Prophecies of the Birth of Jesus

As far as the way that particular hymn turned out, maybe we were getting used to it. Perhaps that's the case. But thank you for working with that, Cleo. I know it's not quite as easy. It's actually easier to have the piano follow you, I know. But I also wanted to mention I was out of town here a few days this past week. I was down in Oklahoma, of course, where I grew up. I met my brother and my sister, and we had a couple of things we needed to work on there at the farm area where I grew up. And so I appreciate being able to do that, but I'm glad to be back. It's really not that far down there, four or five hours, to be able to... We've got awfully good roads between here and there. It's just amazing to me. But it's also pretty sad because I grew up in a little town called Coyle, C-O-Y-L-E, Oklahoma. It's about south of Stillwater. Most of you know where Stillwater is, or OSU is. At least you've heard of that, if you are familiar with any of the sports things that go on among the colleges in the Big 12. So it's relatively close to that. But at the time when we were growing up, of course, 40 to 50 years ago, the town was relatively a lot. There were buildings downtown. There was a drugstore. There was a bank. There was a grocery store or two. A grocery store being, you know, small market. Probably two of those. There were a couple of three gas stations.

I actually remember a gas station. I remember that's where I'm reminded of the lowest I ever remember seeing the cost of gas at this one station there, the Pefneler station in Coyle. I remember seeing it at $19.99. That's the lowest I ever remember seeing it. Some of you remember, maybe, remember it lower than that. But that was $19.99 for regular and $23.99 if you had to buy premium or Ethel. And so I've got a somewhat of a memory of what Coyle was like.

Of course, the drugstore was a quite popular place. It had soda fountain and really nice to go in and get a Coke and be able to enjoy that type of a setting. And yet today, we always had a post office, too. And we still have a post office. But that's about it. There is a post office. There is a bank, a little newer kind of a branch bank out of Guthrie, I think.

And there are two or three churches that are, I'm sure, struggling to continue to function. And yet all the other buildings are pretty well, you know, the businesses are not there, the buildings have deteriorated and are falling down. And so it's kind of depressing to drive through that downtown of that little town. The school is still functional because they draw from wider range.

They bus people in from a wider area there. But I think it would appear that the school would be functional. But it's just different to go back and to see such massive change. And I guess over 50 years, undoubtedly, that's the case. Oh, and unfortunately, the main road, the highway that used to go right through that little strip of coil, no longer goes through there. It's been diverted and it goes by coil.

And, you know, they build a new bridge over the river that's right close to coil. They're always, you know, we had to swing through coil and go have to go over that to get through that to get to the bridge to get on on past the Cimarron River. And now the whole setup is different, completely, you know, doesn't even come close to town or, I mean, it's out a mile or half mile from town and a new bridge.

And you can miss it altogether. And as I thought about that, I almost wanted to miss it. As I thought about how dismal it really seems, kind of downtown. Well, I thought I would mention that to you. I haven't been out of town too much here, but I did have to do that here this past week. And so I wanted to mention to you that I was glad to be able to do that. But sorry I missed Mrs. Wilson's surgery. I got back here on Thursday and was able to see her, but she had had her surgery on Wednesday.

Well, as all of you know, last week, during our services, we went through the account here in Matthew that talked about how the birth of Jesus, the coming of Jesus for the first time, the coming of the intervention of the King of the Jews. That had been planned, that was intentional. And clearly, as we read through some of the verses that we know are in the Old Testament, it was prophesied to occur in a very significant way.

And we went through many of those verses last week, and then we covered the section that I wanted to cover with you there in Matthew. And it's very clear that God the Father in the Word had developed a plan where their family would grow. A plan where those human individuals who would ultimately be allowed to be participants in the family of God, be able to have eternal life with God, that they would have a way whereby they could be given salvation, and where redemption would be available to them, available to us.

And they had planned that out long before. Long before even the angelic creation and the rebellion that occurred with Lucifer, and how that ultimately, as God started shaping and fashioning Adam and Eve and the human race, there was a very clear path that men were going to take. Or at least, you know, they succumbed to a tremendous power that the prince of the power of the air is in deceiving Adam and Eve. The Bible talks about Satan deceiving the whole world, and of course he did that at the right time.

The right time to be successful because he started at the very beginning. He started with Adam and Eve, and then their children, and all of the progeny of the human races. We've come down here what would seem to us to be six thousand years from that time.

And yet, they had put in a plan, and a plan where a king would come. A king would come, would be introduced, and the king would be a baby. The king would be a child, a child that would miraculously be born, that had been predicted and very intentional to occur in this way. And then, that child would grow, he would live out his life, and give himself as a sacrifice for sin. Give himself as the Lamb of God, and ultimately be put to death for us. And then, of course, beyond that, God would call people to know what he was doing. He would call people to know the plan.

