The Last Christmas Message
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Posted by Darrell K Whitfield of
YahSpace
"But I don't celebrate Christmas." I replied, "December 25th was celebrated to honor the very evil pagan idol long before the birth of the SAVIOR. The wreath, so much used at Xmas, was used then too. It was sacred to Bacchus, the god of drunkenness and revelry. "Also
the tree, giving of gifts, and the mistletoe at this time - the whole works
- were all parts of that worship!"
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Matthew 1:18 But the
birth of Jesus Christ was thus: After his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph,
before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. 19 And
Joseph her husband, being just and not willing to make her an example, intended
to put her away privately. 20 But while
he thought of these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a
dream, saying: Joseph, son of David, fear not to take to thee Mary thy wife;
for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. 21 And she shall
bear a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus;
for he shall save his people from their sins. 22 And all this was done, that it might be fulfilled that was
spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying: 23 Behold, the virgin shall be
with child, and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanu-el, which
is, when translated, EL with us. (New Testament translated from the
Codex Sinaiticus.) Psalms 33:12 Blessed is the nation whose god is Yahweh, The people whom He has chosen for His own inheritance. 13 Yahweh looks from heaven; He sees all the sons of men; 14 From His dwelling place He looks out On all the inhabitants of the earth, 15 He who fashions the hearts of them all, He who understands all their works. 16 The king is not saved by a mighty army; A warrior is not delivered by great strength. 17 A horse is a false hope for victory; Nor does it deliver anyone by its great strength. 18 Behold, the eye of Yahweh is on those who fear Him, On those who hope for His lovingkindness, 19 To deliver their soul from death And to keep them alive in famine. 20 Our soul waits for Yahweh; He is our help and our shield. 21 For our heart rejoices in Him, Because we trust in His holy name. 22 Let Your lovingkindness, O YAH, be upon us, According as we have hoped in You. (NAS)
1 Timothy 1:12 And I
thank Christ Jesus our Lord who gave ms strength, because he counted me
faithful, putting me into the ministry, 13 who before was a blasphemer, and
persecutor, and overbearing; but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly
in unbelief, 14 and the grace of our Lord was very abundant with faith and love
which is in Christ Jesus. 15 Faithful is the word and worthy of all acceptance,
that Christ Jesus came into the world to save
sinners, of whom I am chief: 16 however, for this reason I obtained
mercy, that in me first Christ Jesus might show forth the whole of his
longsuffering, for a pattern of those who should believe on him to life
eternal. 17 Now to the King of the ages, incorruptible, invisible, the only
God, be honor and glory from age to age: Amen.
(New Testament translated
from the Codex Sinaiticus.)
The Gift
of Christmas,
Marty Goetz 1. Above the city streets, church bells are chiming; the lights of red and green sparkle in the night.There’s a stirring in the air as people everywhere Rush home to bring that special thing that makes their holiday just right. 2. Amidst the joyous sounds of celebration and decoration – wrapped around this time of year.In the quiet of your heart, just a tiny missing part Comes ringing through asking you, Where in all this Christmas cheer is
REFRAIN: Christmas?
Somewhere in it all there must be Christmas
Check
out Marty Goetz Messianic CDs
3. Beneath the Christmas tree it
lies unopened. A gift so small – overlooked by all but few.
REFRAIN: Christmas!
Right before your eyes the gift of Christmas! Image your surprise in finding
this: The hope of all the world lying in a manger. The promise of his love offering
to change your heart! Atop the Crystal Palace Once upon a time, in the years of the great revivals, a man was
working atop the gigantic glass roof of the
Crystal
Palace in London. He was a sinner;
his relationship with the Almighty was broken.
He’d been concerned for the state of his soul for some time – since he’d
been working on the roof. As he peered
down through the glass, he thought of how easily he could fall – how easily he
could die. Great panic descended on
him. He had to find salvation! He had to find salvation now! When he made that decision as he worked,
something supernatural happened.
