A Different View of Christmas

A Different View of Christmas
Friday, December 15, 2006

It always has bothered me when I would read Christian writers who interjected other aspects of Christian faith into this Advent season. For instance, I remember reading a treatise on the connection between Christmas and the cross of Christ. Why would someone ruin the special joy and innocence of this season by interjecting the tragic events of Passion Week? I would have been equally put off by someone trying to bring Christmas into the Easter season. It was like being a kid trying to keep the various parts of my supper separated on my plate. You know peas here, potatoes here, and the meat over there, all neatly separated.  I remember being so put off by the author’s suggestion that I set the article aside. Over the last two years my thinking has begun to change as we enter the various celebrations and remembrances during the seasons of the calendar year.

When you look at the whole of the Biblical narrative you see a progressive process in time and space, but you also see a picture of one thing. Man needs a Savior and God is at work in history to bring that Savior into this world. Until that blessed Baby grows up, fulfills His ministry and destiny by death on a cross, is raised from death, ascends to be seated at the right hand of the Father as the Name above all names, and sends the Holy Spirit into the world to inhabit the Church until His Second Advent, the Story is not complete. It is one story with a unified purpose. It has a beginning and an end.

I think we are tempted to try to isolate the various parts of the Story into manageable isolated sections. That way we can pick one over the other based on personal taste. The world historically liked the “Baby Jesus”. More recently it rejects the Baby because of His excusive claims as the only Way to God. I love Christmas, but as age advances my years and perspective, I see the necessary connection between the First Advent and the Second Advent.

Oh, about that plate of food; I had to eat everything on that plate. I didn’t care for the peas, but I had to eat them. As Christians our heavenly Father bids us eat everything on our Spiritual plate. We are the bearers of Christ and His message in a world that is still dominated by the darkness of sin. Until the end of the Story, we must bear that light and every part of that unified narrative. Have a blessed Advent as you bear that message and His light.

Good bye radio, hello Blogging!

With June 24, 2006 being the last installment of the “Michael Law Show” on the radio, I have been promising an update on my blog site that is long over due. Just a little personal rambling for this submission. Since blogging will be my only outlet from now on I hope to do a bit more of it. I don‘t blog as a creative exercise. I sure don’t blog because I think I have the last word on anything. Nor do I believe my efforts in blogging to comprise things that must be said and read “or else”. As anyone who is honest with themselves, all of us believe ourselves to carry a unique perspective because of the significance of our individual life experience. Blogging is a wonderful way for the grassroots to be heard and to sharpen the thinking of those who write and read blogs. It is the sheer number of folks doing both now that makes the blogisphere so powerful. America is long overdue for something that promotes thought on something other than “this is all about me” What we think, not what we feel, has to become more prominent than it has been for the last two decades. So this speck in the growing world of the bloisphere will try to deal more with conceptual pursuits rather than emotive ones. Too many of us are tempted by the spirit of the age and not only are we guilty of speaking before we think we are too often feeling before we think. Both are dangerous pursuits. What I hope to do in the future with this site is to place some live streaming audio files from sermons I preach on Sunday mornings and from other venues, link readers to other sites that have important things to say, and continue to write about things on both my mind and heart. I will have more to say later.

You Simply Must Read These Articles Linked Here

Rich Lowry writes a wonderful column about the Narnia movie and why people are so critical of C.S. Lewis. This is the link for that article. Another link is for an article my friend Casey Luskin writes about intelligent design for Human Events magazine find that link here.

Advent Ironies

· The only upper class people who were aware that something significant and worthwhile was about to happen at the birth of Jesus were pagans.
· The Jewish civil and religious leaders were given every opportunity to know the place, time, and significance of the birth of the Messiah.
· The Jewish civil and religious leaders were given every opportunity to understand the real mission of the Messiah from the ancient prophecies common to the Hebrew people. It is ironic that they paid no attention to their own revered heroes and traditions.
· The only religious leader recorded to have had a special visitation and specific revelation contemporaneous with the time of Jesus’ birth was Zecharias and he was punished for his unbelief.
· In the climate of spiritual darkness, corruption, and religious distortion, the irony is that any observant Jews were able to know that Messiah’s time had come. Luke 2:25 A man named Simeon was in Jerusalem. He lived an honorable and devout life. He was waiting for the one who would comfort Israel. The Holy Spirit was with Simeon Luke 2:26 and had told him that he wouldn't die until he had seen the Messiah, whom the Lord would send. Luke 2:36 Anna, a prophet, was also there. She was a descendant of Phanuel (face of God) from the tribe of Asher. She was now very old. Her husband had died seven years after they were married, Luke 2:37 and she had been a widow for 84 years. Anna never left the temple courtyard but worshiped day and night by fasting and praying. Luke 2:38 At that moment she came up to Mary and Joseph and began to thank God. She spoke about Jesus to all who were waiting for Jerusalem to be set free.
· The angels worshiped and made their earthly announcement to the scum of Jewish society, The shepherds were the lowest class of worker in Judea. The herds were not owned by those who tended them. They were owned by the Temple bureaucrats who made huge profits from selling the lambs during the Passover and other Jewish holy days for sacrifices. These shepherds were the first to pay a visit to the newly born Messiah. They visited the Lamb of God who was to serve as the sin offering of the world.
· Herod is buried on the heights three miles from Bethlehem. From where he is buried, which was his “Camp David” type getaway, one can see Bethlehem. Herod, who was intent on murdering any possible competitor no matter how obscure, no matter how close a family member was unable to suppress the will of God and destroy the life of the authentic King of the Jews. For all of history the placement of Herod’s body is a testimony to his failure as a person and his failure as a civil leader.

