Redemptive history centers on the person of Jesus Christ, fulfilling God's promises from the beginning. The sermon begins by establishing God's unwavering faithfulness and infinite wisdom in His purposes, contrasting this with human fallibility. It then refutes the Marcionite heresy of discontinuity between the Old and New Testaments, asserting that Christ is the fulfillment of all Old Testament prophecies, as seen in passages like Genesis 3:15 and Matthew 5:17. The core lesson is that God's redemptive plan, initiated with the promise of a Redeemer, unfolds consistently through history, culminating in Christ's death and resurrection, which secured the defeat of Satan and offers assurance to believers.
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I'm going to begin another series of messages that I've started. Sometimes you go to bed at night thinking of the things of God and you dream about them all night. You get awake in the morning and you have a new series of messages on your mind. And this happened to me early this week. One day, I think it was Monday, and... What I call the message tonight is highlights of redemptive history. When we think of the redemption that we have in Christ Jesus, it has pleased God to focus upon the person of Christ.
In his first advent and in the consummation, in his second advent, that in him all the happenings focus, the universe centers around the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. And when man sinned in the Garden of Eden, God gave to us what we could call the seed plot of the Bible. And when we speak of the seed plot of the Bible, I'm thinking of Genesis chapter three, verse fifteen, where God said to the serpent, And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, between thy seed and her seed. Thou shalt bruise his head, Or he shall crush your head or bruise your head, but you will bruise his heel.
And we want to unpack that verse a little bit tonight. But before we do that, we begin in the New Testament. We're going to begin in a verse in the New Testament, which everybody knows. But we many times don't spend enough time in thinking about it. And it says you meditate upon these verses and think them over what is God really saying in this verse. We come to some conclusions. And the one conclusion we come to is this. God never deviates from his purpose. And when God announces something, God keeps his word. This is more that we can say for any human being.
God keeps his word. The reason he keeps his word, he has the ability to do it. He has the power to do it. He has the will to do it. And he never has to worry. Because his wisdom is infinite. And when God says something, he has the wisdom to bring it to pass. When God speaks, it is affirmative. God's wisdom is perfect. He never has to... move to plan B or to plan C if plan A isn't working. Plan A always works and it works according to the pattern that God has arranged and God has prepared.
So when we begin this study of redemptive history, the history of redemption for God announced that he's going to send a redeemer and the redeemer is going to redeem his people from their sins. He then puts into motion events down through history that just enhance the redemptive program of God. And we may call it redemptive history. God announces and God keeps his word. So let's pray and praise the Lord first of all. O God our Father, we thank you that thou art God.
Beside thee there is none else. Thou hast spoken. Thou hast brought it to pass. Thou hast stretched forth thine arm in redemption. And we cry out tonight, Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? We pray for everyone gathered together tonight in this auditorium that they can say, The arm of God has been revealed to me in power, for I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that He's able to keep that which I've committed unto Him against that day.
We pray for every young person, in our meeting especially, teach them thy word. May thy word grip their hearts, that they have a hunger. and a thirst for righteousness, that they will enjoy the things of thyself. For it is pleased you, our God, to make the things concerning Christ the centerpiece of the universe. And then those who are saved become partakers of it. Help us, our God, to so present our Lord Jesus Christ that Everyone will want to be part of that centerpiece of the universe, the redemption that's in Christ Jesus, and will thank you in His worthy name.
Amen. We begin with Galatians chapter four. The epistles to the Galatians chapter four and verse four. And I have a purpose in starting here. Because what is revealed in redemptive history is very important when reading the Word of God. We do not want to drift away from Holy Scripture. We don't want to drift like Martian introduced in the second century of Christianity.
In the second century there was this notable heretic by the name of Martian, even though he was excommunicated, his distinctive teaching has lingered, and it has lingered to this day. Martian believed and he taught that there was a total incompatibility between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament. He believed in a radical discontinuity between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament. Mashiach therefore made a Bible for himself. He made a Bible for himself that was really hacked.
There was no Old Testament. He didn't want the Old Testament for the more. He hacked the New Testament as well. He only had one gospel account. And that was a hacked gospel of Luke. And then he only had ten epistles. Ten epistles of Paul. He didn't have any of the pastoral epistles. The epistles of Timothy or Peter or John or James. They were excluded also. Now, that's an amazing thing. When you discuss Christianity today with many, they also say, well, no. I don't like a God of the Old Testament.
