We’ll Always Have Bethlehem!

“We’ll always have Paris” is an iconic line of dialog from the final scene of the classic film, Casablanca.

Humphrey Bogart meant Paris, France.  Do you know that there are at least thirty-two other cities named Paris?

Americans seem most fascinated by the name; there are twenty-four Paris’ in the United States, including, here in the West, ones in California, Idaho, and Oregon.

You’d better let your travel agent know it’s the Paris in France you want to visit, or else you might end up in Denmark, or the Yukon.

One powerful proof of the supernatural origin of the Bible is the presence of predictive prophecy within its pages.  Old Testament prophets predicted minute details of events that were fulfilled hundreds of years later in the New Testament.

An example of this is found in the Old Testament Book of Micah.  He’s the prophet quoted by Matthew in the New Testament that tells us where Jesus would be born.

Micah 5:2  “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Though you are little among the thousands of Judah, Yet out of you shall come forth to Me The One to be Ruler in Israel, Whose goings forth are from of old, From everlasting.”

As predictive prophecies go, this one is a doozy.  It predicts  the location of Jesus’ birth about 700 years before it happened.
Notice the attention to minute detail in the prophecy.  Not just Bethlehem; Bethlehem Ephrathah.

It’s an important designation, because there were, in Israel, two Bethlehem’s.

One Bethlehem is in the north of Israel, not far from Nazareth.  It is called Bethlehem of Zebulon.
The other, and most famous, Bethlehem is situated on the main highway to Egypt, and was specified variously as Ephrath (Genesis 35:16), Bethlehem Ephrathah (Micah 5:2), Bethlehem-Judah (First Samuel 17:12), and “the city of David” (Luke 2:4).

The promised Savior would be born in the Bethlehem in Judah, in Bethlehem Ephrathah, the one about five miles from Jerusalem.

We are all familiar with the prophecy about Bethlehem, but there is another prophecy, by Micah, about the exact birthplace of Jesus that we too easily overlook.  Earlier in his book Micah said something even more specific about Bethlehem Ephrathah:

Micah 4:8  And you, O tower of the flock, The stronghold of the daughter of Zion, To you shall it come, Even the former dominion shall come, The kingdom of the daughter of Jerusalem.”

According to an early church father, who’s name was Jerome, the “Tower of the Flock” was about a mile outside Bethlehem Ephrathah.  It translates from the Hebrew phrase “Migdal Eder” [mig-dawl ay-der] and means a watch tower of the flock.

It is exactly what it describes – a tower from which shepherds could keep watch over their flocks.

The Targum is an Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Bible (Tanak) which was written during Israel’s seventy year captivity in Babylon.  In it the rabbis added commentary to the Scriptures.

One such commentator, Rabbi Munk, paraphrases Micah 4:8 to say, “He spread His tent beyond Migdal Eder, the place where King Messiah will reveal Himself at the end of days.”

We’re thus definitely being told the precise place of Jesus’ appearance on the earth.

What, exactly, was the Tower of the Flock outside of Bethlehem?  Alfred Edersheim, a nineteenth-century Jewish scholar and convert to Christianity, writing in 1833, said this about Migdal Eder:

This Migdal Eder was not the watchtower for the ordinary flocks which pastured on the barren sheep ground beyond Bethlehem, but lay close to the town, on the road to Jerusalem.  A passage in the Mishnah leads to the conclusion, that the flocks which pastured there were destined for Temple sacrifices and, accordingly, that the shepherds who watched over them were not ordinary shepherds… The same… passage also leads us to infer that these flocks lay out all the year round, since they are spoken of as in the fields thirty days before the Passover – that is, in the month of February… Thus Jewish tradition in some dim manner apprehended the first revelation of the Messiah from that Migdal Eder, where shepherds watched the Temple flocks all the year round.  Of the deep symbolic significance of such a coincidence, it is needless to speak.

The Mishnah is a written compilation of the oral traditions passed down by the rabbis.  The Mishnah passage Edersheim references reads like this:

An animal that was found between Jerusalem and Migdal Eder, or a similar distance in any direction, the males are [considered] burnt offerings. The females are [considered] peace offerings. Rabbi Yehuda says, those which are fitting as a [Passover] offering are [considered] [Passover] offerings if it is thirty days before the festival.

The flocks being watched over are therefore assumed to be Passover lambs, fit for sacrifice at the nearby Temple.

What is “the deep symbolic significance” Edersheim mentioned?

It is this amazing fact:

Jesus Christ, who was identified by John the Baptist at His baptism as “the Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world,” was born not just in Bethlehem, but right where the sacrificial lambs for the Temple were born.

Another scholar wrote this: “[The Bible’s] original audience would have immediately picked up on the religious significance of the Bethlehem shepherds watching their flocks by night.  Everyone in Israel recognized Bethlehem as being synonymous with sacrificial lambs.”

Shepherds from all over Israel would drive their flocks to Migdal Eder.  There, special Temple shepherds would inspect them for any defects that would render them unsuitable for sacrifice. Those sheep that were certified without spot or blemish would then be watched by these Temple shepherds until needed for sacrifice.

The shepherds who were responsible for certifying a lamb as spotless and without blemish for sacrifice were the ones notified that the perfect Lamb of God had been born.
When the angels appeared that night to the shepherds in the fields outside Bethlehem, it was not just a declaration of the Good News to simple shepherds.  It was a powerful prophetic sign to all of Israel.

Here is another commentary, citing the Law of Moses in Leviticus, that lends credibility to Jesus being born exactly where the sacrificial lambs were birthed.  It’s a little long, for a quote, but it is worth a listen.

Tradition would have us believe that Joseph and Mary became stuck in an animal stable as a means of last resort.  The Greek word used in Luke 2:7 for “inn” is kataluma, which is the same Greek word translated as “guestchamber” in Mark 14:14 and Luke 22:11.  This scripture speaks of “no room in the kataluma” – not [an] “inn.”

Kataluma would have been a guest room in [Joseph’s] family home.

According to the [Law], when a woman had an issue of blood for any reason, she was ritually unclean for that time and for seven days thereafter.  She remained ceremonially unclean until she was purified by entering a mikvah (water immersion) in the witnessing presence of a rabbi.  While she was ritually unclean, she had to live separately from the rest of the family so as not to defile the people in the household and by her presence rendering them ceremonially unclean.  Therefore, during those times, the woman would leave and stay in a nearby area where she would not defile the home.

During childbirth and with the issue of blood loss, the same rule applied to women giving birth.

If she were to give birth in the common living area, she would defile the family and make it necessary for them to be ceremonially purified by both a ritual immersion and a sacrifice; therefore, women would leave the home and give birth elsewhere.

After the cessation of blood and the required time of waiting for purification, the woman and child would perform the necessary rituals of purification to be ceremonially clean and return to the household with the rest of the family.

Thus, with this understanding, there being “no place for them in the kataluma” would be regarded as completely appropriate.

Where, then, might Jesus have been born?  We have, in the Bible, a further clue.  What was the baby Jesus wrapped up in after His birth?  That’s right, swaddling cloths.

The information come from the angel’s announcement of Jesus’ birth to the shepherds in the field.  “The angel said to them, “Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger” (Luke 2:11-12).

The significance of Jesus’ swaddling clothes is often overlooked. But notice that the angel specifically explains that the fact that Jesus will be found in swaddling clothes, in a manger, was the “sign” to them of his true identity as the Savior (Luke 2:12).

How is that a sign?

Both swaddling clothes and mangers were components of the Tower of the Flock.
The sacrificial lambs were immediately wrapped in “swaddling cloths” after their births to protect them from injury, since baby lambs tend to thrash about and harm themselves in their first couple of hours of their lives.

Swaddling “bands” were also used for subduing them prior to sacrifice.

Regarding the manger in which Mary lay her swaddled baby, it could be that Jesus was born right there, among the flocks that were there near the Tower of the Flock, in a shelter that was used as a birthing room for the lambs.

While some of this is sanctified speculation, it would explain why there was no need for the angels to give these shepherds directions to the birth place, because they already knew where it was.  He would be found bound by the lamb’s swaddling clothes in the birthing room, in a manger, and they knew where that place was – at the Tower of the Flock.

The sacrificial lamb is a theme running all through the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation.

In Genesis, in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve sinned.  God promised He would resolve their sin and give Adam and Eve and their descendants eternal life.  He said He would come Himself, into our world, and act in our place, on our behalf.

What would He have to do to resolve sin and death and give them and their descendants eternal life?

God showed them right there in the Garden.  He slew animals in order to provide clothing for them.  Something or someone had to die in their place, as a substitute.

I suggest those animals were lambs because from that moment on the followers of God approached Him by faith, offering lambs as a sacrifice.

In Bible times, while the Temple stood, very day of the Jewish calendar year, two lambs were required for a daily sacrifice, meaning that 730 were needed each year, plus the thousands more lambs needed annually for Passover, as well as for the other religious rituals.

Think back for a moment, to the immediate aftermath of Adam and Eve’s sin.  God provided animals as a sacrifice, but He also promised them that He Himself would eventually enter the human race as the Seed of the woman, and that He would be the ultimate sacrifice.

A little later on, in Abraham’s near sacrifice of his son, Isaac, God gave us a picture of what that sacrifice would be like.

As Abraham and Isaac climbed the mountain, Isaac asked his father,

Genesis 22:7  … My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?
Genesis 22:8  And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.

It was a prophecy.  “God will provide Himself a lamb.”  God would Himself come and be the sacrificial lamb.

There’s no mystery as to exactly Who that was, and when He came.

When Jesus came to be baptized, beginning His public ministry, John the Baptist identified Jesus as the Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world.

In First Corinthians 5:7, the apostle Paul calls Jesus “our Passover,” which is can be rendered our “Passover Lamb.”

In the Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, the apostle John sees Jesus in Heaven and calls Him the “Lamb that had been slain.”  It is Revelation’s favorite name for Jesus, occurring some thirty times.

Migdal Eder, the Tower of the Flock, was the place where lambs destined for the Temple sacrifice were born and raised. Generations of hereditary shepherds tended the sacred flocks. The shepherds would separate the lambs, choosing only the perfect firstborn males to drive to Jerusalem.  There the lambs would be purchased by those who wished to atone for their sins.

Then, on the same mountain where Abraham had nearly offered his son to the Lord, the lambs would shed their blood and lose their lives as substitutes for those offering them.

The day Jesus died on the Cross, the very hour He hung there, the sacrificial lambs from Migdal Eder were being offered in the Temple at the Passover of the Jews.

Jesus was born in the very place sacrificial lambs were born.  He died just as the sacrificial lambs were being killed.

God promised He would provide a lamb.  He promised He would provide Himself the Lamb.  In Jesus we Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

What a wonderful fulfillment of prophecy and promises we have in Jesus!
A popular American pastor, as a kind of signature to his preaching God’s Word, presents his material, then tells the congregation to ask him, out loud, “So what?”

It’s a way of moving from information, to application.

What does this mean to us?

Well, first of all, it’s pretty cool.  I mean that.  If you’re a believer, stuff like this touches something in your spirit, exciting you about growing deeper in the Word and in your walk.  Just when you thought you’d heard everything about the birth of Jesus, you find a rich vein of insight to mine.

More importantly, stuff like this reminds us that God is in the details.

Apple is known for its insane attention to detail in its products.  A couple of examples:

When engaging the voice dictation feature on newer Mac laptops, the computer automatically slows the internal fan speed to better hear your voice.

The animated wallpapers on the Apple Watch aren’t computer generated – they’re actual photographs. The company spent hundreds of hours filming flowers blooming over time to create its motion watch face. The longest one – a single wallpaper –  took 285 hours, and over 24,000 shots.

God is way more into details than Apple.  And He’s into details for you.

The Bible promises you, as a believer, that He Who has begun His good work in you, will definitely complete it.  God calls you, personally, His workmanship.  You are promised that you will be presented, in Heaven, perfect.

Co-operate with Him.  Let Him have His perfect work in you.  Don’t complicate it by falling into sin, or by stumbling others, or by falling asleep in the light of Jesus’ imminent return.

If you are not a believer – not a Christian – information like we have presented helps you to see that God wants to reach you with the Good News.  He has acted, in history, to save you.

The Bible is unlike any other book.  It’s prophecies are 100% accurate, and, as you’ve seen, they are not obscure, but are bold in their detail.

Ever watch Pawn Stars?  I was watching an episode where someone brought in a brass statue of the Hindu god, Shiva.  In the little talk Rick likes to give about items, he said that the Hindu religion was the world’s oldest.

