There were shepherds abiding in the field...Picture this. You are the guest of shepherds one evening in a huge, open, field. Empty except for some sheep, and shepherds. Without the shepherds' campfire, all around would be pitch black, with only millions of stars for company. All of a sudden, what looks like thousands of angelic figures appear in the sky, out of nowhere and sing, in a quality of tone and loudness of volume you have never heard before,"Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth, good will towards men."Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." Mark 2:17. The angels' song was for shepherds, and for us all. Jesus is MESSIAH, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. MESSIAH, the world's most loved and performed oratorio, is a work of musical genius by George Frideric Handel coupled with passages from the Bible expertly chosen by Charles Jennings. The Bible is the story of God, it is salvation history. Matthew Henry knew this, as he crafted and published his iconic Bible commentary in 1706. For this reason, we have extracted passages from Henry's commentary as useful notes to accompany the MESSIAH libretto. Like Matthew Henry, Charles Jennings and Handel himself may you, through reading the words of this book and listening to the peerless meisterwerk MESSIAH, unlock the "riches of under-standing and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." Colossians 2: 2-3.

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