Mystery Hidden For Ages

Sermon: "Mystery Hidden for Ages Past"

2 Sam. 7:1-11,16; Ro. 16:25-27; Luke 1:26-38

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Listen again to these fascinating words

inspired upon the lips of the Apostle Paul by

the omniscient Holy Spirit:

25 Now to him who is able to establish you

by my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus

Christ, according to the revelation of the

mystery hidden for long ages past, 26 but

now revealed and made known through the

prophetic writings by the command of the

eternal God, so that all nations might

believe and obey him..." (Romans 16 NIV)

I have called these "fascinating words"

because they speak of the whole Christ event

as if it had been moving forward from the

beginning of human history, and yet veiled...

hidden... obscured from human understanding until Jesus Christ was born into time and space.

This morning we are going to look back into

the OT and watch the mystery unfold... for

what was once shrouded in mystery is fully

revealed to us.

The mystery has a beginning. The first

prophecy came from God Himself just after the

Fall of Adam and Eve into sin. God made the

first prediction of the Messiah when He said

to the Serpent: "And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he

will crush your head, and you will strike his heel." (Genesis 3:15)

Here the mystery begins... and it does so

more deeply than first a first glance

reveals. Note that God speaks of the woman’s

"seed"--OT practice is to speak of the seed

in reference to the Father, and not the

mother. This is no doubt a veiled reference

to the virgin birth.

The other thing to note is that the word

"seed" is in the singular. God is not

predicting future generations warring against

the power of evil, but of a singular person--

again, a hidden pointer to Jesus.

Finally, God indicates that this seed would

be injured--but the injury would be to the

"heal" and therefore not deadly. The injury

to Satan would be to the "head" and therefore

a deadly blow. This is an extremely hidden

pointer to the Messiah. On Calvary’s

mountain it would have appeared that the

opposite had taken place.

When the Christ was crucified, it appeared

that Satan had survived and the Messiah had

been destroyed. But then came Easter morning

and everything became reversed--- the

prophecy proved true! Satan was destroyed on

Easter morning, and Jesus now lives and

reigns forever!

Genesis gives us the first great veiled

prophecy concerning the coming of the Christ

of God-- Savior of the world. Well, as I was

preparing my message for today, after this

prophecy my work became very difficult.

There are so many prophecies--some estimates

go over 300!--what ones should I highlight to

you? I confess, I was forced to simply

choose a few--and these are the ones I was

led to share with you.

First, when would be the date of the

Messiah’s ministry. Do you know that the

date of our Lord’s ministry was predicted to

the year within the OT?

In the book of Daniel we read of the coming

anointed One of God. Daniel says that from

the rebuilding of Jerusalem to the coming of

the "anointed one," there will be 7 weeks

plus 62 weeks. These "weeks" are symbolic of

years, so we have 69 week years from the time

of the rebuilding of Jerusalem to the coming

of the Anointed One.

69 week years =’s 69 x 7 (number of "days in

a week) which gives us 483 years from the

time of the rebuilding of Jerusalem to the

Anointed One.

So when did the rebuilding of Jerusalem take

place. It was under the direction of Ezra so

we go to his inspired book to see if he dates

the beginning of the project. He does. We

read in Ezra 7:7: “Some of the Israelites,

including priests, Levites, singers,

gatekeepers and temple servants, also came up

to Jerusalem in the seventh year of King

Artaxerxes.” (Ezra 7:7 NIV)

Temple construction for Jerusalem began in

the 7th year of King Artaxerxes. Secular as

well as sacred study tells us that the reign

of Artaxerxes began in 465 BC. So we

subtract 7 years from 465 BC because the OT

time-line declines. Therefore the

restoration of Jerusalem began in 458 BC.

Now, if we start with the year 458 and move

forward in time 483 years we might calculate

this by subtracting 458 from 483 which would

give us to 25 AD. But we have made an error.

There is no 0 when calculating the calendar

year between 1 B.C. and 1 A.D., so instead of

24 months we have 12 months... gain one more

year... and the actual date for the coming