So we come together today to focus upon his word. Scripture says, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Desire the unadulterated milk of the word that you may grow thereby. His divine power has given to us everything pertaining to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by glory and virtue by which have been given to us many great and precious promises, that through these we may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption which is in the world through lust. Jesus prayed to the Father, sanctify them by means of truth. Thy word is truth. Before we open God's word this morning, let's bow our heads together and go to the Lord in prayer. Father, what a privilege it is that we can come together to study your Word, that we have many different English translations, some better, some not as good, but we have the ability to study your Word, to have our own copies of your Word in our hands and in our homes. And so often we ignore that, but we are to hide your Word in our heart. We are to pay attention to it. We are to love Your Word just as You love Your Word above all else. So, Father, we pray that we might cherish Your Word and come to understand what we must do to fulfill these various injunctions and exhortations in Scripture. And, Father, as we turn to Your Word now, we pray that God the Holy Spirit, who is the ultimate author of Scripture, would help us to understand these things and see their significance. And we pray this in Christ's name, amen. This week we celebrate the birth of our Savior. The other day I was talking with, or texting rather, with Jim Myers, and he made a comment because my first Sunday back I was continuing in Ephesians, and we were in 1 Corinthians 11, and he said, that's the strangest Christmas message I ever heard. He was just teasing me, but I commented, I said, you know, after 30 or 40 years, it's sort of hard to get a new slant on a story that we all know. But what I have come to understand as a pastor is we don't really want a lot of, you know, stranger, bizarre stories or other things that come up in some situations and trying to put a whole new face on what happened. We just want to hear the same old story. we need to be reminded of what Scripture says and how things are put together. And that night, and I really had not dwelt much on that, but that night I woke up about 3.30 in the morning and I had a thought. And I then went back to sleep. And the thought was the announcements of the angels. I don't think I've ever focused on what the angels announced. Now, I'm not looking so much at what they said in response, but why did the angels say what they said? Now, we're going to look at the response because that shows a few things by application. There's some lessons here because we see how to respond and how not to respond in the three examples that we are looking at this morning. There are six times the angels reveal something or speak to Zacharias, first of all, the father of John the Baptist, and then Joseph and Mary. And two or three of them are relatively short, but there are three or four that have more said about them. And you can read them and think that, well, that's really great. But if you don't have a background in understanding the Old Testament, understanding what God revealed from the very beginning of the sin of man as he first articulates and hints at the gospel in what is called the Proto-Evangelium, or the earliest good news statement in Genesis 3.15, going through and tracing the various different prophecies, and we've done that many times in different ways over the years. You really can't grasp the significance of everything that is said here, so I could take a lot of time going through phrase by phrase, but I'm not going to do that. I want to just hit some of the high points. As we look at the angel's announcement to, first of all, Zechariah in Luke 1, 5-25, and then later in that chapter to Mary in Luke 1, 26-36, and then shifting over to the Gospel of Matthew, the announcement to Joseph in Matthew 1, 18 to 21. So you might want to turn in your Bible with me to Luke chapter 1. Luke chapter 1 records in the first part of that chapter, the angel Gabriel appearing suddenly, unexpectedly, and somewhat shockingly to Zechariah, a priest in the order of Abijah, who has been chosen that particular time by pure chance. You're supposed to chuckle, see if you're paying attention. He is chosen that particular day to receive an announcement. Now, what's interesting about this is there has not been any revelation or hint of revelation There have been no dreams or visions to prophets for over 400 years since the time of Malachi. And so suddenly, unexpectedly, there is an angelic appearance with an announcement that when understood against the backdrop even of Malachi 3, which at the very close of the Old Testament speaks of one like Elijah coming in the future as the forerunner of the Messiah, it would be something of a shock. So what we see, first of all, in the first part of Luke, just to get our context, is some background information. Luke is just talking to his friend Theophilus, explaining what he is doing, why he is writing, and how he has researched what he has writing. what he has written. In Luke 1, he says, "...inasmuch as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those