At that very moment, he
heard a loud voice like a trumpet call – it seemed to come out of nowhere. The voice vibrated the glass roof, and spoke
these words:
“The saying is sure
and worthy of full acceptance, To that solitary man on
the top of a glass world, this was the voice of the Almighty Judge resounding
directly from heaven. It shook
him! Those words reverberated in his
head, over and over, until, with great tears of repentance, he lay face down
upon that glass roof, humbly beseeching the Holy Spirit to come into his heart
and cleanse him thoroughly – to save him. He became a saved man. The fact of the matter
was that the famous Victorian preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, was booked for
a meeting later that night in the Crystal Palace. He’d come in this midday to try out the acoustics of the
place, loudly preaching the quote from 1 Timothy 1:15. But for the man on the glass roof, this was
no rehearsal. It was the answer to an
unspoken prayer; it was the heavenly voice calling him to full
repentance, and in the very nick of time –
{slow}
up there on top of that glass roof. Behind the Christmas Symbols Christmas, the season meant to turn the minds of men to the babe
in the manger, has come round again, and this year it’s more controversial than
ever – with demonstrations both for and against religious symbols
in public. In some places, even
referring to “Christmas vacation” or displaying red and green lights are
taboo. Even some atheists are
rebelling against those who would relegate Christmas to the dumpster.
(Christina Adams, “An
Atheist's Faith in Christmas”)
Imagine atheists standing up for a
historical feast of Christendom! What a
world we live in!
{More on
this next time with “Who Put the X in Xmas.”} ¿What might we say to that person who sees Christmas symbols as
merely trademarks of organized religion, a breech in the wall between church
and state? Could we choose a better
saying than that which thundered to the roof of the Crystal Palace over a
hundred years ago?
“Friend,
The saying is sure and worthy of full
acceptance, Herein, we find the kernel
of the Christmas message. It looks
something like this: behind the religious symbolism, this word
introduces:
A Most Wonderful Kind
of Salvation, a Salvation for Sinners. This salvation isn’t primarily a rescue from
poverty, sickness, war, ignorance, circumstances, loneliness, or from bad
government. Most people seem to think that these are the things from
which they most need to be saved. But
eventually, as they mature, people come to see needs differently. Like the workman on the glass roof of the Crystal
Palace, people start seeing that there’s a singular evil behind all those
other things – an evil that constitutes the origin of all bad things. The Bible calls this original evil
“sin.” I’m not talking about what
psychologists or theologians call sin, but the plain, stark, old-fashioned
Bible sense of the word – “sin is the transgression of Yahweh’s law,” whether
out of intention or ignorance. Behind
everything that’s bad is someone’s disobedience to that which is good. ¿Could the solution for the world’s
problems be as simple as that? Behind It ALL Is Sin Ours is an age of disillusionment – of relativism and opinions –
of perplexity and confusion – of war.
All the prognostic pride of humanists, the fancies of philosophers and fond
predictions of theologians which ushered in the twentieth
century – the century of world peace (so they thought) – have been
ridiculed by world wars of such shocking vastness and vileness that the brave
notion of a twenty-first century, man-made utopia
is beyond the absurd. Our world has been in upheaval for over a hundred
years. Society’s been shaken down and
arisen again a completely different character in our time. But one important characteristic that the society of yesteryear
and of today have in common is SIN.
Behind all the brutality, calamity and agony of our modern world is SIN
– disobedience, transgression – unwillingness to give Yahweh his place. The world still pins all hope on big
government, big reform, big business, big diplomacy, big entitlements, big
budgets, big machines, big hair – when all the time all the
world really needs a small and solitary Savior.
