Well, join me in Luke chapter
1 this morning. We're kind of closing in on the
tail end of this chapter. There's just so much in it there. And I kind of feel, I was thinking
this morning, I kind of, years ago on public broadcasting, there
was a fellow named Bob Ross, who's an artist, and I don't
know if you've ever seen him, but he would start off at the
beginning of the show, and he would have a blank canvas there,
and in 30 minutes, he would paint a picture, and you could see
what he saw. And so I kind of feel like some
days that's, I have 30 minutes to paint a little picture here. Hopefully you'll be able to see
some things in here that sometimes we just kind of miss.
Yesterday I was looking for something, or the day before, I can't remember. it was there in the refrigerator
and you watch this, well, it was right there. I saw it, but
I just didn't recognize it. And that's the way scripture
is. Sometimes we see something and we just look at it so often
and we just don't recognize it. And when I was reading through this
chapter here in the end, and we're going to be reading from We're looking at Zachariah's,
when Zachariah was given the ability to speak again, the first
thing he did was praise God. And it says, and then he began
the prophecy. And it was a part of a prophecy
was about Jesus. the coming of the Messiah, and
part of it was about his son who was the messenger of the
Lord. And we'll be going back and forth
from Malachi to Luke here as we examine this a little bit,
but let's read from verse 67. And his father Zacharias was
filled with the Holy Ghost and prophesied, saying, blessed be
the Lord God of Israel, for he hath visited and redeemed his
people. Now, Malachi was the last prophet of the Old Testament. And here we find Zacharias announcing
a prophecy by the Holy Ghost. And he's just going to repeat
pretty much everything that Malachi said. It's not like new stuff,
so. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
for he hath visited and redeemed his people, and hath raised up
a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David.
as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been
since the world began, and Malachi was certainly one of those, 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 to our
father Abraham that he would grant to us that we, being delivered
out of the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear.
That word fear is interesting. It's aphobia. You know, that's
phobia. We get the word for kind of we're
afraid of this or afraid of that. And when you put that Greek letter
or al in front of it, it means not, not fear, no phobia. So in holiness, in righteousness
before him all the days of our life, And thou, child, shall
be called the prophet of the highest, for thou shalt go before
the face of the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of
salvation to his people by the remission of their sins, through
the tender mercy of our God, whereby the day spring from on
high hath 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. And the child grew and waxed strong in spirit and was
in the deserts until the day of his showing unto Israel. So
he kind of goes back and forth between about his son and about
the Messiah and the day spring up from on high. And my Greek
interlinear gives a little bit different translation of that,
the phrasing of it. It says to give knowledge of
salvation to the people of him by forgiveness of the sins of
them because of bowels of mercy of God. And that's a word, this bowels,
speaks of the heart of God, the inward parts of Him, the essential
nature of Him that's bound in electing love toward His people.
And so we might think of it as because of and through the heart
of the mercy of God, of us. And it's our God with
us. It's Emmanuel, the very Emmanuel
that we looked at here in the earlier parts. Whereby will visit
us a sun rising from the height to appear to the ones in darkness
and in a shadow of death sitting. And so what a beautiful metaphor,
the coming of the son of God. Malachi says, the son of righteousness,
the S-U-N of righteousness, he's called, will arise with healing
in his wings. And so really a lot of what Zachariah
is saying here is he just given kind of a a transliteration of
what Malachi said back in, and then it's translated into Greek
and then English to us, and it comes out like that. But I think
he was really just saying what Malachi said in the Old Testament. And there's just such a lot to
unpack for the church in these three verses. to give knowledge
of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins,
through the tender mercy. of our God in the day spring
from on high visiting us to give light. When I was reading that,
I was looking through some Aspergian sermon on part of that. I felt like I'm just like a guy
going through the a big field of flowers, and I just pick a
daisy here, and a tulip there, and a rose there, and bring them
here, and then just hand them out from all these men that the
Lord has given insight to over time. And Spurgeon, when he read
these verses, he says, when I read these, thoughts came
to me like bees out of a hive. It was just almost too much. As we look at these corollaries
between Malachi, the last prophet, and the prophecies and revelations
