We have the Word of God. I love
the fact that God can't lie, which is why, as Luke says, there's
a certainty, there's a safety in simply trusting God, taking
Him at His Word, taking His Word of promise back to Him and saying,
this is what you've said. I don't know the circumstances.
I don't know what the circumstances are before me in the future.
But you have, you have them all under control. Why don't we continue
reading in Luke's Gospel just so we have a context for this
sermon. This first public declaration,
it's in 60, verse 67, Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost
and prophesied saying, but it's just such a lovely A lovely picture
of the visiting of God, the fulfilment of all those promises, those
remarkable promises that were made. The Jews spent their time
in expectation next year in Jerusalem, they used to say to themselves
all the time. had every reason to believe that remarkable things
were going to happen. Daniel gave them a timeline.
Isaiah gave them all the pictures that you could ever wish to see
of who the Lord Jesus Christ is. Malachi told them again and
again in Malachi, the last of them they called Malachi. Malachi's
name means messenger. He was a messenger who spoke
about a message that was going to be delivered by a messenger
who was the message himself. That's what Malachi was doing.
And Malachi says in chapter 3, he says, Behold, I will send
my messenger and he shall prepare the way before me. You know that
is words out of Isaiah. Before me and the Lord whom you
seek. I love what he says in Malachi
3, one shall suddenly come to his temple. even the messenger
of the covenant. So when he suddenly comes to
his temple, he's going to be coming as a covenant-keeping,
covenant-making, covenant-sustaining, covenant-ensuring that his inheritance,
all that he's earned, is going to be delivered to his people.
But who messenger of covenant, sorry,
whom you delight in, behold, he shall come, saith the Lord
of hosts. And who may abide the day of
his coming? And who shall stand when he appeareth?
For he is like a refiner's fire and like full of soap. He shall
sit as a refiner and purify, you can recall these words of
John the Baptist, and he shall purify the sons of Levi and purge
them as gold and silver that they may offer unto the Lord
an offering in righteousness. Then shall the offering of Judah
and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord as in the days of old.
and as in the former years, and I will come near to you to judgment,
and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against
the adulterers, and against the false wearers, and against all
those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow and the
fatherless, and all that turn aside the stranger from his right.
And fear me not, saith the Lord of hosts." And then he says,
in verse six, he says, for I am the Lord. This is a great description
of the Lord, isn't it? I am the Lord, I change not. I change not. Therefore you sons
of Jacob are not consumed." God doesn't change. He has no reason
to change. He cannot change. The Son of Righteousness, says
Malachi, shall arise in Malachi 4 verse 2. The Son of Righteousness
will rise with healing in His wings, and you shall go forth. When He arises with healing in
His wings, you'll go forth as calves of the stall. I don't
know, Beth's been read on a dairy farm, I was read on a dairy farm.
You know what it's like, don't you? You get a bunch of little
calves and you let them loose. It's exciting, isn't it? It's
exciting to see how happy they are. Prisoners are set free by
God and they are let loose as calves to the stall. Behold, he finishes, and these
are the words that the Jews had for 400 years. For 400 years,
this is the words that closed their Bibles, isn't it? Behold,
I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great
and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall turn the heart of
the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to
their fathers, lest I come and smoke the earth with a curse.
So Luke wants us to know with safety, he wants us to know with
certainty, all of these things that happened, all the fulfilment
of all of those promises. So let's just read these verses
and I'll make a few comments as we go along. Luke chapter
1, verse 5. There was in the days of Herod,
the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zechariah of the
course of Abiah, and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron,
and her name was Elizabeth. So here we have these two that
are married. They are both children of Levi. They are both sons of
Aaron. They are now, Zechariah is a
priest. His wife comes from a priestly
lineage. And they were both righteous
before God. We know what that righteousness
is. As the psalmist says, I'll speak of your righteousness and
your righteousness only. They were righteous before God
in the fact that they believed God for their righteousness. Walking in all the commandments
and ordinance of the Lord, blameless. I love how the Lord describes
these people as blameless. If you'd gone to Zachariah and
said, Zachariah, you're blameless. And he would look back on all
those 70 or 80 years, or whatever it was, and he said, don't you
dare say that about me. But God says it about him. God
says it about all of his people. Which is why when you read Hebrews
11, it's remarkable. If you go and read Judges, and
read the story of those men in Judges, Gideon and Samson and
Jephthah, all of those, and then you go and read in Hebrews 11,
and there's not a single mention of anything but their righteousness
before God. Why? because that's how they
are, brothers and sisters. We see all their sins and their
weaknesses in the flesh, but God sees them in the Lord Jesus
Christ, and that's what he declares them to be. They were both righteous. And they had no child, because
Elizabeth was barren, and they 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, so there he was in Jerusalem in this temple, which was a picture
in every possible way of the Lord Jesus Christ. 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." I think it's a beautiful picture,
isn't it? Angel means messenger. It's a beautiful picture of the
Lord's preachers. And we stand on the right side
of the altar of incense. And the incense is what? The
incense is that sweet odor. of the sacrifice of the Lord
Jesus Christ to his people. That's exactly what we do, isn't
it? We present the Lord Jesus Christ who is the incense to
God, isn't it? He sees the work of his son and
he smells the work of his son and he finds it absolutely delightful,
that sacrifice. That's where the angel stood.
