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Go to ptv.org to order your copy. Did the arrival of the King of Kings take place in some remote part of the world without any prior warning? If so, how could the Jews or even the Romans be blamed for missing His arrival? The truth is the gift of Jesus Christ came wrapped in hundreds of years of prophecy. Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor, Dr. Robert Jeffress. This Christmas season, more than likely you'll revisit the famous narrative of the birth of Christ in Luke chapter 2. But you know, the Christmas story didn't really begin in Bethlehem.
It began thousands of years before Jesus was even born. Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress looks at the birth and life of Jesus through the lens of Old Testament prophecy. Now here's our Bible teacher to introduce today's message.
Dr. Jeffress? Thanks, David, and welcome to this Tuesday edition of Pathway to Victory. Today is December 12, and it's less than two weeks till Christmas Day.
By now, I hope you've taken advantage of the matching challenge opportunity. Remember, every gift that Pathway to Victory receives before midnight, December 31 will have twice the impact until we reach the goal of $500,000. These funds will be deployed in 2024 to continue and to expand the impact of Pathway to Victory around the world. You might be able to give a gift of $100 or $200. Perhaps God is moving you to give even more. Whatever the amount, it will be matched and therefore doubled in impact. We've made tremendous strides this past year, seizing new opportunities to bring this radio program to more stations in America and in other parts of the world.
This includes new releases in large cities like Los Angeles, New York City, and Portland. In fact, we've even received an invitation to broadcast Pathway to Victory into several prisons in the state of Texas. You can become part of this movement of God by giving a special year-end gift today. Now, when you do, we'll be pleased to send you the brand new 2024 Pathway to Victory daily devotional to your home. In addition to the devotional, I'll also include a copy of Jesus, The Fulfillment of God's Prophecies. It's a multi-folded brochure designed and published right here at Pathway to Victory.
More information is coming ahead, but right now, let's get started with today's study from Luke chapter 24. I titled today's message Christmas on the Road. Some years ago, when Queen Elizabeth made a visit to our country, reporters relished telling all of the details, the logistics of her visit to our country. Her visit was accompanied by 4,000 pounds of luggage. She had two outfits for every day, including a funeral outfit in case somebody kicked the bucket while she was here. She brought with her 40 pints of plasma in case she needed an operation. She had her own hairdresser and other attendants.
A brief visit of royalty to a foreign country ended up costing more than $20 million. Now, contrast that to when the King of Kings decided to visit our planet. He came with no luggage.
He had no attendants. His arrival took place in an animal shelter. There was no room for him, so they actually placed him in a feeding trough. Philip Yancey points out that the event that divides history and still our calendars probably had more animal witnesses than human witnesses to it.
But is that really true? Did the arrival of the King of Kings take place in some remote part of the world without any prior warning? If so, how could the Jews or even the Romans be blamed for missing his arrival? The truth is the gift of Jesus Christ came wrapped in hundreds of years of prophecy.
And there were all kind of signposts in the Old Testament that should have pointed everyone to that feeding trough in Bethlehem. That's the truth that we're going to see in our passage today. To have your Bibles, I want you to turn to the Gospel of Luke. And I want you to turn to chapter... Now, you think I'm going to say it too, don't you?
I'm not. We're going to turn to the last chapter of Luke, Luke chapter 24. Luke chapter 24. Now, this story takes place late on a Sunday afternoon, but it wasn't just any Sunday afternoon. It was the Sunday of Christ's resurrection. He had been raised from the dead early that morning, now it was late afternoon. And there were two travelers, two disciples of Christ who were on their way from Jerusalem back to their hometown called Emmaus.
This hadn't been any weekend. It had been the weekend of the Passover. Hundreds of thousands of Jews had been in Jerusalem, but this wasn't any Passover. This was when the man who claimed to be the Messiah was arrested, was crucified, and was buried.
That's the background for what takes place here. Now, look at verse 13 of Luke 24. And behold, two of them were going that very day to a village named Emmaus, which was about seven miles from Jerusalem, about a two-hour walk. And they were conversing with each other about all of the things that had taken place.
