Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church Podcast,
where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.
My name is Pastor Josh, and I want to thank you for listening to
this podcast.
I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen
you in the word of God.
Now, come along.
Let's look into the Bible and see what God has for us here today.
Well, as many of you know, a while ago we had started a new study
in the Book of Joshua.
And I typically like to finish books before we move on.
But I'm going to make a deal with you all.
I'm going to say this.
We're going to pause in the Book of Joshua.
We're at the end of chapter four.
And if you can promise me that you'll remember what happened in
the first four chapters, we're going to take a break here for the
month of December and come back in January and study the Book
of Joshua.
They crossed the river Jordan and it's a good stopping place.
Okay.
We're going to now follow them in January as they get into the land
of Canaan and all of the conquests there.
But what I thought would be appropriate here for the month of
December on Sunday nights and Wednesday nights is to look into
scriptures, specifically the Old Testament, and see what the Old
Testament has to say about the coming of Jesus Christ, particularly
his first coming in the fact that he came as a baby in the manger
there in Bethlehem.
As you well know, that that was prophesied in the Old Testament
actually where he would be born, how he would be born, what
would the circumstances be like after he was born.
The Old Testament is full of prophecies that are fulfilled in
Jesus Christ in many ways.
And I thought that that was an important study that we all should
follow, because a lot of times people think that the Old Testament
something for, you know, other people, not for us as Christians.
As Christians, we're in the New Testament, in which there are
a lot of things in the New Testament, many things in the New
Testament that we have to learn and understand.
And we know that we are part of the New Covenant, we are part
of the church age.
But at the same time, the Old Testament points to Jesus Christ.
And it gives us the surety that from Genesis to Revelation,
God's word is true and it's complete.
And so I wanted to take you to a passage of Scripture as we look
at this.
And when we think of Christmas, we think of what we think
of Luke 2.
Well, I'm not going to take you to Luke 2 yet.
I'm going to take you to Luke 24.
You say Luke 24.
That's the end.
Why are we studying Luke 24 when we're talking about Jesus coming?
Well, it's actually Jesus talking in resurrected form, right?
So this is after Jesus died on the cross.
This is Jesus as he's speaking in the the fellas to the road of
Emmaus.
And most of you know the story Matthew chapter 24, Jesus has resurrected.
And we have these two followers of Jesus, these two disciples
of Jesus that are walking.
And we see that they have lost hope.
We see that they are disappointed.
And we see that after Jesus was crucified, many of his followers
were crushed.
Their hope was that the Messiah would free them from the
tyranny of Rome right then and there and restore the kingdom right
then.
And when Jesus did not meet their immediate expectations, they
were confused, they were disheartened.
And we see that there In Luke chapter 24, we see them saying, don't
you know what's going on?
And Jesus asked them, well, what's going on?
Verse 19.
And he said unto them, what things?
And they said unto him, concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which
was a prophet, mighty indeed, and word before God and all people,
and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned
to death and have crucified him.
And then verse 21 really is where their heart is.
They said, but we trusted that it had been he which should have
redeemed Israel.
Their hope was that he was immediately at that time, going to
redeem Israel.
And when he did not, in their minds accomplish that in the way
that they expected, they were disheartened.
They said, we believed, we trusted.
And now we're confused.
Now we don't know what's going to happen.
And he says, and beside this to today is the third day since these
things were done, meaning if he was going to do something, he
would have done it by now.
That was where they were.
That's where their understanding was.
And so what happens here is that Jesus in their minds does not
fulfill what he promised or in their minds not fulfilling their
expectations.
And I want you to see here in verse 25 what Jesus's reaction is.
Then he said unto them, o fools, and slow of heart to believe.
All the prophets have spoken, not Christ, to have suffered these
things to enter into his glory, meaning this.
You don't know what the prophets have said.
You don't understand that this is part of God's plan.
You don't understand that Jesus told you that this was what
was going to happen.
