God Conversation

In Isaiah 61 the prophet announced the good news of God’s restoration for the people of Israel:

Isaiah 61:1-2  The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn;

Jesus taught that He was the promised Messiah. Jesus Christ began this sermon by reading from the writings of Isaiah concerning the future mission of the Anointed One:

Luke 4:18-19 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. 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, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”

Seven centuries after the prophecy of Isaiah, Jesus Christ began His public ministry in the synagogue of Nazareth by opening up the scroll of Isaiah and applying this passage to Himself. AT the end of the reading he said “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing,”

After his reading those to whom He was speaking attempted to rationalize His message as they rejected Him and "thrust him out of the city." (Luke 4:28.) Jesus had anticipated their rejection and had taught them that even though there were many among them who had afflictions, few would accept Him and be healed. (See Luke 4:22-27.)

The brokenhearted

Jesus concluded the sermon in Nazareth identifying Himself as the anointed Servant-King who would announce “the good news” of salvation and bind up the brokenhearted.

The “brokenhearted” are people who are weakened, crushed, or destroyed in spirit. The term describes those who feel spiritually bankrupted, needy, and helpless. They desire God’s help, comfort, and salvation.

The verb translated “bind up” in the original language means “to inspire with confidence, give hope and courage to, to encourage, to bandage, to dress by covering, wrapping, or binding.”

The focus of the message of good news is spiritual restoration and healing. As a physician would “bind up” or bandage a wounded arm, so the Messiah would bandage a wounded spirit.

How does Jesus bind up the brokenhearted?

1 Peter 2:24, NLT “He personally carried our sins in his body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right. By his wounds you are healed”

Jesus Christ knows our troubles, temptations, and sorrows.  He experienced them throughout His life and His death on the cross.

Psalm 147:3 He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds

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Parables held a major place in Israelite history. It was even prophesied that the promised Messiah would speak in parables and dark sayings. The word “parable” comes from the Greek παραβολή (parabolē), a conjunction of para (meaning along-side) and bolē (to throw). Hence the true meaning is found in understanding the symbolic or figurative words that were “thrown alongside” the intended meaning.

Psalm 78:2-4 I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings from of old, things that we have heard and known, that our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation

Parables were a well-established part of the Jewish idiom. God used parables and figures of speech through the prophets (such as Ezekiel, Daniel, and Zechariah). Samson and many others also spoke in riddles and parables. 

In the latter part of the Old Testament, God spoke to Israel through prophets, visions, and parables.

Isaiah 6:9-10 And he said, “Go, and say to this people:  “‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’ Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”

The Messiah spoke in parables when he was led by God to do so, which was quite often. Also some of the Messiah’s parables concerning the kingdom of God were for his disciples to understand, but not intended to be comprehended by those whose hearts were not for truth:

Matthew 13:10-15, 34-35Then the disciples came and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” And he answered them, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. Indeed, in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says: “‘“You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive.” For this people's heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them.’

All these things Jesus said to the crowds in parables; indeed, he said nothing to them without a parable. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet: “I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter what has been hidden since the foundation of the world.”

What Jesus Said or What He Meant

The prophecy in Psalm 78:2 predicted that the Messiah would speak in parables. That is exactly what Jesus did according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. There are 70 parables and illustrations in the gospels accounts

When interpreting the scriptures, it’s not always what Jesus said that matters, but what he meant. Jesus often spoke from a higher plane or a spiritual point of view. For example, when Jesus spoke of the leaven of the Pharisees, he was referring to their false teachings. At first the disciples did not understand what Jesus meant; they thought he was speaking literally about the leaven of bread:

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In the book of Isaiah chapters 7-12, the prophet speaks of the salvation of Israel from its enemies, with the person of the Messiah in view as a central theme to these chapters.

Isaiah 9:1-2  ...but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.

Matthew chapter 4 portrays Jesus’ ministry in Galilee as the ultimate fulfillment of this prophecy.

Matthew 4:13-16 And leaving Nazareth he went and lived in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, 14 so that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: 15 “The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles— 16 the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.”

Isaiah is speaking of the messianic light, fulfilled in Jesus who sheds his light both on the Jewish people and on the nations of the world. The theme of Jesus as the light is prominent in the New Testament. In the gospel of John says.

