Amen.
The Gospel of Luke is the longest of the four Gospels.
It has 24 chapters, but as you can see from chapter 1, the chapters are pretty long.
This is a really long one to start out with.
But it goes into great detail about the life of Jesus Christ, of all that Jesus began both
to do and teach, obviously, culminating in his death, burial, and resurrection.
Look at the first verse.
It says,
Many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most
surely believed among us, even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were
eyewitnesses and ministers of the word.
It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very
first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty
of those things wherein thou hast been instructed.
So right at the beginning here, we have a bit of an introduction on who's writing, who
they're writing to, and why they're writing this epistle.
And when we look at this carefully, we see the purpose for this is to write to somebody
who's already saved.
They already believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
And it's that he might know, in verse 4, the certainty of those things wherein he has been
instructed.
Now, this is different than the purpose of the Gospel of John, because in the Book of
John, it says that these things are written that you might believe on the name of the
Son of God and that believing you might have life through his name.
So the point of the Book of John is to get someone saved.
So that's a little bit different than the purpose here, which is to give a lot more
detail and to give a lot of deeper understanding to someone who's already saved.
So the Book of Luke is a really interesting book.
It has a lot of great, strong meat in it and has a lot of detail, which is why it's so
long.
Now, let's look at this carefully before we delve too far into this, because this introduction
is pretty interesting.
It says here that many had already taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of
those things which are most surely believed among us.
So this is talking about a lot of other people that had attempted to write down everything
about the life of Christ to basically tell this great story.
And you have to imagine that of all the people that were there at that time, there were so
many thousands and thousands of people that saw the miracles and that walked and talked
with Christ or that walked and talked with the apostles and saw the wonders and signs
that they did and heard the preaching that they did.
So obviously, people are going to want to write that down or talk about that or be one
that would document that.
So he said a lot of people have taken in hand to do that.
That makes sense.
He said even as they delivered them unto us, delivered what unto us?
The things that are most surely believed among us, which were from the beginning were eyewitnesses
and ministers of the word.
So Luke is obviously getting a lot of these things secondhand because of the fact that
he's getting them from people who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers
of the word.
And then it says it seemed good to me also having had perfect understanding of all things
from the very first.
So Luke is saying that he is one who did go back to the early days with John the Baptist
and you know, he was around during the ministry of Jesus Christ, even though he wasn't one
of the 12 disciples, he was still around during that time.
He went all the way back to the beginning.
He had perfect understanding of all things from the very first.
And now he's writing unto this guy named Theophilus that he might know the certainty of those
things were and he's been instructed.
So who is Luke?
Who is the author here?
Well first of all, this is the same author that wrote the book of Acts.
So in Acts chapter one, it starts out the former treatise, have I written unto you most
excellent Theophilus?
And then he goes on to talk about that.
So he writes the book of Acts, addressing it to the same guy, Theophilus, and as we
get into the book of Acts, we see that toward the end of the book, he starts referring to
himself in the book by instead of saying he and him and they, he starts saying we did
this and we did that.
Because toward the end of Paul's ministry, he was traveling with them all the time.
Luke in the Bible is known as the beloved physician.
And so maybe he traveled with Paul because Paul needed a physician with him as he got
older and he, and he wanted the health advice.
I don't know.
Or maybe they were just doing soul winning together and preaching together.
But even in a second Timothy, he talks about how only Luke is with me at the very end of
his life when he's reaching the very end and he's about to depart and be with Christ.
Luke is the one that's still with him all the way to the end.
So that's who Luke is.
Now we know that all scripture is given by inspiration of God.
So truly the author of this book is the Holy Ghost.
It's the word of God.
So whether or not Luke was actually there for these things isn't the issue because it's
given by divine inspiration.
You say, well, how do we know that the book of Luke is really the word of God?
Well here's how we know.
Read the book of Luke and the power of God's word is dripping from every chapter.
That's how you know.
Now sure many others had taken it in hand to write things about Jesus Christ, but we
can easily tell that they're not the word of God just as easily as we can tell anything
that God made from what man has made.
Man makes that which is inferior.
And if we see the cell phone tower that's made to look like a tree, we don't need an
arborist to tell us that that's not a real tree, that that's man made.
And we don't need a theologian or a historian or an archeologist to tell us that the gospel
according to Bartholomew or the gospel according to Thomas are bogus forgeries, that they're
frauds, that they're cheap imitations because the cubic zirconium can't stand up to the
diamond of God's word.
And the book of Luke is such a powerful, amazing book.
There could be no doubt as to its authenticity.
And so we know that it's been given to us by inspiration of God's powerful book.
Let's get into it.
It says in verse five, there was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest
named Zacharias of the course of Abia and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron and
her name was Elizabeth.
Again, we're going into great detail here, even about the parents of John the Baptist.
So this goes into a lot of detail all throughout the book of Luke.
It says in verse six, they were both righteous before God walking in all the commandments
and ordinances of the Lord blameless.
And they had no child because that Elizabeth was barren and they both were now well stricken
in years.