He would call people to be aware of how it was that they were working out a plan here on this earth, and how that plan would ultimately be fulfilled with the return of Jesus Christ, with the establishment of the kingdom of God, and with peace that would overflow the earth. And then, ultimately, throughout eternity, there would be cooperation, and harmony, and peace. That's what God had predicted long ago, and he's doing that incrementally. He isn't doing that all at once, because we certainly see him show that we don't have peace right now.

We've got a great deal of dissension. We've got nations warring against nations. We've got all kinds of distress around the globe. We've got billions of people who are struggling just to be able to exist. Here in this country, we have many, many physical blessings. And yet, as we studied that, as we went through that last week in Matthew, we went through many of the Old Testament Scriptures that showed how that hundreds of years before this actually occurred with the birth of Jesus, how that that was predicted, how it had been prepared. Now, I know all of you are aware, and I want to cover some things in the book of Luke here today, because Luke also gives an account.

We only went through the account in Matthew last week, and they're basically those two accounts, the account in Matthew and the account in Luke, of the introduction and then the intervention of Jesus Christ with His first coming. And yet, all of us know that for the time of Christmas, the time here at the end of the month or the end of December, December 25th, we have a great number of people who focus on that, and of course, we've come out of that.

We've come to see the fallacy of that. We see that, well, that is not really celebrating the birth of Jesus. It's not really celebrating. It has many fallacies that are connected to it. It has many wrong activity that's connected to it. But we still live in this age, and we know that, well, they're going to continue to do that. And yet, we are following the plan as God outlines it.

And of course, that plan is revealed more so in His Holy Days than in the holidays that we have in this world. And yet, we still want to come to understand, I think again, as I mentioned last week, that it's very good that we cover the material in Luke 2 and in Matthew 1 and 2. Because we want to be familiar with what it actually says.

Because Luke gives an orderly and very revealing account of some other aspects of the birth of Jesus that we didn't cover last time. We covered some of the things. And yet, Luke points out some things that are not a part of what we find in Matthew. And in a sense, you have to put those together. I thank Mrs. Ammel for sending me a little note here this past week with some information about what we read here in the book of Luke. Because it is important for us to be able to read through this and actually to understand how the accounts, in essence, kind of mesh together.

See, too many times, and certainly with the, say, the nativity scene, you see the characters in this scene that are, you know, just a conglomeration of everything imaginable in connection with the birth of Jesus. And yet, that isn't the case. As we went through last time, the wise men were not there. They didn't come till later. And, of course, you know, some of the specific things that are mentioned here, you know, they need to be understood. The two accounts can be viewed with an apparent timeline that potentially would cover a year or a year and a half or two years.

I mean, the descriptions that we find in Luke 2 and in Matthew 1 and 2 appear to cover, you know, a pretty large period of time. And yet, you know, they do cover his birth, his birth in Bethlehem. That was where he was supposed to be born. And, of course, the shepherds did come. They came to Bethlehem. They found the child who was in the manger. You know, that was correctly stated, that was stated. Now, that did not occur on December 25th, as we'll cover here in a little while.

That probably occurred much earlier in the year, or so in, you know, early fall. That's more than likely what we find revealed, but the Bible doesn't specifically note that.

And apparently, it wasn't something we needed to note. But we do want to be able to put these scriptures together. So it does mention his birth in Bethlehem, the shepherds coming there. It later also mentions his time around the temple in Jerusalem. Because it talks about him being circumcised. It talks about Mary and Jesus being brought to the temple. That would have been 40 days later. And so that accounts for the first month and a half of Jesus' life. He's still there. He's still around Bethlehem. He's still around Jerusalem. But then we also, as we read last week, we also know that as the wise men came, and however months were involved in that appearing, where they came and they were following the star, and they were coming from a far distance, how that they came and they wanted to find out where the king of the Jews had where he was so that they could honor him, so that they could acknowledge him.

And yet they came to worship him. And yet following that, what happened? Well, Jesus and his family had to flee to Egypt in order to prevent Herod from trying to find him, trying to slaughter him. And of course it says that they stayed there. They stayed there until Herod died. And what we find in history is that Herod, you know, would appear within about a year of this activity. You know, Herod did die, and I've read some remarkably gruesome descriptions of how Herod died. A terrible death.

And that, you know, it may be quite in line with how it was that, you know, the type of person he was, he's certainly a very ugly person, very vicious person, a violent person.

