One Amazing Moment! (Walk Thru the Bible Week 42)

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Welcome to Walk Through the Bible, Susan Michael's 12-month journey through the most exciting

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book on the planet.

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It will transform your life one page at a time.

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Be sure to subscribe for future episodes that will ignite your faith and bring your Bible

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to life.

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Now, let's join our host, Susan Michael.

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Hey there and welcome back. This week, we promised to come to the climatic moment that

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we have all been waiting for, the moment that God had been setting the stage for, that one

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amazing moment.

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But first, I want to remind you my purpose here as we are walking through the pages

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of the New Testament is to keep us focused on the story that's behind the stories.

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And also to bring out little bits and pieces of information just to prove how accurate

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and how true the Bible is.

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So I want to welcome all of our newcomers.

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Some of you have just signed up to walk with us through the New Testament.

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Others of you have already been walking with us for months through the Old Testament.

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I want to welcome all of you as we begin now this amazing moment in history.

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So let's review.

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We've just two days ago, we posted a recap or an overview of the Old Testament.

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So if you are just beginning with us on the New Testament and you'd like to, I recommend

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that you listen to that and just get within your mind an overview of the background of

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what we've just come through in the Old Testament.

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Because my point is to really understand who Jesus is, what Jesus did, what Jesus said,

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even what the Apostle Paul was writing and talking about.

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We really have to understand that Old Testament.

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But for now, we're going to focus on the New Testament story.

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So welcome to everyone.

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This week we started in the Daily Bible.

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We're reading from the dates of October 15 through 21 in the Daily Bible.

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And that's also pages 1337 to 1363 in the Daily Bible.

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We are talking about first, the first few days, we were reading about the Inter-testamental

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Period.

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So the period of history after the Old Testament is closed.

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But before we start the New Testament story, because there were 400 years of history there.

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And it's a lot of history and you might have gotten a little lost as you were reading through

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it.

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But I'm going to help you today with a real quick review of what's important in that

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history.

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And then I have a resource for you.

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If you'd like to listen to more and understand more about that period, because it really

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is very exciting, 400 years.

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It's often referred to as 400 years of silence.

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But I want to make the point, I don't believe God was silent at all.

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And I know he wasn't still at all.

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He was very busy at work bringing down empires, moving people around, setting the stage for

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the amazing moment that we open with in the New Testament.

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So it's really an exciting time of history.

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And I've got some resources for you, but let's get started.

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So we ended the Old Testament under the period of the Persian Empire.

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And the Persians had allowed the Jews to go back to their homeland, rebuild their temple,

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rebuild Jerusalem, and to reestablish a presence back in their homeland.

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And that's kind of where the Old Testament left off.

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So during this time, I want to say that those that returned back home to Jerusalem was a

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fraction of those that had been taken into exile.

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And so sometimes we have this idea about the 10 lost tribes, that the 10 tribes of the

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northern kingdom of Israel were lost to history.

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And it was only the Judeans that returned under the Persians.

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But that is not entirely accurate.

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While it was a fraction of the people that did return, we believe that and indications

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are that most, if not all of the tribes were represented in the exiles.

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But what happened is that the tribal identities were not so important once they got back in

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the land because they were not living in their tribal territories anymore.

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They were a more limited presence there.

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Also those that remained in exile in ancient Persia, we do know that some of those tribes

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began to move east along the silk trade route.

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And so there's some exciting finds even in modern history of ancient Jewish communities.

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So they weren't entirely lost.

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So I just wanted to explain that.

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And another development under the Persian Empire was the beginning of the synagogue

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movement where they no longer had a temple in Jerusalem.

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So they began meeting in a community center there and known in English as a synagogue.

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And even when the exiles went back and they rebuilt the temple, all of these exiles that

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were still in Persia began this movement of local synagogues, local places of meeting,

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local places of learning.

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And that developed a movement of rabbis because they needed someone to teach them the law

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and to teach them in the synagogues.

