 |
|
|
|
Home |
Wingspread |
Archives |
Us |
|
|
|
|
Home |
Wingspread |
Archives |
Us |
|
|
 |
 |
|
|
Preached by Dr. Gene Scott on December 23, 1984 For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven. Psalm 119:89 THERE IS ONE REASON CHRIST HAD TO BE BORN, though He was not born on December 25. But since so many people think Jesus was born on Christmas Day, at least the holiday gives people an opportunity to stop and think about Him. The birth of Christ illustrates our continuing message: Numbers 23:19 says, “God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?” And Psalm 119:89 says, “For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven.” When God says something, that is the final word. Eventually, for reasons partially revealed yet still largely mysterious, God allows contradictions to His word to exist. God has a purpose in mind. He wants us as His treasure to fill the vacancy in heaven left by Satan and his angels when they were cast down. And as part of God’s saving process that He is accomplishing in us, He uses us as conduits between His word forever settled in heaven and the contradictory events that surround us. But eventually, everything must conform to His word. It may sound ironic, but we can thank God for the existence of those contradictions, for therein are opportunities for acts of faith. When the man of faith encounters a contradiction between God’s word and the circumstance, he has a choice: he can either submit to the contradiction, or he can resist the contradiction and become a channel of God’s purposes. A man of faith simply decides to make a stand, like the famous children’s story about the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike. You make up your mind that the contradiction stops with you, and you become a conduit of God’s word, which is forever settled in heaven. You act with the full knowledge that the ultimate outcome will finally occur when God says, “Behold, I make all things new.” The contradiction may or may not be removed in the meantime; but heroes of faith take their stand at the point of conflict and become an extension of the eternal. One of the beautiful aspects of God, which most people don’t know and most theologians misunderstand, is that He is the perennial Reconstructionist. Some people’s theology is rather boring. They view God as though He were a great Clockmaker who wound everything up at the beginning, and everything is now unwinding according to plan. Now it is true that God has marked certain events on His calendar. And when those things come to pass, a whole series of events He has uttered must intersect at that moment. But theologians rob eternity of its drama. They imagine God controlling reality like it was a giant toy train set with its tracks already laid and that never breaks down. People place strictures upon God that simply don’t exist. Adam was not created to sin. He was not placed on this earth in order that God might show off His ability to save. People have all kinds of interesting ideas about God’s original intention. Many people believe that the whole purpose of God’s relationship with man is wrapped up in the plan of repentance and restoration. Man has a purpose, but man got off the track. Some people think they are the saved ones, and their sole purpose is to find other people to save. They can thank God so many people are sinning, otherwise God and the church might not have anything to do. I suppose they feel very proud of themselves for helping God out. I know I am being ludicrous, but it seems like some preachers spend most of their time trying to stack up the saved ones like cordwood. It makes me want to spend more time sinning to make sure they have something to do! There are some contemporary theologians who talk about what they call God’s “Ultimate Intention.” In many ways, they are right: God didn’t create man to sin in order that He would have something to do; God created man for a purpose. Paul’s letter to the Colossians teaches that man not only proceeds from God and is in God, man was created for God; God placed His image in us in order to fulfill His purpose. One quality of the image of God in man is freedom, the capacity to do something totally spontaneous and unpredictable, an individually initiated event in the spectrum of possible actions. Man is simple not a creature of habit. All attempts by psychologists and sociologists to establish predictable patterns fall short with man. We are not preprogrammed. From physical activities to social activities, wherever man is involved, the random factor of freedom is introduced. To some degree, we are all unpredictable. To some degree, a measure of freedom is introduced into every relationship between ourselves and others, including God. And that random factor forces our understanding of God out of a box. If God needed excitement, then it was provided by this factor we call freedom. Without freedom, there can be no such thing as love. Love is not a mechanical expression or