Now, again, remember, in context, these guys, their eyes are
blinded to this being Jesus.
And so they don't understand that this is Jesus standing right
before them.
But Jesus is telling them, hey, you should have known this was
going to happen.
This was all part of God's plan from the very beginning.
He Sundays in verse 27, and beginning at Moses, for them, that's
when the beginning happened, when the law was instituted, when
they had exited Egypt.
And he says at the beginning, at Moses and all the prophets, he
expounded unto them in all the Scriptures, the things concerning
himself.
So Jesus says, okay, I'm going to tell you about me.
Well, Jesus doesn't use the New Testament.
Why?
Because the New Testament wasn't there.
So what did he do?
He went back all the way to the beginning.
He went all the way back to the Old Testament.
For them it wasn't the Old Testament, but for us it's the Old
Testament.
And he says that he expounds out to them in all the Scriptures
the things concerning himself, meaning he went to the, what we call
the Old Testament to prove what Jesus was all about, to prove
what God's plan was for him.
And so I think that if Jesus does this, I think it's important
for us to go back and to see where Jesus is inserted in the Old
Testament.
And I would venture to say that really all of the Old Testament
is pointing to Jesus.
It's pointing to his life, his ministry, his death, his resurrection,
ultimately his rule and reign as he returns in his second coming.
And I think it's important for us as Christians to have a framework
of understanding that Genesis to Revelation is a story about Jesus.
It's not a story that we tell children to entertain them, even
though stories in the Old Testament do entertain us.
I love the stories of the Old Testament, but it's more than that.
The prophecies that are there point us back to the surety of knowing
that God keeps his Word.
Where does it start?
Where, where is Jesus first mentioned?
Well, some would argue that Jesus is mentioned in Genesis 1:1,
and I would, I would agree to that.
Where it says in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
We, we know that Jesus is God.
John 1.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God.
But I, I would also say that the Gospel specifically mentioning
Jesus is mentioned in Genesis 3:15.
So we're going to go back to Genesis.
We're going to go back to the very beginning.
And I want us to look at some of These prophecies that we know
as we have the full scope of Scripture, reveal the truth of who
Jesus is and what he has done and the promise of God in our lives
today.
So Genesis, chapter three.
Most of you know the context, if you were here a while ago.
We went all the way through the book of Genesis.
We went verse by verse through the book of Genesis.
And it's an amazing study.
But many of you know that in Genesis 3, we see what we call the
fall of man.
We see Adam and Eve sin.
And we see really the effects of sin, the curse, verse 14.
And the Lord God said unto the serpent, because thou has done this,
thou art cursed above cattle and above every beast of the field.
Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and thus shall thou eat all the days
of thy life.
And so we know that temptation came to the garden through Satan.
Satan comes and tempts Eve.
And we know that Eve is deceived, and we know that Adam is
part of it.
And therefore they partake in sin.
They partake in the original lie that they can become God.
And so from that moment on, that is why this earth is full of
pain and suffering.
A lot of people will look to God for the cause of pain and suffering.
They will look to God for the cause behind sickness and evil.
But we see the reason why we live in a broken world, the reason
why we struggle with these things in our life, both physically,
spiritually, emotionally, is because of the sin that entered into
the world through the temptation of the evil one.
And so in verse 15, God says to the enemy, to Satan, I will put
enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her
seed.
So this is a picture of the division of good and evil.
This is the picture of what we're going to see throughout all
of Scripture.
This.
This battle, the struggle that's going to be out there.
Ultimately, we know that it is not equal sides.
There's a lot of people that teach good and evil are like 50,
50.
And there's this equal battle that God and Satan are.
Are in this struggle back and forth.
And that's not really what we see here.
We see that there is a struggle, but we know that God is
completely sovereign over the evil one.
That's what it says at the end of verse 15.
This is called the proto Evangelion, which means the first
mention of the gospel or the first mention of evangelism, the
first mention of a messiah that is to come.
