Lest the Stones Cry Out

An Emmaus Reference

collected by

Lawrence  Jones

CONTENTS

1.] Introduction.

2.] Index of References

 3.] Appendix:  Thirty-six aspects of the Messiah.  The relevant entries in the Hebrew Scriptures.  The relevant entries in the writings of the New Covenant.

*   *  *   *   *   *   *

INTRODUCTION

i

For a man, for a woman, there is one truly creative and restorative activity: to know and to be known by Him, to inhabit and to be inhabited by the eternal King.

What is the virtue of a man?  What is the excellence of a man?  Such is the great question as phrased by Socrates.

For the saw: “cutting.”  For the hammer: “pounding.”  For the loom: “weaving.”  What of man?

For man the great answer as phrased by Jesus of Nazareth:  “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”[1]   Yes, He is my way, my truth, my life.  Paul’s affirmation claimed nothing less:  “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”[2]  David’s boast pursued the same: “Whom have I in heaven but you?  And earth has nothing I desire besides you.”[3]

The indwelling life of Jesus the Eternal King: this is our excellence.  He Alone the excellence of a man.  Let me be in him!  Let him be in me!  Let my life ever only be his own life within my body!  His life in me, this alone my virtue.  Jesus the Messiah, my king and all my excellence.

ii

God created for himself a nation, which he called “my people,”  “my firstborn.”  He gave to them his laws.  He revealed to them his Presence.  He redeemed them from slavery.  He promised them a land for eternity.

Starting from the time of Moses, God revealed himself to this nation in a way which made it unique among all nations.  But, in such intense proximity, God’s being and truth were a light more searing than a people could endure.

The God of Israel knew in Adam the human vision blighted and the heart divided.  He knew from the beginning the outcome when blinded men struggle toward God. But from the beginning God had made provision that from his servantIsraelwould come the solution, the bridge, the mediator.  This solution, this promise, would be for all mankind.

From his servant Israel the God of Israel would send a king born both of God and of a mortal woman, a king born for rule of all the world, a king who would offer his mortal body in sacrifice for his people, and a king who would return from death and undo the curse of death long held against all people.  This king would take a stance between his people and the just anger of God:  he would say: “In their stead my own body.”  God saw it happen, for no lesser act would restore his creation to himself.

But the promise was not Redemption so that healthy men might revisit the silence of unattainable law.  The promise was designed for transcendence of all boundaries of the temple and the nation.  The promise, encompassing all the world, was for provision of substantial knowledge of God through an imposition of the Spirit of God in every heart that kneels in fealty before the king.

An expanding prophetic introduction to the coming king forms a binding cord through the center of the Hebrew Scriptures.  Each one of us has an idea of who He is “to us.”  Our vision of him takes form within the fabric of our walk with him. In addition, we are taught by the Spirit of God, and we are educated by the Scriptures.  The Hebrew Scriptures describe him as the eternal king ofIsrael, the axis of human history, and the lover of the lowest man.

The following collection, taken from things written down long before the birth of Jesus,  is a scrapbook describing Jesus of Nazareth, the King of Israel.

iii

The opening of the book of Acts affords us a review of the end of the earthly mission of Jesus:

After his suffering, he showed himself to these men…. He appeared to them over a   period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.”[4]

There is no failure of this kingdom.  It is this kingdom which Jesus preached from the beginning.  It is this which he promised to the thief on the cross.  It is this which he affirmed in the time between his resurrection and his ascension.  The subsequent verse in Acts is a most important instruction for the sake of this kingdom:

On one occasion while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: ‘Do     not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about.  For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.[5]

The Living God abides among his people.  He was in the fire in the desert and in the ark of the covenant.  He was in the tabernacle and in the temple.  But the avenues between men and the presence of God were re-engineered upon the death of Jesus of Nazareth.  When he died on the cross the curtain before the Holy of Holies was torn in two.[6] He rejected containment.  Spirit carved paths beyond every enclosure:

I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever – the Spirit of truth.  The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him.  But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.  I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.  Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. … If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching.  My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him….  All this I have spoken while still with you.  But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”[7]

