Now let's open our Bibles to
Micah chapter five. Now tonight I'm going to major
on basically one verse, verse two, concerning the subject of
Christ, the Messiah King of Israel. The Messiah King. Now, you know
the Old Testament is a progressive revelation of truth concerning
the Lord Jesus Christ. From the viewpoint of Old Testament
believers, he was the one to whom they looked forward, according
to the promise that God made in Genesis chapter 3, and that
God continued through the sacrificial system, which was a type of the
sacrifice of Christ, the blood of Christ, the atoning work of
the high priest upon the altar, all of that. which God continued
through Abraham, the promise made to Abraham. All who believe
the gospel, all who trust Christ are in a spiritual way children
of Abraham, the scripture tells us. Not that Abraham is our heavenly
father, only God is our heavenly father. But Abraham was kind
of like the main type, what they used to call the archetype of
believers. because he was such a glaring
example of how God justifies the ungodly. And so Abraham looked
forward to see Christ. Christ himself said that in John
8, I believe it's verse 56, he said, Abraham rejoiced to see
my day. Salton was glad. And then that
was all summed up, summarized, and systematized, you might say,
in the Old Covenant. when God brought, after the covenant
being confirmed, the promise being confirmed through Abraham's
son and grandson, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and then so forth,
and Joseph, and it was systematized in the old covenant. So you have
a progressive revelation of truth concerning that Messiah. The
gospel was always the same, and the truth was always the same,
but God opened up little bits of truth so that when the messiah
would come into the world there would be no doubt if you if you
believed and was guided and and uh... your foundation was the
word of god there'd be no doubt that this person is the messiah
or is he an imposter and one of those revelations is right
here in micah chapter five He says in verse two, but thou Bethlehem
Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah,
yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me, that one who is
to be ruler in Israel, the king of kings. We read about him in
first Timothy six there as we open. And he made that testimony
before Pontius Pilate. Remember Pilate asked him, he
said, they accuse you of being a king, are you a king? And he
said, my kingdom's not of this world. He is a king, but of a
spiritual kingdom, an eternal kingdom, not an earthly kingdom,
not an earthly throne. But he's to be ruler in Israel
and whose goings forth have been from old and from everlasting,
from the days of eternity. And so those bits of truth like
you see here, those are those things which identify and distinguish
the one true Savior. You see, it's important that
we understand and know that our faith is not in a counterfeit,
a counterfeit Christ. There are counterfeit Christ.
You know, there are all kinds of stories and legends and tales
and myths that revolve around Jesus of Nazareth. There was
back then in his lifetime. But we need to know the truth
concerning who this person is because our whole salvation is
wrapped up and founded upon him whom to know is life eternal.
And I don't know about you, but I don't want to be deceived.
Well, I do know about you. You don't want to be deceived
either. So here you have it, the prophet Micah has been given
this revelation from God and it's an astounding revelation. As it was revealed in the beginning
that the Messiah would be the woman's seed, that he would be
God in human flesh, born of a virgin, not of man, not of the seed of
man. As it was revealed that he would
die, in order to satisfy the justice of God for the sins of
his people, his sheep, his church, God's elect, as it was revealed
that he would be of the seed of Abraham according to the flesh,
and then later on that he would be of the specific tribe of Judah,
the line of the tribe of Judah, and that's what he says here.
This is right in line with that prophecy. Look at it. Thou Bethlehem
Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah. The scepter shall not depart
from Judah. You read about it, Stan, in Hebrews
chapter 1. His scepter is a scepter of righteousness,
of justice, of truth. And that's what the king is to
bear, that scepter. And now we're told here that
he's going to come out of the little town of Bethlehem. The
ancient name of which, or a region of which, is called Ephratah.
Same place. And this prophecy is given like
all the prophecies of God. This is a pattern, and it's an
amazing pattern. And it's one we better thank
God for. I was thinking, as we sung that song, leave it there. And you know, we try to make
sure that we get hymns that fit what we believe. And there's
one little line in there that I know what Mr. Tenley, who wrote
that, I know what he means, but there in that course he says,
if you trust and never doubt, he will surely bring you out.
