92 101 Platitudes

In this lecture, I'm going to talk a little bit about the importance of the word of God and the importance of the word of God in the history of the world. I'm going to talk a little bit about the importance of the word of God and the importance of the word of God in the history of the world. When King Herod was born in Bethlehem in Judea during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, Where is the one who has been born King of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.

When King Herod heard this, he was disturbed and all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the peoples, chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christ was to be born. In Bethlehem in Judea, they replied, For this is what the prophet has written.

But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah. For out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel. Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared.

He sent them to Bethlehem and said, Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him. After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them, until it stopped over the place where the child was.

When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshipped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh.

And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route. When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. Get up, he said, take the child and his mother, and escape to Egypt.

Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him. So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet, Out of Egypt I have called my son.

When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious and gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity, who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled. Voices heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted because they are no more.

After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel. For those who were trying to take the child's life are dead. So he got up and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel.

But when he heard that Archelios was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets.

He will be called a Nazarene. So reads God's holy inspired word. The promise showed their wildest dreams had simply not been wild enough.

The promise was love and the promise was life. The promise sent light to the world. Living proof that Yahweh said, for the name of the promise was Jesus.

Frozen one saw time was full and the ancient pledge was honored. So God the Son, the incarnate One, His final word, His own Son, was born in Bethlehem but came into our hearts to live. What more could God have given? Tell me, what more did He have to give? The promise was love and the promise was life.

The promise sent light to the world. Living proof that Yahweh said, for the name of the promise was Jesus. The promise was love and the promise was life.

The promise sent light to the world. Living proof that Yahweh said, for the name of the promise was Jesus. Living proof that Yahweh said, for the name of the promise was Jesus.

I was talking to my friend Amy yesterday. We often talk. She sort of keeps me up to date with the theology of her father.

I mean, at three and a half years of age, she obviously has an interest in the way that his millennialism is going. And she doesn't actually think that Maastricht, the treaty, was predicted in Daniel. Well, I'm actually joking apart, talking to young Amy Saunders yesterday.

You see, the children have come together to rehearse what we've enjoyed this morning. She got a mask on her face and we didn't really have a very intelligent conversation, to be quite frank. Because every time I spoke to her, she gave a sort of roar.

Well, you would expect it. The mask was either of a tiger or a lion. I couldn't quite make it out.

And she was having a whale of a time. After all, isn't it a good thing to pitch up to a carol service, practice, have a herald angels sing, yah, a roar. You know how children are.

Such lovely children we have here in the tab. And we thank God for them. For their simplicity.

But joking aside, my little friend Amy was actually teaching me, because she was wearing a mask, that that actually is what a lot of people are doing right now. At Christmas. We do tend to wear masks.

It was quite interesting. Over in the marketplace, where actually those of you who may have heard the BBC interview took place yesterday, though Broadcast had done their religious program today. In the marketplace, we were able, those who were present, to give out literally, I would think, hundreds of tracts.

And I never recall an occasion when distributing tracts was so easy. People just did not pass by. There were a bunch singing carols between two stalls.

And the Christmas spirit, quote unquote, was around. And you only had to say, Merry Christmas, and give them a tract and an invitation, actually, as they discovered, to the church here. But even more importantly, an explanation of the gospel.

And virtually everybody took them. That's not generally the case. Evangelism is not easy here in Worthing.

But it was a Christmas spirit. You see, they'd heard the carols, and there is a sense in which we all identify, it's almost a cultural thing in the United Kingdom, we identify with Christmas. I mean, you go down to McDonald's, as our pastoral team does every Tuesday morning, and they're playing carols, good theological stuff.

Oh, that Ronald McDonald's outfit was dedicated not only to pushing out Big Macs, but also the big message of the Lord Jesus. But don't be, in any way, fooled by the singing of the carols. In one sense, it's tragic that the cosmetic of Christmas actually does embrace the religious element, and it's just left at that cosmetic level.

That's why I call the brief address, hopefully, that I want to bring this morning, platitudes. Because platitude really has something to do with banality. A commonplace remark, solemnly delivered.

That's what the Concise Oxford Dictionary was saying last night when I checked it out. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.

Platitude. There are stronger words. Solemnly delivered, commonplace remark.

These men who sought out the company of Herod, they can be forgiven for being sidetracked to Jerusalem. In fact, it would have been within the purposes of God for them so to go. They were seeking for a king, and there had been a vacancy for a few hundred years in terms of a king of the Jews.

Don't be fooled. Herod wasn't really the king of the Jews. They called him great.

Why they called him great, I don't know. He was anything but great. He was infamous.

