All right. There we are. Thanks, Nick. So, I'll try not to be too loud.
Maybe we can turn the mic down just a little bit because I tend to be loud. I'm not going to say good morning again. It's good to see you. And, for those of you who remember, I've been speaking on a series from the Book of Ephesians, and I know, I just imagine that you've been anxiously awaiting for the third installment on that series, right?
You're all giddy about that. It was called Axios, it's walking worthy of the calling with which we have been called. You've probably been reviewing in your head the salient points of those messages over and over again, right? I'm imagining that that's what you're doing.
I'm imagining that you're all excited about hearing the next verse because I'm all the way to verse number four in chapter one. And that's the verse that talks about how that we were chosen in him before the foundation of the world. And you're expecting me today to explain what that means. No.
It's not going to happen. There's a couple of reasons and I confess this to Lordman already. One is that it's too close to Christmas for me to go on about that. And secondly, I have no idea what that means.
So it's going to take a little bit longer for me to figure that out, probably 100 or 200 years or so. But we will still have to speak on it because it's there. It's the next verse in a row. Okay.
I thought that perhaps because I'm imagining that you can't remember anything that I spoke about in the last couple of sessions, I'm going to speak about Christmas. Okay. Is it all right to speak about Christmas? Isn't that wonderful?
I did that. I, who have absolutely no technical ability, I did that because it was right there on my screen and I could tap right into it. It was no problem. Christmas.
And that's the most Christmassy thing you're going to see. So gaze upon it. Enjoy it while it's there. Okay.
And today we're going to talk about the five words of Christmas and that Christmas is true Christmas. It's for sinners. It's a message for sinners. Isn't that wonderful?
Are you a sinner? Then it's good news for you. It's good news for you. Christmas is for you, sinner.
If you're not a sinner, you don't qualify. But I know that we all qualify for that. We're all sinners. I want to talk to you about that.
But before we do, let's pray. Okay. Lord, we thank you for the privilege of being here today. We thank you for what we've heard already this morning as we gathered around that table and we and the thoughts that we're overflowing from our hearts.
We're given to us by you. Thank you for the brethren who spoke and thank you for the songs that we've sung this morning even in this meeting that reminded us of your holiness and of your goodness and your grace towards us. Let me Lord today to speak what you would have said. And may there be ears to hear and hearts to respond today to your word as it goes forth.
We pray this in Jesus' powerful name. Amen. Don't you love Christmas? Don't you love Christmas?
I love Christmas. From the time I was a child, it was my favorite time. I love almost everything about Christmas. Almost everything.
I loved as a kid, I loved the fact that my father used to harvest Christmas trees and I told some of you about this before. My father in here did a fairly large portion of land that had been cut off. The trees had been cut off and up from that cutting came fir trees. Lots and lots of little fir trees.
They grew up. They became Christmas tree size. My dad and his brother who owned the property together, they would go in the fall of the year and they would cut Christmas trees. I was too young to go and help them with that.
I remember my dad coming home from a week in the forest. They had a camp up there in the woods. They stayed at the camp all week. They would take a couple of them in with them and they'd go in and harvest Christmas trees and my dad would come home and he would smell like a Christmas tree.
He was so wonderful. We could stand him in the corner and have his arms out like this and decorate him. He would have been perfect as a Christmas tree. I loved the smell of the Christmas trees, the real Christmas trees.
I loved mom's cooking. Mom loved Christmas. Christmas was her time of year and she would bake her little hard out. She would bake cakes and pies and squares and she had things like peanut brittle and bits and bites.
Have you ever heard of bits and bites? Really my favorite thing. Caramel clams Christmas pudding. It was all so delectable and wonderful.
That real Christmas tree, not dad, but the real tree standing in the corner. All decked out with the lights and the pencil and any of you old enough to remember the icicles that we used to hang on the tree. All those little thin wafer thin strings and one at a time. Hang on there.
I wish I had a picture of some of our trees. It would take days to get those icicles on there. Every time you'd walk by if you'd walked across the floor that was carpeted, those icicles would come after you. And you'd take a dozen or so with you as you walked by the tree.
