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[0:00] Okay. You don't know how much I struggled with this particular sermon this week.

[0:11] I was a sock. You get used to things. We've been doing books of the Bible. We were working through James. You got the schedule. You knew when you were preaching.

[0:22] You also knew what the text was you were preaching from. Easy, right? Well, relatively. You had to read it, study it, ponder it. Meditate on it. Research it. Whatever you had to do.

[0:34] God always gave a message. Well, this time we're starting Advent. This is the first week of Advent. It's the first Sunday. And the topic's hope. And my topic was to talk about the prophecies.

[0:48] And I'm going, okay, we can do that. Which prophecy? It turns out that the idea of a Messiah is a thread.

[0:58] And there are a number of different threads in Scripture. But there is a thread of the Messiah from Genesis all the way through Scripture. It's an important theme. God had promised, and we're going to look at some of those Scriptures, that He was going to save humanity from their sin.

[1:15] And so, He's going to do this by sending a Messiah, a Savior. So here I am, and I thought, I mean, I really struggled with this for several weeks.

[1:28] And finally I said, I'm just going to write it. And then this morning I reread it, and I says, well, I might need to rewrite it. I don't know. But you're going to get what you get, okay? And if you like it, good.

[1:41] And if you don't like it, enjoy your afternoon. All right. Okay, now why do we do Advent? What is Advent? Advent means coming. It's just from the Latin word, to come.

[1:56] So Advent means, it refers to Christ's coming, the Messiah's coming. And it turns out that was only the first Advent.

[2:06] Anyone know if there's a second one? Yes, there is. When He does what? Return. Return. When He comes again. And so we've got these two Advents. And I was reading something about Advent, and a guy said, you can never, ever think about the first Advent without realizing the second one.

[2:28] If the first one didn't happen, there wouldn't be a second one. But the first one happened, and so we anticipate that hope, anticipate, wait for the second one.

[2:39] Now, I don't know about you, I missed the first one, right? By a couple thousand years. But I'm anticipating the second one. I can't wait for that day to come.

[2:51] I know some of you have a different idea on that. So let's begin with Genesis. So if you want to return to Genesis 3, I mean, I'm going through some scriptures here, but Genesis 3, where we're going to start, verse 15.

[3:05] You know, Adam and Eve were made by God, and God created and formed Adam out of the earth, breath of life in him, made him a man, a live being in his image, and then he created Eve out of the man, out of his rib, out of his side.

[3:23] So in fact, guess what? Adam's father was who? God. Adam literally was the son of God. Literally, the only one, since until Jesus, that was literally the son of God, because God made him.

[3:38] He gave him form and life. And Eve was made from Adam. She became the mother of all humanity. And everything was hunky-dory until they did what?

[3:49] They sinned. They chose to do something in their own wisdom as they were misled by the serpent, which is the great Satan, and they sinned.

[4:01] And they got expelled from the garden. And before they got expelled, God got the guilty parties together. In Genesis 3. And you have to picture this.

[4:12] I'm not sure exactly how this worked. We know that Adam and Eve were hiding because they heard God walking in the garden. Somewhere in there, there was the serpent. Because when God comes, and he talks to Adam and Eve, and then he turns and talks to the serpent.

[4:26] So they're all three there. It's like three errant children. Except one is really evil. And the other two are just dumb, in a sense.

[4:40] And he says this in verse 15. To the serpent, I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.

[4:53] You notice it's a he. First he says it's offspring. And then he, that's a whole bunch. And then he says he. One individual. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.

[5:09] One of Eve's offspring would bruise the serpent's head. He would succeed, as it turns out, as you follow the story. He would succeed where Adam and Eve failed.

[5:21] He would be obedient and overcome the fall. Literally. Later we have Cain killing his brother. You know, Abel and Cain were the two first sons.

[5:33] And Cain killed Abel. Abel was the one approved by God. Cain was the one that was not. Then, with the killing of Abel, Cain decided that he would follow the serpent's path.

[5:48] He would rebel against God. He would do his own thing for his own purposes, and his own desires. He would rebel against God. That left that there was no righteous seed.

[6:03] The only son, off doing his thing, that was, by the way, he was expelled, and he was told to go wander in the wilderness. What did he do immediately? If you read the story, he settled down and built a city.

