Hello, and welcome to this
teaching from Skip Heitzig of Calvary Albuquerque. We pray that God
uses this message to strengthen your faith. If he does, we'd love
to hear about it. Email us at
mystory@calvaryabq.org. And if you'd like to support
this ministry financially, you can give online securely
at calvaryabq.org/giving. The town of Bethlehem was
where King David was born, and where his descendant, Jesus
Christ, would also be born. As we continue the series
"Against All Odds," we learn four details
about Christ's birth that were predicted 700
years before it happened. Now, we invite you
to open your bibles as Skip begins the message,
"O Little Town of Bethlehem." Would you please
turn in your Bibles to the Gospel of Matthew. That's your New Testament, as
you know, first book in the New Testament, Matthew chapter 2. But then also, if
you don't mind, turn also to the book of
Micah in the Old Testament. That is the seventh book from
the end of the Old Testament. If you have a Bible just like
mine, it's 50 pages back. I know that won't
help you, but find the book of Micah chapter
5, verse 2, and then also Matthew chapter 2. Probably the most famous
village in the whole world is a little town in the
Middle East called Bethlehem. Most everyone that
I've ever known who's wanted to go
take a tour to Israel wants to go to Bethlehem,
for obvious reasons. However, most people
when they go there are a bit disappointed
with Bethlehem. It's not what they anticipated. It's not the little town of
Bethlehem that is in the songs. And one of my vivid memories
of going to Bethlehem was on Christmas
Eve many years ago. We took a church
group, we decided to have Christmas in Israel. And so for Christmas
Eve, we went to Bethlehem in Manger
Square where people from all over the world come. But I was disappointed. I was disappointed
because you have to go through airport
security monitors to get into Manger Square. There's metal detectors,
there's armed guards with M16s, there's tanks, armored vehicles. And to sing "O Little
Town of Bethlehem" with warm fuzzies in your
heart when that's going on around you, it was tough to do. The town of
Bethlehem where Jesus was born-- the whole
world has heard of Bethlehem for
one reason, and that is that Jesus was born there. Now, I know, some of you are
thinking the sermon title is "O Little Town of Bethlehem,"
you're like a few weeks too late on this, Skip. Christmas is done. We put away our nativity set. And so I want you to sort
of unpack that in your mind and get Bethlehem
back on the table, because we're going to
look at, in this series "Against All Odds,"
the fact that it was predicted that the Messiah
would be born in Bethlehem. So let's begin with
Micah chapter 5. One verse in that book
in that chapter, verse 2, where the prophet
says, "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
though you are little among the
thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall
come forth to me the one to be ruler in Israel;
whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting." And then Matthew chapter
2, the familiar story in verse 1, "Now after Jesus
was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king,
behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem,
saying, Where is he who has been born
King of the Jews? For we have seen his
star in the east, and have come to worship him. When Herod the king heard
this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered all the
chief priests and the scribes of the people together,
he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. So they said to him
In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written
by the prophet." Now they quote Micah
chapter 5, verse 2. "But you, Bethlehem,
in the land of Judah, are not the least among the
rulers of Judah, for out of you shall come a ruler, who will
shepherd my people Israel. Then Herod, when he
heard, had secretly called the wise men,
determined from them what time the star appeared. And he sent them to
Bethlehem, and said, go and search carefully
for the young child; and when you have found
him, bring back word to me that I may come and
worship him also. And when they heard the
king, they departed; and behold, the star, which
they had seen in the east, went before them,
till it came and stood over where the young child was." Now, as we look at these
predictions, especially this one in Micah and how
it's reiterated in Matthew, there are two basic
things to discover. Number one, nothing
happens that is not anticipated by a sovereign God. Nothing happens that is not
anticipated by a sovereign God. God is just flat in
control of history. And number two, not only
does God anticipate events, but he arranges them
often against the odds to show his power and to
show that he has a plan. So just those two
truths should be enough to bring joy and
