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Was the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ an afterthought? A last ditch attempt by God to clean up the mess Adam and Eve made? Or was it part of God's plan from the very beginning? Welcome to Christ in Prophecy. I'm Tim Moore, Director and Senior Evangelist for Lamb and Lion Ministries. I'm joined, as always, by Nathan Jones, our Internet evangelist. Nathan and I are glad you've joined us on this Easter weekend as we open Scripture to explore Bible prophecies of about the resurrection that spanned from the Old to the New Testament.
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As you study scripture, it becomes clear that the resurrection should not have been a surprise. It was prophesied long before it happened. But Tim, there are many Christians and, well, even some pastors who only read the New Testament. They kind of assume that the Old Testament is ancient history and just no longer relevant. But Jesus was there from the beginning. God revealed 109 specific prophecies about Jesus first coming, including many about his resurrection. And there are hundreds more prophecies that have yet to be fulfilled about his second coming.
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That's exactly right, Nathan. The resurrection was well established in prophetic scripture. From the Psalms of David to the prophecies of Isaiah to the symbolic foreshadowing as told through the lives of Joseph and Isaac, God made it abundantly clear that His Messiah would not remain in the grave. Later, Jesus himself prophesied his own resurrection. The evidence is overwhelming.
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As we celebrate Easter, which we prefer to call Resurrection Sunday, let's look carefully at the resurrection in Bible prophecy to gain a better understanding of what really happened on the cross and what's still to come. Stay with us. We're going to unpack these amazing prophecies and discover why the resurrection changes everything. And if you'd like to know more about Lamb and Lion Ministries, please visit us at our website@christinprophecy.org There's a simple
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key to understanding Bible prophecy and it's found in Revelation 19:10 which says the testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy. Everything God has revealed in the Bible points to Jesus from the beginning to the end times. Indeed, all of human history is his story and the future is his as well, because Jesus is returning soon. Find out more when you go to
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christinprophecy.org welcome back to our discussion of the resurrection in prophecy. Nathan, you made a point that we prefer to call this particular weekend Resurrection Sunday or Resurrection Weekend. I know traditionally it's been called Easter, but that really is a gentile word for what points to the fulfilled promise that Jesus would rise from the dead. And he certainly did that first. Resurrection Sunday.
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Absolutely. Well, let's begin our journey through resurrection prophecies by looking at the Old Testament. Now folks, remember these prophecies were written centuries before Jesus was born, and in such amazing detail. Well, let's start with the Psalms. And David's Psalms are filled with relatable emotions and prophecies about Israel's ultimate kingdom.
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Yes, as a matter of fact, in Psalm 16:10, David records for you, the Lord God will not abandon my soul to Sheol, nor will you allow your Holy One to undergo decay. And as we look back into the life of David, we know that David died. He was buried, buried with his fathers, or gathered to his fathers, as they used to say, and he underwent decay. There is no body of David that is still around today for us to look or find. But that referred to Jesus as the Messiah who would not undergo decay. And the apostles quoted Psalm 16 when they were preaching about the resurrection. As a matter of fact, on the day of Pentecost, Peter declared that God had raised Jesus from the dead in fulfillment of this specific prophecy that in Acts 2, 25, 28. And later, Paul preached the same message from Psalm 16 in Antioch in Acts chapter 13.
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You know, it's interesting, Tim, when you go to Israel, you can go to David's tomb. And I don't know why they think it's really David's tomb, but there's a giant coffin there and supposedly David is in there. David, if he was the fulfillment of prophecy, could not fulfill it because he died. Someone greater had to be fulfilling it. And that is the Messiah. And that's why, Tim, I love Psalm 22. It's got to be one of the most remarkable and vivid prophetic passages about the resurrection. It literally, folks, if you want to know what Jesus thought while he was on the cross, then Psalm 22 is a step by step prophecy of about the Messiah dying on the cross. And what's really interesting too is that there's a transition from Christ suffering to Christ in victory. And we believe at verse 21 that the Lord there is prophesying the fact that he had beaten death by his resurrection.
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Absolutely. So, you know, we call this the song or the cry of anguish, and yet praise written of course, by David. And yet, as you read down through Psalm 22, you realize that some of these elements that David is talking about could not possibly describe himself. It says, I can count all my bones, look at, they stare at me, they divide my garments among them, and my clothing for my clothing they cast lots. That's in chapter 22, verse 17 and 18. There's no record that David's clothing was ever gambled for that there were lots cast for them, that he was ever so skinny as to have all his bones be counted and be on display publicly. And and yet, as you said later, David clearly makes a statement of tough faith. As a matter of fact, the whole psalm ends with David declaring that all of the earth will serve the Lord, prosperity will serve him, and it will be told of the Lord to the coming generation. They will come and will declare his righteousness to a people who will be born, in other words, again carrying forward this good news that he, the Lord God has performed it. And we believe that as Jesus hung on the cross, it's recorded in the New Testament, he said it is finished. But really it's the, the same phrasing that this psalm ends with. God, the Lord God has performed it. He has finished his work there at the cross.
