Eulogy For God? - [Luke 1:67-80]

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Did you know that you were born to praise?
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You were born to praise. I was born to praise. That's how God made us. And if you don't praise the triune
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God, you'll praise someone else or something else. Humans should praise.
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Men and women should praise. Sadly, sometimes we praise music stars, rock stars, movie stars, sports stars.
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Ever praise a sports star? Certainly not here in New England. It's kind of nice when
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I moved here, I thought, they get Tom Brady and then we just win every year.
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I thought, I guess I switch from Green Bay Packers. Allegiance to the Patriots, go with the winner, right?
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We're just born to praise. It's just in us. But because of Adam's fall and our own sin nature, we just end up praising the wrong things.
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There's a passage in the Bible that's really kind of a crazy passage in Acts 19, where people are praising this goddess named
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Diana, also known as Artemis. And they just keep praising and praising and praising.
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Remember, Paul goes into the city and he begins to talk about the Lord Jesus Christ, the way, and they realize they're going to lose their money, their business, because they're selling little goddesses of Diana.
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And the city's been turned upside down. It says in the text, when they heard this, the goddess might be deposed, they were enraged and cried out, great is
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Artemis of the Ephesians. There was a man named Alexander, who was
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Paul's friend, and he wanted to make a defense to the crowd, but they realized he was a Jew. And here's what the text says in Acts 19, 34.
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But when they recognized that he was a Jew, for about two hours they all cried out with one voice, great is
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Artemis of the Ephesians. Can you imagine? With one voice, with a leader, great is
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Artemis, great is Diana. I mean, just imagine screaming out for two hours how hoarse you must have been.
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People were born to praise, people will praise. And for the
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Christian, we know who to praise. We know who to give value to or set a price at.
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That's really what praise is, recognizing the value of someone. And we agree with the
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Puritan Thomas Watson, praising God is one of the highest and purest acts of religion.
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The bad news is, it's hard to praise God in the middle of a world that looks like this world.
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Second Timothy 3, I think, is right on when it describes the world this way, the fallen world. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self -control, brutal, not lovers of good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.
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How do we praise God in such a world? How do we praise God in a world that's run by Satan?
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And Satan's basic MO is, you're to be like God. When the
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Christian's MO is, we're to worship God for who he is. I'd like you to take your
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Bibles and turn to Luke chapter 1, where we have a great praise from Zechariah.
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We could call Luke the gospel of Jesus Christ, we certainly could, but we can also call it a book that has many songs about the
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Lord Jesus Christ. This psalm here, this prophecy, this song, reminds me of David when he prayed and praised
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God in 1 Chronicles 29. Oh Lord, yours is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours.
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It reminds me of the great doxology that we often sing here at the church in Jude. Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, till the only
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God our Savior be glory, majesty, power, authority through Jesus Christ before all ages now and forever more.
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Luke chapter 1 verses 67 through 80 is our passage for today. We may or may not get through it, but we're in no rush because we like to talk about praise and we like to talk about the
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Lord Jesus here. Here we come to Zechariah's prophecy or praise as we see this book of Luke.
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Remember Luke is writing, he's a physician, he does things in orderly fashion and he wants this man named
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Theophilus, God lover, to understand the gospel and he wants you to understand the gospel as well.
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The gospel of Luke. There's Mary's Magnificat found in verses 46 and following where she praises the
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Lord by magnifying him. My soul magnifies the Lord. That's where we get the Latin Magnificat.
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It just means to magnify and now we come to a passage that has another Latin name and of course once in a while we have to say
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Latin words. Why? Because it's an homage to R .C. Sproul? Not really, but because you'll hear it in our world, oh the
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Magnificat is Mary's and the Benedictus is Zechariah's and so we're gonna look at the Benedictus or blessing or praise or eulogy for God coming from the words of Zechariah.
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When I say eulogy, I just mean to speak well of who was it that said God is dead? Nietzsche said
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God is dead, but God is very much alive and Zechariah knows that and it's a praise for the
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Messiah and a praise for the Son. And I might preface the message by this.
