This just possibly could be one
of the most important messages that you'll ever hear. I do say,
if you listen carefully, and God the Holy Spirit is pleased
to bless it to your understanding and to your faith, it'll be one
of the most helpful messages that you've ever heard. My subject
today is Christ in the Old Testament. Christ in the Old Testament.
I'm reading from the book of Luke. chapter 24, verse 27. Now these are the words of the
Lord Jesus Christ. He's speaking to his disciples
after he had been crucified and risen from the tomb. And he says
to them, beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded
unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.
And this is what he said, these are the words that I spake unto
you while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled
which are written in the law of Moses," now that's the first
five books of the Bible, and in the prophets, that's all of
the prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning me. The things which
are written in the law of Moses, in the prophets, and in the Psalms,
concerning me. And then opened he their understanding
that they might understand the Scriptures. Now the New Testament
was not then written. So the Scriptures are referring
to the Old Testament. Not the New Testament at all,
but the Old Testament. In fact, my friends, almost every
reference to the Scriptures in the New Testament is a reference
to the Old Testament Scriptures. Genesis through Malachi, 39 books. Almost every reference in the
New Testament referring back to the Old Testament now the
promises of the Old Testament it's full of promises the prophecies
of the Old Testament full of prophecies and the patterns and
the types and the ceremonies and the sacrifices of the Old
Testament and the history of the Jewish nation from Abraham
to John the Baptist is especially marked by one thing you know
what that one thing is I'm saying that the promises all of them
in the Old Testament and the prophecies, and the types, and
patterns, and pictures, and shadows, and ceremonies, and sacrifices.
And the history of the Jewish people from Abraham to John the
Baptist is especially, especially marked by one thing. You know
what it is? It's the coming of the Messiah.
The coming of the Christ. That's right. All the way through.
Moses called him that prophet. He said, God will raise up from
among the brethren a prophet, him you shall hear. Ruth called
him the kinsman redeemer. David called him the king, the
king who shall sit upon the throne. Solomon called him my beloved.
Isaiah called him wonderful counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting
father, the prince of peace. Jeremiah called him the branch
or the Lord our righteousness. But all the way through the Old
Testament, he's called the Messiah. the Messiah, the Christ. And
the Jewish people of the Old Testament and the Jewish people
in the New Testament look for the coming of the Christ, the
Messiah. That's right, they look for His coming. John, in other
words, in John 1 41, Andrew was looking for the coming of the
Messiah, and he findeth his brother Simon. Now listen to this, John
1 41, Andrew findeth his brother Simon, and said to him, We found
the Messiah. We have found the Messiah. whom
Moses wrote and David wrote we have found the expected one Which
is being interpreted the Christ we found the Christ when our
Lord came to the well at Samaria and talked to the woman of Samaria
and She finally said to him. She said I know that when the
Messiah comes now. Here is an ordinary woman She's
not a leader She's a woman who's been married five times, was
living with a man who was not her husband. She was a very lonely
person, an outcast. But a Samaritan, not even a Jew,
a Samaritan. But she was looking for the Messiah.
She was looking for the Christ. She knew something about the
Old Testament Scriptures. Evidently from her parents, or
from the Pharisees who taught in the temple, the Sadducees.
But she was looking for the Messiah. There was a man called Simon.
A man called Simeon in the temple, when Mary and Joseph brought
the child Jesus to the temple, Simeon was looking for the Messiah. He was looking, the scripture
says, for the consolation of Israel. He was looking for the
Christ. All Israel looked for the Redeemer.
All Israel looked for the Christ. All Israel looked for the Messiah.
All Israel looked for the One who would come, called the Emancipator,
the Redeemer, the Savior, or whatever. Now, that's what the
Old Testament is all about. Every promise and prophecy and
picture and pattern is about the coming Christ, the coming
Redeemer, the coming Savior of Israel, the coming King. Now,
I believe, and this is what I'm teaching, and this is what the
New Testament teaches, I believe that every promise of the Old
Testament and every prophecy and every picture of the Messiah,
the Christ, that prophet, the kinsman, Redeemer, is fulfilled
in Jesus of Nazareth. who was born of Mary, who lived
on this earth thirty-three and a half years, who was crucified
on a Roman cross, and who was buried and who rose again. His
birth, his life, his death, his resurrection, and his ascension
is a fulfillment of every picture and pattern and promise and prophecy
of the Messiah, the Christ, the Redeemer of the Old Testament.
