Mensa Otabil - A Sign From God
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Welcome to a brand new week. We're going to look this week at prophecies leading to the birth of Christ, and we start with Isaiah chapter 7, verse 14. Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel. This is a famous prophecy we associate with Christmas because it points to the coming Messiah. This prophecy was given by Isaiah the prophet, and quite a few other prophecies about Christ were given by Isaiah the prophet.
In this prophecy, God is talking to Israel about what is going to happen in their future, and He talks about a coming individual and the characteristics of that individual. Three things I want you to notice from this verse. First, it says that God himself will give you a sign. That means that the birth of Jesus Christ and the events surrounding the birth of Jesus Christ, or this individual, will be a sign. When we say something is a sign, it means that it has been marked out as special; it is not ordinary. So, the birth of Jesus Christ was not designed to be ordinary. Yes, the parents were ordinary; the mother is an ordinary woman, but the circumstances were going to be extraordinary, and God said that will be the sign. It will not be something that will be repeated ever in human history, so that's the first thing we notice about the birth of Jesus Christ: the uniqueness and the sign of it.
The second thing that we note is what is actually the sign that God is talking about. He says a virgin shall conceive. The virgin birth is at the root of Christianity. You cannot believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and ignore this uniqueness, this sign that a virgin shall conceive, because we know that that is not how things happen. Women don't just spontaneously get pregnant; there has to be another agency, a male agency, to help them to get pregnant. But this was going to be different. This was not going to come through a man, and there will be no male agency. This is going to be something that has never been done.
Now, a lot of people sometimes have problems with the virgin birth, and the reason is, well, it's never happened before; it doesn't follow signs; this is not possible. But that's why it's a sign in the first place. If it is something that happens normally, it will not be a sign, and that's the uniqueness. This is a once-in-human-history event: a virgin shall conceive, and the virgin birth is at the root of Christianity. So, it's a sign: a virgin shall conceive.
The third thing that the prophecy says is that the child to be born will be called Emmanuel. That would not be his given name in terms of his proper name, but this would be what the child represented. He would be Emmanuel, meaning God present or God with us. So, the birth of this child would show that God has now entered physically into human history. He has always been part of human history spiritually; He created our world, he created us, he's been spiritually present. But in this birth, God will be physically present in human history. Emmanuel, God with us.
So, when we celebrate Christmas, we're talking about a sign from God; we're talking about something that has never happened before, and we're talking about God physically present in human history. As we contemplate all that it means to us, may we be blessed by the season we have entered in. Let's pray. Say with me: Heavenly Father, thank you for stepping into our world to redeem us from sin. In Jesus' name, amen and amen.