Pictures and Prophecies of Jesus. by John.

Pictures and Prophecies of Jesus in the Old Testament
John 19:25-27; 20:1-9

1. We've read part of the account of the death and resurrection of Jesus, not all. Time doesn't permit our reading all of it this morning.
2. Did you notice that Mary the mother of Jesus was at His crucifixion? She is not mentioned after His resurrection.
3. It seems strange for that to be left out of the Scripture, don't you think?
(1) The only conclusion that we can draw from what we have is that she was away from the others at John's house.
(John 19:27)
(2) I think Mary felt like any mother who lost a child would feel, but I wonder how she felt when Jesus arose from the dead? ill. Jesus raised the widow of Nain's son, and we have that account in Luke 7:11 and following, but it does not tell us how the boy's mother felt!
(3) Mary, and the half-brothers of Jesus, James, Joseph, Simon and Judas (Mt. 12:46: 13:55) entertained the idea that Jesus was mentally ill, and that He needed to be sheltered and cared for by His family.
(4) I suspect when Jesus arose Mary, like the Apostles, did not believe at first that it happened.
4. I see three possibilities:
(1) Perhaps by the time she believed He was alive, it was too late, and Jesus had returned to heaven.
(2) Perhaps the writers of the New Testament left out any other mention of Mary because they did not feel it was part of resurrection message.
(3) On the other hand, Mary may have realized how short His remaining time on earth was, and she did not want to get in His way. We just don't know.
4. What we do know is that Jesus died for us! And there are prophecies and pictures of His life, death, and resurrection in the Scripture.

I. The Father Forecast His Payment for Our Sins Early in the Old Testament.

1. Genesis 3 contains the story of the fall of mankind.
(1) Adam and Eve both disobeyed the Lord.
(2) They paid for their sin, but their sin began the plight of mankind!
(3) Their penalty for their sin was expulsion from the Garden of Eden, and the loss of the personal presence of God!
a. There would be no more long walks with God in the cool of the day!
b. There would be no more face-to-face conversations with God!
(4) We are Adam and Eve's children, and we have all sinned! We know the penalty for sin is death, and we do not deserve to be in the presence of God!
2. God made Adam and Eve clothes from the skins of animals.
(1) That meant animals were sacrificed for them!
(2) Even at this early date, sin required the shedding of blood.
(3) This was the first picture showing human beings that we cannot cover our own sins! God has to do it for us!
a. Hebrews 9:22 says, "The law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness."
b. Hebrews 9:26-28 says, "Now he (Jesus) has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him."

