Sermon: Advent - Preparing Our Hearts

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to go to Bethlehem, which is not where he was, to go to Bethlehem, which is where the promised

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Messiah was to come from, and it was a pagan census that sort of brings that along. So you see that providence, and you have this moment where angels show up.

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And I love the fact that every time angels show up in the Bible, you have angels that are terrifying people, right?

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Like, they're always having to warn people not to be afraid. I can't wait to actually see one.

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But they're terrified, and so the angels are like, don't be afraid, this is actually a good moment for you.

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And then they witnessed this spectacular orchestra of angels singing praises to God, because now it's come.

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Everything they were anticipating, everything they were singing about in the Psalms, all those promises that they were sharing with each other,

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God's going to redeem. All the families of the earth are going to return to worship Yahweh. Salvation to the ends of the earth, the knowledge of God is going to cover the earth like the waters cover the sea, something that Doug said last week at the

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Bronson Conference. When you think about that promise that's in scripture, that the knowledge of God is going to cover the earth like the waters cover the sea, you should ask the question, how wet is the

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Pacific Ocean? It's all wet, right?

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It's all wet. And that's the promise, is that the knowledge of God is going to cover the earth like the waters cover the sea.

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It's going to get all wet, all the knowledge of God everywhere. And so this moment is a big moment, but it's crazy because it's spectacular.

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You have this host of angels, this amazing heavenly orchestra singing songs, and it's to shepherds, and it's in a nothing little place, and it's a baby that's completely dependent upon his mom to breastfeed him and to care for him.

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So God coming as a man, God the creator of all things, condescending, taking on flesh, and completely from a human perspective, helpless and totally dependent upon his mom.

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And so while this pops off as this most amazing fulfillment of prophecy, here's the moment where the world is going to finally see that long -anticipated redemption.

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It comes in a way that is actually kind of startling. You would expect the promised

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Messiah and his coming to come, like a friend says, like the 82nd Airborne, sort of dropping out of the sky and taking over everything.

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We have some ex -army guys in here, right? You can't say army anything without them. Woo -hoo! But you would expect, you know, if you think about sin and the power of God and the might of God, he's the all -powerful, all -knowing

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God. He splashes every single night. I was talking to my son, Stellar, the other day. We were driving home, and of course, one of those glorious Arizona sunsets was happening.

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And I just said to Stellar, I said, look over there at the mountain. And right above the mountain was the moon.

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And it was like this amazing blend of colors right behind the mountain.

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And I just said to Stellar, I said, every night God splashes one of those beautiful things up there.

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He does it all over the world, and it's effortless for God, something that no human artist can compare to.

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And God just does it every night like it's no big deal, this glorious sunset, all this stuff. That God, that mighty

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God, all -powerful God who controls all things and sustains every black hole in the universe, that God condescended.

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And he started this story off in a way that was actually very startling to them. A baby, a helpless baby, totally dependent upon his mother,

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God, as a baby to come and to be brutalized, to endure all the hardships because he was chasing down his people that he loved.

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Isn't it an amazing thing when you think about the story of the gospel itself? It's this amazing moment of tragedy, right?

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It's the death of Jesus. It's the murder of the Son of Man. It's the greatest injustice ever perpetrated upon the innocent in the history of the world because he was truly, truly innocent.

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And yet God disguised his greatest victory in this great tragedy and evil.

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The story of the gospel is amazing. And that's why I think Advent is so important for us to consider and to think about and to celebrate because you're celebrating the ultimate thing,

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God coming as a man to redeem and save his people. But I think beyond the glory of Advent, we have to ask the question of ourselves, why?

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Why celebrate it? Why do the gifts to rehearse the free gifting to the loved ones?

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Why all the lights and the light of the world and all the festival and celebrations? Why do it all?

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Is it just tradition? Is it just something we do culturally? Like, you know, we've sort of adopted this practice.

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It reminds us of our childhood, so we do these things. Or is it something actually much deeper to the glory of Advent that we should be talking about and celebrating?

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And I mentioned at the start here to all of us that I think that we're in a special moment because we have this amazing opportunity during this time period where the message, the most important message that anybody will ever hear is in the atmosphere.

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I mean, we're just getting this free opportunity to talk about our Savior in a way that is unprecedented throughout the rest of the year.

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We can talk about Jesus. We can talk about his birth. We can talk about the gospel itself in a way that's easier in the next month than the rest of the year because even the pagan neighbor has a tree up.

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Even the pagan neighbor is playing Elvis Presley's Christmas songs, which are the best ever, by the way.

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The pagans are talking about Jesus. They're putting nativities up. The pagans are talking about the most important story in the history of the world.

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So it's an amazing opportunity, but I think I want to challenge us as your brother and a pastor, I want to challenge you, do you even know why you're committed to it?

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Is it just a tradition? Is it something that you've just adopted? Or is this something that you understand fully and you're ready to give your life up for?

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That's the most important thing. The most important thing about this time is that, yeah, we have this grand opportunity where the songs about our

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Savior are being played everywhere, where the story of Jesus is in the atmosphere. You're going into neighborhoods, and the music is playing.

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You're seeing people's houses lit up. People are talking about Jesus. It's in the atmosphere, but my challenge to you is this.

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Do you even know why you believe it? Do you know why you believe it? And this is especially important for our young people in this room right now.

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It's especially important because there is a danger of being raised in a

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Christian tradition, and that Christian tradition is just that for you. It's just a tradition.

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Your parents loved Jesus. The people around you love Jesus. But the question is, do you love

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Jesus? Do you know why you believe in Jesus? Because you see, here's the thing. Tradition and all the externals is not going to carry you through your life.

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It will not. I promise you, it will not. All the tradition, all the externals, all the edifice on the outside will not carry you through your life.

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You will abandon your faith in Jesus if it is only external, if it is only tradition.

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If you're following Jesus, please hear me on this. If you're following Jesus because your mom and dad follow

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Jesus, that will not sustain you. You have to follow Christ because He is the

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Son of God. You have to follow Jesus because He is the way, the truth, and the life. And no man comes to the

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Father except through Him. C .S. Lewis, while I don't agree with everything that he said in terms of how we approach things,

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C .S. Lewis had it right. He is either Lord, liar, or lunatic.

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You cannot put Jesus anywhere else, Lord, liar, or lunatic. Because understand something.

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If I came to you all right now and I said, everybody, I am

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God, the eternal God, come as a man. I am God, and I forgive your sins.

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What kind of arrogance would that be? You guys would say, this guy is a nutter, right?

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And you'd be right to say it. You're not God. You're claiming to be able to forgive sins.

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You're claiming to be the Savior of the world. You're claiming that all the sins of the world are going to be upon you.

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You're claiming that you're the creator of all things and that life is only found in you and there is no salvation outside of you.

