Prophecies Fortold

Good evening. Welcome to Voice in the Wilderness. I'm Don

Noble of Pure Art Ministries, and I welcome you today

with exceedingly abundantly and overflowing joy. Tonight's message is titled

Prophecies Foretold. We have certainly entered the Christmas season, and

at Christmas time we tend to see Jesus as a

baby in a manger, probably because whenever you go Christmas

shopping or you go into a Christmas shop and you

see nativity scenes, there's baby Jesus in this little straw crib,

and so we tend to focus on the fact that

he's a baby in the manger. But I want to

shift your thinking to seeing him as a king. You see,

the closer we come to the end of the Church Age,

the closer we come to seeing Jesus coming in the

clouds for us, and soon thereafter coming his second coming

on a white horse, as the King of kings and

the Lord of lords. Now it is certainly appropriate to

celebrate Christ's birth. I just want us to see Jesus

more than a baby and a manger. Now I'm going

to share with you this evening some scriptures that you

may not be familiar with, but they are scriptures that

foretell things about Jesus. And you know, Jesus is really unique,

because I don't know anybody else in the whole wide

world that has had prophecies about them foretold seven hundred

years prior to their birth, five hundred years prior to

their birth, to let's see, maybe three thousand years before

prior to their birth. O, Jesus is real and he

is unique. The Old Testament prophet Zachariah, who lived about

twenty five hundred years ago, gave a prophecy that the

Messiah would announce himself publicly in a very humble way

by writing a lowly donkey into Jerusalem. And this prophecy,

which is found in Zachariah nine, chapter nine, verses nine

through eleven, is a remarkable prediction that covers a great

deal of ground. Aside from predicting the humble manner in

which the Messiah would arrive, it also predicts that the

Messiah would have a world wide spiritual impact. And in

this prophecy, Zachariah refers to the promised Messiah as the promised.

So let me read that to you. It says, rejoice greatly,

daughter of Zion, shout, daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your king

comes to you. He is righteous and having salvation, lowly

and riding on a donkey, even on a colt, the

foal of a donkey. I will cut off the chariot

from Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem, and the battlebow

will be cut off, and he will speak, speak peace

to the nations, and his dominion will be from sea

to sea, and from the river to the ends of

the earth. As for you, also, because of the blood

of your covenant, I will I have set free your

prisoners from the pit in which which there is no water. Now,

when Zachariah gave this prophecy, it was approximately five hundred

years or so before Jesus would be born, and there

was no king in Jerusalem when Zachariah prophesied this. You see,

because the last king, who was Zedekiah. Don't get those

mixed up. We're talking about the prophet Zachariah, and the

last king, Zedekiah had been taken captive to Babylon, where

he later died as a prisoner. About a century before

the time of the prophet Zachariah, and up until Zedekiah's death,

the descendants of King David had reigned as kings from

Jerusalem for about twenty generations, for a total of about

four hundred years. The succession of divid kings began with

David King David, David who killed Goliath, David who reigned

from Jerusalem about three thousand years ago. You know, when

you put it into perspective, like a time perspective, it

almost just doesn't seem plausible. I can't, like, I can't

reconcile three thousand years ago. I mean, four hundred years

ago is like a really vast amount of time. But

three thousand years ago is when David ruled and reigned

as the king of Israel. Now what happened was this

succession of the Vida kings that began with David ended

with Zedekiah, who I just told you was taken captive

to Babylon and died there. And Zedekiah who reigned from

Jerusalem about two thousand, six hundred years ago. So this

succession was then disrupted by the Babylonians when they were

expanding their Neo Babylonian empire. And of course not too

long ago I talked about Jeremiah prophesying about the captivity

that the Jews would go into captivity. Babylon was going

to come destroy Jerusalem and take them captive. And Jeremiah

spent his whole prophetic life trying to get these people

to turn back to God, to turn away from idle worship.

And actually he was very unsuccessful in one sense. He

was very unsuccessful and turning getting the people to turn

back to God. But I guess you could say his

prophecies did come to pass because he said, if you

don't turn back to God, you will go into captivity,

and so they did. So they're in captivity. So there's

no king ruling Jerusalem. So Zachariah's prophecy was looking past

the disruption of the succession of the Vidic kings to

the arrival of the promised Messiah who would reign eternally

from Jerusalem as the final and ultimate king, who would

be a descendant of David. That's something to get excited about.

That's what's about to come to pass. Now, will it

come to pass in my time here on the earth? Ah? No,

because the millennial kingdom has to be set up and

we have to go through, we have to go through

being caught up in the air, which we call the Rapture.

Then there will be the seven years of tribulation, and

then Jesus will come back with his second coming, and

we will be riding horses with him coming with him.

