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Newington Three Angels Church

Eric Walsh

Christmas, Prophecy and Promise

It's good to be with everyone here on this day we call Christmas Day.

Jesus was clearly not born on December 25th, but it is a season.

And the real power of the season is that it reminds us of the first bookend of the life of Christ.

At the end of Christ's life, we have the story of the crucifixion, which will forever remind us of what Jesus did for us.

The crucifixion is not possible without the incarnation.

If Christ does not come to earth and take on flesh, he cannot die for our sins.

And so, every year that the whole world seems to think of Jesus in this way, I think as Christians, we would be remiss if we missed the opportunity to also study the birth of Christ and the sacrifice that he made.

A lot of Christians who, the idea of Christmas is unsettling because it has pagan attributes and things attached to it.

But if you're a Christian, you have to learn that you live in a world that has been saturated with sin.

Now, how do you pull from out of those things the pearls that God has for us?

And what I mean by that is the very biblical story of Christ.

If you can pull from that and study it, the season has more meaning and your Christian walk will have more meaning.

Our scripture reading today is taken from the book of Revelation chapter 12 and verse 5 to make the point this is a powerful scripture on the first advent of Jesus Revelation chapter 12 and verse 5 the Bible says and she brought forth a man-child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron.

And her child was caught up unto God and to his throne.

Our message this Sabbath is entitled Christmas Prophecy and Promise.

Father God, we thank you for this opportunity to study your word.

Lord, we're so glad we have you to help us through these difficult times.

Now, Lord, I ask again that you make me just a nail upon the wall, a rusty, sorry nail, Lord.

Upon that nail, Lord, I ask that you hang a portrait of Jesus Christ.

Instead, Father, let us hear a word from the throne room of grace.

As our prayer in Jesus' precious and holy name, amen.

If you have your Bible, you can turn to the book of Matthew chapter 1.

And just to give you some backdrop as to what is going on, the first part of the first chapter of the book of Matthew gives us the genealogy and lineage of Christ.

There are 2 genealogies of Christ given in scripture, 1 in Matthew and 1 in Luke.

The 1 in Matthew, most scholars agree, is the lineage through Joseph, his legal father, and the 1 in Luke is the lineage through Mary, his, of course, birth mother.

Just really quickly, 1 of the pieces of significance is that all of the women mentioned, except for Mary, all of the women mentioned in Jesus' lineage were not Jewish.

You could go through and look at his lineage and find that Jesus was born into a very human family.

In other words, Jesus was not excluded from family dysfunction.

If you look at his lineage, it's all in there.

After 80 years of the Jews being free and having their own political independence, after the time of the Greeks, it wasn't long before Pompey came into Israel and took Jerusalem and the rest of Israel and made them a Roman province of Syria.

This means that at the time of Jesus's birth, the people in Israel, the Jews of the time, were furious, angry.

They wanted to shake off Roman oppression, And Roman oppression was cruel.

In fact, when Daniel describes the Roman Empire in Daniel chapter 2, they are described as having as the legs of iron.

Iron is not only the strongest metal, But the legs are the largest and strongest group of muscles in the body.

Rome would crush anything it faced and rule for centuries.

Jesus is born at this time when in fact even the vestiges of true religion In Israel, the light was beginning to go out.

The whole planet was now engulfed in darkness.

This is why in Galatians 4 and verse 4, the scripture says, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman.

The scripture says, in the fullness of time, meaning that when no earth was at the point where darkness would consume it completely, Christ was born.

He did not come at a time on Earth's history when it would have been easiest to be born.

In fact, he came when being born would be the most challenging.

Remember, Matthew writes his gospel so that the prophecies of the Old Testament will help to convince the Jews of his day of the Messiahship of Christ Jesus.

That's the purpose of his gospel, at least a big part of it, to convey to the Jews of the time who Jesus really was.

Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on the wise, when as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph.

So remember in weddings among the Jews at the time, there was a year-long time when they were together, but they weren't fully married, living together.

It was an extended engagement where they weren't intimate, but they were almost married.

And this was a time when the husband-to-be would build a house and save the money and do all the things that would need to be done for them to have a family.

So she was espoused to Joseph, but she had the last part of the marriage process had not happened yet.

It says, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.

Mary was probably in her mid-teens at the time, which was not uncommon in the day, and she would have had to go to the man to whom she was engaged to be married and tell him that she was pregnant.

Now, when she explains this to Joseph, her explanation is that she had not been with someone else, that in fact the Holy Spirit had conceived in her and that Gabriel had given her the announcement.

This must have been a difficult discussion, but in verse 19, the Bible says, then Joseph, her husband, being a just man and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privately.

So Joseph, when he hears this thing, Joseph is concerned.

As a man, he's probably broken at the thought that the woman he loves and that he is committed to marrying turns up pregnant.

Her explanation is probably not enough to get him to where he would believe that what she's saying is true.

And so he in his kindness, because remember, he had the ability now to put her on blast, as we would say, and have her really dragged in the mud in front of everyone else.

In fact, there are those who would have probably taken her life if you'd accused her of the sin that most would have accused her of.

Joseph and says, listen I'm gonna put her away privately.

And in verse 20, As Joseph is pondering his course of action, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream.

Gabriel had been visiting with the people in the story of the first advent, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the what?

Can you imagine when he has this dream and the angel shows up?

Can you imagine Joseph in his bed laying there as this thing happens and and the angel says, no actually Mary is telling you the truth.

Verse 21, and she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus.

What a powerful statement, as Joseph is interacting and listening to this angel.

The angel says, listen, she's going to have a son and you need to call his name Jesus from the Hebrew word, Yahshua, which means Jehovah is our salvation.

Because he will save his people from their sins.

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Christmas, Prophecy and Promise

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