This evening we’ve been looking at the Millennial Kingdom. Last time we were looking at characteristics of the Millennial Kingdom and when it was going to come about. And this evening I want us to look at the Messiah who is going to come and establish his kingdom in the Millennial Kingdom, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ.
And one of the things you see is God’s commitment to the nation of Israel. And one of the sad things that we see happening in the church today is many people are denying Israel.When Roberta and I were getting ready to come to church this evening, she had one of the speakers that we often times listen to, and he was talking about how the anti-semitism has become so prevalent in the world today.
And you find it in the church, the very place that you shouldn’t find it. But this evening I want us to look at the characteristics of the Lord and promises that were given with specific titles or names that were given to Jesus throughout Scripture and prophecy that have been fulfilled and will be fulfilled ultimately, completely, during the Millennial Kingdomand in the new heavens and the new earth. Let’s just open in prayer.
Dear Holy Father, as we come before you this evening, Lord, I pray that you just speak to us through your word. As we look at various verses and look at promises that have been given in your word about you, those that have been fulfilled and are being fulfilled and will be fulfilled. Lord, help us always to keep our eyes on you.
And Lord, may we lift up our heads for our redemption draws nigh. And Lord, may we truly long for that day, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
You probably heard the Hebrew word for Jesus, for Messiah, is, and I’m probably going to butcher it now, but it’s, Jesus is, it’s, well I’m not going to say it. Huh? Well, I’m just having a mental block. But the Hebrew word, Mashiach, is the word Messiah, and it appears 39 times in the Old Testament or Jewish Bible.
It is only translated by the word Messiah in two places, and that’s found in the book of Daniel, in Daniel 25 and 26. The word Messiah also appears in John 1.41 and John 4.25.The word Christ from the Greek, which means the anointed one, or the word which is in Greek, Christos, is used 569 times in the New Testament, and so the concept of the Messiah flows throughout all of Scripture, and we need to understand that. And the focus of the church is the fact that Jesus came as the Messiah, the promised one, the anointed one of God, the one that came to take away the sins of the world.
And we need to understand that the whole, all of Scripture from Revelation through the book, or from Genesis rather through Revelation, all is talking and pointing to the fact that Jesus, about Jesus, this book is about Him, and it’s about our need for Him. It shows where we came from, what our problem is, what God intends for us, and what He’s done for us,and ultimately where He desires for us to be. The Hebrew word anointed is also used in describing Messiah.
King David was called the Lord’s anointed ten times, but he was not the anointed one that was going to be the Messiah. In Scripture, the first time we see the Messiah is found in the book of Genesis 3.15 as far as reference to who He is, and there He’s referred to as the promised seed. And it’s interesting, the word seed is singular, and also you find in Genesis 3.15, it says, And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed, and God is speaking to Satan there, and it shall bruise, crush thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
And it’s interesting that He uses the word, the seed of the woman. And I’ve shared with you before in other sermons, the fact that man is the one that gives seed to the woman to enable impregnation to occur. But this is the seed of the woman, which means it’s going to be unique of all the births that have ever been, and that there’s not going to be a human man involved.
And we know that that is because God placed Christ within the womb of Mary, and there was no earthly man. This text is understood by the Jewish community to refer to the Messiah. 300 years before Yeshua, or Jesus, was born.
And we see that in Genesis 12, 1-3, it says, Now the Lord had said unto Abraham, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house into the land that I will show thee, and will make thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing, and I will bless them that bless thee, and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed. This is a promise given to Abraham, and one of the things that the church is reneging on today, and they say, well that doesn’t apply today,that it’s all been transferred to the church. And the thing is, that promise is being fulfilledas the gospel is brought to the whole world, and the whole world has been blessed through the lineage of Abraham, which resulted in the Messiah coming, that the whole world could experience the gospel message.
And yet, the church today wants to deny this, and it really shows why there is such a lack of power in the church today, if they deny the very promises of God, and don’t misunderstand and misconstrue them. Galatians 3.16 says, Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, and to seeds, as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ.
And so we see again, the concept that there is only one way to come to God, there is only one Messiah, it’s not going to be a nation that is going to save the world, but it’s going to be the Messiah who is going to come through the lineage of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David,and we see that this is the promises of God. Hebrews 11.17-19 says, By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac, and he that had received the promises, offered up his only begotten son, of whom it is said, that in Isaac shall thy seed be called. Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from whence also he received him in a figure.
