not reading Joshua.

So we even see here that Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of

this shadow. But can I tell you something?

He's not just a fulfillment of the shadow.

He's a greater than anything that you find in the Old

Testament. And even in this, yes, you have

a high priest who dies and allows a manslayer to go free,

but this is a sinful sin. Infected High Priest.

And though his death for some mysterious reason does grant

liberty, it's only for accidental sin.

You know why Jesus is better? It's even for sins that you've

committed on purpose. It's not just for involuntary

things that you've done, it's even for the things that you

have premeditated that you've consciously said.

I'm going to do this knowing that the Word says this, and

I've been taught otherwise, even for those sins.

The death of the High Priest can cover you and set you free.

He's greater than the high priest of the covenant of old

because he's a greater high priest.

And his covenant is greater in ways that you can't even think.

That we are granted truths to. Meditate on it, though, we see

through a glass dimly. Crisis everywhere, crisis

everywhere. Let's consider a final thought.

So I don't keep you too long. Yeah.

Let's go back to Mark 12. What's happening in Mark 12?

You're going to go to Mark 12, but I'm going to take you

somewhere else in a moment. What have we been studying the

past few weeks? The grilling examinations

against Christ by various groups from all angles.

The Pharisees, the Herodians, the Sadducees, the scribes.

And again, the timing of these examinations is important to

identify the full prophetic significance of it.

This was during the final week where Jesus was prepared and

being prepared to lay his life down as what?

The Passover lamb ultimately right?

And what's happening around them.

That same week where Jesus dies, the Passover feast is being

celebrated and you have on that week people coming in with their

lambs and having them checked out and ensuring everything is

put into place. For that 14th day of the first

month of the religious calendar, they could honor the Passover

feast. Can you just imagine the site

here? You have Jesus in the temple

going back and forth with these religious groups and all around

them you hear the bleeding of sheep, the hustle and bustle of

another festival. And I want you to see the

original instructions for the Passover and how it parallels

with Christ's experience, even in what we've been studying in

this chapter the past few Sundays.

This is our final text that we're going to explore.

It's an Exodus 12. Look at it with me, please.

Exodus 12, it will be worth it. Look at verse three of Exodus

12. This is the institution of the

Passover feast, and it says here tell all the congregation of

Israel that on the 10th day of this month, keep that in mind.

The 10th day of this month every man shall take a lamb according

to their father's houses, a lamb for a household.

And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and

his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of

persons according to what each can eat.

You shall make your count for the lamb.

Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old.

You may take it from the sheep or from the goats.

Verse six is important. And you shall keep it until the

14th day of this month, when the whole assembly of the

congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight

Israel. This is a feast that you will

hold on to for generations. Here's how you're supposed to

observe it. On the 10th day of this month

you are to go out and select a lamb, and you are to ensure that

that lamb is without blemish. And on the 14th day you are to

kill the lamb. So there is an interval period

of four days that every household is to hold this lamb

in possession before they sacrifice it.

Why not just get it on the 14th day and kill it on the 14th day?

Why get it on the 10th day, Hold on to it to four days and then

kill it? The context suggests this as the

strongest reason why verse five tells us that that lamb should

be what without blemish. I am persuaded the reason why

they were to hold on to it for 10 days was so that they can

inspect it from head to toe. Think about how much depended on

the lamb being without blemish. The Destroyer, according to

Exodus 12, was ready to sweep over the land of Egypt and

destroy the first born of every living thing.

And the quality of that lamb would determine whether or not

that Destroyer would pass over those homes.

So imagine that was applied to you as an Israelite of that

time. Here you are.

You select a lamb. And you know, four days from

now, this lamb must be without blemish if it's supposed to be

honored by God Almighty, what are you going to do those four

days? Oh, you're going to protect that

lamb. And you're going to look through

it and you're going to look in the ears and you're going to

flip it over and look on the belly and you're going to

examine and inspect it because you want to ensure this thing is

right. And on the 14th day, if it

passed the test, it would be an acceptable sacrifice.

What was happening to Jesus before he would ultimately go to

the cross. You've been studying it these

past few Sundays, one religious group after the next, examining

him. By what authority do you do

these things? Pass the test?

Should we pay our taxes to Caesar or not pass the test?

How does the resurrection work? If a woman marries several men,

whose husband will she have? And who will have the wife pass

the test? Which out of all the

commandments is the greatest pass the test and no one asked

them the question afterwards. Finally these Jews bring him

before a gentile named Pilate, and Pilate examines him, and in

Luke 23 verse 4 this is what he confesses.

Luke 23:4

Then Pilate said to the chief priests in the crowds.

I find no guilt in this man. So in the same time where those

Passover lambs were being inspected and examined, you had

the Lamb of God from heaven undergoing the same thing.

And what was discovered of him? No sin, no wrong, no error, and

he would satisfy the one who demanded A spotless lamb for the

sins of mankind. Where is Jesus?

Everywhere. Everywhere.

