Alright brethren, let's be turning
to Luke chapter 1. Luke chapter 1. I want to speak
to you, speak with you this evening about unbelief and faith. Unbelief and faith. There was
a certain priest named Zacharias and while he was ministering
in that which was appointed to him, his appointed duties, while
he was ministering in the temple an angel appeared to him. And
he was startled by this. He was taken aback. He wasn't
expecting an angel to appear and speak to him there. He probably
wasn't expecting anyone to be there in the temple with him
at that time. And so the angel said, Fear not,
Zacharias, for thy prayer is heard, and thy wife Elizabeth
shall bear thee a son. And that angel spoke of many
wonderful things, the greatness of that man in the sight of the
Lord, and what the Lord would do in using that man to prepare
the heart of the people for the coming of the Messiah, for the
coming of Christ. But in Luke 1.18 we are told
the response of Zacharias to the angel for what he heard.
And we're told that Zechariah said unto the angel, whereby
shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife
well stricken in years. He's saying, what you're saying
to me is impossible. It's not reasonable. How can
these things be? Both I and my wife are old. We are well past the years to
have a child now. And that's quite different from
the response that Abraham gave. It's quite different from how
Abraham heard it when it was told him of the promise of God
that he should have a son. Paul tells us in Romans 4 verse
20 and 21 that he staggered not at the promise of God through
unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being
fully persuaded that what God had promised he was able also
to perform. And that is the response that
every child of God should have. That is the response that we
should have in response to the reading of his word, the hearing
of his word, the preached gospel that glorifies and exalts the
Lord Jesus Christ. That is the response. We should
believe God. We have nothing to doubt in God. We have no reason to doubt the
Word of God to us. But put yourself in Zacharias'
place for just a moment. Zacharias would have known what
the word says about Abraham and Sarah concerning the promise
of Isaac. And Zacharias would have known
what the angel said, the angel of the Lord said to Manoah and
to his wife concerning a child, the child Samson. And we've been
in Genesis recently, we've just finished Judges where we've read
of Samson And he would have known about Hannah. And we're in Hannah
now, 1 Samuel chapter 1. He would have known how that
the Lord, when he gives his word, he fulfills his word. He keeps
his word. You can trust the word of the
Lord. You may trust the word of the
Lord. You may venture wholly upon his word, his truth. It's truth. Our God is God. He is the true and living God
and what He says is to be believed and received by His people and
depended upon. Depend upon it. He is true. He is faithful. He is just to
do all that He has promised. Do you believe God? Is there
anything that is impossible for God to do? Is there anything
that God cannot do that he cannot bring to pass? This is the God
who is able to satisfy his justice while being merciful and gracious
to his people fallen in Adam. He can do anything. Nothing is
impossible for our God. Nothing is impossible for our
God. Now in Luke 19 verse 20, the angel answering Zechariah
said unto him, I am Gabriel, that stand in the
presence of God, and am sent to speak unto thee, and to show
thee these glad tidings. He's saying, you can trust me. My word is the word of God. I stand in his presence. I've
heard him say this, and I'm now saying it to you. And behold,
Thou shalt be dumb. And as I'm told, that word also
means deaf. It's the same word, dumb and
deaf. And other commentators I read
pointed out that in verse 62, we're told that his friends had
to sign to him. If he was just dumb, they wouldn't
have had to sign anything to him. They could have spoken to
him and then he could have signed back to them, but they signed
to him. He was deaf. And the angel said,
you shall 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. And so the angel is saying, you
don't believe, but you're going to believe. You don't believe
my words, but you will. You will believe these words
that I'm speaking to you. In the day of God's power, you
are going to know what I'm saying to you is the truth. And you're
going to believe it. And you're going to live by that
faith. Now, Zacharias was a faithful
man, but he staggered in unbelief. He staggered in unbelief at what
the angel told him. And so, the Lord gave him what
he needed. In fact, it's actually what he
asked for. Zacharias wanted a sign. Just like the Jews in that day,
they wanted a sign. They wanted to know, if this
is true what you're saying, show us a sign and then we'll believe. Once we see, then we'll believe
that you are who you say you are and that we can believe your
word so he asked he said whereby shall I know this he's saying
what sign are you going to give me so that I know that you're
speaking the truth to me well here's the sign thou shalt be
dumb and not able to speak until that day when these things shall
be performed there's a sign you need a sign there's your sign
You're going to be deaf and dumb until these things are brought
to pass in their season. And so we see that for his unbelief,
Zacharias was chastened. It was chastened, but it was
