In Matthew 16, Jesus chastised the Pharisees who could interpret the appearance of the sky but failed to interpret the signs of the time in which they lived. Who are the Pharisees of our day? This strong hold of sort of whiteness and white identity and pristineness is really part of what keeps us from making progress. We need to do better. The church rich in theological scholarship has lingered in academic sanctuaries and ivory towers failing to translate its lofty doctrines into a tangible and practical cultural apologetic. At the Worldview Youth Academy we bridge this critical gap. Here theological depth is not an end in itself but a means to engage with contemporary cultural issues for the glory of God and the expansion of his kingdom. Our mission is to cultivate thinkers who can articulate and apply Christian truths within contemporary societal challenges. So embrace this call to worship God with all your heart, all your soul and with all your mind. We will do better as this next generation tears down the idols of our modern culture and works to build a brighter future toward Christendom 2.0. I would say if the authorities didn't want us involved in the public square they ought not to have crucified Jesus in the public square. Are you humanistic principle? I would say yes to you. I would say that. I would say what's the problem with startups bumping into startups? In the cosmic picture? No, there's no problem. In the cosmic picture it won't matter. No Mr. President, you are not protecting reproductive freedom. You are authorizing the destruction of freedom for one million little human beings every year. I'm sorry my friends, but I am tired seeing Jesus presented as a weak beggar. He is a powerful savior and the gospel is not a suggestion. It is a command. River Hall, don't you sympathize with that? I sympathize with every single human heart wishing to know the one true in living up. But I believe there's only one way that that can happen through Jesus Christ and the gospel is about repenting of sin not celebrating it. Right now you're in the threshold of an amazing adventure. We will explore this spiritual abyss. You have not experienced this before. You are going to love it. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder. And his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end. On the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth. And forevermore, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. That's Isaiah 9, 6 through 7. Everybody, welcome back to another episode of Apology, a radio. This is the gospel heard around the world, everybody. I'm Jeff, they call me the ninja, that's that con over. Hey guys. Director of Indibor. 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Hey, this is one of my very favorite subjects to talk about because it is everything. In the Apology at Apology at Church, we have taken a small side step away from the series we've been in. Book of Proverbs, wisdom from above, verse by verse. We're about halfway through right now. And so we're doing a series right now called Core Doctrine at Apology at Church. And some of it is sort of core doctrinal teachings of Apology at Church. It could be things like post-millennialism, theonomy, presuppositional apologetics, you know, things like that that are important to us. We believe that they have major consequences. We think that they're thoroughly biblical, but there's some issues we would say it's core doctrine for us. We believe with all of our hearts, it's biblical, it's exegetical, it's true. But there are certain things that are core doctrine that are not essential doctrine. Like for example, there are brothers that are and sisters who are far more rigorous than me in their thinking and solid and just amazing and have been gifts to the church. Men like Dr. John MacArthur, Dr. John MacArthur, they think responsible for ultimately leading me to Christ out of my drug addiction. That's where I really feel like I really truly understood the gospel was reading MacArthur. And yet MacArthur would disagree with us strongly on eschatology. He is a pre-millennialist, a dispensational pre-millennialist of sorts. And however we agree on the essential aspect of eschatology, and that is a crisis returning to judge living in the dead. There's going to be a full and final resurrection of the just and the unjust and so we're in full agreement. Crisis returning, bodily resurrection, all of that. But we disagree on some details about what happens as we get there. And so there's the essentials we agree on in eschatology. But we have core doctrine at Apologia Church that we teach from the pulpit. And so in this series, all let's say, we're kind of weaving in and out at Apologia Church in this short series on what is like a core doctrine, not essential, but then also essentials. So for example, we started doing it like a line, a building house anyways. And so foundationally, we're talking about who is God. That's the first question we ask in terms of the Christian faith is who is God. And so we started the entire discussion of core doctrine on the Trinity, the nature of God, the persons of the Trinity. And so we spent two weeks on that. And now we're moving to the next question. I think is important as we build that house is who is Jesus and is Jesus the promise of Messiah? Everything really hangs on that. Like all the other parts of Christian doctrine are ultimately irrelevant if Jesus isn't actually the promise Messiah. And I think most of you guys probably agree with me on that is if Jesus isn't the Messiah, then his teachings are ultimately irrelevant. And so everything kind of hangs in the balance on that question. Is Jesus the Messiah? You use the trilemma in your sermon. You said he's either Lord, liar, or lunatic. And he was either a madman or a con man, or he is who he said he was, God. Exactly. And I wanted to use that terminology. Of course, that comes from C.S. Lewis, the terminology of madman or con man, because I think that that probably strikes all of us in the modern, a little more impactful in terms of a con man, someone who engages in trickery and deception and they're trying to, you know, get a gain or a madman, someone that's just another. They're crazy. And or he's Lord. He's who we claim to be. And so that's where we're at right now. I'm doing the second part of the sermon the Sunday. It's actually my favorite part, believe it or not, even though like I can talk for days on the first part in terms of the direct messianic prophecies towards Jesus. They're astonishing, but I think that there's a level we're going to talk about today in terms of the symbolism fulfilled in Jesus that to me is just undeniably divine. People couldn't have thought through that 1500 years before Christ. They didn't even know what ultimately they were doing when they're doing these rituals and all these different practices and customs. They're separated so far from one another as this revelation is being unfolded in history and they couldn't have even foresaw exactly. Now, this is a good point. When you talk about the symbols and I'm jumping ahead here, but let me tell you how excited I am. Spoiler alert. Spoiler alert. For me, the direct prophecies of Jesus in the Old Testament in terms of the who, the where, the why, the what, the when, the how fulfilled in Jesus. The specific timing indicators like literally nailing down the time of the Messiah, putting a guardrail around the timing of the Messiah so that like when that temple falls, if there's no Messiah, there is no Messiah because it had to, he had to appear and be cut off before that temple was destroyed. Those are astonishing to me, but the symbolism is wild to me. It's wild because you'll read things in the Old Testament that look, they're weird for us to look at, but they were also probably kind of weird for the Jews when they received them like, okay, we're here. Here's this ritual thing we got to do. There's all this symbolism here. Okay. Yahweh commands us to do this. And so we're going to do it, but they didn't understand exactly why. Right? It's Yahweh says and they do. And so that's what happened. Yeah. But they couldn't have possibly foresaw what it was going to ultimate. It was going to ultimately be in its fulfillment in Mashiach, but here's proof of it. Are you ready for this? Here's proof of it that they didn't know 1400 years before Jesus when Moses is coming and all that's taking place, but proof that they did not even comprehend this was that the disciples themselves, they are tripped up by this and confused by this whole situation. Like they didn't just like have the ministry of Jesus and understand all this things perfectly in his life and ministry