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What if you couldn't talk for nine months? What would be the first thing that came out of your mouth? And so for Zechariah, of course, he's old, his wife's old, they can't have any children unless God intervenes and God in fact did intervene and he couldn't talk for nine months.
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I mean, what's the first thing you would say after nine months of not being able to talk? God, I think your judgment on me, your chastisement, was way too long.
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It should have been three months. What would you say? I mean, when I FaceTime little
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Amos, sometimes more than once a day, I mean, I just can't wait to see his face and he's got this helmet because his head's flattened from the
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NICU and I just call him Bubba, that's my name for him. I call him Amos too. I'm just like, hi
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Amos, what if I couldn't talk to him for nine months? He's finally born. What would I finally say to him or say about him?
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Very, very interestingly, Zechariah says something to praise the Lord about his son, but first and foremost, like always, like any
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Holy Spirit filled man or woman, he wants to praise the Lord Jesus first. Very fascinating and I think you're going to be helped, dear congregation, as I have been and convicted, because we live in a world of complaining.
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When's the last time you complained? By the way, didn't it rain awfully yesterday? Ruined bike rides.
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Those poor people at the Tough Mudder yesterday, how awful that it would rain for those farmers. We are complainers.
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We are grumblers. I hate that about myself. You should hate it about yourself when you think about who God is.
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I mean, out of this tongue can flow praise and flow cursings. And so today
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I hope the Spirit of God helps us as we see the prophecy from Zechariah that's a praise to the
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Lord Jesus, that we just might get caught up in it and say, Lord, I want to be like Zechariah.
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I want to praise you in spite of. I want to praise you because of, in spite of my circumstances, because of who you are.
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Now there's a context to this prophecy, this praise, this song.
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Remember verse 64. If you look at your Bible, Luke 164, and immediately his mouth, that is
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Zechariah's mouth, was opened and his tongue loosed and he spoke,
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Blessing God. And that is over and over and over kind of tense in the original language.
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He just kept on. Not one praise, not one short burst of praise, but over and over and over. Praising, praising, praising, praising.
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And now we come to his specific praise. Speaking well of the
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Lord. It is like David in Psalm 51. After he sinned against God, he said, O Lord, open my lips that my mouth may declare your praise.
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And if you get anything from the sermon today, I hope you get this, that Jesus Christ is worthy to be praised no matter what.
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And by the Spirit's power, we should praise Him. You say, what's the similarities between Mary's song and Zechariah's song?
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That's a good question. Both inspired by the Holy Spirit. Both soloists, as it were.
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Both speak in past tense very often. Remember, things are so sure to be happening that God uses past tense.
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Right? In Romans chapter 8, you are called glorified, even though you're not glorified. Why? Because if God ever does something in your life, and if he starts a work, he'll be faithful to complete it.
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And so both Mary and Zechariah say things in the past tense, even though they haven't occurred, because they're as good as done.
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There's a little difference though, between her song and Zechariah's song. Mary's song comes most likely from 1
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Samuel, and the Psalms, and Zechariah comes from the prophets. So today we're going to look at Zechariah's prophecy, and you're going to see two main parts to this prophecy.
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If you look at verses 68 through 75, you'll see that's one sentence. If you look at the end of every verse from 68 to 75, with 75 being the period, it's commas.
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It's semicolons. I heard somewhere that Moby Dick, Melville's Moby Dick, has 4 ,000 semicolons.
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He was the man of the semicolon. What does that have to do with anything? Nothing. I just thought it was interesting. Machen loves to write with semicolons too, but here we have we have commas here and other things, but there's one sentence, verses 68 through 75, that's the first bit of praise, and it's all about the
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Messiah. The second sentence is found in verses 76 through 79, and it's about the son,
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John the Baptist, who was the forerunner of the Messiah. Interestingly, he doesn't immediately praise
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God for his son, which is a good thing to praise God for. He praises God for the
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S -O -N, eternal. Two praises followed with verse 80, kind of a
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PS. Well, before we get into the outline, pick up verse 67, please, of Luke 1.
