All right, if you'd return in
your Bibles to Luke chapter two, Luke chapter two. All right,
let's seek the Lord in prayer. Our Father, we thank you that
you spared not your own son, but you sent him into the world,
born of a woman, born under the law, that he might redeem us
who are under the law, that you might redeem us from
the curse of the law. Lord, we are amazed that you
would do it at all. We are mystified by how you did
it. We'll not pretend to understand
those things, but we believe them. and our hearts rejoice
in the knowledge of them. I ask, Lord, as we go forward
in this worship service, that you would give me a spirit of
preaching, that your message would be more than simply the
delivery of true facts, but it would become the living and powerful
word of God that is able to cut through all our religious facade
and reach our hearts and reveal what's in there. For Lord, to
the unbelieving, such a word would be a warning, and it would lay bare to them
their need of the Savior. And to such of us who have already
believed, it would be a great comfort. For often, Lord, we
wonder whether or not we really believe. We look at ourselves and we cannot
imagine that people like us are your children. But when your
powerful word touches our hearts, the Spirit of God says, or cries
from our hearts, I am a father. And we are reminded once again,
we are children of the living God. So Lord, bless this message.
Bless this church. Be with those who endure trouble
at this time. We ask that for the sick, you'd
give them healing. For the troubled, you'd give
them comfort. We pray, Lord, also for the community
in which we live, and we ask that the gospel would reach them as
well. Bless the preaching we do through
the radio, and may it find your sheep. We pray for our nation. And what
can we say for it, Lord, but have mercy. Save us from ourselves. Preserve our peace. And most of all, Lord, we pray
that through the preaching of your gospel, the fear of the
Lord would be common in this country. For it is written by
the fear of the Lord, men depart from evil. We know that no government
can write sufficient laws that men will be restrained. But we
know that if the living God is commonly preached and known among
the population, it makes it a better place. So we pray, Lord, you
do that. But in all things, glorify your
name and the name of your son. And it's in his name we pray
it. Amen. We'll read just verse 12, excuse
me, verse 11. This is the angel speaking. We
don't know which of the angels, only a few of them in the scriptures
are ever mentioned by name. And I honestly don't know if
those names are given to specific angels, but they just had a specific
meaning for whatever angel appeared at that time. But an angel, a
messenger, that's the broad meaning of the Greek word, angelos, which
we pronounce as angel, just a messenger. But it was commonly thought of
as a messenger from God and therefore an angel, such as we think of
it. But this angel was sent and he said, today in the town of
David, A Savior has been born to you. He is Christ the Lord. After Christ finished his work,
when he was done, he said, it is finished, bowed his head and
gave up the ghost. They buried him. God raised him
from the dead. He spent about 40 days giving
some final instructions to his disciples. and explaining to
them the meaning of everything he had told them before he died,
and they still didn't understand. And truth be known, when he ascended
to the right hand of the Father, they were still rather puzzled
until the day of Pentecost when the Spirit came. And the Spirit
entered them and miraculously created understanding in them.
They suddenly understood things which had been very foggy to
them up to that point. But when Christ ascended on high,
He sent his spirit to empower common men chosen by him to go
out and preach the gospel. And of course, there were at
first sent out 11 of the original apostles. Judas had betrayed
the Lord and committed suicide. So there's only 11 left. And
I don't know how much later it was, but sometime later, God
added the 12th, the Apostle Paul. And Paul said in 1 Corinthians,
woe unto me if I do not preach the gospel. Men were sent to
preach the gospel. Here it is, you know, nearly
2,000 years later, and here stands another man. just some guy, that's
me, preaching the gospel. Since the day of Pentecost, God
has used men to preach the gospel. But when Christ comes into the
world to begin the gospel and mark The gospel of Mark begins
with the words, the beginning of the gospel of Christ, gospel
of God. But as the gospel begins to unfold
here in history, God sends an angel to declare it. And you
say, I don't see the word gospel in here. That's true. But if
you could read Greek, you would see the word gospel in here.
