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Bro. Bill Nichols
Okay, this morning we're going to begin Luke chapter 1 verse 18, but before we go there, we're going to go back to verse 11 through 17. Read it again, keeping in mind that Zacharias knows that it's an angel that is talking to him.
Verse 11,. And there appeared unto him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him. But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias, and thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John, and thou shall 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. And he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb.
And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God. And he shall go before him in the spirit and the power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.
Let us pray. Most gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you for bringing us together today in a place where we can study your Holy Word. We thank you for the Holy Spirit that you have given us to help us to interpret what you have for us to say, and what you have for everyone to hear and understand.
We thank you moreover for your Son that you sent into the world to bear our burden of sin. We thank you for all of these things. We pray that you will continue to be with us through this service and the next.
In Jesus' name, Amen. So, Zacharias was instructed to raise John, his son, as a Nazarite. Zacharias knew the Nazarite vow. He knew all that it entailed, and we talked about that last week. He knew what it meant to come in the spirit of Elijah.
He knew of Abraham and Sarah, and he knew the circumstances surrounding the birth of their son, Isaac. He knew of Elkanah and Hannah, and the circumstances surrounding the birth of their son, Samuel. In both cases, a son was born to very old parents.
In Abraham's case, he was 100 years old, and his wife, Sarah, was 90. Zacharias was much younger than either one of those, so he should have known that giving a son to him and to Elizabeth was not a job too difficult for God to do.
But apparently, he didn't know that, or he didn't remember that, or at least he didn't call it to mind, and he still protested. So, here's what he says. This is verse 18. And Zacharias said unto the angel, Whereby shall I know this?
For I am an old man, and my wife well stricken with years. Abraham would have said to Zacharias, You are just a puppy. I'm an old man, and my wife was well stricken in years. Whereby shall I know this?
The short answer is, Because I was sent by God to tell you. But Luke tells us a longer answer. Verse 19. And the angel answering him said unto him, I am Gabriel that stand in the presence of God, and I am sent to speak to thee, and to show thee these glad tidings.
Essentially, what Gabriel has told Zacharias so far is, I am sent from God to tell you. But he didn't stop there. He added, There will be consequences for your disbelief. Verse 20. And behold, this is Gabriel speaking to Zacharias, and behold, I shall be dumb and not able to speak until the day these things shall be performed, because thou believest not my words, which shall be fulfilled in their season.
As we shall see later, it's likely that Zacharias was not just dumb, but he was deaf and dumb. You can peek forward to Luke 1, 62. Verse 62. And you'll see the neighbors crowding around to congratulate Zacharias and Elizabeth on their son, and to inquire about the name of the son.
And they made signs to his father, Zacharias, how he would have him called. Now, why would they have made signs? Because you couldn't hear. He couldn't speak, we know, and he couldn't hear, I think, as well.
So he was both deaf and dumb. Now we're going back to Luke 21. Verse 21, not chapter 21. And the people waited for Zacharias and marveled that he tarried so long in the temple. Now, why would that be?
Well, it was not customary for the priest that is burning the incense to take so long. So they already knew something unusual was going on. If you want to know what Zacharias should have done, look to Numbers, chapter 6, and pick up at verse 22.
Numbers, chapter 6, verse 22. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, speaking to Aaron and his sons, saying, On this wise you shall bless the children of Israel, saying unto them, The Lord bless thee and keep thee.
The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace. And they shall put my name upon the children of Israel, and I will bless them.
So, Zacharias was only supposed to offer the incense, and then he was supposed to come out and pronounce this familiar blessing on the people who were waiting outside in the temple court. All of the other priests were outside.
He was the only one inside. He was the only one that saw the angel. We talked about that last week. Everybody else is out at the temple court waiting for him to come out, and he doesn't come out on time.
The conversation with the angel would have taken a little extra time. And then, when he did come out, he couldn't do what he was supposed to do. He couldn't speak, so he couldn't offer the blessing. All he could do is give them signals.
Verse 22, 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 to them, and remained speechless. And he will remain speechless until his son is born.
That's more than nine months later, about a year later. It's interesting to me to conjecture what Zacharias might have said had he been able to speak. And this is not scriptural, and it's probably not even correct, but I imagine if it had been me that had just spoken to an angel, and I came out and was asked to speak in front of the people, I might have said something like this.
