June 28, 2000

  • Luke 2:8-20 Announcement of Jesus' Birth

    roses1roses1

    By John MacArthur 

    God, the Savior of Men

    Luke 2:11

    Luke 2:8-14. "And in the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were terribly frightened. And the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which shall be for all the people. For today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you, you will find the baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.' And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly hosts praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.'"

    Seven hundred years before this baby was born a Hebrew prophet named Micah was inspired by God to write that when the Messiah did come 700 years later He would be born in of all places an obscure small town called Bethlehem, house of bread. That's what the prophet said and it's recorded in Micah 5:2. And because that's what the inspired prophet said and that is the Word of God, that is where the Messiah was born. God's Word always comes to pass. It's always accurate. It's always true.

    Verse 7 says, "She gave birth to her firstborn son." And verse 4 says, "She was in Bethlehem." But, you know, it wasn't the parents of Jesus that assured the fulfillment of this prophecy. Nowhere in the New Testament record does it say Joseph was concerned because he knew that Mary was having a child conceived by the Holy Spirit and he knew this child was Jesus who would save His people from their sins and he knew this child was going to fulfill the promise to David and be the son of David who would reign on a Kingdom...on a throne in a Kingdom that would last forever and ever. But because Joseph knew all of that and understood all of the prophetic truth regarding this unique child who would be the Son of the Most High, as well as the Son of Mary. Nothing says it because Joseph knew that, Joseph arranged to be in Bethlehem for the birth. We don't know whether Joseph was aware of Micah 5:2. We don't know all that Joseph thought.

    Nothing in the Bible says that Mary said to Joseph...You know, the Messiah must be born in Bethlehem so it's to Bethlehem we need to go. Nothing in the Scripture indicates that either Joseph or Mary played any particular role in planning to be in Bethlehem for the birth. Human nature would be that Mary would want to be near her mother, near her family, in her hometown, certainly not in a stable in the middle of a group of strangers overpopulating a small village because they were all there trying to get through a census registration that had been demanded by the Roman government. Certainly you don't want to have your baby in a half public stable in the open air and have to put him in a feed trough. Certainly you would not want to make an 85 to 90 mile journey sometimes walking and sometimes riding on the back of a donkey when the pain of just being nine months pregnant doing nothing would be enough. Certainly the thought of a birth without medication, a birth without comfort would be enough to maybe weigh heavy on your mind and cause you to say...You know, the best place for me to be is at home.

    We don't know that Joseph and Mary played any role in being in Bethlehem other than the fact that they were there. But the reason they were there wasn't because they planned to be there, the reason they were there was because God planned to have them there. And the way God orchestrated the plan to have them there had nothing to do with them really. It had nothing to do with anybody who even knew about the Messiah. It had nothing to do with anybody who cared about the Messiah. It frankly had nothing to do with anybody who knew the prophet Micah or knew the Old Testament. In fact, it was all orchestrated by, of all people, Caesar Augustus, a pagan. He arranged it. He was the supreme ruler of the Roman Empire for 45 years. He was a powerful, formidable man. And I took you through a whole, a whole lot of information about the man himself, and the nature of his life and leadership. It was that man, Caesar Augustus, who knew nothing about the true and living God, knew nothing about the Old Testament, never heard of the prophet Micah, couldn't care less about the Messiah. It was that man who did exactly what was necessary to assure the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem.

    He required a census to be taken for the purpose of registering everybody in the Roman Empire with a view towards taxation. So he made a decree, according to verse 1, it was during the first tenure of a man named Quirinius having some kind of authority in the area of Judea which was part of the Roman Empire as verse 2 indicates. And as a result verse 3 says everybody had to go to their ancestral town. Now the Romans didn't require that. As I told you before, that was likely required perhaps by Herod. This was the first census that ever had been taken by the Romans so there wasn't so traditional way to do this. But apparently Herod or the Jewish leaders had decided that to do it right they needed to go back to the home of their forefathers where they kept all the records of their ancestry. So let's assume that God moved the heart of Caesar Augustus exactly the right time, exactly the right moment to get this thing in motion so that the census would be being taken...would be taking place at the very time of the birth of Christ.

    And we also know that the census was authorized in 8 B.C. As you work out the chronology it would be about 8 B.C. when Caesar Augustus made the first census. Remember he had them at 14-year intervals and the second one was at 6 A.D. so backing up fourteen years would be 8 B.C. We also know that Jesus was born by all historical accounts somewhere around 6 and 4 B.C. So the census was called for in 8 B.C., it wasn't complied with in Judea till between 6 and 4 B.C. so there was a two to four year time when Judea didn't comply. We can assume that other countries who were part of the Roman Empire complied, Judea didn't comply probably because of the resistance of Herod. Herod was not a Jew, he was a despised Edomite...Idumaean, he was called, and he was a vassal king under Rome ruling in Judea or in Israel.

    So Herod who certainly wasn't anxious for another king to arrive, as we well know. It was Herod, you remember, who massacred all the babies when he heard that a king had been born. So Herod wasn't trying to do anything to help the Messiah fulfill a prophecy. We can't assume that Herod even knew anything about Micah 5:2. And yet Herod put up the appropriate resistance, whatever that meant to stall off the census the necessary years to be sure that Jesus was born at the right place, the right time in God's plan.

    And I've always said I can't comprehend the power of miracles, but I can understand how God can do miracles. I can understand how history goes along, a natural life goes along in the created order and God just invades with a miracle. I can understand how God just stops the natural process and does something supernatural...that's comprehensible to me. It's even simple to me. You just stop what is natural and do what is supernatural. What I find so unfathomable in my own thinking is how God works not miraculously but providentially. And providence is a term that has to do with God not interfering with the normal processes of life but orchestrating all of those contingencies and all of those thoughts and actions to effect exactly what He wants, when He wants, with whom He wants, where He wants. Now that is amazing. But that's what you have here.

    You have a decree by a Roman Caesar who knows nothing about Messianic hope and prophecy, or the Bible, the Old Testament. You have a stalling off or a delay by a Herod who is least of all disinterested in doing anything that would bring about a new king, or give credence to His claim by being born in Bethlehem. Neither of them knew anything about it. And yet every single thing they do, every independent choice they made, every willful act ignorantly they made worked to the effect that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. It is possible, we can't say dogmatic, but it is possible that the reason Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem, and that would be my tendency to believe that because the impetus of the text is they were there because of a census. It never says anything about they were trying to get there so they could make sure they fulfilled biblical prophecy. That's not there. It was the census that drove them which implies that they were up against a deadline. I mean, it would have been a lot simpler if they could have waited until the child was born at some later time, then maybe gone down and done the registration. Why would they go at such a crucial time unless they were under duress and pressure to go like an April 15 kind of deadline. So whoever was setting dates, and whoever was setting deadlines, and whoever the Romans were who were going to be there at that time to take the registration, all of that God orchestrated to effect perfectly His will.

    David Gooding writes, "Of course Augustus knew nothing about this effect of the census and the last thing he or his vassal, Herod, would have done would be to strengthen the credentials of a messianic claimant to the throne of Israel. For Augustus, the taking of censuses was one of the ways he employed to get control over the various parts of his empire. But...and here is the irony of the thing...in the process as he thought of tightening his grip on his huge empire, he so organized things that Jesus, Son of Mary, Son of David, Son of God, destined to sit on the throne of Israel and the throne of the world was born in the city of David, His royal ancestor. Fulfilling all unknowingly the prophecy of Micah, Caesar Augustus established this particular detail in the claim of Jesus to be the Messiah."

    And Gooding goes on to say, "When John the Baptist was conceived, God turned back the processes of nature." That was a miracle because Zacharias and Elizabeth were old and barren. "When our Lord was conceived in the womb of Mary there was introduced into nature something which nature had never known before and which nature by herself could never have produced, namely a virgin conception. That is miraculous. But when God's Son and destined ruler of the kings of the earth entered the world of men, there was apparently no interference with men's will or freedom of action whatsoever. Augustus had his own completely adequate reasons for his action and he did exactly what he wanted to do...and we could add Herod was the same way. Yet Augustus did what had he known he would not have wished to do, he established the claim of the royal Son of David. He did in fact what had been predetermined by the counsel and foreknowledge of God."

    This was in anybody's measurement the greatest birth in the history of the world. And yet, so obscure. Verse 7, "She gave birth to her firstborn son and she wrapped Him in cloths and laid Him in a feed trough because there was no room for them in the inn." So obscure...obscure town in some kind of a traveler's shelter, probably not a commercial inn, as I told you last time. A commercial shelter, maybe with the four sides, kind of a lean-to with a loft so that some could sleep above and some could sleep below in little rooms that would have thin walls between them made of wood. And in the middle, the courtyard, all the animals would stay and there would be feed troughs there. And there they were, Joseph and Mary, and there she gave birth. There was not one of those lofts, one of those guest rooms for them and so she gave birth in a half public way probably seeking some kind of privacy. And when that little child came into the world and cried its first cry of life, nobody knew who it was. Nobody realized that the eternal holy creator God of the universe had just entered the world in human form. That little child was born in utter anonymity in a busy, bustling, overcrowded little town. Nobody around even knew.

    Well, Joseph knew, of course, because he had been told to name the baby Jesus for He would save His people from their sins. And he had been told that His name would be Immanuel, God with us. So he knew this was the incarnate God who was to save His people from their sins. And Mary knew because Gabriel had told her the details that this would be the Son of the Most High, the one who would sit on the throne of David and reign on that throne forever and ever. Nobody else knew.

    It would have been pretty difficult to convince anybody frankly because what you have lying in a feed trough was a little Jewish baby. Not an uncommon situation, obviously. And there may have been other births in the same town that night. And that may be why the angels said, "Look for the one in the feed trough, that's the sign." Any baby born that time in Bethlehem would have been wrapped in cloths, they all did that. But there would be only one in a feed trough. Such anonymity. Not a grand entrance for God into the world.

    But, the passage I just read you, our passage for today breaks the silence, ends the anonymity in a most remarkable way. As I read, an angel appears to make the announcement of who it is that has been born. A few hours after the birth, the monumental miracle, a few hours after the arrival of the Son of Mary, Son of the Most High, God there is an announcement made.

    Now if you were planning the strategy for this PR campaign, you might have made sure that the main authorities got the message, certainly if you didn't want to tell Caesar because you were afraid he would see this as a threat or you didn't want to tell Herod because you knew he would see it as a threat, you might want to go to the religious leaders, you might want to go the high priest, you might want to go to the Sanhedrin, the ruling body of Israel. You might want to go to the chief priests or the scribes or Pharisees or Sadducees or somebody. You might want...you might want to go to the temple, for example, and there you would surely have found Simeon and Anna and others who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem, looking for the salvation of Israel, waiting for the Messiah. You might have gone to some group of devout and righteous Jews who were waiting to hear this, some who might have a great measure of influence. But frankly, the last people you would go to to make any kind of announcement of significance would be shepherds in an open field. And that's exactly to whom God went.

    The story is well known. The story of the angel and the shepherds and then the multitude of angels that follow. But that's what happened of all people, shepherds. And I'll say more about them next time, enough to say on the social ladder they were the bottom rung. To shepherds the angel goes and makes the announcement about this child.

    Now the thesis of this whole passage is summed up in one statement in verse 11, and we'll discuss it all. But for this morning I just want to deal with one statement, verse 11. This is the thesis and then we'll build the outline around it. All the way down to verse 20 is one paragraph. That whole thing will build around this thesis, here it is, verse 11, "The angel says, 'There has been born for you a Savior.'" Wow! That's the heart of the entire thing, the whole event is summed up in that statement. There has been born for you a Savior.

    That's the New Testament, isn't it? That's the gospel, that's the heart of everything. That's the pinnacle of redemption. There has been born for you a Savior...that's the Christian message. That's what we're still telling people, isn't it? There has been born for you a Savior. And may I hasten to add that the shepherds would understand that.

    You say, "Well wait a minute, isn't Savior a New Testament idea? Isn't Savior a New Testament concept that Jesus came to save and He's the Savior and how would those shepherds know?" Being a Savior is not a New Testament concept. It's an Old Testament concept. Shepherds would know what that meant because all who were in Israel knew God as Savior. That is a Jewish concept. Oh I know there are liberal theologians who want to put a great gulf between the New Testament and the Old Testament and they say that the Christ of the New Testament is a compassionate, loving, saving personality. But the God of the Old Testament is an angry, vengeful, envious, vitriolic, hostile, punishing kind of deity. But that is not accurate by any stretch of the imagination.

    The God of the Old Testament was known to His people as a Savior. Israel knew God as a Savior. Now that was not the way it was with gods, the gods of men's making. There's only one God, the one true and living God, the eternal God, and He is by nature a Savior, He is a saving God. To use another word, a synonym, He is a Deliverer. He delivers people from threatening things. He is a rescuer, that's another synonym. And He is that by nature and that's not how it is in the science of ethnology and the world of religion and deities. In fact, you can study religions and you're not going to find gods who are by nature saviors. You're going to find in every religious system in the world a means by which somehow man can do something to appease the god and somehow by his own efforts and his own works save himself. But you're not going to find any God who is by nature a Savior, a rescuer.

    For example, if you were living in Israel you would be exposed to the god Baal. And you read the Old Testament, Baal is a very dominating deity among the Canaanites. Baal meaning lord, Baal...that was their lord. But the god Baal, if you read through the Old Testament you find to be a god who is certainly not interested in saving his people. In fact, he had a perfect opportunity to do that on Mount Carmel with Elijah. And Elijah said, "Look, we'll decide who's God, you've got Baal and I've got Jehovah and let's decide. You build an altar, put a sacrifice there. I'll build an altar, put a sacrifice there. You pray to Baal and I'll pray to Jehovah and we'll see who sends fire down to burn up the sacrifice. Whoever sends fire down, He's God."

    So in a classic characterization of Baal, these priests of Baal are trying to get Baal to react. Well there is no Baal so he can't do anything because he doesn't exist. And even the demon impersonators who might want to impersonate Baal are unable to effect this miracle. So in classic fashion Elijah identifies the nature of Baal by saying this to them, "Maybe he's...what?...sleeping." Now the best that could be said about Baal...and that was...that was a mockery but it really was a kind one because that's the best that can be said about any deity, he's indifferent. And then he went on to say, "Maybe he's on vacation." Now that would be the best that could be said about the deities that demons concoct or that men invent. The best that could be said is that they are indifferent and somehow they just don't pay attention. This is the god of the deists, you know, in our country we have deists in our background, Benjamin Franklin and others, the god who wound the world up and set it off in motion and then went away and couldn't care less. That's the god of apathy, the god of indifference. And somehow you're screaming and hollering and yelling at this god to do something to save you and deliver you and rescue you from your plight, but he really isn't that interested in it.

    The spectrum swings all the way over from indifference on the one hand, to hostility on the other hand. And you have a classic illustration of that in the land of Canaan in the god Molech. Molech was so vicious and so hostile and so angry and had to be appeased so that he didn't obliterate people to the degree that in order to pacify Molech you took your newborn baby or your little child and you put your little child on the altar and incinerate it and torched your baby. That to pacify this otherwise hostile deity. Somewhere on that spectrum from apathy to vicious hostility are all the gods of the world. None is a Savior. And what set Jehovah apart, the one true and living God, is that He is by nature compassionate, merciful, tender-hearted, filled with loving kindness and seeks to save people.

