WWUTT 2272 Peace on Earth (Luke 2:10-14)

The angels that appeared to shepherds, they said, glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased. Not all of mankind, but those who are followers of Jesus when we understand the text.

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Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

The Shepherds and the Angelic Announcement

Thank you, Becky. In our study of the gospel of Luke, we've been reading about shepherds tending their flocks by night when an angel of the Lord appeared to them. Let's read that section again, Luke 2, verses 8 through 15.

Hear the word of the Lord. And in the same region, there were shepherds out in the field keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them.

And they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, fear not, for behold, 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 this will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and 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 among those with whom he is pleased.

When the angel went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us. I said, when the angel went away from them into heaven, it's actually angels, plural, because he had a multitude of the heavenly host that was appearing before them there.

As we were reading this section yesterday, we considered how marvelous this site surely would have been. Shepherds tending their flocks by night and suddenly surrounded with the glory of the Lord, an angel appearing to them with this message.

We compared that or contrasted it rather with other appearances of angels in the gospel of Luke. An angel appeared to Zechariah, but it seemed to be a rather casual appearance, all things considered. And then the same angel, Gabriel, appears to Mary a few months later.

And Mary is startled by the angel, but more in the way that he greets her. There's nothing about his appearance that seems to frighten her. We have angels appearing at the end of the gospel of Luke. When the women come to the tomb to anoint the body of Jesus and they find the tomb empty and the stone rolled away.

And there are two angels there in dazzling apparel. So their appearance, even different than Gabriel's appearance in Luke 1. But here in Luke 2, we have them described as having the glory of the Lord surrounding them.

So this seems to be significantly bigger on a much larger scale, of course, because a whole multitude of angels joins this one angel who has come to these shepherds with this announcement. And one of the things that I theorized yesterday is perhaps the veil that separates heaven and earth.

We kind of described to whatever it is that's separating the spiritual realm from the mortal realm as being like a veil. It's a crude description, but it's the best that we have to go with. So perhaps that veil is pulled back to a certain degree.

The angel doesn't necessarily step from the spiritual realm into the earthly, but the curtain is pulled back so that this angel appears. And it would have been above them because of what said in verse 15, when the angels went away from them into heaven.

So the angels are going up, they're ascending away. So it's not that it's right there on the ground and there's an angel just kind of standing there in their midst, but this veil that separates the glory, that separates the heavenly places from this earthly realm, gets parted.

And this angel kind of steps through almost like you would be watching a stage play. And first of all, you have the narrator that comes out and kind of sets everything up. So the curtain parts a little bit.

He steps forward onto the apron of the stage. He gives his opening spiel, his monologue, and then the curtain parts all the way. And you're seeing all the scene and the characters and everything like that.

Maybe it was something to that effect. Again, a crude description, but metaphorically the best that I could come up with. Maybe that's what this appearance was like. But however it was, once those lights go up on the stage and the glory of the Lord is surrounding these shepherds, that was surely a marvelous sight.

And at the same time, terrifying. It would not be, it should not be surprising to us at all that they were scared of this, nor should we think to ourselves, oh, I wouldn't have been as startled as they are.

Oh yes, you would. To just be sitting where you are right now and suddenly there's a man there who was not there before. That alone would frighten you. Now, just imagine that that guy is appearing in the glory of the Lord.

He's got all of this heavenly glory surrounding him and maybe his clothes are even in dazzling apparel as we read about regarding those angels in Luke 24. So the glory of the Lord shone around them. It's not just that this angel has the glory of the Lord encompassing him, but the glory even surrounds these shepherds.

They are given this incredible opportunity to behold this first declaration of the gospel message at the arrival of the Savior. And the gospel is first being proclaimed by the angels to men. God has chosen these angels to transmit to these shepherds whom God has also chosen, that they would be the first ones to hear the message of the gospel, the announcement that the Savior has come into the world.

John the Baptist is the forerunner to Jesus Christ. He's already been born at this point, but he's only six months old. So he can't do the announcement. And besides, John the Baptist's preparation is going to be for Jesus' earthly ministry, not his initial earthly arrival, not for his advent anyway.

Good News of Great Joy for All People

So the angels appear to these shepherds and it says in verse 10, the angels said to them, fear not. And as I said yesterday, easier said than done. For behold, I bring you good news. That's gospel. The word gospel means good news.

I bring you the gospel. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. It's kind of compounding on the fact that he's delivering them good news. I bring you good news of great joy.

It's already joyful because it's good news, but it's even greater than that. This is the best news that you could hear right now or anytime. For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a savior who is Christ the Lord.

Now the angel says, unto you is born this day. The statement of the end of verse 10 is that this message will be for all the people. So the shepherds, it's being said to them, the savior is born to you, but it is not just for you.

