The Guess Who, "Hand-Me-Down World"

 One of Canada's most notable bands, The Guess Who, released this excellent song back in January of 1971. Though it wasn't their first international hit, the song did chart in America.

Listen to it here.

Everything we have in this world is secondhand. First of all, God made every single particle in the universe. Whatever we have is from his creative hand.

Psalms 95:3-5 (Bible in Basic English) expresses this truth well. "For the Lord is a great God, and a great King over all gods. The deep places of the earth are in his hand; and the tops of the mountains are his. The sea is his, and he made it; and the dry land was formed by his hands."

And in the world of ideas, nothing is new. Ecclesiastes 1:9 and 10 (BBE) reveals, "That which has been, is that which is to be, and that which has been done, is that which will be done, and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there anything of which men say, 'See, this is new?" It has been in the old time which was before us."

Some folks might claim that redemption is a new thing. But we read in Genesis 3:14 and 15 (BBE) how God promised a redeemer to Adam and Eve when Satan led them to sin. "And the Lord God said to the snake, 'Because you have done this you are cursed more than all cattle and every beast of the field; you will go flat on the earth, and dust will be your food all the days of your life: And there will be war between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed: by him will your head be crushed and by you his foot will be wounded.'"

We also see that sin occurs the same way from the beginning. As James 1:13 and 14 (BBE) describes, human propensity to sin has never changed. "Let no man say when he is tested, I am tested by God; for it is not possible for God to be tested by evil, and he himself puts no man to such a test: But every man is tested when he is turned out of the right way by the attraction of his desire."

That's how the first two humans fell and how we are tripped up today by our thrice-unholy tendencies.

If our Saviour hasn't returned by Monday, I hope to post about a great song by a former Guess Who.

What is This Hope We Celebrate?

I feel sad that most people today are missing the point of Christmas. All they hear in the malls are songs about Santa, trees, and snow. None of those things were part of the first Christmas.

Even though we don't know which day Christ was born on, December 25th is when we remind ourselves, and the unsaved world, of the fulfilled hope of the saviour.

As early as Genesis 3:14 and 15, (BBE), we read of God's plan to rescue us from Satan's deception. "And the Lord God said to the snake, 'Because you have done this you are cursed more than all cattle and every beast of the field; you will go flat on the earth, and dust will be your food all the days of your life: And there will be war between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed: by him will your head be crushed and by you his foot will be wounded.'"

This pictorial language shows that Christ, who is the seed of the woman, will be killed but his resurrection will crush Satan's power of eternal death over us.

When God called Abram and gave him the name Abraham, he promised something wonderful. Galatians 3:8 (BBE) says, "And the holy Writings, seeing before the event that God would give the Gentiles righteousness by faith, gave the good news before to Abraham, saying, 'In you will all the nations have a blessing.'" That blessing was Christ.

And defying our kind of logic, Christ's birth was announced to the lowest individuals in first-century Jude an society. Luke 2:10 (and 11 BBE) tells us what the messenger of God said to certain shepherds. "And the angel said, 'Have no fear; for truly, I give you good news of great joy which will be for all the people: For on this day, in the town of David, a Saviour has come to birth, who is Christ the Lord.'"

By the way, Christ means the anointed one; the messiah which Israel waited so long for. And as we just read, Jesus is he who would conquer Satan, giving us life eternal.

I plan on emphasizing these truths in my next book called You Think You're Going to Heaven? The world doesn't understand our joy. Therefore, we Christians must proclaim why Christmas begins with Christ. Our rejoicing  shouldn't end there either as he is the fulfillment of God's ancient promise.

On Thursday, I'll expand more on the hope of Christmas.

The Messiah Saga Begins

I'm sure we've all heard the Christmas story so many times that it becomes stale. In fact, I've found that familiarity with our Lord's birth has bred contempt among many of my friends. What most Christians don't appear to know is that the beginning of Christ's story starts at the beginning of the Bible.

When Adam and Eve defied God's only restriction on them, he cursed both them and Satan but he also gave a promise of a deliverer. Genesis 3:14 and 15 (KJV) reads, "And the LORD God said unto the serpent, 'Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.'"

Furthermore, Eve rejoiced when she gave birth to her first baby boy. Genesis 4:1 (KJV) reads, "And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, 'I have gotten a man from the LORD.'"

John MacArthur said in one of his sermons that Eve thought Cain would be the one to crush the serpent's head. Instead, her boy became the world's first murderer. As Christ's favourite disciple wrote in 1 John 3:12 (KJV), "Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous."

As history proved, the promised one was to come thousands of years later. I'll be pointing out more details about the long journey to the arrival of the Messiah in future posts.

The theme of our fallen nature will be the main point of my next book called You Think You're Going to Heaven? It's this fallen nature that we all inherited which makes it impossible for us to earn our own salvation. Only repenting and forsaking our own rebellious desire for autonomy will get us into the kingdom of heaven.

On Thursday, I'll post about the continuing saga of Christ's lineage and how Muslims claim they're superior to us.