Sermon by: Reverend Bertrand Comparet
As we
approach the anniversary of the greatest day in all history, the day of
Yahshua's resurrection, it would be well for us to give some thought and study
to just what it is that we celebrate with such faith and joy. What is the
foundation upon which our faith is built? What is the meaning of the tremendous
events of that last week in Yahshua's earthly life? What was accomplished
thereby? For the answers, we must look to both the Old and New Testaments, for
they are the parts of one book and each proves the authenticity of the other.
We know the Old Testament is truly the inspired word of Yahweh, because its
greatest prophecies were fulfilled in the New Testament. We know the New
Testament is also the inspired word of Yahweh. Its great events were those,
which had been prophesied in the Old Testament.
Remembering this, let us review the scriptures dealing with Yahshua's ministry
and see just what He accomplished. I need not review the fall of Adam, causing
the loss of our original position in Yahweh's plan. This made necessary a
Redeemer for Yahweh's children, eventually to be known as Israel, this is
familiar to all Christians. The Redeemer is one of the principle themes of the
Bible. Most of it in the Old Testament is not generally understood because so
much of it is stated in the form of symbols and ritual.
The first promise of a Redeemer is found in Genesis 3:15, Yahweh had called
Adam, Eve and Satan before Him to account for their actions. Yahweh told Satan,
"I will enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed: He
shall crush thy seed and thou shalt bruise his heel." The Redeemer, who destroys
the power of Satan, is to be a descendant of Eve. The time when He would come is
not stated yet. It is obvious from certain other verses of scripture, that
Yahweh further told them, in considerable detail, that He Himself would be the
Redeemer. He would pay the price for us and the penalty of death.
Abel knew this, for he understood the necessity and the significance of the
blood sacrifice. In Hebrews 11:4 Paul tells us, "By faith, Abel offered unto
Yahweh a more excellent sacrifice than Cain". You can't possibly have faith in
something that you have never heard of, so this confirms Abel's knowledge of the
promised redemption. There is also another clear evidence of this. Yahweh had
said, in the presence of Eve, that the Redeemer would be of her seed or
descendant, though He didn't specify in which generation He would come.
When Eve bore her first child Cain, the King James Bible quotes her as saying;
"I have gotten a man from the Lord". In the original Hebrew, what she said was,
"I have gotten a man, even Yahweh." Yahweh, as most of you know, is the name of
our God. Eve thought that her first-born child would be the Redeemer, Yahweh
born in a human body. Well, she is not the only one who has hoped for redemption
before the appointed time. Note however, Eve understood the Redeemer was to be
Yahweh.
In further corroboration of this, the great prophecy of Isaiah 9:6, which all
agree refers to Yahshua says, "For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is
given: and the government shall be upon His shoulders: and His name shall be
called Wonderful, Counselor, the mighty Yahweh, the Prince of peace." In
fulfillment of it, Yahshua told the apostle Philip, recorded in John 14:9, "He
that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." It was not merely death alone that
could make the sacrifice, which brings redemption, for all things die under the
curse of sin. Emphasis was always laid upon the shedding of blood, a violent
death of the sacrifice, not the natural death of ordinary mortality. In
Leviticus 17:11 we are told, "For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I
have given it to you, upon the altar to make an atonement for your soul." In
Hebrews 9:22 Paul says, "For almost all things are by the law purged with blood;
and without the shedding of blood is no remission."
The blood sacrifices of the Old Testament were never intended to be considered
as sufficient in themselves. They were just symbolic of the great sacrifice,
which was to be made, not by us but for us, by Yahweh. In the thousands of years
this knowledge was carried down from generation to generation, it was heard by
the surrounding pagan people, who lacked the spiritual insight which Yahweh gave
to His own people Israel. The pagans wove it into their own pagan religions in a
distorted and parodied form. To the pagans, man had to make the sacrifice to
appease angry gods. Only in our own religion have we the pure truth that Yahweh
made the sacrifice to save us.
The great Patriarchs understood this. Consequently we find the incident,
recorded in the Genesis chapter 22, where Yahweh tells Abraham to take his only
son Isaac, and offer him as a sacrifice, a burnt offering. Abraham cheerfully
starts out to do this, not with the grief of a loving father about to lose his
only son, but with serene confidence. When Isaac asked his father, "Behold the
fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? Abraham replied,
My son, Yahweh will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering." Abraham
understood the reality that Yahweh would provide the lamb slain from the
foundation of the world as the sacrifice for us. Even in the symbol, the burnt
offering, Abraham's faith was rewarded. Yahweh did provide the ram, caught in
the thicket as the sacrifice, so this saved Isaac.
