Keep sharing good news without ads.
Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/larry-steers/his-appearing/
I would like to read with you in the Gospel of Luke chapter 1. I'm going to try and pick up a line of truth that was suggested in the Bible reading this morning, and also that was suggested in the Word of Ministry following the breaking of bread.
I hope that I can make a connection between the two. So we'll read in Luke chapter 1, and I'm going to read verse 26. Luke chapter 1, and we're reading verse 26. And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary.
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.
Then the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favor with God. Behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son. And thou 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 forever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?
And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee. Therefore also that holy thing that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.
That's all that we're going to read. I won't take time to read two other passages of scripture, but I'm going to refer to them momentarily before I sit down. I'm going to ask you to do something. And this is going to be difficult.
That's not a very good way to start a little word of ministry, but it will be difficult. I want you to take your 2010 shoes off. I don't mean that literally. But I want you to try and stand in the shoes of a young woman over 2 ,000 years ago.
And if we fail to do that, we won't appreciate what I have read. When you come to John on the Isle of Patmos, you really have to stand in John's shoes to appreciate what John saw. You see, we're living in the year 2010.
And when we read the first three chapters of the book of the Revelation, we're looking at it by looking back at what John saw. But to appreciate what John saw, we'll have to look at it from John's point of view from the early years of this dispensation when John was on the Isle of Patmos.
And so you have to stand in Mary's shoes for a few moments this afternoon. You'll understand, of course, that there are two angels that are mentioned in our Bible. One is Michael, and the other is Gabriel.
Michael seems to have some relationship in a special way with the nation of Israel. And in our Bibles, Michael appears five times. Three of those times in the book of Daniel, once in the book of Jude, and once in Revelation chapter 12.
The other angel that is mentioned is the angel that we have read about, Gabriel. Gabriel seems to have some word or some revelation relative to the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. Gabriel appeared upon this earth on four occasions, that is, by name.
He may have appeared other times, but by name he is mentioned four times in the Bible. He visited four, three of earth's greatest cities. That is, three of the great cities of earth at that time, Gabriel visited them.
He visited, for example, Daniel when Daniel was in Shushan the palace. And then Gabriel gave to Daniel one of the great prophetic revelations of Scripture, the ABC of prophecy. He told Daniel of coming great earthly kingdoms that were, three of them at least, were future to the day that Daniel was upon this earth.
That has caused some to criticize the book of Daniel, accuse that someone else wrote the book, and so one penned the book Daniel in the critics' den. It was a prophetic statement. And then Gabriel appeared again in the great city of Babylon, and that was to Daniel as well.
And in Babylon, Gabriel gave to Daniel a tremendous statement relative to Daniel's 70 weeks. We don't hear much about those 70 weeks. 69 of those weeks are past. We are in a period of time between the 69th and the 70th week, and there is one week that is yet to be fulfilled, and that fulfillment will commence at the rapture.
Gabriel appeared again to another great city. He came to Jerusalem, and he visited a priest by the name of Zacharias that is recorded earlier in Luke chapter 1. And he gave a revelation to Zacharias concerning the forerunner of the Lord Jesus Christ, John the Baptist, that Zacharias and his wife Elizabeth were going to have a son, and that son would be John the Baptist.
But Gabriel is going to come a fourth time. And on this fourth time, this fourth visit, it will not be one of earth's great cities. He is going to come to a small peasant village by the name of Nazareth.
And when he comes to Nazareth on this time, likely a very unimportant village economically as far as Israel was concerned. But on this visit, he is not going to come to a priest like Zacharias, and he is not going to visit a prophet like Daniel.
He is going to come to this little village to visit a young woman. We wouldn't be certain how old she was. The estimate of her age ranges over a range of ages from 12 to 16 or so, but it is likely that Mary was relatively young.
When the Lord was crucified, she stands alone at the cross. Joseph evidently had passed away. And that's when John has the word from the Lord Jesus committing Mary into the care of John. And so he comes to Nazareth.
You remember what Nathaniel said, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? That's how Nazareth was looked upon. But to this young woman, espoused to be Mary, Gabriel appears with a tremendous revelation.
