Is Jesus the Messiah?

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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.

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What you're about to watch is a sermon, a message from Apologia Church's worship service. And again, I want to thank you all so much for watching, for liking, for commenting, for sharing the sermon itself.

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We truly believe that it's important for the Christian church to have an engagement in the public square with the word of God.

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So we thank you so much for partnering with us to send this out across the world. I just wanted to say something before you actually watch this, and that is that I'm not your pastor.

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Though I'd love to be, I am not your pastor. And it's very important as you're watching this, you know that it's

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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.

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Today I went praying about what to teach on and I wanted to do something that would really be a blessing to you as a church.

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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.

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But something happened last night in the debate and it happened coming from somebody who used to be a professing

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Mormon then converted to Evangelical Christianity, which is interesting because he still didn't know how to articulate the trinity.

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How you convert to Evangelicalism and never understand the God you worship is interesting to me.

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But now he's abandoned Evangelical Christianity and now he's going into Judaism.

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And he made a comment, a couple comments in terms of not believing

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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.

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Because if this man converted from Mormonism to Evangelical Christianity and now to Judaism and says he never really understood how we know

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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

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Christian faith is just that point. And to abandon Christ to go to Judaism on that basis is ignorance.

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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.

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Luke 24. This is after the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, which was prophesied in the Old Testament and by the

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Lord Jesus throughout his ministry. This is the famous scene on the road to Emmaus.

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Luke 24 verse 13. Hear now the words of the living and the true

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God. That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus about seven miles from Jerusalem.

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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.

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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?

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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And he said to them, O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.

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Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?

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And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

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Thus far is the reading of God's holy word. Let's pray together as a church. Father, 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

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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,

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Lord, your sovereignty over everything that you declared the end from the beginning, and you already spoke these things long before they happened.

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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,

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Lord, give us a firm foundation of the truth. In Jesus' name. Amen. So if you look, if you look actually just a little bit further down, you'll see it again.

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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.

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Then he opens their minds to understand the scriptures. So this is commonplace, and it's really the fundamental assertion of biblical faith.

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And listen very closely to this. It is vital, very vital. The biblical faith does not teach that Jesus is a plan

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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

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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.

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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.

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They were plagued with false teachers and false messiahs. I would argue exactly as Jesus prophesied what happened in the

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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,

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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.

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And, you know, they could have been the messiah. Jesus could have been the messiah. And the problem is that they all died.

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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,

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Jesus died as well. You know, and what happened was the disciples actually were like, hey, we thought he's the messiah.

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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.

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Things were spoken last night that were incredible to me. Incredible that somebody who says they converted from Mormonism to evangelical

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Christianity, somebody could make these claims. Claims like the Old Testament didn't prophesy the death of the messiah.

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It most certainly did. It's not a novelty in history. You see, here's one of the glories of the

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Christian faith is that, listen, this is vital. I'll put it to you in this illustration. I was a chaplain in a hospital for many years, a full -time chaplain at a drug and alcohol rehabilitation hospital.

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And so it was an amazing time in my life, an incredible experience to be engaged in that kind of ministry.

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It was full -time work every day, all week long. I was in front of some of the most broken and hurt people.

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I mean, 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.

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And I was preaching the gospel throughout the day, every day in chapel and teaching classes.

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And I would offer opportunities for people to come in and challenge the pastor. This was an interesting hospital.

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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But she made it clear to me that she was Jewish, Orthodox Jewish, and had been raised in an Orthodox Jewish family and gone to synagogue and, you know, knows the

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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,

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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

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Jew and I don't believe Jesus is the Messiah. And so I said, okay. I said, how about we just do this?

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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?

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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

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New Testament. I'll just use the Torah and the Tanakh. And she sort of scoffed like, yeah, that's right.

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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.

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And as my grounding and foundation, I will only use the scriptures that you kiss at synagogue on Sabbath.

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I will only use the Torah and the Tanakh. And she says, deal. And so we did, we proceeded with actually going through the

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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

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Old Testament long before Jesus comes. And so after we spent time doing this, she ends up actually calling her mom, who's very

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Jewish, devoutly Jewish. And she says to her mom, she says, mom, I think

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I'm starting to believe that Jesus is the Messiah. And her mom says, you can't do that.

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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

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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.

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And she says, mom, is there any good reason to believe that Jesus is not the

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Messiah from our scriptures? And she says her mom was silent on the phone. And she's like, mom, is there any good reason?

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And her mom said, no, I don't have one. And see that forms sort of a foundation of this discussion.

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When biblical faith comes into the world and a proclamation is made about Jesus Christ, and when

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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.

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This is God's redemptive plan that he has spoken long before it actually occurred in history.

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One of the glories of biblical faith is that we have a God who is sovereign. He's not learning things like the

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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.

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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

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God, the test in Deuteronomy 18, 20 through 22 is like this.

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

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Period, straight away. That is biblical faith. Here's the key. Listen to that how powerful this is.

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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.

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Find a single false prophecy. This entire revelation is false according to its own standard.

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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

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Messiah and he's dead and strangely the tomb is empty. We can't figure that situation out. He's walking with them.

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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.

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John says Jesus said and did things that he had no space to write. I mean so much time of ministry.

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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.

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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.

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He's saying it to them over and over and over and they're too dull to understand it. And notice what

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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?

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All that the prophets and scriptures had prophesied about him.

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The challenge Jesus makes to Jewish disciples is this. You should have known this.

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He chastises them. This is what you were raised with. You've been under the hearing of this your entire life.

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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.

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Genesis all the way to the last book of the old testament showing everywhere that the old testament prophesied about him.

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How you like them apples? That's powerful, right? But we need to talk about it. So actually years ago

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I wanted to find an easy way to help my brothers and sisters to articulate how we know

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Jesus is the messiah. And to be honest with you this this teaching could go on today, honestly.

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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.

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But I have an acronym, an acrostic. It's messianic. How do we know Jesus is the messiah?

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Is Jesus the promised messiah? My answer is most definitely. Is Jesus the messiah?

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Most definitely. And it is M -O -S -T. Most definitely.

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M -O -S -T. And it works like this. We know Jesus is the messiah because of the

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M, messianic prophecies concerning Jesus. The O, the original life of Jesus Christ.

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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.

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Is Jesus the promised messiah? We kind of talked about it. Well, we sang about it up here a moment ago.

