Transcription downloaded from https://sermonarchive.gfcbremen.com/sermons/99193/the-destroyer-of-the-devils-work/.

Disclaimer: this is an automatically generated machine transcription - there may be small errors or mistranscriptions.
Please refer to the original audio if you are in any doubt.


[0:00] Be the shepherd of my people Israel. Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared.

[0:13] ! He sent them to Bethlehem and said,! Go and make a careful search for the child. And as soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.

[0:31] After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was.

[0:46] When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshipped him.

[1:02] Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

[1:25] For the past six weeks or so, we have been studying together as a church about our threefold enemy of the world, the flesh, and the devil, and how Satan, that mastermind, orchestrates this trinity of evil, plotting to destroy and damn us and to dishonor God through us.

[1:47] And that's where we've been for the last six weeks. Now today our worship is focused on the birth of Jesus Christ, the coming of God's Son in the flesh.

[2:00] And I want us to see this morning that this is not a change of subject, but it's rather the climax of our subject. Jesus' coming has everything to do with Christian warfare, and it is the reason for our ultimate victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil.

[2:22] Indeed, over sin and death and hell. So turn with me to 1 John 3 and verse 8, which will be our text for the day.

[2:33] 1 John 3 and verse 8. And we'll see here the connection between the coming of God's Son and the devil's work.

[2:48] 1 John 3 and verse 8. He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. And here it is.

[3:00] The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work.

[3:12] So as we peer into the manger at the newborn baby Jesus, John tells us who he is and why he's here. First of all, in answer to who, John says he's the Son of God.

[3:26] This is God the Son who's been with the Father from eternity, the creator of the world. He's the oldest baby ever born.

[3:37] He's the only baby who at his birth was older than his mother. And this should tell us right away something very unusual is happening here. Indeed, it is.

[3:51] Why has God's Son appeared here on earth? Well, he's here on a mission, a very clearly defined mission. And John tells us the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work.

[4:04] Now, this is a critical perspective from which to view the incarnation. Indeed, John is telling us that we've not properly understood Christmas, the coming of Christ, unless we've seen him in relationship to the work of the devil, because he comes to destroy that.

[4:25] So, two questions. The first is, what is the devil's work? And secondly, how does the Son of God destroy it? First, what is the devil's work? And in one word, it's sin.

[4:38] Often when we meet people, we first find out their names, and then we may ask them, and what do you do at work? Or what is your work, your line of work? And they may say, well, I program, or I teach, I drive, I this, I that.

[4:54] And if we asked Satan and he gave us a straight up answer, what is your work? He would say, I sin. I sin. You see it in the text. He's been sinning from the beginning.

[5:06] That's his work. All day, every day, he's been sinning and disobeying God's commandments. And he's not been satisfied to sin by himself. He's not only gathered together a group of other fallen angels to sin against God with him, but he's had his eyes especially on God's creation of humanity, made in his own image.

[5:31] And so, he and his fallen angels work nonstop, tempting others to sin along with him, getting the whole world of mankind to join him in this rebellion against our God.

[5:46] So, he went after our first parents early, knowing that if he could get Adam to sin, he would sink the whole human race in sin. And indeed, we read in Romans 5, that through the disobedience of the one man, the many were made sinners.

[6:03] In Adam's fall, we sinned all. We sinned in Adam, our representative, and we receive from him a fallen sinful nature, the flesh, that is at enmity with God.

[6:19] And that's why we all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. It's why each of us has turned to his own self-centered, proud way with our backs toward God.

[6:30] And so, we've all joined the devil in his work of sin, and it is devilish work. He's the spirit that is now at work in the children of disobedience.

[6:42] He works that disobedience in them by tempting them to sin against God. But it's not just the children of disobedience in the world. He also tempts the children of God, doesn't he?

[6:55] To sin. After all, he even tried and did tempt the Son of God himself, didn't he? So that's his work.

[7:08] Sinning and tempting others to sin. And so sin now pervades our once sinless world. Wherever you bump into sin, whether it's within you or outside of you, you are bumping into the devil's work.

[7:21] But that work of sinning is also carried out by lying, secondly. He was, John 8, 44 says of the devil that he's not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him.

[7:35] And when he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Now, we need to remember that this world was once a place where only the truth was spoken and heard.

[7:49] Everything was true. What a world to live in. But then Satan started his work in this world, and he let loose his lies into the earth.

