R573 The Hark Of The Herald Angels Pt.1

God has an encouraging word for you and me today through the Bible-based teaching of Dr. Don Wilton about the Herald Angels. Yes, today Dr. Wilton talks about the hark of the Herald Angels.

As we open God's Word together, we'll head to Luke chapter 2 in just a moment. But if you haven't opened our website lately, let me encourage you to do so. It's TEWOnline.org. That's TEWOnline.org. There you'll find not only the beautiful leather-bound devotional that we're excited to launch into 2022 with, but you'll also find Dr. Wilton's book called Saturdays with Billy, a remarkable, wonderful book about the time that Dr. Wilton spent over the last 20 years as being the pastor of Dr. Billy Graham.

That and so many more resources are there on our website at TEWOnline.org. And now today's message, the hark of the Herald Angels. The hark of the Herald Angels, one of our most favorite of Christmas carols, Hark the Herald Angels Sing.

Now, this is interesting within itself. We've already discovered that angels play a very prominent part in the dispensation of God's grace and of the things that God would so deem necessary for people like you and me. That little word herald there is an interesting word. I thought for a minute it came from the Spartanburg Herald Journal, but then I began to read and discover a lot more about it. That word herald there is literally the word company or gathering together. It is the hark of the gathering together of God's angels. But that word herald there also carries further significance because that word can also mean the bearer of the gospel. There is a sense in which all of those of us who love the Lord Jesus Christ are heralds. We sound forth, we gospelize the gospel. We herald forth the gospel. The Spartanburg Herald Journal is the secular means by which news is sent out or sent forth.

It is a collection together on a daily basis of news items that are then heralded out. They are sent forth. There is a sense in which when I stand here this morning, I am God's herald. The choir is heralding the message of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, what's the hark? I like that.

It's positively British, isn't it? The hark of the herald angels. Well, the hark is literally the message which the company of angels sound forth on behalf of Almighty God. Hark, the herald angels sing glory, praise to this newborn king. And then the message which encapsulates or epitomizes or summarizes or provides a praisee of the message of the Lord Jesus Christ, the hark of the herald angels. Well, I want us to look at that this morning. I want you to take your Bibles and turn with me to Luke's gospel in chapter two.

We're going to be in one of my most favorite passages of scripture, dealing with the shepherds and the appearance of the angel to the shepherds. I always love the story about the shepherds, and I just confess this to you because I'm one of those men who at one time in my life, I went to boarding school. I know not a lot of you have been to boarding school.

Martin Wildman and I fit into that category together. We both went to boarding school. And when you get a whole lot of boys together at boarding school, they can do anything they want. And I've always loved this thing about the shepherds, because here was our carol about the shepherds.

It went like this at boarding school. While shepherds washed their socks by night, all seated round the tub, a bar of sunlight soap came down and they began to scrub. I just... Steve told me after this morning service, that's going on to the new CD.

I just wanted you to know. But I love this story about shepherds. You know, that's what Christmas is all about, folks.

Christmas is about joy. It's about real people living in a real world, knowing a real Lord Jesus Christ, who came and was born for real in a real manger, and lived a real life and died a real death and rose again for real from the grave, ascended to be seated at the right hand of the Father, makes intercession for you and for me for real, is going to come back in person, literally and bodily, to receive us unto himself. What part did the angels have to play in this? The hawk of the herald of angels. Let's read together in verse eight of Luke chapter two. And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel, singular, let's notice this, an angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone round about them.

Now, just stop there for a moment, because I want to show you something. Did you notice here that the Bible says that the glory of the Lord shone round about them? Now, we normally associate and depict that glory as shining around the angel.

And so we should be. But do you know that here, this is definitively tied into the shepherds themselves. Now, I'm going to show you something that's very interesting here, my friends, because the hawk of the heralds or the message that God uses through the angels to be transmitted to us, God immediately is beginning to show a connectedness between the glory that is associated with God in heaven and the glory that is made available to all people upon the earth. And there is a real sense in which the angels, God is using the angels to connect the Shekinah glory of a God who is enthroned in the heavens above for all time and all eternity with the mere mortality and frailty of mere man upon this earth. And in fact, in just a moment, we're going to discover that the angels gathering together say glory to God in the highest and on earth. Peace to all men. The angels are the one who make that connection between the God of heaven and the Lord of the earth and the dispensation of the grace of God, which results in the dispensation of the peace of God upon all people.

