The Theft of Christmas.

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I have a text that some would call ambiguous when dealing with my topic.
Because I am talking about theft.

There is no doubt about who is a murderer, a liar and the father of lies.
For it is clear, who Jesus is referring to in John’s gospel.
 

Joh 8:44  Ye, (speaking of the religious leaders) are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He (Satan) was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. 
 

However, there are those that would argue that Jesus was not referring to Satan in the following verses but simply to the religious leaders, the shepherds of Israel.

In the three shepherd parables in John’s gospel, Jesus calls the religious leaders thieves.
This is certainly true and it is very true today.
 

This is what Jesus says in John’s gospel:

Joh 10:10  The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. 

Thieves do come to steal, kill and destroy.

However, Jesus contrasts Himself to “the thief” who comes to steal.
Jesus has made two analogies about His ministry using a topic very familiar to His listeners: Shepherding.
The first relied on the idea that sheep instinctively listened only to the voice of their particular shepherd, and no other.
This, Jesus implies, is why His religious critics reject Him: they are part of another flock, one ultimately owned by the Devil.
 
So notice that “the thief” in this passage is not literally, the Devil.
In this analogy, Jesus says that the earlier false messiahs were the thieves.

But it is certain, that these false prophets were working under Satan's direction,

So, for this talk, when I refer to the thief, I am referring to the one who is ultimately behind the act of theft, of lies and of killing. The ultimate thief, the ultimate liar and the ultimate murderer. Namely Satan.

The same Satan that instigated the fall of the angels, the same Satan that was found in the Garden of Eden and tempted Eve, the same Satan that was behind the evil killing of the innocents.
The same Satan that possessed Judas Iscariot.

In the New Testament the features of an anti-godly power are clearly prominent in the figures of the Devil, Satan, Belial, and Beelzebub—the “enemy.” He is the accuser, the evil one, the tempter, the old snake, the great dragon, the prince of this world, and the god of this world.
It is he, who seeks to hinder the establishment of God’s dominion through the life and suffering of Jesus Christ.
Satan offers to give to Christ the riches of this world if Christ will acknowledge him as supreme lord. Matthew 4:1 – 11.
Thus, he is the real antagonist of the Messiah, who is sent by God into the world to destroy the works of Satan.
 

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So with that in mind, let us go on.

The end of October, I was walking around Home Bargains in a town near where I live, I was browsing, when I suddenly realised that I was singing along with a tune that was playing on the store radio. The song was “Silver Bells”, a well known Christmas song.
It suddenly dawned on me that I had been drawn into the thing I dislike, which is Christmas in November.
We hadn’t even had Halloween and Bonfire Day and here I was joining in with Christmas.

I am not a great Christmas fan at the best of times. I have for a long time thought that the true meaning of Christmas had been hijacked by a materialistic, Satan driven society. So this is not something new.

I have been a Christian now for nearly fifty years and every Christmas, it seems as though the message has been, “Put Christ back into Christmas”.
We have seen it on wayside pulpits and heard it time and time again in Christmas sermons.

However, Christ has not been put back into Christmas and sadly this year, 2020, because of Covid 19, There may hardly be a Christmas at all.

Whilst preparing this blog, my thoughts went to Genesis chapter three, where the fallen angel Lucifer/Satan, in the guise of a serpent came into the Garden of Eden and stole eternal life by means of his lies.

With one lie, “You shall not surely die”, he deluded Eve and in turn Eve deluded Adam.

In that moment in time, mankind was robbed of peace, joy and good will. Meaning, he was robbed of the Free Will to choose God goodness.
Man was reduced to only being able to choose between a greater or lesser evil.

Man became dead to the things of God. In that day Adam was separated from God by his sin and as the Apostle Paul said, “Sin passed on to all mankind”.

From that day on man became dead in sin.

Ephesians 2:1 And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;

Romans 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

 

However, that was not to be the end of the story. BUT God had a plan.

Genesis 3:15 And I will put enmity between you (Satan) and the woman, (Eve) and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.
 

According to this verse, there will be enmity between the individual woman (Eve) and the serpent who deceived her. The word enmity indicates a blood feud. There will also be enmity between Satan’s seed and her seed.

BUT God promised that eventually the serpent would bruise the heel of the seed of the woman. However, the seed of the woman would also bruise (or crush) the head of the serpent. This will be a fatal blow.

Who is the seed of the woman and who is the seed of the serpent? What do these predictions mean?

