Online Lecture Series Season 2: The 1872 Cavite Mutiny

(upbeat music) - You're listening to the unsafe Bible with Pastor Ken Brown. (upbeat music) - Yes, there are still spirits of those who are unsaved and she all, and they're waiting for the great white throne judgment. The rich man of Luke 16, for example, he's still there. Lazarus, though, is in heaven with the Lord. All the believers are out of there. Everyone who's a believer is gone and there are no believers there at all now. Since his resurrection, each and every believer who sleeps, that's Paul's term for those who die in the Lord, go to be with him in heaven, all of us. (upbeat music) Many of us have heard the idea that after we die, there's a waiting place before we can finally be with God. That kind of uncertainty can leave us wondering what really happens after this life ends. But the good news of the gospel gives us a sure hope. Pastor Ken will explain to you today that because of Jesus finished work on the cross, those who belong to him don't have to wait to enter his presence. You can know for sure that when you leave this life, you will be with Christ forever. Now, here's Pastor Ken in the book of first Peter, chapter three. As he continues his message, angels in prison and the flood. Even his people, as unholy as we are, we're holy in the sense that we've been set apart to service for him. And we saw that as we studied first Peter two, nine. Just as God told Adam, the results of disobedience, sin, okay, that's what disobedience is, is death, the sacrificial system points to that. And as part of the process, in the sacrifice process, there would be a laying on of hands onto the head of the sacrificial animal. By the one who, it was being sacrificed on behalf of this meant transmission and delegation and implied representation, so that it pointed to a substitution of the sacrifice for the Sacrificer. Hence, it's always accompanied by the confession of sin and prayer. So as the person who is sacrificing the animal, they place their hand on the head of that animal, they would pray and ask that that would be enough to atone for their sin that they had committed resulting in them having to do the sacrifice. But this is not a permanent thing. Sin in the life of an observant Jew, meant they might be right back again next week, doing the same thing again, because we're all sinners. So that meant there was this constant notice that I gotta make sure that everything is right between me and the Lord. In Isaiah 53, 4 to 6, we get notification that someone's coming who's going to take care of that problem for us permanently. We're talking about the suffering servant that is pointed to in Isaiah 53. It's Jesus Christ, of course. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and 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. All we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his own way. And here's the substitution part. The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Our sin was placed on to Jesus Christ on the cross. Isaiah makes it abundantly clear. A suffering savior is coming. He's going to be substituted for our sin as a sacrifice accepted with the God, ending the necessity to sacrifice animal after animal after animal. And in Mark 10, Jesus actually says this in verse 45, even the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many. He knew what he was headed to do. He knew what his mission was here on planet earth. John 1.29 says this and it's John the Baptist seeing Jesus in the distance. And John saw him and he said, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Again pointing to that sacrificial system, but he's the ultimate sacrifice who's going to take away all of our sin. Roman 6.23 tells us the reason for this. The wages of sin is death. But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Jesus died a substitutionary death on our behalf. He did it for us. He took upon himself the sin and the guilt we deserve and paid the penalty on our behalf. And when he did that, it was a permanent thing. If we accept what he did on the cross for us, we are saved. We are saved. There's no other sacrifice necessary. No other passage we entire Old Testament is alluded to by the New Testament writers more than Isaiah 53. It's as if they want to emphasize precisely the substitutionary aspect of Jesus and his death in the cross being a substitution for us and the penalty of sin that we were supposed to be paying, but he has paid on our behalf. Peter begins with the ultimate declaration of victory over sin and over all the powers of the unseen realm in rebellion to God. The crucifixion is an achievement. Why? Well, because Jesus is going to walk out of the grave wholly victorious over death, over the grave, and he's now seated at the right hand of the Father. Now, what Jesus achieved redemption is the great reversal of the events put into motion by Adam when Adam fell. Just as Adam's failure had a global impact, universal impact, actually. So too does the achievement of Jesus Christ on the cross. And Peter here clearly has identified Jesus as the suffering savior that we read about in Isaiah 53. Now, the wording, once for all in some translations, we see that in the New American standard, and it's in the revised standard version too, is not intended to say for all people, but simply for all time. It's not an additional phrase, it just simply means once. It's the Greek word, heypux, and it just means Jesus died once. That was it, he doesn't have to die again. There is no further sacrifice that's necessary. His sacrifice