Finding Jesus in the Book of Malachi

Download Key Verse Guide Read Key Verse Commentary Read Select Key Verses Watch The Entire Series

Can Jesus Christ be found in the book of Malachi? Find out with hosts Tim Moore and Nathan Jones on the television program, Christ in Prophecy!

Air Date: November 26, 2022

Resources

To order, call 1-972-736-3567, or select the resource below to order online.

Key Verse Commentary

Key Verse

Malachi and “Jesus in the Old Testament” Series Wrap-Up
“A Final Warning—The Choice is Yours”

Throughout the Old Testament, God sent messengers to convey the Word of the LORD. Angels appeared, prophets forthtold and foretold, and God entered the created realm personally — walking in the Garden of Eden, visiting Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, and wrestling with Jacob at the ford of Jabbok (Genesis 3:8, 18:1-14, 32:22-32).

Read More

The last book of the Old Testament, Malachi, was written by a man whose very name means “My messenger.” God’s final word to His people, Israel, reminded them of their special calling — and the error of their ways. He said, “A son honors his father, and a servant his master. Then if I am a father, where is My honor? And if I am a master, where is My respect?” (Malachi 1:6).

That question should haunt every person alive today. God is our Creator, Master, and Father, and yet all too often we do not esteem, worship, or honor Him. Citing Isaiah 29:13, Jesus would later observe, “This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far away from me” (Matthew 15:8). Malachi said it this way: “You have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet you say, ‘How have we wearied Him?’ In that you say, ‘Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and He delights in them,’ or, ‘Where is the God of justice?’ “ His observation hits our 21st Century culture right between the eyes.

One aspect of Malachi’s calling was to follow in the footsteps of other prophets and thunder, “Thus says the LORD!” In another sense, Malachi served as the last Old Testament prophet charged with “clearing the way” before the Lord (Malachi 3:1). John the Baptist would serve in a similar role right before Jesus launched His public ministry. Each one of us who claims to follow Jesus Christ is expected to do the same thing: clearing the way for—and sharing the news of—His soon return.

The book of Malachi—and the Old Testament itself, for that matter—ends in a surprising way: with “a curse”. That word sums up the tragic alternative that awaits every person who does not repent of their sin and receive the healing offered by the Son of righteousness.

I’ve written before that Christians are not called to blind optimism or despairing pessimism, but to faith-driven hope. We trust in Jesus Christ, whose promises are “Yes, and Amen” and who is our Blessed Hope. Still, we are called to tell people that the eternal destiny offered to them is summed up in two words—mercy or wrath (John 3:36).

As Joshua would say, the choice is yours.

Choose wisely.

Key Verse: Malachi 4:1-2 “For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace; and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff; and the day that is coming will set them ablaze,” says the LORD of hosts, “so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall.”

Explanation: Malachi’s expressive picture is underappreciated by people who have little exposure to life on a farm.

He speaks of a coming day when people will be consumed like chaff—the dry, lifeless stalks left over after wheat has been separated during a harvest. Such refuse is discarded and burned because it has no lasting value. Those who reject a relationship with God (described as “the arrogant and every evildoer”) will be cast into eternal fire. This is not the God’s desire; He does not wish for “any to perish, but for all to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). Because the damned reject God and scoff at His will, He will essentially say to them, “thy will be done.”

In contrast to those upon whom God’s wrath endures, all who fear His name and embrace His Son will receive everlasting life. That promise of God should fill our hearts with thanksgiving and make us jump for joy! Anyone who has seen a calf or a lamb or any young animal excited to simply be alive on a beautiful spring day will understand the beauty of the word picture Malachi paints. Released from the confines of a stall, young animals will frolic and play—obviously delighted just to be alive.

Do you have that kind of joy?

It’s been said that some Christians who claim to have that kind of joy in their hearts need to tell their face! Regardless of how expressive your face is (and I too can often tell by looking when a person radiates with the joy of the Lord), we are called, expected, and privileged to tell others about our great God and Savior.

Don’t have a great testimony? Not to worry. Tell people about Jesus. His testimony is far more interesting than ours. Not sure how to begin? Study and share God’s prophetic Word. The spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus (Revelation 19:10).

