What Actually Happened The Night Jesus Was Born?

God Centered Theology

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What actually happened the night that Jesus was born?

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Does it really matter? Did it really change anything? Was it planned? Was it part of what

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God expected? Part of what He wanted? What does it mean for us? All these things. What does Scripture say as you sort of peel back and take a larger view of not just Christmas but the specific

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Christmas event of Jesus being born? And so the first place we want to start is in Genesis 12.

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Genesis chapter 12 where the... not so much the first prediction of the

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Messiah. There is one in Genesis 3 where, you know, when God curses the serpent and tells him because of what you've done, you know, this is what's going to happen to you, how

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Genesis 3 verse 14,

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Yahweh God said to the serpent, because you have done this, cursed are you more than any of the cattle, more than every beast of the field.

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On your belly you will go and dust you will eat all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman.

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Between your seed and her seed, he shall bruise you on the head and you shall bruise him on the heel.

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And so that is your first recorded prophecy of the coming

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Messiah but one that has definite connections to what the

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New Testament writers write in the Gospels as it pertains to the birth of Christ. We find in Genesis 12 verse 1 where it says,

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Yahweh said to Abram, go forth from your land and from your kin and from your father's house to the land which

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I will show you. And I will make you a great nation and I will bless you, make your name great.

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And so you shall be a blessing and I will bless those who bless you and the one who curses you

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I will curse. And notice this line here, in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.

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Now notice it doesn't say every single human being will find this blessing for we obviously know that Scripture does not teach universalism that everyone will be saved so they cannot be saved in that sense.

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But if you will remember last week in Luke chapter 1 towards the end of the sermon right around the verse 54 of Luke 1 when

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Mary is speaking and magnifying the Lord, Genesis 12 pops up. It says, this is

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Mary speaking about God. She says, He, God, has given help to Israel his servant in remembrance of his mercy as he spoke to our fathers to Abraham and his seed forever.

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So this talk about who is Abraham's seed, who is the blessed people that are blessed in Abraham when it says, in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.

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All the families of the earth are blessed in Abraham because it's through Abraham's line that Jesus Christ comes.

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And if you spend time in the first chapter of Matthew you get the most extended genealogy of this showing everything from Ruth to David, Jesse, the whole gamut all the way down to Joseph, Mary, and then

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Jesus showing that his line did indeed come straight from Abraham. And all the families of the earth are blessed because of this because it is the source upon which salvation comes to mankind.

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And so that's where Mary says in Abraham's seed down forever the seed of Abraham as we looked at in Paul's writings that true

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Israel is not one that is circumcised outwardly but one that is circumcised of the heart.

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Talks about in Galatians how true Israel is of faith, spiritual Israel. Every single one of God's people that have repented of their sin and placed their faith in Christ and placed their faith in what

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God revealed to them at that time the blessed man of Romans 4 the blessed man that Romans 4 speaks about that is blessed the same way

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Abraham was blessed and that's because they are justified by faith and not by works all those people are the ones that are the seed of Abraham the ones that are the ones that are blessed in the great nation the great kingdom which is why when

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Jesus comes on the scene he says repent for the kingdom of God is at hand or has come.

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All this history leading up and culminating in the redemption of the cross predicted and prophesied and told here to Abraham or at the time anyway he was called

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Abram saying I'm going to make you a blessing and I'm going to bless the whole world through you because it's through your seed that we will come to find redemption.

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You fast forward to the book of Micah I've referenced this several times and we're going to actually look at it this morning in the book of Micah which is a prophecy that was written probably somewhere in the 700's

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B .C. looking at the coming judgment and all this that and the other

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In Micah chapter 5 we get the specific prediction and prophecy of where the

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Savior will come from in Bethlehem and of course fast forward to Luke 2 one of the most well known scriptures this time of year where it talks about Mary and Joseph having to go to Bethlehem to be taxed because they've been told that you had to go back to your home country there to be accounted for for the census and all this good stuff so we see the realization and the fulfillment of what

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Micah tells us here so right here in the middle of this prophecy in the book of Micah chapter 5 verse 2 it says but as for you

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Bethlehem Epaphrathah too little to be among the clans of Judah now keep the language of Micah 5 here in your minds because we're going to see it repeated in Matthew in a minute too little to be among the clans of Judah from you one will go forth for me to be ruler in Israel so God is speaking through the prophet

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Micah and he's saying from you Bethlehem one meaning a person, a ruler notice that the source will go forth from me so notice once again the consistency and the harmony of the

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Old Testament writers because Isaiah spoke quite a bit about this coming suffering servant the servant of God, the

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Redeemer of Israel you see this language repeated over and over and over in these prophetic books and so you see this harmony and consistency that Micah here is referring to this one that will come all the

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Old Testament writers knew about Genesis they knew about what was promised to Abraham and they knew what

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Moses had written and so they knew and understood that the scriptures were speaking about the coming

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Messiah now they saw him as the coming king and even Jesus' apostles got it wrong and thought when he's about to ascend in Acts chapter 1 he said are you going to make your kingdom now?