What things? Well, the things about the one they had been following, Jesus, about how he was unfairly arrested, went through the six mock trials, how he was crucified, and then laid to rest in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. And it came about that while they were conversing and discussing, Jesus himself approached and began traveling with them. But their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. Why didn't they recognize Jesus?
Luke doesn't tell us. We know they weren't expecting to see him, as we'll discover in just a moment. Have you ever been in a place where you saw somebody that you should have known, somebody very familiar to you, but you didn't recognize them because they weren't in the place you thought they should be?
Maybe you're traveling in a foreign city and you see somebody, a neighbor, a friend, or even a family member. It takes your mind a while to recognize this is the person. They're just in a different location. Maybe that's what it was. They didn't expect to see Jesus. Maybe God had miraculously shut their eyes for a period of time. We don't know, but they didn't recognize Jesus, at least immediately. And so Jesus said to them, What are these words that you are exchanging with one another as you are walking?
And they stood still, looking sad. And one of them, named Cleopas, answered and said to him, Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem and unaware of the things which have happened here in these days? And he said to them, What things? And they said to him, The thing about Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word in the sight of God and all the people, and how the chief priest and our rulers delivered him up to the sentence of death and crucified him. But we were hoping that it was he who was going to redeem Israel.
Indeed, besides all of this, it is the third day since these things happened. But also some women among us amazed us. When they were at the tomb early in the morning and did not find his body, they came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. And some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just exactly as the women also had said. But him they did not see. And Jesus said to them, O foolish men, slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken.
Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into his glory? And beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, he explained to them the things concerning himself in all the scriptures. I want us to focus for a few minutes today on that verse, verse 27. Beginning with Moses and all the prophets, Jesus explained to them the things about himself.
What was he saying? Jesus was saying you cannot turn a page of the Old Testament without finding something about the birth, the ministry, the death, the resurrection, or the return of Jesus Christ. And so this unrecognized Jesus spent two hours in the Old Testament showing what the Old Testament revealed about the coming of Jesus Christ. Today I'd like for us to take just a few moments and look at some of those verses Jesus might have explained to them about himself that came from the Old Testament. What does the Old Testament tell us about Jesus Christ?
First of all, it gives us the prediction of his birth. When Jesus said that Moses testified of Christ, what is he referring to? Well, Moses wrote the first five books of the Old Testament.
He could have turned to Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. But I imagine Jesus started at the beginning, the very first mention of Jesus in the Old Testament, and it's found in Genesis chapter 3. Turn to Genesis chapter 3, verse 15. Remember, Moses wrote Genesis.
This is the first mention of Christ in the Old Testament. Now, the setting of Genesis 3 is the fall of man. Adam and Eve had disobeyed God, and because of that, God was pronouncing judgment upon them. He said to Adam, because of your sin, you're going to have to work harder than you ever imagined. Then he turned to Eve and he said, because of your sin, there will be pain that is associated with childbirth. And then he turns to the serpent, who had lured Adam and Eve into temptation. And he spoke not only to the serpent, but to the power behind the serpent, Satan himself.
And I want you to notice what he predicted. And I will put enmity between you and the woman. But then he goes beyond that and says, I'll also put strife between your seed. He's talking there about the power behind the serpent, Satan, and her seed, that is, her descendants. And he singles out one of the woman's descendants especially. He said, he, that is, a descendant of the woman, shall bruise you on the head.
That is, he'll deliver a death blow to you, but you shall only bruise him on the heel. This is the first prediction of Jesus Christ. A descendant of this woman would conquer the power of Satan. That is the first mention. We call it, in theology, the proto evangelon. Proto meaning first, evangelon, the good news, the gospel, that evil would not prevail. That's the first thing I think Jesus pointed out. Not only that, the Old Testament predicts that this Messiah would be born to a virgin. Turn in your Bibles to Isaiah chapter seven. Probably no other Old Testament book has more to say about the life, the ministry, the death of the Messiah than Isaiah the prophet. Now remember, Isaiah was written 700 years before the coming of Christ. And when we come to Isaiah 7, 14, we come to perhaps the most familiar Old Testament prediction about the birth of Jesus Christ. Now, the setting for Isaiah seven is key to understanding this prophecy.
