Messiah:(The(Promised(One( Sermon(#1:(Believing(the(Promises… · 2020-03-13 · 70 years, and God is still true and He still fulfills His promises and He does what He says He'll

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Messiah: The Promised One

Sermon #1: Believing the Promises -‐-‐-‐ Dec. 6, 2015

Dr. Matt Cassidy and Carol Cummings

Matt: Listen, it's a fun time and we're looking at a series about Messiah, the Promised One. I've

been feeling that whole Christmas spirit a lot lately, probably since Thanksgiving on. I feel

like a small child longing for my Christmas gift to come and with great expectation that I

would get this cordless drill, what it comes down to, if you must know. My other one, the

battery's died, it's pretty much good for nothing, you can't even drive a nail with it. I feel

like I can't wait 'til Christmas. It's not like I have hope.

I don't need hope that I'll get this lithium-ion battery with accompanying ... What's the

other thing called? What's that called? Impact driver, it comes with an impact driver

apparently, because I need one of those, too, but I don't even have to hope for it. Because

it's at my house, it's in my garage. I already bought it. I bought it last Friday and it's just

going to sit there. I have to wait nineteen days before I'll plug it in and take this thing for a

run but I thought to myself, "This, this is the Christmas experience." Isn't it? -- where you

get what you want ahead of time and then it's all about ... That's nothing like the Christmas

spirit. It is not even remotely similar to the real Christmas experience.

When you think about my little story with my cordless drill, which is a true story and you

think about the true story of the coming of the Messiah, the Promised One, here's what real

Christmas faith is. First of all, it requires a considerable amount of faith, believing in

something that you can't see and you're convinced to that. It means that the Christmas

story, the historic Christmas story, it causes you to change lenses on your camera and not

so selfie-focused lens but this panoramic lens that says, "Wow, there's a lot more going on

1. Christmas Requires Faith


in the world and this promise is for bigger things than just me and my little drill." Then

there's this other sense of patience, not you waiting for two days -- I got a two-day delivery

and I'm still waiting at the front porch -- but thousands of years.

Let's stop and pause before we move on. Think about real faith, the real thing that people

for thousands of years were required to have when it comes to the Messiah. Messiah means

the Anointed One, the Promised One, and God gave promises throughout the older

testament and as He did it became clearer. It was progressively clearer, but what He told

Abraham and Moses and Ruth and David, they still had to believe in something that they

didn't see and they had to be convinced of it. Here's the biblical definition, this is literally

the Bible's definition of faith: faith is the assurance of things hoped for and it's the

conviction or the certainty of things that they don't see.

Tongue in cheek, I don't need faith for my cordless drill. I have touched it. I have seen it. I

have smelled it. It exists. But these men have true faith, which is when you believe

something to be true and you have a conviction of something independent of your feelings

because God said so, and completely isolated from the circumstances around you. No

matter the amount of circumstances around you, a person of faith says, "I still believe what

God said about the Promised One, that He's coming and what He'll do. It's independent of

how long I have to wait for that.” Again, thousands of years, hundreds of years. --- I might

not ever see it.

Real faith is when it takes the focus off of ourselves. The biblical faith, it’s we're not the

center of the universe but what it is, is this God's unveiling plan of human reconciliation,

righteousness and His final judgment. The promise, the Promised One, the Messiah, the

Anointed One, it's a promise not for a person, it's a promise ... it's towards a person but it's

a promise for mankind and for all of eternity, it's so much bigger. When we make it about

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

2. Christmas Is Not About You


us and we don't change that lens on the camera we're missing what true biblical faith is.

Not only is it significantly faith and trust-based in things we don't see, but also it's bigger,

but also it’s longer, it's generations long.

Look at these people, Abraham and Moses and Ruth and David and we just go on and on,

but they waited and they believed, 'til their dying breath they believed the promises of God

but they didn't need God to meet their deadlines for God to be true.