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Let's be honest. If Jesus isn't who He claimed to be, you need to flee from Him.

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He is either a lunatic in that He really thought that He was God in the flesh and the

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Savior of the world. And He wasn't, but He thought He was. Or He's a liar. He knew

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He was deceiving people, and He set off the greatest hoax in the history of the world and told people that He was

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God, able to save sins, and He was humanity's only hope. And He knew

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He was lying. That's what makes Him a liar. Or, what is He? He's Lord.

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He's the one that He claimed to be. Let me give you this for a moment. Go to your Bibles to John chapter 3, a favorite text.

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It should be one of your favorite texts. John chapter 3.

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John chapter 3, verse 16. Everyone knows this one by heart. For God so loved the world that He gave

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His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. These are the words of Jesus.

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Listen. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.

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Jesus was apparently a post -millennialist. Not to condemn the world, but to what?

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Save it. All the nations coming to God was the plan of the kingdom of God. All the nations, tribes, tongues, languages coming to the

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Messiah. That was the story. Jesus is claiming that that is fulfilled in Him.

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He says this. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only

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Son of God. And this is the judgment. The light has come into the world. Jesus is saying

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He's the light. He's the light. And people love the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.

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For everyone who does wicked things hates the light. Who's that? Hates Him. And does not come to the light.

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What's that mean? Come to Him. Think about that claim. Lest His works should be exposed.

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But whoever does what is true comes to the light. Comes to what? Comes to Him.

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So that it may be clearly seen that His works have been carried out in God. Brothers and sisters, be honest with it.

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These claims are astonishing. Any other human being making these claims, you would write them off, and rightly so.

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If they're not truly the light, if they're not truly the Son of God, if they're not truly the Messiah, if they're not truly God in the flesh, then you ought to write them off.

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You have to. If I make the claim or you make the claim, you have to reject it.

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If it isn't true, you can't follow it. But Jesus is claiming to be the light of the world.

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If you have Him, you have light. If you are outside of Jesus, you are in darkness.

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These are the claims of Jesus. And so my challenge to all of us is do you know why?

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Do you know why? Or is it just a culture? Is it just a tradition? I mentioned to you the conversation that I was having earlier this week in terms of like, how come we see that cycle in history of like, you know, you have these great moments of tragedy and great moments of persecution and pain, and they develop oddly some of the strongest believers in the history of the church, and there's great victories, and there's so much consistency.

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And then what happens is a generation goes by or two goes by, and next thing you know, because they have so much blessing from that faithfulness and that truth, they forget

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God. They forget where it came from. They forget what they were supposed to be standing on.

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I believe we're in one of those moments now, in terms of at least Christianity and the West, is we don't know what we believe or why we believe it.

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So how come there's no light coming from the people of God to the culture of the West? It's because we don't even have that light to share.

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We don't know what it is. We don't even know why we believe it. We have to know what we believe and why we believe it.

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And think about this for a moment. The context that this comes into, the context that this comes into, the gospels themselves, while the apostles are alive, and they're sharing the gospel, and they're defending the faith, they, those early

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Christians, had to know why they believed what they believed. They had to know.

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Why? Because their very lives were at stake. You see, you and I can walk out there to that street right now, and we can start confessing

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Christ as Lord, Jesus as Lord, Jesus as Lord over the president, Jesus as Lord over the

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United States government. We can do that with ease in this country because of the blessings of the gospel behind us.

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And we can do it with very little fear, very little persecution. And I dare you right now, punch it into your

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Facebook or your Twitter or whatever. Punch it in, Jesus as Lord, Jesus as the King. What's going to happen to you?

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Nearly nothing, right? Maybe you have a couple people that say some insulting, trolly comment to you, right?

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Who cares? You're going to sleep in peace tonight. You're going to be safe. That claim that you and I make that Jesus is

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Lord today does very little to affect us in this nation. Those early

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Christians, when they made the claim, the Messiah has come, Jesus is the light of the world. He's the only way to salvation.

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He is Lord. They were making a claim that meant they could die. And so they had to know why.

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Why do I believe Jesus is the King? Why do I believe He's the Savior? It wasn't just cultural for them. They were abandoning friends.

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They were abandoning family. They were abandoning safety and security. They were going to lose everything. I mean, what would it take for you to be flayed alive?

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That's where they cut your skin off of your body, all of it.

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While you are living and breathing, you endure the entire thing. What would it take for you to endure being flayed for your faith in Jesus Christ?

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That's what they had to endure. What would it take for you to lose absolutely everything? What would it take for you to be thrown to the lions?

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What would it take for you to be captured, taken all your clothes off, wrapped around a pole, wrapped in pitch, and lit on fire?

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What would it take for you to have your head cut off? What would it take for you to be crucified and die a gruesome, painful death for your faith in Jesus?

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Brothers and sisters, you had to know. And those early Christians clearly understood the story.

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They understood why they were giving everything away. They understood the promise of Jesus, not to fear the one who has power to kill the body.

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Right? We know that there's one who has power to throw both body and soul into hell.

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And they understood the stakes. They understood what was before them. Jesus said things to his followers, like, if you deny me before men,

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I will deny you before my Father in heaven. They knew what the stakes were. And they knew why they were following Jesus.

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My question to you is this, do you know? How about this? Children in this room, do you believe in Jesus?

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I'm talking to the kids now. Teenagers, too. Do you believe in Jesus? Do you know why?

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Do you even know why? That's the most important thing. Because you see, you look in the

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Gospels, you see the story of Jesus, and you look at the book of Acts, and you're given the historical narrative, the divinely inspired historical narrative of how

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God did this at the very beginning with his church. And you see that the church is coming into the world, and they are embroiled in conflict and godly and righteous controversy.

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And they are having difficulties. They are on the run. They're being lowered out of windows. People are taking oaths not to eat until they're dead.

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They are being beaten. They are being thrown in jail. And they are leaving the presence of the council after taking a beating for Jesus, rejoicing.

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They were counted worthy to suffer for Christ's sake. And you read in the book of Acts, as a story is unfolding in Acts chapter 9, you've heard me say this a million times before.

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The apostle Paul goes from a person who is persecuting the church. He says in Galatians that he literally tried to destroy the church itself.

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He goes from that to as soon as his eyes are opened and he can see Jesus and he trusts in Him, he takes a beeline for Damascus to go right to the synagogue.

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How's that for courage? He's going to the synagogue because they have the Word of God.

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They have the promises of God. They know those scriptures. He's going to the very place where they hold that treasure, and he goes to that place to argue with them and to prove that Jesus is

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Mashiach. He's the promised Messiah. He knew the story and he goes to argue with them.

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You have that treasure. That Word promises Him. He's arrived.

