All right, so we're gonna talk about Emmanuel. And it's interesting because back when I first became a believer, Ray Cohen asked us a question. It was an interesting question. The question is, do you believe that God can do anything? Do you believe that? Do you believe that God can do anything? Sure. And then someone said, well, you know, God can't sin. And he says, OK, that's good. Checkmark. God can't sin. So God's not going to do anything that is sinful. But absent sin, just taking that out of the equation, is there anything that God can't do? Can't lie. Well, that's sin. I'd say he could if he wanted to, but he doesn't want to. I think he can do anything he wants, but he has laid out so many promises for us of what he will do. But I think one of them is, he gave us free will, right? So... Forget about us. We're talking about God now. Oh, God? We're just talking about God. He can do anything he can do, except sin. Forget about us, okay? And this has nothing to do with us, okay? If God wants to do something, is there anything that inhibits God from doing anything that he wants to do? It's a really interesting question because most people never ask it. Truth. They never really asked that, they never really think that way. So, when you get to this question of Immanuel, God with us, and the promise obviously is an interesting one because in the context of that particular section in Isaiah, it's Isaiah chapter 7 and then again in Isaiah chapter 8 he uses that expression again. Only time in scripture, by the way, when he uses Immanuel is in Isaiah. So in Isaiah chapter seven, when he says, and behold, a virgin shall conceive and shall call his name Emmanuel, you have to understand what the context of that particular deal is. And it's a perfect example of where in the Bible, where there is a current application, but there's also a secondary. thing going on. In other words, there's the actual event that's happening where he uses that expression in context, but then there's a secondary reason why he says it. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? So here, just simply, go over to Isaiah chapter 7. Just read it real quick. So now remember, we did this recap of Isaiah last Sunday. Isaiah chapter six is where Isaiah describes his vision where he's brought up into heaven and he's shown God, and he's asked by God to do these great things for him, and God burns his lips, remember, and all that. Okay, and so the first task that he's asked to do is that he's asked to confront Ahaz, who is the king of Assyria at that time. And he goes to him, and it says, in verse 3, it says, Now then, the Lord said to Isaiah, Go now to meet Ahaz. You and your son share Jashub, which means the Lord has a remnant. And at the end of the conduit of the upper pool and the highway of the fuller's field, And then say this to him. So the first thing he says to him is, oh, you're here. You were there. Now you're here. So say to him, take care, be calm, have no fear. Do not be fainthearted because of these two stubs and so on. And then in verse 10, it says, now the Lord spoke to Ahaz. That's interesting. So we have first Isaiah going out there with his son, he confronts Ahaz, basically tells him what's gonna happen, that he's gonna be terrorized and this, that, and the other thing. And then the Lord spoke to Ahaz. Now, did the Lord speak through Isaiah? Did the Lord himself speak to Ahaz? We don't know. Most likely the Lord spoke through Isaiah, but who knows, okay? It says, the Lord spoke again to Ahaz. And this is what he says. He says, ask a sign for yourself from the Lord your God. Make it deep as Sheol or as high as heaven. So what he's saying to him is, you want a sign? Figure out the biggest possible sign you can think of. And I did it too. I don't care how big it is. But Ahaz says, this is really interesting, but Ahaz says, Uh, no. I ain't buying it. I ain't buying it. That's a trick. This is a trick question, okay? I ain't getting in on this. He goes, no, I'm not going to ask. I am not going to test God, okay? I ain't going there. Yeah, I ain't going there, okay? And now I can totally see where this would happen, okay? He has this like, uh, nope. Nice try. I am not a dummy, okay? I am not going to test God. How come I didn't raise that dummy? Does this dress make me look bad? And then he said, listen now House of David, is it too slight a thing for you to try the patience of men that you will try the patience of my God as well? Now I think that's a very interesting statement that God makes. Is that it? Oh, that's not Ahaz. Oh, no, no, no, no. This is God. This is God. So the Lord speaks to him, says, ask yourself a sign. Ahaz says, I ain't going there. So then the Lord says, listen now, House of David. So now he's talking not only just to Ahaz, but he's talking to the whole nine yards, OK? He's talking to everybody in Judah. And so he says, is it too slight a thing for you to try the patience of men, but now you're going to try the patience of God as well? In other words, I asked you a question and you didn't even want to ask, you don't want to answer it for me? Are you kidding me? Therefore, now this is interesting. So then he says, therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. So in other words, I asked you to say what sign you want. You go, I don't know, right? And he goes, he goes, okay. You don't want me to, then I'll give you a sign. I'm gonna give you a sign that's so big it's gonna blow your brains out. All right, so look at what he says. He says, therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold a virgin, and it's interesting because a lot of people say, well, does it really mean virgin? Is the word Alma in Hebrew? Is that really a virgin? An Alma is a little