Here, there we go. Now I'm on. I'm not gonna start another character study until probably after Thanksgiving. I'm gonna do another one of those fun things. Yeah, we're gonna do another one of those fun things tonight, those little subjects I like to bring up. I think I've gone through this before, but just one of those things. Next Sunday night, and you guys all need to be thinking about this, we're gonna be, I'm gonna give you something on faith promise. Talk a little bit about Faith Promise. And if you're familiar with that, most of you here are participating in Faith Promise. And we'll have all the information, how many missionaries we're supporting, how much goes in. What we'd like to do every year is add two or three missionaries, but that's up to you. And if you're not familiar with Faith Promise, I'll explain it to you next week, give you a week to pray about it. And then the following week, we'll pass the cards out and you can fill it in. And then we'll figure out if we can add some missionaries or not. And understand this, with the card thing, it's just a matter of the figure. We don't wanna know your name. We don't want any of that stuff. We just want the figure that you are gonna promise to give to God throughout the year. And then we can take those cards and add them up and figure out what we can do. So, excuse me, we'll start that next Sunday. And I should have had this warming up while I was saying all that stuff. But tonight we're just going to do a little fun thing. I call it a fun thing. And you don't even have to take your Bibles anywhere tonight. You can follow along if you'd like in your scripture. We'll have the verses up on the board if I bring the board down. Can I tell you what my dream is? To push a button and have the screen just come down. To have this thing wirelessly connected to that that shoots it up on the screen. I'd be in high cotton if we got to that point. So I'd be as happy, as I said outside, I'd be happy as a hog wallowing in a mud hole. But to this point, that's what we do. So let's have a word of prayer and then we'll get into this. Father, we come to this evening, we thank you again for Your goodness and your grace, Lord, we are so grateful for your people. Lord, our hearts go out to Barb and Joe and Betsy with the loss of Joe. Lord, he is at home in heaven. He's probably just flying around up there right now, still so excited about being there. And our day will come. Lord, we're waiting for the trumpet to blow. And if the trumpet doesn't blow, One way or the other, we're going to end up there with you. And Lord, we're so thankful for that. And Lord, I pray that you'd bless our service tonight. Give us some things to see, some things to think about. Lord, help us in this stuff. Lord, it's a wonderful time of year coming up where you came to this world. Your first Advent, as they say. and you chose to become a human being and enter this world through the womb of the Virgin Mary, and live down on this planet, and live in this mess for 33 and a half years, and offer the greatest sacrifice could ever be offered for the sins of man, and rise again from the dead. And Lord, we're looking forward to celebrating that time, not in the way the world does, but a celebration of a God who loves people, and was willing to come to this world to be their savior. Lord, I pray you take this piece of dirt up here tonight and just fill it with your spirit, your power, your passion, your words, your wisdom. Lord, at any time, if you want to preach to us, that'd be great. If you want to teach us, that would be great. Lord, I do pray you'd minister to us tonight. I thank you in Christ's name, amen. All right, let's see if I've got anything up here. I went too far already. Go back. There we go. And I am going to use my high-tech phone and turn this light off here. Cindy, how's Walter doing? Better? Okay. It's always good to be doing better. It's good to see the Sorensons again. Glad to see you tonight. All right, we're gonna talk tonight about the Messiah. I mean, that was the thing that really Christmas is all about is the coming of God to this world to be the promised savior to the Jewish people. We know that all the Gentiles are in on this thing, but primarily Messiah was the promise to the Jew. You say Messiah to the Gentiles at that time, it's like, what are you talking about? You say Messiah to the Jew, they knew exactly what you were talking about. The sad thing is that he came into his own, the Bible says, but his own received him not. And there's no reason why they should have missed it. So we're gonna look tonight at what we call identifying the Messiah, and if you've got Jewish friends, it'd be good to take some notes. There's really some simple, simple means of figuring out who Jesus Christ was, how we know he was the Messiah. There's a lot of scripture verses, a lot of prophecies he fulfilled, and sometimes that gets a little intricate in trying to take that approach, but there's just, there's a simple way of helping Jewish people understand who their Messiah is. In fact, Itan Bar, who is a young evangelist to the Jews, Jewish himself. wrote or quotes from Tractate Sanhedrin 99a, which is a Jewish writing. And he says this, that the Old Testament, this is Jewish mentality. The Old Testament contains a complete ID kit so that the people of Israel can recognize the Messiah, put their faith in him. Even the sages admitted all the prophets prophesied until only towards the Messianic era. So the Jews still goes by the Old Testament to try to figure out who the Messiah is, and that's an amazing thing. Because, what's the matter? I'm just standing in the way? I