in his death and resurrection. They're running. They're like denying they even know Jesus and they're like the road to Emmaus. Like disciples are confused. Like we thought it was in the signs and he's dead now. He's murdered. We saw him. Yeah. They had preconceptions, but it certainly didn't look like what they were expecting. I think that is for absolute certain. Yeah. It's like, and I think that goes along with the message of the apostles is that, okay, brothers, here it is. Here's the hope and consolation of Israel. It doesn't look exactly like what we were expecting, but he's come. Yeah. And those disciples, it was only post resurrection and post ascension that they began to go, oh my goodness. This was there the whole time and look at the fulfillment and nobody controlled this. Nobody's controlling the narrative. Just to finally orchestrate it to historical redemption. It unfolds right on top of them, right? Like they're not even prepared for it. Like, I mean, Peter for crying out loud is telling Jesus like, no, you're not going to go and die. Like we're not going to let that happen kind of a thing like, how much do they understand this? How much do they manipulate in the process? They're not. It's unfolding right on top of them. And that's why I think the symbols fulfilled in Jesus are just so trippy and there's no way honestly to plumb the depths. The more, and I said this at church, the older I get, the more I realize I don't understand and don't know and there's so much more to learn and somebody might like hear a message that I give on the symbolism and I'm saying it prophecy fulfilled, make man, you know so much. I want to say like get busy because I know so very little. There is so much more depth to plumb and to get out and I'm constantly excited about that. And that's why I love God's word is there's so much that I don't know that I get to learn and understand more and I feel like regularly I'm presented with something new like I never even understood that. That's unbelievable. Man, God is amazing. But I want to say to start with this that this question is important because as I said and I think everybody was listening would agree with me on this. All of the Christian life, all Christian praxis, everything Christian ethical systems all depend upon the question being answered rightly as to whether Jesus is actually the Messiah, the promised Messiah like it doesn't do us any good to follow Jesus because it makes us feel good. Like that is not the Christian apologetic. Like it's true because I feel like it's true. It's true because I prayed about it. It's true because I had an experience and look, I even said, I said on Sunday, look your experience and my experience in Jesus is valid if it's true that Jesus is the Messiah, right? Because everybody from across a broad spectrum of religions can give you their conversion story. I mean, you can like after the show, just look up YouTube and conversion stories of Mormonism Jehovah's Witnesses, Islam. You name the religion and there's conversion stories and some of them are quite powerful and emotional. As a matter of fact, I mentioned because it's so close to us, you know, you're not going to go to a local ward in the East Valley here in Arizona on a Sunday without sitting through hours of people crying, giving their testimony of how they prayed about the Book of Mormon or how they became a Latter-day Saint. Completely sincere. Completely sincere with tears, with tears. And so the point is that we cannot say that we believe Jesus is the Messiah because it seems so right to us. It feels so good to us because I have had this personal encounter with Jesus. I'm sorry, that is not an epistemologically sound place to stand. Is it true in my own life and your life that Jesus saved me, changed my mind, changed my heart? He's still, he's still changing me like that I know him. I love him. But you said this in the sermon, it's not just what the Bible says about him, it's what do you do with the specific claims that he made of himself and the call that he makes. Like when he calls you to come and die, is that a call that you've responded to? And the only way that you can know that is if Scripture has indeed led you to the conclusion that he is who he said he was, that he's God, he's El Gabor, right, from the passage that you quoted already. He is Lord of creation, he receives worship, he forgives sins, right? You have to see these things, you have to hear who he is, who he is telling you he is, and you have to come on his terms. That's what it means for him to be Lord. And so when you put that distinction, because a lot of people like the fruit of his message, the love your neighbor as yourself, love your enemy, all of those things that people like about Jesus and about the Christian movement, but it's devoid of actually having him and knowing him and treasuring him as Lord and Savior. Have you done that? Do you want Christ? Yeah. Or do you just want his stuff? Yeah. Yeah, or it's such a great, I try to challenge our kids all the time at Apology of Church with this. Like I was doing our youth group for a number of months, and all the pastors are trying to pour into the kids, and one of the things that just kept stressing over and over and over again to the teens of our church is that you have to come to Jesus because of you, and your relationship with him. Not mom and dad's. Not because you're comfortable in this community. Christian communities are awesome. They're awesome. There's love, there's support, there's affection, there's hospitality, there's graciousness, there's a call to love one another as you love yourself. That's a great community to be a part of. It's awesome. But that's not going to sustain you in life is that I really like this community. That feels comfortable to me. I'm trying to challenge people. You need to know that Jesus is the Messiah, and you have repented, and you have believed in Him. You have come to die with Christ and rise from the dead. That's a pretty tall order in terms of the message of Jesus, and this is what we went back to on that dilemma, is that, or trilemma, you have, you know, he's making claims about himself. Let's be honest about those Christians. As we're trying to impress upon us as a church, Jesus making claims that do not allow us to place him in sort of a mid-space between like, I really like his ethical teachings. I love, you know, he's very loving, and let the children come to me, and he's with tax collectors and prostitutes, and he loves sinners. He didn't come for the righteous, but the unrighteous, and you know, he came for the sick. Not total claims about all of reality. Yeah, exactly. And you can't be in the middle there and go, "I really like those things and like to turn any other cheat kind of stuff, but I don't want to like really hear those other claims of exclusivity that Jesus makes, like John 14-6, "I'm the way and the truth and the life, no man comes with the Father but by me." Or when Jesus turns to the crowds and says to them, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate," and then he names your favorite people, and he says, "You also have to take up your cross to come and die," and he basically says, like, you know, "Count the cost of coming to me or don't come to me," and then he loses this massive crowd. Well, there's the message of Jesus. Why isn't everyone attaching to that? And, you know, so you can't say, "I think he's a great moral teacher, a great ethical teacher, he's a great man, he's a great model," blah, blah, blah, blah, and I'll take that, but I won't take these exclusive claims. You're not allowed to do that with Jesus, because he also said that he was God. He also said that unless you believe, "Ego, Amy, I am, you will die in your sins." He also said before Abraham was, "I am." He also received worship. He also claimed to be able to forgive sins. If people say, "Who can forgive sins," but God alone, exactly, exactly. He showed power of his own creation. He's walking on water. He's healing the sick and the blind and the deaf and the lame, and he's raising people from death to life, and he's called the Savior, and God says in his word as if 4311, "I even I am Yahweh, and besides me, there is no Savior," and here's Jesus as the Savior. So here's the point. You cannot take the message of Jesus and say, "I like half of it," because look, he said some other things too, and if he wasn't those things, like if he's not the only Savior, if he's not a prophet, priest, and king, if he's not God in the flesh, then he's crazy. He's crazy if he thought he was, and he's really not, then he's crazy, and you're not supposed to follow crazy people. If Jesus is someone who was self-deceived