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And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying...
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Now, while he was the first to be visited by Gabriel, God's messenger, he's the last to be filled with the
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Spirit. And he says with great eloquence and great praise, and from the
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Old Testament prophets, wonderful things about the Lord. Now, either two things happen, and I don't care which one it is, because this is
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Holy Spirit -inspired. He either had a long time to think about what he was going to say and compose it in his mind with the help of the
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Holy Spirit, or this is just immediate, spontaneous praise driven by the
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Holy Spirit. Either one is fine by me, because both recognized that the guidance of the
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Holy Spirit was there, that the inspiration of the Holy Spirit was there. And he is going to prophesy.
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Notice the text again. He prophesied. And, of course, you know very well, dear congregation, that prophecy is not just prediction.
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It is either to foretell, like I'm proclaiming something like a herald, to foretell.
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And, of course, Zechariah does that. He gives condemnation. He gives consolation.
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He's giving facts out. And there's also an element here of foretelling, like the future.
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So, foretell and foretell. Easy for me to say. To repeat it, foretell, proclamation, foretell, what about the future.
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And he does both of those. Our outline today is simple. Two praises that you can echo with Zechariah.
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Praise for the Messiah. Praise for the birth of the forerunner. Essentially, God's commentary on these two sons.
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The Son of God and the Son of Zechariah. Let's look at the first sentence.
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Praising the Messiah. Praising the Messiah. Everything in this passage is about praise.
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Do you see it in verse 68? Blessed be the Lord God of Israel. This covenant -keeping
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God of Israel. This promise -keeping God of Israel. Praise this great
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God. As I said earlier, it means eulogy. It means good and word. And so, let's speak well of this
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God. Let's be in recognition of the Creator and what He's done and who He is. Praises.
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Bless the Lord, O my soul and all that is within me. Same word. Bursting forth like Ephesians 1.
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Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.
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It's been nine months since we could talk, since He's talked, and out comes this burst of praise. It's like 1
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Peter chapter 1. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
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I mean, something happens and you respond with praise. Have we not been trying to remind ourselves even in this chapter?
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There's revelation from God. God does something and we respond with praise. And it doesn't take you very long to hearken back to your salvation and you remember when
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God saved you. And what was your response? I can't believe I'm a Christian. I knew this was going to happen.
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Grandma was praying for me. I don't know, maybe that sinfully crossed through your mind. But your initial reaction was, yes, saved.
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You mean I'm forgiven for every one of my sins? Yes, forgiven. Based on the work of another? Yes. With no contribution from me except sin?
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Yes. It's like John Newton, the man who wrote Amazing Grace. I mean, he's sailing around the world.
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He gets flogged for trying to leave the Royal Navy of England. He gets captured by a slave trader and becomes a slave himself.
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He escapes and becomes the captain of a slave ship himself. He almost drowns and his friend begins to preach the gospel to him and he gets saved.
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And what's the knee -jerk response? I had a physical a couple weeks ago and they take that little thing and they knock it on my knee and I don't know what to do.
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I just try not to think of anything because I know I'm supposed to kick my knee out, but how hard? And they're going to think I'm faking and I want them to think that I have good reflexes even though I'm has been.
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I was just like, come on. The response is with John Newton.
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Here's a response. Glorious things of you are spoken, Zion city of our
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God. He whose word cannot be broken. On the rock of ages founded, who can shake your sure repose?
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There's just this response. And so the first thing out of his mouth is praise. And by the way, this first sentence is praise about Jesus.
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It's praising about Jesus. Show me a Holy Spirit filled person and what do they say?
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Oh, look at me. Oh, look at other people. No, the Holy Spirit is driving just like he does in all the words of Scripture.
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He's driving people to say, let's praise Jesus. You say, well,
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I've already got Jesus taken care of because he paid for my sins. I believe I'm just onto my life now doing what
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I need to do. Do you agree with Luther when he said, I need my savior as much the day
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I die as when I was converted. Don't you need Jesus now, dear Christian?
