If you open your Bibles with me to Luke chapter 1, Luke chapter 1. Before we begin, I want us to pray again. We've been praying for and trying to encourage and mostly been encouraged by Donnie and Jeanette Briggs and their trials that they've been going through for the last month. And it's appropriate for us to thank the Lord for his help. And they're both home and their son is here helping to take care of them. So very Jeanette went home Friday. I think Donnie went home maybe Thursday or something. So we're very thankful for that.

Also, Scott McMinn's family in California, several of them watch our services faithfully. And his sister Kelly is, as we speak, having an abscess removed from her spine in California this morning. So, I want us to pray together for them, okay? Let's...

Our Heavenly Father, thank you. We know that you bottled the prayers of your saints and that they are precious in thy sight. Lord, we feel so unworthy to know that our prayers are heard and answered by thee for They're so frail and so weak and unfaithful. But Lord, we rejoice in what you've told us. And though we can't understand it or enter into it, we believe it. Lord, we thank you that your Holy Spirit prompts us to pray and Lord, that the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. We thank you most importantly for the prayer of the righteous man, the Lord Jesus, who intercedes for us. We thank you, Lord, that we're able to come before the throne of grace and offer prayers for help in our time of need. Lord, what a merciful help you've been to Donny and Jeanette What a great testimony they have both been to your grace and to your mercy. Lord, might we be encouraged by them and might we continue to remember how faithful and merciful you are in all of our trials and troubles. Lord, we pray for Kelly and we ask Lord that you would Visit her that you would comfort her that you would speak to her heart and that you would help her. We pray for those ministering to her and ask Lord that you would give them the skill that they need to to be instruments of healing in by hand. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.

I've titled this message when God visits his people. When God visits his people. Every time we come together, our hope and prayer is that the Lord will visit us. And how oftentimes in our private prayers and devotions, the Lord is pleased to visit us. We were visiting with Jeanette in the hospital just the other day, and she was telling us how the Lord had woke her up at two o'clock in the morning, and that she was just burdened on her heart to pray for someone. And that's a visit from God when the Lord enables us and burdens us with a need to pray for one another.

The Bible speaks often of God visiting his people. Someone might be thinking, well, I thought God was omnipresent. He is. He is. He's everywhere at all times. And he promised that he would never leave us nor forsake us. Yet when the Bible speaks of God visiting his people, it's speaking of the manifestation of his presence, the manifestation of his power, the manifestation of his grace. Sometimes the Bible speaks of God visiting his people in judgment. or God visiting a rebellious people in wrath. But here in Luke chapter one, Zacharias, who was the father of John the Baptist, speaks of God fulfilling his promise to visit his people in salvation.

We got a call the other day for some dear friends wanting to know if we were going to be in town. They were going to be flying in in a couple of weeks. And of course, we were delighted that we were going to be here and are looking forward to their visit. What a blessing it is when a sinner gets a visit from God, a visit from God. God shows up the door of their hearts and is pleased to shine the light of His grace and help them.

David said this in Psalm 106 verse 4, He said, remember me, oh Lord, with the favor that thou barest unto thy people. Oh, visit me with thy salvation. Visit me with thy salvation.

You remember in the book of Ruth when Naomi's husband, Elimelech, and her sons all died in Moab, and now she was going to return to Bethlehem, the house of bread, this very city that her husband took her from. And Ruth is with her, and she gets word. She gets word, and here's what she said. She said, I will return to Bethlehem for I have heard that the Lord has visited his people with bread, with bread.

When God visits his people, he breaks open to them the bread of life, the word of God. And he reveals to them the glory of his son. and the accomplishments of their salvation in Him. That's always the visit that we need.

Lord, yes, visit me in my time of need, whatever it might be. But Lord, if you visit me there, and all else is well, all else is well. If I'm able to rest in Christ, knowing that no longer is the bondage of fear necessary. I have one who has overcome the grave, who has defeated Satan, who has satisfied the law for me, who has established divine justice. I have an advocate with God the Father.

Oh, in Bethlehem. There was bread. And a visit from God always results in worship. Let me show you that. Turn with me to Exodus chapter four. Exodus chapter four. Moses has had a visit from God at the burning bush. And God has sent Moses back into Egypt to deliver his people from the bondage of slavery. And the Lord tells us that he will raise up another prophet like unto Moses who will deliver his people from the bondage of sin, speaking of Christ.