He was a half-breed. A man who had suspicion as one of his greatest defects. He butchered his wife, never forgave himself for that.

Probably the only person that he ever loved. Then killed a couple of his children because he couldn't brook any rivals. And the idea of someone coming along and suggesting that there could be a king of the Jews, well, that was rather difficult for him to stomach.

But you can forgive the Magi. After all, we don't really know who the Magi were. The possibility is that they knew very little about the political climate of Israel at that time.

And so, seeking out someone who they believed to be a royal person who has been born into the world, it was reasonable and logical for them to make their way to Jerusalem, well known as the city of the great king. Knocking on the doors is not easy in Worthing. You know, one of the reasons why I sometimes perhaps come back in a spirit of enthusiasm when I've been abroad is because evangelism is so much easier abroad.

It really is. You go to the Soviet Union, go to Eastern Europe, go to Southeast Asia, go to Africa, it's much more easy to talk about Jesus. But Worthing, wow.

Probably no different from the rest of the UK, but it's so hard. And so we're always so very grateful to Tim and to Eric and those who head up our evangelism and we do try to make contacts with people in the locality here. Not because we want to build up a mega church, a mega congregation, we're not really concerned about the tab as an entity in itself.

We are concerned about the kingdom of God. And there's nothing more encouraging when you knock on someone's door and take a contact which is really cold and discover that they've got an interest. Now here are these wise men and they knock on the door of the palace, at least they somehow get into Herod's company.

And it seems really as though they're gonna have a ball because, well, the Old Testament equivalent of the Gideons have been around. And when Herod hears about someone born king, well, he gets his colleagues together and they dip into the Old Testament scriptures and they thumb through the pages and they come to one of the minor prophets with a major message and determine that the birthplace of this king will be Bethlehem. And one can almost imagine the joy on the faces of these wise men.

They've received such a warm welcome. They haven't been in Herod's company very long and he's into the scriptures and it seems as though this man shares a similar interest to themselves. As it seemed as though some of the hundreds who went in the marketplace yesterday shared a similar interest to those of us who were singing carols.

Not that they stood around in great numbers but the very warmth with which they took our material indicated that, well, culturally, the Christmas message is in but only understood at a certain level and perhaps not at a biblical level. Platitudes. Herod had got a deceptive heart and he managed to make a pass at these men who really didn't understand what made him tick.

They made the wrong conclusions. And they had every reason to be mistaken at this point because after he's had a meeting of the Gideon equivalents, he calls the magi secretly. Here is, if you like, number one, the summons.

Then call the magi secretly. Could Herod be a sort of forerunner of Nicodemus who came to our beloved Lord by night and who too wanted to speak about religion privately? Not only does he come secretly but he comes to them and he speaks specifically. Herod called the magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared.

You see, there is reason to suggest that the happenings in Bethlehem's manger were not a whisper of the will. They were not some sort of accident of history. There is a timetable that's been worked to.

I mean, that's what the Bible does say about Bethlehem. God's son was conceived and born of the seed of a woman in due time. The right moment.

Jesus came into the world when Greek philosophy had proven itself to be absolutely threadbare and when the Roman Empire had taken over and built into the infrastructure of society in those days a communication system which was second to none that had ever forerun it. So, if God has got a message to proclaim to the world in history then maybe such a time as this would be the best. When philosophy has shown that it is bankrupt and when communication is easy and there is a lingua franca that means there is a common language that people are speaking the Greek language or the Koine language which is a derivative of the Greek classical language.

What time, the exact time, has the star appeared? Herod is concerned to get this into a historical perspective as you and I, if we're to be wise at all today, ought to be. So there was a summons. He came to them in secret.

He spoke to them about specific things. And then there was a command. You see this man who seems to be so interested but as I say, I've disclosed the psychology of his heart it's full of platitudes, he's a deceptive creature but the Magi are not to know this so he makes a request, he makes a command he gives them a command and he says, as he directs them to Bethlehem, go and the implication is immediately and make a careful search.

Their departure is prompt. When the shepherds likewise were informed about the birth of our Lord Jesus immediately they decided to go to Bethlehem. Now look, when first you are told about the good news of Christianity it is so important that everything else should slip into a secondary position.

Do this immediately. Why? Well, because there is nothing in life which vies for the position that God should have. One of the problems I've got with Christmas as I was expressing it at our elders' prayer meeting and our half night of prayer on Friday is the inability of people to distinguish between what is the important and the utterly unimportant and trivial.

And the possibility is that within the trivial there can be a sort of religious connotation as well because the average person in the UK does not back off in terms of singing carols. And the possibility of coming to a service such as this which also gives me a sense of fear as well is that some of you have come along because the children took part and we're glad that they did. We put a premium on children.

