Surprising Missed Secrets In The Christmas Story

Lance: Hello everybody out there. This is Annabelle, my lovely wife and me Lance. What we’re doing right now, we have a lot of different shows we’re on. So, I’m never quite sure where this is going to show up. I’m just going to treat you guys like we’re in our home. In fact, do you know what I did last year? I went into my library. Did it was that last year? A year before.

Annabelle: The book fondling.

Lance: Not the book, I went into my office and I did like a candlelight worship service.

Annabelle: Wow, I think that was two years players. It was so good.

Lance: I loved it. But I’ll be honest with you, I thought my voice was a little off. I was very critical. It was critical, because I don’t sing. I’m not a professional singer. I’m sing. Kim Clement used to go to restaurants and he was so hilarious because what Kim would do is I don’t know why he did it. He would suddenly go into a Pavarotti moment and just, and everyone a restaurant would turn around and be and he’d go back and sip his glasses and it was just very.

Annabelle: Piercing the darkness, brother.

Lance: It’s piercing the darkness anyway. I feel like I wish I could sing, you know what? We can all sing. And that’s what I want to talk about right now. This is the one time of year that probably people sing the same songs.

Annabelle: Yeah. As one.

Lance: And then there’s always a battle over. The reason why you know it’s a Godly thing is because the devil hates it so much. The devil hates Christmas. You never hear people freaking out of a Halloween but it has anything with God. The devil freaks out over it. Halloween gets full free pass. Thanksgiving gets fought; Christmas gets fought. But you don’t run into that on I don’t know is Mother’s Day, a father issue.

Annabelle: Mother’s Day has a lot of love for moms.

Lance: But you know what I mean? It’s like there are certain you could tell which ones have some juice on them spiritually because there’s some things just get a free pass.

Annabelle: Okay.

Lance: Now in Christmas we might as well do a deep dive because there are certain songs you’re singing all the time that have such power. I want to talk about one of them right now Annabelle,and it’s like we’re going to go to Luke chapter 2. If you got a Bible, get your Bible. Luke chapter two and it’s about the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem.

Annabelle: Nice.

Lance: And of course, Luke chapter two is like a brilliant now. Luke gives all the details because he was a doctor and so and he would write with a precision eye of Greek specificity. So, that he gives you details that are omitted by all the other writers. But one of the things he points out is that in the day that Caesar Augustus had decreed a census would be taken of all the inhabitants of the earth. It’s interesting, right. We talk about the great reset, the globalism, the antichrist.Understand that Jesus was fulfilling prophecy when the emperor of the world demanded a census of where everybody lived. Now Jesus could have been born in Nazareth, but because he had to show up for purposes of the census in Bethlehem, his parents had to go to Bethlehem because that was the legal requirement.

So, when the first census was taken and look at the details of this when Quirinius was governor of Syria. It’s like any archaeologist can find out when in history Jesus was born. Luke was just giving you the coordinates. Everyone was on his way to register for the census each to his own city. 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 of David and the family of David in order to register along with Mary who was engaged to him while and who was with child. Now this means that Joseph is fulfilling a prophetic promise that says that the Messiah would come from the house of David, and he would have to therefore go to Bethlehem to be born there and this will fulfill a prophecy.

So, you find out about prophecy and this is little cluster of details is that God will work in human history even manipulating the political proclivities of heathen with what they want to do on their own schedule to line up, because God is outside of time. He could see that it would line up exactly with him but because Jesus was in the wrong location, it was set up so that he would have to be in Bethlehem to fulfill a prophecy that under any other circumstances, you wouldn’t have Jesus in Bethlehem being born. He would have him in Nazareth.

Annabelle: Amazing.

Lance: But God put all that together to fulfill prophecy that he’d be born in Bethlehem that he would come from the house of David. And yet interesting enough, Joseph, we’re going to see over and over again it says but did not know his wife. Meaning, It’s the Virgin Mary. Why is it a big deal? It’s the Virgin Mary. Well, because the blood of Jesus is either the blood of a human being, which case it’s just a mortal man or it’s the blood of God‘s son. The blood of Jesus, that the value of Jesus as a man is insufficient. Because one man dying for the sins of everyone that really is not going to be a great. One man dying for maybe as a substitute for one man might be equal. But God taking the form of man and shedding his own divine blood for the sins of mankind in the justice of God that equates to the forgiveness of all mankind’s sins if men would only meet God on the price that he pays. It is a very powerful theological concept.

