Christ's birth is presented as a profound mystery and the salvation of God, not merely a holiday event. The sermon emphasizes that Jesus, God incarnate, is the true salvation, bringing revelation to the Gentiles and glory to Israel, as foretold by Simeon. It warns against allowing the traditions and festivities of Christmas to obscure the person of Christ, likening it to a baby being smothered by guests' coats. The core message is that having Christ means having life, and true salvation comes only through receiving Him, urging listeners to crown Him Lord of all.
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The word of God is accurate in First Timothy as Paul writes to his son in the faith. And he says without controversy, great is a mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. Whenever I sing that second stanza of Hark the Herald Angels sing, I can't hit the high note. But I'll tell you there's a cold chill goes down my back. When I sing, I get all excited about that second stanza, the ending of it. veiled in flesh the Godhead sees. Hail the incarnate deity, pleased as man with men to appear. Jesus, our Emmanuel here.
God with us, Emmanuel. I invite you to the second chapter of Luke this morning. We want to speak of Christ, putting Christ's first in perspective. Luke chapter two, and we're going to begin our reading at verse twenty-five. The opening verses of Luke chapter two give us the story of his birth. But we want to put it in perspective. How did a genuine believer in the days of the birth of Christ regard his birth and his coming? So verse twenty-five, Luke chapter two. And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and the same man was just, or that word just could be translated righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.
And it was revealed unto him by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord Christ. And he came by the Spirit into the temple. Now, to get the context of those words, our Lord Jesus is an eight-day-old baby. He's eight days old now. He's coming in to the temple. For verse twenty-one says, And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, a Hebrew boy was circumcised the eighth day, according to the law. And therefore, our Lord, who was made under the law, Galatians chapter four and verse five.
He was made under law. He was brought into the temple, verse twenty seven. And when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him after the custom of the law, then took he him up in his arms and blessed God and said, Lord, now let us thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word. For mine eyes have seen thy salvation. which thou hast prepared before the face of all people a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel. And Joseph and his mother marveled at those things which were spoken of him.
And Simeon blessed them and said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and the rising again of many in Israel and for a sign which shall be spoken against. ye a sword shall pierce through thine own soul also, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed. Now may the Lord bless the reading of his word. Let us pray together. Our Father, in the precious name of our Lord Jesus, we acknowledge to thee the God and Father of that blessed one that you sent. For the word declares that the Father sent the Son, to be the Savior of the world.
Thy Word declares for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. And as we acknowledge His coming, as we consider Him, we pray, O God, that I will deliver us from the frivolity of this age and enable our minds to be occupied with that glorious and great work which thou art doing. And as we put his birth in perspective this morning, through the instrumentality of thy word, we ask thee, O God, to reveal thyself to us in a unique way.
Deliver us from anything that would detract. And like Samuel of old, we would say to thee, speak for thy servant heareth. and in speaking to my heart, speak to all who are gathered, and we'll thank you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. A number of years ago in Great Britain, a child was born to a wealthy family. On the day of the christening of the child, after they had the service in the church, many people gathered in the home of the parents to partake. of a meal in honor of the christening of this child.
The baby was laid on the mother's bed. And as the guests came in, the coats were collected, and the coats were laid on that bed as well. Finally, someone said in the midst of all the feasting, wonder how the baby's doing. And they went to find the baby, and lo, the baby was smothered. under the coats of the guests. And lest the blessed person of whom this celebration is about is smothered and we miss him.
We need to put the birth of Christ into perspective. I must confess to you that I was reared in a home where we received Christmas presents. We didn't do a lot of the traditional things that people do at Christmas time because they were looked upon as being very pagan. And this has, of course, affected my thinking down through the years. And Christmas celebration was not quite the same in our home as it was in many others. But one thing we always did in our home.
I could quote from memory the whole probably chapter two of Luke because it was read every year a few times when Christmas came around. My father was very sure that we knew what the Christmas story is all about. I'll never forget being in the home of a churchman. He was either a deacon or an elder in this particular denomination that he's in. And I did him a favor at Christmas time, electric lay in his home, and he had a Christmas tree, and he wanted to put a Bible under it. He said, Phil, where's a Christmas story in the Bible? He didn't even know where it was.
You see, it's possible to have a child smothered under the coats of the gas. And we need to be very careful about this. But something took place in my life years later when I was a young man. When I had an interest in souls, in people being saved. And I was telling people how to be saved. I was reading after Dr. Harry Aronsides one day. And Dr. Harry Aronsides was reared in a similar way that I was, in respect of Christmas and some other holidays. And he said, there's one thing I like about Christmas. And he said, I try to evade all the other things.