Simply said, the stakes are too high and the time is too short for any of us to sit idly by. If you are following Him as a disciple, you have been called to be a messenger. Take to heart the words of Isaac Watts’ famous hymn and boldly proclaim:

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!

Let earth receive her King;

Let every heart prepare Him room,

And heav’n and nature sing.

Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns!

Let men their songs employ,

While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains,

Repeat the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,

Nor thorns infest the ground;

He comes to make His blessings flow

Far as the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,

And makes the nations prove

The glories of His righteousness,

And wonders of His love.

Long thought to represent a song celebrating Jesus’ first Advent, Joy to the World is actually meant to point to His glorious Second Coming and subsequent Millennial Reign. Soon, and very soon, every word of that beloved hymn will be fulfilled.

Are you ready?

Jesus in the Old Testament Wrap-Up

The consistent theme of the Old Testament is that God’s plan for the ages was to send His Son to save His people. Because Jesus Christ is the eternal Word of God (John 1:1-4), He is present throughout Scripture.

The overarching story of the Bible—what we have referred to as the metanarrative—is God’s revelation of His redemptive plan of salvation in Jesus Christ. First foreshadowed as Adam and Eve cowered in shame (Genesis 3:15), God gradually unveiled the Gospel—the everlasting Good News that was His strategic plan for mankind before the foundation of the earth (Revelation 13:8).

Jesus’ first Advent, virgin birth, sinless life, death, and resurrection were not God’s “Plan B.” Before He created the heavens and the earth—even before He set time as we know it in motion—the Gospel was how He intended to manifest His grace and mercy and love.

We pray that you have followed along through our “Jesus in the Old Testament” series and selected your own favorite “key verses” from each episode of Christ in Prophecy. As you go back through and review those verses, you’ll find that they represent a narrative arc that points directly to Jesus Christ. Try arranging the verses in chronological order as the Word of God was revealed to the various authors and prophets and you’ll be able to trace the gradual revealing of God’s plan that culminates in Jesus Christ.

You and I have another advantage over the men who recorded the Word of God so long ago. They peered forward through a glass dimly; we can see God’s unfolding plan for humanity with hindsight. They accepted by faith that God would orchestrate human history to fulfill every promise, but they could not see the big picture. Jesus said, “Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad” (John 8:56). But even Abraham could not rejoice, as John did, to bear witness to that window in time when “the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

Because you can hold the full canon of the Word of God in your hands, you have access to the entire counsel of God. Peter, who alongside John saw Jesus’ shekinah glory manifest when He was transfigured, said that the prophetic Word we possess should make us even more sure of Jesus’ status as the Holy One—God’s Anointed Messiah. With great understatement he emphasized the prophetic Word, “to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts” (2 Peter 1:19).

Let your series of key verses stand as a personal testimony to you—and to anyone you are willing to share it with. May those verses be a roadmap shining as a lamp for your feet and a light to your path (Psalm 119:105). And may they lead you without wavering to Jesus Christ—”the LORD God, the Almighty, Who was, and is, and is to come” (Revelation 4:8).

Amen! Come quickly, Lord Jesus!

Godspeed!!

-Tim Moore

Transcript

Tim Moore: Welcome to Christ in Prophecy. I’m Tim Moore, the senior evangelist for Lamb & Lion Ministries. And I’m joined by my co-host, Nathan Jones, our internet evangelist. After just over a year in our Jesus in the Old Testament series, we’ve arrived at Malachi the 39th and final book in the Old Testament canon.

Read More

Nathan Jones: And it’s been a long run. I mean, this is our 43rd episode in the series. Well, obviously, we devoted multiple weeks to a few books. For instance, we spent four weeks in Genesis alone and while we sometimes combine two of the smaller, Minor Prophet books into a single episode. But it’s been our goal to offer an overview of the entire Old Testament highlighting the Christophanies, the types and the prophecies that point to Jesus Christ. It’s important to realize that although we’ve examined each of the books of the Old Testament in the order they appeared in our Bible, the editors of our Bibles have not arranged them in chronological order.

Tim Moore: That’s right. We really did not follow the chronological view of the Bible, but we’ll get there in just a moment. For now, let’s examine this last book. You know, Nathan, I have an Italian friend who said that this was the only Italian book of the Bible because he liked to call it Malachi, the Italian prophet by birth anyway. Tell us a little bit about Malachi.