and he really wasn't God, the creator of all things, the only one worthy of worship, if he really isn't God, then he's crazy. You know, you mentioned not be able to plumb the depths of this, and this just occurred to me. Is there ever a point that you can imagine in the narrative of the Gospels where Jesus isn't absolutely sure about who he is and what he came to do? Not for one moment, not for one recorded instance, and his life or in his ministry did he doubt who he was and why he was here. That's exactly right. Like we do. Exactly. And so he knows who he's claiming to be. And so again, no middle ground with Jesus, you can't say, well, I personally like some of his ethical system stuff. I was like, nope, he doesn't let you do that. He says, come and die or don't come. Take him across to come and die or don't come. You need to love everybody in comparison to me less. If they're more than me, you're not worthy to be my disciple. It's total. It's all of life. It's comprehensive. It's every inch of you. It's everything. Inside, outside. It's all of you. Being able to stand up and say, which of you convicts me of sin? Could any other human being make that claim upon his own meritorious record? I couldn't say that this week with my family. Yeah. They'd all be saying, have a seat, dad. Yeah. I want you to sit this one out. You know, but he can say that Jesus can say which of you accusing me of sin, he could say it to his enemies and he could say it to his family. He could say it to his closest disciples who have walked with them. People know him best. If you accuse me of sin and it's silence. Not a word. No one can do it. And so then the next thing I impressed was Jesus doesn't allow a middle space with himself in terms of like his ethical system. He's a good moral teacher, a good man, yada, yada, but I want to reject his other claims because look, if he knew, if he knew he wasn't God in the flesh, if he knew he wasn't the Messiah sent from the Father, I've come down from heaven not to do my will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who has sent me that of all that he's given to me, I should lose nothing. Okay. Now he's saying that. So it's true or he's self-deceived and crazy or he knew he wasn't sent from God. And he was deceiving people, right? Because if it's not true, if he's not the Messiah, then pick, pick which one? Which lane are you in? Is he? Is he a con man? Is he a mad man? Is he Lord? And so we're just not allowed as Christians to have that middle space with Jesus because Jesus doesn't allow the call of the gospel to be presented like that. It's total. Repent and believe the gospel, come to Christ and live, come to die, trust in Christ, he's the only way to salvation, it's a total, all-encompassing, all-of-life thing. And so that presents also a challenge that I like to make to my brothers and sisters as often as I can, is do you know why you believe that Jesus is the Messiah? So and I'll just put it to you in this way and then Zachary, you can jump in on this. What you do see in the New Testament, start of the gospels. So in Luke 24, wrote to Emmaus, very confused disciples after the resurrection of Jesus. They just saw the man dead, murdered on a tree. They saw him pierce through his side, they see blood and water flow out. He's dead, dead, dead. And he's in a grave. Very dead. Yeah. So that, you know, dead people don't typically come to life, but you know, we saw the miracles of Jesus. What was that about? He's raising people to life, but like can he raise himself to life and how does a dead person move or do anything to raise himself? And Jesus did say, by the way, he would, he says, destroy this simply. And in three days, I will raise it up again. Yeah. Once again, certainty about his claims, who he was. Exactly. No one takes my life for me. I laid down a monocord. But so when you consider the road to Emmaus experience, where Jesus then is walking with them on that road. And he's like, what's going on? What are you guys talking about? And they're like, what do you mean? Where you been kind of a thing? I'm paraphrasing. I love how he approaches that interaction. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. What's up, guys? And, and then Jesus calls them foolish and on what basis? Yeah. This is the key. This is the key. This is what I'm going to say is the epistemological foundation. If someone says, I don't know what that word means, yes, you do. It's the theory of knowledge. How do you know that's true? How do you know it's true? Right? Not just, I feel it's true. No, no, no. How do you know that that's actually true? So for Jesus, when he chastises him, he says, foolish, why? He says, slow of heart to believe all that the prophets had spoken. And so his point is the anchor for Jesus after the resurrection is you guys should have known this. What are you doing being so foolish and confused here? The prophet said this was going to happen. Yes. The whole testament is not ambiguous, and I hate when people say that. Who was I talking to that said that? Andy Stanley. Well, like it's just up in the air. Andy Stanley. Somewhere in the debate I had, the radio debate I had with Andy Stanley on unbelievable radio. It's somewhere online, YouTube. I think it's been seen a lot on YouTube. Somewhere in there, I can't remember exactly how he said it, but it kind of like threw me. I was like, huh, what? And there was so much to deal with. She has to really deal with that about the resurrection question. It was like it was prophesied in the Old Testament, and he was like, well, sort of. And it's like, sort of, sort of, I'm pretty sure it was, Jesus said to those disciples on the road to Emmaus, foolish, slow of heart to believe all that the prophets had spoken. And it was in relation to his death and resurrection. So it's not ambiguous in the Old Testament that the Messiah was going to be cut off, and that he would prolong his days, right, that the Messiah was going to die and rise again. It's in the Old Testament. And so, as the phrase, son of man, not have any meaning, I mean, again, connecting it to the very beginning, which is where you're going here, he gave him the greatest Bible study in the history of the world. Yep. But where did he start? And we'd like to think he'd started a certain place, but talking about his connection to Adam as the last Adam, as the second Adam, um, well, where did Adam come from? He came from the ground, you know, from, from the dirt and where does Jesus come from? Well, he, he comes out of the ground and then he's seen working the ground. Yeah. That's the first, you know, recorded witness of his activity. You know, only what Adam was supposed to do. Yeah. Just the gardener, the, you know, the last gardener, the constant gardener, if you want to get theatrical with it. Just, just the one that God told to like, tend his garden and take dominion. Yeah. Yeah. Getting ahead of ourselves a little bit. But we love this, the symbolism is, it's so deep and so, so amazing. So like the soil, uh, my point is, is so Jesus anchors the messianic, his mess, his uh, um, the validity of his messianic title, um, to the Old Testament scriptures. And so he takes them through the Old Testament showing everywhere that the Moses and the prophets had spoken about him. So he said that story is about me. Yeah. That Old Testament story, they were all talking about me, not somebody else. That's a bold claim, by the way. Yeah. Could a mad man or a lunatic have made that claim, you know, uh, man. Yeah. So the next one is, as you move through the New Testament, you see the testimony of the leadership of the early church and the apostles approaching the question of whether Jesus is the messiah, not like many evangelicals, or I would say, sorry, I say in many Mormons, or I would say many evangelicals do today. And they base it upon their own personal experience. I'm not saying your testimony isn't relevant or valid. Of course it is, but only if, only if Jesus is who he claimed to be. And the way you know Jesus is who he claimed to be is the same way the apostles showed it. So when Pentecost is happening, where are they attaching this understanding of what's taken place? They're quoting the Old Testament scriptures. That's what Peter's doing. Right. He's connecting Pentecost. Lying it to themselves. He's saying that story is what we are living in. Yeah. Right. Yeah. This story is our story. Right. Like we have been, we have been made a part of it. That is this, or he says the other way, he says this is that, which Joel, the prophet Joel spoke of. And Jesus does that in terms of his own ministry. He stands up to reach from the scroll of Isaiah, and what does he say? He says, "The spirit