So it'll be a little while before he sets up

that kingdom. But make no mistake, Jesus will be the

final and ultimate king, and there will be no other

and there will be no other ruler, and he will

be the king. Amen. So I get excited about that.

And you might think it's really odd to get excited

about Jesus being king at Christmas time. Well, I'm a

little odd, but I don't want to keep thinking of

Jesus as a baby. I want to recognize that he

is the king of kings and that he's coming back

to get his bride, and he's going to come back

and he's going to rule forever, and that is not

too far off in the distance. So for me, you know,

it's just my perspective. And you know, you don't have

to necessarily agree with me. If you want to keep

thinking of Jesus as a little baby in the manger,

you certainly have the I have that right to do that.

But when you are in you know, an intimate, full

blown relationship with Jesus Christ. You realize he is no

life longer a baby. He is the King of kings already.

He is the Lord of Lords. He's the beginning and

the end. He's the Alpha and the Omega. So we

are worshiping not only the one True God, we are

worshiping the one true King Amen. So in Zachariah's prophecy

he speaks of the humble arrival of the Messiah in

verse nine. And Jesus fulfilled this part of Zacharia's prophecy

about five hundred years after the time of Zachariah by

humbly writing on a lily donkey into Jerusalem. And we

see that in Matthew in the New Testament, in Matthew

twenty one Versus one through eleven, which I'm going to

share very quickly here with you if I can get

my little fingers moving correctly. In this Bible. These pages

are so thin. I'm reading out of the amplified Classic

Matthew twenty one, verses one through eleven. I may not

read them all, but starting with verse one, and when

they came near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage at the

Mount of Olives. Jesus sent two disciples ahead, saying to them,

go into the village that is opposite you, and at

once you will find a donkey tied and a colt

with her Untie them and bring them to me. If

anyone says anything to you, you shall reply the Lord

needs them, and he will let them go without delay.

This happened that was spoken by the prophet might be fulfilled, saying,

say to the daughter of Zion, inhabitants of Jerusalem, behold,

your king is coming to you, lowly and riding on

a donkey and on a colt, the foal of a donkey,

a beast of burden. Then the disciples went and did

as Jesus had directed. They brought the donkey and the

colt and laid their coats upon them, and he seated

himself on them. And most of the crowd kept spreading

their garments on the road, and others kept cutting branches

from the trees and scattering them on the road. And

the crowds went ahead of him, and those that followed

him kept shouting, Hosanna, Hosanna, son of David, the Messiah.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the

Lord Hosanna, Oh be favorably disposed in the highest Heaven.

And when he entered Jerusalem, all the city became agitated

with excitement. Okay, when Jesus did this, there were many

Jews gathered in Jerusalem for the yearly Passover commemoration. So

that's think about the timing of this. Crowds of people

recognized that Jesus was fulfilling Zachariah the prophets, this is

chapter nine to nine, that he was fulfilling that scripture,

and they swarmed around him, hailing him with messianic praise.

This event, which is often called the triumphal Entry, marked

the first time that Jesus had public announced himself as

the Messiah, and it happened near the end of his

public ministry, shortly before he was crucified by the Romans. Now,

how interesting, all these years he's ministering, he's healing people,

delivering people, he's teaching in the synagogue. Never once did

he announce himself as Messiah until the very end, right

before he's going to be crucified. He has the triumphal entry.

Throughout jesus public ministry, which is often estimated to have

lasted three and a half years, beginning in the late

AD twenty six and ending in early AD thirty, Jesus

traveled throughout Israel, preaching about the Kingdom of God and

performing miracles. During his public ministry, Jesus often revealed to

his disciples and to individual people that he was Messiah,

but he never publicly announced himself as Messiah until he

was about to show the world that he was the

Messiah by suffering and dying for the sins of others

during the Crucifixion. We know that Zacharia's prophecy in speaking

of a king is talking about the Messiah for several reasons. First,

the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel had already predicted about twenty

six hundred years ago that the dividic succession of kings

would be disrupted by the Babylonians and that the next

king would be the Messiah himself. Their prophecies I'm going

to share with you, so you know, we have a

lot of prophets here who are foretelling things about this

Messiah who's about to come. In Jeremiah chapter twenty three,

this is just verse five and six, and I'm reading

out of the Amplified Classic Behold, the days are coming,

says the Lord, when I will raise up to David

a righteous branch sprout, and he will reign as king

and do wisely, and will execute justice and righteousness in

the land. And in his days Judah shall be saved

and Israel shall dwell safely. And this is his name,

by which he shall be called, the Lord our Righteousness.

So we can see that Jeremiah is absolutely talking about Jesus.

There's he's a king coming, he's going to reign, he's

going to be wise, he's going to execute justice righteousness

in the land. And he has a name, the Lord

our Righteousness. Now Ezekiel, who's another prophet in chapter twenty

one versus I'm going to read twenty five through twenty seven.

