Episode 97: Messianic Prophecy Fulfilled

In the Old Testament, there are over a thousand prophecies about Israel’s coming Messiah. Over half of those were fulfilled at Jesus' first coming 2,000 years ago. Stu and Todd unpack many of those prophecies and show just how amazing it is that one Man could fulfill them.

- In this episode, Todd and Stu mentioned the silver Dollars Covering Texas illustration. Here’s a short video that explains it well: https://www.bible.com/reading-plans/4363-one-minute-apologist-who-is-jesus/day/4
- Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell is a great resource for this topic. Here’s just a sample of what’s in the book: https://www.josh.org/jesus-fulfill-prophecy/?mwm_id=241874010218&utm_campaign=MW_googlegrant&mwm_id=241874010218&
- For prophecies about Jesus’ Second Coming, check out our End Times episodes: Episodes 3, 4, 5

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Transcript

Todd  0:06  
Welcome to the Truth Wins podcast where the truth hurts sometimes, but it could save your life. Our heart on this podcast is for you to know why you believe what you believe and to be able to give a defense for it. This is episode 97 called messianic prophecy fulfilled. As always, this is Todd Sherman, your host with me today. It's my good friend Stu, say hey, Stu. 

Stu  0:29  
Hey, Stu. 

Todd  0:30  
And we're calling it messianic prophecy fulfilled because there's a lot of prophecy prophecies for the nations for Israel, different prophecies throughout the Bible. But then there's very specific ones, for the Messiah, the coming Messiah, and whoever that was to be. We read about that throughout the Old Testament. So we're going to look at some of those and see whom it points to. You may have a good guest, but if not, stay with us. We'll talk about how it was pretty pretty amazingly fulfilled. And one guy, but how are you doing, Stu?

Stu  1:03  
Oh, pretty good for you know, being kind of slightly elderly.

Todd  1:08  
No. You're in good shape. Good. Yeah. Was it back then, though? Because yes, while you're back?

Stu  1:13  
Yeah, it has its moments. It has its moments.

Todd  1:17  
But you haven't been like flat on your back on the floor?

Stu  1:20  
No, not recently. So that's good.

Todd  1:23  
I'll be nice when we get the new bodies. Yes. I'm looking forward to this. It'll be nice to be able to. But I'm also

Stu  1:31  
looking forward to doing this show and getting ready to teach the same thing on Sunday.Church, 

Todd  1:41  
Oh, good. Good for the crowd at large or for your Sunday school for my Sunday school class. Yep, it's a lot of good stuff there. So I want us to get to that. But before we do that, let's take a little bit of time to stump stu. Alright, so this is from Karen, this is from our episode on no human is illegal. She said the sad problem with people coming in illegally is that it makes a lot of problems for them.

Stu  2:08  
Okay, Karen has an interesting perspective. So she's thinking that it makes problems for the person who's coming illegally. And it does, because a lot of the coyotes and guys who bring people across the border are connected to cartels. And they have raped a lot of the women and done terrible things to them. But also, they've, you know, led them to places where they die in deserts and things like that. That is true. But it's also problems for the country that they're coming into. And Karen's forgetting that it's, it's problems, like when you have to spend money for that people who pay taxes for their school districts to get this kind of equipment. You know, that when you take away from that to pay for something else that goes to a person who's in the country illegally, then you've taken away from the kids who would normally get, you know, a new computer new this, they don't get those things. So it goes both ways. Karen, it's it's a problem for everybody. But also, I would say one of the key things is to remember some of the people coming across our people who have ill intent for the United States, people that are you know, coming from countries that have an agenda to destroy the United States, guys like the 911 terrorists and people like that. So Karen, I hope does your house have walls around it? I'm just curious.

