O Bethlehem
Micah 5:2
By Harold Dinsmore, M.Div.
© 2008 Harold Dinsmore

 The stage was set.  Israel was expecting a Messiah to come from the house of Benjamin – the township of Bethlehem was the site of this to come.  Alfred Edershein, in his book The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, confirms “that the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem, was a settled conviction,” in Jewish thinking.

Messiah was to be ruler in Israel.  A deliverer, if you will.  One who would rise up.  Muster a military might and restore the glory of the kingdom of Israel.

As we ponder the promise of Bethlehem, we must not neglect that God is faithful.  In II Peter 3:9, we read, “God – the Lord is not slack (slow) concerning His promises as some count slowness, but is forbearing toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all reach repentance.”  God is in the business of keeping His promises.  We read many prophecies in the Bible which contain promises of God to mankind.  We soon discover that He keeps His promises, even when men and women do not.  As I John 1:9 puts it, “He is faithful and just.”  You can count on God coming through.  In Matthew 1:22, we find a phrase which occurs frequently in the book of Matthew.  “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet.”  This is said frequently to remind the reader of the fact that Jesus life is and was the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy.