Christmas
by Pastor William C. Mack | December 20, 2020
My favorite Christmas special T.V. program was almost canceled this year! “A Charlie Brown Christmas” was, according to my sources, on the “chopping block” but someone came to their senses and decided to “run it” again. Thank goodness!Since 1965 that wonderful little show has reminded us that Christmas is a time when God sent His Son; “A Savior, Christ the Lord.” While, literally, hundreds of millions of souls have watched that show since its inception, our nation’s church attendance has continually dropped since then; especially in this time of the Covid-19 “pandemic”. What has happened? What is it that has changed, especially on the church scene?
In the early 20 century, the Christian church in America began to embrace the “new theology” of European Christianity, called “liberalism”. It called into question the reliability and validity of the Bible. By the mid-20 century, “Form Criticism, Historical Criticism”, and ilk like it began to poison the Church. This “liberal theology” gave way in the late 20th century to “post-modernism” in the American Church; a teaching that basically said, “Whatever you believe is true is true….for you.”. That, of course, was extreme subjectivism. People began to question who the true god was and whether they truly needed a “savior”….from anything! Attendance at worship waned and started plummeting.
Objectively, the Bible says we are all sinners who shall die and deserve eternal Hell. That same Book also says we have been saved from all sin, from death, and from Hell. We are headed for Heaven, by God’s grace, through faith in Christ. He has, already, “saved” us. God, in human form, came to this earth to suffer, die, and rise again so that we might live with Him in Paradise. Christmas is the season for rejoicing in the FACT that we have been saved by Jesus Christ. It is an objective truth that is
ours, subjectively, by His grace alone. May His love, mercy, and grace draw us to gather to praise Him, corporately and individually, this Christmas season. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