A lot of times people will argue that many religions pre-date Christianity.  But that’s because they think, erroneously, that Christianity was founded by Jesus or His immediate followers in the first century.

Christ was promised in the Garden of Eden, to our first parents, right after they sinned.  He pre-dates every religious system, and all of them are doctrines of demons that seek to keep you from the Good News.

You need saving.  All of us, every human being, is born spiritually dead.  We are all going to die physically one day.  And if we die physically while remaining spiritually dead, we will die eternally.

To die eternally means you will live forever in eternity separated from God and from everyone else in a place of eternal conscious torment.

But you don’t have to die eternally!  You can instead have eternal life.  You can live forever in Heaven in a place specially prepared for you by a loving God.

John 3:16  For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

God “gave” Jesus as the sacrifice, as the Lamb.  If you believe in Him, He takes your sin upon Himself and gives you salvation in its stead.  You become born again, born spiritually.

Come behold the Lamb.  He is your Lamb, He is your sacrifice.

God’s Crush On Satan (Genesis 3:15)

Birth announcements have come a long way.  In my day, you didn’t routinely know the gender of your baby.  Fathers weren’t allowed in the delivery room.  The doctor would come to the maternity waiting room, and announce, “It’s a boy!” or “It’s a girl!”

Now ultrasounds are routine, and the majority of couples opt to know their baby’s gender.

But you can’t simply tell people you’re having a boy or a girl.  O no; that wouldn’t be classy.  Not in today’s social media culture.

You need to come up with a creative way to reveal your baby’s gender, using something blue or pink.

There are balloons filled with either blue or pink confetti, that you pop at a gender-reveal party.
Sticking with balloons, you can hide a blue or pink helium balloon in a box, then open it to reveal your baby’s gender.
There are color-changing gender-reveal sugar cubes, that turn water blue or pink when dropped into a glass.
You can make a dessert with either blue or pink filling, and when your guests bite into it, they know what you’re having.
Gender-reveal PlayDough starts out white, but turns blue or pink as you play with it.
I saw one couple, on Pinterest, blow two different color bubbles, one blue, one pink; then the wife burst the husband’s bubble, revealing that they were having a pink.
Mistakes are easily made.  One couple had their doctor give them two sealed envelopes with the baby’s gender inside.  Even they did not yet know the gender.  The couple kept one for themselves and dropped the other off at a local bakery where they ordered a cake for the reveal party.  The bakery was supposed to fill the inside of the cake with blue icing if the card said “boy,” and pink icing if it said “girl.”

After hours of celebrating the cake-reveal, the couple opened their envelope.  The bakery had gotten it wrong.

When would you say the very first birth announcement was made?

Genesis 4:1 would be a good guess, where you read, “Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, “I have acquired a man from the LORD.”

Good guess, but not what I’m going for.

The very first birth announcement was a few verses earlier.  After Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit, God came, seeking them, and He told them what He was going to do to resolve their sin, and the chaos it inspired.

In the middle of addressing Adam and Eve, He turned to the serpent who had tempted Eve, and said, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel” (Genesis 3:15).

The promised Seed of Eve was the very first birth announcement.    It let her, and us, know that she was going to have a very special child.

It wasn’t Cain.  It wasn’t his brother, Abel.  In fact, it wasn’t anyone born from Eve’s womb, but a far-future descendant.

Good thing Pinterest wasn’t around at the time of this announcement.  Adam and Eve would have made a Board called God’s Crush on Satan.  The visual would have been disturbing, to say the least.  The picture of the future Seed crushing the serpent’s head, with His bare heel, and suffering a lethal injury as a result of it; well, it’s not rated PG.

It is, however, rated Good News, because it is the way God would resolve the sin of Adam and Eve, and of their descendants, once and for all.

BTW – Studies have been conducted that show, scientifically, that most human beings have an inexplicable innate aversion to snakes.  Most of us are wired to fear them.  The researchers chalk it up to evolution, but I say it’s hereditary.  We got it from our parents in Eden.

I want us to see three things in this birth announcement.  First, we see the reason for the birth of Jesus Christ.  Genesis 3:15 is Christmas in the Old Testament – or at the very least the promise of Christmas.

In Genesis 3, there is no explanation of the phrase “the Seed of the woman.”  It is singular, so the Seed is to be understood as an individual whose appearance would be some time in the future.
The identity of the serpent isn’t in question.  It’s Satan, who we read about later in the Bible as “that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan…” (Revelation 20:2).

With the benefit of history, and the Bible, we know Who crushed Satan in His coming to earth.  The Seed is a reference to Jesus Christ.  He is the Person being promised.

We like to say, Jesus is the reason for the season.  It would be less poetic, but more accurate, to say Sin is the reason for the season.

Long before the herald angels sang, and the shepherds heard of their Savior’s birth away in the manger in the little town of Bethlehem on that silent night bringing joy to the world, Jesus’ birth was dramatically announced.

The announcement that Jesus would be born was God’s response to Adam and Eve’s epic fail to obey Him.

Gen 2:15  Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it.
Gen 2:16  And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat;
Gen 2:17  but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

My take on this is that, in order to be made in the image of God and to express genuine love, Adam and Eve must have free will to choose.  Forced love is not love.

Adrian Rogers explained it this way:
Forced love is a contradiction in terms.  Forced love is not love at all.  In order to love, we must be free to love, to choose to love, and to choose to love, we have to be able to choose not to love. And so God gave us perfect choice.  Adam chose in the Garden of Eden, and the sons of Adam after him, to sin, and that’s where the heart-ache, and the groan and the moan come from.

Adam and Eve disobeyed God.  The immediate result was the first episode of Naked & Afraid.  They tried to cover their sin and shame with fig leaves, but it was to no avail.  God had to slay an animal, most likely a lamb, maybe two, in order to provide skins to cover them.

It was symbolic of their need to have their sin ‘covered’ by the death of an innocent substitute.  The future Seed, Jesus, would be that Substitute, dying on the Cross as God’s final sacrificial Lamb, to cover the sins of anyone and everyone who would believe in Him.

The consequences of their sin were severe.  Look at the world around you, with all its enmity and evil.  It is the result of the sin of our first parents, and their expulsion from Eden.

Their sin is passed on to us.  We are all born spiritually dead, separated from God, with a sin nature.

I’ve said before that God was the first, “first responder.”  He rushed in to the horrible situation Adam and Eve found themselves in, to save them.

Maybe you don’t think of yourself as a sinner.  Ask yourself, “Am I as good and as perfect as God?”  That is the impossible standard you must achieve if you have any hope of Heaven after death.
You’re not perfect; all of us fall short, and therefore all are sinners.  We need a sinless Person to ‘cover’ for us – to come and take our place, take our penalty.  That Person is Jesus.

Sin is the reason for the season, but what does the birth announcement reveal?

The Seed of a woman is an unusual way to describe a child. Normally we would think of the seed coming from the male.  This birth was going to be different.

As we read the Old Testament, we see that the Seed would be God come in human flesh, born of a virgin.  Here is the prophecy: “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14).

Immanuel means God with us.  The Seed, Jesus, would be God in human flesh.

Fast forward from Isaiah to the first century.  The Gospel of Matthew explains, as best we can comprehend, how the Holy Spirit came upon Mary, and formed Jesus in her womb.

The fact that Jesus is both God and man is very important for us. As a human who shares in our human weaknesses, He knows what it is like to be human and tempted and is therefore able to represent us in the presence of the Father where he pleads to Him for us.  Because he is fully God, He is able to show us what God is like; but more important because Jesus is God, He is able to pay for our sins and reconcile our relationship with God.

First announced in Eden, the angels announced to the shepherds tending their flocks that the Savior was indeed born.

The entire Old Testament fills in the blanks between the birth announcement in Genesis and the birth in the first century.

We’ve come to our third point – the result of this birth.  After living in relative obscurity for thirty years, Jesus burst onto the scene and did battle with the Serpent.  He defeated the devil out in the wilderness, not succumbing to Satan’s temptations.

Satan countered with an absolute invasion of demons.  After not possessing anyone, at least anyone recorded, for some four thousand years of Old Testament history, it seems like demonic possession in Israel was epidemic.

Jesus cast them out – sometimes one at a time, sometimes seven at a time, one time an entire legion.  He healed all manner of sickness and disease, and He commanded the winds and the seas and they obeyed Him.

Listen to these words from the Book of Hebrews.  They put into perspective the Lord’s crushing of Satan.

Heb 2:14  Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil,
Heb 2:15  and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

And this, from First John 3:8:

1Jn 3:8  He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.

As we painfully and sorrowfully learned just recently, first responders put themselves at great risk.  They risk, and sometimes give, their very lives.

As the first responder promised in Eden, Jesus would give His life, willingly, for the human race.  Satan would be crushed, but the Lord would die in the process.

His suffering and death upon the cross was the means by which the head of Satan was crushed and his works destroyed forever.

Death could not hold Jesus.  He rose from the dead; He is alive forevermore.  His life, death, and resurrection from the dead fulfill God’s promise at His birth announcement.  Jesus was our Substitute, the final sacrifice.  He took our sin upon Himself; He offers us His righteousness in exchange.  Believing on Him, we are saved.

I know what some of you are thinking.  If Satan is crushed, why is there so much enmity and evil in the world?  Where is the victory?

This question, about why God allows suffering, is the one that most people stumble over.  It gets asked, in different ways, on TV, in the movies, and in literature.  Mostly those asked to give an answer are stopped in their tracks and made to look foolish, as if faith in God was indefensible.

My first reaction is to counter with a question, and that is, “What is your explanation for suffering?”
Then a follow-up question: “If you eliminate the God of the Bible, are you going to be better off, or worse off, regarding the problem of pain?”

You’re going to be worse off – much, much worse – with no viable explanation, and therefore no hope.

God rushed in to save us.  He responded immediately.  It took some time to develop, due to the nature of the problem.  But He came, as promised.

First responders can’t always get to the victims as quickly as they’d like.  The collapse of the San José Mine on August 5, 2010, became international news, as 33 men were trapped underground for 69 days, battling starvation and hopelessness as the world waited anxiously for news of their rescue.  Geno related their story on Wednesday night, and it’s a story of real faith, as those men put their faith in God.

My point is this: Do we criticize the responders, who worked day and night to rescue them?  No; we recognize the extreme difficulty of the rescue, and we applaud them.

Rescuing the human race, buried by sin, and in total darkness, was no easy response.  For one thing, the people needing rescue don’t admit it, and won’t acknowledge it.  They want to remain in sin, and in darkness.

But God persisted through human history – even as Satan constantly tried to thwart the Seed by killing those through whom He was promised to be born.

Nevertheless, Jesus was born – right on time.  He defeated Satan once and for all on the Cross.

In His Second Coming, He will have the devil bound, and incarcerated in a pit called the Abyss.

Finally, Jesus will confine Satan and his demons to the Lake of Fire where they will experience eternal conscious torment.

What’s He waiting for?  Maybe… You.

If you are not a believer in Jesus Christ, you need to understand that when the Lord acts to end human suffering, you will be lost forever, and will perish.

The only place for you will be that same Lake of Fire where you, too, will experience eternal conscious torment.

Yes, terrible, awful, evil things are happening every minute of every day Jesus delays.  We attribute His waiting to His longsuffering, which means He is not willing that you perish, but rather that you come to know Him as your Savior.

He’s coming.  He could come at any moment.  Nothing needs to happen before the Lord resurrects the dead in Christ, and raptures living believers, taking us home to Heaven.

We seem to be fascinated with a person who is the ‘last’ of his or her kind.  The Last of the Mohicans… The Last Samurai… The Last Airbender… The Last Emperor…

There is going to be The Last Christian – at least from the standpoint of Jesus coming for His church.
If you’re not saved, it could be you; it could be now.

If it’s someone else, and you’re left behind, there will still be opportunities to be saved.  But evangelists like to ask the question, “If you can’t live for Jesus now, how will you die for Him later?”

Let’s do a quick roll call.  I want you to raise your hand if you’re saved; if you’re born-again; if you know that you’ll be taken, not left behind, when Jesus comes.

If you couldn’t honestly raise your hand… God’s longsuffering waits for you, but why wait?

Come to the Lord.

We Wish You a Merry Sukkot & a Happy New Jerusalem

Each year, on December 25th, we celebrate Jesus Christ’s UnBirthday.

You know what an UnBirthday is, don’t you? It’s what the Mad Hatter and the March Hare and the Dormouse were celebrating when Alice came upon their tea party in Wonderland.

An UnBirthday is any day that is not your birthday – but you celebrate it anyway.

To quote the Mad Hatter, “Statistics prove that you’ve one birthday. Ah, but there are three hundred and sixty four UnBirthdays!”

