Luke 1:5-7

The Gospel of Luke, chapter 1, reading verses 5 through 7 for our text and study this morning. There was, in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abaya, 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 Elizabeth was barren, and they both were now well stricken in years. My God blessed to us, His sacred. and holy word this morning. There was a little shepherd girl in the lower Alps of Switzerland, who was tending her flock one bright and glorious unclouded day, when all of a sudden gradually the light darkened and the sun became a black orb in the sky. mysterious gloom pervaded the whole region. It was a solar eclipse. Having never seen a solar eclipse, she was beside herself, all upset and crying because the sun was gone. But her parents assured her that it wouldn’t be long before the sun would come back out again, and sure enough, the sun did. And brightness. once again of the sun shone upon the earth. The scripture tells us that God’s face shines upon his people. However, there are days when a dark providence clouds the sky. It blocks God’s face shining upon his people. It seems like a solar eclipse spiritually. Darkness pervades everything. And the people of God sometimes become alarmed, and they become terrified by the situation. Thankfully, such an eclipse doesn’t last very long. And soon God’s favorable and bright providence is once again shining upon you. This is what Luke 1 reveals to us that the people, of God here are given light in the midst of great darkness. Having considered the preface of Luke in our past study, which indicated to us that this is a divinely given gospel, there are others who attempted to write a humanly devised history, but that has all faded and gone to the dustbins of history, for this is the inspiring. history that has been given us of Christ, backed up by credible eyewitnesses as he tells us in this section of Scripture. And now we begin the history that’s related to Jesus Christ. First Luke will relate to us the events that have a focus upon the forerunner of Christ, which is John the Baptist. Here we see his parents and eventually in this chapter we’ll read about his birth. But let me begin as we look at the preface here for this section that you should realize that God is capable of working great things in dark times. We read here in verse 5, there was in the days of Herod the king of Judea. And let me stop. The word Herod here brings to mind a rather ruthless political figure in Israel at this time. Now, this is not Herod the Tetriarch that’s spoken of in Chapter 3. He is the one that eventually will behead John the Baptist. This is his father. This is Herod the Great, who slaughtered all the infants. Remember, as Matthew 2 tells us, at around the great. Bethlehem attempting to kill Jesus Christ. This is that Herod that we’re talking about here. He was notorious for his crafty ambitiousness, ambition, his uncontrollable passions, and his inhuman cruelties. He used the Roman government power that he had to crush all those who opposed him and he made his way to be the king of Judean. He slaughtered many of the Jewish Sanhedron, weakened that body, which was once the powerful governing body, who had the power of life and death over the Jews. And now they’re just a shell of what they once were. And we see that he is the one who has taken over. He really, ruled with an iron hand, and the people of God were being governed at this point by a very unsympathetic person, Herod de Great. We see also, in this text of Scripture, the collapse of the royal house of David, because we read about Herod as the king of Judea. Where’s the line of David? What happened to it? The second. had departed from Judea. There was no longer a lawgiver from the line of David. The royal dignity once enjoyed by the house of David has vanished. A foreign king rules over the people of God. Genesis 49-10 promised the coming of Shiloh, the Messiah. And to him, the gathering of the people would be. He would be the true. true king of his people. But God had promised two seemingly opposite things. He promised in Psalm 89 that the throne of David would be forever. But he also promised in Amos Chapter 9 of the collapse of the house of David and its rise from ruin. Will both have to be fulfilled. And here we see David’s house in ruin. And yet, we’ll see there is going to be the king, the true seed of David, raised up to rule over the nation. But at this point, we see no descendant on the throne, but we see King Herod. Now, in this chapter, as we see in chapter 1, beginning with verse 30, and let me read through verse 33. Here’s what’s coming. And the angel sent unto her, Mary, fear not Mary, for thou hast found favor with God, and behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth a son and shall call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be the son of the highest, and the Lord God, shall give unto him the throne of his father, David. And he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom. There shall be no end. Here is the light in the midst of all this darkness, that the true king is coming to sit upon the throne and rule. There are two great announcements in this chapter that we’ll be considering. The announcement concerning John the Baptist, who is going to herald the coming of Jesus Christ, the voice of one in the wilderness, crying, make way, make straight the way of the Lord. And, two, the announcement concerning Jesus Christ, the true king of Israel and savior of his people, we read about his birth, is coming into the world here. Here is the light that’s going to come in the midst of all the darkness. It looks pretty bleak at this point. But in the midst of all this, God is going to make two great announcements here. Two great things he’s going to bring