not to punish him. Our sin is punished in the Lord Jesus Christ. The sin of his people is punished
in the Lord Jesus Christ. When we're chastened, that's
not punishment. We're not punished by God. You that are His people,
you that believe the Lord Jesus Christ, we're not punished for
our sin. But we are chastened. The Lord
does it for our good. It's for our instruction and
for our learning and for our keeping. He'll chasten us as
we have need of chastening. And this is what He does for
Zacharias. What the Lord teaches us through
His chastening, or when He brings it right into our hearts and
we receive it, it's to make us to know that what the Lord says
in His Word is truth. And it can be dependent upon,
it must be dependent upon, He's going to bring it to pass. And
He is pleased to make His Word known in our hearts. and to reveal
faith in our hearts that believes and trusts the Word of our God. And so, He's going to teach us. He'll bring us through various
experiences, various trials, various hardships and difficulties
where the Word of our God will be proved in us. Not for His
sake, but for our sake. It's for our good. It's for our
learning and instruction. Has the Lord instructed you? Has the Lord taught you? If you're
His, I've no doubt that He has. And He's burning your hearts
with prayer. He's taught you to pray and to
come before Him and bow before Him, lifting up your cares and
concerns. And He answers those prayers.
I've seen Him answer prayer many, many times. And we cry out to
Him. And sometimes they seem like
small things, but they're really great and wonderful things when
the Lord answers our prayer. When you see that He's brought
it to pass, give Him thanks. Give Him thanks. Because He is
the God who hears the prayer of His people. He tells us, ask
and it shall be given to you. Seek and you shall find. Knock and the door shall be opened
unto you. And He says that because He delights
to hear our prayers. He is the God that hears the
prayer of His people. There is no other God that does
that. Because there is no other God. All other gods are falsehood
and liars. They're wicked. It's evil. They
don't hear and answer prayer, but the true and living God,
He answers the prayer of His people. Don't be afraid. Don't
hold back and say, well, if I do this, what if He doesn't answer
my prayer? My whole world will be turned upside down. He says,
no, cast all your care upon Me, for He careth for you. He careth
for you, Peter tells us. The Lord delights to hear your
prayers. You're not burdening Him. There's
no point in holding it back. Lay it before Him. And it may
not come in the way that you expected it. The answer may not
be what you expected, but it'll always be right. It'll always
be good. It'll always be just and perfect. And He'll conform
us to exactly what He purposes to do in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now there's a few other things
that are extraordinary about Zechariah's unbelief. There's
some things here that are going to help make this relevant to
us tonight. First, an angel appeared to him. Now that's an extraordinary thing.
That is a sign. An angel appeared to him and
spoke to him and declared to him these glad tidings. What
other sign was he looking for? Second, this takes place in the
temple. And the temple was a holy place
for the Jews. To the Jews, they looked at it
as a holy place. Shouldn't they have expected
that God meets with his people there in the temple? Shouldn't
they have expected that God would speak to them there and that
they would hear from the true and living God in that temple?
And then third, the angel tells them, it's your prayer that was
heard. This prayer that you and Elizabeth
have been praying since you were married, that prayer that you
prayed every night, it's been heard. The Lord has heard your
prayer regarding your son that you and Elizabeth prayed for
and begged the Lord for. It's been some time perhaps,
perhaps it's been decades that they stopped praying that prayer.
But the angel saying, this prayer, you know this prayer well, Zechariah,
you've prayed it, it's your prayer. It's been heard. It's been heard.
Now, let's see if we can make this relevant to us tonight. First of all, unbelief is horrible
sin and it's in every one of us. It's in our flesh. Unbelief
is in our flesh. But understand that we have every
reason to believe God. We have every reason to trust
God. He's the one that we should trust
and believe without fail. His Word is perfect. He's good.
He's just, He's faithful. He's our God and Creator and
You that believe him, he loves you and gave you to Christ. He
gave you to none greater for your salvation and for your keeping. And he's the one that we should
believe. And yet, men and women, they don't believe him. They
don't believe him. He's the one that they don't
trust. When Adam and Eve fell in the garden, they fled from
his presence. They were fearful of him. And
they were afraid. And they hid from him. But they
had no problem listening to the serpent. but they didn't believe
the Word of God. And we see it to this day, how
people still listen to the voice of the serpent, the hiss of the
serpent, before they would hear and believe the true and living
God. That's how backwards we are in this flesh, how corrupt,
how ruined, how dead in trespasses and sins we are by nature. But with Zacharias, we see that
unbelief is not something that's unique to unbelievers, but even
believers, even faithful people like Zacharias are unbelieving. at times, they are unbelieving.
