The Benedictus
This is a transcript. It may contain some inaccuracies.
Outside the temple complex, the people began to get worried, no doubt. There were rabbinic traditions of priests seeing visions within the temple complex, even dying while serving God. And so the longer a priest took, while in there, the more jittery the people began to get. Nervous. When he finally came out and could not speak, but only gesture with his hands, they knew, they understood something had must have taken place in that holy place.
And, with that remarkable day over, he headed back to his home in the hill country of Judea and his wife, as Gabriel had said, soon conceived. And she chose instead of announcing it, to seclude herself for five months. And, in the sixth month, Mary came to visit with her. And we saw last week how the baby in her womb leaped when he heard Mary's voice. And finally, the time came for Elizabeth to deliver. A great many neighbors and relatives gathered together. In verse 50, you can tell Zechariah and Elizabeth were loved. And the fact that now there's going to be a Sarah-like birth in their midst was a cause for great rejoicing. But Zechariah was still mute.
Well, the baby was born. Eight days later, according to the law, he was to be circumcised; they took him. And now the naming ceremony was going to take place and everyone expected that the boy was going to be called Zechariah. But Elizabeth said, no, no, he shall be called John, verse 60. They called for Zechariah the father, they just wouldn't accept that. And the Word of God tells us they were making signs to his father, verse 62, as to what he wanted him called. And by the way, when you read this, the implication being is that not only he was mute, but also he was deaf. Whatever the case was, Zechariah then asked for a writing tablet. Verse 63, he asked for a tablet and wrote as follows, his name is John. And they all marveled.
Verse 64, at once his mouth was opened, his tongue loosed, and he began to speak. And what was the first thing that came out of his mouth?Blessing God. Blessing God. And as he blessed God and praised him, he gave this song, this song that is called The Benedictus. The song about God's work and waiting for God's work. A song about promises, the promises of God that become realities. A song about what God said he would do and why he would do it, and how he would do it. And if anyone is going to sing a song about how waiting can finally come to pass, no doubt it was Zechariah. Faith turns to sight.
Verse 70, in fact, just jump ahead and you see the whole theme of promise and of waiting and fulfillment. Verse 70, and as he spoke by the mouth of his prophets from of old. Verse 72, to show mercy toward our fathers and to remember His holy covenant, and the oath which He swore to our father, to Abraham our father. In other words, this is all about waiting and fulfillment. This is all about promises and promises coming to pass.
Beloved, before we move forward, there's only one God in all of the pantheon of human religions, there's only one God who can make remarks about the future and God's people can then wait until their future moves into the present and then we write about it as it moves into the past. There's only one God who could do that. The God who declares the end from the beginning and everything in between. False gods, made up gods, human gods do not know the future. They're nothing. They're not sovereign. They have no knowledge of what will be, in advance. But you see, there's nothing like it when the promises of God made for your future move into your present, and you see them, and you behold them. And what does it do? It causes you to rejoice. It causes you to sing. And you say, this is real. This is the reality of God. He said He would. Now He has. Now I can tell my kids that He did. If you've ever looked for the promises of God and waited for them, and there was a season in your life perhaps when you've wondered, will this ever happen? Is God real? Am I waiting for nothing? And then it came and then you were able to say, He did. He came through. He delivered. Then you've tasted the works of God.
So let us pay closer attention to the song and the opening line of which, like Mary, is a song of praise, a word of praise that really sets the tone for the whole song. We see the praise for God's promises. Look at verse 68, we'll start with verse 67. And His father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied saying, blessed. ‘Yvlorintos’ simply means inherently blessed, well spoken of, worthy of praise, blessed. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel. A God real enough, active enough, living enough to turn waiting into watching, to turn promises into present experience, to turn hope into the here and now. That's a God worth worshipping, a God worth enjoying and delighting in.
And what we're going to see here in this song is the performance of God's promises, the purposes of God's promises and the procedure of God's promises. Zechariah is going to sing of, to put it differently, what God said He would do, why He said He would do it, and then finally, how He is going to do it.
So, look with me at the song, firstly as Zechariah says, Praise God for the performance of His promises, the performance of God's promises, verses 68 through 70, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He visited and accomplished redemption for His people, and raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of David, His servant.”
Zechariah says, the first thing that God has done, just as He said He would, is that He visited His people. God visited His people. Now that word visited is a lot stronger than the way we use it today, in our English language, and how we use it in our culture. We say, so and so visited me. You know, He knocked at the door, came in and said hello, sat down for coffee and then left. The word visited in the original doesn't mean that. ‘Episkeptomai’ is the Greek word. We, in fact, this word, we get it as with the verb here, but we get the noun ‘episkopos,’ which is overseer, and there's a connection there. It means to make an appearance in order to help, to go with friendly intent, out of genuine concern, to look closely, to oversee, to look closely in order to help, to bring assistance. You see, God has not just passively watched His people and said, well, that's interesting to see what they're doing. All the best to them. No, no, He's actually intervened. He actually did something about it. He's come among His people. What did the ancient prophecy say? Isaiah 7 verse 14, Therefore, the Lord Himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call his name what? Emmanuel. Emmanuel. God, with us, God, among us, God walking in a crowd, God sitting next to people at weddings, God eating and drinking next to you at the table. God visited His people. This was the promise, and this is what it meant that God had said He would send His Son. The Word was made flesh, and what? Dwelled among us. Tabernacled, pitched His tent among us. Many years later, Jesus would be weeping over Jerusalem, and one of the things He would say is in Luke 19, 44, You did not know the time of your visitation.
1 Peter 2.25 tells us that Jesus is the shepherd and ‘episkopos,’ overseer, same word in the noun form of our souls. This is the noun form of the verb ‘episkeptome.’ God has visited His people. He's visited His people. And beloved people of God, I hope you remember every time you write the date, every time you see that number, 2024, soon to be 2025, there's a reason we do that - because God visited His people. God visited His people. 2024 years ago, give or take four or five years because of calendar issues, the Lord came, He visited His people. But the visitation promise was more than just God being among His people. Zekariah tells us why He promised to visit His people. Why?
The second part of verse 68 tells us, “for He visited and accomplished redemption for His people.” Visitation, redemption. It wasn't just a visitation. It was a visitation with a purpose, with an ending view. Redemption. Redemption. ‘Lutrosis’ is the Greek word translated redemption. I love that word. It means to release. To release. To free upon receipt of a ransom. To free upon a receipt of a ransom. That's the idea behind redemption. God had promised He would visit His people, but He wouldn't just be amongst them and then leave them in their misery and to their misery, that He would pay a price rather, the ransom to get them out, to get them for Himself in order to set them free. What a beautiful word.
To set them free from what? From bondage. Well, what kind of bondage was Israel in? What two kinds? Number one, bondage to sin. To themselves, their own sin and sinful nature. And number two, bondage to enemies. And the two are connected, though the release from them is not always simultaneous.
