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Good Friday morning to you my ‘Walking with Jesus” friends,
In America, this week has been one of COVID-19 euphoria, as distribution of the vaccine and injection of front line workers and the elderly, has begun all across the country. No matter your political persuasion, ‘Operation Warp Speed’ has been nearly miraculous as the COVID virus has been diligently studied, and then vaccines have been developed, tested, mass produced and now are being distributed in only a few short months. We truly live at an amazing time in world history my friends! For many, maybe millions of people this will be an unforgettable Christmas.
But I have a question for all of us to consider. One week from today is CHRISTMAS DAY!! When you compare the excitement and expectations related to this Coronavirus vaccine, with the response to Jesus Christ this Christmas season, what do you see?
Now consider this: Every person who receives the Coronavirus vaccine will die . . . eventually. This vaccine may provide some immunity to Coronavirus COVID-19, but it does nothing for the fact that every living person will eventually die, and at that moment they step into a living eternity. These vaccines may help us for a while, but they do nothing, absolutely nothing to affect our eternity. Only Jesus can help with that, and Christmas is the celebration of Jesus’ miraculous arrival on planet earth. (John 3:16)
May I challenge you to consider one more thing my friends... even with all the effort to develop, produce, and ship the vaccine to your town, the Coronavirus vaccine only has potential value for you if you actually roll up your sleeve and receive the injection, right? You might be grateful to those who have worked so hard to develop it and mass produce it and distribute it and even those who receive the training to safely inject you. And you may be excited for reports of what this vaccine promises as preventing the Coronavirus in people, but until YOU actually receive the injection, it is worthless to you! Am I right? (Acts 4:12; John 5:24; John 3:17-19)
Now think about Jesus Christ and God’s Redemption plan, the Gospel, in the same way. Many people this Christmas will sing the carols, bake and distribute Christmas cookies, purchase and give Christmas gifts, and some will even read the Christmas story in the Bible, but most people will not allow the Jesus of Christmas into their hearts. They will not believe in Jesus’ truths or trust Him with their eternity. Just like the unused vaccine sitting in the freezer, the incarnation, life, death and resurrection of Jesus is worthless unless you receive Jesus and trust Him to do His life saving work in your life! Do you agree?
I wonder what God is thinking as He watches the euphoria about these vaccines, and the long lines of people with their sleeves rolled up almost clamoring to receive the injection. But at the same time, what high percentage of those very people have NO interest in the eternal difference Jesus Christ is ready to make in their lives, and they will eventually die in their sin and go to a Christless, dark eternity, having received the Coronavirus vaccine with great joy, but having said “NO” to God and His offer of Jesus! What do you think about that my friends? (John 3:36; Hebrews 9:27)
Over the past few days I’ve been leading you to consider how far God went to make sure His rebellious, hard hearted, people were able to keep hearing about how much God loved them and kept inviting them to come to HIM, even as they kept refusing. Mr. Jeremiah, you’ll remember, was one of God’s main spokesmen in Jerusalem for about 40 years, as the spiritually terminally ill people kept refusing God’s offer of help. Finally in 586bc, Nebuchadnezzar’s great army demolished that wonderful city and burned the Temple of God to the ground, taking out of both Jerusalem and the Temple everything of value and most all the healthy people, as captives. The ill, the poor and the elderly were left, along with Jeremiah, to live in the rubble of Jerusalem. Everyone else was led down the road in a long line of hard hearted captives, walking 500 miles to Babylon. As they left, only the youngest of them would ever return. Most of them would die in captivity. But God still loved them, and would not abandon His people!!
11 years before that final destruction of Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar had ransacked Jerusalem for a second time, in 597bc. This time among the captives his army took from Jerusalem was another of God’s prophets. His name was Ezekiel. Thus Ezekiel and Daniel had both been taken from Jerusalem to Babylon as captives, but God’s plan was not that they die in captivity, but rather that both would be well established in Babylon when the flood of Jewish captives began coming from Jerusalem.
Two amazing men of God strategically positioned by God. Ezekiel, a spokesman of God to the Jewish captives, and Daniel a spokesman of God to the emperor and his leadership officials. Do you see how much effort God made to be sure His people, whether still in smoldering Jerusalem, or in Babylonian captivity, would continue hearing God’s messages of truth and hope? Do you see that’s the great message of the New Testament as well? And it’s what God is doing in our day!
