What Child Is This? - Matthew 1:21

 “And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” - Matthew 1:21

    Assurance. By any definition the word means certainty. And in this day and age certainty is hard to come by. With the fleeting pace of modern life we can never be sure what the next moment holds for us. Relativism has humanity wrapped in the grasp of its gnarly talons and those who are without Jesus Christ know nothing of their future. Is it any wonder that so many people’s live are filled with fear, anxiety, an indecisiveness?
    Joseph, the husband of Mary, found himself in a similar predicament. It was revealed to him by Mary that she was with child and they had not yet “been together.” The situation was precarious for his wife. Who, after all, would believe that she had conceived a child through the Holy Spirit? What was he to do in an age when women who found themselves in such circumstances were routinely “put away” by their husbands? This was the biblical way of describing a divorce and the public shaming of the woman. But Joseph was a just man and not quick to shame his young wife. Thus, he was full of fear, anxiety, and indecisiveness. Enter, an angel of the Lord: “But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.’” - Matthew 1:20.  An angel of the Lord? A heavenly being authorized by God to give Joseph the go ahead in his betrothal to Mary. How much more certainty would you need to accept that the message received was from God, Himself? God knew of Joseph’s human dilemma and He sent word to him that THIS was His will!
    Joseph was assured by an angel of the Lord to set his mind at ease. That assurance preceded something even more certain: the Child would be a Son and that Son’s name was to be “Jesus.” And that particular Son was to be named that particular name for great reason - He was to be the “Jesus ,”  - “And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6b) the Savior, the Messiah of His people!
    I can only speak for myself but I am certain that if an angel of the Lord told me that my wife would give birth to the Son who would be the Savior of His people it would certainly create a “assurance” in me that would relieve me of all fear, anxiety, and indecision for the rest of my life.
    What that angel had to tell Joseph was not a suggestion. It wasn’t optional. It wasn’t discretional. It was a series of three commands from God Himself! She WILL bring forth a Son. You WILL call Him, Jesus. And He WILL save His people from their sins! Still need assurance?
    What is in a name? Scripture makes the promise of God crystal clear - “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” - Acts 4:12. “For ‘whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’” - Romans 10:1.
    This Christmas let us remember the assurance and the certainty of the only name by which we can be saved: “Jesus”: the Son of God, the Christ, our Savior!

Joshua’s Spear - Joshua 8:26

 For Joshua did not draw back his hand, with which he stretched out the spear, until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai. - Joshua 8:26

Sin. It is the hated enemy clawing at our gates. Temptation scouts out our most vulnerable places and sin rushes forward, an army of death attacking us in our vulnerability.
John Owen once said, “Do you mortify; do you make it your daily work; be always at it whilst you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you.” ( John Owen, “The Mortification of Sin.”) It was Owen’s point that sin, even in the saint, still has deleterious effects on our lives.
Yes, we must be constantly at it . . .the determined and deliberate destruction of sin in our lives. Utterly destroying it just as certainly as Joshua destroyed the inhabitants of Ai.
“Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them. But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth.” - Colossians 3:5-8. We know that sin is of the world, the flesh, and the devil. We know it. We recognize it; so we must do everything within our power to eliminate it from our lives. We must not draw back Joshua’s spear until sin is utterly destroyed. The importance of the mortification of sin in our lives can never be over-emphasized. “For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” - Romans 8:13.
While it is true that we are saints being sanctified, sin remains a part of our humanity until we are joined to Christ’s everlasting love in our eventual and certain glorification. “Moreover whom He predestined, these He called; whom He called, these He justified; and who He justified, these He also glorified.” - Romans 8:30.
To live and enjoy communion with our Lord and Savior we must be mindful that sin will forever condemn us and separate us if we are not in Christ Jesus and He, in us. Listen not to the world and its silvery promises of our best lives being here and now. Promises of “the here and the now, of the world and the flesh” are fulfilled only by the guarantee of the devil: spiritual death and eternity in hell!
Let us mortify our sin before the Lord.  “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” - Romans 6:23. May the power of the Holy Spirit give us the strength to hold forth our spears until we have utterly destroyed sin in our lives.

