Merry Christmas! here's a sermon I'd like to share with you. May it warm your heart and help you grow in love for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!
December, 2003 By Pastor Tony Cirigliano
Each year at this time, the movie Its A Wonderful Life is shown on TV. Its a classic movie starring Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey. George has some real reversals in his life, and he comes to a point where he wishes that he was never born. Then an angel from heaven grants him his wish to show him how important his life is, and how he has affected many others. The movie beautifully depicts the value of each individual life.
What about the life of Jesus Christ the Son of God who came to this earth to save mankind? What if He had never been born? How did the one solitary life of Jesus affect this world? There are many people that have lived on this globe we call earth, and have had profound influence on this world. But all lives pale in comparison to the life of Jesus Christ who has had the most profound effect on the human race for time and eternity! He has changed virtually every aspect of life, and many people do not even realize it! In Revelation 21:5, Jesus says, "Behold, I make all things new." He was talking about the new heavens and new earth that He will make after the 1,000 years, but today I want to make the point that Jesus' life made all things new in this world, for all time! His very birthday utterly altered the way we measure time! Now the whole world counts time as before Christ BC or AD Anno Domini "in the year of the Lord." Even the most vitriolic atheist writing a letter to a friend must acknowledge Christ when he dates his letter!
Jesus Christ was born more than 2,000 years ago. He grew up as an itinerant rabbi who preached and did miracles for just three and a half years around the countryside of Israel that was subjugated by the Roman Empire. Yet today there are more than 2 billion people who profess belief in Him in every nation on earth!
Emperors and Governors were the men with power in Christ's day. But now their bodies rot in their graves, and they await the final judgment. No one follows them, or marches to their orders, or worships them! But not so with Jesus! Millions down through the ages followed Him, and even given their life rather than deny Him! Napoleon Bonaparte said, "I search in vain in history to find the similar to Jesus Christ, or anything which can approach the gospel. Nations pass away, thrones crumble, but His church remains."
There were some that wished Jesus had never been born! Frederic Nietzsche, the 19 century atheist philosopher who coined the phrase "God is dead" hated the Christian religion. Hitler, who followed his philosophy also hated the Christian faith and condemned it as a Jewish sect. Because of his belief system 16 million died! Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse Tung tried to eradicate Christianity from their nations, but the gospel of Jesus Christ has prevailed, and the very buildings where these leaders proclaimed their godless ideas have been used to proclaim the gospel to millions! For example, Mark Finley, a Seventh-day Adventist evangelist, preached to over 30,000 in the Kremlin itself! No wonder Napoleon said he has searched history and never found anyone like Jesus Christ!
Prior to the coming of Christ, human life on this planet was relatively cheap. Even today, in parts of the world where the gospel has not penetrated, life is still very cheap. Jesus Christ gave a new perspective on the sanctity and the value of human life. In the ancient pagan religions, child sacrifices were a common thing. Before the religion of the Hebrews conquered Canaan, it was common for human sacrifices to be made to appease the gods Astoreth and Baal. Millions of babies were sacrificed. It was a dangerous thing to be a baby in the ancient Roman or Grecian world! It was Jesus' words and the Christian faith that ended the vile and low perversions of the pagan religions! In ancient Rome killing one's own children was called a "thing of beauty!" Fathers could kill their children at whim! It was Jesus Christ and His words that changed that! The act of abandoning children and infanticide disappeared among the converts to Christianity. It was Christians that founded the first orphanages, foundling homes, and nurseries. It all goes back to Jesus! If He had never been born, human life would be worthless as it was for millenniums before Him! It was He that said, "Suffer the little children to come to Me and forbid them not." It was Jesus who said "If any one harms one of these little ones, it would be better for him to put a millstone about his neck and throw himself into the depths of the sea!" Jesus gave dignity to children! He said their angels have direct access to the Father in heaven! Jesus gave fatherhood and motherhood a whole new meaning. Oh! How sad a world this would be if Jesus had never been born! Do you love family, and your children? Well then thank God that Jesus was born!