That's why I said just a few moments ago, in order to appreciate what was said to Mary, you'll have to make an attempt to stand where she stood, to appreciate what Gabriel said to her. And so Gabriel appears, and we are told here, his greeting when he appeared in verse 28, Hail thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee.
And when she saw him, she was troubled. You would be too. If you were to arrive to your stopping place tonight, and suddenly, this is not going to happen, but suddenly there was an angel appeared, you would be very troubled.
In fact, Mary was fearful. And Gabriel had to tell her not to fear. And then Gabriel is going to reveal to Mary, tremendous revelation that she is going to conceive, and she's going to bear a son. And she wonders, how could this be possible?
She and I know not a man, espoused, but not married. So we would emphasize again that Mary was a virgin. Not only before the Lord was born, but after He was born, she was still a virgin. And so immediately, she cannot comprehend how such an event could ever take place.
And so the angel begins to unfold her here, what is going to happen, that the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, the power of the highest shall overshadow thee, she is going to have a son conceived by the Spirit of God.
If you were to ask me details about how the Lord Jesus left the throne of God in heaven, made His way to earth to be made a little lower than the angels, conceived, and for those months in the womb of Mary, I would have to tell you, only what the Apostle Paul said, great are the mysteries of godliness, God was manifest in the flesh.
We don't understand the process that was involved, but we believe with all of our heart, this afternoon, that He was conceived in a miraculous way by the Spirit of God, and He was born of a virgin as He entered this world.
But I want you to think for a moment with me what the angel said to Mary. You'll notice that he said, that this son shall be great. And she would wonder at that. I have already indicated the attitude that Israel would have towards Nazareth, a despised village, a little town of no consequence.
No great person had ever come from Nazareth. And so she would wonder, a son, and this angel was telling her that the son was going to be great. I wouldn't be certain how much she knew of the prophecy of Isaiah, whether she understood what Isaiah recorded in chapter 7 and verse 14, that a virgin was to conceive and bring forth a son.
Or whether she really understood what Isaiah said, when his name was to be called Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father. But this would be something tremendous that a son was going to come out of Nazareth, and he was going to be great.
But then the angel said something else to her. He said, he shall be called the Son of the Highest. And she would hardly be able to comprehend that. That would be an astounding statement to her, that she was going to bear a son, and that that son would be the Son of the Highest.
She would understand what the Highest meant. For the angel is going to tell her, that he would be the Son of God. And that would just be beyond her ability fully to understand. She would be standing in wonderment and in amazement, that she's going to bear a son, and the son is going to be great.
He is to be called the Son of the Highest. But the angel has more to say to her. The angel said, the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David. Mary knew full well, that there was a throne that was occupied by an evil man named Herod.
And no one would claim Herod's throne would be living in mortal danger. Herod would murder young children to protect his throne. And she knew immediately, that if her son that she was going to give birth to, would have a claim to the throne of his father David, that that would be a conflict immediately, between the infant child that was to be born, and Herod the evil king upon the throne.
But she would also understand, she knew that Joseph was of the house of David. Matthew gives us Joseph's genealogy, and that would give him a legitimate claim to a throne of the house of David. Mary also was of the house of David.
Luke would give us the genealogy of Mary, both of the house of David. But the angel had something else to say. The angel said to her, not only that he would have the throne of his father David, but he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever.
That would be a remarkable statement. Kings rise to power. Kings die. Kings disappear. Kings have an end of the reign. But now she is being told, not only that this child is going to have the throne of David, but he is going to have that throne forever.
There will be no end to his reign. And I think if you understand, what I said at the beginning, that if you can only appreciate a little of what Gabriel is saying to Mary, that's when I said stand in her shoes for a moment, Mary would be totally astounded, amazed at what the angel was saying to her.
And then you'll notice that the angel said, of his kingdom there shall be no end. I don't think that is suggesting that he's going to reign forever like the previous statement suggested, but I believe that that indicates that his kingdom would stretch from shore to shore.
I believe that would suggest to us what the hymn writer penned, Jesus shall reign where his son, the son doth his successive journeys run. In the realm of his kingdom, he'll need no passport to travel the kingdom.
It knows no end. It will encompass the whole earth. And so he's going to have the throne of his father David. He's going to have a kingdom which shall know no end. And a kingdom which shall last forever.