What a time of year this was. I loved it. Christmas music, Tennessee, Ernie Ford, Harry Belofonte, Perry Como, and all those greats singing Christmas carols. Charles Dickens and Scrooge.
Scrooge fans? Come on. Listen, you've got to watch Scrooge. Scrooge.
I know this is what it's got to do with your message. But the Alistair Sim version of Scrooge, back in the 50s, the black and white. Yeah, oh, the black and white. Oh, yeah.
Creepy. Really good though. Really good. Just a wonderful Christmas time thing to do.
Christmas dinner at Grandpa and Grand Marabras. When I was teaching at Living Water at Christian Academy, every morning we had devotions and the morning with all the students. They'd all come together in the assembly room. And I was a principal there at the time and I would speak and I would share with them something from the proverbs generally.
But around Christmas time, it would be Christmas theme for the week or two before Christmas. The day before Christmas break, the day of Christmas break really, because we'd only go half a day that day. We had everybody in the auditorium and I had labored intensively on the meaning of Christmas, right? As you can imagine, in Christian school.
And I stood in front of my assembled school and I said, okay, who's going to tell me what's the most important thing about Christmas? And immediately, the great twos, great ones, and the primary kids are in the air. They're just like, ha, ha, ha. You know, how little kids are.
And so over here on my left, both three rows back, I picked this little boy and said, okay, Carmen, Carmen, what's the most important thing about Christmas? Carmen, who had a little lith said, presence. Present. He stuck his arms out like that.
Present. The most important thing about Christmas after I labored for two weeks on the incarnation. All right. But anyway, I spoke that day on the gift that God had given to us and his son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Carmen started it all off. Good for him. I love Christmas. The only thing that ruined Christmas for me was Christmas concerts.
I despise Christmas concerts. You know why? Because I'd have to get up in front of people. And I didn't like getting up in front of people.
You'd get up in front of them wearing those shepherd costumes with a little dish towel around your head and the dish towel would fall off and everybody would laugh and there you were being laughed at. Who wants that? Stand up and say a little rhyme in front of the people. Forget your lines.
The person in the front is supposed to be coaching you. You're not giving you the word. You're just doing pantomime. What's that?
Singing in front of people. I didn't like it at all. Christmas didn't start for me until the Christmas concert was over. And we could move on and enjoy Christmas.
The tragedy for me as a kid about Christmas was there was very little Christ in the mass of tradition. It was all around me. And I grew up in a family that went to church and so on. But it was mostly these other things that we remembered and not Christ.
We did have a major scene. Those little figurines, you know, plaster, what if they are painted, you know, Joseph and Mary and the baby and the manger and the animals. The wise man and the shepherds and whoever else we could think of was there. They were there.
But it was really in the background, not in the foreground of my experience. I did love to hear the Christmas story about Mary and Joseph traveling to Bethlehem, about the stable and the manger, the angels and the shepherds, the wise men and so on. I love that story. The mysterious star that guided the wise men.
Love the stories. And Matthew and Luke, they really went to a great amount of effort to give us the details to name. Do you know if you were to count the words from Luke chapter 1 verse 1 to Luke chapter 2 verse 38. Large chapters.
There are 1900 words that Luke uses to describe the coming of Christ into the world. He used 1900 words. And we're grateful to Luke for that. That was wonderful that we have all those details.
They went out of their way, those two men. The tell us about the angels and the shepherds and the wise men and the star. We consider the writings of Luke about this fact as 1900 words. But I want to go with you to another writer of a gospel.
I want to go to the gospel of John. And that's what John said. Luke used 1900 words to describe the incarnation. John, if you take out the and, which is just a conjunction, if you take out the word and he used four words.
And this is John chapter 1 verse 14. And the word became flesh. That was John's gospel or excuse me, Christmas message. This is gospel message too.
The word became flesh. John who wrote this gospel many years after the other gospels were written. In fact, his writings were probably the last of the writings in the scriptures. He was an old man by now.
In the gospel of Mark, Matthew, Mark, and Luke had been written. They had been written for specific purposes. Matthew for the Jews, Mark for the Romans, Luke for the Gentiles in general. John now wanted to write a gospel for Christians because the church was growing and expanding.