I believe even if you doubt, he'll bring you out. But I know
what he means, you know. We trust Christ, that's the tenor
of our lives, but we, you know, and the reason, you know, the
disciples said, Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief. The scripture
said, Paul wrote to Timothy, he said, if we believe not, he's
faithful that promised. And we struggle with doubts and
fears. And he even expressed that in the hymn, didn't he?
In those verses. I know what he means. I'm not
trying to get real picky on that issue necessarily. But I got
to thinking about that. I said, you know, he'll bring
you out even when you doubt. If he didn't, we'd all be goners,
wouldn't we? But my point is this. These prophecies
are given against a dark background. And the background that's dark
is the sinfulness and the depravity and the unbelief of man. The
very first prophecy of the Messiah to come, the substitute, the
woman seed, the Lord Jesus Christ, was given in the midst of the
curses that God was pronouncing, the one upon the serpent, the
one upon the woman and the one upon the man. And against that
dark background after the fall, sin that brought death, spiritual
death, legal death you could say. He burst forth and he said,
he said, but I will put enmity between thy seed and the woman's
seed and he'll bruise your head and you'll bruise his heel. That's
a prophecy of Christ. And then we see these prophecies
coming forth here. in the book of Micah against
the dark background of Israel's and Judah's sin and even their
destruction. Here in this black background
we see this shining diamond, this bright shining prophecy
of the restoration and the preservation of God's spiritual Israel, His
spiritual people, His remnant, His elect out of every tribe,
kindred, tongue, and nation by the Lord Jesus Christ who had
been identified and distinguished so much up to this point, but
even now He gives us... He'll be born in Bethlehem. Now, His kingdom's not going
to be an earthly kingdom. He said that Himself, but you
know, even the prophets said that. The people of Israel didn't
like it when they said it, but they said it anyway. So we identify
him and distinguish him as the king, the eternal king of a spiritual
kingdom, which he himself bought and paid for by the price of
his precious blood. And that's how he became the
Messiah king. Ron and I were talking about
this last week. I'll never forget one time I heard a preacher make
this statement that Christ was not Lord until after he died
on the cross and was resurrected. And that statement in and of
itself is not correct. But here's what you've got to
understand. He's always been Lord. In the Old Testament, he's
Lord. He's Jehovah our God. But there
is a specific lordship that was given him as God-man when he
finished the work. Peter spoke of it in Acts chapter
2. He was made both Lord and King. And that's his mediatorial
kingship. He is the Messiah King. He's
always been sovereign over all things. Always. He can't relinquish
that control, so to speak, as God. He is God and man in one
person. And though we might not be able
to understand and, as we say, wrap our minds around all of
that, it's still true. But what he's doing here, what
Micah the prophet is doing by revelation from God, in this
prophecy here as well as others, and you'll see this in the last
two chapters of Micah, He's really telling Judah, one more time,
among many, the same message that Isaiah and Jeremiah and
all the rest of the prophets told them, is that this is God
in human flesh, this Messiah who will do this great work and
He would occupy an eternal spiritual throne over an eternal spiritual
kingdom, not an earthly one. And it's another way of showing
these people who were so connected to their pedigree and their heritage
and their circumcision and their law keeping as they saw it. This
is another way of showing that Judah, there is no salvation
in the earth. It's not there. I don't care what it is. There's
no salvation in your physical connection with Abraham. Your first birth was a cursed
birth. born dead in trespasses and sin. That's the result of our fall
in Adam. Your works are not good enough
to save you or keep you saved or make you righteous before
God. Your tears of remorse and promises and attempts to do better
are not good enough to put away your sins. The blood of bulls
and goats cannot do it. Circumcision cannot change your
heart. You need to be circumcised in
the heart. You need to be born again. You know, that's what
Christ was telling Nicodemus. You've got to be born again.
