Lord, we ask you to enable us
to honor and worship and adore yourself. Oh, how great and wonderful and
mighty and glorious is our God. The God who created all things,
the God who governs all things, and the God of grace, the God
who saves. Lord, we have come here today
to honor You and enable us to do that. Forgive our sins, Lord. And forgive the
weakness of our worship Lord, we're thankful that You remember
that we're just dust. And we are Your people. We are the sheep of Your pasture. Your Son, our Savior, has redeemed
us. We do stand washed in His sin-atoning
blood. And Lord, today, enable me to
speak words that would be of encouragement to the Lord's sheep,
to Your sheep, and to Your little lambs. Lord, as You said to Simon Peter,
so we hear this morning, and feed my sheep, and feed my lambs. And the only sheep food that
the sheep fully desire to hear is this wonderful gospel of redemption. So, enable us this morning to
convey to these before us and to these who are watching by
way of the internet, help us to give forth the message of
redeeming grace, of a lovely and wonderful Savior, and of
the magnificence of your salvation of people who are unworthy of
the least of your mercies. These things we ask in the name
of our Savior and for His sake. Amen. Our Lord sent a heavenly messenger. to a man who was himself a priest,
and his name was Zacharias. He was married to Elizabeth,
that's Mary's cousin. Zacharias was, of course, of
the Levitical priesthood, and his name is very significant. It means remembered by God. And
as I thought about Zacharias and his name, the significance
of it, and bringing him into this message this morning, I
thought, Lord, remember us. Remember us. On the very front of the table
before me is what we call the communion table. this do in remembrance
of me. This is a day of remembrance.
We're remembering our Lord's death until He comes again. And
so we do take this supper because He instructed us to do so. And this is all in remembrance
of Him. But I also want Him to remember
us. I want Him to remember us. And
I think of that thief upon the the cross that our Lord saved
by His mighty grace. That thief just said, Lord, remember
me when you come into your kingdom. Lord, remember us. Zacharias,
his name means remembered by God. I trust his memory a whole
lot more than I trust my memory. And I'm thankful his remembrance
is perfect. He doesn't forget His people.
He doesn't forget His sheep. He doesn't forget those who are
bought with His own precious blood. He remembers us. He remembers us in every situation
of life. Perhaps I'm speaking to somebody
who's watching on the internet and maybe you're just by yourself
and you're one of the Lord's sheep and you look to the Savior
and you believe Him, you say, Jim, does He really remember
me? He really does. He really does. The Lord has never forgotten
any of His children. And it's a very amazing thing
that He always remembers us. We're never off of His mind. And so this man, Zacharias, his
name means remembered by God. Well, he and his wife, Elizabeth,
couldn't have children. And so they asked God if the
Lord would give them a baby. Give them a child. And so, God
sends a messenger, and the messenger's name is Gabriel. Now, I don't
want to get too sidetracked here with the name of Gabriel, but
Gabriel means the man who stands in the presence of God. As I
read through the Scriptures, all others kneel in the presence
of God. But Gabriel is the man of God
who stands in the presence of God. I do believe this is another
name for our Lord Jesus. This is our Savior. He only is
worthy to stand in God's presence. And yet, in Him, we shall stand
in God's presence someday. we shall stand in Him fully accepted."
Well, Zacharias and Elizabeth, as I say, they have no children,
and Gabriel comes to them and says, you're going to have a
baby. And I want you to name him John. John. He'll be that one who's the forerunner
of the Savior of sinners. This is John the Baptist, of
course, we're talking about. And if Scripture says, look at
verses 16 and 17 here of Luke 1. These are the words of Gabriel
unto Zacharias. And many of the children of Israel
shall he turn to the Lord their God. Luke chapter 1 verse 16. And many of the children of Israel
shall he turn to the Lord their God, and he shall go before him,
that is before the Savior, before Messiah, and He'll do so in the
spirit and in the power of Elijah, and what will He do? This is
interesting. He will turn the hearts of the
fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom,
to the understanding, to the knowledge of the just, that is,
the just one, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. Gabriel
says to Zacharias, you're going to have a son called his name
John. Jehovah is a gracious giver.
