This is a rush transcript.

[00:00:02] This morning, I want to talk about this right here. We call it the Bible, the scriptures, the writings, the scrolls.

[00:00:10] How would you describe this to somebody else? How do you think about it yourself? Would you call the Bible a book? Is that is that really what the Bible is? Is the Bible a book? If it is, it's the most interesting book in the world. It's a one of a kind. I mean, it has a story from beginning to end. But usually when I think of a book, I think a book has an author. But this book has 40 different authors, people writing in different eras of history. So to say it is a book. Well, it actually, I guess, may be a way to say it would be a collection of books, 66 different books make up the Bible. Those those books, you could think of them as chapters, but really each one of them has its own chapters. They are different books written with different purposes. Now, that doesn't even work. They were a collection of books because when I think of a collection of books, I think of like the best nonfiction or the best short stories of twenty sixteen. I think of books that all came out at the same time in some kind of collection or anthology. Maybe that would be a way to say the Bible, but maybe the Bible is actually more like a time capsule. Anybody remember hearing about time capsules when you were a kid? Anybody dig a hole and put a bunch of stuff in it down on the ground? Right. And somebody in the future is going to, like, find those of VHS tapes, except we're not going to know how to play them anymore. You guys know what I'm talking about? Like a time capsule. All right. We're going to represent a certain time to a future time. See, I know it is a book and I know it's a collection of books. But really what the Bible has that nothing else has in the entire world is it has things that happened at different eras throughout history and then they get added together. It's like we pick up the time capsule from one time. We add what's happening in our time and it gets passed on to the next time. In fact, you've got four boxes there on your hand out. If you're taking notes here this morning. I want to give to you, though, the four eras as Jesus would break it down, the four times that the Bible gives us a picture into God's dealings with men at four different times throughout history. And as you study those different times and then you compare them to our time. They're all telling the same story. There's no other book or collection of books like that that's working throughout time of human history. So Jesus when he's talking to some of his disciples, two of them on the road to a mass, you could write down Luke, 24. He calls them fools because they didn't know that he was going to die and rise again, because the Old Testament tells us the good news that there is going to be a Christ who will die and rise again. And he expected these disciples to know it. He says, first of all, from the law, let's get that down for our first box. Our first box is the law and the law is five scrolls.

[00:03:17] Sometimes it's referred to in Greek as the Pentateuch, which means five scrolls. It's the first five books, we would say, of the Bible. And the author of The Law is Moses. And get this down. If you're if you're taking notes here, the date of the law is in the fourteen hundreds. B, C is or is our best guess as to when Moses wrote the first five books. You got five different scrolls, one author and that gets handed down to Joshua who takes over from Moses. So as soon as Moses writes it, everybody, Joshua is supposed to tell everybody what the word of the Lord says he's supposed to never let the word of the Lord depart from his anybody remember. Depart from his what? His mouth. He's just telling everybody what the law of the Lord says. So as soon as this is how books work, this is how right writings work. As soon as they are published. As soon as they are released. People start reading them and running with them when that's what happens. OK. Now, Jesus, when he's talking these disciples and Luke, 24, he says you should have known it both from the law and then he says this the law and the prophets. Let's get that down. That's actually our third box, OK? That's not our second box. Our third box is the prophets. And this is now getting into a wide assortment of different men, even over hundreds of years, who write many different books that speak to many different situations. So we have many authors that would compose these prophets. And then the date is a wide ranging time period. We're gonna say all the way from like 800 B.C. to 400 B.C., like 16 different authors writing books that we would refer to today as the major and minor prophets, 17 different books.

[00:05:06] And so Jesus is saying, if you wanted to know that I was going to die and rise again, if you wanted to read about me, you could have read about me when Moses wrote about me all the way back in fourteen hundred B.C. or there were all these guys prophesying about me from 800 to 400 B.C. And then one time when Jesus is explaining the gospel, his death and resurrection to his disciples, he says, you could have known about it from the law and the prophets and the Psalms. Let's go back and fill that in as our as our second box right here.

[00:05:35] The songs. OK. So now Jesus is breaking the Old Testament down into three different categories, starting with what Moses wrote in the first five books. Then we've got these prophets over here. Well, there's a lot of other books that tell us the history and some poetic writings will Jesus kind of groups, those together under the heading of Psalms and the. Famous author of the Psalms would be David. But we just read through the Psalms this summer at our church and there's all kinds of different authors. There's the sons of Cora. There's Asef. Moses writes a song. Solomon write songs. There's songs that it doesn't tell us who the author is. So it's a it's a broad collection. And if you throw in the wisdom, literature, poetic literature, the history of what was happening at the time of David, I mean, the time of David. Now we're looking at a time around 1000 B.C.

[00:06:26] So you're starting to see here. Moses gives us some books. That's fourteen hundred B.C. David. Gives us some work. That's around 100000 hundred thousand B.C. The prophets write all kinds of things over hundreds of years. That's eight hundred to 400 B.C. What kind of a book is getting passed down from generation to generation. And getting added to every few hundred years and is dominating history. There's nothing like the Bible, but that's not even it. Because after 400 years of silence, then we have we have the apostles and we have the work that they wrote that we referred to as the New Testament, where so much of what was prophesied, what we were looking forward to in the first three time periods of that we would referred to as the Old Testament.

[00:07:15] Well, now we see so much of those prophecies come true in the God who becomes man, Jesus Christ, who lives a perfect bite, is born in a certain way, in a certain place at a certain time. Lives for thirty three years, dies on the cross in a way that was prophesied and predicted, rises again on the what day that was prophesied on the third day he comes back.

