Matthew 1:20-21; Luke 1:28-35; Luke 2:9-14
What Would the Angels Say?
Introduction
In this Christmas series, we have considered what Santa might say if He were in our services today, and last week we looked at what Satan might say if he were present. Today I want us to think about another group that was present on that first Christmas morning and before it, and let’s consider this thought: what would the angels say if they were present among us this morning?
Let’s read all three accounts. For your convenience they are in your bulletins, or certainly you can turn in your Bibles.
Matthew 1:20-21 says,
"But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins."
Luke 1:28-35 says,
"And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favor with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end."
Luke 2:9-14 says,
"And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men."
Wow! Can you imagine the scene as Joseph lay in bed and the angel of the Lord came to him? While he lay there sleeping, the angel came and provided the answers to some serious questions Joseph must have had about the will of God and what to do with his pregnant virgin wife-to-be. In the midst of Joseph’s wondering and waiting, the angel of the Lord appears and personally delivers the message of God. Truly God cares for His people!
What about the scene that unfolds before Mary, or with the shepherds who were watching their sheep and suddenly – in the middle of the night when all was quiet and dark, the sky lights up with the glorious presence of this heavenly being, then, after the announcement of the birth of a Savior the whole sky is full of the angelic host praising God. Were there dozens? Hundreds? Thousands or more? Who knows? But this much is clear – their message to Joseph and Mary and the shepherds was heard and heeded – because you know something? It wasn’t their message; it was God’s. These were glorified deliverymen. The angels have no message of their own to give – they can only tell you what they were created to tell – and that was the message of the Christ who was to come.
After reading these accounts, I have come to believe that the angels would say to us much the same thing that they said 2000 years ago, because you see, although times have changed, cultures have changed, clothes and music and transportation have all changed, Jesus is still the same only begotten Son of God! He is the same yesterday, today and forever! He is still the answer to man’s greatest need – the need for salvation! So, let’s look at these accounts more closely and notice three announcements they might make if they were present with us this morning.
Jesus is the Son who was.
Jesus was no ordinary Son. He was the Son of God. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…" Notice in Luke’s account to Mary that the angel said, "you will bring forth a son…He shall be called the Son of the Highest." Jesus Christ was the embodiment of all the Godhead wrapped up in the human born son of Mary.
When you look around you, notice the magnitude of the earth and its beauties. Think about the great redwoods of the west coast, or wonders like the Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls. Take your mind to places like Mt. Everest that rises 5 and a half miles above the face of the earth, the Barrier Reef. Stand at the coast and consider the vastness of the oceans and seas. Imagine lying on your back on a clear night and taking in the immensity of space, with its billions of miles and as many planets and stars. How awesome is our Creator who gave us it all to enjoy and manage! How awesome is our God who in His infinite, omnipotent creative mind spoke all things into existence! Think to yourself how awesome and magnificent the creation is! And yet – we are told not to worship the creation as so many do, but rather worship the God of the creation. As big as it all is – God is bigger, more infinite, more awesome than our minds can imagine.
I want you to think of all the stars you see at night. The distances between them are huge. The distance from the Sun to the closest star, which is named Proxima Centauri, is over 4 light years, which is equal to 24,854,847,689,493.36 miles. To walk this distance would take you about one billion years. Even our fastest space probes would take sixty thousand years to travel this distance, and remember that I told you our fastest one runs at a slow pace of over 27 miles per second. Now, from earth, you can see this star that is so far away, but if you were to travel there and look back at the earth, do you know what you would see? Nothing! It’s so small you’d never find it, like looking for a speck of dirt from the top of a water tower. Image looking for the nation of Israel from that star, or better yet, looking for Bethlehem. Let’s top that and look for a virgin girl named Mary, one girl out of a few billion from almost 25 trillion miles away! Now, if that’s next to impossible to imagine, let’s make it real and find that one microscopic egg that she carried deep inside her body, and you figure out how the God of the universe, which is beyond our ability to even imagine, took His infinite, omnipotent being and put it all inside that one little egg and miraculously fertilized it!
I don’t understand it, and neither did Mary or Joseph, and if you try to you’ll end up somewhere down in Rusk or in Wichita Falls. But listen, the angels came and announced it, "You will bring forth a son!"
Hebrews 10:25 says,
"Wherefore when he cometh into the world he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body thou has prepared me."
From the promise of the Messiah to Jesus, God was at work preparing that body that the only begotten Son of God would occupy – He was no ordinary Son! He was the Son of God! 1 John 4:9 & 10 says,
"In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten son into the world, that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."
