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00:01 Zechariah had with the angel Gabriel inside the temple in Jerusalem. You can
00:06 see Zechariah on the left, an old man uh wearing a priestly garment.
00:13 But who is this Zechariah? He was an old priest who served God with dedication all his life. And his wife
00:21 was Elizabeth uh who gave birth to John the Baptist as we have just read from
00:26 the text. In some translations, uh, Elizabeth is described as the cousin of
00:32 Mary, uh, the mother of Jesus. The word used for cousin, uh, does not
00:38 necessarily mean first cousins. Actually, Elizabeth and Mary were
00:43 distant cousins and hence the NIV describes them as uh, relatives.
00:49 But the bulk of our text revolves around the encounter Zechariah had with the
00:55 angel. We shall examine uh what actually happened to this old priest. In the
01:00 later part of the sermon uh we will dive deeper into the into the verses to uncover uh lessons hidden uh beneath our
01:08 text. There is more that meets the eye and we shall unpack the verses to search for gems of truth within the text. Uh
01:15 that is the wonder of God's word and this I hope would help us to uh celebrate Christmas more meaningfully
01:22 this year. Let us first commit this time to God in prayer. Our
01:29 father in heaven, may we, your people, always approach your word with uh
01:34 humility and anticipation. May your spirit open the eyes of our
01:40 faith. Now, may these verses come alive so that we can better grasp who you are
01:46 and your mighty plans so that we will take so that we will be able to taste a double portion of joy this Christmas
01:53 season. And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.
02:01 Exactly a month ago, uh my wife and I uh were in the Perth, Australia for a short
02:07 holiday. It was our first time to to that part of the world uh down under as
02:12 they call it. On the last day of the trip uh which was a Sunday which happened to be my birthday. Our plan was
02:19 that after breakfast uh we would visit uh this magnificent St. Mary's Cathedral
02:27 uh in town which was built in the 1860s. I suggested to my wife that it had been
02:34 a long time since we last attended a Sunday mass and uh we should try out their 11:00 mass. Besides, I thought it
02:41 would be a wonderful experience uh to worship uh with those big uh you know
02:47 pipe organ. But while on the way there, I heard a small inner voice telling me perhaps you
02:56 should try an evangelical church. Actually, it wasn't such a small voice
03:02 as I felt compelled uh to take out my my handphone uh check with Mr. Google and I
03:08 and true enough I I found this uh this church nearby, Trinity Uniting Church, a
03:15 church with uh Methodist roots. And so we quickly changed cost uh walk briskly
03:21 and managed to be in time for their 10:00 a.m. service. It wasn't as grand a
03:26 building, but still a very beautiful church right in the middle of town
03:31 when when we went inside. And thankfully they they also had a pipe organ.
03:38 I wanted to worship accompanied by a pipe organ. And so God made sure they had one.
03:44 Now do you also notice the empty pews? As with many churches in Western
03:50 countries, especially Europe, church attendance has been dropping rapidly
03:57 over the years, which is very sad. My daughter complains that uh the church
04:03 in exattor that she attends in England are full of old people.
04:08 Anyway, it was only when the sermon started that I realized why we have been led here. The pastor preached a sermon
04:15 based on a passage from Genesis 21 on the account of uh Abraham and Sarah and
04:21 the birth of their son Isaac. And he juxtaposed that uh with another passage from Luke chapter 1 on the account of
04:29 Joseph and Mary and the birth of Jesus. As it turned out, the birth of Isaac to
04:34 Abraham and Sarah who were very old at that time is the Old Testament mirror of
04:41 the birth of uh John the Baptist to Zachariah and Elizabeth who also very
04:46 advanced in their years at that time. In both cases, old age was hardly an obstacle to God.
04:54 God did it once in the Old Testament and he did it again in the New. I managed to
05:00 pick up some useful sermon points that morning and I felt glad that I uh was
05:05 able to uh listen to the pastor's message. And later that day, we did
05:11 visit uh St. Mary's Cathedral uh to marvel at its lavish interior and to
05:17 admire its beautiful stained glasses. Now, I'll talk a bit more about this visit to Perth later in the sermon.
05:25 Before we examine our text today, it'll be useful for us to to look into its context, specifically its historical
05:32 context, so that we can better understand what is going on here.
05:37 And this is the earlier uh stained glass from Stratford upon Ivonne in full color. When you start to appreciate the
05:45 context behind any Bible passage, the picture will become more vivid.
