The sounds and songs of Christmas are all around us now. They sound a little unbelievable, don't they........
Joy to the World, for one, says "He comes to make His blessings flow FAR AS THE CURSE IS FOUND." (and how far is that? I ask you today.... is there an end to the curse we're under on this planet?)
O Little Town of Bethlehem - "The hopes and fears OF ALL THE YEARS are met in Thee tonight" (think of ALL the hopes you ever had.....and the sum of ALL fears that ever beset you. And then, that's just you. Think of ALL the hopes EVERYONE's ever had, and the dread fear that millions live under. All met in Jesus in ONE NIGHT - the night He was born. Who's excluded here?)
It Came Upon a Midnight Clear:
For lo! the days are hastening on,
By prophet seen of old,
When with the ever-encircling years
Shall come the time foretold
When peace shall over all the earth
Its ancient splendors fling,
And the whole world send back the song
Which now the angels sing.
Think of peace on earth. No Middle-East. No Iraq. No Afghanistan. No Kashmir. No North Korea. An undivided Jerusalem. No Gaza strip, West Bank or Golan Heights. No terrorists!!!!! Think of everyone on earth, as one voice, singing back to the herald angels.
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing:
Light and life to all he brings,
risen with healing in his wings.
Mild he lays his glory by,
born that man no more may die,
born to raise the sons of earth,
born to give us second birth.
Think of a second chance !!!!! To do things right this time for sure !!! Think of wiping out the past - to start again and live as if the past never happened.
Yes, the carols sound too incredible, impossible, unbelievable, out-of-this-world, too-good-to-be-true! They sound like pipe dreams, fairy tales, pie-in-the-sky. Can they come true? Can they ever BE true?
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Defeat.
You know you had the chance......you blew it. Blew it so badly that it's going to take a revolution and a real miracle to roll back this mistake. And you're tired. No one else can be blamed for this but you.
And then........people come up and say, sing me a Christmas song. I've never heard a Christmas song. Sing me a carol !!!!!
That's a bit like what the Israelites were asked in Babylon - sing us the songs of Zion!!!!!! It's framed immortally for us in Psalm 137:
for there our captors asked us for songs,
our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
they said, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!"
How can we sing the songs of the LORD
while in a foreign land?
- Psalm 137:3-4
Don't the unbelievable words of the carols deepen the sense of defeat and failure? In our "foreign land" of failure and bondage, in the grip of the curse, how can we sing of Jesus "coming to make His blessings flow as far as the curse is found? Our sense of shame and defeat mocks us - go on, sing!!! It can never be true, can it? Your portion here is defeat - captivity. See - you lost the war. See your chains! You're never going to get back to Jerusalem. Your body will fall here on Babylonian soil!!!!
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Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians in 586 BC. The people of Judah went into captivity, a nation no longer. Just a few hundred years earlier, God had said to Isaiah, about Babylon:
You said, 'I will continue forever
— the eternal queen!'
But you did not consider these things
or reflect on what might happen.
"Now then, listen, you wanton creature,
lounging in your security
and saying to yourself,
'I am, and there is none besides me.
I will never be a widow
or suffer the loss of children.'
Both of these will overtake you
in a moment, on a single day:
loss of children and widowhood.
They will come upon you in full measure,
in spite of your many sorceries
and all your potent spells.
- Isaiah 47:7-9
The LORD, in perfect control of history, had set His salvation in motion even before Jerusalem's fall. The destruction of the enemies of God's people was already foretold.
Let's say this to our oppressive defeat, our captivity, our failure today.......God has allowed you to triumph over me for a while. Remember Judah and Babylon? But how long will you oppress me? Till I take the Name of God's Salvation - Jesus. After that Name is said, no defeat can linger.
A few hundred years after the fall of Jerusalem, Babylon had been wiped off the map of the earth. There was no nation left, and not even a city. Jesus came - and God's salvation came with him.
If you think, well, all that's ancient history now.....see what The LORD says to the apostle John about our Babylons today, in the book of Revelation:
Then a mighty angel picked up a boulder the size of a large millstone and threw it into the sea, and said:
"With such violence
the great city of Babylon will be thrown down,
never to be found again.
The music of harpists and musicians, flute players and trumpeters,
will never be heard in you again.
No workman of any trade
will ever be found in you again.
The sound of a millstone
will never be heard in you again.
The light of a lamp will never shine in you again.
The voice of bridegroom and bride
will never be heard in you again.
Your merchants were the world's great men.
By your magic spell all the nations were led astray.
In her was found the blood of prophets and of the saints,
and of all who have been killed on the earth."
- Revelation 18:21-24
What The LORD had said to Isaiah about the Babylon of his day, He says again to the apostle John today, about the Babylons who gain temporary control over us through our defeat today - fear, guilt, failure, evil, even death, Satanic world systems, oppression, persecution, affliction, disease, sickness, pride.
Today, whatever's left of ancient Babylon is somewhere in the country of Iraq, somewhere north of Baghdad. No one really knows where, and no one can be found to actually take you there to see it. A few stone walls, desert sands, mud structures. Just a small ripple on those unending interminable red sands. The haunt of every kind of wild animal and bird of prey. Where are the Babylonians of today? Even the nation itself has long since ceased to exist.
The salvation of the LORD, however, rages on and has conquered the earth. A mighty army of Christians walks the earth. Every day, the LORD "adds to our number"!!! People are testifying of Jesus and His saving power!
So where is our "defeat" or "captivity" today? It can only be in our minds......certainly not out there, because the defeat of our enemies is certain.
So, if someone asks for a Christmas carol, sing it lustily - because this is NOT the day of captivity, but of release and freedom for prisoners !!!!! The Christmas carols are not "unbelievable", they're just REAL............