Nathan Jones: Oh, I’m going to start calling Malachi now. Thank you for that. Well, I love the book of Malachi. Most people don’t know where the Book of Malachi is unless they were trying to find Matthew and accidently went a few pages too early. So, we know it’s the 39th and last book in the Old Testament. It’s got four chapters. And Malachi was a priest at the temple in about 440-400 BC. So, this is the very last, the Jewish people been exiled, they came back in 520 and built the temple. But the people had fallen back into spiritual lethargy.

And so, unfortunately, I didn’t get to write this chapter, but my coauthor, Steve Howell, wrote the chapter on Malachi, did a beautiful job. And we have a whole sermon I did on Malachi on our website at lamblion.com or christinprophecy.org. So, it’s exciting because what you see here is a time period where the people had fallen back into spiritual lethargy. And so, Malachi is looking, and he’s watching the people at the temple bring lame sacrifices, they had stolen some of their sacrifices, they just didn’t care. And the priest didn’t care either. The people were just going through the motions of religion. So, what God through Malachi did is he would make what’s called literary disputations. So, the Lord would say to the people, “I love you,” and the people would return, say, “Well, how have you loved us?” And they would go on and on and God would say, “This is what I did for you.” And they’d say, “What, really? What have you done for us today?” And there’s that back and forth.

Well, by then, you know, we’ve had the hundreds and hundreds of years of the Jewish people rejecting the Lord. And so, he says, okay, this is going to be my last message. I’m going to leave you with this knowledge that a forerunner to the Messiah and the Messiah is coming. And then for 400 years, you don’t hear from God.

Tim Moore: As a matter of fact, Malachi himself, his name means my messenger. And in 3:1, the Lord says, “‘Behold, I’m going to send my messenger…'” Now, we don’t know that’s just referring to Malachi, because you’ll see there’s a very prophetic and messianic connotation. “‘…and he will clear a way before Me. And the Lord, whom you are seeking, will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, He is coming,’ says the Lord of hosts.” I love this particular verse because it says I, God, referring to Himself in the first person will send my messenger. Well, we know that John the Baptist came as a forerunner of Jesus Christ, and it says he will clear the way before me and the Lord. So now the Lord is talking about Himself, almost in the third person will suddenly come to His temple. And so, here’s the father essentially claiming the Word of the Lord through this prophet Malachi and talking very prophetically, I think, about the coming Messiah. And what a beautiful description.

But as you said, Nathan, the people were tired of hearing this and the Lord actually cites them for that. In chapter 2:17, he says, “You have wearied the Lord with your words. Yet you say, ‘How have we wearied Him?’ In that you say, ‘Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and He delights in them,’ or, ‘Where is the God of justice?'” I think sometimes today people would ask these same questions and they weary the Lord with their foolish words and with their lack of faith.

Nathan Jones: Absolutely. The people were again, just going through the motions. The first literary disputation, we said is the Lord says, I loved you. And they’re like, How did you love us? He says, well, I chose Jacob over Esau. You know, I gave you they had all this history to look back on. It came to purity. Then he says, You despised, and he says this to the priests. You despised my name. And they’re like, Well, what way have we despised you? And he says, Well, you’re allowing these bad sacrifices. I’ve told you they need to be pure and holy. Why are the sacrifices important? They’re important because they reflect the Messiah who would be the ultimate sacrifice. So, it’s interesting that this whole chapter is really kind of about how the priests and the people have dropped the sacrificial system because they weren’t honoring the letter of the Law, but the letter of the Law was meant to be one giant, if I can say Christophany, the whole sacrificial system, was a Christophany pointing, let’s say more like a typology to the ultimate Christophany, and that would be Jesus Christ. Because what they did was they were showing that in that time period before Jesus came to sacrifice Himself as the perfect lamb, the people still needed to have their sins covered by the blood of animals. But the animals had to meet certain purity requirements in order to reflect what Jesus Christ would be in the ultimate. And they just didn’t care. And I don’t think they got it either.