Now this goes to show you right now that a woman can be barren or a couple can not have
children or be infertile through no fault of their own because the Bible is pretty clear
here that these were righteous people.
They were walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.
They weren't sinless but they were blameless just as the pastor of the church is to be
blameless.
It doesn't mean that he's sinless.
It doesn't mean that he doesn't do anything wrong or commit sins but blameless means that
there's not some huge glaring sin problem here that you'd say, okay, well that's why
God's punishing them and they don't have any children or whatever.
It's possible for people who are extremely righteous to not have a child for whatever
reason.
God opens and closes the womb.
And in Genesis we also see righteous and godly people like Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca
struggling with not being able to have a child but the encouraging thing is when you realize
that every woman in the Bible who was barren eventually had a child, every single one.
There's not a single exception to that.
So that should be encouraging that if you pray and wait on the Lord that God can hear
you and give you fertility and not to just rush out and just, you know, tamper with nature
and tamper with God's design with the test tube babies, you know, you should wait on
the Lord, pray and seek his face and wait in his timing.
These people had pretty much completely given up on having a child because of the fact that
they were both now well stricken in years.
They're very old.
It says in verse 8, it came to pass while he executed the priest's office before God
in the order of his course, according to the custom of the priest's office, his lot was
to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord.
And the whole multitude of the people were praying without or outside the building at
the time of incense.
And there appeared unto him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar
of incense.
And when Zachariah saw him, he was troubled and fear fell upon him.
But the angel said unto him, Fear not Zacharias, for thy prayer is heard.
I mean, it's about time, right?
Oh, by the way, your prayers answered.
He's old.
It's too late in his mind.
He said, Your prayer is heard.
Thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John.
And thou shalt have joy and gladness, and many shall rejoice at his birth.
For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord and shall drink neither wine nor strong
drink.
For he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother's womb.
By the way, that's pretty good advice on being great in the sight of the Lord.
Step one, don't drink wine and strong drink.
That's, you know, that's a good recipe for being great inside the Lord.
Isn't it interesting that he's neither going to drink wine nor strong drink, and he's going
to be filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb.
Isn't that similar to what it says in Ephesians 5?
Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit.
So right here we see those two things again in the Bible side by side.
Multiple times in the Bible, these two things are contrasted.
So don't tell me you're filled with the Holy Spirit as you crack open Budweiser, you know,
as you crack open that bottle of wine with dinner that you and your posh friends are
going to partake of, you know, from the wine cellar, and it's all chilled, and you're going
to pull out the corkscrew, and, you know, you try to sophisticated it, and, you know,
rolling a blunt just isn't as sophisticated, or, you know, cracking open a Bud dumber isn't
as sophisticated, or whatever, you know, your natural ice 24-pack just isn't as sophisticated,
but it's the same junk.
Be sober.
Not fooled by this wine culture, like you reach this level of riches, or sophistication,
or maturity, where now you shop at, what's that wine place, that giant wine place called?
Not Bevmo, what's the wine one called?
Somebody help me out.
Total Wine.
Yeah, they ought to call it Total Wine-o.
You know, I've actually done some fire alarm service calls at Total Wine, so I've been
there a bunch of times to do fire alarm service calls, and when I went to do service calls
at Total Wine, you know what I've noticed about it, is that like 99% of the people that
shop there are old people.
They're all gray-haired, you know, there's no fool like an old fool, and it seems like
people they get to this point where that's all they have in their life is just drinking
now, and they go to just this giant super store, I mean it's huge, and it's nothing
but booze.
Total Wine, and it's just all these elderly people.
I mean you think when you've lived on this earth that long, you'd figure out that that
stuff's not good for you.
It's not making you any smarter.
It's not making you a better person.
It's not making you more righteous.
It's not making you smarter or healthier, but when shall I rise, I'll seek it yet again.
Let's keep going.
It says in verse 16, many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their
God.
Yeah, that's a great thing to do with your life.
Don't drink, get filled with the Holy Ghost, and turn people to the Lord their God.
That's what soul winning is, right?
It's about getting people to turn to the God of our fathers here in the United States of
America.
You know, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, yes, but also the God of all the Christians
that have gone before us, of the Baptists and other Evangelical Christians that have
gone before us.
It says he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias to turn the hearts of the
fathers to the children.
That's a reference to Malachi chapter 4, where he said in Malachi chapter 4, let's just flip
there, right?
In Luke chapter 1, and let's look at it over in Malachi, because this actually has a lot
of relevance with Luke chapter 1.
In Malachi chapter 4, it says in verse 5, behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet
before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.
And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children
to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with the curse.
So this is just connecting these two scriptures beyond any doubt that we know that Malachi
chapter 4 is about John the Baptist because of the fact that it's quoted in Luke chapter
1 by the angel who explains his birth to his father.
So Elijah is going to come.
Now, go back to chapter 3, verse 1, while we're here, because this is going to come
up later in Luke chapter 1.
Malachi 3.1 says, Behold, I will send my messenger, and this is John the Baptist as well, and
he shall prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his
temple, even the messenger of the covenant whom ye delight in.
