OT Prophecies of Christ

Old Testament Prophecies of Christ – Advent Week 2 Pastor Matt Davis – Long Valley Bible Church Today is the first Sunday of advent. Advent means coming and in this season we prepare for the coming of Jesus Christ. One of the ways we prepare for his coming is by making an advent wreath and lighting its candles to remind us of God's promises that came true in Jesus who was born in Bethlehem. The advent wreath has four candles in a circle with one larger White Candle in the center. We will light one new candle every Sunday between now and Christmas. On Christmas Eve, we will light the Christ candle which is in the middle of the wreath. Today we light the first candle the candle of peace. God created this world to be a good place to live. But now it is filled with sadness and hardship. Despite our sins, God promised the people of Israel that he would someday restore the joy of living in his good creation. "For, behold, I create a new heavens and a new earth: and the former should not be remembered, or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I create: for behold, a create Jerusalem as a rejoicing are people a joy. I will rejoice," sorry, "I will...." And yes, "I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people: the voice of weeping shall no longer be heard in her, nor the voice of crying. No more shall an infant from there live but a few days, nor an old man who has not fulfilled his days: for the child shall die once 100 years old but the sinner being 100 years old should be accursed. They shall build houses, and inhabit them; They shall plant vineyards, and eat their fruit. They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree so shall be the days and my people, my elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They should not labor in vain, will bring forth fruit," sorry, "nor bring forth children for trouble;" I'm having trouble tonight. "For they shall be the descendants of the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them. And so come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; when they are still speaking, I will hear. And the wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox: and the dust shall be the serpents food. They should not hurt nor destroy, in all my holy mountain, says the Lord." Isaiah 6517, to 25. We light this first candle, to remember that God gave us Jesus Christ and opened the door for us to his promised world of joy and peace. When Jesus was born, the angels announced "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, goodwill toward with whom he is well pleased." And I said, Let there be light. Let's pray. Thank you, God for the peace you give us. We ask that as we wait for all your promises to come true, and for Christ to come again, that you would remain present with us. Help us today and everyday to worship you to hear your word, and to do your will by sharing your peace with each other. We ask this in the name of the one who was born in Bethlehem, and who will come again in glory. Amen. 1000s of years ago, a prophecy was given. It foretold the coming of the one sent from God. In the image of man to take away the sin of all mankind. "The prophecy is being fulfilled." Many tried to prevent his birth. "Tell me where he is. So I'm in worship him." "Whatever it takes." They knew he would forever change history, in the future, and eternity. This Christmas, we do not just celebrate a baby. We celebrate the King of kings. The Lord of Lords. Jesus Christ. Messiah "Forever and ever, Amen." All right. So just a moment ago, we lit the first candle in our Advent wreath: the candle of peace. We let it... like that entire passage right there is totally unnecessary for the record. And we light it as we remember that the same Jesus who was born in Bethlehem will come again to fulfill God's promise of peace. The second candle of Advent is the candle of healing and forgiveness. Our world is broken by sin. God promised to send one who would mend our broken hearts, make our lives whole, and set us free from our sins. "He is despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces, He was despised. We hold him in no 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, 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." We light the second candle to remember that God gave us Jesus Christ to set us free from sin and make us whole. The angel told Joseph "You will give him the name Jesus because He will save his people from their sins." All right. Let us pray. Thank you God for the forgiveness and healing you give us in Jesus. We ask that as we wait for all of your promises to come true, and for Christ to come again, that you will remain present with us. Help us today and every day to worship you, to hear your word, and to do your will by turning from our sins and forgiving others as you have forgiven us. We asked this in the name of the one that was born in Bethlehem and gave his life for us. Amen. For today's message, like last week, I wanted to do something different. Year after year, pastors and churches across the entire world, across the globe, they repeat the same messages every year for Christmas. And that kind of feels like we're just replaying a broken record year after year. And there's got to be more about Christmas to preach the same four messages on repeat. So I did some pondering and praying this week, and I felt led to discuss the prophecies of Christ in the Old Testament, the prophecies of is coming. So today we will go through the Old Testament, and we'll discuss where the Lord shows up where he is prophesied, and how it came to be. Beginning in Genesis three, Chapter 15. This is the very first promise of God, and the first prophecy of the coming Messiah. In Genesis 3:15, we read, "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between