2023-12-24AM- Heaven on Earth

Brother Smalley is excited about upcoming preaching and announces a revival starting on December 31st. Brother Kurt invites everyone to a youth rally on January 5th. On January 7th, Brother Benjamin Dupte, a native missionary from India, will be speaking. The church will take an offering for him. There is also a revival at Hodgeville Pentecostal Church starting on February 11th. The sermon is about Jesus being Heaven on Earth and how he came to save people from their sins. His name, Jesus, means "the Lord is salvation." Jesus' birth fulfilled the prophecies of the Messiah. Brother Smalley seems excited about the preaching, praise the Lord. Just in the way of announcements, remember, Highway has revival coming up starting December 31st. That's a week from today. Of course, we'll be here having service on that day, but revival after that. Brother Kurt made sure to stop by and let us know that we were invited. Brother Webb invited us also to the youth rally at Hodgeville Pentecostal Church on January 5th, so that's coming up fairly quick, too, so he asked that we would be there. Here on January 7th, it's Sunday, Sunday night, Brother Benjamin Dupte is going to be here with us, and I appreciate Brother Dupte and the work. He's a native missionary. He wasn't somebody that went to India. He was born in India, and he preaches the gospel to his people over there. And he's got some fantastic testimonies to give and a great work that was started many years ago because our own Brother Gene Taylor went over there, was a missionary, Brother Gerald Taylor's brother. Went over to India doing missions work and saw Brother Benjamin Dupte's dad saved. I believe it's the story. He could tell it better. But that was Brother Taylor who was also involved in a work right here on this corner some years ago, and so it'll be good to talk, Brother Ben, about that and even just the spot where we are today. So that's January 7th, so please be in prayer for that. We'll, of course, receive offering for him, and the church will ask that you do what you can for that. And the Hodgeville Pentecostal Church revival starting February 11th with Brother Enoch Snow. So those are those announcements. Let's read together in Luke chapter 2. Luke chapter 2 will be a repeat, hopefully, for lots of us in this season. And it came to pass in those days that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. And this taxing was first made when Serenius was governor of Syria. And all went to be taxed, everyone into his own city. Joseph also went up from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth into Judea into the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was that while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. Father, thank you so much for your mercy on us. I thank you for your presence being right here with us in our church today. I count that precious, Lord, and I appreciate it, and I say thank you. Thank you for our Sunday school lessons, for the blessings that we found in those. Thank you for the words that we heard and how it drove the message home to us of all that you have done for us. And I pray for that precious anointing right now as I stand before your people to preach. I ask for edifying of your church and that we leave this place, God, closer to you, edified in the Spirit in the name of Jesus. Amen. I want to try to preach this morning for a title, Heaven on Earth. Heaven on Earth. The days were accomplished that she should be delivered, and she brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. The phrase Heaven on Earth, it's actually quite overused, I would believe, because there are people that might take their vacation of a lifetime, and they might go out and visit the Grand Canyon or some majestic mountains somewhere. They might get out somewhere and view this beautiful landscape and all these wonderful places to go and to visit. And somebody might walk out, you know, and see a sunrise and say, this is Heaven on Earth. I found Heaven on Earth. There's other people that they might go to a little place like a spa or some other place where they turn the lights down and play that music and give you the massage and lay the cucumbers on your eyes and put you in this perfect, relaxed place and you're just so wonderfully content. And some have likely laid there in that state and declared, this is Heaven on Earth. It just doesn't get any better than that. And others, there are others who might go to a place like Golden Corral and walk in and see the huge variety of food spread all over that place. Glance up at a sign that says, All You Can Eat. Somebody might walk into that place and say, I found it. This is Heaven on Earth. But I want to say today that there was a point in time in a little town called Bethlehem that when Jesus broke forth out of the womb, that we could truly say that that made it. His presence being right there was literally Heaven on Earth. For there He was, the Creator of all things, the King of Heaven itself, the God of all glory, Almighty God. Isaiah said that He would be called Wonderful. This was the Counselor. This was the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father. Here was the Prince of Peace. And if ever a place could be called Heaven on Earth, it would be wherever Jesus was. Hallelujah. Now the Bible does provide for us, and it was given