[8:01] You will not surely die, he says. And the whole world has bought into his lies. It was by lying to Eve that he got her first to sin. And so it is today that behind most sins, you will find a lie of the devil that is being believed by men.

[8:21] He lies about Christ. He lies about the gospel, about how sinners are saved. He lies about God, about his laws, about his motives, about his goodness, about his word.

[8:38] He lies about sin, about its pleasures, and about its punishments. And man's flesh is more prone to believe Satan's lies than God's truth.

[8:49] So he gets away with all kinds of lies. For the better part of the world think that they are going to heaven, when in reality they're following the devil as the Pied Piper to hell.

[9:04] He sins, he tempts through lies. And then what is his work? It's sin, it's lying, but it's also murder. Jesus says in John 8, 44, he was a murderer from the beginning.

[9:16] It was by getting Adam and Eve to sin that he robbed eternal life from them and from their descendants and brought us all under the curse of death for our sin.

[9:30] Children, have you ever wondered, how did death get into this perfect world? How, if God created all things perfectly, how did death get into the works?

[9:44] Well, the Bible doesn't leave us to guess. It tells us. It says, therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men for all have sinned.

[10:02] Death entered when sin entered. Kids, when you open the door in the summertime and come into the house, sometimes other things come in with you, don't they? Maybe flies, maybe some stray cats in the neighborhood.

[10:15] Things come in with you. And the Bible says when sin came, death came in with it. And that's why all men die, because all have sinned.

[10:30] And so through the devil's tempting work, physical death happens, the separation of body and soul. And immediately death began to work in the bodies of Adam and Eve and eventually killed them.

[10:47] Spiritual death happened immediately to their souls as they were separated from God. No longer God's friend. Now there's separation. And it all leads to the second death.

[10:59] The conscious enduring of torments in the lake of fire forever under God's wrath. You see, the devil is a murderer. That's his work.

[11:10] He murders body and soul. Make no mistake about him. He's out to rob you of eternal life. He's just that evil. That is his work. He's a thief who comes to steal, to kill, and to destroy.

[11:24] And that's the last part of his work we're going to focus on. Sinning, lying, murdering, destroying. He's out to destroy the moral image of God in man.

[11:36] He's out to wreck the whole of God's perfect creation. So what happened when Adam and Eve followed him into sin? Well, instead of being holy and happy, they became sinful and miserable.

[11:51] So the devil destroyed their holiness and their happiness. He destroyed their perfect marriage, their perfect family.

[12:03] He destroyed their perfect communion with God. He destroyed their perfect world. Even their environment was cursed for sin's sake, cursed with frustration and frailty and thorns and thistles.

[12:14] And all this happened, you see, through the devil's work. Every bit of sadness and misery in the world today, every bit of injustice and evil and crime and pain, every bit of disappointment and death and disease can be traced back to the work of the devil.

[12:35] That's the Bible's view of our world. Every broken home, every broken heart, every broken promise, every broken health, every broken life.

[12:48] It's the devil's work. And his work has been going on for thousands of years now, penetrating the hearts and lives of every human being, permeating every stitch of the fabric of society, every institution of man, every nation of men.

[13:09] This is the world that the Son of God created perfectly to reflect the glory of his Father. And is he now to sit back in heaven and watch and do nothing as the devil comes and destroys his work?

[13:27] Not in your life. He comes. He comes. And the reason the Son of God appears is to destroy the devil's work.

[13:40] So how? That's our second question. How does the Son of God destroy the devil's work? Well, it all began, first of all, with his appearing on earth. With his appearing.

[13:52] You see that in our text. The reason the Son of God appeared. He appeared. He made an appearance here in his incarnation, in his birth. And so, this destroying of the devil's work begins with the Son of God showing up here in a world under the control of the evil one.

[14:11] And he's here with the express purpose of destroying the devil's work. Now, don't be fooled, then, about the unassuming appearance of the baby in the manger. Oh, he's so harmless and helpless.

[14:26] But don't be fooled by that. The destroyer of evil has made an appearance. He's here on a mission, and he is out to destroy the devil's work.

[14:37] It's like the invasion of Normandy, France, on D-Day, June 6, 1944, World War II. And the Allied troops made an appearance, didn't they, on the beaches of Normandy, France, in order to destroy the work of the occupying Nazis.

