Participants:
Series Code: ICJ
Program Code: ICJ190002A
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00:01 Ever read an article about Christ or Christians
00:04 in the secular press, and then read the blogs? 00:08 People mock Jesus, they make fun of Him. 00:11 But you know, they might be a lot more sober 00:15 if they would just do a little math. 00:43 Yes, we do live in a world today unfortunately that 00:46 does make fun of Jesus and the Lord 00:50 and the God of heaven. 00:52 But people don't realize how much proof there is 00:55 behind the Messiahship of Jesus. 00:58 And we're going to talk today about mathematical proof 01:02 that Jesus is the Messiah of the world. 01:05 But first of all we're going to ask the question, 01:07 why does the world need a Messiah anyway? 01:11 Well the problem is a thing called sin. 01:14 And people hear that word and they don't 01:17 really know what it really means. 01:18 But let me tell you what's behind it 01:20 and why it's a big problem. 01:23 The basics are simply this. 01:25 That God created the universe, a God of love, 01:29 and He created it for life. 01:30 Don't you enjoy life? 01:32 And yet look all around us. 01:34 Everybody is dying. People are dying. 01:37 People are in trouble. The world is full of misery. 01:41 So how is it that this wonderful God of love 01:45 created a universe filled with love, but this world 01:49 turns into being such a mess? 01:51 But we need deliverance out of this mess. 01:54 And that is because God runs His universe by law. 01:59 And the way He keeps life is because He keeps unselfishness. 02:04 Life cannot exist unless it exists in an atmosphere, 02:09 environment, of unselfish love. 02:13 It's the unselfish love that makes life possible. 02:15 Now we're not going to talk much about it this time, 02:17 but at some point, 02:19 that was the whole issue over the great controversy. 02:21 Satan believed he could be selfish and still live. 02:25 But you can't. 02:26 So God gave ten commandments, ten commandments to guarantee 02:29 unselfishness in our world. 02:32 And unfortunately, of course, we know what happened. 02:35 That got broke. 02:37 When God made the universe, He made it to be filled with love. 02:41 Let's take a look at those ten commandments for just a second. 02:44 In fact, Jesus was asked the question, 02:46 "What is the greatest commandment?" 02:49 And somebody answered and He commended them for it. 02:52 It says, "To Love the Lord your God with all your heart, 02:54 your soul, your mind, your strength." 02:56 Now he got that, of course, from Moses. 02:58 And Moses got it right. That is the greatest. 03:00 And Jesus gave and affirmed the fact that the second one 03:04 is like unto it. 03:06 It's to love your neighbor as yourself. 03:10 So the law of God is based on unselfish love. 03:15 And the ten commandments are there to guarantee that. 03:18 To keep unselfish love as the basis of our existence. 03:22 And we know that. 03:24 If you go to the ten commandments, 03:25 we're not going to go through all the ten commandments, 03:26 but I do want to look at the tenth one. 03:28 All the commandments tell you, "Do not do this." 03:31 "Do not do that." It's very specific. 03:33 But the last one says, "You shall not covet..." 03:37 Now, "covet," is an issue of heart. 03:41 So it says, "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife." 03:43 Or his house, or his ox, or anything else that he has. 03:47 Don't covet. 03:48 So the heart has to be changed. 03:50 It has to be unselfish in order for life to exist 03:55 and for happiness to exist. 03:57 And that's why we have so much misery in the world. 03:59 That's why there is so much unhappiness. 04:01 It's because people have become so selfish. 04:05 And they become selfish because they have broken 04:09 God's law. 04:10 So we go to the apostle John. 04:13 The apostle John says, he defines what sin is 04:16 so that we can know it, and it's not a hard definition. 04:19 He says, "Sin is the transgression of the law." 04:23 Or sin is lawlessness. 04:26 So if you break the law of God, that's the definition of sin. 04:30 And that's what brings misery, and sorrow, and suffering. 04:33 In fact, in Romans, Paul in the book of Romans says, 04:35 "The wages of sin is death." 