When God Broke His Long Silence

    “There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. And they had no child, because that Elisabeth was barren, and they both were now well stricken in years. And it came to pass, that while he executed the priest’s office before God in the order of his course, According to the custom of the priest’s office, his lot was to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord. And the whole multitude of the people were praying without at the time of incense. And there appeared unto him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him” (Luke 1:5-12).

    For four hundred years no one on earth had received any word from God. For four hundred years no prophet had been inspired to write a word of inspiration. For four hundred years no angel had been sent from heaven to earth with a message from God to man. No revelation had been given, no vision had been granted. No word had come from God in four hundred years. Then, God spoke again! God chose one man and sent his angel to him with glad tidings from the throne of God. No one had heard from God since the days of the prophet Malachi. Then God spoke.

    Can you imagine what it must have been like to have been a man, faithful, devout, serving God in his appointed place, knowing that no one had heard from heaven in four hundred years, then, suddenly, to have an angel of the Lord appear to you alone with a word of divine revelation? That is what we have before us in this passage.

    The first thing recorded in Luke’s gospel is the appearance of an angel to one of the ordinary priests in Israel, named Zacharias. The angel announced to this old man that his wife, who was an old woman, well past the age of child-bearing, was, by direct, divine intervention, going to have a son, and that his son would be the forerunner of the long-awaited Messiah.

    What a word of grace! It was too good for this old man to believe. Being a faithful man, Zacharias knew that God had promised four hundred years before that when Messiah came some man in the spirit and power of Elijah would go before him to prepare his way before the people (Malachi 3:1).

    It is, I am sure, impossible for us 2,000 years later to grasp what an astounding thing this was. God made the promise four hundred years earlier. Then the heavens were silent. Not another word was given. Then, suddenly, without any preparatory work, God sent his angel to a certain old man to tell him that Daniel’s prophetic weeks were about to be fulfilled. “Messiah, the Prince” was about to be revealed (Daniel 9:25). That “seed” of Abraham, in whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed, was about to come (Genesis 22:18). “The Desire of all nations”, who would fill the house of God with glory, would soon be revealed from heaven (Haggai 2:7). We cannot grasp the extent of this revelation given to such a man in such circumstances, yet, there are several things in the verses before us to instruct our souls.

    First, we have before us an example of divine election. God the Holy Spirit tells us that God sent his angel to “a certain priest named Zacharias, of the order of Abia.” God did not send his angel to the High Priest. God did not send his angel to all the priests. But God sent his angel to “a certain priest named Zacharias.” Let men and women fuss and squirm as they may, the Book of God teaches the doctrine of God’s sovereign electing grace. God Almighty, in all his works of grace, chooses some and passes by others, according to the good pleasure of his will.

    God has, from eternity, chosen some certain sinners, as the objects of his love and grace, to be the heirs of eternal life; and at the appointed time of love, he sends his angel (a gospel preacher) to announce to them the good news of his salvation in Christ. He not only sends a preacher with the message of grace, he sends his Spirit to bring the word of grace home to the heart of his elect by the omnipotent power of his irresistible grace (1 Thessalonians 1:4, 5; 2 Timothy 1:9, 10).

    When God has a special work to do, he has certain men especially and specifically chosen to do the work. Usually, those men who are chosen of God for very special things are the men who we would consider the least likely. Zacharias was one of the common, everyday priests, from the course of Abia.¹ He was probably unknown by name to anyone, except a small circle of friends, family, and acquaintances.

    God knows where his chosen servants are. He knows what he will do with them. And when the time comes for them to perform his work, he calls them to it and equips them for it.

    Second, Zacharias and Elizabeth set before us the character of the righteous. We are told that “they were both righteous before God.” They were not naturally righteous. The Word of God tells us plainly that “There is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that understandeth. There is none that seeketh after God. We are all gone out of the way. We are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good, no, not one” (Romans 3:10-12).

    Zacharias and Elizabeth were made righteous by the grace of God, by the righteousness of Christ being imputed to them in justification and imparted to them in sanctification, in the new birth. These two things go hand in hand. None are sanctified but those who have been justified by Christ. And all who were justified at Calvary are, at God’s appointed time of grace, sanctified by the Holy Spirit in regeneration.

