14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a
virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14)
23 Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son,
and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us. (Matt 1:23)
Before God spoke in aeons past,
the world was mantled in a thick curtain of darkness which had shrouded it from
the moment that it was made, from nothing, by the Voice of God. It was from
this smothering darkness that God spoke Light into being, and it was so. The
sphere of the earth was exposed to the light of first day, and Creation
continued to its physical consummation by the executive hand of the Lord – the
same Lord who not only made Heaven and earth, but you and me. “In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The
same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and
without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life; and
the life was the light of men.” (John 1:1-4) “That was the true Light,
which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and
the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his
own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them
gave he power to become the sons of God, even
to them that believe on his name (John 1:9-12) The same Lord who came
down at Christmas and humbled Himself to the bed of a manger for feeding
animals, and whose coming was heralded by the Light of a Star.
The Lord God knew in the
Eternities Past that man would not be able to achieve any righteousness at all
on his own power and will; so the Lord God made provision for a Savior who
would come into the world to redeem those who would believe upon Him truly and
devoutly. The only One who could qualify to redeem of sin must, Himself, be
Holy and Sinless. That One Person was the Lord Jesus Christ – the only Begotten
of the Father and the Lamb that was sacrificed for us from before the
foundation of the world. “But with the precious blood of Christ, as of
a lamb without blemish and without spot: Who verily was foreordained
before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times
for you (1
Peter 1:19-20, also Rev 13:8)
In the Garden, eastward at Eden,
man chose to partake of the tree with which Satan tempted him rather than that
blessed Tree of Life which would have granted righteousness and salvation from
the beginning. So the Tree of Life was removed to Paradise, and man has since,
through his natural deformity of spirit, followed that evil voice that spoke
from the ill-winded tree at Eden. But, remember? God had already provided a
remedy through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. He promised fallen man a Savior.
True Israel looked forward to that Promised Seed from Abraham to John the
Baptist. Their faith in the Coming Savior was the means of their salvation; and
that faith in the accomplished event of Christ’s sacrifice is the means of our
salvation today. Civil Israel was by and large lost to darkness just as the
civil-complicit church of today is by and large lost to darkness. True Israel
lives in the faith of the people of God in that Promised Seed which is the Lord
Jesus Christ. The Old Testament faith continues in the New.
Our hymn for this first Advent
Week represents the desire of the ages for One to save us from our sins and its
consequent death, so the words of an old 9th century Latin antiphon,
‘Veni Emmanuel,’ or Come Emmanuel, was put to deeper meaning and tune by the
Anglican priest, John Mason Neale in 1851. Of course, the hymn has its ancient
inspiration from the two introductory biblical passages of this devotion.
O come, O come, Emmanuel,
and ransom captive Israel,
that mourns in lonely exile here
until the Son of God appear.
Refrain:
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O
Israel.
What a wonderful
Advent hymn we have in the doctrinally sound, biblical truths contained in this
beautiful hymn. Its tune – Ephratah, or Veni
Emmanuel - is somber and reverential and touched with the color of devotion
and expectancy. It is not necessary to have a rousing melody or a ridiculously
loud modern drumbeat to rejoice. The quiet rejoicing in the silent and deep
chambers of the sanctified heart is the most profound of all.
Across the dark
vapors of evil man-made governments and religion, faithful men and women had
yearned for the promised coming of the Lord. The world was spinning into the
abyss of ruin and wickedness. A Savior was yearned for to bring Godly
righteousness and compassion upon such a morass of error and darkness. “O Come”
rings out the voices of the devout people of God. This was answered in order by
the second repetitious emphasis, “O Come.” And to whom was the plea made? To Emmanuel – the God that is
with us! Amazingly, the Great I AM, does not speak in tenses other than the
forever PRESENT TENSE. He is, always has been, and always WILL BE “I AM.’
Likewise, He is Emmanuel – the God that is now forever with us in our present
years. He is not the God that HAS BEEN with us, or WILL BE with us, but the One
who is always and PRESENTLY with us forevermore!
Why, you may ask,
do we need to be ransomed? It is because we have been in bondage to sin and
death. We have lived lives of the walking dead without God (Ephesians 2:1-10).
We have answered to the every wish and commandment of our master, the Dark
Prince of the Air. We need a new mind and a new will! We need to put on the
Mind and Will that was in Christ Jesus. We need to be purchased, ransomed,
redeemed, and justified from our lives of death and sin. We have lived in exile
among the wicked of the world, but now the Son of God shall appear with healing
in His Wings. This is cause to rejoice, and to rejoice yet again and again.
Emmanuel shall come to us!
