["O Christmas Tree"]
Amen!
Welcome to the Sunday evening service.
Let's go ahead and open up with a word of prayer.
Heavenly Father, we come to you this evening, Lord.
We ask that you meet with us tonight, Lord.
That you bless this service.
the preaching lord that you administer to our hearts tonight in Jesus name we pray amen all right so
now is the time for favorites where it's selected we'll sing one stands from a song that you pick
and i'll start with Miss Ava go ahead 202 on the third two zero two
sing it out on the third
oh
and uh brother alan go ahead song number 63
what a day that will be song 63
song number 63
sing it out on the first
you say
what
and it was Christine right? Ms. Creshingo. What was that? Song number 27. Song 2-7.
The Old Rugged Cross. Song 27.
Sing it out on the first.
My heart has no desire to say, where doubts arise and fears dismay.
Oh, some may die where these are bound, but where my aim is higher ground.
For if the other had be slain, I could not ever see the way.
And let's see, Brother Salvador, go ahead. 4-16 on the last.
4-16 as a volunteer. Sing it out on the last.
And when war is over and the victory won, when the true and faithful gather on their own,
they will know how we hold their appear.
Hail, you be enlisted, as of all unseen.
Abundant Jesus, the soldier true.
Others have and will say, why not fear?
Jesus has the cavity, we will never fear.
Hail, you be enlisted, as of all unseen.
And let's see, Miss Tina, go ahead.
Song number three on the second.
Song number three is the last one this evening.
Jesus paid it all.
Let's sing it out on the second.
Lord, now indeed I cry.
Thy power and thy willow
Let dreams and wonders pass
And melt my heart and soul.
Jesus paid it all.
All to Him I am.
Sing of the good things He's done.
He washed me wide and slow.
Amen. We welcome you to Verity Baptist Church tonight.
We're glad you're with us.
Let's go ahead and take our bulletins.
We'll look at some announcements real quickly.
If you do not have a bulletin tonight, just raise your hand
and one of our ushers can get one for you.
If you need a bulletin, just put your hand up and we'll get one for you.
The verse this week, Psalm 34 17.
The righteous cry and the Lord heareth and delivereth them out of all their troubles.
And that's a good verse there. We like that.
If you open up your bulletin, you'll see our service time Sunday morning service 10 30 a.m.
We had a wonderful service this morning.
We're glad you're back out tonight for the evening service.
And we, of course, invite you to be with us on Wednesday night for the Wednesday night Bible study.
If you look at our sowing times, our main sowing times on Saturday mornings at 10 a.m.
And we have additional sowing times on Wednesdays at 11, Thursdays at two and Sundays at two.
And of course, if you're a first time guest, we're glad you're with us.
We have a gift we'd like to give you as you walk out of the church building tonight.
You go through the foyer, you'll see a little table set up on that table.
You'll see these little gift bags. Please grab one on your way out as a gift from us to you.
If you are a guest, we'd ask that you please take a moment and fill out the communication card,
which is inserted in your bulletin.
And if you would just take a moment and fill this card out.
When we're done with the announcement, we're going to sing a song.
When we're done singing, we're going to receive the offering.
And as our offering plate goes by, you can drop this card in the offering plate.
And then, of course, we are a family integrated church.
What that means is that children and infants are always welcomed in the service.
We don't separate children from their parents for any reason.
We do have mother-baby rooms and daddy rooms available for your convenience.
All of the rooms have comfortable seating.
They have monitors set up so you can watch the service and listen to it.
So if you have a child that's being distracting during the service or if you need some privacy,
we encourage you to use those rooms.
If you're not sure where those rooms are at, you can look at the back of the bulletin
and you'll see a layout of our church building.
It'll show you where the mother-baby rooms are, where the daddy room is,
and it'll show you where the restrooms are.
So please take a look at that if you need to do that.
If you are here tonight, you've not been baptized and you'd like to be baptized,
please let us know. We'd love to baptize you.
All you need to do is at the end of the service,
while we're singing the last song after the preaching,
if you step out that door, one of our staff guys will meet you there
and we'll get you situated for baptism.
If you look at the announcements and upcoming events, of course,
on Sundays, we're going through a series called Celebrating Christ.
And we're looking at the stories leading up to the Christmas story,
and we've been looking at the events leading up to the birth of Christ.
Of course, we'll continue that tonight.
And then on Wednesday nights, we're doing a study,
a verse-by-verse study through the book of 2 Corinthians.
Of course, tomorrow, we have a wedding coming up for brother Andrew and Miss Esther
at 6 p.m. here at the church building.
It is a potluck, so if you can bring a dish to share, that would be great.
There's a sign-up sheet in the foyer if you've not yet signed up to bring something,
maybe you can stop by there and sign up for that.
And then, of course, we have the ladies' Christmas party coming up here soon.
All the ladies are invited to a Christmas dinner party on Friday, December 17th at 6 p.m.
The ladies are going to be playing their annual gift exchange game.
So they're going to have a Christmas meal,
and then they're going to have the gift exchange game,
which they always have a lot of fun with.
And you bring a gift, and then you put them all in the middle,
and then you randomly are selected to choose a gift,
but then somebody else can steal your gift, and they have a good time with it.
So if you could do that, that'd be great.
There is a $15 or under limit, so make sure you don't bring some big, expensive gift.
Just $15 or less would be great.
If you need help with that, we're happy to help you with that.
So please don't let that be an excuse not to come.
We'd be happy to help you with providing that gift.
We'd like you to come.
You can sign up on your communication card,
and it's just a good time for the ladies to get together and fellowship together,
be around good Christian ladies and develop some Christian friendships, of course.
And then, of course, you're invited to our Christmas service on Sunday, December 19th.
You should have a card like this in your bulletin,
and it tells you about our Celebrating Christ Day on Sunday, December 19th.
On that morning, I'll be preaching, of course, about the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We'll be talking about the Christmas story,
and we'll have the children's choir singing in the morning service,
and the evening service, I'm going to be preaching about the presentation of Christ after his birth.
And after the service, we're going to have Christmas cookies and hot chocolate in the fellowship hall.
So it's going to be a great time.
If you've been looking for an excuse to invite someone to church,
we want you to use this as an opportunity.
Use this as a tool.
Invite a coworker, a friend, a neighbor, a family member.
That would be a great day for you to do that.
And if you'd like to help with the cookies,
because we're going to have cookies and hot chocolate,
you can bake cookies, you can buy cookies,
but we do have a sign-up sheet in the foyer.
So go by there and fill that out.
And then, of course, the children's choir,
they're practicing on Sundays at 5.15 for the Christmas service.
Upcoming cleaning crew, you can check for your name there.
We appreciate your faithfulness with that.
Homeschool group, they've got PE class on Thursday, December 16th at 10 a.m.
And then, of course, we've got different things there for you to look at.
Please don't forget to turn your cell phones off
or place them on silent during the service
so that they're not a distraction to anybody.
If you look at the back of the bulletin,
birthdays and anniversaries for the month of December.
We had Andrew Davidson's birthday on December 2nd,
Jeremiah Johnson's birthday on December 2nd,
Josiah Taylor's birthday is tomorrow on December 6th.
Also, Valerie Zuniga's birthday is December 6th.
And then later this week,
Brother Ike's birthday, Ike 02 on December 9th,
and Ms. Victoria Nellitescu's birthday on December 11th.
Praise report, money matters, all those things are there for you to look at.
A couple more announcements.
This morning I announced about doing meals for Ms. Jackie and the 02 family,
and I appreciate all of you that helped with that.
I also want to announce that Ms. Kiki had her baby,
so congratulations to Renee and Kiki,
and we'd like to provide meals for them as well.
So if you can help us with that, that'd be great.
You can see my wife after the service,
and we always want to, of course, any family we want to love on them at our church,
but especially newer families want to make sure we show them love,
the love of Christ through our church.
So we want to help them with providing some meals for them and being a blessing.
So if you could help with that, we'd really appreciate it.
Make sure you see my wife after the service,
and she can get you signed up for that.
And then, of course, I want to give another announcement in regards to the wedding.
Tomorrow there's a wedding. The fellowship hall is closed.
I know that a lot of you go in there to play ping pong and stuff after the service,
but for today it's closed because it's all set up for the wedding.
