You know, a number of years ago, I was traveling with my middle son Justin, and we were walking through the Denver airport when something on one of the newsstands caught my eye. It was the newest issue of Life magazine, and on the front was a huge picture of Jesus with the words, Who was he?
So I bought a copy of the magazine, and I discovered inside a variety of quotes from all different sorts of people. But the one that got to me the most was the one by John Murray, the former president of the American Atheists. Here's what he said: He said, and I quote, There was no such person in the history of the world as Jesus Christ.
Now, let me just stop and say, We know that this is wrong because Jesus is mentioned by the secular historian Josephus as having lived at precisely the time that the Bible says. Says.
So we know that's wrong. But he goes on to say: the Bible is a fictional, non-historical narrative. It is a myth that is good for business. End of quote. Later, Justin and I were talking about this, and he said, So, Dad, he said, All religions say that they're right, and all religions say that they are the right, true way to get to God.
So, how can we be sure that the Bible and Christianity really is the one true way?
Well, this is what we're going to talk about today. Remember, we're in a series entitled People Jesus Met. And today, as Jesus is exiting the Garden of Gethsemane, this topic comes up as he meets a man named Malchus. We're going to go back and we're going to see what happened, and then we're going to wind all of that forward, and we're going to talk about, well, What difference does that make for me today?
So, Matthew chapter 26 is our passage, and we begin at verse 47. Here's what the Bible says: It says, While Jesus was still speaking to his disciples, that is, in the Garden of Gethsemane, Judas, one of the 12 disciples, came up accompanied by a large crowd armed with swords and clubs.
Now, we know from John chapter 18 that Judas had with him an entire cohort of Roman soldiers. A cohort was one-tenth of a Roman legion. And since a Roman legion consisted of 6,000 soldiers, this means that when Judas came to betray the Lord Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, he had 600 Roman soldiers with him. Verse 48.
Now Judas had arranged a signal with them, saying, Whomever I kiss, he is the one who sees him.
So immediately he came to Jesus and said, Greetings, Rabbi, and kissed him. And Jesus said, Friend, do what you came for.
So the soldiers stepped forward and seized Jesus and arrested him. Then suddenly the Bible says one of the men with Jesus reached for his sword and struck the servant of the high priest who was there, cutting off his ear. When we go to John's Gospel, we get a little bit more detail about this. John 18, verse 10 says, Then Simon Peter.
Well, who else, huh? Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it and struck the high priest's servant, cutting off his ear, and the servant's name was Malchus. Then Jesus said to him, that is to Peter, put your sword back in its place. In fact, Luke's gospel tells us that the Lord Jesus touched this man's ear, Malchus' ear, and healed him. Jesus said to Peter, Don't you think that I can call on my Father and that he will at once put at my disposal more than 12 legions of angels?
Jesus said to Peter, Hey, Peter, I don't need you to cut off this man's ear, Malchus' ear, in order to save me. I can call on God the Father and He'll send 12 legions of angels to do that job. Thank you very much.
Now, we saw earlier that a legion of Jesus. Legion consists of 6,000 individuals, so twelve legions of angels is 72,000 angels. He said, Lon, how many angels are there?
Well, I don't know, but there's at least 72,000. That's what we know. And friends, just think about this now. In Genesis chapter 19, just two angels completely wiped the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah off the face of the globe. In 2 Kings chapter 19, just one angel killed 184,000 Assyrian soldiers.
Can you imagine what 72,000 angels could do? And Jesus said, I can have them anytime I want them. It reminds me of that old hymn. That goes like this. He could have called 10,000 angels to destroy the world and set him free.
He could have called 10,000 angels, but he died alone for you and me. What do you think? Yeah.
Now you say, Lon, the number of angels in the song is wrong, and your voice is terrible.
Well, right on both accounts. But do you say, my question is, why didn't Jesus do this? Why didn't he call 72,000 angels to come rescue him?
Well, why don't we let Jesus answer that question himself?
Okay, Matthew 26, verse 54: Jesus said, But if I did this, if I called 72,000 angels to save me, how then would the scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen this way? Verse 55, then Jesus said to the crowd, Am I leading a rebellion that you've come out with swords and clubs to capture me? Every day I sat in the temple courts teaching, and you did not arrest me. But all of this has taken place so that the scriptures of the prophets may be fulfilled. Then all the disciples deserted him and fled.
