How to Prove Jesus is the Messiah - Life of Paul Part 41

Thanks so much for being here today. Let's open a Bible, if you brought one, to Acts chapter 17. We're going to be continuing in our study of the life of the great man, the apostle Paul. As many of you know, since 1987, I've had the privilege of serving on the board of Jews for Jesus. And one of my good friends is Moshe Rosen, who is the founder and the executive director, former executive director of Jews for Jesus. And a few years ago, Moshe was in London, this is a true story, and he was walking through Hyde Park, which, as you know, is a place where anybody can throw up a soapbox and talk about anything.

And so as he was walking along in Hyde Park, he saw this wiry little young man on this tiny little box, and he heard this guy bellowing out, I am an atheist, the guy says. And I declare to you there's not one shred of evidence to support the notion that Jesus is the Messiah. He went on to say, have you ever stopped to consider that the Jews who were eagerly looking for their Messiah, that they never took Jesus seriously.

They didn't take him seriously then, they don't take him seriously today. In fact, the young man said, I do not know of one single Jew who ever believed in Jesus as the Messiah. Well, to understand the rest of the story, you got to know that Moshe Rosen is a big man. He's six feet two, weighs over 350 pounds, and he raised his hand and out in the audience, and he said, young man, could I come up and stand on the little box with you? And the guy said, well, what on earth for? He said, well, because I want everybody here to see what you say doesn't even exist, because I'm a Jew who believes in Jesus. Well, the man invited him up on the little platform, and Moshe's kind of holding on to him, tottering, trying not to fall off this little thing, and the man begins to ridicule him like a barker in a sideshow. He begins to say, ladies and gentlemen, look here, a one of a kind Jew, a unique Jew from America. And when he paused to take a breath, there was a British voice that came out of the crowd that said, young man, do you have another soapbox with you? And then he said, well, what on earth for? And he said, because I'm a British Jew who believes in Jesus, and I think the crowd ought to see me, but there's no way I can get up there with that guy on that box.

Now, that's a true story that happened, and you know, the barker out there in Hyde Park actually made a good point. There are very few Jewish people in the world who believe in Jesus. If you wanted to prove to some Jewish person that Jesus really was the Messiah, how would you do it? In fact, if you wanted to prove to some Gentile friend at work, at school, in the gym that Jesus is the Messiah, how would you do that? You say, well, I would tell them that Jesus changed my life.

Well, that's wonderful. But what if they say, you know, I don't really care about that. Give me something intellectually defensible. Give me something that's got, you know, some meat to it, something that's harder and faster than Jesus changed your life, something I can get my brain around, not just my heart around.

What would you say to them? Well, that's what we're going to talk about today. We're going to answer the question, but we're going to do it from looking at the life of the Apostle Paul. And so let's start with him, and we're going to come back, and we'll answer that question for you.

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 1. And when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica. Think a map would help here.

Let's show you what's going on. Paul and Silas start up here in Philippi. They move south down the coast through Amphipolis, a little city, through Apollonia, a little city, and then to Thessalonica.

The total journey is about 100 miles. And as you can see, Thessalonica is a port city located at the head of this gulf in northern Greece. And the road they walked on is the Ignatian Way.

Let's show you that in yellow. The Ignatian Way was a Roman road that stretched from Philippi on the east all the way across northern Greece and eventually across the Adriatic to Rome itself. Now this road, this Ignatian Way, is actually still there portions of it today. If you ever go to Greece, if you ever go with me on a tour, we'll take you and you can walk on part of it.

It actually, parts of it still exists today, 2,000 years later. I mean, when the Romans built a road, friends, they built a road, not like in Washington, D.C. These people really built a road to last.

No potholes in this road anywhere. Anyway, Paul came to the town of 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 reached 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. First 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. 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 2, Paul went into the synagogue. The reason he did this is because Jewish people already understood about the Messiah, but it was a much easier job with them. All Paul had to do was 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 3 says, he explained and proved to them that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead. You say, 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 this 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?

You got to take a deep breath. Here we go now. Come on, one, two, three. So what? 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 27. 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 27. Verse 16.

Psalm 22 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 18 says they cast lots from 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 69, also written in 950 B.C. It says in verse 21, they gave me vinegar for my thirst. Matthew 27 tells us that's exactly what the Roman soldiers did when Jesus hung on the cross.

Let's move on. Isaiah Chapter 7, verse 14, written in 850 B.C. A virgin shall conceive and give birth to a son.

Luke Chapter 1 tells us this is the virgin birth fulfilled by Jesus when he was born. Isaiah Chapter 53, verse 9, says he was put to death with wicked men, 850 B.C. And who was Jesus? 23 tells us crucified between two what?

Two thieves, two wicked men, two convicted criminals. The verse goes on to say Isaiah 53, he was assigned a grave with the rich. Matthew 27 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 800, almost 900 years before that event happened. How about Micah Chapter 5, verse 2, 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 2 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' 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 520 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 100 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, Lon, 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.

Okay, my first one is this. Lon, Jesus' followers, don't you understand what they did? They went back and they rewrote the Old Testament to bring it into conformity with the events of Jesus' 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 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 used whiteout.

No, you can't use whiteout 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. It 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, fellas 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 100 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, 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?

I'd 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 100 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 100 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 and personal 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 100 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, 2 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. You know, when I was a brand new believer in Jesus, I had all these people, friends at school, some of my relatives, professors, who somehow felt it was their personal mission to talk me out of believing in Jesus. It was their personal mission in life to discredit and undermine my faith in Christ. And I bet you some of you guys have got some of the same people in your life, where maybe it's a family member or professor at school or somebody at the office or a neighbor who just feels it's their personal calling in life to undermine your faith and try to talk you out of believing.

And they bring up all these high sounding intellectual arguments trying to figure out every contradiction they can find. Let me tell you something, friends, until somebody can undo one with 100 zeros after it, then my advice to you is you better stick with Jesus. I don't care what kind of arguments they come up with, until they can undo that kind of number, stick with him.

And when the dust all clears and you open your eyes in heaven, I'm telling you something, you're going to be glad you stuck with him. 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. Thank you.