And you, oh dishonored and wicked ones Zedekiah. Now remember,

Zedekia is the king who's in Babylonian captivity. Oh you,

and you, oh dishonored and wicked one, Zedekia, the prince

of Israel, whose day will come at the time of

your final reckoning and punishment. Thus, says the Lord God,

remove the miter or headband, and take off the king's crown.

Things shall not remain as they have been. The Low

is to be exalted, and the high is to be

brought low. I will overthrow, overthrow, overthrow it. This also

shall be no more until he capital he comes, whose

right it is to reign in judgment and in righteousness,

and I will give it to him. So the Lord

is speaking through this prophet Ezekiel and saying, okay, Zadekiah,

you you, you just take off that king's crown, because

that crown is going to someone else. The Lord is

going to give that crown to Jesus, who's going to

reign in judgment and righteousness. So these prophets were spot

on obviously about what they were prophesying. Now, the promise

of having a worldwide spiritual impact. Let's see. Let me

share this first. Zachariah's prophecy revisits the prophetic promise of

what I just read to you, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and

it reiterates that the next descendant of David terrain from

Jerusalem would be the Messiah himself. I got ahead of myself.

There Many scholars and commentators overlook the connections that these

three prophecies share. Zachariah nine nine to eleven, Jeremiah twenty three,

five and six, Ezekiel twenty one, twenty six through twenty seven.

In fact, scholars and commentators throughout the past two thousand

years have consistently failed to see that Zachariah nine to

nine through eleven is a son of David prophecy. There

are at least and I was reading some things from

an author by the name of Ray Koenig, and he

says there are at least ten of these son of

David prophecies in the Old Testament, beginning with Tewod Samuel

seven twelve through sixteen, where the prophet Nathan informed that

it would be King David's descendants. He told David this.

The prophet Nathan said this to David, as opposed to

anybody else's who would inherit the throne in Jerusalem, And

that one of David's descendants would inherit the throne eternally.

That promised descendant would be the promised Messiah, who you

uniquely would have have the divine ability to reign for ever.

And so that takes me to Isaiah. Now this prophet

propheside for excuse me. Isaiah prophesied seven hundred years before

Christ's birth in Isaiah seven, verse fourteen. This is what

he says. Therefore, the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold,

the young woman who is unmarried and a virgin, shall

conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name

Emmanuel God with us. Okay, all you have to do

is go to Matthew chapter one and two. Luke uh

chapter one and two. And you know that that's Mary.

Mary is a virgin and she's unmarried. And that is

what caused the problem initially with Joseph because they weren't married. Okay.

Isaiah nine, verse six. For unto us, a child is born,

child is capitalized. For unto us, a child is born,

to us, a son capitalized is given. And the government

shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be

called wonderful counselor Mighty God, everlasting Father principece verse seven.

And of the end increase of his government and of peace.

There shall be no end upon the throne of David

and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold

it with justice and with righteousness. From the latter time,

fourth even forevermore, the zeal of the Lord of Hosts

will perform this perform this. So again we're talking about

the throne of David, the descendants coming down the line,

sitting as kings in Jerusalem. And look at this, Isaiah

is already telling us who it's going to be. There's

going to be a child born. He's going to be

a son with a capital s. The government is going

to be upon his shoulder. And of the increase of

his government and of peace, there shall be no end.

And so that's what I was sharing with you. When

the millennial kingdom comes and Jesus is ruling and reigning,

there is no end. There is peace. There is peace,

and of peace, the scripture says here, and of peace

there shall be no end. So this Jesus who born

as a baby, but coming back as a king, this

king is going to rule and reign, and the government

is going to be his government. We won't have to

think about all this crazy stuff that's going on in

our government today. We're not going to have to worry

about elections or people stealing elections, or people doing very

wicked evil things to try to win elections. I mean,

think about that. There will be peace and we will

not have to struggle with any of that crazy stuff. Anymore,

because it's his government that's going to rule and reign

over this earth, and there is going to be peace,

and of that peace there will be no end. And

that is good news that is worth shouting about. So

I'm just going to give a little shout yahoo that Jesus,

we get to celebrate his birth and greater yet, we

get to celebrate the soon coming king and all that

He's about to do in this earth. And it's going

to be an exciting ride for those of us who

love Jesus with all of our heart. Amen. Well, this

is Don Noble. I'm going to be back with you

next week and then we're going to do the two

following weeks will be the Christmas music that I put

together every year, and then before you know it, it's

going to be a new year. It's hard to believe,

but anyway, I look forward to being with you again

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forward to being with you again next week. This is

Don Nevil saying, shall oam peace be unto you