[00:07:38] So we have the apostles where we have many different eyewitness accounts of the life of Jesus, many different letters written to churches about how they should live as Christians. And then we have the last book, The Book of Revelation by the Apostle John, even now making prophecies that are still future to us two thousand years later, so that the dates here of the authors is like forty five to 96 A.D., 1st century A.D.. And then you and I can pick up this time capsule if you'll work with me here. And we can now see how things that have been prophesied throughout different eras of history are still like headline of the newspaper Cutting Edge relevant to our life right here today in America. There is nothing whatever we want to call this book collection of books. This time capsule moving through history to us. There is nothing like this book because this book is written by God, not by man. Now, turn with me to the text that we're on. John, Chapter 13, because we're doing a study of the Last Supper, Jesus's final meal with his disciples, where he teaches them what they're gonna do after he departs from them. He knows it. He knows that this is his September 11th, if you will. I mean, this is the tragic day in Jesus his life where he is portrayed, arrested, falsely accused, beaten, then finally convicted to crucifixion on a cross within 24 hours from this Passover meal. Jesus will be the sacrificial lamb dying for your sin. This is the day where everything goes wrong, so to speak, in the life of Jesus. And he says something here that's absolutely fascinating that I don't know, we fully comprehend as a church and I don't think we do a good job explaining it to people outside of the church. Look where we left off last week, John. Chapter 13, verse 18. This is where we're going to pick it up right where we left off. John, chapter 13, verse 18 says, I am not speaking of all of you. I know whom I have chosen, but the scripture will be fulfilled. So he's going to quote now from the song Psalm 41, verse nine. He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.

[00:10:07] So he quotes an Old Testament passage in his that's gonna be fulfilled right there in their presence at this dinner. And he says, I want you to underline this, that love for you to memorize this. Look at this verse right here. What look what Jesus says in verse 19. I am telling you this now before it takes place, that when it does take place, you may believe that I am. He truly, truly. I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.

[00:10:41] So Jesus says here in verse 19, I want to tell you something. And I'm going to tell it to you now. I'm going to give you, if you will, a preemptive narrative. I'm going to tell you something before it happens, because later on in time, when you see it happen, I want you to know that I knew it was going to happen. And I want you to believe that I am God. That's what Jesus says at dinner with the disciples. Imagine if you were at dinner with someone, maybe you were out at a restaurant or you had them over and it was like a fancy meal. You were like sitting down at your table to have dinner with this person. And this person began to tell you, so-and-so is going to walk out the door right now. So-and-so is about to say this. Hey, watch out. But this person over here is going to ask for a free refill of their drink right now. They start calling. What's going to happen? I mean, someone starts telling you things that are going to happen at your dinner before they happen, you would think maybe you were in the middle of some like live dinner theater where everybody else was in cahoots and they were all acting it out. And you were the unknowing person, like, what's going on around here? But then you start to realize maybe this guy actually knows what's going to happen before it happens. Maybe he actually can see outside of time or even maybe he's in control of time. And so Jesus at this dinner, he tells them two things and see, it's hard, I think, for us to understand what's happening, because we hear the story after the fact that he tried to talk about September 11th with people who weren't really old enough to know what was going on at the time. Is that not a frustrating experience as any anybody that's my age that really remembers September 11th vividly? Is it is it frustrating sometimes when you try to pass it on to the next generation? Because they just don't get it. They don't understand. Like we could tell them, hey, here's what happened. The terrorists, they flew planes into our buildings and the towers fell down and. And it was this terrible day and these other heroes of America. They fought back on this airplane and it crashed in Pennsylvania. And all these brave people went into these towers and got people out before they fell down. And we could tell them that story. But those of us who were like there, so to speak, those of us who watched it happen on television. All I remember was chaos and confusion. Anybody else remember that? Like, I remember this overwhelming feeling of why is this happening? Who is doing this to us? And then even the newscasters, it seemed they didn't know what was going on. And there was all this misreporting in this plane. All of a sudden you could see it on TV. This plane just flew in. Another plane, flew into the second tower. You're watching it happen. You're thinking what's going to happen next? Does the president know what's going on? Is there anybody in America who knows what's happening right now? It felt like the whole country was out of control.

[00:13:39] And even in the weeks to follow so many people, like I said before, so many people showed up at church the Sunday after September 11th. You remember that that happened at the church you were attending. Were you attending church at that time? I was like, where did all these people come from? It was like there was this era of this aura, excuse me, of uncertainty all over America. I remember like armed soldiers walking around the airports and all of a sudden these new security precautions happening at all the airports and these lines. And back then, it felt really serious, like, whoa, what's going on? Like, were we going to get attacked again? You heard like like there was chatter that maybe this was going to happen or that was going to happen and people are throwing out all these rumors. Nobody really knew. And here's Jesus on the most important night of his life. And he's saying, hey, whoever, I get the piece of bread, too. That's the guy who's going to betray me. Hey, Peter, you think you're with me? You think you're ready to lay down your life for me. Hey, before the rooster crows later on tonight, you're going to deny me three times. Here's Jesus in his tragic chaos. Moment two to the disciples. It's gonna seem crazy and out of control. And Jesus is saying, hey, later on, John, when you're writing this down, when you're thinking about it, I just want you to know that I knew everything that was going to happen and I was 100 percent in control. And we've just heard this story later.

[00:14:58] We just know that Judas betrayed him. And Peter denied him and that Jesus died on the cross. And what John's trying to do here in our text is he's trying to put him put us as an eye witness at the dinner where all of a sudden it starts falling apart and you realize this is the night that you're never going to forget and look in the middle of it all falling apart.

[00:15:18] Jesus is saying, hey, I want to tell you some things before they happen. I want to show you something right now. I want to reveal to you who I am and who I represent. I represent God and God knows the future. He will tell it to you to prove that he is God. That's what I'm going to do right now. Because someday, when you're thinking about how this night went down, when you're remembering it, I want you to know that I knew and I want you to believe that I am God.

[00:15:47] And so he gives them to things that are going to happen. Pick it up with me in verse 21 here. Here's the first one after saying these things. Jesus was troubled in his spirit.