But here's what Here's what happens in Exodus chapter 41 after Moses and Aaron declare to the elders of Israel, they've not yet been brought out of Egypt, but Moses and Aaron are now going to have gotten the elders together and told them what God's purpose is and what God's word is. And in Exodus chapter four, verse 29, and Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the children of Israel. And Aaron spake all the words which the Lord had spoken unto Moses. A visit from God always involves his word. And did the signs in the sight of the people. God had given Moses and Aaron supernatural ability to perform miracles in order to authenticate to them that the words that they were speaking had come from God. We now have the spirit of God to confirm that truth to our hearts. We're not looking for signs and wonders anymore, but those people needed a sign from God and God gave it to them. and the people believed. They believed the word that was spoken to them, confirmed by the sign.

By the way, let's stop right there for just a moment. You remember when Gideon put the fleece out and He needed some proof that God was going to send him against the Midianites with 300 men to defeat an army of tens of thousands. And so he put a fleece out, and he asked the Lord to wet the fleece with the dew of the night, but not the ground. And Gideon got up the next morning, and the fleece was wet, and he rang out a whole bowl of water, but all the ground around the fleece was dry. Gideon, in his hard, stiff-necked unbelief, you can relate, I can relate, said, Lord, I need another sign. Let me put the fleece out again. And this time, wet the ground, but don't wet the fleece. And sure enough, the next morning, the Lord gave him that sign. The ground was wet, but the fleece was dry.

And you hear sometimes people say today, you know, if you want to know God's will, you have to put out your fleece. You have to, you know, wait for a sign. You have to get God to prove, you know, to you that that's what you should do. And the Lord Jesus said this, a wicked and perverse generation seeketh after a sign. No sign will be given unto it except for the sign of Jonah, who spent three days and three nights in the belly of the whale and then was brought forth.

and to dry ground. The fleece has been put out. The Lord Jesus, who is the Christ, came in the full anointing of the Spirit of God, and all the washing of the water of God's Word was saturated in Him, if you will, so that at the cross a bowl of water was wrung out. And now by the dry fleece of God's wrath, that same spirit and that same word, which has been denied him in his death, has gone out to all the surrounding ground. There's the sign, brother, the word of God and the spirit of God. That's the only sign we need. And what a sign it is.

and all the blessings of God, and all the visits of God, and all the grace of God, oh, all the salvation of God comes to the hearts of God's people by His Spirit and by His Word. Lord, give me Your Spirit and open the eyes of my understanding that I might believe Thy Word. Here's the means by which the Lord blesses his people. Verse 31, and the people believed. And when they heard that the Lord had visited the children of Israel and that he had looked upon their afflictions, then they bowed their heads and they worshiped.

When the Lord visits his people, they are reminded that he visited them because of their affliction. He visited them because of the taskmaster of slavery, the bondage of sin that they were in. And by his spirit and by his word and by his death, he has brought them out of Egypt. Brought them out of Egypt. Yeah, they're gonna spend the rest of their life following the pillar of fire by night, the pillar of cloud by day. That's the presence of Christ. We sometimes refer to it as them wandering in the wilderness, but they weren't wandering, they were following the Lord. There was no wandering about it. They broke camp and followed every time that pillar moved, they followed it. And the stone followed them. The stone that Moses smote, that the water came forth, and that stone, the Bible tells us, is Christ.

And so for 40 years now, that's our life. We're following after him. We're looking for the light of the gospel from the word of God. We need to be protected. from the heat of the sun. And step by step, he leads us from one oasis to another. That's where the children of Israel were. And the water from the rock comes until one day, until one day, our Joshua divides the Jordan River. Jordan translated means to descend. It is also a word that describes death. And we have in that whole history of the children of Israel, our life, the Lord by Moses, our Moses, has brought us out of Egypt. He's baptized us in the Red Sea. He provides for us. You know, their shoes didn't wear out. For 40 years, they wore the same pair of shoes. Their clothes didn't wear out. They never had to make new clothes or change clothes. They had the same. Day by day, God gave them manna from heaven. Here's our life. And one day our Joshua is gonna divide that Red Sea and take us with him into glory. We worship him. just like they did. God visiting his people.

Now in Luke chapter one, if you'll turn with me there, turn back to me, back with me there if you will, there was a priest by the name of Zacharias. And Zacharias' name translated means Jehovah has remembered. Zacharias is introduced in the early verses of Luke chapter one as a man of God who believed God and was waiting for the fulfillment of the promises of God.

