I was researching a book I was writing a few years ago when I got sidetracked by my own curiosity.
The book became "The Restitution of All Things: Israel, Christians and the End of the Age," but, as I was searching and studying the Hebrew Scriptures, I kept running into the Gospel.
I started wondering if the Gospel could be found in all 39 books of what we call the Old Testament.
I searched for a book on the subject. Couldn't find one – not among the old classics or new. I made a mental note to research further when I had more time.
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Couldn't find anything later. So, I thought, "Well, the Gospel must not be in every book. I mean, we've had nearly 2,000 years to find it. Surely, if it were there, someone would have found it – and written the book."
But I decided to start re-reading the Hebrew Scriptures from Genesis to Malachi. I probably got through Ruth and concluded I should take a break and start reading the books where I would be least likely to find the Gospel message of redemption. It was too easy in the first eight.
I listed the least likely as Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes, and restarted my search in those books. I won't say it was easy. I won't say the Gospel leaped off the pages of those books. But I found it. The I began my book-by-book research again. I wasn't writing, just taking notes.
When I was satisfied I had found at least traces, hints, foreshadows of the Gospel in every book, I got down to writing "The Gospel in Every Book of the Old Testament," a title I thought would do several things:
- Establish without question that the Bible is one continuous, fully integrated story, from Creation to the fall to redemption and restoration;
- Provide new evidence that the Bible is a thoroughly miraculous book that could only have been compiled by through the inspiration of God;
- Attract believers back to the Hebrew Scriptures and provide a guide through them with a fresh new study that would increase their face and re-introduce them to books they were likely not immersed in already.
How was I able to find what others didn't find in all the years since Jesus ascended?
The key was a forgotten part of the Gospel, one that has always fascinated me. It's when the Earth becomes part of the Kingdom of God, again, as it was in the beginning, when God created it and pronounced it "very good."
Jesus said He came to preach "the Gospel of the Kingdom." That's how He referred to it. That's how Gospel writers Matthew and Mark referred to it. In fact, when Jesus taught His disciples how to pray, He left them with what we call "The Lord's Prayer." Twice in that short but clearly supernatural prayer He references the Kingdom.
It's a call to pray for things on Earth to be like they are in heaven. Is that ever going to happen? Yes, it is, when He returns.
But how many believers think about "the Gospel of the Kingdom"? How many share that message when they introduce others to the Gospel? How many sermons are preached on it? It's like a forgotten component of the Gospel, which we think of almost exclusively as "the Gospel of personal salvation."
I also noticed that Jesus' disciples were fixated on the coming Kingdom. Even after spending 50 days with the resurrected Jesus, the very last question they posed to Him before He ascended was: "Is this the time in which you will restore the Kingdom to Israel?"
Jesus told them it was not theirs to know the times or the seasons, but they would be given power by the Holy Spirit to take the Gospel to the uttermost parts of the Earth – and then he would return. In other words, if you want Jesus to return and turn the world into an Eden-like paradise, the thing to do is to take the Gospel, the complete Gospel, including the Gospel of the Kingdom, to the whole world.
It was like an epiphany.
Very simply, that is the story behind "The Gospel in Every Book of the Old Testament," which releases this September.
Why am I telling you about a book that won't be released until September? It's crazy, isn't it? You can't even technically pre-order it yet. I would never advise an author or publisher to do such a thing – especially a book like this, which should have very broad appeal to pastors, Bible students, evangelists and most curious believers. But I have a reason to tell you about it. In fact, it's a necessity for me to do so.
Many of you know this has been a very challenging time for the independent media. They are being deliberately starved of ad revenue and traffic by what I call the Google-Facebook Cartel, which now controls 75 percent of the digital advertising market and much of the traffic being directed on the internet. We're all beleaguered. We're all fighting to survive.
I was afraid this important book, without question the most important project I have ever undertaken in my life, could become a victim of that struggle. I wasn't sure we could handle a potentially explosive book like this because it takes a lot of money to print books and keep the marketplace demand fulfilled.
One night, not too long ago, I went to bed despondent about this dilemma. The next morning, I woke up fully refreshed with a specific plan to make this work. I can tell you it wasn't anything I came up with. I was asleep. But the plan was downloaded into my brain.
What you are reading right now is part of that plan – to call on you to help, to enlist believers to the cause, to rekindle a fire in the spirit of the body that can take this message and run with it the way the apostles and disciples of the first century did when they turned the world upside down.
Are you ready to turn the world upside down, again?
I know I am.
So I invite you to learn more about this plan and how you can get involved by going to www.OldTestamentGospel.com.