And it says in verse 15, it shall bruise thy head, meaning the
seed of a woman.
Shall bruise thy head, meaning kill you and thou shalt bruise his
heel, meaning there will be an action, an effort from the evil one
to take control, to try to defeat God.
And we know that through Scripture.
But we also know that there is a promise here that Jesus would come.
And as Jesus is the seed of the woman, come and destroy evil
and ultimately restore all things to good.
And so that's the first mention of Jesus and the Gospel there
in the book of Genesis.
Now I want you to see more about that because the Messiah, as
he is called, would be the seed of the woman.
And we see that reference throughout the New Testament.
And I want us to see a few of the references to that there in the
New Testament.
So I hope you have your Bible fingers ready to go to search through
Scriptures.
If not, some of you have your phones or your tablets, I would encourage
you always to check.
Don't take me for granted.
Be a berean and follow us.
And so in Genesis 3:15, we see that there is this promise of the
seed of the woman that would come and destroy the enemy.
Well, let's see some of the references in the New Testament.
Romans, chapter 16.
We're going to get that in our study in Romans.
But we see that there's New Testament citations to that very
same passage, really throughout the New Testament, these
New Testament citations of Genesis 3:15 are seen.
One example would be in Romans chapter 16, verse 20.
And we're going to see that Jesus is the seed of the woman.
And this speaks to many things.
This speaks to the virgin birth, which we're going to talk
about later on.
This speaks to how Jesus is distinct.
He's different.
He's the firstborn, he's the only begotten son.
And we know that that's a unique element of Jesus that no one
else can claim.
No one else can claim that title.
So it says in Romans, chapter 16, verse 20.
And the God of peace, the God of peace, the Prince of peace, shall
bruise Satan under your feet shortly.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
And so this speaks to this understanding that we that are identified
in Christ can be part of the victory.
Even though we're not the ones in the work of the victory, we get
to be part of it.
Why, as it says there, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is
with us.
And so we will be part of the victory in the fact that the seed
of the woman Jesus shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly,
as it says here.
So that's one reference to Genesis 3:15, a completion of that
circle of Genesis 3:15, Jesus the one who is coming to destroy
the evil.
And this is a circular motion back to Romans 16:20, that Jesus
is that one, and relationship with him gives us the victory as
well.
Another passage of Scripture that deals with this similar spot
would be Galatians Chapter 4, Galatians, Chapter 4.
This speaks of us as Christians being heirs to God's grace.
And so we're part of the victory.
And I think that's why it's so important to understand this.
Yes, we know Jesus is going to be victorious, but if you are in
Christ, you are part of that victory as well.
And so we can be excited about these things.
And so In Galatians chapter 4, verse 4, it speaks of us being the
children we were once in bondage under the elements of this
world.
We were part of, as it says there, the seed of evil.
We were at enmity with God.
The Bible says that we were children of this world.
We are children of the evil one.
But when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his son
made of a woman, the seed of a woman made under the law, verse 5,
to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the
adoption of sons.
And because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his
son into your hearts.
Crying Abba, Father.
Again, another connection between Jesus being the seed of the
woman and what that means for us.
Jesus being born of a virgin.
Jesus coming to this earth, not being bound by the law.
Why?
Because he didn't come to destroy the law.
He came to fulfill the law.
And Jesus kept the law perfectly so that we who cannot keep
the law can be part of the family of God.
What an amazing truth that is.
Okay, another New Testament verse.
Okay, I told you we're going to be looking at this.
And I told you that the New Testament is full of Old Testament
references.
Hebrews, chapter 2, Hebrews, chapter 2, verse 14.
This is speaking of Jesus being our high priest.
And there's so much to be said about Jesus being our high priest.
We know that we have a high priest who has been identified in
our struggles.
We know without sin.
And that's what makes Jesus distinct.
But remember, what was the Old Testament role of a priest?