And there were fallacies coming into the church. There were heresies. And so John wrote his gospel while Matthew wrote about the king, Jesus the king. Mark wrote about the servant and Luke wrote about the son of man.
John wanted to write about the son of God and who he was. And so John, if you go back to the early stage of this epistle, you will, oh sorry, I'm just talking and not following my notes. All right, so forgive me. John goes back and he tells us about the word.
But I'll get there in a minute. Or did I jump ahead? No, I didn't jump ahead. I'm sorry.
The word became flesh. John wants to tell us about the son of God. John wants to tell us about the deity who became humanity. And he wants to make that exceedingly clear.
Now, John used four words and I'm going to consider in five words this Christmas message. Some of you will recognize that perhaps if you watched a little bit of TV. W5 on CTV. No, okay.
There is a program on CTV called W5 and it's an investigative news presentation. It's the longest running, that's North America's longest running investigative news program. It first aired on September the 11th, 1966. That's 58 years ago.
That's longer. It's been around longer than some of you have been around. Most of you have been around. It's a long running program.
And of course, W5 is about the who, what, where, when, and why of things, right? They investigate those five W's and put on a program about that. Well, today we want to investigate the five words, the five W's of Jesus' birth. The first investigative word is the word who.
Now, you're going to be saying to me, Clyde, come on. This is really, really elementary. We already know the answers to these questions. Please stay with me and enjoy the truth of these W's, all right?
Who? Who is it that we're talking about here? John 1 verses 1 to 3 reads, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God.
All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him, nothing came into being that has come into being. I think this has been ministered on recently. I think Nick has been doing a study on this, and I want you to remember that when John talks about the word here, he's talking about the Lord Jesus Christ. And he said that this word, which became flesh in verse number 14, this word was in the beginning.
And that word for beginning is the beginning was beginning. It was the beginning that has no point of time, because it was before time. In the very beginning, before things were created was the word. He is eternal.
Then it says the word was with God. So he is a separate entity from the Father, but he's with God in eternity, so he's equal to God. The word was God, he says, in his essence and in his nature. So the word was eternally, equally, and essentially God.
And in verse 3 says that the word created everything that has ever been created. And of course, the word as a creator, if he created everything, is God. And the word, if he created everything, isn't himself created, because he couldn't have created everything if he himself was created. So the word was not created, the word is therefore, by definition, God.
And so when John, the apostle says that the word became flesh, the word he speaks of is very God. Christmas is about God. The who of the W5 is God. Now, the second investigative word is what?
What happened to God? What happened that we want to report on here? John 1 14 again says, and the word became flesh. Now, this is a mystery, isn't it?
How can we ever explain that God, who is spirit, should become flesh? A great mystery of the Scriptures, a great mystery, and a great proposition to consider. 1 Timothy 3 16 says, without question, this is the great mystery of the faith. Christ was revealed in a human body.
That's the new living translation. And I think it says it very well. This is the mystery of the faith. Who can explain that?
Can you explain that? Can you explain how that happened? I'm glad that one of the five words wasn't how, because I would never be able to enter into that, to explain to you how that happened. But what happened was that God became flesh.
Christ was revealed in a human body, the Scriptures, his flippings too, verses 5, B to 7. Jesus Christ, though he was God, thank you very much for helping me there, Jesus Christ, though he was God, did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges. He took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being when he appeared in human form.
That is the what of Christmas that God became flesh. He became a human being. Now, the third investigative word is the word where. I'm getting my way to why.
I'll let you know why is where I'm going. So hang on to this. Where? If we were to go downstairs and talk to the little wee ones downstairs and say, where was Jesus born?
Where did God become flesh? They would tell us, wouldn't they? Because they've already sung the song a little town of Bethlehem. They've already heard that.
