Episode 124 Prophecy and Promise

Speaker 1:

It is time for a pause in your day. Welcome to a podcast where we press the pause button on our busy lives for a few moments, and we focus on God’s word with Sharon and Nicole, we pray this is a time of refreshing for you. The Sweet Selah Moments Podcast is a cooperative production of Word Radio and Sweet Selah Ministries.

Nicole:

Welcome to Sweet Selah Moments. This is episode 124 Prophecy and Promise At Christmas Time. We are taping this early, but by the time you hear us, Christmas will be just a few days away. Are you ready? Are you excited? We hope so. Sometimes Christmas can be a big disappointment when expectations fall through. Illness and bad weather can get in the way of the plans we make. We hope better for you this year. Sharon, I’ve been anticipating Christmas for a long time. I do my shopping as early as I can, as my goal each year is to be shopped, wrapped, and ready for Christmas before December 1st.

Sharon:
You are stunning with that, Nicole.

Nicole:

I heard that somewhere. I read it somewhere or someone told me and I said, that is what I want to do. It sounds wonderful. So it was not my own creation, but that leaves the month free for time with family and friends and slow drives with hot cocoa to see lights in the neighborhood. And you know, so many of those little activities that my kids just love to do that get lost in the shuffle if I’m running around last minute getting things together. So, for so many years I was overwhelmed and did not enjoy the season because I was so busy with merry making I didn’t even have time to sit and read a couple fun books with my kids. We used to have all these Christmas books I’d pull out just at Christmas time and every year I would look and go. We didn’t read any of them.

Sharon:
Oh, how sad.

Nicole:

And that made me so sad. I need to read these books. So now I keep things really simple and plan things out in advance so I don’t feel that hurry feeling that can steal joy.

Sharon: Yes.

Nicole:

It’s awful. So it really gets in the way of anticipation of Christmas to be so busy. So I can’t sit and reflect on Jesus’s miraculous birth if I’m stressed and frantic. So this year I am really anticipating the peace of the season now.

Sharon:
I am so impressed by you and I’m not a shopper, so I do it all in one day.

Nicole: Do you?

Sharon:

Yes. And I just make my big long list and I start early and I just go to the stores and when I’m done, I’m done. Because I don’t like shopping. So it has to be just one day. That’s all I can endure. So I haven’t started

Nicole:
There’s still a few days left to get it done, you know?

Sharon:
Yes. But I will.

Nicole:
That’s awesome.

Sharon:

What I’m anticipating is it’s been a long time since I have had all my grandchildren in my own home (Nicole: Oh) for Christmas. We often go to see them, but they’re all coming to us. And now that I’ve invited them and they’re all coming, I’m a little panicked because there are seven of them and they are older now, so they are big. And it is a small house and it’ll be winter. So, I’m working on, you know, where are the boots gonna go? Where are the coats gonna go? (Oh, sure) What are we gonna do every day? And I have this really fun Christmas pickle game we’re gonna play. (Oh, fun) We have a little pickle we hide on the tree. And we’re gonna hide it every day.

Nicole:
Oh, I love that.

Sharon:
And there’ll be a present every day for the pickle finder.

Nicole:
Sharon, what a fun idea. That’s a great idea.

Sharon:

It’s gonna be so fun. And sometimes the present will be just for the pickle finder, but sometimes it’ll be like candy canes for everybody and they’ll share out the candy canes and stuff. So.

Nicole:
I wanna come to your house and play this game.

Sharon:

And another rule, once someone has found the pickle, they get to hide the pickle, but not participate. (Nicole: Oh) So that the little guys that might not find the pickle as fast, get a chance to find the pickle.

Nicole:
Oh, that’s great. Wow.

Sharon:
I’m having fun with it, so I hope they do so.

Nicole:
Oh, that’s so fun.

Sharon:
So, a lot of the fun for me right now is anticipating.

Nicole: Yes.

Sharon:
It really is.

Nicole:
Oh, it’s the best part sometimes.

Sharon:

Yeah, but anticipation isn’t new. From earliest days, people have looked forward to different events. (Nicole: Yes) The Old Testament is full of holidays and feast days. And I suspect people looked forward to ceasing work, which you do at a holiday and just enjoying themselves. We all need the rhythm of work, rest, play. So today we’re gonna look at some key passages of anticipation of the birth of the Messiah. And then we are gonna do some anticipating of our own as we anticipate a second coming as King.

