Articles
Prophecy Fulfilled
In the possibility that you haven’t noticed yet, we have entered the time of year that the world puts great focus on the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. While we do not know the exact date that Jesus was born, we do know He was, and it was a powerful and awesome event. I encour-age all of us including myself, to focus on using the greater focus put on Jesus by the world at this time of the year and in the spring, as an evangelistic opportunity. Let’s use these times to share Jesus, not to focus so much on the dates of when the events transpired, but the fact that they did transpire.
In this article, I simply want to look at one of the prophecies that were fulfilled at the birth of Jesus Christ. In Matthew 1 we see the quality of character of Joseph, the man who was betrothed to Mary. Mary had become pregnant by the Holy Spirit and of course Joseph knows she is preg-nant and being the righteous man that he was, sought to send her away secretly. He certainly could’ve attempted much more than that, but to send her away secretly was a righteous and merciful thing to do on his part. As we know, he won’t end up doing that, as an angel of the Lord appears to Joseph. The angel tells Joseph to not be afraid and to take Mary as his wife, as the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. The an-gel tells him what the Child’s name will be and how He will save His people from their sins. In v22, we are told all of this took place so that what was spoken through the prophet would be fulfilled. V23 holds a quotation of the prophecy that is being re-ferred to and it can be found in Isaiah 7:14. It’s quite interesting what brought about this prophecy in Isaiah. In the beginning of Isaiah 7, we are told Rezin the king of Aram and Pekah the king of Israel have gone to wage war against Jerusalem, but they could-n’t conquer it. Rezin and Pekah going against Judah in the first place was brought about by God as seen in 2nd Kings 15:37. The house of David, Ahaz’s house will be told that the Arameans have taken a stand by Ephraim and the hearts of Ahaz and the people “shook as the trees of the forest shake from the wind.” They were pretty shook up to put it mildly in my own words. Following this, the LORD tells Isaiah to go meet Ahaz and tell him to take care and be calm. To have no fear and not to be fainthearted be-cause of these two enemies or as God calls them in v4 “these two stumps of smoldering logs, on account of the fierce anger of Re-zin and Aram the son of Remaliah.” These two enemies that had Ahaz and the people incredibly scared were as smoldering logs to God. That’s powerful and encouraging even to us today, that our God is so much greater than the forces of man. The message that God gives Isaiah continues in telling Ahaz that the plans of the king of Israel and king of Aram will not come to pass. What God tells Ahaz to do is just believe and if he does not, he will not last as verse 9 says.
In verse 10, the Lord speaks to Ahaz again and tells him to ask for a sign for himself from God and gives Ahaz a wide variety of op-tions in v11. Ahaz says that he will not put the Lord to the test.
While that could appear as a good response at first, God wasn’t pleased. God told him to ask for a sign and Ahaz didn’t listen. In v13 we see that Ahaz was testing the patience of God. Therefore, the sign God was going to give was this. Isaiah 7:14 says “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and she will name Him Immanuel.” Isn’t that just amazing?! This is ultimately fulfilled by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!
The prophecies made and fulfilled about or by our Lord and Savior are just amazing and beyond words. The book of Isaiah was written hundreds of years before Mary was on the earth, and yet it was said that a virgin would conceive and give birth to a Son who would be named Immanuel, God with Us. I hope that puts a smile on our faces! This is just one prophecy of many that were made about Jesus and just one of the 4 prophecies quoted by Matthew’s gospel regarding the birth of Jesus and the time shortly after. You can see Matthew 2:6 quotes from Micah 5:2 and/or 2nd Samuel 5:2, Matthew 2:15 quotes from Hosea 11:1, and Matthew 2:18 quotes from Jeremiah 31:15. Each prophecy written many years before Jesus took on flesh. There is zero chance this can be the work of man. Even in our day of technology, we still can’t ac-curately predict the weather right every single time, all though those on TV may act like they can. Something so insignificant as that, and man can’t predict that right, how could man have possi-bly written these prophecies, and then have them fulfilled many years later? The answer was and is that it wasn’t of man, it was of God and glory to His name for that and for the Salvation given from His Son! This certainly brings 2nd Peter 1:20-21 to mind “But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scrip-ture becomes a matter of someone’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human
