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. 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. Welcome to Grace To You with John MacArthur.
I'm your host, Phil Johnson. With December 25th fast approaching, how are you doing at staying focused on what's truly important and lasting and hopeful about Christmas? Even if you know by heart what the Bible says about Christmas, it's possible that one of the most significant aspects, second only to the actual birth of Jesus, has never hit you as it should have. Today on Grace To You, John MacArthur shows you that lesser known element of the Christmas story, helping you fully embrace what he calls the promise of Christmas.
That's the title of our study. So go to Luke chapter 2, if you're able, and follow along as John begins the lesson. Let's open our Bibles to the second chapter of Luke's gospel. Now the message is good news. 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 into 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't escape hell. You can go to heaven forever.
You can be blessed by God. Now as we unfold this passage, I want to give you a few points. Number one, the proclamation of good news. You 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 was a bunch of shepherds. But that's exactly where the Lord sent the message. In verse 8 says, in the same region, that's the region around Bethlehem, it's just a small village, certainly not a city, so down in that region there were some 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.
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 together or wood gathered together, something to enclose them. At night they'd 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 gathered his sheep, they would all be out in the fields during the day at night He would pull them in and put them in this little open air lean-to and He and His other shepherds would watch. They would each have their 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 into December, we just don't know. What are they doing? It says in verse 8, they're keeping watch over their flock.
Night time has come, 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 predator 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 awake and perhaps it's early enough at night that they're all awake when the angel arrives. By the way, the Mishnah, which is the codification 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 areas, so they were out there in that wilderness area.
There's another very interesting note I want you to have here. Remember now, Bethlehem's about six miles south of Jerusalem. In fact, when you...that's from the city center of Jerusalem. When you're driving today out of Jerusalem, you don't even know a break between Jerusalem and Bethlehem.
It's an uninterrupted suburb. That's very close. But the rabbis had made a rule, it's recorded in the Mishnah and the codification 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. 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 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 town in this field and it was just a night like every other night. They were doing what they'd always done, telling their normal stories, playing their little flutes, doing what shepherds did, and an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them. And it says here, He comes, the Greek verb is ephistemi, it literally means to stand near somebody. So these 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 here 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 as if that's not enough, the text adds, and the glory of the Lord shown around them. And 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. If you go back and study the glory of the Lord, that has 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 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's no sin. And 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 He 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 finish building the tabernacle.
The tabernacle is 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 finish that, according to Exodus 40, the glory of God came out of heaven and came down. 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.
It was the 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 their 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 built 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 the 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. It 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 until this night, been a long time before David even, until this night and the glory of God appeared 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 that the presence of God had come into the world and the presence of God had come not in a building, not in a tent, but this time it had come in human flesh, in the Messiah. And later on in his life, Jesus took disciples in Matthew 17, records it up into the mountain and He pulled His flesh back and they saw the glory of God. He was transfigured before them.
Remember that? Someday 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 someday 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's 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 and glorious judgment of God and 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, 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 fell over like a dead man, went into a coma.
Terror is the result of seeing the presence of God, even a 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 the sinner knows if I could 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.
Oh, 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. These men didn't need to be afraid of 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 what?
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 Second Chronicles. You find it in Nehemiah, you find it in Daniel, you find it in Zachariah, 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. Okay? 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. So the angel says, don't be afraid, the news is good...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. I bring you good news is from the verb euangelizo, from which we get transliterated the English word evangelize, which simply means to tell people the good news. Evangelize isn't even an English word, it's just a transliteration of a Greek word, euangelizo. By the way, Luke uses the verb often to proclaim the good news, to preach the good news, to bring the good news. He uses it in chapter 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 16, chapter 20. He likes that word. Luke uses the verb more than any other New Testament gospel writer.
You'll find the noun all over the place, euangelion, which is the noun form of the same root. It's all over the place because the message of Christianity is good news, isn't it? 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 your 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 a 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.
Let me give you one other point just briefly. That's the proclamation of the good news. Here's the pervasiveness of it, and this is a good place to close, the pervasiveness of it. Back to verse 10, I 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 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 the Davidic promise and Abrahamic promise with it. It 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 as 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 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 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 it goes to the world, to the Gentiles. And that is exactly what Isaiah the prophet said there in Isaiah chapter 60. And 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 upon 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, the nations. In fact, all peoples in verse 31 is plural, all the peoples.
And 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, all nations. So this good news extends to all nations. That's the big picture.
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. Yes, that's right, you guys standing right here, 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 the 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's Savior and He's your Savior. Father, we thank You for this great portion of Scripture, so foundational, basic, important, understanding our faith.
Oh, how sad that He came unto His own and His own received Him not. The greatest news you could ever hear, the Savior has come to save you from your sins, from the power of sin, from the penalty of sin which is eternal hell and someday from the presence of sin which is holy heaven. We thank You for the Savior and the good news that turns fear into great joy. For those who reject the Savior, there's reason to be afraid for He will come again and there will be no grace when the glory returns.
But for now, the news is good. The day of salvation has opened the door to any sinner who will repent and embrace Christ. May you work that work in the hearts of those who are here today and those who hear this message, we pray for Jesus' glory and sake.
Amen. That's John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. His current study here on Grace to You is called The Promise of Christmas. Well, John, I know that this weekend, probably starting even today, a lot of our listeners will be heading for their holiday celebrations. And so, as that happens, as we all break from our regular routines, how can we make sure that the coming days are spiritually refreshing and strengthening? In other words, how do we stay focused on Christ even with all of the activities and the rushing here and there? Well, I think you have to have some intentionality about that.
Typical celebrations at Christmas, particularly with the familiar people and family and friends that you're with a lot, usually fall to the lowest level of conversation, too much politics and sports. So, you have to have some intentionality. You have to decide, you know, I remember reading years ago when I was very young, a man giving a testimony. He said the most life-changing vow he ever made was this. He said, I vow to the Lord that whenever I have the opportunity to introduce the topic of conversation, it will always be of Jesus Christ. That life-changing vow transformed his life and the people that he touched. I think you have to approach life that way. What if you said, you know, Lord, I want to promise to you that every time I am given the opportunity to speak through this Christmas season, I want to make sure I present something about the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's the kind of intentionality that will make a difference. Instead of falling into the flow of conversation, which is so typical, you be the catalyst to introduce the subject that they should be talking about, our wonderful Lord and the glorious gospel of salvation. And have a blessed Christmas. We certainly encourage you to be useful to the Lord and joyful and grateful for all that he's done for you.
That's right. Thanks, John, for that timely advice as we prepare to spend time with our loved ones this Christmas. And friend, if you're thankful for the messages you're hearing on Grace to You this holiday season, would you let us know?
Contact us when you can. You can send an email to letters at gty.org. That's our email address, letters at gty.org.
Or if you prefer regular mail, you can write to Grace to You, Post Office Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412. And when you visit our website, gty.org, let me recommend a two-part Christmas audio series that's based on John's book, One Perfect Life. It's a compelling look at Christ's birth in Bethlehem and the reason he came to earth. And this would be a great resource to go through with your loved ones in these last days before Christmas.
Look for the One Perfect Life Christmas presentation at our website, gty.org. And keep in mind that you can listen to all of John's more than 3,600 sermons at our website. All of those sermons and much more are available free of charge at gty.org. That's our website.
One more time, gty.org. Now for John MacArthur and the entire Grace to You staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Watch Grace to You television this Sunday on DirecTV channel 378. And then be here Monday as John continues to help you focus on the right things this Christmas. It's another half hour of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.
