Never Too Old for Christmas

You have your Bibles with you. Turn with me if you would to Luke chapter 2 and we're looking at verses 22 through 35.

Two young pigeons. And blessed God and said, And his father and mother marveled at what was said about him. And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, Bow with me as we go to our Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, I lift up our sick and hurting to you this morning. I pray for Wayne Allen who has cancer surgery coming up in a few weeks. I pray for Jeremy Carriker and Jim Belk and Renda Torrance and Kim Ute. I pray for Lisa Menzel and Yvonne McClellan.

Jenny Bracefield who's sick and passed out last night. I pray for Jan Beecham who has pneumonia. I pray, Lord, you'll be with her and help her to heal. Please bring healing and peace, peace of heart to all of these. Heavenly Father, tomorrow is the day that we celebrate the birth of Christ. There's no way we can get away from the sentimentalism, the virgin birth, the baby in the manger, the swaddling clothes, the bowing shepherds, the humbled wise men.

We think of these things and our hearts gush with emotion. But today we look at a godly elderly man. All he wanted to do was see Jesus and worship him.

Simeon reminds us that life is fragile and fleeting. And the bottom line is this, it's all about Jesus. We love you, Lord. Help me to exalt Christ for it is in the precious and holy name of Jesus that we pray. Amen.

You may be seated. Isn't it interesting to think about all the people who are in Bethlehem and Jerusalem who walked right by Jesus and didn't even care to look at him. How many people passed by Mary and Joseph as Mary was holding the baby Jesus in her arms and they had no idea that this baby would be the savior of the world. Eight days after Jesus was born, they took him back to the temple. They took him to the rabbi.

The rabbi took out his sharp knife and performed on him the operation of circumcision, never realizing at all that the one he was circumcising would be the circumciser of hearts. Forty days later, Joseph and Mary took Jesus into the temple once again for his dedication to the Lord and they brought with them the poor man's offering, two turtle doves. They gave those doves to the priest and the priest took the little doves in his hands and they said, take this and use it as a sacrifice for our son. The priest took his knife and he cut the throats of the little doves and the blood just sprinkled down on the altar and it was there and the people looked at what was going on and what was taking place there. That blood that flowed down on the altar was the blood of two little turtle doves but it represented something much, much greater. And what it represented was this, the blood of the Lamb of God that would take away the sin of this world.

The people on the streets, the rabbis, the priests, the lawyers, the merchants and the businessmen walked right by and did not even care about this baby Jesus. That there's one man who did recognize who this was and this man had more wisdom than the wise men. He had more revelation than the shepherds did and he had a clear word of God than did even Joseph or Mary.

His name is Simeon. He's an old man and the scripture describes him this way. He was just and devout.

He was a righteous man. We're not told here what he did for a living. We're not told here what his appearance was like. We're not told who his relatives are. We are not told if he was rich or poor. We're not told if he was popular in his community or not. Those things mean a lot to us but evidently they don't mean much to God.

All we are told is this, he was just and devout. Simeon was elderly. He could not do that which he used to could do.

He could not do what he could do when he was 20 years old. Now things had changed. His walk was a little bit shaky. His hands were a little bit disfigured from the arthritis. And when he spoke, the words didn't come out like they once did.

Things were different. I like this statement. Old age is not for sissies.

And boy that's true. When you get old there are new pains and there are new ailments almost every day. And when you get hurt you don't heal quite as quickly as you used to heal.

And your memory is just not near as sharp as it used to be. So this elderly man could have lived out his life whining and complaining. He could have said, okay I've done my duty for the Lord. But now I'm moving on and you can have it yourself and you go on and do what you want to do. Let the young people handle it.

I'm just going to kind of sit back and relax. No, no that's not what he said. He was serving God. He was challenging the people. He was proclaiming God's truth. His old age just didn't seem to slow him down a great bit.

He was motivated because he wanted the last years of his life to really count for the Lord's sake. 41 years ago I was preaching a series of revival services in Melfort, Saskatchewan, Canada. It was midwinter.

It was 20 degrees below zero. It snowed every day. We had a seven day revival service all at night. And there was a man in the church in which I was preaching who was 90 years old. His name was Mr. Bassenwaite. He taught Sunday school in that church. And he taught a Bible class for a convalescent home that was not far from the church. And he was there every single night. And I remember the last night that I was there, there was a young teenage boy that came over to him and said, Mr. Bassenwaite, don't you need some rest? And he said, put his hand up on the boy's shoulder and he said, son, I can rest when I'm dead. I picture Simeon in that same light. We in America picture the American dream as working till you're 65 and then saving a nest egg and then sitting on your blessed assurance and not hitting a lick for the rest of your life.

