If you're taking a seat if you could open up to Matthew chapter one if you've been with us the past couple of months You know that we've been in a series called good news where we've highlighted different groups of people that in Christ There's good news for so last week pastor Alex gave a word on good news for the outsider And he brought up at the beginning of the sermon of how oftentimes the outsider we think of people who aren't Christians that there's good news And Jesus for them but he also challenged us of thinking about when you said yes to the Lord and you've come into the family of God of What parts of what Jesus purchase are we not living in that we're having parts of our life on the outside and asking the Holy Spirit To highlight to us where am I living on the outside and guide me back into the truth of what you've purchased? If you've also been with us on Wednesday nights in our eight to ten prayer rooms that we've been in kind of a different series of praying Around Jesus the miraculous man which we're gonna be talking about next week where we've been praying and believing the Lord To move in miraculous power not only in our church But on our block and tonight the message that I'm gonna be talking about I think is a little bit of a bridge between them talking about the miraculous birth The reason that we have good news for all these groups of people is because God came in the flesh through Jesus The reason why we're going to celebrate Christmas is because God chose to dwell among us But in bringing Jesus forth There's a miracle upon miracle that he wants us to look at and so we're gonna be taking a look at in the book of Matthew Chapters 1 and 2 to look at the miracles that Matthew's pointing to to see what God was wanting to do in his storyline Now before we dive into there are a couple of foundational things that I want us to lay before looking at the text The first is oftentimes when we think of Christmas and Jesus being born a lot of times We think wow this seemed to be kind of a random time and God just happened to bring forth Jesus But Paul talks about in Galatians 4 4 says when the fullness of time had come God sent forth his son Born of a virgin born under law to bring about redemption So as we start looking at the story of Jesus's birth We have to understand though It's actually on a prophetic timetable that God instituted that Matthew's going to allude to that It's not a bunch of random events that there's actually an orchestration and an author behind it So that when we look behind it We can look at the faithfulness of God our faith can start to rise and we can put trust in him that he who began a good work Will be faithful to complete it the second thing that we're gonna we need to lay a foundation on is what Ryan talked about of There's a biblical principle of two or three witnesses attesting to something I'll be the third one. I heard pastor Ben talk about that. I heard it.
Let it be established the possible call in second Corinthians 13 one quotes from Deuteronomy 1915 where he says that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word is going to be established and we have to understand that Matthew is going to bring up three witnesses a testing to the birth of Jesus to establish a firm foundation around different things that the Lord is wanting to talk about again so that we can have faith knowing the Sureness and trueness of God of what he's wanting to do So we're gonna be taking a look at the witness of the genealogy of Jesus The star of Bethlehem and the magi and the gifts that they brought and how they attest to Jesus being the chosen King of the Davidic lineage That he's the king not only for the Jewish people but for all including Gentiles and that through him through the king and the kingdom that he's about to bring He's going to bring redemption and peace by conquering the great enemy of Satan taking us out of it and bringing peace to our lives from what he's going to conquer So turn with me to Matthew one one now oftentimes when we go to the beginning of Matthew How many of us unless we're going through like being diligent about reading the entire Bible skip the first 17 verses? It's a very real thing But what I want to call attention to is that there's a purpose behind these to again be a witness to what the Lord is wanting to do The other thing when we flip from the end of Malachi to Matthew it takes us about a half a second to do that And I think sometimes in our minds we go I know that there's been time that has passed I don't really know what it was but it's a quick flip for me And so it's like hey end of Malachi now. Hey, boom Jesus is on the scene But that isn't how it played out from the end of Malachi the last prophet that God gave the Jewish people To when Jesus came there's 400 years of silence Now for us we just think that most of the time that that's just a long time But the Jewish people knew that 400 is a very significant number because it goes back to Genesis 1513 when God was making covenant with Abraham And it says he put him to sleep in the first thing that he said to Abraham was that know this for sure that you're