must be getting bigger or something. Anyway, we're gonna move the screen over there eventually, put that new screen up. But thank you for your support, I appreciate that. She didn't say a word, but I look on the face. I said, OK, something's going on. Anyway, Tractate Sanhedrin 99A, right there. The Old Testament contains a complete ID kit so that the people of Israel can recognize the Messiah, put their faith in Him. Very simple thing. And again, I said it's amazing that the Jews will still look to the Old Testament. My opinion of Judaism today is that they take an eclectic approach to their Old Testament. Say, what does that mean? It's better if you understand this. They take the salad bar approach to interpreting the Old Testament or believing the Old Testament. Say, what does that mean? You pick what you like and you just leave alone what you don't like. And when the Jew looks at the Old Testament, he has to do some things because When I say that, I mean he has to allegorize some things. He has to spiritualize a lot of things. I mean, you think about it. There are no sacrifices made anywhere today in any temple anywhere in Israel or anywhere else. And yet the Old Testament says if you're going to sacrifice, if you're going to keep the Day of Atonement, if you're going to keep the Passover, you've got to go to Jerusalem. That has to be done in the temple. It has to be done by the priesthood. What happens to that? So they look at that in their Old Testament and say, well, you know, we're gonna have to do something about that, so we either spiritualize it or ignore it. But they'll still go to the Old Testament to look for their Messiah, and that's good, that's good. So if we're gonna minister to Jews, and I think the greatest thing in the world is when a Jew comes to know Jesus Christ as their Savior. I think that's, you know, it doesn't get any better than that. But there's kind of a simple way to help a Jew understand who Jesus was. In Luke chapter 24 and verse 25, the Bible says, then he said unto them, O fools and slow of heart to believe. Now this is Jesus speaking to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. This is after the resurrection. He has changed his form or his visage to the point where they don't recognize who he is. So he just joins up with them as they're walking along. And they said, what are you guys doing? And he said, haven't you heard of what's been going on in Jerusalem? And he kind of plays kind of a, wrong way to say it, but it kind of plays dumb to them. And finally he lets them know that he knows some stuff. It says in verse 25, then he said unto them, O fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. And this probably took them back a little bit, but he's trying to help them understand that what happened in Jerusalem, all the prophets had spoken about that. Verse 26, ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. So you find the Messiah in all the scriptures. Brother Mario has preached that a number of times. In Genesis, he is the? He's the promise. In Exodus, he's the? Lamb, I'm catching you off guard, aren't I? Passover lamb, but you can go all through the Bible and there's Jesus Christ in every book of the Bible. And so he expounds to them, the Messiah has been there all the time. You've missed it, but he's been there all the time. And continuing on in Luke, verse 44. It says, and he said unto them, these are the words which I spake unto you while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms concerning me. Law and the Psalms and the prophets is a designation for the Old Testament. Three divisions of the Old Testament, we've gone through that before. So he's saying, I've been everywhere in the Old Testament. Everything about me that happened to me, that's going to happen to me and all that, he said it's in the Old Testament. You just need to find it. Now, one of the first things that we need to look at, and this is what Mario is referring to as the promise, the first mention of Messiah, the first promise of a Messiah is in Genesis chapter three and verse 15. This is after Adam and Eve have sinned and he says to the serpent, and I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed, it shall bruise thy head, thou shalt bruise his heel. He's referencing her seed. He says to her, the woman, you're going to have a child and that child will fix this guy right here. He'll do away with this guy right there. The serpent will bruise his heel, but your seed will bruise his head. You'll get the victory there. So from that point on, every time Eve has a child in her mind, she's thinking, is this the one? Little did she know that 4,000 years, almost 4,000 years were going to pass. But every time she had a child or maybe one of her grandchildren, she was thinking, could this be the promised seed? And that's the belief that continued on. So from Adam, and Adam had a son by the name of Cain and Abel. We know what Cain did to Abel. And then to replace Abel, there was a son named Seth. He had other sons and daughters according to Genesis 5, I believe it is. But it was through Seth, that men began to call upon the Lord again. And it was through Seth and Enos, his son, and Cainan, and Mahaliel, and Jared, and Enoch, and Methuselah, and Lamech that Noah was born. And so the seed, the promise of Genesis 3 is gonna go all the way down here to a fellow by the name of Noah. And Noah has three sons, Ham, Shem, and Japheth. The seed is not gonna come through any of the descendants of Cain or any place else. This is where the promise of the seed is going to come. So now we're down to one man by the name of Noah who has three sons. So it's one