96 101 The Christmas Illumination

Father, we thank you for your grace, for the way you minister to us in so many ways, for the blessings of Christmas, for family and friends, for parties and games, for food and for clothing, for light and for warmth. So many heaped up blessings that all give plentiful evidence for us to know that our God loves us, our God has brought salvation into this world. Enable us by the lives that we live to show that our response to Christmas is not perfunctory.

Help us, Lord, to bring you a sacrifice too, especially the commitment of our will to the supreme will of God. Help us, Lord, as a family, as a church family. Listen to us now as we come to you in the words of the prayer which our Lord Jesus, when he became mature as a man, taught his disciples to say, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever.

Amen. In our earlier time around the Lord's table, we were making reference to the birth of our Lord Jesus and the fact that Joseph of Mary had no problems in giving him a name. 156 in Mission Praise speaks of the name of the Saviour.

There are several names which are found in the Old Testament and the New Testament that apply to him. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder. 156, maybe on the overhead too.

So those words actually plucked from a passage of the Old Testament into which we'll be looking in a moment, they tell about the rule of Jesus in the lives of people like so many of you who've confessed him as Lord and Saviour. They also predict the day when he shall return and when literally the government of this world shall be upon his shoulders. But until that point, when he comes in great glory, we can still know his presence now as those who've confessed him as Lord.

And that's what another title of Jesus says, 121, Immanuel, Immanuel. His name is called Immanuel. Listen to the preposition here, God with us, not God against us, not God above us, although obviously he is that, but God with us, God showing that he's prepared to seek out our company and make a relationship with him possible, revealed in us.

His name is called Immanuel. Sing it a couple of times. Isaiah in chapter 9 says this, Isaiah in chapter 9. Isaiah is a book in the Old Testament.

It's part of the Bible. It's a long prophecy. Prophecy means prediction.

It means, in other words, anticipating the future. One of the ways in which you can demonstrate the accuracy of the Bible, the authority of the Bible, is that some of its sections written hundreds of years before the New Testament are discovered to be spot on, absolutely accurate in what they have to say about events which are yet to be. Scripture has its own way of testifying to its authority.

And there are a cluster of prophecies that speak about the birth of Jesus Christ, which were literally fulfilled. Not exactly here, but in one of the prophets, the location Bethlehem is referred to as the place where Jesus will be born. And many other bits and pieces of information which could not have been just guessed out at the human level are supplied to the writers behind the prophetical books.

And when Jesus comes on earth, you see time and time again, if you read the writers of the Gospels, are saying that it might be fulfilled. Isaiah got it right. Jeremiah got it right.

Micah got it right. Time and time and time again. Well, here's a little bit of prophecy.

My old granny used to talk about reading tea leaves. Well, the prophets had more to go on than just tea leaves. They had the inspiration of God's Spirit, Isaiah 9. Nevertheless, there will be, see its future.

Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. Isaiah is writing at a time when the Assyrians, a hostile power, like say the Nazis were prior to the last world war and during the last world war, threatening the peace of Europe. So Assyria was threatening the peace of Palestine or Israel.

There will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past, he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali. But in the future, he will honor Galilee, the place where Jesus is born.

He will honor Galilee of the Gentiles by the way of the sea along the Jordan. Well, what will it be like when God will do this? The people walking in darkness have seen a great light. You see, he's come to the future now, to the fulfillment.

And here are the people basking in the blessings of fulfilled prophecy. The people walking in darkness have now seen a great light. On those living in the land of the shadow of death, a light has dawned.

You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy. They rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest, as men rejoice when dividing the plunder. For as in the day of Midian's defeat, you have shattered the yoke that burdens them, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor, every warrior's boot used in battle, and every garment rolled in blood will be destined for burning, will be fuel for the fire.

For to us, a child is born. To us, a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.

I want to talk to you about Christmas illuminations. When some years ago, I found myself in a place called Bihar, which is a vast state in India, probably housing there as many people as we have in England. At a family conference, I remember the great frustration that almost every session in the evening, at some point, the light would go out.

Now, it's not very easy when you're addressing people who've come, some of them from a long distance, and the light suddenly goes. You can't see them, they can't see you, you can't see your Bible, you can't read your notes. Now, it so happens that one of my friends, an Irishman who was living there, I was staying at his house, he'd come to grips with a problem.