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Yes, we need the Lord Jesus now. Richard Sibbes was a great preacher in the 1600s and he was known as, he had a nickname.
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Maybe some of you have a nickname for me. I don't know what it might be, but I don't want to know. And I don't want this nickname because I don't think it fits, but it fit for Richard Sibbes.
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He was known as the sweet dropper. Dropping little sweet things onto the congregation of who
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Jesus was. And here's what he said. In the course of our life, if we're overtaken with any sin as Christians, we must remember to have recourse first to Christ's mercy to pardon us.
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And then the promise of his spirit to govern us. And when we feel ourselves cold in affection and duty, the best way is to warm ourselves at this fire of love and mercy in giving himself for us.
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We don't just have Jesus to get to heaven. We have him to guide us and to lead us and to say no to sin and yes to righteousness and restore us when we're sinning and discipline us unto his care.
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It shouldn't surprise you that Zacharias first words out of his mouth were praising the Lord Jesus with a long extended sentence.
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Everything about this first sentence from verses 68 through 75 is about Jesus. Spurgeon said the motto of all true servants of God must be, we preach
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Christ. A sermon without Christ in it is like a loaf of bread without any flour in it.
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No Christ in your sermon, sir. Then go home and never preach again until you have something worth preaching.
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Leave Christ out. Oh, my brethren, better leave the pulpit out altogether. If a man can preach one sermon without mentioning
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Christ's name in it, it ought to be his last. Certainly the last at any Christian ought to go to hear him preach.
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Spurgeon goes on, a sermon without Christ at its beginning, middle and end is a mistake in conception and crime in execution.
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A Christless sermon, a cloud without rain, a tree twice dead, a sky without sun.
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Oh, Christian, we must have Christ. Do see it that every day when you wake, you give a fresh savor of Christ upon you by contemplating his person.
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And very apropos, Spurgeon says, the spirit of God bears no witness to Christless sermons.
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Leave Jesus out of your preaching and the Holy Spirit will never come upon you. Why should he?
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Has he not come on the purpose that he may testify of Christ? Did not Jesus say he, the
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Holy Spirit shall glorify me? And on a side note, whenever you teach the
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Bible, whatever you're teaching in the Bible, whether it's Proverbs or anything else, you can certainly talk about the
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Lord Jesus. Can you not? Zacharias, filled with the Holy Spirit, prophesied and the first thing out of his mouth is a sentence of praise to the
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Lord Jesus. Specifically, praise number one, there are four praises here in this first sentence in verses 68 through 75.
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Four praises. First one for the incarnation. Praise for the incarnation.
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Do you see it in verse 68? Blessed be the Lord God of Israel. Interesting to call
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Jesus that. For he has visited his people. We'll have the redeemed for next.
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He has visited his people. I mean, it's almost sounded like a movie to me if I said, here's a new movie coming to theaters.
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The Visitation. The Visitation. Or I think about my grandparents.
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Mike, do you think you could come over for a visit? A little visit? He visits.
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Now, Jesus isn't born yet. Jesus is born in chapter two. But it's as good as if he is going to be born.
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So he uses past tense. He's visited us. The God man visits planet
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Earth. This word can mean to look after.
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Jesus said in Matthew 25, I was sick and you looked after me. A visit to look after, a visit to help, a visit to rescue.
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By the way, unless God visited us, no one would ever be saved. No one would ever be forgiven.
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Salvation is all of grace. Salvation is done to us. Jonah was right when he said salvation is of the
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Lord. He's got to visit us. We certainly can't go to heaven and visit the holy heaven on our own.
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Salvation has nothing to do with we somehow get to God. He has to come to us. Now, what if I were to tell you,
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May 12, 1960, I came to visit this earth.
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Would you be impressed? Somebody, some little kid just said no.
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Good. How do we talk this way? He came to visit.
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What is this implying? We're not going to go through this so fast that we just miss it. Kind of speed reading.
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No. Slow down and think through. He visits. What does this mean? Answer. The self existence of Jesus.
