The reading today comes from Matthew 11, one through 11. Now it came to pass when Jesus finished commanding his 12 disciples that he departed from there to teach and to preach in their cities. And when John had heard in prison about the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples and said to him, are you the coming one or do we look for another? Jesus answered and said to them, go and tell John the things which you hear and see, the blind see and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he who is not offended because of me. And they departed. Jesus began to say to the multitudes concerning John, What do you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? But what do you go out to see? A man clothed in soft garments? Indeed, those who wear soft clothing are in kings' houses. But what do you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I say to you, and more than a prophet, for there is he of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you. Assuredly, I say to you, among those born of women, there is not risen one greater than John the Baptist, that he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. This is the word of the Lord. Praise be to God. I don't know if you've noticed, but Jesus has enemies and Jesus has competitors. And of course, we know from the scripture that Jesus whips them all. There's no one who can stand up to the power of the Lord Jesus. But in the 1870s, especially in England, in fact almost in all of the English-speaking world and in the German-speaking world, Christianity had two new great competitors. And they were competing for the hearts and the minds and the time and the attention of the people. even church people. And one of these competitors was materialism. The Industrial Revolution had been going on for about 100 years, and it was pretty mature, and laws of private property applied to all people now, so people could work, and they could earn, and they could save, and they could acquire more material things in their lives, and life changed because of this Industrial Revolution and laws accordingly. We read Charles Dickens' Christmas Carols and his other books, and we see that things are still very bleak in those days, but they are changing rapidly, and men are becoming materialistic. Charles Dickens himself talked about that. He wrote his own biography. He wrote his own Life of Christ for his own children. The other strong competitor was the new form of magic pawned off on the public as science that is known as Darwinism. Darwinism gave people another excuse to suppress truth. and suppress what they saw all around them and to try to not affirm the scientific method and the principles that had already been established and should still be followed. Many no longer saw themselves as created by God, so they look for another cause of existence, an order in the universe, and a cause for existence that didn't have any claims on their lives, that had no right to their thoughts, had no claim on their time, had no claim on any material possessions, did not call them to worship, and there was no threat of eternal punishment. And of course, many of the non-Christian philosophers and psychologists were working hard And they were competing with the church. They were competing with Christians. They were thinking of ways to think anti-biblically and substancelessly. Men like Bergson and Comte and Darwin. Dewey and Freud and Marx and Nietzsche and Whitehead others all these men and all these men exercised their mental strength and they went public in person and in print to raise doubts about the legitimacy of the church and of the Bible of creation history and even they were brazenly opposed to Jesus Christ. The German critics especially challenged who Jesus was and what Jesus claimed to do and the value of Jesus, if any, in modern life. And the question was, did Jesus and Christianity have any real contribution to make to philosophy and education and business and law and medicine and history? And there was, and there even today is a movement to change the calendar, to make it a neutral document with no reference to Jesus Christ. You've probably seen, you read in books BCE, before the common era or after the common era. And on Christmas Eve in 1880, a column was written and published in a major London newspaper. And the author, being under the influence of these new approaches to life, suggested four words that should be chiseled into stone over the main door of every church. And these four words were these, only important if true. And as your pastor, I agree with this active atheistic skeptic. What we are doing is only important if it's true. But if it's true, there is nothing as important as what we're doing, as what we believe. If Christ is not who He said He was and what the Bible says He is, then nothing really matters. And following Him and following His teaching would be foolish for us. Jesus' teachings and life are only important if they are true. If Christ is who, what the Bible says He is, and if He did come as the God-man to do what the Bible says He came to do, then following Him and His teaching is of utmost importance. So Jesus' teachings in life only matter if true. If Jesus isn't isn't who he said, then we're fools and we should be scorned by the world. It would be right for them to do so. And sadly, from about 1870 until today, most of those people who were in charge of the seminaries and those men who, and now ladies, who fill pulpits and therefore people in the pews, they were for the most part deconstructed, their theology was deconstructed, their