You’ll notice that we have 52 chapters of Jeremiah’s messages from God in our Bible, and 48 chapters from Ezekiel! Do the math. That’s 100 chapters of God’s words spoken to God’s people even though they had little to no interest in hearing anything from God. So, how much effort has God gone to in 2020 to be sure people all around the world know of Jesus and His truth and the hope for life here and now, but also the hope for eternity, that is found ONLY in Jesus and His Gospel? Guess what? If you have trusted Jesus to be your Savior, no matter where you live, or your age or education, or your ethnicity or gender… you are just like Jeremiah, Ezekiel or Daniel. Wherever we live, you and I are strategically placed among people who desperately need what ONLY Jesus can give them, far more than they need the Coronavirus vaccine!
47 years after that final destruction of Jerusalem by king Nebuchadnezzar, there was a great festival being held in the great city of Babylon, the capital of the empire. King Belshazzar was the reigning emperor. Daniel was an eye witness of that fateful day and he recounts the story for us in Daniel 5. “King Belshazzar gave a great banquet for 1000 of his officials… While he was drinking his royal wine he gave orders to bring in the gold and silver goblets which king Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the great Temple in Jerusalem… So they brought in the goblets… and the king and his nobles drank from them. Suddenly the finger of a hand appeared in the air and wrote on the wall. The king watched as the hand wrote and his face turned pale. He was so frightened that his legs became weak and his knees were knocking.” (Daniel 5:1-6)
This is one of those unbelievable moments in history which I wish I could have witnessed! If you’ll read Daniel 5 you’ll see in their panic the leaders quickly called for magicians or anyone who might interpret the message written on the wall. No one could, but king Belteshazzar’s mother hearing all the commotion came into the banquet hall and as the queen mother she assured her frightened son the king, that she knew of a man who could help. She described Daniel as “There is a man in your kingdom in whom is the spirit of holy God. In the time of your father he was found to have insight, intelligence and wisdom like that of the gods…call for Daniel and he will tell you what the inscription means.” (Daniel 5:10-12)
At this unusual Christmas season my friends, as people search for those who have understanding and can speak the wisdom of God into our global confusion, are you one who can help? Do you know Jesus well my friends? Do you have the Holy Spirit of God alive and active in your life? Does the Word of God, the Bible, come alive to you by the power of the Holy Spirit? Oh my friends, every nation in the world needs men and women like Daniel in 2020!
As you’ll see, king Belshazzar did summon Daniel, and Daniel was inspired by the Holy Spirit of God to read and explain the writing on the wall. His explanation was shocking. In summary, Daniel courageously said to the king, “You king Belshazzar have not humbled yourself even though you have heard of the stories of the God of Israel and the kings of Babylon who have preceded you. You have praised the gods of wood, stone, gold and silver… but you did not honor the God who holds your life in His hands. Therefore God has sent this hand that wrote this inscription:
MENE: God has numbered the days of your reign and brought them to an end.
TEKEL: You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting
PERES: Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.” (Daniel 5:22-28)
And my friends, that very night, (Daniel 5:30) Babylon was attacked by the army of the Medes and Persians. King Belshazzar was killed and king Cyrus of the Persian Empire took over. A short few months later, it was Daniel who explained to king Cyrus about Jeremiah’s prophecy found in Jeremiah 29:10-14, and king Cyrus issued the famous, miraculous decree (Ezra 1) that any Jewish captive in his entire kingdom was free to return to Jerusalem and begin rebuilding the city and especially the Temple of God!
While neither Daniel nor Ezekiel ever had the opportunity to return to see Jerusalem or the Temple rebuilt, it was that second temple, which is the one 500 years later into which Joseph and Mary carried little baby Jesus for His dedication (Luke 2:22-40). You’ll remember they were met by old Simeon and Anna, both of whom had long anticipated the day the promised Messiah would come into that temple! Dr. Luke tells us they were both students of God’s Word and I’m confident had read the writings of Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel which is why Simeon raised up his arms holding that little infant Jesus and with tears streaming down his face in that Temple prayed “Sovereign LORD, as You have promised, You may now dismiss Your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen Your salvation, which You have prepared in the sight of all the nations: a light for revelation to the Gentiles, the glory of Your people Israel.” (Luke 2:28-32)
Oh my dear friends, let’s join Simeon in thanking God that Jesus and His Gospel offers to every person in our world far more than any Coronavirus vaccine. Jesus offers forgiveness for sin, restoration of our relationship with Holy God, assurance of the Holy Spirit alive within us, and absolute immortality… death is only departure from earth to heaven and eternity alive with Jesus! We echo the words of the angels, “Glory to God in the Highest and on earth PEACE to those on whom His favor rests” (Luke 2:14)
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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