Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro – With all the hustle and bustle going on right now as you start to getting ready for Christmas, I believe we need to be reminded why Christmas is a good idea.

Without Christmas…

• The candied fruit market would completely collapse!

• Our boring, uneventful lives would have no stress at all!

• Eggnog would just be a slimy, high cholesterol beverage.

• Santa would be a strange fat man with very poor fashion sense!

• These 3 words would be — “No Christmas bonus!”

• You’d have to spend your own money buying stuff that doesn’t fit.

• We would never wonder if reindeer really know how to fly.

• Your cat would never know the joy of coughing up tinsel!

• And the number one reason—without Christmas, there could be no Easter!

Well Christmas was / is a good idea!

One God the Father planned before the foundation of the world – God knew before He created the world that man would sin and become separated from Him and need a Savior – One who would come and redeem man – One who would come and pay the price for his sin, provide the needed forgiveness, and reconcile him to God and make him a new creation.

And what a glorious night it was when Jesus, the Son of God entered into this sin devastated world - was born through the virgin Mary and laid in a manger in swaddling clothes in Bethlehem!

God’s divine plan was finally entering the Advent Phase - The Messiah, the long awaited One – the long Promised One - had finally arrived.

Throughout the OT we find Messianic prophesies about the coming Messiah.

And what we see from the beginning in these Messianic prophecies a progressive unfolding of the nature and person of the Messiah.

What this means is that each prophecy casts more light on the subject.

This occurs, for example, regarding the concept of the “seed”: Genesis 3:15 is the 1st Messianic prophecy:

Genesis 3:15 (NASB95)

And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.”

Later God says in Genesis 22:18 to Abraham:

The idea of the Messiah being crushed for sin is implicit in the Genesis pronouncement in Genesis 3:15 as is the violence associated with that act.

But It was the prophet Isaiah who gives dramatically the graphic elaboration to this fact in Isaiah 53:5: 5 But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed.

Deuteronomy 18:15 tells us:

Then during the reign of King David God said to David through Nathan the prophet in 2 Samuel 7:8-16

And thus for centuries the Jewish people looked for their Messianic King who would come.

Gabriel’s words to Mary in Luke 1:31-33 confirmed this coming:

And the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel spoke of His coming:

· Isaiah 11:1-2:

· Jeremiah 23:5-6:

· Ezekiel 34:23-24:

Isaiah further revealed:

· in Isaiah 7:14:

· And in Isaiah 9:6-7:

And the prophet Micah prophesied in Micah 5:2-5:

And on that Glorious Night it happened…and the angels declared it.

And the shepherds came and witnessed it!

Today we once again celebrate that Glorious Night!