“Access . . . Denied” - Deuteronomy 29:29

 “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.” - Deuteronomy 29:29

    The Holocaust, 9-1-1, war, famine, pestilence, disease . . . death - why does an almighty and loving God allow such tragedies? We hear accusations of unfairness leveled at the Creator of the universe. Is He unfair? Is He unjust? What is fair? What is justice? We want justice? Believe me; justice is not what we want. Justice places us all squarely in the jaws of hell for all eternity. Why? “As it is written: ‘There is none righteous, no, not one . . .’” - Romans 3:10. No, justice isn’t what we want. We want “grace,” undeserved and unmerited grace because without grace we would all be given the harsh and hellish justice we deserve!
    So beyond erroneous notions of justice we wonder why God sometimes allows the worst possible outcomes to some of the most unexpected situations involving people who, for the most part are relatively benign. From unexpected childhood diseases to natural catastrophes to local, national, and global disasters the nagging question remains - why? I can’t tell you why because I don’t know why, but I can tell you this: there is no access code to God’s hidden will. There is no password that will allow us to see inside the mind and heart of God. The error message continues to flash: “Access . . . Denied!”
    Certainly, sometimes what takes place in our world is a judgment from God; sometimes it is not. The fact is: we just don’t know and no matter how hard we search for an answer or accountability - there is none. Access . . . Denied!   
      “ . . . then I saw all the work of God, that a man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. For though a man labors to discover it, yet he will not find it; moreover, though a wise man attempts to know it, he will not be able to find it.” - Ecclesiastes 8:17
    Our title verse explicitly tells us that God’s hidden will remains hidden, but we are not without certain knowledge of God’s revealed will. It has been given to us through His holy scripture. Perhaps our time would be better spent immersing ourselves in His revealed will rather than stumbling along, attempting to decipher His sovereign or decretive will.
    “But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?” - Romans 9:20-21.
    Let us all pray for the wisdom to understand that we cannot presume to know the mind of God nor the reasons for His will. Let us instead learn to accept it.

“This Is A Test” - Matthew 10:34-37

  “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.’ He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.” - Matthew 10:34-37

     “This is a test.” I remember hearing these words when I was a child. It was the TV network’s way of testing the EBS, or Emergency Broadcast System. It was a system designed and used during the Cold War (I’m sure some of you remember . . .) to alert us to an impending nuclear attack. I’m not even sure it’s used anymore. Nevertheless, the system was tested daily to insure that it worked. It was tested daily because an attack could come any day, unannounced, and unprovoked, not necessarily when we were “on guard”, but at anytime. We had to be prepared for what could possibly come.
    God still employs the EBS. Of course it’s not the kind that we hear over a TV or radio but a spiritual variety and it’s not the kind that warns of an impending nuclear attack, but of the satanic variety.
    When Christ told His disciples that He came to bring the sword and set a man’s household against him, He meant it in a figurative sense. Luke’s gospel is even more perilous -  “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.” - Luke 14:26. Obviously we aren’t being called to hate our family members or anyone for that matter but we must be prepared to make a stand in case division arises within our homes over the gospel of Jesus Christ! We must be ready to defend the faith even to our own mothers, fathers, children, and spouses. Matthew 10:34-37 is our spiritual EBS. Be prepared. For if we fail to defend the gospel in our own homes how can we ever hope to defend it anywhere? And if we fail to defend it, we fail ultimately. Let us not forget the warning of Jesus Christ in the previous verse - “But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.” - Matthew 10:33.
    As I said, we are not being literally called to hate our mothers and fathers, etc. but we must always be ready to defend the gospel . . . even to our families!  “Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.” - 2 Timothy 4:2.   
    May we be granted peace within our homes and families at all times but especially when we share the word of God.