94-99 Christmas Questions – The Question of Reality

This sermon is Part 2 of the series "Christmas Questions" by Dr. Chuck F. Betters.

Christmas evokes numerous emotions, and in 1994, the emotions Dr. Betters experienced were not of warm, fuzzy Christmas scenes, but heart-breaking as he faced his second Christmas without his sixteen-year-old son, Mark. In this series, Dr. Betters acknowledges that not everyone loves Christmas or even looks forward to it. Rather than running from Christmas, though, he encourages us to recognize the opportunity to experience even deeper comfort as we recognize the pain of that first Christmas. Dr. Betters opens up a list of five significant questions that people are longing to ask, not only at Christmas, but throughout the uneasiness of living life in this broken world. We will see five influences that shaped the culture of the Christmas story and continue to shape our culture today. Our culture is hungry for someone or something to trust. In this message, Dr. Betters asks, “What about the question of trust, and what does Christmas have to do with it?”

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SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome to In His Grip with Dr. Chuck F. Betters, produced by Mark Inc. Ministries. Each in his grip message is designed to help turn your hearts toward Jesus and equip you to walk by faith. Let's join Dr. Betters as he preaches today's message.

SPEAKER_02 0:24

Please take your Bibles and turn to Deuteronomy chapter 32. We are in that time of the year that conjures up many mixed emotions. And as I've said before, on the one hand, we have the countless traditions, the family celebrations, the religious services, the childlike suspense, the wonder and the expectation of Christmas Day. And on the other hand, all of this is framed within the context of a culture that all of us know is fragmented and lonely and groping for answers to even the most basic life questions. I am preaching a special Christmas series that deals with what I believe are the five most significant and life-changing questions our society is asking. The answers to these questions need to be framed within the context or understood within the context of the biblical Christmas accounts. We need to enter into the context of the first Christmas if we are going to begin to realize fully the relevance of the incarnation narratives. It was at a specific time and into a specific culture that Jesus chose to come. It was in the fullness of time, according to prophecy, that Jesus came into this world. And so he chose not the 1990s of Western civilization or the 1800s or the 1700s. He chose a specific time and a specific culture in which to come. And it was into the low point of Israel's history as a nation he came. They had been stripped of their cultural identity. A theocracy governed by God Himself that thrived in the glory days of Solomon had now become the dry, lifeless corpse portrayed in Ezekiel's vision of the Valley of the Dry Bones. There were some great influences that shaped dramatically the culture into which Christ came. And we talked about those last week when we dealt with the first of these five questions, the question of trust. Every one of you knows, by the way, someone who has raised one or more of these questions. Maybe you have raised them in their quest for the lasting solution to lasting peace. They perhaps have listened to the voices all around them, the dark voices that live in this demonic world, only to become disillusioned and discouraged and maybe even cynical. And when the attempt is made to right the ship by relating to them the hope that they have in Jesus Christ, they are quick to reject this faith as simply one of another in this string of false hopes and subjective hype. After all, if I cannot touch it, if I cannot feel it, if I cannot taste it, if I cannot hear it, if it doesn't satisfy my rational mind, then it simply cannot be true. And it needs to be rejected as another of man's endless theories. Last time we were together, we talked about the first of these questions, the question of trust. Is there something? Is there someone I can believe in? We talked about the rationalist who offers no hope, and the religionist who offers no hope, and the relativist who offers no hope, and the politicist who offers no hope, and the hedonist who offers no hope. To whom then can we turn for hope? Who can encourage us? Who can bring to bear in our minds and in our culture the answer to the question of trust? Who can we trust? Who can we believe in? It is into that context of Sadduceism and Phariseaism and Herodianism and the zealots and the hedonist and the Greco-Roman culture of that world that the incarnation of the Son of God took place. He becomes the question. He becomes the answer to the question of trust. He becomes the one in whom we can find our true identity. He becomes the answer to that probing question: is there hope? Can I trust someone? The question of trust. Well, let me propose to you this morning the second question. It's the question of reality. What is real and what is unreal? I want to place a very simple question before you this morning. Under what illusions do you currently live? Under what illusions do you currently live? I want to propose to you this morning that there is an illusion that's simply called in the scripture idolatry. Deuteronomy 32. You have it by now, verse 21. Deuteronomy 32, 21. The illusion of idolatry brings to bear the question of reality. What is real? What is unreal? They, verse 21, made me jealous by what is no God, and angered