We're good. Finally. Well, good morning. Welcome to
our continuing study in the Book of Luke. Last time we met we
had some introductory remarks. Today we'll begin in Chapter
1 here. One of the first things that
Luke relates to us regarding things most surely believed among
us is the nature and circumstance of the conception and circumstances
of the birth of John Baptist and also the divine nature of
the conception of the coming Christ God with us. This is kind of a narrative block
of scripture and so we'll kind of take a look at it in a kind
of a broader context than normally we might in our normal verse-by-verse
exegetical approach. So as our pastors always want
to say, keep your finger here in Luke chapter 1. And turn with
me over to John chapter 1. And I just wanted to preface
this block of scripture that we're going to be looking at
from a passage in Luke, or in John chapter one, verse six through
nine, where he writes, there was a
man sent from God, whose name was John, sent from God. 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."
And so with that, just that declaration that he didn't come by accident. He was purposely sent by God
and the scriptures in the Old Testament there proclaim that
as well. And his birth, though not miraculous, it was
attended with such remarkable circumstances as intimated a
more than ordinary purpose intended from his ministry and the Lord
certainly superintendent in his birth, as we'll read here in
the scriptures in a moment. But it was not on the same level
as that with Christ, as we'll read later on in the chapter.
So let's read a little bit here in Luke chapter 1. For as much
as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration
of those things which are most surely believed among us, even
as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were
eyewitnesses and ministers of the word. It seemed good to me
also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first,
or from above, it might be understood, to write unto thee in order,
most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty
of those things wherein thou has been instructed. And now
he begins his narrative. Of the things most surely believed
among us, There was in the days of Herod, gives us a timeframe
there, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias of the
course of Abia and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron and
her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous
before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of
the Lord blameless. And they had no child because
that Elizabeth was barren. And they were both 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, 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. And when Zacharias saw him, he
was troubled, and fear fell upon him. And 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
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. And I think we'll
stop there. He goes on to, Zach Rice says,
well, how's that going to happen? I'm old. I'm sure you all know the rest
of that story. We'll cover that in a little bit more detail later.
Today we have these details. I think when
the Lord puts it in the heart of the writer through the Holy
Spirit to give us some details and specific things that it behooves
us to kind of take a look at them. They're not just there
just to take up space. They're not there just to fill
in so that you have something to read that takes you from here
through the clock. It's there to look at. So we have the time of Herod,
the king of Judea, the time appointed of God. We'll maybe look at a little
scripture from Daniel chapter 9 that talks about three score weeks and the Messiah
shall come and he'll be cut off, but not for himself. These folks
were kind of looking for that to happen. They were looking
for the Messiah to come. The parents, Zacharias and Elizabeth,
they were both from the lineage of Aaron. Interestingly, and their occupation
in relation to God, Zachariah, his name, it gives us his name
and his name means jaw has remembered, Jehovah has remembered. And Elizabeth
means God of the oath. Kind of brings us to in mind
of Hebrews chapter 6, if you would want to read through that
in Hebrews chapter 6 verse 17, wherein God willing more abundantly
to show unto the heirs of promise, the immutability of his counsel
confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things in which
it was impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation. That word consolation comes up
in this chapter, and we'll look at that in a minute. Who have
fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us. Which
hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast,
in which entereth into that within the veil, whither the forerunner
for us is entered. Even Jesus made a high priest
forever after the order of Melchizedek." Then we have right about where we We're reading here in verse 11
and 12, there appeared unto Zacharias an angel of the Lord. He's called a certain priest.