That's what the angel said to Joseph. When the angel came to
Joseph in Matthew chapter 1, he said to him, Joseph, fear
not. to take unto thee Mary, to be
thy wife. For that which is conceived in
her is of the Holy Ghost, she is with child of the Holy Ghost.
And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name
Jesus. For he shall save his people from their sins." And
this is accomplishing what was written by the prophet Isaiah
when he said, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and thou
shalt call his name Emmanuel, which is being interpreted, God
with us. This is what the angel said.
The angel says Jesus is a fulfillment of the Messianic prophecy of
Isaiah 7.14. And this is also what Philip
said to the eunuch. The eunuch had been to Jerusalem
to worship. He was a renowned, important
man of Ethiopia, treasurer of all of Ethiopia. And he'd gone
to Jerusalem to worship, and on his way back to Ethiopia,
he was sitting in his chariot reading the prophet Isaiah, Old
Testament prophet. And Philip came alongside the
chariot, joined himself to the caravan, and was listening to
the man read, or watching him read. And Philip asked him this
question. He said, Do you understand what
you're reading? He was reading Isaiah 53, Old Testament scripture. And the man said, No, I do not
understand. How can I understand except some man show me? He said,
get up here with me and show me. Does the prophet speak of
himself or some other man? Of whom does the prophet speak?
And Philip sat down beside him and began at the same scripture
and preached unto him, Jesus of Nazareth. Philip says that
Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, is the Christ. He is the Messiah.
He is the one of whom Isaiah wrote. He is the expected one.
He has come. This is what Peter said at Pentecost.
When he preached to the thousands at Pentecost, those Jews who
were gathered there from every nation unto heaven for that special
feast of Pentecost, he said, this Jesus whom you crucified
is none other than the Lord and the Christ whom God sent. God
hath made him both Lord and Christ. That's what Peter said to them.
He is the fulfillment of the scriptures. He is the Christ.
Now this is what Paul preached. I want you to listen carefully
to two scriptures. that I'm going to read one from
Acts 17, verse 2 and 3, and the other from Acts 18. Now listen
to Acts 17, 2. And Paul, as his manner was,
went in unto them in the synagogue, and three Sabbath days, three
weeks, he reasoned out of the Old Testament Scriptures, preaching
that Christ, the Christ, the Christ of whom the Old Testament
prophesied, and of whom All of these things are written, that
the Christ must needs suffer and be crucified and raised from
the dead. And that Jesus of Nazareth, whom
I preach to you, is that Christ. That's what Paul preached. He
reasoned three Sabbath days. He said, the Christ for whom
you look has come. The Messiah whom you expect has
come. He's none other than Jesus of
Nazareth, whom you crucify. And in Acts chapter 18 verse
28, and he mightily, this is in Archaia, and he mightily convinced
the Jews, and that publicly, showing by the Old Testament
scriptures that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ. My friends, God
has never had but one way of saving sinners. Our Lord said,
Abraham saw my day and was glad. He said, Moses wrote of me. All
the way through the scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation. I
know that people today have divided the scriptures up into what they
call dispensations. Well, there are dispensations.
There are different ways that God has revealed himself, but
he always reveals the same message. Grace and mercy through Christ.
Salvation by the blood. The book of Leviticus says, it
is the blood that makes atonement for the soul. I have given it
to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your soul. Hebrews
9 22 says the same thing without the shedding of blood. There's
no remission of sin Moses was saved by looking for the coming
Redeemer. We are saved by looking back
to the Redeemer who has come So all the way through the Old
Testament. The Christ is promised the Christ is is pictured the
Messiah the Christ is prophesied and every type and ceremony and
sacrifice points to him And what I'm saying is that Jesus of Nazareth,
son of Mary, virgin born, who died on Calvary's cross, was
buried and rose again, is the Christ. He is the Messiah. He
is the Redeemer. Now let's go back and see if
we can make good on that. Let's look at the prophecies.