Behold, he shall come, saith the Lord.
And it makes you want to read the whole chapter, it's such a powerful chapter, but the point
is that the Lord himself was going to come.
It said the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple.
Jesus Christ suddenly entered the temple and cleaned house.
Jesus Christ is the Lord.
And so when he says, I'll send my messenger before my face, and he shall prepare the way
before me, you can see there a scripture that teaches us the deity of Christ.
Because if you look at chapter 2, verse 17, you've wearied the Lord with your words, yet
you say whereinof we wearied him, when ye say, everyone that doeth evil in the sight
of the Lord is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delighteth in them, or, watch this,
where is the God of judgment?
So the question at the end of chapter 2 is, well, where is the God of judgment?
And then the next breath is, well, behold, I'll send my messenger, and he shall prepare
the way before me, and the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple.
So God is the Lord, is Jesus Christ.
And the one who prepared the way before the Lord is John the Baptist.
And he's preparing the way for the Lord.
He's preparing the way for the God of judgment.
He's preparing the way for the Lord Jesus Christ.
Let's go back to Luke chapter 1 with that in mind.
Luke chapter 1, it says that he will go in the spirit and power of Elias.
That points us to Malachi chapter 4.
He'll turn the hearts of the fathers to the children.
That's a quote from Malachi chapter 4.
And the disobedient to the wisdom of the just to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.
So John the Baptist is going and doing a lot of hard preaching before Jesus gets there
so that people would be prepared when Jesus got there.
So that Jesus wouldn't have to just get on the scene and start from scratch.
John the Baptist starts laying the groundwork by doing a lot of hard preaching and starting
to prepare people for who Jesus is, why he's going to be there.
He was pointing the way to Christ for the people that would encounter him thereafter.
So let's look down at our Bibles in verse number 18.
And Zechariah said unto the angel, Whereby shall I know this?
For I am an old man and my wife well stricken in years.
So this is old language so sometimes we have to stop and think about what the words are
saying.
We have to just blow past this.
Whereby shall I know this?
What is he actually asking?
Basically what he's asking is, well how am I going to know if what you're saying is really
true?
That's what he's actually saying.
Well whereby shall I know this?
Now if he believed what the angel was telling him then that would be enough.
He knows it.
How does he know it?
Because the angel of the Lord just told him.
But his answer, he sits and listens to all this, he hears all this and he's skeptical
because he says, well whereby shall I know this?
Well how am I going to know that this is really true?
Why does he doubt?
He says, for I am an old man and my wife well stricken in years.
And the angel answering said unto him, I am Gabriel that stand in the presence of God
and am sent to speak unto thee and to show thee these glad tidings and behold thou shall
be dumb.
Oh you want him signed?
Oh you're looking for a miracle?
You want me to show you a sign so you can believe?
Okay I've got a sign for you, you're going to be dumb and not able to speak until the
day that these things shall be performed because thou believeth not my words which shall be
fulfilled in their season.
So be careful what you wish for, right?
Here I'll show you a miracle, I'll make you unable to speak for the next however long,
at least nine months, more than nine months because she doesn't even conceive yet.
And the people waited for Zacharias and marveled that he tarried so long in the temple and
when he came out he could not speak unto them and they perceived that he had seen a
vision in the temple for he beckoned unto them and remained speechless and it came to
pass that as soon as the days of administration were accomplished he departed to his own house.
And after those days his wife Elizabeth conceived and hid herself five months saying, now let
me stop right here, a lot of people will try to use this to calculate exactly what time
of year Christ was born.
I don't know if you've ever heard that argument where they try to go here and they try to
pinpoint the date because they say, well, he was of the course of Abaya and if we can
figure out when the course of Abaya was then we can figure out when he went home and then
when he went home she conceives.
But here's what it says, after those days his wife Elizabeth conceived.
So do we really know how long after those days it happened?
No, so even if you could somehow pinpoint when the course of Abaya was, that's not going
to tell you exactly when this took place because it didn't say that it happened immediately,
it's just after those days he went to his own house and then after those days his wife
Elizabeth conceived and hid herself five months saying, thus hath the Lord dealt with me in
the days when he looked on me to take away my reproach among men.
So the big deal that they're making is they want to say, hey, Christmas is wicked because
it wasn't December 25th that he was born on and you say, well, pastor, was he born on
December 25th?
Here's what I say, there's a one in 365 chance that he was born on December 25th.
He might've been born on December 25th or any other day for that matter.
I don't think it matters and I'm just going to go on the record right now that I love
Christmas.
I'm for it.
I'm for Christmas.
Now I know it's July, so we're talking about Christmas in July here, but the reason that
I love Christmas is because of the fact that everybody hears about Jesus and the things
that they hear about Jesus around Christmas time for the most part are very true things.
I mean, you hear about it through the hymns, and look, I can't stand all this rocking around
the Christmas tree and jingle bells and white Christmas, I don't like, I hate that stuff.
I'll immediately shut that off.
It annoys me because I want to honor Christ with Christmas.
That's the part I like about Christmas.