of his three sons that the seed is gonna continue to go through. Time is interrupted by the flood, but then after that you have again Shem, Japheth, and Ham, and the seed is gonna make its way through, of those three boys, the seed will make its way through Shem. Shem is the father of those that live in the Middle East. Ham is the father of those that live in Africa. Japheth, we would say, were the father of the Europeans, but it's gonna be through Shem, and then through Arphaxad, and Salem, and Eber, and Peleg, and Reho, and Sirach, and Nahor, and Terah. How many remember who Terah was? We talked about that when we studied the life of Abraham. And from Terah, it is gonna come down to a fellow by the name of Abraham. So we've watched the seed go from a promise to Eve through a family that survived the flood to one of their three children, now all the way to the father of the Jewish race, Abraham. So if we didn't know anything up to this point, here's what we know, Messiah's gonna be Jewish. Okay, we're not gonna miss that. You say, well, we knew he was Jewish. No, you didn't. You didn't know anything about Jewish up here and with Seth or anything like that. Jewish didn't start until right here. He could have, up to this point, it could have been any nation. Well, it could have been any nation. It wouldn't have been the Hamites. It wouldn't have been the Japhethites. It had to come through here. Now we know, because of Abraham, that the Messiah has to be Jewish. So we have the promise in Genesis chapter three and verse 15. to Abraham in Genesis chapter 12. Genesis chapter 22 and verse 18, God says to Abraham, and in thy seed, there's the seed again, in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because thou hast obeyed my voice. Galatians chapter three and verse 16 gives us the interpretation of that. It says, now to Abraham and his seed where the promise is made. He saith not unto seeds as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed. And Paul says, and that seed is Christ. So here comes the seed from Eve all the way through now to Abraham, and Abraham is given that promise. Still bringing forth the seed. Then you have Abraham's seed, which is Isaac. Isaac is a perfect type of Christ. We've talked about that before. The sacrifice that Abraham almost made of Isaac is a real good picture of what Christ went through for us. Genesis 21 verse 12, it says, and an Isaac shall thy seed be called. So we've gone from Abraham now to Isaac. Matthew chapter one and verse two, Abraham begat Isaac. So we're aware of that. So the promise of God in Genesis down to Abraham, through Abraham. Now Abraham has two sons at the beginning, Ishmael and Isaac. But we know it's not going to be through Ishmael because God had already said to Isaac, the seed's going to come through you. So now we've got Abraham, Isaac. Then we look at Numbers 24, verse 17. He said, 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. So you've got Abraham, Isaac, now you've got Jacob. So there were other, again, other children born, but the seed is gonna come through Jacob. And Matthew 1, verse 2, Isaac begat Jacob. So we go back here again, and of the two sons of Isaac, Esau and Jacob, the seed is gonna go through Jacob. And we're gonna narrow this down more. Genesis 49 verse 10 says this, the scepter shall not depart from Judah. Now we've not heard of Judah up to this point. The scepter shall not depart from Judah nor a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh come." Now that's a very interesting prophecy. That's a time-sensitive prophecy, if you will. Notice he said, the lawgiver shall, the scepter shall not depart from Judah nor a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh come. In other words, the Jews will be ruling themselves. Now, they'll be ruled by the Romans and all that, but they still have some aspect of self-rule. And notice he said that that'll not change. Shiloh will come in that situation. Well, who is Shiloh? You say, well, Shiloh was a city. Well, it was a city, but many of the Jewish interpreters will interpret Shiloh as being Messiah. And so what they're saying is Messiah shall not come until the scepter departs and the lawgiver departs from Judah. When did that happen? When did that happen? Pardon me? I'm not hearing what you're saying. No, that's not when the scepter departed from Israel. Technically, you could say yeah. And the temple, the veil in the temple was written and all that. But I'm saying politically, when did Israel stop being able to govern themselves to an extent? Joe? Well, no. No, because they did come back and they did rule themselves. You're right. They did lose it for a while, but they came back. What's the other time? AD 70. And at that point, they're going to lose it pretty much for good. So that's a time-sensitive prophecy. The point is, it says Judah. So you've got Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. Jacob has 12 sons, and one of them is named Judah. The Targum pseudo-Jonathan, another Jewish writing, says this about Messiah, how noble is the king, Messiah, who is going to rise from the house of Judah. So the Jews know that Messiah had to come from Judah. So we've gone a long way. We've gone from Eve to a promise her seed there, to Noah, to Shem, to Terah, to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, now Judah. So we're tracing this seed right on through there. It's starting to narrow things down, isn't it? I mean, yeah, he was going to be a Jew under Abraham, but there's a lot of people born of that. Where's the seed going to go? It's going to go to Isaac, not Ishmael. It's going to go to Jacob, not Esau. Of the 