Christmas Verses – The First Coming #2

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  1. Revelations 12:1-5 NIV

A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. 2 She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. 3 Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. 4 Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born. 5 She gave birth to a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron

scepter.”[a] And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne.

This complex sign signals speaks of Creation, His birth in Bethlehem, and the future. The woman resounds with images of the fourth day of Creation: she is wrapped in the greater light (it rules the day), she has conquered or is greater than the lesser light (ruler of the night), and her symbol of authority/ right to rule is twelve stars.  The devil/Herod is wanting to devour the Son.  Because the Son was born and snatched up to God verse 10 happened: salvation, power, the Kingdom of God, and the authority of His Christ.

PIC = www.LumoProject.com.

Christmas Verses – The First Coming #1

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Genesis 3:15 NIV

15 And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring[a] and hers;
he will crush[b] your head,
and you will strike his heel.”

This verse is unique because it is said to the snake, and has a curse and a promise in it. As I have looked at many of these Christmas verses most of them, like this one, has a component of ruling and government.

The Garden was lost, Adam had followed Eve in eating the forbidden fruit.  Paradise would be guarded and barred to them, but God the Eternal gave hope to mankind.  A child would be born that would crush the snake and restore man’s fellowship.  Don’t lose sight that it also predicts that the Child would be injured, which for us means HEALING.

Christmas Verses – The First Coming

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This Advent I will list SOME of the verses that relate to the First Coming of Jesus.  There are others and some of them overlap or are repeats.  There are First Coming verses that connect directly to the Cross or some aspect of His life, so I may have not included them or the entire reference.  I did not include many of the “births” of characters in the Bible even though some of them are shadows of Jesus.  I tried to keep close to the number of days that are in Advent, which this year (2017) is twenty-one, there are four Sundays which is one way to count the days for this season.

Josiah’s Generation, His Legacy, and The Day

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Josiah’s actions of cleansing the Land and the Temple, his Passover celebration, the legacy of prophetic ministries from his reign, and their relationship to “The Day” talked about by earlier prophets are acts of major significance.  This “breath of fresh air” in the family of David was God’s attempt to let Judah repent and put off the cleansing of the Land that had to come.

His importance was announced many years before his arrival in 1 Kings 13:2. This was a time of spiritual darkness when Jeroboam had divided Israel and was replacing Jehovah with man-made images.  An unnamed prophet came out of Judah, and prophesied the birth of Josiah and the destruction of Jeroboam’s altar; this story is finished in 2 Kings 23: 15 – 17.

Josiah’s shining light comes between two really dark chapters in the history of God’s people.  Manasseh and Amon took evil and ignoring God to the lowest point for Judah.  Then Josiah’s sons and grandsons ignored the reforms he made, inviting destruction of the Day for Jerusalem.  Jeremiah endured this abuse and had Burach chronicle it, Ezekiel and Daniel were also witnesses of this unfaithfulness of Judah and Israel, only they were in Babylon.

Imagine the voices trying to speak into his life at eight years old when he became king.  At sixteen he personally starts seeking God.  The amazing thing about this is that he had no scripture to refer to, I wonder if he knew of the prophecy during Jeroboam’s reign.  At twenty he started purging the Land, some areas were not in Judah.  After cleansing the Land, he turns to the Temple and orders it cleaned and restored; then the Law is given to him, and he realizes how far from God they have been.  This in turn forces him to find Huldah that leads him to celebrate Passover.