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So we have this whole movement and growth of the rabbinic part of Judaism, of the synagogue

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movement while we have the temple being rebuilt and the city of Jerusalem being rebuilt.

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And this division in a way between what's happening in the exile and what's happening

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back in the land in Israel, when we get to the New Testament, we're going to see some

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of the divisions within the Jewish community because of these various historic developments.

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And so we had the rabbis, which a lot of them were Pharisees that believed in the oral law

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and the oral traditions that they had been passing down from generation to generation

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versus the Sadducees who were back in the temple in Jerusalem.

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They were the priests.

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They didn't believe in the oral law.

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And they had the more political power within the Jewish community.

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So very interesting movements that were beginning during this time period that later we'll read

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about in the New Testament.

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Now the Persian Empire then begins to weaken and they fall to Alexander the Great.

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I'm sure you've all heard of Alexander the Great, but he took the Greek language and

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culture and he conquered the entire Persian Empire, which if you remember, we talked about

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how big the Persian Empire was.

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It went all the way from India to Ethiopia.

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And well, the Greek Empire now goes all the way from India to Greece.

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It was very large and it took with it.

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It wasn't so much about military control, although it was, but they use the Greek language

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and culture as a means of influencing the people and making them loyal citizens of the

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Greek Empire.

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So that process is called Hellenization.

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And this is very important to know because this was an ex big influence upon the Jewish

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people in this Greek Empire.

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There was a Hellenization and at times it was actually forced upon them.

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And so we read about this takes place in this inter-testamental period.

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And the Greek language and culture is so pervasive that it's at this time that we have the Old

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Testament is translated into Greek and it's called the Septuagint.

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And it's because of this.

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Now after Alexander the Great died, he died very young actually.

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His kingdom was broken up into four different areas under four of his generals.

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One of those generals is Kedar story.

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And this is the Salewisid King Antiochus IV Epiphanes.

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And he was located up in the Damascus area, the Syria area.

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And he is the one that came down into the area of Judea and began to force Hellenization

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on the Jews.

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The Jews were seen kind of as rebellious because why?

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Their God had told them not to bow down to pagan gods.

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Their God had given them very strict laws that they were supposed to obey.

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So they couldn't just take in hook, line and sinker Hellenization because with it came

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the pagan religions and a very, very loose society of the Olympics where they did their

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athletics in nudity.

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I mean the Jews couldn't go along with this.

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So they were seen as rebellious.

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And Antiochus IV Epiphanes decides to take control once and for all.

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And so he comes in and outlaws the Jewish religion.

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He takes over the temple and sets up a pagan idol in the temple.

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And this led to the revolt of the Jewish people under the Maccabees.

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You may have heard of the Maccabeean revolt.

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All this is taking place in between the Old Testament and the New, but it is so central

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to our story.

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Why?

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Because the Maccabees actually succeed in defeating this Greek king because at this

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point the Greek Empire is kind of weakening.

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And so the Maccabees, they defeat him.

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They rededicate the temple to the God of Israel.

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And today the Jewish community today still celebrates that rededication of the temple

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known and the celebration today is called Hanukkah.

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In the time of the New Testament it was called the Feast of Dedication because it was the

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dedication of the temple.

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And Jesus actually went to the temple for the Feast of Dedication.

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And this rededication of the temple also led to the Maccabees actually established a kingdom

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for about a hundred years.

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They had a degree of sovereignty over the land of Israel.

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And it was called the Hasmonean Kingdom.

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And during that time they began to re-inhabit the lands that had been filled with Gentiles,

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filled with pagans.

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And they began to settle it, to inhabit it.

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They forced some of the people left in the land to convert to Judaism if they wanted

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to continue living there.

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And a lot of the exiles, or I should say more exiles, began to return to come back and to

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be a part of this resettling of the land.

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Why is this so important?

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Because it's under the Hasmonean Empire that the little town of Nazareth in the Galilee

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is established.