In verse 10, the angel said to them, do not be afraid, I bring
you, and right there it says good news. And that is the Greek
word that's translated good news there, is very simply the word
that in nearly every other place is translated the gospel. In
fact, it's made up of the word for angel, or messenger, hence
a message, and then just the Greek prefix for good in front
of it. Good news. I'm a bit of a news junkie. I've told you all before I can't
stand a closed door. I like to know everything that's
going on. But here's one thing that people who publish the news
know. Common phrase among newspapers
is, if it bleeds, it leads. People love bad news. I've heard
people say, well, why don't we just have a newspaper full of
good news? Nobody'd buy it. You say, but everybody wants
good news. No, they don't. It's sad, but it's the truth
about us. We open the newspaper, and when the Titanic sank, you
can imagine what a headline that made. Pearl Harbor, huge headline.
You pick up your newspaper, and with the exception maybe of Christmas
Day, the front page is gonna be full of bad news. I get all my news from the internet,
and it is just almost completely bad news. But the angel comes,
and he said, I've got good news. Good news. And in reality, brothers
and sisters, this is the only good news there's ever been.
That is the only good news that's good in and of itself. All other
truly good news is founded upon this good news. For if this good
news never took place, neither would any other good news ever
come to pass. And as Brother Scott Richardson
said, years ago, he said, ever since I heard the good news,
I've never heard any bad news. It is a wondrous thing that not
only are the specific historical events that we call the gospel,
not only are they good news, but the Apostle Paul in Romans
8 chapter 28 tells us that really everything's good news because
God works everything together for the good of them who love
him, who are the called, according to his purpose. I'm not saying
there's no sad news. I'm not saying there's no distressing
news. Never said there's news that doesn't bring us pain and
tears. But if you are in Christ, there is no news which can be
of eternal bad consequences for you. In fact, whatever it is,
and I say this with a little fear and trembling because I
don't want God to call me on it. You know, I've heard preachers
say things just so proud, and I think to myself, it's because
you've never experienced it that you feel so confident. But everything that happens,
happens for your salvation, if you are in Christ, if you are
the called according to his purpose, and if by that call you've been
made to love him. Now, if you don't love him, and if you never
love him, This is true of you. Everything is working for your
destruction. Everything. There is nothing
good. But the news here, the good news,
he says, I bring you good news. God preached the gospel first
by an angel. Let's analyze the gospel's or
the angel's message. I read an article two or three
months ago. I've used the word analyze a lot in my life. I never really knew what its
meaning was except, you know, how we pick up the meaning of
words just by hearing people use them. But strictly it means
to take apart. To analyze something is to break
it down into its constituent parts, try to examine each one. That's analysis. And then we,
what they call synthesis is putting all that back together. But analysis. Let's analyze. Look at each part
of what the angel said, because everything he said in the next
verse is important and bears upon the gospel. Now, what is
it he is declaring? A Savior. A Savior. You know why the gospel is really
not appreciated in the world? Because people want a helper,
not a Savior. Remember that word, save. or
savior just means rescue or rescuer. And we really don't like admitting
that we need rescued. We've been taught to admit we
need help. We can't quite get it all done. But we don't like the idea that
we can't get anything done. That we're like drowning men
and every effort we make only makes the situation worse. We're
like people in quicksand who every move they make trying to
extract themselves from the quicksand only causes them to sink further.
That we have no hope, absolutely none, other than someone come
from somewhere else and pull us out. Men don't want a savior. They
want a helper, they want a friend, they want a buddy. They want
someone who'll smooth out the rough places of their life. But
the angel came and said, this is good news. There's a Savior. There's a Savior. You know, one reason I think
that he came to these shepherds is because these shepherds were
looking for a Savior. You know, shepherds, I read this
the other day, I assume it's true, your common shepherd, not
the head shepherd who actually owned the sheep, but the hired
hands, they were considered very low in the social strata. It was kind of the job you took
if you couldn't do anything else, because pretty much you just
sat there and you watched. And if The wolf came along, you
try to scare it away. But most of them were hirelings,
and as the Lord said, if the flock is in danger too much,
they run. They'll abandon the flock. These men were probably
of the same character as, well, we actually have come up with
a mythological version of it, but the cowboy of the Old West.