of Zacharias, turn back to the beginning of Luke there in chapter
1. I have to buzz right along here. I only have a half hour
to paint my picture here. In chapter 1 verse 13, the angel
said unto Zacharias, Fear not, have no phobia here. For thy prayers 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 in
the spirit and power of Elias to turn the hearts of the fathers
to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to
make ready a people prepared for the Lord. Now just zip over to Malachi
chapter 3 and go left in your Bible, not right. In Malachi 3, verse 1 says, Behold,
I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before
me. And the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple,
even the messenger of the covenant whom ye delight in. Behold, he
shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. And he says, but 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 floor soap. And then turn over to the next
chapter, Zechariah chapter 4, and we'll just read the whole
thing. For behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven, and
all the proud And all that do wickedly shall be stubble. And
the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts,
that it shall leave them neither root nor branch." Boy, if you
just think about the organized religion of the people of that
day, and even now, when the Lord came, all that happened. But to you that fear my name
shall the sun of righteousness arise. The day, the day spring,
that's just the day spring from on highs. Well, that's, that's
just what that says. The sun of righteousness shall
arise with healing in his wings. And ye shall go forth and grow
up as calves of the stall, and ye shall tread down the wicked,
for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the
day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of hosts. Remember ye
the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in
Horeb for all Israel. with the statutes and the judgments.
Behold, I'll 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 smite the earth with
a curse." That's just what Zechariah just said. The very words here. back in Luke chapter 1. The messenger of the Lord coming
in the spirit and power of Elijah. And Jesus, he said that, if you
look over, and we're not going to go over there and read that,
but over in Matthew chapter 27, the disciples said, well, the
scriptures say that Elijah's going to come before the day
of the Lord. And he said, he came. He was here. And you know
what? The religious folks did with
him as they would. They cut his head off. And they understood that he spoke
to them of John the Baptist. That's what Matthew chapter 27
says. And so today, as we look at this
son of righteousness, and this lesson starts where it properly
deserves to start, and that's with God. Our text tells us that the knowledge of salvation, that's
an important thing to consider, to give knowledge of salvation.
You know, it says you were chosen before him and before the foundation
of the world. He gives you knowledge of salvation
at the time appointed. He's not going to leave you blank
on that. And it's not going to be because you did something,
and of course we just read about all the stuff, the law of Moses
and the prophets. All those were like those notes
on that page. They were just pictures of the
music of Christ. They were just showing Him, revealing
Him. Like me, I can't read a note
of music. I don't know, they just look
like little golf clubs to me. Until somebody plays them on
the piano or guitar or something, I don't see them. And that's what has to happen
with Christ. They're just notes on this, pictures
on this page until Christ is revealed to us. then suddenly
it becomes music in our hearts. So this knowledge of salvation,
something that's been accomplished by God and revealed to us, and
it says it's the forgiveness of sins. To give knowledge of
salvation unto his people by the remission or forgiveness
of their sins. And that is through the tender
mercy of our God. This tender mercy, we think of tender as something
gentle and soft and easy, but it really speaks more to the
heart, where it comes from, rather than the action of it. It originates
in the heart of God, is what it's trying to tell us. It's
based solely in the heart of the mercy of God. It's translated tender mercies
of God in our King James Version, and it certainly is tender, but
it's based on the electing love of God. Jesus' He's always tender to
those whom the Father gave him in the covenant of grace. He
never came and threatened a single one of all the people that he
visited. He didn't say, you better believe
on me or you're going to hell. Bad punishment for you if you
reject me. Make up your mind right now. He didn't operate that way, and
He doesn't operate that way. He is always tender to those
whom the Father gave Him in the covenant of grace. Even when
we are vain, and we have no strength of our own, yet He is constant
in His love. He never views us in the light
of our frail nature. He just sees you as God gave
you to me. I'm going to lay down my life
for you. I love you. Our failures are viewed as covered
by the blood and the forgiveness of the mercy of God. He always comes with a voice
of calm and peace and says, your sins are paid for double. He comes to us when we're most
