Found in the Prophecies of the Jews

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We’re going to be in several passages of Scripture this morning. We’re going to look at several passages of Scripture. But we’re going to begin with Luke chapter 24.

It’s there in your bulletin, Luke chapter 24, starting in verse 44. And we’re going to look at how Jesus explained to his disciples how the prophecies of the Old Testament pointed to him. I began talking to you last Sunday morning about what happened before Bethlehem.

And I explained to you that there are a lot of us who, without really thinking about it, just assume Jesus started in Bethlehem. That’s where he began to exist. Because that’s where we see, I mean, he was born. That’s, we don’t begin to exist, what am I trying to say?

Before we’re born, before we’re in the womb, we’re not running around somewhere else, waiting to be conceived, waiting to be born. That’s where we start our existence, is that conception. And so we think that way and we see Jesus being born in Bethlehem and we think that’s where he began to exist. But if we really think about it, if Jesus had a beginning, then he’s not eternal. And if he’s not eternal, he’s not God.

And so we go back to the Old Testament. And if you know what to look for, and if you know where to look, you see Jesus all over the Old Testament. And I began talking to you last week about the promises of God that he’s found in the promises of God.

that you see that Jesus was there from the very beginning of creation, not only when God said, let us make man in our own image. That was the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit talking amongst themselves. It’s not just some awkward grammar mistake, let us make man in our own image.

That’s the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That’s the Trinity of God speaking amongst themselves. But he’s there at the fall when God is handing down the punishments that man deserved and woman deserved and that Satan deserved.

And when he says to, when God says to the serpent that he would put enmity between his seed and the woman’s seed, and that her seed would crush his head and he would bruise its heel, that’s pointing to the fact that Satan would think he was dealing a death blow to Jesus Christ at the cross, but really what was defeated was Satan and his plans for mankind and for the world. And we talked about those last week, so I don’t need to belabor the point again, but we talked about those and saw how Jesus was promised all throughout the Old Testament. He’s right there.

And this week we come to the concept that he’s found in the prophecies of the Jews. Now you may say, what’s the difference between a prophecy and a promise? This is a little bit of maybe an artificial distinction, something that makes sense in my mind.

And there’s probably some overlap between them. But a promise is where I would say God says, I’m going to send my son and he’s going to deal with the problem of sin. And a prophecy, I would say, that’s where he explains, here’s the mark so you know who you’re looking for.

It’s still a promise, but it’s a promise with a little more detail. How do we know who the Messiah is? Because there were people who, before Jesus came and after Jesus came, there were people who claimed to be the Messiah who were not.

But there are marks all throughout the Old Testament where he says, this is how you’ll know who he is. Those are prophecies. These are places where God pointed out.

So those who were paying attention and those who understood it correctly would know the Messiah when they saw him. And this isn’t just something we’ve come up with later on and said, see, Jesus, it’s not the apostles taking Jesus and trying to fit him into the Old Testament mold and trying to cram him in there like a puzzle piece that doesn’t fit. This is something that Jesus himself said that he was the fulfillment of prophecy.

And when we look at Luke chapter 24, starting in verse 44, it’s right after his resurrection. He’s meeting with a group of the disciples. They’re having a meal together.

And it says in verse 44, he said unto them, these are the words which I spake unto you while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled. Here we go. which were written in the law of Moses and in the prophets and in the Psalms concerning me.

He said, I told you when I was with you that all things must be fulfilled. He says that were written in the law of Moses. The law of Moses, he’s talking about the first five books of the Old Testament.

When he says the prophets, he’s talking about the body of writing known as the prophets. When he says the Psalms, he’s not just talking about the book of Psalms, but that encompasses all the writings, everything else. Everything that was not a law or a prophecy, what we call the Old Testament now, was for the Jews gathered up in three collections of books that were generally called the law, the prophets, and the writings.

And that’s what he’s talking about. He’s saying all throughout the Old Testament there were prophecies that needed to be fulfilled, but not only that, he says prophecies concerning me. The Old Testament throughout points to Jesus Christ. I would say in just about every book, if not every book, there’s at least a prophecy, a promise, a picture which we’re going to discuss next week, something in there that points to Jesus Christ. So he explains to them, this was foretold and it had to come to pass as it was written all throughout scripture about me, he says.

Verse 45 says, then opened he their understanding that they might understand the scriptures. And thank God that he still does that for us today. That we can look at a scripture that we’ve looked at dozens of times and it never made sense to us before.

And yet when the time is right, God will open our understanding so that we can understand his word and apply it. And suddenly go, that’s what he’s been saying all this time. Because God’s word being God’s principles are so far beyond our understanding and full comprehension apart from him helping us to understand him.

