Transcript of Radio Show #342:
Event #1 & 2, The Pre-Human Existence of Christ,
Part 1 & 2
of the Four Gospels series by events" based on the book "Horizontal Chronology of the Four Gospels"

Radio Show...

This program continues on various series of different topics on theology such as end times, prophecies, daily living, etc. as the subject matter comes up.

The e-book on End times, Prophecies and Revelation, answering the questions “where are we in the events of the end times?” and “Are we now in the tribulation?” is available on this web site, which you can find throughout the pages.

Opening Narrative

Hello and welcome to another exciting radio program today on end times and prophecies and scriptures to live by... which is all about old-time gospel and worship music, praying for needs and preaching the Word of God....

Today as we begin a brand new Fall season with new school year and church ministry activities, and so on... so will a new series begin in these radio shows to do with the Four Gospels... actually, as well, this season also starts the 8th year of this “Virtual Church for the Spiritual Unchurched” weekly radio program.

That's right, it's been 8 years since the Lord called me to produce and host these radio shows that deliver the good news of Jesus Christ, our Lord God and Saviour, and God the Father and God the Holy Spirit – which is all about the beginning of time and the whole of God's Creation as we know it... and all the rest of the Word of God which He gave us to know where we are and who we are.

So right now I am starting a new series based from my book “The Horizontal Chronology of the Four Gospels” which the Lord's been telling me to do for some time.

So this is going to be different and I will explain as I go through the material, which is not some new narrative, or novel, or anything like that, but it is pure scripture from the Word of God...

So I'll get into that right after the usual opening music, prayer and worship time...

All that will begin right after this opening music and time of prayer…

(Let us pray...

The Lord's Prayer...
Praise God Doxology...
Worship Music...)

Narrative #1

So, as I was saying, the topic of this series of radio programs is going to be different in that it is the 4 gospels but “chronologically” delivered by the main events of the Gospels...

...in other words, the scriptures of the four gospels have been gathered together by the events reported by the four gospel writers...

As you know, in the Bible the four gospels are reported by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, each in its separate story. It's all about the same gospel but as seen by each of these four writers.

Quite often people who are not familiar or are new to the Bible, specifically here, the New Testament, will ask “why four gospels?”. Well, they are reported by four different writers who witnessed the life of Jesus Christ... same story but viewed detailed reported by the four writers of the Gospel story -- we will see that quite prominently as we go along.

But as we will see, the idea of the chronological order of the main events taking place in the Gospel story is that it presents those events from all four viewpoints of the writing evangelists.

So the important thing to know right now is that there are 9 particular events that we will be looking at:

#1—Pre-human existence of Christ
#2 – Pre-natal to Jesus's Incarnation
#3-- Birth and Childhood of Jesus
#4-- Beginning of Jesus' ministry
#5-- Galilean ministry
#6-- Judean and Perean ministry of Jesus
#7-- Jesus' last week
#8-- Jesus' last 6 hours
#9-- From the Resurrection to the Ascension

And so we will be looking at each of these events taking place simultaneously from each of the gospel writers' point of views... you'll see that as we go along very clearly. This is going to be a very new and exciting perspective of the four gospels as we know them.

Alright so let's begin with,

#1—Pre-human existence of Christ:

Now, first off, let me tell you something very exciting that takes place when one puts all four gospels by order of events...

As you know, in the Bible, the four gospels are placed in order of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. And that's wonderful... but what's even more amazing is that when you put these four gospels in order of events – as opposed to by the four writers, as it was written in the Bible... guess what you end up with right at the front?

You end up with: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God! Which normally you find in the fourth gospel written by John.

Now isn't that interesting and amazing...

In other words the first event presented in the chronological order of the gospels of the New Testament is along the same line as the first event we read about in the Genesis of the Old Testament: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

Now let's read the rest of this from the book of Genesis, from verse 1 to 9:

(and I'm reading from the King James Bible)

1 “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

2 "And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

3 "And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

4 "And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

5 "And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Now let's go to the reading from the book of John which is what comes up first when we put the four gospels together in chronological order of the main events:

1 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

2 "The same was in the beginning with God.

3 "All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

4 "In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

5 "And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not."

and in the next verses -- 6 to 8, of course it refers to John the Baptist, which we will put in parentheses for now and go straight over to verse 9...

(6 "There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 "The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.
8 "He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.)

verse 9, "That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.

10 "He (Jesus) was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.

11 "He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

12 "But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

13 "Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

14 "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

15 "John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me.

That's John the Baptist who said that.

16 "And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.

17 "For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.

18 "No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

Wow. That's quite an opening narrative to the New Testament.

Now, really one could think that the fathers of Christendom who compiled the canonical books of the Bible should have put the book of John first...

however, we could have a whole discussion on that, but suffice it to say for now that, for whatever reason, it probably was because, as the Gospels were written to speak to the three basic nationalities and then the Believers, of the time of Jesus (Jews, Greeks, Romans and Believers), the message of Salvation came “to the Jew first”...