The Old Testament role of a priest was to connect people to God,
the mediator, so to speak.
We know that as Christians now, we have what's called priesthood
of all believers, meaning we that are in Christ can access God
directly.
And so we know that we have a merciful high priest.
And so in Hebrews chapter 2, verse 14.
It says, for as much then as the children are partakers of flesh
and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same, that
through death he might destroy him that had the power of death.
That is the devil.
So the Bible says.
Yes, Jesus came like us, in the flesh, seed of the woman, lived
a life.
But he came for a different purpose.
Our purpose is to glorify him and trust in him.
His purpose was, as it says there, through death, he might destroy
him that had the power of death.
As brother Jeff saying this morning, born to die.
It was Jesus's purpose to come, to be in the flesh, to fulfill
the plan of God, to fulfill the law.
Why?
So that he.
He could die to destroy him that had the power of death.
It was only because of Jesus's perfection.
It was only because of Jesus's godhood that he could come and distinctly
be different than anybody else that has ever walked this planet.
He's the seed of the woman.
And that's where we see Jesus there in Genesis, chapter.
3, verse 15.
One last passage of Scripture, and then we'll go to another thought.
Revelation, chapter 12, revelation, chapter 12.
Who knew we were going to start in Genesis and go all the way
to Revelation?
I did.
But you did.
Revelation, chapter 12.
We.
We see the full picture from the very beginning.
Sin comes into the world.
God's plan for sin is sending the seed of the woman to come and
crush the head of Satan.
And we see that struggle happening for all of these years.
And though sometimes it does seem to the human eye that good is
losing to evil, that.
That sometimes for us, it seems like man.
Why isn't God just doing it?
Why doesn't God just crush the head of the serpent?
Well, there's a lot of reasons why and there's a lot of opinions
why.
I can tell you one of the reasons why is because.
Because God is merciful.
God is patient.
He's waiting and giving us opportunity and giving generation
after generation opportunities to come to Him.
But there will be a time when completely there will be that judgment
and no longer will there be a choice to honor God.
We know that there will be a time when every tongue will confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord, either through judgment or through
faith.
And so in Revelation, chapter 12, verse 9, we see this reference
to this war, this, this great war against the dragon.
Now, I know that some of you are like Revelation, we're getting
down the rabbit trail.
Well, we're not going to go fully into the whole end times discussion
right now, but we See here In Revelation, chapter 12, verse 9,
it says, and the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called
the devil and Satan, which deceived the whole world.
He was cast out, out into the earth, and his angels were cast out
with him.
Another reference there in verse 17 of that same chapter, it
says, and the dragon was wroth with the women and went to make war
with the remnant of her seed, which kept commandments of God and
have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
Eventually.
This is the foretelling of the eventual destruction of Satan.
And we know his end.
His demise is that through a lot of fighting, through a lot of
opposition, he is cast into the bottomless pit.
We.
We know that he will be completely defeated.
And I would even venture to say that he already is defeated because
of the work of Jesus Christ on the cross, when he said, it is finished.
But the complete work of him being thrown away and never to come
back again is coming.
And that's a day that we long for.
But that's all seen in Genesis 3:15.
Jesus coming to this earth.
It was mentioned at the very beginning.
And Jesus came with a purpose.
And that was the purpose of coming to defeat evil, to defeat
death.
I love the passage of Scripture in First Corinthians.
We're going to just get a whole systematic theology here today,
and we might hit every single book of the Bible.
I don't know.
But First Corinthians, chapter 15.
If, if you want to study the importance of the resurrection, I,
I would say that probably one of the best places to go is First
Corinthians, chapter 15, because it speaks to how the resurrection
of Jesus Christ is vital to what we are preaching in the Gospel.
The word gospel is thrown around a lot today.
There's the social gospel, there's the American gospel.
All really the word gospel means is good news.
