Well, good evening. Thank you, thank you.
If I have, don't know you. My name is Andrew me.
And my wife, and our three kids. We used to be a part of Frontier
church. And about a year and a half ago,
we moved down to Texas where we are currently serving in student
Ministry down there. So we've just been here for a
handful of days and it's been a joy to be with you.
So thank you for allowing me this privilege to teach tonight.
And to talk about something that is often misunderstood or is
just not thought about it all. I've got a couple of goals for
us tonight and hopefully you've seen.
I'm still on the frontier Church text messaging list so I know
Cole has been blasting you with. Hey, here's what's coming up?
Here's some articles to read. So I know that you hopefully
understand what, what what tonight is about.
But we're going to be talking about the harrowing of Hell or
the dissensus, or the Christ descent into the underworld, or
his descent into hell. And we're going to unpack that
here in just a little bit. But on the outset of teaching, I
just want to give you my two goals for the tonight.
I've got two goals, the first goal.
Is I want you to have handles to hold on to this doctrine of
Christ descent things that you can hold on, you say, okay.
I know what this is. I understand it.
I know how this impacts my life. That's goal.
Number one and the goal. Number two is, I want you to see
how Christ descent gives us joy. How Christ is sent should cause
us to worship Him and love him. And follow him, more closely to
simple goals. And then a disclaimer, there is
a lot of content about this doctrine of Christ to Ending
into hell tons of it. I've got 30 minutes tonight.
Hopefully, I will stay within that those boundaries, but I've
sent through a lot of coal sermons or he went over the
boundaries of 30 minutes or 50 minutes.
So I might get to just drop a nuke tonight and he gets to deal
with all the Pastoral ramifications of that.
But anyway, so there should be some things.
There should be some rocks that were not going to uncover and
see what's hiding under those rocks.
But what I want to do tonight is to give you an overview of what
this Doctrine is. And how this leads us to find
our joy in Jesus and to follow him.
So I'm going to pray and they were to look at a few passages
of scripture and that what I want to show us is how this
actually impacts our daily lives how this impacts the way we
think about Jesus and how this impacts the way that we think
about ourselves. So let's pray and I'm going to
dig into God's word together. Father, I thank you so much for
this church. I think you that after a year
and a half, I get to return and see how this church family has
grown, and is flourishing. And not just because they have a
building. But because of people who are
investing in people in this church, I think you for this
pastoral team in Frontier and how they, they feed the flock,
and how they shepherd, the flock of God, and how they understand
that, they are under Shepherds who were being shepherded by
Jesus. I think you for the people who
loudly they are truths through song on Sunday morning.
It's a beautiful picture to see people who come from different
walks of life and different backgrounds and come together as
God's people and worship. And declare that Jesus is king
of kings. And he's the Lord of lords that
he is, Sovereign over all. And so, I think you for the
blessing that Frontier church, has been to my family and how
they've been a blessing to the city of Des Moines.
And so I pray that you would continue to bless them that you
would give them Grace and that you would continue to show them
your kindness. In the powerful name of Jesus
that we declare these things and ask these things of you, amen.
All right, so tonight we are talking about Christ descent.
We're talking about him, going down into the underworld after
he's crucified. And I've been, I was a part of
Frontier for about five and a half years and pretty much from
day one. We've competitive confessed, the
Apostles Creed, we did that tonight and you see this phrase
pop up? He descended into hell.
I don't know if you're like me, I grew up Baptist.
I was Southern Baptist my entire life.
I serve in a Southern Baptist Church now, and I would bump
into That phrase, he descended into hell and that would freak
me out. Like, what are you toeses think?
Talking about you, Tommy the Jesus descended into hell, and
that's because I believed my only understanding of that word
h-e-l-l-o meant a place of eternal torment and so I did
hear that and be like families. Catholics are weird.
Why are we reading this Apostles Creed thing, and those press,
those, those anglicans, they are some weird Falk.
They believe that Jesus descended into hell, what, what
is going on here? But as I've grown and come to a
Understand the scriptures more richly and understanding what
the Apostles Creed is trying to accomplish.
It gave me a broader view of what Jesus did on behalf of
those who would follow him. And so we're looking at the
dissension of Christ into hell. We're looking at him going into
the Afterlife and I want to flush that out here more in just
a second but we all know about Good Friday.
Good Friday, we may wear black clothing.