kid. It's a little girl. That's what Alma means in Hebrew. So if I were going to talk about, if I say to you a little kid, are you thinking about someone that's of childbearing age? If I say a little kid, no, a little girl, I'm not going to, you know, obviously, you know, that's what all means. So everybody knows what that means. It means this is a little kid. Okay. So behold, a little kid is going to be with child. and is going to bear a son and she will call his name Emmanuel. And so the mother is going to call him God with us because she realizes that I had nothing to do with this. I'm a little kid, and so she says, this must be God with us because I had nothing to do with this. And so that's what he says he's going to do. And he will eat curds and honey at the time. He knows this, that, and the other thing. So what he's saying to him, the present application is, I'm going to do something so miraculous. I am going to do something so incredible that everybody is just going to rub their eyes and go, what? And so the present application for that is kind of a mystical kind of thing to Ahaz, because he's He's like, what's this all about? Well, the present application for this time during Isaiah is that, and he gets into it later, that children are going to leave the country. There's going to be a country that's so messed up that they're going to actually have all these child leaders and all this kind of stuff. So that's the present application. But the future application, is that God is now promising a messianic hope. So that's what he does in Isaiah. Isaiah does this all the time. We talked about this last week. He'll say something, has a present application, and then he'll have a messianic application to it. And he goes back and forth. He does it frequently. He does it in Isaiah chapter 9. He does it in Isaiah 14. There's a lot of different places he does it. So obviously later on in the book we're going to see he does it in 55, he does it in 53, he does it in all sorts of different places. But here he's promising something different. So God is saying, I'm going to give you a sign. So the first sign is to Ahab's and to the house of David, the current one. But there's a future application, and the future application is that he's promising that there's going to be a physical representation of himself. The Lord himself will give you a sign. Not some other god or whatever. No, no. The Lord himself is going to give you a sign. And that sign is going to be so miraculous that it's going to blow your mind, folks. It's going to blow your mind. And so when you get over to Matthew, go over to Matthew, in the first chapter of Matthew, this is like the very first thing that's written in the New Testament. Matthew, when he wrote his book, starts off with this genealogy of Jesus. And remember, Matthew is writing his gospel to the Jewish people at that time. So that's who he's writing it to. So he says to them, Matthew chapter one, okay? So he talks about the generations and this, that, and the other thing. And then we see verse 18. So verse 18, now we've, It's like every Christmas we'll read this section, okay? But as we read it, I want you to forget about reading it as a Christmas, and I want you to read it with the idea that God said he's going to send, he's gonna do something, a sign, okay? This is a sign. God is able to do whatever he wants, right? So here's the sign. Listen to what it says. It says, now the birth of Jesus the Messiah was as follows. When his mother Mary, was engaged to Joseph before they came together, she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. And Joseph, her betrothed husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, desired to put her away secretly. Now, that's a very common And frankly, it happens even today. The idea is, you know, girl gets pregnant out of wedlock. We don't want to mess with the whole thing. So we'll just take her, you know, they used to have women's homes back in the day, girls' homes. And that was what it was. Girls could go to a place where they could give birth to a child that was born out of wedlock. And they either kept the child or, in most cases, actually put it up for adoption. And life went on. Kind of what they're talking about here. So Joseph is like, hey, I'm going to just put this girl away. But, I love that. This is the Chuck word, right? But when he had considered this, now this is interesting. So what he's saying is that he was going to do this. So when he had considered this, behold, An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for that which has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. Interesting expression. That which has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bear a son. Now, it's interesting. He didn't say a child. He didn't say I'll bear a child. He did not say that. He said he will bear a son. Now the word son in Hebrew in particular means the direct descendant of. That's what the word bar in Hebrew is the idea. And it's the direct descendants. It's the lineal descendant. That's the idea behind the word son. It's a word that's used really frequently in the scriptures. Psalm 2 is probably one of the best examples of where God says he has a son. And that son, of course, is called the Messiah. And that's actually what he calls him in Psalm 2. And it's always been fun to me because it says that the kings of earth take counsel together against the Lord and against his Messiah, his anointed is the word that you'll see in most English words. But the word there is Mashiach and it means Messiah. So against the Lord and his Messiah. And he says, this is my son. And so it's really an interesting expression. So he says, I will bear a son, and you will call his name. And in