Lightly edited for readability while preserving the speaker’s meaning and substantive statements.
Okay, we want to welcome everyone this morning. This is week three in apologetics, so this will be class three, the divine inspiration of the Bible part two. The reason I decided to share these last two classes in apologetics because I believe they're helpful to every Christian to um, you know, strengthen your faith and also give you an answer uh, to the skeptics out there and all the lies and stuff that's going on. Uh, you know, in the social media about Jesus being a historical figure or not and just there's so many lies and so many people think they're experts out there because uh, they watch YouTube videos, but um, you know, there's a lot of misinformation, disinformation, and just outright false stuff on the internets. So, we have to dig in and so we're digging into uh, stuff, you know, back back when I started as in the ministry 31 years ago, there was no internet. So, like I've said many times before, you actually had to go to real libraries and look up real books and that's how you did research. And so, um, anyway, so we're going to cover some of that stuff. We're going to cover some history this morning. But again, this is apologetics class three, divine inspiration of the Bible part two. Um, and I haven't decided on your assignment, but I'll figure out one before the class is over. Uh, we're going to be moving on this week. Um, but last week and and well, just just kind of update, we did an introduction uh, in our first week, we did introduction to apologetics. And just to give you the the definition, apologetics, the Greek word apologia, just simply means to give a defense of the gospel, give an answer, to give reasons why you believe, and and the evidence. And so, we've talked about that there's evidence the evidence is that we look at manuscript evidence, archaeological evidence, fulfilled prophecy, historical evidence. We have, you know, the writings of other historians, non-Christian historians that confirm these things. So, we're going to see some of that today. But today mainly we're going to focus on the prophecies of the Bible. And again, you've seen this slide several times, but I'm going to put it up here again because we're going to talk about the Old Testament prophecies cuz last week we established that the Old Testament was finished to Malachi, finished in about 450 BC, at least by 400 BC. And that there's hundreds and hundreds of prophecies fulfilled, you know, given in the Old Testament that we see fulfilled after the fact and fulfilled specifically by the coming of Jesus about 300 and something. Fulfilled. And no other religious book or text can make that claim. I've said
that before, but I'm going to say it again and again and again. Muhammad, for instance, cannot point to any ancient scripture, literature, writings. Muhammad can't point to anything foretelling his coming, specifically where he would be born, his life, his death, what he would do. Muhammad has nothing like that. But Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the Messiah, God who came in the flesh, has hundreds and hundreds of prophecies foretelling very specifics, where he would be born, where he would live at different times, his ministry, how he would die, everything. He would be raised the dead. Very specific stuff that is historical. But I want to read this again. The Bible is unique above all other religious texts. So, this is not just that this is not a biased Christian claim. This is not uh exaggeration. There is no other like it. The Bible has more manuscript evidence than any 10 pieces of ancient literature combined. There are more than 24,000 copies of portions of the New Testament in existence today, some of which date back to the 1st century when it was all happening. In comparison, the Iliad by Homer only has 643 surviving manuscripts. As we talked about a lot last week, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls written in Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, which contains all the books of the Old Testament except Esther, and includes a copy of the Book of Enoch. These manuscripts, some dating back to 300 BC, confirmed that the Old Testament scriptures were translated accurately for the last 2,300 years. Uh the Isaiah scroll, for instance, was compared to the Isaiah that we have today in our Bibles and found to be identical. So, we have we have an unbelievable uh book and testimony and history and archaeology and manuscript evidence beyond any other book in ancient literature. If you throw the Bible out, you have to throw out all of other ancient history books. You just You just have to. There's no other way. Again, you've seen this slide, but I'm going to repeat this again because this is so vitally important. And the reason I repeat this stuff, I want it to get in your head, also that you know it's important, but that you get it in your head. And that's, you know, and I I say it this way, the the quantity and the specificity of fulfilled Bible prophecy is the DNA evidence of the God of the Bible being the true creator. And that's is one of one of the very outstanding and undeniably unique aspect of Jesus' life is that it fulfilled literally hundreds of predictions and prophecies written in the Bible made by ancient prophets and seers, many of them centuries before he was born. These prophecies gave specific details regarding his birth, life, death that no mere mortal could possibly fulfill. And we're going to look at that today. We're going to look at some of the specific prophecies in the first books of the Bible. Over 300 such predictions about