Now, cowboys in Indians movies have turned them into these noble
people. Cowboys were for the most part
people who lived on the run. They were out on the range, many
of them, because they didn't want to be found. Rough people. That's what these shepherds were.
Certainly in the eyes of society, they were nobody. But no matter
how rough they may have been inside, I am assuming that these
were some of the Lord's elect. These were some God had chosen
from the foundation of the world, and for all their gruffness,
for all their low position, they longed for a Savior. They looked
for a Savior, and a Savior was sent to them, and an angel was
sent to them to tell them about it. The angel was not sent to the
palace where Herod ruled as king. Why? Herod wasn't interested
in the Savior. Didn't think he needed one. Herod
liked being the king. He didn't want any competition.
So the angel didn't go there. He didn't go to the city of Rome,
center of the Roman Empire. He didn't address Caesar Augustus. The one whom God had used and
put it in his mind to take a census and collect a tax which would
make it so that Joseph had to go down to Bethlehem so that
the Lord Jesus would be born there according to prophecy.
You know, Caesar had no clue he was bringing to pass the purpose
of God when one day or whatever he thought, I need some tax money,
time to send everybody back to their hometown to register and
pay their tax. But in that action, he was a
cog in the wheel of God's eternal purpose. But the angel was never
sent to him. So far as I know, Caesar Augustus
was never aware that in the province of Israel, one of the Roman provinces,
there had been born a baby who was declared king of the Jews
but was in all reality Lord of heaven and earth. He lived and
died in utter ignorance of the Savior. Because no messenger
was sent to him. But it was sent to these shepherds
here. Sent to them also because, you
know, there's nothing that shepherds need, or sheep need, more than
a shepherd is there. If they've got a good shepherd,
they'll have everything else they need. And shepherds understand
that. Well, there's nothing that sinners
need more than a Savior. If they've got a good Savior,
everything's taken care of. And in fact, this Savior often
presented himself in the picture of a shepherd who lays down his
life for the sheep. And therefore, at his birth,
the angel is sent to those who will understand something of
what Christ has come to do. Shepherds. What kind of a Savior
is he? Now the angel doesn't specify
it here. I don't know if we have all the words the angel said,
but in the things that were recorded that the angel said, he doesn't
specifically describe what kind of Savior the Lord Jesus would
be. But in the book of Matthew, when
the angel speaks to Joseph to tell him it's all right to go
ahead and marry Mary, Even though she's pregnant, he says, don't
worry about it. Don't worry about the scandal associated with it.
Don't worry that she's been unfaithful to you. She hasn't. What's in
her has been conceived by the Holy Spirit. So you take her
as your wife. And when she gives birth, you
are to give that boy the name Jesus, because he will save his
people from their sin. Now I do a good bit of reading
on the internet. And it is remarkable to think that people have a Bible
in their hands and yet perceive the gospel the way they do. Perceive
salvation to be what they think it is. They think the glorious
gospel of the blessed God is about making themselves happy,
emotionally happy throughout this life. Well, remember that
the Savior who came during the time of his natural life here,
was known as the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Why
would you think it would be any different for his people? Some say that Jesus Christ came
and they take that scripture by his stripes we are healed
and they try to preach that Jesus Christ came so that there would
be healing for everyone and if you aren't healed the real problem
is you don't have enough faith. Is that really so? Then how come
any of the apostles ever died? They were men of faith, weren't
they? Folks, we're going to get sick.
If we don't die early, we're going to grow old. We are going
to go through everything unbelievers go through. We are not exempt
from any of the troubles of this life. We aren't exempt from financial
troubles, from health troubles, from mental troubles. We aren't
exempt from any of the standard troubles that come about just
by circumstances over which we have no control. If the flood
comes, it's going to flood Christians' homes as well as it floods un-Christian
homes. If a tornado passes through town,
it's not going to just go and say, all right, I've got to find
the unbelievers and tear up their house. It's going to go straight
through town. It's going to hit every house
that's in the path that God ordained. And some of it's going to be
the homes of believers. And in fact, it might suck up
some believers and throw them hither and yon, and their life
will be over. The Lord Jesus Christ did not
come to make this life good. Why? Because this isn't life.
