There are a lot of funny things to be said this time of the year.
Christmas does things to you. You can either laugh about it or get run over by it. It makes you act like a kid and age faster at the same time. Speaking of being a kid…
You’ve heard of the 3 stages of man:
He believes in Santa Claus.
He doesn't believe in Santa Claus.
He is Santa Claus.
Seems that Santa’s helpers have been issued elevator shoes, especially for the very shortest ones. The poor little guys! The constant jokes about how short they are is giving them low elf-esteem.
Last week, I cleaned out my chimney. You can never be too ready, just in case. You know, the opening of that thing is actually pretty small – makes me worry. Then, I ran across some timely advice: What do you do if Santa gets stuck in your chimney? Pour Santa flush on him.
Not that I want to cast doubt on the old guy, but the weight of Santa's sleigh loaded with one Beanie Baby for every kid on earth: 333,333 tons. A sleigh of that weight would require 214,206 reindeer and one Rudolph to pull it. They’d have to travel about 3000X the speed of light and make about 822.6 visits per second.
There’s a paramedic named Rick in Miami. A few years ago he answered a call about a man who had a head injury sustained when some teenagers were throwing eggs at cars. The egg had come through the open window of the man's car as he was driving at about 45 mph. He had a large swelling on his forehead. So, in the official report, Rick described the incident as an "egg-noggin".
Speaking of what we call things at Christmastime, we need to rethink what we call people at this time of year – I mean, the “wise men.” Everyone knows that the wise men are from the “East,” wherever that is. Here they are living in the East. They said, “We have seen His star in the East, and we have come…” So, they “look-ed up and saw a great star, shining in the East beyond them far.” What direction do they travel? And we call these guys “wise men”! We should probably just stick with “magi,” even if it gets mispronounced.
You think that one through. Actually, the wise men were wise. What were they doing? – looking for Jesus so they could worship Him. That’s wise. They showed up in Jerusalem and asked, “Where is He? Where is He?” This is #2 of 3 messages trying to answer that question.
September 11th, and a lot of people were openly asking, “Where is God?” Last week we were looking at reasons to believe that God is there. Well, that’s nice. So are income taxes. But if God is just there and that’s it, what is that to us? There are plenty of people whose concept of God stops right there. God is there. That’s it. He wound up everything and let it go.
If that’s your understanding of God, you need to listen carefully this morning, because the Bible paints quite a different image of God. In fact, just the very fact that we have the Bible is one way we know that God is more than just “there.” From the very beginning, God has interacted with His creation constantly, and the Bible records a lot of that for us.
Someone has said the message of the whole Bible can be summarized in 3 sentences:
Someone's coming
Someone's here (That's next week's message)
Someone's coming again
Today I want us to look at the biblical message that Someone is coming. That’s prophetic. It’s a promise of something that’s down the road.
A good part of the OT prophets are about the future – and this morning we have an interesting advantage as we look at them. We’re already “down the road.” We see these things from the fulfillment end. We get to consider what they mean after the fact. Hind sight is 20/20 and all that.
That’s us – 20/20 vision when it comes to the OT.
But, when it comes to what the OT has to say about God coming to us, I find these prophecies basically do the same thing for people that first heard them and for us today – It’s all God reaching out for the sake of having a relationship with mankind. Bear that in mind: the point of anything we look at in the Bible, OT or New, is for us to have a relationship with our Creator.
So, we’re just going to look at that message this morning: God is coming! If you’re looking over a beautiful diamond, you might take up and turn it around. We’re going to turn this message that God is coming and look at it real closely, and finally we’re going to take some time to see how it applies to us today.
I. God is Coming! That’s a Multi-Faceted Message
Just like you would say a diamond looks one way from one angle, and one way from another, so does this idea that God is coming into the world.
God is coming. When His airplane comes in, you’re going to be meeting Him at the airport. There’s a problem: How will you know what He looks like? The Jews had thought about this. When Messiah arrives, when the promised One comes, how would they know it? So, they took up the Scriptures. Remember, we’re on the hindsight end of this. What does God look like as He comes into the world? In some places, He looks like a…
A. Conquering King Like in
Psalm 132:7-12 "Let us go to his dwelling place; let us worship at his footstool--arise, O LORD, and come to your resting place, you and the ark of your might. May your priests be clothed with righteousness; may your saints sing for joy." For the sake of David your servant, do not reject your anointed one. The LORD swore an oath to David, a sure oath that he will not revoke: "One of your own descendants I will place on your throne--if your sons keep my covenant and the statutes I teach them, then their sons will sit on your throne for ever and ever."
