23 Jan

12/23/18    “THE FORETOLD BIRTH”    ISAIAH 7:10-16

I don’t know if you have noticed, but I try to give credit to the proper person when I tell a story or make a quote.  Today’s sermon idea came from my wife, Sharon, and I would like to give her credit for it.  Gentlemen, you would be very wise to give your wives credit for the many things that they do, not only at Christmas but all the time. I’m not trying to say this so that you can have an easier life.  I really mean that it is the proper thing to do for husbands, wives, boyfriends and girlfriends.  Plus it will help you in the future and that is my prophecy for today.  Anyway today I would like to take a look at this prophecy in Isaiah and a few others and talk about why they are so important to us.

Did you know that, according to Val Black, there are 453 prophecies in the Bible about the coming of Jesus Christ?  Of these, 196 are about his first coming.  And every one of these has been fulfilled when Jesus was crucified and was raised again.  If you do the math, that leaves 257 signs left to be fulfilled with His second coming.  It should be pretty obvious that God wants us to know about that Jesus is coming again.  That is why He tells us in so many ways.  He wants us to be ready.  Unfortunately, we seem to get it wrong so often.

Here are a few of our blunders.  In 110 AD, a Christian by the name of Ignatius told everyone that we were in the last days.  In 236 AD a Christian by the name of Hippolytus said for sure that Jesus would return by 500 AD.  In 375 AD a Christian by the name of Martin said for sure that the antichrist had already been born.  In the year 999 AD people were so caught up in the assumed fact that Jesus was returning that they didn’t plant crops or plan for the future.

Even our great Protestant reformer, Martin Luther, said in the 1500’s that the world could not last another 100 years.  Christopher Columbus said that the world would definitely end in 1656.  The list goes on and on.  In modern times we have been told that the end would be in 1981 and the year 2000.  According to the book called the Bible Code II we were supposed to be done in the year, in 2006.  And guess what?  They have all been wrong.  Not one of them has been right.  That is why it is important not to get too caught up in any of these modern movements that are telling that the end is near or we are in the end times.  As I have said many times before, we may be near or it may not be near.  We will know only when it happens.

This is one of the passages in Isaiah that has prophecy about the first coming of Jesus.  There are many such prophecies in Isaiah and the Old Testament concerning the advent of the Messiah.  If you look at just about any real church program or one of your Sunday School Christmas programs you will see many prophecies.  They come from Genesis, the Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Haggai, Micah and Malachi to name a few.  The Jewish people at the time of the birth of Jesus knew the Messiah was due to come at any time.  Unfortunately, many were looking for a man and not a babe.

As we begin in today’s Scripture, we find the King of Judah, Ahaz, is being spoken to by God.  It is important to note here as we are lifting this passage a little out of context, that Ahaz was one of if not the worst king that Judah ever had.  He was wicked and evil in the eyes of the Lord.  And here God is telling him to ask the Lord for a sign.  And Ahaz refuses because he doesn’t want to put the Lord to a test.

Just reading this out of context, one might get the idea that this is pretty noble.  After all, Jesus said pretty much the same thing to the devil when He was tempted in the wilderness.  But King Ahaz had totally fallen away from God.  His country was in fear of being overrun by enemies.  He had made bad alliances with others to save his country.  As a matter of fact everything he did was for the benefit of himself only.  He never once asked God for help of any kind.

How many people do you know who are just like King Ahaz?  So many people just go through the motions of life without ever realizing that God is responsible for all of it.  It doesn’t matter where you go or what you do, God is there and responsible for all.  Remember that the next time you have to make a decision.  Ask God.

And here we have our wonderful, kind, loving God giving this wicked, evil king a second chance.  It was probably more like his 100^th chance or 1000^thchance.  God will give him any sign that he asks for.  But because Ahaz knows that he has been evil and is afraid of what God might give him, he refuses.  Can you imagine this?  This would be like God telling you that you can have anything you ask.  Anything!  And then turning Him down.  And even though it is hard for us to imagine such a scenario, it happens all around us every day.

God will do for us what He tried to do for this king.  He will give us a second chance.  He will give us third and fourth chances also.  I thank the Lord every day because He gave me something like 50 chances, maybe a 100.  And for 99 times I did the same thing as Ahaz.  I turned God down.  I turned down the all-powerful, all-knowing and all-present God!  Was I crazy?

That is the trouble with the secular world.  They don’t even know what they are turning down.  They are like Ahaz.  They don’t want things to change because things are going pretty good right now or so they think.  They seem to have all the money, food, and power that they need.  They tell us that we have to leave them alone because they don’t want to hear about what will happen.  Well, it is our job to inform the world.  We need to tell everyone in a loving, kind way that God is real and what He says will happen.  God didn’t author the Bible so we could have nice pretty little churches.  He wrote it so we could go out and help Him to change lives.

In this passage, God is talking through Isaiah.  Isaiah was a bold prophet as were many of the Old Testament prophets.  Generally, they were poor but totally dedicated to God.  They lived to be a prophet.  In this passage today, it would be like one of us going to President Trump or Hillary Clinton and telling them that they are totally and morally wrong.  Or better yet, it would be like having a one on one audience to the king of Jordan or some Middle East leader and telling them that they will be going to hell because Islam is wrong.  We could be put to death for doing something like that.  That is exactly what Isaiah is doing here.

