Luke 1:1-4

Gospel of Luke chapter 1, I want to read the first four verses for our text and study this morning. For as much as many have taken in hand to set forth and 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 to write unto thee in order most excellent theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty of those things wherein thou hast been instructed. May God bless to us His sacred and holy. Holy word this morning. When Queen Elizabeth came to the throne, she had requests for pardons of various individuals. At one point, some attendance at the royal court approached her with a petition. Madam, we have four prisoners who deserve not to be locked up, and we humbly request and beg for their release. The queen demanded, well, who are they? and she was told their names are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Your Majesty. They’ve been kept shut up in the Greek language, whereas they should be abroad among the people. The queen commanded that they should be released. It might do service in the English tongue. Ignorance of Scripture is certainly a major problem. Ignorance of the Gospel of Christ. is acute. Our problem today, of course, is not the translation of the four Gospels into English, but rather just plain ignorance of the Gospels and what they contain. It is sad when you witness to people, and perhaps you’ve had this happen, and they’ve never read one of the Gospels for themselves. And they’re totally ignorant of what is taught in them. It’s also a disturbing fact that many professing Christians are not very knowledgeable about the Gospels either. I thought it might be spiritually beneficial for us as a church then to study one of the Gospels, and I selected here the Gospel of Luke for our study. It’s always profitable to study the life. of Christ. And Scripture puts great emphasis on the Gospels because it gives us four Gospels. Now, this of necessity, of course, is going to be a long series of sermons. But we will attempt to cover the book in more larger sections than we have in some of the epistles. At the same time, though, I think it’s useful for us to consider the book and to ponder its teaching. Now let me begin by saying this. You have been provided with the gospel according to Luke. This is in the preface here of the book. What is the gospel? What are we talking about? The gospel means the good news or the glad tidings. And, of course, the particular glad tidings relate to Jesus Christ, his coming and his ministry. what he accomplished on the cross and his resurrection and so forth. All that is the good news. And what you find in this particular gospel is a narrative concerning the forerunner of Christ, John the Baptist, and then the historical count of the birth, the early life, the ministry of the Savior. We’re told about his actions, his doctrines, his doctrines, his miracles, his sufferings, his death, his resurrection is essential. even his reign. Now, this gospel contains many precious things that the other gospels don’t have in them. For example, the account of Zacharias and Elizabeth, the parents of John the Baptist, is recorded here in Luke, where we don’t have it in the other gospels. The angel’s announcement to Mary regarding the miraculous conception of Christ is provided here for us alone. You don’t have the parable. the publican and the Pharisee in the other gospels, you don’t have the parable of the prodigal son or the rich man to Lazarus anywhere else. Christ walked to Amas after his resurrection with the two disciples. We don’t have that in any of the other gospels, but we have it here in Luke’s gospel. Think about some of the conversions of this gospel. Zechius, the tax collector, the repentant. And thief on the cross is given to us here in this gospel, the one that was crucified with Christ. So here are the things that make this gospel stand out. It is a gospel about the Lord Jesus Christ. And then we have the man Luke as the author here of the book. Now the information about the man Luke is rather limited, and there’s been a lot of conjecture about him. We do not know for certain whether he was a Jew. We don’t know if he was a Gentile. We just don’t know. We don’t know where he was born. We don’t know exactly when he wrote his gospel. We don’t know when he was converted. It would be a waste of time to speculate about things that God and his wisdom decided not to tell us. We read nothing of him until he is mentioned among the companions of the Apostle Paul. From the 16th. The 16th chapter to the end of the book of Acts, Luke repeatedly uses the pronoun we, indicating his presence alongside Paul all this time. He was a companion of Paul on several of his missionary journeys and in his voyage to Rome. Now, we studied in the book of Colossians chapter 4 that Luke was called a physician, the beloved physician. And so we see that he was a doctor by trade, originally. This gospel in the book of Acts are certainly universally accepted or acknowledged to have been written by Luke. He was a holy man, as all the writers of scripture are. Holy men wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghosts, both in the old and the new. He was beloved by his fellow believers. He was an educated man, and he uses a more complex form of Greek construction in his wording. If you study Greek, you don’t start with Luke. You start with John the fisherman and his Greek, because it’s simpler. All of it is inspired, but Luke was a more educated man. He uses more complex phrasing and so forth. So you’ve been provided with the gospel according to Luke. Now, let me say this. You have a divine given gospel. Passing on a history of Christ by oral tradition is inadequate. Luke informs you that his purpose is to write unto you. He writes this down. He pens it. He pens a gospel revealing those things which are most surely believed about Jesus Christ. God, in order to preserve a knowledge of the truth and to propagate that truth, committed to writing the account of Jesus Christ. The problem with merely passing on by on by the account of Jesus Christ, oral tradition, a history of Jesus Christ, is that the further you get down the road, as you use oral tradition, and the original eyewitnesses are no longer around, the more likely things would get corrupted. With written revelation, there’s less likelihood of something getting lost, distorted, perverted, forgotten, augmented, augmented, augmented. I want you to look with me at 2 Peter, if you would, Chapter 1, verses 16 through 21. Peter makes an interesting statement here about written revelation and what we might call oral information being transmitted. In 2 Peter, Chapter 1, and beginning with verse 16, Peter says, for we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His Majesty, for to receive from God the Father, honor and glory, when therefore, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory. This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we have heard when we were with him in the Holy Mount. We have also a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto you do well that you take heed as unto light that shith in a dark place, until the day dawn and the day star arise in your hearts. Knowing this first that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation, but the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God speak as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Notice how Peter teaches that the written word of God is more sure than a voice from heaven. It’s not that the audible voice of God on the Mount of Transfiguration is lesser revelation than the written word of God. The problem is it was temporary. It was not durable. Once Peter, James, and John died, who heard the voice, such a revelation would fade away unless it was written down for posterity. And we have something written down here about it when he says, you know, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased, and the Gospels record at least some of the information a little bit about what took place. But he indicates to us the superiority of the written word of God, because it provides certainty, provides stability. And this is why Luke writes out the gospel here, that you may know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed. Solomon says something very similar in Proverbs 22, verses 20 and 21. Have I not written to thee excellent things that I might make you know the certainty of the words of truth. Now you will notice today that the Roman Catholic Church puts a great amount of emphasis on oral tradition, places it on equal footing with the Word of God, something that is certainly not what Peter would do, as we read here in 2nd Peter. It’s absurd to think that this would be on the same level. It is affirmed by some, for example, and here’s one of the absurd things. We’re told here that Luke was a painter. Did you know that? And so far, if it was this idea carried, that we’re told he actually painted pictures of the Virgin Mary. And in certain places, in this world, there are pictures of Mary hanging, and you’re told that they came by Luke’s hand, or at least copies of Luke’s original. This is the danger of relying on oral tradition. We’re passing on a history here of Jesus Christ by oral tradition. would not be adequate. That’s not going to work. Notice here also that humanly devised histories of Christ are inadequate. He tells us in verse 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. Luke explains why he writes this gospel. now when you think about the fact that perhaps he would have been dissuaded. Because we read here that many have attempted a history of the Savior already. You would think to compose another history of the Savior, which so many have already set their hand to and wrote out, would be unnecessary. There is no doubt here that these men who wrote this out were probably Christian men, well-intentioned. We don’t say, read to hear anything about them. doing anything underhanded. I’m sure that they were faithfully attempting to give a true effort in their endeavor. There’s no accusation against them about carelessness or sinister and motivation. As far as we know, they were honest men