Jesus: Our Prophet

[0:00] Well, if we could, this evening, with the Lord's help, could we turn back to the Gospel according to Luke in chapter 4. Gospel according to Luke, chapter 4.

[0:15] And if we read again from verse 16. Luke 4 at verse 16. And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up.

[0:27] And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.

[0:44] He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind. To set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour. And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down.

[0:59] And the eyes of all the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

[1:11] Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. When we come to a passage like this one, we see that the little village congregation of Nazareth, they had the privilege of listening to the best preacher that ever lived.

[1:39] Because one Sabbath morning, with the custom of the synagogues being that visiting preachers or itinerant rabbis, that was the custom.

[1:50] The custom was to give them the opportunity to speak. And the opportunity that day fell to Jesus. On this particular occasion, it was his opportunity to speak to his local synagogue congregation.

[2:04] And Jesus, at the very beginning of his public ministry, he took the opportunity and he went into the pulpit. And the synagogue attendant, he handed him the reading for that day.

[2:19] He handed him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And Jesus opened the scroll and he found chapter 61, which we read earlier. And Jesus read the opening verses, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.

[2:35] He sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour.

[2:46] And after he had finished reading, Jesus closes the book and hands it back to the attendant and sits down. He sat down because that was the position that preachers sat.

[2:58] That's the position that they had for preaching. They didn't stand and everybody sat. They stood and the preacher sat. And so Jesus sat. He sat to preach.

[3:10] And all eyes were fixed upon him. All the eyes of the synagogue in Nazareth, they're all fixed on Jesus. And everyone is wondering, what's he going to say?

[3:20] What was the local lad going to say? Because Nazareth, as we read, was where Jesus had been brought up. And he was known to everyone in the congregation.

[3:31] Everybody knew who Jesus was. He was the carpenter's son. He was Joseph's son. He belonged to the house of Joseph and Mary. But what was he going to say in what seems to be his first ever sermon?

[3:46] What were the words that were going to come out of his mouth? What could he possibly say about Isaiah 61? And he says, Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

[4:02] And at first, everyone marveled. Everyone marveled at what came out of the mouth of this brilliant preacher. They would have all agreed that he was the best preacher that they had ever heard because they thought his words were so gracious and so loving.

[4:17] But as Jesus continued, and as he explained that the prophets in the Old Testament, they presented the message of salvation to those who weren't Jews.

[4:30] The prophets proclaimed the message of salvation to those who weren't part of Israel. And he says that, he talks about Elijah, and he says that Elijah brought the message of salvation to a widow in Zarephath.

[4:44] And Elisha brought the message of salvation to Naaman the leper, who was in Syria. They weren't in Israel. They weren't part of Israel. And what Jesus was saying was that the prophets who proclaimed the greatest message in all the world, they had no honor.

[5:00] No one welcomed them with this message of salvation. They weren't welcome in their own country of Israel. No one wanted to hear it because they had turned to worship idols and to bow down to false gods.

[5:16] But those outside Israel, those outside, those from the godless Gentile nations, they welcomed the message of salvation and they cherished it.

[5:26] But when the locals heard Jesus speak, they didn't cherish the words of the best preacher. And instead of accepting what he had to say, they very quickly changed their mind and they wanted to kill him.

[5:42] They wanted to throw him off a cliff. And their reaction to Jesus was what Jesus said. A prophet is without honor in his home country.

[5:56] He has no honor in his own country. And what Jesus is showing us is that he is the true prophet which has come from God. He is the prophet who had no honor in his own country.

[6:09] He came to his own people and his own people did not receive him. And the reason they did not receive him was because this prophet said that he had come to bring the gospel to everyone who would receive it.

[6:26] He came to bring the gospel to whosoever. He wasn't confined to Israel. The gospel was to go to whosoever.

[6:39] And that's the topic which we're focusing upon this evening. The prophet who said that he had come to bring the gospel to whosoever.

[6:51] The topic of Jesus our prophet. Jesus our prophet. And there are three things that I'd like us to look at this evening in relation to that.