a preprogramed event; it is a choice. Faith is a choice and it also requires freedom. Hope is a choice. If there is only destiny, then there is no such thing as hope. Hope adds a dimension of belief that is above destiny. I can influence what happens, and God responds to prayer according to His word. Faith grabs hold of His promises and does not let go until the hope becomes fact. All of the highest expressions of life that God prizes require freedom as an ingredient. The introduction of freedom, which opens the door to the possibility of these higher values, also opens the door to its misuse, which is sin. Isaiah 53:6 says, “All we like sheep have gone astray.” We have turned from trusting God, who wanted to lead us to a destiny freely chosen by us, but worked out by Him in cooperation with us. “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way,” and that is the root of all sin. Now comes the theological difficulty of omniscience. Theologians have said for centuries that God, in order to be God, must be all-knowing. I can imagine there was a monk sitting in a monastery who decided, “This is the way God has to be. He must know everything, otherwise He couldn’t be God.” Why not? My problem is I have always asked questions. Why does God have to know everything if He can simply eliminate what He doesn’t know? If He has the power to eliminate everything He doesn’t know, then all that would be left is what He knows. I am demonstrating the folly of trying to make logical deductions about God’s nature using our limited human minds. I was teaching a college course when a young lady came to me in tears because one of her teachers had asked her, “Can God make a rock so big He cannot move it?” Then he concluded, “And if God cannot, then He must be limited in His power and therefore cannot be God.” I said to her, “Who said that God to be God had to be in the business of making rocks so big He couldn’t move them, except for that stupid teacher?” I can imagine that teacher standing before God one day, saying, “I refuse to believe in You because You can’t really be God if You cannot make a rock so big You can’t move it!” And I imagine God simply eliminating that teacher with a splat! Then God says, “Next question, please.” Theologians work hard at being stupid. God is. And all it takes for God to be God is power. Anyone could be “god” if they had the power to eliminate their competition. You don’t have to be good to be God. God doesn’t’ have to be good, honest or forgiving. Some people say, “God couldn’t be so cruel as to open the earth and swallow people up!” Tell that to Korah and his band of rebels. I can imagine them arguing in hell, saying, “That’s right, God shouldn’t have done it!” In order to be God, God only has to be all-powerful. Someone will want to argue and say, “But God has to be a God of peace!” I agree. He is a God of peace after He eliminates His opposition. He brings peace through power. You might be wondering, “What does all this have to do with Christmas?” You will see. Thank God Christmas only comes once a year. I am already tired of hearing about swaddling clothes and mangers, shepherds and sheep! It is about time to hear something more interesting on a Christmas Sunday. The point I am making is people are always trying to reduce God down to a simple little package. That is why Christmas is so attractive. But it makes about as much sense as celebrating Armageddon Day. At least that would be exciting! Man makes Christmas boring. God doesn’t have to have any of those attributes people say He must have. For God to be God, He has to be in charge and have the power to make things come out His way. Someone might ask me, “Don’t you believe He is good?” Yes, and I thank God He is good! But that’s just icing on the cake. Someone will ask me, “Don’t you think God wants peace?” Yes, and I thank God He will achieve it: Jesus is the Prince of Peace. He will come from beyond history and accomplish that someday. But it is time we get biblical and realistic in our view of God and stop stripping Him of the drama that makes Him what He is. When God created Adam, He took a risk and unleased a monster. He created a being in His image, the prince of His creation, who one day will have angels as his servants. And when He gave Adam the capacity to be great in love and faith and hope and devotion and worship, He also opened the door to sin. I am aware many theologians would disagree, but I believe that God did not absolutely know Adam would sin. If God knew, then Adam would have had no responsibility for his sin. But God had prepared a fail-safe plan in the event that Adam sinned. I believe that God has the capacity to predict all available options at any instant. Yet He gave Adam the ability to be unpredictable, which is the definition of freedom. Without freedom, the highest values are without meaning. Without freedom, faith has no value, love has no value, and hope has no value. God wanted something and He ran a risk. He didn’t have to