An Act Of War

You don’t need to answer these questions out loud.

I’m going to ask you to be honest with yourself:

• Do you ever grow tired of hearing sermons about Christmas?

• Do you kind of glaze when you know you are about to hear the same story you’ve heard so many times?

• On the flipside, what was the most remarkable Christmas sermon you ever heard?

• Personally, I grew weary of the commercialization of Christmas about 30 years ago.

Today, as we move into the Christmas season, let’s be reminded of the importance of the birth of Christ.

BODY

Think about this:

• Religious oppression

• Political extremists

• Plots to kill leaders

• Cities seized, pillaged and burned

• Civil unrest

• Mass terror

• Mass murder

• People murdering their own families

• Widespread surveillance

• Political and religious retaliation

• Fracturing nations

Sounds all too familiar right?

Any given day on the news feed!

According to at least two historical, non-biblical accounts, this was the exact environment at the time of Jesus’ birth.

It was a dark world!

In fact, it had been 400 years since God spoke through the prophet Malachi.

Spiritual darkness reigned.

But as we are told in Ecclesiastes “nothing new under the sun”.

Todays message is titled “An Act of War”

We are going to be looking at two key passages.

Revelations 12: 1-16 (save v.17 for later)

Isaiah 9:6-7

But first, let’s look at the nativity scene as described in second chapter of Luke.

Luke 2:4-14 (read from my bible)

We’ll return to v13-14 in a bit.

Think about this:

The religious leaders at that time had information at their fingertips that had been passed down for centuries, God’s word through the prophets of this very event.

Foremost from the prophet Isaiah, but listen to Gods Word found in 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.” (ask others to read theirs).

Knowledge of scripture alone is not enough to discern the Lord’s leading.

They had all the knowledge of scripture that was available to the religious leaders.

However, they lacked discernment because spiritual darkness and conflict imprisoned them!

The political leaders were also in spiritual darkness.

It took wisemen from the east, to give Herod the Great the heads up of what went down!

Once Herod realized the wisemen weren’t going to tell him where the Child King was, he inflicted a murderous campaign on all male children 2 years and younger.

This was foretold in Jeremiah 31:15 “This is what the Lord says, A cry is heard in Ramah-deep anguish and bitter weeping. Rachel weeps for her children, refusing to be comforted-for her children are gone” and revealed in Matthew 2:18.

A great deal of this spiritual darkness was due to a fractured nation.

The political and religious leaders were so caught up in themselves, they were blind to what God was about to do!

That is exactly where Satan wanted them.

Herod the Great was continually paranoid that someone would overthrow him, and he had reason to be paranoid.

There were 4 groups competing for leadership and power in the region.

1) Pharisees-who were traditional and legalistic

2) Sadducees-opposed strict legalism but embraced Mosaic Law.

3) Essenes-the scribes that penned the Dead Sea Scrolls and prayed that God would over-throw Rome.

4) Zealots- they sought violent over-throw of Rome.

A dark world indeed.

But in Luke chapter 2 there’s this feeling of everything being right with the world!

It caused me to think:

What would be the perfect town?

Would it have:

• All the right retail stores?

• Restaurants of all flavors?

• Entertainment 24/7/365?

• Clean public restrooms?

• Freshest, most organic food at the markets?

• Low crime and violence?

• Perfect weather?

Ironically, about the only thing Bethlehem had on the above list was a very mild climate.

Here are a few interesting facts about Bethlehem, some of which I was not aware:

• It is only a handful of miles south of Jerusalem.

• Known as the City of David: David was born there and anointed king of Israel by the prophet Samuel.

o How appropriate that the King of Kings would also be born there?

• At the time of Jesus’ birth, it is believed that the population was no more than about 300 people.

• Bethlehem means “house of bread”.

o I find it interesting that Jesus called Himself the “bread of life”.

• Mild climate made it perfect for orchards and vineyards

• It was also where lambs were raised for temple sacrifice. See the symbolism there?

• Rachel, who we read about earlier in scripture, was buried there and her tomb still exists near the entrance of the city.