05:51 Zechariah's encounter with the angel in our text is highly significant.
05:56 Why? Because God had not spoken in 400 years. The context is that when God
06:03 spoke to Zechariah through angel Gabriel, it marked the first time in
06:08 four centuries that he has spoken throughout much of the Old Testament.
06:14 Time and again, God would dispatch his prophets and he will speak through to his people through these prophets. A
06:22 prophet would appear and would he would begin with thus sayaeth the Lord. four
06:27 powerful words meaning that what the prophet was about to say was not based on his opinion nor his wisdom but what
06:35 God himself wanted to say through him and this phrase thus sayaith the Lord
06:42 appears more than 400 times in the Old Testament there's also a similar phrase in in the
06:47 Bible the word of God came to so and so and the last prophet to say this was the
06:55 prophet Malachi the last book of the Bible is Malachi. And after Malachi,
07:02 there's this 400-year gap. And then we suddenly come to the four gospels in the
07:07 New Testament. Not just a 400-year gap, but 400 years of absolute silence from
07:13 God. No prophets, no angelic appearances, not a word from God,
07:21 nothing. Zero. Sometimes uh we say that silence is
07:27 golden but if it is too long a silence it can be rather disconcerting.
07:34 It seldom happens but on rare occasions uh when my wife is not happy with me she
07:40 will give me the silent treatment. Perhaps it's something that I I did or
07:47 more likely something I didn't do. She refuses to say a single word which is
07:52 can be very uncomfortable. Arnold is nodding there.
07:58 She wouldn't say a word and it can be very uncomfortable for me and after a long while I cannot tan and I tell her
08:06 hey please say something okay anything. Your silence is very very deafening.
08:13 You know to the wives in our midst I'm not suggesting that you employ this same tactic on your husband. Okay.
08:20 But this is how exactly how the Israelites must have felt in the centuries be between Malachi and
08:27 Matthew. God's silence was deafening. They must have sensed that God had
08:33 forsaken them that he had abandoned them. Now to make matters worse, the
08:38 Jews had been under Roman oppression and uh and occupation since 63 A BC. They
08:45 must have thought, "Where is God when we need him the most? Has he forgotten us?"
08:51 But little did they realize that God was about to intervene big time into human history? God was getting ready to do
08:58 something really huge. The 400 years of waiting only served to amplify uh the
09:04 magnitude of what God was about to do. But more on that uh towards the end of the sermon.
09:11 If you appreciate this historical setting, then you can better understand what happened inside the temple in our
09:17 text. Verse 12 describes Zechariah as being startled and gripped with fear
09:24 when the angel appeared before him. Of course, who wouldn't be stunned when
09:29 confronted when an angelic being? In Zechariah's case, it was this and also
09:35 much more than this. Because like other Jews, he must have also wondered why
09:40 have they not heard from God all these centuries. And when God finally broke his silence, why of of all people did
09:48 God choose to speak to Zechariah? There was an estimated 8,000 priest at
09:55 that time performing various priestly duties. Zechariah must have thought why
09:60 me of all people and hence his sense of astonishment upon seeing the angel uh
10:06 was mixed with a sense of bewilderment why God would choose him uh would choose
10:12 to speak to him after he last spoke to Malachi 400 years ago which may help to
10:18 explain his state of mind during the encounter with Gabriel. We shall now examine our text today and
10:25 see what actually happened inside the temple and also see what happened before and after the that incident.
10:33 But before that, let me just share with you an observation. After God chose uh to break his 400
10:39 years silence and spoke to Zechariah in Jerusalem, six months later, he again
10:45 spoke and this time in J in in Nazareth to a passenger near a passenger named
10:51 Mary. And again, it was through the angel Gabriel.
10:57 And nine months after this and nine months after this, for the third time, God spoke again. and this
11:03 time through an unnamed angel to a group of poor shepherds in a field outside of
11:09 Bethlehem. So after a long silence, God started to speak again. And if you have not
11:14 noticed, in fairly quick succession, he chose to speak to an old priest, a
11:20 peasant girl, and a bunch of poor shepherds. It's a phenomenon common throughout the
11:27 Bible that God tends to choose the lowly over the mighty,
11:34 the weak over the strong. And the reason is simple. Those who are
11:41 able and successful, they often don't need don't feel the need for God as so much as much as those
11:48 who are lowly and weak. And these squares with the with the empty pews
11:54 that I saw in Perth last month, the more affluent a country is, the more educated
12:02 its population is. The church there tends to be the churches there tend to
12:07 be deserted. But where in the world are churches packed with people? It is in developing
12:15 countries such as China, Indonesia, and India. And notice they are mostly simple
12:23 folks and often their place of worship is is hardly a building if if you
12:29 compare this with the St. Mary's Cathedral in Perth.