things which have been fulfilled among us." He's talking about the birth of the Lord and the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. He says, "...just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word delivered them to us, He says, it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write to you an orderly account, most excellent Theophilus. He goes on to say in verse four that you may know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed. So he tells us that he's done his homework, he's done his research. There are three things to emphasize here. First of all, that his account is based on extensive investigation and interviews with participants and eyewitnesses of the events that he is writing about. The second thing that he says about it is that he wrote in order to give a perfect understanding of all things. That's translated a little differently in different English translations. The Greek word that is used there has the idea of a strict conformity to a standard. He is saying, I paid careful attention in all of my research, and I am writing this down in conformity to a standard of accuracy. He's not following the standards of the culture of the day, which may have embellished or expanded or changed some of the historical details to make a better story. He is going to accurately and precisely tell the story of the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ and his life and his death, burial, and resurrection. And the third thing we should note here is that its purpose is so that we can know with certainty that we can have an understanding of truth. That word translated certainty is the idea of the stability of a statement or of an idea. It is talking about the stability of absolute truth. And so it's important to understand that in the background. And so it is apparent that he has also talked to those who were present, perhaps, in the temple audience that day that Zechariah goes into the temple in order to offer the incense on the altar of incense, which would have been his responsibility. So as we look at this episode, we see three characters. One is in the background. The first is Zechariah. who is the father of and will be the father of John the Baptist, then there is Gabriel the angel, and then in the background but unseen is his wife Elizabeth, and she will become the mother of John the Baptist. We will learn more about her, that she is a close relative of Mary who will become the mother of the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ. So we come to Luke 1 verse 5. which reads, there was in the days of Herod the king of Judah, so he locates this in a particular time and place so that it is not something that is in a galaxy far, far away a long time ago. It is in the time of Herod the Great, the king of Judea, and there is a priest, Zacharias. He is a Levitical priest, and at that time, as we put together various records, We know that there were approximately 18,000 Levitical priests in Judea and in Israel at that time. And they were the ones who were responsible for performing the regular daily sacrifices and the rituals. So typically, your group or your clan, there were 24 courses or clans of the Levitical priests that had been in existence since the time of David. 1 Chronicles 24 1-19 tells us that he divided the Levitical priests into 24 courses or clans, and they were named for their head, who was a chief priest. So there were 24 chief priests, and over them was the high priest, so it was very well organized. And so what we see is that after the Babylonian captivity, only four of these clans returned. So basically what they did was they said, we have this certain number of priests, we're going to divide them into 24 groups, and we're going to give them the same traditional names of the 24 groups of priests, but they no longer had that physical tie. to their original founders. So we see Zechariah is one of 18,000, now various people have worked out the math on this, that he would have been from this one clan, the division of Abijah, and probably only one time in a priest's life would they have the privilege of offering the altar on the incense. And there may have been some that never had that privilege. chosen, as the text says, by Lot. The other thing that it tells us is about his family situation, and he is married to Elizabeth, and the text will say that they are older, and the phrase that we find in the text tells us that they were, according to rabbinical thought, They were not only beyond the age of childbirth, but they would have been beyond the age of 60. So it was completely unexpected that she would be able to give birth. And that also tells us that they were believers. And when we look at the text, we see that it says that they were righteous. And when it says that they were righteous, that tells us that they were justified. This goes back to Genesis chapter 15 verse 6, which tells us that Abraham believed God and it was imputed to him as righteousness. And so the first mention there of righteousness is an indication that they were justified. And then it goes on to say that they were blameless. They were blameless, and that doesn't mean sinless. It means that when they sinned, they would go through the rituals of the Mosaic Law, and they would offer the