about. And we’ll see that here in chapter 1. So we see the collapse of the Royal House of David. Now, let me mention a couple of practical observations that we consider this text. And the first is this. You must never despair that all is lost during dark days. It’s easy to panic in dark days. And you might look around you and say, the demise of the kingdom of God is at hand. That faith is somehow going to disappear from the face of the earth. That God’s promises somehow, rather, are not going to be fulfilled, or you don’t see how that’s possible. Cruel. and ruthless men may rise up and use their power to try to destroy the visible church. My friends, I look at our own country. When the state of California thinks it’s wise to try to ban Bibles, I think we’re beginning to reach a point where we’re in serious trouble. When the Bible was looked upon as hate speech and its teaching is hate speech, there’s a trend by government you’ll notice to remove from the people of the United States God’s Word. You look at all the monuments of the Ten Commandments that used to be out in front of the courthouses that they remove. What if the Bible becomes a forbidden book? What if the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ is such that it’s considered hate speech and ministers are placed in prison because of it? We see other lands where anyone who professes to be a Christian, you know, you can have their house confiscated, be they’re thrown in jail, the churches are burnt down and destroyed, people are put to death in other lands. My friends, in trying times, remember that still God reigns over all the earth. His purpose is going forward, he’s going to accomplish his purpose on the earth. He’s still moving in the hearts of kings to accomplish his ends. we should never be in the depths of despair. Solar eclipses happen. There are times when things look bleak, but God’s favorable countenance is never fully lost. For his anger endureth but for a moment, in his favorous life, weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning, the psalmist tells us. There’s some dark times, but there is. is joy coming. Have you ever stopped and examined weeds? You know, weeds serve as a reminder of God’s judgment, the curse of the fall, and so forth. But if you look closely, even in weeds that are a nuisance, you find a glimpse of mercy even in that judgment. For some weeds have glorious. flowers, tiny blue bells, ruffled purple blooms, even some magnificent displays of gold. The lesson is in the wrath of judgment, God always remembers mercy. In the worst of days, there’s no reason to despair. We should realize that God is still on the throne, still accomplishing his purposes. And that’s what we begin to see as we look at this chapter. Notice something else here. You should expect God to work during dark days. Often, you look at scripture. Things are really bad. Look at the judges, for example. Things get really bad. And then God raises up a judge. Things change. God changes everything. In the darkest moments, all of a sudden, God works works and things improve. God intervenes. Sometimes in the most bleak times and does something wonderful. We see it here in chapter one. It’s bad. There’s not a descendant of David in sight, it seems. It can be placed on the throne. And yet, God’s, here’s one of the glorious things. The Savior is coming. But it’s a dark time beforehand. It’s not like all the people are following the Lord and everything’s wonderful and we’re all waiting for Christ. The Messiah to come, everything looks bleak. Everything looks bad. And this is when God sends his son. Here in our text, the long-awaiting coming of the Messiah is at hand. Just when you think that God’s promise to the throne of David and the house of David has failed. God often does things this way. He does it to display his power and his glory. For no one can bring out of the door. circumstances, such glorious results as the Lord God. Humanly speaking, it seems like a son of David will never reign again, but he will. You remember Elijah’s encounter on Mount Carmel with the prophets of Bail? And remember what he said, the real God will answer by fire. And the prophets of Bail were over there with their sacrifice, and Elijah’s all alone with his sacrifice on one side. He lets them go first. And they try all day and they’re not doing so good. Nothing happens. No fire from heaven. What does Jonah do with that sacrifice before the fire of God falls upon it? Do you remember? Has them bring a large vessel. Servants are bringing these large vessels of water and pouring them on top of the sacrifice. Twelve Pours all this water all over top of the sacrifice. This was to show of course that there was no like hidden flame underneath there that he was going to like a blow on or something and get it to flame up and then, you know, artificially create fire. He was showing he’s going to make it as impossible as it can possibly be. He’s going to make it as bad as possible. Pour all that water. Drench the wood. Drench the wood. Drench every to sacrifice. you know, fill that ditch around the bottom with water. Now we’ll see whether God can send fire down from heaven. Let’s see if it’ll light up now. And when he calls upon God, what happens? Fire comes down, you know, burns up the sacrifice. Even drains the trench that’s filled with water. You look at that and you say, it’s impossible. How’s it possible that this could happen? He put all this water on it. God does the impossible. When all seems dark and we look at our world, we look at our nation, we look at the visible church today, and you say, boy, it doesn’t look too good. Expect God to work. Expect him to do something. And you might say to yourself, I wonder what God is going to do. Because that’s what we see in our text. And