04:37 Isn't that awful? Sin pays wages. 04:39 You have to earn this misery, so to speak. 04:42 So we need a Savior. 04:44 We've got to have a Messiah. 04:45 We cannot get ourselves out of this. 04:48 Most of the religions of the world teaches you that you can 04:50 pull yourself up by just being good. 04:53 But the truth is that you can't be good enough 04:57 to get yourself out of the mess. 04:58 For two reasons: one, all of us have broken God's law, 05:01 and all the goodness in the future will not undo that 05:06 if it's been broken. 05:08 And number two, we've got a problem with a carnal heart. 05:11 We'll talk a lot more about that in this series. 05:13 So we need a Savior who can do three things for us. 05:16 First of all, He pays the penalty. 05:19 A broken law means there's a penalty. 05:22 And He's paid it. Isn't that good news? 05:24 And the second one, we need a Messiah 05:26 that can change our hearts and make us new people. 05:32 Change us from being selfish into being unselfish. 05:37 And number three, we need a Messiah that can 05:40 resurrect us from the dead. 05:42 Because the whole human race is dying. 05:46 So when man first sinned to Satan's temptations 05:53 in the Garden of Eden, 05:54 Jesus made a promise to Adam and Eve. 05:56 They're full of tears and sorrow, 05:58 they've broken God's law, they've lost the garden, 06:01 and now Jesus makes a wonderful promise to them. 06:04 And here's the promise that Jesus makes to them. 06:07 It's a promise that just should fill 06:09 all of our hearts with hope. 06:11 In Genesis 3:15 Jesus says to Eve, 06:14 "I will put enmity between you, Satan, and the woman, Eve, 06:21 and between your seed and her Seed." 06:24 Jesus not only comes as the second Adam, 06:26 He comes as the Seed of the woman. 06:28 And He comes to do something. 06:31 Satan would bruise the heel of Jesus, 06:33 but that's not a deadly wound. 06:35 But Jesus would bruise the head of Satan 06:37 and his selfish principles. 06:39 And that's a deadly wound. 06:41 And that's good news for the human race. 06:43 That there is a way out of the mess that we have 06:46 gotten ourselves into. 06:48 Isaiah 53:5-6, talking about the Messiah, 06:51 captures this in such a beautiful way 06:54 that I'm going to read some of the most sublime words 06:57 I think in all of Scripture, where he says, 07:00 talking about the Messiah that would come, 07:03 he said, " He was wounded for our transgressions, 07:06 He was bruised for our iniquities; 07:10 the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, 07:14 and by His stripes we are healed." 07:17 Isn't that beautiful? 07:18 You have trouble in your life, you have difficult in your life? 07:20 You feel the strifes and the difficulties of sin 07:23 and living in a miserable world? 07:25 In Jesus and in His stripes and in what He did for us, 07:30 we find healing and peace. 07:33 It says, "All we like sheep have gone astray; 07:35 every one to his own way; 07:37 but the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." 07:43 So Jesus is that Messiah that takes away our sin 07:48 and our selfishness, and returns us to a state of 07:51 joy, and happiness, and liberty, and peace, and life. 07:54 It's a wonderful thing. 07:56 So this hope was given to Adam and Eve, 07:58 it was given to Abraham and Sarah, 07:59 it was given to David, it was given to all the prophets. 08:02 All of them looked forward to the Messiah. 08:05 Thank the Lord for the Jewish prophets. 08:08 But the Messiah was to be given not just to the Jewish people, 08:11 as wonderful as they are. 08:14 The Messiah was to be given to the whole world. 08:18 The Jewish people were the conduit. 08:21 They were the deliverers, if you please, of this Messiah 08:24 that God would send through the Jewish people. 08:27 So we have this wonderful promise of a Messiah. 08:30 And we need Him. 08:32 I'm telling you, the Messiah is the only hope the world has. 08:37 I almost named this, The One Week That Changed The World. 08:41 But you'll see what I mean by that 08:43 when we get down to the prophecy. 08:44 Because we're going to come to that prophecy. 08:47 Daniel, of course, now is a captive. 08:49 He's an old man, he's in his 90's. 08:51 He's captive still in Babylon. 08:54 Jerusalem lays in ruins, the temple is in ruins. 