The Very Bad News of Christmas
The Good News of Christmas is not Good News Without the Bad News of Sin’s Brokenness
Introduction
Outline
Sermon Body
The Bad News of Sin’s Brokenness
Separation (Ephesians 2:11-12)
3176 Daughter’s Death Kills Father
A heart-rending story was reported by the press, telling of a young father who shot himself in a telephone booth. James Lee had called a Chicago newspaper and told a reporter he had sent the paper a manila envelope containing the story of his suicide.
The reporter frantically traced the call, but it was too late! When the police arrived, the young man was slumped in the booth with a bullet through his head.
In one of his pockets, they found a child’s crayon drawing, much faded and worn. On it was written, “Please leave this in my coat pocket. I want to have it buried with me.” The drawing was signed in a childish print by his little blonde daughter, Shirley, who had perished in a fire just five months before.
Lee had been so grief-stricken that he asked total strangers to attend his daughter’s funeral so she would have a nice service. He said there was no family to go to because Shirley’s mother had been dead since the child was two years old.
The grieving father could not stand the loneliness or the loss, so he took his life.
—Selected
Inability (Ephesians 2:1-3; John 6:44)
990 Lincoln’s Body Moved 17 Times
Following the burial of Abraham Lincoln in 1865, his casket was moved 17 times, chiefly to prevent its being stolen and held for ransom. Six men nearly succeeded once, on a night in 1876, but they were surprised and frightened away by the custodian when leaving the tomb with the body. Consequently, it was hidden under a pile of a scrap lumber in the cellar during the next two years. Since 1901, the casket has been locked in a steel cage and buried in solid cement ten feet below the floor of the mausoleum in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois.
—Freling Foster
Delusion (Romans 1:18-23; 1 Corinthians 2:6-16)
5559 Emperor Of United States
America’s only emperor lived in San Francisco in the last century and was mildly mad. Noblest and best-known of all early California characters, Joshua A. Norton was a successful businessman when speculation in the rice market brought financial ruin. Whether this clouded his mind or he started it as a joke, he began telling everyone he was “Emperor of these United States.”
This thought grew into an obsession, until in 1859, he officially claimed, in printed proclamation, himself to be emperor by an 1853 act of the California legislature. He assumed a sword and plume and strutted the streets in colorful costume.
Citizens of San Francisco were amused by the harmless ploy and went along with the self-styled emperor. They gave him recognition through free tickets to opening nights, and newspaper publicity, and by permitting him to collect small taxes and issue his own currency. It was all done in fun, and the emperor became a fixture in the city for several years.
However, all of this was very serious to him and he believed in his position. When tension developed in Mexico, he expanded his authority to “emperor of these United States and Protector of Mexico.” When the tragic figure-object of many practical jokes died in 1880, he had ten thousand curious citizens at his funeral. He had lived and died in his own delusions.
—C. R. Hembree
Judgment (Hebrews 9:27; Matthew 16:27)
2861 For Finney: “Then What?”
Charles G. Finney, a young lawyer, was sitting in a village law office in the state of New York. Finney had just come into the old squire’s office. It was very early in the day, and he was all alone when the Lord began to deal with him.
“Finney, what are you going to do when you finish your course?”
“Put out a shingle and practice law.”
“Then what?” “Get rich.”
“Then what?” “Retire.”
“Then what?” “Die.”
“Then what?” And the words came tremblingly, “The judgment.”
He ran for the woods a half mile away. All day he prayed, and vowed that he would never leave until he had made his peace with God. He saw himself at the judgment bar of God. For four years he had studied law, and now the vanity of a selfish life, lived for the enjoyment of the things of this world, was made clear to him.
Finney came out of the woods that evening, after a long struggle, with the high purpose of living henceforth to the glory of God and of enjoying Him forever.
From that moment blessings untold filled his life, and God used him in a mighty way, not as a lawyer but as a preacher, to bring thousands to conversion over a useful period of fifty years.
—The Church Herald
Hopelessness (Ephesians 2:12)
2274 No Hope Carter
While attending college, I visited a psychiatric institution with a group of students to observe various types of mental illness. The experience proved to be very disturbing. I remember one man who was called “No Hope Carter.” His was a tragic case. A victim of venereal disease, he was going through the final stages when the brain is affected.
Before he began to lose his mind, this man was told by the doctors that there was no known cure for him. He begged for one ray of light in his darkness, but had been told that the disease would run its inevitable course and end in death. Gradually his brain deteriorated and he became more and more despondent.
When I saw him in his small, barred room about 2 weeks before he died, he was pacing up and down in mental agony. His eyes stared blankly, and his face was drawn and ashen. Over and over he muttered these two forlorn and fateful words: “No hope! No hope!” He said nothing else.
—Our Daily Bread