Setting the Stage (3D Jesus Part 1)

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Welcome to Out of Zion with Susan Michael, an exploration of the Bible and the land of

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Israel.

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From ancient biblical sites to the story behind the stories, join Susan on a journey through

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the most exciting book on the planet.

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Hit the subscribe button for future episodes, which will deepen your faith and bring the

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Bible to life.

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And now, here's our host, Susan Michael.

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Well, hey there, and welcome.

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We're starting a brand new series today called The 3D Jesus.

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And we're hoping that by bringing out the historical and cultural and geographic and

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religious context of Jesus, that He's going to come alive to you, like never before.

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So let's get started.

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Today's session we're going to start, we're going to call setting the stage.

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Have you ever wondered why Jesus was born Jewish?

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Now if you have already completed our 3D Bible series, you should be able to answer that.

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But if you're new to us, and this is your first session with us, then you might still

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be wondering, well, why was He born Jewish?

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And why did God choose Mary in Nazareth to be the mother of Christ?

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You know, the Bible doesn't really tell us that.

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So what we're going to do today is look into some of the background and historical sources

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and piece together some probabilities.

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So let's get started.

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Why was Jesus born Jewish?

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Well, the Bible tells us this wonderful story of God's plan of redemption.

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Now when God decided that He was going to redeem mankind, He set a plan into action

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with a man called Abraham.

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And He promised Abraham, He said, through you, and what I'm doing today, I'm going

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to make you a great nation, and through you, all the families of the earth will be blessed.

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The apostle Paul says that that verse was the first preaching of the gospel.

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So God had chosen to create a nation through whom He was going to carry out this amazing

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plan of redemption.

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They were to be the vehicle of that redemptive plan.

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And so the Messiah Jesus came in fulfillment to these promises that God made to Abraham,

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and then Isaac and Jacob, He promised Moses, He promised David, He proclaimed it through

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the Hebrew prophets.

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Why?

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Because God had chosen to work through this people group, and He was going to bring about

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the redemptive products such as the covenants and the Word and the Bible and the promises

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and all of this, and of course, the Messiah.

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So that's why He was born Jewish.

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God had been working for thousands of years setting the stage for the birth of the Messiah.

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And this is why when we begin the New Testament story and the story about the birth of Jesus,

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both Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, when they

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let loose and praise to the Lord, one of the things they both mention is that these miraculous

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pregnancies what God was doing was in fulfillment of His promises to Abraham.

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So let's move on then.

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That's a little bit of a review for those of you.

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If you're just starting with us, I do recommend that when you have time, go back and listen

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to the 3D Bible series.

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It's going to explain all of that amazing story, the story behind the stories in much

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greater detail.

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So for today, though, we're going to keep moving.

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I want to talk about why God chose Mary in Nazareth.

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Now, as I said earlier, the Bible doesn't tell us why.

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The Bible just tells us that God did.

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So I want to look at some of the background here and we're going to see some amazing things

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that God was doing when He chose Mary in Nazareth.

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So let's continue our story very briefly to sort of bring us up to this point.

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As I said, God chose Abraham.

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He was going to birth and birth the nation through Abraham to carry out this great plan

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of world redemption.

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But the people after Abraham, they go into Egypt, they end up in slavery for 400 years.

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Finally they come out of Egypt, they wander in the desert, and finally it's the time for

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them to go in and possess the land.

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At first it's a tribal confederation, but then we have the highlight of the history

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of Israel, and this is when David is king.

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We call it the Davidic kingdom.

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And during this time, God makes it clear that he has not only chosen David, he has chosen

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Jerusalem to be the place where he would place his name and his presence.

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And David wants to build a temple, but God tells him no, and he allows his son Solomon

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to build the temple in Jerusalem.

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But then after Solomon's sin enters into the camp, actually even during Solomon's days,

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but then after Solomon dies, the kingdom is split and division is always a sign of judgment.

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So we have the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom, and the prophets began to warn the

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northern kingdom that judgment is coming, and it does in the form of the Assyrian Empire,

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comes in and takes the northern kingdom of Israel into exile.