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Therefore we believe it was deliberately established by those of the House of David that should

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have been down in the area of Bethlehem, but they wanted to be a part of establishing

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Israeli sovereignty, Jewish sovereignty over the land.

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And so they established this little town of Nazareth.

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And it could be that there were exiles from the House of David that began to make their

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way back from Babylon, stopped there in the Galilee, and became a part of this community

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of the lineage of David in the little city of Nazareth.

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All of this is so key to our story because these are the ancestors, the forefathers of

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Mary and Joseph.

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That's how they got to Nazareth.

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So now we have one of those groups of people that were forced to convert to Judaism, or

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the Itomians.

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And a generation later, one of the Itomians becomes Herod the Great.

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And at this point we see the Hasmonean Empire is beginning to weaken, and this great new

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empire is coming on the scene.

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It's the Roman Empire.

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And so Herod the Great goes and makes a deal with the Romans.

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He will be the king of the Jews, the king of Judea.

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He is a half Jew because his ancestors had converted.

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He was a pagan by belief, and he was a loyal, vassal king to Rome.

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And so they set him up as king over this area.

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That is how Herod the Great came to be in place at the birth of Jesus.

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So Herod the Great, who is a very conflicted man, because he's part Jewish, he is pagan,

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he is very secular, he's very immoral, and he's very loyal to the Romans.

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He is also extremely brilliant.

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One of the greatest builders of the entire Roman Empire, the things that he built during

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his time.

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They came from all over the Roman Empire to see, and that included the Great Temple in

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Jerusalem.

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But he was also a very sick man, mentally, extremely paranoid.

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And that plays into our story, which we're going to read in the New Testament.

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It's interesting that all three of these great empires, the Persians, the Greeks, and the

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Romans, brought with them an existential threat to the people of Israel.

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Under the Persians, we read about it in the book of Esther, under the Greeks, we just heard

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about it, Antiochus, the Fourth Epiphanes.

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It's not written in the Bible, but it's very much a part of history.

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And then under the Romans, this tension with the Romans became so strong.

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It took about a hundred years, but eventually the Romans came in, destroyed Jerusalem, destroyed

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the temple, and took the people out of the land a second time.

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That's the second exile.

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So as I said, this 400 years of history in between, just to set the stage for the story

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of the New Testament, is really crucial.

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And there's so much to the story.

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I would love to be able to take more time and tell you.

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And I've done just that in another episode in my 3D Jesus series.

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If you go to wherever you watch this podcast or listen to this podcast, if you go look,

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you'll see my earlier series called The 3D Jesus.

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Episode 1 covers just this period of the Inter-Testamental period, the story about Nazareth, the story

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about Hanukkah.

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And I invite you to listen.

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So we're going to link to that episode in today's show notes, which you should find

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right below.

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But then we're going to continue on with our story now.

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We have so much to cover.

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So God was setting the stage.

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And it's the same today.

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I want you to understand this.

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Just like the Old Testament had been closed off, we don't have any more books in the

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Bible for this period, doesn't mean God wasn't busy at work.

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It doesn't mean God wasn't still on the throne.

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He was very busy at work.

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And it's the same today.

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The New Testament was shut off centuries ago.

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It was closed.

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We're no longer adding to the New Testament.

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But the story didn't end.

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And God is still busy at work until that day when he appears.

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And he comes to Tabernacle with man.

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And there's a new heaven and new earth.

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Until then, the story is still being written.

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God is still setting the stage for that final and great act in history.

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So you and I can look forward to that and know that we are a part of an amazing story.

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And as we hear from the Lord and we serve the Lord, we're playing a part in him setting

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the stage for what he's about to do on the earth.

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So I hope that it encourages you to realize that.

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Now this story, we do then after we finish this inter-testamental period, we come to

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the story of the New Testament.

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And we began with the genealogy of Jesus.

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The point of the genealogy is, of course, that both Mary and Joseph were descendants

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of David.

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That is the point of both genealogies.