Ever since that day in the Garden, there has been a blood feud between Satan and mankind, the seed of the woman and ultimately in Jesus Christ.

Eve’s firstborn, Cain was disqualified because he was a murderer, by killing his brother Abel.

BUT God, gave another son to Eve.
The comment of Eve, upon the birth of the third son mentioned, Seth, seems to show that she understood Abel as part of the fulfillment of the promised seed.
 

Genesis 4:25 And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and named him Seth, For God has appointed another seed for me instead of Abel, whom Cain killed.

The ultimate seed of the woman would be Jesus Himself.
Therefore, we have in Genesis 3:15, the first promise of a Redeemer. It is the beginning of a long line of prophecies concerning the coming Messiah. The Promised One would be from the woman's seed, an indication of the eventual virgin birth of Christ..

Ever since that day in the garden, Satan has tried to destroy the seed of Eve.
By the seed of Eve, I mean the bloodline of Christ.

The Roots of Anti Semitism
 

Antisemitism is the longest and deepest hatred of human history..

What is at the bottom of this hatred that has persisted down through the ages?
Although it does manifest itself in hatred, persecution and slaughter, the root goes far deeper and in my opinion when you examine the history of the Jewish nation you discover that it is at its heart a spiritual issue. I believe that the answer is found in one source and that source is Satan.

3500 years ago, God called a man by the name of Abram and promised to make him and his lineage a great nation. This nation became the nation of Israel. The Hebrews, the Jews.
God made an unconditional covenant with Abram and changed his name to Abraham.

Depart and follow Me and I will: 

Seven Wills, not dependent on anything that Abram would do, but on God alone.

Genesis 12: 1-31. 
1. I will make of you a great nation
2. I will bless you
3. I will make your name great
4. I will you shall be a blessing
5. I will bless them that bless you
6. I will curse them that curse you
7. I will bless all families of the Earth through you

Abraham was the first Jew. The promises were passed down through Abraham’s son Isaac and his son Jacob (also known as Israel). The religion was known as Judaism.
From Judaism, came Christ and through Christ came the church.

From this time forward, Satan would make many attempts to destroy, to rob the world, or pervert the seed that would bring forth the Messiah. This was fulfilling the words of God in Genesis 3: 15
And 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.

We can read that history records many attempts of Satan to destroy Israel as a nation.
The first being the pollution of the gene pool by the fallen angels in Genesis 6.
When the sons of God mated with human women and produced a hybrid race of giants, known as Nephilim, (Fallen ones).
This first attempt by Satan to destroy the seed of the woman, was a failure, because of the righteous Noah. When God destroyed all the evil by a flood.

We read in scripture of the attempt by Satan to destroy the line of Christ by the slaying of all the male first born of the Hebrew nation by Pharaoh in Egypt and how God preserved Moses and the children of Israel by the Exodus. If this had been carried through, it would have effectively terminated their existence as a nation.

Later, Haman came very close to carrying through a decree for the extermination of all the Jews in the Persian Empire—which was in effect all the Jews alive at that time. Esther Ch 3.

In the second century B.C. Antiochus Epiphane, the dictator of Syria, attempted by force of arms to compel the Jews to renounce their unique destiny as a nation and to merge into the idolatrous culture of the surrounding Greek empire. The objective was to pollute the seed of the woman.
If it had not been for revolt by the Maccabees, who foiled his attempt and ensured that a century and a half later there was a Jewish nation to which Jesus could be born as Messiah.

When the Messiah (Jesus) was born, there was the attempt of Herod to do the same thing, to kill all the first male born children, to stop Jesus fulfilling His determined plan of redemption.

The greatest attempt of Satan to scupper God’s plans was to have Jesus crucified.
By using Judas Iscariot (the son of perdition) to betray Jesus to the Pharisees, but this was thwarted by God in that He raised Jesus from the dead and therefore destroying Satan plan.
Satan failed in his attempt to stop Messiah coming, so now he is engaged in the persecution of not only the Jews but also the Christian church.

Through His sacrificial death on the cross Jesus fulfilled the purpose for which He came. As the representative of Israel and all nations, He satisfied the requirements of God’s justice on our behalf and thus cancelled all Satan’s claims against us.

By this He imposed upon Satan a total, eternal, irrevocable defeat.
The full outworking of this defeat, however, will only be consummated at the second coming of Jesus.
 

Satan continues his work, in trying to pervert the true church of Christ and to continue to try and prevent the nation of Israel fulfilling Bible prophecy that will bring about, the return of Jesus Christ to the earth by His second coming.