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Isn't that amazing that a Psalm written 1000 years before Jesus was crucified, word for word, describes exactly what Jesus went through. And Jesus even quoted parts of it, which means his excruciating experience on the cross was recorded in detail a thousand times. Tim, that just continues to blow my mind. Just like Isaiah's suffering servant prophecy. Folks, we're going to skip up to Isaiah 53, and we learn here in Isaiah 53:5 that Jesus would be pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities. Well, folks, this is a prophecy about the fact that Jesus was crucified. Now bear in mind that the crucifixion wouldn't be invented until 300 years before Jesus was crucified. And yet Isaiah is writing this well over 700 years before that time.
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As a matter of fact, Isaiah says very clearly there in verse 8 that the Messiah, the one he is pointing to, the suffering servant, would be cut off, off out of the land of the living. But that's not the end. He goes on to say that this same individual would see his offspring and that the Lord God the Father would prolong his days. He also says in verse 11, as the result of the anguish of his soul, he will see light and be satisfied. And we know that Jesus Christ again saw the light of life, and that happened after his suffering and his death. Well, this idea of being buried and actually for three days and three nights and is also contained in the book of Jonah. Jesus himself referred to the sign of Jonah when some of the Jews asked for additional signs he said, no sign will be given you except the sign of Jonah. And that prophet records that he was in the belly of a sea monster, a great fish, some people think a whale. We don't know exactly what creature it was, but he was there for three days and three nights. And so the Son of Man shall be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, as recorded in Matthew 12:40.
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You know, there's other people in the Old Testament that were symbolic or types of the Messiah, and one of them is Joseph. The life of Joseph beautifully foreshadows the resurrection.
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It certainly does. The fact that his brothers betrayed him, just as Jesus was betrayed by his Jewish brethren. The fact that he was thrown into a pit and his father was told that he was dead. But Joseph was rescued from the pit in what we can see is sort of a symbolic resurrection. And later, Joseph presented himself to his brothers. They received him as their savior, little less savior. Just as Jesus one day will reappear to the Jewish people when they are willing to cry out, baruch haba b' shem adonai. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. And they will receive their Savior. You know, Nathan, we could go on about the parallel prophecies of Abraham and Isaac. How Abraham was called to sacrifice his only son, but his hand was stayed. And yet God would indeed send his only begotten Son on behalf of our sins and our eternal life.
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Absolutely. The writer of Hebrews in 11:19 wrote, Considering that God is able to raise people even from the dead, now, that was a reference to Abraham. Well, that's exactly what God did. Jesus raised himself from the dead. He beat death, and by beating death, he became our savior. Old Testament prophecy repeatedly reveals that the Messiah would suffer, die, and be raised to life. But God didn't stop with these ancient prophecies. When Jesus walked the earth, he himself prophesied his own resurrection multiple times. Stay with us. We're going to explore that in just a moment.
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welcome back to Christ in Prophecy Radio. Today we're discussing world politics and technology. Nathan, two of the signs of the times that we have emphasized for so long, and both of them seeming to converge even in our own time. Technology lending itself to the ability for nations and governments in particular to control their society. We see that in China, but also just the swirl of events surrounding Israel, which has become so prevalent in recent days. You know, anytime there's a war or conflict in the Middle east, folks, we get calls here at Lamb and Lion Ministries asking us, is this the battle of Armageddon or is this an end times war? And if you've heard us speak before, we don't think this is a battle of Armageddon that will happen at the end of the Tribulation. But what it does lend itself to all of these recent conflicts is some of the wars that we believe lead up to the end times. So Nathan, how do you see all these political developments in Israel relative to war and even some of the technologies
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involved, according to two whole chapters, Ezekiel, chapters 36 and 37, that the nation of Israel, which has been long dead and wasted because of their disobedience, we know in 70 AD the Romans kicked them out, they renamed the land Palestine after the Philistines, and they changed the name of the capital of Jerusalem. And the Jewish people were spread out into the four corners of the world world. One of the punishments that Moses prophesied would happen if they had continued disobedience, but God would never forget them. And as Isaiah 11 prophesies, they'd be regathered again a second time and in unbelief so that they can go through a time of trial that will lead a remnant to know Jesus the Messiah as Savior. That remnant, Zechariah tells us, is only a third of the Jewish people will survive this great trial ahead. And it's connected to a series of wars and also a time period known as the Tribulation.