And so they, even his disciples, had missed some of what he was talking about. I mean, you read that in the Gospels all the time. Jesus is saying something to them, and they think he’s talking about something else, and he has to correct them.

They missed it. And before we’re too hard on them, we would have missed it too if we were there. We just have the benefit of looking back in time 2,000 years and seeing how everything came about and how the story ended.

So he opened their understanding. All this prophecy that for so long had been unclear to them, suddenly he gives their minds understanding, and they understand all this has been talking about Jesus and his coming and how he would come. All of these prophets pointed to him.

And he said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sin should be preached in his name among all nations beginning at Jerusalem. He said this is what it was all about, for Jesus to come and to be crucified and to die for our sins and to rise from the dead the third day So then the message of repentance and remission or forgiveness of sins should be preached to the whole world in Jesus’ name beginning at Jerusalem. He said that’s what all of this, all of this Old Testament, he said that’s what it’s been about.

So that’s not a message from me, that’s a message from Jesus. And these prophets were not just the, what these prophets wrote was not just the random opinion of some random guys. Peter tells us where the prophecies came from.

In 2 Peter, he says, knowing this, this is 2 Peter 1, 20 and 21, knowing this, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. Now, that doesn’t mean that we can’t interpret God’s word for ourselves, that we can’t understand God’s word for ourselves. Some religions will lead you to believe that, no, no, you need somebody to tell you what the Bible means.

That’s not what he’s talking about here. He’s saying that it didn’t come from somebody’s private opinion. oh, I think the Messiah would be good to come from here.

And so I wrote it down. He’s saying that’s not what happened. Knowing this, first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.

He says, for the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man. So you’ve got to look at it in context. He’s saying it’s not man’s opinion or man’s will, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. He said the Holy Spirit came on these men and explained to them what to write and moved them and led them in what to write, and they wrote down what God led them to write.

And all these prophecies weren’t just random opinions that somehow came together. These were the points that God made for thousands of years to point people to his son, and people wrote it down faithfully, and it was fulfilled in one person and one person only, which is Jesus Christ. Now, I could talk to you all morning about the nature of these prophecies and where they came from, But let’s get into what some of them were. And the first few we’re going to rush through pretty quickly and focus in on the last three this morning.

But when I say the first few and the last three, understand that this is not an exhaustive list. This is not every prophecy about Jesus in the Old Testament. I looked at one list in the last few weeks that said 360 prophecies on the list, on this particular list, 360 Old Testament prophecies that point to Jesus Christ. And let me tell you, that list was not even complete. There are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of prophecies in the Old Testament, and pictures and promises and all the other things that we’re going to talk about that point to Jesus Christ. And I wish I could remember the exact math on it.

I read this statistic or this explanation of a statistic years ago and came across it again this week. But they took just eight of the prophecies from the Old Testament. A mathematician and a scripture researcher took just eight of the prophecies from the Old Testament that pointed to the Messiah and calculated the odds of one person being able to fulfill just eight of those.

And I’ve looked for a list of which eight they used, but I haven’t found it. And they said the odds would be, I can’t remember the number, but they said the odds would be the same as covering the entire state of Texas with silver dollars a foot deep, marking an X on the backside of one of those silver dollars, then letting somebody parachute in and pick the one with the X on the first try. That the odds of somebody getting that silver dollar with the X on it on the first try would be the same odds as somebody being able to fulfill just eight of those prophecies.

Now you look at the number of silver dollars it would take to cover Texas, let alone a foot thick, foot deep. I don’t think there have ever been that many people who have existed. So what I’m telling you is that it is beyond statistical probability, beyond statistical possibility even, that anybody other than Jesus Christ could be the Messiah that God pointed to all throughout the Old Testament.

Let’s look at a few of what these prophecies were. First of all, the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. And this is great for those who say, well, Jesus just tried to fulfill these prophecies on purpose.

He tried to fulfill these prophecies on purpose to trick people into thinking he’s the Messiah. How many of you got to pick where you were born? Anybody?

Not me. I was born in Norman. I’m not sure where I would have picked otherwise, but I don’t know that Norman would have been my first choice.

none of us got to pick where we’re born. We get to pick where we live now, some of us, but nobody gets to pick where they’re born. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and Micah had said about 600 years beforehand, but thou Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of these shall he come forth unto me that is to be the ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been from old, from everlasting.

So he’s talking about a ruler, which is not surprising because that’s where David came from, was in Bethlehem. But he says this little town of Bethlehem would produce a ruler for Israel, but one who’s been from everlasting. He’s talking, there’s nobody everlasting but God.