And he sings that God has come to pay the price, to set his people free from themselves, slavery to their own sinful natures, and slavery, yes, to Romans and Greeks and Babylonians, and like a second Moses setting his people free from Egypt, like a second Boaz paying the money for Ruth, and like a second Hosea buying his unfaithful wife Gomer from the slave bloc, so God has come to redeem his people. And that's really perfect freedom.
Do you know what perfect freedom is? It's not being bound to your sin. That's perfect freedom. Not being bound to the world. Not being a slave to man-pleasing. Not being a slave to possessions. Not feeling connected and gripped by the world and the world system. That's perfect freedom.
Freedom is not, I want to do what I want, when I want and how I want. Because the more you do that, the more you find yourself to be a slave to yourself. Perfect freedom, simply put, is the lordship of Jesus Christ. To bow the knee to Jesus. So Zechariah says, this is what God said he would do and is doing. The performing of his promise is he said he'd visit us, he said he'd redeem us.
And now the third thing that Zechariah says that God promised he would do, and now he's performing, look at verse 69, “and raise up a horn of salvation for us in the house of David his servant.” Now that may sound a little odd to many of us, if not all of us, because horns mean very little to us. What does that mean, a horn of salvation, what is a horn? Well, in an agricultural society, this was very much a powerful symbol. Powerful symbol. I had the privilege of being around some animals enough to see the power of this symbol growing up. Have you ever stood next to a full-size ox, a full-size male goat? I could tell you, first-hand experience, it's not pretty. Those things that take you up very high, those are massive animals with dangerous strength. You see horns that come out of them, and you realize this creature could gore me through in just a moment. Such strength, such power in these things. So, when Israel talked about a horn, he meant a person of incredible strength. A judge stronger than Samson, a king stronger than David, a leader greater than Joshua, though sharing his name. A deliverer, someone who is going to have inner strength to conquer sin, and outward courage as well. And this deliverer, this horn, this son of David and yet David's king, is going to defeat Israel's greatest threat. Sin and death. Sin and death.
And having slain the bigger dragons, he'll deal with the smaller ones, the Romans and Greeks and Babylonians, whatever the case may be. And all of this in fulfillment of what God promised again and again through his mouthpiece, the prophets of old. Verse 70, “as he spoke, by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old.”
I think every one of us here, when our hearts are right, we wish for a king. We wish for a leader, pure enough, strong enough, to conquer what would conquer us, our own sin, our own enemies. We wish there was a king that we could perfectly trust in, that would have no ulterior motive. That his heart would be spotless in purity and yet unshakable in strength, to be our king. We wish for that king. And here Zacariah said, he's coming. In fact, he's around the corner. God promised visitation. God promised redemption. God promised deliverance. That's the performance of the promises.
Now secondly, look at how Zacariah is going to sing about why God promised these things. Praise God for the performance of his promises, firstly. But secondly, praise God for the purpose of his promises. Verse 71, “salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us, to show mercy toward our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath which he swore to Abraham our father, to grant us that we being rescued from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our day.” Here now, beloved, in reverse order, in a kind of a mirror of these three things just mentioned, Zechariah gives the three purposes of God's promises.
First, verse 71 says, this is why God is raising up the horn in the house of David. Why? Salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us. Do you know that Israel had been hated by the dragon and his seed from the very beginning? The very beginning.
Israel had been despised and it's not hard to understand why. The nation Israel gave the world the Bible. Israel gave the world the Messiah. And Satan has hated this people, and in the end what will save Israel? And what will save the people of God? Peace treaties? Negotiations? Military force? No, no. In the end, only the Messiah can ultimately save Israel from the heathen that rage. The prophets, in fact, predicting detail, vivid detail, the deliverance of Israel by Messiah personally - Ezekiel 38, Ezekiel 39, Zechariah 12, 13 and 14, and Revelation 19. Only the Prince of Peace can finally bring peace to Israel.
I wonder. I wonder how many years Zechariah had walked past Roman soldiers on the way up to the temple. Perhaps they mocked him. Perhaps, he experienced some of the bullying. How many years he had suffered the indignity of having Roman coins with the image of Caesar and the Roman eagle sitting there in Jerusalem for a people who are told to have no graven images. And Zechariah would have said, when? When, O Lord, would we be delivered from our enemies? Well, Messiah is going to do that, but not always according to the timetable Israel expected. But he's going to do it. Because he said so.
But before he saves them from their enemies, he needs to save them from themselves. That's the second purpose of the promise. Look closely at verse 72. He says “to show mercy toward our fathers and to remember his holy covenant,” verse 73, “the oath which he swore to Abraham, our father.” That's the second purpose, he's going to redeem his people. He's going to have mercy on his people. He's going to save his people from their sins. God promised he'd have mercy on Israel. But why do they need mercy? Well, same reason you need mercy. The same reason I need mercy. Because they rebelled against God. Because they rejected their Creator. Because they believe they are right in their own eyes. And I wonder, I wonder before we move on, if today you are here and you really believe that you truly need mercy. Or perhaps you've imbibed the air of this world and the spirit of the age that says, well, I'm a good person. And if something happens to me, I'm sure God will judge me to be good, to be okay. I mean, after all, it's Sunday morning and where am I found? Right here, in a church. I'm a good person. Yet the Bible says in Romans 3, “there is none righteous, not even one.” There's none who does good. There's not even one. All our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment, Isaiah 64, verse 6. How could God say that about us? He could say that because the standard is perfect love for Him, and that's not how we live. We pursue our own. We go our own way. We do our own things. And we are our own Lords. We receive gifts all the time from God, and we don't thank Him for it. We pursue our own will. We worship ourselves. We please ourselves. And then at the end of the day, we still expect God to say, Yeah, you're good, come to heaven. Mercy. Mercy is God not giving us what we deserve. That's mercy. Mercy is God not giving us what we deserve. We deserve judgment. We deserve wrath. Mercy is what's needed because God's wrath is upon us.
And this is what Israel has promised. Zechariah 13:1, “In that day, a fountain will be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for impurity.” And in Ezekiel 36, God says, “I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of the countries, and bring you into your own land, and I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from your idols.”
Turn with me to Romans 11. There God promised that Israel will one day be a blessing. And you remember the promise given to Abraham that Israel will be a blessing to all nations. You fast forward to Romans 11. But how can Israel be a blessing to all nations if they remain in unbelief? If they are not safe from themselves, look at what Paul predicts under inspiration, this word of prophecy in Romans 11. He says in verse 11, “I say then that they stumble so as to fall. May it never be. But by their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make them jealous. Now, if their transgression is riches for the world and their failure is riches for the Gentiles,” now watch now, “how much more will their fullness be?” Verse 15, “for if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?”
Yes, there is, beloved, a deliverance coming for the people of Israel too. Look at verse 25, “for I do not want you brothers to be uninformed of this mystery, that you will not be wise in your own estimation that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved just as it is written, the deliverer will come from Zion, he will remove ungodliness from Jacob, and this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins. From the standpoint of the Gospel, they are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of God's choice, they are beloved for the sake of the fathers, for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” God will not rescind his promise.
