Equipping Eve: The Wisdom and Witness of Anna

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Is the church today doing everything it can to provide women a firm foundation of truth in Christ Jesus?

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Well, it's true, there's no shortage of candy -coated Bible studies, potluck fellowships available to ladies.

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But beyond Sunday morning, are Christian women being properly equipped to stand against the same deceptions that even enticed

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Eve in the garden? In an attempt to address the need for trustworthy, biblical resources for women,

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No Compromise Radio is happy to introduce Equipping Eve, a ladies -only radio show that seeks to equip women with fruits of truth in an age that's ripe with deception.

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My name is Mike Ebendroth and I'm pleased to introduce your host, Erin Benzinger, a friend of No Compromise Radio and a woman who wants to see other women equipped with a love for and a knowledge of the truth of God's Word.

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Well, hello ladies and welcome to Equipping Eve. I am your host, Erin Benzinger, as always.

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And as always, you can check us out online at equippingeve .com.

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There you can find a link to the blog, which will have links to listen to the show as well as some resources, perhaps any articles or scripture verses that we discussed on the show.

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You can find there at the blog and equippingeve .com whenever the shows get posted to No Compromise Radio, then we are able to put a link up there at the

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Equipping Eve site. If you're a social media buff, then check us out on Facebook, that's equippingeve, or Twitter at equippingeve.

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And again, you'll get links to the show whenever they are posted. And on Facebook, you'll also get occasional articles, usually from my sister blog, if you will,

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Do Not Be Surprised, which that particular blog actually began long before Equipping Eve came along, so many of you may be familiar with DNBS from back in the day, and it lives.

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It's still going on. That's where most of my writing is done, and so I like to share those articles from time to time whenever something new goes up, and you can find those links on Facebook when they are available.

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And we try to put them out on Twitter as well. So I have a recommendation for you. A lot of times we maybe open the show by looking at some crazy examples of bad teaching going on in evangelicalism, but as a refreshing change,

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I hope you find it refreshing, I wanted to read a brief quote to you from a book that I've been reading that is just marvelous, and I am so enjoying this book that I am hoping that if you have some free time and are looking for something to do, maybe you'll pick up a copy of this book as well, and I hope you're as edified by it as I have been so far.

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I haven't finished it yet. It is called The Cross, God's Way of Salvation. It's by Dr.

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Martin Lloyd -Jones, who of course was one of the quintessential expositors of the 20th century, has since gone to be with the

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Lord, and I have been greatly, greatly blessed at the risk of using a well -overused, cliched term in evangelicalism.

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Did you ever notice that people are just blessed by everything? It's very random. You don't have to be blessed by everything.

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It's okay. You won't lose your salvation if you don't say that you were blessed by something, but that's just a side soapbox that we'll leave for another day.

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Anyway, I really have been blessed by this book. So again, it's called The Cross, God's Way of Salvation, and I just was reading this, and it just was so striking to me, and I think he almost anticipated that people might be struck by what he says here, so I'm just going to read this quote to you, because otherwise

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I'm just talking about it, and you don't know what I'm talking about. Okay. Lloyd -Jones says, quote, What is the message of the

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Christian gospel and of the Christian church? Now, at the risk of being misunderstood, I will put it like this.

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It is not primarily the teaching of our Lord. Did you hear that? He says that the message of the gospel and of the

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Christian church is not primarily the teaching of our Lord. I say that, of course, says Lloyd -Jones, because there are so many today who think that this is

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Christianity. They say what we need is Jesus' teaching. He is the greatest religious genius of all times.

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He is above all the philosophers. Let us have a look at his teaching, at the Sermon on the Mount, and so on. That is what we want.

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What the world needs today, they say, is a dose of the Sermon on the Mount, a dose of his ethical teaching. We must preach this to the people and teach them how to live.

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But according to the Apostle Paul, that is not their first need, and I will go further. He says, if you only preach the teaching of the

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Lord Jesus Christ, not only do you not solve the problem of mankind, in a sense, you even aggravate it.

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You are preaching nothing but utter condemnation, because nobody can ever carry it out.

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So they did not preach his teaching. Paul does not say, God forbid that I should glory save in the Sermon on the Mount. God forbid that I should glory save in the ethical teaching of Jesus.

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He does not say that. It was not the teaching of Christ, nor the example of Christ either. That is often preached, is it not?

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What is the message of Christianity? The imitation of Christ. Read the Gospels, they say, and see how he lived. That is the way we all ought to live, so let us decide to do so.