me with their, what's that next word? Worthless idols. I will make them envious by those who are not a people. I will make them angry by a nation that has no understanding. Now I want you to keep something in mind here. He is not talking to the people who are outside of the covenant community. He's talking to his own people. He's talking to Israel. And he's saying to the church, you are living under the illusion of idolatry. And so I will bring that idol before you. I will make you drink your idol. And I will bring home to you the question of what is real and what is unreal. You see, in the Greco-Roman context in which Jesus came, the very essence of Israel's identity was in jeopardy. In the day in which Jesus came, the people of God lived in virtual subjection and slavery to Rome. They were surrounded by a culture that was made up of many different voices, many different philosophies, many different ideologies. In fact, after Pentecost, when the church was born, when we have the birth of the New Testament church, you'll find that the church basically existed in the context of the Roman world, where they believed in the separation of church and state. Rome had no problems with new religions. In fact, in the Roman culture, there were many religions. The Jews were just one of them. In fact, when you study it very closely, especially the writings of Luke, which include the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts, you will see in that two-volume set, the first volume being the declaration of who Christ was, that's the Gospel of Luke. The second volume being the book of Acts, which shows how that worked itself out in the first century culture. In that context, Luke normally portrays Rome in a friendly light. The centurions are portrayed as friendly people. They were the ones who rescued Paul from the hands of the Jews. The military powers of Rome were friendly to new religions. They saw Christianity as simply another trade union. They saw them as simply another aspect or sect of Judaism. And as long as they paid their taxes, as long as they didn't cause any civil strife, as long as they didn't encourage any political revolution, as long as they minded their own business, they could expect to be left alone. What the early church faced was a cavalcade of false religions, ideologies, icons, philosophies, all of which were tolerated by the government in which they were framed. Now, on the other hand, the Greek world prided itself on toleration, human reason, the divine spark of truth in all religions. And yet the Greeks kept a wary eye on this new Christian sect with its monotheistic narrowness. We catch a glimpse of this when Paul goes to Mars Hill in Athens. As he ascends into the hill, what does he see? Statues to every conceivable ideology, every idol conceivable. In fact, they even erected one to the unknown God just in case they missed one. In fact, I would venture to say it was probably the one time in Paul's ministry where he tried to be too relevant. Instead of taking on face to face the issue of idolatry, he sought to compromise. He tried to reason with them on their level. He tried to proclaim to them who that unknown God was. You see, that idol, that icon, was a no-god. And to try to make it a God, I think was a tactical mistake by Paul. That is why when he preached on Mars Hill, he preached as a dismal failure. But this Greek mindset, this Roman mindset, brings to bear the issue of idolatry in that first century context. Many, many, many different ideologies existed. Can you see any parallels today? Does it take much imagination for you to conclude that the Christian church, the Bible-believing evangelical Christian church in Western society today is tolerated so long as she minds her own business, stays in her pew, does her own thing within the context of our own culture. Does it not strike you funny? Maybe even perhaps sad that we are simply tolerated as another sect? We are not viewed by the world at large as a counterculture. We are viewed by the world at large and by our own culture in particular as just another of the many aspects of religious life in America. And boy, does that message come home loud and clear, especially at this time of the year. I want to propose to you three Christmas idols that ought to just jump out of the front page of the newspaper to you that become more relevant and more upfront at this time of the year than at any other time of the year. The first idol, and again we're talking about what's real and what isn't real, and idols are not real. Idols are no gods. But yet these idols are portrayed as gods. They are portrayed as real. So what I'm about to propose to you are three idols that our world at large, and maybe even many in the church, believe to be real, are in essence not real. They're illusions. And yet they are the voices that we hear especially at Christmas time. Idol number one, the idol of man's great human potential. Boy, do you hear that at Christmas time. The book of Lamentations, chapter 4 and verse 17, says this. Moreover, our eyes failed, looking in vain for help. From our towers we watched for a nation that could save us. You got this picture? Here is the prophet weeping, lamenting over where his nation has gone, watching this nation in deterioration. Here's a picture of a prophet sitting in the tower, of a nation, of the people of God sitting in a tower, looking in vain for someone to help them. And it could not be found. We continue to live under that illusion. The problem is, as we look out, especially at Christmas time, the many, many voices that we hear say this. If you're going to look for help from anyone, go deep down inside of yourself. You'll find it there. The great, quote, Christmas magic, the great human potential. Dig down inside of my heart somewhere, and there you will find the answer. Some sort of magic will be worked, and it will bring you face to face with reality, and it will bring you a lasting solution for lasting peace. And that idol gets larger and larger and larger as we get closer and closer to Christmas. We continue to live today under the illusion that peace and joy, listen, is the inherent right of man. That's an illusion. All we need to do to realize this peace is tap our inner potential. That's an illusion. We need to get along with each other, tolerate each other, give to each other, sacrifice for each other, seek each other's well-being. That's an illusion. The illusion has been with us since the beginning of time. It is as old as Satan himself. And it all sounds good. But every single year, our culture and many Christians inside of evangelical churches in search of this meaning and purpose in life, dig into that human potential only to set themselves up for another failure. We quickly realize how much we hate, how much we covet, how much we lust. What happens to the so-called Christmas spirit? You see, this idol is resurrected every Christmas season. You'll see this idol on postcards, on letters, on greeting cards. It says something like this: peace on earth and goodwill to men. Yet we fail to read that verse within its context. The incarnation of Jesus Christ is not good news to all men. The incarnation of Jesus Christ is good news to all men who are the chosen according to God's purpose. That verse says that God will give peace and goodwill to men upon whom his favor rests. But to the rest, it is bad news. Because the incarnation of Jesus Christ becomes God's provision for man's sin. And those who are lost are one day going to have to face that God in judgment, and he will cast them into everlasting hell. That's not good news. That's bad news. And yet the idols resurrected every Christmas season that the birth of Jesus Christ means good will toward all men. It doesn't mean that. It never has, and it never will. His birth is shrouded in fear and death and jealousy and hate. The illusion of the great human potential. Oh, it temporarily stops wars. It brings estranged families temporarily back together. It packs out churches on Christmas Eve. And it even opens up the pocketbooks of the otherwise selfish and proud cheapskates. But all of it is soon forgotten, isn't it? It takes about as long for that idol to come crumbling down as it does for the New Year's Eve booze to start rolling and the drunk drivers to hit the road. The glitter and the hope that this time of the year brings quickly fades into another year of bad news and murder and rape and theft and immorality along with the diseases that all of that brings. Why? Because our hopes are shaped by looking to man's great human potential and not to the God who himself has become the provision for the lostness of man. And we miss the message. And the idol comes tumbling down, and we're forced again to eat it. Once again, cynical, discouraged people look for what's real. Idol number two. Most prevalent during this time of the year. The idol of religion. This idol is especially noticeable at Christmas time. You see, this is when the CE people come back to the churches. You know the CE people, the Christmas, Easter people. You see, these same people during the rest of the year, and maybe you're one of them and you're saying, please don't offend me. I hope it offends. I want you to listen very closely. If you're one of these people who have blessed us this morning with your presence, listen closely to what I'm saying. During the rest of the year, you don't want any interference from God. You want no accountability to his church. You want to make no commitments to his lordship. And for this brief time of the year, you emerge from your carnal world and you don the garb of the Christian, you pay your respects, you give a buck or two to charitable causes, perhaps even a gift to the church's building fund, and then you disappear for another six months until the ghost of Christmas haunts you at Easter time to perform this very same function all over again and to walk through those very same rituals. Away with such idolatry. Christmas is not for the unbeliever. It can only mean something to the child of God who has come to grips with God's great gift of love. It means nothing to you. It's not real. It's an illusion if you don't know Christ. That's all it is. You're just celebrating another holiday, but you don't know that it's a holy day. This Christmas season is not for you unbelievers. What it ought to do is cause you to bow before the cross of Jesus Christ, as did the wise men before that baby, as did the women at the tomb, and recognize that you cannot separate his birth from his death and his resurrection, and you cannot separate the essence of accountability that one day you will have when God resurrects you and places you before that great white throne judgment, and you have to declare to him what you did with his son. Away with this idolatry of religion. There's a third idol. You'll see it at Christmas time. The idol of materialism. You know what this idol asks selfishly? What does this time of the year mean to Wall Street? Sales, sales, and more sales. Children are infected with this idol's virus. From the cabbage patch dolls of the 70s to the Power Rangers of the 90s, our children have missed the message. How sad to