Give me the God of the New Testament. The God of the New Testament is a God of love. And you find that often. And what has happened in the late eighteenth century and the early nineteenth century? There was a German scholar by the name of Frederick Schramacher. I'm glad my name is Bumberger, even though I'm German. It's a lot easier to say than Schrarumacher. But anyway, he revived this idea that Marcion, the heretic, had brought in the early stages of church history in the second century.
And liberalism has followed many of Schrarumacher's ideas, and they followed them even to this day. So when we look at the highlights of redemptive history, we have to start at the beginning. And at the beginning in Genesis three-fifteen, the verse that I quoted, it speaks of a coming redeemer. It is a promise God made to the serpent. But now we want to read from Galatians chapter four and verse four. For there we read, But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his son.
That's all we're going to read from Galatians chapter four. For that verse definitely speaks of a time when Jesus, the one whom God said to Joseph in Matthew chapter one and verse twenty one, thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. This verse tells us of a time when God sent His Son to planet Earth. He arrived. When did He arrive? In the fullness of time. When the fullness of time was come.
What does that mean? When you read, when the fullness of time was come, well, what does that mean? That means that there is a time of preparation in order that this time would come. And at a certain time in church history, he came. A time of preparation preceded the coming of the Lord. In other words, there was an era in which the coming of the Lord Jesus was anticipated. And throughout the whole of the Old Testament, we could put three words over it. He is coming.
And after the Lord Jesus arrived, we can write two words over the New Testament. He came. When the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son. And he came at the time that was designed by God for his coming. Up to this time, the whole of redemptive history was looking forward and running forward to this very goal. For I read something concerning this goal in second Corinthians. In chapter one and verse twenty, I read that all the premises of God in him, in Christ are yea and in him, amen.
All the premises of God meet in the person of Jesus Christ. Augustine, who lived in the third century, he said this, and we've all heard it before, the old is in the new revealed, and the new is in the old concealed. Let me put it in the right order. The new is in the old concealed. The Old Testament. The New Testament is in the Old Testament concealed. The Old Testament is in the new revealed. So when you read the Gospel accounts, we see how our Lord fulfilled the Old Testament.
We want to review just a couple of these to show how Christ is the fulfillment of that promise that was made to the serpent in the Garden of Eden. We turn first of all to Matthew chapter five. Matthew chapter five, verse seventeen. Our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount, he said to the people there, Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy but to fulfill. Christ came to fulfill all the promises, all the promises of God meet in Christ Jesus.
Second Corinthians one, verse twenty. What are they? Think not that I'm come to destroy the law of the prophets. I've come not to destroy, I've come to fulfill. There is not a discontinuity between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New. There is but one God revealed in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But notice Luke chapter ten. Luke chapter ten, verses twenty-three and twenty-four, where we read these words, In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.
For even so, Father, it seemed good in thy sight. All things are delivered unto me of my Father, and no man knoweth who the Son is but the Father, and who the Father is but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him. Oh, my friend, listen to those words. You can't learn this as you learn any other subject. This is a matter of revelation. To know God is a matter of revelation. And therefore, a desire to know Him is a desire to be in fellowship with a God of the universe.
And He is pleased to reveal Himself to you in a person, in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the essence of David's sermon a few weeks ago. I wasn't here for a couple weeks, so I have to rehearse what David said on Sunday morning a few weeks ago. Remember what he was speaking on in First Corinthians chapter two? Concerning the revelation of God, the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him.
Neither can he know them, for they are spiritually discerned. But when you read back at verse nine, I quoted the fourteenth verse. But the ninth verse says, I hath not seen, and ear hath not heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his spirit. Beloved, if you have a love for the word of God, It's because God has been pleased to reveal things to you by the Spirit of God.
This is one of the ways that you can know that you're the Lord. Do I have a love for the Word of God? Do I enjoy finding things in the Word of God that speak of the person of Christ? And beloved, when I was a child, It was a great thing to get oranges in the wintertime in Pennsylvania. And we'd sit there and mother would cut a nice hole in the top of the orange and then we'd draw the juice out of it. And I tell you, we tried to get every bit of juice out of it. And there are times that I come to passages I've read time and time again in the Word of God.
