Restoring Jesus: A Fresh Look at Ancient Prophecies, Divine Signs, and Eyewitness Testimonies

By Dr. Jeffery Elliott

In less than fifty years, a pagan world was turned upside down by Jesus fever. Everyone wanted to be like Jesus. His followers were called “little Christs,” or Christians. Converts were being added to the local church daily, and the message of the gospel was exciting. But today, Jesus has become a ridiculed figure in society and an embarrassment to Christians. What happened?

In Restoring Jesus, you will see the gospels in a fresh light that goes back to the first century to discover who Jesus really is. Author Dr. Jeffery Elliot invites you to think about why the apostles believed in Jesus so strongly that they were willing to die torturous deaths—what made them so confident in Jesus’ identity? But through their own eyewitness accounts, we can have our sight restored to the truth and believe in Jesus just as the apostles did.

Read ancient prophecies, revel in divine signs, explore eyewitness accounts, and comb through historical documents to find the hidden truth that is missing from the church today. Although many in the church today have had their eyes diverted from the truth of Jesus’s identity, you can look to the Word and once again see the powerful, life-transforming truth of Christ.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Dec 11, 2018
• ISBN: 9781973646976

Dr. Jeffery Elliott

Dr. Jeffery Elliott was born and raised in Clarksville, Tennessee. At the tender age of seven, he was born again at Hilldale Baptist Church. For over half a century, Dr. Elliott has served in churches as a layman, a deacon, and a minister. He has been married to his college sweetheart for almost four decades. In all that they do, they have served the Lord together. Dr. Elliott received his bachelor of science in electrical engineering from Tennessee Technological University and worked in the field of electrical engineering and computer science for almost twenty years. During that time, God called him into bi-vocational ministry and eventually into full-time ministry. In preparation for the ministry, he received a master’s of divinity degree from Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary and a doctorate of ministry degree from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

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Copyright © 2018 DR. Jeffery Elliott.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®)

Copyright © 2001 by Crossway,

a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

All rights reserved.

ESV Text Edition: 2016

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-9736-4698-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-4699-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-4697-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018914197

WestBow Press rev. date: 12/10/2018

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part 1

The Jesus of Prophecy

Matthew: The Gospel of Prophecy

The Virgin Birth

The Messiah’s Address

The Birth Events

The Forerunner

The Hour Has Come

The Overwhelming Conclusion

Part 2

The Miraculous Jesus

John: The Purpose of Miracles

The Lord of Inexhaustible Grace

The Ever-Present Lord

The Lord of the Sabbath

The Lord of Abundance

The Lord over Nature

The Lord of Light

The Lord of Life

The Inescapable Conclusion

Part 3

Historical Jesus

Luke: The Historical Gospel

The Birthday of the King

Anno Domini: In the Year of Our Lord

The Beginning of the Ministry of Jesus

Extra-Biblical Evidence of Historical Jesus

Part 4

The Urgent Message of Jesus

Mark: The Gospel of Jesus Christ

About the Author

Endnotes

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to my mother and father, who faithfully took me to church, introduced me to Christ, and believed in me. I also dedicate it to everyone who has ever wondered about Jesus and who he is.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To the thousands of Christian apologists throughout time who have shared the evidence of the truth of who Jesus is.

INTRODUCTION

Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went.

—Acts 8:4

It was the busiest time of the year. Every street was at a standstill, packed with out-of-towners in for the holidays. Vendors lined up and down the road selling food, jewelry, clothing, and mementos. The gossip was thick about the most recent news. What could it mean?

In the middle of all this, a group of apparent drunks had gathered in the middle of the crowd and were shouting. Each one seemed to be yelling in a different language. Tourists in the crowd reacted when they heard their native tongue.

One man stood in front of the group and called out to calm the chaos. We are not drunk, Peter started out. He began to explain that what they were witnessing was a fulfillment of what the prophet Joel had foretold. With the excitement and energy of a child on Christmas, he told them about Jesus. Save yourselves, he concluded. On that day, three thousand were saved. And the membership of the Church of Jerusalem went from 120 to 3,120 in one day.