    The Jews knew this. That was distinctive. They knew God to be wise. They knew Him to be powerful. They knew Him to be understanding. They knew Him to be just and all of those things. But they also knew that by nature in contra distinction to all other deities He was a Savior. They would know that if they read the book of Genesis because in Genesis God said, "In the day you eat of the fruit of the tree you'll...what?...you'll die." They ate, they lived. And what does that tell you? That's called mercy. God didn't deliver the consequences of their behavior that they deserved because it's His nature to be patient. It's called in Romans 2 the patience and forebearing of God which is meant to lead you to repentance. I mean, God by nature is that way. Now God in Egypt says, "I'm going to send the angel of death and he's going to kill all the firstborn but I just want to let you know that if you'll hold the Passover and take the Passover lamb and sacrifice the lamb and eat the lamb, take the blood and put it on the doorpost and lintel, I'll pass by and the angel of death won't touch your house if you do that." Because it's God's nature to deliver men from the consequence of sin, that's His nature. The Jews understood that.

    And those shepherds out on that field at the bottom of the intellectual pole, at the bottom of the educational ladder, as it were, on the very bottom, the very lowest class people there were would understand that God was by nature a saving God. And they would also understand this, they would understand that there never had been a sacrifice that really did it. They of all people, because what I'm going to point out to you in a couple of weeks is the fact that they were very likely shepherding sheep headed for temple sacrifices. They of all people along with the priests who were bloodied up to their ears the whole time they were in the temple, slaughtering all the animals that had to be slaughtered to say nothing of what happened when they slaughtered a quarter of a million of them in a few days at Passover, they were used to unending sacrifices trying to deal with sin in order to rescue the nation, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. In order to rescue individuals from the consequences of their sin they brought offerings to God and they were saying...God, we're sorry for our sin, here's our sacrifice, forgive us. They knew God to be a saving God but yet that salvation had never finally been effected by one sacrifice.

    So when the announcement came there's been born today a Savior, they understood it. They didn't even ask a lot of questions, those shepherds. The Jews understood it. In the Old Testament God is a Savior and over and over again His salvation is spoken of. I'm going to resist, I'm not going to call it a temptation, I'm going to resist the opportunity to point out innumerable scriptures...Deuteronomy 20 verse 4, "The Lord your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to save you...to save you." I mean, by nature God did that. That's just in the very fabric of His eternal being.  God is called the God of His salvation. Psalm 25:5, "...Thou art the God of my salvation." I mean, they knew Him as a Savior. In fact, David in Psalm 51 was praying to God and he lost the joy because of his disobedience and he says to God, "Restore to me the joy of Thy salvation." They knew God as a Savior God. And the Old Testament is just filled with indications of that.

    Isaiah 63 is one worth mentioning. Verse 8 and 9, it says when God chose Israel, "So He became their Savior." What a great statement. Isaiah 63:8, "SO He became their Savior." What did that mean? "In all their affliction...verse 9...He was afflicted. In His love and His mercy He rescued them, He redeemed them, He brought them back. He lifted them. He carried them all the days of old but they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit, therefore He turned Himself to become their enemy." He fought against them. He started out as their Savior and they fought even that. How sad. He was their Savior.

    Take righteous Mary. Go back to chapter 1 verse 47. She knew that. This is a 13-year-old girl, a sweet and meek and righteous young girl. And she hears from Gabriel that she's going to be the mother of God, the mother of the Son of the Most High and she says in verse 46, "My soul exalts the Lord and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior." She knew that Jehovah God was her Savior.

    Take Zacharias. Zacharias, it says in chapter 1, was a righteous priest. He was righteous, verse 6 of chapter 1, in the sight of God and walked blamelessly in all the commandments and requirements of the Lord. Here was a godly priest and in his great praise at the birth of John, the forerunner of the Messiah, verse 69 Zacharias realizing the Messiah is going to be born, Mary has just spent three months at that house and she's already pregnant with Messiah, he knows what's happening and he says, "God has raised up a horn of salvation for us." Here comes the Savior, the great power of salvation. And down in verse 77 he tells you what kind of salvation he's talking about. "To give to His people the knowledge of salvation that comes by the forgiveness of their sins." He even knew that the truest salvation came when sins were forgiven.

    The prophet had said in the Old Testament, the prophet Micah, "Who is a pardoning God like You?" The Old Testament says that God is a forgiving God who removes your sins as far as the east is from the west, buries them in the depths of the deepest sea and remembers them no more. They knew God was a saving God. They knew God as a forgiving God.

    There were many of them in that nation who had experienced personal, spiritual and eternal salvation from God. You say, "Did they get that in the Old Testament?" Yes they did. They would measure themselves against the law of God, find themselves disobedient, falling short, realize their plight...they couldn't keep the law of God therefore the Bible says if you break the law of God you're cursed. They were under a curse. The curse meant death and punishment. They would therefore feel the burden of that, they would go to God, they would say, "God, I've broken Your law, I can't keep it, I'm cursed, please be merciful, be gracious, forgive me." That's the penitence of the Old Testament. That's like the man beating his breast in Luke 18, "God, be merciful to me a sinner." When a person in the Old Testament came to a true assessment of their sinfulness, a true recognition that they had failed to keep the law of God and were therefore cursed and knew they couldn't gain salvation, they disdained self-righteousness but threw themselves on the mercy of God...God then forgave their sins. That's what Isaiah says in chapter 54 and 55. Mary was such a person, so was Zachariah and he was recognizing the salvation of God that is personal, spiritual and eternal that would come.

    You say, "Well what part did Messiah have?" Well Messiah would come and offer the sacrifice upon which all this forgiveness had always been given. They were forgiven in the Old Testament because God would take their sins and later place them on Christ, just as you're forgiven because God takes your sins and places them on Christ. The same. Christ bears the sins of all who believed in the Old Testament, as well as in the New Testament age.

    They knew God as a Savior. Mary knew that. Zacharias knew that. Look at verse 25 and meet Simeon in chapter 2. Simeon was a righteous and devout man looking for the consolation of Israel who's another believer. Here's another true penitent. Here's somebody who has been forgiven by God. Here's somebody to whom God is a Savior. He realizes that. He picks up the little baby in this account, down in verse 30, "My eyes have seen Thy salvation." Finally the Savior has come. He understood that there was salvation from God, that God was a Savior. But he also understood that there was one who had to come, there had to be a final lamb. God had to provide that final sacrifice. And when he saw that little baby he said, "This is it...this is it." Don't underestimate these people. These devout people looking, as it says, for the consolation of Israel in verse 25, the comfort of Israel, the salvation of Israel, if you will. Down in verse 38, "Looking for the redemption of Jerusalem." They knew what they were looking for, they were looking for a final sacrifice that was pictured by all the sacrifices that had been given by the millions through the history of that system. They knew God to be a Savior.

    Now let me take it one step further. God showed Himself a Savior to Israel two ways. First, He showed them that He was a Savior by nature, temporally..that is in time...and physically...that is in this life. You say, "What do you mean by that?" I mean by that that God showed to the nation Israel His saving nature by saving them from Egypt, by saving them, rescuing them out of the Red Sea and drowning Pharaoh's army, by rescuing them, delivering them, as it were, out of the 40 years of wilderness wandering into the promised land, be delivering them from a myriad of enemies that hated them and tried to obliterate them. Throughout their history God showed how He delivered them. He delivered them from hostile nations. He delivered them from sickness. He delivered them from trouble. He delivered them from danger. He delivered them from death...over and over and, folks, it's still going on. God delivered the nation Israel from massive attempts at genocide by Joseph Stalin and Adolph Hitler. And here they are, Jews still there, still alive. They've been delivered through all these millennia. There they are independently functioning as a nation of their own in their own land. Testimony to the fact that even an apostate people who reject God, turn their back on God, reject their Messiah, execute the Savior, still are being delivered by God. That's His nature.

    That's why Paul in Romans says, "Can't you see this? This deliverance, this salvation on a temporal, physical level as the patience and forbearance of God meant to lead you to personal repentance? Can't you see if God is so gracious to the nation that He will also be gracious to the individual sinner?" God is a Savior by nature and He has saved that nation through the years because it's His nature to deliver temporally and physically from the immediate and just consequence of sin, which would be instant death and hell. But HIs nature is not to give sinners what sinners deserve, even in this life.

    And that's still true. That's true outside of Israel. The world is predominantly populated by non-Christians, is that true? Massively populated by non-Christians who flourish to one degree or another in this life. They enjoy life. They smell the flowers. They see the sunrise and the sunset. They drink the cool water. They eat a good meal. They fall in love. They kiss a baby. They see a mountain. They enjoy the richness and the fullness of life. They breathe the air. Why? Cause God by nature delivers them from the immediate consequence, the just and immediate consequence of what they deserve. That's why 1 Timothy 4:10 Paul says, "God, the living God who is the Savior of all men." The whole world of people today exist because God is a saving God. He has delivered them from what they deserve, is that not true?

    People ask me this a lot. Why do bad things happen to good people? Are you ready for this? They don't because there are no good people. The question is, why do good things happen to bad people? Now that's a book that I need to write. They happen because God is by nature...what?...a Savior, He's a deliverer, He's a rescuer.

    Now especially...1 Timothy 4:10 says...Especially of those who believe...especially of those who believe. What does that mean? Well He delivers all men from the just and immediate consequence of their sin, temporally and physically, but He delivers those who believe from their sin spiritually and eternally. That's what really matters, isn't it? You can look at the Old Testament and you'll see God delivering Israel temporally and physically and you'll see God delivering individual Jewish people and even Gentile believers spiritually and eternally. You look at the world today and God delivers sinners from the just and immediate consequence of their sin and you also see all over the world those who have put their faith in Jesus Christ, they've been delivered from the consequence of their sin spiritually and eternally. God is by nature a Savior.

    Titus 1, Titus 2 and Titus 3 refer to God our Savior. God our Savior. God our Savior. There's no discrepancy between the God of the New Testament and the God of the Old Testament. God is by nature a Savior, that is why Jesus is a Savior because Jesus is God. That's a syllogism you can work with.

    When we read in 2 Peter 1:11, "Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ," we're not surprised He's our Savior because He's our Lord. If He's God the Lord, then He's a Savior because God is a Savior. It's not, as some people say, that God is the bad guy and Jesus is the good guy and that, you know, Jesus gets up there and really, really pleads with God, trying to soften Him up. It's not that. As much as Jesus is a Savior, so much is God a Savior and so much is the Holy Spirit a Savior. There's no diminishing of that saving nature in any member of the trinity.

    God shows His goodness, His kindness to all. He restrains evil in the world. He provides families. He maintains social order by government. Provides beauty and joy. Shows compassion. He calls sinners to repent. He offers the gospel, salvation in Christ is offered to all sinners. He is by nature a saving God. And, folks, I'll say it again, there isn't any other God in the spectrum of deities who is by nature a Savior.

    So when the angel said, "There has been born for you a Savior," boy, this was just loaded with significance. The Savior they had all been looking for, they've all been waiting for. And this was consistent with God. And that's why Joseph was told, Matthew 1:21, "You shall call His name Jesus," that means Savior, "For He will save His people from their sins." And that's why Luke records the words of Jesus later in Luke 19:10 who said, "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." Of all things, He's a Savior. He's the Savior.

    You see, He can't be our King until He's our Savior, right? So He can't fulfill the Davidic Covenant, as we saw in our study at the end of one...chapter 1, He can't fulfill the Davidic Covenant with all of its kingly features. He can't be our blesser and fulfill the Abrahamic Covenant with all its blessings until He fulfills the New Covenant and becomes our Savior. All Davidic promise, all Abrahamic promise is predicated upon Him as Savior. He can't be the blesser and He can't be the King until He's the Savior. And so the covenant that dominates everything, the covenant that opens the door to Abrahamic promise and Davidic promise is the New Covenant in His blood because it is in His blood on the cross that He takes the wrath of God, the fury of God, pays the penalty for sin, satisfies the justice of God and therefore rescues us from sin and death and hell. And once He is our Savior then He opens to us all the promises that come in His Kingdom and through Abrahamic blessing.

    Well, one little phrase in there, I'll close with this, "There has been born for you." Isn't that good? For us? I mean, if I had been out there with those shepherds, are you kidding? You don't know much about us. And I'll tell you about them, you're going to be amazed. But they were the least likely of all to have received such a promise.

    You know, there's another thought here. The pagan world, they also understood this idea of a Savior. They understood that. The Greek word soter, Savior, they understood that. In fact, remember what I told you? Caesar Augustus, what was he called? The savior of the world. That was the title that Caesar Augustus had. It's inscribed in some ancient monument, savior of the world. They also gave that title savior to philosophers who delivered them from ignorance, to doctors who delivered them from death and like Caesar, to great leaders who delivered them from their enemies. And certainly Jesus as Savior would speak to the Greek mind that the one who delivers us from death, the one who delivers us from ignorance, the one who delivers us from danger, that word was loaded with significance in the Jewish world and even in the Gentile world. And certainly Caesar Augustus wouldn't have willfully set up the credentials for the true Savior of the world to whom Caesar Augustus, by the way, is eternally bowing. This is what God does because He controls history.

    In the end, what does it matter if you don't take the words "for you" personally? "Though Christ a thousand times in Bethlehem be born, if He's not born in me, thy soul is still forlorned," said some poet. What does it matter? It matters not. But there was a Savior born for you.

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    The Announcement of Jesus' Birth, Part 1

    Luke 2:8-11

    "And in the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were terribly frightened. And the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which shall be for all the people. For today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you, you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.' And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men with whom He is pleased.' And it came about when the angels had gone away from them into heaven that the shepherds began saying to one another, 'Let us go straight to Bethlehem then and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us.' And they came in haste and found their way to Mary and Joseph and the baby as He lay in the manger. And when they had seen this they made known the statement that had been told them about this child. And all who heard it wondered at the things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds went back glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen, just as had been told them."

    The key statement in the narrative is found in verse 11.  "There has been born for you a Savior."  The shepherds and the angels are bit players, as it were, in the scenario in which the Savior who has been born is the main character. There has been born for you a Savior. This is the greatest news the world has ever heard. This is the good news. In fact, that's exactly what it says in verse 10, "I bring you good news of great joy which shall be for all the people." This is the good news. One has been born who will save sinners from their sins and from eternal hell.

    You remember when Joseph, the betrothed husband of Mary, found out that Mary was pregnant, he couldn't understand it because he knew that she was a virgin, they were only engaged at that point. When he found out she was pregnant he was so shaken that he was in deep distress about what to do, should he stone her, as the Old Testament law required because she would be found in the category of an adulteress? Or should he divorce her as the law provides and put her away privately? At the time when he was contemplating what to do, he was instructed from heaven that she was with child by the Holy Spirit, that God had planted a life in her womb. She was still a virgin. She was righteous and God had chosen her to bear the Messiah. And Joseph was instructed in Matthew 1:21 to call His name Jesus for He shall save His people from their sins. Jesus is the New Testament version of Joshua which means Savior.

