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Jesus the Messiah: Prophetic Proof by Brett Hickey One of the fifteen featured physicians in Ruth Rosen’s book, Jewish Doctors Meet the Great Physician1, Conservative Jew, Dr. Bernie Cohen, was led to Christ by a college friend who had left Judaism and a family with several generations of rabbis. As they debated their differences, Cohen researched his Bar Mitzvah Bible to dispute her claims that the Hebrew prophets predicted Jesus’ coming. He wrote of his search, I discovered that the prophet Micah had predicted that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2) and that Jeremiah stated the Messiah would be of the seed of David (Jeremiah 23:5). Isaiah prophesied the unusual circumstances of the Messiah’s birth (Isaiah 7:14) and described his reign (Isaiah 9:1–8). And in one of the most poetic and wondrous passages I had ever seen, that same prophet described the sufferings of the servant Messiah and the revelation of what was to come in the days ahead (Isaiah 52:13–53:12). Sandy also pointed me to Jeremiah and his prophesy of the new covenant, a covenant based on a change in mind and heart and a new closeness to God (Jeremiah 31:31–34). Ezekiel further elaborated upon the cleansing from sin and the new spirit God would place in our hearts (Ezekiel 36:26ff). I was amazed by these prophesies, and became convinced that God planned to send a Messiah to accomplish these events…. Sandy explained that God did not do away with the sacrificial system even though the Temple was destroyed.…She also explained to me that God had provided his ultimate sacrifice through Jesus. She said that Jesus was the Lamb of God, the final sacrifice for forgiveness of sins, both then and in the future for all those who would accept that sacrifice…. Without him, we were accountable for our own sins, without the Temple, the sacrificial system, and all the things necessary to obtain atonement. Sandy also explained that the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70 precluded any future person from claiming they were the Messiah. The genealogical records that could link a person’s ancestry to the tribe of Judah were destroyed.

We want to review compelling evidence that led tens of thousands of first century Jews to make a clean break with the Mosaic rituals practiced by their ancestors for fifteen centuries. The same internal Biblical support has led Dr. Cohen and hundreds of thousands of other Jews (Rabbi Kravitz) to turn their lives over to the Messiah today. If you have not done so, may this data send you to Jesus. If you are already walking with Jesus, may this study be faith building. First, enjoy our song… “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”2 Those are the greatest words that you will ever utter. When Peter makes this very confession in Matthew 16:16-18, Jesus says in response that “flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven” and that on this rock, on this foundation, He would build his church.” Then, when Jesus faced his accusers in the 1

http://jewsforjesus.org/resources/ebooks/archive/jewish_doctors/jewishdoctors.pdf All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. 2

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Sanhedrin who had exhausted their attempts to elicit compelling testimony against Him from false witnesses, the High Priest struck at the heart of the issue with them in Matthew 26:63, “Tell us if You are the Christ, the Son of God!" And, of course, when Jesus confirmed His identity, He sealed His fate. The High Priest responded dramatically by tearing his clothes and saying in Matthew 26:65-66, "‘He has spoken blasphemy! What further need do we have of witnesses? Look, now you have heard His blasphemy! What do you think?’ They answered and said, ‘He is deserving of death.’" Finally, in the last verse of his gospel (John 20:31), the apostle John explains the purpose of the book, saying it was “written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.” We zero in on the importance of the “Son of God” part of the great confession, and rightly so, but isn’t it true that we tend not to give the attention to Jesus as “the Christ” that is merited? At one level, I suppose, we simply superimpose our use of a surname, and, in turn, view Christ simply as Jesus’ last name when it is so much more. And perhaps this is related to another oversight. Do we really give the phrase “fulfilled” the kind of emphasis it deserves? The word is found sixty times in the gospels and Acts. Luke begins his gospel with these words: “Inasmuch as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those things which have been fulfilled among us…” Jesus taught in the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke 16:31, “If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead." The Jews of Jesus’ day believed in Him because of His miracles, His teaching and godly life, but the fulfillment of prophecies provided an objective form of evidence to substantiate their faith in Christ. In John 1:45, for example, we read, “Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found Him of whom Moses in the law, and also the prophets, wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.’" Jesus emphasized the fulfillment of prophecies as validation that His work was from God. In Luke 18:31, “He took the twelve aside and said to them, ‘Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished.’” Surely, Paul was referring largely to the fulfillment of prophecies when he reminded Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:15, “that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” During Timothy’s childhood, of course, there was no New Testament, but only the Old. Paul in Acts 13:26-41 and Peter in Acts 2 and 3 preach Christ powerfully through the prophecies. Well, we have the powerful testimony of the prophets just as they did. No doubt this is one reason, by God’s Providence, that the Scriptures have been preserved in thousands of manuscripts with such amazing harmony for thousands of years. Christians sometimes say glibly that “Jesus is the answer.” What they say superficially is true on a much deeper level. When we can trace the fulfillment of scores of prophecies to Jesus, we not only establish that He is the Messiah, but we establish the authority of His teachings and the teachings of the Old Testament prophets. This, in turn, legitimizes the teachings of the apostles (John 16:13; Matt. 28:1920) and validates the New Testament. We demonstrate that the Bible is not the product of human minds, but of the mind of God. Obviously, one of the purposes of the abundance of Messianic prophecies was to enable those looking for him to be able to distinguish the genuine article from imposter. Jesus warns in Matthew 24:24, “For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders

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to deceive, if possible, even the elect.” Critics claim that someone could have recognized the prophecies ahead of time and simply structured his life and activities in such a way where he could have fulfilled the prophecies. In some instances this is true, but keep in mind this presupposes that the individual would have an insatiable hunger for the word of God. This individual would have to know the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament in and out to identify the prophecies. He would have to recognize the prophecies and then, if he was an honest man, look for opportunities to fulfill them. If he was a godly man and recognized that he could not fulfill any of the prophecies, the project would end. If an individual recognized that he did not or could not fulfill any of the prophecies and yet continued to promote himself as the Messiah, that would make him among the most evil of men seeking only the attention, fame and glory that would accompany this greatest of all men. Notice how much attention the Messiah would receive among the Jews according to Deuteronomy 18:18-19, “I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brethren, and will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him. And it shall be that whoever will not hear My words, which He speaks in My name, I will require it of him.” It is likely that many Jews lived throughout the centuries who were self-centered enough to seek such a prominent position even though the “glass slipper,” so to speak, “didn’t fit them.” Surely, though the number would be greatly reduced, there were some of this sort who were even thoroughly acquainted with the Messianic prophecies. Those brash enough to desire this kind of attention, however, would not be the type of people who would also be willing to endure the great humiliation and suffering bound on the Messiah. This in itself, insulated the Messiahship from the undeserving and unqualified. If he believed the prophets, the imposter would know he had a dishonorable deathwish. The prophecy just quoted from Deuteronomy 18 continues this way in verse 20: “But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in My name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.” Matthew Henry lists a series of frauds when he records Jesus’ warning about “false christ’s” in Matthew 24:24, “Josephus speaks of several such impostors between this and the destruction of Jerusalem; one Theudas, that was defeated by Cospius Fadus; another by Felix, another by Festus. Dosetheus said he was the Christ foretold by Moses….Simon Magus pretended to be the great power of God, Acts 8:10. In after-ages there have been such pretenders; one about a hundred years after Christ, that called himself Bar-cochobas--The son of a star, but proved Barcosba--The son of a lie. About fifty years ago Sabbati-Levi set up for a Messiah in the Turkish empire, and was greatly caressed by the Jews; but in a short time his folly was made manifest.” These names, if familiar to you, are barely so, and like others we will notice shortly could hardly lay claim to the fulfillment of the prophecy that through him “all the nations of the earth would be blessed.” This prophecy is so grandiose that it could not be counterfeited. Let us consider this prophesy for a moment and notice how limiting it is. God said to Abraham in Genesis 22:18, “In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed..." Two essential ingredients of this prophecy are that “all the nations of the earth be blessed” (italics mine) by this