Nicole:

Oh, fun. I love this. So we’ll start with prophecies and go back and forth sharing what the prophets said and then how they were fulfilled. And we’ll answer the question every time, “What was being anticipated?”. So Sharon, why don’t you start us off in Genesis. Seems like a good place to start.

Sharon:

Right at the beginning. I remember back in my college days at Gordon College learning about the first mention of Jesus in the Bible and being astonished that it happened in Genesis.

Nicole: That’s so fun.

Sharon:

Good grief. It’s called in theological language, the proto— see if I can say it, protoevangelium. Now there’s a mouthful. The definition from Merriam’s Dictionary is this, “A messianic interpretation of a text, presaging man’s ultimate triumph over sin through a coming Savior, used as the first anticipation of the gospel.

Nicole:
Hmm. That’s neat.

Sharon:

And that’s Genesis 3:15. So I’m gonna read Genesis 3:14 and 15. It’s the part where God is angry with the serpent for having deceived Eve. And then her eating, and Adam eating the forbidden fruit. The serpent gets an immediate consequence and a future consequence to anticipate. And let me tell you, it’s negative for sure. Nothing nice about this anticipation. Here’s the passage. “Then the Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, you are cursed more than all animals, domestic and wild. You will crawl on your belly groveling in the dust as long as you live. And I will cause hostility between you and the woman. And between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head. You will strike his heel.” So way back in the beginning of time, God knew he would send his Son to be an offspring of a woman.

Nicole: Wow.

Sharon:

Stunning. Yeah. We read all about it all over the New Testament. I chose a verse from Paul’s letter to the Galatians, Galatians 4:4, that shows that fulfillment. It says this, “But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law.” So here’s the anticipation. This curse was passed on orally from Adam, who heard it, to his children, guess what God told the serpent. (Nicole: Right) It was all oral right from the beginning. And the children passed it on, in the garden this is what happened. Nothing was written down till Moses.

Nicole: Wow.

Sharon:
So this was oral history.

Nicole:
Oh, that’s so cool. I forget about that.

Sharon:

Isn’t that fascinating? And you can just hear the grandfather telling the children around the campfire, and God said to the serpent, you will grovel on your belly for the rest of your life, right. All that stuff. So the anticipation was there, and then Moses wrote it down, that there would come a time when the enemy, the serpent, would be crushed in the head by someone who would be born of a woman who was strong enough to deal with him. What a reassurance. Someday Satan, because of course Satan is

represented by the serpent, we’re gonna smash you in the head. (NIcole: Yeah) Yeah. It’s a little fuzzy, not made clear until much later. They’re reciting things they don’t completely understand, but still, (Right) it was there. Satan who inhabited the serpent might strike the Redeemer’s heel, but the Christ, the Anointed One would strike his head. There would be a battle. And where would you rather be hit, your head or your heel?

Nicole:
Right. The head’s a lot more—

Sharon:

Oh yeah. The head is it, where’s the most damage inflicted? Your head. I love that right after the fall from that great perfection of the Garden of Eden, God was already setting up a plan to defeat the enemy. Okay. Nicole, your turn.

Nicole:
That’s so good.

Sharon:
What else does the Bible say about Jesus’ coming? His birth?

Nicole:

Yeah. Oh, this is gonna be so fun. So I’m gonna read from Numbers 24:17 first. So, the verse is,”I see him but not here and now. I perceive him but far in the distant future. A star will rise from Jacob. A scepter will emerge from Israel.” So this is interesting. So the prophecy here is from Balaam and he’s actually not, he’s not a prophet from God. I think he’s a pagan prophet. And the ‘see’ is more of an inner anticipation or expectation of a future seeing because he’s not gonna see Jesus tomorrow. Right. But because we will all see Jesus one day when we stand before him for final judgment. And sometimes in prophecies, the timeline is hard to tell, ’cause they’ll be given a vision and then even the prophets aren’t entirely sure when this will come about.

Sharon: Right.

Nicole:
But for this one, there’s definitely a far out happening.