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Prior existence. He doesn't just become at his birth. He's the eternal son.
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He's the God made flesh and the incarnation. Jesus becomes man. The word of God took on flesh and what?
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Dwelt among us. He came to visit. He already existed. When did the eternal son become the son?
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He's always the son. Don't let anybody ever tell you that he's not the eternal son. This is the language of 1
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Timothy 3. Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness that Jesus was manifest in the flesh.
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We agree. It's certain. We confess it. It's undeniable that Jesus is manifest in the flesh.
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We use words like manifest because it means he did exist and now he shows up.
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He did exist and now he visits. How many times does John say in the gospel of Jesus, according to John, that Jesus was sent?
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He already existed. I want you to know that that baby in the womb of Mary is the eternal.
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It's amazing. God manifest in the flesh. God visiting his people.
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Matthew 1 .23, Behold, the virgin shall bear a son, conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name what?
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Emmanuel. God with us. God is now with us. He's visited. He was far away.
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He's in heaven and now he visits us. And it has to be this visitation because how are we going to redeem humans without a human to redeem?
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How are we going to redeem men and women without someone becoming a man? The eternal
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God is going to have to assume human nature. He's going to have to become human flesh so that he might redeem us.
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1 John 3 .5, You know that he appeared in order to take away sins and in him there's no sin.
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Just like visitation, just like sent. I mean, I say of myself, I was born on May 12th, 1960, but I don't say
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I visited. I was manifest. I was sent or I appeared.
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Not in this biblical way. Romans 8, For God has done what the law weakened by flesh could not do by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin he condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be filled in us who walk not according to the flesh but according to the spirit.
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We're talking about the incarnation here, the great visitation that the God -man arrives and before Zechariah even says,
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I praise you God, answer prayer for my own son John the Baptist. I praise you for the incarnation.
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Did you know the incarnation is so important that if you don't believe it, you have the spirit of the antichrist?
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Whoa. Beloved, do not believe every spirit but test the spirits to see whether they are from God.
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For many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses
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Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, including Zechariah. And every spirit that does not confess
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Jesus is not from God. The pre -existence of Jesus.
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You cannot say that Moses visited the earth theologically. You cannot say that Luther visited the earth,
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Calvin visited the earth, Mary Schleser visited the earth. You can't say it. There's other language,
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Micah 5 .2, that great messianic verse. But you, O Bethlehem, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from old, from ancient days.
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The Son co -equal with the Father, co -equal with the Spirit, appears, is made manifest, visits.
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God becomes man. The word visited there in your text means to look upon.
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We get the word microscope. You see small things with a scope. Telescope, you see big things.
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Here is to scope upon. I have dermis and I have epidermis, something upon.
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And so here God looks upon. He shows up to help. The goal is someone's sick, someone's in bondage, someone needs help, and He shows up to save.
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He comes to visit. What does He do when He visits? By the way, liberals will say
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He just becomes an example and you should just follow His example. By the way, I don't ever want to follow an example of somebody who's crazy enough to call himself the judge of the universe and the eternal
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Son. How can He only be an example unless I've been given faith?
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I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible. And in one
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Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds,
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God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made. Being of one substance with the
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Father by whom all things were made, who for us men in our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the
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Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man. I don't know about you, but every
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Christian at Christmas says, I praise you God for the incarnation. Is there something more?
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Yes. Let's pick up that word in verse 68. Zechariah, filled by the Spirit, extols the
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Lord Jesus for His visitation, it's as good as done, and His redemption, number two, it's as good as done.
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Blessed be the Lord God of Israel for He has redeemed His... I know what's going on.
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There's a redemption out of Egypt. It's temporal.
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There's now a redemption from the Roman cruel oppressors. It's temporal. Oh, is it?
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Verse 77, to give knowledge of salvation to His people in the forgiveness of their what?
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Sins. This is redemption of sin. This is sin and its tyranny,
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Satan and his enslaving action. Jesus comes to redeem.
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Zechariah knew that redemption of his people would be promised by the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament and now it's happening.
