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Copyright December 11, 2022 by Rev. Bruce Goettsche
Anticipation is one of the joys of life.
As children, you anticipated Christmas or a birthday or summer vacation as a child.
As you got older, it might be the anticipation of a wedding day, the birth of a child or a long-awaited cruise or vacation.
It could even be the anticipation of seeing your wife at the train station.
Hopefully, there will come a point for all of us when we will have that anticipation of seeing our Lord face to face in Heaven.
Whatever you are anticipating, you imagine how things will go and you play it over and over in your head.
Sometimes, the real thing doesn’t measure up to the hype.
A resident of Israel before the time of Christ lived with great anticipation of the coming Messiah.
He would be the One who would rescue them from their subjugation to other nations.
They had been waiting all their lives for the Messiah.
As they waited, God gave hints through prophets and promises of the One who would redeem Israel and through whom all the nations of the world would be blessed.
(Genesis 12).
This morning we will look at some of these “hints.”
It may be helpful to think of redemptive history in three acts: 1) The Promise, 2) The Reality 3) The final Fulfillment.
Act One: The Promise
In the first chapters of the Bible, we read about man’s rebellion against God in the Garden of Eden.
Adam and Eve ignored God’s command and the first spots of sin’s cancer began to grow.
At this time, a promise was given.
We find it in God’s word to the serpent in Genesis 3:15.
And I will cause hostility between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring.
He will strike your head,
and you will strike his heel.
The message was clear, there would be hostility between the lineage of Eve (human beings) and Satan (and the forces of darkness).
God said one of the descendants of Eve would eventually strike the head of the serpent (a devastating wound) but Satan would only be able to land a minor wound on this “offspring.”
Jesus’ death on the cross seemed to be fatal but it was just a glancing blow.
When Jesus rose from the dead He delivered a devastating blow to Satan.
When it came time for Jacob to bless his twelve sons, he said to Judah,
10 The scepter will not depart from Judah,
nor the ruler’s staff from his descendants,
until the coming of the one to whom it belongs,
the one whom all nations will honor.
(Genesis 49:10)
Specifically, God says the Messiah will come from the descendants of Judah.
Throughout the history of Israel, the people waited with anticipation for this one who was to come from the line of Judah.
When there were good times, hopes rose.
When things were difficult, the people held on in the hope the difficulty would pass.
They didn’t understand that in the book of Genesis God was already pointing to Jesus.
When David came on the scene, the people swelled with hope.
It was the pinnacle of the history of Israel.
Even with the flaws we know David had, we are told that he was “a man after God’s own heart.”
His victories in battle reminded people of the various promises made through the years.
Yet, David confessed he was not the Messiah.
Throughout the Psalms He pointed to someone other than Himself.
In Psalm 22 we see a vivid picture of a suffering servant with pictures of the crucifixion of Jesus that are so specific they are uncanny.
In Psalm 23, David talked about the Lord who would lead him through the valley of the shadow of death.
God promised David that one of His descendants would sit on the throne forever and ever.
This was a clear picture of the One whose kingdom would never end; the one who would reign forever and ever as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
When we get to the time of the prophets, we start to get details about the birth of the promised one.
Think about our anticipation of Christmas as children.
In the olden days the old Sears Christmas Catalog would come out you knew Christmas was getting close.
O how fun it was to circle all the things we would like to receive.
Each of these prophecies was like the arrival of the Sears catalog—they reminded the people that the blessing they were waiting for was just around the corner.
In Isaiah 9:6-7 we read the familiar words.
For a child is born to us,
a son is given to us.
The government will rest on his shoulders.
And he will be called:
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 His government and its peace
will never end.
He will rule with fairness and justice from the throne of his ancestor David
for all eternity.
The passionate commitment of the Lordof Heaven’s Armies
will make this happen!
Lofty words.
Who is this one who would be called Mighty God or Everlasting Father?
Those words would have sounded like blasphemy to a true Israelite.
Who could this one be?
In Isaiah 53 we read about the suffering servant.
It is the stirring account, a precursor of the sacrifice of our Savior on our behalf.
The idea of a wounded Messiah, a suffering servant, added more clues to who the Messiah would be but . . . it must have been very confusing to the Israelites; a mistery.
The pieces certainly did not seem to fit.
A powerful King and a suffering servant.
As we look at Jesus from our perspective we can see how these texts complement each other
In Jeremiah 33:14-17 (at a particularly low period in Israel’s history) God said through the prophet,
14 “The day will come, says the Lord, when I will do for Israel and Judah all the good things I have promised them.
15 “In those days and at that time
I will raise up a righteous descendant from King David’s line.
He will do what is just and right throughout the land.
16 In that day Judah will be saved,
and Jerusalem will live in safety.
And this will be its name:
‘The Lord Is Our Righteousness.’
17 For this is what the Lordsays: David will have a descendant sitting on the throne of Israel forever.
These prophecies show how important it was to show that Jesus was the son of David.
The genealogies in Matthew and Luke are there to show that Jesus fulfills these prophecies.
In the book of Daniel 7:13-14 there is another spectacular picture.
13 As my vision continued that night, I saw someone like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven.
He approached the Ancient One and was led into his presence.
14 He was given authority, honor, and sovereignty over all the nations of the world, so that people of every race and nation and language would obey him.
His rule is eternal—it will never end.
His kingdom will never be destroyed.
This is a bold picture of the triumphant One sent by God.
Jesus often referred to Himself as the “Son of Man.”
We read this and think He was affirming His humanity.
But he was not referring to himself as a human, he was referring to himself as the fulfillment of this passage in Daniel.
When people understood this they charged Him with blasphemy.
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