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You've got to repent and believe. And you look at the story as you get into Acts chapter 18, and you see Apollos, eloquent, mighty in the scriptures.

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And it says that he publicly refutes the Jews. He refutes them publicly doing what?

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Proving. Do you hear that word? Proving that Jesus is Mashiach.

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You see, our faith in Jesus Christ and the glory of Advent is not something that other religions have, where it's this private relationship and experience where I've had these really good feelings, right?

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Or I think that He is. I really believe that He is. And in the context of this month as we're doing evangelism to the

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Mormon friends and family, our neighbors that we love, it's the way that they would express, why do you believe the

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Book of Mormon is the Word of God? Why do you believe Joseph Smith's the prophet of God? What do they always say?

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What is it? What do they say? I prayed about it, and what do I have? I have a burning in my bosom.

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That's just you. I mean, how do you know that wasn't indigestion? Now think about it for a moment.

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Now you take all the religions in the world and all their claims, all totally contrary to one another. All these warring ultimates.

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You take all the warring ultimates. Joseph Smith, Muhammad, you can take all of the warring ultimates,

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David Koresh, and you put all their followers in a room, and they're going to have the same kind of experience like I've felt or I've experienced.

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And this is why I believe, because I've got a burning in my bosom, or I had this amazing experience at Burning Man.

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You realize that's a thing too. That's a thing too. I had an amazing experience at Burning Man.

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And that's how I know that this is the right God to follow. And that's sand.

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That's sand. My experience versus your experience. That's irrelevant. There are people today that believe that they are a woman living in a man's body.

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They really feel like that. And for them, the basis of their truth is that I feel like this is true.

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And make no mistake about it, brothers and sisters, that is not how the Christian faith comes into the world.

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It is based upon objective, ultimate truth. It's true whether you like it or not.

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It was true before you got here. It's true when you're gone. This is the very truth.

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Reject it at your own peril. And the challenge is this. Do you know why you believe it? Can you articulate why you follow

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Jesus? Why you've come to Him as Savior and Lord? Why you believe He's God in the flesh?

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Can you articulate why you've given everything up to come and die and rise again with Him?

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Can you explain why there's an old self buried with Christ, and there is you now walking in newness of life?

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Or is it just a culture? Is it just a tradition? Is it just an experience that you've had that is a warring experience with all the other religious claims in the world?

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Do you know why you believe it? The early Christians understood. Can you explain it? And I want to just give you one thing.

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By the way, you know this. I've said this 100 times. I think it's so beautiful. But if you look in Luke 24, go there.

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Luke 24, Luke 24, this is that famous scene where Jesus has been raised again as He promised.

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He told them He was. He kept saying it to them, right? He keeps saying to them, I'm going to go to Jerusalem.

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They're going to kill me. And in three days, I will raise again. He says to the Jews in His day, He says destroy this temple, speaking of the temple of His body.

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And He says in three days, I will raise it up. So He said, I'm going to raise this up.

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They're going to kill me. I'm going to raise it up. And here are a bunch of sad saps on this road to Emmaus. And they just think everything's lost.

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They thought He's the Messiah. They can't quite understand. Like, He clearly was the righteous one. I mean, He had control over His own creation.

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I mean, He walked on water. He raised the dead. How can He not be the Messiah? I saw

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Him murdered on that tree. And you don't come back from that. I mean, give them some grace.

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I mean, they saw Him dead, murdered, bloody, beaten, betrayed. And from their perspective, this is not something that can be recovered.

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I saw Him. I saw His back. I saw the bruised body. They thought, there's no way you can come back from this.

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I don't care about all the things that I saw before. No one can do that. No one can recover from that brutalization of a human being.

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And so now they're on this road. And there are a bunch of sad saps thinking that all is lost. And they're explaining to Jesus as He's walking with them in Luke 24, 24.

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Some of those who are with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but Him they did not see.

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And He said to them, here's His response to them. Get this. Here's His response to the sad saps on the road to Emmaus.

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Oh, foolish ones. You're being foolish. You are being foolish.

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And slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.

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There's the anchor. Was it not, get the word, necessary that the

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Messiah should suffer these things and enter into His glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets,

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He interpreted to them all the scriptures, the things, all the scriptures, the things concerning Himself.

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So here's what I wanted to talk about. What's He doing? He says, foolish, slow of heart to believe what the prophets had spoken.

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You should have known this. Was it not necessary? Now what's that word necessary?

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Necessary in the context of the prophets promising these things? Necessary means this. It was guaranteed to happen.

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It was absolutely guaranteed to happen. God had promised all of this. It was guaranteed to happen. In other words, and a friend said this last week.

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I think it was beautiful. If they had been reading their Bibles and they had actually believed even a little bit of what

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God had said about the Messiah, God had promised His death, God had promised His resurrection in the Old Testament scriptures, if they believed even just a little bit, then

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Saturday night, they should have got some food and a bonfire. And they should have been hanging out by that tomb saying, any minute now, boys.

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Any minute now. Right? I mean, we think in hindsight, like, that would have been me.

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Like, I've been by that tomb, like, just ready to say, yeah, any minute. Look at that sunrise. And like, you're just waiting for that moment.

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How crazy would that be? And then we would all fall dead, like, ever, like, oh my gosh. Right? But the point is, is

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Jesus is saying to them, you should have known. Wasn't it necessary that these things were going to happen?

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In other words, get this, here's my point in challenging us with this. There's a real reason for this. Please hear this, because it really challenged me when

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I considered this. He talks to followers in that day, clearly people who believed in Him.

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And His challenge to them is this. You're being foolish, and you were supposed to know this.

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You're being foolish, and you were supposed to know this, and you should have believed it.

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So if Jesus is talking to people in His day, this is really challenging.

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If He's talking to people in His day that didn't have the access to the Bible that you and I have today, they did not.

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They did not have copies of the Bible in their house. They didn't have the entire Revelation together.

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If they wanted to read the Bible, yes. The biblical books were laid up in the Jewish temple.

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They were in the Jewish temple. They knew what their scriptures were. They were entrusted with the oracles of God.

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Paul says in Romans 3, they knew those books, but they would have scrolls in synagogue that had to unroll the scroll.

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If you wanted to read the Bible, you didn't have just a copy of it sitting in your house on your shelf.

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You didn't have the whole thing. If you wanted the Bible, you would typically go to synagogue where maybe they had a scroll or two or three.

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They might have had multiple, but you had to go there to get it. And Jesus still says to those followers, he says, you're being foolish.

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And he says, you should have believed this. You should have known this. Why are you so sad?

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Why weren't you outside the tomb? Like, the Bible said this was going to happen.

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The Messiah, it was necessary that these things happen. So here's my point. And this is to me and all of us.

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If Jesus can talk to people in his day that didn't have the access to the Bible that you and I have today, and he can say to them, slow of heart to believe all the prophets have spoken.

