- [Narrator] Gabriel.
Gabriel is one
of the most well-known angels in the Bible.
Gabriel means God's hero, the mighty one,
or God is great in Hebrew.
He is commonly referred to in scripture
as Jehovah's Messenger or the Lord's messenger.
The Bible never refers to him as an archangel,
contrary to common belief.
Despite this, the Bible references to his work
more frequently than Michael's.
Angels are one of the most misunderstood beings
on the planet.
These heavenly messengers, according to the Bible,
are supernatural beings, not human beings
who have earned wings in the next life
by being virtuous in this one.
People in the Bible are also overwhelmed with awe
when they see an angel.
Ministry of Gabriel.
Gabriel is essentially God's merciful
and promising messenger.
He appears in the Bible four times,
each time bringing good news.
Daniel 8:16, Daniel 9:21,
Luke 1:19 and 26.
However, Gabriel's disclosures are crucial
in the unfolding of God's plans, purposes and verdicts.
In Daniel 8:15-16, we get our first glimpse of Gabriel
in the Bible.
He delivers God's vision for the end time there.
God has given him the task of relaying a message
from heaven's situation room
that exposes God's plan for history.
To Daniel, he said, "Understand the vision
and then revealed too in the magnificent sequence
of events at the end time."
It was a time of despair for the nation
when Gabriel came to Daniel with the message of hope.
His name, God is my strength or mighty one,
testified to the all powerful God
who was about to deliver his people from captivity
and bring them back into the land of promise.
Zacharias, telling of his prophet.
In Luke 1, Gabriel makes his first appearance
in the New Testament.
God had commanded
that a prophet should go before the Messiah,
both to proclaim His coming and to prepare the hearts
and minds of the people for Him.
Therefore, the account of angelic involvement
in Christ's life must begin
before we even look at Mary and Joseph.
God decided it is a wisdom and sovereignty
that the birth of this prophet should be a miracle
in and of itself.
Zacharias was waiting before the Lord in the temple.
Suddenly, they appeared unto him an angel of the Lord
standing on the right side of the altar of incense.
Luke 1:11, "Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him
standing at the right side of the altar of incense.
When Zacharias saw him, he was startled
and was gripped with fear.
But the angel said to him: "Do not be afraid, Zacharias;
your prayer has been heard.
Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son,
and you are to call him John.
He will be a joy and delight to you,
and many will rejoice because of his birth,
for he will be great in the sight of the Lord.
He is never to take wine or other fermented drink,
and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit
even before he is born.
He will bring back many of the people of Israel
to the Lord their God.
And he will go on before the Lord,
in the spirit and power of Elijah,
to turn the hearts of the parents to their children
and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous,
to make ready a people prepared for the Lord."
Zacharias asked the angel, "How can I be sure of this?
I am an old man and my wife is well along in years."
The angel said to him, "I am Gabriel.
I stand in the presence of God,
and I have been sent to speak to you
and to tell you this good news.
And now you will be silent and not able to speak
until the day this happens,
because you did not believe my words,
which will come true at their appointed time."
Meanwhile, the people were waiting for Zacharias
and wondering why he stayed so long in the temple.
When he came out, he could not speak to them.
They realized he had seen a vision in the temple,
for he kept making signs to them
but remained unable to speak.
When his time of service was completed, he returned home.
After this his wife Elizabeth became pregnant
and for five months remained in seclusion.
"The Lord has done this for me," she said.
"In these days he has shown his favor
and taken away my disgrace among the people."
Luke 1:11-26.
The parents chosen for the prophet were Zacharias, a priest
and his wife Elizabeth.
They had never had children because Elizabeth was barren
and now they were also beyond the childbearing years.
Luke 1:7.
"But they were childless
because Elizabeth was not able to conceive
and they were both very old."
Notice also how closely this account parallels
the case of Abraham and Sarah in Genesis 18:11-12.
Abraham and Sarah were already very old,
and Sarah was past the age of childbearing.
So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought,
"After I am worn out and my lord is old,
will I now have this pleasure?"
