Dec. 24, 2022 - The Political Cesspool - James Edwards
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Ladies and gentlemen, the whole program tonight has been building towards this moment, this hour with Pastor Brett McAtee, the pastor of Christ the King Reformed Church in Charlotte, Michigan.
I was joking with Pastor Brett.
Well, half joking anyway, he has become the official chaplain of this radio program.
We always enjoy having Brett on to talk politics, but to have the pastor back with us at Christmastime and at Easter to present the biblical accounting of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but tonight, at Easter, but tonight, the biblical accounting of the birth of Jesus Christ.
So you know how we do it when Pastor Brett's on to present this message.
We let him present it without interruption.
So with that, Pastor Brett, I want to wish you a Merry Christmas on this Christmas Eve and let you share with our audience the good news.
Thank you, James, and Merry Christmas to you and your family, to all the listeners that have tuned in.
It's a privilege and an honor to be the chaplain of the political cesspool.
As we turn to the Christmas story, we want to do a rift off of Dickens' Christmas Carol.
We want to start by just noting that Adam was dead as a doornail in sin to begin with.
That's the beginning.
There is no doubt whatever about that.
The register of his fall was decreed by God, is related by scripture revelation and confirmed by experience.
There is no doubt that Adam had fallen.
And this must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the Christmas story I am going to relate.
And the reason I start this way on this Christmas broadcast is because the sons of the West have forgotten the wonder that's found in Christmas is that we though being dead in our sins and trespasses in the language of scripture, we though being in rebellion to God, God, in his great mercy, has raised up his elect, his people, in Christ and shown them his love and compassion.
And Christmas is not anything worth worshiping or worth being lost in wonder and love and praise if we don't first understand the situation that we were in prior to the coming of Christ in Christmas.
The scriptures you see teaches us that Adam's fall into sin was consequential for all mankind.
Scripture teaches that Adam's one sin resulted in judgment of condemnation upon all mankind.
Scripture teaches that through Adam's disobedience, all mankind were made sinners.
And Christmas is that event that begins to reverse all that by the incarnation and the coming of Jesus Christ.
So the fact that Adam was spiritually as dead as a doornail is a fact that reverberated to all mankind.
As the old Puritan catechetical instructor book said, in Adam's fall we sinned all.
So all mankind born subsequent to Adam were born as dead men walking.
And the good news of Christmas is found in the fact that God has provided the only solution for the problem that all mankind have as being dead men walking opposed and underneath God's just wrath.
The Old Testament then, as it opens, hints the fact that God planned a solution to mankind's being dead in sin.
And let us keep in mind here before we talk about the solution that God had decreed, that the fact that God provides a solution for man's sin problem that is spoken to during this Christmas season is testimony to the great mercy and humility of God.
God would have been perfectly just to leave all mankind in their state of disrepair and hopelessness.
But God, who is rich in mercy, raises people up in his Christ.
And this bespeaks the love of God that we celebrate at Christmas.
If God rescued only one person from man's sin, God would have even been then plentiful in mercy and great in love.
Well, on the testimony in scripture of the promised one whose arrival made Christmas Christmas, immediately after Adam's sin, God made a promise in Genesis 3 that God would raise up a warrior king who would bloody and crush the head of the enemy, that great dragon, that old serpent, who had overturned his order there in Eden.
And by this promise, Adam knew that he would be released by someone else paying the debt that Adam and his seed could never pay.
You see, my fellow listeners, mankind's wound was so grievous that mankind could never get himself right with God.
And he needed another to stand in his place to make man right with God.
Man could not by himself undo what had been done there in that egenic paradise, since all men after Adam were, in the words of Dickens again, dead as a doornail in sin.
Man had a problem that only Christmas could answer.
And that problem was twofold.
First, as we have said, man was dead in sin and couldn't help himself get out of that position.
And secondly, God was so holy and just, he could never have any fellowship with fallen man.
And indeed, he was opposed and his wrath was upon those who were dead in their sins and trespasses.
However, all through the Old Testament, God promises the coming of this warrior king who would set all right and restore man to having peace with God.
And the scripture tells us a great deal about this promised coming warrior king who would set all things aright.
For centuries, the saints of the Old Testament look forward to the fulfillment of a coming Christ who we celebrate this Christmas season.