the Messiah or savior can be found. 20th century archaeological discoveries of hundreds of ancient Old Testament manuscripts have proven without a doubt that these prophecies were indeed written centuries before Jesus was born. There be some goofballs out there that try to say, "Oh, the prophecies of Jesus were written after his birth, his life, his death, his ministry." It's just nonsense, okay? It does not Anybody that that knows anything about history knows that's not true. Now, we talked about this last week, but again, covering this ground again cuz this is vitally important. The Septuagint version lets you know that we there was a secular king, King Ptolemy, the king of Egypt, Ptolemy II Philadelphus, ordered a translation of the Hebrew scriptures, the Hebrew Bible, what we now call the Old Testament. He ordered that translated from Hebrew to Greek and he to put in the library in Alexandria. And so, that happened in around 248 to 250 BC. That is a historical fact, okay? The Septuagint version became widely used um for the next 2 300 years there and more. But anyway, the Septuagint version was the first translation of the Old Testament from Hebrew to Greek. It was ordered to be done by the king of Egypt, Ptolemy II Philadelphus, around 250 to 248 BC to put in his famous library in Alexandria. The significance of the Septuagint version done by a non-Christian king in 248 BC is that it proves that we had the Hebrew scriptures, the Old Testament, Genesis to Malachi, long before Jesus was born and started his ministry from a credible, non-Christian source. It also proves that the detailed prophecies about Jesus were not written after his death uh uh his birth, rather, and ministry into the 1st century AD as some critics accuse. Vitally important that you get this down in you to understand because this is what the arguments that come out from atheists and agnostics and so on and so forth. So, as we move on here, I want to get back again. We're we're covering some ground that we covered last week, but I it's important because as we we're transitioning into talking about uh we're still talking about the Old Testament, but we're talking about the prophecies of Jesus that were fulfilled in the New Testament of his first coming. And just so you see, here's Flavius Josephus, the complete works of Josephus. He was the 1st century Jewish historian, not a Christian. And this is what he said. So, what I'm getting at is the Bible foretold Well, we're going to look at foretold the Messiah coming. And we see that Jesus fulfilled those prophecies. So, so what's interesting when you have that, you have people now, right on right on the internet, with their denying that Jesus was a real historical figure. Yet, again, Christian, non-Christian, and
Jewish historians say he existed. All right? So, what do we do? We throw out history because they got an an an opinion from the internet. Right? But no, we don't. Josephus said this at at this time, "There was a wise man called Jesus, and his conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. Many people among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. Now, remember that. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and die. So, Josephus says this, that Pilate Pontius Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die, but those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. So, then it tells you the church continued, right? I mean, amazing. They reported that he had appeared to them 3 days after his crucifixion and that he was alive. Accordingly, he was perhaps the Messiah concerning whom the prophets have reported wonders, and the tribe of the Christians so named after him has not disappeared to this day. Josephus, The Antiquities of the Jews, Book 18, Chapter 3, Paragraph 3. So, you know what you should do? You should find you a copy of this Josephus and look it up for yourself. But, here's a first-century historian. Now, let's go back and I I shared this with you last week, but we I want you to see the Roman historian, and very much respected Roman historian, Tacitus. Cornelius Tacitus, AD 56 to AD 117, was a senator and historian of the Roman Empire. In 115 AD, Tacitus wrote the following in the Book 15, Chapter 44 of The Annals. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations called Christians by the populace. Christus, or Christ, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty, which is crucifixion, during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate. So, here both historians, Roman, Tacitus, Jewish, Josephus, say that Jesus was crucified, and that he was tried and that order came from Pontius Pilate. Okay? Now, some interesting some more information I didn't give you last week on Tacitus. And this this is a picture of a very very old copy of his writings. And there it is again. But let me skip on down. This is the same thing. This is just again another source, another person. I think this was from biblical archaeology or something.com or whatever there. Something I didn't know this about Tacitus until I I read this little bit right here, which makes sense. I knew he was not a Christian and he was In fact, he was actually very anti-Christian. Tacitus was. So, the fact that he wrote that is
telling because that shows you an enemy of Christians admitted that this was a historic event that Jesus Christ lived, was crucified, was executed under Pontius Pilate, and that that that continued. Tacitus' terse statement about Christians clearly corroborates the New Testament on certain historical details of Jesus' death. Tacitus presents four pieces of accurate knowledge about Jesus. Christus, used by Tacitus to refer to Jesus, was one distinctive way by which some referred to him, even though Tacitus mistakenly took it for a personal name rather than a title. This Christus was associated with the beginning of a movement of Christians whose name originated from his. So, again, his history he's putting here. He was executed by the Roman governor of Judea. And the time of his death was during Pontius Pilate's governorship of Judea during the reign of Tiberius. Many New Testament scholars date Jesus' death to 29 CE. Pilate governed Judea in 26 through 36 CE while Tiberius was emperor 14 through 37 CE. So, that gives you that. But we find out here in this bottom paragraph here that earlier uh in his career when Tacitus was proconsul of Asia, he likely supervised trials, questioned people accused of being Christians, and judged and punished those whom he found guilty as his friend Pliny the Younger had done when he was uh to the provincial governor. Uh thus Tacitus stood a very good chance of becoming aware of information that he characteristically would have wanted to verify before accepting it as true. So, he said he's judge over Christians, people accused of being Christians not worshipping the emperor, not being loyal to Rome. Um just amazing, isn't it? That this man confirms the historic Jesus Christ and that he was killed under Pontius Pilate. Then we have this interesting stone here. It's called the Pilate Stone. And the reason I bring this up because not only there this is an inscription upon limestone, this is historical, you could say manuscript evidence from a non-Christian, non-Jewish source, right? Confirming Pontius Pilate. And it's uh so it's it's both manuscript evidence and a piece of archaeology. Let's look at this. The Pilate Stone is a damaged block of carved limestone with a partially intact inscription attributing to and mentioning Pontius Pilate, a prefect of the Roman province of Judea from AD 26 to 36. It was discovered at the archaeological site of Caesarea Maritima in 1961. The artifact is particularly significant because it is an archaeological find to
