The Messiah
Notes
Transcript
Last week we saw how God was still faithful and sent his prophets to the people, even while they were in exile because of their disobedience.
Today we will be looking at more prophecies, but today we will be focusing on the prophecies related to the Messiah. What is the Messiah? We will get to that...
Do you remember what the main point was last week? What did we learn about God?
God
Faithful
Restores the Repentant who Confess
Today, the main point is much the same focus. God’s faithfulness.
That is what we learn about God through all the prophecies and covenants he has made. Yes, we speak of the prophecies as coming from this prophet or that prophet, but we must always remember that they only spoke as they were led by God to speak. It was God’s prophecies, not the prophecies of the individuals.
For example, when Jeremiah prophesied it was God speaking, God’s prophecy.
This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place.
It happened just as he said. They returned at the end of the seventy years and the temple was rebuilt.
Last week I referenced Isaiah’s prophecy about Cyrus. That prophecy is found in Isaiah 44.28-45:7. God mentions how he is going to use Cyrus to return the people to the land and see the temple rebuilt.
“This is what the Lord says— your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb: I am the Lord, the Maker of all things, who stretches out the heavens, who spreads out the earth by myself,
who foils the signs of false prophets and makes fools of diviners, who overthrows the learning of the wise and turns it into nonsense,
who carries out the words of his servants and fulfills the predictions of his messengers, who says of Jerusalem, ‘It shall be inhabited,’ of the towns of Judah, ‘They shall be rebuilt,’ and of their ruins, ‘I will restore them,’
who says to the watery deep, ‘Be dry, and I will dry up your streams,’
who says of Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd and will accomplish all that I please; he will say of Jerusalem, “Let it be rebuilt,” and of the temple, “Let its foundations be laid.” ’
This was written about 160 years before Cyrus gave the command for the Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple.
I also mentioned Daniel 11, which has very specific prophecies about the kingdoms of the generals that split up the Greek empire after Alexander the Great died. I hope some of you had a chance to look at those prophecies and how they were also literally fulfilled! It is amazing how specific the prophecies are, and how they were literally fulfilled.
Through the prophecies and their literal fulfillment, we see that God is
God
Faithful
All-knowing
Sovereign
Wants man to know Him
This shows us that the Bible is trustworthy. Because God has gone out of his way to show us that he knows the future, that he has a plan, and that all he plans and tells us he does, we can know that His Word is true. We can know that Christianity, Biblical Christianity is true.
No other religion has this.
Islam has no miracles or prophecies by Muhammed in the Qu’ran. There are some traditions or stories in the Hadith that were written one hundred or more years after the fact, never by an eye witness. However, these stories are not divinely inspired, and most Muslim scholars reject the majority of the stories as factual. And they do not agree on which ones are authentic and to be accepted.
Mormonism has false prophecies by the founder and later leaders. For example Joseph Smith prophesied that a temple would be built in Independence, MO by the generation that was alive in 1832. They were driven out of Missouri. He prophesied Christ’s return by 1891. He predicted the US government would be overthrown. He prophesied that the governor of MO would die within a year, but he lived for another 18 years. In 1863 Brigham Young prophesied that the Civil War would not free the slaves and that people were dying for nothing.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are also built on the foundation of false prophecies of Christ’s return in 1914, destruction of churches in 1918, resurrection of faithful men like Abraham and David in 1925, and the end of the world in 1975.
Many Hindu leaders predicted the end of the world in 1962 when eight planets aligned in the sign of Capricorn. The Golden Age Timeline was a predicted as a destruction of the world event to be followed by a Golden Age that was supposed to happen by 1976, and later 2000, and now sometime further in the future. When it doesn’t happen, it just gets pushed back… recalculating.
The Bible has the only confirmed prophecies and literal fulfilments. We can have complete confidence that our God has told us the truth. He is faithful. He wants us to know that He alone is God, and that his purposes will stand.
I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.’
And what are his purposes? A quote we have seen often, “I will be your God, and you will be my people.” To do this, he promised to send one who would accomplish this. The Messiah.
That is his purpose. And his purpose will stand.
God
Faithful
All-knowing
Sovereign
Wants man to know Him
Purposes to redeem a people for Himself
Let’s pick up the story line.
God showed himself to the Israelites by bringing them back to the land. How did it go after that?