And so when we talk about the gospel, we have to be very clear
about what we're talking about.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Well, what is the Gospel of Jesus Christ?
We.
Well, if you're just a good person, God will love you and grant
you forgiveness.
That's not what the Bible says the gospel is.
The gospel is, is if you're just passionate about something,
if you're just religious, if you're just spiritual, God will save
you.
The Bible says.
No, the Bible says there is one way to heaven.
John 14:6, I am the way, the truth and the life.
Jesus says that no man cometh unto the Father, but through Jesus
Christ.
But in First Corinthians, chapter 15, Paul explains what the
gospel really is verse three.
He says, For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also
received.
How?
That Jesus died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and
that he was buried and that he rose again the third day according
to the Scriptures.
And so the Bible says, really what we know as the Gospel is that
Jesus came.
He lived that perfect life.
He died on the cross for our sins.
He was buried and he rose again.
The resurrection is so important.
And later on, what we see is Paul says that if we do not preach
the resurrection, we are in.
We are in waste.
It is vain.
Verse 12 of 1 Corinthians, chapter 15.
Now, if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say
some of you that there is no resurrection of the dead?
But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is
Christ not risen.
And if Christ be not risen, then are preaching vain and your
faith is also vain.
He says, without the resurrection of Jesus Christ, without
the complete message of the Gospel, everything that we do is
in vain.
Going to church is in vain if we are not doing it in the spirit
and the teaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ completely with the
resurrection.
So we must teach the complete, complete, revealed message of Jesus
Christ.
There's so many other passages of Scripture in the Old Testament
that speak to this.
The Messiah would be resurrected.
I mean, the Old Testament speaks of that all the way through.
Psalm 16 speaks of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, that
Messiah would bring the new covenant, that the Messiah would
be forsaken and pierced for our sins.
Did you know that's in the Old Testament?
Oh, I. I gotta show you this.
Okay, I got to show you this.
In Psalm 22, some of you know where I'm going with this.
Some of you are great scholars of scripture and you know where I'm
going.
But back in the Book of Psalms.
Prior to the Roman Empire, prior to anyone knowing about the
typical way of crucifixion in the Roman Empire, we see Psalm 22,
which many call a Messianic psalm.
And, and this is a foretelling, a prophecy of what the
Messiah would do and what he would say and what people would do
to him.
And we won't go through the whole chapter here in Psalm 22, but
I do think it's important to see what it's saying here.
It says in verse one, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken?
Why art thou so far from helping me?
And from the words of my roaring?
So this is a reference.
Obviously you could say that this is literally David talking,
which it is, but it's also a messianic prophecy of what Jesus
says on the cross.
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Oh, my God.
I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not in night season.
And I am not silent, but thou art holy and thou inhabitants.
The praise of Israel.
It goes on further and talks more about the.
The, I would say is the crucifixion here.
My strength, verse 15.
My strength is dried up like a potsherd.
My tongue cleaveth to my jaws.
Thou has brought me into the dust of death.
We.
We see here that this speaks to Jesus's thirst that we see on.
On the cross.
And over and over again, over and over again.
In this passage of scripture, we see references.
But in this passage of Scripture, it speaks to him being
pierced, that he was bruised.
In Isaiah 53, he was bruised.
For our iniquities, he was.
He was pierced.
And so this is all reference to what Jesus would do as our Savior.
And I think about this often.
I think about how often we just go through the Old Testament
and we just take these verses and we don't connect them.
We don't have the dots connected to the fact that this is
all talking about what Jesus would do for us and who we are in
him.
And so when we get to this Christmas season, I want us to think
about fulfilled prophecy.
There's a lot of other things that we could think of.
Obviously that the Messiah would be born of a version.
Many of you know the reference there.
We'll turn there, and that's really where we're going to spend
the.
Last few minutes here.
Isaiah 7:14.
When, if you come back Wednesday night, we're going to talk
a little bit more about some of the prophecies here at Christmas
and the.