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This recent battle that we call Operation Rising lion, where Israel finally began to put an end to all the terroristic threats we believe is a lead up to the kind of conflict or the outcome that is described in Psalm 83, where eventually Israel is able to live in relative security with all of its nearby neighbors. The Bible describes it as unwalled cities and really at peace or shalom. There may be a season of that, and Israel, quite frankly, needs a season of that. But we know in the long run that there will be another axis of evil combining forces of Russia, Turkey, and yes, an outer ring of nations that will come against Israel and seek plunder and seek to gain spoil, and the Lord himself will destroy them. But Nathan, this lends itself over into a recognition of what's happening technologically. And when you think about the Israeli Air force flying over 700 sorties to Iran and never losing one aircraft, that's amazing. Just the technological advances in fulfillment of this prophetic word. And yet even the technology is not foolproof. And so the folks who created all these high tech defense systems say there's something else. It's miraculous that none of the ballistic missiles got through with any devastating harm. Yes, there were casualties, I'm not minimizing those. But statistically, Israel came through with very little actual damage to human life compared to what could and should have happened just based on the number of missiles launched against that small nation.
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Absolutely. And this is all in fulfillment of Psalm 83. It's a imprecatory prayer by a prophet, Asaph, a seer who foresaw a time where Israel would have to subdue their hostile Arab neighbors. And we've seen that since the day that Israel declared itself a Nation in May 1948, it's been at war with its hostile neighbors. But it looks like between these various wars and the Abraham Accords, that there might be that time of peace that is prophesied to lead up to. Like Tim said, when Russia leads an Islamic invasion of Iran and Turkey and Libya and Sudan and all against Israel. Now that's when Israel's great military will fail it because the attacking armies are so huge that God steps in and supernaturally destroys those armies with hail and earthquakes and turns fire back upon the nation. So the technology is there for all these nations to amass against Israel. So much so that Israel can't defend itself, but God steps in. So, folks, we are living in amazing times right now where God is showing the whole world that he is coming back. His Son is returning to defend his people.
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And that's why we say if you have eyes to see and ears to hear, folks, if you are reading the newspaper headlines or watching tv, you are witnessing Bible prophecy being fulfilled before your eyes. If you have spiritual insight to understand this is exactly what God said would happen in the end times. Well, speaking of the end times, in Just a moment. We are going to return with another segment where we are going to talk about some of the technology that is outlined. Yes, even in the ancient texts of the Old Testament prophecies. Stay with us.
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Recently a listener named Jim contacted Christ in Prophecy to say, whenever I feel discouraged, your ministry reminds me of the temporary nature of it all and the eternal promises that await us. Thank you for blessing us for so many years. We want to hear from you. Let us know how understanding Bible prophecy has shaped your faith by sharing your story@christinprophecy.org.
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Folks, turn your Bibles to Daniel, chapter 12, verse 4. One of the most amazing prophecies in the whole Bible is this. This angel tells Daniel who's confused about all these prophecies, he doesn't understand them. And the angel says, shut up the words and seal the book until the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall increase. In other words, these prophecies about the end times will be fulfilled when three things happen. One, knowledge will greatly increase. And folks, we got to admit, computers have just taken our level of knowledge through the roof. Travel. We travel all over the world and even into outer space today. And as you read later through Daniel 12, an understanding of Bible prophecy, the closer we get to the Lord's soon return. That is an amazing prophecy and it's the foundation for what we're going to talk about. The end times sign of technology.
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You know, there are so many other examples of signs of technology in scripture that point to end times Bible prophecy. We could talk about Revelation 13 and the Mark of the beast when he, the false prophet causes all who are not loyal to the Lord God to take the small and the great, the rich and the poor, the free men and the slaves, a mark on their right hand or their forehead so that anyone who does not have that would not be able to buy or sell except the one who has the mark. You know this idea of a mark that's been wondered for many years, what would that be? Is it an indelible stamp? Is it some kind of a tattoo? Well, nowadays you can put a computer chip like people do in their dog to track their favorite pet. There's all sorts of ways that you could mark a person, but clearly scripture talks about this being a mark not only of buying and selling, but of loyalty to the Antichrist. Something that was hardly imaginable except through supernatural means. And yet today we have the technology not only to envision this, but to make it possible right now.
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Oh yeah, biometrics well, look at the airports, for instance. They're starting to implement a facial recognition system. And on the surface, I think that's a wonderful thing. I got stuck in Atlanta airport once. I had forgotten my driver's license. It was a job getting to my plane. But if they could just look at my face and match a database, I could have walked right through. Well, it's going to be a time where facial recognition will be. If you don't have that mark on your forehead or right hand, you don't scan your hand. In other words, it's the name of the Antichrist, whatever. That will be his number, which is 666, then you can't buy or sell. And we've already seen, like look in Canada with Justin Trudeau when he shut down the truckers by cutting off their finances. That's a tactic that government will use. Well, the Bible prophesies that in the future, through technology, the Antichrist will control the world by controlling people's finances.