You try to take on a more somber tone.
We turn the lights down, we leave in silence and so we
celebrate, and we mourn our sin and know that Jesus has been
crucified on behalf of the faithful.
We know that. And then we have this Saturday,
they were like well I guess we're just waiting.
We just going to fill these Easter baskets baskets on
Saturday night. So the kids can have them and we
really don't know what to do with Saturday and then and then
Easter Sunday morning, we could celebrate and sing our guts out
about Christ. Resurrection, but there's this
time in between that we neglect often in our theology, in our
understanding of Christ's Ministry that that, that we can
squeeze out more joy out of it. And so this this day Saturday
which throughout church history has been known as Holy Saturday.
We look at what Jesus did whenever he was dead.
We'd look at we're all pretty familiar with Christ died and
then Christ was resurrected, but what do you do on the
in-between? What's what He accomplished
while his body was dead, while his lungs had no breath in them
while his heart had no beet inside his chest.
What is Christ at work doing? What does he accomplishing in
his death and this doctrine of Christ descending into hell?
The dissensus, the harrowing of hell, we see that Christ even
though his body is dead, his spirit is at work on behalf of
God's people and God's glory and God's judgment over the forces
of evil. There's so much that we can
learn. From this one day this Holy
Saturday and understand what Jesus was doing for us.
And I love this Doctrine, just really a few years ago is
whenever I started to understand it and really fall in love with
with this Doctrine. And so I hope that tonight what
we accomplished here in these next, few moments will be
helpful for you and that whenever you get to Holly
Saturday here in a few weeks that it your Holy Saturday won't
be wasted but that you'll actually know what to do.
You'll know what to celebrate on that Saturday before Easter
Sunday it. So we're going to look at three
passages here and what I really want to do is present you kind
of with what one of my favorite theologians will call a matrix
of ideas, how all these ideas operate with one another and
present us with information about who Jesus is?
So the first pass is going to look at and if you want to turn
there and your scriptures or turn on your glowy screen and
and figure out what's going on there, you can turn to
Revelation 1 and we'll look at 7 verses 17 and 18, Revelation, 1
17 and 18. But we're going to start here,
and we're going to kind of use this as a launching pad.
And as I said earlier, there's a whole mine that we can dig and
bring things back up to the surface and the passages that
we're look at tonight, we're not going to have time to do all of
that. And I'll if you want to catch me
after we're done tonight, I can give you some more resources,
Point some books out to you that have been really helpful for me.
But we're to look at these passages and scrape the surface
and then I get to leave and then I get to hear about what
Frontier does next year on Holy Saturday.
And how you guys are Going down into the mines, digging up these
jewels that we find in these passages.
Let me read read for us here. When I saw him, I fell at his
feet as though dead, but he laid his right hand on me saying,
fear not. I am the first and the last and
the living one, I died and behold.
I am alive for Evermore and I have the keys of death and
Hades. Two verses there that I probably
read. I don't know how many times in
my life in the Bible reading plan or just me being bored.
Like, let's look at this kooky stuff and Revelation these two
simple versus here. Kind of set the stage for us.
So we have John, who is given this Revelation by God, and he
is encountering Jesus. And he's having this
conversation with Jesus and John falls down at Jesus feet and
he's freaking out. He says I it was basically like
I was dead. I just fell on my face.
Face and then Jesus lays his right hand on John.
And he says, fear not. Why is he not supposed to fear,
will? He unpacks and things but he
says, behold I have the keys of death and Hades.
What is, what does that mean? We could do a whole study on
language of keys in the Old Testament and the ancient world
and the Greco-Roman culture of the study of keys.
We're not, we don't have the time for that tonight, but what
Jesus is saying, is that I have ownership over death, and over
Hades, Hades is the Greek word for hell and not just a place of
eternal torment. But the place where, when you I
your soul goes somewhere, your spirit goes somewhere, and to
understand this more fully. We have to think about how
people conceptualize the world. And this time frame, they view
the world as a, it was a three, tiered Cosmos.
There were the heavens, there's the Earth, and there's the realm
under the Earth and that realm under the Earth is where your
soul goes to after you die. And for God's people, his
faithful people in the Old Testament, we see them expecting
something to happen. After they died, when their soul
is separated from their bodies, they they have hope that God is
going to reunite their bodies and their souls.