of the sovereign Lord is upon me. He has anointed me, Mashiach, the anointed one." Yeah. Right. He is the anointed king that establishes the rule of God over the world. That's what the Messiah means, right? And in Israel, the kings were anointed for their particular duties. You have instances of prophets and priests being anointed to, but in the terms of the Davidic dynasty. Right. There was a descendant of David promise that would come who would sit on David's throne. Yeah. Right. He would come from the lineage of David. And that's when the New Testament, the Gospels open up with all these genealogies to show you that Jesus has the royal right to David's throne. He's David's son. Right. Right. He's the heir of the Davidic dynasty. But the thing about it is the heir of the Davidic dynasty has dominion over everything. Yeah. All the nations. Not just Israel. Right. Over the ends of the earth. Yeah. We're getting ahead of ourselves. No, no. Keep the Messiah. The Messiah is the anointed king. He is the one upon whom the spirit of God rests in a particular sense, right? He is the one who will build a house for God's name, right? David, one of your descendants is going to sit on your throne. Nathan says to David in 2 Samuel 7, you're going to have a descendant that sits on your throne and he's going to build a house, right? And that dynasty that he builds is going to be in perpetuity, right? It's going to continue. Yep. So. And to the point you were making when Jesus is reading from that scroll in the synagogue, he says, today, this day, this scripture is fulfilled in your hands, again, he's just, this is me. Yeah. It's me. This is me. And so that's what Jesus is doing. That's what the apostles are doing at the beginning of Acts. That's how they went into the world. They didn't just say, hey guys, we've had this great experience and you know, it feels good to us and you should join our group and like, you know, pray about this. They didn't do that. They said, uh, all that is what we're living in right now. Jesus is a fulfillment of all of that. And then when the apostle Paul, who was once an antagonist towards the Christian church, he says in Galatians that he persecuted the church of God and he tried to destroy it. That was his mission. He didn't, he wasn't open-minded to the message of Jesus or the testimony of the apostles or the early Christians. He's not open-minded. He has the Damascus road experience where now he sees Jesus alive from the dead. And then what happens? It says that he takes a B line to Damascus doing what? Going straight to the synagogue where they respect and revere the Old Testament scriptures. And what does he do? He uses the scriptures to reason with the Jews to prove Jesus as the Messiah. He's not coming saying, hey, this is a great experience on the road. And you know, I saw Jesus, I'm sure that came out. I saw Jesus alive from there, but he wasn't basing it on that. The Jews don't need to hear that. That's like, you know, you're telling tales out of the schoolyard. I don't, I don't have to believe anything you're saying. That was who was there who witnessed this, you know, it would be so hard to simply try to like shake their doubt loose with his own personal experience story, right? Like I've really met Jesus. That's not how Paul does it. He says, here's the scriptures, Jesus is a fulfillment. And then Apollos in Acts chapter 18, he is eloquent, mighty in the scriptures. And it says he vigorously refuted the Jews publicly proving that Jesus is the Messiah. And he does so on the basis of the scriptures. And that's how the early Christian church did this, is they did it on the basis of the scriptures. So my point is, we can do more on this, Jesus anchors it in the Old Testament prophecies. The early church in the book of Acts is doing exactly that. And that's the flow you see throughout the New Testament record. As that revelation is ongoing before the destruction of the Jewish temple, it's just this constant appeal not to this theological novum or this novelty and history of like, Oh, wow, look, we get this new thing with Jesus and it's totally disconnected from the Old Testament. They were going, no, it's same story. Yeah. Their testimony is unequivocally clear, brothers, what God spoke through our fathers, the prophets, this he has realized in the coming of this man, right? He's the man that you crucified and put to death. That's right. God has raised him from the dead, right? That's how Acts begins and then you have that giant genuine revival where 3000 people get saved. A real revival. Yeah, a real one with real repentance and faith. But so the whole point Zach and I are making on this is that it's asked a question. Can you do that? Can you do it? Can you demonstrate from the Old Testament, why you believe that Jesus is the fulfillment of all the promises of Messiah? Can you do that? And I'm repeating what I said in Sunday's message, go through apology to the studio's feed. You'll be able to listen to the message from last Sunday and then obviously wait for this next Sunday to get more. But I made a challenge to our church body in terms of, look, scripture says in 1 Peter 3 15, there's other places to, you can do Jude verse 3, earnestly content for the faith, which is once for all delivered to the saints. But in 1 Peter 3 15, it says to set Christ apart as Yahweh in your hearts, always being ready to give an apologia, a reason defense to everyone who asks of you, a reason for the hope that's within you, you do it with gentleness and with reverence. And so that command, that call goes out. There's no gender, there's no gender hook there like men, men, be ready. Yeah, that was a powerful point. Yeah. Always and all that. Always be ready. Christian, you need to be ready. It's not to say, and I try to make this point as clear as possible. It's not to say that like every Christian is going to be a Dr. James White, you know, almost 200 public moderated debates with some of the best heavy hitters from every different worldview. We're not saying that you're going to be, you need to be an apologist on the level of someone like Dr. Greg Bonson, those guys are specially gifted by God to do what they did and praise God for them. But however, you do need to know why you believe what you believe and you need to be able to defend it, give a reason, that's what God says. And I did make the point about moms, you know, women should, women be apologists. Every Christian woman should be an apologist for the Christian faith. Yeah. Mama bear apologist. You better know your faith and you better be able to defend it and share the gospel. And I also made the point too, like homeschooling moms, you know, this amazing divine gift that mothers and wives are in the home, you know, you might think like, well, you know, it's not my responsibility to like, you know, go too in depth on that. It's like, Oh, okay. Well, you're homeschooling, right? Well, how are your kids going to learn this? This is so funny to be because, you know, we stress so much about curriculums, homeschool curriculums, classical curriculums. You know, all of the guilty, totally guilty, like, okay, I want to great curriculum. I wanted to integrate the Christian faith into every single subject and all this stuff. And it's like, well, what about the actual curriculum of Christ? Like the word of God, like are we making that the priority in our homes with our children and our families? Yeah. Like it was the first thing that they're cutting their teeth on who Jesus is. Yeah. And look how, because of course, dads, you're the, you're the father, head of the house, all that. You're disciplining your kids. You're having those regular ongoing conversations just on the way to the store, something comes up. That's discipleship happening, like on the go, everything's, you know, it can be more specific. It's just all of life. That's how I see, you know, discipleship, my home, it's all of life. Everything is a point of contact for a conversation. All of that. And so it's all of life. It's, it's really follow me as I follow Jesus, listen, let's engage with that. But with, with a mom who is homeschooling, look, the dad better not be doing the lion share of homeschooling in the home. If he is, how's he feeding the family? You know what I'm saying? So the lion share of it's going to be the mother. That's just sort of functionally how it's going to work in a home that's properly ordered. The man is earning. The man is providing. The man is working and laboring. And mom is, is there doing the lion share of the homeschooling? I think every homeschooling family would say, yeah, that's how it works. It has to be. But what happens, mom, when you are in the midst