rest to your hearts. Now, we are told in Matthew that
wise men came from the east. The word wise men, or
the words wise men, come from the translation of
Greek magos or magi, magi. Now, I don't think any
group in the Christmas story has suffered more than the Magi. And that's because of a song
that was written in 1857, became very popular, and it's
sung every Christmas season, "We three kings of
Orient are, bearing gifts we traverse afar." And so we have seen
in our mind's eye three kings coming from
the east with their gifts. But first of all, they were
not kings, they were magi. They were spiritual advisers. They were kingmakers, not kings. Second, there were
not three of them. We think there's three because
they bring three gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Or as one child thought it read,
gold Frankensteins and smurfs. But it doesn't say there
were three of them. In fact, they usually
traveled in large groups. It was probably an
entourage of people from the east with
these three gifts, that is why King Herod was troubled. Also, they didn't come from
the Orient as we know it, they came from
Parthia, or ancient Iran, northeastern Iran. So if you were to concoct
a Christmas song that would be more accurate,
I suppose it would be, "we huge entourage of
Parthian astronomers from Iran are, bearing gifts
we traverse afar." But that would never pass
the songwriting committee, now would it? So we have that song. Originally, the Magi
were Zoroastrians. Have you ever
heard of that term? It's a religion that
worships a single God. It's an ancient
religion but it is still practiced in some places today. And the single God
is Ahura Mazda, that is what they call that God. It might be interesting for you
to know that the words magic or magician come
from the term magi, because of that
background, because of that religious
background, the mystery religious background. But also the word magistrate
comes from the word magi. And that is because
this religious group had an enormous clout
in the political field. They worked for the
courts of ancient kings. In fact, in Nebuchadnezzar's
court in the book of Daniel, the magi were very,
very prominent. They were the highest
ranking officials in Babylon. And you may recall that Daniel
becomes the chief of the magi. He interprets a dream for
Nebuchadnezzar the king, which saves the life of all
the wise men of Babylon, the magi of Babylon. And because of that,
Daniel is promoted to be the head, or the chief
of the wise men of Babylon. And that's probably why
they are here in this story. Why else would people travel
hundreds of miles from the east to come to Judea to Bethlehem
to find the King of the Jews? What would they care
about a Jewish King? Unless a Jewish prophet
had primed the pump and tipped them off with his
prophecies that a Jewish King would be born. And that's why I
believe they're there. I think it's directly to
the influence of Daniel. But the key element in the
story is not the wise men. The key element is the prophecy
that the Jewish leaders tell to Herod. Now, in this prophecy--
we're going to unpack it, the one in Micah
and the one that is given a free
rendering in Matthew 2 by the religious leaders
--there are four details that were anticipated at
the birth of Jesus Christ by this prophecy. And first is the place
the Messiah would be born, the place of Messiah. In verse 4, when Herod
gathered all the chief priests and scribes, he
inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. And so they said to him, "In
Bethlehem of Judea for thus it is written by the prophet." Now, at this point,
they are quoting from Micah chapter 5, which
we read, "But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah." Notice how specific
the prophecy is. This is Bethlehem in
the land of Judah. Now, if you're an
astute observer, you're thinking at this
moment, wait a minute, it says Bethlehem in the
land of Judah in Matthew, but back in Micah it says,
"But you, Bethlehem--" What's the word? Is it in front of you? Micah 5:2, "But you,
Bethlehem Ephrathah." It's a hard word
to say, isn't it? "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah." So what does that mean? Why is it rendered
one way in one place, one way in another place? Ephrathah was the old
ancient term for Bethlehem. There was a town next to
Bethlehem called Efrat. It's still there today, you
can see it and visit it. So in old days it
was called Ephrath or Ephrathah or
Bethlehem of Ephrathah, but it's in the land of Judah. So when the scribes
answer, they're just saying Bethlehem
in the land of Judah. Why so specific? Well here's what's interesting,
there wasn't one Bethlehem. There were two
Bethlehems in Israel. One was Bethlehem in the
north, six miles from Nazareth. And the second was
Bethlehem in the South, or Bethlehem of Judea. So this specific
prophecy is important. He's not going to be born in