Points of a Josiah Generation

  • Josiah sought God. This in itself is not a grand idea, but the term “of his father David” clarifies exactly Who he sought.  It was not the current version or idea of God, but the God that helped David through the trials and hardship he endured, the God that showed Himself faithful.
  • Josiah physically removed and destroyed things that were offensive to God and hindered the mindset of Judah. In 2 Chronicles 34, the list of things that he destroyed was impressive.  I am certain that there was crumbling and opposition to this work; they were probably expensive and many of the people had grown up with these altars, images, and the “religious” activities that were associated with them.  WARNING: He took care of what he was responsible for!  He did not go into Moab, Edom, or Ammon trying to clean them up, he took care of what God had given the people of Israel.
  • In 2 Chronicles 34: 8 he knows there is another level that he has to go to. He turns to the “church.”  Things inside his worship house had been neglected and were broken.  An important point here is Josiah empowered the people to do the repairs and many/most were worshipers (vs. 12).  Verse 9 tells where the funds came from, the descendants of Judah and Rachel are listed by name, but other Tribes/people also gave!  The named tribes are the chosen first-born (Judah) and the heirs of the “loved wife” (Joseph and Benjamin).  Jesus has the people and the resources to fuel the revival that will happen before the “Day” arrives.
  • All of this leads to the “Book” once again being allowed to direct the people of God. PROVEN prophets of the Lord once again are consulted and the Lord speaks through them.
  • Josiah’s Passover symbolizes the revival that many are expecting to occur, but it came after a considerable amount of effort and actions.

SPOILER ALERT – Once Josiah was gone things came undone very quickly!  The offspring of the revival ignored God and twenty-two and a half years later Jerusalem was in ruins and the Land was getting to rest!

Josiah’s Prophets

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The fruit of a righteous king was prophets and young people who stood for God at a time when not standing for Him would have been comfortable.  Female, male, young, old, with hateful countrymen, or with pagan kings these voices for God carried a common theme and spoke of things in the future.  They stayed true and spoke when it was not easy.

  • Huldah is the wife of the wardrobe keeper (Temple garments for the priest). That would make them both Levites.  She was sought out after Josiah was read the Law and he realized just how much his father and grandfather had sinned.  Her word in 2 Chronicles 34: 22 – 28 is good for Josiah, but God has no intention of letting up on Judah.  She tells of the destruction to come, the theme found in all of these prophets of God.
  • Jeremiah to me is special. He endured four evil kings, his own family doing him harm, the people rejecting his words from God, seeing the prophesies fulfilled, and finally to die in Egypt where he did not want to be.  As a young man, God gave him a huge task, to test His people (6: 27 – 30).  Parts of Jeremiah are out of order, but I would think that his work during Josiah’s reign is from chapter 1 to 9/10.
  • Zephaniah – Chapter 1:1 clearly states the time of his ministry; 3:18 may indicate that he was serving before and during the eighteenth year of Josiah (it refers to “sorrows for the feast”). He may have influenced both Jeremiah and Ezekiel, but the Lord definitely spoke the same words through him that He spoke through Jeremiah and Ezekiel.
  • Ezekiel is best known for the visions he received about the new Temple and the new Jerusalem. Chapter 1:1 gives his age and verse two timestamps him starting his ministry in Jehoiachin’s fifth year of exile.  His location is north of the city of Babylon by the Kebar River/Canal.
  • Daniel started his role of prophet in Babylon during the reign of Jehoiakim, but he would have been influenced by Josiah and the feast during the thirteen years the Passover was observed. Being a royal he may have also known Jeremiah and had that influence as well. It could be possible that he met Ezekiel, but it is doubtful. Daniel’s locations are south of the one for Ezekiel.  Babylon, Susa, Ulai Canal, and the Tigris River are some of the locations mentioned in the Book of Daniel; it is noteworthy that two of his visions came when he was beside a river.  This custom survived into Paul’s time as seen in Acts 16: 13 when he found Lydia in Philippi.
  • Uriah (Jeremiah 26: 20 – 23) Actually, he is mentioned with King Jehoiakim but let’s put the start of his ministry during the time of Josiah. (The reasoning here is time, Jehoiakim was king for eleven years, so he should have been older than that!) He prophesied against Jerusalem and was hunted down and killed by Jehoiakim. This passage does give a look at Jehoiakim and some of his poor conduct.
  • There are several false prophets listed in Jeremiah, but like Uriah, we don’t know when they started. They are mentioned in the time period of Zedekiah. Both Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Zephaniah have sections about false prophets: Jeremiah 23: 33, Ezekiel 13, Zephaniah 3: 4.

The Chronological Bible puts Habakkuk during Josiah’s reign.  That is as good as any place but he could have been with Isaiah and Micah.