The Ugliness of Christmas

The heart of Christmas is this. Christ came into the world to save sinners. Christ was manifest to take away sin. You shall call His name Jesus for He shall save His people from their sin. And the real beauty of Christmas is to understand the ugliness that it cures. There are a lot of miracles that get our attention at Christmas, the virgin birth, the star Bethlehem, the angels singing, and others.

And yet, even more important than the miraculous circumstances of Christ's birth is the reason that He came. So stay here as John MacArthur focuses your thoughts on that amazing truth today on Grace To You. Now before today's lesson, John, talk a little bit about what a great privilege and a great responsibility it is to teach God's Word on the radio. Certainly, Grace To You is not a church, but we do provide spiritual nourishment for lots of people. So how would you describe our commitment to those men and women who listen and learn and grow along with us as we study God's Word together?

Well, I think, as you said, it's not the church, but it supplements the church, and that's not anything unusual. As far back as you can go in Christian history, there were always Bible teachers who would teach the Word of God. I mean, you take John Calvin, for example, and when he was in Geneva, he would preach on a Sunday, and he would preach multiple times on a Sunday, but he would teach in the little auditorium next to the Geneva Cathedral. He would teach virtually every single day the Bible, supplementing what was happening on Sunday. And there would be other men in the group of Reformers who would also be teaching the Word of God. He had some guys with him that were teaching the Word of God. So there's always been kind of the focus of the church as it meets together in worship and the Word of God is proclaimed and preached, but there's always been supplemental resources, whether they were preachers and teachers or whether when you get into the period of the time when you have a printing press and you can print books, books exploded and nobody questions the validity of books. We've all basically built our life ministries by reading the books, the great books that have changed our lives.

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If you've benefited from our Bible teaching and you'd like to help others benefit, express your support at GTY.org. But first, take a look at an aspect of Christ's birth you may never have considered the ugliness of Christmas. I suppose the most famous, popular song about Christmas is White Christmas. I'm dreaming of a white Christmas.

But if we may, I'd like us to talk about the blackness of Christmas, the other side. And I suppose that most people, when they think of this time of year, think only of the beauty of it. And we're surrounded by that beauty. Lovely trees with bright lights, beautiful decorations, colorful ornaments, beautiful candles, wreaths, snow scenes, warm fireplaces and a hearth in a family home, beautifully wrapped presents.

Everything is bright and light and cheery and happy. And I guess that all of that symbolism is conveyed to us most significantly in the Christmas cards that we receive, which present to us almost a world of fantasy, beauty, wonder, loveliness. And that is one side of Christmas, without question. But there's also another side. There's a very ugly side.

And there are a lot of ways we could approach that. I mean, we could talk about a dark, cold night in a small, nondescript village in Palestine where a lovely young woman gave birth to a baby in the most unsanitary, wretched conditions imaginable, standing in the filth and manure of a stable. We could talk about the ugliness of a man named Herod who, because he feared the loss of his control and power, massacred all the babies in that region. Christmas does have some ugly aspects.

We could talk about an indifferent population in Jerusalem. But there's something even beyond those things. There is lurking behind every beautiful scene on every Christmas card, every lovely sentiment of Christmas. Somewhere behind all of that is something very vile and very ugly, the most wretched, heinous, hideous reality in all the universe. And I really believe that to have a proper understanding of the beauty of Christmas, you must have a proper understanding of the ugliness of Christmas.

Let me see if I can help you to focus in on what I'm referring to. In Matthew chapter 1, in verse 21, we read very familiar words. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sin. 1 John 3, 5 says, And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins. 1 John 4, 14, And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.

And then I want us to focus on one very specific text, 1 Timothy 1.15, where Paul says, This is a faithful saying, a true word, a trustworthy word and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. The dark and ugly side of Christmas is sin, sin. The heart of Christmas is this, Christ came into the world to save sinners. Christ was manifest to take away sin. You shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sin.

And the real beauty of Christmas is to understand the ugliness that it cures. And that is my concern today, to demonstrate the power of sin, to demonstrate the power of Christ's living and dying and rising again to deal with that which blights all of human life, sin. The phenomena that damns every soul to hell, sin.

That which pervades the entire world. Because of sin there are tears and pain and war and fighting and anxiety and discord and unrest and fear and worry and sickness and death and famine and earthquakes and pollution. All those things which mar our existence are the direct result of sin. Sin disturbs and disrupts every human relationship, whether between man and man, man and creation or man and God. Thomas Watson, a great Puritan writer said, sin has turned beauty into deformity. And the wicked takes more care to have his sin covered than cured. Men are much more prone to excuse their sin than they are to examine it. And so it's fitting that at this time of the year when men would cover their sin with all the beauty of Christmas that the covering be torn off if but for a brief moment to reveal the ugliness that is behind it all. You see the reason that Christ was born was to be the Savior who came to deliver men from sin. If there were no sin there would need to be no Christmas. So we cannot divorce the two and we cannot hide behind the fantasy.

We cannot hide behind the smokescreen of Christmas cards and all the rest. Sin must come to the forefront. It is that which generates cosmic chaos.

It is that from which no one escapes. And all who die in childbirth or from heart disease or cancer or war or murder or accidents or old age or whatever else, all are dying and all are dying because of sin. The Bible says the wages of sin is death. And every person on the globe will die and therefore has been affected by sin. But the Bible says that Jesus Christ came into the world to save us from sin.

That's the reason for His coming. Sin is the ugliness of Christmas. It is the degenerative power in the human stream that makes men susceptible to disease, disaster, illness, death and hell.

And it is the reason for Christmas. Every broken marriage, every disrupted home, every shattered friendship, every argument, every disagreement, every evil thought, evil word, evil deed, every good deed undone, good thought unthought, good word unsaid can be attributed to sin. And that is why in Joshua 7 13 it is called the accursed thing. It is compared in scripture to the venom of snakes and the stench of a grave. And anything that is that sinister and that powerful and that totally debilitating for the whole human race must be dealt with if God who is infinitely holy is to bring man to Himself. Thus Christ came into the world to deal with sin.

So you cannot look at Christmas and celebrate its peripheral elements. You must understand that the heart of it is the ugliness of sin. Many years ago Thomas Guthrie wrote of sin some provocative words. Who is the painted temptress that steals our virtue? Who is the murderous that destroys our life?

Who is the sorceress that first deceives and then damns our souls? Sin. Who with icy breath blights the fair blossoms of youth?

Who breaks the hearts of parents? Who brings old men gray hairs with sorrow to the grave? Sin.

Who by a more hideous metamorphosis than Ovid even fancied changes gentle children into snakes, tender mothers into monsters and their fathers into worse than Herod's, the murderers of their own innocence? Sin. Who casts the apple of discord on household hearts? Who lights the torch of war and bears it blazing over trembling lands?

Who by division in the church rends Christ's seamless robe? Sin. Who is this Delilah that sings the Nazarite asleep and delivers up the strength of God into the hands of the uncircumcised? Who, winning smiles on her face, honeyed flattery on her tongue, stands in the door to offer the sacred rites of hospitality and when suspicion sleeps treacherously pierces our temples with a nail? What fair siren is this who, seated on a rock by a deadly pool, smiles to deceive, sings to lure, kisses to betray and flings her arm round our neck to leap with us into perdition? Sin.

Who turns the soft and gentlest heart to stone? Who hurls reason from her lofty throne and impels sinners mad as a gathering swine down the precipice into a lake of fire? Sin." Sin is the ugliness of Christmas. It stands behind the scene and is the reason the Savior came. This is a true statement and worthy of all acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

That's the issue. Now I want you to face five questions regarding sin. Question number one, what is sin?

What is it of which we speak that has so blighted the world? John Bunyan prosaically said, sin is the dare of God's justice. Sin is the rape of God's mercy.

It is the jeer of His patience, the slight of His power and the contempt of His love. But more than that, what is sin in simple terms? I believe the definition of 1 John 3, 4 puts it as clearly as any. Sin is the transgression of the law. Sin is breaking God's law. Any violation of God's law. In the Greek text of that verse, sin equals lawlessness.

Lawlessness equals sin. It is living as if there were no God and no law, no authority, no standard just like people live today and have always wanted to live. It denies the reality of God's law. It says God is not in charge and cannot put on me a binding rule. It is living beyond the boundaries God has set.

It is thinking that is unacceptable to God, speaking that is unacceptable to God, behavior that is unacceptable to God, violation of His law. And God has given His law. He has written His law in our hearts, the Bible says in Romans 2. He has written His law on the pages of Holy Scripture and the law according to Romans 7, 12 is holy, just and good.

In it there is nothing impure, nothing unfair and nothing wrong. It is holy, just and good. And there is no sane reason to violate God's law other than the fact that men desire to run their own lives to do what they will and they deny God His rightful place. All of God's law is for man's blessing. All of God's law is for man's good.

All of God's law is for man's happiness, man's salvation, man's eternal joy. But man is a fool and while like a horse who has a beautiful pasture to graze in and leaps the fence only to land in the mud, man has defied the beauty of what God has provided within the framework of obedience to His law. He has leaped the fence, overstepped the boundaries and landed deep in the quagmire and muck of his own sin and cannot extricate himself therefrom. And so though we can look through Scripture and find many different kinds of sin and many different terms to express what it is, the simplest definition is that it is a violation of God's law.

Now that leads us to a second question. What is sin like? What is the nature of sin? What are the properties of sin?

What are the characteristics of this which has caused the Christ to be born as a savior? First of all, sin is defiling. We need to understand that its nature is that it defiles.

It is not only a defection, that is it is not only a rebellion, it is not only a transgressing of God's law or stepping over the boundaries, but it is a pollution. It is a defiling. It is to precious metal what rust is. It is what scars are to a lovely face, what stain is to silk cloth, what smog is to an azure sky.

It is a defiling thing. It makes the soul red with guilt and black with evil. In 1 Kings 8, 38, the sin of man's heart is compared to oozing sores of a deadly plague. In Zechariah 3, 3, compared to filthy garments, it is a defiling, polluting, staining thing. It stains the soul and blots out the image of God. And according to Zechariah 11, 8, it makes God loathe the sinner. And according to Ezekiel 20, verse 43, when the sinner sees his own sin, it makes him loathe himself. Sin pollutes and defiles and stains and mars everything it touches.

And it touches everything in the human realm. In 2 Corinthians 7, 1, it's little wonder that Paul calls it filthiness of the flesh and spirit. Thomas Goodwin the Puritan wrote sin is called poison, sinners, serpents. Sin is called vomit, sinners, dogs. Sin is called the stench of graves, sinners, rotten sepulchers. Sin is called mire, sinners, pigs.

And all of that biblical concept speaks of its pollution, its defilement, its ugliness. So sin is defiling. Secondly, sin is also defiant.

It is defiant as to its nature. In Leviticus 26, 27, God speaks of those who choose to walk in opposition to me. It is defying God. It is clenching your fist and striking a blow in the face of Jesus Christ. No matter what homage you may want to pay to him at Christmas, sin strikes a blow in his face. Sin drives a nail in his hand. Sin crushes a crown of thorns on his head. Sin jams a spear into his side. Sin spits on him. Sin mocks him. Sin says, I will do what I will do.

I don't care what your claims are or who you are. In Psalm 12, 4, it says, our lips are our own. Who is Lord over us? We will say exactly what we want to say is the implication of that passage. We're not accepting you as any authority. We don't believe that you are binding on us.

We'll say whatever we want. And Jeremiah, when he was indicting the people of Israel for their evil against God, says in chapter 2, verse 31, that the people say, we are lords. We will come no more to thee.

And that is the statement of every sinner. We are lords. We come no more to thee. We're not interested in your sovereignty and your rule. We rule.

We're in charge. And the very word pasha in Hebrew for sin signifies rebellion. It is the heart of defiance that is in the heart of every sinner.

Jeremiah 44, 17 says, we will certainly do whatsoever thing goes forth out of our own mouths. In other words, it is the characteristic of the sinner that he does exactly what he's desiring to do. You see, sin is God's would-be murderer. Sin not only would unthrone God, it would ungod God.