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We talked about he is reigning. He is the king. He is on his throne. He rules forever.

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That's the discussion. We talked about how Jesus is now putting his enemies under his feet right now.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Okay. Messianic prophecy is the first one. M -O -S -T. Messianic prophecy, original life of Jesus, the symbols fulfilled, and the transformation of the lives of the apostles and the world.

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Most definitely, Jesus is the messiah. M, messianic prophecy. This was an incredible part of last night's discussion.

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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

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Christians have are these veiled sort of symbolic prophecies from the Old Testament. And I just found that absolutely incredible.

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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Old Testament long before it happens. It is insanity to reject this.

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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.

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We're going to get to that, but the direct prophecies are powerful. What do we know from the

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Old Testament, the Torah and the Tanakh, the Old Testament law and prophets?

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What do we know about the messiah? What's said about the messiah? Is it clear enough to understand?

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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.

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We're not talking about the commonplace false prophecies of charlatans and false messiahs and prophets that happen on a regular basis, right?

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Like very veiled, strange, you can cram anything into it. The specificity with which

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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.

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It is not possible. It can't happen. The specificity is so direct, so constrained that only

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Jesus can be the messiah. It is not possible to ever have another messiah.

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

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It will not happen. Why? Specificity. What do we know about the messiah from the messianic prophecies that are direct?

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Well, you have the who? Who is the messiah? You have the where? Where is he coming?

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You have the what of the messiah? What is he going to accomplish? When of the messiah?

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When is he coming? The why of the messiah? Why do we need one? Why is God sending messiah?

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All of that specificity, listen closely, is in the Old Testament, long before Jesus actually arrives on the scene.

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So let's do a few. By the way, again, this is not going to be an exhaustive, exhaustive list of prophecies about messiah.

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So today is just sort of a cursory looking at it. But who is the messiah? If you look in the

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Old Testament, you will see so many clarifying prophecies about the messiah, who he is.

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But some that we need to actually address are the ones that can only be a very specific identity.

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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.

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We have to pause here for a second because we do this a lot as Christians. I want to just say this. We get jaded to amazing truths.

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We do. Well, I do. I'll confess. Get jaded to amazing, glorious truths.

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You'll have so many rich and amazing and powerful and miraculous things in the

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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.

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It is awesome. And when I just said that, some of you guys were not freaking out, and you should have been.

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Here's a prophecy of Jesus, 700 years before he arrives on the scene.

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You're thinking like, well, what is the prophecy that makes it so interesting? Well, go there in your Bibles for a minute. Isaiah chapter 9, verse 6, and take a look at this prophecy.

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And by the way, and I wish we could do this, if we just said today, hey, if they said, hey,

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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.

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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.

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So Isaiah chapter 9, verses 6 through 7, look what it says here in terms of Isaiah.

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Again, it's all about the Messiah, Messianic kingdom. What's he going to accomplish? It is through and through Messianic.

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It is powerful, detailed. But Isaiah 9, verses 6 through 7. Watch this. By the way, let's pause.

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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.

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One of the things that Lee Baker was saying in the discussion was that the Old Testament says 89 times,

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I think, that God is one, God is one, God is one. You're thinking to yourself as a Trinitarian Christian, yeah, baby.

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I was saying that all day at conference today. What are you talking about, right? The Trinity, there's only one

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God. There is only one God. None before, none after. There's only one God. The Trinity is one

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God as the foundation. We are monotheists. What is this Shema, Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 4?

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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.

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Here O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Jesus is asked, what's the greatest commandment of law?

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And Jesus quotes, Here O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. There's only one God. Isaiah 43 10.

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Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. Isaiah 44 6. What does

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God say? I am the first, I'm the last. Besides me there is no God. Isaiah 44 8. God says what?

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

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There is only one eternal God. Psalm 90 verse 2. From eternity into eternity you are

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God. Take that Joseph Smith. Right? There is only one God. He's been

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God from all eternity. That is the fundamental foundation of our biblical faith.

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There is only one God. Every Jew believes that. It's all throughout the

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Old Testament. But here's a monotheistic Jewish prophet, 700 years before Jesus comes, saying this very peculiar thing.

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For to us a child is born, to us a son is given. What is that? A child, a son.

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What is it? Is it a horse? What is it? Is it an alien?

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What is it? It's a human. It's a baby, right? One of us.

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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.

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He's going to bring Jews and Gentiles to God. I get it. He's got to be one of us.

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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.

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I think we got that. Son and a child. Messiah is a human being. Fantastic. And then this monotheistic

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Jew says, and his name shall be called, sorry, and the government should be upon his shoulder, and his name should be called

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Wonderful Counselor. Just look that up in your Old Testament and find out who that's in reference to.

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Those are names of God in the Old Testament. And then it gets deeper, as though we needed to hear more.

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Mighty God. The word is El Gibor. The Mighty God.

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The Mighty God. Who's writing this? A monotheistic Jew. You think he knows his theology?

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I think he knows his theology, because he says in the same book. Isaiah 43, 10.

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Isaiah 44, 6. Isaiah 44, 8. There was only one God. Only one God. None before, none after.

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First, last. Doesn't even know of any other gods. And yet this Son and Child who's coming, this human, is the

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Mighty God? Is the Father of Eternity? What's that mean?

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The Eternal One? The Creator of all things? That Eternal, only Mighty God is coming as a

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Son and as a Child? It says this, By the way, this is in Isaiah 9, which is right behind the prophecies of the

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Messiah, Messiah's Kingdom in Isaiah chapter 2. And then you have more coming in Isaiah 11.

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So all this is contextual. This is all Messiah, right? Not some strange, different figure in Scripture.

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It's all the One who's going to actually draw the nation's Isaiah 2 up to the mountain of God.

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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

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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?

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The God -Man. And what's he going to do? Establish his rule and do what?

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There's going to be an increase of this rule and kingdom that will never end.

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Take that, pessimistic Christians. Jesus wins. He wins the world with his gospel.

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But it's the God -Man. So when someone says to me, You don't have direct prophecies of Jesus the Messiah.

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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?

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This is not veiled. It's not hidden. Let me say this. This can't be a double fulfillment prophecy, ultimately.

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Why? Because do you know any other gods? Anybody else watch that can be called

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God? If anybody in this room called me El Gabor, I would tear my clothes and throw dust in the air.

