A Daily Walk

Guest (Male): The more we learn about our salvation, the more we come to realize how greatly privileged we are in Christ. Today on A Daily Walk, we’ll take time out to consider our great salvation from the perspective of the prophets and angels.

John Randall: Do you understand this morning how great a privilege it is to have salvation? Salvation. To be saved. The privilege that we have. Prophets looked into it. I don’t know. Angels are like, what? This is incredible.

And yet we have seen and heard what others could only look into, folks. Again, in the context, keep it in mind. These people are struggling, they are hurting, they are going through trials, they are going through difficulty, they are in pain, they are suffering. And Peter says, "Hey, listen. Get your eyes on what you have. You are saved. You have salvation."

Guest (Male): From Calvary South OC, this is A Daily Walk. We’ll be joined by Pastor John Randall in a second, and we’re about to resume his study of First Peter. We left off in chapter one.

Now think with us about all that we’re saved from: death and judgment. But also, let’s not forget what we’re saved for: an eternity with Jesus. Could it get any better than that? We’re hoping you’ll walk away from today’s study seeing how greatly blessed you are in Christ and how great a salvation you’ve been given. Here’s Pastor John.

John Randall: We've been made the righteousness of God in Christ. In Second Corinthians 5:21, it says, "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." I'm a child of God, I'm a new creation, made the righteousness of God in Christ.

Oh wait, hold on. There's more. The Bible tells us in Colossians chapter two and verse ten that we are complete in Him. "And in Him you've been made complete and He is the head over all and authority."

But the Bible also tells us in Ephesians chapter one, verse three, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ." Folks, listen. This is what you have access to. Let me just ask you a question this morning. If you're not saved, why? Why are you not saved?

Why do you not humble yourself and commit your life to Christ? Look at all that is available to you. Look at everything that is accessible to you this morning. There is only one sin today that can keep a person separated from God and lost for all of eternity, and that is the sin of the rejection of Jesus Christ as your Savior. That's the one sin. Friend, listen. If you repent of sin, you can have this hope that is provided for you, this great salvation.

Now this salvation is what Peter wanted the suffering saints to focus on. Again, they're going through all kinds of hard times and Peter says, "Hey, listen. Remember you're saved. Remember your salvation. Remember what you have in Christ." And why is that so important?

This salvation that Peter is proclaiming, it wasn't some new idea. It wasn't some novelty. It was actually something that was prophesied and proclaimed by the Old Testament prophets. For the Bible tells us when the Old Testament prophets were writing Scripture—obviously you have the New Testament, you have the Old Testament. When the Old Testament was being written by major and minor prophets as they are referred to, how were they writing?

In Second Peter chapter one, verse twenty, it tells us how they were writing. It says, "Knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but by holy men of God they spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." The Bible is the revealed Word of God.

This morning, we do not believe that it only contains the Word of God, but that it is the Word of God. That it is inerrant, that it is inspired, it is literally God-breathed. And the Bible is a harmonious and continuous message from beginning to end, a self-consistent whole whose main theme is the person and work of Christ. In the volume of the book, it's written concerning Him.

And when you read through the Bible, you're going to discover that there is a diversity of authors. More than forty authors who contributed to the Bible, including a king, a shepherd, a fisherman, a tax collector, and more. And they cover a range from the educated to the uneducated, from rich to poor. And the Bible was written in three languages on three different continents over a 1500 to estimated 1800-year period of time.

And one of the most astounding things about the living, active Word of God is that it contains prophecy. Twenty-seven percent of the Bible is prophetic in nature—one out of every four verses. No other book in the world contains the kind of specific prophecies found throughout the Bible. Other so-called prophecies are so vague and so cryptic that they could be fulfilled in a number of ways.

But the prophecies of the Old Testament, the prophecies in Scripture, are often so detailed that their fulfillments were obvious and so clear. In fact, many critics of the Bible have attempted to assign later dates to some of the prophecies because they said there's no way that they could have prophesied—somebody had to come later and write that in. Well, not if you're God and you know the beginning of the end and you're breathing life into these men to write these things.

The Old Testament prophets gave both short and long-term prophecies so that the undisputed fulfillment of the short-term predictions would authenticate the validity of the long-term predictions, which could not be verified often for many years. So God designed fulfilled prophecy to be an open demonstration of the divine origin of Scripture.

In Second Timothy 3:16, Paul said it this way: "Every scripture, all scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness." The Holy Spirit moved on men like Daniel, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Joel, Hosea, and the rest of them to write these things.

But they did not always understand exactly what they were writing or the timing of what they were writing. Because some of the things that were written were for the future and not for the present. Many times what they were writing, it was a mystery to them.

And so what Peter wanted these believers to know is that the Old Testament prophets, they were searching diligently about this great salvation and didn't fully understand it. Look at again verse ten: "Of this salvation that we're talking about, the prophets inquired and searched carefully, who prophesied of grace that would come to you, searching what manner and what time the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when He testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow."

What the prophets were particularly interested in was the timing. What's the timing of these events that we're writing about? When would this salvation occur? What was the timeframe? What day? Was it in their day, or was it some other day? They couldn't figure it out. When the Messiah would ultimately arrive.