12:35 Anyway, I'm showing you you this so that you will ponder upon the kind of people God chose to speak to around the time of
12:42 the first Christmas. Now, diving into our text, I have
12:47 partitioned it into five parts. One, devotion from the first two verses on
12:54 the part of Zechariah to God. Two, disappointment from verse 7 in the lives
12:59 of uh Zechariah and Elizabeth. Three, deliverance from verses 8 to 17 on the
13:06 part of God for this old couple. Four, doubt from verses 8 to 23 as expressed
13:12 by Zechariah to the angel. and finally delight or joy from the rest of the
13:18 verses on the part of Zechariah and Elizabeth. We shall go through each part and pick up some lessons, some small
13:25 lessons along the way, leaving some time later in the sermon to uncover what's beneath these verses.
13:32 Now, the text opens uh with a with a brief description of Zechariah and also
13:38 Elizabeth. Zechariah was a priest and from verse 39 which is not part of our
13:44 text he and his wife lived in this unnamed town somewhere in Judea. In
13:49 verse 8 later we find him in Jerusalem as he had some duties to perform in the temple there. Elizabeth herself was a
13:58 descendant from the same priestly line as Zechariah
14:03 and both of them are described as not just old but very old. And so what we have here is an elderly couple with very
14:11 strong religious credentials. They are also described as righteous in
14:17 the sight of uh God observing all of God's all of the Lord's commands and decrees. In other words, they were an
14:24 upright and virtuous pair. The adverb used here is blamelessly. They obey
14:30 God's laws blamelessly. Now in place of the word blameless, some translations
14:35 say without fault. It doesn't mean that they were perfect or sinless. To be
14:41 blameless is to be is to be free from disapproval or reproof. Meaning no one
14:47 uh could accuse them of any wrongdoing. Now to digress a little and to share a
14:53 thought about blamelessness. Scripture tells us in uh second Peter 3 that all people of God must make every
15:01 effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him. To make every
15:07 effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him. And what's a
15:13 practical way to keep oursel blameless? Uh Paul has this advice for us in
15:18 Philippians 2 in do everything without grumbling or arguing so that you may
15:24 become blameless and pure. Notice the word blameless. Blameless and pure children of God without fault.
15:32 Do everything without grumbling or arguing. So firstly stop complaining and
15:38 don't harbor a critical spirit in your heart. This not right, that not right,
15:44 this cannot, that cannot. You know there are some people who are very hard to please. And secondly, avoid arguments
15:50 and disputes and as far as possible try to be more agreeable with people. Focus
15:56 on areas that unite rather than issues that divide.
16:01 But why did Paul single out grumbling and arguing as actions that can run counter to blamelessness?
16:08 Because being blameless has a lot to do about public respectability. uh as as an outgrowth of our private
16:17 morality. If you want to be blameless before God, follow this advice from Paul.
16:23 Now, back to Zechariah, his upright character is all the more pronounced when you consider how corruption had
16:30 infested the priestly ranks during his time. If you remember the account of
16:35 Jesus cleansing the temple, some of the priests uh were in cahoots uh with uh with the merchants allowing the
16:42 merchants to set up shops in the temple compound and in return the temp the temple the merchants line the pockets of
16:48 the priests. And so Zechariah's uh righteousness stood out uh against the
16:54 sins of some of his colleagues. And so what we have what we have here is a picture of of a kind of of the kind of
17:01 person Zechariah was righteous, moral and blameless.
17:07 Additionally, his whole life was marked by total devotion and uh dedication to
17:13 serve God. But this nice, beautiful picture is
17:18 missing something. Verse seven starts with a but.
17:24 But they were childless because Elizabeth was not able to conceive and they were both very old. And that's why
17:31 I titled this part two as uh disappointment. Here's a pious couple who suffered a
17:37 great misfortune. The wife was was barren, unable to conceive. In those
17:43 days, childlessness was seen as a curse, a sign of divine displeasure. An
17:48 infertile woman would suffer public ridicule and social disgrace. And that's
17:54 why when she got pregnant, uh Elizabeth said later in verse verse 25, the Lord has done for me uh has done this for me.