The Lord reveals himself. He visits Zacharias. It's his time to go into the temple and make a sacrifice of incense, which is a picture of prayer. So Zacharias goes in and does his duty, and the Lord visits him there. Every time we pray, our hope is that the Lord will visit us in our prayers, that he will comfort our hearts. We were talking the other day about how prayer is not for the purpose of changing God, it's for the purpose of changing us. For the purpose of changing us, God puts us in order with his will when we're able to pray.

Zacharias goes into the temple as was his duty as the priest and offers up prayers and the Lord visits him and speaks to him. And the Bible says that Zacharias was old in age and that his wife, Elizabeth, was stricken in years. Now I interpret that as meaning that she was far beyond the ability to give birth to a child. And yet the Lord visits Zacharias and tells him, your wife Elizabeth is going to have a child. And he questions God, how can this be? For I am old and my wife is stricken in years. And the Lord says this to Zacharias. He says, Zacharias, because you did not believe, you're not gonna be able to speak from now until the time that this promise is accomplished. You're gonna be dumb.

And so Elizabeth does become pregnant and she does bring birth to a child. And everybody wants to call the child Zacharias. Let's call him Zacharias after his father. But the angel Gabriel had already told Zacharias that you're not going to call him Zacharias. His name is going to be John. John's name translated Jehovah is gracious. Jehovah is gracious. And so Elizabeth says no. Zacharias said that the Lord said his name should be John and they looked at Zacharias and gave him pencil and paper and he wrote on the paper John and just then he was able to speak.

The visit from God Yes, as my name reflects, will be that he remembered his covenant promises, but it'll be a gracious visit. It'll be a gracious visit. As God's visits always are. I see in Zacharias inability to speak the result of my own unbelief. When I find myself before the throne of grace and know that he is in the heavens and that I am upon the earth and that I've not been able to keep any part of God's law and that God's law was given in order that every mouth might be stopped and that all men might be made guilty before God.

How can a guilty man standing in the presence of a holy God, a sovereign God, an all-powerful God, a man who is upon the earth, make his arguments and defenses before God? No, I am often, I am often find myself dumb before God, unable to speak, trusting that the groanings of my heart will be interpreted by the Spirit of God to provide for me Not what I want, but what I need. That's Zacharias now. He's got a visit from God. You see, here's the testimony of God visiting us, brethren. Not that we're able to go into our prayer closets and offer up great, long-flowing, eloquent prayers, but that we would have our mouth shut before God. that we might be still before God and know that he is God. And just pour our hearts out in a way that no other man would be able to interpret what we are saying and that we can't even understand what we mean. But that with groanings and offerings of prayer, We are trusting him to fulfill his promise.

Lord, help thou mine unbelief. Zacharias had his mouth shut because he didn't believe God. Lord, I do believe, and that's the only reason my mouth can be opened. But oh, how quickly it's shut. when I'm reminded of how much unbelief remains in my heart, in my flesh.

Does Zacharias' unbelief limit what God had purpose to do? No, God said to Zacharias, you're not gonna be able to speak until this promise is fulfilled. I'm going to fulfill my promise. I'm going to remember my covenant. I'm going to visit my people. I'm going to save them of their sins in spite of your unbelief.

Well, that gives a sinner hope. That gives a sinner hope. That God's going to be faithful. When we believe not, yet he remaineth faithful. Why? Because he cannot deny himself. What a gracious God we have.

Now John is born and Zacharias is going to speak. It really is our unbelief that testifies to the visit of God. We don't need a visit from God to feel guilty when we do something bad. The moral law of God is written on the hearts of all men. All men come into this world knowing the difference between good and evil, between right and wrong, right and wrong. We all have a conscience. And though we are capable of searing that conscience so that it no longer works, Men don't need the Holy Spirit to know when they've done something wrong.

What is it that we do need the Holy Spirit for? Well, the Lord answered that question when he said, it is expedient for you, it's required, it's necessary for you that I go away, for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come. But when he comes, he will reprove, and that word reprove means convince. He will convince the world of sin. And that word world is used in the same sense that it's used in John 3.16. It doesn't mean every person in the world. It means those people outside of Judaism. It means us Gentiles. He's gonna go out into all the world, in every tribe and tongue and nation and people, and he's gonna reprove them of sin. He's gonna convince them of sin.