    From the very beginning the child born was not just any child, this was the long-awaited Savior of the world. This is the one who finally would save His people from their sins. This is the one who would finally be the lamb who would offer one sacrifice that would perfect forever those that are sanctified. This is the one who would come and pay the penalty for sin, offer the final sacrifice with which the entire sacrificial system would go away...the endless, literally millions of lambs that had been sacrificed had never been able to take away sin. But they only pictured one who would. The people waited and waited and waited for that one to come. Jesus Himself in Luke 19:10 said, "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." In John 4:42 He is called "The Savior of the world." In 1 John chapter 4, maybe the most important statement of all of those, 1 John 4:14 says, "And we have beheld and bear witness that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world."

    Jesus came to save the world, He didn't come to be an example of nobility and morality and integrity. He didn't come to be an example of passivity. He didn't come to demonstrate patience and kindness and mercy and tenderness. He did all of that but He came to be the Savior of the world. The Jews had long awaited for that to happen. They knew God as a saving God. They knew the nature of God was to save because He delivered them from their enemies and He had so often delivered them from the immediate consequence of the sin, consequences which they deserved. He had rescued them from every imaginable kind of situation in spite of their sins. So they knew God as a saving God. The God of the Old Testament had revealed Himself clearly as a Savior, but there was also the fact that though God was a saving God there had never yet come one who had provided fully and finally that promised salvation. And so they long awaited the Savior of the world, the One who would come and satisfy the justice of God.

    We find in this passage the angelic announcement that the Savior has been born. The One of whom Luke writes in the book of Acts, Luke wrote Acts as well, the One who would come and be the Savior to the degree that there is salvation in no other name but the name of Jesus Christ, Acts 4:12. The long awaited Savior had been born. The One who would not only be the Son of David and would rescue Israel politically from their enemies, not only the One who would be the Son of Abraham fulfilling the Abrahamic Covenant and rescue Israel from its time of suffering. The promise of David would come to pass and Israel would have a kingdom that's literally a kingdom of peace, the Messiah would rule over Israel in peace and not only Israel but over the whole world and His Kingdom would have no end, it would be eternal. Not only would the Messiah come and establish the fulfillment of Abrahamic promise and that is the end of suffering and the fullness of righteousness and holiness and blessing on the nation, but the Messiah would also come and save sinners.

    In fact they wouldn't receive Davidic promise of the Kingdom, they wouldn't receive Abrahamic promise of blessing until they had received New Covenant salvation. They were looking for a Savior who would come and take away sin. They were looking for the New Covenant to be fulfilled. The Savior who would come and forgive them for their sin. A Savior who would come and wash them. A Savior who would come and take away the stony heart and put a heart of flesh. A Savior who would come and give them His Spirit. A Savior who would rescue them from judgment, the judgment of God and eternal hell.

    And the great announcement of the passage here, the great angelic announcement is in verse 11, "There has been born for you a Savior." This is the high point of redemptive history. This is the greatest moment in the history of the world. A Savior would come and He would take on the judgment of God for sinners. He would be punished in our place. As symbolically the lamb died in the place of the sinner in the Old Testament, sacrificial system, this Lamb, the perfect spotless pure Lamb of God would die for sinners and He would die such a perfect death and bear sin so perfectly that never would there be another sacrifice. Jesus would be the Savior of the world by taking on the punishment for sinners. He would die under the execution of God's wrath. God literally would execute Jesus for your sins and my sins. And since the penalty was fully paid, God would be free to forgive us and take us to eternal heaven and not send us to hell to bear the punishment for our own sins because Christ had bore it for us.

    Seven hundred years before the baby was born, seven hundred years before the Savior was born a prophet, a Hebrew prophet by the name of Micah had predicted that when He was born He would be born in a little village called Bethlehem, house of bread. A somewhat obscure village except for one fact, it was the hometown of David the great king. It was where his father, Jesse, lived. And that was very important because that played in to the fulfillment of the prophecy. The prophet Micah said that when He's born He'll be born in Bethlehem. Though it would be a little place, He would be born there. The great Messiah, the Savior of the world would be born there.

    As it turned out, God had to orchestrate all the events to make that happen. Caesar Augustus who didn't know anything about Micah or the Old Testament or God and couldn't have cared less, decreed that a census be taken. He decreed that census would be taken in all the fullness of the Roman Empire, that included Judea. And so the Jews had to comply with the census...with the census they resisted apparently for some time because the census was given in 8 B.C., they didn't comply until two to four years later. And when they did comply, Herod or somebody in Israel, maybe the Sanhedrin, maybe Herod required that the Jews to register for the census had to go back to their house of ancestry, as it were, back to their origins. And so that meant Joseph and Mary who were both in the line of David had to go to Bethlehem which was the home of their ancestor, David, and there they had to register. And it just so happened that the timetable, the census required them to be there, probably there was a deadline like April 15 that required them to be there at a certain time and so they had to make the 85 to 90 mile journey while she was in the last weeks of her pregnancy. Something you wouldn't normally do under those conditions because it was really a distance you had to walk, be carried on a donkey. But they did it because they had to. And that puts them there at the strategic time and the child was born exactly where the prophet said He would be born, in the little village of Bethlehem

    When He was born there He was born in obscurity. The Romans were there, the soldiers were there, of course. They were everywhere Roman presence was. Roman presence would have been heightened in Bethlehem at that time because the census would have been going on there. They would have had Roman officials who were taking the census there. They would have taken up every available room. People would be coming into town and staying with families and friends because they would be related to them, going back to the house of their ancestry. By the time Joseph and Mary got there, there wasn't any place for them to stay except in what was most likely a shed, a large lean-to. There was an overnight stopping place for travelers. It could have been a situation where you have four walls surrounding a courtyard. Those four walls would have little shanty-type rooms and probably a loft so that you could have some people below at ground level and some people to climb up a little ladder and stay above. But all those places were taken, even as primitive as they were they would have been better than where Joseph and Mary ended up which was in the courtyard which was occupied by all the animals of all the travelers...donkeys, and goats, and probably some sheep and maybe some camels. Really an inappropriate place, a dirty place, terrible place for a semi-private or quasi-public birth in a very obscure and very unlikely circumstance. But it was there that the Savior was born.

    He was born in obscurity. Apparently nobody around there knew. None of the people knew. None of the Romans knew. None of the inhabitants of Jerusalem or the visiting folks knew. Just another baby being born as they heard the cry of Jesus when He came into the world...the cry was just another cry of another baby. And it was so obscure, we don't hear any announcement at all going on in Bethlehem, just Joseph knew and Mary knew. But it wasn't long till we come to verse 8 and an announcement is made. And the greatest event in the saga of redemption has occurred and it's about to be announced.

    In an unlikely announcement, it says in verse 8, "In the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night." Now the Jews have been looking for a Savior for a long time. And even the Romans were conscious of a Savior of the world. In fact they gave that very title to Caesar Augustus. There is existing a Roman indication in some of the ruins that Caesar Augustus had the title "savior of the world." People are always looking for a great deliverer, always looking for a great savior. And while Caesar Augustus was in Rome celebrating himself as the savior of the world, the true Savior of the world was being born in Bethlehem in obscurity. There was only one true Savior. He had come to deliver His people from their sins and to bring them out of the judgment of God and to rescue them from eternal hell and to bring them out of suffering into blessing as had been promised to Abraham and out of subservience into royalty and reigning as had been promised to David. So He had come. He had come to bring the blessings of the New Covenant, the blessings of the Abrahamic Covenant, the blessings of the Davidic Covenant. He had come to save sinners and then to give them all the promised blessing.

    It's little wonder all heaven broke loose and the angel showed up and started praising God. It's little wonder the shepherds when they left, at the end of this passage, verse 20, were praising God as well. This is the high point of all redemptive history, the greatest moment in the history of the world. That's why you have to stop a little and consider what's going on here. You can't just whistle by this one.

    Now the message is good news, verse 10, good news of great joy. And what's so good news? "There has been born for you a Savior, the Savior has come who will save His people from their sins and therefore from death and hell, from the judgment of God. And who will bring them in to the promised blessings of a kingdom and a King of blessing beyond description and imagination." Eternal glory...all that, good news, good news, folks, good news. There is a Savior. There is forgiveness of sin. You can escape hell. You can go to heaven forever. You can be blessed by God.

    The proclamation of good news

    know, it's the most unlikely group of people to make this proclamation to. If you were orchestrating this, if you were a PR agent and you were designing a campaign to announce that the Savior of the world had been born, the last people you would go to is a bunch of shepherds. I mean, literally the last people you would go to. You might say...Well, we want to get this thing out, we need to go the people who have the greatest influence. We want to go to the influencers, as they would be called today. We want to go to the movers and the shakers. We want to go to the people who have the ear of the world. Well, first of all, we might consider going to the high priest. I mean, he would be the religious leader of Israel. We might be considering going to the chief priest and the scribes who were the teachers. We might be going to the Sadducees who basically made up the Sanhedrin who were the ruling body of Israel, a body of 70 elders of Israel basically responsible for the nation as a theocracy under God. Or you might say we go to the Pharisees because they had the great...they were the religious fundamentalists. They were fastidious about prophecies and we might want to go to them because they search the scriptures. They were looking for the Messiah. And we might want to go to somebody who had some influence. Might even want to send a memo or a press release to Caesar Augustus to let him know that the true Savior had been born. Shepherds? Not on your life.

    But that's exactly where the Lord sent the message. And verse 8 says, "In the same region," that's the region around Bethlehem, Bethlehem was about six miles south, directly south of the city of Jerusalem. It's just a small village, certainly not a city.   So, down in that region, "There were some shepherds." There's no adjective for these shepherds. It literally says, "There were shepherds," in the Greek, just shepherds. It doesn't tell us anything about them. There's really nothing to say about them. This is the most unlikely group to which God's angel proclaims the good news of the Savior.

    Nobody would have assumed this except for the fact that if you go back to Isaiah 61. In Isaiah 61 you have a prophecy that really has the Messiah speaking, it has the preincarnate Christ speaking about His coming as Messiah. And He says, "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me," it's the one He quotes in Luke 4 and says He fulfills. But He says, "The Lord has anointed Me to preach the good news to the poor," or to preach the good news, that word in Hebrew can mean the lowly or the humble, or as it's translated in the NAS, the afflicted. "And He has sent me to bind up the broken hearted and to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners." So when the Messiah comes, He's not coming to the up and inners, He's not coming to the influencers, He's coming to the poor, the lowly, the meek, the afflicted, the broken hearted, the captives, the prisoners. That's just a category of outcasts.

    When the Messiah comes He's going to touch the outcasts, He's going to touch the low lifes. In fact, as Jesus went through His life, He attracted to Himself the outcasts of society, the tax collectors and absolute nobodies and prostitutes and sinners and drunkards and you know all that because the Jewish elite, the aristocracy of religion in Israel criticized Him for that and they said He hangs around drunkards and prostitutes. That's what messianic prophecy said, the Messiah would come to the poor. And listen, He would come to the outcasts, come to the lowly and shepherds qualified for that.

    Mary in her Magnificat praising the Lord when she was told she was going to be the mother of Messiah in Luke 1:52 praised God for exalting the humble, exalting the lowly. And if you go to 1 Corinthians chapter 1 you have the Apostle Paul saying in verse 26, "In the purposes of God to salvation there were not many wise according to the flesh." Not many of the human intellectuals are saved, not many mighty, not many noble because God chooses the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, the weak things of the world to shame the things that are strong, the lowly or base things of the world and the despised God has chosen. Then nobody can boast. And that begins at the very beginning, the first announcement of the birth of Messiah is made to the lowliest, commonest of unskilled peasants in the Jewish social strata.

    Now it doesn't mean to say that being a shepherd was a somehow an illegitimate profession, somehow some thing that ought to be despised for its own sake. Not at all. In fact, Abraham functioned at some point in his life as a shepherd. And Moses functioned, you remember, caring for the herds of his father-in-law in Median as a shepherd. And David was a shepherd. In fact, a thousand years before Jesus was born, David was watching sheep in this same area, maybe in the same field. It isn't that there was somehow a shameful profession, it was just a lowly profession, it was the lowliest of tasks. Shepherds were insignificant. They were basically ignorant. They were uneducated. They were unskilled. They did the kind of work, shepherding, that was generally given to children to do because it was so simple to do. It didn't take any particular talent or any skill, they were basically unskilled. They had no trade, they had no skill. They were really the lowest paid.

    And beyond that, beyond the fact that they would be the lowest people on the social ladder, by virtue of the necessity of caring for sheep seven days a week, they lived in some level of violation or another of Mosaic law. They couldn't maintain the Sabbath the way the Sabbath should have been maintained. Because of their necessity to work they violated the Sabbath to some degree. They couldn't maintain the myriad of manmade regulations that had been added and piled and heaped on top of Sabbath law which confounded the people, for the most part, because of their inability to keep these fastidious regulations developed by the Pharisees and certainly shepherds couldn't abide by them. So they were looked not only as on...not only as low socially but they were looked as living in general violation of religious law and therefore to some degree or another they were outcasts because they violated the ceremonies.

    They really were the lowest of the low. As time developed from the time of the New Testament on as the fastidious legalism of the Pharisees began to capture more and more of the hearts of the people, shepherds began to be more and more and more despised. And if you read Jewish literature over the next hundred years or so they were more and more and more despised. In fact, it wasn't long after this that they began to be seen as unreliable, untrustworthy, unsavory characters who were largely suspected of stealing sheep and doing all kinds of illegal things. They were not anybody close to the high echelons of society. Maybe that's a shock to you because all your life you grew up imagining these shepherds were some kind of special people. Well, they were the least special of all people.

    Isn't that the point? Isn't that just like God to disdain the religious elite, to disdain the quote/unquote spiritual establishment, to disdain the hypocrites who thought they were good enough to achieve relationships with God by their own self-effort? And to make the announcement, the greatest announcement that's ever been made in the history of the world to the lowest of the low, the humblest of the humble...shepherds. And by the way, lest you demean being a shepherd, Jesus Himself was happy to call Himself the Good...what?...Shepherd. So there's nothing wrong with the task in itself. But in society, they were the lowest and commonest nobodies of Israel's society and culture.

    In fact, this is interesting, shepherds were not allowed to testify in court in that society for a number of reasons. One, they were trusted, and two, they weren't thought to be intelligent enough to put things together. They had such poor standing and poor reputation...just perfect for God.

    If that's not a metaphor for God saving the lowly sinner, what is? The Apostle Paul got a grip on this, didn't he? First Timothy 1:15, "Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief." The lower the sinner, the greater the glory to God who saves him, right? Just perfect for God, disdain the palace, disdain the temple, disdain the priests and go for the outcasts, go for the lowliest of the low.

    Now I would believe, and I can't be dogmatic about this, but I would believe that the shepherds that the Lord picked for this announcement were probably shepherds who believed in the true and living God, they were probably devout. They may have been among those who in verse 25 are described as looking for the consolation of Israel, that is they were looking for the Messiah, they were looking for the redemption of Israel, looking for the Redeemer. Because in verse 20 when they had gone and seen the child, realized what happened, verse 20 says they were glorifying and praising God for everything they had heard and seen. It must have been that they were living in anticipation of that. It's very likely that though they were socially on the lowest level, they may well spiritually been on the highest level. They may have been devout. They may have been the ones looking for the redemption of Israel, why else would the Lord tell them this. And, of course, when they heard the message they were so filled with excitement they went immediately to Bethlehem.