The scriptures speak of various degrees of faith in the believers. When you look at how faith is
described, it's one common faith. It's a like precious faith in
every one of God's children. But we read of great faith as
in the centurion. He had great faith. Christ said. And then we read of little faith
which we often have toward our God concerning His provision
for us and His care. He says, O ye of little faith,
are you not more precious and of greater value than sparrows
and hares on the head? Certainly you are. Certainly
you are. The Lord knows, don't be of little
faith. And then there's the least of
all faith, which is but the size of a mustard seed. The least
of all faith. And our Lord encourages that
faith. He doesn't stamp it out. He says
if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, the least of
all, you can move mountains. move mountains, and faith to
the Lord. And then there's a time when
he asked his disciples, and he asks of us, where is your faith? Where is your faith? How is it
that ye have no faith? He asks his disciples. And we
can certainly understand how the Lord healed the daughter
of that Gentile woman, the Gentile daughter of the Syrophoenician
woman, when Christ said that she had great faith and he healed
her. He healed her daughter when she
cried out, help me, Lord. And he said, you have great faith,
and he healed her. But what about the father whose
son was tormented with a death and a dumb spirit? And Christ
said to him, if thou canst believe, all things are possible to him
that believeth. And what did the father say?
Straightway he said, Lord, I believe. help thou mine unbelief and what
did Christ do he healed him he healed his son and so we see
the descriptions of faith that for some faith is weak and for
others faith is strong but the promise is the same to all to
him that believeth on the Lord Jesus Christ to you that believe
Christ and believe the word of God, he tells us, you shall not
be ashamed. You shall never be ashamed. Leaning wholly upon Christ, casting
all your care upon him for your salvation, he says, you won't
be ashamed. You'll stand before God on his
throne, who is there to judge all the inhabitants of the earth.
He says, you shall never be ashamed, for in me you shall appear faultless. You shall be faultless before
the throne of God. Having no sin, no stain of sin,
no scent of your filthy stench in his flesh, it's all washed
away in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. You'll never be
ashamed. And so unbelief was present there
in our first parents. When Adam and Eve fell in the
garden, They were afraid of God and they ran from his presence.
Adam being corrupted, destroyed by sin, ruined. All his seed
was in Adam. He had no children born. So all
of us who come forth now are born of that same corrupt, fallen,
ruined seed. And that's why we come forth
dead in trespasses and sins, full of unbelief, full of doubting
of God. But He tells us, He declares
to us, trust God, believe God, believe Him, believe His word,
there's none more dependable, more faithful than the true and
living God. There's none more that we can
believe than Him. He keeps His word, He's faithful
to keep it. Now, if you would believe God,
then understand this truth, that we need the grace of God to give
us this faith. We need God to give us this faith. We're dependent on God. We look
to Him. We ask Him, Lord, give us that
faith. Teach us, Lord. Keep us. Turn
us. Turn our hearts from death. Now something Zechariah said
about this caught my attention when I was reading this passage.
He said, I am an old man. An old man. Now I know what he's
saying. He's saying there, he's saying in my flesh, I'm too old
for this. I'm an old man and my wife, she's
too old for this. She's an old woman. But he's
reasoning according to human reasoning. He's speaking according
to human wisdom about these things. And what wisdom is that? It's
the wisdom of the old man of this flesh. He's saying more
than he realizes he's saying. He's saying, I'm just an old
man. In my flesh, I can't believe. In my flesh, all this flesh is,
is unbelieving. All this flesh is, is sin. But
he tells us in 1 John that he which is born of God, that new
man in you, born of the seed of Christ, all he can do is believe. All he can do is trust God. He
cannot not believe. All the new man born of Christ
can do is trust God and believe God. And all this flesh can do
is doubt and look to works and look to what it wants to, anything
but the true and living God. And so he says, I'm an old man.
You see, human reason dictates that what God says is impossible. That's silly. That's nonsense.