That's what John's name means. It's a wonderful name, isn't
it? Jehovah is a gracious giver. And Gabriel says to Zacharias,
he's going to be great. This is the one who's going to
come forth in the power of Elijah. And he's going to prepare the
way for Messiah for the Lord Jesus. And He will speak in such
a manner and have such a grasp of the Gospel. And the Spirit
of God will use Him in such an amazing way that He will give
wisdom As the Spirit comes on him and comes on his hearers,
the Spirit of God will give wisdom of the just one. Who is the just
one? The just one is our Lord Jesus. You see, John the Baptist, he
didn't come setting himself forth. I'm talking about I'm the last
of the prophets. Our Lord said of him that of
men born of woman, none's greater than John. But this man, John,
had nothing good really to say about himself. His message was
all of the one who's coming he came to announce. His message,
of course, is summed up in John 1, Behold the Lamb of God that
taketh away the sin of the world. This is John's message. Two times
he preaches there in John 1, and both times it's the same
message. Behold the Lamb of God. And certainly
He is the example for every preacher of the Gospel. And as He says,
Behold the Lamb of God, the Spirit of God is going to use Him in
such a way that He will turn the disobedient, those who are
disobedient to the Gospel, Those who will not obey the gospel
of God's grace, He will, by the grace of God, turn them through
the power of the Spirit, through the preaching of the Word, and
He will give to them wisdom of this One who is the Just One.
The Just One is our Lord Jesus. He's the Righteous One. Isaiah
sets Him forth as that righteous servant. Peter says in 1 Peter
chapter 3 that the Lord is going to do His work in the hearts
of people to bring them to the just one who died the just for
the unjust. This is the just one. He came
into this world. He's the righteous one who came
to die for the wicked. He's the righteous one who came
to die for the unrighteous. And this just one comes to the
unjust, and you know what he does? He makes us just. He makes us righteous. In Jeremiah,
he's identified as being the Lord our righteousness. That's
the just one that John the Baptist would preach about. And through
the preaching of John the Baptist and other preachers of the gospel
down through the years, We learn that our Lord Jesus is the Lord
our righteousness, and in Him, God makes us to be a righteous
people. And so that we read in Jeremiah
33, this is the name whereby the Lord's people are called.
The Lord our righteousness. We're a just people. We're a
righteous people. We were justified by the substitutionary
sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. So Gabriel brings forth this
wonderful announcement. Zechariah, your wife's going
to have a child. He's going to have a baby. Hey,
you called him John. He's going to be a great preacher.
A great preacher. Well, Zacharias didn't exactly
believe the message from the Lord. And he doubted. And so, Gabriel says to him,
okay, you don't believe. Gabriel, whom I believe is the
Lord Jesus in pre-incarnate form, he could see the heart of Zacharias. He saw the doubt. He saw the
lack of faith. And Gabriel says to Zacharias,
you will not speak and you will not hear anything until this
little boy is born. And immediately, he lost the
ability to speak and he lost the ability to hear. And when
he finished his duty as the priest in the temple that day, and by
the way, just to give you some facts, there were 18,000 priests
on active duty in Israel. 18,000 priests. And they were
divided into 24 orders or courses. That's the word that's used really
here in Luke chapter one, a course. and 750 in each course, in each
group. And he's one of them. In fact,
he's of the course of Abijah, I should say, Abijah. And you
can look that up in First Chronicles. David, when David was the king
of Israel, he decided to divide the priesthood up into 24 courses
or groups. There would be 18,000 of them,
and all of them, every priest served two weeks every year in
the temple. And in addition, they all served
for the three great feasts in Israel, Passover, Pentecost,
and Feast of Tabernacles. So they served two weeks in the
temple and then they all had to come back and serve during
these three feasts. These feasts lasted a week or
eight days with the Feast of the Tabernacle. And then they'd
go back to their respective synagogues and labor. And so Zacharias,
he finishes up his service, he comes out of the temple, The
scripture says he burned incense, and this is what they all did.
Every priest burned incense in the morning at the morning sacrifice.