It even has its own song – A Very Merry UnBirthday to You.

Without being irreverent, December 25th is one of Jesus’ three hundred and sixty four UnBirthdays, because almost everyone agrees that He wasn’t born on that date.

We’ve been told through the years that there is really no way of knowing when Jesus was born.

That’s not exactly true. There is a lot of biblical evidence that points to Jesus being born during the annual Jewish Feast of Tabernacles.

One Bible verse that’s popular on Christmas cards is John 1:14, which says,

John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

When the apostle John said that Jesus, whom he referred to as “the Word,” “became flesh and dwelt among us,” the word for “dwelt” is tabernacled. It’s likely that John used this word intentionally to associate Jesus’ first coming into the world with the feast by that name.

The Feast of Tabernacles has at least three other names in the Bible: the Feast of Booths, the Feast of Ingathering, and Sukkot (pronounced sueCoat).

It is observed in the fall, from the 15th to the 22nd of the Jewish month, Tishri, corresponding to late September or early October on our Gregorian calendar.

During this time many Jewish families were to construct a sukkah, a small hastily built shelter in which meals were eaten throughout the festival. The sukkah was to remember the huts [plural: sukkot] Israel lived in during their forty year wandering in the desert after the exodus from Egypt.

Here is the 411 God gave to Moses about celebrating the feast:

Lev 23:39 ‘Also on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the fruit of the land, you shall keep the feast of the LORD for seven days; on the first day there shall be a sabbath-rest, and on the eighth day a sabbath-rest.

Lev 23:40 And you shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of beautiful trees, branches of palm trees, the boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook; and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God for seven days.

Lev 23:41 You shall keep it as a feast to the LORD for seven days in the year. It shall be a statute forever in your generations. You shall celebrate it in the seventh month.

Lev 23:42 You shall dwell in booths [sukkah] for seven days. All who are native Israelites shall dwell in booths,

Lev 23:43 that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.’ ”

Besides John’s implication, why do we think Jesus was born on Sukkot? I’ll give a quick summary.

In the first century, there were so many priests serving in the Temple at Jerusalem that they were divided into groups. Each group was called a course. There were twenty-four such courses, and each one of them would begin and end their service in the Temple on the Sabbath, a tour of duty lasting one week.

We know from the Bible that John the Baptist’s dad, Zacharias, was of the course of Abijah (Luke 1:5).

Why tell us which course of priests he belonged to? Because that knowledge allows us to calculate, from the Jewish calendar, exactly when he served in the Temple.

His service began on the second Sabbath of the third month, Sivan (corresponding to late May or early June).
He was busy serving in the Temple when the angel appeared to him and told him that he and Elizabeth would conceive, and have a son, whom they were to name John, who would be the forerunner of Jesus.

After completing his Temple service on the third Sabbath of Sivan, Zacharias returned home and John was soon conceived.

The information about John is important because, according to the Gospel of Luke, the Holy Spirit visited the virgin Mary in the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy:

Luk 1:24 Now after those days his wife Elizabeth conceived; and she hid herself five months, saying,

Luk 1:25 “Thus the Lord has dealt with me, in the days when He looked on me, to take away my reproach among people.”
Birth of Jesus Foretold

Luk 1:26 Now in the sixth month [of Elizabeth’s pregnancy] the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth,

Luk 1:27 to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.

After the angel described to Mary that she would give birth to the Savior of the world, she went to visit Elizabeth, and she stayed with her for the last three months of her pregnancy, until the time that John was born.

Luke 1:56 And Mary abode with her about three months, and returned to her own house.

Luke 1:57 Now Elisabeth’s full time came that she should be delivered; and she brought forth a son.

Working from the information about John’s conception and advancing six months, we arrive late in the ninth month of Kislev for the time frame for the conception of Jesus.

It is notable here that the first day of the Jewish festival of Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, is celebrated on the twenty-fifth day of Kislev according to the Hebrew calendar, which may occur at any time from late November to late December in the Gregorian calendar.

Do you think it was mere coincidence that the Light of the World was conceived during the Festival of Lights?

It might be that the Holy Spirit came upon the virgin Mary on what would have been December 25th on our calendar.

I’m not trying to somehow defend our celebration of Jesus’ birth in December by saying He was conceived at that time; these are just the facts.

A likely date for the birth of John the Baptist would be the fifteenth day of the first month on the Jewish calendar, Nisan – which is the day after Passover on which the Feast of Unleavened Bread begins.

Since Jesus was conceived six months after John the Baptist, we need only move six months farther down the Jewish calendar to arrive at a likely date for the birth of Jesus. From the fifteenth day of the first month, Nisan, we go to the fifteenth day of the seventh month, Tishri.

And what do we find on that date? It is the Feast of Tabernacles.

It gives more weight to this other famous Christmas Scripture from Isaiah:

Isa 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Immanuel means “God with us.” The Son of God had come to dwell with, or tabernacle, on earth with His people; and He did it while they were tabernacling in booths.

These calendar calculations fit perfectly into the overall biblical narrative of the birth of Jesus. For example we know from the Gospel of Luke that Jesus was born in a stable, and laid in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

Scholars like to point out that there weren’t any “inns” in Bethlehem; and that the word Luke chose for “inn” is a particular word that means the guest room of a house. The thought is that Joseph and Mary arrived and all the guest rooms in the family dwelling were occupied, so they stayed downstairs, among the animals.

While it’s true that houses were set up that way, if, in fact, all the guest rooms were occupied, what kind of hospitality was it to let the greatly pregnant woman stay with the animals?

Could any of the other family members have been in greater need of better accommodations than Mary?

I’m hinting that Joseph and Mary were being spurned on account of her becoming pregnant before they were married. Joseph’s family didn’t buy into the virgin birth.

There were inns in Israel. You remember in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, he took the man who had been robbed and beaten to an inn, and paid the innkeeper to care for him.

If there was an inn in Bethlehem, it’s likely Joseph and Mary were turned away on moral grounds, and not because it was at capacity. There was no room in the inn for a suspected adulterous with an incredible story of how she had become pregnant without ever knowing a man.

Here’s something else to consider about the stable and manger scene. If Jesus was born on the Feast of Tabernacles, it’s likely Joseph built them a booth, a sukkah, to live in, and that is where Jesus was born.

In fact, that makes the most sense overall.

What about the manger – the feeding trough? There’s a verse in the Book of Genesis that makes a connection between Sukkot and animals:

Gen 33:17 And Jacob journeyed to Succoth [Sukkot], built himself a house, and made booths for his livestock. Therefore the name of the place is called Succoth [Sukkot].

Jesus came as God in human flesh, in His fleshly tabernacle, at the Feast of Tabernacles. Talk about perfectly fulfilling types and prophecies.

The Feast of Tabernacles continued to be prominent in Jesus’ life. Remember the Mount of Transfiguration, when Jesus was seen in His glory with Moses and Elijah? Do you recall what Peter said?

Mat 17:4 Then Peter answered and said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You wish, let us make here three tabernacles: one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

He suggested they build “tabernacles” – booths – for themselves, because it was the Feast of Tabernacles.

In John’s Gospel, in chapter seven, we read,

Joh 7:37 On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.

Joh 7:38 He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”

Joh 7:39 But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

The “feast” was Tabernacles. One of the most important ceremonies of the Feast of Tabernacles involved priests pouring out water drawn from the pool of Siloam. The officiating priest would draw water from the pool and pour it into the basin near the altar in the Temple, to commemorate the occasions when the Lord provided the wandering Jews with water in the wilderness.

It was on the “great day of the feast” of Tabernacles Jesus made this promise about living water – just at the moment the priests were pouring out water as a part of their annual ritual.

Jesus was declaring that He was Messiah and that everyone who would believe in Him would receive the gift, or indwelling, of the Holy Spirit, the “living water,” not measured in terms of a trickling spring, but a flowing river.

Jesus was saying in effect “I am the reality that the water in this ceremony symbolizes – the true life giver through whom the Holy Spirit is also given.”

The Feast of Tabernacles will be important in the future. Because God is so meticulous in keeping to the Hebrew calendar, when it comes to the nation of Israel, many scholars have suggested that the Second Coming of Jesus will coincide with it.

His meeting with Moses and Elijah gives credibility to this idea. It was a preview of His Second Coming, in which two witnesses we believe to be Moses and Elijah, will precede Him.

Beyond that, once Jesus returns to rule and reign on the earth for one thousand years, the Feast of Tabernacles will continue to be observed:

Zec 14:16 And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.

We’re not done yet with Tabernacles. On into eternity, when the apostle John describes the renewed heavens and earth, we read,

Rev 21:1 Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea.
Rev 21:2 Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
Rev 21:3 And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God.

Rev 21:4 And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”

Rev 21:5 Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” And He said to me, “Write, for these words are true and faithful.”

Rev 21:6 And He said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts.

Key things to pull out of that passage are, “the tabernacle of God is with men”; and that Jesus will fulfill His promise, made in His first coming at a Feast of Tabernacles, to “give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts.”

Those are both references to the Feast of Tabernacles – telling us that it prefigured, and pointed to, God’s ultimate plan, which is to dwell among us in a perfect relationship of mutual love, unhindered by sin.

If you’ve been here for the last few studies as we completed the Gospel of Matthew, we’ve been talking a lot about the Hebrew calendar and its feasts.

There are seven of them, in total. Tabernacles was the last feast in the Hebrew calendar year; but, if Jesus was born then, it can be our starting point.

The Feast of Tabernacles – Jesus Christ was born; Immanuel, God with us, comes to save us from our sin.

Even though I mentioned Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, and it comes next on the calendar, it wasn’t an ‘original’ feast; it wasn’t mentioned in the Jewish scriptures. It seems, however, that God acknowledged it; and that it represents Jesus as the Light of the World.

Next on the ‘official’ calendar come the three spring feasts – Passover, Unleavened Bread, and First Fruits.

Passover falls on Nisan 14, and it was on that very day, at 3:00 in the afternoon, that Jesus died on the Cross, for our sins, exactly as the Passover lambs were being sacrificed in the Temple.

John the Baptist had announced Jesus as “the Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world.”

The next day, as Jesus’s body lay in the tomb, Nisan 15, was the beginning of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Leaven represented sin, and the Jews were forbidden to eat anything with leaven, or even have it in their homes. Jesus’ sinless life, and sinless body, fulfilled that feast.

On Nisan 16 was the Feast of First Fruits, when Jews presented the first of their harvest as an offering to the Lord, confident of the greater harvest to come.

Jesus rose from the dead on First Fruits, with the promise that all who believe in Him – all His harvest – will also be resurrected.

And a few other saints were raised at that time, too, as first fruits. They came out of their graves and showed themselves to folks in Jerusalem.

Fifty days later was the Feast of Pentecost. It celebrated the larger harvest. It was on the Day of Pentecost that Jesus sent God the Holy Spirit upon the gathered disciples, and three thousand new souls were harvested as Peter preached Jesus Christ crucified and resurrected.

Five feasts down… Two to go.

The Feast of Trumpets, or Rosh Hashanah, occurs on the first day of the seventh month. The first day of every month is begun with the blowing of trumpets, but there is deeper significance attached to the blowing of trumpets on the first day of the seventh month. Rosh Hashanah heralds the beginning of the period known as the High Holy Days with The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) occurring ten days later, on the tenth of the month.

The ten days from the blowing of the trumpet to the Day of Atonement are known as “the days of awe,” and they are a time of national repentance for Israel. It was a time of confession, prayer, and fasting, in preparation for the Feast of Tabernacles.

We know that there is coming upon the world a terrible time of trouble called the Great Tribulation. While it affects the entire planet, it is especially for the nation of Israel to be brought to repentance and faith in Jesus as their Savior.

The Great Tribulation begins when the Jews sign a peace treaty with the man the Bible calls the antichrist. They will seem to be gathered safely in their land; but after three and one half years, they will be forced to flee for their lives into the wilderness to be supernaturally protected by God.

Thus, Trumpets and the Day of Atonement could correspond to the Great Tribulation.
Which brings us back to the Feast of Tabernacles and the Second Coming of Jesus, when the Lord will once again be on the earth, dwelling among men.

All of the spring feasts were fulfilled, by Jesus, to the very day. It is a matter of history.

If Jesus was born on Tabernacles, that, too, has been partially fulfilled, to the very day.

Do you have any doubts that the fall feasts will be fulfilled?

Should we therefore start using the Hebrew lunar calendar? Should we start observing the Jewish feasts?

Not at all!

The event that is of interest to us is not discoverable on a calendar, because it could happen at any moment.