that Bethlehem but the one way, way down south. Whenever you want to discover
the identity of the Messiah, you have to begin with his
birth, where he was born. Several years ago somebody
came on a midweek Bible study-- a Thursday night Bible
study to our church saying that he was Jesus Christ. Well, I didn't know this
till an assistant pastor who met this man first ran up to me,
big eyes, going this guy just came in who says he's Jesus. I said I'd like to meet him. I've always wanted
to meet Jesus. So I walked up to him, put my
hand out and said, I'm Skip. He goes, I'm Jesus Christ. So I said well, I have
one question for you, where were you born? He said Philadelphia. I said, there's
the door, get out. Because the Messiah
was predicted that he would be born, not in
Philadelphia, but in Bethlehem of Judea. That's what the prophet said. Now, you might
ask, well, what is the probability of someone
being born in Bethlehem in the last 2000 years? To answer that
question, you need to take the average population
of the town of Bethlehem from the time of
Micah the prophet who uttered the prophecy,
up till modern days and divide that
by the population of the earth from the time
of Micah up till modern days. You kind of take those averages
and you'll get the odds. So that would be 7,150 divided
by 2 billion to round it off, or 2.8 times 10 to
the fifth power. Roughly, conservatively, you
have about 1 chance in 100,000 that anyone's going to
be born in Bethlehem. So when you make a
prediction like that, you have 1 in 100,000 chance. However, when you add other
details to the prophecy, you narrow the margin that
it could be fulfilled. For example, what
are the chances that somebody being
born in Bethlehem would be of the
lineage of King David? Now you have fewer people. And what are the chances that
somebody born in Bethlehem from the lineage of King David
ride into Jerusalem on a donkey later as the prophets predicted? And then what are the odds of a
person being born in Bethlehem from the lineage
of King David who rides into Jerusalem on
a donkey be also betrayed for 30 pieces of silver? And you just keep layering
those predictions on and you narrow the
margin exponentially that it could ever be fulfilled. Now, this is a prophecy by
Micah in the Old Testament. Micah chapter 5 verse 2. Micah was, get this, a
7th century BC prophet, which means he predicted
the place, Bethlehem, 700 years before Jesus was born. Well, fast-forward 700 years
to Joseph and Mary and they've got a big problem. The big problem is they don't
live anywhere near Bethlehem. They live way up in Nazareth,
70 miles from Bethlehem of Judea as the crow flies. 92 miles the ancient
route would take you. So you got a problem. How is God going to get a
couple living in Nazareth down to Bethlehem of Judea? It's a lot easier if they went
to Bethlehem in the north, it's only six miles away. But it's specific, it's
Bethlehem of Judea. Well, fortunately, we have a
God who loves to play chess. And everybody on the
chess board is not a king, queen, or a rook. They're all pawns to him,
and he moves them around. Even if they call themselves
a king, on God's chessboard they're pawns. Proverbs 21:1 "The king's heart
is in the hand of the Lord, and he moves it
wherever he wishes." And so God is calling the shots. And what does God do? It's as if he steps
into the throne room of Caesar Augustus
in Rome and puts something in his head that
was very unusual. You know what that is because
you know the Christmas story. Luke chapter 2 says,
"In those days, Caesar Augustus issued a decree
that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. This was the first census
that took place while Cyrenius was the governor of Syria. And every one went to his
own town to register." So we have a law given
by Caesar in Rome that every one has to register. No exceptions. So now we have the
problem solved. How else are you going
to get a pregnant woman in her third trimester
to walk 100 miles? Or to ride a donkey 100 miles? Nobody's going to do that. But there were no
exemptions, so she and Joseph went from the north down south. Here's the grand
truth behind that. Caesar may be ruling
but God is overruling. OK. Caesar's not in charge. God is large and in
charge, and he's just moving the pawns on the
chessboard as he wishes. Now, the key issue is were
these actual prophecies? In other words,
were they written before the time of Jesus? I bring that up because there
are folks who will say, well, Jesus fulfilled
supposed prophecies, but those were written
after the fact. Now, if you can discover they
were written after the fact, now you have a
fraudulent document and the Bible is
not to be trusted. So two questions play into this. Number one, was
there adequate time between the recording of the
prophecies in the Old Testament and the recorded fulfillment
