Now today we want to introduce to you a series of studies seeking to set before you the great fact that the Lord Jesus Christ is the theme of all the scriptures. Let me introduce this series of studies by reading to you some verses from the Bible. Epistle to the Hebrews chapter Verse seven. Then said I, Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me, To do thy will, O God. And that is a quotation from the Fortieth Psalm, and repeated here in Hebrews chapter ten. Now let me read another verse to you. from the Gospel according to John, and chapter five, and verse thirty-nine. John chapter five, verse thirty-nine. Here are the words spoken by the Lord Jesus Christ himself one day when he was speaking to those who were his accusers, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, those that were criticizing him. These were religious people, and he said to them, Serve the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me. Now for a final reading, in the Gospel according to Luke, and the last chapter, that's chapter twenty-four, and here we find now that The Lord himself is the speaker again on this occasion, and he was speaking to two of his disciples. It was on the day of the resurrection, as they were walking down the road to Emmaus. And he said to them, All fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken, Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory, and beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. And I trust the Lord will bless to us the reading of these verses. Now let me say to every listener today, If you care to put these three scriptures together, you'll learn then that things are written concerning him in the volume of the book. He tells his critics to search the scriptures, and they'll find that these scriptures are the things that testify of him. Then he said to two of his disciples, as he was walking down the road to Emmaus, that they were foolish not to believe all that the prophets have said. And then he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures things concerning himself. So you take note of this, that after the resurrection our Lord not only opened the Scriptures to his disciples, but he also opened their understanding that they might be able to understand the Scriptures. He is also ready to do the same for us. The same Holy Spirit moved holy men of old to write the Scriptures is close at hand to take the things of Christ and reveal them unto us. You can compare John chapter sixteen, verses thirteen and fourteen, and you'll discover that to be so. that the Holy Spirit is able to give us an understanding of these things. Which means this, that right from Genesis to the book of Revelation you will find things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the very theme of all the Scriptures. If you were to take Christ out of the Scriptures, it would be a meaningless book if you were to take Christ out of Christianity it would be a meaningless profession Christ is the very center of the scriptures they are written to tell us about him and to lead us to him now when he opened up the Old Testament scriptures He started at the books written by Moses. Then he went through all the scriptures. That is, if you were to take the Old Testament, you would discover you have a section referred to as the historical books. There are about seventeen of these historical books. You have the five written by Moses. followed by twelve other books, making seventeen in all. Then right in the very centre of the Old Testament, you have five books that are often referred to as the poetical books. From the book of Job, then you have the Psalms, the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon. These are the poetical books. Then from the prophecy of Isaiah, write to Malachi, you have another seventeen books. Five of them are often referred to as the major prophets, and then twelve referred to as the minor prophets. Now, as you read through from Genesis, write to Malachi, you'll find they are all Christ-centered. When you come to the New Testament, you have the first four books with which most people are familiar, referred to as the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These are the historical books in the New Testament. You may also wish to add the Acts of the Apostles in with the historical books, although I prefer to place it along with the doctrinal books, because after all it is the introduction to these books. So from the Acts right through to the Epistle of Jude, there you have the letters that are called doctrinal. Of course, out of that there also flows practical applications. Then you have the last book of the Bible, commonly referred to as the Revelation, which is an apocalyptic book. Now, whether you go through the three sections of the Old Testament or the three sections of the New Testament, you'll find that they refer you and direct you to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. A way back in the Old Testament, in the historical books, you have Christ in pre-figure. When you come to the poetical books, you have Christ in pre-vision. When you study the prophetical books, it is Christ in prediction. When you turn to the New Testament and you read through the Gospels, There you have Christ in person. When you come to the books from Acts to Jude, it's Christ in possession. But when you come to the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, it is Christ in presentation. A way back in the Old Testament, you might come across this verse in the book