attempting to record something here about the life of Christ. However, God moving Luke to write this gospel led to the rejection and a obscurity of these humanly devised efforts. They are in the waist bin of history. We don’t have them, do we? The problem with humanly devised history is the constant difficulty of selecting one’s material. What do you put in it? I remind you what John said at the end of his gospel. He said there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. John 21, 25. A historian has limited knowledge, and from that even limited knowledge, he has to select the materials that he’s going to put into the history. What he thinks is important. But how do you really know what is important? It’s rather subjective, isn’t it? Historians often focus on different things as important. and it changes your whole view of the matter. Suppose all you knew was that Jesus came from Nazareth. And in your history of Jesus, that’s what you put down. He wrote that down. He came from Nazars. Which is a true statement. But if that is all that you revealed, then you would not have recorded his birth at Bethlehem and the fulfillment of the prophecy in Micah 5, too, about him being born in Bethlehem. And you could see the confusion that could arise from that. That would be a serious defect in your history. Suppose your knowledge of the Lord was too limited. Suppose you were like Apollus, who knew about Christ. He knew something of the gospel, but he only knew it with regard to the elementary things from John the Baptist ministry. and remember how Aquila and Priscilla had to take him aside and expound him more clearly, more fully, more perfectly, the things concerning Christ. So your history would be incomplete if you didn’t have that knowledge. You could accurately record the facts about Christ’s life and yet not understand the meaning of those facts. And your history would be defective. Suppose you record what you record. what Jesus said while visiting the temple. I remember Jesus saying, destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. John 219. But if you couldn’t add that sentence afterwards, which tells you the meaning of that, you may be confused. You may think just like the disciples and just like the scribes and Pharisees and Jewish religious leaders, he’s talking about his physical temple, Herod’s temple. But he spake of the temple of his body. Wouldn’t that be a defect? thing about your gospel? One final thought is this. A humanly written history of Christ cannot provide the secret thoughts of the heart. You’ll find it interesting as you go through the book of Luke here. That when you get to chapter 5, for example, let’s just look at this real quick. Versus 21 and 22. That Luke records for us what people are thinking. Secret thoughts of men are revealed here. We read in chapter 5 verses 21 and 22, and the scribes and the Pharisees being in reason saying, who is this which speaketh blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone? But when Jesus perceived their thoughts, he answering said unto them, why reason ye in your hearts? Could a historian tell you this? Could a historian tell you what people? are thinking in their heart? No. And thus we need a divinely given history. We can look at many cases of this throughout the gospel. The truth is the historian can only guess many times as why a person acted a certain way or did a certain thing. But consider this, man’s goings are of the Lord. How can a man understand his way? Proverbs 2024. If the person himself doesn’t understand always why he does something, how can a historian years later understand why he did it? For all these reasons, you can never rely on humanly devised histories. They’re always defective in some ways. They’re inadequate and misleading. So humanly devised histories of Christ are inadequate. What we need and what Luke provides here for us, as he tells us, verses 2 through 4 is a divinely inspired history of Christ. That’s what’s necessary. You do not have a gospel based upon cunningly devised fables. We have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2. Peter 116, we read that. What I’m telling you, you about Christ is not fable-based. It’s inspired. There are many foolish, Jewish fables that Paul says don’t get mixed up in this. Cautions against it in Titus 114. These were based upon tradition and oral law and so forth. Talmud and other writings. The Gentiles had many fables connected with their gods on Mount Olympus and so forth. Remember in the book of Acts the goddess Diana supposedly fell down from heaven and that whole history there. Mormonism is based upon a fable. Concocted by Joseph Smith. On September 21, 1823, Joseph Smith claimed that the angel Maroni appeared to him and gave him several visions. And Moroni told Smith of golden plates that were buried in a hillside on which were engraved stories of an ancient civilization in the United States. Supposedly the resurrected Christ visited this ancient civilization. Smith was provided with some special spectacles so they could read the golden plates. These golden