Jesus was not the virgin born Son because God got bored or wanted to see how creative He could be. He was the Son who was because we were dead in our sins and man was lost and hopelessly condemned to suffer the wrath of God in judgment of that sin, but God loved us so much that He sent Jesus, His Son so that the people He sent Him to save could mock Him and beat Him and crucify Him to pay for their sins and ours.
Yes, not only would the angels say that He is the Son who was, but that…
Jesus is the Savior who is.
To the shepherds the angels said, "There is born to you a Savior!" To Mary and Joseph they said, "You will call his name JESUS…" and to Joseph, they added, "because He will save His people from their sins." The name Jesus means Jehovah saves! He was sent to be the propitiation for our sins. That’s a fancy word that means that Jesus shed His blood on the cross of Calvary to pay the ransom for your sins.
Isaiah shows us how God poured out His wrath on Jesus, wrath that belonged to you and to me, and He saw the travail of His soul and was satisfied. In one of Peter’s sermons he said,
"Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole. This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."
It is the name of Jesus! There is salvation in no other! Had salvation been possible any other way Jesus wouldn’t have had to be born those many years ago. He could have stayed in heaven shouting "ataboys" at everybody as they earned their way to heaven. But there’s salvation no other way. Jesus said that He was the way, the only way, "for no man comes to the Father except through me."
Jesus is man’s only hope because "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God," and "the wages of sin is death," "but God commended His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Listen, if you’ve never been saved, if you’ve never placed your faith in Christ, then you need to call on the name of the Lord today. Quit trying to be good enough, quit trying to be religious, quit trying to clean up your life and get things straightened out. Quit trying to earn God’s favor. He can’t love you any more than He does at this very moment. You may not have a friend in the world or anybody who understands you – but God loves you and wants to save you. What you need to do is admit to yourself and to God that you’re a sinner and that you’ll never be good enough. You need a Savior and His name is Jesus.
There’s salvation in no other. Paul said,
"That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation."
I want you to listen to me carefully. Don’t make the same mistake the Jews made. They rejected Christ and are in hell today because they thought they were so righteous. They rejected Him because He wasn’t what they thought a Savior ought to be. It doesn’t matter how sincere you are in your efforts to please God – if you’ve never repented of your sin and placed your faith in Christ you’ll die and go to hell. For too many its too late – but for you "today is the day of salvation."
The angels might say that Jesus is the Son who was, that He is the Savior who is, and then…
Jesus is the King who shall be.
Notice what the angels said to Mary. They said,
"He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end."
Way back in 2 Samuel 7 God promised David that his offspring would occupy the throne of Israel forever. We call it the Davidic Covenant, and it stated God’s plan that has yet to be carried out. Jesus didn’t come to be king the first time. He didn’t come to rule with an iron first and establish His eternal kingdom – He came instead as the Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world. Jesus was the Deliverer and Savior of the world, and God’s plan was for Jesus to come first as Savior and second as King. The Jews missed it.
Because of His miracles and wonders and teaching, the people would gladly have made Jesus king. Satan tried to get Jesus to take a shortcut, and many others did too, but it was not time, and to this day it has not been time, but I tell you that just as sure as Jesus came the first time in fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, He’s coming again the second time in fulfillment of other prophecy and the world had better be ready. Jesus isn’t coming back meek and mild riding in on a donkey. He’s not coming back to be mocked and scorned and rejected. When Jesus comes back again He’ll be riding a white stallion with His sword drawn as the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords! He’s coming to claim His kingdom, to destroy all other kingdoms with the word of His mouth. There’ll be retaliation, no war to fight for the throne, none of it.
When Jesus returns He’s coming to judge the nations and put an end to all unrighteousness and He’ll establish His eternal kingdom over which He’ll be the king. There’ll be no time for last minute conversions on that day. There’ll be no plea bargaining – no begging and reasoning, because today is the day of salvation. Jesus isn’t going to feel sorry for you when you’ve had this opportunity and many others to accept Him as the only begotten Son of God, as the Savior of the world, as the coming King. Your chance is right now.
Conclusion
I have often wondered as we have these invitations week after week why it is that people don’t respond to the Lord’s pleading. There is nothing more valuable or precious to God on this earth than your soul. He sent His Son, the Son whose birth we celebrate this month, so you could be saved. Jesus asked the question one day, "What will a man give in exchange for his soul?" He stated that all the treasures and power and respect and influence you could ever have on earth can’t even begin to compare with your soul’s worth.
Will you accept the Lord’s invitation today? How will you respond to Christ today?