You say, Well, Lon, what exact scripture was it that Jesus was referring to here that needed to be fulfilled by letting all of this happen?
Well, it was Zechariah 13, verse 7 in the Old Testament, which says, I will strike the shepherd, that is the Lord Jesus Christ, and the sheep, that is the disciples, will be scattered.
Now, you know, when we look at all four gospel accounts of the Lord Jesus' earthly life, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, we find the Bible repeating this same phrase over and over and over again. And the phrase is this, this happened so that the scriptures might be fulfilled, which say, and then the gospel writers quote some prophecy from the Old Testament. As a matter of fact, when it comes to the events of Jesus' life, there are over 30 such Old Testament prophecies that the Lord Jesus fulfilled. And I want us to go back now, and I want us to do a little tour of the Old Testament and look at some of these prophecies, these 30 prophecies that the Lord Jesus fulfilled. You know, all the time we hear people talk about, oh, the 30 prophecies that Jesus fulfilled.
But nobody ever takes us back very often and shows us. us exactly what they are.
So let's go back and let's look at them. And remember, the last Old Testament prophet to write, Malachi, wrote his book in 400 BC, which means that every one of these 30 prophecies were written at least four centuries before the Lord Jesus ever was born. And some of these were written 20 centuries before the Lord Jesus was born.
So here we go. Hang on to your hat. We're going to go quickly, but here we go. Isaiah chapter 7, verse 14, written in 725 BC. It says, Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son.
Here the Bible predicts the virgin birth. Isaiah chapter 9, verses 1 and 2, written in 725 BC. Here the Bible predicts that Galilee, that is the cities of Capernaum and Nazareth and Bethsida and Cana. Would all represent the special headquarters of the Lord Jesus Christ's earthly ministry, which is exactly what happened. In Genesis chapter 12, verse 3, written in 2000 B.C., the Bible predicts that the Messiah would be a direct descendant of Abraham.
Moving on to Genesis 49, written in 1800 B.C., the Bible predicts which descendant of Abraham, which great-grandson of Abraham the Messiah would come from, and that is namely Judah, the tribe of Judah. And then in 2 Samuel chapter 7, written in 900 BC, the Bible predicts which exact family within the tribe of Judah the Messiah would come from, and that is, he would come from the family of David. Isaiah chapters 50 to 53, written in 725 BC, outlines the events of the Messiah's death and burial with incredible detail. It tells us in these chapters: number one, that his beard would be plucked out, Isaiah 50, verse 6. Number 2, that he would be beaten beyond recognition, Isaiah 52, verse 14.
Number three, that he would be pierced and scourged, Isaiah 53, verse 5. Number 4, that he would refuse to speak up in his own defense, Isaiah 53, 7. Number 5, that he would die with wicked men, meaning these two thieves he was crucified between, Isaiah 53, 9. And finally, number 6, that he would be buried in a rich man's tomb, the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, Isaiah 53, verse 9. In Micah chapter 5, verse 2, written in 700 B.C., the Bible predicts that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem.
In Hosea chapter 11, verse 1, written in 750 BC, the Bible predicts that the Messiah would flee to Egypt and then would once again return to Israel. In Zechariah chapter 11, verse 12, written in 500 BC, the Bible predicts not only the betrayal price of Judas, that is 30 pieces of silver, but it also predicts the eventual fate of these 30 pieces of silver, that Judas would throw them back into the temple and that they would be used to buy a potter's field. In Psalm 22, written in 950 BC, we have an incredibly accurate account of the events of the cross. Verse 1, Psalm 22, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Does that sound familiar?
Well, yeah, it should. Those are the exact words the Lord Jesus said on the cross, Matthew 27, verse 46. Verse 8 of Psalm 22: He trusts in the Lord. Let the Lord rescue him. Does that sound familiar?
Well, it should. These were the very words that Jesus' opponents used to revile him as he was on the cross, Matthew chapter 27. How about verse 16 of Psalm 22? It says, They pierced my hands and my feet. Here we have the classic description of the Roman practice of crucifixion.
But here's the astounding thing: when Psalm 22 was written in 950 BC, executing people by crucifixion had not even been invented yet, it wouldn't be invented for another 300 years. Very interesting, Yavol. Yeah.