was satisfactory, and we have been reconciled if we accept what it is he did on the cross. For us, we've been reconciled to God. Christ's death was for sins. That's a compressed way of saying he paid the penalty for our sin. It's made more explicit when Peter adds the righteous for the unrighteous, literally. In the Greek, we have the singular, the righteous one for the unrighteous masses, the people plural. Precisely because Christ had no guilt of his own to pay for, 'cause he's righteous, he never did anything wrong, he could be the substitute who died in our place bearing the punishment that we deserve. And that's what Jesus does for us on the cross. He provides us a way out of the predicament that Adam put us into, and he's standing there saying, "I've done this for you, all you have to do is believe." Christ did indeed die physically, but he walked out of the grave being a made alive in the spirit. His physical death brought him and us, spiritual gain, by his resurrection. He defeated death, showing us that we too, as his followers will do the same, as we are believing him and trusting in him to continue to do his work in us. And he promises that by virtue of the fact that he's given us the Holy Spirit. Jesus is the second Adam, and he's reversed with the first Adam, started. Peter, right at the end of verse 18, speaks about the unseen realm. And how Jesus was made alive after having been in that realm. Now, Christ is presented here not simply as an example, but as one who threw his exaltation and superiority over the cosmic powers. You have to remember, there's more going on behind the scenes than we actually read. There are a host of demons and fallen angels who want Christ to fail, and they want him dead. And he defeated them all. And because of that, he assures, as believers, us union with God assures us of our salvation as well. And because Jesus was able to deal with all of that that was thrown upon him on our behalf. Now, about those cosmic powers of the unseen realm, Jesus actually called on some of those fallen members of the unseen realm, post crucifixion. In 1 Peter 3, picking up halfway through verse 18, we read this, "But made alive in the Spirit in which he also went, "and made proclamation to the spirits in prison." Or, as it says in the complete Jewish Bible, he was put to death in the flesh, brought to life by the Spirit. And in this form, he went and made a proclamation to the imprisoned spirits. You read that, and you sit there, and if you're like me, you go, "Say what?" I've read this multiple times. And what it tells us is kind of mind-blowing, really. Are we to understand that after Jesus died on the cross? prior to his resurrection, that he went to a prison, what prison and where it is, we don't know, but to a prison in the unseen realm to make a proclamation to prisoners, fallen divine beings, apparently, who are being held prisoner there. Peter's talking about the triumphant Christ, entering the unseen realm in victory immediately after the crucifixion, and yes, victory Paul tells us about that. He gives us insight in Colossians chapter 2, starting in verse 13, Paul says this, "And when you were dead in your wrongdoings and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive, together with him, having forgiven us all our wrongdoings, having canceled the certificate of death, consisting of decrees against us which was hostile to us, and which he has taken out of the way, having it nailed it to the cross. When he had disarmed the rulers and authorities, he made a public display of them having triumphed over them through him." What he's saying here is that first of all, in Christ, God has wiped the slate clean. Adam's failure has been completely reversed. Reconciliation for us as believers is total. If we accept what Jesus has done on the cross, we are a reconciled to God. In fact, we are adopted kids. We belong to the family now. We are part of him. We're part of Christ. Isaiah 43, 25, we read this, God speaking, "I am the one who blots out your rebellious deeds from my sake. Your sins I do not remember. We've been given our life to Jesus Christ. He forgives us our sins past, present, and future, and he doesn't remember them again. He chooses to forget them. The God who knows everything chooses to forget our sin once we come to Christ." That's just amazing when you stop and think about it. The sin issue has been dealt with by Jesus for his people. Those who trust in Christ, well, their sins are blotted out. They're gone. He also made a proclamation to the spirits there in prison. We also see, thanks to Paul, there's a triumph also taking place over the fallen members of the unseen realm. You see, they thought they had won when they had Christ crucified. And now here's Jesus showing up in the unseen realm, proclaiming to them saying, "No, you really have just now lost everything. You are thoroughly, utterly defeated." In the ancient world, the conqueror would parade the captives after a battle and demand tribute for himself. Now, Jesus here is the conqueror. And yes, all of the captured material, the booty, does rightfully belong to him, but he also will distribute it after the conquest. Paul knows that. And he quotes Psalm 68-18 to make the point that after Jesus conquered his demonic enemies, he distributed the benefits of the conquest to his people, believers. Ephesians 4, verses 7 to 10, is where we see this, but grace was given to each one of us, according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore, it says, "When he ascended on high, he led a host of captives and he