18:01 He has shown his favor and taken away my disgrace.
18:06 People in a time and place at this thinking that if a if a woman is barren, it must be it must be because of
18:12 something bad that she did and it's a punishment from God. And this is largely
18:18 based on two passages from Exodus 23 and Deuteronomy 7. If you cannot conceive,
18:24 uh your your neighbors would would think of you as a woman with a with a questionable past. In those days, they
18:31 there was a level of shame attached to being barren. But we know that's not that's not the
18:38 case with Elizabeth because verse six described her also as righteous. And so
18:43 this old pious couple carried this burden of childlessness most of their
18:48 life. They bore this pain throughout decades of their marriage. They were
18:54 devoted to God, but they were also disappointed. We must realize that
18:60 devotion to God doesn't mean that everything will be hunky dory. Everything will be smooth. Paul's
19:07 devotion to God was second to none. And yet his life was full of hardship and
19:12 challenges. But the story of Zechariah in this verse teaches us one thing that while God uh
19:19 may not act according uh to the time and in the manner of our desire but that
19:25 doesn't mean that he he he he has forgotten. As a matter of fact, the name Zechariah
19:31 means the Lord has remembered. After years of futile work awaiting this
19:37 old pious couple was about to find out that God had not forsaken them. God was
19:43 about to intervene big time into their life and to show them much grace and and
19:49 favor. And if I were to pick a only one word to describe Christmas, it's the
19:54 word grace. The word grace. Christmas is all about God showing his grace to
20:00 humankind. Later in the in verse 13, we see the angel instructing Zechariah to
20:07 name the baby John. It's a very common name today. Uh I I checked my handphone.
20:12 There is a dozen people listed under John or Johnny. The name John in English
20:18 is an English name is a is a English version of the Greek name um
20:25 which is the Greek version of the Hebrew name Johan which means the Lord is
20:31 gracious. And so if your name is John, remember what your what your name means. The Lord is gracious. And yes, Christmas
20:39 is all about God's grace. Which brings us to part three uh from verses 8 to 17.
20:45 And we shall see how God delivered uh Zechariah and Elizabeth from their set situation.
20:52 But first, some background info. As I mentioned just now, there were about 8,000 priests uh at that time performing
20:59 various uh duties around the country. A thousand years earlier in 1 Chronicles
21:04 24, King David had already divided them into 24 groups or divisions and each
21:11 division would serve at the temple twice a year a week at a time.
21:17 And from verse one, we learned that Zechariah belonged to the Abijah division, the eighth division actually
21:24 in the in the list from King David. In verses 8 and n here, uh it was his
21:29 division's turn and they drew lots to decide who would go into the temple to offer incense. And that day the lot fell
21:37 on Zechariah. Now because of the sheer number, a priest was expected to perform this duty
21:43 only about once or twice in his lifetime. And so it was quite an honor for Zechariah to be chosen to do this.
21:51 As we shall we shall soon see it was it was to be an divine appointment.
21:57 Now the for the sake of uh Bible knowledge this is what the temple in Jerusalem looked like in the days of
22:02 Zechariah built by King Herod the Great mentioned in verse one here but
22:07 destroyed by the Romans in AD.70. Anyway, what happened in part three of
22:13 our text took place uh inside the temple building, you know, in in the middle uh
22:19 of all those courtyards. Okay, if you can notice the building in the middle
22:24 and this useful diagram and I zoom in uh shows the inside of the temple building
22:29 which consisted of two chambers. The bigger one is known as the holy place
22:34 and only priests are allowed to go into the holy place to perform their duties.