John 1:4-5 “In him was life, and the life was the light of men [i.e., people]. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

Jesus the light

In John 8:12, Jesus himself says, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life,” while in John 9:5, he declares that, “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” Yet again, in John 12:46, he says, “I have come into the world as light.”

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.

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Isaiah 11:1 There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.

The words of Nathanael in John 1:46: “Nathanael said to him, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ Philip said to him, "Come and see."  

People from Nazareth were not held in high esteem; they were considered backward and, we might say, “trashy.” In fact, Galilee as a whole did not have a sterling reputation. When the Pharisee Nicodemus defended Jesus in front of his fellow Pharisees, they replied, “Are you from Galilee too? Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee” (John 7:52).

Matthew 2:23 And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, so that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, that he would be called a Nazarene

No Old Testament prophecy corresponds to these precise words. The paraphrase is based on Jesus’ boyhood home, Nazareth, and a similar-sounding Hebrew word netser, which is translated as “sprout,” “shoot,” or “branch.”

What does "Nazarene" mean?

“Nazarene” refers to the “branch” in Isaiah 11:1

The Hebrew word for “branch” in Isaiah 11:1 is ‘netser”, and since Hebrew was written with only consonants, this word would have appeared as NZR, which are the same consonants found in Nazarene

“Nazarene” refers to a person who is despised

In the first century, Nazareth was a small town with a negative reputation.

Isaiah 53:3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Nazareth may draw on the deeper meaning of the name in application to the prophecies that Jesus would be called a Nazerene. Matthew may also  simply use a word play which might have been recognized by his Jewish audience.  The verb nazar can have very broad application (cf. Lev. 15:31; 22:2; Num. 6:2; Ezek. 14:7; Hos. 9:10). The Messiah would be “set apart” to God in the ultimate sense.

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Amongst all the titles attributed to him, ‘Son of God’ is perhaps the dearest to Christians and most used to try and prove his divinity. After all, the ‘Son of God’ must be divine like his father.

Psalm 2 speaks of the nations of the world plotting against both God himself and his “Anointed.”

Psalm 2:7 I will tell of the decree: The Lord said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you.

In verse 7, God specifically calls the Anointed “my Son” and promises worldwide rule in the face of the laughable opposition of the nations who counsel rebellion against God.

Almost a millennium and a half prior to the birth of Jesus, God began to give His people an enormous amount of specific information about Jesus’ life and ministry.

The New Testament refers in numerous places to the ideas in this psalm.

Matthew 3:16-17 And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

God makes a point to declare at Jesus’s baptism “This is My Beloved Son.”

In the Old Testament, “son of God” is used about angels (Job 1:6), about the nation of Israel (Exodus 4:22-23), and about Israel’s king (2 Samuel 7:14). 

In the New Testament, when Jesus is called “Son of God” or “God’s Son,” it implies: 

1. He is the Messianic king

2. He has a personal intimacy with the Father, whom he addressed as Abba

3. He obeyed the Father

4. His sonship is unique, unlike any other

Jesus tells Nathanael where he was and what was in his heart without having been there, and Nathanael bursts out in verse 49, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Now what Nathanael meant by that was great, but probably not as great as what the words will come to mean in the ministry of Jesus and the Gospel of John.

Nathanael probably means: “You are the Messiah. You are the long-expected Jewish ruler that will bring deliverance for Israel and establish God’s rule over the nations.” Both the term Son of God and King of Israel were references for the Messiah.

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God sends the prophet Elijah before the “great and awesome day of the Lord comes.” Elijah’s mission is to bring about reconciliation, as the passage indicates:

Malachi 4:5-6 “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”

According to the Old Testament description Elijah did not die but was taken up to heaven directly (2 Kings 2:9-12), 

Jewish tradition spoke often of the future return of Elijah.

Matthew 11:13-14 For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John, and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come.

Jesus did not say that Elijah would come in the future. He explained the prophecies as showing that “Elijah, indeed, does come first and restore all things” (Mark 9:12). As Matthew and Mark narrate the story, it was Jesus’ understanding that Elijah must precede the arrival of the Messiah and that Elijah has already come.