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individual, not only his immediate family or even those of his own nation. Secondly, we see this individual must be the descendant of Abraham. We learn further in Genesis 21:12, “in Isaac your seed shall be called.” Genesis 35:10-12 further restrict this blessing to the descendant of Jacob. Then, Genesis 49:10 reads, “The scepter shall not depart from Judah…” A scepter indicates a “…royal or imperial authority.” (Merriam-Webster.com) Judah, of course, was one of the twelve tribes of Israel who carried the name of one of Jacob’s sons. So, we have the prophecy narrowed further. The Messianic line is constricted again by Jeremiah 23:5, "‘Behold, the days are coming,’ says the LORD, ‘That I will raise to David a Branch of righteousness; A King shall reign and prosper, And execute judgment and righteousness in the earth.’” David was a tenth generation descendant of Judah eliminating many other Jews from consideration. We have many more prophetic details to examine, and yet, this handful of Old Testament prophecies offers remarkable specificity already when you ponder the magnitude of the prophecy. The promised Messiah through whom all the nations were to be blessed was to be a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah and David. Now we need only ask ourselves what single individual’s existence in under six thousand years of written history, has most blessed the people of all nations? Michael H. Hart wrote and then revised a book in 1992 entitled, The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History. Consider forty of the most familiar names: Muhammad, Isaac Newton, Buddha, Confucius, Paul, Gutenberg, Columbus, Pasteur, Galileo, Aristotle, Euclid, Darwin, Augustus Caesar, Copernicus, Constantine, Michael Faraday, Luther, George Washington, Orville/Wilbur Wright, Genghis Khan, Shakespeare, Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Thomas Edison, Hitler, Plato, Cromwell, Alexander Graham Bell, Locke, Beethoven, Michelangelo, Stalin, Julius Caesar, Voltaire, Kennedy, Lenin, Cyrus the Great, Henry Ford, Queen Elizabeth I, Gorbachev and Charlemagne. We have not filtered this list by any prophecies other than Genesis 22:18, “In your seed (Abraham) all the nations of the earth shall be blessed…” We have not limited consideration to descendants of Abraham or even to religious leaders. Still, who in this list could even be considered alongside Jesus as the most influential individual in world history? Interestingly, nearly half of these folks would confess, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Remember, though, the prophecy was limited to one who was a descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This man through whom all nations were to be blessed must be a Jew. Let’s look at the twenty most influential Jews of history (adherents.com). Besides Jesus, the most likely candidates would include Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Abraham, Paul, Karl Marx, Moses, Theodor Herzl, Mary, Baruch de Spinoza, David, Anne Frank, Judas Iscariot, Gustav Mahler, Maimonides, Neils Bohr, Mendelssohn, Paul Erhlich and Rashi. Again, we are working with only four prophecies that restrict the Messiah as a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah and David. After excluding Mary, Jesus’ mother, Moses, Abraham and the Apostle Paul from the ten most prominent Jews, we are left with only Einstein, Freud, Marx, Herzl and Spinoza. Most non-Jews know nothing about the last two, leaving Einstein, Freud and Marx as the best hope for an alternative Messiah. Marx said, “religion is the opiate of the people.” Freud said that "Religion is comparable to a childhood neurosis." Einstein, the closest competitor, removed

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himself from contention by denying that there was a personal God at all. No Messiah here! That leaves only Jesus as the only prospective Messiah among the Jews that have ever lived. When you expand the list to the fifty most influential Jews of history that lived before AD 70, you add only Hillel and Philo to Paul, Moses, David and Judas. Outside the world of academia, the last two, Hillel and Philo, are relative unknowns. Someone might ask, “Well, what if the prophecy is to be fulfilled in someone yet unborn?” That sounds reasonable, but one huge problem. Michael L. Brown, a Jewish convert to Christianity who worked as professor of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Fuller Theological seminary and Regents University, explains, “Keep in mind the second temple was destroyed in AD 70. Atonement for sin had to be made and the divine visitation had to take place before the second temple was destroyed. There are even rabbinic traditions that put the Messiah’s coming around two thousand years ago – right when Jesus came. In fact, Rashi, the foremost Jewish commentator on the Tanakh (OT – BH), put the date at more than 1,750 years ago, but that was based on the most famous chronological error in the rabbinic literature. When the error is corrected, we find ourselves in the middle of the first century, within one generation of the time of Jesus!” “So, it’s not a matter of maybe there’s another one who’s the Messiah. If it’s not…Jesus, then throw out the Bible, because nobody except him accomplished what needed to be done prior to AD 70.” (Lee Strobel, The Case for the Real Jesus, 197-198) We have only scratched the surface, but surely you can see how powerfully the prophets testify to the Messiahship of Christ. Join us next week for a closer look. Stay with us and we’ll tell you how you can get a copy of this message, after our song… Thank you for watching Let the Bible Speak. We pray that you have heard God speak to you through His word. If you’d like a copy of this sermon, #807, “Prophetic Proof,” please write the address on your screen and we’ll be glad to get it out to you. You may also request a free Bible study course you can complete at home. Please visit our website, letthebiblespeak.com, and watch videos of the program at your convenience. Finally, we echo the sentiment of the apostle Paul when he wrote in Romans 16:16, “the churches of Christ salute you.” Until next week, goodbye and God bless. Sermon delivered by evangelist Brett Hickey over “Let the Bible Speak” April 27, 2011 Source: Hart, Michael H. The 100 : A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History. Secausus, N.J.: Carol Pub. Group, 1992. Rosen, Ruth. Jewish Doctors Meet the Great Physician. Rev. 1998 2nd ed. San Francisco, CA: Purple Pomegranate Productions, 1998. Strobel, Lee. The Case for Christ : A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998.

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