Annabelle: It is.

Lance: So, Annabelle, when about the 9th month. Can you imagine during the ninth month journey on a on a mule, I mean when you were pregnant with Lance?

Annabelle: No, no, no because I can’t even ride a motorcycle that long. I mean think of it an animal. I mean it’s not like a motorcycle and it’s too hard. I mean that’s incredible, that’s the grace on that. I just want to bring out something though because think about the miracle of believing that the faith to believe that Jesus was born of a virgin. Like that is in itself an embryonic like seed that brings forth so much fruit, when people start to believe in the miraculous. I mean if you don’t understand or believe that it’s impossible to believe everything else. Do you know what I mean?

Lance: Yeah, it’s true. You can’t go with the virgin birth and the whole system of theology collapses for the Christian faith.

Annabelle: But I mean all the structure of this, I mean there’s a system maybe but there’s a structure in a word. You know what I mean? That gives you the strength and the understanding. It makes sense. I mean, some people say, well, you Christians don’t even have a brain. How’d you believe all that? Well, it’s a gift of faith but see, once you have that boom, that new birth, it’s actually such an extreme revelation, I think, of the whole Christian walk. Is it exciting?

Lance: Yeah, it is. It’s the DNA is right there. Well, let me get on with this because I want to go into something right now about one of the hymns. I don’t want to get there before we end the broadcast and I don’t know if I’m going to be able to.

Annabelle: Okay.

Lance: I‘ll try.

Annabelle: I’ll do it. Amen.

Lance: We’re getting them down to Bethlehem. Let’s see if I can get myself to that hymn. So, what happens is while they were there, David, alright. So, he registered. Joseph registers with Mary. And the days were complete for her to give birth. She gave birth to her firstborn son and she wrapped him in clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn. The manger would be a feeding trough, an animal’s feeding trough. Laid him in a manger,it’s a very beautiful thought for a couple reasons. One, we often mistakenly think that poor Jesus was so poor. He couldn’t afford a hotel but God gave him birth in a manger. The truth is there was no room in the end Joseph had plenty of money. He didn’t have a reservation at the Marriott.So, because it was a time when the census was flooding, it’s like having the Olympics in Atlanta.All the hotel were booked. So, by the time he gets there, he goes to the inn and they say, sorry, sorry, sorry.

So, he’s forced to innovate, adapt, and innovate like special forces and they’re out there and somehow, they end up in a field with a manger. So, they’re outdoors and giving birth to Jesus, but in the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood up before them and the glory of the Lord shown round about them and they were terribly frightened. So, an angel of the Lordsuddenly stands before them when wonders when standing in the earth is standing in the sky.Because there was a glory that suddenly was emanated. So, imagine it would be like a burst of light in the middle of the night, right. If you never seen that that would freak you out, you don’t have electricity.

The Lord shown all around them so this whole place was flooded with luminescence suddenly.But the angel said to them, do not be afraid. So, there was a natural fear. “Don’t be afraid for behold do I bring you good news of great joy”. Great joy, that’s why Christmas is a time of joy. It says, God gives us permission in a sense to link up the of joy with the message of the birth of Jesus whenever you celebrate it. Because this is for all people, for today in the city of David there has been born for you a savior who is Christ the Lord. The angel is saying right now,you’ve got the Messiah that’s probably more powerful for the Jew that we’re seeing reading the word Christ. But it would have been the Mashiach, the Messiah that was promised to you has been born in the city of David, and this will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in clothes, lying in a manger and suddenly there appeared with the angel, a multitude of the heavenly host praising God.

Now the multitude of the heavenly host praising God is an important picture. Because the host are not just choirs, they are waring angels. So, I think Rick Reynard talks about this in one of his books he’s got out now that what this is describing is when Jesus was in Gethsemane, he said, do you not think that I could pray to my father he will give me 13 like 12 legions of angels. Legion 82,000 angels. Angels that have the capacity to annihilate whole populations. I think one angel in Jerusalem took an army that was sieging Jerusalem, Syrians, and killed a 120,000 that were laying siege to the city of Jerusalem. In one night, they were killed. This is enough to takeout the earth. But Jesus hosts were not there to go to war with mankind, there to sing over mankind.