[00:15:57] And he testified, truly, truly. I say to you, which Jesus says before, he's about to say something, you're going to have a hard time believing. But he wants you to know it's true. Truly, truly. I say to you, one of you will betray me.

[00:16:10] And they didn't see this coming.

[00:16:12] It wasn't clear that like one of them was the turncoat, one of them was the traitor. They didn't see that. The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he spoke. One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, which we know is John referring to himself, was reclining at table at Jesus side. And Simon Peter motioned to him, to John to ask Jesus because he's right there leaning up next to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. And that disciple leaning back against Jesus said to him, maybe even a whisper here, because they're so close.

[00:16:46] Oh, Lord. Who is it? And Jesus answered it. Is he to whom I will give this morsel of bread when I have dipped it.

[00:16:53] And so when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas. The son of Simon is scary. And after Judas had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him. And Jesus said to him, What you are going to do, do quickly. Now no one at the table knew why Jesus said this to Judas. Some thought that because Judas had the moneybag, Jesus was telling him by what we need for the feast or that he should give something to the poor. They still don't even connect. The Judas is the one who is going to betray him. Not in this moment.

[00:17:29] So after receiving the morsel of bread, he immediately went out and it was night out into the darkness. Goes Judas. Was Satan entering his heart on a mission to betray Jesus? And the significant thing that Jesus wants us to know. Even reading the story now, trying to put ourselves not just as people who come later hearing how the story ended, but now trying to put ourselves in the middle of the story. Jesus wants to tell us, hey, I knew who was gonna betray me. I chose him. I chose him as one of the 12. I chose him of that from the beginning. I knew he was going to betray me the entire time. And I want you to know, Jesus is saying to you this morning through his eyewitness, John, I want you to know that I knew and I want this prophecy, this thing that I can do where I tell you the future. I want that to be a reason that you believe in me.

[00:18:21] Jesus is a.

[00:18:22] And so it's unclear to everybody else in the room. But Jesus says it so that later they would get it. And near the apostle John is now recounting it for us. Singing I got it.

[00:18:34] Jesus knew the whole time. Would you. This was going to do. He called it. You won't believe it before he got backstabbed, when nobody else saw it coming. Jesus told us it was going to happen. He told us who was going to do it. He knew the entire time.

[00:18:51] Now, pick it up with me again. Jump down to verse 36, here's another interaction that happens because Jesus says he's going to go away. And Peter doesn't like this idea that he's going to go away. So Simon Peters said to him, Simon, Peter, you we love him because of his bold speech on behalf of the disciples. Simon Peter said to him, Lord, where are you going? Oh, I don't want to just move past the fact that you said a little while you're gonna go away and we can't come. Hey, where are you going? Jesus answered him where I am going. You cannot follow me now, but you will follow.

[00:19:24] Peter said to him, Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you. That's exactly what we would expect Peter to say. He's all in. He's ready. Hey, if. If we're going to. If we're gonna go out, I'm going out with you, Jesus. If we're gonna lay our lives down, I'll lay down my life for you. And Jesus answered. Will you lay down your life for me?

[00:19:44] Really? Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times.

[00:19:56] And if you've read the Gospels, if you've ever finished reading the gospel of John or Matthew, Mark Luke, they tell us that Peter ended up doing what, denying Jesus three times and after he denied them a third time, what happened? The rooster did what? The rooster crowed.

[00:20:13] How do you call that?

[00:20:15] How do you look at a guy who's saying to you, I'm ready to lay down my life for you and say, no, you're actually going to deny me three times and then the rooster's gonna grow? And then that is exactly what happens. The only way you can predict the future like that is if you know the future. And the only way you could know the future like that is if you control the future, if you are the sovereign lord of heaven and earth, who does whatever you please.

[00:20:39] That's Jesus.

[00:20:41] And John wrote it down this way so that you and I would read about Jesus calling his own shots with his disciples, Judas and Peter, who were going to read about the betrayal.

[00:20:51] We're going to read about the denial. In fact, the Gospel of John ends with this amazing conversation between Jesus and Peter as he now kind of brings him back after the denial and says to him three times. Do you love me?

[00:21:06] Like a question for every time he denied it. So all of this is going to play out as we keep studying the gospel of John. But the emphasis this morning is Jesus prophesying before it happens, and that that is a reason not only to believe in Jesus, but to make sure that we worship Jesus and to listen to Jesus Christ.

[00:21:26] And it's not just that he called it on the night before it happened. Go back to Chapter six, go all the way back to John, Chapter six with me. You got four more boxes there. So what I want to show you now is that this prophecy of Jesus that he makes on this night before he dies, that Judas we're going to focus on specifically this morning on just the prophecy that Judas is going to betray him. We see this in every stop in our time capsule, if you will. This isn't just something Jesus said on the night before he died. No, this is a recorded prophecy throughout scripture. Jesus didn't just didn't know it 24 hours before. No, he knew it hundreds of years before that this was going to happen. And it's recorded for us to later see and believe. Look what Jesus said all the way back in John, Chapter six. This now well before the night when Judas would betray him. Look at the end of chapter six, verse 70. This is after many of the disciples fall away. Many turn away from following Jesus and Jesus looks at the twelve and he says, you guys aren't gonna leave also. And Peter says, Where would we go? Where else would we go? Jesus. You have the words of eternal life. Where else could we go? But you.

[00:22:44] And then Jesus says this. And John, chapter six, verse 70. Jesus answered them. Did I not choose you? The 12. And yet one of you is a devil.

[00:22:54] And he spoke this is now John's commentary on Jesus, his privacy. He spoke of Judas, the son of Simon is scarier for he one of the 12 was going to betray him. Yeah. On the night when Satan enters into him and he went out into the darkness of night to physically go betray him. And here it is. This is now just not even right before it happens. This is well before it happens. Jesus is and even from when I chose him as one of the 12, I knew he would betray me. So in all four of these boxes, we're gonna see a prophecy about the betrayal of Judas. So in our second level now our apostles box, we want to put John Chapter six versus 70 and 71. That should be coming up here on the screen in our apostle's box. John, chapter six versus 70 and 71 here.