Yahshua's authenticity and authority as Redeemer depend upon His being the one
named in the Old Testament as such, the one who fulfills the Old Testament
prophecies. He recognized this as He always cited these prophecies as proof of
His authority. Yahshua opened His ministry this way, Luke 4:16- 20 tells it as
follows. "And he came to Nazareth where He had been brought up; and as His
custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up for to
read. And there was delivered unto Him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when
He had opened the book, He found the place where it is written, The spirit of
Yahweh is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor;
he hath sent Me to heal the broken hearted, to preach deliverance to the
captives and recovering sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are
bruised. To preach the acceptable year of Yahweh, And He began to say unto them,
This day is scripture fulfilled in your ears." At the very start, He quoted
Isaiah 61:1-2 as His authority.
In John 5:39,46 Yahshua told the Jews, "Search the scriptures: for in them ye
think ye have eternal life: and it is they which testify of Me. For had ye
believed Moses, ye would have believed Me: for he wrote of Me." When John the
Baptist was in prison, he began to wonder if he could have been mistaken and
sent some of his disciples to ask Yahshua, "Art thou He that should come, or do
we look for another?" Yahshua again based His authority on the scriptures, for
in the Matthew chapter 11 He told John's disciples, "Go and show John again
those things which ye do hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the
lame walk, and the poor have the gospel preached to them."
Yahshua was not merely saying report that I do miracles, for this would not have
been proof. The magicians at Pharaoh's court were able to duplicate a number of
the miracles that Moses performed. The things which Yahshua reminded them of
were all mentioned in Isaiah 3:5-6 & 29:18-19.
What Yahshua really was telling John the Baptist was, "John you know the
scriptures, remember what Isaiah said, you see I am fulfilling his prophecies. I
need not boast of Myself, the scriptures identify Me." In Matthew 5:17 Yahshua
said, "Think not that I come to destroy the law or the prophets: I am not come
to destroy, but to fulfill."
As Yahshua recognized, the proof of His identity and of what He accomplished,
does not rest upon His ability to perform miracles. The shallow and unspiritual
Jews constantly demanded that He perform a miracle as a sign to prove who and
what He was. He always refused, for that would prove nothing. The proof must and
did consist in His fulfillment of those Old Testament prophecies, which foretold
what the Messiah, the Redeemer, would do when He came.
Much of the Old Testament prophecy is found in its symbols and rituals. For
example, all of the great feasts or holy days were symbolic of either the first
or second coming of Yahshua. The spring festivals were symbolic of His first
coming, crucifixion and resurrection. He fulfilled the reality, of which these
were the symbols, each on the day of the appropriate festival. The fall
festivals are symbolic of His second coming, for which we are now waiting
expectantly. We know that in whatever year He comes, He will fulfill the
realities symbolized by these fall festivals, each on its own day.
The first of the spring festivals was the Passover, for the salvation and
redemption from death, Yahweh's deliverance of His people Israel. This was so
important that in Exodus 12:14, Yahweh commanded that celebration of the
Passover should be an ordinance forever among His people Israel. Clearly it
symbolized the sacrifice of the Lamb of Yahweh, slain from the foundation of the
world.
The celebration of the Passover was first commanded when the people of Israel
were still in Egypt. Moses had performed many miracles as proof that he was sent
by Yahweh to command that Pharaoh release the nation of Israel. Some of these
miracles wrought great devastation in Egypt, but still Pharaoh would not yield.
In Exodus chapter 12, Yahweh warned Moses that He was going to pass through the
land of Egypt and kill all the first born, from the cattle in the fields to the
first-born son of Pharaoh. The people of Israel would be spared if they would
follow the instructions, to kill and eat the Passover lamb and put its blood on
the doorposts outside their front door.
They could not just secretly eat the lamb while hiding at home. There must be a
public proclamation of their faith, by putting the lamb's blood on the
doorposts. By the death of the lamb they would be delivered from death. It was
by showing Yahweh that they relied upon the blood of the lamb that they would be
saved. By eating the flesh of the lamb, they gained strength for their journey
out of Egypt, from slavery to freedom. All this is symbolic of our salvation and
redemption by Yahshua upon the cross; let's examine it in detail.