English, we use the word Jesus, right? But did they speak English? Did they speak Greek? Well, most people read Greek, but most of the time, they didn't speak Greek. They spoke Hebrew. If you're a Jewish family, you spoke Hebrew. And so what's the Hebrew word for Jesus? It's Yeshua. And so he says, and you shall call his name Yeshua, which means Jesus in English. And Yeshua is the actual Hebrew word for salvation. So he says, you shall call his name Yeshua. where he will save his people from their sins. Well, if you think about it, that makes perfect sense. Call him salvation. Why? Because he's going to save his people from their sins. It's very interesting because back in those days, and frankly, you see this quite frequently throughout history, is that people name their children for specific reasons, not because they like the sound of the name. They didn't just name a kid you know, Bill or William or whatever, just because, oh, that kind of goes good with White, William White, you know, like William White, that's got kind of a nice ring to it, okay? That's kind of how we kind of name our children for the most part. That's not how they did it back then. The guy, it's like, they would look, so for example, in Isaiah, Isaiah names his first son, Shir Jahaz, which is just incredible if you think about it, and the other one I can't even pronounce. And basically, every time you look at him, it's to remind him that God has a remnant that he's going to save. They named him for a purpose. Named him for a purpose, okay? And so, Jesus the same way. Jesus was called Yeshua. Why? Because he's going to save his people from their sins. That's the whole purpose of this. And look at what he says, this is really interesting. He says, now all of this took place that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled, saying, behold, a virgin shall be with child, shall bear a son, not a child, a son, direct descendant, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us. So he's gonna bear a direct descendant, direct descendant of who, Mary? No, direct descendant of God, because it's God here that's the father, not Joseph. Joseph is just a poor schlub who ends up being in a situation that he doesn't want to have to deal with. Let's be honest. He'd be a good bubble for anyone. Right? I mean, I wouldn't want to be in that situation. Talk about a thankless situation. Joseph's in the most thankless situation there possibly could be. He's betrothed to this girl. Now remember, back in those days, you're betrothed to somebody before you even know who they are. You do realize that, right? There's a very good chance that Joseph, prior to this event, has never laid eyes on this chick. He has never met her. He's never known her. He doesn't know anything about her. She's just... She got the short straw. She's the one he's supposed to marry. That's the one that got picked for him. And he's like, what in the heck is going on? What did I sign up for was kind of the old, you know, adage here. And so his immediate response is chick's pregnant. I got to get, I got to do something here. I got to get this girl, you know, and we got to get her out of town. We got to get her out of Dodge because this is not what I, this is not what I signed up for. Jesus would have been born in an orphanage. So he had a mother's home. So it's kind of an interesting expression, but the words that they use are important. The words they use are important. So I've seen Immanuel with an I and an E. Yeah. What's the difference? Just spelling. Yeah, it's old English and current English. That's it. In Tony's book, he talks about, in Isaiah chapter 9, It says, for a child is born to us, the Son is given to us. And Tony points out, the child is born from biology, right? But the Son is given to us. I mean, the Son wasn't born. The Son already existed. That's correct. So he kind of separates that flesh versus God in the flesh. And I think that's really the key to this whole entire thing of Immanuel. is that Immanuel is a picture of the fact that he is fully human and he is fully divine. He's both. So on the one hand, he can be hungry, yet he can feed 5,000. On the one hand, he can be thirsty, just like a human being, Yet, he can say to the woman at the well, if you drink of me, you'll never thirst, right? You know, there's all sorts of really good examples. One of the other ones I wrote down was, as a human, he can learn. Remember, he went to the elders and the high priest and so forth. The priest in his time was a high priest, but the priest and so forth, and he was learning the scriptures. but yet it says he is the word, the word, he is the scriptures. So it's like, oh man, what's that all about? I mean, on the one hand, he's learning the word as human, but he is the word as God. John chapter one, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us. So now that's an interesting idea. On the one hand, he dies like a human, But he, three days later, is resurrected from the dead and puts on a whole new incorruptible body that just literally is around and walks with them and so forth and then is gone. Yeah. How does that work? Exactly. And I think for a lot of non-Christians or even non-believers, right, they just can't understand. First of all... Dude, I'm thinking that this is hard for people that are believers. Well, no, it is. You're right. It is. And, you know, sometimes you got to try to have a discussion with someone who's a As far as we know, biology is right. And the other thing is when you're studying, talking about Jesus, thinking about Jesus, thinking about him as a man, the less you're thinking about him as God. But when you start thinking of him as God just in a fleshy body, the less you're thinking about him as one