He is my life, my strength, my song This cornerstone This solid ground through the fiercest crowd and storm What heights of love whats are still This is the third class in our series called Prove it where we're looking at the Old Testament prophecies to prove the faith just like they did in the Book of Acts. And the question I always ask myself most of you have had a hard day at work and you fought the traffic to come down here to Brookline, ask yourselves the question, why is this important to me?
Why should this matter? I'm already a Christian. What do I need to know this for? Most of us, why does this matter? And a little reminder, two-thirds of the people in the world do not believe that Jesus was the Son of God. There are people from all different beliefs that live among us and it's really to equip us here and anywhere in the world to be able to convince others who don't believe. The world is about over 7 billion people at this point in time who live on the face of the earth. 1.7 billion are Buddhists.
How are you going to convince them? How would you convince them? Roughly a billion and a half Muslims in the world. How would you convince them? And don't forget about 14 million Jews in the world. And here we are in Brookline, in the Boston area. There's a lot of Jewish people around us. How on earth are we going to convince them? And what about this guy? Now, some of you know who that is. Some of you know who that is. What about people like this guy?
There are over a billion people who are just not religious at all, including the atheists and the agnostics in the world who just don't have any faith at all. That's Carl Sagan. Carl Sagan was an astronomer in the 20th century, very prominent skeptic of the faith. He was an agnostic. He didn't believe. And he said, " Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. " And I would say amen to that.
I was an agnostic at one point in my life, and I think that that's a fair statement, an extraordinary claim that Jesus was the Son of God. Do we have extraordinary evidence to back it up? And let me ask you a question tonight. All right. Could you personally provide extraordinary evidence to an unbeliever that Jesus was the Son of God? Could you do that right now? That's what this series is all about. In the Book of Acts and today, there are two sources of extraordinary evidence.
The first one is the eyewitness accounts. The people who saw Jesus die on the cross and saw Him rise from the dead, many of whom went to their death to spread the good news about that. So we have the eyewitness accounts, but that's only part of the extraordinary evidence that we have. The other thing is the fulfillment of prophecy. There are prophecies that were made five, six, seven, eight hundred years, 1,000 years, 1,500 years before the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. So we have that as well.
And really, that's what they relied on heavily in the Book of Acts to convince the unbelieving Jews and to take the gospel all over the world. So we're going to focus on the second part, which most Christians are the least familiar with, is the fulfillment of prophecy. Now, one of the major takeaways from the last lesson in my mind, the prophecy in 2 Samuel chapter 7 that was made to David through Nathan is an absolutely critical prophecy about the kingdom of God.
It talked about the eternal kingdom that would come from one of David's descendants who would build the temple, that he would be called the Son of God. So that's a key prophecy that perhaps many of us were not really that familiar with. Another point from the last class is that the words Messiah, Christ, and the Anointed One are the exact same word in three different languages. Anointed one is English, Christ is Greek, Messiah is Hebrew, okay? So it's the same word.
If you see any one of the words, it means exactly the same thing, like in Psalm 2. And the last part of the class, there are lots of other prophecies in the Old Testament that talk about the coming of the Christ, including where He was born and when He would come, all the different details about that. So I encourage you to go back and look at the notes. There's one more takeaway that I hope some of you got in the class. It wasn't explicitly mentioned. Christians, don't neglect any part of the Old Testament.
Don't neglect Second Kings. Chronicles, numbers, the minor prophets. There are nuggets. There are gold. There's great treasure hidden in those books. So don't neglect any corner of the Scriptures. Many of us learned early on that all Scripture is inspired by God. All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training, in righteousness. Many of us learned that years ago. It really means that.
Paul says in Romans chapter 15, " Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us. " It's written for the Christians. I'm going to read a quote from Justin Martyr. There's some great insights from the early Christians from the first 300 years. And I like to sprinkle those in just because a lot of times, their insights into the Scripture is much more powerful than the modern ones. So Justin Martyr is a second-century Christian, and he was having a discussion with Trypho, who was a Jew.
And he said, referring to the Old Testament prophecies, he said, " These words have neither been prepared by me nor embellished by the art of man. " But David sung them. Isaiah preached them. Zechariah proclaimed them. And Moses wrote them. Are you acquainted with them, Trypho? They are contained in your scriptures, or rather, not yours, but ours. Justin was a Samaritan, but he was a Christian. And his attitude was, " These are our scriptures. " The Old Testament. They're not your Scripture, but ours.
