THE PREDICTION (PART 1)

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.

Isaiah 7:14

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

NOTE: Today, I am starting a series of holiday devotions as we build toward Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem. I will resume my writings from Jeremiah and continue our walk through the Old Testament after Christmas.

On more than one occasion in ministry, I have heard someone say something like this:

“I am waiting for God to show me a sign as to what I should do” or “I wish God would show me a sign to show me He is at work in my circumstances” or even a plea in prayer for God to “show me a sign”.

Note that in all three of these examples and others like them, a person is the one asking for the sign to be revealed by God, all punctuated by a hope that God was active and alive in the midst of whatever was going on. Believers have a natural inclination to place hope in God and His ability to do all things as He promised.

But as we look at today’s single verse from the Book of Isaiah, we find the Lord speaking and doing the talking about a sign He was going to give, a prediction about a holy and divine event that was yet to come. Look again at His words here:

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.  Isaiah 7:14

Think about these words if you were the listener. The northern kingdom of Israel and southern kingdom of Judah were warring with one another and as if it weren’t bad enough, judgment was coming from God on both kingdoms by way of the Assyrians and Babylonians. When the onslaught was finished, Canaan, the beautiful land God gave to His people would be devastated and left in ruins with the Israelite inhabitants either killed in the fighting or taken away from their homeland into captivity and exile.

The people were going to be in need of words from hope and God knew it so He uttered words that would come to life some seven hundred years later when a virgin would conceive and give birth to a son and that son would be named Immanuel which simply meant God with us. In other words, a people who would go into years of separation from God were given the assurance that a time was ahead when God Himself would be with them, not just in Spirit but in the flesh.

The people of God in Isaiah’s time did not know what we know today. In fact, those Israelites would not even survive to see the words of God come to fruition. Generations would come and go but the word of God and the future assurance it contained would endure.

For a virgin named Mary would be visited by an angel sent by God named Gabriel and that angel would tell Mary about God’s amazing plan for her, a plan that was predicted long before she was even born. She would be a key player in the sign God was sending for His people as she was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit who initiated a divine conception. The result would be a Son born unto God’s people as promised, and not just any son, but a Son who would be just as much God as He was man. Thus, the boy named Jesus would also be known as Immanuel for He would represent the truth that God had come to earth to physically dwell among His people.

In Jesus, God’s predicted sign had come, not just to fulfill prophecy, but to be the Lamb of God who took away the sins of the world once and for all.

As we continue to reflect and prepare ourselves for the coming of Jesus during this Advent season, let us remember that all the events that led to the birth of our Savior were perfectly predicted and then orchestrated by the God who so loved the world that He sent His Son to be born, to live, and then to die for the sake of His people who He longed to share life with forever.

Tomorrow, we’ll look at a second sacred prediction from the Old Testament.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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