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Let us decide to imitate Christ and to live as he lived. I say once more that that is not the center and the heart of the

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Christian message. That comes into it, but not at the beginning. It is not the first thing. It is not the thing the

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Apostles preached initially. Neither was it our Lord's example. What they preached was his death upon the cross and the meaning of that event.

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End quote. Of course, he goes on for an entire book, but that couple of paragraphs was so striking to me, because that is so common in the church today.

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Preach the teaching of Jesus, and then that'll make everybody a better Christian, or that'll make everyone a

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Christian. It's moralism. It's moralism, and it's a twisting in a sense of God's word.

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Even if you're teaching it correctly, you're still teaching an incorrect gospel. Now, I really want to make this qualifying point clear that Lloyd -Jones is not saying, and I am not saying, that you shouldn't teach things like the

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Sermon on the Mount is the example that he uses. In fact, if you aren't familiar, Martin Lloyd -Jones has written the,

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I hate to use the word quintessential again, but I will, the quintessential work on the Sermon on the Mount. His commentary on Matthew 5, 6, and 7 is fantastic.

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If you are ever studying the Sermon on the Mount, please pick up that book, and please read along with your study, because it's phenomenal.

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His treatment of that text is second to none. And so that's really,

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I think, why this struck me so much, because here is the man who did preach such powerful messages on that passage, and yet he's using it as an example here of, yes, that's all very important, and that's part of being a

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Christian, of course, but it's not the beginning. We cannot forget the true gospel, and that's why we have so many moralistic, legalistic churches around.

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They forget the gospel. They forget what happens at the beginning, and that is Christ, and that is Christ crucified, and that is the cross.

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What does that mean? That means that Jesus Christ, the perfect, unblemished

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Lamb of God, died and bore the wrath of God for the sins of all who would believe in Him.

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And if we repent and trust in Him and that work upon the cross, then

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His righteousness, because He kept the law perfectly, which we don't. I don't care how good you think you are.

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You're a great big sinner, just like me, just like the rest of us. But His righteousness is imputed to us, and we are seen as justified before God, whereas without Christ, we are seen as guilty, and we are justly deserving of hell, all of us.

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It's only the righteousness of Christ that can clothe us and have us be seen as righteous and just before God.

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And so be mindful of a moralistic gospel. Preach the true gospel.

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Preach the cross. And as a fruit of salvation, oh, that's what's so beautiful. God sends

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His Holy Spirit. God regenerates us. He gives us a new mind, a new heart, new desires.

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And we are changed. And then we seek righteousness.

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We seek to live lives of holiness, not perfectly here on this earth. But our lives begin to look like the things that we see in the

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Sermon on the Mount or in the epistles, and we start to live those holy lives because God has changed us.

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And so anyway, instead of starting with a Joel Osteen quote, I thought we'd start with a little bit of the cross, and I think we'll talk a bit about the cross of Christ in a later episode.

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And I probably should have saved that quote for that particular episode, but it was so good.

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I had to share it with you now. And perhaps you're listening to this show a wee bit before Christmas time.

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And by a wee bit, I really mean a wee bit. That's the plan as I record this, that you will be listening to this close to Christmas.

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And so there you go. There's your Christmas gift from me. You're welcome. Go get that book. Martin Lloyd -Jones,

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The Cross, God's Way of Salvation. And it is not at all related to what I intended to talk about today.

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But that is okay. We'll go with it anyway. What I wanted to talk about today, and actually it is related, because it's all about Jesus ultimately, isn't it?

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Always look back to Christ. Are you broken down, beaten, weary with life in some way, shape, or form in some realm of your life, some sphere of your life?

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Look at Jesus. Open his word and run to Christ.

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Read the Gospels open, open to Luke. Everyone wants you to turn to John first, and that's a fantastic gospel, especially when you're talking to someone who's an unbeliever.

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And it's a fantastic, probably one of the best gospels to introduce Jesus as God and really understand the

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God -man, Jesus Christ. But there's something about Luke's narrative and Luke's account of Christ and his life that just read it with fresh eyes.

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If you haven't read it lately, and you will be so encouraged to look at Christ again.

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Okay. As I said, what I wanted to talk about today in light of the holiday season, last year, when

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I say last year, I think it was 2015. We did a show called Simeon's Psalm.

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And in that show, we looked at the narrative of Christ's birth and looked at some of the, or one of the individuals who was there, not long after Christ was born.

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One of the first eyewitnesses of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that was

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Simeon who prophesied when Mary and Joseph brought

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Jesus to the temple. But there was another person there that day that we did not talk about last year.

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And so we're doing the sister show to Simeon's Psalm. And so today we're going to talk about Anna.