And human experience says, that can't be. Come on, I wasn't born
yesterday. I've been around the block a
few times. It's not going to happen, what you're saying to
me. And human reasoning looks to science and says, well, come
on. The science says, that's not possible. It can't be that
way. This is impossible, what you're
saying. And human reasoning will never look to and believe the
true and living God, which says all things are possible with
me. I can do all things, all things. And so, in a sense, well,
in truth, that old man of the flesh is dumb, just like Zechariah
was made. And it is deaf, just like Zechariah
was made. The old man of flesh cannot hear,
he cannot speak with understanding the things of God, and he cannot
hear the things of God with any understanding. And so that's
why I say that we need the grace of God to give us faith. We need
the grace of God to work this salvation in His people. Many have been convinced by a
lying spirit that says, well, God's just looking for a form
of religion. He's just looking for us to be religious. He wants
us to be good people. He wants us to do good things
as opposed to bad things. And in doing that, I'll know
the things of God. And I'll understand the things
of God. And what happens? Well, sometimes
in their form of religion, they pray. And it's just solid iron
over their heads. It's just not getting through,
and they're getting no response, and they become disillusioned.
And sometimes I think, well, this is just how it is, I guess.
And other times they say, I guess there's no God, and they fall
away. And some just don't even care. Some don't even care. But it's not religion that saves. That's why the Lord tells us
it's not religion that saves you. He's not looking for you
to be religious and just to have some kind of faith. Christ saves. And He's turning us to Christ.
And He's saying you need my Son. My Son is the Savior. He came
to save sinners. Look to Him. Believe Him. Trust Him. And the Lord tells
us in His word that every sinner, that's you and me by nature,
and our old man, He says, you must be born again. We need something
more than just a reformation. We need something more than just
religion. We need something more than just a form of things. We need a new birth. We need
spiritual life because we're dead in trespasses and sins. If you're going to know the true
and living God, you must be born again. That's what Christ said
to Nicodemus, a teacher in Israel. He said, except a man be born
again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. And we know from the
Pharisees you can be quite religious. You could be perfect as far as
man's concerned and be dead in trespasses and sins. and not
know the true and living God. And he told the woman at the
well, he said, God is a spirit, and they that worship him must
worship him in spirit and in truth. How am I going to worship
God in spirit and in truth when I'm dead in trespasses and sins
and don't have the spirit in me? Well, God's got to give it
to you. The true and living God's got
to give you a new birth. And so to you that don't believe
God, it's because you have no life in you. And God's telling
you that to shake you, to stir you up, to show you that by nature
you don't know the true living God. You need salvation from
Him. And so He tells us this to declare
to us the truth so that we would go to Him and seek Him. We would
seek that oil like the virgins. Those who came with oil had the
oil. And they said, I can't give you
any of my oil to the five that didn't have any oil. They said,
go to him that sells the oil and get it. Seek the Lord now
while he may be found. Today is the day of grace. Cry
out to him, Lord, give me that new birth. Lord, have mercy upon
me. Lord, save me. Give me that new
birth. And if you do cry that out, if
you do pray to God that, it's because God gave it to you. It's
because God gave you that prayer, just like He gave this prayer
to Zacharias and Elizabeth decades earlier, because He purposed
to be gracious to them. And so God, He declares this
truth, He declares it in your hearing, so that He is by it,
He According to His grace, He uses it to stir us up, to shake
that which was made with hands, that that which is built in us
is not of us but of God. It's lasting, it's eternal, because
He's made it and not we ourselves by our hands in dead letter religion. And so there is a God, and he's
revealed himself to his people. He reveals himself to us in his
written word, he reveals himself through the preached word, and
he reveals himself by his spirit, who gives a new birth under the
preaching of this gospel word, making it effectual in the hearts
of God's people. He does that. And that's why
Christ came into the world. He came to save sinners. Christ is life. Religion isn't
life. I'm not trying to trash talk
religion. I mean, our God has called us
to faith in Him. Christ is our religion. Christ
is our salvation. Christ is our all. But we preach Christ because
He's the one that saves. not a form of religion. He's
the one who redeemed us. We're His people. We're His purchased
possession, not with the things of silver and gold. You can give
silver and gold in the form of religion, but Christ gave His
life and shed His blood and purchased us with that blood, that precious
blood by which we are cleansed and washed. And so He accomplished
our salvation by His death on the cross as our substitute in
our place. And what that means when we say
He died on the cross, why is that so important to say? Because
it's declaring that the Son of God took upon Him flesh, that
He might suffer and bear the sorrows and the sicknesses and
the infirmities and the sins of His people to put away our
sins under the wrath of God. So that Christ, when He came
and died and rose again, what He accomplished in that sacrifice,
in that atonement, in that redemption, was the putting away of our sin
and the delivering of His people from the wrath of God and giving
us life in Himself. That's what He accomplished in
His redemption for His people. I declare to you that this day
Christ has accomplished that salvation. Christ has accomplished
the salvation of all his people past tense. The works are finished. And those who hear it, those
in whom God is gracious to, they hear that word and faith receives
it. Faith believes. Lord, it's all
done. The works are done. You've accomplished
everything in your son. Lord, I believe. Help thou mine
unbelief. Teach me, Lord. And so faith
lays hold of what Christ has done. And God manifests His grace
in him through that free gift of faith which He gives. Faith
is not the work of the flesh. Faith is the fruit of the Spirit.