their seed and her seed; and it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." This is a promise between God and us that he would put emnity between us and the enemy, that he would bruise the head of the enemy. And we seen that this is fulfilled on the cross. When Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross, He crushed the head of the serpent, he gave victory over sin and death, he gave a release from the power of Satan. But in that same move, the serpent bit the ankle of the Lord, he had to die. So the ankle was bruised. Praise God, he rose again, but three chapters and 15 verses, or two chapters and 15 verses, into the story of God, and his plan of redemption. We already see that God is preparing away he is already for telling of this comment and foretelling of what he shall do to redeem us. Not too long after this in chapter five, we get what is... what I call the begat chapter: so and so begat so and so; And there's so many years and begat so and so... and all those begats are boring, let's be honest. Who loves going to the book of Numbers? And spending three hours reading multiple chapters of so and so begat so and so on had X amount of sons, and so and so begat so and so on then this tribe was 11,000, or this tribe? No one really enjoys that. But I enjoy it in Genesis chapter five. Because if we take the Hebrew names of all people, it's tells us that Adam, lives so long and begat Seth; and Seth, Seth, lived so long and began Enosh; and Enosh lived so long and we got Cainan; and Cainan we got Mahalaleel; and Mahalaleel begat Jared; and Jared begat Enoch; And... what? Jared begat Enoch. Enoch begat Methuselah; Methuselah begat Lamech; and Lamech begat Noah; and in the names of these people... It is not coincidental. It is not by accident they received the names they had received for Adam means man. Are one of you trying to message me or something? I don't know. I can never tell if it's you guys or someone else. If we take the meaning of the names, the Hebrew names, we read that man as appointed in mortal sorrow, but the blessed God shall come down teaching his death shall bring the despairing rest and comfort. Adams name means "man"; Seth means "is appointed"; Enosh means "mortal"; Cainan means "sorrow"; Mahalaleel means "the blessed God"; Jared's name means "shall come down"; Enoch means "to teach". Methuselah mean "his death shall bring", and that makes sense if you look at this: when Methuselah died, the same year he died, is when God flooded the earth. The name Lamech, the name Lamech means "the despairing"; and Noah means "rest", or "comfort". So in the names of the first 10 generations of the human race, we see the Gospel story. We see the foretelling of God for it says "the blessed God shall come down." It says, he'll "come down and He will teach His death shall bring the despair and rest or comefort." We're five chapters into the biblical story: and we've got two accounts, two prophecies, to foretelling’s of the coming of the Lord. But it doesn't stop. In Genesis, even still, on chapter nine, verses 12 through 19, if you want to read with me, this is after the Great Flood. They've been on the boat for about nine months, Noah finally stepped out onto dry land! I can imagine he hit his knees and he started lifting his hands up in the air, and he started praising God, "thank you, I'm on solid ground again." And then God says the following: "This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations." Meaning this covenant is never ending, it's perpetual. As this generation passes, and the next one comes up, this covenant shall remain. Verse 13, "I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass when I bring a cloud over the earth, but the most shall be seen in the cloud:" This Rainbow is the token, when we see the clouds, we see the rainbow that comes with it as a reminder that we don't have to fear the rainstorm. We don't have to fear that God will once again destroy all life at the flood. "And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the water shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, this is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth. And the sons of Noah, that went forth from the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan. These are the three sons of Noah. And of them was a whole earth overspread." You know, the earth was so sinful, it was so filthy, so dirty, that God's only means of course correcting, that was to destroy it. So he brought a flood, and he destroyed all eight souls that were on the ark: Noah and his wife, Shem, Ham and Japheth and their three wives. Eight souls spared in a world of destruction. The first time around it was us, it was humans that paid the penalty. But God he set the bow in the sky and this foretells of how the penalty should be paid the second time around. For what direction does the bow point? It points toward God. When you hold a bow out: the bow is always faced toward the enemy; it's faced toward the target. And when God put the bow in the sky, he did not point the bow to us. He pointed the bow at himself. He says "last time you took the fall," he says "but next time the arrow was aimed at me, I will take the fall." And the Lord did. He came and took on flesh, lived a sinless life, to go to the cross so that he himself could die paying the penalty that we deserved to pay. I think the rainbow in the sky, The covenant between us, is a beautiful picture of how God foretold, foreshadowed, that he would pay the penalty. He would pay the price and take care of our sin for us. Through the generation since then every rainstorm that has come and gone has been accompanied by the reminder that the bow, the arrow, is pointed to God. Even today, 2000 years after his first advent, we have the reminder that he set the bow upon himself; that