That's why it says in Hebrews 11, this is the chapter that defines faith for us, in Hebrews

11 verse 13 it says, "Now all these people, all these saints of old, they were still living by

faith when they died. They did not receive the things that were promised." No, not in this

lifetime. "They only saw them and welcomed them from a great distance, way out there,

admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on this earth."

It is a very long road to a cave in Bethlehem and statistically speaking you couldn't analyze

the data to find out what the percentage of people that were actually experiencing the

fulfillment of the promise of the Messiah. Think of the millions of people that had to look

off and say, "This is not my home.” This promise will be fulfilled but not in these short 60,

70 years, and God is still true and He still fulfills His promises and He does what He says

He'll do.

In our times together leading up to Christmas Eve I thought this year that it would be

interesting to look at one of the darker times, the more depressing, the quieter times of

3. Christmas Reminds Us of Generations of Saints Longing for the Messiah.

Hebrews 11:13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.


faith when you look at the Bible history. We're going to look at this era of time and say,

"Okay, how did they practice this thing that we're calling real faith?" The real Christmas

faith that believes with a conviction of things that they don't see, it's more global in its

consequence and that could take longer than their own experience. They're going to be

patient with this

Here's what I thought we'd do, let's look at what's called the 400 Silent Years. Here it is in

a time chart and we know of the 400 Silent years between the last book of the older

testament, Malachi --- he's the last Old Testament prophet in that book --- and then the

first (or actually the last Old Testament prophet) is a gentleman named John the Baptist.

He's still Old Testament, but there's a 400-year gap between Malachi and when John the

Baptist announces the coming of the Messiah.

In that 400 years it's often called the 400 Silent Years because it's during that period of

time that God didn't speak in a revelatory way through a prophet. There were not angelic

visitations. At Malachi they turned their back on God for the last time and God said, "I'll

just wait." Now during that period of time a lot was happening, God was moving. He was

moving pieces across the board and doing what He does.


We know some of these famous philosophers and certainly world leaders; one notably is

Alexander the Great. You know that story, the 20-year old and within a few years he

conquers what would be Europe and India and Asia. He dies a premature death in his early

40's and leaves his generals in charge of four basic states. The one that is most dominating

is Seleucid. There is a map of that, let me show you where that is and particularly where

Israel is. It's right in the middle, the green is the Seleucid Empire and Israel's right there in

the middle.

For 200 years or so Israel's just getting --- it's like a leaf getting blown back and forth.

The real estate of Israel is extremely strategic. It is some of the most strategic land in all of

the world. Various empires will be trying to dominate this and they'll use Israel as a means

of getting from place to place. But during this time it's mostly pluralistic. The God-fearing

Jews could still live a life committed to the Lord and living by faith that His promises were

still true regardless of who is in charge and which flag was flying over their city-state.


They were able to practice this promise of a coming global judgment and resurrection from

the dead --- and then everything changed.

In other words, they were living under various countries’ overarching power but in a

pluralistic way so they could still be faithful Jews, and then a man comes along and puts a

darkness and an evil on Israel like she hadn't had but a few times in her whole experience.

To fully appreciate this mad man I wanted to ask a friend who's somewhat an expert in this

area to come up and join me. You guys know Carol Cummings, some of you do. Carol,

won't you come on up. Carol teaches here. Hi. Carol teaches at Grace a lot and she went to

that ... Where is that school? At Texas A&M, that's what it was. While she was an

undergrad there she translated the New Testament from Greek to English. She went to

seminary after that. She joined us in 2004. She loves everything Jewish and that's why

she's here. She loves everything Jewish: she loves the people, the culture, the land, she's

been to Israel five times. You practically led the tour when I went with you. She teaches at

the University of Texas in some of the Jewish studies classes.

Here at Grace she helps oversee the core curriculum in our Adult Discipleship Community,

most notably the Old Testament and New Testament Survey doing the disciplines of the

faith. This fall she'll be teaching ... is it New Testament Survey?

Carol: Yeah, in the spring. It will start in January.