This is a slow walking death. And he came to save us out of
it. And he came to save us out of it by saving us from the very
thing that made this life a walking death, sin. Now, most folks don't
want to be saved from sin. They'd like to be saved in their
sin. That is, they would like to go on sinning and never have
to pay for it. Who wouldn't want that? They'd
like a get-out-of-jail-free card. But most people love their sin.
They would be quite happy to continue on in it. And the only
reason they ever try to restrain any of the outbreaks of their
sin is because of what they think it will cost them if they get
caught. You've heard the phrase, power
corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. You know why that
is? Because the more power people think they have, the more they
think they can get away with. Do you know why this, of course,
what's just recently been brought out into public light, all the
sexual harassment and assault and people suddenly being brought
down? Have you noticed this? It's all powerful people. And
the reason they did it was not because they're any worse than
the rest of us. Their position made them think they could get
away with it. You say, I'd like to be powerful. No. Don't look
for riches or power, friends. Be content with enough. Because
too much, too much makes us take our eyes off of Christ. and set
our eyes on the things of this world, and we begin to believe
we can do whatever we want because nobody can do anything about
it. But folks don't want to be saved
from sin, do they? But Jesus Christ came to save
from sin. Let me ask you a question. Would
you like to be free from sin? I'm not saying would you like
to be free from punishment. I'm saying would you like to
be free from sin. I think it's interesting in the
book of Revelation as it's kind of given the wind up of history.
The wind up of all that God has purposed for this reality as
we know it. And it says this, let him that
is righteous be righteous still, let him that is filthy be filthy
still. Now he's talking about condition
in time continuing on in eternity and he doesn't say let certain
people go to heaven and let certain people go to hell though that
would have been accurate but by the way that God describes
the eternal condition he describes it not in terms of whether you
feel good or don't it's a matter of what kind of being are you
a righteous one or a filthy one And from what we read in the
scriptures, God considers it a horrible thing to be filthy
and a wonderful thing to be clean and righteous. Now, have you
ever noticed this about your children, especially little ones,
especially little boys? They hate taking baths. You know
why? They don't mind being dirty.
Now, after you've grown up, you know, most grownups don't like
being dirty. And they don't look at taking
a shower as a horrible thing to do. They want to be clean. And those who have been the objects
of God's gracious work want to be clean. Little boys just want to avoid
showers. Salvation from sin. The Lord Jesus Christ, he saves
us from death, but not directly. He saves us from death by saving
us from sin. He saves us from wrath, but not
directly. He saves us from wrath by saving
us from sin. And the same thing can be said
about all the things that come upon us because of sin. I hear people say that Jesus
was a radical. Well, he was. Much more of a
radical than they understand. The word radical, it's etymology, that is where
the word came from. You could use, call him a rootical. The R-A-D and R-O-O-T all come
from the same source. And our Lord Jesus was a radical
in this sense. He got down to the very root
of the matter. Nothing superficial about his
work. He did not come to put a new coat of varnish on us.
He did not come to knock off the rough edges. It's not like
we were antiques and he's gonna try to spruce them up a bit.
He came to utterly deliver from sin, a savior. One reason that people don't
recognize him, didn't recognize him and don't this day, he did
not come to accomplish anything political or social. Really,
he didn't. Now I know this, his gospel has
accomplished a great deal of social and political progress
in this world. And where the gospel, the gospel
of God is most known and most held in honor, society is at
its best. But that's not what the Lord
came for. He came to save from sin. How did he come? It's written
here, it says, unto you is born a Savior. Born a Savior. Now Jesus Christ did not descend
from heaven like that angel did to bring the message. He came
in a most mysterious fashion, and in a way that we cannot wrap
our minds around, the eternal God became a human being. And it was not just the eternal
God inhabiting a human being. That human being was and is God. Now you say, how can that be?
God's omnipresent. He's everywhere, but Jesus is
just in one spot. I told you it was a mystery.
I'll leave that to God to figure that out. All I can do is open
the book and tell you what's in there. This is the Lord. This is the one who Moses said,
what's your name? And he said, my name's I am.
