SERMON OUTLINE

The Signs of Advent (2)

Final Preparations Galatians 4.4-7

When the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights as sons.  Galatians 4.4-5

400 Years of Silence

God stopped speaking but He did not stop working. It was time to make final preparations for Messiah’s Advent.

Explore the Book by Sidlow Baxter (volume 5)

6 Different Rulers

1) Persian – Return to Jerusalem; Temple; Law teaching; Walls. Absence of idolatry and focus on Law

2) Greek – Greek language, culture and philosophy.

3) Egyptian – Population growth and prosperity.

4) Syrian – Desecration and rebellion

5) Maccabees – Nationalism and religious zeal

6) Romans – Peace, roads, communications

Important Changes

1) World peace; Common Greek and Latin language; effective travel and communications. Atmosphere of hope for a new world. Ready for rapid spread of the Gospel.

2) Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament made Messianic prophecies available to the Gentiles.

3) No living voice of prophecy brought a focus on the written Law. Scribes and Synagogues. Legalism, formalism, self-effort righteousness.

4) Pharisees; Zealots; Herodians; Sadducees; Essenes.

5) Great expectation by the common people that God would soon speak again after a long silence, and that soon the prophesied Messiah, the Prophet like Moses, the son of Abraham, the son of David would come.

Conclusion

A Star in the East and John the Baptist in the desert. It was time for the Advent of God’s Savior.

Has God prepared your heart for the Advent of His Son as Savior in your life?

SERMON NOTES

Series: The Signs of Advent (2)

Final Preparations Galatians 4.4-7

-God gave His people and the Gentile world many signs of the Advent of His Son Jesus Christ. God prophesied, pointed to, and illustrated the coming of Christ for over 2000 years. We reviewed some of that Divine history last week and noticed how the coming of Jesus was prophesied as the seed of the woman, the seed of Abraham, the seed of David, the Prophet, the Messiah, the Lion of Judah, and the Root of Jesse. All of these prophesies of the promised Savior were fulfilled in the coming of Jesus Christ to earth. Jesus was born in a manger in Bethlehem, taught and did miracles, died on a cross, and was raised from the dead and returned to heaven. Now Jesus is ready to return again at the end of time. Are you ready to meet Jesus? Do you eagerly await His Second Advent? His second coming is as certain as His first coming.

-This morning I want to point out some of the final preparations that preceded the Advent of Christ.

-After the prophet Malachi, God stopped speaking to His people. God sent no more prophets to Israel. God was silent for 400 years. Even though God stopped speaking He did not stop working. In fact the 400 years from Malachi to the coming of Christ were especially busy in preparation for the Advent of Jesus Christ.

-This week I often thought about these 400 years as preparing for a wedding or a party. Long before the wedding or the party, the date is set and the invitations are sent out. Then there is a time a waiting and reminding people of the event that is planned. It is not until a couple of weeks before the planned event that the final details get all worked out and the busy work gets done for that great day. During these 400 years God was busy making very detailed preparations for the Advent of His Son Jesus Christ, and what was to follow His coming.

-During these 400 silent years the people of Israel were ruled by six different groups each of whom influenced them with regard to the coming Advent. I can only touch on these events and encourage you to read about them more fully for yourself in Explore the Book by Sidlow Baxter (volume 5 in the library).

1) During the preaching of Malachi and for another 60 years the people of Israel were ruled by the Persians. As Isaiah had prophesied, Cyrus the first Persian ruler declared that the Jews could return to their homeland from the Babylonian captivity and rebuild their Temple. About 50 thousand returned under the leadership of Zerubbabel (Ezra, Haggai). Then nearly 80 years later Ezra the Scribe came to Jerusalem with 2,000 people to restore the Law to the people. Then some 12 years later Nehemiah came to build the walls of Jerusalem and continued to restore the Law to the people of Israel (Nehemiah).

-So under Persian rule, Jerusalem was resettled, the Temple was rebuilt, and the teaching of the Law was restored to the people of Israel. Here is the important point in this event. Israel went into captivity in Babylon as a nation completely given over to idol worship. In those seventy years of captivity God delivered the Jews from idolatry. In their captivity they realized the consequences of their sin, and as they saw God’s prophetic judgment on them fulfilled. They came to believe that God does what He says He will do. Israel never went back to serving idols again. Now some of God’s people were back in the land with a new Temple, with a renewed focus on the Law of God. Most of the Jewish people remained in Babylonia and Assyria.

2) Alexander the Great conquered Persia and introduced the world at that time to the Greek language, Greek culture, and Greek philosophy. Alexander gave religious freedom to the people of Israel. A common Greek language was of great benefit to the later promotion of the Gospel, but Greek philosophy also adversely affected Jewish theology as well.

3) After the breakup of Alexander’s empire the people of Israel were ruled by Egypt. Under humane and kind treatment the Jews in Judea grew in numbers and in wealth. Egypt was eventually taken over by Syria.

4) The Syrians were very hard on the Jews and in 168 BC, Antiochus Epiphanes offered a pig on the altar of the Temple and erected a statue of Jupiter there. This led to the Maccabean revolt and Jewish freedom.

5) Under the Maccabees, nationalism and religious zeal grow strong. Hope for the full restoration of Israel and the deliverance of the coming Messiah was great.