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Then we have this story of this priest named Zechariah.

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He's in the temple and he's fulfilling his priestly duties when an angel appears to him.

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And this is another reason why the Hanukkah story is so important, because if the Maccabees

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had not taken back the temple and rededicated it to the God of Israel, Zechariah would

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have never been there.

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He wouldn't have been serving as a priest in the temple.

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This story would have never been able to take place.

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But because of them, he is there taking his place, serving his duty, and an angel appears

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to him and tells him that his wife is going to have a child.

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And he is to be called John.

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Now this is the story, of course, of the conception of John the Baptist.

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And we just ended the Old Testament with the prophecy that God was going to send a messenger,

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a forerunner, to go before him.

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And in the very last verse of Malachi, it actually says that he would send Elijah.

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And so Jesus later on said, yes, John the Baptist, he was Elijah, and Elijah is also

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still to come.

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So John the Baptist was in a way a partial fulfillment of the spirit of Elijah.

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And then we read the story of how God sends the angel Gabriel up to the Galilee to a town

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called Nazareth, to a virgin woman named Mary.

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And to understand why God sent the angel Gabriel to the Galilee instead of to Bethlehem.

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We all know the Messiah is supposed to be born in Bethlehem.

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He's supposed to be at the lineage of David, and that's where David is from, is Bethlehem.

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That's where all the descendants of David are in Bethlehem.

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Why would God send Gabriel all the way up to Galilee to this little town of Nazareth?

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And it's because there was a family there from the lineage of David that I believe had

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been praying for the fulfillment of the prophecies that God had given to Isaiah that the Galilee

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would see a bright light and that a child would be born and the government would be on his

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shoulder.

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And so I cover all of this in the 3D Jesus episode 1 and episode 2.

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And I invite you to listen to those.

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We link to them in today's show notes.

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It's really some interesting theories.

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God, I want to be very clear, the Bible doesn't tell us why Mary lived in Nazareth.

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The Bible doesn't tell us this.

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But just looking at the evidence, looking at the history, kind of putting two and two together,

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there are some very real possibilities of how that lineage of David made their way to Nazareth.

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So I invite you to listen to the 3D Jesus episodes 1 and 2.

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Now Gabriel tells Mary that she's going to have this baby and that God is going to give

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him the throne of his father David.

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This means that the baby is going to be a direct fulfillment of God's promises to David

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and that this is part of that everlasting throne, the dynasty of David.

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But there is also a part of this story that indicates Jesus' divinity.

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And his name is Yeshua, which means salvation, and his to be an everlasting king.

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So there it's divinity here.

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It's everlasting.

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This isn't about a man coming to fulfill a 40, 50 year reign on earth.

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This is an everlasting reign.

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This is the Messiah.

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This is God himself.

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And then Mary in her response, you know, Mary goes to see Elizabeth and when the baby leaps

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in Elizabeth's womb.

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And then Mary has this song of praise that she sings out.

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And she attributes this baby to the fulfillment of God's promises, not just to David, but

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to Abraham.

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And this is why I keep harping on the importance of us knowing the Old Testament to even understand

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the New Testament, to understand who Jesus is, because Jesus is here in fulfillment of

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God's promises to Abraham and to David.

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And those promises have not been totally fulfilled yet because Jesus came in a first

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step role to die and to suffer.

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He's coming again.

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And at that point, all of these promises are going to be completely and totally fulfilled.

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Now Mary understood this, that this was because of God's promises to her forefathers.

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And so then let's move on the birth of Jesus.

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And we have this, we all know the story, but unfortunately in so many of our churches,

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we have relegated the Christmas story to the children.

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Why?

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Well, it has virgin women, virgin girls.

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It has babies.

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It has angels.

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It has animals.

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I mean, everything that children love.

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So we set up little petting zoos and the whole thing.

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And it's a fun holiday for the kids.

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But there is so much depth in this story for us as adults to grasp.