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Anna. Ladies, open your

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Bibles with me to Luke chapter two, verse 21.

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And you'll start to see why I was just telling you to read Luke. Verse 21,

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Christ has just been born. The angels were praising him. The shepherds had come to visit him.

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And in chapter 21, Luke writes, when eight days had passed before his circumcision, his name was then called

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Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. And when the days for their purification, according to the law of Moses, were completed, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the

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Lord. As it is written in the law of the Lord, every firstborn male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the

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Lord. And to offer a sacrifice according to what was said in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.

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And there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. And this man was righteous and about looking for the consolation of Israel.

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And the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the

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Lord's Christ. Can I just go back, rewind a year? I hope you have a chance to listen to that show.

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But I want you to think, he had been promised that he would not die before he saw Christ, the Messiah. Wow, that is so amazing.

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And this one day, he goes in the spirit into the temple, says verse 27. And when the parents brought in the child

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Jesus to carry out for him the custom of the law, then he, Simeon, took him into his arms and blessed

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God and said, Now, Lord, you are releasing your bondservant to depart in peace, according to your word.

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For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light of revelation to the

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Gentiles and the glory of your people Israel. And his father and mother were amazed at the things that were being said about him.

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And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary's mother, Behold, this child is appointed for the fallen rise of many in Israel and for a sign to be opposed and a sword will pierce even your own soul to the end that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.

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And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years and had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage.

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And then as a widow to the age of 84, she never left the temple serving night and day with fastings and prayers.

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At that very moment, she came up and began giving thanks to God and continued to speak of him to all those who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.

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There are three verses in scripture about Anna the prophetess. Luke 2, 36, 37, and 38.

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And that is it. We don't hear about her again. But ladies, I started studying this and realized how much is in these three verses and we won't even be able to cover it all today.

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But I just wanted to introduce you to Anna in light of Christmas. Anna, this woman who was just a handful of people who were selected by God to see the newborn

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Messiah. If you think about it, the people who were the first to see

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Christ on the night of his birth and then in the subsequent days afterward were not remarkable people.

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There were the Magi, of course, from the East, but they were Gentiles. And so if you look at the Israelites who were allowed, who were chosen to see this newborn

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King to be the first, they were not significant people by the world's standards.

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They were shepherds. They were Simeon. They were

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Anna, the prophetess, the widow who simply was in the temple, praying and fasting day and night every single day.

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What a devout and dear lady she must have been. You see, what's so interesting about Christ's birth is that the

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Israelites were waiting for a Messiah. They were looking anxiously, expecting a Messiah.

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You see, the Old Testament is filled with prophecies of the coming Messiah. Just look even at some of the very common, well -known passages like Isaiah 7.

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Verse 14, the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call his name

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Immanuel. Think of Isaiah 9. I mean, we certainly know this time of year, don't we?

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Isaiah 9, verse 1, there will be no more gloom for her who was in anguish. In earlier times, he treated the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali with contempt.

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But later on, he shall make it glorious by the way of the sea on the other side of the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles. The people who walk in darkness will see a great light.

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Those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them. And you shall multiply the nation. You shall increase their gladness.

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They will be glad in your presence as with the gladness of harvest, as men rejoice when they divide the spoil.

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For you shall break the yoke of their burden and the staff on their shoulders. The rod of their oppressor is at the battle of Midian.

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For every boot of the booted warrior in the battle, tumult and cloak rolled in blood will be for burning, fuel for the fire.

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For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us, and the government will rest on his shoulders.

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And his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of his government or of peace on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore.

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The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this. The people of Israel were waiting for a savior.

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They were waiting for Messiah. Luke 3 verse 15 says, Now all the people were in a state of expectation, and all were wondering in their hearts about John as to whether he was the

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Christ. And of course, John the Baptist says, No, no, there is one coming after me whose sandals

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I am not worthy to untie. They were waiting expectantly, and yet nobody recognized him when he came, did they?

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It's one thing not to recognize a newborn baby, but when he was preaching and performing miracles, no one recognized him.

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Few recognized him. Why? Because they were waiting for a very different Messiah.

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They were thinking very temporally. They were thinking about this present day, and they wanted a military savior.

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They didn't see that they needed a soul savior. And so by God's grace and God's design, the people who recognized him at his birth were unremarkable.

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Mary, Joseph, Shepherds, Simeon, Anna. And so here's

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Anna. And as I said, all we know about her from scripture is Luke 2, 36 through 38.

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And we can see from these verses that she is a fixture in the temple. Maybe you know of a woman like that, perhaps an older lady who is part of your church, and she's there serving with joy and with a smile, and she is just a fixture in your church body.

