Is Jesus the Messiah?

The Public Defense of the Gospel and the Need for Local Church Membership

Hey everybody, I'm Pastor Jeff Durbin with Apologia Church. I want to thank you all so much for watching the content right here on Apologia Studios channel. What you're about to watch is a sermon, a message from Apologia Church's worship service.

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So thank you again so much for watching these and sharing them. God bless you. All right, so let's get right into it today. I when praying about what to teach on and I wanted to do something that would really be a blessing to you as a church and it really kind of dawned on me that through this week a lot of the ministry and the work that we've done and the things we have up will be a blessing further down the road in terms of all the different subjects, but something happened last night in the debate and it happened coming from somebody who used to be a professing mormon then converted to converted to evangelical christianity, which is interesting because he still didn't know how to articulate the trinity.

How you convert to evangelicalism and never understand the God you worship is interesting to me, but now he's abandoned evangelical christianity and now he's going into judaism. And he made a comment.

Why Jesus Must Be the Messiah According to the Old Testament

A.

Couple comments in terms of not believing Jesus is clearly prophesied in the Torah and the Tanakh, the Old Testament, and I thought that would probably be a good place to touch because if this man converted from mormonism to evangelical christianity and now to judaism and says he never really understood how we know Jesus is the messiah, then that's something we really need to understand because that is I think one of the most powerful and best things about the christian faith is just that point and to abandon christ to go to judaism on that basis is ignorance.

And so I want to make sure as the people of God, we know how to actually engage that. So if you would open your bibles to Luke, gospel according to Luke chapter 24. Luke 24, this is after the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, which was prophesied in the Old Testament and by the Lord Jesus throughout his ministry.

This is the famous scene on the road to Emmaus, Luke 24, verse 13. Hear now the words of the living and the true God. That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened.

While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, what is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?

And they stood still looking sad. Then one of them named Cleopas answered him, are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know these things, the things that have happened here in these days? And he said to them, what things?

And they said to him, concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who is a prophet, mighty indeed, and word before God, and all the people and our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death and crucified him.

But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all of this, it is now the third day since these things have happened. Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive.

Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the woman had said, but him they did not see. And he said to them, O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.

Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

Thus far as the reading of God's holy word, let's pray together as a church. Father, please bless today as we open your word, your holy word, to understand the glory, the majesty, the complexity, the power of your revelation, and in particular your revelation about the Messiah.

Lord Jesus, I wish we had recorders during this moment where you had unpacked the scriptures to your people to demonstrate to them the glory of prophecy and, Lord, your sovereignty over everything that you declared the end from the beginning, and you already spoke these things long before they happened.

Help me today, Lord, to minister to your people, to equip them. We pray, Lord, for those in this room that do not know you, truly know you, that you would grant eyes to see, hearts to believe, and for your people today, Lord, give us a firm foundation of the truth.

In Jesus' name, amen. So if you look actually just a little bit further down, you'll see it again. In verse 44, then he said to them, These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled, that he opens their minds to understand the scriptures.

So this is commonplace, and it's really the fundamental assertion of biblical faith. And listen very closely to this. It is vital, very vital. The biblical faith does not teach that Jesus is a plan B in the plan of God.

This is not a novelty dropped in history where we're sort of wandering around going, well, we really didn't understand, and we think Jesus, you know, he really makes a great Messiah. One of the things that Lee Baker said last night was like, in history, there have been all kinds of false messiahs.

The Jews have been deluded and duped by many false messiahs. In the first century, there were so many false messiahs to the degree that we have historical records teaching that messiahs rose up in the generation after the resurrection of Jesus and his ascension and started drawing people out into the wilderness.

They were plagued with false teachers and false messiahs. I would argue exactly as Jesus prophesied what happened in the Olivet Discourse, but it's true. Yes, history has been plagued with false messiahs.

And one of the things that Lee Baker said last evening in the debate, I believe out of ignorance, is he says, you know, a lot of times these messiahs have risen up and Jews believe that they were the messiah.

