Overshadowed Truths

Introduction

Greetings…

As one brother put it, “Sometimes it is possible that something of great value is within our grasp, but we fail to realize it because we are distracted by something else.”

With all the false doctrines out there and the manipulation of scripture being thrown around it is easy to focus on a particular passage in light of what others say about it and forget the message God is sending through it.

Today, I want to take a moment to examine two of these “Overshadowed Truths.”

The Thief On The Cross

The Truth.

What comes to mind when I say the “Thief on the Cross?”

For many if not most of us, our first thought is on the often debated subject of baptism and its necessity.

Because most people who reject baptism for the remission of sins use this as proof text for baptism not being necessary for salvation.

However, I want us to read Luke 23:39-43 again and consider what message God wants us to get.

Luke 23:39–40 ESV

39 One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” 40 But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?

Luke 23:41–43 ESV

41 And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” 42 And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” 43 And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

What is God wanting us to know when read and study this?

Remember, this man had earlier ridiculed Jesus as well.

Matthew 27:44 ESV

44 And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way.

Summary

This passages shows us the very depth and scope of God love and gives me hope because of how much God loves us.

What about…

The Divine Longsuffering

The Spirits In Prison.

Again we find ourselves at a passage that many have spent countless hours discussing, debating, and often times arguing over when and how Jesus preached to the “spirits in prison.”

But in man’s attempt to explain this passage, we often overlook the power truth it is teaching about “divine longsuffering.”

Let’s read 1 Peter 3:18-21.

1 Peter 3:18–19 ESV

18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, 19 in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison,

1 Peter 3:20–21 (ESV)

20 because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. 21 Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ

Summary

Think about how patient God was with a people who literally “grieved God’s heart” and made him regret he had even created them because “every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5-6).

What divine longsuffering was going on there as God had Noah preach to these men and women and offer them the opportunity to be saved from the waters, knowing how they felt about him.

Conclusion

There is nothing wrong with examining scripture to determine truth when one questions our determination of a passage.

We are expected to “buy the truth and sell it not” after all (Proverbs 23:23).

But knowing the truth is more than knowing what a passage “isn’t saying” it is knowing what it is saying and how that truth and help us get to heaven.

As we go through this year let us seek to “rightly handled the word of truth” in every way God intends us to do so.

Invitation

Isaiah 59:1–2 ESV

1 Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; 2 but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.

Philippians 2:6–7 ESV

6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

Endnotes

Overshadowed Truths sermon by Steve Higginbotham (https://preachinghelp.org/sermons/2018/Overshadowed.pdf)