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And then of course we have the prophets warning, and now Babylon has taken over Assyria, the

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Babylonian army comes in, takes the southern kingdom of Judah and all of Jerusalem, and

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take them into exile.

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70 years later now, the Persians rule over the Babylonian Empire, and the Persians allow

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the Jews to return to their homeland, they even pay to rebuild the temple.

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And so this is known as the second temple period, the beginning of the second temple

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period.

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And we have the return of the exiles, we read about it in Ezra and Namaya, the rebuilding

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of Jerusalem.

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There is a religious revival in the land, and we have a number of prophets during this

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time, and the last of which in our Bible in the Old Testament is the prophet Malachi.

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Now that ends the Old Testament story right there, and it ends somewhere in the fifth

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century before Christ.

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And you may hear sometimes that this begins a 400 year period before the New Testament

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picks up, because the birth of Jesus happens somewhere around 5 BC or before Christ.

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And so we have this period of about 400 years, and theologians, and I'll refer to it as like

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a 400 year period of silence.

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I think that's very misleading.

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I don't know that God was silent at all.

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He was obviously very active, which I'm about to share with you.

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But the silence means that there was no national prophet or writing prophet that we have the

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writings of that are in our Bible.

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So there is a 400 year gap between the Old Testament and the New Testament.

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And I need to cover some of that history there in order to show you how God was so busy during

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this time setting the stage for the birth of the Messiah.

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So the way we know this history, it's not in our Bible, but there are two books that

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are known as in the Apocrypha, first and second Maccabees.

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And there's also a famous Jewish historian, Josephus.

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And so from these sources, we are able to piece together a very, very vibrant story of

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life in the land and what was happening during this 400 year period.

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So we close the Old Testament under the Persian Empire, which was Humongous.

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And what happens next is in 331 BC, Alexander the Great defeats the Persian Empire.

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Now Alexander the Great has taken the Greek culture throughout most of the known world

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and he has now defeated the Persians.

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And so the Greek culture, what we call Hellenization, is rampant, taking place all around the world

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and all throughout the Holy Land.

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Alexander the Great died just within 10 years later and his kingdom was then divided up

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amongst four different generals.

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And the general that took over the area of Asia, which included the land of Canaan or

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the land of Israel, his name was Siluicus Nicator, which means Siluicus the Victor.

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And he established what's known as the Siluicid Empire and it included the Jewish land of

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Judea or we call today Israel.

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Now the Greek culture that was spreading rampantly throughout the world was very different from

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the ancient culture that we read about in the Old Testament.

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The Greek culture brought with it great moral relativism.

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It brought with it a culture that was very much in opposition to the Jewish culture and

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to the Jewish rules that God had given the Jewish people.

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And so the Greek culture, they went in, they would build new cities and these cities had

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to have a theater for entertainment.

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They needed to have some kind of an arena for racing horses and chariots and all.

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You could call it a hippodrome or a theater, an amphitheater.

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They needed to have the bathhouses where all kinds of things took place.

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They had the Olympics where the sports was done completely naked because of this love

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and adoration of the human body.

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And with this came the adoration of man.

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And Greek philosophy sort of set man up as the one to determine what was right and wrong.

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And man determined basically, do anything you want to.

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If you want to try it, try it.

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If it feels good, do it.

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Whatever.

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And this set up a whole new set of Greek gods that they all kind of looked like man.

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So it came with, it was very all-encompassing.

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And it really promoted what we would call humanism.

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Man was pretty well the center of everything.

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And great moral relativism.

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And of course with it came paganism.

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And every town there was a pagan temple set up and the worship of these Greek gods.

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Now after 180 years of this process of Hellenization in the Holy Land, I have to say that the future

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of the Jewish people was in the balance.

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Because the more they assimilated and the more Greek they became and the more they adopted

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these pagan lifestyles, the less Jewish they were.

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And this was a real threat to the existence of the Jewish people.

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And so there was pushback against it.

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And there were the more religious Jews who pushed back against this and said, no, we

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should not adopt these ways.

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And we need to worship the God of Israel in the way that he has had us.

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We need to live the way he has told us to live.