of us. So it's hard even for our brains when we're studying about a human standing there doing this. We're not thinking about, that's God standing there doing this. Because that's what we can relate to, right? Yeah. So it's interesting, even our brains can't, in the moment of studying, we can't even think of Jesus as both at the same time. So this idea that a child is born and a son is given is really an important issue. I was just thinking that's the struggle, that he's both. You know, that he's both, but yet then it comes down to my faith and what I believe in. I mean, it's either I believe it or... He's either everything or he's nothing. He's either everything or he's not. And so to see that, I understand where the confusion comes in, but the message is clear why he had done this. He came here in a way that we can perceive him. but yet like there's times where they would say like like he said when he was a kid and you know the the higher priest should go like this guy knows more than we know and he's just a child but then again they don't realize who he is all right so so go over to Colossians go to Colossians right after Philippians go to Colossians first chapter and I just love the way Paul writes. It's so fascinating the way he writes. And this is another great example of where he starts off the book by just really talking about being thankful and how much he enjoys this whole walk with the Lord and so forth. But then he basically gets into this, it's sort of a tangent that he goes off on. sort of mid-chapter. And he starts by, in verse 13, he says, for he delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son. So that's an interesting idea. I mean, that's something he talks about in Ephesians 2. He says in Ephesians 2 that we were in times past, walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, and so forth. So it's the same idea here. He says, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. It's an interesting thought. So you just sort of, almost a throwaway comment if you think about it. As he's saying, he says, we've been transferred to the kingdom of his beloved son. Oh, and then by the way, that's how we get redemption and forgiveness of sins. Oh, hello. That's a pretty important statement. But when you read it in just the context of it, it's just sort of like, it's sort of a given as far as Paul was concerned. And then look at what he says. He says, and he, And the word there in Greek is the word icon. Icon. So what is an icon? It's a direct representation. So when I was just in Greece, they got icons all over the place. So what they would do is they would go out of their way to literally, when they carve these icons, They, so if they had, you know, a model, the person that they were doing, so it was usually some high leader or whatever. The detail that they did in an icon, I mean, they had the creases in their face. It's unbelievable to me that you can take a hunk of marble and literally carve it so that you can see the creases in a guy's eyebrow. Are you kidding me? There was no AutoCAD either, so. And there was no AutoCAD. Interesting, a little off the subject, but I saw on Twitter yesterday where they were comparing the statues of the Greeks versus the Romans. And the Greeks were very modest, you know, graceful looking, and the Romans were very stern looking. Yes, yes. And I, you know, just think of that. Well, the other thing that was interesting, too, is when you're over there, you really see this. The Greeks were really into nudity. They carved icons naked. I mean, I'm talking right down to the detail. Okay. Just, just I'll leave that for your imagination. Okay. Uh, you know, David, the statute, David had nothing on the Greeks. Okay. I mean, this is just an amazing amount of art. And most of these things that you see over there are like a couple of thousand years old and the detail, it's still perfect. And you go, how is this possible? That it's like, you know, been able to survive for 2000 years. Incredible. He says, but he is the icon of the invisible God. So you don't even know what God looks like. But we know that he is the icon. He is the actual representation, the actual image of God, of the invisible God. So they knew that word. Anybody who was reading this knew the word icon because it was a word that was used all the time. Talking about Jesus. Talking about Jesus. He is the icon. He is the model of the invisible God. So that when, effectively what he's saying there is when I look at an icon of some leader, I know that's what he looks like. That is precisely what he looks like. There's no doubt that when I see the icon of Julius Caesar, I'm just using his name, okay? If I see the icon of Julius, that's what Julius Caesar looks like. I can be assured of that, even if I've never seen him personally before or, you know, whatever. I can be assured because that's the way they did it back in those days. They made sure that their icons were the actual representation. It was right down to literally the creases in the eyebrows. And what he's saying is that Jesus is the icon of the invisible God. So when you look at him, you know you're looking at God, is what he's saying, which is a pretty remarkable statement. Now, of course, John said that to his disciples the night before he was betrayed. I read about this in the Gospel of John, when he says to Philip, hey, Philip, because Philip says, show us the Father and we'll be okay. He says, haven't I been with you all this time? You don't realize that when you've seen me, you've seen the Father? You don't get that yet? What are you missing here, Bubba? I mean, that's pretty much what he's saying. Didn't say those words, but you get the idea. So here's where we're going. So listen to what he