of a conversation with say an eight or nine year old that's inquisitive and has some tough questions or like your 12 or 13 year old has like a crisis of faith and they want to know why, why do we believe this? Why am I supposed to actually follow Jesus like this? Look, you need to be able to explain. Well, let me take you to the Bible here. Did you know that the Bible tells you when Jesus is going to come that prophesies at a hundred years before he comes and it's exactly on the dot and he accomplishes all these things. Look for your own eyes. It's right here in the text. Can you take your children through that? If they have those questions or better, if you're at Starbucks or some coffee shop and you're sitting down with your Bible open and someone sits down in front of you and says, Hey, you're a Christian? Yeah, I'm a Christian. Well, I'm not and I have questions. I want to know. Why do you follow Jesus? That's happened to me. That kind of stuff has happened to me more times than I can remember in my life being out somewhere and someone just, it just challenges just come up. It just happens. It just sort of gravitates towards me. Hey, you know, well, he looks like he does. He's got a Bible. Sometimes I'm minding my own business and it happens and sometimes I'm not minding my own business. And I sort of force it to happen. But my point is, is can you defend why you believe Jesus is a Messiah? And so what I did years ago, I created this, um, an acrostic, right? An acrostic. And I did it because I wanted to provide what was one, honestly, I did it because I wanted to provide something I believed every Christian needs to know because it isn't a central question. If Jesus isn't the Messiah, then nothing else matters, period. But I also wanted to do something because I just love this so much and I, I believe it is something that is so life transforming for the individual who learns it and it creates so much of a passion to tell others about Jesus. So I created the acrostic, I just off the question, is Jesus the Messiah? And my answer is most definitely he is and it's M O S T and it's messianic prophecies fulfilled in Jesus, the original life of Jesus that by the way needs to be like it was to fulfill those Old Testament prophecies, so much of this weaves together, the symbolism fulfilled in Jesus from the Old Testament prophecies. And the last one is the transformation of, of, of the world, the apostles and lives today. And that by the way, goes back to more messianic prophecy as to what had to take place with the Messiah himself. And so my answer is most definitely and we build it out based upon sort of those points. You're going to say something. All I'll say in that last point is, man, that just doesn't get enough love sometimes. Like, I mean, you can go to the scriptures and talk about what the Messiah's rule is going to do to the world and all that. But then how about a cursory glance of history, anyone? Like, can we describe the world in all of its vast advancements apart from the gospel and the Christian faith in education, in the dignity of women, in healthcare, in the arts, in the sciences, anything, any area of endeavor at a societal level, at a corporate level, at an individual level. Can you make the case that any nation that's come into contact with the gospel has been worse off? No. No. It is dramatically impacted every place it's touched. And everywhere it falls off is because it disconnects itself from the Christian message. Yes. You experience decline. And from the law of God. And so that's a fact. So let's, we're going, we have, we've talked a lot already. Yes. This might be this one. We throw in a sponsor real fast. It might be two episodes. Let's do that. Actually, you do our sponsors real fast. Okay. I'm going to go use the bathroom. Alright. As everyone can see, I'm, I'm having a lot of liquid day. Alright. 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Now this is what's important about this is Isaiah chapter nine, you can see that when Jesus is quoted in Matthew chapter, let me just go to it so you can see if you if you open your Bibles to Matthew chapter four, you'll see as Matthew's unfolding this amazing narrative of Jesus as a Messiah in so many ways that are so deep. Jesus is gone, he's gone into the temptation. He comes out of the temptation and Matthew chapter four, starting in verse 12, Jesus leaves Nazareth. He goes to he and he went and lived in Capernaum by the sea in the territory of Zebulun and Naftali so that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled. And that is a quotation. Sorry from Isaiah chapter nine. So as you look at Isaiah nine, Isaiah nine opens with that and Isaiah nine, verse six is the verse we were in, the two verses were in six and seven is the verses that talk about the personal identity of the Messiah. This is really what I think is so powerful about this particular text is that Isaiah is written over 600 years before the time of Jesus. And so before the life, the ministry, the death and the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, Isaiah has already been pinned down, it's already down. We have a scroll of Isaiah and this is compelling. It is compelling at the time of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. We had a, because all these pirates and all these things turned to dust after time, right? So like, that's the hard thing with like these ancient scrolls is that they don't last very long, right? It's not like a hard drive or something like that. And even that, I don't even know how that would do after two thousand years to be honest with you. But they turned to dust. They don't do very well. If they get wet, they're destroyed kind of thing. And you know, typically we're finding these in the warmer climates. But at the time, the scroll of Isaiah, the oldest extant scroll of Isaiah that we had, I believe is from around 900 AD. And yeah, that's right. So about 900 AD and when the Dead Sea Scroll discovery happened, it was amazing because we had an entire scroll of Isaiah, right? The matches are, the matches what we have today. I mean, there's differences in terms of like authorship, style, spelling, those sorts of things. But like, it's the same thing. It's same message. Everything's there. And though Isaiah was written hundreds of years before Jesus, this scroll we have today that you can view online, this scroll predated Christ by about 200 years. So this thing is like buried in a pot, right? In the area of the Coomron, and it predates Christ by about 200 years, His ministry by 200 years. And in Isaiah, so you got that background now, okay? This is long before Jesus, Isaiah is a monotheistic Jew. He believes in the only one God, none before and none after. He says it over and over and over again. I mean, Isaiah chapter 40 through 46 is this epic throw down from the true God against the false gods of mankind. And you have, of course, the famous text there, Isaiah 43 10. Remember witnesses says, "A lord, my servant who I have chosen, he may know and believe me and understand that I am he before me, there was no God formed in neither shall it be after me." Isaiah 44, 6, I am the first, and I'm the last, besides me, there is no God. Isaiah 44, 8. Is there a God besides me? Yeah, there is no other God I know not one. And there's more. He talks about God's supremacy over the idols of men and how their idols can't tell them the future because they don't control it. And they can't tell you the past and why it happened, the way that it happened. Only the sovereign God can do that. So Isaiah is a monotheist. He believes there is only one God. And yet, oddly, hundreds of years before Jesus, he says in Isaiah 9, 6 through 7, he says that a son, a child is born, a son is given. So what's a child? What's a son? Well, that's a human. It's one of us. A child, a son. The government should be upon his shoulder and his name should be called and it says, "Wonderful counselor." Okay, that's strange. How is a son and a child being identified with titles that are exclusive to Yahweh? That's weird. How can a child who always has a beginning be El-Kabur, if El-Kabur is eternal? That's the point. What are we talking about? The mighty God? The mighty God? Just a page later in Isaiah, you're going to see Yahweh is called the mighty God. So who is this one that's coming? And that's what I say is stuff that shows the divine fingerprints here on the text is that these people are monotheists. They believe there's only one God and though this revelation is written by them from God through them, they're writing it down, they couldn't have possibly comprehended exactly what does exactly all of this mean because there's only one God. And yet