uh of an authentic first-century Roman inscription mentioning the name Pontius Pilatus. It is contemporary to Pilate's lifetime and accords with uh uh what is known of his reported career. In fact, the writing constitutes the earliest surviving record of a contemporaneous evidence for the historical existence of this person otherwise known from the New Testament, Jewish literature, and brief mentions in retrospective Roman histories which have uh have themselves survived in still later copies. So, here you have again, I'm I'm putting this forth, a fairy tale does not have multiple historians attributing um the truthfulness of this of these people and these events. So, what I'm saying is when you look at people and you and they want to say, "Well, that's that's just the Bible." And you say, "No, Roman history. Jewish history. Archaeology have confirmed that these events were not fairy tales. They were true. They happened. They were recorded. And we have the evidence. And God made sure I believe God made sure we had the evidence so that we can say, "You know what? My faith My faith in the Bible, my faith in Jesus Christ as the Messiah, the savior, um my faith in true biblical Christianity, um is not just based on blind faith. It's not just on blind faith in the Bible. It's based on historical evidence, archaeological evidence. Um and as we're going to see, the supernatural aspect of specific fulfilled prophecy. I mean, you can't Again, show me a book that does this. That is both an accurate historical document of things that happened thousands and thousands of years ago. Confirmed again and again and again. But also told you things that would happen far in advance. Yeah, again and again and again and again, right? So, let's keep going here. So, we're back to this Luke 24:44. Again, this one's important. We mentioned this the other day. But Jesus said, "These are the words which I speak unto you while I was yet with you that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, in the prophets, and in the Psalms concerning me." So, here the Apostle Luke recording what Jesus said, Jesus stated that there are things in the law of Moses, in the prophets, and in the Psalms concerning him. Things written a minimum of 450 and 50 years before he was born, minimum. Some of them written, as you're going to
see, Isaiah and Micah, 750 BC. David, 1,000 BC. Going back to Moses, about 1,500 BC. Going So, even going back to the Garden of Eden, there was a prophecy. So, going back about 6,000 years. Right? Um but let's look at some of these. We're going to look at these. So, what were these things that were written in the law of Moses and in the prophets and in the Psalms concerning Jesus? So, we're going to look at them today and you're going to have to you're going to have to write these down. I am going to try to make these PowerPoints available to the students, so in some way. We'll figure that out. But anyway, let's keep going here. So, we ask this question. So, Jesus Christ, the Messiah foretold. Let's look at a a few of these passages. He would be the seed of a woman. So, this is in Genesis 3:15. The Lord said to the serpent, "I'm going to put enmity between your seed and her seed and you're going to bruise his heel, but he's going to bruise your head. So, right there, the earliest probably going back to the Garden of Eden, actually. Of course, God had Moses write this down, but the prophecy is much older than that. Much older than the time. So, he would be the seed of a woman, meaning, again, as we're going to get into that virgin birth thing. A human man not being involved, but a human woman being involved to bring the Messiah into the world. Genesis 18:18 fulfilled, we see in Matthew 1:1 and Luke 3: 34. Promise seed of Abraham. So, the descendant the family he would come from. So, he would be of the seed of Abraham. So, that narrows it down, doesn't it? Can't just be anybody across the world, any group of people. So, that's very specific where the Messiah would come from. Uh again, promise seed of Isaac. Promise seed of Israel. So, as you see that continued, this gives you the scriptures. Genesis 17:19, Numbers 24:17. Here's some more. Messiah would be from the We narrow it down, so we went from Abraham, right? Now, we went to Isaac, then we went to Israel, and Israel had what? 12 sons. So, now we narrow it down to which of the 12 sons, which of the tribe he would come from. So, the Messiah would come from the tribe of Judah. Genesis 49:10. Again, we're not looking up all these scriptures this morning cuz we'd be here for hours upon hours. I want you to look them up. And it says my the Messiah to be from the tribe of Judah, and then we see where that's fulfilled. Heir to the throne of David. Isaiah 9:7. We are going to turn to that one in minute. So, it came to be born in Bethlehem, Micah 5:2, we see fulfilled in Matthew 2 and Luke
