‘Behold, the Lamb
of God’
ide
o amnos tou theou
College Study
86th teaching
9.22.2014
“Desire of
Nations”
Review:
Alright, so by now we should
all be familiar with the sub-sections within Christology that we’ve moved
through. We’re now in the third sub-section, called “the Life of Christ”,
wherein we’re going to examine the marked events of Jesus’ life from eternity
past, through the Old Testament, through the gospels, all the way into the
future. We thus began with the Pre-Incarnate State, if you remember, and we’re
making our way steadily through the Life of Christ toward the Incarnation and
the gospels.
So since we’re still in the Old Testament,
Pre-Incarnate portion of Christ’s Life, we remember that two words characterize
and summarize this time: Appearing and Anticipation. Last week, we studied the
Anticipation aspect of the Pre-Incarnate Life of Christ. So… what was our
subject last week? Can you name some of the Old Testament prophets (tell me
about them)? How many books of the Bible are solely prophetic, known as
prophetic books? How much of the Bible is prophetic (looking for a fraction or
percentage)? Can there be prophets today? We didn’t really answer that
question, but what are three good characteristics that describe a prophet? By
these criteria, we should be able to make a good guess on who or who is not a
true prophet of God. What are the two biblical meanings of the word prophecy? What is the theological name
for the study of end time events? Remember we talked about a few facts about
biblical prophecy: it is not a forecast or educated guess, it comes from God
not man, it occupies a large part of Scripture, it can sometimes have
conditions that must be met before it will come to pass, it can sometimes have
dual-fulfillments, and what kind of interpretation is the best (allegorical or
literal)? Now, why care? Why care about biblical prophecy, or what benefit is
it to us? And finally, we looked at comparative religion and comparative
prophecies between the Bible and other “prophetic” texts. What we found in the
comparisons were that the biblical prophecies are more appropriate to God’s
redemptive plan (they don’t waste space prophesying about the invention of
plastic surgery, for example), that the biblical prophecies are more detailed
and more accurate and much more literal in their wording and fulfillments.
What’s more, we considered the benefit of the easy referencing system in the
Bible as compared to some other texts. What were the three different
“prophetic” examples that we compared to biblical prophecies, as far as in
other religions or texts?
End
of Review
Now
that we have a decent understanding of the concept of prophecy in the Bible, we
can use that as our framework for our subject tonight. Consider this question:
What is the point of prophecy? I mean, why does God tell us the future? Why
bother? Why bother with all the tedium of having these men in the Old Testament
write out these sometimes very longwinded books all about prophecy? What is the
point of biblical prophecy?
At the center of the answer to that
question lies the central figure of our study. The answer is Jesus Christ.
Remember that all throughout the Old Testament He was appearing and He was
being anticipated. This anticipation of Christ is seen in the prophetic words
of the Old Testament, the writings of the prophets who foretold of the coming
Savior. So central to the concept of biblical prophecy is the anticipation of
this Savior-figure, or in other words, foreseeing Jesus Christ is the point of
biblical prophecy.
Now certainly, as you may think, not
all prophecies are about Christ. You’re right. A good many Old Testament
prophecies are about God’s judgment and wrath, God’s provision for humanity’s
future life and environment, the historical fate of His people Israel, the
outpouring of His Spirit, the tribulation and the Antichrist, and so on.
But, the prophecies concerning the
coming Savior weave everywhere throughout all these other prophecies. The
Savior is the central figure of biblical prophecy. So why does God chose to
tell mankind about the future? What is the point of prophecy? To reveal the
coming Savior, our expectation, our anticipation.
It’s not that God just can’t keep a
secret and simply wants to tell us about the future, say, about the technological
inventions coming soon. It may be the bizarre point of the Quran to prophesy
about the invention of plastic surgery, but that’s not the point of the Bible.
The Bible, remember, details the plan of God to redeem humanity, to save
sinners, and all the prophecies fall into that purpose of the whole Book,
specifically the prophecies about the coming Savior who will do the redeeming
and who will save the sinners.
There is then a specific vein within
biblical prophecy, we might call it a specific kind or type of prophecy known
as the Messianic prophecies, those words which foretell of the Messiah.
For an example, let’s turn to a book
not commonly referred to: the prophet Haggai.
