“I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.” Revelation 22:16.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
I do not want you to be uninformed. I do not want the same to apply to you that Jesus told the religious leaders of His day when they asked Him questions that showed they did not understand Scriptures or My power even though they were held out to be experts in their knowledge of the writings of Moses, the prophets, and all Scripture. Even to two of His disciples, on the road to Emmaus on the day I had raised Him from the dead, Jesus had to say: “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!” Luke 24:25.
I want you to be informed so that you will not be led astray by every humanistic theory and doctrine, even religious ones, like the chief priests, Sadducees and Pharisees of Jesus’ day taught that misled a good number of the people over whom they exercised authority to miss their Messiah, and fail to recognize that Jesus is the Messiah, My Son and your Lord.
“Brethren, sons of Abraham’s family, and those among you who fear God, to us the message of this salvation has been sent. For those who live in Jerusalem, and their rulers, recognizing neither Him nor the utterances of the prophets which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled these by condemning Him. And though they found no ground for putting Him to death, they asked Pilate that He be executed. When they had carried out all that was written concerning Him, they took Him down from the cross and laid Him in a tomb. But God raised Him from the dead. Acts 13:26-30.
How do you know that He is the One? I am going to show you in these life lessons that events of His life from birth to death, from resurrection to ascension, and from ascension to glory and the pouring out of My Spirit, were carefully foretold by My prophets, beginning thousands of years before He was born according to the flesh in Bethlehem (but God forever according to the Spirit).
Paul, a bond-servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning His Son, who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh, who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 1:1-4.
Mysteries are for revelation at the appointed time. Prophecies are to reveal them and bring them to pass in the earth. And by these also you will know that there is no god other than Me for there is no one else that speaks the end from the beginning and has everything come to pass that they speak.
I AM. I see all time and eternity in one glance of My eyes. It does not mean that it had to happen that way, it just means that what you do by your free will whether it was My plan and desired destiny for your life or not, I already know as you walk it out. But it does not lessen My love for you. My love is continuous forever. If you choose not to be with Me that is your choice, but it is never Mine.
And in making your choice, I do not want you to be uninformed, or even worse, misinformed.
“And now, brethren, I know that you acted in ignorance, just as your rulers did also. But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Messiah would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; and that He may send Jesus, the Messiah appointed for you, whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time. Acts 3:17-21.
Today in our Christmas journey of remembrance we are going to begin to look at the prophecies, types, and shadows about Jesus in greater detail than the overview in our prior two Life Lessons. For faith comes by hearing and hearing by My Word about Christ.
All prophecy regarding the birth of the Messiah begins in the one I spoke, which we discussed yesterday, in the Garden of Eden:
The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field; 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, and between your seed and her seed; He shall crush your head, and you shall bruise Him on the heel.” Genesis 3:14-15.
So with that as our starting point, let us begin our Christmas journey of remembrance through the Bible. Old and new testaments to see Jesus your Messiah, Savior and Lord.
And Jesus said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has become a disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like a head of a household, who brings out of his treasure things new and old.” Matthew 13:52.
I would like to repeat some of the discussion I have already had with you here to form the background again for the promise made to Adam and Eve of the seed of a woman that would crush the devil’s power.
The first man and woman were formed by My Word. They were created by Me and had no biological father. I spoke the Word, “Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness,” Genesis 1:26, and from the imperishable seed of My Word I called forth the man and formed his body from the clay as the vessel to house his spirit and soul. Genesis 2:7. I then breathed My Spirit into him and gave him eternal life. Genesis 2:7. It is My Spirit that gives life. Psalm 104:30; John 6:63
And then I pulled the woman out of the man, the bride from the bridegroom, and formed the woman from My Word, but this time I did not need to form her flesh from clay for I already had flesh from which to form her—the flesh of her partner, the man. Genesis 2:22.
As we discussed before, the man and the woman had eternal life, but they lost it by stepping out from under My authority and driving My Spirit out of their spirits. Their spirits then, without their source of eternal life, became dead to Me and alive to sin, nothing but a smoldering wick, and their physical body followed and dried up and died.
I gave the man and woman dominion over the earth and I gave them seed to increase them and give them the ability to replenish the earth. Genesis 1:29 I no longer needed to form each person by My Word because I had set it up so you could co-create your descendants with Me by the seed of the man united to the woman.
But after the man had lost his eternal life by stepping out from under My authority and driving My Spirit, the source of eternal life, out of his spirit, all the descendants of the man were born into the kingdom of darkness where he was and owed Me the same debt he did. For the children of a slave are born slaves to the same master. Galatians 4:21-31. You owed a tremendous debt to divine justice. As it is written in My Word: “No one can redeem the life of another or give to God a ransom for them—the ransom for a life is costly, no payment is ever enough—so that they should live on forever and not see decay.” Psalm 49:7-9.