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What a blessing people are like that. And she, we don't know, did she hear

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Simeon's blessing on Christ? Probably.

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She, at the moment of Simeon's blessing, came up and began giving thanks to God. We see that in verse 38.

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And so this devout woman who was just there in the temple ministering night and day, she was granted the recognition of the

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Lord. Her name is equivalent to Hannah in Hebrew, which means grace.

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And so that seems to be a rather appropriate name. And what is so sweet about this account is that just think of how she and her life and the dedication and faithfulness of her life are elevated and recognized here by their inclusion in this narrative account.

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And that's not an accident. It's not an accident, ladies. That is so that we can learn even from Anna.

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Now, it says that she was a prophetess. And so it's really important to understand that the title of prophetess does not mean like a prophet like Elijah or Elisha.

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Okay, prophetess is women prophets. That's not an office that we see in scripture.

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Instead, it is very much more of signifying that she is someone who spoke, proclaimed, talked about the word of God.

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So John MacArthur explains this and says that Luke is not suggesting that Anna predicted the future.

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She was not a fortune teller. He didn't necessarily even suggest that she received special revelation from God.

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The word prophetess simply designated a woman who spoke the word of God. Anna may have been a teacher of the

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Old Testament to other women, or she may have simply had a private ministry there in the temple, offering words of encouragement and instruction from the

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Hebrew scriptures to other women who came to worship. Nothing suggests that she was a source of revelation or that any special revelation ever came to her directly.

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Even her realization that Jesus was Messiah seemed to have come from the revelation given to Simeon and subsequently overheard by her.

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She is nonetheless called a prophetess because it was her habit to declare the truth of God's word to others.

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This gift for proclaiming God's truth ultimately played a major role in the ministry she is still best remembered for.

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And I love that, ladies. I love that. So often in certain environments within Christianity today, women are just downplayed.

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And I'm not here to be a feminist and suggest that women should be behind the pulpit or holding any sort of authoritative office.

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But women are not to be set aside to bake cookies and babysit.

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And I don't say that in a denigrating manner, and I don't mean to put down baking or babysitting at all.

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I love baking. But the role of women who have been saved by God is in many ways the same as the role of men who have been saved by God.

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Perhaps I shouldn't use the word role there. Obviously, men and women have different roles within the church and the family, and those roles are ordained by God.

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But as a Christian, there is no male or female in Christ Jesus. As a Christian, we seek to live for Christ, and that includes proclaiming his truth, the truth of his word.

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And of course, women do that in different ways with different forms and different audiences.

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Women teach the women and the children. And that's why they're so vital to the life of the church big

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C at large. And so I love this description that John MacArthur gives of Anna.

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Says that it was her habit to declare the truth of God's word to others. This gift for proclaiming

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God's truth played a major role in the ministry. She's still best remembered for. I just love that.

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I love it. So moving on through this verse, this is something that struck me that I hadn't really ever picked up on when

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I read this how many times in my life. I tend to, as many of us probably do, you kind of maybe breeze over when you start to see names and things that, you know, would be little genealogies or whatnot.

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And we shouldn't do that. They're so important, and God has them in his word for a reason. And this I loved.

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Anna is the daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher. And this is significant, ladies.

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God doesn't put it in there unless it's significant, does he? John MacArthur says

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Anna's descent from the tribe of Asher suggests that her heritage owed much to God's grace.

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Her ancestors had either migrated south before the Assyrian conquest of Israel, or they were among the small and scattered group of exiles who returned from captivity.

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Either way, she was part of the believing remnant from the northern kingdom and was therefore a living emblem of God's faithfulness to his people.

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And so, ladies, if you remember your Old Testament history, Asher, the tribe of Asher was part of the northern kingdom when the kingdom of Israel split.

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In the northern kingdom, if we start running through the list of kings, they were all evil. There was nothing redeeming in the northern kingdom.

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The southern kingdom was the one that was loyal to David's throne and that had a few redeeming kings throughout its history.

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And so the northern kingdom was by a large apostate. And so Anna, being from the tribe of Asher, that testifies to God's faithfulness that she was part of this remnant that did come out of the northern kingdom.

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How cool is that? How amazing is that, that God gives us that detail so that we can see his grace and his goodness in bringing her out of the apostasy of her ancestors and then bringing her to Jerusalem and she ministered in this temple or served and prayed and fasted and served the women in this temple her entire life after she had been widowed.

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That is amazing. Again, at the risk of using a well -overused, cliched term, it's awesome.

