Advent 2014 Part 1 Series

A family was out vacationing at the lake one summer. Dad had been puttering out by the boat house. Two of his sons, a 12-year old and a 3-year old were down playing along the dock. The 12 year old was supposed to be watching his little brother, but he got distracted. The 3 year old, little Billy, thought that would be a good time to check out the shiny aluminum fishing boat tied up at the end of the dock. So he went to the dock and put one foot on the boat, and one foot on the dock. He lost his balance and fell into the water, which was about 5 or 6 ft deep.

The splash alerted the 12-yr old who let out a piercing scream. Dad came running from the boat house, jumped into the water, swam down, but unable to see anything, came up for air. Sick with panic, he went right back down into this murky water, and began to feel everywhere around the bottom. He couldn’t feel anything. Finally, on his way up, he felt little Billy's arms locked in a death grip on one of the posts of the dock, about 4 ft under water. Prying the boy's fingers loose, they burst up together thru the surface to fill their lungs with life giving air.

Finally when the adrenaline had stopped surging, and nerves had calmed down a little bit, the Father asked his son, “What on earth were you doing down there hanging onto the post so far under the water? And little Billy’s answer was a classic, laced with the wisdom only a toddler could give. He said, "I was just waiting for you dad. Just waiting for you."

Friends, at the beginning of this Advent season we are remembering when the God of the universe left the glory and the splendor of heaven, a place where there was no pain and no sickness, no accidents, no hurt, and no death.

And He plunged into this dark, murky world on a rescue mission, a rescue mission for all of us who are drowning, a rescue mission for all of us who are barely hanging on, a rescue mission for all of us who are lost in the darkness.

Once things had been perfect. All two of the humans on earth walked with God on a daily basis. Then they decided to go their own way in disobedience to the one command they had been given. And, on that very day the Lord gave the very first glimpse of the Savior He would send so that the chasm, wider than the Grand Canyon, could be bridged and we could be brought into intimate fellowship with God once again.

Here, God is pronouncing judgment on the evil one and proclaiming the very first prophecy regarding the coming Savior of the world.

Genesis 3:15 AMP

“And I will put enmity (contempt, hostility) between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her Offspring; He will bruise and tread your head underfoot, and you will lie in wait and bruise His heel.”

Just nine verses after the first sin was committed the Lord is putting a plan into motion to save us all from sin. And He offers us the first hint.

The Messiah will be a child of a woman, the evil one will try to inflict injury on Him but He will crush the head of the evil one!

Do you ever wonder why God did not send Jesus right then and there?

Perhaps He just wanted to prove to us that we could not save ourselves!

So, He waited and we waited for Him.

The Flood

Abraham is selected

Egypt

Moses

The Exodus

Wandering in the wilderness

Entering the Promised Land

The time of the Judges

The time of the Kings

The time of exile

And, all the while the prophets are saying, “He is coming, the Messiah is coming.” But, they did not know when or exactly how. Let’s take a look at one of the prophecies.

And, at this point, the nation of Israel, in fact the whole human race was just like little three year old Billy, waiting to be saved from death.

Daniel - a captive from Judah - (Read Daniel 2 enough times so that you can tell the story of the dream and the danger to Daniel well.)

You may well ask, what does this have to do with Advent?

Let’s take a look at a couple verses from Daniel 2

Daniel 2:34, 44-45

“As you watched, a rock was cut from a mountain, but not by human hands. It struck the feet of iron and clay, smashing them to bits. The whole statue was crushed into small pieces of iron, clay, bronze, silver, and gold.