And then it's like sucking that orange. Oh, I get a mouthful of good juice that I didn't think was there. I see new things that refresh the heart. It's revelation, beloved. Oh, if you're here tonight, don't rest on anything else. But until you can get and have God reveal himself in a mighty way to you. For all the promises of God are yea and amen. in Christ Jesus. Now this isn't something that's only for preachers. This isn't only for preachers.
I was just a young teenager when I went to hear George Mundell from Derby, Pennsylvania. And I was listening to Brother George. And my that Sunday afternoon he gave ministry that I never heard before. And my soul was blessed. You know what I did? I went to my room with my Bible. I said, Now, Lord, the same spirit that indwells George Mondale indwells me, give me something from the Word. I wanted something from the Word.
Do you want to know something? I got it. God is nomad's debtor. God freely gives. He revealed himself. And once you find something in the Word that David didn't say, that Philip didn't say, that Tom Taylor didn't say, that Dr. Barnhouse didn't say, but you find it for yourself in the Word of God. Oh, what a delight that is. And you know that's available for everybody. And friend, This is one of the ways you know that you're saved.
This is what he's meant in Romans chapter eight. His spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. And that's the essence of Galatians four, verses four and five. In Galatians four we read, but when the fullness of the time has come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under law, to redeem them under law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And if sons, then the Spirit of adoption is within us.
God has given to us the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba Father. Here's how we know we're saved. And that's the only basis upon which you can sing blessed assurance. Jesus is mine. I want you to read with me also from the Gospel by Luke to show that all the promises of God meet in Christ. Look at Luke chapter twenty four. Luke twenty four verse twenty four. This is an interesting story, Luke chapter twenty four. It's better than a novel. In Luke twenty four, it's resurrection night.
Our Lord had been raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. And there are two people walking together to a mass. And they're sad. They didn't, they heard the news that he's raised from the dead, that he's alive, but somehow they didn't believe it. The tragedy of Calvary had struck their hearts. They didn't know the victory of the resurrection. And our Lord drew near. And he went with them. And he said to them, What are you talking about? That's Bunberger's translation. What are you talking about? Why are you so sad? They said, Are you a stranger here?
The way they put it to him. Are you a stranger here? Don't you know what's happened? Oh, he's the center of it all. Don't you know what's happened? You know you can never give the Lord any information. Amen. You just can't do it. And that's so wonderful when you go to pray. You know, we may fumble around and pray for somebody. But it's wonderful to know that we can't give him any information, but we can intercede. And he enjoys to see that when our hearts are touched with the needs of somebody else. That's why we pray. We don't pray to give God information.
We pray to let him just take a look in our hearts and see how we care for one another. That's one of the reasons. But now in verse twenty three he said, And when they found not his body, they came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels which said that he was alive. And verse twenty five, and he said unto them, Now get this. He said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart, to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Let's turn that around. He says, Don't be a fool.
Don't be, have a slow heart to believe what God said in the Old Testament. And what did God say in the Old Testament? Ought not Christ to have suffered these things? Didn't this happen according to the divine plan of God? and verse twenty seven and beginning at Moses and all the prophets he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself what a test I would have loved to have been there that night in that Bible reading when the Lord took them through the Old Testament and expounded redemptive history that's what he did for all the premises of God in him are complete.
Turn to the Gospel of John chapter five. John chapter five, verse thirty-nine. Our Lord said to the people of his day, he said, Search the Scriptures. Now, we learned when we studied grammar in school that when a A sentence begins with a verb. You is silent, but it's understood. You search the Scriptures. That's what our Lord is saying to the Pharisees. For they search the Scriptures daily. You search the Scriptures.
For in them ye think you have eternal life. And they are they which testify of me. Now get what he's saying. He's saying this to his enemies. He's saying you search the scriptures. May I paraphrase that and put that in a Sunday school setting for our benefit? You learn good Bible verses in Sunday school. And they testify of me. This is why we stress the reading of the word. But notice the next verse. He says... But ye will not come to me that you might have life.
