1999 Luke 2:1-20 Thomas

Christmas 1999
Luke 2:1-20
Angels
Dr. Derek Thomas

Now turn with me, if you would, to the second chapter of Luke’s gospel, Luke chapter 2. Let’s hear together the word of God.

“Now it came about in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all were proceeding to register for the census, everyone to his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, in order to register, along with Mary, who was engaged to him, and was with child. And it came about that while they were there, the days were completed for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son; and she wrapped Him in cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. And in the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields, and keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened. And the angel said to the, ‘Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which shall be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths, and lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly hosts praising God, and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.’ And it came about when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, that the shepherds began saying to one another, ‘Let us go straight to Bethlehem then, and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us.’ And they came in haste and found their way to Mary and Joseph, and the baby as He lay in the manger. And when they had seen this, they made known the statement which had been told them about this Child. And all who heard it wondered at the things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds went back, glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen, just as had been told them.”

Thus far, God’s holy and inerrant word. May He bless it to us. Let’s pray together.

Our Father in Heaven, we thank You for Your word, and we pray just now for the help of Your Spirit, that as we consider it together it might please You to write it upon our hearts for Your glory’s sake. Amen.

Now this is the final prayer meeting before Christmas day. And I thought, I might bring to you this evening, knowing that there was something unusual about this evening’s prayer meeting, I thought I might bring to you an early Christmas present, something out of the ordinary, something which we don’t, as a rule, as Christians, as Bible-believing Christians, consider a great deal.

And that is, angels, because this is the time of year when we sing about angels: “Angels from the realms of glory”; “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing”; “At the first noel, the angel did say”; “While shepherds watched their flocks by night all seated on the ground, the angel of the Lord came down and glory shone around.” Two-thirds, it’s a rough estimation, but something like two-thirds of all carols that we sing, that is to say hymns about the incarnation and birth of Jesus Christ, two-thirds of them mention the ministry and function of angels. And I thought this evening we might try and look through the Scriptures for some twenty, twenty-five minutes or so and ask ourselves, “What are angels for?” and “What do they have to teach us?”

I. What are angels?
In the first place then, let’s ask ourselves this question: “What are angels?” And there are two words, two words both in Hebrew and two words in Greek; both of them or all four of them are usually translated by the expression “a messenger.” And that’s basically what the word angel means, “a messenger.” Sometimes it just means “a human messenger,” but generally speaking it refers to supernatural messengers of God, non-human, spiritual but rational created beings. We’re told in the first chapter of Hebrews, and it’s actually citing Psalm 104, “Who makes His angels spirits, and His messengers a flame of fire.” Angels equals messengers.

Now there are two general things that we can say about angels. In the first place, that there are two kinds of angels. There are fallen angels, Jesus in Matthew 25, and we’ve just been considering it on Sunday mornings. In Matthew 25, He speaks of the Devil and his angels. Satan was an angel who did not keep his place and Scripture sees him as a liar and a murderer. And he fell along with evil angels; Peter mentions these in 2^nd Peter 2, chapter 2 in verse 4, “God did not spare the angels who sinned but cast them down into Hell and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved for judgment.” Well, that’s one kind of angel, and I don’t propose to talk about them any further this evening.

But there’s a second category of angels, and that is faithful angels. Paul speaks about them in this first epistle to Timothy in chapter 5, “I charge you, therefore, before God and the Lord Jesus Christ and the elect angels.” These angels are associated with God in His great work of revelation. And on these we shall focus our attention.

And if there are two kinds of angels, there are also different orders of angels. There are in the first place two different orders, but there are in the first place two different ranks of angels. We know at least of one archangel. Elsewhere in Scripture he is referred to as “Michael,” and Paul speaks of the second coming of Jesus Christ who will descend from Heaven with a shout and, you remember, the voice of an archangel. And you remember in the book of Daniel in his prophecy in chapter 10, he speaks about the help that he receives from Michael the archangel. And then we know of the name of at least one other angel—he may be an archangel, but the Bible doesn’t actually say so—and that is Gabriel. He’s the one who appears at the time of the birth of John the Baptist and with Elizabeth and Zechariah.