This is him. No baby born of a woman. Now they mentioned born here.
Cause that's as far back as their understanding of biology would
take it. They didn't realize, as you and I can, and this is
astounding to think of, at one point our God was a single cell,
a single cell within the womb of Mary. And had not the angel
told her, she wouldn't have known he was there. And that that cell, just like
you and I, when we were conceived in our mothers, split into two,
then four, eight, 16, on and on, it began to differentiate
into the different aspects of the human body. But the whole
time, that's God in our world. That's amazing. And on this night was the time
of his appearance to the world. And Mary went into labor, not
some special painless labor, but the same kind of labor every
other woman would have gone through given birth to her firstborn. But her firstborn, what a different
person he was. He's the son of God. Joseph was
there, but Joseph had nothing to do with this. It's expressly
written that Joseph had no relations with Mary until after the Lord
Jesus was born. Why? Just to make the point,
this is not Joseph's son. He will live in Joseph's house.
He will be subject to Joseph, just like any of Joseph's other
natural born children would have. But his father is God. He's born. He's born that He might be one
of us. He's born that He might dwell
among us. He's born that as a human being,
He might suffer everything we suffer, yet do it all in perfect
righteousness and holiness before God. He's born as a human being
that He might be our substitute, and He's born so that He can
die. If He'd never been born, He never
could have died. You see, the Lord Jesus cannot save us apart from dying. And He cannot die apart from
becoming mortal. How can the living God become
mortal? Once again, you'll have to ask God that. And I honestly
don't think He could explain it to you in a way that you'd
be able to understand. That's why He didn't put it in the book.
He just said that's the way it is and we believe it. He is the
Son of God, born into this world. The angel further identified
Him this way. This Savior is the Christ, the
Messiah, as the Hebrews would have called it. They knew about
Him. They've been looking for Him.
Some of them, I bet you these shepherds have been looking for
Him. They may not have understood really why He was coming and
what He was going to do when He got here, but they knew there was
a promise. of a prince, Messiah the Prince,
Daniel called him. And according to what some of
the rabbis were saying, it was about the time Daniel said this
Messiah would show up. And so they're watching. They're
watching and waiting for him. In the Jewish mind, that is the
believing Jewish mind, all the hopes of Israel were wrapped
up in him. What they were going to find
out is that all the hopes of all the world were wrapped up
in him. But they're looking for Messiah,
Christ the Lord. And I don't know, there's no
way to be certain, whether by that phrase, the Lord, that the
angel meant that Jesus Christ would be the king and in charge.
That's true, he would be. But it also could be that the
angel used the common way of the Jews would speak the Lord's
name, Jehovah's name. Throughout nearly all the Old
Testament, whenever that Hebrew word, Yavah, would come up, you'll
find it in our English translations, the Lord, with the word Lord
written in all capital letters. And that's Primarily because
the Jews in fear of breaking the law that says they weren't
to take the Lord's name in vain. They wouldn't use it at all.
Whenever they get to that name, they'd say Adonai the Lord. And
so it became the common way of speaking the name of God. Maybe
what the angel was saying that would have been true. This is
Christ Jehovah. This is Christ. And you know, when Thomas came
to full faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, what was his confession? My Lord and my God. He is our God. It says in the book of Hebrews,
when he comes into the world, God says, let all the angels
worship him. God called some Magi from the
East. Imagine that. For the sake of
the glory and honor of his son, he takes three men who don't
know anything about God, who are wrapped up in superstition,
who look to the stars to try to figure things out, so God
stuck a special kind of light in the sky to direct them to
where his son was, that they might worship him. He is the Lord. For whom did he come? He said,
The Savior is born unto you. Now, I can't say that to anybody,
because I don't know who it is Christ came for. I know this,
He didn't come for everybody, because if He had, He'd have
gotten everybody. Our Lord says that of all that was given to
Him, He's not going to lose any. So unless you conclude that everybody's
saved, you have to conclude that not everyone was given to him
by the Father as a trust for him to save them. But we do know
this, everyone he came for, he'll get. That's why I figure these
shepherds were among God's elect, because the angel said, this
Savior came for you. He's for you. Now I can tell
you this, with all the authority of scripture if you want this
Savior he's yours he came for you now he's not yours because
you want him but if you truly want this Savior
and the kind of salvation he brings it is evidence that he
came for you because if he doesn't come for
you You're not going to want what
he has anyway. Unto you. And think of that.