unattractive, with nothing to recommend us, and everything
that really should condemn us. Norman brought this out Wednesday
night in his Wednesday night lesson, and I really appreciate
it. From Malachi, and he read from Ezekiel. And it just shows
how we are and how God is. In Ezekiel chapter
16, I'm reading this again for those who missed it Wednesday
night. Again, the word of the Lord came to me saying in Ezekiel
16.1, son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations. Well,
they don't know their abominations till something causes them to
know them. And thus, saith the Lord God
to Jerusalem, thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan. We're just from the world. We're
born in sin. Thy father was an Amorite, thy
mother a Hittite. And as for thy nativity, in the
day thou was born, thy navel was not cut. You know, until
God cuts that, we're still attached. And we can't do anything about
that. Neither was thou washed in water
to supple thee. Thou was not salted at all or
swaddled at all. We had no robe of righteousness
of our own. We were just naked and dirty
and nasty and attached to the world. None eye pitied thee to
do any of these things unto thee. People can't do these things
for you. Religion can't do that for you. Can't do it for yourself. None I pitied these to do anything
to thee or have compassion upon me, but thou was cast out in
the open field to the loathing of thy person in the day that
thou was born. And when I passed by thee and
saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said to thee, when thou
was in thy blood, live. I said unto thee, when thou was
in thy blood, live. I've caused thee to multiply
as the bud of the field, and thou hast increased, and waxen
great, thou art come to excellent ornaments, thy breast are fashioned,
thine hair is grown, whereas thou was naked and bare. And when I passed by thee, and
I looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love." That
appointed time when God reveals his love to us. Snips that navel,
takes us away from where we were. And I spread my skirts over thee. What a beautiful allegory of
him just covering us. Like that allegory in Malachi,
the son of righteousness. rises with healing in his wings
and he just, it's just like a hen that covers her brood with her
wings and protects them and covers them and nurtures them. I wash
thee, then I wash thee. I swear unto thee, and entered
into the covenant with thee, and thou became mine. I washed thee with water, yea,
I thoroughly washed away thy blood from thee, and I anointed
thee with oil." Boy, what a picture. What a series of notes on a page
that just becomes a symphony of grace. As always, and we find
it's God that comes to us. and who has loved us eternally.
We don't find that picture, well, I had to get up off the ground
because I was naked and dirty and I had to go work my way up
and I had to do a bunch of stuff to make God look at me and say,
well, He's earned my merit. He's done enough good stuff to
make me want to take care of Him. No, it's when we were loathsome. That's when God comes to us,
when we're yet without strength, when we have no ability, when
we were ungodly, then Christ died for us. The Lord appeared to me of old
and said, I've loved thee with everlasting love, therefore with
loving kindness have I drawn thee. Eternal loving kindness is just
another set of words which say the tender mercy of the heart
of God. Now this tender mercy of the
heart of God bringing the knowledge of salvation and the accomplishing
of it will be manifested and accomplished through the visit
of love, the visit of the day spring on high. And that's really
what it is, the visit of love. Verse 78 of Luke 1, Through the
tender mercy of our God, whereby the day spring from on high hath
visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness and
in the shadow of death, to guide our feet unto the way of peace.
Now this day spring, as we find in the scripture, just speaks
to us of Christ and the one sent of God to save his people from
their sins. Thou shalt have a son named Jesus,
for he shall save his people from their sins. Emmanuel, God
with us. The descriptive term dayspring
from on high literally means it comes from the dawn. The sun
rising, that's what Malachi said in chapter four, verse two. The
sun, S-U-N, capital S-U-N by the way, of righteousness shall
arise with healing in his wings, the sun coming up in the east. It's a reminder, it's a picture
of Christ coming to us every day. The sun rises every morning
faithfully to give its light to the world. Every morning we
have a reminder of the day spring from on high, bringing remission
of sin, forgiveness to his people, a picture of the mercy of God
through the Savior that's new every day. Isn't that how, that's,
when I thought of that, I said, you know, God would do that.
He would give us a reminder every day. Now he could have, he could
have set the world up so there was just light all the time or
whatever he wanted. But he had a purpose. And a lot
of people think, well the earth was just created and people were
here by accident or through whatever means and God just put them there
and just kind of let them float around and see what would happen. But everything that he created,
he created with a purpose for the redemption of his people.
And everything, it's like every, Jesus said, search the scriptures,
for in them you think you have eternal life. And he says, they
are they that testify of me. And later on when we get to Luke
chapter 20, the end, he says, he revealed in all the scriptures
the things concerning himself. And I think that doesn't mean
just here and there. I mean, everything in the scriptures
has something to do with Christ and the redemption of the church.
Every line, every word. is that music that Norman showed
us this morning. There was a lot of notes on that
page. And individually, if you just went, blink, and you played
that one note, you might not have an inkling as to what that
whole song was about or how it might sound. But when you put
all the notes together and you play them, a beautiful melody
comes out. And that's the way that the scripture
is. We have a picture here and another picture there, and we
have a little glimpse here. Paul said, you know, we kind
of see through the glass darkly. And that's the way the sun is.
It kind of comes up in the morning, and it doesn't give its full
light yet. But you know, I think it was either Robert Hawker or
Matthew Henry said, you know, it's promising you that at noon,
you're going to have the full light. It's coming. And so we get a
glimpse here and we get a glimpse there to remind us of the Lord. So the Lord's mercies that were
not consumed because His compassions fail not. They're new every morning.
And so we have that reminder. When that sun, the day spring,
the dawning of the sun of righteousness comes up every morning, it appears
in that, what they call that gray dawn of morning. It's not
full light yet, but little by little we get more
notes. And pretty soon we hear a melody coming out to us. God who commanded the light to
shine out of darkness. You know at night, I think we
have the night time so that we can appreciate the light. We
can appreciate the morning. We look forward to the... I get
up early in the morning and it's still dark out. You can't see
anything. I like it when the sun comes up and you can see
stuff and you can get out and go about and do things. While it's dark, I have time
to sit and think about things. And then I appreciate that light
when it comes. God commanded the light to shine
out of darkness has shined in our hearts to give light of the
knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
What a picture. More of those notes. That's from
2 Corinthians 4, verse 6. Kind of the way salvation is.
You know, a lot of times when we're first saved, we don't have
much of an inkling about grace. We know something wonderful has
happened, but maybe we don't know a lot about the particulars
of it. We just know it. But then God
is gracious and reveals more and more of himself to us. And
pretty soon, we see more of the tender, mercies of God and we
see more clearly the constant grace around us. That light comes
up in the morning and it doesn't just send a little beam here,
a little beam there, a little beam there. It lights the whole
world. We have also a more sure word
of prophecy where until you do well that you take heed as unto
a light that shineth in a dark place until the day dawn, the
sun of righteousness, the day spring, just another term for
Christ there, and the day star arise in your hearts. He's just
quoting Malachi there, Peter is, 2 Peter 1.9. This great light, this day spring
has visited us, and shined in a very dark place. He shines
in our hearts, which are dead in trespasses and sin. And this great light shines in
the darkness for our heart, and God, through the Spirit, sheds
abroad the love of God in our hearts, what Romans 5 and 6 says. This visit of the day spring, this
visit of love can't really be understood until, or even appreciated
until one has the new birth. The old nature is in darkness.
That's what the, it's like those somber notes in the melody. And then I always enjoyed that
Peter and the Wolf thing when I was a kid. Whenever the wolf would come
they would play the oboe and the deep, dangerous sounding
music. And then all of a sudden you'd
hear the happy little sound of the other stuff going on. They
played that through. Well, the scriptures like that. It shows us the darkness of our
nature, but always we have the notes of the gospel right behind
it that say, here's the day spring from on high. the tender mercies
of God from before the foundation of the world, the Lamb slain.
But, you know, it says we're blind.
Not physically blind, not always, but spiritually blind. We read those words on the page
when we're saved and they don't mean anything to us really. Well, it says here I'm not supposed
to do this, I'm not supposed to do this, and I am supposed
to do this, this, this, this, this. Well, that's what Malachi
said. You know what? You had the law of Moses and
the prophets, and you said, here's what it means. It means don't
do this, this, this, this, and this. And it does mean you must
do this, this, this, and this. But you missed the part about
the day spring from on high. You missed the part that testified
of Christ. You missed the gospel. You were
just doing the do stuff. They're blind. To what degree
can a blind person see a light? That's why Christ said, I came
to open blind eyes. And he did that physically for
some folks, but it was just a spiritual picture, some notes on the page
to say, you have to have your eyes open to see the day spring
from on high. He's on the light of the world.