[00:23:45] And you could read the other gospel accounts. You could see that there's there's a prediction through out the Gospels that Jude Jesus new Judas was going to betray him and Judas is going to become that tragic figure. I mean, I was talking with some men before the service this morning. I've never known anyone named Judas. Maybe you have, but it's definitely not a not a common name after after this one. And poor the other disciple named Judas. All he's known is that he's Judas, not Iscariot. That's all that's all he's ever known for. Poor guy. And I mean, we know I mean, he's the tragic figure. He's the example of the apostate, the one who falls away from Christ, the one who ends up hanging himself. And what did he sell Jesus out for? What was the what was the price that bought the life of Jesus Christ? What was it anybody know?

[00:24:35] Thirty pieces of silver. The price of a slave.

[00:24:41] That's Judas. He lives in infamy now in the Psalms. If you go back to our second box here, write down Psalm 41, verse nine.

[00:24:51] And put that in the second box, because that's the prophecy. And you could even put down that. That's quoted in John 13, verse 18. John John's putting it together for us there. He's saying, hey, not only did Jesus call it, but the scriptures fulfilled. David called it a thousand years before Jesus. When David says that he who I dip this bread is going to rise up and strike his heel against me.

[00:25:18] David is writing something in Psalm 41 that John is now saying. Can you see the connection? Look all the way back into the Psalms a thousand years beforehand. And specifically, it talks about dipping the bread and giving it to the one who's going to betray you.

[00:25:35] And that's what Jesus did to John is making a connection for us about this betrayal.

[00:25:41] See, David is often referred to as the king of Israel, and he becomes throughout the Psalms many times, as David describes his own agonies, his own betrayals, his own thoughts. David is really speaking not only perhaps of himself in the context there, around 1000 B.C., but a lot of times where it refers to the greater David, the king of Israel, who was to come who is to come in the line of David a lot of times, David, when he's even writing about his own situation. It's really a prophecy referring to Jesus Christ. It's amazing how many prophecies of David's references there are that refer to Jesus.

[00:26:19] It's overwhelming how many there are a thousand years before him go read Psalm 22 and tell me that's not talking about Jesus dying on the cross for your sin. And David wrote in a thousand years before Jesus. David had confidence that when he died, he would still be in the presence of the Lord, enjoying pleasures forever more because he says in Psalm 16, verse 10, the holy one, the anointed one, the Messiah of God will not undergo corruption. He will not see decay. He's referring to someone who's going to die but not stay dead a thousand years before it happens.

[00:26:57] The prophecy of scripture is over whelming.

[00:27:02] God is showing off.

[00:27:05] He is telling you what's going to happen before it happens, because he wants you to believe he wants you to believe that this book is uniquely inspired and written by him. And the way he's showing you his fingerprints are all over it because he's telling you what's going to happen in a different era of time before it happens.

[00:27:24] Why are we not as impressed with this as we should be as Christians? And why don't we use prophecy as like hard evidence and a straight forward line of reasoning when we're out there talking to people who don't believe in Jesus? Why don't we start telling them about hate? You know, the Jesus called his shots before he took him.

[00:27:42] He knew that Jesus knew who was going to betray him. And he still washed his feet. You know that Peter was good. He knew he was going to deny him. And he came alongside of him and he loved him to, you know, the Jesus doing it was going to die the whole time. And he kept saying it over and over and everybody was confused about it. And then after he died, everybody started to understand. He knew it the whole time.

[00:28:03] I mean, this prophecy stuff is a compelling evidence. That God is behind whatever we want to call this. This Bible.

[00:28:12] Go to Zekeria. Turn with me to some some passages maybe we don't normally go to the Book of Zacharias. In the Old Testament. OK, Zacharias, Chapter 11. So this would now be in our third box. This would be in our profits section Zekeria 11 versus 12 and 13. OK. Zach Ariah is writing hundreds of years before the time of Jesus Christ. And he says in Zekeria, chapter 11, verse twelve. Then I said to them, please read this with me. It's on page seven hundred and ninety eight. If you got one of our books, I'll give you a second to turn their 798. I want you to see this.

[00:28:52] And if and if you're thinking in your mind right now. Well, I've I heard that they put the Bible together and 16, 11, when they came up with the King James version in English or I heard that they put the Bible together at the council of Nicaea way back in three hundred and twenty five. If if that's what you're hearing from from other sources out there, you just need to realize that's ridiculous.

[00:29:13] We have ancient manuscripts in the original languages. We have the Dead Sea Scrolls of the Old Testament in Hebrew.

[00:29:20] We have manuscripts like the Codex and Natixis, which is from the same time period as the Council of Nicaea. That is a copy of the New Testament in ancient Greek. These scriptures. Moses was immediately recognized by the people of Israel. The writings of David were immediately taken as scripture. The prophets were immediately received by the people as the word of the Lord. And when Jesus and the Apostles are on the scene, not only do they substantiate the entire Old Testament, but even if you read Paul's writings and you read Peter's writings, they even talk about each other's writings while they're still alive, as if they are scripture. And you should take them as the very word of God.

[00:30:00] So this idea that the Bible is some history hatchet job that we're putting together later and we threw out these other books and we kind of chose the books we want, that is a secular lie.

[00:30:12] There is no truth to that.

[00:30:14] You have the Council of Nicaea recognized books of scripture, but those books had already been recognized for hundreds of years. By the time the Council of Nicaea canonized that they were recognized as they were read by the original recipients as this being a word from God.

