Luke 1:67-75

If you would, let’s turn once again to the book of Luke. Luke chapter 1, I want to read verses 67 through 75. 67 through 75. I want to be looking at the prophecy of Zacharias. Luke chapter 1, verse 67 through 75. and his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost and prophesied saying Blessed be the Lord God of Israel for he had visited and redeemed his people and hath raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David as he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets which have been since the world began that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all that hate us. To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant, the oath which he swore to our father Abraham, that he would grant unto us that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life. God bless to us his holy and sacred word this morning. What’s the difference between a strong cup of tea and a weak cup of tea? Well, we have the same ingredients, water and tea, but the difference is the strong cup of tea results from the tea being immersed in the water, a longer period of time. This allows the water to get into the tea and the tea to get into the water. And the longer the steeping processor occurs the stronger the cup of tea. In the same way, the length of time that you spend in God’s Word determines how deeply you get into it and how much gets into you. Just like T, the longer you are in God’s Word, the stronger you become. Now, we have accompanied the sacred history here of Luke in his account of the conception, the birth, and the circumcision of John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus Christ. We have seen how Zacharias continued because of his unbelief under a divine, affliction of dumbness for all the things until all the things were accomplished that God had promised. Now his mouth is open and his tongue is loosed. And what is the important thing that he said? What is one of the first things he does here? He praises God. He praises God. He praises God. You have a beautiful prophecy here that relates to the kingdom of Christ, the Messiah. This text isn’t preached on very often, but it is a passage that’s packed with spiritual nourishment for the people of God. So let us steep, if you would, in this portion of Scripture, that we may be stronger Christians. I want to talk about God’s covenant, mercy. from this passage. Let me begin by saying this. You should realize the importance of receiving God’s Word. Verse 67 and the first part of verse 68. And his father Zacharized was filled with the Holy Ghost and prophesied saying, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel. Now the first thing you should know is that the word of God, is inspired. Zacharias has said things previously in verses 18 to 20 which resulted in a divine rebuke. So why should you pay any heed to what he says now? Well, you’ll notice that scripture is very careful to tell us that when he speaks now it’s because he is filled with the Holy Ghost. So that the Holy Spirit is influencing him as he prophesied. in this passage of scripture. Like the Holy Man of Old, he’s moved by the Spirit to say the things that he says. Now God’s people always have the Holy Spirit. Zacharias had the Holy Spirit prior to this. He was not destitute of the Spirit. However, the language used here denotes an extraordinary degree. of the Holy Spirit’s influence and control over him at this time so that he could prophesaw. And this implies that what he said was divinely inspired. As God told Jeremiah, and as he told other prophets evolved, behold, I have put my words in my mouth. And so when we hear Zachariah is speaking here, God is is putting his word in Zacharias’ mouth. So what Zachary says is not to be construed as something that is of his own thinking or of his own opinion, we have to see it as the very word of God to us. He uses Zacharias to give us the word, but every word spoken under the powerful influence of the Holy Spirit here. is carefully directed so that it is without error. Now why do I tell you this? So that you will accept his prophecy as the word of God itself. And you accept it as true and something beneficial for your soul. These words found in the holy canon of Scripture are always right. Are always true. Now if you have a compass, you’ll notice it always points north. That needle is. is always going to give you the north. This makes it useful. It doesn’t veer to any of the other points. It doesn’t point to the south. It doesn’t point to the west or the east. You never have to judge by your own mind whether that compass is right or not. In the same manner, Scripture is always right and true. It’s always pointing in that direction. You can count on its integrity. So don’t treat the Word of God. the scripture as if it were just the mere words of Luke or Zacharias or something of this nature. But is God speaking through these men giving us his very word? You need to have a high regard for Scripture if it’s going to be of any benefit to your soul. So you know God’s word is inspired. You should understand that. Now the problem. The promises of God’s word relate specifically to you as his people. Jehovah is, according to verse 68 here, the Lord God of Israel. Israel here is to be understood in the sense of what we call true Israel. As Paul tells us in the book of Romans chapter 9, all the covenant promises relate not to national Israel, but to true Israel. In other words, to all who are of the people of God. And you recall in Romans chapter 9, he tells us how the Gentiles are also called and are part of the