A little background if you please:
Haggai is an Old Testament Jewish prophet, one of the twelve minor prophets. He
is known as a post-exilic prophet. There are only three post-exilic prophets:
Haggai, the first of the three, and Zechariah and Malachi.
What post-exilic means is that Haggai
was a prophet who had an active ministry after
the nation of Judah returned from their 70-year exile in Babylon. So, Haggai’s
prophecy occurred after the books of first and second Kings, after Isaiah and
Jeremiah and Daniel. Haggai’s prophecy occurs around the same time period as
the books of Nehemiah and Ezra.
Haggai’s writings open with specific
date. Again, note the specificity of the biblical prophetic writings: we have
an exact date here! General consensus seems to be that this date places
Haggai’s prophecy in the year 520 BC. Commentators place the exact date as
August 29th, 520 BC. There are separate prophecies through Haggai’s
book that occur on subsequent dates.
Now what is the purpose of Haggai’s
prophecy? From reading his book, it appears that Haggai was sent by God to
encourage the people to return to work on rebuilding the Temple. The Jews were
allowed to return to the land of Israel and rebuild the Temple, but hadn’t been
completed yet. It seems they had given up and had focused on rebuilding their
own homes instead. It seems they had begun to work for themselves and plan for
their own future, rather than work and plan for the house of God. In that
respect, Haggai is automatically a relevant book for young adults today facing
the decisions you need to make for your own future: will you work for God or
work for yourself, will you devote yourself to your career, or will you keep
the Lord and His house in mind?
Haggai is one of the shortest books in
the entire Bible. It is only 2 chapters and 38 verses long. So, we’re going to
read through the whole book. Last week we talked about how little we know of
the prophetic books, especially the minor prophets, so perhaps tonight will be
the first time you’ve ever read through Haggai. Keep your eyes and ears open
and think about what we’re reading.
Read Haggai 1:1 – 2:23.
*v.1,
two central figures of Haggai are Zerubbabel and Joshua. Who are these men?
Briefly, all you need to know is that these two were leaders in Jerusalem
during the difficult days of rebuilding the Temple, after the exile was over.
Zerubbabel was a political leader, identified as the governor in Jerusalem.
Zerubbabel is a descendant of the ruling line of Judah, the bloodline of the
kings. Joshua, on the other hand, was a spiritual leader, identified as high
priest. Together, these two had the responsibility of leading the people to do
the right thing, so they’re mentioned several times through the prophecy.
*v.6,
does this seem descriptive of your life? Does it seem like you earn wages and
it’s as if you’re putting the money into a bag with holes? Does it seem like
you’re just spinning your wheels, working hard but not getting anywhere? Is it
possible that God is resisting you because you’re primarily working for
yourself and not for him? Listen, the only way the church functions is not if 20% do all the work for the 80%,
but if 100% of its members, if everyone does their part in serving the Lord. Something
to consider out of these 2 and a half millennia old writings, still speaking to
us today. It’s a matter of establishing our priorities.
*v.15,
something to notice here is that it says they obeyed the voice of the Lord
first and then it says their spirits
were stirred up. Some of us may be waiting to serve the Lord because we’re
waiting on that feeling, something like inspiration, which can tell us and
motivate us to do what we know we need to do. But in this case, the inspiration
was secondary whereas the willing, voluntary choice to obey came first.
In studying the craft of writing, this
is something I’ve come to realize is very common. I know if I just sit around
waiting for the feeling of inspiration before I write, I may never get writing.
But… I’ve found that if I just start writing, sometimes the inspiration just
comes. Same may be true in the spiritual sense, in serving the Lord, the
inspiration and the feeling may not be there, not until you step up and start
acting and then God stirs up your spirit.
Even in the context of this college
study. When we were first asked if we wanted to put this together, I didn’t feel
all that inspired to do so. But we did put this together anyway, and now it’s
something that inspires me to study and to learn more, and it’s something that
I love doing.
*v.3,
Ezra 3:12-13 says “But many of the priests and Levites and
heads of the fathers’ houses, old men who had seen the first temple, wept with
a loud voice when the foundation of this temple was laid before their eyes. Yet
many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not discern the noise of
the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people, for the people
shouted with a loud shout, and the sound was heard afar off.” There were
old men still alive in Jerusalem who remembered seeing Solomon’s temple that
had been destroyed. Now, seeing this new one that could not compare with the
glory of the first, they wept. That’s a sad testament to the ground that can be
lost in disobeying the voice of the Lord. They wept for missed opportunity, for
failure and guilt, for the loss of the Temple’s former glory.