he is taken the fall that we deserve to take. In Genesis, we continue in chapter 22. I'm not going to read it rather, I'm going to summarize it. In chapter 22, Abraham finally has Isaac if you remember a few chapters earlier, God says to Abraham, Sarah will conceive a child and you will bring forth a son, and through that son all families, all nations, all people, through the earth can be blessed. He says through that son, you will have descendants, that are greater than the sands in the sea. And then after he has Isaac, and he raises him up, one morning God just appears and says, "Abraham, I want you to take your son. And then I want you to sacrifice him." In the story is foreshadowed the way in which God would take the fall for us from when he set the bow on himself. Abraham sets up to the mountain of Isaac. And Isaac says, "where's the offering?" And he says, "God will provide the offering." And then Abraham says, "Isaac, I want you to go and collect the wood." And then he makes Isaac carry the wood, up the mountain to the altar, where he should be sacrificed foreshadowing the very nature by which Christ would die. For Christ was made to carry the word of his cross up to Calvary Hill. Isaac then probably looks at Abraham with fuel in his eye and says, "where's that sacrifice?" And I can't imagine the way Abraham felt as he grabbed his son and fastened him upon the altar. And then at just the right moment, an angel appeared and said, "Abraham, you have shown yourself faithful but look, there is a substitute offering call over there on the bush." Now, if Abraham had a sense of humor, and he probably didn't, he was probably emotional, but I would have done this: "I told you Isaac, I told you he would provide an offering." But although the event foreshadowed the way in which God will pay for our sin, by offering his one and only begotten son, he also foreshadowed in the same story, in the same event, the way by which we would be set free for he would be a substitute. As he substituted for Isaac, so he substituted for us. Yet again, in Genesis 22, we have seen before telling of the Lord, the foretelling of what his advent would mean of how he would pay for our sins. In Numbers, chapter 21... Numbers 21, verses six through nine. "And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord, and against thee; pray unto the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live." Read verse nine with me: "And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived." One thing I love about the Old Testament I love this is on every page, in every story, in every chapter, there is a foreshadow, there is a foretelling of what God will do. The people in the wilderness, or sin for murmuring against God is spoke against him. And as a result, the Lord sent these venomous serpents. The Serpents had killed a number of them! But then God foretells that the way by which all men may be saved, he says, "Put a serpent on a brass pole, and raise it, and all who look upon show live." This foretells of the way of which we should be saved. For our Lord was raised upon a pole, upon a cross. He was raised. And though we are sinful, and though we had that venomous bite in us, the death that we all deserve if we should look to the cross, we shall live. If we shall look to the man who hung there, we shall live. In Isaiah seven, verse 14. Before this point, we've discussed some of the foreshadowing some of the more subtle hints of what the Lord will do and how he will do it. In Isaiah seven, verse 14, however, here's a direct prophecy: "the Lord.. Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." Now Matthew, chapter one tells us Immanuel, which been interpreted means God with us. I failed to miss, or sorry, I failed to understand how many ancient Jewish people missed the fact that the Messiah would be God! I fail to understand how people today can miss the fact that Jesus Christ is God. For its foretold that the virgin shall conceive and his name shall be Emmanuel, God with us. A mathematician had went and done the statistics. And he went through the Bible, and he grabbed every prophecy in the Bible, how he shall be born, where he shall be born, from the line that he shall be born, the life he shall live, the way he should die, the events that will take place in this life, and he did the numbers, and it was about one in a 40 billionth chance that a person could be the Messiah. But a person could fulfill all those prophecies. Just so you know, that it's more people than who have ever walked the face of the earth. There's never been that many people. And so the chances were one in more than all the people who have ever lived, or shall ever live, that The Messiah could have fulfilled all the prophecy. Last week, we discussed the virgin birth a little bit, we discussed Joseph's perspective and his role on that. But there is a sign for he shall be born of a virgin. He's not going to be born on an earthly father. He's not gonna be born of flesh and blood, but he shall be born of the Spirit and flesh. He shall be born of God, and woman; through a virgin. Now I'll tell you what, this is a miracle. As soon as you see a virgin who's pregnant, I'd start be thinking, "Oh, the Messiah is on his way!" Now, rather than thinking that though, they just said, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Hey, they have a virgin birth, He may be from the line of David, but he's from Nazareth. Can anything good come out of Nazareth? One page over in your Bible Isaiah chapter nine, verse six, "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." Now we can think of a lot of things we call our Lord: we call him Lord, we call him Savior, we call him our friend; but how often do we just call him wonderful? But how often do we call him our counselor? How often do we call him the Prince