Today's Word Radio

Brett Meador: I love Bible prophecy because it leaves the fingerprints of God on this book that you hold in your hand. This book is the inspired Word of God, and prophecy is one of the things that leaves a supernatural mark on the Bible that no other book, no other person, actually has been successful in trying to figure out what the future holds. I love that the Bible is full of prophecy, proving its validity.

Guest (Male): The Old Testament book of Zechariah is packed with prophecy of numerous things we've already seen fulfilled to various things yet to come. As Pastor Brett Meador opens today's word to one particular prophecy found in Zechariah 9:9, we'll learn not only why studying prophecy is so important but how we can trust its accuracy and what our response to it should be.

Brett Meador: Zechariah 9. We have a single verse here that I'd like to draw your attention to that's powerful and full of so much we could spend weeks just talking about this single verse. But it's a word of prophecy. So far in our study, we've been tackling the eight visions of Zechariah, and they've been amazing and a little crazy until you really see the detail and what it means. Then you realize it's about the end times and prophecy.

Much of Zechariah is about prophecy, both of the first coming of Christ and also of the second coming of Christ. We have a little bit of both of that in this single verse of prophecy. It's Zechariah chapter nine, verse nine, our text for the day: "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass."

There's a bunch of prophecies in here about the coming Messiah. Now, the word Messiah is a word that we Gentiles in the Christian church hear and hear angels singing in the background. We're talking about the Messiah. But if you're a Hebrew person, the word Messiah means King. They called David the Messiah, and King Saul the Messiah, and any of their kings.

That was what they called it, but I came to this understanding when I was in Israel one time and one of my Jewish friends was saying, "Brett, Messiah is a word we use all the time. It's the king." But the Jews would agree there is a Messiah that is the Messiah, the one that's coming that they're looking for, that they hope for. The Jews to this day are looking for the Messiah.

The problem is when the Messiah really came, they missed him. Why did the Jews miss the coming of Jesus the Messiah? I think our verse here allows us to talk about some of this because it's important that we don't make the same mistake. We can learn from a mistake the Jews made. We have to be careful to remember the Jews are smarter than we are in a lot of reasons; that's why they're God's chosen people. They're just in rebellion.

But this idea of the Messiah coming, there's a bunch of things that we can't ignore. You could do a whole week's worth of teaching just on these three attributes that are described for us in our verse here. Check this out. There are three things, attributes about Jesus, and the first one, this Messiah that's coming, is that he's just. It says right there that the daughter of Jerusalem is to shout out because, "Behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just."

Does that sound good, a leader who is just? Do we need that today? Our world, we've got so much corruption in our world of leadership. It's so easy as Americans to look at the corruption of leadership in Russia, or in Ukraine, or in wherever. I just see corruption everywhere you look in the world, and that's what sounds so good. When Jesus the Messiah comes, he's going to be just, and the world's not even going to know what to do with that. A just king means justice for the world, and that's what Jesus is going to bring.

The second attribute that's listed here is salvation. Jesus declared himself when he came the first time, his first coming: "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes to the Father, but by me." Salvation is of Jesus the Messiah. It says that right here: "Behold, thy king comes unto thee: he is just, and having salvation."

Now, depending on what translation you have, is it salvation for him or is it salvation for us? Even my margin, if you have a King James like I do, some of your margins will read this: that Jesus is saving himself. Some of you might say, "Well, that's great for him, but what about us?"

But the idea is one thing you have to understand. When the Messiah comes, he would die on the cross for our sins. They would say, "He saved others, but can he save himself?" And the answer is yes, he can. As he died on the cross, he was then buried, and then he rose from the ground. He even said, "If you destroy this body, in three days I will raise it up."

By his resurrection, he's called in the New Testament the first fruit of the resurrection, which means because he resurrected, we get to resurrect. We win because he won. So it's a nuance here where it says he brings salvation, and the question, depending on what translation you have, is it to himself or to the world? And the answer is yes, both. That's the idea. When Jesus saved himself by raising up from the dead, in so doing, he saved us from our sins.