Guess what happened? God sent an angel to me to tell me that I will father a son. I'm not too old, and my wife is not too old. We are going to be extra specially blessed by God. He couldn't say that. He couldn't say anything.
Well, that's just me thinking. I thought that was funny enough to relay, but maybe I should have left it alone. Because it's certainly not scriptural. It is only me admitting how vain I am. And maybe that's part of Zacharias' problem.
Maybe Zacharias was a little bit too un-vain. No, vain. A little too un-humble. His wife is going to be treated differently, and the next person that Gabriel meets or visits will also behave differently.
Both of them will behave meekly and humbly, and both of them will be blessed. And not... Well, we'll get there when we get there. Okay, back to 23. And it came to pass that as soon as the days of his ministration were accomplished, he departed to his own home.
I thought that was a little bit strange. His period was for one week. So he's sometime in the middle of this period. So he only finishes out the week. And then he returns to his house in the hill country of Judea.
To me, it's interesting that he did not remain in Jerusalem, because although his days of lighting the incense were completed, his days of a priest were not. Now, maybe being deaf and dumb disqualified him from the priesthood.
I don't know that. I don't know exactly what all the rules and regulations for priests are, but that might have disqualified him. But I am sure of this. His condition, being deaf and dumb, would make his priesthood extremely difficult.
Verse 24. And after those days, his wife Elizabeth conceived, and hid herself for five months, saying, Thus hath the Lord dealt with me in the days wherein he looked upon me to take away my reproach among men.
Now, that's different than I think Zacharias would have behaved. Elizabeth kind of went off into seclusion to ponder and think about all of the blessings that the Lord has given her. Diane said probably she wanted to make sure that she actually delivered a baby, because she is pretty old.
And that might be the case. I don't know. But this I do know. Childlessness carried a reproach in a culture where blessings were tied to birthrights and to family lines. Barrenness could occasionally be a sign of divine disfavor.
And we have a little flavor for that in Leviticus 20 and 21. But that was not always the case. For example, in Genesis 30, 23, it talks about Abraham and Sarah and their son, and the fact that Sarah was barren.
And in Samuel, it talks about the parents of Samuel, and the fact that his mother was thought to be barren as well, and they were old. And yet it still carried a social stigma, and that could be humiliating.
So Elizabeth recognizes that this stigma is going to soon be removed. And so she went into seclusion. And now Luke veers off in a new direction. Verse 26. And in the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, that's just to give a timeline to it.
In the six months of Elizabeth's pregnancy, the angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city of Galilee named Nazareth. And to a virgin, a spouse to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary.
Now, I want to take a minute and tell you this. The word that's translated virgin in the Greek is parthenos. It's an unambiguous Greek term. It means a woman who has never had sexual intercourse with a man.
Mary was not merely a young Hebrew maiden, as some commentators claim. And in fact, a lot of the very liberal commentators say, well, this just represents her as a young woman. No. She was a virgin in the true sense of the word.
John MacArthur says this about that. And as a matter of fact, John MacArthur said that about that already. That was his. The importance of the virgin birth cannot be overstated. This is John MacArthur, I can tell you for sure.
A right view of the Incarnation hinges on the truth that Jesus was virgin born. Both Luke and Matthew expressly state that Mary was a virgin. When Jesus was conceived. And that the Holy Spirit wrought the conception through supernatural means.
The nature of Christ's conception testifies both of his deity and of his sinlessness. Now, verse 28. And the angel, what angel? Gabriel, came in unto her and said, Hail thou that art highly favored. The Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women. I'm going to say it. There is a Christian group, the Catholics, who hold Mary higher even than Jesus Christ. And this is a way of debunking that or discrediting that idea.
Highly favored literally means full of grace. If you look the Greek word up, you'll find it in another place. But it won't be translated highly favored nor full of grace. It will be in Ephesians 1, 6.
I'm going to read Ephesians 1, 6 and tell you how it's translated. If you want to go there, you can. Ephesians 1, verse 6. To the praise and the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.
Now, do you see full of grace in there anywhere? It's accepted. He has made us accepted in the beloved. And this portrays Mary as a recipient, not a dispenser of divine grace. So being highly favored, full of grace, doesn't mean she dispenses grace.
It means she's received grace. And that she is a recipient of that grace, not a dispenser of it. And then we come to another phrase. Blessed art thou among women. Blessed art thou among women. I've never seen anybody translate that verse this way, but I'm going to tell you how it can't be translated in just a second.