Todd  3:47  
Well, we obviously don't know where she's coming from, but it does seem to indicate which is common these days is there's more compassion for the people who are not playing by the rules the guys in prison and and drug legal aliens and that there needs to be compassion but there also needs to be boundaries and ramifications to that behavior and more compassion for those who do play by the rules. But anyways, that's today's time to stump stu .Right today's Truth Wins episode as many in the past event is brought to you by constructify there you go to solution for home improvement and energy efficient projects where they construct it for you. They'll talk to your windows, siding, roof decks, painting projects, whatever you need around the house. If you're like my good friend Stu and painting is probably the breadth and width of your ability your handyman abilities then it's time to call constructify you

Stu  4:45  
forgot. You forgot roofing Todd I can do roof right that was one job I had.

Todd  4:49  
That's a big part of your bad back though is the yes so if you don't want a bad back and have to go on a little torture thing where he pulls his back back straight in years to come If you're young and think You can do it, call constructify 303-502-1096. Go to constructify.com. Or you can email them at info at constructify.com. They also have a Facebook page. Again, it's construct with an FIY, on the end, mention Truth Wins podcast and you get 15% off your next order. All right, let's jump into the prophecies found throughout the Old Testament speaking of a coming Messiah who would save Israel and make everything right. Because even in the golden age of David is the king people still knew that everything that you know is that East of Eden principle, we all know that it is the world isn't the way it should be. Everybody looks around and sees pain and suffering and says this just doesn't seem right. Well, that's because we need someone to set it right. So the Bible had hundreds or 1000s of verses and prophecies about who that Messiah would be and how he would take how he would restore Israel and restore humankind. And it all points to one guy. And we're going to show today, all that but before we do that, Isaiah 56, verse 46, whatever, Isaiah 46. He's got a,

Stu  6:18  
we don't let the people look in this stuff and go through this. Is that what that?

Todd  6:21  
Yes, I was gonna make sure I wanted him to read 56 and then go back to 46. That was a little. No, I read it wrong. Isaiah 46:8 says, remember this and be assured, recall it to mine your transgressors. Remember the for things long past for I am God, and there is no other. I am God. And there's no one like me, declaring the end from the beginning. And from ancient times things which have not been saying my purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all my good pleasure. God's saying that.

Stu  6:54  
Yeah, so it sounds like God is claiming the ability to see the future, as far as it goes. And the past as far as it goes, this would be only possible for someone who has existed for all of that time. And since God is the self existent one, then his name that he gives to Moses, when he's in the burning bush, that would be characteristic of this God that we worship. He is the One True God the only one that can see this. So his word probably has more clout and more accuracy and perfection than the words of just humans. So 

Todd  7:40  
For sure, well, do you want to go back to like the first one, or what's your what's your preference? As far as the hundreds of Messianic prophecies that we find in the Old Testament? 

Stu  7:52  
Well, yeah, I'm gonna go back to Genesis 3:15. And that's sometimes called the proto evangelion, the first gospel. And that's the one that I think you and I did something on that somewhere, but it's the one that says that, you know, it's when God finally realizes and catch well, he doesn't finally realize he knew in our all along that Eve had eaten the, the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and gone contrary to His Word, that he then says to the serpent, you know, because you have done this curse that are you more than all the cattle and you're gonna go on your belly, you're going to eat dust the rest of your life. And he says to the woman, I will put enmity between her to the serpent, he says, I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed, he will bruise you on the head and you will bruise Him on the heel. So it's like there's this prophecy that something is gonna go on between seat of the woman and the seat of the snake.

Todd  9:03  
That's a cool thing we we played out. I don't know if we've done an episode. On that one. Have we as hunters just think we did. I think maybe we touched on it in one of them. But just where you see this, God's giving a reminder to the seed of the snake Satan, who's trying to stop that seed Jesus, the Messiah coming. So he tried to stop the seed coming from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob throughout human history. And even right up to the time of Jesus tried to stop it over and over again too. But God gives these little reminders since then, until Jesus came that hey, this is what's going to happen and so those those are kind of good word pictures and judges and then are good metaphors and judges and then as First Samuel 17 Yeah, with David and Goliath. So if we if I think we've done it before, but if not, we'll spend a whole episode if you want on some of those goals,