appropriate sacrifices, the sin offerings, trespass offerings, and confess their sins and become ritually cleansed. So they were obedient believers. And they had a good testimony in their life. So the fact that they were called righteous emphasizes their position before God, that they were justified and had received imputed righteousness. And the fact that they were blameless and they followed the Mosaic law indicates their experiential standing and their experiential growth in their spiritual life according to the Mosaic law. But suddenly something happens. This is described in verse 11. The angel Gabriel unexpectedly appears before Zacharias. And it's a fearful thing. He is scared to death. He may have even been trembling when suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared to him standing on the right side of the altar. Now, why is that significant? It's significant because, according to the Old Testament, two of the sons of Aaron were rebellious. And they went into the tabernacle and they offer what is often translated as strange fire. It was just unauthorized incense. There was a particular recipe that God had given to Moses and Aaron for the incense. And that was the only incense that was to be burned in the tabernacle and later in the temple. And nobody was to use that recipe for any other kind of incense. But Nadab and Abihu went in and they offered another recipe of incense and burned that, and God immediately struck them dead. So there is this tradition that If a priest were to go in and somehow violate the law and do something wrong in his service inside the holy place or the Holy of Holies, that an angel would appear on the right side of the altar and would announce a judgment and strike them dead. So when this angel appears at the right side of the altar, Zechariah's immediate thought is he's about to die. And so what happens to him is that he's just scared to death over this. And the angel says to him, do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your prayer is heard. Now, this would not be his prayer that he's offering as he goes in and serves there, because this is a personal prayer. This was likely a prayer that he and Elizabeth had prayed throughout the course of their marriage that she would be able to have a child, and it was considered a sign of God's disfavor if a woman was barren. Now, I've gone through studies in the past where we've looked at six different women whose barrenness was emphasized in the Scripture. In each case, God provided and announced a miraculous birth. that this barren woman would give birth. And I believe that those were all types or examples of the fact that God would bring life into a virgin's womb, and that would be a fulfillment of that type. And so God was teaching that he's the one who brings life where there has been death. So the angel begins to talk to him and to provide for him. And the first thing that he says is, don't be afraid. Now, we're going to see this in each situation is that when angels appear, apparently it's a pretty scary thing. And the first thing they say is, don't be afraid. But if you look at the Hebrew and also the Greek structures here, now there's several different ways that that may be presented. So I'm not sure I've got every example. But there are over 112 times that I can find in the Old Testament and in the New Testament where the Scripture says, don't be afraid. This is one of the most common commands to believers is stop being afraid. Do not be afraid. Do not fear. Fear not. These are all various ways in which the phrase is translated into English. Because the opposite of that is to trust God. And we are to trust Him and not be afraid. The second thing that the angel tells Zacharias is that your wife will bear a son. So this would be good news. The family name would go on. This is important within the Jewish backgrounds that this is important for the tribe, the inheritance, and passing this on. generation to generation. Third, now he's told that he's going to have a specific name to call his son, that he is to name the son John. He is to name the son John, which is not a name that was part of his family background. And so this would be unusual. Usually a son would be named either after the father or the grandfather or maybe an uncle or somebody. significant in the family line. But in this case, he is to have an unusual name, and that is the name John. So these are the first three things that the angel says in verse 13. Then in verse 14 we read a couple of more statements. He says, And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth. So this is the statement he makes. Now this idea of having joy and gladness, these words are often used in the Hebrew forms, are often used in the Old Testament to reflect the times of the Messiah. And so again, these words are loaded with a messianic implication. You will have joy and gladness. And second, the fifth thing he says is that many will rejoice at his birth. So these are the ones that will respond positively to the message of John the Baptist. Then in Luke 115, we read him saying something else. We read him saying here that, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and he shall drink neither wine nor strong drink, which would be barley beer, they didn't have distilled beverages there, so