2. Time of birth prophesied, Daniel 9:25. Daniel foretold the 469 weeks of years that would take place from the time that the city was to be restored, the city of Jerusalem, from that decree, puts you to the times the Messiah would appear and he would be cut off but not for himself. So, Daniel even told you the time period the Messiah would show up. So, so you have the family he would come from, the place he would be born, and then you have the time frame in which he would appear from Daniel 9. And then, of course, Jesus to be born of a virgin, that's Isaiah 7:14. We're going to cover that in detail this morning cuz that is absolutely important. It's amazing, even the Quran admits this. Y'all know that? Even Muhammad admitted this right here. That Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary. All right, now we need to deal with this because this is a something actually, it's funny, something actually that the Muslims try to argue about Jesus being the heir to the throne of David because there was a curse on Coniah, the king of one of the kings of Judah. He was the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, who was taken into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar in 597 BC. Jeremiah curses Coniah, the son of Jehoiakim, uh Jeremiah 22 24 through 30, and we may turn there. In fact, I'm just going to I'll turn there and read this in a second because he puts a curse on the line there. Unless you have a curse was pronounced on Coniah that none of his descendants would prosper sitting on the throne of David. Had our Lord Jesus been the biological son of Joseph, he could not be successful on the throne of David because of this curse. But since he came biologically only through Mary's lineage, he was not affected by the curse of Jehoiakim or Coniah. And that's it. If you can read that whole thing, the whole curse and story is Jeremiah 20 chapter 22 24 through 30. And here's your little picture of somebody that put together the line. There's Jehoiakim, the curse came down through Joseph. So what they're saying is Joseph was basically Jesus' legal father. But not his biological father. So his line of his humanity only comes from Mary's side. So it was not affected by that curse. It's important you know that. It'll come up, believe me. There'll be people go, "Oh, Jesus could not be on the throne of David because of this the curse on the on the descendants of the kings of
Judah, but it was on this particular line here, Mary's line. All right? All right, let's look at this. This is just interesting. You can look this up in your lexicons. But it says in Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary of whom and just remember of whom was born Jesus who is called Christ. Now, a lot of people, you know, of course the Jews would like to jump on it and say, "Oh, he's talking about Jesus came from Joseph." No, we know that the Holy Spirit came upon Mary supernaturally. She conceived. And so it when he ends it says the husband of Mary, Mary here of whom, it's interesting that the phrase of whom is feminine in in the Greek. So, it's kind of showing, you know, we're not talking about Joseph this of whom we're talking about Mary is was born Jesus the Christ. Matthew the word of whom is in the feminine singular. This indicates clearly that Jesus was born of Mary only and not not Mary and Joseph. It is one of the strongest evidences for Jesus' virgin birth. All right, here's some more prophecies that were in the Old Testament fulfilled surrounding the right after Jesus was born. Uh the massacre of the the infants prophesied in Jeremiah 31:15 fulfilled we see in Matthew 2:16-18. Jesus would spend time in Egypt Hosea 11:1. He says, "I'll call my son out of Egypt." A prophecy in Hosea and then we see it fulfilled Matthew 2 remember uh the Lord the angels spoke to Joseph, "Take Mary and Jesus into Egypt because Herod seeks his life." And then, you know, so Hosea 11 then God spoke to him basically bring my son out of Egypt and they moved into Nazareth after this. The Messiah would minister in Galilee. This is kind of an overlooked prophecy many times. Isaiah 9:1-2 talks about Jesus would that Galilee would be in great darkness and the light would shine there. And that Jesus would begin his ministry in Galilee. So, there's just many specifics. Uh he would be a prophet. Deuteronomy 18:15. Now, what's interesting about that if you look up Deuteronomy 18:15 Moses prophesied said, "The Lord is going to raise up a prophet like unto me." Now, what did God use Moses to do? God used Moses in many supernatural signs and wonders and miracles, right? He used Moses to bring judgment upon the most powerful nation on the earth. He also used Moses to establish the law and basically that that entire covenant. Now that's significant because when Jesus Jesus came to establish the new covenant.
He did many signs and wonders and and miracles and he will be the returning king who will bring judgment upon the kingdoms of this world. So Satan's kingdom that will be the the final end time kingdom of the Antichrist. So think about that how specific that is. Who else in this time frame can fulfill that? You know, John chapter 6 I even John 1 he talks about it. He talks about how the law came by Moses but grace and truth by Jesus Christ. So where God used Moses to establish to really establish the nation of Israel, to establish the law and establish the old covenant. It was all to point to Jesus. But Jesus came to establish the new covenant. I wish I could get the Torah people to understand that. They keep wanting to live under Moses and but Jesus came to establish the new. All right, so of course Psalm 110 written 1,000 BC says that uh the Messiah would be a priest after the order of Melchizedek. And we see the fulfillment of that in the book of Hebrews as Jesus becomes our high priest and he's from the tribe of Judah, not the tribe of Levi. And so the book of Hebrews I believe the Apostle Paul explains how that uh the Levitical priesthood again, the law of Moses done away with. Now the Melchizedek priesthood, Jesus is the high priest. It changed from old covenant to new covenant. But that was foretold. Look at that, 1,000 BC. But fulfilled in Jesus, right? Uh let's keep going here. We've got a lot to get through. Uh Jesus was to be rejected by his own people. Isaiah 53:3. In fact, I want to turn there. We'll go ahead and turn there. Cuz Isaiah 53 is a very, very important chapter. You hear that, students? Isaiah 53 is a very, very important chapter. Again, Isaiah confirmed to be written 750 BC. Uh the Old Testament canon finished 450 BC. We know Isaiah was in the Septuagint version, translated in 250 to 48 BC. And so this is this has always been in here. But let's read this. Think about this when you when you know what happened with Jesus. Now, we know what happened. Who hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, as a root out of dry ground. He hath no form, no comeliness. And when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. Now, I think that's right there just saying the Messiah is going to what? Grow up. Meaning he will be born as a human. He's going to grow up.
