"How To Prove Jesus Is The Messiah"

Hi there, this is Lon Solomon and I'd like to welcome you to our program today. You know, it's a tremendous honor that God has given us to be on stations all around the nation bringing the truth of God's Word as it is uncompromising and straightforward. And I'm so glad you've tuned in to listen and be part of that. Thanks again for your support and your generosity that keeps us on the radio. And now, let's get to the Word of God.

Thanks so much for being here today. Let's open a Bible, if you brought one, to Acts chapter 17. And we're going to be continuing in our study of the life of the great man, the Apostle Paul.

A little bit of background. Remember that Paul and his team, he has a four-man team. It's Paul, Timothy, Silas, and Dr. Luke have all crossed over, let's show you a map, from what we call today Turkey, the northwest corner of Turkey, to the Greek town, northern Greek town of Philippi. And here in Philippi, Paul and Silas have been beaten. They have been unjustly thrown into prison. And we saw last week that they were Roman citizens. And this was a gross violation of their rights as Roman citizens. So therefore, when the magistrates of the town said, okay, you guys can leave now, Paul said, there is no way. We're not slinking out of town. You're going to come down here after violating our rights like that, and you're going to apologize to us, and you're going to personally escort us out of jail, which they did. And then they begged Paul, Paul, please get out of town.

For everybody's sake, get out of town. Well, verse 40 says, after Paul and Silas came out of prison, they went to Lydia's house. Lydia, of course, you remember, is the first person to ever give her life to Jesus on the continent of Europe. She lived in Philippi, where they met with the brothers and encouraged them. And then Paul and Silas, two members of the team left.

Now we're going to pick up in Acts chapter 17, verse one. And when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica. And he understood what a strategic town it was. Because as a port city, as you can see, it really held the opening with all the people going through.

It was the opening not only to all of northern Greece, but to the whole Balkan peninsula, the countries we know today as Romania, Albania, Yugoslavia, all these countries, Bulgaria, all the way that people reach them was by landing in Thessalonica, this port city, and then fanning out to the north. And so Paul said, wow, this is a strategic city. I'm going to camp in here and I'm going to do some ministry here. Verse one continues, and there was a Jewish synagogue here.

Listen, folks, you find a place that has commerce, business and money, and you will find my people there in that town. And they were. And as a matter of fact, Thessalonica actually had a very large Jewish population all the way up until 1940. In 1940, one third of the population of the city of Thessalonica was Jewish.

One third. That's when the Nazis came in. The Nazis slaughtered 45,000 Jewish people in the streets of Thessalonica, then took the rest of them and deported them to concentration camps. And sadly, if you go to Thessalonica today, you will find a very meager Jewish population.

But in 1940, it was a third of the city. Well, as was his custom, the Bible says, verse two, Paul went into the synagogue. The reason he did this is because Jewish people already understood about the Messiah.

But it was much easier job with them. All Paul had to do is convince them that Jesus was that Messiah they understood about. And for three Sabbaths, the Bible says, he reasoned, he preached to them from the scriptures. Now, remember that the scriptures he used were the Old Testament scriptures. There was no New Testament at this time. And what was it from the Old Testament that Paul preached to them? Verse three says, he explained and proved to them that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead. You said, Lon, I thought you said they already understood about the Messiah. Well, they did. But their understanding of the Messiah was a little bit distorted.

It was a little bit skewed. We know this from the Dead Sea Scroll documents, which tell us that at the time of the Apostle Paul, the Jewish people were looking for the imminent appearing of the Messiah. However, the Messiah they were looking for was a great conquering king who would liberate Israel from the Roman Empire and exalt Israel to the leading nation in the world.

Now, we know that's going to happen. That is part of the overall ministry of the Messiah. But that's something he's going to do in his second appearing. What they ignored or overlooked were all the Old Testament prophecies that spoke about the suffering, the death, the burial and the resurrection of the same Messiah, all of which, of course, apply to his first appearing. And so what Paul did here is Paul spent three Sabbaths walking these people systematically through all of the predictions in the Old Testament about the Messiah that dealt with, as we said, his first coming. Verse 3 goes on. Then he said, this Jesus that I am proclaiming to you is that Messiah. Now, how did Paul justify this conclusion with these Jewish people?

Very simple. What he did is he then went through the events of Jesus's life, his suffering, his betrayal, his trial, his crucifixion, his burial, his resurrection. And he said, all right, here you got all these things about the life of Jesus. Here you've got all these predictions from the Old Testament. Now let's match them up. And when we do, we find they match up so perfectly, so totally, and so flawlessly that who else could Jesus be but the Messiah?

Verse 4, and some of the Jews were persuaded and they joined Paul and Silas as did a large number of God-fearing Gentiles and not a few prominent women. You say, wow, things are going great in Thessalonica. Well, we're not done yet. Things turn as we're going to see next week, but we'll come back to this. This is as far as we want to go today because we have a very important question that you know we need to ask. And so everybody ready?