Matthew and Luke take center stage in this, because in Luke chapter 2 verses 4 and 5, the Scriptures tell us that Joseph went up from Galilee from the city of Nazareth to Judea, the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was the house and family of David in order to register along with Mary, who was engaged to him and was with child. So just about 10 kilometers south of Jerusalem is this little town called Bethlehem. He brew Bet the Ham, the house of bread, the house of food. And the significance of Bethlehem is that it was King David's birthplace and also that it was prophesied as the place where the king would be born.
Micah chapter 5 verse 2, the prophet of the Old Testament said, for as for you Bethlehem after the, which is another name for Bethlehem means fruitful, too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you, one will go forth to me to be ruler in Israel. And then he says, his goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity. So in Bethlehem, one is to be born who is eternal. God becomes flesh.
Who? God. What? He came flesh.
Where? In Bethlehem. Now the fourth investigative question is when? Luke chapter 2 verses 1 to 2.
Again, Luke comes through. Now in those days, I'd agree with it from Caesar Augustus that all the world that ascences should be taken, I was just going into King James' mode, that a census should be taken of all the inhabited earth. This was the first census taken while Quiranias was governor of Syria. Now this helps us to put into a certain parenthetical, a certain parameter where and what time, excuse me, the birth of Jesus Christ should have happened.
Julius, excuse me, Caesar Augustus ruled from 27 BC to AD 14. We narrow it down by Quiranias, governor of Syria. He was governor of Syria twice. Once from 4 BC to AD 1 and again from AD 6 to AD 10.
This is during his first governorship was when that census was taken and that drew Mary and Joseph and consequently the Lord Jesus to Bethlehem where he was to be born. Now the political history of these two Roman officials helped us to answer the win of the Christmas story sometime between 4 BC and 1 AD in that area. But the win was not in the power of the earthly rulers to decide was it? The win was in God's power.
God used Caesar's decree to move Joseph and Mary to the where of the Christmas story. But the win itself as with all things was in the power of in the hands of God. In Revelation 4 verse 4, but when the fullness of time came, God sent forth his son born of a woman. When it says, that's our word, when the fullness of time came.
The new English translation says, but when the appropriate time had come, God sent forth his son born of a woman. The NIV says, but when the set time had fully come, God sent his son born of a woman. The NLT says, but when the right time came, God sent forth his son. They're all saying the same thing.
Basically, God sent him on his terms at his time, didn't he? When the time was right, the appropriate time, the set time, the right time, God sent his son. The fullness of time is the word that's used in the translation that I use. It's that word that our brother David Hanson shared with us a few weeks ago at the Lord's table.
The play Roma, the play Roma of time, the fullness, the proper time, the right time. When time had reached its apex, when it was fulfilled that he should come, he came. God's timing is perfect. He's never late.
The word time here is the word chronos. It's the space of time, the duration, the period of time. Pictures the word, the Lord, excuse me, waiting for a certain number of years before he acted. So God has a timetable, and that's the win of the Christmas story.
When God said his son was to come, when God had in his mind. Now we get to my favorite W, which is the W, Y, the fifth investigative word. Now, if you were to go out on the street sometime when there's not so much snow around, if you were to go out on the street and ask people, why do you celebrate Christmas? What's Christmas all about?
Why do you celebrate Christmas? What's the Y of Christmas? Many people tell you, well, it's a time for family. We just enjoy getting together with the family.
We do, don't we? We enjoy that part. Some others would tell you, oh, it's all about the kids. It's just Christmases for children.
It's wonderful, yes it is. It's wonderful. Some others would say, well, Christmas is a time when we got a lot of Christmas lights out and every house is all lit up. And so it's a sort of a brightly lit time in that bleak mid-winter season, and it's wonderful for that reason.
Some others would say, well, it's a time to drink too much. Others would say, it's a time to spend too much. And others would say, it's about the present. Those are the world's ideas of why we have Christmas, why Christmas is around.
But I don't really want to know why we celebrate Christmas as much as I want to know why the word became flesh. Why did that happen? Why did he come? Now, I'll suggest to you that the angels knew why he came.
The world is fascinated about angels. Have you ever noticed how many movies and TV programs are about angels? There's a lot of them. In my day, a long, long time ago, there were shows like Highway to Heaven with Michael Landon.
Remember that show? Highway to Heaven hits your heart, you know? Touched by an angel, right? Remember that?