And that is he's going to be it's going to he's going to appear to be so normal. Just your average person. That there's, you know, even his own brothers initially, even when he started healing the sick and casting out demons and they still didn't believe him. Because they're like, you know, he's just a dude, right? It's just he's just a man. Because he just looked like everybody else. Let's keep going. Verse three. He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and we hid as it were our faces from him. He was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. And that's interesting, the book of Matthew translates this that he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows and about he bore our sicknesses. And then if you doubt that, he goes on to talk about it here. Verse five, but he was wounded for our transgressions. So this begins to show that there would be the Messiah would would suffer wounds. He would bleed. He would he would die, as we'll see, but he would suffer and shed his blood for our transgressions. So that talks about the atoning death of the Messiah, that he would come to atone for our sins. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. So here all we have is we we have so much here. He's going to be wounded because he's going to be paying the price for our transgressions. He's going to be bruised for our iniquities. The fact that it says that with his stripes we are healed, meaning he's also going to be beaten with a whip. I mean, how specific can you get, right? And again, it's historical fact that Pontius Pilate had Jesus whipped or scourged before he was wounded and of course he was bruised by the beating he took from Roman soldiers. And then he was wounded on the cross when they nailed his hands and feet there. I read this I'm going to tell you a little story real quick. When I went to Israel in 1988, I had this entire chapter memorized because I knew I would be witnessing to Jews. And I knew if you're going to convince a Jew that Jesus is the Messiah, they've had so much propaganda and so many things thrown at them to to get them away from that, you have to prove it to them from their scriptures, from their Bible. They don't accept the New Testament, but they do accept the Old Testament, right? They know the book of Isaiah is legit. So, I remember when we flew from Atlanta to Paris, France, and in Paris, we were changing planes to get on Israeli Airlines to fly to Tel Aviv. And um
I know the situation between my brother and I, the way we were flying was suspicious because at the point we we we flew with one-way tickets and no checked luggage. So, immediately Israelis are going to go, "Okay, who are these guys?" right? And um of course we had no records on us or anything, so it's like, "We don't know who these guys are, what they're doing." So, we get pulled out in Paris in the airport by Israeli security before they're going to let us get on Israeli Airlines. And they go through everything. And we get questioned by what I believe to be two Mossad agents. This is just my opinion that they were very interested in what we were doing and why we were going to their country, and I mean, they went through everything in our luggage and you know, searched us and they were very nice. I mean, they weren't rude or anything like that. They were just, you know, I mean, I remember the big guy. He He He He was as wide as he was tall, right? This guy. This Israeli security guy and he I remember him saying, you know, he said in his Israeli accent, "Our Our country is small and we have many enemies." And he said, you know, he was just saying, I hope you understand, but that's why we have to check you out. But there was a a female officer and she was going through he he left and then she was going through our stuff and so I don't know, I just felt led by the Lord to talk to her uh and so, you know, cuz we told him we're Christians, you know, and they saw we had Christian tracks and Bibles and literature. So they knew okay, you know, these guys are just crazy Christians headed to to Israel. I guess they're kind of used to that, right? So I start talking to this Israeli security officer, probably Mossad. And um you know, tough girl. Start talking to her but I I start quoting this verse. I said, so you are you familiar with the prophet Isaiah? She said, yeah. Uh she said, I went to Hebrew school. I said, well do you believe in God? She's like, I don't know. You know, I mean, so she was even an Israeli that was doubting even in in God, you know. So I start quoting this. I said, you know, this was written by your prophet Isaiah in 750 BC. And I start quoting this entire chapter to her. Right? I said, you can look it up. It's right here. You can look it up in your Bible. You can read it in Hebrew. But I'm quoting it to her and I get down through and I read the whole thing. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. Chastisement of our peace was upon him. And I start going down and I said I said, don't you see that Jesus is the Messiah. He had to die for our sins. He became the lamb of God. He became the sacrifice. The tears were rolling down her face. She didn't say a word.
Didn't say a word, just tears flowing. She packed our stuff up. Like, I got to get these guys out of here. Just go get on the plane. She carried our bags herself to the plane. Like, go. Please leave. But, the tears are running down her face. That's how powerful this is. Because it's just such such truth. 750 years before he was even born. And another 30 years, 33 years before he would die this way. As our sacrifice. Again, no other book, no other religious writing even gets close to this. If If this was the only chapter we had like this, it would be enough. Because he goes on to say, "We like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." The gospel, 750 years before the Messiah would even come. Here it is. "He was oppressed, he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment." So, that talks about he would he was thrown in prison. He was brought before the judgment of who? Pontius Pilate. "Says, who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off out of the land of the living. Why was he cut off? For the transgression of my people was he stricken." For sin, for transgression, for iniquity was he killed as a lamb, as a sacrifice, as an atonement. Or the the word we learned in our redemption class, the propitiation. Right? "He made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death." So, he was buried in a rich man's tomb. I've been in that tomb. That is a fact. He was buried in a rich man's tomb, Joseph of Arimathea. And I've been there. And it's not the one the Catholics say, it's the other one. Which is usually always the case. Right? Look at this, because he had done Look at this, because he had done no violence, Jesus never did anything wrong, no violence, no evil, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. For he hath put to him to gree- grief when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin. So, he's saying right there the Messiah would be an offering for our sin. He shall see his seed. Now, look at this right here. He says, "He shall prolong his days." Well, wait a minute. He's going to die, right? Prolong his days, what's that mean? He'll be raised from the dead. He'll live forever. And we'll get to that.
