Welcome to Truth for Life. We're glad you've joined us on Christmas Eve. Christmas is a holiday bursting with festive activities.
We mark the season with parties and decorations and gifts and concerts, sometimes without ever giving thought to Jesus. Today, Alistair Begg helps us celebrate the true wonder of Christmas by taking us through Luke's historical record of the Savior's arrival. We're in Luke chapter 2. Well, the verses to which I'd like to draw your attention are verses 17, 18, 19, and 20.
And we're at the end of what has been a brief series, an Advent series, that began with verse 1 of chapter 2 and now ends with verse 20. And throughout, we have acknowledged the fact that Luke is providing us here with his record of God's real entry into actual history—the entry of God, his actual entry into a history that is real. And we end as we began by acknowledging the fact that it is the very essence of biblical faith to be about real historical events.
Now, the adjective is important. It is the very essence of biblical faith. There are all kinds of notions about faith in faith. But what we're talking about is the faith that emerges from a study of Scripture, from finding Christ in the Scriptures.
It is the very essence of biblical faith to be about real historical events. And so, it is important for us to affirm the fact that when we read the New Testament, we're actually being given evidence. We're being given information. And it is up to us, as sensible people, to read this information, to consider this evidence, and determine whether we believe in this instance that the one who is providing it—namely, Luke—is actually trustworthy. And the way that we would get to that determination is obviously, first of all, by reading what he has said. And that's why we took time at the beginning to point out that he was very, very clear concerning his methodology in establishing his gospel.
He had done careful research, he said, in order that he could write an orderly account so that his reader, Theophilus, and all his readers may have certainty concerning the things that they had been taught. So in other words, he is not calling for some kind of leap into the dark. He is not calling for what is often suggested Christianity is—namely, the exercise of blind faith. He's actually saying to us that the Jesus of the Gospels is a historically plausible and convincing figure—that when we read these gospel accounts, we discover ourselves, if we are honest, finding it very, very difficult to set him aside. Now, the skepticism is not simply from outside the church. Now, those of you who have read any theology at all will know that it became very fashionable in the twentieth century, emerging from the nineteenth but brought to fruition in the twentieth. It's not so fashionable today, but nevertheless, there were those who spent a great deal of time and effort and a lot of ink suggesting that we could never know the real historical Jesus—that the Jesus to whom we're introduced in the Gospels is not the real one, and we can't know the real one. And the one that we have in the Gospels is an invention, and he is the invention of those who have decided that they want to follow him. And so what they have done is they have added to the whole story that which is apparently to induce faith, when in actual fact the basis of faith is to be found in a consideration of Jesus himself.
Here in this baby, what Caesar Augustus proclaimed of himself—namely, a great champion of peace and a Savior—is far more significantly enveloped and developed in the defenseless and powerless child that is now making his bed amongst the animals and is visited by the shepherds. The shepherds, you see, are unlikely recipients of the news. We said that, and they're also unlikely in assuming the role of the first evangelists. If we were inventing a gospel, I'm not sure that we would use shepherds as the key to getting the word out.
After all, they weren't regarded as particularly reliable. Now, this does not have the marks of mythology. This has the marks of history. This is not poetry.
So notice—and I'll move quickly. First of all, notice that the shepherds testified. Verse 17, And when they saw it, they made known the saying, the saying that had been told them concerning this child.
What was the saying? Well, you go back to verse 14—to verse 10, sorry, Fear not, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord. And when they saw it, verse 17, what is the it? Well, go back up to verse 15, This thing that has happened, a real event, in all of its dimensions.
When they saw it, when they came there and found it, just as they'd been told, then they made known—what?—they made known the saying, the saying that had been told them. So they're dealing here not in fabrication. They're not dealing in invention. They're dealing, actually, in revelation. Here are a group of ignorant shepherds doing what they do.
When I say ignorant, I don't mean that in a demeaning way. They were ignorant of this dimension until it was disclosed to them. How could they know these things apart from the revelation of God?
This is not the invention of fertile imagination. This is somebody reporting the saying as it had been told them. They show up verifying that what had been said was there, and it was. And then they said, And this is why we're here, because we were told by the angel, it's good news, great joy for all the people, because unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is the Messiah, who is God.
And they provide for Mary and Joseph corroborating evidence, if you like. God has shone into their darkness with the light of his truth. He has brought into the openness things that were previously out of their sight. He has provided them with a knowledge that they didn't have.
He has taken them into his confidence by showing them his glory. And we, like the shepherds, are in need of revelation. Where do we have that revelation? Well, we actually have it in the Word that was spoken. And they made known the things that were said. And those things that were said became part of the research project of Dr. Luke. That when he verified the data with the eyewitnesses, he found that there was a confluence of truthfulness that ran through the whole thing.