Isaiah 9:4-7 For as in the day of Midian's defeat, you have shattered the yoke that burdens them, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor. Every warrior's boot used in battle and every garment rolled in blood will be destined for burning, will be fuel for the fire. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.
OK, so He looks likes a great King. When He hits the scene, all the scenes of war and oppression will end. All the memories of being at war and conquered will go away. When God comes into the world, He sits on the throne of the world and everything becomes peaceful. Who wouldn’t welcome that, especially today?
Haggai 2:7 I will shake all nations, and the desired of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,' says the LORD Almighty.
There’s something else the Jews could look forward to – the temple that had been leveled was going to be filled with God’s glory like it had been so long ago.
That’s what it looks like when God comes into the world. Talk about a merry Christmas! But it doesn’t end there. God is coming, but it’s not just going to be power and majesty and peace. Turn the diamond a little more…
When you look from another angle, He’s going to be a
B. Suffering Servant
Zechariah 12:10 And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.
Zechariah 13:7 “Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who is close to me!" declares the LORD Almighty. "Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered, and I will turn my hand against the little ones.
These are the kind of Scriptures the Jews had chosen to ignore, even though there were plenty of them. It’s a lot easier to celebrate the news that someone’s coming if you anticipate everything is going to be OK when He arrives. The woman at the well said, "I know that Messiah is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us." Yep, everything was going to be OK when God finally comes. They could endure a lot of hardship with that hope in mind.
But when Jesus began to plainly teach His disciples that He was going to be betrayed and crucified, it just didn’t fit their understanding of what the Messiah was supposed to do. Peter objected – “No way, Lord! No way is Your plan going to be ruined!”
What they didn’t understand is that Jesus coming into the world and dying for us was all part of fulfilling God’s great plan.
Zechariah 13:1 "On that day a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity.
God is coming. But that arrival meant more than just a conquering hero marching in and turning over the Roman government.
II. God is Coming! That’s A Cloudy Message - Until Jesus
Have you ever wondered how people who knew the Scriptures so well managed to completely miss that Jesus was the Messiah? There’s a lesson in that for us: just knowing the Scriptures well doesn’t mean that we’ve done all we need to have a close relationship with God. Maybe you’ve known someone who could quote Scripture right and left, but they couldn’t for the life of them explain what it means to show the love of God to difficult people.
(A. Prophecies are mysterious and incomplete)
Many of the prophecies are mysterious.
Ill – A few months ago, when we were still having Bible studies here on Wednesday evenings, the class decided that a study through the book of Daniel would be neat. Rick was the main teacher. I was the fill-in. And Rick was scheduled to be gone a few of the weeks near the beginning of the class. That was OK with me, because the first 6 chapters of Daniel are pretty straightforward – Shadrac, Meshac, and Abednego; Daniel in the lion’s den. No problem. But the 2nd half of that book gets more complex. Daniel starts receiving visions from God about the future, and it’s in this dreamy, figurative language. Somehow, I worked it out just right to where Rick was teaching during most of those chapters!
Lots of prophecies are mysterious. They may take some close study to understand very well. And no prophecy tells everything there is to know about the future.
Still, even in the midst of that cloudiness, there’s this repeated message about God being on His way – about God coming to do something among His people.
B. Prophecies are a ministry to God's people
Ill – Have you ever been able to endure something really hard just because you knew that relief was coming somewhere down the road? Doesn’t remembering that Christmas break is coming help you through the last week of school? Doesn’t anticipating a new baby in the family help a lady to endure pregnancy?
Every time God gave the people of the OT some view of a brighter future it was an encouragement to them.
• Their enemies were oppressing them. God was going to come and free them.
• They were exiled. God was going to come and return them to their land.
• Their land was lacking food. God was going to come and make it prosper again.
• They were in constant conflict; there was no peace. God was going to come and reign in peace.
The news that God is coming was good news! What the prophets had to say about a brighter future was a ministry to Israel in the OT. That’s the point of that Christmas carol “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel!”
But I want you to realize that God gave those words for us too – maybe even more for us.
1 Peter 1:12 It was revealed to [the prophets] that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.
We have something those people 2500 years ago never had. We have the chance to see how it all fell together. We can read the OT and then turn over to the New and see how Jesus fulfilled those predictions that God gave to His people. Not even the prophets themselves, not even angels, could fully appreciate what we can look at and understand now.