And there are some things not to like about Christmas, just the commercialism and the
cheapening of it, but there are a lot of things to enjoy about it and so I want to focus on
those good things and so I like the songs that are about Jesus.
They emphasize that he's the son of God, that he died for our sins, that he rose again from
the dead.
I mean, you'll find all these key doctrines in those hymns.
They're doctrinally sound.
The popular Christmas hymns are doctrinally sound.
And even when you walk through the store, even if some entertainer is butchering them
and they can't just sing it normally.
Even if they completely butcher it, I mean, people are hearing a lot about Jesus.
They're definitely without excuse.
Even if they see that Charlie Brown special, they get Luke chapter 2 from the King James
Version read aloud to them.
Those songs to me, I don't know, maybe to an unsaved person, it just means nothing to
them, but as a saved person, when I hear the Christmas carols, my heart burns within me.
It brings tears to my eyes.
I get excited about the birth of Christ and the gospel and so that's what I like about
it.
And unto the pure, all things are pure.
And I can't see what in the world is wrong with celebrating the birth of Christ, eating
a ham dinner, amen?
New Testament, don't Judaize me.
Ham dinner, mashed potatoes, corn, rolls.
What could be wrong with hot chocolate and singing about Jesus and reading the Christmas
story and giving gifts to one another and spending time with family?
I think these are all good things.
And so if we celebrate a wholesome Christmas, I think it's a great holiday and I think it
really does a lot for our society.
And if you look at the people who are really behind the push to get rid of Christmas and
to de-Christianize our culture and to downplay Christmas, it's always Judaism that's behind
it because whenever you read these articles that, oh, Christmas is so bad, it's so pagan.
At the bottom of the article, you know what it tells you?
Oh, by the way, click here to learn about Hanukkah.
That's what they're into, which is a foolish, ridiculous holiday.
And let me tell you why it's so stupid and ridiculous, because of the fact that Hanukkah
is about the dedication and the consecration of the temple that Christ said would be destroyed
and that not a stone would be left upon another.
You guys are celebrating a building that got destroyed almost 2,000 years ago.
You know what?
I'm celebrating the temple that was destroyed and then three days later rose again.
So you celebrate your stupid temple that's dust.
It's gone.
The one that Christ destroyed.
He sent forth, the king sent forth his armies and destroyed their city.
That's what the parable said.
It was God's will.
Sure it was the Romans who did it, but guess who sent them?
God did to destroy that temple.
I'd rather celebrate the temple where Jesus said, destroy this temple and in three days
I'll raise it up.
I serve a risen savior.
I pray to the living God and I pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ who is seated
at the right hand of the Father.
I don't pray at some wall that's not even part of that temple.
The wailing wall, weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth is where that wall is going to take
you.
It's the wailing wall that's going to lead you to even more wailing.
Christ rejecting Judaism.
Beware of de-Christianization in our society and the desire to bring us under Old Testament
calendars and observing days and months and years.
I'm afraid of you is what Paul said.
Let's get back into this.
I just wanted to mention that about this passage.
It says that she hid herself five months.
Why did Elizabeth hide herself for five months in verse 24?
I think that she was just nervous about having a miscarriage because she's so old.
This is why most women don't announce their pregnancy right when they get pregnant because
it often could lead to miscarriage.
That's why my wife, she usually announces her pregnancy when she's 12 weeks pregnant
because most miscarriages occur in the first 12 months.
Miscarriages can take place beyond that but that's the most common time.
A lot of advice that's out there is to wait until you're 12 weeks pregnant.
You can announce whenever you are.
I'm just saying that that's the common advice that's out there.
Hey, wait till you're 12 weeks before you announce because I guess every woman's different
but most women, when they have a miscarriage, it's painful for them emotionally and they
don't want to be asked about it over and over again and have to tell people over and over
again.
They'd rather that just nobody knew about it.
Some women could be different and they want people to know about it or they want to get
the condolences but most women would rather just deal with it on their own with their
husband and with the Lord and grieve.
They don't want to talk about it and have it be a big public thing.
Therefore, they'd rather just that nobody knew that they were pregnant, that they had
a miscarriage and then it's just that way they don't have to get choked up and keep
talking about it.
Look, this is something my wife has been through this many times.
It's part of having children is that you're going to have miscarriages from time to time.
It's something that most women go through at some point.
Now, in our society, it's not as common simply because a lot of women just aren't reproducing
or they spend most of their life not reproducing or on some kind of birth control but my wife
and I are expecting our 10th child but she's also had six miscarriages over the years.
The reason that I say that, the reason that I bring that up is just because a lot of women
who have miscarriages, they feel like they're the only one or that there's something wrong
with them or nobody understands but you have to understand that other people are going
through the same thing and they just might not necessarily tell you about it every time
or make a big deal about it but there's no temptation taking you but such as is common
to man.
Now, obviously, it's the hardest when you go through it if it's your first child.
That's always the hardest because then women are afraid that they can't even give birth
because they've been pregnant one time and it was a miscarriage and that's hard for them
and so they need to understand that no, that's common, that happens and many women have successfully
gone on to have many children thereafter.