12, it's going to go to only one, and that's Judah. Isaiah 11, verse 1. There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. Isaiah 11 verse 10. And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people. To it shall the Gentiles seek, and the rest shall be glorious. So now we're dealing with a family within the tribe of Judah, and that family is the family of Jesse. So you look at the You look at the breakdown again, from God to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, all the way into Judah. And of the tribe of Judah, of the families that are in Judah, we have the family line of Jesse. So we're narrowing it down some more. And so as we continue to look at this, of the line of Jesse, how many sons did Jesse have? Samuel went to his house, he's looking for the king. He went through how many sons before he found the one? Okay, there was Eliab, Abinadab, Shimea, Nethanel, Radai, Ozem, possibly this one right here, Elihu, and there's one more, and that's David. So you cross all those out, and you have David. So we've come all the way from Eve after being kicked out of the garden, the promise of the seed there, we've come all the way through there, we've come all the way through the family of Seth, all the way to Noah, then through Shem, then to Terah, then to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah. Now we're at the family of Jesse, and of all the sons Jesse had, the seed is gonna come through David. How can we miss this? How could anybody miss this? I mean, it's pretty clear the direction that it's going and who it's gonna come through. Jeremiah 23, verse five says this. Behold, the day is come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous branch, and a king shall reign and prosper and shall execute judgment and justice on the earth. Notice again, unto David, David. So the seed is gonna come through David. Matthew 22, verses 41 and 42, when Jesus is dealing with the Pharisees, He asks them a question. He asks them a question, well, who do you think Christ is? Whose son is He? And it says in Matthew 22 verse 41, while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them saying, what think ye of Christ, whose son is he? And they said unto him, he's the son of David. So at the time of Christ, the Jews knew where the Messiah would have to come through and he's going to have to come through the son of David. So all the way from Eve all the way through Noah, and through Shem, and through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, through the family of Jesse, through the son of David, the seed has got to come through David. They knew that, and Jesus had said that. So, in Revelation 22 and verse 16, in case you missed it, Jesus said, I have sent mine angel to testify unto you of the things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star. So he says, I'm the son of David. All right? So again, we've traced that thing all the way through. You look at the genealogy of Jesus, and there you see at the beginning, God, Adam, Seth, right on through, Abraham, and then you've got David. Now, this is where it gets a little confusing. It's confusing because of our ignorance of the genealogical process that they did in the first century. But here's the basic breakdown. You have Mary and you have Joseph. And if you've read the genealogies, you'll know that things change at a certain point. By the time you get, you got Boaz, Obed, Jesse, David. David has a few sons. Two in particular, one named Solomon and one named Nathan. Mary's genealogy. will come through Solomon, who is the son of David. So that comes down to here. This Joseph, by the way, is not the husband of Mary. This is the father of Mary, the grandfather of Jesus. Then you have this genealogy over here that I believe Luke gives us, that takes us from Nathan all the way through till you get down to here. That's Joseph's genealogy. The husband of Mary, the adoptive father of Jesus Christ, who is Joseph. So you have two genealogies, there's a reason for that, we've gone over that, we'll probably go over it again, but it's not December yet, so we can't go over that yet, it can only do that stuff in December. But anyway, they all fit together, it fits together perfectly, that Jesus Christ is the son of David. All right, so we know that. Now let me ask you a question, is there anybody after him, anybody today that could claim that same thing? You know, the Jews don't even have their genealogical records anymore, most of it. And some guy could show up and say, you know, I'm a son of David. Well, can you prove that? Well, they could, they had the charts, they had the genealogical stuff. So really, there's nobody today that could make this claim, but we have some help in understanding that stuff. Not only do we know the family tree, Not only do we know the family line, that from Eve all the way on through David, all the way to Jesus Christ. Not only do we know that, we know the place of his birth. And so the Bible tells us, Micah chapter five and verse two, it says, but thou Bethlehem Ephrathah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall come forth unto me, that is to be ruler in Israel, whose going forth have been of old from everlasting. We know where Jesus was born. That helps. We know he was born in Bethlehem. Where is Bethlehem? Give me the general place where Bethlehem is. Pardon me? Judah. That's where Bethlehem's in Judah. All right, that fits. Everything works together there. Here's a prophecy in Micah chapter five and verse two, and it says, though they'll be little among the thousands, Bethlehem was not a thriving metropolis. I mean, if you take a look at the