I love this idea of salvation. I can't talk about this enough. If you're new to Christianity, this is the number one topic for you: that you're a sinner deserving of death and hell, and so am I. But there's good news. That's why it's called gospel. The fancy word gospel means good news.

The good news is that God so loved the world—that's you and me—that he gave his only begotten Son—that's Jesus—that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life. You've got to believe, have faith that Jesus died on the cross for your sins. So the first thing you do is repent of your sins. Acknowledge that you're a sinner before God.

Then when you acknowledge that, "Lord, I'm a sinner," then accept the work of the cross. Romans chapter 10, verse 9 and 10 says, "If you confess with your mouth, and believe in your heart the Lord Jesus, that God raised him up from the dead, you will be saved." So that's the main thing today. You've got to see that as the most important thing we could ever talk about is if you're not a Christian, you're still in your sin.

The Bible says that when you die, or if the rapture of the church happens, you'll be left behind, or after the tribulation. If you never accept Christ and the work of the cross, then you will be judged for your sins, and the sad news is the wages of sin is eternal death. But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ. Don't miss that.

So that's huge, the gospel message. So the attributes about Jesus and this messianic verse that is foretelling the coming of the Messiah, Jesus: he's just, salvation, but the last one is interesting. He's called lowly. Lowly, which means meek and humble.

Did you know that Jesus only made one autobiographical statement about his character and his nature? Matthew chapter 11, where Jesus talked about, "Come unto me all ye who are weary and heavy laden, I will give you rest." He said, "Take my yoke upon me, learn of me; for I am meek and lowly of heart." That's what Jesus said about his personality and nature.

That goes against everything our world wants you to be. They want you to be prideful and arrogant, and puff yourself up and let people think you're an influencer and that you're a big deal. But as it turns out, that's just ugliness. That's humanity. Jesus came meek and lowly.

Now, this is interesting, and this is where I think the Jews made a big mistake. We have to be humble about the Jews' mistake. But the Jews made a big mistake. How did they miss the Messiah? Because the first coming of Christ was foretold in the Old Testament Hebrew Bible. There were more than 300 specific prophecies about the first coming of Christ.

How in the world did they miss it? They seemed to be almost purposefully naive about the first coming of Christ. For crying out loud, the Babylonian Magi were coming wondering more about Jesus the Messiah than the Jews were. Do you remember how the story falls out? The Wise Men come from the east and they consult with the Jewish leadership of that time and say, "Your Messiah is supposed to come. Tell us what city he's supposed to be born in because we've heard that the Hebrew Bible has a prophecy."

The Jews were like, "Ah, it's Bethlehem is where he's going to be." That's what they said. They said, "Okay, thanks." And the Wise Men went and sought out Jesus in Bethlehem while the Jews just sat around. "Yeah, somewhere in Bethlehem. Good luck finding him."

But they could care less. In fact, Herod the Great wanted to find him more than the Jews did. Herod asked the Wise Men, "Where did you find him?" And the Wise Men gave him a line because they realized Herod wasn't wanting to worship the Messiah but wanted to kill him because the word Messiah means King and Herod didn't want another king around. So he was going to off the Messiah. That was his plan.

But isn't it amazing the Bible gave the Jews all this including Zechariah 9:9 that says he will come riding on the colt of a donkey? That would be Palm Sunday when Jesus would ride his triumphal entry, as it's called, riding into Jerusalem as the King of Kings, the Messiah.

There was a tiny, tiny little group of people saying, "Hosanna! Save now! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" You know, Palm Sunday. But most of the Jews were saying, "Yeah, whatever." In fact, the religious leaders, do you remember what they did when Jesus rode in on Palm Sunday? The religious leaders came to Jesus and said, "Hey, tell these people to stop saying this."

The reason they were saying that, they knew that these people were claiming that this is the Messiah. But the religious leaders said, "You're not the Messiah, so tell them to stop saying that." Do you remember what Jesus said? Jesus said, "If I stop these guys, the rocks will cry out and worship." Talk about a rock concert.