Or you can't see or enter the kingdom of heaven. That's what
you need. That's what I need. That's what
they needed. There's no salvation, there's
no redemption, there's no forgiveness in an earthly priesthood. Those
priests, when they go into the old holy of holies, they had
to go in there for themselves, too. They had to offer blood
for themselves, too. Christ didn't do that. He's a
sinless sacrifice. He went into the holiest of all,
bearing the sins of his people, charged to him, puted to him. There's no salvation in an earthly
temple. in an earthly city. It's all
in Christ. So here the Lord is about to
destroy the northern kingdom of Israel completely, and he
also prophesies of the destruction of the southern kingdom of Judah,
even though there will be a restoration of Judah later on. And the reason
is, is because we've said it so many times, in quoting Genesis
49, 10, why did Judah have to be restored? Because it was not
yet the appointed time for the Messiah to come, and the scepter
was not going to depart from Judah until Messiah come, Shiloh
come. That's why. And then it would
eventually be destroyed forever. So here's what he says, now look
at this, he says, now gather, verse one, look at Micah 5, verse,
thou gather thyself in troops, O daughter of troops, he hath
laid siege against us, they shall smite the judge of Israel with
a rod upon the cheek. Now you gotta remember, Micah
prophesied about 750 years before Christ. He'd already prophesied
of the fall of Israel and Samaria back over in chapter one. And
this repeats that prophecy of destruction, but it also includes
the future destruction of Judah by Babylon. That would come later
on. He mentions that in verse 10
of chapter 4. Look at that. He says in chapter
4, verse 10, Be in pain and labor and bring forth, O daughter of
Zion, like a woman in travail. For now shalt thou go forth out
of the city, and thou shalt dwell in the field, and thou shalt
go even to Babylon. That's Judah going to Babylon
during the time of Jeremiah. What is that, about 100 and,
what, 100, 150 years after Micah? Israel and Judah failed to live
up to the covenant conditions that God had imposed on them
in which there would be blessings in the land for obedience and
cursing for disobedience. They failed to meet the conditions. Guess what? So have we. So have
we. Somebody says, which one of us?
Well, the best of us and the worst of us. We failed, haven't
we? What's another way of saying
that? We've all sinned and come short of the glory of God. We've
missed it. And we can't hit it. That's why
we need the woman's seed. That's why we need the blood
of Christ. Well, Israel and Judah, they failed to live up to the
conditions. Eventually, they'd be cast from the land and destroyed,
but again, as Judah, there would be restoration, not through a
human king, though. Not through a human king, but
through the promise of God in and by the Messiah, and because
of that. That was the reason for their existence. And in each
of these three messages that Micah has for Judah, he repeated
the truth of the remnant. Every one of them, he talked
about the remnant. God's gonna save a remnant. A remnant. A
remnant. And there's no doubt in the scripture
from Genesis to Revelation who that remnant is. It's a remnant
of grace, sinners saved by the grace of God, not just made up
of physical Jews, but God's elect out of every tribe, kindred,
tongue, and nation, all under the headship of Christ. All under
his kingship and his rule. In each successive generation,
God would bring them in by the power of the Holy Spirit. Just
like he brought Abel in, when Abel brought the blood of Christ.
The blood of the lamb, which typified Christ. So here's Micah
talking about the future Messiah King, and that prophecy here
was fulfilled 700 to 750 years later. Look over Matthew chapter
two with me. And I tell you, I never fail
to be amazed had two things about the scriptures. And that, it's
continuity, I mean it's just one message all the way through,
and it builds upon that message, it never denies that message,
never contradicts that message. I'm just amazed at that as I
go through these Old Testament scriptures. And then I'm constantly
amazed at the reality of the simplicity of it. And I find
that when, the times that I've seen it to be complicated, I
find the problem is with me, and not with the Word of God,
ultimately. But look here at Matthew chapter
2. It says, Now when Jesus was born
in Bethlehem, verse 1 of Judea, in the days of Herod the king,
behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying,
Where is he that is born king of the Jews? That's what we're
talking about, the Messiah king now. He says, for we've seen
his star in the east and are come to worship him. When Herod
the king had heard these things, he was troubled and all Jerusalem
with him. And when he had gathered all
the chief priests and scribes of the people together, there's
the king, there's the chief priests, there's the scribes. Now these
are fellows who ought to know something. These are the doctors
and the reverends and all that you know people talk about today.