As we noted in Genesis 3.15, the Christ would crush the enemy of God's people.
There in Genesis, we read, I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed, and it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt crush, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
So scripture teaches that the Christ would crush Satan, our enemy, the one who sought to overturn God's order.
Christ comes as the one who does bloody battle with the serpent and the dragon.
He is the one who rescues us from his grip.
But not only that, scripture teaches that the Messiah would come from the tribe of Judah.
There in Genesis, the scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet till Shiloh shall come, and unto him shall the gathering of its people be.
And that is what we see there.
And as we go to the New Testament and those genealogies of Jesus, Jesus was indeed a Judahite from the tribe of Judah.
And he is the one to whom the scepter comes to.
And of course, we all understand that the scepter is a symbol that bespeaks the idea of ruling and of authority.
And so on Christmas, Christ comes as King of kings and Lord of Lords to rule in the affairs of his people.
Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to take a quick pause right there.
We are being shared the Christmas message by Pastor Brett McAtee, and we'll give you his contact information as this hour continues here on TPC.
Don't go anywhere.
We'll be right back.
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Ladies and gentlemen, how special it is.
I'll say it one more time to be with you on Christmas Eve.
And I know it is hard to find a strong church these days led by a strong man of God.
If you cannot find an in-person fellowship, I would strongly encourage you to check out the church site of Pastor Brett McAtee, who is the husband of a wife without peer, the father of three children who walk as heroes in the land, a grandfather.
He has pastored Christ the King Reformed Church for over 20 years.
And you can find that at charlottereformed.org.
C-H-A-R-L-O-T-T-E, charlotte reformed.org.
I know members of this listening audience tune in to the online message every Sunday morning there.
And you would do good as well to do that, to minister to your soul.
And with that, Pastor Brett, back to you as you continue to share with us the Christmas story.
Thank you, James.
And Merry Christmas to all the listeners.
So far, we're just trying to set the table for the coming of Christ and looking at just a few of the highlights in the scripture that talks about this anticipated Christ, this anticipated Messiah was the Hebrew word they used.
This anticipated Christ who would come to deliver God's people from their mortal womb that was inflicted upon them.
And what we've learned so far is that this promised champion, Christ, this Messiah, is going to enter into bloody battle with the enemy.
And the enemy is going to bloody the champion on the heel.
And our champion is going to crush the enemy's head.
And we've learned that he's going to be royalty.
He's going to be bearing a scepter.
And we see that all the way through the scriptures, that Christ is the royal one.
He is of the tribe of Judah.
He's the lion of the tribe of Judah.
He is the descendant of King David, and he fills David's role.
And so that's the Messiah that they were looking for.
And as we continue, we also learn from the scriptures that the Christ they were looking for would be born of a virgin.
Isaiah says, Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel.
And of course, we know that Emmanuel translated means God with us.
And when we get to the New Testament, that's what we find on Christmas morning.
We find that the Holy Spirit-inspired writers inform us that Mary conceives of the Holy Spirit without knowing a man.
And this promised Christ is given the name Jesus, for he would save his people from their sins.
And it's important that we hold to the virgin birth.
So many want to dismiss it today or belittle it.
So many liberals want to cast it aside.
But the virgin birth is important because if Jesus is not born very God of very God, if he is just the descendant of Adam, then he has to pay for his own sins.
And he can't be our champion.
He can't rescue us from our sins.
And so the virgin birth is a key foundational point of the whole meaning of Christmas.
And there we find it in Matthew's gospel.
The angel comes to Mary and pronounces that she's going to give birth.
And Mary acquiesces humbly to that statement.
This is what Christmas screams.
It screams a champion who is very God of very God and very man of very man who has come and saved his people from their sins.
And man has no greater need than to be delivered from his sin problem.
Man apart from Christ spends all of his time looking to either get rid of his sin and to voice it on somebody else or to masochistically and sadistically lay it upon himself.
But with the coming of Christ, the sin problem is dealt with and man can be free of the sin and misery and guilt that all men bear who aren't in Christ.
And so we have in Jesus Christ a champion who's very God, a very God, and very man, a very man.
And he's come to save his people from their sins.
And this is the joy and the holly of Christmas.
This is the laughter and the merriment.