Stu  9:55  
we can do the judges one today just to get I will let you do the judges one. Just want today's because in judges 4 Javene, who is the king of Hutor which is a place in northern Israel, where you can go and see the ruins, and there's a level where it's been burned. So you can see where this actually took place. But the Hutor the king of decides he's gonna send his army to attack the Israelites, and he has 900 Iron chariots, it tells us that and judges for. And he also decides that he's going to send his general Cicero to go with the army to take out the Israelites. Now, at this time, it says that the people of Israel are being judged by Deborah, which is a pretty common name. And I think Todd actually went to prom with a girl named Deborah, is that right? No, maybe not. But Deborah, then goes to the Israelite general Barak, which is a name we probably have heard. And his name. It's kind of funny. It's almost a play a joke in Hebrew because he says something he says to her, I will not I will surely go with you. She says, But he says, he says, if you will go with me, then I will go. But if you will not go with me, then I will not go. In other words. I don't think I can do this by myself. And it's ironic because his name means lightning bolt or Thunderbolt, and her name means honey bee. So lightning bolt can't handle it without the help of little honey bee. So she goes with him. And they do win this great battle and the 900 chariots get stuck in this mud because this storm comes up from the Almighty God. And so he runs away the general he flees, Cicero runs away. And he goes and knocks on the tent of woman that he doesn't know who's in there.

Todd  12:02  
And you really knock on a tent, though. I

Stu  12:04  
think you can. It's kind of well, I guess it would just more like a tarp tarp to us. I can't Yeah. So I think

Todd  12:11  
you said hey, you anybody in there? Mr. Lightning? Bumblebees. So I want a little refuge here. So

Stu  12:20  
You guys to see this woman, right? This woman is her name is Yael which means Yahweh is God. Which means it's he probably shouldn't be going to her tent. And he asked her for something to drink and she gives him some goat's milk that's not

Todd  12:37  
warm milk, warm goats, warm chocolate milk, and a blanket and a blankie. You can go take a nap,

Stu  12:44  
and then she does something to him. Todd, do you know what she did? 

Todd  12:51  
She reads a story. Yeah,bed time story. No, no. Yeah. When he falls asleep she gets a tent peg and goes in and just drives it right through his head out. Yeah, that's she's not messing around. She's going straight for the straight for the brain on that one.

Stu  13:07  
Yeah, it takes him out. And you know, the the kind of cool part of that story is that his she drives a tent peg through his head. His name Cicero means snake. So the seed of Yahweh is God crushes the head of the snake. Yeah,

Todd  13:30  
Perfect. That's a good I do know we did with with David and Goliath. And now it came back to me we did and talked about that. But same thing is like all the imagery of snake in the enemy of God with Goliath. And what does David do? He cuts off his head. And so God's told Satan, hey, what I said back in Genesis 3 is still you know, I'm just a reminder that it's still coming. And then ultimately, the smashing of the snake's head is through Jesus Christ, Savior of the world. 

Stu  14:01  
And then a prophecy about Jesus. Now, here's a thing to know about this, that different people have said, there are different numbers of these prophecies. There was a guy named Peter Stoner who was a professor of Mathematics at Pasadena City College. And he wrote a book called Science speaks, and he took just eight of the prophecies about Jesus. And he said, What are the odds of these being fulfilled? So one of the prophecies that we're going to get to next, which is where he's going to be born? Where will this messiah be born? People say, well, well, Jesus read all these things in the Bible. So he intentionally fulfilled them about himself. How many of you controlled where you were born? Did anybody ever decide that? You know, when you were no.

Todd  14:51  
And the cool thing about where he was born is it wasn't in his hometown, right events at the time made it so everybody had to do a census and go to whatever their lineage was whatever their tribes so that's why they went down south to the tribe of Judah, which was in  Bethlehem, which there's three Bethlehem, right and Jesus day it had to be this one. Yeah. Which was talked about in how many like seven 800 years before then.