people of God, just like Isaac, just like Jacob, just like others who are of the elect. For this reason, Gentiles in the New Testament are called the sons of Abraham by faith in Jesus Christ. We have been grafted in to the olive tree of true Israel. Well, we find that unbelieving Jews are broken off the tree. The branches are broken off. So we shouldn’t read this passage of scripture now and think, well, this only applies to National Israel. It doesn’t have anything to do with me as a Gentile. Yes, it does have something to do with you as a Gentile. Zachariah 211 says, Many nations shall be joined to the Lord in that day and shall be my people. I’m going to make you my people too. And if you be Christ, then are you ye Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise, Paul says, in Galatians chapter 3 and verse 29. Those promises given to Abraham? He says, are given to all. all those who have faith in Jesus Christ. So all the covenant promises mentioned in this section of Scripture apply to you. None of them apply to the non-elect. An unbelieving Jew does not have the Lord God as His God. But if you believe in Christ, you do have the Lord God as your God. He’s the Lord God of true Israel. So the promises of God’s word relates specifically to you as God’s people. Now, your blessing of the Lord depends upon properly receiving his word. You’ll notice verse 68, blessed be the Lord God of Israel. It’s when you see that all these blessings are yours, that you will join Zacharias in praising the Lord. Because you see this as the Word of God. God is speaking. The promises relate to you because you are part of the children of Abraham by faith, and therefore your lips should be open with praise just as Zacharias are. You see, the blessings celebrated here are not then confined in National Israel, but are common to all of God’s people, all whose heart the gospel has come with power, and they’ve been graciously visited. and redeemed by the Savior. The horn of salvation is as glorious and as strong as ever. The Redeemer still proves himself mighty to save. God’s mercy is as free. His covenant is as sure, and his promises are as much in force today as when they were given back here in Zechurch. Gariah’s day. For all then, all this then, let us also bless the Lord. Ephesians 1.13 says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who have blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. It is looking at God in association with Him giving of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ that should stir your heart to praise. As one whom God has rescued from a woeful state, you cannot seriously think or speak of the subject with out your heart being moved, bursting forth with praise, you see. Psalm 103, verse 1. Bless the Lord, oh, all my soul, and all that is within me. Bless the Lord. So she’d realize the importance here of receiving the word of God. Secondly, you should rejoice in the promises of God’s sure word. God’s visitation and redemption of his people are mentioned here. Verse 68, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel for, because he hath visited visited and redeemed his people. we’re reading here about the coming of the Lord. God visits in two ways. He can either visit in judgment or he can visit in mercy. This is not a judgment visit visit, but it is a visit of mercy. A visit as when God came to rescue the Israelites from Egyptian bondage. God has said to have seen and regarded their affliction and visited them with the purpose of freeing them. Here, God will visit his people in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Emmanuel, God with us, His Son. The incarnation of Christ is God’s greatest visitation with regard to man. That God was manifested among us in his flesh. He dwelt among us. So with the Psalm, may you pray in Psalm 1. 6, verses 4 and 5. Remember, O Lord, remember me, O Lord, with thy favor that thou bearest under thy people. O visit me with thy salvation, that I may see the good of thy chosen. God bears his arm and he reaches out and he saves people by his grace. There is no greater example of this than sending Christ as the Savior. The coming of the Lord, a visitation. And you’ll notice he talks about a redemption and redeemed his people. This is the redemption of Jesus Christ. Redemption is not a word that we commonly use today. It’s highly important when speaking of the work of Christ to redeem something is simply to buy it back. to free it from some state of bondage. Now in the Old Testament, there were slaves that could be bought. You could buy them out of slavery. If you’d pay the price, they would release the slave to you. And so we have that kind of thinking. So in the Old Testament, a slave could be redeemed by paying off of his debt. Perhaps the closest thing we have to this today is found in connection with a pawn shop. Suppose a woman needing money to feed her family hawked her wedding rings for cash. Now, the pawn shop keeps her rings for, let’s say, 90 days. And during those 90 days, she she can come back and redeem her rings by paying the price that she, the money she borrowed back plus interest. However, after 90 days, if she does not redeem those rings, they become the property of the pawn shop, and he can sell them. They’re lost forever. The point is, through the fall, God’s elect people came under the bondage of sin and Satan. They came into a desperate state. In Christ, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins. Christ has redeemed his people, Jew as well as Gentile, by the price of his precious blood, not with gold and silver, but by his