Folks, that may be the American dream, but you're not going to find that in scripture. Charles Long was a dear friend of mine and he was a missionary to Vietnam. He's gone on to be with the Lord now. But I remember him. He used to tell me, he said, you know, I said, if I'm still here when the Lord comes back, he said, I hope the Lord will have to tap me on the shoulder when he comes back and say, you can stop now, Charles. I'm here.

I'm ready to go home. You that are approaching retirement age, shift your energy into kingdom work. You may have more time for kingdom work now than you've ever had.

And that's a good thing. Caleb defeated the giants in Hebron when he was 80 years old. Moses was continuing to work for the Lord fervently when he was 120.

I think of the Apostle John who wrote the Book of Revelation somewhere between age 85 and 95. Don't waste precious time. Redeem the time for the days are evil. Mr. Bass and White said, and we must remember that, we can rest when we're dead.

Well, it's Christmas time, 2023, and I want to do today what most Americans are not doing. And that is that I want to sit down and listen to the wisdom of an elderly man. I want us to listen to what this godly old man has to say. And I think he's saying it not just to Mary and Joseph. I think he's saying it to our hearts today.

I got three points that I want to share with you. Number one is the revelation. Look with me at verse 26. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. Read through the Proverbs sometimes and you'll discover that God does not put any premium on being naive and uninformed. Proverbs chapter 14 verse 15 says, A simple believeth every word, but the prudent man looketh well toward his going. Psalm chapter 1 and verse 22 says, How long, O simple ones, will you love simplicity?

How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge? God has called his people to be a discerning people, a people who seek God's wisdom and saturate their hearts with the Word of God. That's the kind of man Simeon was. The Scripture says that the Holy Spirit had revealed to Simeon that he would not die until he had seen the Lord's Christ. Now, one of the ways that the Holy Spirit revealed that to him was through the Word of God.

And where do we see that in the Word of God? Well, you go back to Daniel, the book of Daniel, Daniel chapter 9, and you'll see a section that we call Daniel 70 weeks. And Daniel gave 70 weeks, which is a picture of 490 years.

And Daniel told us this, that from the time of the decree of Cyrus to rebuild and restore Jerusalem, until the coming of the, or the beginning of the ministry of the Messiah, it would be 69 weeks, which is 483 years. You'll remember that Daniel received that prophecy when he was in Babylon. Well, he was in Babylon, and while he was just under the Babylonians, he preached to them, and many of them came to know the Lord. And then the Persians came over, and they took over, and he preached to the Persians, and many of them came to the Lord.

Now, go back to my sermon that I preached last week. Many of these people that had come to the Lord are what we would call his closest friends, and they were the Magi. Sages, astrologers, the Bible calls them wise men. And I think about what the wise men did and what they saw during Daniel's time. They got this prophecy from Daniel, and they got excited about it. And then when they saw Daniel delivered from the lion's den, and then they saw Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who were delivered from the fiery furnace, they got really excited, and they believed this man, Daniel, was a man of God. They could trust him, and that Daniel was going to do or give a great prophecy that they could take and hold on to. And so these converted Persian wise men, these converted Persian wise men took that prophecy that Daniel gave them, and they passed it down from one generation to the next, children to grandchildren to great-grandchildren, until finally that time was coming, and it was approaching very, very quickly. And so every day the wise men would pray, Dear God, don't let us miss it. You gave this promise to Daniel. You gave a prophecy to Daniel, and oh Lord God, we don't want to miss it. Lord, we don't want to miss the opportunity to bow down before this one, who Isaiah prophesied about, and said this, For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulders.

And you shall call his name Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. They said, Oh Lord, give us a sign. And the Lord did give them a sign.

And what was the sign? It was a star. You think it was a normal star?

I don't think so. I think that star might have been the intensified Shekinah glory of God. It was like a laser beam that just shot down from heaven, and it led the wise men all the way from Persia, all the way through the desert to Bethlehem, where they came that night and met Joseph and Mary and Jesus in a house. Moses prophesied about that star 1200 years before Jesus was born. In Numbers chapter 24 verse 17, the scripture says this, I see him, but not now.

