351 Old Testament Prophecies Fulfilled by Jesus Christ

I believe I have a very interesting topic today. I don't know how many have really gone through this in the same way. I've been looking and researching, and of course we're focusing on different aspects of the Passover that is coming. One is having the faith that Christ did this for us. Because some people, as some of the kids in camp mention, you go to college, you go to university, many of them are very anti-Bible, anti-Christian, so they're going to throw at you whatever they can to undermine that.

It's important for us to see the evidence that we have why Christ did die for us. He is our Passover Lamb. God made sure that there was plenty of proof for anyone who wanted to explore that topic. Don't let some college professor start disparaging and undermining. Check it out for yourself. In this message, we're going to do that. Let's go to 1 Corinthians 5 and verse 7. 1 Corinthians 5 and verse 7.

The apostle Paul said, Therefore, purge out the old leaven. So these Corinthians were removing leavening from their homes. The Passover was coming. He had written this letter before that time for them to prepare. He said that you may be a new lump. So it's not just removing leavening from our homes. It's removing sin from our lives. He says, you become a new lump without that leavening.

Since you truly are unleavened, if you've repented, if you've accepted Christ's sacrifice, you've been forgiven, your sins have been removed, and you are unleavened. For indeed, Christ, our Passover was sacrificed for us. So there's a direct connection between the Passover lamb in the Old Testament and in the New Testament.

Christ is representing that Passover lamb. That Old Testament lamb was just forecasting what was going to happen in the future. It was a symbol. And one way we can look at these proofs is to examine all the Old Testament prophecies that God gave as proof that Christ is the Messiah. He is the Passover lamb. Look at Luke chapter 24, because the Bible wants you to check things out. It's not some superstitious book based on myth.

It's a historical book with evidence for those who want to see it. One of the most important chapters is Luke chapter 24. Let's go there. Luke chapter 24. You can call this the chapter of Christ's proofs that he fulfilled Scripture. Just go through that. I'm going to start in verse 24.

Christ had already died and was resurrected. As a matter of fact, it says here in verse 1, Now on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they and certain other women with them came to the tomb. And so here you have the time when they come, and they found a stone rolled away from the tomb. So when they came very early in the morning, at the crack of dawn, Christ had already been resurrected. That's why we say that he was not resurrected in Sunday morning. Because Sunday morning is when the sun has already come out.

No, it was actually, and remember the Bible from Genesis 1, it tells us that evening and morning were the first day. And so you had the beginning of that third day, which was on that Friday, and then we come to the day which is Saturday, and then there Christ resurrected. And he said he would be three days and three nights in the tomb. And so he was resurrected at that time. And of course, during that night time, there was guards in their place and everything else.

Everything happened. And so when the women came, Christ had already resurrected. One of the angels said that he had resurrected just as he had said, three days and three nights. So then, going on to verse 24, the two disciples, still during the afternoon of that first day of the week, he said, and certain of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said. But him they did not see.

Then he, which Christ had appeared to them, already resurrected, O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets had spoken, ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory. So he's saying, look, that's what the scripture said of me, that I would suffer and be resurrected and enter into that glory. In beginning at Moses, which are the first five books of the law of God, that's Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. That's what is also called the law of Moses.

And all the prophets, which was here the rest of the Old Testament, he expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. So that's what he did. So how many messianic prophecies are there? We're going to see today at least a great majority of them.

Now we're not going to go to every one, but I have a chart that I'm going to hand out in a moment. But let's go on a little more. In verse 33, these two men that have been going to a mosque, that town, they came back once they realized Christ had appeared before them. And so they rose up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem and found the 11, talking about the 11 apostles, and those who were with them gathered together.

And they said, the Lord is risen indeed and has appeared to Simon. These were the apostles who had said this. And they told about the things that had happened on the road and how he was known to them in the breaking of bread. Now as they said these things, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them. He disappeared and said to them, peace to you. But they were terrified and frightened and suppose they had seen a spirit, because all of a sudden, you know what it is? Somebody to materialize in front of you? And he said to them, why are you troubled and why do you doubt rise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my feet.

It is myself. So they could see where those nails had been nailed to that trunk, where he had died. He said, look at the parts as I am the Messiah. He said, behold my hands and my feet that it is myself. Handle me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have. So he had materialized. That's why they could see them, they could touch them. But while they still did not believe for joy and marveled, he said to them, have you any food here? So they gave him a piece of broil fish and some honeycomb and he took it and ate in their present.

