The Preparation For Christ's Coming - Part 2

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Friday, December 17th. The Old Testament isn't just a record of Israel's past. It also speaks of the future. Today, you'll get a glimpse of the countless details God arranged and revealed in preparation for Christ's coming. Mary and Joseph coming from Nazareth down to Bethlehem, and the angels were there, and a few things like that.

But when Paul said in the fullness of time, the Apostle Paul understood this infinite preparation that God the Father had made in arranging for this very special night, which you and I call Christmas night. So as you and I look at this preparation, I want you to see several things, one of which is God's great providential hand in guiding, in controlling the affairs of men in order to bring about this very special time, which ultimately changed the course of human history and which has changed the destiny of all of us who are believers. Well, that preparation first began, if you will, with the prophets. And if you'll think about all the prophecies in the Old Testament concerning the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, most of the study Bibles have a list of all those prophecies and the fulfillment.

But I want us to think about those prophecies for just a moment. First of all, those prophecies usually came in one of two ways, either as a result of a proclamation of one of God's chosen servants whom we call prophets in the Old Testament and the New Testament. And usually they would proclaim some message from God. For example, Isaiah being one of them, Micah, Zechariah, there are many of them, but probably one of the most frequently mentioned of all is the one in Isaiah when he said, Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign.

Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she shall call his name Immanuel. We know that is a word of prophecy concerning the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, the Old Testament is full of those.

So oftentimes it was a word of proclamation, a word of prophecy. But secondly, God gave those prophecies through symbols, one of which the most pronounced one is the symbol of a lamb. All through the Old Testament, the shedding of the blood of the lamb was a symbol of the coming of the Messiah. And you recall in the very first book of the Bible with the very first family after they had sinned, the Bible says that God covered them with skins. And the implication is the death of an animal, the shedding of blood, the very beginning prophecy of the Messiah.

And throughout all the Old Testament, the shedding of the blood without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins. God has set forth the lamb as his picture, his picture of prophecy of the coming of the Messiah. Now, the question is, why did God give those prophecies to begin with? Why didn't he? Just when his time was right and he knew what his time schedule was, why didn't Jesus Christ just come upon the scene?

Let that be it. Well, one of the reasons is that God in the very beginning began to give man hope of a new life, of a new beginning, of a new relationship, and he called him the Messiah. So God gave man that hope. When did that hope begin? Well, somebody says, well, it must have began with the Old Testament prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah. The real truth is that that hope began in the first book of the Bible with the first family in chapter 3 when God himself said to Satan, Satan, you will bruise his heel, that is, the heel of the one who would come through the woman.

And he says, but he will bruise your head. That is, you will be ultimately destroyed and ultimately conquered. And it's interesting the way God said this. He says, I will put enmity between you and the woman, now look at this, and between your seed and her seed.

Women don't have seed, just a little implication of the virgin birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. God gave those prophecies as words of hope. He also gave them because they're given so accurately, so precisely, beginning even with the first family.

He gave them an order that when the Messiah came, there would be a way of identifying him as the Messiah, rather than for the people to be fooled into believing that many of those who came by as teachers and so-called messiahs, they would follow him. So he gave those prophecies as a means of identifying the true prophet. And that's why all of these prophecies are so meticulously fulfilled, every single one of them. It's interesting also when you look at these prophecies how God divinely protected them, for example. There is one incident that happened in the Old Testament where it appeared almost as if God's whole plan for redeeming mankind and his whole prophecy of a coming Messiah will all go down the drain. When God sent the flood, every single family on the face of the earth was destroyed except Noah's family, and he saved the messianic genealogical line through one of those sons. Then, for example, you go all through the Old Testament and once in a while you'll find Satan working in such a fashion as if to destroy God's great plan. But as you look at these prophecies and you see how God protected them all through the Old Testament, it is a witness of God's sovereign control of the affairs of men and in the universe and how meticulously God works to fulfill every dot and every cross, every T of every single prophecy he has given to us.

Listen to what the Bible says in Luke chapter 2. In order to register along with Mary who was engaged to him and was with child. And it came about that while they were there, the days were completed for her to give birth.

And she gave birth to her firstborn son and she wrapped him in cloths and laid him in the manger because there was no room for them in the inn. And in the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night, and an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were terribly frightened. And the angel said to them, Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which shall be for all the people. For today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior who is Christ, Messiah, the Lord.

And this will be a sign for you, you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly hosts praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased. Now, Caesar Augustus thought he made the decision. You know who made the decision? God the Father made the decision. Listen, from eternity past, God the Father decreed whoever that Roman emperor was and God knew who he would be. He would on a certain day make a decree.

That decree would affect a man and woman, a woman who was already pregnant with a child. That decree would also affect wise men who were coming from the east following the star, having been students of the students of Daniel. So that on a given time, God so decreed through this Roman Caesar that Mary and Joseph would end up on the night of the birth of Jesus Christ, not in their home of Nazareth, but in Bethlehem. Those wise men following the star wouldn't go to Nazareth. They'd go to Bethlehem. The angel of the Lord announced the presence of the Messiah.

Listen to what he said. The angel said, For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a savior who is Christ the Lord. Listen, Christ the Lord, who is Christ Christos, the Messiah, the Lord.

When you look at how God managed and moved men, nations, civilizations and even the heavens to bring about at a given time the birth of our savior. I want to tell you, my friend, if you reject the Lord Jesus Christ, who is man's only hope of salvation. You remember this, that Almighty God in eternity past meticulously protected every single prophecy moved men, nations, civilizations and even the heavens to bring about the perfection of the birth of his only begotten son.

