Good morning. For while we were still helpless, at the right
time Christ died for the ungodly. I have said several times that everything
happened at just the right time; everything had to be in place for Jesus to
come. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good
man someone would dare even to die. We do see today where people give their
lives trying to protect others in shooting situations. In a lot of cases, they
don’t even know whether the people they are saving are good or bad. But God
knew that we were bad. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that
while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Thankfully we did not have to
get good enough for Him to die for us - we couldn’t. Much more then, having now
been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through
Him. This is what I was talking about before: notice that it says we were
justified by His blood; not through His resurrection. For if while we were
enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more,
having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. The blood of an animal
sprinkled on the mercy seat turned away the wrath of God in the Old Testament
times. Even so, the sprinkling of Jesus’ blood saves us from the wrath of God
and reconciles us to Him. But much more: because Jesus was raised from the dead
and now lives, we shall be saved totally. If He had just died for us and not
risen from the dead, we could not live the Christian life. Father thank You
that You loved us even before we were born. Thank You that not only did Jesus
die for us, He was also raised for us that we might live through Him.
Merry Christmas!
Good morning, and Merry Christmas! We are going to digress and look at the first Christmas. This was something that had been foretold centuries before; and yet people still did not understand what was going to happen. They were thinking that the Messiah was going to come as an adult and was going to re-establish the nation of Israel above all other nations. They were not expecting Him to come as a baby, supposedly born to a carpenter and placed in a manger. Many things had to happen at precisely the right time. You had to have the right person to be His mother and the right person to be His supposed father. You had to have a reason for them to be in Bethlehem on the night He was born – the census. It had to be when shepherds would be in the field near Bethlehem watching their flocks. And just at the right time – an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before the shepherds, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened. And the angel said to them...
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