of Peace? Says "For unto us, this child is born." For us! Christ came for us. Now it says the government should be upon our shoulder. And certainly, this is the part that the ancient Jews were watching for. They weren't watching for a savior, they weren't watching for God in the flesh, they were watching for a person, that would redeemed them from the Roman Empire, from the Roman political entity. Now Surely, make no mistake, Christ is coming back. And when he comes back, the government should be upon a shoulder. But his first coming was for the salvation of souls for the forgiveness of sins, but his name shall be called "Wonderful"; how much more wonderful a person and the guy who came and live perfectly and died so that we will not have to pay the price of our debt? How wonderful a guy who would die one of the most gruesome deaths and hang on the cross? Who would be whipped, ridiculed, stripped, mocked? How wonderful a person is that? It says, "His name shall be called the mighty God." For He is the mighty goddess name is Emmanuel! He is God with us! This is not just another person who lived a really good life. This is not just another person who is born of naturally events. This is literally God! This is the most magnificent event in all of history for this isn't... this is more magnificent than the creation of the earth, the seven day creation, the creation of us. For God stepped into creation. He made all of this. And then he came to it. He met us, the mighty God. This is the God who died and then rose, the only person who rose from the grave of his own power. This is the guy who will come back and conquer the demonic realm; the guy who will fight Armageddon and be victorious; he is the mighty God, The Everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace. How many people say for Christmas, all I want is world peace. How many organizations? PETA, The tree huggers, the UN, everybody who says our goal was world peace. There's a Palestinian peace tools going on right now and then negotiations and everyone's looking to our governments or political leaders, our treaties for peace but this is a false peace where there is only one Prince of Peace and that is Jesus Christ. In Micah 5:2 we read "But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting." I just love this it says, "but thou Bethlehem, though you be little" he says "though you be insignificant; though you'll be tiny compared to the nation of my people." He says "from you, from the little guy, from the weak guy, shall my son come forth! From you shall the Savior of the world come forth!" As we think of the coming of the Lord, I want to think what his coming says. Look at.. look at his genealogy: you have the harlots in his genealogy; you have the murderers in his genealogy; you have the people who have no place being in the line of the Savior! Yet they are there because he says, "I love you." He says, "I want you to know there's room for you." He says, "I want you to know that no matter your past, I can use you." He says, "There's forgiveness for you." And so, all throughout the biblical story, he's chosen the harlots; he's chosen the murderers; He has chosen the scum of the earth to bring forth His gospel! He's chosen the scum of the earth to be the bloodline of which came from; because he came to save us, not to condemn us. It says in the Bible, that he saved us not because we had become perfect. But he saves us to make us perfect because He loves us. And so he used imperfect people to bring about his great work. This Christmas season, we don't just celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. No, we celebrate the reason behind it. As significant as his birth is: it would be meaningless, it would be pointless, without his death. It would be pointless without the resurrection. So this Christmas, we celebrate His coming but we celebrate the cause. For what his birth meant to us was the gift of eternal life. This Christmas, brought to you from God as a gift that I nor any other man could give you: brought to you this Christmas is a gift, so precious, the costed the blood of God; a gift that's everlasting. It's so perfect that moth nor rust crew up. This is God's gift to you. This is the reason that he took on flesh was to say, "I love you. And I am going to give you the way." Let us be thankful this Christmas was coming and let us remember the reason. Let us rejoice in what this means for us. This is our glimmer of hope. This is why we are here today. This is why we preach, why we share, why we do what we do. Because God so loved the world. He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Let's just ponder throughout this week, what God has done. Let us ponder the greatest gift that we could give. It's not toys; it's not phones or PlayStations. It's not getting caught up and all this commercialized stuff going on. But it's the gift of the gospel, sharing it with someone. And letting them know the whole reason for this season is that a guy loved you so much he came and died. And that's what we celebrate on December 25. Let's pray. Father God, Lord Jesus, Lord we thank you, we praise you, and as we enter Christmas, Lord, we are humbled that the King of kings, the Lord of lords, that the Messiah, should take on flesh. We are even more humble Lord, that you loved us so much to step down into creation, to die for us, to give us what we cannot give ourself. So Lord we thank you and we praise you and we remember all that you did. We rejoice in your coming and we look forward to your second coming. Lord, let us give the best gift we can give this year and let us share the gift of Christ with all of those around us. Let us glorify your birth. Let us glorify Your death and resurrection. And let us be thought of joy for all that it means in Jesus beautiful name we pray, Amen. Amen.