So keep that in mind. Now, the last class was focused on Christ the King would come. So basic three simple points, the last class, this one and the next one to see how it all fits together. The last class was focusing on that Christ, the king over the eternal kingdom would come, and that was Jesus. This class is that he would suffer and die on the cross. That's what we're going to focus on this class. And then the next class is he would rise from the dead on the third day. Let's turn to Luke chapter 24.
In Luke chapter 24, when Jesus is speaking to the two on the road to Emmaus, in verse 25, finally speaks up. He said to them, " How foolish you are and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter His glory? And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning Himself. Did not the Christ have to suffer?
And then later on, in Luke chapter 24, starting in verse 44, he's speaking to the 11. He said, " This is what I told you while I was still with you. Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets and the Psalms. " Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, " This is what is written. The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day.
" 1 Corinthians 15:3, Paul says, " For what I received, I passed on to you as of first importance that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. He was buried and He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. So this is the gospel. Christ died, was buried, and was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, meaning in fulfillment of the prophecies. Now, there are two groups who have a very particularly who have a hard time with the idea that Christ was crucified.
One of them obviously would be the Jews. Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 that Christ crucified is a stumbling block to the Jews. We're familiar with that passage. From the work I was quoting from before, Justin is talking with actually the Trypho, the Jew is talking back to Justin, he's bearing his soul about he's got a hard time with this. He said, " Be assured that all our nation waits for Christ. But whether Christ should be so shamefully crucified, this we're in doubt about.
But prove to us by the Scriptures that whether he must be crucified and die so disgracefully and so dishonorably by the death cursed by the law. For we cannot bring ourselves even to think of this. It's something to realize that at the time of Jesus, all of the Jews believed that the Christ was coming. The enemies of Jesus and His disciples, John the Baptist, Herod, even the children believe that. The Samaritan woman believed that. So they all believed that the Messiah was coming.
But none of them, neither the disciples nor his enemies, could grasp the idea that this king over the eternal kingdom was going to suffer and die on the cross. That just didn't fit at all. They had such a hard time with it. So the Jews had a hard time with it and still do. It's just inconceivable that the Messiah would be suffered and killed on a cross. The other group is the Muslims. One and a half billion Muslims on the face of the earth. What did Muhammad say about Christ?
Well, he said that Jesus was a real person, that He lived, He ascended into heaven, and He will come again. However, Muhammad taught that he was not killed on the cross, and therefore, obviously, he wasn't raised from the dead. And I have the quotation here from the Quran from Surah 4. Muhammad says that they boast talking about the Jews. We killed Christ Jesus, Issa, the son of Mary, the messenger of Allah. But they killed him not nor crucified, but so it was made to appear to them. So think about this.
Muhammad, living 600 years later, is contradicting the eyewitnesses, the Jews, the Christians, and the Romans. He said, " Well, they thought they crucified him, but they really didn't. " It only appeared that way. He wasn't crucified at all. So I want to talk about this. For those two groups and for anyone who doesn't believe, that the Scriptures say exactly as Jesus said, exactly as Paul says, that the Christ had to suffer and die on the cross.
I'm going to give four examples, and if we have enough time, I'll provide some very interesting other examples that were seen by the early Christians. But I want to focus primarily on four examples from the Old Testament prophecies. The first one is the bronze serpent. Of course, Jesus talks about this in John chapter 3. The second one is the Passover Lamb, which Peter and Paul make the connection with. The third one is Isaiah chapter 53.
And of course, the Ethiopian eunuch was reading that very passage of scripture in Acts chapter 8, when Philip intercepted him and studied with him. And then Psalm 22, an entire Psalm that is devoted to the passion and the crucifixion of the Messiah, the whole Psalm. We're going to look at those four, and then if we have time, we'll look at some other things I think will be interesting as well. So, first, a snake story. This is a picture I have of a viper that lives in Arabia.
What happened is in the book of Numbers, as the people were passing through the wilderness, they got involved in sin, and they got bitten by poisonous snakes, and we're dying. Let's go back to Numbers chapter 21. Read that story. Numbers chapter 21, we'll start reading in verse 4. They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way. They spoke against God and against Moses and said, " Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in this wilderness?
There's no bread. There's no water. And we detest this miserable food. " That's the manna. " Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them. They bit the people and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, " We have sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us. " So Moses prayed for the people. The Lord said to Moses, " Make a snake and put it up on a pole, that anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.
" So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived. Now, there's something really weird about this story. All right? Let's think about this. Yeah The people came out of Egypt. They had a massive problem with idolatry. They made a golden calf and God was ready to wipe them off the face of the earth.