The wedding's tomorrow, so the fellowship hall was decorated on Saturday.
That's why it's closed, so if you could help us after the service,
keep the kids out of there and all that.
But after the evening service tonight, immediately after the service,
they're going to start decorating in here for the wedding tomorrow.
So if you could help us out, I know our church loves to fellowship,
and we love the fact that you like to fellowship, and it's a healthy sign of a church.
Let me put it this way. It's not a good sign when you go to church,
and right before the service, everybody shows up, nobody's there early,
and then as soon as the service is over, everybody leaves.
That's not a healthy sign.
And our church is healthy, maybe a little too healthy,
because everybody likes to stick around and fellowship for a long time,
and I appreciate that.
But if you could help us tonight to just kind of mosey on out and get out of the way,
if you're not going to have some tenacity and help set up,
then just go have no tenacity at home, and that might be good.
I don't know how else to say it, but we just need the space.
So if you could help us with that, we would appreciate it,
so that they can set up for the wedding and all of that.
So just help us with that.
You don't have to run out the door, but just if you could maybe help us
and not stick around too long.
And then, of course, the fellowship hall is closed for tonight.
I think that's it for all of the announcements.
So let's go ahead and take our song books,
and we're going to go to page number 424.
Page number 424.
And we're going to sing O Come All Ye Faithful, 424.
And let's go ahead and sing it out as we prepare to receive the offering tonight.
Four hundred twenty-four, O Come All Ye Faithful.
Sing it out on the first.
O Come All Ye Faithful,
For all and all on thin,
O Come ye, O Come ye,
To Bethlehem.
Come and hear him,
For the King of angels.
O come, let us adore him,
Christ the Lord.
Four hundred twenty-four, sing it out on the second.
Sing, fires of angels,
Sing an exultation,
O sing, all ye pride,
O come, let us adore him,
Glory to God, O glory in heaven,
O come, let us adore him,
Christ the Lord.
Yea, how we greet thee,
Born this happy morning,
Jesus to thee,
Be all glory.
Word of the Father,
Thou in Christ the King,
O come, let us adore him,
Christ the Lord.
Amen, good singing.
We'll have the guys come up
and help us with the offering at this time.
And let's go ahead and bow our heads
and have a word of prayer.
Heavenly Father, Lord, we do come to you tonight
asking that you would bless the offering.
Lord, we thank you for meeting with us this morning.
We ask that you do it again
and that you meet with us tonight.
Lord, help us to learn from your word,
to draw closer to you as a result.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
And not being familiar, I was like, oh, God, maybe, how is this place so long?
And you like God's story.
Like, oh, yeah.
I mean, how?
I don't know.
The Word of God is deep, and of course we could do it in one service, but I like to
be able to dig into it.
And if you remember, we started several weeks ago, not last Sunday night, but the
Sunday night before that, we started in Luke chapter 1, and I went through the first
four verses in a sermon entitled, The Certainty of Those Things, and that wasn't
really a Christmas sermon as much as it was more of an introduction to the Book
of Luke.
I don't know if you remember that.
We looked at those first four verses, and we talked about the Gospel according to
Luke, and then last Sunday, on Sunday morning, we did Luke chapter 1, verses 5
through 25, and a sermon entitled, The Angelic Birth Announcement of John the
Baptist, and we really learned about Elizabeth and Zacharias as parents.
And then last Sunday night, we did Luke chapter 1, verses 26 through 38,
and a sermon called, The Angelic Birth Announcement of Jesus Christ, and we saw
how the angel Gabriel came to Mary to announce the birth of Christ.
This morning, of course, we did verses 39 through 56, and what's commonly
referred to or known as the Magnificat of Mary.
And then tonight, we're going to finish up chapter 1, verses 57 through 80,
and in this passage, just like in the morning, we saw that, remember, we looked at that
passage from Mary, that prayer or song of worship that she gave, and it's known
as the Magnificat because the Magnificat is a Latin word that means to magnify, and
of course, the first stanza of that prayer, she says, my soul doth magnify the Lord.
In this sermon, we're going to look at what's known as the Benedictus of Zacharias,
and I'll explain that to you here in a minute, but let's look at some of
this introductory material here. In verse 57, of course, we have the
arrival of John the Baptist. The Bible says, now Elizabeth's full-time came,
that she should be delivered, and she brought forth a son, and her neighbors,
and I want you to notice this, and her cousins. Now the Bible does not
specifically tell us that Mary was there for the birth of John, and she
may not have been. We know this, that she conceived when Elizabeth was six
months pregnant, and of course, we saw this morning that she went to spend
three months. She spent three months with Elizabeth, so of course, she went
there when she was six months pregnant. That means she stayed till she
was nine months pregnant, so Mary either stayed till right before the birth of
John, or she might have stayed till the birth of John. It's interesting
because here in verse 58, the Bible tells us about Elizabeth, that her
neighbors and her cousins heard how the Lord had showed great mercy upon her,
and they rejoiced with her. And if you remember Mary, according to verse
36 of the same chapter, the Bible tells us, the angel Gabriel says to
Mary about Elizabeth, he says, thy cousin Elizabeth. So of course, Mary and
Elizabeth were cousins, and here we're told that her neighbors and her
cousins heard. So it may be very well that Mary was there for the birth of
Christ, or maybe she left right before, because of course she was expecting
herself, and maybe she just did not want to experience that. And of course,
there's a lot of pain that goes in with labor. Not that I know, but I've
been told. So verse 59, notice it says, 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. Now if you remember, several weeks back
when we started the series, we learned about Zacharias. Remember, he was in the
temple, and Gabriel appears to him and tells him about the fact that his
wife, who's not only barren but now well-stricken, is going to conceive, and
it's a miraculous conception that God allows them to have, and he foretells
of the coming of John the Baptist. And if you remember, Zacharias has a lapse in
faith, and he doesn't really believe it, and he questions it. And as a result,
Gabriel tells him that he's not going to speak. He becomes dumb or mute, unable
to speak. He says, until these things come to pass. And now these things are
coming to pass. John the Baptist is born, not known as John yet, and they go to
circumcise him. Look at verse 59, last part of verse 59, and they called him Zacharias.
So the family, the cousins, the people that are there, they just decide his name
is Zacharias after the name of his father. And this was pretty typical in
that region of the world and in that type of culture where they would
name you after your father, especially if you're the firstborn son. So they
called him Zacharias. They made an assumption there that his name should
be Zacharias. Verse 60, and his mother, Elizabeth, 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 you
would have him called. And he asked for a writing table. Apparently nine
months is not enough time to learn sign language, so he's still writing
things down for them. And he asked them for a writing table and wrote
saying, his name is John, and they marveled all. So of course we see here
the arrival of John the Baptist, of John. But with the arrival of John, we
also see the restoration of Zacharias. Notice verse 64, and his mouth, this is
referring to Zacharias, because remember he was he was dumb. He was
mute all these all these months, and his mouth was opened immediately. So as
soon as Zacharias wrote on that writing pad, his name is John, and they all
marveled, immediately God restored his speech, and his mouth was opened
immediately, and his tongue loose. 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 him, and his father Zachariah was
filled with the Holy Ghost and prophesied saying. So now we have
Zacharias who has his ability to speak again. The Bible says he's filled
with the Holy Ghost, and he begins to prophesy. He begins to preach. He
begins to have this expression of love towards the Lord, and he begins in
verse 68. I want you to notice the first word. He says, blessed. Blessed be the
Lord God of Israel, for he had visited and redeemed his people. In the same way
that, and we have some similarities here, of course between Mary and
Elizabeth, between Mary and Zacharias, if you remember both couples,
both pregnancies were announced by Gabriel. Both pregnancies were
miraculous, though one was of course the most miraculous, the virgin
conception, but both were miraculous births. If you remember, both Mary and
Zacharias questioned, one out of criticism, one out of curiosity. And now
I want you to notice another parallel between Mary and Zacharias, that they
both have this speech, this time of prayer and consecration to
the Lord where they speak out in prayer and in prophesying and in song
and in worship. For Mary, it's referred to as the Magnificat because of the
fact that she begins her speech with saying, my soul doth magnify the Lord.