And we now know that's a lamb. A lamb was offered every morning,
right? We already know that because
we've studied that in our studies of the tabernacle, that lamb
picturing our Lord Jesus. And after that lamb was offered,
then Zacharias, when he was on duty, he would burn incense at
the altar of incense. And then in the evening, at three
o'clock in the afternoon, when the evening sacrifice was offered,
that evening lamb was killed and sacrificed for God, portraying
the death of the Lamb of God, Zacharias would burn incense
once again at the altar of incense. Well, when he did that on this
day, when he burned the incense on this day, he comes out of
the temple, and the people are amazed. How you doing, brother Zacharias? He couldn't speak. In fact, he
couldn't even hear when they asked the words. How you doing? So he goes home. Nine months
later, nine months later, Elizabeth gives birth to a baby boy. And those who were around that
little infant when he was circumcised after eight days. All little
baby boys were circumcised after eight days. That's when they
were officially named. Right? We know that. And so they
all came together and little John Somebody eventually called him
Johnny, I don't know. John was to be circumcised, and
he was circumcised, and thereby said to Elizabeth, I ought to
call him Zacharias, like Zacharias II, or Zacharias Jr. She said, no, no. His name shall be John. They
say, you don't even have anybody in your family named John. But
your husband's name's Zacharias, and maybe his dad was Zacharias,
too. I don't know. They said, name
him Zacharias. She said, no, John. Name him
John. And so they indicated to Zacharias,
what will his name be? He'd probably read lips by then. You know, I'll just say this.
I'm amazed people can sign, use sign language. That's an amazing
thing to me. And my hat's off to those who
do that sort of thing. When our governor speaks, he
usually has somebody there signing. And yeah, I appreciate somebody
who has that gift. But they didn't have that gift
back then, not that I know of. And so Zacharias, he called for,
I want something to write on. So they bring him some kind of
piece of slate or something like that. He writes on it, His name
shall be called John. That was it. And when he wrote
that, all of a sudden, God opened his ears again and God loosened
his voice again and he could speak. Now, after nine months,
he hadn't said a word. What do you think a man's going
to say when he hasn't had a voice for nine months? Well, the Scripture says he praised
God. He didn't turn to his wife and
say, I love you, honey. It's good to be able to talk
to you again. He didn't do that. He didn't say, that's a sweet
little baby boy there, isn't it? He didn't say that. Look
at verse 64. And his mouth was opened immediately. Luke 1, 64. and his mouth was
opened immediately, and his tongue loose, and he spake. What's he
going to say? He's going to praise the Lord. He's going to praise God. And
fear came on all those round about them, and all these sayings
were nosed abroad. In other words, word spread.
Hey, did you hear Zechariah's guy's voice back? And he immediately
started praising the Lord. And they all heard them, all
they, verse 66, and all they that heard them laid them up
in their hearts, saying, What manner of child shall this be? And the hand of the Lord was
with him. And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost,
and the priest suddenly become the prophet. He prophesied. And he said, what's the first
recorded thing that he's going to say? Blessed be the Lord God
of Israel. That's the first thing he said. He blessed God. He didn't bless God for the blessings
that the Lord gives, though he certainly would later. but he
just blessed God for who God is. You see, real worship involves
not merely or not only thanksgiving for the mercies of God, the grace
of God, the salvation of God, but real worship honors God as
God. That's what he did. He blessed
the name of God. Much like the Apostle Paul in
Ephesians chapter 1. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ. He blessed him like Peter did
in 1 Peter chapter 1. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Like David did over in the Psalms. Bless the Lord, O my soul. That's what he said, wasn't it?
Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless
His holy name. That's what Zacharias is doing.
He's blessing the name of God. When I think about Ephesians
chapter 1, that's Paul blessing the name of God. And then he
began to bless the name of God for specific, specific mercies. He blessed Him because God chose
a people unto salvation before the world began. He blessed God
because God predestinated a people unto the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ unto Himself. He blessed God. And then He blessed God that
He accepted us in the Beloved, and that was before the foundation
of the world. And then He blessed God for His
Son, the Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom we have redemption
through His blood. According to the riches of His
grace, the forgiveness of sins. Then He begins to bless God for
more of the blessings and mercies that God has given to us. And
then of course in the end of Ephesians chapter 1, he blessed
God for the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit who gives
us an understanding. Who enlightened us when we were
in the dark about spiritual matters. Yeah, that's what Paul does in
Ephesians chapter 1. He blesses God and that's what
Zacharias does here in Luke chapter 1. He blessed God. Look again in verse 68 here. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel
for he hath visited and redeemed his people. Now he gets specific. He by faith believed that God
was going to visit this earth in his son. And that when he visited, he
would do something. He would redeem. He would redeem. He would redeem. Who would He
redeem? His people. He's got a people. A people from every nation, kindred,
tribe, and tongue. A people from the north, the
southeast, and the west. A people more numerous than the
stars of the sky or the grains of sand on the seashore. He's visited, He's visited and
redeemed. That's why He visited was to
redeem. We love to sing about redeeming
love and the redemption by the blood of the Lord Jesus. We sing
redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. He didn't come to make
an effort to redeem, to buy us back from the demands of justice. The justice of God, the law of
God held us for ransom? Yes, God had chosen a people
unto salvation, but we fell in Adam. We fell in Adam. And the justice of God held us
for ransom. Our Lord Jesus came to redeem
us from the curse of the law by being made a curse Himself.