faith was attacked, the historical events of the scriptures were undermined, and people were unprepared to answer the issues. Well, few people knew such key truths. such key truths as how we got our Bible. Something you should know is how did we get the Bible? Did it just float down from heaven? Or what authority does the Bible really have? And how would you demonstrate the authority of the scriptures? How dependable is the Bible? Can you trust it? What level of consistency is there among the ancient manuscripts? And what are things like inerrancy and inspiration and infallibility and preservation when it comes to God's word? And how can we refute the evolutionist? Can we actually take away their foundational precepts without actually having to learn the lingo of the myth of their magic? Well, the church at large needs to become equipped to do battle. And as you just heard in Matthew 11, what kind of person, if John the Baptist were here, what kind of person do you think he would be today? Would he stand up and would he say, I'll do the battle, I will lead the charge? over and over and over again, you read, you heard there that John the Baptist was a scrapper, and he was a scrapper for truth. So we have a real battle on our hands that we need to prepare ourselves for, and we need to be enlisted in God's army, and we need to be willing to go to war because it's winnable. In fact, it's really already won. And the But the church today gives little more than lip service to Christ, while at the same time exalting Santa Claus. And the church will involve itself in beautiful, but empty pageantry. And people will hear sermons that ignore the problem, and ignore the solution to the problem, which is the truth about the Lord Jesus Christ. And disturbingly, the majority of regular churchgoers today believe that the Bible is really just a book of pious advice that they can flip around in and just kind of do what, I hate this word, lucky, but lucky dipping in the Bible to just get a feeling for the day. And rather than going to the Bible as though it is authoritative instruction from God, And the church today believes, according to studies, that all religions and churches are basically the same. The majority of people who claim to be churchgoing Christians believe that good works will get you to heaven. The majority do not believe that Jesus rose from the dead bodily. The majority do not believe in Satan or that hell exists. And people have no qualms about things like same-sex marriage and I could go on and on and on. And almost no one polled, this was by George Barna, was able to say that they thought they could give an adequate defense for believing the Bible. You see, they were already whipped. They were already beaten. Just by asking the question, they weren't prepared to give an answer, even if they actually did believe it. If Jesus is not who He claims He is, and He is the way, the truth, and the life, no man comes to the Father but through Him, then Christmas is not really anything but just another holiday. So we should forget it, and we should be secular, and there's no holes barred. But Christians have good reason to know that about 2,020 or so years ago, Something really big did happen. A historical event that affects all things. A historical event that is designed to bring control and dominion to all of the world as God in His timing has planned. God, the Son, the King of kings, came out of eternity and He entered into our world in the form of a tiny baby boy. He grew up, as Luke 2.52 says, and just like any other baby boy, except stunningly without sin. And you think about that and it's mind boggling that God would use that means. But why would God use that means? Well, we don't know why He would use that means, but He told us about that means. He told us that that's the way He was going to do things. And it was going to be something that had never happened before and would never happen again. That baby and no other baby came into space and time as God in human flesh. And we believe it for good reason. We live this life in light of that historical fact, if we are Christians, and we have staked our eternal lives upon it. So why do we believe? Is it true that Jesus really did come as the one with power and glory to accomplish all His holy will, all the Father's holy will or not? Well, that's an honest question. And if we look at Matthew 11, starting in verse 1 through 3, we see what's happening here that affects us today. John the Baptist is in jail. He's in prison. and as he's in prison sometimes you can you can get by yourself and you can start think you can start wondering and you get alone probably he was in solitary confinement he was waiting to have his head chopped off and he was he was questioning what who jesus was and in verse one it says it came to pass when Jesus finished commanding his 12 disciples that he departed from there to teach and to preach in their cities. And when John had heard in prison about the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples and said to him, are you the coming one or do we look for another? Essential question. And as he was in prison, And he asked this question, are you the one? He's asking, are you Messiah? Are you Christ? Are you the appointed one? Anointed really is, you could almost say appointed there. Are you really the son of God? And we should look for someone else, maybe. But no, there's an eight part answer to the question, Jesus, are you the one? And there's, Many lines of evidence that we could go down to answer this question, but I want to focus on what was