Zerubbabel was a descendant of David, and his return around 535 ended 70 years of political exile. During his reign, they started the construction of the temple, but it faced a lot of opposition until is was finally rebuilt by 516 BC. That ended the 70 years of the religious exile from the destruction of the previous temple in 586 BC.
Ezra later came, and found that the people had been marrying women from other nations again, and led a revival for following the Lord.
Nehemiah came and began the reconstruction of the city of Jerusalem, which was in fulfillment of Daniel’s prophecy in Daniel 9.
“Know and understand this: From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty-two ‘sevens.’ It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble.
The initial seven ‘sevens’, or 49 years were the timeframe for the city to be rebuilt completely.
Nehemiah ruled for a time, returned to Artexerxes, and then came back to rule again. When he came back, what was happening? Nehemiah 13 tells the tale.
He found that the Levites were not being given their portions for serving the Lord. The people were intermarrying with other nations again, including a son of the High Priest. Also, people were not observing the Sabbath. Nehemiah did what he could to correct these actions, and Malachi, the prophet also spoke to the people from the Lord.
What did Malachi prophecy?
“A son honors his father, and a slave his master. If I am a father, where is the honor due me? If I am a master, where is the respect due me?” says the Lord Almighty. “It is you priests who show contempt for my name. “But you ask, ‘How have we shown contempt for your name?’
“By offering defiled food on my altar. “But you ask, ‘How have we defiled you?’ “By saying that the Lord’s table is contemptible.
When you offer blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice lame or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?” says the Lord Almighty.
“Now plead with God to be gracious to us. With such offerings from your hands, will he accept you?”—says the Lord Almighty.
“Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would not light useless fires on my altar! I am not pleased with you,” says the Lord Almighty, “and I will accept no offering from your hands.
My name will be great among the nations, from where the sun rises to where it sets. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to me, because my name will be great among the nations,” says the Lord Almighty.
“But you profane it by saying, ‘The Lord’s table is defiled,’ and, ‘Its food is contemptible.’
And you say, ‘What a burden!’ and you sniff at it contemptuously,” says the Lord Almighty. “When you bring injured, lame or diseased animals and offer them as sacrifices, should I accept them from your hands?” says the Lord.
“Cursed is the cheat who has an acceptable male in his flock and vows to give it, but then sacrifices a blemished animal to the Lord. For I am a great king,” says the Lord Almighty, “and my name is to be feared among the nations.
“The man who hates and divorces his wife,” says the Lord, the God of Israel, “does violence to the one he should protect,” says the Lord Almighty. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful.
You have wearied the Lord with your words. “How have we wearied him?” you ask. By saying, “All who do evil are good in the eyes of the Lord, and he is pleased with them” or “Where is the God of justice?”
After Malachi, there were no more prophets, and no word from the Lord for about 400 years. This was also foretold by the prophet Amos.
“The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign Lord,
“when I will send a famine through the land—
not a famine of food or a thirst for water,
but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.
After all that happened, once again, we see the people rebelling against God, doing what was right in their own eyes rather than living in faith, trusting and obeying God.
Man
Prideful
Rebels against the Lord
But I want to go back to Malachi 3.
Even though the people were once again not walking with the Lord, rather, they were rebelling against what he had told them to do, what does God do? Does he give up on his purpose to redeem a people for Himself?
No, God would be faithful to them, and to his promises.
“I the Lord do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.
Ever since the time of your ancestors you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord Almighty.
God
Merciful
Patient
Desires Repentance
Gracious
Gracious because he is still going to give them what they don’t deserve...
“I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty.
God was still going to send a messenger to prepare the way for the Lord to come to them. The Lord who would be the messenger of the covenant.
Who is the Lord they were seeking; the messenger of the covenant?
We see that there will be one coming before him to prepare the way for him, but who is the one that they were anticipating?
Isaiah prophesied of the one who would come to make an everlasting covenant with the people.
“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.
Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare.
Give ear and come to me; listen, that you may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David.
The people were constantly seeking peace and fulfilment in all the wrong things. They could not find it. But God promised to come and make an everlasting covenant with them, one which would give them the peace and fulfilment they desired.
Jeremiah spoke of this as the new covenant that God would make with Israel and with Judah, in Jeremiah chapter 31. Then in chapters 23 and 33 he speaks of the one he will use to establish the kingdom and the covenant.