He says, he demanded of them where Christ should be born.
Herod wanted to know where should the Messiah be born. And they
said unto him, in Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written
by the prophet, which prophet, Micah, that we're reading and
studying, and thou, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, art not
the least among the princes of Judah. He's asking that in the
form of a rhetorical question in the original. Same thing Micah's
saying. He didn't use the term ephratah
here. And the reason I believe he didn't
is because Herod wouldn't have any idea what he was talking
about. Herod, he was an Edomite, you know. He wasn't really immersed
in Jewish history. Or he would have known where
the Messiah would be born. And so he says, for out of thee
shall come a governor. And that's the same as a king
now, that's a ruler. Micah used the term ruler. that
shall rule my people Israel the word rule there you might look
in your concordances says feed he does feed his people he's
the shepherd king but this really means rule he's going to he's
going to he's going to sovereignly rule over his people and so there's
there's the fulfillment of that prophecy Bethlehem Bethlehem
was a little insignificant village in Judah. It was not a center
of trade. It was not a seaport. It was
not an economic power. It was not a military outpost. It had no political influence. In fact, it's probably kind of
like the town that we would refer to today as Podunk or something
like that. Just know, it's like what he's
saying here is the world, when they consider these things about
the King, the Messiah King, they're gonna look at him like he's a
nobody from nowhere. And that's the way God does things,
isn't it? But think about it, Bethlehem, Ephratah, what does
Bethlehem mean? It means house of bread. Our Messiah King is the bread
of life, isn't he? It's the house of bread, that's
what it means. It was a little bit of an agricultural center
in that way because it was known for the growth of the wheat and
the barley and all of that. But Ephratah, what does that
mean? That's an ancient name for Bethlehem. It means place
of fruitfulness. So out of the house of bread
comes fruitfulness. Out of the birth of the Messiah
King will come fruitfulness by way of His death. That's what
it's talking about. The history of Bethlehem is full
of Messianic promise and I want you to see that. Turn first to
Genesis chapter 35. Genesis chapter 35. We've studied this before, but
it's been a few years back. But this is Rachel. You know, Rachel's about to,
she's to have her children. And here in Genesis 35, look
down at verse 16. Jacob and Rachel, it says they
journeyed from Bethel, that's the house of God, verse 16 of
Genesis 35, and there was but a little way to come to Ephrath,
that's the same as Ephratah, that's the same as Bethlehem.
And Rachel travailed, and she had hard labor. And it came to
pass when she was in hard labor that the midwife said in her
fear not, thou shalt have this son also. Now this is talking
about Benjamin. And it says in verse 18, and
it came to pass as her soul was in departing, for she died, that
she called his name Ben-Oni. Ben-Oni. But his father called
him Benjamin. And Rachel died and was buried
in the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem. That's where Rachel
was buried. And Jacob set a pillar upon her
grave that is the pillar of Rachel's grave unto this day. What's significant
about that? Well, she had Benjamin. And she
called him Benoni. What does Benoni mean? Look in
your concordance. It means the son of sorrow. The son of my sorrow. She travailed
in hard labor to have this child. And it meant so much to her because,
as you know, the Messiah was to be the seed of woman. That's
why it was so important in that lineage for a woman to have children. You remember when Eve had her
first child, Cain. That's why she named him Cain.
That means acquired. Cain means I've gotten it. I've
gotten a man from the Lord, the seed of woman. That's what she
thought. She didn't know. Well, certainly it was through
that woman's seed that the Messiah would come according to the flesh
without the aid of man. But he was the son of her sorrow.