John chapter one, how can they understand? John chapter one,
in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and
the word was God, and the same was in the beginning with God.
And all things were made by him, and without him was not anything
made that was made. In him was life, and the life
was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness,
and the darkness comprehended it not. that they couldn't see
that light. There was a man sent from God
whose name was John. The one, the same John that we've
been talking about in Luke for quite some time. The same came
for a witness to bear witness of the light that all men through
him might believe. He was not that light, but was
sent to bear witness of that light that was the true light,
which lighteth every man that cometh into the world He was
in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew
Him not. He came unto His own, and His
own received Him not. But, after that condemnation
of the light was in the world, and the world didn't understand,
or He came unto His own, and they rejected Him. But, as many
as received Him, to them gave he power to become sons of God,
even to them that believe on his name." And we know how that
happens from Ephesians 1.19 says, we believe according to the working
of his almighty power which he wrought in Christ when he raised
him from the dead. I just don't know if we can understand the
magnitude of the amount of that power that is needed to resurrect
a dead sinner is the same power that was needed to resurrect
Christ from the tomb. Which were born, not of blood,
nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of
God. Pretty explanatory when you read
the whole thing. It's not that they resurrected
themselves, not that they believed themselves, not that they came
of their own power. We find it's just like what we
read in the Ezekiel. I saw you and you were pretty
awful, but I loved you from before the foundation of the world.
I have your name written in my Lamb's Book of Life. My son agreed to give his life
for you. I love you. I've always loved
you eternally. My Spirit is going to come at
the time that I feel is the appointed time for you and breathe into
you the breath of life. It's the tender mercy of God
to give light to them that sit in darkness. That's how that
happens. And it says, not only are they
sitting in darkness, but they're in the very shadow of death.
I was reading a little bit on the sword of Damocles this morning. There was a ruler that, I don't
want to go down that road too far, but he was a real powerful
ruler, and he was kind of a tyrant. And this guy named Damocles says,
oh, you got it made, man. You got everybody to bow down
to you, and everybody takes care of you. all the wonderful things about
being king. He was always afraid somebody was going to assassinate
him. He says, I'll tell you what, you can be king for the day.
He put him on the throne and they brought him all these good
things to eat. Then he had somebody came and they hung this razor
sharp sword over him and it was only suspended in the air by
one horse hair. The guy He just couldn't be comfortable
being king. He just kept kind of, I hope that don't fall. I hope that hair don't break.
It's only, as Jonathan Edwards said, it's only God that holds
that up there. It's only God that holds that
sword of Damocles up there in the air and keeps it from crashing
down through your noggin and killing you dead because He loved
you from all eternity and at the appointed time He's going
to reveal Christ died for you. The visit of love by the day
spring on high, it's the ultimate display of God's love through
Christ. He came to die for the sheep.
That was what the visit was for. It wasn't just so he could come
and give us a moral guide and be our pal. He came to die for
the sheep. Greater love hath no man than
this, that a man lay down his life for the sheep, for his friends. When we were yet without strength,
when we were laying there in awful condition. In due time,
Christ died for the ungodly." Romans 5, 6. God committed his
love for us, manifested it that while we were yet sinners, Christ
died for us. Well, we've used our 30 minutes,
Bob Ross time. So I hope through all this, maybe
you've got a little more of a glimpse into the day spring from on high
that visited us to give his life a ransom for many. And when you
go through that Malachi, he says, it's a great and a terrible day
at the same time. I always thought that was kind
of one term, but it's kind of two
terms. It's great for the redeemed of
the Lord. Hallelujah. But for the people
that are just putting all their hopes in religion, for the people
that their power is based in religion, and those laws of Moses
and the prophets, and all the stuff they have to do or can't
do. When Christ came, for them, it was a terrible day. And they
tried to kill him, even though it was written down from before
the foundation of the world. He says, I have to go and be
turned over to the elders and the chief priests and be crucified. If I don't do that, you're all
doomed. So thank you for your attention. And be free, as always. Yeah.