So he wrote it down, in order that sensible people might consider the narrative, and in considering the narrative, they may be absolutely convinced of the veracity and usefulness and life-transforming impact of the things that they had been taught. We're actually in the same place. Isn't it actually wonderful how the confidence of heaven is in the Bible? Otherwise, we'd have to say, Well, we never saw angels. Well, we never were there.
That never happened to us. What have we got to go on? You've got to go on the exact same thing that they had to go on. The Word of God. Revelation. The story of the Bible is the story of revelation and redemption.
God discloses himself, he reveals himself, and he redeems men and women. And the shepherds apparently did not choose to spend a lot of time on the drama that was involved. They presumably mentioned it, but it is on the message that the angels proclaimed. Because after all, the news of a birth is perfectly ordinary. What a tremendous effort to go to and send an angel out of the sky and say, A baby has been born! You say, Wait a minute, a lot of babies have been born. What news is there in that?
In fact, the coming of Jesus into the world would mean nothing apart from the accompanying explanation. So we're not left here with sort of speculative notions. We're provided here with actual statements, with verifiable data that forces us to make decisions. So the shepherds testified.
I spent too long on that, but we'll speed it up. Secondly, the hearers wondered. The hearers wondered. That's verse 18, and all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds had told them. Well, Mary and Joseph heard it, and they must have wondered. It was a reinforcement of the visit of the angels, both to Mary and to Joseph. And it was to all who were surrounding and all who were later hearing that this child who had been born was none other than Savior, Messiah, and God. If you think about that, that was a dramatic statement in that day, and it is a dramatic statement in our day. It's truly wonderful. The nature of wonder is found in this.
It's found in the fact of the identity of the child. And we've never, ever plumbed the depths of Christmas until we recognize that we are encountering he who is Savior, who is Messiah, and who is God. Now, one of the things that we've offered as an encouragement to reading your Bible is Charles Haddon Spurgeon's morning and evening. And when you get to the twenty-sixth day of the year, you discover that his comments of that evening are on the verse 18, which is our verse right now, and all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds had told them. And I leave you for the enjoyment of it later on.
It gives you something to look forward to. But he begins, We must not cease to wonder at the great marvels of our God. And here's a little snippet of it. That God should consider his fallen creature man, and instead of sweeping him away with the broom of destruction, should himself undertake to be man's redeemer and to pay his ransom price, is indeed marvelous. But to each believer, redemption is most marvelous, as he views it in relation to himself.
It is a miracle of grace, indeed, that Jesus should forsake the thrones and royalties above to suffer ignominiously below for you. Let your soul lose itself in wonder. And then, in classic Spurgeonic style, he goes on to say that when the heart of a man or of a woman is gripped by this wonder, it will issue in a number of things—one, in grateful worship, two, in heartfelt thanksgiving, three, in godly watchfulness, and four, in glorious hope. "'Keep yourself in the love of God,' says Jude." Are you keeping yourself in the love of God?
I've been reading Ryle this week, as you can tell. Let me give you another quote from Ryle, under this notion of godly watchfulness. How do I know that I really wonder at the mystery of God's goodness to me in grace, of the wonder of salvation? Well, one of the marks is not simply in my singing or in the way I do my work, but it is in the way I watch. I watch myself. I guard my heart.
This is Ryle to his people. Do nothing that you would not like God to see. Say nothing you would not like God to hear. Write nothing you would not like God to read. Go no place where you would not like God to find you. Read no book of which you would not like God to say, "'Show it to me.'"
Never spend your time in such a way that you would not like to have God say, "'What are you doing?'" The shepherds testified, and the hearers wondered, and Mary pondered. I bet she did. It would have been surprising if it said anything other than that she pondered. First it says she treasured these things up. Now the shepherds have come, and they've added to this story. Now she's building up her diary. She's writing in her journal. And this morning we had a bunch—this evening we had a group of shepherds came in, and they said that they had also heard from God Almighty.
And they confirmed to us the story that we have also heard. And as she puts all of that down, she treasures it. She ponders it. She ponders the providence of God.
Who am I, she says, in her Magnificat? That you have regarded the lowly estate of your handmaiden, that of all the women that exist in the entire world, you have chosen me to bear Christ. Now, it would be surprising if it didn't say something at least along these lines, and if you fast-forward in your mind and you take her song, the Magnificat, from Luke 1, and you take her standing at the cross of this sun, and as she looks up on the hands that now are nailed to that tree, she looks on the hands that clutched at her in his infancy. And then she's saying, The Magnificat again, my spirit, rejoices in God my Savior?
Yes, unto you Mary is born this day in the city of David, a Savior who is Christ the Lord. Finally, the shepherds, we're told, returned, verse 20, and the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen. What an amazing thing that they had encountered. What a wonder that God had intervened in their lives. If they'd been able to, they could have sung to one another, I cannot tell why he whom angels worship should set his love upon the sons of men.