In spite of all their searching, friends, in spite of all the verses our young people learn in Sunday school, and I'm all for it. Oh, I'm not disparaging the reading of the Word. Teach them the Word that when God saves them, they hit the ground running. They hit the ground running. They have something to build on right away. When God saved me, I had something to build on right away because my parents were faithful in taking me to the Word of God. Oh, the blessings of a home were the Word of God, he stressed.
The blessings of a Sunday school. where the Word of God is taught and where the Word of God is learned. One more verse. Hebrews chapter ten. We have to go to the book of Hebrews chapter ten. As we think about Christ as a focus of history. Hebrews chapter ten and verse seven. Hebrews ten verse seven says, Then said I, lo, I come. In the volume of the book, it is written to me to do thy will, O God.
Now there are many today who say we should just study the Old Testament on its own terms. May I just say this? If you leave out the Christological focus of the Old Testament, all you have left, is a historical grammatical. In other words, it's like reading a history book. You leave Christ out of it. You have nothing. The focus of the Old Testament is the person of God's dear Son. God's dear Son. That's the purpose of it.
And you'll never really... have a desire to read the book of Leviticus apart from knowing that it's speaking of the person of Christ. Now, that brings us to Genesis three-fifteen. Let's go back now to Genesis three-fifteen and notice what it says. You've got to remember that if you say, I don't want to read Genesis three-fifteen, I know that story so well. I'll tell you this. So does the devil. And if you don't want to study it, I'll tell you this, the devil has.
If you don't think it's important, he does. He does. For here in Genesis three, fifteen, this is a seed part of the Bible. And the whole Bible, it could be said, is built upon this verse and the fulfillment of it. There are a lot of things that this verse really says to us. Notice we're going to read it again. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman. And between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head. And thou shalt bruise his heel. Now this is a statement that's made to the serpent.
The beguiling agent. of our first parents. It's full of meaning. It's full of meaning. Notice a number of things in this verse. Number one, the one who crushes the serpent's head will be a one of humanity. He's going to be a human being. He's going to be the seed of the woman. He's going to be a human being. Who is the Lord Jesus speaking to? He's speaking to the anointed cherub that covers who is the highest of the angels.
The Creator is speaking. And He says, I'm going to make a low person. One of humanity is going to crush your head. That's the first thing He says to Him. Furthermore, he's going to be a male descendant. He will crush your head. Now that's interesting, isn't it? Here is a young couple. They're expecting a child. They know one thing. It's going to be either a boy or a girl. Maybe both. Maybe both. It's going to be a boy or it's going to be a girl.
Did you ever notice when God met Manoa in Judges Thirteen, God said to her, You're going to bring forth a son, and He's going to begin to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines. He's speaking of Sampson. God was exact in what He said. He knew it wasn't going to be a girl. He knew it was going to be a boy. He's going to deliver. He knew that the seed of the woman That special person who would crush the head of the serpent would be a man. He would defeat. Furthermore, he says he uses a language here of total defeat.
He will crush the head of the serpent. Now, Christ himself made use of this prophecy. This is an important prophecy. Christ made use of it. And I want you to notice how he used it. Turn to the Gospel of John. John chapter twelve and verse thirty-one. John twelve verse thirty-one where we read, Now is a judgment of this world. Now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And then he said, And I. If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all unto me.
This, he said, signifying what death he would die. How is judgment going to come to the serpent? How is Genesis three-fifteen going to be fulfilled by the seed of the woman? He's going to be lifted up. He's going to die. And by being lifted up in death, He's going to crush the head of the serpent. Somehow the deliverer will defeat the tempter by dying. That's what our Lord is saying. Now the Apostle Paul refers to this in Romans chapter sixteen and verse twenty.
And there he says, And the God of peace shall bruise Satan shortly. under your feet. Here, the defeat of Satan is future. God will do it under your feet. And he's looking forward to it, the Apostle Paul. And so are we. And that fits Scripture perfectly. The victory was won at Calvary. But the final defeat we see coming in Revelation chapter twenty, when Satan is thrown into the bottomless pit, and then later, a thousand years later, he's thrown into the lake of fire.
Now we can conclude something from this on the basis of Genesis three fifteen, John chapter twelve, Revelation chapter twenty. What do we conclude? We conclude that Satan's defeat was accomplished at the cross. and will be brought to fruition at the coming again of our Lord Jesus Christ. And that brings the two Advent of our Lord together. His first Advent and His second Advent. You see, prophecy doesn't point forward to a single act. It points forward to a person who is going to bring redemptive history to a conclusion in a succession of acts.