    Both Zacharias and his wife Elizabeth were “righteous before God”. Theirs was not merely the outward righteousness of the Pharisees before men, but that righteousness which stands before God and is accepted of him. They were righteous in God’s sight. And they were “both righteous before God.” What a blessed home that is in which both a man and his wife are the recipients of God’s grace in Christ, when both walk together before God in the paths of righteousness!

    “They were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.” This believing couple, this old man and woman here show us the character of true faith. True faith walks in obedience to the Word of God. It is written, “he that doeth righteousness is righteous” (1 John 3:7). Believers are men and women who, in the habit of their lives, in the tenor of their lives, live in submission and obedience to the revealed will of God. God’s saints are not rebels.

    Not only is it true that God’s saints live righteously in the tenor of their lives; the Spirit of God tells us plainly that that new man, “created in righteousness and true holiness”, that new nature in us that “is born of God doth not commit sin” and “cannot sin, because it is born of God” (Ephesians 4:24; 1 John 3:9).

    Here is another trait found in God’s saints. They submit to and keep the ordinances of divine worship. These two old saints kept the ordinances of divine worship in a day when few in Israel did. To most, the ordinances of divine worship were a burden they did not care to bear. But Zacharias and Elizabeth delighted in them. God’s people still do. Believing men and women confess Christ in believer’s baptism, assemble with God’s saints in public worship and remember the Redeemer together in the sweet communion of God’s family at the Lord’s Table.

    Moreover, they were blameless in their behaviour before men. John Gill correctly gives this meaning to that word “blameless”. “They were so strict in their lives and conduct that none of their acquaintances had any just reason to reproach them.”

    Third, in verse seven we see that there is a crook in the lot of every believer. The lot of the believer is a blessed lot. The life of faith in Christ is a life of joy and gladness. We are the people blessed of the Lord. In this doomed, damned, sin-cursed world we have a good hope through grace of eternal life in Christ. But there is a crook in the lot of us all. In this world it has pleased our God to lay trials upon his people, sometimes heavy trials, by which he is resolved to try and prove our faith, trials by which he will ultimately make our faith to shine.

    For Zacharias and Elizabeth the trial was the barrenness of Elizabeth’s womb. We read in verse 7 “And they had no child, because that Elisabeth was barren, and they both were now well stricken in years.” This was the crook in their lot. We can hardly fathom how heavy a trial that was in ancient times. In those days to be childless was a shameful thing to a man and one of the most bitter sorrows a woman could endure (1 Samuel 1:10).

    The grace of God does not exempt us from trials and troubles, heartaches and sorrows in this world. Not even exemplary faithfulness, to the point of blamelessness, will keep us from the trials of faith. If we follow Christ, we must never consider it some strange thing when God tries our faith. This is the portion of our cup, given to us by the infinite wisdom and goodness of our heavenly Father, by which he chastens us, “that we may be partakers of his holiness” (Hebrews 12:5-11). We may not think so at the time; but our trials are great blessings of grace, by which our ever-gracious God drives us into the arms of Christ, drives us to our knees in prayer, and drives us to the scriptures. In the world to come we will see them in better light than we do now (James 1:12; 1 Peter 1:7).

    Fourth, we see in verses 8-11 that the place of divine blessing is the house of our God, the house of prayer.

    “And it came to pass, that while he executed the priest’s office before God in the order of his course, According to the custom of the priest’s office, his lot was to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord. And the whole multitude of the people were praying without at the time of incense. And there appeared unto him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense.”

    Let me be crystal clear here. There is nothing we can do which will automatically secure God’s blessings. Sacramental religion is utter idolatry. You will not automatically be blessed of God by church attendance, Bible reading, or even prayer. Yet, the Word of God does specifically tell us that God has ordained a place of worship, and that he commonly meets his people in the place of worship which he has established.

    In the typical, ceremonial days of the Old Testament the Lord God established his worship first in the tabernacle in the wilderness, then in the temple. He promised to meet sinners upon the mercy-seat in the holy of holies on the Day of Atonement (Exodus 25:22). He did, from time to time, visit and meet with sinners in other places; but he never promised to meet a man anywhere else; and no one could expect to meet him anywhere else.