All that to say, this Jesus was the Messiah and the Jews were rejecting him. In fact, after a few days after the triumphal entry, there's Jesus standing before Pontius Pilate and the people are crying out, "Crucify him! We will not have this man rule over us!" They despised him and they rejected him.

Interesting, that's what Isaiah the prophet talked about. See, the Jews when they were thinking for their Messiah, they wanted a Messiah that was large and in charge. But our verse says he's actually going to be lowly. Now, how did they miss it? They took the scriptures talking about his first coming and they swept those under the rug because the Jews—and I don't blame them for this, I mean this is probably what we would have done in their shoes or sandals—we would have said, "Yeah, we don't like those either because they needed a king that was a conqueror, that was powerful."

They were hoping for a real powerful king, and so when they would read a verse like this, they would sort of eat the fish but spit out the bones, which would be a bad thing to do with a verse like this. They loved the first part. "Rejoice, O daughter! Shout, O daughter of Zion! Behold, your King comes!" Yeah, our King! They liked that part. "And he will come who will be just." Oh, we need justice!

Because like in the first century, the Jews were dealing with all kinds of injustice. The Jews had been treated horribly for millennia. Enslaved in Egypt for 450 years. Under the iron fist of Rome for almost 200 years. Like, the Romans were just brutal and enslaved the Jews. Be that as it may, the Jews didn't want someone lowly riding on a colt. That's the part of the verse they say, "Yeah, whatever. We like the part where it's a king coming, and we like that he's just, and we also like that he has salvation because we need salvation from the Romans."

So it was the way, it was sort of a lens that the Jews would look at their Old Testament Hebrew Bible looking for their Messiah. They loved the question, was he lowly or was he a reigning king? Which one was it? And the Jews, they didn't realize he would come in two advents. That is, two separate comings. They didn't know that.

So the prophecies about Jesus's first coming tend to be more the lowly stuff because he came the first time humbly. He wasn't a conquering king. He came as a carpenter from Nazareth. He didn't come to judge the world; he came to be judged by the world in his first coming. Was he lowly or a reigning king? And so there's scriptures that we could talk about, like when Zechariah says that he was lowly, like our verse here today, and he was riding on the colt of the foal of a donkey.

You think, is that stuff the Jews embraced? They didn't embrace that part. That's why they missed the Messiah. Even when he's riding in on a colt, it didn't mean anything to them because they swept that scripture under the rug. Same thing we do. They liked verses like from Jeremiah. In Jeremiah where it says, "Behold, the days come saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous branch," that's another name for the Messiah, "and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth."

They loved this stuff. So when they were looking for the Messiah during the time of Christ, they were looking for a king that was going to reign and prosper. Was he a suffering servant or was he a conquering king? That's what the Jews, they didn't know the suffering servant part because they didn't care to really think about it that much.

Where did you see the suffering servant part in the Old Testament? Well, the messianic scripture of Isaiah 52, verse 14 speaks of the Messiah saying, "As many were astonished at thee; his visage," or the way he looked, "was so marred more than any man, his form more than the sons of men." This is the King James way of saying he was beaten beyond recognition. Marred, wounded more than any other person. Like, you couldn't even recognize him because he was beaten so badly.

By the way, have you ever wondered why people had a hard time recognizing Jesus after he rose from the grave? There's a lot of theories. One theory is possible if this prophecy is true, which it is. We know Jesus was beaten. He had his back whipped with a flagellum. He had a crown of thorns smashed on his head. I mean, he had a lot of scars and wounds. Some people believe that this Isaiah passage says he was so scarred and wounded that in his resurrection—question, were his scars still there after he rose from the grave?

Yes! Remember? Thomas said, "Unless I can put my finger in the hole of his hand." Jesus is like, "Okay, check it out. There's my hole in my hand. Put your finger in." And that's an interesting thing: that Jesus was scarred and maybe that's why they didn't recognize him. And it was only after he started talking, they're like, "Oh, you're the Messiah. You are Jesus!"