map, there's Israel right there. There's Bethlehem or Judah right there, and then in that area, you have Bethlehem, right there. Jerusalem is up here, Bethlehem is right here. Of all the cities that were in that area, there's only one city that's gonna fit, and that's Bethlehem. And somebody in Bethlehem, Bethlehem is in Judah, so somebody of the tribe of Judah, of the family of Jesse, of the son of David, has to be born in the city of Bethlehem. And then the key thing is the timing. The time of His coming. Now we went through Daniel 70 weeks, a couple weeks ago. Don't have to go through that again. I hope you remember some of it. But Daniel 9 gives us, again, the exact time. Genesis 49, again, 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 fold on the vine, his asses colt unto the choice vine, he washed his garments in wine, his clothes in the blood of grapes. In reference to the second coming, the last part of that. But the first part again, the scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh come. So the Jews were, in a sense, self-ruling. They had their religious leaders and all that, and they governed themselves as long as they didn't cross the Roman government. They governed themselves. And it would be that way until Jesus Christ shows up, and then after he shows up, God gives them 40 years to get the thing right, 40 years to repent, and they didn't do anything. And so at AD 70, Titus and the Roman legions come in and destroy it. But we have the time. Malachi chapter three and verse one. Behold, I will send my messenger and he shall prepare the way before me and the Lord whom he seeks shall suddenly come to his temple. Even the messenger of the covenant whom he delight in. Behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. He shall suddenly come to his temple. When did he do that? Palm Sunday, I think is what we call it. He came to his temple on Palm Sunday. What does this prove right here? Time-wise, that there has to be, if he's suddenly gonna come to his temple, what does there have to be? A temple. The temple was destroyed in AD 70. So the timing of this thing is pretty well narrowed down. When you go to Daniel chapter nine, again, we've gone through this a couple of weeks ago. Know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem. Does anybody remember the date of that? 444, 445 BC. And remember there are 483 years and we did the math down to the days and the solar years and all that stuff. From the commandment of the going forth to restore and to build Jerusalem unto Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks the street shall be built again, the wall even in troublesome times. And so when you take the amount of time, you go to the prophetic week, we came up with Jesus Christ being crucified around 30, 31 AD. After threescore and two weeks shall the Messiah be cut off but not for himself, in other words he'll be put to death, but he's not dying for himself. And the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary, and the end thereof shall be a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. Verse 27. And this is talking about the last week. He shall confirm the covenant with many for one week, and in the midst of the week, he shall cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations, he shall make it desolate even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate. All that means is this, that last week is the tribulation week. 483 years have gone by. At the end of that, Jesus Christ shows up. It was around AD 31, AD 32. depending on what calendar you use and how you do that figuring. But let me ask you this, who else could it have been? Who else could it have been that went through the nation of Israel, I mean all promised all the way back from Eve, ends up going through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, of the families of Judah, Jesse, the sons of Jesse, David, David shows up, Jesus Christ referred to as the son of David, born in a city where it says exactly where he's supposed to be born at a time when it only can be him. So again, I don't know how the Jews miss this because it's pretty clear. There's the 70 weeks again. We've talked about that. I'm not going to go through it again. But it clearly sets the time for when Christ was supposed to be crucified. Alfred Eidersheim, a very interesting guy, he listed 456 specific prophecies of Christ's first coming. And there are that many. A lot of prophecies concerning Christ. And so a fellow by the name of Peter Stoner decided to, and he's a mathematician, decided to do the calculating. He was into, I'm trying to remember the term right off hand, It'll come to me. Anyway, Peter Stoner was the Chairman of the Department of Mathematics and Astronomy at Pasadena City College until 1953. He was the Chairman of the Science Division at Westmont College, 1953 to 1957. He's a Professor Emeritus of Science at Westmont College, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics and Astronomy at Pasadena City College. So this is not just some average guy. This guy is a pretty smart cookie. And what Mr. Stoner did was to begin to do some estimating. The estimates were worked out by 12 different classes representing some 600 university students. They said, what is he estimating? He's taking the prophecy probability. That's a word I couldn't get. He's taking the prophecies. He said the 456 that Irishman talked about, no, he's gonna take eight, and then he's gonna take a few more. But he's taking these prophecies and he's trying to figure out the probability of them all happening and coming true at the same time. And he's using some 600 university