The lamb for the Passover offering was to be selected on the 10th day of the
Hebrew month Nisan (Nee-sawn), but not actually sacrificed until the 14th day of
Nisan. Yahweh instructed Moses in Exodus 12:3,6, "In the 10th day of this month
they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the household of their
fathers, a lamb for an household, And ye shall keep it until the 14th day of the
same month; and the whole assembly (qahal) of the congregation (edah) of Israel
shall kill it in the evening." The Hebrew words translated here, in the evening,
actually mean between noon and sunset, or in the afternoon.
Then Yahweh commanded Moses to tell Israel in Exodus 12:22, "They shall take of
the blood and put it on the two side posts and on the lintel of the door of the
houses where they shall eat it". The flesh of the lamb was to be roasted and
eaten with bitter herbs. The families were to be ready to march out of the land
of Egypt immediately. This command further provides that not a bone of the lamb
may be broken.
So much for the symbol of the Passover, now let us see how the reality fulfilled
it. On the 10th day of Nisan, Yahshua was selected for death, Mark 11:15-18
records it. "And they came to Jerusalem; and Yahshua went into the temple and
began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the
seats of the money changers, and the seats of them that sold doves; And He
taught, saying Unto them, Is it not written, My house shall be called of all
nations the house of prayer? But ye have made it a den of thieves! And the
scribes and chief priests heard it, and sought how they might destroy Him: for
they feared Him, because all the people were astonished at His doctrine."
On the 14th day of Nisan, Yahshua was crucified, the day the Passover lambs were
killed. In fact, He died at the very hour, which was in the midst of the
slaughter of the lambs. The Hebrew day began at sunset. The night was divided
into four watches of three hours each. The day was divided into 12 hours,
beginning at sunrise, which at that time of year was about 6 A.M. in our time.
He was crucified somewhere around noon, the sixth hour of the day in Hebrew
time.
John 19:14, speaking of the end of His trial before Pontius Pilate, says it was
about the sixth hour. Luke 23:44, speaking of the time just after Yahshua was
nailed to the cross, also says it was about the sixth hour. Since neither man
carried a wristwatch, John estimated the end of the trial to be slightly before
noon, while Luke estimated the crucifixion to be soon after noon.
All the Biblical accounts agree that there was darkness over the land from the
sixth hour (noon in our time) until the ninth hour, or 3 P.M. in our time, when
Yahshua died on the cross. Remember, the Passover lambs were to be killed
between noon and sunset and this was in the very middle of that period. John
19:33, 36 records that while the legs of the two thieves were broken to hasten
their deaths, not a bone of Yahshua's body was broken, thus fulfilling the rules
regarding the Passover lamb. In Corinthians 5:7 Paul reminds us that Yahshua,
our Passover, is sacrificed for us.
This sacrifice made for us by Yahshua was, in every respect, His own voluntary
act, even to the instant of death itself. In the King James Bible Matthew 27:50,
"Yahshua when He had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost". This
is not an adequate rendering of the Greek, which says He dismissed His spirit,
an act of His own will. This fulfills His own words in John 10:17-18, "I lay
down My life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from Me, but I lay it
down of Myself."
Since Yahshua's sacrifice upon the cross was the fulfillment of the Passover,
Yahweh expressly commanded in Exodus 12:14, "This day shall be unto you for a
memorial: and ye shall keep it a feast to Yahweh throughout your generations; ye
shall keep it a feast by an ordinance forever." Perhaps you are wondering why we
no longer celebrate the Passover in the old way. There is a good reason for
this. The Passover, as the ordinance in the Old Testament prescribed it, looked
to the future, to something, which had not yet happened. It was the believer's
proclamation, "I believe that my Redeemer will someday in the future, come and
make the true sacrifice for me, giving His life to redeem mine."
As long as Yahshua had not yet come, this was the proper form for it. After He
had actually come and given His life for us, we could no longer say that we were
still waiting for something to be done in the future. To do so would be a
rejection of what He had already done for us. It was still to be an ordinance
forever, but its form must be changed so that it now recognized that our
redemption has already been accomplished. This is why Yahshua taught us the new
form of it, Yahshua's supper or communion. We still symbolically eat the
sacrifice for the nourishment of our spirit, "Take, eat, this is My body."