know what Adam would do; He only had to have the capacity to reconstruct and have the fail-safe plan in place in order to effect the reconstruction process. God’s fail-safe plan was conceived in the counsels of heaven before the worlds were formed. His plan involved the One who was the very instrument of creation. Jesus was the eternal Logos from the beginning. John’s Gospel says the Logos was in existence before the worlds were formed. He was with God, was facing God and was of the same essence as God. Some of our Jewish friends might be surprised by this idea, for many Jews believe that the Torah, the expression of God’s mind and plan, was in existence before the worlds were formed. This is almost identical to the Christian belief in the Logos, though the Christian personifies and personalizes the Logos. Christ is called “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,” who would offer Himself to pay the price should man ever sin. Man did sin, but God had His reconstructionist plan already laid. God started with Adam, He started over with Noah, and He started over again with Abram. At every step of the journey, God had given man the option of fulfilling his destiny without misusing his freedom, and the worst form of misuse is to distrust God. But every single time, man found a way to get off the path. Adam fell, Noah got drunk and was lying around naked, and Abram doubted God and got into a mess. God told Abram, “This is the place,” yet when Abram saw there was a famine, he fled down to Egypt and started lying and compromising his marriage relationship. All along, God gave His grace in response to man’s faith. Every time He introduced a plan, He also introduced a promise forever settled in heaven. In order for God to continue to be consistent with His own word, He had to remember to carry out all of His promises. God to be God doesn’t have to be truthful. He doesn’t have to keep His word. But what God is looking for as His highest value is freely given trust, and the basis of trust is God’s performance. The more we see God keep His word, the greater we can have the spontaneous reaction: “I can trust Him.” That is why Romans 10:7 says, “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Each time God declared something, He created a statement forever settled in heaven that forced Him to remember it and keep it on earth, otherwise His faithfulness would be compromised. God’s performance thus becomes the basis for our faith, which is the treasure He is seeking. God wants to fill eternity with people who will trust Him. Every one of God’s promises in the Old Testament introduced a constriction on the pattern by which He would save man. When Adam failed, God was ready for it and gave the first prophecy of salvation. He cursed Satan through the serpent, He cursed the woman with the pain of childbirth, and He cursed the ground that man would have to till to love. And God said to Satan in Genesis 3:15, “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” Whether God had included that as part of His original plan, or whether God had another option by which He could save man, the moment He made that declaration, it became forever settled in heaven: the destruction of Satan and the salvation of man had to be through the seed of a woman. At that point, God could no longer come and destroy the works of Satan by Himself. He could no longer redeem man except through the agency of one born of a woman. Otherwise, His word in that prophecy forever settled in heaven would be voided. God took all of His options of salvation and restricted them down to one channel: the seed of a woman. Satan knew that. That is why he sought to compromise the seed of women by means of the illicit unions described in Genesis 6, where fallen angels mated with the women on earth. Satan wanted to defeat God’s ability to carry out His word and thus destroy the basis for faith, since faith is the only thing that gets us into heaven. So when Satan sought to compromise the seed of women, God wiped them out with a flood. Shortly after the flood, Nimrod, of the seed of Ham, along with his wife, Semiramis, became Satan’s agents to set up a rebel kingdom against God. When Nimrod died, Semiramis claimed that he was now the sun god. And she claimed that her son, Tammuz, was conceived by a sunbeam and was a reincarnation of Nimrod. Satan thus established a substitute worship system out of Babylon, which provided a substitute incarnation. This worship system became the basis for all the Babylonian offshoots that have penetrated even to the highest reaches of the Christina church. On Christmas Day, people are unknowingly commemorating the birth of Tammuz! The Roman Saturnalia, celebrated on December 25, had been brought from Babylon via Pergamos and Alexandria. The decision to celebrate Christ’s birth on December 25 was made by the church in the Middle Ages. Rather than try to stop the Saturnalia celebration, they conveniently moved the birth of Christ to occur on that