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And a lot of it is in the birth of Jesus, wasn't just because the hotel was full and

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he had to go out into the manger.

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There was something very, very prophetic in this.

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It wasn't a hotel.

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The word that has been translated as in is more better translated as the guest room.

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And so more than likely it was a guest room in a family home that was full.

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And it may be because of the senses that it was full and it may be because it was around

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a holiday that it was full.

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But anyway, the family homes, the relatives there in Bethlehem didn't have any guest space

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for Joseph and Mary.

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So they put them in the part of the home where the animals are.

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And it's early church tradition going back to early times, thousands of years ago.

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The early church tradition was that Jesus was born in a cave.

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And this is really important.

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There were homes built in caves.

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And there were also the use of caves out by the shepherds where they birthed the lambs.

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And sometimes this birthing cave could be a part of a home or maybe it wasn't.

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Maybe it was separate and it was just a standalone cave.

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But in the area, the main animal in the area were lambs.

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And in the area outside of Bethlehem is where the whole industry of raising lambs for the

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sacrificial system in the temple took place.

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And this explains so much about a Christmas story that the animals were the lambs.

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The cave is where the lambs were birthed.

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And therefore the babe was put into the feeding trough for the lambs and wrapped in the swaddling

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clothes that they used with the baby lambs.

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So when a baby lamb was born, it was wrapped in swaddling cloths so that it wouldn't fall

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and kick and hurt itself because then it would have a blemish.

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And then it wasn't qualified to be sacrificed at the temple.

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And in this whole area, the shepherds were not just everyday shepherds.

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They were actually priestly shepherds that had a responsibility to raise the lambs according

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to the rabbinic laws of the priestly requirements so that they would qualify to be sacrificed

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in the temple.

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And these shepherds were in and out of the temple all the time interacting with the priest.

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And they had a lot of responsibility.

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So when the angels appeared to the shepherds, more than likely, these are the shepherds.

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They were shepherds that went straight to the temple and told them what had been proclaimed

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to them by these angels.

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These were shepherds that knew right where to go find the baby Jesus in the birthing cave.

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And they understood the symbolism and the significance.

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And so I just share that the Bible doesn't tell us all these details.

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But when we get into the archaeology, to the historical setting, to the physical settings

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of these stories, we're able to piece together some really amazing things that were taking

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place here.

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That God was fulfilling the prophecies to the prophet Isaiah about the Galilee.

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He chose this family for a reason because I believe they had been praying in faith for

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the fulfillment of those prophecies.

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That's why Mary was so ready.

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She said, yes, I'll do it.

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They knew Isaiah's prophecies over the Galilee.

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And they understood that they were of the lineage of David.

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They took this very, very seriously.

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And God had Jesus born in order to die as a sacrificial lamb.

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In the very beginning, it was all there before us.

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So I want to encourage you as you're reading through these stories.

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There's so much that we could talk about.

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And that's why I hope that you'll listen to the 3D Jesus, episode one and two, where

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I'm able to take a little bit more time and explain these things a little bit more fully

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for you.

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We cannot understand these stories.

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And more so, even as we keep going in the New Testament without knowing some of the history,

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some of the background, some of the meanings of it.

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So I am so glad that you are here with us to take this journey through the New Testament

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together.

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As we walk quickly through the story, I'm going to point you to resources so that you

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can dig deeper if that's what you'd like to do.

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But you're going to understand the story of Jesus like you've never understood it before,

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the story of Paul, the story of the New Testament.

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So I'm so glad that you're here.

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You're beginning the journey with us.

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Enjoy your reading this week.

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And I hope that you'll be back with us next week.

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Until then, I just want to say, God bless.

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Have you fallen behind in your walk through the Bible daily readings?

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Well we serve a God of second chances.

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And this is your chance to finish the year out with us.

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You can start afresh this month and read through the New Testament with us in just 11 short

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weeks.

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So go to OutofZionShow.com, request your New Testament reading guide, and let's get

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it started.