Yes, you and I have no end. We live on forever, but we have a beginning. So we’re not really everlasting in that sense.

But the everlasting ruler of Israel would come from Bethlehem. Jesus was born in, anybody? Bethlehem, thank you.

It’s not a trick question. second of all he would be born of a virgin now there’s an incredible feat right we’ve heard the old saying it takes two to tango that’s how we know where children come from the idea that a virgin would give birth is spectacular and Isaiah prophesied it 700 years before in Isaiah 7 14 when he said therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Emmanuel. This is speaking to one of the kings in the Old Testament and saying God’s going to give you a sign.

Now some churches doubt the virgin birth and teach the virgin birth couldn’t have happened. And what they’re saying here is that a young woman would give birth. And they’re right in one sense because the Hebrew word al-mach can mean virgin or young woman.

But here’s the thing. Other than Sarah in the Bible and Eve, who we don’t know her age, but we know them continued having children for hundreds of years. Other than really early on in the Old Testament, how many women past, I don’t know, 50 or 60 routinely have children?

Most births are to young women, right? That’s hardly a sign. That’s like God saying through the prophet Isaiah, here, I’ll give you a sign to point to the Messiah.

A young woman’s going to give birth. Oh, well, we might as well just, you know, track him down right now with information like that. To the churches that say, no, that just means a young woman.

There’s no, the virgin birth, we’re too smart to believe that. We’re not really talking about being, we’re not really talking about what the Bible says. If you’re, excuse me, it’s not really a debate over what the Bible says.

He’s saying it’s a sign. It’s a sign that they would recognize. They’ve got to be referring to a virgin birth.

So if you want to question the virgin birth, it’s not a matter of, oh, what did Isaiah say? It’s a matter of, do you believe that God can do it or not? And there are lots of churches out there that don’t believe, they think they’re too smart to believe that God intervenes in the world in any kind of supernatural way.

At that point, I say just take down the sign and close your doors because if God can’t intervene in the world supernaturally, why are you even having church? What are you doing? They said it was a sign that the Messiah would be born to a virgin, and Jesus is recorded in the Gospels as having been born to a virgin.

There you go. The Bible says, and we talked about this some last week in the promises, so I won’t belabor the point, but he would be a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David. Now we see that in Genesis 12, Genesis 26, Genesis 28, 2 Samuel 7.

If you want some of these references, I can give them to you later if I’m going too fast for you to write them down. But he would be descended from Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David to the exclusion of all other family lines. How many of you got to pick which family you were born into?

I love my family, but I might have picked that me and the rest of my family all got born into a richer family. Right? I don’t know about that.

If Jesus wasn’t God, I’d certainly like to know how he picked to be born in those family lines. And yet that’s exactly what the Bible records. And you know what?

On top of that, we’ve got two different family lines recorded in Matthew and Luke. And they’re not contradictory because one is probably recording the legal lineage through Joseph and the other the biological lineage through Mary. The Bible says that the Messiah would spend a season in Egypt.

Hosea 11. 1 says, therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold, I wrote the wrong.

We’ll come back to that. Hosea chapter 11. I wrote the wrong passage down here.

Copy and paste. Isn’t it wonderful? Hosea 11.

1 says, when Israel was a child, then I loved him and called my son out of Egypt. And that’s been interpreted as being not only a mention of Israel’s time in Egypt, but also a prophecy that the Messiah would spend time in Egypt. When the wise men came, they were warned in a dream that Herod wanted to kill Jesus and were warned to go to their country another way.

And Joseph was warned to take his son and go to Egypt. Then we see a prophecy that a messenger would prepare the way for the Messiah. Somebody like John the Baptist, I don’t think if the whole thing was a hoax and Jesus said, I’d really like to convince people that I’m the Messiah, John the Baptist doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who’s going to lie for you.

I mean, John the Baptist told the truth so much that he was beheaded for it. And yet we see that in Isaiah chapter 40, it says, The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain.

And this is exactly what John the Baptist quotes in reference to himself as he prepared the way for Jesus. And after this, he identified Jesus as the Lamb of God who came to take away the sins of the world. So he had someone to prepare his way.

The Bible says the Messiah would be rejected by his own people. Isaiah 53, he’s despised and rejected of men. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and we hid as it were our faces from him.

He was despised and we esteemed him not. And you may be wondering, well, what does that say about the Messiah? We’re going to look at Isaiah 53 in a little more detail today as it talks about the Messiah.

But the idea was that the Messiah of God would not be welcomed as this earthly king that they were expecting, but he was going to be rejected by his own people. And Jesus was rejected by his own people. They had the option of releasing him free or releasing a murderer named Barabbas.