That's how much he had to convince them, because it was such an incredible appearance. Then he said to them, these are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, the first five books of the Bible, and the prophets, that's the historical parts, and the Psalms, which is the first of what is called the writings, more of a poetic part of the Bible, concerning me. And he opened their understanding that they might comprehend the Scripture. So it shows that unless Christ opens a person's mind, they're not going to be able to understand Scripture.

They can go to all the seminaries they want, they can have all of their scholarly titles, but unless Christ is calling them through God, they will not understand. Then he said to them, thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, not the second, not the fourth, the third day.

And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things, so they knew exactly what had happened. It wasn't some story they read or some myth they concocted. So how many prophecies do you think there are in the Old Testament? Any? Yes? 25. That's a good guess.

I don't know how many of you have read this article. It's on the online. How many Messianic prophecies did Jesus fulfill by Jonathan Bernice?

I'm just going to read an excerpt from it. It says, The prospect that anyone would satisfy eight prophecies was one and tenth to the seventeenth power. That means you have seventeen zeros after it. Just to be able to fulfill eight.

This is from a mathematician, Peter Stoner, who did a thorough job. He says, in science speaks, he describes it like this. Let us try to visualize this chance of fulfilling eight prophecies. If you mark one of ten tickets and place all the tickets in a hat and thoroughly stir them, and then ask a blindfolded man to draw one, his chance of getting the right ticket is one in ten. Suppose that we take ten to the seventeenth power in silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas, over the surface of the state of Texas. They will cover this ten to the seventeenth power of silver dollars, all of the state of Texas, two feet deep. Now mark just one of those silver dollars and stir the whole mass thoroughly all over the state. Blindfold a man and tell him he can travel as far as he wishes, but he must pick up only one silver dollar and say that this is the right one. What chance would he have of getting the right one? Just the same chance that the prophets would have had of writing these eight prophecies and having them all come true in any one man, from their day to the present time, providing they wrote using their own wisdom. So later, this mathematician Peter Stoner calculated what would it take to fulfill forty-eight of the prophecies in the Old Testament. So not twenty-five, but now we're almost twice as many. Well, this one now is not ten to the seventeenth, it comes to ten to the hundred and fifty-seventh power. That's ten followed by a hundred and fifty-seven zeros. Now, just to realize, ten to the hundred and fifty-seventh power is about twice the number of atoms in the entire universe. Because, and they can calculate pretty well the mass of the universe, because matter, they can calculate its expansion. So they've come up with ten to the eighty-second power for every atom that there's in the universe. Well, here, just to fulfill, forty-eight percent of these prophecies would be twice as much as all the atoms in the universe. So there's no possibility that someone could have fulfilled forty-eight prophecies without God intervening there.

So how many is the total? Okay, we're up to forty-eight. Anybody want to tell me another one to hazard? Yes. Ninety-six. Ninety-six. Boy, that's a lot, isn't it? Well, okay, Corwin, I've got a surprise for you. I've got a handout with three hundred and fifty-one prophecies that Christ fulfilled. And that is seven times forty-eight more. So you imagine what this is like to just understand how God put the proof, the burden of proof, how carefully God carried it out. So, as you get this, and by the way, I had to correct this document that I was able to look online for. Had some mistakes in it, but this had to do with, they think Enoch rose up to heaven, and so they thought, well, that's kind of a representation. Enoch did not go to heaven. He was transported, but not to some other planet. He was transported to be protected from those that were persecuting him. And also, there was one on Elijah when he was taking a chair. So there are two mistakes which I corrected. That's why I said, edited. Now, let's just notice a bit of the pattern here. And we could go through every one of them. It would take us about ten Bible studies just to go through the entire thing. But you can do that on your own.

Now, just in the book of Genesis, which from the time of the Garden of Eden, where the first prophecy was given about the Messiah, through the time of the Flood, we have twenty prophecies in the book of Genesis, which you have here. The first one, it talked about the seed of a woman, which was going to crush Satan's head. And he would bruise Satan's head, but Satan will bruise the Messiah's heel, which is what Christ said that the Prince of Darkness was going to come right before he was crucified. And so Satan was very active, but he could not destroy Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was resurrected. And so, as we see through these prophecies, the God of Shem will be the Son of Shem, which Luke 3.36 shows that Jesus Christ was a descendant also of Shem. In Genesis 12.3, he would be the seed of Abraham and will bless all nations, so the Messiah would come through Abraham. Christ carried that out. 6. The promise made to Abraham's seed.