of those prophecies in the New Testament? Second question, were the New
Testament accounts of Jesus accepted as being fulfilled
prophecy by the Jews who were closest to those events? And the answers are yes and yes. You see, there is a 400 year
gap between the final prophecies of the Old Testament
and the birth of Jesus Christ in the New Testament. A 400 year gap. During that 400 years, something
very significant happened. The canon of the Old
Testament was codified, meaning the list of what are
biblical books of Old Testament Jewish scriptures were codified,
were systematize, and were regarded as this is the Bible. These are the
books of the Bible. So by the time Jesus
was born, the books, including the books that
contain all the predictions about the Messiah, were already
part of Jewish scripture. Something else to
add to that, we have the evidence of
the Dead Sea Scrolls. You've all heard of
the Dead Sea Scrolls. These are documents written 200
years before Jesus was born, and amazingly preserved
in caves in Israel until 1947, that's when
they were discovered. So now we're able to dig those
scrolls out of the ground and look at a freeze frame
picture of Judaism 200 years before Christ. And we have all of those
books of the Old Testament, including the ones that had
all the prophecies written about the Messiah. So that's why I say yes and yes. Something else, when we
get to Matthew chapter 2, it's pretty obvious that
the Jewish leaders expected the Messiah was going to be born
in Bethlehem because when Herod says, hey, where's the
Christ going to be born? They said, in
Bethlehem of Judea, for thus says the prophet. So they had already interpreted
it to mean our Messiah, when he comes is going
to be born in Bethlehem. All of that to say,
the Jewish expectation was that the Messiah would
be born in this place, that's the place of Messiah, the town
from King David, Bethlehem. Let's look at another detail,
the person of Messiah. Notice the question. When Herod gathered the chief
priests and scribes together in verse 4, it says,
"he inquired of them where the Christ
was to be born." We refer to Jesus
as Jesus Christ. I hate to break
it to some of you, Christ is not his last name. I've heard people think
that-- actually think that. They think that H was
his middle initial and Christ was his last name,
and that's not the case. Christ is an English word from
the Greek word christos, which is a word from the Hebrew word
mashiach, which simply means messiah or the anointed one. The anointed one. What does that mean
to be an anointed one? Christ, Messiah,
who was that person? The original meaning of
messiah, or anointed one, is to smear with oil. To anoint was to smear with oil. That is because if you had a
priest, a prophet, or a king, and you would designate
them as chosen for their respective
offices, there was the little ritual
where they would be taken, oil would be poured on them, and
they'd smear it on their face. That was called the anointing. And so you had these people
in the Old Testament anointed to be a prophet,
anointed to be a priest, anointed to be a king. But the Old Testament kept
pointing to one who would come, a deliverer who would come,
a Messiah who would come, an anointed one who would come. And Psalm 45 says he will be
anointed above his fellows. He is the anointed one. No wonder then when Jesus goes
to the synagogue in Nazareth and opens up the scroll--
remember the story from Luke 4, opens it up --stands up there
and he reads from Isaiah 41. The familiar text, "The
Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because he
has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor." He closed the scroll,
he put it down, and he said to the audience,
"Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." The Bible says they
reacted violently, took up stones to kill him,
because they knew what he was claiming to be. He is claiming to
be the Messiah. Sometime later, he
is with his disciples and he says, "Who do
men say that I am?" Second question, "Who
do you say that I am?" And Peter said, "You are the
Christ, the Son of the living God." You are that one. You are that anointed deliverer
that the Old Testament repeatedly talked
about would come. So woven throughout
Hebrew scripture, you have predictions
about the birth, about the lineage, about
the mission of the Messiah. And since those things were
written so long before, for nearly 2000 years rabbis
have commented extensively on these scriptures, including
Micah chapter 5, verse 2. And it was, as I said,
the common Jewish belief that the Jewish Messiah
would be born in Bethlehem. Not just from Matthew
chapter 2, but other places. You've read them, but you
probably passed over them. For example, John
chapter 7, the crowd is discussing who is this Jesus? Is he really the Messiah? Could he be the Messiah? And the crowd says this-- and