in Sunday School lessons this morning, I'm sure it was in ours, concerning the situation around Jesus' birth. And the Bible gives us every bit of information that is necessary for us to know. I know there's questions. There have been guesses that people have made and thrown different ideas about different circumstances, how it had to have been like this. And as Brother Michael pointed out, it's often believed that the wise men came. Some believe it was two years later. I myself don't believe that. As I was reading through the Bible, I'm like, I don't think that adds up. But that's alright. And it's okay if you feel that way. So there's different questions, but what we have in the Bible is what we need. So Mary, she had her own questions too. We don't know what they were nor the answers that she got from them, but we have the necessary information surrounding the birth of Jesus Christ in our Bible. This is what we have, that there was a young man and a young woman, Joseph and Mary. And the Bible says she was a pure young woman. Of Joseph, the Bible says he was a just man. These weren't just random picking of people out from the general population, but these were people that God counted worthy to introduce heaven on earth. And this young couple, not yet married, not yet consummated a marriage, but engaged to be married, espoused to be married. They were told that Mary would be the venue through which the Christ would come, the Messiah, the Promised One. Now this would be great news to any Jew that would hear it, that they had grown up listening to the stories of the coming Messiah. They would have learned about it in their own Jewish lessons that God was sending a Deliverer. God was sending one day a Savior. Generations had passed since it had been first announced. Generations had gone by. Hundreds of years had passed on by that the prophets had spoken that this would take place. But now, Mary and Joseph, it's about to happen. You shall give birth to the One who shall be called the Son of God. And it was the angel Gabriel that came to Mary and said, Thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth a son and shalt call his name Jesus. And the angel told Joseph in a dream, in a separate instance, She shall bring forth a son and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. Now notice, they didn't name Jesus after a favorite uncle. He was not named because it was a trendy name at the time. But heaven above came down and spoke to them and said, This is what his name will be, and this is why you're going to call him Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sin. My wife mentioned that the name Jesus means the Lord is salvation. Jehovah is salvation. That's the name of Jesus. That's not just another name to throw out there. But Mary, you're going to call him Jehovah is salvation. Joseph, when you refer to him, you're going to tell people that Jesus is that coming Messiah. Praise God. Now, when the Lord came, Mother Michael addressed this a little bit too, but I think we're going to rehash a few things here from the Sunday school lesson. But when Jesus came, He did not come to inspire gift-giving traditions. Jesus did not come into this world so that we'd have a reason to decorate our homes and string lights up or have inflatable things in the front yard that won't even stay inflated. Jesus didn't come so that we could have an extra day off work, brothers. He didn't come so that we could have a little extra time with family. But the angel said that He shall save His people from their sins. And He was given a name, Paul said, far above principality and power and might and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come. He said, wherefore God, wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him and given Him a name which is above every name. Now you might not know Jesus. I've met Him now and then. I grew up in a Hispanic area and there was a bunch of boys named Jesus where I grew up. But there was One who would come into this world and He would bear that name a whole lot better than any sinner, Jesus, would bear it. For He came to save His people from their sins and it was God Almighty. Name Him Jesus and I'll exalt that name. I'll make it higher than any other name, whether in the earth or under the earth. Him hath God exalted with His right hand to be a Prince and a Savior, for to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. That is why we know the name Jesus. We're not just saying God sent His Son. We're not just saying God sent a Savior. But God sent the Divine Messiah. God in the flesh come into this world and God gave Him a name that is above every name that shall be exalted in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. Nobody ever got forgiven calling on any other name. Praise God! They might cry out for Mary, Go to Your Son for me, but it will never happen. They might cry out to the name of a great religious man, but there is one name given among men whereby we must be saved. That wonderful, wonderful name of Jesus. Praise God! Praise God! So, they got the news. You're going to have not just a baby. You're going to have the baby. He will be the Messiah. Now there was a problem here. Joseph and Mary were from Nazareth. The prophet said the baby would be born in Bethlehem, 90 miles. Nazareth was about 90 miles north of Bethlehem. And it would be quite a