And for Zacharias, it's known as the Benedictus because of the first word
there in verse 68, blessed. And Benedictus is just a Latin term for that idea of
blessings or being blessed. He says, blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for
he had visited and redeemed his people. So just like we did this
morning, we're gonna break down this speech. We broke down the speech by
Mary. Tonight we're gonna do the same thing for Zacharias and break down
the speech for Zacharias. And of course I'd encourage you to take some
notes on the back of your course a week. There's a place for you to write
down some things. There's three things I'd like you to notice from the speech
from Zacharias. The first one is, the first thing we notice is the prophecy
of Christ or the prophecies of Christ. Of course there in verse 68, he says,
blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he had visited and redeemed his
people, verse 69, and has raised up a horn of salvation. That phrase,
and I don't have time to develop it tonight because I've got a lot of
Bible verses I want to show you tonight. We're gonna be looking at a lot
of different scriptures. And for me to say that means something because we
look at a lot of scriptures anyway. So just be ready. You know, start
stretching your fingers or whatever you need to do. But when you see this
phrase, the horn of salvation, that is a reference to the Lord Jesus Christ.
I want you to notice that John was born, but Zacharias begins where we
should all begin, with the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says, about God, blessed be
the Lord God of Israel, for he had visited and redeemed his people, and has
raised up a horn of salvation, reference to Jesus, for us in the house of his
servant David, a reference to the lineage of Christ, the physical birth of
Christ, the fact that he's born of Mary, a daughter of David, notice verse
70, as he's spake by his holy prophets, which have been since the
world began. Zacharias begins by speaking about Christ. And the first
thing that he draws our attention to is the fact that the coming of the Messiah,
the coming of the Christ, was something that was well documented in prophecy.
There's many prophecies that are fulfilled in the life, in the birth,
life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And here he tells us that
God has raised up this horn of salvation. In verse 70 he says, as he's
spake by the mouth of the holy prophets. He says this was prophesied in the Old
Testament. He says, which hath been since the world began. I'd like you to go
with me, keep your place there in Luke, obviously that's our text for tonight. Go
with me if you want to the book of Genesis, Genesis chapter 3. First book in
the Bible should be fairly easy to find. Do me a favor, put a ribbon or a
bookmark or something there because we're gonna leave it and we're gonna
come back to it. Genesis chapter 3. While you turn there, let me remind you
that in Revelation 13 and verse 8, the Bible says this about the Lord Jesus
Christ, that he is the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. The
Bible tells us here that Zacharias tells us that the the birth of Christ, the
coming of the Messiah, was something that was spoken by the mouth of the
holy prophets, which have been since the world began. And really since the
very beginning, Genesis chapter 3 there, we don't get very far into the book
of Genesis till we have the first mention or the first prophecy of the
coming Messiah. Of course in Genesis chapter 3 we've already had the fall
of man. Adam and Eve have sinned and as a result, God has to deal with them and
God has to explain to them the consequences. But in the midst of
dealing with that, in the midst of telling Adam what his consequences will
be and Eve what her consequences will be and even the serpent what his
consequences would be, he says this, Genesis 3 and verse 15, he says, this is
God speaking to the serpent, he says, and I will put enmity between thee,
referring to the serpent, and the woman, referring to Eve or Eve's descendants, and
between thy seed, here are the descendants, and her seed. Now of course
when we're talking about her seed, Eve's seed, we're talking about all
mankind, all humanity, because we all go back to Adam and Eve. God says I'm
going to put enmity between the serpent and the woman, or humanity,
between thy seed and her seed. And notice what God says about the enmity
or the conflict between the seed of Satan and the seed of the woman. He
says, it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel. Now the heel is a
part of the body that if you injure it, it's not life-threatening. And here
God tells us that there was going to come a seed from Eve. And of course the
chronology of Christ and the lineage of Christ goes back, especially here in
the book of Luke, all the way back to Adam. This deals with the humanity of
Christ, the fact that Christ was a descendant not only of David but of
Abraham and of Adam himself, of course. And he talks about the fact that the
devil was going to bruise the heel of that seed, the heel of that coming
Messiah, meaning what? He was going to injure him, but it was not going to be
fatal. It was not going to be, you know, just complete. It was not, that was not
going to be the end of it. And of course we know that Satan did injure
and hurt the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. But though Satan
thought he won when he only bruised his heel, when Jesus resurrected from the
grave, the Bible says here that he bruised the head of Satan. Now when you
take a wound to the head, that's more of a fatal, more serious. And the idea
here is that Satan, yes, he was going to hurt Christ, but Christ was going to
be victorious in the end. And this is really the first prophecy or mention
of the coming Messiah. Now I'd like to just kind of show you a few things if
it's okay. Go with me to the book of Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 7. If you open your
Bible just right in the center, you're more than likely following the book of
Psalms. Right after Psalms, you have Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon,
and Isaiah. Zacharias mentions the fact that this event, the birth of Christ,
was spoken by the mouth of the holy prophets, which have been since the
world began. And Jesus, his life, and I want you to know that it's not just his
birth. His birth, his life, and even especially his death is highly
prophesied in the Old Testament. There's lots of very specific
prophecies. When you read them, it's clear that it is a reference to the
Lord Jesus Christ. I'm not going to obviously take the time to show you
those tonight. We could spend a whole series looking at those. What I'd like
to do is just show you some very specific prophecies about the birth of
Christ. Because Zacharias mentions the fact that this was something that was
prophesied in the Old Testament, and he's right. There are many Old Testament
specific prophecies about the coming Messiah, his specific birth, and I'd like
to just share with you a few of them. Maybe you can write this down as
some good information for you to share, maybe with somebody else. Isaiah
chapter 7, verse 14. Notice what the Bible says. This is probably the most famous of
the prophecies of the birth of Christ. Isaiah 7, 14. Therefore, the Lord himself
shall give you a sign. Notice the words, Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear
a son and shall call his name Immanuel. Isaiah chapter 7, and verse 14
is a prophecy of the birth of Jesus Christ that a virgin shall conceive and
bear a son. Now, keep your finger right there in Isaiah, and go with me if you
would to the first book in the New Testament, Matthew chapter 1, and let
me show you the fulfillment of this prophecy. I want you to notice that there
are very specific prophecies about the birth of Christ, and they were
fulfilled right to the T. And when you understand prophecy, you need to
understand that the writers of these Old Testament passages are not speaking,
you know, a few weeks before the birth of Christ. I mean, our understanding is
that Isaiah is writing hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, and he
said a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel.
That is fulfilled in Matthew chapter 1 and verse 23 when the Bible
says, Behold, the New Testament says, Behold, a virgin shall be with child and
shall bring forth a son and they shall call his name Immanuel, which
being interpreted is God with us. And of course, if you read further on there,
it's clear that it's a reference to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, keep your finger
right there in Matthew because we're going to come back to it for a little
bit, and go back to the Old Testament. If you kept your place in Isaiah, just
flip over to the book of Jeremiah, Jeremiah chapter 31. Go to Jeremiah, keep
your finger in Matthew, and let me just give you another example of a
prophecy. The first one we saw was that of the virgin birth. There's a
second another, and again, I'm not going to show you every prophecy we could
show you. I'm just going to kind of show you, highlight just a few of them, just
the big ones for you. Jeremiah 31, and there's a reason why I'm showing this
to you, so just kind of stay with me. Jeremiah 31, look at verse 15.
Jeremiah 31, 15, the Bible says this, Thus saith the Lord,
notice what it says, A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter
weeping. Rachel weeping for her children, refused to be comforted for her
children, because they were not. So in Jeremiah 31, there's this prophecy, and
I'm sure Jeremiah himself probably did not really understand what this prophecy
was about, but he was prophesying about the fact that there would be a
voice, a voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Why?
Weeping for her children, refused to be comforted for her children, because
they were not. And that phrase, is not, was not, were not, in our Bible is a
reference to death, meaning because they were dead. Now keep your finger right
there in Jeremiah 31, go to Matthew chapter 2. I'm sure Jeremiah had no idea
how this prophecy would be fulfilled or how it would be connected to the coming of
the Messiah, but we have the full story. We know in Matthew chapter 2 in
verse 16, the Bible says, then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the
wise men, if you remember the wise men showed up in Jerusalem and they said
where is he that is born king of the Jews, for we have seen a star in the
east and are come to worship him. And when Herod heard that, because he's
the king of the Jews, he says, you know, tell me when you find him, tell me
where he is so I can come worship him. And of course he wants to kill him.