So, the heavenly host multitude, praising God, saying glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among men with whom he’s pleased. And the angels got away from them and the shepherds began to say to one another, “Let’s go straight to Bethlehem, let’s go see what’s happened”. They came in and they found this is sure enough if God says, find the manger. Well,they found it. The angels led them to it and they found the baby exactly there in the manger. And when they made known the statement which had been told to them about the child. So, now they’re telling the parents an angel appeared and told this to the Christ, this is the savior that means that Mary and Joseph knew. She had supernaturally just given birth to the Messiah, the deliverer of Israel. Think about that was in her mind her whole life.

The reason why it’s important is because one of the great arguments for the deity of Jesus is called the Silence of Mary. Most people don’t think about this, I want you to think about it. When Jesus is going to the cross. He’s going to the cross because he’s making a delusional claim. He’s claiming to be the son of the living God. He claims to be a man without sin. He claims to be a man who is unique among men and that he’s born supernaturally of a virgin.

Annabelle: Right.

Lance: Now, if for any reason, this precious philosopher with such supernatural power and personality and gifting was deluded about his identity or his mission, surely his mother would have known he was deceived. Because one thing a woman knows is how she got pregnant and if she didn’t get pregnant having sex, she knows that. And at no point during Jesus’ trial or ordeal, his mother who stood there and watched it, never once interfered with him and said, “Son, I need to talk to you. I love you. You need to know something about you”. And she should have told him that he was just born of some other man other than God. But the fact of the matter is, Mary’s silence historically is testimony to the fact that she know the angel appeared to her and angels appeared to these shepherds and she knew that what she was raising was no one less than the Messiah of Israel.

So, and what does it say here this is that Mary treasured these things pondering them in her heart.The Bible is very clear. She was just more confirmation of what she had gone through to birth this baby. The shepherds went back glorify and praising God for all they had heard. Now, I share that with you because this hymn, remember this hymn?

Annabelle: Yes. Oh, yes.

Lance: Hark the Herald Angels Sing and this hymn, Hark the Herald Angels Sing Glory to the Newborn King. I discovered something interesting, Annabelle. I discovered that the hymn was written by Charles Wesley. Now, most people don’t know this. Wesley wrote 6,000 hymns.

Annabelle: Yeah.

Lance: So, the entire Methodist Movement, Methodist Revival was done basically up but two brothers, I think there was like seven or eight kids. They could talk about in praise of big families. Their mother Susanna raised them, Godly. The boys became apostles with revival and great awakening with their buddy George Whitfield. They were in college and got visited by Godand then they gradually grew from there, started the Methodist Church because the Anglican church kicked them out.

Now, John was the theologian Charles was the theologian songwriter. John said his brother Charles with 6,000 hymns did more to teach theology to the illiterate and the poor than any teacher in Europe.

Annabelle: Imagine that?

Lance: Because he gave him songs.

Annabelle: And you could sing the song and remember the words you make up your own but you got the gist.

Lance: And we’re with DeMarcus and we’re with Coco and we’re with all our…

Annabelle: Kiki and Coco.

Lance: Kiki and Coco. And you put, they could all sing all the lyrics to every song, can’t they?

Annabelle: They have amazing yeah memory for that.

Lance: They could sit in the car without even a music on. And they sing a song to every lyric in it and yet they’re not necessarily in school.

Annabelle: 10 11, and 12. The little boys.

Lance: But think about this.

Annabelle: Young men. Yeah.

Lance: Learning these songs, Charles taught them this music, right? So, here’s the part that I want to share with you. That Charles heard decided to pack some of his most potent theology into Hark the Herald. The problem was the song wouldn’t take off, because being a little bit of a nerd or a geek he had Hark the Herald and then where it says the word for the host of heaven.There’s a German word that was kind of a sophisticated word called the, WELCKAN or something like that. He said, Hark the Herald, Welckan sing and then Whitfield who was his friend, who was very gifted, more gifted than John or Charles in being a communicator, the great evangelist. Grew up in a tavern where he would imitate the patrons who would go there and get drunk and he jump up on a table and imitate him. Everybody would laugh till he got saved. He was great at imitating people.