Why? Because they believe not on me. That's what we need the Holy Spirit for. We need the Holy Spirit to convince us that the root of all of our problems and all of our sin is our unbelief.

What makes the difference between the Lord Jesus and us? Many things, he's God, we're not, but it's his faith, he believed God, perfectly believed God. He never struggled with doubts and fears and the things that we go through every day. And nothing that anyone said or did disturbed him. He believed God perfectly.

How much unbelief we have. But if the Spirit of God doesn't convict us of that, we will think that our only sin problem is bad behavior. That's what the world believes. We'll think that, oh, I've got a spot of leprosy here or there, or I've got a problem here or there, but I can fix that. And once that's fixed, then I'll be good to go.

But what does the Holy Spirit convince us of? This matter of unbelief infects every part of us. We're able to say with the Apostle Paul, in me, that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. Everything about me is sinful. The only righteousness I have is Christ. It's what he, only the spirit of God. If I don't have Christ, if he doesn't save me and he doesn't present himself before God on my behalf, Everything about me is hell-deserving. Everything about me falls short of the glory of God. Everything about me is sinful.

That's the work of the Holy Spirit. And that doesn't come to the natural man. Reprove the world of sin. Shut my mouth before God. Make me guilty in the presence of God. That's why God gave his law, to make sin exceedingly sinful. Lord, I can't keep it, any part of it. I need to be under your grace. I need to have the Lord Jesus. as my law keeper, to establish my righteousness before thee. I need you to make him who knew no sin to be made sin for me, that I might be made the righteousness of God in him. I need it.

These are the manifestations of his presence in the heart. This is how we know if God's visited us. Verse 67 of Luke chapter one, and his father, John's father, Jehovah is gracious. Zacharias, Jehovah has remembered. was filled with the Holy Ghost and prophesied saying, blessed be the Lord God of Israel. All blessing and all glory and all praise and all honor goes to him for he did it all. And he's the God of Israel.

Israel, the prince of God, Israel, the one who by his own nature is a supplanter, by his own nature is a liar, God now has visited him. God visited Jacob at the river Japheth. That's when he wrestled with God all night, and God touched the hollow of his thigh, and Jacob limped the rest of his life. God changed his name there too. and called him Israel. You're now a prince. And Zechariah is offering praise to the God who touches his Jacobs and declares them to be princes in the family of God.

Sons of God, what manner of love that God has bestowed upon us that we, we should be called the sons of God? That's who Zacharias, in the power of the Holy Spirit, filled with the Holy Spirit, is God's visiting him. When God visits his people, he hath visited and redeemed his people. When God visits, he always redeems. He always, what does that word redeem mean? It means to purchase. We've been purchased, not with gold and silver, not with our own righteousness, not with our own gifts, not with our own determination, not with our own free will. We've been purchased by the precious blood of Christ. We've been bought with a price and we're not our own. We've been redeemed.

When God visits us, we're able to believe and rest in the one who accomplished our redemption. We've been redeemed. He didn't say, you've been offered redemption. No, we've been redeemed. We've been bought. The Lord Jesus actually purchased his people from sin and from the grave, and bought them as his own, and hath raised up the horn of salvation by his resurrection." And the Bible, when the scripture speaks of the horn, it's the strength of an animal. An animal's got a horn to it. The part of that animal you won't stay away from, it's its horn. And that's what it uses as a weapon. So the horn of God's salvation. It's also the horn of the trumpet that was used to declare the salvation of the Lord when the trumpet was blown. Here's the horn of God's salvation. And Christ is the right hand of God. He's the strength. He's the one who has declared salvation. He hath raised up the horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David as he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets which have been since the world began." God's been promising this from the beginning. He said to Adam and Eve in the garden that The seed of the serpent would bruise the heel of the seed of the woman. And that happened at the cross. But the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. He would deliver those who were in bondage of the fear of death over the power of the devil, who has power over death.

that we should be saved from our enemies. I would ask you and myself right now, who's your greatest enemy? Who is your greatest enemy? Yeah, me too, Donnie. Donnie went like this. Me too. Yeah. He's prepared a table before me in the presence of my enemies. I can't look to my right or to my left to find out who my enemy is. It's my own unbelief. It's my own sin. Save me, Lord, from myself. And that he has done. When he causes by his Holy Spirit for us to believe, that our unbelief is our greatest sin and the root of all of our sin.

He saved us and from the hand of all that hate us to perform the mercy promise to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant. Here's how I know that God has visited me. This visit hasn't come because of something I've done to persuade him to come. We might call someone. Little advice. You're a parent feeling the loss of your grown children who have moved away. Don't pester them about coming to visit you. You just make it worse. I've seen parents do that. They just try to put a guilt trip on their children about coming. It just drives them away. As much as you might want them to come visit you, don't do it like that. Make their visit a pleasant visit.

The reason that God has visited me is not because I've persuaded him to visit me, it's not because I've guilted him to visit me, it's not because I've provided for something that he would want from me, he comes for one reason. Here it is in our text, look. To perform the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant. God visits his people because he is remembering the covenant of grace that he made. before time ever was, a covenant that you and I had no part in except to be saved by. God is faithful. David said this, although my house be not so with God, although the tabernacle of my flesh and my own household and my own family is not as it ought to be, it's so full of sin and unbelief, yet He has made with me an everlasting covenant. And that covenant was ordered in all things. And sure, this is all my salvation and all my desire. That's why he visits. He visits for his namesake.

Why did God make Israel his people? Because they were the greatest and strongest? No, because they were the least and the weakest. He remembers his covenant. When we come before the throne of grace, that's what we plead. Lord, remember your promises. Remember your covenant. Be gracious to me. That, I'm sorry, the oath which he swore to our father, Abraham, that he would grant unto us that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear. Without fear.

Here's how we know that we've had a visit from God. Last week, we looked at Philemon and what Paul said to Onesimus. Philemon, you remember, was the runaway, I'm sorry, Onesimus was the runaway slave. Paul wrote to Philemon, who was Onesimus' master, and said to Onesimus, Philemon was once unprofitable to you, and that's what Philemon's name meant, profitable, but now he's gonna be profitable to you, not just as a servant, but as a brother in Christ.

When Philemon went back with that letter, Philemon's service to Onesimus before he ran away was out of guilt. It may be out of obligation, resentful. I'll do it, but only because I have to. And I can just see Philemon now, Onesimus now, excuse me, I'm confusing the names. I can see Onesimus now. After handing Philemon that letter and being embraced by Philemon and being received back into the household, not only as a servant, but as a brother, Philemon gets up every morning. And he does like we do often in the mornings. Remember who we are. Lord, what would you have me to do? He's now not a resentful servant, He's a willing servant. In Exodus chapter 21, he's a loving servant. He loves Onesimus. He loves Philemon. He wants to please his master. This is the being zealous for, we serve him now.

I know God's visited me. Why? Because my service is not out of obligation. My service is not out of fear. My service is not out of, you know, well, God's gonna reward me for this. No, we serve him in holiness and in righteousness without fear. before him in love all the days of our life. It's the love of Christ that constraineth us. It's not our love for Christ. It's the love of Christ that keeps us.

Here's how we know, in God's visit us. How oftentimes the Holy Spirit brings us, Lord, not my will, but thy will be done. Lord, what would you have me? Lord, help me, Lord. That's not out of fear.

I'll close with this. In the Old Testament, right after God gave the 10 commandments, in Exodus chapter 21, the Lord gives application of these commandments. and the very first application he gives is that of an indentured servant, an Israelite who has gotten himself in debt, and he can't pay his debt, and so he has to become a temporary slave, an indentured servant to another Israelite to pay off his debt. And he can only serve for seven years, and then the debt is paid, and when it's paid, he's free to leave. But in departing from the man's household that he was serving to pay off his debt, if the master had given that man a wife, then he had to leave his wife behind. And if in that union there were children born, then he had to leave his children behind. He's free to leave, but he couldn't take his wife or his children with him. But if that servant said, After the seven years were done, the debt was paid, paid in full, no more obligation. If that servant said to his master, I love my master, I love my wife, I love my children, I will not go out. Then the master took that Israelite to the doorpost of the house and he drove an awl through his ear and marked him as a slave for life. And by the ear, he would listen willingly, lovingly, gladly, without fear to the voice of his master.

Lord, what would you have me to do? I love you. I love my wife. I love your church. I love my children. I love your people. I will not go out. Lord, I can't think of a better way to live the rest of the days of my life, however long they might be, but in service to Thee. Our Heavenly Father, visit us and manifest Your grace and Your glory and move our hearts to serve and worship Thee without fear willingly and gladly in love for Christ's sake. For it's in his name we pray. Amen.

Adam. 75. 75 in the hardback temple. Let's stand together. Number 75. you