provided authoritatively throughout all of the Older Testament scriptures using what the first century Jews would have understood as they were going to answer that question, as that question was asked. And in the Older Testament, there's over 300 references to the coming Messiah that tell us what He was coming to do and who He was as He came. And if you start in Genesis and you go to Malachi, the first to the last book of the Older Testament, 39 books, you can find something particular about the promised Messiah in virtually every book. Out of those hundreds of references, I want us to look at eight little particular prophecies to show the uniqueness of Jesus that settles John the Baptist's heart and builds his faith even in the face of his impending execution by hearing. So, let's answer the question, are you the one? Well, first of all, the Bible teaches that Jesus was born of a woman. We read it in our confession of faith earlier. We talked about it came from Jesse and David. Humanly speaking, his mother's line came that way. Of course, Holy Spirit had Jesus impregnated Mary, had her so that he was the God-man. But we start in Genesis 3.15, which takes us back to moments after Adam and Eve first sinned against God. And God personally there tells Satan, he says in Genesis 3.15, I will put enmity, which is hatred, between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed, meaning Eve's human descendant. And he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. And we find judgment in these verses. There will be an ongoing hostility between the serpent and the woman. There's an ongoing hostility between sin and the righteousness of God. There will be two lines of humanity that are constantly at odds with one another, those who follow the serpent's ways and those who will fight to follow the ways of the Lord. And there will come someone, the He, who will ultimately destroy the serpent's power. And when this was said, I believe that Adam and Eve, They had children and they immediately and all people after them began looking and waiting for this person and trying to identify this person. And prophecy upon prophecies were given, they were added. And these descriptions were put together and so the profile became more precise. The criteria for Messiah became more precise. It was more narrow. And so we're looking for the only one who could fill all of the descriptions that were given through the scripture. And here it says that the serpent will strike the heel. And that means in the crucifixion, the serpent would strike the heel of this human child, God-man that was coming, the Messiah. But he will crush the serpent's head by conquering death and bringing deliverance from guilt. and sin. And though a bruise on the heel, if you've ever had one, is painful, a crushed head is fatal. Jesus will crush the head of the devil and the followers of the devil. Christmas was, in essence, initiated by God's promise way back in Genesis 3.15. Now, where do you find this promise fulfilled? Well, if we look in Matthew 1.18, remember John the Baptist said, he sends two of his disciples and he says, he says, are you the one? And Jesus sends back and says, tell them what you're seeing. And we look at Matthew 1.18, and it says there that Mary was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And we just read, we had a sermon a few weeks ago on Galatians 4.4, it says, When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman. God sent forth His Son, but He had her born of a mere human. And Jesus tells others who are free to go about and do what they want to do, to go to John the Baptist. And Jesus did say, and say this to John the Baptist, He didn't tell them what to say to John the Baptist. What He tells them to do is, tell John the things which you hear and see. Matthew 11, four. So what were they hearing? And what were they seeing? Well, in Matthew 11, 5, it says, the blind see and the lame walk. the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And that's very unusual. In all of the Old Testament, nobody had ever been healed of blindness. They'd been healed of other things, but not blindness. The lame were walking, the lepers were being cleansed, the dead were being raised, the poor, the despicable to most people, are having the gospel preached to them. And we look back in Psalm 146.8, the Lord opens the eyes of the blind, the Lord raises those who are bowed down, the Lord loves the righteous. Isaiah 35.4, Be strong, do not fear, behold, your God will come with vengeance, with recompense of God. He will come and He will save you. Isaiah 35, five and six. The eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped and the lame shall leap like a deer and the tongue of the dumb will sing. So Jesus is literally fulfilling dozens of these Older Testament criteria for recognizing the Messiah, given to recognize the Messiah and what he would do. and that what only he could do, and he was doing them. Another one, here's a third, a descendant of Abraham. Now this one's really easy. Whoever this one is, he has to be a descendant of Abraham. And when we turn to Matthew 1.1, the very first verse of the newer Testament, the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. We know from Genesis 12 that God intended to bless the whole world through Abraham's descendants. Then the line begins, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and then the sons of Jacob, and then the 12 tribes, and then the nation of Israel. And then almost 2000 years later, here comes Jesus born as part of the line of Abraham. Another proof that Jesus is