*v.7,
Haggai prophesies of a future time when God will change, shake all the creation
and all the nations. It speaks of a coming time of upheaval. And Haggai
mentions the Desire of all Nations, a future figure that will draw all the
nations together.
*v.23,
I’m sure there’s many more things to comment on, but in closing out his
prophetic book, Haggai quotes the Lord as saying that He had chosen Zerubbabel.
Note that Zerubbabel is the last person to appear in both the genealogy of Mary in Luke
3 and the genealogy of Joseph in Matthew
1; below him is when the two genealogies split. So at least in this sense,
Zerubbabel was chosen by God to be a part of the lineage of Christ.
Now we’re taking our title tonight
from Haggai 2:7. Our title is: “Desire
of Nations”. There in Haggai we had an example of a Messianic prophecy. But
let’s break down our study tonight with these points:
1. What is “Messiah”?
2. What about Messianic Prophecies?
3. Reverse Engineering the Messiah
4. O Come, Desire of Nations
1.
What is “Messiah”?
In the NKJV of the Bible, the prophet
Daniel is the only book to directly use the term Messiah. In the New Testament, John’s gospel is the only book that
references this same term, Messiah.
So it is not a common word in Scripture, at least in this form of the word, but
it is an incredibly important word nonetheless.
What does it mean?
Well, the English word Messiah comes to us through the Latin
word Messias, which itself came from
a Hebrew word: Mashiach. The original
word Mashiach meant “the anointed” or
sometimes you’ll hear it means “anointed one”. Though the English word Messiah only appears a few times in the
English translations, the original Hebrew word is used many times in the Old
Testament where it’s translated as “anointed”.
The term has to do with choosing, or
being set apart for a specific purpose. Often, the Old Testament uses the term Mashiach to refer to an “anointing” by
oil, that is a ritual of consecrating and setting apart something or someone
for a holy purpose. Clearly, then Messiah
refers to a prophetic figure who will be literally the Chosen One, the Anointed
One, set apart for a specific purpose. Exactly what that purpose is is formed
by the Messianic prophecies, which detail what this Anointed One will do and
be.
We’re pretty familiar with terms like
these. Our own fiction reflects our understanding of reality and the concept of
the Chosen One is found throughout many, many different forms of our
literature. From Neo in the Matrix trilogy to Link in the Zelda series to
Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars films to the various folktales and legends
and myths that all human cultures have produced, we’ve expressed an innate
understanding of the concepts of destiny and the ones who fulfill those
destinies, often identified as the Chosen Ones. But in reality, there is one
great Chosen One, this prophetic figure: the Mashiach.
Now guess what the Greek translation
of the word Mashiach is? It is Christos, or in English, the word Christ. The name and title of our Lord
is Jesus Christ, Jesus Messiah, Iesou Christos, or Jesus the Anointed One, the
Chosen One.
If you thought that Christ was simply
Jesus’ last name, well I’m sorry to burst your bubble. But Christ is a
Messianic, prophetic title for Jesus that ties Him back to all of the expectation
and anticipation of the coming Messiah in Old Testament prophecy. He is the
Chosen One, the one who it as decided would come to this little planet and save
humanity from our sins.
So now we know what Messiah and Christ
means. We know that Jesus Christ is called thus because He supposedly fulfilled
the prophecies concerning Him. He is identified as the Anointed One, the Chosen
One of God.
But what about those prophecies? Did
Jesus fulfill them, really? Is He really the prophesied Jewish Messiah? Let’s talk
about the prophecies themselves.
2.
What about Messianic
Prophecies?
We definitely won’t be able to look at
every single Messianic prophecy, so here’s an overview: the Messiah is a leader
anointed by God, descended from the line of David, who would both suffer and
rule, save the people from their sins and eventually usher in a coming age of
peace.
Now let’s lay down a few ground-rules
and facts before we get into looking at some specific prophecies themselves.
Essentially, this is why we looked at prophecy in general last week, before we got into a specific form of prophecy in the
Messianic ones, those prophecies that are about the Messiah. So everything that
we talked about concerning biblical prophecy we can take and generally apply to
Messianic prophecies.