So I want you to stay with me on this, okay? Remember when Isaiah wrote in 700 BC, the nation of Israel had had a civil war 200 years before in 922 BC. A civil war, and in that civil war, the nation of Israel was divided into two parts, the north and the south. The northern kingdom was the larger portion.
It retained 10 of the 12 tribes. And because it was the larger, more powerful portion of the country, it retained the name of Israel. Israel referred to the northern kingdom after 922 BC. Sometimes it went by the name of Ephraim, one of the 10 tribes, but that was Israel in the north. The southern kingdom was called Judah, which was one of the two tribes in the southern portion of the kingdom. So you had Israel or Ephraim in the north, and you had Judah in the south.
That'll help you understand when you read the Old Testament, the two parts of Israel, the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom. Now, Isaiah was a prophet to the southern kingdom. And one of the kings of Judah, the southern kingdom, was named Ahaz. Ahaz heard a rumor that the king of the northern kingdom was making an alliance with the king of Syria, also known as Aram back then, and together they were going to defeat the south king Ahaz. And as you can imagine, Ahaz was very troubled about hearing about this alliance. Isaiah comes to him and says, Ahaz, don't worry about it.
God is going to destroy both of those kingdoms, the northern kingdom and Syria, and you don't have to worry about them allying against you. And look at Isaiah 7, 14. Isaiah said God's going to give you a sign that in fact he's going to do that. And what is the sign? It's found in Isaiah 7, 14.
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign, Ahaz. Behold, a virgin will be with a child and will bear a son, and she will call his name Israel. The word there for virgin is the word almah, A-L-M-A-H. It simply means a young woman of marriageable age. It doesn't mean somebody who's never had sexual experience before. There's another Hebrew word for that, bethelah. That means virgin, somebody who's never had sex before. That's not the word he uses here. He uses the word almah.
It's a general term for a woman of marriageable age. God says to Ahaz, a virgin will be with a child and bear a son, and you will call his name Immanuel. And he will eat curds and honey at the time he knows enough to refuse and choose evil and choose good. For before the boy will know enough to refuse evil and choose good, that is before he's age 12 to 14, the land whose two kings you dread will be forsaken. In other words, God said to Ahaz, don't worry about Syria, don't worry about Israel. Before this boy who's to be born is 12 years old, both of those kings will be destroyed. Now when we turn to chapter 8 of Isaiah, we find the fulfillment of this prophecy. It was fulfilled through Isaiah himself. He married a woman. They had a child.
Before the child was 12 years of age, the northern kingdom was defeated and Syria was defeated. Now that's the promise of Isaiah 7, 14. I remember listening to my religion professor in college say, now given that historical background, why would anybody apply this verse to the virgin born birth of Jesus Christ? It had nothing to do with the birth of Jesus Christ.
Why would somebody make that application? I'll tell you exactly why we make that application, because God's word makes that application. Turn over to Matthew, Matthew chapter 1, that records the coming of the son of God, of Jesus Christ. Jesus was conceived with Mary and by the Holy Spirit, not with the human father. And when Joseph learned that his betrothed fiance, if you will, was pregnant with a child, he was obviously disturbed. But God revealed to Joseph this child was fathered by the Holy Spirit himself. Now look at verse 20 of Matthew 1. But when he, Joseph, had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for that which has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, Emmanuel, for it is he who will save his people from their sins. Then Matthew adds in verse 22, now all of this took place that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, and then Matthew quotes Isaiah 7 14, behold, the virgin shall be with child, and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which translated means God with us. Matthew applies Isaiah 7 14 to the birth of Jesus Christ.
Now, pop quiz. What language was the Old Testament written in? Hebrew, and I just said to you a moment ago, the Hebrews had a term for virgin, it was Bethela, Isaiah didn't use that term, he used Alma, a more general term, a young woman. What language was the New Testament written in? It was written in Greek. So when Matthew penned this and translated Isaiah 7 14, and he got to the word virgin, you know the word he used? It's the word parthenos. The word parthenos means only one thing, virgin.
Somebody who has never had sexual experience before. Now here is the beauty of scripture. Had Isaiah 700 years before used the word Bethela, that means virgin, if he had used that word, then that prophecy would have meant nothing to Isaiah, or to King Ahaz, or the people of his day.
