It is Fulfilled in Your Hearing
Luke 4:16-22
Isaiah 61
Have you ever been present when history was being made?
Maybe for you it was personal history at the birth of a child or your wedding day or graduation day. Those are personal milestones that are for us an important part of our personal history.
What I’m talking about is bigger than that and greater than ourselves. I’m talking about “Eternal History” the events our Heavenly Father has set in motion concerning the souls of all the redeemed. Now that’s historic!
Just such an event took place when Jesus walked among us in His home town of Nazareth. Eternal history would be proclaimed in the hearing of living men and women at Nazareth as Jesus arrived there and stood up to read in the Synagogue.
Jesus was deliberate in what He read that day. Earlier in this chapter the spiritual forces of Eternity had been put on notice about Jesus significance and purpose in the plan of God the Father when Jesus confronted Satan in the desert. And now the physical world would also be put on notice that the Messiah had arrived.
Jesus read from Isaiah 61
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him.
21 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
This is very, very important Saints because God the Father through God the Son allowed human beings the opportunity to participate in a monumental event of Eternal History; the revealing of the Messiah in the flesh.
Our God loves us so that He makes His plans known to us so that we might know that He cares for us and will rescue us from the calamity that is sin in this world.
God the Fathers Eternal plans are for our hearing and knowing. Our God does not make His plans a secret but instead proclaims them openly.
We call those plans prophecy because it is written in the Bible by God’s own Spirit so that we might know where we stand according to God’s timetable.
God has revealed the future events that will play out in His reclaiming of all things spiritual and physical concerning us and the Eternal History that awaits us.
A full third of the Bible concerns prophecy so it should matter to all of us as a subject to draw our attention and wonder.
Many people believe that prophecy is too difficult a subject to understand or know but that’s simply not the case.
Jesus demonstrates that for us as He points to Himself as the fulfilment of prophecy. So when we look to prophecy we should look to Jesus.
Who do you see when you look to Jesus?
Is Jesus someone you fear because of judgement?
Or is Jesus someone you trust because of His love for you?
Lately we have seen unprecedented environmental events occur in our world and affect 10’s of millions of people. The devastation has never been so great in our living memories.
Many are wondering if it is just nature or if we are living in the prophetic times that Jesus mentioned in Matthew 24 and Luke 17 & 21.
Others wonder about the Book of Revelation with its 7 seals, 7 bowls and 7 trumpets. Did you know there are a total of 55 sevens in all in the Book of Revelation?
The times we are living in certainly give us reason to think prophetically but should we also be thinking apocalyptically as well?
As Christians we know who hold tomorrow and who holds our hand. We can approach each tomorrow with a calm assurance and a certain faith. We’ve no need to fear.
Still it is important that we ask ourselves if we are living at a time when God’s words are being fulfilled in our hearing.
If they are, how should we respond?
When Jesus proclaimed this truth to His fellow citizens in Nazareth they wanted to throw Jesus over a cliff. It was news they refused to hear.
Can we afford to respond to God’s prophecies in our day with the same kind of reaction?
No we must study the scriptures and seek to learn the truths of God that will comfort, enlighten and prepare us for the next great chapter of Eternal history for we may in fact be a very real part of it.
When Jesus read from Isaiah 61 there was much more to that chapter that He did not include because it was not to be fulfilled at that time in the hearing of the people who were alive then.
But if we read the rest of that chapter we might just find that there is much more within it that could in fact be taking place in our lifetimes.
Isaiah 61:10-11
I delight greatly in the LORD;
my soul rejoices in my God.
For he has clothed me with garments of salvation
and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness,
as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest,
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
11 For as the soil makes the sprout come up
and a garden causes seeds to grow,
so the Sovereign LORD will make righteousness
and praise spring up before all nations.
Jesus is coming dressed in the Robe of Righteousness, will you be happy to see that day or will you be afraid?
Lay aside all your fears dear one and trust in the one who comes for you for you are His special possession.
Fear not little flock – trust in the Lord.
Amen.