God’s telling us now what he’s going to do. So you just realize God is capable of working great things in dark days. Secondly, you should realize God always preserves a godly remnant during dark days. Now notice the second part of verse 5 through 7. I’ll start with the second part of verse 5 here. A certain priest named Zacharias of the house of Abaya and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. Here are Zacharias and Elizabeth. The father of John the Lord of Aaron. Baptist was a priest. He was with the house of Levi and Aaron. The eldest son of Aaron’s sons became the high priest. And then the rest of the sons would just be priest. In the process of time, however, the family of Aaron multiplied so much that we find in the days of David that all the priests could not constantly be employed in the tabernacle and temple. And so David, evidently under God’s guidance, divided the duties of the priesthood into 24 courses or orders, one of which was a bayon that’s mentioned here. And they took turns serving the Lord. You read about this in 1st Chronicles Chapter 24. Zacharice belonged to the eighth course. He was a man who descended from Eleazar, Aaron’s eldest son. Now the wife of Zacharias was of the daughters of Aaron too. And her name was Elizabeth. The very same name with Elishaba, the wife of Aaron, by the way, Exodus chapter 6 in verse 23. It’s the same name. It means the oath of God. She was a cousin, we’ll find here in verse 36 of this chapter of Mary. So we find that Mary is of the tribe of Judah. Somewhere along the line, a predecessor married into the line of Levite, so that these two are related. The Levites could marry outside of their tribe. A lot of times they would stay right within their tribe, but they could marry outside of their tribes as long as they marry another Israelite. There was no problem with that. And so we see that the connection here between Elizabeth and Mary, one, though, being of the tribe of Levi, their descendants and the originally here, we see that Mary came from the tribe of Judah. And so we see the connection between the two. Now, the Levites were permitted, as I said, to Mary out, but they sometimes did not, in order to maintain the dignity of the priesthood according to Josephus, the Jewish historian. Now, we see that these two men are, these two people are described here by God in verse 6. And they were both righteous, before God. Let’s stop there. You notice how this is worded. The scribes and the Pharisees, he’s put on a pretty good show of righteousness, but that was before men. These two are said to be righteous before God. Now that’s interesting. The Pharisees were only righteous before men because their hearts were not right with God, as Jesus points out. Zacharias and Elizabeth were declared to be righteous in God’s sight. Now they were not righteous. They were not justified because of their law-keeping or their good works. First Scripture clearly teaches us there is none righteous. No, not one. In Romans 3.10. When God looks down from heaven upon the children of men in God’s sight, there are none. righteous on their own. So how is it that these two are righteous before God? Well, you can only be righteous before God through the righteousness of Jesus Christ. As Romans 519 says, by the obedience of one, meaning the Lord Jesus Christ, shall many be made, constituted, ordained, set down as right. righteous. God beheld both Zacharias and Elizabeth in Christ as being clothed in righteousness, cleansed from all their sins by the blood of Jesus Christ, just as if Christ’s perfect life and sacrificial death had already taken place. In the eyes of his justice, and according to his law, God declared them to be righteous. Their sin was, was not imputed to them. It was just like Abraham beforehand. David before them too. They were both declared righteous, justified by faith in the Savior to come. This is what everybody needs. The righteousness of God, which comes by faith of Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all those who believe. It’s not righteousness before. men that you need. It’s righteousness before God that you need. He is the judge. He is the one that counts. So you must not go about to establish your own righteousness, but submit yourselves under the righteousness of God which is freely given to us through the Savior the Lord Jesus Christ. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. We don’t go to the law and say, say, hey, if I keep this, I’m going to be righteous. For who can keep the law perfectly? We come to Christ by faith who kept the law perfectly. And his righteousness is given to us so that we can be righteous before God. That’s the only way you’re going to be righteous before God. But we also read here, they were blameless before man, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord. Blameless. Verse 6. Now, none are without sin. And we as we shall see, Zacharias was not. Verse 20 indicates to us he had to be rebuked by the Lord for his unbelief in what he was told. But John the Baptist parents lived in all good conscience before men. They did not indulge any known sin or any blatant sin. Their regular conduct, their walk, if you would, was to obey all the commandments. commandments and ordinances of God. Now the commandments of God, here we would relate to the moral law of God. Their duty to God and man was such that no one could find fault with them. They were blameless. And the ordinances would relate to the ceremonial law. And here we’re talking about all the rules and regulations for cleansing, for the sacrifices, for the special feast days. the holy days, the Sabbath days connected with those feasts. They took pleasure in walking in the way God marked out for them. There’s nothing, you know, materially, very