The wise men are told about this in a dream and they don't go back to
Herod. As a result, verse 16, then Herod, when he saw that he was
mocked of the wise men, was exceeding raw and sent forth and slew all the
children that were in Bethlehem and in all the coasts thereof, from two years
old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the
wise men. So when the wise men don't come back and tell them where Jesus is,
Herod decides, well I'm just gonna, it's been about, you know, based off what
the wise men told me, we're looking for a child who's about two years old or
less than two years old. So he has all the two-year-olds in Bethlehem and in
the surrounding coast put to death. And in verse 17, the Bible says, then was
fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet saying, and Rhema
was there a voice heard, lamentation and weeping, and great morning, Rachel.
Rachel is a reference there to all of the mothers of the descendants of Jacob
that are there at that time. Rachel weeping for her children and would not
be comforted because they are not. And we see this specific prophecy in the Old
Testament we're told, a virgin shall conceive, and they probably thought, I
wonder how that's going to be. And then we get to the book of Matthew and
we're told that Mary has Gabriel show up and Luke tells us that Mary has
Gabriel show up and she's told that the Holy Ghost will come upon her and
that she would conceive as a virgin as a result. And we see that fulfilled
prophecy. Then Jeremiah, I'm sure not really understanding the whole thing
says, I can tell you this, when the Messiah comes there's going to be a lot
of mamas crying, a lot of Rachel's weeping for her children refusing to be
comforted for their children and I'm not sure why. And then we're given the
Christmas story and we find out that Herod has all the two-year-olds put
to death in his chase of Christ. And we see another very specific fulfilled
prophecy. Let me give you another one. Keep your finger there in Matthew.
You're there in Jeremiah. Go to Hosea chapter 11. Hosea chapter 11. You're
there in Jeremiah if you just go past the book of Lamentations, past Ezekiel,
past Daniel, into the book of Hosea. Hosea chapter 11. Look at verse 1.
Hosea chapter 11 and verse 1, the Bible says this, when Israel was a child then I loved him.
I want you to notice this prophecy about Christ and called my son out of Egypt.
Here Hosea is prophesying about the fact that God was going to call his son out of Egypt.
And again, when Hosea prophesied this, many people I'm sure were probably confused by this
because they're thinking to themselves, okay well we're not living before Moses here,
we're hundreds of years after Moses. The children of Israel already came out of Egypt. God has
already called his children out of Egypt. We hear Hosea is prophesying that Israel was
going to be called, that God is going to call his son out of Egypt. And then we go to
Matthew. Keep your finger right there in Hosea. We're coming back to it. Go back to Matthew
chapter 2. We go to Matthew and we pick up the Christmas story and we see yet another
fulfilled prophecy. Again, understanding that Isaiah and Jeremiah and Hosea are living
hundreds of years, maybe 600, 700 years before Christ. And they said, hey you know what,
when Christ comes, when the Messiah comes, when the Son of God comes, God is going to call his
son out of Egypt. And I'm sure people thought, what does that mean? But in Matthew chapter 2,
we read, of course as a result, as a result of the fact that Herod had planned to kill all of the
two-year-olds and under there in Bethlehem and the surrounding coast. The Bible tells us in
Matthew chapter 2 and verse 13, and when they were departed, behold the angel Lord appeared to
Joseph in a dream saying, arise and take the young child and his mother and flee into Egypt
and be thou there until I bring thee word for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.
See, after the wise men left, an angel, the Bible tells us, appeared to Joseph and said,
you got to take your wife and you got to take that newborn Jesus and get him out of
here. You need to arise and go and flee to Egypt until I tell you when to come back.
Verse 14, when he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night and departed
into Egypt. Verse 15, and was there until the death of Herod that it might be fulfilled,
which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet saying, out of Egypt have I called my son.
So again, we see another prophecy fulfilled in the birth and life of Christ. Let me give
you another one just to make the point. Go to Micah chapter 5. Keep your place right there
in Matthew. Go to Micah chapter 5. You're there in Hosea. You go past Joel, Amos, Obadiah,
Jonah, Micah. Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah. Micah chapter 5. Micah chapter 5 and
verse 2. Micah 5 and verse 2, the Bible says this, but thou, Micah 5, 2,
hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, but thou, Bethlehem, Ephrathah,
though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto
me, that is to be ruler in Israel. Here we have a prophecy of where the Messiah was going
to be born, in this little town of Bethlehem. And I want you to notice that it is a prophecy of
Christ. If you look at the last part of verse 2, it says, whose goings forth have been from
old. He says there's going to be someone born in Bethlehem, but he's been around from old. In fact,
he's been around, don't miss the last two words of verse 2, from everlasting. And by the way,
Jesus has always been. He's always been the Son of God. He's always been a man. He's always
been a person. He's always been the second member of the Godhead. He was never created. He
was never made. He's been from everlasting. But in Bethlehem, he became incarnate, the Word became
flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory. This, of course, was fulfilled in Matthew
chapter 2. If you look at verse 1, go back to Matthew chapter 2 and verse 1. The Bible says
this, Matthew chapter 2 and verse 1. Now when Jesus was born in, notice, Bethlehem of Judea,
in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem. And again,
we could spend all night looking at prophecies. I don't want to do that, but I just wanted to
show you enough to show you there's all sorts of prophecies in the Old Testament. And look,
we could spend a lot of time talking about the prophecies of the crucifixion of Christ,
prophecies of the resurrection of Christ, prophecies of the ministry of Christ. We could spend a lot
of time looking at this. All I showed you tonight is four prophecies, and we could look at more,
but I'm just going to show you four. I showed you four in regards to the birth of Christ when
Jesus was born. And Zacharias says, hey, this is referring to the birth of Christ. He says
this is what the prophets have been prophesying about from the beginning of the world. He
says this is what the prophets told us, the coming Messiah. This is what we've been told
about. Now you say, well, why does that matter? Why is that important? Well,
it's important for a lot of reasons, but let me just give you one quick application. Go
to 1 Thessalonians, if you would. You can find the T books in the New Testament. They're
all clustered together. 1 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy and Titus, 1 Thessalonians chapter 2.
Let me say this. As Bible-believing Christians, we come to God in faith. You should know
that, of course. We don't come to God because of logic, and we don't come to God because of
reasoning. The Bible says that we come to God in faith, but without faith, it is impossible
to please Him. For he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is
the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. So we must come to God in faith,
believing that God is who He says He is, and we understand that. But let me just say this,
and we talked about it a few weeks ago when I preached about the certainty of those things,
the beginning there of Luke, where Luke emphasized the fact that he took the time to
find the eyewitnesses. He took the time to meet with, to interview the eyewitnesses,
and he wrote down in an orderly fashion the events of the things that we believe. And again,
not that we believe it because of eyewitnesses, not that we believe it because of logic,
but God Himself says, let us reason together. So I want you to know that we come to God in
faith, but the faith that we have is not an illogical faith. We come to God in faith,
but the faith that we have can be reasoned, can be logic, can be thought about. We have
a faith, but it's not a blind faith. It is a faith that has been documented by the
eyewitnesses. And the point that I'm making is this, you and I believe the Word of God because
it is in truth the Word of God. But with that, there are things within the Bible that affirm
the Bible as the Word of God. And one of those things is fulfilled prophecy. The fact that
God had prophesied certain things about the Messiah hundreds of years ago, and then those
things came to fruition exactly how they were prophesied, tells us and shows us that this
is not just a book. This is the Word of God, 1 Thessalonians 2. Look at verse 13.
For this cause, 1 Thessalonians 2, 13, for this cause also think we God without ceasing
because, notice what Paul says, when ye receive the Word of God, which ye heard
of us, ye received it not as the Word of man, but as it is in truth the Word of God,
which effectually worketh also in you that believe. The Bible you and I hold in our hands,
it is in fact the Word of God. And we can reason it, we can reason it, and I preached
about this in the past. One way to reason it is to say, look, man could not have orchestrated
fulfilled prophecy. And of course there's other things in the Bible. There's science that was
revealed to us that hundreds of years before man caught up to it, man's science caught up.