Got to take a deep breath. Here we go now. Come on.

One, two, three. Right. You say, Lon, so what? I mean, it's a great story. I appreciate this.

I always wanted to know where Apollonia was and now I know, thank you very much. What difference does this make to my life in the 21st century? Well, let's try to make that connect together. I go back to the words of that guy in Hyde Park, if you remember, and I think it's important for us to ask ourselves a question. The question is, what if this whole Christianity thing is a hoax? What if Jesus isn't the Messiah? I mean, that's a really important question, friends. We got a lot riding on the answer to that question, such as our entire eternal destiny is riding on that.

I mean, what if this whole thing is just a fraud? It's all just a first century religious gimmick. You say, well, yeah, Lon, how can you prove to me it isn't? Well, I would prove it to you the same way the apostle Paul proved that Jesus was who he said he was to these Jews in Thessalonica. You know, there are over 30 predictions of the life and the ministry of the Messiah in the Old Testament. And when we compare the life and the ministry of Jesus to these predictions, we find that the match is so unbelievable that there's no other way to explain who he is other than being that Messiah. And what I want to do now is take us through a little tour of the Old Testament.

We're not going to do all 30. You'll be glad to know that. But let's do a few of them and let's let you see for yourself. So here we go. We're going to start with Psalm 22 written in 950 B.C. by David and containing an incredible snapshot of the events of the cross.

Here we go. Verse one. My God, my God, David writes, why have you forsaken me? You say, that sounds really familiar.

Well, it should. Those are the exact words Jesus said while he hung on the cross. Matthew Chapter twenty seven. Let's look at verse seven and eight of the song. All who see me mock me.

They hurl insults at me, shaking their heads. And they say he trusts in the Lord. Well, then let the Lord rescue him.

You say, well, that sounds familiar too. I know that's exactly what the enemies of Jesus did and exactly what the enemies of Jesus said while he was hanging on the cross, according to Matthew Chapter twenty seven. Verse sixteen.

Psalm twenty two says they have pierced my hands and my feet. This is a classic description of the Roman practice of executing people by using crucifixion. But you know, what's intriguing here is that in 950 B.C., when this psalm was written, we know as a fact from archaeology that this form of punishment was not being used anywhere in Israel. As a matter of fact, we know this form of execution was not being used in any culture anywhere in the ancient Near East at the time David wrote this or anywhere near the time that David wrote this. So why in the world would David be writing about a form of execution that nobody in the world is even using?

Very interesting. Now, verse eighteen says they cast lots for my clothing. John Chapter 19 tells us this is exactly what the Roman soldiers did as Jesus hung on the cross above them.

Let's move on. Psalm sixty nine, also written in 950 B.C. It says in verse twenty one, they gave me vinegar for my thirst. Matthew twenty seven tells us that's exactly what the Roman soldiers did when Jesus hung on the cross.

Let's move on. Isaiah Chapter seven, verse fourteen, written in 850 B.C. A virgin shall conceive and give birth to a son. Luke Chapter one tells us this is the virgin birth fulfilled by Jesus when he was born. Isaiah Chapter fifty three, verse nine says he was put to death with wicked men.

Eight hundred and fifty B.C. And who was Jesus? Twenty three tells us crucified between two what?

Two thieves, two wicked men, two convicted criminals. The verse goes on to say Isaiah fifty three, he was assigned a grave with the rich. Matthew twenty seven tells us that Jesus was buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, one of the wealthiest men in all Israel. And this was predicted eight hundred, almost nine hundred years before that event happened. How about Micah Chapter five, verse two, also written in 850 B.C. Out of you, Bethlehem will come forth one who will rule Israel, a being whose origins are from ancient time. Well, once again, Luke Chapter two tells us Jesus fulfilled this prophecy perfectly.

I mean, friends, nobody sings, oh, little town of Tel Aviv. You understand what I'm saying? How about Zechariah Chapter 11 in Zechariah Chapter 11? You can check it out for yourself. Not only is Judas's betrayal of Jesus predicted, but even the betrayal price is spelled out in Zechariah Chapter 11 as 30 pieces of silver. And the eventual destination of those 30 pieces of silver are spelled out that they went to buy a potter's field.

Check it out for yourself. Written in five hundred and twenty B.C. And we could keep going and going. But I think we've made the point.

Richard Park, one of our staff members, wrote me a letter a while back. And here's what he said. And I quote, he said, During this 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 with one hundred zeros after it.

End of quote. Now, I'm not a professional mathematician and I can't verify these numbers, but I can tell you, even if the woman's half right, even if it's only 50 zeros, it means this can't be luck. This can't be an accident. This can't be a coincidence.

