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
Messiah is 26 AD.
Our present calendar is the product of a 6th
century Roman monk named Dionysius the Little
who sought to make the calendar pivot around
the birth of Christ. He made a four year
mistake. Adjusting for the mistake, Jesus’
birth on our present calendar would actually
be at 4 BC.
Our Lord lived to be 33 and 1/2 years old
before his crucifixion. We know that his
ministry was 3 and 1/2 years long on the
basis of the New Testament texts. So His
anointing on the Jordan by John the Baptist
was when Jesus was thirty years of age.
If we add thirty years to the date of His
birth in 4 BC, we see that the Anointing of
Jesus by the Holy Spirit for His ministry
took place in 26 AD-- the precise date hidden
within the OT until the Lord should appear.
So Jesus ministry begins as predicted in
Daniel, but what about His birth? Who would
give birth to the "Anointed One?" The
familiar text for answering this comes from
Isaiah 7:14 which reads: “Therefore the Lord
himself will give you a sign: The virgin will
be with child and will give birth to a son,
and will call him Immanuel.” (Isaiah 7:14
NIV)
It appears that this prophecy speaks of a
virgin who will miraculously give birth to a
son who will have the name Immanuel--"God
with Us."
Yet this text has been attacked. For a long
time some scholars said that instead of the
translation "virgin" we should read "young
woman." Today this has been debunked. The
Hebrew is best translated as "virgin"--pure
and simple.
The next assault upon this contends that this
prophecy was intended as a sign for Ahaz,
king of Judah who was under attack from Syria
and Ephraim (Israel to the North) Ahaz’s
kingdom was constantly under threat because
of Assyria to the North and Egypt to the
South.
The issue is how could the Messiah’s birth
hundreds of years later be a sign to
strengthen the faith of Ahaz.
Again the mystery... As OT animal sacrifices
pointed to the work of the coming Messiah and
His ultimate sacrifice, so God may have
allowed another virgin to bear a child and
this child would also be named Immanuel. The
OT child would foreshadow the coming of the
great Immanuel; the incarnation of the Son of
God.
And how do we know that this prophecy pointed
beyond the years of Ahaz? The prophecy spoke
of the destruction of Syria, Ephraim, Assyria
and Egypt. This took place by the time the
Son of God was conceived within Mary. Even
Assyria and Egypt had been conquered by the
Romans.
Ahaz, in his day, witnessed the power of God
defeating Israel’s enemies. And we today see
the greater mystery behind the prophecy--we
see a virgin, Mary by name, who gave birth to
a Son--Jesus--"Savior"--Immanuel--"God
actually with us"!
Even the fact that the Anointed One could not
be located in time--as God can not be located
in time--was prophesied within the same verse
which spoke of the place of the Messiah’s
birth.
The Anointed One would also exceed the
restrictions of time, a quality that points
to his divinity. We read in Micah 5:2
"But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you
are small among the clans of Judah, out of
you will come for me one who will be ruler
over Israel, whose origins are from of old,
from ancient times." (Micah 5:2 NIV)
The King James translates "ancient times" as
"from everlasting;" and the Modern language
Bible translates it as "from days of
eternity." The point is that the Messiah
would not be of our time... our world. He
would be distinct from all other people of
the earth. He would be timeless, as John’s
Gospel, chapter one, tells us that Christ,
the Word made flesh, is eternal.
Well, we are running out of time. Jesus was
said to be born in Bethlehem Ephrathah-- a
small insignificant town. But marvel again at
the Bible’s specificity. There was at least
one other Bethlehem--Bethlehem in Zebulon.
So God tells us not only the city, but the
state, as it were. It ends up being a city so
small it wouldn’t be found on a road
map–Bethlehem Ephrathah.
And why did the Messiah come? As Isaiah
tells us in the 53 chapter of his inspired
book, the Messiah came as a suffering servant
to take our sin upon Himself. Israel had
preferred to think of the Messiah as One who
would usher in a political Kingdom with
Israel as top dog.
Jesus struggled during His ministry with
those who wanted to make Him an earthly king.
When He told the disciples that He must
suffer and die, they could not relate this
humiliation to their idea of the Messiah.
Jesus Himself, on the Road to Emaus after his
resurrection, explains that it was necessary,
and predicted that the Messiah would suffer
and die. He helped us understand that the
suffering servant passages of Isaiah spoke of
Him.
Remember that the Bible has over 300
prophecies concerning the coming Messiah.
Prof. Peter Stoner examined the probabilities
of just eight of these prophesies being
fulfilled. He said that the probability
would be 1017 power.
To make this clear to Norwegians and others,
he used an illustration. Imagine that you
took a silver dollar and placed a mark on it,
and then placed it with other silver dollars
so numerous that they covered the state of
Texas two feet deep.
Next, he said, imaging a blind man walking up
and down the state of Texas, walking this way
and that way for thousands of miles, and then
he decides to stop, dig around in the coins,
pulling up a silver dollar. The chances of
his finding the marked silver dollar is equal
to the chances of only eight prophecies
coming to pass.
My friends in Christ, over 300 prophecies
were placed into the OT like dots on a
child’s connect-the-dot picture. Look at
dots and it’s a total mystery as to what lies
hidden on the page. When Christ came, all
the dots were connected together.
Jesus was born at just the right time,
through a virgin by the power of the Holy
Spirit, and came to be God with us, Savior of
the world. May the Holy Spirit inspire us to
believe with greater resolve in the truth of
the Bible... the Truth about Jesus as our
personal Savior, and lead us to serve Him
happily and mightily each day of our lives.
Amen.