“The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land.
In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called: The Lord Our Righteous Savior.
The one who would come would be a descendant of David. But not like the kings they had. So many of the descendants of David were not good kings. They thought of themselves and led the people away from the Lord. Instead of giving peace, they gave them war, famine, disease, death, exile.
The coming descendant of David would be a righteous King who would rule wisely and do what was right. Then the people would find peace, safety, fulfilment.
Isaiah also prophesied the word of the Lord concerning this coming descendant of David,
A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him— the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—
and he will delight in the fear of the Lord. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears;
but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.
Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist.
In Isaiah 9 we see it prophesied that he will reign on David’s throne
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.
The descendant of David who would sit on David’s throne would be none other than the LORD!
Which is why David himself said,
The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at My right hand Until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.”
This all fulfills the covenant that God made with David, and it is how we get the term Messiah.
Messiah is our English form of the Hebrew word that means “anointed one.”
This term was used for anyone that was anointed for a special task, but came to be used primarily of kings.
Because of the covenant God made with David, and the prophecies made through the prophets about this coming king in the line of David, the Jewish people came to call this expected one, the Messiah.
Daniel uses the term in Daniel 9.25
“Know and understand this: From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty-two ‘sevens.’ It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble.
What else do the prophets tell us about this Messiah?
In Isaiah 7.14 we find out that this one will be born of a virgin.
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.
All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet:
“The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).
This also fulfills Gen 3.15
And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
There are many other prophecies about the Messiah, which were given so that the people would recognize him when he came.
“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.”
After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem
and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”
When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.
When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born.
“In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:
“ ‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’”
Star - Numbers 24.17
“I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel. He will crush the foreheads of Moab, the skulls of all the people of Sheth.
Magi - Daniel
Then the king placed Daniel in a high position and lavished many gifts on him. He made him ruler over the entire province of Babylon and placed him in charge of all its wise men.
Daniel was chief of all the magi
cf Daniel 4.9; 5.11
Earlier in Malachi we saw that there would be a messenger who would come before the Lord. Isaiah spoke of this as well.
A voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea
and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah: “A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’ ”
So was fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet: “I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things hidden since the creation of the world.”
“Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will bring justice to the nations.
He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets.
A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. In faithfulness he will bring forth justice;
he will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth. In his teaching the islands will put their hope.”
Matthew 12:18–21 ““Here is my servant whom I have chosen, the one I love, in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will proclaim justice to the nations. He will not quarrel or cry out; no one will hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out, till he has brought justice through to victory. In his name the nations will put their hope.””
He would reign on David’s throne. But there is something else he would do. He would do something to make it possible for the people to be in God’s kingdom.
Who can be in God’s kingdom? only the righteous.
Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place?
The one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not trust in an idol or swear by a false god.
A psalm of David.
Lord, who may dwell in your sacred tent? Who may live on your holy mountain?
The one whose walk is blameless, who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from their heart;
whose tongue utters no slander, who does no wrong to a neighbor, and casts no slur on others;
who despises a vile person but honors those who fear the Lord; who keeps an oath even when it hurts, and does not change their mind;
who lends money to the poor without interest; who does not accept a bribe against the innocent. Whoever does these things will never be shaken.
For the director of music. Of David.
The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.
The Lord looks down from heaven on all mankind to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God.
All have turned away, all have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.
Do all these evildoers know nothing? They devour my people as though eating bread; they never call on the Lord.
But there they are, overwhelmed with dread, for God is present in the company of the righteous.
You evildoers frustrate the plans of the poor, but the Lord is their refuge.
Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion! When the Lord restores his people, let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad!
What was it going to take to restore the people? What would it take to make people righteous so they could be in God’s everlasting, righteous kingdom?
God had told Adam that the just punishment for sin, for not trusting and obeying the Lord, is death. Being separated from God and his goodness.
The only way for unrighteous people to be able to be a part of God’s coming everlasting, righteous kingdom, would be if their sin could be paid for, that God’s wrath against sin would be satisfied by another in their place.
And that is also what the Messiah would do.
Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
By oppression and judgment he was taken away. Yet who of his generation protested? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished.
He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.
Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
Messiah God
Faithful
All-knowing and Sovereign
Wants man to know Him
Merciful, Patient, Gracious
Bears man’s sin and Redeems