gave gifts to men, and saying he ascended, what does it mean? But he also descended into the lower regions, the earth. He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things." So who is it? Who are the spirits that are in prison in the unseen realm? As Jesus arrives in triumph, they're in the unseen realm, just prior to his resurrection. Who is it that he's going to go and proclaim to? Now, these are not the captives that he's setting free as a result of the resurrection. Now, those captives that he's setting free are all those Old Testament saints, the pre-flood, post-flood, pre-law, post-law. Everyone who is a believer in the Old Testament is who he's going to free. Those are the captives. They're in paradise, the good side of Sheol. They've been set free, and when Jesus ascends, he takes all of them with him, emptying out paradise. From that point forward, a believer who dies in Christ goes directly to be with Jesus in heaven. There's no holding cell anymore in Sheol. Now, that doesn't mean that those who are dying without Christ, that's where they go. They go to Sheol to wait for the Great White Throne. I don't want to get too deep into that, but that's kind of the basics of the scriptures. Yes, there are still spirits of those who are unsaved in Sheol, and they're waiting for the Great White Throne judgment. Everyone who's a believer is gone, and there are no believers there at all now. Now, these are not the spirits that Jesus is making a proclamation to. This, again, gets back to the typology that Peter is using. Now, Peter's pointing back to events in Genesis 6 to Genesis 8 as types of what he's talking about here in the text. We read this in Genesis 6, and I'm going to use the Septuagint version, which is the same version that Peter would have used, okay? And Noah lived 500 years, and Noah fathered three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And it happened when humans began to become numerous upon the earth, and they had daughters, the angels of God, having seen the daughters of humans that they were beautiful, took for themselves women from all whom they picked out. The Lord God said, "My breath will certainly not reside in these humans for very long because they are flush, but their days will be 120 years." Now, giants were upon the earth in those days, and after that, whenever the sons of God entered into the daughters of humans, they fathered children from themselves. Those were the giants who were from long ago, the people of renown. Now, the Lord God saw that the wicked actions of humans are multiplied upon the earth, and everyone was focused in his heart on evil things all their days. God reflected that he had made humankind upon the earth, and he considered, and God said, "I will discard humanity, whom I made from the face of the earth, from human to animal, from creeping things to wing birds of the heavens, because I'm angry that I made them." But Noah found grace before the Lord God. A book that was familiar to Peter, and most Jews of the time, because what we're talking about here is giants, Nephilim, the flood, corruption of the human genome, a lot of different things going on here. There was a book that was familiar to Peter, and it was familiar to many Jews after the return from the exile, and it provides additional detail about the event, and gives us a little more information about who those spirits are. They're called watchers in the book of Enoch. We find out that these watchers all descend on Mount Hermon, and they agree to corrupt the human genome together. And what we see in Enoch, chapter 8, verses 1-4, again, out of the Septuagint, it says this, and we get some of their names. As Zael taught the humans to make swords, weapons, shields, and breastplates, the lessons of the angels, and they showed them their mining and craftsmanship, anchors, and adornments, powders, and painted eyes, in all kinds of choice stones in dying. Much ungodliness and prostitution happened, and they were led astray and ruined in all their ways. Semiahza taught enchantments in the cutting of roots. Armarus spells in healing, Raqael astrology, Cochial, the science of symptoms, Sathael watching the stars, Sariel, the course of the moon, and therefore the cry of the other destroyed people went up into heaven. Now again, the book of Enoch is not considered part of the scriptures, but it is part of the Septuagint. It is a reference book that was used by Jude, by Peter. Jesus even made a side reference to it once as well. So they were familiar with it. It'd be like us referring to a history from time to time as we were studying the word. Those fallen watchers, by the way, another job description for a class of divine beings, just like Sarah Femme, Nephilim, well, not Nephilim, but Sarah Femme, Cherry Abdom, that type of thing. They're faithful ones also. There are faithful watchers that we read about in the book of Daniel, and they wind up being imprisoned by the Lord. Not the faithful ones, the unfaithful ones, because of their action, the Nephilim giants wound up becoming offspring of this unholy union between fallen angels, fallen watchers, and women. Peter will even tell us the name of the prison they're being held in in 2 Peter chapter 2, which means we're not done with this topic yet. He calls the place where they're at Tartarus. It's the only place in the Bible that word shows up. Most English translations, though, have that Greek word translated as hell. Tartarus, Dr. Heiser says this about it. Tartarus has no literal geography. It's the language of the spiritual realm. Tartarus was