Sharon: Yes.

Nicole:

So, and then he talks about the star, A star will rise from Jacob, and the star is both literal and metaphorical, an actual star in the sky to signify a King has been born. But because it’s such a heavenly sign, it points to the fact that Jesus is God’s Son. Not just a grand king, but the grand King. And then Jesus is also called the Bright and Morning Star. I think that’s in Matthews, where they call him that. So, and then the name Jacob is listed in connection with his dissent from the line of David. So fulfills a

prophecy that he will come from the line of David, from Jacob, also called Israel. So there’s a lot just in the beginning.

Sharon: Yes.

Nicole:

And then the scepter will emerge from Israel. So again, the scepter is referring to royalty. That he’s coming from the line of Jacob and David. And that’s a royal line. So very cool.

Sharon:
Yes. So much.

Nicole:

Yeah. Just in that. So then we read in Matthew the anticipation or the conclusion of that, “Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea during the reign of King Herod. About that time, some wise men from Eastern lands arrived in Jerusalem asking, Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star as it rose and we have come to worship him”. And that’s Matthew 2:1-2. So we see the actual physical star here, the one God placed in the sky to announce his Son’s birth, and the birth of a star or a person of great importance, a celebrity was also born, which was God’s son, the Messiah. This is the most anticipated arrival ever in history. The Jewish nation of Israel had been longing for and anticipating his arrival for hundreds of years.

Sharon: Hundreds.

Nicole:

They had that 400 (year) period of silence. That was just excruciating for them. And also the wise men correctly call him king and have come to worship him as he deserves. It’s pretty amazing to see how all these little things line up, just from one vers, to his birth.

Sharon:
Isn’t it amazing?

Nicole:
I’m sure there’s more in there, but I was like, okay. That’s probably good.

Sharon:
It’s fabulous.

Nicole: It is.

Sharon:

It is. And kudos to the wise men who came so far away because they anticipated and yearned to see the newborn king.

Nicole:

Yes. Wasn’t that so cool? They must have been watching. I wonder if they knew beforehand to watch the sky or they just happened to go, Hey, what’s that new star? Let’s figure it out. So cool.

Sharon:

Yeah, so cool. I love it. I love it. Okay, here’s the next one that we chose. It’s Psalm 72:10-11. “The western kings of Tarshish and other distant lands will bring him tribute, the eastern kings of Sheba and Seba will bring him gifts. All kings will bow before him, and all nations will serve him.” So here we go. Solomon is about to ascend to the throne in this particular Psalm, and it ends with the prayers of David about Solomon. And he’s seeing into the future, and he’s seeing that there’s going to come a time when Messiah will be there and kings will come and worship from far lands and they will bring gifts. I just can’t stand it because Matthew 2:11 says they, the wise men, entered the house and saw the child with his mother Mary. And they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasure chests and gave him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. (Nicole: Wow) It’s just so cool. David, again, like you said, prophecies, the person that’s prophesying is seeing vaguely into the future. (Yes) Right? They don’t know exactly, but these wise men that may or may not have been actual kings, but maybe they were kings, who knows. But they’re coming with wealth. They’re coming with the bearing of kings and they’re bringing gifts. And he saw it, he saw it in advance. And then can you imagine Mary and Joseph, these poor people that, you know, birthed in a stable and evidently have a little house maybe by the time that wise men show up. And their baby is being bowed to by these wealthy men and being given gold. (Wow) And that is what we believe facilitated them living in Egypt, ’cause they had nothing.

Nicole: Oh, really?

Sharon:

And then they had to flee, right? So that Jesus wasn’t killed. What are they gonna live on? They’re immigrants. Oh, how about gold?

Nicole:
Right. We can hock the frankincense, right?

Sharon:
Right. Exactly. Exactly. So fun. So fun.

Nicole:
It is. So, we’re in Isaiah now, Isaiah 7:14. “All right then the Lord,” (is that part of the verse?)

Sharon:
It is in the New Living Translation. And it doesn’t even sound like it’s part of the verse.

Nicole:

It doesn’t, I was like, is that a Sharon word In the beginning?

Sharon:
Sounds like it, but I did not do the New Living Translation.