The actual Greek word is the Greek word en. And it's translated in various places. Sometimes actually it's the word in. Sometimes by. Sometimes with. And here it's translated as among. But it is never, ever translated above or more than.
So the phrase that we just read, thou art highly favored, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, could never have been translated, thou that are highly favored, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou more than any other women.
Never that way. Only like other women. So Mary was, I guess, especially blessed. After all, she bore a child unlike any other child. So I guess she was blessed more than any other women. But the scripture never says that.
It only says she's blessed like other women are blessed in the giving of their children. And when she saw him back to Luke 29 and Mary and Gabriel, I'll read it this way. And when Mary saw Gabriel, she was troubled at his saying and cast in her mind, what matter of salutation should this be?
Her question would be, why would an angel appear to me and tell me that I was highly favored? The angel, understanding her confusion, continues. Verse 30. And the angel said unto her, fear not Mary, for thou hast found favor with God.
It's the same angel. The message was similar to that Zacharias received. You have found favor with God. But now there's a difference in the message. As well as a difference in the way Mary was treated.
And behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. Now, I'm going to go to Matthew 1 for a parallel passage. It will begin in verse 21. I want to read that because that's going to take us in a whole different direction.
And we'll get back to this verse next week. And I apologize for going so slow. But there's so much stuff in here that is, to me, so intriguing. And so here we go. Matthew 1 .21. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus.
And he shall save his people from their sins. Now the angel is talking to Joseph at this point. And talking about Mary. She will bring forth a son, and you, Joseph, shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.
Now all of this was done that it might fulfill which was spoken of by the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is God with us.
Well, I told you wrong. We're going to go right back to Luke now and pick up a couple more verses before we veer off for good. And back, Luke 31 says this. And, Behold, I shall conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shall call his name Jesus.
And he shall be called great, and he shall be called the Son of the Highest. And the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David. That's the one I wanted to leave off on for a while. So here we are.
And, Behold, I shall conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, he shall be called the Son of the Highest. And the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David.
Now, John MacArthur says this. Since a son bears his father's qualities, calling a person someone's son is a way of signifying equality. Here the angel was telling Mary that her son would be equal to the Most High God.
That's something he didn't say about John. Now, David's throne was emblematic of the Messianic kingdom. In fact, go here. Psalms 89 verse 26. And he shall cry unto me, Thou art my Father, my God, the rock of my salvation.
Also I shall make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth. My mercy will I keep for him forevermore. My covenant shall stand fast with him. His seed also will I make endure forever, and his throne as the days of heaven.
If his children forsake my laws and walk not in my judgments, if they break my statutes and keep not my commandments, then I will visit their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with stripes.
Nevertheless, my loving kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. Once I have sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David, his seed will endure forever, and his throne as the sun before me.
It shall be established forever as the moon and as a faithful witness in heaven. Who is this man that is referred to here as his seed? That is David's seed. That's Jesus. And he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end.
Now, I want to go back at this point to Genesis 3 .15. And you can go there if you wish. I won't stay there long, but you guys are quick with the Pharisee tabs and the computer phones. You can get there before I can.
And pick up what Chuck Missler calls the Scarlet Thread. And here's what he said. I'm just going to read a little bit that he said in his notes. And there's a few things that I would disagree with Missler, but a lot of things I do agree with.
Adam was created perfect. I would read that complete. And with the ability to make his own choices, he blew it, yielding his allegiance to a rival. The entire cosmic panorama deals with a plan of redemption from this tragic choice.
We're all heirs to this primeval mistake. We continue to carry this as a genetic defect to this day. At the time of these notes, HIV was really a big thing. And so he says this. It isn't HIV plus that we have to worry about.
It's SIN plus that we have to worry about. But the good news is there's a blood cure. And it's available to those that God has called. It was in the Garden of Eden that God declared war on Satan. And this is the verse we want to read.
I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. And it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Thus the seed of woman begins the thread of literally hundreds of prophetic revelations of the coming one.
And thus becomes one of the prophetic titles of the Messiah, the seed of the woman. The term seed of a woman is both a grammatical and a biological contradiction. The seed is in the man. And thus this is the first hint here in the earliest chapters of Genesis of the virgin birth.
And then he asked the question, why is the virgin birth necessary? And he goes to give two answers. Hints at the third one. The third one is the one that John MacArthur referred to. All of the theological reasons why the Lord has to be born a virgin.
But I thought the one he gave was even more intriguing to me. One answer, of course, is not only to fulfill the prophecy of Genesis 3 .15, the one we just read. That a virgin shall conceive. No, that was Matthew.
That it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Not only to fulfill that prophecy, but also a later one given to Isaiah. And that's the one that I should have read. And that's the one Matthew is quoting.
He said in Isaiah 7 verse 14,. Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Emmanuel. Now Matthew 1 verse 22 says,. All this was done that might be fulfilled which was spoken of by the Lord in the prophets, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child and bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted, God is with us.
So that is Matthew and Isaiah together. One the prophet and one the prophet quoted in Matthew. Both saying the same thing. A virgin shall conceive. And Mitzler goes on to say, This was a sign indeed and a prophecy, but this is more descriptive than causal.
So why was it necessary? And then he hints at one. He says, There are many profound theological issues inherent in the virgin birth. However, one way to approach this problem, this issue, is to address the problem it solves.
This morning we'll address the problem and next Sunday, God willing, we will deal with the solution. So here's the problem. God announced very early in his plan for redemption. That his plan for redemption involved the Messiah being brought forth from the tribe of Judah.
He says that way back in Genesis 49, 10 when he gave the blessings to his sons. And when he got to Judah, he said this, The scepter shall not depart from Judah nor a lawgiver from beneath his feet until Shiloh come.
Shiloh is the Messiah. And unto him shall the gathering of the people be. And to Shiloh. And specifically from the line of David. So Judah will be in the line with the Messiah and David. Now here is a little bit of the Genesis of David found in the book of Ruth.
You don't need to go there. I'm going to read it. Salmon begat Boaz, and Boaz begat Obed, and Obed begat Jesse, and Jesse begat David. You don't see that. There's something you don't see in that genealogy that you will see if you go to the book of Matthew.
Go ahead and go to the book of Matthew, chapter 1, verse 1. And I'll read the first verse while you're getting there. It's the book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
Abraham begat Isaac. And then he goes on to go through a whole list of people that he begat until he gets to verse 5. And here's why I read this passage. And Salmon, the same Salmon that is in Ruth 4 .21.
And Salmon begat Boaz. Spelled differently, but it's the same Boaz. Of Rahab. That wasn't there, was it? That wasn't in the book of Ruth. And Salmon begat Boaz of Rahab. And Boaz begat Obed of Ruth. And Obed begat Jesse, and Jesse begat King David.
This is the same Rahab who hid the spies that Joshua sent out to spy out Jericho. We're going to go to Joshua 2 .1 and check that out. There's a lot of reading and I'm going to read fast. Now the king is right.
They did come to search out the land. They did come as spies. But Rahab did not bring the men to the king. Instead, she hides them. And here's what she tells the king. They were here, but they left. Well, technically speaking, that's true.
Because they're not in the house any longer. They're on the roof. So, okay. They were here, but they left. If you hurry, you can catch them. And the woman took the two men and hid them and said thusly, there were two men coming to me, but I was not whence they were.
So she's saying, I don't know where they came from. And it came to pass about the time of the shutting of the gates, when it was dark, that the men went out. And whither the men went, I know not. Now that was strictly a lie.
She doesn't know exactly where they are. Pursue after them quickly, for you shall overtake them. That's what she told him. That's not exactly what happened. She did know where they were. But she had brought them up to the roof of the house and hid them with the stalks of flax, which she lay in order upon the roof.
And the men, the pursuers, the men pursued after them all the way to the Jordan and to the forge. And as soon as they which pursued after them were gone, they shut the gate. Now the pursuers were outside the city.
The gates were closed behind them. Now Rahab comes up to the two men to do spies with a proposition. And before they were laid down, she came up to the roof and said to the men, I know that your God hath given you the land, and that your terror is fallen upon us, for that all the inhabitants of the land faint because of you.
For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you. And when you came out of Egypt, what you did to the two kings of the Amorites, you need to understand the two kings of the Amorites were both giants, and they had land of giants that were on the other side of the Jordan, Shehon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed.
As soon as we had heard these things, our hearts did melt. Neither did there remain any more courage in any man because of you. For the Lord your God, He is God in heaven above and in the earth beneath.