Michael's Profile

Michael hosted "The Grapevine" on 1210AM KPRZ in San Diego since March of 1987. It was the longest running Christian talk show in Southern California up until February of 2004 when he signed the program off the air for the last time. Over that time he led numerous efforts to support various ministries worldwide, and inspired Christians to take an active role in spiritual renewal and cultural change. Michael’s work included outreaches for Compassion International, Josh McDowell's Operation Carelift, World Vision, and the Bible League. Through the Bible League he was responsible for raising the funds to provide over one hundred thousand Bibles for Christians in Indonesia, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, and India. His work with KPRZ and the San Diego Blood Bank also resulted in thousands of donations. He has been active with the Salvation Army, The San Diego Rescue Mission, and many other local and international groups to provide comfort and share the Gospel’s message of hope and eternal life.
Michael has had the opportunity to travel to many countries around the world and meet Christians in those countries. This has given him a unique perspective of the Church and God’s work in many different settings, some of which include the harsh and relentless persecution of Christians by the civil authorities in those countries. Among the countries Michael has visited are Guatemala, India, Thailand, Russia, Indonesia, and China.
An accomplished vocal musician, Mike completed thirteen years of private training. This led to an invitation to compete for a Julliard scholarship and auditions for the Metropolitan Opera. He has sung lead and supporting roles in many musicals and operas, including assignments internationally and with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
He pastors Community Christian Church in San Marcos, California and teaches junior high Bible, History, and Social Studies at Community Christian School which is a ministry which he and his wife helped found 28 years ago.

Check out Michael's Web Site

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The Pagan Phenomenon

The Pagan Phenomenon


In a stunning article published in the “Washington Times”, March 4, 2005, Uwe Seimon-Netto writes of the demise of secular or “scientific” atheism. As an idea, atheism is no longer taken seriously by large groups of influential people in Europe or the United States. Seimon-Netto states two reasons for its demise. The first reason cited is that modern science has lost a great deal of stock with the emergence of the Intelligent Design movement and other leading edge science. Naturalistic evolutionary dogma holds that a material world with incredible complexity materialized by mere random chance. Evolution simply does not pass any reasonable muster in the light of current scientific investigation. New technology can look more deeply into the macro and microcosms than ever before and is rendering information pointing to something much more than random chance as the origin of all that we observe in the physical universe. The second reason cited in the article mentioned above for material atheism’s diminishing popularity is the inhumane and loony ideas that have resulted from political systems informed and organized around atheistic philosophy. The Soviet Union, North Korea, Communist China, Cuba, and Pol Pot’s Cambodia do not offer desirable examples of societies built on the philosophical foundations of atheism.

So, what is the result of this demise of atheism? For those who are evangelical or orthodox Christians it would be natural to rejoice assuming that once again Biblical truth has emerged victorious after a great protracted struggle. We should pause before we go too far down the road of celebration. Another religion is vying for ascendance in the United States and on virtually every other continent on this planet. The religion is paganism and while it may be “new” to us its roots are ancient. Paganism has historically been the most formidable enemy of revealed Biblical truth. It offers a comprehensive world-view. It sneers at post modernity and its nihilistic frivolity. It offers a compelling explanation of transcendence and meaning. This contemporary version of pagan spirituality also offers an insidious, toxic mix of truth and lies retrofitted seductively to man’s falleness and separation from He Who is truly God. There is growing fear that many are being deceived and will ultimately be seduced by this global neopagan revival. Rev. Gerald McDermott, an Episcopal priest says that, “The rise of all sorts of paganism is creating a false spirituality that proves to be a more dangerous rival to the Christian faith than atheism”.

Dr. Peter Jones has spent the last several years speaking and writing about this explosive emergence of contemporary pagan spirituality all over the world. Recently during a phone conversation with him Dr. Jones spoke to me about his concern with the ignorance of evangelical and orthodox Christians. He said, “Unless we come to terms with what is happening and begin to equip our children to avoid the pagan seduction, we will lose them.” Dr. Jones is not worried about the ultimate triumph of biblical Christianity. He is concerned that many of this and the next generation will succumb to the allure of pagan spirituality. The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown, is a wildly popular fictional account of the life of Jesus based on a group of writings called the Gnostic Gospels. These collections were written during the first century and following the time of the writing of the New Testament. Dr. Jones has co-authored a book exposing the dangers of what this novel communicates about the “real” Jesus. The book titled, Cracking Da Vinci’s Code, and co-authored by Dr. Jim Garlow, depicts Jesus as a totally different kind of Messiah than the one we read about in the Gospel accounts. In The Da Vince Code Jesus is depicted as a fun loving guru who is not particularly moral or concerned about traditional morality. Dan Brown’s Jesus brings to humanity a hope for higher spiritual consciousness and fulfillment without the moral absolutes and prohibitions on which human nature easily chafes. Young and old alike are reading The Da Vinci Code and considering the alternatives presented by Dan Brown to the Logos of God made flesh revealed in the Gospel of John and other New Testament Gospels.

You would be well served by getting on Dr. Jones’s web page and reading some of the articles there about this and other work he is doing. Follow this link and get informed about the pagan revival and its seductive components. You and all whom you love will be well served. www.cwipp.org.