    They were never commanded to do that. I mean, their response was...Well, that's nice, what do we care? Their response was to go immediately to Bethlehem and begin to search. Which wouldn't be easy, how do you find this baby among babies? So it's likely they were devout if lowly shepherds.

    Now it tells us also in verse 8, "They were staying out in the fields." Now according to most of the history of that time and even afterwards and before in Israel, shepherds stayed out in the field from April to November. Typically the land of Israel is very much like California. In fact, it is almost a mirror image of weather in California. We have an ocean, we have a coastal plain, we have coastal mountains, we have a central valley, we have inland mountains and we have the desert. And that's exactly the way it is in Israel, it's exactly. The weather patterns there are very much the same.

    The city of Jerusalem is located on mountains that fall down into the desert. The desert there is even deeper than our desert because it goes down to the depth of the Dead Sea which is the lowest point on the earth. But the city of Jerusalem is high. We know because we live in California, similar winters. You go in the mountains, you go into the Sierra Nevada Mountains from December through March, you can be extremely cold. From April through November it can be warming up.

    Typically shepherds would stay out in the fields on the elevated plain of Jerusalem, the mountain area near Jerusalem from April to November typically. That's one of the reasons why people doubt that Jesus was born in December because typically the shepherds wouldn't be there in December. Well you can't really be dogmatic about that either, we don't know what month it was. There is really no way to know. We don't even know what year Jesus was born, somewhere between 6 and 4 B.C. He was born as we calculated the calendar back, we can't be specific, we don't have enough data for that. There's no reason to believe it was December 25, that was invented in order to try to sanctify a pagan festival. They thought if they put the birth of Christ celebration on the same day as Saturnalia, the worship of the sun god, they could sanctify that and all they did was corrupt the celebration of the birth of Christ with all the Christmas legend. It backfired on them. But there's no way to know when He was born. It is possible they could have still been out there in December, we don't know that.

    But the sheep at that time would roam the fields and then they would have a little lean-to fold made out of...it could be stones gathered or wood gathered together, something to enclose them. At night they would bring them in, keep them in the fold and the shepherd would lie across the entrance. That's why it literally says in John 10, Jesus says, "I'm not only the Great Shepherd, I am the door." You might think He's mixing His metaphors, He's not. The shepherd is the door. The shepherd would put his bed and lie across the entrance to the fold. No sheep could get out without walking across him and he would make sure it didn't happen. And Jesus calls Himself the door because He wants us to know that once we're in His sheepfold, He'll never let us out. That's the doctrine of eternal security.

    So the shepherd, gather his sheep...they would all be out in the fields during the day. At night they would pull them in, they'd put them in this little open-aired lean-to. And he and his other shepherds would watch...they would...each other's turn to watch and others would sleep at the door to protect the sheep from getting out. So they were staying out in the fields which puts this somewhere from April...generally April to November, could be even in to December, we just don't know.

    What are they doing? It says in verse 8, "They're keeping watch over their flock." Nighttime has come and so they're in the fold now. And they could still be out in the field, if it was a full moon they might have left them out, but typically they would bring them into the fold so they could carefully watch them and no predictor could get them. Although there may not have been mountain lions that close to Bethlehem, we don't know, there could well have been. But sometimes thieves also...so they're very likely in a fold, it's night and some of them are weak and perhaps it's early enough at night that they're all awake when the angel arrives.

    By the way, the Mishna, which is the clarification of Jewish law, and the Talmud which is rabbinic teaching required that flocks be kept only in wilderness areas. Flocks couldn't be kept in the populated area so they were out there in that wilderness area.

    There's another very interesting note I want you to have here. Remember now, Bethlehem is about six miles south of Jerusalem. The rabbis had made a rule, it's recorded in the Mishna, in the clarification of Jewish law, that any animal found between Jerusalem and a certain spot in Bethlehem was subject to be used as a sacrifice in the temple. Now there were sheep grazing in that area purposely to be used as sacrificial animals. But the rabbis reserved the right in the event that there were more people than available animals to literally commandeer any animals in the area and take them and use them as sacrifices. And if we remember history, we remember there could be as many as a quarter of a million animals slain around the Passover season. That's a lot. The rest of the year there were thousands upon thousands upon thousands of animals slain. So they went through sheep rather rapidly and they had the right to go into that area, between Jerusalem and a certain spot, and take any sheep if necessary to be used as a sacrifice in the temple.

    Interesting thought, these shepherds may well have been caring for sheep that would be offered as sacrifices. How interesting that the announcement of the final and full sacrifice, the Lamb of God slain from before the foundation of the world, the Savior of the world, was made to shepherds who very likely who took care of sheep who were offered as pictures of that coming sacrifice.

    Well, the tranquil normalcy of a night of shepherding was violated in an amazing way in verse 9. They were out there and it was a night like any other night. It was the very same period of time, the very same 24-hour period as the child had been born in Bethlehem, they were outside time in a field and it was just a night like every other night. They were doing what they had always done, telling their normal stories, playing their little flutes, doing what shepherds did. "And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them."

    Now I've been telling you all the way along in our study of Luke, nobody saw angels. There hadn't been any account of anybody seeing an angel in 500 years, half a millennium. And now, all of a sudden, we start seeing angels. Gabriel, not just any angel, but Gabriel appears to Zacharias and then Gabriel comes back and appears to Mary. And very well this angel of the Lord could have been Gabriel back for his third visit. Perhaps the most likely candidate is Gabriel. And it says here he comes, the Greek verb is ephistemi, it literally means to stand near somebody. So there shepherds are there checking out the fold, doing whatever they do and all of a sudden here's Gabriel standing there. And it's evident that he's not one of the guys. It's very evident.

    It's a dark night to whatever degree, it's all of a sudden emblazoned with the highest of all created beings standing in the midst of the lowliest of all earthly folks. And the sequence is the same as always. When Gabriel appeared to Zacharias, when Gabriel appeared to Mary, or when he appears, this angel of the Lord appears to the shepherds, the sequence is always the same...appearance, fear, comfort, message, sign. That's always the sequence...appearance, fear, comfort, message, sign. And that's exactly what we see here. We saw it with Zacharias when Gabriel came to him. We saw it with Mary when Gabriel came to her.

    And so, the angel of the Lord suddenly...suddenly, instantaneously, immediately with no anticipation he's standing near them. Now if that's not enough, the text adds, "And the glory of the Lord shone around them." Now we read that and we've heard that and we perhaps haven't thought about it very deeply. Folks, I can't even describe to you what a significant statement that is. That is one of the high points of all of history.

    Go back and study the glory of the Lord. That is simply defined the manifestation of the presence of God in light. Now God is not corporeal, He doesn't have a body, He doesn't have a form, a physical form. He's the invisible God. But when He reveals Himself He reveals Himself as light, some kind of...some kind of glowing, brilliant, shining, incomprehensible manifestation of light. In fact, if He revealed Himself fully in light, in Exodus 33 it would be enough to incinerate anybody. And that's why God said to Moses, "I can't show you My full glory, you'll go up in smoke." So God tucked Moses in a rock and just let a little bit of His afterglow shine so that Moses could see it.

    But if you study the glory of God, you start in the Garden of Eden and God is there with Adam and Eve and there's no sin so there's nothing to fear so that the presence of God is not something that consumes them because there is no sin. So they're walking and talking with God in the cool of the day and they're in the presence of the Lord. They're walking with the glorious, shining Shekinah manifestation of God. Then sin comes in and immediately God says, "I can't have fellowship with you anymore," and He throws them out of the garden and puts an angel with a flaming sword there...and that wasn't because He didn't care about them, it was because He did care about them and should they enter the garden and come into His presence they would have been immediately destroyed. So God put the angel with the flaming sword there in a sense as protection.

    Here was man walking and talking in the presence of God with the glory of God. All of a sudden he's alienated from the glory of God completely. It's a long time before the glory of God appears again. In Exodus chapter 40 they finished building the tabernacle. The tabernacle is where they're going to be where they worship the Lord and there's a place in the tabernacle called the Holy of Holies where God is going to take up residence and when they finished that, according to Exodus 40, the glory of God came out of heaven and came down. And the glory of God came and just filled that place, just the great shining Shekinah presence of God came down and filled that place and the glory of the Lord had come back and God was manifesting His great presence and His great glory. It was a monumental moment. It was the establishment of worship. It was the establishment of the place of worship. There was an establishment of that place where sacrifices were to be made in order to give people access to God, where once a year the Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the high priest would go into the holy place and then into the Holy of Holies and he would sprinkle blood on the mercy seat and there sins would be atoned for. And God signified the great importance of that when His glory came down.

    And His glory, you remember, came out of the tabernacle and went up into the sky during the day as a cloud and led them, and as a pillar of fire at night and led them. And they saw the glory of God, the great light manifestation of God. Later on when they build the temple, the same thing happened. The temple was completed in Solomon's day, the glory of God came down and God again said I'm taking up residence, I want to be a focus of your worship, I want you to give your attention to Me to worship and glorify Me. It wasn't very long, however, until they turned against God and you can read in Ezekiel 8 to 10 the glory of God left, it departed and went away from the temple. A sad moment. The prophet stands and he watches the glory of God go up over the temple and go up over the door and up out over the mountain and it disappears and God leaves Israel.

    And the glory never came back till this night in a long time, before David even, until this night and the glory of God appears on earth again. Boy, this is not just...this is not just a small event, it signified in the Garden the presence of God. It signified in the tabernacle the presence of God. It signified in the temple the presence of God coming into the world. And it signified this night the presence of God had come into the world. The presence of God had come not in a building, not in a tent, this time it had come in human flesh in the Messiah.

    Later on in His life, Jesus took the disciples, and Matthew 17 records it, up in the mountain and He pulled His flesh back and they saw the glory of God. He was transfigured before them. Remember that? Some day, as I point out in my new book on the Second Coming, the glory of God is going to come back. We haven't seen it. It hasn't happened since this earthly time. Nobody has seen it since those shepherds and those disciples, but some day the glory of God is coming back, Matthew 24 and 25, when Jesus returns and when the glory comes back it won't just be Israel and it won't just be a few shepherds, and it won't just be some apostles, when the glory comes next time the whole world is going to see it because God is going to blacken the sky, the stars are going to go out, the sun's going to go out, the moon is going to go out, it's going to get pitch black and then the full universe is going to be filled with the blazing glory of God.  It won't be His back parts, it won't be His afterglow, it will be the full face and when man, sinful man confronts the full glory of God he will be incinerated. And that is the final glorious judgment of God when He establishes His Kingdom of glory on the earth where He reigns forever.

    This is not just some small event. This is the glory of God coming down. But of all people, to shepherds, to the lowliest of the low the glory comes. And we know this is a monumental moment in redemptive history. And it says they were terribly frightened. Well I understand that. That was the same reaction everybody else had. The glory of God is terrifying.

    When Isaiah saw God in a vision, he was terrified. He pronounced a curse upon himself and expected to be immediately incinerated. When Ezekiel in chapter 1 of Ezekiel saw the glory of God in a vision, he fell on his face in a coma.  When John the Apostle saw the glory of Christ, the Shekinah glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ in Revelation 1 it says he rolled over as a dead man and went into a coma. Terror is the result of seeing the presence of God. Even the veiled presence of God. People who saw Jesus and understood that He was God were terrified. A woman was healed by Jesus and it says she was absolutely terrified when she realized He had to be God because He had just healed her. The disciples had Jesus in the boat, it says they were afraid because of the storm. Jesus stopped the storm and it says they were exceedingly afraid. They were more afraid of having God in their boat than having a storm outside their boat. I understand that. Even a veiled presence of God was enough to terrify a sinner because a sinner knows...if I can see God, if I'm in the presence of God, He can see me. I see holiness, He sees sin, I'm in trouble.

    So this is the normal reaction. These are common guys. They probably haven't had any very interesting experiences in life, certainly nothing could even come remotely close to this. And would they have ever expected that God would have showed up? But He did. This signifies the importance of this event. This is not just any life here, being born in Bethlehem. This is not just another example of religious virtue. This isn't another good man. This is something monumental here. God Himself has come down out of heaven in shining light. And they were terribly frightened. And I understand that. They were in a state of absolute panic, terrified.

    Verse 10, "And the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid.'" Ohhh, easy for you to say. Do not be afraid, or stop being afraid. By the way, it's the same sequence to Zacharias and Mary. And I like that "do not be afraid." You know there's a time to fear God? You understand that? The Bible says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of...what?...of wisdom. "Fear God" is repeated many times in the Bible. The sinner ought to be afraid of God.

    But you know what? These men didn't need to be afraid to fear God which again indicates to me that they were righteous, that they were true believing Jews, devout who loved the true and living God and were waiting for the Savior to come. You have nothing to fear...he said. Now the only way that could be true is if your sins had been forgiven.

    By the way, that's a very common phrase. If you want to have a good Bible study, start in Genesis 15:1 where that phrase first appears, "don't be afraid," and follow it all the way through Genesis, Exodus, Joshua, Judges, 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles. You find it in Nehemiah. You find it in Daniel. You find it in Zachariah. And then you find it in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Acts, Hebrews, 1 Peter and Revelation 1:17. Just follow that whole phrase and you have times when you ought to be afraid of God but there are those times when God says...don't be afraid...don't be afraid. And every time it is when God is going to reveal grace.

    Listen, if God shows up and He's not come for grace, be afraid...true?...but when He comes with a gracious purpose. And He did that so many times in the Old Testament. So many times He said to Israel, "Don't be afraid, I'm coming in compassion, I'm coming in grace, I'm coming in mercy." You don't need to be afraid in the presence of God when He brings a gracious purpose.

    And look what the angel says, "Stop being afraid, behold, I bring you good news." The news is not bad, guys. Come on, get up, don't be afraid, the news is good. You know, being in the presence of God should panic anyone. I...I always wonder about these quote/unquote charismatic people who see God and talk to God and anybody in the Scripture who had that kind of experience was in a state of terror until God graciously said, "Stop being afraid." It doesn't make you into a celebrity, it instantly transforms you into a self-conscious sinners who fears judgment and death and hell.

    So, the angel says, "Don't be afraid, the news is good." In fact, it's good news that will produce great joy. This is not news of judgment, this is not news of punishment, this is not news of cursing, this is not news about death, that will come to the world and that does come to sinners. It's good news we have a saving God, it's good news He sent a Savior. It's good news there's One who's come to take away sin. It's good news all your sin is forgiven forever...that's the good news. And this is such good news it ought to produce great joy which is the utter opposite of fear. And the word literally means laughter, hilarity. Joy, as 1 Peter 1 says, inexpressible with which you greatly rejoice.

    You know, you can't contemplate the gospel without joy, can you? Without laughter and hilarity...good news. Boy, these guys went from absolute sheer terror to hilarity upon the instruction of this angel, perhaps Gabriel. The highest and best joy is for those who receive salvation. This is great joy. This is the highest joy. This is the joy that comes to those who receive the grace of salvation...I bring you good news of great joy, there has been born a Savior.

    There's no greater joy than that, is there? Against that matter every other matter pales in importance. The highest and best joy is for those whose sins have been forgiven, those for whom the Savior has died and paid the penalty for their sins. The news is good, folks, and this is what we tell the world, isn't it? Go into all the world and proclaim this good news.