[00:30:34] So Zach Ariah was written hundreds of years before there's ever a guy named Judas. And in Chapter 11 versus 12 and 13, it says this. Then I said to them, if it seems good to you, give me my wages. But if not, keep them. And they wait out my wages, 30 pieces of silver. Then the Lord said to me, throw it to the potter, the Lord, the price at which I was priced by them. So I took the 30 pieces of silver and threw them into the House of the Lord to the potter.

[00:31:09] Are you kidding me? That's the price that they pay.

[00:31:13] Judas, what did Judas do after he had betrayed Jesus, after he saw what happened, after he had the 30 pieces of silver? He threw them away. Where did he throw them?

[00:31:23] Into the what the temple called hundreds of years before it happened. That's God showing off so that you would be impressed. Here this morning, so that you would believe that you would worship that you would realize there there's nothing like this. I hear all the time people say, oh, I'm not really a book reader, will. Great, because this isn't really a book. This is this is God revealing himself to you. Throughout history. It's a collection of books, I guess we could call scripture writings, schools would, I mean, use whatever you word you want. This is God saying I'm here and you need to believe me.

[00:32:04] And years away, I'm going to do it. I'm going to play with time. I'm going to tell you things. Hundreds of years before they happen in a way that that is just not comparable. OK. Now, some people can say, well, the Bible's just one religious books. There's many faiths. There's many religious books. Can we skip something a little bit earlier that I want to go back to right now? Look, let's compare the Bible to the Koran. Anybody ever read the Koran before? Anybody ever checked it out? This is this is the Book of Islam. OK, let's ballots.

[00:32:30] We have our four pieces of a chart here. Let's look at the Koran. Where did the Koran come from? OK. And if you wanted to put a box somewhere for the Koran, the author of the Koran is referred to as the Prophet Muhammad. And he got his message.

[00:32:48] That became the Koran that he wrote over the course of his lifetime from the Angel Gabriel is the claim and the date of this is six hundred and nine to six hundred and thirty two eighty.

[00:32:59] I don't know if you've ever read the Koran or not before, but it it reads like a religious book.

[00:33:03] It reads really. But it's one man claiming he got a revelation from one angel at one time. Let's put up all the other times now that the Koran also got added to that the prophecies in the earlier part of the Koran were confirmed later. Let's put up those other boxes. Oh, yeah, there are no other boxes for the Koran.

[00:33:23] It's one man claiming one angel. And thousands of people in the world are following what one man says from one angel.

[00:33:31] There's another religion that's eerily similar to that. And it's the Book of Mormon. Let's check out this, the Book of Mormon.

[00:33:38] This is now more modern times. This is here in America. Who's the author of The Book of Mormon? Anybody know while they're at it? Joseph Smith. And he says he's not really the author. He says he got these golden plates that were in some language he'd never seen before. But he had the ability to translate these golden plates and they were given to him by the angel Moroni. And this happened in the eighteen twenties. That's now thousands of people are saying that the Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus Christ. And if you have to take the two books together and you're in nail them together, they're going to kind of help you interpret one another. That's what the Mormons are are saying. No, that's not true. It's not true, we don't need another testament of Jesus Christ, especially a testament of Jesus, that acts like he is not part of the Trinity, that he is not God.

[00:34:27] We don't need that. See?

[00:34:30] So when you start comparing this to other things that people call religious books, we just need to see that there is no comparison because God does it in one time, confirms it in another time, which then prophesies to the next time, which then confirms that which then prophesies to the next time, which even goes all the way to prophecies about our time.

[00:34:52] Let's go to Deuteronomy, Chapter 18, go all the way back to the beginning to the first scripture, I mean, really the first revelation from God, the man that was recorded was the Ten Commandments. That was really two two tablets of stone is really how it started. I don't know if you would call the Ten Commandments a book, but. But they were tablets of stone. I mean, that's really the first revelation that then gets expanded into the five scrolls, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus numbers, Deuteronomy and Deuteronomy is the second telling of the law. It's Moses giving the law to the people before they're going to go into the promised land. Deuteronomy is Moses, his last words. And Moses says something that is absolutely fascinating in Deuteronomy, Chapter 18 versus 15 and 19. So that's gonna be in our fourth box right here on the second part of our chart. We've got Deuteronomy 18 for 15 to 19. This is a prophecy about well, let's just read a Deuteronomy, chapter 18, verse 15, read this with it. This is maybe 1400 years before Jesus Christ. This is maybe three thousand four hundred years ago, Deuteronomy 1815. The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me. So Moses is making prophecies when he writes the first five books will. Now God is going to raise up a prophet like Moses from among you. From your brothers. And this prophet. It is to him.

[00:36:13] You shall listen just as you desired of the Lord, your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, let me not hear again the voice of the Lord, my God, or see this great fire anymore. Let's die. Die. So just remember when God gave them the Ten Commandments and God spoke to the people directly. It was so terrifying for the people of Israel to interact with God in that way, to see the thunder and the lightning and the fire that they said, hey, we don't want to hear straight from God. We would rather have you, Moses, speak on behalf of God to us.

[00:36:45] And so that's what it's referring to. There were 17 and the Lord said to me, they are right and what they have spoken.

[00:36:51] I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers.

[00:36:56] And I will put my words in his mouth and he shall speak to them all that I command him and whoever will not listen to my words, that he shall speak in my name. I myself will require it of him.

[00:37:11] Well, there's going to be a profit someday. Like Moses.

[00:37:16] And he's going to say things and your entire life is going to be based on whether you listen to this profit or not. And if you don't listen to the profit that God sends, who speaks on behalf of God himself. If you don't listen to him, God will require it of you that you didn't listen to this prophet.

[00:37:35] Ed, let me ask you guys here at CompassHB Vibert, you're trying to beach this morning. Do you think the profit is that Moses is talking about? Could it perhaps be the guy that on the night before he died, said, yeah, this guy that I dip the bread to, he's going to betray me. Hey, see this guy over here? The guy who seems like he's my biggest supporter. My most loud spokesperson. Yeah. He's going to deny me three times.