    It was Zacharias’ privilege and responsibility to burn incense in the house of God in the holy place every morning and every evening (Exodus 30:1, 7, 8). That might not seem like much of a job in the eyes of men; but it was the job God gave him, and he did it faithfully, even when he was an old man. Others may have looked upon it as a meaningless religious ritual; but Zacharias considered it his highest honour. He went about his duty, serving and worshipping the Lord God, purely for his glory.

    And what a privilege his work was! That altar of incense which he kept burning day and night was typical of the unceasing intercession of Christ for us as our great High Priest, who lives forever to make intercession for us (Hebrews 7:25).

    The Lord God sent his angel to Zacharias with the good news of Messiah’s coming, the good news that he who would be the forerunner of our Redeemer, Saviour and King was about to be born to his own wife Elizabeth. Where was this old man when God met him? What was he doing when the Lord sent his angel to him and so greatly blessed him? He was in the house of God. He was worshipping God. He was doing that which God had given him the privilege of doing for the glory of his name and the good of his people.

    You and I cannot expect God’s blessings upon us, upon our own souls, or upon our families; we cannot expect God to meet us, speak to us, or honour us, if we wilfully despise his will and his worship (1 Samuel 2:30; Hebrews 10:23-29).

    There is only one place where the Son of God promises he will meet with, speak to, and reveal himself to his people, and that place is the assembly of his saints, gathered in his name (Matthew 18:20). This place, the church of the living God, the assembly of sinners saved by the grace of God, is called “the house of God” and “the temple of God”, because that is where God meets with his people. To neglect his house, his worship, his Word, and the assembly of his saints is to despise him

    Fifth, we are once more shown that which is the single great interest and concern of the holy angels. Countless books have been written about angels. Most of them reveal the utter ignorance and superstition of the authors and tell us nothing about the angels of God. The simple fact is we do not know much about them. But the one thing that is clearly revealed about them is completely missed by most who write about them.

    The scriptures plainly and repeatedly show us that the angels of God have only one great, singular interest and concern. They seem to care about only one thing. These holy creatures, who cry continually before the throne of God, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts”, do not seem to care about anything except that one great work of God by which his glory is revealed and made known.

    These holy creatures have a deep, abiding, all-consuming interest in the redemptive work of Christ and the salvation of God’s elect in him. The angels always stand before the throne of grace, looking upon the mercy-seat (Isaiah 6). An angel announced the birth of John the Baptist, our Lord’s forerunner. An angel announced the birth of Christ, and a chorus of angels sang when he came into this world to save us. When our Saviour was tempted, the angels of God ministered to him. The angels of God are ministering spirits sent forth to minister to those who shall be the heirs of God’s salvation (Hebrews 1:14). The angels of heaven gather with God’s saints to learn from redeemed sinners “the manifold wisdom of God” displayed in our redemption by Christ (Ephesians 3:10). The angels rejoice in the presence of our God every time God saves a sinner by his grace. The angels of God will come with Christ at the last day to gather his elect from the four corners of the earth into everlasting glory.

    J. C. Ryle wrote, “Let us strive to be like them, while we are upon earth, to be of their mind and to share their joys. This is the way to be in tune for heaven. It is written of those who enter in there that they shall be ‘as the angels.’”

    May God the Holy Spirit give us grace to imitate the angels of God in this. Let us make the redeeming work of Christ and the salvation of sinners in him the all-consuming interest of our hearts and lives.

    Sixth, as we read verse 12 we see the effect perfect holiness has upon a sinful man. “When Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him.” Zacharias was a righteous man in Christ; but he was a sinful man by nature, and he knew it. When he stood before a perfectly holy angel, his soul quaked within him. We have seen this scene repeated many times in scripture. Moses trembled before the burning bush. Manoah and his wife were fearful because the Angel of the Lord appeared to them. Daniel quaked as he stood before the Lord at the great river Hiddekel. The women who saw the angel at the empty tomb were fearful. John fell before the face of the angel that spoke to him on Patmos. They all, like Zacharias, when they saw holy angels and visions of things belonging to the world of eternal things, trembled with fear.

    If these, who were made holy by the grace of God, trembled in the presence of holy angels, how do you hope to stand before the presence of God’s infinite holiness (Nahum 1:5, 6) in the Day of Judgment? The only hope there is for our poor souls is Christ, the only Mediator between God and men. All who take refuge in him, all who trust him shall stand without sin and without fear before the august majesty of God’s perfect holiness, with clean hands and pure hearts.