And in his home, they never had any difficulty with the flickering or the failing of a light. You see, he used his Irish brains well, and he got some batteries. And when there was a surplus of electricity, they were stored in the batteries.

So when the lights went out and there was no voltage coming across the grid, automatically, his batteries were kicked into action. So though in the whole of that area, as far as I could see, there was no other light in his house, there was incessant light, unbroken light. I suppose in one sense, you could say that the reason why Jesus was to come on earth is so that continuous light, in terms of you knowing what life is about and where you're going, and the power of God being made available, that all this should result as a consequence of Jesus coming into the world.

Now there's a sense in which that's spiritual. But there's also a sense in the nativity where light literally does play quite an important part. I mean, the nativity scene itself, the shepherds, there they were looking after their flocks, and then suddenly their night is disturbed because they see tear upon tear of angels, but even more spectacularly, the whole area is flooded with light.

And then the shepherds, the magi, they come in from the east, and well, they have got a light to guide them, the light of the star. Now that's literal light that was physically seen by these different companies of people. But here is the prophet Isaiah, and he's speaking about Jesus coming into the world, and he's speaking spiritually more than literally.

And he's saying, there won't be any more gloom. Why? Because the people who were in that condition have seen a great light. Was it last year, or a year or four last, when we sold off what Harold Macmillan called the best of the nation's silver? You remember the saturite era where everyone was going to take their own shares on the stock exchange, and we're all going to get richer and richer.

And the wealth that was controlled by parliament would pass through to the people. So Sid came along, and he beguiled you into buying gas shares. And then finally, the electricity companies, they came up for grabs, and you could buy your own bit of national power or power gen or southern electricity.

You could all have an investment in the nation's light. Well, some of you didn't do too well out of it. But don't you see that there is a very real sense at Christmas in which the message of salvation, the message of the incarnation, actually intimates that there is an offer being made to you and to me, to connect into, to have part of, a share in the light which Jesus came into the world to bring.

Now, here in verse 2 of Isaiah 9, it says that the people who walked in darkness, they saw a great light. And it goes on to repeat it, a light has dawned on them. What does it mean for, at the spiritual or intellectual level, for the light to dawn? Forgive the repetition of an illustration, at least as far as some of you are concerned, I remember once giving, in a fairly low-key way, some evidence in the quarter sessions in Chichester, it was a court case.

And I was doing my best to convince the judge, who was a very Dickensian looking guy with, you know, specks hovering at the edge of his nose, it looked as though if he twitched they would fall off, that the man in the dark, though he was bad, he wasn't that bad, and that he had come to an understanding of salvation. But I put it in a very, very gentle way. I pussyfooted a little bit.

And it got the judge's ire. And he leaned over and he said, you mean he has seen the light? And that really caused a ripple of mirth amongst the barristers as I said, yes, your honor, I do mean he has seen the light. He has come to a recognition of who Jesus is and what Jesus has done for our world.

He has seen the light. And this prophecy in Isaiah anticipates a great deal of what will be said about Jesus if you read his story in the Gospels. 26 times in the Gospel of John, the idea of Jesus bringing light to the world is underscored.

And twice there are those declarations that fell from the lips of Jesus, I am the light of the world. I am the light of the world. Which enables me to say in terms of a proposition, God doesn't like darkness.

I don't like darkness. My early years were just at the tail end of the Second World War. And from that time, I have never liked absolute darkness.

I can still recall the air raid shelter with no light at all. The Bible says that God is light and in him there is no darkness. So right at the beginning of the world, right at the beginning of creation, what do you find the Bible saying? Well, speaking of God, God said let there be light and there was light.

And the whole of the universe was flooded with light. Now, not only is God responsible for the creation of the world, but at Bethlehem, God's there too is involved. And when the Gospels depict what happens, they say of the Lord Jesus Christ that he comes into the world as the true light who will give light to every man who will take reference from him and embrace what he has to say.

You see, darkness is the opposite of light. These Old Testament people, they had known darkness. The Assyrians had come down.

They controlled that part of Palestine for a long, long time. But God said it won't always be like that. I'll lift the yoke of the Assyrians, as he said in Europe, I will lift the yoke of the Nazis.