students. So this is not something he's just cooking up in his office. The students carefully weighed all the factors, discussed each prophecy at length, and examined the various circumstances which might indicate that men had conspired together to fulfill a particular prophecy. They made their estimates conservative enough so that there was finally unanimous agreement even amongst the most skeptical students. However, Professor Stoner then took their estimates and made them even more conservative. So he's cutting it down as much as he can. He also encouraged other skeptics or scientists to make their own estimates to see if his conclusions were more than fair. So they take what they've come up with, take it from some guys that are skeptics or some guys that maybe let's just say are not religious, and says, here's what I've come up with. See if you can take it apart. See if you can refute this, basically. He submitted his figures for review to a committee of the American Scientific Affiliation, Upon examination, they verified that his calculations were dependable and accurate in regard to the scientific material presented. So again, this stuff has been viewed and reviewed and reviewed by people that we would say maybe be hostile witnesses, that would be opposed to the idea of what he's putting together. They're looking at the way he figured it out. They're looking at the math, they're looking at the science. They're looking at all that. The American Scientific Affiliation, a very important body as far as this stuff is concerned, they examined it and they came to the conclusion, whether they agreed with it or not, they came to the conclusion that he is dependable and accurate in his findings. Okay. Let's see what they found out. He took eight specific prophecies. Now remember, Eidersheim found 456. He said, let's just take eight. For Christ to fulfill just eight of those prophecies is one times 10 to the 17th power, which means it's 10 with 17 zeros behind it. Those are pretty high odds. The number would kind of look like that. And the only place anybody uses a number like that is in our Congress and Senate and Washington, that's gonna be our future cap and whatever, debt ceiling. But that's one times 10 to the 17th power. That's a big number. What he's saying is the odds are one in that number right there for Christ to be able to fulfill all eight of these prophecies at the same time. So the illustration he comes up with is this. If you take the state of Texas, now Texas is a big state. I have driven through Texas. It's when you enter into a state and the mile marker says 740 some miles, you're thinking, what in the world am I getting into here? And when you drive into a state, you know, driving my bus, my motor coach, what have you, and you find a place to spend the night and you wake up the next morning and say, where are we? We're still in Texas. You've been familiar with that. Texas is a big state. Especially once you get past San Antonio, there really isn't too much. And I remember one year we had left Corpus Christi, Texas. We had been with Willard Welder. We had left there and we're traveling, trying to get through Texas, and it's midnight. It's New Year's Eve, midnight, in the western Texas. And so I found a rest area. I thought, we'll rest here, you know, and we'll come out and we'll see if these fireworks going up and all that stuff, you know, we'll hear the guns. Absolutely nothing. As far as the eye could see, I could see absolutely nothing. You didn't hear anything, you didn't see anything, and I'm thinking, wow, we're in another world here. This is beyond imagination. Texas is a big brown state for the most part. Stoner said this, let's take silver dollars and let's cover the state of Texas with silver dollars. Three feet deep, three feet deep, the entire state of Texas with silver dollars three feet deep. Let's take one silver dollar, let's mark it, either color it a different color or what have you, and let's throw it in with all these other silver dollars, let's stir them all up. Then let's fly a guy in over Texas blindfolded, let's drop him in, and let's see if he can find that one marked silver dollar blindfolded the very first time he reaches down and picks up a silver dollar. The odds of him doing that are the odds of Jesus Christ fulfilling not 456 prophecies, just eight of them. That's impressive. But he goes beyond that. He's gonna look at 48 specific prophecies, which is one times 10 to the 157th power. Okay, I have no imagination of what that would be like. I did this, here it is. I counted all those zeros myself too. That's the number. Let's hope Washington never understands that there's a number that big. That's the number. One times 10 to the 157th power. So, 48 specific prophecies, he changes the illustration. It's not the state of Texas anymore. It's not silver dollars anymore. He says let's just take all the electrons in the universe. And there's probably not as many electrons in the universe as there was in that number. But he said, let's take all the electrons in the universe. Let's take one electron and let's color it. And let's throw it in with all the other electrons. And let's take a man blindfolded and have him reach into all those electrons and pick out the colored one the very first try. What's the odds of that? One times 10 to the 157th power. 