there wasn't any gin or vodka or scotch or whiskey or anything like that. Strong drink doesn't refer to that, it would refer to something like barley beer. And that is how it's usually defined in, at least in Old Testament language in Hebrew. And then the Greek also is a word that indicates barley beer. And then it says, he will also be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb. Now, there's several issues related to the understanding of this particular statement. First of all, he's going to be great in the eyes of the Lord. Later, Jesus says in Matthew 11, 11 about John the Baptist, assuredly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist. But he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he is." So there's a dispensational distinction. Those who are in the kingdom of heaven, which relates to the coming messianic kingdom, have more privileges, more assets, than John the Baptist had or than any Old Testament prophet had, but John had more, a greater blessing. And what was that? He was the forerunner of the Messiah. He got to announce his coming, and he knew and saw in the flesh the Messiah that none of his predecessors in the Old Testament saw. They looked, Peter tells us, they looked forward to that day. And so John the Baptist would be great, but he's great, notice, in the sight of the Lord. I'll come back to that when we talk about what Gabriel says to Mary. So we look at that phrase, and then in the next phrase we see something that reminds us of the Nazarite vow in the Old Testament. It's similar to a Nazirite vow, and Nazirite stipulations are given in Leviticus, and they are, excuse me, they're given in Numbers 6, 2 through 8, but one of the stipulations is that they are not to let a razor touch their head. They're not to get a haircut, they're not to shave, they're to let their beard grow and their hair grow, so they would look, their appearance would be striking, and people would look at them. Now, for most Nazirites, the vow was temporary, but there are three for whom they are appointed to be Nazirites, and that comes from the time that they are born. And so this would refer to, for example, Samson and Samuel, two contrasts. Samson's mostly disobedient. Samuel's mostly obedient. Samson ignored his vow and broke it every time he had an opportunity. Samuel did not. And then we have John the Baptist. But the difference here is that there's no mention of John not cutting his hair. So it could have been that this was the kind of vow that was…or stipulation that indicated a prophet or someone of other significant spiritual status, but it was not the same as a Nazirite vow. And then we see in the eighth thing that the angel says is that he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb." Now, reading that in the English, if you've been around here very long, you have heard the term being filled by the Spirit. And so it conjures up Ephesians 5.18, but that's only because the translation doesn't pay attention to the fact that in the Greek It's a different word and a different construction than what you have in Ephesians 518. It's not anything alike. One of the reasons you know that is that this is not in the church age. This is still in the period under the law. And so that makes a significant difference. The word that is used here is not the same as we find in Ephesians 518. It is the word pemplemi. Now, there are some scholars who, because the root is that P-L-E in the middle of it, pleirao is the word used in Ephesians 5.18, and both words probably derive from some ultimate root, but usage determines meaning, not etymology or the history of the word. And so, what you have to look at is the context. of how this word is used, and I've done that in various lessons, and I've done that earlier in our study in Ephesians. And this is really talking about something that would be similar to the endowment of the Holy Spirit, that temporary ministry of the Holy Spirit to Old Testament saints that we see at times in the Old Testament. But when you look at its usage, almost always immediately precedes someone speaking in the context. Now, maybe a little bit of time may have gone by before the, between the two phrases, but it's almost always linked. We'll see it. The Spirit, Mary has been plamed, and she speaks. Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, has been plamed, and she speaks. And you look at various other uses of this, And it almost always immediately precedes speaking. And so it is not the same as being filled by means of the spirit. You don't even have the same kind of grammatical construction, and you don't have the same kind of preposition. So it's completely different, and it would relate to the same kind of endowment empowerment of the Holy Spirit that would have been found in Old Testament prophets, which was a temporary endowment. Then you have another phrase, from his mother's womb. And this also gets into quite a bit of controversy, and you'll find that some people think that this means from inside the womb, And others say that, no, this is just an idiom for after birth. It could be not immediately after birth, but for a young child. In fact, the Bauer, Danker, Arndt and Gingrich Greek lexicon says that that's a meaning from a young age is what that means. The new international