And she shall bear a son, and thou
shalt call his name Yahushua; Some people are finally beginning to realize that, as the
Psalmist already pointed out, “the horse is a vain hope: it can’t save.” Big, powerful things and big,
powerful people can’t save any more than a horse. Only a heaven-sent little Hercules is able
to rescue humankind from the curses of SIN and INIQUITY. It’s pathetic how thinking people will bluff and shuffle and
pretend that this isn’t the case; that there’s some other reason for the
tragedies of our world – of our lives – when all the time, deep down, they
know – they surely know – that the cause is SIN. It takes courage to express the truth, because the truth is every
bit as unpopular with some today – AS CHRISTMAS. Save Sinners? Yet the words of Paul to Tim stand; that
“The saying is sure
and worthy of full acceptance, Some might say, “Sinners are rebellious and undeserving
of divine goodwill.” True! Millions of sinners don’t want to be saved
so long as they can “enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season”
(Hebrews
11:25). But sinners not only need pardon for disobedience, but
deliverance from their natural bent towards sinning – that which we call
“iniquity” – a perverse, inward, unclean twist of inherited
badness. And – sinners need saving not
only in real time, but in all time – even in the afterlife – a state of affairs
that may have neither beginning nor end.
Sinners must be saved from being judged at all – not to speak of
the consequences of judgment – which may take the form of the burning trash
heap the Bible calls Gehenna or Hell. Who Can Save? WHO CAN RESCUE THE SINNER FROM INIQUITY, FROM JUDGMENT, FROM
CONDEMNATION? WHO CAN SAVE THE
SINNER TO SUCH A LOFTY DEGREE? Look
once again at the text and consider the most wonderful Savior ever known; it
says, “Christ Jesus came into the world.” The title “Christ” links this Savior right back into the Hebrew
Scriptures. Christ means “Anointed” or
“Smeared One” – he’s the appointed King sent earthward on a divine
mission – to be the Savior of the World – as foreseen in prophetic truth of
both the righteous and the heathen.
He’s the One “whose goings forth
have been from of old, even from everlasting”
(Micah
5:5); the One whose name is “Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty El, the Everlasting
Father, Prince of Shalom”
(Isaiah 9:6); the very
same soul predestined to be “Ruler in Israel”
(Micah 5:2) and a “Savior unto the very ends of the earth”
(Micah
5:4). His wonderful name, the name we say as “Jesus, “ is the exact
equivalent of the name “Joshua,” pronounced correctly as “Yahshua” – as we’ve
learned to call him. Even his name
means “Yahweh’s Savior.” This Savior might have been given a more
resplendent, high-sounding name, like Englebert Humperdinck Elohenu the
Fourteenth; but no! The messenger’s
instruction to Mary
(Luke 1:31)
and to Joseph
(Matthew 1: 21)
was that they should be known as “Yahshua,” a name as common then as
“Joshua” is now; a name that makes Him (in a very real sense) one
with the commonest of common folk. Folk
like us. Emmanuel! Oh, what music accompanies the messenger’s
news,
“Thou shalt call His name
Joshua, for he shall save his people from their sins.”
Amen
and amen. He CAME Into the World “Yahshua Messiah came into
the world,” says our text. He came. Though he was born, he wasn’t merely born. He “came” here, which means he came
from a world outside our own.
His birth in Bethlehem wasn’t his beginning. Before the child of Miriam and Yosef, he was already “the beginning of the creation of Elohim”
(Revelation
3:14). Before this planet was formed, this Savior had his being. With that first tiny baby-breath of cold
night air, the King of Ages appeared from beyond the planets to dwell with us
as blood-kin; as family! He who
gave the stars their names and flames became an infant of skin
and bone. “Messiah Yahshua came
into the world.” He
knowingly, voluntarily, and compassionately came – to the ugly, to
rebels, to rude refusals – to all those who desperately needed him yet
spitefully spurned him. He came right
into the center of calamity, to live our life, to share our lot, to
feel our woe, to bear our sin, then to show us the love of his Father despite
our disobedience! ¿Where does salvation
begin? That’s where salvation
begins! Moreover, when he came, he came to stay as One Of Us
forever. He’s still “Joshua”; he
still “saves His people from their sins.” His humanity is no mere transitory or temporary identification,
now discarded. His manhood is in some
respects a forever condition; and he’ll continue to save all humankind
who’ll receive Him – forever and ever, amen. I heard the story of a young man who was lost in disobedience
and hard living. He had an experience
not unlike the workman on the roof; the young man came to see his sinful
condition to reached out to the only one who could save him. He too heard the reverberating voice,
“The saying is sure and
worthy of full acceptance, and he responded in a way
that required he tell somebody about it immediately. He called an older man he respected – a man he knew was praying
for him – a man who’s sitting in this hall today – to tell him of his change of
heart. What a wonderful Christmas
present – the birthing of Bethlehem’s babe in a young man’s heart. But it shouldn’t have been such a surprise. After all, the mentor here called this
young man forth like Spurgeon heralded the man on the glass roof: through
the bugle call of prophetic prayer – prayer that sounded all the way down the
road to the heart of a lost soul in Pensacola, by way of heaven. Prince Edward and the Disfigured Soldier Is it really true – that Messiah Yahshua came into this
world to save sinners? Yes it is; it’s
a “sure saying”; it’s completely trustworthy.