journey for a young woman to take. And I don't imagine that Joseph and Mary were going to the synagogue and saying, Okay, it's the Messiah coming. Where are we supposed to be? How are we supposed to go about this and everything? You know, it probably wasn't on their mind. But God had already declared this baby was going to be born in Bethlehem. So as this child grew within her womb, she was at Nazareth. And as it got closer to time, and if one of us had been standing by, knowing what the prophet said, and knowing the child, if we could go back in time, we might say, don't you think you ought to get moving? That baby's got to be born in Bethlehem. It can't be born here. You should probably, you know, you probably need to make... But God had it all under control. Nobody else had to come up with an idea, but God had His own. Proverbs 21 and 1 says, The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord as the rivers of water, and he turneth it whithersoever he will. So there came a point in time that God reached down. It didn't save Caesar Augustus, praise God, but He reached down and He took that heart and He turned it a little bit. Caesar Augustus thought he was calling a census. Caesar Augustus thought he was calling a tax. But for all of eternity, God had it planned. Caesar Augustus, you're bringing the Messiah to be born in Bethlehem. Oh, because Joseph's family tree demanded that He be there, there came a time when she was near to be delivered. It's inconvenient. It doesn't work all that well for us. But the government says we've got to go to Bethlehem just like the prophet had said. And in my text it says it came to pass in those days. The promise that God would send the One who would save His people it came to pass in those days. All those days that had come up to that point, people had looked for it and wondered about it. All the prophecies of the coming of the Lord, it came to pass in those days. Brother Michael read it this morning, when the fullness of the time was come. God's, when the fullness of the time was come, He could have chose somebody that had been born and raised in Bethlehem, but He said, nope, they're in Nazareth. I'll get them to Bethlehem. And when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law to redeem them that were under the law that we might receive the adoption of sons. God had it all planned out. Everything was in place. Nobody could see the plan. It was in 2008 when I became Lily's dad, and there was a process that we went through, a two-year-long process. Now, when Lily became part of our family, she was nine months old. We'd done been working for a year and a half before that. So preparation had been made. Papers had been signed. Inquiries had been made. But God was working it out all along. And when Jesus came into this world, the preparation, it was behind the scenes. Nobody else could see it. Nobody else could know what was going on. But God made sure that it happened. And it came to pass, in those days, earth got visited by heaven. Praise God. And it was not simply the innocence of a little baby. We talk about the innocence of children and how little one born into the world and just how pure and just how innocent. But it was not just that. It wasn't that simple. It wasn't that sinful. But it was the holiness of heaven above embodied in a little baby like someone had ever known. The world had never seen this kind of righteousness in the past. No one had ever had such a visitation from heaven as it was. Because man had been created one day as pure. But man just spoiled it. But now came the pure Creator into the world to redeem the world unto Himself. Now when He came, now understand, He's holy. Pure. I've been at baby dedications and I've seen as the mother holds that little infant in her arms and there's a prayer and the little message that goes forth. And I've heard it said that there dwells within that little infant the ability to be a great sinner. In that heart lies a seed of a murderer, of a liar, but not in Bethlehem on that day. There was no sin. There was no darkness. There was only light and the holiness of God. And so when heaven came down to earth on that day, it clashed. It didn't work all that well in the world. It was foreign to the way this world operated. There was an awkward meeting between heaven and earth. Things didn't always go that well. It was immediately that His life was marked for death. We know that Herod sent out word and he wanted Jesus dead. Didn't know who He was. Like brother Michael said, didn't know what He looked like. Didn't know how to find Him. So we'll just kill everybody. Every child within that age range. And He brought such holiness down to this world. It clashed so strongly with this world. But it was the King of heaven who has come among us. It is the King of heaven who has dwelt among us. Truly, you could look at the manger in Bethlehem and say, this is heaven on earth! When He came, He brought the love of heaven onto earth. A hateful world. He touched people that were sick and He healed them. He delivered people from absolutely impossible situations. There was a man who had been lame for longer than Jesus had been on the earth. And Jesus delivered him from his lameness. And when He came and He spoke truth into this deceitful world, they knew what it was like to feel that two-edged sword of the Word of God going out. And