Let Earth Receive Her King by Alistair Begg

 

LET EARTH RECEIVE HER KING

by Alistair Begg

This book is a walk through from Genesis to Revelation showing how all the pieces of the puzzle fit together so perfectly. A real test of bible knowledge!  It is set out in 24 chapters, 1 for each day during December up to Christmas Day. It is also divided in 5 parts:

Part One - Christmas in the Beginning

Part Two - Christmas in the Land

Part Three - Christmas in the Gospels

Part Four - Christmas in the Letters

Part 5 - Awaiting a new Advent

followed by After Christmas (A Cure for the Post-Christmas Blues)

Each chapter includes a hymn appropriate for the day as it links in with the meditation.

In the Introduction Alistair tells us ...

"It is easy to look at the first Christmas as though God were a December-preparer - as though the story starts on the first page of the New Testament, with an angel suddenly showing up to a girl in Galilee. But the Bible is a two-act drama and to start at the Gospels is to join at the interval."

So where did it start? In John's Gospel - not with the angels and shepherds and wise men but "in the beginning", in fact from before the beginning. From eternity past God planned to send His Son so that we might have life with him for eternity future. So we have to start right back in the Old Testament.

Advent

 comes from the Latin word "Adventus" which means "Coming". We are meant to have 2 "comings" in view - Christ's arrival in the past and his return in the future. 

Part 1 Christmas in the Beginning

Chapter 1 or Day 1 - The Word in the Beginning

Have you ever thought about the appearance of Jesus? It is easy at this time to think of him as the baby in the manger but what did he look like when he grew into a man? 

"He had no form or majesty that we should look at him and no beauty that we should desire him." Isaiah 53 verse 2

Every human portrayal of Jesus misses what the Father desires for us to know about his Son.

"In the beginning was the word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. he was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made." John 1 verse 1 to 3

In the beginning there was already God - and there was already God the Son, the "Word". Jesus was not created for he is the very Creator of the universe. The child in the manger was the very same person who put the stars in the sky - including the very star which led the wise men from the east to come and worship him. He "was with God" yet he "was God".  John presented a person with whom he had laughed, wept, feasted, prayed, served, traveled and far more - a person who nonetheless was also present at the creation of the world, as the Creator of the world.

There was a point in time when he obediently gave up his life to bear the penalty of our sins, and a point in time when his dead body came back to life, and a point in time when his resurrected body ascended into heaven. And there will be a point in time when this same Jesus comes again to make all things new.

Christ's divinity has no starting point in time. He always was. He was God before time began. he is God at this very moment. And he will continue to God forever.

"We are called to worship him without cessation, obey him without hesitation, love him without reservation and serve him without interruption." Bruce Milne, The Message of John: Here is Your King!

Remember his physical appearance did not matter one bit - but at the same time enjoy the fact that he physically appears, there at that first Christmas to be our great hope in life and death. The Creator became a creature and lived in this world!