[7:05] The position of the prophet the preaching of the prophet and the prophecy of the prophet. The position of the prophet the preaching of the prophet and the prophecy of the prophet.

[7:20] So if we look firstly at the position of the prophet. The position of the prophet. And over the last few weeks in our study of the catechism we were considering who.

[7:33] Who is the redeemer of God's elect? And it is of course the Lord Jesus Christ. Then we considered how. How did God become man?

[7:44] How did the word become flesh and dwell among us? And we saw that this redeemer of God's elect took to himself a true body and a reasonable soul.

[7:55] He was conceived by the Holy Spirit born of the Virgin Mary. And undoubtedly we have discovered that what we have discovered is that this redeemer is unique.

[8:06] He is unique. Not only because of what he preaches but also because of who he is. He is both God and man. He is the God man.

[8:17] Two distinct natures one person forever. And it is important for us to understand who. Who our redeemer is. It is important for us to understand how.

[8:27] How he became man. All in order so that we see what. What position he held when he became man.

[8:38] And that's the next step that the catechism takes because it now moves from the person of Jesus to the work of Jesus. And it explains that when God became man Christ as our redeemer was given a position.

[8:55] He was given a role. He was given what we often refer to as an office. He was given an office but this office was a threefold office.

[9:06] A threefold office. He was given the office of a prophet the office of a priest and the office of a king. It was a threefold office. And this word that we often use the word office it's a Latin word and it's derived from the Roman army.

[9:26] It's a military term in which when someone was given an office they were entrusted or they were charged with this special duty that was to be performed on behalf of others.

[9:40] When you were given an office you were given this specific role in which you were set apart to carry out this work on behalf of other people. And what's clear is that the word office it was never used to imply superiority.

[9:57] In fact it was quite the opposite because the term office implied doing something for someone else. It implied service. It implied sacrifice in which the one in the office was set apart for a specific duty on behalf of others.

[10:18] And so we can see why we often use this term office when we're talking about when Jesus became man. He was set apart. He was entrusted with this specific duty of being the redeemer.

[10:32] The redeemer of God's people. But what I find so interesting is that the term office it's very closely related to the title Christ.

[10:44] It's related to the title Christ. Because as we said the term office it implies has been set apart to do a specific task on behalf of other people.

[10:57] And that's what the term Christ means. Because the name Christ not only distinguishes Jesus as the Messiah who is both God and man but the name of the term Christ means anointed.

[11:10] Anointed. It means to be set apart for a specific role. And all we have to do is listen to the opening words of Jesus preaching his sermon in his local synagogue in Nazareth and we see who he is because he says the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.

[11:34] He was anointed. He was Christed. He was set apart, anointed by the Holy Spirit and entrusted with a specific duty of being a redeemer.

[11:45] and so the name Christ or anointed one or Messiah, it refers to the threefold office, prophet, priest and king.

[11:57] Because in the Old Testament, that's where it comes out so beautifully, in the Old Testament there were three specific offices in which the Israelites were set apart for, the office of prophets, priests and kings.

[12:14] And when they were set apart, they were all anointed. Each and every one of them, they were anointed, they were Christed with holy anointing oil.

[12:24] Because the holy oil, it was poured on or smeared on the prophet, the priest or the king when they were being formally installed into their office.

[12:36] And so with the threefold office of Christ, we're given this beautiful picture of his portion and his work. Because the threefold offices, of Christ's ministry were to combat the threefold misery of mankind.

[12:54] The threefold offices of Christ's ministry were to combat the threefold misery of mankind. And there was a man called James Benjamin Green, you've got it in your handout.

[13:07] He wrote A Harmony of the Westminster Standards and he wrote them in the 1950s. But when he came to discuss the topic of this threefold office, he said, as a prophet, he meets the problem of man's ignorance, supplying him with knowledge.

[13:26] As a priest, he meets the problem of man's guilt, supplying him with righteousness. As a king, he meets the problem of man's weakness and dependence, supplying him with power and protection.

[13:41] And so it's clear to us that the threefold offices of Christ's ministry, prophet, priest and king, they were to combat the threefold misery of man's ignorance, guilt and weakness.