the one that John the Baptist is asking about. Another proof from the tribe of Judah. We read in Genesis 49.10, the scepter, or the indication of authority, shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh comes, and to him shall be the obedience of the people. So the aged Jacob predicts Messiah, who has the scepter of power and the ruler's staff, and he's going to come, and he's going to come from this place called Judah. And one day the nations will pay tribute to this one who comes from Judah. Luke 1 33 tells us that Jesus came from the tribe of Judah and even in the book of Revelation chapter 5 chapter 5 verse 5 calls Jesus the lion of the tribe of Judah this is something Something that these people would have been looking for. These are things that people would have known about Jesus and seen Him in operation. They would have been talking about someone performing such miracles. And so the Word would have been around. So go and tell John the Baptist what you're seeing with your eyes, what you're hearing with your ears. And there's more. He's the descendant of David. 2 Samuel 7, 12-16. And I won't read the whole passage, but Nathan comes to David and he promises that he will never lack a descendant to sit on the throne in Jerusalem. Jeremiah 23, 5 clarifies that promise. And he says, a ruler will come who will be a righteous branch and a descendant of David. He will rule with wisdom and understanding. Well, who could that be? Well, if we go back to Matthew 1.1, Jesus Christ, the son of David, back to the very first verse of the New Testament. And when Gabriel came to Mary, and he told her that she was going to have a child, and this child was going to be the son of the Most High, and the Lord God would give him a throne, and the throne would be the throne of his father David, says Luke 1.32. So another prophecy fulfilled. So are you beginning to see that if you knew your Bible, it would be not just easy to see Jesus as the one to come, it would actually be impossible for anyone else to be pawned off in His place. If you're in the know, by knowing the Scripture, then you would not be a victim of the lies of the world. But we need to know the scriptures. The sixth one announced by John the Baptist. Now, interesting, John the Baptist is asking the question, but he was prophesied to be the announcer of the Messiah, the Lamb of God who was going to come to take away the sins of the world. When Isaiah prophesied 700 years before Christ, he predicted a forerunner who would announce the coming Messiah. Isaiah 40 verse 3 says that He will cry out in the wilderness. That's what we just read about in John the Baptist. Malachi 3.1 says that He will clear the way for the coming of the Lord. That's what we just read about. We go to Mark chapter 1, and there Mark quotes the Older Testament when he combines Isaiah 40 and Malachi 3. And he immediately introduces there John the Baptist in Mark 1, 4 through 8. It says, John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. This preacher was John the Baptist. That's a quote. And there's more. He was also born of a virgin. When King Ahaz doubted God's promise, the Lord said to him, in fact, the Lord, it's interesting because God challenged him. He says, I'm going to do you a favor, and I'm going to let you ask for a sign. And the sign can be on earth, or the sign can be in heaven. And Ahaz says, I don't want a sign. I don't care. Basically, I don't care. This doesn't interest me. So, what does God do? He says, well, I'm going to give you a sign in heaven and on earth. Isaiah 7, 14, Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and you shall call his name Immanuel, meaning God with us. And no matter how Ahaz understood this, there's no way that he could have foreseen 700 years into the future that there was a prophecy being made of the virgin birth. And we don't have to wonder about this because Joseph was told by the angel when all this took place that the Lord had spoken by the prophet Matthew 1.22. So the angel In Matthew 1.22 quoted Isaiah 7.14. And last, he was born in Bethlehem. And the line narrows even further. Only in Bethlehem will Messiah be born and born of a virgin. He got specifically and exactly tells us these details in the book of Micah. But you, Bethlehem, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to me the one to be the ruler. in Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting." A reference to the eternality of God the Son, the reference to the eternality of the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who took on flesh, that we recognize this time of year. So through Bethlehem, though Bethlehem was a small and insignificant little place, Messiah came from there. And here's the amazing part, that it was given the prophecy 700 years before it actually happened. Now, suppose that I was in my backyard digging, and I found a tablet that was buried, and it had some strange language on it that I couldn't read. Let's say there were about 15 of these tablets around. They seemed to be pretty identical, but I couldn't read them. So I take them to writing experts, and they're translated, and they're dated 1249, 770 years ago. And the scholars who could read them, and they could say, wow, here's what it says. Lo, a United States Marine and his wife will conceive a child and bring forth a son, and his name shall be called Charles Michael. And he will be born in Savannah, Georgia at Telfair Hospital in the year 1949. And he will be adopted by a family who bakes bread, and they will have two brothers and a daughter. Now, if that were true, if