version, the NIV, translates it that way in this particular passage. Now, why would they say that it's a problem that he was filled by the Spirit from inside of his mother's womb? Is there a theological problem there? He would be the only human being following the sin of Adam who ever had a relationship with God while he was spiritually dead. And this is You know, I bring this up and people just look at me like I just grew two or three horns on top of my head. We have to think about these things. We are corrupt and irregardless of whether you think life begins in the womb or outside of the womb. Let's just assume life begins inside the womb. Biological human life is definitely inside the womb, but it's spiritually dead. It's affected by sin. And everything is affected by sin, and so there's no example anywhere in Scripture of someone who is not a believer ever having a relationship with the Holy Spirit or with God. So that's a major problem here in terms of translating this inside the womb. And there are a number of places where you have the comparable Hebrew phrase, which is the preposition me or men, which is the word, which numerous translations, I mean, I've looked at this off and on over the years, numerous translations will translate that phrase in the Hebrew as from a young age. So this fits best that from a young age, he will have this kind of relationship with God, the Holy Spirit. So that leads to C, which is the meaning is that it's from a young age that God the Holy Spirit would speak through him after he had come to a point of trusting in the Old Testament promise of the coming Savior who would provide for salvation. Now, I've done a complete detailed study in all these different phrases in the 81st lesson of Ephesians. Ninth thing that he says is that he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. Now that word turn is very important. It's not a word that necessarily means to repent. That's a different word, but it has that same idea of turning. In Deuteronomy chapter 30, after listing in Deuteronomy 28 and 29 the curses on Israel because of their idolatry, Deuteronomy 30 begins with, when they turn back to God. So that's the Hebrew word, but it's translated with this Greek word epistrepho, which simply means to change directions. They're turning from idolatry to the one and only Creator God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. he will turn many. Why is he going to be turning many to God? To prepare them so that there will be a group ready to receive the Messiah when he comes. The tenth thing that we see that the angel points out is that he, that is, John the Baptist, will go before him. So you have to pay attention to your pronouns here. He will go before him. The he goes back to the last person referenced in the previous verse, which is John the Baptist, that he will go before him, he is the forerunner of the Messiah, and he will be in the spirit and power of Elijah. So that again indicates that this role of the Holy Spirit is like that that you see on the prophets in the Old Testament. And his role is to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. So his role is to address the remnant that is in Israel, to turn them to the Lord and to prepare a group that would receive the Messiah when He comes. But what's his reaction? His reaction is to question the veracity of this. He says, well, how will I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is well advanced in years. You see, what is happening is that he is doubting. He is not believing. So the angel appears to him, announces that he and his wife are going to have a son, and this son is going to be the forerunner of the Messiah, and he doubts it. He does not have belief. In verses 19 and 20, we read, and the angel answered and said to him, I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God and was sent to speak to you and bring you these glad tidings. Glad tidings translates the word Ebangalizo, which is good news. It's the gospel. But behold, you will be mute and not able to speak until the day these things take place, because what? You did not believe. You did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their own time. That doesn't mean he's not saved. It means that he was told something that he found to be incredulous, and he just didn't believe it. He didn't trust that it would be true. And so he is going to have a period of a little over nine months of not being able to speak. He was going to have to write everything down. The conclusion to this in the text, and the people waited for Zacharias and marveled that he lingered so long in the temple, but when he came out he could not speak to them. And they perceived that he had seen a vision in the temple, for he beckoned to them and remained speechless. So we see a prophecy from the angel and it's immediately fulfilled, he can't speak. And that indicates that the prophecy about the coming of a son would also be eventually fulfilled. And so these prophecies that are given related to the arrival of the Lord Jesus Christ are important because they strengthen our faith, they provide evidence that God is working. And so we're told that it's verse 23, as soon as the days of his service were completed that he departed to his own house. And the fulfillment, verse 24, now after