Well, good morning and join me
in your Bibles in Luke chapter 2 as we continue our study in
Luke. And we've been looking over this song of
Zacharias where he's, when Joseph and Mary brought the child to
the temple to do as was required by the law. And in verse 25 of
Luke chapter 2 says, And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem
whose name was Simeon, and the man was just and devout, justified
by God. And waiting for the consolation
of Israel. In our last lesson, we brought
out that that word many times is translated comfort. And we
noted that, I believe it was Hawker that said, the Holy Spirit is the comforter,
but Christ is the comfort. And so he was waiting for the
consolation of Israel and the Holy Ghost was upon him. And
it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost that he should not
see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. And he came
by the Spirit into the temple And when the parents brought
in the child Jesus to do for him after the custom of the law,
then took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, Lord,
now let us thy servant depart in peace according to thy word.
For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou has prepared before
the face of all people, a light to lighten the Gentiles and the
glory of thy people Israel. And Joseph and his mother marveled
at those things which were spoken of him. And Simeon blessed him
and said unto Mary his mother, behold, this child is set for
the fall and rising again of many in Israel and for a sign
which shall be spoken against. Yea, his sword shall pierce through
his own soul also and the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.
And so he quotes quite a few scriptures in the things that
he's been saying. And today we're going to particularly
look at this, mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou
has prepared before the face of all people. A light to lighten the Gentiles
and the glory of thy people Israel. You know, last time we were kind
of looking at Isaiah chapter 61, which the Lord quotes later
on in Luke chapter 7, where He went to the synagogue and opened
the book, and the place where He read was, the Spirit of the
Lord God is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me to
preach good tidings unto the meek. Quoting from Isaiah chapter
61, He has sent me to bind up the
brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, the opening
of prison to them that are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year
of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all that
mourn." That word consolation there, to comfort all that mourn.
To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give them beauty
for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise
for the spirit of heaviness that they might be called the trees
of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be
glorified. And then he closes out, he goes
to, in verse 10 of that chapter, he praises God because he hath
clothed me with the garments of salvation and with the robe
of righteousness that, and we had a lesson devoted to that
robe of righteousness. But it's this great comfort that
the Lord gives us is nothing less than He Himself and His
work on our behalf. And it's to every kindred nation,
tongue, and tribe. It's not to the, you know, back
then they were a little bit irate when someone might mention that
Others might have a relationship with God. They have no dealings
with the Samaritans. And everybody else was heathens
and barbarians. And so he says here in Luke chapter
2 verse 30, Mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before
the face of all people. And that was not a popular thing,
even in Jesus' time. And we'll read some scriptures
from a little bit further on in the gospel here, where Jesus
says some things that the local Jews were pretty incensed about.
But it was always God's purpose, and He changes not. And his purpose always consisted
of saving a people from every kindred, tribe, nation, tongue,
and people, what tells us in the Revelation 5, 9. And he says, and has redeemed us out of every
kindred. It's the gospel. The death, burial,
and resurrection. The necessity for one to be slain,
to take their place, to pay their redemption price. And not just
for the Jews only. But it was always about the Lord's
church It was always about the elect. It was always about the
sheep from every fold that he had. Acts 13.47. Paul notes that when the Jews
turned away from the gospel which he was presenting, a group of Gentiles rejoiced
in it. And in Acts 13.47, it says, For
so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be
a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation
unto the ends of the earth. And when the Gentiles heard this,
they were glad, and they glorified the word of the Lord, and as
many as were ordained to eternal life believed. Religion always tries to turn
that phrase around, as many as believed were ordained to eternal
life, but that's not really what it says. It was the Lord's purpose
that they would hear the gospel, and it was the Lord's purpose
that they would hear it. at this very time, the acceptable
year of the Lord, to appoint to them that mourn in Zion, to
hear the gospel, and for the Holy Spirit to breathe into them
the breath of life, to give them rebirth. And when they saw it,
they were glad and rejoiced. They were comforted by the light
of the gospel because the Son, Jesus, had been revealed to them. And we've been examining this part that Zacharias and Simeon
have played regarding Christ and drawing attention to this
part where Simeon is talking. And really the Old Testament
And the New Testaments were really just the same. Because all the
things that he's saying is from the Old Testament. It's just
recorded in the New Testament. But it's not new. And they're
really the same testifying of Jesus who was to come, and Jesus
who did in fact come. And at this juncture, he's holding
him in his arms. The Lord's Christ. and declaring
what he'd been told from the beginning, this consolation,
this comfort to all the church of every kindred, tongue, and
people, and nation. a light to lighten the Gentiles. And as Pastor Norm mentioned
Wednesday night, for those that could remember all the way back
years ago when he was doing the study in Revelation, that this
phrase here from Luke chapter 2 was the launching point for
that study in Revelation because this word lighten in the Greek
is the word apocalypsis, apocalypse. The word that's translated the
revelation of Jesus Christ in that book that the Holy Spirit
guided John to write, Revelation 1.1, the revelation of Jesus
Christ. The revealing. It just means
the revealing. God reveals His Son to whom He
would. And He reveals Him to the church,
to the people out of every kindred, tongue, nation, and tribe. He
reveals Him at the appointed time, at the acceptable time
that the Lord has appointed, the acceptable year of the Lord. There are many well-known scriptures
that When we talk about a light to light in the Gentiles, that
phrase is repeated several times in the Old Testament. But in
other forms, it's spoken of quite a bit, and I want to read just
a few of them this morning. From the Psalms, I wanted to
look at the Psalms, the prophet, and the law. Because that's what
the Lord said. Look to them, in them you think
you have eternal life, but they are they that testify of me.
And so in some way, shape, or form, all the scriptures are
testifying to the redemption work of Christ. And so we go
to the Psalms, Psalm 65, 1, a Psalm of David. Praise waiteth for
thee, O God, in Zion, and unto thee shall the vow be performed. O thou that hearest prayer, unto
thee shall all flesh come. Iniquities prevail against me.
As for our transgressions, thou shall purge them away." What
a comfort. I'm beset by all sides with iniquities and transgressions,
but the Lord said, I'll purge them away. Blessed, this is just
a wonderful verse here. He says, blessed, is the man
whom thou choosest and caused to approach unto thee, that he
may dwell in thy courts. We shall be satisfied with the
goodness of thy house, even of thy holy temple. By terrible
things in righteousness wilt thou answer us, O God of our
salvation, who art the confidence of all the ends of the earth
and of them that are afar off upon the sea. What a great comforting
scripture that the Lord would cause someone that had no desire. The psalm in 14 says, there's
none that seeketh God. There's none righteous. There's
none that doeth good. No, not one. And yet, out of
those, out of every kindred, tongue, nation, tribe, people,
He causes some to come to Him. Jesus said, no man can come to
Me except the Father which sent Me. Draw him. and him that cometh
to me I will in no wise cast out." They'll all come and they'll
all be welcome, and He will purge all of their sins, all their
transgressions. Thou shalt purge them away like
they never existed. That robe of righteousness that
the pastor talked about that was Wednesday night that was
purer, whiter than could be made with fuller soap, refined by
fire with soap. There's not a spot or any imperfection
in the way that Christ presents the church to the Father. Thou
has given me these people, I'll pay their sins, and I'll present
to them without spot, without wrinkle, and there'll be a glory. Psalm 98.3 says, he hath remembered
his mercy and his truth toward the house of Israel. All the
ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. People
from every kindred, tongue, nation, tribe. From the prophets, and
Isaiah most notably has probably the most references to this that
are just blatant, I would say, just for
lack of, but I'm sure there's plenty more that are mentioned
in the other prophets, but Isaiah has the ones that are most closely
akin to what's recorded here in Luke. The people that walked
in darkness have seen a great light. They that dwell in the
land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined. Isaiah 9.2. And the people that
walk in darkness is everyone. And when the sun is revealed
to them, the sun of righteousness, that it's a great light. and
that light shines on them. Isaiah 42, 1, Behold my servant,
whom I uphold, my elect, in whom my soul delighteth. I put my
spirit upon him. He shall bring forth judgment
to the Gentiles. He shall not cry, nor lift up,
nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed
shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench. He
shall bring forth judgment unto truth. He shall not fail, that
there's comfort for the church, he shall not fail, nor be discouraged
till he has set judgment in the earth and the isles shall wait
for his law. Thus saith the God, the Lord, that he that created
the heavens and stretched them out, he that spread forth the
earth and that which cometh out of it, He hath given bread unto
the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein. I,
the Lord, have called thee in righteousness, and will hold
thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant
of the people, for a light of the Gentiles." Jesus is the covenant. He is the light. Isaiah 42.7
goes on to say, to open blind eyes, You know, if we were all blind in this
assembly, I could turn on all the switches out there in the
auditorium and it would make no difference. Because no one
could see it. There could be all the light
in the world focused in on them, unless it was real hot like sometimes
these headlights are. You wouldn't know that there
was a light on until your eyes blind eyes were open and then
you could see that light. To open blind eyes to bring out
the prisoners from the prison and them that sit in darkness
out of the prison house. What allegories about the condition
that we're in. We're in bondage, we're in prison,
we can't see. I am the Lord, that is my name
and my glory. Will I not give to another, neither
my praise to graven images." Next we'll go to Isaiah 49, and
I just want to say this block of scripture in Isaiah 49, it's
just kind of like Ephesians. There's just no good starting
place or quitting place in it because it's just I just feel
like when Isaiah was writing it, it was just like Paul was
saying, oh, and guess what else? And what else? And what else?
And it was all so exciting and so wonderful. He hardly could
take a breath in it. There's hardly a pause in it.
Isaiah 49, 6 said, and he said, it is a light thing that thou
should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob. and to
restore the preserved Israel, I will also give thee for a light
to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end
of the earth. Thus saith the Lord, the Redeemer
of Israel and his Holy One, to him whom man despises." Isn't
that interesting? He gives this wonderful gift
and he said, and yet he's despised and rejected of men. To him whom
the nations abhoreth, To a servant of rulers, king shall see and
arise, princess also shall worship, because of the Lord, because
of the Lord that is faithful, and the Holy One of Israel, and
He shall choose thee. Thus saith the Lord, in an acceptable
time have I heard thee, and in a day of salvation I have helped
thee. A day that He appointed, a day that He foreordained, I
will preserve thee and give thee for a covenant to the people
to establish the earth to cause to inherit the desolate heritages." The ones that despised and rejected
him, the ones that were lost, the ones that were blinded, that
were locked in the pit of despair from the fall, from sin. He said,
that thou mayest say to the prisoners, go forth. To them that are in
darkness, show yourselves. They shall feed in the ways,
and their pasture shall be in all high places. They shall not
hunger nor thirst, neither shall the heat nor sun smite them.
For he that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even by the
springs of water shall he guide them. And I will make all my
mountains away, and my highways shall be exalted. Behold, these
shall come from afar, and lo, these from the north, and from
the west, and these from the land of Sinim. Sing, O heavens,
and be joyful, O earth, and break forth into singing, O mountains.