plates that Smith took from their hiding place near Manchester, New York, he translated and supposedly came up with the book of Mormons. Soon he founded the church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints whose members are known as Mormons. It seems, however, that the book of Mormons was actually based upon a silly fictional novel written by Reverend Solomon Spalding that went unpublished. And somehow or other Smith got access to it. Now think about this. Joseph Smith was not the kind of person you want to put your trust in. Here’s some of his comments. The inhabitants of the moon are more of a uniform size than the inhabitants of the earth, being about six feet in height. They dress very much like the Quaker style and live to be very old coming generally near a thousand years. There you go. You don’t want to base your faith on stuff like this? You don’t have a gospel based on coming and devised faith, but you have a gospel which is supported by credit, eyewitnesses, he tells us here. In verse 2. He indicates to us that even as they delivered them unto us from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word. The word many in verse 1 are not identified. But he doesn’t appear to be referring to Matthew and Mark here, or even John, the inspired writers. Matthew didn’t take in hand, nor did Luke, nor did Mark, nor did John. They were divinely inspired. They didn’t take it upon themselves to do something, but God moved them by his spirit to write. So when Luke speaks here of those apostles and associates in verse 2, he declares them to be eyewitnesses and ministers of the word. They told others what they had seen with their own eyes and heard with their own eyes, and heard with their their own. ears. They were servants of the word of the gospel and brought the good news of the Savior to a sinful world. Luke brought, was brought into close association with these men. We know that he was a companion of Paul and prepared him for writing this gospel, so that he has, as he said in verse 3, perfect understanding of all things from the beginning. From this, you learn that the gospel is based upon facts here. Not speculation. It’s a narrative of the facts concerning Jesus Christ. And it’s our duty to tell people about the great, plain facts concerning Jesus Christ. His virgin birth, his ministry, his healings, his miracles, his sacrificial death, his resurrection, his essential, his present reign. So your message is based upon a solid foundation, eyewitnesses, from a human perspective. Now, during the 19th century, William Ramsey, a young English scholar, went to Asia Minor, what we call Turkey today. His purpose was to prove that the history given by Luke in his gospel and of the book of Acts was in inaccurate. His professors had confidently declared that Luke could not possibly be right. So Ramsey began to dig in ancient ruins of ancient minor in Greece, and he tested for ancient terms, boundaries, and other items which would be a dead giveaway if Luke had been inventing his history and came up with it at a later date, as some clanged. To his amazement, Ramsey found the scriptures were accurate down to the tiniest detail. So convincing was the evidence that Ramsey became interested in the Christian faith. And eventually, it was converted, became a biblical scholar of the history of the New Testament. So you have a gospel which is supported by credible eyewitnesses here. You have a gospel which is divinely inspired. He had perfect understanding. of all things from the beginning. Now, friends, it would be a waste of time for me to speculate on where Luke got his information to he provides in the gospel. We don’t have good reason to think he was an eyewitness of all things about Jesus Christ in his ministry and so forth. It’s possible that he heard firsthand accounts concerning the life of Christ from the apostles and from those of the early church. But all of it is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter. It is enough for you to know that Luke wrote by divine inspiration whether you heard a word from anybody else or not. The essential fact is that Luke Luke was unerringly guided in his writing by the Holy Spirit. As the Holy Spirit directed him as the subject matter with regard to the subject mattered, what to include. You know, as he talks about an orderly arrangement here. How did he know what to put in it? The Holy Spirit guided him. How do you know what to write? The Holy Spirit put it in order for it. Write this first. Include this, so forth. The information, the secrets of men’s hearts, all the way down to the exact word that was chosen and was all given by the Holy Spirit. The result is that what Luke wrote is not to be read as the word of man. Some historian would write a book. It’s the word of God. It’s God writing through Luke to us. Let it be noted that the Greek here translated from the very first can be translated from above. And that puts this in another category altogether, as we can see if this is the case when he says here, from the very first. It seemed good to me in verse 