What about the treatment of women? Before Jesus was born, a women's life also was very cheap. In ancient cultures, the wife was the property of her husband. Aristotle said that a woman was somewhere between a free man and a slave. Plato taught that if a man lived a cowardly life, he would be reincarnated as a woman. In the book Pagans and Christians, Robin Lane Fox points out that it was commonplace for female babies to be abandoned to the vultures. In ancient India before Christianity's influence, many woman were burned on their husband's funeral fire if they outlived him! It was Jesus' apostle Paul who wrote in Christ Jesus "there is neither male nor female." Different roles yes, he said, but not differences in their value as precious children of God! It was the Christian preacher William Carey who got tired of seeing women burnt in what was called the suttee in India, and seeing little girl babies thrown into the sea that caused him to arouse the populace and the British authorities to step in the 19th century to end that barbarism! Carey was inspired by Jesus Christ who gave dignity to woman! He lifted them up as children of God!
What about the elderly? It has often been said that the Chinese and Japanese worship their elders, but only after exposure to Christianity were homes built for them! Throughout history, many tribes and peoples killed off their elderly. The Eskimos, before the influence of Christianity used to kill the elderly by setting them adrift on ice floats out to sea! It was the Christian faith that ended the pagan practice of slaying the elderly!
What about the abominable practice of slavery? Although it took centuries, it was the Christian faith that put an end to the practice of slavery. Half of the population of the Roman Empire was slaves. Three-fourths of the population of ancient Athens were slaves. Slaves were worthless and killed at the whim of the owner. It was Jesus' disciple Paul that wrote to Philemon, his friend, to take back his runaway slave Onesimus not as a slave, but as a brother. That was revolutionary! A slave was like a tool! But when the Spirit of God enters the heart, he became a brother! It was Jesus that taught the brotherhood of all mankind! It was Christianity that eventually broke the back of the slave trade. In England, the evangelist William Wilberforce fought successfully to end the slave trade from Africa to the West Indies. In America, two-thirds of the members of the Abolitionist Society in 1835 were ministers of the gospel! The Lord's servant tells us that Abraham Lincoln acted on a mandate from God, and inspired by Jesus signed the Emancipation Proclamation! The movement for Civil Rights was led by preachers like Martin Luther King who dreamed that men and women could be brothers and sisters regardless of the color of their skin! Behind it all was the loving Lord Jesus Christ! 0 thank you Lord for sending Jesus!
What about sports? Does the sport of boxing strike you as cruel? As vicious as it may seem, it pales when compared to the ancient sport battles. People used to kill other humans for sport! The spilling of human blood thrilled the masses. Gladiators were slaves or prisoners who were forced to fight to the death to entertain the people! The Emperor Trajan whose name the word tragedy is derived from had 1,000 gladiators killed in a span of four months just to entertain himself! The historian Tacitus tells us that Nero had parties in his gardens, in which the entertainment of the evening was the torturous killing of Christians by wild beasts! According to church historian Kenneth Scott Latourette, it was when Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire that this practice was put to an end. Today, in the Coliseum in Rome, on the very spot where tens of thousands of Christians were murdered stands a cross a symbol of Christianity's victory over the brutality of the ancient world.
What about compassion and mercy? Will Durant wrote, "Charity found little expression in the ancient world." The world before Christ was a cruel place! Inns were few and far between. Even the young Mary, the mother of the Christ child had to gave birth in a manger. The poor had to beg and fend for themselves. It was Jesus who said that what you do to the least of these, you do to Me! It was Jesus who taught men to love one another, to consider others better than yourself, to treat others the way you want to be treated! It was Jesus who restored values, dignity, and purity to the race! It is He that can bring men and women back to the image of God in life and character! The early Christians fed their fellow prisoners, and prayed for them. According to Tertullian, even in the ancient arenas when the Christians were being put to death, the crowds screamed, "Look how much they love one another!" Love in your heart agape love for a brother and a sister can only come from the Holy Spirit who Jesus sends. It was the Christian George Mueller that founded his famous orphanages in England to care for children. The Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) was founded in 1844 to minister to the poor and homeless millions. In 1887, General William Booth, motivated by the love of Christ founded the Salvation Army when he saw so many homeless men, women, and children sleeping in the streets! These men and women that found the great service organizations and ministries were motivated by Jesus Christ! Folks, if Jesus had never been born, we'd probably wish that we had never been either! Thank you Father for sending Your Son!
What about education? Every school you see today whether church or public is a visible reminder of the religion set up by Jesus Christ. It was Christianity that gave rise to the concept of education for everyone. Before Christ, education was only for the elite. The idea of education for everyone grew out of the Reformation. God made sure we would have the very first and best textbook too! When the printing press was invented, the first book printed was the Bible called the Gutenberg Bible after Johann Gutenberg. Gutenberg was the first to make movable type practical for mass production printing. Human learning took a giant step forward, and the Christians wanted the Bible to be read and taught to everyone! Yale Church historian Phillip Schaff wrote, "The art of printing, which was one of the providential preparations for the Reformation, became the mightiest lever of Protestantism and modern culture." History of the Christian Church, Volume 7.
