Then the same people like to look back and laugh when the things
prophesied fail to come true.
It is very natural for people to form ideas based on what they see in men
and transfer these ideas to their view of God and His Word. Even though they
are hearing the Word spoken, they may not really be understanding and believing
in their hearts. As we teach, we need to emphasize that God’s promises always
come true. We need to emphasize that everything in His Word is true.

Pray that the Holy Spirit will work in the hearts of your students to cause
them to hear and understand and believe!
 

VISUALS:
• PROPHECY CHART—A large prophecy chart is included (and also a small
visual so you may make copies or an overhead transparency if you wish).

You will use this chart in many of the lessons ahead. An effective way
to show this is to keep the prophecies covered until they are announced
in the lessons. Then, as you study the fulfillment of each prophecy,
uncover that prophecy and w rite in the verse reference of the fulfillment.

Your students will see how God gradually fulfilled all these Old Testament
prophecies through the life of Jesus Christ. If possible, leave the chart
on the wall as a constant reminder to your students of God’s faithfulness.

• Visual, “ Jesus—Prophet, Priest, King”
• Poster 1, “ Learning About God”—Use this to emphasize themes.
• Poster 10, “ Some of God’s Promises to Abraham”
• Poster 12, “ Prophets”

Lesson:
REVIEW Lesson 30, using Lesson 31 Review Sheet.
PERFORM Skit 31. Note: " Uncle Don's" part should be read by an adult.
 
When God makes a promise, He will fulfill it.
- No matter how difficult, no matter how impossible it may seem
- No matter if it takes thousands of years to bring it to pass
- God will fulfill every promise, right down to the very last detail.
 
Theme: God is faithful; He always does what says; He
never changes.
READ Luke 1:57.
God did what He had promised Zacharias.
Zacharias and his wife, Elizabeth, had a son, and they named him John, just as the angel had instructed.
Can you remember some other promises God made and fulfilled?
Here are a few:
- His warnings to Adam and Eve
- His warnings to the people in Noah's day
- His promises to Abraham to give him descendants
- His promises to Joseph through dreams that Joseph would be a ruler
- His promise to Moses to bring the Israelites out of Egypt and to bring them back to Mount Sinai
- His promise to the Israelites to preserve them through the final plague if they carried out His instructions concerning the Passover
- His promise to bring Israel back to the promised land
- His w arnings to Israel and Judah that they would be taken captive if they did not repent of their sins.
 
