PROPHECIES LEADING TO THE CROSS CONFIRM THE WORD OF GOD.  Part 1

Our Lord Jesus purified the temple when He commenced and concluded His ministry.   Luke tells   us ‘That he went into the temple and began to cast out them that sold and them   that bought.’ ( Luke 19:45)   No rank was excepted. He quoted from the Old Testament, ‘It is written. My house is the house of prayer; but you have made it a den of thieves,’ which Jeremiah had written 600 years earlier, ‘Is this house which is called by My name, become a den of robbers in your eyes?’ Our Lord referred freely to the Old Testament, showing the oneness of the entire bible truth. Isaiah 56:7 reinforced this sanctity concerning the temple, ‘ Even them, the sons of the stranger, I will bring to My holy mountain and make them joyful in My house of prayer.‘   Holiness joined with joy in God’s temple.

Our Lord’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem had been foretold by King David one thousand years prior. (Psalm 110). ‘Save now I beseech you O Lord (the meaning of   Hosanna):   I beseech you send prosperity. Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord. We have blessed you out of the house of the Lord.’ Luke 19 graphically described our Lord’s entry, where they sang ‘Hosanna to the King‘ ‘They brought the colt to Jesus, and they cast their garments on the colt, and they set Jesus thereon. And as He went, they spread their garments in the way. And when he was come near, even now at the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen, saying, ’Blessed is the King that comes in the name of the Lord; peace in heaven and glory in the highest,’ which the angels sang at His miracle birth.

Prophecy foretold the scattering of the Lord’s people. ‘ Jesus said to them,’ You all shall be offended because of Me this night: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad.’ ( Matt 26:31).   Did yo notice that   ‘It is written’ , which Wuest insists is also still on record. Mark 14 repeats this statement.   The shepherd was smitten when Christ hung on Calvary’s cross;   the scattering of the sheep described the interspersing of the followers among the nations with the precious gospel.   Zechariah’s ultra-significant prophecy some centuries preceded this. ‘ Awake O sword against my Shepherd and against the Man that is My Fellow, ( the Father described His beloved as His Fellow) says the Lord of Hosts; smite the shepherd , and the sheep shall be scattered; and I will turn My hand ( protectively) upon the little ones.’ (13:7)   His sufferings were predicted.

We honour the Lord Jesus as the eternal Shepherd, God’s beloved Son or Fellow.  

Sadducees deny the resurrection’, so that their rebuttal verifies the Word of God.   In Luke 20, our Lord said, ‘Even Moses showed in the burning bush passage that the dead are raised, when He called the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ (20:40) Why? ‘For He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to Him.’ This silenced them ‘ For after that, they dared not question Him any more. ‘The Angel of the Lord (that is, Our Lord Jesus before His incarnation) appeared to Moses in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush.   So he looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire, but the bush was not consumed.   

Moses said, “ I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn. Supernatural fire energised that bush. God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, ‘Moses, Moses.’ Please observe richness in the double call, as later to Simon and Paul.    He replied, ‘Here I am’; after telling Moses not to draw near this place, rather take the sandals from his feet, for the place where he stands is holy ground. ’ Then the eternal revelation, ‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’’ Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God.’ No generation gap separates us from our Lord.

Later ( verse 14 ) Moses said to the Lord. ’When I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ’The God of your fathers has sent me to   you, asking ‘What is His name?’ God said to Moses, I AM WHOM I AM.’ Thus you shall say to the children of Israel , I AM has sent me to you.‘   This statement shows His unchanging nature.

Our Lord spoke to Nicodemus that ’As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness

Even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.’    Moses described an Old Testament event, which   prophesied our dear Lord would be lifted up at Calvary, The children of Israel spoke against God and Moses, ( so devastating to oppose the eternal One and His chosen servant), ‘Why have you brought us our of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread.’ They hated manna, God’s miraculous provision, and a rich type of the life of Christ.

God acted severely; when ‘The Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people, and many of the people of Israel died.‘ The wages of sin is death,’ showed God’s holiness.   They repented, as men often do, when severe judgments fall. ’The people came to Moses, We have sinned for we have spoken against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord that he take away the serpents from us. ‘ Moses interceded for the people- certainly with broken heart and face drenched in tears. ‘So Moses prayed for the people.’   Remember Christ is our intercessor. God showed the simple plan,’ Make a fiery serpent , and set it upon a pole; and it shall be that everyone that is bitten, when he looks at it shall live.

Miracles of healing followed when they looked at the serpent. ‘Moses made a bronze serpent (   the copper and tin alloy endured the consuming fire, as Christ was consumed as our burnt offering ); and put it on a pole, and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.’ The serpent had no power to heal, but our Lord honoured their faith in a perfect Substitute. Miraculous? Surely; for so is your salvation to Christ, as you are rescued from eternal death and cleansed by His redemptive blood.    Medicine lists the lethal toxins in the serpent’s venom, as destructive, paralysing, and producing death.  

              Sin is also spiritually noxious, ravaging,   paraplegic and crippling,

              The cross of our dear Lord is the culmination of all Bible prophecies.