[13:55] And this is the position he was set apart for. This is the position that Jesus was entrusted to complete and he would complete it by way of his humiliation by becoming man and his exaltation by being resurrected and to sit at the right hand of the father.

[14:12] But here in this passage at the beginning of his public ministry in the local synagogue of Nazareth, in his own community, Jesus the prophet stands up to read.

[14:26] And what he reads is that the prophet prophesied about the prophet. The prophet prophesied about the prophet.

[14:39] That's what I find amazing. The prophet Isaiah prophesied about the prophet Jesus. Isaiah prophesied that the spirit of the Lord would be upon this coming prophet.

[14:52] Which means that this specific person who was to be anointed and set apart for the salvation of his people, he would be empowered by the Holy Spirit. Which was a typical feature of the Old Testament prophets.

[15:07] Because the phrase, the spirit of the Lord is upon me. It was often used by the prophet Ezekiel every time he spoke the words of the Lord.

[15:20] Every time the Lord would speak through Ezekiel, the spirit of the Lord would come upon him. And that's what Jesus is affirming to his congregation, that he was conceived by the Holy Spirit, he was anointed by the Holy Spirit at his baptism, he was filled by the Holy Spirit when he was led into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

[15:43] And then in verse 14 we read that Luke tells us that when he returned to Galilee he came in the power of the Holy Spirit. And what we see is that everything Jesus did was because the spirit of the Lord was upon him.

[15:58] Everything he did was because the spirit had anointed him and installed him into this office in which he was commissioned and authorized for this specific task as our redeemer.

[16:13] But Jesus says that he was not only anointed, he was sent. He was sent. The Lord sent me, he says. The Lord sent me.

[16:25] Which of course refers to the specific divine mission for which the anointing and the empowering of the spirit. This is what prepared him for what he was going to do.

[16:37] He was sent as a prophet to proclaim the message of salvation and to be the message of salvation. He was sent on a mission, on a rescue mission to redeem lost sinners.

[16:52] The word of God's salvation became flesh in order to combat the threefold misery of our ignorance, our guilt and our weakness. My friend, he was sent.

[17:04] Sent into this world, given the position of our redeemer because God so loved the world that he gave, he sent his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him would not perish but have everlasting life.

[17:24] This prophet was sent in order to bring the gospel to whosoever. Whosoever. A gospel that includes everyone and excludes no one.

[17:43] The offer of the gospel is to everyone. Whosoever excludes no one, includes everyone.

[17:53] but we have to respond to that offer that Jesus makes. The position of the prophet, the position of the prophet. And secondly, we see the preaching of the prophet, the preaching of the prophet.

[18:12] And over the next couple of weeks, we'll be considering together the offices of Jesus Christ, the threefold office of prophet, priest and king. And to put it simply, his office as a prophet is to reveal.

[18:26] His office as a priest is to reconcile. His office as a king is to rule. His office as a prophet to reveal, priest to reconcile, a king to rule.

[18:40] But this evening we're considering Christ's office as a prophet. And what's clear about his office as a prophet is that he achieved this role in a twofold manner.

[18:52] Because the role of a prophet was not only to foretell future events. The role of a prophet was not just to prophesy about the future and what was going to happen and predict what would happen in the future.

[19:06] Foretelling, it was certainly part of their ministry, but it wasn't the primary role of prophets. The primary role of prophets was not to be foretellers, but forth tellers.

[19:18] They were to be foretellers. The role of a prophet was not only to speak about what would happen in generations to come, but it was to speak to the present day, the present generation that they found themselves in.

[19:34] The prophets were to proclaim God's truth and herald God's covenant and challenge any who worshipped false gods and bowed down to idols.

[19:46] Their office as the Lord's prophet was to keep order in the nation of Israel and ensure that the nation as God's covenant people worshipped the Lord.

[19:59] And if the Lord's people turned away from the Lord and turned to idols, the Lord's prophet was to call the Lord's people back into covenant faithfulness. They were to remind the people of Israel that their responsibility was to worship the Lord.