Stu  15:19  
Mica writes this about 450 BCE so it's about 400 and some years before Jesus is born, but the prophecy in in Micah says, But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrata, too little to be among the clans of Judah. For for out of you one will go forth for me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from olam from long ago from eternity. So how could somebody who's been going around since olam since eternity be suddenly born in Bethlehem? You start to figure there's only one way this could happen is if God becomes a man,

Todd  16:04  
Which is a stumbling block to Jews today. Right throughout, right? They don't believe the Messiah is God. They don't believe in it.

Stu  16:13  
Yeah, the Messianic Jews get it for sure. But there's ones who aren't.

Todd  16:16  
But they believe it will be like David 2.0, he'll come and be a great warrior king to restore Israel. So this idea of God coming in the flesh. And Paul even said that, you know, it's foolishness to those outside of the Jewish faith, and it's a stumbling block to those in it because nobody into their credit. It's like you don't blaspheme God by saying somebody is God. And that's why they wanted to stone Jesus because He did claim over and over again, if you understand the Hebrew in the culture, that He was God, and nobody did that at that time. But that verse indicates, yes, the one who was eternally existed is going to step out into Bethlehem as a baby, which we sing about every Christmas.

Stu  16:57  
And that word that came right after Bethlehem tells you which of the three it is because there's a Bethlehem in the north, there's a Bethlehem in the middle, and there's a Bethlehem, that's a four mile suburb of Jerusalem, and the one near Jerusalem was the one where they would raise the Passover lambs. So the Lamb of God is going to be born in that town. And it says Bethlehem Ephrata, which means fruitful. And that's the one where when Jacob comes to the land, that's where Rachel dies, when she's giving birth to their first son, Benjamin, her second son, second son was gonna say that second son would have been America's second source. Yeah, that's true. Be hard to sense. She was already dead. Yes, my bad.

Todd  17:43  
Yes, to make some mistakes.

Stu  17:44  
Yes he does,lots of them. But to pick that one is odds of getting that are one in 300. You know, so he has eight of these. And he says, So what are the odds of getting the right tribe? You know, that he's going to be from the tribe of Judas, because we learn that in Genesis 49:10, the scepter will not depart from Judah. Until he comes who to whom it belongs, Shiloh, you know, who is that? Who's the one to whom it all belongs?

Todd  18:14  
So if you know, you know who it is, who's got to come from the tribe of Judah, that's a one in 12 shot. He's got to be in Bethlehem of 300 300 towns back in his right. You go back to this book by the guy that was leader, sir. And yeah,

Stu  18:31  
But I won't go through each of those. But But what he does is he picks just eight and he says, What are the odds of this happening? So they does the calculations, and it comes out to one in 10? To the 17th? That's a one with 17 zeros after it. So it's the same he said it'd be the same odds as

Todd  18:51  
well. Can I do that illustration? Yes. One of my favorite Yeah. So you take you take all these silver coins, that one times 10, to the 17 silver coins, you put an X on one of them. Now that's enough coins to spread all over Texas about two feet thick. Then you throw the one with the X on it somewhere out in the middle of where you are somewhere so it's there. And then you blindfold somebody and get them in a helicopter and they say drop me now and wherever they land, they start digging, they grab one, the odds of them finding that one are the same odds of Jesus fulfilling those eight and the ramifications of those eight prophecies just in his life alone. And that's just eight. That's just

Stu  19:29  
hundreds and yeah, there you say there are some other different numbers that people give Alfred Edgar Schein who is a Messianic Jew who wrote a good book about Jesus. He claimed there were 420 some prophecies in the Old Testament about Jesus. most Bible scholars would somewhere in the 320 to 365 range about Jesus that's one for almost every day so I usually land on the 365 Because every day You got something about Jesus. 