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You know, there was a time where if you were on the outs with a powerful figure within a locat or a certain region, they might be able to say, you know what? You will not be able to buy or sell in this city because they could put your name out and blacklist you, so to speak. But the idea that from a central point, someone could keep you from buying or selling throughout an entire nation, let alone the world, well, that was just ridiculous until recent times. And right now, China is a perfect example where the government has such overwhelming surveillance capability and tracking capability that if they decide to blacklist someone, they can shut them out of the economy, shut them out of getting on public transportation or any other form of moving about. And so that feasibility or that capability exists right now, and it's only going to expand with AI technology. We're seeing digital currency systems that are moving toward the point where everything will happen digitally.
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Yeah, that makes sense. Because to control an entire world population, you can't have millions of people sitting in a data center monitoring everything. And so you need artificial intelligence. And artificial intelligence is just uncontrollably growing and becoming part of our lives. And it can monitor all this data. As the Bible prophesies, the whole world will watch end time events such as these two witnesses who will be killed and resurrected from the dead in the middle of the tribulation. The whole world will watch that. Well, we can do that today because we have satellite technology. We look in our cell phones. The Antichrist also is prophesied to have a. What's called a living image that the worship. Maybe it's a video of him on your cell phone, maybe it's a robot or holograms. We don't know what that living image is, but it's interactive. Well, AI is interactive. So the Bible is filled with prophecies that point to technologies that are becoming real in our day and age.
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You know, it's important that we point out, even as we're decrying some of the use of technology for evil and nefarious purposes, that technology is merely a tool. Just like a hammer, it can be used to build a house, or a hammer can be used to hit somebody in the head. And so technology in and of itself is neither good or evil per se. It depends upon who controls and uses it and to what end. And so the example is that the Roman road and the Greek language enabled the spread of the Gospel as well as hop knotted troops from Rome to march all around the empire, spreading Roman oppression. So the road itself was a great technological advance. Same thing is true about the printing press. The first book printed was the Bible, and yet today printing presses are used to produce all sorts of horrible things, pornography, etc. And so the printing press can be used for good or bad. Same with radio and television, Nathan. We're utilizing radio. Through this medium, we have a television program trying to share the good news of Christ's return. The Gospel of Jesus Christ using technology. And so God always will use technology to advance his kingdom purposes and and bring about good in this world.
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Amen. And we live in a time where technology is advancing the gospel all over the planet. So while technology can seem threatening, we must remember that God is sovereign over all human inventions. What Satan means for evil, as we've said, God will use for good. These technological developments are simply setting the stage for the final acts of human history before Christ's return to establish his perfect kingdom. So stay tuned. In just a moment, Tim's going to be sharing his closing words of encouragement.
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Many churches avoid Bible prophecy, but it's a valuable part of God's word. For more than 45 years, Christ in prophecy has provided reliable insight into all of God's word. We're talking about passages and prophecies God recorded so you and I can know what to expect. If you'd like to hear Tim Moore and Nathan Jones speak in person consideration, consider attending one of our upcoming events or invite them to come and speak at your church. Get in touch to find out more and make your request@christinprophecy.org contact. Let's take God at His word. All of it. Connect with us@christinprophecy.org contact you know, the
- [22:39]
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resurrection of Jesus is not just wishful thinking or religious mythology. It is the most well attested historical event of the ancient world. And it was prophesied throughout the Old and New Testament long before it occurred. From David's Psalms written a thousand years before Christ, to Isaiah's suffering servant prophecy, to the symbolic foreshadowing in the lives of Joseph and Isaac, and Jesus own repeated predictions, the evidence is overwhelming and undeniable. The resurrection changes everything. It proves that Jesus is exactly who he claimed to be. The Son of God, the Savior of the world. And because Jesus conquered death, we need never fear the grave. As Paul triumphantly declared, death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? And yet there are many who will not believe, as Jesus related in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. In Luke chapter 16, the rich man asked Father Abraham to send someone back to his brothers from the dead so that they would believe and not endure the fate that he was consigned to. But Abraham said to him, if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded. Even if someone rises from the dead, and that's the state of many in the world today. They refuse to believe even though Jesus has risen from the dead. This weekend I encourage you to reflect deeply on the resurrection and God's plan for your salvation. If you've never placed your faith in Jesus Christ, today is the day. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead is available to you to give you new life. Eternal life, abundant life. Romans 10:9 promises. If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. And for those of us who already know Jesus as our resurrected Lord and Savior, let's live. Every day in the light of the empty tomb. The disciples eagerly shared the news that Jesus is alive. Let's share this good news with a world that desperately needs hope. The resurrection proves that God keeps His promises. Every prophecy about the Messiah's first coming was fulfilled perfectly. Which means that we can trust with absolute certainty that every prophecy about his second coming will also be fulfilled. So keep looking up, because our redemption is drawing near. He is risen. He is risen indeed. Godspeed.