Isaiah tells the king right to his face that he is following a false god.  He says, “Is it not enough to try the patience of men?  Will you try the patience of my God also?”  He is saying that my God is not your god.  But my God will give you a sign anyway.  In verse 16, he tells us that Ahaz will not be around to see its fulfillment, but he is going to send it anyway.

Here comes the prophecy as we read in verse 14, “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.  He will eat curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right.”  Like I asked last week, how does Isaiah know so much about Jesus when he is living hundreds of years before his birth?  He knows because God told him.  He told him and others 196 times that Jesus was coming.  These are the written prophecies.

A child will be born of a virgin.  This was impossible in those olden days and it is impossible today.  This cannot happen even in our scientific world.  Just as a side bar, we are no closer to creating life in a test tube today than we were in the days of Jesus.  But this is what God does so well.  He does what seems impossible.  He not only came to earth in the form of a baby, but he performed all kinds of miracles while he was here.  Then to top it all off, after he was killed on the cross, He got up from the tomb.  God through Jesus Christ did miracle after miracle after miracle and they and we still don’t believe.

I think that it is important during the Christmas season to look back into the Old Testament and read some of these prophecies.  Many of the Jews in the time when Jesus was born knew that the Messiah was due to come.  But they didn’t know exactly when, they only knew that he was soon due to come.  They knew because of what was written in Daniel.  Daniel actually gives a time table as to when the Messiah was coming.  So there were a few people who were not surprised on the Holy Night so many years ago.

God came to us in the form of a baby.  He was a baby just like any of those babies you see where ever you go.  He was a totally helpless infant like we all have been.  Jesus had to come and experience life just like we experience life every day.  If any of you think that your problems are unique, just remember that Jesus has been there before you.  He suffered everything so that He could show us the way.

Jesus was an ordinary person just like you and I.  We have no physical description of him so we would assume that he was ordinary in the physical sense.  The name Jesus is the Greek form of the name Joshua.  His name was as common then as is Mike or Dan or John is today.  He had physical hunger just like we do.  He suffered the same temptations that we do.  Everything that we do, Jesus has been there before.

This is our Christmas message.  We can see by the Scripture that Jesus came to this world just as it was written.  And just like John the Baptist, He is prophecy come true.  Jesus is God.  There are many more prophecies that tell us that He is coming again.  All of these prophecies will come true when He comes.

We have a job to do this Christmas and every Christmas.  We have to tell the Christmas story, whether it be by our own mouth and actions or maybe by the use of a wonderful Sunday school program like many churches have.  People need to know that this book is the truth.  They need to know that these events really happened.  They need to know that God loves us so much that he sent his Son to this earth to live and die for us.  Let’s make a New Year’s Resolution now.  Let’s see if each one of us can invite one new person to view this service online.  Better yet, show someone this broadcast when you are with them.  This is basically our 1^st anniversary of being here for you.  You can go to YouTube and view any of the previous services.  And let’s not do it because I ask you.  Let’s do it because these people need Jesus Christ.

And we are all worthy of Jesus.  God, first told the lowly shepherds about the baby.  Author Max Lucado tells us that he didn’t first summon the theologians because they would have had to study it before coming to see the babe.  Modern theologians would never be able to agree on who Jesus is/was.  The elite or the rulers would have had to make sure that no one was watching before they could come.  The successful would have had to check their calendars.  They would check their cell phones.  So God chose the shepherds because they didn’t have a reputation to protect, an axe to grind or a success ladder to climb.  All they did was believe like many of us.  This story is too well documented not to be true and not to believe.  I have heard of so many people who are so anti-Christian until they actually read the Bible.  Then God takes over.  This Christmas season let God take over for you.  Rest a little and let God handle it.

Jesus Christ came for you and He came for me.  I would like to close with a little story from Mark Lowry.  Have you ever noticed how quiet Mary was when they hung her son on the cross to die?  Just about any mother that has ever lived would have put up a tremendous fuss upon seeing her son die.  But Mary was quiet.  Lowry wonders if maybe Mary remembers counting the little fingers and toes of Jesus when he was born.

He wonders then if she had realized that these were the same fingers that had scooped out the oceans and formed the seas.  And as she counted the toes did she realize that these were the same feet that walked on the streets of gold in heaven where angels fell to his feet and worshiped.  Were those little baby lips the same lips that spoke the universe into existence?  And when she kissed that little baby, did she know that she was kissing the face of God?  33 years later she knew all of this and more and she didn’t raise her voice in protest.  And this was because Jesus was not just a great prophet.  Jesus wasn’t just a great preacher.  Jesus wasn’t just a great teacher.  He was the virgin born son of God.  He was and is our Savior.  And He didn’t die for just you and me and all of mankind.  He also died for His mother, Mary.  The baby boy she had delivered on Christmas was now delivering her as He died on the cross.

I can’t say much more than this.  I am so glad He came and delivered me from the devil.  I am so glad He delivered me from my old life so I could come to you.  I’m so glad that many of you have also been delivered from evil.  This plan is beyond words.  It is beyond us all.  It is perfect and I praise the Lord this Christmas that all of us have a small part in it.  May God bless you and Merry Christmas.  Let’s pray.