El-Kabur is coming as a son and as a child, so he got the incarnation promised in the Old Testament. El-Kabur is an exclusive title of Yahweh. It is the mighty God, the father of eternity. And so that's a powerful one in terms of identity. So when I say Messianic prophecies, these all weave together, of course. But Messianic prophecies, I mean direct. It's like here's what's going to happen, here's who's coming, here's how it's going to happen, here's when, all that stuff is there. So I'm talking of Messianic prophecies like direct. This is exactly what it says is supposed to happen. The who, the where, the why, the what, the how, the when, all that's there. And so the where, you could do a couple of things with this, but I think one of my favorites is Micah chapter 5 verse 2, and it talks about Bethlehem. This one coming from Bethlehem, his goings forth are from old, yay, even from everlasting, from eternity. Well, you've got two things there actually, don't you? You've got the when, or sorry, the where, and you've got the who. You've got the one that is from everlasting coming to Bethlehem. And that's powerful, super powerful. That's the way. Because you have the twirl entering into actual history in the time. I think that's one of the compelling parts right there. Yeah. Because you have the what the eternal one entering temporal space. Yeah. And, you know, you can maybe understand initially some of the frustration and confusion of those Jews who first came into contact with Jesus when we're talking about Jesus of Nazareth. Right? They're like, can any good thing in Nazareth? I know nothing. From Nazareth. You always call it AJ, which is where I'm from. So thanks very much. I always like to make. I always like to make. Our Apache Junction people upset. But like, you know, they say Nazareth, like, what's the king of the universe doing coming from this nothing little town, Nazareth? Yeah. Well, the truth is, is that he was born in Bethlehem, which is precisely where the Messiah had to come from. If they were to just simply ask them questions, they could have discovered that like, hey, where were you born? Like, where are you actually from? And Jesus, of course, spent those, that early time in Bethlehem, and then they escaped, and ultimately ended up in Nazareth, and that's where he was raised. And Matthew's gospel, this also goes along. There's so many directions you can go with this. But Matthew's gospel quotes the prophecy in Hosea, talking about out of Egypt, I called my son. Referring to Israel, and Israel is referred to in the book of Isaiah, every, I mean, so many places. Isaiah, chapter nine, right here at the beginning, Isaiah 49, as a light for the nations. Right. So in the context of Isaiah, attributing to the nation of Israel, being a light for the nations, you also have the same dramatic symbolism of Jesus in Matthew's gospel being the true and better Israel, right? He succeeds in every way that they fail in the same way that Father Adam failed, right? He failed to rule the world and to advance the dominion of God and do what was becoming with his inheritance. He dropped the ball. He failed. All those were brought into that. And that's why the Messiah's role is restoring, renewing, reconciling, all that was dropped and all that was failed. And that's what makes Jesus who he is. He's the one that reclaims all of this for God. So at the point they're simply put, as you said, is that Jesus accomplishes where Adam failed. Jesus does everything Adam was supposed to do. And so he's the perfect image of God. He's the perfect Adam. And where Israel was supposed to be the servant of God, a light to the nations. Yes, the servant. Right. All those things. And Israel is called the servant of God, where Israel fails in their vocation. Jesus succeeds. And that's what Matthew shows over and over. I mean, even with the wandering and the wilderness, like, okay, so as Jesus just superstars real strong, 40 days, 40 nights, what is his point to that? He's driven as a true and perfect Israel into the wilderness and he does what Adam didn't do. He's what Israel didn't do. He recapitulates the journey of Israel through the wilderness and what it is real do. They failed over and over and over again to trust and obey. Yes. To trust. Like the song says. Trust and obey. I see that to my kids today, but to utilize also the word of God to defeat the enemy. That's right. Which we all need a lot of yeah, a lot of. So sorry. We were in Isaiah nine. Yeah. Let's see. We can just go for forever. Yeah. There's rather. So. But as you move through the question of messianic prophecies, you've got Isaiah nine, you've got as Michael for chapter five verse two and we're not even going to begin to tap this in your hearing today at all. But then you have to ask the next question and we should probably start to get to this part now. And that is the what and the why questions like what is going to be accomplished and the why of of it all. And man, can I just say one thing about this, I always find this so interesting. I know I've said it to you before. I noticed, you know, getting into an understanding and grounding yourself in this, the same exact verse as we used to demonstrate that Jesus is the Messiah who he is. What is this? His identity are usually the same passages that we use to articulate the post millennial hope. That's right. I don't know if. Oh, I've I certainly noticed that connection for me is huge because it's not just who is the Messiah, like what's his identity, but also the details of his coming and then on top of that, the nature of his mission and the success of his mission. If you look at these passages, more times than not, you're going to find the identity of the Messiah and the success of his mission together. Yeah. Yeah. I just think that's very powerful. Oh, that's that's one of the things that made me a post millennialist is because I was first so connected to all these passages about the mess messianic hope about the Jesus as the Messiah. And so when I was willing to finally take the blinders off, right, and sort of like be willing to check my eschatology, I sort of fell right into post millennialism in terms of like, I already knew the promises of the Messiah. They're all connected. Yeah. And so the, you know, the leap wasn't certainly as long. It wasn't very hard because I was already familiar with the texts. Yeah. Just, can we try something? So we're going to try to do some of the what and the why, right? Like what's going to happen? Why is it going to happen? So can you go to Isaiah 53? Yeah, sure. I want to see you do this. Okay. You take, you take the, you take the class, the Isaiah 53. Okay. Class gather around together. Okay. I mean, even before Isaiah 53, we're talking about Isaiah 50. Yes. Talking about the one, you know, who has the, the tongue of those who are taught, the one whom they're going to brutalize and abuse and pull out his beard and, and all of these, you know, dramatic foreshadowings of the ministry of Jesus, talking about his passion, but even more specifically, it's the one that everybody knows. I think, you know, a lot of Christians are familiar with this. They've read this. They've seen the passion of the Christ. It's even right at the front of the movie. Isaiah 53, right? He was purest for our transgressions, crush for our iniquities. It begins, who's believed what he has heard from us and to whom is the arm of the Lord been revealed. For he grew up before him like a young plant, like a root out of dry ground. He had no form or majesty that we should look at him and no beauty that we should desire him. So again, the Messiah comes from Nazareth from Bethlehem. There's, there's not going to be anything flashy about his appearance. Of course, you talk about, um, in his incarnation, in his birth, there was a chorus of angels in heaven, giving the greatest, you know, uh, chorus ever seen among men, of course, you could say that. But the thing was Jesus didn't glow when he walked down the street, right? He was transfigured, of course, at a certain point in his ministry, but that was to verify his identity and who he was. But the point is there was nothing overtly attractive about him, right? No beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely he is born our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. So what does this verse say? Well, it says that when the Messiah comes, we're going to think that he was being put to death for his own sins, that he was being punished for what he had done. But the text says the opposite. He has carried our griefs and our sorrows. And we esteemed him smitten by God, right? We're going to think that God was punishing him for his own sin. But