And in Revelation, we see this unfold that one day, there's a
new heavens and a new Earth. But but where do where do these
souls go? When they die, will they go into
the underworld? If you were to ask someone 5,000
years ago, four thousand years ago, three thousand years ago,
two thousand years ago. What happens when you die, they
would tell you, well our souls, leave our bodies because we If
that we're not just we're not just sacks of flesh but there's
something that inhabits our bodies.
And when we die, when our blood isn't getting pumped through our
bodies, whenever our lungs aren't pushing air in and out
our souls depart somewhere and it goes into the underworld, it
goes into Shale is the Hebrew word for this and the Hebrew
understanding or it goes into Hades which is the Greek
understanding of the afterlife but you'll see this language of
Underworld. So when I swear I'm going to use
these words very interchangeably tonight but Shale Hades
underworld Realm of the dead. It's this this concept of when
you die, your soul goes somewhere, you don't just cease
to exist. You don't just you're not just
annihilated. But you, your soul goes
somewhere in the hope for God's faithful people.
And the Old Testament is that God would resurrect you.
He would reunite your body and your soul and you would Rule and
reign with him forever. So that's come to understanding
of, okay? There's this three-tiered Cosmos
Heaven Earth, the underworld where you go when you die.
And you're there. And it's not, it's not that
you're being punished as an Unfaithful as a faithful
follower of God, but you're in this, not Purgatory, but your
soul goes somewhere and is waiting for something.
And now we see in this Revelation to John, that Jesus
says, I hold the keys of death and Hades.
I have ownership. I can unlock these Gates.
I am the title holder here. If you want to, you want to see
the deed to this property? I got this deed to this
property. I own the these things.
Jesus tells him this because it tells John this to, hey, don't
be fearful. Don't be afraid.
I own death. I own the underworld.
I own these things. I have rule over these things.
I have sovereignty over these things and that should comfort
you, John, and today, that should comfort us knowing that
Jesus has authority over all things, the little things and
the big things, he's authority over all of those things.
And so, I wanted us to jump into this passage first.
Just to show us, Jesus has authority over.
Life and death. And the Underworld, the place
that your soul goes when you die or at least in one cover.
This more in a little bit. I'm getting ahead of myself, but
we see, Jesus Authority, that should give us joy.
When we see Jesus, Jesus have authority over all things.
I don't know about you, but my life has been out of control a
time or two people that I love and know their lives have been
out of control after a time or two, but the hope that we have,
as followers of Jesus is that he He is in control of all things.
Nothing is a surprise to him. So, John is being comforted
with, with the knowledge of Jesus Authority, his ownership,
his holding the keys, Over Hades and death.
I used to have a key to Noche were Frontier gathered a while
back. I had this since kind of sense
of ownership but I don't own that building Frontier.
Only went up in there one son once a week on Sunday mornings.
So, I had this illusion of ownership, but Jesus, there's no
illusion of ownership with Jesus, he totally owns
everything. He has control over Hades, the
underworld He has control over death.
So we're starting here because well if Jesus has the keys of
Hades and death will then what does that imply?
It implies that he had to go somewhere to get these keys and
there's like a I'll punch a complaint.
You some really helpful resources on just this concept
of Jesus having the keys, there's an awesome book called
The Battle of the keys. And it's about what Jesus did
when he descended. And so we're starting here of
Jesus, whenever he was crucified, he died as king Jimmy
would say he gave up the ghost, his spirit.
Descended into the underworld and he battles for the keys.
He snatches the keys from Satan's grasp and now he owns
it. And we'll show, I'll show you
why that's important to understand him battling for the
keys and having the keys in our next passage.
So Jesus having these Keys implies that he went somewhere
to get these keys. So the next passage I want to
point us to is First Peter chapter 3 First.
Peter chapter 3 will look at verses 18 to 22.
First Peter 3, 18 to 22. So kind of laid the foundation
here of Jesus, is the owner of these keys of death and Hades.
Well, why is that significant What's going on here?
Well, in First, Peter 3, Peter is writing to a church that is
suffering or they're about to experience more suffering.
There's a lot of debate on exactly what's going on but
there is a level of suffering that Peter is addressing in
these churches that are scattered about Asia Minor and
he writes to them, he addresses their suffering and then he says
for Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the
unrighteous that he might bring us to God, being put to death
and The flesh but made alive in the spirit.
Oh, that seems like we've heard that about Peter.