And, you know, they could have been the messiah. Jesus could have been the messiah. And the problem is that they all died. And it was like, well, I guess that's the proof. They died and now we know they're not the messiah.

And he said, hey, you know, Jesus died as well. You know, and what happened was the disciples actually were like, hey, we thought he's the messiah. He's dead now. So let's create a fiction, create a story that he rose again from the dead.

As if that was some sort of a novelty in the plan of God. Things were spoken last night that were incredible to me. Incredible that somebody who says they converted from Mormonism to evangelical Christianity, somebody could make these claims.

Claims like the Old Testament didn't prophesy the death of the messiah. It most certainly did. It's not a novelty in history. You see, here's one of the glories of the Christian faith is that, listen, this is vital.

I'll put it to you in this illustration. I was a chaplain at a hospital for many years, a full-time chaplain at a drug and alcohol rehabilitation hospital. And so it was an amazing time in my life, an incredible experience to be engaged in that kind of ministry.

It was full-time work every day, all week long. I was in front of some of the most broken and hurt people you can possibly imagine all day, every day for four years, on top of being the full-time pastor at Apologia Church, as we had just planned at Apologia Church.

And I was preaching the gospel throughout the day every day in chapel and teaching classes and I would offer opportunities for people to come in and challenge the pastor. This was an interesting hospital.

They had a Christian track and they had a secular program. So it was a very mixed bag in terms of people who were there. We had people there who were on the Christian program that wanted to actually hear the gospel and grow out of an addiction from a Christian perspective through the gospel.

And we had people that were there that wanted nothing to do with Jesus and were there to get detox and to do AA and all the rest. And so I would try to get as many people to come as possible. So I used to post up invitations to refute the pastor all over the hospital.

I'd say, come at seven o 'clock tonight and destroy the pastor, 7 p .m. Like, you know, I'll give candy.

You want to come?

And so we would offer opportunities for people to come in and just argue with the pastor. Give me your best arguments against Christianity. And so that would happen on a regular basis and I saw so many people come to Christ, even the ones that came in to debate the pastor.

But there was a Jewish girl that came in at one point and, you know, she appreciated the coming in for the encouraging messages and all the rest. But she made it clear to me that she was Jewish, Orthodox Jewish, and had been raised in Orthodox Jewish family and gone to synagogue and, you know, knows the Torah and the Tanakh and all the rest.

And she told me one day in counseling with her, she actually booked an appointment with me, she said, Pastor Jeff, you know, I just really appreciate, you know, what the things that you say, but I want you to know that I'm not a Christian.

I'm a Jew and I don't believe Jesus is the Messiah. And so I said, okay. I said, how about we just do this because you're here for 30 days and you've got nowhere to go. And so the doors are locked and you're stuck.

How about we try something? You come in and meet with me and I'll make a commitment to you. I will demonstrate to you that Jesus is Mashiach and I will not touch the New Testament. I'll just use the Torah and the Tanakh.

And she sort of scoffed like, yeah, that's right. Like that's going to be possible. I said, no, I said, let's just make that commitment to each other. I will demonstrate to you that Jesus is the Messiah and as my grounding and foundation, I will only use the scriptures that you kiss at synagogue on Sabbath.

I will only use the Torah and the Tanakh. And she says, deal. And so we did, we proceeded with actually going through the Old Testament demonstrating that everything about Messiah, everything necessary to know him and his work and what he's going to accomplish is in the Old Testament long before Jesus comes.

And so after we spent time doing this, she ends up actually calling her mom, who's very Jewish, devoutly Jewish. And she says to her mom, she says, mom, I think I'm starting to believe that Jesus is the Messiah.

And her mom says, you can't do that. No, don't do that. We're Jews. We don't believe Jesus is the Messiah. She says, mom, the pastor here is showing me from our writings that Jesus is the Messiah. I mean, I don't see a way around it.

And so she's talking to her mom. Mom's getting upset about it. And she says, mom, is there any good reason to believe that Jesus is not the Messiah from our scriptures? And she says her mom was silent on the phone.

And she's like, mom, is there any good reason? And her mom said,.

No,.

I don't have one. And see that forms sort of a foundation of this discussion. When.