The seed of the woman that I foretold in the Garden that was to crush the authority of the serpent, Genesis 3:15, and win it back for man had to be without the sin of Adam on his spirit and soul. Exodus 12:5. You needed another man formed from Heaven, formed by My Word with no biological father, who had an eternal life to give in payment of your debts to redeem you from the slavery of sin and death. The payment for a life is a life. Exodus 21:23. You needed an eternal life to pay fo the eternal life Adam murdered in himself and his descendants.
You needed the seed of the woman. For just as Eve was formed by the imperishable seed of My Word and the flesh of Adam, so now, the second and last Adam would be formed by the imperishable seed of My Word and the flesh of a woman, a descendant of Abraham in the line of David.
In the Lord, neither is woman independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For as the woman originates from the man, so also the man has his birth through the woman; and all things originate from God. 1 Corinthians 11:11-12.
One of your own, one with whom you could become a blood brother, so that He would be your kinsman redeemer for all time and make every year a jubilee for you. Leviticus 25:47-49. Since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in your humanity so that by His death He might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. For surely it is not angels He helps, but Abraham’s descendants. Hebrews 2:14-16.
I would confirm My Promise of the imperishable seed coming to dwell among you that I first pronounced before Adam and Eve in the Garden through the prophet Isaiah, when My Spirit inspired him to write:
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. Isaiah 7:14.
“Immanu-el” means “God with us.” And that is exactly what was to happen. My Son, One God with Me, would rend the heavens, Psalm 18:9; Isaiah 59:16-20; Isaiah 64:1, and come down as one of your own to save you. Only My Son, come in the flesh by imperishable heavenly seed planted by the Holy Spirit to grow in the womb of the Virgin Mary, had a sinless life to give. But I am jumping ahead here. Instead, let me show you further. Let Me trace for you the line that would birth the Seed of the woman that I foretold in the Garden of Eden.
Many years after Adam’s fall, I found a man who would listen to Me and follow Me. The man was Abraham, My friend, Isaiah 41:8, and your father in the faith, Isaiah 51:2; Romans 4:12, 16, who readily obeyed Me, even so far as to prepare to sacrifice his beloved son, Isaac, to Me. Genesis 22. I swore by Myself as I made him a promise. Hebrews 6:13. I told Abraham that all the nations of the world would be blessed by his seed, by his descendant. Genesis 22:18.
If you will note, I refer to “seed” as only one and not “seeds” as though many. Galatians 3:16. It was from Abraham’s line that the promised redeemer, the Messiah, would be born, for the Virgin who would be with child was of Abraham’s line. Luke 1:27.
Did you ever wonder why I asked Abraham to sacrifice his beloved son Isaac to Me? If you recall when I was about to let My justice fall on Sodom and Gomorrah I determined I had to tell Abraham about it ahead of time. Genesis 18:16-17. I decided I would not hide from Abraham what I was about to do since all nations on earth would be blessed through him. Genesis 18:18. For I chose him so that he would direct his children and his household after him, which includes all of you, to keep My way by doing what is right and just. Genesis 18:19.
In the same way, I decided to foretell the good news to Abraham ahead of time so he would know what was to come from his line. Galatians 3:8. His line would birth that imperishable seed that is My Son and I would sacrifice My beloved Son—just as I had requested him to do—as a sin offering on the hill across from where Abraham offered Isaac. Mark 15:22. Abraham thereby experienced the gospel personally, the same pain I would feel in offering My Son up as a sacrifice, but, of course, I did not let him go all the way through with the sacrifice of his son, Isaac, Genesis 22:12, for Isaac was born the corruptible seed of Adam’s line and did not have an eternal life to offer to redeem you or pure blood to cleanse you of sin. Abraham prophesied that day that I Myself would provide the Lamb for the burnt offering that would take away the sins of the world. Genesis 22:8, John 1:29.
Later I spoke the promise of the seed that would bless all nations to Abraham’s son Isaac. I again foretold that in his descendants all the nations would be blessed. Genesis 26:4. And after Isaac, I spoke the same promise to his son, Jacob, to whom I later gave the name Israel. Genesis 28:14.
I had found a family through which the incorruptible seed would take flesh, the descendants of Abraham. And of those descendants, many years later when My people Israel were established in the Promised Land, I chose one man from whose line the Messiah would be birthed. This descendant of Abraham was a man after My own heart and his name was David. 1 Samuel 13:14. David, a Covenant man, who was well aware of My promises and was bold in declaring them, just as when he fought Goliath. 1 Samuel 17:36.