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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.

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Period. There is only one God. Never forget that Isaiah is a monotheistic Jew writing these things.

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Only one God. So the who is there. There is also the fact that we have the where of the

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Messiah. Now, we could do more on this. But again, this is just a cursory look at this. In Micah 5, verse 2, it says that the

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Messiah is coming from Bethlehem. Bethlehem. And it says this,

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His goings forth are from old, yea, even from eternity.

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Question about the monotheistic Jew who wrote that. What does he believe about the only eternal being?

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There is only one eternal being. And who is that? Yahweh. So who is coming to Bethlehem?

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Yahweh, the eternal one, is coming to Bethlehem. And I find it so glorious that in the life of Jesus, in the historical narrative of Jesus, you've got

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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,

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He causes a pagan ruler to demand a census.

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So that Joseph and his newly betrothed wife have to actually do what?

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Go back to their original place and go to where? Bethlehem.

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And that's where Jesus gives birth to Messiah. And who is the Messiah? God Himself, God incarnate, the everlasting one.

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The one coming to Bethlehem is goings forth from old, yea, even from eternity.

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So the who, the where, and the what? What of Messiah?

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What is He gonna accomplish? What is He gonna do? Well, if you go into, say, Isaiah chapter 53, you'll see a very, very powerful section of scripture that we're gonna take a look at right now.

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Go there now to Isaiah chapter 53. But before you do, I want you to sort of land there as a reference point.

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I want you to look above Isaiah 53 for just a moment and start in verse 13. And just pay attention to the details.

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Remember, and this was originally written, there are no chapter and verse subdivisions. And so this is all one unified revelation and context.

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Here's what it says. Behold, my servant shall act wisely. He shall be high and lifted up and shall be exalted.

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As many were astonished at you, his appearance was so marred beyond human semblance and his form beyond that of the children of mankind.

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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.

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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.

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He had no form or majesty that we should look at him and no beauty that we should desire him.

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One of the amazing glories of the incarnation is that the one and only true and living

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God and the person of Christ condescends in the incarnation, takes on flesh as was prophesied as a son and as a child.

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He actually is dependent upon his mom. That's crazy.

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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?

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His adoptive father. This is crazy. He is now being raised in this nothing little town.

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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

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Bible because it invented a place called Nazareth. They were like, Nazareth is made up. It's not even on the map.

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There's no historical evidence for a place called Nazareth. You stupid Christians. You're following something that's so obviously not true.

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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.

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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.

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There's nothing of concern in Nazareth. That's where God incarnate came from. A nothing little town called

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Nazareth. That's where he's raised. There's nothing about Jesus that attracted people to him in terms of he was like walking through the streets of Jerusalem glowing, right?

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Jesus was man and God. And he actually veils even a lot of his divine prerogatives while on earth as the

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God man as he humbles himself to die for the sins of his people. But Jesus had to eat food to survive.

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How crazy is that? This is amazing. Jesus probably had pimples, right?

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Think about Jesus' experience. Jesus had to use the bathroom. He wasn't hovering above the ground while he walked among us.

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Jesus bled. Jesus died. Jesus experienced pain. He was beaten, crucified.

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Consider that. That's the experience of Jesus. Jesus got hungry, right? Jesus actually has a team of people in his ministry and they have to actually do...

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He has to perform miracles to feed his followers because there's no money in the ministry accounts.

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These are the lowly and humble beginnings of Jesus. Jesus isn't born in a castle. Jesus is born in Nazareth and they're out for his life from the beginning of his life.

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There was nothing about Jesus that would have caused people to look at him and say, oh my goodness, that's the

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Messiah. In terms, again, of Jesus glowing or hovering above the ground or being born in some castle somewhere and being obvious royalty.

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No. It says he had no form of majesty that we should look at him and no beauty that we should desire him.

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He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

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And as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not.

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Who esteemed him not? The Jewish people. Who's giving this prophecy? Isaiah, a

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Jew. We esteemed him not. Who were the ones that actually delivered Jesus over?

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Who were the ones that said, crucify him, crucify him. Give us Barabbas. Well, shall

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I crucify your king? I find no fault in him. And they say, what? We have no king but Caesar.

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And it's the antagonist towards the ministry of Jesus are, in large parts, early

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Jews. Nothing about Jesus that drew, oh, that's clearly him. And they despised

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Jesus. And it was the Jewish people who actually rejected their own Messiah. Not all of them, but many of them.

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Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Verse four. Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted.

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What do you think the Jews before the cross who were mocking Jesus and reviling him, what do you think they thought was happening with Jesus's death on the cross?

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He was being punished for his own sins. He was being punished by God for his own sins.

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And that's what the text says. 700 years before Jesus comes. Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted.

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Here we go. But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities.

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Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And with his wounds, we are healed.

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All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. And Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

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Consider how powerful that is that we have now a man clearly being rejected.

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We have a man, nothing about him that draws you to him. No former majesty there.

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And we have Yahweh laying on a man the sins of us all.

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Now, what a lot of people have tried to do to make wiggle room for themselves here in terms of Jews rejecting this prophecy.

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Oftentimes we even, of course, have heard about the fact that many times in synagogue, they will not read through Isaiah 53.

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They skip it in their reading. Why? Why? Because it's obviously

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Jesus. But they say, okay, let's create an apologetic against Isaiah 53 because this is so clearly

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Jesus. We cannot get out of it. So let's say this. This is actually Israel.

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This is God speaking about Israel, his people. All right, let's stop and think about it for a minute.

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Is Israel sinless? We could talk about that all day, right?

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I think we know a little bit about Israel's sins and all that took place with Israel and wandering in wildernesses and destructions and exiles and all the rest.

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Israel is not sinless. What does God have as a display in the temple about sacrifice and atonement and one life for another and substitute?

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What does he say? You take something with no spot and no blemish.

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It is an innocent substitute and sacrifice. They know at this time that for sacrifice to matter, for it to happen, for something to be a scape goat, for something to have sins laid onto it and dragged out of the city away from the people of God, you had to have an innocent for guilty sacrifice.

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And here in Isaiah 53, this Jew who knows monotheism and temple worship and atonement and sacrifice says that the

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Lord lays on him the iniquity of us all. You've got a human substitute now who is sinless.

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Brothers and sisters, this cannot be Israel. You cannot have a sinful, let's put it this way.