Touched by an angel. For the people who were a little worse off or a little bit bad, it was whacked by an angel, right? But either way, it was angels, all about angels. There was Charlie's Angels.
Remember that? It's got nothing to do with angels. But anyway, my point is that angels are popular and angels were prolific in the Christmas story, that original Christmas story. In Luke 1 verses 31 to 35, an angel by the name of Gabriel told Mary who the Christmas story was all about.
He said, and behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you shall name him Jesus and he will be great and will be called the son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever and his kingdom will have no end. So we go back to the who, the who, Jesus, the son of the Most High, the very son of God is what this is all about. Mary was told by an angel who Christmas is all about.
But then we're going for the why. And there was another angel, we don't know whether it was Gabriel or not, but another angel appeared to Joseph. Remember that? Matthew tells us about this.
Joseph, when it was very evident that Mary was going to have a baby, he knew that wasn't his baby. And so Joseph, being a just man, decided he'd have to divorce Mary because obviously she had not been faithful. You can imagine how Mary felt, right? You can imagine how Joseph felt.
But Joseph was not only a righteous man, but he was also a gracious and kind man. And Joseph decided that even though he was going to have to divorce Mary, he was not going to do it publicly. He would do it privately, secretly. He would not hurt or defame her.
I love Joseph for this. But Joseph and his plan was interrupted. When he had considered this, Matthew 1, 2021, tells us, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. For the child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit, not another man.
She will bear a son and you will call his name Jesus. Mary was told to call him Jesus. Joseph was called it, call him Jesus. But then he says, for he will save his people from their sins.
This is the why of Christmas. This is the why that the word became flesh to save his people from their sins. Some of you might be sitting there and saying, oh, no, not this again. Not this stuff about Jesus dying on the cross.
Not this again. We hear this all the time in Northbrook. It gets monotonous. But listen, this is the story of Christmas.
I want to tell you another story. I want to tell you a story about when I was a kid. And it concerns Maitlyn Jones. Anybody here ever hear of Maitlyn Jones?
Known to God. Maitlyn Jones, when I was a kid, probably, I was old enough for sure to have my own opinions of things. So I'm going to say that I was 10 to 12, maybe 13 years old. Maitlyn Jones was a pastor at Aragal Pumico Baptist's pastorate.
There were seven churches on the field, and he was the one pastor looking after the seven churches. And let me tell you, as far as I was concerned, Maitlyn Jones could have been named Scrooge. That was my opinion of him as, let's say, a 13-year-old. Let me explain.
Once upon a time, now when you start a story with once upon a time, you realize that this is long, long ago, right? Once upon a time when I was about 13 years of age, Maitlyn Jones was the pastor at the Glenwood Aragal Pumico Baptist Church field. And it was the Sunday before Christmas. When all through the church, no.
The Sunday before Christmas. Maitlyn Jones would be preaching, and young Clyde Leonard would be sitting in his pew, because it was in the Glenwood Baptist Church, which was less than three minutes away from my house. There would be no excuse for me not being there. I was there.
Mom and Dad made sure I was there. Maitlyn Jones, as I said, was the pastor at that time, and Maitlyn Jones was as old as dirt. All right? This guy was the ancient of days in human form.
He was old, old, old, old, old, old, old, old, white hair, snow white hair, and always wore a three-piece suit with a black tie and a white shirt and a preacher's hat, pulled down over his ears. No matter what time of year or what the event was, he came to youth group that way. He was your old man, preacher. And we as young people felt like, well, you know, he'll be gone sooner or later, right?
One way or the other, Pastor Jones isn't going to be around very long. Either the Baptist folks will kick him out, like they usually did after four years, or he pass away, right? He's that old. When I think about it, he was probably about my age right now, old as dirt.
We tolerated him. He was okay. There were some really positive points about Pastor Jones. And then came that fateful day on the Sunday before Christmas when Pastor Jones was to preach.
And he got up in front of us and he began to preach the Christmas story. And he was doing really well. He was doing very well indeed. He was talking about Mary and Joseph.