Tim Moore: No, I don’t think they did either. And obviously the Lord has said in other parts of the Old Testament, I treasure and I value obedience even better than sacrifice, and they’ve clearly moved away from obedience. Malachi’s final admonition, you talk about various literary texts he has, but in 4:1-2, he talks about a coming day. He said, “‘For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace; and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff; and the day that is coming will set them ablaze,’ says the Lord of hosts, ‘so that it will leave them neither root nor branches. But for you who fear My name,'” in other words those who have trusted in Him, those who are obedient. And we know that’s obedience through faith in Jesus Christ, “then the sun of righteousness,” and it’s spelled in even my Scripture as sun, but we know of it as the Son, “will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall.” This choice that people have then and today is why we have even labeled this particular edition of our Jesus in the Old Testament series, Malachi a final warning, the choice is yours. And on that note, Nathan, how does this entire book end with a warning or a curse?

Nathan Jones: Well, it is clearly a curse. And just similarly to when Moses back in Deuteronomy gave the final message to the Jewish people, said, hey, you know, if you bless the Lord, He will bless you. And these are, he gives a big, long list of the blessings. He says if you reject the Lord, then you will get the curses. And the curses are meant to bring them to repentance and come back the Lord. But I think what you said a little earlier there about the final message is the final dispensation is you have wearied us. They find the Lord wearisome, they find the sacrificial system wearisome. And when the Lord promises the ultimate Messiah to come to be the ultimate sacrifice, that cures the weariness of the sacrificial system, because the sacrificial system, the people didn’t understand it, they didn’t know why they had to do it. But they had to do it to have their sins temporary covered, but when the Messiah came, that would be the end of the sacrificial system. So, when you hear today people about, oh yeah, they’re going to build the Third Temple and they’re going to restart the sacrificial system. It’s like why? We have the ultimate sacrifice in Jesus Christ.

Tim Moore: We certainly do. Well, folks obviously Malachi ends his book with the words literally a curse because the choice is ours. You either put your faith in Jesus Christ and are saved and are credited with the righteousness of Christ, or, as John 3:36 says, the wrath of God abides on you. And that only involves a curse. Make sure you choose wisely.

Part 2

Tim Moore: When we first began this series, we encouraged you to pick out your own key verses from every book or even from every episode, as we look for Jesus in the Old Testament.

Nathan Jones: Tim and I picked out some of our own favorite key verses and share them with you from week to week. They often overlap, but sometimes different verses just jumped out at each of us. You often saw that we could have listed many, many more than time would have allowed, proving that the Word of God is an inexhaustible source of wisdom and insight.

Tim Moore: I hope that you visited our website for the extensive commentaries we’ve posted on our key verses and that you have been keeping track of your own key verses. But now it’s time for the final reveal. Nathan, get us started.

Nathan Jones: Okay, well, I’ve taken all the key verses over all the 39 books of the Old Testament. And when you lay them out and look at them, you see that there’s a pattern that explains the whole salvation story and points to Jesus Christ.

Tim Moore: It certainly does.

Nathan Jones: It starts with Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” He created, so we’ve got people established.

Genesis 1:27 “So God created man in His own image.” So now we have mankind created in the image of God. Genesis 1:31 “God saw all that He made, behold, it was very good.” So, everything was originally established as good.

But Genesis 3:15 “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He” the Messiah Jesus, “shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.”

Tim Moore: And obviously the Lord speaking there to Satan after the fall of Mankind. So, this is very important in setting up that messianic expectation.

Nathan Jones: Yeah, actually, Genesis 3:15 is the first Messianic prophecy you’ll find in the Bible.

So now we have sin entering the world, Genesis 3:17, “Then to Adam, he said, ‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and eaten from the tree.'” In other words, he’s going to be cursed. So now we have sin and separation between God and man.

Genesis 6:5-6 & 8, “Then the Lord saw the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that they continually sinned.” And He put a flood. So, we see the first punishment that He does to bring mankind back to a few faithful people.

Tim Moore: A few faithful people. And I love, if we pick up in 15:6 talking about Abraham. It says, “That he [Abraham] believed in the Lord and He credited it to him, Abraham, as righteousness.” So even Abraham was not righteous in his own regard. But the Lord credited him with righteousness based on what? His faith in and His belief of the Lord God.

And so then later in 22:8, Abraham says to his son, Isaac, “God will provide for himself the burnt offering.” Again, a messianic preview of God’s great sacrifice given to us through Jesus Christ.