It’s all a cloudy message until Jesus comes.
III. God is Coming! That’s A Message of Promise
God is coming. What should we do about it? This final point is simply 3 applications to take with you this morning:
1. Learn the Lesson: It's quite possible to ignore what we don't want to see in the Bible
Everyone ever born develops this at age 2. We usually call it “selective hearing.” It’s the ability to not hear what you don’t want to hear.
The great stumbling block that the Jews couldn't get past was the idea of a Messiah Who’s humble. They’d read and accepted all the passages that spoke about a great champion, but somehow didn't notice all the ones that spoke about a humble servant. They read their Bible with selective vision; They heard the prophecies with selective hearing.
That may sound familiar because we tend to do the same thing. We might read again and again the passages that speak about God’s love and patience. We like those! But we tend to dwell less on the passages about God’s wrath and punishment. We can ignore what we don’t want to see. Learn not to make that mistake.
Every bit of Scripture is an invitation from God for us to know Him better and have a relationship with Him.
2. Get to Know Jesus Better Through the OT Prophets
they reveal things we don't know otherwise:
I can better understand just how bad was the beating that Jesus received before being crucified when I read
Isaiah 52:14 Just as there were many who were appalled at him -- his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness—
I can better understand the nature of Jesus’ ministry and what He expected to accomplish:
Isaiah 61:1-3 The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion-- to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor.
• I can read the story of Abraham going to offer Isaac as a burnt sacrifice in Genesis 22 and better understand the power of God giving His Son to die for me.
• I can read the story of Hosea, a prophet whose wife left him to become a prostitute, and he went and bought her back, and it helps me to better understand how God has sought out His straying creatures through the blood of Jesus to bring us back to Himself.
• I can read the story of Jonah and better understand how God’s gift of salvation through Jesus is for all people in the world
3. Affirm Your Faith
Ill - What if I were today to predict that in 2,690 someone will be born in Hackensack, NJ, even though his parents live in Butte, Montana; that he'll be called Ralph, and he’ll marry a Danish emigrant; that later in his life, he’ll take up cooking and become famous for his ability to decorate cookies?
Then, sure enough, exactly 689 years from now, in Hackensack, NJ, a boy named Ralph is born to a couple on vacation from Butte, MT. And Ralph grows up to do everything I had predicted about him. What would the people of that day say about my predictions? They’d be amazed!
That’s what ought to happen when we read what the prophets wrote about Jesus! God is in control.
You’re probably hearing a lot of different OT verses about God coming into the world – that a virgin would conceive and give birth to a son; that He would be born in Bethlehem; that He would be called a Nazarene; that He would spend some time in Egypt.
It all happened, just as He predicted. It will all happen, just as He predicted. God is coming!
Ill - Peter Stoner, mathematician, had his graduate students calculate what the odds would be of any one person fulfilling just 8 messianic prophecies. He found the chance was one in 1017 -
A one followed by 17 zeros.
To help envision how large that is, Stoner gives this analogy: Take 1017silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas. They will cover all of the state 2’ deep. Now mark one of these silver dollars and stir the whole mass thoroughly, all over the state. Blindfold a man and tell him that he can travel as far as he wishes, but he must pick up one silver dollar and say that is the right one. What chance would he have of getting the right one? Just the same chance that the prophets would have had of writing these 8 prophecies and having them all come true in any one man, from their day to the present time.
Then Stoner had his graduate students calculate the odds that any one person would fulfill 48 of these prophecies. The odds in that case were one in 10157.
Jesus fulfilled some 333 prophecies!
The final message of the Bible is that Someone is coming again. Whatever God revealed about the future was true in the OT. We can have confidence that everything yet to come is for real too!
The message that God is coming helps establish our relationship with Him. It makes our faith stronger. We don’t believe in God just because we believe. We believe because He’s believable! His word stands true.
Conclusion:
God is coming! That’s a message of hope! He could have not made the trip. He could have just shown up and not told anyone. Instead, He chose to say a lot about it long before it happened. It was a message of hope for a broken people.
There are still broken people who need to hear that message – that God isn’t just “out there.” Maybe you’re one of them. He’s seeking a relationship with you. You need to hear that God doesn’t want for you to remain enslaved. You need to know the message that God doesn’t just create and run away from the world. He’s very much a part of it and wants very much to be a part of your life.