He came to pay our ransom. What will it cost to redeem these
people, to ransom these people? It will cost you your life. That's what He said, I'll gladly
pay. And our Lord Jesus laid down
His life for the sheep, is what the Scripture says. That's how
He redeemed us. He redeemed us. And Zacharias, he continues in
verse 69, and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house
of His servant David. Here's the title of the message,
The Horn of Salvation Raised Up. The horn of salvation raised
up. God raised Him up. He's the horn
of salvation. In the Bible, the word horn has
a double meaning. It has a meaning of power. The
horn of an animal. We read about the horn of a unicorn. We read about the four horns
on the brazen altar and the four horns on the altar of incense.
We've talked about that in our studies of the tabernacle. The
word horn means power. Our Lord Jesus is the horn of
salvation. He has all power. He has all
power to save. Because He's God. He exercised
that power over Satan when he defeated him by his death on
the cross. He had all power to redeem us
from the curse of the law because he obeyed the law and then died
under the curse of it. He had all power to take his
life back to himself. He said just before His ascension
to glory, all power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth. Now you go preach the Gospel. This is what Zacharias says.
He's raised up for us a horn of salvation. Whoever is going
to save us has got to have all power. He's got to have all power. He's the horn of our salvation. That's who the Lord Jesus Christ
is. And then that word, a horn, also
means like a cornucopia. We used to have those, perhaps
you still have them at Thanksgiving time, and that kind of a wicker
looking thing, at least the one in my mind is, and it's stuffed
full of all kinds of goodies, you know? Let me tell you something,
our Lord Jesus, he's the horn of plenty. For every blessing
of God is in him. He is the horn of plenty. He is the cornucopia. Every blessing
of God that he's got for poor sinners like you and me is to
be found only in the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you have him,
you lack nothing. You lack nothing. We have all
spiritual blessings in Him. And He says this, notice the
first part of verse 69, He hath raised up an horn of salvation. Well, He raised up this horn
of salvation from the root of Jesse. And you can read in Isaiah chapter
11 how that was the root from which he came. And in our Lord's
day, when our Lord was born into this world, the house of Jesse
was poor, almost unknown, but our Lord Jesus, He came forth
from the root of Jesse. Scripture says He's the rod and
the branch. Isaiah 53 says He's that tender,
tender plant. Grew up before God. Right from the house of David. And He grew strong. Grew in wisdom. He grew in strength. speaks of
our Lord's real humanity. Look at Luke 1 again, and look
at verse 70. As He spake by the mouth of His
holy prophets, which have been since the world began. You see,
He came forth, this root out of dry ground, this horn of salvation
who came forth from the root of Jesse. His coming was spoken
of by many people in the Old Testament. His coming was prophesied. It's not like the Old Testament
had nothing to say about Him. The whole of the Old Testament
has all to say about Him. Everything in the Old Testament
points to Him. Somebody told me the other day,
said you can summarize the Old Testament as promises made. What promise? The promise of
His coming. His coming. The Lord is coming. He's coming. That One who is
the seed of the woman. He's coming. That One who is
Abel's lamb. He's coming. That One who is
Noah's ark. He's coming. He's coming. That
one who was Isaac's substitute. That ram caught in the thicket.
That spoke of our Lord Jesus. He's coming. That Passover lamb
in Exodus. He's coming. That path through
the Red Sea. One way to safety. That's our
Lord. He's coming. He's coming. You
go all the way through the Old Testament. All of the Old Testament
announces loud and clear. He is coming. He's coming. That was spoken by the mouth
of all the prophets. Since the world began, is what
it says here in verse 70. And what did they say about it?