And yet he died. And then we also found that Joseph then brought Mary and Jesus back to Israel. And ultimately, you know, they go back home. They go back. But see, that didn't happen all on one night. That happened throughout the course of what would appear to be a year or maybe even two years. And you can see many of these things pointed out quite clearly as we read the Scripture.

So I want to look here. Actually, you find in Luke and also in Matthew, you find statements here in Luke 2, verse 39. It says, when they finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth. Now, that has to be a summary statement. Because we know, and again, when we put the timelines together, we know that after the wise men came and after it was revealed that Jesus was actually born in Bethlehem, that they had to flee to Egypt. Now, that had to happen after they had been at the temple, after they had come and presented themselves to the temple.

You see this here in the book of Luke as we read it.

So, here, this statement in verse 39 is a summary statement because after they completed what they had to at the temple, they didn't immediately go right to Bethlehem, or excuse me, not Bethlehem, but to Nazareth. They didn't immediately do that because they had to go to Egypt. Now, they went to Egypt and then it says they came back when you read the account as we did last week in Matthew. And it said that they then came back to Israel and feeling it was okay to be back, went on to their home, which was in Nazareth.

It was in Galilee. And so, that's where they ultimately ended up. This particular verse here in verse 39 appears to be a summary. It's not something that sequentially one follows the other because you've got a big time lapse in there with this trip to Egypt. We could also perhaps look at Matthew 2.

Matthew 2, we read this last time, but I'll also read it here again. Because it says here in verse 22 of Matthew 2, when he heard that Archimulus was ruling over Judah in place of his father Herod, Joseph was afraid to go there. But after he was warned by a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee and there he made his home in a town called Nazareth. So it was very clear that as he came back from having been in Egypt and as he came back to Israel, ultimately then to go on to Nazareth, that took some time.

That was involving more time than what you would have when you were just having been there in Bethlehem and then how long you were there. It isn't directly revealed, but it would certainly appear to be a lot longer than most people probably would think. And of course, you find this statement about him here in Matthew. It says there in chapter 2, Matthew 2 verse 23, "...they went to Nazareth so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, that he will be called a Nazarene." And we read that last time.

I didn't really focus on it because I hadn't really thought about that. But see, when you look into that, where is that quoting from? Is that quoting from a Scripture in the Old Testament that he's supposed to be called a Nazarene? I don't believe it is. From what I read and from what I'm studying, it doesn't directly say that like it does with Bethlehem, like it does with numerous of the other things, as we mentioned. It doesn't say directly in any specific prophecy that Jesus was to be called a Nazarene.

But what this refers to, and of course it doesn't say that it was written, it says it was spoken by the prophets. And what it was referring to was that in many ways you see prophecies in the Old Testament. Isaiah 53, for instance, you see that describing Jesus and describing ultimately His crucifixion and His death. And yet, the main thing that is described there is how that Jesus will be loathed, how He will be oppressed, how He will be despised, how He didn't come in a way where everybody would easily accept Him as the King that everyone needs to worship.

And what it really shows is not only there, but in the book of Psalms and in other of the prophets, that the reference to being a Nazarene was the reference to actually being despised, being oppressed. And that clearly was the case with living in Nazareth. See, Nazareth was where Joseph and Mary lived before they ever went down to Bethlehem. It was where they lived. But, what do we know about the city of Nazareth?

Well, actually, it was in Galilee. And if we recall some of the statements we may be familiar with, then we see that, well, Galileans were not looked upon as the educated, the uplifted. They were actually looked. It was actually where Samaria was. It was viewed in a negative light.

It was viewed, in some ways, even viewed as a pagan area. And yet, I mean, it was viewed by some in that way. And yet, what you truly find about it is, and we can recall this statement, and I don't have this written down as far as where it is, but in discussing some of the things that Jesus did, whenever Jesus performed some miracles and they were trying to determine, well, who is He and where did He come from? What background does He have? Well, they said, well, can anything good come out of Nazareth? That statement, I think, should be recalled to mind by all of us.

That was what it was viewed in a very dim way. It was viewed as a very demeaning term or a demeaning background. And that's what this particular item is referring to. And whenever it says spoken, or through the prophets, or by the prophets, it appears to be something that would be referring to Him being despised and actually be referred to contemptuously.