materially to blame them for here. They were godly in character, although not sinless. So they were blameless before men. That’s a pretty good commendation here. here of these two individuals, righteous before God, blameless in their walk before men. But notice also verse 7 here, they carried a heavy burden, and they had no child because Elizabeth was barren, and they both were now well stricken in years. Elizabeth barren, and because of her age, and both of their ages really here, they begin to despair of ever having a child. According to God’s life. secret purpose. It was going to be that John the Baptist would be born in an extraordinary manner. Now, this would draw attention to John. As someone that God had specially sent, remember how John’s gospel writes, there was a man sent from God whose name was John. Well, he’s sent from God. This is special. This is a unique individual. He was a mortal man, of course. Born of earthly parents. But in a sense, in a supernatural manner, because they were really old, and they really shouldn’t be having a child at this age. But at this point, his parents are sad. They have this great burden because they are childless. It was a reproach in those days not to have any children. If the Lord shut up your womb, it was a very great matter for sorrow and grief. Remember Hannah? in 1 Samuel chapter 1. How grieved she was. Look at Rachel pleading with Jacob, give me children or else I die in the book of Genesis. So they carried this heavy burden with them. Now let me make a couple of observations here. The first is this. A godly remnant will always exist. Regardless how how dark and how sinful the days are, God is careful to maintain a godly remnant on this earth. People justified by faith in Christ and who walk according to his commandments. When the prophet Elijah despaired of finding anyone who would follow the Lord, he had to be reminded that the Lord had reserved 7,000 and had not bowed the knee to bail. Paul draws upon this in the book of Romans and he indicates to us in Romans chapter 11 that this is a standard principle it seems with God. let’s look at that a moment. Romans chapter 11 verses 2 to 5. Romans chapter 11 verses 2 to 5. God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. What ye not, what the scripture saith of Elias? How he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying, Lord, they have killed thy prophets and dig down thine altars, and I am left alone, and they seek my life and what saith the answer of God unto him, I have reserved to myself 7,000 men who have not bowed the knee to the image of bail. Even so then, at this present time, also, there is a remnant according to the election of grace. God always has an elect people who he will bring to salvation in every generation. Let this be an encouragement to us that God purpose is to save some in this world in each generation, despite the depravity of the times. Notice secondly, the justification always leads to sanctification. You are only righteous before God through faith in Christ in no other way. C.H. Spurgeon, the great Baptist preacher, lived in London. He was out walking about London streets one day when a peddler was on the peddler was on street that he spied and the peddler was selling walking canes and he followed c.H. Spurgeon around and offered him his cane one of his sticks. Well, Spurgeon showed him his fine walking stick. A far better one than the peddler was selling. And so the peddler he said immediately withdrew because he could see that C.A. Spurgeon had a better product than he had. Spurgeon said he often thought of this incident, it was when he was preaching. He said, I show men the righteousness of the Lord Jesus, but they show me their own, which is far inferior. It’s filthy rags in God’s like. Why would you want something that, if you had something the best, why would you want something less? If you want, if you have Christ’s righteousness, why would you want anything else? Unless you see how worthless your own righteousness is, you’ll never going to seek the righteousness that comes from God. Now that being said, if you are deed righteous before God because you have the righteousness of Christ, you can’t help but walk in all the commandments of the Lord. You notice how these two things go right together. One naturally flows from the other. Another justify who do not in turn show sanctification of life. Zachariath and Elizabeth are examples of this. I was reading about David Brainer, the great missionary to the American Indians. He didn’t live very long. He had a very brief life. He died around the age of 30. In his journal, he wrote these words. He said, I never got away from Jesus and him crucified. When the people were gripped by this great evangelical doctrine of Christ and him crucified, I had no need to give them instructions about more. morality. I found that the one followed as sure and inevitably as the fruit of the other. He said if justification directly leads to sanctification of life. So he saw the Indians begin to put on garments of holiness in their lives. They walked in a better manner. They cut mortified sin in their life when they came to Christ. Salvation in Christ has a dramatic effect upon you. If you are renewed in the Lord, you walk in newness of life. There’s no question about that. The third thing is this. Godly people are not exempt from bearing heavy burdens. The God of grace exempts none of his children from trouble. We have troubles in this life. As godly as they lived, Zacharias and Elizabeth had a crook in their lot. They were childless. Remember, serving Christ may often mean facing some type of affliction in life. It’s God’s way of humbling you. It’s God’s way to draw you nearer to Christ in His Word and the prayer so that it has a beneficial effect