Zechariah 8, there's an amazing verse there, verse 23, “And thus says Yahweh of hosts, in those days ten men from every tongue of the nations will take hold of the garment of a Jew saying, let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.” Yes, there's coming a day when the nations of the world will cling to the reconciled, saved, born again Jewish people who will once again be in the place of prominence.
Well, if you're saved from yourself and saved from your enemies, what do you do? Luke chapter 1, look at the third purpose. This corresponds to why God has visited His people. Look at verse 74, “to grant us that we being rescued from the hand of our enemies might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life.” If you're saved from yourself and you're saved from your enemies, you're set free to serve. Third purpose, you're set free to serve.
Now look at these four qualifiers of a life of service to God. This is really beautiful. He says, end of verse 74, “might serve Him without fear,” verse 75, “in holiness, righteousness before Him all our days.” I really think one of the greatest markers of a Christian is a growing desire to serve. A growing desire to serve.
If you're set free from your sin, you don't want to keep serving yourself. You don't. You desire to be used by God. You desire to please God. You desire to live for God, the glory of God. And more than anything, you want to be used by God, in how? In purity and in holiness. You don't want to come and feel unclean, double-minded, hypocritical, duplicit. You want to do it as to Him and before Him. And truthfully, if you're right with God and you want it to be perpetual, you want to do it all the days of your life.
And beloved, the place where you will finally and fully serve God without fear, without hindrance, without dealing with the remains of corruption, all the days of your life in holiness, in righteousness is where? In heaven. And what a day that would be. But God says, look, I'm going to use my strong, mighty son, the horn of salvation in David's house. He's going to deliver you from Satan and enemies and those that hate you. He's going to redeem you from your sin and it's guilt and it's pain, and I'm going to visit you so you can happily serve me all the days of your life without guilt, without shame and without fear. That sounds like a happy life, doesn't it? Sounds like joy. Joy unspeakable and full of glory. Praise God for his performed promises. Praise God for these purposes in the promises.
And finally, thirdly, look at how he would perform those promises, the procedure of God's promises, how he's going to do it. That's the last portion, 76 to 79, “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High. You will go on before the Lord to make ready his ways, to give to his people the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, with which the sunrise from on high will visit us, to shine upon those who sit in darkness in the shadow of death, to direct our feet into the way of peace.”
What we have here, this is absolutely incredible. What we have here, two persons. Two persons who are going to bring the promises of visitation, deliverance and redemption to pass. First of all, the child, the child called John. The first prophet since Malachi and according to Jesus, the greatest prophet. The forerunner, the one who goes ahead of the face of Messiah. And Zechariah said he's going to do two things. Number one, he's going to prepare the way for Messiah. And number two, he will give the knowledge of salvation.
And John, as you remember from our studies through the book of John, the Gospel of John, shook Israel up, raised messianic expectations, he made people again, thinking, Messiah, kingdom, judgment, repent, believe. And then John began giving them the Gospel in seminal form, turn from your sins, turn to God in mercy. Unless people are willing to receive the king by giving up their own kingship, they can't get the kingdom. Unless you're willing to lay down your arms and surrender and receive the king on his own terms, in total submission, you have no right to say, I will take the kingdom and all its blessings too. And John was there to say, repent, turn from your sin. Turn from your selfishness and self-centeredness. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, come to Him and be saved.
But now, now comes the high point of this song. And let us not miss this, verse 78, “because of the tender mercy of our God, with which the sunrise from on high will visit us.” This beloved gets to the doctrine of justification by faith. The heart and soul of our justification includes at its very heart, very core, the remission of our sins. The forgiveness of our sins. How does it happen? Listen to what the song says, because, you see that word because is the Greek word “thea,” through, on account of, that is the means, the how of forgiveness of sins. He tells us, he tells us, look at it, the tender mercy of our God. Isn't it amazing? The tender mercy of our God.
Theologically, we talk about being justified by grace through faith because of Christ, and that is true, absolutely true. In Zechariah's song, the forgiveness of sins comes through the mercy of God, and this is repeated again in the theme that is underscored by Paul in Ephesians 2 and verse 4, when he describes our state of being dead in trespasses and sin, he comes to verse 4, “but God being rich in mercy.” The mercy of God. The elios of God. The forgiveness of sin is not something that you and I merit. It's not something that you and I strive to achieve. You can't make up for your sins by works of righteousness. Neither can I. That is the worst lie ever propagated by professing Christians in certain denominations. If you want to go on a fool's errand, chase the hope of redeeming yourself by your own achievements. By your own doings. I often tell people, listen, the harder you try to do that, the more you heap up judgment on yourself. The only way you can know salvation, the only way you can have the forgiveness of sins, is through the mercy of God. Even a redeemed sinner, who comes in repentance, he stands on only that ground for forgiveness, the mercy of God. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to your lovingkindness, according to your tender mercy. Blot out my transgression.
It's not through the justice of God. It's not through anything else. It is through the mercy of God. Notice how the mercy of God is described in this passage under the influence of the Holy Spirit. And I can't really, I really can't pass over this. Look at this, “Because of the tender mercy.” The Greek text is very vivid. ‘Splagchnon en eleos.’ Of God. “Splagchnon,” the inward part, the bowel, the viscera of compassion.
You see, it's one thing to get stopped by a police officer on the highway because you're speeding, you're going over the limit, way over the limit. You deserve a ticket and points and even perhaps your car towed. And instead of giving you justice, the ticket and the point that you deserve, he says, well, this time around, I'll let you go, but he does it with a stern frown. I'll let you go, but watch out. You received mercy. You received mercy, but it wasn't very tender, was it? The head of the church is a strong and mighty Jesus, whose mercy is tender. That's how he forgave us. It was a tender mercy.
When God forgave us our sins, when God forgave us of our sins, the mercy that he poured out on our souls that night or that day, was sweet, gentle, tender, oozing with the ‘splagchnon’ of compassion. That's how the mercy of God functions. This is enough reason for each and every single one of us, child of God, to rejoice and worship and thank God for this tender mercy that we have received. That we did not receive mercy with a frown and with threats, but we received mercy with tenderness. Tenderness. And then verse 78 says, “With which the sunrise,” capital S, “from on high will visit us.” That's Jesus Christ.
The Greek word, ‘anatolé’ means the breaking of the dawn. Christ, the breaking of the dawn. When the sun rises, it's that moment where the night retreats, the shadows fall away.
The lights come on in the morning dawn. That is what is described in this text, a title for Jesus.
As I thought about this, I thought of this, have you ever been terribly sick? Really sick.
And in pain? A lot of pain. And perhaps even terribly afraid? Your mind going everywhere? And then the night comes. And you're lying on your bed, in pain, sick, discouraged. And the night seemed to drag on. And you're watching and waiting, and waiting and watching. Eternity, it feels like eternity. And waiting for the first signs of the dawn. And perhaps you've heard those birds, you know, the 3 a.m. birds. And you think it's coming, it's coming, and finally the light changes. And when the dawn came, the distress of the night, the darkness, the fear, the irrational, irrational fear, the worry, the anxiety, the pain just seemed to evaporate because finally the day had come. The dawn had come. So it is with Messiah.