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I love Hebrews 9, Jesus entered once for all into the holy place having obtained eternal redemption.
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Now sometimes I just have to think of regular words. Okay, redeemed, what's that mean? So if I say redeemed, what comes into your mind?
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Well, if you are as old as I am, you remember something called SNH what?
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Green Stamps. And all the AAR people said amen. I actually had to sign up for AARP the other day.
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I always got the catalog, but I actually am a member now because I got cheaper car insurance if I did.
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So I just got the magazine of all these people, you know, Jeff Bridges, 85 years old, doing such and such.
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You can too. Okay, AARP. Sometimes I'll go to the grocery store and people have these huge garbage bags full of soda cans.
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What are they doing with them? They're redeeming them. But the real backdrop of redemption is slavery, especially slavery in Egypt.
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And God with His powerful right hand takes them out of the bondage of Egypt. It's meant to picture something.
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There's a worse enemy than Egypt. It's called sin. There's a worse enemy than Egypt.
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He's called Satan. Satan. We're enslaved to our own sin.
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We're blinded by Satan. How can we get out? We can't get out. We've caused a problem.
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We can't get out. There's no self -salvation. If there was self -salvation, that's bad on God the
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Father to send the Son if you could save yourself. But we need to have redemption.
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I want you to know if you're a Christian, you are redeemed. Only because of Jesus and His grace.
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Only because of the lavish grace that He has, Ephesians chapter 1. Everything in this prophecy is designed you to say, do you know what?
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As they used to, I remember saying, if you would look to yourself and you're honest, you get depressed. You look at others and you're honest, you're distressed.
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But if you look to Christ, to the eyes of faith, you're impressed, you're blessed. Whatever you want to say to help you work through this,
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Jesus does what no other person can do. And that is rescue enslaved sinners.
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There's no other option. Because eventually, if there was another option, the praise would be split.
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The one who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself. He who has the
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Son has life. As many as received Him, John goes on to say, or John says earlier, to them
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He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name. Now this is so good as done, he says redeemed.
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What does the text not say? That's a good question. And He made redemption possible. As long as you do your part, baptism.
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He made redemption potential. No, no, it's accomplished.
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Redemption. Praise for that. Titus 2, who gave
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Himself for us that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.
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I'm so happy we sang a song about redemption today. Maybe one of the favorite words of a
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Christian. Redeemed, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. Redeemed how
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I love to proclaim it. B .B. Warfield said, Whenever we pronounce it, the cross is put before our eyes and our hearts are filled with love and remembrance not only that Christ has given us salvation, but that He paid a mighty price for it.
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Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Every one of your sins,
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Christian, past, present and future, is forgiven because of this redemption. He canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against you and me, which was hostile toward us.
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How far, how much forgiven are we? As far as the east is from the west, so far
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He's removed our transgressions from us. That's because He redeemed us. Thou have cast all my sins behind thy back,
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Isaiah 38. That's because of redemption. Lord, if you should mark iniquities, who could stand?
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But with you is forgiveness that you may be feared. That's because of redemption. Who's a
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God like you who pardons iniquity and passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of his position?
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God visited me and He's worthy to be praised. God has redeemed me and He's worthy to be praised. Number three, this is the longest section, because prophecy about the
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Messiah has been fulfilled. The Messiah fulfills the prophecy of the Old Testament. Praising Jesus for His incarnation.
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Praising Jesus for His redemption. Praising Jesus, of course, with the Father and the
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Holy Spirit for fulfilled prophecy about Jesus. Verse 69 and following.
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And has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant
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David, as He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from old. Some of you children have been in my office before and you've seen different things there.
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I have a skull to remind me that I'll die one day and so will you, so preach Christ. I have kind of a
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Roman sword, a gladius, a 22 -inch sword, because especially the little boys want to come in and see what that sword's like.
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And I also have a horn, a ram's horn. What's that called in Hebrew? A shofar.
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And so I used to play the trumpet, believe it or not, when I was younger. It was so horrible, because I couldn't do anything with that small mouthpiece.
