Digging Deep this Christmas, part 1 | Internet Cafe Devotions

^“Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign:
Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son,
and shall call His name Immanuel.”
Isaiah 7:14, NKJV

Isaiah 7:14.

It’s a familiar “Christmas” passage.

A passage that could easily be skimmed right over if one wasn’t willing to pull up their shirt sleeves and do a little digging. Not being one who settles for skimming the surface of the familiar, I pushed up my shirt sleeves recently after having read this passage with my kiddos and began digging a little deeper. And oh, the treasures I did find!

Let’s read the passage again, shall we?

“Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign:
Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son,
and shall call His name Immanuel.”
Isaiah 7:14, NKJV

It’s pretty self explanatory, huh?

God is going to give a sign.

A virgin will conceive a child.

The child will be born.

The child will be a Son.

The Son is to be called Immanuel.

The end.

Period.

Wrap that bad boy up and stick it under the tree.

Um…not so fast.

How about let’s, you and I together, pull up our shirt sleeves and dig a little deeper into the significance of this beautiful passage? Sound like a winner? Good!

We’ll begin in the book of Ezekiel. The purpose of the book of Ezekiel is to announce God’s judgment on Israel and other nations and to foretell the eventual salvation of His chosen people.

In Ezekiel chapter 8, God gave Ezekiel a vision of what was going on in His temple.

God’s people were worshipping false gods and bringing them into the Holy place. They were defiling His holy inhabitance by painting graffiti of creatures associated with Egyptian animal cults on the walls. The leaders of the temple who should have been worshipping God and setting that example for others, instead were offering incense to pagan idols in secret, thinking God couldn’t see what they were doing.
Israel was worshipping Tammuz, the Babylonian god of spring vegetation. Women sat at the gate weeping over his demise and longing for his return. Men literally turned their backs to the temple of God while standing on the temple porch worshipping the sun in the east. Nothing of the temple, God’s dwelling place, was scared anymore. His people had completely degraded it through their selfish worship of false gods.

In Ezekiel 8:18 God says…

“Therefore I also will act in fury. My eye will not spare nor will I have pity;
and though they cry in My ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them.”
Ezekiel 8:18, NKJV

God had absolutely had enough; no longer would He hear the cries of His people nor would He pity them. He was tired of their disobedience and was about to unleash His wrath upon them. Can you even imagine? What would it be like to have God pour out His wrath on you? What would it be like to cry out to God and He not hear you? Not only that, what would it be like for God’s presence to leave His dwelling place on earth; for His radiant glory to be gone?

As harsh as this may seem to us, God did what He said He was going to do. Let’s read on and as we read, note the stages of God’s glory leaving His dwelling place.

“9:3a) Now the glory of the God of Israel had gone up from the cherub,
where it had been, to the threshold of the temple.
10:4) Then the glory of the LORD went up from the cherub,
and paused over the threshold of the temple; and the house was filled with the cloud,
and the court was full of the brightness of the LORD’S glory.
10:18) Then the glory of the LORD departed from the threshold of the temple
and stood over the cherubim.
11:23) And the glory of the LORD went up from the midst of the city
and stood on the mountain, which is on the east side of the city.
Ezekiel 9:3a; 10:4; 10:18; 11:23, NKJV

In the blink of an eye, God’s glory left the temple. And the saddest part about His exit is that His people didn’t even notice He was gone. They were so consumed with themselves and their false gods that they had no idea the God of the universe had just departed from them.

Not only did His glory leave the temple, He also slayed the sinful while protecting the few that remained faithful to Him. He then rained down fire over the city of Jerusalem as a sign of His wrath.

Since God’s presence left His people, there are a few questions that beg to be answered. What about the promise of the Seed to come that would crush the head of Satan found in Genesis 3:15? What about the Kinsman Redeemer we find in the book of Ruth? What about the covenant He made with them? If He was gone, if His glory left the presence of His people, what would happen? What about the Son that would be born of the virgin?

Read Ezekiel 11:14-21 (NKJV).

14) Again the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 15) “Son of man, your brethren, your relatives, your countrymen, and all the house of Israel in its entirety, are those about whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, ‘Get far away from the LORD; this land has been given to us as a possession.’ 16) Therefore say, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: “Although I have cast them far off among the Gentiles, and although I have scattered them among the countries, yet I shall be a little sanctuary for them in the countries where they have gone.”’ 17) Therefore say, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: “I will gather you from the peoples, assemble you from the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.”’ 18) And they will go there, and they will take away all its detestable things and all its abominations from there. 19) Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them, and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh, 20) that they may walk in My statutes and keep My judgments and do them; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God. 21) But as for those whose hearts follow the desire for their detestable things and their abominations, I will recompense their deeds on their own heads,” says the Lord GOD.

Yes, God’s presence left His people, but His covenant love and promise for them still remained. Why? Because He is a covenant keeping God. He will never go back on His word. He fully intended to return and restore His relationship with His chosen ones.

And, He did exactly that! God beautifully illustrates His coming back for His people in the book of Hosea. Next week we’ll push up our shirt sleeves and dig in there. For now, though, I encourage you to take some time and think back through today’s verses from the book of Ezekiel. What are your thoughts?

See you next week! Bring your shovels, we’ve got a lot of digging to do!

Jenifer Jernigan

Jenifer has a past that would spill over into her present if it weren’t for the magnificent grace of Jesus and His powerful healing hand. She is the wife of Chris and the momma of three precious children, Hannah, Will, and Lydia. Her days are spent homeschooling her kiddos, getting lost in a sea of words, sipping on delicious cups of her favorite coffee, and chasing hard after the One who saved her.You can visit with Jenifer and Diving Deeper Ministries where she encourages all to dive deeper into God's Word and live abundantly in Christ.