Christmas is a time when many celebrate the birth of God's
Son into the world, Jesus Christ.
But the message of this awesome yet joyous event has been virtually
waylaid by the world. We
have Santa Claus, pretty Christmas trees, houses decorated with
glorious, overwhelming, or
sometimes just plain gaudy Christmas lights. Stores run sales
and everyone hurries and
scurries to buy all their presents, and the feelings of the season
plus a little temper and
aggravation turn it all into an emotional mix. People want to
express love for others by
giving something of themselves through gifts, but even that goal
isn't always fulfilled when
presents are actually exchanged.
How does God see Christmas in relation to what He has planned
and brought about for 6,000
years - in the past, in the present, and looking ahead to the
future? A quick look in
Scripture at His purposes and work will bring us up to our time,
and that gives us a glimpse
of the setting and time frame in which God places the birth of
His Son into the world:
* Our first parents, Adam and Eve, fell and as a result, sin
and death entered the world.
* God called Abraham in order to make a way for the future
Messiah, Jesus Christ, to come into
the world and save men from sin and death.
* God promised Abraham that He would bring all of his family,
Israel, into a designated piece
of land, which is Israel today.
* Out of Abraham came Isaac and out of Isaac came Jacob, who
eventually had twelve sons who
would form the twelve tribes of Israel. The name Israel came
when God spoke to Jacob on one
occasion and changed his name to Israel.
* In a time of great famine, Israel (Jacob) and his sons went
down to Egypt for food and
eventually wound up as slaves of the Pharaohs, just as God had
said they would. During those
years, the twelve tribes greatly increased. When over 400 years
had passed, God sent Moses to
bring them out of their slavery to Himself at Mount Sinai.
* The twelve tribes came out of Egypt a strong nation of 600,000,
and God lead them to Mount
Sinai where He gave them the 10 commandments. Israel promised
they would do all that He
commanded, but God knew they couldn't keep from sinning even
when they knew what was right and
wrong. Because God is absolutely holy and just, when He later
gave Israel the whole Law, He
had Moses build a Tabernacle to perform sacrifices before Him
in order to cover their sin
brought to light by the Law.
* God promised that the Messiah would come from Judah, one
of the twelve tribes of Israel.
* David of the tribe of Judah was made king of Israel, and
God promised him that one day his
descendent would sit and reign over all of Israel forever. That
descendent was Jesus Christ,
who was God become flesh through Mary of the tribe of Judah.
* When Jesus was born, the many Old Testament prophecies of
His coming were fulfilled, and
various prophets and people at His birth declared Jesus to be
Him whom God had sent. The
promises made to Isaiah were being realized:
Isa 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign;
Behold, a virgin shall conceive,
and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel (meaning, "God
With Us").
Isa 9:6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given:
and the government shall be upon
his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor,
The mighty God, The
everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. 7 Of the increase of
his government and peace there
shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom,
to order it, and to establish
it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever.
The zeal of the LORD of hosts
will perform this.
* When the child Jesus had grown into a man, John the Baptist
revealed Him to all Israel by
declaring at His baptism, "Behold, the Lamb of God, which
taketh away the sins of the world."
* Jesus then began His public ministry to Israel, preaching
the gospel of the kingdom to all
the Jews for 3-1/2 years. His mission was not to the Gentiles,
but to the Jews, but for the
most part, they rejected Him. When the Gentile rulers of Israel
also rejected the opportunity
to keep them from killing Him, Jesus was crucified and died.
All of this was foreknown by God,
Him knowing exactly what would happen: Jesus would die for the
sins of all men, establishing a
New Covenant as the Lamb slain, God's High Priest, and Mediator
between God and humanity.
* After lying in the tomb for three days, Jesus rose from
the dead, and forty days later He
ascended into heaven to be glorified at the right hand of God.
But first He commissioned His
disciples to tell all the world about Him as the Savior of the
world from its sins. Jesus
promised they would be empowered for this work at Pentecost,
when He would send them the Holy
Spirit.
