#6 Lu. 1:67-79 THE PROPHECY OF ZACHARIAS
Introduction:
In our previous text the son of Zacharias and Elisabeth
was born, he was given the name
"John," and Zacharias's
ability to speak was restored to him. Also in that text,
Zacharias burst forth in praise to the
Lord. He surely must
have praised the Lord for the birth of his
son and for the
restoration of his speech, but chiefly he
must have praised
the Lord for the Christ whom he knew was
about to be born.
In our text today Zacharias again burst forth in praise
to the Lord. Only this time he said to be full of the Holy
Ghost or Holy Spirit. Note Verse 67, "And his father
Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost,
and prophesied,
saying." It was under the influence of the Holy Spirit
that
Zacharias not only uttered praise to God,
but he uttered a
prophecy of God. The prophecy dealt chiefly with the coming
of the Christ and His ministry. He does touch briefly on the
work of his own son, who was to be the
forerunner of Jesus,
but his prophecy chiefly is about Jesus.
V. 68, "Blessed be the Lord God of
blessed, as it is used here means
"worthy of praise."
Zacharias was saying that the Lord God of
be praised.
I.
Reasons why the Lord is to be praised
Then he begins to set forth reasons why the Lord is to
be praised. (V. 68), "...for he hath visited ... his
people." First, he says that the Lord
has visited His people.
Now you understand that Zacharias is
looking prophetically
into the future. The Christ has actually not been born at
the time the prophecy was uttered. He would not be born for
another six months yet. But looking ahead, Zacharias spoke
as though the birth and life and ministry
of the Christ has
already taken place. He said that the Lord God has visited
His people,
ministry of Jesus here on earth. His home
was in heaven, but
He visited here on earth for some
thirty-three years. He
visited, in a sense, with the whole human
race, but He
visited in particular with His covenant
nation,
this, Zacharias said, the Lord is to be
praised.
(V. 68), "...and redeemed
(his people...)." The second
reason given in this verse that the Lord
is to be praised is
that He has redeemed His people. Again Zacharias is looking
prophetically into the future. He sees the work of
redemption as already accomplished. This was one of the
reasons the Lord visited the earth. He came to seek and to
save that which was lost. He came to give Himself as the
redemption price. He came into the world to go to the cross
of
the sins of mankind that man might be
saved. For this the
Lord is to be praised. For this, He is to be highly praised.
The angels of heaven praise Him for
this. Man certainly
ought to praise Him.
V. 69, "And hath raised up an horn of salvation for us
in the house of his servant David..."
The Lord is to be
praised because He has raised up a Horn of
Salvation for us.
The expression, horn of salvation, was a
familiar expression
to the people of that day. It's meaning is not quite so
clear to us in this modern age. When we think of a horn, we
think of the honking of an automobile
horn. Or, perhaps some
of you who have had a child in the school
band, may think of
some kind of musical instrument. But to the people of that
day, the horn of an animal was a symbol of
strength and
power.
An animal that had been de-horned would be powerless
to defend himself or powerless to
attack. An animal with
horns was a powerful creature, well able
to defend or to
attack.
But an animal with horns was strong.
Thus, the expression, the horn of salvation, was the
same as saying, "One mighty to
save." By sending Jesus
Christ to this world, God raised up One
Who Is Mighty To
Save.
He is able to save the nation of
enemies.
He is able to save the individual and keep him out
of the fires of hell.
Note also that this Horn of Salvation, this Mighty One
To Save, has come through the house and
lineage of King
David.
To the nation of
king.
But to God, David was an humble servant.
David was a
servant of God and God promised to this
servant that the
Messiah would be born into his family
lineage. Even now as
Zacharias spoke this prophecy, Mary, who
was a direct
descendant of David, was carrying the
Christ-child in her
womb.
V. 70-71, "As he spake by the mouth of his holy
prophets, which have been since the world
began: That we
should be saved from our enemies, and from
the hand of all
that hate us..." He is to be praised because He will save
the nation of
old had prophesied of the coming of the
Christ and they had
foretold that He would deliver the nation
of
their enemies. At this point, Zacharias makes no mention
that the Christ would be a Savior for all
the world. Later
in this prophecy he will make it crystal
clear that Christ is
the Savior for all mankind and that all
who are lost in sin
can look to Him and be saved. Luke certainly verifies this
later in this book, but at this point
Zacharias speaks
primarily of redemption for the nation of
very fitting in that the New Testament
writers repeatedly say
that He came to the Jew first and then to
the Gentile.
In the minds of the Israelite people, the enemies of the
nation of
chief enemies at the time. But there had been a long line of
Gentile enemies down through the
years. There had been the
Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Medo-Persians, and the
Greeks, including Alexander the
Great. There had been the
Egyptians and the Syrians, including
Antiochus Epiphanes, who
was a type of the Anti-Christ. In the end-time events there
will be the Anti-Christ himself, who will
bring the nations
of the world against the nation of
not only to defeat the nation of
the whole Israelite race of people. Gentile rule and Gentile
oppression of
the people of
Salvation, One Who Is Mighty To Save, who
will one day set
He will set the Jews free from all who
hate them.