08:57 And Daniel's heart wants to see it rebuilt. 09:00 And he begins a beautiful prayer asking God's forgiveness. 09:03 And he gets down to the end of that prayer, 09:06 and that's where we pick it up. 09:07 Some of the most beautiful words, most appealing words 09:12 to Jesus, to the heavenly Father. 09:13 Listen to him as he prays in Daniel 9:19. 09:19 "O Lord God, hear! 09:22 O Lord God, forgive! 09:24 O Lord, listen and act, and do not delay 09:30 for Your own sake, my God, 09:34 for Your city and Your people who are called by Your name." 09:39 Now God was listening. 09:41 God hears and answers sincere earnest prayer. 09:45 And God was listening. 09:47 And Gabriel was sent to answer that prayer. 09:51 Now many times God does something extraordinary. 09:56 In fact, the Bible teaches that He will do exceedingly 09:59 abundantly more than we can ask or think. 10:03 And He does that for Daniel. 10:05 Gabriel is sent to answer Daniel's prayers to when 10:09 the temple would be rebuilt, when Jerusalem would be rebuilt. 10:13 But the angel Gabriel gives another message in addition. 10:18 And that is, when this long hoped Messiah 10:23 that's the hope of the world, when would He show up? 10:29 And that's where the math comes in. 10:31 This wonderful pure math, if you please. 10:35 So he gives Daniel a time prophecy. 10:39 Now you don't have to be, again, you don't have to be a 10:40 rocket scientist to get this. 10:43 This math is not that difficult. 10:46 If you can do a little basic math, you can do this. 10:49 I have confidence that you can. 10:51 And the angel gives it in the terms of 70 weeks. 10:55 He said, "Seventy weeks are determined for your people." 10:59 But these are not 70 literal weeks. 11:02 These are 70 weeks of years. 11:05 So when we say 70 weeks, we're talking about 70 weeks times 7. 11:12 And that's 490 years, not days. 11:17 But we'll just talk about the 70 weeks of years 11:21 because it's easy for the math, very easy to do the math 11:25 with just focusing on the 70 weeks. 11:27 But you know before we start, it's really 70 weeks of years. 11:32 So we want to go back to the 70 weeks. 11:35 And each day, as I've already mentioned, represents a year. 11:39 But first of all, I want to talk about 11:41 the division of those 70 weeks. 11:44 And the reason I want to do that is because I want you to 11:46 hear this carefully. 11:48 The 70 weeks are divided up into three pieces. 11:55 Kind of like dividing the pie. 11:57 Kind of like, you know, mother bakes an apple pie 12:01 and junior gets the smaller piece, maybe mother gets the 12:04 next largest piece. 12:05 I'm just using this for an illustration. 12:07 Maybe dad gets the biggest piece. 12:10 So this pie is divided up, this 70 weeks is 12:13 divided up into three parts. 12:16 It's divided up into 7 weeks, 62 weeks, and 1 week. 12:23 That's easy, isn't it? 12:25 7 weeks, 62 weeks, and 1 week. 12:31 You can remember that as we go through that. 12:33 Because we're going to take each one and show 12:35 what happens, of course, with each one. 12:37 Now at the end of each one of these 12:40 something important would happen. 12:41 At the end of the 7 weeks, for instance, 12:44 something important would happen. 12:47 At the end of the 62 weeks, that's going to 12:50 bring us to the Messiah. 12:52 And at the end of the last week, we're going to find the 70 weeks 12:58 are finished and what that means, 13:00 what that last week means to the world. 13:03 Because it means something pretty wonderful. 13:06 This is astounding prophecy. 13:09 It's a prophecy that will reaffirm your faith, 13:12 give you courage, and I hope that you'll 13:14 share it with your friends. 13:16 Because people need to have their faith strengthened. 13:19 And it's hard to argue with this math. 13:21 Math that proves that Jesus is indeed the Messiah of the world. 13:27 The Messiah that the world has hoped for. 13:30 The Messiah the world has longed for. 13:32 The Messiah that the world needs. 13:35 Because the whole world, the whole human race, 13:37 it's just facing all the misery and the sorrow of sin. 13:42 Death is everywhere. 13:44 We need this Messiah, 13:46 this Messiah who can deliver us from the 13:49 terrible penalty of sin. |
Revised 2019-06-05