This inspires the worship of God during this Christmas season.
God has had compassion on unworthy sinners like myself and like all of his people and has provided a Christ to save his people from their sins.
But of course, there can be no good news in that unless we're first conversant with our sin, unless we first understand that we need a champion to deliver us.
Well, the scriptures go on to tell us about this Messiah.
The Messiah, the scriptures in the Old Testament tell us, would be born in Bethlehem.
But you, O Bethlehem, Epaphratha, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you, Bethlehem, shall come forth to me, the one to be a ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.
There again, we find this idea that the anticipated one who is going to be the champion that would deliver people from their sins is going to be a ruler.
We also learn that he is going to be born in Bethlehem.
And there's an interesting aspect to this.
We learn from Micah chapter 5, verse 2, that Christ, who is the bread of God come down from heaven, would be born in Bethlehem, which translated means the house of bread.
The Christ, who is the bread of God for the salvation of our souls, is born fittingly in the house of bread.
And so the very idea that he's born in Bethlehem is screaming to us that he is the bread of heaven that will be food for our souls.
Here we learn the Christ who we celebrate at Christmas.
We learn again he'd be a ruler, as we mentioned earlier.
And that is what we learn in the New Testament.
Christ is ruler over all the nations.
And all the nations at this Christmas season are duty bound to swear obedience and fealty to Christ.
And indeed, the day is coming when that will be the case.
All the nations will come to Christ.
All the nations will go to Mount Zion to learn the law of the Lord.
Further, the Old Testament scripture teaches us that our champion, the Christ, would be the Son of God.
This time from Isaiah, a well-known passage there.
The people who have walked in darkness have seen a great light.
And those who dwelt in the land of deep darkness, on them a light has shined.
You have multiplied the nation.
You've increased its joy.
They rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest.
As they are glad when they divide the spoil, for the yoke of his burden, the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian.
For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult, and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire.
For unto us a child is born, and unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, prince of peace.
Of the increase of his government and of peace there shall be no end.
And on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and uphold it with justice and with righteousness.
From this time forth and forevermore, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.
Isaiah chapter 9.
Here we have a promised change coming for the burdened people of God.
The passage describes them as living under the oppression of darkness.
But what will happen with the coming of the Messiah is they'll now live under the dawning of a great light.
And all this is metaphor for going from being downtrodden to being released, from being underneath the thumb of the usurper Satan to being released by our champion who overthrows Satan.
We have briefly described there in Isaiah of people who are transitioning from oppression to liberty.
The yoke of the enemy has been cast off, and the rod of the oppressor has been broken by our deliverer, that is the Christ who comes at Christmas.
In place of the enemy's yoke and rod comes the kind of joy and gladness associated with harvest and military victory.
And all of that is brought by the Messiah, the Lord Christ, and it's brought on Christmas.
In all of this, God has done something to make the tools of the enemy's warfare to be abolished.
There is the introduction of a child who will rule as king.
Throughout that passage, we see repeated this idea of light.
The people walking in darkness have seen a great light.
And we're reminded that light throughout the book of Isaiah, as well as all of scripture, is a metaphor for God's blessing and presence and revelation as unto his people.
So again, what is being promised here in the reversing of travail and oppression is the very presence of God.
And that is what we find when we turn to scripture.
The one who is to be born of Mary is the Holy One of God.
It is Emmanuel who has come to save and rescue his people from their sin.
We must not miss the idea of light in this Isaiah passage because when the utter fulfillment of this promise comes to pass at Christmas, and when this child arrives at Christmas, what we read of is light.
And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone about them, and they were sore afraid.
Ladies and gentlemen, Pastor Brett McAtee sharing the word of God from the Gospels in the New Testament.
We will continue to do that with Pastor Brett this Christmas Eve, right after this.
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It's not just the Midwest and Northeast hunkering down.
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Mary, did you know that your baby boy will one day walk on water?
Mary, did you know that your baby boy will save our sons and daughters?
Did you know that your baby boy has come to make you new?
This child that you delivered will soon deliver you.
Mary, did you know that you lived?
Absolutely one of the most beautiful Christmas songs, even though it's a relatively new song, a contemporary Christmas song.
Mary, did you know?
My daughter sang that in a recital a few days ago.
Always enjoyed that song.