Theme: Man must have faith in order to please God and be
saved.
READ Luke 1:67-79. [The teacher or another adult should read this long passage.]
Zacharias knew that, very soon, God's promised Saviour was coming to deliver mankind from Satan, sin, and death.
- Zacharias believed the promises which God had given to the prophets.
- God the Holy Spirit used Zacharias' knowledge of the Old Testament to bring this message that these promises were, at last, about to be fulfilled!
- Consider:
Every one of us needs to be delivered from Satan, from the sinful things that control our lives, and from death and separation from God. That is why God planned to send the Saviour into the world.
Theme: God is faithful; He always does what He says; He never changes.
READ again Luke 1:72-75.
Abraham was the father of the nation of Israel. Do you remember that before Abraham went to live in Canaan, God had promised him that one of his descendants would be the Saviour?
Read Genesis 12:3, "And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed."
POINT TO THIS PROMISE ON THE POSTER, "SOME OF GOD'S PROMISES TO ABRAHAM."
Even though thousands of years had passed since God made that promise to Abraham, God had not forgotten. God always does exactly what He says.
Theme: Man must have faith in order to please God and be saved.
Theme: God communicates with man.
READ again Luke 1:76.
God the Holy Spirit gave this message to Zacharias, and Zacharias believed Him.
- Through the Holy Spirit, Zacharias was speaking about his son, John.
- John was going to be the prophet who would prepare the way for the coming Saviour.
- He would announce to Israel that the Saviour would soon come to them.
Theme: Jesus Christ is God.
The Deliverer, the Saviour, for whom John was to prepare the way, was to be the Lord Himself.
- No ordinary man could deliver us from Satan, sin, and death.
- The Lord is the great Deliverer of all who trust in Him.
- Recall:
Who delivered Noah and his family from the flood? Who delivered Isaac from death and provided a ram to die in his place?
Who delivered Lot from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah?
Who delivered Joseph from prison in Egypt? Who delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt? Who saved the Israelites from Pharaoh's army at the Red Sea? Who delivered the Israelites from death by providing them with water and food in the desert? The Lord alone is the great Deliverer. There is no other Saviour but the Lord .
Read Isaiah 43:11.
Theme: God is loving, merciful, and gracious.
Theme: God is holy and righteous. He demands death as the payment for sin.
READ again Luke 1:77.
Zacharias said that when the Saviour came, He would show His people how their sins could be forgiven.
God cannot and will not forgive sins unless the full price for sin is paid.
- The punishment for sin is separation from God forever.
- How then could sin be paid for?
- How can sinners be forgiven and saved from everlasting punishment?
Zacharias said that the Saviour would make all of that clear.
READ again Luke 1:78,79.
The Deliverer would come like the sun rising in the morning.
- Compare:
How would you feel if you went for a walk in the woods and got lost? When the sun went down, you would not only be lost, but you wouldn't even be able to see where you were. You would be very eager for the sun to rise in the morning so you could find your way back.
In a similar way, Adam and Eve's sin put all of us into darkness. They had been very safe in the garden of Eden because they depended on God for everything and He gave them all they needed. But when they sinned, their sin separated them from God. They were cast out of the garden. Now they were in the dark, so to speak, in constant danger of Satan's attack.
All of their children and all of their descendants, including you and me, were born in the darkness of sin. But God was making a way out of that darkness!
- Zacharias said that the Deliverer would come into this world to be the light to all people.
- The Deliverer would come just as the sun rises after a dark night and gives light to all people everywhere.
Theme: Jesus Christ is the only Saviour.
- Compare:
How many suns give light to this earth? Only one. The same sun gives light all over the world.
How many Deliverers did God promise to send into the world?
Only one.
God did not promise to send different Deliverers, one for us and another for people in other parts of the world.
- God only promised one Deliverer who would make it possible for us to come to God.
- He would bring "light" to the whole world, like the rising sun!
READ Luke 1:80.
John lived in the desert until it was God's time for him to begin giving God's message to Israel to prepare them to trust in the coming Deliverer.
Theme: Man must have faith in order to please God and be saved.
Theme: Man can come to God only according to God's will and plan.
John believed God.
He knew that he was a sinner, but he came to God bringing animals and their blood as sacrifices.
- He trusted God to save him from everlasting punishment.
- John trusted in the coming Deliverer.
- John was going to be the final prophet to announce to Israel the coming of Jesus Christ.
Theme: God is faithful; He always does what He says; He never changes.
READ Matthew 1:1,2.
Jesus, the coming Deliverer, was to be a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David.
For hundreds of years, God had given His prophets messages about this coming Saviour.
SHOW POSTER, "PROPHETS."
POINT TO THE PROPHECY CHART, UNCOVERING ONLY THE TITLE.
We are going to use this chart to record the fulfillment of some of these things which God said would happen to the Deliverer.
God planned everything that would happen to the Saviour even before He came into the world.
- Explain:
As we look at these Old Testament prophecies about the Deliverer, we see that many of them are also about something else, too. Very often, prophecies referred to an event that would take place immediately as well as to an event that was to take place hundreds of years later. The first fulfillment often came to pass in the lifetime of the prophet, showing the people of his day that the prophet was truly of God, because what he had said came true, just as he had prophesied.
The prophets themselves did not know exactly how these prophecies would be fulfilled. They simply spoke and wrote down the messages God gave them.
But looking back, we can see that particular details of these prophecies had their complete fulfillment in Jesus Christ.
Read Isaiah 9:7.
POINT TO THE PROPHECY CHART. Uncover the first prophecy, "Will be David's descendant," and write Matthew 1:1 opposite Isaiah 9:7. Read the prophecy and the fulfillment.