First of all, the first prophecy concerning the Christ, the Messiah,
the Redeemer, is found in Genesis 3, 15. When Adam and Eve, being
tempted of Satan, who used the serpent, fell in the Garden of
Eden, God had several things to say. And in these things that
he said, this is what he proclaimed. This is the first announcement
of the Christ, the Messiah. He tells us that this Christ,
this Redeemer, this Messiah, will be of the seed of woman. He'll come into this world not
riding on a white horse. He'll come into this world not
riding on a chariot of fire. He'll come into this world, this
Christ, this Messiah, from the womb of a woman. That's how he's
going to come into this world. He'll not come the first time
whenever I can see him. The only one who saw him was
the midwife who helped deliver him. He came into this world
as a baby from the womb of a woman. That's what he says in Genesis
3, 15. He said to the serpent, I'll put enmity between thee
and the woman, between thy seed and her seed, the seed of woman. And he'll crush your power, your
head. You'll bruise his heel, the lowest
part of his humanity. He'll be crucified on a cross
and suffer, but his power will not diminish. His power will
be accomplished. His victory will be accomplished,
but your power will be broken by his death. By your bruising
his heel, he'll conquer your power. He'll destroy your head. And when Eve gave birth to Cain,
Genesis 4, 1 and 2, Adam knew Eve his wife. She conceived and
bear a son. And you know what her first words
were when that little baby came forth from her womb, that little
boy? She saw that man-child and she said, I've gotten the man,
I've gotten the man, the man with the help of the Lord. Here
he is, here's the Christ, here's the Messiah. Well, we know that
it wasn't. She thought it was. She thought that first man, here
he had come to restore them back to favor, to restore them back
to holiness, to restore them back to glory, which they had
lost by their fall. But the man came was not the
man, Christ Jesus. Because Isaiah said he'll be
born of a woman, but not a married woman, and not with the help
of a man. He'll be born of a virgin, conceived
by the Holy Ghost. You see, Christ could not be
Joseph's son, because he'd partake of Adam's sin. Cain was born
in the image of his father. Jesus Christ was born of the
virgin. Now the second prophecy concerning the Christ, that's
the first. He'll come into this world from the womb of a woman,
just like you and I are born, but without the help of man.
without the assistance of man. He'll be the Son of God, the
Holy One of God. He'll come from a woman. Secondly,
the next revelation said he'd be the seed of Abraham, a Jew.
That's right, Abraham. The seed of Abraham. God said
in Genesis 12, He said, I'll multiply your seed like the sand
of the seashore and the stars of heaven. And He said, I'll
bless you and make you a blessing to all nations. For coming forth
from your seed will be the Redeemer, the Messiah. Listen to Galatians
3.16, Now to Abraham and his seed was the promise made, and
to seed, not to seeds, but to seed, which is the Christ. And
not only Abraham, but in Isaac shalt thou seed be called, not
the son of Ishmael, but the son of Isaac. You see, Isaac was
supernaturally born to Abraham and Sarah. He's a picture of
Christ. He was born, Abraham was 100 and his wife was 90 before
the child Isaac was conceived, a miraculous child. Even so was
Christ. He was brought forth by the power
of God from a dead womb. And then thirdly, the third revelation,
he'll come from a woman, a virgin woman, and he'll be the seed
of Abraham through Isaac, and the next revelation was that
he should be from the tribe of Judah. Now, Jacob had 12 sons,
but Judah, is the tribe from which he would be born. God narrows
this Christ, this Messiah down to where if you will read the
scriptures with an open heart, as the Spirit of God teaches
you, it will show you that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, the
tribe of Judah. He says in Genesis 49, 10, when
Jacob was blessing the twelve sons, he said the scepter shall
not depart from Judah, the scepter, the sign of power, kingship,
shall not depart from Judah until Shiloh comes. Unto him shall
the gathering of the people be. He'll be the king, the one who
comes from Judah. And down here in Hebrews 7.14
it says it's evident that our Lord sprang out of the tribe
of Judah. And then He'll not only come from the tribe of Judah,
but the next prophecy, Isaiah 11.1 says He'll come from the
family of Jesse. Jesse was David's father. The
family of Jesse. Not just any family in the tribe
of Judah, but the family of Jesse. And not only from the family
of Jesse, but the seed of David. The seed of David. The Lord Jesus
Christ one day asked the Pharisees, what think ye of the Christ?
Whose son is he? And they replied, the son of
David. You remember when blind Bartimaeus cried for help, he
said, Jesus, thou son of David? He recognized Jesus of Nazareth
was the Messiah. And these Pharisees knew that.
These Sadducees who rejected him and called for his death,
they knew that the Messiah would be of the tribe of Judah, the
family of Jesse, and the household of David. And do you know that
Mary was of the house and lineage of David? That's the reason she
and Joseph went to Bethlehem to be taxed. That was their capital
city. She was of the household of David.