[00:37:58] Jesus is a prophet with a capital P. And your life, your eternal soul will live or die based on whether you listen to the prophecies of Jesus or not. That's what Deuteronomy 18 is say. So there was a prophecy about a prophet 1400 years before Jesus started showing what was gonna happen next. At dinner one.

[00:38:22] So what do you how are you and I supposed to respond to this? What are you and I supposed to think about this? Go back to John, Chapter 13. And let's let's look at two responses that hopefully you and I will have here this morning. I mean, Jesus says the response and this is the theme of our preaching all last year was that Jesus says, look back at verse 19 and John, 13 with me. Jesus gives what he is expecting people to do based on the ability that not only Jesus has to prophesy there in the moment at the Last Supper, but the ability of all of scripture to be prophetic, to not only give you the prophecy, but to give you the answer to the prophecy in the next era of time. Jesus is expecting this response in verse 19. I'm telling you this now before it takes place, that when it does take place, you may what? What does Jesus want people to do believe? So the reason John records this, the reason Jesus said what he said he could have just let it play it out.

[00:39:19] He could have just let Judas betray him. He could have just let Peter deny him. But there was a purpose in telling us beforehand. And the purpose is that you and I would believe that Jesus is God or as he says it, here I am he. Prophecy is one of the signs that is designed to cause us to believe in Jesus. Let me ask you this. If we're Christians here this morning and we do believe that Jesus is the son of God. Are you and I using prophecy in our conversations with people outside of faith in Jesus Christ? Are we saying that they should believe in Jesus? And one reason they should believe is because the prophecies cannot be explained away. They go throughout time. They prove each other. You have to check out these prophecies.

[00:40:08] Are we using that in the world around us?

[00:40:12] I don't I don't know how effective we are being at speaking confidently that this book collection, the books time capsule, if you will, this anthology right here confirms itself by prophesying what's going to happen. And then in a later period of time, written by different men shows us that that is exactly what happened, then makes predictions about what will happen next. That are exactly what happened then.

[00:40:37] What more could we want than someone telling us the future to prove to us that God wrote this Bible? We need to start using this more and more as a compelling witness with those around us. We should not act like not believing the Bible even makes sense because the prophecies speak clearly. And we should be bold in declaring this and then it should cause us. I mean, if someone can tell you the future, that should just inspire. Ah.

[00:41:09] And really, since the only one who knows the future is God, this should inspire worship from us. Go to Isaiah, Chapter 41. What? But hold on. Hold on. Before we go to Isaiah 41, look back at verse 19. Sorry, I got ahead of myself there. I'm just getting excited. It's as I am. He believe that I am he. Go to John, Chapter 18. Let's just track that phrase. I am he. What could Jesus be referring to when he says I am he? Well, winge. That's one of the last things Judas is going to hear before before he leaves to go betray him. Look what happens when Judas does betray him. And John, 18, verse one when Jesus had spoken these words. That's the end of the the Lord's Prayer there. And John, 17. And that's the end of the whole Last Supper conversation when Jesus had spoken these words. He went out with his disciples across the book Creed Drawn, where there was a guard. And we know it as the garden of guest Simone, which he and disciples, his disciples entered. Apparently, this was maybe a a place they went regularly to pray. Now, Judas, who betrayed him, knew the place for Jesus often met there with his disciples.

[00:42:13] So Judas, having procured a band of soldiers and some officers from the chief priest and the Pharisees, went there with lanterns and torches and weapons were getting the mob together. Everybody's grabbing their pitchfork. And we're going to go out to the garden and we're going to get Jesus.

[00:42:32] That's what's happening. And Jesus.

[00:42:36] Underlying this, here it is again. It wants you to know that Jesus knows Jesus knowing all that would happen to him walking into what he already knew was going to go down. He came forward and said to them, Whom do you seek? And I answered him. Jesus of Nazareth. And Jesus said to them, I am. He. Very specific words that he already said in verse 19 of Chapter 13. And Judas, who betrayed him, was there. Let's just make it very clear how this all went down. Juss Judas of the mob. They came to Jesus. Jesus said to them, I am he.

[00:43:10] Verse six, when Jesus said to them, I am he. They drew back and fell to the ground. Excuse me. I mean, if you've read that part before. Does that blow your mind when you read that?

[00:43:26] I mean, here they come. Torches, lanterns, weapons. Who are we after? This one guy, Jesus of Nazareth. Oh, I am he. Everybody falls back to the ground. Just by the power of the words that are coming out of his mouth, the words that can tell you the future before it happens. This is just another way that Jesus is using these words. I am happy to prove that he is God. Here you see a physical response to his words by these soldiers who are coming to arrest him. So it's like he has to ask them all over again, has to wait for them to, like, get back up. Hey, guys, come on, let's keep going. So he asked them again. Whom do you seek? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth. And Jesus answered, I told you that I am he.

[00:44:10] So if you seek me, let these men go and then they arrest him and then it moves on from there.

[00:44:16] But I want you to know that I am here. And then when they come to get him, he says I am he. And they fall over backwards out of the power of the words coming out of the mouth of Jesus Christ. This is no mere man. Now, what is Jesus referring to when he says I am he? Well, throughout John Jesus makes all kinds of I am statements. I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world. And and it's referring to we. We often take it back to Exodus 314 where God says that his name is I am that I am. But go to Isaiah 41 now. We can turn there with Isaiah 41 and look at what it says here. Isaiah, in the Isaiah 40s, God is trying to convince you, if you read eyes, if you read what God says through the prophet, God is trying to convince you that he is a unique God and there is no one like him. There are no idols that you should worship. There is nothing else worthy of your praise and adoration. There is nothing else worthy of the pursuit of your life. There is nothing else worthy of you. Offering your heart. Offering your very self up to worship. He is the only one that is worthy.