If you get a chance, folks, especially this Christmas Eve night or tomorrow on Christmas, listen to each of the verses of that song.
What a powerful message.
And Christmas is that one time of year that we lay down our swords and allow ourselves to reflect on the beauty and the majesty of this spiritual season.
The battle will begin anew, of course, in the coming year, but tonight and tomorrow, especially, I encourage you to focus on the message that you're hearing tonight from Pastor Brett McAtee.
Remember that we're here to protect and preserve a culture and a faith that has given light to a dark world, and it's our duty to ensure that that flame is never extinguished.
If you want to read the biblical accounting of the Christmas story, you can find it in the book of Luke, the Gospel of Luke, chapter 2, verses 1 through 20.
We have reposted that at our website this week.
And you know, Pastor, they tell us that Christmas is irrelevant.
Christ is irrelevant.
It's not true.
And we're all just one mass of humanity.
But the very measure by which we tell time is based upon his coming.
2022, the year 2022.
Well, what happened 2022 years ago there, roundabout?
What happened?
That's the message you're hearing Pastor Brett share tonight.
Pastor?
Amen.
Amen.
The West is the West because of Christ coming at Christmas.
And so we continue to consider that.
Isaiah talks about this light, and Christ can say himself that he is the light of the world.
And so, Christ is the fulfillment of all that was anticipated in the Old Testament.
And so, we see as we look through these Old Testament passages that Christmas was necessitated by Adam's sin and that God's Christ was promised and anticipated all the way through scripture.
We've only hit a few of the highlights.
Indeed, all of redemptive history in the Old Testament is what it is because Christ is being anticipated in His coming.
All the Old Testament screams and shouts the coming of Christ.
All the Old Testament should be read through the prism of Jesus Christ.
And then when we finally get to the New Testament, all of that anticipation is come to the fore, and all that anticipation of Christ who's come to deal with man's estrangement from and rebellion against God, we find that answer in Christ there in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.
And we find angels singing glory to the God in the highest, and Christmas has come.
And so, what it's considered just parts of this Christmas story in Luke, we learn the shepherds, and there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks by night.
It's possible that we're supposed to see a contrast here that Luke gives us between these lowly shepherds and the high and mighty that are mentioned in that same chapter.
There, in chapter two, we read in those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.
And this was the first census that took place while Quernius was governor of Syria.
So, here you see the potentates of the world are operating the gears of the world, but it's the lowly shepherds who are visited by God's angels to hear of Christ's birth announcement.
This kind of observation then would be consistent with what Mary has to say in her Magnificat: God has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts, God has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and He's lifted up the lowly.
So, here we see shepherds being lifted and the proud being brought down.
They're worried about taxes.
The shepherds get to see Emmanuel, God, with us.
We note about these shepherds that they're an odd bunch for God to be making the birth announcement regarding his coming son.
This is the kind of announcement the angels are giving that would have been given for the birth of royal children in palaces.
But instead, it's being made to shepherds.
And it's odd because shepherds were at the bottom of the social scale in that society.
Farrar, writing in 1893, wrote, Shepherds at this time were a despised class.
Strach and Billerbach, writing in 24, 1924, said the shepherds were despised people.
Stein wrote, In general, shepherds were dishonest and unclean according to the standards of the law.
They represented the outcasts and sinners for whom Jesus came.
Butler said shepherding had changed from a family business, as in David's time, to a despised occupation.
Finally, a chap named Utley said the rabbis considered them to be religious outcasts.
And yet it's to these that God entrusted the responsibility to hear the birth announcement and then go and serve as witnesses to this event.
Here, we, with the choosing of the shepherds to be his messengers, God chose the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God chose the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty, and the base things of the world, and the things which are despised, God chose, and the things which are not to bring to nothing the things that are.
Another thing about the shepherds is that some scholars, Edersheim, for example, believes it possible that the very flocks that those shepherds were watching when those angels showed up were the flocks from which the sacrifices would be chosen for the temple sacrifices.
If so, God brings glad tidings of great joy to shepherds who spent their time watching the sacrificial sheep.
And now they would have the opportunity to go and see the one who would be the lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world.
If that is indeed what is the case and that they were watching those sacrificial lambs, the power of that symbolism can't be missed.