That event is the coming of Jesus to resurrect the dead believers of the church age in which we are living, and to rapture – to snatch away – believers who are alive at the time.

Besides the sense of awe we should have at God’s precise predictions, calendared for His people, what can we derive from all this?

God created man to be in a relationship with you – a love relationship. That, in itself, is humbling and awe-inspiring.

In order, however, for there to be love, there must be choice. Forced love is not love at all. So God gave our parents, Adam and Eve, a choice to love Him by obeying His one simple command.

They disobeyed, and the creation was plunged into the corruption of sin.

What did God do? He promised to come and tabernacle among us, as God in human flesh, to be the light of the world, and provide us with the living waters of salvation.

To do all that, He’d have to die on the Cross, in our place, as our substitute.

He came… He lived… He died… He rose from the dead – all according to the plan proclaimed throughout the pages of the Bible, and calendared for us in Israel’s feasts.

And He is coming again, to finish what He started.

When it’s all said and done, “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”

In other words, God’s original intention for creating mankind will be realized.

Right now, tears flow; death and sorrow and pain seem to be the dominant headlines in the world, and in our personal lives.

As we celebrate Jesus’ UnBirthday, many of us are feeling the stress of the holidays; we are depressed. It’s not our best Christmas.

It’s a myth that suicide is more common around the holidays. (Springtime is actually the peak). But holiday cheer isn’t a given either.

Rocky Balboa represented everyone who has ever been depressed around the holidays. When Adrian said to him, “It’s Thanksgiving,” Rocky answered, “Yea, to you it’s Thanksgiving; to me it’s Thursday.”

Maybe you are as happy as the proverbial lark. One of the connotations of the phrase, “happy as a lark,” is that you choose to be unaware of life’s grimmer realities.

Look around; the world is a terrible place of suffering and evil. Just when you think it can’t get any worse, there’s an ISIS to contend with; or an outbreak; or some other catastrophe.

Only One can wipe away all tears. Only One can put an end to the death and the sorrow and the pain.

He did it by tabernacling among us; by dying for us; by rising from the dead. He’s coming back to finish it.

Why wait? He is not willing that any should perish, but rather that they – that you – would come to Him and drink of the waters of life.

The Widow’s Maker (Luke 2v21-24, 36-38)

We are ending a three week study that suggests three wise women had more to do with the first Christmas than the famous three wise men.  They are Elizabeth, Mary, and Anna.

These three wise women can teach us many things.

Elizabeth taught us that it is wise to wait.
Mary taught us that it is wise to worship.
Today, Anna will teach us that it is wise to witness.

The title of the article caught my attention: A Cage-Fighting Christ for Our Time.

The author begins by quoting a popular Reformed pastor.  On a recent blog he wrote,

Jesus is not a pansy or a pacifist.  He has a long wick, but the anger of His wrath is burning.  Once the wick is burned up, He is saddling up on a white horse and coming to slaughter His enemies… Blood will flow.

In 2008 he told Christianity Today that too many American churches are populated by “chicks” and “a bunch of nice, soft, tender chickified church boys.”

He sees Jesus as a cage-fighter.  The way Americans ‘see’ Jesus seems to change with the times.

At the end of the Victorian period, Jesus was widely depicted as a sweet, almost feminine, Savior.

In the early 1900’s athlete-turned-evangelist Billy Sunday said, “Lord, save us from flabby-cheeked, brittle-boned, weak-kneed, thin-skinned, pliable, plastic, spineless, effeminate, sissified Christianity.”

That manly image gave way again in the late 1960’s to the hippie Jesus of musicals like Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar.

Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  We tend to ‘see’ Him differently at different times, and how we ‘see’ Him affects our witness to others.

The question of the day is: How do you ‘see’ Jesus?

Before you answer, let’s take a look at how Anna saw The Lord.  She was among the first to ever ‘see’ Him for who He really was, and it affected her witness as she went about sharing what she’d seen.

I’ll organize my thoughts around two points: #1 How You ‘See’ Jesus Will Be Shaped By Your Preparation, and #2 How You ‘See’ Jesus Will Be Shown By Your Preoccupation.

#1    How You ‘See’ Jesus
    Will Be Shaped By Your Preparation
    (2:21-24 & 36-37)

We’re catching-up with Joseph, Mary, and the baby Jesus after His birth in Bethlehem.

Like all devout Jews, the little family had three rituals to perform.

Luke 2:21  And when eight days were completed for the circumcision of the Child, His name was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb.
Luke 2:22   Now when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were completed, they brought Him to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord
Luke 2:23   (as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every male who opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord”),
Luke 2:24   and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord, “A pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.”

Circumcision… purification… then presentation.

Every Jewish boy was circumcised and officially named on the eighth day after birth.  Joseph and Mary were still in Bethlehem on the eighth day.  In all likelihood they were at Joseph’s ancestral home, and a local priest performed the ceremony.
Then there was the ceremony of the purification of the mother.   For forty days after the birth of a son and eighty days after the birth of a daughter, the mother was considered ceremonially unclean and could not enter the Temple until her ritual purification.
In the next ceremony a firstborn son was presented to God when at least thirty-one days had past since his birth.  The ceremony included buying back, or redeeming, the child from God with money.

One more thing, before we get to Anna.  A godly old man named Simeon was there in the Temple the day Jesus was being presented.  The Holy Spirit had promised Simeon that he would not die until he had seen the long-awaited Messiah.  Simeon recognized the child as the Messiah when Mary and Joseph brought him to the Temple to present Him to the Lord.

So did Anna.

Luke 2:36    Now there was one, Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, and had lived with a husband seven years from her virginity;
Luke 2:37    and this woman was a widow of about eighty-four years, who did not depart from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day.

We sometimes say of a person, do we not, that everything in their life had prepared them for some incredible moment.  I have to see Anna that way – being prepared by God, and preparing herself, for  this incredible moment.

True, she may not have always known what she was being prepared, and preparing, for.  Later, however, she undoubtedly realized that as long as Simeon was alive she’d have an opportunity to see the Savior.

Let’s look at all the ways she is described in order to understand her preparation.

She “had lived with a husband seven years from her virginity.”  It means that she was a virgin when she got married, which could have been in her early teen years.

Her marriage lasted a brief seven years and then she was widowed.  It seems she was childless; she did not conceive and have a son, which was the expectation and desire of every Jewish wife.

Thus one of the very first things we see in her preparation was shame and suffering.

You aren’t going to ‘see’ Jesus unless you endure shame and suffering.  He endured it – for you.  A servant is not greater than his master.  Plus, to really ‘see’ Christ is to enter into the fellowship of His sufferings.

Seven years without a child, then her husband died.  Wow.  It seems like piling on, does it not?  But that’s not all.
She “was a widow of about eighty-four years.”  This could mean one of two things:

It could mean she was an eighty-four year old widow.
It could mean she had been a widow for eighty-four years.

There’s no way of knowing which is meant.  I lean towards her being a widow for eighty-four years, pushing her past the century mark in age, because the text also says, “she was of a great age.”

If Anna married at age 14, which was evidently not uncommon, and she was widowed at age 21, eighty-four years later she would be 105.

Anna “did not depart from the Temple.”  Did she live there?  We sometimes say of a person who is fully engulfed in his or her work that they “live” at the office.  It could be that Anna spent most of her time at the Temple.

Then, too, there were living quarters in the Temple, and this may be a literal statement.

We skipped a couple of facts about Anna.  She was “the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher.”  Listen to this description of the tribe of Asher from Easton’s Bible Dictionary:

Of [this] tribe… nothing [extraordinary] is recorded beyond its holding a place in the list of the tribes… Asher and Simeon were the only tribes west of the Jordan which furnished no hero or judge for the nation.

Lackluster ancestry… No kids… Dead husband… Didn’t remarry… Never left the Temple for eighty-four years.  If you put it that way to someone who didn’t know this story, they’d think her life a total waste.

You know that silly saying, “when life hands you lemons, make lemonade?”

By the way, there are a few revisions to that answer:

“When life hands you lemons, squirt someone in the eye.”
“When life hands you lemons, throw them back.”
“When life gives you lemons, you don’t make lemonade.  You use the seeds to plant a whole orchard.”

It seems Anna just ate lemons.

Do you ever feel your life has been wasted?  That it isn’t going to amount to much?  If you do, it’s because you are not valuing fellowship with God as the most important purpose of your life.  That way of thinking is the worldly whine of a carnal Christian who has forgotten they were created to know God and have fellowship with Him.

The point the text is making, one point, anyway, is that Anna was being prepared, and was preparing, to ‘see’ Jesus.

Do you notice I keep saying “being prepared and preparing?”  On the one hand, God – Who knew the future and the very instant Jesus would be in the Temple – was preparing Anna to be there and to understand the significance of the event.

Luke 2:38    And coming in that instant…
There was a very small window of time in which Anna could have seen Jesus being presented.  It was a particular few minutes on a particular day in a particular year.  God’s timing was everything.

We have no problem believing God knows the future and is working providentially to accomplish all His purposes.  He was preparing Anna for that “instant.”

Anna also needed to be preparing.  If she had deviated from walking with The Lord she would have missed that “instant” God was preparing for her.

Under the Law, she could have remarried, but evidently God was calling her to a life of celibacy serving Him.  Suppose, for example, she allowed loneliness in her widowhood to overcome her.  She may have decided her relationship with God wasn’t enough, that her calling was insignificant, and that she was going to remarry no matter what.

Well, then I guess she wouldn’t have been in the Temple that “instant,” would she?  I guess she wouldn’t have seen the Savior or gone on to witness for Him to others.

Instead of talking about Anna this morning, we’d be talking about someone else entirely.

You are on track to ‘see’ Jesus.  Not in the Temple as a baby.  You’re on track to see Him face-to-face either when you die or when He comes in the clouds to rapture us.

If you are a believer, you are definitely going to see Him.  Still there is a question of how prepared you are going to be for the meeting.
Will you be saved just barely, as by fire?  Or will you have the incredible joy of hearing Him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant?”

It will be the most exhilarating moment of your life.  It’s worth the preparation of walking with The Lord.  Every suffering, each sacrifice, is a step of preparation for that glorious day.

Mean time that same preparation (or lack thereof) contributes to how you ‘see’ Jesus in order to share Him with others in this life.

#2    How You ‘See’ Jesus
    Will Be Shown By Your Preoccupation
    (v38)

Anna was a “prophetess” who spent her time serving God in “fastings and in prayers night and day.”

I think ‘preoccupied’ is a good word to describe her.  She was preoccupied with serving God.  Thoughts about God dominated her mind, engrossed her thinking, and she was absorbed with serving Him.

She was a “prophetess.”  Six women in Scripture are expressly stated as possessing the title of prophetess: five in the Old Testament and one, Anna, is mentioned in the Gospels.  In addition, Philip is mentioned in Acts as having four daughters who prophesied, which brings the number of prophetesses to ten.

Did Anna prophesy before she saw Jesus?  Or is she called a prophetess because of what she said about Jesus?

I would lean toward her being a prophetess in her long ministry to The Lord.  She clearly knew the Old Testament prophecies concerning the time of the Messiah.

She spoke God’s Word and the prophetic promises concerning the Messiah to all who visited the Temple.  I see her as a sort of street preacher – proclaiming Scripture in the public areas of the Temple.

She also “served God with fastings and prayers night and day.”

There’s a popular commercial right now in which people are asked, “If you could get paid do something you loved, what would you do?”

The answers given are yoga teacher, baker, activist, pie maker, art historian, writer, and pilot.

Not one person says, “I would prophesy, fast, and pray.”  They don’t even say “I would serve God.”

Obviously, it’s not being asked of Christians in the commercial.  So let’s ask it of ourselves.  If you could get paid to do something you loved – would it be something for the One who loved you and died for you?

Or do you have some other preoccupation that would take priority?

Luke 2:38   And coming in that instant she gave thanks to the Lord, and spoke of Him to all those who looked for redemption in Jerusalem.

Anna came “in that instant.”  She was right where she needed to be; right where God wanted her to be.

It causes us to ask, Am I where I need to be spiritually?  Am I saved?  Am I walking with the Lord?

She “gave thanks.”  Until you learn to give thanks always, whether you are abounding in blessings or being abased with buffetings, you won’t have much of a witness.

Anna “spoke of Him.”  Right then, in the Temple, she gave a public witness to those who were gathered.  She undoubtedly told them that all she had been sharing from the Word of God, for the past eighty-four years, was now present in that baby being presented.

It may seem obvious, but we should speak about Jesus.  He should be the theme.  We get too easily sidetracked talking about other aspects of life and of the Christian life.