In Genesis 14.18, he would be a priest after the order of Melchizedek. Hebrews 6.20 tells you that was Jesus Christ. He was also going to be called King of Peace and Righteousness. Hebrews 7.2. Genesis 14.18, the Last Supper was foreshadowed when Abraham had to go through that covenant and go through those slain animals and that follow that shining cloud.

Also be the seed of Isaac.

The Lamb of God would be promised. Genesis 20.28, that's the sacrifice. God said he would sacrifice his son to the psyche. He ordered Abraham to sacrifice his son, but in this case, God intervened. He did not intervene because his son Jesus had to sacrifice himself for the sins of the world.

In Isaac's seed, all nations will be blessed. He is the seed of Isaac, promised as the Redeemer. Then we have Jacob with a bridge to heaven. He had that dream.

The seed of Jacob, the time of his coming, talks about Shiloh there, the seed of Judah, also called Shiloh, or one cent.

So Genesis 49 has quite a number of prophecies about Jesus Christ.

And then in the book of Exodus, we have nine prophecies about Jesus Christ. He starts out as the Great I Am in chapter 3. It's also mentioned in John. You look at all the fulfillment in the third column. He would be a lamb without blemish. And this is very important. As the Passover comes, we recognize Christ symbolically was that lamb without blemish. He never sinned. He was a perfect sacrifice for us. The blood of the lamb saves from wrath. So once we accept that sacrifice, it saves us from the wrath of our sins. Christ is our Passover. I mentioned that before. Also that not a bone of the lamb would be broken. And Christ did not have any of his bones broken.

Exodus 15, his exaltation predicted as Jesus. Exodus 15.1, his character would be holiness. Exodus 17.6, the spiritual rock of Israel. And the last one in Exodus 33.19, his character would be merciful, as Luke 1.72 said. That would be one of Christ's chief characteristics. Then we have in Leviticus also these Scriptures here, 7, which has to also do symbolic with the sacrifices. His sacrifice is a sweet-smelling savor unto God. Ephesians 5.2, with the leper cleansed, signed to the priesthood.

Christ would also heal lepers. Leviticus 16, talking about the Day of Atonement, prefigures Christ once for all death. Prefiguring Christ as the one of the two rams or the goats. Leviticus 16.27, suffering outside the camp, had to take the sacrifice of that lamb outside the camp. It's very different from the other one. It wasn't taken outside the camp. It was just taken alive to the wilderness, symbolic that that being would not die.

The blood, the life of the flesh.

Let's go on. Deuteronomy has quite a number of them.

Deuteronomy 18.15, it says that this is the truth, that prophet that would come later, like Moses would. He said, if you believed Moses, you would have believed me. Let's go to 1 Samuel. We have a number of them in Samuel, in Kings and Chronicles. A lot of them had to do with David, but he was also a faithful priest. Here, talking, first of all, about the first prophet that we had, Samuel. Shall be anointed king to the Lord. Then we start with the Davidic prophecies. About David's seed, how God was going to bring the Messiah through what is the descendants of David. His kingdom would be everlasting. He does not talk about a human being here. He called the Son of God.

So you see all of these scriptures having to do with David.

Then you even have a couple in the book of Job. How many of you think there are the prophecies in the book of Psalms?

How many? I counted 105. That's pretty close. But it actually takes two pages of this to go through just all the prophecies of the book of Psalms. That's what Christ said time and time again about the Psalms. We just had a wonderful Wednesday night Bible study on Psalms 22, 23, and 24. Just how many of those prophecies Christ fulfilled? And by the way, it's important to realize that during Christ's life, one thing they still had were the records of the genealogies going back to David and others. Those were stored away in the archives of the temple in Jerusalem. The Levites had that. There was a time where it goes in the book of Ezra where some were saying, well, we descended from the Levitical line. They could look at their archives and they said, no, you're not. So you're a fraud. You're not from that descendant. Well, Christ, he descended from the tribe of Judah, and he had the records to show it. And we have two genealogies, which one is in Matthew, the other one is in Luke, just to be able to show. And if any of these men, like Matthew or Luke, when they wrote that down, the temple in Jerusalem still existed. People could check out the genealogies. If Christ had not had that genealogy, he would be completely discredited. So it was only after 70 AD, when the temple was destroyed, all those archives were destroyed. And so anybody that wants to be the Messiah, you can't be sure because you don't have the genealogies. You can be of Jesus Christ the Messiah. Now, after 70 AD, there was no real backing of the genealogies. So that's why I talk so much here in the Psalms.

