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The Coming
of The Messiah
The
Old Testament, written long before Jesus Christ lived on
this earth, contains many predictions about the identity of the Jewish
Messiah. By studying these ancient prophecies and comparing
them
to the life of Jesus Christ described in the New Testament, we find
overwhelming evidence that the Bible is the inspired word of God.
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Predicted in
the Old Testament
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Fulfilled
in Jesus Christ |
In a
dream, God explicitly reveals to Daniel His plans concerning "one like
a son of man":
Dan.
7:13-14
- "In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a
son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient
of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority,
glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every
language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that
will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be
destroyed."
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Zech. 12:10
- In this verse, the LORD says, "They will look on
me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one
mourns for an only child."
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Mal. 4:5-6
-
the LORD will send the prophet Elijah before the day of the LORD to
reform the hearts of
Israel
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Luke 1:16-17 |
Gen. 3:15
- someone will come and crush the serpent's
[Satan's]
head
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1 John 3:8 |
Psalm 2
- the Messiah will be the Son of God
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Mat. 16:16 |
Micah 5:2
- a ruler whose origins are from old will come from
Bethlehem
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Luke 2:4-7 |
Zech. 9:9
- Israel's King will come "having salvation, gentle
and riding on the foal of a donkey"
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John
12:14-15 |
Jer. 23:5-6
- from David a King will come
called "THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS"
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Mat. 1:1
1 Cor. 1:30
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Isa. 7:14-15
- a virgin will give birth to a son who
will be called
Immanuel ("God with us")
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Mat. 1:21-23
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Isa. 9:6-7
- a child will be born and will be
called Mighty God and Everlasting Father; he will reign on
David’s throne forever
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John
10:30-38
Luke 1:32-33
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Isa. 53:9
- "...he
had
done no violence, nor was
any deceit in his mouth"
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John 8:46
2 Cor. 5:21
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| Isa. 53:11
- he will justify
many |
Rom. 3:21-26 |
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The
Messiah Would Be Rejected By His Own People
Concerning
God's 'servant',
Isaiah wrote the following:
Isa.
53:1-3 - "Who has believed our message and to whom has the
arm of the LORD been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender
shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty
to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire
him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and
familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was
despised, and we esteemed him not."
Psalm
118:22 - "The stone the builders rejected has become
the capstone;"
Peter
quoted this verse in 1 Pet. 2:7
to show how Jesus fulfilled this prophecy. He also quoted Isa. 28:16
in 1 Pet. 2:6,
which refers to someone as "a tested stone"
whom the LORD will lay in Zion.
Dan. 9:26
- "...the Anointed One will be cut off and will have
nothing..."
"Anointed One" in this verse
means Messiah, as seen by the Hebrew
word.
The Messiah
Would Suffer And Die
Isa.
52:13-15 - his form will be marred beyond
human likeness
Isa. 53:3
- will
be
despised, rejected by men, and
familiar with suffering
Isa. 53:5
- pierced for our
transgressions, crushed
for our
iniquities, by his wounds we are healed
Isa. 53:6
- "...the
Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all"
Isa. 53:7
- led like a lamb
to the slaughter
Isa. 53:8
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stricken for the transgression of God’s people
Isa. 53:12
- "...he
bore the sin of many and made
intercession for the transgressors" |
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Dan.
9:24-27 - 24"Seventy 'sevens' are
decreed for your people and your holy city to
finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for
wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision
and prophecy and to anoint the most holy. 25"Know
and understand this: From the issuing of the decree to restore
and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler,
comes, there will be seven 'sevens,' and sixty-two 'sevens.' It will be
rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble. 26After
the sixty-two 'sevens,' the Anointed One will be cut off and will have
nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy
the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will
continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed. 27He
will confirm a covenant with many for one 'seven.' In the
middle of the 'seven' he will put an end to sacrifice and
offering. And on a wing of the temple he will set up an abomination
that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on
him. |
Gabriel
Reveals The
Time Frame
In
this passage, the angel Gabriel gives Daniel
an overview
of the events still to come for the Jewish nation before
"the end"
takes place. Gabriel
declared that from the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild
Jerusalem, there would be seventy 'sevens' allotted for the
events listed in this prophecy to be completed (with a period of time
taking place between
the 69th
and 70th 'seven', where Israel experiences a hardening while God deals
with the
Gentiles, as Paul described in Rom. 11:25).
The Hebrew
word for 'seven'
used in this passage often means
a period of seven years, as also suggested by the context.
The "issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem"
happened around 445 B.C., when King Artaxeres gave Nehemiah permission
to go and
rebuild the destroyed city (Neh. 2:1-6).
So, moving ahead
seven
'sevens,' plus another sixty-two sevens, for a total
of 483
years, we arrive at the very time period when our Lord Jesus Christ,
"the Anointed
One", walked this earth (subtracting a few years because of
the difference between Biblical
years - 360 days - and Gregorian years - 365 days).