Anna “spoke of Him to all those who looked for redemption in Jerusalem.”  She spoke of redemption while Jesus was being redeemed by His earthly parents in accordance with Jewish law.

Let’s talk a little about this redemption.  Originally the firstborn son was to be the priest of the Jewish family.  God said “the first issue of every womb among the Israelites is Mine” (Exodus 13:2).

After the Exodus from Egypt, however, the Israelites committed the grievous in of the Golden Calf, of which only the tribe of Levi was not guilty.  Consequently the LORD decreed that the Levites were to take the place of the firstborn sons of Israel (Numbers 3:11-12).
But since a firstborn son is technically a (disqualified) priest, having to be substituted with a priest from the tribe of Levi, God required that all firstborn sons (who were not themselves Levites) must be redeemed from service to God by means of paying five shekels of silver (Numbers 18:15).

In the ceremony the father announces that this is his firstborn son. The priest asks if he is giving him the child and dedicating him to serve God, or if he wants to redeem him by paying a price prescribed in the Law.

Since Jesus was the first-born son of Mary (who was of the kingly lineage of Judah), He was not of the priestly clan of Levi, so according to the Law He must be redeemed to fulfill all the Law.

Being redeemed is one of the many metaphors the Bible uses to describe the condition of human beings from God’s perspective.

The idea of redemption is the exchange of ownership, accomplished by paying a price.  It is also used to describe paying a price for a slave.  Redeeming a slave could result in his enslavement to a new owner, or to his being set free.

Jesus once said He came to earth to give His life as a ransom for many (Matthew 20:28).  He thus portrayed the human race as slaves to sin needing to be redeemed.

The apostle Peter tells us that the price Jesus paid to ransom us from slavery to sin was His precious blood, shed for us on the Cross at Calvary (First Peter 1:18-19).

As Jesus was being presented for redemption, Anna let everyone know that He was, in fact, the one who had been promised to redeem all of them once-and-for-all from the slavery of sin.  He would pay their ransom and free them to know and to serve God.

Anna prophesied, fasted, and prayed for eighty-four years, living in the Temple – totally preoccupied with things of God.

Then she occupied herself with sharing Him with others.

God isn’t calling us to be just like Anna.  We wouldn’t let you live here in the building anyway; it would be creepy for you and for the staff.  (Unless you made killer cinnamon rolls).

God’s path for Anna involved barrenness, widowhood, and frugal living.  Your path could involve some or all of those, but chances are it is going to be very different.

But it is still a path.  Your path.  God has good works that He has before ordained that you should discover as you walk with Him.  He has “instants” in your life that He is preparing for you; but you must be preparing, too, or you risk missing out on them.

At the beginning we asked, “How do you ‘see’ Jesus?”

How you see Him is shown by what you are preoccupied with.  In other words, I may think I see Jesus a certain way, but how I truly see Him is revealed by what preoccupies me.

Whatever your occupation, you can nevertheless be preoccupied with Jesus and with the things of The Lord.

One final thought.  The Levites had taken the place of every firstborn son in Israel.  They were set aside as God’s priests.

In the New Testament, every believer – male and female – is considered a priest.  We are called “a kingdom of priests.”

Whatever your occupation, it is to be subordinate to your preoccupation with your Redeemer – who lives and who is returning.

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Mary Melodies (Three Wise Women)

Did you know that the three wise men associated with the birth of Christ are portrayed in some of the southern United States as firemen?

It’s because when the Bible describes their journey it says, “they came from a far.”

It’s not the worst misrepresentation about the wise men.  Most of what we think we know about them comes from tradition and not from the Bible.

We are pursuing a three week study that suggests three wise women had more to do with the first Christmas than the famous three wise men.  They are Elizabeth, Mary, and Anna.

Elizabeth was the wife of Zacharias.  Barren into her old age, God granted her a child.  She would give birth to John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus.  In the sixth month of her pregnancy, Mary the mother of Jesus visited Elizabeth and was greatly encouraged by her relative in her own virgin pregnancy.

Mary, of course, is the woman at the heart of the story.  It would be more accurate to say she was the young girl – probably no more than fifteen or sixteen years of age.

The third woman is Anna.  A widow who had dedicated herself to fasting and praying in the Temple at Jerusalem,she gave witness to the baby Jesus when He was presented for circumcision eight days after His birth.

These three wise women can teach us many things.

Last week, Elizabeth taught us that it is wise to wait.

Next week, Anna will teach us that it is wise to witness.

Today, Mary will teach us that it is wise to worship.

Mary’s visit to Elizabeth was downright Pentecostal:

Elizabeth is described as “filled with the Holy Spirit.”

She supernaturally received information from God about Mary’s pregnancy.

She then uttered what amounts to a prophecy about Mary’s baby.

Elizabeth’s own baby, himself filled with the Holy Spirit in his mother’s womb, gets to leaping around inside of his mom.

Mary broke out into a spontaneous spiritual song of worship filled with future prophecy.

The meeting of these two moms is a unique moment in Christian history.  There had never been anything quite like it, nor would there ever be again.  One was carrying the forerunner, John the Baptist, who would introduce the other, Jesus, the Son of God, the Savior of the world.

It can also be seen as a meeting of two simple, ordinary believers – two sisters in the Lord – who wished to encourage one another in their worship of God.

On that level we can enter into the meeting ourselves and find application to our own lives.

What can we learn about worship from observing Mary’s worship?  I’ll organize my thoughts around two points: #1 The Spirit Of God Orchestrates Your Worship, and #2 The Word Of God Anchors Your Worship.

#1    The Spirit Of God
    Orchestrates Your Worship
    (v39-45)

God the Holy Spirit plays the leading role in these verses.  It serves as a reminder to us that we should follow His leading if we want to think we are worshipping God.

Luke 1:39  Now Mary arose in those days and went into the hill country with haste, to a city of Judah,

The angel Gabriel had told Mary that her cousin, Elizabeth, had conceived in her old age.  The angel evidently meant it to encourage Mary to visit Elizabeth.

She did so “with haste.”  We would say she was in a hurry to get there.  It is a mark of any good servant that they be in a hurry to set out on their assignment.  There must be a zeal, an eagerness, in serving the Lord.

I want to re-emphasize Mary’s young age.  There are quite a few kids and teenagers in the Bible that distinguished themselves:

Daniel and his three friends were teenagers when taken captive into Babylon; yet they served the Lord faithfully.
Jeremiah was quite young when God called him to be His prophet (Jeremiah 1:13).
Samuel, Israel’s first prophet, was a very young boy when his ministry began.

We should expect more – spiritually speaking – from our kids.  God can use them; He is speaking to them; they can take their stand with God against sin and selfishness, and against the surrounding culture.  Too often we sell kids short in terms of their spirituality.

Luke 1:40  [Mary] entered the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth.
Luke 1:41  And it happened, when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, that the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.

“Leaped” is a word used to describe the jumping of certain animals.  It was a pretty intense movement.  John the Baptist was unborn, about three months from delivery… But he was praising God in his mother’s womb.

Leaping was all that John could do in the closed environment of his mother’s womb to express praise for God.  You may find yourself in a closed or compact environment where there seems little you can do to express praise for God; trapped, as it were.

For example: Some employers discourage you from sharing your faith.  Or maybe you are married to an unbeliever who is against your faith.  Or maybe you are a young person, the only believer in your household.

Let God show you how you can leap within your confined space.

“Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.”  She did not leap; she spoke Spirit-anointed words.

Luke 1:42  Then she spoke out with a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!
Luke 1:43  But why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
Luke 1:44  For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.

The first thing to realize is that Elizabeth had no idea Mary was even pregnant; but as soon as Mary arrived, the Holy Spirit must have told Elizabeth that her cousin was with child, and that the child was the promised Messiah.

The Bible calls this a Word of Knowledge.  It is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit described later in the New Testament.  It is knowledge of a person or situation that is not learned but is given to you directly by God.

Notice how the Word of Knowledge operates.  It is given to Elizabeth and we call it her gift; but it is really for the benefit of Mary.

Young Mary, still trying to put into perspective the trial of her pregnancy and what it would mean for her socially, would have been greatly encouraged that God had supernaturally told Elizabeth of her situation.

I’m frequently asked, “How can I discover my spiritual gift?”  Well, of course, it would be good to become familiar with the gifts of the Holy Spirit that are definitely listed out for us in the Bible.  You’ll find lists in First Corinthians chapter twelve, Romans chapter twelve, and Ephesians chapter four.

More importantly, be around others – especially other believers.  Be open to being used by the Holy Spirit to minister to others.  Follow through with what He puts on your heart.  Don’t concentrate on exercising a gift so much as just showing love – the love of God – as you are prompted.  Believe God the Holy Spirit can lead you and then follow His leading.

I don’t mean it to sound mystical, but it is, after all, relational.  Spiritual gifts can’t be figured-out on paper.  They happen as you interact with others.

Elizabeth was also very obviously pregnant, in her sixth month.  She spoke of the baby in her womb.  All of this further confirmed everything Gabriel had told Mary.  All of this would have greatly encouraged the young virgin.

Then Elizabeth said,

Luke 1:45  Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told her from the Lord.”

This is a prophecy for Mary – a prophetic promise that everything God had told her would come to fulfillment.

Elizabeth has now twice used the word “blessed.”  As a result, many refer to Mary as “the blessed virgin.”  That’s OK, depending upon what you mean by it.

Jesus, you’ll remember, called all believers “blessed” when in the Sermon on the Mount He spoke the beatitudes.  “Blessed are the poor in spirit”, “blessed are the meek,” etc., etc.

Mary is no more and no less “blessed” than any other believer in Jesus Christ.

A baby leapt in his mother’s womb.  A woman was filled with the Spirit to utter a prophecy and she subsequently received a Word of Knowledge.  In a moment we will see Mary sing a spontaneous song filled with future prophecy.

The Holy Spirit orchestrated all of it.  The meeting between these two sisters in Christ went according to His plan and the result was worship.

Our second point will emphasize the absolute priority of God’s Word.  It’s not worship – no matter how we might feel or what might occur – if it is in any way contrary to God’s Word.

Having said that, worship is, and is meant to be, an experience with God.  There’s nothing wrong with feelings, with experiences, that are within the guidelines and boundaries set by the Word.

Quite frankly, we need more of the kinds of meetings that Elizabeth and Mary enjoyed – orchestrated by the Holy Spirit.  Whether they be one-on-one or congregational, we need more times when the Holy Spirit is working among us to encourage us.

#2    The Word Of God
    Anchors Your Worship
(v46-56)

As the story turns to Mary, take a quick glance back at verse thirty-nine.  Mary’s journey to the “hill country,” to “a city of Judah,” was about an eighty mile, four-day trip.  I want to suggest to you that as she traveled, she spoke to herself.

Look at verse forty-six:

Luke 1:46  And Mary said: “My soul magnifies the Lord,

When Mary said “my soul,” she used a phrase from the psalms.  Often a psalmist would describe meditating upon God’s Word as if he was speaking to his own soul – speaking to himself.  Let me give you just two of many possible instances:

Psalm 42:5  Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me?  Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance.

Psalm 146:1 Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, O my soul!

The psalmist spoke to his own soul, telling himself to hope in God and to praise Him.  He discovered truths about God in the Word and then he spoke about them to himself.

Mary used the phrase, “my soul,” in this same way.  While traveling, she spoke to herself.  She spoke to herself meditating upon God’s Word.

Do you talk to yourself?  The psalmists did!

I know God’s Word was prominent on her four-day journey because, in her song, she made at least fifteen references to Old Testament passages.

You understand that she did not possess a copy of the Old Testament.  She didn’t have God’s Word for Virgins in her purse.  These fifteen-plus references came to her because she had memorized Scripture.

Scholars point out that her lyrics seem especially reminiscent of Hannah’s song of praise found in First Samuel chapter two.  Hannah was a barren woman who promised God she would dedicate a child to the Lord.  God granted her request; she gave birth to Samuel and brought him to serve in the Temple where he grew to be Israel’s first prophet.

It seems as if Mary was drawn to Hannah’s song as an area of Scripture that could minister to her in what she was going through.

I believe God wants to direct our hearts to passages so that we are ministered to by His Word in our circumstances.  It’s OK to seek out a passage; but be sensitive to The Lord bringing one to you as well through other means.  That way you have a greater assurance you’re not simply finding the answer you want to find.

Either way, it is tremendously comforting to have a word from the Word to anchor you.  Once you do, you can be set free from worry to worship.