God said in Deuteronomy chapter 4, on no uncertain terms, do not ever make anything an idol in the form of anything on the heaven or the earth, including things that creep along the ground of the earth, which would be snakes. So the people are crying out to Moses, " Can you get rid of the snakes? " Why couldn't God just make the snakes go someplace else? Why would he tell them to make an idol and put it up on a pole? What sense does that make? There's a reason for this. There's a reason behind it.
John chapter 3, verse 14, it says, " Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up. " The passage being lifted up is mentioned a couple more times in John. In John chapter 8, he says, " When you lift up the Son of Man. " John chapter 12, he says, " If I am lifted up from the earth, I'll draw all peoples to myself. " It says, " This, " he said, " signifying by what death he would die.
" Tertullian, Christian, the second-century writer in the early third century, living in Carthage in North Africa. He asked the same question I asked.
He said, " Why did Moses, after prohibiting the likeness of anything, set forth a bronze serpent placing it on a tree in a hanging posture for a spectacle of healing to Israel at the time when, after their idolatry, they were suffering extermination by snakes, except that in this case, he was exhibiting the Lord's cross on which the serpent, the devil, was made a show of. For he who gazed upon that cross was freed from the bite of the serpents. " Wow.
Notice the similarity with Colossians chapter 2, verses 13 to 15. It said that Christ made a public spectacle of his enemies by triumphing over them on the cross. So that's the idea. He's trying to show the people that Satan would be defeated by the cross. And when they're bitten by the snake, the serpent, if they look to the cross, they can be saved. Wow The second example, second major example I want to take a look at is the Passover Lamb. Come on.
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5, " For Christ, our Passover lamb has been sacrificed. " He's talking about sexual immorality. And the argument he used is he said, " Hey, the Passover lamb has been sacrificed, so now we eat the bread without yeast, " which means you get the sin out. We can't have immorality in the church. 1 Peter chapter 1, verses 18 and 19, Peter says, " We were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.
" I encourage you to go back on your own and read through the details of the account of the Passover. But God told Moses what the Israelites had to do. He said they had to select a male lamb without defect. They would sacrifice it at twilight at the time of the Passover. That the blood of the lamb would be put over the doorposts of the house. The people would stay in the house. And when the destroying angel came, he would pass over the houses that had the blood of the lamb.
He said, " This was a meal they needed to commemorate every year, but one unusual requirement about when they eat the lamb. " He says, " Don't break any of its bones. " Now, you're eating a lamb dinner. What difference does it make if you break the bones or not? All right. But for the next 1,500 years, the Jews, at every Passover, they would sacrifice the lamb and they wouldn't break the bone because it was foreshadowing the Passion of Christ that it says none of His bones would be broken.
And they're also told that after the lamb was sacrificed for the next seven days, they'd remove all the yeast from the house. Of course, yeast represents sin. It spreads, it contaminates, it grows, it multiplies, it takes over everything. The third major example I want to take a look at is Isaiah chapter 52 and 53. Because this is such an important passage related to the crucifixion of Christ. To really let it sink in, I want to read the whole thing. Let's turn to Isaiah chapter 52.
Starting in verse 13, " See, my servant will act wisely. He will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted. Just as there were many who were appalled at him, his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being. His form marred beyond human likeness. So he will sprinkle many nations and kings will shut their mouths because of him. For what they were not told, they will see, and what they've not heard, they will understand. 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 mankind, a man of suffering familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces, he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering. Yet we consider him punished by God, stricken by him and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions.
He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was on him. And by his wounds, we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment, he was taken away.
He had who of his generation protested, for he was cut off from the land of the living. For the transgression of my people, he was punished. He was assigned a grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death. Though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the Lord's wish to crush him and cause him to suffer. And though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days. And the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied. By his knowledge, my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong. Because he poured out his life unto death and was numbered with the transgressors, for he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors. There are so many things that tie in with the crucifixion of Christ in this great prophecy.
He was despised and rejected by men. He was pierced for our transgressions. He was a man of suffering. The punishment that brought us peace was on him. It says he was led like a lamb to the slaughter. He didn't open his mouth. He was numbered with the transgressors. He was killed and cut off from the land of the living. He was assigned a grave with the rich. He bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors, all of them fulfilled in Christ Jesus.
