(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

We're going to look at Micah 5 and compare that with Matthew 2. So you're always going to want to keep one finger in the New Testament and one in the Old. We're going to be looking at a lot of scripture from Psalms and Isaiah and Zechariah mostly and then the Gospels pretty much mostly in Matthew for the fulfillment of these scriptures. So if you're in Micah chapter 5 verse number 1 the Bible reads, Now, gather thyself in troops, O daughter of troops. He hath laid siege against us. They shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek. But thou, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me, that is to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting. So we see here clearly talking about God, talking about Jesus Christ coming to rule because it says that his goings forth have been of old, which means, you know, where he came from is from everlasting. He's been around forever. The fact that God was going to become flesh and come to this earth to be Christ, to be the Messiah was known and prophesied back in the Old Testament. This is Micah preaching and teaching that he's going to be coming the ruler of Israel and he's going to come from Bethlehem. Now, as we look at some of these scriptures, you can start to understand a little bit too, if you're familiar with the New Testament, their perception of Jesus Christ and what everybody thought was going to happen was that Jesus Christ was going to set up his kingdom at his first coming. That was their understanding of the Old Testament. It was mixed up. But when you read the Old Testament, you can understand because the Old Testament is more like looking through a glass darkly. There's a lot of things that have not been come to light yet and there's parts of the scripture that, you know, for one, there's dual references and there's also, it's just not quite as clear. It's a little bit more cryptic. But when you start to see it, as the New Testament unfolds, as Jesus Christ comes on the scene, as he teaches him, as he expounds and opens up the scripture to him, then it becomes clear, oh, okay, this is what you're saying. This is what you're teaching. He's not setting up his kingdom yet. The Old Testament is full of prophecies going all the way to the end of the world. And what was happening is they're kind of condensing that into one prophecy, not realizing there's actually two comings of Jesus Christ. One when he comes the first time, which has already happened, and then when he comes back again the second time. Now, we see here it's saying specifically that he's going to come out of Bethlehem. And then in Matthew 2, verse number 1, the Bible reads, Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem. So the wise men were coming to see Jesus Christ. They're wise in the scriptures. They're coming to find Jesus Christ. He was born in Bethlehem of Judea. And they're looking to find that Messiah. And this is actually, it's kind of interesting, this is one of the sticking points for a lot of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, right? When they're trying to prove whether or not this is the Christ, even though he's performing all these miracles and doing all the great things, he's preaching the Word of God. They were saying, oh, you're from Galilee, right? Because most of his childhood was spent growing up in Galilee. But that's not where he was born. He was born in Bethlehem. And, again, fulfilling this prophecy. And then another prophecy he fulfilled. Turn, if you would, to, you're in Matthew 2. You can just stay in Matthew 2. I'll read from you from Hosea 11, 1. You can write that down if you want to look it up later. Hosea 11, 1. The Bible reads, When Israel was a child, then I loved him and called my son out of Egypt. And this is where in Matthew 2, if you go to Matthew 2, look at verse number 13, we see a little bit more about the story of Jesus Christ's birth. He was born in Bethlehem. But when he was young, Herod wanted to destroy Jesus Christ because he saw him as a threat to his kingdom. He knew, he had heard that, hey, there's going to be this Jewish person that's born that's going to set up a kingdom. And he didn't want anything to do with it. And he actually was fearful enough to say, you know what, I'll take care of this. We'll just wipe out every child that's two years old and under to try to make sure that he kills, just kills off any chance that Jesus Christ might be alive. And in Matthew 2, 13, we see that here. It says, And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother and flee into Egypt. And be thou there until I bring thee word for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night and departed into Egypt and was there until the death of Herod that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son. So again, in Old Testament reference, just as this, it's a smaller passage, but calling God's son, calling his son out of Egypt. So he had to go into Egypt. Why did he have to go into Egypt? Because of Herod, because of that wicked rule. So these are things that were like, everything that happens in the fulfillment of prophecy, you're going to also notice it makes sense that it happened. Like there's a good reason for it. It wasn't just someone coming to try to make sure they could check off a list of all these various prophecies to make sure that we could make somebody try to fit this thing that people in the Old Testament have written. And we could just try to make this work somehow so that we don't look like liars. I mean, it's been hundreds of years and the Messiah hasn't come yet, so let's just make somebody make up this big conspiracy to get somebody to fit all these various prophecies. That's not the way it happened at all. You can see very good reasons for this. I don't know about you, but if I heard about someone who's going to try to kill all the children at a certain age range and I had one in that range, I'm going to get out of there too. And that's what happened with Jesus. They were protecting Jesus and of all places they went to Egypt. They went to Egypt to flee. And when Herod was dead, when they didn't have to worry about that problem anymore, they were called back. So out of Egypt, I have called my son. Jesus comes back out of Egypt. He was born in Bethlehem. He comes back out of Egypt, spends time growing up in Galilee. Now, turn, if you would, to Isaiah chapter 35. Isaiah 35. I'm not going to show you all the New Testament references for this, but we're going to see prophecies of the ministry of Jesus Christ. There are too many to turn to in the New Testament to show you proof of this. We're going to see how Jesus, you know, all of the miracles that he performed and the healings of people were also prophesied. Anyone who's read the New Testament is well aware, especially in the four gospels, you're well aware of all the various times that Jesus Christ was healing the sick and making the lame to walk and opening up the eyes of the blind and opening up the ears of the deaf. I mean, this is recorded, this is one of the big events why he couldn't even enter into some cities because so many people thronged him and because they were bringing out people to be healed. I mean, this is what he was known for in his ministry is going and serving people, preaching the Word of God and healing people, bringing that healing power.