Sermon Tone Analysis

· The week before Christmas!

In Australia it’s business as usual, as people fight the traffic and the crowds, frantically scurrying from Shop to Shop, looking for that last-minute gift idea.

It seems we have developed modern traditions for the Christmas holiday like rushing, stress and overspending.

· One website even suggests the following natural remedies to help people cope with the stress of Christmas:

o Kali Phosphoricum for sleeplessness due to exhaustion

o Arsenicum Album for sleeplessness resulting from anxiety

o Coffea Cruda for sleeplessness due to mental excitement

o Nux Vomica for nausea due to too much junk food

o Staphysagria to relieve ailments arising from pent up anger

o Argentum Nitricum to overcome a fear of crowds

· It’s like this “Christmas carol” I found on the internet:

Wreck the malls this Christmas season, fa la la la la la la la la

Blow your cash for no good reason, fa la la la la la la la la

Push your charge card to the limit, fa la la la la la la la la

Your bank account has nothing in it, fa la la la la la la la la

· Or this one:

I'll be cloned for Christmas, there'll be three of me

One to Work, and One to Shop, and One just for Parties

Christmas Eve, I'm certain, I won't be alone

I'll be home for Christmas, or else I'll send a Clone!

· Sometimes, the more things change, the more they stay the same!

First century citizens certainly didn’t have to cope with malls,

but the Bible tells us in Luke 2 that the cities, towns, villages, streets, homes and businesses of Israel were packed for another reason –

the taxation and census ordered by the Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus.

Everyone had to make the long journey back to their hometown and stay with their relatives while giving up a major portion of their time and money – sound familiar?

· John MacArthur, in his book “God With Us,” wrote about some of the first century people who missed Christmas:

· the Innkeeper missed it because he was preoccupied with making money

· King Herod missed it because he was fearful that another King could take his throne

· the religious leaders missed it because they were self-righteous and proud

· the inhabitants of Jerusalem missed it because they were religious – worshipping God in ritual while he was born right under their noses in reality!

· the entire Roman empire missed it because they had their own gods and idols

· Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth missed it because they were too familiar with Him

· Like I said, the more things change, the more they stay the same!

These are basically the same reasons that people miss the real meaning of Christmas today – not just on December 25, but all year long!

· There are three building blocks to any relationship – time, time, time!

People who really know God ALWAYS have to build that relationship by taking time away from other things to spend with Him.

We’ve fooled ourselves with the illusion of Christmas, because we really face the same problem EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR.

The world is always TOO BUSY for Jesus, and that’s not a seasonal problem!

· In Malachi, just before Israel plunges into what scholars call “the 400 silent years” (no word from God for four centuries), a prophetic word is given about a certain kind of people who do stay “tuned in” to what God is doing.

They do this by “[speaking] often one to another.”

Mal 3:16-17

· The New Testament says the same thing in another way:

Heb 10:25

· In the 1700’s a modern Jewish movement developed in Eastern Europe called “the Chasidim.”

Whereas most branches of Judaism emphasized education as a means of knowing God, these “pious ones” emphasized personal experience as the ultimate way to know him, and demonstrated their hunger through retaining “outward separation” in their worship (and this is not even a message on holiness standards!).

· But the spirit of the Hasidic Jews did not begin in the 1700’s.

It always existed among a small remnant at every point of Israel’s history.

The “pious ones” that Malachi referred to are among them.

While nearly everyone else in their culture was preoccupied with other things, they LITERALLY anticipated the coming of the Messiah.

· In the New Testament, Luke uses the Greek word “prosdechomai” in referring to three people who looked for the Messiah, and found Him as a result of their efforts!

PROSDECHOMAI MEANS “I WAIT IN ORDER TO WELCOME.”

SIMEON·

He was “just and devout”·

His name means “hearing” – that was his ATTITUDE·

He was waiting for a PROPHET, “the consolation of Israel”

Luke 2:25-32

Luke 2:25-35

Whose name was Simeon

Readiness for God’s will

“Some years ago,” says a lady, “I made the acquaintance of an old peasant in a little German village, where I for some time resided.

He was called Gottlieb, a name which has the very beautiful signification, ‘The love of God.’

The old man was well worthy of it, for if ever heart was filled with love to God and to all God’s creatures it was his.

Once when walking I came upon him as he was stooping to pick up a fallen apple.

‘Don’t you weary, Gottlieb,’ I asked, ‘stooping so often, end then lying all alone by the roadside?’

‘No, no, miss,’ he answered, smiling, and offering me a handful of ripe pears, ‘I don’t weary; I’m just waiting—waiting.

I think I’m about ripe now, and I must soon fall to the ground; and then, just think, the Lord will pick me up!

O miss, you are young yet, and perhaps just in blossom; turn well round to the Sun of Righteousness, that you may ripen sweet for His service.’”

(New Cyclopaedia of Anecdote.)

Waiting for the Lord

Everybody knows and loves the story of the dog Argus, who just lives through the term of his master’s absence, and sees him return to his home, and recognizes him, and rejoicing in the sight, dies.

Beautiful, too, as the story is in itself, it has a still deeper allegorical interest.

For how many Arguses have there been, how many will there be hereafter, the course of whose years has been so ordered that they will have just lived to see their Lord come and take possession of His home,

and in their joy at the blissful sight, have departed!

How many such spirits, like Simeon’s, will swell the praises of Him who spared them that He might save them.

(Augustus Hare.)

Waiting for the chariot

Mrs. Cartwright, wife of the famous American preacher, was, after her husband’s death, attending a meeting at Bethel Chapel, a mile from her house.

She was called upon to give her testimony, which she did with much feeling, concluding with the words:

“The past three weeks have been the happiest of all my life; I am waiting for the chariot.”

When the meeting broke up she did not rise with the rest.

The minister solemnly said, “The chariot has arrived.”

Simeon’s blessed hope

I. SIMEON’S EXPECTATION.

He was “waiting.”

He did not wish that the tabernacle of his body might be dissolved; but he did hope that, through the chinks of that old battered tabernacle of his, he might be able to see the Lord.

II.

THE FULFILMENT OF THIS EXPECTATION.

He had the consolation for which he waited, and all the people of God now have it, in Jesus.

But a little while ago I heard of an ungodly man who had a pious wife.

They had but one daughter, a fair and lovely thing; she was laid on a bed of sickness: the father and mother stood beside the bed; the solemn moment came when she must die; the father leaned over, and put his arm round her, and wept hot tears upon his child’s white brow; the mother stood there too, weeping her very soul away.

The moment that child was dead, the father began to tear his hair, and curse himself in his despair; misery had got hold upon him; but as he looked towards the foot of the bed, there stood his wife; she was not raving, she was not cursing; she wiped her eyes, and said, “I shall go to her, but she shall not return to me.”

The unbeliever’s heart for a moment rose in anger, for he imagined that she was a stoic.

But the tears flowed down her cheeks too.

He saw that though she was a weak and feeble woman, she could bear sorrow better than he could, and he threw his arms round her neck, and said, “Ah!

wife, I have often laughed at your religion; I will do so no more.

There is much blessedness in this resignation.

Would God that I had it too!”

“Yes,” she might have answered, “I have the consolation of Israel.”

There is—hear it, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish!-there is consolation in Israel.

Ah! it is sweet to see a Christian die; it is the noblest thing on earth—the dismissal of a saint from his labour to his reward, from his conflicts to his triumphs.