    The pervasiveness of the good news

    And this is a good place to close...the pervasiveness of it. Back to verse 10, "I'll bring you good news of a great joy," here's the pervasiveness of it, "Which shall be for ALL the people for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior." Just those two phrases, one in verse 10 and one in verse 11, sum up the pervasiveness. How widespread is this good news? Verse 10 says it's good news of great joy which shall be for all the people. Now THE people, primarily the word laos in the Greek, primarily from which we get the word laity in the English meaning the people, the word primarily refers to Israel. Luke uses it a number of times to refer to Israel, for all the people, of course, the angel is saying, first of all, for Israel, salvation is of the Jews, the message of salvation comes to Israel, the New Covenant is being delivered and ratified to Israel and the fulfillment of Davidic promise and Abrahamic promise with it. But is Israel...Israel the primary recipient of this wondrous reality to all the people...and he knows that the shepherds would understand it as Israel because they understand God as the redeemer of Israel, and God is the God of Israel and they being the covenant people. But it doesn't end with Israel. They are the primary people. They are the ones that would be understood by those shepherds as the people. They're the ones that Luke intends us to understand as the people.

    But it doesn't stop with them. Go over to verse 31 where you have Simeon picking up the baby Jesus in the temple and he realizes that this child is the Savior and he says that He's been prepared in the presence of all peoples a light of revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of Thy people Israel. So we've got to go beyond just Israel. Israel is the primary but the secondary is He goes to the world, to the Gentiles. And that is exactly what Isaiah the prophet said there in Isaiah chapter 60 in that wonderful...and by the way, the promise of the gospel to all nations is in Isaiah 9:2, Isaiah 42:6, Isaiah 49:6 to 9, Isaiah 51:4...it's not just isolated to one verse...but listen to Isaiah 60, "Arise, shine, your light has come, the glory of the Lord has risen upon you," that's the Messiah, and it says, "The Lord will rise upon you, His glory will appear on you and nations will come to your light."

    From the very beginning this good news of the forgiveness of sin would go to Israel and through Israel to the nations. In fact, all peoples in verse 31 is plural, all the peoples. That's why it's translated that way with an "s" at the end, whereas back in verse 10 it's singular, "the people," Israel. But the message of forgiveness extends to all the peoples, all nations. And so we are to make disciples said Jesus in Matthew 28 of all nations.

    That's the collective picture. Look at the individual picture in verse 11. "Today in the city of David there has been born...look at this, what are the next two words?...for you a Savior...for you." That's right, you guys standing right here. You...you...you shepherds, the angel standing right with them says "for you...for you." You could say it this way, "The Savior has been born and He will be the Savior of everybody, and the Savior of anybody who comes and believes." The humblest, the most ignorant, the most uneducated, the most lowly and unskilled, even despised, even the chief of sinners, even the lowest of low, He is the Savior of everybody who is saved, from every people and tongue and tribe and nation on the face of the earth and anybody who chooses to come. He's the world Savior and He's your Savior.

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    The Announcement of Jesus' Birth, Part 2

    Luke 2:8-14   

    The angel says, "A Savior who is Christ the Lord." There is no question, there's no need for clarification as to who is this child because the angel tells us in very explicit terms.

    First, the child is Savior.  A Savior to save us from what? Saved is a synonym for rescued. It's a synonym for delivered. And it implies that there's some kind of threatening condition. There's some kind of dangerous condition, some kind of desperate condition, some kind of deadly condition from which we need to be rescued.

    From what do we need to be delivered and saved? Today when you hear people present the gospel, very often you get the idea that we need to be rescued from our unfulfillment...that there's something in life that just isn't complete, there's some great level of disappointment with which we live. Our marriage really hasn't worked out the way we hoped it would. You know, all the euphoria, all the hearts and flowers, all the bells and whistles that were going off and we thought that this was going to be one of, you know, permanent state of romantic bliss and it would all work out. And it just didn't go that way. And, you know, even our family situation when the precious little ones came into the world has turned out to be a disaster. You know, the kids have not turned out the way we would want them. They bring us heartache and grief, etc., etc. Our careers don't necessarily follow the path that we perhaps dreamed they should. We wind up working for years at a job we really don't like, particularly working for people we can't stand. And the people around us we like the least get promoted over us and life just doesn't seem to be as fulfilling as we wish it was. And it doesn't seem to work out that we get the kind of house we would like. We're not able to go to the places. We look at the travel brochures, and you know we really want to go to Switzerland and we end up with a three-day trip to Tijuana.  Life just doesn't deliver. 

    And so, you get the idea that Jesus will come and deliver you from your unfulfilled life. Jesus will fix your marriage. And Jesus will knot you up a few lashes on the career ladder. You know, He'll deliver you from this sort of unfulfilled life, this sort of purposelessness, this kind of frustration or disappointment or even despair and this kind of hopelessness that you're never really going to get it, it's not going to ever come to pass. All the dreams that you dreamed for so long have really turned in to nightmares and that's the way it's going to end. And Jesus will come along and fix you. Jesus is the one who rescues you from being unfulfilled.

    Secondly, the gospel takes a tone that Jesus will rescue you from debilitating habits.  As the alcoholic would say in Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, he never was able to get control of his alcohol until he came to recognize there was a quote/unquote higher power. Somehow there's a hook up there and if you can latch on to that hook it can lift you up out of the pain of your passion. That you look at your life and not only are you unfulfilled but you find yourself literally overpowered by lusts and desires and passions. You're out of control whether it's in the case of alcohol or whether it's in the case of drugs or medication or whether it's just some kind of other habit. For some people it might be something like smoking that leads to cancer and you still can't quit. It might be that you have other preoccupation with pornography. You get on that Internet and sooner or later you go to that stuff because you can't resist it and you're really tired of these debilitating things. Maybe it's sexual sin, homosexuality or heterosexual sin where you know the price of that can be death and sexually transmitted disease.  You just can't get control of it. You can't get control of your temper and consequently you're ruining your relationship with your wife, you're ruining your relationship with your kids and Jesus is going to come along and fix that. Jesus will deliver you from drives and desires that destroy life, your life and the lives around you.

    And there are people who would look at the gospel and they would see it as that. And Jesus will fill up the empty holes in your life. And Jesus will give you victory over those things that tend to destroy your life. And there's a sense in which the gospel secondarily does make an application to those things because when you come to Christ and you are genuinely saved and you are genuinely converted and you become a new creature and you belong to God and the Holy Spirit takes up residence in your heart and you have a new reason to live and the hope of eternal life and the promise of heaven, it does have a dramatic effect on the lack of fulfillment in life and you do receive the power of the Holy Spirit over the debilitating habits and passions that your sinful nature generates. This is true. But those are not the primary issues in salvation.

    There is another issue that is primary and singular,  and there's a reason for that. Not everybody in the world is unfulfilled. In fact, I think the unfulfillment very often goes with our western culture. There are people in the world and third world countries who don't have any expectations so they don't experience any unfulfillment. They're not unfulfilled because there isn't anything out there anyway. And not everybody in the world is discontent with their condition in life. I mean, there are a lot of people even in a materialistic environment like ours that are very happy to perpetuate permanently the condition they're presently in. They're living life to the max, as far as they're concerned. They've got all the wine, women and song, money they could possibly want. They've got it all. They're really very content.

    There are others who are very content with their life style. Maybe they're retired. They've got the ultimate fishing spot and that's it for them. I mean, not everybody is unfulfilled. There are people who exceed their dreams and ambitions. So that is not a universal problem. If we have a Savior who came to save the world, and is the Savior of the world, then it can't be dealing with just unfulfillment. That can't be the main issue. Not everybody is unfulfilled. In fact, there are large segments of the population of the world that don't have any expectation for anything cause there isn't anything in the materialistic world to fulfill them and so they don't experience the artificial unfulfillment that so many people do in our western culture.

    And on the other hand, not everybody is driven to a point of danger and disaster by their passions. Not everybody is to the same degree dominated by those things. There are people who have a certain measure of self-control. Those aren't the universal problems.

    The universal problem from which the Lord sent a Savior to deliver us is not the problem of purposelessness or unfulfilled living. It's not the problem of passion or lust or unbreakable habits. It's the problem of sin and guilt. That's the issue. It's to rescue us from the consequence of our sin. That is to say everybody falls in to that category. I don't care whether you're a person living in a third-world country with no expectations of anything, or whether you're a person who isn't particular consumed by lust and evil desire, you have a certain desire of self-control and you live life on a certain moral even keel...you still have the same problem. You have broken the law of God and you are on your way to eternal hell and you need to be rescued from sin. In the presentation of the gospel, folks, that's where we need to go with the gospel. That's the issue of the gospel.

    The fact of the matter is when you're rescued from sin and its power and its penalty and some day from its presence, you may never still realize your career dreams or your marital dreams or your vacation dreams or your economic dreams. You may never get total dominance over the drives and passions of your life. But you will get some measure of triumph because when your purpose is eternal those things that don't come true in life don't matter as much. And when you realize you have complete forgiveness and you do have the power of the Holy Spirit to give you victory over your passions, there's a measure of joy and victory in that. Those things will be dealt with but that's not the main issue.

    The church needs to get back to remembering that God sent His Son into the world to save His people from their sins. That's the issue and a proper presentation of the gospel is to talk about that. That is precisely what is bound up in the announcement of the angel that the one who is born today and is lying there in a feed trough in Bethlehem one-day old is a Savior. And as the angel told Joseph, "Who will save His people from their sins." That's why you must name Him Jesus. The real destroyer is sin and the guilt for sin is a real guilt, not a psychological, artificial guilt, not a self-imposed guilt but God-imposed guilt that damns to eternal hell. It is from that that people need to be saved, rescued and delivered. And that is precisely what we must understand in understanding the gospel.

    So this is good news. The good news of great joy is for all the people. And the good news is there's been born for you, that is individualizing this universal good news, a Savior. And so in the first few verses, verses 8 to 10, we talked about the proclamation of the good news and we talked about the pervasiveness of the good news. The angel proclaims the good news of great joy which is in its pervasiveness for all the people and for you. That is to say it's for everybody and anybody.

    Now that leads us to the person of the good news, the third point...the proclamation, pervasive, it's the person of the good news and this certainly is the message of verse 11. Who is this child?  Already we have noted that He is the Savior who saves His people from their sins. But beyond that, this One who is born that same day, today, the day...a very day of the birth of Messiah, the day is the same day as the angelic announcement to the shepherds that came that evening, that same day one was born in the city of Bethlehem which is the city of David, actually the village of Bethlehem, the Savior who is identified. Here is the identification, who is Christ the Lord.

    His early name is not given...Jesus...that is given in Matthew 1:21, it's not given here but Savior is the equivalent. It's the synonym. And so we understand that. But His title is given here. Not His earthly name but His title. His title is Christ the Lord. That is to be understood that He is both Christ and Lord. He is both Christos and ha kurios, He is both Christ and the Lord.

    This is an exalted title, by the way, for a baby in such humble circumstances. It would be a little hard to convince anybody who was located in that traveler's rest stop, stable area when the two teen-agers, Joseph and Mary, were taking care of that little baby that was lying in the feed trough, it would be very hard to convince anybody there looking into the face of that baby that this was the Christ, the promised Messiah, the anointed one and the Lord. There wasn't any halo on His head. He was a baby just like any other baby. There would have been no visible distinctive marks of His sovereignty, of His deity, of His messiahship.

    When the shepherds were told to go and see the child they were simply told in verse 12, there will be a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. He's not going to have any other distinguishing mark and that He is lying in a feed trough which is very distinguished...there wouldn't be any other baby placed in such an unspeakable environment after birth, but this baby.

    So this baby in terms of what anybody would assume wouldn't be anything remarkable...anybody remarkable. But in fact He is identified as Christ the Lord. Let's talk about the word Christ. That's an exalted title. Back in Daniel chapter 9 verses 25 and 26 there's a prophecy concerning the coming Messiah and there He is called Messiah. Twice, 9:25 and 9:26, that is the Hebrew word for anointed. In the Greek Old Testament that is Christos, it simply means the anointed one. God's anointed one. Now in the Old Testament time and in ancient times and in some places even in modern times when someone was anointed by the ultimate authority, that was signifying that they were being placed in to some very high office, given some very, very high title.

    First of all, the Messiah is anointed because He is God's King. He is in the line of David, we've already learned that when Gabriel came to Mary and said you're going to have a baby. She was told that the baby would be the Son of the Most High, that is the Son of God, but the Son of David also. He would sit on David's throne and He would establish a Kingdom and then He would reign forever and ever. He is the ultimate King. He is the eternal King. He is the King of kings. And kings were anointed. That was a way to symbolize that they were identified as set apart, elevated above and distinguished. And this indicates, Christ being called Christos or Jesus being called Christos, that He is the anointed God's King. Later on in His life, you know, when Pilate confronted Him, he said, "Are You a King?" He said, "You said it, but My Kingdom is not of this world...at least not yet." There will be a day when He reigns over a Kingdom on this world for a thousand years, according to Revelation chapter 20. Then He will reign, of course, forever and ever as King of kings and Lord of lords. But He was a King. Matthew all the way through his gospel portrays Jesus as a King, clear through the gospel of Matthew. That is the theme of Matthew's emphasis.

    But there was more to it than that. Priests were anointed, particularly the high priest was anointed. And the one who comes, Messiah, the one who is the anointed one will not only be anointed because He is the King but He will be anointed because He is the great high priest. There is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus...Paul said in his letter to Timothy. And this is the anointed High Priest, the final High Priest, the glorious High Priest, the great intercessor between God and sinners, the One who can truly take sinners into the presence of a holy God, the One who alone can give them access, the One who by His death literally severed the veil that separated men from God. He is therefore the great Priest, the great High Priest who takes us into the presence of God.

    He also is the great prophet. And prophets were anointed as well because they were God's spokesmen. God never had such a spokesman as Jesus. God at sundry times and diverse manner in time past, Hebrews 1 says, spoke according to the prophets but in these last days he's spoken unto us by the Son. And His Son, of course, is the greatest of all prophets, the greatest preacher that ever lived, the One who spoke and out of His mouth came only the truth of God.

    So when it says He's the anointed one, it can sum up all of that. First of all, I think, and primarily it means that He is the One to fulfill Davidic promise to be the anointed King, who would establish the great promised Kingdom that lasts forever, a Kingdom for Israel and a Kingdom from Israel over the whole world and a Kingdom that would last forever in the new heavens and the new earth. But also it implies also that He is the great High Priest and the great prophet of God.

    So we know Him in that way. What was happening there, the little child in the feed trough was the greatest King the world will ever know, the greatest Priest the world will ever know, the greatest Prophet the world will ever know...all summed up in one person. He was the King of all kings. He was at that very time in His birth the Priest who alone could give access to God and the Prophet who spoke for God and only for God. That was this child.

    It's amazing to think about that...to understand that you had a real baby there and that the condescension of the second member of the trinity was so great that He submitted Himself to the conditions of being an infant. What does that mean? Well later onwhen He's commented on in Luke's gospel, Luke says about Him that He grew in wisdom and stature and favor with God and man. There was actual growth that is normal to human beings. He actually started out as a baby and was a toddler and grew to being an adult. This is the wondrous condescension all the while even from the beginning He was the anointed King and Priest and Prophet.