...therefore it was natural for them to put the book of Matthew first because it was written particularly to the Jews, and we will see that later on when we read the book of Matthew... and John last because it was written particularly to the believers.

But the events themselves took place in their natural in-time sequence as witnessed by all four Gospel writings...

It is also interesting to note that John is the only one who writes on this particular theological theme that connects with the first book of “beginning” in the book of Genesis.

And this takes care of #1 of the events -- “the pre-human existence of Christ”.

Next, we'll look at #2 event.

Music Interlude

Narrative 2

Let's now look at our #2 event, “Pre-natal to Jesus' Incarnation”.

As mentioned in the previous segment, John is the only gospel writer who mentions the “creation beginning” theme, which makes up the introduction of John's gospel.

For our next event, we have 2 gospel writers who come on the writing scene and that is Mark and Luke... so let's read those scriptures which pertain to their introduction to the gospel:

Mark 1:1 starts off his gospel with, “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

And, Luke opens up with verses 1 to 4 of the gospel of Luke.:

1_Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us,

2_Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word;

3_It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus,

4_That thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed.

So, here we see that Dr. Luke is writing to a Roman official whom Luke addresses as “most excellent”, who might have been a Greek Noble or Gentile of high standing.

And Matthew who is the first Gospel documented in the New Testament Bible is the only one who begins with the genealogy of Christ.

Since his writing was specifically pointed to the Jews, this was very important for them as an authoritative explanation of the Christ of the New Testament being totally Jewish and from the Jewish background of the Old Testament.

And we will not read the 17 scriptures here of Matthew, chapter 1, but you can do so at a later time... except that I will read the last scripture that summarizes the whole purpose of the previous scriptures of the book of Matthew:

Verse 17: “So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations”.

Noteworthy is the 14 - 14 - 14 that we should remember. Good way to summarize this part of Old Testament history. So from Abraham to Christ -- 3, 14-generations.

All of these details should be very impressive for any atheist -- if they would only read the Word of God!

The foretelling of the birth of John the Baptist

Now, still under the #2 event “Pre-natal to Jesus' Incarnation”, let's now look at the details of the foretelling of the birth of John the Baptist.

We find this in Luke 1, verses 5 to 25, right after the 4 verses of introduction of Dr. Luke's letter to Theophilus that we read a moment ago.

Interestingly, the only gospel writer who gives us the detail of this birth of John the Baptist is Dr. Luke. But we will not read this whole chapter right now, again, you can read it later on. We're just moving right now straight through to the start of Jesus' ministry.

So, in this same chapter, then Dr. Luke gives us the details of the announcement of the virgin birth of Jesus Christ, from verse 26 to 38...

Mary's visit to Elizabeth

Then we read about Mary's visit to Elizabeth, then the prayer of Elizabeth referred to as “The Magnificat”.

Birth of John the Baptist

Then the birth of John the Baptist is told us from verse 57 to 66... and finally the story of the prophecy of Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, about the growing up years of John the Baptist, which takes us to the end of chapter 1, at verse 80.

“And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his shewing unto Israel.” So it's speaking of John the Baptist who preceded the birth of Jesus Christ.

All that of course worthy to be read, but, again, in this program today we want to go on with the life of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself... but the idea is that you can read all these chapter and verses mentioned here, in-between the radio shows.

Music interlude...

Narrative #3

Alright so we covered the “Pre-human Existence of Christ” event and the “Pre-natal to Jesus's Incarnation”, which was reported by 4 gospel writers.

Remember, John is the only one who reported on the Pre-human Existence of Christ -- “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God...” that famous passage of scripture that speaks of Jesus Christ who came in the flesh.

Then the other 3, Matthew, Mark and Luke reported on the events “Pre-natal to Jesus's Incarnation.

And that takes us to the next event of the chronological outline, which is #3 – “Birth and Childhood of Christ” ...

So accordingly, this next event takes us back to Matthew, chapter 1 right after his genealogy from Abraham to Christ... remember the 14, 14, 14 in chapter 1, verse 17:

“So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations.”

#3 event: Birth and Childhood of Jesus..

The first thing we read about in this event is the announcement of Jesus' Birth to Joseph:

And we are now around 7 BC, in Nazareth, because Christ was born in 6 BC, 2 years before the death of Herod the Great.

Now here Matthew takes us to the appearance of an angel to Joseph to announce to him that his wife to be was going to give birth to the child prophesied in the book of Isaiah – or the awaited Messiah...

Verse 23, quotes from the book of Isaiah, chapter 7 and verse 14: “Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.”

As we can see, Matthew continues his writings based on what would be pertinent to the Jewish knowledge and belief of their Jewish Torah – or the Old Testament. Very interesting.

The actual birth of Jesus Christ:

After this, we hear about the actual Birth of Jesus Christ from Dr. Luke, in chapter 2, where we read about the story of Joseph taking Mary to Bethlehem for the first taxing imposed upon the people by Cyrenius, governor of Syria and where the birth of Jesus took place.... you remember – the story of Christmas that we have been celebrating ever since, from verses 1 to 7...

and then the proclamation by the angels where a multitude of heavenly hosts appeared to praise God saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men”, verses 8 to 14.