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and they were thinking of this earthly kingdom where Jesus is literally sitting on the throne down here on earth he says no, he says of the epochs and ages and things of that nature you don't need to worry yourself with you need to worry about doing what

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I want you to do and that is going to Judea Judea and Samaria and all the parts of the world and preaching my gospel and what they didn't realize is ultimately

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God's kingdom came in the form of Jesus Christ and he is ruling and reigning because he says in Matthew 28 all authority has been given to me he is the ruler that this book

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Micah speaks of the one that is coming to be ruler in Israel says his goings forth are from everlasting from the ancient days therefore he will give them up until notice this until the time when she looking forward even to marry here she who is in childbirth has born a child then the remainder of his brothers will return to the sons of Israel so in verse 3 you have not just in verse 2 identifying the place where the

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Redeemer and Messiah will come from but in verse 3 even in a sense referring to or mentioning

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Mary which we are going to see in a little bit when we look at Matthew a more specific reference to Mary but then here it talks about giving birth to the child you see while Micah and Isaiah obviously wrote in different places and different times they weren't like they were sitting in a room comparing notes but you see some similar language a similar understanding remember last week when we looked at Isaiah chapter 9 talks about the child will be born to us a son will be given and he's wonderful counselor peace all these things then verse 4 he will stand and shepherd his flock notice the ownership of the flock the flock is for the one that stands and shepherds the same one that goes forth to be the ruler in Israel in the strength of the

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Lord in the strength of Yahweh in the majesty of the name of Yahweh his

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God and they will remain because at that time he will be great to the ends of the earth and this one going back to verse 2 when it said from you one will go forth so it's clearly identifying that the one that comes out of Bethlehem that God himself sends to be ruler that God himself sends to shepherd the flock both in the strength and in the majesty of the name of God the

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Father which we see very clearly in Jesus' own words but also in the book of Philippians in chapter 2 when it talks about how

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God highly exalts him and gives him a name above every name there is to be named every knee will bow every tongue will confess that Christ is

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Lord to the glory of the Father everything

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Jesus did on earth up to and including his exaltation to power and having all authority in heaven and on earth all of it is done to the glory of the

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Father which is once again a fulfillment of this prophecy here that he will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of Yahweh and we know that while Jesus was on earth he was not just submitted to the

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Father in his role as the Son but also did everything within the power of Yahweh and it says but in the majesty in the name or to the glory of the name of God the

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Father and then notice this one this is the first phrase of verse 5 but it's actually and this is just in passing we've said this before but remember chapter and verse divisions are a modern thing somewhere in the 1500s chapter and verse divisions in the

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Bible are not inspired the words are but the chapter and verse divisions are not so just like anything else a couple of them are a little wonky so here we have one of those examples where the first phrase of verse 5 is actually the end of a sentence that is in verse 4 so it says in verse 4 because at that time he will be great to the ends of the earth and then we get this next sentence here which is a part of that same thought that says this one will be peace or will be our peace and you've heard me reference that many times before because we see this fulfillment and Paul writes about it how we are we have peace he writes about it in Romans 5 we have peace with God because we've been justified in Christ so the actual peace that man can have with his creator comes from this one that would come out of Bethlehem comes from the one that God told

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Abram that all the families of the world will be blessed in you and so then now we move forward again to where we're going to spend the remainder of our time this morning and that is

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Matthew chapter 1 so if you'll turn to Matthew chapter 1 we're going to look at verses 18 through 25 but we're also going to look at some of the

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Old Testament quotations as well so we spent time in Luke 1 now we're going to be looking at some in Matthew 1 like I said we're not going to go through it we could and it would be very interesting

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I think and it would be very beneficial to do this to go through the first chapter verse 2 all the way down through verse 16 because you'll notice verse 2 it starts or verse 1 the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David the son of Abraham Abraham the father is