And the net result was a degree of political freedom. But at that point, God caused the Lord Jesus to come into the world and spiritually speaking, he brings light to those who embrace what he has to say. So God doesn't want you to be in the dark.

He wants everyone to know, everyone to come to knowledge of why Jesus is here. I mean, the Magi, they were wise men and they cogitated on the events they'd been reading in their lore in Iran or wherever it was that they came from about the birth one day of a remarkable individual, that birth being attested by a new light in the heavens. And as they make their way eventually to Bethlehem, in their minds they've been going through the phenomena that they've experienced thus far.

And when they come to the infant Christ, when they kneel at the manger, they indicate that they recognize he is more than just an ordinary baby. They've said as much to Herod, where is he that he's born? King of the Jews. And they bring to Jesus choice gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh.

You see, the light has dawned, the light of their understanding. The important thing was not the light of the star, it was that inner illumination. Their ignorance was to be dispelled.

And don't you see, there is no premium on ignorance today. God doesn't want you to be ignorant. God does not want us to be in the dark.

So what has God done? Well, retaining the electricity analogy. He has provided the generator. He has provided the generator.

Listen again to my text. The people walking in darkness have seen a great light. He doesn't say that they've made it.

So there is no way in which you can construct salvation yourself. There's no way in which you can plug into the light yourself. God takes the initiative.

And that's what happened at Bethlehem. Oh, I know it's an old and hackneyed story, but I'll try it again because it pins the point. Hong Kong football stadium.

It's night. And the match has been continuing for a while. And suddenly all the lights go out.

The tannoy, the public address is still working, but the lights go out. And there's a tremendous confusion. They've got some electricians.

The electricians try to sort everything out, but to no avail. And then from the Republic of China, there happens to be in that vast crowd, a man who has the audacity to suggest that he can resolve the problem. So the management said, well, anything to preserve the game.

What do we do? So the tannoy came his instructions that everyone in the crowd was to link hands with the next person, sort of charismatic fashion. And when the last person had completed the circuit, the light came on. And the electricians are absolutely gobsmacked.

How can you do what we can't do? And the China man said, well, it's very easy. Many hands make a lighty work. You see in Bethlehem, a child born, but there's more than one hand involved.

Overall, there is the hand of God. But at the human level, people have been involved down the centuries. As well at the divine level, the supernatural power of God.

When I was a kid, I used to go to Sunday school. And when I was at our Sunday school, you had to take an examination every year. And I guess I was around nine years of age when the set passage were the first 13 chapters of the book of Genesis.

Now, some of those chapters are not quite as interesting as others. I mean, they give you the descendants of Adam. And I didn't quite know what to make of this and wondered what sort of questions might come on these particular points.

So I did then what I couldn't do now. I memorized the genealogical chapter or chapters of Genesis. When you go to the Gospel of Matthew and you go to the Gospel of Luke, you find two chapters or parts of which are similar.

I'll come back to that in a moment. There's a man by the name of Alex Haley. Some years ago, he became quite famous.

He's an Afro-American. And he wanted to check how it was that his ancestors came to the United States. And he engaged in some research and he discovered that they originated from the west coast of Africa.

He goes to Africa, continues his research, and eventually he is able to locate his ancestry to a small village in West Africa. And his researchers gave birth to documentaries, which in turn gave birth to a book. The documentaries were known as roots.

And what he had done was he traced his roots. He traced his origin. And a lot of people became very interested at that point in genealogical tables and origins.

Here is a little life in Bethlehem's manger. There's more than one hand involved. Read the Gospel of Matthew, the first chapter, and you'll find that his genealogy, his roots go back to Abraham.

Read into Luke's Gospel and you'll find that his genealogy, his roots go back beyond Abraham to that of Adam. One of my wife Rowena's relatives in South Africa took a leaf out of the Afro-American researcher and she started to research the origins of their family history in Africa. Now in South Africa, just a few years ago, that's a very dangerous thing because you see South Africa has always boasted of the Afrikanerdom, the purity of the race.

And the Afrikaners have been in South Africa for a couple of hundred years. And sometimes not everybody played their marital relationship by the book. And there were occasions, and that's the reason why you get not only as a result of the Afrikaners but the early British settlers as well, there are occasions when there were cross relationships between the races that gave birth to the coloured community in the Cape.