Matt: In the spring, starting in January she'll be teaching with other people the New Testament

Survey. One of her more famous classes that people like a lot is her Feasts, her survey of

the Feasts of the older testament. Today we're looking at one of the feasts, that's why I

wanted you to come and help me explain how to live by faith in this intertestamental

period of time and particularly, you brought a prop for us.

Carol: Yes.

Matt: Wait, you work too. I don't want anybody to think you ...


Carol: I have a day job.

Matt: You have a job, right?

Carol: I'm a traveling salesperson. I provide --- the company for which I work is Right

Management --- we provide HR related consulting services. I focus predominantly on the

Fortune 500 so I spend a lot of time on the road.

Matt: Good and you're here today, thank you so much.

Carol: Thank you. I'm glad to be here and let me say happy Hanukkah to you and I'd also like to

say happy Hanukkah to all of you. Today is the first day of Hanukkah, which is actually

called, it's a Feast, it's the Feast of Dedication.

Matt: It's the Feast of Dedication. What does that mean? How does that relate to Christmas in our

experience?

Carol: Surprisingly for a lot of Christians, Hanukkah literally is going to set the stage for the

coming of Jesus into the world. In addition to that there are pieces of the Hanukkah story

that literally are going to fulfill what some of these Old Testament prophets had to say but

it also, going back to Matt's comments about these saints of old who were longing for

Messiah, the Feast, Hanukkah, is literally going to be one of those anchors that they're

going to hold themselves to until a Messiah appears.

But for us to get more into the story, I got to back up and as is normally the case in

Judaism, our story really starts with a pig. Prepare yourselves. Matt mentioned this very

dark emperor, his name is Antiochus IV and he is going to rise to power over the Seleucids

in 167 B.C. To describe him appropriately let's just call him a megalomaniac. He's harsh,

he's cruel, and he actually believes that he is a god. This is where the game begins to

Antiochus IV


change for the Jews because Antiochus decrees that everyone across the Seleucid Empire

has to worship him.

For any of us who know our Old Testament, and in particular Moses in the Exodus

account, we know that the number one rule on the list of Ten that they were given by

Moses is the commandment that, "You shall worship no other gods before Me." Worship

God alone. The Jewish people, they resist, they won't do what Antiochus is demanding. He

then comes into Jerusalem and he is going to extend his wrath. He breaches the walls of

the city. He burns down the homes and (in the most PG version possible) he kills between

10,000 and 20,000 Jewish people, as well as enslaving them on the Seleucid imperial slave

trade; and then he turns and he faces the temple.

Now let's remember that in Judaism the temple is literally the place of worship for all of

the Jewish people. Asking them just to worship him is Strike One but now he's going to

go up on the temple mount because he wants to make his plans and his demands enforced

and known by the people. He and his general go up to the Temple Mount and they begin to

crack. They shatter the porches, the columns, the gates. They go into the two rooms, if you

know the structure of the temple, they go into the Holy Room and they go into the Holy of

Holies and they ransacked it. They take the menorah, they take the showbread table and all

of the golden vessels. As they're leaving, as if that's not enough, Antiochus then looks at

the bronze basin.

Now, if you remember within Judaism as prescribed to the Israelites by God to Moses, this

is a sacrificial system. The bronze basin is intended to be there so that they can make the

necessary animal sacrifices that please the Lord. Antiochus decides to erect a statue of

Zeus and place it on the altar. The only difference is that he actually puts his own face on

the statue. This is Strike Two, because again, if you know your Ten Commandments,

number two, "Have no graven images or idols."

Things are only going to get worse. Coming up is Zeus' birthday, and Antiochus personally

goes up on the Temple Mount and he brings a pig. To celebrate Zeus' birthday he sacrifices

the pig on the altar. He then takes the blood of the pig and he goes into the temple and like


graffiti, he sprays the blood all over the Holy Room, the Holy of Holies, and the Torah

scrolls, which he then tears apart and burns. Now if you don't know anything else, if you

have friends who are Jewish, you know that they don't eat pork. This is again prescribed by

God, this is Strike Three. Not only did God say "Pigs are unclean and don't sacrifice

them," but you don't eat them, you don't touch them. At this point, you've got to understand

the temple has been completely desecrated. It's been utterly compromised.