It's a time when people listen to what you have to say concerning the person of Christ. And from that time on, I have enjoyed Christmas far more than I ever did before. For this reason, I can talk to people about the person of Christ, why he came, why he was born, and what he did for poor sinners on the cross on Calvary Hill. And this is most important. And instead of being negative toward Christmas as I was for a long time in my Christian life, I'm positive toward it.
And the reason I'm positive is because I have a message concerning the Savior. And when I studied the message concerning the Savior, then you can understand why I get cold chills down my back. When I sing those words, veiled in flesh the Godhead sees. When Simeon took the Lord Jesus in his arms, the God of the universe was there. The one who spake and the universe came into being. For the word of God says he spake and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast. Here's the creator of the universe in the arms of an old man who says, Lord, I'm ready to die.
I've seen thy salvation. And beloved, the salvation of God is not a church. The salvation of God is not a preacher. The salvation of God is a person, a person of our Lord Jesus Christ. When he saw that baby, he said, I've seen the salvation of God. For to be saved means that we're in Christ, and Christ is in us. For he that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God, That's not life. We're either in Christ and we have life because he is the salvation of God or we're still out of Christ and a child of wrath.
And if we don't have Christ, we don't have life. Now you can be in the church. You can be in the choir. You can have the most beautiful voice in Burlington and still be out of Christ. But oh, anyone who's in Christ, that person has the salvation of God. And that person is saved and safe for time and for all eternity. Old Simeon could pray. Now let us now thy servant depart in peace. According to thy word, see God keeps his word. It was revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death until he had seen the Lord's Christ.
You may say, well now how could the Holy Spirit reveal that to him? Well very simple. Isn't difficult? If he was reading the Word of God, all he'd have to do is study the ninth chapter of Daniel. In the ninth chapter of Daniel, it is revealed when the Savior would come. And you could start counting from the day that Cyrus, the king of Persia, gave the decree to build the walls of Jerusalem. Until Messiah, the prince, will be four hundred and ninety-three years until the prince is cut off. And the time was almost up. And like Jeremiah, or like Daniel of old, he studied the prophecy of Jeremiah.
He understood that Jeremiah prophesied that the captivity of Israel would be seventy years. And he realized it just about up. And he prayed to God in confession concerning it. That's how God reveals things through the word of God. And he revealed himself to Simeon. Now, Simeon is expressing in verses twenty-five to thirty-five what a genuine believer did in relationship to Jesus Christ. Now, in this era in which you and I live, there are people like Simeon.
Simeon was looking and waiting for God's Messiah to appear. And you know there are people who are looking and waiting for God's Messiah to appear again. For he who came the first time is coming again. He said, as he went to heaven, he sent two angels who said, Why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus who is taken from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven. And then our Lord came the first time. He came unexpected. And when He comes a second time, He's coming at an hour that you think not.
The scripture says, In such an hour as you think not, the Son of Man cometh. And this is why we believe and proclaim what we call the imminence day of the coming of the Lord. His imminent coming, He could come at any moment. And if He were to come, today are you in Christ or are you out of Christ have the coats of the guest smothered the baby in relation to you that you don't know why he came and you haven't really made him your own smothered under the coats of the guest you'd be left out for our Lord is coming again just as sure as he came the first time For the first time when he came, he came in the fulfillment of a promise.
And when he comes again, he's coming in the fulfillment of a promise. Imagine Simeon holding the God of the universe in his arms. Now I want you to remember this, that when he held the God of the universe in his arms and when we talk about the coming of Jesus Christ to earth, we're not saying that one third of the Trinity shut down. We're not saying that at all. And that God no longer functioned as he previously did. No. I'll tell you what happened. A divine nature was wedded to a human nature. In what theologians call that hypostatic union.
The divine and the human in Jesus Christ. He is both God and man. As God he knows all the requirements of God's holy throne. All that is necessary, all the demands of divine justice and divine righteousness. He knows them all. He's God, but he's also a man. And as a man, he knows the deep need of the human heart. He lived as a man among men. He is Emmanuel, as we sang this morning. He is God with us. That is his name. And God with us as a man. He knows the feeling of our infirmity, and he's touched by it, and he's able to meet, and he met every demand of the Holy Throne of God on my behalf as my substitute, and he meets every need that the sinner will ever have.
Oh, thank God for our Lord Jesus Christ, veiled in flesh. His body simply was a veil that held back the glory of who he was. as a person would put a veil over their face so that you wouldn't know who was behind the veil. Our Lord was veiled in flesh. The nation of Israel looked for a glorious king who would rid them of the Roman domineering. But instead they got a Savior who would deliver men from something worse than being in bondage to Rome.
He would deliver them. from being in bondage to sin. That's the problem. Man by nature is in bondage to sin, and when our Lord comes in with a liberating message of the gospel, we can say to a person who is saved, sin shall no longer have dominion over you, for you're not under the law, but under grace. Romans six, fourteen. Well, if we're going to put Christ's birth into perspective, we're going to have to listen to what Simeon had to say that our Lord would do.