And our Lord said to those Pharisees, now what think ye of the Christ?
Whose son is he? They said, the son of David.
The son of David. And they were exactly right.
Exactly right. And then the place of his birth
was foretold. In Micah chapter 5, verse 2.
These are all Old Testament scriptures regarding the Christ, the Messiah. But thou Bethlehem, though thou
be little among the thousands, yet out of thee shall he come
forth unto me. the ruler of Israel, whose goings
forth have been from of old, from everlasting, where he would
be born. And then the lowliness of his
birth. How was Jesus of Nazareth born? No room in the inn. He
was born in a cow stable and laid in a manger, surrounded
by shepherds and cattle and sheep. Well, listen to Isaiah 53, verse
1. He's despised and rejected of
men. A man of sorrows acquainted with grief. He shall grow up
as a tender plant, as a root out of a dry ground, no form,
no comeliness, no beauty that we should desire him. Very poor
and lowly. Zechariah said, Behold your king
cometh, riding upon an ass. Riding upon an ass. Not in a
chariot, not on a great stallion, not surrounded by satin and silk
and all the finery of the kingship. No, he'll come lowly. Be born
that way and live that way. And then his death. Now, you
read Psalm 22. I wish every one of you take
the 22nd Psalm. Here is David writing hundreds
of years before Jesus of Nazareth died on that cross. Hundreds
of years. This is a Messianic Psalm. You
preachers know what a Messianic Psalm is and some of the rest
of you do. But Psalm 22, I want you to listen to it. It begins
this way, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? He said, I cry unto
thee in the daytime and in the night season. I'm not silent.
The hours of light and darkness when Christ hung on that cross.
He said, dogs have compassed me about, and they walk about
shooting out their lips and crying. He trusted God. Let's see if
God will have him now. That's what they said about the
cross. Another thing, he said, they pierced my hands and my
feet. David never had his hands and feet pierced. David was not
writing about himself. He says they cast lots for my
garments. When did they ever cast lots
for David's garments? He was writing under holy inspiration. God breathed. He was writing
prophecies concerning the Messiah. And every one of these things
were fulfilled. They gave me vinegar to drink
and gall. That's Christ on the cross. The
whole 22nd Psalm is Jesus of Nazareth hanging on a cross,
the very words that He spake. And this was written in the Old
Testament hundreds of years before Christ came. I'm saying that
Jesus of Nazareth is the fulfillment of every prophecy and promise
and picture of the Messiah, the Christ, in the Old Testament.
Even His burial. It says in Isaiah 53, 9, He made
His grave, or His death, with the wicked. He hung between two
thieves. This is talking about the Redeemer, the Messiah, the
Christ. And with the rich in His death.
How do you find this? Where did the rich come into
His death? In Matthew chapter 27, verse 59, there was a rich
man called Joseph of Arimathea that came to Pilate and asked
if he could have the body of Jesus of Nazareth. And this rich
man of Arimathea by the name of Joseph took his body down
from the cross and took it and buried that body in his own tomb
in which man had never been buried. His resurrection is prophesied
by Jonah. As Jonah was three days and three
nights in the belly of the fish, so shall the Son of Man be three
days and three nights in the heart of the earth. There you
have, through the Old Testament, he'll be the seed of woman, he'll
be the seed of Abraham through Isaac, he'll be the seed of a
virgin woman, he'll be from the tribe of Judah, the family of
Jesse, the household of David. And he shall be lowly in his
birth and in his life, and he shall die on a cross. He shall
be forsaken of his own, despised and betrayed by his own disciples,
sold for thirty pieces of silver, his hands and feet nailed to
a cross. He'll be taken down and buried
in a rich man's tomb, and he'll rise again on the third day,
and that is all fulfilled in the person Jesus Christ. He is
the Messiah. Now you take the tabernacle in
the wilderness, this is the second thing. The worship of God took
place centered around that tabernacle in the wilderness. The Jewish
people, when they came out of Egypt and were going to the promised
land, their whole worship centered about that tabernacle. That tabernacle
is Christ. That tabernacle is where God
met men and men met God. And in itself, it's a picture
of Jesus Christ. And then in its design, now take
the tabernacle, it was only The tabernacle was only 45 feet long
by 15 feet wide. It wasn't a very impressive building,
not on the outside. But on the inside, it was gold
and silver and beauty. But on the outside, it was covered
with rough badger skin. This is a picture of Jesus of
Nazareth. On the outside, he looked like any other man. No
form, no comeliness, no beauty that we should desire him. But
on the inside, holy and pure and spotless, the Lamb of God.