What we find here in Luke's account, if we go back there again, is highlighting certain specific kingly roles and duties that Jesus was destined to perform partially during His first coming and then also in addition during His second coming. See, this was information that we find revealed in Luke that talked about far more than what Jesus would simply do when He came the first time. Because it talks about early things that He will do, but then it talks also about much more magnified things that He'll do when He returns. And I want to go through some of these Scriptures today and be able to add that to our understanding of the accounts that we have in the Bible of the birth of Jesus to be able to properly understand this. So here in Luke 1, we've got several different accounts that I will try to go through here quickly. Starting in verse 5 of Luke 1, we've got... Oh, actually, I may ask another question. I pointed out that about Nazareth and what that apparently is referring to. But I also would like for us to think or ask ourselves the question, what did the shepherds and Anna have in common? What did the shepherds and Anna have in common? That's something we'll look at here in a little bit. But as we look through here in Luke 1, you actually see an account describing how it is that John the Baptist is going to be born and how that that is foretold. And of course, the account points out that Zachariah was a priest and he was of the order of Abijah. You see that in verse 5. And you see in verse 6 that Elizabeth and Zachariah were righteous. They were blameless according to the commandments of the Lord. They were very honorable parents that were going to be the parents of John the Baptist. In verse 8 it says, once when Zachariah was serving as priest before God in his section, that's the section of Abijah, when they were on duty, he was chosen by lot according to the custom of the priesthood to enter the sanctuary of the Lord and offer incense. And so here we find in a sense in identifying the time when he was there, the order of Abijah was, I believe, the 8th of the 24th. And so he was clearly in the first third of the order that would be going throughout a yearly time. And this would correlate to around early June. Around Pentecost time, probably, or a little bit later, early June would be when this would be. And of course Gabriel comes to Zachariah and of course he is going to tell him some marvelous things.

He tells him in verse 14, he tells him about how John is going to be brought into the world. He's going to be great. He's going to have a responsibility. He's not to drink strong drink or wine. He's going to be filled with the Holy Spirit, turning many people of Israel to the Lord. And he will go in the spirit and the power of Elijah, hearts of the fathers to the children. He'll be turning and he'll make ready a people prepared for the Lord. See here, verse 14 through 17 was a prediction. It was a prophecy about John the Baptist. And yet John was, as we're going to find, he was an older relative, a older cousin, it would appear, of Jesus. And John is going to be born at a particular time, that will in essence be about six months before when Jesus Christ would be born. And again, even though we don't specifically have direct dates, we do have some time frames here that can be very helpful. Of course, Zachariah was kind of skeptical about this. He didn't know exactly. And I think it's always impressive when you read verse 19, when he said, I don't know whether this could happen or whether this is going to happen. I'm pretty old. My wife is old. This doesn't seem very likely, but the angel replied, I am Gabriel, and I stand in the presence of God. And I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. And so the message about John the Baptist, that came from God. That came from the throne of God. That came from the ruler of the universe. Gabriel happened to be the spirit messenger that brought that to Zachariah. And yet, it's just an impressive statement here, I think, in verse 19, to be able to have the good news presented to Zachariah in this way, the good news about John. But we're also going to find that he also knows a good deal about Jesus. And so John, of course, not believing, he became mute at that point. He couldn't talk. And of course, that created a commotion when he came out. But in verse 23, he says, When his time of service was ended, he went to his home, and after those days, his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she remained in seclusion. And so he had been serving in the temple early June, mid-June. He'd be able to go home, you would assume, probably, because this is directed to be done at this point. That Elizabeth would miraculously become pregnant. She had been barren, but now, she, toward what would be mid-June or a little bit later June, is conceiving. And so then you have a section from verse 26 on down to verse 36, that whole section there. Also, Gabriel's interaction with Mary. Miraculous interaction. So in verse 26, in the sixth month, so this was in the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy. You know, when she was about six months along, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth. And so here we find again a revealing thing. Well, that's where Mary lived. That's where she and Joseph came to come to know each other. That's where they were living. That's where they were from. And of course, you know, he points out that I know who you are, Mary.

Verse 28, greetings, you favored one. The Lord is with you. And yet, Mary was greatly perplexed by these words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said, don't be afraid, for you have found favor with God. And now, you're going to conceive in your womb and bear a son and you will name him Jesus. But he goes on to say even more than that.

He says, you're going to become pregnant miraculously. You are going to be the mother of the Son of God. But it says, He will be great. He will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to Him the throne of His ancestor, His father, David.

Verse 33, He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.

And so obviously here, even though he's talking about a little child being born, a miraculous birth that would take place, something that would be no way to describe or explain, except as Gabriel explains it, that God is going to bring this about. There is nothing impossible with God. And so he was going to achieve that, but see, what he was sending Jesus to the earth to do was far more than just be the Lamb of God. Far more than simply come as a servant and to live His life as an example and then give His life for our sins. He did that, yes.