And like I mentioned here, you have page three. It's all about these Psalms. Page four is all about the Psalms. I mean, how can... Remember what it took just eight of those prophecies to be fulfilled? How difficult? Remember the silver dollars? Just for eight. Well, look at all of these. How could anybody fulfill this unless he was the true Messiah? So it strengthens our faith. All of page five is about Psalms as well. But which book in the Bible has more prophecies than the book of Psalms? Anybody know? Isaiah. He has... He beats the book of Psalms. Isaiah had 125. So he had 20 more prophecies than the book of Psalms. And so we have from page six here all the prophecies. Page seven covers all the prophecies of Jesus Christ.

Page eight does too.

And page nine. We haven't even finished that. So that's where it finishes in page nine at the very end. 125.

And then you have... Who would come next? Who do you think? In the Old Testament. Okay, you have Psalms. You have Isaiah number one, Psalms number two. Who would be number three? Zechariah. The prophet Zechariah comes in third with 30 prophecies. So you can see that. How many? Just about all of page 11. Well, part of page 10 and all of... Well, most of page 11. So this is a good backing that you have. If anybody doubts that Christ was not the Messiah, you can always say, well, you think 351 of these proofs, you have all of these events happening. You think anybody else can fulfill them the way he did? So God and Jesus Christ took a lot of time to give us proofs and evidence that he is our Passover Lamb. So when did God the Father and Jesus Christ plan for all these prophecies? God tells us that too. Let's go to Revelation 13, verse 8.

Revelation 13, verse 8. It says, All who dwell on the earth will worship him. And this is talking about the false prophet and the beast power at that time, at the time of the end. All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the book of life. See, the book of life is people have God's Spirit, the Holy Spirit, and they're not going to worship. No matter how powerful this figure, and with the false prophet doing miracles, he says, whose names have not been written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Way before even Adam and Eve existed, already they had the plan. How they would carry it out, step by step, detail by detail. It was fulfilled. And that's the proof that God wanted us to have, to have faith in Jesus Christ and his sacrifice for us, as we are about to celebrate the Passover. Let's go to one final scripture. 1 Peter 1, verse 17-23. Peter saw the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He saw the resurrected Christ. He was there for that Passover, something that he never forgot. In 1 Peter 1, verse 17, he says, And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear. Some translations have it, soldier, just like pilgrimage. You're living a pilgrimage now. You're going through this earth this time. He says, Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold, like a slave could be, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers. And certainly society is more aimless than ever before. They can entertain themselves basically almost to death today. But what great purpose do they have in life? Eat, drink, and be merry, because tomorrow you're going to die. That sounds like the philosophy nowadays. He said that you received by tradition from your fathers. He says, But you received this way of life with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot home, harking back to the Passover in the Old Testament. He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world. That was all planned before the establishment of the earth, but was manifest in these last times for you, who through him believed in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory so that your faith and hope are in God. Not in human beings. You have to have that personal relationship with God. It goes on in verse 22. Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth, how do you purify yourselves? Obeying the truth. When you discover the truth, it should be the most precious thing you have, because you'll never find any substitute for it, anything equal it. This is the way it is taught. You're not going to find another Bible someplace with other instructions. This is the only book of instructions. Obeying. It's not just listening, but obeying the truth. Through the Spirit, God guiding us, in sincere love of the brethren, it shouldn't be fake. It shouldn't be feigned. It shouldn't be affected. That's a beautiful word. We don't use it very much. What is affected? It's putting on this kind of religious air. I remember, years ago, I had a gentleman in Latin America, and he was one of the ones that we were working with. He'd come out of the Baptist Church, and he still preached like a Baptist preacher. It was all this emotional and riling up people, and everything was very sentimental. I remember one time, he asked me, what do you think about my preaching? I said, it should not be affected. Talk like you would talk normally. Don't put on this type of a religious tone.

Well, we still were friends afterwards, but this is what it's talking about. Not being affected. Don't put on these types of religious airs when you talk, and try to bring the lower part of your speech, or impress others. That's not the real person. It continues on, says, Love, sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart. Having been born again, again, there's this spiritual birth that we have at baptism, receiving God's Spirit, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible, through the word of God, which lives and abides forever. Again, this is our textbook. This is our guide for life.

So, brethren, as we prepare for the Passover, remember how hard, how dedicated God and Jesus Christ were to not supply us with a couple of proofs, no hundreds of proofs, from the Old Testament, many of them which took thousands of years to be fulfilled, just because they wanted us to trust God and have faith in what they are doing and how Christ is our Passover Lamb. Thank you.