This can't be fate, that there is a deliberate design and there is a deliberate correlation that is so unbelievable that the only conclusion a thinking person can come to is that Jesus has got to be the Messiah predicted by the Old Testament. You say, wait a minute, wait a minute. Take a breath, son. I got some objections here that I'd like to point out. Why this isn't true. Well, go ahead.

OK. My first one is this. Lon, Jesus's followers, don't you understand what they did? They went back and they rewrote the Old Testament to bring it in the conformity with the events of Jesus's life so that it looked like he fulfilled the Old Testament, but they changed the Old Testament. We'll call this the tampering theory. In other words, when they saw Jesus was crucified and that the soldiers cast a lot for his coat, they went back to Psalm 22 and they rewrote Psalm 22 to make it sound that way. When they saw that Jesus was crucified between two thieves and buried in a rich man's tomb, they went back to Isaiah 53 and they rewrote it. Well, let me just say to you, they tampered with the Old Testament text. Let me say to you, that's impossible. I can say categorically without reservation, that is impossible.

You say, why? Well, in 1947, we discovered some things out in the Judean desert near the Dead Sea. Here's one of the things that we found. This is the great Isaiah scroll, a scroll of the entire book of Isaiah that even the most liberal scholar will date 150 years before the birth of Jesus Christ. When you look in this Isaiah scroll at Isaiah 7, Isaiah 53, Isaiah 9, Isaiah 11, and all the other messianic prophecies in this book, guess what you find?

Let's show you a close up of one of the pages. You find that they're exactly the same as in the Bible that you're reading today. This was 150 years before Peter and all of the boys even existed. How about the Psalms? Well, here's our Psalm scroll from Qumran Cave 11. And here in the Psalm scroll, dated between 25 and 50 years before the birth of Jesus, you find Psalm 2, Psalm 22, Psalm 45, Psalm 69, Psalm 110, all of these messianic Psalms, guess what?

They read the same they do in your Bible today. Peter wasn't even around to mess with this one when they wrote it. You say, well, they erased it. They can't erase parchment, friends. You can't erase parchment. Well, they use white out.

No, you can't use white out on a document like this. You say, well, somehow Peter and the boys got in there and rewrote these things. I don't know how they did it. There is no way. These things were hidden in the Judean desert for 2000 years and nobody had access to them.

Nobody even knew they were there until we accidentally found them. Let me tell you, the truth is that the Bible predicts the details about the Messiah's life just the way you read them in your Bible today and nobody went back and tampered with the Old Testament. You say, all right, all right, well, then I got another objection. And this one is that the writers of the New Testament then after Jesus was dead, they twisted the events of Jesus's life after he was gone to make the events of Jesus's life match with the Old Testament. We'll call this the hoax theory.

They created a hoax. In other words, the soldiers never cast lots for Jesus's coat. Peter and the boys made it up. Judas never got paid 30 pieces of silver.

Peter and the boys made it up and they wrote it in to make it look like Jesus was really the Messiah was all a hoax, Lon. You say, isn't that possible? Yeah, remotely, that's possible. But friends, it cuts against the laws of human nature. You say, what are you talking about? Human nature is very good at duping and tricking people.

Enron, WorldCom, mClone, Tycho, Martha Stewart. We're good at this. Well, I know, but human nature also says that when we get caught, when the heat is on, the people who did this, what's going on today? All these people are running the federal prosecutors trying to get immunity so they can rat out everybody else because their attitude is, hey, you know, the hoax was good while we were running it. But now if we're going to have to pay a price for it, hey, we're not going down for this. We're not taking the rap for this. And the part of human nature I'm talking about is the number one law of human nature. What is it? Self-preservation.

Thank you very much. So why explain to me when Emperor Nero decided to crucify Peter upside down and Paul upside down and to kill every single disciple for their faith and to exile the only one who died of natural causes, John, to the island of Patmos, explain to me why nobody stepped up and turned federal prosecution witness, huh? Why did none of these people turn state's evidence?

I'll tell you why. They died rather than deny this because this was no hoax. They had seen these things, experienced these things, and they knew they were true.

There's no way that this was some hoax they made up. You say, well, Lon, okay, then I got one more objection. And that's good because I only have time for one more. My other objection is this, that Jesus was a smart fellow. He knew these prophecies in the Old Testament. He knew what they were. So he orchestrated his own life to make sure he quote unquote fulfilled these prophecies.

We'll call this the con game theory. Jesus was running a con game. He got Judas to betray him. He slipped some money to Pilate to put him between two thieves. He asked for vinegar to drink from the cross because he knew it was all in the Old Testament. It was just a big setup, Lon.

Friends, that's impossible. You say, well, how do you know that? Well, think about it. How in the world could Jesus make the Romans crucify him between two thieves? How in the world could he make Roman soldiers cast dice for his coat? I mean, do you really think he could look down from the cross and go, hey, fellows down there, I know you don't understand this, but would you do me a favor and throw some dice for my coat?