I have no way to comprehend what has gone on here. They would have had reason to say to one another. And if you think about it, the way in which they had encountered this had brought from the lips of the angels the obvious statement, Fear not, fear not. In the hymn, Fear not, said he, for mighty dread had seized their troubled minds. Well, it makes me think of C. S. Lewis. And in his book on miracles, where he says, It is always shocking to meet life where we thought we were alone.
Look out, we cry, it's alive! And therefore this is the very point at which so many draw back, when they're considering God. Says Lewis, I would have done so myself if I could, and proceed no further with Christianity.
An impersonal God, well and good, a subjective God of beauty, truth, and goodness. Inside our own heads, better still. But God himself, alive, pulling at the other end of the cord? That's quite another matter. There comes a moment when the children playing burglars hush suddenly.
Was that a real footstep in the hall? And there comes a moment when people who have been dabbling in religion suddenly draw back. Can I say to you, kindly but straightforwardly, if you have spent a period of time, maybe even these last weeks, dabbling in religion, if you have found that as you have begun to push a little here and prod a little there and tug a little here, that the cord is not just coming back to you as it swings out in space, but that there is a tug back at the end of the cord. And the tug back at the end of the cord is the tug of he who came looking for you, loving you, seeking to woo you, seeking to win you, seeking to draw you to himself, seeking to deal once and for all in your mind with the notion that what you're engaging in is just a leap into oblivion, a great launch into stupidity, a great dimension of darkness that such as only idiot people would ever embrace.
And you're beginning to say, I'm not so sure that that story is accurate. You see, it is the incarnation that assures us that God is a personal God, that he is a God of love, and that he is a God of mercy. You see, it was only actually the incarnation that could deal with the fear of the shepherds, and it's only the incarnation which can deal for you and me with the fear of the invisible, with the fear of the unknown, with the fear of the dark, with the fear of death.
Why is it? Because God has said eternity. God has put eternity in your heart. You know that this life, when it comes to an end physically, is not the end.
And the reason you know, and the reason you may wish to deny it, is because you know. And you may be vociferous in your rejection of these things, as many are. I've been reading this book amongst other books this week, written by a British humorist who is a really vitriolic atheist. He writes scathingly and blasphemously about these things. And then, as you're saying to yourself, I think it's probably time for me to put this book down, because J. C. Ryle said I shouldn't be reading anything that God would say, Why are you reading this book? And then I, you know, then I turn over the page after he has just said all these things about why Christians are idiots, and only a madman would ever believe in God. And you turn a page, and he says, But I wish there was a God.
I'm sincere when I say that. I am not happy with atheism in and of itself. It doesn't provide any answers for me.
It makes no claim to. I'd like to develop a faith in God so complete it would enable me to make sense of what I see around me. It would be a fantastic thing to have God in my life.
But I can't seem to get there. And the harder I've tried to understand the God, this God, the less I like of what I see. And in part he is referring to bad Christian testimony, to a kind of knee-jerk, angry, resentful way of suggesting to others that we actually have some good news for them. And our agnostic and atheistic friends are saying, Well, you could have fooled me that it was good news.
Because look what it's done to you. He says, This is what faith is, I suppose. It's an end to searching. It's a moment when you decide that you've asked enough questions and are ready to make that leap into a place of absolute trust, without evidence.
He's going so well there, isn't he? Page 63. That is what faith is. An end to searching. A moment when I decide that I've actually asked enough questions, and I'm ready to leap not into oblivion, not into darkness without evidence, but I'm ready to leap into the very arms of God, the arms that were spread out on a cross to welcome me, the arms that bore my sin, that bore my punishment so that it might offer to me a forgiveness that I don't deserve. It is in this discovery that the truth of Christmas dawns. Have you had a wonderful Christmas?
I trust so. You're listening to Truth for Life. That is Alistair Begg presenting us verifiable evidence of the incarnation. We hope these sermons will strengthen your trust in the factual evidence that underpin our Christian faith.
With all of the activities that make up the Christmas season, it's possible to feel a little lost or even bored when you return to your normal activities in the new year. We want to recommend a book to you today written to help transform the routine activities of everyday life into moments of spiritual reflection and mindful appreciation of God. The book is titled Every Moment Holy, Volume 3. It's a unique collection of prayers and liturgies that bring a sense of meaning and sacredness to the ordinary events in your day. A group of 60 writers have contributed prayers and poems to this new volume of Every Moment Holy. Now our offices are closed this week while our team is home celebrating Christmas, so there's no one to answer your phone call, but you can still request the book Every Moment Holy, Volume 3, when you make a year-end donation securely online at truthforlife.org slash donate. I'm Bob Lapine. Tomorrow we'll get a glimpse of Jesus' first recorded visit to the temple. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living.