But as we saw earlier, God sent the angel Gabriel
to Zacharias to tell him that he and Elizabeth
would have a child and that this child
would be the Messiah's forerunner, John the Baptist.
Later, when John the Baptist and Jesus were grown,
John did indeed prepare the people for Christ,
pointing out their sins and calling for repentance.
When Christ was ready to begin his public ministry
and John's job was complete, John said to Christ,
"You yourselves can testify that I said,
'I am not the Messiah but am sent ahead of him.'
The bride belongs to the bridegroom.
The friend who attends the bridegroom waits
and listens for him, and is full of joy
when he hears the bridegroom's voice.
That joy is mine, and it is now complete.
He must become greater; I must become less.'"
John 3:28-30.
Mary.
Whatever epic assignments Gabriel had previously undertaken
for the Lord, this one surely topped them all.
He was sent to Nazareth, a town in Galilee
to a Virgin pledge to be married to a man named Joseph,
a descendant of David.
The Virgin's name was Mary.
What a wonderful message Gabriel had to deliver
to that young lady.
"Thou shalt conceive in thy womb
and bring forth a son and shall 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."
Luke 1:31-32.
God bestowed such great honor
and responsibility on this particular angel.
Angelic involvement in Christ's life
began long before he was born,
because his birth was to be a one of a kind event.
A new life generated outside of the regular human process,
in a virgin without a man.
Certainly the lady who was to bear the Christ child
had to be informed beforehand.
She had to be prepared for an event
that would've been impossible without God's help.
Furthermore, even if your occurrence
was to be a work of the Holy Spirit,
the young woman would be subjected to ridicule
and abuse from others in her family and community
who did not believe
in the miraculous nature of the conception.
Indeed, fornication, which would be the only normal way
for an unmarried woman to become pregnant,
was punishable by death under Mosaic law.
Leviticus 20:10,
"If a man commits adultery with another man's wife
with a wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer
and the adulteress are to be put to death."
"Therefore, God sent the angel Gabriel again,
this time to tell the virgin Mary what was about to happen.
In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy,
God sent the angel, Gabriel, to Nazareth,
a town in Galilee, to a virgin
pledged to be married to a man named Joseph,
a descendant of David.
The Virgin's name was Mary.
The angel went to her and said, 'Greetings,
you who are highly favored, the Lord is with you.'
Mary was greatly troubled at his words
and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.
'So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.
Even Elizabeth, your relative is going to have a child
in her old age, and she, who is said to be unable
to conceive is in her sixth month.
For no word from God will ever fail.'
'I am the Lord's servant,' Mary answered.
'May your word to me be fulfilled.'
Then the angel left her."
Luke 1:26-38.
When Gabriel gave her the news,
Mary was understandably perplexed.
Gabriel explained, however,
that it was the power of God himself
who would cause it to happen.
Notice Mary's reaction then to the news.
"May your word to me be fulfilled." Luke 1:38.
What an example she gives us of obedience
and readiness to be used by God in whatever way he sees fit.
After Mary was discovered to be pregnant
with the Christ child, Joseph, her promised husband
wanted to put her away secretly to shield her from shame.
Certainly Mary had told him
how the pregnancy had come about,
but evidently he was having trouble accepting it.
So an angel was sent to reassure Joseph
of the miraculous godly nature of Mary's pregnancy
and to encourage him to take her as his wife.
Joseph submitted, giving us another instance
of gracious obedience to God.
But in his most prominent appearance,
Gabriel notifies the Virgin Mary about Jesus,
the incarnate God.
What a message to the deliver to the world
through a teenage girl.
What a stunningly holy girl she must have been
to be visited by the mighty Gabriel.
One of the main services of angels to human beings
is to transmit knowledge from God to us.
We have already looked at a few cases
in which angels served as God's messengers.
When angels spoke to the pagan king, Nebuchadnezzar,
in a dream, and when Gabriel prophesied the births
of John the Baptist and the Lord Jesus.
Many times men have needed messages from God,
and angels have delivered them.