It's the fruit of the Spirit. Now I want you to turn with me
to Ephesians chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2. And we see
this. this old man of flesh being dead
and what our God has delivered us you that believe what he's
delivered us from Ephesians 2 verse 1 he says in you hath he quickened
that is he you hath he made alive given spiritual life who were
dead in trespasses and sins you that had no spirit of God he's
given you life And so Paul here is writing to believers who at
one time were unbelievers because every child of God was at one
time in the flesh an unbeliever. They didn't believe the things
of God. And he goes on to say in verse two, he describes what
we were in this flesh without Christ in verse two and three,
wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this
world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the
spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. among
whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lust of
our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind,
and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others." So
what changed? You that now believe the true
and living God, you that now believe Christ, what changed?
Was it something you did to change yourself or is it something that
God did? grace and mercy. Well verse 4
says but God but God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith
he loved us even when we were dead in sins hath quickened us
together with Christ by grace are you saved and hath raised
us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in
Christ Jesus. And so that us is the church
to whom Paul is writing. And that us is you that hear
these words and receive these words and believe them. It's
because God has wrought faith in your hearts to believe the
true and living God through His Son. And so to you that are gathered
here tonight, you know, we're not very different from Zacharias
at all. What we read here happened to
Zacharias. God isn't really dealt with us
any differently. You see, God hasn't sent the
angel Gabriel to speak to you. He doesn't do that, but he has
sent an angel to declare the good news to his people. And Zacharias was in the temple
where he heard the good news, wasn't he? And the angel said
to him, Zacharias, your prayer is answered, right? So God doesn't
speak to us now by the angel Gabriel or another angel like
that, but he does send his ministers to speak to you. And in Revelation,
the angels that God is addressing in chapters 1 and 2 and 3, especially
2 and 3 to the churches, that angel is the pastor of the church. That's who the angel is. Angel
means messenger, the messenger of God. God's pastors are sent
to His people today to declare the good news of the Lord Jesus
Christ. To declare His death and His
resurrection and His accomplished salvation for His people. To say the works are finished.
Hear what your God has done. He's put away your sins. He's
delivered you from the wrath of God to come and He's given
you life in Himself. believe Him, trust Him. And where
do we declare this good news of salvation? No, not this building. We declare this good news is
fulfilled unto you this day in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is
the temple of God. He is the temple of God's people. He is where God meets with His
people. John said it this way in Revelation
21-22, I saw no temple in heaven, I looked and I saw no temple
in heaven for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of
it." Jesus Christ is the temple of God for His people. He is
the one in whom our God meets with His people. In Christ is
how we know God and how God speaks to us and communicates to us
through His Son. Through His Son. That's how we
know the true and living God through the Lord Jesus Christ. And then, you that pray, it's
because God's given you that prayer. It's because God's given
you that prayer. When you cry out, Lord save me,
Lord help me, Lord don't pass me by like blind Bartimaeus.
Lord save me, have mercy on me, son of David. That cry, which
is put in the heart of you that believe, that's of God. That's not of the flesh. God
has stirred you up. God has given you that need to
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. So believe God. Salvation is
understood and known through Christ, through faith, which
is in Christ Jesus. In Him are all the rich blessings
of God given. There's not a blessing of God
that's given to His people or anyone outside of Christ. It's
all given in Christ, in whom all spiritual blessings are given.
It's in the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says, of God are ye in
Christ Jesus, who has made unto us wisdom and righteousness,
which is justification, and sanctification and redemption. All of your salvation
is found and met and accomplished in the Lord Jesus Christ, that
according as it's written, he that glorieth, let him glory
in the Lord. That's what he's saying. Everything,
everything you need is given to you in Christ, in Christ.