There's other things that we can see. There's little things that got put in the Word of God
to show us this is not just a book. I don't know about you. I understand that we come to
God in faith, but I'm thankful for the fact that we do not have an illogical faith.
Brother Johnny and Miss Tamar was just talking to me this afternoon about a family member who
believes in a religion called Odinism. It's something that's catching on because I've
heard of other people believing this and so have they. And it's actually just an old Viking,
an old religion of Vikings, you know, believing that they're going to go to Valhalla, you know,
after death. And it's just funny to me because, you know, we were talking about it and they were
telling me like, yeah, they believe that their creation story, you know, we have a creation
story. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Their creation story is that a cow,
you know, excuse my language, pooped. And I don't know how big this cow was. It might have been
a celestial cow, I'm not sure. But this cow pooped and on that cow poop patty the earth
was formed. And here's all I'm saying. Here's all I'm saying. I'm glad that we don't have
an illogical faith. I'm glad that we don't have a ridiculous faith. I'm glad that we don't
have this faith that's just mythology, stupidity. Hey, our religion requires faith,
but it doesn't require stupidity. It's a logical faith. It's a reasoning faith. It's the kind of
faith that tells you there must be a God. If someone hundreds of years ago was revealed by
God that when the sun would come, certain things would happen and then it happened.
That's not a cow pooping, if you'd excuse the language. There's all these types of new
religions out there. My wife and I have been knocking doors in a certain apartment complex for
a little bit. And in that complex I ran into two different ladies at different times. And I'm
assuming they know each other or something. I don't know. But they both told me about this
religion. And it sounds like some sort of a tribal type thing where the spirits of the
ancestors come upon you. And of course, they're telling me that the spirits of the
ancestors come upon them. And I'm thinking about, yeah, it's the devil's coming upon you.
This esoteric spiritual mysticism. And yesterday when I was talking to this lady and she's
telling me, I don't just believe the Bible. I mean, the Bible's just a book. It's just a book.
And mine is more of a spiritual, this emotional, this esoteric. It's not binding. It's not
physical. It's just the spirit of my ancestors. And I'm thinking to myself, you know what? What
you don't understand is that the Bible is a spiritual book. It is the word of God.
And we do not receive it as the word of man. It is the word of truth. And we believe it
because it's God's word. We believe it because my sheep hear my voice. And we
know him. And we understand that. But there's also just logical reasons to believe. Now,
religion is not a joke. So we see the prophecies of Christ. And the prophecies of Christ,
obviously they do a lot for us. But one thing they should do is to build our faith. This is
not just a made up story. This really happened. We know for a fact that these documents of the
prophets were written at the time that they say they're written. It's not made up.
Let me just show you something else real quickly about this idea of the narrative.
Go back to Luke chapter 1, if you would. I want to show you something because some of
these people, they make up these things and they'll act like just somebody decided one day
to sit down and write, I'm going to tell a story about this Jesus. Once upon a time in
a land far, far away, there was a guy named Jesus. First of all, we know that can't be the
case because like Luke told us, Dr. Luke reminded us, that many have taken in hand. Many witnesses
said, I got to write this down. We got to document this. What's interesting to me,
and it's easy when you read the Bible to just kind of read through things and to not
really see it. I understand that we're all busy and we're trying to just get through
our Bible reading and all that. And I get that. That's one of the reasons you come
to church to be helped and the breakdown. When I read this story, I see a detail here
that to me it makes me think, this is a detail that has no consequence, there's no
reason for it to be mentioned, other than just to highlight the fact that this was
not written by men. Because here's what I believe, that if you sat down, if you and
I were a bunch of atheists and we were tasked, you sit down and I want you to write
about the story of Jesus Christ. We're going to make up this story. We're going to have
this big movement. We're going to lie to everybody. We're just going to tell people
that there was this virgin that had a birth, and we're going to make up this whole
thing. And you and I were tasked to write down this story. There's some things in
this story that you and I would not write. In fact, there's some things in this story
that they're only in there because they actually happened. You say, what do you mean?
Let me give you an example. Luke chapter 1, look at verse 62.
Remember that Zacharias is mute. He's dumb. He's unable to speak.
Actually, look at verse 60.
In verse 59, they said, they're going to name him Zacharias, verse 60,
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.
I want you to notice verse 62. You wouldn't have wrote this in,
and I wouldn't have wrote this in if we were just sitting down to write a story.
And they made signs to his father, how he would have them called.
Think about that statement. They made signs to his father. They're like making signs.
I don't know what they're making signs. He obviously doesn't speak sign language because
he asked for someone to write on them. But they're making signs what they should call.
I don't know what signs they're making, but they're like, baby, name, what do you want
to call him? Think about the fact that Zacharias is not deaf. He's mute. He's not deaf. He's
dumb. He can't speak. His hearing's fine. But haven't you met people like this? You ever
meet somebody, and they start talking to somebody, and they're like, no speaking English,
and then the person just starts talking louder? I want a quesadilla. And it's like,
they're not deaf. They don't speak the language. But isn't this how human beings are?
You're talking to somebody who can't speak, and we start making languages. It's like, I'm not deaf.
I mean, look at it. Luke 62. And they made signs to his father, how he would have
him called, and he asked for a writing table and wrote, I'm mute, not deaf. My hearing's fine.
That's what I would have wrote. Why have you been making signs to me for nine months? I can
hear you. I didn't lose my hearing. But this is just a deal. You say, why would Luke
add this to the narrative? Here's why he added it, because that's what happened.
And those are the type of details that if you and I sat down to write down a myth,
write down a story that never actually happened, we wouldn't write a detail like that because
we wouldn't think to lie that deeply. But it wasn't a lie. There's a detail like that,
this funny kind of thing that they're making signs to him, and he's like,
I can hear you. Just give me something to write with, you idiot.
Why would this be added to the narrative? Here's why, because it actually happened.
Because it's not a made up story. Because Luke is going to the interview, I imagine Luke
maybe sat down with Zacharias or sat down with Elizabeth, and he's got his pad there to
journal, and he's telling me about the birth of John the Baptist, and what happened next,
and what happened next. And I could imagine Zacharias maybe as an old man sitting there
speaking to Luke and saying, and let me tell you something, these idiots for nine months,
they kept making signs to me like I couldn't hear them. I was deaf. I could hear everything
they were saying. And Luke says, oh, that's good. Let me write that down. Why did he write
it down? Because it happened. Here's what I'm telling you. This book is not fiction.
It's not a product of man. It's the Word of God. And when we received it, we received it as it is,
in fact, the Word of God, not the Word of men, but as it is in truth, the Word of God,
which effectually worketh also in you that belief.
So we see, first of all, the prophecy of Christ. I'd like you to notice, secondly,
go back to Luke chapter 1 there. I'd like you to notice the promise of Christ. Look at verse 71.
That we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all that hate us,
this is Zacharias speaking. Notice verse 72. To perform the mercy promised to our fathers
and to remember His holy covenant. Here we have Zacharias speaking about the fact that
God made a promise to their fathers. He made a covenant with their fathers. And then he's
very specific about which covenant because there's multiple covenants in the Old Testament. Notice
verse 73. The oath which is swear to our father Abraham. Zacharias makes a reference here to the
Abrahamic covenant. And the Abrahamic covenant, I would say, go with me if you want to Genesis
chapter 12, if you want first book in the Bible, Genesis chapter 12. Of all the covenants,
the Abrahamic covenant is probably the most well-known of the covenants.
And it's probably the covenant that has the most, you know, people do the most about or the most to
do about is the Abrahamic covenant. Why? Because the Abrahamic covenant is a covenant that God made
with Abraham that God would give Abraham a descendancy. And today we have most evangelical
Christians being dispensationalists. They really prop up the Abrahamic covenant because they're
Zionists. And they'll say, look, the Abrahamic covenant, you know, we got to bless the children
of Israel. And we got to bless, and they're talking about blessing a bunch of unbelieving
Jews. And like, I'm not being a racist here. Obviously, unbelievers, all unbelievers
are unbelievers. They need the gospel. But as a Bible-even Christian, we should not make
an exception. We should say Muslims are going to hell. Hindus are going to hell. All these
unbelievers are going to hell. Oh, but the Jews, they get a special pass. No, no, they're
unbelievers. And if they die without Christ, they're going to die and go to hell.
