Prophecy: Fingerprint Evidence Of The Messiah Series

Last time I was here, we answered many questions with one sermon.

• Why do I believe in God?

• Why do I believe that God created the world?

• Why do I believe the bible as we have it is the word of God?

• Why do I believe that all of the men who wrote the bible were inspired by God?

• Why do I believe that Jesus is who He claimed to be?

• Why do I believe that Jesus died on the cross for me?

And the reason why I believe all of these things is because I believe the eyewitness testimony that we have of the resurrection of Christ shows us that these things are true, and that when you truly consider the evidence, there are not any alternative theories that hold water that prove that the resurrection didn't happen.

Because the resurrection did happen, we can know for sure that the God of the bible created this world because Jesus spoke of those events. We can know that the bible we have is from God, because Jesus gave His stamp of approval of the authority of the Old Testament and of the new.

But this is not the only reason why I believe that Jesus is who He claimed to be.

Read: 1 Corinthians 15:1-8

We talked about the historical eyewitness testimony, which is a powerful form of evidence, but I believe we see in this text a form of evidence that is just as powerful of a testimony of who Jesus is that is not the eyewitness testimony. We see this testimony in verses 3-4.

"For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures"

The key elements of the gospel message, along with almost every aspect of Jesus' life, was spoken of in the scriptures, in the prophecies of the Old Testament.

The prophecies that we see about a promised Messiah that would come to this earth were written about 400-1500 years before Jesus walked this earth. If He truly were the Messiah, he would have had to fulfill all of what the OT scriptures spoke about Him. The question we need to ask is: "Did He?" Did He fulfill all of the prophecies about the Messiah?

According to most scholars, there are 300-400 different prophecies about the Messiah, and even more about the kingdom that He would establish. We have a very clear "prophetic fingerprint" of what the Messiah would be like and would accomplish in His time here.

I have titled this lesson: Fingerprint Evidence of the Messiah. When we think about fingerprint evidence, we know that each person has unique ridges on their fingers. When a print is found somewhere at a crime scene, and it matches the pattern of ridges on someone's finger, investigators can conclude with scientific certainty that this person touched that object, and was at the scene of the crime.

But what does this have to do with Jesus? I believe the evidence that we have from OT prophecy does give us the "fingerprint" of the Messiah. There is only one person that could fulfill these prophecies. There is only one person that can be the Messiah. If it cannot be shown that Jesus fulfilled the prophecies, than His claims to be the Messiah were a lie, and we are wasting our time here. But if he did fulfill the prophecies, then He is who He claimed to be, and He will be the one who judges us when we leave this life.

SOME OF THE PROPHECIES

You will be thrilled to know that I will not be looking at all of the 300-400 prophecies about the Messiah. I would like to! Let us just look at about 48 of them to show us the kind of detail that was given about the Messiah, then we will ask: "Did Jesus fulfill them?"

PROPHECIES REGARDING THE MESSIAH'S BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE:

In the books of Genesis and 2 Samuel, we are given the lineage and bloodline through which the Messiah would be born. He would be a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He would descend though Jacob's son Judah, and would be born a king of the line of David.

We are told in Isaiah 7:13-14 that the Messiah would be born of a virgin

In Micah 5:2-5, the scriptures say that the Messiah would be born in the city of Bethlehem.

We are told that there would be a massacre of children (Jeremiah 31:15)

Hosea 11:1 tells us that the Messiah would be called out of Egypt.

PROPHESIES REGARDING THE WORK OF THE MESSIAH: