There is an interesting play on words in these two scriptures. The Pharisees wanted to see a “sign” of one kind, but the Lord pointed to a “sign” of a different kind. The word translated “sign” is quite common to the Greek New Testament. Fifty times that word is translated “sign,” and almost half as many times it is translated “miracle.” It is also rendered “wonder” which is like “miracle” and also “token” which is more like a “sign.” or “symbol.” The word play is seen in what the Pharisees wanted and what Jesus offered – slightly different. Again, they wanted “miracles,” but He offered a very special “sign.” His resurrection was a miraculous sign to be sure, but it was more of a “token.”
I won’t go into it, but I went on to look at all the Greek words translated “miracles,” “signs” and “wonders.” One thing that I noticed was that the Greek word translated “power” is sometimes rendered “miracle.” Acts 19:11 for example, uses the word “dunamis” but it is translated – “And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul.”
My point here is that the Pharisees in chapter 12 and the Pharisees and Sadducees in chapter 16 wanted to see more the Lord’s miracles. But Christ replied by pointing to an illustrated prophecy – the sign of the prophet Jonah. And that, as declared earlier, was that the prophet spent 72 hours inside a whale, just as Jesus would be 72 hours inside Joseph’s tomb. And then just as Jonah arose from the whale to preach to the people of Ninevah; Christ would come out of the grave, having provided salvation for His elect people. In the process of transitioning from miracle to sign, the Lord referred to people’s ability to read weather. “When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red. And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowring. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?”
This morning, let’s think about the last phrase which the Lord uses in verse 3 – “the signs of the times.” It that takes us into a different area of investigation. I am not smart enough to tell you how many months were left in Jesus’ 42 month ministry. For the sake of argument, let’s say that the crucifixion was still about a year away. That would mean that the sign of the prophet Jonas was still 12 months into the future. But doesn’t Jesus’ statement in verse 3 suggest that the sky was already “red and lowring.” Weren’t there already lots of signs, miraculous and otherwise, which should have told the Jewish weathermen to be looking for a Christ? It should have been no mystery to these scribes and Pharisees that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God. Instead of tempting Him, they should have been worshiping Him.
These doctors of Biblical law should have known that Jesus was the Christ. They had more than 300 prophecies related to the incarnation of Christ. This morning, I’d like to run a few of them past you once again. Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the Messiah – and you need to be assured of that fact.
We might begin rather GENERALLY.
Let’s say that I want to send a DVD of this message to John Zeweniuk – something that I do every week. John lives at 34 Ballenas Place, Parksville, British Columbia, V9P-1G3, Canada. Out of the 7.143 billion people on earth that DVD always reaches the Zeweniuk household without trouble. After it is picked up from the mailbox up my street, it is separated into a bundle which goes to Canada. Later it is routed to one province out of 10, then to one city out of about 130 in British Columbia. Then there is one street selected out of a hundred In Parksville, and to one house out of several dozen. It is addressed to only one person living at that address – Squeaky, the cat, never opens it. I have picked out 1 person out of more than 7 billion upon this planet and my envelope reaches its target. Those Pharisees could have looked at some of the prophecies about Christ Jesus in that same sort of way.
The first Messianic prophecy in the Bible is found in its third chapter. It basically says that our Saviour would be a human being – a resident of planet earth. Is that strange? It is not strange at all, because God has a pretty vast creation with which to work. Genesis 3:15 suggests that, “No angel, who in righteousness are better than men, no angel can be the saviour of sinful human beings.” It also implies that no animal could begin to redeem the sinner either. The Lord definitely used animals to illustrate Christ, but they all fell short of actually saving anyone. “Neither by the blood of goats and calves by but by Christ’s own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.” “For it is not possible that blood of bulls and of goats should take away.” Jehovah told Adam, “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” How do we know that this is a prophecy of Christ? We have New Testament scriptures like Galatians 4. “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that we under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” The Bible tells us that Christ our Saviour would be one from among us – and so it was. But that is definitely not much help in actually identifying Him.
So later the Lord told us about the nation and race from which He would come. Genesis 9 suggests that Christ could only come from the stock of Shem, one of the three sons of Noah. That effectively excludes all Sweds, Norwegians, Canadians, American Indians and Blacks. But then Genesis 12:3 adds that the Messiah would come through the family of Abraham. Galatians 3:8 explains – “And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.”