But as He died then and ascended to the Father once again, He awaits. He awaits the fulfillment of most of what we see written here, receiving the throne of His father, David, reigning over the house of Jacob or Israel. And out of that kingdom there will never be an end. See, that's what we see predicted back in Daniel chapter 2. Daniel 2 verse 44. Maybe we can quickly go back to that because, you know, some of the wording is even very similar. Daniel chapter 2 is, of course, Nebuchadnezzar's image and how Daniel was able to describe that. But in verse 44 in the Days of the Kings that Daniel was explaining to Nebuchadnezzar, the God of heaven would set up a kingdom.

The God who has designed a plan of redemption and salvation for mankind, the one who will send a Redeemer, He's going to set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed. Nor shall a kingdom be left to other people. It will crush all of human kingdoms and bring them to an end and it will stand forever. And just as you saw the stone was cut from the mountain, not by hands, it crests you iron and bronze and clay and silver and the gold. The great God has informed the King how this is going to take place. And so the description that we find back in Daniel and what was predicted there, again hundreds of years before Jesus came, was directing right to what Jesus would fulfill. What He would come to the earth to do. What He came in the past to begin and what He's going to come in order to finish. In order to bring about an endless kingdom of peace and joy and justice.

If we drop down here in Luke again, Luke chapter 1, in verse 35, the angel said, the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.

Therefore, the child to be born will be holy and will be called the Son of God.

And even now, in verse 36, your relative Elizabeth, in her old age, has also conceived a son and this is the sixth month with her, for her who was called barren.

But of course, he mentions nothing would be impossible with God. See, miracle after miracle we're involved in bringing about the beginning of the life of Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and ultimately as the King over all of the kingdoms of God.

If we drop down in Luke 1 to verse 57, it says, now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth and she bore a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her and they rejoiced with her. See, John was born probably from what we have already revealed, probably in late March. That's when John the Baptist would have been born, nine months after he had earlier been conceived, assumedly around the middle part of June. And so, John would have been born in late March. And of course, it mentions his name, it mentions how he's going to be doing great things. And we find, starting in verse 67, a section where Zachariah is prophesying about what will happen. And interestingly, even though he is guided by the Holy Spirit in verse 67 to speak this prophecy, he says, blessed be the Lord God of Israel, he actually starts talking about Jesus. He actually starts talking about Jesus Christ initially. And then down in verse 76, he does additionally talk about John. And yet, amazingly, we find in verse 68 that he said, blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them. He has raised up a mighty Savior for us in the house of his servant David.

See, this in a sense was a prediction again that Zachariah would make even before Jesus was born a mighty Savior to come of the house of David as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from above, that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hands of those who hate us.

And thus he has shown his mercy, that is promised to our ancestors, and he has remembered his holy covenant, the oath that he had sworn to his ancestor, our ancestor Abraham, to grant us that we being rescued from the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear and holiness and righteousness all of our days. To hear what Zachariah does in this prophecy before the birth of Jesus is point out how that this is God following through on his promise to his Abraham. Now that it was going to be through Abraham that mankind would be blessed through Abraham, through a line, the lineage of Abraham, that that blessing would occur and that that rescue would occur.

And that would occur through the coming of Jesus Christ. Then in verse 76 he talks about John, and you child, John will be called the prophet of the Most High, and will go before the Lord to prepare his way to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins, by the tender mercies of our God, and dawn from on high will break upon us to give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death and to guide our feet into the way of peace. See, John, of course, was also to have used to be a predecessor. He was to prepare the way for Jesus to come. And yet, Zacharias' prophecy occurred about Jesus even before he was born. And yet we find, we go on here in chapter 2, verse 1, In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be taxed.

And so the Roman emperor is called for a registration. He's called for a taxation.

