December 2006
CHAPLAIN’S CORNER
We send our greetings to all from the Breece household. As I write this we are anxiously awaiting our youngest son, Caleb, coming home on leave from his Army training. He will be on leave through the second of January.
I actually thought I had this column completed last week, but the Lord had other ideas and I really felt as though he was impressing upon my heart to write a different Corner than I had already done. With that said, here we go.
The subject I feel the Lord would have me to write about is that of Christmas. While I don’t believe for a minute that 25 December is the date of the birth of Jesus Christ, I am going to look at it from the traditional perspective. What does Christmas mean to you? What does it mean or has it meant to you and your family through the years. It has always meant a special time with family in our house. My wife always worked very hard to make it special for the boys. But what does it mean personally?
If we were to closely examine Christmas, we would discover it isn’t about jolly ol’ St Nick, Christmas trees, or spending sprees. While it is fun to be able to give gifts to loved ones, it isn’t about that either, except for the concept of giving. We would have to go back to the time right after the fall of man in the Garden of Eden, to discover the importance placed on the birth of Christ. So let’s travel back in time to Genesis 3. God had finished his creation and lived in perfect harmony with Adam & Eve. He would come and fellowship with them in the cool of the day as vs 3:8 illustrates. But something had changed. They were afraid because they were naked and hid themselves. God does not create robots. Adam and Eve had the ability to choose what they were to do. God had taught Adam prior to Eve’s creation, that of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they were not to eat. If they did eat, God had told them that in the day thereof they would surely die.
Up until the time when they sinned, Adam and Eve lived in perfect harmony as there was no sin in the world. Their spirit communed with God’s Spirit. But, on the day they partook of the forbidden fruit, their spirit’s died. It did not stop there, however, as they began to physically die as well. Satan had deceived Eve, the weaker vessel, and Marvin milk toast Adam didn’t take a stand and partook with her. Thus through their sin, man fell. Now Lucifer, the god of this world, ruled on the earth and he still does. This is his domain and he walks to and fro looking who he may devour. What once was a domain of light, had become a domain of darkness.
When God found them in the garden, he asked them, “Where art thou?” Adam’s response was I heard your voice and was afraid, vs 3:10. God asked them, who told thee that thou was naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And what was Adam’s response? He blamed God and the woman.
God had to banish them from the garden and placed Cherubims and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.
After they sinned their reaction was exactly what we do today. Sin and cover up, sin and cover up. We learned well from our first parents, but it didn’t stop there. They had sewed apron of fig leaves to cover themselves. Because of their sin, God had told them, “that in the day that thee eat thereof ye shall surely die.” What is the penalty for sin? Death!! So God took the aprons of fig leaves and thru them away. He slayed an innocent lamb, shed innocent blood, to fulfill the demands of blood sacrifice to cover their sins.
It was during this time that God trained Adam in the concept of blood sacrifice. This very concept will be carried throughout the rest of the bible. Because of the sin of the first Adam, sin fell on all men. We are sinners because of the sin of Adam and Eve. Every man and woman born since is born with a sin nature. This is the reason we sin, because we are sinners. Adam taught his two sons this concept. They were both very spiritual men and at the appointed time they brought their sacrifice unto the Lord.
Gen 4:4 says, And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof, and the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering. Abel was a keeper of the flock vs 4:2. He had been taught to sacrifice a lamb without spot of blemish and he did what he had been taught by his preacher/father. But what did Cain bring? Vs 4:3 says, And in the process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. Vs 4:5 says, But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.
Did Cain desire to serve God? Yes! Did he bring his sacrifice? Yes! Did God accept it? No! Cain was determined to worship God his way and when God rejected his offering he was crazy with anger. Many today are of the spirit of Cain. They come to God with their offerings: good works, catechism, church membership, infant baptism, or maybe you are one who believes just because you fought in Vietnam that you have spent you time in hell and now you have a ticket to heaven. Well, I am sorry to break the news to you, but you are on a pipeline to hell if you believe any of the above will get you to heaven. Right now some of you are probably wroth with me. Your anger is not really with me but with God, as he made the rules and put them in the book, I am just trying to get you hard heads to realize what your condition really is.
Why is it when I was a drunk and hell raiser that men loved to be around me? Then when I got saved, and the Lord removed my desire for such a lifestyle, my friends would cross the street rather than have me talk about GOD. What gives? I have discovered from the word of God that men love darkness more than they like the light, because men’s hearts are evil continually and they are of their father the devil.
Right now, if you are still reading, you are probably wondering why this all pertains to Christmas? Glad you asked. Read Gen 4:1 And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord. As God had taught them about proper sacrifice, he also taught them that there would be a God man born of a woman who would take away the sins of the world. Eve believed that she had delivered the messiah. When Mary was found pregnant of the Holy Ghost, she was the one chosen of God to usher in the Lamb of God. We can see in Mathew 3:1 In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea. John was preaching repentance for the kingdom of God was at hand. This same man in the book of John 1:29 announces, “The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”
The same doctrine of substitutionary atonement is right here, as it was in Genesis. The bible says in Ephesians 1:7 In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace. God demands payment for sin. That payment is blood. In the Old Testament, the people looked forward in faith for the coming saviour. During this dispensation we look back on the finished work of Calvary. God demands a payment from sinful man. We absolutely have no ability to pay and we have to find a substitute. That substitute is Christ Jesus who was 100% man and 100% God. He lived a perfect sinless life and overturned the work of the first Adam. By dieing, shedding his precious blood, and raising on the third day Jesus defeated Satan and gave fallen man the opportunity to have his sins forgiven.
Jesus said, PAID IN FULL!!!!!!! That is what he stamped on my account, when I asked him to come into my heart and save me. And as many as asked, to them he gave them power to become the sons of God. Now you must make a decision. You are either a son of Cain, a child of darkness, or a follower of Jesus Christ, a child of the light. There is no middle ground. You are either saved or you will go to hell when you die. The bible says today is the day of your salvation. If you can’t remember an actual place where you asked Jesus to save you, then you are lost. It is time to make a decision as the world is rapidly coming to an end. Please my brothers, consider what is said here. If you have any questions, please contact me. RLTW