We're going to talk in a minute about one particular family that this directly affects,

because going all the way back to Moses and his brother Aaron, Aaron and all of his

descendants which are called the tribe of Levi, they're responsible for the worship at the

temple. Their very purpose for being has just been completely and utterly demolished.

Now you would think that his wrath would be satisfied at this point, but for Antiochus it's

not. He then turns his attention on the Jewish people. He decrees that any observance or

practice of Judaism is capital punishment. He takes his soldiers like Nazi storm troopers,

they tear down the walls and house arrest begins. They're going into people's homes and I

want you to imagine you're a Jewish mother; it's Friday night and you put out your Sabbath

candles. They take the candles and they kill your family. You have your eight-day old son,

he’s to be circumcised, it's being observed; they kill the family.

Going back to Matt's, these are people who believed in the promises of God so much so

that they are being observant. They're doing what God has called them to do, for at this

point, 1500 years and now they're martyrs. Many of them flee from the area of Jerusalem

into what we call the Judean Hills and they are literally hiding out in caves like animals.

Matt: Right, and this is a remnant group of people that say, independent of what the government

says about whether they can practice their faith or not, they will practice the laws of

Moses. To grasp, it's very difficult, both of us are having to withhold the truth of the

violence of this man and the hatred they had in his methods of torture that would be so

convincing to people to say, "It's not worth it."


I wanted to tell a story of one of the remnants and you can look it up online. This is not for

bedtime reading but it is a rather famous story of Hannah and her Seven Sons. In Hannah's

case she was found out and Antiochus set up a place to visualize all of this taking place,

and the boys were all circumcised --- the boys were young men, the youngest was pre-teen.

Hannah was placed in a position so she could watch all of this happen and one by one he

tortured them to death --- without going into details --- but it's disgusting and grotesque.

Each one though, when you read it, would you please be listening for what real faith is,

because they all have the last word and their last words are, they're going to believe in

God's promises independent of the circumstances or their feelings. They're going to believe

… This is where the idea of a resurrection starts really gaining ground. They're going to

believe in the resurrection of the dead and final judgment for all mankind. Each one of

them, each one of these men will say these things before they're finally extinguished.

One of them, let me give you son number six, I think this is. He says this to Antiochus, he's

sitting there on his throne, he says, "Do not suppose," and listen to their view of God by

the way, in the light of all of these things, they still view God as a loving God and some of

the difficulties they're having, he's taking responsibility for it. He says, "Do not suppose

that God has handed us over to you so that you might be exalted or that He hates us. It's

because He loves us and He has granted us the honor to die in such a way; but God will

take out his vengeance upon you and your children."

When six of the young men have been killed the last son, the seventh son is young and

Antiochus is looking at, if nothing else, a waste, he appeals to the young man by bribing

him and saying, "I will give you great wealth, a few silver and gold coins, and if that's not

enough I'll give you a position. Please, all you have to do is," this is all they asked, "all you

had to do is just place your tongue on this pork and we'll let you live free." He wouldn't do

Hannah and Her Seven Sons


it. Antiochus turns to the mother and says, "Hannah, this is your last son, you would have a

remaining heir, would you talk to him?"

She's worn down by Antiochus and she says, "I will do what I can," and then it says, "In

her native tongue…" --- the king is watching but he can't understand. This is what she says

to her youngest son, "Son, have pity on me. I have carried you in my womb for nine

months and nursed you for three years and nurtured you and I brought you into this stage

of life with care, and now I beg you, child, I beg you to look at heaven and earth and see

everything in them, and you know this, that God made these things and He created

mankind in the same way out of nothing. Do not fear this killer but prove yourself worthy

of your brothers. Accept this death so that God's mercy should shine upon you and you will

recover in the resurrection, as will your brothers."