But now Jacob gave him another name, Benjamin. And what does
the name Benjamin mean? Look at it down here in verse
18. His father called him Benjamin.
It means the son of my right hand. That's what it means. Out of the sorrow comes the son
of the right hand. What does that speak to you of?
Oh, the man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, our Savior, who went
through the agony, the travail of his soul, just like Rachel
went through the travail of birth. He suffered, he bled, and he
died, all because of the sins of his sheep, imputed, charged,
accounted to him. He went under the wrath of God. and suffered in his soul, in
his agony. The man of sorrows, acquainted
with grief. He knew it firsthand. The scripture
says he learned obedience by the things that he suffered.
That means he actually experienced these things. It wasn't fake.
It wasn't a hoax. It was real. He was made guilty
before God. and went to the cross of Calvary
in his agony, that man of sorrows. But out of his death, out of
his death, what happened? He died. He put away sin. He satisfied justice. He paid
our debt. He brought in righteousness.
That's his scepter. He holds that scepter as the
Messiah King, the scepter of righteousness. And when He reaches
forth that scepter towards a sinner, that sinner can approach the
throne of God by the grace of God, washed in the blood of Christ,
clothed in His righteousness. And having done that, He was
buried and He arose again the third day and He ascended into
heaven, as you read in Hebrews chapter 1, and He sat down where? At the right hand of the Father.
The Son of Sorrow became the Son of the Right Hand. Bethlehem. Such an insignificant
place, who would ever want to go there? Not a place you'd like
to vacation. But out of Bethlehem, Ephratah,
came the Messiah King. And then look over at the book
of Ruth. Turn over with me to the book of Ruth. Now, we studied
this several years back, too. In fact, this is one of the first
books of the Bible that I preached through when I became your pastor.
Look at Ruth and look at chapter one. You see, that's what I want
you to see here. I want you to see how these prophecies
and these events that God is sovereignly working in this little
place called Bethlehem. They're so full of prophecy and
pictures and significance that are connected with the Messiah.
Look at Ruth chapter one. You know, Ruth begins here in
chapter one with the story of a man named Elimelech. It says
in verse one, now it came to pass in the days when the judges
ruled that there was a famine in the land and a certain man
of Bethlehem Judah the house of bread again, he went to sojourn
in the country of Moab." That's a picture of the fall of man
right there. You went from the house of bread to the house of
idolatry and unbelief. That's a going down. He and his
wife and his two sons, and the name of the man was Elimelech,
and the name of his wife, And the name of the two sons, Mylon
and Killian, Ephrathites of Bethlehem, Judah. There's that name Ephrathah
coming in again, see? Fruitfulness. And they came into
the country of Moab and continued there, just like we fell in Adam,
and we continued right there until God came and got us. All
right? And Elimelech and Naomi, Naomi's
husband died and she was left and her two sons. Well, you know
the story. We won't go through the whole thing. One of her sons
married the Moabitess named Ruth, and then they died. And it says,
look over at verse 19 of Ruth chapter 1. Ruth, the other daughters-in-law,
they stayed in Moab, but Ruth wanted to come with her. You
know the story. That beautiful picture of that loyalty. that
connected that woman who was born in idolatry to the child
of God because of her respect and honor for God and her love
for Naomi. It says in verse 19, so they
too went until they came to Bethlehem. Now here's Naomi and Ruth coming
back to Bethlehem. And it came to pass when they
were come to Bethlehem that all the city was moved about them
and they said, is this Naomi? and seen her in a lot of years. And she said unto them, call
me not Naomi, call me Mara. The name Naomi means pleasant.
