In this episode, we delve into the profound challenges Joseph faced upon discovering Mary’s pregnancy. Explore the societal norms of ancient Israel and how divine intervention through a dream guided Joseph and reaffirmed the prophecy of a savior. With insights into the roles of type and anti-type in prophecies, discover how these ancient scripts unfolded to herald the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah. Travel back in time to understand the prophecies of Isaiah and their dual nature in the times of Middle Eastern conflicts. This episode offers a compelling narrative on how historical events and divine messages intertwined, providing
00:14:32 The Arrival of the Wise Men and Their Gifts
00:19:57 Herod’s Reaction and the Tragedy in Bethlehem
00:22:06 Return to Israel and Fulfillment of Prophecies
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The CEM Network is pleased to present Ronald L. Dart and Born to Win.
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Poor Joseph. It’s hard to imagine what a shock it was to him when he learned that his betrothed wife was with child. Now understand, in that society at that time, this was a much bigger thing than it is today. The role of women in society was different. Her marriageability was all that stood between a young woman and starvation, or perhaps prostitution. In some societies, it led to what is called an honor killing. That is, the girl had shamed her family, and the father killed her for it. One suspects there was more than honor at stake. The girl, no longer a virgin, would not find a husband and therefore would become a burden on her family, a permanent one, and they just got rid of her. Israelite law allowed for stoning the girl for playing the harlot, but it was not required. You didn’t have to do it. And thus, when Joseph learned that Mary was with child, he decided he would just quietly put her away instead of having her killed. God had chosen well in this man and this girl. They were good people. Joseph was a just man, and his betrothed Mary was a remarkably poised young woman. Thus a messenger from God appeared to Joseph in a dream and told him, Don’t hesitate to take Mary as your wife. The child she is carrying will be a son who will save his people from their sins. And it is a child of the Holy Spirit. Joseph had to understand that this boy Mary was carrying would be the Messiah. He was to be named Jesus. And Matthew adds one relevant fact. He says, All this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son. They shall call his name Emmanuel, which is being interpreted, God with us. Now, the prophet being cited here was Isaiah, and the prophecy came in a definite time and definite place in history. Taken in isolation, I would never have connected this prophecy with the Messiah, because what Isaiah will now offer to us is a type of something yet to come. I explained the terms type and anti-type in the last program. And if you contact us and request this program, we’ll send you both programs free of charge. We’ll give you contact information in a moment, so you might be ready to take it down. For now, know this. The word type comes from the Greek. It refers to a die that one would use to stamp an image into something, like a piece of metal or perhaps clay. Anti-type would be the image produced by the die. So you stamp it into clay, you fire the clay, and you have the type, that is the die, and the anti-type, the image. A die, of course, could be used to produce a number of images in a number of different pots. And sometimes prophecies fulfilled in history are going to return again and again. And so type and anti-type are meaningful terms when you start discussing prophecy. Keeping this in mind, and realizing that Isaiah has no idea that this prophecy would be applied to Christ by Matthew, let’s look at the context of what Isaiah said. There was a war going on. Israel had long since been divided into two kingdoms. The house of Israel, with its capital in Samaria, led by the tribe of Ephraim. The house of Judah, capital in Jerusalem. The king of the house of Israel was allied with the king of Syria. Middle East politics and war. Not all that different from some of the stuff going on today. The king of Israel allied with the king of Syria. They were at war with King Ahaz of Judah. Just one more in a series of Middle East wars. So Isaiah and his son met Ahaz the king with a message from God. Don’t be afraid, God said. They will not succeed in this war, these two northern kings. Within 65 years, in fact, Ephraim will be broken and no longer be a people. After all, he says, the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is nobody but, is only Remaliah’s son. Take it the way this is put, that must have been in itself a damning statement. If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all, God said. Now, what follows is very unusual. I don’t recall anything like it elsewhere in the Bible. The Lord said to King Ahaz, ask a sign of the Lord your God. Ask it either in the depth, ask it in the height above. But Ahaz said, I’m not going to ask. I’m not going to tempt God. And he said, Oh, here now, house of David, is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will you weary my God also? Now Ahaz was afraid to ask for a sign. Apparently, I gather he must have been a rather tedious person. He got his sign anyway. Now follows the prophecy that Matthew cites in his gospel about the birth of Jesus. Therefore, the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Emmanuel. The name Emmanuel means God with us. Now, what makes this strange is that in the historic fulfillment, the child that was born was not named Emmanuel. This section in full is an excellent example of the duality of prophecy, of type and anti-type. Listen to how it develops as he goes along. She’s going to bear a son, call his name Emmanuel. “‘Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil and choose the good.’ I think a better translation of that is, Butter and honey shall he eat when he knows to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before the child shall know how to refuse evil and choose good, the land you abhor will be forsaken of both of her kings. The child’s going to be born before it gets old enough to know what’s going on. Both those kings will be dead. In the historical context, this child would be born within the history of the days in which Isaiah wrote it. Before this child that is going to be born is old enough to know the difference between good and evil, both of the kings are gone. The butter and honey illusion, though, puzzled me for some time. The Lord shall bring upon you, he said, and upon all the people, upon your father’s house, days that have not come from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah. He’s going to bring the king of Assyria. A new world power, the likes of which no one had ever seen, would appear and would be the instrument of destruction for both Ephraim and Syria. But more than that, this king of Assyria would also come into Judah. It shall come to pass in that day, Isaiah continues, that the Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost parts of the rivers of Egypt and the bee that’s in the land of Assyria. And they will come and rest, all of them, in the desolate valleys, the holes of the rocks, upon all the thorns and upon all the bushes. It’s like a great insect plague coming from Egypt and Assyria and settling upon the whole land around there. Well, what happens when these things happen? All the people in the area surrounding Jerusalem and the other walled cities would retreat inside the walled cities for protection. They would carry with them cattle. They’d bring all their cows in there. They’d bring their goats and their sheep, whatever they could, and all the food they could manage to store. And they would try to hold out in these walled cities until the enemy went away. Well, all this takes place, and he says, “…in the same day the Lord will shave with a razor that is higher, namely by them beyond the river, by the king of Assyria, the head, the hair of the feet, and consume the beard.” In other words, he’s going to shave you right down to your bare skin. “…it shall come to pass in that day that a man shall nourish a young cow and two sheep, and it shall come to pass for the abundance of the milk they shall give, he shall eat butter.” For butter and honey shall everyone eat that is left in the land. Now, this is so foreign to the modern mind, we wouldn’t even know what he’s talking about. But if you can cast your mind back into that generation and that time, you realize that these people had to make do on what their animals produced. It shall come to pass in that day, every place where shall be where there were a thousand vines and a thousand silverlings, it shall be briars and thorns. All the vines, all the vineyards, all the fields, all the olive trees, everything outside the city is stripped bare except for briars and thorns. And so all you can do is you can take your cows, your goats, and your sheep back out there, and they can graze. You can eat your animals if you have to. You can eat butter. You can find wild honey. But that’s all there’s going to be, agricultural produce, grapes, fruit, figs, olives. Forget about it. Now, all this seems to be an allusion to the Assyrian invasion, where all the people in Judah were forced to flee into these walled cities with all their animals, all their provender, and agriculture on the outside was impossible. Now, even after the invasion is over, they would have some time that they were dependent on their animals for food. All the crops were gone. He goes on to say, With arrows and bows shall men come here, because all the land shall become briars and thorns, and all hills that shall be digged with the mattock. There shall not come there the fear of briars and thorns. It shall be for the sending forth of oxen and the treading of lesser cattle. But what about this child, Emmanuel, that was to be born? How on earth does he fit into all this? Well, grab a pencil and a piece of paper. I’ll give you information on how you can get this program and some other information, and then I’ll be right back and explain.
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The Book of Matthew is available in album form. If you would like to get in on the story from the beginning, write or call and ask for your free introductory CD titled The Book of Matthew. Write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. Or call toll free 1-888-BIBLE-44. That’s 1-888-242-5344. So God told Isaiah that a child was to be born.