Let me give you some examples of this. One example would be that of Deuteronomy chapter eighteen and verse fifteen when Moses said to the nation of Israel, "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear." So following that prophetic word of Moses, people were always looking for whoever it was he was talking about.

That is why when Jesus came and He started providing bread there on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, they said, "Oh, this looks a lot like the one Moses told us about because look at all the bread, and Moses had manna and this guy's providing bread. Is this the one?" Well, He was.

You think about Isaiah's prophecy, several examples in Isaiah. Isaiah chapter seven, when it talks about "of the increase of His government and peace, there's going to be no end and upon the throne of David over His kingdom to order and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forevermore." Well, when's that going to happen? They wondered.

You think about Isaiah chapter fifty-three. Probably the most explicit and powerful of all the Messianic prophecies is Isaiah 52:13 through Isaiah 53:12. Written seven centuries before Christ arrived. "Surely He has borne our griefs, carried our sorrows. We esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed." Who is that? Who's that talking about? When is that going to happen?

The prophets didn't fully understand. Some prophecies of the suffering Messiah were right next to prophecies of a coming glorious kingdom of Messiah. And oftentimes they would be blended in the same verse and they couldn't understand it. Isaiah's writing about a kingdom at one point and then about a suffering servant the next point.

Daniel, he got to the place where he said, "I need to know what this means." And so he asked, "When is this?" And the Lord responded to Daniel and said, "Seal it up, for it's for a time appointed in the future." The Old Testament prophets couldn't understand.

But when you come to the New Testament, do you know what you find? A similar misunderstanding even when Jesus arrived. Think of John the Baptist. John the Baptist, Jesus said, was the greatest of all of the prophets in the respect that he had the opportunity to be the forerunner of the Messiah that all of the Old Testament prophets pointed to.

John had the unique privilege that Isaiah and Daniel didn’t have. He got to introduce Jesus to the world. And in that sense, he had greater opportunity. But when John was placed in prison because of his outspoken words to the king, he's sitting there in prison and he sends his servants to Jesus and says, "Hey listen, I got a question for you." Matthew chapter eleven, verse three. "Are you the coming one, or do we look for another?"

What is John saying? John's saying, "I told everybody you're the Lamb of God that was going to take away the sins of the world. I said you're the coming one, you're the Messiah, you're the one that all the Old Testament prophets pointed to. Let's get this show on the road, man. Get me out of prison." He’s saying, "Get me out of this. Are you the one? Are we supposed to look for somebody else?" Even John in that moment did not fully yet comprehend that Jesus had to suffer first before He would rule and reign.

He didn't understand the gap of time. Here's what I want us to understand concerning this great salvation. The prophets wrote about it, they couldn't comprehend it completely. This great salvation John the Baptist didn't quite grasp. But guess what? We here collectively have the privilege of knowing and understanding what they could only look into the future and try to discern.

In fact, Jesus said this in Matthew chapter eleven, verse eleven. Jesus said this: "Assuredly I say to you, among those born among women, there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist. But"—listen to this, this will blow your mind—"but he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he."

You think, okay, hold on for a second. If John's the greatest of all the prophets, how could he who is least be greater than the greatest? Because we have an understanding of the things that John the Baptist, the Old Testament prophets, even the angels were perplexed about.

The prophets searched these things, but they couldn't fully understand it. We've been forgiven of our sins, we have the knowledge of the cross, the sacrifice of Christ, His resurrection, the hope of eternity. And although John the Baptist was honored and had the blessings of seeing the Messiah and pointing people to Him, John never saw the work of Christ completed.

He only proclaimed His coming. In contrast, folks, we've seen the work completed. We are the recipients of the finished work, in other words. So imagine Peter writing this to people who were suffering and being persecuted and struggling with life. He said, "Listen, do you know what you have? You have what they could only look at from a distance. You have something that is so precious and so valuable: your salvation."

Notice what you have in your possession. And I think this is really important for us, folks, because this is something, I don't know why this is, but sometimes we can take it for granted. We forget how valuable this really is. That's why no doubt the Psalmist said, "Lord, restore unto me the joy of my"—what?—"salvation." That's how powerful it is.

So the least of us, filled with the Spirit of God, walking in fellowship with Jesus, have greater privileges than even the prophets or John the Baptist because this mystery has now been revealed. This great salvation. In fact, what the prophets, what the religious leaders, what the disciples, they couldn't understand at first—even the Jewish people, even some at the present time don’t understand—was the fact that there would be something called the Church Age.

Let me explain. In the Old Testament, there are, if you would consider, two mountains that are revealed. One is Mount Calvary. That is where Jesus comes the first time where He suffers and dies on Mount Calvary. But there's also another mountain that is referred to that speaks of the second coming of Christ: the Mount of Olives, when He comes again as King and He rules and reigns.

And when you read through the Old Testament, you see these two mountains. But what you don't see and what they didn't understand at that time, it was a mystery to them, is the valley between the two mountains, which is the Church Age. That is, Gentiles becoming part of God's plan of salvation.