Do you know why I called David a man after My own heart and never again called anyone else that in Scripture? It was because I seek your love. I tell you often in the Scriptures that I love you, Jeremiah 31:3; Isaiah 43:4, and I ask you to love Me with all your heart, soul, and strength, Deuteronomy 6:5, but David was the first and only one that unashamedly called out to Me “I love you!” Psalm 18:1. He is the only one that was so excited about Me that he danced up the street in procession before Me right in front of everyone! 1 Chronicles 15:29. He was the only one that sang songs to Me that are like love songs. 1 Chronicles 16:34. He was the most extravagant in his offerings from his own funds that anyone has ever been toward Me. 1 Chronicles 29:3-5. He once said that he would not offer Me anything that did not cost him. 2 Samuel 24:24. And he meant that it should cost a lot. He was not going to offer Me his leftovers or a one dollar bill at the temple treasury. He gave from his heart to the love of his life. And he was grateful and expressed his thanks to Me. 1 Chronicles 29:13; Psalm 7:17; Psalm 9:1; Psalm 35:18.
David sought My heart. And I gave it to him. And in My heart he found mercy, forgiveness, love, protection, provision, prosperity, power, fame, and victory over all his enemies on every side. 2 Samuel 22:40-42
And you can have just as much or more than David if your heart is turned to Me as unreservedly as his was. 1 Kings 14:8. My eyes go to and fro across the earth looking for those whose hearts are turned towards Me, to show Myself strong on their behalf. 2 Chronicles 16:9. Yes, if you love Me, you are known by Me. 1 Corinthians 16:9. And I come to you. Song of Songs 2:4 And I will show My favor, My grace, My power, Myself and give My gifts to those who love Me. John 14:21;23; John 15:7. When you delight in Me, I give you your heart’s desires. Psalm 37:4.
Yes, I chose David because of what I saw in his heart. 1 Samuel 16:7. And by My prophet Nathan, I promised David that when his days were fulfilled and he had gone to be with his fathers, that I would set up his descendant after him and establish his kingdom. I promised David that his descendant would build Me a house, and I would establish his throne forever. I declared I would be His Father, and He would be My Son; and I would establish Him in My house and in My kingdom forever; and His throne would be established forever. 1 Chronicles 17:11-14.
So, now you see the “seed of the woman” that would come to redeem mankind from the devil’s control and the curse of the law was to be born of a virgin and was to be birthed in David’s line. Just as I chose the family who would birth the seed foretold in the Garden of Eden because of one man’s faithfulness and obedience, I now chose a tribe from that family because of one man’s extravagant love for Me. I revealed this to My prophet Jeremiah as well. He understood that One from David’s line would redeem man and would Himself be LORD. Listen to My Word to Jeremiah:
“The days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will raise up to David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called: The LORD Our Righteousness.” Jeremiah 23:5-6.
This is not a mere man for He is LORD your righteousness. There is no other God but Me. My Son and I are One. John 10:30.
My Word came to pass twenty-eight generations after David. Matthew 1:17. I found the virgin Mary of Nazareth, a descendant of David, Luke 3:23-28, betrothed to a man named Joseph, also a descendant of David. Matthew 1:1-17. At that point, the time was right. Galatians 4:4. Israel had not had a prophet since Malachi and My Word seemed to be silent in your land, but, just as you do not see the seed germinating when it is underground, My silence did not mean that nothing was happening. I was preparing for the greatest work that had ever been given to men. Isaiah 43:19; Isaiah 48:6.
In the past I had spoken to your forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days, and these are the last days that My prophets told you of, Isaiah 2:2; Hosea 3:5; Micah 4:1; Acts 2:17. I have spoken to you by My Son, whom I appointed heir of all things, and through whom I made the universe. Hebrews 1:1-2
Do you see what I am saying? Sometimes things that you think died in your life are just growing down in the hidden depths of your soul, and will suddenly sprout up and bloom. A stump can make a branch—a shoot—and grow again.
The house of Jesse seemed dead, there was no royalty in David’s line at the time My Son took flesh and was born, but My Son is a King enthroned forever—just as I promised David that a descendant of his would always be king, enthroned forever. For hundreds of years it looked like My promise to David had failed due to the unfaithfulness of his descendants, Psalm 89:29-32, 38-46. but it had not. The seed had just not come forth yet to fruition. But at the proper time My Word to Isaiah came to pass, a shoot came up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch bore fruit.
Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit.The Spirit of the LORD will rest on Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and strength, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD. And He will delight in the fear of the LORD. And He will not judge by what His eyes see, nor make a decision by what His ears hear; but with righteousness He will judge the poor, and decide with fairness for the afflicted of the earth; and He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips He will slay the wicked. Also righteousness will be the belt about His loins, and faithfulness the belt about His waist. Isaiah 11:1-5.
But more on this passage later as we continue our journey in the coming Life Lessons.
I love you. Are you beginning to see that the Christmas story reaches much farther than most are aware? Love is stronger than death, love never fails. And I am love. And so are you