The last of the four major prophecies I want to look at is in Psalm 22. It's an entire psalm devoted to the Passion of the Christ. The first line of this Psalm, if it sounds familiar, it's because Jesus said this when He was on the cross. " My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? " And the passion accounts in Matthew 27 and Mark chapter 15. That's where it begins. So Jesus was quoting the opening line of Psalm 22 when He was on the cross. So let's pay attention to the whole story.
Psalm 22, starting in verse 1, " My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me? So far from my cries of anguish? My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer. By night, but I find no rest. Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One. You are the one Israel praises. In you, our ancestors, put their trust. They trusted and you delivered them. To you, they cried out and were saved. In you, they trusted and were not put to shame. But I am a worm and not a man.
Scorned by everyone, despised by the people. All who see me mock me. They hurl insults shaking their heads. He trusts in the Lord. They said, " Let the Lord rescue him. Let him deliver him since he delights in him. " Which is exactly what they said when Jesus was on the cross. Verse 9, " Yet you brought me out of the womb. You made me trust in you, even at my mother's breasts. From birth, I was cast on you. In my mother's womb, you've been my God.
Do not be far from me for trouble is near, and there is no one to help. Many bulls surround me. Strong bulls of Bashan encircle me. Roaring lions that tear their prey, open their mouths wide against me. I am poured out like water. All my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax. It's melted within me. My mouth is dried up like a potsherd. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You lay me in the dust of death. Dogs surround me a pack of villains encircles me. They pierce my hands and my feet.
All my bones are on display. People stare and gloat over me. They divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garments. But you, Lord, do not be far from me. You are my strength. Come quickly to help me deliver me from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dogs. Rescue me from the mouth of the lions. Save me from the horn of the wild oxen. I will declare your name to my people in the assembly. I will praise you. You who fear the Lord praise him. All you descendants of Jacob honor him.
Revere him, all you descendants of Israel. For he has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one. He's not hidden his face from him, but he has listened to his cry for help. From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly. Before those who fear you, I will fulfill my vows. The poor will eat and be satisfied. Those who seek the Lord will praise Him. May your hearts live forever.
All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will bow down before him. For dominion belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations. All the rich of the earth shall feast and worship. All who go down to the dust will kneel before him, those who cannot keep themselves alive. Posterity will serve him. Future generations will be told about the Lord. They'll proclaim His righteousness, declaring to a people yet unborn. He has done it.
Just think about the elements in this Psalm. Beginning, " My God, my God, why have you forsaken me among the last words of Jesus on the cross? " He's mocked and insulted by the people. He trusts in the Lord. Let the Lord deliver him, which is what they said in Matthew 27. He's surrounded by strong enemies, the bulls and the lions. His extreme passion and suffering are described. It says, " He's poured out like water. All my bones are out of joint. They've pierced my hands and my feet.
They've divided my clothes among them and cast lots for my garments. " Justin Martyr, after going through all the details of Psalm 22 with Trypho a Jew, he says to Trypho, his friend, " No one in your nation who has been called king or Christ has ever had his hands or his feet pierced while alive or has died in this mysterious fashion to wit by the cross, save this Jesus alone. " Think of all the kings in Israel. None of them died this way. Only Jesus Christ fulfilled all of these prophecies.
The early Christians saw a number of other foreshadowings of the cross in the Old Testament. And I want to give a little example here. I'm going to need my brother Mike to come up and help me out. So Mike, if you could just stand over there where everybody can see you. So I want to read from Exodus chapter 18. Exodus chapter 17, the people are being attacked by the Amalekites. I'm going to start reading Exodus chapter 17 and verse 10. Come on. So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered.
Of course, the word Joshua. He was Hoshea, the son of Nun. His name was changed to Joshua, which means Jesus. So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered. And Moses, Aaron, and Hur went to the top of the hill. As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning. But whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. He had to do this all day long. When Moses ' hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it.
Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side and one on the other. Now he can hold up his hands all day so that his hands remain steady till sunset. So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with a sword. There's one thing missing from this picture. Let's read in verse nine, which I skipped over. Moses said to Joshua, " Choose some of our men and go out to fight the Amalekites. Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands. " Wow. Maybe that makes you think of something.
He's standing with the staff of God in his hands and one man on either side of him. Tertullian asked the question. He said, " Why did God make Moses pray in this strange position? " Why wasn't he praying on his knees? Why wasn't he praying prostrate with his face down on the ground? There's only one reason. The reason was that God wanted to show the figure of the cross was necessary through which Jesus, Joshua, would win the victory.