Two thousand years have gone by, as it were, since Mount Calvary. We're still waiting on the Mount of Olives. But there's this valley in between, this mystery concerning this great salvation that they didn't understand. And Paul writes about this specifically, this valley in between the two mountains.

Ephesians chapter three, verse five, this is what Paul said: "Which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs of the same body and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel."

Paul said this was a mystery. They didn't understand it. And now it's been revealed. One other side note: even the Apostle Peter himself, the author of this letter, did not understand this mystery of Gentiles being part of the family of faith until eight years after Pentecost when he went to the home of Cornelius, a Gentile, and led him to Christ. And he thought, "I guess Gentiles are part of this too. They receive the Spirit the same way we do." The mystery was now revealed and the gospel then began to spread throughout the Gentile world.

This salvation, the prophets couldn't figure it out, so they inquired diligently. But not only was there prophetic inquiry, but did you know that there was also angelic inquiry? Look at the next verse, look at verse twelve, as Peter talks about this great salvation.

Verse twelve: "To them it was revealed that, not to themselves but to us." God's revealed it to us, this mystery, this great salvation. "They were ministering the things"—that is, the prophets and those in the past were ministering the things—"which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things which angels desire to look into."

Peter said the prophets didn't understand it, the mystery's now been revealed. This message has now been preached to you. You've responded. Salvation, you have it by the Spirit of God. It's been preached to you. The prophets inquired, the preachers preached. But look at this, the angels were looking into it.

What does that mean, the angels were looking into it? Even the angels are being educated by what God is doing through salvation. Their wings scratching their head. "How is He saving all these people?" They're just amazed. They're looking into it, they're inquiring. Obviously they know now.

But it's not that angels have been uninvolved, by the way, in God's plan of salvation. Because they announced Christ's birth to the shepherds, that a Savior had been born. They ministered to Jesus during His time of testing, the Bible tells us. They stood by the grave and told those that came to it, "He's not here. He's risen." They were there at His ascension when He went back to heaven.

And now they serve the Lord by ministering to all believers, the Bible tells us in Hebrews chapter one, verse fourteen. God has made His angels witnesses to what occurs in the body of Christ. You know what the Bible says about the angels? That they rejoice when one sinner comes to faith in Christ. All of heaven rejoices. The angels are like, "Let's go! Let's go!" They're so excited. I don't know if it looks like that, but they rejoice.

They're amazed. The angels wanted to know the details, they were curious. Peter said even they're amazed at this salvation that has been given to you. How encouraged should these troubled believers be that they possess this great salvation?

The Bible tells us in Ephesians chapter three, verse ten—another powerful verse along this point—it says, "That the manifold wisdom of God might be made known through the church to the rulers and authorities in heavenly places." Think about that.

Dr. Kenneth Wuest, he said it this way. I love what he said. He said, "The angels peer into the mysteries of the church truth from beside it." He said, "They're like the cherubim bending over the mercy seat where man has access to God through a substitutionary sacrifice that cleanses him from sin. They are not participants in the salvation, but they're spectators of it." They're watching it. That which has been revealed to you, the angels are like, "Wow, that's amazing."

In Luke chapter ten, and verse twenty-three, it says, "For I say to you that many prophets and kings wished to see the things which you see and did not see them, to hear the things which you hear and they did not hear them." Do you understand this morning how great a privilege it is to have salvation? Salvation. To be saved.

Kings. We already said the prophets, but even kings were like, "What's going to happen?" You remember when David wanted to build God a house? He said, "Lord, I want to build you a house. It just doesn't seem right that I'm here and you're in a tent. I'm going to build you something. I'm going to do it." You remember that?

And the Lord said, "David, you can't build me a house. Your hands are full of blood. You're a man of war. But I'm going to do something better." The Lord said, "I'm actually going to build you a house. And from your line, there's going to be one who's going to be the King and He's going to reign on your throne forever." David could hear that and believe it, but he didn't understand it.

We understand it. Do you see what I'm saying? The privilege that we have. Prophets looked into it. I don't know. Angels are like, "What? This is incredible." And yet we have seen and heard what others could only look into, folks.

In the context, keep it in mind. These people are struggling, they are hurting, they are going through trials, they are going through difficulty, they are in pain, they are suffering. And Peter says, "Hey, listen. Get your eyes on what you have. You are saved. You have salvation. No matter what you experience here, nothing compares to what you have been given through Christ. So great a salvation. You can be encouraged today by that."

I say all of that to reveal what a privilege it is to know the way of salvation. Not only to know the way of salvation, but to be saved. There shouldn't be a day that goes by in your life and mine as believers that we don't say, "Thank you, Jesus, for saving me from eternal separation from you. By your grace, I have been saved."

Guest (Male): Some 2,000 years ago, Jesus came down to Earth to eventually die for our sins and provide this great salvation we now enjoy. Thanks for spending time with us today reflecting on this great salvation.

This is A Daily Walk with Pastor John Randall. Hear this study from First Peter again anytime you’d like at adailywalk.org, and sign up for our free podcast so you can start receiving biblical encouragement on a regular basis. Have you downloaded our free app? This is a great way to listen to weekly teachings from John shortly after they’re delivered. Search for Calvary South OC.

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