And then in verse 18 of Psalm 22, the verse says, They divided my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing, which is exactly what Matthew 27, verse 35 tells us the Roman soldiers did at the foot of the cross as Jesus hung above them. Only a couple more. Psalm 34, verse 20, 950 BC says, He, God, protects all his, the Messiah's bones. Not one of them will be broken.
Now, let's go into the New Testament, John chapter 19, verse 31.
Now, because the next day was a special Sabbath and the Jews did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have their legs broken. That is, the two thieves and Jesus, so they would die quicker. Verse 32.
So the soldiers broke the legs of the two men, the two thieves who'd been crucified. With Jesus, but when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. John 19, 36, watch, this happened.
So the scripture would be fulfilled. Not one of his bones will be broken. Psalm 34. And finally, Psalm 16, verse 10, from 950 BC, where the Bible predicts the very resurrection of the Messiah.
Well Huh, huh. You guys all right?
Okay, I pour a lot of hay on the horses. Y'all okay out there? All right. Let's summarize. Friends, here's the bottom line.
Luke 18, verse 31. Then Jesus took the 12 disciples aside and said to them, We are going up to Jerusalem. And all things that have been written by the prophets about the Son of Man, that is about Jesus himself, will be fulfilled. As we said earlier, there are over 30 of these specific prophecies regarding the birth and the life and the ministry and the death and the burial and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. They were all written hundreds of years and in some cases thousands of years before Jesus was ever born.
And Jesus fulfilled every single one of them perfectly and completely.
So friends, the point is that Malchus and his buddies that night in the garden were right on God's schedule. God for hundreds of years had predicted that night was going to happen. just the way that it did.
Now That's as far as we're going to go in our passage for today, because we're going to stop now and we're going to ask our most important questions.
So, are you ready? Are you ready? All right, are you ready out there on the internet? Here we go. When I say three, come on now.
One, two, three. You can do better than that. Ah, yes, you can. Come on now. One, two, three.
Now see wasn't that better? You say, All right, Lon.
So, what's the point? I mean, it's great to see all these prophecies and see the Lord fulfilled them. What difference does any of that make to my life, huh?
Well, remember the question that we set out to answer at the beginning of the day. The question from my son Justin was: All religions say they're right, and that their way is the true way to God.
So, how can we be sure that the Bible and Christianity really is the one true way to God?
Now, folks, there are many pieces of evidence that we could bring to bear on this topic, but without a doubt, The most compelling piece of evidence, the most convincing piece of evidence, is this issue of fulfilled prophecy. Richard Park, one of our staff members here, wrote me a note several years ago and said, and I quote, Lon: During the past week, I was talking with a research scientist and mathematician formerly employed at the Pentagon, who researched 30 of the clearest Old Testament prophecies referring to Jesus. And she calculated that the probability of one and the same person fulfilling all 30 prophecies was one times ten with a hundred zeros after it.
Now, friends, I am not a professional mathematician, and I can't verify for you that these calculations are right. Although I did have a lady come up after the last service and say, I am a professional mathematician, I can tell you that they're right. And she said, This is like filling up the entire state of Texas with quarters stacked a foot deep and reaching in and picking out the one right quarter that I ask you to pick out. She said, That'll give you a picture of exactly how wild the probability is here. Friends, if these numbers are even close to right, as these mathematicians are telling us, then it means that the idea that the Bible just got lucky in getting all of this right, all thirty of these prophecies right, that becomes a preposterous proposition.
Instead, the only proposition that makes any sense is that the Bible is exactly what it claims to be, and that is a supernatural book. From a supernatural God giving us a supernatural truth about a supernatural Messiah who, through the cross, offers us a supernatural relationship with God so that we can live a supernatural life that has a supernatural destination in heaven at its end. Hallelujah and hallelujah, huh? Amen. And so the answer to my son's question is very simply: with this kind of math behind it, the Bible simply cannot be wrong.
Now you say, well, Lon, I hear what you're saying, but I got two objections. All right, well, let me hear them. You say, all right, here's my first objection. My first objection is: hey, Jesus was a smart guy, he knew all these Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah.
So, Lon, he simply self-orchestrated his life to make sure that he fulfilled all of these prophecies. In other words, Lon, Jesus purposely set up his headquarters in Galilee because he knew Isaiah 9 said that. He purposely convinced Judas to betray him because he knew the Old Testament predicted that. And he got the Roman soldiers to cast lots for his clothing. And he made sure that he said all the right things when he was hanging on the cross.