And my cousin discovered that way back in the history of the family there was somebody who was black. And my poor old aunt, she was so upset at the thought and pleaded with her not to let anybody know that come a hundred years back there had been some racial mix in the family tree. Do you know in the family tree of Jesus there was a racial mix? You read the genealogies, the roots of Jesus.

There was an occasion when a woman who was not even a Jew was brought into the family tree. There was an occasion when a woman who did not live a proper moral life was brought into the family tree. Here lying in Bethlehem from the womb of Mary is someone who at the human level there is more than one hand involved as this child comes into the world to identify with man and woman in all his, in all her need.

And at the divine level what happened? Well the seed of the Holy Spirit was placed within the womb of Mary and in the unsurpassed language of the authorised version that holy thing conceived within Mary was to be God's own son. A virgin shall conceive and bear a son and his name shall be called wonderful counsellor, the mighty God and so forth. God providing the generator and at Bethlehem the human level there's more than one hand.

It's a complex but it's a wonderful story. God who does not want men and women to be in the dark. God provides a generator and brings into the world our Lord Jesus.

Human at one level, divine at another level and the benefits of his ministry they shall be worldwide. Oh he was a Jew. But you see here in Isaiah's prophecy reference is made not to the Jews.

In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali. Now they were part of Israel but the Jews never flushed out all the original tribes people. That's why Galilee becomes known as Galilee of the nations.

Historically Jew and Gentile have lived side by side. The nationalist Jews in Judea they didn't like it but they had to cope with the situation that in the northern territories there were Jews and Gentiles. Where was Jesus brought up? I didn't say where was he born, where was he brought up? He was brought up in Galilee with a mixed community of people and the prophet says that in Galilee of the Gentiles there God's light will begin to shine and there is incorporated into that prediction the idea that the benefits of the ministry of Jesus will be primarily for the Jew but not exclusively.

They will spill over. God wants to lighten the descendants of Abraham and to lighten, illuminate the descendants of Adam so that all men and women may benefit by what happened at Bethlehem and later at the cross. And you know that in the story of the ministry of our Lord Jesus he had this in mind.

When a Syrophoenician lady came to him to ask for help although Jesus seemed to be dismissive he actually agreed to what she had to say. Important because well she wasn't a Jew. Roman centurions they too were involved in the benefits of the ministry of Jesus.

Indeed it was a centurion who said of Jesus when he was on the cross surely this was a son of God or one of the sons of God. You see he comes as a light, a light to the Jews, a light to the Gentiles. This is the Christmas illumination.

The flood of light will be worldwide. But with this I conclude. The light is savagely attacked.

Men prefer darkness rather than light says our blessed Lord in John's gospel or the comment that the evangelist makes about his ministry. In God there is no darkness but men they prefer the shadows. They prefer to be in the recesses where they believe the eye of God cannot see them.

Men prefer darkness rather than light. The French actually gave us the word sabotage. It comes from the French sabot which is the French for shoe.

And if you wanted to sabotage machinery when in its primitive stage it was being constructed last century you took your shoe off as a workman and you chucked it into the machine and thus you get the word sabotage. Don't you see when the generation or the generator, our Lord Jesus came into the world the sabotage, the attempts were already being commenced. Here is Herod.

He wants the genocide of every child under two. Why? Well because at the human level he's concerned, you know, the king of the Jews. He is the king of the Jews.

He can't brook any competitor at all. But behind Herod there is the malevolent even more sinister forces of the devil wanting to stop the generator from springing into action, wanting to prevent the light of glorious gospel of Jesus Christ flooding Israel, flooding the world. And throughout the whole of his life our Lord is on a collision course with the forces of evil trying to snuff out the light.

But he prevails. He withstands the opposition. And even when he is on the cross, even there the purposes of Satan are taken over by an even greater purpose, the overriding purposes of God.

And when Jesus dies on the cross the third day he's raised again so the benefits of his death, his righteous death, might accrue to you and to me. And that is the good news. That is the light that Christmas refers to.

Now to marginalize that light is absurd. And this is the reason I was arguing the other Sunday, or maybe it was one midweek occasion, why I dislike Christmas so much. I dislike what we have made of Christmas.