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In other words, you were supposed to know this, and you were supposed to believe it and trust this.

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Then what's his word to us today? What's his word to us today? How about you?

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How about you and I with the entire revelation of God just sitting in our laps? Or free access to it in our phones right now, in an instant?

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Being able to say, what? Listen to this, how crazy is this? I mean, think about how much time has changed.

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And I am not old, OK? But think about how much time has changed.

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Just for a minute now, just consider this. Some of you guys, were you Christians in the 90s? In the 80s?

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Let me tell you how life was for us then. If you wanted, like, hey, where's that verse at?

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What was that verse? Where does God talk about that? You know what you had to do? You had to go to your library in your house or go to a

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Christian bookstore, and you had to buy something called a concordance, right? And you had to go word searching.

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What was that word he used? The word was blood. And you would just go to the word blood, and you would find,

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OK, where are all the instances of the word blood in the Old Testament, New Testament? I think it's that one, but I only got half of the verse there, so I'll go.

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And you had to just go flip it through the Bible. What was that verse again? And you're spending like an hour looking for that one verse that you forgot, like the reference and what it exactly said.

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Now, think about how much time's changed since just the 90s, where you had to do all that work.

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Now, you just simply go Google, and you just get like a portion of the verse, and it's like, bleh.

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And then you get like Bible apps that'll tell you like the entire history of the verse, where those come from, and the dates, and all those things, and like commentary from like 1 ,000 faithful commentaries.

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It's crazy. We are so stinking spoiled. We're so spoiled, and we still don't respond.

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We still don't respond. We treat this book far from the glory it deserves.

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And if Jesus could say to followers in his day, you're being foolish and slow of heart to believe all the prophets have spoken.

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In other words, you should have known. You should have trusted. You should have been at the tomb. It was necessary this was going to happen.

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It was guaranteed it was going to happen. Why are you so sad? Why are you so sad? If he could say that to them, who didn't have the access that you and I have, what would he say to us?

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Do you know why you believe Jesus is the Messiah? Stop and think for a second.

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OK, I'm on the street with you. I'm the rabid unbeliever. I'm the guy who's challenging your faith.

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And I say to you, why do you believe Jesus is Messiah? Don't yell it out, because it'll get really confusing in here.

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But I want you to spend just about 30 seconds and think through in your head. What would you say? What would you say?

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Because watch, here's the thing. On a practical level, I understand. On a practical level, you can say experientially, it's not wrong, it is true.

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You can say something like, I know him. He's changed my life.

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He changed my heart. He saved me from myself. I walk with him.

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I know him. He loves me. Yeah, on a practical level, yes.

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If you know Jesus, every one of us has that story, right? You can go back to a time in your life, some of you, who we weren't raised in a

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Christian home with the blessing of being under the gospel, hearing the gospel early. Maybe you had a rough start. It was a lot of sin.

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It was a lot of depravity. It was a lot of evil. And you know, when you heard the gospel and God opened your eyes and he changed your heart, you know that switch where it's like, ah,

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I feel him now. I know him. I can taste and see.

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It's like he's living in me. My desires have changed. My passions have changed.

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I love God. I long for God. I love his word. You have that experience.

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But listen, if someone comes to you when I'm on the street and says, why do you believe Jesus is the Messiah? And you say something like, well,

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I have a burning in my bosom. How are you any different than all the man -made religion of the world?

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The person that simply says, well, I've experienced this. Guess who also has that story? The Buddhist, the

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Rosicrucian, the Christian scientists, the Branch Davidian, Heaven's Gate, all of Muhammad's followers, all of Joseph Smith's followers, all the rest.

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That is not how the Christian faith came into the world. Listen, the Apostle Paul did not walk into the synagogue in Damascus trying to argue based upon his own private experience.

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I've experienced Jesus. You guys should really join this because it's an amazing place of love and peace and blessing.

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You really need to feel this. That's not how Paul went to the synagogue. That's not how he defended his faith in Jesus.

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What does it say he did in Acts 9? He goes to the synagogue, and he proves that Jesus is the Messiah.

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How did he do that? How did he do it? He went to the word of God.

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He went to that objective revelation in history. And so my challenge to you is this. It's the first Sunday of Advent.

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The whole world's talking about Jesus right now. You and I have so many opportunities to share Christ and to call people to faith in Him, to experience life and redemption and salvation in Jesus.

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But do you know why you believe it? Do you know why you believe it? So I'm going to give you the burst, and I want you to go.

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I've done messages on this before. You can go look up messages on how we know Jesus is the Messiah. But I want to give you a foundation of things to think about so you can share the story of the

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Gospel and the message of Jesus with your neighbors. But I do want you to really consider this.

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Why are you following Jesus? Do you know why you believe He's the Messiah? Can you articulate it?

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In your mind right now, when I said to you, why? I hope.

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I hope that by God's grace, in your minds, you are pulling together stacks of verses that you stand on.

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And that's where your hope is to say, that's how I know. That's how I know. Because God promised it here long before it ever happened, and Jesus fulfilled it.

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Can you walk somebody through the Bible to prove that Jesus is the Messiah? I told you guys before about that story

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I had with a Jewish girl at the hospital. She was Jewish, raised

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Jewish in a synagogue, Jewish family. And she started wandering into chapel at night when

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I would do chapel every night at the hospital. And she would listen. And I tried to get her to sit down with me so I could give her the gospel.

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And she made it clear to me that she's Jewish and that she would never believe in Jesus because she's Jewish. And I said,

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I'll make a deal with you. I said, I will show you that Jesus is the Messiah, the

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Mashiach, that your family has been anticipating. I will prove to you that He's the

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Mashiach, and I will only use the Torah and the Tanakh. And she said, bet.

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I was like, OK. And so for like two weeks,

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I sat with her. She came in. And all I did was I went to the Old Testament. Jews and Christians, Protestant Christians, share the same exact Old Testament canon.

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Rome doesn't. They've added works. But the Protestants, we have the same canon as the

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Jews. That they'll have the Jewish temple and the second temple, all of that. So that's a side issue.

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But when you consider this conversation, I only use the Old Testament text.

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And after some time, she started to see it. And she called her mom. And she said, mom,

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I think I'm starting to believe in Jesus. And her mom said to her, she said, no, we're Jews. We don't do that.

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We don't believe in Jesus. And she said, but mom, this pastor is only showing me stuff from our own texts.

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He's only been showing me those texts from the Torah and the Tanakh. And she said, if we don't believe in Jesus, why?

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Do you have any reason why I shouldn't believe in Jesus? And her mom was silent, she said, on the phone.