[14:58] It wasn't friendly territory that they landed on. It was under the control of the enemy. And so, our appearance there was not welcome, but met with hot resistance.

[15:11] Nevertheless, an important foothold was established that day, from which the ultimate victory followed. What happened when the Son of God made an appearance at Bethlehem, in a world under the control of the evil one?

[15:31] Well, there was conflict from the beginning. He wasn't there. We had the scripture read. Herod, king of Judea. He gets nervous when he learns from the wise men about the birth of a king.

[15:44] Another king? King of the Jews? He saw it as a threat to his own rule. By the way, that's the way we all respond when we learn of this king. If we do not bow and worship, we consider it a threat.

[15:58] I like to run my life, not have someone else tell me what to do. Herod is nervous, and he tries to kill him by killing all the baby boys two years old and under in the region of Bethlehem.

[16:12] So what happens when Jesus appears on the earth? Conflict. And Revelation 12 tells us don't miss the devil's work in that conflict.

[16:24] We're given that vision in Revelation 12 of the devil, there pictured as an enormous red dragon standing in front of the woman about to give birth so that he may devour her child the moment it was born.

[16:38] And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who was to rule all the nations with an iron scepter. It was the devil behind Herod's murderous scheme.

[16:52] Remember, he's the murderer. That's his work. But the devil failed in his attempt to kill the Christ child. God protected his son, and he escaped to Egypt.

[17:03] But with his appearing, his mission on earth to destroy the devil's work had begun. The long-promised seed of the woman had made an appearance to crush the head of the serpent.

[17:19] So the mission's underway with the appearance of the Son of God on the earth. Secondly, we see his destruction of the devil's work in his victory over temptation.

[17:31] He's 30 years old now. Jesus is baptized, anointed, equipped by the Holy Spirit for his work for which he came, that public ministry of destroying the devil's work.

[17:42] And immediately, the Holy Spirit leads him out into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil because that's part of his work. That's part of the devil's work, tempting. And Jesus has come to destroy the devil's work.

[17:57] And so for 40 days and 40 nights, the Lord Jesus is in hand-to-hand combat with the evil one. And for the first time in all human history, the devil meets a man he could not get to sin.

[18:10] Now he tried. He tried as he tries with every man. And though he was tempted in every way like us, he never sinned. Not one thought. Not one motive.

[18:22] Not one word. Not one deed left undone or done that wasn't in perfect conformity with his Father's will. And every time he resisted the devil, it was another aspect of destroying the devil's work.

[18:43] He destroys the devil's work in part by resisting his temptations to sin. And so you and I watch there in that wilderness fight as the Lord fights the devil.

[18:58] We watch like those Israelite soldiers watch their young David fighting the Philistine champion, Goliath. Because if David wins, we win. But if David loses, we lose.

[19:11] And we are slaves forever to the Philistines. And if Jesus wins, we win. But if Jesus loses, if he sins once, we are slaves forever to sin and to Satan.

[19:24] And so we glory when we see Jesus destroying the devil's works by resisting temptation to the very end.

[19:38] The devil found nothing in him, no handle to lay hold of him, no power over him. What do we owe to our holy Jesus who sanctified himself that he might sanctify us?

[19:56] Set himself apart to God that he might set us apart to God. Well, he destroys the devil's work by his appearing, by his resisting temptation, and then thirdly by his casting out of demons.

[20:16] Jesus no sooner began his public ministry than he was confronted with demon-possessed people and the demons inside of them, people whose lives were ruined by the devil's power, and at once Jesus cast them out.

[20:29] He set men free from the control and miserable bondage of Satan, and people were amazed. They'd never seen it done like this before. He even gives orders to evil spirits, and they obey him.

[20:42] And every expulsion of demons was another work of the devil destroyed, and it showed that the kingdom of God had come to earth because its king was here, Jesus Christ.

[20:56] And so Jesus says, if I drive out demons by the spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or again, how can anyone enter a strong man's house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man, and then he can rob his house?

[21:12] Now here's an amazing picture of reality. Here's the picture that Jesus is drawing. We're all slaves of sin and Satan.

[21:26] Jesus says, whoever sins is the slave of sin. And we show that we are of our father, the devil, because we want to do his will. We want to sin. So we're all slaves of sin.

[21:39] The whole world is deceived and enslaved under the devil's control, locked up in this prison house of sin. And there he stands on the front porch as a fully armed man, the strong man, armed, and he's guarding his possessions.