It means pleased. And she wasn't pleasant or pleased
at this time in her life, so she said, don't call me Naomi,
call me Mara. What does Mara mean? It means
bitter. Call me bitter. He says, she says, for the Almighty
hath dealt very bitterly with me, and I went out full, and
the Lord hath brought me home again empty. I thought about
that, that's the way God saves sinners, isn't it? We go out
full of ourselves, full of our own self-righteousness and work,
and God makes us empty. And it says, why then call ye
me Naomi, seeing the Lord hath testified against me? That's
the way we are by nature in Adam. God testifies against us. And
when God, the Holy Spirit shows us our sinfulness, what do we
do? We take sides with God against ourselves. You're right, Lord. If you gave me what I deserved,
it would be nothing but damnation and wrath. That's what I've earned. And that's what I deserve. And
he testified against me, Naomi says, and the Almighty hath afflicted
me. Oh Lord, that's what a picture
of being born again there. He afflicts us, shows us our
sin and our depravity to do what? To drive us to Christ. That's
how we're gonna be full in Christ. Verse 22, so Naomi returned in
Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, with her, which returned out
of the country of Moab, and they came to Bethlehem in the beginning
of the barley harvest. They came to Bethlehem in the
beginning of the barley harvest. They came at the right time.
You know, the rule was, the law was, that the poor could glean
in the fields at that time And they could be fed. You know,
God always made provision for the poor. That's why it was such
a travesty for the leaders and the wealthy to neglect the poor. But God always makes provision
for His people. Boy, there's nobody that's more,
that's poorer than we are spiritually. Isn't that right? But God always
makes provision for us. He provides for us even when
we don't even know it, when we didn't know it, just like Gomer
and Hosea. So here she is, she's bitter.
But what came out of that bitterness? Well, read the whole book of
Ruth again, just to refresh your memory and think about it. Ruth met Boaz. Turn over to the
last chapter of Ruth. Here's what came out of Marah. Here's what came out of that
bitterness now. And what it was, that bitterness,
is what drove her back to Bethlehem, isn't it? She was down there
in the land of unbelief and idolatry just like we are by nature, born
dead in trespasses and sins and the Lord showed her her condition
and that drove her back to Bethlehem, the house of bread. That's how
He does us. He shows us what we are and who
we are and drives us to the bread of life, to the fruitfulness
of life, Christ. And so she realizes she's bitter,
but what comes out of that? Well, look at verse 18 of Ruth
chapter four. Look back at verse 11. Let's
read a few verses here. It says, and all the people that
were in the gate and the elders said, we are witnesses. This
is talking about the marriage of Boaz and Ruth. And it says,
the Lord make the woman that is come into thine house like
Rachel and like Leah, which too did build the house of Israel,
and do thou worthily in Ephratah and be famous in Bethlehem. Now
how's all that going to take place now? You know how? Because it's through this line
that the Messiah King is going to be born. And he goes on, verse
12, and let thy house be like the house of Phares, whom Tamar
bare unto Judah. Now, I'm not gonna go into all
that story, but I'll tell you what. Now, it's not, listen. This story here is not a story
that elevates the honor and dignity of man. You know about Tamar,
I believe. Many of you do. What happened
there, Phares and all that. And he says, look here, bear
unto Judah of the seed which the Lord shall give thee of this
young woman. So Boaz took Ruth, and she was
his wife. When he went unto her, the Lord
gave her conception, and she bare a son. And the women said
unto Naomi, blessed be the Lord which hath not left thee this
day without a kinsman, the kinsman redeemer. That's what came out
of that bitterness. When the Lord Jesus Christ drank
the bitter cup of the wrath of God for us, for his people, out
of that bitterness came our kinsman Redeemer. And it says that his
name may be famous in Israel and he shall be unto thee a restorer
of thy life. That's what came out of this
bitterness, the restoration of life. It's what we got from our
Savior. And a nourisher of thine old
age, For thy daughter-in-law, which loveth thee, which is better
to thee than seven sons, hath borne him." And Naomi took the
child and laid it in her bosom and became a nurse unto it. And
the woman and the women, her neighbors, gave it a name saying,
there is a son born to Naomi. Not Marah, but Naomi. And they called his name Obed.