This is the fulfillment of God's promise to David and the fulfillment of the words God spoke to Isaiah.
Theme: Jesus Christ is the only Saviour.
Jesus was also to be called the Christ.
- "Christ" is a Greek word meaning "Anointed One"-one set apart by God for special duties.
- "Christ" is also the Greek translation of the Hebrew word "Messiah."
- He was God's Anointed One, set apart for three special duties, or high offices.
- He was to be God's Prophet, Priest, and King.
As God's Prophet, Jesus was going to be sent into the world< to tell God's way for all people to be delivered from Satan, sin, and everlasting punishment.
God was also sending Jesus to be the final, great High Priest.
Remember that the high priest took the blood of animals into the inner room of the temple once a year so the sins of the people could be forgiven.
Furthermore, Jesus was to become the ruling King, the descendant of King David.
Only Jesus was promised by God to be the Christ, the Anointed One.
- No one else can rightfully claim this position.
- Jesus Christ was promised by God to be the only Deliverer of sinners.
- God was going to send only one Saviour for the whole world.
God keeps His promises.
Only He is God.
Only He can deliver men from their sins.
Questions
1. What work did God plan for John to do? God planned for John to go ahead of the Deliverer to prepare the people to receive and trust in Him.
2. What did Zacharias say the coming Saviour would do? Zacharias said that the Deliverer would:
a. Fulfill God's promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as well as those made through the prophets.
b. Teach His people the way of deliverance from Satan, sin, and everlasting punishment of sin.
c. Be like the rising sun. He would give light to those who were in darkness. This meant that the Saviour would guide people in the way of deliverance from fear and death.
3. How did Zacharias know what the Saviour would do? Zacharias read and believed what God had said through the prophets.
4. Are there many different saviours for people in different parts of the world? No. God sent one Saviour for the whole world.
5. What does Jesus' name "the Christ" mean? It means "Anointed One," one set apart for special duties.
6. Jesus was set apart by God for what three special duties? Jesus was being sent by God to be His greatest prophet, the final, great High Priest, and King forever.
7. What great Jewish king was a forefather of Jesus? David.
8. What does the word Messiah mean? It means the same as the word "Christ." "Messiah" is the Hebrew word; "Christ" is the Greek word.
Be sure to allow time to teach the lesson first!
Listed below are carefully designed activities w hich will help reinforce and focus on the themes you have taught in the lesson. Choose from this list w hatever best suits your students and prepare ahead accordingly. The children may participate in these activities during the time remaining after the lesson has been taught.
1. Memory Verse -- Isaiah 9:6
Provide the children w ith art supplies to make their own decorated verse reminder. You might suggest that they make this one to give as a present to someone they love.
Call their attention to the many names given here to the Promised Deliverer, Jesus Christ. Also remind them that this prophecy was given 700 years before Jesus was born!
2. Books of the Bible
Continue to review the Old Testament books, using the suggestions in Lesson 24. Some of the children w ho have already memorized these books may want to help others. And some of them may want to do another activity while others are memorizing. Always be considerate of those children who require more time and help in order to learn; and, at the same time, try to provide worthwhile activity for those who learn more quickly.
3. Remembering God's Fulfillment of His Promises
Give the children paper and pencil. Ask them to write down promises we have studied that God fulfilled. (At the beginning of this lesson outline is a suggested list.)
Give them several minutes. Then call on various ones to read one promise each (a promise that no one else has yet read). Keep asking until all the promises they have recorded are read. If the list is short, give them some more suggestions.
Talk about the fact that God always keeps His promises. He is always faithful.
4. Look What the Deliverer Will Do!
Tell the children:
We use special " action words" to tell what is happening or to tell what a person is doing. These are called " verbs," but we will just call them< " action words."
Look in your Bibles at Luke 1:67-79. God the Holy Spirit spoke these words through Zacharias. This message is full of the wonderful things that the Deliverer would do. Let's look together and find those action words that tell us about what the Deliverer was going to do.
Assign verses to the children, then call on them so they can say the " action w ords" in that passage.
They will need some help with this, but it will be worth the effort.
Here are the verses:
Luke 1:68 (visited and redeemed his people -- redeemed means bought back out of slavery; in this case, slavery to Satan and sin.)
Luke 1:69 (raised up a horn of salvation -- " horn" is the Jewish way of saying a source of power; therefore, a source of salvation -- a way to be saved.)
Luke 1:70 (spake by the mouth of His prophets -- God communicated with us from the beginning that He w ould send this Deliverer.)
Luke 1:72 (perform the mercy promised to our fathers -- God was now performing or doing what He had promised long ago.)
Luke 1:77 (to give knowledge of salvation -- He was going to tell the people how they could be saved.)
Luke 1:78 (visited us -- God Himself was coming to visit His people!)
Luke 1:79 (to give light to those in darkness and in the shadow of death -- the Deliverer w ould bring light and would rescue people from sin and Satan and death!)
Luke 1:79 (to guide our feet into the way of peace -- the Deliverer was going to make peace once again between sinful man and holy God!) Think of how much God was telling Zacharias and us by these wonderful words! God was about to fulfill promises that were first given in the Garden of Eden.
Reinforce that God always keeps His promises.
Jesus Christ is God.
5. The Highest Office
Provide materials for the children to make copies of the visual, " Jesus Christ, Prophet, Priest, King."
Discuss: Always before, men had been chosen by God to do these special jobs -- to be His prophets to tell men God's words, to be His priests to do God's special work, and to be kings over His people.
Now, God Himself was coming -- Jesus Christ would be the greatest of all -- the greatest Prophet, the great High Priest, and the greatest King!