Advent: Day 5 - "God Never Forgets"

For Kids:

After King David (remember him?), another long time took place.  

The people waited, hoping that God would not forget His promise. 

But God had not forgotten his promise to send someone to take away the Sins of the World.  So, God kept speaking through various people who were listening to God’s word.

One man who heard God was a man named Isaiah (I Zay Ah).  Isaiah’s name means “God to the rescue”. 

Do you know what your name means?  You might want to ask your Mom or Dad to look your name up on the computer and see where it comes from and what it means.

Isaiah’s name means “God to the Rescue”, which is a nice name. 

One day, Isaiah heard God say that he was going to fix the broken world and take care of the problem of Sin in people’s lives. 

He spoke very clearly how this was going to happen.  First he told him: 

Isaiah 7:14
¹⁴ …the Lord himself will give you the sign. Look! A virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’).

Immanuel was a name too.  

It was going to be the name of God’s promised child. 

Immanuel means “God will come to live among us”.

Think about that.  God was promising that the day was going to come when He would come to the earth and live among people. 

But what was God’s purpose in coming to live with us?

Isaiah heard God again:  Isaiah 9:6-7
⁶ …a child will be born to us, a son given to us. The government will rest on his shoulders. And he will be called: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father,

Prince of Peace.  ⁷ His government and its peace will never end. 

God was letting Isaiah and all of us know, I haven’t forgotten my promise.

One day God was going to come and everything was going to change.

God never forgets His promises.  He always keeps them, no matter how long it takes.

·         God promised us that His son, Jesus, would come – and he did.

·         God promised us that His son, Jesus, would die for our sins – and he did.

·         God promised us that His son, Jesus, would give us salvation – and he did.

·         God promised us that anyone who believes in him even though they one day would die, would have eternal life with God in heaven – and we will.

John 3:16
¹⁶  “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son (Jesus), so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

Do you believe God’s promise?

Have you asked God for Jesus to be your savior?

And, when we ask Jesus to save us, we can also know that God’s promise of eternal life is for us also.  

We can listen to God and do what he says in our own lives too.

On this next page we can color a picture of what Isaiah as he listened carefully for what God had promised.

For Parents and Other Not Kids:

All week long we’re focusing in on God keeping His promises.  God promised he was going to send the Messiah – who turned out to be God’s one and only Son.

What the Prophets kept hearing was the repeat of God’s promise…one was going to come to establish God’s Kingdom upon the earth.

Later when it was actually going to happen, God sent the Angel Gabriel to Mary. 

Gabriel told her this:

Luke 1:31-33
³¹  You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus.
³²  He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David,
³³  and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."

God promised he would do something to restore Creation and do what he intended to do in the beginning…to create a place where His Kingdom would be among us, his creation.

The height of God’s promise was God’s word to Isaiah around 700 B.C.  What Isaiah actually heard was why it was necessary for God to do this.

Isaiah 9:2
²  The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.

Later the Apostle John would write of Jesus:

John 1:4-5
⁴  In him was life, and that life was the light of men.
⁵  The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

There was a darkness to overcome…a darkness that keeps the earth mixed up about who the creator is, and why we are here on earth, and what are we living in.

And Isaiah prophesied a clear statement of the promise of God for the first Advent that we read in Isaiah 9:6-7,
⁶  For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
⁷  Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on 

David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.

Redemption…that’s the purpose, that’s what the promise of God is all about - to reverse what the enemy was trying to do. 

God coming in flesh?

When Joseph found out Mary was pregnant, he was ready to divorce her and send her away, BUT…  Matthew 1:20-21
²⁰  But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
²¹  She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."

You see…God was promising His coming to straighten our mess out.

This is what we need to know… Galatians 4:4-5
⁴  But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law,
⁵  to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.

Advent reminds me that God never forgets and will always keep his promises.

Peace