He was talking about no room in the end. You know, he was talking about going to the stable and Jesus being born in the manger and, you know, the angels, the shepherds, the wise men, the whole thing, the whole story. He told the whole story. And then he blew it because Pastor Jones went from the Christmas story.
Now, understand we're in the Glenwood Baptist Church in the evening service. The lights are all turned out except for the light on the pulpit, which was just a little tiny light. And we had candles in the windows, right? That was providing the light.
The ambiance was perfect Christmas. It was perfect Christmas. The old wood stove in the back of the church was stoked up. It was warm.
You could hear the fire and the wood crackling. It was Christmassy. And Pastor Jones began to preach about the cross, about the blood of Jesus, about Jesus dying on the cross. And I'm sitting there with a whole pile of judgment upon Pastor Jones.
He had gone and shifted from one season to another. He had gone from Christmas to Easter, just like that, and ruined the ambiance of that meeting. And I was ticked. I don't mind telling you.
I was ticked. I went to the highest authority in the land, my mother. And I told her what I thought of that. That preacher was out of line.
This is Christmas. Let's see preaching Easter about. And I can't remember what my mother said, but whatever it was, it wasn't satisfactory. I remained ticked at Mr.
Scrooge. I had to wait a ruin Christmas, bringing Jesus' death into it. If I had had my way, Pastor Jones would have been unceremonially defrocked at that very moment. But I did not have my way.
I'm not a kid anymore, as you can tell. The present aren't as important now as they used to be. Now I know why Jesus came to save his people from their sins. And I know that that's the utmost of importance.
I know that why he came is the cross. Some years after that Christmas message, Christmas slash Easter message, I climbed down from my critical high horse. And I realized that Mr. Jones, that old guy, was spot on with his message that day.
I realized that the cross is what Christmas is all about. The cross is why the word became flesh. And without the cross, Christmas is totally meaningless. If God hadn't become flesh and thereby died on the cross, from my sins, I would be lost in hell forever as would you.
As would you. Thank God for Christmas and thank God for the cross. Beloved you and I are sinners. We've broken God's law so many times.
We can't count the times, can we? We have failed to love our Creator with all our heart, our mind, our soul and our strength. We have gone astray from God all we like sheep. We've turned away to do our own will instead of his.
We've rebelled against his rightful authority. And yet, John 3 16 rings out for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that who ever believes that his puts their faith in trust in him shall not perish but have eternal life. And I knew that verse from the time I was little. That's the most well-known verse of the Scriptures, isn't it?
We can quote it. We see it on signs and football games. They'll be holding up signs about John 3 16, right? But somehow or other, that verse didn't apply to me somehow.
I didn't take it personally. I want us to take it personally today. I want you to read that verse with me and as we read it together, I want you to put your name in the blank to make it personal. This is childish maybe, but maybe not.
Maybe not for someone. Maybe somebody here needs to hear this, needs to speak at other mouths. So I'll ask you, would you read this with me? And as you read it, put your name in the blanks.
For God so loved, Clyde, that he gave his only begotten son that had Clyde believes puts her faith and trust in him, Clyde shall not perish but have eternal life. It's not just the world that he loved. He loved me and he loved you and he came into this world. The angels again, on Christmas night said for unto you, for today and the city of David, there has been born a Savior who is Christ the Lord.
God didn't send a politician into this world for us. He didn't send a politician or a philosopher. He didn't send an actor or a singer, a military commander or a preacher. He sent what we needed, a Savior.
Years later when Jesus was ministering in the area of Samaria, the Samaritan folks in Saikar after being with the Lord for two days said to the Samaritan woman, the woman at the well, they said, it is no longer because of what you said that we believe we have heard for ourselves and know that this one, Jesus, is indeed the Savior of the world. The angel said, our Savior has been born. The Samaritan said, this is the Savior, the Savior of the world. And it was Mary, the mother of the Lord Jesus who said, my soul exalts in the Lord and my Spirit has rejoiced in God, my Savior.