Nathan Jones: And the Messiah would come through the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Genesis 12:2-3, it’s a promise that He would make them a great nation. So, we’re seeing the beginning of God’s redemptive plan to bring humanity back in perfect relationship with Him, starting through the Jewish people. And that the Messiah, Jesus would come through the Jewish line.

Tim Moore: Exactly so. In the next book that we follow chronologically is Job and Job testifies in 19:25, “As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will take His stand on the earth. And even after my skin is destroyed, yet for my flesh I shall see God whom I myself shall behold, and who my eyes shall see, and not another.” And so, we see that even from the beginnings of the Old Testament, these great patriarchs understood that there was a promise held out for them.

Nathan Jones: Absolutely. And that’s when we get to Exodus, where I think we see pretty much our first Christophany here is that Jesus, who is in the burning bush that Moses saw, says, “I am who I am.” So, we are beginning to see God interacting with mankind, here and there throughout the Old Testament, in the pre-incarnate form of Jesus Christ.

Tim Moore: He sure does. And God says, in just a few verses prior 3:7, “I have seen the affliction of My people…I have given heed to their cry.” So, we are afflicted by sin, He understands that.

And later revealing Himself further to the Israelites, he said in Leviticus 19:2, “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.” Set apart. We cannot be perfectly righteous, but He sets these people apart.

And then later in Numbers, the Lord declares, “As I live, all the earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord.”

Nathan Jones: Leviticus 14:20-21, yes.

Tim Moore: Yes, sir exactly so.

Nathan Jones: Well then we skip up past Deuteronomy. Let’s go to Joshua 24:15 and it says, “Choose for yourselves today, whom you will serve…but as for me and my house we will serve the Lord.” So, we start to see a separation between humanity, making a decision for the Lord or not. And it’s the beginning of understandings of salvation.

Tim Moore: It is. And yet people are already straying. So, in Judges 21:25, “In those days there was no king in Israel, again harkening to the coming King of kings, and everyone did what was right in their own eyes.”

And yet the Lord speaking again in the Book of Ruth 4:14, the testimony is, “Blessed is Lord who has not left you without a redeemer today, and may his name be famous in Israel.” Well, that’s speaking at the time of Boaz, but we know that is a preview of the coming redeemer who would become famous in Israel.

Nathan Jones: Right. Boaz becomes a type of Christ, and that’s where we get the term type or Christophany, an actual appearance of Jesus.

Tim Moore: Yes.

Nathan Jones: We skip up to 2 Samuel 7:12 and now we’re, we’re going down, if you say the family funnel, now we get the Davidic promise that the Messiah would come through the line of David. “I will raise up your descendants (David’s) after you and you will come forth from you, and I will establish his kingdom.” So we know that that the Messiah would come and He would rule over the earth through the line of David and sit on the Davidic Kingdom.

Tim Moore: He sure would. And the Lord says, “I will be a father to him and he will be a son to me.” Previewing exactly the relationship that Jesus reveals.

Well, now we get Psalm that great book of hymns, many of which were written by David. And so many messianic passages. 2:10, “Now, therefore, O kings, show discernment; take warnings O judges of the earth. Worship the Lord with reverence and rejoice with trembling. Do homage to the Son, that He not become angry and you perish in the way for His wrath may soon be kindled. How blessed are all who take refuge in him!”

14:7 “Oh, that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion!” And certainly it did.

Nathan Jones: Are there any other psalms that you particularly chose?

Tim Moore: Yes, real quick, chapter 22 there’s so many, 22:30 “Posterity will serve Him; It will be told of the Lord of the Lord to the coming generation. They will come and declare His righteousness to a people who will be born that He has performed it.” That’s the very verse chapter that Jesus cited on the cross.

Chapter 24, “Lift up your heads, O gates, and be lifted up O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is the King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. He is the King of glory.”

Chapter 46, “Cease striving and know that I am God;” back to that I AM. “I will be exalted among the nations and I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of Host is with us. The God of Jacob is our strength.”

And finally, out of many others, 118:22, “The stone which the builders rejected, has become the chief corner stone.”

Nathan Jones: Something that Jesus would quote later.

Tim Moore: Exactly right.

