God's Plan: Silence, Scripture, and Salvation

permissions there are accounts here of the tremendous activity of God when he came in as it were and erupted onto the human scene and did things the flood Sodom and gomorra crossing the Red Sea entering into Canaan the Waters of the Jordan being divided and so on the mighty actions of God oh yes but there were long periods when God seemed to be doing nothing and permitted all sorts and kinds of things to happen and people said where is your god and then God acted and finally acted in the sending of his son [00:13:07]

so you see the very delay as it were we shouldn't use the term but from our human standpoint there isn't a better one but this tremendous length of time between the fall and the coming of the son has demonstrated and established all these things I'm not at all sure in my own mind that finally the ultimate reason is this that the devil should be silenced who is God's Great antagonist and who is always ready to say that God is dealing with mankind unfairly [00:13:49]

I believe that the ultimate purpose of this long Gap this great interval was that the mouth of the devil might be silenced God has given mankind full opportunity to save itself to put its World in order to emancipate itself he's blessed them in spite of their sin he chose this people he gave them a law still nothing worked and he allowed all these efforts and endeavors to be made and they all came to nothing the devil is silenced and God is just [00:14:31]

why do you think the Apostle insinuated this statement you know he he always does this I just glanced at this in passing last Friday evening let me show it you still more even you see here in the introduction when he rarely is wanting to rush on to his big statement which is the gospel of God concerning his son whom he's going to describe ah but even before he says that he must say this which he had promised a four time by his servants the prophets in holy scriptures [00:15:30]

now now why did he do that why why did he feel he must do it and why did he always feel he must do it because he does the same thing in the third chapter in the 21st verse but now he says he's got his great argument here on justification by faith therefore by the Deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight for by the law is the knowledge of sin but now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested being witnessed by the law and the prophets [00:16:08]

Paul as his manner was there you are went in unto them and three Sabbath days what did he do reasoned with them out of the scriptures he didn't tell them stories he didn't talk about himself and illustrate them with affecting stories he didn't just conduct singing he reasoned with them out of the scriptures opening and alleging that Christ must needs have suffered and risen again from the dead and that this Jesus whom I preach unto you is Christ [00:19:06]

you see his method the scriptures Old Testament Moses and the prophets the Lord the prophets he took them and he reasoned with them out of them proving and alleging demonstrating his point that was his method and then you remember when he writes his first epistle to the Corinthians there was trouble in that church at Corinth since the Apostle had been there there had been other teachers and so on he writes a letter and in the 15th chapter he begins like this [00:19:49]

first epistle chapter 15 moreover Brethren I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you which also ye have received and wherein ye stand by which also ye are saved if he keep in memory what I preached unto you unless you have believed in vain for I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and that he was buried and that he rose the third day according to the scriptures [00:20:15]

the Jews had got an idea of the Messiah that he was going to be a great military and political personage who would come along and set up a great Kingdom and found a great Army attack the Roman conquerors and Destroy them and become a great world ruler immediately their ideas were material istic mercenary they thought purely in those terms in a nationalistic manner and to them the idea that this Carpenter was crucified in weakness could conceivably be the Messiah was unutterable nonsense [00:24:37]

the first thing the Apostle had to do therefore when he preached to Jews was this was to prove to them out of their own scriptures that the Messiah must need suffer that the Old Testament scriptures had always taught that the Messiah was going to be a suffering Messiah a suffering servant one who was going to be rejected and put to death he must need suffer be put to death and Rise Again from the dead if he couldn't establish that how could he possibly convince them [00:25:19]

Paul in chapter 8 has been telling these Roman Christians about The Marvelous Promises of God that they needn't worry that there are all these great Promises of God behind them and around them and the moment he said that somebody got up always and said this oh that doesn't help us very much because we read our Old Testament scriptures and we see there The Marvelous promises that God gave to the Jews Jews but what of the Jews now they don't seem to be much in evidence in your church [00:27:58]

the Apostle simply by going through the Old Testament scriptures show that the doctrine of the Old Testament scriptures is ultimately the doctrine of the remnant they are not all Israel that are of Israel there's a flesh an Israel of the Flesh and Israel after the spirit he proves it from the scriptures so that what is happening he says far from being a denial of the scriptures is a fulfillment of the scriptures but of course if he didn't know his scriptures if he didn't bring this in he couldn't have done that [00:28:56]