Nicole:

“All right then the Lord himself will give you the sign. Look, the virgin will conceive a child. She will give birth to a son and will call him Emmanuel, which means God is with us.” So Isaiah is giving validation to this by saying the Lord himself will give a sign. Like this isn’t just him speculating, and the sign is a virgin birth. So this is completely unheard of and quite impossible from a human perspective. We can’t manifest this.

Sharon: Yes.

Nicole:

We cannot. Science is trying and I don’t think we can do it yet. And also there’s a really big hint with the name Emmanuel, God with us.

Sharon: Yes.

Nicole:

So that’s kind of cool. So then we read in Matthew 1:18, “This is how Jesus the Messiah was born. His mother Mary was engaged to be married to Joseph. But before the marriage took place, while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit.” So here we have the fulfillment, the anticipation of Emmanuel. He is with them now. So cool. He’s here. And Mary was unwed and still a virgin. And she conceives a baby. And that’s only through the power of the Holy Spirit could this have happened.

Sharon: Right.

Nicole:
And it states it clearly how it came about.

Sharon: Yes. Yes.

Nicole: Amazing.

Sharon:

And Isaiah saw it beforehand. And when the New Testament was written, and they’re explaining all this, they used passages like this to understand it. Jesus is God with us. Isaiah told them that long time ago.

Nicole:
I think that’s so neat.

Sharon:
I do too. Oh my goodness. And again, in Isaiah, because Isaiah just got the lion’s share of all this.

Nicole:
He’s got all the fun prophecies about the baby. Yes.

Sharon:
I super wanna meet him in heaven.

Nicole: I know.

Sharon:

>Unbelievable. Okay. So I’ve got Isaiah 9:6-7. “For a child is born to us. A son is given to us. The government will rest on his shoulders and he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, his government and its peace will never end. He will rule with fairness and justice from the throne of his ancestor David, for all eternity, the passionate commitment of the Lord of Heaven’s armies will make this happen.

Nicole:
Oh, that’s a cool verse.

Sharon:

I know. Like, you better believe this is gonna happen. Right? So there’s a ton in here. The fact that there’s a child born, which we’ve already talked about. The fact that he’s called mighty God. God with us again. (NIcole: Yes) You know, it’s God in flesh. The the embedding of the Trinity is here, right here at the beginning. But what we’re gonna look at, and this one is that it’s from his ancestor David. (Yeah) And so that’s why everybody looking for Messiah would look for someone from the line of David. (Yeah) It had to be from the line of David. (That’s so interesting) Yeah. So Luke 1:31-32 says, “You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. So there it’s spelled out really, really clearly. (Yeah) You are the one.

Nicole:
Yeah. He came for his own.

Sharon:
This one is coming. Yes. Exactly. So there it is.

Nicole:

Well, and mine kind of continues from that too, a little bit. I’m in Isaiah 11:1-2. “Out of the stump of David’s family will grow a shoot. Yes, a new branch bearing fruit from the old root. And the Spirit of the Lord will rest on him. The spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.” So again, it’s kind of tracing Jesus’s lineage through David. But this is an interesting view on it. So from what I can gather, Jesse’s family was a bit obscure before David became king. Like they weren’t, you know, really well known. (Sharon: Right) And then again, Mary and Joseph were not well known or famous or prominent. And Jesus came from a long line of messy broken people.

Sharon: He did.

Nicole:

David’s line was kind of a hot mess. You know, he was an adulterer and a murderer. Rahab, the prostitute, then way back with Adam, the bringer of original sin. You know, the list is not impressive, nor is there a lot of wisdom or understanding in the family line thus far. But God. But God steps in and then in verse, in John 3:34 it says, for he is sent by God, he speaks God’s words, for God gives him the Spirit without limit. So I think the anticipation here is this healing, I think. This new shoot, this new branch of David’s family that has the Spirit without limit, the Spirit that gives wisdom and understanding, counsel and might, knowledge and fear of the Lord. So it’s like this strong, fresh new sprout that we can safely trust and look to.

Sharon: Yes.

Nicole:

So he is from the line of David, but he’s gonna be the real true King. The one that will have the Spirit of God. So I think that’s part of it, because it was kind of hard to find, you know? But he’s a Spirit without limit. He has access to all of this without end. And he will not fail.