And they said, we want Barabbas. And when they came to Jesus and said, what should we do to him? The people cried out, crucify him.

Folks, that’s not something I would wish on my worst enemy. And yet they called out crucify him. They utterly rejected Jesus as their Messiah.

The Bible says the Messiah would be betrayed. Zechariah 11 says, and I said unto them, if you think good, give me my price and if not forbear. So they weighed for my price, 30 pieces of silver.

And the Lord said unto me, cast it unto the potter, a goodly price that I was prized out of them. And I took the 30 pieces of silver and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord. Jesus was betrayed by Judas for 30 pieces of silver.

And those 30 pieces of silver, when he realized, hey, this isn’t worth it, he took it back and tried to return it to the priests. They wouldn’t take it. He threw it down at their feet in the house of the Lord, as Zechariah said, and that money was then taken to purchase a potter’s field.

The money was given to a potter to purchase a field for burial. Folks, you can’t make this stuff up. The Bible said the Messiah would be falsely accused. False witnesses, Psalm 35, false witnesses did rise up.

They laid to my charge things that I knew not. Jesus was falsely accused. He was falsely accused of all sorts of things, not only at his trial, but throughout his ministry.

The Pharisees were always accusing him. And when it came time for his trial, they paid people to lie about him, and their stories didn’t even match. They couldn’t even come up with convincing lies.

So there are several prophecies. I don’t know that these are the eight that they talked about when they did that mathematical study, but these are eight that I came up with that just are really good, convincing prophecies that point to Jesus Christ. Certainly not all of them. But these prophecies and many, many others pointed to the Messiah, identified him for who he was, so that those who were really paying attention might know the man when they found him and not be confused and say, is he or isn’t he?

Or maybe it’s this guy. No, there were some clear qualifications for the Messiah, but some of the most important prophecies pointed to the main reason why he came. There were all these identifying him when he came, but there were prophecies in the Old Testament that pointed to the reason why he would come.

The first reason, really, is that Messiah would die for his people. Now, they were expecting an earthly king. They were expecting somebody who would lead the Jews into this golden age, would lead Israel into this golden age, throw the Romans out and rule in peace and prosperity.

But the Messiah that God sent came to die. And we look at Isaiah chapter 53, if you want to turn there with me real quick. Isaiah chapter 53.

This is one of the most, I think, one of the most important prophecies of the Old Testament. And I’ve read accounts of people who, I’ve read accounts of Jewish people who have read this, gone into it thinking there’s no way, these Christians are deluded, there’s no way Jesus is the Messiah, and they read Isaiah 53 and say, this can’t be talking about anybody other than Jesus. Now, that’s not every Jewish person who’s ever read it, but I’ve heard the story, some of them are recorded in The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel.

people mentioned by name who come to faith in Jesus just from reading Isaiah 53. But we’re going to start in verse 4. Verse 3 is where it talks about him being despised and rejected.

And we’re going to start in verse 4 here where it says, Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions.

He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. Jesus came to carry our sorrows and to bear our griefs.

He came to be stricken and smitten of God and afflicted. And when Jesus went to the cross, he carried our griefs and our sorrows. He took our sins on himself.

He took responsibility. The man who had no sin of his own took responsibility for my sins and yours, every awful thing I’ve ever said or done or thought. He took responsibility for that on himself and carried that up to the cross.

and he was nailed to the cross in my place and the wrath of God on sin was poured out on him where he suffered in my place and yours and was afflicted and he was wounded for our transgressions. The sins that we’ve committed, he was wounded for those. The chastisement of our peace was upon him.

The punishment, the judgment of God was poured out on sin in Jesus Christ so that we could have peace with God and by his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray and have turned everyone to his own way and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. Again, Jesus bore all of our sins even though we were the ones who turned away.

He was oppressed and he was afflicted yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter as a sheep before her shearers is dumb so he openeth not his mouth. And that made some of the Roman officials angry some of the Jewish officials as well, when he was being questioned, and he wouldn’t respond to their accusations.

He wouldn’t dignify it with a response. The Bible said the Messiah would go quietly. Folks, he suffered this for us.

It was foretold not just that he’d come and he’d be born in the manger and the pretty picture that we see on the Christmas cards. It was foretold that Jesus would be born at Bethlehem so that he could come to die for our sins, so that he could bear our griefs and sorrows, and so that he could be bruised and crushed in our place, so that he could receive the judgment and the punishment for our sins. The Messiah didn’t come just to be a king.

The Messiah came first to die for his people, and the world is filled with examples of kings and rulers and generals and gods that ask their people to die for them. But folks, in our case, our king, our God, and our general died for us. And that would be incredible enough that he would come and bear our sins and bear our punishment.