If the sinner had his way, there is no God and the sinner is God. That's the defiance of sin. No matter what kind of homage it attempts to pay to God, it strikes a blow against God.

It spits on the Savior. It defies God and demands to do its own will. So sin is defiling and sin is defiant. Thirdly, sin is ingratitude.

Sin is ingratitude. You see, according to Acts 17, 28, the Bible says in him, that is in God, we live and move and have our very being. You know of course that without God you wouldn't be here. You were created by God.

You live and breathe because God made you. As he made the whole world. And whatever it is in this world that you have and whatever it is that you enjoy and whatever it is that you possess, you have because of God and because he is a merciful God and providentially kind and gracious. He has created a good world for us and blessed us with his favor.

And we have another breath because there's God and he gives that breath to us. In Matthew 5, chapter 5, verse 45, it says of God, he makes his son to rise on the evil and the good and he makes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust. In other words, he has blessed the world, the world of sinful men with his kindness and his favor. It is God who has provided all the food the sinner eats, every delicacy, every taste you enjoy, every beautiful scene you've ever seen, every good feeling you've ever felt.

God gave you that. It is God who has granted every beauty. It is God who has given wisdom to our minds, coordination to our bodies to allow us to think and to feel and to work and to play and to rest that life might be full and useful. It is God who made love. It is God who made laughter. It is God, of course, who gives us joys in life, little children, friends. It is God who made men to have a basic care for himself and each other so that life is filled with those kinds of good things that we all enjoy.

It is God who preserves us from getting every disease and dying every death. God literally surrounds the ungrateful sinner with his providential care and when we continue in sin, we defy that goodness and we express ingratitude for that kindness. And like Absalom, who as soon as David, his father, had kissed him and taken him to his heart, went right out and plotted treason against his own beloved father, so the sinner will gladly take into his arms all the good that God will give and strike a blow in God's face in return. Then we find ourselves asking the same question that was asked in 2 Samuel 16, 17, is this thy kindness to thy friend? Sin is such gross ingratitude. It seeks to dethrone and destroy the one who gave us all we have.

Unbelievable. That's the nature of sin. You wouldn't think to render evil to someone who had saved your life in a great and heroic act and yet you will strike your defiant blows in the face of God who has given you everything you have. Sin is defiling and sin is defiant and sin is ingratitude. Listen, sin brings the worst things in life.

It exposes men to all the ultimate misery. The final result of sin is that it damns people to hell. In Revelation chapter 20 it says in the end, at the great white throne judgment, the Lord will gather all the unbelieving and cast them into the lake of fire that burns forever. Jesus taught the doctrine of hell. He was the one who framed it and articulated it in the gospels.

The apostles picked it up and it's repeated throughout the New Testament. And we need to know this, dear friends, 50 million people will die this year, 136,986 die every day, and hell awaits the vast majority of people. Spurgeon said, man is hanging over the mouth of hell by a solitary plank and the plank is rotten. And that is the fatality of sin all the way.

What a horrible thing it is. This is Grace to You with John MacArthur. Thanks for being with us. Today John showed you a neglected and unexpected aspect of the Christmas story, but it's one that's critical to understand.

We've titled it The Ugliness of Christmas. And friend, keep in mind, messages like today's are heard every day on stations like this one because of the support of listeners like you. To partner with us in taking God's word to spiritually hungry listeners, contact us today. You can mail your gift to Grace to You, Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412. Or you can donate online at GTY.org. The end of the year is a crucial time for our ministry and with about 25% of our annual budget needs met by listener gifts during these last few weeks, we need to hear from you. Your gift now will help us connect God's people with clear verse-by-verse Bible teaching in 2022. Thanks for helping us start the year on solid financial footing, and keep in mind that to make a tax-deductible donation for 2021, your check must be postmarked by December 31st, or your credit card donation must be received on our website by 1159 p.m. on December 31st. Our website again, GTY.org, and our mailing address Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412. Now for John MacArthur and the entire Grace to You staff, I'm Phil Johnson reminding you to watch Grace to You television this Sunday on DirecTV channel 378, or check your local listings for Channel and Times, and listen again tomorrow for 30 minutes that can help you put your focus where it needs to be this Christmas. It's another half hour of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.