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So I had to switch to the tuba, because they give the worst musician the tuba, because he doesn't do anything on his own except for the
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Jaws theme. That's all he does, or she. That was my claim to fame. All -City Band, fifth grade.
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That's it. That's all you do. So when I think of horn left to myself,
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I think of, like, the shofar. I think of, like, I'm putting this, like, nasty toenail -made thing in my mouth, and it smells, it's awful.
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But if you're thinking like an Old Testament person, which we should, when you think of horn, what do you think of?
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Power. You do not want to get hit by a ram's horn running at you at 20 miles an hour.
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The theme of the Old Testament, when you see horn, is powerful salvation, powerful deliverance, and for the unbelievers, powerful destruction.
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My God, my rock in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation. You better have a strong Savior, because there's a lot of strong opponents, and you need a strong Savior in the midst of all the troubles.
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There I will cause the horn of David to spring forth. 2 Samuel 22 and Psalm 139.
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Knocking out the enemy. He's raised up a horn of salvation for us.
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And by the way, Zechariah doesn't even say, through me, the Levite priest.
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No, no. Through Mary's line, which goes back to David, the son of Mary according to human nature.
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Did you know Matthew 1 says this about the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah? The record of the genealogy of Jesus the
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Messiah? The son of David. The son of Abraham. He's called a horn.
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He's called a root. He's called a righteous branch of David. And by the way, it's not just with one prophet.
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Verse 70, As he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,
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With one divine mind, all the human authors in the Old Testament, driving towards this redemption of this great
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Son, the God -Man. All the way driving there with types and shadows, working toward fulfillment, pointing.
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William Hendrickson catalogs some of these prophets that predicted the coming of the Lord. Moses said,
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A prophet whom God would raise up that's greater than me. Deuteronomy 18. David said, The one who would sit at God's right hand.
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Psalm 110. Isaiah, Emmanuel, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
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Zechariah and Jeremiah, The righteous branch. Ezekiel, The shepherd. Daniel, The son of man.
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God is faithful to his promises. Zechariah, Big picture says, I'm going to so praise God. My mouth is finally open.
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And God is visiting us. Jesus' incarnation. He's going to redeem us because he visited for a purpose.
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And it's all told in the Old Testament. I mean, sometimes I think to myself,
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I just used Old Testament prophecies that have been fulfilled to maybe win an argument in apologetics.
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Versus, I need to say, God should be praised for what he's done.
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This has nothing to do with apologetics. Although, a side note, I guess it's true. God always keeps his word. But God always keeps his word.
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Where are the kings? How many hundreds of years has it been right now when this is being written?
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Where's the king? Where's God at? He hasn't talked for 400 years. Verse 71,
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That we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.
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Of course, Israel had enemies. Of course, Israel had people that hate them even today.
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Remember the spiritual aspect of this. The ultimate enemy. The ultimate hater. The person that hates you.
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Is Satan himself. The prince of the world. He hates.
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And he has allies. And he has death. And the grave. Jesus said in John 12, though, thankfully now,
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Is the judgment of this world. Now, will the ruler of this world be cast? Saved from all our enemies.
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Verse 72, You want to see where this great savior's motivation comes from, if you will.
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Or the fountain, as some people talk about it. From where this redemption flows. To show the mercy.
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Because God's a loving God. God is love. Mercy promised to our fathers.
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And to remember his holy covenant. The oath that he swore to our father Abraham. Why did
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God do it? Because he's merciful. What does mercy do? Mercy says, someone's stuck in a bind.
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They can't get out of it. Someone's had a very difficult time. Someone's enslaved to sin. These people of mine,
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Israelites and all who would ever believe. Can't extract themselves from this quicksand of sin. And so I'll do something about it.
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Because I'm kind. And it is my nature to relieve the distressed. My nature to relieve those who are in distress.
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And he makes an oath. I thought God could just say something.
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Why do I need an oath? Not that God needs an oath, but I need the oath. And he made an oath.
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What does even the word oath mean? I'm going to give you my oath. Oath is where we get the word from fence or an enclosure.