As far as I'm concerned you can pass over Christmas. In terms of its commercialism, you see I mean you get the BBC, what have they done? They've marginalized or tried to marginalize Archbishop Carey's address. Stick it on somewhere where people are not listening.

It doesn't really matter. And yet December the 25th would not exist historically without the idea of commemorating the birth of Jesus. But the men prefer darkness rather than light.

It's much more important that you get a carry-on film or something like that than you hear a leading religious dignitary remind us of the reason behind the season. Men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. Oh I tell you my Christian friend and those of you who do not yet carry the title Christian, what you celebrate this morning is more than something for the kids to enact in front of us.

Oh it's right and proper that our children help us in the service. I would not demean that. I love those kids as though they were my own.

But it's not just something for the kids. It's for thinking men and women. God wants to dispel the darkness of your ignorance.

God wants to dispel the darkness dispel the compromise with which you've lived your life. God is no killjoy. He has come that your joy may be full.

Thus he sends the Lord Jesus into the world. You don't get your laughter from a bottle. You get your laughter and your joy from a realization that you're one with God's purposes.

That your future is guaranteed in the provisions that Jesus has made for you. A home in heaven with your father. Laugh at this.

Oh yes you can. But then come with me later this afternoon. Let's go around the wards of Saint Barnabas together.

I give that as a positive invitation to anybody who dares to laugh at this. Come with me. How do you speak to that decrepit person who's dying from cancer? What hope is there at the end of the world? At the end of your life? What makes sense? You see you get your smart alecks.

I've watched them sometimes on the BBC on the ITV making mockery sometimes of songs of praise and so on and so forth. And I ask myself what will that man what would that woman be doing in 10 years time? 20 years time when they are facing life's ultimate final challenge. Slipping from this world to the next.

What are they to hang on to? And the answer is they're going to despair into the blackest of gloom. But God said there's no need to be gloom for those in distress. Here is the light brought into the world through my son.

I create a generator that will bless and baptize Israel with light and bless and baptize the world. My friend heaven's share offer in light is still open. And you can subscribe not because of the money that you have but simply because of the need that you represent.

I am the light. He that follows me will not linger in darkness but will have the light of life this Christmas. Switch on the right illumination.

Let's pause for prayer. And I want to pray for every man and every woman here. Thank you for coming.

It's always a privilege to have you. We don't say that. It's not an empty platitude.

We're not trying to be nice. Though courtesy is a maxim that's honorable. We're glad you're here.

But I want to ask you again. Have you switched on God's light in your life? You know some of you. You knew it from your mother's knee.

Some of you are older now. Some of you like me have made a mess of things. And you need.

You need forgiveness. And you need the blazing of God's light to shine into your life. He offers it now to you.

Not because of what you've done but because of his great love. The light of the glorious gospel. Embrace it.

Lord Jesus forgive me my sins. What can I bring thee poor as I am? If I was a shepherd I would bring a lamb. If I was a rich man I would do my part.

But what I can I give you? I give my heart. Receive it blessed Christ. And bring light to my life.

And joy and peace and forgiveness. Amen. Amen.

Listen to this song. It's number 39 in our book. I'm sorry I've got the wrong one.

Arise shine. Speak a little louder. 36.

Thank you. I'm going deaf. Behold the darkness shall cover the earth and gross darkness the people.

Let's just have it played through a little. So the first part is rather solemn. When you move into the chorus you speed up.

Let's stand. Oh sit down and give me an opportunity once more to pray for you. We hope that you'll be here this evening at our Carols by Candlelight service which is always very popular.

So do come early if you want a good seat. Christmas Eve we've got a special service as you'll see on your notes and news and also Christmas Day. Do take these notes and news with you to remind you of our events and also to pray through some of the topics that my secretary's carefully put down there along with John Hall.

And Boxing Day we are going to be playing a football match at 10 30 up at Hill Barn. There'll be a healing service at 12 o'clock up there too. Hope you'll be present with us also this next week.

And Father we thank you for the light of the glory of the gospel of Jesus. Help us to go out seeing him more clearly, loving him more dearly, following him more nearly. May the light and the peace and the joy that comes from that be the greatest presence that we receive and enter into this Christmas.

Bless each family here the blessing of God Almighty Father Son and Holy Spirit resting upon each of us undeserving people. Amen. Good morning.

God bless. Thanks for coming.