And again, it doesn't directly say when, it doesn't say what time of year, but it certainly appears it would be an unusual thing. You know, in the middle of the winter, in the coldest part of the winter, you know, to try to get people to go and to have them give you money. You know, I wouldn't think that'd be a very good way to collect taxes or to even register people if they wanted to have an accurate listing of people. And yet that again is an assumption that has to be made if you would think that December 25th would be a time when Jesus would be born, which I don't believe any of you do. I certainly don't because I see, you know, from this that it would be far more likely that he was born sometime, you know, more likely in late September or into October. You know, more around what we would think of the time of the Feast of Tabernacles, which again was being observed and celebrated in Jerusalem by Israel at that time. But here we find in verse 2, the first registration was taken when Quenarius was governor of Syria and all went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph so went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee. He went to Judea, so he had to travel south quite a ways. At least, you know, several, I don't know exactly the time frame or the distance there, but I think it's probably at least 40, I think 30 or 40 miles, whereas Bethlehem was just a couple or three or four or five miles outside of Jerusalem down in Judea. But they came from Nazareth in Galilee to the city of David called Bethlehem because Joseph was descended from the house of the family of David and he went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was estranged and who was engaged, and they were expecting a child. And when they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And so, again, too many times I think people read this and feel like, well, he probably traveled down there one day and, you know, why did he do that if Mary was about to give birth to a baby right that day? That would be very strange. But really what you read when you read this somewhat carefully, you know, they knew they needed to go to Bethlehem. He was from Bethlehem. Do you think he probably had any relatives who lived there? No, I would assume that he probably did. I would assume that whenever he went to Bethlehem, he may have even contacted numerous relatives and he clearly may have had places to stay. And what we see in verse 6 is while they were there, it doesn't say how long they were there, you know, maybe they came down a week early. Maybe they come down a couple of weeks early. It doesn't say. And yet, what we find is that they came down and while they were there, the time came for Mary to deliver Jesus.

You know, that's what it tells us. And so I think in many ways, you know, the timeline and the time frame that people commonly have in mind is just completely, you know, it completely doesn't mesh with what we read in the Scriptures. And of course, in verse 7, it said, Mary gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes or in bands of cloth and laid him in a manger because there was no place for them in the inn. Now, again, I'm not going to take a lengthy amount of time to discuss this particular verse, but clearly, she laid Jesus in a manger. And why they were in the setting they were in, because I'm going to assume at least one possibility, and so I can't say for sure, however they arrived, wherever they were, and why they were in what would appear to be a stable area. But one explanation for that, and I'm again just tossing this out, I think we have commonly taught, you know, that well, because they couldn't find it. You know, it was crowded, you know, the taxation was going on.

Potentially, the Holy Days could be occurring in that time frame, but there wasn't a lot of places they could stay. But again, another possibility could be that, well, if they went and if they stayed with relatives, and then they had a place that they could actually stay, why would they end up having Jesus born in the stable, or born in what could be a, you know, for the manger, a manger for animals, a crib where they'd be feeding animals. Why could that even be the case?

Well, one explanation that I've read and heard more about is actually that this houses, and I'll bring this up briefly, the houses there in Israel at the time, or at least for many of the people who lived in and around Bethlehem, you know, they often had animals themselves. They had sheep, they had cattle, they were herdsmen in a sense. But their houses were often a one-room house, and possibly even had a very, very tiny guest room. Everything, you know, I think you even find this probably here in America early on, if people built a home, they may have built, and actually my dad even built a home where, you know, there they actually were more than one room, two or three rooms, but ultimately added on, you know, kind of all sides of it in order to get a much bigger house that you could use later on as maybe children were added. But many of the homes there in Israel were just one room, and possibly with a small room that they would consider to be a guest room. You know, if someone came, they could have them stay in that guest room. But normally it would be a very small room off to the side. And the thing that's interesting when you study the, say, the Greek word here for inn, you know, it says they laid him in the manger because there was no place for them in the inn. And again, it doesn't say that's a holiday inn. It doesn't say, you know, that that's some type of motel. That's what I think commonly when we read this we would assume. But it says, you know, the word that is used there is translated inn here, and again, I'm only passing this out as a possibility. The same Greek word that is used here is also used in Luke 22 verse 11.

And again, I know we're familiar with that account where Jesus took brought his disciples. They were about to enter into the last time that he would celebrate the Passover with them. And there he says, go into town and find this location and prepare for me there in the guest chamber.

Prepare for me in this special room in this house, the Passover. Now, you know, it's translated inn here, it's translated a guest chamber there. Now, if we assume that Joseph might have been staying with his family, and if they had a guest chamber, if they had a small room that was connected to their home, perhaps they found if that indeed were the case, which again is pretty speculative, I guess, but at least some commentaries write about this type of thing. If he was in the guest chamber and it was a small area and with the need for Mary to deliver a child, and with the room perhaps that would be needed or required for that, that since the guest chamber was not a suitable room for that, they ended up moving, you know, to what you could say would be more of the animal or livestock area. And clearly, ultimately, Jesus was laid in the manger in this livestock area. See, the amazing thing is also that at homes there of the type I'm describing, these one-room homes that may have just a small guest chamber of some type, they also had a connected area of where the animals that they owned would come in from outside, and that they would feed them there, and that they would bring them in at night, and that they would protect them from weather outside, but also keep them from being stolen. Now, I don't know whether, you know, you've heard that before. I don't mean to be, you know, spreading something that isn't accurate at all, because this is something that, you know, we have partially written about at times, and especially, you know, with possibly a translation problem with the word in there for that Greek word that is there.