And when Zacharias, verse 12, and when Zacharias saw him, he
was troubled and fear fell upon him. So it ought. But the angel
said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias, for thy prayer is heard, and
thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call
his name John, and thou shalt have joy and gladness, and many
shall rejoice at his birth. For he shall be great in the
sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong
drink. And he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from
his mother's womb. And many of the children of Israel
shall he turn to the Lord their God. And he shall go before him,
he'll go before the Lord their God, in the spirit and power
of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,
and the disobedience to the wisdom of the just. to make ready a
people prepared for the Lord. And Zechariah said unto the angel,
Whereby shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife
is well stricken in years. And the angel answered and said
unto him, I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God,
and I am sent to speak unto thee, and to show thee these great
glad tidings. And behold, thou shalt be dumb,
and not be able to speak until the day that these things shall
be performed, because thou believest not my words, which shall be
fulfilled in their season. Unbelief has a price all the
time, at every moment. Unbelief. Unbelief is the great
enemy of God's people. And the people waited, verse
21, the people waited for Zacharias and marveled that he tarried
so long in the temple. And when he came out, he couldn't
speak unto them. And they perceived that he had
seen a vision in the temple, for he beckoned unto them and
remained speechless. And it came to pass that as soon
as the days of his ministration were accomplished, he departed
to his own house. And after those days, his wife
Elizabeth conceived and hid herself five months, saying, thus hath
the Lord dealt with me in the days wherein he looked upon me,
looked on me, to take away my reproach among men. When God
looks upon people, he looks upon people, his people, in mercy
and grace, isn't it? And he'll take away your reproach
among men. And in the six months, the angel
Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee named Nazareth,
to a virgin, a spouse to a man whose name was Joseph, of the
house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary. And the angel
came in unto her and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured. The Lord is with thee. Blessed
art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was
troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation
this should be. And the angel of the Lord said
unto her, Similar words to Zacharias, isn't it? Fear not. Mary, for
thou hast found favour with God. She's found grace with God. Mary was a sinner and she found
grace with God. And behold, thou shalt conceive
in thy womb and bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name
Jesus. He shall be great and shall be
called the son of the highest. And the Lord God shall give unto
him the throne of his father David, and he shall reign over
the house of Jacob forever in his kingdom, and of his kingdom
there shall be no end. Then said Mary unto the angel,
How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered
and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the
power of the highest shall overshadow thee. Therefore also that holy
thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son
of God. That holy thing, what a great
description, that holy one. To be born of God, born of thee
shall be called the Son of God. He wasn't going to be born of
Adam's flesh, was he? He was born miraculously. Mary,
in a sense, was the receptacle that held the Lord Jesus Christ
and nurtured him and grew him. He had none of Adam's sin. He
had no sin of his own. He was called holy. He is holy. Verse 36, and behold, thy cousin
Elizabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age, and this
is the sixth month for her, who was called barren. For with God,
nothing shall be impossible. If only we knew what that really
meant, brothers and sisters. We'd walk through this world
with lighter steps so often. With God, nothing is impossible.
