Understanding O.T. Prophecies of the Future (Prophets pt.4)

Speaker: 
Andrew Fountain
Date: 
Sun, 2022-06-05
  • The goal is to help us notice themes when we are reading the O.T. prophets, and capture the hope and excitement of their vision of the future.
  • If you have trouble viewing this video, you can try watching it directly on Vimeo
  • Play Audio

Sermon Slides - Understanding O.T. Prophecies of the Future (Prophets pt.4)

  • Summary from Last 2 Times:

Prophecies of the Future

  1. New Exodus
  2. New Messiah
  3. New Creation
  • But Andrew there was not an “old messiah”! (was there?) =anointed one

Goal

To help us notice themes when we are reading the O.T. prophets
and capture the hope and excitement
of their vision of the future.

1. New Exodus

  • Original Exodus from Slavery in Egypt

Deuteronomy 4

  1. Have a people ever heard the voice of God speaking from the middle of fire, as you yourselves have, and lived to tell about it?
  2. Has any god ever tried to deliver a nation from the middle of another nation, accompanied by testings, by miraculous signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, or by great and awesome deeds, like all the things the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?
  3. You were shown these things so that you might know that the LORD is God; there is no other besides him.
  • Mighty hand or arm is one key phrase. Another is “new song” (from song of Miriam)

Jeremiah 16:
Exodus from captivity prophesied

  1. “Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when it shall no longer be said, ‘As the LORD lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’
  2. but ‘As the LORD lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them.’ For I will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their fathers.

Isaiah 11
Figurative language

  1. The LORD will divide the gulf of the Egyptian Sea;
      he will wave his hand over the River and send a strong wind,
    he will turn it into seven dried-up streams,
      and enable them to walk across in their sandals.
  • But then look at this, which is clearly Exodus language, but adds something very special:

Isaiah 43

  1. Now, this is what the LORD says,
      the one who created you, O Jacob,
      and formed you, O Israel:
    “Don’t be afraid, for I will protect you.
      I call you by name, you are mine.
  2. When you pass through the waters,
      I am with you;
    when you pass through the streams,
      they will not overwhelm you.
    …
  3. Don’t be afraid, for I am with you.
      From the east I will bring your descendants;
      from the west I will gather you.
  4. I will say to the north, ‘Hand them over!’
      and to the south, ‘Don’t hold any back!’
    Bring my sons from distant lands,
      and my daughters from the remote regions of the earth,
  • So far so good, but let’s look at how this section is introduced:

Isaiah 42

  1. “Here is my servant whom I support,
      my chosen one in whom I take pleasure.
    I have placed my spirit on him;
      he will make just decrees for the nations.
  2. He will not cry out or shout;
      he will not publicize himself in the streets.
  3. A crushed reed he will not break,
      a dim wick he will not extinguish;
    he will faithfully make just decrees.
  4.   He will not grow dim or be crushed
    before establishing justice on the earth;
      the coastlands will wait in anticipation for his decrees.”

2. New Messiah

Isaiah 53

  1. Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
  2. For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.
  3. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
  4. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
  5. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.
  6. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
  7. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.
  8. By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?
  9. And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.
  10. Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
  11. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.
  12. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.

ESV

Lots of details

“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. Mal 4:5

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. Zec 9:9

“And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy,
so that, when they look on me,
on him whom they have pierced,
they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn. Zec 12:10

Joel 2 – Pentecost

  1. After all of this I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh:
    Your sons and daughters will prophesy.
    Your elderly will have revelatory dreams;
    your young men and women will see visions.
  2. Even on male and female servants
      I will pour out my Spirit in those days.
  3. I will show wonders both in the sky and on the earth —
      blood, fire, and columns of smoke.
  4. The sunlight will be turned to darkness
      and the moon to the color of blood,
    before the day of the LORD comes —
      that great and awesome day!
  5. And it shall come to pass that
    everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved.
  • Just as when we looked at the New Exodus, our 1st point,
    • We saw it linked to the 2nd point, the Coming Messiah who brings freedom
  • Now we are going to see our 2nd and 3rd points linked
    • The Coming Messiah is linked to the New Creation

Isaiah 9

  1. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
  2. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end,
    on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
    to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.
    The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.

3. New Creation

  • Elements of the prophecies are fulfilled in the age of the gospel, but there is clearly something more:

Isaiah 11

  1. There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
  2. And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.
  3. And his delight shall be in the fear of the LORD. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear,
  4. but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
    and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
  5. Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins.
  • Hang on, Jesus hasn’t done this yet!
    • Is this prophecy for 2,000 years ago or for the future?

Rockies Distant

Rockies Distant

Rockies Closer

Rockies Closer

Mountain Close

Mountain Close

Mount Robson

Mount Robson

  • Here is a key idea:

The Day of the Lord

  • Messiah comes and brings justice and judgement
  • We now know that the coming of Jesus is in two phases
  1. As a humble servant, dying on the cross
  2. As judge of the universe
  • The fact there is a gap, is GRACE
  • Because this future creation is so high and so different
    • poetic language is often used to describe is:

Isaiah 11 cont’d

  1. The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them.
  2. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
  3. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den.
  4. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.
  • Is this a prophecy that lions and snakes will be come vegetarians?
    • The very nature of the universe will be radically different

Isaiah 65

  1. “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind.
  2. But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness.
  3. I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people; no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress.

Isaiah 66 —the book closes with:

  1. “For as the new heavens and the new earth that I make shall remain before me, says the LORD, so shall your offspring and your name remain.

How does this relate to us?

  • Two key points for us to take away now
    • If you only remember two things, remember these

Two Takeaways:

  1. We are in the middle of the mountain range right now
    • Don’t worry if some things are not clear, they will be.
    • Be encouraged and keep your eyes on the end!
  2. The fulfillment was unimaginably greater than you could have figured from the prophecy…
    • God himself would become a human!

“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared for those who love him” 1 Cor 2:9

Updated on 2022-06-05 by Andrew Fountain