I behold him, but not near. A star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel. It shall crush the forehead of Moab and break down all the sons of Sheth. Now the wise men were ready because they had the written Word of God. They had the prophecy given to them from Daniel that was in Daniel chapter 9. We see it there in God's Word, and they had the written Word. Simeon also had that same written Word, and Simeon knew the Messiah was coming, and he knew that that time was very, very close. But the revelation to Simeon went further than just the written Word of God, not more true than the written Word of God.

You can't get more true than the written Word of God, but I think to him it was much more personal and much more penetrating to his heart. The Holy Spirit of God spoke a message to Simeon and said this, Simeon, you will not die until you have seen the Lord Christ, until you have seen the Messiah. Today we hear people talking about the Lord speaking to them. God spoke to me. God led me.

God moved me to do this. What do they mean by that? I think they mean that they think they felt a prompting from the Holy Spirit, or they felt a peace about this, or they saw what they thought was providence that's coming together that would assure them that this is the will of God. Let me tell you, when that happens, those experiences are always very subjective. They're always very subjective. They may be right. They may be wrong.

It may be God leading. It may not be, but they're very subjective. What Simeon has here is not subjective a bit.

It is absolutely objective. It didn't come from his feelings. It didn't come from circumstances. It didn't come because he got a peace about it. God spoke to him, and God said to him, Simeon, you will not die until you have seen the Lord Christ. Now I want you to picture this old man if you can. He goes down to the temple area every day, and he waits for the moms and dads to come out after they've had their baby boys circumcised. He goes in every day, and I can just imagine him walking over to the mom and reaching over and taking the little blanket, lifting up over the head, and he's probably done this hundreds, maybe thousands of times, and it's never happened.

He's never seen anything. It's not been the Christ. But all of a sudden on this day, things are different. Mary and Joseph have just dedicated Jesus after 40 days.

They have dedicated him. They've walked out of the temple together, and Simeon steps over and stops them. Somebody would do something like that today in our society. They'd probably get shot.

But the people in that day had a great respect for the elderly. He takes the blanket, and he pulls it back over, and he looks down into the face of Jesus, and he knows this is the one. How does he know it? Did the Lord give him electric shock? I don't know. Did the Lord reach down and whisper in his ear and say, Simeon, this is the one!

This is the one you've been waiting for! We don't know exactly how it happened, but we do know this. That revelation was clear. I mean, absolutely, positively, without doubt, period, clear.

There's no doubt in the heart of Simeon. This baby in the arms of Mary is the Son of God. Folks, that's revelation. And when he got that revelation, I'm sure tears of joy just flooded down his cheeks.

Alright, the second thing I see is the release. Look at verses 28 through 30. He took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, Lord, now you're letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word. For my eyes have seen your salvation. My eyes have seen your salvation.

Man, that's good. Salvation is not a set of rules. Salvation is not a plan. Salvation is not a list of do's and don'ts. Salvation is a person. Simeon doesn't just say, He is our Savior. He says He is our salvation. Wrapped up in the soft pink flesh of a little baby boy is our salvation. Folks, wrapped up in a little baby blanket is a picture of the covenant of redemption. What's the covenant of redemption?

Is it a covenant that God established between the three persons of the Trinity before the foundation of the earth? Where God decreed our salvation and then God the Son, Jesus Christ, stepped up and said, I will take on human flesh. I will go to this earth.

I will live a perfect and sinless life for 33 years. And then I will die a horrible death on the cross to purchase the salvation of my people. And with tears rolling down his cheeks, Simeon picks up little baby Jesus in his arms. He says, Oh, dear God, this is not just a savior.

This is our salvation. And Simeon says, Now, Lord, I can depart in peace. Several years after this, there was another man who made a very similar statement. His name was Paul. Paul was getting ready to die. They had told him he was going to be executed, have his head chopped off.

He's in a prison cell and so rat infested, dingy, dirty, nasty prison cell. And in that prison cell, he has written the last book of the Bible that he would write. We call it Second Timothy. And in Second Timothy, he's given us his obituary. And in that obituary, the Apostle Paul said this, For I am now ready to be offered in the time of my departures at hand. For I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day.

