1. Because the Lord Jesus preached from It⤒🔗

In all sorts of circumstances he used the O.T. scriptures, in times of temptation, to answer his enemies, to encourage people to believe, to express his own faith and especially in his preaching. He quotes from every part of the O.T. There are 179 verses of Jesus' own teaching in which he refers to the Scriptures; that is, 10 per cent of Jesus's language is quotation from the O.T. He refers to those passages which are most criticised by men today, that is, he quotes from Genesis 2, Noah's flood, Lot leaving Sodom, Lot's wife becom­ing a pillar of salt, Jonah in the whale, and the men of Nineveh repenting. He quotes five O.T. prophets directly, and 8 psalms, and from every part of Isaiah of which he says about them all "Isaiah says." Jesus said that the O.T. Scriptures "cannot be broken" (John 10:35).

2. Because the Apostles preached from It←⤒🔗

On the Day of Pentecost the one feature transcending everything else that happened in Jerusalem was a sermon full of O.T. Scriptures preached by Jesus' first apostle, Peter. He believed that those Scriptures came not by the ideas of men but "holy men spoke as they were moved by the Spirit of God" (2 Peter 1:21). The apostle Paul had the same conviction, that the O.T. was "God-breathed" (2 Tim. 3:16). When he was writing to the Gentile church in Rome he told them, "Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope" (Romans 15:4). Paul refers to the judgments that fell on the Israelites in the wilderness and tells the Greek congregation in Corinth, "These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfilment of the ages has come" (1 Cor. 10:11).

3. Because there are truths found more fully there than in the N.T.←⤒🔗

The origin of all things in the creation of the universe is found most fully in the O.T. The origin and nature of man, what marriage is and the relationship between man and woman, and why woman is to obey her husband and be under his headship — that is explained in the opening chapters of Genesis. The nature of sin, how it entered the world, what the fall of man is, why there is an estrangement between man and God, and the consequences of this for mankind — all this is found in the O.T. The nature and attributes of God, his might, his holiness, and indignation about the sin which contradicts his character — all this is developed in the O.T. Scriptures. That God deals with men by way of a covenant, the promises of the coming of the Messiah, the preparation for his appearing in the Levitical sacrificial system — all are exclusively revealed in the O.T. How God is to be worshipped in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, what the texture and variety of that praise should be — all finds a comprehensive paradigm in the book of Psalms, the only hymnbook in the 66 books of the Bible.

4. Because the Nature of Christian Experience is most fully dealt with in the O.T.←⤒🔗

The battles, struggles and falls, the inner heart-ache, the doubts and rebellions, the winter-time of the soul and restorations, the cries from the heart that God has forsaken us, the joy at reunion and a closer walk with the Lord — these things are most fully opened up in the O.T., in the book of psalms and also in the prophets. The whole history of the people of God shows how rebellious and hardened professing Christians can become, and how God woos and chastens in order to bring about our restoration. The doctrine of revivals is found in God's dealings with his old covenant people, their backslidings and his renewing them once again.

5. Because It was by a Revelation through the O.T. Scriptures that God Made Himself Known to the World←⤒🔗

This is how God has made himself known to the world, not suddenly, by the appearing of Jesus Christ and his life, teaching, death and resurrection. Even the opening chapters of Matthew's and Luke's gospels are filled with old covenant believers and O.T. references which lock the arrival of the Lord Jesus into the preparation in the O.T. All the conceptual vocabulary of servant-hood, kingship, sacrifice, eternal life, priesthood is based on what has gone on before in the earlier covenant. So, when the Messiah comes a sphere of discourse and vocabulary, defined and lucid, is current and available for him and those who hear him. That is how God works, and so very naturally the New Testament builds upon and expands the old.

Preaching from the O.T. is a great privilege. For the young minister and for the state of our congregations today one would recommend short series of ser­mons on the story of the Exodus and the 10 commandments in particular; the lives of David, and of Elijah and Elisha, and of Jonah; the book of Joshua, some of the psalms, the early chapters of Daniel and Zechariah. All these are undemanding, with wide help in commentaries and tapes. The imagery, agrarian background, family history and tensions are all vitally recognisable in 75% of the world today. Heaven and earth will pass away before those words disappear.