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The Promise of Hope
Last week we mentioned that ever since Adam and Eve sinned there was a need for hope, and there was also a promise of hope.
Genesis 3:15
Even from that moment Adam and Eve were promised that eventually their offspring would crush the head of evil.
We believe that happened in the life of Jesus.
The Promise of Hope
In John’s Gospel we read of Jesus calling some of his first disciples, one of them named Philip.
As soon as Philip follows Jesus, he immediately runs out to tell his friend Nathanael about this rabbi he now follows.
John 1:43-51
The Promise of Hope
Did you notice that Philip knew who Jesus was by what Moses and the prophets wrote about him?
The Hebrew Bible is full of references to the coming Messiah.
Jesus points one of them out to us.
Did you catch it?
It’s right there!
The Joseph story!
But this phrase, “Moses and the prophets” appears somewhere else in Scripture as well, a place that most of us should know.
Luke 24:25-27
Have you ever thought about the Old Testament containing the promises of the coming Messiah?
I think we grasp this on some level, but the fact that God was continually telling people the Messiah was coming, and giving them promises and signs to look for in his coming.
Hope Fulfilled
Now before we proceed to look at some of these prophecies, I want us to understand if these were something that someone could just fake.
Could someone fulfill these prophecies and not actually be the Messiah?
Peter Stoner, well respected mathematician and scientist, decided to figure out the odds of doing just that.
But instead of trying to calculate all of the prophecies, he just settled on 8. What are the odds that someone could fulfill just 8 of these prophecies.
The answer was one in one hundred quadrillion, or 1 with 17 zeros behind it.
That’s a huge number that we can’t even rationalize.
To explain this probability Stoner gave the following example.
Fill the entire state of Texas two feet deep with silver dollars, one of which is marked.
Release a blind man at random inside the state of Texas walking on top of those silver dollars.
The odds of him stopping bending down and picking up that silver dollar on the first attempt is the same as anyone meeting just 8 of the prophecies.
Jesus is the Messiah.
The Messiah would be the seed/offspring of a woman and would crush the head of Satan (Genesis 3:15)
He would come from the seed/offspring of Abraham and would bless all the nations on earth (Genesis 12:3).
He would be a “prophet like Moses” to whom God said we must listen (Deuteronomy 18:15)
He would be born in Bethlehem of Judah (Micah 5:2)
He would be born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14)
He would have a throne, a kingdom and a dynasty, or house, starting with King David, that will last forever (2 Samuel 7:16)
He would be called “Wonderful Counselor,” “Mighty God,” “Everlasting Father,” “Prince of Peace,” and would possess an everlasting kingdom (Isaiah 9:6-7)
He would be pierced for our transgression and crushed for our iniquities (Isaiah 53:5)
He would die among the wicked ones but be buried with the rich (Isaiah 53:9)
He would be resurrected from the grave, for God would not allow His Holy One to suffer decay (Psalm 16:10)
Can you see how Jesus “explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself?”
We’ve lost this ability.
We forget that God told the people exactly what was going to happen and they weren’t prepared for it!
I want to take a brief look at what Gabriel the angel tells Mary when he gives her the news.
Did you notice how many prophecies were fulfilled in that statement?
Offspring of a woman - Gen. 3:15
Line of Abraham - Gen. 12:3
Born of a virgin - Isa. 7:14
A throne from the line of David that would last forever!
- 2 Sam.
7:16
And it seems like possibly Mary didn’t understand the full weight of what was happening here.
She hurried away to be with her family, away from the prying eyes of those who knew her in Nazareth.
Yet when she gets there Elizabeth, her cousin, prophesies concerning the baby in the unwed virgin’s womb.
And it’s in that moment that it hits Mary and she responds:
Hope Fulfilled
Mary realizes that “The Hopes and Fears of All the Years are Met” in this moment that was coming.
The hopes of generations were coming to fulfillment.
This was the most anticipated event in the history of the world!
And the majority of the people would completely miss it.
I want to take you to one more prophecy, one that the majority of the people in this world are not prepared for.
A prophecy written some 535 years before Jesus was to be born.
Daniel is in Babylonian captivity and has a vision the he records in Daniel 7. The vision is far more detailed than we have time for today, but I want to draw our attention to two verses.
Daniel 7:13-14
Do you remember the verses we’ve been talking about the last few weeks?
Matt.
24:14, Mark 13:10, that the Gospel must be preached to all nations, and then the end will come.
Notice this prophecy in Daniel.
All nations and peoples of every language would worship him.
All nations.
The point of this passage is that the Son of Man is in charge of it all!
That his rule will never end, and he expects the Church to make him known among the nations, and Christmas gives us that opportunity.
Advent, expecting his second coming, gives us that opportunity.
Hope Fulfilled
Moses & the prophets gave God’s people a promise of hope in the coming Messiah.
The Gospels record that Hope, Jesus - Messiah coming into the world…God become human to save humans, Moses & the Prophets fulfilled.
And Daniel gives us a glimpse of Hope Fulfilled one day when every nation will know, every knee will bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord!
And the world needs that Hope!
We need to keep that hope in front of us!
Romans 15:13
Share the hope with others!
Be a beacon of hope among the hopeless.
Share the story of Jesus with whomever will listen.
As you look forward to the celebration of his First coming, keep an eye toward his second coming as well.
If you don’t know this Hope that is only found in following Jesus, now’s the time to change.
Now’s the time to commit to following Him!
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