[20:13] They were to remind them that their chief end was to bring glory to the Lord and only the Lord. And that was the primary role of Elijah and Elisha that Jesus mentions here in Luke chapter 4.

[20:28] Their role was to call the people of Israel to realise the error of their ways and to repent and turn to the Lord. That was also the primary role of Isaiah whom Jesus quotes here.

[20:43] Isaiah was living in a time when the nation of Israel had divided and it was getting worse and worse and worse. And Isaiah was pleading with the Lord's people to turn back to the Lord and they weren't listening.

[20:59] The same was true for Jeremiah, the weeping prophet who wept because of the hardness of people's hearts and their reluctance to turn to the Lord.

[21:11] Then you have Amos. Amos proclaimed the message of the Lord's coming judgment and the urgency to turn to the Lord. Then you have Hosea. His life was the message of the Lord.

[21:24] A message which sought to tell the Lord's people that they had been unfaithful to the Lord by worshipping other gods. And so all these prophets they weren't just foretellers.

[21:37] They were foretellers. They went forth with a message. And for many of them it was the message of judgment. That because of Israel's disobedience and their unfaithfulness and their adultery of worshipping other gods the Lord was promising that judgment was coming.

[21:57] And all the prophets were saying judgment is coming. Judgment is coming. You need to repent because judgment is coming. But then amidst God's judgment there was always a message of hope.

[22:15] There was always a message of restoration and renewal. With the message of judgment there was always a message of salvation. Because even in Israel's context in Isaiah 61 which we read earlier, Isaiah had warned the Lord's people that they had been disobedient and their disobedience was going to be rectified and corrected through their exile into Babylon.

[22:44] And in order to teach Israel that God is not mocked and that he alone is to be worshipped, judgment was going to come in the form of exile in which many of the Israelites would become refugees in a foreign land under foreign rule and made to worship foreign gods.

[23:02] But Isaiah's words in chapter 61 they reveal that all would not be lost. Because the exile would not be the end of Israel.

[23:15] There would be restoration, there would be renewal. But more than that it was when the Messiah was to come. When the Messiah came, when the saviour of the Lord's elect people was to finally appear, he would come bringing good news.

[23:32] And so his office, Jesus' office as a prophet was to make known the way of salvation. It was to reveal the good news of God's salvation for sinners.

[23:43] And this message of salvation was to be revealed by the anointed prophet Jesus Christ. The message of salvation was a revelation.

[23:55] It was being revealed because it wasn't already known. It was being made known. It wasn't a theory. It wasn't an invention.

[24:06] It wasn't a speculation or a discovery by human reason. It was a revelation. And it was God's special revelation. It was God's special revelation to mankind.

[24:21] God had made his general revelation through the creation. Creation that spoke to everyone. and it's still speaking to everyone in which the heavens are continuously declaring the glory of God.

[24:36] They're proclaiming his handiwork day after day, night after night, where God has been revealed. God is making himself known throughout his whole creation.

[24:48] God is revealing himself. But God's special revelation is the message of salvation. revelation. And it's a special revelation because God's general revelation through creation, it wasn't enough to know how to be saved.

[25:06] The creation proclaims who God is. But it's only the special revelation that tells us how to get back to God. It's enough to reveal.

[25:17] The creation is enough to reveal and prove that there is a creator behind the creation. but it's not enough to know how to be saved. For that you need a special revelation.

[25:29] For that you need Jesus as a special revelation. He is the special revelation of God. He is the word of God incarnate.

[25:40] He's the word of God. Can I use the word unscripturated? He's written down. The revelation is written for us. He's the special revelation of God written down in scripture.

[25:55] And so when Jesus stands up in his local synagogue to read from the inscripturated special revelation of God. And when Jesus speaks he proclaims a self-revelation.

[26:10] It's all about himself. He reveals himself. He makes himself known to them. When he says the spirit of the Lord is upon me. because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.

[26:25] He has sent me to heal the broken hearted. It's all about him. But what I find so wonderful about this statement from our prophet Jesus it reveals the trinity.

[26:44] It reveals the trinity. The office of Jesus as our prophet. God is a trinitarian act of God. He has been anointed and sent.