Lon, don't you? You see, this was all just a massively clever con game that Jesus ran.
Well, friends, my answer to that is that this is nonsense. This is ridiculous. I mean, what do you think happened? Do you think Jesus sent Peter, James, and John in ahead of time to meet with Pilate and to say to Pilate, now listen, Pilate, we need a couple favors from you. First of all, we need you to make sure you crucify Jesus between two thieves.
And then we need you to please make sure that your soldiers pull his beard out. And then we need you to make sure that some soldiers sit at the foot of the cross and cast lots for his clothing. I mean, what do you think? You think Pilate said, sure, fellas, I'm here to help. You believe that, don't you?
I'm here to help, fellas. What else could you need? You say, well, Lon, maybe they bribed him. Maybe they took a lot of money in and gave it to Pilate. Listen, Lon, don't be so naive.
I'm sure there was some way Jesus could have worked all of this out ahead of time.
Okay.
So then explain to me How Jesus worked it out ahead of time for Caesar Augustus to take a census of the entire Roman world that forced his mother and father to leave Nazareth when Mary was nine months pregnant with him and go back to Bethlehem so that Jesus could be born in Bethlehem, so that he could fulfill the prophecy of Micah 5, verse 2, that the Messiah must be born in Bethlehem. Explain to me how Jesus worked that one out while he was still in his mother's womb. Ridiculous. You say, all right, well, then that's my other objection then. Then, Lon, it happened the other way around.
What do you mean? You say, well, what happened is they did it the other way around. After Jesus' followers saw how his life unfolded and all the events of his life, then they went back and they rewrote the Old Testament to fit with the events of Jesus' life. They retrofitted the Old Testament. When they saw that he set up his headquarters in Galilee, they went back and they rewrote Isaiah chapter 9.
When they saw that he was a descendant of David, they went back and they rewrote 2 Samuel 7. When they saw that he was crucified and that the soldiers cast lots for his clothing, they went back and they rewrote Psalm 22. Isn't that possible that they did that?
Well, friends, I'd like to say to you that with absolute, utter, unequivocal certainty, it is absolutely impossible, I'll say to you, that they did that. And you say, oh, yeah, well, how can you be so sure it's so impossible? I'll tell you how I can be so sure. Because of the Dead Sea Scrolls. That's how.
Let me show you the great Isaiah scroll. This Isaiah scroll from Cave 1, one of the earliest scrolls discovered, is an entire scroll of the book of Isaiah, dated by liberals, not even people who believe the Bible, to 150 B.C. In other words, this scroll was in existence 150 years before the Lord Jesus Christ was ever born, and guess what? Isaiah 7, Isaiah 9, Isaiah 50, and Isaiah 53 all read exactly the same in the great Isaiah scroll from 150 years before the birth of Christ as they do in the Bible today. Here's the Psalm scroll from Cave 11, dated to 50 BC by liberals.
This Psalm scroll existed 50 years before Jesus was born, and guess what? Psalm 22, Psalm 34, Psalm 16 all read exactly the same. Exactly the way they do in your Bible today. The point, my friend, is that with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947, we can say with absolute and utter certainty that there is no way anyone went back and rewrote portions of the Old Testament to conform and fit with the events of Jesus' life.
So If it's impossible, That anyone went back and rewrote the Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah to fit with Jesus' life. And if it's impossible that Jesus could have manipulated all these Old Testament prophecies into fulfillment by himself, then friends, we are back to one times ten with a hundred zeros after it. We are back to the Bible being the work of a supernatural God for whom predicting the future is no more difficult than predicting the past. And we are back to the Bible being a completely trustworthy and reliable book that tells us the straight-up truth about God, about Jesus Christ, about the plan of salvation, about heaven, about hell, and about everything else. Amen?
Amen. Now All right, you can clap, won't hurt you. Good. You know, I just got back from Israel a couple weeks ago. And as part of our Israel trip, we always cross into Egypt, into the Sinai, and we go to Mount Sinai.
And of course, as you can imagine, there at the border, there's some fairly severe security in southern Israel. Elot is the Israeli town, Taba is the Egyptian town right next to each other.