says. He is the image of the invisible God. The firstborn, now that's an interesting word because the firstborn is the direct descendant. It's the most important descendant. The firstborn is the one who basically carries on the initial line of a family. That's kind of the idea. Which, by the way, has always been a great conflict amongst people. So why is the firstborn? You know, so we have these fights. It's what divided the kingdom of Israel. Is it the male firstborn? Always the male. Okay. So the firstborn male, and he says, and he is the firstborn of all creation. So in other words, what he's saying is, is that he is the, he is the first thing that happened in creation. Well, keep my, no, look at what he says. He says the firstborn of creation. Now he's going to explain that. For by him, All things were created. That's a pretty incredible statement. It says both in the heavens and on earth. What? So not only did he create everything on earth, but he created everything in the heavens as well. Both things that are visible and invisible. He created everything as far as that. Whether it's thrones or dominions. whether it's rulers or authorities, all things, all things. So I was loving, I was loving when Ray Cohen used to say all things. He'd say, to all things, so how many things is that? How many things is that? Well, that's all things. So everything, yeah, all things, all things. So there isn't anything that was created that was not created by him. which is a really remarkable, just mind-numbing, head-exploding kind of thought, if you think about it. So all things have been created by him, and here's what's really interesting. Not only by him, but what? For him. For him. So now that's interesting. So he created it by him, but he created it for him. Huh, so he created it for himself. We were created for himself. Everything was there. For he is before all things, and in him all things. Wait a minute, it's kind of redundant. All things, all things, all things. In other words, yeah, he's wanting you to know all things, not just some things, all things. So he is before all things, in him all things, Exist, consist is actually the word in Greek. The idea of consist meaning that it's actually the word that in Greek there is the word we get alchemy from. And alchemy is the combining of things to create something else. That's the idea of alchemy. And so all things in him, all things are alchemy. In other words, in him all things hold together, are made as a mixture and so forth. He is also the head of the body, the church, and he is the beginning and the firstborn from the dead. So now he's talking about the beginning, he's talking about his godly persona, right? He created all things, all things exist because of him. And now he's talking about his earthly persona. this idea that he's man and God, because he's saying, look, he is the head of the body. What body? The church. Well, wait a minute, that's now. That's where we're at right now. Yeah. So he was always God, but now he's also man. And look what he says, he was the firstborn from the dead. So he is the first one to be resurrected. And Paul talks about that in 1 Corinthians 15, how he was the firstborn of the dead, and so that he, this is really important, so that he himself, he himself, remember it says the Lord himself will give you a sign? So he's saying again, he himself. It's just fascinating, the words are important. So he himself might come to have, and this is a really cool word, preeminence. Preeminence. The Hebrew word, or excuse me, the Greek word for that is proteno. Proteno is the word that, what's that word in, the head guy, the pro-term, the pro-tem, pro-tem. Yeah, so we get the word pro-tem from that, okay, the head guy, okay, the most important guy. the pro tem, the guy that's the leader of the pack, okay? And he's saying here, he's saying he himself might have preeminence or pro temo. The Bible says first place. Okay, first place is the same idea, okay? In everything. So as God, he does all things, he gets all things. As man, he is everything. So it's like there's no, no differentiation between the two. Look at 19. For it was the good pleasure, now fathers there is in, my Bible says fathers, that's actually in italics because it's not there in the original. So for it was the good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in him. So, wait a minute, it was the good pleasure of the fullness. What is the fullness? Well, that's an interesting word as well, because in Greek, that's the idea, that's a word that Paul uses to describe the Trinity. This idea of the fullness of God, the completeness of God, it's the whole thing, okay? So he's saying it was the good pleasure of the fullness of all three of them, of God, of the Holy Spirit, of Jesus himself. It was the good pleasure of the fullness to dwell in him. So when he was physically here, the entire fullness of God dwelt within him. That's mind-blowing. I'm sorry. If that doesn't blow your mind, then you're just not thinking about it, okay? Because the more you think about this, the more mind-blowing that gets, okay? And then look at verse 20. And although you were formerly alien and hostile in mind, engaged in evil things, yet he has now reconciled you." Which is just this insane, incredible reason for him doing it. See, there was a reason that he became Immanuel. The reason he became Immanuel was because he has now reconciled you in his fleshly body. He goes out of his way to save fleshly body, not just body. Okay, so you don't get confused. So again, it comes back to this manly thing. He says, he's now reconciled you in his fleshly body through death in order to represent you before him. Well, where's he gonna represent you? Where's he representing