According to the Gospel of John, when asked, “Are you Elijah?” John answered, “I am not.” To the question, “Are you the Prophet?” his answer was, “No.”

Jesus did not differentiate between Malachi 3:1 and 3:23. Instead, he identified John as the “messenger” and announced that “he is Elijah.”

It was believed that before the Messiah's showing, Elijah would personally appear. This expectation John met in his denial; but his words had a deeper meaning. Jesus afterward said, referring to John, "If ye are willing to receive it, this is Elijah, which is to come. John came in the spirit and power of Elijah, to do such a work as Elijah did. If the Jews had received him, it would have been accomplished for them. But they did not receive his message. To them he was not Elijah. He could not fulfill for them the mission he came to accomplish.

Among all the people that deny Jesus as the Messiah there is some confusion because they do not accept John the baptist as Elijah. We need to take things at face value. Prophecies sometimes are not exact. They are always accurate but not always in the way we tend to interpret them to satisfy our own beliefs.

John may not have seen himself as the fulfillment of Malachi 4:5-6. However, Jesus did.

This is another fulfilled prophecy. Jesus clearly stated that Elijah had already come, but, tragically, he was not recognized and had been killed. Jesus then predicted He would likewise die at the hands of His enemies.

Before the end times and the second coming of the Messiah we will have a similar event where "Elijah will come". We do not know how is it going to happen or if it's going to be Elijah himself or one like Elijah but prophecy will be fulfilled once again and soon we will witness "The days of Elijah".

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The word Messiah simply means “anointed one” and derives from the Hebrew verb mashach, meaning “to anoint.” The word messiah translated into Greek is "christos", so the name Jesus Christ is a combination of Jehovah’s human name, Jesus, and the title, Christ.

The Old Testament says that The Messiah would be a prophet like Moses. In Deuteronomy 18, while Moses may have been intimating about the line of prophets to come, certainly long after his death, no prophet “like Moses” had arisen.

Moses taught others of the coming of Christ in two ways—by his actions and through his words. 

Deuteronomy 18:15 The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen.

Moses was teaching his disciples. One function of all prophets was to teach the people about the coming of the Messiah.

Jesus fulfilled the prophecies

John 6:14 When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!’

Jesus considered himself to be a prophet: “They took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, ‘A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household.’ ” (Matthew 13:57)

After Jesus' crucifixion and ascension it is said about Him in the book of Acts.

Acts 3:20-22 that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.  Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you.

This is a direct quote to the scripture we read in Deuteronomy. Jesus came as the Messiah, or Anointed One, in all three ministerial offices: prophet, priest, and king. 

The symbolism of Jesus as prophet fills the Gospels. He is the living Word.

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In Matthew 21, Jesus has just told a parable: the owner of a vineyard sent some servants to collect the produce from the tenants. But the tenants beat and killed the servants. They did likewise with a second group of servants, and finally, when the owner sent his son, they killed him too. The parable is a sad comment on the history of Israel’s leaders (but not all the people!): rejecting the prophets and finally rejecting God’s Son.

Psalm 69:8 I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother's sons

Outward appearance 

The prophet Isaiah describes a Suffering Servant who dies for the sins of those who reject him and then is exalted by God. This is shocking news to the Jews. The Jews looked at Jesus and said, “This can’t be the Messiah because He is not going to enter like this.” They were fixated on appearance and success. And Jesus was not what they had in mind.

Isaiah 53:3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Why was Jesus rejected?

Although there are many reasons, it could be said that He didn’t fit into preconceived notions of who the Jewish Messiah should be or how He should act.

Rejected in in own hometown

John 1:11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.

Imagine your neighbors, school buddies, teachers, or leaders disliking you so much that they want you dead.  What would you do?  How would it affect the rest of your life?

This happened to Yeshua in the synagogue of Nazareth, the town in which He was raised

John 15:18 If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.

Very often we consider the rejection from others, especially from those in our spiritual community, to be a rejection by God Himself.  That belief kills our fruitfulness on earth, a false destiny Satan is rallying for.

John 7:5 For not even his brothers believed in him.

God does not seek those who are perfect as the world counts perfection but those “whose heart is perfect toward Him.”