[26:55] He's been set apart by the Holy Spirit. He has been commissioned, sent by his father. The spirit has anointed and empowered the son of God.

[27:06] But the words that the son of God preaches are the words of his father. Everything that proceeds from his mouth, everything that comes from him is from his father.

[27:18] He declares his father's message. He has been commissioned with his father's message. He has been set apart with his father's message. And that's what we find repeated throughout John's gospel because Jesus says, my doctrine is not mine, but his who sent me.

[27:39] I do not speak on my own authority, but the father who sent me. And he gave me a command that I should say and what I should speak. I have many things to say and to judge concerning you, but he who sent me is true.

[27:54] And I speak to the world those things which I heard from him. And here is the anointed prophet of Jesus. Anointed prophet Jesus, and he's declaring the special revelation of God.

[28:10] We know that all the Old Testament prophets when they spoke, they always began with the saying, thus saith the Lord. But this prophet, Jesus, he forth tells with the words, thus saith my father.

[28:27] Thus saith my father. And the message this prophet preaches is a self revelation of good news. Our prophet Jesus was anointed to preach the gospel.

[28:41] It literally means that he was anointed to evangelize with the good news. He was to gospel the gospel. And this special revelation was to be a message of hope and salvation.

[28:53] It was to be preached to those in need. It was to be preached to you and to me. It was to be preached to the poor, to the brokenhearted, to the blind and to the oppressed.

[29:06] And my friend, it was for them that this prophet came. For you and for me, it was for them that this prophet preached, this inscripturated incarnate revelation which came from the father through the spirit, spoken by the son.

[29:23] It was to be the unsearchable riches to the poor. It was to be healing balm to the brokenhearted. It was to be a message of freedom to those who are in shackles and bondage.

[29:36] It was to be light to those who are shrouded and blinded by darkness. Well, my friend, God's word truly is a special revelation. A special revelation not only because this word is the power of God unto salvation to them that believe, but also because this word, this word is cherished by every one of the Lord's people.

[30:05] Cherished. I hope you cherish God's word. Because it's a word that has been translated into so many different languages, distributed throughout the world, just because it's precious.

[30:21] Because it's precious. It's more precious than gold, said the psalmist. It's sweeter than honey. It's sharper than any two-edged sword. It's quick and it's powerful.

[30:34] And it's so precious because it's a word that brings liberty and freedom from the power of sin and death. It brings comfort when others can't.

[30:49] It brings healing when wounds are deep. It brings instruction when the way seems uncertain. It brings guidance when we are afraid.

[31:00] it speaks when we are left silent. It issues commands when we are not what we ought to be. It brings correction when we are wrong.

[31:13] This word, my friend, this word is so beautiful that the more we read it, the more we will fall in love with the prophet who is speaking through it.

[31:26] the more you spend time with this word, the more you will know more about the prophet. And then you will confess.

[31:41] He is altogether lovely. But you know, you know what I find so wonderful about the word inscripturated, the word of God, is that it gives to us the promise that these words, these words from the word incarnate, the prophet whose lips are full of grace, they not only teach and instruct and guide and command, but his promise is these words will not return empty.

[32:22] They will not return empty. our prophet Jesus says in Isaiah 55, my word that goes forth from my mouth, it shall not return to me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.

[32:45] And my friend, this word has been sent to us. It has been sent from heaven itself, given to us, freely given to us.

[32:58] I don't think you know how privileged you are tonight. You have God's word, the way of salvation, presented to you in your own language.

[33:11] And for some of you, you still deny it, you still ignore it. but this is God's word. He has made himself known, he's made known to us the way of salvation, so that we will know the Christ of Calvary, so that we will know this prophet who proclaims to us that he loved us and he gave himself for us.

[33:35] I hope you know how privileged you are, and that you come to know this prophet, the position of the prophet, the preaching of the prophet, prophet. And lastly we see the prophecy of the prophet.

[33:49] The prophecy of the prophet. He says in verse 20, verse 20, and he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down.