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Isaac Isaac the father of Jacob Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers all the way down verse 16

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Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary by whom Jesus was born who was called

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Christ and those were all the generations to go through and look at that go through scripture see these people in scripture and all that it's a very fun study to do

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I highly encourage you to do it but we're going to pick up in verse 18 because in verse this section here you're going to see the

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New Testament writer here Matthew recognizing the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy in Jesus Christ and what happened at what we call the first Christmas when

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Jesus was born so verse 18 Matthew writes now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows when his mother

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Mary had been betrothed or in this culture this was the first stage of marriage in the ancient

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Jewish culture it would usually last for a year before the wedding night it's something that in their day was more legal than an engagement so you know in today's world you'll ask somebody to marry you you'll become what we call engaged but you can break it off no strings attached girl give the ring back say

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I don't want this no more go on down the road I don't want nothing to do with you and you can split ways and part ways and you don't owe each other nothing this betrothal this set to be married engagement if you will in this time was far more legal than what we would consider to be an engagement of sorts so this was a pretty big deal and this is why

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Joseph obviously is so worried about her being pregnant and they haven't had sex at this point because he's like man this ain't gonna look good because we're not supposed to be getting somebody pregnant during the betrothal year and here it is my wife to be is pregnant and it wasn't me so there's a whole you can understand

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Joseph's anxiety when we see it and you do see it but she betrothed to Joseph and notice it says before they came together we know what that means she was found to be with child by the

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Holy Spirit now if you remember in Luke 1 last week we saw Gabriel telling

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Mary this is what's gonna happen to you, remember Gabriel we talked about how he's got a pretty cool job man he got to tell

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Elizabeth she's gonna have John the Baptist he gets to tell Mary that she's gonna have Jesus that'd be a really cool job to have as an angel so we get more and this is something that the whole sermon for another day we're not gonna get into this but just in passing

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I want to mention you see a lot of those that are against scripture and are God haters and unsaved and atheists and want to debate scripture and this that and the other they talk about all these contradictions in scripture especially

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Bart Ehrman out of UNC Chapel Hill will focus on you know the contradictions of the gospels these gospels writers couldn't get it all together cause one saying this you don't see that what you see is complimentary writing in each of the gospels think about it if you were to go to four different people which you know

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John's sort of different the synoptic gospels Matthew Mark and Luke are the ones that really cover a lot of the same events

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John is a gospel but it's sort of written differently but if you were to go to say three different people that witness an event and let's say these three different people were stationed at different positions so they could hear different things, see different things, witness different things they're still gonna tell you about the same event and everything they're gonna tell you is true but it's gonna be from their perspective what they saw what they heard, what they knew that's what's going on in the gospels you're getting

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Matthew's account of what he seen what he saw, what he heard, what he witnessed you get Mark's account they do not contradict one another, they compliment one another so that's why in Luke you get a more detailed description of what the angel told

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Mary whereas here he just sort of references in passing that she's found to be pregnant miracle by the

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Holy Spirit and so verse 19 says Joseph her husband being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her which we all know would have been a huge disgrace in that day for her to have been pregnant by the man she's either betrothed to or that she had possibly gotten pregnant before the betrothal or even worse, with someone who's not the person she's betrothed to would have been a huge amount of issue there.

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He had planned to send her away secretly, meaning he was gonna end it, call it off, and don't want to do it publicly and disgrace her, we'll just kinda let her go all about her way to the side privately.

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Notice it says when he considered this, the angel of the Lord appeared to him saying, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take

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Mary as your wife, for the one notice the same utilization of terminology in the book of Micah and here used by Matthew because Matthew when he's writing this he knows what he's writing the inspiration of the

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Holy Spirit to pen -inspired scripture was not some zombie -like stance, like oh, just their hands moving, but they have

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God utilize their personalities their writing abilities, their writing styles, he superintended it to where what they recorded was without error, but this is very much

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Matthew's writing here and so Matthew being aware of what

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Micah wrote, being aware of what Isaiah wrote, because obviously he's gonna quote Isaiah directly here in a minute they were aware of the

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Old Testament they quoted it, and they quoted it and attached it to Jesus and so when he says this for the one

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I am firmly convinced that he's pulling from Micah when he uses that language he says who has been conceived in her is of the

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Holy Spirit because if you remember in Micah in Micah 5 verse 3 it says therefore he will give them up until the time when she who is in childbirth has born a child and this is the same passage in Micah where it says this one will be peace so now

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Joseph is being quoted here by Matthew as saying, oh excuse me the angel is quoted by Matthew here as saying the one who has been conceived in your wife in her, in Mary is of the

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Holy Spirit and she will bear a son and you shall call him to his name

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Jesus notice for he will save his people from their sins and this phrase here could be translated he himself himself he

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Jesus literally himself will save his people from their sins looking forward to an understanding that Jesus didn't offer a lamb, he didn't offer an animal he didn't offer someone else he didn't offer anything other than what?