[6:15] So even, and God said, look, you're going to wander in the wilderness. He said, you think so? Watch me. And he built a city. In rebellion.

[6:27] So, it turns out, God gave Adam and Eve another son. We're told in Genesis 4, and you want to turn over there to Genesis 4, chapter 4, verses 25 and 26, it says, And Adam had marital relations with his wife again, and she gave birth to a son.

[6:46] And she named him Seth, saying, God has given me another child, and placed an Abel, because Cain killed him. And then it goes on to say, And his son was also born to Seth, whom he named Enosh.

[6:59] At that time, people began to worship the Lord. And the word there, Lord, is Yahweh. It's the first time the word Yahweh shows up. So, Seth is born as a replacement for Abel.

[7:14] And in fact, that's what his name probably means. Seth probably means replacement. And it was through him that a godly line would go. So, it was going to be Adam, and Seth, and then Seth had a son, Enosh, and that follows on down, until we get to Noah.

[7:33] Now, Noah, what is special about Noah? Well, he was the only righteous man found on the earth. So, that means a lot of the, even the, all the Cainites, all the descendants of Cain are out doing their rebellious thing.

[7:49] But even those of Seth's line, a lot of them, all but Noah, have been corrupted and are doing their thing. But the line still exists. It goes down through and gets to Noah.

[8:03] And, by the way, when the flood comes, who dies? There are no more descendants of Cain. They're all dead. But one descendant, and his sons, and their wives, survive from the line of Seth.

[8:24] And you can read that genealogy, by the way. It's in Matthew, and I think Luke has it. But you can read the genealogy of Jesus all the way through, and you can follow the line. Now, it's not a straight line.

[8:37] It sort of goes this way and that way. And if you look at it, you read the stories, you find out that God didn't usually choose the firstborn son. He chose somebody else. Because it had nothing to do with who was entitled to the inheritance.

[8:51] It was who had a heart that God could use. And he followed it all the way through. We even have some really weird people in Jesus' genealogy. You can look at Rahab, the prostitute for one.

[9:03] Tamar, who was the son of, the wife of one of the sons, well, several of the sons of Judah who ended up having a son by Judah. I mean, just weird things happened, but God was able to keep the line pure down through history.

[9:24] And that happened until Jesus was born to Mary. Now, this first prophecy of the coming Savior is played out, and I want you to note something very carefully.

[9:39] That the Messiah had to be a human. You understand it? Because it had to be what? One of Mary's children. Well, Mary wasn't in the habit of having spiritual children.

[9:52] She was in the habit of having real human children. So the Messiah had to be a man. Had to be a man. And what did the Jews look for all through history when they talked about the Messiah?

[10:06] They were looking for a man, a human being. And then you get, that person had, this man had to be born through the line of Seth, through Noah.

[10:22] And that promise was continued until you get to Abraham. Abraham. And then his son Isaac. And then his son Jacob. And Jacob had a lot of sons, but it was Judah who was chosen to be the one that the line would go through.

[10:35] And in fact, in Genesis 49 it says, the scepter will not depart from Judah nor the ruler's staff from between his feet. And then you hear the part that's the Messiah. Until he comes to whom it belongs, the nations will obey him.

[10:50] Now I'm talking about Judah the man, because Judah never ruled the nations, but he who comes from Judah will be the one who will have the nations obey him. The staff in the scepter belong to him.

[11:02] He's a descendant of Judah. And then you follow that through, Judah, who's the next one, big one in the line? David. David was chosen by God, not to be king.

[11:14] He was a descendant of Judah. And he was told, in 2 Samuel 7, 6, 16, your house and your kingdom will stand before me permanently.

[11:27] Your dynasty will be permanent. But if you read the story, it didn't last past, you know, the big thing. It divided right quick, and then all of a sudden it just sort of gets jumbled as you read through Kings and Chronicles.

[11:42] You find out, boy, these guys are really making it tough on the Lord. I mean, let's find a righteous line through these guys. And after the exile, I mean, my goodness, the exile happened and a lot of them were killed.

[11:55] But you know what? God preserved someone from the line of David who was going to become king. Before the exile actually happened, Isaiah prophesied this.

[12:09] Gets us a little more information about who this man is going to be. Isaiah 9, this is when you all know this, 6 and 7. For a child has been born to us, a son has been given to us.