upon you. Someone has said this, and I think it’s interesting. The richest chords on a piano require some black keys. Richest chords in your life require God to bring some black keys to bear, some darker things to bear. So you realize that God always preserves a godly remnant toward in dark time. So As I close this morning, let me say this. An eclipse of the sun can trouble you. You think you want all that bright and glorious sunshine and then all of a sudden it disappears. but it’s only temporary. And that’s the same way spiritually. We look at our world and we say, boy, things don’t look good. Wait! Let’s see what God is going to do here in this situation. because often in the darkest of time, some of the glorious works of God take place. And so we see that’s what’s going to happen here in Luke. God is capable of working great things in dark days, and God always preserves a godly remnant in dark days. We see that in the case here of Elizabeth and Zacharias. Let us take that away from this text this morning. Let us close here with the word. prayer. Lord God, we bow before you and we acknowledge, Father, that you do things that we don’t always understand. You work in ways that bewilder us. But we pray, Father, that we may trust in you that whatever takes place in life, we will be confident that you are on the throne that Christ is going to rule and reign and accomplish his purpose on this earth and will crush eventually every enemy. of your people and of his kingdom. We pray, Father, that you would work in our day, that we may see some of the brightness of your favorable providence and the work of your spirit in our midst. Pray, Father, that we may appreciate the fact that even difficult times you still are calling people to salvation. You’re still working your glorious work of salvation in their lives and changing the way they live. And we thank you for it. In the name of Christ, we ask these things with Thanksgiving. Amen. And now, this morning, as we’re going to observe the Lord’s Supper, I’d like to ask you to turn with me to the book of Isaiah and chapter 43. In verse 1, I just want to look at this first verse briefly here as we come to the table this morning. now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, he that formed thee, O Israel, fear not, for I have redeemed thee. I have called thee by thy name, thou art mine. Now you’re told here that you are to cease from your fears by the Lord. The Lord is going to comfort his sinful people. the wonderful depth of the consolation lies in the fact that you have been redeemed by the Lord. We need to relate this, of course, to the Lord’s supper this morning. Let me begin by saying why you might be afraid. Talks about fear here. You know the sinfulness of your own heart. You realize you are capable of and have been guilty of terrible sins. You can say with the Apostle Paul, I know that within me that is in my flesh there dwelleth no good thing. You may be fearful because you know your proneness to wonder away from Christ. You’ve been like a straying sheep, leaving the presence of your shepherd, Jesus Christ. And God has to say, as he said in Jeremiah 14, of his people, thus have they love to wonder, they have not refrained their feet. You may may be fearful because you’re much ashamed when you look at your Christian walk of life because you’ve fallen short of expectations. The good that I would, I do not. The evil that I would not that I do. You may be afraid because you find yourself lukewarm in your affections for Christ. You struggle to maintain a steady course of love to Christ. You have a tendency to leave your first love, perhaps. and so you feel unworthy to be considered one of God’s people. How can I draw near the communion table? How can I come and draw near before the Lord? I’m too ashamed? How can I expect to be accepted when I’m full of imperfection, when I’m full of sin? I know that in my best state I’m altogether vanity. I know that even my good works are tainted with sin. So, why you might be afraid. Now why you have reason to be comforted. Fear not, for I have redeemed them. Now I could elaborate this morning on the comfort granted in your election to salvation by the Father. Did he not create and form you into his holy nation, the Israel of God, as he says here in verse 1, the first part of it? Choosing you out of the masses of mankind to be his people, formed you into his people. I could speak of the Holy Spirit’s effectual call the last part of verse 3. He called you by name as an individual to salvation. And you became one of Christ’s people. Thou art mine. But I want to focus in the middle aspect too. The aspect that is particularly related to the Lord’s Supper. I have redeemed thee. Thou was slain and has redeemed us to God by thy blood. In whom we have redemption, through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace. There is no one worthy to come to the feast of the Lord’s supper, on their own merits. That’s not the basis of which we come to the supper. Jesus says, fear not draw near in fellowship, for I have redeemed thee. That’s why we can come near to the Lord and His supper. The price is paid. The rain. handsome has been accepted. You are declared righteous in God’s sight. Jesus says, thou art all fair, my love. There is no spot in thee. You are made beautiful in God’s sight by God’s grace. You are redeemed by Christ. There is no stain of sin upon you in God’s sight. Christ delights in in his redeemed people. Thou hast ravished my heart, he says, of his bride. So fear not. Come and commune with your beloved. That is why we come. Let us not be afraid to come. Let us rejoice and that Christ has made the way so that we can come in fellowship in the supper this morning. Wow. Mark to come at this time and we’ll have a word of it.