This message is going to be for everyone. You get to be chosen to be participants in this plan that God is unfolding right before your very eyes. For unto you is born this day in the city of David. Now that's one indication that we have there that these shepherds were not in Bethlehem.

They were near Bethlehem, but it would not have been in Bethlehem. There may have been another town nearby, couple of miles away. And then they could have gone right into Jerusalem as well. It's unlikely that they would have done that, but it would have been right there.

They could have seen the walls of Jerusalem from wherever they were. Remember, Jerusalem is set up on a hill. And so you ascend, you go up to Jerusalem, just as it was said when Mary and Joseph traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem.

It says that they went up to Bethlehem, though they were traveling south. It's because Jerusalem and Judah and all that surrounding area, especially where the temple was on the Temple Mount, that was all elevated.

So they're ascending in the sense that they are going up in elevation. These shepherds would have been somewhere nearby tending their flocks, maybe between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, which was about four miles apart.

So the angel's saying to them that the Savior is born in the city of David. They know now where to go in order to look for him. He is a Savior. He is the Messiah. He is the anointed one, the one whom God has promised that he would send to rescue and save his people.

Now, the Jews were expecting this. All of Israel was anticipating the arrival of a Savior. They were all waiting for this to occur, just like we're waiting for Jesus to come back. And you will hear oftentimes somebody that will stand up and claim to have the date of Jesus' return predicted.

I've done all the math. I've looked at these world events that are going on. I've compared them with events that are described in the Bible, and I've got it. I've been able to pinpoint the day, at least the year that we know that Jesus is going to return.

We've heard that kind of story all the time. Sometime later this year, sometime next year, there's gonna be another kook that will come out and claim that he knows when Christ is gonna return. Either it will be the day, the week, the month, or the year, but he's gonna claim that he knows.

Well, there was that kind of thing going on even at this point in time. There would have been various individuals, especially in that intertestamental period in between the end of the Old Testament and the arrival of Jesus, which is a period of between 300 and 400 years.

And so even in that intertestamental period, there were men that would rise up and say, I'm he, I am the Messiah. Jesus had warned his disciples in Matthew 24 that there would be those who would rise up and claim to be the Christ.

So you must be careful. What they were claiming to be was the arrival of that Messiah who had been prophesied in the Old Testament. Now, when Jesus is talking about that in Matthew 24, many of them are going to say, yeah, the guy that showed up a few years ago, he wasn't the right one, I'm the right one.

Or there would be guys that would say, yeah, I am he and I've returned. I'm taking a different form, but I am the return of the Messiah. So Jesus, even Jesus warned his disciples about that. And likely this was going on during this day as well.

There were various persons that would step up and say, I'm the one, I'm the one you've been waiting for. The one that the law and the prophets were pointing to, that's me. But these angels are saying to these shepherds, now the Savior has been born.

And what a miraculous sight this was to confirm this message. It came from angels. This is not just any kook that is showing up claiming to be the Messiah. The angels told us this. The Savior who is Christ the Lord, the Messiah, the Lord, the one who reigns, the one who's talked about in Isaiah 9.

He'll be called wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, prince of peace, of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end. On the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and uphold it with justice and righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.

The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. And so here's the hosts. The hosts would be a reference to angels. Here's the hosts themselves, talking to these shepherds and saying that the Savior has arrived.

He is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign for you. Here's how you will know that you found the one who is the Savior. You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger. Now, I tend to think that this statement that the angels make to the shepherds about this will be the sign for you.

Of course, the angel is telling them, here's how you'll know you've found the Savior because he's wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger. But the fact that they say, this will be a sign for you, that's the same thing that Isaiah said to Ahaz in Isaiah chapter seven.

In verse 14, Isaiah said to the King Ahaz, the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Emmanuel. And we know that that was a prophetic declaration that had an application then when Isaiah delivered it, but it was ultimately pointing toward the one who would be born of the virgin, Jesus Christ, when he came in fulfillment of this prophecy in Isaiah 7, 14.

And Isaiah again says to Ahaz, the Lord will give you a sign and this is the sign. And so it's as if here, when the angels say this to the shepherds, this is the sign for you, kind of an undertone to this would have been, here's the fulfillment of the prophecy that was made so many hundreds of years ago.

You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger. The virgin has given birth and here's where to find Emmanuel, God with us. And then verse 13 says, and suddenly there was with the angel, a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, this reference to a multitude is a reference to the heavenly host.

Psalm 103, 21, bless the Lord, all his hosts, his ministers who do his will. And that's a reference to angels. In fact, the Hebrew word that's translated there as ministers is the same word that gets translated as angels in other places.

So there's a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, verse 14, glory to God in the highest. Now, even this statement from the angels is taking from the Old Testament, taking words from the scriptures.