And Mary said, behold, The Handmaid of the Lord. This is a great
description of faith, brothers and sisters, isn't it? Behold
the Handmaid of the Lord. I'm your servant. You are God. I'm your servant. Be it unto
me according to thy word. What a lovely description. What
a lovely prayer to say, isn't it? Be it unto me according to
thy word. You just fulfil your promises,
is what she's saying, isn't it? You've made a promise, you fulfil
your promises, which is exactly what Luke was talking about,
isn't it? You might know the certainty,
you might know the safety of these things, that God is going
to make a promise and he has made promises. He's made them
in eternity, he's made them in his Son, he's sealed them with
the blood of his Son, and he's going to do it, isn't he? Be
it unto me according to thy word. And Mary arose in those days
and went into the hill country with haste. So she hastened to
see Elizabeth. Now Elizabeth's now six months pregnant. Entered
into the house of Zacharias and saluted Elizabeth. And it came to pass that when
Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leapt in her
womb. And Elizabeth was filled with
the Holy Ghost. Now here we have a baby that's
filled with the Holy Ghost. John the Baptist. Here we have
a woman who is filled with the Holy Ghost. And when people are
filled with the Holy Ghost, they speak with the same words all
the time. They speak the same message all
the time. And she spoke out with a loud
voice and said, blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the
fruit of thy womb. From whence is this to me, that
the mother of my Lord should come to me? For lo, as soon as
the voice of thy salutation sounded in my ears, the babe leapt in
my womb for joy. And blessed is she that believed. For there shall be a performance
of those things which were told her from the Lord. There will
be a performance of all the Lord's words. Mary sang, didn't she? Mary's song. And if you go back
to 1 Samuel 1, and you can read Hannah's song, you'll find the
words are so reminiscent of those. My soul doth magnify the Lord,
and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. For he has regarded
the lowest state of his handmaiden. For behold, from henceforth all
generations shall call me blessed. For he that is mighty hath done
me great things, and holy is his name. And His mercy is on them that
fear Him from generation to generation. He has shown His strength with
His arm. He has scattered the proud in
the imagination of their hearts. He has put down the mighty from
their seats and exalted them of low degree. He has filled
the hungry with good things and the rich He has sent away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy as
he spoke up to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed forever. Several things we need to be
mindful of here. People want to say, people who
are completely ignorant of who God is and completely ignorant
of who Mary is, want to say that Mary was sinless. Mary rejoiced
in God, verse 47. God, my Saviour, Mary was a sinner. Mary was a sinner who needed
a saviour and she had a remarkable saviour. The other thing that's
remarkable as you read through what she says, she actually puts
everything that regards to God in the past tense. He has. He has, hasn't he? He has showed
his strength. He has scattered the proud, verse
51. He has put down the mighty from their seats. There she is.
You've got to remember where she is. She's in Nazareth, a
despised part of Israel. And Israel is a despised part
of the Roman Empire. There they are, this little flea
bite of a nation, controlled by Rome, with this religious
nonsense going on in Jerusalem. all over the place. And she's
saying that's all happened. Why? Because it has, brothers
and sisters. God declares the end from the
beginning. You'll know for a certainty, says Luke, these things that
again have come to pass. When God says it, it is done. When God says it, it is done. There is an outworking of these
things in history, but when God speaks, it is done. Let's go on to verse 57. Now
Elizabeth's full time came that she should be delivered, and
she brought forth a son. And her neighbors and her cousins
heard how the Lord had shown great mercy upon her, and they
rejoiced with her, exactly as the angel had said. And it came
to pass that on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child,
and they called him Zacharias after the name of his father.
And his mother answered and said, not so, but he should be called
John. And they said unto her, There
is none of thy kindred that is called by this name. And they
might size to his father how he would have him called. And
he asked for a writing tablet and wrote, saying, His name is
John. And they marvelled all. And his
mouth was opened immediately, and his tongue loosed. And he spoke and praised God. And fear came on all that dwelt
round about them, and all these sayings were noised abroad throughout
all the hill country of Judea. And all that heard them laid
them up in their hearts, saying, What manner of child shall this
be? And the hand of the Lord was
with him. And Zacharias is speaking, and
we'll look at this in a little while after our break. But Zacharias
speaks, there had been 400 years of silence from God. The Old
Testament finished with these remarkable promises of the Lord
coming, coming suddenly, coming unexpectedly. And Zacharias had
nine or ten months of absolute silence, not a word from God,
not a word to anyone. This declaration of the gospel
by Zacharias is the first word of a spirit-filled preacher for
400 years. And so it is the foundation,
isn't it? This is the foundation of God's declaration to his people
about himself and about his son. I love what Luke says, let's
go back in Luke chapter 1 verse 4. He's writing all these things
to you, brothers and sisters in Christ, that thou might knowest
the certainty. You might have safety in what
God has said, in what you have been instructed. You might have
safety. Mary and Elizabeth and Zacharias
in the temple had all heard from the angel of God. Zacharias now,
at the circumcision of John the Baptist, actually has enabled
of God, and it says in verse 67, his father Zacharias was
filled with the Holy Ghost, and he was filled with the Holy Ghost
and he prophesied. And people talk much of the Holy
Spirit these days, but if you're going to hear the Holy Spirit
speak to people, he's going to speak these words. Foundations
are fundamentally important. That's what Luke is giving, isn't
it? He's giving the foundations of the gospel in the book of
Luke, the work, person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. I love
that verse in Colossians 2, verse 6. It talks about how you are
to walk. How do you, how now do you walk
having, having heard of these things and having been granted
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, Colossians 2.6 says, and as you
have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in
him. How do you receive him? You receive
him as a sinner in need of a saviour. You receive him, you receive
him as he's declared in the scriptures. So foundations, and as you go
through the rest of the New Testament, especially the New Testament
epistles you see again and again, they're saying that you actually
hold on to what you have heard, you hold on to what you have
heard of who the Lord Jesus Christ is, and don't be moved away from
it. So these are foundational. This is foundational. This is
after 400 years of silence and after 10 months of Zechariah's
silence, God speaks. He's filled with the Holy Ghost
and prophesied and God spoke. And what are those first words?