It's a hard thing to go through and I think she's just really nervous because she's really
old and she's pregnant and she's hiding herself and she's kind of just in disbelief about
it and she doesn't want to be ashamed.
So it says, after those days, his wife, Elizabeth, conceived and hid herself five months saying,
thus that the Lord dealt with me in the days when he looked on me to take away my reproach
among men.
So that's the proof right there that she cared what other people thought.
That gives credence to my story about why she's hiding herself because she doesn't want
to get pregnant after all those years and then have a miscarriage and then have to deal
with that.
It says in verse number 26, and in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God
unto a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph
of the house of David and the virgin's name was Mary.
And the angel came in unto her and said, hail thou that art highly favored, the Lord
is with thee, blessed art thou among women.
And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying and cast in her mind what manner
of salutation this should be.
She's troubled because she's a humble person.
And if you come at a humble person with really big compliments, it can be a little troubling
to them.
It could seem like flattery or make them a little uncomfortable because she doesn't have
some super high view of herself or an inordinate view of herself.
So she is troubled and saying, what in the world?
What kind of a salutation is that?
And the angel said to her, fear not Mary, for thou has found favor with God and behold,
thou shall conceive in thy womb and bring forth the son and shall call his name Jesus.
He shall be great and shall be called the son of the highest and the Lord God shall
give unto him the throne of his father David and he shall reign over the house of Jacob
forever and of his kingdom there shall be no end.
And said Mary unto the angel, how shall this be seeing I know not a man?
And the angel answered and said unto her, the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the
power of the highest shall overshadow thee, therefore also that holy thing which shall
be born of thee shall be called the son of God.
And behold thy cousin Elizabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age and this
is the sixth month with her who was called barren.
So why was Jesus called the son of God?
Because of the fact that he has no human father, right?
Joseph is not the father.
She was a spouse to Joseph but before they came together, it says in Matthew 1, she was
found with child of the Holy Ghost.
So the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the highest, which I believe
is referring to God the father there, the power of the highest shall overshadow thee,
therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the son of
God.
So this is another verse where you have all three members of the Trinity present in one
verse.
So he's called the son of God because he has no earthly father.
He is conceived of the Holy Ghost.
It says, behold thy cousin Elizabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age and
this is the sixth month with her who was called barren for with God nothing shall be impossible.
And Mary said, behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word
and the angel departed from her.
And Mary arose in those days and went into the hill country with haste into a city of
Judah and entered into the house of Zacharias and saluted Elizabeth.
And it came to pass that when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe or John the
Baptist leaped in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost.
And she spake out with a loud voice and said, blessed art thou among women and bless it
is the fruit of thy womb.
And whence is this to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me for lo as soon as
the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy and
blessed is she that believed for there shall be a performance of those things which are
told her from the Lord.
And Mary said, my soul doth magnify the Lord and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior.
Now there are a lot of people that are Roman Catholics and they go overboard in their so
called veneration of Mary.
Let's just call it what it is.
They worship Mary.
When you're building a shrine to someone, when you're building an altar to someone,
when you're bowing before the image of someone, when you are praying to someone, that is worship.
They worship Mary.
Oh, we just venerate her.
No, you worship Mary.
And by the way, they worship the Pope also.
That's why they have pictures of him that they pray to bow down to kiss his big toe.
And look, don't somebody, somebody told me, oh, that's just a myth.
That's a Baptist myth that they kiss the Pope big toe.
That's a lie out of the pit of hell because they literally kissed the Pope's toe in the
middle ages.
That is a fact.
That's a historical fact.
Okay.
They would kiss it.
He'd hold out his hand and they would kiss his ring.
Right.
But wasn't there a Pope who chopped off, weren't you the one telling me about this?
This wasn't you.
You don't want to take credit for this one.
Anyway, there was a Pope, multiple Popes who were kissed on the foot.
Now, they don't kiss their toe anymore to my knowledge, but I know that in recent times
in modern day, there have been some people who have kissed the priest's toe and kissed
the Pope's toe.
But for a while, it was the official way to greet the Pope for a while was to kiss his
foot, to kiss his feet.
And there are statues that the Catholics will pray to and kiss and venerate.
And one of them even has the toes worn away because so many mouths have kissed it.
I mean, more people have kissed it than the Blarney stone.
And so, you know, this worship of Mary, it has no basis in scripture.
And let me just say this about Mary.
Mary is mentioned in the Bible very few times.
Very few.
She's mentioned more in the Quran than she is in the Bible.
I'll put it that way.
Don't quote me on this, but I think she's mentioned like 19 times.
I counted a while back for a sermon that I did about Catholicism.
I want to say it's like 19 times that she's mentioned.
King Saul is mentioned more, Samson's mentioned more, David's mentioned way more.
You know, the Lord has mentioned 7,000 times in the Old Testament.
Jesus is mentioned hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times.
Apostle Paul is mentioned way more.
I mean, this is not someone who the Bible emphasizes.
And in fact, in the book of Luke, there's the first Catholic.