Nathan Jones: Well, then we get into the Song of Solomon 2:4 or Song of Songs, and we start seeing how the Lord will treat His bride, the Church, like Solomon treats the Shulammite it says, “He had brought me to the banquet hall and his banner over me is love.” So, Solomon becomes a type of Christ.

Tim Moore: He certainly does and says later, “I’m a beloved to my beloved is mine,” pointing to Jesus as our bridegroom.

Nathan Jones: Then we get to Proverbs 1:7 is, “The fear of the Lord, is the beginning of wisdom.” Which is one of the most important tenants to understand for salvation, that those who fear the Lord turn to Him in repentance and so are saved. So, we’re starting to get that early. Now we can jump to Ecclesiastes 12:13 it says, “For God will bring every act to judgment and everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil.” So, we see that God now is the judge, and He will judge everybody, whether they’re judged because of their works and they’re saved and inherited eternal life or because their works, but they aren’t saved and they are consigned to judgment forever.

Tim Moore: So many passages, in 2 Chronicles 7:19, The Lord declares that his people, the Jewish people would reject Him, but that He would cast them from his sight for a period. And then in 16:9, he says that “The eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth, that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His.”

First Kings 9:4-5, “If you walk before me as your father David walked, then I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever. You shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel.” This word to Solomon again fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ.

And my favorite verse in 18:21, when Elijah cites, “How long will you hesitate between two opinions? If the Lord is God follow Him.”

Nathan Jones: Echoing what Joshua said.

Tim Moore: Exactly right.

Nathan Jones: Well, now that we’re getting into the prophets chronologically, it’s going to be different than what we see in our Bible. So, we’re actually start with Obadiah 15 it says, “For the day of the Lord draws near on all the nations.” So, we know that as time moves on, so too is humanity getting closer and closer to God’s judgment.

Tim Moore: They certainly are. And Joel, who declares that the Jews had been set aside, but in 3:1, “For behold, in those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem.”

And then Jonah, that great reluctant prophet, if you will, who declared “Salvation is from the Lord.”

Nathan Jones: Absolutely. I love Amos 5:24 “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” We’re starting to get through the prophets quite a number of different views of what when Jesus sets up His kingdom, what the Millennial Kingdom will be like: a kingdom of peace, and righteousness, and justice.

Tim Moore: Amen. And Hosea, who foreshadows again the turning back of the nation of Israel, he says, “After the sons of Israel will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king; and they will come trembling to the Lord and His goodness in the last days.” And that’s a promise to the Jews made in 3:5, but just before that, in 2:23 is a promise to the Gentiles, “‘I will say to those who are not My people, you are My people!’ And they will say, ‘Thou art, my God.'”

Nathan Jones: Excellent. Well, one of the key and I’d say key, big key is Isaiah 53:4-6, because now we get an actual description 700 years before Jesus is crucified. “Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God…” So, it goes on. And we read in Isaiah 53 how the perfect sacrifice has come and how He will die, 700 years before it happens.

Tim Moore: Isaiah is so full of great passages 1:18, where God promises that our sins will be made white as snow. 12:2, “Behold, God is my salvation.” He has become my salvation. And of course, 42:1, “Behold, My Servant, my chosen one in whom my soul, delights. I put My Spirit upon Him, and He will bring forth justice to the nations.”

And I got to turn back to Micah 7:19, where it says in a nutshell, “He will have compassion on us, He will tread our iniquities underfoot.”

Nathan Jones: Absolutely. Well, let’s get into Daniel 2:44, which is tremendous, because it’s about how when Messiah comes and sets up His kingdom, that’s the end of failed human government. “In the days of those kings of God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed, and that kingdom will not be left for another people; and it will crush and put an end to all these human kingdoms, but it will itself endure forever.”

Tim Moore: Amen. Amen. You know, Zephaniah, who says “The day of the Lord is near, He has prepared a sacrifice, He has consecrated his guest.”

Jeremiah, so many passages we can talk about the righteous Branch in chapter 23:5-6.

Or Habakkuk, where the formula again is, “The righteous will live by faith.” There are just so many passages we could have pulled out and we’re just giving you a handful. What about the ones in Ezekiel there that you might have?

