Talbot Chapel Schedule Highlights

As a soon to be graduating seminary student (woo hoo!), I’ve begun already to think about what I’ll miss about my time in school. One thing will definitely be our weekly chapel services. Having gotten a secular education through college, it was a strange experience to have worship integrated into my schooling. However, being fed God’s Word during the week came to be a big highlight for me. Every year, Talbot invites both prominent and lesser-known, but just as godly, servants of Christ to speak at chapel. And every year, there are a few highlighted speakers that are worth a short drive out to learn from. Talbot chapels are open to all (9:30am on Tuesdays) who would like to attend and you may want to circle specific dates on your calendar to hear some of these speakers below. These will be some great opportunities to hear the preaching from some of God’s most gifted servants. You can see the entire chapel schedule here.

Kent Hughes

Senior Pastor Emeritus, College Church

Wheaton, Illinois

October 2nd, 2007   

 

 

William Mounce

Preaching Pastor, Shiloh Hills Fellowship

Spokane, Washington

October 9th & 11th, 2007

 

 

Alex Montoya

Senior Pastor, FFBC

Monterey Park, CA

November 20th, 2007

 

 

Alistair Begg

Senior Pastor, Parkside Church

Chagrin Falls, Ohio

March 11th, 2008

Bible Study ?s

Matthew 22:23-33 

Study Questions
1) Read and compare the parallel passages in Mark 12:18-27 and Luke 20:27-40.
2) Read Acts 23:6-11. What did the Sadducees believe about the resurrection?
3) Why were they asking about what would happen at the resurrection considering their views of the resurrection?
4) What was the reason why the Sadducees had a problem with the resurrection according to Jesus’ rebuke in verse 29?
5) What does the quote in Exodus 3:6,15 in verse 32 have to do with the resurrection?

Discussion Questions
1) How does our lack of faith in God’s power manifest in our daily lives?
2) If we were to have full confidence in the power of God, how would that affect the way we live our Christian lives?
3) How can we grow in our faith in God?

“Glory of God”: Session 5 Notes

Isaiah 6–Isaiah is a prophet to the tribes in the South and is ministering right before the Northern Kingdom is taken away in exile by the Assyrians. He is about to see this vision in 740 B.C. No one has ever seen God and yet God can be seen in this passage (which indicates at least a 2-person Godhead), and there are seraphim who are worshipping God. True worship is always a response to the attributes and activity of God. Isaiah immediately comes to recognize the holiness of God and the more one understand’s God’s holiness, the more one will immediately recognize the sinfulness of one’s own heart. For example, Peter fell on his face in repentance after Jesus had performed the miracle of the big catch at sea. God is sending His prophet to the people of Israel and only a remnant of “one tenth” will turn away from their sin. So why then is Isaiah sent there without any expectation of being effective? It is because through his sending, the judgment of God would be seen to be truly just.

Matthew presents Jesus as the promised King, the Messiah through the genealogy that is contained in his opening chapter. Jesus, from the beginning of His public ministry commands people everywhere to repent. Matthew 13:1, begins with “on that day” which is actually the same day that Jesus exorcised demons and was accused by the Pharisees of doing His spiritual work by the power of Satan. And it was on that day that He begins to teach in parables from the outset of chapter 13. This is a shift from his normal method of teaching the same reason why it is asked of Him in 13:10, “Why do you speak in parables?” Jesus replies that to some I t has been granted to know the mystery of the kingdom of heaven and others have not had that privilege granted to them. Jesus had come to offer Himself to His own and His own do not receive Him. 13:12 promises that he who has little, to him more will be given but to he who has something but treats it with contempt, what he has will be taken away. It is similar to the charge made against the people of Israel in Isaiah 6: “Seeing but no perceiving, looking but not understanding” is a statement of judgment. The people of Jesus’ time have rejected the Word of God and so God “gave them over” (cf. Rom. 1). If someone continues to reject the Word of God, judgment of this kind will come upon them.

John 12:20ff, Gentiles ask to see Jesus but it does not seem that their time has come. The Gentiles are seeking Him; He whom the Jews have begun to reject. Beginning from verse 27, Jesus foretells His death. Jesus says that the light is there and has come and is present while He is among them, but they continue to reject Him in unbelief and therefore, they could NOT believe because God in judgment, blinded the eyes of their heart because it was the due punishment of their continual rebellion. Even as far as verse 42, though some of the rules believed in Christ, they loved the approval of men more than God and therefore, they do not confess their belief in Him. In John 21:15, Peter is asked if he loves Christ “more than these” (what is this referring to?).

To us, it must also be asked: Do you love Jesus more than “these”? Do you love the approval of God more than the approval of men? Do you love Christ with a supremacy of love that is rivaled by none other?