Todd  20:01  
And it's important to note, well, first off what stoners book name again, science speaks and speaks. It's important to note too, that people get confused on Jesus fulfilling prophecies. Because some of them he hasn't done yet. Right. So about half of those Old Testament prophecies that talk about the Messiah, the Messianic prophecies, Jesus fulfill that as first coming. The other half, he's going to fulfill it a second. And that's why many who are living there, especially the the religious elite of that time, they're narrowed in and the common people or two, they want the second half Jesus, because rather than suffering servant or Lamb of God, he's the king conqueror of Israel. He's the conqueror. He's the one that's going to make Israel the best of the best again. And so that's what they all looked at. And they kind of overlooked intentionally or even unconsciously overlooked those First Coming prophecies which Jesus fulfilled. So we have to realize, we've got about half already fulfilled, but Jesus is coming back. He said he was and we know he is he's going to fill those other half when he comes back, and he's not going to be suffering servant or lamb this time. He's coming back as the King of kings in the Lord of lords.

Stu  21:10  
Yes. And that's a good point. We had that vision of Jesus as the column Messiah, son of Joseph, the suffering servant, why? Because Joseph suffered in prison, and then Messiah Son of David, because David is the conquering king. There are some prophecies that like Todd said, in certain parts of like Isaiah 53, that's a said, you know, broken beaten servant prophecy.

Todd  21:41  
Do you want to go there? Now? As a three? Are you gonna work your way there? Okay. Yeah, is it so if you're, if you're not sure, and we're gonna throw a lot of different verses at you, but if you just want two chapters that really have a ton of stuff that speak about Jesus and His suffering and crucifixion and all those things. It's Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22, those are the bread and butter of the Messianic prophecies, so much is found within just those two chapters, that Jesus fulfilled that nobody had done anything close. In fact, they, they didn't even have a lot of this stuff until Jesus until you know, not long before Jesus was born.

Stu  22:17  
Do you want to read up to Isaiah 53:5, so like the first part of it,

Todd  22:22  
alright, so we're going Isaiah 53 verse one says, Who has believed our message and to whom as the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a tender shoot? Do we want to do that one yet? No. Do you want to you want to read it all keep

Stu  22:37  
Yeah, go up to five.

Todd  22:38  
Do I have to? Yeah, I can't We can't just unpack one or two. Okay. I'll do as I'm told. And like a root out of parched ground. He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him nor appearance that we should be attracted to him. He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and like one from whom men hide their face, He was despised, and we did not esteem him. Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried, yet we ourselves esteemed him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted, but he was pierced through for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities, the chastening of our well being fell upon him, and by his stripes are scourging we are healed.

Stu  23:24  
Yeah, that that is the one chapter that most Jews don't read in the Bible. They skip that chapter. Because they have no answer for who that is. Who are we talking about there? And so they say, Well, it's the nation of Israel, you know, it's not a nation. It's a one person that's mentioned in them.

Todd  23:49  
Can I go through them? Can we go back okay, grew up before him like a tender shoot, like a root out of a parched ground? Does that give us any clues? So this guy was

Stu  23:59  
Here's the here's the thing at a person who is a native born Israeli, there's a name they have a special name for that they call it a Sabra. And if you've ever seen the hummus company, Sabra it's a cactus. It grows out of the desert. It's hard on the outside and prickly but tender on the inside. It's kind of like you know,

Todd  24:27  
I gotta first you can't. Keep going. 

Stu  24:32  
So the point being, that, you know, he grew up out in a in a desert, place, his his keep going to the, the piece that

Todd  24:46  
moved out of parched ground, right tender shoots,

Stu  24:49  
And I want to get to the key verse, which is five since we only have one short time on this,

Todd  24:56  
but I want to get to as I was trying to get to go ahead nets are two key things, because because this is talked about in Isaiah, and Jeremiah 23:5 talks about out of Jesse, David's father, so again, from the line of David out of line of, you know, tribe of Judah will come a branch righteous branch ranch or a shoot that comes out. And so if you've ever been to Israel, you know, olive trees are all over the place. And they are very symbolic of the nation of Israel. They're, they're gnarly, they've made it through. I mean, some of them have had missiles and mortars hit them, and they come back and still survive. Or if you cut one down to the stump, you got it all the way down to the stop, there's going to be a little shoot, come back in a year or two, and there's a little shoot that kind of grows out a little crack in the middle, and then you come back in 10, 20, 30 years, and there's another olive tree, so they just keep coming back in. So it says out of out of Jessie, this shoot in the Hebrew word is Netzer. And it's where we get it's a part of the root word for the town called Nazareth. And so even in the, you know, eight 700, and some years before Jesus, they're saying out of Jesse will come this Netzer. And then Nazareth didn't even exist for until 100 or 200 years before Jesus was born. And so Jesus grew up in Netzer town. And so again, just all these little clues that you get that are cool, but yeah, verse five, that's where the money is in Isaiah 53. He was pierced through for our transgression, He was crushed for our iniquities, the chastening for our well being fell upon him, and by his stripes, we are healed.

