Advent - The Fulfilment Of Prophecy Series

Advent - The Fulfilment of Prophecy

Today is the second Sunday of Advent, the word Advent comes from the Latin verb ‘venio’ - to come - and ‘advenio’ - to come towards.

Advent helps us to remember and celebrate the amazing truth of John 3:16-17, “This is how God loved the world: He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent His Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through Him.”

In the birth of Jesus, God declares you and I are worth something significant to Him, Father God declares His love for us and His willingness to save us from our sin.

God loves you and me so much that He was willing to be incarnated, to come to earth so that He could save us from our sin, He came to rescue us, and when we place our trust in Jesus we are saved.

Woven throughout the pages of the Old Testament is the prophetic promise that the Messiah would come, the promise that His advent would take place.

This month as we continue in our series Dare to be Different we are focussing on Different Fulfillment.

Advent is a perfect reminder of the fulfilment of those prophecies.

The promise of the messiah, the Saviour has been fulfilled.

The messianic prophecies in the Old Testament were made hundreds, even thousands of years before Jesus Christ was born.

From Genesis to Malachi, there are over 300 specific prophecies detailing the coming of this anointed one.

786 years before the birth of Jesus, the prophet Isaiah wrote in Isaiah 11:1 “Out of the stump of King David’s family will grow a shoot—yes, a new Branch bearing fruit from the old root.”

The fulfilment of that prophecy is found in Matthew 1:1 “This is a record of the ancestors of Jesus the Messiah, a descendant of David and of Abraham”

Listen to the words of Micah 5:2, “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, are only a small village among all the people of Judah. Yet a ruler of Israel, whose origins are in the distant past, will come from you on my behalf.”

Around seven hundred years before Jesus was born, the Prophet Micah prophesised exactly where the Messiah would be born.

Micah also makes reference to the eternal nature of Christ’s existence, “a ruler whose origins are in the distant past”,

Jesus, part of the eternal Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, existed before He was incarnated as a baby in Bethlehem.

Remember God also declared through His prophet in Isaiah 7:14 the Lord Himself will give you the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call Him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’).

This prophecy fulfiled in Matthew 1:22-23, All of this occurred to fulfill the Lord’s message through His prophet: “Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call Him Immanuel, which means ‘God is with us.’

Isn’t the word of God amazing, when God says something will happen, it happens exactly the way He said it would.

Let me give you another example of a fulfiled prophecy, Zechariah 9:9, Rejoice, O people of Zion! Shout in triumph, O people of Jerusalem! Look, your king is coming to you. He is righteous and victorious, yet he is humble, riding on a donkey—riding on a donkey’s colt.

Matthew 21:1-5, As Jesus and the disciples approached Jerusalem, they came to the town of Bethphage on the Mount of Olives. Jesus sent two of them on ahead. “Go into the village over there,” He said. “As soon as you enter it, you will see a donkey tied there, with its colt beside it. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone asks what you are doing, just say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and he will immediately let you take them.” This took place to fulfill the prophecy that said, “Tell the people of Jerusalem, ‘Look, your King is coming to you.

He is humble, riding on a donkey—riding on a donkey’s colt.’”

Just 3 examples from the 300+ prophecies from the Old Testament fulfilled by Jesus.

Our time together this morning does not allow us to fully unpack all of the prophecies detailing Jesus’ virgin birth,

His birth in Bethlehem,

His birth from the tribe of Judah,

His lineage from King David,

His sinless life,

His atoning work for the sins of His people,

or His death and resurrection.

All of those prophecies were recorded in the Old Testament long before Jesus Christ actually fulfilled them.

Before we come to our time of Communion, I want us to consider Psalm 22, which is a prophetic picture of the death of Christ for our sins.