going to be Dwelling in a land that isn't your own and you're going to be serving another master for 400 years But then in verse 14 it says but know this after the 400 years I'm going to come and I'm going to bring my justice on your oppressor and you're going to walk out of Egypt with their treasures So when God started to move in the beginning of Matthew 1 what God was illustrating in his prophetic timetable the fullness of time is that There's another deliver that's coming out that you're in darkness right now But there's a greater Moses that is going to be coming out who's going to bring you out of another bondage now that Jewish people thought it was the Roman Empire but what we're going to see is that there's an even greater bondage to Satan in his kingdom that God was wanting to Illustrate through the genealogy the star of Bethlehem the magi and the gifts that they brought that freedom is going to be coming to those who are Unbondage to Satan and when I bring you out of it all the things that you stole and you're going to walk out being restored to you So Matthew 1 verse 1 the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David the son of Abraham So from the very beginning Matthew's wanting to establish the genealogy connecting Jesus to David and to Abraham Why is that because God chose to make a covenant with David that there would be a king coming through him who would rule all the nations? But it wouldn't just be a Jewish Messiah That's why he connects it back to Abraham because if you remember the covenant to Abraham is that God will bless all of the nations And so when Matthew's laying out the genealogy He's wanting to make sure that you understand that all the weaving of all the different people in there What it's going to produce is a king of the line of David that can get traced back to Abraham that you can have confidence that God is Divinely moving to bringing about a greater David to fulfill freedom for us for all people Now every one of the names in this genealogy is important there for a reason But I want to highlight just a couple to illustrate some of the things that the Lord is wanting to try to get at So if you go to Matthew 1 5 it says that salmon begot Boaz by Rahab It's interesting to note that in the genealogy of Jesus that Rahab is put in there for a couple of different reasons One she's a Gentile two.
She's a woman three She lived in the great oppressor of the people like coming into the Promised Land Jericho She her home was literally built into the walls of Jericho and The Lord had a lot of reasons why putting her into here But a couple of reasons is again to show that God isn't just the God of the Jewish people in bringing about Jesus and God's divine wisdom He used a Gentile woman who was literally entrapped in some of the darkest places on the earth But who chose to give her life to the Lord that would get saved through it when Jericho fell that they'd be protected because they she gave her life to the Lord But also to illustrate of her being a prostitute of that in the Lord. There's redemption no matter the past that you've lived because the enemy loves to Bring us into guilt shame and condemnation of things that we've done in the past Even after we've given our life to the Lord and the enemy loves to come in and start to try to cut us off from our genealogy With the Lord for us to be productive people in the kingdom because we say that I've been disqualified by what I've done But she was put in here to show that it doesn't matter if you've given your life to the Lord There's redemption of coming out of the darkest of darks of stepping out and the Lord will redeem it because the Lord He's right have to bring about Jesus the great conquer Then we see in verse six and Jesse begot David the King David the King begot Solomon by her who had been the wife of Uriah Who's that referencing? The sheba of why is that story in there because that's one of the great tragedies of King David There's a couple of reasons best sheba married Uriah the hit type of we see the marriage of Jew and Gentile right there So even in the lineage of Jesus we see the son of David son of Abraham coming together Jew and Gentile coming together of that in the lineage God is wanting to make explicitly clear that the king he's bringing forth is for all people and he goes go look at this story The second is Beth sheba in the trospeys done to her and her husband That again the enemy would love to bring up and say you've been disqualified The Lord is wanting to put in there saying even if there have been horrible atrocities done to you by other people even by of people in power The Lord hasn't tossed you away And I just even right now if there's been things that have been done and you've been feeling like a guilt around it from the enemy I believe even tonight that there's freedom coming in that of that the Lord is going to redeem that and he doesn't want you to go into hiding The Lord has such a beautiful purpose for your life And this story is in there to remind us that in David's greatest weakness that brought about the downfall of Israel going into Babylon That there's a