And the foretelling of when Jesus would come, how he would come,
where he would come.
But we.
We know that in Isaiah 7:14, we believe that this is a reference
to the Messiah.
And this is therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign.
Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall
call his name Emmanuel.
Now, we could talk a lot about that verse, but one of the things
I want to point out is that word Emmanuel.
What does that word, Emmanuel mean?
Most of you know God with us.
This is an understanding that God is not just in heaven, away from
us, which many people believe that God is distant, that he's far
away, that.
That he is not able to be accessed.
But here in this prophecy, we know that Jesus would Come, he would
be born of a virgin.
We know that in Luke 1 and Luke 2 he was born of Mary, who at
that time was just betrothed to be with Joseph.
But in that we see how Jesus would be born, who would be born
to, and really what would his character be?
And his character would be Emmanuel, God with us, God in the
flesh.
Why is that so unique?
Why is that different?
Well, the Bible teaches that Jesus came to have a personal relationship
with those that follow Him.
It's not deism.
Deism is that God exists.
He set the world in motion as the great clock Maker.
But he doesn't care about our personal lives.
He doesn't want to be involved with the day to day of our, our human
struggle.
But the Bible says it's the complete opposite.
We have a high priest who feels our struggles, who has been
betrayed and he has care for us.
And he, he cries with the brokenhearted.
He, he knows what we have struggled with, but yet he is the
answer to all of our problems when we come to him and have that
personal relationship with him.
I hope that Jesus is real to you.
I hope that he's not just a fairy tale or something that you
trust in as a good luck charm or something that somebody else that
you know trust in and, and you can appreciate that.
No, it's so much deeper that, that he is my God.
I, I know there was times in my life where I struggled with that.
I, I went off to college and I was really challenged with a lot
of questions.
If you believe this, how can this be true?
Or if God is real, then why does he fill in the blank?
And I remember being at college and thinking, I don't have
answers for this.
To, to my shame, I, I, I was just like, I don't know, you know
what I did?
I, I called my dad, which is not a bad place to turn because my
dad's one of the strongest Christians I know.
And I said, dad, what do we believe about?
And you know, he goes, well, I can tell you what I believe, but
I want you to know what you believe.
Right?
And there's that idea there that I can't just adopt what someone
else believes if I don't truly understand it and believe it myself.
So it's not just my dad's God or my pastor's God, but he's my God,
that he is God with me, God with us.
He's personal and he intends to have that intentional walk with
us.
Just as we draw nigh to God, he draws near to us.
And so this prophecy here in Isaiah 7, 14.
Is, is fulfilled obviously in the New Testament.
And, and many people actually today are arguing whether or not
this is a necessity for the truth.
Like if we deny the virgin birth, if we deny this, can we still
be Christians?
And I would say that this is a doctrine that we must stand on.
It's being attacked today.
A lot of, A lot of the things that we assume to be just what is
the essentials of our faith are being attacked today.
And we as Christians have to stand true to that.
We have to say that, say if the Bible says it, we have to believe
it.
We can't be critical to what the word of God says, even if it
goes beyond our comprehension.
Because, by the way, God works miracles.
We have to believe.
If we don't believe that God works miracles, we're.
We're missing the point of the Bible because Genesis to Revelation,
all of this is a miracle.
My salvation is a miracle.
So if I don't believe that God can work miracles, I. E. The virgin
birth, I don't believe that God can save a broken, sinful person,
because my salvation is a miracle.
Your salvation is a miracle.
The fact that God can take a person whose good works are like
filthy rags and change us and take his robes and put them on us
and give us eternal life, that's a miracle in itself.
And so when we talk about a Christmas miracle, Christmas miracle,
obviously, is the whole story of Jesus, not just his birth.
Even though that's a miracle in and of itself that we must trust
by faith.
Someone says, scientifically, prove to me how Jesus was born that
way.
I cannot.