But there's a big to-do main of the Abrahamic covenant. I want you to see it. Genesis 12,
look at verse 1. Now the Lord has said unto Abraham, this is what Zacharias is referring
back to when he talked about the fact that God is going to perform the mercy promise to our
fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath which he swears to our father Abraham.
This is what he's referring to, Genesis chapter 12, verse 1. Now the Lord had said to Abraham,
get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy father's house,
unto a land that I will show thee, and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless
thee and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing, and I will bless them that
bless thee and curse them that cursed thee, and in thee shall all the families of the earth
be blessed. So today we have the Zionists who like to take the Abrahamic covenant and say,
well, God told Abraham that I will bless them who bless thee and curse thee who curse thee,
and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And he was talking about the fact
that God was going to give him a great nation, and he was going to give him this
descendancy, and therefore we have to bless the Jews. That's what they say.
I want you to notice something. If you go back to Luke, chapter 1,
that not only did both Mary and Zacharias have an understanding of the Abrahamic covenant,
the oath which he sware unto our fathers, it's interesting to me that both Zacharias
and Mary also understood something that most evangelical Christians do not understand today,
and it is this. And here's the point that I'm making. Zacharias brings up
the oath that God made with their fathers, that God made with Abraham, because he's saying
this, not necessarily the birth of John, but all of these events, the coming Messiah,
the birth of Christ, this is the fulfillment of that oath. We didn't look at it this morning.
I told you we'd skip it and look at it tonight. I want you to see it.
Let's go back to when Mary's speaking in verse 55, the Magnificat of Mary. Notice what
Mary says. Luke chapter 1, verse 55. And he, talking about God,
spoke to our fathers, to Abraham, again, Mary making a reference to the Abrahamic covenant.
Notice what she says. And to his seed. Do you see that word, seed? And to his seed forever.
I want you to notice that Mary here is speaking to God about the coming Messiah,
Jesus, in her womb. And she says, he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed.
She's referring to the seed in her womb forever. You know what's interesting to me?
Is that Mary did not only understand the Abrahamic covenant, she also understood
something that most Bible college graduates don't understand, which is this. The Abrahamic
covenant is fulfilled in her seed, in Jesus Christ. And Zacharias brings up the Abrahamic
covenant as well. And I want you to notice there in verse 55 that she says,
and to his seed, to his seed. Because there's a word there that's highlighted to us by the
apostle Paul in the book of Galatians. Let's look at it real quickly. Galatians chapter 3,
if you would. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1st, 2nd Corinthians, Galatians.
Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1st, 2nd Corinthians, Galatians. She said seed, singular.
You say, why does that matter? Here's why. Galatians 3 and verse 16.
Notice what the Bible says. Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. What is that
referring to? The Abrahamic covenant. I will bless them that bless thee, I will curse them
that curse thee, and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed. He says now
to Abraham and his seed were the promises made, notice, and he saith not to seeds. See
that S at the end? Plural. And to make sure you understand he's talking about plural,
he says as of many. He said God didn't make that promise to Abraham and to all the seeds,
all the descendants and Jews of Abraham. He said God made that promise to Abraham,
he said now Abraham, now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made, he saith not and
to seeds as of many, he says but as of one and to thy seed which is Christ. You say what
was the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant? What was the purpose? It was that God was going
to give Abraham a seed and that seed would bless the entire world. You say oh he's talking about
Seinfeld. No he's talking about Christ. He's talking about the Lord Jesus Christ and Mary
understood that when she said as he spake to our fathers to Abraham and to his seed forever.
You're there in Galatians 3 just to be sure. Look at verse 9.
Because you see the dispensation is today. You got Israel and the church confused.
You've got Israel and New Testament believers confused. No, no, we don't have anything
confused and if that's what you think then Paul had them confused. If that's what you think
then the New Testament has them confused because in Galatians chapter 3 and verse 9 the Bible
says this, so then they which be of faith. Isn't that you and I? We're saved by faith.
So then they which be of faith, notice, are blessed with faithful Abraham. No, no,
the blessing of Abraham goes to the Jews. No, no, they that be of faith are blessed with
faithful Abraham. You say who's the blessing of Abraham? It's not bless the unbelieving
antichrist Jews. Hey, you want the blessing of God? Bless the people of God, the children of God.
You say who are the children of God? Who are the people of God? Those that be of faith.
Let's look at it more clear. Look at verse 14. Galatians 3 verse 14 that the blessing
of Abraham, the Abrahamic covenant might come on the Genta. I mean how can he get any
clearer than that? I don't know how to make it more clear than that.
No, no, that's for the Jews. It says it's for the Gentiles.
Well how does the blessing of Abraham come on the Gentiles? Through Jesus Christ.
Because it's always been about Jesus Christ. Because the promise is about not seeds but thy
seed which is Christ. That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through
Jesus Christ that we Gentile believers might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
We receive the promise through Jesus Christ. Brethren, I speak out to the manner of men,
though it be but a man's covenant. Yet if it be confirmed, no man disannoyeth or addeth thereto.
Now to Abraham and his seed where the promise was made, he saith not unto seeds as of many,
but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ. Let me just show you one last
verse. Look at verse 29. Galatians 3 verse 29. And if ye be Christ.
Now let me ask you something. Are the unbelieving Jews, are they Christ
when they reject Christ? When they blaspheme Christ? He says, and if ye be Christ,
then are ye Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise.
Look, the Bible is very clear about this. What's interesting to me is that Mary wasn't
confused about it either. What's interesting to me is that Zacharias was not confused about it.
When God began to move, when Gabriel showed up and announced John and announced Jesus, Zacharias
said, this is the fulfillment of the oath that God made to Abraham. When Mary found out that
she was with child, she understood that this is what God spake to our fathers to Abraham
and to his seed forever. So I said number one, go back to Luke chapter one there.
We saw the prophecy of Christ. Then we saw the promise of Christ. Let me give you the
last point. We'll finish up. Then we see the prophet of Christ.
Some people might think when Zacharias is saying this, these things that he's talking
about his son, John. So Zacharias makes sure that we understand he's not, when he's talking
about the horn of salvation, he's not talking about John. In verse 74, he says that he would
grant us that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear
and holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life.
And then in verse 76, I want you to notice he shifts gears. He says and thou, because remember
John has now been born. He says and thou child. So he wants to make it clear, I have not been
talking about my son John. I've been talking about the horn of salvation, the coming Messiah,
the Lord Jesus Christ. But then in verse 76, he shifts gears and then he looks at
John and he says and thou child shall be called the prophet of the highest.
For thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his way. And we saw that a few weeks
ago that that's a prophecy in Malachi about the one who would come before the Messiah that
Elijah would come. And of course we know that John came in the spirit and the power of Elijah
to prepare the place, to make straight the way.
Now don't you notice what Zacharias says about his son, the prophet of Christ. Verse 77,
to give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins.
He talks about the fact that John was going to preach the gospel.
And I want to defend John here for a minute because people often will try to,
and those who teach the repent of your sins heresy, will try to use John as an example
of repent of your sins. And I just want to draw your attention there in verse 77. Zacharias
told us what John was going to preach. And remember Zacharias at this point is filled with
the Holy Ghost prophesying. He said to give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the
remission of their sins. By the way, that's how salvation happens. Salvation is not,
you know, I defend the sinner's prayer and the fact that we ought to pray with people and they
ought to confess with their mouth and believe in their heart. But let me just be clear,
salvation is not praying a prayer with someone. Now if they believe, if they have faith,
then they should in faith call upon Christ for salvation. But going around just trying
to get people to pray a prayer so you can go back to your soul winning group and say,
I got 77 saved. It's like, you've been out for 10 minutes.
You know, I got 12 people saved. That's not, no, you didn't.
Well, why could I get 20 people saved in 20 minutes? Here's why. Because to get somebody
saved, you need to give knowledge of salvation. You need to actually explain some things. They
need to understand some things. There's some things that need to be understood.
That they're a sinner, that their sin has condemned them to hell, that Jesus Christ
was the payment for our sin, that he was the son of God, that he came to this earth and
he lived a sinless life, that he died to pay for our sins and that we can call upon him
for salvation and we receive that. It's a gift. It's not of works. And once we have it,
we could never lose it. Look, there's a transfer of knowledge
to give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins.