greater David who's going to come about and redeem all of it and bring people out of Babylon Let's then look at verse 16 Matthew 1 16 and Jacob begot Joseph the husband of Mary of whom was born Jesus who's called Christ It's interesting to know that Joseph was put in there because we know that he had no part in actually producing Jesus The Holy Spirit came upon Mary and so why this isn't here one reason is to show the divinity of Jesus that God was the one who brought it About through Mary But I think it's also interesting to note that Matthew puts him in there to give Joseph his due of even though he didn't work About producing Jesus he was faithful to Mary And I think that this is another strategy that the enemy tries to do with us of where if you're married to a spouse who Has a lot of recognition in the natural and all you think of is I'm just a helper But I'm not the anointed chosen one of the Lord or I'm a part of a ministry and I just seem to be like a cog in the wheel Joseph is put in here and the Lord recognizes him of his faithfulness of helping Mary birth about the Savior and even right now Wanting to just encourage people of that whatever the Lord is put in front of you be good steward of it Because even if you don't get recognition in the natural and God's accounting of everything he sees what you've done and it's really important verse 17 So all the generations from Abraham to David are 14 generations from David until the captivity in Babylon are 14 generations And from the captivity in Babylon until the Christ are 14 generations So again, Matthew right here is making the connection from Abraham to Jesus that Jesus is attached to all of them But we read the 14 generations and we go that just seems to be an interesting thing But again to the Jewish people 14 is a very significant number if you're familiar with the system that they use of assigning values to letters in their alphabet The gamatria you'll know that David's number is 14 So David's number in Hebrew or his name in Hebrew is three letters in our language of the DV and D D has a value of four V has a value of six and then he has a value for so we add them all together It's 14. So what Matthew is alluding to here is again that God's brain about of Jesus isn't just some random thing But from Abraham to David there was a Davidic purpose coming about 14 generations from David to the exile in Babylon There's a Davidic purpose coming through it and then from Babylon to Jesus when he's gonna take the people out of Babylon There was a Davidic purpose, but because there's three he's wanting to make it clear that where David fell Jesus was not going to fall.
He's a greater David, but he's going to come as the king of Israel for all people And he's not going to fall where David fell The other thing that oftentimes gets missed here is when you add up 14 14 and 14. Let's do some math What does that add up to? 42 Now most of the time if you're like is 42 significant in the Bible on the get go It seems to be a little bit hidden and this is what Matthew's wanting us to do is to dive into the greater meaning So turn with me to Leviticus 25 Leviticus 25 And we're gonna start in verse 8 So when Leviticus 25 God is laying out how the land was supposed to be used to produce a harvest of that they're going to work six years take a year off But then it gets to verse 8 and it says and you shall count seven sabbaths of years for yourself Seven times seven years and the time of the seven sabbaths of years shall be 49 years So we're gonna do a little bit more math. So right there There's a fullness of time that is being talked about in Leviticus 25 of 49 years But if you can remember they're supposed to work six years take one year off So in 49 years, how many years did they actually work with those 49 years?
42 So what Matthew is wanting to draw our attention to is that God had been working? to produce fruit in the land for 42 generations and he was calling to it of his not just work It's it's a keenly work of producing the king who's going to rule over the world that he was working for 42 generations But what does it say? Then there will be 49 years then you shall cause the trumpet of Jubilee to sound on the 10th day of the seventh month Then go down to verse 11 the 50th year She'll be a Jubilee to you in it You shall neither sew nor reap what grows of its own accord nor gather the grapes of your unintended vine for it is the Jubilee It shall be holy to you. You shall eat its produce from the field So there's a special thing that came about after a full cycle of sabbath years The 49th year was meant to go into the 50th year That there's a trumpet that was supposed to be blown that we'll talk about in a second And it was meant to signify that everything that had been taken away and given away is going to get restored to you Slaves are going to get set free orders going to be brought to things that are a disorder And if you're reading there of where it talks about like returning of possessions returning those who are oppressed that should spark in us Luke 4 Do you remember Jesus in Luke 4 goes to the temple grabs the scroll of Isaiah?