We are given a path to him.  He has come to live among us, among all who give allegiance to him.  As Spirit he establishes his people and his nation.  Our God, as Holy Spirit, disseminates himself in substance among the people of his kingdom.  This outpouring of himself in his people establishes us as his people while binding us to himself.  We are one people because we are able to take Jesus the Messiah into our bodies, and this is possible because he has sent the Holy Spirit to live among us.  Without the presence of the Spirit of God, there is no people and no nation of God.  As Moses said,

Unless you go with us, what will distinguish us from every other people on the face of the earth?”[8]

As  Paul said,

Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is a new creation.[9]

As Jesus said,

I am the bread of life. …I am the living bread that came down from heaven.  If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.  This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world….I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.  Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.  For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.  Whoever eats my flesh and  drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.  Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. …Does this offend you?  What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before!  The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing.  The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.[10]

The Spirit of God, promised to us since Jeremiah,[11] is the ground and the binder of our very real kingdom until Jesus returns to rule from Jerusalem.  “The kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ” is in man and is in the heavens and is real today.  God himself holds us together.  We only await the day when “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever.”[12] 

iv

The following pages contain excerpts from the Hebrew Scriptures.  They are collected around this standard: that each expresses or significantly relates to the ancient vision of the coming of the Man of God, “the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world.”[13]  It is expected that in the context of these Scriptures we ourselves may find the words which appropriately precede the birth into this world of Jesus of Nazareth,  the Anointed King of Israel, born of God and of a woman.  So also did Jesus, on the Emmaus Road, lay claim to the adequacy of the words of “Moses and the Prophets”[14] as the appropriate guide by which to recognize that the crucified Jesus is also the eternal king:[15]

Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem.  They were talking with each other about everything that had happened.  As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing him.  He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?”  They stood still, their faces downcast.  One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you only a visitor to Jerusalem and do not know the things that have happened there in these days?”  “What things?’ he asked.  “About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied.  “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before  God and all the people.  The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.  And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place.  In addition, some of our women amazed us.  They went to the tomb early this morning but didn’t find his body.  They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive.  Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not  see.”

He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!  Did not the Christ[16] have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?”  And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

The anecdotal end to the record of this incident is a valuable inclusion here, because it reminds us that the material evidence and the written record are not quite enough to bring us to our God.  If it were enough, then Satan’s deceit in the garden would have been no deceit, and we would have been well served by a fruit that opened our eyes, well served to place an enhanced private vision ahead of trust in the eyes and words of our Father, for these eyes which cost us Eden would be wise enough to take us to the Father.  But in fact,  the eyes of Reason have little reputation for discerning the Living God in a field of cardboard replicas.  This is Luke’s ending:[17]

As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus acted as if he were going farther.  But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.”  So he went in to stay with them.  When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them.  Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight.  They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”  They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem.  There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together and saying, “It is true!  The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.”  Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.

The extent to which men failed to recognize Jesus during his time on earth is ample evidence that prophecies and Scriptures alone do not enable men to recognize the God whom they have not yet seen.[18]  We are all like Peter.  Jesus asked him, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”[19]  He answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”  and Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.”  Or, as Jesus said once before, “No one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him.”[20]

The fragments of Scripture transcribed here are not only a record of hope and anticipation.  They are a record of foreknowledge — visions into the heart of God.  These Scriptures are the inspired words of kings and prophets, guardians of the people of God, souls intimate with the God of Israel.  These Scriptures contain words which describe a specific future in which men have put their trust.[21]  Through such words men such as David dared to count the unseen Lamb of God as present Mediator and Redeemer bridging the gulf between man and God.[22]

David was astonished at the magnitude of the vision and the magnitude of the promise.    Job, in the strength of his faith, saw a future time.  Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel all saw the coming of their Lord.  Hosea, Joel, Amos, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi saw and announced the coming of the Holy One of Israel.  Even in the time of the presentation in the temple of a child named Jesus, a man named Simeon spoke words from the prophets[23] and stood as a milestone on the road to the triumph of his King:[24]

Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout.  He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.  It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.[25]   Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts.  When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying: 

‘Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace.          For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.’

These Scriptures remain for us as a seal, so that for us who know that God has given us his only Son,[26] we may also know that this Son is the Anointed King  promised from earliest times.