Sharon:

Exactly. He will not fail like every other person. I mean, all our genealogies are messy, let’s face it. (Nicole: Oh yeah) And we contribute to the mess. (Yes) So this so cool. And I love that Trinity is here again. Right. Spirit. Right. The Spirit of, so you see God, the Father, God, the Son, God the Holy Spirit, even in these verses.

Nicole:
That’s so neat.

Sharon: Amazing.

Nicole:
There’s so much in them.

Sharon:
Yeah. Okay, well we’re moving from Isaiah, although we didn’t have to, there’s probably more there.

Nicole: I know.

Sharon:

We’re going to a kind of a sad verse. Poor Jeremiah. He’s called ‘the weeping prophet’ for a reason. He spent most of his life miserable. I mean, his job was to basically bemoan the fact that Israel was going to be taken into captivity. (Nicole: Right) Because they wouldn’t listen and they didn’t listen. And God said, they won’t listen to you, but say it anyways. (Nicole: Oh!) I know.

Nicole:
Sad. That’s a tough job.

Sharon:
I think he must be so happy to be in heaven now.

Nicole: Probably.

Sharon:

On the other side of all this. Yeah. So, but this is a particularly brutal verse. It says this, “This is what the Lord says. A cry is heard in Rama, deep anguish, bitter weeping. Rachel weeps for her children refusing to be comforted, for her children are gone.” I get that. Don’t comfort me. My child was taken from me. Nobody, you do refuse to be comforted to begin with. You’ve gotta grieve it out, right? (Nicole: Oh yeah) It’s a horrible thing. Children are supposed to outlive their parents. And when they don’t, it is a grief I’ve watched friends walk through that is unimaginable. It’s just awful, awful, awful. And when it happens under the circumstances in which Jeremiah saw it, it’s like triple awful. So let me read what happened in Matthew 2:16. “Herod was furious when he realized that the wise men had outwitted him.” (Sharon: ’cause of course Herod had said, Oh, come back and tell me when you find the Messiah) (Nicole: Yes) (Sharon: Because basically I’m going to kill him. (Nicole: Right) (Sharon: And the wise men got a dream that said, don’t you be going back to Herod)

Nicole:
Right. He’s up to no good.

Sharon:

So anyways, Herod’s furious. “So he sent soldiers to kill all the boys in and around Bethlehem, who were two years old and under, based on the wise men’s report of the star’s first appearance.” What kind of a brutal person does that?

Nicole: I know.

Sharon:

I can’t. I don’t want to even think about it, Nicole. The thought of a sweet mama with her firstborn son, or her third born son. It doesn’t even matter what born son.

Nicole: Right.

Sharon:
Her little 2-year-old or her infant.

Nicole:
Oh, I know.

Sharon:
Because it was two and under. What did they ever do?

Nicole: I know.

Sharon:

Nothing. Of course there was crying. Of course, Rachel representing Israel, (NIcole: Yes) is saying, I refuse to be comforted. Leave me alone.

Nicole:
Just makes no sense.

Sharon:

Just scream and pull out my hair. They killed my children. Unbelievable. The battle that raged when God entered Mary and distilled himself as a baby was intense, in the spiritual realm. Because here comes Messiah, the One that’s gonna save us from death. And Satan, the enemy, is gonna nip at that heel as much as he can.

Nicole:
Oh, he’s not going down without a fight.

Sharon:
No. He is not going down.

Nicole:
He tried everything to get him.

Sharon:

And, you know, all I can think of is, Joseph was chosen so well, of course God chose well. Because if he had not obeyed instantly. Like, he gets the dream. Get up and go. What if he’d been like, okay, well I need to kind of tie things up here.

Nicole: Oh, right.

Sharon:
I would’ve been more likely doing that.

Nicole:
Right. You sure God, Egypt? Like it’s kinda, you know?

Sharon:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was gone in a heartbeat. And if he hadn’t, Jesus would’ve been killed.

Nicole:
Right. Oh my goodness.

Sharon:
So what a wonderful earthly protective daddy he was. That saved Jesus’ life.

Nicole:
Oh, I never thought about that about Joseph. That’s so sweet.