But the Bible also foretold that the Messiah would rise again from the dead. Hosea chapter 6. Hosea chapter 6 tells us, Come and let us return unto the Lord, for he hath torn, and he will heal us.

Now that’s a biblical principle anyway. God would chastise Israel. God would tear them down.

to get their attention, but what God tore down, he would build back up. God allowed the Babylonians to come in and overrun Israel and carry them off into captivity, but then God restored them to their own land again. He will heal us.

He hath smitten and he will bind us up. Hear this, verse 2. After two days will he revive us.

In the third day he will raise us up and we shall live in his sight. This was interpreted by them to understand that the Messiah would rise from the dead. And Jesus himself said ahead of time, destroy this temple and I’ll raise it again in three days.

See, Jesus died for his people. The Messiah came to die for his people, but he didn’t come to die for his people and stay dead. I could tell you all day I’ll die for your sins, but it’s not true and I can’t prove it by rising again from the dead.

Jesus died for our sins and then proved that he could do it by rising again from the dead. He backed up those promises with action and with proof. And just as Hosea said, the Messiah rose again the third day.

Folks, we serve a risen and living Savior. He didn’t come just to be the baby in the manger. He came to be the Savior on the cross, but he came also to be the risen conqueror who rolled back the stone at the door of the tomb and defeated death once and for all.

The Bible also tells us long before he came that the Messiah would bring salvation to the entire world. The Messiah would bring salvation to the entire world. If we turn back to Isaiah, and yes, I realize we’re jumping around a lot this morning.

I typically like to find one passage and just stay there and explain it and apply it. But when you’re dealing with a subject like the prophecies of Jesus coming, they’re all over the place. And my advice to you would be to take these that I’ve given to you.

There are some that are written in your bulletin. I can give you the notes later. I can give you the scripture references later.

Go and read these. Go read them for yourselves. Go read the entire chapter that goes with them and study these for yourselves.

Look up the phrases where they’re found in the New Testament and see the correlation between them. But if we turn back to Isaiah chapter 49, verse 6, and this is just one of several places that it talks, that it uses this kind of language in the Old Testament. And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldst be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved of Israel.

He’s talking here about the Messiah, talking about him restoring the people of Israel. But wait, he says, I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth. That he came not only to save and restore the Jews to fellowship with God and relationship with God, But he came to bring the Gentiles into fellowship and relationship with God.

And thank God that he did. Because most of us in here don’t have any Jewish blood. There are some, but most of us are just plain old Gentiles.

And thank God that he didn’t forget us. Thank God that his plan was to send a Messiah to restore Israel and to restore the Gentiles. And all the other Messiah claimants that have ever come have generally said, I’m coming for this group of people.

I’m coming for this little group of people. But Jesus ministered to the Jews, and he ministered to the Samaritans, and he led his followers to minister the Gentiles as well. And that’s why Paul was able to write in Romans chapter 1, verse 16, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to all who believe, unto the Jew first, and also unto the Greek.

Now, the Greek doesn’t mean people from Greece. It’s a general term for Gentiles. Folks, he wasn’t promised just as the Jewish Messiah.

He was promised as all of our Messiah. He was promised to be the Messiah for everybody who would receive him. And it didn’t matter whether you were Jew or Gentile.

And for that matter, it doesn’t matter whether you’re male or female. It doesn’t matter whether you’re black or white. It doesn’t matter whether you’re rich or poor.

It doesn’t matter whether you live in town or out in the country. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Democrat or Republican or somebody else. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you’ve come from.

Jesus Christ came to bring light to the entire world and he offers salvation to anyone who will receive it regardless of where they come from or where they’ve been. And that’s not my opinion. That’s taught in the Bible.

And it’s not just a teaching of the New Testament. It was foretold in the Old Testament as well that Jesus Christ would come to bring salvation to the whole world, to anybody who would receive it. And that’s the message we leave here with today.

As we think about Christmas, and my goodness, I can’t believe it’s December already. where did 2017 go I think we were just so thankful to have 2016 over with that we slept through half of 2017 it’s December already and people are talking about Christmas and people are thinking about Christmas and we should be as well but we have an open door this time of year that that maybe is a little further open than it is most other times of the year we’re in a time of year when Christmas cards go around and people sing Christmas songs and if you’re like me, you’ve got the nativity scene out in your yard and it’s in the forefront of people’s minds. This is the message that we leave with this morning as we leave from here, is that Jesus didn’t come just to be the baby in the manger.

He came to be the Savior for all who would believe. And that was God’s plan all along.

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