“Glory of God”: Session 4 Notes

Psalm 96 is perhaps the best Old Testament reference for evangelism and mission: “Go tell it to the nations about hte glory of God.”  There is much more than the forgiveness of God that we need to be proclaiming.  We need to push through and show that God is very much in the message that we are preaching.  There is the presence of God’s glory that needs to be conveyed to all.  2 Cor. 4:3-6, Satan blinds the minds of unbelievers.  This is the battle: Tell of the glory to those who have been blinded by the lies and deceptions of Satan.  Those who are dead apart from Christ are now no longer blinded for their eyes will be opened to the Great White Throne Judgment of Christ.

Genesis 1:31, speaks of the fact that there was a time when everything was very good.  In Job 38, angels were singing the greatness of God and His glory in the heavens.  But something hppens and in Genesis 3, there is a rebellion that takes place.

How much of the world was affected as a result of the Fall?  Romans 8:18-21, Everything was completely and totally affected because of sin.  Creation was subject to negative change because of sin.  Ephesians 6:12, there is a demonic hierarchy that is working over and around the earth and above into the heavens.  There was something good that began at the very beginning and now the earth and the spiritual realms have also been marred.  John 14:30, Jesus refers to Satan as a ruler of the world and remember that in 2 Corinthians 4:3-4, Satan is referred to as the “god of this age”.   So we are to proclaim the glory of God to a created world that is subject to futility, a demonic hierarchy working around it, and Satan as the authoritative power over it.  In 1 John 5:19, the whole world is said to lie in the power of the evil one.  Now although everything lies under Satan’s control (under God’s sovereignty), God has promised to pluck people out of every people group and there is the promise that when the Lord returns, there will be a new heavens and a new earth.  In Ephesians 2:1-3, it speaks of what we were and in verses 4-9, what we are, and in verse 10, what we should be doing.  we ourselves were working under the control of Satan (Eph. 2:2)!  Satan is referred to as the “prince of the power of the air,” which indicates that there is nothing and nowhere that Satan does not have some measure of authority in this world.  But in 1 Timothy 3:16, there is a reference to the ascension of Christ which also implies that He was through the territory of Satan!  He took back the turf!  Praise be to God and to Jesus Christ!

Bible Study ?s

Matthew 22:15-22 Paying Taxes
Study Questions

1. Who were the Herodians?
2. Do you think they really believed what they were saying about Jesus in verse 16?
3. How was the question of paying taxes a trap for Jesus?
4. Why was Jesus’ answer so amazing to the Pharisees?

“Glory of God”: Session 3 Notes

It is a very difficult thing to be able to drink the cup and be baptized with the baptism but this session will deal with a tremendous love story. If we lived “in the Beginning,” it would be very easy because we would know what it would be like to be able to deal with life in world without sin. We live however, in the post-Fall world of Genesis 3. In Gen. 3:15, there is a promise from God that one would eventually be produced from the seed of a man who would crush the head of the serpent (a foreshadowing of Christ). At the end of chapter 3, Adam and Eve are taken from the Garden of Eden and their presence is excluded there. It is also the first place where we find an animal sacrifice taking place for the sake of the preservation of man and woman.

Now comes the book of Exodus 24:4ff, which records the ratification of the Mosaic Covenant inaugurated by the sacrificing of animals, which would continue until Christ was crucified. Liberal scholars would contend that there are two different portrayals of God that can be found in the Old and New Testaments. However, God in the Old Testament is not a God of hate. In Ex. 25:8, God says for the first time since the separation and expulsion from the Garden, that His presence would dwell among the people. In Ex. 25:20-22,God again promises to meet with His people (cf. Ex. 29:43-46). Exodus 32 records the incident of the Golden Calf (which only takes shortly after the covenant between God and Moses had been made), and the people have almost immediately sinned. In chapter 33, the presence of God is taken out of the camp. In 33:18, Moses requests to see the glory of God to which God permits only the back of Himself to be seen. In Ex. 40, Moses was unable to go into the tent of meeting because the glory of God filled it. Now the good news was that the presence of God was with His people but the bad news is that nobody could approach the glory of God.

In 2 Sam. 7, David notices that God does not have a permanent dwelling but God declines David’s request to build a temple and reserves that privilege for Solomon. In 2 Chr. 5:13-14, the priests were unable to enter the temple because of the glory of God was filling that place. In Ez. 1:28, the exiled propeht Ezekiel sees the glory of God. In Ez. 8, the glory of God appears before the presence of idols in the temple. In Ez. 10:3-4, the glory of God is now disappearing and there is a further removing of His glory (cf. vss. 18-19). In Ez. 11:22-23, the presence of God has been fully removed from the temple and it stands as nothing more than an empty shell.