Therefore,
according to this prophecy,
the
Messiah came about 2,000
years ago!
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Scientific
Evidence
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Israel
Will Be Reborn
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The
End Times Foretold
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There
are several passages in the
Bible describing scientific
phenomena that only God could have understood at the time the
Bible was written. Scientists did not discover these facts
until
more recent technology was available.
Lev. 17:11
- God knew that the life of a creature is in its blood. In
other words, excessive blood loss results in death.
Job 38:16
- underwater springs
Isa. 40:22
- the earth is a "circle"
Luke
17:34-35-
When Jesus described the time of his return, he said, "...on
that
night two people will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other
left. Two
women will be grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other
left." This shows that he knew the earth was round, being
nighttime and daytime
simultaneously on different parts of the earth.
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Jerusalem
was destroyed and its
people scattered around 70 A.D. Almost 2000 years later
(1948),
the nation of Israel was
reestablished, being "gathered from many nations" back to their
homeland. This was miraculously predicted by the Hebrew
prophet
Ezekiel sometime between 586-573 B.C. when he spoke of the yet to come
battle of Gog and Magog (Ezekiel 38, 39).
Ezek.
38:8
- "After many days you [Gog] will be called to arms. In
future
years you will invade a land that has recovered from war, whose people
were gathered from many nations to the mountains of Israel, which had
long been desolate. They had been brought out from the nations, and now
all of them live in safety."
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Mat.
24:4-5
- "Jesus answered: "Watch out that no one deceives you. For
many
will come in my name, claiming, 'I am the Christ,' and will deceive
many."
Many
people
have come claiming to be the Christ. A number of
these have formed cults and deceived many.
Mat.
24:12-13
- "Because of the increase of wickedness,
the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the
end
will be saved."
Anyone
who
turns on the television can see that wickedness has increased
tremendously.
Mat.
24:14
- "And this gospel of the kingdom will be
preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the
end will come."
Although
Christianity began as a small sect, it has spread throughout
the world, as Jesus predicted.
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The
Church In The Last Days
There are a
number of prophecies in the New Testament that predict what the church
will be like in the last days. These descriptions of the
church are strikingly similar to the current condition of the
church.
2 Thess. 2:3 - "Let
no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except
there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the
son of perdition;"
(KJV)
2 Tim. 3:1-9
- In this passage, Paul gives an extensive
prophecy about the church in the last days.
Upon first glance, this passage
of scripture can appear to be describing the world, in general, during
the last days.
This, however, cannot be true, for several reasons.
First, the way that Paul describes these people sounds
just like Rom. 1:28-32,
where he is talking about the world.
There would be no purpose for this end times prediction
if he was just describing the world again.
Secondly, these people are "lovers of pleasure rather than
lovers of God" and even have a "form of godliness". It is
evident
that the world has no form of godliness whatsoever, as demonstrated by Rom. 1:28-32.
Third, it says, "Have
nothing to do with them." In 1 Cor.
5:9-10, Paul teaches the
Corinthians to not
associate with people in the church
who live sinfully, but he says that it would be impossible
to not associate with the people of this world, because you
would have to leave this world. Finally, 2 Tim. 3:8
says that "as far as
the faith is
concerned, [these
people] are rejected." There is no question as to whether or
not the world is accepted by God, so it is clear that Paul must be
talking about the church.
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2
Tim. 3:13 - "while evil men and impostors will go from bad
to worse, deceiving and being deceived."
The context of this verse
clearly shows that "evil men and impostors" is referring to
people within the church.
2
Tim 4:3-4
- "For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine.
Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a
great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to
hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn
aside
to myths."
Most people today do not put up
with sound doctrine. Many believe that the Bible has been
corrupted over time and is no longer trustworthy. For those
who do believe that the Bible is God's word, most do not live according
to it. Today's churchgoers have surrounded themselves with
preachers that tell them exactly what they want to hear.
Mat.
24:9-11
- "Then you will be handed over to be persecuted
and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of
me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will
betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will
appear
and deceive many people."
The
Christian church has become divided, and hundreds or even
thousands of denominations have been formed. Most of
these denominations preach a gospel far different than the one
presented in the Bible.
Mat.
24:37-39 - Many churches today believe
that we are currently
in
one of the best church ages yet, however, in Mat. 24:37-39,
Jesus compared
the time of "the coming of the Son
of Man" to the "days of Noah" (read Gen. 6:5-8
to see what the days of
Noah
were like). |
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Luke
21:10-11
- "Then he said to them: 'Nation will rise against
nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great
earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful
events and great signs from heaven.'"
This
sounds
very similar
to the last hundred years. For example: WWI,
WWII, increased earthquake activity, famines in
Africa, AIDS, SARS,
2004 Tsunami, and September 11th.
Rev. 9:16
- There would be an army in the last days consisting
of 200,000,000 troops (a number unheard of in Biblical times).
China has boasted that it could field such an army. |