And there are different kinds of angels. There are different orders but there are different ranks too. We know of created beings known as Cherubim, and the Cherubim first appear in the Garden of Eden. And they are the ones who protect the way back to Eden. They were symbolized, you remember, on the Ark of the Covenant. And they are, in Scripture, represented as the guardians of the glory of God. And you see that especially in the prophecy of Ezekiel, where we are told again and again that God dwells among the Cherubim. You remember that wonderful chapter? It’s the most awe-inspiring chapter, in the 10^th chapter of Ezekiel when the glory of God departs the Temple. It’s one of those fearful moments in Old Testament prophecy. And the glory of God is about to depart from the Temple and is carried on a great chariot surrounded by Cherubim. Wherever the glory of God went, the Cherubim went also. And then we know of other created beings known as Seraphim. And they appear in that wonderful chapter of Isaiah, chapter 6, when at the death of King Uzziah, you remember, Isaiah is in the temple and he beholds something of the glory of God? And it’s the Seraphim who go to the alter and take a live, hot coal and seal the prophet’s lips, reconciling him to God. And it seems that the Seraphim are agents in God’s work of reconciliation.

We should also remind ourselves that there are many, many angels, huge numbers of angels. We read for example in Deuteronomy 33 in verse 2 that “the Lord came from Sinai; He shone forth from Mount Paran; He came with myriads of angels.” And you think of that moment when Jesus said that he could have called upon twelve legions of angels, and a legion was anything between three and six thousand. That’s a lot of angels! But especially in Revelation 5:11, where we read of that “ten thousand times ten thousand” and “thousand of thousands” referring to the angels. There are a lot of them. And I think, if I can pause for a minute, at this time of year when especially we are focused upon Jesus Christ, that the angels who are also predominantly present at the birth of Jesus Christ and the announcement of His birth and in this marvelous story here in Luke chapter 2 where the shepherds…that perhaps part of our consideration at this time of year ought to be to these mysterious but wonderful creatures that God has created in heaven.

II. What are they for?
Now what are they for? Probably the best definition of what angels are for is found in Hebrews chapter 1 and verse 14: “They are ministering spirits sent forth to serve those who inherit salvation.” They are the servants of God and ministers to the people of God. And I want to say several things about that by way of summary.

In the first place, they are servants in establishing the purposes of God. They are servants in establishing the purposes of God. And angels appear at every strategic point in biblical history. They were present at Creation. In Job 38, we read of the angels shouting for joy at the Creation of God; of course after their own creation, but shouting for joy at the splendor and the magnificence of Creation. We know they were present at the fall: Seraphim and Cherubim guarding, Seraphim guarding the entrance to the Garden of Eden. We know that they were present at the establishment of the covenant line. We’ve seen that in expositions of Genesis, haven’t we, with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob? Every single one of them were ministered to by angels. In the book of Exodus, Paul speaks of the law as having been given through angels by the hand of a mediator. We know the great prophets were ministered to by angels. Elisha…you remember that story of Elisha? And he gets up in the morning and his servant says, “Alas, my master, what shall we do, because the hills and mountains are surrounded by the enemies of God?” And Elisha says, “Lift up your eyes. Praise to the God of heaven.” And then the chariots of fire, the angels guarding the people of God. We’ve just noted a reference in the book of Daniel and during the time of the exile to angels. We know of the ministry of angels in the birth of Christ. We know in the ministry of the apostles, Peter and John…who was it who let Peter and John out of prison? It was an angel, and this isn’t haphazard like many of the miracles. They appeared. Angels appeared at strategic points in the advancement of the purposes of God. Then again, they are servants of Jesus Christ in His incarnation.

Peter puts it, I think, the most wonderfully in 1 Peter 1 and verse 12 when he says about angels, that they long and desire to look into the things of Christ. Everything about the coming of Christ, everything about the covenant of redemption between the Father and the Son, everything about the glory of the incarnation seems, Scripture says, to fascinate the angels. They are fascinated by the coming of Jesus Christ. They’re at Bethlehem at the incarnation. They’re there in the temptation narratives of Jesus in the wilderness. There was an angel, you remember, present in the Garden of Gethsemane, one very specific angel who ministered to Christ and helped Him and strengthened Him? You remember the story of Alexander White, who said that when he got to heaven, after seeing Jesus Christ, the next one he wanted to see was that angel in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus said on the Cross of Calvary that He could have called upon twelve legions of angels. Angels were present at the resurrection, at the ascension, at the session of Christ at the right hand of God, according to Revelation 5, and at the return of Christ in glory, He’ll come with His holy angels. Why all this interest? Because they are His family. The Bible calls the angels “the sons of God.” And they are fascinated because they were created for this very purpose of ministering on behalf of God, and they’re taken up with the things of Christ.