The first words that come out of someone's mouth whom the Holy
Spirit has filled is praise to God. Blessed be the Lord God
of Israel. Praise be the Lord God of Israel. It is a quotation from Psalm
41 verse 13. And so the first thing that the
Holy Spirit led preacher will do is speak the words of God
to God's people. Not the words of Zacharias, these
are the words of God. The blessed, blessed be the Lord
God of Israel. as they declared Him, Be thou
art the Christ, the Son of the Blessed. When God visits His
people, after there's been a period of silence, he's going to visit
them by declaring his word. That's what Paul says, isn't
it, in Ephesians and other places, blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, a blessed God who's planned salvation for
us, a blessed God who's purchased salvation for us, a blessed God
who's performed salvation in us. Blessed, a blessed God. And then he goes on to say, The
first thing, isn't it, is you praise the God of Israel because
he's visited. He has visited, and he's redeemed
his people. He has visited, where is he?
He's visited already. He's a six months old baby in
his mother's womb at this time, and he's visited Israel. He's
visited. To visit is to look upon in order
to help or to benefit. To look in care, to look and
provide. There's lots of visiting here,
isn't it? Zacharias has been visited by
an angel. Mary's been visited by an angel.
Elizabeth's been visited. They visit each other. There
is always visiting going on. In verse 78, if you look down
there, of this message of Zacharias, it says, the day spring on high
has visited us. We'll look at that later on.
Obviously, the day spring on high, the sun of righteousness
will arise with healing in his wings. The day spring on high
is a reference to the Lord Jesus Christ. He has visited us. There
is a time when the Lord visits His people. The Lord Jesus Christ
said of Jerusalem, if you'd known the time of your visitation,
things would have gone much better for you. But you didn't know
it. They didn't know it. God sees. God knows what is happening in
the lives of his people all the time. His eyes are ever on his
people. God visited his people in Egypt.
He saw. He saw what was done in Egypt. He heard the groans of his people
in Egypt. He looked upon, he saw, he visited
them and he saw their affliction. So often we think that God is
absent, and it's just blind unbelief. I love what Hagar said when she
was sent away, and she said those remarkable words, thou God seest
me. It was up in an old church down
in Victoria that I went into. It's now a coffee shop. But there
it was above the pulpit, thou God seest me. We live our lives in the very
presence of God and he sees everything. And God's children love it that
way. They love the fact that he sees.
He sees, he has visited his people. He's visited his people. He hath
visited his people. See, for salvation to begin,
for this gospel age to have the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ
revealed, he must visit his people. He must visit it, and so he does
in salvation. Otherwise, we're left as Adam
and Eve were. in that garden. Do you remember
what happened in the garden, didn't you? They took the fruit
of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. They had been deceived. Eve had been deceived by Satan.
Adam wasn't deceived. He plunged himself and his race
into sin and into that rebellion. But what was the result of having
access to that tree of knowledge of good and evil? Having access
to that place where they could decide what was right and wrong,
and they could choose. What do they do? Their first
response, isn't it, is to hide from God. Their first response
is to hide from God and hide from God's voice. Their first
response is to make a covering for their shame, stitching together
a robe of righteousness out of fig leaves. And that's exactly
what all of Adam's children are doing. You put a little bit of
pressure on any one of Adam's children and almost invariably
the first thing that'll come out of their mouth is some sort
of self-justification because they've been stitching together
their robe, haven't they? To cover their shame. And then
in their hearts, as soon as their shame is exposed and their sin
is exposed, what do they do? It's not my fault. It's not my
fault. I had the temerity, the audacity
to blame God. Adam said, it's your fault, you
gave me the woman. If you didn't give me the woman,
I wouldn't have done it. She blames the snake, the serpent. We might smile, and we do it
all the time ourselves, brother. That's what your Adam flesh is
doing all the time. Don't think you're any better
than them. You're their child in your flesh. And until the
Lord visits you, that's how you'll live your life. You'll live your
life and you'll organize your religion with all of those things. It's a hiding from God, isn't
it? It's a hiding from God. It's
a creation and a maintaining and a sustenance of your own
righteousness. So in religion, people think
that having done all of these things, that salvation actually,
the end result of salvation is the redemption of your soul.