What she's saying is, I know your city will fall because I know this city will fall to you and your God, just like the Amorites fell to you and your God. Then she goes on to say, Now, therefore, I pray you, swear by me, by the Lord, since I have shown you kindness, that you will also show kindness to my father's house and give me a true token.
Now, the true token is going to be a scarlet thread. And if you want to find something interesting, do a word search of scarlet thread and you'll find two instances when a scarlet thread was used to point out the true line of the Messiah.
But if you don't know that, you'll pass both of them by. And she said, Give me a true token that you will save alive my father and my mother and my brother and my sisters and all they have and deliver our lives from death.
And the men answered, Our lives for your lives, if you utter not this our business. So don't say anything and I'll agree with you. And it shall be, when the Lord hath given us the land, that we will deal kindly and truly with thee.
Then she let them down by a cord through the window, for her house was on the town wall, and she dwelt upon the wall. And she said unto them, Get you to the mountains, lest the pursuers meet you, and hide yourself there three days, until your pursuers be returned, and afterwards you may go your way.
And the men said unto her, We will be blameless of this thine oath, which thou made us spare. Behold, when we come into the land, thou shalt bind this line of scarlet thread in the window, which thou didst let us down by.
And thou shalt bring thy father and thy mother and thy brethren and all thy father's household home to thee. And it shall be, that whosoever shall go out of the doors of thy house unto the street, his blood will be on his head.
And we will be helpless. And whosoever shall be with thee in the house, his blood shall be on our head, if any hand be upon him. If thou utter this business, then we will be quit of thine oath, which thou hast made us swear.
And she said accordingly to your word, So be it. And she sent them away, and they departed, and she bound the scarlet thread in the window. So she's prepared. Now I have two questions. Question number one, how did Joshua use the information gleaned by his two spies?
Anybody know? How did Joshua use the information gathered by the two spies? Okay, we're going to read and find out. Go to Joshua 6, verse 1. Now Jericho was straight shut up because of the children of Israel.
None went out, and none came in. And the Lord said to Joshua, See, I have given into thine hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty men of Valor. And ye shall compass the city, all ye men of war, and go round about the city once.
Thus shalt thou do for six days. And seven priests shall bear before the ark seven trumpets of ram's horns. And on the seventh day, you're going to see this happening, marching around, and then they go sit down for six days.
And on the seventh day, you shall compass the city seven times. And the priests shall blow with their trumpets, and it shall come to pass that when they make a long blast with the ram's horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout, and the wall of the city shall fall flat down, and the people shall ascend up, every man straight before him.
So I'll ask the question again. How did Joshua use the information that he gathered by the spies? He didn't use it at all. He just marched the people around the city. Whatever was in the city didn't matter.
All the forces didn't matter. Nothing mattered. Just that they marched around the city one time a day for six days. Seven times on the last day blew the horn and the walls fell down. So the better question is, then why did he send the spy?
I'm sorry? To save Rahab. Maybe the entire purpose for sending the spy was to save Rahab. After all, she is the direct line from Abraham to Jesus, or she is in the direct line. Had she died in Jericho, the scarlet thread would have been broken.
Now, I've got a passage and I'm running. No, I'm going to stop here. I'm not going to get to the actual problem. I'll just give you a quick clue. We'll start next time with 2 Samuel 7, verse 4. And we'll get the Lord speaking through Nathan the prophet to David.
And he talks about setting up his seed after him. And I'm going to ask you who that seed was. And I will tell you this. If you don't read it carefully, you're going to think it was Solomon. And I will give you a further hint.
Satan thought it was Solomon. And therefore Satan focused his attention on the wrong branch. And he created a set of kings following after Solomon that got progressively worse and worse and worse until one got so bad that God produced a curse saying, no descendant of yours shall ever prosper on the throne of David.
And I'm going to intervene and say there must have been celebration in hell, or at least wherever Satan and his demons were at that time, when that pronouncement was made because they thought that the scarlet thread had been broken.
But they were chasing the wrong thread. And so that's what we'll do early next time. And we'll present the solution. It may be better to get the problem and the solution in the same lesson. Most gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for this day.
And thank you for all your many blessings. Thank you for giving us this place, a place to come and study your Holy Word. Thank you for giving us your Holy Spirit. Guide us and keep us and go through the services today.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.