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And we should not give in to these forces.

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So a new king was over the Seleucid Empire and his name was Antiochus IV Epiphanes.

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And he decided to enforce the Greek culture on to the Jewish people.

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So he forbid their Sabbath.

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He forbid their Torah.

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He even went so far as to sacrifice a pig in the Holy of Holies, which desecrated the

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temple.

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And eventually he set up a statue of Zeus in the temple that was built for the one true

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God.

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So this was the line in the sand.

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And some of the descendants of the priestly family of Aaron rose up against this.

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They were the family called the Maccabees and they began to lead a revolt against the

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Seleucids.

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Miraculously, they re-established Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem.

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They took back the temple.

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They rededicated it to God.

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And this is known.

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The Feast of Rededication is a seven day long festival and celebrates this amazing moment

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in history.

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This little band of zealots actually pushed back and defeated the Greek forces.

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And once they dedicated their temple, they discovered that the great menorah, which,

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you know, the light of the menorah, the menorah would burn for 24 hours a day, seven days

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a week.

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And it was in itself a symbol of the presence of God in the temple.

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As the light went out, it was as though it was that the presence was not there.

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And of course, the light had been out.

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The presence of God was not there as this temple was desecrated.

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But now it's been cleansed.

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It's been re-established and worshiped to the Lord.

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They light the great menorah and they discover they only have enough oil for one day.

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And so the miracle of this Feast of Dedication, which you've heard of as Hanukkah, the Hanukkah

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celebration, is celebrating the miraculous burning of this lamp for eight whole days

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until they were able to get more oil from the Galilee and replenish it.

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You know, the real miracle here, I mean, that's a miracle, the burning of the oil for eight

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days when it was only enough for one.

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But the real miracle here was that they had defeated the Greek forces.

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And this rededication of the temple only emboldened them.

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And they began to extend their rule.

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At the same time, it's interesting enough that Antiochus IV Epiphanes died just two

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weeks later.

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He was on a campaign to destroy another temple in another area of Asia.

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And he became very ill.

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And the Greek historian writing about it said that he seemed to suffer from divine displeasure.

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Now we don't know if he knows which God was showing displeasure, but I'm pretty sure that

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the God of Israel was fulfilling his promises to Abraham, that he would bless those that

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blessed him and his people, and he would curse those who cursed them.

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And Antiochus IV Epiphanes had tried to actually wipe out the Jewish people by making them

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Greek.

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And he's the one that ended up being wiped out.

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Now you know, this is an amazing feat, and this all takes place between the Old Testament

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and the New Testament.

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I mean, God saved the Jewish people from extinction.

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If this story of Hanukkah had not happened, the Christmas story would have never happened.

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Some 300 years later, there would have been no Jewish, Joseph, and Mary.

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There would have been no temple in Jerusalem for Zacharias to be in when the angel tells

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him that his wife is going to have a miraculous birth, and it'll be John the Baptist, the

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forerunner to the Messiah.

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None of this could have taken place because none of it would have existed.

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So this is an amazing story, and the fact that it's not in our Bible doesn't make it

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any less amazing.

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And it's just more proof of what I told you in our 3D Bible series, that the story that

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began in Genesis continued right straight through all of that period, through the New

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Testament, and is still going on today, it's not over.

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And this Hanukkah story is an amazing part of the story, and so it's so important that

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we know it.

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It was part of God preparing the way for the Christmas story.

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Now there's more to the story, though.

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The Maccabean family ends up setting up a reign, and they were known as the Hasmonean

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dynasty.

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And they were all descendants of the Maccabees, and they began to reign.

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They were even called kings, and some historians even refer to this period as a second kingdom

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of Israel.

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Why?

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Because after the death of Antiochus Epiphanes, the Seleucid Empire was just disintegrating.

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So this gave freedom to those zealots that had seized their temple back.

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It gave them the opportunity to actually set up rule and to expand it.

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And so they expanded beyond Judea and beyond Jerusalem into the northern kingdom area,

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which is known as the Galilee.

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Now in the Hasmoneans ruled for about a hundred years.

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And then what happened?

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Well, the Greeks, the Seleucids, were taken over by the Romans.

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And so with the Roman Empire came in new rulers and new forces.

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And the Hasmonean dynasty was eventually taken over by a very, very interesting and colorful

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and conflicted man named Herod the Great, who became a vassal of Rome.

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So now what does this have to do with Jesus and the Christmas story?

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Everything.

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Let me tell you, the Hasmonean dynasty took over much of the ancient kingdom of David,

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of the ancient kingdom of Israel.

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And because of this, and like I say, they ruled for about a hundred years.

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So during this time, the exiles began to return home.

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The exiles that had been taken by Assyria and Babylon, yes, the Persians had allowed

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them to come back, but it was a very limited return.

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There were plenty still in exile.

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And so they began to make their way back to the land.

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And many of them, some of them, many of them don't know how many, settled in that northern

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area of the Galilee.

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Because when the Assyrians had taken the northern kingdom into Assyria, into exile, they took

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all the Jews out, at least the major rulers, the man, they may have left a few behind.

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But they destroyed towns and villages.

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They took the people into exile.

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And then they moved Assyrians into the Galilee.

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That's one way that an ancient empire took over territory.

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So here the Galilee is now populated largely by Gentiles.

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And it's very likely that there were exiles now returning.

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First of all, the Hasmoneans did force some of these peoples to convert to Judaism if

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they were going to stay in the land.

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Secondly, we have exiles coming back from Babylon, and they are purposely trying to

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repopulate the land.

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It is very highly likely that either Mary or Josephs or both ancestors had been in exile

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in Babylon.

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And they came back during this time, and they built a village over the top of a destroyed

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village that the Assyrians had destroyed.

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And they named it Nazareth.

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Now, why would I say this?

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How can I say this?

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It is because about 200 years after Jesus' lifetime, there was a Jewish Christian historian

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living in the Holy Land, and he was writing the history of the area.

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His name was Julius Africanus.

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And he said that in the second century, so 200 years after Jesus, that there were still

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blood relatives of Jesus in the area around Nazareth, that makes sense, and in the area

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around Kokoba.

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Where is Kokoba?

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And what is Kokoba?

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Kokoba was one of the first Jewish towns right inside the border of the Hasmonean Kingdom

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if you were coming on the road from Babylon.

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So exiles, Jewish exiles, coming back.

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They had been in exile some of them 400 years.

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They had completely lost any identity in terms of a tribe or a town.

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Maybe they didn't even know where they were from in the land, but they knew they were

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Jewish.

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And here they had Jewish sovereignty in the land.

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They come back.

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Maybe they had people that were elderly or sick amongst them, so they stopped as soon

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as they got inside the Hasmonean territory.

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And they built this settlement called Kokoba.

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So some of the blood relatives of Jesus were found in the region around Kokoba 200 years

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after his life.

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And some of his relatives had come on in to the Galilee, the Galilee of the Gentiles,

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and had built a little village called Nazareth.

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So this means that Jesus' ancestors, at least some of them, were probably refugees.

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That's what we call them today.

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Then they were called exiles, but they were refugees.

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Interesting, huh?

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So why Nazareth?

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Why didn't these exiles go on down south to Bethlehem?

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That's where their family lineage was from.

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They were of the lineage of David, and they knew that the same historian, Julius Africanus,

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said that the blood relatives of Jesus could still trace their genealogy back to David.

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That's because they were considered royal.

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They were royalty.

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So of course, they cherished their genealogy, and they could still trace it, whereas a lot

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of the exiles lost their genealogies.

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So why did these descendants of David go into the Galilee of the Gentiles and resettle

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on a village and had been destroyed by the Assyrians?

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Well, it's very interesting.

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We don't know why.

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I think it's pretty obvious that they were intentionally resettling the land.

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You know what that means.

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That means that Jesus' ancestors were also what we call today settlers.

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You know, the hot-button word of settler in the West Bank.

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They're there because they believe that they should be settling in the biblical heartland

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of Israel, which used to be called Samaria, Judea and Samaria.

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So these descendants of David were doing the same thing.

