A Perfect Christmas - Part 2 Series

Each Sunday in the month of December, we are looking at ancient predictions from Isaiah, an Old Testament prophet concerning the coming Messiah. Isaiah provides for us a trilogy of predictions about Jesus 700 plus years before His birth. This trilogy provides us with the ingredients of what the prophet Isaiah tells us makes a Perfect Christmas. To get the most out of this series, you’ll need to keep this phrase in mind: Promise made, promise kept. I invite you to turn your Bible to Isaiah 9 but also place a bookmark at Matthew 4 in the moments to come.

Christmas does not begin in the gospels. Christmas did not start with Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, and the angels. The truth is the story of Christmas begins years before this. Seven hundred years before the Wise Men gave, the angels sang, or the shepherds came, Isaiah explains what Christmas is all about.

Years ago, when Traci lived on the south side of Fort Worth, I was awoken in the middle of the night. As I lay in bed, a silhouette was walking down the hall toward our bedroom. I sprang to my feet and started yelling and running simultaneously in the hopes of running the intruder out of our home. At the moment where I tackled the would-be assassin, my wife yelled out, “It’s me! It’s me!” To be my relief and embarrassment, it was my wife, Traci! Somehow in the middle of the night, she got out of bed without me realizing it. I was thankful I did not do something worse than yell and scream before I was recognized her.

For many people, you don’t have faith or certainty in Jesus. He’s nothing more than a silhouette for you. You are happy that others find meaningful peace when they talk about Jesus, but nagging doubts loom for you. You ask yourself, “How can I be sure that Jesus is God?” Mark this: One of the main ways the earliest people who encountered Him had their uncertainties erased was how Jesus fulfilled biblical predictions.

Most modern people underestimate the challenge it was for anyone to believe in Jesus as God. Even much of Jesus’ own family did not believe He was the Messiah. And again, it was the Old Testament’s predictions about Jesus that convinced them. A typical conversation about a doubter was illustrated with John the Baptist: “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another” (Matthew 11:3b)? Look at Jesus’ response to John: “Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5 the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. 6 And blessed is the one who is not offended by me” (Matthew 11:4-6). Jesus was quoting from Isaiah the prophet, specifically Isaiah 35:5-6 and Isaiah 61:1-1. John recognized Jesus’ “encoded” message and believed despite his doubts. It was the fulfillment of the Old Testament’s predictions in Jesus that convinced John.

Promise made, promise kept. When you hear these words, you can draw an arch from the Old Testament to the New Testament. For the Old Testament is the promise made, and the New Testament is the promise kept. You cannot rightfully read Isaiah 9 without sensing a detailed and accurate forecasting of Jesus.

“They will pass through the land, greatly distressed and hungry. And when they are hungry, they will be enraged and will speak contemptuously against their king and their God, and turn their faces upward. 22 And they will look to the earth, but behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish. And they will be thrust into thick darkness.

1 But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.

2 The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.

3 You have multiplied the nation; you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as they are glad when they divide the spoil.

4 For the yoke of his burden, and the staff for his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian.

5 For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire.

6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.