So what happened at your church last Sunday? Don’t think this can happen today? Similar accounts have occurred during at least three periods in American history. The First Great Awakening was during the mid-eighteenth century, where tens of thousands of people gathered to hear George Whitefield preach about the new birth as he traveled up and down the New England states. The crowds were so large they stood in the streets and fields just to hear the Gospel.

It happened again in the 1830s, when God called Charles Finney to lead the Second Great Awakening. They would clear out a spot in the woods and build as many as eighteen pulpits for eighteen preachers to speak at once because the crowds were so large. The spiritual fervor was so great that people would fall down on their knees, weeping over their sins and confessing the name of Christ.

Who can deny the impact of Billy Graham in our own time? He preached to crowds that filled football stadiums, and thousands were saved. Has God changed? Have people changed? Aren’t we all just sinners? It can happen again. What do we need to do? Let’s find out.

When we read the book of Acts, we find people excited about Jesus. Jesus fever was sweeping the ancient world. After persecution broke out in Jerusalem, Christians left the city and scattered across the land. Everywhere they went, they told others about Jesus. Not just preachers: everyday Christians like you.

Look at these verses that describe the early days of the church.

Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day. (Acts 2:41)

And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. (Acts 2:47)

But many who heard the message believed; so the number of men who believed grew to about five thousand. (Acts 4:4)

These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also. (Acts 17:6 KJV)

Jesus was like a rock star, an all-star athlete, a movie star. People couldn’t get enough of him. Notice that God was adding to their number daily. Daily, not just Sundays. Not just in church services.

So when was the last time you talked about Jesus the way you do about your favorite football team or singer or actor? What has happened? What has changed between the days the church started and life in America today? Why aren’t we excited about Jesus today?

Jesus said, And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. In this context, he was talking about his Crucifixion and being lifted up on a cross. But the Greek word for lifted up can also be translated as exalted. So the passage carries a dual meaning. If we exalt Jesus, he will draw people to himself. Why do we not see the masses being drawn to Jesus? Maybe it is because we no longer exalt him.

Think about how we treat Jesus today. His name is a cuss word. As a society, we consider it offensive in any other context. We question whether he even really existed. We strip him of his deity and deny him his miracles. That is hardly exalting him. No wonder people are repulsed by Jesus; we have made him out to be nothing. I am not just talking about how society treats him; I am talking about how the church treats Jesus.

A doctor who plays Christian music in his office shares how Christians encourage him to stop playing religious music because it is offensive. Dr. David Jeremiah, in his book, Escape the Coming Night laments,

The tragedy today is that not only atheists and agnostics deny the miracles of the Bible, but some so-called Christian preachers and teachers, liberal in their outlook and education, consider many biblical miracles to be allegories and reject the supernatural.

What happened? Where is our excitement over Jesus? Why are people not coming to Christ in droves?

This question has bothered me for most of my life. I have looked for answers and asked questions of everyone. My pastors didn’t have the answer. The deacons didn’t know. My Sunday school teacher was stumped. So I went to a seminary and was shocked to learn that for most of Christian academia, everything about the Bible is wrong or made up. Miracles are not real. Prophecies were written after the fact and falsely claimed to be true. The Catholic church lied about everything to control people. I found a thin veneer over a subject that had roots going back hundreds of years. I started digging. Where did it all come from?

What I found was that most preachers and scholars today simply parrot what has been taught over the last couple hundred years. They accept a modern scholarship that denies or downplays the supernatural. Today’s scholarship has slowly dethroned the King of kings in our collective minds. How did this happen?

It started out as a thought over three hundred years ago. It was probably dismissed at first, but it kept growing. Then it was discussed among academic peers; an undeveloped concept but an attractive one: the idea that there was nothing that humans could not reason out or discover with logic and without supernatural revelation. It became known as the Enlightenment.

Wikipedia describes it in one sentence as an intellectual and philosophical movement that dominated the world of ideas in Europe during the 18th century.

Many great things came out of the Enlightenment that we enjoy today, concepts that were part of the founding principles of this nation, such as independence from monarchs, individual liberty, and religious freedom. There were advancements in science that eventually led to electricity, computers, and smartphones. But there was another idea that carried the seeds of our destruction: the rejection of the supernatural.

Out of the Enlightenment came rationalism, deism, and higher criticism. Let’s look at some dictionary definitions for these three. A quick Google search gives us