The End of the World

Isaiah Chapter 9 is where we will be today, but it will take us a little while to get there if you want to go ahead and open your bibles there, just to have it in front of you.

Introduction

Well we made it. Here we are, coming into the last month of what has been one wild year. Back in the beginning of the year, we started off with Australia burning to the ground with crazy wild fires. For some reason, this feels like it was much much longer than 11 months ago doesn’t it? But we’ve made it into the final stretch of the year.

This brings us to the Advent season. If you aren’t familiar with the Advent season, here is a simple definition of what we mean when we say the advent season. It is a time on the church calendar, generally the 4 weeks leading up to Christmas, where the church waits. We wait. We stop all the business of the world, and we pause to anticipate and prepare for the Lords coming.

We are people who are wired to always be anticipating what comes next. From the earliest of ages, we are always looking for what comes next.

4 weeks off work

We have seen the world nearly turned upside down by an invisible virus.

Here is my hope for us today and in this advent season. I want us to be able to drop an anchor. In a world that has gone mad, I want us to be able to have a sure footing. In the midst of all the world says the Christmas season is about, I want us to be able to not get swept away and rather to have our anticipation and our waiting redeemed.

Tracing the Promise

So lets go. Some of us grew up believing that the advent story begins with Mary and Joseph traveling down to Bethlehem on a donkey, finding no room in the inn and thus having to deliver a child amongst the barn animals. But that isnt where the advent story begins. As a matter of fact, the advent story begins in a Garden.

First mention of the promise

When God created the world, all things were just as they should be. Creation functioned in perfect order according to God’s beautiful design. Man walked in unbroken relationship with God, fully known and unafraid. But in an instant, all that changed as Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s good instruction. They took of the fruit and ate, and sin entered the world. Fellowship broken. Peace shattered. Creation thrown into chaos. Darkness, depravity, fear, shame, and selfishness flooded the human heart, separating man from God. The situation was dire.

But right then, amid the darkness, God spoke a word of hope: a Savior would come, born of a woman, to defeat the enemy and deliver God’s people.

Genesis 3:15 ESV

15 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.”

Scholars refer to Genesis 3:15 as the proto euangelion or the “first gospel.” From the first moment of our need for rescue, God’s promise was there. Before He addressed Adam and Eve, God turned to the serpent and announced that sin would not have the final say and that the schemes of the enemy would not prevail.

The promise is for all people

So the promise is first given at the moment the world is cursed. Before cursing Adam and Eve, we see that God actually had a promise to destroy the evil one. Notice, that there is in that verse, no promise of redemption, no promise of the cross, no promise that we as fallen humans will be made right with God. There is no promise that we will be blessed by God, until we get to Abraham.

Genesis 12:3 ESV

3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

Now we see that God elaborates on the original promise given.

God is working on our behalf.

The sign of the promise

Isaiah 7:14–15 ESV

14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. 15 He shall eat curds and honey when he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good.

Talk about translation of the word Virgin.

Savior will be familiar with poverty.

Born in Bethlehem, raised in Nazareth.

The promise of God

Isaiah 9:1-7

For the first time, we find that the promise will be God himself.

Historic reference. Galilee in the North part of Israel.

The accomplishment of the promise

How is he going to do it?

Isaiah 53

He will give us a righteousness that is not our own.

The promise fulfilled

Matthew 1:21 ESV

21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

Application of the promise

We are powerless to crush the evil one

Blessing our families turns bad- we cant change hearts

Ability to eradicate evilness

unable to satisfy our souls