“Then
Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious,
and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that
region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained
from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah:
‘A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for
her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.’”
Christmas is arguably the most celebrated holiday of the
year, filled with good tidings and
well-wishes, colorful lights and glamorous decorations. We celebrate Christmas
because of the birth of Jesus Christ—born of the virgin Mary through the power
of the Holy Spirit, who came to earth in order to save mankind from eternal
damnation. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever
believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Yet while Christmas invokes warm, fuzzy
feelings like a cup of hot chocolate on a cold wintry night beside a roaring
fireplace, the harsh reality is that Christmas came over 2,000 years ago with
both rejoicing and mourning. Matthew's Gospel account brings a somber realization of the enormity
of Christ’s purpose to sacrifice His life for all mankind. We would be hard-pressed to find this passage portrayed in a Christmas pageant nor would it ever be remembered as much as the angels, shepherds and wise men when
the Christmas story is recanted. However, God
inspired Matthew to pen these verses as a stern reminder and humble warning
to all that from the beginning, the birth of Jesus Christ came in opposition to
the selfish desires of man, both then and now, and we would be remiss to forget what happened in Bethlehem. Many fathers and mothers were physically forced to watch their precious baby boys being slaughtered
before their very eyes, not as gifts but as sacrifices to the secular theology
of sinful mankind (emulated through Herod’s decision) which elevated self-preservation.
That struggle is ever before us as Christians today. Standing for the absolute truth of Scripture
in today’s American culture is not simply old-fashioned or unpopular but hate language, and we are foolish to nonchalantly disregard the truth of that statement. No, the tide of post-modernistic thinking
where truth is relevant and political correctness supersedes absolute truth is
crashing upon the shoreline of our faith, and we must decide whether we'll
stand boldly and weather the storm or be washed away in the secular
current. The recent controversy
surrounding Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty is a perfect example of the
vulnerable state of our faith in today’s culture. Yet praise God that Phil is unwavering in
elevating what Scripture declares as truth. It is emblematic of Jesus’ explanation regarding the Parable of the
sower found in Matthew 13:1-9. “Hear then the parable of the sower: When
anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one
comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown
along the path. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears
the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself,
but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account
of the word, immediately he falls away. As for what was sown among thorns, this
is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness
of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. As for what was sown on
good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed
bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in
another thirty” (Matthew
13:18-23).
“As
for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and
immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself, but endures
for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the
word, immediately he falls away.” My fellow Christian
brothers and sisters, on account of the Word, we will be persecuted. And because Jesus IS the Word, we must
realize we cannot draw lines in the sand regarding what we like and don’t like in the Word. It is a package deal and
rest assured, 100% controversial. “For the word of God is living and active,
sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of
spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of
the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). As born-again Christians, we do not have to draw a line in the sand between right (righteousness) and wrong
(sin), for Jesus already has by creating boundary lines of judgment
within the pages of Scripture. Therefore, we must stand confidently knowing Jesus is truth and came to “bear witness to the truth” (John 18:37) of His Word. “So everyone who acknowledges me before men,
I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies
me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 10:32-33).
This Christmas season we must decide whether we stand for
truth. As born-again believers who have made decisions to follow Christ and make Him Lord and King over their
lives, we must understand that in accepting Christ we are accepting His Word as ABSOLUTE TRUTH. We cannot accept Jesus as Lord and not endorse,
support and believe every word of the Bible as absolute truth, because “in the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). Therefore, we must decide whether we believe that truth or not because Scripture is unwavering on the issue. Jesus declared to Pilate in the midst of
impending death, “Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice,” (John 18:37) and we must decide whose
voice we will listen to, the world (culture) or Jesus.
Make no mistake, Matthew 2:16-18 drives home the enormity of
salvation because accepting Jesus requires we accept the sacrifice that comes with it. Accepting that Jesus was born of the virgin
Mary requires we accept the sacrificial slaughter which came in opposition to
the glorious birth of Jesus Christ. For if we stand for Jesus, we must be willing to withstand the overwhelming tide
of persecution and opposition which comes with obeying His Word. Therefore, will we shy away and crumble under the
weight of political correctness to remain silent or endorse cultural
controversial issues the Bible declares as sinful? Or will we declare like
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego who were threatened with fiery death, to denounce
God and bow before the golden image King Nebuchadnezzar created? “Then
Nebuchadnezzar in furious rage commanded that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego
be brought. So they brought these men before the king. Nebuchadnezzar answered
and said to them, ‘Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you do
not serve my gods or worship the golden image that I have set up? Now if you
are ready when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp,
bagpipe, and every kind of music, to fall down and worship the image that I
have made, well and good. But if you do not worship, you shall immediately be
cast into a burning fiery furnace. And who is the god who will deliver you out
of my hands?’ Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, ‘O
Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so,
our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and
he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O
king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you
have set up’” (Daniel 3:13-18).
Therefore, are we willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for
Christ? It is the only question which should be before the heart of every man, woman and child this Christmas season. For in choosing to rejoice in Christ’s birth, we must realize He came into the world to be the ultimate sacrifice like
those baby boys in Bethlehem who were slaughtered because of the threat He represented to sinful man bent on dismissing truth. “Now therefore fear the LORD and
serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers
served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. And if it is evil in
your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the
gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the
Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the
LORD” (Joshua 24:14-15).
I fully empathize with the struggle of accepting
God’s Word as absolute truth because it unashamedly judges every sin and leaves no
room for justification or rationalizations which contradict what Scripture
declares. However, we cannot fall into a trap
of only accepting God as love and not wrath. For it was by God’s judgmental wrath on sin that we have Jesus to thank
for being the ultimate sacrifice and providing salvation for us in spite of our
sin which deserved wrath and eternal separation from God. “For the wrath of God is revealed from
heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their
unrighteousness suppress the truth” (Romans
1:18). “But because of your hard and
impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when
God's righteous judgment will be revealed” (Romans 2:5). “But for those who are self-seeking and do
not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury”
(Romans 2:8). “But if our
unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say?
That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us?” (Romans 3:5). “For
the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression”
(Romans 4:15). “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the
ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a
good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that
while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now
been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath
of God” (Romans 5:6-9).
Bottom-line, our lives here on earth all come down to the
enormity of what or who we define as our personal truth, and as Christians, whether
we accept God’s truth as absolute in its entirety. We must be clear on the ramifications of either not accepting the Bible as
truth or as perhaps is common today, accepting most but not all of Scripture as
truth. John 1:1 states plainly that
Scripture (i.e. the Bible) and Jesus are interchangeable, one in the same, the
lifeblood of one another, and to not
accept even a single word of Scripture as absolute truth is to denounce Jesus
Himself. For God
is with us and we are obligated in submission to Jesus as Lord of our lives to
fully accept Him and His Word because again, they are one in the same according
to John 1:1, John 18:37, etc. This
Christmas I pray every man, woman and child would not forget or dismiss
the sacrificial reality of Matthew 2:16-18, because in truth (and as we are reminded in this amazing song
and video) a baby came and everything changed for eternity.