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You have what in the atoning sacrifices? You have no spot and no blemish. You can't have a spotted and blemished sacrifice for another.

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Israel cannot be underneath this text. Why? Because Israel is sinful and that's why they need the

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Messiah. So again, he was oppressed, verse seven, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth like a lamb that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep that is before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.

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What do you see in Jesus' trial as he's being brought away to be crucified? What do you see? Are you not gonna answer for yourself?

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You're not gonna defend yourself? What? Say something, Jesus. Say it. Jesus goes like a lamb to the slaughter.

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He goes, listen, here's the point of the text, willingly. People have said things like this.

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Ah, gotcha, gotcha. It says he opened not his mouth and Jesus actually did say a few words in his trial to Pilate and all the rest.

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Please read the text. That's not the point. What's the point? He's led like a lamb to the slaughter. He goes willingly.

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What does Jesus actually say? He's like, hey, I've got the power to let you go, Jesus. Say something.

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Defend yourself. Come on. You get all these witnesses, all their witness testimony's not working, all falling apart.

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And Jesus isn't helping the witnesses because it's their duty to prove him guilty and they can't.

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And so he keeps his mouth shut. And hey, look, I can let you go. And Jesus says what? Look, I can have an army of angels at any moment come rescue me.

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Like no one takes my life from me. I lay it down of my own accord. This is the Messiah being led like a lamb to the slaughter.

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And then the text says, by oppression and judgment, he was taken away and asked for his generation who considered that he was, here it is, cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people.

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Stop. Remember the ignorance claim made last evening about the

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Bible does not prophesy the death of the Messiah. The word cut off here is a word that describes a violent death.

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But notice it doesn't just say the Messiah is going to die a violent death. What does it say? It says that he's gonna die a violent death for what?

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Stricken for the transgression of my people. It's not just a death. It's a death for the sins of God's people.

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So here it is again. And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death.

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I think a lot of people have said, and this just by the way, in terms of the glory power of this passage, there's probably a lot here we're never gonna fully tap into.

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Christians have said, hey, it's amazing. Jesus died with criminals, right? He made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death.

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He was buried in a rich man's tomb. I do think that that, yes, that is true. That's absolutely true.

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But I think there's more. I think there's more. He made his grave with the wicked. I think actually expresses the fact that Jesus was counted as the guilty one.

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He was counted as the rebel. He was treated as though he were guilty in my place.

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The wrath of God was poured out on the sinless substitute. In my place, he made his grave with the wicked and was counted, imputed as the guilty one so that I could be credited his righteousness.

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I think there's a complexity and a depth to this that goes beyond merely the fact that Jesus died next to two criminals and was buried in a rich man's tomb.

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All that I believe is true, but I think it goes much deeper than that. Here it is. Yet it was the will of the

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Lord to crush him. He has put him to grief. It was the will of the

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Lord to crush him. God was pleased to crush

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Jesus. Now pause for a second and let's step aside from how powerful these prophecies are.

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And I want you to consider that it says the Lord was pleased to crush him. The Lord is pleased to crush him.

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I don't comprehend it. I often want to stop on this text because I think it's very, very important.

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I don't comprehend that. That as broken as I am, as rebellious as I am, as sinful as we all are, as holy as God is, as much as we've rebelled and run away from God, Yahweh was pleased to crush his son, with whom he has been an intimate, perfect fellowship from all eternity.

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He was pleased to do it. I don't comprehend it.

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And I'll leave it at that. He has put him to grief. When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring.

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He shall prolong his days. Wait, what happened before this? He's cut off out of the land of living.

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What? For the transgression of God's people. And then what happens? He sees his offspring. He prolongs his days.

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No, the Bible doesn't prophesy the death and resurrection of the Messiah. He dies for the sins of God's people.

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And then he sees his offspring, his children. What he accomplished.

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And then he prolongs his days. What does it mean to prolong your days? You get more days.

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What's that mean? I was dead, and then I got more days. I was dead, then I was alive.

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That is direct prophecy. Now here's where it gets more interesting. The will of the

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Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied.

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Question, how does he do that if he stays dead? By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.

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Who? The Messiah bears the iniquities of who? God's people. And 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 his soul to death.

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Wait, I thought that the Bible doesn't prophesy the death of the

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Messiah. How many times does God have to say it for us to understand that the

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Messiah is gonna die and rise from the dead? When Jesus actually says, in the text from Luke 24, we were just in the beginning of this, he says, it was prophesied the

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Messiah would die and rise again. Just where do you think he's getting that from? Where?

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Maybe Isaiah 53? Maybe Isaiah 53? And it says this, because he poured out his soul to death, and he was numbered with the transgressors, yet he bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors.

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That is Jesus. The one interceding for you and I, if you're in him.

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The one who actually poured out his soul to death, who was numbered with the transgressors, who justifies the many as he bears their iniquities.

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Brothers and sisters, no human being who is a sinner can do any of this.

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Can do any of this. Only the God -man can do this. Only the God -man is worthy and holy enough to stand before the

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Father and present a righteousness and an obedience that actually avails before a holy

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God. We are guilty. You are not going to actually make up for your sin, put things before the throne of God as a sinful person that will actually reconcile you to God.

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This is what Mormonism doesn't understand. This is what the Watchtower Bible and tract society doesn't understand.

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And every false religion of men and women in history does not understand that God is a holy

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God and requires a perfect sacrifice. And that is only available in Jesus Christ, which is why he says in John 14, 6,

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I am the way and the truth and the life. No man comes to the

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Father except through me. Why? You have to have a perfect sacrifice, a perfect righteousness, and you have to actually experience that union with Jesus to be in him.

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That's the glory of the gospel. So again, is Jesus the Messiah? Most definitely.

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Messianic prophecy, who, where, when, what, why, is all in the

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Old Testament. And I'm going to do this very quickly. And I think I should because of last night.

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The text that was brought up last night was Daniel chapter nine as somehow disproving that Jesus is the

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Messiah. Now you have to give me some grace here. Listen, we could spend weeks on Daniel nine.

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I'm just going to point something out in terms of the when of the Messiah. If you go to Daniel chapter nine, very powerful and complex passage of scripture.

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I think it is so incredible, so incredible in terms of what the scope of the prophecy is and what's supposed to take place.

