There are always questions people have about biblical situations that cause many to stumble because they don’t realize there really are answers to those questions. For example, why did the Pharisees and Sadducees get it wrong concerning Jesus who claimed to be the Christ, the Son of God? (Yes, He really did say that. Read the Book of John and other passages.) These were the Hebrews who knew more about the Old Testament scriptures than anyone else in the world. They did not realize that the prophecies they were counting on to be the primary markers of the Messiah who was to come were describing a different time period. They were looking at the prophecies of the Second Coming of Christ; whereas, the prophets who had told of that glorious time when the Messiah would take over the government of the world were the same prophets who had told of His first coming, when He would die for the sins of the whole world. (See Isaiah 53.) That was not an attractive event to anticipate and support, so they refused to accept it. They expected the Messiah to overthrow the Roman government and set up His everlasting kingdom over the entire world in Jerusalem.
If they had only paid attention to one specific verse recorded in the ninth chapter of the prophet Daniel, they would have been able to calculate the exact day the Messiah would make His triumphant entry into Jerusalem, the day we now call Palm Sunday, when people would welcome Him as the King who had been promised! However, the scripture in Daniel says He then would be “cut off,” or slain. (See Daniel 9:1,2,24-26). People have even wondered why John the Baptist began to doubt who Jesus was, after proclaiming that He was the “Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29) He was under the same misconception as the Pharisees, that the Messiah would set up His kingdom right then and there. Since Jesus was not letting the people make Him king, everyone was beginning to disbelieve that He was God’s Son, sent to save His people from their sins. When he explained to His disciples how He would be rejected and killed by His own people, yet rise again, Peter rebuked Him: “Be it far from Thee, Lord: this shall not be unto Thee,” to which Christ replied, “Get thee behind Me, Satan!”
Leading up to our commemoration of the first coming of the Messiah, which we call Christmas, here are a few prophecies of the many that were fulfilled then:
Genesis 3:15, the first promise of a Saviour which God would send to save lost humanity, when God speaks to the serpent: “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shall bruise His heel.”
Born of a virgin, Isaiah 7:14, “Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign; behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel [meaning God with us].”
Born in Bethlehem, Micah 5:2, “But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall He come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.”
Praise God for sending Christ and giving us Christmas!
People get ready, Jesus is coming soon!
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