I think this is especially true of the
fact we talked about last week about prophecies having dual fulfillments. The
example we gave was a Messianic prophecy in which in Matthew we read about Jesus as a Child going down to Egypt with His
parents to avoid the infanticide under Herod, that it might be fulfilled what
was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son”, a quote from the prophet Hosea. But if you remember, what we saw
when we turned to the passage in Hosea was that it referred historically to
God’s “son” Israel, who came up out of bondage in Egypt. It did not seem to be
a matter of a prophecy concerning the Messiah so much as it was a statement of
a historical fact.
What we need to do then is distinguish
between two things: Foretelling and Foreshadowing.
What is foreshadowing? The dictionary
defines foreshadowing as “A literary device in which an author gives an advance
sign, hint or warning of what is to come.” Sometimes this foreshadowing can be
very subtle, such as when you read about storm clouds gathering suggesting
danger is coming. But the point is that the foreshadow hints at and represents
something to come.
God, the Author of all things, decided
that He would lace human history with these foreshadows that hint about the
coming Savior. In biblical studies, these foreshadows are studied under
something known as typology, or types of Christ. Typology is something that
descends to us out of Medieval theology, when allegorical and metaphorical Old
Testament interpretations began to become popular.
But even though typology may be a
result of the medieval era, we know that Jesus Himself said “You search the Scriptures for in them you
think you have eternal life, but these are which testify of Me” (John 5:39). Thus when we read the Old
Testament, we should expect that the Scriptures testify, talk of and point to
Christ. One way in which they do that is through foreshadowing and typology.
You shouldn’t go crazy in allegorizing everything and looking for foreshadows everywhere
in the Old Testament to the exclusion of a literal reading of it, but typology
is a viable part of interpreting the Scriptures, according to Jesus.
Let’s consider an example of a type or
foreshadow of Christ, so you know what I mean.
In the book of Genesis, Joseph is a
great example of a type of Christ. Again, this doesn’t mean that he was Christ, or a kind of Christ. Don’t
think of “types” in this sense as “kinds”. Think of “types” as foreshadows or
hints of things to come.
Why is Joseph such a great example of
a type of Christ? Well, consider that Joseph is the beloved son of his father.
Joseph is rejected by his brothers. Joseph is betrayed and sold by his brothers
into servitude. Joseph becomes a teacher and interpreter of dreams. Joseph is
falsely accused. Joseph becomes a ruler in Egypt and saves the world from
famine.
Jesus, in the spiritual sense, is the
beloved Son of His Heavenly Father. Jesus was rejected by his brothers, the
Jews. Jesus was betrayed and sold by his brothers to the Pharisees. Jesus
became a teacher. Jesus is falsely accused. Jesus will become a ruler over the
world, and Jesus saved the world from eternity in Hell by providing salvation.
Another example, and one which Jesus
Himself acknowledged, is the prophet Jonah. Jonah we know was sent by God to
the wicked and was swallowed by the great fish where he remained for three days
and three nights. Jesus, also sent by God, and He said in Matthew 12:40, “For as Jonah
was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son
of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth…” speaking
of His own burial in the tomb before His Resurrection three days later.
So then the important thing is to
distinguish between foreshadow and foretelling. I believe that Joseph’s life is
not a prophecy of the Messiah, but a foreshadow of what the Messiah’s life
would be like. This is the best way to understand the “out of Egypt” reference
we mentioned last week, as a foreshadow that the ultimate Son of God, not
Israel, but Jesus, would come up out of Egypt. A foreshadow can be fulfilled
just like a prophecy, but note that it is not the same thing as a prophecy. And
a foreshadow is more useful in hindsight, rather than a prophecy which is more useful
as foresight.
3.
Reverse Engineering the Messiah
Did Jesus fulfill the Messianic
prophecies, in a sense the requirements for the Messiah? If He did, then we can
expect to “reverse engineer” Jesus into basic facts that have been predicted by
the prophecies.
Now as I mentioned, there are way too
many prophecies concerning the Messiah to go through in just one night. It
would take us several weeks to address them all. One website I found listed 365
different messianic prophecies, and that’s probably not even all of them, since
365 seems like a really arbitrary number.