Stu  26:30  
And that's why we when you take communion, and I don't know how your church does it, but many churches will use matzah because that is probably the closest thing that we have to what Jesus would look like, based on this verse. Because it's got piercings, it has little tiny holes in it is crushed, the wheat that was used to make this is crushed. And then also it has stripes on it because of the way it's cooked. And so you start to see this is a picture of what Jesus does. And also, when they take at Passover, they take three pieces of matzah. And they take the middle piece and they break it and they wrap it and they bury that away. And as a Christian, you immediately get the significance of that. Why the middle piece, you know, oh, yeah, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, who broke himself and was wrapped away in linen and buried, you know, for us. So that's a kind of cool piece on that verse.

Todd  27:29  
Now, is it in 53, or Psalm 22? Or it says the things that again, were out of Jesus control like they gambled for Psalm 22. Again, crucifixion, not even. It was invented by the Romans a couple centuries before Jesus was born. So well, well, after David wrote in Psalm in about 1000 years before Christ, and before Isaiah 53, two, so even this style of execution didn't even exist until centuries later after it was pan, but it's very detailed. You look at that, again, how you can make that kind of hermeneutic jump to say, this is the nation of Israel, when it's very specifically talking about a person I mean, he was, there was nothing that drew people to him just by his looks, it was this, who he was, it was it was the Son of God.

Stu  28:22  
And this, this psalm that you were just talking about was written by David 1000 BCE. And crucifixion isn't even invented till 500 BCE. So it's 500 years before this kind of punishment. And it says in this thing, I am poured out like water, all my bones are out of joint. So if you were crucified, first things going to happen is your shoulders are going to be dislocated. Shoulders are dislocated. And it says My heart is like wax. It has melted within me, it's hard to breathe. You have to push up to be able to breathe on the Cross says My strength is right up like a potsherd. And in verse 16, it says, They pierced My hands in my feet, I count all my bones, they look and they stare at me. They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing, they cast lots. How does David get this 1000 years before Jesus is even born? You know, this is one of those things you just go this is can't be done by anyone other than God. And the very first verse of that song, Jesus says, when he's on the cross, He says, a li li Lama azopt. And he, My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? He points them to this to Psalm 22. Yeah, like, look, this is happening. Right now.

Todd  29:37  
This is what I'm doing. I remember the when I saw the Passion of the Christ, I guess it's almost 20 years ago now, at least 20 years. And just guess as a kid growing up and watching the Jesus movies. I thought, you know, it's just kind of everybody back then was country bumpkins. And you just kind of he got crucified, but it had to go through I mean, Rome was very organized. As they had their soldiers they had, you had to go through the steps. So for him to get to that place and be crucified the way he was, and as quickly as it was, you just see all these things had to work just right. And perfect at the time, again, is during the Passover, and they had to hurry up and get them off the cross and all these things going into understanding both Jewish culture and Jewish timing, but also the Roman in their control of that too. And this was a unique time in history there for all these things to come together for Jesus to be on the cross like he was for them to be gambling for his clothes, to be mocking Him to be spitting at him. And you see that in the passion that Christ said, That hit me hardest. It's like, wow, he's dying for all of us. And yet people are laughing while he's going through the most excruciating. And that's where we get the word for excruciating of the cross, or from the cross. It's like, that was the most excruciating thing he could have gone through because of our sin.