Then Dr. Luke describes to us the visit of the shepherds at verses 15 to 20 of chapter 2, which says:

v. 15 --“And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us.

16 -- “And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger.

17 -- “And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child.

18 -- “And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds.

19 -- “But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.

20 -- “And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.”

Jesus's circumcision

Now after that, Dr. Luke covers the circumcision and presentation of Jesus at 8 days of His birth, where we read in verse 21:

“And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called Jesus, which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb.”

Presentation in the Temple

After this we read in verses 22 to 38, about Jesus' presentation in the Temple where Simeon and Anna give praise and recognition of this Holy Child as the long-awaited Saviour.

And of course they were Jewish and knew the Jewish scriptures and they confirmed that from their knowledge.

And it is worthy to note here that Dr. Luke is the one gospel writer who gives us the most details on the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. That makes perfect sense because as a doctor he would have been extremely interested and would have done extensive research on this particular miraculous situation of the virgin birth. We can see that in his descriptions of details in these early chapters 1 and 2.

In my “synoptical patterns” of the “Horizontal Chronology of the Four Gospels”, I give the number of mentions of events as reported by each of the gospel writers. For example on this subject matter of the birth of Christ, Matthew reports 6 times, Mark 3 times, Luke 18, and John 0. Isn't that interesting? So you can see in comparison who spoke of it the most – it's Dr. Luke for 18 times about the virgin birth of Christ.

Then Dr. Luke's letter ends this part of Jesus' early childhood with the scripture in verse 40 of chapter 2:

“And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him.”

The words here “waxed strong” is interesting. It is the Greek word 'krataioō' (G2901) (pronounced krat-ah-yo'-o), a passive verb meaning, to be made strong, to increase in strength, to grow strong.

It is used only 4 times in the New Testament in the following verses:

Luke 1:80 --

“And the child (speaking about John the Baptist) grew, and waxed strong (krat-ah-yo'-o) in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his shewing unto Israel.” We read that earlier on.

And then in Luke 2:40 --

“And the child grew, and waxed strong (krat-ah-yo'-o) in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him.” And of course that's about Jesus Christ we are reading about now.

1Cointhians 16:13 --

Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, (behave like men) be strong. (Again krat-ah-yo'-o).

Ephesians 3:16 --

“That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened (krat-ah-yo'-o) with might by his Spirit in the inner man;”

Also notice in each case (except for 1 Cor.16:13) the words "Spirit", "in Spirit", and "by his Spirit"...

that's the passive verb “to be made strong” -- the Spirit of God does that.

Jesus at the age of 12

Then in the last portion of chapter 2, verses 41 to 52, Dr. Luke gives us the account of Jesus at the age of 12, when he was found left behind in the temple speaking with the religious leaders, astonishing them all with His theological knowledge of the Scripture (the Old Testament that was at the time).

Then, in chapter 3 of Dr. Luke's discourse, we are told about the preaching of John the Baptist which includes the baptism of the people who came to repentence, the baptism of the Holy Spirit (v. 16), the emprisonment of John the Baptist by Herod (v. 20), and the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist (v. 21-22)...

And then from v. 23 to 38, the genealogy of Jesus, again which was very important for the Jews perspective.

Reaction of Herod the king

After this we get into more of the historical events taking place regarding the reaction of Herod the king about Jesus Christ whose birth had been spread throughout the country. As you will recall, Herod was not happy about that at all...

...and we will continue with that in the next program as to what he did in his hideous jealousy.

In the meantime, you can read the scriptures that were referred to up till now.

Music interlude...

Closing Narrative…

Before I dismiss the service today, I want to read to you the Blessing that was read to the people of God in Numbers 6:24-26 which is the benediction from God to you today:

“The Lord bless thee, and keep thee: The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace."

I hope and pray that you will come back next Sunday at SpiritFM.ca, 7 am and 7 pm pacific time. And if you want to hear the service again at any time, you can go to my website at TimingRevelation.com, and click on the Radio Shows navigational tab along the left side. The replays are available there for five weeks, then they are transcribed into articles as new radio shows are put up.

I encourage you to go to your Bible and read further on the scriptures that were given throughout the program today. And if you like these programs and you've been blessed, call or write the station and let them know... if you said the prayer and have accepted the Lord or you've been healed or touched in some way by the Holy Spirit, write to me on the contact form of this web site...

...and this web site is also where you will find the Free Offer of the “Christian Growth and Maturity Chart” that I talked to you about in the last weeks... you will see the graphic on any page called “Get your free CGM Chart”, click on it and it will take you to a page that will tell you about it and how you can subscribe to my newsletter to get your free copy of the Chart sent to you.

Until next week, Maranatha, the Lord is coming, very soon. Goodbye and Blessing.

/DMH

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/DMH

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Blessings,