O come, thou Wisdom from on high,
who orderest all things mightily;
o us the path of knowledge show,
and teach us in her ways to go. Refrain
There is no wisdom
apart from the grant of Heaven. We attain that wisdom from that primal fear
that there is a God in Heaven, and He is a God of justice. Knowing we fall far
short of righteousness, we fear the judgment of God and seek forgiveness. “The
fear of the LORD is the
beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth
for ever.” (Psalms 111:10) The path of knowledge is that same Narrow
Way that leads up to Heaven.
O come, thou Rod of Jesse, free
thine own from Satan's tyranny;
from depths of hell thy people
save,
and give them victory over the
grave. Refrain
The Rod of Jesse was
the same by which David and the Son of David (Jesus Christ) came. But Jesse,
too, is descended from Abraham – not only in bloodline, but in spiritual faith.
His grandmother was the epitome of love – the Edomite woman named Ruth who
married Boaz. Boaz was the son of Salmon and Rachab – the former prostitute of
Jericho. (Matthew 1). The glorious truth of Jesus was that He was in every way
wholly man and, at the same time, wholly God. There is not attempt to cover his
genealogy because He was literally conceived by the Holy Ghost. He frees us
from the tyranny of Satan over our souls through the instruments of sin. We
have made our beds, already, in Hell, but Christ saves us from death and Hell
by His own victory over death and Hell.
O come, thou Dayspring, come and
cheer
our spirits by thine advent here;
disperse the gloomy clouds of
night,
and death's dark shadows put to
flight. Refrain
I love this verse for its beauty and
perspective on Christ. He is the very original Dayspring who spoke Light and
Day into being at the beginning of Creation. “Through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring
from on high hath visited us, To give light to them that sit in
darkness and in the shadow of
death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” (Luke 1:78-79) He is also
referred to as the Day Star by St Peter. There was nothing more cheering to me
as a child that the beautiful, streaming rays of the effulgent light of the Sun
at daybreak. When a very young boy, I always awoke very early and looked
forward to the light of daybreak. It was very much like a new lease on life.
The long night was ended, and the day of lively play had dawned in glory. That
is the history of the past world of darkness without Christ. He came, and His
gentle beams of love and redemption have showered upon our shoulders as a
healing balm. Where the Light of
Life beams, there can be no shadow of death. Death is born in darkness, but
darkness cannot withstand even the smallest beam of Light. We are those lower
lights of God to bring those lost in the sea of life to the great Lighthouse of
God’s harboring Haven.
O come, thou Key of David, come,
and open wide our heavenly home;
make safe the way that leads on
high,
and close the path to misery. Refrain
O come, O come, great Lord of might,
who to thy tribes on Sinai's
height
in ancient times once gave the
law
in cloud and majesty and awe. Refrain
Our Lord Jesus
Christ possesses the keys to that everlasting Kingdom foreshadowed in David. It
is the Lord Jesus Christ who has conquered death and Hell for us and made
available to all who believe the Throne of Mercy and Grace of the Father. There
were no hospitals or orphanages prior to the coming of Christ. Women were
treated as chattel, much as today in the dark lands of Islam. But Christ
brought love to a world of hate as cool water on the parched desert earth. He
gave, not only the Law as a teacher to us, but the remedy of His imputed
righteousness to all who truly believe unto salvation.
O come, thou Root of Jesse's
tree,
an ensign of thy people be;
before thee rulers silent fall;
all peoples on thy mercy call. Refrain
O come, Desire of nations, bind
in one the hearts of all mankind;
bid thou our sad divisions cease,
and be thyself our King of Peace.
Refrain
O come, O come, Emmanuel,
and ransom captive Israel,
that mourns in lonely exile here
until the Son of God appear. Refrain
The Lord Jesus Christ stands as our rallying
Colors and Ensign of Righteousness. “And he will lift up an ensign to the nations from far (Isaiah 5:26) Our Lord is that
perfect Plumb Line that establishes righteousness forever. “Behold,
I will set a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel: I will not again pass
by them any more” (Amos 7:8) He is truly the “Desire of all Nations”
but they have failed to comprehend His Compassion and Mercy. If we have put on
that Mind which was in Christ, how can we be divided regarding the operation of
the family, the church, or the nation? He is the true King of Salem (Peace) and
the true High Priest of the Order of Melchizedek. “As he saith also in another place, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.” (Heb 5:6)
In the Lord’s
Prayer, we pray for the Coming of the Kingdom of God. Have we taken the Lord’s
Name in vain by praying that prayer? Do we seriously desire His kingdom of
righteousness and justice, or would we prefer that He linger a bit so that we
might fill our greedy fingers with just a little more filthy lucre? The Lord
has come according to the Promise, and the Lord is Coming again, according to
the Promise. Are you ready for that momentous event this Advent Season?