Mary’s song of worship is grounded upon the Word of God.  It is filled with phrases from the Word.  It is reminiscent of a previous song in Scripture.  It flowed forth from Mary after she had been meditating on the Word.

That’s what I mean when I say the Word anchors your worship.  You can be Spirit-filled AND anchored by God’s Word at the same time.  In fact, you must be if you are to think what you are experiencing really is worship.

Mary’s song is called ‘The Magnificat,’ which is the Latin word translated “magnify” in verse forty-six.

You’ll notice that some of the things she sang about had not yet occurred, but she sang about them in the past tense as if they had already occurred.  Scholars call this the ‘prophetic past-tense,’ meaning it hasn’t happened but it most certainly will because God has prophesied it.

The first few verses are more personal; the rest are prophetic.

Luke 1:46  And Mary said: “My soul magnifies the Lord,
Luke 1:47  And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.

The “soul” usually refers to one’s mind and emotions.  The “spirit” speaks of one’s essence – that which will live forever.  The soul relates primarily to people; the spirit relates to God.

Thus, Mary says, “My soul – my mind and emotions – magnify the Lord because my spirit – the deepest part of me – has rejoiced in God my Savior.”

Worship is always possible because it depends upon what God has already done rather than what is happening.  We must allow the spirit to control the soul and, thus in turn, the body.

“Magnify” means to enlarge.  You need to enlarge your thinking about God in terms of what He has ultimately promised you; then look upon your life from that vantage point.

For example the apostle Paul thinks of us as seated in heavenly places with Jesus Christ.  If we see all of life from that spiritual vantage point, nothing on earth can overcome our worship.

Luke 1:48  For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant; for behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.
Luke 1:49  For He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name.
Luke 1:50  And His mercy is on those who fear Him from generation to generation.

Mary’s service was unique in the history of the world.  Still, she is not to be reverenced, adored, or worshipped.  All of her words show she regarded herself an ordinary sinner saved by grace.

Any thoughts of Mary being the mother of God; or of herself being immaculately conceived such that she was without sin; or of being worshipped; are unscriptural idolatries.  None would be more horrified at the veneration given to her by millions than Mary herself.

Mary needed to be saved; she offered herself as God’s servant; she served by God’s “mighty” power; her empowered service impacted future generations.

All of these same things can be true of your unique service to God:

You need to be saved.

You can offer yourself as God’s servant.

God can give you His “mighty” power – whatever is sufficient to accomplish your specific task.

Your service impacts future generations of Christians – whether in your personal family, or your Church family.

The remaining verses of Mary’s song are prophetic:

Luke 1:51  He has shown strength with His arm; He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
Luke 1:52  He has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted the lowly.
Luke 1:53  He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent away empty.
Luke 1:54  He has helped His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy,
Luke 1:55  As He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed forever.”

These things speak of the future as if it were already accomplished.  Whatever God has promised is sure and certain to happen.

These are prophecies of God’s future dealings upon the earth.  They look past the first coming of Jesus to His Second Coming.

Jesus will return to establish the kingdom that is promised all over the pages of the Old Testament.  In that kingdom of Heaven on earth things will be switched-up:

There will be a moral reversal when the “proud” are overthrown.  Instead of morality being determined by the “imagination of their [wicked] hearts,” Jesus will rule with purity.

There will be a social reversal when those unbelievers who are now considered “mighty” are removed in favor of the “lowly” believers.

There will be a material reversal when those who are “rich” with this world’s goods will be “empty,” while those who are now poor and “hungry” will be satisfied.

Verses fifty-four and fifty-five remind you that God will most definitely keep all His promises to the physical descendants of Abraham – to the Jews.  Much of world history, and much in current history, revolves around the Jews and Jerusalem.

Mary finished singing and we read,

Luke 1:56  And Mary remained with her about three months, and returned to her house.

God had supplied Mary with His Word; in her case, it was especially the passage in First Samuel about Hannah’s special pregnancy.  She meditated upon the story and then spoke to her soul about it; she encouraged herself from God’s Word.  In her case, she wrote a song.

God has supplied you His Word.  Read it; meditate upon it; let it fill your heart.  As you do you will be speaking to yourself and God will make your heart a place of melody – regardless your outward circumstances.

This Christmas, it is wise to worship Jesus.  May your spirit “rejoice in God [your] Savior.”

The Waiting Gain (Elizabeth)

Do you know what would have happened if it had been Three Wise Women who visited Jesus instead of Three Wise Men?

They would have asked directions, arrived on time, helped deliver the baby, cleaned the stable, made a casserole, and brought practical gifts.

The three wise men are fixed in our minds as a Christmas tradition.  They are on our Christmas cards; there have been poems and stories written about them; we sing a song based upon them.  Every manger scene features them prominently, bearing their gifts from afar.

The three wise men are often portrayed as representatives of the three races of man as descended from Noah’s sons – Semitic, Indo-European and African.

In the sixth century a Latin document recorded their names as Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar, although the source is unknown. Their relics are said to be enshrined at Cologne Cathedral.

As far as the wise men are concerned:

The Bible no where says there were only three wise men.  We suppose there were three because there were three gifts – gold, frankincense, and myrrh.  It seems somehow poetic to us that each wise man brought a single gift; but it’s all conjecture and not in the biblical text.
We most certainly do not know their names or their race or races, except that they were not Jews.
They weren’t kings; they were magi – pagan religious astrologers like the ones Daniel was among in the Old Testament.
Further, it is clear from reading the Gospels that, however many of them there were, they certainly did not arrive at the birth of Jesus.  They were led by the star to a house when Jesus was a young child anywhere from one to two years of age.

Sorry to be the one to destroy your traditions.

The truth be told, three wise women did have more to do with the first Christmas than the famous three wise men.  They are Elizabeth, Mary, and Anna.

Elizabeth was the wife of Zacharias.  Barren into her old age, God granted her a child.  She would give birth to John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus.  In the sixth month of her pregnancy, Mary the mother of Jesus visited Elizabeth and was greatly encouraged by her relative in her own virgin pregnancy.
Mary, of course, is the woman at the heart of the story.  It would be more accurate to say she was the young girl – probably no more than fifteen or sixteen years of age.
The third woman is Anna.  A widow who had dedicated herself to fasting and praying in the Temple at Jerusalem, she gave witness to the baby Jesus when He was presented for circumcision eight days after His birth.

These three wise women can teach us many things.  I want to look at just three of the things they teach us, over the next three weeks:

Elizabeth will teach us that it is wise to wait.
Mary will teach us that it is wise to worship.
Anna will teach us that it is wise to witness.

Elizabeth waited:

She waited and waited to bear a child, but remained barren, and was well advanced in years and past the usual child-bearing age.
After she conceived, she waited another five months before showing herself pregnant with child.

Do you like to wait?  Probably not!  Not for trivial things; certainly not for more important things.  Still, you often do find yourself waiting.

God waited some five-thousand years before sending Jesus to be born.  He’s waited over two-thousand years since He was born.

Waiting is part of His program.

Waiting can have a positive spiritual impact upon our lives.  We can gain from it, spiritually speaking.

In her long barrenness, Elizabeth had learned to wait for the Lord.  In her pregnancy, she learned to wait with The Lord.

I’ll organize my thoughts around two points: #1 You Gain From Waiting For The Lord, and #2 You Gain From Waiting With The Lord.

#1    You Gain From Waiting For The Lord

Luk 1:5    There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abijah. His wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.
Luk 1:6    And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.
Luk 1:7    But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both well advanced in years.
Luk 1:8    So it was, that while he was serving as priest before God in the order of his division,
Luk 1:9    according to the custom of the priesthood, his lot fell to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord.

“Zacharias” served as a “priest.”  There were in those days about eighteen thousand priests.  They were divided into groups, called “divisions,” to serve on a rotating basis.

All the divisions, all the priests, were present at the Temple during Israel’s three great annual feasts.  Then each division served twice more during the calendar year for one week at a time.

“Elizabeth” was the daughter of a priest.  It was an honor for her husband – a priest married to the daughter of a priest.

To “burn incense [in] the Temple of the Lord” meant going into the holy place, out of sight of the people and just before the veil of the holy of holies behind which God’s presence dwelt among His people.

The priests on duty would draw lots to see who would have the honor of burning the incense.  It was not just a great honor; it was a once-in-a-lifetime moment.  Many priests never drew the lot to burn incense; and, once they did, they could never do it again in their lifetime.

What a momentous opportunity this was for Zacharias!  Elizabeth would be so proud of him.

Think of what they both would have missed if they had let bitterness and self-pity at being childless overrule their serving God.

Be where you are supposed to be, doing what you are supposed to be doing, especially serving God.  You don’t know when a moment might come that could change your life, or someone else’s.
If a moment like that never seems to come, then think like the psalmist who proclaimed, “Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked” (Psalm 84:10).

Inside the holy place, Zacharias had an angel encounter.

Luk 1:10    And the whole multitude of the people was praying outside at the hour of incense.
Luk 1:11    Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing on the right side of the altar of incense.
Luk 1:12    And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him.
Luk 1:13    But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your prayer is heard; and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John.
Luk 1:14    And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth.
Luk 1:15    For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb.
Luk 1:16    And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God.
Luk 1:17    He will also go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, ‘TO TURN THE HEARTS OF THE FATHERS TO THE CHILDREN,’ and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”
Luk 1:18    And Zacharias said to the angel, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is well advanced in years.”
Luk 1:19    And the angel answered and said to him, “I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God, and was sent to speak to you and bring you these glad tidings.
Luk 1:20    But behold, you will be mute and not able to speak until the day these things take place, because you did not believe my words which will be fulfilled in their own time.”
Luk 1:21    And the people waited for Zacharias, and marveled that he lingered so long in the temple.
Luk 1:22    But when he came out, he could not speak to them; and they perceived that he had seen a vision in the temple, for he beckoned to them and remained speechless.
Luk 1:23    So it was, as soon as the days of his service were completed, that he departed to his own house.

Here is a reminder you might want to write in the margin of your Bible: When angels tell you what is going to happen, don’t ask them any questions.

Gabriel got a little testy.  Zacharias was rendered “mute.”  The word and subsequent story indicate that he was deaf as well.

Before we concentrate on Elizabeth, look at Zacharias.  Zacharias finished-out his service.  He didn’t go out on a disability.  Sure he was mute; but it didn’t really hinder him from completing his duties, so he was faithful to finish them.

Would you say he was hard core?  It’s really just normal.  It’s normal behavior for someone who considers their life a living sacrifice.  They’re not looking for an out, but to stay in and be used by God.

So far we’ve seen that Zacharias and Elizabeth had married well; they had a good career; they were believers serving God faithfully… And they had a severe, lifelong trial.

It’s difficult, for sure, to be barren if you want children, but it’s hard for us to comprehend the reproach of being childless as a couple, and of being barren as a woman, in the Jewish culture of the first century.  It was seen as a judgment from God.

As a young couple, they waited… And waited… And waited to conceive; but never did.  They waited so long that they thought they weren’t waiting any longer – that it was too late in life to know the joy of children.

Suddenly, with the announcement Elizabeth would conceive and bring forth a child, they realized they were still waiting for God to act.

The average person will spend six months of their life waiting at stoplights.  In total, you will spend about five years of your life waiting in lines and for various other things.

Waiting always seems such a waste that we not only have a hard time waiting for God to act; we have a had time believing God is using our waiting to further His purposes.

Elizabeth’s wait was for God to act so that she would conceive at just the exact moment her pregnancy could encourage Mary in her own struggle to understand how she, a virgin, could conceive.

I submit that if Elizabeth had been ordinary, and would have had many babies like the other ladies, her testimony would not have been so remarkable and effective.

So we see that her waiting for God brought both her and Mary great spiritual gain.

What are you waiting for?  What has been withheld from you… Or taken away from you?

Whatever it is, you are waiting for God.  Has He not promised to redeem the things of your life, and make all of them work together for your good?

The fact you cannot see how He will be able to do this does not mean He can’t or won’t.  His promises cannot fail.

#2    You Gain From Waiting With The Lord

Elizabeth conceives:

Luk 1:24   Now after those days his wife Elizabeth conceived; and she hid herself five months…

I realize, sometimes, gals who have had miscarriages will wait a while before letting others know they are pregnant.  But five months?  That’s unusual.

Why did she hide her pregnancy for five months?  In a verse or two Luke tells us that Gabriel will visit Mary in the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy with the astonishing news she will become pregnant by the Holy Spirit.  Gabriel tells Mary that previously barren Elizabeth is with child as a sign to the young virgin that God is indeed working in her life.