Now, friends, this is something very interesting here. What happened in Bethlehem was so singularly significant that God would reach down from the portals of heaven and because of his love, he would send the Christ child who became sin for us, even though he knew no sin. And when Jesus was born in Bethlehem's manger in that place called Bethlehem, Jesus Christ was literally bringing heaven to earth and the dispensation of the grace of God is heralded by the angels themselves. The heart of the angels has to do with the good news and the connection between the love of God and the hope that all people have in Christ Jesus.

Now, watch how this works. Verse eight, nine, an angel of the Lord appeared, the glory of the Lord shone around about them and they were terrified. I would have been too. But the angel said to them, do not be afraid, for I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people. Today in the town of David, a savior has been born to you.

And here is a definitive statement. He, this one, the savior, is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you. You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. Suddenly, a great company, here it is, the herald of angels. Suddenly, a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel.

Get the picture here, folks. There's one angel. This one angel comes down. The glory of the Lord is manifest. The glory of heaven is brought down to rest upon mankind, upon this earth. Despite their sinfulness, God had a plan and God understood that it was through this baby, Jesus Christ, that the manifestation of the glory of God from heaven was going to be able to come down upon this earth. It was the only way.

It was God's way. And here the angel is making this announcement and all of a sudden he is surrounded by a heavenly host. And together they begin to say glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men on whom the favor and the shekinel glory of almighty God rests. I'm here to announce something to you. I'm here to tell you that the eternal sovereign God has so decreed that all that he has in store in heaven for all time and eternity for his own son is now being made available to all people by virtue of the fact that his grace and favor will come and rest upon all people by virtue of this one who is Christ the Lord.

Wow. That's what Christmas is all about. This is the Christmas message. The Hawk of the Herald Angels. Well, let's see what happened when the angels had left them and gone into heaven. Just by the way, where do angels live?

Anybody know? In heaven. They're in heaven. I wish I had time to get in the book of Revelation, do some eschatology here this morning. But I want you to know that when you get into the book of Revelation, we find time after time after time after time after time that the heavenly hosts, the gathering of the angels, the number of humuses of the sand of the sea gather together around the throne of God and they sing and they praise his name and they fall down and they worship him. But you know something, friends, it's true.

I'm just going to tell you something. When I look out across the congregation and I see someone standing there at Christmas time and looking like they're recovering from hookworm treatment and we're singing glory to God in the highest and Hawk the Herald Angels and I say to myself, my, oh, my, oh, my, are you going to be in for a surprise? Because when you get to heaven, you are going to sing your voice out.

Because that's what the Bible teaches. Well, look what happens here. When the angels had left them, gone back into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has told us about.

Friends, did you notice that? Did you notice here that the shepherds didn't say which the angel told us about? Remember that angels are not a substitute for God. We are never given permission in the Bible to ever magnify, revere, worship or adore angels or saints or anybody else in between.

It runs in the face of God. It is idolatry. The Bible says it is idolatrous. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. The shepherds did not have the permission of Almighty God to revere the angels or to even refer to the angels because they understood that anything that the angels did is attributable in totality to Almighty God. That's what the Bible teaches.

Well, look what happens. Bible says, let's go to Bethlehem, see this thing that has happened which the Lord has told us about. They weren't even corrected. One of the angels didn't say, excuse me, it wasn't the Lord, it was an angel. They knew it was the Lord. They knew that angels couldn't say anything without the Lord. They knew that they were the emissaries of the Lord.

They only spoke with the authority of the Lord and they could only acknowledge who God is. So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph and the baby who was lying in the manger. And when they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherd said to them. But Mary treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for all the things they'd heard and seen which were just as they had been told. The accuracy of the hark of the herald angels. It was right on the button.

Why? Because they were speaking with the voice of God. Nothing more accurate than that. Well, there's much to be said about angels. We've discovered three truths which I believe to be the overriding truth. Number one, that angels are not a shortcut to God. Number two, angels are not a substitute for God. And number three, angels are not a safe haven from God.