We come next to the wise men and we consider them.
Of course, we get from tradition that there were three, but we don't know.
Scripture does not tell us there were three.
Tradition tells us their names were Melchior, Gaspar, and Balthazar.
And interesting enough, and I think appropriately so, it's said that they represented Europe and Arabia and Africa, respectively, thus emphasizing that the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ is for people from every tribe, tongue, and nation in their tribes, tongues, and nations.
The gospel goes forth indiscriminately.
The good news of Christ for sinners goes forth to all men of all tribes.
Indeed, Christianity especially is especially for the nations, as Israel refused to hear her Messiah.
And now we have these Magi that are bearing gifts.
And we'll look at the gifts in turn, but let's note that their very presence was anticipated by scripture.
Remember, Matthew is one of the more Hebraic of the synoptic gospels, and he returns repeatedly to the Old Testament.
And then he believed that Matthew is seeking in his gospel to reveal Christ as the faithful Israel as compared to faithless Israel.
As such, Matthew pays close attention to the Old Testament.
He records the coming of the Magi, and with that recording, Matthew may have had in mind Psalm 72.
Let the kings of Tarshus and the islands bring presents.
The kings of Sheba and Seba offer gifts.
And let all kings bow down before him, and all nations serve him.
So may he live, and may the gold of Sheba be given to him.
And let them pray for him continually.
Let them bless him all day long.
There are other passages that Matthew could have been appealing to.
In Isaiah 60, Matthew could have been hinting there with the wise men.
Nations will come to your light and kings to the brightness of your rising.
A multitude of camels will cover you.
The young camels of Midian, Epha, and all those from Sheba will come, and they will be gold and frankincense and will bear good news of the praise of the Lord.
So Matthew here is seeking to connect the prophecies of the Old Testament to their fulfillment in the coming of Christ in the New Testament.
This is something he does repeatedly in his gospel.
Sometimes Matthew does it explicitly.
Sometimes he does it implicitly.
Here are those whom we call the wise men.
The text refers to as Magi.
R.T. France in his commentary tells us that the Magi was originally the name of a Persian priestly caste.
But later this title was used widely for magicians and astrologers.
And the church understood the gifts brought by the wise men as having symbolic significance.
The three gifts, of course, you know, the gold and frankincense and myrrh.
The gold being a chief representation of value in the ancient world, it was used especially in the context of royalty, both among men and gods.
In the Old Testament, we find the Ark of the Covenant, for example, being overlaid with gold.
Also in Solomon's temple, we find it decked out with 3,000 tons of gold.
Gold, therefore, represented the royal and divine standing of the Messiah.
He was both very God, a very God, and king of kings.
And so gold is brought to him by the match I am laid before his feet.
When we come to the gift of frankincense, and we'll be looking at that at the top of the next segment.
One more segment with Pastor Brett McAtee on this, our very special Christmas Eve installment of TPC.
Be sure to check out Pastor Brett's work and his message.
You can tune in every Sunday morning at charlotte reformed.org.
We will be right back.
In message one, we said that Satan, the father of lies, John 8:44, gave the left evil spiritual power.
The more they use the lies, the political left today is the beast.
Now, the Bible confirms that the dragon gave him the beast his power.
Revelation 13, 2.
The extra evil spiritual power that comes from the beast by their lying is what accounts for the string of the leftist criminals in the government that have never yet been prosecuted.
It also explains why American capitalists support communism in the 21st century.
Note one, that behavior of capitalists was predicted by Vladimir Lenin, a sell of the beast.
Note two, Henry Ford was a capitalist and he would have never gone communist.
The difference between Ford and the present-day end-time capitalists is that Ford was born and educated in the kingdom of Christ, 19th century America, the New Jerusalem, Revelation 21.
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And heaven and nature see, and heaven and nature's king.
It gives you chills.
What a beautiful song.
What a beautiful message.
What a wonderful show tonight with Pastor Brett McAtee, Congressman Steve King, and a trio of fantastic ladies.
This is part of our program.
Yes, we're a political talk radio program.
We talk about the political, we talk about the cultural.
We also talk about the spiritual.
And without that, the rest of it doesn't stand up.