    And then He is called Lord and Lord could be just a term of honor used in a human sense in the sense of a benefactor and in the sense of a patron, in the sense of someone who is revered and highly esteemed and given some exalted position in England today. You hear about Lord So-and-so and Lady So-and-so. That's been pretty traditional in western society through the years. Lord is a term referring to someone in a place of leadership, in a place of authority. In fact, in 1 Peter 3 we find that it was even true in a Jewish environment, in a New Testament environment because it says that Sarah called Abraham, her husband, lord. And Peter affirms that that is a right designation, that in fact a woman should recognize her husband as one who has authority over her. So it can be used in a human sense to speak of a legitimate authority.

    But in this usage it's way beyond that. When it says this is the Savior who is Christ the Lord, you'll notice and it will be true every time it's used in the Bible to speak of Jesus Christ or of God, it's a capital "L". You're not seeing it here as some human designation, you're seeing this as a divine designation. To say that this child is Lord, listen very carefully, is to say that this child is God. Lord is intended to imply in the Greek all that is implied by the Hebrew word Yahweh, the tetragrammaton, the Hebrew name for God. To say that Jesus is Lord is to say that Jesus is God first and foremost. And let me say this as clearly and simply as I can and you need to remember this, the most fundamental and basic confession of Christianity is this, Jesus is Lord.  Without that you don't have Christianity.  

    That is the most fundamental and basic confession of the Christian faith. If you want to be saved, Romans 10:9 says, you must confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord. That is unequivocal.  What does it mean? It means to say that Jesus is God and all that that implies. And if you're God, that implies sovereignty and authority.

    Let me talk a little further about that. The selection of the word kurios here for Lord, ha kurios, the Lord, that's a very important selection. There are two words in the Greek language, still are, I think, that could be used to refer to Lord or Master, one is kurios and the other is despotes. And if you study the background of those two words, and even how they've sort of come down to us, we have a word in English despot, when we think of the word despot we think of someone who is in authority and someone who is in power, but with a certain level of high-handedness, don't we, or a certain kind of illegitimacy or abuse or unearned, undeserved power. To say someone is despotic or a despot is to assume that they have somehow garnered power that they don't really deserve and it doesn't belong to him...to them and somehow has been gained not by the will of the people or those who have the right to give it, but it's been illegitimately usurped. That would be despotes.

    But the word kurios is just the opposite of that. Kurios means supreme power with authority with legitimacy. It is a word that expresses an authority that is valid, lawful and legitimate. And kurios is used here. Jesus is legitimately, validly Lord. He is Lord lawfully. He is Lord legally. He is Lord by virtue of nature who He is. So the root idea of kurios is legitimate sovereignty, legitimate authority. And, of course, the ultimate legitimate authority in the universe is God. That's why in the Old Testament the Greek translation of the Old Testament, that helps us to understand word usages, in the Greek translation...the original Old Testament is Hebrew, but if you look at a Greek translation you will find that where Lord is used in the Old Testament, the Greek Old Testament uses the word kurios 6,156 times. So that...and that to represent Yahweh...to represent God. So 6,156 times the Greek translators of the Old Testament translate the tetragrammaton, that is to say Yahweh, Lord kurios. So they would understand that kurios in the Old Testament refers to God. It's a proper name for God affirming His legitimate sovereign power and authority. You come in to the New Testament, the writers of the New Testament use kurios all the time. It has become, in the Greek language, of course, the name for God. So when it says Jesus is Lord, when it says you must confess Jesus as Lord, you are confessing Him as God with all that that implies. That implies authority, that implies sovereignty.

    So the good news is this, the good news is there's a proclamation of salvation. The good news is the pervasiveness of that salvation reaches to everybody and anybody. The good news is the person of that salvation is none other than the anointed King and Priest and Prophet of God who is none other than God Himself. That's why when Isaiah the prophet was talking about this and prophesying about it, he said, "A child is born...Isaiah 9:6...a Son is given, His name is going to be called Wonderful, Counselor...what's the next one?...the Mighty God, and then the eternal Father and then the Prince of peace." There is no question as to who the child is. The child is the anointed One of God, Prophet, Priest and King, who is Himself God, that is who was born that day. A Savior, King, Priest, Prophet who is God, now you understand who Jesus is. Anything less than that is sub- Christianity. Amazing titles given to a one-day old lying in a feed trough. And the wealth of those titles and the grandeur of those titles and the majesty of those titles stands in stark contrast to the conditions in a stinking stall.

    Verse 12 takes us then to the next statement by the angel. The angel doesn't tell them to go look for the child assumes they will though which is another indicator that they were probably devout and really believed in the true and living God and were looking for the Messiah. And that's why they were selected for this announcement even though they were the humblest of the humble and the lowest people on the socio-economic ladder were shepherds, as I told you last time. But the angel says to them, "This will be a sign for you, you'll find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."

    No king of royal blood and right never had such a birth in Israel. This is just so much contrasting the glory of who He was. This will be a sign for you.  This is what you're going to look for. You're going to have to find a baby wrapped in cloths. Well, any baby born would be wrapped in cloths, they did that with all of them. In fact, not to wrap a baby in cloth was...was the worst imaginable treatment. If you go back to Ezekiel 16 there's an interesting analogy there, it's a description that the prophet Ezekiel gives, and he pictures a baby coming out of its mother's womb, very graphic, one of the most graphic chapters in the Bible, the baby comes out of the mother's womb and its all bloody and the cord is still attached. And the baby is just thrown out into a field. And God makes that baby analogous to Israel. And He says...When I found you, nobody had cut your umbilical cord, nobody had washed you with water, nobody had rubbed you with salt...which was used as an antiseptic in case there were any wounds in the birth of the child...and it says nobody had wrapped you in cloths.

    Way back then in Ezekiel's time, hundreds of years before this, it was tradition among the Jews and still at the time of Jesus to wrap babies. And as I told you, they would wrap each limb separately, the little legs and the little arms would be wrapped and then the body would be wrapped tightly as well, providing the child warmth and security and protection. And also they believed that this helped the limbs to grow straight because they were wrapped so tightly together in that fashion. That was what any caring parent would do to a child. And so the angel tells the shepherds, you have to look for a baby that's been wrapped in cloths in the traditional way.

    Well, that would be a sign to some degree, but any baby they found would be wrapped like that and there might have been more than one. So there's a further indicator that will really narrow it down, "You'll find this baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger." It's a feed trough for animals. That would limit it to the right baby.

    So they were going to have to go looking to find the baby who is the Savior of the world, who is the anointed King and Priest and Prophet of God who is God Himself, Yahweh in human flesh. And they would find Him wrapped like any other baby without any distinguishing marks with the exception that He was lying in a feed trough. This is a very normal looking baby, nothing to distinguish this baby from any other baby except the place its laying.

    So the person of the good news is introduced to us in starkly contrasting terms. And that leads us to the fourth point, the purpose of the good news.  As this good news unfolds it has a purpose. And frankly, as we come to this in verses 13 and 14 we come to the transcendent pinnacle of all thought and action. And I mean that. I mean, you can't get any higher than this, folks. You're going to get as high as you can get right here. This is the highest of all truths. This is the reason for everything.

    Verse 13 says, "And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.'"

    You say, "What are you talking about?" We've come to the pinnacle, we've come to the transcendent high point, we've come to the highest point of thought and action, the highest truth of all truths. What is it? It's the glory of God. What you see here is the highest thing that can occur in the universe, the created universe. The highest thing that can occur in the created universe is that God is glorified by His creatures. And that's exactly what you see the angels doing. This is the purpose of the good news.

    You say, "Well wasn't the good news to save sinners?" The good news is to save sinners so they can join angels in giving glory to God. The ultimate is always to glorify God. The highest transcendent pinnacle of all thought and action, the reason for everything is to glorify God. It comes pretty suddenly, this scenario here. I mean, it's shaken them just to have an angel there, just to have an angel from God there and to hear this incredible message. That alone is a startling and shocking event. But verse 13, "Suddenly," and God occasionally does thing suddenly. Malachi 1 says the Messiah will suddenly come to His temple. And if you read Mark 13:36, 1 Thessalonians 5:3 there's suddenness in the return of Jesus Christ. He's going to come in a sudden fashion. There are times when God invades human...the human realm with great suddenness, this is one. "Suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host."

    Now I don't know how many there were. The heavenly host really could be translated an army, a multitude of the heavenly army. These are angels. How many is a multitude? I don't know how many is a multitude. How many angels are there? I don't know how many angels there are, but according to Revelation there are ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands and thousands. Now ten thousand times ten thousand, is that an actual mathematical number? You could multiply that and add a few thousands and you've got a hundred million plus angels?

    Well, the word murion which is ten thousand is the highest number for which there is a word in the Greek language, so there isn't a word for any higher number. It may just be that John in writing murion times murion and thousands of thousands is just using sort of hyperbole and we don't know how many angels there are. I'm not sure you could just multiply and add there the thousands and thousands and get to the number. Let's just say there are hundreds of millions of angels...and leave it at that. This is not all of them, this is a representative group. Obviously it's not all of them in visible form, but a representative group, a large group. Multitude refers to a large group. I'm not even going to speculate how many but it wouldn't be a handful, it wouldn't be a few, it wouldn't be a small group, it would be a large group, a multitude, large group. Whenever you see the word "multitude" used in the New Testament about Jesus, it says He was surrounded by a multitude, it's talking about a large crowd, hundreds and maybe in some cases thousands.

    Now think about it, those shepherds have never seen an angel and they saw an angel. Now they see who knows how many angels in manifest visible form. Now this just didn't happen. It just didn't happen. You can find a place in 1 Kings 22 where there was a vision into heaven of the throne of God and angels there. You can go to Revelation 4 and 5 and John had a vision of heaven and he could see in heaven the throne of God and angels there. But angels on earth? Not in a vision but there, really there? Who had seen this many angels? This is pretty remarkable. There were occasions in the Old Testament when an angel came and an angel went but to have a huge multitude of angels out in this field with these non-descript shepherds, incredible. I mean, they were...according to verse 9...they were panicked. They were literally in phobic reaction, the Greek word phobeomi used there, when it says they were terribly frightened, one angel scared the daylights out of them, you can imagine what this group did to them.

    And the angels appeared and what were they doing? Well they were doing what angels always do, praising God...praising God. That's all they do is praise God, praise God, praise God, praise God. Well what were they praising God about? Well they were saying, "Glory to God, glory to God, glory to God, glory to God in the highest, and I know, with peace among men with whom He's pleased."

    What were they praising God for? Well they were praising God because Jesus was born. They were praising God because the Savior had come. They were praising God for the Savior who is Christ the Lord. You see, they knew what was going on. They knew Jesus as the second member of the trinity, they knew Christ before the incarnation. They had been associated with Christ in heaven before the incarnation. They knew of His glory, they knew of His riches, they knew of His majesty. They were also aware of the fall of man. They understood the fall of man, they knew about that. They had been informed also that God had provided a way of salvation for man. They knew about that. They knew that prophecies had been made that a Messiah would come, a Savior would come, a sacrifice would be made. They understood the sacrificial system of the Old Testament, to some degree. They understood that all those animals had to be offered and they couldn't take away sin but they would picture one who would come and die and would.

    They understood that. They had given the report to Joseph, "You shall call His name Jesus for He'll save His people from their sins." They knew what was going on. They knew the work of saving man. They knew that there would come a Savior who while maintaining perfect righteousness and holiness would also bear sin. They knew that God would not spare His own Son but give Him up for sinners. They knew that the Son though rich would become poor for the sake of undeserving sinners. They knew that He would vicariously bear their curse and take their punishment. They knew that the Holy Spirit would condescend to convict sinners and bring them to salvation, regenerate them and then take up residence in that sinner's heart. They understood the birth of Christ. They understood that He would enter in to a condition of poverty, that He would become poor so that sinners could become rich. They understood this and they were praising God because they were seeing God's grace on display. They were seeing God's mercy. They were seeing the salvation plan come to its glorious fruition. They were thanking God for His undescribable gift. They were looking in to the things that Peter says angels desire to look in to but cannot fully comprehend because they can't experience grace and mercy and forgiveness because holy angels are sinless.

    They were doing what angels always do, they were praising God. If you turn to Revelation 4 and Revelation 5 you will see them doing it there. That's what they do. They were saying, "Glory to God in the highest." The highest is heaven...the highest is heaven. And this is contrastive language, "Glory to God in the highest and on earth," that's the lowest. Glory to God in heaven, on earth peace among men with whom He's pleased."

    On earth peace...what kind of peace? Salvation peace. He's not talking about comfort of the mind, rest of the spirit, he's talking about salvation, peace with God. The war is over, the battle has ended. No longer is God our enemy and we His enemy but reconciliation has come. In the highest is glory to God. In the lowest on earth is peace among men. And they're praising God for that. They're praising God, giving Him glory in heaven because He's brought salvation to earth. Glory to God in the highest. The adoration of the angels over the good news of the Savior's birth. This is pure, perfect, holy praise given to God alone because He is supremely worthy because He has sent Jesus to save sinners. He has sent Jesus to bring peace among men on earth. In the highest place, glory to God. In the lowest place, salvation to sinners.

    And then verse 14 ends with an interesting statement, "With whom He is pleased." That can be very misleading...very misleading if you're not careful. It sounds like He's going to give salvation to those who earn it...to those who earn it. The King James Bible says, "On earth peace, good will towards men." That also sounds like God is going to bring peace and good will toward those who earn it, those who deserve it.

    But the Greek literally says, "Men of His good pleasure...Men of His good pleasure." It's a genitive. There's an alternative reading here but the best reading would be "Peace among men of His good pleasure." Or to put it another way, "Peace among men of His good will." It's not...it's not men who have earned it. It's God who has given it because it's His pleasure to give it.

    Salvation peace belongs to those whom God is pleased to give it to. That's what it's saying. It's the same words in chapter 3 verse 22, for the Father says about the Son at His baptism, "You're My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased."

    There are some in whom God chooses, in whom He wills salvation. It's not the result of what good men have done. Angels are not rejoicing and glorifying God for what men have done or will do. Angels are not rejoicing that some men will merit salvation. They're glorifying God because though none can merit salvation, God is pleased to give it by His own good pleasure. And there will be salvation peace among men of His good pleasure.

    If you are a person who has been given the gift of salvation, you are a person of His good pleasure. It's incredible, incredible truth. Men to whom He extends His good pleasure. He gets all the credit. He gets all the glory. We couldn't devise a plan of salvation. We couldn't earn a plan...we couldn't earn salvation so if we're saved it's because God designed it and God was pleased to give it.

    Saying it another way, there is salvation peace, peace between man and God, among those whom God has chosen to delight in. And so the angels are praising God because He has chosen to delight in bringing salvation peace to sinners.

    And, you know, that's what's going to go on in heaven forever and ever and ever. Both the angels and redeemed souls in glorified bodies of men and women are going to spend forever and ever and ever and ever glorifying God in heaven, glorifying God in the highest, which is heaven, because He brought peace to the lowest, which is earth, and granted it to those in whom He chose to delight. He gets all the credit. Revelation 4 and 5 you have the angels starting out to glorify God for salvation, and then you have all of redeemed humanity chiming in. That would be a good place to end. "The four living creatures...chapter 8...the 24 elders...representing the church...fell down before the Lamb," it says in verse 9, "they sang a new song, 'Worthy art Thou to take the book and break its seals for You were slain and did purchase for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, You made them to be a kingdom and priest to our God, they will reign over the earth.'" In other words, that's praising God for salvation, praising the Lamb for salvation.