He hears the song. He goes, Charles, let’s just fix this a little bit. So, he takes it and writes Harkthe Herald Angels Sing and then he changes the words to Newborn King. He goes, Heart the Herald, Angels Sing, Glory to newborn king. The moment that Whitfield made the change, the song took off. But I want to share with you. It’s Luke chapter 2 which is why I wanted to do Luke chapter 2. It’s just Luke chapter 2. “Hark the Herald Angels Sing Glory to the Newborn King. Peace on Earth and Mercy Mile, God and sinners reconcile. Joyful all you nations rise. Join the triumph of the skies with angelic hosts proclaim Christ is born in Bethlehem. Hark the Herald Angels sing glory to the Newborn King”.

But I want you to hear these verses. “Christ by highest heaven adore Christ the everlasting Lordlate in time behold him come”. Notice he comes 4,000 years into human history. So, he writes “Late in time, later in time behold him come. Offspring of the virgin’s womb. Offspring of the favored one. Veiled in flesh the Godhead Sea. Veiled in flesh the Godhead Sea. Hail incarnate deity. God incarnate. Pleased as a man with men to dwell”. Think how powerful is God becomes a man to dwell with men. “Pleased with man as men to dwell. Jesus our Emmanuel”. Now, the word Emmanuel is the Hebrew word for God with us. So, hear the theology is God with us. He’s teaching people these words.

Annabelle: Yeah.

Lance: “Hail the Heaven Born Prince of peace”. This is my favorite verse probably in all the hymns. “Heil the heaven born prince of peace. Hail the son of righteousness. Lighten life to all he brings. Risen with healing in his wings. Mildly he lays his glory by”. Now catch this verse. This stanza. “Born that man no more may die. He was born so that man would no more die. Born to raise the sons of earth. Born to give them a second birth. Hark the herald angels sing. Glory to the Newborn King”. And that’s my whole point. That’s the reason why I’m slowing down on this. It’s veiled in flesh the Godhead Sea hail incarnate deity pleased as man with men to dwell Jesus our Emmanuel. Of all the theology that they write. It’s remarkable. So, I didn’t mean to dominate the whole conversation.

Annabelle: Well, you got it in.

Lance: I was doing a bible study and I want to have you here. But that anyway, I said what I wanted to say but I was all by myself. What are your thought?

Annabelle: I was just going to remember that when we were at Community Chapel in Rhode Island like 30 something years ago and then you asked Lord what should I sing and he said you could sing anything you want but I will anoint the hymns. So, we were really aware of the anointing on the hymns because the Holy Spirit would just fall on the people whenever you did sing these hymns and I don’t even know all the words to this day. But still no matter what you get into that kind of an anointing and those kind of words of songs. Like Mercedes was just saying,nobody’s writing music like this anymore to worship God. It’s a completely different genre. And education but also heart position towards God, like while you’re saying it, the awareness of the story is a lot deeper. His story.

Lance: It is and which is why this whole born that man no more may die. Jesus gave his life so that we can have a second birth.

Annabelle: I know that’s the key.

Lance: I mean, it’s a powerful just and Hark the Herald angels sing. Glory to the Newborn King. Remember Herod wanted to find out where Jesus was. Because Jesus birth was a threat to Herod’s dynasty. I think we forget that Jesus came to establish a dynasty that would take the place of Lucifer’s dynasty. You want to know why the Illuminati and the world’s elites now are gathering together? The Bible prophesied. The rulers of the earth take counsel together in Davos, Klaus Schwab, the Bill Gates, the Joe Bidens, the world’s rich and elite, particularly the European-American knuckleheads that are all gathering together. They’re so sophisticated. They believe that Jesus is a myth. They believe that Christianity is a folklore and a mythology that the ignorant cling to. They’re no different than Herod in the Bible who didn’t believe a thing that the Jewish people were practicing, but wanted to hang out with them in order to find out what they were doing to surveil them and then kill off their movement.