those days his wife Elizabeth conceived and she hid herself five months saying, Thus the Lord has dealt with me in the days when he looked on me to take away my reproach among my people." So we see the first announcement and the angel says ten things, Zechariah doesn't believe them, and he goes through divine discipline. That is our conclusion. Zechariah failed to trust the message of God and endured divine discipline for over nine months. Second application is that prophecy was validated through the precise fulfillment of both the message of the birth and the message of the discipline. That brings us to the second angelic appearance. The first one's the longest, each one gets shorter. The second angelic appearance is the announcement of the pregnancy and birth to Mary. And again, it's the same angel, Gabriel. Now in the sixth month, that would be the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy with John the Baptist, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. So twice now it reminds us that she is a virgin. And having come in, the angel said to her, Rejoice, highly favored one. The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women." Now, what's interesting is his first statement is, do not be afraid. His first statement is, rejoice, because you are blessed among women. So what we see here in this announcement of this birth is that it fits the pattern of the four previous birth announcements in the Hebrew Scripture. So you go back and you look at the announcement of Ishmael's birth, Isaac's birth, Samson's birth, and Samuel's birth, that it fits the same pattern. This connects the Old Testament. These are the little things that shows that this is an integrated whole, that as the title of the series says, all of Scripture is interlocked with one another. It stands and falls together. Second thing we see is it's parallel to the previous announcement to Zechariah, but there are some differences. There's several similarities and several differences. Third thing we see is that he comes to Nazareth, which at this time was a very small town of maybe 2,000. It had been a larger city at one time, significant city during the Northern Kingdom, a city maybe of 40,000, but then it was destroyed. No one lived there for a while. And then during the time of the Maccabees, they recolonized it, reestablished it. And it is thought by many that there's evidence that the early group that went there were descendants of David. So Joseph is living there with others who are also descendants of King David. And there's an emphasis on this fact that she is betrothed to a man who is from the house of David. And that, again, is significant. So the angel greets her and he says, rejoice, highly favored one. Now this is a little side note. This is from the, it's the whole form of the word is kekeritamene, and it's these letters here, C-H-A-R-I, charis is the noun for grace. So this is really a word that refers to being gracious, to showing favor or receiving favor, and it's a perfect tense indicating completed action. Its passive voice indicates she's receiving, She has already received the action of this gracious blessing from God. And she's troubled, which means that she is somewhat agitated and she's a little confused, as you might be. She was somewhere probably close to 13 or 14 years of age. They got married young or betrothed young, and the betrothal process was a contract. and it was signed, and there was a year, it's not like our engagement period. It's like you're married, but you don't have all the benefits. You are legally bound, and for one year, and then it's a contract, and then you have the marriage, and after that is when you have intimate relations. So she's troubled at this saying because how can she have a, be pregnant. How can this come about? So when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, consider what manner of greeting this was. The angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Notice the first thing he said was rejoice. And it's only after he gives some content to the message that she's confused. And he says, well, don't be afraid. For you have found favor with God, you've been graced out. God has chosen to bless you in a unique way. And he then goes on to say, Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a son and shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the son of the highest. And the Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom. There will be no end. So they're basically the six statements that are made after she is troubled. The first is, do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. She has found grace with God, and God is going to provide for her. And so she's going to be the beneficiary of God's grace, his undeserved blessing. Second thing that he points out is she's going to conceive. But as a virgin, she is going to conceive, and this will be explained further in verse 35. He says, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a son. This is prophetic fulfillment. We've seen this many times. Genesis 3.15, the Protoevangelium, when God says that the seed of the woman will defeat the seed of the serpent. And this is a a promise that a descendant of the woman, a human being, will be the one who ultimately defeats the seed of the serpent. And you connect this to Isaiah 7.14, therefore the Lord Himself will give you, and it's a plural, not talking to Ahaz as an individual, He's talking to the house of David in the context, and I've gone through that in detail. He will give you a sign. A sign is something miraculous. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son. Now there's debate over what the word translated as virgin means. There is another word that would primarily mean virgin, but on several occasions just means an older unmarried woman, a widow in some cases. This word Alma always refers to a young woman of marriageable age. They lived in a time when young women of marriageable age were virgins. They were not like the many young women today. And so the assumption is that she was a virgin in the second century before Christ, 200 years before Christ, when Jewish rabbis translated this into the Greek version of the Septuagint, they translated it with the word Parthenos, which is a word that means virgin. They understood this. It wasn't until after Christianity began and after the birth of Jesus And Mary's claim to have been a virgin that the Jews who rejected Jesus as Messiah started trying to retranslate these things. The third thing that is said is that she's told to call his name Jesus. In the Hebrew, this is Yeshua, which comes from the Hebrew root yashah, which is the verb to save. And so he is going to be called Yeshua. Now, just like Zacharias was told to name his son John, nobody in that family had the name John. Nobody in the family of Mary or Joseph had the name Yeshua. Yeshua is a name that we find other forms of it, Joshua, Isaiah, Hosea, are all based on the same root. So this was not an uncommon a name at that time at all, but it's a name that emphasizes salvation, and he will be the one who saves his people from their sins. So she's told to name him Yeshua because that's his role. Fourth, the son will be great. Now the greatness here is intrinsic. He is great because he is the God-man. He is the eternal second person of the Trinity. He is not great in the sight of God like John the Baptist, but he is great in and of himself intrinsically because he's the one who is going to provide salvation for the world. The fifth thing that he says is that he will be the Son of God. The emphasis is on this undiminished deity. Son of doesn't mean that A gave birth to B. Often it's used idiomatically, like somebody who is a son of a fool is a fool. It's an adjectival idiom. Someone who's a murderer would be called a son of a murderer. Somebody who is destructive would be called the son of Belial. So that's how that works. So if you were a woman and you were beautiful, you would be called the daughter of beauty. It's a picturesque idiom. So he will be called the son of the highest, a circumlocution for the name of God. And the Lord God will give him then the throne of David. So this idea of the son of the highest also goes back to Psalm 26, which was how I where I went for our call to worship this morning. God the Father is speaking, he says, yet I have set my king on my holy hill of Zion. This is the enthronement of the Messiah upon the throne of David. And at that time he declares again the decree, the Lord God, the Lord who is God the Father has said to me, this is the Messiah speaking, has said to me, the anointed one, you are my son, today I have begotten you. So this idea of the son of the highest is an extremely significant messianic title. Then F, the sixth thing, is that he will fulfill the Davidic covenant, the one who eternally sits on the throne of David. The angel says the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. This is a fulfillment of passages like Psalm 2-7 we just looked at. But in the Davidic covenant in 2 Samuel 7, and in 1 Chronicles 17, 13 and following, there's the promise that a descendant of David will sit on his throne eternally. Now, you can't sit on the throne eternally unless you have everlasting life. So that indicates deity, only God has everlasting life. So it indicates that he's going to be a descendant of David, his humanity, and he's going to sit on the throne eternally, that he is going to also be God, Son of the Most High. Well, Mary then asks a question just as John the Baptist did. Mary said to the angel, how can this be since I don't know a man? This isn't a statement of unbelief, it's a statement of how's this going to happen since I have never had intimate relations with a man? She wants clarification. This is something's going to happen to her body. And so she's going to ask the question. And the angel says, the Holy Spirit will come upon you. The power of the highest will overshadow you. Therefore, also that holy one who is to be born will be called the son of God. So Mary doesn't question the truth as Zechariah did. She understands and believes it. She just wants clarification. How will it happen? And then we come to the third angelic message. This is the one to Joseph. This is a short one, three parts to it. It's a message of comfort, a message of comfort that the pregnancy of his betrothed is not to be a problem for Joseph. So the angel appears to say, right? You're troubled because Mary's pregnant, but this is the will of God, this is a fulfillment of prophecy, and so you are to continue to marry her. Matthew 