Remembering the True Meaning of Christmas

The Apostle Peter here was writing as an old man he realized that his time on Earth was drawing to an end and he was very concerned about these Christians these early churches these young immature Christian communities should be certain after his departure of the things on which alone their faith could rest and stand the buffeting and the trials and the troubles and the persecution that were certain to come to them. [00:30:40]

The Apostle you see reminds these men he says I know that you know these facts but though I know that you know them I'm going on he says to remind you of them why well because he knew very well that we are confronted by a very subtle adversary who is Ever ready to make us misinterpret what we know to put a new Edge onto it to attach a new meaning to it and eventually to reach a point in which we have evacuated the truth of its real meaning and have turned it into something else. [00:39:50]

The whole world seems to have entered into a great conspiracy to turn this glorious message of the New Testament into something that is entirely different and rarely Bears very little relationship if any at all to that which is actually the truth and in particular it is doing so at the present time in this way it is putting all its emphasis upon ideas and withdrawing attention from the facts. [00:49:12]

We are told that if our Christian faith and gospel are to appeal to the modern intelligent men well then we must demythologize it the modern men we are told can't believe in miracles of course because he's scientifically minded and as long as we attach all these Miracles and Marvels and wonders to our presentation of Truth we are just antagonizing these men of understanding so we are told we must get rid of all that. [00:54:20]

Our Christian faith is based upon facts solid concrete facts and indeed if that isn't the case we simply Evacuate The Gospel as I say of its Central glory and of the thing that makes it most wonderful of all now if there are special occasions when we should remind ourselves of this it is on these days in the church's calendar when we remind ourselves of the Cardinal facts concerning the Lord Jesus Christ and here is the first his birth the fact of his birth in that little town of Bethlehem. [01:01:09]

The facts that are recorded in the four gospels and there is no doubt at all that that is why the church was led by the Holy Spirit to write the four gospels and to record them there were so many uh fables being circulated about our lord and there were others who were denying the facts altogether and saying that he rarely did not take unto him human nature but that he had had just a Phantom body that the Incarnation really didn't take place. [01:07:08]

It is in the facts that the love of God is rarely displayed to us it would I admit be a wonderful thing if God were to give some great phenomenon in the heavens in order to attract our attention that would be a great Act of condescension on God's behalf if God had sent his son into the world as some kind of apparition it would have been a wonderful thing if the Son of God had come into this world in a Phantom body it would have been amazing. [01:24:19]

The Eternal Son of God substance of the very Eternal substance letter and actually entered into the virgin's womb and there literally physically materially took unto himself human nature now it's a great mystery it's a great Marvel of course we don't understand it how can we understand something like this we are never meant to understand it we are meant to believe it but that is what it what that is the fact that that is what we are told. [01:38:40]

The love of God in every idea that is taught in the scripture if God merely tells us that he loves us it's a wonderful thing but it's an infinitely bigger and greater thing for God to tell us in this form in his son actually coming in the flesh and living in a world like this with its shame and its sorrow with all its evil and its sin he came and he endured the contradiction of sin against himself for 33 years he shared in the life of ordinary men and women like ourselves. [02:13:05]

Our faith our position is finally entirely dependent upon the apostolic witness and testimony now that is something that needs to be said very frequently during these present days with this Folly that seems to have gripped us all which leads us to think that every year is an advance upon the previous year and that every century is an advance upon the previous Century we in our ignorance and blindness tend to think think that because we are in the 20th century we know more about these things. [02:39:59]

The prophets were four tellers as well as fourth tellers of course the fin the the fashion today is to say a prophet is not really a man who foretells he's just a man with great Insight who gives a message for his age I agree he does that but he does something much more wonderful he sees ahead he for tells and centuries before this event happened in Bethlehem these men inspired mov by the Holy Ghost for told his coming. [02:58:48]

The primary object and purpose of his coming was that he might taste death for every man he came into this world deliberately to die in it why because it is the only way whereby men whereby men can be reconciled to God he was made a little lower than the Angels who was eternally above them as the sun because it was essential that if he was to rescue and redeem Fallen sinful human nature he should in human nature take our sins upon himself and bear their punishment. [03:15:52]