[34:01] And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him, and he began to say to them, today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. it was the great reformer John Calvin who said, Jesus Christ was sent to perform the office of a prophet by preaching the truth, by fulfilling the prophecies, by teaching and doing the will of his father.

[34:32] He was to preach the truth, fulfill prophecies, teach and do the will of his father. And so as we said earlier, Christ's office as a prophet was twofold.

[34:43] He was a foreteller. He preached and revealed the special revelation of God and the way of salvation. And as we said, Jesus, our prophet, was also a foreteller in which he foretold future events.

[34:59] He prophesied about the future. But as the culminating and climactic prophet of God's special revelation, he was the fulfillment of all the Old Testament prophecies.

[35:13] He was the fulfillment of everything that had gone before him. He was the seed of the woman who was described way back in Genesis 3.

[35:25] He was the I am who Moses met in the burning bush in Exodus 3. He was the shepherd of whom David spoke in Psalm 23.

[35:35] He was the redeemer that Job referred to in Job 19 when he said, I know that my redeemer liveth. He was the suffering servant who is described so clearly to us in Isaiah 53.

[35:50] He was the son of righteousness whom Malachi mentions who would come with healing in his wings. He was Jehovah Sidkenu, the restorer of Israel. In Jeremiah 23, he was the wonderful counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting father, the prince of peace in Isaiah 9.

[36:10] And my friend, there are so, so many more. He's all over scripture. He was the prophet who fulfilled all the prophecies.

[36:21] He fitted the description that was promised, the description of this messianic savior. But he not only fulfilled all the prophecies in his person and who he was.

[36:34] He also fulfilled all the prophecies in his work. Everything he did. All the gospel writers, when you read through the gospels, all they can see about the work of Jesus is that everything was accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled.

[36:57] He was born of a virgin, that the scripture might be fulfilled. Sent to Egypt, that the scripture might be fulfilled. He grew up in Nazareth, that the scripture might be fulfilled.

[37:09] He performed miracles, that the scripture might be fulfilled. He spoke in parables, that the scripture might be fulfilled. He entered Jerusalem on a donkey, that the scripture might be fulfilled.

[37:22] He was flogged for thirty pieces of silver, that the scripture might be fulfilled. His disciples deserted him that the Scripture might be fulfilled. They gambled over his garments that the Scripture might be fulfilled.

[37:35] He was crucified between two malefactors, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. He cried, I thirst, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. None of his bones were broken that the Scripture might be fulfilled.

[37:48] He was raised from the dead that the Scripture might be fulfilled. with all this prophet this prophet he has closed the book of prophecy and he sat down and he says to us today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing he has closed the book of prophecy it's a closed revelation this inscripturated and incarnate revelation is now a closed revelation the canon of scripture is now closed and from Genesis to revelation we have the special revelation of this prophet and he speaks through every single word many people today have their Bible in their Bible the words of Christ in red where every time Jesus speaks the words are printed with red ink and there's nothing wrong with these Bibles

[38:56] I have one at home but I was thinking that by only highlighting the words of Jesus in red it implies that Jesus didn't speak all the words that are in black but as our prophet he spoke every word and every word is his word every sentence is his sentence every phrase is his phrase he has spoken every word every word points to him every word speaks about him it was Spurgeon that said all roads lead to London so also every page of scripture leads to Jesus my friend our prophet Jesus is to be found on every page in this Bible every page which means that all of scripture should be in red and it means that all of scripture should be read this entire book should be written with red ink this entire book should be read from cover to cover because it's all his it's all his and it's his final revelation it's the final revelation of this prophet there are to be no further revelations there are to be no more prophecies nothing is to be added to this book no word from