talks about how the spirit of the Lord is upon him to set at liberty those who are oppressed and to what proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord What is acceptable year of the Lord? It's the day of Jubilee So what Matthew is intending through the genealogy of Jesus is that God had been working for? Seven full Sabbath cycles he worked 42 generations, but now rest is going to be coming There's going to be one coming who's going to bring rest is going to get sounded by a trumpet and then the possessions that have been taken away Are going to be brought back to you you think that all this is just about how to work your land There's a greater purpose in it and Matthew is alluding to it God is working But he's now brought about the rest that we're supposed to rest in who is Jesus Christ And what does it say that in that 50th year? You're not going to grow anything You're what the land is just going to produce and that's going to be enough for you It's a prophetic picture of what's going to come that when Christ comes we stop from our works We believe him and God is going to produce everything that we need for our life apart from our own works And the land is going to come forth and produce because God had been working for 42 generations And it's now time to eat the harvest of what he's brought forth Go from you back to Matthew 1 Matthew 1 verse 21 So the angel appears a Joseph and says that Mary's going to bring forth a son and you shall call his name Jesus And he will save his people from their sins again We oftentimes overlook the meaning of Jesus and we just go wow That's a cool name to give to him We worship Jesus, but there's a lot more significance behind it So Jesus is the Greek word for Yeshua and our English word for Yeshua is Joshua So what the angel was saying is that hey, there's going to be a person coming His name is going to be Joshua, but he's going to be specially anointed and they're supposed to be going back to okay There's 400 years God is now speaking and there's a greater Joshua who's coming who's actually going to bring us into the rest of the Lord Going back to the cycles of everything that the Lord is bringing of that There's a year of Jubilee coming where Jesus says the greater Joshua is going to bring about rest to us and where Moses failed And where Joshua the Old Testament failed the greater David the greater Joshua the greater Moses isn't going to fail Because it says that he will save them from their sins turn us me to Hebrews 3 Hebrews 3 and we're in a starting verse 16 The author of Hebrews goes back and talks about the people coming out of Egypt and how they fell short and then points us to Jesus the greater Joshua For who having heard rebelled and indeed was it not all who came out of Egypt led by Moses now with whom was he angry for years?
Was it not all those of those who sinned whose corpses fell in the wilderness and who did he swear that they would not enter his what his rest His Jubilee who would not enter into the rest of the Lord It was all those who fell in the wilderness. It was those who did not obey So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief There are since therefore since the promise remains of entering his rest let us fear less any of you have seen to come short of it Let's now go down to verse 6 Hebrews 4 6 Since therefore it remains that some must enter it the rest and those to whom it was first preached the people coming out of Egypt Did not enter because of disobedience again? He designated in a certain place saying in who in David today after such a long time as it has been said today if you'll hear his voice Do not harden your hearts for if Joshua had given them rest that he would not have afterward spoken of another day Therefore or their remains therefore a rest for the people of God for he who has entered his rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from his So the author Hebrews is pointing to everything that we talked about Moses brought the people out of Egypt after 400 years But they didn't believe God and fell in the wilderness and even though Joshua brought them into the promised land and helped conquer enemies He said if Joshua the Old Testament did what the Lord actually intended why would through David? He say he say that there's a coming rest coming and it's all the point to Matthew 1 and 2 that Jesus the greater Joshua is the one Who's actually going to bring about our rest?
And why did they not get into the Promised Land because of their sin? But you're going to call him Jesus and what he will save his people from their sin and how do we enter into that? It said that they did not enter in because of unbelief They tried to work their way into it But we read in Leviticus 25 that the full cycle of God God is wanting to show us that he's going to do all the heavy lifting It's time for you to stop trying to produce going to the land on your own and actually rest and believe that Jesus did all that for you And then we enter in through that as the greater Joshua goes and conquers the greater Pharaoh Go back to Matthew 2 one other thing before we talk about the star of Bethlehem that I think is very interesting When God made covenant with David in second Samuel 7 It starts off in verse 1 of where David said that he was sitting in his home after God had given him rest from all of his enemies And he starts talking to Nathan the prophet and says I have a permanent place But God doesn't have a permanent place and God loved and saw in David that he wanted a permanent house for God to dwell in And so God decided to make a covenant with David where he said that you'll have a a king come from you Who's going to rule over all the nations and of his kingdom? There will be no end the immediate fulfillment of that was Solomon, but again what we read it's pointing to Jesus Jesus is the greater David Wants to bring about rest from all of our enemies and he has a greater purpose for a permanent dwelling place of the Holy Spirit The old David wanted a permanent dwelling place on the earth the greater David said that what I'm going to do when I bring Rest from your enemies Satan is that I'm gonna prepare your body as a temple of a permanent dwelling place of God That there's going to be rest coming into you because I brought rest from all of your enemies a.k.a.