of Job. chapter twenty three and verse three, Oh, that I knew where I might find him. When you come to the New Testament, the Gospel according to John, chapter one, verse forty-five, you'll find the answer. We have found him of whom Moses and the prophets did right. Back in the Old Testament, you might write these words, He is coming. When you come to the New Testament and you read through the four Gospels, you might write these words, He is come. But after He leaves this world by way of the cross and His ascension, from there right to the end of the Bible, you might write these words, He is coming again. so that throughout the whole of the Bible it's a book concerning the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. In one way or another it tells of him. So I suggested to you then that back in the historical books you have Christ in prefigure. You'll find him there prefigured by persons. You'll find Him prefigured by ordinances. You'll find Him prefigured by things. So when you read of certain outstanding personalities in the Old Testament, study them through as if they were shadows. And these shadows will lead you to the substance. Let me remind you of something. If you see a shadow... and you turn your back to the light and you follow that shadow, you'll come to nothing. But when you see a shadow, if you turn your face to the light and you follow the shadow walking towards the light, you'll come to the substance, the thing that is casting the shadow. I suggest that illustration to you because in the Old Testament, There are a great number of shadows. People who prefigure Christ. When you find that shadow or that prefiguring, you turn your face towards the light of the New Testament and you follow the shadow and you'll come to Christ. Let me mention one or two of the characters in the Old Testament where Christ is prefigured. Any person who reads or studies the Bible has heard, of course, about the first man who was called Adam. But do you realize that the Bible refers to the Lord Jesus Christ as the last Adam? If Adam in the Garden of Eden was the first man, he was of the earth earthly. The Lord Jesus Christ is referred to as the second man, the Lord from heaven. But Adam is a prefiguring of the Lord Jesus Christ relative to headship. You see, Adam had the headship over creation. God put him in charge of his creation. Not only so that Adam takes the place of headship over the race, that is over the human race. He's the head of the race. Also he had headship over Eve. Now if you care to study through these things, you'll discover that the Lord Jesus Christ takes the place of headship over the new creation. In fact, he is the head of all things to the church. But then the headship over the race, the Lord Jesus Christ, will take the place of headship over the new race. Now, if Adam had headship over Eve, Christ is the head of the body which is the church. So he has headship over his church. The difference is this. Adam failed in his headship, but Christ cannot fail and will not fail in the place of his headship. But then you have another outstanding character in the Old Testament, and that is a man whose name was called Moses. Now Moses takes the place of being a prophet, and he said, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you like unto me. Now then, the people of course knew what Moses said, But did they understand when that would be brought into effect? When you come to the Acts of the Apostles, and you come to chapter three, you'll find here that one of the Lord's apostles is speaking, and he says, Repent ye therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. and he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you, whom the heaven must receive till the times of restitution of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me, Him shall ye hear, in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. While Moses acted as a prophet to the people of God, nevertheless he predicted this, there would come another prophet like unto him. And when the Lord Jesus Christ came to the earth, it was indicated that he was the fulfillment of that prediction. And so Moses prefigured Christ as a prophet. But Moses had a brother called Aaron. Aaron was the first high priest over the nation of Israel. But when you come to the Epistle to the Hebrews, you discover this, that the priesthood of Aaron was only a figure for the time then present. He was only a figure indicating another priest would come. That is, he prefigured Christ as to the pattern of his priesthood. But you have another priest back in the Old Testament in the book of Genesis, whose name was Melchizedek. And again, when you come to the Epistle to the Hebrews, you discover that Christ as a priest was not after... the pattern of Melchizedek, but he was after the order of Melchizedek. So Christ's priesthood was prefigured by Aaron as to its pattern, and prefigured by Melchizedek as to its order. So these two priests prefigured the Lord Jesus Christ. But now there came the time when Israel demanded a king. They wanted a king to reign over them. They chose their own king, who was an absolute failure. But when God gave them his king, he gave them David. David was God's real anointed king. And then after David, you had Solomon. So therefore, you have David and Solomon as the kings who reigned over Israel. But remember, these were only prefiguring the real king. For the real king was yet to come. When I come even again to the New Testament, I read this in the Acts of the