I'm quoting John 7 --"Will the Christ come out of Galilee? Has not the scripture
said that Christ comes from the seed of David
and from the town of Bethlehem where David was?" So their traditions,
their interpretations along with their
scripture told them our Messiah is coming from there
and he will be the deliverer. Now, there's been
some words I've used in the past several
years, and you've heard them, you're familiar with them, but
you may not know what they are. You've heard me talk
about the Talmud, right? I quote the Jewish
Talmud or the Mishnah or the midrash or the
Gemara or the targums. And without trying to give you
all the different definitions of all of them, what
these essentially are are translations,
paraphrases, commentaries, and interpretations of rabbis
on Old Testament scripture. And why are they
important at all? Because they help us understand
what Jewish people thought of Old Testament texts, right? So let me give you an example. This is from the targums. This is written by Rabbi
Eliezar He is paraphrasing or he is interpreting Micah
chapter 5 verse 2, and look at how he writes it. "And you, O Bethlehem
Ephrathah, you who were too small
to be numbered among the thousands
of Judah, from you shall come forth
before Me the Messiah, to exercise dominion
over Israel, he whose name was
mentioned before, from the days of creation." So two things, Jews expected
a Messiah, a deliverer. They expected he would come
from the line of David. They expected he would
be born in Bethlehem. Well, that raises
a question-- and I get asked it all the time
--well, if that's true, why didn't more Jewish
people at the time of Jesus accept him as their Messiah? Why'd they crucified him? Why'd they reject him? It's a very good question. And here's the answer. It's because those
prophecies also predicted that when
the Messiah comes, he's going to set up a kingdom. He's going to rule
over the earth. The problem was when the
predictions were given, there wasn't a delineation
of sequence given, there wasn't a timing given. You'll have a
prophecy saying he's going to be born in Bethlehem;
you have another prophecy saying he's going to rule the
world; another one saying he's going to do miracles;
another one saying he's going to suffer and die;
another one saying he's going to rise from the dead. So it's all of these
strange predictions. And we have this
phenomena called prophetic foreshortening,
prophetic foreshortening. What that is is
from a distance, it looks like it's all
one thing that's going to happen at one time. There's not the interval of
time that is seen clearly. Here's what it's like. If you're traveling and
you see in the distance as you're driving down
the road, in the distance you see a mountain range. From your perspective far away,
the mountain range looks flat, looks monolithic, like
you're just seeing one straight ribbon of rock. But the closer you get,
you notice some things. And the closer
you still get, you notice shading and
shadowing, and there's not one monolithic mountain,
there's several mountain peaks. And if you get right up
on it or even fly over it or drive through
it, you see there's valleys in between
the mountain peaks. You didn't see them from a
distance, but now you do. And the closer you get
to the event of Messiah, the mountain range opens
up, and you see, oh, well, his first coming he's
going to do this, but his second coming
he's going to do that. That is why there wasn't a ready
reception for many of them. So that's the place and that
is the person of Messiah that is mentioned in this prophecy. The third little detail
is the purpose of Messiah. Now, you will notice that the
Magi in Matthew chapter 2, they come and they
say, "Where is he--" look at the question verse 2
--"where is he who has been born the--" what? "--King of the Jews." They didn't say the
word Christ or Messiah. "Where is he who has been
born King of the Jews?" Can I just say if I were
there with the Magi, I'd say wrong question, dudes. I mean, it's the right
question but not to Herod. Because as soon as he
used that phrase to Herod, it got Herod's attention. It's like his neck
reeled around and said, who are you looking for? The King of the Jews? The King of the Jews? That was a politically charged
term 2000 years ago in Judea, and here's why. First of all, who is the
head of the Roman Empire? Caesar. Caesar's the ultimate
king, he's the big dog. To say there's another
king of any kind anywhere could be seen as a
direct competition of Caesar. Virgil, the Roman poet, said
that Caesar Augustus was the savior king of the world. But even more than that,
since Caesar was far away in Rome, Herod, Herod the King
was given a title by the Roman Senate and by Caesar
Augustus himself, and guess what
Herod's title was? King of the Jews. He was the king of the Jews. He was called that by the Roman