There are prophecies about the Messiah being raised from the dead and being eternal, right? And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied. By his knowledge, listen to this, by his knowledge, what he goes through, by his ex- The word knowledge means experience, uh information gained by experience. By his knowledge or his experience shall my righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he hath poured out his soul unto death. He was numbered with the transgressors and bear the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors. So, here it tells you that he was numbered with the transgressors, crucified between two criminals, right? And it says he bear the the of many, so he took the sins of the world upon him. And he made intercession for the transgressors. Remember him saying, "Forgive them, Father, they know not what they do." You have it all here in one chapter, just about. Just about every bit of it. 750 years. And really as you could say 780 plus years before he this event would happen. So, this is powerful stuff. This cannot be denied. Um many years ago I was studying, again, the old-fashioned way, books and lexicons and Bibles and all over my kitchen table. And a friend of a friend walked in who was Jewish. Went to the Jewish temple. She made a mistake. She asked, "What are you doing?" Cuz she saw me studying the Bible. I said, "Well, I just happen to be studying the prophecies in Jeremiah and other places about the new covenant and Jesus. So, I started telling her about it. She she visibly began shaking. But in a good way, because then she said, "You know," she said, "I I I I said, 'This is all in yours. Go get your Go get your version.' It's all in there." So, I showed her this stuff. And she was like, "I I I I I I I I got to get you you you I got to get you to talk to my rabbi." I'm like, "Why don't you read this and you talk to him? And ask him, 'What is this?'" All right. Oh boy, you want to see a rabbi do a dance, a theological some theological monkey gymnastics, start asking about Isaiah 53. All right. But here it is, Jesus was to be rejected by his people. Which he was. Psalm 2. Why do the heathen rage? The people
imagine a vain thing. They rise up against the Lord against his anointed his Christ his Messiah. Characteristics of Jesus were prophesied. He would magnify the law make it honorable. He would be just holy. Where is all this stuff in here? I mean we could just get down his triumphal entry into Jerusalem prophesied Zechariah 9. He will come riding a colt. Of course he did that. He would be betrayed by a friend. Foretold in Psalm 41. Talked about he that eats with me sits at my table with me and eats with me will lift up his heel against me. I mean Jesus was betrayed at the last supper at the Passover meal. By And he called Judas his friend. And he said friend do you betray the son of man with a kiss? Messiah to be Look at this. How specific is this? To be sold for 30 pieces of silver foretold in Zechariah 11 12 and 13. We see fulfilled in Matthew 20 and 27. Where Judas took 30 pieces of silver to betray him. The Bible even talks about the silver would be returned. This This one is You want to talk about a wild prophecy? This prophecy right here says the silver would be returned and it would buy a specific field and that happened. Judas threw it down. They wouldn't take the money said it's blood money. So they went and bought a field to bury people in. Now could Jesus control any of this in sense of as a man do this make this happen? No, but all this happened. That Judas' office is as an apostle would be taken over by another. See that and that fulfilled in Acts chapter 1. False witnesses to accuse him Psalm 27 Psalm 35. See that fulfilled Messiah would be silent when accused. Remember how finally Pilate had to push him to speak? He would be smitten and spat upon Isaiah 50:6. These are all important. All right. Messiah would be hated without a cause Psalm 69 they hated me without a cause cuz he never sinned. He was sinless. Being God in the flesh he lived a sinless life because he was conceived by the Holy Spirit. He was not tainted by Adam and Eve's sin. But hated without a cause. Think about it. Jesus just went about doing good. He healed sick people. He cleansed lepers. He opened the eyes of the blind. He raised the dead. He said, "Love each other. Forgive each other." And yet they killed him. Think about that. I mean none of us have have lived a sinless life. He lived a sinless life and yet they still killed him. Messiah was to suffer for the sins of others. We just read that in Isaiah 53.
Emmanuel or God with us will be crucified with sinners. We read that. Messiah's hands and feet to be pierced Psalm 22. We are going to turn to that in just a second. How specific is that? Psalm 22 1000 BC his hands and feet pierced as well as his side. But that's foretold Psalm 22 Zechariah 12. You see the fulfillment John 19. Jesus would be mocked and insulted Psalm 22. We see it fulfilled Matthew 27 Mark 15. Messiah to be given gall and vinegar Psalm 69. We see that fulfilled while he was on the cross. They offered him the gall and the vinegar. He refused to drink it. He would hear the scriptures mocked. And they did that, of course. If you're Elijah the Christ, come down from the cross, you know. Messiah would pray for his enemies. Psalm 109, Isaiah 53:12. Fulfilled Luke 23:34. Messiah's side was to be pierced. Zechariah 12:10. Soldiers would cast lots for his coat. Psalm 22. That's why we're going to read Psalm 22 in a minute. Psalm 22 is amazing. Now, here we go. King David prophesied in 1000 BC in Psalm 22 that his hands and feet would be pierced. Let's look at this. Said, "All that see me will laugh me to scorn. I am poured out like water. All my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It is melted in the midst of my bowels." Can you imagine bearing the sins of mankind while hanging on the cross and what that did to his heart, to his spirit, to his soul, bearing all of that? Only Only God in the flesh could do that, folks. No man can do that. No mere man. He said, "My strength is dried up like a potsherd. My tongue cleaveth to my jaws. They pierced my hands and my feet." Isn't that amazing? Let's just turn there. Can we Can we flip to Psalm 22? I want to read the whole thing. Psalm 22, again. Absolute fact of history. This was written over 1,000 years before Jesus came before he was born, before he died on the cross for our sins. You're going to hear something familiar. Now, think about this. In the same chapter it talks about they pierced my hands and my feet. It starts out with this. Psalm 22:1. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me and from the words of my roaring? Does that sound familiar?