And not to me only, but unto all them also who love his appearing. Folks, the word depart spoken by Simeon, and the word departure, as it's spoken by the Apostle Paul, comes from the same Greek root word, which is luo, onelusis and onelopis. And that word is very, very important because it means a release.

It is an agrarian word, a word that the farmers used. When a farmer had been out with his ox all day long, and he'd been working hard in the field, and he'd been plowing back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, finally the sun was going out, and the farmer would go over to his ox. He'd pat him on the head. He'd take that big heavy yoke off of him, and he would throw it to the ground. And then he would pat the ox on the rump, and the ox would take off for the barn.

So for that night, he could get some very much needed rest. That was called a release. When he took off like that, it was called a departure, a release, and that's exactly what both Simeon and the Apostle Paul were saying. They said, I have done what God's called me to do. I have been faithful to my calling, and now I can depart in peace.

Let me ask you something. Is that where you are right now? If you were to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that today was your last day on earth, could you say I can depart in peace?

Because I know where I'm going, and I know who I'm going to be with. When I was pastoring my former church, there was a lady in the church that I was very close to. Her name was Mae Hood. And I would go by her house, and I'd sit down with her, and I'd read Scripture to her, and I would pray for her.

We were very close. Well, her family called me one day, and they said, Doug, Mae's in the hospital, and she's having real bad heart problems. The doctors are not sure she's going to live. I went up to the hospital, and her family was all there. The doctors had already come in, and she was comatose. Now, I don't know if you've been around people that are very near death.

I've been around many. Most of the time when I see people that are very close to death, there's a glaze that comes over their eyes. It was a glaze over Mae's eyes. I gathered the family around the bed, and we held hands, and I read Scripture, Psalm 23, to them, and I had prayer. And I reached down, and then I took Mae's hand, and I went right down by her ear, and I whispered in her ear, I said, Mae, in just a few short hours, you're going to see Jesus face to face. She had been comatose up to that time, and all of a sudden, that glaze left her eye, and she had a tube down her throat so she couldn't speak, but she took my hand, and she squeezed it with everything she had in her. If she could have shouted, she would have shouted, and I knew exactly what she was feeling. I knew exactly what she wanted to say.

I am ready to depart in peace. Why did she do that? Why should she be so excited as she was when death was staring her right square in the face? Because she knew where she was headed. She knew who she belonged to, and she knew it wouldn't be but just a few seconds until she went to be with the Lord. After five minutes after that, that glaze covered her eyes back over, and she went to be with the Lord. Here was a lady like Simeon who was excited about her departure.

The last thing I want us to see is the reward. Look at verse 34 through 35. Simeon blessed him and said to Mary his mother, Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed. And a sword will pierce through your own soul also, so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.

Let me read you what John MacArthur had to say about this. Because Mary undoubtedly loved Jesus more than any mother ever loved a child, it was extremely hard for her when Jesus had to push her away on a human level. When at age 12 he had to be about his father's business in the temple, it was necessary in a sense to push Mary aside. Later when he was doing his first miracle in Cana, Jesus didn't call her mother, he called her woman. On another occasion when Mary came to visit him with his half-brother, he said, Who is my mother and who are my brothers?

He stretched out his hand toward his disciples and said, Here are my mother and my brothers, for whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother. Jesus gently but firmly nudged Mary from merely being his mother to realizing that she needed to depend on him as her Savior and Lord. And after Jesus was hated, ridiculed, unfairly tried, physically assaulted and crucified, Mary was standing at the foot of the cross watching right up to the end of his life. Seeing Jesus suffering on the cross certainly would have rammed a sword through his mother's heart. In addition, Mary's heart was no doubt pierced through because she as a believing Jew had to witness all the unbelieving opposition to Christ pour forth through many of the fellow Israelites.

Mary was an ordinary woman who dealt with enormous strain just being the mother of the Son of God. Her life accurately fulfills Simeon's admonition to her as she periodically felt bewildered by Jesus' words and actions and certainly cut to the heart with emotional pain as she saw his rejection, suffering and death. I want you to try to imagine if you can just a minute the joy that Simeon felt as he was holding the little baby Jesus in his arms. What a reward for Simeon. But Simeon turns to Mary and tells Mary about the cost of that reward.

He says to her, A sword will pierce through your heart also. Now, Mary understood much about this Jesus. The angel had told her that he'd be the Son of God. He'll be the Son of the most highest of his kingdom.