They can never protect us or prevent us from all that God is. Angels are not a shortcut to God and they're not a substitute for God and they can never be a safe haven from God. And the shepherds here, I think, understood that more than we do, perhaps. And so it is that when we look at angels in Christmas, we discover a number of things. I want to share them with you. Number one, we discover that angels are individual.

They come one at a time on one select item at a time with one specific purpose at a time. They are singularly significant and stand at the express commandment of Almighty God. And once again, that is reinforced here when the angel appears to the shepherds. Number two, angels are a company.

They gather. There is such a thing as a heavenly host. There is a herald of angels, a company of the committed. Number three, they speak with the voice of God. The shepherds reinforce that. This is nothing that the shepherds would do anything less than to give absolute glory and honor to the words which God had spoken to them.

And number four, they have something very important to say. Now, I want to just say this to you before we go on. Hasn't it been remarkable to note that every time an angel appears, whatever it is that the angel has to say is very, very important.

I think we can conclude that. In fact, I haven't found a time of frivolity as far as the angels are concerned. I have never found a time in scripture yet.

I hope I don't. I have not found an instant yet where the angels came around and wallowed in their own self-pity or wasted someone's time. There was always an express purpose with a monumentally significant and important message that they had to transmit to the person God had sent them to speak to. And so it seems to me that there must be something very important about the heart of these angels.

I want to submit two things to you this morning. I want to say to you that their hark, the hark of the angel, is very important in message. It is a message. And it is important, number one, perhaps first and foremost, because it is designed for people just like you and me. What is the message of the angel?

Hark, the herald angels sing. What is important about this message? It's important lies in the fact that it is designed for people just like you and me. I've got an announcement to make, which is not my announcement. God has given to us this announcement, for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not die, but should have eternal life.

What God is saying to us is that His message is designed for people just like you and me. Indeed it is a message designed for you and for me and not just for us to hold, but to share. And we're having the opportunity to share the love of Christ with so many people, and yet an opportunity is on the horizon to share with even more.

As we take just a pause in the broadcast today, we'll be back with the rest of today's message with Dr. Wilton in just a moment. I would like to ask Dr. Wilton to share just a bit of the insight on what's happening about this challenged giving at the end of the year. Wow, God has done incredible things again this year through the encouraging word broadcast ministry. Do you know that over 135,000 people have called us telling us what this ministry means to them in their spiritual life, and so many are coming to know Jesus. A friend has just given a $200,000 challenge gift to this ministry, and we are asking, as he is asking, that our listeners will give an additional $300,000 to this ministry by December 31st so that God's word can continue to go out across the world. In London recently, someone came up to me and said, thank you for the encouraging word and for what it means. Would you help me do this? If all of us participated, even at $2 to $3 to $4 each, God will help us to reach this goal together.

Yes, we can do it. Now if the Lord is leading you to give, why don't you call us right now at 866-899-WORD. That's 866-899-9673, or meet us online at www.tewonline.org. Your giving right now between now and the end of the year is not only matched and challenged, but it's an opportunity to see God do even more in the coming year by lifting up the name of Jesus through biblically-based teaching like Dr. Don Wilton. Again, call 866-899-9673, or meet us online at www.tewonline.org.

That's www.tewonline.org. Now back to today's great teaching with Dr. Don Wilton. It seems to me, my friends, that God has always had a plan with people like you and me and mine. What kind of people? Well, just think about these shepherds for a moment and then try and think about who we are. Why did Jesus Christ appear through the angels to the shepherds?

Why did God do this? Well, we are a people, first of all, carrying out life's assignments. That's what verse 8 says. Verse 8 says, There were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. Shepherds, shepherds back in these days were very, very ordinary people. I tell you, they were very ordinary people. They were not doctors and lawyers. They were not teachers and pastors. They were not people from regular society. Shepherds, in fact, in many regards, were regarded somewhat as the lower portion of society. Most of the shepherds had never had a day even in a kindergarten.

They were somewhat uneducated people. And if you'd gone up to some ordinary shepherd out there in the shepherds field and said to him, what's your life comprised of? He probably would have said, well, I began tending my father's flock when I was just three years old.