Now, the Israelis don't care that much about security when you're leaving Israel, but boy, they sure do care about it when you're coming back. Every year, when we come back in, they always get me as the leader of the group aside, and the head of security always asks me some questions. And so, several years ago, was a young lady who was the head of security there, and she called me aside and she said, Oh, okay, she said, So, what kind of group is this that you're leading? I said, Well, it's a Christian group, it's a church group. She looked at my passport, she said, Solomon.
She said, that's an interesting name. She said, I I I said, yeah, I said I'm Jewish. She said, You're Jewish. I said, Yes, ma'am, I'm Jewish. She said, You're Jewish and you're a priest.
Well, it wasn't worth the trouble. I said, close enough. Yeah, close enough, ma'am. That's right. She said, she said, I've never heard of such a thing.
How can a Jewish person be a priest? I said, well, I'm a Jewish person who believes that Jesus is the Messiah. And she threw her hands up in the air like this and went, what? She said, I never heard of such a crazy thing. I said, well, ma'am, actually, there's about 60,000 of us Jewish people in the world who believe this.
And there's 4,000 or 5,000 of them right here in Israel who believe this. And she turned to me and she said, what possible evidence could there be to support such a crazy idea? That's the one I'd been waiting for. Oh, yes.
So I said, Would you believe one times ten with a hundred zeros after it? And she said, What are you talking about? I said, Sit down a second. Let me explain it to you. And so we sat down, and I explained to her everything I've just explained to you about all these messianic prophecies and about the probabilities.
And we talked a little more. I gave her a Hebrew New Testament. I said, Now you need to read the Gospel of Matthew and notice how many times the Bible says this happened so that the Old Testament was fulfilled. I gave her a CD of my personal story. And as we were done, I started to walk away, and she said, Hey.
She said, could I ask you just one more question? I said, yeah, sure, if you want to. She said, don't you ever wonder if maybe you're wrong? And I said, never. I said, ma'am, when I've got one times ten with a hundred zeros behind it, I cannot be wrong.
And friends, this is the power of fulfilled prophecy. You listen to me. Our world system would love to shake your confidence in the Bible as the Word of God.
Some of you are going to go to school where you're going to have silver-tongued professors who are going to try to rattle your belief in the Bible.
Some of us have friends who, every time we meet them, they're out to shake our confidence in the Bible. Do you know when I was a young believer, my relatives hired a deprogramming rabbi to meet with me and try to deprogram me from believing in Jesus? And you know what? These critics may come up with all kinds of high-sounding logic and high-falutin rhetoric, but friends, listen to me until these folks can figure out a way to undo one times ten with a hundred zeros after it. You stick with Jesus Christ and you stick with the Bible.
Friends, you stick with the faith once for all delivered to the saints, Jude 3, and I promise you. No, more importantly, God promises you that when all the dust settles in eternity, you will be forever glad that you stuck with the Word of God, the Bible. Remember, what the living, risen, ascended, glorified, coming again, Christ of glory said, Matthew 24, 35, he said, heaven and earth will pass away. You can count on it, but my words will never pass away. And so, my friend.
Let me say to you, and let me say to me, we need to build our house on the rock of the Word of God. We need to build our lives on the rock of the Word of God. We need to build our eternal destinies on the rock of the Word of God, and our children's destinies and our children's children's destinies on the rock of the Word of God. And hey, with one times ten with a hundred zeros after it, I'm here to tell you, friend, we will never regret it. Never You put your confidence in the Word of God.
I promise you, when the dust clears, you'll be glad you did. Amen? Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thanks for talking to us today from your word.
And thank you for increasing our confidence today in the written Word of God. Thank you, Lord, for all these prophecies and for seeing how the Lord Jesus fulfilled them. And for the testimony this is, that there is a supernatural God who wrote this book. who saw into the future centuries, millennia. And wrote down things that we could check it out and know for certain that you wrote this book, this book is dependable, the faith that it tells us about, the plan of salvation it tells us about is dependable, and we have nothing to fear if we stand on the book.
And so, Lord Jesus, my prayer is that you would have us walking out of here today with an increased confidence in the trustworthiness and the veracity and the authenticity and the authority of the Word of God, and help us build our lives, our destinies, and that of our families on the rock. And Jesus said, That the winds will come and the waves will come and the rain will come and beat against our house, but our house will stand because it is built on the rock. of the Word of God. Lord, encourage our hearts today because we were here and sat under the teaching of your word. And we pray this in Jesus' name.
And God's people said, Amen.