Senate and Caesar Augustus. You are the king of Judea. I'm letting you rule in my
place in that part of the world. You, Herod, will be
the king of the Jews. So now, Herod hears these
wise men coming, asking him this question. These Parthian astronomers,
these kingmakers from the ancient
Babylonian courts. And they're coming
saying we're here to find the King of the
Jews who has been born. We want to worship him. You need to know
something about Herod. Herod was paranoid. History tells us he
was a paranoid ruler. He married ten wives,
he had several children, he killed one of his
wives and two of his sons because he was so paranoid
they were trying to take the throne away from him. In fact, even
Caesar Augustus said it is safer to be Herod's
pig than it is his son. So you have all of
this working together. He panics, he doesn't
want to lose control, and so he sends them
back to Bethlehem. And you know the rest of
the story how he kills the children of that town. Now, he is the Christ. He will be the King
over the world. He will be the King
of the Jews as well as the King of the Gentiles. But you will notice
also, it says, as they quote the prophecy,
their rendering of it, verse 6, "For out of you
will come a ruler--" and I love this "--who will
shepherd my people Israel." Yes, Jesus will come back. Yes, he will rule and reign
because the prophecies said he will over the world
as predicted by the prophets. But his rule is
a gentle rule, he rules as a shepherd
over his people. David was a shepherd. The town of David was a place
where David kept flocks. He said, "The Lord is my
shepherd, I shall not want." When Jesus comes on
the scene, he says, I am the good shepherd. But he said this,
the good shepherd lays down his life
for the sheep, that's why he came the first time. Jesus came the first
time to be a savior. Jesus will come the second
time to be our sovereign king. He'll be a ruler over the world,
but he's the gentle ruler. Now, I want to close
on a final note. There's a fourth detail
given in the prophecy, though not mentioned by the
scribes when they quote it. And that is the
preexistence of Messiah, that he would preexist. So notice back in
verse 6, the rulers quote "But you, Bethlehem
in the land of Judah are not the least among the
rulers of Judah for out of you shall come a ruler who will
shepherd my people Israel." Period. They didn't finish
the rest of the text. They left something out of
the prophecy given by Micah. And I hope you have a
marker in Micah 5:2, if not, let me read it to you. "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out
of you shall come forth to me the one to be ruler in Israel--"
now watch this "--whose goings forth are from of old--" or
literally from the beginning "--from everlasting." From everlasting. Your goings forth
come from everlasting. If you were to speak to
a Jewish person today-- and I hope you
have Jewish friends and that you keep the
door of conversation and evangelism open to them
and have good hearty discussion --but a Jewish person
today will tell you-- if they believe in the
Messiah, if they believe he's coming --they will say the
Messiah is simply a man, just a human being. He's not God, he's not the Son
of God like you Christians say. We get berated because we
believe in the deity of Christ. But they say when the
Jewish Messiah comes, we expect he'll be
a mere human being with a charismatic personality,
great intellect, a love for the Torah, he'll love the
scriptures, but that's all. But here's what you need
to know, and most of them probably don't know, that's not
what Judaism always believed. Judaism originally believed
that the Messiah-- and there's abundant evidence in
Jewish scholarship to show that --they
believe the Messiah would be an eternally existent being
with the miraculous birth, mission, and destiny. I'm going to give you a
quote, show it on the screen. One of the books I've had
in my study for a long time, and every pastor that I know
would probably have this book. It's called "The Life and
Times of Jesus the Messiah" By Alfred Edersheim. Alfred Edersheim
was a Jewish scholar who converted to Christ. And this is the kind
of dude who researches the targums, the Talmud,
the Gemara, the Mishnah, the midrash, all
that stuff, and looks to find what was going on. And this is what he said, just
one little paragraph, quote, "even in strictly Rabbinic
documents, the premundane--" that is at or before the
beginning "--if not the eternal existence of the Messiah,
appears as a matter of common belief. Such is the view expressed
in the Targum on Isaiah 9:6 and that on Micah 5:2. But the Midrash on
Proverbs 8:9 especially mention the Messiah
among the seven things created before the world. The name of Messiah
is said to have been created before the world." Close quote. Now, why on earth is
your pastor making you suffer through all this? Why would I do this