6) During this time of freedom for the Jewish people, Syria was conquered by Rome. Because the high-priest in Jerusalem defied Rome, Jerusalem was conquered by Rome and the people of Israel were brought under bondage to Rome and lost their freedom. Caesar Augustus brought world peace (Pax Romana) and an empire-wide road, shipping and communication system, which enabled the quick spread of the Gospel after the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

-Much took place politically over these 400 years which changed the minds, hearts, religion, and circumstances of the people of Israel to prepare them for the Advent of Christ. Let me list a few of these important changes.

1) By the Advent of Jesus there was world peace, a common Greek language and an effective ship and road system for travel, and easy communications. These three developments greatly aided the spread of the Gospel after the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The known world was strategically prepared for the release of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Hope for a better world was in the air.

2) Because most of the Jews remained in Babylonia and Assyria and spread from there around the world they began to speak Greek which along with Latin became the predominant world languages. Because the Jews no longer spoke Hebrew this necessitated a Greek translation of the OT called the Septuagint. This Greek OT made the Scriptures widely available to the Gentiles as well as to the Greek speaking Jews. Both Gentiles and Greeks were prepared for the Advent of a great King through the prophecies of the OT. The Greek OT along with Jews in Persia may well have influenced the Magi who followed the star from Persia to Jerusalem to see the King of Jews.

3) Since there was no longer a living voice of prophecy through the prophets, and since the Jews no longer worshipped idols, the written Law became very important and the concentrated focus of God’s people. The beginnings of this can be seen in Ezra and Nehemiah who both teach and call the people to obey the Law of God. Interpreters and teachers of the Law were needed and a group called Scribes developed. Because most Jews lived far away from Jerusalem a new place for meeting and teaching called the Synagogue developed along with this new focus on the Law. Over the centuries oral law, traditions and interpretations of the Law multiplied and these were eventually written down after the Advent of Christ as the Mishna and the Talmud. The intense focus on the letter of the Law, through the teaching of the Scribes, led the people away from spiritual reality and to legalism and a burdensome religious system. Listen to this quote from Sidlow Baxter as he summarizes the religious spirit at the Advent of Christ. “In the end it resulted in such a hard and ceremonial religiosity, generally speaking, that when our Lord came the most formidable obstruction to His gracious mission was the dead-weight of religious externalism, formalism, and self-effort-righteousness by which Judaism had well nigh obliterated the spiritual truths of God’s Word.”

4) Parallel with the development of Scribes and the Synagogue and the growth of a legalistic, dead-weight religion, grew a number of religious movements. The Pharisees, the separated ones, were a group who separated themselves from all uncleanness and defilement in order to keep the Law. They knew the letter of the Law but did not know God. They kept the Law but without love and grace. They needed no sacrifice for sin for they considered themselves righteous in the sight of God. The Zealots supported revolt against Rome to usher in the coming kingdom of God. On the other hand the Herodians supported the Roman government and the stability it provided them. The Sadducees were secular and political aristocrats who controlled the Sanhedrin and supported the powerful high-priest, for the sake of their own material and political gain. Finally the Essenes were a monastic group devoted to worshipping God in the dessert, a group out of which John the Baptist may have come.

-All of these groups rose up during the 400 years before the Advent of Christ because of a new focus on the Law of God and because of an anticipation of the coming Kingdom of God, and became part of God’s Advent preparations.

5) Coupled to this new focus on the Law, the importance of the Synagogue, and the various religious factions was a great expectation by the common people that God would soon speak again after a long silence, and that soon the prophesied Messiah, the Prophet like Moses, the son of Abraham, the son of David would come. The Jewish world was waiting for the Advent of the Messiah.

-God made these final preparations and raised up these groups in readiness for the Advent of His Son Jesus Christ. On the eve of the Advent of Christ the people of Israel were under political bondage to Rome. They were under religious bondage to the Law and their blind leaders. And all of the people were in bondage to sin. They needed a Savior and were looking for God to send them the Messiah He had promised to them. Everything was in place and the time for the Advent had come. God’s preparations were now complete.

-One day on the horizon there appeared to the Gentiles a star that would lead them to Jesus, the Savior. To the Jews there appeared John the Baptist in the dessert of Judea preaching repentance to prepare the way of the Lord. The time of Advent had come. Everything had been prepared. It was time to fulfill the prophesies. The time in history so long prophesied and prepared for, the salvation of God’s creation, had come.

-This morning as I close I want to ask you to close your eyes and look inside and ask yourself some questions. “What has God been quietly doing in my heart to prepare me for the Advent of His Son as the Savior in my life? Has God made me aware of my bondage to sin and of my sinful nature? Has God made me aware that my religion system is dead and cannot give me life and take me to heaven? Perhaps it is time for Jesus Christ to be born in your heart and to deliver you from the consequences of your sin, from bondage to your sinful nature, and from an empty religion. Perhaps it is time for you to receive eternal life in Jesus Christ.” As we look at the signs of Advent together I pray that God will bring a personal Advent to your own heart.

Come Thou long expected Jesus,

Born to set Thy people free;

From our fears and sins release us;

Let us find our rest in Thee.

Israel’s Strength and Consolation,

Hope of all the earth Thou art;

Dear Desire of every nation,

Joy of every longing heart.

Born Thy people to deliver,

Born a child and yet a King.

Born to reign in us forever,

Now Thy gracious kingdom bring.

By Thine own eternal Spirit

Rule in all our hearts alone;

By Thine all sufficient merit,

Raise us to Thy glorious throne.

Charles Wesley