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But listen closely to this. This prophecy tells you when the Messiah is coming. Remember I said at the beginning, come back, come back.

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I know I'm speaking for a long time, but we got to get through this because it's powerful stuff, okay? I told you at the beginning, the

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Bible tells us that Jesus is the Messiah and nobody else can possibly be the

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Messiah. I said that to you. I said there right now in history, nobody else can be the

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Messiah. It's not possible. It can't happen according to scripture. And this is what

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I was alluding to. Daniel chapter nine demonstrates that nobody else can be the

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Messiah. Why am I saying that? Daniel chapter nine, verse 24. I am not going to unpack all the 70 weeks.

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All I will tell you is this. Yes, this text tells you when the Messiah is coming. I'm going to do a sermon on it at Apologia Church this coming

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Sunday. Be on the lookout for that. I did a little bit of it in my last sermon on the

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Olivet Discourse. But here's what the text says. Watch. Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophets, and to anoint the most holy.

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So there's a scope to this prophecy. What's it about? We're going to make an end of sin. We're going to make atonement.

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We're going to bring an everlasting righteousness within this space of time. Now, I believe there's a countdown clock made.

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You're told by the angel when to start counting down. And it lands on Jesus as baptism.

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Again, I'm not going to do it today, but that is actually what takes place. God tells you when to start counting and it lands on Jesus.

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Why do you think that in the first century there is this fervor?

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Who's the Messiah? Where's the Messiah? You the Messiah? Is he the Messiah? Who's the Messiah? Who's the Messiah? Where's he at? Why is there the fervor in the first century about where's

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Messiah? Here's why. Daniel 9. They could count and they understood that they were in the days of the

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Messiah. So they're looking. Who's the Messiah? You the Messiah? Where is the Messiah? Somebody here is the Messiah. Because they can count and they know this is all coming to a climax now.

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But here's what you need to know about Daniel when he wrote this. There is no temple. It has been destroyed.

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They are now in exile to Babylon. That's why he's praying. He's grieving.

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Why? Because Israel is so sinful. Because they can't take anybody's sins.

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Because they're so broken and in exile now being judged by God. God's destroyed the temple. There isn't a temple.

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Daniel's pleading before God. Please forgive your people. And then along comes the angel

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Gabriel. Here's what's going to take place, Daniel. 70 weeks to do what? Put an end to sin. Atonement for iniquity.

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Everlasting righteousness. All that's there. And so he says from the going forth of the decree to restore and rebuild

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Jerusalem, there shall be and then you start counting down. But here's what it says in the text. Verse 26.

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And after the 62 weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off. Recognize that word?

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Where else we see that a second ago? Isaiah 53. But what's he cut off for in Isaiah 53?

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For the transgressions of God's people. What's Daniel chapter 9 say? That he's going to be cut off.

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What's that word? It's the same word to describe the animal sacrifices. It's describing a violent death.

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Who said that the Old Testament doesn't teach that the Messiah dies for the sins of God's people?

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How many times does God have to say it in the Torah and it's not for us to actually believe that it takes place.

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But here's what it says. After 62 weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing.

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And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. I believe that's describing the result of this prophecy is that the temple is going to be destroyed by the

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Roman armies. But all that aside, say you don't buy that, what does this teach?

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Imagine for a moment now, follow me now, stay with me. Is there a temple when Daniel wrote this? See, I already said it to you.

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You can yell out to me. Let's pretend like you guys are Pentecostal for a day, okay? Is there a temple when

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Daniel wrote this? There's no temple. Daniel's pleading before God because they're in exile and being judged for their sin.

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There is no temple. There is no sanctuary. So this is what's being told. All this stuff's going to happen.

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Atonement for iniquity, everlasting righteousness, all this is going to happen. Messiah is going to be cut off and then the temple, the sanctuary is going to be destroyed.

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And you go, hmm, this is written about 600 years before Jesus and there is no city and sanctuary to speak of, which means what?

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This is also a prophecy of the rebuilding of the second Jewish temple. But what does it say?

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That the Messiah is going to die a violent death before the destruction of the second temple.

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Remember I told you nobody else can be the Messiah? I tell this story often. I'll give you the quick one. I go to an event in Scottsdale, Arizona many years ago with an organization called

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Jews Against Jesus. I saw the ad in a newspaper. It's a rabbi who's going to prove that Jesus isn't the

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Messiah. It's in a synagogue. I was like, hey, Jesus grafted me into Israel. I'm the true Jew, so shalom,

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I'm going. So I show up with my Bible and backpack and some friends.

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I got to wear the yarmulke. It was awesome to go inside. But a two -hour talk this rabbi gave and he didn't address any of the issues.

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So after it was all finished and done, one of the things we all noticed is that we were the only ones in the synagogue with Bibles.

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The only ones. Everybody kept looking back at us all weird because we're carrying Bibles. They're looking down at our Bibles, looking at us, and look at Bible, like Bible, you weird

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Christian Gentile. What are you doing with the Torah? Like, you know, it was like, where's your Torah, bro? So after it's all done,

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I walk down to the front where the rabbi was and every Jewish person there descends upon us because this is about to go down.

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Here's this young punk Christian that's going to talk to the rabbi and just get thrashed. So I walk up to the rabbi, try to be very respectful.

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I said, rabbi, thank you for allowing me to come tonight and for us to be here. He said, of course. I said, I appreciate it.

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I said, I am curious, how come you didn't actually deal with any of the prophecies in the Torah, the Tanakh that Christians have used,

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Jewish Christians have used for 2000 years to prove Jesus is the Mashiach? He said, no, young man, I dealt with all of them.

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I said, rabbi, you didn't deal with any one that I would use. And he said, well, like what?

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I said, I don't know where to start. Daniel 9. He said, what about it?

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I said, well, Daniel 9, the prophecy is the Messiah comes, dies a violent death before the destruction of the second temple.

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I said, rabbi, when was the second temple destroyed? He said, well, like young man, everyone knows it was destroyed in 70 AD. I said, right.

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I said, so rabbi, if Jesus isn't Mashiach, who is?

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And so I had to give him my Bible. He opens it to Daniel 9.

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He starts looking through and scanning and he's looking through and he's pointing out. He's like, okay, okay, yeah, cut off.

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And okay, and now you should have seen the faces of everyone surrounding us. They were just so delighted. We're gonna see this

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Christian get smashed. They're just wonderful. They're just like, just sort of like drooling and seething and like, just watch.