The end result of salvation is the forgiveness of your sins.
If you actually just do all these things and you work your way
toward it and maintain it by your activities. But listen to
what Zacharias says, filled with the Holy Ghost. This is Holy
Spirit teaching. He hath visited, Luke 1, 68,
he hath visited and redeemed his people. The very first thing
that comes out of his mouth is the praise of the God of Israel,
a God who has a people, who has a nation, who has his people
and his world, and he comes and he visits them and he has redeemed
them. He has redeemed them. It doesn't
say that he offered the possibility of redemption. So any message
that speaks of redemption other than the redemption that Zacharias
is talking about here is not coming from the Holy Spirit.
The notion these days that the Lord Jesus Christ and God the
Father and God the Spirit have done all they can, they lay it
out there on the table, and you appropriate that by your act
of faith. Zacharias would have said that
was blasphemy. We ought to say the same, brothers and sisters.
When God works in the hearts of His people, He begins, doesn't
He? He visits them and He redeems them. He visits them because
He can dwell with them. He can dwell with them. A holy
God can dwell with filthy sinners. Why? Because their sins are gone. That's why He can visit them.
He's redeemed them, that's what He says. He has redeemed His
people. His people, I haven't counted
them for a little while, but just go with me through this
passage of scripture and just look at the references to the
personal pronouns of God in these scriptures. God's activities
are towards His own people all the time, in redemption, in salvation,
in mercy, in grace. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel.
There is, God has a particular people. He's redeemed His people. Verse 69, He's raised up a horn
of salvation for us in the house of His servant David. It's all
particular. People say that we make too much
of particular redemption. You can't make too much of particular
redemption because you can't make too much of a successful
saviour. You'll have no salvation without
a successful saviour. Verse 71, that we should be saved
from our enemies, as a result of the promises he made in verse
70. We'll look at that in a little bit, if the Lord willing. From
all those that hate us, to perform the mercy, verse 70, to perform
the mercy promised to our fathers. The oath he swore to our father
Abraham. Abraham is the father of all
the faithful, all the faithful, all the children of God, that
he would grant unto us that we, being delivered out of the hands
of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and
righteousness before him all the days of our life. to give
the knowledge, verse 77, to give the knowledge of salvation unto
his people for the remission of their sins. This is the redemption
he begins talking about. He begins with the fact that
their sins have been redeemed, their sins have been remitted
through the tender mercy of our God, whereby the day spring on
high has visited us to give light to them. that sit in darkness
and in the shadow of death to guide our feet into the way of
peace. He's redeemed his people. It
begins with redemption. You begin with the praise of
the glory of the God of Israel. You begin to know him because
of the fact that he visits his people and he's redeemed. To
be redeemed is to buy back at a promised price, to clear by
payment to obtain release of a payment, he's brought us back. We were his. We were sold into
sin and under the demean of Satan and under the entrapments of
this world and he comes along and he says, they're mine. They
were mine before the foundation of the world, and I'm buying
them back because they're mine. And when I buy them back, I own
them. I own them. That's what it is to be His people,
isn't it? That's what it is to be His people.
It is to release one bound, redemption of His people, redemption of
them, that particular people. As Paul says in Ephesians 1.7,
in whom we have redemption. This redemption is in him. It's
a redemption paid. There was a price paid and the
price was simple and the rest of the New Testament, the price
is his blood. The price is the life of the Lord Jesus Christ.
God is satisfied with it. In whom we have redemption through
his blood, the forgiveness of sins. according to something
we've done, not according to God in Ephesians 1.7, according
to the riches of His grace, the riches of His grace. And He's
made us, He said, accepted in the Beloved, accepted in the
Beloved. So He's redeemed His people. He has raised up for us a horn
of salvation in the house of His servant David. The horn of
His salvation is just another description of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He is the horn of salvation. It says in 1 Samuel 2.10, he
says, he shall exhort the horn of his anointed. And David at
the end of his life in 2 Samuel 22 verse 3 says, the Lord, the
God of my rock, in him will I trust. He is my shield and the horn
of my salvation. The horn refers to, represents
power, doesn't it? Here's the horn of my salvation.