It was a work of God beyond my comprehension, just like all the
other miracles.
You cannot explain a miracle.
Some people say, well, that's blind faith.
Well, I don't want to call it blind faith.
It's faith and believing that God is good.
And folks, a lot of people will not go to heaven because they
can't wrap their mind around the supernatural.
They can't wrap their mind around believing that something is
bigger than them.
And we all, to some degree, have to take a step of faith.
No matter where we're at in our belief system, everyone takes
something by faith.
How did we get here?
I believe we got here because God created us.
Well, the atheist says, well, no, we got here through the Big Bang.
We got here through just accidents that have happened.
Okay, were you there?
Well, no.
So both of us are taking the creation of this world by faith.
And we have to come down to what has the most proof, what gives
us the best answers.
And for me, the big questions of morality, of destiny, of purpose,
all of these things are best answered through the story of Jesus,
through the story of the word of God.
And so that's why it's so important to talk about these things
at Christmas.
The.
The Christmas story can be very romanticized.
I mean, watch a movie and it.
It's, you know, everything's so nice, and baby Jesus is so clean,
and he's.
He's perfect in every way.
And.
And we think, oh, that's a nice story, and it is a wonderful
story.
But at the same time, we have to think of truly, like I was mentioning
this morning, we have to truly think about the implications of Christmas,
because really, it's just Jesus coming to this earth to die
for us, born to die upon Calvary.
And so think about these prophecies as we go.
We're going to go through a lot of them.
We're going to go through the classic one that many of you know,
Isaiah 9, 6, and talk about what that all means.
But ultimately, we see that Jesus is the scarlet thread, if you
will, throughout all of the Bible.
And if you want to take the Bible in without Jesus, you're removing
the glaring mark of God in his word.
The Book of Hebrews says that basically everything from the Old
Testament system to the sacrificial system, all these things
are just shadowy pictures to show us who Jesus is.
And so today we have to come back to that.
We have to say that we believe what we believe.
Why?
Because of the Bible.
Not because it makes sense to me, not because I have proof.
Even though it's amazing to know that every single archaeological
find about Scripture, about the Bible, about the Holy Land, has
never contradicted the word of God.
That's a good thing.
But we shouldn't have to say, I have to see it then to believe
it.
God has given us enough proof to believe, and it just only strengthens
the argument to know that nothing can contradict what God's
word has said.
And that's a whole other argument for another day.
And I'd love to talk to you about that, but I will conclude there.
But what I will say is this.
During the Christmas season, let us not just go through the Christmas
story just as a blanket.
Well, that's a beautiful story.
We hear it every year and we just gloss over it.
Let's think about the implications of.
Of God's foretelling of this and Jesus coming and fulfilling all
of that, and ultimately the gospel being the centerpiece of what
we preach.
The Christmas season is an awesome time to preach the gospel
because maybe someone is more open to hearing stories about Jesus,
maybe they're not.
But at the end of the day, we have a responsibility to preach the
gospel, not just in the Christmas season, but all year long
because we get the opportunity to look to Jesus and thank him every
day for his coming to this earth.
But it's the complete story that we need to think about.
So we'll come back and talk about more.
We're going to address Isaiah 9, we're going to address Isaiah
53, which is another passage of scripture that speaks of Jesus.
And so I would encourage you to follow along with us.
We're going to be doing this series on Sunday nights and on Wednesday
nights and so just through the month of December and and if you
have any questions or you have one particular prophecy that you're
interested in talking about, come talk to me.
I'd love to work through that and see how many New Testament verses
we can look up in the middle of that.
So thank you so much for your time and your attention.
Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church
podcast.
I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.
If you would like to find out more information about our church
or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org
or find us on Facebook or YouTube.
You can also email me directly at Josh Massaroiddletownbaptistchurch
dot com if you've enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and follow
along for future podcast and updates.
Thank you so much.
God bless.
Have a wonderful day.