I won’t make you follow the logic and linage through every step; but let me summarize it for you. Abraham had more than one son, but God said that through his son Isaac, Christ would come. And Isaac had several sons, but the Lord said that the Messiah would come through his son Jacob. Jacob had a great many sons, but the Bible declares that Christ would come only through Judah. As much as it irks some people, the Messiah our Saviour, was a Jew – a man of the Israelite tribe of Judah. That was as it was prophesied in the Old Testament, and that is what the New Testament tells us.I am sure that those Pharisees wouldn’t have had much of a problem identifying Christ thus far, but this was only the beginning.
Isaiah 11:1-2 declares that Christ would eventually be from the relatively small Judean family of Jesse. That man drops out of the blue, so to speak – he and his family were nobodies to that point. Then we learn that Jesse had eight sons, so Jehovah designated just one of the eight. The great-great-grandfather of Jesus Christ was a shepherd who became the king of Israel – David. Paul will eventually say, the Bible is all about God’s “Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David, according to the flesh; and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.” That is, Jesus was declared to be the Son of God according to the sign of the prophet Jonas. He did not BECOME the Son of God by His resurrection – He was DECLARED to be God’s Son.
All of this might have helped those Pharisees to see the Messiah, but they preferred to see a miraculous sign. Actually, there was one already available to them, but sadly, they didn’t really want to consider it. It was prophesied in Isaiah 7:14 that Christ would be born of a virgin. “The Lord himself shall give you A SIGN; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” Do you remember what God told Joseph when talking with him about marrying his fiancé, Mary? “Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto the Mary thy wife; for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. All this was done that it might be fulled which was spoke of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.” The mother of Christ was prophesied to have never had conjugal relations with a man. Mary, although protected by the name of Joseph, was a virgin until Jesus birth.
Those Pharisees and Sadducees questioning Christ that day, should have known this prophecy. They could have and should have done a little investigating about the birth of Jesus. They could have simply asked Him about His birth and His Father. I am absolutely convinced that if they had asked, Christ would have told them the truth. Jesus of Nazareth is the only person born who never had a human Father. Those men had – right in front of them – a sign which could have answered all the rest of their questions.
This was a great sign, but it didn’t really say anything about “the times,” so let’s move on.
The Lord God clearly declared THE PLACE where Christ would be born.
If we had been told that the Messiah would have to be born in Israel or Canaan, we’d not be surprised. But the Lord wasn’t content with something as general as that. Please turn to Micah 5:2 (page 982 – After the books of Daniel, Hosea, and Jonah – Micah). “But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.”
As do many places in the Bible, “Bethlehem” has a specific meaning – “House of Bread.” There were two places in Israel with the name “Bethlehem” – one a tiny, insignificant place in Zebullun, and another in Judah between Jerusalem and Hebron. “Ephratah” is a kind of synonym for “Bethlehem” meaning “fruitfulness.” It’s easy to see how it might be related to “House of Bread” – both suggest prosperity. “Ephratah” has nothing do to with tribe of Ephraim – as some erroneously think. The Messiah was prophesied to be a descendent of Judah, as we just saw. And we aren’t surprised to find Bethlehem Ephratah right in the middle of the territory of Judah.
We know that this Bethlehem is important – but it wasn’t important until a very special birth took place there. It was a very insignificant place before David was born there. In fact, in several lists of the possessions of Judah, the name cannot be found. It appears that Jacob buried his wife Rachel there, but that eventually lost most of its significance.
According to Micah 5:2, a very special person was to come forth unto Jehovah from Bethlehem. Like David, but years after David, we are told that He would be a ruler. That should remind us of another prophecy found in Isaiah 9:6-7 – “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.” Perhaps more important than the office of this prophesied Person, is what the verse says about His past. His ”goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.” This one who was going to be born in Bethlehem was actually someone who had always existed. This is talking about the eternal Son of God. Scripture tells us that Christ is without beginning and without end; the first and the last; alpha and omega.