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It closes me in to keep my word and not go out of bounds to take my word away. It restrains me.
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God makes an oath. God didn't have to make any oath. He could just say, I'm going to rescue you. But for us to stoop down to our level, he says,
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I'm going to make an oath. You want to know how certain God's promises are? Revel in these verses.
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When God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself.
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Surely I will bless you and multiply you. And thus Abraham, having waited patiently, obtained the promise.
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For people swear by something greater than themselves. And in all their disputes, an oath is final for confirmation.
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So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise, the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath.
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See, to show us. So that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we have fled for refuge, might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before you.
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Do you need encouragement? Do you need a reminder that God's faithful? Having a very, very difficult time in life with the stresses of the fallen world, stresses of your own sin, my own sin, and you think, just help me along.
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And the Lord says, out of my mercies, out of my tender mercies, I'm happy to do that. I won't just give you a promise,
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I'll give you an oath. And we sing about that with great praise, do we not? I think you know the song, my hope is built on nothing less.
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One of the stanzas, his oath, his covenant, his blood, support me in the whelming flood.
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It's no different than when a man and a woman get married and they say, I'm going to give you this wedding ring.
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And every time you look at it, I want you to remember, this was the promise I made to you before God on that day.
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And I don't enter into this unadvisedly or without reverence. I made a promise to you.
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I tell my children, of course, pick children. I mean, pick people that are
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Christians to marry, but pick somebody that will keep their word, because that will get you through many, many trials.
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By the way, a side note, just to praise God for this. Friday night, Luke asked a man for a daughter's hand, and Saturday, Luke for the daughter's hand, and the daughter said yes.
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And finally, Luke gets married. Come on. No, he's not married yet. I bet you it'll be
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August. That's my guess. Here's my promise. I could just say
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I promise, but there's something tangible. It's there. And so,
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Zechariah's thinking, yes, that's exactly right. Mercy, he promised, and he gives the oath.
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Here's my oath. With thee I do wed. Take a look at it. Zechariah can't contain himself.
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I don't know how loud he was. I don't know if people were standing around saying, won't he finally get to his son?
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Won't he finally say something about his wife? Won't he finally say something about this, that, or the other? He knows.
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Just like with a song. His oath, His covenant, His blood, support me in the whelming flood. When all around my soul gives way, then
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He is all my hope and stay. When He shall come with trumpet sound, oh, may I then in Him be found, in Him my righteousness alone.
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Everything here is about the Lord Jesus and praising. Don't you want to be like that?
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I fall so many times, but I'd like that. Lord, please, let me, in spite of all the world in trouble, disciplining hand that You give me,
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I'd like to praise God like that, because I was born to praise. I was meant to praise. And it's all about Jesus.
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Sinclair Ferguson said, There's a center to the Bible and its message of grace. It is found in Jesus Christ, crucified and resurrected.
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Grace, therefore, must be preached in a way that it's centered and focused on Jesus. We need to return to preaching to the heart, rooted in the principle of grace and focused on the person of the
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Lord Jesus. Then people will not merely say about our ministry, He was an expository preacher.
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That was practical. He cut open our consciences. Instead, they will say, think of Zechariah.
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He preached Christ to me. It was evident that he gave the best of his intellectual skills and the warmth of his compassion to thinking about, living for, and proclaiming his beloved
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Savior, Jesus Christ. And that's not just for the pastor.
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That's for the mom that teaches the children and the dads that lead worship at home, Sunday school teachers, and everyone else.
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May Jesus Christ be praised. More next week. Father in heaven, we look to you as a
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God who gives great gifts. We bless your name for sending the
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Lord Jesus to visit us. We bless your name for the redemption found in Christ Jesus.
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Not one sin will we ever pay for. Jesus paid it all. And we want to respond with holy living, gratitude, thankfulness, and praise.
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Accept our next song as a response to the salvation that you have given us. To the
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Son that you raised from the dead and said, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.
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Thank you for visitation, for redemption, and for fulfilled prophecy.