He heard that in his tongue and then said this, "What are we waiting for? I have no

intention of taking the king's order. I will only do the commands of the law that were given

to me and my ancestors through Moses. You, you, oh king, who have invented all sorts of

evil against the Hebrews, will by no means escape God's power or judgment."

This is a 12-year old. "We are suffering because of our sins. If our living Lord is angry

with us for the short time in order to rebuke us and discipline us, that's good and He will

again be reconciled with our saints.” That's believing in things you don't see --- “but you,

unholy man, most bloodstained of all people, you haven't escaped the judgment of God,

Almighty God who oversees all of us, and now our brothers who endured pain for this

short time have been given eternal life under God's covenant and you will suffer the

penalty for your arrogance by the righteous judgment of God. I will be resurrected with my

brothers. You will be condemned." With that he died and his mother Hannah, she died too,

an honorable death.


They never saw the promises fulfilled but they never stopped believing them. That's why in

Hebrews chapter 11, this chapter all about faith, look what it says about Hannah in many

respects, not specifically about Hannah and her sons. This is what it says: "Women receive

back their dead, raised to life again. There were others who were tortured and refused to be

released so that they might gain an even better resurrection."

This was not the first Holocaust and this would not be the last but this is how a person, a

remnant, this group of people that says, "It doesn't matter what's happening around us, we

will serve the Lord." I just want to give you a picture of what it was like then and let's tell

the rest of the story. Please, by all means, how does it end?

Carol: The surviving members of the remnant are led by a man by the name of Judas. Some of

you all know the story; he is one these Levites that the family name is Hasmonean. Judas

has a band of brothers and they began a revolt against the Seleucid Empire. It's guerrilla

warfare tactics at their finest; he is a great military strategist and they begin to take out the

Syrian's strongholds of the Seleucids. This is going to go on for almost three years and

they're successfully pushing back on the Seleucids.

Then an interesting thing happens in 164 B.C. On the Western outskirts of the Seleucid

Empire, there's a little upstart group called the Romans and they've decided that they're

tired of being under Seleucid occupation. Antiochus and his general and soldiers retreat

and they're headed for Rome. To Matt's point with the story of Hannah and her sons and

the judgment that they pronounced over Antiochus, historians agree, we don't know why,

but in some mysterious way Antiochus dies on the way to Italy. What's amazing about this

Hebrews 11:35 Women received back their dead, raised to life again. There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection.

The Uprising


is that we're talking about 164 B.C. and Judas and all his band of brothers realized they

have a victory. They also now have self-rule. The Jews are no longer under any kind of

Gentile occupation so they declare a victory.

Judas is honored with a title; some of you all have probably heard it, Maccabee. As best as

we know from Hebrew this means "hammer," so often times people refer to him as "The

Hammer." This is what's referred to in history as the Maccabean Revolt. Now Judas is

actually going to himself have a dynasty, he's going to be referred to from this point

forward until four years before Jesus is born, this is the Hasmonean Dynasty. What God

has done by moving the Seleucids out, by giving Judas this victory, is there is more space

and there is more time to get ready for Messiah. Let's look at that part of the story.

Judas and his band of brothers head up to Jerusalem. It's the capital; it's time to reclaim

that. Some of the wind gets knocked out of their sails, because we already talked about

what had happened to the temple; it's been three years. The ruins of the temple, there's

weeds about three feet tall that are growing in what would have been the Holy Place. The

statue is still on the altar. Their response as only Job would do is that they tear their

clothes, they put ashes over their heads and they just kneel down in the dust and they weep.

They just weep. This is the house of God, of the Living God, look at its condition.

What I love so much about the story as to Matt's point, instead of letting their

circumstances and their emotions overwhelm them, this remnant does what we should all

do, which is that they returned to the words of God. When was the last time when Matt

told us that God has spoken a word? It's Malachi. They turned to the words of the prophet

Malachi and they're reminded that God had said to Malachi and Malachi to the people, "I'm

angry with you. I'm angry with the Levites because you guys have been bringing Me lame

animals."