own sacrifice. So you have been redeemed if you are a believer from the curse of the law, from spiritual bondage, and from the condemnation of God. God has visited and redeemed his people, his visitation and redemed. Notice also God raising up a great king for his people. And verse 69 and 70. And hath raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began. We have the royal house of David here restored. He talks about the fact that God has raised up a horn of salvation for the house of his servant, David. Now, a horn in scripture is often used for power, royal power and dignity. In the book of Daniel, we have all these beasts that come up out of the sea, and one of them has ten horns, and we’re told that they are ten kings. And so we see that they are rulers. An animal uses its own. horns to subdue and put down its enemies who attack them. So a horn represents some sort of power or some type of authority that’s associated with a king in this particular case. And so we see that there is going to be a very powerful king that will be raised up out of David’s line. For a long time, the throne of David has been cast down. Right now, Herod is on the throne, as we saw in chapter 1 in verse 5, a foreign power. But in Christ, God put forth his power to save his people, and God raises up a Davidic king. Christ is the king that is raised up to save his people. Psalm 132 says this, There will I make the horn of David to bud. I have ordained a lamp from mine an an anointed. His enemies will I clothe with shame, but upon himself shall his crown flourish. This horn of David brings salvation to believers and crushes all their enemies. So we must acknowledge Christ as the king of kings. There’s no salvation in Christ without acknowledging his kingship. We see the promises of the prophets. also fulfilled. Verse 70, as he spake by the mouth of His holy prophets, which have been since the world began. All the prophets down through Israel’s history spoke of the salvation that Christ was going to provide when he came. Since the world began, we could deal with very moments after the fall, minutes after the fall, and we could talk about Genesis 315. where God promised the seed of the woman would crush Satan’s hand. The very first prophecy concerning Christ coming. Enoch prophesied of Christ. Christ was seen and spoken of by Abraham. It was his seed in whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed. God spoke of Christ by Jacob under the name of Shiloh, who would be blessed. spring from the tribe of Judah. Moses spake of a great prophet like unto him that would rise in the midst of Israel to whom the people would listen and he. David prophesied in the Psalms of this promised seed of his that was going to come. He related to us Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension to the heavenly throne. Isaiah, spoke about his virgin birth and his sufferings and death upon the cross. And I can go on and on and talk about all the other prophets, and I can talk about the minor prophets and the major prophets and so forth. These all spake as with one mouth. They gave a harmonious message concerning the Christ that was going to come. God would raise up a king for his people. Now God’s covenant salvation provided for his people. He was given for his people. He was, would save you from your enemies. Verse 71, that we should be saved from our enemies from the hand of all that hate us. Now, the Jewish people expected a political king or who would provide some type of temporal deliverance from the enemies that they had. An earthly kingdom. Jesus had to come and disillusion them and tell them, my kingdom is not of this world, and that my kingdom is within you. It’s a spiritual kingdom what I’m talking about. However, whatever providential protection God would provide for his church from their foes, the chief thing here is that he provides his spiritual deliverance for us. Christ came to save his people from their sins, from Satan their great adversary, from the world, the flesh, the flesh, and death. and the law all of them your enemies God will grant covenant mercy verses 72 and 73 to perform the mercy promised to our fathers to remember his holy covenant the oath which he swore to our father Abraham God said he would provide a salvation for his people through the coming Messiah who would be the seed of Abraham he would grant mercy to us he gave many covenant promises to his people We could talk about the covenant with Noah. We could talk about the one with Adam. We could talk about the one with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David. But the word covenant is used in a singular sense, since all these covenants really are a further revealing of the one covenant of grace. God’s word by an oath to Abraham concerning his promised seed that in his seed, all the families of the earth would be blessed. Jew as well as Gentile. His offspring would be multiplied far larger than all the stars of heaven and all the sand on the seashore. And his seed would possess the gates of his enemies. They would be defeated. God has not forgotten his covenant. He remembers it in the sense of fulfilling it. And then he empowers you to serve him. Versus four. 74 and 75. That he would grant unto us that we would be delivered out of the hand of our enemies and might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life. Now, what is the purpose of our salvation? What is the purpose of this deliverance but to serve God? Being made free from sin, you became servants of God. Romans 622 tells us. that. And you can serve God without fear. Now you can’t