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They were intentionally settling at the Galilee.

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They also knew that the prophet Isaiah had had a whole series of amazing prophecies.

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We find these in our Bible in Isaiah starting with chapter 6 all the way through chapter

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11.

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Amazing prophecies like one you've heard very much every year you hear that a virgin

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will conceive a son and she'll call his name Emmanuel.

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It also said that the Galilee of the Gentiles will see a great light.

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And later Isaiah said, and unto us a child is born, a son is given, and the government

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shall be upon his shoulder and will have no end and upon the throne of David.

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And there's another amazing prophecy by Isaiah that a root that out of the root of Jesse,

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Jesse was David's father.

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And so this picture is saying that the tree of David had been cut down to the ground,

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but there was still a root under the ground, and it said that out of that root would come

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a branch.

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In Hebrew the word branch is netzer.

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So out of the root of David was going to come a netzer, a branch, and the Gentiles will

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seek him.

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These were some of the prophecies that this religious band of Jews coming back, tracing

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their lineage would have known that the prophet Isaiah prophesied these things.

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Were they getting in place?

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I don't know, but I'm sure that they were praying that these prophecies would come true

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because these were prophecies about their family, about the family of David.

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Six hundred years after those prophecies by the prophet Isaiah what happens?

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That the Maccabees take over the Galilee of the Gentiles and the Jews are returning and

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they're populating that area and building it.

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And there's one little band of the descendants of David that go and they create their village

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and they give it the name netzeret, which means the little branch.

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I believe they were acting in faith that God was going to fulfill his promises that he

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had spoken through Isaiah and they named their village after that prophecy.

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Netzeret is Nazareth.

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Nazareth at the time of Jesus was small enough that it was probably just one extended family.

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It was probably nothing more than about a hundred and fifty people.

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Why they called it Nazareth or why Jesus was known as the Nazarene, it could be their clan

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had that name.

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That they were the Nazarenes, meaning they were of the netzer, they were of the lineage

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of David.

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This is why in the New Testament we have a story where there's the blind man on the side

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of the road and when he finds out that Jesus of Nazareth is coming by he says, Jesus, son

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of David, heal me.

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Jesus of Nazareth was synonymous with Jesus, a descendant of the lineage of David.

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Interesting isn't it?

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Well let's keep moving here.

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Now whether there's another scenario and it is possible that Joseph's family was from

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Bethlehem and he and his family, his ancestors, had gone up to join this band in Nazareth.

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Why do I say that?

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Because Joseph had to go back to Bethlehem to be registered there.

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We're going to hear about that next week.

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We hear it every year in the Christmas story.

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So it could be that his ancestors had come up from Bethlehem to join this band of their

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relatives who had returned from Babylon and were intentionally settling in the Galilee.

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We don't know, but it seems very highly likely that Joseph and or Mary's ancestors were

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from Bethlehem and had been taken into captivity into Babylon, that they returned under the

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Hasmonean dynasty and maybe they were joined by some that came up from Bethlehem.

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They were most probably religious Jews that kept their genealogy.

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It was important to them and they were praying for the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecies

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to their family.

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And so they intentionally moved into the Galilee to be there where these prophecies were going

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to take place.

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We don't know, but it seems highly likely knowing that history and that setting.

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All of this God was doing in the silence in our Bibles in between the Old Testament and

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the New Testament.

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He was setting the stage.

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He was getting everything in place so that according to Luke 1.26, now in the sixth month,

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the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth and to a virgin

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betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David and the virgin's name

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was Mary.

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God had set the stage down to the very last detail.

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The time had come for his plan of redemption to move forward.

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Now is that not exciting?

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So join me back here next time.

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We're going to talk about the next part of this story, the birth of Jesus.

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I can't wait, so please join me then.

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Until then, God bless you.

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We hope you have enjoyed this episode of Out of Zion with Susan Michael.

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Be sure to subscribe to Out of Zion now on Apple Podcasts, CPNshows.com, YouTube, or wherever

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you like to listen and learn.

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Out of Zion with Susan Michael is a production of ICEJUSA, All Rights Reserved.