The enemy Satan Matthew 2 one now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of here The king behold wise men from the east came to Jerusalem saying where is he who has been born king of the Jews for we have seen his star In the east and we've come to worship him First thing that we have to ask it doesn't mention by name But it says that they came from the east and they were magi this is supposed to trigger in our mind of going back to Daniel of Daniels faithfulness to the Lord of Interpreting Nebuchadnezzar's dream and not being brought into the Babylonian system He did not eat the delicacies of it and doing that he was promoted to be the head over all of the magicians the wise men the sousayers and the straw lagers and What we see 500 years later is that out of Babylon they saw what Daniel prophesied about of hey You're gonna be looking in the stars and there's something that the Lord's going to do in the fullness of time that you're going to Understand that the king that I've been talking about is going to be coming and One of the things that as I've been meditating on that is the faithfulness of Daniel that teach even though he didn't see the fruit of it But 500 years later is recorded in the Bible that because of Daniel's faithfulness of teaching people came out of Babylon And this is again another prophetic symbol of Jesus when we say yes to him We get called out of Babylon no matter the amount of darkness that you're in when you say yes to the Lord There's a calling out of it, but to also not despise the days of small beginnings be faithful to plant seeds because you might not see the fruit in your generation But there could be world-changing things that happen generations down the road by your faithfulness of teaching other people Now the question is what is the star of Bethlehem? I want to talk about this but before we do one of the things that I understand that in the church There's a weirdness that comes around when we talk about Astrological signs and it's because the occult has hijacked it And I want to just say though that if you're looking to horoscopes signs in the stars for your own personal stuff It's time to get out of that But just because the cult has hijacked it doesn't mean that there aren't things in Scripture that the Lord wants us to look at in the heavens To testify to him so we see even in Genesis 1 verses 14 through 18 It says that when God made the Sun the moon and the stars they were to be for signs and seasons as well as for days and years We don't have a problem with having a calendar around it But oftentimes there's like a drawing back when we say that there are things that can happen in the heavens that are meant to be Pointing to assign to the Lord and prophesy a Season shift and I believe what the star of Bethlehem was was a prophetic sign in the sky That will talk about what I think it was that is meant to shift of a season of a new king coming forth Paul even builds upon this in Romans 1 it talks about that on the unrighteous that God has made available to them What can be known to them and he goes and quotes Psalm 19 that says the heavens declare the glory of the Lord So Paul even argued in Romans 1 verse 20 that you can know the Lord by what what's happening up in the heavens And I believe that he was talking to about the star of Bethlehem But turn with me to Revelation 12. I believe that what? John saw in Revelation 12 verses 1 through 5 Sheds light on what was happening over Jerusalem now as we take a look at this.