People who are living in the night, the long night of slavery to sin and oppression, the long night of being under their own slavish thumb and under the thumb of unbelieving Gentiles, that finally Messiah is like the dawn breaking. The dawn had finally visited us. We have encountered this word visit earlier in verse 68,’ episkeptomai,’ to look closely with genuine concern in order to help. This is what Messiah does when he comes. Look at verse 79, two things. Number one, he's going to give light to those sitting in darkness, to shine upon those who sit in darkness in the shadow of death, salvation, to open the eyes of those blinded by sin and can't see God. And beloved, if you're a Christian, you're beloved of God, but I hope you're thankful today. I hope you're thankful for the fact that blessed are your eyes for they see. Blessed are your eyes for they see that you look at life and reality now and it makes sense. Someone switched on the light. You could see what's in front of you. You're not bumping into things. You're not going around ready to have an accident all the time because God has brought life and light to you and reality is in front of you. This is what Messiah brings.
And if you're still outside of Christ, you are in darkness and you are groping to find your way, and you will stumble and fall. And if you continue down that path, you will end up falling into that everlasting cliff, hell. Why will you remain without God and without hope in this world? When you can have the light of the world? Turn the light on and you could see reality as God sees it.
And then secondly, it says to direct our feet into the way of peace. This word direct means to guide straight towards or upon something. Generally, it means to guide or direct one's way or journey to a place, a specific place, to make straight. Look at how Paul uses it in 1 Thessalonians 311, where he says, “Now may our God and Father himself and Jesus our Lord direct our way to you, to a specific place.” And here, what this is telling us is that God, after saving us, He saves us, He disciples us. He doesn't just save us, He directs us, He disciples us, He leads us, He shepherds us, He teaches us how to live.
Zechariah looks at his son John, and on the eighth day and as he holds that little baby, he sees a lot, he sees God is not making empty promises, He's not making empty statements about the future. He realized that 2,000 years earlier when God promised Abraham that He would make him a blessing and come to his people and set them free and deliver them, He sees it now in John, his son. And He sees it why? That is because He's coming to set them free from their enemies, to redeem them, to enable them to serve Him without fear and in front of Him is the first part of the plan. The forerunner, the one who prepares the way of the Lord. And then coming after Him, the long-expected Messiah, the Lamb of God, the light of the world, the light who brings light, the shepherd who guides and protects. The future had become present. And now you and I read it as the past.
Beloved, we find ourselves now living between the two comings of our Lord Jesus Christ, and we too long for a second visitation. We too wait for complete redemption. That last vestige of the remains of corruption to be swallowed up, and for our bodies to be redeemed. We long also for the son of David to sit on a throne and rule the world in righteousness and end the corruption and the oppression and the pain and the suffering. We too must wait for a day when we will be saved from our enemies completely. Satan and his forces. And from those he uses in this world to rage against us. We too must wait for when we finally deliver from our sin every single vestige of our remaining corruption. And we must wait for when we can finally serve God without any hindrance, without any fear, in joy and peace and righteousness forever. But just as John and Jesus accomplished the purpose of his first coming, so it will be with his second. In fact, the second will again have witnesses to go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah. Just as that future finally moved into their present and became there in our past, so these promises that we read of his return, the rapture of the church, the defeat of Israel's enemies and ours, glorification with new bodies, wiping away every tear, one day those future promises will move into your present and then into your past. Blessed be God. Are you waiting for it? Are you?
Do you doubt it?
I know time is not on my side, but I must do this. Indulge me. This is way too important. Turn with me to Genesis 15. And I want us to see this, because if you're sitting and doubting and sometimes in the waiting, a lot of things can happen. You begin to doubt the promises of God and doubt the goodness of God and even at different levels, even when you're going through a difficulty and you feel like you can't take it anymore, don't ever doubt the promises of God. When he says, I will sustain you, and as we were reminded on Wednesday, when he says, I will help you, oh, it is absolutely true. When he says, I will work all things for you good and for my glory, it is absolutely true. Don't doubt it.
Look at how he fulfilled his promises. You know, in Genesis 15, verse 1, “After these things, the word of Yahweh came to Abraham in a vision, saying, Do not fear, Abram, I am a shield to you; Your reward shall be very great. And Abram said, Oh, Lord Yahweh, what will you give me as I go on being childless and the heir of my house is Eleazar of Damascus? And Abram said, since you have given no seed to me, behold, one born in my house is my heir. Then behold, the word of Yahweh came to him, saying, this one will not be your heir, but one who will come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir.”
Now, remember, God had made a promise before, but now he's repeating it here, “Then he believed in Yahweh, and he counted to him as righteousness. And he said to him, I am Yahweh who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess it.
And he said, Oh, Lord Yahweh, how may I know that I will possess it? So he said to him, bring me a three-year-old heifer and three-year-old female goat and a three-year-old ram, turtle dove and a young pigeon. Then he brought all these to him and split them into parts down the middle and laid each part opposite the other, but he did not split apart the birds. And then the birds of prey came down upon the carcasses and Abram drove them away. Now, it happened that when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, terror and a great darkness fell upon him. Then God said to Abram, know for certain that your seed will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. But I will also judge the nation to whom they are enslaved, and afterward they will come out with many possessions. As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace, you will be buried at a good old age. Then in the fourth generation, they will return here for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete. Now it happened,” now watch this, verse 17, “Now it happened that the sun had set and it was very dark, and behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch, which passed between these pieces. On that day,” verse 18, “Yahweh cut a covenant with Abram, saying, to your seed I have given this land from the river of Egypt, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates,” and he goes on. A flaming torch hovered over those pieces of animals and deliberately moved down that aisle between the pieces. This was a theophany. The smoking oven, the flaming torch were the visible manifestations of the invisible God. This was God himself going between the pieces of those carcasses set in that aisle.
And I want to conclude with the words of RC. Sproul on this, and you can connect the two. And I quote, “God dramatically and demonstratively communicated this to Abraham, I'm cutting a covenant with you, Abraham. And what I'm saying is that if I don't keep my word, if I fail to keep my promise, may I be torn asunder just as you've cut in half this heifer and this ram and this goat. May the immutable God suffer a permanent mutation. May the infinite surrender to finitude, the immortal to mortality. How do you want me to swear, Abraham, on my mother's grave? I don't have a mother. On the altar, that's something made by the hands of man. Abraham, there's nothing higher upon which I can swear an oath than my own self-existent, infinite, eternal being.”
Do you see, beloved, that when God made this covenant with Abraham and with his seed, he swore an oath based on himself, on his own divine being. God has put his deity on the line to confirm the promise that God made to Abraham and to his seed, and we see it coming to fulfillment in the song of Zechariah.