And this was really a type of what God was going to do for us, as Abraham offered his only promised son to the Lord, the Lord was going to give his only son for the salvation of the world. The second name I want you to see that is used in Scripture is the word, Shiloh or Shiloh. In English we say Shiloh, but in Hebrew it’s Shiloh.
The Shiloh will come. Genesis 49.8-12 Judah, thou art whom thy brethren shall praise. Thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies.
Thy father’s children shall bow down before thee. Judah is a lion’s wealth. From the prey, my son, thou art gone up.
He stooped down, he touched as a lion, and as an old lion who shall rouse him up. The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh come. And unto him shall the gathering of the people be.
Binding his foal into the vine, and his asses culled unto the choice wine, he washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes, and his eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk. And it’s interesting, and this is when Jacob is blessing his children, and he comes to Judah, and this is the blessing that he gave Judah. And there’s some interesting things about it.
It says that Judah, that the lawgiver shall not depart from Judah. In other words, the one who would come and ultimately be the Messiah would come through the line of Judah. And we also know that David came from the line of Judah, and that the Lord promised that the Messiah would come through the line of David, and through the house of David.
We see also in this promise that the scepter or the rule would never be removed from Judah. And it’s interesting when the nation of Israel, those of you who were here when we went through the study of the kings and the nation of Israel split after Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, had caused the nation to turn against him because of the things that he did.The nation was split in two, and Judah was one nation, and that is the nation that Jerusalem was placed and kept in, and also the line of David remained and ruled in Judah,and the kings of the north were all wicked kings, every one of them, and yet we see that there were good kings in the south.
Not all of them were good, but some of them were, and that’s where the line of David remained in Jerusalem, and the scepter never departed from that. And we also know that the promise is going to be that when the Lord Jesus returns, as we saw last Sunday afternoon, he’s going to rule and reign from Jerusalem, just as it said, from Mount Zion and from the Temple Mount in the temple, and he’ll rule and reign with righteousness and truth.It also speaks of here in this, when Judah was receiving his blessing from his father, it speaks prophetically of the coming Messiah and that he is going to not only rule and reign,but he’s going to judge and be the one who will come to judge and establish righteousness upon the earth.
We learn from the above verses that the tribe of Judah will never cease to exist as a people, and that Judah will have a government of its own until the Messiah comes. Now it’s interesting because you have Christians today that say, well you can’t determine who any of the, Jews aren’t really Jews, and you can’t determine who’s of which tribe, and we don’t know any of that, and so consequently, God’s done with the Jewish people and he’s replaced it with the church. Well I don’t know, it’s pretty evident from God’s word that he’s not done with Israel, and he’s not done with Judah, and he’s not done with the promises given to Judah, because if he is, then God isn’t God, because he can’t fulfill them, but he is going to fulfill them completely.
In the Jewish writings, it talks about the fact that until Messiah comes, and also it uses terms such as saying until the time that the King Messiah shall come. These are terms that are used in some of the writings of the Jewish people, and they understand that there’s a Messiah that’s coming. The problem is their eyes have been blinded to the fact that Jesus is the Messiah, and the word Shiloh is a follow-up to the one who has the scepter, or the one who is going to rule, and it should be read, until he comes to whom it, the scepter, belongs, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ, and we know that he’s going to come with his scepter to rule the whole earth during the millennial kingdom.
The third reference we have is a reference to the star. It says the star who comes out of Jacob. Numbers 24, 15-19 says, and he took up his parable and said, Balaam the son of Beor hath said, and the man whose eyes are open hath said, he hath said which heard the words of God, and knew the knowledge of the Most High, which saw the vision of the Almighty falling into a trance, but having his eyes open, I shall see him, but not now.
I shall behold him, but not nigh. There shall come a star out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab and destroy all the children of Sheeth, and Edom shall be a possession. Seir also shall be a possession for his enemies,and Israel shall do valiantly.
Out of Jacob shall come he that shall have dominion, and shall destroy him that remaineth of the city. And this is again a prophetic writing that’s dealing with the coming Messiah, the one who is going to come and rule and reign. And this view was still evident among the Jewish people even at the time that after Jesus had been crucified and resurrected and rejected by the Jewish leadership, yet many of the Jewish people were still looking for the Messiah as they looked at passages like this.