It's really important to me. You really think they would have done that? Come on now. How do you think he got his followers to bury him in a rich man's tomb? He said, well, Lon, he could have set it all up before he ever went to the cross.

Okay, so explain to me how he convinced Caesar Augustus to conduct a census of the Roman Empire that caused his parents who didn't live in Bethlehem to have to go to Bethlehem where he was born and did all of that from inside his mother's womb. Explain that to me. Come on, this is nonsensical. This is crazy.

And if none of these objections work, then friends, we're back to one with a hundred zeros after it. I was in Israel a few years ago. I was leading a tour and we were crossing from Egypt back into Israel, down in Southern Israel at Elat.

And of course we had to go through Israeli security. And there was this young lady, a military officer, who was interviewing me because I was the tour leader. And they always pull the tour leader aside and ask you the same questions.

I mean, I know the answers already, but they pull you aside and do this. So she said to me, well, what kind of tour exactly is this that you're leading? And I said, well, it's a Christian tour.

I mean, it's a church tour. She had my passport and she looked at it and she said, Solomon, she said, now that's an interesting name. And I said, well, yeah, I'm Jewish. She said, you're Jewish. I said, yeah. She said, you're Jewish and you're a priest?

Well, I didn't think it was worth the trouble to try to explain. So I said, yeah, that's close enough. I'm Jewish and I'm a priest. She said, well, why, how in the, she said, how in the world can you be Jewish and be a priest?

I said, well, because I'm a Jewish person who believes that Jesus is the Messiah. And she said, what? She said, I never heard of such a thing. She said, what possible evidence could there be to support such a crazy belief?

Well, bingo. And so I said to her, would you believe one with a hundred zeros after it? She said, what in the world does that mean? I said, you got 10 minutes, let's sit down over here and I'll explain it to you.

And so we did. Finally, after about 10 minutes, she said, look, I got to get back to my job, you know? And I said, okay, fair enough. But when she stood up, she looked at me and she said, I just got one more question for you. She said, don't you ever doubt whether or not you're right? Don't you ever wonder if maybe you're wrong? And I said, never. And you know why? Because when I got one with a hundred zeros on my side, you can't possibly be wrong.

No, I never doubt it. If you're here and you've never trusted Jesus in a real impersonal way, and one of the reasons is that you've been waiting for some kind of intellectually defensible evidence that you can get your brain around and not just your heart around. I'm here to tell you that we've given it to you today.

One with a hundred zeros. And so, friend, if that's what's holding you up, I'm here to tell you it's time to do business with God. It's time to do business with God in your life. And if you're here and you're a follower of Jesus, let me remind you, God didn't have to write all these things in the Old Testament, you know. Why did God go to the trouble to write all these predictions down and then perfectly fulfill them? The reason is, friends, because he wants you to have an absolutely unshakable confidence that you're not following a hoax, you're not following a con game, nobody's tampered with anything, but that you actually have come to believe in the real genuine article, the Messiah of the universe. And that every promise he's made you about heaven and every promise he's made you about everything, he's going to fulfill because he's who he said he is.

That's why Peter wrote these words and said, second Peter 1, we have not followed cleverly devised fables. This is not a hoax, for we have seen and verified for ourselves that what the Old Testament prophets predicted has come true. And when the dust all clears, and you open your eyes in heaven, I'm telling you something, this is not a hoax. This is not a fraud. This is not a con game. This is the real truth about how to get eternal life and get to heaven. And if people who are smart, man, when you got one with 100 zeros on your side, I don't know about you, I don't go against those odds.

And I don't think you should either. Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, thanks for talking to us today about a very important subject because every one of us deal with people every week who somehow feel like it's their personal calling to undermine our faith. Lord, I pray today that as we walk out of here, we would walk out of here more convinced than we walked in, that what we have believed in is the real McCoy, the genuine article. And Father, I pray that we would take some of what we've learned today and tell those people that the real people who need to be undermined in their convictions are them, because they're wrong.

And they're going to miss everything that you've promised them, and sadly so. God, strengthen not only our faith, but strengthen our courage and willingness to step out and speak about our faith, realizing we don't just have a little bit of emotion and we don't just have a changed life, which is very important. We have an approach to God that is intellectually defensible. And so Lord, use what we've learned today to strengthen our own walk with you and to make us missionaries to people we meet every day. And we pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen. You've been listening to So What with Dr. Lon Solomon. So What is an outreach of Lon Solomon Ministries. To listen to today's message or for more information, visit our website, lonsolomonministries.org. Thank you for your support. If you would like to contact us, please visit our website or call us at 866-788-7770. We hope you will join us next time when Lon seeks to answer one of life's most important questions, So What.