In Geneva, Calvin promoted education for everyone. In 1642, the Puritans in this country passed a law requiring education for all children in their colonies. In 1647, they passed the Old Deluder Act that required that the Bible be taught to children so that the devil could not deceive them. Children were also to be taught to read and write. In fact, for 217 years from 1620 till 1837 almost all education in this country was private and Christian. Many here are familiar with McGuffey's Readers. William Holmes McGuffey, a Presbyterian minister, authored McGuffey's Ecletic Reader, which sold 120 million copies! The early editions of the reader were clearly Christian! The majority of Americas children were taught through this reader for 75 years! Almost every one of the first 123 Ivy League colleges and universities in the United States has Christian origins. Christians started them for Christian purposes. Paul Lee Tan, in the Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations writes on page 157: "Every collegiate institution founded in the colonies prior to the Revolutionary War except the University of Pennsylvania was established by some branch of the Christian Church.
In the establishment of the University of Pennsylvania, George Whitefield the great evangelist played a prominent part. Harvard, Yale, William and Mary, Brown, Princeton, New York University, Northwestern University, and almost all other prominent schools of higher education have thoroughly Christian roots. Harvard got its start by a donation of money and books by a Pastor John Harvard. Engraved in stone at the entrance of Harvard is this written by Pastor Harvard: "After God had carried us safe to New England, and we had built our houses. He provided necessities for our livelihood, reared convenient places for God's worship, and settled the civil government; one of the next things we longed for, and looked at was to advance learning, and perpetuate it to posterity; dreading leave an illiterate ministry to the churches; when our present ministers shall lie in the dust." Dartmouth College was founded to train missionaries to the Indians. King's College opened in 1754. It became Columbia University. It was advertised this way, "The chief thing engaged at this college is to teach and engage children to know God in Jesus Christ" True "higher" education and the accomplishments of it are owed to Jesus Christ!
What about law? All righteous laws in every nation are based on the principles of God's moral laws, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ! The Judeo-Christian principles of right living inspired the laws of every decent nation. Wherever these principles have found a place, civilized and true living followed, and whenever they are abandoned by cultures, nations, or individuals debauchery, violence, and living on the animal level prevails! These principles were what America was founded upon, and that's what made America great. America became great because it was founded on God's principles! In fact, the very freedoms we enjoy in America were because of Jesus' gospel! The Mayflower Compact in 1620 written by the Puritans served as an example for the Constitution! It was really the Word of God inspired by Jesus Christ that gave birth to the clause "all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness!"
Many of the founders of this country were committed Christians. Samuel Adams called "the father of the revolution" took his cue from the Bible and wrote, "these rights may be best understood by reading and carefully studying the institutes of the great law Giver and Head of the Christian church Jesus Christ." American Patriotism, page 34. Patrick Henry said, "This great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ." The Myth of Separation, p. 25. George Washington, called the "father of the country" wrote these words that were found among his personal papers: "0 most gracious God, in Jesus Christ my merciful and loving Father, I acknowledge and confess my guilt, in the weak and imperfect performance of the duties of this day. I have called on Thee for pardon and forgiveness of sins, but so coldly and carelessly, that my prayers are become my sin and stand in need of pardon." Christianity and the Constitution p. 131. In his book Of Worthy Company, M.E. Bradford of Dallas University said that of the 56 men that signed the Declaration of Independence, fifty were unquestionably Christians. In 1776, ninety-eight percent of the population was Protestant Christians! You say you love America? Then thank God Jesus that was born!
What about science? How did Jesus and Christianity effect science? The devil often tries to make it appear that science refutes Christianity but that is only science falsely so-called! True science agrees with the Word of God and the Creator who inspired it. Some of the world's greatest scientists were devoted Christians. The list is formidable! Here is a list of some of the great Christian men and women that taught true science!
The father of antiseptic surgery Joseph Lister
Bacteriology Louis Pasteur
Calculus Sir Isaac Newton
Celestial Mechanics Johannes Kepler
Comparative Anatomy George Cuvier
Electronics John Ambrose Fleming
Electro-magnetics Michael Faraday
Hydrostatics Blaise Pascal
And the list goes on and on!