Biblical faith.

Comes into the world and a proclamation is made about Jesus Christ, and when Jesus Christ comes to his disciples, it is with the understanding, the presupposition that this isn't a novelty or something new dropped into history.

This is God's redemptive plan that he has spoken long before it actually occurred in history. One of the glories of biblical faith is that we have a God who is sovereign. He's not learning things like the Mormon God.

He didn't go through exaltation to become a God one day. He doesn't look through history to see actually what's going to take place and learn from it. It says in scripture, he declares the end from the beginning.

God actually lays down as a test in his law that if you want to know if somebody's a prophet truly from the sovereign true and only God, the test in Deuteronomy 18 20 through 22 is like this. If you shall say in your heart, how should we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?

God says the test is this. When the prophet speaks in the name of the Lord and the thing follows not nor comes to pass, that is the word which the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously.

You should not be afraid of him. So one of the amazing aspects of scripture is that God is sovereign and he actually tells you what the future is before it actually takes place and says, if you want to know if somebody's a false prophet and a false God, test them at this point.

If they try to tell you history before it happens and they get even one wrong, false prophet, false teacher, no second chances. Period, straight away. That is biblical faith. Here's the key. Listen to that how powerful this is.

You find one false prophecy in this entire revelation. One false prophecy in this entire revelation with all of these different books and letters spanning different locations and time periods and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years.

Find a single false prophecy. This entire revelation is false according to its own standard. That is a powerful aspect of biblical faith. And when Jesus comes to his disciples on the road to Emmaus and they're just, you know, sad saps and everything else walking around like we thought he's Messiah and he's dead and strangely the tomb is empty.

We can't figure that situation out. He's walking with them. He's already told them. He's told them who knows how many times actually. We only have so much recorded in the gospels for us. John says Jesus said and did things that he had no space to write.

I mean so much time of ministry. We don't know how many times Jesus actually told them he's going to go to Jerusalem. They're going to kill him. He's going to rise again, but we have records of it. We have records of it in Matthew chapter 20.

He tells them we're going to Jerusalem. They're going to kill me. I'm going to rise again from the dead. He's saying it to them over and over and over and they're too dull to understand it. And notice what Jesus does.

He actually chastises his disciples. For what? Being slow of heart not to see the resurrection, not to understand that he was walking with them, slow of heart to believe what?

All.

That the prophets and scriptures had prophesied about him. The challenge Jesus makes to Jewish disciples is this.

You.

Should have known this. He chastises them. This is what you were raised with. You've been under the hearing of this your entire life. This was about me. And he opens their minds to understand what the scriptures say about him and he goes through the most epic bible study in the history of the world.

Genesis all the way to the last book of the old testament showing everywhere that the old testament prophesied about him. How you like them apples? That's powerful, right? But we need to talk about it.

So actually years ago, I wanted to find an easy way to help my brothers and sisters to articulate how we know Jesus is the messiah. And to be honest with you this this teaching could go on today, honestly.

We could go on today until dinner time, but I do have to go home. My wife's missing me.

So.

I'm going to do my best to sort of condense a lot of this into a single message. But I have an acronym, an acrostic. It's messy. How do we know Jesus is the messiah? Is Jesus the promised messiah? My answer is most definitely.

Is Jesus the messiah? Most definitely. And it is M-O-S-T, most definitely. M-O-S-T. And it works like this. We know Jesus is the messiah because of the M messianic prophecies concerning Jesus. The O, the original life of Jesus Christ.

The S, the symbols fulfilled in Jesus Christ. And the T is the transformation of the lives of the apostles and the entire world today. Is Jesus the promised messiah? We kind of talked about it. Well, we sang about it up here a moment ago.

We talked about he is reigning. He is the king. He is on his throne. He rules forever. That's the discussion. We talked about how Jesus is now putting his enemies under his feet right now. That's a proclamation that he's the messiah.

He's winning the world. That's the T in the transformation of the lives of the apostles and the world. Now, I know I'm speaking fast, but I am trying to cram right now as much as I can into you because I have one shot with this.