    "And then I looked...verse 11...I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures the elders," that's everybody, the redeemed saints, the angels, "the number was...there's the murion times murion and thousands of thousands, all the angels, they're all saying, 'Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing,' and every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea and all things in them I heard them saying to Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb, 'Be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever and ever.' And the four living creatures who were angels kept saying, 'Amen.' And the elders fell down and worshiped." And that's heaven, and that's what we will be doing and what we saw that multitude of heavenly host doing there in the field in Bethlehem was just a foretaste of that preoccupation of eternal heaven.

    The purpose of everything then is that God will be glorified and forever and ever and ever we will glorify Him. We could sum it up by saying the purpose of salvation was to bring glory to God in heaven from angels and from saints and we will see that and participate in it when we get there.

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    The Announcement of Jesus' Birth, Pt. 3

    Luke 2:15-21

    And actually this morning as we come to verse 15 to the end of the section in verse 21, we really come to the somewhat human part. And it's a pretty simple and straightforward message. It's one with which most of you are very familiar. It's a simple story about the shepherds' response. I could just tell you that story or have you read it and make a few comments and you'd have it. There's nothing complicated there. There's nothing hidden, nothing mysterious. But as I went over it I found that it served to me as a good illustration, a good illustration, a good analogy of what happens when anybody embraces the Savior. The details that are given in the account down to verse 21 show us by illustration form what happens when someone comes to Christ.

    Now we're going to look at that in a minute. Just a brief review will get us to that point. The first seven verses of the chapter tell the story of the birth of Jesus. Verse 7 describes the fact that Mary gave birth to her firstborn son. Remember she was a virgin at the time and remained a virgin until after the marriage which was after the birth of Christ. She wrapped Him in cloths, laid Him in a manger because there was no room for them at the inn. That's really all the Bible records via Luke about the birth of Christ.

    It's understated, to put it mildly. It occurred in obscurity in a stable. The King of kings and Lord of lords, the Son of the Most High God, the Son of David, the Christ, the Lord, the Savior laid in a feed trough. The most monumental event in human history occurring in the most distasteful circumstances and in obscurity. Caesar didn't know that it had happened. Quirinius, the governor, didn't know it had happened. Herod didn't know it had happened. The high priest didn't know it had happened. The chief priests and scribes and elders, Sadducees, Pharisees didn't know it had happened. The literati, the elite didn't know it happened. In fact, nobody knew it had happened. Even the people who were there in the stable when it happened didn't know what happened. The inhabitants of earth had absolutely no idea what went on in Bethlehem.

    But heaven knew and it didn't take long for heaven to respond. And that's where we pick it up in verse 8, and you remember what happened. "In the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the field and keeping watch over their flock by night, and an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were terribly frightened. And the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid for behold I bring you good news of a great joy which shall be for all the people. For today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you, you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.' And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.'"

    That is a glorious portion of Scripture. The heart of it is in verse 11, "There has been born for you a Savior." And as I tried to point out last time, it's not that Jesus saves you from your meaninglessness, it's not that Jesus saves you from your anxiety, it's not that Jesus saves you from your poverty, it's not that Jesus saves you from your lack of fulfillment, it's not that Jesus saves you from your trouble. Really there is no guarantee in this life that you're going to be rescued from any of those things. Jesus saves you from the eternal wrath of God, that's the issue. It's not that Jesus saves you from anything in this life in particular. You may still struggle through all kinds of troubles and struggles and you may still have a measure of unfulfillment. You may even find life to be less than you want it to be in this world, more painful than you can bear. There's no guarantee that that will change in this life.

    But Jesus came to save His people from their sins, from the penalty of their sins, first of all, which is eternal hell, the wrath of God, and the power of their sins by giving them the Spirit of God so they can be victorious over their sins even in this life. And finally the presence of sin, when we leave this world and enter His glory. That's the good news that He would save His people from their sins and therefore save them from the wrath of God which is eternal wrath in hell forever. The wages of sin is death. And that death is not just spiritual death or separation from God, but eternal death, separation from God forever in a place of torment and punishment.

    The child was born to save us from the wrath of God. And we saw how that unfolded in those verses. The angels came and proclaimed the good news to the humblest of all people. The lowest people on the socio-economic ladder would be shepherds. They were unskilled, uneducated, untrained. They weren't allowed to give testimony in a court of law because they were considered untrustworthy. They were the lowest of the low and it was specifically to them that the heavenly message came, ignoring all the great religious leaders and educators. The Lord was thereby saying that He was coming to the humble. He always said He could come to the humble. Way back in Isaiah He said He would come to the poor. First Corinthians, Paul said there would not be many noble, not many mighty but it would be the poor and base and weak. The shepherds illustrate that.

    We also saw the extent of this good news. It's for all the people, at the end of verse 10, it's for all the people. And that extends, first of all, to Israel who are THE people, the nation Israel. But beyond them to the whole world. And that's the broadest definition of the extent of the gospel, to all the people. The narrowest definition is in verse 11, "For you a Savior." For everybody and anybody, for all the people and for you. There's not salvation in any other, there's no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved...according to Acts 4:12. There can't be salvation in any other and isn't it wonderful that the One Savior, the only mediator between God and man, has made salvation available to all the people and to anybody.

    And then we saw the person of the good news. We saw this child described by the angel who was talking to the shepherds. He said, "He is the Savior who is Christ the Lord." And in those descriptive terms and titles is all that needed to be said. He is the Savior, first of all. He is the Christ. That is He is the anointed one, the Messiah who will take up the throne of David. He also is anointed in the sense that He will be the great High Priest, anointed in the sense that He will be the greatest Prophet to ever walk upon this earth. He is the anointed one. That's what the word Christ means, the Messiah.

    And then He is Lord. And I told you that over 6,000 times the word "Lord" is used in the Old Testament to refer to God. And it becomes the most common name for Jesus in the New Testament, affirming that Jesus is indeed God. So here is a child who is God in human flesh. Here is a child who is the anointed Prophet, Priest and the great King fulfilling Davidic promise. Here is a child who is the Savior of the world...sovereign God, sovereign Lord and Savior and King. And we said last time that the purest and truest and most basic confession of the Christian faith is Jesus is Lord. You can say a lot of other things about Jesus but none of them will save other than Jesus is Lord.

    And you remember then the shepherds said to the...to one another, as we pick it up in verse 15, "We've got to go see Him...we've got to go see Him." That's where we're going to pick up the narrative today. We've gone through the fact that after this announcement all of a sudden a multitude of the heavenly host showed up in verses 13 and 14. This literally was a very rare glimpse of heavenly worship brought to earth. You don't get too many of those. There's...there's, of course, the more familiar one in Revelation 4 and 5 where we're literally taken in to the throne of heaven and we can see the worship of heaven going on. This is another one of those very rare glimpses, only in this case we're not caught up in a vision of heaven, but heaven comes to earth in the presence of these very lowly shepherds out in the evening in a hillside in the region near Bethlehem. A whole host of angels came down to do on earth what they do all the time in heaven. And what do they do? They praise God and say, "Glory to God in the highest."  And what were they praising God for? Because He had brought on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased. He had brought to earth salvation peace.

    Just last time we closed with that little phrase "on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased," or literally in a better translation, "on earth peace among men of His good pleasure." To put it another way, "peace to those to whom it pleases Him to give peace."

    It's a salvation peace that will belong only to those that God pleases to give it to. This is a great and gracious eternal decree. This involves the great doctrine of election, predestination. Before the creation of the universe God chose to save some just because He was pleased to do it. Angels, you see, are not rejoicing or glorifying God for what men have done or will do, but because of what God has done and will do. It's not that God's salvation is a reward for those who have good will toward men. as the old translation says. But salvation is a gracious gift to those to whom God chooses to have good will. On earth, the Messiah, Savior, the Christ, the Lord will bring salvation peace to those whom God pleases to save.

    And so we've gone through that whole great divine scene. Now imagine you're in the situation of the shepherds. I mean, life has been pretty plain and mundane, pretty common place, pretty brown and vanilla. And all of a sudden all heaven has broken loose. You've just had an angelic messenger, perhaps Gabriel, tell you that the Messiah has been born, the Christ, the Savior of the world, God in human flesh. That angel has been accompanied by a whole heavenly host of angels who have come down and given you a taste of heaven and they are glorifying God and praising God for the salvation that He's brought on earth through the birth of the Messiah. And this is all anything beyond anything imaginable to these men.

    The question at this point is how did they respond? How did they react? And that's what I want you to look at. It's just from verse 15 down to verse 21, it's a very simple passage, a very simple narrative but it serves a good illustration. It's not an allegory, but it does serve as a good illustration of how people respond savingly to the gospel.

    Let me show you as it kind of unfolds. Verse 15, "It came about when the angels had gone away from them into heaven that the shepherds began saying to one another, 'Let us go straight to Bethlehem then and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us.'" That's where it all begins.

    We don't know how long the heavenly host was there. We don't know how long that praise service went on. It doesn't tell us. Certainly was more brief perhaps than the shepherds would have liked. They probably would have enjoyed that it last a long, long time. But it was over, all of that praise and glory to God was done. They were praising God in the highest, that is in heaven and on earth they were realizing that God had brought salvation to those whom He pleased to choose. And then the angels went back to heaven to take up their place around the throne as described in Revelation 4 and 5 and keep doing what they they're always doing, what they're doing right now even as I speak in heaven...doing exactly right now in heaven what they were doing there that day on earth in the shepherds' field, praising God for the grace of salvation.

    And as traumatic as it was, and you know it was traumatic because back in verse 9 it says they were terribly frightened. The shepherds when one angel appeared they were terribly frightened. Literally they were terrified. They were just absolutely scared out of their wits. And if one angel could do that to them, we can only imagine how frightening it was when all the rest showed up.

    But apparently after the angels left they were able to gather their senses and collect their thoughts because it says in verse 15, "It came about when the angels had gone away from them into heaven that the shepherds began saying to one another..." Spontaneously, mutually, collectively there was the same response from everybody. In fact, the Greek verb is what we call an imperfect...that's a name of a tense in the Greek language, and the imperfect tense is a term that describes something that's not completed, that's continuous action, it's imperfect because it's not complete. And they use that verb here to express the fact that this was an ongoing kind of discussion. In verse 15 they were all continuing to say over and over to one another this...we've got to go, we've got to go. There would be a little process involved here, somebody has to take care of the sheep. They've got to figure that problem out, how are they going to get somebody to care for the sheep while we're gone, we've got to go. And they probably were talking about...well we need to do this and we've got to do that, and there's this task and that task. They were all embroiled in the fact that they had to get out of that place and get to Bethlehem. And there was spontaneity at this point. Nobody needed to lead them, nobody needed to sort of get them to comply. Everybody had exactly the same response.

    And by the way, Luke loves to record responses. He recorded Zacharias' response to the message from Gabriel. You remember, Zacharias didn't believe and so God struck him dumb, couldn't speak and he couldn't hear. And then you remember Mary's response was one of faith as opposed to Zacharias. And now we find the shepherds' response and the shepherds' response is immediate. They unanimously together collectively say, "Let us go straight to Bethlehem then." Nothing intervening, nothing distracting, we are going immediately. There's a sense of urgency in the Greek construction here. It's without delay, at once we're going to go.

    Now traditional shepherds feel it's about two miles from the town of Bethlehem. So there would be a little bit of a walk involved in this. They wanted to get on the way immediately. And they were in full agreement. They said, "Let's go straight to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us. They would most likely have had to walk up hill since Bethlehem sort of sits on a ridge. So as soon as they could they were on their way with a view to seeing this thing.

    Let me talk about that word "thing" because I think you need a little more definition. It's literally the Greek term rhema and it means a word, or a reality. Let us see this reality. They now understand that they have heard the word from God, that there's a reality and the reality is that the Savior has been born. Now they can confirm it easy enough because the angel had said to them...you're going to find a sign, back in verse 12, you're going to find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying...where?...in a manger. Now that's just an unheard of thing and very unusual, probably never happened, nobody would put a baby in a feed trough in a stinking stable. So that would verify that this was all true. I mean, they had seen the angels and that was verification enough. But they were going to get even more verification when in fact they found the child exactly where the angel said He would be which meant this was not just an earthly situation going on, this was heaven and earth involved. They believed the angel.

    And I think that's indicated in verse 15. They said, "Let us go straight to Bethlehem then and see this thing that has happened." They believed. That's the first thing I want you to notice. They had a revelation from God and they believed it. And if I can borrow that as an analogy, that is how people come to Christ. They have a revelation from God and they believe it. The revelation from God is that the Savior has come and they believe it. That's step one and step two in the whole movement toward salvation. They believed that heavenly message. They believed that the Savior had come. In fact, that's evident because at the end of verse 15 they say the thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us...divine revelation is where anybody's faith in Christ begins, anybody's salvation begins with a message from God. Faith comes by hearing the word about Christ. Faith comes by hearing the message. Romans 10, Paul says how shall they hear if there's not a preacher?

    And so it's critical that we understand that the first step in the process of someone being converted is they have to hear the message. The revelation comes first. They heard it and they believed it...they believed it. The Spirit of God obviously having prepared their hearts. I told you a week or so ago that I felt that these men chosen to be the recipients of this divine message were probably true Jews, that is they were believing Jews not just secular Jews. That they truly believed in the true and living God, that they were no doubt among those looking for the redemption of Israel, waiting for their Messiah, who had been genuine believers in the true God who had repented of their sin and had come to God and sought His grace. All of that because their hearts were so ready and their responses were so right. And they heard the heavenly revelation and they believed it. They believed the fact that Messiah, the Savior, the Christ, the Lord had come.

    Their faith in the word of God then caused them to pursue Christ. And that's the third step in anybody's life in coming to Christ. First you know the revelation, secondly you believe the revelation, and thirdly you come to Christ. You ascend to that. You embrace Christ. And that's essentially...illustrated that, it's not...it's not the intent of the passage to teach some spiritual truth but it's a wonderful illustration of a spiritual truth. Because verse 16 says, "They came in haste." Again, this idea of enthusiasm and eagerness that the language indicates that they're in a hurry and their enthusiasm is great. And they came in haste and found their way to Mary and Joseph.

    And we don't know how they did that but that...there's a small village actually, a small village. They probably came in the village and said, "Does anybody know about a baby being born? Anybody heard about a birth in the last few hours?" And they may have knocked on some doors and found some babies. There may have been several babies born that night or in recent hours. They were looking for one particular baby who would be placed in a feed trough. We don't know how that process went but word of mouth about the baby spreads pretty rapidly and they continued to look. Verse 16, "And found eventually their way to Mary and Joseph." And they knew immediately, believe me, when they saw Mary and Joseph and they saw that baby in that manger...they for certain knew they had a word from God. Their search ended with the right find. That, I think, is a sequence to keep in mind. First the revelation, then the faith and then the action to pursue Christ.

    Now what followed after that is also normal as an analogy or an illustration of behavior of someone who comes to Christ, it's witness. Someone who has heard the truth of the gospel, someone who has believed that someone has come and found Christ then witnesses. Look at verse 17. "And when they had seen this they made known the statement which had been told them about this child." Now let me stop you there for a minute.