What about health-care? How did the religion founded by Jesus Christ affect health-care? Hospitals grew out of the almshouses provided by Christians for the sick. The Quakers established the first hospital in America The Pennsylvania Hospital established in Philadelphia in 1751. Jesus Christ inspired Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing! She said that God called her into service when she was 17 years old. In the mid-nineteenth century, the Christ loving Henry Dunant helped to establish the international Red Cross! It has saved millions of lives and comforted the wounded in wars all over the world! Its blood red cross is a testament to the effect the Man who died for the sins of the world on Calvary's cross has had on the world! Also, Christianity's stand against tobacco and alcohol has saved countless lives and saved millions from pain, suffering, and death!
What about literature and the arts? Christ inspired the greatest art music, and literature in the world! Leonardo Davinci's Last Supper, Michaelangelo's Pieta, Handal's Messiah, Johanne Sebastion Bach's music! Shakespeare, Milton, Charles Dickens were all inspired by Jesus Christ! Milton's Paradise Lost and countless other great works were inspired by Jesus Christ! Many believe that Dicken's classic A Christmas Carol was a parody on conversion! The last book Dickens published was called The Life of Our Lord. The list could go on and on filling thousands of pages! Oh what a darker and less creative world it would be if Jesus Christ was never born!
But the greatest thing that Jesus has done is change men's lives, women's lives, and the lives of boys and girls! Receiving Jesus into the heart by faith makes an eternal difference! In the 19th century, Charles Bradlaugh, a prominent atheist challenged a Christian man to a debate on the validity of the claims of Christianity. The Christian, Hugh Price Hughes, was an active soul-winner. He told the atheist that he would agree to the debate on one condition that both men bring ten people whose lives have been bettered by their beliefs in either Christianity or atheism. Hughes brought with him 50 men and women whose lives were dramatically changed by Jesus Christ! These men and women were transformed from the streets and from lives of vice and debasing sin, and addiction to be powerful witnesses of the love of God! The Atheist Bradlaugh could not bring one who had become a better person by being an atheist! In shame he canceled the debate!
If Jesus were never born, I would not, and probably neither would you have peace in your heart. We would be without God and without hope in the world! The list of changed lives is endless! It starts in Bible times with Zaccheus, Mary Magdalene, and Peter, and the rest of the apostles, the Centurion at the cross, the thief who died next to Him! And the list goes on down through the centuries! Countless lives changed forever because of Jesus Christ.
John Newton was a slave trader. During a violent storm at sea called upon God for protection and was spared! He eventually was converted and became a pastor and an evangelist. The hymn he wrote is now America's best loved hymn according to a USA Today poll. The hymn is titled Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound that saved wretches like you and I!
CS Lewis' mother died when he was just a child this made him angry at God, and friends led him into atheism. He eventually, after being seriously wounded in World War I became a Christian. He became one of Christianity's great apologists. His Mere Christianity has converted many an infidel!
Jesus lives and He still is in the business of changing hearts! He changed my heart! He heard my prayers and changed my life! He's still in the business of changing lives! It is no secret what God can do, what He's done for others, He'll do for you! If Christ had not come there would be no forgiveness of sin. At Calvary shackles are broken, and prisoners are set free! If Jesus had never been born, there would be no hope of eternal life! Jesus brought life and immortality to light. If Jesus had never been born, then the cold, dark tomb would be man's final end! But Jesus has the keys of death and the grave! He walked out of His tomb, and He will call out the faithful from theirs! He's a forever Friend! He was born! He did save us! He is coming again! I can say today that I love Him! He's my Friend and Savior, and Master and Lord! Is he yours? I know that my sins are forgiven! They are buried in the depths the sea. My life has significance, and meaning, and worth because of Jesus! One day soon He will change this body and make it immortal! Men will live forevermore because of Christmas Day! How sad that so many have forgotten the Christ whose birth gives the reason for the season!
Remember the story of Scrooge whose life was changed and who, when he awoke, realized that it was still Christmas Day. It's was not to late to make changes to the man in the mirror! Have you ever wished that you could start your life over again? Well you can do it in Jesus! He can make all things new! Its not too late! He loved you even to the cross! He paid the price for your sins and your guilt. He took the punishment that you deserved! He paid the price entirely! He offers you forgiveness! By grace unmerited and free He offers you eternal life! He's coming back again real soon! Are you ready? You can be because Jesus is just a prayer away! Merry Christmas!
Love in Jesus
Tony, Mary Ann, and Paul Cirigliano