He is to be praised because He is a Redeemer for all who
trust in Him. As I said, Zacharias does not mention it at
this time.
Never-the-less, Christ is a Redeemer for all who
trust in Him. Jew or Gentile, all who trust in Him shall be
saved.
We, too, have our enemies. We
have some great and
dreadful enemies. The Devil is our enemy. He is the enemy
of all mankind. There is nothing he would like better than
to see every man burn in the fires of
hell. The fallen
angels, the hordes of demons, are our
enemies. They set out
to deceive those who are unsaved in an
effort to keep them
from trusting in Jesus and getting
saved. They want people
to go to hell. They know that they cannot cause the saved
to go to hell, but they never-the-less are
their bitter
enemies.
Just as the Anti-Christ will organize his forces in
an attempt to destroy all Jews, even so
Satan and the demons
are already at work organizing their
forces in an attempt to
destroy all Christians from the face of
this earth.
But Jesus Christ is the Horn of Salvation. He is the
Mighty One To Save. Every lost sinner who will trust in
Jesus will be saved. He will be saved by the mighty power of
God and he will be kept by the mighty
power of God and there
will be nothing that the Devil and his
forces can do about
it.
Then one of these days the Devil is going to be locked
away in the Bottomless Pit for a thousand
years and the
people of the world are going to be free
to live without
interference from the Devil. It is true, of course, that
after the thousand years are up, the Devil
will be loosed for
a little season and he will once again go
out to make trouble
for the world, but that will be only for a
little season.
Finally, John said in the Book of
Revelation, the Devil will
be cast into the
will never get out of prison. There he will be tormented day
and night forever and ever.
He is to be praised because He will perform the mercy
promised to the fathers. V. 72,
"To perform the mercy
promised to our fathers ..."
Zacharias said that the Christ
would perform the mercy promised to
forefathers. That is,
the promises were made in years gone by
and the Christ was
not finally about to come and perform the
mercy that had been
promised.
For one thing, He would go to the cross and there
shed His own blood as the Redemption so
that sinners can be
saved.
He would also send the gospel message to the whole
world so that men of all nations of the
world could be saved.
Whatever else needs to be done, He will
take care of that
when He returns to earth.
He is to be praised because He would remember His holy
covenant that He made with Abraham. Particularly, God would
remember the covenant that He made with
Abraham. Look again
to verse 72 and continue into verse
73, "...and to remember
his holy covenant, The oath which he sware to our father
Abraham..." God made the covenant
with Abraham in Genesis
12:1-3.
Then in Genesis 22:16-18 God confirmed that covenant
with an oath to Abraham. In that covenant God promised the
land of
the nations of the world would be blessed
in the Seed of
Abraham.
The Seed of Abraham is the Christ.
It is important to the Israelites that God remember His
covenant with Abraham and that He keep
that covenant. Their
continued existence as a nation depends on
it.
Likewise it is important to us Gentiles that God
remember His covenant with Abraham and
that He keep it. The
salvation of our souls depends on it.
Zacharias said that God has remembered His covenant with
Abraham.
Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of that covenant.
He is The Seed of Abraham through whom all
the nations of the
world will be blessed. It is through Jesus that we can be
saved.
It is through Jesus that both Jew and Gentile can be
saved.
Without Jesus there would be no salvation. We would
all wind up in the torments of hell. Zacharias was very glad
that God remembered His covenant and I am,
too. Aren't you?
He is to be praised because He would grant us to serve
God without fear in holiness and
righteousness. In the
latter part of verse 74 and then in verse
75 Zacharias
expresses some of the provisions of the
covenant. (V. 74),
"That he would grant unto us, that we
being delivered out of
the hand of our enemies ming toward its complete fulfillment, but the Jews have
never yet been delivered from their
enemies and they never
will be until Jesus Christ comes
again. The same thing
applies to us. Even though some of us have already
experienced the salvation of our soul, yet
our complete
deliverance will not come until Jesus
returns.
Secondly, as a result of the complete deliverance, God
has provided that we would be able to
serve the Lord without
fear.
Again, the first application is to
returns and the nation of
enemies, then she will be able to serve
the Lord without
fear.
She will dwell safely in the land that God has given
to her.
Likewise, the second application is to us Gentiles
who have trusted Jesus Christ as our
Savior. Even though we
are already saved, yet we live in a world
of many dangers and
many fears. We still face many dangerous situations and
we
may still experience fear. But when Jesus comes again, all
our fears will be over.
Thirdly, Zacharias said that we would be able to live in
holiness and righteousness all of our
days. Once again, the
first application is to
holiness and righteousness up to this
point. The big reason
for the big problems she has faces and
still faces is the
sinfulness of the nation. The one big sin that hangs over
her head like a ton of bricks is their
rejection of Jesus as
the Christ. It was His own people, His own nation, that
rejected Him and crucified Him. Technically, it was the
Roman authorities that authorized the
crucifixion, but it was
the Israelite people who demanded the
crucifixion. Even to
this day, they reject Him. It was their forefathers who
crucified Him, but the Jews of this generation
still reject
Him.