It would have only had a far fulfillment 700 years later. By using that more general term, Alma, that prophecy had both an immediate fulfillment in Isaiah's day, but it had an ultimate fulfillment with Jesus Christ. Isn't that the beauty of scripture?
That's why in scripture many times you have a near fulfillment and an ultimate fulfillment. And here, Matthew makes it very clear that this baby, born of Mary, was virgin born. Mary was a virgin. He was conceived, Jesus, by the Holy Spirit.
Why was that so important? Why is a virgin birth absolutely necessary for the Lord Jesus Christ? I could spend the rest of the message talking about why a virgin birth is necessary, but here's just one reason.
To me this is so fascinating. You know, one of the prophecies about the Messiah, according to 2 Samuel 7, was that he would be a descendant of King David. The Messiah had to be a descendant of David, 2 Samuel 7. God made this promise to David 900 years before Christ. He said, one of your descendants will sit on the throne, 2 Samuel 7, 12, in verse 13. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. There is an immediate fulfillment in Solomon. The ultimate fulfillment was in Jesus.
Solomon never built a kingdom that was forever. Jesus would do that. That's what we call the Davidic covenant, the promise. Messiah had to be a descendant of David. So when you turn to Matthew 1 and you find the genealogy of Jesus going back through his father, Joseph, and back through Joseph's father, Jacob, all the way back to David. You see, Matthew was written to the Jews, and Matthew was saying, this Jesus is qualified to be the savior of the world because he's a descendant of the great King David. You say, well, case closed. That's great, pastor.
There's a problem, though. There's a knot in that family line that comes from David. The last of the Davidic kings, the last king was a guy named Jeconiah. Jeconiah was so evil and so disobeyed God that God placed a curse on Jeconiah.
It's found in Jeremiah 22, 30. God said, Jeconiah, because you have disobeyed me, not one of your descendants will ever sit on the throne of David. It basically stopped the Davidic line at Jeconiah. So that presents a real problem because you have David up here, now you have Jeconiah, and down here you have Joseph, the father of Jesus. If Jesus had been the biological son of Joseph, who was in turn the son of Jeconiah, descendant of Jeconiah, Jesus would have been disqualified from sitting on the throne because of the curse of Jeconiah. And yet, even though the right to rule came through the father, he still had to have some relationship to David to be the inheritor of the throne.
So how do you become an inheritor of the throne of David without receiving the curse of Jeconiah? Answer, what about a virgin birth? Notice what it says in Matthew 1 16 about the birth of Christ. And to Jacob was born Joseph, the husband of Mary, by whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ. It would have been natural to say Jesus was born to Mary and Joseph.
That's not what it says. He was born to Mary, not to Joseph, because Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit of God himself. He was a virgin born child. I've only had time to address a few of the prophecies that foretold the coming of Christ. Remember that I've written a creative brochure for you that describes 37 of my favorite prophecies. It's called Jesus, the fulfillment of God's prophecies. I'm pleased to send you a complimentary copy when you get in touch with us today. Well, as I mentioned earlier, we're in the throes of one of the most important seasons in the life and ministry of Pathway to Victory.
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And so it goes. And when the deadline comes at midnight on December 31, we're asking God to provide the full $1 million to pierce the darkness with the light of his word. To say thanks for your generous year and gift, I'll be sending you the new and exclusive 2024 Pathway to Victory daily devotional. Our devotional is the most popular resource we offer every year. And this one is brand new. And I have to say, the most impressive.
It's bound in forest green leather with gold accents. And I've written a chapter for every weekday in the new year. All of us need to spend time every day in God's word, including me. And this daily devotional will equip you to do just that. So let's make 2024 the best year ever by doubling our impact through the matching challenge and by walking together every day through the Pathway to Victory daily devotional. Now, here's David with all the details.
Thanks, Dr. Jeffress. Today, when you give a generous year-end gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory, we're going to say thanks by sending you the brand new Pathway to Victory daily devotional for 2024. As an added bonus, we're going to include the reference brochure titled Jesus, The Fulfillment of God's Prophecies.
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Box 223-609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. I'm David J. Mullins inviting you to join us again next time when we conclude this fascinating message called Christmas on the Road. That's Wednesday here on Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. You've made it to the end of today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.
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