Okay, so you guys ready for this? Yes. Is Jesus, wake up now. Come on guys. I've had a long week. Give me more than that. Okay. Messianic prophecy is the first one. Okay. M-O-S-T. Messianic prophecy.

Original life of Jesus. The symbols fulfilled in the transformation of the lives of the apostles and the world. Most definitely Jesus is the messiah. M, messianic prophecy. This was an incredible part of last night's discussion.

And I have to be honest, I was antsy just saying I really wish I could sit in that chair right now and discuss this with him because it is an incredible thing to make claims that were made last night in terms of the only thing you Christians have are these veiled sort of symbolic prophecies from the old testaments.

And I just found that absolutely incredible. I want to say this to you. I was telling Isaac, my brother, my partner in ministry, the one doing our cameras right now on the way over, when I was a young believer and I learned about all these messianic prophecies of Jesus, one of the things that I used to just sort of hang on was the direct prophecies from the old testament about the messiah.

In other words, specifics. In other words, not layered prophecies. Not symbol prophecies. Not anything sort of like, we talked about last night in the debate where you had a prophecy that was say about Israel, kind of, but obviously had an ultimate bigger fulfillment that was coming.

Yes, there are those, but that's not what I was hanging on as a young believer. What was thrilling to me, not being raised in a Christian home and actually seeing this, was that, are you kidding me? There is this kind of specificity about the messiah, his identity, all that he's going to accomplish in the old testament long before it happens.

It is insanity to reject this. But the specific direct prophecies was what hooked me. Now, we're going to get to this in a moment, in my walk with Jesus and seeing the complexity and the glory of scripture, those symbolic scriptures are incredible.

We're going to get to that, but the direct prophecies are powerful. What do we know from the old testament, the Torah and the Tanakh, the old testament law and prophets? What do we know about the messiah?

What's said about the messiah? Is it clear enough to understand? You see, what we need to understand is this. When the bible speaks about prophecy, we're not talking about Nostradamus type prophecies that you can squeeze sort of anything you like into it.

We're not talking about the commonplace false prophecies of charlatans and false messiahs and prophets that happen on a regular basis, right? Like very veiled, strange, you can cram anything into it. The specificity with which God speaks about the messiah is something that cannot be avoided.

You see, here's the key thing about Jesus as messiah, is that nobody else in the world can be the messiah. It is not possible. It can't happen. The specificity is so direct, so constrained, that only Jesus can be the messiah.

It is not possible to ever have another messiah. It will not happen, cannot happen. There is no way using the scriptures that you can say anybody else is the messiah. It will not happen.

Why?

Specificity. What do we know about the messiah from the messianic prophecies that are direct? Well, you have the who? Who is the messiah? You have the where? Where is he coming? You have the what of the messiah?

What is he going to accomplish? When of the messiah? When is he coming? The why of the messiah? Why do we need one? Why is God sending messiah? All of that specificity, listen closely, is in the Old Testament.

Long before Jesus actually arrives on the scene. So let's do a few. By the way, again, this is not going to be an exhaustive, exhaustive list of prophecies about messiah. So today is just sort of a cursory looking at it.

But who is the messiah? If you look in the Old Testament, you will see so many clarifying prophecies about the messiah, who he is. But some that we need to actually address are the ones that can only be a very specific identity.

And let's just start with this one. In Isaiah chapter 9, verses 6 through 7, you have a prophecy that is written about 700 years before the time of Christ. We have to pause here for a second because we do this a lot as Christians.

I wanted to say this. We get jaded to amazing truths. We do. I do. I'll confess. Get jaded to amazing, glorious truths. You'll have so many rich and amazing and powerful and miraculous things in the Bible that we sort of start seeing so much.

It becomes so commonplace for us. So many rigorous positions from which to argue as Christians that we just sort of get jaded to the fact that our faith is stinking awesome. It is awesome. And when I just said that, some of you guys were not freaking out, and you should have been.

Here's a prophecy of Jesus 700 years before he arrives on the scene. You're thinking like, well, what is the prophecy that makes it so interesting? We'll go there in your Bibles for a minute. Isaiah chapter 9, verse 6, and take a look at this prophecy.