it cut them. And it bothered them. And there were those that would be willing to humble themselves, but there were so many that fought against His righteousness. Because it was so different. So different from anything that the world had ever known. When we have the record that John the Baptist baptized Jesus, and people talk about the beginning of Jesus' ministry at that point in time. And I think back to Isaiah 6 when we find Isaiah finds His calling. Jesus never said what Isaiah said. Jesus didn't say, woe is me, for I'm a man of unclean lips. No, He came so pure. He was heaven itself come into this world. We know from the Bible that heaven is the place where God dwells, right? That's what the Bible says. God dwells there. And the Bible tells us that in His presence is fullness of joy. We know that Jesus told us in the Sermon on the Mount that in heaven, God's will is fulfilled. Whatever God wants, that's what happens. We know that it's a holy place that is a place of great purity. But when He came, brother Michael, you read it, He endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself. All those wonderful things of heaven came with a stark contrast to the wickedness that was on earth. For Adam's sin brought a great curse upon this world. And instead of kicking this curse away, instead of rejecting the curse, instead of pushing it and saying, we want nothing to do with this, this world has received the curse. In fact, this world has embraced the curse and the sin that goes with it. Mankind has invested in sin and He has embraced, He has cultivated wickedness until it is spread all over this world the way that it is today. Every corner of this world, there's liars. There are lustful men. There are murderers. There are proud perverts. There's drunkenness and witchcraft and idolatry and adulteries and fornication. There's thieveries everywhere you go in this world. This world's culture has accepted, may not just accept it, but has gone and done everything they could to make the sins against God not just something we tolerate, but we make it fashionable now in the world to be the worst of sinners. But God, but the goodness of God came down from heaven to overpower the sin. For the Bible says, where sin abounded, where sin was at its greatest, where nobody could overcome sin by any other means, where sin was deep and it was wide, where sin was insurmountable and unrecordable, where sin abounded, heaven came to earth and grace did much more abound. And when He came into this world and He came face to face with devils and He came face to face with lying adulterers and fornicators and drunkards and idolaters and the worst wickedness of the world, He did not come to condemn it all, but He came to save the world from sin. Praise God! That's why heaven came to earth. When He came, He was hated, despised, rejected of men. His doctrines were refused and they were scorned. He was mocked. He was beaten and scourged. He was crucified and He laid down His life when the time come. He was here to offer the best that heaven had to the worst that earth had. When Paul said and declared himself to be the chiefest of sinners, heaven came down for the worst among us. Praise God! He came to save. That's why heaven came to earth. Brother Austin, would you come and get us a song as we prepare to pray here. Ephesians 2. We'll wear it out this month. But God, who is rich in mercy for His great love, wherewith He loved us. Jesus didn't come with some kind of a let's try this. Jesus didn't come and say, well, let's see if we can help a little bit here. No. God in His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sin, hath quickened us together with Christ by grace. You're saved. And listen, He hath raised us up together and hath made us to sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. I'll stand with me today and let's worship our God who came to this world to save sinners. Let's worship our God for His great love wherewith He loved us for taking heaven the best, the holy, the pure, the sanctified God of heaven coming down to this earth to save poor, pitiful you and me. Hallelujah. Glory to God. Let's honor our God today. This Christmas Eve He came to save His goodness. Oh, Brother Michael Red, He laid it aside. He made Himself of no reputation. Emptied Himself so that you and I could be saved. He hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. And because there was perfect heaven on an imperfect earth, God made a way that earthly people like us will one day get into that holy heaven by the giving of His only begotten Son. Let's come and let's spend a little bit of time in the altar. Let's thank Him today. Thank Him today for heaven on earth. For when I could not come where He was, He came to me. When the wise men could not travel past the Milky Way to get where He was, God came down and they could meet with Him, He the owner of heaven. To the place where Jesus lay beautiful star of Bethlehem shine on Oh, beautiful star of Bethlehem shine upon us until the glory dawn Give us the light to light the way unto the land of perfect day Beautiful star of Bethlehem shine on Beautiful star of the hope of light guiding the pilgrims through the night over the mountain till the break of dawn Into the light of perfect day it will give out a lovely ray Beautiful star of Bethlehem shine on Oh, beautiful star of Bethlehem shine on