The sacrifice at the temple had become compromised. In addition, the people are not

demonstrating their faith in things like observing the Sabbath. God says, "Because I'm

angry with you I'm going to hand you over to the Gentile nations and they are going to rule

over you until the time of the Messiah." Judah, the other Maccabeans look at each other


and say, "Then it's time. It's now, it's imminent, Messiah is coming so what do we do

next?"

What they read next from Malachi is from chapter 3 verse 1, I think we're going to put this

up here. God says, "I will send My messenger who will prepare the way before me, then

suddenly the Lord, the Messiah that you are seeking is going to come to His temple. The

messenger of the covenant whom you desire will come," says the Lord. The King is

coming, what's the condition of His house? They then say, "We have to rededicate. We

have to consecrate the temple and get ready for Messiah." Of course the first thing they do

is they remove the statue off the bronze basin. Then they do all the other work to repair the

building.

When they go to rededicate --- and I love this part of the story too, perfect timing --- it is

three years to the day since Antiochus had placed that statue on the altar. They go in to

rededicate the temple and most of you all know that the only form of light within the

temple is the menorah, the golden seven-candle holder, and there's a requisite oil in order

to light the menorah. It's required that it be lit like our eternal flame, it's never to be out.

They go digging through the rubble and they only were able to find one jug of the requisite

oil and it's still got the seal from the former high priest so it's been preserved. They're able

to go ahead and go forward with the dedication of the temple but the Levites look at each

other and say, "We're going to have to take another leap of faith because we don't have

enough oil for tomorrow." As many of you all know that tradition holds, that for eight days

straight they returned to the jug and there's sufficient oil to keep the menorah lit and in the

meantime they're also able to resupply what they need for the menorah. That is the story of

Hanukkah.

Malachi 3:1 “I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty.


Matt: Right, and the reason it's a wonderful story is because of their commitment to the promises

of God and what promises God had made to them. They go to Malachi and they say, "We

have to get the temple ready," and they did and they waited, and some passed and they had

to wait longer than that. They had this deep faith that was bigger than them, they had a

bigger picture and they waited almost 200 years.

Then when Jesus in John chapter 8 comes to the Feast of Tabernacles or the Feast of Tents,

the lighting structure, this menorah, Jesus is in plain sight of that and He says this, He

drops this on the people of Israel that have been waiting and looking in. He says, "I am the

light of the world, whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness but will have the light

of life." Because of what the Maccabeans had done and cleaned this up and because of

their preparation, because they knew the promises and they set up, Jesus walks up and

says, "We're here."

Then just a few chapters later, just a few weeks later Jesus is again up in the temple, He's

on the colonnade and it is Hanukkah. Jesus is celebrating Hanukkah and that's why the

people are asking, they're feeling this might be the time, in chapter 10 verse 22, "And then

came the Festival of Dedication," that's the festival of Hanukkah, and in Jerusalem and it

was the winter time and Jesus was in the temple court walking on Solomon's colonnade

and the Jews were there gathering around Him and saying, "How long will You keep us in

suspense? If you're Messiah, tell us plainly."

What they were really saying, "Are you like Judas Maccabee? Can we do to these Romans

like we would like, give them what's coming to them?" The details of what they had their

faith in were erroneous, but do you see how they used this festival, this Feast of Hanukkah

to set their souls up for a promise being fulfilled?

A chapter later, John chapter 11, Jesus is talking to Mary and Martha and He says, "I am

the resurrection.” During those 400 years the resurrection was becoming a primary place to

put your faith, the promise of God.


The point is the Christmas story, the real Christmas story, the historic Christmas story, it

teaches us about real faith, a faith in the promises of God, not the ones you want but the

ones that are. It means that you believe these things to be true and the conviction of these

things to be true independent of your circumstances and your emotions. It causes you to

broaden your horizon and realize it's about what God is doing in the world and the

promises of eternal justice and righteousness. It's realizing that we might have to wait

longer than we have ever thought, that God does not have to answer our bell. It doesn't

have to be in my lifetime for it to be a promise kept.