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It's so fantastic, isn't it? And so we move on. We see that she was advanced in years and had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage and then as a widow to the age of 84.

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She never left the temple serving night and day with fastings and prayers. Again, MacArthur, I love his treatment of this text and so that's why

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I'm turning to him so much. And I will link to a few articles and sermon of his on these verses and I also would suggest his book

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Twelve Extraordinary Women and there is a chapter in there on Anna where you can learn a little bit more details from what we're talking about here.

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And MacArthur says that the Greek text is a bit ambiguous as to her exact age. She could have been as much as 104 years old or she could have been 84, which is more likely.

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But he says, Widowhood in that society was extremely difficult. It virtually guaranteed a life of extreme poverty, which is why in the early church, the

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Apostle Paul urged young widows to remarry so that the church would not be overly burdened with their support.

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Anna probably either lived on charity or supported herself out of the remnants of her family's inheritance. But either way, she must have led a very frugal, chaste and sober life.

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Luke adds that she served God with fastings and prayers night and day, which rounds out the picture of this elderly, dignified, quiet, devoted woman's life.

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And ministry. And so we see this widow never left the temple, serving night and day with fastings and prayers.

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And at the moment of Simeon's blessing, she came up and began giving thanks to God and continued to speak of him to all those who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.

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This woman knew her stuff. She knew the Old Testament inside and out.

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John MacArthur says he's convinced Anna had a remarkable knowledge of spiritual truth. She came from that believing remnant.

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She was in the temple night and day. She dedicated her life to the

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Lord. MacArthur writes, suddenly everything she had been praying and fasting for was right there in front of her face, wrapped in a little bundle in Simeon's arms.

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By faith, she knew instantly that Simeon's prophecy was true and that God had answered her prayers.

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And she immediately began giving thanks to God. And all those many, many years of petition turned to praise.

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Can you even imagine? And it says that she continued to speak of him to all those who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.

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She continued to speak of him. This verb very clearly demonstrates continuous action.

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She couldn't stop talking about the Messiah she had just seen. She was waiting expectantly for the

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Messiah. She knew the scriptures and she knew by faith, God -given faith, that this little child was the

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Messiah that Israel had been waiting for. This was the one. And she continued to speak of him to all those who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.

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What a magnificent lady. Don't you just want to talk to Anna? I want to talk to Anna.

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She is amazing. More than that, I want to be like Anna. I want to be serving the

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Lord. I want to be continuing to speak of him to all those who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.

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I want to be speaking forth the truth of God's word. And so ladies, let me ask you, let's look a little bit, let's look at a little bit of application here.

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What can we take away from Anna? Let's look at her expectation.

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There's two major points I see here, and there's so much more, but let's look at two. Let's look at her expectation.

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Her expectation that Messiah would come. Are you eagerly awaiting

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Christ's return? Because ladies, mark it, he will come again.

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He is coming again. And let's look at her proclamation. She spoke forth the truth of God's word before she even saw

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Messiah, and then she saw Messiah, and then she couldn't stop talking about Messiah.

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If you know Christ, if Christ has saved you and given you eyes to recognize him, are you telling others?

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Are you proclaiming the gospel? He is coming again, as I said, but he's not coming as an innocent little baby.

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He's coming as a righteous judge. Revelation 19, 11, and I saw heaven open, and behold, a white horse, and he who sat on it is called faithful and true, and in righteousness he judges and wages war.

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His eyes are a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written on him, which no one knows except himself.

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He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called the word of God. And the armies, which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following him on white horses.

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From his mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it he may strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron.

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And he treads the winepress of the fierce wrath of God the Almighty. And on his robe and on his thigh, he has a name written,

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King of Kings and Lord of Lords. This is the

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King Jesus, and this is how he will return, ladies, and he will judge.

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Revelation 20, verse 11, then I saw a great white throne, and him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them.

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And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and the books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life.

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The dead were judged from the things which were written in the books according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them, and they were judged, every one of them, according to their deeds.

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Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.

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And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

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Do you have an expectation of Christ's return? And in light of that return, and of his coming righteous judgment, are you proclaiming his truth?

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Are you an Anna? Are you eager to expect and eager to proclaim?

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May we all be a little bit like Anna, or a lot like Anna. Ladies, that's all for today.

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I hope you've been encouraged to look toward and love your Christ more dearly.

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Until next time, ladies, get in your Bibles, get on your knees, and get equipped.

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Thanks for listening. You've been listening to Equipping Eve, a no -compromise radio production

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If you'd like to get a hold of Erin, you can reach her at equippingeve at gmail .com or you can check out one of our two websites, do notbesurprised .com