day. Thus the church identified December 25 and the birth of Tammuz as a Christian celebration. Even the name “Christmas” is not Christian: the second half of the name, mass, is short for the Latin word massa, which comes from a word meaning “barley cake.” These were cakes that women baked to Semiramis, the so-called queen of heaven, a practice that was cursed in the Old Testament by Jeremiah. The Lord also cursed the setting up of a tree as an idol, which was a forerunner of the Christmas tree. We read in Jeremiah 10:3-4, “For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.” You see, Satan knows what God has said. Since he was unable to contaminate the seed of women, he sought to create a substitute incarnation and a substitute worship of the seed of a woman. God binds Himself with His word. When He gave promises to Abraham, He bound Himself further: the Redeemer must not only be the seed of a woman, He must now be a descendant of Abraham. God narrowed His options. That is why He gave what seems to be very harsh laws in the Old Testament against intermarriages as His people moved into the Promised Land. He was preserving the line to the promised seed. He narrowed His options further when He limited the line to the seed of David. In God’s workings with His people, through Abraham and his descendants and through the covenant given through Moses, He would continue to bind Himself with new promises. He set down a law that redemption must come only by one near of kin. That is the law of the kinsman redeemer. Once God declared it, it was forever settled in heaven. God declared it as a way of working with His disobedient people in whom He wanted to create a sense of responsibility. Whenever someone had lost his estate or was condemned to death by law, their redemption could only come by the hand of a kinsman redeemer. Once God established that, He put further limitations on His redemptive plan. He introduced a new test on His ability as a reconstructionist to achieve His eternal purpose in conformity with His word. A kinsman redeemer had to have certain qualities. He must be someone near of kin, he must have the price of redemption, he must be willing to pay the price, and he must actually pay it. The Old Testament book of Ruth unfolds the law of the kinsman redeemer. Naomi, Ruth’s mother-in-law, had lost her inheritance. Naomi had a kinsman redeemer named Boaz, but she had another closer kinsman, whom some commentators call the “barefoot kinsman.” This other kinsman refused to redeem the lost inheritance, and he testified to his refusal by taking off his shoe at the city gate. He thereby released himself from the opportunity and obligation to redeem it, and he cleared the way for Boaz, who was willing to redeem it. The challenge of God in eternity is remembering every jot and tittle of His word, while dealing with the random factor of sinning man and making everything He has promised happen at His time and in His way. That is exciting. That gives God problems. It is like launching a spaceship to a distant target in space. When a spacecraft gets off target, we don’t bring it back to earth and re-launch it. We don’t say, “Hey, you were predestined to go another way! Get back here and start all over again!” Rather, we simply adjust its course; and the closer it gets to its destination, the less adjustment is required. That is the way God works with history, and He has the power to accomplish it. Once God declared it, He could not allow the Messiah to be born of just anyone; He could not have the Messiah come on the scene from out of the blue. The Messiah must be born of the seed of a woman and must be a kinsman redeemer. Hebrews 2 says we were all born flesh and blood. It uses the Greek word koinoneo, meaning “to jointly participate.” We jointly participate in flesh and blood, and we don’t have a choice about the matter. But Jesus, the Savior of the world, had the choice and He voluntarily took on flesh and blood in order that He might become our kin. This is the logic of the Virgin Birth. Though the Virgin Birth cannot be proven, it is a logical deduction if you accept the prior premise that God was in Christ. And the claim that God was in Christ was vindicated by the Resurrection. When Paul addressed the philosophers on Mars’ Hill in Acts 17, he saw the Greeks had so many gods that they even had a monument dedicated to “the unknown god,” just in case they had missed one. So Paul said, “I will tell you who this unknown God is,” and he proceeded to outline why Jesus has that claim: God had vindicated Him by the Resurrection. For Christ to be our kin, He must be bon of a woman. His birth must be the result of the substance of God’s nature being planted in the womb of a woman. Therefore, what would be born would be both God and man at the same time, kinned to us through birth. It is a declaration of faith, not of logic, that Christ was both man and God at the same time in all respects. The doctrine of the Incarnation teaches that God