Sunday Message

In my trip through the prophecies of the Messiah, the next real important question is, in the words of Amy Grant, “what Messiah ought to be.  You see, the Jewish people were well versed in the verses that spoke of the King who would rule with an Iron Hand and crush their foes.  But what they never looked at was the dichotomy of Messiah.  Look at Zechariah 9:9-10:

Zec 9:9  Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem; behold, your King comes to you. He is righteous and victorious, meek and riding on an ass, even on a colt, the son of an ass.
Zec 9:10  And I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem. And the battle bow shall be cut off, and He shall speak peace to the nations; and His dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.

Verse 10 indeed talks of the Messiah they were hoping for; and indeed this Messiah is described in many passages,  but even then, He was to be no earthly conqueror.  Look at Hosea 1:7:

Hos 1:7  But I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and will save them by Jehovah their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.

But the part they really whiffed on was the first part- the part that would be revealed right before their eyes.  Never was a life so clearly described ahead of time as that of Jesus- even the seemingly contradictory parts, such as a birth in Judea and a life in Galilee.  And they totally ignored what was to happen to Messiah before He received the Kingdom:

 

Dan 9:25  Know therefore and understand, that from the going out of the command to restore and to build Jerusalem, to Messiah the Prince, shall be seven weeks, and sixty-two weeks. The street shall be built again, and the wall, even in times of affliction.
Dan 9:26 And after sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself. And the people of the ruler who shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.

Isa 53:1  Who has believed our report? And to whom is the arm of Jehovah revealed?
Isa 53:2  For He comes up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground; He has no form nor majesty that we should see Him, nor an appearance that we should desire Him.
Isa 53:3  He is despised and rejected of men; a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as it were a hiding of faces from Him, He being despised, and we esteemed Him not.
Isa 53:4  Surely He has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
Isa 53:5  But He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was on Him; and with His stripes we ourselves are healed.

Psa 22:13  They opened wide their mouths on Me, like a ripping and a roaring lion.
Psa 22:14  I am poured out like water, and all My bones are spread apart; My heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of My bowels.
Psa 22:15  My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and My tongue clings to My jaws;
Psa 22:16  and You have brought Me into the dust of death. For dogs have circled around Me; the band of spoilers have hemmed Me in, piercers of My hands and My feet.
Psa 22:17  I can count all My bones; they look and stare at Me.
Psa 22:18  They divide My garments among them and cast lots for My clothing.

Before Messiah could be the King, He had to be a humble child, be rejected, and eventually killed for no fault of his own.  That is the explanation of the first part of Psalms 110:

Psa 110:1  The LORD said to my Lord, Sit at My right hand until I place Your enemies as Your footstool.

Key word being “until”.  The Messiah, having been born and cut off, would have to wait until God had prepared everything for Him before He returned to rule as King.  And just what is it that He is preparing?  We look at the world and think, if God is really here, and preparing things, then why does it seem to be getting worse and worse?  Because, like the Jews of Jesus’ day on earth, we are looking at what we want to see.  In truth, two things are being prepared. 

#1: in heaven-

Joh 14:1  Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in Me.
Joh 14:2  In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
Joh 14:3  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, so that where I am, you may be also.

#2 on earth-

Rev 16:13  And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.
Rev 16:14  For they are spirits of demons, working miracles, which go forth to the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that day, the great day of God Almighty.
Rev 16:15  Behold, I am coming as a thief. Blessed is the one who watches and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame.
Rev 16:16  And he gathered them into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.