Our God is a God who's trustworthy. And if you're in the waiting, wait by faith, unwavering faith. Trust him. Look to Him. Cling to His word. He is trustworthy. He is faithful. Let's pray.
And, with that remarkable day over, he headed back to his home in the hill country of Judea and his wife, as Gabriel had said, soon conceived. And she chose instead of announcing it, to seclude herself for five months. And, in the sixth month, Mary came to visit with her. And we saw last week how the baby in her womb leaped when he heard Mary's voice. And finally, the time came for Elizabeth to deliver. A great many neighbors and relatives gathered together. In verse 50, you can tell Zechariah and Elizabeth were loved. And the fact that now there's going to be a Sarah-like birth in their midst was a cause for great rejoicing. But Zechariah was still mute.
Well, the baby was born. Eight days later, according to the law, he was to be circumcised; they took him. And now the naming ceremony was going to take place and everyone expected that the boy was going to be called Zechariah. But Elizabeth said, no, no, he shall be called John, verse 60. They called for Zechariah the father, they just wouldn't accept that. And the Word of God tells us they were making signs to his father, verse 62, as to what he wanted him called. And by the way, when you read this, the implication being is that not only he was mute, but also he was deaf. Whatever the case was, Zechariah then asked for a writing tablet. Verse 63, he asked for a tablet and wrote as follows, his name is John. And they all marveled.
Verse 64, at once his mouth was opened, his tongue loosed, and he began to speak. And what was the first thing that came out of his mouth?Blessing God. Blessing God. And as he blessed God and praised him, he gave this song, this song that is called The Benedictus. The song about God's work and waiting for God's work. A song about promises, the promises of God that become realities. A song about what God said he would do and why he would do it, and how he would do it. And if anyone is going to sing a song about how waiting can finally come to pass, no doubt it was Zechariah. Faith turns to sight.
Verse 70, in fact, just jump ahead and you see the whole theme of promise and of waiting and fulfillment. Verse 70, and as he spoke by the mouth of his prophets from of old. Verse 72, to show mercy toward our fathers and to remember His holy covenant, and the oath which He swore to our father, to Abraham our father. In other words, this is all about waiting and fulfillment. This is all about promises and promises coming to pass.
Beloved, before we move forward, there's only one God in all of the pantheon of human religions, there's only one God who can make remarks about the future and God's people can then wait until their future moves into the present and then we write about it as it moves into the past. There's only one God who could do that. The God who declares the end from the beginning and everything in between. False gods, made up gods, human gods do not know the future. They're nothing. They're not sovereign. They have no knowledge of what will be, in advance. But you see, there's nothing like it when the promises of God made for your future move into your present, and you see them, and you behold them. And what does it do? It causes you to rejoice. It causes you to sing. And you say, this is real. This is the reality of God. He said He would. Now He has. Now I can tell my kids that He did. If you've ever looked for the promises of God and waited for them, and there was a season in your life perhaps when you've wondered, will this ever happen? Is God real? Am I waiting for nothing? And then it came and then you were able to say, He did. He came through. He delivered. Then you've tasted the works of God.
So let us pay closer attention to the song and the opening line of which, like Mary, is a song of praise, a word of praise that really sets the tone for the whole song. We see the praise for God's promises. Look at verse 68, we'll start with verse 67. And His father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied saying, blessed. ‘Yvlorintos’ simply means inherently blessed, well spoken of, worthy of praise, blessed. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel. A God real enough, active enough, living enough to turn waiting into watching, to turn promises into present experience, to turn hope into the here and now. That's a God worth worshipping, a God worth enjoying and delighting in.
And what we're going to see here in this song is the performance of God's promises, the purposes of God's promises and the procedure of God's promises. Zechariah is going to sing of, to put it differently, what God said He would do, why He said He would do it, and then finally, how He is going to do it.
So, look with me at the song, firstly as Zechariah says, Praise God for the performance of His promises, the performance of God's promises, verses 68 through 70, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He visited and accomplished redemption for His people, and raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of David, His servant.”
Zechariah says, the first thing that God has done, just as He said He would, is that He visited His people. God visited His people. Now that word visited is a lot stronger than the way we use it today, in our English language, and how we use it in our culture. We say, so and so visited me. You know, He knocked at the door, came in and said hello, sat down for coffee and then left. The word visited in the original doesn't mean that. ‘Episkeptomai’ is the Greek word. We, in fact, this word, we get it as with the verb here, but we get the noun ‘episkopos,’ which is overseer, and there's a connection there. It means to make an appearance in order to help, to go with friendly intent, out of genuine concern, to look closely, to oversee, to look closely in order to help, to bring assistance. You see, God has not just passively watched His people and said, well, that's interesting to see what they're doing. All the best to them. No, no, He's actually intervened. He actually did something about it. He's come among His people. What did the ancient prophecy say? Isaiah 7 verse 14, Therefore, the Lord Himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call his name what? Emmanuel. Emmanuel. God, with us, God, among us, God walking in a crowd, God sitting next to people at weddings, God eating and drinking next to you at the table. God visited His people. This was the promise, and this is what it meant that God had said He would send His Son. The Word was made flesh, and what? Dwelled among us. Tabernacled, pitched His tent among us. Many years later, Jesus would be weeping over Jerusalem, and one of the things He would say is in Luke 19, 44, You did not know the time of your visitation.
1 Peter 2.25 tells us that Jesus is the shepherd and ‘episkopos,’ overseer, same word in the noun form of our souls. This is the noun form of the verb ‘episkeptome.’ God has visited His people. He's visited His people. And beloved people of God, I hope you remember every time you write the date, every time you see that number, 2024, soon to be 2025, there's a reason we do that - because God visited His people. God visited His people. 2024 years ago, give or take four or five years because of calendar issues, the Lord came, He visited His people. But the visitation promise was more than just God being among His people. Zekariah tells us why He promised to visit His people. Why?
The second part of verse 68 tells us, “for He visited and accomplished redemption for His people.” Visitation, redemption. It wasn't just a visitation. It was a visitation with a purpose, with an ending view. Redemption. Redemption. ‘Lutrosis’ is the Greek word translated redemption. I love that word. It means to release. To release. To free upon receipt of a ransom. To free upon a receipt of a ransom. That's the idea behind redemption. God had promised He would visit His people, but He wouldn't just be amongst them and then leave them in their misery and to their misery, that He would pay a price rather, the ransom to get them out, to get them for Himself in order to set them free. What a beautiful word.
To set them free from what? From bondage. Well, what kind of bondage was Israel in? What two kinds? Number one, bondage to sin. To themselves, their own sin and sinful nature. And number two, bondage to enemies. And the two are connected, though the release from them is not always simultaneous.
And he sings that God has come to pay the price, to set his people free from themselves, slavery to their own sinful natures, and slavery, yes, to Romans and Greeks and Babylonians, and like a second Moses setting his people free from Egypt, like a second Boaz paying the money for Ruth, and like a second Hosea buying his unfaithful wife Gomer from the slave bloc, so God has come to redeem his people. And that's really perfect freedom.