Yeah, we've heard. We've heard you talk about some
things like this before. We've heard Paul talked about
some things like that before, and then he goes on in which he
went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison.
What are you talking about here Peter?
He went to his Spirit went and he proclaimed to the spirits in
prison. Where is this prison located?
And he goes on to say 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 slave safely through water baptism which corresponds
to this now saves you know as a removal of dirt from the body
but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, Through the
resurrection of Jesus Christ who has gone into heaven and is at
the right hand of God with angels authorities and Powers
having been subjected to him. There's a lot of stuff in there,
like I've heard that before, then you kind of hear, he
wouldn't proclaimed a Spirits in prison.
What is what's going on here? There's a lot of things that
Peters assuming in addressing his original audience and we can
we'll pull back a couple layers here but what Peter is assuming
in his audiences that they're familiar with the story and it's
called first Enoch where Enoch and it's a way we could no doubt
on this and spin like seven hours talking about this
tonight. But I'm trying to be I'm trying
to be helpful. Be helpful in If you help.
Okay. But it's a story and it's a
fictional story is not in the scriptures, it's not canonical,
but it's the story of Enoch. He was a righteous man he walked
with God and he is taken for he is not so he never tasted death
and then Enoch gets summons by these spirits who were
imprisoned in hell and the underworld are in the
unrighteous compartment of hell and they gets he gets summoned
by them so he not goes down there and he's like what's up
guys? And you know and they totally
knock hey Can you go tell God that?
We're sorry for this whole thing that we this whole Genesis 6
thing where we were the sons of the most high.
We were sons of God and we came down, we made it with women.
We made babies made these things called Nephilim and that guy
kind of wild not a hand. We did a lot of bad stuff but
please tell him that we are sorry and we'll never do it
again. And so you knock goes into God's
presence and he tells God hate these dudes down here.
They said that they're sorry, and that they'll never do it
again. And then God says, You can tell
them it's just as bad and I got some bad news for you.
You're not going to be released from your change.
You're going to remain imprisoned, you're going to be
punished, you're going to be destroyed.
And so Enoch takes his journey back down, talk to these.
These homies who were in Chains and tells him hey God said that,
it's cool that you're sorry but you can't undo what you have
done. There is no forgiveness for you.
You're going to be continued to remain and imprisoned here and
so he preaches to them and then you knock goes back, elsewhere.
And so, that's kind of an assumption.
This was a very popular story that existed in Jewish culture
and so Peter, we may not pick up on this stuff immediately, but,
but Peters, audiences connect kind of have this in the back of
their minds, this dissension to preach to these Spirits in
prison and then Enoch goes back into God's presence.
And so, what we see Peter doing here, as he says, he's using
Enoch as a typology pointing to Jesus, And what Peter says is
Christ, he was righteous, but he suffered for the unrighteous,
and he was made dead in his flesh.
But alive in his Spirit, he was made alive in his spirit, so he
could go and preach to Spirits who were imprisoned.
And so Jesus on, Holy Saturday, he is crucified and his Spirit
descends into the underworld. And he goes on a preaching tour
that we said that word proclaim here and most translations in
English, but a better way to to help us understand this in a
better translation. Is that he preached.
So Jesus is going on this preaching to her, he shows up
into the underworld and these evil spirits who rebelled
against God in Genesis chapter 6, They're probably like a week
got this, dude, he thought he could trick us, he thought he
could, he thought he was gonna just be hot stuff and he was
never gonna die while we got him.
And Jesus says, hey, I've got some bad news for you guys.
I'm only going to be up in here for just a little bit and I'm
going to be resurrected and I'm gonna be the first fruit of New
Creation. My, my body is dead.
My spirit is alive. And so Jesus, preaching the
gospel to these evil spirits, the Spiritual Beings were in
prison who stepped outside of their bounds.
As we see elsewhere in scripture to describe this, Yeah.
But there is no hope for forgiveness for them.
There is no hope for a change of heart for them, but Jesus doing
is he's, I picture in my mind, he's rattling.
The cages of their jail cell and saying, what you have done is
going to be undone by me. I have the keys now, I could let
you out if I wanted to, but I'm not going to let you out.
I could do this but I'm not going to because what you have
done is you've perverted Humanity?
You have brought more corruption into Humanity, you have brought
you or agents of the kingdom of darkness, but the king of
darkness is not going to overpower the Kingdom of Light.