in reality, verse five, he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And with his wounds, we are healed. Okay, tie this in now with also the imagery of the Old Testament, the sin bearer, right? The scapegoat, the one who takes our sins and carries them off out of sight, right? Out of existence. That symbolism, that imagery within the sacrificial system was meant to convey to us the reality that God was going to separate our sins from us as far as the East is from the West, that he was going to carry them away, never to be seen again. Okay. So it wasn't just the shedding of blood that was in faith looked at as their emission of sins for the people. It was the fact that the priests would then take the sins of the people and lay his hands on the goat, confessing the sins of the people as their corporate representative head as the high priest, right? The atonement was made and then the sin was transferred from the people onto the scapegoat and then the scapegoat was sent out never to be seen again. And then six, all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us, all, right? The people of God, also, this is a particular love here, a particular redemption. He was oppressed and he was afflicted yet he opened not his mouth. So here's the question. When Jesus was on trial, did he do a lot of talking? Right. He submitted himself to this. He opened not his mouth like a lamb that has led to the slaughter. He willingly went. He willingly went. He just followed. He wasn't stopping them from doing anything. Like they even say to him, like what like Pilate says, don't you know I have the power to let you go. And he says, you don't have any power except that he's giving you my God. This is not in your control. Jesus is being led like lamb to the slaughter. He's just going willingly. Right. And so he's not defending himself, not opening his mouth. He's not defending himself. He's not trying to get himself out of this. Right. He knows why he came. Yeah. Like a lamb that's led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before it cheers is silent. So he opened not his mouth by oppression and judgment. He was taken away and as for his generation who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people. Okay. So he was cut off out of the land of the living, similar terminology used in Daniel chapter nine. When we're talking about the Messiah who dies of violent death, the prince that is coming, right? He's cut off. Right. He dies of violent death. Talk about the timing of that passage and they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death significance here. He's dead. Right. And he died, although he had done no violence and there was no deceit in his mouth. So is that something that could be said of the nation of Israel? No, that there was no deceit in their mouth and they had done no violence. It couldn't even be said about Isaiah, right, because he says, well, no, because he says in the very same revelation, Isaiah, Isaiah, six, what's the first thing he does when he gets confronted with a man of unclean lips on the man of unclean lips, he realizes his own mouth. Right. So he realizes his own sinful sickness of his mouth, but he says this servant who is coming. Yes. Didn't have that problem. Right. No deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the Lord Yahweh to crush him. He has put him to grief. What a statement. Right. And he's just said, I like the intimate part of this for me. The older I get, the more I cling to things like this, the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all. Yes. Yahweh's doing. Yahweh puts him to grief. It is the father who is laying on Jesus, my sin, your sin. That's intensely personal. Yeah. Yeah. When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days. And now what could this possibly be referring to other than a resurrection? We already have death in the passage. We have the atonement of the Messiah. We have his intercessory work as the high priest, the interposition by his blood. But now we have his soul making a sin offering, right? He's dying. It's death. He actually physically died. And that was for our guilt. And then after that, he shall see his offspring. He shall prolong his days. The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. That's the Messiah, by the way, because the will of the Lord prospers in his hand. One of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied. By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted, righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. And there we have the beautiful picture of the great exchange in the gospel, right? Jesus not only takes my sin, but he gives me his righteousness. And he does that. He makes the many to be accounted, righteous. We're talking about justification, right? This is forgiveness of sins. Therefore, I will divide him a portion with the many and he shall divide the spoil with the strong language surrounding our inheritance, right? There's a portion. There is an inheritance that Jesus has secured by his conquering of death and sin and the devil. That's how Jesus interpreted his own ministry in terms of plundering Satan and dividing the spoil amongst his people, the inheritance, right, that Father Adam lost, that he reclaimed. Now Jesus owns all of this, right? What he was doing on the cross was not just dying for individual sinners. It was he shed his blood so that the cosmos would be bought back so that everything would be redeemed. Colossians 1, not just people, not just souls, but all of this stuff, all of creation. Because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors, so he was counted as sinful. Now because he was, because he's the righteous one, he was treated as if he was guilty so that God could look at us and treat us as if we were righteous. That's the good news of the gospel. Yet he bore the sin of many and he makes intercession for the transgressors, sin bear. That's Yeshua. That's the Mashiach. There's nobody else. That's right. That's only Jesus. And it's clear. It's compelling. It's powerful. Everything there necessary to know Jesus, his identity, what he's going to accomplish, the why is all there. And let's for today end on this one. We'll do another episode where we talk more about the most definitely. It kind of matches perfectly with the how we're going through this at church. This Sunday I'll be doing the second half of the message and maybe next week we'll do the other half of this one. But just I want to do this for you in a timing one real if you will. We'll see if we do it. There's just so many, Zach and I together are talking about this. We can go for like, maybe like a six hour super mega episode. But we'll maybe have you guys hang with these texts, study them this week and then join us next week for the rest. So here though, in Daniel chapter nine, this is powerful. Now there's something I need to say about this. Not only is this just divine and clear and compelling, it is also not something I'm going to be able to completely unpack in this part of the episode. I have done a message on this. I have it somewhere. It's somewhere online where I've gone through the text in terms of like, what does 70 weeks mean? You know, it's weeks of years, all those different things. But that's not ultimately important as important as what we're trying to point to in terms of the cut off here and what has to happen, the substance of the prophecy. So here's what happens. Andrew Gabriel comes to Daniel. Let's him know that from the moment he started praying, he was already sent for this. And in Daniel 924, it says 70 weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city to finish the transgression. That's a pretty big deal. To put an end to sin, an even bigger deal, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness to seal both vision and profit and to anoint the most holy. So there's five things there that are substantial in terms of the promises of God and the life of Israel. Let me just consider it, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and profit. That's to complete it, to finish it up, and to anoint the most holy. Know therefore an understanding that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. Now there are some dispute in terms of like, well, do you start it with Cyrus's decree? Yeah. Where exactly do you start this? I've talked about that in my message I gave in the different ways to start, like, where do you start the clock? Like here's the point, ultimately with this prophecy, it doesn't really matter where you land on this. It gets to the time of Jesus and the guardrail is the destruction of the city. And so where, yes, this prophecy is complex at points in terms of 