But if that were the case, if he were born, if they had, you know, and I, surprisingly, I heard just the other day when I was back home, a man had come to visit us, and he was telling us about being in Germany. He was telling us about being there and visiting some of the relatives that he has. His kids are married to someone who lives in Germany. He says, I went there, and I, they were showing me how things were set up, and kind of how it worked, and they had their house, and then right next to it, actually connected to it, in conjunction with it, was their barn.

You know, that wasn't something that I really thought of. I mean, I normally think of the barn being out away from, you know, your home. And yet, at the time, again in Israel, you know, it would be a protective thing. It could be a, you know, a theft preventative thing, but also, it allowed a certain amount of warmth from the animals to come, you know, up into the home.

So, whether that's accurate or not, I don't know, but what we read is that Jesus was born, and he was laid in this manger, you know, which would have been a, you know, a carved out area there in the, in the part of the house. And in verse 8, in that region, there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Now, that particular statement is a statement that many, many commentaries talk about how that this couldn't have happened in December at all. You know, this would have been an activity that would have pretty well been completed, you know, toward the latter part of October. Or sometime in October, they would stop going out into the fields, and, you know, they'd bring in their animals out there. And so, again, we have a pretty clear description here.

But maybe even more importantly, an angel of the Lord stood before them in verse 9, in the glory of the Lord shown about them, and they were terrified. But the angel said, don't be afraid, I'm bringing you good news of great joy for all the people of earth.

To you as born this day in the city of David, a Savior who is the Messiah of the Lord.

See, again, miraculously, God sends angels. He didn't say He sent Gabriel here, but he might have been there. I mean, he sent on important missions. He's already predicted what's going to happen. He brought that information to Zechariah and Elizabeth. He brought it to Mary, and assumedly shared that with Joseph. And yet in verse 12, this will be a sign for you to the shepherds. You will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.

So clearly, however it was, he was in a manger. Sometimes Zech can be thought about and talked about and viewed as though that was his lowly beginning. And yet, it would almost make sense that this was a pretty important birth. This was a significant, maybe the most significant, birth that would ever happen. And for God to have worked something out where, through Joseph's relatives, they have a place to go. And even though their guest chamber may not have been big enough or the right situation for them to have that birth, you know, the stable connected to their home would be okay. Had a lot more room, and laying him in the manger was what was being predicted here and what was being given to the shepherds. This will be a sign that you will find the child in the manger.

And suddenly, you know, there was with that angel a multitude of the heavenly hosts, praising God and saying, glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth peace among those whom God favors or good will among men. There's two different translations of that. It would appear peace, good will toward men is something that is more common, I think, in the New King James. But he gave them a wonderful, inspiring introduction to who they were looking at.

In verse 15, when the angels had left and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, let's go right now, immediately, let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us. And so they went with haste and they found Mary and Joseph and the child laying in the manger. And when they saw this, they made known what had been told them about the child. And so they told. They told Mary and Joseph about this. And Mary treasured, or what they heard, it was amazed. They were all amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.

This was something that Mary would never forget. She would remember throughout the entirety of her life, a miraculous birth, clearly something that she could clearly verify. You know, that maybe she would be the only one who could definitively say how this came about. But Mary treasured what the shepherds were saying. So it was also something where, in Matthew, where the wise men come. Not right now. Of course, down a few months from now, they're going to come and Mary marvels at what it was that the wise men were doing. They were coming paying homage to Jesus her son. And so it says in verse 20, the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen as it had been told them. See, what they did was glorified and praise God for what the angel had told them and for what they had seen that Jesus was now being introduced according to the plan of God into the timeline of human affairs. You know, four thousand years after the birth of Adam and Eve, the Savior was coming into the earth, coming into the world as a little child.

Of course, in verse 21 it says, after eight days, Jesus was circumcised. They named him. He was still there around that area. And in verse 22, when time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him to the temple. They brought him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. And so when was that? Was that the next day? Well, no, it was 40 days according to Leviticus 12. That would be the period of time for a male child that Mary would have that 40-day period of time for her period of purification and actually for Jesus to be consecrated.

He would be taken to the temple and then acknowledged as a firstborn son who is designated to be holy to the Lord. This is what the law of Moses required. This is what you read back there in Leviticus 12. And it says in verse 23, it is written in the law of the Lord. Every firstborn male should be designated as holy to the Lord. They offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law a pair of turtledoes and two young pigeons. And so the sacrifice that you read about in Leviticus 12 was what was offered in connection with Jesus. And then you see two different, very significant individuals enter Jesus' life. When the time came for them to be there, a man in verse 25 in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel and the Holy Spirit rested on him when it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die.