think of the many children who will never hear the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ because Their parents think they can buy back during this time of the year what they have willingly forfeited during the rest of the year. This is going to be another tough year for the Betters family. I wish it were December the 26th. I would like to just skip over this time of the year. At least from my carnal perspective. Because it brings back too many memories. Now they're all good. But they all bring home the reality of what we're facing. And I don't want to have to face it. But somehow or another, the pain of Christmas drives home another message. Another message that I think as parents we need to get. You can't resurrect that idol of materialism in your home and think that because you spend all this money, you're going to be able to make up for the fact that you have failed your children as covenant parents during the rest of the year. I want to say this categorically. Categorically, I thank God that there's not one of our children, the three on earth and the one in heaven, who can ever say that their parents neglected their covenant responsibilities to them. I thank God that we raised our son Mark and not some daycare center. That we were there when he got home from school. That we were the ones who answered his questions. That we were the ones who dealt with his spiritual needs. That we were the ones who met him face to face. You said, Well, you can afford it. You made a lot of money. Are you sick? Don't you understand anything? We lived for eight years below the poverty level. We didn't have our children on the basis of what we could afford. We did not plan our children on the basis of how we could afford them. When are you going to get the message? When are you materialistic Christian people going to get the message? God gave you those children. And you can't buy in just a short period of time what you failed to give them over the course of the year. They are your children, but they're on loan. They belong to him. I'll never forget my earliest impression of Christmas as a married man. Heidi was just a baby. I was a young pastor, still young pastor, but I was a younger pastor. 21, 22 years old, I think I was at the time. I got my first call to go to the hospital, and it was right around Christmas time and face death. I'll never forget, I didn't know this family. They just called me. And it was the sister of a young man who was mentally retarded. He was about 18, 19 years old, and he was in the intensive care unit in Roxboro Hospital up in Philadelphia. You know, even as I'm standing here today, I can't remember the name. And I think one of the reasons is because I was so shell-shocked when this experience took place. I remember because it was right around Christmas time. I went to the hospital. All of the training in seminary, all of the Bible books, all of the study from scripture. All of a sudden, it disappeared. I didn't know what to do. I walked into that hospital room. And I looked in and I saw a young man hooked up the tubes. His eyes were open. He was sitting at about a 45-degree angle in the bed, and it was obvious he was dying. He didn't say a word because he couldn't. He just looked at me. Even as I'm telling you this story, I can see his face. He just looked at me. His sister and his mother and a friend of the family were also in that room, and they were just standing there staring, face to face with the reality that they didn't want to believe that their son and their brother was going to die. And here I am, Mr. Expert. I'm supposed to say something. I remember walking into that room with all of my knowledge backed up in the back of my brain here. And I walked in and I looked at him and I froze. I absolutely froze. We just stood there and looked at each other. He looked at me, I looked at him, and I couldn't say a word. I turned around and walked out. Had to regain my composure because it hit me. This young boy's dying. Went in and I prayed with the family. And I said to them, I don't know what to tell you. And you know, by the way, that's one of the best things you can do when somebody's faced with that. Don't try to give them cat answers. They don't work. Enter into their pain and say, I don't know what to say, but I'm here just to be with you and pray with you. And I did. And I went back into the room and regained my composure and took the young boy by the hand and I said, I don't have a clue as to whether or not you can understand a word I'm saying. And I told him of the love of Jesus Christ, and I prayed with him. And just a few short minutes later, he died. And I went home with that family. I left my car there to the hospital. They took me to their house just to be with them that night. I'd never met them before. And I spent several hours with that family until they brought me back home. I want to tell you that devastated me. It absolutely devastated me. I didn't know what to do with that. I didn't know how this family was going to face Christmas. Without their brother, without their son. About a week later was Christmas Eve. And I may have my timing messed up. You'll check with my wife later, she'll figure it all out for you. I tend to get these things all messed up, but that's what I think it was. About a week later. Christmas Eve. Now we didn't have a lot of money. In fact, we didn't have any money. We lived from week to week, not knowing, even at times, whether or not we'd have money to buy food. Now, some of you know what that's like. Most of you don't. But we did. Parenthetically, I might add, some