Apostles. And when he had destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, he divided their land to them by lot. And after that he gave unto them judges about the space of four hundred and fifty years. until Samuel the prophet. And afterward they desired a king, and God gave unto them Saul the son of Sis, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, by the space of forty years. When he had removed him, he raised up unto them David to be their king, to whom also he gave Tishtavrian said, I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfil all my will, and of this man's seed have God, according to his promise, raised unto Israel a Savior Jesus." You see, my friend, while Israel had a prophet and a priest and a king, these were all prefiguring the one who would come who would join all these offices into one, the Lord Jesus Christ, when he was here on earth during the days of his flesh. He was a prophet. That is, he was the spokesman from God. He was God manifest in flesh. And he was making known the message of God to the people. That was his work as a prophet. But now the priest was the man who went from the presence of men into the presence of God to represent the people before God. And the Lord Jesus Christ has gone back to the glory. He's back there as our great high priest. He can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, for he was tempted in all points such as we are, yet without sin. He's a priest forever after the order. of Melchizedek. We have a priest up there. That's the reason that true believers don't need a priest down here. The fact of the matter is, if you study the Word of God, you'll discover that every true Christian, every true believer is reckoned by God to be a priest. And we have a representative in heaven, our great high priest, the Lord Jesus Christ. And you, because of him, are able to come right into God's immediate presence and function there as a spiritual priest, offering up your spiritual sacrifices, even the praise of your lips. But the Lord Jesus Christ combines in himself the office of prophet and priest and king. Because remember this. When they placed them on the cross, they said, We have no king but Caesar. They rejected him, but God vindicated him, and God raised them again out from amongst the dead, took him home to the glory and seated him in his own right hand, and said, Sit thou there until I make thine enemies thy footstow. And when the day comes, according to Revelation chapter nineteen, when heaven is opened, He shall come out with his armies. He'll come out as king of kings and lord of lords. No matter how many kings have been on earth, he is the king of kings. He is supreme. He is superior. He is the sovereign God. He is the king, the only potentate. But then after David took the throne, and reigned for forty years. He had to give place because of his weakness. He was only human. He served his generation and then fell asleep. And his son Solomon took the throne. Now remember, Solomon had what was termed the reign of peace. In Solomon's time there was prosperity. There was peace. There was plenty. When David came to the throne, David had to fight his enemies. When the Lord Jesus Christ comes out from heaven as king of kings, he'll have to deal first of all with those who are his enemies, those that oppose him. But when he comes out from heaven, he shall deal first of all with the armies of the beast. He shall deal with the beast and with the false prophet. He shall deal with Satan who has deceived the nations. When once they have been dealt with and all enemies are put under his feet, he shall set up his reign. And for a thousand years he shall reign in peace, because he is the Prince of Peace. This world has never known peace. Ever since they rejected Christ and put a Prince of Peace out of his own world, This world has known nothing else but war and fighting, turmoil and strife, poverty, and not only so, but death is all around us. But remember this, when Christ sets up his kingdom, after he has dealt with his enemies, he shall establish that reign of peace for a thousand years, that millennial reign. And during that time there will be an absent devil and a present Lord. There will be peace. There will be prosperity. There will be plenty. And everyone will bow down to him and acknowledge him. Ah, but remember this, my friend. At the present time we have an absent Lord and a present devil. And what we've got today is pandemonium in this world. And no one appears to have the great answer to the world's problems. The Lord Jesus Christ sets the scriptures, he said. In them you think you have eternal life. They are they which testify of me. The writers of the New Testament clearly indicate that some portions of the Old Testament history have typical significance. So you should first learn the true meaning and application of the historical incident, then note how the event was shaped by God to prefigure and foreshadow something higher and further in this Christian era. The Lord Jesus Christ on that night that he was speaking to the great ruler amongst the Jews called Nicodemus. He showed him then as he claimed a historical incident in the history of Israel as a picture of the salvation that men would find in him. It is plain that the power to save did not lie in the serpent of brass, but the power to save came from God. The power to save is in Christ who is the Son of man and the Son of God, who was to be lifted up on the cross of Calvary and is God's only provision for dying sinners.