I've done nothing else and I know how to do this and that's what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. And God in Christ Jesus was coming to this earth for people just like you and me. It's not without significance that the Magi also received the same message. You see, when the Christmas child was born, God was reaching out to people just like you and me, people carrying out life's assignments. All of us are engaged in trying to meet the needs that we have, the need for work and the need for food and the need for shelter.

And when Jesus was born in Bethlehem's manger and when that Shekinah glory came down upon those shepherds, what the hark of the herald angels was all about was the fact that God designed a plan to bring his heavenly glory down upon a people no different than you and me. But there's a second thing we can say about ourselves as a people. We are a people overcome by life's challenges. Don't kid yourself about these shepherds. They had challenges, perhaps something of which we cannot appreciate.

It was wintertime, so we know that it must have been rather nippy out there in those fields. There were dangers everywhere, not just from wild animals, but from robbers and people who would come to deprive them of everything that they had. They were faced with all kinds of uncertainties. They had to try and meet the needs of their families. These shepherds had families and children and had to feed young ones. They had sickness and health. They had all kinds of challenges.

I wonder what kind of challenges you and I are facing today when we worship the Lord today on this Christmas Eve. I don't think we're any different. We are a people who are carrying out life's assignments. We are a people who are overcome by life's challenges. But we're also people who are captured by life's emotions. Bible says when the angels appeared to them in verse nine, they were terrified. The King James Version says it even better. They were sore afraid. I love that. That means they were scared to death.

I would have been as well. I can just imagine what they went through. Listen friends, we are captivated and captured. We are in bondage to our emotions.

We're up in one minute and down the next. We're on an emotional rollercoaster. I wouldn't be surprised if there's someone here this morning who is bent out of shape. I wouldn't be surprised if there's someone here today who is facing all kinds of problems. Listen folks, you need to pray for your ministers, for your pastor, for counselors.

Christmas is a wonderful time, but can I tell you something about Christmas? It is a time my friends that accentuates the emotional challenges of life. And perhaps you're in one of those emotional trials right now.

You need to know you're not alone. God has promised never to leave you or forsake you. And we're here for you at the encouraging word. You've been listening to Dr. Don Wilton and when this ministry was founded, Dr. Don insisted we have an opportunity to pray for each other. We would love to pray with you right now. 866-899 word is the number.

That's 866-899-9673. We'd love to talk with you. And if you've heard Dr. Wilton and he's been preaching, I pray you'd open your heart to what he wants to share next. Are you ready to give your heart and life to the Lord Jesus Christ?

I'm so happy to hear that. Why don't you pray this prayer with me today? Dear God, I know that you love me very, very much. And I know that the Lord Jesus Christ came and died on a cross so that I might be forgiven of my sin. Today I repent of my sin.

I confess my sin to you. And I invite you to come into my heart and into my life by faith. In Jesus' name I pray. If you prayed that prayer, let me be the first one to welcome you to the family of God.

This is wonderful. I hope that you know how much I'm going to be praying for you and how very important this is for me. Call us so that we can talk to you and connect you in the right place so you can begin this wonderful journey. It could be that you were praying along with Dr. Wilton moments ago to give your life to Christ or rededicate your life to Jesus. If so, we are so excited and we want to pray with you and for you. Dr. Wilton wants to pray with you and for you. If you'd like to share that decision with us, call us right now at 866-899-WORD.

That's 866-899-9673. Dr. Wilton has free resources he wants you to have if you've given your life to Christ or rededicated your life to Jesus today. Either way, we want to hear from you. As a matter of fact, Dr. Don would love to hear from you every day. We gather together these e-mails and Dr. Wilton reads them, prays over them. I pray that you'd consider writing him, Don, at T-E-W online dot O-R-G. That's D-O-N at T-E-W online dot O-R-G. Again, we would love to corporately pray for you. Dr. Don would love to pray for you and also give you those resources. 866-899-WORD is the phone number or meet us online at T-E-W online dot O-R-G. While you're at our website, T-E-W online dot O-R-G, you'll see wonderful resources like the leather-bound devotional, Heaven, Life, and the Resurrection. That's available at T-E-W online dot O-R-G, as well as Dr. Don's book called Saturdays with Billy about his time over 20 years of being the pastor of Dr. Billy Graham. All those resources are available for you at T-E-W online dot O-R-G.