Look at verse 71, that we should be saved from our enemies and
from the hand of those that hate us. All of those Old Testament
prophets, and remember, they didn't have the New Testament
at this time. So their whole Bible was the
Old Testament. But from all of the Old Testament,
they determined this, this Redeemer, this root out of dry ground,
this horn of salvation. He is coming and He's going to
save us from our enemies. Did He save His people from His
enemies? His name is Jesus, you know,
for He shall save His people from their sins. Oh, what an
enemy your sin is to you. What an enemy my sin is to me. But He saved us from that enemy. How did he do that? He died for
our sins according to the Scriptures. 1 Corinthians chapter 15 verse
3 says that. According to the Scriptures.
That's exactly what Zacharias is talking about. The prophets
spoke of him in the Scriptures. That he would save us from the
hand of those that hate us. Who's that? Satan. Oh, he despises God's people
because he despises God. But we've been saved from him.
Our Lord Jesus has delivered us from him. And notice this
in verse 72, this one who is the horn of our salvation, He's
going to come to perform the mercy that was promised to our
fathers in remembrance of or to remember His holy covenant.
He's coming because of a covenant. A covenant. What is this covenant? It's the everlasting covenant
of grace. And His blood was that which
sealed the covenant. He came because of a covenant
entered into by God Himself. God forever had this covenant. The oath, look at verse 73, the
oath which He swore to our father Abraham, that from His seed,
not seeds, but one seed, from His seed, God would bless the
people. this covenant of grace. Behold
God's choice of a people in the covenant of grace. And He gifted
those people to His Son. He gifted them to Him. So our Lord Jesus says in John
6, all that the Father giveth Me, He gave them to Him in the covenant.
You see, our Lord Jesus, He came into this world, this One who
is the horn of our salvation, who has all power, and He gives
to us, He supplies to us every spiritual need and blessing that
we would ever need. He came because of a covenant.
This wasn't a knee-jerk reaction of God to something that man
had done. God always promised to send His
Son. This was a covenant. He would come into this world
to live a perfect life. He humbled Himself and became
obedient, obedient all the way through life and obedient unto
death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God hath highly
exalted Him. This is all due to God's covenant.
There's no wonder that David in 2 Samuel chapter 23, on his
deathbed, he talked about that covenant. That covenant's everything. We do come together today, as
I've already said, to remember our Lord's death until He comes.
But the reason He came into this world was in remembrance of His
covenant. And if you don't know much about
this covenant, I'd be glad to spend some time with you and
see if I can shed a little light on it. I love to talk about the
covenant of grace. The covenant of grace. When Father,
Son, and Spirit, as it were, joined hands and took an oath,
God said, I will save. The Son said, I will redeem. And the Spirit said, I will regenerate. The Father said, I will send
you my Son. The Son said, I will go willingly
and voluntarily and I'll lay down my life for the sheep. And the Spirit of God said, I'll
take the Gospel as it is set forth by preachers and I'll drive
the message home to the hearts of sinners. And they will believe. on the Lord Jesus Christ and
rejoice in Him. Oh, my friends, this is all due
to a covenant that God always remembers. Always remembers. The oath that He swore. And since He can't swear by any
greater, He swore by Himself. He swore by Himself. That, verse
74, He would grant unto us. What is a grant? It's a gift. Freely. Being justified freely
by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, that
He would grant unto us that we being delivered, delivered, saved,
rescued, out of the hand of our enemies might serve Him without
fear, and do so in holiness and righteousness before Him." Holiness. You know who our holiness
is? Our Lord Jesus. Who of God is
made unto us, count them, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
that's holiness, and redemption, all four of them. You didn't
have anything to do with any of them, did you? He's our wisdom,
He's our righteousness, He's our sanctification, He's our
redemption, so that let Him that glories, and nobody else to glory
except the Lord, because He did it all. He did it all. So we serve Him in holiness and
righteousness before Him by how long? All the days of our life. And so Zacharias, I tell you,
he couldn't say a thing for nine months. Boy, we ain't got a chance
to talk. He let her go, didn't he? Oh,
how clearly He set forth the magnificence of God's great salvation
through our Lord Jesus Christ. Here's what He did. He preached
the horn of our salvation. That's our Lord Jesus Christ.
He has all power to save. And He has all the blessings
of the covenant in Him which He freely gives to us. What a
wonderful Savior. Oh God, help us all to look to
Him for salvation, so rich, so full, and so free. We're just going to go right
into the Lord's Supper. This is for believers.