The awaited Messiah has come to Israel and to the world.  His kingdom and his kingship are today.   We who find our life in him are his children, his people, his holy nation.  Our Messiah has come, and, as these Old Testament Scriptures declare, our Messiah has brought us, his people, into a new covenant, sealed by the blood of his sacrificial death.

We now live in a time of special access to the truth of God.  Like our ancestors, we have the laws of God to direct us toward the consecrated life which is fundamental to walking in his Presence,[27] and we have the prophesies recorded here to direct us to our Anointed King.  But we have more.  Our King has come.  We have the benefit of his victory over the prince of this world.[28] And we have that which was promised with the new covenant,[29] the benefit which our King gained for us in his return to the throne of power: we have the Holy Spirit who heals and guards and instructs our souls.[30]

We discover in the Hebrew Scriptures our present confidence that all of history passes from, through, and toward the being of Jesus the Messiah.  We do not wait for another.  He has come to us, and through him we are born to new life.  We wait for his return when he will extend his rule across the geography of the earth.   Before him every knee shall bow.

In the Scriptures collected here, we see how God has used the voices and pens of his servants to guard the ancient confidence that God hears the prayers of his children, his people.  We see that the deepest need of our hearts — the strength to walk before him, the capacity to stand whole before his throne — is provided for in this world and in this time by his own action.

Like a flower falling, our history opened with the closing of a garden in which our first parents walked with God.  Even before Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden, God’s judgment against Satan included the first notice[31] that the tragedy of the Fall would be undone.  From the Fall until the coming of the Messiah our God revealed to his people his own nature, and he revealed, fragment by fragment, the nature of the One whom he would send to end disaster and to heal his people.

“In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar”  John the Baptist announced, [32] “The man  on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit,”  and  that very person, Jesus of Nazareth, in that same year, read from Isaiah[33] to the synagogue in Capernaum and announced that he was the Anointed  One of prophecy[34].   That year appears to have been  29 A.D. by our calendar.  Then, allowing for three years in the gospel account, it would have been in the week before Passover, 32 A.D.[35], that  Jesus fulfilled Zechariah’s prophecy:[36]

Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem!                See your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation,. gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey I will take away the chariots from Ephraim and the war-horses from Jerusalem, and the battle bow will be broken.    He will proclaim peace to the nations.  His rule will extend from sea to sea      and from the River to the ends of the earth.

Jesus made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem in full consciousness of his coming crucifixion, and in open avowal that both triumph and crucifixion were in the prophetic declarations.  At the beginning of that final journey intoJerusalem, Jesus took his disciples aside:

And taking the twelve, he said to them, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written of the Son of man by the prophets will be accomplished.  For he will be delivered to the Gentiles, and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon; they will scourge him and kill him, and on the third day he will rise.”  but they understood none of these things; this saying was hid from them, and they did not grasp what was said.[37]

Then, a day or two later, Jesus and the disciples approached Jerusalemand the fulfillment of prophecy, here described by Luke:[38]

And when he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.  When he drew near to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount that is called Olivet, he sent two of the disciples, saying, “Go into the village opposite, where on entering you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever yet sat; untie it and bring it here.  If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ you shall say this, ‘The Lord has need of it.’”  So those who were sent went away and found it as he had told them.  And as they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, “Why are you untying the colt?”  And they said, “The Lord has need of it.”  And they brought it to Jesus, and throwing their garments on the colt they set Jesus upon it.  And as he rode along, they spread their garments on the road. 

As he was now drawing near, at the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with  a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!  Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

And some of the Pharisees in the multitude said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.”  He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

 Neither can we be silent!  Nor can we profess less than that our King has come!

In assembling these Scriptures in one place it can be seen that, as Jesus said, salvation is of the Jews.[39]  The Son of God  was not only born into Israel, and not only came for Israel, but clearly was, from the beginning, at the center of the hopes and dreams of the Hebrew people.  He died on a cross  to make redemption available to all men, and he did not hesitate to die under the banner “The King of the Jews”: the King in the House of Judah, “the Root and the Offspring of David”.[40]