But the Jews, they weren't looking for a wounded, scarred, bloodied Messiah. They wanted a conquering king. They liked what Daniel would say, like the book of Daniel speaking of the coming Messiah. In Daniel chapter seven, verse 26 through 27, speaking of the Antichrist and then the true Christ. But let's jump ahead to verse 27. It says, "And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the most High," that's the Jews, "whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him," speaking of the Messiah. That all the kingdoms and dominions and powers will serve the Messiah.

The Jews were like, "Yeah, we like that idea! Our Jewish Messiah, the whole world will have to serve him!" So it's like they would pick and choose their scriptures. Now, what that does is it makes it so they don't understand the wounded, humble, lowly riding on a colt scriptures because they didn't know he would do that in his first coming. But they love the idea of the conquering king and the powerful leader, King of Kings, Lord of Lords. Will he come to be the King or will he come to be killed? And the Jews struggled with that.

Now, here's what's interesting. Those prophecies concerning the first coming of Christ, somebody went through and counted how many times those specific prophecies of the first coming were in the Hebrew Bible. 300 in number. Right around 300. 300 specific prophecies. One of those is here in Zechariah 9:9 in our text: that he would ride on a colt of a donkey into Jerusalem. The King would come like that.

Peter Stoner did a work called "Science Speaks" and he was a mathematician/scientist who calculated the probability of just eight of those 300 prophecies concerning Jesus's first coming. What are the probabilities? And he came up with this mathematical number: 1 in 10 to the 17th power. The actual, I think the way you would say this is one in 100 quadrillion. That's the number. The odds of that—would you take those odds? That's the odds of eight of the prophecies of Jesus coming exactly to be fulfilled in one person.

And eight prophecies weren't fulfilled; 300 specific prophecies. That he'd be born in Bethlehem, born of a virgin, ride in on a colt of a donkey, live in Egypt for a while, live in Nazareth. Like, there was a bunch of things in the Old Testament specifically spoken of Jesus, prophecies concerning his first coming.

The reason that I share this with you is I love Bible prophecy because it leaves the fingerprints of God on this book that you hold in your hand. Your college professors, they'll say, "Oh, it's just a book of literature and it's this and that." This book is the inspired Word of God, and prophecy is one of the things that leaves a supernatural mark on the Bible that no other book, no other person, actually has been successful in trying to figure out what the future holds.

I love that the Bible is full of prophecy, proving its validity. Other people have tried to make predictions. There's been some pretty bad predictions. One of my favorites is the prediction the official from White Star Line speaking of the firm's newly built flagship, Titanic. In 1912, he declared that the ship was unsinkable. And you guys know the rest of the story on that one.

In 1939, that bastion of truth, The New York Times, said the problem with TV in 1939 was that people had to glue their eyes to a screen and the average American would never find time for that. Wrong. We could go on and on. One of my favorites is Voltaire, the philosopher. He predicted that the Bible would be virtually extinct within 50 years of his death. He said the Bible's on its way to extinction and he said you'll only find a Bible in a museum 50 years after I die.

As it turns out, some of the same printing presses that Voltaire used to print his secular, atheistic, humanistic works that he did, those same printing presses after he died were used—and it's arguably that some of those were actually in his own house that he lived in—Bibles were printed by the thousands by those same printing presses. So not only was he wrong about the Bible, they were printing up Bibles with his printing press.

Great story, but interesting predictions are fraught with peril when you start making predictions. But the Bible, that's what prophecy does. In fact, I'd like you to jot down five things that we see here in prophecy, and Zechariah 9:9 is packed full of Bible prophecy so it gives us sort of a platform. Number one: the first thing about the Bible and Bible prophecy is it proclaims future events.

What do you mean, Brett, about future events? Well, God claims that this is what sets him apart from all other gods and all other religions. Did you know in Islam, Muhammad only made one prediction: that he would return to Jerusalem? But he never did. That's interesting.