3, also having perfect understanding of all things from above to write under the in order most excellent the office. If we translate it that way, then we have very direct information about the inspiration that Luke has for his gospel. It’s rendered from above, and John 331, John 1911, James 117, James 315, and 17, that very word. So it can be taken as a direct, a declaration, if you would, of the inspired nature of his gospel. Luke’s gospel is divinely inspired. It’s been recognized as such by the church down through the centuries. My friends, you and I should, as I make this observation, you should hold fast the essential doctrine of the inspiration of scripture. You have to believe in the full verbal inspiration of the Word of God. Never allow that any writer of scripture in the Old Testament of the New Testament could even be in the slightest air as he was moved by the Holy Ghost. You know, if you have a compass, it always points to the north. It’s always a sure guide because it always points north, and you know what the other directions of the compass are then. You know how to use it, because it’s an unerring guide. If a compass veered to other points, if sometimes it pointed south, sometimes it pointed east or west, what good would it be? You wouldn’t know if it was accurate this time or not. If your Bible is always right, it will always correctly lead you. You can always count on it. You can put all the weight of your faith in it. But if it is a bunch of confused things where there’s all kinds of error here and there, we have to somehow figure out what’s in error, what is it, how can we ever know the truth? Let it be a settled principle then with you. As you read the scriptures, believe everything it says, without exception. You may not understand a passage. You may not even be able to reconcile one passage with another. Don’t conclude that the scripture is wrong. Conclude that the fault is on your side that you don’t have proper understanding. Keep studying. Keep praying. Ask for guidance. Enlightenment. Scripture, inspired of God, must be the foundation of your faith. Anything else is shifting sand. Can you… We can’t base it on humanly devised histories. We have to rely on what God gives us in his word. His is the only one that is going to give us the truth without any mixture of error. My third point and last quickly is this. You have a gospel which is suitable for all people. Now you’ll notice that he writes this gospel, he tells us, to the most excellent Theophilus. His name is mentioned in verse 3 and verse 4. The gospel is addressed to this man theophilus of which we know nothing. His name means lover of God, which would certainly be appropriate to anybody who was a Christian, we would be a lover of God. He is called most excellent, which is an honorary title usually bestowed upon those of royalty or government officials of some sort. It’s used of Felix. and Festus in the Book of Acts. This demonstrates, of course, that the Christian faith is not merely for the gullible masses, but even for the highly educated, the intellectual people as well. God may not call many mighty or many noble the salvation in Christ, but he calls some, and that must not be forgotten. When Christ called Paul to be his servant to carry the gospel to the Gentiles. He included kings. To bear my name before kings, Acts 915. Didn’t he preached the Agrippa? Didn’t he preach to Caesar? The Apostle John was told in the book of Revelation, thou must prophesy again before many peoples and nations and tongues and tongues and kings. So you must not begin to think that your prayers for salvation should only be for the citizens. of your nation, and not perhaps the political leaders. God would have all men, all sorts of men to be saved, and he tells us in 1. Peter chapter 2 what that means kings and all that are in authority. If you read the dedication page of the works of the Puritans, you’ll find a lot of them are addressed to royalty, noblemen, political leaders, and so forth. John Calvin’s harmony of Matthew Mark and Luke and Luke, excuse me, is dedicated to the very noble and illustrious lords, the burgo masters, and council of the noble city of Frankfurt. Remember the intention of God our Savior is that all men, without distinction of rank, race, or nationality, be saved. And so here we have an idea that even those in a perhaps a political, royal situation, have a gospel written to them, specifically here in Theophilus being given this gospel. Let me close. Queen Elizabeth was petitioned to set free four prisoners, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, that they should be not shut up in the Greek language, but should be spread abroad among the people in English. One of the great dangers facing our generation, I think, is the of gospel facts concerning the person and the work of Jesus Christ. Luke’s purpose in writing his gospel is to provide a faithful, orderly account of the history of Jesus Christ, the Savior, and it would be good and wise for us to consider it, and see what God has for us here. Let us close with a word.