The city of man, the evil city of man is not going to overpower
the city of God. This Kingdom you tried to build
is not going to be powerful enough to wage war.
That is going to be that. It's going to be thwarting.
The kingdom of God, Jesus has the keys.
He's Jingling the keys in front of them.
Hey, you guys want to get out? Oh, psych.
You can't get out, but they were also what he's doing.
And we see this in Ephesians chapter 4 verses 8 and 9.
We have a ton of time to get into that.
But, but it talks about Jesus descending.
There's a lot of debate on this passage and I can show you later
why there's debate on this but talks about Jesus descending to
the lower regions. If you have the ESV is going to
say the lower regions comma the Earth.
There's other translations that would say the lower regions in
the earth. I just read a toll call like I
would read a bunch of stuff other night and it kind of gave
me too much content and I just verbally diary and up here right
now as a result of that. But I think I think the more
helpful translation is that he did descend into the lower
regions of the earth. He goes down in there.
And what he does is, he leads a host of captives and he gives
gifts to men. And so Jesus, not only does he
go on a preaching tour and Proclaim his victory over the
principalities and over the darkness and over the evil
Spiritual Beings, but he also does something else.
He leads a host of captives and gives gifts to men, Luke talked
about on Sunday, and I hate that he's not here because I was
gonna give him a hard time about just because it's fun to do to
Luke, but, but he talked about God's victory, over the Gods on
the Earth. He set me up real well for
tonight. God is going to destroy these
gods that are on the earth that are leading God's people astray
and causing them to worship idols.
And now what we see in Jesus descent as him and his victory
over the Spiritual Beings and the underworld under the Earth.
Jesus, secures Victory on the cross whenever he is the perfect
spotless atoning sacrifice. And then he goes down into the
underworld and he proclaims his victory, he proclaims that.
What I have done my perfect life, my sacrificial death.
This was sufficient to rescue people who were in the
Underworld and Usher them into God's presence.
And so, Jesus goes on this preaching tour, it's like, eight
pronounces, judgment pronounces that there is no hope for these
rebellious Spiritual Beings, but then he also brings out.
God's faithful people that are in the Underworld, I should have
mentioned us earlier. And the way that people
conceptualize the underworld, as there is an unrighteous
compartment of this not should have put a graphic on the screen
but, you know, I'm not like coal and all that graphics on screens
but there's an unrighteous compartment where the people who
have rejected God and the following other gods are and
where evil Spiritual Beings are. And then there's the righteous
compartment where the Old Testament Believers were
located. But when Jesus goes down in
there, he leads a host of captives.
He brings God's faithful people out of this out of the
underworld. Old and brings them into God's
presence. He gives gifts to men.
If you look at later on and if he's in chapter 4, what Jesus
does is the gifts that he is giving our roles in the church
that benefit the church and that build up the church where he's
building up his kingdom. Within These Little mobile human
beings, who are images of God and who are filled with God's
presence. They are now that they're the
new temples that are walking around and saw Jesus.
He pronounces judgment Heap. Announces victory in the
Underworld but he also rescues a group of people.
And Peter also goes on here in First Peter chapter 3 he uses
Enoch was kind of the story of Enoch.
That's in the social imagination to show that Jesus is better
than Enoch. He's stronger than Enoch, he's
more powerfully than Enoch. He didn't just like Enoch, he
didn't, just go and preach he preached.
But then, he rescued and led people out of out of the
underworld and to God's presence.
And that's good news for us because whenever our souls
depart from our bodies Upon Our death, Is that we don't just go
into the underworld? We get to be like that thief on
the cross, who Jesus says today you will be with me in Paradise.
We get to be in God's presence and if you know your Bibles and
you know, Revelation when you know that it's not the end of
Heaven is not just like Cole said the other day on our pot,
on the podcast, Heaven is not the end zone.
Heaven is the red zone there is going to be a day that comes
whenever we die in our souls. Go to be present with Christ.
There's going to be a day that comes where Heaven and Earth are
going to overlap and it's going to be a new Heaven and it's
gonna be a new Earth. The Whole Earth is going to be
the Garden of Eden as we better than anything we could possibly
imagine. But our souls, and our bodies
are going to reunite all because of what Jesus has done on the
cross and in his dissent. And so we have the hope that
we're not just going to be this, disembodied spirit for eternity
and that was still be sweet enough, right?