It’s the same spirit. That’s why I don’t trust these people right now, because the same spirit of Herod. But God warned those wise men, not to cooperate with Herod and to frustrate his purpose and they were led to Jesus. I just got done reading the story about the shepherds. But imagine the shepherds are there and then if I was them, I would’ve hung out as much as possible. Gawkingand wondering and marveling at that child and talking to the parents and finding out where do they live, tell some stories. Because they saw they all had something in common angels visited Let me tell you about angels. If you’ve ever had an angelic encounter, it’s got so much voltage.

Annabelle: Yeah.

Lance: We had an angelic encounter once when I was at college. 3 young men and I, we all together were in prayer. We all got caught up in the same vision. Those guys and I could not sleep for like 24 hours. We were so, you get so mind altered and physically energized being in the presence of the glory of God that we were all visited. We broke, I mean, we broke up and went each went back to our rooms but not all of us got together again and so the next day, I didn’t sleep last night. Not of us could, because we’ve been exposed to the angelic host. We saw, we heard what that host sounds like. All of us had the same vision of the same time while we were in prayer. I never had it happen since I’ll tell you something.

When you see that realm, you realize that it’s a spirit realm and a natural realm, and the host of heaven are hovering over your house and my house. And Annabelle., I believe that this Christmas God wants to release a greater faith into everyone. Every Christian watching that an angel of the Lord is sent to you because you got saved. There’re angels involved. The Bible says that God sends his angels to them that fear him. They guard and protect. You got angels that are listening when you pray. I believe that. That they’re sent forth to minister. We got a camera right over there. Would you pray for folks and single moms that God will release his angelic visitation to them on this holiday.

Annabelle: Well plus, I want to pray that Jesus really reveals himself to people, because a lot of people maybe just catching your show and don’t even know Jesus. They could be tuning in to hear what you have to say about something and well we just want to make sure you get to know Jesus. So, ask the Lord say, Lord Jesus come into my heart. Fill me with the Holy Spirit. Reveal yourself to me. Make me into the person you design me to be. And then when you ever pray that prayer and you don’t have to pray it with us. You can pray with the Lord alone. But there’s a transaction like when you go to the ATM machine, do you expect something to happen when you put your card in? You better believe it. We say prayers and talk to God, he responds. So, he’s faithful. He’s not pushy though. So, he’s never going to make you do anything that you don’t want to do. In fact, that’s our whole predicament in humankind. There were some choices in the beginning. Anyway, so just adjust a lot of your choices after you say a prayer like that, because then you have the Holy Spirit in you to guide you but Jesus becomes the Lord of your life.

Lance: So, let me go pray. Good point. I’m probably I’m saying angels should visit.

Annabelle: Lance would do everything backwards.

Lance: I’ll do it backwards. So, what he said is, Lord Jesus come into my heart. Forgive all my sins. Give me your Holy Spirit and make me the person you desire me to be. I am yours Lord. Make yourself real to me. I give myself to you in Jesus’ name. I pray the Holy Spirit take a deep breath. Holy Spirit goes right into you. Into you to give you the new birth, the second birth. And I pray the angel of the Lord visits you and your house. And begins to gather your chicks around you, your children, your spouse, all those that are pertaining unto you. And that God begins to bring them all into the divine blessing and plan and blueprint that he has for this next year. Because to Lord is really delivering his people and putting a line and a difference between his people and the people of the world and it’s this beautiful glory of God. Wants to come tabernacle with you.

I want you to stay in touch with us with this ministry and with this program. Because we’re going to be doing some special episodes and I think I might even go do something in my studio, my library like I did last year. We’ll have a little private worship time in my little closet there where I believe the angels hang out with me.

Annabelle: It’s very nice.

Lance: God bless and then let’s just do maybe get a minute here to do stanza from Hark the Herald, and then we’ll close out.

(Hark the Herald Angels Sing. Glory to the Newborn King. Peace on Earth and mercy my whole God and sinners reconcile. Joyful longing nations rise. Join the Triumph of the Skies. Here we go. With Angelic hosts Proclaim Christ is born in Bethlehem. Hark the Herald Angels Sing. Glory to the Newborn King).

Closing: Did you enjoy this latest episode? Please remember to share it with your friends.Because the more knowledge you have, the better equipped you are to navigate the world.