[12:23] He shoulders responsibility and he is called extraordinary strategist, mighty God, everlasting father, prince of peace. His dominion will be vast and he will bring immeasurable prosperity.

[12:35] He will rule on David's throne over David's kingdom, establishing it and strengthening it by promoting justice and fairness from this time forward and forevermore. The Lord's intense devotion to his people will accomplish this.

[12:51] He's talking about the one that's coming who will sit on David's throne. And it's interesting, now we have something else. We've been looking for a man, but what does Isaiah say? He's going to be called what?

[13:04] He's going to be called mighty God. Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Now if I was Isaiah, I'm going, okay, I've got this prophecy, I don't understand it.

[13:18] Because the one I'm looking for to sit on David's throne is a man, but he's going to be called God? He's going to be everlasting? I don't understand.

[13:29] But he didn't have to understand, he just had to record. Later, Daniel would record, he's in exile now, he's in Babylon.

[13:42] Daniel 7, 13 and 14, he says, And with the clouds of the sky, one like the Son of Man was approaching, he went up to the Ancient of Days and was escorted before him. To him was given ruling authority and honor and sovereignty.

[13:56] All the peoples, nations, and language groups were serving him. His authority is eternal and will not pass away. His kingdom will not be destroyed. So Daniel sees, he's been watching, this vision includes kingdoms falling and coming and going and all this stuff.

[14:15] And he goes, very specifically, he's told that it goes through the Persians and the Medes, it goes through the Greeks and the Romans, and then there's this fifth kingdom. And this fifth kingdom is going to be ruled by one who approaches the Ancient of Days throne and is given dominion over all the nations and all the peoples of the earth.

[14:36] This is the Messiah. Now you got this, he's the Son, he looks like the Son of Man. Like the Son of Man. So he looks human. But he has some characteristics that transcend what we would expect in a person.

[14:52] His authority is eternal and will not pass away. In Isaiah, he writes about the branch of Jesse, the root, the branch that's going to spring from the root of David.

[15:18] Jesse, descendant of David. David. Zachariah saw a vision and recorded this with the Lord speaking to the high priest. Now Zachariah, after they came back and they reestablished the temple and they were rebuilding the city and the high priest and the governor, he was the governor, he wasn't the king, are trying really hard to put us all back together to restore what was going on in Jerusalem as it's supposed to be.

[15:46] And Zachariah has this vision and it's the Lord speaking and he says, listen, Joshua, the high priest, both you and your colleagues are the Lord speaking in this vision to Joshua.

[15:59] Your colleagues who are sitting before you, all of you are a symbol that I am about to introduce my servant, the branch. As for the stone I have set before Joshua, on one stone, on the one stone there are seven eyes.

[16:15] I am about to engrave an inscription on it. Thus says the Lord who rules over all, to the effect that I will remove the iniquity of this land in a single day.

[16:28] The branch is going to be introduced and God's going to remove the iniquity of the land in a single day. What day was that?

[16:39] That the iniquity of the land was removed? Crucifixion. Who's the branch? The Messiah. The same one that Isaiah spoke of.

[16:54] Now there are a lot more prophecies. We could go on and on and on. And by the way, if you really want to find some of the most important ones, read the New Testament in the Gospels because they say, this fulfilled this, this fulfilled that, this fulfilled that.

[17:06] It's there. And they reveal the coming one, the one who's going to crush the head of the serpent to restore creation and humanity to a relationship with God.

[17:18] We have the words of Isaiah 7 and Isaiah 23 and then 14 and 15 and it goes like this. Look, this young woman is about to conceive and will give birth to a son.

[17:29] You, young woman, will name him Emmanuel. What does Emmanuel mean? God with us. Micah, Micah 5, 2 says, As for you, Bethlehem, Ephathra, seemingly insignificant among the clans of Judah, from you a king will emerge who will rule over Israel on my behalf, one whose origins are in the distant past.

[17:52] How can one rule in the present or in the future, actually, because the prophet who has roots in the distant past has to be God himself. in the form of a man.

[18:06] And so it goes, God prepared a path to bring people to his son, Jesus Christ, born of a woman, son of man, and son of God, to save his people from their sins and to redeem them from death, to destroy the serpent, to restore his creation, to establish his kingdom forever, and to bring peace and wholeness to all that belong to him.