Matthew 26:26 and Mark 14:22. We still symbolically proclaim our faith that by
His blood we are redeemed. Matthew 26:28 says, "This is My blood of the new
covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins." The form is
changed, to show our recognition that our Redeemer has already come and redeemed
us. However, the real meaning of the sacrifice is indeed eternal.
Yahshua's crucifixion came at the prophesied time. His ministry covered three
years. The Gospel of John records at least three and possibly four Passovers in
this time. The first Passover is recorded in John 2:13-25, which also records
Yahshua's first cleansing of the temple by driving out the moneychangers. John
5:1 mentions, " A feast of the Jews; and Yahshua went up to Jerusalem". It is
not further identified, while it might be the second Passover, we can't be sure
of this. John 6:4 records what is at least the second and possibly the third
Passover. John 11:55 shows that Yahshua's last visit to Jerusalem, ending in the
crucifixion, was also for a Passover, this was just possibly the fourth
Passover. As Yahshua's ministry had already begun before the first of these
Passovers, either three or four is consistent with the ministry of three years.
For the significance of this, let us first turn to the prophet Daniel. In Daniel
9:26-27 the prophet says, "And after three score and two weeks shall the
Messiah, the Prince be cut off, but not for Himself: And He shall confirm the
covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the
sacrifice and the oblation to cease". We know that the three score and two
weeks, sixty-two weeks, or 434 days, had worked out correctly on the prophetic
scale of one year for a day.
The people of Judea knew the Messiah was due and were restless in anticipation
of their deliverance. This is why the Romans were so worried about what even a
small disturbance might cause. As to the words, in the midst of the week, a week
on the prophetic scale being 7 years, then in the midst of the week, would be
any time after three years. As we have seen, Yahshua's ministry fulfilled this.
That He did confirm the covenant with many, is proclaimed by Paul in Romans 15:8
where he says, "For I say that Yahshua the Christ was a minister of the
circumcision for the truth of Yahweh. To confirm the promises made unto the
fathers".
Paul shows us that Yahshua did cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, as
Daniel prophesied. In Hebrews 10:11-18 we read, "And every priest standeth daily
ministering and offering often times the same sacrifices, which can never take
away sins: but this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever,
sat down at the right hand of Yahweh; For by one offering He hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified. Now where remission of these is, there is no
more offering for sin." Although the Jews still curse and revile Him, even they
seem to have recognized the futility of offering any more animal sacrifices.
Nowhere in the world today have they revived the ancient sacrifices.
On what day was Yahshua crucified? This will indeed surprise you. One thing is
certain; He was not crucified on a Friday! Yes, I know that nearly all churches
celebrate Friday as the crucifixion day, but they are certainly wrong. Note that
the word Sabbath not only means the regular weekly Sabbath Saturday, but it also
means several other holy days, which are expressly called Sabbaths in the Bible.
For example, let's take the New Year, the so-called feast of trumpets. In the
Hebrew Leviticus 23:24-25 reads thus: "Speak unto the sons of Israel saying, In
the 7th month, on the first of the month, a memorial of shouting, a holy
convocation; ye shall do no servile work and ye shall bring near a fire offering
to Yahweh." You will note that this was on the first day of the seventh month;
regardless of the day it might be it was always a Sabbath. Let's take a look at
the Day of Atonement. In the Hebrew Leviticus 23:27-28, 31-32 says, "On the
tenth of this seventh month is the day of atonements: ye have a holy
convocation: and ye humble yourselves and bring near a fire offering to Yahweh;
and ye do no work in this selfsame day, for it is a day of atonements, to make
atonement for you before Yahweh your God. Ye do no work, a statute age long to
your generation in all your dwellings. It is a Sabbath of rest to you."
The words holy convocation and Sabbath are practically interchangeable as every
holy convocation is a Sabbath. Let's take Leviticus 23:2-3 to illustrate this.
In the Hebrew, it says "appointed seasons of Yahweh which ye proclaim, holy
convocations are these: they are My appointed seasons: six days is work done and
in the seventh is a Sabbath of rest, a holy convocation".
The Passover began with the evening of the day of the preparation. This is the
day on which the lambs were killed and on which day Yahshua was crucified.