Sharon:

Yeah. And it’s so stunning to me that God let Jeremiah see this tragedy hundreds of years before. And I think it’s because God knows it was a tragedy. God is grieved too. He doesn’t love evil. And I bet all those little babies are so loved in heaven that died. I know. But what an awful, awful, awful thing.

Nicole:
I know. And he saw all those mamas in their grief too.

Sharon: Yes, he did.

Nicole:

He did. That was really sweet. Alright, so Hosea 11:1 says, “When Israel was a child, I loved him. And I called my son out of Egypt.” So this one is really interesting. I think there’s two parts, actually, I have three parts to this. I saw the first was kind of the reference to salvation. You know, when Israel was a child, you know, disobedient and kind of willful, I loved him. And I called my son out of Egypt. So without, we can’t procure our own salvation. Neither could Israel, neither could his son. You know there’s nothing of our own merit that allowed this salvation. You know, the calling out of Egypt, Egypt at that time was their oppressor. (Sharon: Yes) Just miserable. So there’s that. Then there’s (the) actual

Israel was called out of Egypt. (Yes) He called the whole nation out of there and saved them from Egypt. But then also, we’ll go to Matthew 2:13. “It says, after the wise men were gone an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, Get up, flee to Egypt with the child and his mother, the angel said, stay there until I tell you to return because Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” So here we see the actual calling out of his son out of Egypt, because (Yes) he was going to be killed. You know? So I think the anticipation here, God’s protection and perfect plan for us.

Sharon: Yes.

Nicole:

You know, this seemed like just a scary place for his only son to be in, surrounded by the horrific death of all the peers, all the little boys in his life that he would’ve grown up with, you know, and then having to flee for his life with his parents. Like we were just, you had mentioned earlier they were not wealthy people. And the type of work that Joseph did, he probably had established some clients and established himself. And to have to uproot that and leave to a foreign country with your little 2-year-old and your wife. And then have to reestablish, you know, your work in a new place, and Egypt wasn’t exactly a godly nation.

Sharon: No.

Nicole:

They had a horrific history with them. So you had mentioned too Joseph’s faithfulness in trusting God to go to this place that seemed like a terrible idea.

Sharon: Yes.

Nicole:
Go to Egypt, God?

Sharon: Yes. Yes.

Nicole:

And to listen. You know, I think sometimes we despair when life gets tough. You know, like, oh, this isn’t God’s best for us. You must have messed up. But look at what God led Jesus through.

Sharon: I know.

Nicole:

You know? God did not abandon his son and he will not abandon us. (Sharon: No) Even when it seems like evil has won, God made a way to protect his son.

Sharon:
Yes, he sure did. And then he calls his son out of Egypt back to Israel eventually.

Nicole: Yes.

Sharon:

And it’s like if you read this verse before it all, you’re like, wait, wait, the Messiah is supposed to be born in Bethlehem. How is he being called out of Egypt? But he was.

Nicole:

He was, he was left there for a time and kind of a scary situation as well. And then he brought him back to where he needed him to be.

Sharon:
Right. So a prophecy that didn’t make sense becomes sensible. Yeah.

Nicole:
Right. Yeah. Very interesting.

Sharon:

Yeah. Oh, I love it. Okay. Micah, this is one of my favorites because it’s about a tiny thing. I like the Tinies. Micah 5:2. “But you Oh, Bethlehem Ephrathah are only a small village among all the people of Judah, yet a ruler of Israel whose origins are in the distant past will come from you on my behalf. (Nicole: Ooh!) I love that. And that is why of course, when the wise men said we’re here for the Messiah the rabbis that Herod had them consult said Bethlehem. (Wow) Because Micah 5:2 actually. Because of Micah 5:2 right there.

Nicole:
Because of this passage. That’s pretty cool.

Sharon:

Yeah. Yeah. So people knew he was coming from Bethlehem, which is why going back to ‘I’m calling my son out of Egypt’, would’ve been like, what?

Nicole:
He’s supposed be in Bethlehem.