See, Jesus is recorded he said that on the cross while hanging on the cross. He said, "Oh my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not and in the night season I am not silent, but thou art holy. Oh, thou that inhabits the praises of Israel. Our fathers trusted in thee. They trusted in thee and thou didst deliver them. They cried unto thee and were delivered. They trusted in thee and were not confounded, but I am a worm and no man. A reproach of men and despised of the people. All they that see me laugh me to scorn. They shoot out the lip. They shake their head. Listen this, verse 8. Say, "He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him. Let him deliver him seeing he delights him." Remember they said, "If he's of God, let you know, if God's his father, let him come down Let him deliver him. Let him bring him down." Remember the mocking? Verse 9, but thou art he that took me out of the womb. Thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother's breast. I was cast upon thee from the womb. Thou art my God from my mother's belly. Be not far from me, for trouble is near. For there's none to help. Many bulls have compassed me or surrounded me. Strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round. They gaped upon me with their mouths as ravening and a roaring lion. I am poured out like water. All my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It is melted in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like a potsherd. My tongue cleaveth to my jaws. Thou hast brought me into the dust of death. For dogs, meaning Gentiles, have compassed me or surrounded me. The assembly of the wicked have enclosed me. They pierced my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones. They look and they stare upon me. They part my garments among them. They cast lots upon my vesture. Now, you can read on, but I want to stop there because I want you to I just want you to think about that for a minute. King David was was his hands and feet pierced? No. What's interesting is you see sometimes in these in these Psalms and sometimes in prophetic things, you see you'll see all of a sudden he's talking about one thing and then boom, there's this like this the Holy Spirit inspired this section. It couldn't be referring to himself. You know, just this supernatural, here's a prophecy that's going to be so specific, it's going to blow people's minds. But think about this, how many people today, people out there that are into denying Jesus, denying, you know, into the zeitgeist and all that nonsense or the Mithra lie and all this stuff where they're trying to say Jesus is is a myth. But how many people know about this? How many people know that they can prove that this right here, Psalm 22, was written 1,000 BC, historical fact, and then you don't see this fulfilled until,
you know, 33, 32, 33 BC, in Jesus Christ. And then you have hit historians like Josephus and the Roman senator Tacitus saying, "Yes, Jesus suffered under Pontius Pilate the ultimate penalty, which was crucifixion." Isn't that amazing? But I I tell you the truth, over the years, I've not heard very many preachers and pastors and Christians even talk about this, when this is one of the most powerful evidences you can give. When you put together the historical references, the Pilot Stone archaeology, and you put together with this and you show this here in the Septuagint version, you put all this together for somebody and they still won't believe the Bible, it's not it at this point at that point it's just willful ignorance. It's willful rejection. It's not It's not ignorance. It's No, it's been presented to you and you just don't want to hear it. Right? But, this is the kind of stuff that you've really got to give to those skeptical of the Bible of the scriptures, right? Here we go. Messiah's bones were not broken. Psalm 34:20. Remember they're going to break his legs, but when they came, he'd already died, so they didn't break his legs. Messiah be buried with the rich. Messiah be resurrected from the dead. Now, that's just This is important when Psalm 16:10. Just kind of mark that down. That's the same Psalm that Peter quotes in Acts 2. When he says, "You would not allow your holy one to see corruption." Meaning, Jesus would not be in the grave long enough to begin to decay. And he would not leave his soul in hell or in the underworld. Okay? Bible tells us Jesus did go down there and preach. There's two parts of the underworld, paradise and actually the place of torment, suffering, pain, the hot place. There's a gulf between the two. Psalm 16, very important. So, see, when you remember when when the day of Pentecost happened, Peter reminds them that the Messiah that you just crucified, that David said he would rise from the dead and he quotes of this verse. This Psalm 16 here. So, students, another important prophetic passage. Here Messiah would ascend up to heaven. Psalm 68, we see it fulfilled in Luke 24 Acts 1:9. Let's get a little bit of this the son because this is probably one of the most important passages here, too. Isaiah chapter 9. I speak of this one a lot because this one is so crystal clear declaring
the son who would be born to also be the everlasting father and the mighty God. You can't deny this. People that want to deny like Jehovah Witnesses and Mormons and Islam and and other Baha'i faith, other new age sects, you know, the Oprah crowd and the Deepak Chopra crowd. They want to deny Jesus as God in the flesh. Even a lot of Christians don't understand. How is the son the father and all this stuff and I've explained this many times. I'm not going to repeat it today, but this verse is irrefutable here. This passage in Isaiah when he says for unto us a child is born unto us a son is given and the government shall be upon his shoulder and his name shall be called wonderful, counselor the mighty God, the everlasting father, the prince of peace. Again irrefutable, the son Messiah would be God in the flesh. So, the Bible foretold this specifically. Here we see Luke 1:30, the angel of the Lord said, "Fear not, Mary, for thou has found favor with God and behold thou shall conceive in thy womb and bring forth a son and shall call his name Jesus and he shall be great and she shall be called the son of the highest. And the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David, and he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever. And his kingdom there shall be no end. Matthew 1:20, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, thou shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet saying, "Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, which being interpreted is God with us." So the Apostle Matthew uh clearly says that Jesus is the son who would also be Immanuel, God with us, that he would come to save his people from their sins. He would be born of a virgin, which takes us back to a very important prophecy in the Old Testament, Isaiah 7:14, Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold, a virgin, the Hebrew word almah, shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel, God with us. So the son born of this virgin would also be Immanuel, God with us, not a god, the mighty God, the everlasting father. Pastor Dean, that just fries my brain. Well, let it fry. Just let it fry until you just accept the way it is. All right? Just cook it, burn it up, unless you get
