I invite you to turn with me
now in your Bibles to the book of Luke. Book of Luke. And I've got several verses I
want to read to you so they'll be fresh in your mind. We'll begin reading in verse
five. There was in the days of Herod
the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the
chorus of Abiah, 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 both were 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. But the angel said unto
him, fear not, Zacharias, where 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, that is, Elijah, 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 Zechariah said unto the angel,
whereby shall I know this? For I am an old man and my wife
well stricken in years. And the angel answering said
unto him, I am Gabriel that stand in the presence of God and am
sent to speak unto thee and to show thee these glad tidings. And behold, thou shalt be dumb
and not able to speak until the day that these things shall be
performed because thou believest not my words which shall be fulfilled
in their season. And the people waited for Zacharias
and marveled that he tarried so long in the temple. When he
came out, he could not speak unto them and they perceived
that he had seen a vision in the temple. where he beckoned
unto them and remained speechless. And it came to pass that as soon
as the days of his ministration were accomplished, he departed
to his own house. And after those days, his wife
Elizabeth conceived and hid herself five months, saying, thus hath
the Lord dealt with me in the days wherein he looked on me
to take away my reproach. among men. Now as we begin this
study here in Luke and looking at these verses, Luke's testimony
is what we're looking at, his testimony of the gospel. We're
going to be introduced to two men. The first is John the Baptist
and then the second, the Lord Jesus Christ. These verses we've
just read have to do with John the Baptist. Why is John the
Baptist such a prominent figure in the Gospels? They all talk
about John. Every one of them talk about
John the Baptist, John the Baptist. Why was he such a prominent figure? Why was he included in the Gospel
of Jesus Christ? Well, first of all, because he's
prophesied to come just before the coming of the Lord. If you'll
recall our study in the book of Malachi, I gave you two verses
there. In Malachi 3.1, he says, Behold,
I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before
me, and the Lord whom you seek shall suddenly come to his temple,
even the messenger of the covenant whom you delight in. And then
in Malachi 4.5, he said, Behold, I will send you Elijah, Elijah
the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day
of the Lord. Now if you will, turn with me
to Luke chapter 24. I wanna show you something over
here as to why this was so necessary. In Luke 24 and verse 44, this
is after our Lord's resurrection. You remember the story. He appeared
to the two men walking on the road to Emmaus and said, oh fools
and slow of heart to believe all that the scriptures were
written of me. And then he tells them this after
he met with them the second time. And he said unto them, these
are the words which I spake unto you while I was yet with you
that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law
of Moses and in the prophets and in the Psalms concerning
me. The book we're reading this morning
is a hymn book, H-I-M. This book is the testimony of
God concerning his son. Every detail set forth by the
Holy Ghost through his prophets and in the law must be fulfilled. Isaiah said, there shall be a
voice of one crying in the wilderness. Well, is there gonna be a voice?
You better believe it. John has to come. He's that voice. That's what he told them. He
said, I'm not the Christ. He said, I'm just a voice, one
crying in the wilderness. In Malachi, it says his messenger
shall precede him. Well, will he? Absolutely. He has to, that the scriptures
might be fulfilled. If there be no messenger sent,
then there could be no Messiah coming. And the first thing I
want you to take note of is the first word. I want you to look
back to verse five of our text back in Luke. And I want you
to notice the first word that he, the Holy Ghost will have Luke
to capitalize the word there. Not the first letter of it, as
the word that's beginning a sentence, but every letter of that word
is capitalized. You see it? See it there in the
scriptures? He intends us to know that in this particular
time and this particular place and by this particular man, the
scriptures are being fulfilled. I want to tell you something.
Every event, every breath you take, everything that goes on
in this world is exactly in every detail according to the providence
of God. There's not a gnat that buzzes
or a fly or a bee that stings or anything. He worketh all things after the
counsel of his own will. I guess we'd drive ourself crazy
if we just sat home and started thinking about it. But every
so often, the Lord just pinches a little piece of time out and
he shows us the details of it. He's gonna show us the details
of his providence. And that's what he's doing here.
