It Was Foretold

​Isaiah 7:14
Luke 1:26-35
 
It’s a blessing from Almighty God that we can do what we do.  There are a lot of places and a lot of jobs that wouldn’t allow this devotion to take place. 
 
I thank God for Dr. Sorensen.  When he was here at the University as the President I talked with him about a situation and asked him about doing this. He told me “I see nothing wrong with it”. He said as long as it doesn’t interfere with work and it’s done before work time he didn’t see anything wrong with it.   He told me “If anybody has a problem with it tell them to call me” – now we’re talking about the President of the University!  Even when Dr. Witt became President, I stopped him while he was walking around the quad and we talked.  I told him about it and I even invited him to come.  He said he was going to come (he hasn’t gotten here yet) but he knew about this after Sorensen left.  So I just thank God for this door that has opened.
 
When we talk about prophesy in the bible - from Genesis to Revelation we can see men of God prophesying about the various things that were going to transpire.  A prophet was a person of God who was being inspired by God to speak a message for a certain purpose.  Prophesy is a prediction made under divine influence.  Let’s look at how the birth of our Lord and Savior was prophesied by the prophet Isaiah long before his birth.
 
Isaiah 7:14 was written 600 years before Jesus was born. The prophet Isaiah is writing here and he says “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign…”  And that sign, as the Isaiah describes, is that a virgin will conceive; in other words a virgin will become pregnant!  We read other things about the Savior in the book of Isaiah, things that will happen so people will know who He is.
 
Just think, for all those years before the New Testament was written, before Christ even came, I’m quite sure that those that studied the Torah were wondering “When will these things take place?”.  By the Word of God we now know that the virgin spoken of is Mary, the mother of our Lord and Savior, Jesus our Christ.
 
Our passage from the book of Luke is familiar to most, but there are those who don’t know the story.  If you don’t know the Christmas story you need to read it.  If you have young children, read it to them and tell them why we celebrate Christmas.  We celebrate Christmas because of the Christ child - that’s why we celebrate Christmas.
 
I pray to God that He will ignite the flame in each one of us as believers.  I pray as we approach this holiday season that He will ignite the flame that lies within us to share the Jesus story, maybe even with somebody that doesn’t know. 
 
Tell somebody about Jesus, about why the Savior was born.
~J. T.