He would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Messiah. And guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple. And when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do with him, which was customary under the law, they came to the temple again 40 days, so approximately a month and a half after Jesus had been born, they are still in Bethlehem. They still able to come to Jerusalem. To do for him what was customary under the law, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying, Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace. According to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all people alike for the revelation to the Gentiles and the glory for your people Israel. See, what God kept doing through the angelic interventions, through the shepherds, through Simeon, and as we are going to see also through Anna, was helping Mary and Joseph understand who it was that they were dealing with as a child. And of course, helping all of us to see not only the respect, but also the glorious honor that they would give to this Son of God. And in verse 33, the child's father and mother were amazed at what was said about Jesus. And then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, this child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed and the sword will pierce your own soul too. Actually, God inspired Simeon to give information about what it would be that Jesus would do, how it is that He would reflect upon Israel, how it is He would be opposed, how it is that He would reveal the inner thoughts of many. And of course, we're some of those many.

As Mike was mentioning in our sermonette today, how is it that we share a brotherhood together and a love for one another? Well, it's because of Jesus Christ. It's because of our respect for Him. It's because of the honor that we want to give Him and to follow His Word. And of course, Mary's soul would be stabbed. It would be pierced as she watched Jesus die. That was something that was going to occur later and at the time of His death. In verse 36, the last few verses here that we'll read, there was also a prophet, a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Fennell, the tribe of Asher.

She was a great age and lived with her husband seven years. And then as a widow, she was age 84, she never left the temple or worshiped there, fasting and praying night and day. And the moment she came, she began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Israel. See, this is what God inspired Anna to do, to honor God, to praise God, that Jesus was coming into the earth, that He had come to the earth, that there was now redemption, that He was going to live a life as the Lamb of God and provide the redemption and ultimately the salvation that everyone needs.

But it talks about her spreading that information. It talks about her talking about Jesus Christ. It talks about her sharing that knowledge that she had come to see that God was working out His plan. God was intervening in very intentional ways. And of course, when we back up to verse 20, the shepherds returned again glorifying God and praising God for all that they had seen and heard as it had been told them. See, they spread that same information. What they had seen was moving.

What they had seen was this angelic host. They had been guided to see Jesus as He was in the manger. And so the shepherds and Anna had that in common, that they were they were signifying who it was that had entered the world. And of course, you know, we see in verse 39, when they had concluded what was required by the law that returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth and where the child grew and became strong and filled with wisdom, the favor of favor of God was upon Him.

So that's a summary statement because we know that, well, the wise men are yet to come, the fleeing to Egypt was yet to occur. They'd already been there for what would appear to be a month and a half because, you know, they're going to the temple at that time to be able to go through the purification rites. And so, you know, this has to show that, well, the end result was after they went through this trip that they did go back to Israel. But ultimately, and what I clearly want to point out for all of us today is just simply that, you know, God, again, was very intentional in how He worked out the coming of Jesus, how He wrote that into the pages of the Bible through Matthew and through Luke, and how that they were fulfilling what we read in the book of Isaiah.

Because here in Isaiah 7-12, you know, you have Isaiah 7-12, it's called the book of Emmanuel. The book of the Son of God. You know, in this section, you find numerous different statements that talk about the coming of the Son of God, and talk about how that Emmanuel will be God with us. And yet here in chapter 9, and we'll conclude with this verse, because it points out how that, you know, we want to appreciate Christ's coming.

We want to be thankful for His birth. We want to be thankful for His life. We want to be thankful for His death. We want to be thankful for the fact that He is where He is today, and He's awaiting His return. But we also want to be thankful that He says that He lives in us. He says that through the power of the Holy Spirit, the mind of Jesus Christ is available to us. And so we should be, in a sense, responding in a similar way to those who are described here.

As they came into contact with the Son of God, you know, their response, their reaction was a wonderful reaction. They were thrilled to learn about Jesus Christ, about who He was, about what He offered, and to be a part of that redemption. Here in verse 6 of Isaiah 9, A child has been born for us, his son has been given to us, and authority will rest upon his shoulders.

He is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. His authority will grow continually. There will be an endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. He will establish and uphold it from justice and righteousness from this time onward and forevermore. See, that's what God has done, and I hope that in going through this, some of these things have been interesting to you.

And I hope that we can appreciate even more so the role that Jesus Christ has, but the direct involvement that He also has as the head of the church.

And then as individually our personal guide, because that's what He makes available to us through the power of the Holy Spirit.