And that immediately draws our attention to him as having some
significance. They're both of the lineage of
Aaron and they're both declared to be righteous before God and
blameless. That only occurs one way. Not
because he was doing all these religious ceremonies and not
because he was fulfilling the law, the only
righteousness comes through Christ. And I'm sure he was looking for
that. And if we were to look back in the Old Testament, we
would find that Zacharias was from the lineage of Aaron through
Eliezer, the eldest son of Aaron, and then through Abijah, the
eighth son of Eliezer, who was the grandson of Aaron. And Elizabeth,
his wife, it says she was from the lineage of the daughters
of Aaron as well. And she had the same name as
Aaron's wife. In the Old Testament, it was
called Elisheba. But her name in the Greek is Elizabeth. And we find that kind of Greek
rendering of Hebrew names, Elias and Isaias for Elijah and Isaiah
and that kind of thing. So we find that typically. And so there's some significance
here to their names and their lineage. In Exodus chapter 6
verse 23, Aaron took unto him Elisheba, daughter of Minadab,
sister of Nashon, to wife, and she bare him Nadab of Bihu, Eleazar,
and Ithamar, sons of Aaron. And that was the lineage that
we find that Zacharias came from. And they were both both of them
righteous before God by total faith in Christ for salvation.
The only true righteousness there is, as it says there in verse
6. And you can look up a little
more history if you want to read up a little bit more in Exodus
28, 1 and 1 Chronicles 24, 10 through 19, which describes the
sons of Aaron and their kin were assigned tasks in the priesthood. And they're called courses. And it kind of refers to a assignment
of service in the temple and it seems to be on kind of a rotational
basis. So they had all these duties
to do in the temple. And in verse eight here, as we
come to it in Luke chapter one, and it came to pass that while
he executed the priest's office before God in the order of his
course or in the order of his assignment or rotation in the
temple, according to the custom of the priest's office, his lot
was to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord.
So that was his assignment. And he was performing that duty
when he has this angel appears unto him.
And it's important for us to note as well that while he is
burning the incense, in verse 10, the whole multitude of the
people were praying outside at the time of the burning of incense. So we're going to look at that
a little bit here this morning. The burning of incense, we find
that accompanied with the prayers and related to the prayers of
the saints in the scriptures. The illusion seems to be here
that they're interrelated and one cannot be valid without the
other, and one symbolizes the true nature of the other. They kind of go hand in glove. The burning of the incense is
a type, a shadow, a picture of the true prayers of the saints. In religious ceremony, today
I have to go and light these things and set them on fire.
That's my job. You know, if that's all the further,
if it's just a physical thing that you do to fulfill a part
of the law, well, it's meaningless. But Zacharias and his wife, both
being righteous before God, blameless, it was more significant than
that. What were the people praying
for? What was the prayer Zacharias had been praying. And I think there's a couple
of things that we can look at there. In verse 10, it says,
the whole multitude of the people were praying without at the time
of incense. And let's turn up to Revelation
chapter 5, verse 8 for one example here. Revelation 5, 8, and when he
had taken the book of the four beasts and the four and 20 elders
fell down before the lamb, having every one of them harps and golden
vials full of the elders, which are the prayers of the saints.
It's the, this incense, this, this smell that was pleasing
to God was the prayers of the saints. That's what it kind of
typically what it pictures. The, the God was, is pleased
by the prayers of his people. But for what? I'm praying for a new pickup
today, Lord. Does that please God? No. in Revelation chapter 8 verse
3. And another angel came and stood
at the altar having a golden censer and there was given unto
him much incense that he should offer it with the prayers of
all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.
And the smoke of the incense which came with the prayers of
the saints ascended up before God out of the angel's hand.
So spiritual significance of this. prayers and incense kind
of coming up to God as an aroma, a pleasing smell that comes up
to Him. And when Jesus was talking about
praying in Luke, further on in Luke chapter 11, verse 2, He
says, and He said unto them, when you pray, Say, Our Father
which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come,
thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth. Not that that was
just what you were supposed to repeat, but that's the kind of
thing that you should be praying for. Praying to the Father which
is in heaven that His will would be done. and that our hearts
and prayers would be aligned with that will. And in John,
Jesus tells us what that will is. In John chapter 6 verse 39,
he said, And this is the Father's will which is sent me, that of
all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise
it up again at the last day. And this is the will of him that
sent me, that every one which seeth the Son and believeth on
him may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the
last day. Now this, with the incense burning
and the prayers of the people, the messenger of the Lord appears
on the right side of the altar of incense. So those things are
connected for us to pay attention to what was going on there. It would
seem that in some time past, perhaps Zachariah prayed to God
for a son. He said they were old and they
were well stricken and they had no child. That would be troubling
in that time. People depended on their children.