A number of early Christians saw this as a foreshadowing of the crucifixion of Christ. As it says in Isaiah chapter 65, " All day long, I have held out my hands to a disobedient people. " I'll mention just a few other examples that the early Christians saw as connections. In Genesis chapter 22, the story of Abraham sacrificing his son, Isaac. The Father is told to go and sacrifice your son, your only son whom you love. He places the wood on his son who carries it to the place of sacrifice.
The son is received back from death, figuratively, it says in Hebrews chapter 11, " And from this sacrifice came the promise of many descendants. " Tertullian says about this story, Isaac, when he was led by his father as a victim and himself bearing his own wood, was even at that early period, pointing to Christ's death, conceded as it was as a victim by the Father, carrying as he did the wood of his own passion.
Even in the book of Genesis, the story, the foreshadowing of Christ carrying the cross to the place of sacrifice. Isaiah chapter 9, maybe you've never thought about this particular scripture in this light. I saw this also from the early Christians. Isaiah chapter nine, I think it's in Handel's Messiah, says, " For to us a child is born, for to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. " Tertullian asked the question. He said, " Okay, let's think about this.
" What king has the sign of his power on his shoulders? The sign of a king's power is the crown on his head or the scepter in his hands or the vestment that he's wearing. There's only been one king in history that the sign of his rule is carried on his shoulders. That's Jesus Christ, king of the Jews on the cross. And then one that most of you have never thought about the story of Noah's Ark. Some of the early Christians pointed this out. I said, " Noah's Ark, you've got to be kidding me.
" Well, let's think about it. Peter says in 1 Peter chapter 3, " The water in Noah's flood symbolizes baptism. " I wonder what that big wooden boat that saved them could possibly represent. Justin Martyr in his dialogue with Trypho, he said this, " For Christ being the firstborn of every creature became again the chief of another race, regenerated through himself through water and faith and wood. " Containing the mystery of the cross, even as Noah was saved by wood when he rode over the waters with his household.
Justin Martyr made a very interesting observation. He said, " You know, there's a lot of interesting connections in the Old Testament between water and wood. " It's true. Come on. There's just something going on there. It seems like when the people get in trouble and God uses the wood and changes the property of the water. Let me give you some examples that Justin pointed out.
In the book of Genesis in Genesis 30, it says, " Jacob peeled the branches and put the branches in the water to change the outcome of the sheep as they were breeding. " So the wood changed the properties of the water and broke the laws of genetics. Wow Moses parting the Red Sea had to raise his staff and hold it up all night, which is violating the laws of physics. The water stood as a wall on either side. The properties of the water are changed by the wood.
After the people got on the other side of the Red Sea, they ran into bitter water. Now, what I do for a living is water treatments. That's what I do. All right. And I've designed all kinds of water treatment systems, but this is one I've never seen. Just throw a piece of wood in the water and it will be drinkable. The wood changes the water and breaks the laws of water chemistry. Moses brought the water from the rock by striking the rock with his staff.
Yep So he's breaking the laws of geology, bringing water out of the rock with the wood. And then the last one that Justin pointed out, and we're going deep in the Scriptures here, 2 Kings chapter 6. The story of Elisha. The people lost the iron axe head. Okay, now I know iron is five times heavier than water. He throws some wood into the water and the iron floats. So he changes the density of water. So he breaks the laws of fluid mechanics here. So there's something about this wood and water connection.
Maybe you can help me figure out what that is. Come on now. But we'll stop right there. I want you to just, I'll just summarize what we've looked at here so far. The Christ had to suffer and die on the cross. He had to. This is what it says in the Scriptures. And he fulfilled Jesus fulfilled all the prophecies. He was rejected by his own people. He was the selected male lamb without defect. The rulers conspired against him. He was mocked and assaulted. He carried his wood to the place of sacrifice.
He did not resist or complain. His hands and feet were pierced by nails. They cast lots for his clothing. He was lifted up on the wood as a spectacle. He was surrounded by strong enemies. His arms were outstretched all day long. The unique sign of his rule was on his shoulders. His shed blood protects us from destruction. He was sacrificed at twilight on the Passover. He was crucified between two other men. He was hanging painfully with all his bones out of joint. None of his bones were broken.
The father was willing to sacrifice his beloved and only son. When taken down, he was assigned a grave for the rich. After his sacrifice, we are called to get rid of the yeast of sin. And finally, only by looking to the cross can we be saved from the deadly poison of the serpent's bites. Amen. He is my life, my strength, my song. This cornerstone This solid ground