Remember that when Zechariah made his prophecy at the end of Luke chapter one, many of the things that Isaiah said came right from the Old Testament scriptures. In the Magnificat, Mary's song, which she sang after she went and visited her cousin, Elizabeth.

The Magnificat was filled with all kinds of Old Testament references. And so even here with this statement that the angels make to the shepherds, the angels make references here to things that God had said through the prophets.

Psalm 148, one, praise the Lord, praise the Lord from the heavens, praise him in the heights. And so what do we have here? Glory to God in the highest. Similar also to something that we see in Revelation 5 .13.

I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea and all that is in them saying, to him who sits on the throne and to the lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever.

And the four living creatures said, amen. So here are the angels proclaiming glory to God in the highest and on earth. Psalm 85 .10, steadfast love and faithfulness meet, righteousness and peace kiss each other, on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased.

A statement as if to say, those very things that were said in the Psalms are being fulfilled right here. Isaiah 9 .6 once again, for to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be upon his shoulder and he'll be called wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, prince of peace.

On earth peace among those with whom he is pleased. Now, how do you often hear that said? Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace. How does that usually conclude? The King James Bible has it, goodwill to men.

It's more specific than that. It's not glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, goodwill to men. It's peace among those with whom he is pleased. Those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ are those with whom the father is pleased.

As he is pleased in the son, he is pleased with all who believe in his son. God is not pleased with all of mankind. That's often the way that this message from the angels is heard, but that is not what they said.

God is not pleased with all of mankind. Consider what we read in Malachi four. This was a passage that I brought up when we were in Luke chapter one, the prophecy that was made about the coming of John the Baptist.

Very last statement that you have in the Old Testament. Malachi four, verses five and six. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers.

Lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction. That's how the Old Testament ends. This is God's attitude toward mankind. I'm gonna wipe them out. They are just wicked. They rebel against me.

They do not listen to my words nor obey them. So if this was the way that mankind was going to remain, God was utterly going to wipe them out. But instead he sends his son so that whoever believes in him will not perish under the wrath of God, but have everlasting life.

So God's peace is with those who love his son. The apostle Paul described this peace in Philippians four as a peace that surpasses all understanding. Why is it a peace that surpasses all understanding?

Because it is a peace that cannot in any way be qualified with the kind of peace that we would enjoy here on earth. Peace as we know it on earth is simply without conflict. That's what that means, right?

So if everything is going well for you, you're not in conflict with anyone else, you're not in conflict with your bank or your boss or your spouse or your kids or people in the neighborhood, then you can relax and you have peace.

You're fulfilling the American dream. You're everybody's best friend. And that's not the kind of peace we're talking about here. A peace that's greater, a peace that we all need, and that is peace with God.

God is hostile to every one of us in our sins and transgressions, in which we once walked, rebelling against God and going our own way, committing high treason against the throne of the king of the universe.

And yet God being rich in mercy, he didn't leave us dead in our sins, but he sent his son to die for our sins so that through Jesus Christ, the wrath of God is satisfied. And now we have peace with God.

God's peace is among those with whom he is pleased. It is not with all of mankind. The birth of Jesus Christ was not peace on earth in the sense that all of the earth would suddenly experience peace because what happens shortly after Jesus is born.

Herod has all the baby boys in Bethlehem and the surrounding region from the age of two and under murdered. That's not peace. That's not a peaceful arrival, not peace from an earthly sense. Anyway, we're talking about a peace that is greater than that.

We're talking about peace with God. And indeed there is peace among mankind. It is among those who love Jesus and reflect that same kind of peace that God has shown to us so that we may also proclaim with these angels, glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased.

As said in Ephesians 1 .9, he has made known to us the mystery of his will according to his purpose, which he has set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

And all who are in Christ Jesus have peace with God and are united with him forever. Let's finish there. And then we'll wrap up this narrative with the shepherds tomorrow. Heavenly father, we thank you for what we have read, this historical lesson that we have here chronicled for us in Luke chapter two, but even more than this, it is the announcement of the arrival of our savior.

It is the gospel. It is good news of great joy that is for all people that Jesus has come, that God has made a way for us to be made right with him, to have fellowship with him and the promise of life everlasting with God in glory.

Lord, I pray that that would indeed give our souls peace, a peace that surpasses all understanding, a peace that no man or no circumstance or nothing else in the world could guarantee for us because any kind of peace that would be offered to us in the world could be snatched from us just like that.

But this kind of peace transcends all of that. It is peace with God through faith in our savior, Jesus Christ. Give us the willingness to want to share the message of the gospel of peace with others so that they too may know the peace of God and live.

It's in Jesus name we pray, amen.

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Join us again tomorrow as we continue our Bible study when we understand the text.