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It's so wonderful. This Christian is gonna get thrashed. Gentiles, you know. And so amazingly, he looks up at me and he says, tell you what, give me your email address.

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I'll get back to you on this. And he never did because there isn't an answer.

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There isn't a coherent answer. The text is plain. Here's the timeframe. Here's the purpose of the prophecy.

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This is what's gonna be accomplished and Messiah's gonna be cut off and the destruction of the temple. Who, where, when, what, why is all predicted, precise, direct, and clear.

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I gotta go fast and know that I'm going. How long have I been going for? What's that? Okay, you, okay, all right.

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So I'll keep going, but I'll try to go a little faster. Okay, so messianic, is Jesus the Messiah? Most, by the way, you're experiencing what

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Apologia Church experiences every Sunday right now. And so messianic prophecy, oh, it's funny.

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Actually, I sent, actually, my, the person I've raised up for many years is a pastor. We ordained him as a pastor and we sent him off to our church plant at Apologia, Kauai, on the island of Kauai.

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And I just saw one of his first sermons last Sunday that he did and it was an hour and 20 some odd minutes long.

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And everyone looked at me and they're like, you trained him well, didn't you? So the original life of Jesus, M -O -S -T, the original life of Jesus, I'll do this quickly.

01:00:00

This can be a whole other sermon in itself. The original life of Jesus, what do you see in Jesus' life that makes him so distinct among the religions of men and all the rest?

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Well, let's just take a contrast for a moment. Joseph Smith claimed that he had done more than anybody else in history.

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Jesus, Peter, Paul, James, were never able to keep a whole church together and do what he had actually accomplished.

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Sort of the bragging of like his own power and his deeds and all the rest. What do you see in like a prophet, like say

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Joseph Smith? We actually know a lot about his life. We know that he was actually a very depraved man.

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We know that he was not only a depraved man and was engaging in sexual relationships, outside of his own marriage, before his wife found out about the prophecy of polygamy and all the rest.

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And by the way, I do find that slightly entertaining, personally, that we have

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Joseph Smith actually, who is a known adulterer. People are confronting him within the early Mormon church because of his adultery and sexual relationships.

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And so, olly olly oxen free, he gets a prophecy from God. And I do like the prophecy then as it comes to us.

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It's still there today. You go look in DNC, you'll see the prophecy. And what's it say about polygamy? It's actually saying, you know, polygamy is a thing.

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It's a command of God, all the rest. And then we have a word from God, on high, to his wife,

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Emma. And it says what to Emma? Like, you gotta accept this. This is, it's word for me. Your husband's gonna have other wives.

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That's how we're supposed to live now. And basically, there's a threat from God, on high, to Emma, his wife, that says what?

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And if you don't accept it, you're gonna burn in hell forever. Talk about control.

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You know, when my wife doesn't do my laundry correctly, I don't have that kind of power. But anyway, he was a charlatan and a scumbag and a disgraceful man.

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And one of the things you see in the lives of these false teachers and false messiahs is they're sinners.

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And at times they do and say some rather disturbing things. What do you see in the life of Jesus? Something that is unparalleled.

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It's something that you can't do. And it's something that I cannot do. Jesus stands up in front of his disciples, his family, his enemies, and he says something that we can't.

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He says a challenge. He says, which of you accuses me of sin? Now, try it.

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You stand up in front of your friends, your husbands, your wives, your children, your parents, and your enemies, and you say, which of you accuses me of sin?

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I dare you. You watch the line form and first person up is your spouse.

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They're like, I got this, hang on. Do you want to start with this morning or last night?

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Because you know you can't do it. Jesus can do it. He does throughout his life. He lives such a life that his own brother follows him as God and dies a martyr's death to say that his brother is

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God in the flesh and is the only source of salvation for the world. What's it take for your brother to believe that you're

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God and to die a violent death himself thrown off of the Jewish temple and killed for faith in his brother as God in the flesh?

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What do you think James knew about Jesus's life to believe that sort of a thing? How about this? All of Jesus's closest followers died with the confession that he is the righteous, blameless, sinless atonement for Jews and Gentiles globally.

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What's it take for you to die a martyr's death when you've walked with this man for years?

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You saw his life. You knew he was a blameless one. You knew he was a sinless one. Compare and contrast that to Mormonism.

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You've got early witnesses and testimony to the book of Mormon and the golden plates and all the rest who actually apostatized from Mormonism and denied it later.

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It doesn't take much for someone to finally come to their senses and realize this guy's a charlatan. Jesus's early followers died violent martyrs' deaths.

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I want to ask, what's it take for you to be flayed alive? You know what that is?

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It's when they cut the skin off your body while you're still alive. What's it take for you to actually have your head cut off for your faith in Jesus or be burned in an oven and to not deny your faith in the savior that you walked with for years and saw him die and rise again?

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Think about that. Just consider it. The original life of Jesus, his sinlessness. How about the fact that he demonstrates throughout his ministry divine attributes, that he knows their thoughts?

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That's trippy. You have to confess. It probably had to be sort of like something you overcame and just sort of got used to, right?

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Because we know that God is God and knows our thoughts and our secret places and our hearts and our lives and every detail. We know that.

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But it's got to be a little different when he's walking next to you and you could touch him, right? And you're walking along and you think maybe the wrong thought or something angry or bitter and you kind of look over, you're like, oh no.

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Because Jesus did that in his ministry and the text says it. He says, Jesus knowing their thoughts said to them, right?

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Knowing their thoughts. He knew what they were thinking. The divine attributes of God searching the heart and the mind who knows their thoughts and his divine attributes are clearly on the page.

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The fact that Jesus did something that nobody else in history has ever done. And what's that? He rose again from the dead.

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He accomplished something originally that no one has ever done before. Buddha, Confucius, Zoroaster, Muhammad, Joseph Smith, David Koresh and all the rest have something very much in common.

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They all died and they stayed that way. Jesus displays that he is unique in all of human history and that he died and he rose again from the dead.

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As a matter of historic record, let's go to the next point. The symbols fulfilled. I will try to give you one powerful.

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It's one of my favorites. And let's go to Genesis 22. I think this is absolutely incredible.