One of the most endearing images, the most endearing stories about the power of Christmas had to be the Christmas truce during World War I. Leading up to the holiday the week before Christmas, German and British soldiers crossed trenches to exchange Christmas greetings and gifts and to talk in areas.
Men from both sides ventured into no man's land on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to mingle and exchange food and souvenirs.
There were joint burial ceremonies and prisoner swaps.
While several meetings ended in carol singing, men played games of football with one another, giving one of the most enduring images of the truth.
That, Pastor Brett, is the power of Christmas and how it binds us, how it has saved Europe in the past, going back to Charles Martel and Jan Sovaeski.
We need to get back to that kind of Christianity.
Pastor, the final 10 minutes is yours.
Amen.
I'm sitting here being blessed by your intro.
It's funny that you should mention some of those things because they're actually in my notes if I ran out of time, but I don't think I'm going to.
But let it just be said before we enter again: it is Christianity, it is the realities of the truth of Christianity, the incarnation, the crucifixion, the resurrection, the ascension.
It is the reality of Christianity that makes the West the West.
And if the West departs from biblical Christianity, the West will no longer be the West.
It'll be hell instead.
Getting back to this wonderful Christmas account, we've been looking at these gifts and we're looking at this idea of the gold, and we talked about how it bespoke royalty.
We look at the gift of frankincense.
Frankincense is an aromatic white resin or gum used in incense, oils, and perfumes.
It's obtained from a particular type of tree in Arabia.
And that's why they thought that one of the kings could have well been from Arabia.
The way it's harvested from these trees is by making incisions in the bark and allowing for the gum to flow out.
It's highly fragrant when burned and was therefore used in worship services.
It was burned as a pleasant offering to God, we find in Exodus.
Then the Lord said to Moses, take for yourself spices, spices of pure frankincense, and there should be an equal part of each.
It is interesting that this incense made with frankincense was to be used only in worship.
Anybody caught wearing it would be cut off from the people.
And here we may find at the very beginning the hint of the fact that Christ himself would be our pleasant offering to God as our burnt offering sacrifice.
He is our frankincense before God.
He is the offering that allows us to no longer be wearing our sin, as he's the one who wears our sin in our place so that we can have peace with God.
And so frankincense perhaps bespeaks this idea of Christ as our sacrifice.
The gift of myrrh there at Christmas by the wise men represented the humanity of Jesus by suggesting his mortality.
Myrrh was also a product of Arabia.
It was obtained from a tree in the same manner as the frankincense.
It was a spice and was used, get this, was used in embalming.
It was sometimes mingled with wine to form an article of drink.
And such a drink was probably given to our Savior when he was about to be crucified as a stupefying potion.
There it's referred to as gall.
Myrrh then symbolizes bitterness, suffering, and affliction.
And the baby Jesus would grow and suffer greatly as a man, would pay the ultimate price when he gave his life on the cross for all who would believe in him.
Taken all together, it's interesting what's going on here that whereas in the Old Testament, the examples are of faithful Israelites being proven superior to proving superior to foreign wise men.
Here instead is the foreign wise men who are superior to faithless Israel, thus again hinting at the eventual unfolding of the gospel where national Israel is displaced by the Gentile church as God's people.
And we are God's people.
The church is God's people.
And the church words found in the nations, in their nations, represent the people of God.
And so this Christmas, we're reminded of this reality that Christ came. to save his people from their sin.
And he saves us nation by nation in our sins, just as he said in the great commission to go bring the gospel message to the nations.
And the Christmas story is the beginning of that reality.
It's Christ becoming incarnate, being very God of very God, as I've said repeatedly, very man of very man, so that he could bear the sins of his people.
He would become the Lamb of God.
He would become the one who takes away our sin.
And all I can say with as much earnestness as I can find within me is those of you out there who don't know Christ or see him as just another religious figure, all I can do is beg of you to return to the scriptures, find somebody who can explain to you the necessity for Christ.
Be done with your rebellion against God and the insistence that you have on all of realities circling around you and find yourself bowing to this Christ during this Christmas season.
Don't be like Herod there in that story of the Christmas events.
Herod, of course, was the pretender king.
He was not even a Hebrew, but he was instead of an Enomite pretender king.
He hated the idea of the true king replacing him, that he killed the infants.
He killed God's people going for the Christ who would displace him.
And that is what man does today in his sin.