Elizabeth commented on her keeping the pregnancy a secret in verse twenty-five when she said,

Luke 1:25   “Thus the Lord has dealt with me, in the days when He looked on me, to take away my reproach among people.”
The Lord dealt with her.  We normally use that phrase in a negative way, saying things like, Your father will deal with you when he gets home!

Elizabeth used it in an endearing way.

She realized that all her long years, through the sorrow and in the pain, God had been dealing with her.  They had been days in which He had looked on her.  There was never a moment in which He averted His gaze, or weakened His care.  He had brought her to this one amazing moment that would forever take away her reproach among people, but more importantly, encourage Mary.

It was a Joseph moment.  Not Joseph the husband of Mary, but Joseph the Old Testament patriarch.  Sold into slavery by his brothers, Joseph rose to become the second most powerful man in the world next to the Egyptian Pharaoh.  When he finally confronted his brothers he realized that though they meant it for evil, God had redeemed the situation for good.

Trusting that God was dealing with her, Elizabeth realized God had His own timing in her pregnancy and would wait with Him to tell her when to reveal it.

Here’s a thought.  What we see as waiting is really God’s timing.

The entire Christmas story involves God’s timing.  The apostle Paul wrote,

Galatians 4:4  But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,

“Fulness of the time” means in the perfect moment in human history; it means at the very time set by God the Father.  It means everything was unfolding by God’s providence.

What do I mean by “God’s providence?”  I’ll let Henry Thiessen define it:

“Providence” means that continuous activity of God whereby He makes all the events of the physical, mental, and moral realms work out His purpose, and this purpose is nothing short of the original design of God in creation. To be sure, evil has entered the universe, but it is not allowed to thwart God’s original, benevolent, wise, and holy purpose.

Does God’s providence cancel our freedom?  No, it doesn’t.  In His sovereignty God exercises a providence that is not determinism.

Thiessen went on to say,

God sometimes allows man to do as he pleases; that is, he puts no restraints in the way of man’s carrying out his wicked desires. God sometimes keeps a man from doing what, in his freedom, he would otherwise do.  He uses circumstance, the influence of friends, and inner restraints to accomplish this purpose.

Sometimes he controls sin by allowing it to go so far and no further.  Finally, God always overrules what man does in order to accomplish his own ends.  He makes even the wrath of man to praise him.

God asked Elizabeth to remain hidden for five months for Mary’s sake.  Elizabeth obeyed.  It may have gone against every womanly instinct in her to obey… It may have gone against every desire she had to exonerate their family’s reproach… But she waited with God, and thus revealed herself at the perfect time in the greater story.

When Mary finally came to visit, Elizabeth uttered the first prophetic words of the New Testament.  She realized that her own son, John, would play a vital role in the drama.  She knew that her pregnancy, and John’s birth, could not have come at any other moment.

It may not seem like it to you, but you are part of a greater story.  God wants to use you to minister to others and He has a perfect timing in doing so.

Your sphere of ministry may be somewhat small – only to a few people, like your own family and friends.  It may be a greater sphere – to dozens or hundreds or thousands or more.

Though we put the greater value on the greater numbers, and on outward results, God doesn’t.  The value is in our obedience; in our faithfulness.  God takes our obedience and our faithfulness and multiplies it as He sees fit in a grander scheme.

People wait for all kinds of things.  You see them camped-out for days to take advantage of Black Friday sales; or to be the first to see a blockbuster movie; or for a good seat at the Rose Parade.

We make fun of them, saying we’d never wait for something like that.  But I’d wager that, for most if not all of us, there is something we would wait an extremely long time for – because at the end it was worth the wait.

The ‘end’ God has for you is nothing less than to awake in eternity in the likeness of His Son and your Savior, Jesus Christ.  To reward you and say, “Well done, god and faithful servant.”  To show you around the heavenly city, the New Jerusalem, and give you the keys to the home He’s been preparing for you there.

This Christmas, learn to wait for God and with God.

Wait for Him, believing He is working things together for the good.
Wait with Him, having access to His throne of grace and mercy, and to every spiritual resource in heavenly places.

God Would Like To Have The Word With You

Your smartphone probably has a translation app either already installed or freely available.  If not, Google can translate most anything for you.

Matthew was quoting a verse from the Hebrew Bible; Isaiah 7:14 to be exact.  There we are told “the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.”  He ‘googles’ “Immanuel” for us so we Gentiles know what it means.

His original audience already knew what it meant.  They were Hebrew.  Why translate something already known?

You translate for people who do not know the language so they can understand.  This promise to Israel, about Immanuel, was not meant only for Israel.  It’s translation makes it available to all people everywhere for all time.  The baby born to the virgin is God with all of us – the entire human race.

God with us means God became a man.  Jesus was born of a woman, having no earthly father.  He wasn’t a man who became God, but God who became man.

Jesus was God dwelling in human flesh – God seeing through human eyes, God hearing through human ears, God speaking through human lips, God working through human hands, God walking through human feet, God living through a human heart.

God with us provided a Savior from sin.  That’s why Jesus was born of a virgin.  He was born without sin.  He lived our life, faced our temptations, and living without sin, He bore our sin, carried our sorrows and died our death.  He did it all that He might become our Savior from sin.

There is obviously a lot of doctrine that builds upon God with us.  Tonight, as a devotional prior to Christmas, I want to look at the practical implications of God with us.  What did it mean, and what does it mean, to have God with us?

God with us in the Gospel of Matthew meant lepers could be cleansed.

Matthew 8:2    And behold, a leper came and worshiped Him, saying, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.”
Matthew 8:3    Then Jesus put out His hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing; be cleansed.” Immediately his leprosy was cleansed.

God with us meant a centurion’s paralyzed servant could be made whole from a distance.

Matthew 8:5    Now when Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, pleading with Him,
Matthew 8:6    saying, “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, dreadfully tormented.”
Matthew 8:7    And Jesus said to him, “I will come and heal him.”
Matthew 8:8    The centurion answered and said, “Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof. But only speak a word, and my servant will be healed.
Matthew 8:9    For I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

God with us brought healing to Peter’s mother-in-law and then to many, many others.

Matthew 8:16    When evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick,

God with us meant that the wind and the waves were subject to Jesus.

Matthew 8:23    Now when He got into a boat, His disciples followed Him.
Matthew 8:24    And suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea, so that the boat was covered with the waves. But He was asleep.
Matthew 8:25    Then His disciples came to Him and awoke Him, saying, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!”
Matthew 8:26    But He said to them, “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.
Matthew 8:27    So the men marveled, saying, “Who can this be, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?”

God with us meant two excessively demon possessed men could be exorcised and healed.  And all these things occurred in just one chapter!!

The Gospel of John lets you know as it ends that “… there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (21:25).

God with us affected lives in other ways as well.  Ways we sometimes don’t think about.  Joseph was espoused to Mary who was found to be with child during the period of their engagement.  A good man, he meant to end their relationship quietly.  Instead he was called upon to marry her and raise the child.  He was called upon to bear the reproach and shame of what everyone would believe to be his betrothed’s adultery or his own before marriage.

It’s not an easy thing to bear shame when it is deserved, let alone when it is undeserved.

God with us powerfully affected the cousin of Jesus, John the Baptist.  His life became dedicated to announcing the arrival of Immanuel.  It forced him into the desert, into living an ascetic life existing on locusts and honey.  It brought him into confrontation with the most powerful men and women in his region – confrontation that would lead ultimately to his beheading.

Prior to his beheading John was imprisoned and had his doubts even about Jesus, sending to Him to ask if He really was the One they were expecting.

God with us forever changed the lives of twelve men whom Immanuel called to be His closest followers.  They literally gave up everything to follow Him – a man who had nothing in the way of this world’s goods.

One would betray Him but the other eleven remained true.  All but one of them died a martyrs death.  The one who did not, John, was exiled for following Jesus.

The Gospel of Matthew ends by promising God with us after Jesus left the earth.  Commissioning His followers, then and now, He said, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (28:20).

Does God with us still affect the world as it once did?  Are people healed?  Do winds and waves obey?  Are demons put to flight?

Before we can answer those questions it is best to see how we are being affected.

Joseph was called upon to bear shame for the sake of God with us.  So are we.

Hebrews 13:13    Therefore let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach.

The imagery of going “outside the camp” comes from the Jewish Day of Atonement.  The sin offering would be taken outside the camp and burned completely.  Jesus, your sin offering, was taken outside of Jerusalem and crucified.

We wear crosses and they are considered beautiful pieces of jewelry.  Crucifixion, however, is not glorious.  It is shameful – and all the more considering Jesus was guiltless, sinless, God with us.

I cannot bear shame without the aid of the grace of God.  The question, though, is, Am I willing to bear shame at all?  Or do I shrink back from the Gospel, and from serving, because I do not want to be mistreated or misunderstood?
Paul the apostle could declare, “I am not ashamed of the Gospel for it is the power of God unto salvation” (Romans 1:16).

I’m not suggesting we are ashamed of it.  But I do wonder why we keep it so much in the background of our discussions.
Christians try too much to engage nonbelievers in issues by arguments that have little or nothing to do with the Gospel and salvation.  We try to prove our position using research or history or some such thing.

We’re right because God says so.  That may sound ignorant but it’s profound.  If God has clearly spoken then what He said is accurate, correct, the truth – no matter any argument against it.

The heart of the problem is the problem of the heart and only God can discern between the soul and spirit to effect real change.  It’s the Gospel folks need – not a logical argument defending biblical values.  Affect the heart and you change the behavior.

John the Baptist was called to an unusual life of sacrifice and personal denial.  There is no command to celibacy in the New Testament.  We are not called upon to always sell all of our goods to meet the needs of others; or to live communally.  We’re not even commanded to tithe!

No, we’re not commanded because we are now governed by something far more potent than any command.  James called it the law of love.  Because Jesus loved and loves me so much, I return His love by loving others – friend and foe – on His behalf.

What does that look like?  Well, it might look like something beyond what the law required.  For example.  We are not commanded to tithe – to give a minimum of 10% of our pre-tax income to The Lord.  It’s up to us to give regularly, willingly, cheerfully, and sacrificially.

But if the law required 10% and love takes me further – doesn’t it make sense I’d be giving more than required under the law?  At least 11%???

I’m not establishing a new law.  It’s a way of thinking about sacrifice that is more genuine but still without condemnation.  If I’m not going beyond the law, how much is it really inspired by love?

The eleven apostles were called upon to leave everything to follow Jesus.  They were needed to carry-on the work He had begun.  After Jesus ascended He sent them, and the other 109 believers gathered in the Upper Room, the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Francis Chan has a quote that is worth contemplating.  He said, “I don’t want my life to be explainable without the Holy Spirit.  I want people to look at my life and know that I couldn’t be doing this by my own power.  I want to live in such a way that I am desperate for Him to come through.”

It’s a good desire, is it not?  It’s certainly attainable since Immanuel is God with us until the end of the age.

One final thought.  Holidays can amplify feelings of sadness.  People can be so alone, so lonely, even in the midst of a crowd.  Usually it’s because of some loss – some real loss.  Many a death; maybe a desertion.  Whatever, it hits hard.

God with us ought to be the remedy since He has promised to never leave us or forsake us.  If, however, we blame Him for the loss, we are not likely to be in a place to receive His comfort as God with us.

Theologian Gregory Boyd writes,

To finite beings like ourselves, the world is ambiguous in the best of conditions.  When the child we miraculously conceived dies in childbirth, when the cancer we thought had been cured returns, when terrorists kill thousands in a collapsed skyscraper, when we lose all our possessions in a fire, when we fall once again into our destructive addiction or even when we read about God destroying entire people-groups in the Old Testament, it’s easy to let our eyes wander off of Jesus Christ and to begin once again to concoct a god of our own imagining.  In the war zone we presently live in, a world that is still under the influence of Satan, “the god of this world,” things often appear as a raging sea of ambiguity.  We need something – Someone – we can anchor ourselves to.  The anchor God gives us is Jesus Christ.  This alone is what we can trust: God is decisively revealed in Jesus Christ.  If our picture of God is singularly focused on Christ, as it ought to be, we must see God as fighting evil, not willing it.

God is never to blame.  Instead He is with us in our suffering, in our affliction, working all things together for good.

Creche-ing Savior, Hidden Dragon (Revelation 12v1-17)

TITLE: CRECHE-ING SAVIOR, HIDDEN DRAGON
TEXT: REVELATION 12.1-17

Revelation 12:1  Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars.
Revelation 12:2  Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth.
Revelation 12:3  And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads.
Revelation 12:4  His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born.
Revelation 12:5  She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her Child was caught up to God and His throne.

