<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Newington Three Angels Church

Eric Walsh

The Birth of the Last King

Happy Sabbath, church family, and Merry Christmas.

We are glad to be in the house of God on this Christmas Eve, and understand that this is the 1 time of the year when the world often recognizes Christ.

It's a unique opportunity to share with your neighbors and coworkers Because the 1 time of the year where people aren't at least not as offended As at other times of the year, we have a special Christmas message today, and I want to get right into it I want to just say welcome and greetings to our visitors for those of you who are visiting with us today.

It's pretty cold today, but it seems it's pretty cold everywhere today in America.

So I would say it was Connecticut, but some of our clinics in Texas had pipes frozen.

Let's go to the book of Luke, the first chapter, and we're gonna read verses 30 through 32.

And the Bible says, and the angel said unto her, fear not Mary, for thou has found favor with God.

And behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth a son and shall call his name Jesus.

He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Highest, and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father, David.

And he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom There shall be no end.

And of his kingdom, there shall be no end.

Our message this Sabbath is entitled, The Birth of the Last King.

Father God, we thank you, Lord, for this opportunity to share your word.

Once again, Lord, as the world recognizes you in celebrating this holiday, Lord, I pray that you would just make me a nail on the wall, that today you would be high and lifted up, that no 1 would see me Lord, instead they would see only you.

But Lord I pray today that you be not just lifted up here, but Father God to the far reaches of Asia and Africa and all across Europe and North and South America and down to Australia, that over this weekend, Jesus would be lifted up.

This is our prayer in Jesus' precious and holy name.

All right, so we're gonna give some background.

When we jump into the Christmas story, as we read in the Bible, the verses about the birth of Christ, we often do it out of context.

It had been 600 years since Israel or Judah had a king and a kingdom.

In fact, it was just as it was prophesied in Daniel chapter 2, and when we do the Bible studies next year and the end time events, we'll go over this in more detail.

But you can see the image there, or Babylon as the head of gold, and Medo-Persia as the arms and chest of silver, Greece as the mid part of bronze, and Rome as the legs of iron, and into Western Europe, and in many ways even into the West in general, the feet of iron and clay.

At no point in this timeline of the finality of Earth's history is there ever a Jewish kingdom again.

Now, a Jewish nation rises up in May of 1948, and many think it has prophetic significance, I would submit to you it does not, at least not in the way most people think.

Instead, a dark time came, and the kingdom had ended.

And during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, it was Jehoiachin who was taken captive in the eighth year of his reign.

He was the son of Josiah, who was a righteous king.

But the last king of Israel was a king named Zedekiah, born the name Mataniah.

And when Zedekiah came to the end of his term, He was taken by Nebuchadnezzar because he violated the agreement he had with King Nebuchadnezzar.

In fact, he's described as being God's instrument.

He eventually writes, many argue, the fourth chapter of the book of Daniel, and in that chapter is described his conversion to believing in the 1 true God.

That's who Nebuchadnezzar was, but he was a fierce military power, and they were fortunate that Nebuchadnezzar made this agreement with Zedekiah because it would have given them peace if you study the books of Jeremiah and Ezekiel But especially Jeremiah that is 1 of the undercurrents and key themes of the book If you just allowed Nebuchadnezzar to do what he does we will be safe but they don't and the last king of Israel Zedekiah or the last king of Judah or Israel, is taken.

And as he tries to escape the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem, they find a hole in the wall, go through a tunnel, and as they're making their way out towards Jericho, they are overtaken by Nebuchadnezzar's army.

Zedekiah is captured, he is taken back to where Nebuchadnezzar is at Ribla, and what Nebuchadnezzar does to him is, in order to show that there would never be another king, he slaughters Zedekiah's sons right in front of him, and then plucks out his eyes.

So that the last thing Zedekiah ever sees is the death of his sons and the end of the kingdom.

From there the world becomes very, Very dark.

In Galatians 4 and verse 4, the Bible says, but when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his son made of a woman, made under the law, when the fullness of time was come.

That means that there was a prophetic fullness and a certain situation the earth had to be in in order for the first advent to come.

Now, what I'm gonna show you today is that the same applies to the second coming of Christ.

That when the time is full, he will return.

As you heard about in the children's story.

So let's go to the story, Luke chapter 2.

Luke chapter 2 says, "'And it came to pass in those days "'that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus "'that all the world should be taxed.'" So the next great king, so you hear about King Herod the Great who was over Judea at the time of the birth of Christ, but he wasn't actually a Jew.

He was raised a Jew, but he was actually only part Jew, and He was really an Edomite.

He was actually of the house of 1 of the great enemies of Israel.

And not only that, he ruled because he had a family hookup with the Caesars.

We're gonna get more into him in a second.

Augustus Caesar had so much power that he could say all the world should be taxed.

And I can tell you they're coming again, March.

But he said the whole world had to be taxed.

And this taxing was first made when Sirinus was governor of Syria.

And all went to be taxed, everyone to his own city.

So in those days, to be taxed, you had to go home because They didn't have computers and an IRS, mercy.

And so they had to go back to where the rolls were in order to find out how much tax to pay and to pay it.

So Joseph went up from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth.

So Joseph lived in Nazareth, We all know that, right?

And when people talk about Jesus, they don't think about it but Jesus actually grew up in a pretty rough town.

You didn't leave stuff just sitting in your chariot when you went to Nazareth.

You took it inside because people would steal it.

And he went to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because Joseph was of the house and lineage of David, as was Mary.

And he went there, Luke chapter 1 continues, to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife and being great with child.

And so it was that while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.

So she went into labor while they were going to pay taxes.

This happened, and I won't get into it today, so that the prophecy that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem would be fulfilled.

It was God who moved on Augustus Caesar to call for a tax so that those who lived in Nazareth would go to Bethlehem and the Messiah would fulfill the prophecy.

We don't, let me tell you something church, we do not believe fanciful, made up ideas.

The history bears fruit that what the Bible says is true.

The Bible says in verse 7, and she brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes.

They were so poor, they couldn't even get him a onesie.

They had to wrap, they stripped the clothes, the cloths were just strips, and they wrapped Jesus like a little baby mummy, wrapped him up in swaddling clothes and put him in a manger in straw.

And all around Jesus was the bleeding of sheep and the neighing of horses and the stench that such a place would have.

Jesus was not in the inn because there was no room for him in the inn.

They were that much of the lowest end of society.

I emphasize that because there are a lot of folk who think that the way to connect to Jesus is for him to look like them.

I tell you, the way to connect to Jesus is to realize he has suffered more than you ever will.

So there were 2 saviors, 2 kings at the same time.

I could do a whole other holiday Christmas message on Herod, but I want to focus on Augustus Caesar.

In this time, the world had come out of great despair.

Back to Menu

The Birth of the Last King

Transcript

Sponsor

Recorded

Sound Doctrine