WHO Is He In
Yonder Stall?
‘Tis
the LORD the King of Glory!’
In Isaiah
“Therefore the LORD himself shall give you a sign; Behold a virgin shall
conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his
name Immanuel.”
Luke
“And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon
thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also
that holy thing
which shall be born
of thee shall be called the Son of
God.”
Matthew
“And
she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call His name JESUS: for he shall
save his people from their sins.”
From these accounts we begin to see WHO that babe in the manager is: Immanuel, God with us; the
Son of God and in
Matthew, Jesus! Jesus means “the LORD is salvation” in the
Hebrew.
Let’s
turn to [B]
Luke 2:1-20
and please follow along as I read the account of the Birth of
Jesus.
Verses 10 and 11 tell of the angel’s announcement of the birth of a baby, to the
shepherds who are out in the fields.
They distinguish this birth from other births by referring to this baby
as Savior,
Christ (which is
Messiah, the anointed One) and
LORD.
When Jesus, the Son of God Incarnate was born, He left Heaven’s glory,
His Throne room and came to earth for you and for
me.
Oswald Chambers says, this of His
birth:
“His life is the Highest and the Holiest entering in at
the lowliest door.”
Isaiah 7:14b, “His name shall be called Emmanuel…God
with us.”
Yes, Jesus was physically with us, but His coming was more than a time to
remember His birth, more than a time of celebration and gift giving to each
other. All gifts we give each other
pale by comparison to the greatest gift Jesus offers us: the gift of Eternal
Life; the gift of Eternity with Him forever and ever. Like every gift offered, it is only ours
when we take it and receive it for ourselves. The gift of Eternal Life that Jesus
offers us is ours… when it is received by
faith.
Jesus paid a great price for the gift He offers us. He suffered humiliation on
When once we have received this wondrous gift of Eternal Life…we now
provide a
In many homes around the world Christmas morning is an exciting and
anticipated morning for many children.
They can’t wait to jump out of bed and look for their name on a present,
chosen especially for them. The
excitement is for both the giver of the gift who, in selecting the gift, shows
their love and consideration of the child’s needs and desires and the child,
receiving the gift, when they discover and open their particular package.
However, the joy and satisfaction is short-lived. Perhaps a week or more later, the gift
will sit on a shelf or is hidden in a closet or even, perhaps, under a
bed…collecting “dust”. The value of
the received gift diminishes because of its lack of use.
God’s gift of Eternal Life can pretty much imitate this scenario. On the day of salvation---there’s great
emotion and joy and perhaps this joy perpetuates itself for a while. Will the joy of God’s gift to us, Eternal
Life, perpetuate itself or will it too, like the child’s Christmas gift, also
“collect dust”? Will it be forgotten? Will it only be remembered once a week
when we go to church? Or when we
are in the company of other believers of like faith? Will it parade itself during a testimony
time or a prayer service, only to walk out of the church building doors and
be laid aside until another week goes by?
Will God’s gift of Eternal
Life begin once again to “collect dust”?
How can we ward off the complacency that can subtly overtake us? God’s gift of Eternal Life is unlike any
other gift we will ever receive. It
is a gift that will not ever wear away; nor can it be lost. Only we can deem this “gift” useless by
our negligence and disobedience to God and His Word.
The refrain of the hymn, Living
For Jesus, is one that says it simply and is
a good daily reminder to us:
“O Jesus, Lord and Savior, I give myself to Thee;
For Thou, in Thy atonement, Didst giveThyself for
me,
I own no other Master, My heart shall be
Thy throne,
My life I give, henceforth to live, O Christ, for Thee
alone.”
Another hymn says, we have a “new name
written down in glory”. We are all changed by God’s grace into
new creatures. Our old natures
might, like Simon, the natural man who was headstrong, self-reliant, boastful,
be changed by God’s grace into “a new creature”; or like David who was called “a
man after God’s own heart”, we might be called or be known as women after God’s
own heart. Simon was given a new
name: Peter, meaning ‘a rock’.
Peter’s character was
changed into a rock of fearless
faithfulness.
Considering our devotionals over the last couple of months on surrender,
commitment, submission and availability, we see we have already been given the
grace to implement these virtues; the grace to go forward boldly in the name of
Jesus. All that is needed is to
take God’s gift of Eternal Life from “off the shelf” from “under the bed”, from
out of the closet” and bring it to The Light. “The Light of the World” is
Jesus”.
His LIGHT must shine in and through us that others may see His good
works.
WHO is He in yonder
stall?
He’s the One to whom we fall in worship.
He’s the One to Whom we bow our hearts in prayer
He’s the One Who died in grief and agony for your sin and
mine
He’s the One Who is Eternal Life!
The refrain of Who is He in
Yonder Stall? Says it this
way:
‘Tis the LORD! O wondrous
story!
‘Tis the LORD! The King of
glory!
At His feet we humbly fall,
Crown Him! Crown Him, LORD of
all!