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And she finally said, no. No reason. You can prove to people that Jesus is the

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Messiah. You can prove to people Jesus and his identity, his life, his ministry, his work, his death, and his resurrection, get this, without ever touching the

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New Testament itself. Everything that you need to know about Jesus, his person, the details of his ministry, the why, the what, the where, everything you need to know

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Jesus as Savior and Lord is in the Old Testament long before you see it in the New. That is the glory of our faith.

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And so you guys are aware of the acrostic or the acronym that I created, is Jesus the

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Messiah? My answer is most definitely. If you don't know this, I hope to bury it in your hearts and your minds.

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Because I want you to know that when I'm sharing with people about Jesus as the Messiah, that's what I'm working off of in my mind to keep it all together in terms of how do

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I tell someone this glorious story. And most definitely, M -O -S -T.

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What's the M stand for? Who knows? See, this is why I need to give this sermon again and again and again and again, right?

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We need to keep going back to those truths and those essentials and bury them within us so we can share them with others.

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Most definitely, Jesus is Mashiach. What's the M stand for? Messianic prophecy.

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Daniel got that one, OK? He has holes in his pants, but he knows this.

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I'm messing with you. Messianic prophecy. Now what I mean by that, and listen,

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Messianic prophecy, you could technically divide up into direct prophecy that is just like this is who, this is where, this is what, this is why, real specific, landing right on Jesus, timing indicators, all that stuff, yes.

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And technically, you can also put the Messianic prophecy of the symbols of the Old Testament that God laid down in this conversation, too.

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But I put it later just for ease of conversation because you've got some devastating verses.

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The kind of verses that Jesus is chastising them for. When he says basically to them, you're foolish and you are slow of heart to believe all the prophets have spoken.

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In other words, you should have known this. It's right there on the surface. It's clear. It's communicated clear.

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God expected you to understand it. You should have known. Known what?

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Ready? That he was going to suffer and die and be resurrected. Did you get that? That Jesus, to God incarnate, he believed the message of his suffering, his death, and his resurrection was so clearly communicated by God that he could chastise them for not believing it.

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Now, do you know where to go in the Bible to demonstrate that? Because Jesus chastised them for not believing it.

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He thought it was so clear they should have understood. So the Messianic prophecy is that direct prophecy.

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It lands right on Jesus. It's prophecy, get this, that is written hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years before Jesus arrives in history.

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Can I give you a little comparison for a second? One of the things that we'll do often, when we go to the

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Mormon temple to do evangelism with our Mormon neighbors, is we'll go out with a little book. And the book is, where does it say that?

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This is a handy little tool for us because it goes into a lot of, it's a photocopies of like the

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Mormon official authoritative sources. It's photocopies of the pages, their doctrine, some of the strange things that they've said, some of the awful racist things that they've said.

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And at the same time, there's also false prophecies in there. And one of the things that is easy to do with Mormon history, and it's only a couple hundred years old, one of the things that's easy to do is just stack false prophecy on top of false prophecy on top of false prophecy from their prophets and their apostles and their leaders.

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Here's why. God communicates to us in Isaiah chapter 40 through 46 that he's the true and living

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God, and he declares the end from the beginning. He's sovereign over all, and he actually separates himself from all the false gods of mankind by saying things like this.

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Have your gods tell you the future. The problem with that is what?

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False gods don't do a lot of talking or understanding. They're not in control of anything.

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So the true God can say, here's a challenge. Have your false god tell you the future and get it right every single time.

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False gods can't do that. And God also adds the challenge and says, have your gods tell you the past and why it happened the way it did.

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In other words, God is sovereign, and there is meaning and purpose to God in every event in human history, every action, every event.

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God can answer for us why. And false religion, man -made religion, is not capable of fulfilled prophecy.

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Have you ever seen some of the lame attempts of religious false prophets at prophecy?

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It's always very vague. Anything could fit in that story. Very vague.

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You squeeze really hard your brain to make it fit. And they can't even get it right when they do that.

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But they also have false prophecy after false prophecy after false prophecy. Joseph Smith, within his own lifetime, has just a stack of false prophecies.

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He claimed that they were going to build a temple in Jackson County, Missouri before they had all died. That went and died itself.

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He claimed that Christ was going to return in that generation. He claimed that he was going to be in the priest's office until Christ returns.

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We could go on and on and on, false prophecy after false prophecy after false prophecy.

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And the amazing thing about Scripture is that God says in Deuteronomy chapter 13, he says one of the ways that you test a prophet is based upon perfect prophetic fulfillment.

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Listen to this. One false prophecy means you are not from God.

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That means, by God's own standard, if there was a single false prophecy in this entire revelation that spans thousands of years, the whole thing is fiction.

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That's the standard. And God gives prophecy after prophecy after prophecy about Jesus as Messiah.

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These are the messianic prophecies. What do you know? I'm going to do this as a burst, because I don't want to keep you here for an hour and a half, because then

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James is going to talk about it. OK, so I'm just joking. The who.

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Here's the deal. Listen. All human beings are unique. Yes. But we're all human, right?

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And there's a lot of humans, a lot of different identities. But there is a specific identity that is totally unique, and that is

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God Himself. And so one of the unique things about the messianic prophecies is that it's given, check this, it's given in the context of a monotheistic faith.

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One God. None before, none after. One God from all eternity into all eternity.

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There is only one God. The prayer that all the Jews to this day know.

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The Shema. Shema, Yisrael, Yahweh, Eloheinu, Yahweh, Echad.

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Here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. There is only one God. And yet, oddly, strangely, and incomprehensibly, you have in that monotheistic religious faith, in those very scriptures,

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Isaiah chapter 9, starting in verse 6. Go there, because I want you to see with your eyes. Yes, this is a famous Christmas verse.

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But in terms of the identity of the Messiah, this is key. This is given, by the way, for those of you guys who do evangelism out on the streets of Mesa, when you want to show that there's only one

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God, what's probably the best book you do it in? In what? In the book of Isaiah.

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I mean, one God, one God, one God. And God's so specific, Isaiah 43 .10. He says, before me, there was no

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God. Formed, neither shall there be after me. I am the first, and I am the last.

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Besides me, there is no God. Is there a God besides me? Indeed, there is no other God. I know not one.

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Guess who said that? That's in the book of Isaiah. Guess what else is in the book of Isaiah?

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Isaiah chapter 9, verse 6. Ready? About 700 years before Jesus came, here's what it says.

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For to us, a child is born. To us, a son is given.

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And the government shall be upon his shoulder. And his name shall be called

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Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

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Of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end. On the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore, the zeal of the

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Lord of hosts will do this. That was, by the way, that's an amazing summary of the victorious hope of Messiah's kingdom in one verse.

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What do you have there? This victorious, conquering kingdom. God's going to accomplish it. He's going to establish it with justice and righteousness forevermore.