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Himself we see this in the book of Hebrews where it's being quoted you do not desire sacrifices and offerings but a body that you have prepared for me

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I literally present and sacrifice that so very literally Jesus himself is the offering and the one who saves his people notice the possession here his people from their sins and notice it says all this took place in order and notice here the

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New Testament writers understanding and viewpoint of the inerrancy of scripture in order that was spoken by the

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Lord through the prophet there's no mistake that this is written this way the

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New Testament writers wanted you to understand that what was written in the Old Testament was given by the

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Lord this wasn't just conjured up in their minds like Jeremiah was dealing with remember that we're talking about Jeremiah 14 we're talking about the lying prophets and he says

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God says they're out there saying all these things but they do not speak for me they do not represent me and they will be slain in the streets and we find out in the book of Lamentations that's exactly what happened to them

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Matthew wants you to understand that this prophet he's about to quote was speaking a revelation a revelation given directly by God Yahweh Himself but was spoken through this prophet and it was fulfilled what this prophet said when he said verse 23 behold the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son and they shall call his name

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Emmanuel which translated means God with us now this verse here is quoting from two places in Isaiah the first place it's quoting from obviously the beginning of the verse is

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Isaiah chapter 7 in Isaiah chapter 7 we get the prophecy of the virgin birth of Christ it says in verse 14 of Isaiah 7 therefore the

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Lord Himself will give you a sign behold the virgin will be with child and bear a son and she will call his name

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Emmanuel which means God with us now one of the issues that comes up in a lot of circles the

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Hebrew word here in verse 14 just simply literally translated would be the word maiden and a lot of our

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King James only friends love to point to this and say it doesn't even say virgin they don't believe in a virgin birth there's always a reasonable explanation why things occur yes the

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Hebrew word translated to English literally is maiden but it was also known in this time that this particular type of maiden that was referenced was usually a young woman and was a virgin and on top of that the

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New Testament writer Matthew is now quoting this verse that literally would say behold the maiden will be with child and he's saying when he quotes it in Matthew when he writes it calls her a virgin and he further recognizes that by quoting it he's recognizing that Isaiah 7 was referring to a virgin so we don't need to get into all these tiffs and just annoying debates over these types of things because scripture is clear and it's very well backed up by the

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New Testament writers this was obviously a prophecy that the one that would give birth to the

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Redeemer would be a virgin and notice it says that she would call him

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Emmanuel which we in fact get get back over here get here in Matthew 123 when it says they shall call him his name

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Emmanuel which translated God with us and then we go on to see here verse 24

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Joseph got up from his sleep did his angel Lord commanded him took Mary as his wife but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a son and he called his name

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Jesus now in this verse 23 it's not just that they're quoting

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Isaiah 7 about the virgin birth but also we get there's a quotation in there of Isaiah 9 which we're not going to go over right now we covered this last week but just quickly referencing

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I'll read it here he's also quoting Isaiah 9 6 where it says for a child will be born to us a son will be given to us so there is no question there is no doubt any normal plain reading of this passage comes to the conclusion that Matthew was clear in his understanding that this event that took place not just was just a prophesied event meaning it was prophesied where this child would be born it was prophesied that the child would be born it was prophesied that the child would be born to one that was a maiden a young virgin having never known a man in sexual relations it was also prophesied what the child would be called

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Emmanuel God with us literally God with us as John 1 talks about John 1 14 the word becomes flesh and literally tabernacled among us or made his tent with us his home with us it was also prophesied here what this child would do because remember

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Micah 5 it said he will shepherd his flock he will be the ruler in Israel by the power of Yahweh and for the name and majesty of Yahweh and if you will remember here in verse 21 of Matthew 1 it says she will bear a son you shall call his name

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Jesus for he himself will save his people from their sins debate over you can try and attempt to utilize whatever it is you feel would contradict scripture or prove scripture to be wrong but my friends no one will ever accurately consistently and with any real foundation ever make a claim that the