And Mary is wondering. And she's amazed. And I'm certain that she didn't understand. We would read later that she pondered all these things in her heart. And yet that's what the angel said to her. Later on, earlier when the angel had appeared to Zacharias, Zacharias didn't believe what the angel said.
And so Zacharias was smitten with dumb, couldn't speak until after the birth of John the Baptist. But you'll notice when you come down this chapter what Mary said. And Mary said, verse 38, Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word.
She didn't understand it. She couldn't grasp it. But this was a revelation of God to her soul. And she was prepared to bow to the purposes of God. I think we can have a little lesson from that for us.
Are we really prepared when we come to the Word of God, when we're reading the Scripture and God speaks to us, and we see clearly stated in the Word of God what God would have us to do? Can we bow like Mary bowed?
Be it unto thine handmaid according to thy word. I want you to think of Mary a few years later. She's standing at the cross. And she's beholding her son upon that cross, the son that she has given birth to.
And in her mind going back to the words of the angel, He shall be great, suffering, untold agony upon a cross. Every mark of dark dishonor upon that thorn-clad brow. She's standing there, she's beholding Him upon the cross.
He would have the throne of His Father David, crown of thorns, crucified, back as a plowed field. A sword shall pierce through her own heart. She stands there looking at the Lord Jesus upon the cross.
And her heart would be filled with sorrow. And no doubt she would wonder, what about what the angel said? What about the words of the angel? A throne, a crown, a kingdom that would know no end. And now crucified, the object of scorn, mockery, a coronation in cruelty, crowned with those thorns, a robe of mock majesty, back as a plowed field, spittle of man anointed.
David was anointed with a horn of oil, speaking of blessing, anointed with the spittle of man. What about what the angel said? Mary never saw the fulfillment of what Gabriel said, that is, much of it.
But I want to take you for a few moments to a Scripture that I would have read, but I'm going to remind you of. If you were to come to Revelation chapter 19, we are told that the heavens are open. John sees.
He's looking up. He sees the heaven open. And out of heaven he sees a white horse come in. And upon that horse he sees a rider. And we have no question as to who the rider is. On his thigh and on his vesture, he has a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
And we are told that the diadems of heaven are upon his brow. And he's coming to earth. And he's going to come and his feet are going to touch the mode of olives. Read Zechariah chapter 14. That is a tremendous chapter.
And as he comes from heaven to the mode of olives, we are reminded of what other angels said to the disciples when he led them out to the slopes of that mountain. And they watched. And they too would be astounded.
They watched the man whose feet left earth. And I would suggest he went up slowly because they beheld him as he left earth. And he made his way up to heaven. And their eyes were upon him. We believe that mortal eyes beheld that journey to the skies.
And they were watching him until he disappeared out of their sight. That really is what the angels said to them. Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up to heaven so? That word, gazing, suggests that their eyes were glued, fastened, riveted, on the last spot in the sky where they saw him.
The angels said, This same Jesus shall also come in like manner as ye have seen him go up into heaven. He's going to come back. We're not so much touching the rapture here. This is not the rapture. Probably seven years before the moment that is recorded in Revelation chapter 19, the rapture has taken place.
The saved, the redeemed of this age are going to be caught up to meet him in the air. That's a remarkable thing too because you remember that Satan is the prince of the power of the air. And in the realm of Satan, the Lord is going to display his bride.
Almost as if he's going to say to Satan, This is the results of Calvary. These are the fruits of the cross. These are the results of my suffering and my precious blood that was shed upon the cross. And in that very realm, where Satan is the prince, the Lord will display his bride.
And then Nesherus in the heaven, I believe the words recorded, he and I together sharing those bright courts above. He and I together sharing all the Father's love. But then he's going to come back to earth.
And his feet are going to touch the Mount of Olives. Zechariah tells us that. And that mountain is going to clave, going to be split in the middle. And it's quite likely that Jerusalem will become a large seaport in the realm, in the reign of the king.
He'll come back. And he's going to make his way to Jerusalem. They can brick in the golden gate all they want to. But he'll make his entrance into that city. He came on that other occasion on that lowly animal.
And they spread their cloaks over it. They put the palm branches in the way. And they acclaimed him. And then shortly after, they crucified him. But he's going to come back to that city. And when he enters that city, he will enter that city to the acceptance of a small part of the nation of Israel.