We get to be disembodied floating around with our that
looks like as a disembodied spirit with Jesus, but, but
Jesus is returning back to God's.
I bring returns us back to God. Odds ideal of being embodied
spirits, who dwell and Rule, and Reign alongside God as a
glorious reality, that Jesus has accomplished on behalf on our
behalf. I don't know about you, I
couldn't accomplish this, right? I've sent a couple of times as
I've been here. There's a long story, but
anyway. Yeah, stay up way too late every
night this week. My kids have stayed up way too
late every night this week, but the last text that I want to,
that want to point us to. We've looked at Revelations, we
looked at John. Look at First Peter, we've heard
Peters encouragement of the church that hey, I know, you're
suffering and suffering is gonna get worse for you.
But Jesus not only suffered on the cross for you but he also
descended into hell. And proclaimed his victory over
over sin and over death to that, that should help you.
That should help you be motivated to pursue
righteousness whenever you're being persecuted.
We've looked at those those two two pieces of scripture and if
you might think that, well, this is just what these guys, this
was their interpretation of what Jesus had to do.
They just kind of came up with this, on their own, but if we
take a gander at Matthew chapter 12, we see that Jesus has this
in his in his mind, as well. The Jesus.
Talks about him descending wasn't just what some guys were
like. It'd be cool if we wrote some
stories about Jesus descending into hell.
That wouldn't that be awesome if we talk about that?
But Jesus conceptualize this as well.
In Matthew chapter 12 verses 38 to 42 you probably got the
heading in your scriptures that says something like the the sign
of Jonah May have some different language there, but and the ESV
what I've got here is the sign of Jonah.
And so Jesus is talking with these fools, the scribes the
Pharisees and they were talking to him and they said, hey
teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.
Jesus has been engaging, these scribes and the Pharisees, and
they've been dogging him and trying to get them, but Jesus
knows who they are and Jesus Jesus.
So he is going to win and Jesus answers them an evil and
adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be
given to it except the sign of the prophet.
Jonah for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in
the belly of the great fish. So will the son of man be three
days and three nights in the heart of the Earth, the men of
Nineveh will rise up at the Judgment with this generation
and condemn it for they repented at the preaching and behold
something greater than Jonah is here.
The queen of the South will rise up at the Judgment with this
generation and condemn it for. She came from the ends of the
Earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon and behold something
greater than Solomon is here. So Jesus uses Jonah as an
archetype, as a typology of what he is going to do.
If you don't remember the story of Jonah, which as long as you
don't remember it, as Like in terms of VeggieTales then you
can kind of understand what's going on here.
Jonas told to go preach to Nineveh caught, tell them to
repent and Jonah says, no, I don't like those guys.
And so Jonah goes, the exact opposite direction gets on a
boat. The boat starts rocking in a row
on. The sailors are praying to all
their guys and they're like, yo, don't know, why are you asleep
in this boat? Man?
We're about to all about to die. I pray to your God.
And so I was like, hey, this is because of me, guys.
If you chunk me over the the edge of this boat will be good
to go. So they tossed Jonah over the
boat and he goes into the water and he's like, okay, cool.
I finally Like I'm for sure, not going to Nineveh.
Now I'm going to die, I'm going to drown and then this fish
comes in Scoops, Jonah out. And then we see Jonah kind of
come to terms. He kind of repents he prays this
prayer and Jonah talks about him being in the pits, which another
way to think about that as Jonah was envisioning himself.
As in Shale. He was, he was in this place and
he had descended down. And then he gets spewed out onto
the shores and he had goes to Nineveh and preaches.
And Jesus says uses this as the sign of Jonah, these scribes and
Pharisees are wanting a sign they wanted Jesus to do
something that and Jesus has been providing, all these signs
has been healing. People casting out demons, and
preaching and teaching, but they want something more in, Jesus
says, what I'm going to do, I'm going to take on the sign of
Jonah Jonah. Went into a fish for this amount
of time but I'm going to go into the heart of the earth.
So Jesus is saying I'm going to go into anyone.
Say that the understanding is that he's going into the place
of the dead, that's where he's going to be.
He's descending down in there and then he's going to rise up
again victoriously and he's going to have this preaching
tour just like Jonah did Jonah went and preached around in
Nova. Looks very short and what we
have in the scriptures but Jesus while he's descended and why
he's resurrected preaches. Then he resurrects and it is at
this as a sign of the power of God that he holds the keys.