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New Testament writers were mistaken or that the New Testament writers got it wrong or the New Testament writers falsely used

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Old Testament scripture this gospel penned by this man named Matthew under the inspiration of the

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Holy Spirit made no mistakes here he clearly knew what he was writing he clearly knew what he was writing about and he clearly knew what this

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Old Testament scripture was talking about it was talking about that little baby born in that little manger bed because there was no room in the inn remember

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Luke 2 from this family Mary and Joseph and he is the one that grew up and went to a cross and saved his people from their sins so we don't have time to go into it or anything but I want to do a quick survey here of the first part of chapter 2 here in Matthew there's just one more part

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I want to pick up on here so we're going to read through this quickly in these last few minutes verse 1 of chapter 2 is now after Jesus was born and I love how the

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New Testament writers do this it's like they're kind of saying just in case you didn't get the point let me put it in there one more time after he was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king behold

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Magi from the east came so this is the story of the Magi to come and give gifts so on so forth skip down to verse 5 it says they the

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Magi excuse me verse 4 I'm sorry and gathering together all the chiefs and priests and scribes and people he was inquiring of them where the

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Christ was to be born so this is Herod asking you know where's this child going to be born so they say back to Herod you know in Bethlehem of Judea for this is what has been written by the prophet notice this quotation here in verse 6 and this is what

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I wanted to look at so in chapter 2 verse 6 he's quoting

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Micah 5 verse 2 remember I told you to keep the language of Micah in your minds this is why notice what's said here and you

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Bethlehem land of Judah are by no means least among the leaders of Judah for out of you shall come forth a leader who will shepherd my people

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Israel notice the Micah language out of you Bethlehem it says by no means least or meaning you know smaller among the clans of Judah like Micah said but notice it says out of you direct quote from Micah shall come forth the leader or the ruler then notice what it says will shepherd my people

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Israel remember what Micah said verse 2 of Micah 5 but as for you

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Bethlehem too little among the clans of Judah from you one will go forth from me to be ruler or leader in Israel and he will shepherd his flock in the strength of Yahweh this one will be our peace so here we have in chapter 2 where in the days of Herod the magi from the east arrived to Jerusalem these magi are asking where is he who has been born king of the

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Jews so words gotten to these magi that the son has been born and they want to know where he's at they said we saw his star in the east have come to worship him and Herod wanted to know this because it was troubling to him because Herod is the king right and what does the king fear more than anything else losing power do we not see that in our politicians today there's nothing politicians and people with power fear more than losing their power and so Herod gathers everybody together trying to figure out and someone in this group clearly knew their old testament scripture we're not told here from what

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I can tell which one of these chief priests and scribes says where this child was born but somebody in this group clearly knew their old testament because then they quote

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Micah and say oh yeah it's Bethlehem you know the other day I was having some lunch reading

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Micah it said Bethlehem so yeah Bethlehem and so now they know so Herod secretly calls these magi and he basically wants them to go out and find out if it's true so he can go and kill them later and then you know we go on to know that an angel warns them in a dream not to go back to Herod because he doesn't you know obviously doesn't want

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Herod to get to them and all of this that and the other so but the key here in verse six is you see once again that quotation so we've seen quotations from Micah we've seen quotations from Isaiah so the next time in closing if someone says well you know

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Christmas is just about Santa and presents getting together with family and eating you know or Christmas oh yeah happy birthday

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Jesus let's all get a cake and sing happy birthday to Jesus happy birthday look

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Christmas involves all those things nothing wrong with having a cake sing happy birthday to Jesus nothing wrong with gathering family nothing wrong with eating food thank the good lord above there's nothing wrong with eating food nothing wrong with presents and enjoying all the traditions we do

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I'm sure all your family have different things you do and all nothing wrong with any of those things but don't forget that the true foundation of why we celebrate this holiday is so much deeper than just simply stating oh well it's about Jesus' birth no it's about God proving that His prophets got it right it's about God demonstrating that this son this child was more than just flesh and bones it was the literal redeemer and savior of God's people so when someone asks you hey what does

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Christmas mean to you you know say it's someone in a grocery store or something the other just kind of pass hey happy holidays merry

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Christmas hey what's the season mean to you stop dead in the aisle four right there by the turkey wherever you're at and just lay it out there for them well you know

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Matthew in chapter one quoted Micah and they're gonna be like what they're like okay well hey