This woman comes in and tries to venerate Mary to Jesus.
And this woman comes and says, blessed is the womb that bear thee and the paps which
thou has sucked.
And Jesus says, yea rather is he blessed that hears the word of God and does it.
So he doesn't say, yup, that's right, bless those paps.
Bless that womb.
Bless those teats.
No, no, no, he says, no, blessed is somebody who hears the word of God and does it.
And when his mother stands outside and tries to interrupt the sermon, oh, your mother and
your brother and are standing outside desiring to speak with thee.
He said, well, who is my mother?
Ouch.
Burn.
And you're going to tell me that we're supposed to worship and venerate, oh man, if we pray
to Mary, he's really going to listen to her.
She's the mediatrix.
She's the go-between.
Okay, well, people tried that in the New Testament and he didn't even open the door for her.
Right?
Oh, and then they, what about when they go to her and try to get her to get him to get
more wine together.
Right?
Oh, oh, they have no wine.
What does he say to her?
Woman, what have I to do with thee, for mine hour is not yet come.
Then she defers to him and says, hey, it's up to him because she says, whatsoever he
sayeth unto you, do it.
You know, and that'd be great advice for every Catholic.
Whatever Jesus says to do, do it.
That's what Mary, that's Mary's command to all, when I was a kid, there was a gospel
tract called Mary's command to all Catholics.
Whatever he says unto you, do it.
That was the first gospel tract I ever read as a kid.
I don't even know if it's still around, but I read that as a, I read that when I was like,
when I first learned how to read.
One of the first things I read, cause you know, you're at church, my parents, my parents
used to stay after the service and talk for hours.
And they were those people where they were the last ones in the parking lot.
Everybody else is gone.
My parents are still in the parking lot.
And then they'd move the party to this ice cream parlor called Leatherby's for another
few hours.
I mean, on church nights, we got home late.
And so, you know, sometimes you'd start just reading every tract in the tract rack.
And the first one I read was Mary's command to all Catholics.
I don't even know.
I hope it's doctrinally sound.
I don't even know.
But I read it as a kid.
So the point is that she's blessed among women.
Okay.
Great.
Well, back in the book of Judges, it said that JL was blessed above women.
That's an even bigger blessing.
You know, so don't go overboard on the veneration of Mary.
Was Mary a godly lady?
Absolutely.
But so was Elizabeth.
Elizabeth was also super godly, right?
I mean, God had a lot of great things to say about her life.
There were lots of godly women and godly examples.
Obviously, if God is choosing a woman to have the honor to give birth to Jesus, I mean,
that's a pretty big honor.
He's gonna pick probably the most godly possible woman that he can find.
So I think it's quite possible that she was the most godly person available in that generation.
It's like Job was the most godly man in his generation.
But that doesn't change the fact that she's a sinner.
And that she's a human being and that she's not deity.
And that's the problem that I have with this statement of Mary, the mother of God.
Okay.
Now, obviously, she is called the mother of the Lord Jesus, okay?
And you say, well, Jesus is God, so she's the mother of God.
The problem with that is, though, that God predates Mary.
Jesus said, before Abraham was, I am.
That's what Jesus said, right?
So Jesus could say the same thing about Mary, hey, before Mary was, I am.
Why?
Because Jesus is the great I am, and he was in the beginning with God, and he was God.
Mary wasn't there.
It wasn't that, oh, in the beginning was the word, and Mary, and God, and the word
was with Mary and God.
No, no, no, no.
She wasn't around.
She came into existence.
Her soul, as a person, she was created a few thousand years ago.
Whereas Jesus was not created a few thousand years ago.
Jesus is the eternal son of God.
Okay.
Going all the way back.
We see him appearing in the Old Testament.
You're not going to see Mary appearing in the Old Testament.
To say Mary's the mother of God has a weird implication, because it makes it sound like
she's deity, or that she somehow is above God, or greater than God, or comes before.
Obviously when it's, oh, what an honor that the mother of my Lord would come unto me.
Obviously she's the mother in the sense that she's carrying him, and giving birth to him,
suckling him, raising him.
But let's not go overboard and put her as this goddess mother like the Hindus have,
or like other false pagan religions all over the world have.
And that's a false doctrine.
And the proof is right here in Luke 1, their favorite passage, because what does it say
in verse 47?
My spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.
Well, listen, if you're not a sinner, you don't need a Savior.
We were just out soul winning this afternoon.
I think it was Dustin, right, that was talking about, he talked, he was giving an 11 year
old girl the gospel, and she's saying that she's never sinned, and he was trying to get
her to see, you've sinned, everybody has sinned.
And he said, well, if you've never sinned, then what would you need to be saved from?
Jesus is to save his people from their sins.
If you don't have any sins, you don't need a Savior.
Well Mary had a Savior.
Why?
Because if you have a Savior, that implies that without that Savior, you're what?
You're doomed.
And then the Savior saves you from that doom.
And that's exactly what she's saying.
Her spirit rejoiced in God her Savior.
But the Catholics literally believe that Mary was sinless.
That she was sinless.