Sometimes we need help overcoming rejection from the world, we must look to Jesus.  Just as prophesied about Him, He is the One who understands our pain the most, and He will help you in times of need

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When John the Baptist was sent to prepare the way for the Messiah, Jesus Himself bore testimony that there was no greater prophet in Israel than John the Baptist. (Luke 7:28.). Another Old Testament prophecy was fulfilled. 

Isaiah 40:3-5  A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

The Old Testament prophecies said that The Messiah would be preceded by a messenger.

Malachi 3:1 “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts.”

Malachi speaks of a messenger coming to prepare the way, while Isaiah speaks of preparing the way in the desert. One thing that is significant here, is that in Malachi, God says the messenger will “prepare the way before me,” whereas Matthew and its parallel in Luke have “before you,” referring to Jesus himself. In this passage in Matthew and in Luke, what applied to God in Malachi is applied to Jesus! (It was not uncommon to cite Scripture with variations, just as a modern preacher might paraphrase a bit in order to make a point.)

John the baptist

Luke 3:3-6 And he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 4 As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord,[a]

make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”

The angel Gabriel appeared to Zacharias while he served in the temple and told him that Elizabeth would bear a son, whom they would name John (Luke 1:11-13). 

The angel also spoke of John's greatness, telling Zacharias that

Luke 1:14-17 "you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth. For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb. And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. He will also go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, 'to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,' and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." 

John brought unto the nation of Israel the message of repentance and the imminent establishment of the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 3:2).

As John preached in the region around the Jordan, he was preparing the way for Christ. Quoting from Isaiah, Luke tells us who John was and another prophecy of the Messiah was fulfilled.

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Shortly after the time of Christ’s birth, King Herod the Great made an unsuccessful attempt to destroy the infant Jesus by ordering the slaughter of all male children age two and younger. What was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled

Jeremiah 31:15 Thus says the Lord:

“A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.”

The Massacre of the Innocents

The Massacre of the Innocents was the result of King Herod’s extreme paranoia and cruelty. Herod would do anything to protect his own interests, including murdering all the little boys in Bethlehem. The wise men had alerted Herod to the arrival of a new king in Bethlehem. In his fear and morbid suspicion, Herod could not allow a rival king to live. Not knowing how old Jesus was, but certain the wise men had said they’d first seen the star less than two years before their visit, Herod took no chances and had all male children under two in Bethlehem killed.

Matthew 2:16-18 Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. 17 Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah: 18 “A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.”

Herod’s Massacre of the Innocents was carried out, but his plan to rid the world of the Messiah was thwarted when God intervened to protect Jesus in yet another fulfillment of prophecy. When the Magi left Bethlehem to return to their homeland, Joseph had a dream: “An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. ‘Get up! Flee to Egypt with the child and his mother,’ the angel said. ‘Stay there until I tell you to return, because Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.’ That night Joseph left for Egypt with the child and Mary, his mother, and they stayed there until Herod’s death. This fulfilled what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: ‘I called my Son out of Egypt’” (Matthew 2:13–15, NLT; cf. Hosea 11:1). God the Father saved His Son to fulfill His purpose of securing our salvation.

Some ancient Christian traditions claim that the Massacre of the Innocents involved tens to hundreds of thousands of children. However, based on the population of the small village of Bethlehem, the annual birthrate, and the high infant death rate at the time, most biblical historians and demographers estimate the total number of male children under the age of two to be no more than 20 to 40. The lower number makes the crime no less of an atrocity. The death of even one child is a tragedy.

Christian Martyrs

In Christianity, a martyr is a person considered to have died because of their testimony for Jesus or faith in Jesus.

According to official reports. Every day, 13 Christians worldwide are killed because of their faith. Every day, 12 churches or Christian buildings are attacked. And every day, 12 Christians are unjustly arrested or imprisoned, and another 5 are abducted.

The children killed by Herod were the first martyrs of the Church. Why martyrs? For a very simple reason: they were killed out of hatred for the faith and for God; out of hatred for the Child who had given them the honor of being born roughly at the same time He came into the world.

Today we see the world slaughtering millions of children through legalized abortion and we are numb to this. Some even boast and glorify this horrendous killing of innocents.

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