In Haggai 1:8-9, the return to Jerusalem has taken place but God is rebuking the people for not restoring the temple to its former glory. In Haggai 2, God promises that the new temple would have greater glory that the first. In Ezra 6, the temple is completed but the glory of God does not fill it. So what is going on?

Jesus would fulfill this prophecy in that the glory of God would reside in Him and not the second temple. So between this point in the Old Testament until Christ was born 600 years after, the glory of God was nowhere to be found. Every glory prophecy is eventually fulfilled in the first and second advents of Christ.

In the book of Jude 24-25, the promise to the New Testament church is made that those in Christ would be able to stand in the glory of God and this is something that Moses and the Old Testament prophets could not do! We will not be in the outside looking in but we will stand in the presence of the glory of God. In Revelation 15, the temple is said to be filled with the glory of God and that no one is able to reside in the temple because of the glory that is there; NO ONE, not the best of Christians and certainly not us during this time of judgment. In Rev. 21, at the end of time when judgment is finally complete, the glory of God will finally reside for good among God’s people.

Any preview that the disciples witnessed of the glory of God in the Transfiguration is now ours in Christ! May everything then be owed to God in praise and glory as a result of the wonderful work of Christ, our great God and Savior! Christ is returning soon to restore this glory in full measure. If Christ then is this close to returning, should we not then be busy going about and doing the Master’s work?

“Glory of God”: Session 2 Notes

General working definition of the Glory of God: The attributes and activity of God.

Mark 10:35ff, James and John request to sit to the right and to the left of Christ in His kingdom and there are a number of things to consider before we place judgment on James and John. Most commentators state that they were self- serving in such a request but it is important to remember that the fuller picture is different. James and John left everything to follow Christ and their request was done in faith and had a very important spiritual element to it that recognized the identity and person of Christ.

Mt 16; Mk 8:27ff, The confession of Peter that Jesus is the Christ takes place here. The Matthew account is the first example of the word “church” in the New Testament. Mark 8:38 is the first reference by Christ of the glory of God which is connected with His suffering and death.

The Transfiguration of Christ in Mark 9 is a snapshot and precursor to the glory of God that was mentioned in the conclusion of chapter 8.

Peter was one of the men who were witness to this preview of glory.  In 2 Pet. 1:13-14, Peter is very much aware of the fact that he is about to die. And later in verses 16-18, Peter recalls the Transfiguration of Christ because it left such a deep impression on him.

In Matthew 19:27ff, Peter asks Jesus, “What’s reserved for us who have left everything to follow you?” Jesus replies that the disciples were going to sit on glorious thrones alongside Christ.

Matthew 10:35ff, James and John make another request to sit to the right and to the left of Jesus (this time without Peter). Jesus never rebukes the question of James and John but Christ asks if they are fully understanding of what they are asking for. There is an active and passive element in His reply. Drinking from the cup is active and being baptized is passive. These disciples are asking to sit at each side of Christ but it comes with a cost. There is a process that takes place that allows us to have a greater capacity to receive the glory of God.

If you want to be used unto the glory of God, then it is something that will cost you and something that requires something from us. In other words, there is a price to pay.

“Glory of God”: Session 1 Notes

General working definition of the Glory of God: The attributes and activity of God.

1 Peter 5:10: Four verbs that imply brokenness. Many times we underestimate the glory of God so that it would fit our own understanding more clearly. Here are 5 important presuppositions to consider when thinking about the glory of God.

1) The glory of God is greater than our comprehension (Psalm 19:1).

The heavens do not contain the glory of God but rather the glory of God is declared by the heavens.

2) God’s glory extends to everywhere God is, with ONE exception: Hell.

2 Thessalonians 1:9, Hell is the only place where God’s glory is not extended. Hell is not a place created as much as it is a place prepared for those who are unrighteous. God will remove every indication of His presence in hell, though His omnipotence dictates that He is very much there.

3) God calls us so that we may gain the glory of Jesus Christ (2 Thess. 2:14).

In the Greek, this verse is an anarthrous construction (indicating an absence of an article, “the”). This indicates that we have no reason to expect the comprehension of the full glory of God. Furthermore, the witness of Scripture indicates that we will receive the varying degrees of rewards, but no one will receive the glory of the Lord in full measure.

4) God is in the process of developing His glory within us…

5) …though we usually do not want, like, or recognize that God is doing this (Rom. 8:18ff).

The sufferings of the present time do not compare to the glory that will be revealed in us. Paul says “consider” meaning much more than a mere thinking about, but it is an accounting term that conveys that Paul believes this is something that he can “bank on” as secure. He also uses the word “worthy” which brings up the imagery of scales on a fulcrum. Paul is teaching that the sufferings of the present time are in way equal to the weight of the glory that will be revealed in us (2Cor. 4:16-17). Therefore, Paul is saying that there is no earthly comparison to measure God’s glory to!