[00:45:27] It's very important to God that you would know that he is God and that you would know there is no one else who could possibly be him but him.

[00:45:34] And that's what he's trying to prove. And Isaiah 41 looks at verse two with me here. Isaiah 41, verse two.

[00:45:42] He's saying, hey, everybody, listen to me. Here's what I want to tell you. Who stirred up one from the East Room? Victory meets at every step. He gives up nations before him so that he tramples kings underfoot. He makes them like dust with his sword, like driven stubble with his bow. He pursues them and passes on safely by paths his feet have not trod. Who has performed and done this, calling the generations from the beginning? Who can tell you what's going to happen? Generations from now. From the beginning. I the Lord, the first and with the last, I am, what does it say there I am. What? What is Jesus quoting? Well, Jesus when he says I am he and John, 39, when he says I am he and John 18 and everybody falls over. He's quoting what the father says in Isaiah, where God tries to build a case that he's the only God. And one of the ways you can know he's the only God is he's the only one that can tell you this king is gonna rise up and he's going to defeat all these other nations generations before it happens. And so he says things like this. Look at Chapter 42 versus eight nine, Chapter 42 versus eight nine. I am the Lord. That is my name, my glory. I give to no other nor my praise to carved idols. Behold the former things, the things I said we're going to happen beforehand. That's what he means by former things. Hey, in the law. I told you some things that were gonna happen. Well, now they have come to pass and new things I now declare. Hey, not only am I going to confirm what I said in the law in these prophets. Now, in these prophets, I'm going to say some new things that are going to happen even in the future from here. And I'm new things I now declare before they spring forth. I tell you of them, God is trying to prove his case, that he is the one true God. And one of the ways he wants to convince every man, woman and child is he's telling you the future. Look at Chapter 43. Verse nine. Chapter 43. Verse nine. All the nations gather together and the peoples assemble. Who among them can declare this and show us the former things? Who can tell you what's gonna happen before it happens? Let them bring their witnesses to prove them right. Let them hear and say it is true. You are my witnesses, declares the Lord and my sermon servant, whom I have chosen that you may know and believe me and understand that I am who I am, the one who tells the future.

[00:48:06] And I can tell you the future, because I'm outside of time, because I'm sovereign lord of heaven and earth, because I do whatever I please. I control the future. That's God. And he wants you to believe in him.

[00:48:21] Go to Chapter 44 versus six date. I would love for you to just read through all of these chapters and hear God telling you who he is. In Chapter 44, verses six days says, thus, says the Lord, the king of Israel and his redeemer, the Lord of hosts, I am the first. And I am the last. Besides me, there is no God who is like me.

[00:48:41] You think you should give your life to something else? You think there's somebody better than Jesus to live for you? Think you should live for yourself or for so-and-so and your relationship with them? Or for money or for some kind of pleasure here in this life? Hey, you think you want to worship something else? Well, hey, whatever you want to worship. Who is like me? Let him proclaim it. Let him declare and said it before me since I appointed an ancient people. Let them declare what is to come and what will happen.

[00:49:10] Fear not, nor be afraid. Have I not told you from of old and declared it a you are my witnesses. Is there a God besides me? There is no rock. I know not any one thing that it should give to us as God's people is a bold witness about the power of the Lord to predict the future. But also notice what it says here in verse eight. Fear not, nor be afraid. Let's get this down four point number one, we need to find comfort in knowing Jesus knows there's comfort for us to have here that no matter what is going to happen in the future, God has proven he's in control of the future. God has proven he knows what's gonna happen in the future.

[00:49:48] There is nothing uncertain what may seem to us like chaos and out of control and what's going to happen in America with this election and what could happen next in the in the world with wars and rumors and wars and earthquakes and natural disasters and all these things that have been prophesied in the scripture, evil men getting even worse. People thought going from bad to even worse, all the things that are going to happen before Christ comes back that are prophesied, we might be tempted to be afraid of the future. We might be worried about tomorrow. But, hey, just know right now that Jesus already knows what's going to happen tomorrow in your life.

[00:50:24] In fact, if he was at dinner with you, he'd say, let me tell you, this is probably going to have an effect. It is going to happen. And then watch out for this next. He knows. Go back to chapter forty one of Isaiah and look. Look at the comfort. See, I, I don't have time to read these whole chapters, but if you were to read the chapters, not only is God trying to convince you that he's God, that he can predict the future, he's trying to comfort you about what is going to happen in the future, that he's in control of it. And he says in Isaiah, Chapter 41, look with me, a verse eight here, it says, But you, Israel, my servant Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend you, whom I took from the ends of the Earth and called from its farthest corners saying, You are my servant, I have chosen you and not cast. You are fear not. I am with you.

[00:51:14] Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. If you're a Christian here this morning when it comes to your future. One thing we've already learned from the Gospel of John is that God holds us in his hand and he will never let you go. And he's in control of the future.

[00:51:33] So he can say that and he can mean it if you're not. Don't be dismayed. Whatever's going to happen tomorrow. Jesus knows and there's comfort in knowing that he holds you in his hand and he knows the future for every single individual here in this room this morning. We should find great comfort in the fact that God is in control of the future. But the other thing that we better do, if God can tell us the future of Jesus is the prophet. Well, then we better listen to what he says. Let's get that down for number two. You need to listen carefully to everything Jesus commands.

[00:52:12] And if he is the prophet and he's saying, hey, I want you to believe that I am, he there's nobody else you should listen to but me. And I can tell you what Judas is gonna do and I can tell you what Peter's going to do. Do I have your attention now to the way that John writes it? This is supposed to draw us in. Because if you read, John, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 that we're gonna be studying all year long, most of it is Jesus talking. Most of it is Jesus telling his people what he expects them to do. Giving them commands that he expects them to obey. And if somebody can tell you the future and then they say, so go do this. Go buy this. Go sell this. Make sure you live like this. Hey, I know what's gonna happen. The future. So I think the best possible future for you is if you hear me to do this. I think you would listen to that person if you really believe they could tell you the future and what's gonna happen to you. And then they told you, do this, you would do it. And I'm talking about the kind of listening that is not the way our kids listen to us. Can I can they mean from anybody on that? I'm not talking about when we hear what somebody says, though. And what do we want when we say something to our kids? What do we want? We want him to just hear what we say. Or do we want him to?