of the most exciting days of our ministry when God made these kinds of miraculous provisions. We had a little baby at the time, our pride and joy. Our first child, our little girl. And it was Christmas. Now we bought her some things, but not nearly what we wanted to buy her. Christmas Eve and knock comes at the door. And we opened the door, and I'll never forget this. We opened the door, and there is this woman, the mother of this boy, and his sister standing there, and the sidewalk outside was filled with every conceivable toy for our daughter you could think of. We stood there with our mouths open. What they failed to realize is how much they had ministered to me. And what they were presenting at that time was a thank you for how I had ministered to them. They had it all wrong. Or did they? Is that not really the true spirit of Christmas? You see, one thing I had given them was hope. I spoke to them about the love of Jesus Christ. I spoke to them about eternal life, about God's provision for sin. And that family faced with the prospect of death, faced with the reality of living a Christmas without their brother and son, instead of receiving gaith. Gay. What do we do? We build this idol of materialism. We erect it and it surfaces its ugly head, especially during Christmas time. And we say to our children, this is real! The problem is it doesn't take much time before the first toy breaks. And their reality of Christmas comes crumbling down. Illusions. Turn over to 2 Kings chapter 17. 2 Kings chapter 17. The illusion of idolatry. Three idols. The idol of materialism, the idol of man's great human potential, the idol of religion, the illusion of idolatry. Secondly, the illusion of conformity. You'll see that at this time of the year as well, 2 Kings 17. Look at verse 15. In summarizing, in summarizing God's anger and judgment against his people, this is what he says. They rejected his decrees and the covenant he had made with their fathers and the warnings he had given them. They followed worthless idols and themselves became, what's the next word? Worthless. Now what's that tell you? You want to serve a worthless idol, you'll become worthless. God will make you eat that idol, and you will become just like that idol, that is, worthless. They imitated the nations around them, although the Lord had ordered them, do not do as they do, yet they did the things the Lord had forbidden them to do. Got the picture? A people wrapped up in conformity. In the day or the era of Jesus, the people lived under the cruel polytheistic barbarism of Rome. They longed for the day that God would send them a Messiah to set them free. They looked for another Moses. They looked for another Elijah. They looked for another prophet. Someone, anyone who could give them hope. You know, that's the basic problem of our society. We don't have any hope. The sky looks a little brighter when our favorite party is in office. The sky looks a little brighter when the market climbs a little bit. Or when the financial indicators are high enough. Or when the boss throws his annual token dog bone at us. Our young people crave an identity. They look for heroes. And either they choose the wrong ones or the ones they choose fall. They look around for more, and there are none to be found. So you know what our young people do? They decide to become non-conformists. We're not going to be like everybody else, they say. Only to look around and find a host of others who are also non-conformists, who look like them, act like them, and dress like them. Suddenly, in their quest for nonconformity, they become conformists. What are we saying? We search and we search and we search for a way to be unique. We want to be different. We want to be set apart. The voices of nonconformity on Madison Avenue, they say, be yourself, be different, be unique, but do it our way so that we can take your money and laugh you to scorn all the way to the bank. Right? These non-conformists, and I put it in quotes, suddenly wake up to discover that they have become the carbon copies of what somebody else said they should be. You see, Jesus entered into an era in which an entire nation had lost its identity. From the oldest to the youngest, men and women alike had lost their essence as the people of God. They craved a leader. Zealots were a dime a dozen. They heard about the glory days of Solomon. They heard about the Davidic dynasty. They heard about the prophets who marched up and down the streets of Samaria in the north and Jerusalem in the south. They heard about the Ark of the Covenant and the giving of the law at Sinai. They heard about the Shekinah glory of God, the pillar of cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by night. They heard about the revivals and the rebuilding of the walls under Ezra and Nehemiah. They heard about the walls of Jericho and the battles in the land of Canaan. They longed for a deliverer like Elijah, who would call down fire from heaven upon the oppressing Romans and set the people free to become lords in their own land. How was it that they could walk the streets of Jerusalem in a land that God had promised to give them as mere peons and slaves? Yet fundamental to their problem, fundamental to their loss of identity, was their unwillingness to read the signs of the time. You see, as they saw it, in the context in which Jesus came the first time, the only way in which God could accomplish his purposes was to set them free by military might. God had to work it their way. As they looked to the nations around them, as they studied world history, they became acutely aware of