They are just as much guilty of the rejection of Jesus
as were there forefathers who crucified
Him. The Jews will
not be able to dwell in holiness and
righteousness until they
repent of their rejection of Jesus and
trust Him as Savior.
Under the pressures of the Great
Tribulation they will repent
and trust in Him and when they do He will
return and He will
enable them to live in holiness and
righteousness. In that
day the Israelite people will be some of
the most godly
people on the face of the earth.
Again, the second application is to us Gentiles who
trust in Jesus to save our souls. To some extent this is
already true of us even in this life. Before we were saved,
we lived only in sin. We had no righteousness of our own
that was worth anything. All of our righteousness, the
Scripture says, was as filthy rags in the
sight of God. But
after we were saved, there came a change
in our lives. We
stopped doing many of the sinful things
that we used to do
before we were saved. We started doing good things, things
that please the Lord, that we did not do
before we were
saved.
Oh, to be sure, there was a definite change in our
lives when we got saved.
But every one of us who are saved will admit that there
have been times in our lives when what we
were doing was not
pleasing to God. We have never yet lived our lives in
holiness and righteousness in the way that
we ought. And we
never will as long as we live in human
bodies that still have
the flesh nature within. It will not be until our bodies
have been changed in the resurrection that
we will be able
to live our lives without sin. Then we will be able to live
in perfect holiness and
righteousness. Thank God the time
will come when we will not have to contend
with sin in our
own lives anymore. Zacharias praised God for this and so
should all who are saved.
It is at this point that Zacharias deviates from his
main thought about the what the coming
Christ does for us to
focus his attention briefly on his own
son, John---John the
Baptist.
II.
The brief mention of John the Baptist
V. 76, "And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of
the Highest: for thou shalt go before the
face of the Lord
to prepare his ways." John would have the blessed privilege
of preparing the way for the ministry of
the Christ here on
earth.
John's ministry would begin earlier than the ministry
of Jesus.
John was born six months earlier than Jesus and
His ministry would start earlier than that
of Jesus.
The task of John would be to go before the Christ and to
call attention to His coming. He would be like a crier who
went before a king to inform the people
that the king is
coming and that they should get ready for
His coming. In the
language of our modern business people,
John was a
promotional man whose task was to make
sure that Jesus got a
good audience when he came.
Yet there was very definitely more to it than just
getting a good crowd for Jesus to preach
to. His task was to
prepare the people spiritually for the
coming of Jesus. The
way that he did this was to preach
repentance to them and to
point to Jesus as the One who is able to
save. V.
77, "To
give knowledge of salvation unto his
people by the remission
of their sins..." John preached the same kind of message
that you would hear in a Baptist church
today. He reminded
the people that they are sinners in the
sight of God, he
called on them to repent of their sin, and
he pointed them to
Jesus as the one who can take away
sin. It is no wonder that
he came to be known as John the
Baptist. He preached a
Baptist message.
III.
The conclusion of Zacharias's prophecy
With this very brief mention of his own son, John,
Zacharias now turns his attention back to
the Christ and he
closes out his prophecy with these words
about Jesus. V.
78-79, "Through the tender mercy of
our God; whereby the
dayspring from on high hath visited us, To
give light to them
that sit in darkness and in the shadow of
death, to guide our
feet into the way of peace." The Lord
is worthy to be praised
and Zacharias praises the Lord.
In these verses Zacharias compares the coming of Jesus
to the morning sunrise. Before the sunrise the world reaches
its darkest hour of the day. Then the dayspring begins to
give its light faintly in the eastern
sky. Brighter and
brighter it shines until finally it
appears over the horizon
and rises majestically into the sky and
gives its light to
all the world. Nothing is the same any more. So it is with
the coming of Jesus Christ into this
world. Our world was
dwelling in the darkness of sin, but Jesus
came as a light--a
spiritual light to all men. Jesus came so that there is no
reason, there is no excuse for any man,
woman, boy or girl to
ever live in darkness again. Jesus came, Zacharias said, "To
give light to them that sit in darkness
and in the shadow of
death, to guide our feet into the way of
peace."
There may be someone here this morning who is in
darkness.
That is, you are in spiritual darkness.
You are
not only in the darkness of the sin of the
world, but you are
in the darkness of your own sin. You are lost in your sin.
You can see no hope for you in the
end. As it stands right
now you are doomed to everlasting torment
in a devil's hell.
But Jesus Christ is come to give you
light. He is come to
give you eternal life. He is come to save your soul. He is
come to keep you out of torment. He is come to take you to
heaven.
Conclusion:
Won't you turn to Jesus Christ today and ask Him to save
your soul?
Won't you trust in Him to cleanse you of every
sin and save your soul?
Those of you who are saved, I am going to ask each and
every one of you to turn to Jesus now and surrender
your life
to Him to live for Him. You won't live the perfect life
until after the resurrection, but don't
wait until then to
get started living for Jesus. Come today and submit your
life to the Lord.