At this time of the year, we LOVE singing the lyrics, “Go, tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born!” (I especially love the Pentatonix version.) We are accustomed to hearing a LOT about Jesus Christ as we celebrate and commemorate His birth by gatherings at church and with friends and family. It is the greatest and most popular Christian celebration, on a par with Easter,which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But Christmas is a joyous holiday because it is all about the gift God gave to the people of this planet. We tell and retell the story of how Joseph took his pregnant wife Mary back to his hometown , Bethlehem to register for the census. We also remember they could find no rooms in the inn there so had to sleep in a stable and in short time Mary Gave birth to Jesus Christ there in a stable,born of humble beginnings.
Sounds kind of intensely threatening to somebody! Not exactly ,”baby Jesus,meek & mild”. In other words,the birth of Jesus Christ sent shock waves through the spirit world because it meant that the war for the hearts of men would no longer be dominated by Satan and his rulers because NOW,if ANY would call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s only begotten son, they could be saved and delivered from the power of death! (Acts 2:21). Since man’s salvation was a forgone conclusion if they called on the Lord, satan needed to figure out a way to twist,outwit and complicate the ramifications of this God-man,Jesus Christ! He was undefeatable!!! Buutt… his followers could be misled and made to forget who He was and what Jesus Christ did for them. In American church culture today we see this conflict! The enemy wants to take the “teeth” or the power out of Christianity by destroying the essence of who Jesus Christ is, what He did and what He still does! Heb 13:8 says,”Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday and today and forever”That means what He did then, He can also do tomorrow and today! There is no expiration date on who HE is and what He did and what He can do! So what are some of these limiting or hindering beliefs holding believers back? God has allotted distinctive administrative principles. Of course much of this came from early Jewish writers who rejected the Messiah when appeared. The bottom line is Jesus told us we needed to “believe as a little child to see the Kingdom” so this complicated system is a way satan creates multiple layers of bureaucracy to hinder us from receiving and believing the simple truth. This is the same system that justifies the doing away with the spiritual or manifestation gifts of the Holy Spirit. So what it has produced are believers that don’t heal the sick because the “gifts are nor today but yesterday”…and that don’t preach or evangelize because we are waiting for the Rapture, another theory about the end of days that goes with Premillennialism which is married to dispensationalism, hand in hand. Every good Baptist and A/G church buys it. Bottom line: it was all concocted by egg-headed theorists who rejected the Spirit leading them. Useless! AntiChrist Hijinks and bunny trails- Jesus has a second name,which is His designation; it is the Messiah or the Anointed One or the ONE who is anointed. The anti-Christ is a spirit of the age,not embodied in just one individual. The bible only mentions the word “anti-christ” 4 times: 3 in 1 John and 1 in 2John, ALL describing the teaching of gnosticism running rampant through the church in those early days. Anti-Christ means anti-anointing not an Arabian world ruler! With the foolish premillennial purveyors peddling ridiculous end-time prognostications, they limit the antiChrist to being a literal person. Instead of allowing our eyes to open up and see the anti-anointing spirit trying to suppressing God’s manifest presence in EVERY seeker church in America we are taken on end-times prophetic bunny trails and every prediction up till TODAY has been proven to be false, fake and wrong! The devil is ingenious to get believers looking for a ruling person (the antiChrist) rather than confronting the ruling principality (antiChrist) and so he is succeeding in shutting out the “Christ “or “anointing “in every church in America. More and more pastors and churches cut out the prayer, shorten the worship to song-singing,prohibit any PDM or Public Displays of Ministry, you know- everything that we do that causes the Spirit or the Anointing to show up. WHO brings the anointing? Here is the passage Jesus read in the temple which was to be read on the day of the Jewish year corresponding to the day of your birth! What an amazing coordination of God this is! Luke 4:18-19 reads: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon ME, Because HE anointed ME to preach the gospel to the poor. HE has sent ME to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, TO set free those who are oppressed,19 TO proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.” Immediately He started casting out demons and sicknesses and healing the sick and freeing the oppressed. (Mt 4:23-24) It wasn’t that he spent many months doing in-depth teaching ABOUT the anointing that accomplished this, it was the anointing flowing out of Him! It was the SPIRIT that breaks the yoke of oppression! Anti-anointing-Many churches today leave half of Jesus Christ out of their churches and meetings. Jesus is discussed because this all “slappy-happy” and it is so comforting and soothing to talk about the “love of Jesus”. Jesus-so sweet! BUT….. what about the fact HE is the CHRIST? He is The Anointed ONE,filled with the Spirit and Power and designed to separate and divide between the believing and the scoffer? Herod, King in Galilee, heard prophecies from the magi that this Child would destroy those who were oppressing Israel so he and the rulers of Rome were horrified! Herod tried to trick the Magi into determining exactly the location where the star could be seen and how old the child was. He also tried to trick them into coming back saying,” he wanted to go worship the child too”. Jesus Christ was still under two years old and the devil was so afraid of the Christ, the Anointing, that he moved Herod to order ALL boys 2 years and under to be slaughtered in his entire realm! (Mt2:16) But the magi were warned in a dream not to go back to Herod and Joseph also was warned in a dream to flee and take Jesus into Egypt as Herod was searching for the Child to kill him. An angel even appeared In a dream to Joseph and told him to take Mary and their son Jesus back since Herod was dead and they were safe to go back. Historically we know Herod died in 4 BC so Joseph, Mary and the Christ child had to be hidden in Egypt till right after Herod died. The passage below alludes to a 42 month stay in Egypt so they returned after about 4 years or when Jesus was about 6 years old. It simplifies our life to let the bible interpret itself (2Peter 1:20-21) and plainly see the allegory or picture here but the birth of Christ is obvious, since it already happened and has historically proved correct. The only thing we don;t know is how God protected His son.My theory is simple and below. We see this picture of the Messiah’s birth in Revelation 12:4-6- And the dragon (representing the Leviathan spirit) stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour her child. 5 And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron; and her child was caught up to God and to His throne. 6 Then the woman fled into the wilderness where she *had a place prepared by God, so that there she would be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days.(42 mos)
God could make sure that His SON was protected from this serpent. The word for “snatched away” means caught up but it says the Child’s spirit was brought before the throne of God. John the revelator was brought before the throne and were many in the bible.I think it meant a cohort of angels who defend the throne were dispatched and the Child was sheltered till Herod died. The serpent represents the devil of course but operating through a Leviathan spirit in Herod.Only a demonic monster would slaughter all baby boys 2 and under, afraid of what this Child could do to him. History shows he was. That same kind of hatred and animosity we see in the dragon is active NOW against Christ TODAY and directed against the Anointed One and His anointing in us! One of the prime reasons Jesus is called the Anointed One is He came to ANOINT all of His followers and those who trust in Him! (Jn 20:22) Christ also came to restore all that which was stolen and lost in the Garden- our position,our sonship, our authority! “For the Son of Man came to seek and save that which was lost”. Luke 19:10) He promised to pour out His anointing and to fill us with the Spirit. (Luke 24:49) When we think Christ we should think “anointing”; and that Spanish word for mas means “more” or “most” Think MOST-ANOINTING or MORE-ANOINTING when you think Christmas! So let’s keep the CHRIST(the ANOINTING) in Christmas! |
AuthorPastor Marc Lawson Archives
July 2018
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