And that’s one of the reasons some of the people rejected Jesus when he came because he didn’t establish his kingdom on earth at that time. But Jesus himself said that he had to come and he stopped when he was speaking in the synagogue in Nazareth and he was reading from Isaiah chapter 61. He read just the portion of Isaiah 61 that dealt with his first coming and he stopped there.
He didn’t really read the part which dealt with his second coming where he’d come as a judge. But he read the first part where he came as a redeemer. And he told them that this had been fulfilled before their eyes.
And that’s why they attempted to throw him off a cliff and took him out and tried to put him to death because they viewed that he was calling himself to be God. He was calling himself to be the Messiah. They knew exactly what he had stated.
But he didn’t talk about the fact that the second coming would deal with the judgment. He talked about the need for the first coming to deal with the redemption of mankind. The fourth term that we hear that Jesus uses is seer or prophet.
The seer who will be like Moses. And this is recorded by Moses in Deuteronomy 18, 15-19.It says, The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee of thy brethren like unto me.
Unto him ye shall hearken. According to all that thou desirest of the Lord thy God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God,neither let me see this great fire any more that I die not. And the Lord said unto me, They have well spoken that which they have spoken.
I will raise up a prophet from among their brethren like unto thee and will put my words in his mouth and he shall speak unto them all that I command him. And it shall come to passthat whosoever will not hearken unto my words, which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him. And it’s interesting when Jesus came, the one thing that the people acknowledged when he began to teach, they acknowledged he spoke with such authoritythey’d never heard a man speak with that authority before.
Because the rabbis, when they taught, they’d always quote other rabbis who quoted other rabbis who quoted other rabbis, but nobody really quoted the Scripture and laid out what it truly meant with the power that Christ did, because it was his words. He’s the one that had written it and he came and he spoke it before them. And it was even said of him by some that heard him, is this the prophet that was spoken of that would be like Moses? And really, he was.
The word prophet, which appears twice in the above verses, is placed in the emphatic position in Hebrew in front of the Hebrew verb. It is a single person that is intended, not a line of prophets. But some people will say, well, God had all of his prophets come after Moses and they all came in the spirit of Moses and like Moses.
No, it was speaking of just one person that would come, not a whole series of men that would come bringing prophecies. And when Christ came, he spoke with ultimate authoritybecause he was speaking the words which he had given Moses to record and he was speaking them emphatically. John 1.45 Philip findeth Nathan, Nathanael rather, and saith unto him, We have found him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.
In John 6.14 Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus said, did rather, said, This is of a truth, the prophet that should come into the world. And in Acts 3.22-26For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me. Him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever.
He shall say unto you, and it shall come to pass that every soul which will not hear that prophet shall be destroyed from among the people. Yea, and all the prophets from Samueland those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these days.Ye are the children of the prophets, and the covenant which God made with our fathers,saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed.
Unto you first, God, having raised up his Son, Jesus sent him to bless you in turning away every one of you from his iniquities. And this is the prophet that was spoken of, Jesus is the one. And it’s interesting that the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox Jews don’t want to talk about Jesus.
They refer to him as the man. And we don’t want to talk about the man. And they don’t want to make any references to the man.
And when it’s spoken of in prophecy and it’s evident that it’s speaking of Jesus, they either will ignore or mistranslate those verses. Most of the time, they won’t even look at Isaiah chapter 53. But if there are any rabbis that do teach it, they say, oh, well that was Israelduring World War II.
And the people died in the Holocaust to pay for the penalty of the sins of Israel and now we’re back in the land. And so that’s what it’s speaking of. But it’s not.
And it’s very evident that it’s speaking of Christ. The fifth thing that is referred to in prophecy is the son of David. And in Psalm 89 verse 20 it says, I have found David my servant, and with my holy oil have I anointed him.
David had, as I mentioned earlier, I believe last week, had a totally different spirit than his predecessor Saul. The people had picked Saul because he was like all the other kings of the world. And he was.
He was a worldly man who was influenced by the world, who was influenced by pressure.David was a man after God’s own heart. That’s how God refers to him, that he was a man after his own heart.