the fact that if you want to be a powerful nation, you must have military might. They said, We need a deliverer, we need a political solution to our loss of identity, and they became conformist to the ideologies of the world system around them. So Jesus comes, and they're gathered thinking that he might be this Messiah. Thousands of people one day followed him. And he gathered them around himself and he began to teach. And he taught for the whole day. And at the end of that day, he looked at the crowds, and the Bible said he had compassion on them because they were as sheep without a shepherd. And he turned to his disciples and he said, We need to feed this crowd. You know that wonderful story of the feeding of the 5,000? How he brought Philip out of the woodwork, so to speak, and raised questions in Philip's mind about how he was going to feed these people, how he worked that wonderful miracle of the feeding of the 5,000. And they watched this miracle. Parenthetically, I might add, the liberal critics have a problem with the feeding of the 5,000 because it contains a miracle. The question you want to ask yourself is look at the results of that miracle and ask yourself if the liberal critics were right, if all he did was share his lunch. If all he did was give a great example and everybody else shared their lunches, then why did the crowd respond the way they did? They sought to take Jesus by force because they saw him as their Messiah. They wanted to make him their earthly king. They knew he worked a miracle. They saw it happen. And the Bible says as they came to take Jesus by force, he disappeared out of their sight. He hid himself from them. Why? Why did he do that? Because he did not come to establish a political kingdom. He came to establish a kingdom that was not of this world. One that was not built with swords and political power. And so he turned to that crowd. And he began to teach them in subsequent days things like this. If you will be my disciple, you must eat of my flesh and drink of my blood. He spoke of going to Jerusalem, and that he would be delivered up into the hands of sinful men, and there he would be crucified. The temple of his body would be destroyed and raised in three days. He spoke language that they could not help but understand. He said to them, If you will be my disciple, you must take up your cross and follow me. You didn't even mention the word cross in that culture without men's hearts failing them for fear. He says, that's the cost of being a member of this kingdom. And it's interesting what the Bible says, that many turned and walked with him no more. Why? Because their image of the kingdom was in conformity to the image of kingdom building they had been raised with, that it was done by military might. And that's an illusion. Friends, if your hopes are in this nation, or in the party that's in office, or in the President of the United States, or in any treaty, if your hopes are political hopes and you think that we're going to have peace and prosperity based on politics and economics, based on geopolitical structures and social structures and social engineering and the reframing of our social identity, you've missed the whole point of the gospel. You don't understand the kingdom of God. God's kingdom is a counterculture, not a conformist culture. It's a culture of revolution, not a culture of conformity. We live in an age of conformity. And as the result of that conformity, we've lost our corporate and our personal identity. We are a mere number on somebody's machine. In fact, those calls that you get at dinner time from the telemarketers, many times they are programmable from a computer machine. You are the customer whose needs do not matter. What matters is whether or not you buy into their determined scheme to convince you that what they are marketing you need. Whether or not you need it. Did you follow me? No offense to any of you telemarketers, because I know some of you are there. But you see, we've lost our identity. We're just a number. You know what is almost funny is when I get a phone call at dinner time from a machine that dowed my number automatically. From a machine, like I'm going to talk to this machine. Evidently, some people do. I can't imagine it, but they do. Are you a conformist? If you are, you're living in an illusory world. And your conformity is going to cost you your identity. Here's a good question for you. In fact, here are three good questions for you. Are you, are you going to be politically correct or biblically correct? Are you going to be politically correct or biblically correct? I'll tell you right up front, if you're biblically correct, you'll be a non-conformist. Political correctness is max of conformity. Here's a second question. Will our church, and you as specific Christians within this church, will the church and will the Christians within the church be socially relevant or a counterculture? Now I can't answer that for you. You have to answer that for yourself. You're the one that goes out there every day and engages the world, aren't you? You're the ones on the college campuses in the corporate world. You're the ones who work the assembly lines and teach in the schools. You're the ones who manage the businesses. You're the ones who interface and engage the unsaved of the world every day of your life. My question to you is: are you going to be socially relevant or are you going to be a counterculture? We are told again and again and again in the textbooks, don't ever say anything controversial from the pulpit. Because if you do, you're going to drive the seeker