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Where did we ever get the idea that Christianity fails in history? I'm sorry, that's not the story.

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And I think part of the reason we have such bad eschatologies today is because we don't know our Old Testament.

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You can't get bad eschatology out of the Old Testament. You can't. It is victory, victory, victory,

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Messiah's victory over the entire world. And yet, this monotheistic

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Jew who believes in only one true and living God, he gives a prophecy about 700 years before Jesus.

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And he talks about a child being born and a son. So what is that? That's a human.

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And he is going to be, and he names all the names that are specific to Yahweh. Wait, what?

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I mean, think of yourself as a monotheistic Jew who's saying the Shema.

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There's only one God. There's only one God. The monotheistic Jew who's under the preaching of Isaiah, who hears one

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God, none before, none after, first, last. He doesn't even know of any other gods. And then, oddly, this same monotheistic

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Jew says, yeah, the one who's coming as a child and a son, this one who's going to be born, yeah, it's the mighty

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God himself. Huh? So that's very specific.

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In terms of the identity of the Messiah, when you say, who's the Messiah? Where's the Messiah? Where? Who? All those questions.

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Well, here's something very specific. There is only one identity for the Messiah. And that is

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Yahweh himself. Did you catch that? It's God himself. You can look one chapter over to see it.

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Check me out on this. One chapter over, that title, El Gibor, the mighty

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God, is used in Isaiah chapter 10 of Yahweh himself, the mighty God, Yahweh.

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Next, in terms of the who, is Isaiah 9, 6 through 7. You also see it in Micah 5, 2.

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Micah 5, 2 talks about the one coming to Bethlehem. His goings forth are from old, yea, even from everlasting.

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There is only one everlasting God. Only one eternal God, and the one coming to Bethlehem in Micah 5, 2 is the one that is from eternity.

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Next, not just the who, the specific identity of the Messiah, God himself, but the where.

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Micah 5, 2. And I'll just do this quickly. We already talked about it, but do you think about how amazing it is in the providence of God that you've got

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Joseph and Mary going because of a census to Bethlehem. They weren't in Bethlehem.

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They weren't in Bethlehem. And it was a pagan society, pagan government, that forced them into Bethlehem during the time where she was going to give birth because of the census.

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There's the providence of God in every action in history. Everything has meaning and purpose. And so they get forced to Bethlehem, which, lo and behold, is exactly where it said

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God was going to be born, in Bethlehem. Next, the why of the

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Messiah is specific. Isaiah 53. You know the passage. I'm not going to do all of it today.

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But I want you to be able to go to it yourselves. Isaiah 53 is so clearly about Jesus.

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It's not just the who. It's not just the where he's coming, but it's the why he's coming. In Isaiah 53, it tells us why he's coming.

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I'm going to skip the first part here because I want you to read it all on your own later, get to know this passage like the back of your hands.

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But here's the why. In chapter 53, verse 4, it says, surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.

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Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. Here it is, why. But he was pierced for our transgressions.

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He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace.

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And with his wounds, we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray.

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We have turned every one to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

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Pause for a second. Monotheistic Jew wrote this. The same Jew who wrote this wrote

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Isaiah 6. And in Isaiah 6, this man who gave us this revelation from God, he recognized his own sin.

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This is the man who actually got a glimpse of the holiness of God, where the angels are saying, holy, holy, holy.

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And he covers his mouth. He recognizes his own deceit in his own mouth.

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And he says that this one who is coming has no deceit in his mouth. And the Lord has the ability to lay on him the iniquity of us all.

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You know what I can't do for you? I can't take your sin. I absolutely guarantee you,

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I have a lot of you beat with sin. Some of you are young. Some of you are young.

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Some of you were raised under the grace of the gospel in homes that loved you and loved Jesus. And you've been protected, glory to God, from a lot of things in this world.

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And I can tell you right now, God has saved me. But I'll tell you right now, I have a past where I guarantee you

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I have beat a lot of you with sin. Some of you more than me, but no, I'm just joking. And here's the deal.

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While God has saved me, I'm still a work in progress, like all of us are.

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I'm still a work in progress. I'm not there yet. And while God has saved me and he's changed me and redeemed me,

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I cannot take your sin. And I absolutely assure you, you do not want my life's record in your place.

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You do not want it. It is a life of sin and depravity and rebellion.

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And though God has saved me and he's still working on me, you would never want my record in your place.

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It would be a record that would send you straight to hell, I promise. And this is strange.

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Isaiah 53 says, the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

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He's pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities.

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The chastisement that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed. And it says here in the text, it says that He's going to be cut off out of the land of the living.

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So when Jesus is talking to these sad saps on the road to Emmaus, they were supposed to know that He was supposed to be crushed for our iniquities, that the chastisement for our well -being was cut off.

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So it's going to be upon Him that He would justify the many. They should have known that He'd be cut off out of the land of the living.

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It's in the text. And yet He would proclaim the name of God to His brothers.

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He would prolong His days. He'd be cut off, and then He would prolong His days. He would live again.

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It's in the text. Isaiah 53. But here's what the text says. It says in verse 12 of 53, it says, therefore

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I will divide Him a portion with the many, and He shall divide the spoiled with the strong, because He poured out

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His soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors. Yet He bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors.

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Who, where, why, what, when. The what was already read to you today before in service,

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Jeremiah read Psalm 22 that tells you the details of the passion of the

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Messiah. They are singing. Can you get this? They are singing this song about the passion of the

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Messiah like 1 ,000 years before it happens. No ability to comprehend how glorious this is.

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Before crucifixion is even a thing, they're singing about it in synagogue like 1 ,000 years before Jesus.

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The when. Do you ever notice the peculiar nature of the Gospels themselves in terms of everybody seems to be like looking for the

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Messiah. Do you ever notice that? Everyone's like, where's the Messiah? Who's the Messiah? Are you the Messiah? We think this guy's the Messiah. There are so many messiahs.

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And in the book of Acts, you can see that false messiahs are rising up, and they're bringing people out into the wilderness. Why is all that fervor taking place in the first century?

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You ever wonder that? Why is everybody thinking the Messiah's time is like right at that moment? And the answer is because the

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Bible told them. It didn't tell them the day exactly, but it told them when the Messiah was coming, specifically in terms of countdown from this day into this time, and you're landing on the

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Messiah. In the book of Daniel chapter 9, it's a complicated scripture that is glorious and amazing.

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I have a sermon on it out there somewhere. But Daniel chapter 9 gives you reasons for the prophecy. This is during the

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Babylonian captivity. It's hundreds of years off to Jesus. And in that prophecy, you have this said, that God is going to make atonement for iniquity.

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That's a big deal. He's going to bring reconciliation and atonement for iniquity, and he's going to bring in everlasting righteousness.