a a new mind. Let's get the mind of Christ, right? All right, but here it is. So this prophecy now Now you got to listen. People in the Torah movement right now who try to take this apart and say that that that that word shouldn't be translated virgin. Just a woman because the cuz a lot in the Torah movement are trying to just make Jesus out to be just a man, not God in the flesh. There is a denial within many aspects, many parts of the Torah observant movement to deny the deity of Jesus Christ. They have to. Cuz they they they they they trying again they trying to live under the old and not the new. Well, here we go. Let's let's look at the context. Let's alma meaning virgin Genesis 24:43-44. Behold, I stand by the well of water and it shall come to pass that when the virgin alma come up to draw water and I said to her give me I pray thee a little water of thy pitcher and she said to me both drink thou and I will also draw for thy camels, let the same be the woman whom the Lord had appointed for my master's son. So, this is when they were sent to you know the servant Abraham's servant was sent to find a wife for Isaac. Let me tell you. Was he hunting a hoe? No, he was hunting a virgin. Right? He wasn't hunting a hoe. But this one important this line here, this scripture here and also that word. So, I want you guys to know these things. Speaking of the Jesus will be born of a virgin. The Bible Micah 5:2. This is another very important verse you need to know. You should memorize really because this 750 BC-ish in that time period the prophet Micah said, but thou Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel whose goings forth have been from old, from everlasting. Now, I've said this before. It's very important to know that you have a good translation of the Bible that came from the uncorrupted text. I'm going to get into that more in the days ahead. We're going to talk about the text itself. Now, I'm going to say this. I'm not a King James only guy. I'm a Textus Receptus only guy, okay? All right. King James version is just a translation from the Textus Receptus, right? It's It's a particular line of transmission of of the scriptures. The King James Now, there are people out there that are trying to They'll start on the King James and they'll be like, "Oh, the King James itself is inspired." No, the King James is just a translation into English from the Textus Receptus, the received text.
And they didn't always translate They didn't always pick the best word to translate things sometimes. That's why you need to look up the Hebrew and Greek word. But, I'm going to go ahead and tell you in English, I know that the King James version was taken from the Textus Receptus. I've studied this for many years. I know it is the preserved text of the Lord. And so, that's why I stick with the King James and then just look up things that are, you know, maybe in not fully understood. You look up the words and you get a better understanding, but again, we're we're dealing with translation. So, it's always best to go back to the Hebrew and Greek, but you need to know what text. Now, concerning this verse right here, Micah 5:2, if your Bible says his origins from or from old, from ever- origins, if it uses that word, you have a corrupted text. You have a Bible taken from a corrupted text, translated from a corrupted Hebrew text. Because it is so vitally important. Here Here we have several things. We have three things in this prophecy 750 BC ish from the prophet Micah one of the minor prophets in the Old Testament. He says that the Messiah, the one who's going to be ruler in Israel, the king of kings and the lord of lords, the descendant of King David who will sit upon the throne, restore Israel to its power is going to come out of Bethlehem. So, Jesus the Messiah would have to come from Bethlehem and of course we have the story. We know that Joseph and Mary had to go and Caesar Augustus demanded the world to be taxed at the time. The Roman kingdom they had to return to Bethlehem. And why Bethlehem? That was the town of David. David was from Bethlehem. You go back and you read Samuel. Where did Samuel go to anoint David? Where did David live? Bethlehem. All right, so the one who's going to be ruler in Israel, this is long after David. This is you know, 250 years after David. He's talking about the Messiah. The one who's going to be ruler in Israel he's going to come from Bethlehem and his goings forth have been from old, from everlasting or in the Hebrew the days of eternity. Meaning the Messiah the one who would be born in Bethlehem, the one who's going to be ruler of everything he had no beginning. No beginning, no end. Well, there's only one entity that has no beginning and no end. And who is that? God almighty, the creator. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Yahweh. All right? So, see this verse covers a
few things, doesn't it? So, we have him being born of a virgin, but that virgin would have to somehow end up in Bethlehem. Does Muhammad have this? No. Krishna? Buddha? No. There's no one like this. So, the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem. Isn't it interesting? Beth lehem means house of bread. Messiah came from the house of bread to become the bread of life. Didn't he say, "I am the bread of life?" All right? He got in trouble for saying that, actually, didn't he? Hallelujah. So, that's that's where we will end today. Um there's a lot here. I mean, there's a lot of scriptures we could go through. I mean, I I didn't touch them. I have a book in my briefcase over here, 500 prophecies in the Old Testament and and listing all their fulfillment. There's no way we could not cover all those, but again, I want you guys to just again, we like I said, you can study all the props, you can go look them all up, and all the ones we covered today, I want you to go back in your Bibles, look this up, and look at where the prophecy was, look at what it was foretold, but those those historical facts, I want you to get down about Tacitus and Josephus and the Septuagint. I want you to really, really, really know those. All right, then. Well, I'm done for the day, so we say God bless you guys. Fire and Grace School of Ministry students, like I said, this week we're going to start picking it up the pace a little bit, so. All right. Class dismissed. Y'all have a great day.