Dave’s Monday Blast – December 13, 2021

Advent is the season in which the Church celebrates the coming of the Messiah into the world, an event that was prophesied for over 4,000 years prior to the birth of Jesus Christ. INTENTIONAL men of God know that there is an apologetic to everything and we must be prepared to speak into every conversation with a Biblical Christian Apologetic. I want to declare right now that followers of Christ do not need to approach this discussion with anything but confidence in the truth of Jesus Christ being the long awaited Messiah. 

In his incredible book, Evidence that Demands a Verdict, Josh McDowell dedicates an entire chapter to the Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament fulfilled in Christ (Chapter 9 Vol. 1).  McDowell comments: “The apostles throughout the New Testament appealed to two areas of Christ’s life to establish His Messiahship. One was the resurrection and the other fulfilled messianic prophecy. The Old Testament written over a 1,500 year period contains several HUNDRED references to the coming Messiah. All of these were fulfilled in Christ and they establish a solid confirmation of His credentials as the Messiah.”

The probability that just 8 of the hundreds of prophecies found throughout the Old Testament, being fulfilled in any one individual is 1 in 10 to the 17th power. That is 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000. Let us take a few moments and consider just 8 Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah (I could have selected many other passages).

• In Genesis 3:15 God reveals that the Messiah would be of the seed of the woman. This was significant because every other human is of the seed of a man, but the Messiah would have no biological, earthly father.
• In Micah 5:2 Bethlehem was named as the birthplace of the coming Messiah, some 700 years before the birth of Jesus.
• The “suffering servant” passage of Isaiah 52 – 53 accurately depicts Jesus’ substitutionary atonement of our sins.
• Psalm 22 and Zechariah 12:10 are amazing prophecies depicting the crucifixion of Jesus Christ roughly 400 years prior to the invention of crucifixion.
• In Isaiah 7:14 God tells the house of David (King Ahaz) that the Messiah would be born of a virgin and would be given the name Immanuel, meaning: God is with us.
• Isaiah 53:9 foretold Jesus’ burial in a rich man’s grave while Psalm 16:10 prophetically declared his triumphal resurrection.

God had foretold His plan for the salvation of the world going all the way back to the Garden of Eden. In Galatians 4:4 the Apostle Paul wrote, “But when the fullness of time came, God sent forth His son”. That son was the infant born in that crude Bethlehem stable two thousand years ago. This my friends is an easy apologetic. Take advantage of the season and share the gift of the WORD!