I mean, I've talked to Catholics who said that Mary's mother was a virgin.
I mean, it's like calculus or something.
They keep taking it a step back.
You know that in the 20th century, the Pope made an announcement.
I think this is the last time the Pope spoke ex cathedra, was when he said that Mary ascended
into heaven.
Now, I learned about this when I was in Germany, so I only know the German term for it, Maria
Himmelfart, it's called.
And it's when Maria took the trip into heaven, is what that means in English.
So that, I don't know, I've never heard about it in America, but over there it's a big deal
because I remember I was, I think I was woken up one day because they do these weird parades
in Germany at like five or six in the morning.
They're just like mega fun, you know.
Here the street preachers are like the Pentecostals and the repent of your sins types, right?
The turn or burn with the megaphones.
Well, over there the Catholics have the megaphones in Germany.
They do the street preaching.
So I was laying in bed one day when I was visiting Germany as an 18-year-old.
I'm laying in bed and it's really early and I just hear all this weird noises and oh,
la, la, hi, la, la, Maria, blah, blah, blah.
You know, Maria.
I'm like, what in the world?
I look outside, it's like six in the morning and everybody looks like they're really tired.
A lot of them look like they didn't really want to be there, but it was like 75 people
and then the guy in the front was dressed up like Friar Tuck, like with the whole brown
outfit, with the hood and everything and they're holding up some idols or whatever and talking
about, oh, Maria ascended to heaven on this day, however many years ago or whatever.
I mean, come on, Mary ascending into heaven, that's what the Roman Catholic Church teaches
as official doctrine.
Are you listening?
They literally teach.
I mean, you know, when the Pope speaks ex cathedra, it's on par with scripture, right?
According to them and the Pope said that Mary ascended to heaven.
That's just ridiculous.
I mean, come on, wake up people.
That's not taught in the Bible.
There's nothing like that in the Bible.
Mary was a normal human being.
That's why even you see Jesus rebuking her at times, correcting her.
Now he loved her, cared about her.
She's a godly woman and he put her in the care of his best disciple and so forth.
But anyway, let's move on.
It says, he has regarded the lowest state of his handmaiden for behold, from henceforth
all generations shall call me blessed.
See, he regarded the lowest state of the handmaiden.
He didn't pick the one who was born of a virgin, completely sinless and going to ascend into
heaven later.
That's not a lowest state at all.
For he that is mighty hath done to me great things and holy is his name and his mercy
is on them that fear him from generation to generation.
He has showed strength with his arm.
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has put down the mighty from their seats and exalted them of low degree.
He filled the hungry with good things.
And the rich he hath sent empty away.
He hath hopen his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy.
As he spake to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed forever, and Mary abode with her
about three months and returned to her own house.
Now Elizabeth's full time came that she should be delivered and she brought forth a son and
her neighbors and her cousins, heard how the Lord had showed great mercy upon her and they
rejoiced with her.
And it came to pass that on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child and they
called him Zacharias after the name of his father.
And his mother answered and said, Not so, but he shall be called John.
And they said unto her, There is none of thy kindred that is called by this name.
And they made signs to his father how he would have him called.
And he asked for a writing table and wrote saying, His name is John.
And they marveled all.
And his mouth was opened immediately and his tongue loosed and he spake and praised God
and fear came on all that dwelt round about them.
And all these sayings were noised abroad throughout all the hill country of Judea.
And all they that heard them laid them up in their hearts saying, What manner of child
shall this be?
And the hand of the Lord was with them.
And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost and prophesied saying, Blessed
be the Lord God of Israel for he has visited and redeemed his people and raised up a horn
of salvation for us in the house of his servant David.
It's interesting how it calls Jesus a horn of salvation.
Because if you remember, the antichrist is called the little horn.
So everything that the devil does or the antichrist does, it's not original with him.
It's a counterfeit of what the Lord does.
So it says he's 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.
Notice there have always been holy prophets since the world began.
There's always been Bible preaching on this earth.
Even before we have the written word of God, there were the prophets who spake the word
of God in time past as Hebrews 1 says.
So it says that since the world began, he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets.
And what did the holy prophets speak about since the world began?
Well, they've always been speaking about what?
Jesus.
To him give all the prophets witness that through his name whosoever believeth in him
shall receive remission of sins.
So that horn of salvation was spoken of by prophets going all the way back to the beginning
of time, the beginning of the world.
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 sware
to our father Abraham that he would grant unto us that we being delivered out of the
hand of our enemies might serve him with fear.
Now, he starts out by talking about salvation and how all the prophets since the world began
have talked about the salvation that was going to be brought, right?
But then he changes gears and he starts talking about stuff that's specifically to Israel.
He says, hey, we're going to be saved from our enemies.
God's going to honor that promise that he made to Abraham and we're going to be delivered
out of the hand of our enemies so that we can serve him without fear.
We don't have to worry about being invaded by a foreign country is what he's referring
to there.
And in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life and thou child shall
be called the prophet of the highest for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare
his ways.
This is about John the Baptist specifically.
To give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins.
We have to understand that God's big program since the world began has always been salvation
and the remission of sins.
