Today in church I was reminded of the story of Zechariah, the priest who was visited by the Angel Gabriel to tell him he would soon become the father of John the Baptist.  The Angel told him he would be filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth, and bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God.  And that he would go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous-to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.  Well Zechariah didn’t believe the Angel, so he was struck with silence.  In fact he couldn’t speak until the birth of his son.  They were discussing what to name him, and suddenly Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit, and he prophesied.  This is what he prophesied:

“Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come and has redeemed his people.  He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David  (as he said through his holy prophets of long ago), salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us-to show mercy to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, to the oath he swore to our father Abraham; to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.”  He goes on to say that John would give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God then he say’s this:  “To shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.”

This is an amazing prophecy about not only John the Baptist, but of our Lord and Savior.  The day’s in which Christ were born was not an accident.  Jesus’s birth was foretold many places in the old testament.  Micah is another one.  The day’s that Micah prophesied were dark also, Israel was divided.  They had turned from God, married outside their faith, and were worshiping other god’s.  Then Micha says this:

“Marshal your troops, O city of troops, for a siege is laid against us.  They will strike Israel’s ruler on the cheek with a rod.  But you, Bethlehem Epharathah, 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.  Therefore Israel will be abandoned until the time when she who is in labor gives birth and the rest of his brothers return to join the Israelites.  He will stand and shepard his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.  And they will live securely for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth.  And He will be their peace.”

These prophecies have been fulfilled with our Lord and Savior!  But the world that Jesus came into the first time was a dark and evil world.  Rome was waging war against every nation.  Rome was in control of Jerusalem and the rest of Israel.  Herod was a cruel, ruthless king.  He knew that the Messiah was coming, and tried his best to kill him.  Shortly after Jesus was born, Herod launched a massive murder of innocent male babies.  As Jesus grew, the world wasn’t much better.  There was false god’s, false prophets, and sin abounded.  The temple of God in Jerusalem was turning into a pit of sin.  You would think that with the sky lit up with Angel’s rejoicing, and the announcement of the King, that news of that magnitude would have spread like wildfire!  So why do you think most missed the coming of the Messiah?  I would say, because of course the obvious, prophecies had to be fulfilled about the gentiles coming into the kingdom, but I think it was alot like it is today.  People just didn’t care.  They had become so accustomed to the government of Rome and the rituals of the pagans that it went right above their heads.  It had been hundreds of years since they had a prophet, so they were so caught up in their lives that they didn’t even think  about it.  There were mystics, magicians, fortune tellers, everywhere.   The jewish leaders were split.  Rome had brought much sin to Jerusalem, the bath houses were turned into pits of  sexual misconduct, pagan rituals were  all around.  They still observed teaching and festivals in the temple, and there were righteous men and women, but it was not right.  In fact Jesus angered these priests when trying to teach righteousness to them.    They thought John the Baptist was a lunatic, and they feared Jesus would cause a revolt.  The rest is history.

Our King is coming again, to claim His Kingdom, will we recognize Him?  Or will we  be too busy to notice?  Will we be following after a human leader promising the peace that only God will bring?  The latter is what I fear the most.  The world is fast sliding into a dark place.   One that I’m afraid we can’t turn back.  Why not?  Because instead of turning to God to solve this mess we’ve created, we’re turning to ourselves.  Man can not fix this!  Only God can battle the evil that’s in this world today.  And unfortunately the world is ripe for a different kind of Messiah, a FALSE messiah.  Many are following after a government or a man to save them.  Listen to the news, not one leader has said God will help to bring peace to our world.  Our own president is touting saying’s like we’ll find comfort in scriptures, we have to move fast to ban weapons.  It’s we, we, we, I, I, I, not once God!  It has begun, and soon masses of people will be flocking to a MAN to save them from evil, sick and twisted people.    The lawless one is about to be revealed, and still we ignore God’s warning.  I’ll leave you with God’s words from Micah:

“The earth will become desolate because of its inhabitants, as the result of their deeds.”

Categories: Prophecy