Do you know what perfect freedom is? It's not being bound to your sin. That's perfect freedom. Not being bound to the world. Not being a slave to man-pleasing. Not being a slave to possessions. Not feeling connected and gripped by the world and the world system. That's perfect freedom.
Freedom is not, I want to do what I want, when I want and how I want. Because the more you do that, the more you find yourself to be a slave to yourself. Perfect freedom, simply put, is the lordship of Jesus Christ. To bow the knee to Jesus. So Zechariah says, this is what God said he would do and is doing. The performing of his promise is he said he'd visit us, he said he'd redeem us.
And now the third thing that Zechariah says that God promised he would do, and now he's performing, look at verse 69, “and raise up a horn of salvation for us in the house of David his servant.” Now that may sound a little odd to many of us, if not all of us, because horns mean very little to us. What does that mean, a horn of salvation, what is a horn? Well, in an agricultural society, this was very much a powerful symbol. Powerful symbol. I had the privilege of being around some animals enough to see the power of this symbol growing up. Have you ever stood next to a full-size ox, a full-size male goat? I could tell you, first-hand experience, it's not pretty. Those things that take you up very high, those are massive animals with dangerous strength. You see horns that come out of them, and you realize this creature could gore me through in just a moment. Such strength, such power in these things. So, when Israel talked about a horn, he meant a person of incredible strength. A judge stronger than Samson, a king stronger than David, a leader greater than Joshua, though sharing his name. A deliverer, someone who is going to have inner strength to conquer sin, and outward courage as well. And this deliverer, this horn, this son of David and yet David's king, is going to defeat Israel's greatest threat. Sin and death. Sin and death.
And having slain the bigger dragons, he'll deal with the smaller ones, the Romans and Greeks and Babylonians, whatever the case may be. And all of this in fulfillment of what God promised again and again through his mouthpiece, the prophets of old. Verse 70, “as he spoke, by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old.”
I think every one of us here, when our hearts are right, we wish for a king. We wish for a leader, pure enough, strong enough, to conquer what would conquer us, our own sin, our own enemies. We wish there was a king that we could perfectly trust in, that would have no ulterior motive. That his heart would be spotless in purity and yet unshakable in strength, to be our king. We wish for that king. And here Zacariah said, he's coming. In fact, he's around the corner. God promised visitation. God promised redemption. God promised deliverance. That's the performance of the promises.
Now secondly, look at how Zacariah is going to sing about why God promised these things. Praise God for the performance of his promises, firstly. But secondly, praise God for the purpose of his promises. Verse 71, “salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us, to show mercy toward our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath which he swore to Abraham our father, to grant us that we being rescued from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our day.” Here now, beloved, in reverse order, in a kind of a mirror of these three things just mentioned, Zechariah gives the three purposes of God's promises.
First, verse 71 says, this is why God is raising up the horn in the house of David. Why? Salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us. Do you know that Israel had been hated by the dragon and his seed from the very beginning? The very beginning.
Israel had been despised and it's not hard to understand why. The nation Israel gave the world the Bible. Israel gave the world the Messiah. And Satan has hated this people, and in the end what will save Israel? And what will save the people of God? Peace treaties? Negotiations? Military force? No, no. In the end, only the Messiah can ultimately save Israel from the heathen that rage. The prophets, in fact, predicting detail, vivid detail, the deliverance of Israel by Messiah personally - Ezekiel 38, Ezekiel 39, Zechariah 12, 13 and 14, and Revelation 19. Only the Prince of Peace can finally bring peace to Israel.
I wonder. I wonder how many years Zechariah had walked past Roman soldiers on the way up to the temple. Perhaps they mocked him. Perhaps, he experienced some of the bullying. How many years he had suffered the indignity of having Roman coins with the image of Caesar and the Roman eagle sitting there in Jerusalem for a people who are told to have no graven images. And Zechariah would have said, when? When, O Lord, would we be delivered from our enemies? Well, Messiah is going to do that, but not always according to the timetable Israel expected. But he's going to do it. Because he said so.
But before he saves them from their enemies, he needs to save them from themselves. That's the second purpose of the promise. Look closely at verse 72. He says “to show mercy toward our fathers and to remember his holy covenant,” verse 73, “the oath which he swore to Abraham, our father.” That's the second purpose, he's going to redeem his people. He's going to have mercy on his people. He's going to save his people from their sins. God promised he'd have mercy on Israel. But why do they need mercy? Well, same reason you need mercy. The same reason I need mercy. Because they rebelled against God. Because they rejected their Creator. Because they believe they are right in their own eyes. And I wonder, I wonder before we move on, if today you are here and you really believe that you truly need mercy. Or perhaps you've imbibed the air of this world and the spirit of the age that says, well, I'm a good person. And if something happens to me, I'm sure God will judge me to be good, to be okay. I mean, after all, it's Sunday morning and where am I found? Right here, in a church. I'm a good person. Yet the Bible says in Romans 3, “there is none righteous, not even one.” There's none who does good. There's not even one. All our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment, Isaiah 64, verse 6. How could God say that about us? He could say that because the standard is perfect love for Him, and that's not how we live. We pursue our own. We go our own way. We do our own things. And we are our own Lords. We receive gifts all the time from God, and we don't thank Him for it. We pursue our own will. We worship ourselves. We please ourselves. And then at the end of the day, we still expect God to say, Yeah, you're good, come to heaven. Mercy. Mercy is God not giving us what we deserve. That's mercy. Mercy is God not giving us what we deserve. We deserve judgment. We deserve wrath. Mercy is what's needed because God's wrath is upon us.
And this is what Israel has promised. Zechariah 13:1, “In that day, a fountain will be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for impurity.” And in Ezekiel 36, God says, “I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of the countries, and bring you into your own land, and I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from your idols.”
Turn with me to Romans 11. There God promised that Israel will one day be a blessing. And you remember the promise given to Abraham that Israel will be a blessing to all nations. You fast forward to Romans 11. But how can Israel be a blessing to all nations if they remain in unbelief? If they are not safe from themselves, look at what Paul predicts under inspiration, this word of prophecy in Romans 11. He says in verse 11, “I say then that they stumble so as to fall. May it never be. But by their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make them jealous. Now, if their transgression is riches for the world and their failure is riches for the Gentiles,” now watch now, “how much more will their fullness be?” Verse 15, “for if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?”
Yes, there is, beloved, a deliverance coming for the people of Israel too. Look at verse 25, “for I do not want you brothers to be uninformed of this mystery, that you will not be wise in your own estimation that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved just as it is written, the deliverer will come from Zion, he will remove ungodliness from Jacob, and this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins. From the standpoint of the Gospel, they are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of God's choice, they are beloved for the sake of the fathers, for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” God will not rescind his promise.