Now, let me just say, That's a good place to stop, but let
me just say this. We don't come to God through the law or a dead
form of religion. The mystery of salvation is not
made clear through the law and through dead religion. Paul called
the Judaizers who were coming to God under the law for righteousness,
he called it a ministration of death in 2 Corinthians 3, 7.
And he called it a ministration of condemnation in 2 Corinthians
3, 9. And the Lord shows us this in
the type here, in this text here, in Luke 1 verse 21 and 22. We
read, the people waited for Zacharias and marveled that he tarried
so long in the temple. Don't you wonder why there's
so many Jews still tarrying in the temple, still waiting, still
haven't heard, haven't heard the truth yet, still tarrying
in the temple. under the law is what I'm saying.
Now remember, this is a priest ministering under the law. Verse
22, and when he came out, he could not speak unto them, and
they perceived that he had seen a vision in the temple, for he
beckoned unto them and remained speechless. That's a good type
of the law. To you that would come to God
by the law. How so? Well first, he couldn't
speak to them. Why? Because under the law, They're
deaf and dumb to the things of God. They don't see the mystery
of God revealed. And through the law, they're
not explaining. They're not seeing Christ in all the law and how
he's fulfilled the law and how he's accomplished everything
that's pointing to, that the law points to, points to Christ.
Second, they perceive that he had seen a vision in the temple. They saw something. but they
couldn't see it clearly. They couldn't see of whom the
law and the prophets spoke. They couldn't see Him who is
the mystery of God revealed, the Lord Jesus Christ. And then
third, He beckoned unto them and remained speechless. The
law beckons to us. It declares, it shows us, you're
a sinner, you're imperfect, You're not righteous. You failed there. You did that wrong. You did that
wrong. You did that wrong. And you did that wrong. That's
what the law shows us. But how to be justified with
God? It doesn't tell us. It can't
make us righteous before God, because we're dead in trespasses
and sins in this flesh. We can't keep the law by the
works of the law in this flesh. Christ is the fulfillment of
the law. The angel said, there's a season, there's a season, right? And so by the law, Zacharias
could not tell what he saw until faith was come. When faith was
come, his tongue was loosened and he could declare the things
of God. Look down at verse 63 and 64. Luke 1, 63 and 64 was the eighth
day of John's birth. And he was circumcised and named
John on that day. But when Elizabeth said his name
was John, they didn't believe it. They said, no, that's not
his name. You guys don't have anybody named
John there. And so they looked to Zacharias, and they said,
what is he to be named? And Zacharias asked for a writing
table and wrote, saying, his name is John. and they marveled
all. And his mouth was opened immediately,
and his tongue loosed, and he spake and praised God." Faith. And faith was revealed in him.
That's the picture there. When faith has come, now he could
speak plainly. Now he could declare the things
of God and praise God to the people. And now you understand
and know the salvation of God is the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not a form of religion.
It's not doing this right and getting this right. It's knowing
Christ. Salvation is a person. We come
to Christ. Christ is our salvation. He's
our deliverance. He's put away our sins. He's
delivered us from the wrath of God and given us life in. Himself. It's all in Him. And
so, faith is how you're going to know and understand the things
of God. A lot of people I hear will say, well, I just want to
understand this better. I just want to know this. And
once I know it, and once I understand it, then I'll believe. Then I'll
have faith. Well, that's not faith then,
is it? Because now you're not believing. Now you're not trusting
God. You're depending upon your own wisdom. to instruct you,
and to teach you, and to tell you what's what. Faith is how
you're going to know the true and living God. Faith is how
you're going to understand the things that God is declaring
to us in the face of Jesus Christ. And so what the Lord brought
to pass then, and when all this was done here with Zechariah
and Elizabeth, Zechariah goes home, Elizabeth conceives, and
she says, now the Lord has put away my reproach. And the picture
there is, there's a new birth, there's a birth there. A birth
of the promised son. And that's how it is for you
and I, brethren. formed Christ in us. When that
new birth by the Spirit of God, the seed of Christ was formed
in us, then our reproach of our sin, of our deadness, of our
wickedness, all that separated us with God was put away. That reproach was put away forever. And so it is, brethren, believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the salvation that God
has given for His people, and He accomplishes that. And the
way you know He's done it for you is He reveals and manifests
faith in your hearts that looks and believes, looks to Christ
and believes Him. I pray He does that for every
one of us here tonight. Amen.