I want to say that biblical scholars Typically agree that what the star of Bethlehem was was a convergence of planets and stars There's some differing opinions on which ones they were but what I'm gonna be talking about tonight is after looking at them What I believe is what the star of Bethlehem was getting at and you'll see the connection through everything But the bigger point of starting to go into this is to get more show what we talked about at the beginning beginning that in the fullness of time God sent forth his son and he sent and signified things in the heavens that people can't change the point to the kingship of Jesus Him ruling over the nations and him stopping the head of the enemy So Revelation 12 starting verse 1 now great sign appeared in heaven a woman clothed with a son with a moon under her feet And on her head a garland of 12 stars then being with child She cried out in labor and in pain to give birth and another sign appeared in heaven behold a great fiery red dragon heaven seven Heads and ten horns and seven diadems on his head his tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth and the Dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth to devour her child as soon as it was born She bore a male child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron and her child was caught up to God and on his throne So notice what it says in verse one a great sign appeared again We should think Genesis 1 14 the sun the moon and the stars are to be for a sign What if what John is seen here is what the sign was over Jerusalem to signify Jesus coming? And it's interesting that you can put the exact Constellations and what was being talked about here in astronomy programs and go back to the time of Jesus and say hey When in Jesus's time was the Sun in the middle of a virgin with a moon under her feet now They're people who have gone way deeper into this than me. I'm gonna just give the brief overview So in these astronomy programs There's what's called an ecliptic which is how astronomers measure the movement of constellations the Sun in the moon in Relationship to the earth and so you can map out and go back and time to see where everything was So you can go back and look at specifically when there would have been Virgo the virgin with the Sun on the kliptic in the middle for being clothed with her and where the moon would have been at the bottom of her Feet and you'll see that a time comes up that in our calendar It would be 3 BC in September and we'll get back to that in a second So you can go back and look there and astronomers have studied this and said yep This is what was going on there But there's a lot of other things that were happening around Virgo the virgin with the Sun being in the middle moon under her feet The first thing is that if you looked above Virgo's head You'll see that there is a convergence of Jupiter and Regulus came over each other now why that's significant is to the Jewish people Jupiter was the king planet and Regulus was the king star because of its brightness so over the Virgo the virgin there was a convergence of kingship of signifying that what is about to happen is not just a king It's a king of kings Then the Sun would have been in the middle of Virgo the virgin Signifying a birth that was about to take place of one who's going to be the light of the world But if you look at under the feet on the kliptic there would be two constellations under there one a scorpion and one a dragon to symbolize if You recall this is going back to Genesis 3 now of where after the fall What did God say to the serpent that you're going to go on the ground to be underneath? You're going to bruise his heel, but the seed of the woman is going to stomp on your head Now there is a specific day and there's a period of 80 minutes where all of those happened at the exact same time And it would happen and it happened on September 11th of 3 BC Now again in America September 11th obviously has its own meaning for us There may be some connection there.
It's not the point of this, but to the Jewish people at that time that would have been the feast of trumpets What is the feast of trumpets? It's the it's the beginning of the new calendar of the Jewish people It's also when every Davidic king would start their new reign It's also remember what you read in Leviticus 25 that in the year of Jubilee How would it be announced by a trumpet and so after Jesus was born and he said this is being fulfilled right now The magi knew what David or Daniel was talking about and was able to see all that of that There's a king of kings who's being birthed right now who's coming of out of regular. Oh, yeah What consolation was regular sin Leo the lion of again going back to the line of the tribe of Judah that God in the fullness of time Org has traded everything to come together to prove that he is behind the genealogy of Jesus that he's going to birth Not just a king But a king of kings of David who's going to rule over all the world who's going to stomp on the enemy Who's going to bring us out of the greater Egypt the greater Pharaoh you we might think that he's biting at us But God put up in the stars and say no no no no no no no no no you need to know and you need to know that I've crushed him So no matter what the enemy is doing lying to you. I've shown you through my genealogy through the star of Bethlehem that I'm crushing him Let's go back to Matthew 2 Matthew 2 and verse 11 When the magi had come to the house they saw the young child with Mary his mother and fell down and worshiped him and when they'd opened Their treasures they presented gifts to him of gold frankincense and myrrh Now there's practical reasons why they brought that but there's also spiritual reasons again going back to everything We talked about gold was the point to Jesus's kingship Frankincense what was frankincense used for in the temple is on the altar of incense?