You've heard, "A picture's worth a thousand words." I must tell you, in my business

sometimes there's a prop worth a thousand sermons. When Carol was telling me about her

love for Hanukkah and she told me about her menorah I went, "Oh, that's worth a thousand

sermons." There you go, you're good 'til what? 2020? But Carol, I want you to tell people

about your menorah, where it came from and what it's made out of because it is a picture.

It is a simple expression of the way God works in human history.

Carol: Thank you. This is my advent, you all can see it up here. It's all just described for you. I

got this in Israel. That stone is Jerusalem stone and I purchased this from a Jewish artisan

on one of my last trips. Why this is so meaningful to me is because sandwiched between

the marble, what kind of looks like green opaque stuff, that's Roman glass. When I had the

conversation with the artisan I just was taken aback and he said, "Yeah," he said, "We

actually have a lot of fun with all of those ruins from the Romans."


It just struck me, "I have to take this home with me." Because every time I looked at it

what I hear in my head is my Jewish friends in Israel saying, "Ahaha! We're back," and in

the meantime, where are the Romans? It's taken 2,000 years and what Antiochus attempted

to do, the Romans in a sense, they accomplished it because it's going to be 70 A.D. and

they are going to destroy the temple. They're going to go even further than that, they're

going to expel the Jews from the Promised Land. Some of us in this room were alive when

they returned. We're living in that expectancy of when Christ is going to come as King and

that's why I love this menorah.

Matt: I love it. The snarky side of me says, "God always gets the last laugh." You bet on God,

friends, it doesn't matter what the odds are; the game is fixed. Hamlet with the skull says:

“Alexander comes, Alexander goes, maybe the remains of Alexander is plugging the hole

in this barrel.” We call him Half-Alexander the Great. Friends, pharaohs and Hitlers and

Neros and who's this guy? What's this guy's name?

Carol: Antiochus.


Matt: I can't remember his name, more puppets, more pawns that He moves around the board;

God has big plans. Here is our application for today, be the remnant. I have times ... any

crazier ... You know one of the reasons we teach the Bible here and don't spend very much

time on current events? It’s because we can't keep up with those, how to respond to the

latest crazy, but the Bible says there's an anchor, there's a rock, there's a ballast, there's a

certainty, there's a promise, and if you cling to that you'll be just fine.

Be the remnant. Be Hannah. Be a son of Hannah. Be a person that says, "It doesn't matter

what the culture does around me, I will follow what God calls me to do. I will serve Him

and serve Him alone. I don't care how foolish I look. I don't care how much it costs me. He

will choose when to take my life or whether to prolong it. I will choose to live for Him.

Christmas, the real Christmas faith, the one that leads up to the first Christmas is our faith

leading for His second coming. Friends, choose to live well for the glory of God. Choose

to even die well for the glory of God. This is the end of our time today; I want you to come

back next week. There's still more to learn. Deal?

Carol: Deal.

Matt: Let's pray. Dear Lord Jesus, I ask that You would help us to see the vastness of Your plan

and how small a part we have to play in it so that we could enjoy that small part. That we

might see that Hitlers come and go and so do pharaohs and Neros and they all try to thwart

Your plan and look at them, the ruin they leave behind, and they will build a menorah out

of the remains of Your thousand-year rule.

Lord Jesus, let that idea of the transcendent power and the plan, Your sovereign will for all

of mankind, be the point of the focus of our faith. That we might live courageously, that

we would live holy lives, living by faith with the assurance of things we hoped for, with

the conviction of things that we haven't seen but we know are real. We pray this in Jesus'

name. Amen.

Messiah:(The(Promised(One( Sermon(#1:(Believing(the(Promises… · 2020-03-13 · 70 years, and God is still true and He still fulfills His promises and He does what He says He'll

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