That was their social welfare fallback. You raised children,
they took care of you when you got older. It also would seem likely that
as Zacharias rotated through in this duty of burning incense
at the table and had an angel appear to him that he was praying
for the coming of the Savior. And that was, we will find that
in the scripture. A little bit later in the book
of Luke, Simeon was waiting for the consolation of Israel. As I mentioned in Daniel chapter
9, Daniel was praying to the Lord. And he says, man, we are
sinners. And we need redemption. And the angel Gabriel comes to
him and says, your prayer is heard. Your prayer regarding redemption
is heard. The will of God is that of all
that were given to Christ in the covenant of grace, that He
would give them eternal life. That He would not lose a single
one. All of them will come to Him.
All those things that we find recorded for us. Zacharias, this angel appears
to him and he's a little bit taken aback. He's a little bit
shocked there. He was troubled and fear fell
upon him. As no doubt that would be the
case with anyone here. But you know what we always find
when the Lord's dealing with his people? He says, fear not. You know, seven times we find
in Luke, fear not. Seven times. He says that to
Zacharias. He says that to Mary. Fear not. The angel says that to the shepherds
when he appeared to the shepherds and they all went, oh. This is scary. Fear not. He said
it to Simon Peter, fear not, you're gonna become a fisher
of men. He said it to a synagogue ruler named Jairus, whose only
daughter was dying, fear not. He said it to the disciples,
he says, fear not therefore, even the very hairs of your head
are numbered. There's no reason for you to
fear. He says it to the church, fear
not little flock, it's your father's good pleasure to give you the
kingdom. All those wonderful things that
we find throughout the book of Luke here, just seven times that
it comes up. And now in relation to the prayers
of Zacharias, that no doubt he probably had prayed regarding
a child, but also as his lot fell to being a priest, By divine foreordination, he
was a priest and his duty would have centered around the problem
of sin and how that would be atoned for. That's what the priests
did. They sacrificed stuff and they performed all these ceremonies
in the temple that were related to the atonement of the people. The sacrificial pictures that
they performed there were to shadows and types of Christ,
the lamb slain from before the foundation of the world. And
he must have had some idea that if he was righteous, if it declares
that he was righteous before God, him and his wife, they must
have looked at those sacrifices and saw them for what they were.
They were pictures and types and shadows of the coming of
the Savior. In verse 13 of Luke chapter 1, it says, 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. Boy, you
can have a son when you never thought it was possible. And
many shall rejoice at his birth. For he shall be great in the
sight of the Lord, shall drink neither wine nor strong drink. And he shall be filled with the
Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb." A special condition there. Much like we find in Jeremiah. The same kind of thing in Jeremiah
and in Samuel. Those conditions of the Lord. This person is special. He's
ordained of God to do a specific task. filled with the Holy Spirit
from the 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. And it's not that
he was going to have special powers. What he did was the same thing
that Elias did. He preached the Gospel. He had the spirit to do that.