Now in one sense that provides a
difficulty, because we’ll only know whether Jesus fulfilled the Messianic
prophecies if we take the time to study them and look at all of them. That can
best be done by simply reading the Old Testament. But on the other hand,
because there are so many prophecies about the Messiah, there is a dramatic
increase in specificity. It’s not like anyone can fulfill the role of this
prophesied Messiah, because there are so many predicted factors to take into
consideration.
Imagine if there weren’t. Imagine if
there were only a handful of Messianic prophecies, say five of them, and they
weren’t very specific themselves. Why, anyone could be the Messiah then, if
there were only five vague criteria to fulfill. But there are many more than
just five. Because of that, Messianic prophecy can be difficult to understand
and study. One needs only to glance at the many convoluted charts and diagrams
about prophecy to realize how vast of a subject it is. But because of how many
prophecies there are, Messianic prophecy turns out to be incredibly specific
and not vague at all, limiting the possibility of false “christs”.
Since we can’t go through them all,
let’s take a look at a handful. If you’re interested in studying Messianic
prophecy, do the fingerwork yourself and pick up your Bible and read it, simple
as that. But for tonight, we have time for only a few glimpses into the
Messianic predictions.
1. The Protoevanglium
Turn to Genesis 3:8-15. Adam and Eve have just violated the commandment of
God and eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and now God is
going to pass judgment upon the serpent that tempted them, the devil.
“So
the LORD God said to the serpent: ‘Because you have done this, you are cursed
more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field; on your belly you
shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put
enmity (hatred or hostility) between
you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall crush your
head, and you shall strike His heel.”
Now this passage is known as the protoevanglium, which means the “first
gospel”. In other words, this is the first good news of a coming One who would
defeat the serpent, the devil, though He would also be attacked by the devil.
So this is the first and earliest Messianic prophecy.
Note what it tells us. It tells us
that the coming One is a “He”. So that limits the possibilities to about half
of the human race. Only a man could possibly be the Messiah. Also, it tells us
that He will decisively put an end to the devil, represented by the serpent,
with the finality of a man crushing a serpents head under his heel. The
prophecy also tells us that the coming One would be struck or bruised by the
serpent, that is attacked and perhaps wounded by the devil, but not destroyed.
And finally, interestingly, the coming One is identified by the prophetic
phrase “the Seed”.
Now not to get graphic, but I think
you all are mature enough to know about the birds and bees, and the difference
between boys and girls. You also probably know that anatomically the man
carries the seed and the woman carries the egg to be fertilized. Why then this
peculiar phrase “the Seed” of the woman? The woman does not carry the seed.
This is the earliest prophecy of
Jesus’ virgin birth. He would be the Seed of the woman, born of a woman but not
of a man. Isaiah 7:14 clarifies this
concept: “Therefore the Lord Himself will
give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son…”
So this very first prophecy tells us
about four things: the Messiah’s gender, the Messiah’s wounding, the Messiah’s
defeating the serpent, and the Messiah’s miraculous virgin birth. Messianic
prophecy kicks off way back in Genesis 3
with these four foundational facts.
Did Jesus fulfill them? Yep. He was
indeed a Man and not a woman. He did indeed have a miraculous birth to Mary as
a virgin (Matthew 1:18). He was
“wounded”, slain by the cross but “death could not hold Him down” (Acts 2:24). And He defeated the serpent
at the cross, “that through death He
might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14).
2. The Prophet
Deuteronomy 18:15-16 says “The
LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from
your brethren. Him you shall hear, according to all you desired of the LORD
your God in Horeb [that is Sinai] in
the day of the assembly, saying, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD
my God, nor let me see this great fire anymore, lest I die’.”
So Moses is speaking and he prophesies
about a coming Prophet. We’re told several facts about this coming Prophet: a)
that this Prophet would be like Moses, a deliver, a worker of signs, a
lawgiver; b) we’re told that this Prophet would be raised up from “your brethren”
meaning the Prophet would have to be Jewish; c) the Prophet would speak and be
heard in the place of the fearsome voice of God, the Prophet would be a tender
representative of God the consuming fire.