as a weekend message? Simply to show
you this, the Jews expected the Messiah would
be born in Bethlehem. The Jews expected
that he would preexist and that he would
rule over the world. That was their belief
system historically. So that when Jesus
comes on the scene, that's exactly how
he is presented. The opening statement
of the Gospel of John, "In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God. He was in the
beginning with God. All things were made by him;
and without him not anything was made that has been made." That's what John the
Baptist meant when he spoke of his younger cousin Jesus. John the Baptist was the
older cousin of Jesus. And when Jesus
came on the scene, John the Baptist
said, John 1:15, "This is the one I
was talking about when I said someone is coming who
is far greater than I am, for he existed
long before I did." What a statement. This is what Paul
meant in Colossians 1 when he said, "Jesus
is before all things and in him all things consist." What this means is
Jesus is the only person who lived before he was born. Get your head around
that, get your mind around that statement. Jesus is the only
person who existed, who lived before he was born. He preexisted. The Jews believed that
he would be that one until more recent
times, and that's who Jesus proclaimed to be. Now, here's the most amazing
thing to me of the story. When Herod asked
for an answer, hey, where's the Messiah
going to be born? The scribes, the religious
dudes, gave a quick answer. They knew it. They didn't have to go
look it up on a computer or find a bible-- let me
look it up in the back. Wait a minute, where is that? They knew it, they just
could cite chapter and verse. Well, the prophet says,
but you, Bethlehem in the land of Judah-- and
they just spit it right out. But they didn't walk five
miles to see if it was true. Now, imagine that. You know the Bible so
well, you study it, you have scripture
memory classes, but you don't do what
it says to check it out to see if it's true. Here's these travelers
from the east who have sacrificed their
wealth, life, and limb to travel hundreds of miles
to come from their country to show up in your country
to find the King of the Jews. And you can't even get off
your-- or get on your feet and go to the next town
to see if it happened? You know, Bethlehem
is in the outskirts of the city of Jerusalem, just
a few miles away, I told you. I once took a bicycle ride from
the Jaffa gate in Jerusalem to Bethlehem. I didn't know how
long it would be. I was over the hill
and in Bethlehem. And I remember thinking why
didn't those religious leaders just take a short
walk to go, hey, I'm going to find out
what's happening over there in Bethlehem with
all these rumors. Some people are inoculated
with just enough religion to keep them immune from truth. This is what religion
will do to a person. Religion makes people feel
self-satisfied, I go to church, I sing hymns, I read the
Bible, I do this stuff. And they feel really smug about
that little routine they have. They have just enough
religion to keep them immune from the truth. I can't speak for anybody
else, a lot of people would think a study like
this could be boring. This is what fires me up,
because this satisfied my mind early on when I looked at
the odds of these things happening as I
told you last week. So the wise men showed up
and they worshiped Jesus. You know why? Because they were wise men. They were wise. And foolish men and foolish
women will only hear the rumors but not dig deep enough to
find out if it's really true. Wise people will
take the journey and end up in front of Christ
and bow down and worship him. That's wisdom. Father, we are amazed
at how profound a document the Bible is. No wonder Jesus, speaking
of the Old Testament said, "and the scripture
must be fulfilled," because so many predictions
already had been. So Lord, we are left. We stand on earth, we
look toward heaven, but in between is that Bible. That reveals who you are, what
you like, what you dislike, what you want, what
you don't want, who we are, what we should do. And I pray, Lord, that we would
not just become self-satisfied with a little religious
routine but not be motivated to go and see
and to receive and to worship the Savior. Motivate us, Lord,
because when we think about the odds of
these things happening, we think what are the
odds of me being saved? But here we are, loved by
you, and grateful that we are. In Jesus name, amen. The detail and accuracy
of the prophecies concerning Christ's birth
are nothing short of amazing. Does learning about
the fulfillment of these predictions
strengthen your faith in him? Let us know. Email mystory@calvaryabq.org. And just a reminder, you can
give financially to this work at calvaryabq.org/giving Thank
you for listening to this message from
Calvary Albuquerque.
