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Jacob gave this prophecy when he laid
upon his bed just before his death. This was years after the time he
and his family came into Egypt to be with Joseph because of the
great famine that they had in their own land of Canaan. He extends
the prophecy of the promised deliverer the Messiah that came from his
father Isaac which received the prophecy from Abraham. Now Jacob
tells his sons that the promised lineage will come through Judah.
This makes the future Messiah a king or lawgiver.
So one might say that Jesus Christ died
on a cross and did not become a king. Again a reminder to all who
question.: He came first to address the greatest human need.
Redemption. He had to do something to get us back to God. The whole
human race was apart from God because sin had entered the world
through the fall of Adam and Eve. Sin separates us from God. God is
holy.
The law that was given to Moses shows us how holy God is and
how sinful man is. It also shows us how evil sin is and that we as
humans need a way to be saved from that bondage of sin. There is a big gap of separation that happened
when Adam and Eve chose to believe Satan's lie instead of believing
God when God said not to partake of the tree of knowledge of good
and evil. This was a test to see if they would just believe God.
We are saved today by that same simple
message. Just believe. If we believe then we would obey God. True
faith brings forth obedience. If we see a person who calls
themselves Christians and do not do what Jesus Christ teaches then
they are not walking in true faith. If we truly believe, we will
truly obey. Unbelief kills and hinders today just as it did in the
garden of Eden. The devil planted a seed of doubt into Eve
questioning the word of God. Remember God said that if they ate of
the tree of good and evil they would die. Satan came along and cast
doubt into Eve. His words were,
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Genesis 3:4 "Ye shall not surely
die:"
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5 For God doth know
that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened,
and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."
He planted unbelief into them and the
unbelief caused the fall of the whole future human race. Unbelief in
the Word of God still kills and destroys to this day. Millions
refuse God's gift of eternal life and salvation by refusing to
believe in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ gave his earthly life to pay
the penalty for our sins and many either ignore this, refuse this
and are missing a chance to be saved from sin and inherit eternal
life.
You might say, "How do I know this is
true, there are many religions." Yes there are many religions even
Christian religions who are missing the truth. Some Christian
religions do not allow Jesus Christ to personally enter their lives
and cleanse them from sin. We have to be cleansed from sin in order
to be reconciled to God. Sin separates from God. Sin has to be dealt
with. That is what people do not see. We can't stay in our sins and
be saved. We can't get rid of sin ourselves by doing good. We need a
savior. We need something stronger than anything on the earth
including religion. We need the very Son of God, Jesus Christ in
order to be saved and inherit eternal life. It is not a religion, it
is the Son of God.
God came in the flesh over 2000 years ago
through the lineage of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Judah. A virgin
called Mary, brought forth a son named Jesus who fulfilled many of
the Old Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah that some of the
Jewish people still are waiting for.
Jesus already fulfilled many of these
prophecies and will fulfill more of them at His second coming. No he
didn't become a ruling king at His first coming because the sin
question had to be taken care of first. When Jesus returns a second
time then He will be a ruling King and fulfill the second part of
the prophecy of the coming Messiah.
The second coming is the one in which the
people of God are gathered together and will overcome all enemies.
The first coming was for gathering us to Jesus Christ for inner
salvation from sin. The second will be the physical salvation from
all enemies of Christ and the eternal purpose of God.
The part the Jewish people missed 2000
years ago was that they needed first to be saved from sin and
reconciled to God. We humans do not see ourselves as sinners
especially if we are naturally good people who do good deeds and are
kind. Yet in the book of Romans, it says that All Have sinned and
come short of the glory of God. We are born into sin. All of us need
to be saved. We are lost until we come to Jesus Christ (God in the
flesh), Emmanuel, Prince of Peace.
This I shall attempt to bring out in
further studies of Old Testament prophecies concerning Jesus Christ
to prove that He is the Messiah of Israel and savior of the whole
world. He didn't come just to save Israel but all races, tribes and
people who would just simply believe in Him.
Messiah Index
Messiah part 6
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