Some have suggested that the Old
Testament predicts several different Messiahs, a Prophet-Messiah, a
King-Messiah, a Suffering-Messiah, and so on. But we again find the fulfillment
of Moses’ prophecy of a coming Prophet once more in Jesus Christ, who was like
Moses, a deliver, a miracle-worker and a giver of a new law to love one
another. Jesus would also be raised up from the Jewish people. And Jesus Christ
could say “He that has seen Me has seen the Father” and He spoke as a
representative of God the consuming fire to the people, speaking to them in meekness
and gentleness as opposed to the terror of Mount Sinai.
3. The Davidic Descendant
I Chronicles 17:11-14, God says to King David, “And it shall be, when your days are fulfilled, when you must go to be
with your fathers, that I will set up your seed after you, who will be of your
sons; and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build Me a house, and I will
establish his throne forever. I will be his Father, and he shall be My son; and
I will not take My mercy away from him, as I took it from him who was before
you. And I will establish him in My house and in My kingdom forever; and his
throne shall be established forever.”
This is what is known as the Davidic
covenant, an unconditional promise by God that David’s throne would last
forever and a descendant of David would rule over this kingdom forever. Now a
part of this passage is clearly speaking of Solomon, David’s son, who did build
a house for the Lord in the form of the Temple.
But this prophecy goes way beyond
Solomon. Solomon’s rule ended and his kingdom eventually did too when they were
carried away into exile. How then is this prophecy fulfilled? In the Messiah, a
descendant of David who would build God a house and whose throne and authority
would be established forever.
Jesus is a descendant of David through
Mary’s lineage in Luke 3, and even
through his step-father’s lineage in Matthew
1. And other prophecies, such as Daniel’s,
make it clear that Jesus will return to rule and reign over the earth and His
kingdom will never end. So Jesus will fulfill the Davidic covenant prophecy and
rule from the throne of David forever. What’s more, Jesus is building God a
house in that He is building His church and we each are the temples of God’s
Spirit. I Peter 2, “…you also, as living stones, are being built
up as a spiritual house…”
Jesus
is the Son of David, a prophetic title referencing these passages about His
occupying the throne of David.
4. The Suffering Servant
In a large portion of Isaiah chapters 52 and 53, the prophet
describes this figure identified by God as “My Servant”, called a “Man of
Sorrows”. The Lord says “He is despised
and rejected of men… surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows… He
was wounded for our transgressions… bruised for our iniquities… oppressed and
He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth… it pleased the LORD to bruise
Him; He has put Him to grief… My righteous Servant shall justify many, for He
shall bear their iniquities…”
Clearly, this is prophecy concerning
the crucifixion, where Jesus Christ bore our own sins upon Himself and died in
our place, wounded for our transgressions, to justify us in the sight of God.
One of the aspects of Messianic
prophecy that has proved confusing to many readers throughout the centuries,
especially to the Jews of Jesus’s time, was the seeming contradictions. At
times you read of a figure who would come and be disgraced and humiliated and
tortured, and at other times you read of a figure who would come and rule and
reign and be the focal point of nations. How can you reconcile these two
seemingly contradictory prophecies? Would there be two Messiahs, a suffering
one and a victorious one?
What they could not see clearly was
that there would not be a first and second Messiah, but a first and second
coming of the Messiah. The first coming would be characterized by the cross,
the second would be characterized by the crown.
5. The Triumphant King
In Zechariah 9:9 we read: “Rejoice
greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King
is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding on a
donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey. I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
and the horse from Jerusalem; the battle bow shall be cut off. He shall speak
peace to the nations; His dominion shall be ‘from sea to sea, and from the
River to the ends of the earth’.”
This characterized the expectations of
the first-century Jews concerning their Messiah. They expected a triumphant
leader who would come and break the rule of the Romans, and usher in an age of
peace. Note that this prophecy touches on both the first and second comings.
Jesus did indeed come into Jerusalem
riding on a donkey, in a humble way at His triumphal entry in Matthew 21. But did He go into
Jerusalem and speak peace to nations? Is that what we read in the gospels? Did
He cut off the battle bow and the chariot, making an end to war? No. There’s
been war since Jesus, many wars.
But what the continued and seamless
prophetic word indicates as it moves on into the New Testament is that these
prophecies of a global era of peace remain in the future and that they belong
to the time of the Messiah’s second coming. What the Jews and even the prophets
couldn’t see was that the Messiah would suffer on the cross and then return
again later to take up the crown.