[40:21] Joseph Smith or the Pope or any interpretation is to be added because the prophet warns us in the last chapter of this book Revelation 22 if anyone adds to the prophecy of this book then God will add to them the plagues that are mentioned in this book and if anyone takes away the words from the prophecy of this book then God will take away their part in the book of life because this book is a closed book it's a closed book but because it's a closed book the words are final the words are authoritative the words are inerrant they are infallible they are without mistake they are immutable they do not change but as the last prophet Jesus may have closed the book of prophecy but he hasn't fulfilled everything there is one or two prophecies that are yet to be fulfilled that's the prophecy concerning the ingathering of the Jews and the return of Jesus Christ the second coming and the judgment of this world is yet to take place we are in the last days and one of the last things that this prophet says in this book in his book in Revelation 22 behold I come quickly blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book the last prophecy which is yet to be fulfilled is the ingathering of the Jews and then the return of Jesus Christ and this prophecy it's given to us in Matthew 24 and Matthew 25 where Jesus prophesies and he's talking about his return and he says heaven and earth will pass away but my words they will not pass away as in the days of Noah so also will the days of the coming of the son of man be and he talks about Noah he reminds them in the days of the flood they were eating and drinking marrying giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered into the ark and they didn't know of God's judgment until the flood came and took them all away so also will the coming of the son of man be watch therefore says Jesus for you do not know what hour your lord is coming but know this that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief was coming he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into therefore you must also be ready for the son of man is coming at an hour when you do not expect and when the son of man comes in his glory this is all

[43:20] Matthew 25 and he says when the son of man comes in his glory with the holy angels with him and he sits on his throne all the nations will be gathered before him everyone will be there and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd divides the sheep from the goats and he will set the sheep on his right hand he says and the goats on his left hand he will say to those on his right hand come come you blessed of my father inherit the kingdom prepared for you from before the foundation of the wine he will say to those on his left depart from me you cursed into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels and my friend this is a prophecy that this prophet will fulfill he has fulfilled every other prophecy so make sure of it he will fulfill this one he will fulfill this one so be ready be ready be ready

[44:36] I cannot give you any better advice but to be ready because we do not know at what hour he will come he might not come tonight but he might come for you tonight we don't know but at an hour when you least expect he says the son of man will come but do do you want to know why he hasn't come yet do you want to know why he hasn't come yet the apostle Peter tells us that the reason why judgment hasn't come is all because he is long suffering towards us he's long suffering he's not willing that any should perish but that all will come to repentance that's the will of

[45:41] God for our salvation that's the will of this prophet he's not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance he desires that all will be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth this prophet longs for us to accept his word his special revelation which has been given to us he longs that you will come to him and find in him eternal life before it is too late before it is too late I don't know what holds you back I really don't this prophet has spoken to you for years and he's still speaking

[46:43] Jesus our prophet he's revealed to us the position of the prophet the preaching of the prophet the prophecy of the prophet and this prophet he may not have been accepted into the hearts of those in the congregation of Nazareth but my hope and my longing is that this prophet will be accepted in the hearts of this congregation in Barbas because today he says the scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing but are you listening are you listening may the Lord bless these thoughts to us let us pray O Lord our gracious

[47:43] God we give thanks unto thee that Lord a great prophet one who has proclaimed and revealed to us the unsearchable riches and help us Lord we pray not to neglect them not to walk away from them but to hear them with gladness to accept them with joy and to know that thou art one who is faithful to every promise O Lord bless us we pray bless us in the week that lies ahead a week that seems to go by in such a moment but yet Lord we do not know what a day or even an hour may bring O Lord keep us we ask keep us on mercy's ground until we find thee that thou wouldst go before us and do us good for Jesus sake Amen shall conclude by singing in Psalm 147 Psalm 147 in the

[48:45] Scottish Psalter page 446 Psalm 147 singing from the beginning down to the verse marked 3 Praise ye the Lord for it is good praise to our God to sing for it is pleasant and to praise it is a comely thing God doth build up Jerusalem and he it is alone that the dispersed of Israel doth gather into one those that are broken in their heart and grieved in their minds he healeth and their painful wounds he tenderly abinds these verses of Psalm 147 to God's praise praise ye the Lord for it is good praise to our

[49:46] God to sing for it is pleasant time to praise it is a comely day God doth build up Jerusalem and keep it in the Lord that the dispense of Israel the gathering to one those paths are broken in their heart and keep it in their minds he healeth and their faithful wounds he tenderly abides the grace of the Lord

[51:18] Jesus Christ the love of God the Father and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all now and forevermore Amen amen