70 weeks of years, the going forth of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. It's complicated. But you want to watch that. It's the end times, according to Daniel, on our YouTube channel. Okay. So thank you. I'm glad I know that now I'll be able to point people to it. But these are some pretty specific promises to Israel that change everything. Atonement for iniquity, everlasting righteousness and end of sin is a big deal. But there's a word to restore and build Jerusalem. Why is that interesting? It's interesting because when Daniel wrote this, this is during the time of the Babylonian captivity. And so Babylon has just taken Israel under its boot. I mean, you've got all of the problems that you see in Jeremiah and like Lamentations and like the condition of Israel that led to the Babylonian captivity. And now Daniel is in it. And he's obviously grieved over this. So he's pleading with God and begging and the angel Gabriel comes to him and tells him here's what's going to take place. Atonement for iniquity, everlasting righteousness, end of sin, all of that. But it's key. There's a key point here that I think gets missed on how powerful this prophecy is, is when Daniel wrote this, there is no temple. There's no city in sanctuary. It's destroyed. And so there's a prophecy here of a rebuilt second temple. That's what Daniel's getting at. There's all this stuff that's going to happen. And then there's going to be a decree and you've got a restoration of Jerusalem. So they're foreseeing now a second temple being built. That's what's happening here. Yeah, which it was. And it was. Then there for 62 weeks, it shall be a built again with squares and moat, but in troubled times. After the 62 weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing. The word there is a pretty powerful word describes violent death. So the Messiah has to come and he's going to be cut off and have nothing. All right. So the city's going to come be rebuilt, then we've got a Messiah who comes and he's cut off and has nothing. And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. So we've got a rebuilt temple, the Messiah comes to be cut off, has nothing. And then the temple's destroyed. Now there's more that can be said. I'm going to resist very strongly resist going into that last week there and how powerful it is. I'm a minister of Jesus. I'll do it this Sunday at church. That's when you're going to hear it. But here's what's key about this prophecy. There are these five things that need to take place and they're very specific and have to do with sin and everlasting righteousness. The Messiah comes and he comes when there's a rebuilt second temple, then he's cut off and then it says the people of the prince who is to come who is that Messiah shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. You're like, Oh, how are the Romans? How are the Romans the people of the prince who is to come? And the answer to that should be as obvious to all of us as the nose on our faces. If you've read the gospel according to Matthew, you've read as you get close to the promises of destruction of Jerusalem, it's going to happen in their generation, Jesus predicted the fall of the temple. It's going to be destroyed, destroyed, desolation, all of that. These are the days and vengeance in order that all that is written may be fulfilled. Your house is left to you, desolate Jesus came preaching that, but before he came and gave that all of a discourse and said that he gives this story about a king who goes to it, call everyone out to invite him to this wedding feast and then they won't come. So it then it says that the armies of the king came and destroyed the city. Well that's a prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem, but it calls the armies, the armies of God the king. And so when God sends a pagan army or for judgment upon a nation, he calls them the rod in his own hand, Isaiah chapter 10, right? They are what God is using the judges people. So get this. - Instrument of judgment. - Five things had to happen, very specific everlasting righteousness, end of sin, atonement for iniquity, Messiah comes, he is cut off, but he's cut off in the midst of a rebuilt second temple and then that second temple is going to be destroyed. So the point is, the timing, the timing is so key because if that temple is destroyed and gone and it is 70 AD, thoroughly, expunged it was, if Jesus isn't the Messiah, this whole thing is nonsense. Because that's a specific prophecy that the Messiah has to come and be cut off before that second temple is destroyed. That second temple was destroyed in 70 AD and as I've often said, I challenged a rabbi to this once who is giving a public talk against Jesus. I said, if Jesus isn't the Messiah, then who is? Because the temple is destroyed. Daniel 9 says it had to happen at a certain time and the Messiah had to come to be cut off before the temple was destroyed and I've told the story a thousand times, the rabbi's response was to stare at the page and then look up at me and say, "Give me your email address, I'll get back to you." He never did, by the way, because there was no answer, Jesus is the Messiah. He came on time as planned, he did what was supposed to be accomplished, but I also think that there's hints here in the narrative of the New Testament when it tells the story. Why is there this messianic fervor happening then? This intensity of like, who's the Messiah? Where's the Messiah? You the Messiah? Why are all these fake messianic movements popping up in the first century and I'm of the opinion that it's because they knew the clock that Daniel had given and they count down the days and they knew this is the time of the Messiah. He has to be appearing now and that's why there's this messianic fervor. But the point is, as Jesus was cut off, it was during the time of the second temple and then the second temple was destroyed exactly as was promised. So much to say about that, given the significance of the temple, God dwelling with his people. God and his people, big one, Jesus saying, "Destroy this temple, I will raise it up in three days." The Book of Hebrews listing all of the Old Testament, the Old Covenant system, the sacrifice, the priest, the temple, how Jesus in his sacrifice has now transposed all of those things and how he perfectly embodies what the temple was to begin with and how he's building a house with him at the center to fill the entire earth. We talked about symbolism, right? That's how we started this episode was symbols fulfilled. The temple was a pre-eminent symbol because Jesus came to tabernacle among us and we are his body, right? We are his building that he fills by the glory of his Shekinah with his spirit. We can go. Teaser for next week's temptation to keep going, but we've had a long show for today, guys. Thank you for joining us. We love you all. Please pray for the ministry. If you would, go to apology@studios.com, sign up for all access, be a partner with us in this ministry, make everything we do possible, all the street evangelism, the public debates, the cultural engagement, even the abortion mill ministry, everything you see come from Apologia is because of people just like you who join with us in this ministry, all access and you get additional content. We love you all. We're so grateful for you. Please continue to pray for us. I'm Jeff, the common and ninja. That is Zachary Conover. See you guys. Director of Communications and Abortion Now. Do go to endabortionnow.com, get your search, sign up to go save lives at the abortion mill, and please, if you would, pray and give financially to that ministry. Pray for us right now. We're in the midst of fighting the ballot measure happening here in Arizona and we all need prayer for this guys is happening across the country and God has used us in many ways as a church to help fight this battle and we hope to extend that help to other churches across these states where it's happening. So please continue to pray for us. Thank you guys for watching. Catch you right here next week on Apologia Radio. This is the Academy. I am Eli Ayala of Revealed apologetics and I will be bringing a six part series on presuppositional apologetics. What is this called? The Apology Academy. It's just called the Academy. Okay. What's up everybody? My name is Pastor Jeff Durban and you're watching Collision Today. I'm going to be interacting with an atheist on TikTok. So here we go. Unsupervised and unhinged. Welcome back to Cultistry Aftermath. Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Ask Me Anything. You are watching Apologia Radio's Aftershow exclusively for all access. 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