Satan knows that he is still free to continue all his evil activities and to present himself as “the god of this age” (2 Corinthians 4:4).

 

2Co 4:3  But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: 
2Co 4:4  In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. 

Satan is still doing the same thing today as he has always done.

Before the Second coming of Jesus Christ at the Rapture of the church, the Apostle Paul tells us in 2 Thess 2.
 

2Th 2:1  Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, 

2Th 2:2  That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. 

2Th 2:3  Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; 
 

Notice that Paul is referring to the Rapture of the church here.

by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, 

“The Episuaguarge”, Our gathering together.

And what does he say?
This will not happen. The Rapture will not happen. That day will not come, except there be a falling away first.

A falling away first and then our gathering.

This is the continuation of Satan’s feud against the seed of the woman.

So, Satan attempted to destroy the seed of the woman, Eve, by the slaying of Abel by his brother Cain. He Failed.

Satan attempted to destroy and pollute the seed of the woman at the time of the flood.
He failed

Satan tried to eliminate the Jewish race, at the time of Moses. Why? for he knew that the Messiah would come from that bloodline. He failed.

He tried and tried again and again and Failed.
He tried to kill Jesus as a child. He Failed.
He tried to kill Jesus at Calvary.
He Failed.

He continued to try and destroy the early church through Nero and Domitian. By killing the Apostles and many early Christians.
He Failed.

He has tried to destroy the Bible, the means ordained by God to lead men to the truth, by burnings and restrictions and again Failed.

He has been behind perverted translations of the Bible, of the rise of Cults and false prophets and teachers.

Yet God has preserved His word and it is still the bestselling book of all time.

The Devil is still at work today, using the same old tactics of lies. He never changes.

He was behind the great Darwinian lie of Evolution of the nineteenth century.
He is behind the modern day perversion of the true Gospel.

The gospel’s that says there are many ways to God. What we know as Interfaith. Which teaches that man can find God and eternal life through good works, through Sacramentalism, through Bhudda, Islam and many other false Christs.

God promised a Messiah, the Prophets recorded it.

Isaiah: 9: 6,7 For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder.
And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the increase of His government and peace There will be no end,
Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom,To order it and establish it with judgment and justice
From that time forward, even forever.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.

Micah: 5:2 “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Though you are little among the thousands of Judah, Yet out of you shall come forth to Me The One to be Ruler in Israel, Whose goings forth are from of old, From everlasting.”

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Satan could not stop the event.
Satan is a liar, a murderer and a thief. He comes to steal. To blind the eyes of the unbeliever. To rob mankind of Joy, Peace and Hope.

He couldn’t stop the coming of Christ at Bethlehem, He couldn’t stop the crucifixion, He certainly could not stop the Resurrection.
He could not stop the first coming of Christ.
He will not stop the Second Coming of Christ.

The message of the Gospel is in the Christmas message.

That Christ came into the world to save sinners.
That God came to dwell amongst men. Through the incarnation. Emmanuel, God with us.

You have all probably seen the film “The Grinch that stole Christmas”

Grinch : Oxford Dictionary. A person who does not like other people celebrating or enjoying themselves, especially a person who does not like Christmas:

He failed.

Satan is still trying to steal Christmas, or at least belittle the message of Christmas.
He will fail.
He will not stop the work of God in bringing His people to Himself.

As a church at Bryn, we are to hand out booklets this year, reminding people of what it was that God did, by sending Jesus.
That there is only one way to find forgiveness and peace with God.

Its a message of Peace, Joy and Hope in the promised seed of the woman, Jesus Christ.

We can give them out with confidence, knowing that God’s word will not return void.

But it will accomplish all that it was sent out for.

Satan has tried to ruin the plans of God with no effect.
Notice the scripture says. He blinds the eyes of them that believe not. (they are already unbelievers).

It goes on to say, (To keep them from seeing the glory of the Gospel).

The world, under the inspiration of Satan, may try to spoil or steal the event but they can never steal the message.

The message is that God can break through that unbelief.
Through the power of the Word.
God has ordained that men come to Him through the foolishness of preaching.
He has chosen, He calls, He justifies and glorifies.
The method ordained to do this is the Gospel message.
But!!!! How will they hear without a preacher?

It is up to you and me to propagate that gospel to all that we meet.
You may not be involved in the distribution of these booklets. But you can be ready to give an account of you believe.

 

John 3:16 God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall be saved.

 

May each of us, take up our responsibility to share a word for Jesus this Christmas.

And may God bless His word. Amen.

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