you? On earth? No, in heaven. So he's saying in order to represent you before his holy and blameless and beyond reproach, if indeed you continue in the faith. So this idea here of him being God and being man is a big deal. Go ahead. No, I was just saying, in the backdrop, look how he was born. Very humble carpenter. I mean, back in the day, you think of someone who's powerful as supremacy, someone who's going to be like royalty. So this goes, everything about him is so counter to what people's beliefs were back in the day, like if you were the messiah. Counterintuitive. That's a really good word. That's a good thought. Yeah. It's amazing that Paul got this. able to put it all together, to figure this out, that that literally was God in the flesh, standing right there. I mean, it's amazing that he was able to put that all together. Well, I mean, there's so many interesting places in Scripture where he talks about this, but none better than this in Colossians, in my opinion. There's none better. But if you go back a chapter or a book, and go back to Philippians, and go to the fourth chapter of Philippians, our second chapter of Philippians, excuse me. We see this incredible picture of Jesus as Paul sees him. And listen to what he says. He says, we'll start at verse five. He says, have this mind in you that was also in the Messiah Jesus. who, although he existed in the form of God. That's very- We have Philippians four. Philippians two. Two, oh. Sorry. I thought I had four two. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I meant chapter two. Two five. I apologize. No problem. Starting in verse five. Two five. So have this mind in you, which was also in the Messiah Jesus, who being the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God. Just, I mean, just to be able to coin that phrase is just an amazing thought to me. Who being in the form of God, thought about robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking on the form of a dulios, which is a servant, a slave. Taking on the form of a slave and being, to your point, It didn't take on the form of a king. No, it took on the form of a slave, of a bondservant, of a doulos, which is incredible. He says, and being made just like any other man. Wait a minute. Being made just like any other man. So nothing special about this dude, is what he's basically saying. He's not special. In fact, he's just the opposite. Slaves, not only were not special, they were basically fodder, for lack of a better term, okay? He says, so, he emptied himself, taking on the form of a bond servant, being found just like any other man, and being found in the appearance as a man. So now, nobody's describing him as anything but that. That's the point, okay? So when they looked at him, he's just a guy, he's just a dude, I mean, hello. He says, and in that appearance, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Okay, now we're getting somewhere, okay. But again, how unusual would it have been for a bond servant to be hung on a cross? I want you to think about that for a second. Not an unusual event at all. I was going to say, but that's, I mean, that kind of death, that's like the most humiliating thing. It was the most humiliating, but they did it to servants all the time. Yeah. They nailed these guys to cry. There was a, there's this one scene, uh, that I've never forgotten in my brain of that. Uh, when I, when I was reading about, uh, the emperors of Rome where there was this one emperor, his name is Nero and he literally took, lined the roads, with bond service, lined the roads, and crucified him and lit him on fire so that he would have, and he would do it every night. Wow. So that he could, so that people could make their way down the roads. That's how crazy this guy was. Well, and still in theory. Well, obviously, I mean, you know, but the idea was, is that, you know, he thought so much of these people that, you know, he just, you know, you're Bob. Yeah. And so, and it was interesting because there was a, there was a period there where he just did it with anybody, but then he decided it was a lot more fun doing with people that call themselves Christians. So then he just did it with Christians. And then that became his way of trying to defeat the Christian faith, which by the way, that's the opposite. It instilled more people to come to the faith than the other ways, which is really interesting. But then verse nine says this, therefore God has what? Exalted. Highly exalted him. Highly exalted. Isn't it interesting, last week we were talking about L.L. Young and the idea of God, God, God high, or the most high. And he's saying here, he says, therefore, God has exalted him. So men didn't exalt him, men just saw him as a dude. Men just saw him as another guy. Goes to the toilet just like I go to the toilet. I mean, he's just a regular old dude, but God didn't see him that way. He says, therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him, and this is what's really cool, He doesn't say title, he says name. Gave him a name. Well, the name is recognition of what you are. It's who you are. It's who you are, yeah. So God gave him a name, which is above every other name. that at the name of Yeshua, salvation, that at the name of Yeshua, every knee should bow and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord Adonai, that he is Lord to the glory of God the Father. So one of the things he does in the book, which I think is really powerful in Tony's book, is he takes each one of the names We're not gonna do it now, you guys can do it on your own. But he takes each one of the names and he shows how each one of those names are personified in Jesus. So whether it's Jehovah, I am, Jesus says before Abraham was, I am. If it