truly worship and serve the Lord God if you’re in a fearful state of him. If you don’t know where you stand with him, you need the right composure of mind. If you’re at ill at ease as to whether or not God is favorable or hostile to you, then it makes a difference. How can you properly serve him? If all you have is alarm and dread, And you don’t have any peace of conscience. That doesn’t allow for you to deal with the Lord here in proper service. And this is what salvation in Christ provides. Freedom from our sins and right standing before God. It is one thing to serve God with outward appearance, but it’s another to serve God with holiness and righteousness. consciousness. And we see here that we serve a God who looks on the heart, who doesn’t want us merely to serve him with outward rights and ceremonies of religion, but to have our heart right before him. They have righteousness and true holiness. Finally, your service to God is not just limited for a period of time. All the days of your life. all the days of your life here to serve the Lord. Now the ability to serve God in this manner has to be granted to you. You’ll notice that he says here that he would grant unto us that we might be delivered and serve him all the days of our life. God empowers you by His Spirit to serve you. For it is God, which worketh in you, both the will or the do of his good pleasure, as the scripture tells us in Psalm, Philippians, Philippians 213. So you should rejoice in the promises of God’s work. Let me make a few practical observations. You ought to have deep thankfulness for what God has provided for his people. Praise is the first word that comes from the mouth of Zacharias as he rejoices in God’s provision of salvation through Jesus Christ. It must be feared today that professing Christians who have much more light than Zacharias had in his day, we have much more we can look back on and has been revealed to us, and yet we have a very low and inadequate conception of our amazing privileges. Zacharias sees more than we do with less light. Can you not join in with Zacharias with wholehearted praise to God for all the blessings you have in Jesus Christ? Why should you be unthankful? Why should you remain unmoved by what this passage reveals? My second thought is this. You should learn to rest on divine promises and embrace them. You notice how much stress Zacharias puts on the promises that God has made. He can go all the way back. Abraham and say, God made that promise. He’s going to bring it to paths. He’s now fulfilling it. That’s what he’s seeing. Every promise that God makes in Scripture to his people will be fulfilled. It’s clear that the Old Testament saints rested on, relied upon these promises and walked according them. We today need to have that same attitude with regard to the promises of God. Embrace them just like Zacharias. There was a family that came into a great deal of money, so they brought a brand new house. It was a much larger house than their older house. Beautifully furnished. And the youngest son ran around every roomian who, scanning every article, every piece of furniture, with great joy and with childish wonder, he cried out with each new sight, is this ours, father? Is this ours? To which his father would say, it’s all yours. It’s all ours. Every bit of it, you may look and wonder at all the promises of God, and you might say, is this ours? Is this ours? And God says it’s all yours. Every bit of it in Jesus Christ. Embrace the promises wholeheartedly. Thirdly, you should realize you are saved to serve the Lord. The practical end of gospel salvation is service. Those people who think, oh, I can be saved and I can just live as I please. Miss the whole point. Your salvation is service. is for the purpose of serving the Lord. Isn’t that what he says here? Don’t we have an obligation to serve the Lord? You’re not your own if you’re bought with a price. You belong to Christ. Therefore, serve him in your body and soul. Don’t be ungrateful. Fourthly, your covenant faithfulness is not a condition you must perform to maintain the covenant, but a gift given to you by the Lord Jesus Christ. Notice carefully how Zacharize speaks of serving to God without fear in holiness and righteousness in connection with this covenant salvation. He clearly indicates this lifelong service to God, like the redemption from all his enemies, is the gift of God. Grant us, you see. Christ realizes the covenant in the words of that we read. in the book of Zacharias, or excuse me, Jeremiah, where he says this, I’ll put my laws in their inward parts and write them in their hearts. I will forgive their iniquity. I will forgive their sin no more. Forgiveness of sin and holiness of life are two great benefits of the covenant that God would put the law in your heart. That he would grant us to serve him because we would love the law. as well as receive forgiveness of sin. Both of those things are covenant blessings given to us. This is radically different from the doctrine that teaches that God will only maintain his covenant with you upon certain conditions that you fulfill, as if you have to put the law in your heart yourself and keep it there. No, the power to serve the Lord is graciously granted as part of the covenant of salvation found in Christ. So, in conclusion, you should understand the importance of receiving the Word of God, and you should rejoice in the promises of God’s Word. This is the thing that comes out in the first part here of Zacharias’s prophecy. We’ll look at the second part, Lord willing, at another time. Let us close with the word prayer.