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And it's in the first book of the Bible. It's in the Torah. Now, again, as you guys get there last night, one of the ignorant claims made was that all we have in scripture are these sort of veiled symbolic prophecies.

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I think you can see at this point that is not the case. It is not true. I barely touched the surface, but here's what

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I love. Remember I told you this and we're almost done here. I told you that early on in my Christian experience,

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I love the direct prophecies of Jesus, right? The ones that just nail it. Time, place, all that stuff.

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I love that. But I have to confess something. As I've grown in my understanding of God's word, one of the most encouraging and fascinating things to me now about Jesus and probably the things that I draw on the most now are these moments in history where they didn't even realize that they were acting out what

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God was gonna do in Jesus. Now, pause for a second. I told you as Christians, we get jaded.

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We get jaded to glorious things. Don't do that right now.

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Do not be jaded to this incredible, amazing thing that I'm gonna show you right now.

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It deserves more awe from us. Here's what's amazing.

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Moses writes the first five books of the Bible and then about 1 ,500 years passes before the time of Jesus.

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I'll say it again, 1 ,500. Moses wrote this and he gives you history.

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He's not giving you Nostradamus really weird things about the future. He's telling you, and then this, and then they went there, and then he did this, and then this guy did something really bad, and then this guy, and then...

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It's like, it's just history, history, history. Even our heroes, their sin's on the page, right?

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Like sometimes you're reading it and you're reading your kids and you're like, I'll skip that part right now. I'm gonna, right?

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Because the sin is on the page. Scripture is honest about history. Our heroes, their sin is on the page.

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But you look at the life of Abraham and what's Moses doing? He's telling you the history of Abraham. Our father

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Abraham, the one through whom God is gonna send Messiah to save the world.

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Jews and Gentiles, people from every tribe, people, tongue, and nation. And now we have the life of Abraham.

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Abraham, we know his story, right? Not trusting in God. God says, I'm gonna give you a son. And Sarah's like, ha, right?

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Like that, just like, right, I'm old, right? Do you see my body, right? I mean, I'm trying,

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I'm trying, keto. But like, do you don't understand,

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Lord? I'm really kind of old and he's old. And like, how's this gonna work? God says, you're gonna have a son. And it's not Ishmael, it's

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Isaac. Through Isaac, your seed's gonna come. This is your unique son. This is the son I'm gonna do it through.

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And of course we know that now he has Isaac, right? Now the amazing thing is you get to Genesis chapter 22.

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This is crazy. You have about a 20 year time span between when Isaac is born and the sacrifice of Isaac.

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Isaac is older now. Now I want you to stop and remember, this is history.

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And Abraham, let's be honest, has very little information about the future and the Messiah. Don't give someone like Abraham, like this seminary education that we have now on the

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Trinity and justification by faith alone. And don't do that. Yes, he walked with God.

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Yes, he saw the pre -incarnate Jesus. Yes, he understood. Yes, he was given revelation from God. But he didn't have the understanding at that moment that even we have now with more revelation from God.

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All he knows, Isaac, bless the whole world, all the nations.

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You're gonna have the descendants as numerous as the stars. It's gonna be like the sand. And it's through Isaac. Isaac's the one.

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Get this, I'm stressing it on purpose because you're gonna need this in a moment. It's Isaac. He's the one

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I'm gonna save the world through. Messiah's coming through Isaac, Isaac, Isaac, Isaac. And Abraham's like, all right,

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Isaac's the one. I'm gonna have descendants as numerous as the stars. I get it. 20 years later, this happens.

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After these things, chapter 22, verse 1, God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham, and he said, here

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I am. He said, take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love. Your only son,

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Isaac, whom you love. And go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which

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I shall tell you. What? What?

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Isaac's the one. Isaac's the one the world's gonna be blessed through and I'm gonna have a seed.

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Isaac? Offer him as a sacrifice on Moriah, a specific place in history.

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My real son, this is the son of my love, my unique son, my only son. Go offer him as a sacrifice.

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And what's Abraham know? What's the promise? Through Isaac, Messiah's coming.

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Through Isaac, I'm gonna bless the world. And so what's Abraham know? The writer in the New Testament says, what?

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That Abraham knew that God had the power to even raise the dead. He said, it's gonna be through Isaac, so I guess maybe he's gonna raise him from the dead.

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So what's he do? By the way, this is incredible. How many of you guys read the debate last night? Nobody?

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What? Okay. Raise your hand, I wanna know. Who's the, okay, okay. So one of you loves

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Jesus. Just kidding, I'm teasing with you guys. I'm joking, guys.

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One of the things that he said out of ignorance last night was he said that the

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Old Testament does not accept the idea of one person dying for another, one human dying for another.

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And the answer is, well, the scripture says that the Messiah is gonna die for the sins of God's people.

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But yes, no sinful person can die for the sins of another person because it means nothing at that point.

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But he acted like God somehow had this aversion or that he had never talked about the idea of human sacrifice.

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But what did he tell Abraham to do? So again, very important for us as Christians to be more tough -minded when people like that make these claims.

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So what's it say? It says this. So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and his son

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Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering. And he rose, went to the place of which God had told him. On the third day,

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Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. Three -day journey. Three days on foot.

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Three days, three -day journey, right? Not in an air -conditioned vehicle, none of that stuff, right?

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Not getting to stop at In -N -Out Burger on the way, right? Three -day journey on foot to do what? He's gotta be thinking for three days,

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I gotta offer my son Isaac as a sacrifice. Why is, by the way, God saying this very specific location?

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Moriah? Mount Moriah? Like this is a specific spot in history. Mount Moriah, go there.

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Okay, three -day journey. Take my son, some servants with me, and we're going to Mount Moriah. Great, now

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I see in the distance. And then it says, Abraham said to his young men, stay here with the donkey.

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I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you. What's amazing, when people have taken this, say atheists, and they say, look,

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God tells them to kill his own son. That's evil. First of all, you have no basis to believe anything is evil.

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You're stardust. Second of all, what's the text say? What's the text say? It says,

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Abraham tells his servants, stay here, watch everything. Me and the boy are gonna go worship.

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And we are coming back. Abraham had no inclination that he wasn't coming back with his son.

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He knew. And it says this, and Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac, his son.

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And he took in his hand the fire and the knife so that they went both of them together.

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And Isaac said to his father, Abraham, my father, he said, here I am, my son. He said, behold the fire and the wood, but where's the lamb for the burnt offering?