There will be no end, said the angel. She watched the wise men come and take the gifts and lay them at his feet, gold, frankincense and myrrh, and then bow down and worship that little baby. She watched the shepherds as they came in and bow down in reverence and worship the Lord Jesus. She'd even heard the message of what the name of this baby would be.

Name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. But here, Simeon is telling her something that she hasn't quite understood before, that she just did not quite get yet, and that is this, that a sword, because of this baby, will pierce through her heart also. Several decades ago, there was a man who was working on a drawbridge, and it was his responsibility to pull the lever on the drawbridge when big passenger ships were coming, and they needed the drawbridge to go up so they could get through. On this one particular day, the man that worked at the drawbridge took his son with him to work.

The son was five years old. And the man sat down, the son began to play, and the man started reading the newspaper, and all of a sudden he heard a whistle, and that whistle was the sound of a passenger ship that had just turned, made it turn around the bend, and was headed toward the drawbridge. The man knew that when that happened, the drawbridge was going to have to go up. He was going to have to pull that lever.

And if he didn't do it in time, the ship would hit that drawbridge, and the ship would sink, and it would be a terrible thing. Well, he turned around to look and see where his son was, and he didn't see him. He cried out in a loud voice, but there was so much noise that the little boy evidently couldn't hear. And so he looked again, knowing that his time was very short. He looked down several stories, and there he saw in the bottom of that drawbridge, in the bottom of it, there was a gear room. And when he pushed that lever, these huge gears would come together, and then the drawbridge would go up. And he looked down, and he saw his little boy playing on the top of those gears. He didn't know what he was going to do.

He didn't have time to run down and get his little boy. And he knew that if he didn't pull that lever within just seconds, that many people might be drowned on that boat. And so he had a decision to make. Screamed at that little boy as loud as he could, and all to no avail. And so finally the decision was made, and he took the lever, and he pushed the lever. The drawbridge went up, and the gears came together and crushed his son to death. The man stood there, tears streaming down his cheeks, and he watched the boat as it went through.

And the people on the boat were laughing and talking. Many of them waved at him as they came through, not realizing that that little boy had died in order that they might live. And folks, human illustrations always break down when we're trying to use human illustrations to explain or illustrate the ways of God. God's decision was not a spur-of-the-moment decision. Jesus Christ was the Lamb slain before the foundation of the earth.

It was not something that just happened. And we need to also understand that God's Son, unlike the boy in the story, what was not just a helpless bystander, the Scripture tells us that no man took Jesus' life, that he laid down his life for the sheep. But yet the hurt in the heart of God the Father, and the hurt in the heart of the mother, Mary, does relate and translate to us very, very well. Thirty-three years later, Mary watched the Roman soldiers take her son Jesus and lay him down on a rugged cross and take huge spikes and nail them through his hands and feet. She watched Jesus being lifted up on that cross and watched his blood just draining down and staining the Israeli soil. She watched his body jerk with pain as his heart ruptured inside his chest cavity. And then she listened as Jesus uttered his last words right before his death and cried out, It is finished.

And I know beyond a shadow of a doubt when all that took place and Mary saw it that she thought back to the prophecy of this old man Simeon who said to her, Mary, a sword will pierce through your heart also. What a reward we have in Jesus. But what a price he had to pay to be our reward. Folks, advice from an old man on how to view Christmas. We need to view Christmas this way by looking past the cradle to the cross and asking yourself this question, am I ready to die? Am I ready to die? Is Jesus my salvation? Am I in Christ? Has his blood washed away all of my sin? Am I ready to depart like Simeon? Am I ready to experience my departure to the next world like the Apostle Paul? Have I bowed my heart in submission to King Jesus? Folks, this Christmas, there's no greater question than you can ask yourself than that.

Have I truly bowed my heart in repentance and faith to Jesus Christ? Where is he who is born King of the Jews? Is he in your heart?

That's what matters. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I thank you for putting this story of Simeon in your Word. We have elderly people in this church like myself who need to be challenged by his priorities. Here was a man who came to the temple area every day with one purpose in mind. He wanted to see Jesus. Lord, may that be the cry of every person in this church. Lord, we just want to see Jesus. And this old man was not afraid to die because he knew who he belonged to. May that also be true of all of us. We love you, Father, and on this Christmas Eve, we thank you for sending your Son. We pray this prayer in the holy and precious name of Jesus. Amen.