He just capitalizes this word there. There, right in this spot,
right here. Take note. Take note. I'm going
to show you something. The prophecies of Malachi are
being fulfilled. It's during the reign of Herod
the Great, appointed as king, I suppose you could
say, or ruler over Judea, Herod the Great. And under, or during
his reign, this particular man, during his reign, there was a
priest named Zacharias. It says in our text, a certain
man. This wasn't just any man, it
was a certain man. This was a man chosen of God
before the foundation of the world. And his course, his law
in life is to do this very thing. He's gonna be the father of John
the Baptist. And I want you to see how the
Lord singles out the events of His providence as they relate
to certain things. All of His providence is arranged
and brought to pass accordingly, but in special cases, He stops
and points it out to us. Zacharias, it says, was of the
course of Abiah. Does anybody in here know what
that means? I've read that a hundred times
and never even thought about it. Well, Zacharias was of the
Levitical priesthood. His wife was of the Daughters
of Avery. Back in 1 Chronicles 24.1, he
tells us something about the divisions of the Levitical priesthood. That is, they were divided under
certain tasks. And he selected 24 men. 24 men. Now, Nadab, Abihu, and
Eleazar and Ithamar were the priests of that time. And God
killed Nadab and Abihu for doing what was unlawful inside the
temple. So David appointed in their place
an extra son from each of the other sons. Zadok of the tribe
of Eleazar and Ahimelech of Ithamar. These four men. And so among
the sons of Eleazar, 16 men in all were chosen, and eight from
Ithamar. That's 24. 24. There were 24 in all and thus
was ordained of them in their service to come into the house
of the Lord according to their manner. And these 24 divisions
were called courses. This was their courses. Now there
was many men under them appointed. Each one of these 24 had men
under him. There was many priests. But they
had their certain divisions, certain things that they, some
of them bore the Ark of the Covenant, some of them did this, some of
them did that. Some of them took care of the showbread, and some
of them took care of this and took care of that. But these
were called courses, and the eighth course was Abijah. You know how they say Abijah
in the Greek? Abiah. So this is what he's telling
you. This priest, this certain man,
this Zacharias, he was of the course of Abijah in lineage. And his job was to do what was
appointed to them to do, which was to burn incense. Are you
with me so far? I'm trying to show you some details
here because this is exactly what God's doing. concerning
John the Baptist. He's going to tell us about Zacharias.
He's going to tell you about what happened in the past, what
happened in the present, and what's going to happen in the
future. There were various men of all
these courses, and to each something called a lot. And as your lot
come up, you went and you did whatever the course was responsible
to do. So Zacharias was of the course
of Abbaia, verse 9, and his lot came up. And his lot, when it
came up, caused him to go burn incense within the temple of
the Lord. He wasn't a high priest, he was
just a common priest, verse 8, executing the priest's office
before God. In the tabernacle, I know some
of you were here when we did our study of the tabernacle,
but when you walked into the front door of the tabernacle,
there was a room and a heavy veil hanging in the back of the
room, and on the left was the table of showbread. That bread was put on there every
day, and then on the right-hand side of that room It was much
smaller than our auditorium, but if you can just vision me
standing here, and there's that table sitting over there, and
over here was the candlestick. This was the only light inside
the tabernacle, the candlestick. And then right up against that
veil, before you went to the other side of the veil, was this
golden altar of incense. And they burnt incense on this
altar. And that incense was a picture
of the intercessory prayers of Christ, who intercedes for us
and has been interceding for us before the foundation of the
world. He's in heaven now, seated at
the right hand of God, making intercession for us. That's what
scripture says. He's still making intercession
for us. And so this is what this represents.
And so Zacharias is in there, and he's burning this incense
upon the altar. And suddenly, he looks over on
the right-hand side of that altar, and there's an angel standing
there. He's in the form of a man. He
saw him as a man. And this angel tells him his
wife's going to have a child. Well, it never gives us the age. We know Abraham was over 100
years old when the Lord fulfilled that same promise between him
and his wife. And this man was probably getting
up close to that. But he tells him that his wife's
going to bring forth a son, and this son is going to be special.
This boy's going to be special. He's not going to be like any
other boy that you've ever met. And he said, you're going to
have joy in him. You're not going to be sad. I
have three children. I have some who make me sad,
and I have some who make me happy. He said, you're going to have
joy in this one. You're going to have joy in this one, and
gladness, and many are going to rejoice at his birth. And
from what the scriptures say, it seems to me that John the
Baptist was dedicated as a Nazirite because he wasn't to drink any
wine or any strong drink and be filled with the Holy Ghost
from his mother's womb. And this man, your son John,
shall go before him, that is before the Christ, in the spirit
and the power of Elijah. Now John's called many things
in the scriptures, but what I want you to see here is that John
was a prophet. We always want to say, well Malachi
was the last prophet of the Old Testament. Maybe that's so, but
I think John the Baptist was the last prophet and the first
prophet of the New Testament. He's a prophet. Our Lord said
in Matthew 11, nine, what'd you go out for to see? When you went
out there to the wilderness and groves, what'd you go out there
to see? They come back talking about
it. Man, he's strange. He's wearing camel hairs. He
don't look like no preacher. He ain't got no robe on. He's
a strange looking guy. What'd you go out there for to
see, a prophet? This is our Lord talking. He
said, yea, and I say unto you, more than a prophet. For this
is he of whom it is written, behold, I send my messenger before
thy face, which shall prepare the way before thee. And verily
I say unto you, among them that are born of women, there hath
not risen a greater than John the Baptist. Now that takes in
some pretty That takes in Moses. That takes in Abraham. That takes in Isaiah, Jeremiah,
Moses, my soul. Not a greater has risen than
John the Baptist. And then the Lord tells us this
in Luke 1 6. And both Zechariah and Elizabeth,
They were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments
and ordinances of the Lord blameless. Now I'm gonna tell you something
here. This is where natural men get all twisted with scriptures
like this. And the Lord puts them in there
on purpose. They're called djinns and snares. And they get all
sideways about these things. Foolish men use scriptures like
this to say that we can obtain a righteousness by our obedience
to the law. But I'm gonna tell you something
about that law. And he tells you this in Romans
3, 24 and 25, he's talking about Old Testament saints in those
two scriptures. How do I know that? Because in
the next verse he says, and now. That was then and now. And here's what he says. God
sent forth his son as a propitiation for our sins through faith in
his blood to declare his righteousness in our salvation. Now that's
what they saw in the law. That's what the law represented.
