A Light has Dawned
Notes
Transcript
What does God want them to know? Hope has come, God reverses all things
Why? It brings hope
What does God want them to do? Believe
Why? it brings hope
ME
What my kids want for Christmas this year brings me back to my childhood of what I wanted for Christmas, because they are similar....one of the top things I wanted
This came out in my conversation with Ben yesterday
Anybody want to guess what was for me and is for them?
NINTENDO GAMES
What I wanted and what they want is Nintendo games for their Nintendo Switch, mine was for the Orginal, NES the Classis the games system that came out in the 80’s anyone have one of these?
A lot has evolved over the last 30 years
I will mention a couple of things
Video Graphics have increased from 8-bit to 1080HD
Sound has increased from computerized to a actual music
From a game system that you prayed worked and would not freeze up
Now most games run flawlessly
2 1/2 foot cord that had to be connected to wirerless
lastly this a HUGE difference that should not have changed....current video games are almost all beatable…on average it takes about 10-15 hours to be the video game
But in the original video games, they were hard. Mike Tyson’s punch out, Mario was hard
Not only were they HARD some games make the list of being called unbeatable
....you never heard of anyone beating them. Me and my friends own several of them. We owned several of the top ten
The game I want to talk about that me and my friends try to be for years is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turles…We try and try for hours and hours and hours.....READ BOOKS on how to beat the game to no avail.
We never got to mission 3 of six...
The game revovles are around the you the Turtle battling various enemies, including foot soldiers, mousers, bugs and all kinds of crazy stuff.
Here is the good news if a turtle runs out of health in the beginning part of the game, gets caught in a trap or run over by an enemy vehicle, the character isn't actually dead, but rather captured and can then be rescued starting in Mission 3.
The bad news! The problem here is that I never knew anyone who reached Mission 3. Why is that? Because Mission 2 is IMPOSSIBLE TO BEAT
At the end of Mission 2, players have to disarm eight bombs attached to the Hudson River dam in less than 2 minutes 20 seconds while dodging electric eels and currents. A player only gets one attempt at this. If all eight bombs aren't disarmed by the time the clock runs out, the game abrubtly ends and returns you to the start screen, the beginning of the game....the hours you spent getting to the end of Mission 2 are lost and your return to the beginning! (there is not save button)
The writer continues, According to many sources, there are a total of six missions in the game with the final battle between Shredder and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. That sounds cool, but it’s mythical to me.
Personally I find it hard to believe as I have never met anyone or heard of anyone getting past the Mission 2. As far as I know, Mission 3 in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is as real as Big Foot, Flying Saucers, and The Loch Ness Monster.
TENSION
Why do I bring this up? What does unbeatable NES games have to do with Jesus?
I believe this describes in a similar way, not identical way, this describes our relationship with God outside of Jesus.
We try and try and try to follow JESUS
Some days we do good
Some days we do good for a couple of days and then boom it feels like we are starting all over again.
Anybody been there?
IT THIS STRUGGLE, DEFEATING STRUGGLING THAT WE WRESTLE WITH TODAY OUTSIDE OF JESUS AND WHAT THE NATION STRUGGLE WITH FOR CENTURIES
TRY AND TRY AND TRY.....FAIL, FAIL, FAIL
so what do they do?
THEN WHAT THEY THOUGHT AND WE HAVE THOUGHT AT TIMES....WHAT WE NEED IS SOMEONE ELSE TO HELP US BEAT THE MISSION....(I need someone else to help me beat the game, I need a book or a person)
WHAT WE NEED IS A prophets, kings, judges, scribes, the WORD of God
A Moses, a David, a Esther
with the hope and anticipation and longing that this will be the one, this will be the thing that gets us past Mission 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
MOSES AND DAVID AND DANIEL AND ESTHER COME AND THEY SHOOT ISRAEL FURTHER AHEAD BUT THEY TOO ARE HUMAN AND CANNOT TAKE THE NATION OF ISRAEL TO WHERE THEY NEED TO GO.
WHAT DO THEY DO NOW??? THEY COULND’T DEFEAT THE POWERS OF DARKNESS, THEY COULDN’T ACHIEVE VICTORY, NOR COULD THEY HEROS OF THE FAITH…the....then when many of us have done and what Israel has done....WE LOSE HOPE AND GIVE UP AND GO AFTER OTHER THINGS, GODS, IDOLS…we they walk away from the Lord, God made promises that good things would not happen to them, there would be blessings if they followed God and curses if they walked away from God.
We see this happen 700 years before the birth of Jesus
No only is their hope lost they have been in captivity to Assyrian
Have we not done this?