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And before this child got old enough to know the difference between things, both those northern kings would be dead and gone because of the invasion of the Assyrians and the Egyptians into the land, which was going to cause an awful lot of hardship to Judah in the process. Isaiah 8, verse 1 starts off this way. Moreover, the Lord said to me, Take a great roll and write in it with a man’s pen concerning Maharshal al-Hashbaz. You have no idea how long I had to practice to get that name right. I took me faithful witnesses to record this. Uriah the priest, Zechariah the son of Jebarekiah. They were to be witnesses to what God had said and when he had said it. And I went to the prophetess, and she conceived and bare a son. Then said the Lord to me, Call his name Maharshal al-Hashbaz. For before the child shall have the knowledge to cry, My father and my mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be taken away before the king of Assyria. But wait, wasn’t that kid supposed to be Immanuel? The prophetess, of course, would have been Isaiah’s wife. And unless he had more than one wife, she was no virgin because Isaiah already had a son. And how come this child was not named Immanuel? The answer, I think, comes in a later statement by Isaiah in chapter 8, verse 18. Here I am, he said, and the children the Lord has given me. We are signs and symbols in Israel from the Lord Almighty who dwells in Mount Zion. Isaiah and his boys were types. Consider their names. Shiar Yashub, his older son, meant a remnant shall return. Mahar Shalal Hashbaz, the name I practice so much to say correctly, which means hasting to the booty and swift to the prey. So they were types. And the fulfillment of all this took place in their lifetimes. Now, by that I mean the first fulfillment. The latter fulfillment, according to Matthew, was Jesus. But even there, the child was not named Emmanuel. Now, here’s our problem. In English, if names have meaning, most people don’t know it. I suppose most of us know the meaning of their own name, but the chances are you don’t know anybody else’s name. Names are nothing to us but a phonetic symbol. They designate a person by that sound. But in other cultures, not just Hebrew, names have meaning in day-to-day speech. You want a good analogy, you’ve seen it in good old cowboy movies. American Indian names like running bear, flying eagle, and so forth. They are words in common use in the language, not just names that you encounter. And Jesus was, after all, God with us. This is an important aspect to understand in all of this. So that’s where this prophecy comes into play. Now, in Matthew 2, it tells us, When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, there came wise men from the east of Jerusalem, saying, Where is he that is born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east and are come to worship him. Who on earth were these men? They’re called wise men in the King James Version. Actually, they are magi or magicians. Some people call them this. Sages who come from the far east of Jerusalem. One source even said that they were astrologers. And what they meant by this, we have seen his star in the ascension in the heavens. And they did this by astrological signs and times and seasons. And now they knew that there was a king of the Jews born. And they’ve come all this way to do obeisance to him. Who were they? No one knows. There were, were there three of them? That’s the tradition. I think the tradition arises from the fact that there were three different gifts given. The Bible does not tell us how many there were. And the odd thing is, in Christian tradition, there are even names for these guys. Now, when Herod the king heard all this, he was troubled. All Jerusalem with him. And anybody would be if he’s king of Judea, and he finds out there’s another one just been born. So he gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, and he demanded of them where Christ should be born. Now, of course, this is, you know, we are so used to Christ and all the things that are with him in Jesus the Christ, we may not realize that what he said to them was, where is the Messiah to be born? The truth is, during this day and time, there was all sorts of messianic fever among Jewish people. For the Old Testament prophesied from Isaiah to all the others that a Messiah would come and deliver God’s people from the oppression of their oppressors. He wanted to know, where is the Messiah supposed to be born? And they said to him, In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet. And you, Bethlehem in the land of Judah, you’re not the least among the princes of Judah, for out of you shall come a governor that shall rule my people Israel. Of course, Bethlehem was the city of David. So many of the prophecies in the Old Testament about the Messiah all focused on King David. And so it plays out in this way. So Herod called the wise men. He inquired of them carefully what time the star appeared. He wanted to know when that child was born. And then he sent them on to Bethlehem. He says, it’s going to be in Bethlehem. Go down there, search diligently for the young child. When you’ve found him, bring me word so I can come and worship him also. The old liar. When they had heard the king, they left. And lo, the star they saw in the east went before him till it came and stood over where the young child was. Now, this doesn’t work with the astrology idea, because in astrology, you’re just seeing the star in the sky. It’s not moving all over the place. It has risen to a certain point in a constellation, as it were. But nevertheless, somehow or other, they were able to see the place, the stable where the young child was, because the star led them there. When they saw the star again, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy, and they came into the house, and they saw the young child, now not a baby, with Mary his mother, and fell down and worshipped him and opened their treasures, and they presented to him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. And it would turn out to be very helpful that they had brought these gifts for a reason nobody really expected. They were warned of God in a dream not to go back to Herod, so they went to their own country another way. And when they were departed, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, Get up, take the young child and his mother, flee into Egypt, and stay there till I bring you word, for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. And you know, I think about this, and it reminds me once again, that Jesus Christ emptied himself of his divinity. He emptied himself of his power and of his glory and became completely vulnerable in the flesh. When you think of him, the shepherds that came to see him, they found a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger, and Mary and Joseph who were there, and that was all they saw. There was not some great king. It was a vulnerable little child who had to be cared for in every aspect of his life. He could have died. He could have been killed. A stroke could have done away with him. And, of course, Herod would have been after him in due time. to kill him. So Joseph arose and took the young child and his mother by night and left and went into Egypt. And I’m sure the gold and frankincense and myrrh were very helpful over this sojourn. He stayed there until the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son. Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was furious. He sent forth and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem and all the coasts thereof from two years old and under, according to the time he had diligently inquired of the wise men. I have no idea how many kids that would have been, but all of them from two years old down this evil man had destroyed. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, In Ramah there was a voice heard, lamentation, weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not. And one is reminded once again of the most vulnerable people in our society, the children. And here we live in a generation where mothers are drowning their own babies in a bathtub, or women are tossing them into a lake to drown. The prophecy comes back to mind. The daughter of my people has become cruel like the ostriches of the desert. And you think about this destruction of the most vulnerable of human life and realize that that Jesus Christ entered the world in that vulnerable state. Think about that.