[21:59] The people inside his prison house, the souls and bodies of men and women, boys and girls, and he stands guard over his possessions, with supernatural power that no man can break through and get out of.

[22:22] But the Son of God appeared to destroy the devil's work. And so Jesus is saying, if you see me driving out demons and setting prisoners free from Satan's grip, then you can know that I have first overcome the devil.

[22:38] I first bound the strong man, I first disarmed him, and once I disarmed him and bound him, then I can enter into his house and set the captives free. So if you see captives going free from sin, you can know that the king is among you, and he's brought his kingdom to earth, and it's all about setting people free from the devil's power.

[23:00] sin, what sins would you be enslaved to this morning, brother, sister, had not Jesus appeared to destroy the devil's work in our lives?

[23:20] But it wasn't just his casting out of demons, it was seen also in his other miraculous works. Now, miraculous works, miracle workers, were rare things only found in a few periods of world history, but when the Son of God appeared, what do we find?

[23:37] We find everywhere he went, he was doing miracles, and these miracles were not random acts of kindness, rather by them the Son of God was destroying and undoing the devil's work, the very thing for which he appeared.

[23:52] You see, by getting Adam and Eve to sin, the devil had been successful in bringing mankind under the curse of death, under God's curse of death and every disease that leads to death and all the misery involved in the curse.

[24:10] The devil had succeeded in that, and so the world that Jesus came into and made an appearance in was a world full of people who were blind and deaf and dumb and lame and leprous and diseased and dying.

[24:29] And because he came to destroy the devil's work, Jesus made the blind to see and the deaf to hear and the lame to walk and the leprous were cleansed and even the dead were raised to life.

[24:43] Now, they didn't stay healthy forever, did they? They got sick again and died because this was not the final stage of the kingdom of God. But Jesus is giving a foretaste of the way it will be in his kingdom at the end when he returns in glory and all of his enemies are crushed beneath his feet with the devil's work finally and totally destroyed.

[25:08] You won't be able to find one blind man, one deaf man, one crippled man, one diseased, sick, dying man. And even here at his first appearing, Jesus is showing his power to destroy the devil's work.

[25:25] You think this is something? Wait till I come back. This is just the appetizer for the full feast of blessings that I have. I am the king of this kingdom and blessings abound wherever I reign.

[25:39] Here's a picture of some of them. He's destroying the works of the devil in the miracles that he performed. But then it was his preaching of the gospel as well that destroyed the works of the devil by his preaching of the gospel.

[25:55] It wasn't enough to work miracles, was it? Mark tells us in Capernaum he healed many with various diseases and after healing many everyone was looking for him as we might understand.

[26:08] Jesus says let's go somewhere else to the nearby villages so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.

[26:21] I've come to destroy the works of the devil and one of the ways I do that is by preaching. Therefore he says to them the kingdom of God is at hand repent and believe the good news.

[26:35] Now it makes sense that Jesus destroys the devil's works by preaching if we'll remember that the devil's work is lying and it's by lying that he gets us to sin.

[26:46] It's by lying that he deceives us and holds us in his grip and keeps us in captivity. It's by lying that he damns sinners.

[26:58] And so Jesus meets and defeats him by exposing his lies with the truth. He is the truth isn't he? He is the truth incarnate. He does the truth and he speaks nothing but the truth and so he fights the devil.

[27:13] He destroys his works with the double-edged sword of his word. He comes speaking the truth that sets men free from Satan's lies and slavery.

[27:24] And he says to slaves of sin if you hold to my teachings you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. That's how he destroys the works of the devil by preaching.

[27:36] And as men heard the truth from him and believed they were set free. And so I have to ask you again brothers and sisters what lies would you still be believing had Jesus not come and preached the truth of the gospel and opened your heart to believe it and thereby destroy the works of the devil in your life because he exposed those lies that you were following.

[28:04] Oh but it was preeminently by his death and resurrection that Jesus destroyed the works of the devil. It was by getting man to sin that the devil brought separation between God and man.

[28:23] What separates God from man now it's sin. And how did sin come into the world? It was by the devil's work. That's his work. And so he's succeeded in separating God and man.

[28:37] So if Jesus has come to destroy the devil's work he's got to deal with sin doesn't he? Indeed that's why he came 1 John 3 5 He appeared that he might take away our sins.