* For about 3 to 4 years, the gospel was taken first to the
Jews throughout the world, until
the death of Stephen, the first martyr. After this, God called
Paul to also take the gospel to
the Gentiles, who would be added to the Jewish remnant who believed
on Jesus. The believers
from both the Gentiles and the Jews would be called the body
of Christ (Christ's Church).
* Every man's eternal life would now depend on whether he
believes on Jesus Christ and
purifies his life through Christ's finished work, His word, and
the work of the indwelling
Holy Spirit. Those who would not follow Him and be conformed
to Him would eventually be damned
for counting the sacrifice of His holy life and holy blood as
unworthy to cleanse them of
their sins and make them new creatures before God.
Over 300 Old Testament prophecies of a coming Messiah to Israel
were fulfilled by Jesus Christ
when He came the first time, including those concerning His death
and resurrection. But there
are many more prophecies concerning His return. A verse in the
book of Hebrews makes this
promise of His return as sure as the promises concerning His
birth:
Heb 9:28 So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many;
and unto them that look for him
shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.
The Scriptures tell us that Jesus' first coming was to establish
eternal salvation through the
shedding of His blood, His death, resurrection, ascension, glorification
and sending of the
Holy Spirit to indwell all who believe. In other words, this
is the time of God's forbearance,
not wanting any man to perish. God is giving all men time to
believe on Jesus and be saved for
God and to God through believing the gospel about Him.
By this faith in Christ, any man can be declared righteous
before God and justified from his
sin. This isn't something man does by being good apart from Jesus'
sacrifice. That won't save
anybody. Salvation is a free gift given through faith in Christ
and nothing else. Good works
then proceed out of that established salvation because of one's
new relationship to God.
But this time of God's patience will run out, and the prophesied
time of His coming to judge
the world based on who has or has not believed on Christ is drawing
near. How do we know?
Because Jesus foretold that because the Jews rejected Him, Israel
would be dispersed among the
nations. This prophecy was fulfilled after the destruction of
Jerusalem in 70 AD. But God also
promised to regather Israel one more time, and the fact that
Israel is again in her land after
2,000 years is a great sign to the world - a sign that the end
is near, and that God will send
Jesus back to judge the world and establish His millennial reign.
Remember the 6-day war when Egypt attacked Israel and Israel
shocked the world by totally
defeating them? Try as they may, the nations of the world cannot
displace Israel out of her
present place in their land. Why? Because God said they wouldn't
be able to, and He is the
truth:
Zec 12:2 Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling
unto all the people round about,
when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against
Jerusalem. Zec 12:3 And in
that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people:
all that burden themselves
with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the
earth be gathered together
against it.
What will follow these present days of Israel's neighbors
again trying to lift her out of her
land? The day will come when an antichrist will bring a false
peace to that land and take up
his reign in Jerusalem. Then he'll turn on Israel, and the worst
time in history will fall
upon it and the world. It will be a time of great persecution
toward the Christian and the
Jew, and worldwide suffering so bad that unless God intervenes
by sending back His Son, no
flesh will be saved. The day that God intervenes will be the
day when His forebearance will
have run out. It will be a day of deep darkness and wrath, followed
immediately by the return
of Jesus Christ, who will establish and rule from Jerusalem the
visible, glorious kingdom of
God. The promises to Abraham and David will be totally fulfilled:
Rev 6:12 And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal,
and, lo, there was a great
earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and
the moon became as blood; 13
And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree
casteth her untimely figs,
when she is shaken of a mighty wind. 14 And the heaven departed
as a scroll when it is rolled
together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their
places. 15 And the kings of
the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief
captains, and the mighty men,
and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the
dens and in the rocks of the
mountains; 16 And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us,
and hide us from the face of
him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:
17 For the great day of his
wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?
