Dear Christian friends:

If we are to have the real blessings and joys of Christmas, God must prepare our hearts for it. Christmas is a mystery. A wonderful surprising thing that happened and we can't understand why or how it happened.

Because Christmas is such a wonderful event we may overlook its real treasure if we are not prepared for it. God used four thousand years and many prophets and prophecies to prepare the Jews and the world for the first Christmas.

The Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament tell how carefully God prepared the Jews and the world for Christ's birth. And yet when that happened many, many people were not ready and failed to receive the Baby Jesus for their Savior and King.

One of the important texts of the Old Testament which God used to help prepare the Jews for Christmas is our text this morning. As it helped the Jews prepare for the first Christmas, so it will also help us today to prepare for our Christmas for 1960.

It tells:


When God decided to save us many problems appeared. One big problem was how to speak to us and how to get us to listen. Sin broke the easy, comfortable talk between God and man. Before sin came into the world we read that God talked with Adam and Eve and visited with them and they were not afraid of Him. And they were both naked and were not ashamed before God. But after they sinned they were ashamed of their nakedness and when they heard the voice of God in the Garden they were very scared and hid from God.

Sinful man cannot stand before the holy and mighty God. God is a destroying fire against sin and all that break His Holy Law. So also we read in our text in verse 16, "For this is what you asked of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, “Let us not hear the voice of the Lord our God nor see this great fire anymore, or we will die.” Here Moses reminds the Jews of how they trembled and feared before God at Mt. Horeb or Mt. Sinai when He gave the Ten Commandments. When God spoke the mountain shook and burned. God's voice was so terrible they couldn't stand to hear it.

So also when God sent His holy angels to speak to men they trembled and feared. When the angel Gabriel came to Zacharias to tell him that his wife Elizabeth will have a baby he was scared to death. And six months later the same angel appeared to Mary to tell her that she would be the mother of God's Son, she was troubled and afraid of the holy messenger from God.

But God is very, very wise and He found a way to talk to us and win us back to Him. Think of the kindness and mercy of our God. Although we deserved His mighty anger and destruction, He nevertheless loves us although we can't stand His holiness and seek to escape from Him and hide, He nevertheless comes after us and seeks to win us again to Him. How?

Moses prophesied to the Jews how God intended to solve that problem. He says, "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him." (verse 15)

If we study the New Testament we learn that this great prophet is Jesus Christ. Jesus Himself said so in Luke 4:16-20. Many Jews when they heard Him preach and saw His wonderful works said so. Peter and Stephen in their sermons to the Jews after Christ's death and resurrection quoted this verse 15 here in our text and said it meant Jesus. Because we cannot come to God, but can only flee and hide from Him He came to us. He even became one of us. Moses, "from the midst of thee, of they brethen," which means God was born from one of us. You know that story about how the angel Gabriel come to Mary and told her that she would be the mother of God's Son. Mary was surprised and said, "How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?" The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God." (Luke 1:25-46)

In Baby Jesus, and the Man, Jesus Christ, God hides His glory and power and anger so that we are not afraid to hear God speak through our brother Jesus. We can't bear to hear God speak His holy law and threaten terrible punishment as He did on Mt. Sinai, but we can hear Jesus, our true human brother.

Moses says in verse 15, "unto Him ye shall hearken." And God said to Moses, verse 18, "I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him."

So in the Man, Jesus, our Brother, God comes to us and speaks to us telling us not to run away and hide or make excuses, but come and be friends again because God forgives all sins! Jesus said, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16) And again Jesus speaks, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28) Or He says like He did through Isaiah, "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." (Matthew 1:18)

So in this we see the precious thing in Christmas. We sinners, ourselves cannot come to God, but can only flee and hide and are lost, but He in His wisdom and mercy comes to us, is born from one of us, to speak forgiveness and peace and hope and life eternal. This Jesus, born of our brother, we can hear and believe and be saved. Who is afraid of a Baby Brother?

So we have no reason to be afraid of God at Christmas. He is our Baby Brother and He will die for our sins. This is how God solved our big problem. We can hear Jesus and be saved. But if we don't care or try to excuse our sins or try to hide them or defend them or do not confess them and refuse to listen to Jesus we will be lost forever. So God warns in verse 19, "And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him." (verse 19)

If we do not listen to Jesus their is no salvation or hope for us. Are you listening?

Amen.