Bulletin Insert: "What if Jesus had never been Born?" (12/06/20)

 

An Empty Manger:

“What if Jesus had never been born?”

(Pastor Terry Reese; 12/06/20, Valley GBC of Armagh)

 

Intro: Examining the great & intriguing “What ifs?” of history.

Example: What if Hitler wouldn’t have survived WWI? Or what if the American colonies wouldn’t have rebelled against Britain in 1775? Or what if the atomic bombs wouldn’t have been dropped on Japan to end World War II?

 

The ultimate, and most frightful, “what if?:” How would the world—and thus, our lives—be different if Jesus Christ would not have been born in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago?

 

1. If Jesus had never been born… then we would be left to wonder if all of God’s promises of redemption in Messiah, starting with the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3:15)—and delivered by a thousand years of writing-prophets from Moses to Malachi—have failed! Important Covenant Promises made unto Abraham and David would be held in severe doubt.

 

2. If Jesus had never been born… then the true character and nature of God as most graphically revealed in the Person of Christ Incarnate would be yet to be revealed unto mankind (John 14:8-9, Heb. 1:1-2).

 

3. If Jesus had never been born… then the world would still be in an awesome and terrible darkness, destitute of any special and revealed knowledge of its Creator or His ways, and would not know the softening effects of the Christian Ethic (Isa. 42:6, 49:6; John 1:4-5, 9, 8:12, 9:5, 12:46). Consider Christian influence in the realms of ethics & human rights, politics & economics, the arts & sciences, etc.

 

4. If Jesus had never been born… then we would be utterly lost, without hope, and in our sins (Acts 13:38-39; 1 Cor. 15:14, 17-19; 2 Tim. 1:12).