And by the way, and I wish we could do this, if we just said today, hey, if they said, hey, Pastor Jeff, just do this. Just stay in the book of Isaiah and show us Jesus in the book of Isaiah. We'd have been here till midnight, and we would have walked away just hooting.

We've been Pentecostal leaving this place, okay? All right? Some of you would have been falling out these beautiful stained glass windows, but I wouldn't be raising you from the dead. So Isaiah chapter 9, verses 6 through 7, look what it says here in terms of Isaiah.

Again, it's all about the Messiah, Messianic Kingdom. What's he going to accomplish? It is through and through Messianic. It is powerful, detailed. But Isaiah 9, verses 6 through 7, watch this. By the way, let's pause.

Forgive me. I want to put this down for those of you guys that might want to contextualize this. If you were at the debate last night or you watch it later this week, this is important. One of the things that Lee Baker was saying in the discussion was that the Old Testament says 89 times, I think, that God is one, God is one, God is one.

And you're thinking to yourself as a Trinitarian Christian, uh, yeah, baby. I was saying that all day at conference today. What are you talking about, right? The Trinity, there's only one God. There is only one God.

None before, none after. There's only one God. The Trinity is one God as the foundation. We are monotheists. What is the Shema, Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 4? It was part of the morning and evening prayers of every Jew then, and it's now if you're a faithful Jew.

Shema Yisrael, Yahweh Eloheinu, Yahweh Echad. Here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Jesus is asked, what's the greatest commandment of law? And Jesus quotes, Here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

There's only one God. Isaiah 43 10, Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. Isaiah 44 6, What does God say? I am the first, I'm the last. Besides me there is no God. Isaiah 44 8, God says what?

Is there a God besides me? Indeed there is no other God. I know not one. There is only one eternal God. Psalm 90 verse 2, From eternity into eternity you are God. Take that Joseph Smith, right? There is only one God.

He's been God from all eternity. That is the fundamental foundation of our biblical faith. There is only one God. Every Jew believes that. It's all throughout the Old Testament. But here's a monotheistic Jewish prophet, 700 years before Jesus comes, saying this very peculiar thing.

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given. What is that? A child? A son? What is it? Is it a horse? What is it? Is it an alien? What is it? It's a human. It's a baby, right? It's one of us. Okay, got it.

I thought the Messiah was human. Great. Had to be. If he's coming, bringing a kingdom, he's going to be on David's throne. He's going to bring Jews and Gentiles to God. I get it. He's got to be one of us.

He's got to be a human. He's going to be child of Abraham, right? David's going to have one of his descendants sitting on a throne. I think we got that. Son and a child. Messiah is a human being. Fantastic.

And then this monotheistic Jew says, and his name shall be called, sorry, and the government should be upon his shoulder, and his name should be called Wonderful Counselor. Just look that up in your Old Testament and find out who that's in reference to.

Those are names of God in the Old Testament. And then it gets deeper, as though we needed to hear more. Mighty God. The word is El Gibor. The mighty God. The mighty God. Who's writing this? A monotheistic Jew.

You think he knows his theology? I think he knows his theology because he says in the same book, Isaiah 43 .10, Isaiah 44 .6, Isaiah 44 .8, there is only one God. Only one God. None before, none after, first, last, doesn't even know of any other gods.

And yet this son and child who's coming, this human, is the mighty God. Is the Father of Eternity. What's that mean? The Eternal One. The Creator of all things. That eternal, only mighty God is coming as a son and as a child.

It says this, Prince of Peace, 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 uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.

The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. By the way, this is in Isaiah 9, which is right behind the prophecies of the Messiah, Messiah's kingdom in Isaiah chapter 2. And then you have more coming in Isaiah 11.

So all this is contextual. This is all Messiah, right? Not some strange, different figure in scripture. It's all the one who's going to actually draw the nations, Isaiah 2, up to the mountain of God. It's all the one that's actually going to bring the Gentiles to God as well.