For the Lord hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon
his afflicted." They're going to come from everywhere, from
the north, from the west, from the east. In Isaiah 52.10, it says, The
Lord may bear His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations,
and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our
God. Isaiah chapter 60, verse 1, Arise,
shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is
risen upon thee. For behold, the darkness shall
cover the earth, and gross darkness the people. But the Lord shall
rise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And
the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness
of thy rising. The sun shall no more be thy
light by day, neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto
thee, but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and
thy God thy glory. Isaiah 60 verse 19. I skipped
from verse 3 to 19 there just for time wise, but it's all wonderful. An everlasting light. And there's
a couple of things I wanted to point out in this block of Isaiah
here before we move on to the next one. He said, darkness shall
cover the earth and gross darkness the people, but the Lord shall
arise upon thee. Jehovah shall arise upon thee
and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And He's going to be an
everlasting light in thy God, thy glory. Now, we're going to
segue into the law here, the books of Moses, the first five
books of the Bible. And we're going to move to the
very beginning of the Bible in Genesis, because I just can't
believe that the Bible would start off with anything but the
gospel. What would be the point? So join
me over in Genesis, the first chapter, as we look at this,
a light to the Gentiles. And remember back at this beginning,
they're all Gentiles. And in Genesis chapter one, I think Charles Spurgeon said
there should just be a period after God. They're in the beginning
God. Because it just describes that before anything he was eternal. In the beginning God created
the heaven and the earth. And that indicates when you create
something, you create it out of nothing. When you make something,
you take something that exists And then you make something out
of it, like we take wood in the shop downtown and make a cabinet
out of it, or pencil holder, or whatever, what have you. But
we take something that's existing and we make that into something
else. Only God can create out of nothing. Only God can speak and it comes
into existence. And the earth was without form
and void and darkness was on the face of the deep." Remember
what it said in Isaiah 62, for behold, the darkness shall cover
the earth and gross darkness of people. And if you look those
up in your Strong's Concordance, it's not a happy set of words
there. The earth was without form. It
kind of says it was useless and destruction and misery it talks
about. And darkness. Darkness is many
times translated as error in the scriptures. Darkness was upon the face of
the deep. And so the next verse we have, and the spirit of God
moved upon the face of the waters. So in these opening verses of
Genesis, we have God, the father Elohim introduced to us. We have
the spirit of God, and now we look for the son of God. And
then we find him in the next verse, verse three, God said,
let there be light. And God saw, and there was light
and God saw the light that it was good. And God divided the
light from the darkness. This, this word, let there be
is, is in the Hebrew is the one half of the word for Jehovah.
the hovah part, the existent part, and it indicates an eternalness
of it. So it wasn't like God said, turn
the light on. He's introducing the light of
the world. Darkness shall cover the earth
and gross darkness of the people, but the Lord shall arise upon
thee, and His glory shall be seen upon thee, and the Gentiles
shall come to thy light. And so, the Spirit of God moved
upon the face of the waters, and then here comes the sun,
the light. Not the sun that comes later,
The Son of God light. Let there be. It means to exist. It's the same word that we find
when he told Moses. When Moses says, well, who shall
I say sent me? And he says, I am that I am. The self-existent eternal Jehovah
that changes not. He was always, God is light and
in Him is no darkness. He was always light. And Jesus
is the manifestation of the Father. I am that I am. That's what you
shall say unto the children of Israel. I am hath sent me unto
you. And then Jesus himself said in
John chapter eight, Verse 58, before Abraham was, I am. I am a light of the world. I am the light to the Gentiles. And we find that root word, this
same word in Genesis 2.4. These are the generations of
the heavens and of the earth when they were created in the
day that L-O-R-D, the Lord Jehovah God made the earth and the heavens. Of course, we could go over to
John chapter 1 to get an amplification of that. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. In the beginning
was the same with God, And all things were made by Him, and
without Him was not anything made that was made. And Him was
life. And life was the light of men. And the light shined
in the darkness." This darkness that was on the face of the deep. This darkness that Isaiah wrote
about. Darkness was on the people. And the darkness comprehended
it not. Their eyes didn't have to be
open to see. And then we find, if we read
on through here in John chapter 1, there was a man sent from
God whose name was John. The same came for a witness to
bear witness of that light. Kind of much the same as we find
the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, when the Holy Spirit
will come, he will testify of me. John was not that light, but
he said he was to testify of that light. He was to bear witness
of that light. And here in verse eight of that,
we find that that word light is capitalized. So it's a proper
name of the Lord. And also in verse nine, that
was the true capital L light, which lighteth every man that
cometh into the world, Jew and Gentile alike. To the blind,
again, there is no light unless it's revealed to them. To have blind eyes from every
nation open to reveal light to those who have all their lives
sat in great darkness. They just couldn't see anything. For Simeon now to say that the
child he held in his arms was a light, to lighten the Gentiles. And that word lighten is again
apocalypses. It's a revealing. A revealing
of Jesus. And that's what has to happen.