But you got the repent of your sins crowd, right? Go to Matthew 21 real quickly. Oh,
excuse me, Matthew chapter three, Matthew chapter three. So we're looking at a lot of verses.
I know. I told you. We're trying to make up for all the Bible reading you didn't do this week.
Matthew 21. Excuse me. I keep saying that. Matthew three. I want you to Matthew three.
We're going to go to Matthew 21 in a minute. Go to Matthew three.
You have to repent of your sins crowd. And let me just say this. If somebody teaches,
and obviously I understand that there's a whole spectrum of the repent of your sins crowd,
but if somebody teaches that you have to stop sinning or turn from your sin in order to
be saved, that's a work starvation. The Bible says that God saw their works that they turn
from their evil way. If you teach somebody you got to stop drinking alcohol, you got to
stop doing drugs, you got to stop doing something in order to be saved, that works.
And here's what people will say. They'll say, well, John taught that you have to repent of
your sins to be saved. I had somebody say this to me a while ago. John the Baptist taught
you got to repent of your sins to be saved. I said, oh really? Where did he say that?
Where does the Bible say that? He said, let me show you. Matthew chapter three. It took me to
this passage I'm taking you right now. Matthew three verse one. In those days came John the
Baptist preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, repent ye for the kingdom of heaven
is at hand. They said, see, they're right there. John taught you have to repent of your sins.
And I said, here's what I see, verse two, and saying, I see this, repent ye,
but where does it say repent ye of your sins? And they're like, oh, that's implied. No, no,
you added that. In fact, did you know that there's nowhere in the whole entire Bible
will you ever find this phrase in regards to salvation, repent of your sins?
Well, he taught repent. I didn't say he didn't teach repentance. I'm asking,
where did he teach you got to repent of your sin in order to be saved?
Because the Bible clearly records for us what it is that John preached. Let me show it to you.
Matthew 21, look at verse 32. Matthew 21 verse 32. Well, John taught you how to repent,
repent ye for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Hey, I'm not against repentance. Repentance
is a Bible word. I'm not against the idea of repenting, but I am against somebody teaching you
that you have to repent of your sin. That's works. And to stop sinning, that's adding
worse to salvation. Well, then what is it that John taught? Okay, Matthew 21, verse 32.
Notice what Jesus said. If you have a red letter edition Bible, these words aren't red
because this is what Jesus said. Jesus said, he's speaking to the Pharisees and he says
about John. He says, for John, referring to John the Baptist, came unto you in the way
of righteousness and ye, notice, believed him not. Why does he emphasize believe? Because
that's what you need for salvation. And ye believed him not, but the publicans and the
harlots, notice what they did, believed him. And ye, when ye had seen it, don't miss it,
repented not afterwards. Jesus said, hey, you know what? You know what you fail to do,
scribes and Pharisees? You fail to believe what John was telling you. The publicans and
the harlots believed him. And when they believed him, what you should have done is
repented. Does that turn from your sins? Look at it, repented not afterward. What would have
happened if they would have repented that ye might believe him? What is he talking about?
He's saying, look, you didn't believe him. You know what you should have repented of?
Your unbelief and started to believe. What kind of repentance is needed for
salvation? Here's the repentance needed for salvation. I'm trusting in my works.
I'm a Catholic who's trusting in my works, trusting in the fact that I got catechized,
trusting in the fact that I go to the confessional booth. I'm a Pentecostal
who's trusting the fact that I got baptized, trusting in the fact that I cleaned up my life.
I'm a whatever false religion. I'm trusting in something other than Jesus. I'm going
to stop trusting in that and trust in Jesus. That's repentant for salvation.
That's different than I used to drink and now I don't drink anymore. That doesn't do anything
as far as salvation. That works. For John came unto you in the way of righteousness,
and ye believed him not. But the publicans and the harlots believed him. And ye,
when ye had seen it, repented not afterwards that ye might believe him.
See, if they would have repented for salvation, they would have gone from unbelief to belief.
How about someone who believes in this celestial pooping cow?
How can they get saved? Well, they got to stop believing in the pooping cow
and start believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. How does a Muslim get saved? They got to stop
believing in Allah and start believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. How does a Hindu get saved?
They got to stop believing in all their seven million gods and start believing in the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's the repentance needed for salvation. Let me show it to you again,
Acts 19, verse 4, just to make the point clear. Acts 19, verse 4,
you're there in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts. Acts 19, verse 4.
Acts 19 and verse 4, the Bible says this, Then said Paul. Now in Matthew 21,
32, Jesus told us what John was teaching. In Acts 19, 4, now Paul is going to teach us,
he's going to tell us what John the Baptist was teaching. Then said Paul,
John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance. John was baptizing people into
repentance. Okay, well, what exactly was he doing when he did that? John, notice, then said
Paul, this is Paul speaking, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance,
saying unto the people. What is it that John was saying to the people
when he was encouraging them to repent? Here's what he was saying, that they should believe
on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.
So what is it that John was telling people? He was telling them that they should believe
on Jesus, just like we tell people they should believe on Jesus, because that's the only
real gospel. So Zacharias teaches us here that John preached the gospel,
to give knowledge of salvation unto his people for the remission of their sins.
Why don't you notice, not only did John preach the gospel, but he also pointed
people to Jesus. We'll do this quickly, Luke chapter 1, verse 78.
I realize I got to finish up, but let me just kind of share these things with you, and
I don't know. I'm just going to share this with you, okay? Sorry.
Luke 1, verse 78, through the tender mercy of our God. I don't want to preach another sermon,
I want to be done with Luke chapter 1, all right? So can we just do it?
Some of you, if you need to take a nap, take a nap. Luke 1, 78, through the tender mercy of our
God, whereby, notice this word, the days spring from on high have visited us.
He's talking about, remember, he started to talk about his son, and thou child
shall be called the prophet of the highest, for thou shalt be before the face of the
Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission
of their sins. Now he shifts back and says, here's what my son, John, is going to preach
about and teach about through the tender mercy of our God, whereby the day spring from on high
have visited us. He's talking about the fact that the birth of Jesus Christ could be
referenced as the day spring from on high have visited us. Let's just run some verses, okay?
2 Peter chapter 1, look at verse 19. You need this for your Bible study. Write these things
down and you can have it. 2 Peter chapter 1, look at verse 19. Quickly, so we can leave,
so they can clean. Revelation, if you start a revelation, you go backwards. Revelation,
Jude, 2 John, 2 Peter, 2 Peter chapter 1. We have also a more sure word of prophecy,
praise God for that. The prophecies of the Bible teach us it's a more sure word of prophecy.
Where unto ye do well that ye take heed. We could preach a whole night on that phrase right there.
You would do well to take heed to the word of God. In fact, I think I will preach about that
next week. As unto a light that shineth in a dark place until the, notice the word,
day dawn and the day star arise in your heart. This is all a picture of Christ.
He's like the day star, the sun that rises. He would come to this earth to resurrect.
The day dawn and the day star shall arise in your hearts. Look at Luke 1.79 again,
to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death to guide our feet
into the way of peace. Go to Matthew chapter 4. We just got to run these verses. Matthew 4,
look at verse 14. Luke 1.79, Zacharias prophesies that the day star, the day dawn would visit us.
What would he do to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death?
Matthew 4 verse 14, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet. Here's
another prophecy for you saying the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtaliim by the way
of the sea beyond Jordan Galilee of the Gentiles, the people which sat in darkness saw great
light. This is referring to the fact that Christ went there and ministered there and to them which
sat in the region and shadow of death, light is sprung up. So Zacharias says that he comes to
give light to them that sit in darkness and that are in the shadow of death and then Matthew
tells us that Jesus went and preached in Zebulun and Naphtaliim and the people which sat in
darkness saw great light referring to Jesus and to them which sat in the region of the shadow
of death, light is springing up. All of these are references to the Lord Jesus Christ. Go to
Galatians back, if you can go to Galatians 1 and Luke chapter 1 and let me just show you
this last thing real quickly but let me just say this about the light.