This then will be followed by the reign of Christ for a thousand
years, just as Isaiah
prophesied:
Isa 11:4 But with righteousness shall he judge the poor,
and reprove with equity for the meek
of the earth: and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his
mouth, and with the breath of
his lips shall he slay the wicked. 5 And righteousness shall
be the girdle of his loins, and
faithfulness the girdle of his reins. 6 The wolf also shall
dwell with the lamb, and the
leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young
lion and the fatling together;
and a little child shall lead them. 7 And the cow and the bear
shall feed; their young ones
shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the
ox. 8 And the sucking child
shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall
put his hand on the cockatrice'
den. 9 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain:
for the earth shall be full
of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea. 10
And in that day there shall be
a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people;
to it shall the Gentiles seek:
and his rest shall be glorious.
When the thousand years are over, all men will be raised from
the dead and brought before God,
together with those still living, for one final, White Throne
judgment. The eternal fate of
each individual will be made known to them. And all will hinge
on one fact and one fact alone:
Did they believe on Jesus Christ as the only acceptable sacrifice
of gaining eternal life with
God?
This is what Scripture says about how the birth of Christ
fits into the current picture, yet
few realize it. Christ's birth is the central point on which
the Old Testament and the New
Testament hinge. It is not just one day out of the year when
we take a few hours to
acknowledge that Jesus was born, and then recite The Night Before
Christmas or see what
goodies we have in our stockings. It is a day to ponder the reason
He was born into the world.
It is a day to ponder the mercy and forebearance of God in giving
humanity a chance to repent
of their sin and believe on Him so as to be saved by Him and
for Him for all eternity. It is a
day to ponder the consequences of His second coming and what
follows. It is a day when we
should ask ourselves, Where will I be after God brings to fulfillment
all that He said in
Scripture about what He is going to do in the future? This is
a time when we should soberly
involve ourselves with a very serious message from God delivered
through the birth of Christ.
Peter sums all of this up in one verse of scripture:
1 Pet 4:7 But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore
sober, and watch unto prayer.
I won't go into Scriptural detail about this, but the Bible
indicates that Jesus was not even
born on December 25th. He was most likely born during the feast
of Tabernacles, which would be
during our September. But remembering that God is merciful and
works through our lives as they
are in order to call us to Himself, I will close with what I
think is a very telling testimony
of His mercy and grace.
It was around 1970 that I suddenly, inexplicably, wanted to
glorify the Christ Child on
Christmas. I remember the strong feelings of wanting to do something
spiritual regarding
Chirstmas, so I dug through my large rock collection and pulled
out some jagged rocks ranging
in size from a baseball to a softball. I built a stable out of
this rock and placed our
nativity figurines inside. I felt good about it, but still had
a sense of something being
missing in my life. Although ignorant about the true God, after
Christmas I thought about Him,
and vague questions lingered. Then I got horribly sick with arthritis
and psoriasis until it
reached a point where I could not move but just had to lie still
in bed. At times I had to
stretch my head a little to the side to breath, because the arthritis
was so bad it hindered
my breathing. Then one night I came to an end of myself. I cried
out to God, "Why me, God? Why
me? I don't care if you are God, I am not waking up in the morning."
I had utterly despaired
and wanted my life to end then and there. Although I didn't know
Him, I had a fear of God, and
because of that fear, suicide was out of the question. So in
my arrogance and pride and sinful
boldness, I declared to Him that I would just die naturally and
He couldn't stop me. I
remember lying there for a little bit and finally falling asleep.
I can't say that I was waking up in the morning because it
wasn't a natural waking, but out of
my sleep, I suddenly was seemingly awake. It was like I was starting
to slightly leave my body
or something, and then immediately I saw this cross-like image
waving or shaking its arms over
me and felt a sudden flood of peace and guiltlessness all around
me. I cannot give the
experience any justice by describing it. But although unable
to move the night before, I
sprung up out of bed and started pacing the living room, saying,
"It seemed like a dream, but
it wasn't. Was it? What was that? What happened to me?"
The pain was gone and my skin felt
dramatically relieved. My family, I think, thought I was crazy,
that I had finally flipped out
from all I had been through. But here I was out of bed, pacing
the living room floor and
trying to understand what had happened to me.
I can't quite remember whether it was that day or the following
one, but I was given some
Christian books and told about a prayer meeting in the area where
people prayed and helped
people. The arthritis pain did not come back, and my skin totally
cleared within the week. I
stayed deep in thought concerning my experience. We went to the
prayer meeting the following
weekend and I sat and listened to a man sharing out of the Bible.
When he said the name Jesus
Christ, I knew this was who had intervened in my life. I heard
about Him and believed on Him
though I didn't fully understand everything. I felt like the
blind man who was thrown out of
the temple and then met the Lord as his Savior. One thing I did
believe and that was the
gospel. I wasn't saved the morning I experienced what I did,
but after my first prayer
meeting, I understood and believed. In His mercy, God did not
let me die without giving me the
opportunity to know the truth about my sinful life and the way
out of it.
One question I carried with me for twenty-five years was what
happened to me that morning: Was
I dying? Had my own words of disgust about life and my self-righteous
statements towards God
come true? I probably prayed about that five times during the
next twenty-five years, and I
believe I got my answer a few years ago. I went to the doctor
for a checkup, and he told me I
had to get to the hospital right away for a blue-dye test to
check my heart. After the test,
the doctor came in and asked when I'd had a major heart attack.
I told him I never had. He
insisted that I had, and that it was a wonder I didn't remember
it because it seems to have
been a pretty bad one. He gave me the rest of the results of
the test - half my heart's
arteries had been filled in, but the other side of the heart
had made new ones to take over
the burden of the ones that were clogged - and said I could go
home.
On the way home, I stared out the front window of the van,
deep in thought about when I could
have had such a heart attack. I carefully, intently thought over
the years going back from the
present to when this could have happened. Nothing, nothing, nothing
that year, nope, nothing
that year ....... oh. The day when I had despaired and felt like
I wanted to leave my body and
experienced what I experienced. The physical shape I was in after
years of the wear and tear
of disease made for a prime situation for such a thing to happen.
I believe I now had my
answer about what had physically happened that morning. When
I thought of that year, it all
made sense. I was sleeping when it happened. That, to me, explained
everything.
I don't like spiritual experiences. I don't seek them. My
faith in Christ doesn't rely on
that. God doesn't need to give us spiritual experiences to call
us out of darkness to Himself,
but He does call us out of darkness and provides all to bring
us through the darkness to
Himself:
Psa 23:3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths
of righteousness for his name's
sake. 4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow
of death, I will fear no evil:
for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
I know God's forebearance is true, and I know He had to take
desperate measures in my life to
wake me up because of my stubborness and spiritual blindness.
We are living in the time of
God's mercy and patience while He waits for all to believe on
Christ alone. I know that, but I
also know everything else I have said is true: Christ will return
for all who are His, for all
who have believed on Him through the word of God. Won't you take
some time to ponder the true
meaning of Christ's becoming man as the Scriptures record in
the words of Zachariah, the
father of John the Baptist:
Luke 1:68 Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath
visited and redeemed his people, 69
And hath raised up an horn of salvation [Jesus] for us in the
house of his servant David; 70
As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been
since the world began: 71 That
we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all
that hate us; 72 To perform the
mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant;
73 The oath which he sware
to our father Abraham, 74 That he would grant unto us, that
we being delivered out of the
hand of our enemies might serve him without fear, 75 In holiness
and righteousness before
him, all the days of our life. 76 And thou, child [John the
Baptist], shalt be called the
prophet of the Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of
the Lord to prepare his ways; 77
To give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission
of their sins, 78 Through the
tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high [Jesus]
hath visited us, 79 To
give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of
death, to guide our feet into the
way of peace. 80 And the child [John the Baptist] grew, and
waxed strong in spirit, and was
in the deserts till the day of his showing unto Israel.
==============
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