He has to be revealed. And it wasn't a popular stance
at that time. Probably not in any time, but
particularly now for him to say that. In Luke chapter four, someday
we'll manage to get there, Lord willing, but in Luke chapter
four, we find Jesus in his ministry and he, in verse 14 of chapter
four, he says, Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit unto
Galilee. And there went out a fame of him throughout all the region
round about and he taught in their synagogues being glorified
of all And he came to Nazareth where he'd been brought up, and
as was his custom, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath
day and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto
him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book,
he found the place where it was written. And we read this from
Isaiah earlier, chapter 61. The spirit of the Lord is upon
me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.
He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted to preach deliverance to the
captives, the recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty
them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he
gave it again to the minister, and he sat down, and the eyes
of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them,
this day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. And all the religious
folks are going, ooh, what you said. And they all bear him witness
and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of
his mouth. And they said, well, is this Joseph's son? Is this
not Joseph's son, the carpenter guy from Nazareth? Nothing good
comes from it. In verse 23, he said unto them,
you will surely say unto me this proverb, physician, heal thyself. Whatsoever we have heard done
in Capernaum, do also here in thy country. And he said, verily
I say unto you, no prophet is accepted in his own country.
But then he says something not popular. But I tell you of a
truth. Many widows were in Israel in
the days of Elias when the heaven was shut up three years and six
months, when great famine was throughout all the land. But
unto none of them was Elias sent save unto Sarepta, a city of
Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow." Many lepers were in Israel in
the time of Lysias the prophet, and none of them was cleansed,
saving Naaman the Syrian, not Jews. And they in the synagogue, when
they heard these things, were filled with wrath. God, that's our God. He can't
be healing those folks. He can't have nothing to do with
those people we despise, that we are way better than. And they took him out and it
said they were going to cast him over the hill. Their blind eyes were just not
open to that scripture. The wonderfulness, the comfort
of it, the blind eyes being open to take them out of prison that
they've been in the bondage of all this time. And that it would
apply to all the world. to the Gentiles as well as the
Jews? No, not acceptable. Acts 13, 44, and we'll read this
and then close out our study for today. The next Sabbath day
came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God. Paul
and Barnabas were preaching the gospel there. When the Jews saw
the multitudes, they were filled with envy. and spake against
those things which were spoken of by Paul, contradicting and
blaspheming. We're not blind. We are not in
prison. We're not in bondage to no man. Paul and Barnabas waxed bold
and said, it was necessary that the word of God should first
have been spoken to you. But seeing ye put it from you,
and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn
to the Gentiles. For so hath the Lord commanded
us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that
thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth. And
when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified
the word of the Lord, and as many as were ordained to eternal
life believed. And the word of the Lord was
published throughout all the region, But the Jews stirred
up the devout and honorable women and the chief men of the city
and raised persecution against Paul and Barnabas and expelled
them out of their coasts. But they shook off the dust of
their feet against them and came into Iconium. And the disciples
were filled with joy and with the Holy Ghost. But there was a lot of Gentile
believers in there when they left. A light to lighten the Gentiles
and the glory of Israel the church. We'll stop there. Thank you for
your attention. It will always be free. We'll pick up next time
further on in Luke chapter 2.