Certainly not all teachings that floated about in early Christian days
were such models of accuracy and brevity; but this one was. It’s still sure in every single syllable;
it’s “worthy of full acceptance.” What
was true then is absolutely true now. Consider Queen Elizabeth’s late brother, Prince Edward. He was a very compassionate man. In his youth, the prince decided to visit a
hospital where thirty-six badly wounded veterans of the Great War were being
tended. Though each case was hopeless,
Edward visited at each bed, shook hands with the vet (if hands he had), and
spoke words of encouragement. When he’d
finished and they ushered him out, he said to the head nurse, “I understood you
had thirty-six patients here; I’ve seen only twenty-nine.” The nurse explained
that the other seven were so disfigured that he’d not been taken to visit them
for the sake of his own feelings. But
the prince insisted, and they turned around to visit the rest. Again, Edward thanked each soldier for the
sacrifice he’d made and assured them all that their heroism would never be
forgotten. They started to go, but Edward confronted the nurse again. “I’ve seen thirty-five men. Where’s the last?” He was told that nobody
could see that man. Blind, maimed, dismembered, with the most hideously
disfigured face of them all: he was isolated in a place he’d never leave alive.
“Please, sir; don’t ask to see that one,” the nurse begged. But the prince couldn’t be dissuaded, and
the nurse reluctantly led him down the gray corridor into a stuffy, dank
cell. The royal stood there, his face white, lips drawn, looking down
upon this horror that had once been his valiant soldier. Then tears broke forth, and with true
princely demeanor, Edward bent down and reverently kissed the bloodied cheeks
of the broken hero. How many of us
could have done that duty of love? Prince Yahshua Humbled Himself There are few stories that so adequately illustrate the
compassion of our Savior.
Yet our
Savior, the man of heaven, stooped far, far lower
(when
you think about it), to kiss a far,
far greater ugliness: the leprous, evil repulsiveness of corrupt sinners
and hardened rebels against a loving Father’s law of liberty and infinite
kindness! No, there’s never been a
story to equal this! Descending from
cosmic royalty to a dingy manger’s stall, a life of rejection, the hands of a
vicious mob, a torture stake – such is the gracious, compassionate, redeeming
kiss of the condescending Prince of Heaven upon these sinful hearts of ours.
Thank heaven! “Yahshua
the Anointed One came into the world to save sinners!” Maybe now this simple saying possesses more
gravity, more meat, more reverence for you than ever before. Is it not “worthy of all acceptance”? To refuse his humility, would it not be the
most unworthy and ungrateful behavior in which we could possibly engage? Friend, you may receive this best and
biggest and dearest of all Christmas gifts right here and now; for it’s a sure
saying and true – Messiah Yahshua came into the sinful world – to save you
and me. Let him do what
he came for. Hear his urgent voice,
embrace is timely call, and then … Praise The Saviour, All Ye Nations
Praise the Saviour, all ye people, Praise
Him, all ye hosts above;
See how beauteous on the mountains Are their feet,
whose grand design
With my substance will I honor My Redeemer and my
Lord; |
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