part of the underworld, as part of biblical shield. A place conceived as being inside the earth, because in ancient experience, that's where the dead go, since you bury the dead. So they had this idea that's where they would go. Broadly speaking, the underworld is not hell. It's the afterlife. It's the place or realm where the dead go. That place has its own geography. Jesus made reference to that. He talks about paradise, and he talks about Lazarus. being in paradise with Abraham, he talks about the rich man being in sheol where it's not paradise. Some experience eternal life with God, paradise, in the spiritual realm. When Jesus rose from the dead, he emptied out paradise. Some do not, and they're still there today. As you read through the book of Enoch, which is an interesting read, if you've ever done that, you discover that around chapter 12, Enoch is taken to heaven. And doesn't return to earth, we read about that also in the book of Genesis. He's a type of the rapture of the church, another type. He's given the task by God to go and talk to the imprisoned spirits and announce to them that they're doomed. That shows up on Enoch chapter 12, verses 4 to 6, Enoch, scribe of righteousness. Go and speak to the watchman of heaven. Any who abandoned the high heaven, the holy eternal place who were defiled with the women and just as the sons of the earth did, they did the same also and took for themselves women. You've brought great, this is what he's supposed to tell him. You've got, you've brought great destruction on the earth. There'll be no peace for you nor remission of sin. And though they rejoice in their children, they'll see the murder of their beloved ones and they will groan over the destruction of their children. They will be bound for eternity and there'll be no mercy and peace. This is what Enoch was told to go tell them. Now, Enoch, who originally went and made proclamation to the watchers concerning their faith and the fate of their offspring would understand then and we would have to understand that as we read here in Peter, he is a type of Christ. Just as Noah is a type of the believer, but just as Jesus would later go and tell these sane watchers who are still in prison that they're doomed, just as Enoch told them they're doomed. The point here is this, okay? The unseen realm is a real place that has a geography that we really don't completely understand. There are citizens who reside there. There are faithful followers of Jesus Christ who are there and the Lord who are there. They are angels, they're watchers, they're cherry abum, they're seraphim, they're all these different job titles. And then there are also fallen ones who are not allowed there anymore. However, some are being held in a prison called Tartarus because their sin is so egregious that they've been in prison there. That's one of the cell blocks. We read of several other cell blocks to the bottomless pit and places like that. These are for those who made bad decisions and they're not faithful anymore. And so they're being held captive so that they can't do anything as bad in the future. Per Enoch 10, as I L, who was the ringleader of all this of all the watchers, he's in solitary confinement. But all the other watchers who went with him, they're in a separate holding cell. And Enoch is the one who went and talked to them. So back to our text and this spirit's in prison thing. Spirits is an appropriate title for fallen angels or demons. It's evident in all the Jewish traditions regarding fallen angels of Genesis 6 and their offspring. This is what they were referred to as. It fits the common usage of language also in early Christianity. So again, we're thinking like Peter's contemporaries would be thinking. These spirits also appear as those that disobeyed defying God's command. The idea that the sons of God who sinned in Genesis 6 4, they're fallen angels. And this was widespread in Peter's day. I mean, they accepted that as this is what the scriptures teach. And the idea also was that they were chained. They were chained and unable to go anywhere. The message just given by Pastor Ken has brought you into further awareness of what the Apostle Peter wrote in the book of First Peter. Here on the unsafe Bible, our goal is always to bring you the Word of God and help you grow in your walk with God. So many nuggets of wisdom and experience are mentioned in First Peter. In chapter 1 verse 7, it says that the genuineness of your faith being much more precious than gold that parishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ. So think of a rock that is pressed and put under intense heat, but the outcome is a beautiful diamond. This is how you can be as you follow after Jesus. Peter experienced this first hand. In fact, he had a similar outcome to Jesus in laying down his life for the sake of the gospel. But the words and advice left for us by Peter are gems that are a treasure to behold. We're given sage advice from this original Apostle that we can carry on in the present and press on into the future with the hope and the boldness that Peter lived out during his life. When you're tempted to give in, be discouraged or cave into what everyone else is doing, keep looking back at these passages in First Peter. In fact, if you would like to listen to this very message again, you can find it on our website, the unsafebible.com. Other resources are available to you on our website, as well as information about how to join us in person for weekly services. Thanks for being here today. Listening, learning, and growing from the unsafe Bible.