Don't misunderstand me at all. We love children. But the message of Christmas is not just for the kids.

The tinsel and the holly and the party and the merrymaking that's a valid expression of a biblical Christmas spirit but that's where it tends to stop. And actually the first Christmas wasn't quite so sentimental and it wasn't quite so happy. There is the underbelly of Christmas.

Herod is like the Croatian-Serbian conflict all encapsulated into one personality. Mary as a woman with child I do prefer that word to pregnant. It hits the abortionist lobby where they don't like it.

Mary was with child as she staggered towards Bethlehem. It's a woman who still aches of child pain who goes on the donkey into Egypt. It's the refugee camp.

It's Bihar refugee camp in Dhaka once again. It's the Jetsam and Flotsam of Nairobi again. Oh God give me eyes to understand that you are telling us that the nativity of Christ although a wonderful thing in one sense also shows the bankruptcy of humanity and the hostile way in which the sons of Adam sometimes treat one another.

And help us to understand dear God that what you want is a corrective applied to our lives as individuals and applied to societies as a whole. You see my problem I stand two ways as far as Christmas is concerned. I love it and yet I recoil from it because the prostitution of the message is too painful because the message itself is too important to be prostituted.

Go immediately. Search thoroughly. The incredible thing is that God can take the words of an evil man and use those words to enhance his truth and in one sense the evangelistic directive of Herod couldn't have been better expressed.

Immediate and prompt. They're synonyms. Carefully, meticulously, they're synonyms.

You do this. Go to Bethlehem now. Don't wait.

It's not such a big place. House to house. They're not as austere as insular as the English will be in the 20th century.

They'll listen to what you have to say. If something as spellbounding as you suggest has happened then Bethlehem will know and you will be successful in your search. And the man prophesies.

He's not saturated in scripture although I jest about the Gideons not the work of the Gideons, God forbid, that's a good work. But the idea of men coming together and pouring through the Old Testament. The reason why they did this was Herod was fairly clueless.

He's not a proper Jew. But the Old Testament says if you seek me you will find me. If you search me with all your heart.

And there never was a child born of Mary. There never was a child born of Adam. There never was a man, a woman in the human family who is in such a condition he cannot discover truth because God has said if you search with all your heart you'll find me.

But he wants you to put that search in a primary position in terms of your job responsibilities. Search carefully. Search meticulously.

So there is this summons, there is this command and then there's a soft request that's accompanied to the command. As soon as you find him. Incidentally, just pause there because there's no doubt as far as Herod is concerned that they will find him.

And just to pick up on a point that needs to be re-emphasized there is no uncertainty in my heart whatsoever are you listening? That if you really want to search you will find I repeat there is no son of Adam no daughter of Adam who desires to find the Christ be he born, she born in India or in Ireland who cannot find him. God longs to be discovered. We had a Sudanese pastor in London Bible College when I was a student and he would often preach about pray in terms of God you're always previous.

I never thought of that before but it is so. God is always on the lookout. You see the heavenly father he is the prodigal coming back to the home you remember? And the father he does denote the heavenly father.

He's halfway down the hill before the son ever gets to his native village. God is always previous. God is always anticipatory.

The slightest flicker of your eyelid in terms of interest towards this God and he picks it up because it is not God's will that any should perish. He wants men and women all men and women the Gentile community on block the Jewish community on block to be saved. God has one son and he designates him as a missionary for what reason? To improve men and women to improve the stock of humanity.

As soon as you find him come and tell me. We had problems with one fellow in the market yesterday. He didn't think that these born again people should be let loose there.

He was a church goer actually. The BBC were much more complimentary. Why go and sing carols in a marketplace? Why try and saturate Worthing with literature? Not our church here but the whole body of Christ.

Well the reason is that if you do discover him and he is who he says he is and we have found this to be the case then obviously you want to tell other people. So again Herod almost speaks prophetically. As soon as you find him report to me so that I may benefit by what you have to say.

So that I may come and worship him. Well that was the reason and that's where the platitude becomes hypocrisy. You see Herod doesn't want to worship Jesus.

Herod wants to annihilate the Lord Jesus and that's another part of the underbelly of the story that is not so prominent in all the festive merrymaking of this time of the year. Ethnic cleansing isn't that an obscene expression? To cleanse a society of those who don't have the same physical features as you have. Ethnic cleansing has been the attempts of men and women often illustrated alas in the sad story of humanity down the time down history.