Zechariah 8, there's an amazing verse there, verse 23, “And thus says Yahweh of hosts, in those days ten men from every tongue of the nations will take hold of the garment of a Jew saying, let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.” Yes, there's coming a day when the nations of the world will cling to the reconciled, saved, born again Jewish people who will once again be in the place of prominence.
Well, if you're saved from yourself and saved from your enemies, what do you do? Luke chapter 1, look at the third purpose. This corresponds to why God has visited His people. Look at verse 74, “to grant us that we being rescued from the hand of our enemies might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life.” If you're saved from yourself and you're saved from your enemies, you're set free to serve. Third purpose, you're set free to serve.
Now look at these four qualifiers of a life of service to God. This is really beautiful. He says, end of verse 74, “might serve Him without fear,” verse 75, “in holiness, righteousness before Him all our days.” I really think one of the greatest markers of a Christian is a growing desire to serve. A growing desire to serve.
If you're set free from your sin, you don't want to keep serving yourself. You don't. You desire to be used by God. You desire to please God. You desire to live for God, the glory of God. And more than anything, you want to be used by God, in how? In purity and in holiness. You don't want to come and feel unclean, double-minded, hypocritical, duplicit. You want to do it as to Him and before Him. And truthfully, if you're right with God and you want it to be perpetual, you want to do it all the days of your life.
And beloved, the place where you will finally and fully serve God without fear, without hindrance, without dealing with the remains of corruption, all the days of your life in holiness, in righteousness is where? In heaven. And what a day that would be. But God says, look, I'm going to use my strong, mighty son, the horn of salvation in David's house. He's going to deliver you from Satan and enemies and those that hate you. He's going to redeem you from your sin and it's guilt and it's pain, and I'm going to visit you so you can happily serve me all the days of your life without guilt, without shame and without fear. That sounds like a happy life, doesn't it? Sounds like joy. Joy unspeakable and full of glory. Praise God for his performed promises. Praise God for these purposes in the promises.
And finally, thirdly, look at how he would perform those promises, the procedure of God's promises, how he's going to do it. That's the last portion, 76 to 79, “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High. You will go on before the Lord to make ready his ways, to give to his people the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, with which the sunrise from on high will visit us, to shine upon those who sit in darkness in the shadow of death, to direct our feet into the way of peace.”
What we have here, this is absolutely incredible. What we have here, two persons. Two persons who are going to bring the promises of visitation, deliverance and redemption to pass. First of all, the child, the child called John. The first prophet since Malachi and according to Jesus, the greatest prophet. The forerunner, the one who goes ahead of the face of Messiah. And Zechariah said he's going to do two things. Number one, he's going to prepare the way for Messiah. And number two, he will give the knowledge of salvation.
And John, as you remember from our studies through the book of John, the Gospel of John, shook Israel up, raised messianic expectations, he made people again, thinking, Messiah, kingdom, judgment, repent, believe. And then John began giving them the Gospel in seminal form, turn from your sins, turn to God in mercy. Unless people are willing to receive the king by giving up their own kingship, they can't get the kingdom. Unless you're willing to lay down your arms and surrender and receive the king on his own terms, in total submission, you have no right to say, I will take the kingdom and all its blessings too. And John was there to say, repent, turn from your sin. Turn from your selfishness and self-centeredness. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, come to Him and be saved.
But now, now comes the high point of this song. And let us not miss this, verse 78, “because of the tender mercy of our God, with which the sunrise from on high will visit us.” This beloved gets to the doctrine of justification by faith. The heart and soul of our justification includes at its very heart, very core, the remission of our sins. The forgiveness of our sins. How does it happen? Listen to what the song says, because, you see that word because is the Greek word “thea,” through, on account of, that is the means, the how of forgiveness of sins. He tells us, he tells us, look at it, the tender mercy of our God. Isn't it amazing? The tender mercy of our God.
Theologically, we talk about being justified by grace through faith because of Christ, and that is true, absolutely true. In Zechariah's song, the forgiveness of sins comes through the mercy of God, and this is repeated again in the theme that is underscored by Paul in Ephesians 2 and verse 4, when he describes our state of being dead in trespasses and sin, he comes to verse 4, “but God being rich in mercy.” The mercy of God. The elios of God. The forgiveness of sin is not something that you and I merit. It's not something that you and I strive to achieve. You can't make up for your sins by works of righteousness. Neither can I. That is the worst lie ever propagated by professing Christians in certain denominations. If you want to go on a fool's errand, chase the hope of redeeming yourself by your own achievements. By your own doings. I often tell people, listen, the harder you try to do that, the more you heap up judgment on yourself. The only way you can know salvation, the only way you can have the forgiveness of sins, is through the mercy of God. Even a redeemed sinner, who comes in repentance, he stands on only that ground for forgiveness, the mercy of God. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to your lovingkindness, according to your tender mercy. Blot out my transgression.
It's not through the justice of God. It's not through anything else. It is through the mercy of God. Notice how the mercy of God is described in this passage under the influence of the Holy Spirit. And I can't really, I really can't pass over this. Look at this, “Because of the tender mercy.” The Greek text is very vivid. ‘Splagchnon en eleos.’ Of God. “Splagchnon,” the inward part, the bowel, the viscera of compassion.
You see, it's one thing to get stopped by a police officer on the highway because you're speeding, you're going over the limit, way over the limit. You deserve a ticket and points and even perhaps your car towed. And instead of giving you justice, the ticket and the point that you deserve, he says, well, this time around, I'll let you go, but he does it with a stern frown. I'll let you go, but watch out. You received mercy. You received mercy, but it wasn't very tender, was it? The head of the church is a strong and mighty Jesus, whose mercy is tender. That's how he forgave us. It was a tender mercy.
When God forgave us our sins, when God forgave us of our sins, the mercy that he poured out on our souls that night or that day, was sweet, gentle, tender, oozing with the ‘splagchnon’ of compassion. That's how the mercy of God functions. This is enough reason for each and every single one of us, child of God, to rejoice and worship and thank God for this tender mercy that we have received. That we did not receive mercy with a frown and with threats, but we received mercy with tenderness. Tenderness. And then verse 78 says, “With which the sunrise,” capital S, “from on high will visit us.” That's Jesus Christ.
The Greek word, ‘anatolé’ means the breaking of the dawn. Christ, the breaking of the dawn. When the sun rises, it's that moment where the night retreats, the shadows fall away.
The lights come on in the morning dawn. That is what is described in this text, a title for Jesus.
As I thought about this, I thought of this, have you ever been terribly sick? Really sick.
And in pain? A lot of pain. And perhaps even terribly afraid? Your mind going everywhere? And then the night comes. And you're lying on your bed, in pain, sick, discouraged. And the night seemed to drag on. And you're watching and waiting, and waiting and watching. Eternity, it feels like eternity. And waiting for the first signs of the dawn. And perhaps you've heard those birds, you know, the 3 a.m. birds. And you think it's coming, it's coming, and finally the light changes. And when the dawn came, the distress of the night, the darkness, the fear, the irrational, irrational fear, the worry, the anxiety, the pain just seemed to evaporate because finally the day had come. The dawn had come. So it is with Messiah.