There were four coverings on that tabernacle. There was the
white linen on the inside, and then there was the goat skin,
which is Christ our scapegoat, and then there was the ram skin
dyed red, which is symbolic of his blood, and then the dark
brown badger skin that covered it. And when you stood off and
looked at that tabernacle, you thought, that's a common tent,
that's a common tabernacle, there's nothing there, but when you walked
on the inside. the inside there was the gold
and the beauty and the very cleanliness and presence and power of God
that's Christ the Lord and then in its in its sacrifices you
come to the tabernacle and here's the altar the burnt the altar
of burnt offering that's where the priest would bring the lamb
and slay it and burn its body and take its blood and start
for the tabernacle Christ suffered outside the gate outside the
walls his body is suffering with the burning The burning of suffering. He cried out thirst. And then
the priest would come to the laver, where he washed his hands
and washed his feet. And that's sanctification in
Christ. Then he would go inside. Inside the tabernacle in the
holy place, over here were the candlesticks, seven of them.
Christ, the light of the world. Over here, the showbread. Christ,
the bread of life. Just before the veil was the
altar of incense. That's the prayers of Christ
that ascend for his people all the time. Then under the veil
into the holy of holies was the mercy seat over the ark, and
there the blood was put on the mercy seat. And as that high
priest entered into the holy place made with hands, even so
Christ entered the holy place not made with hands, into heaven
itself, not with the blood of an animal, but with his own precious
blood. These priests were all pictures of Jesus Christ. There
were many of them, he only one. They served a short time, only
a lifetime. He's an eternal priest after
the order of Melchizedek. They offered many sacrifices.
He won. They offered animal sacrifices.
He is on blood. Their sacrifices could not save.
He sanctified forever those whom he represented. They always stood. There wasn't a chair in that
tabernacle. They never sat down. He sat down on the right hand
of God. They went behind the veil. He
tore the veil in two and went into the very presence of God.
If you'll go through the Old Testament, you'll see Christ
on every page. When Adam and Eve sinned in the
Garden of Eden, and they stood naked, they were trying to cover
their nakedness with fig leaves. And God slew an animal and took
the skin of that animal and covered their nakedness. And even so,
our Lord Jesus Christ, the innocent, died for the guilty. He shed
his blood and covered us with his righteousness. When Abraham
took Isaac on the top of Mount Moriah and put him on the altar
and would have sacrificed his son, God said, Touch not the
lad. And here was a ram caught in
the thicket by its horn. And he took Isaac off the altar
and put the ram in his place. And the ram died for Isaac. Christ
died for us. The Passover in Egypt, when God
would deliver Israel out of Egypt, He told them to slay a lamb and
put its blood on the door. When I see the blood, I'll pass
over you. Christ is our Passover. When the people needed water
in the wilderness, and God told Moses to smite the rock, and
the rock gave forth that earth's quenching, clear, crystal water,
and they drank thereof, and that rock followed them. 1st Corinthians
10 says, that rock was Christ. That rock was Christ. The brazen
serpent lifted up, made in the form and likeness of the serpent
that had bitten the people. That serpent's Christ. My friend,
the Old Testament testifies of Jesus Christ, the Savior of sinners.
the seed of woman, he destroyed the power of Satan. In him the
day has come that Abraham foresaw, of which Moses wrote. In him
we see the Lion of Judah, the Lamb of God, the branch of Jesse,
the seed of David. He appears the bread from heaven,
the living water, the high priest, after the order of Melchizedek.
He is the sin offering, the atonement, and the mercy seeker. His untold
sufferings have secured the full redemption of his people. His
righteousness is sufficient, His intercession eternal. He
is the Lamb that taketh away the sin of the world. And in
Him is fulfilled that ancient prophecy, Behold your God. Christ
is the Scriptures. And He died for our sins according
to the Scriptures, was buried and rose again according to the
Scriptures. The Old Testament Scriptures.
Now this message is on cassette tape. I have a message I published
last week, Boldness at the Throne. And this one, Christ in the Old
Testament. If you'd like to have it, send two dollars and write
to the address that you'll see on the screen. Until next week,
may God bless you. Here's my prayer.