For years I believe that Jesus Christ was a Savior. And later I believe that He was the Savior, but it wasn't until I was 17 years old. When I knelt by my bed and acknowledged to God that I was us and her, in fact I was the sinner for whom Christ had died. In that moment I placed my trust in Him for my eternal salvation and the Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior became my Savior, my Savior.
The five investigative words of Christmas, who? The word what became flesh, where? In Bethlehem, when? In the days of Caesar, Augustus, and the time of the census of Governor Quirenius, why?
To die for your sins and mine. I want to ask you, who is Jesus Christ to you? Is He a Savior? Is He the Savior?
Or can you say He's my Savior? Is it personal? Listen to me. If He is not your Savior, He will be your judge.
In Acts 17 Paul writes and says, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a man who needs the appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising him from the dead. Who is this man who God is appointed to be judge and who will judge in righteousness, the one who God raised from the dead? And who is that? His son, Jesus Christ.
He will either be your Savior or He will be your judge. Which do you want? It is your decision. It is your decision.
You may at this moment, receive Him and be saved, or you will most certainly have rejected Him and be lost. There is no middle ground. I was talking before the meeting to Sarah and I said that I would be talking about this. Before I became a Christian, I used to think that while I was deciding about trusting the Lord Jesus to be my Savior, that I was in some type of middle ground.
I wasn't saved, but I didn't think I was lost. I thought I was over here in some sort of middle ground where I was thinking about it. And somehow in that middle ground, almost like being on remand, I was going to be spared from judgment. I was wrong.
Here the short word of Scripture, if you are thinking this way, the verses right after John 3, 16, John 3, 17, and 18, for God did not send His son into the world to condemn the world, but to the world should be saved through Him. The one who believes in Him is not condemned. Isn't that great? But the one who does not believe in Him has been condemned already because He's not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
There is no middle ground. There is no place between saved and lost. There's no place there. You are either saved through the blood of Christ or you are lost.
You are condemned already, not some day down the road, already, already. Somebody says, hang on, I'm making up my mind here. Don't push me. I'm making up my mind.
Last week, if you were here, you heard one of the clearest, plainest presentations of the gospel that you could possibly hear. Now, after that message was over, I walked down to the back and I took John's hand and I said, John, nobody here today can ever say, I never heard. Nobody could ever say that. If you were here and you heard that, or if you're here today and you're hearing this, I want you to see these verses of Scripture.
I want you to read them. I want you to take them to heart if you have not trusted Christ. These verses from Hebrew say, if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins. Jesus Christ is the only sacrifice for sin, you see.
What remains is a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severe punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, who has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified and has insulted the spirit of grace? That's what we do when we say, oh, I just need a little more time.
Just give me some time. I'm thinking about it. We have trampled under foot the Son of God. We have regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant and we have insulted the spirit of grace.
He became flesh and died for you. That is the Christmas message. Maitlyn Jones preached it. The Lord Jesus Christ also preached it.
He said the Son of man has come to seek and to save. Why did he come to seek and to save that which was lost? If you were not saved, then you most certainly are lost. Most certainly.
There is no middle ground. But beloved, please cast aside whatever it is that would keep you from trusting Christ. You embrace him today as your Lord and Savior. You see, Christmas is for sinners.
First Timothy 1, 15 says, this is a trustworthy saying and everyone should accept it. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners and Paul said, I'm the worst of them all. If Christ Jesus has saved the worst of them all, he can save you. He can save you.
That's what he wishes to do today. He wishes to save you. He said, well, I'll not say do to be saved. That was the same question that was asked many years ago by a flipping jailer and the answer he got was believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.
Don't let the seasons slip by without embracing the message. Don't let the Savior slip by without embracing his salvation. Don't let your soul slip into eternity lost. Father, we pray that you would speak to some soul right now and preserve them from slipping out into eternity lost.
Dear God, take the words of Scripture and apply them to some dear sinners heart right now and save them just like you saved me. Just like you saved many others in this room today. It's just like you saved Maitlyn Jones and Paul the Apostle. Oh God, no message has the power to save apart from the message of the gospel and the spirit of God playing it to a heart.
So we pray that that might happen today for some dear soul. In Jesus precious name. Amen. Thank you.