The Pharisees wanted miraculous proof that Jesus was the Christ. Evidence was already available – down in the Bethlehem city hall and also in the register at Rome. The Messiah was prophesied to be the eternal one, and yet would be born in an insignificant collection of sheepcotes and cottages called “Bethlehem.” Any pretended messiah born in any another place could not possibly be the true Christ. He must be born in Bethlehem, the Son of Abraham, Isaac, David and with a virgin for mother.
That certainly narrows the field, but there was one more important area for those Pharisees to consider.
Christ could come at only ONE point of TIME in human history.
There are several Old Testament scriptures which prophesy the time of Christ’s birth. One is found as early as Genesis 49:10, coming from the lips of Jacob and speaking about one of his sons. “The sceptre 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.” “Shiloh” is another name, or title, for the Messiah. It speaks of “Peace” or “the One who brings peace.” It is related to the Hebrew word of greeting, “Shaloam.” Do you remember what the angel said on the night of the Saviour’s birth? “Fear not; for behold I being you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.” And then with that angel appeared a multitude of additional angels praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth PEACE, good will towards men.”
Getting back to Genesis 49:10, the Peace-bringer was promised to come before Judah lost his “sceptre.” A “sceptre” is a symbol of rule or authority – you could say that it speaks of “national identity.” Before the end of Judah as a nation – before the end of the rule of the Jews – Messiah would come. Even in his Babylonian captivity, Judah never lost his identity as a tribe. That was precisely why the nation could return to Canaan afer 70 years across the desert.
But, when Jesus was 12 yrs old, Archelaus, the king of the Jews, was dethroned. Coponius was appointed Roman Procurator and the kingdom of Judah ceased to exist. They still had some semblance of government, but the last vestiges of that came to and end 70 A.D. In that year both Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed by the army of Rome under Titus. Judah lost completely its “sceptre” – but it was after “Shiloh” had come – born in Bethlehem. Judah ceased to exist after the birth of Jesus Christ.
There are other prophecies about the Jewish Temple. The Pharisees could have compared Haggai 2:7-9 and Malachi 3:1. As the life of Jesus of Nazareth came to an end, those scriptures should have screamed in their ears – “He was the Christ just as he said.” Zechariah 11 is a interesting prophecy, which spoke about the “times and the seasons.” Jehovah was speaking about Himself about 500 years before Matthew 16. “And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver. And the LORD said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prised at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the LORD.” Of course, this had not yet taken place, but within a year those Pharisees will be seeing it. Judas Iscariot betrayed sold our Saviour to the Jews for thirty pieces of silver. Then when he had a change of heart; he ran into the temple, and threw his ill-gotten gain onto the floor. The noise of thirty pieces of silver should have sounded like huge bells in the hearts of those Pharisees. Then about forty years later that Temple – that house of God – was destroyed and for more than 2,000 years the opportunity to fulfill that prophesy has ceased to exist. In other words, the Messiah, the Son of God, had to arrive before that time – which He did.
Finally, in Daniel 9:25-26 there is an outstanding piece of information about the incarnation of the Son of God. “Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.” We don’t have time to study this in detail, so I’ll just have to summarize it for you. During Judah’s captivity in Babylon, the king of that country commanded that Jerusalem should be rebuilt. The year of that command is known in secular history. The references to weeks in these verses should be understood as specific number of seven years. From the order to rebuild the temple to the time of the death of Christ would be 483 years.
In other words, time was running out for these Pharisees. They wanted miraculous proof that Jesus was the Messiah, the Christ. They had more proof than they wanted to admit – some of it was right there in Daniel 9. But there was more coming – Jesus’ resurrection and then a few years later the destruction of Jerusalem. Prophetically speaking, never again would it be possible for the Messiah to come. This Jesus of Nazareth standing before them was the expected Messiah. Take it and be blessed – or leave it and suffer the eternal consequences.
That, in essence, is still the state of things today. Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and if you will not in humble repentance bow before Him, trusting Him as your Saviour, then you will bear your sins into eternity, as many of those Pharisees have already done. You MUST believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross as God’s sacrifice for your sins. If you refuse to trust Him and His sacrificial blood, you will be eternally lost. You a I need a Saviour, and Jesus of Nazareth is God’s ordained sacrifice for our sins – you can believe it.