I hope something in your heart was lit ablaze from this brief

study. We have a living God.

This book is a living book. It scares me in a good way.

I get scared from it because after all these years of reading

it day after day after day, it never fails to bring me to my

knees and to show me you don't know anything you think you do.

And I want to tell you today that Jesus Christ is the Lamb of

God. And I want you to see the

response of these people in our final verse of Mark 12, verse

Mark 12:37

37. David himself calls him Lord.

So how is he his son? And the great throng heard him

gladly. That's a sad response.

They heard him gladly. In other words, they enjoyed his

mastery over the Scriptures. They enjoyed how he was able to

defend himself and shut the mouths of those who claim to be

experts. You know, it's possible for

after a sermon like this or an Old Testament study, for people

to hear it gladly. And that's it.

What should have happened? Or they should have realized

this is the one that the scriptures pointed to.

This shouldn't 'cause just rejoicing.

It should have encouraged repentance.

But it didn't. It was just an intellectual

stimulation. It was just something that

impressed them. Is that how you heard the sermon

today? Oh wow.

I never thought the cities of rest.

You've only that was something else.

Oh wow. Yeah.

I don't really know the Old Testament as much as I thought.

That's not the response Christ wants from you.

Yes, you should be moved by the word of God, but you should be

moved by the God of the word, and you should want to love him

and surrender to him. And as a precious brother prayed

earlier, if you don't know him, do you realize what you're

dealing with? Do you realize that this was not

compiled in two years by one author, but the cross references

that we just did? There was from multiple authors

over a span of 1500 years? This book is not just one book.

It's a library of books. Three different languages,

different continents, 40 different authors, 1 consistent

theme. Jesus Christ, the Savior of the

world. What are you going to do with

that? But what are you going to do

with what you just heard? Doesn't it at least cause you to

be like, whoa, So you're telling me that Jesus fulfilled things

from thousands of years ago, that those authors were actually

pointing to him, That he didn't just show up on the scene as a

moral teacher and die to martyrs, death, and Christians

just appreciate him? You're telling me that he's

something more? I'm telling you he's more.

What are you going to do with that?

Are you just going to hear it? Gladly.

Oh, that was nice. He was very passionate, the way

he shared those truths. You're missing it.

You're missing it. And I would be a fool.

And I'm going to stand before the living God if I presented in

such a way. Oh, here's a nice little

collection of thoughts. Did you like it?

Oh, good, Wonderful. I'm compelled to tell you.

I just told you about the truths of God, and that demands a

response from you. You need to deal with that.

You need to now make a decision. What am I going to do with this

Christ that in an hour I've been told about in a way that can

only be deemed as supernatural? I didn't write this.

I'm just the one who deliver the mail.

So what are you going to do with that?

Are you going to just brush it off like these people did?

The great Throng heard him gladly.

And it was just another Sunday. I hope that's not how you

respond. I hope you at least endeavor to

say, OK, I have to do something with this.

And I'm going to do my personal investigation myself.

You do it. You do it now.

You examine the Lamb of God. You search for error in this

book. He authored it.

You look at his person. You look at his character.

You look at his dealings with man.

You look at his commentaries and his description and his and his

revelations about our world, our universe, and I can guarantee

you that if you do so with an honest heart, you will realize

that this is no ordinary man and this is no ordinary book.

I've done my part today, and I pray.

I pray. Really.

I hope you hear my love. I pray that you would do yours

if you do not know Him. Believers, I pray that you just

love him more than you did when you walked in today.

Let's ask him to help us do that.

Lord, we thank you and we love you and we worship you and we

exalt you. You are the name that is above

every other name. You are the centerpiece of this

word. You are the darling of the

universe. You are the one in whom every

person will see and behold, and every knee and tongue will

confess that Jesus Christ is in fact Lord.

But, Lord, we don't want to wait until that day until we

acknowledge it. We want to bow our knees today,

and we want to realize, and we want to acknowledge.

And we want to tell you that we believe that you are the

Messiah, the Son of God, the Savior of the world, the only

way to heaven. And Lord, if there's even one

person who has not made that confession yet, the same grace

that you show to those Pharisees and Sadducees and Herodians and

scribes by giving them a chance through the Word to see the

truth so that they can be saved by the truth.

We pray that people would register the same thought and

heart that you have that you had for them is for them as well.

Lord, we ask that on this day, as we fellowship in a moment,

that we would celebrate the truth that we are in.

You saved us, and we have the truth, and we're in the truth.

And there's more truth to explore and there's more depths

to discover. Thank you, O God, that every

week you remind us that you are eternal.

And there's no time in this life, even in eternity, that we

will arrive at where we say we figured it out.

Thank you, oh God, for being a mighty God and for showing us

that you are indeed splendid, glorious, majestic.

We pray in the name of the one that we just heard about Jesus.

Amen and Amen. Let's worship him.

That's all I can say. Let's stand and worship the

living Christ. He's alive.

He's alive.