Likely two-thirds of that nation will suffer in the time of Jacob's trouble. But there will be a small remnant, a third of them, that will embrace him. They will receive him. He is their Messiah. Isaiah 53 will come alive to them.
They won't acknowledge it today. I had in one of my classes a Jewish rabbi's daughter. They will not acknowledge Isaiah 53 today. But on that day, they're going to look upon the one that they pierced.
And they're going to look upon him. And the words of Isaiah 53 will become living to them. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him.
And with his stripes, we are healed. He will come back. And as the angel said, the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David. Every word that Gabriel said to Mary will come to pass. I want you to come with me just for a moment to Psalm 24.
Again, I would have read this, but I'm just going to refer to Psalm 24. There are men who have lived upon this earth. And their desire has been to reign over the earth or over as much of the earth as they possibly could.
Alexander the Great, Constantine, Napoleon, Hitler, others, wanted as much of this earth as they could get. But be absolutely certain of this. Islam will never have it. One man will. That is the Lord Jesus Christ.
And so when you come to Psalm 24, you'll read this statement in verse 3. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Who shall stand in His holy place? And then the psalmist answers that in verse 4. He that hath clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.
That is a tremendous statement. Notice what the psalmist says. He that hath clean hands. And Mark is going to tell us in his Gospel about the servant who has clean hands. Only one. And then the psalmist says, not only clean hands, but a pure heart.
And John will tell us about the son with a pure heart. Only one. And then the psalmist says, who has not lifted up his soul unto vanity. And so Luke will tell us about the man of humility. Only one. Who delighted the heart of God.
And then the psalmist says, nor sworn deceitfully. So Matthew will tell us about the king who is morally and perfectly right. Only one man. And that's what the angel said. That the Lord God would not only give unto him the throne of his father David, but that he should rule, or that his kingdom shall have no end.
I do wonder when Paul comes in 2 Timothy 4, and he reminds us. He says, I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith. And then he gives us a great statement. He says, henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord the righteous judge will give me in that day.
And you should love these words. This comes from the heart of Paul. He says, and not to me only. In other words, what Paul has before him, what he has in mind, he wants other believers to have what he is going to have.
And so he says, and not to me only, but unto all them who love his appearing. That word appearing is the word epiphania. It's found six times in your Bible. It's used in different ways. Not always the same way.
It is used on the birth of Christ. It is used on the rapture. But when Paul said, unto all those who love his appearing, I would suggest that Paul has in mind the appearing of the Lord Jesus in glory.
Of his return to this earth. And that should fill the heart of every one of us. That the one who is our Lord, that the one who suffered for us upon the cross at Calvary, is the one who is going to have his rightful place.
He is going to have the place that was promised to him. And that Gabriel stated he would have. And he is going to reign over this earth where e 'er the sun doth its successive journeys run. He will have that place.
And so then the psalmist is going to conclude with, who is the King of glory? That's a great question. Who is the King of glory? The Lord mighty in battle. The Lord mighty. The Lord of hosts. He is the King of glory.
And the moment is going to come when the words of the psalmist again are going to be fulfilled. For the psalmist says in verse 7, Lift up your heads, O ye gates, be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in.
Do you know why you should be interested in that? Do you know why that should fill your soul? This afternoon. If you're occupied with the Lord Jesus Christ, and anticipating the greatness for He shall be great, that you are going to share that reign with Him, we shall reign with Christ.
And so the psalmist says that the gates will be opened and the King of glory will enter His city, Jerusalem. And I don't know what my brethren feel, but I would think that there is going to be a literal throne in Jerusalem and He is going to be exalted upon that throne.
And we are told that nations that will be upon earth at that time, don't ask me to explain that, but they are going to bring the glory and they are going to come and bow and acknowledge that He is the King of glory.
The one with the crown of thorns at Calvary is the one who today is crowned with glory and honor, but the one who will come out of heaven and the crowns are the diadems of heaven that He will have. And He will have the place that is rightfully His.
That should be what is the longing of our soul. Yes, not only the rapture, thank God for that, we are going to rise to meet Him. But I believe we are going to reign with Him. And we are going to acknowledge in that reign our worship and our thanksgiving that He has the rightful place that is His.