away. Well, then let the seeker be driven away. Because the Bible message, the expository message of the gospel of Christ is offensive. Thirdly, will your home, listen closely now, will your home be modeled after the biblical paradigm or after the feminist paradigm? You know what the feminist ideology teaches? Are you familiar with feminist doctrine? Parenthetically, I will say this. I don't believe that the feminist agenda speaks for even a very small percentage of American women. But I do believe they speak for the vast majority of the secular media. But the average rank and file woman and man living within the context of their home, I don't believe they buy into it for one minute. The problem is you hear a lie again and again and again and again, day in, day out, month in, month out, year in, year out. Eventually you grow to believe that it's true. And whether or not you know it, you adopt it, you embrace it, it infiltrates your home, and you become exactly the thing that they said you need to become, and you don't even know that it happened. And I've got to tell you this: I am greatly, greatly disturbed as a Christian leader at how many of our homes have been infected by feminist ideology. It's about time you women and you men go back to the scriptures and study the paradigm model of the husband-wife relationship and understand the context in which that relationship is framed, and say to yourself, it's time to take inventory of what's going on in my home because I have sacrificed without even knowing it my children on the altar of Moloch, and I haven't even the faintest clue as to why or how it happened. It's an illusion. Feminist ideology is an illusion. We live in an illusory world. We don't understand how much illusion we think is reality. I want to give you a third illusion. And then I'm going to just introduce this and we'll pick up on it the next time we're together. It's the illusion of the sovereignty of man. Real issues demand real answers. And you're not going to find any tougher questions than are raised in the book of Job. This man raises some very tough questions about the relationship between man and God. Job is a book that is filled with doubt, with questions, and listen, very few answers. You read the book of Job and you see that he raises all these questions, but they're not answered. They're not answered. Job does not live in a dream world. You know, oftentimes, I shouldn't say oftentimes, but sometimes some person will come along and say something like this to me, Pastor, you need to get into the real world. Well, for 26 years in the ministry, I've walked through the real world with so many of you, I'm pretty sick of the real world. And on July 6, 1993, I entered a part of the world that I don't think any of you want to enter. Job entered that world. And so when Job raises questions, you want to listen. You want to hear what the man has to say. Because when you look at Job's life, you stand back and you say, I hope that never happens to me. But if Job were to walk into this sanctuary today, and I were to introduce him, ladies and gentlemen, this is Job. How many of you would watch your clock and wonder whether or not it's 12 o'clock yet as the guy speaks? You want to know why? Because if you've read even a little bit of the book of Job, you know that this man demands real answers to some real tough questions. The same questions of doubt and fear and uncertainty about your relationship to God that you have. And because he went to school and learned the hard way, the answers to these questions, you're going to want to listen, aren't you? The illusion that is raised in the book of Job is this. Man is sovereign. And the rest of the book of Job deals with the dismantling of that illusion that man is not sovereign. God is sovereign. He nearly lost his mind. Through it all, he never cursed God, but he did raise some very potent questions that remind us of the fragiless of life. And it is time. It is time for you and I to wake up and realize that we live in a tough world. Walk in my shoes and tell me that life is a bowl of cherries. Walk in the shoes of any man or woman who has suffered real suffering. You young people, especially. You listen to what those who have had to suffer have had to say. Because there are some tough questions. You see, we live in a world fashioned by illusion. The illusion of idolatry, the illusion of conformity, and the illusion of the sovereignty of man. When Adam and Eve were created, they were to have dominion over the whole earth. God placed them in a garden, which was a part of that earth, and they were to work the land, not toil the land, but work the land. They were to take the garden and expand it and make it bigger and bigger and bigger in ever-widening circles until the whole world became a garden. They were to work the little part in which God had placed them, and they were to ever discover his goodness and greatness in ever-widening circles. So long as they were obedient, so long as they did not eat of that forbidden fruit, the garden would grow wider and wider and wider. The problem is they fell. The problem is they sinned, and God put a post at the gate. God put a guard at the station. God cursed them. And instead of them subduing and having dominion over the earth, the earth now has subdued and has dominion over them. We are bound by the limitations of life in a fallen world. And yet, through it all, we somehow still believe we are sovereign. When creation is sovereign over us. We no longer have dominion over the whole earth. We don't even have dominion over a part of the earth. And