When Herod's true colours are revealed to the wise men in terms of a vision that's given to them telling them not to go to Herod but to go back a different way from the one that they came then Herod realizing he's been outwitted by these magi he comes to the full colours that basically were his in the first instance. He was furious and gave orders to kill all the boys and the fulfillment therefore of the prophecy of Jeremiah occurs of voices heard in Ramah weeping in great mourning Rachel weeping for her children refusing to be comforted because they are no more. My dear friends I'm not suggesting that there's anyone here with a Herod heart but I am suggesting that at one level there are maybe here who have platitude as a sort of real description to their reaction to the Christmas message.

Yes, you like Christmas but don't let these born again people make it too personal. The fact of the matter is that the pulpit is in a state of utter disgrace when it doesn't make Christmas personal because, well it was for a personal reason that Jesus the Lord came into the world. He was born King King of the universe.

You see, I preach that which I do not fully understand. I believe in the most incredible event not just in the history of time but in the history of eternity. I believe that the God who breathed this world into existence who spoke and the world came to be encapsulated himself in a little infant.

This to me is mind blowing. He who built the starry skies is he within the manger lies. God contracted to a span incomprehensibly made man.

If that is right as millions of people believe then it is the most important thing for you to embrace and cause your life to be altered as a result of. C.H. Spurgeon he's got a colourful description of Herod when the Magi come. He has Herod just coming out of a pub half drunk half crazed.

He may well have been right because there was a psychological condition that only describes Herod. He was schizophrenic. How tragic it was to see this depraved man being given one of the secrets of the universe and then talking in a in the realm of platitudes about his interest and his his concerns to to respond to the message that Jesus is here.

Herod was called the great. What a travesty of language. I repeat I'm not suggesting that anyone here is like Herod in terms of his bestiality but I am suggesting that the spirit of Christmas can drug you and make you almost like Herod was if Spurgeon got it correct inebriated not thinking through the issues carefully enough.

Look and with this I close there is nothing more wonderful than the fact that God was born as a babe and that thirty-odd years later he would die on the cross. And the thing that caused God's son problems was the immediate recognition that kings had or wise men had of him and also the recognition that Pontius Pilate had. Where is he that is born king of the Jews? That created trouble for Jesus.

What will you have me to do then with Jesus king of the Jews? See the problem articulated by two different men Pilate and Herod or at least the Magi and both descriptions of Jesus caused him problem because you see Jesus at issue is his kingship he is the sovereign ruler of the universe. One day you will acknowledge that. One day everybody will acknowledge that.

They won't do it in the sense of platitudes they will say Jesus is king of king and lord of lords. But that will not be the time of universal salvation. It will be a time when the church goes on into eternity into the ever-blessed presence of God.

It will be the time when those hear me this is somber rejected Christmas and its message pass for all eternity into the abyss of darkness what the Bible calls hell. And that's the underbelly of the message. It doesn't come out very often in the carols you'll not hear it underlined in Ronald McDonald's or anywhere else.

But this is the issue you make him king of your life now one day he will be the king who in judgment will sentence you for not heeding his message of salvation and pardon here with your platitudes let your response to Christmas this year be a heartfelt bringing of your gold myrrh and frankincense acknowledging the kingship of Jesus. Let us pray. Father we thank you for our beloved Lord and we ask that many here may have made another commitment or a first commitment to the essentiality of the Christmas message.

Bless our time of merrymaking but help us to realize something of the seriousness and also something of the joy and the wonder of what God has done for us in the person of our beloved Lord Jesus. Amen. I'd like us to conclude by singing my favorite carol once in Royal David's City.

I've just lost the number if you get it shout it out please. 539 thank you. 539 again let's sing this vigorously but also let's sing it with a great deal of thought.

Jesus Christ is coming to town He came to his Lord and his shelter was a stable and his cradle was a stone With the poor and needy and lonely lay our Savior away On his wondrous shelter he would order and us a loving mother in whose breast the bombs be laid Christian children hold your grief find the reason through that sin Day by day the Lord is coming to town He came to his Lord and his shelter was a stable and his cradle was a stone With the poor and needy lay our Savior away On his wondrous shelter he would order Oh, that just, so dear and gentle, is our Lord in heav'n above. And He raises His children on when He is gone. We shall see Him until then, set our thoughts light and on high.

Let His children gather round, bright like stars with glory high. Father, take the masks away this Christmas. Help us to be real people and to respond from the depths of our hearts to all that You're endeavouring to do for us by the gracious workings of Your Spirit.

Again, we commit our little children to You. We thank You for each one of them. We commit every home to You.

We commit every single person to You and every bereaved person to You. May this be a happy Christmas. For the whole of our fellowship here, because central to this festive season is our beloved Lord Jesus Christ and all the people of God's end.

Amen. Thank you for coming. Good morning.

God bless you.