And even though David was a sinner, like we all are, and needed to be saved by God’s grace, yet he sought to promote the Lord and to follow the Lord. One of the interesting things about David, different from all the other kings of Israel, every one of them, he is the only king of Israel that really wasn’t enamored with really pressure from other worldly kingdoms around him, nor was he really pressured to seek to follow any of the gods of the nations around him or be influenced by them. Even some godly kings like Jehoshaphat,even though they never worshipped Baal, were influenced by Baal through Ahab when he united with Ahab and ultimately led to his son marrying Ahab’s daughter, which led to a whole series of very awful things happening.
And so we see that David is referred to and that Jesus is referred to as the son of Davidbecause David was a type of Jesus in that sense that he was focused on God and God only. Psalm 89, verses 24-29, But my faithfulness and my mercy shall be with him, and my name shall his horn be exalted. I will set his hand also in the sea and his right hand in the rivers.
He shall cry unto me, Thou art my Father, my God, and the rock of my salvation. Also I will make him my firstborn higher than the kings of the earth. My mercy will I keep for him forever, and my covenant shall stand fast with him.
His seed also will I make to endure forever and his throne as the days of heaven. Psalm 89, verses 34-37 say, My covenant will I not break after, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. Once I have sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David, his seed shall endure forever and his throne as the sun before me.
It shall be established forever as the form nor comeliness, and when we shall see him there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is speaking of the fact that there would come the day that the Messiah would rule and reign forever but it is not because men would desire him but rather because God promised it. And it is also very interesting as you look at that particular verse of the psalm that says, It is Isaiah rather, Who have believed our reportand to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed for he shall grow up before him as a tender plant.
Oh, I’m sorry, I turned to the wrong verse. I’m sorry, back to Psalm 89, verse 34. I was on the wrong page.
I apologize. My covenant will I not break, nor alter. I think it’s interesting that the Lord says,My covenant will I not break or alter.
If God has said that, did he mean it? Evidently there’s many people in the church todaywho think God really didn’t mean what he said. Because he’s evidently altering his covenant. He’s done with Israel.
He’s done with the line of David. He’s done with the throne of David. He’s done with the promises given that the line of David shall never be a witness forever.
And we know that Jesus is the one who would come and fulfill that. And that he will rule and reign from the throne of David forever in the beginning of the millennial kingdom in the new heavens and the new earth. Psalm 132.11 The Lord hath sworn in truth unto David.
He will not turn from it. Of the fruit of thy body will I sit upon thy throne. He’s not saying David will sit on the throne forever.
But he’s saying the fruit of thy body will sit upon the throne. The Messiah that’s coming from thee will sit upon the throne. This is a promise given to David.
And if God has sworn it, will it happen? Yes it will. Matthew 1.1 The book of the generation of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham. And in Matthew 1.1 it speaks of the two men that God gave specific promises of how the world would be blessed through them in the Messiah that would come.
And also I’ve mentioned before many Jewish people that begin to read in the New Testament start in Matthew 1. And when they read this it says, The book of the generation of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham. And all of a sudden for the first timemany of them realize Jesus was the Jewish Messiah the promised one. Because that’s who had been promised to David and Abraham.
Matthew 21.9 And the multitudes that were before and not followed cried, saying, Hosanna to the son of David. Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.
And Hosanna means salvation or salvation come now. Matthew 22. Verses 41-46 While the Pharisees were gathered together Jesus asked them, saying, What think ye of Christ?Whose son is he? Well, the Pharisees answered, They say unto him, the son of David.
He hath saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit call him Lord? Saying, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand and I will make thine enemies thy footstool. If David then call him Lord, how is he his son? And no man was able to answer him a word,neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions. And it’s interesting,Jesus really wanted them to understand who he was.
And that’s why they became so angry with Jesus, because they knew exactly who he was saying he was. And he was saying, I’m the Messiah. I’m the Lord.
I’m the one that came through the line of David just as had been promised. And I am he that shall rule and reign and my enemies shall be put under my feet. The sixth thing I want you to see is referred to as the sprout or the branch.
He’s the sprout of the Lord. Isaiah 4, 2 In that day should the branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel. Isaiah 11, 1 and 2 And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him in the spirit of wisdom and understanding and the spirit of counsel and might and the spirit of knowledge.