[00:53:26] What do we say? Why aren't these kids obeying me? Because you could probably tell your kids a little bit about their future culture. I mean, you've kind of lived it there, probably even get a look dangerously close to you as they grow up, right?

[00:53:42] I mean, you can kind of tell them this is going to happen. This is going to happen to do this. Do this. Don't do that. Don't do that. The God who knows the future became a man and told you to do things.

[00:53:54] And you're going to blow it off. You're going to take the time capsule throughout human history of God showing off. And you're going to let it sit on the nightstand all week.

[00:54:04] When he's trying to talk to you and he's trying to say, I know the best possible scenario for your life. Do what I tell you. Listen to me.

[00:54:17] There's gonna come a prophet Moses said three thousand four hundred something years ago. There's gonna be a prophet and whoever doesn't listen to him, it will be required of that. We know who the prophet is with a capital P.

[00:54:34] His name is Jesus Christ, and will you listen to him go to Matthew, 28, everybody turn to Matthew, 28. This is the year of sanctification here at our church. This is what we are here to do as a group of people living in our time applying the scriptures to the year 2016 in in Orange County, California. And here's the mission that Jesus gave us. This is what you and I are here to do. And I hope you come back next week is we're gonna get real personal about what we're going to do as a church and we're gonna find out who's with us here at this church and who's not. But here's the mission that Jesus gave us in Matthew. Twenty eight. The last things he said here to his disciples in this gospel, Matthew, 28, re with me in verse 18. And Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. I'm the Lord of Heaven and earth. I'm going to do whatever I want. I know the future. I could tell it to you right now. Go. Therefore, here's what I'm therefore telling you to do. You'd need to go. And as you're going make disciples of all nations and here's what you do. When you have somebody who's a disciple, you baptize them in the name of the father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. We're coming here to Huntington Beach. We're here to help people become Christians. When they become Christians, they get baptized here to the glory of God, the father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. But then it says this in verse twenty. Teaching them what we're supposed to do with these disciples is we teach them to observe all that I have. What does it say? They're all that I have were commanded. We're here to teach you to listen to the prophet with a capital P to hang on his every word that there would be nothing more important in the consideration of your life than what Jesus has told you to do.

[00:56:23] And we are studying the biggest collection of the teaching of Jesus that we have in the scripture five chapters. Would it be then pretty important to be here at church this year as we learn the commands of Jesus Christ that he expects of us? Should we be here? May be ready with a Bible, ready to take notes because we want to listen to the one who can tell us the future and listen to what he tells us to do.

[00:56:48] I mean, we should be hanging on every word that we hear from the mouth of Jesus Christ.

[00:56:53] In fact, I would suggest to you that it would be good not just to hear the words and then walk out these doors and maybe process them, maybe not. I would encourage every single soul in this room right now that you should go to a group of people and you should talk about the words of Jesus Christ together, not just about what you heard, but what you are going to do with the words of Jesus Christ.

[00:57:16] I would encourage every single person here to be a part of one of our fellowship groups. And if you've never been a part of them, they're starting again fresh. They're all brand new. This week, it's the time CompassHB connect table right afterwards. You could get plugged in. And you know what we do. We don't we don't roast the pastor. We don't dissect the sermon. No. You know what we're gonna do? We're gonna talk about the words of Jesus Christ and we're gonna listen.

[00:57:38] We're going to observe.

[00:57:39] We're going to obey. We're going to not just here. We're going to do what the prophet who can tell us the future tells us to do for our future.

[00:57:46] And if you listen to Jesus and do what he says, it will be good for you to hear the great prophet and obey him.

[00:57:54] But I've got to say, for those of you who don't believe in Jesus and you're hearing me right now, if you know he's the prophet as it's been presented to you this morning and you do not listen to him, it will be required of you on the last day. God, we come to you and we thank you so much for the amazing work that you have done throughout history. To reveal yourself to was through different men in different times that never met, that never knew each other, but all say the same thing. Even Zachariah, hundreds of years beforehand, talking about the betrayer and the 30 pieces of silver and throwing them in the temple.

[00:58:36] Even Jesus calling what Judas and Peter were going to do that night. God, we worship you here this morning as your people. We give you the glory for your work of prophecy among us. And Gary, we thank you so much that we could have what you inspired Moses to write. And David to write and the prophets to write. And the apostles to write. And we can compare all these books and we can see how they interact throughout time. And we can be convinced that Jesus is he. He is God.

[00:59:09] And God, I pray for you, will forgive us for not being more bold as we tell the world around us that, God, you called your own shots even there in Isaiah, Chapter 40, fiber's one, you mention a name Cyrus. Generations before he was born and he was the king who would come and defeat Babylon and let your people go back to Jerusalem. You called his name. Hundreds of years before he was born. Over a hundred years before.

[00:59:36] Can we worship you? That you can name people before they're born.

[00:59:41] You can tell us what their life is going to be about God, you know us in that way. And we find comfort in knowing that you know the future.

[00:59:49] Let us not worry.

[00:59:52] Let's not be anxious for tomorrow. Let us know that tomorrow you will still be holding us in your hand. And so let us draw near to you to listen to what you say. Ready to obey. Let us hang on every word. That falls from the mouth of Jesus Christ. And let us live. He has the words of eternal life. Where else would we go? But the one who could tell us our future. Let us listen to Jesus. This year at this church, we pray in Jesus name.

[01:00:19] Amen.