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And the prophecy says that this Messiah, this prince, is coming, and he's going to be cut off.

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He's going to die a violent death. And then it prophesies the destruction of the second Jewish temple.

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So here's the deal. When we say this is so specific and so divine, did you know that hundreds of years before Jesus came, it told you when to start counting.

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It would land on Jesus. It said that he was going to atone for sin and bring everlasting righteousness in.

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And it says that he was going to die a violent death before the second Jewish temple was destroyed. Here's the deal.

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When was the second Jewish temple finally destroyed? 70 AD. If Jesus isn't

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Mashiach, there is no Mashiach. There is no Messiah. If Jesus isn't the Messiah, there is no

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Messiah. Based upon Daniel itself, it says the Messiah had to come and make atonement for sin and bring an everlasting righteousness before the second temple was destroyed, and it's gone.

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Jesus is Mashiach. He's the Messiah. The who, the where, the what, the why, the when.

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Messianic prophecy. And by the way, brothers and sisters, I'm just scratching the surface. You understand that?

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I am just giving you sort of like the big ticket ones. We could go for days on this. Would you like to?

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Next, and I'll go quickly. The original life of Jesus. What you know, listen, what you know about Mashiach, the

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Messiah, from the Old Testament in terms of like identity, what he's going to accomplish, all those things, when you look at the life of Jesus, he fulfills it all.

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A couple of things. God becomes a man to take away our sin. What would that look like?

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Well, what do you see in Jesus' life? Sinlessness. The people that knew him very best died violent deaths following him, saying he was the only way to salvation.

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They walked with him. They ate with him. Listen, here's the deal. Let's do this.

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Ready? We're all sinners. We're all a work in progress, right? I'm a minister of the gospel. I'm still a work in progress.

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And some of you guys, you came here because you saw the online ministry and the teaching, and you're blessed by it, and you're encouraged.

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You see the honest, straight evangelism. And you're like, wow, man, I just love this guy, Jeff. He seems like a good enough pastor.

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He has good teaching and everything else. And then you're here for like two or three or six years, and you're like, eh, not so great. Good pastor, but like there's a certain point where you're going to see parts of me, my life, and you're like, yeah, he's not to be worshipped.

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And I say, thank God for that. Like when people come in here and start acting like starstruck, I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa.

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Hold up. Ask him about me. Ask this guy. Ask my wife.

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I am not to be worshipped, and I am not a hero in any way. I'm just your brother. People come up and say,

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I'm just your brother. Because if you idolize any other Christian, in a little while, you'll see, eh, yeah, not so great, right?

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I see their failures. I see their flaws. And here's the deal. Ready? Jesus. They walked with him.

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They ate with him. They saw his life. They saw him endure the worst of the worst of the worst.

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And they said, he's the righteous one. He's blameless. He's sinless. He's worthy to take away my sins.

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What would you expect to see in a life of the Messiah if it's going to be God becoming a man to save his people from their sins?

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What would you expect? Sinlessness. And the people who knew Jesus best said, he's the sinless one.

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What would it take for you to follow your brother as God and Savior? You'd have to know his life and know it pretty well.

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James, the Lord's brother, was thrown off the top of the temple and beaten to death with clubs. He followed his brother as God and Savior.

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What would it take for you to follow him? You'd have to know it's true. And they didn't just know it because the scriptures, they were experiential.

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They experienced it. You and I know this theologically. They walked with him. They saw how he interacted.

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They saw how he lived his life. And they said, I want his righteousness. God, don't look at me, look at Jesus.

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Don't look at me, look at Jesus. I want him. I want his righteousness. So the original life of Jesus, M -O -S -T, the original life of Jesus.

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What would it look like if God became a man? It would look like Jesus, sinless, blameless, righteous, just, wise.

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Next, what would you expect to see if God became a man? Well, Jesus would do things like know their thoughts.

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Before they actually vocalized him, he knew their thoughts. What would you expect to see if God became a man?

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You would expect to see wisdom incarnate, wise. And that's who Jesus was and is.

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What would you expect if God became a man to save his people from their sins? You would expect, I imagine, that he would have control over his own creation.

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Like Jesus turning water into wine. Jesus multiplying loaves. Jesus giving people their sight back.

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Jesus letting people hear again. Jesus giving the lame their legs again. Jesus raising his friend from the dead.

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Jesus raising a little girl from the dead. And Jesus raising himself from the dead. Jesus walking on water.

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Walking on water. You would expect to see this one have control over his own creation.

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And he did. And ultimately, we can see that Jesus showed the ultimate power of all.

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And that is that they took his life, and they murdered him, and he raised himself from the dead.

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Destroy this temple, and in three days, I will raise it up. Most definitely,

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Jesus is the symbols fulfilled. Now this, again, I've said to you before, this is probably, like early on in my walk with Jesus, the thing that I thought was the most compelling, because it's just jaw -dropping, is like the direct prophecies that just land, like the who, the where, the why, the what, the when.

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That's stunning, right? Like, this is 1 ,000 years before Jesus? It gives you the entire story of Jesus' life and death and all.

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It's stunning. But I've grown to actually be more impressed. It's all impressive, but be more impressed by the symbolism of the

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Old Testament that's fulfilled in Jesus. And here's why I'm so impressed by it. I can't tell you why. I'm so impressed by it because there are things that God tells his people to do that there is no possible way they could have even fathomed why, right?

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So for example, I'll just say, I'll give you a burst. Passover, right? All they're doing is experiencing it, right?

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They're enslaved. They're in bondage. God says, let my people go. And they're like, OK, this is amazing, frogs and bloody water and all these amazing things.

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God's showing power over all the false gods of Pharaoh and Egypt and all that. Then God says, take the firstborn.

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And here's what you've got to do. Take the lamb, no spot, no blemish. And God says, don't break its bones. And take the blood, put it over your doorpost.

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And when my judgment comes, I'll pass over that house on account of the blood of the lamb. You'll be freed from your slavery and your bondage to go into the promised land of relationship with God.

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All they are doing is experiencing it. Like, come on, let's be fair. These are not people.

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These are not like really like astute theologians, like really strong scholars, like I know exactly why this is happening.

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Because 2 ,000 years from now, this is exactly how it's going to play out. They have no concept. All they know is this stinks.

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I am enslaved to a pagan empire. This stinks. We're oppressed. This is awful.

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And God says he's going to deliver us. OK, where's the lamb? All right, who's got the lamb? All right, no spot, no blemish.

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No, we can't have that one. It's got to be this one. And what was that thing he said? Oh, yeah, he said, don't break its bones.

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Why not break its bones? I don't know. He just said, no spot, no blemish, and don't break its bones.

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And then put it over your doorpost. Got it. They escape their slavery. God fulfills all of his promises.