[18:29] Now, those who studied the scriptures found these prophecies and looked forward to the coming Messiah, fully aware that he would be fully human. But what they often missed was that he was also going to be fully God.

[18:46] Yet in Christ, all the failures of Adam and Israel, and that's an interesting thing. Do you think about that? In Christ. If you think, you read Christ's life in the Gospels and you think, he did some strange things.

[19:00] But what he was doing, if you look carefully, you will find out that every failing from Adam and Israel are corrected in Christ. Reenacted, if you want to call that.

[19:13] Think about that. There's a prophecy that I'll call my son out of Egypt. Talking about Jesus. Where did Jesus end up? In Egypt. Why did he have to go to Egypt? Well, we say because he was escaping Herod.

[19:25] But why? What does that have to do with Israel? Israel was slaves in Egypt and brought out as an exodus back to the promised land. So the Messiah went and they failed at it.

[19:37] They did a terrible job. So the Messiah has to go to Egypt to be brought in and do it right. Think about that. There isn't any accidents in Jesus' life.

[19:51] They're always overcoming the failures, especially of Israel. Think about when he was tempted in the desert. What did Satan do ultimately?

[20:05] When he tempted him, he was trying to get him to violate the law, to violate the Word of God. What did Jesus say? But it is written. What did Adam and Eve fail to do?

[20:19] They failed to follow God's direction. They knew his words. They misquoted them, Eve did, and then they misdid them.

[20:30] And Jesus had to come and hear and use the Word of God to correct Satan's temptation. He always fixed the things that Adam and Eve and Israel in particular failed in.

[20:43] And in doing so, he brings salvation and restoration and recreation. I've got a, sort of an aside scripture I want to read to you.

[21:00] This was costly. How can God become a man? Paul addressed that in Philippians in a sense. As best as someone can describe that act, he did under the inspiration of the Spirit.

[21:17] He says in Philippians 2, 7 and 8, but emptied himself by taking on the form of a slave, by looking like other men, and by sharing in human nature, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

[21:36] You go to John's Gospel and what does he say? The Word was God. And the Word took on flesh. John is trying very hard to explain how God can become man.

[21:50] And he does a good job of it. You have to follow it through. You don't stop because if you go stop, same thing with Paul here. If you stop at one point, you say, oh, he was just a man. But that's not true.

[22:01] He wasn't just a man. He was also God in the flesh. So let's remember that he was foretold to come.

[22:15] Scripture speaks of all the things we needed to know to see the Messiah was coming, that Christ was coming, that he was going to be born in Bethlehem, that he was going to come and he was going to redeem his people, that he was going to bring restoration.

[22:28] He was going to bring the people back to God and God would dwell with them. And when we remember that, we also got to remember not just the first advent, but the second one.

[22:43] And I want to read you this as Matthew 24 and Jesus is talking and he says, Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light and the stars will fall from heaven and the powers of the heaven will be shaken.

[22:59] Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory and he shall send out his angels with a loud trumpet call and they will gather his elect from the four winds from one end of heaven to the other.

[23:24] That's the advent I'm now looking for. I thank God that the first one occurred so that the second one could happen. I pray and I know I pray it happens soon and Jody doesn't want it to happen soon because she wants to enjoy her children and grandchildren.

[23:45] God's going to send him back and gather us all home. We were talking this morning won't it is the mystery the wonder of what that's going to be when we walk on the new earth in his presence and all the things that we don't understand are like Daniel are all going to be explained we'll understand what it was all about and we'll know Cheryl if our pets will be there.

[24:16] Let's pray. Lord I just thank you that you didn't just leave your people wondering what was going to happen how you were going to bring your salvation to your people to the earth and restore all that had been corrupted by sin.

[24:34] but you spoke through the prophets you gave signs you gave your word you told people what you were going to do and how it was going to work that we would have hope and anticipation he says they were looking forward looking forward anticipating what was coming and Lord we too now are sitting in anticipation and hope for what is coming and Lord as your people were told and by Daniel and others that great tribulation was going to come on before the Messiah came we know that before he comes back there's going to be great tribulation for us.

[25:21]  Fortify your people strengthen your church bring your spirit to show us how to stand strong and firm in faith as we wait for you to come back in Jesus name Amen