was Lord, Adonai, here he's saying, he's giving him a name which is above any other name so that everybody confesses that Jesus Christ is Adonai, that he's Lord. Whether it's Elohim, which is the idea of creation. In Colossians, he tells us that all things were created by him and for him. So he's the creator. You know, when you get into all those combination words, whether it's Jehovah Nisi, or whether it's Jehovah Sidkenu, or whether it's Jehovah Rapha, or whatever it is, Every one of those comes back to Jesus, you know when he talks about Jehovah the healer Jehovah Rapha, and it says that Jesus walked down the street and people would just literally reach for his cloak because if they touched his cloak, they knew they'd be healed You know and Jesus sit our Jehovah sit cano that it says that that he was paid our righteousness And well, we don't have any righteousness outside of him. It's what it's what Paul tells us So it's just every single one of them. And what's really interesting is in the appendix of the book, he shows you the other places, which is pretty powerful. If you haven't seen that, just check it out. I don't know how many are there. I didn't actually count them, but there's gotta be 40 other titles of God in the back of the book. Yeah, I mean, look at it. If you go to the back of your book, it's really pretty powerful. Yeah, I mean, look at all these. It's just, wait, oh, wait, wait. I missed a page. There's three, almost four pages full of titles of God. And I mean, they're just incredible. The Lord my strength, the Lord my rock, the Lord is there, the Lord is your healer, your shepherd, the Lord is my light. Didn't talk about that one, Jesus. But what's really fascinating is that in all of these, there's a thing in the New Testament, there's a study that I taught years ago called the I Am's of Jesus, where Jesus says, I am, and then he fills it in with a different subject. I am the good shepherd. I am the light of the world. I believe there's 12 of them. I'm doing this from memory, I apologize. I didn't plan on talking about this today, but the idea of I am. And every one of them are replicated in this list. So it's, to me, one of those just incredible thoughts that all of these names of God, but they all come back to one thing. They all come back to one thing, Emmanuel. They all come back to Emmanuel, if you really think about it. And so, right at the beginning of the chapter, he says, Emmanuel embodies and fulfills all of the names of God that we've seen in scripture. Emmanuel embodies and fulfills. I love that, embodies, which is a great word. It embodies and fulfills, all the names of God that we've seen in Scripture. And that's why in Hebrews, he starts out the book of Hebrews by saying that he is the exact representation of God. Hebrews 1, 3. The exact representation of God, the icon. He is not in a devilish kind of mentality of icon. but in the true sense of the word icon in Greek, that it is the exact representation of what it is that you're trying to portray. You know, funny, you're talking about icon, and I'm thinking of an icon. I think of the icon of the President of the United States. Who do you think of? Probably Abraham Lincoln. Well, I'm going to say George Washington. OK. Like that's the first one. Right. You don't think about Joe Biden. It's either going to be George Washington or it's going to be Abraham Lincoln. And it's going to be for one reason. It's because they, were able to stand during a time when everybody said, you're nuts, but they stood for it. And that's basically, if you think about it. Especially Washington. Washington, probably bigger than any of them. Uh, you know, I think Washington could have remained president. He could have been king. He could have been king. And that's why he said, yeah, that's why he said after eight years, he said, dude, I ain't doing this again. You know, which is just a humility of man. But you know, that's, that's what we're talking about with Christ is the humility. of that situation, that God humiliated himself, that he humbled himself and took upon the form of a servant. It's pretty incredible. Emmanuel. To me, the most important name of God, yet only, as I said, only used one time. God is with us. And only used by Isaiah that one time. Isaiah was the only one that got that vision. God didn't give it to anybody else. He only gave it to Isaiah. Why did he give it to Isaiah? Man, I could give you a thousand reasons, but the best one is I have no clue. I really don't. I really don't. I mean, I could make stuff up. I don't know why he gave it to Isaiah, but that's who he chose to give it to. Could it have been a time? I don't know. It could have been. It was a very important time in the history of Israel, but I don't know. Why did he give Isaiah? the picture of the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 and didn't give that to anybody else. Only gave it to Isaiah, I don't know. So Isaiah was obviously a pretty special character in scripture and someone that really was touched by God. And by the way, the only guy that we see having a relationship or an experience with God like in Isaiah chapter six where he says, You know, in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord high and lifted up. No one else ever saw the Lord high and lifted up. He was the only guy, except maybe John, you know, in the Revelation. But prior to that, no, there were a lot. Even Elijah didn't see the Lord high and lifted up. You know, God revealed himself to Elijah in a still, small voice. He never showed him in his glory, his magic. I don't think Isaiah, I don't think. Moses? I don't think, no. Well, Moses saw the back of God. He never actually, but he didn't see God in his kingdom. He never saw