He seeks to overturn anybody who would get in the way of his own sovereign autonomous rule.
Every man outside of Christ is his own Herod, so to speak.
He wants everything to serve him, and he'll not serve and bow the knee to the Christ.
We go on and we look at the Christmas story.
We consider Mary's Magnificat, that beautiful song where she sings, my soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior.
For he has regarded the lowly state of his maidservant.
For behold, henceforth, all generations will call me blessed.
It's interesting in Genesis, it's Eve who's the main actor of the epical event named the fall.
But in God's recreation, that is redemption, the second Eve, that is Mary, is front and center.
And so Mary in this Christmas event is the antithesis of Eve.
Mary bows to God's word, where Eve questioned God's word.
Eve bears sin into God's garden temple, while Mary is the Christ-bearer, the Christoticus, and God's work to remake his garden temple.
Eve's actions lead to curse for all who belong to Adam, while Mary's actions lead to blessings for all who belong to the second Adam, the last Adam, the Christ.
The first Eve was taken out of the first Adam and was the source of life for all Adam's seed.
The second Adam is taken from the second Eve and is a source of life for all his people.
It's also interesting as we examine Mary's song that's called the Magnificant, that Mary understands that all that is happening is the fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham.
Hence, we see that there is a covenant continuity between the Old Testament, Genesis 12 and 15 and 17, and what is happening to and through Mary.
Mary, like Zachariah, does not see continuity between the old covenant promise and the new covenant fulfillment.
Finally, a brief word regarding Mary herself.
Protestants typically don't do the same thing and for good reason.
Still, Mary should be esteemed no differently than any other of the saints in scripture.
Unlike the Roman Catholics, she's no co-redemptics.
We should not be believing and praying to Mary or any other saint.
That would be sin.
But we should respect and honor Mary, for her faith is perfectly fitting and proper.
Because of her faith, it's perfectly fitting and proper to honor her.
And she is honored in that song that James mentioned, Mary, did you know?
And we should have an honor and respect for Mary, but we shouldn't lift it up to the idea of worship.
It's interesting that most scholars believe that it's very likely that Mary was very young when all of this happened.
And it must have been quite a studying contrast between the old, older woman, Elizabeth, being much older and Mary.
And so God takes this child, 14 perhaps years old, who has never known a man.
And the contrast, he takes a dried up prune who's past childbearing age, and he takes the things that are not, and he makes them to bear the greatest prophet, the old covenant, and the Messiah who gives life to the world.
And so God does these incredible miracles.
He brings a child forth from a womb that's no longer bearing children.
And then he brings the Savior from a child who's never known a man.
All to the end and purpose that God might save his people.
And from that idea of God saving his people, building up great civilizations and great nations, building Christendom so that men would know what it means to walk in harmony of interest and serve together their creator God.
And so Christmas is a beautiful time of year that bespeaks all of these realities.
So many more that we haven't gotten to.
Christmas is, along with Good Friday and Ascension and Resurrection and Trinity Sunday.
Christmas is a time of year of joy and hilarity and laughter.
It's a time of fellowship and family because in Christmas, we find the reason for being free, the reason that we no longer are in bondage to the wickedness that is now coming back to us because we've abandoned the meaning of Christmas and all of the import thereof.
And so as God's people in the West, it's my fervent prayer.
It is my preaching.
It is my time spent among God's people, pointing them to Christ, who is their own individual personal deliverance, but also the only one who can build a social order wherein men can have peace with God.
Pastor Brett McAtee, I want to wish you again, brother, Merry Christmas.
Thank you so much for ministering to the audience tonight by sharing this most important of stories with us and giving us the biblical and gospel accounting of it.
I know my heart was stirred.
And ladies and gentlemen, if you need a strong man of God to lead you, charlottreformed.org.
You can tune in online every Sunday morning and hear the word of God through Pastor Brett.
And Pastor, Merry Christmas again.
We can't wait to have you back on.
Always a privilege, always an honor.
Thank you so much.
Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas to you all, ladies and gentlemen.
We will be back, Keith Alexander and I, next week on New Year's Eve for the ladies who were with us this evening for Congressman Steve King and for Pastor Brett McAfee.
I am James Edwards wishing you a Merry Christmas tomorrow.