That's what these ceremonies were setting forth. That lamb
that was slain and put on that altar was to be looked at just
as you would look for the coming Redeemer. This is setting forth
the coming Redeemer in His character and His appointments. He's the substitute. He's the lamb. And when John
the Baptist identified the Lord, what did he say? Behold the lamb. The Lamb of God, oh my soul. This is why they were righteous
before God. You see, the man who trusts in
the righteousness of Christ, he's righteous before God. The
man who tries to produce a righteousness is unrighteous before God. That
man who's over there trying to keep the law, he's trying to
keep the Sabbath, he's trying to tithe, he's trying to dedicate,
he's rededicating, he's doing this and he's doing that, and
he's trying, listen to what Paul said. I pray, he said my, the
Holy Ghost will bear witness to this. He said I could wish
myself a curse for my kinsmen according to the flesh. He wanted
them to be saved. That was his prayer to God, was
for them to be saved. He said, I bear witness they
have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge, for they being
ignorant of the righteousness of God, and going about to establish
their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto
the righteousness of God. These two were righteous before
God by faith. Just like Abraham believed God
and it was counted to him for righteousness, Paul said it wasn't
written for Abraham's sake alone that he said that, but for us
also. So when it says that they were
blameless, they were righteous before God and blameless concerning
all of the commandments and all of the ordinances of the law. It's the only way you can keep
the law is in Christ. Faith in him, faith in him. He
alone honored the law and exalted it, satisfied God's justice. Old Testament faith is the same
as New Testament faith. It looked to the ceremonial law
as a figure, Paul said, for the time then present. It was God's means for that day
for God to set forth his son as a propitiation for our sins. Now, I don't know if you recall,
but I read to you this passage out of Nehemiah when we were
doing the study of the minor prophets. But it says that they
read the book of the law to them distinctly and gave the sense
of it. That's in Nehemiah 8. They gave
the sense of it, and he calls them to understand the reading. Now that's what they did. That's
what these priest duties were in their day, is to take these
things of God and tell them what they meant. Same as I do up here
every Sunday morning. Same thing. There is no righteousness
but of Christ, but Christ had not appeared yet, And so the
ceremonies continued, and they were carefully attended to, knowing
why they were given. Now John the Baptist is the beginning
of the gospel, as he was the fulfillment of scriptures and
marked the coming of the Christ. He was the forerunner of Christ.
He was sent to prepare the way of the Lord. What's that mean? That means In short, salvation
by grace. This man is gonna accomplish
everything that God demands from the sinner, this man is going
to accomplish. He gonna make that straight.
All this law business, legalism, ceremonialism, all this kind
of stuff, it's a soap bubble. It's lies. The truth of it is,
is Christ is our salvation. Thou shalt call his name Jesus,
for he shall save his people from their sins. He was sent to prepare the way
of the Messiah. And in this sense, he's a picture
of every New Testament preacher of the gospel. When our Lord
sent out the 70 two by two before his face, he sent them into every
city and place whether he himself would go. They were preparing
those people for the coming of the Lord. And what do preachers
do? Constantly. Every time we stand
up to speak, what are we doing? We're preparing you for the coming
of the Lord. That's exactly what we're doing.
We're telling you who He is, why He came, what He did, where
He's at. Is He coming back? He says He
is. You going to be looking for him?
If you understand, you will. But those who don't understand,
they're just going to be going about their business. Marrying
and giving in marriage, doing this, doing that, doing something
else. Without some knowledge of the gospel, Christ is left
to the imaginations of men to think whatever they want to think. John came to make people know
who he is. Same as we do. He preached where
Jesus himself would also come. And in that sense, he's the forerunner
of Christ. And then he is the herald of
the king. Behold the Lamb of God that cometh
to take away the sin of the world. And this was his witness to men.
And it's my prayer that the Lord will make this our witness as
well. be our witness as well. Prepare. That's what gum's doing. Preparing
the way. Preparing the way. All right.
Thank you.