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Where's the what? Where's the lamb? Where's the lamb, right?

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I got all those stuff here. And what does Abraham say? Stop and remember, don't be jaded.

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This is real history recorded 1 ,500 years before the time of Jesus. Moses is simply telling you what happened in history, but they didn't realize that they were actually rehearsing what

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God was gonna do in the Messiah. Because he said, father, where's the lamb? Where's the lamb for the sacrifice?

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We need the innocent sacrifice. We need it. Where is the lamb? And Abraham says, God will provide for himself the lamb, my son.

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God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son. So they went both of them together.

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When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac, his son, and laid him on the altar on top of the wood.

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Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. But the angel of the Lord, the messenger of the

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Lord, called to him from heaven and said, watch, oh, this is so awesome. Abraham, Abraham.

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And he said, here I am. He said, do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him.

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For now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son from me.

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The angel of the Lord, the pre -incarnate Christ appears numerous times in the Old Testament.

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Who is the angel of the Lord? Don't think angel. Angel means messenger.

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The messenger of the Lord calls from heaven and says, what to Abraham? You haven't withheld your only son from me.

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Who's the messenger of the Lord? He's Yahweh himself. Who is it? It's Jesus. Who was there talking to Abraham and Moriah in this entire scene?

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It was the one who was actually gonna act it out. It was the one who was actually gonna accomplish it.

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He says, you haven't withheld your only son from me, but it continues, watch what happens. In verse 13,

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Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked and behold, behind him was a ram, not a what?

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Not a lamb, a ram. Caught in a thicket by his horns, and Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of a son.

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Hey, I thought God was gonna provide a lamb. Hmm. And then it says, so Abraham called the name of that place, the

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Lord will provide. As it is said to this day, on the mount of the Lord, it shall be provided.

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Abraham names the place. This is the mountain God's gonna provide it. What? The lamb. Where? Mount Moriah.

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This is all historical narrative, but underneath this, God was telling the story of Jesus the entire time.

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Because who is Jesus? He's God's son, the son of his love, his only son.

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What did Jesus do? Oh, he went to Mount Moriah. Did you know that's where Jesus was crucified?

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The place that Abraham was told to go to, he took a three -day journey to, that's where Jesus was crucified.

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So when Abraham said, this is the mount the Lord's gonna provide it, it was on that mount that the

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Lord provided what? The sacrifice of his son, his only son, the son of his love. Oh, and by the way, you have

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Abraham doing what to his son Isaac? He puts the wood for the sacrifice onto his son, and his son, his only son, carries the wood to the place of the sacrifice.

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And who is Jesus? He's the lamb of God. What's John the Baptist say when he sees him?

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Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. That's the lamb who will provide the sacrifice.

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By the way, I've nicked the surface. On the symbolism inherent in the entire...

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Listen, here's the deal. You gotta catch this. The whole Old Testament, all of it is pointing to Jesus.

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The whole Old Testament is about Jesus. And the amazing thing is throughout the

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Old Testament, you have all these marks of divine authorship of history where the

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Jews are just doing stuff, and they don't realize that they're acting out this play ahead of time of what

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God's gonna ultimately accomplish in Jesus the Messiah. How you like them apples?

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Is this amazing? It's glorious. One more thing I'll say quickly, and that's this. Is Jesus the

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Messiah? Most definitely. I could literally go for days on this one, but I will not. Most definitely.

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M -O -S -T, messianic prophecy, original life of Jesus, the symbols fulfilled, and the

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T is the transformation of lives, the apostles and the world today. Here's what you need to hear. Number one,

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I already talked about it. What happened to the apostles after the resurrection of Jesus? They were completely transformed.

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Peter goes from being a coward who denies that he even knows Jesus to actually dying a violent death himself for his faith in Jesus.

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That's the kind of transformation of their lives that they experienced because of the resurrection. But another thing that had to happen, another thing that had to happen in the

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Messiah is he had to bring a kingdom. A rule where he brought

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Jew and Gentile to God reconciled. See, the promise of the

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Old Testament, Isaiah chapter 2, Isaiah chapter 9, Isaiah chapter 11,

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Isaiah chapter 42, Daniel chapter 7. We can go on, Psalm chapter 2, Psalm 72,

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Psalm 1101 for days. The promise of the Messiah is that he was actually going to bring salvation to the ends of the earth.

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Every tribe, tongue, people, and nation would come to worship Yahweh because of the salvation that the

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Messiah brought. That he would establish justice and righteousness and his kingdom would grow over the entire world.

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The Messiah had to bring Jews and Gentiles together to God worshiping and loving the

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Lord God of Israel because of Messiah. And I have something to point out to everyone right now in this room.

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Here we sit in a really small town in Utah called Og -what?

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Ogden, okay? It's been a long week. And I want you to take a second now.

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Don't feel awkward about this, but you just need to see this in terms of fulfillment. Just take a gander around you for a second.

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Just take a look around for a second. I want you to just look for a second at all the different people and all the different colors.

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Now, I want you to raise your hand for the benefit of everyone to see this.

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Who in here is ethnically Jewish? Ethnically Jewish?

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Anybody? Okay, yeah, okay. Nobody? Not one person, wow.

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So here's the interesting thing to point out. The Messiah had to bring a rule that brought every tribe, people, tongue, and nation to God to worship and love the

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Lord God of Israel because of his salvation. And in this room right now, we have all of us, all of us are the descendants of pagan parents.

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Not one person in here, ethnically Jewish, an Israelite descended from Israel physically, not one person.

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And yet every person in this room who knows Jesus Christ worships and loves the Lord God of Israel because of Jesus Christ.

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Look at the different colors in this room. How powerful and glorious is that?

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Is Jesus the Messiah? What's your answer? No. Yes, he is.

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But the answer is most definitely. I've been trying so hard to teach you this. I'm going home now.

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No, I'm just kidding. Okay, most definitely he is. Messianic prophecy, original life of Jesus, the symbols fulfilled in the transformation of the lives of the apostles.

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Most definitely, Jesus is the Messiah. If you don't know him, repent and believe in the gospel.

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Let's pray. Father, please bless the message that went out today for your glory. I pray that you would root these truths into the hearts and minds of your people,

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Lord, and that we would tell them to the world, Lord, so that you would expand your kingdom and victory in the gospel.