I'm a fundamentalist. I don't know if you know that. I'm a fundamental Baptist and I'm not ashamed
of it either and I'm all for fundamentalism and fundamentalist but let me just explain
something to you. Sometimes we as fundamentalists get known for our rules and I'm not against rules.
I'm all for rules. How we dress and how long your hair should be when you're a
lady and or how short it should not be and how short it should be when you're a man. I'm all
for that. I'm all for teaching those things and preaching those things. I'm not against it.
I'm all for teaching that young people should be pure, that it's not good for a man to touch
a woman, that he's not married to. I'm all for for teaching separation and I'm all for it.
I'm for it. I think it's right. I think it's good that we've lost it in fundamentalism today.
But let me just say this. You wouldn't have to have so many rules if we could teach our people
like we talked about this morning to just get a high view of God. See, if you had a high view
of God, if you actually cared about God and what God thinks, nobody would have to tell you,
now sit six inches apart, six inches apart. I'm all for making them sit six inches apart. In fact,
I think six inches isn't apart enough. But instead of having these young people,
we got six inches apart. If you actually had a high view of God,
I'm not doing what I have to do. I'm doing what I want to do because I love the Lord Jesus
Christ. See, here's what we need. We don't need rules. We need light.
The Bible says, thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.
I want to tell you parents what we need to be doing with our children. Yes, let's teach
them rules. Let's give them regulations. Let's give them rules. Let's do that. We need to do
that. You should do that. But more than that, see, one day they're going to grow up and
they're not going to be under our rules. And what we need to teach them is to walk in the light
of the word of God and of Jesus Christ, to follow the light, to have a high view of God,
and to do what's right because they love the Lord.
Now, why don't you just notice we'll finish up here in Luke chapter 1, verse 80.
And the child grew, referring to John, and waxed strong in spirit. That word wax
is an archaic word. It means to grow or to increase. The Bible tells us that the child grew
and he waxed, he grew strong in spirit. I want you to notice this, and was in the desert
to the day of his showing unto Israel. The Bible tells us something interesting about John
is that when he was born, of course, he grew physically. He waxed in spirit. He grew spiritually.
But the Bible tells us that he was in the desert. He was in the desert to the day of
his showing. Of course, John the Baptist is going to come on the scene 30 years from now.
He's going to begin his ministry and begin to prepare the way for the Lord Jesus Christ.
But from the time that we're reading in the end of Luke chapter 1 to the day of his showing
when he came out as a preacher and began his public ministry, the Bible tells us he was
in the desert. What's interesting is that there's a theme, and I'd like to show it to you real
quickly tonight, there's a theme throughout the Bible about people who God mightily used
being in the desert. Let me show it to you real quickly. Go to Galatians chapter 1,
look at verse 15. We have Paul. Paul is talking about his own testimony, Galatians 1.15,
but when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, that's a reference to the
fact, Paul is referring to the fact that God had a plan and a purpose for him from his mother's
womb, talked about that this morning, a sanctity of human life, and called me by his grace to
reveal a son in me that I might preach him among the heathen. That's what Paul was called
to do, to be a missionary, an evangelist, to preach Jesus among the heathen. Immediately,
I confirmed not with flesh and blood. He says, look, when I got saved, Paul said, when Jesus
appeared to me on Damascus road, and then I went into Damascus, and three days later,
Adonaius shut up and preached the gospel to me, and I got saved. He said, when that happened,
he said, immediately, I did not confer with flesh and blood, because Paul told us,
is telling us in Galatians, that he had this meeting with Peter and with John and with James
and with the apostles, and he had this meeting, but he tells us, before I did that,
before I went and tried to confer with flesh and blood, he said, because of course,
Jesus appeared to him, and Jesus sent Adonaius to get him saved. Verse 17, he says,
neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me. He says,
but I went into Arabia and returned again unto Damascus. Then, after three years,
I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter and abode with him 15 days. Paul says,
before I went to Jerusalem to talk to Peter and James and John, he said, I went to Arabia.
What's he saying? He said, I went to the desert. How long was he there? I don't know.
He says, after three years, he went to Jerusalem. We know that he went to Jerusalem
shortly after he'd been in Damascus. Maybe he was there for three years. I'm not sure,
but we know this, he was in the desert. It's interesting that John was used vitally of God,
and the Bible tells us that he was in the desert till the day of his showing, and then
Paul was vitally used of God, and we're told that before he went to confer with flesh and
blood, before he went to commune and have fellowship with other believers, he went into
Arabia. He went to the desert. Let me give you another one real quickly. This is the last one,
I promise. Exodus 3, look at verse 1. Genesis, Exodus, never believe a preacher, okay?
That's a joke, okay? Some of you are going to be like, you said.
Exodus 3, verse 1. Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law,
the priest of Midian, and he led the flock, notice this, to the backside of the desert,
and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb. The life of Moses divided into three sections.
The Bible tells us he lived for 120 years. The first 40 years were spent in Egypt.
The last 40 years were spent leading the children of Israel out of Egypt,
but there was a middle section of Moses' life when he left Egypt before he went back for
the children of Israel. The Bible tells us he spent 40 years in the backside of the desert.
Jesus started his ministry. Remember when he wrote about the birth of Christ?
First thing he does, goes to the desert. Before he begins, officially, his ministry,
he goes to John. He gets baptized. John declares him, behold, the Lamb of God will take away
the sins of the world. And then the first thing he does is he goes to the desert
for 40 days and 40 nights. There's something about the desert. He said,
what does the desert represent? It represents solitude. Do you understand that you and I,
I wonder if some of the lack that we have as Christians today is that we're just a little
too connected. We have too many distractions. Your phone is just too distracting.
There's too many people to talk to, too many people to look at, too many people to think,
things to see. And I'm just here to tell you that there's something about,
God tells us there's something about getting out in the desert alone with God.
He did it with Moses. He did it with John the Baptist. He did it with Jesus. He did it
with Paul. And I wonder if you and I would take time every day to just shut off the computer,
shut off the phone, turn everything off, just get alone with God in the backside of the desert
spiritually, if we would get to know God and have more access to God and have the power of
God. Because it just seems to me like the people that God used mightily, they learned to get
away with God. Luke chapter 1, look at verse 66. Now we're actually done. This time I'm not
lying to you. Luke 1 66. And all they that heard them laid them up in their
hearts saying, what matter of child shall this be? Notice the last part of verse 66.
And the hand of the Lord was with him. I don't know about you, but that's what I want.
I want God, I want God to say that about my life, that the hand of the Lord was with him.
That's going to require you and I getting in the desert, getting alone with God,
getting alone with this King James Bible, understanding that it is the word of God,
reading it, memorizing it, loving it, applying it, doing what it tells us to do, that we might
have the power of God in our lives. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you for your word. Lord, I pray you would encourage all of us
to spend more time with you, to get alone in the desert by ourselves,
shut off all the distractions, spend time with God, imagine the same of Christ, we pray. Amen.
We're going to have Brother Matt come up and lead us in a final song. Let me just give you
a couple of announcements, okay? And I did preach a little longer than I usually do,
but you were going to stay here anyway in fellowship, so now we're cutting that out,
so I took some of that time. I won't even charge you for overtime, so that's good.
I'm kidding, all right? I'm kidding. A couple announcements. Sign up for the potluck.
There's a wedding tomorrow, 6 p.m., don't forget. There's a sign-up sheet in the foyer.
And then, of course, cookies for the Christmas service. If you can bring cookies,
bake cookies, buy cookies, whatever, sign up over there for that as well. If you can help,
we want to be a blessing to Brother Rene and Miss Kiki. They had their baby when I'll do some
meals, so see my wife and sign up. If you can help with that, that would be great to bring
meals to Rene and Kiki Morales. And then, also, don't forget that they are going to set up
for the wedding immediately after the service, so stick around in fellowship for a little bit,
but if we can just kind of move on out and get out of the way so that they can do that,
that would be great. If there's anything we can do for you, please let us know. Wedding at 6 p.m.
tomorrow, hope to see you there. If not, then, of course, we have Wednesday night Bible study,
7 p.m. If there's anything we can do for you, please let us know. Why Brother Matt,
come up and lead us in a final song. We're going to song 431.
Song number 431.
431 on the first.
431 on the second.
On the last.
431 on the second.
Amen.