It's the arm of the Lord, isn't it? The arm of His power. It's revealed to His people.
He's my high tower, says David. He's my refuge. He's my saviour. Thou savest me from violence. That's exactly what he says,
and he repeats it. God repeats those words in Psalm
18, verse 2. The horn of his salvation. He's
raised up. He's raised up for us. For us, brothers and sisters
in Christ, in the house of his servant David. David, of course, is that great
king that typified the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the United One.
He's the king who has that kingdom. He's the king who establishes
that kingdom. He's the king who points in so
many ways to the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the king who receives the
promises of God. He's the king who receives the
covenant promises. He's the king whose great son
As we've seen in our journey through Acts, he's the king whose
great son was going to be both his Lord and his Christ. He was going to be both the son
of David and David's Lord. Jeremiah spoke of him, I'll raise
up under David a righteous branch and a king shall reign and execute
judgment and justice on the earth. A righteous, a righteous branch. There are just so many references
to David, aren't there? All through the Old Testament
we have these remarkable references to this David coming. There'll
be one king over them called David. Ezekiel 34 speaks of this
great shepherd. It's one of my favourite passages
in scriptures. He's going to put this in the
habit, David, over them. There will be David. David's
been dead by the time Ezekiel's writing. He's been dead for over
500 years and Ezekiel says there's a David coming. This David will
reign over them. He will be a king. He'll have
a king. Our God is to be praised. And he'll be praised when he
visits his people. And when he visits his people, he reminds
them that he's redeemed them already, that he's raised up
a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant, David,
as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophet, which have been
since the world began. Isn't it wonderful, brothers
and sisters, that we have in our hands, don't we, we have
this remarkable, remarkable promise of God fulfilled. Everywhere you turn in this book,
you see these remarkable promises. And in this passage of scripture,
Zachariah is reminding of those promises and the fact that they're
just fulfilled. God is faithful. As he spoke
by the mouth of his prophets, his holy prophets, which had
been since the world began. Ever since there was a creation,
there has been a declaration of the gospel. This is an old,
old gospel we have, brothers and sisters. It is, in Revelation
14, called the everlasting gospel. It has no beginning. It'll have
no end. It's the gospel of the glory
of our God. It's mercy promised, isn't it?
that we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand
of all that hate us, to perform the mercy promised to our fathers,
and to remember his holy covenant, the oath which he swore unto
our father Abraham." It's mercy promised. It's a holy covenant
remembered. It's an oath. God has bound himself
by oath and by covenant and by promise. If anyone thinks that
it's the Mosaic law that Zacharias lived under and performed in
the temple, he makes it abundantly clear that this covenant is not
the covenant that God made with Moses on Mount Sinai. He says,
doesn't he, remember his holy covenant, the oath which he swore
to our father Abraham. What was the promise that he
made to Abraham? So many remarkable promises made
to Abraham. They're all just one promise,
aren't they? They're the promise of the king in a kingdom. They're
the promise that is all wrapped up in the son, the great son
that Abraham had, isn't it? Abraham was called by God in
Genesis 12, and the Lord God said to him, get thee out of
thy country and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house.
You're going to be out there independent of all of those earthly
helps, and I'll be your shield and great reward, says God. and unto a land that I will show
you, and I will make thee a great nation, and I will bless thee,
and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing." What's
Abraham obligated to do? Just believe God, isn't he? I
will, I will, I will. I will bless them that bless
thee, and curse them that curse thee. And in thee shall all the
families of the earth be blessed. There is that remarkable covenant
ceremony in Genesis 15 where Abraham has to walk between those
slain beasts, that sign of the blood of that covenant. And what's
Abraham doing as God cuts that covenant? See, it's a covenant
about a promise, isn't it? Abraham was complaining to God,
he says, I don't have any children. You've given me a name that means
great father. And then you add to that name
of God, you mean great father of many of God's people, and
you haven't given me a child, and God takes him outside in
Genesis 15, he says, you look up there at the stars, Abraham.