Obed came out of that sorrow. And he's the father of Jesse.
and he's the father of David. What a story. Out of that little
insignificant town called Bethlehem, the city of David, that's what
it's called, it was the city of David's birth. And from him,
1,000 years after David, 750 years after Micah, came Messiah. Jesus of Nazareth. Look back
at Micah, let me just hurry here and I'll close. He says, he says,
but thou, verse two, Micah five, verse two, but thou Bethlehem
Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah.
You know, I think about that verse, despise not the day of
small things. You're little. But you're the
birthplace of the kings of Judah." Bethlehem, Ephratah. Yet out
of thee shall come forth unto me. Do you notice that? Out of
thee shall he come forth. That speaks of Christ's humanity.
He was born of the seed of David according to the flesh. He came
out of Bethlehem. That's an amazing thought, isn't
it? He's the one who created Bethlehem. He's the one who created
the world. And yet he came out of the world,
born the seed of woman, his sinless humanity, great is the mystery
of godliness, God manifest in the flesh. And he said, out of
the thousands of Judah, Christ is the Lion of the tribe of Judah.
He's the king of kings, he's the king of Shiloh, he's the
king of Salem, he's the king of righteousness and his scepter
is a scepter of righteousness. And being made of the seed of
David, he's connected with the Davidic covenant, the royal covenant,
which connects him with the covenant God made with Abraham, which
has its roots in the everlasting covenant of grace. He's the king
of kings. God told Abraham, he said, kings
will come out of you He said, I'll make thee exceeding
fruitful and I'll make nations of thee and kings will come out
of thee. And notice it says here, he shall come forth. He was sent
forth of the father according to the covenant in the fullness
of the time God sent forth his son made of a woman made under
the law to redeem them that were under the law. But he also came
forth of his own free will. He made this statement. He said,
no man takes my life from me. I give it. He came forth by the
command of His Father according to the covenant conditions which
He agreed to before the foundation of the world, and yet He gave
it voluntarily and willingly, and you want to know why? He
said it in John chapter 13, because He loved His own until the end. And notice here it says, He shall
come forth unto Me, unto His Father, not to men, He didn't
come for men. He didn't come to appease men.
He didn't come to satisfy men. He came to satisfy God the Father. It pleased the Lord to bruise
him. He offered himself as a sacrifice
to God, not to Satan, not to man, but to God as a sweet-smelling
savor. He was made sin. God made Him
sin. That's how He was made sin. God
imputed sin to Christ. And it's that same God who imputes
righteousness to us. And notice here it says, His
goings forth have been from old and from everlasting. That speaks
of His deity. He's the Great I Am. He's the
Alpha and the Omega. He has no beginning and no end.
He's eternal. speaks of his pre-existence as
the second person of the Godhead. Proverbs chapter 8 speaks of
it as wisdom was set up from everlasting. That's Christ. Paul
wrote to Timothy and spoke of that salvation which was given
us in Christ Jesus before the world began. In beginning was
the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. and
nothing was created that he didn't create. The Old Testament saints
were justified because of Christ their surety, justified by the
promise of one who would come and put away their sins and establish
righteousness for them. They were born again by the Holy
Spirit as sent from Christ. It speaks of his appearances
in the Old Testament as the angel of the Lord, the messenger of
Jehovah. He walked with Adam in the garden. He pronounced
the curses upon Satan, upon the woman, and upon the man. He appeared
to Abraham on Mount Moriah, stopped his hand, and provided himself
a lamb. He appeared to Jacob as the angel
with whom Jacob wrestled and as the latter the only way to
heaven. He appeared to Moses in the burning
bush. He appeared to Gideon to defeat
the enemy. He appeared to the children of
Israel in the wilderness as the rock from which they got water,
and Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit in 1 Corinthians chapter
10 and verse 4, made this statement. He said, and they did all drink
the same spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual
rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. His goings
forth have been from old and from everlasting. He's our Messiah
King. He's the same yesterday, today,
and forever. What a story of grace.