Jesus made hundreds of predictions and most of them have all come to pass. The ones that haven't are still yet in the future to happen. But Isaiah chapter 46, verse 9 and 10, this is what God says about himself. He says, "Remember the former things of old: for I am God, there is none else; I am God, there is none like me; declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done."

In other words, I declare the things that have yet to happen, "saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure." Isaiah 46 is saying God says I'm different than all other gods because I know the beginning from the end. I know the story, the whole story, and what I say is going to happen, will happen. It's powerful prophecy from the Bible.

Now, I already told you there were 300 references to the first coming of Christ in the Old Testament. How many references are there to the second coming of Christ? As it turns out, 1,800. 1,800 references to the second coming of Christ. 17 Old Testament books give prominence to the theme of the second coming of Christ, like the book of Daniel, Isaiah, Ezekiel. 17 of the Old Testament books do that.

Of the 260 chapters in the New Testament, there are more than 300 references to the Lord's return, and if you do the math on this, one out of every 30 verses in the New Testament is speaking about the second coming of Christ. Is it kind of a big deal? Isn't it amazing that churches are just ignoring Bible prophecy and not want to talk about the second coming of Christ?

But they're missing out on a huge part of the Bible. In fact, the book of Revelation of all books, it's the only book of the Bible that promises the people that read that book what happens to them. You'll be blessed! He said the people that read this, the churches that read the book of Revelation, you'll get a particular blessing if you do that. So, God is the only one that can accurately tell the future. So that's the first one. Bible prophecy proclaims the future.

Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador wrapping up just the first of five fruits of biblical prophecy that he draws from a revealing look into Zechariah, and we'll conclude this second half of this message next time on Today's Word. And stay right there as Pastor Brett will also join me in just a moment.

Today's Word is the radio ministry of Athey Creek Church, just outside of Portland, Oregon, where Pastor Brett Meador's the senior pastor. Our vision on Today's Word is to proclaim the hope of salvation and help people know Jesus through careful study of the Bible. We invite you to find out more by going to todayswordradio.com. If you've missed any portion of this study, you'll find all of Pastor Brett's messages online at todayswordradio.com.

Well, Pastor Brett has joined me now. Brett, as this Today's Word radio program continues to expand across the nation, there are more people who want to know how this community at Athey Creek Church has grown like it has.

Brett Meador: When people ask me that question, I chuckle because the verse that comes to mind is one where scriptures say the Lord uses the weak and the foolish to confound the wise. And we chuckle because the Lord really does use very imperfect people and so we really can't take any credit for what the Lord's doing here.

But in short, I think what we're seeing at Athey Creek is simply the power of the Word of God. I believe people are seriously hungry for the Bible. There's been a trend in churches, and I don't want to sound critical, but I think there's this pressure on young pastors to teach exciting, new, topical topics.

Sadly, in some circles, it's become sort of a TED talk sort of format of churches. In my humble opinion, we need to get back to the whole Bible. Acts 20:27 is where Paul told the elders at Ephesus, he said, "I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God." And so what we're seeing at Athey is just verse by verse, chapter by chapter, through the Bible.

And people, when they come and they realize I'm not trying to be flashy or come up with anything new, but kind of old school J. Vernon McGee, people think I'm coming up with something new going through the Bible verse by verse, but it's actually really old what I'm doing. And I think our culture, I think that's what people really are hungry for. And so that's what I think one of the big reasons we're seeing growth in our church and really exponential growth because of His word.

Guest (Male): Absolutely, Pastor Brett. Thank you for that. And if you'd like more information about Athey Creek Church, Pastor Brett Meador, or Today's Word, you can visit our website at todayswordradio.com. That's todayswordradio.com. Well, that's all the time we have for today. Next time, Pastor Brett Meador uncovers the heavenly hope of prophecy. Today's Word with Pastor Brett Meador is an outreach of Athey Creek Church in West Linn, Oregon.