That's how many children you're getting. If you can count them,
if you can count them, you can't count on this earth the children
of God, but God has them counted all the time. He names all the
stars, he knows every single one of them. It might seem to
us that he doesn't know them. Abraham is put into a great sleep. And God walks through, and God
cuts the covenant, the covenant that Zechariah is talking about,
the covenant which is the first covenant mentioned in the New
Testament era. It's not a covenant, he's not
going back and saying, look what happened, look what you promised
at Mount Sinai. He's saying, you go back way
beyond that covenant. The new covenant is much, much
older than the Mosaic covenant. He's saying, you go back and
look at that covenant, the covenant I made with Abraham. It's not
a covenant about Abraham's activities. It's a covenant about God's activities.
It's a covenant that God promised, isn't it? That's what he says.
Abraham believed God, believed in the Lord. He just heard the
word of God and he simply believed it. And the Lord counted it to
him for righteousness. It's a covenant. It's a covenant that God makes. The covenant and the promises
of the blessings of Abraham that came to Abraham is the covenant
that comes to all of Abraham's children. All of Abraham's children
are faith children. That's how you can tell Abraham's
children. They're all children of faith.
They believe. They believe what Abraham believed
about God. They believe what Zacharias believed
about God. They love the fact that this
covenant is an eternal covenant. They love the fact that their
salvation is entirely bound up in a promise that God made with
God. But God made that promise with
us, because we were in Him. We were in the Lord Jesus Christ
when He made that promise. That's what Paul says. If you
turn over to Galatians chapter 3, just so we're clear about
who this covenant is, because the world will want to tell us
that it's the Mosaic covenant. Zacharias is saying it's not
the Mosaic Covenant, this is a covenant that God made. It's a covenant of faith, isn't it?
In Galatians 3, let's read from verse 8. Verse 7, even as Abraham believed
God and it was accounted to him for righteousness, that's that
verse we read out of Genesis 15, know ye therefore that they
which are of faith, those whose origin is of faith, those who
have a supernatural origin, it comes from God and he visits
his people and he just simply gives them faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ, the same are the children of Abraham. And the
scripture, for seeing that God would justify the heathen through
faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee
shall all the nations be blessed. So then, they which are of faith,
that word of means origins, those who trace the origin of their
life, their spiritual life before God, to simply trusting what
God says, are blessed with faithful Abraham. As many are as of faith. as are of the works of the law. If you trace salvation to something
that you do of the works of the law, it means origin, of the
works of the law, are under the curse right now and remain so
unless the Lord redeems them and rescues them. For it is written,
Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written
in the book of the law to do them. So you're cursed if you
go back to the book of the law, you're cursed if you don't do
them all. Some people think they can. It's horrifying to be in
the presence of people who think that they can do it. Countless
multitudes do. But that no man is justified
by the law in the sight of God, it is evident, for the just shall
live by faith. And the law is not of faith. The law is not of faith, but
the man that doeth them shall live in them. If you go to the
law, if that's where your origin is in your works and your activities,
that's where you're gonna live. And that's all you'll live in.
You won't be living in the liberty and the joy of what has happened. Let's read on and see what the
Lord Jesus Christ has done. Christ has redeemed. It says
that word again. He's brought us back out of all of that. Redeemed
us from the curse of the law. And he did it at a cost, didn't
he? Being made a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is
everyone that hangeth on a tree, that the blessing of Abraham
might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ. And what's the
blessing of Abraham? The blessing of Abraham, the
mercy promise, the oath that he swore to our father Abraham,
that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith,
not through works. We simply, God visits his people
and he shows them his son, and they see him. That covenant can't
be annulled, which is what Paul goes on to say. The covenant
was made with the Lord Jesus Christ and the covenant of works
is not going to disannul that covenant. For you are all the children
of God, by faith in Jesus Christ. For as many of you as have been
baptised into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew
nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male
nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you be
Christ, if you belong to him, then you're Abraham's seed, you're
the faith children of Abraham. And the promise that Abraham
received was to have the Spirit of God, have Christ in him, Christ
living with him, Christ being his shield and his very great
reward. is according to the promise. Romans 4, what sayeth the scripture? Abraham believed God and it was
counted to him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the
reward not reckoned of grace of debt. So if you do some works,
you're actually putting God under debt and you're saying you now
owe me something as a result of my activities. But to him
that worketh not, to him that worketh not, But believeth on
him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. God justifies the ungodly. God
justifies the people that aren't working. He justifies them by
faith. Let's turn to verse 13 of Romans