In the study of these Scriptures we are compelled to reconcile the currently popular  picture of a gentile-oriented personal savior with the words of the banner on the cross.  Did he not come to gather his  holy people,[41] to whom he himself gave the name Israel?   Was he not born as one of them in the house of Judah and the royal family of David?  Did he ever reject them?  In all the teachings of Jesus he rejected making his kingdom coextensive with the nation-state of Israel, as it had been formerly.  He promised an unbounded spiritual kingdom.  He also promised its eventual incorporation as a kingdom on earth.  He rejected for a time the nation-state because of its unfruitfulness.[42]  He also promised a future of unbounded blessing for the people of Israel out of honor for his own name, honor for the patriarchs, and honor for all that his people have suffered in his name.  In temporarily removing sanctity from the nation-state structure he did not reject his holy people.  His people always have been and always are all those who are circumcised in heart.[43]  As Paul said,

A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical.  No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code.  Such a man’s praise is not from men, but from God.[44]

We are born of Jesus Christ, the King of the Jews.[45]  Through Jesus we are adopted into his holy people,Israel.  We do not reject being servants of the King of the Jews.  Children of God, brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ, we are citizens ofJudah and citizens of greaterIsrael, eternalIsrael, the Israel of God.

Every person who is born of the Spirit of God, who is given a new birth through the life which comes from Jesus the Messiah – every such  person possesses the birth and life by which one  belongs to the kingdom of heaven.  Jesus did not reject Israel: he brought to Israel a new covenant, to which covenant he has invited all mankind.

The kingdom of heaven is not to be identified with any status quo political power at work at any time in the land of Canaan.  The Old Testament is a history of outright opposition between the ambitions of the status quo powers of Israel and the purposes of God.  If any identity had ever been intended, then Jesus would not have fled from the children of Abraham who had it in their minds to crown him king;[46] Barabbas and the Zealots would have satisfied their hopes with Jesus;[47] and the disciples would have protected their Lord with swords.[48]

The kingdom of heaven is to be identified with the throne of David and Israel, the people of God.   The origins of Israel are as the holy people of God as God labored to make a people for himself.   Israel was redeemed from Egypt to be a holy people for God.  The divine covenant which gives meaning to Israel was not given in order to grant definition to an independent political entity which might or might not serve God:  it was exclusively for the purpose of  securing to God his holy people.  Without prejudice to any promises of God based on genetics, we who serve the King of Israel are citizens of the living kingdom of  Israel;  we are the holy nation, the people of God.[49]  And Jesus the Messiah is our eternal King.

Lawrence Jones,   Chicago,                                                                                                                 May, 2003

INDEX OF REFERENCES

GENESIS 3.14,15   ~  the seed of a woman

GENESIS 9.18-27  ~  the seed of Shem.

GENESIS 22.15-18   ~  the seed of Abraham

GENESIS 49.1,2,8-12   ~  from Judah a ruler over the nations

NUMBERS 24.15-19   ~  from Israel a star, a king

[DEUTERONOMY 4.25-31]   ~ a prelude to the Anthem; an intimation of the value of repentance and the hungry heart; an affirmation of the faithfulness of God

DEUTERONOMY 18.15-20   ~  a prophet to whom every man will be accountable

DEUTERONOMY 30.1-20  ~  the first form of The Anthem.

I SAMUEL 2.1-10  ~ the Anointed One.

I Samuel 2.27-36  ~ The Faithful Priest

II SAMUEL 7.1-24  ~  an heir of David born of God to rule on David’s throne forever

II SAMUEL 21.17  ~  the lamp of Israel

II SAMUEL 23.1-7  ~  the everlasting covenant with David

I KINGS 6.11-13  ~  Solomon and obedience

I KINGS 11.1-6,9-13  ~  the failure of Solomon; one tribe to remain loyal to the throne of David

I KINGS 11.26-40  ~  ten tribes (“Israel”) to have a king outside the line of David; one tribe to remain loyal

I KINGS 12.1-24  ~  Rehoboam, son of Solomon, by his arrogance incites Israel to renounce the house of David

II KINGS 19.32a, 34  ~  “for the sake of David my servant”

I CHRONICLES 17.1-27  ~  the Davidic Covenant as in II Samuel 7.1-24

II CHRONICLES 13.1-18  ~  ‘the kingship of Israel to David and his descendants forever.”

II CHRONICLES 21.4-7  ~  God’s faithfulness to the house of David

JOB 9.1-3  ~  “… how can a mortal be righteous before God?”

JOB 9.14,15  ~  “How then can I dispute with him… I could only plead … for mercy.”

JOB 9.19,20  ~  “if it is a matter of justice, who will summon him?”

JOB 9.32-35  ~  “If only there were someone to arbitrate between us,…”

JOB 13.3,15,16  ~  “Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him.”

JOB 14.14-17  ~  “My offenses will be sealed up… you will cover my sin.”

JOB 16.16-21  ~  “my witness is in heaven… my advocate is on high. My intercessor is my friend…on behalf of a man he pleads with God.”

JOB 19.25-27  ~  “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.”

PSALM 2  ~  “The kings of the earth take their stand … against the Lord and against his Anointed One….’I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill.’”  “He said to me, ‘You are my Son.’”

PSALM 16.7-11  ~ “My body also will rest secure, because you will not  abandon me to the grave.”

PSALM 18.47-50  ~  “he shows unfailing kindness to his anointed, to David and his descendants forever.”

PSALM 22  ~  “I am poured out like water… a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet.  I can count all my bones…They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.”

PSALM 40  ~  “Then I said, ‘Here I am, I have come – it is written about me in the scroll.  I desire to do your will, O my God.”

PSALM 72  ~ “He will rule from sea to sea…all kings will bow down to him…. He will take pity on the weak and the needy.  …He will rescue them from oppression and violence, for precious is their blood in his sight…All nations will be blessed through him, and they will call him blessed.”

PSALM 80.7-19  ~  “the son of man you have raised up for yourself.”

PSALM 89  ~  “You said, ‘I have made a covenant with my chosen one, I have sworn to David my servant, I will establish your line forever.’”

PSALM 110  ~  “You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.”

PSALM 118  ~  “the gate of the Lord… the stone the builders rejected  has become the capstone… Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”

PSALM 130  ~  “He himself will redeemIsraelfrom all their sins.”

PSALM 132  ~  “For the Lord has chosen Zion, …’This is my resting place for ever and ever; …Here I will make a horn grow for David and set up a lamp for my anointed one.’”

ISAIAH 4.2-6  ~ ‘In that day the Branch of the Lord will be beautiful and glorious.”

ISAIAH 7.10-17  ~  “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”

ISAIAH 8.11-17  ~ “He will be a sanctuary, but for both houses of Israel he will be a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.”

ISAIAH 9.1-7  ~  “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.  And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  Of the increase of his government there will be no end.  He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom,…”

ISAIAH 11.1-16  ~  “a shoot …from the stump of Jesse;  …a Branch will bear fruit; …with righteousness he will judge the needy; … he will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; …the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples.”

ISAIAH 16.1-5  ~  “In love a throne will be established; in faithfulness a man will sit on it – one from the house of David –“

ISAIAH 19.19-25   ~ “In that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the heart of Egypt,…In that day Israel will be the third, along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing on the earth.”

ISAIAH 22.20-25  ~  “the key to the house of David…”

ISAIAH 24.1-24 and ISAIAH 25.1-10  ~  “’Glory to the Righteous One’ ; …for the Lord Almighty will reign  on Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before its elders, gloriously;  …On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever.”

ISAIAH 28.5-16  ~  “a beautiful wreath for the remnant of his people; …’See, I lay a stone  in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation;  the one who trusts will never be dismayed.”

ISAIAH 29.18-24  ~  “the deaf will hear; …the blind will see; …the needy will rejoice; …they will acknowledge the holiness of the Holy One of Jacob.”

ISAIAH 35.1-10

ISAIAH 40.1-11  ~  “A voice of one calling: ‘In the desert prepare the way for the Lord!’; …say to the towns of Judah, ‘Here is your God!’; …He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart.”

ISAIAH 41.8-16  ~  “’O Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen; …I myself will  help you,’ declares the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.”

ISAIAH 42.1-9  ~  “Here is my servant,…my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations….In his law the islands will put their hope;…I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness;  …I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives. …See, the former things have taken place, and new things I declare.”

ISAIAH 43.14,15,18-21,25  ~  “See, I am doing a new thing! …I am making a way in the desert; …to give drink to my people, my chosen, the people I formed for myself …that they may proclaim my praise….I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions…and remembers your sins no more.”

ISAIAH 49.1-23  ~  “Hear this you distant nations: he (the Lord) said to me, ‘You are my servant,Israel, in whom I will display my splendor.’ And now the Lord says – he who formed me in the womb to be his servant to bring Jacob back  to him and gatherIsraelto himself…: “It is too small a thing …to restore the  tribes of Jacob….I will also make you a light for the Gentiles; …I will make  you to be a covenant for the people.”

ISAIAH 50.1-11  ~  “I offered my back to those who beat me, …I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting. …Because the Sovereign Lord helps me, I will not be disgraced.  Therefore have I set my face like flint, and I know I will not be put to shame.”

ISAIAH 51.4-8  ~  “Hear me, you who know what is right, you people who have my law in your hearts.”

ISAIAH 52.13-15; 53.1-12; 54.1   ~  “my servant will act wisely;…he will be raised and lifted up;…as there were many who were appalled at him – his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness – so will he sprinkle many nations; …like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground…He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, …Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.  …he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;… by his wounds we are healed.”

ISAIAH 55.1-5  ~  “Come, all you who are thirsty, …I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David.”

ISAIAH 59.9-21  ~  “’The Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who repent of their sins,’ declares the Lord.  ‘As for me, this is my covenant with them,’ says the Lord.  ‘My Spirit, who is on you, and my words that I have put in your mouth will not depart from your mouth, or from the mouths of your children.’”

ISAIAH 61  ~  “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor…to bind up the brokenhearted…to proclaim freedom for  the captives…..”

[ISAIAH 62, esp. v.11]

[ISAIAH 63 & 64]

ISAIAH 65 & 66  ~  “I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me; I was found by those who did not seek me.  To a nation that did not call on my name, I said, ‘Here am I, here am I.’…’I will set a sign among them.’”

JEREMIAH 22.24-30;23.1-6  ~  “None of his offspring will prosper, none will sit on the throne of David.  …Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep.  …’The days are coming…when I will raise up to David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely; … the name by which he will be called: The Lord Our Righteousness.’”

JEREMIAH 29.10-19  ~  “This is what the Lord says: ‘When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place.”

JEREMIAH 30.1-9  ~  “They will serve the  Lord their God and David their king, whom I will raise up for them.”

JEREMIAH 31.15  ~  “A voice is heard in Ramah….Rachel weeping for her children….”

JEREMIAH 31.29-40  ~  “The time is coming when I will make a new covenant with the house  ofIsrael….not like the covenant I made with their forefathers….I will put  my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.  I will be their God and they will be my people.”

JEREMIAH 32.36-42  ~  “They will be my people, and I will be their God.  I will give them singleness of heart and action….I will make an everlasting covenant with them.”

JEREMIAH 33  ~  “’I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line;…This is the name by which he will be called: The Lord Our Righteousness.’…’David will never fail to have a man to sit on the throne of the house ofIsrael….I will make the descendants of David my servant and the Levites who minister before me as countless as the stars of the sky and as measureless as the sand on the seashore.’”

JEREMIAH 36.1-31  ~  “Therefore, this is what the Lord says about Jehoiakim king of Judah: He will have no one to sit on the throne of David.”

EZEKIEL 11.13-21  ~  [see Jeremiah 31.31-34 and Ezekiel 36.22-28]

EZEKIEL 16.59,60,62,63  ~  “Yet I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you.”

EZEKIEL 17.22-24  ~  “I myself will take a shoot from the very top of a cedar and plant it;  …it will produce branches and bear fruit and become a splendid cedar.”

EZEKIEL 21.13-27  ~  “Take off the turban, remove the crown….It will not be restored until he comes to whom it rightfully belongs; to him I will give it.’”

EZEKIEL 34  ~  “’I myself will search for my sheep and look after them….I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he will tend them;  I the Lord will be their god, and my servant David will be prince among them.’”

EZEKIEL 36.22-28  ~  “’I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.’”

EZEKIEL 37.15-28  ~  “’They will live in the land I gave to my servant Jacob, the land where your fathers live.  They and their children and their children’s children will live there forever, and David my servant will be their prince forever.’”

EZEKIEL 39.23-29  ~  “…’for I will pour out my Spirit on the house of Israel,’ declares  the Sovereign Lord.”