People who are living in the night, the long night of slavery to sin and oppression, the long night of being under their own slavish thumb and under the thumb of unbelieving Gentiles, that finally Messiah is like the dawn breaking. The dawn had finally visited us. We have encountered this word visit earlier in verse 68,’ episkeptomai,’ to look closely with genuine concern in order to help. This is what Messiah does when he comes. Look at verse 79, two things. Number one, he's going to give light to those sitting in darkness, to shine upon those who sit in darkness in the shadow of death, salvation, to open the eyes of those blinded by sin and can't see God. And beloved, if you're a Christian, you're beloved of God, but I hope you're thankful today. I hope you're thankful for the fact that blessed are your eyes for they see. Blessed are your eyes for they see that you look at life and reality now and it makes sense. Someone switched on the light. You could see what's in front of you. You're not bumping into things. You're not going around ready to have an accident all the time because God has brought life and light to you and reality is in front of you. This is what Messiah brings.
And if you're still outside of Christ, you are in darkness and you are groping to find your way, and you will stumble and fall. And if you continue down that path, you will end up falling into that everlasting cliff, hell. Why will you remain without God and without hope in this world? When you can have the light of the world? Turn the light on and you could see reality as God sees it.
And then secondly, it says to direct our feet into the way of peace. This word direct means to guide straight towards or upon something. Generally, it means to guide or direct one's way or journey to a place, a specific place, to make straight. Look at how Paul uses it in 1 Thessalonians 311, where he says, “Now may our God and Father himself and Jesus our Lord direct our way to you, to a specific place.” And here, what this is telling us is that God, after saving us, He saves us, He disciples us. He doesn't just save us, He directs us, He disciples us, He leads us, He shepherds us, He teaches us how to live.
Zechariah looks at his son John, and on the eighth day and as he holds that little baby, he sees a lot, he sees God is not making empty promises, He's not making empty statements about the future. He realized that 2,000 years earlier when God promised Abraham that He would make him a blessing and come to his people and set them free and deliver them, He sees it now in John, his son. And He sees it why? That is because He's coming to set them free from their enemies, to redeem them, to enable them to serve Him without fear and in front of Him is the first part of the plan. The forerunner, the one who prepares the way of the Lord. And then coming after Him, the long-expected Messiah, the Lamb of God, the light of the world, the light who brings light, the shepherd who guides and protects. The future had become present. And now you and I read it as the past.
Beloved, we find ourselves now living between the two comings of our Lord Jesus Christ, and we too long for a second visitation. We too wait for complete redemption. That last vestige of the remains of corruption to be swallowed up, and for our bodies to be redeemed. We long also for the son of David to sit on a throne and rule the world in righteousness and end the corruption and the oppression and the pain and the suffering. We too must wait for a day when we will be saved from our enemies completely. Satan and his forces. And from those he uses in this world to rage against us. We too must wait for when we finally deliver from our sin every single vestige of our remaining corruption. And we must wait for when we can finally serve God without any hindrance, without any fear, in joy and peace and righteousness forever. But just as John and Jesus accomplished the purpose of his first coming, so it will be with his second. In fact, the second will again have witnesses to go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah. Just as that future finally moved into their present and became there in our past, so these promises that we read of his return, the rapture of the church, the defeat of Israel's enemies and ours, glorification with new bodies, wiping away every tear, one day those future promises will move into your present and then into your past. Blessed be God. Are you waiting for it? Are you?
Do you doubt it?
I know time is not on my side, but I must do this. Indulge me. This is way too important. Turn with me to Genesis 15. And I want us to see this, because if you're sitting and doubting and sometimes in the waiting, a lot of things can happen. You begin to doubt the promises of God and doubt the goodness of God and even at different levels, even when you're going through a difficulty and you feel like you can't take it anymore, don't ever doubt the promises of God. When he says, I will sustain you, and as we were reminded on Wednesday, when he says, I will help you, oh, it is absolutely true. When he says, I will work all things for you good and for my glory, it is absolutely true. Don't doubt it.
Look at how he fulfilled his promises. You know, in Genesis 15, verse 1, “After these things, the word of Yahweh came to Abraham in a vision, saying, Do not fear, Abram, I am a shield to you; Your reward shall be very great. And Abram said, Oh, Lord Yahweh, what will you give me as I go on being childless and the heir of my house is Eleazar of Damascus? And Abram said, since you have given no seed to me, behold, one born in my house is my heir. Then behold, the word of Yahweh came to him, saying, this one will not be your heir, but one who will come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir.”
Now, remember, God had made a promise before, but now he's repeating it here, “Then he believed in Yahweh, and he counted to him as righteousness. And he said to him, I am Yahweh who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess it.
And he said, Oh, Lord Yahweh, how may I know that I will possess it? So he said to him, bring me a three-year-old heifer and three-year-old female goat and a three-year-old ram, turtle dove and a young pigeon. Then he brought all these to him and split them into parts down the middle and laid each part opposite the other, but he did not split apart the birds. And then the birds of prey came down upon the carcasses and Abram drove them away. Now, it happened that when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, terror and a great darkness fell upon him. Then God said to Abram, know for certain that your seed will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. But I will also judge the nation to whom they are enslaved, and afterward they will come out with many possessions. As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace, you will be buried at a good old age. Then in the fourth generation, they will return here for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete. Now it happened,” now watch this, verse 17, “Now it happened that the sun had set and it was very dark, and behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch, which passed between these pieces. On that day,” verse 18, “Yahweh cut a covenant with Abram, saying, to your seed I have given this land from the river of Egypt, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates,” and he goes on. A flaming torch hovered over those pieces of animals and deliberately moved down that aisle between the pieces. This was a theophany. The smoking oven, the flaming torch were the visible manifestations of the invisible God. This was God himself going between the pieces of those carcasses set in that aisle.
And I want to conclude with the words of RC. Sproul on this, and you can connect the two. And I quote, “God dramatically and demonstratively communicated this to Abraham, I'm cutting a covenant with you, Abraham. And what I'm saying is that if I don't keep my word, if I fail to keep my promise, may I be torn asunder just as you've cut in half this heifer and this ram and this goat. May the immutable God suffer a permanent mutation. May the infinite surrender to finitude, the immortal to mortality. How do you want me to swear, Abraham, on my mother's grave? I don't have a mother. On the altar, that's something made by the hands of man. Abraham, there's nothing higher upon which I can swear an oath than my own self-existent, infinite, eternal being.”
Do you see, beloved, that when God made this covenant with Abraham and with his seed, he swore an oath based on himself, on his own divine being. God has put his deity on the line to confirm the promise that God made to Abraham and to his seed, and we see it coming to fulfillment in the song of Zechariah.
Our God is a God who's trustworthy. And if you're in the waiting, wait by faith, unwavering faith. Trust him. Look to Him. Cling to His word. He is trustworthy. He is faithful. Let's pray.
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