was in Christ. And God has promised to give us that same life, an implant of His Spirit that will change us because of our faith. Christ’s birth thus required a miracle. You might say, “I don’t believe in miracles.” I say there is no choice about the matter. Christianity starts with a miracle. The Hebrew faith starts with a miracle. God spoke and created it all. The fact that God controls it all is a miracle. Because of the Resurrection, the Christian dares to believe that Christ was born of a virgin and that He will win the victory. The Virgin Birth is an article of faith that makes sense out of theological necessity, and it is not difficult to believe if you already believe the impossible. If someone went around making the claims Jesus made, I would think he was either crazy or lying. But if he were to die and rise from the dead three days later, and then ascend into the sky, I would believe in him. Jesus is the Christ because He came out of the tomb and ascended, and therefore I believe He will come back and finish the job. That is why Jesus had to come as a babe who was wrapped in swaddling clothes. He had to be kinned with us because only one near of kin could redeem us. That is the reason for the Christmas message. People have forgotten this message and have become wrapped up in gift-giving, Nativity plays with no room at the inn, camels, wise men and asses. God essentially bound Himself with His word once He laid down the law of the kinsman redeemer. It is why Jesus had to fulfill the law. The price of redemption was perfection. But Jesus didn’t save the world by being perfect; He had to fulfill the law in order to offer His perfect life as the price of our redemption. God didn’t require Him to do this, He willingly did it. That is why in the Garden in Gethsemane He cried in agony, “If it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.” The record so perfectly fulfills the Old Testament type that if I didn’t worship Christ, I might come close to worshipping the one who wrote the record. Jesus had to actually pay the price by allowing Himself to become the recipient of God’s wrath. He paid the price by offering His perfect life, and in so doing, He effectively bought up all the temporary vicarious sacrifices of animals. Jesus had to be sacrificed only once, and having been raised from the dead, as Hebrews 1 says, He sat down at the right hand of the Father. When Christ comes again, He will come to tread the winepress of God’s wrath. He will come to eliminate the opposition and redeem the faithers. That great day is coming. The church will be taken away before the Great Tribulation comes upon this earth. The body of Christ that was purchased with His own blood will be lifted up before His wrath is poured out on earth. It will be poured out on those who refused to accept His substitute sacrifice, who refused to accept the One who became our kin in order to redeem us. Christ lived the life we could not live and paid the penalty for our sins, in order that we might be reborn with His life to rule and reign with Him throughout eternity. Christmas tells us that God loved us enough to step from heaven’s throne and become kinned with you and me. He grew up learning what life is like here with all of its problems. Now at the right hand of the Father we have One who is touched with our infirmities, is sensitive to our problems, and was tempted in all ways as we are tempted. Yet He still took our sins and bore them away from us in order that He might redeem us and put us back on track. Because of the gospel, God has restored man and can now place His life in us. We are in training in preparation for eternity. Death, as Paul says, is nothing but stepping on the gangplank to board a ship that is just getting started. That is what Christianity is about. It is exciting! God is determined not to have to spend eternity with a bunch of dull people. He will spend eternity with people like us! Reprinted with permission from Pastor Melissa Scott | December, 2019 Wingspread | November, 2019 Wingspread | October, 2019 Wingspread | September, 2019 Wingspread | August, 2019 Wingspread | July, 2019 Wingspread | June, 2019 Wingspread | May, 2019 Wingspread | April, 2019 Wingspread | March, 2019 Wingspread | February, 2019 Wingspread | January, 2019 Wingspread | | Year 2019 Wingspreads | August, 2016 Wingspread | 2016 Wingspreads | 2014 Wingspreads | 2013 Wingspreads | 2012 Wingspreads | 2011 Wingspreads | 2010 Wingspreads | 2009 Wingspreads | 2008 Wingspreads | 2007 Wingspreads | 2006 Wingspreads | 2005 Wingspreads | 2004 Wingspreads | 2003 Wingspreads | 2002 Wingspreads | 2001 Wingspreads | August, 2001 Wingspread | November, 2001 Wingspread | December, 2001 Wingspread | 2000 Wingspreads | 1999 Wingspreads | 2015 Wingspreads | Year 2017 Wingspreads | 2018 Wingspreads | Year 2020 Wingspreads | Year 2021 Wingspreads | Year 2022 Wingspreads | Year 2023 Wingspreads | | Return Home | Current Wingspread | Wingspread Archives | Contact Us | |
||
 |
 |