Acts that began in the first advent and which are going to be consummated when our Lord returns. Well, we have to apply this truth. Well, how do we apply it? Number one, God keeps His word. Oh, we have a reliable God. We have a reliable revelation from God. What does that do for me? That gives me two things. It gives me confidence. I have confidence in the Word of God.
I'll tell you what. I have far more confidence in the Word of God than I have in the government. I have a lot more confidence in the Word of God than I have in any other person. I tell you why. I can look back over past history and I can see how God always keeps His Word. He has never failed. Do you remember what our Lord said to John on the Isle of Patmos, Revelation chapter one, where John says, Then I heard a voice behind me, and when I looked, behold, I saw.
And then he describes the person of Christ in his glory. And he said, When I saw him, I fell at his feet as one dead. And he said unto me, Fear not, I am the first and the last. I am He that liveth and was dead. And behold, I am alive forevermore. John, you don't need to fear me. I am not your enemy. I am your friend. I'm the one that was with Moses when he lifted up his rod and the children of Israel went through the water, the Red Sea, as on dry ground.
I was with Joshua when he stood before the walls of Jericho. I was with David in all his ways. I was with Solomon. I was with Zerubbabel when they built the second temple. I was with Nehemiah when they built the wall against all opposition. I was there and I was with you. Fear not, I am he that liveth. What was dead, behold, I am alive forevermore. And I have the keys of hell and of death. God keeps his word. That reminds me of a man by the name of George Quam.
George Quam was an insurance man in the city of Minneapolis. When he was a young fella, he tried to ride a train that was moving and he fell off. And his arm went underneath and severed at the shoulder. And he was determined he was going to be an athlete. A one-armed man, he took up playing handball. And you have to be an athlete to play handball. A one-armed man. He went on to defeat everybody in time in Minneapolis. He went on to defeat everybody in Minnesota.
He went on to become the champion of the United States. And he became world champion. As a Christian businessman in Minneapolis, one day, He got a telephone call from a doctor. The doctor said, I need you, George. I have a young man who doesn't have a will to live. He just lost his arm. He said, will you go to see him? George says, I'll get over there this afternoon. He went home and he got his scrapbook. But he had all pictures in it. And then he got... of one of his loving cups that he had won in fierce competition, wrapped it in a cloth.
When he went into the room of this young man who was lying on a bed, having lost his arm, very despondent, he took that loving cup and he put it in the corner, set it in the corner, it was covered. The young man couldn't see. He said, you know, I'd like to get up in the bed with you. He said to the father, oh, it's hot in here. He took off his coat. He wanted him to see that he only had one arm. That's what he wanted to do. He got up and he sat on the bed and he opened his scrapbook. And page after page, the little boy looked at the scrapbook and he looked up at George.
He looked at the scrapbook and he looked up to George. And then George said, I gotta leave. But I brought something for you. He said, young man, I brought this loving cup. I won this in fierce competition. And I want you to have it. I want you to remember me. Beloved, I hate to say this, but this is a scrapbook of the victory of our great Redeemer. I don't say that irreverently. I say that in a blessed way. And he's left us a loving cup, beloved.
He's left us a loving cup. He said, I want you to remember me. As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you show forth my death till I come. I want you to remember me. The doctor called George Kwame a couple days later. He said, George, what did you do? I can't keep that young man in bed. You know, when I look out over the congregation on a Sunday morning and I see some of the saints missing at the Lord's Supper, I feel that they haven't been in the scrapbook.
They haven't seen the glory of the victory that has been won. And that we participate in it. For God is going to crush Satan shortly. Where? Under our feet. Oh, beloved. Highlights of redemptive history. I cut my message short. Let's pray. Oh God, our Father, we ask you that you will take this word, search our hearts.
Deliver us from the spirit of this age. Give us a fresh vision of thy dear Son and what he accomplished for us when he died on the cross on Calvary's Hill, when he defeated Satan. And when he brought light and immortality to light through the gospel. And when he revealed himself to us in power. God, our Father, take the word. Blessed to every heart. For Jesus' sake. Amen.