48 specific prophecies that Jesus Christ fulfilled. That's the odds. He fulfilled over 400 prophecies when he came the first time. There's a fellow by the name of Borel or Borel, Emile Borel, French mathematician. Very famous for being a mathematician and a fellow that did things about probability. He said this, he said events with a probability on the scale of one times 10 to the 50 will not happen. One times 10 to the 50th power will not happen. Say preacher, there's a chance that anything can happen. He says by the time you get to one times 10 to the 50, if that's 10 to the 50 zeros after it, it ain't gonna happen. That's a law of probability. It's not gonna happen. The sort of event, which though it's impossibility may not be rationally demonstrable is, however, so unlikely that no sensible person, and there's the problem. No sensible person. The people that reject Jesus Christ and the people that reject the Bible, when given evidence, say what's their problem? They're not sensible. What's their problem? Their problem is they love their sin and they hate Jesus Christ. The Bible says, a fool has said in his heart there is no God. They are corrupt. They have done abominable works. They don't seek after God. That's the problem with atheism. They want to sin. They've got, we all have the evil nature. They want to live in their evil nature. They want to fulfill their evil desires and all that stuff. And they don't want God being involved in any part of it. So they don't, they're not atheists because they have some scientific evidence. They may think they have a little bit here and a little bit there, but in reality they have no scientific evidence that God doesn't exist. They have no scientific evidence that Jesus Christ never showed up on this planet. They have no scientific evidence that what's written in this book is wrong. They just hate God. They love their sin and they hate God. And when you're in that condition, you've lost your senses. A reasonable person would look at what I just showed you, what Peter Stoner had come up with. A reasonable, sensible person would look at that and say, you know what? You got something there. There's something about that. And you found all that in the Bible? All that's in the Bible. You know what? There must be something about that Bible. There must be something about this fellow named Jesus Christ. Maybe I need to examine that. Maybe I need to check that out. However, so unlikely that no sensible person will hesitate to declare it actually impossible. If someone affirmed having observed such an event, we would be sure that he is deceiving us or has himself been the victim of a fraud. That's the man who dealt with probabilities most of his life. In dealing with the Jews, I said when I started out, there's a lot of different prophecies. We just looked at 48 prophecies. Why don't we just sit down with Jewish people and go through all 48? Well, you can do that if you like. Or go through eight of them. You can do that if you like. But in reality, there's only three issues that you need to deal with the Jews about. Just three issues. We've already discussed one of them. That's the time. That's where I would begin in Daniel chapter 9. We talked about that when we went through the 70th week. You said, well, the Jewish people say he's a minor prophet. What's a minor prophet? The prophets are not, you know, single A, double A, triple A, the majors. That's not the way it worked. Yes, if a man received a prophecy from God, he was a prophet. Isaiah had 66 chapters, Jeremiah had a whole mess of chapters, 53 I think it was. Those are big, those are major prophecies. Then you got Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nehemiah, Bacchus, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. These are the smaller books of prophecy. That's why they would be considered minor. But does it make a difference? If God gives a man a prophecy, does it matter if his book has three chapters or 103 chapters? Does it matter? It's still a prophecy from God. If he's been proven to be a prophet of God, he's a prophet of God. What he says is from God. What difference does it make if he doesn't have a big book, if he's just a small book? What difference does it make? The Jews will say, well, we don't think the dating is right on that. We think Daniel was probably written about 200 BC. Okay, 200 years before it happened. That's pretty good. You prophesize something 200 years before it's going to happen. What difference does that make? What difference does it make if he prophesied it 50 years before it happened? Of course, we know he didn't. But we have the time. Time is pretty clear. Another thing about Messiah. The Jews have been waiting for Messiah. all the way from Eve, all the way through. They've been waiting for Messiah to come. But what did Isaiah say in Isaiah chapter 53 about Messiah? This is mind-boggling. The Jews wanted Messiah to come. They couldn't wait till the Messiah came. Their hope was in Messiah. And when he comes, he was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. We hear that's where our face is from. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him. Listen, when He came, they rejected Him. Does that make sense? Somebody you've been waiting for for thousands of years, or at least hundreds of years, you've been waiting for this man to show up, and when He shows up, you reject Him. Does that make any sense? It doesn't make any sense. But that's what happened. So we know when Messiah was supposed to come. We know that when He did come, He would be rejected of His own people. And then thirdly, according to Isaiah 42, we know he would have a large Gentile following. So we know the time, we know the Jews rejected him, but we know he has a large Gentile following. Now show me somebody else that would fit all that stuff. It's not hard to figure out who the Messiah is. So if you sit down with your Jewish friends, I would go over and deal with the