4 while we're here. because the law worketh wroth,
for where no law is, there is no transgression. Therefore it
is of faith, this whole business of salvation is of faith, that
it might be by grace, to the end the promise might be sure
to all the seed." The promise is sure to those who simply trust. So this is the mercy promised,
if you go back to Zacharias. We should be saved from our enemies
and from the hand of all that hate us to perform the mercy
promised to our fathers. So what are our enemies? What
are our enemies? Sin is an enemy. The wages of
sin is death. Death is an enemy. Satan is an
enemy. This world is an enemy. Paul cries out in Romans 7, who's
going to rescue me from the body of this death? Wretched man that
I am. I am trapped. I am trapped. I need a deliverer. What's he
say? Thanks be to God. Thanks be to God. Ungodliness
is an enemy. That word ungodliness means to
have no worship. It's an enemy. We should be saved from our enemies. Unbelief is the great enemy of
our peace with God, isn't it? What do they say? Unbelief continually
says in the words of Psalm 42 verse 3, where is thy God? Where is thy God? My tears have
been my meat day and night while they continually say to me, where
is my God? That's what they, it's extraordinary,
isn't it? The Lord Jesus' act of remarkable
faith on Calvary's tree. They came to him and said, they
mocked him for his faith. He believed in God. Let's see
if God will come down and rescue me. Unbelief cries out, why have
you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because
of the oppression of the enemy? What's the solution to unbelief? Zechariah's son was going to
have the most extraordinary ministry in that land, wasn't he? And
he was going to be dealing with unbelief on every side, and he
was going to be dealing with the religious. He was going to
be dealing with the wickedness of Herod, who would have his
head taken off at the whim of a jealous and envious girl, because
John the Baptist had the courage to speak out. will be saved from our enemies. There will be a mercy that comes
to the children of God on account of God promising these remarkable
things to our father Abraham. When he made that promise to
Abraham, he was making that promise to all of Abraham's seed. And
our God performs this mercy. He performs this mercy. I might
just read the rest of it because we're running out of time and
I want to look at the end at some of the descriptions of our
Lord Jesus Christ in this. That he would grant unto us being
delivered out of the hand of our enemies that we might serve
him without fear. In holiness and righteousness,
the end result of the liberty, the end result of this work of
God in the lives of His people, that we'd be servants. We come
into this world wanting to be served and we come to church
and say, what can I get out of it? You don't come to church
for that. You come to church because you're serving. You come
to church to give. You come to church because you
have gifts. You come to church to hear about
the great giver of all these gifts and you bring those gifts
with you to other people, whether you are like Digna in Orlando
or Anna and Simeon in the temple who many, many would have walked
by and said, what on earth are they doing? What value are they? They gave and they give. You'll serve Him in holiness
and righteousness before Him all the days of our life. And
thou, Charles, shall be called the prophet of the highest, for
thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways,
to give the knowledge of salvation unto His people by the remission
of their sins, through the tender mercy of our God, whereby the
Dayspring on high hath visited us. to give light to them that
sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide our feet
into the way of peace." Has he visited you? If he's visited
you, he brings light. If He visits you, He's guided
your way into the way of peace. These are all just names of our
Lord Jesus Christ, aren't they? He is the Lord God of Israel,
our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one who visits. He
is Emmanuel, God with us. He is the Redeemer. He is the
Horn of Salvation. He is the King of the House of
David. He is the one who promises mercy. He's the mercy giver. He's the
one that remembers his promises. In verse 74, he is the deliverer. He is the deliverer. He is, in
verse 76, the prophet. He is the day spring on high. He is the light. He is the guide. He is the peace of his people. Our prayer is that in the faithful
declaration of the gospel, our God will visit, and you would
have light, life, and peace, and know that sins have been
redeemed by the great giver. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we pray that you'd cause us just to look to our Lord Jesus Christ Make us to turn away from the
works of our flesh. Make us, Heavenly Father, to
fix our eyes upon He who is both the author and the perfecter
of faith. Heavenly Father, we thank you
and praise you that we can know for certain the things which
you say are true. We can find safety and rest and
peace for our eternal souls. in the hands and in the work
of your dear and precious son. Heavenly Father, we pray that
we would go about our time in this world this week with simple
childlike trust and faith in who you are and what has been
done for us. Make it to be real in us, Heavenly
Father. Make your words to be spirit.
and life to us. You alone, Heavenly Father, speak
to the hearts of your people. We pray that we might go from
here looking upon your son and finding ourselves simply obeying
his command to come unto me, all you that are weary and heavy
laden, and you will have rest for your souls. Help us to rest,
Heavenly Father, in his precious blood shed for us and his broken
body broken for us. That testament, that covenant
in his blood. Grant us the faith and renew
the faith of Abraham in your people, our Father. For we pray
in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen.