|
STAND & COMFORT Newsletter December 10, 2001 Feel free to use the following for your own personal message to those around you, altering it with your own thoughts if you'd like. I think this message contrasts the Christmas the world celebrates with God's reason for sending His Son to the world as its Savior. There is no comparison, really, no comparison at all with what the world has done to the gospel message through its seasonal fantasies. LIGHT TO THEM THAT SIT IN THE SHADOW OF DEATH 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. 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. 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; 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. 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. 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:
========== This newsletter will be sent out whenever I think there is something the body of Christ needs to consider, to build it up, to give it encouragement or comfort in hard times. To sign up for this newsletter, email Ed at ejt@ncinter.net |