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I’ll be right back. That’s 1-888-242-5344.
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When Herod was dead, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, Get up, take the young child and his mother, and go back to the land of Israel, for they are dead who sought the young child’s life. So he arose and took the young child and his mother and came into the land of Israel. Things were still dangerous there when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in the room of his father Herod. He was afraid to go back there. So he passed away, being warned of God in a dream, and went back up into Galilee. And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets. He shall be called a Nazarene. Now, do you notice how every time you turn around, you’re running into a prophecy about Jesus Christ? Because all these things throughout the Old Testament are salted there, looking ahead, warning about, hoping for the Messiah to come. The only other gospel that deals with the birth of Jesus is Luke. John, in his very well-known opening, identifies Jesus as the Word, which was with God and was God. And he tells us that the Word became flesh. But he doesn’t tell us really how that came about. Luke is the one who tells us in the greatest possible detail how it all came about. And one of the more interesting things about Luke’s account is he is the only one who tells us anything at all about the time of year of Jesus’ birth. Now, you may have thought nobody said anything about the time of year in the Bible, or you may just have assumed everybody knew it was December 25th, and that’s that. But the information is here, and it’s kind of incidental to the story. I don’t know if Luke deliberately thought, I better let people know when Jesus was born or they’ll get the wrong impression. Anyway, it was in the days of Herod the king of Judea that a certain priest named Zacharias of the course of Abiah and his wife, who was one of the daughters of Aaron, her name was Elizabeth. This is in Luke chapter 1. They were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, blameless. They had no child. Elizabeth was barren, and they were both old and well stricken in years. Now, what’s the importance of this fellow? Well, he was the father of John the Baptist. What is more important is the inclusion of an incidental fact, something that I don’t know about you, but I overlooked it for a long time, didn’t pay any attention to it. It was just some Old Testament reference. He was of the course of Abijah. The priesthood was divided into 24 groups, and they served in the temple at specific times of the year. So we know precisely, well, within a week or two, of what time the angel appeared to this man and told him he’s going to have a boy named John the Baptist. Why is that important? Well, the story goes on. According to the custom of the priest’s office, his lot was to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord. The whole gang of the people were praying outside at the time of incense. And so here’s our man, Zacharias, in the temple doing his duty with the altar of incense. And there was nobody there. There wasn’t supposed to be anybody there. They’re very strict about that. that he was burning this incense there. And then all of a sudden, where there had been no man before, there was a man standing there, an angel of the Lord. And Zechariah saw him. Fear fell on him. And the angel said, Oh, don’t be afraid. Your prayer is heard. Your wife, Elizabeth, shall bear a son, and you shall call his name John. Now, I don’t know what he thought about this at this time. You know, he’s an old man, and he says, your wife is going to conceive and bear a son. Imagine he’s going to go home and tell his wife this. You shall have joy and gladness. Many shall rejoice at his birth, for he’ll be great in the sight of the Lord. And he went on to tell him about this child, that he would be a Nazarite from his mother’s womb, which meant he wouldn’t drink wine or strong drink. He’d let his hair grow. And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God. Going to be a preacher, drawing people back to God. He shall go forth before him in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. A people prepared for the Lord? What do you mean by that? And who was the Lord he was preparing them for? Zacharias was stunned. And he said to the angel, well, how can this possibly be? I’m an old man. My wife is well stricken in years. And the angel said, I’m Gabriel who stands in the presence of God. I’m sent to speak to you and to show you these glad tidings. It’s happy news, man. Well, I expect Zacharias and his wife had mixed emotions about having a child at their age. But he was a great man.
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Until next time, you have heard Ronald L. Dart. If you would like more information or if you have any questions, write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. In the U.S. and Canada, call toll-free 1-888-BIBLE44 and visit our website at borntowin.net.
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