To reject his son is the sin above all sins man can possibly commit. And listen to what he says back now to Galatians Chapter four. Paul has said all of that to say in the fullness of the time that God decreed before the foundation of the world that his Messiah, our savior, our Lord would be born.

Here's what he says. But when the fullness of the time came, here's what God did. God sent forth not an angel, but his only begotten son, John 3 16 God sent forth his only begotten son, born of a woman, virgin born of Mary, born under the law that is under the Jewish law Jesus was born. But listen, in order that that is, listen to this, God arranged all of these affairs from the very beginning of time and even beyond the beginning of time, God arranged all of these affairs, moving nations, people, civilizations and stars in order to do what? Listen to this in order that he might redeem you and me who were under the law, that he might save us from the legalism and the futility of attempting to keep the law, saving us from enslavement to sin. And he says that you and I might receive the adoption of sons that you and I will no longer be, as he says in Ephesians, aliens, foreigners, strangers to the commonwealth of God's divine eternity. But he says, having done what? Having so redeemed us that we have now become the sons and daughters of the living God.

And listen to what he says. Therefore, you are no longer a slave, but a son. And if a son, then an heir of God. Two things I want you to notice in the book of Ephesians.

Look there, if you will. In Ephesians chapter one, he says in verse 13, in Christ, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed you were sealed in him with the Holy Spirit of promise. That's what he's referring to when he says, listen, because you are now sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into our hearts, crying, Father, Father. Not only that, but back, if you will, to verse 11. Also, we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestinated according to his great purpose, who works all things after the counsel of his will.

You think about this. This is how much God loves you and me, that out yonder in eternity past, God moved men, nations, civilizations and heavens in order to bring about what? To bring about the birth of his only begotten son. And when the Lord Jesus Christ was born, redemption for mankind was born. You and I have now been adopted into the kingdom of God, but as many as received him to them gave he the power to become what?

The sons and daughters of the living God. And he says, not only that, having become the sons and daughters of the living God, we now have become joint heirs of God's great inheritance, which he has provided for his son so that everything God has been working down to the centuries and eternity past is in order to make you and me the sons of the living God and that we might enjoy the inheritance of God in order that Ephesians chapter two, he says, in the future days that all of the angels will bow down in praise and glory and honor to God the Father as they see and witness us as the trophies of God's grace, as witness and testimony of God's great, glorious grace manifested to sinners when the day he saved us through the blood of his only begotten son. Everything in history and the Bible says God loves sinners and is willing to save them just the way they are.

That's what Christmas is all about. So I want to go back to my warning. My friend, if you reject him, I don't care what your excuse is. If you deny him the right to save you and become the Lord of your life, you say, well, no, it doesn't make any difference what your excuse is. I want you to think about what you just heard from eternity past. God has been arranging affairs in order that one day his son might be nailed to the old rugged cross, that his wonderful shed blood would atone for your sin and my sin. And my friend, the same God who made all of those prophecies and arranged the affairs of men is the same God who is in the process, this very moment of fulfilling every single New Testament prophecy. That same sovereign God is the one who is going to see to it that every single word of prophecy concerning his second coming is going to be exactly like he said. And in his second coming, I want to tell you, my friend, if the Lord Jesus Christ comes and you have not received him as your savior, that's it. Pity the man who has been so blinded and deceived by Satan as to think, well, somehow God's going to accept me anyway.

No, he's not. You stand in the judgment of God and God amasses this great host of eternal information. Of what God listen, of what Almighty God did to personally save you from your sins. Every gospel track you've ever read, every time you picked up the Bible, every time you felt something in your heart pulling you toward God and you said no. What you're rejecting, my friend, you are rejecting, listen, the infinite love of Almighty God. You are rejecting the infinite power of Almighty God to forgive you of your sins. I hate to have to tell you this, but to be true to God, I must. You're going to die and go to hell and you'll be there not because God put you there. You'll be there because you chose your plan over God's plan, your way over God's way. You've said no to the blood of Jesus, no to the plan of God, no to his great redemptive plan. You said, I'll do it my way.

And you think you're getting by with it. I want to tell you, my friend, you're not. There's only one hope, your only hope of resurrection unto life and you're going to die. And your only hope of resurrection unto life is not doing good, not taking the Lord's Supper, not going through catechism, not doing good works, not giving money, not anything, but humbling yourself before the cross of Jesus Christ and acknowledging our blessed Savior as your only hope of salvation and the dropping of his blood as drops of grief and drops of forgiveness that will cleanse you forever and ever and ever and fit you for the kingdom of God. To reject that, my friend, is to reject all hope of life beyond this one. And I want to challenge you and plead with you in Jesus' name. Will you not right here and now say, Lord Jesus, I've sinned against you. God, I've wanted my way.

I've had my own plans. And I recognize the truth. When I stand before you, I have no excuse. Lord Jesus, I trust you as my Savior, my Lord in my life. I yield my life to you. I'm accepting your death as full payment for my sin.

Oh, you can pray it any way you want to, as long as there is confession and repentance turning from your sin, as long as there is the acceptance of the person of Jesus Christ as your only forgiveness for sin. I'm going to tell you, my friend, there is only one hope. God says there is only one. Jesus the Messiah says there's only one. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me. My friend, to reject him is to reject God. Listen, He gave it all when He gave him.

And unless you receive Him, you lose it all. Thank you for listening to Part 2 of The Preparation for Christ's Coming. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.