    I can't believe that there wasn't some large conversation between verse 16 and 17. I mean, here are these scruffy, grubby shepherds coming in the middle of the night into this stinking stable, finding Joseph and Mary and the baby lying in a manger. And they're all overwhelmed with what's happened, so Joseph and Mary must have had some response, saying greetings...how can we help you? And then they unfold the saga.  I can just hear them all vying for telling the story their way as Joseph and Mary tried to sit quietly and listen. And it must have been wonderful confirmation for them as well, for any malingering doubts that might have been raised in their minds. And they told the story of how an angel came and an angel described one who had been born, good news of great joy, a Savior. He is Christ the Lord. And on and on, they told the whole story. And a whole host of angels came and there were angels everywhere, and they were bright and they were shining and they were praising God and thanking God. And it was incredible

    And as that story unfolded I think Joseph and Mary probably began to unfold some of their side of the details. Well isn't that wonderful because, you know, an angel came to me...Joseph might have said. And he told me not to worry about the fact that my virgin betrothed bride-to-be Mary was pregnant because the baby that was in her womb was put there by the Holy Spirit. She was not sinful, she was not unfaithful to me. That she was going to have a child who would be Immanuel, God in human flesh and that He would be named Jesus because He would save His people from their sins. And this all happened to me when I was deciding whether to divorce her or stone her to death. And I had a dream and in that dream an angel of the Lord came to me and told me the whole thing.

    And then Mary might have quietly said...And, you know, I had a visit from Gabriel and Gabriel came to me even though I am just a young girl and a virgin and said you're going to have a baby and that baby is going to be Son of David, Son of the Most High God, He's going to rule over a Kingdom that will last eternally. And it all is beginning to come together. And these shepherds, talk about being in on the scoop, they're in on it.

    And at this particular point, it's Joseph and Mary and a handful of shepherds, and Zacharias and Elizabeth and they know about it, and nobody else has the kind of inside information that these people have.

    And what is their immediate response? After the whole thing unfolds when they had seen this, they made known the statement which had been told them about this Christ. They went everywhere and said the Savior's been born, the Savior's been born. Christ the Lord has been born. They told the story.

    They probably told the story about the angel and the angels. Told the story about Joseph. And told the story about a virgin conceiving a child and unfolded the whole marvelous incredible account. And again they illustrate what happens, I think, in the life of a newborn soul. First comes the revelation, they understand the gospel, then faith to believe the gospel. And then the action that goes and pursues Christ and embraces Christ. And then comes the immediate response which is to witness.

    I'll tell you right now, folks. The most aggressive faithful people in proclaiming the gospel are the newest Christians. Because the joy runs so high, the excitement is so great, the enthusiasm is so profound. These shepherds become the first New Testament evangelists. And they repeated the astounding revelation from God, as well as their own personal meeting of Joseph and Mary and the baby lying in the manger. They couldn't restrain themselves. I mean, this was the greatest news the world would ever know. This was the greatest news they ever heard, far beyond anything they could have ever imagined. I mean, there isn't anything in their humdrum life that could equal this. And I might suggest to you that the true spiritual commitment is determined by the quality and the tenacity of one's long-term joy over salvation. You can say you're committed, you can talk about the commitment you have to Jesus Christ, but it really comes down to how much joy you have and how eagerly you share that.

    They were eye-witnesses to the good news, eye-witnesses to the Messiah being born and they spread it. They spread it, they couldn't restrain themselves, they couldn't contain themselves. And you know, when we stop doing that, when we stop having that kind of zeal and that kind of passion, when we betray a heart that is no longer overwhelmed by joy, when we betray a heart that is no longer unrestrained in its compulsion to tell others we betray a sinful heart because indifference and ingratitude is a sin. It's amazing, you know, the longer people are Christians the less they seem excited about it. They move further and further away from the initial revelation of the gospel and become more and more involved with other things. You get a lot more excited about sports and restaurants and food and kids and grandkids and houses and cars and possessions and vacations and rarely ever do they burst forth with exuberant joy toward others who know not Christ because of their sheer compulsion to talk about the one who saved them from eternal wrath.

    The shepherds did, and they told it far and wide. And it says in verse 18, "All who heard it wondered of the things which were told them by the shepherds." I mean, what it did create was a stir. The word "wonder" is the word thaumazo, which means to marvel, to be amazed.  Luke likes that word and it's repeated again and again. I mean, the things that Jesus did caused people to be amazed, caused them to wonder, caused them to marvel. I mean, that was pretty typical. You see him use that word in chapter 4, chapter 8, chapter 9, chapter 11, chapter 20. He uses it in chapter 24 and also in chapters 4 and 5 you get a similar kind of response. Jesus caused people to be amazed. There's no question about it. He was an amazing person. They had never seen anybody like Him.

    And I think today there are people like that. There's a certain amount of wonder about Jesus, particularly in our Christmas season, you know. There's a certain wonder about the Christ child and wonder about the whole nativity situation. There's a certain amount of respect given to Jesus with regard to that. But that's not salvation. That is not salvation. Being amazed by Jesus doesn't do it. That's not enough.

    That's very typical as we flow through the book of Luke you're going to see that. That's...that's just curiosity maybe at its highest level. Widespread reaction was amazement, curiosity not commitment.

    But I don't think that would have restrained them because they were so internally compelled to tell the story. I mean, angels, revelation from God, miracle conception in a virgin, Son of God, Son of the Most High God, born in a stable, laid in a feed trough, I mean, the whole thing was some kind of story.

    And, you know, people would be pressed to believe it. They would be pressed to believe it because the angel comes and the angel says you will find Him wrapped in cloths and lying in a feed trough. And sure enough, that's exactly where He was. And if God wasn't working all of that, how could that all have happened? It had to be divine. God had to be working this whole thing out. The child was exactly where they were told by angels. And if angels are involved in this and angels know the whole situation, this has got to be from God. And as I told you before, people didn't see angels. Up to now Zacharias saw an angel and Mary saw an angel and the shepherds saw an angel and then saw a host of angels, nobody else did. So the idea that all heaven broke loose and a whole multitude of angels showed up, pretty amazing stuff.

    And then it was all confirmed because they did exactly what the angel said. And sure enough, there was the baby in a manger. No wonder people wondered. And I think that's...that's sort of the contrast to the shepherds. The shepherds got the revelation, believed it and ran to Christ. Wouldn't it have been good if it said in verse 18, "And all who heard it went immediately to the manger?" It doesn't say that. They just wondered and went on with their life.

    The next little comment in verse 19 I find interesting as well. It takes us into the heart of Mary. It says, "But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart." This is just mulling them over, contemplating them deeply. She went much deeper, believe me, than the amazed people in verse 18. I mean, this is just...this is just beyond comprehension. Here is a 13- or 14-year old girl, she's looking into a feed trough and she's seeing there a baby that's come out of her womb. She's never known a man. This baby was conceived and born without ever knowing a man. This baby is the Son of the Most High God. This baby is the rightful heir to the throne of David. This baby is the Savior of the world. This baby is the anointed Messiah. This baby is God, the Lord. I mean, it's all so mind-boggling in the common world of human beings.

    Mary must have wondered, you know, when is He going to start saying profound, theological things? Tomorrow? Is He going to do miracles? What's going to happen here? What am I to expect out of this child? Will I have a normal relationship with this child that a mother has to a baby? Will I nurse this child as mothers do? Will I raise this child as mothers do? What will this child be like? And when will He enter into His glory? When will He take His Kingdom? When will that all happen? And how am I going to be a mother to a child that is God?

    She must have wondered all those kinds of things. Must have wondered even about discipline, setting an example. How do you set an example for God? I mean, anything that would come into a mother's mind must have come into her mind. She just pondered it. She just thought deeply about it. And she thought deeply about God's redemptive purpose and how God had promised a Savior and a Savior had finally come.

    And later on in verses 34 and 35 of this chapter, Simeon comes up to Mary and says...I hate to tell you this, Mary, but this child is going to pierce your heart like a sword. It's not all going to be wonderful for you. This is going to be very painful having this son. A sword is going to go right through your own soul.

    And it's true. I mean, being the mother of the Son of God is a painful thing. She loved Him. She must have loved Him like no mother has ever loved a child because He was perfect. And yet she saw Him suffer. She saw Him suffer so profoundly and so unjustly. And eventually she was there when He was nailed to the cross. I mean, all kinds of suffering. She must have been thinking about a lot of things.

    And isn't that analogous somewhat to the Christian experience? Just following the little illustration first there at the revelation of the truth, the gospel, then there's faith like the shepherds put in what God said. And then there's action, to go and to find Christ. And then there's witness, the exuberance and the joy. And then comes pondering. After those initial days of euphoria, as you grow in your Christian life you begin to think more deeply about the realities of who He is. Here I am, you know, as a Christian a long time, after many, many years of ministry and I continue in my reading...I never get enough. I have an insatiable desire to know more about my God and my Christ just to plumb the depths of all there is to know and to ponder those things.

    And when somebody is truly converted, I think there's never enough. There never comes a point of satisfaction. As Paul said, "That I may know Him," and somebody might say, "You know Him, you know Him, you know Him better than anybody else." Yeah, but I don't know Him like I'd like to know Him. Mary illustrates that hungry heart that wants to understand the depth of this great salvation.

    And then finally, in verse 20...well not finally, I'll give you one more if I have time...it's a brief one. Next to finally, verse 20, the shepherds went back. Hey, did you know that when you become a Christian and you've had the greatest imaginable transformation and you heard the revelation from God, you believed it and you've embraced Christ and you've begun to witness, when all of that has happened and you begin to think deeply about the profound realities of who God is, who Christ is and what the saving purpose of God is unfolding in the world. When you've come to that point you still have to go back to work. Life goes on, doesn't it? Life goes on. And that's analogous to what happens. You go back. Only you go back with a different attitude. You go back glorifying and praising God. That's what they did. They went back glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen just as have been told them. It was exactly the way they were told by the angel, every detail was exactly accurate. And they went back with a whole new attitude.

    I don't know what their attitude was like before they had this incredible encounter with the revelation of God. But it certainly wasn't like it is now. They may have been hopeful. They may have been worried and wondered and doubted and questioned and been wearied and all of that. But not anymore. They went back glorifying and praising God. And that too is analogous to what happens when a conversion takes place. There's a revelation. We hear the revelation of God, we believe it and we go and we embrace Christ. There's witness that follows. There's a deep pondering about great divine truth as we deepen our knowledge of the Word of God. And there is also a life attitude of praise and worship to God that marks a believer.

    Now by the time they got the whole story put together with the additional elements that Joseph and Mary would bring to bear on it, they were so filled with praise and thanks they were literally overwhelmed by it all. And they just went back glorifying and praising God for the whole thing. That's the attitudes that Christians should have. That's what we come together on the Lord's day to do, to glorify and praise God. We're not here like some churches are to entertain you, we're not here to sort of tweak your life and make you feel better about yourself. We're here to get you to stop thinking about yourself and start thinking about whom? About God, our Lord Jesus Christ. We want you to glorify and praise God. We want you to be lost in wonder, love and praise. That's why we...we have music like these songs that you hear and that you sing. We want to lift you up, we want to give expression to the praise that's in your hearts.

    They knew that this child would be the Savior, the Christ, the Lord, fulfilling Davidic promise, Abrahamic promise and the promise of the New Covenant. They couldn't restrain themselves, their lives were just filled with praise.

    And the more you know that, the deeper you think about those salvation truths, the greater you sing. Clayton commented about the fact that the music succeeds in this church because of our theology, because of our knowledge in the Word. And he's right. It's not because of the acoustics that you sing with all your heart like you do, it's not particularly because somebody whips you into that because they don't. You sing that way because it comes from deep inside, because you grasp the truth, right? And you give expression to that glorious worship.

    There's one other final verse in this section, verse 21. And it says, "And when eight days were completed, before His circumcision, His name was then called Jesus, the name given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb."

    Jewish law in the Old Testament was very explicit. According to Genesis 17:11 and 12, Leviticus 12, a boy baby born in Israel needed to be circumcised. That's what the law of God required. And we already studied that in detail back in chapter 1 verse 59 where we looked at the circumcision of John. By this time in the Jewish tradition circumcision occurred always on the eighth day, but by this time circumcision was accompanied by the official naming of the child on the eighth day. They may have known the name before then but that was the official naming of the child on the eighth day. So when eight days were completed, they came together for the circumcision and they named Him Jesus.

    Why? Because it was the name given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb. In Matthew 1:21 the angel said to Joseph, "When He's born you call Him Jesus cause He'll save His people from their sins." And when He was born that's exactly what they did. And I think that illustrates another component of the Christian life and that's obedience, isn't it?

    You know, if you could sum up our lives you could sum them up in the pattern seen illustrated here. We heard the revelation of the gospel, we believed it. We pursued Christ and embraced Him. We became witnesses to that glorious transformation and we began to tell others about it. And as Christians we began to think deeply about the great truth. We became students of the Word. We loved the truth. We loved the Word. We ponder the truth. And we also are characterized by exuberant joy and praise and gratitude to God which expresses in our worship...both singular and corporate. And our lives are marked by a desire to obey what God tells us to do.

    That's just a simple little look at the very human side of the story, the shepherds. But it does provide, I think, a good analogy or illustration of the patterns that occur in the life of one who comes to Christ. Revelation, faith, action, witness, thought, deep thought, praise and obedience.

    We're not surprised, are we, that Joseph and Mary circumcised Jesus and called Him Jesus? That's what the law of God said, He needs to be circumcised the eighth day. And the angel of God said name Him Jesus, that's the name He was given by the angel before He was conceived in Mary's womb. We know that name then was even before the conception, from the very beginning a Savior was designated by His name, Jesus.

    Why was Jesus circumcised, somebody might wonder about that. Well, because He would obey the law of God. He would fulfill all righteousness. He would be a man in every sense and so He would fulfill all those prescriptions that are human and in Israel this was required by the law of God on all male children, so it was done. That's again another remarkable indication of Jesus fulfilling all righteousness. Even before He could consciously do it God made sure that all Old Testament requirements were fulfilled in His life and as He grew in wisdom, and favor, and stature...wisdom, and stature, and favor with God and man, He personally fulfilled the law of God in its completion.

    And again I remind you that He lived a perfect life, even from His circumcision He fulfilled every aspect of God's law so that His perfect life could be credited to your account...that's what justification does. It puts your sin on Him and takes His perfect life and puts it on you.

    So at first the shepherds were afraid, but at last they were filled with overwhelming joy, overwhelming joy. Let me tell you something, folks, I mean this, there's only one reason that a person should live a fearless life, there's only one reason why a person should live a life of absolute joy and that is because they know Jesus Christ. Because if you don't know Jesus Christ, you better fear God. You better be terrified of God. For you're imminently on the brink of eternal wrath. You see, Jesus Christ is still the only foundation upon which real fearlessness can be built. You ought to fear the invisible. You ought to fear the supernatural God, the unknown...unless you know Christ and then your fear turns to joy...turns to, according to verse 10, great joy...great joy. You see, for the child of God, the invisible and eternal no longer has any terror because Christ has come out of the invisible and eternal world and dwelt among us, provided our salvation and then returned to the invisible and eternal world to prepare a place for us. That's the good news.

usalapinhazzer