[28:52] And how does he do that? By dying for them himself. for Christ died for sins once for all the righteous for the unrighteous that he might bring us to God because in dying for us he takes away our sin.

[29:09] He takes away the obstacle that keeps us separated and brings us back to God. He now has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.

[29:27] So here is my sin and it separates me from God and Jesus comes and he says Father punish me in his stead and Jesus takes all the wrath that I had coming for my sin and God the Father is able to say those sins are under the blood they are paid in full I see them no more they're obliterated they're taken away because Christ has suffered for them.

[29:54] You see in doing so he was destroying the devil's work which was to put us at enmity with God with sin between us and all of this required the incarnation of the Son of God.

[30:08] If God the Eternal Son is to die for sin then he must become a man in order that he may die. So Hebrews 2 14 and 15 says since the children you and I have flesh and blood he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death that is the devil and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

[30:41] How does he destroy the devil's work? He dies for our sins and thereby the devil has no more grip upon us.

[30:51] one of the things that causes men to fear death and to be a slave of the devil and he uses that tool of men's fear of death all their lives is because of the sting of death.

[31:05] What is the sting of death? What makes death so dreadful? The Bible says sin is the sting of death. Sin my sin against God is the thing that makes death so dreadful because death brings me into the presence of the judge I've sinned against and as long as I have sin against him unpaid for death is a dreadful thing and the devil uses that against us and he holds us in bondage to a spirit of fear but Jesus comes to destroy the devil's work and he goes to the cross and he dies the death under God's wrath for us now we might face death and know that death is but my entrance into glory that's all because the sting of death is gone Christ has suffered it for us the cross was the son of God's decisive victory over the devil's work it's there that he disarmed the powers of darkness and made a public spectacle of them triumphing over them by the cross and he proved that victory by rising from the dead on the third day and I must ask you again brothers and sisters had Christ not died the death that we deserved under God's wrath what slaves of the fear of death would we still be how is it that we can stare death in the face and say death where is your victory where's your sting come on bring it where is it it was paid for by my savior

[32:52] Jesus who came who appeared to destroy the devil's work that I might be set free from this fear of death indeed save from the wrath to come although the devil's back was broken at Calvary he still roams the earth seeking to work havoc doesn't he his ultimate rule has been broken over the Christian but still there's more to come of Jesus destroying his work you know that even now the gospel is being preached to the ends of the earth even this day Jesus Christ is turning men from darkness to light from lies to truth from the power of Satan to God some of you recently have been set free some of you were once not long ago slaves of sin and Jesus broke the power of reigning sin and he set the prisoner free and you're free in Christ today you see there's still this destroying of the devil's work going on as the gospel is going out to sinners inviting people to Christ and every sinner saved is rescued from where from the dominion of darkness

[34:02] Satan's domain and brought over where into the kingdom of the son that God loves even the Lord Jesus so dear Christian we've we've been studying the real struggle that we're still in with the devil he's still our enemy we fight him tooth and nail all the way to the last breath and along with him our flesh and the world that's trying to squeeze us into its mold what a difference the coming of Christ makes in our present battle with the devil and with the flesh and with the world he's already appeared to destroy the devil's work we should never think of ourselves as helpless he's come to help us that's why he appeared he's already won the biggest battle for us we're now on the winning side his wrath has turned away forever his favor is now shining upon us he's reconciled us to God so that God is on our side indeed the whole trinity father son and holy spirit is now united in fighting for us and if

[35:10] God before us who can be against us his divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness he has made us partakers of the divine nature through which we escape the corruption in the world through lust and even now Jesus Christ is empowering his people to say no to sin no to Satan's temptations he's destroying the devil's works in the lives of his people and because he too was tempted he is able to help us when we are being tempted and he's supplying us with supernatural!

[35:45] spiritual energy to enable us to stand against all the devil's temptations by his prayers he's frustrating the devil's attempts and he's protecting us from the evil one and he's pouring in the oil of grace and gladness to replace the devil's work of sin and sadness and he's giving us the Holy Spirit to live right within us to carry on the war against the flesh and to work in us to will and to do what pleases God and to keep us from being conformed to the world how?