Paul later described it this way. You see you're calling an
election. How God's not called, He's not chosen many of you who
are pretty smart, who are powerful, who are significant. There's
not many of you like that. But rather God's chosen to base
things. And right here they are. Just about as base as you can
get in Israel. Shepherds. For whom did he come? He came for those who needed
him. He came for those who looked
for him. He came for those that longed
for him. And I like this point that the angel makes. When did
he come? Today. For at least 4,000 years, the
message of God had been someday. There in the Garden of Eden,
someday the seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent. In Noah's day, someday there'll
be an arc of safety for people to run for refuge. Abraham could
say, someday God will provide himself a sacrifice. Someday
there'll be blood on the altar. Someday there'll be a branch
come from Jesse's stomp, someday, someday, someday. And the angel
said, today. Oh, what a wondrous thought,
today. For thousands of years, there
were people who waited. And they lived their entire lives
never arriving at that day. But it came anyway, didn't it?
Now they were not the eternal losers by it. They still gained
all the benefit of that day. But what does this tell us? That
all the someday promises of God will someday be today. Today,
he actually did come exactly as he said he would come. At
the time ordained by God, he came and he did what he was sent
to do. And the scriptures say, someday
he'll come again. And this time, not to bear sin,
but to bring salvation to all who wait for him. Now he came
and brought salvation to some shepherds out in the field who
were waiting for him. And someday he will return. And on that day, the voice of
the archangel will say, today. Today he comes, and he brings
salvation with him. And all of God's elect from every
age will be raised from the dead, given new bodies like the body
of the Lord Jesus Christ, and all who are still alive, because
there's going to be some believers that never die, like Enoch, they're
just going to be changed. It says that Enoch walked with
God. My mother used to say, Enoch walked with God, and one day
God said, let's just go home. And the Lord will say, come on
home. And in the twinkling of an eye, every one of God's people
will be made like Christ. Someday, that will be today. Just like at one time, this someday
became today. One last point quickly. He said unto you is born this
day in the city of David a Savior. And that's a glorious truth.
But understand this, that's the only one that's been born. There
is no other Savior. People say, well, you're being
too narrow. I'm only being as narrow as God
is. I'm only being narrow as the Savior himself is. He says,
I'm the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father
except through me, through Christ. There is none other name given
among men under heaven, whereby we must be saved. It's the only
one. There's one God and one mediator
between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. Now brethren, he
is a good way, he is a sufficient way, but he is the only way. God has made no other path to
his favor other than the Lord Jesus Christ. And while we don't rejoice in
the death of anyone, we must say that anyone who attempts
to come to God by any other means than the Lord Jesus Christ shall
be eternally condemned. God has set forth his son and
he has said, submit to him, worship him, trust him, and you will find my salvation.
Any other path is one of the lanes of that broad road that
leads to destruction. There's a way that seems right
unto a man, but the ends thereof are death. But there's one really
good road that human wisdom would never recognize. It's Christ
Jesus, and it ends in everlasting life. But in order for it to end in
our everlasting life, it must begin with his natural life,
which he gave up for us. He took upon our death that we
might have his life. He took upon our sin that we
might have his righteousness. He took upon God's wrath, took
upon himself God's wrath due unto us that we might have God's
blessings due unto Christ. And so far as the world could
see, it all started about 2,000 years ago with a little baby
born in a backwater city of a backwater country that nobody thought anything
of. But the Lord God had a people,
and he sent a savior unto them, and he did all that was required
for their salvation, and he went back to where he came from, and
someday he'll take us all there to be with him. Heavenly Father,
thank you for your son. I pray that this message will
have a good effect on the hearts of those who have come. In Christ's
name, we pray it. Amen. Okay, Eric?