Now I want to have a few thoughts
if I may with some of the younger people in our congregation. When
we flew in here on Thursday evening, I was delighted to see all the
lights that people had put out, all the red lights and green
lights and blue lights and yellow lights for our arrival. And it
was really excellent to see all the town all decorated with coloured
lights just for us coming. I am right, am I not? Or maybe
there's something else happening. Maybe there's something else.
You know, I guess when you're younger, you do look forward
to this time of the year, even although it gets so cold. And
I know that young people do get preoccupied with all the lights
and with all the advertising and all the shop displays and
all the things that go on at this time of year with respect
to Christmas and Christmas celebrations. And I want, over the next couple
of weeks, just to draw your attention to something which I think is
important with respect to this season of the year. Because while
there seems to be very little in the way in which the celebrations
recognize anything to do with the Lord Jesus, it is the Lord
Jesus who ought to be in our attention. We set this time of
year aside to remember his birth. That's probably rather inappropriate. And there are other reasons why
this time of year gets dedicated to the Christmas festivities. But nevertheless, the Lord Jesus
Christ is going to be front and foremost of our thoughts. And in the next four Sundays,
I'm going to bring you four interesting facts about the Lord Jesus Christ's
birth. That's my plan. So I want to
see you all here. I don't want you only to get
two of those interesting facts. I want to see you coming back
to hear all four interesting facts about the Lord Jesus Christ's
birth. The first one that I'm going
to draw your attention to is the fact that the birth of the
Lord Jesus Christ was foretold many, many years before it ever
happened. Now that's kind of unusual. We
do know when a baby is going to be born. Because there is
a time from when the mother at first knows that that baby is
coming until the baby is born. And you see that little baby
growing in its mummy's tummy until the time of birth. It's
usually around six or eight, sometimes nine months that you
can understand that there is a baby going to be arriving. But the Lord Jesus Christ's birth
was told a long, long time before he ever came into this world. And I think that we might be
surprised just to know how early in the history of the world,
how early in the history of men and women was the Lord Jesus
Christ's birth foretold. Do you know that the Lord Jesus
Christ's birth was foretold in the Garden of Eden? Right at
the very beginning of the world, the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ
was announced. It was the Lord Jesus Christ
as the eternal Son of God, the living Word, who planted the
garden of Eden. We ought not to forget that the
Lord Jesus Christ has always been the everlasting, eternal
Word, the Son of God. And it was the Lord Jesus Christ
who walked in the garden that he had planted in the cool of
the day with his friend Adam and his wife Eve. And he spoke there in the garden
and he fellowshiped with Adam. And when Adam and Eve sinned,
it was the Lord Jesus Christ who clothed them in their nakedness,
and it was the Lord Jesus Christ who spoke to the serpent. So Jesus was there in the Garden
of Eden, we know that. But what I'm saying is that he
also spoke at that time of the fact of his future coming. As a child, in flesh into this
world. And in Genesis chapter three,
verse 15, we read about that promise. And this is what it
says. The Lord Jesus Christ is speaking
to the serpent. He's speaking to Satan. And this
is what he says. I will put enmity, that word
just means that there would be a fight, there would be a battle. Enmity comes from the word enemy. And so it is that Satan has always
been an enemy of the Lord's people. And it says here, I will put
enmity between thee and the woman. He was speaking to the serpent.
I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy
seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head and
thou shalt bruise his heel. So the first mention of the gospel
is here in this verse. And the first gospel promise
that we have in the whole of scripture is that the Lord Jesus
Christ himself would become flesh and the seed of the woman, Christ
in the flesh, would defeat Satan at the cross. And there was another time when
the coming of Jesus Christ was foretold. We move forward a little
bit in the Word of God and we come to the book of Job. And
Job, the Lord's servant, tells us this. He says in Job 19.25,
For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the
latter day upon the earth. Yet in my flesh shall I see God. That's a wonderful thing for
us to remember, that God became flesh. Not the flesh of an animal,
not the flesh of an angel. But the flesh of a man, human
flesh, the Lord Jesus Christ came into this world and he took
human flesh. And there in the book of Job,
we are foretold that the Lord Jesus Christ is coming. And there was another time when
Jesus' birth was foretold. In the book of Isaiah, it was
shown that the Lord Jesus Christ would come as a child, be born
of a virgin, and would fulfil every requirement of holiness
and justice for his people. The names that that child would
be given, they carry a sense of the achievements and the accomplishments
of our Saviour. In Isaiah chapter nine, verse
six, we read, unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given,
and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall
be called Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting
Father, the Prince of Peace. Hundreds and hundreds of years
before the Lord Jesus Christ came, he was promised in the
garden, He will bruise the serpent's head. He was promised to Job
who could say, I will see him in my flesh. and he was promised
by Isaiah who gave him these wonderful names about the things
that he would accomplish. Do you see how the birth of the
Lord Jesus Christ and the revelation of that birth has become more
and more detailed, more and more specific as the revelation has
been unfolded? And then just before Jesus came,
It seems as if the whole of the universe, the whole of the cosmos
was energized and geared up for the coming of the Son of God,
because Gabriel himself came from heaven. Gabriel, Gabriel
who says, I am Gabriel, who stand in the presence of God. What
a way to announce yourself, eh? I am Gabriel, the mighty angel
who stands in the presence of God. Not an archangel, mind you.
Gabriel's often called an archangel, but not in the Bible. There's
only one archangel in the Bible, and that's Michael. But Gabriel
stood in the presence of God, and he came from the presence
of God. to tell Mary, this young girl,
that she was to be the mother of the Lord Jesus Christ and
that there would be an imminent birth of the Messiah. Turn with
me in your Bibles to Luke. Luke chapter one. I want to read
some verses there to you. Luke chapter one. And verse 26. Luke chapter one and verse 26. It says there, and in the sixth
month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of
Galilee named Nazareth. To a virgin he spoused of a man
whose name was Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin's
name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her
and said, Hail thou that art highly favoured. The Lord is
with thee. Blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was
troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation
this should be. And the angel said unto her,
Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favour with God. And behold,
thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son,
and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall
be called the Son of the Highest. And the Lord God shall give unto
him the throne of his father David. And he shall reign over
the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there shall be
no end. So here it is, that's it, that's
the first surprising thing, the first amazing thing about the
Lord Jesus Christ's birth that I want you to remember and to
know, that the Lord Jesus Christ was foretold in all of these
different ways, from the very beginning of time right up to
before he was conceived in Mary's womb. We see from the beginning
of the world how clearly revealed and how much anticipated this
coming of Christ was. He was the salvation to be revealed. He was the one that would bring
redemption into this world. Now I imagine that there are
many who now that December has started are eagerly looking forward
to Christmastime, the holidays, the presents, the family, all
of the things that go with it. But it is far better to be able
to see through these things and understand that there is a salvation
to be found in the Lord Jesus Christ, that we will learn to
look for him and to find in him that great gift of redemption
which every one of us so urgently needs. May the Lord bless these
thoughts to us. Amen.