Then again, they are divine agents in spiritual conflict. And a great example of that is in Daniel chapter 10 when Daniel, you remember, sees a vision of a heavenly messenger and he describes him wearing linen and crystallite with a face like lightening and arms and legs of bronze, burnished bronze, and a voice like the sound of a multitude. And you remember what Daniel had been doing? He’d been reading from the prophecy of Jeremiah about the end of the exile and realizing that they had already been in exile for some 68 years. He realized that the end of that exile was now within sight. And as he pleads for that angel, that angel to come, you remember it took that angel three weeks to come to Daniel? And when asked why it had taken three weeks to come, he said it was because he had been fighting with God’s archenemy on Daniels behalf…wars, spiritual wars of which we know very little, in which the angels and archangels are involved, ministering on our behalf. They long to look into the things of God, and they are servants in spiritual battle and conflict on our behalf.

But then again, angels are particularly involved in the whole business of music and the music of worship and the music of the praise of almighty God, the music of the heavenly sanctuary. Angels are worshippers. They’re worshippers like us, and we are to worship in some way like them. On the hillside around Bethlehem, they gave testimony as to how to worship, singing to the praises of almighty God. True worship is to share in their worship. Doesn’t the Bible say to us that we come, you and I, “to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem, to the general assembly of the church of the first born, to God the Judge of All, to the spirits of just men made perfect and to Jesus Christ the Mediator, the Mediator of a new covenant”? As we come and gather together for worship, as we gather as a covenant body of the Lord’s people to worship on the Lord’s Day, as we gather here this evening—to some extent the book of Hebrews is saying, we gather in the presence, in the presence…Imagine it!...we gather in the presence of an innumerable company of angels. Isn’t that a glorious reminder that there is more to this world than that which we can see and that which we can taste and that which we can handle? That we gather in the presence of this spiritual community of angels. And we catch in Scripture something of the awe and the reverence and the enthusiasm and the whole-heartedness of their worship. “Glory to God in the highest,” they proclaim.

III. What is the significance of all of that for us?
But what is the significance of all of that for us? And I want to say two or three things very quickly in closing. First of all, that angels, who they are and what they do, angels remind us of the greatness of our salvation. Angels we read, long to look into these things. They hold their breath in awe, gasping at what God has done in sending His Son to die on our behalf. Now they cannot experience this, but they are fascinated, they are fascinated by what God is doing. And ought that not to be for us a wonderful paradigm and lesson that we too ought to be more taken up with the things that God is doing, of what it cost the Lord Jesus Christ, of the great love of God the Father in sending Him? That like these angels we should at times hold our breath at what He has done for us?

But then again, these angels, what they are and what they do, spur us on to desire to worship truly. What did the hymn writer mean when he said, “Angels help us to adore Him. You behold Him face to face”? Isn’t it this that he meant, that we take a leaf out of the angelic book and enter into worship, the worship of almighty God, with enthusiasm and with whole-heartedness and with reverence? Perhaps that above everything else this Christmas time ought to be the lesson that we learn from the ministry of angels, that God would help us and that God would provoke us to worship with more of our hearts than we do.

And it is to do with something that the Psalmist writes in Psalm 91, with which I want to close, “He shall give His angels charge over you to keep in all your ways.” And one of the reasons why God is able to keep us and preserve us in this life and to keep us so many times from harm and danger is because of the ministry of these angels, who He has created to guard us in our ways and to fight against Satan and to protect us and to keep us for glory, so that you and I might have that glimpse that Elisha had of the chariots of fire that surround us day by day when we find ourselves in difficulty and hostility. Well, that’s my present for you and I hope it’s a useful one. And I trust that you will think on these things and think on these angels and think about how wonderful and mysterious and full of glory the world to come really is.

Let’s pray together.

Gracious God and ever blessed Father, we do thank You for Your word. We thank You for these angels that we know so little about, and we thank You especially for their fascination about the things of Jesus Christ. And O give us, we pray, hearts that beat in tune with these angels that we too might be fascinated by all that Jesus Christ has done for us: His incarnation, His temptation in the wilderness, His agonies in the Garden of Gethsemane, His death on Calvary, His Resurrection and Ascension and Session at Your right hand, and His glorious coming again. And O Lord, we pray, grant this particular Christmas time that Jesus might truly be our all in all. Hear us for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Now would you stand and receive the Lord’s benediction? Now may the grace of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God our Father and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with each one of you now and forevermore. Amen.