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Thank you, Mark.
Today I’d like to take a trip back into history to look at a particular town.
It was a small town. Historians guess — and that’s all they really can do … just guess — that the population was around 2,000 or 3,000 people.
Like I said, it was a small town.
But something happened in that small town that would change the world.
A baby was born.
Wait a minute. Babies are born all the time. How can that be world changing?
Well, about 700 years before that baby was born, the prophet Isaiah predicted that it would be a very special birth.
“The Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”
Isaiah 7:14
In case you slept through much of your biology in high school, a virgin having a baby is not all that common.
The Bible records the events around that birth:
“This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged in marriage to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and was unwilling to disgrace her publicly, he resolved to divorce her quietly.
But after he had pondered these things, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to embrace Mary as your wife, for the One conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a Son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins.”
Matthew 1:18-21
Another prophet by the name of Micah, who also prophesied about 700 years before the birth of Jesus, told exactly where that special baby would be born.
“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.”
Micah 5:2
Think about that for a minute.
Of all the cities in the world, God picked out one small town by name and said that is where the Messiah would be born.
And that small town, Bethlehem, is where Jesus was born.
Of course, it did require a little bit of work on God’s part to see that His Son would be born in that particular small town, because his family lived in a different town.
So how did it happen that Jesus was born in Bethlehem?
The Bible tells us.
“Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that a census should be taken of the whole empire. This was the first census to take place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.”
Luke 2:1-3
Do you really think Caesar Augustus just happened to want to count the people in the Roman Empire at that particular time?
And even if he did come up with the idea of taking a census, how did a government count of the people get Jesus born in Bethlehem?
Again, the Bible tells us.
“And everyone went to his own town to register. So Joseph also went up from Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, since he was from the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to him in marriage and was expecting a child.”
Luke 2:4-5
And do you think Caesar just happened to come up with a method of counting the people in his empire that would guarantee that Jesus would be born in the small town the prophets said He would be born?
Imagine if 700 years before you were born, someone said exactly where you would be born.
Would you be impressed?
You should be.
In my case, it would be like someone in the year 1248 writing down that I would be born in a place called Culver City, California.
There are more that 300 prophecies about Jesus in the Bible. Some of the prophecies were written hundreds of years before the birth of Christ. A few were written thousands of years before the birth of Christ.
God is incredible!
And that’s what we’re celebrating this Christmas — the awesome power of God, and the incred of God sending His Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to save us.
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."
John 3:16
This Christmas, thank God for giving you the greatest gift that has ever been given.
A Savior.
A Couple of Christmas Songs
I thought you might enjoy a couple of my favorite songs about that special day. I’ve included links to YouTube videos for those songs below.
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