That he has authority over all things that death cannot control
him. That's a lot of information, a
lot of content, right? There's probably some murky
areas that I left there and I'm some of them.
I left intentionally murky to. So you can have some follow up
with coal while I'm gone. We recorded a podcast yesterday
that maybe can be complementary to this.
But as I said, the beginning, I wanted to give you some
information to give you handles onto this doctrine of what
happened when Christ died, the you just die and go take a nap.
That he died and just wait for his resurrection or was he at
work? I think the scriptures have
given us an information here that Jesus was at work.
At First Peter 3 pack, text has become one of my favorite
passages because it shows him at were even, Jesus Is So Glorious.
And so powerful, that even while his body is dead, his soul is
securing the hope and the destiny of the faithful.
The Jesus, even when his, whenever his body is lifeless
his soul. Is proclaiming victory over the
kingdom of darkness. Let that sink in to your to your
mind in your heart. That's how powerful our Jesus
is. Our King has his Reign, never
ends and even when it looks like he lost there on the cross, he
didn't his economy is upside down from that than that of
other kings, he died so that he could be a sacrifice, but he
died. So also he could go down and
Proclaim judgment over the principalities in the rulers of
Darkness that are in the Underworld.
That's how powerful Jesus. Is that should give us joy.
That should give us, hope it does this Doctrine.
I'll end with this here before we get to respond, to the power,
and the Majesty of Jesus. But this, this Doctrine has been
special to me and several ways. This as I talk with people who
have a fear of death, as I think about my depression and anxiety,
as I think about the evil that exists in this world, embracing
the doctrine of Christ descent into hell.
Helps me combat those things. Helps me combat where I think
that things are just not going to get better.
And you guys, if you were a part of Frontier year and a half ago,
so I'm going to bawl my eyes out and I was just a point where I
felt like nothing was ever going to get better.
There's gonna be stuck in this state, embracing this doctrine
of Christ descent that he suffered on my behalf and
descended into the place of the dead and he pronounced victory
over the rulers of Darkness. He pronounced a victory over
sin. He pronounces victory.
Over death, that's come. I was comforting for me to
embrace him that to think that Jesus didn't just suffer.
But even when he was dead, he was at work for me.
Help me combat that. I kind of have this irrational
fear of death at times, but then, thinking of how Jesus is
Victorious over death, that death could not hold him.
And the, that that the rulers of evil thought that they had
defeated Jesus, but Jesus says, I'm going to be resurrected, You
Don't Own Me. I own you.
The helps me come combat. That it helps me.
Also, give me a beautiful picture of baptism.
Baptism is a picture of this story of Jesus being crucified.
He's buried. Shenzhen to hell.
And then he's a resurrected and brought to New Life, it gives us
another angle to view baptism with there's so many
implications that we have with this doctrine of Christ.
The scent. I know, it's weird, right?
If you think it's weird, it's okay.
But if you also think that Jesus was born of a virgin, that's
also pretty weird as well. So who's to say that Jesus is
limited. He doesn't descend into the
underworld and pronounced victory, over the spirits who
are imprisoned So I hope that yeah that this content went
longer than I should have but I hope of this content.
Was it helpful for you? Just to kind of conceptualize
what's going on and feed you with joy in Jesus.
So now we get to we're going to confess the Apostles Creed again
together, and then we're going to have to worship Jesus Through
song after we get this Apostles Creed done.
If you got questions about any of the stuff, I joked and said I
was gonna do it on coals lap, but I've got some more notes and
some resources that might be helpful for you, but I'm
passionate about this I love it. It's changed is impacted me.
It's been good for me. I've been like, oh, it's not.
Do those Catholic weirdos who balloon talk about the stuff,
but people for centuries, believe this in confess this and
I can talk to you about the history of that.
And when it changed, but I'm glad that I get to be a part of
a be here in a part of this with you tonight and y'all don't look
at me. Like I've got 12 heads on my
shoulders right now because I've set talk about this up before
and people look at me like I was a fool anyway. let's stand and
can and and confess the Apostles Creed together with that with
the mindset of what Christ did for us when he descended let's
stand and can and and confess the Apostles Creed together with
that with the mindset of what Christ did for us when he
descended