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They cross through the Red Sea. All that amazing stuff happens. And then off to wander in wilderness for 40 and all the rest, unfaithfulness, not obeying

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God, not believing God's promises, all that. And then, lo and behold, 1 ,500 years later, here comes

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Jesus, the lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. And he is, ready, no spot, no blemish.

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He's the righteous one. And when did he go to the cross? When? Passover.

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And what did they not do to his legs and his bones? They didn't break them. What does the judgment of God do to you and I because of him?

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It passes where? Over us. And we escape from our bondage and our slavery.

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What does Jesus say? Whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

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They didn't know. They couldn't have possibly understood this. All they know is, I'm in Egypt. This stinks.

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Short life, but it's horrible. It's awful. God delivered us. Lamb, spot, blemish, all that stuff.

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Yeah, God said do that. Don't really understand why. And all of a sudden now, this bright light shines in the first century.

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They couldn't have possibly understood this. The temple, the priesthood, the animal sacrifices, the scapegoats, all that story of the amazing symbolism that God buries there.

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They couldn't possibly have put this story together and understood what is actually going to take place in history.

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Because guess what? What do you see in the New Testament? What do you see? What do you see? What do you see on the road to Emmaus? Very confused disciples.

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They had no understanding, really, of how this is supposed to play out. These people aren't conjuring up some complicated story.

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They were surprised as well. They're putting together the pieces after it happens, going, oh my goodness, this is amazing.

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You can look at the story of Abraham and the sacrifice of his son Isaac on the altar. What happened with Abraham?

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God says, in him, Isaac, the whole world's going to be blessed, the whole world through Isaac.

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This is the seed, Isaac, Isaac, Isaac, Isaac. And then God says, after he says, whole world, like the stars and like the sands,

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God said, Isaac, Isaac, Isaac, all those stars, all those descendants, Isaac, Isaac, Isaac. And then

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God says, Abraham, take your son, your only son, the son of your love,

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Isaac, and go offer him as a sacrifice on this place. Three day journey to Moriah, three days.

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And what the book of Hebrews tells us about Abraham is what, what's it say? He expected a resurrection.

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Atheists love that passage, don't they? Does God say, don't kill?

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Yeah, what did God tell Abraham to do? Kill his son, gotcha, right? You know, it's such a silly.

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I love, I love when they bring that one up. I love it because I'm like, let's go to that text because it's actually awesome.

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Abraham expected that God was going to raise Isaac from the dead. Why? Because it's said that through Isaac, the whole world was going to be blessed.

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So he said, well, if God's telling me to sacrifice my son, the son of my love, my only son, he's going to raise him from the dead.

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So the text says in Genesis 52 that Abraham and Isaac and his servants, they go three days journey to get to Moriah.

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And what does Abraham say to the servants? He says what? He says, me and the boy are going to go worship.

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And then what's he say? And we, we will return to you.

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All he knew was God says Isaac, but he's telling me to do this thing. I'm about to see a resurrection because we're coming back.

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We're coming back. And then it says that he takes his son, his only son, Isaac, that he loved, and he lays the wood for the sacrifice on Isaac's back.

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And Isaac carries the wood. His only son, the son of his love, carries the wood to the place of the sacrifice.

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This is Genesis 22, everybody. Moses wrote this long before Jesus.

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And then Abraham binds Isaac. He lays him there. Isaac said,

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I see the fire and I see the wood, but where's the lamb, father? And Abraham says,

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God will provide for himself the lamb, my son. And then as Abraham's about to faithfully do what

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God said, the angel of the Lord, God himself, shows up and says no.

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And then they find in the thicket, they find a ram, not a lamb, a ram. And then

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Abraham named that location. This is the place the Lord will provide.

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Provide what? The lamb. And then it was about 2 ,000 years later that Jesus, the

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Son of God, Jesus, the Son of God's love, Jesus, God's only son, carried the wood of the cross to the exact place that was once Moriah.

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Only when that took place that day, God did not withhold his hand.

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And that was the place that the Lord provided the lamb. That's Genesis 22.

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And here's the deal, ready? Do you think Abraham and Isaac understood that? Let's be honest. Do you think they had any ability to comprehend what was actually going on?

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All they know is, you're the Son, whole world's blessed through you. OK, I guess I'm going to see a resurrection, and God's going to provide for himself the lamb.

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Do you think they had any idea of how glorious this is going to be? No. We can go for days. There's the symbols.

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The last one is this. I'll just say this quickly, the transformation of the world. The transformation of the world.

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One of the promises of the Old Testament scriptures was that this Mashiach was going to come, Genesis 49 .10,

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and to him shall be the obedience of the nations. The promise was the entire ends of the earth were going to return to worship

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Yahweh, Psalm 22. Same passage that tells us about the passion of the Messiah says that all the families of the earth will return to worship

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Yahweh. Psalm chapter 2, the Father says to the Son, I will give you the nations for your inheritance, the very ends of the earth for your possession.

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Daniel 7 .13 through 14 says all the tribes, peoples, tongues, languages, they're all going to return to worship

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Yahweh. This Mashiach is going to come up to the ancient of days and be given a kingdom that everybody would worship and serve him.

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The knowledge of God would cover the earth like the waters cover the sea. And I'll point this out, as I often do, look at this one room, this one room.

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Very few of you in this room can identify as, in terms of your pedigree genetics, as Jewish by birth.

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But what is in this room? All representatives of the different tribes, different tongues, look at all the colors in this room.

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Look at the different colors. So in terms of like, is Jesus the

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Messiah? He was supposed to bring the knowledge of God and the love for Yahweh in all the families of the earth.

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He was supposed to bring the love of Yahweh in all the families of the earth to return and worship Jesus. This is an amazing thing. Final word on this. When Jewish people today talk about Jesus, they talk about Jesus in terms of like Jesus being that Gentile leader.

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Like all of those Gentiles worship Jesus, not the Jews. They'll say things like, you know, that's not a

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Jewish Messiah. The Gentiles worship Jesus. And it's like, are you listening to yourself?

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Are you listening to yourself? You're saying that the Gentiles now around the world are worshiping and loving the

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Lord God of Israel because of Jesus, and you think He's not Mashiach?

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That's exactly what Mashiach came to do, to bring the families and tribes of the earth to love and worship

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Yahweh the King. He is the Messiah. So is Jesus the Messiah?

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It is not, yes. It is, I just did a whole, so let's start over, guys. Most definitely,

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OK? Yes, He is, yes. But I did a whole thing here tonight, OK? M -O -S -T,

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Messianic Prophecies, the Original Life of Jesus, the Symbols Fulfilled, and the

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Transformation of the World, most definitely. And so my challenge to you, brothers and sisters, is this.

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In this season of Advent, as we are hearing people sing songs about our Savior, make sure you're prepared to explain that story, amen?