*Again, these are just a handful of
Messianic prophecies, some fulfilled and some unfulfilled, but they provide a
framework of details for what the Messiah would be and will be like.
4.
O Come, Desire of Nations
Last week I began by talking about
Christmas. This week, to prove that I can talk about whatever I want, I’m going
to talk about Christmas again. Specifically, remember the Christmas carol “O
come, O come, Emmanuel”? It’s like a Christmas epic. I mean, it talks about the
incarnation, the giving of the law, it references prophecies, it’s got
everything in it.
And the song is punctuated at the
start of each verse by the heartfelt cry for the Savior to return. “O come,
Emmanuel… O come, thou Wisdom from on high… O come, thou Rod of Jesus… O come,
thou Daysping… key of David… Lord of might…” One line goes “O come, Desire of
Nations…”
Remember the title of tonight’s study?
It makes me wonder this: Jesus is the Desire of all Nations, the answer and
solution to all the hostility and war, upheaval and concerns of all the nations
of the world. He is the Desire of Nations, but is He the Desire of your heart?
All the world may be crying out, groaning for His return, anticipating His
second coming, but are you?
Tonight we’ve talked much about prophecy
and the anticipation of Christ the Savior, but it will all be an inherently
meaningless intellectual exercise unless we ask ourselves this question whether
we are anticipating Him ourselves. We may say we believe in His imminent
return, in the rapture taking place at any time, but do we live like we believe
it?
Do we live lives that anticipate the
coming Messiah? Or are our lives characterized by the anticipation of our
favorite tv shows or movies, or by the anticipation of the next paycheck? Let me
tell you, living in such a way is not the Christian life. Our lives are to be
characterized by expectation of the Savior.
II
Timothy 4:8 talks about those that “love His appearing”, looking forward to
His return. Is that you? Do you love Him, look forward to and anticipate His
soon return? Is that something that characterizes your life, or is this whole
Christian-thing something you do on the side, like a hobby? Can you say “O
come, Desire of Nations” or would you rather look forward to something else? Do
you love Him so much or so small?
Jesus the Messiah said in John 14:15, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” Simple as that. How do you
know you love Jesus? You strive to keep His commands, you surrender yourself to
His authority, you allow the Spirit of God to produce in you’re the fruit of
the Spirit, love.
You keep His commandments. You don’t
argue. You don’t keep them merely if you agree with them or not. You don’t keep
them only if you understand why God
would make these commandments. You simply obey at face value, no ulterior
motives, no weird interpretations, no loopholes, no pushing the boundaries.
Simple obedience.
As another old hymn goes: “For there
is no other way to be happy in Jesus than to trust and obey.”
How could you expect to live the
Christian life and not obey the very one you call Lord? Why call him Lord if we
don’t obey Him? Is He the Desire of your heart enough to treat Him as Lord, to
obey Him? How about to make Him your priority?
As the Lord said through Haggai the
prophet “Is it time for you yourselves to
dwell in your paneled houses and this temple to lie in ruins?” He says
“Obey, build up My house that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be
glorified”.
Are you content to dwell in your
paneled houses, your comfortable homes, your comfort zones, while the church of
God limps through year after year after year of calling for help, help in
ministry after ministry, help in upholding the weak, help in reaching out to
the lost, help in supporting and teaching and preaching? Is it time for us to
sit back on our butts and do nothing while the church of God flounders and
sinks for lack of laborers?
In conclusion of it all, the point is,
where do our desires lie? Where does your priority lie? If it truly lies in
Christ, then serve Him. Abandon your comfort zone. Go forth from your paneled
houses and help to build up His house. Turn away from the paltry and pale
pleasures of this world for something far greater, like the man in the parable
that sold everything so he could buy the field and get that pearl of great
price.
As the prophet cried out “Consider
your ways!”
So guys, He is the Desire of all
Nations. I pray that He would be the Desire of your hearts, that Jesus Christ,
the One who forsook all the glories of heaven to come down to a little patch of
dirt and be brutally mistreated and rejected for your sake, would be the
inspiration of your hearts to live the Christian life of obedience to your
Lord, the anticipation that looks for His appearing, and the motivation to join
in with your brethren and build the house of God until His return.
Come, thou long-expected Jesus.
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