Those are the big things.
That's what he starts on and ends on.
Salvation, remission of sins, being forgiven of your sins basically, your sins being washed
away so that you could enter heaven.
But when he talks about how, oh, we're going to be delivered out of the hand of our enemies,
this is prophetic of a future Christ kingdom where he's going to in the millennium rule
over Israel and the 12 apostles will judge the 12 tribes of Israel and they will dwell
safely without fear of their enemies and worship before him.
And then of course into the eternal state all the believers will continue to worship
in peace and security and safety and not in fear of their enemies.
Now at this time though, people in Israel did not understand the fact that Jesus Christ
was necessarily going to come and die for their sins and be buried and rise again and
that then in the future he's going to come back to set up that kingdom.
A lot of them are expecting that kingdom to come right away.
Even after he rose from the dead, even his own disciples are still a little mixed up
because what do they say?
God will thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?
That's the way they're looking at it.
And then Jesus tells them it's not for you to know the times or the seasons which the
father has put.
So he puts them off on that.
He pushes that back.
That's for the future.
At this time it was about Jesus Christ coming to be the lamb of God.
Later he'll return as the lion of the tribe of Judah to sit on the throne of his father
David.
He didn't sit on that throne in his earthly ministry, but a lot of people expected him
to sit on that throne because they saw through a glass darkly.
They're reading the Old Testament and they can't really differentiate between those two
things effectively at times through Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and even in the book
of Acts there's some confusion at the very beginning there.
So we need to understand that the primary plan was always the remission of sins.
It's always salvation.
It was always about him coming to die on the cross.
It wasn't like plan A is to set up a kingdom and if that doesn't work out I'll die on the
cross and save the whole world.
The father sent the son to be the savior of the world.
This was planned all the way back in Genesis 3.15 when Christ would bruise the head of
the serpent and so forth.
So that's what we see here.
Both things are being mentioned.
Specific blessings for Israel that they rejected at the time but that will come later to a
regenerate Israel, a resurrected Israel after the rapture, after all the wrath is poured
out and Armageddon and Christ sets up a kingdom on this earth.
That's when these promises will be literally fulfilled by Jesus at that time.
They were not fulfilled back then but they will be fulfilled in the future.
Not to the bunch of unregenerate Jews that are unsaved that are living in the Middle
East right now but to those who are saved, who are resurrected.
Because why?
The millennium comes after the resurrection.
We believe in the premillennial return of Jesus Christ in the clouds and the premillennial
resurrection of the saints.
So let's hurry up.
We're pretty much out of time.
Let me just finish up.
Can you believe I got through all 80 verses?
It's amazing.
So I got to hurry.
And thou child shall be called the prophet of the highest.
So John the Baptist now is going to be called the prophet of the highest.
So he's not this horn of salvation.
He's not the Messiah.
But he's the prophet of the highest.
For thou shalt go before the face of the Lord, the Lord being Jesus, to prepare his ways,
to give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins.
Verse 78.
Through the tender mercy of our God whereby the day spring from on high visited us to
give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death to guide our feet into
the way of peace.
When the child grew, John the Baptist, and waxed strong in spirit and was in the deserts
till the day of his showing unto Israel.
So we see that there are two things that are being offered here.
Really three different things.
There's salvation, remission of sins.
That's the big thing.
Then there's also the fact that he's going to show us the right way to walk and the right
way to live our lives.
He's going to teach us.
Well, that's important too.
And then there's the physical kingdom where we can dwell safely forever and not have any
fear of our enemies.
That's the third thing.
Which of these three things, if you could only have one, would you take?
I'll just take the salvation.
That's the main thing.
That's the most important thing.
Now obviously we want all three.
And here's the good news.
We get all three.
You don't have to choose.
Why?
We get the salvation and we get the commandments to teach us how to live our life and we've
got that future kingdom where we can live securely and safely even on this earth, which
is a blessing.
But see the Jews that were unsaved, the unbelieving Jews, they can't comprehend that first part.
They can't comprehend the part about being saved.
They're just so focused on that which is carnal, the land.
We've got to get our land.
We've got to get our temple.
They're so worried about a building.
So worried about land.
They don't understand that the kingdom of God is within your heart.
And that being saved is the main thing.
That's the most important thing.
Because if you gain the whole world, the Jews could take over the whole world.
But if they lose their own soul, what does it profit?
Doesn't profit at all.
And so this chapter, Luke chapter 1, to sum it up, is all about John the Baptist.
It starts out being about John the Baptist and ends up being about John the Baptist.
It's all about John the Baptist.
Great detail.
80 verses.
So John the Baptist is a pretty important guy because there's a lot of buildup here.
Just a lot of text going into this event of John the Baptist coming on the scene and obviously
much of it deals with also Jesus Christ and so forth.
But chapter 2 is going to be the main chapter that focuses on the birth of Jesus now.
So we've seen the birth of John the Baptist.
Now we're going to get into the birth of Christ in Luke chapter 2.
And it's a lot shorter.
52 verses.
Still long, but it's a lot shorter.