The first Living Nativity was in 1223AD.  Francis of Assisi, Italy, instructed Giovanni Vellita to build, just outside Assisi in the cave at Greccio, a simple little stable.  He furnished it with life-sized Nativity figures.  As midnight approached that Christmas Eve a great procession wound its way out of Assisi and up the hill to Greccio.  The rich, the poor, the old, the young, men and women and children, came candles in hand and journeyed up the hill to this new ‘Bethlehem’ that had been built.  Surrounded by an ox and a donkey and by the people of Assisi playing the parts of the shepherds,  Francis presented the Christmas story.

According to the writings of Bonaventure the townsfolk attending the event fell prostrate with tears of wonderment before this representation of Jesus Christ’s birth.  It became an annual tradition.

The custom spread throughout Italy.  It crossed the Alps to neighboring Bavaria and Austria, and to America with the Moravians, a German-born religious communal society.  In Bethlehem and Lititz, Pennsylvania, these religious pilgrims built such elaborate Nativities that farm families traveled miles from home just to see these outdoor works of art.

Somewhere along the line miniature representations of the Nativity developed.  They go by the name of creche, the French word for crib.  Whether life-sized or miniature, they include the infant Jesus, Joseph and Mary, the shepherds, and miscellaneous barn animals.  Most living nativities or creches also depict the visit of the wise men from the east.

As wonderful and powerful as those figures are, there is another way to represent the Nativity.  In the verses I read from The Revelation of Jesus Christ we encountered a Nativity with some strange figures: a woman clothed with the sun, a fiery red dragon, and a Child with a rod of iron in His hand!

(Because there is a creche and a dragon, if I were giving this message a title it would be “Creche-ing Savior, Hidden Dragon”).

These are the symbols of the Nativity of Jesus Christ seen from the perspective of Heaven through history.  When Heaven looks down, the whole of human history can be understood in these few symbols.

We have just such a fiery red dragon hovering over our Nativity at home.  It was made for us by one of the young men in our church when he was just a child.  I love it!  I’d market it but I doubt it would catch on!

The symbols seem weird but they are not mysterious.  The Bible tells you exactly what they represent:

The “woman” is the nation of Israel, the physical people through whom Jesus Christ would be born into human history.
The “fiery red dragon” is the devil, Satan, in his violent opposition to the coming and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ into human history.
The “Child” is Jesus, in both His first coming as your Savior, and His Second Coming as your Sovereign.

These symbols summarize human history by telling you two things: #1 Jesus Came As Your Savior Despite Satan’s Continual Interference, and #2 Jesus Is Coming As Your Sovereign Despite Satan’s Continuing Interference.

#1    Jesus Came As Your Savior Despite
Satan’s Continual Interference
(v1-5)

The traditional Nativity scene that represents the birth of Jesus doesn’t go back far enough.  God was at work well before the arrival of Joseph and Mary at Bethlehem.  He was at work in eternity and in Eden:

In eternity past God already knew that mankind would need a Savior.  Before the foundation of the earth was laid, it had already been determined in Heaven that God would Himself enter the world as its Savior.
In Eden the reason for God’s plan to send a Savior became clear: Adam and Eve, representing the whole human race that would spring from them, sinned.  Since then, all human beings inherit a sin nature, and all human beings commit individual acts of sin.

God promised Adam and Eve that He would send a Savior into the world to deal with sin.  The Savior would be God Incarnate, God in human flesh, fully God and fully human.  The Savior would be born of a woman.

Not just any woman.  As Bible history unfolds, God established a nation through Abraham to which the Savior would be born.  The nation was Israel.  The Savior of the world would be born to a Jewish woman.

The first two verses of Revelation Twelve describe the “woman” who would give birth to the Savior as,

Revelation 12:1 …a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars.
Revelation 12:2  Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth.

People often accuse the Bible, and the Revelation in particular, of being impossible to understand because of its weird symbols that are open to multitudes of interpretations.  Nothing could be further from the truth!

First of all, signs and symbols are intended to clarify, not to confuse.  Traffic signs are largely symbols.  Is it to confuse you?  No, it is to clarify and communicate.
Second of all, the Bible defines its own symbols. This “woman” in Revelation Twelve is defined for you all the way back in the book of Genesis.  In chapter thirty-seven Joseph had a dream.  In his dream the sun, moon, and stars symbolized the nation of Israel.

The “woman” of Revelation Twelve is the nation of Israel, with her twelve tribes, through whom God would send the Savior, Jesus Christ, into the world.

The nation of Israel is at the very heart of God’s dealings with human history.  It is miraculous that the Jews even exist as an identifiable people among the nations of the world.  The descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob have been scattered throughout the world since the time of Babylon – for over 2500 years.  For the past 1900 years they have had no temple to worship in; still their language, literature, and lifestyle has been preserved.

It defies any possible rational or natural explanation that the Jews would return to their own land at the end of centuries of global exile to be reestablished once again as a nation!  Nevertheless, in our own modern era, on May 14, 1948, Israel was again a nation in her promised land.

The only explanation that anyone can give for Israel’s existence throughout human history as a nation is a supernatural explanation.  God has a plan for Israel.

Our verses also indicate supernatural interference with God’s plan to bring a Savior into the world through the nation of Israel:

Revelation 12:3  And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads.
Revelation 12:4  His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born.

The identity of the fiery red dragon is not in dispute.  You are told later in this same chapter, in verse nine, that,
Revelation 12:9  “…that serpent of old, [is]  the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world…”

Do you see that the Bible defines it’s own signs?  Either from the Old Testament or right in the text itself you can ascertain exactly what these symbols mean.

The grotesque imagery of the devil standing before the woman seeking to devour her Child is a symbolic summary of Satan’s continual interference with the birth of the promised Savior.  Satan knew that the Savior would be born of a woman, and so he has tried throughout history to thwart that birth.

His interference began with Cain killing Abel.  It’s possible that Adam and Eve thought Abel might be the promised Savior; Satan may have thought so, too.  At any rate you’re told that the Devil was involved in Abel’s death.  First John 3:12 says “Cain… was of that wicked one, and slew his brother.”  When Cain killed Abel, Satan was attempting to cut-off the line through which the Savior would be born.

Later, in the days of Noah, Satan tried to pollute the whole human race and its offspring.  In Genesis 6:4 you read,

Genesis 6:4 “…the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them…”

While scholars disagree about the exact details, this was an attempt by Satan to thwart God’s plan to bring your Savior into the world.

When God began to reveal His plan to establish a new nation through Abraham through whom your Savior would be born, Satan’s efforts became focused on destroying the Jews.  Biblical history is full with his efforts to destroy Israel:

At the birth of Moses, Pharaoh ordered the death of all male children born to Jewish women.
During the days of David, King Saul and others repeatedly attempted to kill David, from whose lineage the Savior would be born.
At one point, in Second Kings Eleven, only one little boy was left through whom Jesus could be born.
The Book of Esther records the attempts of a man named Haman to exterminate the Jewish race.
Around the time Jesus was born, King Herod issued a decree to slaughter the Jewish infants under two years of age.

Satan is not alone in his long war against God:

Revelation 12:4  His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born.

“A third of the stars of heaven” refers to Satan leading one-third of the angels in a rebellion against God.  Satan, an angel himself, is the leader of the fallen angels that we call demons.  When the Bible says that Satan “threw them to the earth” it means that the earth is their place of service to the devil.

Despite all Satan’s diabolical designs to “devour” Jesus, your Savior was born through the nation of Israel:

Revelation 12:5  She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her Child was caught up to God and His throne.

The baby Jesus was born to eventually “rule all nations with a rod of iron.”  To that end, these verses summarize the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus by speaking of His ascension into Heaven to sit at the right hand of God’s throne.

Jesus came the first time to save sinners. Who are the “sinners” Jesus was sent to save?  They are every descendant of Adam and Eve.  All human beings fall short of the righteousness of God.

Let me ask you a question: Are you less perfect than God?  If you honestly answer “Yes!,” then you are the sinner who Jesus came to save.

Jesus came into the world to save sinners – and He has.  He is the Savior of all men – especially those who believe.

#2    Jesus Is Coming As Your Sovereign Despite
Satan’s Continuing Interference
(v6-17)

Satan didn’t stop the first coming of Jesus; perhaps he can interfere with the Second Coming of Jesus.

Modern history is full of attempts to exterminate the Jews.  A careful study of Hitler and Himmler reveals occult, supernatural activity – satanic activity – that accounts for the incredible hostility of the Holocaust.

But the worst persecution against Jews is still in the future:

Revelation 12:6  Then the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that they should feed her there one thousand two hundred and sixty days.

Bible teachers and students of prophecy immediately understand the reference in verse six to “one thousand two hundred and sixty days.”  These days add up to three and one half years.  They are also sometimes referred to as “a time, times, and half a time.”  Those are all prophetic descriptions of a three and one half year period of time that immediately precedes the Second Coming of Jesus to the earth.  They are the last half of the seven year Great Tribulation spoken of in Scripture.

In the very near future the earth will be plunged into the Great Tribulation.  Sound fantastic? Sensational?  It is nevertheless true.  Let me point out just one thing that verifies our claim that we are near the end.

Two thousand years ago the Bible predicted that, in the Last Days before Jesus returned to earth, everyone would “…receive a mark on their right hand or in their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark…”  For centuries people ridiculed this as Bible fiction.  Yet you know that the technology now exists to unite the world into one economic system, and to put a microchip or an invisible electronic tattoo in or on your hand or forehead that could be scanned by the devices currently in use all over the world.

More and more we are opting for cashless commerce.  Efforts are underway in many nations to issue remotely-readable national id cards.  Security issues, whether national or personal, are overshadowing privacy concerns.

By itself this technology is not “the mark of the beast.”  But you can see how easy it would be to implement such a system.  We need to realize that all this is a very recent phenomena but one we knew would develop in the last days!

Verses seven through seventeen of Revelation twelve are a summary of Satan’s future efforts to interfere with the coming of Jesus to rule the world:

Revelation 12:7  And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought,
Revelation 12:8  but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer.
Revelation 12:9  So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

Since he failed to keep Jesus from coming as Savior, Satan’s only strategy is to seek to prevent Jesus from coming again to be Sovereign.  He instigates a war in heaven.

“They did not prevail.”  This literally means, “they were not strong enough.”  God wins this heavenly war letting Michael and the other angels have the privilege of carrying out His will.  The devil and his demons are finally and utterly cast out of Heaven to the earth.

Revelation 12:10  Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, “Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down.
Revelation 12:11  “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.
Revelation 12:12  “Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.”
Revelation 12:13  Now when the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male Child.
Revelation 12:14  But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent.
Revelation 12:15  So the serpent spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood.
Revelation 12:16  But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon had spewed out of his mouth.
Revelation 12:17  And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

These verses describe the future activity of Satan on earth in the final days of history before Jesus returns.  Chief among his efforts will be an attempt to exterminate all Jews.  You see, God has promised the Jews that they would survive to see the return of Jesus.  Satan reasons that if he can annihilate the Jews from the earth, then Jesus cannot return in His Second Coming.

God will supernaturally protect a remnant of His people, the Jews.  They will remain; Jesus will return.

Conclusion

Whether you do or don’t display a Nativity I sincerely hope that you will see that the true Nativity scene includes these symbols: a woman clothed with the sun, a fiery red dragon, and a Child with a rod of iron in His hand.  These symbols tell you that Jesus came as your Savior, and that He is coming as your Sovereign.

Salvation is a gift that must be received.  Christmas gifts illustrate this.  You’re given a gift.  You must take it, open it, receive it, in order for it to be of any value to you.  It’s yours even if you do not receive it, but it has no impact on you.  It does you know good to simply acknowledge there is a gift.  You’ve got to receive it.

Salvation is a free gift that comes to you when you receive Jesus Christ and believe on Him with all your heart.

Is Jesus your Savior?  If He is not, you are not ready for Him to be your Sovereign.

If He is your Savior, are you excited about God’s continuing gifts?

Jesus promised His followers the further gift of the empowering of the Holy Spirit.
The Bible promises each believer one or more supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus told us that He’d be gone for a time occupying Himself with building our heavenly homes which He referred to as mansions.
The Lord said that at His coming for us He would bring a reward.

May this Christmas be one in which you rededicate yourself to experiencing all the gifts God has promised you – both now and in the future.

Keep yourself ready to see Him.  True, the Lord is coming a second time, at the end of the Great Tribulation.  But before that – at least seven years before that – He is coming to resurrect and rapture the Church.  It is presented as an imminent event; it could happen at any moment.

Be rapture ready.