time thing, Daniel chapter nine, so explain this to me. And then explain to me why you rejected him when he did come. He was cut off, but not for himself, is what Daniel said. Explain why you rejected him. We've been going through Sunday school on Sunday mornings, and we're at the part now where he had been tried by the elders of Judaism, and then they're dragging him over to Pilate, and Pilate's dealing with him and all that, and you just see manifest rejection of Jesus Christ. which again is an amazing thing. I've preached on the street a number of times asking this question, what fault do you find with Jesus Christ? You preach to a large crowd and they're doing whatever they're doing and what have you, and the question I've preached is what, show me something wrong with Jesus Christ. And I've never had anybody come up to me and give me a list. I said, show me something wrong with Jesus Christ. One thing, one thing wrong with Jesus Christ. And I've said this, I can find something wrong with him. I think he loves sinners too much. But try to show me, show me one thing wrong with Jesus Christ. Here's this Jewish population who's seen him heal every day. He was ministering every day, from morning till night, healing people, delivering people from demonic oppression, giving sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, cleansing the lepers, and then the next day it starts all over again, day after day after day after day after day after day. That's what they've seen. They've heard him preach, the common people heard him gladly, and yet it was the religious leaders that rejected him. But he ends up with a large Gentile following. Explain that one to me. How in the world do you come up with a large Gentile following? You came to a nation called Israel in the middle of the Middle East, and now there are people in Papua New Guinea, Australia, the Amazon, China, Korea, Russia, England, all following this Jewish Messiah that showed up 2,000 years ago. Could you explain that one to me? So three things, if you have a Jewish friend, three things. Deal with the time of his coming, the fact that it was rejected by his people, and he's got a large Gentile following to this day. There's no other sensible explanation other than Jesus Christ is exactly who he said he was. He is God manifest in the flesh. He is the Messiah. He is the Son of God. His name is Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins. And this December again, we will celebrate the fact that our loving God in heaven did not turn His back on us when our first parents sinned in the garden. but came to their rescue and has always been the plan of God to come to the rescue of a bunch of sinners like us. And 2,000 years ago, he died on the cross, shed his blood to pay for sins, rose again the third day from the dead, and now offers to any person that wills a free gift of eternal life. That's what this holiday is all about. And it's a sad thing that the Jews miss that. Any questions? Any questions or comments? You know, when God does something, he doesn't mess around. Notice one thing, none of this stuff is by accident. I mean, he's got everything laid out perfectly the way it should be. Everything, he's under control. Yes, everything, he's got everything under control. Yes? That's the sad part about the future of us trying to win as many as we can. Right, right. It's going to be a serious persecution. Right, right. Yep. We support a couple of missionaries that deal with Jews in Israel. I'm not from around here, as you know. I've only been here about four years. I don't know what the Jewish population is in Phoenix. I know there's a large mosque by ASU, and there's somewhat of a large Muslim population, but I'm not sure about the Jewish population. Yes, sir? Andrew lives in New York in a small town, and he goes up there, and all of where he's at is all Hasidic Jews. Hasidic Jews, yep. And he said they absolutely despise It's a shame. Anybody else? All right, well, we'll just be dismissed in prayer. And don't forget, Tuesday night, everybody's bringing pecan pie, and maybe sugar-free would be really good. Lots of Cool Whip and all that, and we'll have our prayer and praise. You know I'm kidding, right? Well, kind of. You can bring blueberry, I like that too. So, yes sir, Joe. Well, it's sugar free. I mean, they're using substitute, the fake sugar. No, no. You're getting too technical. You know, let's just leave it what it is. Anyway. All right, so Tuesday night, and just trust and pray you all have a great Thanksgiving. Don't forget to try to make some contact with Barb, send a card or something, and my wife and I are gonna head out there sometime tomorrow and visit a little bit, but keep them in your prayers. All right, Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ. You made it so clear, your entrance into this world and how it was predicted all the way back from the beginning. And you made it so clear that nobody could make the mistake. We know who you are. We know where you came in at. We know you're the Messiah. Our heart's prayer goes out to the Jewish people, Lord, whose eyes at this point are still closed to this truth. And Lord, we just pray that you would... And again, Lord, I don't know what's going on in Phoenix or Mesa or what have you, but Lord, I just pray that you would reach the Jewish population in this area with the truth, especially this time of year, with the truth of Jesus Christ. Lord, thank you again for your goodness and grace. Bless us again, Lord, as we come back Tuesday. And just thank you for being such a wonderful God. We ask this all in Christ's name. Amen. All right, you are dismissed.