when those of us think we have dominion over a part of the earth, somebody else on the other part of the earth will declare war on us. Why? Because we live as a cursed people. What man has failed to discover is the continuing delusion of his own sovereignty. Man still doesn't get it. He will labor by the sweat of his brow. The land will subdue him. He is no longer lord over creation. He is servant to God's created order. We are the bond slaves of creation, and the way in which you know that that reality hits home, loud and clear, is that every one of you is going to die. Creation's going to win. You're going to die. Yet somehow or another, we continue to say that we are sovereign. We do everything to escape from dying. We do everything to stop the aging process. We do everything to avoid even discussing the issue of death. I've shared this privately, I'll share it publicly. We have people who are neighbors of ours. We're surrounded by different people, and it's not true of all of them, but there are some people who after our son died, I mean, they basically saw him raised from a baby up. They lived next door to us, their kids played with our kids, etc., etc. We've had people who won't even look at us. Have not even acknowledged the fact that our son died. Have not even sent a card to indicate that our son died. When they see us out in the yard, turn the other way and walk away. They can't even look at us in the face. Because to do so means that they have to think about death. They don't want to do it. It's like my dog under the bed. If I can't see him, then he can't see me, even though the tail's sitting out there wagging. Turn and hide, put my head in the sand. Why? So that I don't have to face the reality of death. That's an illusion, friends. You're living in an illusory world. And you know what the root of that is? You still believe man is sovereign. So Job asks a question, and I'll close with this. He says, if I say, I will forget my complaint, I will change my expression and smile. Get the picture? Somebody says to you, Job, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Forget what's happened. Put it behind you. Change your expression and smile. He says, if I do that, I still dread all my sufferings, for I know, he says to God, you will not hold me innocent. Since I'm already found guilty. Why should I struggle in vain? Hear what he's saying to God? Even if I washed myself with soap and my hands with washing soda, you would plunge me into a slime pit so that my clothes would detest me. Here's a man who basically is saying to God, if I do everything right, you cause me to suffer. And if I do everything wrong, you cause me to suffer. I lose either way. I don't understand you. I don't understand you. Now is that a tough question or what? Is that man raising some serious questions or what? Do you know what his conclusion is going to be? I can't understand you unless you send a mediator. I can't understand you unless there's someone who becomes an arbiter. In fact, he uses the word umpire between you and me. I need someone who's going to take your hand and someone who's going to take my hand at the same time and interpret you to me. Guess who that is? There is but one mediator between God and man. That is the Lord Jesus Christ. The only way you're going to get answers to those questions is not on some sort of quest to understand the sovereignty of man. But when you bow before the mediator and say to the Lord Jesus Christ, you take my hand and you interpret the Father for me. You speak the Father's words. You are the mediator. You are the only one who can bridge the gap. And in faith I bow before you. Job is not going to trust his emotional peaks and valleys. Job lives within a circle of fear. He even questions his own emotional stability. He cannot understand God because he cannot understand himself. And by the way, that question is raised in Job, but never answered in Job. The only way you get an answer to that is when you come to John chapter 14, where Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me. The Job question is unanswered until Jesus says, I am the way. The illusions of Christmas. Bring to bear the question of reality. What is real? What is real? What is real? The only real thing you can hold on to this Christmas season, the only reality in your life that you can confidently trust is the reality that God became a man, died on the cross, rose from the dead, and makes intercession for you, so that one day when you do die, you can stand before a holy God and be acquitted. You can find forgiveness and eternal life in Him. Or you can continue to live in your illusory world. But one day that reality will come crashing down when you are face to face with a real holy God. Let's stay and join hands with those around you as we close. Thank you, Lord, for this time in the Word. May your grace, may your love, may your peace go with each person who has walked into this sanctuary today. May they find joy and comfort in the only one who is real. The no-gods of idolatry and the illusions of Christmas cannot possibly stand against the backdrop of your life, death, and resurrection. Please, Lord, teach us how to be people who approach a holy God on his terms and find the only solution, a lasting solution for lasting peace in him and him alone.

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Now may the grace of God, the love of our Lord and our Savior, Jesus the Christ, the very presence, person, and power of his Holy Spirit, abide with each of you now until Christ comes again and forevermore. And all God's people say.