God is not working for me in my timeline so I am going to do my own thing
For the Lord spoke thus to me with his strong hand upon me, and warned me not to walk in the way of this people, saying:
“Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread.
But the Lord of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.
And he will become a sanctuary and a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel, a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
GOD SAYS TO ISAIAH DON’T DO AS THEY DO…don’t follow the nation of Israel....look what the nation of Israel does?
And when they say to you, “Inquire of the mediums and the necromancers who chirp and mutter,” should not a people inquire of their God? Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living?
To the teaching and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn.
They will pass through the land, greatly distressed and hungry. And when they are hungry, they will be enraged and will speak contemptuously against their king and their God, and turn their faces upward.
And they will look to the earth, but behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish. And they will be thrust into thick darkness.
God say to the nation of Israel you want to walk in the ways of darkness, I will let you, it will result in more and more darkness
In the days of Pekah king of Israel, Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria came and captured Ijon, Abel-beth-maacah, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and he carried the people captive to Assyria.
God’s Word is true....you follow the ways of the World DARKNESS will come....DARKNESS CAME THEY WERE CAPTIVE
SHOW PICTURE: BABYLONIANS, PERSIANS, ROME
Some of us will say…that’s bad news for Israel but that’s not me…I have never acted like them
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins
in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—
among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
GOD SAYS WE ARE JUST LIKE ISRAEL…We are children of wrath
We cannot get there one our own
The prophets cannot take us there
but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
THIS IS A HORRIBLE SITUATION WE ARE ALL IN....THAT NONE OF US CAN GET OURSELVES OUT OF AND WHAT MAKES MATTERS WORSE IS OUR FLESH....WANTS THE THINGS NOT OF GOD
WHAT DOES GOD DO IN THIS SITUATION WITH US???? DOES HE SAY OH WELL, THAT’S THAT? HUMANS KEEP TRYING
NO
GOD SENDS US A GREATER better David who will slay our biggest Goliath of SIN, DEATH, and SHAME....a Greater Moses who will lead us into the promiseland, a Esther than not only stand up to the King but becomes the greaterest King,
GOD’S HEART IS NOT…OH WELL THEY CAN’T MAKE BUT INSTEAD I AM GOING TO HELP THEM
How? leads read the prophetic words of Isaiah
But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.
ISAIAH, GIVES A PROPHECY…THERE IS GLOOM NOW IN ZEBULUN AND NAPHTALI, BUT THAT IS NOT HER FINAL STORY…IT IS THE STORY NOW....GLOOM AND DOOM IS HER NAME BUT IT IS GOING TO CHANGE.
He continues a prophetic word....GLOOM TO GLORY
DARKNESS TO LIGHT
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.
Isaiah prophesizes thought these people are walking in darkness a GREAT light is going to come upon them....they were going one way but a light so GREAT is going to come that the darkness is going to be gone.
SADNESS TO JOY
You have multiplied the nation; you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as they are glad when they divide the spoil.
God is turning their mourning into dancing
Harvest
Divided the spoil
But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift.
And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers,
DEFEAT TO VICTORY
OPPRESSION TO FREEDOM
For the yoke of his burden, and the staff for his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian.
For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire.
God defeated Midianties an army of 135,000 by 300 Israelites in a supernatural way
God is saying to them you were living in defeat with your land occupied....Babylonians, Persians, Rome,
this is not the way it is going to stay
God is saying I am going to reverse your
GLOOM TO GLORY
DARKNESS TO LIGHT
SADNESS TO JOY
DEFEAT TO VICTORY
OPPRESSION TO FREEDOM
How? Verse 6-7
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.
a child???
see what I said don’t overlook the young
What do we read
Now when he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee.
And leaving Nazareth he went and lived in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali,
so that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:
“The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—
the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.”
From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
What so crazy is Jesus ministry starts with the Northern tribes of Israel, not in Jerusalem, this place was full of the nations, the whole.
and not only is going to save them....He is going to be there KING
WHAT TYPE OF GOVERNING KING IS JESUS?
WONDERFUL COUNSELOR (WISE)
MIGHTY GOD (STRONG)
EVERLASTING FATHER (CARING)
PRINCE OF PEACE (SHALOM)
What God is saying to each one of us
GLOOM TO GLORY
DARKNESS TO LIGHT
SADNESS TO JOY
DEFEAT TO VICTORY
OPPRESSION TO FREEDOM
and i am a king who
WHAT TYPE OF GOVERNING KING IS JESUS?
WONDERFUL COUNSELOR (WISE)
MIGHTY GOD (STRONG)
EVERLASTING FATHER (CARING)
PRINCE OF PEACE (SHALOM)
....you cannot earn your way to God, but HE can...
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins
in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—
among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,
even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,
not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.