He said he was going to do three things. Now notice what he said. Verse thirty-two, he said that this baby was a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of thy people, Israel. Then in verse thirty-four, the middle of the verse, he says, Behold, This child is set for the fall and the rising again of many in Israel. And then in verse thirty-five, he says, This child is going to reveal the thinking of the heart of many. Three things. First of all, he's going to bring revelation to the world.
Second, he's going to bring division to the world. The fall. and the rising again of many in Israel. And finally, he's the judge of the thought life of people. Now, we may not get over all three of these this morning. But I want you to take the coats of the guests off the bed and let us view the child. Let's take a good look at him. First of all, he's going to bring revelation to the world. You see, there are two categories of light that are mentioned here.
He speaks of the Gentiles, and I'm so glad he does, and he speaks of Israel. Jesus Christ the Lord is going to bring light and revelation to both. Light for the Gentiles. I don't know if you get excited about that, but I'll tell you something. I do, and I'll tell you why. Most of my Bible, the biggest part of it, is the Old Testament. Not much to the new, a lot more to the old. And when you come to the revelation of the Old Testament, the Gentiles are on the outside. It is Israel that is a focus of attention in the Old Testament because salvation is of the Jews and God chose Abraham and made a covenant with him and that covenant follows through Isaac and through Jacob and through Judah and then through David and that whole of the Old Testament was preparation for the coming of this one, our Lord Jesus.
And our Lord said to the woman at the well in John chapter four, He said to her, you Samaritan, you worship, you know not what. And boy, there are multitudes that you can say that to today. You worship, you know not what. They don't know what they're worshiping. He said, salvation is of the Jews. And therefore Gentiles, as it were, are left out of the Old Testament revelation. And this is mentioned in chapter two and verse twelve of Ephesians. In Ephesians chapter two, our Lord to the Apostle Paul, he calls us to remembrance and he says, Wherefore remember that ye being Gentiles in the flesh.
So remember where you came from. He's saying to this church at Ephesus, Remember you were Gentiles. And at that time you were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel. Strangers from the covenants of promise. You were without hope. and without God in the world. Oh, what a picture of a Gentile. This was me. I'm a Gentile by nature. I was without hope. I was without God. I was in the world. And it was cut off to all the covenants that God had made in the Old Testament. I'm an outsider, friend. This is beautifully illustrated in the Old Testament.
There's a woman that we often sing about at weddings, Ruth, the Moabitus. You see, she was of the land of Moab, and you know what God says about Moab? Moab is my wash pot. That's what he says two times in the Psalms. And he speaks of Edom over Edom, I will cast off the shoe. Moab is my wash pot. In the thirty-second chapter, no, excuse me, the twenty-second chapter of Deuteronomy, it says concerning a Moabite, a Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord. unto the tenth generation, yea, even forever, and God says why?
How did Ruth get in? You know, friend, Ruth got in the same way I got in. Now, she didn't get in because she said, with her thou goest, I will go. That they sing at weddings. Now, I like those words, by the way, and I'm glad she said them. But that's not why she got in. She got in because... of the redemption provided by the mighty Boaz. You see, Boaz was the one who redeemed Ruth, and because of that redemption she was brought in, and a mightier than Boaz redeemed me. I can just see Boaz as he talked to Ruth, for he loved her, and I listened to my Savior as he talked to me, and he loves me, for God so loved the world.
that he gave his only begotten son. And Boaz, as he looked at Ruth, he could say to her, you're an outsider. You have no inheritance for the people of God, but I'm going to make you an insider. I'm going to redeem you, and I'm going to bring you in. God looked at me in the person of his dear son, and he said, Philip, you're an outsider. You're without hope. You're without God. You're in the world. You're a Gentile. But I'm going to make you an insider. I'm going to redeem you. And this is what took place on the cross on Calvary's Hill. The price was paid.
Redemption was wrong. And I was brought in. And whenever I think of Ruth and Boaz, I like to think of Boaz's mother. You know he had a good mother. You know who the mother of Boaz was? Oh, you all know that. Her name is Rahab. And you know, her occupation follows her name wherever her name is mentioned in the Bible. It's amazing. Rahab the harlot. The harlot of Jericho. Rahab. She was an outsider. And when the spies came in, you see, she knew what it was to be outside.
She knew what it was to dwell in the city. That was under the curb. And she was brought in because she believed the message of God. She was brought in by faith. And she taught that to her son. And her son brought in a Moabite who was an outsider. But oh, friends, here we have light the light and the Gentiles. And you know what God is doing in this age? Acts chapter fifteen, verse fourteen. He is taking out from among the Gentiles a people for his name. This child is a light to lighten the Gentiles. Are you excited about that? If you're not, I am, I'll tell you that.