Nobody can dispute the Passover is a holy convocation, a Sabbath, Leviticus
23:5-8 makes it so. Here is how it reads in the Hebrew. "In the first month, on
the fourteenth of the month, between the evenings, is the Passover to Yahweh;
and on the fifteenth day of this month is the feast of the unleavened things to
Yahweh; seven days unleavened things do ye eat; on the first day ye have an holy
convocation, ye shall do no servile work; and ye bring near a fire offering to
Yahweh seven days; in the seventh day is a holy convocation; ye do no servile
work."
Yahshua was crucified on Nisan 14th, the Passover, the day the lambs were
killed. The next day Nisan 15th, was the first day of the 7 day feast of
unleavened bread, a holy convocation or Sabbath day. This was regardless of the
day of the week on which it fell. All the gospels agree that the day following
the crucifixion was a Sabbath. John 19:31 also mentions, that Sabbath was an
high day, not just an ordinary Saturday Sabbath of every week, but a special
Sabbath, a high holy day. It was a special day for it was the first day of
unleavened bread.
The next thing to note is that all four gospels say that Yahshua was resurrected
on the first day after the Sabbaths. Note that Sabbaths here is in the plural.
The King James Bible doesn't show this, but in the original Greek, all four
gospels Matthew 28:1, Mark 16:2, 9, Luke 24:1, and John 20:1 show this. These
plural Sabbaths shows Friday was the high holy day Sabbath, the first day of the
feast of unleavened bread, followed by Saturday, the ordinary weekly Sabbath.
So, the Sabbath necessarily occurred on a Thursday, not Friday. Note that if the
High Holy Day Sabbath had fallen on Saturday, this would not have made two
Sabbaths of it.
Yahshua said in Matthew 12:40, "For as Jonah was 3 days and 3 nights in the
whale's belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the
heart of the earth." Nobody can make 3 days and 3 nights out of the time from 4
or 5 o'clock Friday afternoon, until sometime early Sunday morning before dawn.
Two nights, one day and a tiny fraction of another is all you can count.
However, if He was in the tomb part of Thursday, all of Thursday night, all of
Friday and Friday night, all of Saturday and most of Saturday night, you have
two whole days and part of a third day, two whole nights and most of a third
night. He did not say that it would be 72 hours, so it need not be full days and
nights down to the very last minute.
We see that in His crucifixion Yahshua fulfilled, on the correct day, all the
realities of salvation and redemption of which the Passover was the symbol.
Yahshua is fully identified as the true Messiah or Christ, promised to us in the
scriptures. We have an Old Testament high holy day to consider, the feast of the
firstfruits. On the morning after the Sabbath following the Passover, each
Israelite was to bring to the temple some of the firstfruits. This was in the
spring when the grain was harvested. The barley ripened several weeks before the
wheat, so the firstfruits offering was of barley. The offering was to be a sheaf
of barley, containing many kernels of grain.
This was a symbol which Yahshua fulfilled in His resurrection, as Paul
recognizes in I Corinthians 15:20, 23, "But now is Christ risen from the dead,
and become the firstfruits of them that slept. But every man in his own order:
Christ the firstfruits: afterwards they that are Christ's at His coming." On the
morning of the day after the Sabbaths, the exact time of the feast of
firstfruits, Yahshua became the firstfruits from the dead. Note another thing,
the firstfruits offering was a sheaf of grain, containing many kernels of grain.
Yahshua also fulfilled this because at the same time, He also resurrected many
people. We read in Matthew 27:52-53, "And the graves were opened and many bodies
of the saints which slept arose and came out of the graves after His
resurrection, and went into the holy city and appeared unto many."
The firstfruits offering was both a pledge that the tithe would be brought into
the temple when the harvest was complete and also a symbol of that tithe which
represents Yahweh's elect. In the Hebrew they were called the qahal and in the
Greek the ekklesia, the called out ones, translated into English as the word
church.
Was the resurrection something new and unheard of? No, Yahweh had prophesied
this in the Old Testament. In Hosea 13:14 Yahweh promised us, "I will ransom
them from the power of the grave: I will redeem them from death." How would this
be done? Isaiah 26:19 clearly prophesies exactly what Yahshua did, for it says,
"Thy dead men shall live: together with My dead body shall they arise! Awake and
sing, ye that dwell in the dust: for thy dew is dew of light, and the earth
shall cast out the dead." Truly, together with His dead body they did arise,
when Yahshua presented His firstfruits from the dead. Clearly He had the
authority and power to make and to fulfill His wonderful promise. In John 8:51
Yahshua states, "Verily, verily, I say unto you: if a man keep My saying, he
shall never see death."