So this was to point to Jesus's role as our high priest now What's interesting about Jesus so we know that he's of the order of Melchizedek which is a combination of both king and priest Why is that important to us because typically priests would go minister to the Lord on behalf of us? But they wouldn't have the ability to go implement the changes that the Lord wanted because they weren't a king But Jesus being both king and priest and human and God is able to go minister on our behalf But him being a ruler of the king of Israel of the tribe of Judah over all of David He's able to minister get the heart of the Lord But actually come back onto the earth as a king and implement the changes that he's wanting Then why was Murb brought Mur was it was an embalming oil to bury the dead and so this again points to Jesus's death Now I want to talk about this for a second I know that we're in the season of Jesus being born But the magi came and brought about Murr to say that hey What he's about to do to crush the head of the serpent is going to happen through his death Now I want to make some other connections to Jesus of being the greater David What is probably the most famous story of David in the Bible of when he what defeated Goliath? Now when David defeated Goliath, it says that he cut off his head and brought it to Jerusalem What hill was Jesus crucified on? Galgotha which means hill of the skull and it's where Goliath's head was buried So then Jesus gets raised up on the cross on Galgotha with Goliath under him of again looking at a couple of Connections one going back to the star of that there's a child that's being birthed that yes The enemy thought that he won by killing Jesus by biting his heel because Goliath was under the heel of Jesus But in reality what was happening through Jesus's death is that he was crushing the greater Goliath Satan This then goes back to Genesis 3 of the fulfillment of that so that when we look at Murr coming about we're supposed to remember That Jesus is the greater David is stomping out the greater Goliath the greater Pharaoh And he's crushing him one time forever Now after David killed Goliath, what did the Israelites do?
They were encouraged by what David did and charged forth and got the spoils of war What again is that supposed to remind us of? Hey 400 years you're gonna come out of prison of Egypt And I'm actually going to bring you out with all the goods of their kingdom And what Jesus was saying there is that when I go up on the cross and Goliath is under my feet Not only am I defeating him to make sure that he's not able to harm you anymore and get out of your kingdom I'm actually going to restore and plunder him and bring back things to you Just like what the year of Jubilee the things that have been given away are being taken back So our identity that had been lost in the Lord is now getting restored power and authority that was given away is now being brought back to us We were an enemy of God, but now we enter into the rest of God We were once a far off But he's now brought near it isn't by our works because we're eating of the vine that God produced on the day of rest The year of Jubilee and he's saying believe in me Don't be like those in the wilderness who did not believe and fell believe in the greater Moses the greater Joshua who saved you from your sin Enter into the rest of the Lord get all the things that have been given away taken back to you and know that I love I'm gonna welcome Sam up here to play on the keys. It can be fun seeing all the connections in Scripture But it doesn't mean anything if we don't apply what the Lord is wanting it actually to get at There's three witnesses talking about the kingship of Jesus for all people and destroying the enemy the enemy loves to lie to us About different things whether it's in your past whether maybe it's present things that you're struggling with of thinking that I won't ever be able to break free of this and the Lord is saying hey I've been faithful I was faithful and bringing my son forth over 42 generations of working with wicked people in the midst of it People who shouldn't be in it brought into it I honored people who in the natural shouldn't be honored Trust me that if you lean on me, I'll be the greater Joshua who bring about freedom to your life And when we see the three witnesses again supposed to embolden us in faith to run Because he killed the greater Goliath and it's time for us to walk and take the possessions that he wants us to walk in And so I'm gonna close this in prayer and I'm invite pastor Josh up and if you can all stand Father, I thank you that your plan isn't random That you have a purpose behind it all and I thank you that at the end of it Jesus the great King the King of Kings the greater David the greater Joshua the greater deliver Moses who will never fail us is Now the one leading the charge Father I just pray even right now that there would be a calming of people's hearts and minds and us moving into a time of trusting and believing in you That you're the one who's working things and we want to partner with you Father even right now. I just asked for a silencing of the enemy around our past Lord of Lord that we're not going to let the enemy hold us down You have squashed the head of the enemy and I think you are that we get to be emboldened by that Not only to take ground for you, but to run into your arms just like Hebrews said we have boldness now to enter into your presence I thank you Lord that during this Christmas season that as we spend time with friends and family and we see all the nativity scenes And we see the cute baby Jesus in the manger that there's a humility around that But that we shouldn't forget that that is the king who brought the sword and brought deliverance there And I think that we get to receive that because of your goodness and we just thank you for that in Jesus name.
Amen