And who is it? The son and the child, a human. And oh, it's El Gabor. It's the one and only true and living God. What do you have in Isaiah 9? The God-man. And what's he going to do? Establish his rule and do what?

There's going to be an increase of this rule and kingdom that will never end. Take that, pessimistic Christians. Jesus wins. He wins the world with his gospel. But it's the God-man. So when someone says to me, you don't have direct prophecies of Jesus the Messiah.

You don't have those. You've got these sort of veiled, strange, symbolic prophecies. I think to myself, what kind of ignorance do you have to accept in yourself to stand before an audience, a public audience, with 2 ,000 years of Christian history behind us, where Christians have been demonstrating these texts over and over and over again?

This is not veiled. It's not hidden. Let me say this. This can't be a double fulfillment prophecy, ultimately. Why? Because do you know any other gods? Anybody else watch that can be called God? If anybody in this room called me El Gabor, I would tear my clothes and throw dust in the air.

I am not the mighty God. You cannot address me as such a thing. No matter how high and exalted you are as a prophet, and a priest, or king, or whatever, as just a mere human being, you cannot accept these titles, period.

There is only one God. Never forget that Isaiah is a monotheistic Jew writing these things. Only one God. So the who is there. There is also the fact that we have the where of the Messiah. Now, we could do more on this, but again, this is just a cursory look at this.

In Micah chapter 5, verse 2, it says that the Messiah is coming from Bethlehem. Bethlehem. And it says this, His goings forth are from old, yea, even from eternity. Question? About the monotheistic Jew who wrote that, what does he believe about the only eternal being?

There is only one eternal being, and who is that? Yahweh. So who is coming to Bethlehem? Yahweh, the eternal one, is coming to Bethlehem. And I find it so glorious that in the life of and the historical narrative of Jesus, you've got Jesus not at Bethlehem, and I love the sovereign God that we worship.

It's that He actually, in His divine decree, in His order and providence over all of creation, He causes a pagan ruler to demand a census. So that Joseph and his newly betrothed wife have to actually do what?

Go back to their original place, and go to where? Bethlehem, and where that's where Jesus gives birth to Messiah. And who is the Messiah? God Himself, God incarnate, the everlasting one. The one coming to Bethlehem is goings forth from old, yea, even from eternity.

So the who, the where, and the what? What of Messiah? What is He going to accomplish? What is He going to do? Well, if you go into, say, Isaiah chapter 53, you'll see a very, very powerful section of scripture that we're going to take a look at right now.

Go there now to Isaiah chapter 53. But before you do, I want you to sort of land there as a reference point. I want you to look above Isaiah 53 for just a moment, and start in verse 13. And just pay attention to the details.

Remember, and this was originally written, there are no chapter and verse subdivisions. And so this is all one unified revelation and context. Here's what it says. Behold, my servant shall act wisely.

He shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted. As many were astonished at you, his appearance was so marred beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind. So shall he sprinkle many nations.

Kings shall shut their mouths because of him, for that which has not been told them they see, and that which they have not heard they understand. Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. One of the amazing glories of the incarnation is that the one and only true and living God in the person of Christ condescends in the incarnation, takes on flesh as was prophesied as a son and as a child.

He actually is dependent upon his mom. That's crazy. The God of the universe who created everything. The God of the universe who created the glory of motherhood, and the majesty of motherhood, and the complexities of breastfeeding, and all of that.

He condescends to the point where he is a baby dependent upon his mother and his stepfather, right? His adoptive father. This is crazy. He is now being raised in this nothing little town. Do you know that Nazareth?

People used to attack scripture a long time ago. Skeptics and critics of the Bible used to make fun of the Bible because it invented a place called Nazareth. They were like, Nazareth is made up. It's not even on the map.

There's no historical evidence for a place called Nazareth. You stupid Christians. You're following something that's so obviously not true. There's no place called Nazareth. Oh, you know why? Because we hadn't found it because it was a nothing little town until we actually found it.

You know why it wasn't on the map? Because it was such an insignificant nothing little place on the outskirts that no one cared about it. There's nothing of concern in Nazareth. That's where God incarnate came from.