[36:20] By transforming us the Spirit is inside transforming us renewing our minds making us more like Jesus you see God is on our side he's fighting for us he's giving us faith which is the victory that overcomes the world in its temptations against us so I want you to see that as we're studying the incarnation and thinking of Christ's coming just how that changes the spiritual battle in the trenches day by day Christ is fighting for us in pilgrim's progress Christian comes to interpreter's house where he learns many important lessons for the journey and one of the lessons that he learns is in a room where he comes into the room and he sees a fire burning against a wall and there's someone continually throwing buckets of water on the fire but still the fire blazed higher and hotter what's the meaning of this asked

[37:25] Christian and the interpreter says the fire is the work of God's grace in the heart and the person throwing the water on it is the devil still you see the fire burns brighter come around the wall here and you will see why and on the other side of the wall was a person secretly pouring oil into the fire this is the way Christ continues to supply grace in the soul of the believer through all the cold showers of the world and all the temptations of the devil he lives for you brother he lives for you sister he fights for you he came he appeared to destroy the devil's work and he's not done until every last sin is gone in your life brothers and sisters we're living trophies of our lord's destruction of the devil's work he's not done with us yet we were wrecks of sin we were slaves of satan and jesus made us free new creatures ransomed!

[38:38] healed! restored! forgiven! who like me! your praise should sing but we still must wait to see the final destruction of our enemy satan and of all his work and it will happen when when the son of god appears a second time not to bear sin but to judge the world and to destroy all of his enemies it's his second coming back in power to reign that we see the final destruction of the devil's work you can read of it in revelation 20 and verse 11 and the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever and you can read on in revelation and you will find that all who have followed satan all who were deceived by him and never came to christ will be destroyed with him in the lake of fire in conscious torments forever and ever for when the lord jesus finally appears to destroy the devil's work all his work will be totally destroyed not a trace of his work left and man's environment will be restored to what it was before sin the creation itself will partake in the glorious liberty of the sons of

[40:07] God and so we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth the home of righteousness and everywhere you see sin today you will see righteousness then we're looking forward to that he's coming again he'll appear a second time and there will be no more sin because sin is the devil's work and it will be gone from all of christ's people and there will be no more distance from god for now the dwelling of god is with man and he will live with them forever and there will be no more sorrow for he will wipe every tear from their faces and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain for the old order of things has passed away and he who is seated on the throne says I'm making everything new and there will be no more curse for he comes to make his blessings flow as far as the curse is found and there will be no more night just everlasting day a world of perfect love and joy and peace for all who have trusted in the savior now this has been a tough year and is a tough end of the year for many of our families dealing with death and killing cancers and diseases and all kinds of consequences of sin but let us lift up our hearts in hope this morning this is the reason the son of

[41:47] God appeared he came to destroy all of that which is the devil's work two thousand years ago in Bethlehem he came to save us all from Satan's power when we had gone astray oh tidings of comfort and joy joy one last word for you who are still being deceived by your sin still following the devil's lies still holding Christ at arm's length death there's a question the Bible puts to you after seeing this so great salvation that Jesus came to bring how will you escape if you neglect so great a salvation how are you going to escape how are you ever going to deal with the wrath of a holy God not for a day but forever how are you going to deal with that how are you going to handle that and all you need to do is just neglect this so great salvation just neglect just go on your way today and get on to other things and neglect this so great savior but I say why why not stop and and stop your rebellion and run into his arms today and confess yourself to be a sinner and turn from it and throw yourself upon the mercy of

[43:20] God in Christ and he will receive you you came in a slave of Satan you can go out a child of God set free you came in as one who was going to spend all eternity with the devil that sinning devil that sinning lying murderous destroying devil and you can go out of here as one who's going to spend all eternity with Jesus Christ and everybody else in heaven will be as holy and loving as him and if you come to Christ this morning you will wonder why in the world I was so slow to trust the savior what was I thinking why did I waste so many years and you will wish with us that you had a thousand tongues to sing our glorious redeemer's praise let's pray thank you father for sending your son thank you lord jesus for appearing on earth to destroy the devil's work we are here slaves set free and we sing for joy at our savior's birth we sing for joy and we sing for all!

[44:38]  every bit of slavery over those people that you came to save thank you that you've set us free thank you that we have a song in our hearts that's just the beginning and we'll sing for all eternity for the wonders of your grace and we pray that others would have their eyes open this day to this wonderful savior and would fall at his feet what an amazing thing it's just humble poor people believing believing that jesus has done enough to save us and casting ourselves upon him look on him and pardon me and so we pray lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever amen