God high and lifted up. The only guy was Isaiah. In the time of Jesus, they thought of him as the Messiah. They didn't think of him as Emmanuel. No, they didn't even understand the concept. That was a, like you said, it's only used kind of once. Well, and also, it was an expression that was used to basically tell Ahaz that he was gonna lose his kingdom. That was the idea behind that. If you read the original commentaries on that, all the original Jewish commentaries on that talked about the fact that that was a fulfillment of the fact that Judah was going to be destroyed, that they were gonna be taken over by children, which they were. And that's, and that was, so that again, that dualism that we see in scripture. And so they never thought of, you know, the idea of God is with us is God literally being with us. They never thought about that. He was, you know, you'll call his name Emmanuel, God is with us. Okay, God is with us, yes. And they didn't, they didn't pick it up. And that's why Matthew said, dude, this is to fulfill what Isaiah said. I didn't even know Isaiah said that. That's what the average person's gonna say, right? I didn't know Isaiah said that. Isaiah said that, he said a lot of things, you know, it's a big book. So even though no one's ever seen God, but we view Jesus as the closest that we get to seeing him because he's both the same. Well, no, Jesus is seeing God. He is the exact representation. He is the icon. He is right down to the eyebrows. So do we know what Jesus looked like? So many saw God. What's that? So many saw God. Yeah. But what I think is cool is we talk about icons, and that's like a specific, exact representation. We think of our eyes, what you see. They rushed to the grave, and he was standing there, and they didn't recognize him. Well, here's what I thought when I was in... So what does he really look like? So when I was in Greece, when I was in Greece, I thought to myself, Jesus was so insignificant during that time that nobody, nobody took the time to sculpt him. They sculpted everybody else. They sculpted thousands of people. Thousands, maybe even more than that. You go through, literally, you go through the Parthenon and you see kind of a, what's left today is not much, but there are these, you know, drawings of what the Parthenon used to look like and what was in it and so forth. It was literally full of sculptures. Is it because the sculptors were a certain period of time? It was a big deal. It was a big deal in that time. And sculpting was a huge, huge occupation. Did that come after Christ? No, it was during his period. Actually, it started before him. But yeah, so if somebody thought the guy was important, somebody would have sculpted him. But nobody even considered it. Not even one. So that's why there's no sculptures of him? No, none whatsoever. There's no one, he says, he was just... Then he'd be worshipping a chunk of marble, and God did not want that. And that's why the Shroud of Turin takes on such an interesting, you know, mythical kind of life of its own, you know? Because it's like, oh, well, maybe that's what Jesus really looked like, you know? People will pray to a stump that looks like Jesus. Yeah, it's like, you know, I don't know. So where did we get this image of what Jesus looks like? It just streamed up by some medieval artist. Okay. And by the way, most of them, most of them look like Italians. Surprise. Surprise. I guarantee it didn't look like an Italian. Yeah, I guarantee it. Yeah, that I can, I can, I can feel very, very comfortable in saying the man did not look Italian. The most famous one where he's like beautiful and he's like a profile. They see it everywhere. It's like the most represented or reproduced image on earth. Really? Yeah, it's all some artists and it's all just some dream. Yeah, like discovery came out a lot of years ago with like, okay based on where he was from and all that and they actually did a sculptor. Exactly. Okay. Then it looked like, okay, this is what he might have realistically look like, you know, it was a little darker. Oh, it would have been definitely darker. A lot wider nostrils. Right, not the one that you're talking about, like that, you know, that metal image. No, no, definitely not that. It wasn't like that with blue eyes and all that. So we really don't know what he looked like. Would you put this up on the wall at home? No, we know he looked... It's like my friend, one of my favorite expressions, Joe Wertheim uses it all the time. Funny you don't look Jewish. You know, it's just... It's just, you know, it's just kind of, you know, and of course that's used usually in a very derogatory, you know, kind of thought, but, but he was a Jewish kid. He was a Jewish guy. You just, you know, he probably looked like all the other Jewish guys at that time, you know, and you know, most likely dark-skinned, most likely short, because most of the Jewish people, most of the whole Arab group, and the reason we know that is because you see the entrance, and when you're over in Greece you can really see this, the entrance doors, most of them are like barely five foot high. I mean, you know, my wife, who is five feet, just was, you know, having no problem, but her head was like skimming. door. Goliath didn't have to be that tall to be a giant around him. He probably didn't, but he was. So the point is that, you know, it's just kind of an interesting concept. So anyhow, enough. I think we've covered it, but it is a good book. So next week we'll start the book of Job, and I hope you enjoy it. Make sure you read the introduction and first chapter for next week at least. And I think once you get into it, you're not going to want to put it down. It's really a very mind. I'll testify to that.