Date: December 15, 2011 7:13 PM
Topic: +DEV+ The Angel: Gabriel
The Angel: Gabriel
"Daniel, I have now come to give you insight and understanding. As soon as you began to pray, an answer was given, which I have come to tell you..." (Daniel 9:22-23).
Scripture Focus: Daniel 9:21-27
The Christmas plays performed by youngsters I know depict Gabriel in a flowing white gown and sparkly halo. When my friends little niece donned the costume one year, she was adorable. But the Bible tells us that God's heavenly messenger struck fear in the people to whom he appeared. Daniel, Zechariah, and Mary all trembled at his arrival. His name means power, and evidently his majestic, dazzling visage projected just that. Gabriel was commander in chief of the heavenly host...how inaccurate our softened ideas of him must be! Scripture records that it was Gabriel who spoke to Daniel (8:16, 9:21); we do not read of him again until some 600 years later when he was commissioned by God to deliver urgent messages to Zechariah and Mary. God used him at momentous times.
Though we hardly know Gabriel, of this we are sure: God sent His mighty angel to common people to announce the coming of His Son whose power and majesty would know no end. May the joy of the angel's news thrill you!
Insight: "Angels from the realms of glory, wing your flight o'er all the earth; ye who sang creation's story, now proclaim Messiah's birth" (James Montgomery).
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