1.18, now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows, after his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph. So she's in this legal contractual relationship now, and yet they have not closed the deal with the marriage, so they have not had relations yet. Mary was betrothed to Joseph before they came together. She was found with child of the Holy Spirit. So now he's a bit concerned. Verse 19, then Joseph, her husband, they would still be referred to as wife and husband. They just haven't closed the marriage contract yet. Then Joseph, her husband, being a just man – again, he's righteous, Genesis 15, 6, he's a believer – being a righteous man and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly. He's honorable, but he doesn't want to make an issue and embarrass her. But while he's thinking about, what am I going to do? Behold, the angel of the Lord – doesn't identify this angel, just says an angel of the Lord appeared to him. in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David." Notice the emphasis again on that Davidic lineage on both sides. "'Do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.'" So this is the angel's message. First of all, he is saying, don't be afraid to take Mary as your wife. She is pregnant, but this is a miracle performed by God, and so you need to go ahead and marry her second. He's saying this conception is miraculous, that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And so he is to relax and trust God. And Luke 1.35 also have emphasized this, the angel said to Mary at that point, the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the highest will overshadow you, therefore also that holy one who is to be born will be called the Son of God. And third, he, that is the angel, tells Joseph, like Mary was told, to name the Son Yeshua, for he will save his people from their sins. And so this concludes that all of this was done that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son. They shall call his name Immanuel. Immanuel means God with us. Im is the Hebrew for with. The M-A-N-U is us, with us. And El is God. Immanuel means God with us. So this is exactly what had been predicted in Isaiah 7.14 that this would be a divine human son. So what was Joseph's response? Then Joseph, being aroused from sleep, did as the angel commanded him and took to him his wife, and did not know her, did not have relations with her, until she had brought forth her firstborn son, and he called his name Jesus. So what do we see here? Joseph gets quite the shock, but when he is given the information, he believes and obeys. So Zechariah does not believe, and he goes through divine discipline. Mary believes, but she asks for more clarification. And Joseph believes, and he obeys. So each of these characters Provide for us, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10, referring to Old Testament events, these things happen as an example to us. It not only confirms to us the prophetic nature of the birth of Jesus Christ, it confirms to us the fulfillment of the prophecies related to John the Baptist, that a prophet would come as the forerunner to the Lord Jesus Christ, who would be in the spirit and power of Elijah. It confirms to us the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah 7-14 and Genesis 3-15 that the Messiah would be both God and man. It confirms to us the fulfillment of the prophecies made in the Davidic covenant. And all of these come together so our options are Disbelieve, like Zechariah, we can believe and seek more clarification, as Mary did, or we can trust and obey. These are the examples that God has given to us with our heads bowed and our eyes closed. Father, we thank you for this opportunity to go through these announcements and see their significance and how they connect the dots through the Old Testament. various passages to each person that was the focal point of these revelations to Zechariah, to Mary, and to Joseph. Father, we pray that as we study these things, it may strengthen our faith that we believe that which is true, that which was prophesied from thousands of years before the events were fulfilled to the things that were prophesied and were almost immediately fulfilled, that we can trust you, that we can trust your word, that as Mary trusted and sought further clarification, we are to trust and continue to study your word, and as Joseph trusted and was obedient to that which was revealed to him, that we might follow the examples of Mary and Joseph in trusting your word and pursuing it and obeying it. Father, we pray that if anyone is listening to this message and they're unsure or uncertain of their salvation, that this gives evidence that Jesus is the one who was prophesied, the Messiah of Israel, and He entered into human history, adding humanity to His deity, so that He would be able to die in our place, pay the penalty for our sins, and that by trusting in Him alone, we have everlasting salvation. Now, Father, we pray that you would strengthen us in the coming days as we celebrate in different groups with different people, some believers, some not, that we may keep our eye on the focal point of Christmas, which is the birth of our Savior, the transformation of history, as you are working out your plan. And we pray this in Christ's name, amen.