you could prove that, wouldn't that be amazing? Well, this prophecy of Micah is just like that, except that the prophecy of Micah is not a made-up sermon illustration. It's real. It's the truth. And it predicted where Jesus would be born 700 years in advance. So there are eight prophecies about the birth of Christ, and they are so specific that no one but Jesus could fulfill them. Now, In preparing for this sermon, I figured that you would know most of the things that I just said. In fact, I think that every one of you would probably already be in agreement with all of the eight prophecies that I showed you today, and that you already knew that they were about Jesus. So, why would I go through these eight prophecies? Well, one reason is because I wanted to encourage you, I wanted just to remind you, and I wanted you to rethink through the history that God is working His purpose out in the affairs of men, that He will have His way, that He had a plan, He's working that plan, we can see that plan, it's a historical plan, it's objective, it's there for us to see. But I want every one of you to think about And remember that British skeptic who actually had a good point when he said that we should write over the door of every church, only important if true. Now to you, I believe it's important because to you, I believe it's true. But the fact of the matter is, it's true to everybody. whether they admit it or not. It's true for everybody. Jesus is who he says he is, and faith cannot create or destroy truth. Faith cannot create or destroy lies. Denial cannot undo a truth. You can't unring a bell. You can't reverse history. The world should know that Jesus Christ is who He said He is. And I would bet that probably your neighbor I don't know all your neighbors. In fact, I know very few of your neighbors. But I would bet that your neighbor hasn't even considered that Jesus Christ is the infinite God-man. That He's the Savior of sinners. That He's the real reason for this season. And that He should not be ignored or taken for granted or taken casually. And so therefore, I went through all of that to remind you of the historical facts and to also call you to prepare yourselves, you yourself, to learn these truths and others, to prepare yourself to prove to anyone and everyone around you. Even make opportunities with people around you to tell them about who Jesus really is. Jesus is infinitely important to them because he is the only true Messiah, the only Savior. The world owes him all glory and honor and praise and obedience, and they don't know it. And the problem with the church is that so many times we don't, we may say it, but do we really believe it and do we really embrace it? Is it really what's in our hearts and in our minds? Is it driving our lives? Is it controlling how we think and how we spend our time and spend our money and what we do on Sunday? Are we in the world desecrating the Lord's day or are we in church honoring the King of heaven? You know, we need to know these truths. Your neighbor needs to know these truths. But before your neighbor can know these truths, somebody has to tell them. And you could be that person to tell them. You could be the person. You could be the link. You could be the man with the message, the woman with the message to take these truths about Jesus to your neighbor. Jesus said it with his own human lips in John 17. He's praying to his father. He says, father, the hour has come. Glorify your son that your son may also glorify you. And of course, we want to do that. We want to see that. And don't we want our neighbors to see that? But then it goes on. As you have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as you have given Him. So, there are people out there who are in God's hand that He intends to save and He intends to use you and others as instruments to take this message of salvation. God has people in His hand that He's going to give eternal life to, and you could be the instrument that God could use to take that message of life to them. And then verse 3, 17-3, And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. You cannot have a faith you don't know about. You cannot believe something you've never heard. Without a preacher, how will they hear? And that doesn't mean a guy behind the holy desk in a black robe. It means you. It means a declarer. So, perhaps we need to remind ourselves of what we really believe, the history of how Jesus came, the way to identify the one that John the Baptist asked about, to remember that Jesus is the wonderful, the counsel, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, the Savior, Emmanuel, God with us, Christ the Lord, and the possessor of all authority in heaven and on earth. And we need to learn how to, with our own minds, with our own skillset, with our own knowledge, we need to learn to undermine the myth of evolution and Darwinianism. We need to, with our own minds, be able to say that compared to Jesus Christ and eternal life, all that the world possesses falls to the ground. and becomes nothing because this world will end, but his kingdom will never end. Things we hardly think about because we are products of the culture. We've become sentimental. We trivialize and eclipse the eternal and the essential for what really means nothing. So as a congregation, let's get busy and let's commit to gathering together and doing what's necessary to learn how to do the work of the kingdom. Eternity and so many people depend on us, the church and others to do this. Amen? Amen. Please prepare yourselves now to receive the supper of the Lord.