This is recognized and confirmed in the New Testament. In Hebrews 2:9, 15 where
Paul says, "But we see Yahshua, who was made a little lower than the angels for
the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor; that He, by the grace of
Yahweh, should taste death for every man. And deliver them who, through the fear
of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage."
Some other religions have preached a form of immortality, but only in a spirit
world to which none of the dead could go. Also from which none could ever return
and where their life was really little more than mere existence. It was not
inspiring and they have had few martyrs willing to die for their faith. Only
Christianity has the tangible evidence, proven by many eyewitnesses, of the fact
of the resurrection. Some 5,000 people saw this over a period of 40 days. We
have more than just faith. We can say, not just I hope or I believe but, "I know
that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand, at the latter day upon the
earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I
see Yahweh: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold and not
another." Job 19:25-27.
There remained one more spring festival to be fulfilled, that of Pentecost. It
was called in the Hebrew, the feast of weeks. As we saw, the firstfruits
offering was just a pledge, made before the principal harvest was ripe. The
wheat needed another month to ripen, to be ready for the harvest. Leviticus
23:15-21 gives the rules for the feast of weeks. "And ye shall count unto you
from the morrow after the Sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the
wave offering: seven Sabbaths shall be complete: even unto the morrow after the
seventh Sabbath shall ye number fifty days: and ye shall offer a new meal
offering unto Yahweh." By this time the whole grain harvest was complete, what
had been merely promised in the firstfruits offering, could now be fully given.
Yahshua fulfilled this symbol also, on its own day. When His followers had seen
Him with their own eyes after His resurrection, they were filled with triumph
and wanted to start their work at once. However, it was not time yet, so Yahshua
told them in Acts 1:4-5, "You should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the
promise of the Father, which ye have heard from Me. For John truly baptized with
water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days hence." The
apostles were impatient and asked Him, "Yahshua, wilt Thou at this time restore
again the kingdom to Israel? And He said unto them, It is not for you to know
the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in His own power. But ye
shall receive power, after that the Holy Spirit is come upon you: and ye shall
be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and
unto the uttermost parts of the earth." Acts 1:6-8.
It is not enough that they were now ready to be His witnesses. It must be done
in the way and at the time Yahweh had prophesied, in order that it might bear
the proof of its genuineness. Accordingly we read in Acts chapter 2 that on the
exact day of Pentecost, the feast of weeks, Yahweh gave the fullness of His
Spirit upon them, the power to do what up to that time, they could only wish
for. In the resurrection they had seen the firstfruits, the demonstration of
Yahweh's power and that Yahshua the Christ was the one who had it, the promise
of what was yet to come. It was as Yahshua had promised, and on the exact day
when the scriptures symbolically foretold its coming, they received the power
upon themselves. The New Testament records they now had the power to heal the
sick, cleanse the lepers, even raise the dead, acting under the Holy Spirit,
which Yahshua had promised them.
We started out this lesson with the proposition that just the mere ability to
work miracles was not enough to prove the One who did them was our Redeemer.
There were many men in ancient times who could do things we cannot now duplicate
or explain. Only the One sent by Yahweh to redeem us could be the Christ. Proof
of His identity and authority, must be found in the prophecies in which Yahweh
had given us the signs which would identify Him.
We saw that Yahshua agreed with this. In John 5:31,36 Yahshua said, "If I bear
witness of Myself, My witness is not true. There is another that beareth witness
of Me: and I know that the witness which he witnesses of Me is true. I have a
greater witness than that of John: for the works which the Father hath given Me
to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of Me that the Father hath
sent Me."
We have examined in detail the great prophesies in which Yahweh had pointed out
what the Messiah, would do and what He would accomplish by it. We have seen that
Yahshua correctly fulfilled, even to the exact day when He did each of the
works, which Yahweh had set out for Him to do.
We have the proof in actual demonstration He is our Redeemer. He has paid the
penalty for us; He has brought us the gift of eternal life and by His
resurrection has proven it to be a fact. There can be no possible doubt that
Yahshua is in truth the Christ. Truly, I know that my Redeemer liveth.
End of Message by Pastor Bertrand Comparet.
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