Nathan Jones: Ezekiel, well, we’ve got 18:30-32, “‘For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies,’ declares the Lord, ‘Therefore, repent and live.”’ So, we got salvation yet again. Ezekiel 34:11, “‘And behold, I myself will search for my sheep and seek them out.'” So, we hear about the Lord coming to seek His sheep, those who have called upon Him, who were you could say, predestined or elect, but in other words, people who choose Jesus to be saved are the called out ones.

Tim Moore: They certainly are. You know, folks, again, we could have pulled out so many other passages that resonate in our hearts. And we know that you have others that resonate in your heart. At the very end of Ezekiel, Ezekiel gives a testimony that in the day of the Lord when Jesus Christ, I mean, he doesn’t give him by name, but the Messiah reigns, it said in that day, the name of the city shall be the Lord is there, Yahweh Shammah. And boy, what an encouraging promise that is that Jesus is going to reign right here on earth, Nathan and we’ll be reigning alongside of him.

Nathan Jones: And Zechariah 14:4-5 & 9 says, how He returns. “On that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, Which faces Jerusalem…” And it says when Jesus returns with the saints behind Him, that’s us, and all who are saved. They’ll watch Jesus land on the Mount of Olives, it’ll split in two, and He will march through that gate to the temple. So, we’re getting more and more details about what will happen.

Tim Moore: Yes we are. And it goes back to that verse that we already cited out of Psalms, “Be lifted up our ancient gates and be opened all ancient doors that the King of glory may come in. Who is the King of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty. He is the King of glory.”

Nathan Jones: Amen. We can go up to Nehemiah 9:20, so we’re getting near the end of the Old Testament here, at least chronologically. And he says, “You gave your good spirit to instruct them.” So now we’re seeing influences of not just the Holy Spirit going on the people periodically, but that the Church would have the Holy Spirit indwell in them permanently.

Tim Moore: Amen. And then finally we come to Malachi, which we’ve already read today, 4:1-2, “Behold the day is coming, burning like a furnace and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff. And the day that is coming will set them ablaze so they will not leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who fear My Name, the son of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings, and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall.” Nathan From beginning to end, the testimony of Scripture is the testimony of Jesus Christ. All of the Spirit of prophecy points to Him. And so, this arc, this narrative, it’s almost like an arrow shot from Genesis 1:1 forward points directly at Jesus Christ. And that’s been our point throughout this entire series.

Nathan Jones: Absolutely. It’s all about Jesus.

Tim Moore: It really is. And so, folks, taken together, especially as we now have reviewed some of our key verses in the chronological order, they build a narrative that points to Jesus Christ, just as an arrow would go to its target. What is your trajectory in this life? Are you on a path that leads you on the straight and narrow way to salvation? Are you following the wide path of destruction? We pray that you are following the straight and narrow path, the trajectory that will lead you to Jesus Christ.

Part 3

Tim Moore: Our overarching theme for the series has actually been Luke 24:32 when the risen Lord Jesus walked alongside two disciples on the road to Emmaus, beginning with Moses and all the prophets He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures. The disciples exclaimed, “We’re not our hearts burning within us while He was speaking to us on the road, while he was explaining the Scriptures to us?”

Nathan Jones: Dr. David Reagan’s book, Jesus The Lamb and the Lion, offers tremendous insight into the Messiah as He’s presented and prophesied throughout Scripture. From the opening pages of Genesis to His glorious Second Coming at the end of Revelation, Jesus Christ is the author, the perfector and the subject. And for a gift of $15 or more, we’d be glad to send you a copy of Jesus The Lamb and the Lion. Just visit our online store or call the number you see on the screen.

Tim Moore: We pray that this series has helped open your eyes and whetted your appetite to all the things concerning Jesus Christ in the Scriptures, from Moses to all the prophets.

Nathan Jones: Well, our series has not been close to exhausted, with less than 30 minutes each week, we can only hit the high points.

Tim Moore: We will return to these books again and again until the Lord comes. We’ll dive even deeper into individual prophecies, always pointing to and glorifying our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. Next week, we have one more treat in store to close out this series. You won’t want to miss it. Until then, I’m Tim Moore.

Nathan Jones: And I’m Nathan Jones, saying look up and be watchful for Jesus, whose testimony is the spirit of prophecy is coming soon. Maranatha.

End of Program

Print Friendly, PDF & Email