II. Later in the Old Testament, Jesus Was Pictured in the Passover.

1. The Lord brought ten judgments against Egypt. We usually miss one thing when we talk about that situation.
(1) God used Egypt to carry out His will with Israel.
a. We think people have to be Christians, or at least godly in some way to be used by God.
b. All people belong to God! And He uses even enemies to accomplish His will.
c. God called Nebuchadnezzar His servant in Jeremiah 24:9, said that Nebuchadnezzar would conquer Israel, and that he would enslave them for seventy years. Nebuchadnezzar was a pantheist. He believed in many Gods'
(2) Of Jacob's 12 children, God chose Joseph to be the blessed one of that generation. (Of course, Jesus was born in the family of Judah).
(3) Joseph's brothers conspired against him, and God allowed Joseph to be saved by Egypt, and to us it is obvious God planned the whole history of Israel from the beginning!
(4) God kept every promise He made and revealed to Joseph. He also kept every promise He had made to Abraham and Jacob.
(5) When the Pharaoh that knew Joseph died, Egypt reached the end of its usefulness to God. The new Pharaoh was rebellious. He did not recognize God.
2. These ten judgments fell on Egypt because of Pharaoh's rebellion!
(1) That's important to know, because, the USA served God's purpose from its inception, but that does not mean that God's blessing will remain on it!
(2) As a nation, our people are rebelling against God right now, and His judgment will fall on our continual sin!
3. The Passover was God's final judgment on Egypt.
(1) Every first born-child, and every first-born of the livestock all died in one night!
(2) The first-born son was the heir to everything including Pharaoh's throne!
(3) Egypt lost all of the people who held property rights in one night! That would be a calamity for any nation!
4. It was different for the Israelites, and this is where we see the picture of Jesus.
(1) It was the fourth judgment, flies, where God made a difference between the Israelites and the Egyptians. The land of Goshen, where the Israelites lived, was free of flies!
(2) None of the next five judgments affected the Israelites at all! They fell only on the Egyptians!
(3) The Passover was the tenth judgment, and it fell on the Israelites as well as Egyptians because it represented Jesus, and Jesus paid the price for all people!
a. The actual sacrifice was a lamb of the sheep or the goats.
b. It had to be one year old, a male, without a blemish of any kind. (Just as Jesus was sinless and at the peak of His earthly life when He died on the cross).
4. The Israelites had to eat the Passover Dinner, or they would experience the same judgment as the Egyptians!
(1) They didn't just eat a little!
(2) The family had to eat all of the lamb.
(3) If it was too much for their family, they could share a lamb with another family. Whatever was left had to be burned before dawn!
(4) Equally important, the family had to apply the blood on the two sides of the doorframe and the upper doorframe. That formed the symbol of a cross hundreds of years before Rome started killing people that way! They didn't put on the doorsill because it represented the blood of Jesus, and that would have been sacrilege!
5. The Scripture doesn't say so, but I believe that if an Egyptian household had carried out God's orders right here, that household would have been spared. I believe it because it represented Jesus, and that's the way it is right now!
6. This was the first instance that I know of where God told the people it is all, or nothing at all!
7. That's the way it is with Jesus. We take Him entirely as He is, or we will suffer the same fate as those who do not take Him at all.
8. That is exactly what Jesus was talking about in John 6:51-58. "'I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.' Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, 'Ho can this man give us his flesh to eat?' Jesus said to them, 'I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flewsh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever.'"
9. Both the Passover and the Manna are pictures of Jesus and the life He gives us.
10. There are many pictures of Jesus in the Bible, but we will take time to look at just one more in Isaiah 53.

III. There are actually several pictures of Jesus in Isaiah 53. (We will mention several, but we will not dwell on them).

1. V 2 pictures Jesus as part of a living plant. He seemed like a dried up root, or a "sucker" shoot. Neither has any value to the gardener.
2. V 3 pictures Him as despised, rejected by others, sorrowful, familiar with suffering, shameful, a person no one liked! An outcast! Not at all like the pictures artists conceived of the "man" Jesus.
3. Beginning at v 4, Isaiah tells us He accepted all of our sins, put them on His Own shoulders, and the human race considered Him stricken by God!
4. He was, but not for His Own sins! Vv 4,5. He was stricken, smitten, pierced and crushed because He carried our sins!
5. V 6 tells us, we are the ones who should have died because we are the ones who went astray and sinned! We've turned to our own way: have rebelled against God!
6. His Father and ours laid on Jesus the sins of all of us! V 7. And Jesus died without complaint because He was paying for our sins!
7. Jesus is the "Suffering Servant" of God Who laid down His life willingly to save all of us who trust Him.
8. What a beautiful picture!

Conclusion:

1. From Genesis on, God told the people over and over again that He was going to send His Son to pay for their sins.
2. In the year from which we begin numbering our own years, God sent Jesus.
3. He fulfilled all of the Old Testament prophecies, and in Him all of the pictures are made lucidly clear.
4. Today we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus because we know we are already taking part in that resurrection ourselves.
5. There's not going to be any doubt about who will be with Jesus when He comes again, or who will rise to meet Him in the air!
6. It will be all of us who put our trust in Him now, and invite Him to be our Lord and our Savior!
7. Have you done that? Have you invited Jesus to be your Lord and your Savior?
8. You can do it while we pray.

Emmanuel Community Church Easter 2006, April 16.