He had the power to do that. Zacharias and Elias would have
a son that was to be a herald for the king. The Savior who
would save his people from their sins. The one they'd been waiting
for. Malachi chapter 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. In Isaiah chapter 40, Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,
saith your God. Speak comfortably unto Jerusalem, and cry unto her that her warfare
is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned. For she has received
of the Lord's hand double for all her sins. The voice of him
that cried in the wilderness, prepare you the way of the Lord,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted,
every mountain and hill shall be made low. The crooked shall
be made straight and the rough places plain. In the glory of
the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. a man sent from God to do that. A man sent from God, thou shalt
call his name John. And as we saw in some of these
other names, there's a spiritual significance there. Kind of the etymology of his
name is interesting. In the Greek, You know, as I
mentioned earlier, we get Isaias for Isaiah and Elias for Elijah,
and in the Greek, it's Iones, Ionese, or something
like that. I'm not sure I got the pronunciation
right on that, but it's the Greeking of a Hebrew name, Yocainan. And so it's of Hebrew origin. Yochanan, the J is pronounced
like a Y. In the Greek, it's kind of turned
into an I. Anyway, his name means eternally
favored by God. That's essentially what is the
Yocaine, it's a kind of a compound word there, but Jehovah-favored. And it gives
the context of the eternal nature of it, because that's kind of
what Jehovah, as Norm was preaching on the Lord of hosts, the eternal
the eternal nature of the Lord in that respect. And it's interesting
that, and they make a point of it here in the Bible, that the
people said, what are you going to call him? And you know, in
the day, these names that people had for their children, they
had significance. And now we say, well what are
you going to name your kid? Well let's name him John. John's
a good name. I like John. I have many friends
named John. It doesn't mean anything, it's
just a name. Or it's like Steve or Bob or
Pete or something like that. We don't really, we don't, We
don't really think about it, but in these terms here, these
names, they had a significance to the people that are being
dealt with here. Now, normally in that time, they
would have named the firstborn son after the father. That would
have been the custom. So they would have named him
Zacharias bar Zacharias. Zacharias the son of Zacharias. And that's a kind of a custom
that you found in Europe and all over. Anderson, Samson, those kind of things. It's typical. And so it would have been the
Jewish custom for him to be called Zacharias. The message that God
wanted to present in his name was eternally favored, Jehovah
favored. He is going to fulfill a mission
that he was foreordained from eternity to do. A man sent
from God to prepare the way of the King, the Savior, the one
who could and would atone for the sins of his people, the people
that were given to him from before the foundation of the world in
the covenant of grace. There's a couple of really good
articles in your bulletin if you want to read those sometime
today. The Eternal Nature and Electing
Love of God. is just the root of all things. So, as we look at this, this man sent from God named,
you call him John. When he went to Mary, he says,
you call his name Jesus. And of course that's the Greekism
of the Old Testament name as well, Joshua. He will save his
people from their sins. So when we have these commands
for a specific name to be given, it has a purpose in God's revealing
himself to us and what he's doing in the redemption of his people. Fear not, Zacharias. Jaw has remembered. Fear not. Thy wife Elizabeth, the God of
oath, the God who promised the heirs, she shall bear thee a son, and
thou shalt call his name John. Eternally Jehovah favored. 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 strong wine
nor strong drink, and shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even
from his mother's womb. It's going to be special from
the minute he's on this earth. And many of the children of Israel
shall he turn to the Lord their God. And how is he going to do
that? He didn't preach the Savior. He just preached the gospel. 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. Then we have the
next part of the narrative and Zacharias says, Well, that's
nice. How's that going to happen? I'm well stricken in years. I'm
an old man. And my wife, she's past the age
of childbirth. That came and went a long time
ago. And the angel answering him said unto him, I am Gabriel
that stands in the presence of God and am sent to speak unto
thee and to show thee these glad tidings. I just find that interesting
because it just reminded me of that guy that says, help thou
my unbelief. A person that's born again, but
still plagued with that. How's that going to be? In our scheme of things, in our
mind, in our mortal concept of things, and we have a linear
timeline of things, and we look at things kind of one-dimensionally,
we say, I don't see how that can happen. But God has worked
those things out from before the foundation of the world,
and ordained them that they fall. There's another good thing in
your bulletin, that even things that don't seem to us like a
good thing at the time God has worked those things to come about
for the good of the elect." I think that's what it's written in there.
I thought that was so profound. I'm old, that's not good. I can
barely get in here and light these incense and you're going
to tell me I'm going to have a son? How's that going to work? He says, and behold, the angel
Gabriel says unto him, behold, thou shalt be dumb, and not able
to speak. Since you kind of uttered unbelief
here, you're not gonna be able to speak until these things shall
be performed. Because thou believest not my
words, which shall be fulfilled in their season. Important point to note there,
God had ordained a time and a place for all things. And when the
season was, the time was proper, it would come to be. So, we're
out of time for today. Next we have more detail about
the mission of John, the special qualities God blessed him with,
and the birth. And just the wonderful narration
of the circumstances with him and the Lord. So with that, as
we always close from John chapter 8, be free.