Sharon:

And yet it was both. Yeah. So, so here it is. Luke 2:1-7: “At that time, the Roman Emperor Augustus decreed that a census should be taken throughout the Roman Empire (This was the first census taken

when Quirinius was governor of Syria) all returned to their own ancestral towns to register for this census. And because Joseph was a descendant of King David, he had to go to Bethlehem in Judea, David’s ancient home. He traveled there from the village of Nazareth in Galilee. He took with him Mary to whom he was engaged, who was now expecting a child. And while they were there, the time came for her baby to be born. She gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger because there was no lodging available for them.” So it was a census during Quirinius’s reign, which Luke is very specific. So that’s actually how we know when Jesus, the right timeframe.

Nicole: Wow.

Sharon:

So fascinating. But Jesus had to be born in Bethlehem. So God used a secular ruler who thought it was time to find out how many people he had. Right?

Nicole:
To bring about the prophesy.

Sharon:
To bring Joseph to Bethlehem.

Nicole: Wow.

Sharon:

Unbelievable how the prophets could prophesy this years before it happened and how it doesn’t even seem like it would’ve, they lived in Nazareth.

Nicole:
Right. How did they end up over there?

Sharon:
So many prophecies. Nicole, looking at them all as a whole, what stood out to you the most?

Nicole:

This was so fun. You know, God gave so many, gave the prophets so many little and big clues, and he gave so many details and so many seemingly random and unconnected things that needed to be fulfilled in order for Christ to have been the correct Messiah. You know?

Sharon: Yes.

Nicole:

I remember in high school, one of my teachers had talked about, I think there’s over 400 plus prophecies about Jesus’ coming.

Sharon: So many.

Nicole:

And he said that for that to have been a random occurrence that Jesus just [filled] it is like the entire world was covered with little, like one by one tiles. And that one tile had a star on it. If you just walked over the entirety of the earth and randomly picked up one of those tiles and they found the star, that’s how improbable it would be for someone to just randomly fulfill all of these prophecies. So it had to be God ordained that Jesus came when he did. (Sharon: Yes) And all these events lined up. It just, it’s mind boggling to wrap your head around it.

Sharon:
Isn’t it? It really is. It is. It’s a stunning testimony to why the word of God is so important to us.

Nicole:
Yes. It’s beautiful.

Sharon:

And why we can trust it. We have actually no time to talk about looking for a second coming, because we spent the entire time on his first. But I will say this, we can trust the prophecies, even the ones we don’t completely understand yet, when Jesus coming back.

Nicole: Yes. Yeah.

Sharon:
Because it’ll be like it was for these guys. It’ll be, Aha.

Nicole:
That’s what you meant.

Sharon:
That’s what you meant. (Nicole: Right) Yeah. And they’ll all be fulfilled. I have no doubt.

Nicole:
Yeah. But they all come about in his time, in his way. So we can just trust that he’s got this.

Sharon:
Yes. He does.

Nicole:

Even if it seems super obscure, like this won’t happen. Trust God. He’s got it. He’s got it. He’ll make a way.

Sharon:

He’s got it. And he sees the whole of history from beginning to end. Now. (Nicole: Yes) We live in a tiny little timeline part of it. But God sees the beginning from the end. (He does. We can trust it) And so, I mean, obviously he knows where the end is. He’s already seen it. (Right) So we can trust, and I love it that he gives us glimpses just to reassure us that he’s got this. Even the hard things. So.

Nicole:
That’s so good.

Sharon:

Well, let me pray. Oh, thank you Lord. Thank you for the coming of Messiah. Thank you that you did distill yourself into human flesh and came as a weak and helpless little baby. Thank you for the rescue into Egypt and back. Thank you for all the things. Thank you for the fight that went on so that we could live with you forever because of the death and resurrection of your son. We honor you this Christmas. We love that we can anticipate the return of the King Jesus someday. Hallelujah. In your name Lord. Amen.

Nicole:

What a reassurance we have that God’s words are true. As you worship the Lord Jesus this Christmas remember all the planning that God did in order to bring us home to him someday and whisper an extra prayer of thanks. Merry Christmas everyone.

Speaker 1:

We are so glad you stopped for a while with us. The Sweet Selah Moments Podcast is a cooperative production of Word Radio and Sweet Selah Ministries. More information about this podcast can be found @SweetSelah.org. Thank you for joining us.