It's the only way I could ever get in. I couldn't get in by joining the church. I couldn't get in by being baptized. I couldn't get in by taking communion. I got in because the lovely Savior, my place, and redeem me at the cross in Calvary's Hill. How about you? Are you in or out? Oh, let's put Christmas in perspective. Let's put Christ's birth in perspective. As you know, we got to move on. He not only says he's a light, the light, the Gentiles that says he's a glory of my people, Israel.
You see, in time past, the glory of God dwelt in the midst of Israel. It was a Shekinah glory. That word Shekinah. is a Hebrew word for presence, the presence of God. And it was a glory cloud that led the children of Israel out of Egyptian bondage and that dwelt above the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle, above the mercy seat there, and it also was in the temple when Solomon dedicated the temple, the permanent building to God. God's presence there. The glory of my people of Israel. And you know that glory cloud that abode there in Israel of old speaks of Christ.
I tell you, it speaks of Christ in four ways. For it was a guide to the children of Israel. And as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. To be led of God means to be guided by God. For the more it was a guard. It guarded them. That which was light to the Israelites was darkness to the Egyptians, and they couldn't come near them all night. And the word Jesus is the guard of his people. He's the one who garrisons the heart and mind of his people. More than that, it was a gathering center. They gathered unto him, and our Lord says to his people today, for where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst.
But, oh, friends, it was a guarantee. It was a guarantee of God in their midst. They could look out and see the glory cloud of God above the tabernacle, and there they could say, God dwelling in our midst. And to you and me today, as we sang this morning, He's Emmanuel. God with us. They light the light and the Gentiles. The glory of my people, Israel. But you see, the time came and the glory departed from Israel. You can read about it in Ezekiel chapter ten. The glory of God departed from Israel.
And the saddest thing in that whole reading there, in that passage beginning in Ezekiel eight and going down through chapter twelve, is that they never even noticed it. Makes you want to read. Makes you want to weep. The glory of God left the nation of Israel, and he never knew it. Now the glory returned. For John says the word became flesh and tabernacled among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory and of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, and the saddest thing. They never even noticed it. For the scripture tells us in John one in verse ten, he, our Lord Jesus, came unto his own, and his own received him not.
Here is the glory of God again returning to Israel, for salvation is of the Jews, but they didn't notice it. But if I may say Israel smothered the Savior under the coats of the gas. How about us? But you see, when God promises the glory to return, it will return. Oh, thank God, is a day coming when we read about it in Zechariah ten, or chapter twelve in verse ten, where it says, They shall look unto him whom they are pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourneth for his firstborn son.
Oh, there's a day coming when God's going to return the glory to Israel. He wasn't recognized when he came, but he was there, and the presence of God was there. He is Emmanuel, God with us. Jesus, our Emmanuel is. I got through one-third of what I wanted to say. I'm not going to go any further. But I'd like to ask you a question. Amid all the tinsel is our Lord's mother under the coats of the guest.
We need to put this in perspective. So easy to do. He came to bring revelation. Have you responded to it? He came to bring and restore the glory to Israel. Some have responded to it. God still saves Jews. And as a day coming, Israel is going to be saved as a nation in a day. and we await that time but in the meantime he who came the first time in holiness and grace is coming again in the gospel by matthew chapter one he is Emmanuel God with us in the closing chapter of matthew chapter twenty eight he says oh I am with you always he never leaves and he never forsakes those who are here now my friend Our Lord Jesus not only came to bring revelation, he came to bring division.
We didn't deal with it. I shall next week in the will of the Lord. So let me say this. The word says, He that hath the Son hath life. And he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. And there could be division right here in this room this morning. There are those in this room who have the Son. I'm one of them. I have life. So maybe you may be in the room and you don't have the son and you don't have life. Oh, let me tell you this. You desperately need him. You can't have life apart from him. And the nice part about it, by receiving him, you have life.
The scripture says to as many as receive him. So then he gives a right. Become the sons of God, even to them, that they leave on his name. Do you have it? Or if you don't, I'm willing to sit with you with an open Bible to show you how to have it. You don't get, you'll never be, have a life from me. You have it only from the person of Jesus Christ. To have him is to have life. I think we should sing a hymn in closing. The first and last of hymn number thirty-four. Hymn number thirty-four in our hymn books.
All hail the power of Jesus' name. Let angels prostrate fall. Bring forth the royal diadem and crown him Lord of all. All friends, let's crown him Lord of all. Let's not smother him under the coats of the guests. Let us crown him His word. Let's sing the first. And the last of number thirty-four as Rick leads us. Let's stand together.