DANIEL 2.26-47  ~  “A rock was cut out, but not by human hands. …the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth….In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed;…It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever.”

DANIEL 7  ~  “and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven…He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; …His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.”

DANIEL 8.23-25  ~  “In the latter part of their reign… a master of intrigue will arise…and take his stand against the Prince of princes.”

DANIEL 9  ~  “From the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty-two ‘sevens.’…After the sixty-two ‘sevens,’ the Anointed One will be cut  off and will have nothing [cut off, but not for himself].”

DANIEL 10.4-11.1  ~ “there before me was a man dressed in linen…. his body was like chrysolite, his face like lightning, his eyes like flaming torches…. his voice like the sound of a multitude…. one who looked like a man….”

HOSEA 1.6-11  ~  “Yet I will show love to the house of Judah; and I will save them – not by bow, sword or battle, or by horses and horsemen, but by the Lord their God.”

HOSEA 2.16,19,23  ~  “I will betroth you to me forever;…I will say to those called ‘Not my people,’ ‘You are my people;’”

HOSEA 3.1-5  ~  “Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king.”

HOSEA 10.12  ~  “…for it is time to seek the Lord, until he comes and showers righteousness on you.”

HOSEA 11.1,12  ~  “And Judah is unruly against God, even against the faithful Holy One.”

HOSEA 13.14  ~  “…I will redeem them from death.  …Where, O grave, is your destruction?”

JOEL 2.28  ~  “And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people.  Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams;…Even on my servants …I will pour out my Spirit in those days

JOEL 3.14-21  ~  “A fountain will flow out of the Lord’s house…Judah will be inhabited forever and Jerusalem for all generations.  Their bloodguilt, which I have not pardoned, I will pardon.”

AMOS 9.8-15  ~  “In that day I will restore David’s fallen tent. …I will bring back my exiled peopleIsrael….I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted…”

MICAH 2.12,13  ~  “One who breaks open the way will go up before them;…Their king will pass through before them, the Lord at their head.”

MICAH 5.1-5  ~  “’But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, … out of you will come for me one who will be ruler overIsrael, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times….He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord….And he will be their peace.’”

HABAKKUK 2.14  ~  “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.”

HAGGAI 2.1-9  ~  “This is what I covenanted with you when you came out ofEgypt. And my Spirit remains among you….the desired of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory….And in this place I will grant peace.”

HAGGAI 2.20-23  ~  “I will take you, my servant Zerubbabel, and I will make you  my signet ring.”

ZECHARIAH  chapters 2,3, and 4  ~  “’Shout and be glad, O Daughter ofZion.  For I am coming, and I will live among you….I am going to bring my servant, the Branch….I will remove the sin of this land in a single day….Then he will bring out the capstone to shouts of God bless it!’”

ZECHARIAH 6.9-15  ~  “’Here is the man whose name is the Branch….It is he who will build the temple of the Lord, and he will be clothed with majesty and will sit and rule on his throne.  And he will be a priest on his throne.’”

ZECHARIAH 8.3,22,23  ~  “…ten men …will take hold of one Jew… and say, ‘Let us go with you,  because we have heard that God is with you.’”

ZECHARIAH 9.9,10  ~  “Rejoice…,O Daughter of Zion!…your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey; …He will proclaim peace to the nations.”

ZECHARIAH 10.4-6  ~  “From Judah will come the cornerstone,  from him the tent peg, from him the battle bow, from him every ruler.”

ZECHARIAH 11.1-17  ~  “Then I took two staffs and called one Favor and the other Union;…I told them, ‘If you think it best, give me my pay; but if not, keep it.’  So they paid me thirty pieces of silver.”

ZECHARIAH 12.1-10  ~“I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock. …I will make the leaders of Judah like a firepot in a woodpile.”

ZECHARIAH 12.10 – 13.2  ~  “They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.”

ZECHARIAH 13.7 – 14.11; 14.16  ~  “Then the Lord will go out and fight against those nations, as he fights in the day of battle.  On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west; …The Lord will be king over the whole earth.  On that day there will be one Lord, and his name the only name.”

MALACHI 3.1-5  ~  “’See, I will send  my messenger, who will prepare the way before me.  Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple….”

MALACHI 4.1-6  ~  “But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings.”