In the Old Testament Prophets foretold the birth of a Savior. Isaiah in 7:14 gave a prophecy about the birth of Christ. A request for prophecies of the coming of a Savior on the internet will pull up many of them. The Old Testament tells of a man called Abraham who was totally devoted to God. Because of his devotion Abraham was promised his descendants would be a favored people and be numerous. Abraham had one son Issac who was the father of Jacob. Jacob had twelve sons. God later changed Jacob’s name to Israel. The descendants of the twelve sons were then referred to as the Twelve Tribes of Israel.
When Israel served God, they were a mighty nation, and their enemies could not defeat them. When they did not keep God’s Commandments, they no longer had his protection. Eventually ten of the tribes separated from the Tribe of Judah. For most of the Tribe of Levi they stayed with the Tribe of Judah and were absorbed by Judah. The ten tribes were conquered and scattered through many parts of the world and lost their identify as a people. Many people in the world are descendants of these ten tribes unaware.
The Jews were eventually conquered but were sent as a group to another land and did not lose their idenity as a people. Later they were allowed to return to what we refer to as the Holy Land. The Jews were later conquered by the Romans but were not relocated and became a part of the Roman Empire. While a part of the Roman Empire Jesus was born a Jew and descendant of King David. The Jews did not recognize their own King and most rejected him. Not many years after the crucifixion of Jesus the Jews were conquered by another nation and scattered again but unlike the ten tribes they did not lose their idenity. God is now gathering the Jews in the Holy Land before Jesus returns to earth to rule and reign. The Jews will continue as a nation until the return of Jesus. The scriptures indicate that all the world will be aligned against the Jews and will be attempting to destroy them. Jesus will come to destroy the army’s invading the Holy Land and then the Jews will recognize Jesus as their King.
What was the calling of this Man called Jesus who was born a Jew? Man is sent to earth to be tested to determine if he will follow the commandments. God knew we would not be perfect so he sent his son Jesus, who lived a perfect life, atone for our sins. If we will repent and serve God, we can be cleansed of our sins through the atonement of Jesus. Jesus also became the first person to be resurrected. Because he was resurrected, we will also be resurrected. This will be the same kind of resurrection that Jesus experienced where he said to his disciples, “handle me and see. A Spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see me have.”.
All will be resurrected but only those who are righteous will dwell in the presence of God. Paul in his letter to the Corinthians 1 Cor. 15 talked about glories compared to the Sun, Moon and Stars and said so also is the resurrection.
Non-believers have been attempting to remove Christ out of Christmas for many years. I remember as a child when we had the tradition of sending Christmas Cards we received cards wishing us a happy Xmas. Our modern day attempt is in the takeover of our education system by radical leftists. They are removing the celebration of Christmas in our schools and replacing Christmas with Holiday. Later, they will replace Holiday with December Celebration when they realize Holiday really means Holy Day. The Merchants of Greed are also doing their part by convincing us to forget Jesus and pursue material gains by going into debt giving everybody we know gifts.
My plea is that we will return Christmas to a day of celebrating the Savior’s birth leave behind the pursuit of worldly goods.
This is an opinion blog for Conservatives and People of Faith.