22:40 And deeper inside is a smaller chamber uh known as the most holy place or the
22:45 holy of holies. And only one person, the high priest, the top ranking priest was
22:51 allowed to go into the most holy place or the holy of holies because that was
22:57 where the physical presence of God dwelt. And the two chambers were
23:03 separated uh by a thick curtain. And this and the curtain behind me is supposed to be a replica of that curtain
23:11 inside the temple. Inside the temple and zooming into the into the holy place
23:16 because that's that's where uh Zechariah encountered the angel. There were only
23:21 three objects inside and to the left a seven branch lampstand commonly known as
23:28 the as the monora. to the right uh what we call a table of showbread
23:34 and in the middle the altar of incense. This was where Zechariah performed his duty of burning the incense. We don't
23:42 have time for details but the seven oil lamps on the lampstand on the left must
23:48 be kept lighted at all times. on the right. 12 loaves of bread were placed on
23:55 the on the uh table of showbread and they were to be changed uh every week on
24:00 the on the Sabbath. As for the of as for the altar of incense in the middle uh incense was to
24:07 be offered twice a day, morning and evening. Zechariah must have uh must have been on
24:14 the evening shift. Now when when the incense is burned on
24:19 this altar, its fragrant smoke goes up to symbolize the prayers of God's people
24:27 uh rising up to him. Now although the burning of incense was done only twice a
24:32 day uh in those days, today God is always waiting to hear prayers not twice
24:38 a day but any time of the day. And back to our text in verse 11, an
24:44 angel suddenly appeared before Zechariah as he was performing his duty at the altar of incense. And the angel was
24:51 standing to the right of the altar. In verse 12, we we read how the old priest
24:57 was startled and gripped with fear as we discussed earlier on. In verse 13, the
25:02 angel then delivered the momentous news to Zechariah that his wife would conceive and bear him a son and he was
25:09 to name him John. It was an an unexpected answer to his
25:16 prayers because Zechariah and his wife must have prayed so hard for years for a
25:21 son. Our God is a God who answers prayers but the answer may come decades
25:28 later. Some Bible commentators think that while Zechariah must have prayed for years for
25:34 a son, he could likely have given up uh and stopped praying possibly after his
25:40 wife was well past the the normal childbearing age. And because if he had
25:46 been praying continuously, he would have uh been so uh happy over the wonderful
25:51 news. He would have exclaimed, "Wow, God has answered my prayer." But instead he
25:56 expressed doubt which we shall discuss in a short while. Now if it is true that Zechariah had long stopped praying. The
26:03 lesson for us is that God not only answers prayer but he answers he also
26:08 answers old prayers. Prayers that you prayed long ago that you have forgotten
26:15 because Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 2:13 if we are faithless he remains faithful.
26:23 uh from verse 14 to 18, angel Gabriel then described what Zechar Zechariah's son would grow up to be like. We don't
26:30 have time to to go through each verse in detail, but essentially John the Baptist was to be the forerunner of Jesus. His
26:37 task was to prepare the way for the coming Messiah. Now, how was John the
26:42 Baptist, Zechariah's son, going to prepare the way for Jesus? He will preach a a message of repentance to turn
26:50 the hearts of the people of God uh uh to God so that they will be receptive to
26:56 the good news of salvation that Jesus was about to bring
27:01 here. Hence we read in verse 16 he will he meaning John the Baptist he
27:06 will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God and also at the end of verse 17 to make ready to
27:14 make ready a people of a people prepared for the Lord. And since our focus is on Zechariah rather than on John we shall
27:21 leave it at that. But let me uh address two phrases in this part three um that
27:28 may be hard to understand. In verse 17, it says, "John the Baptist
27:33 will turn the hearts of the parents to their children." Now, what does this mean? What this what is this about
27:40 turning the hearts of the parents to their children? Now, this is actually a a partial quote from a passage in the
27:46 book of Malachi. Recall that God last spoke to the prophet Malachi before uh
27:52 uh breaking his silence to Zechariah. In Malachi 4, God announced that he would
27:58 one day send John the Baptist. I will send a prophet. I will send a prophet Elijah to you. He will turn the hearts
28:05 of the parents to their children and the hearts of their children of the children to their parents. Now the term prophet
28:11 Elijah here is not literally Elijah himself but someone in the spirit and
28:16 power of Elijah which was how angel Gabriel described John the Baptist in
28:22 verse 17 of our text. Now in quoting this Malachi prophecy, the angel was
28:27 telling Zechariah that God was about to fulfill his promise made 400 years ago to send this prophet in the likeness of
28:34 Elijah. You have to bear in mind that Zechariah was a priest and he knew his Bible well.
28:41 He knew about this uh Malachi verse about the coming prophet.
28:47 But still it must have come as a huge surprise to him that this coming prophet will be his son.
28:54 And so the full phrase uh should be he will turn the hearts of the parents to
28:59 their children and the hearts of the children to their parents.
29:04 Why? Because in those days as it is today
29:10 we find and we see a lot of discord even within the families.
29:16 John uh John the Baptist message of repentance will not only cause people's heart to turn to God and when they turn
29:23 to God, it will bring about reconciliation between people within families uh who otherwise cannot get
29:30 along well. When our vertical relationship with God is right, our
29:36 horizontal relationships with our neighbors will also be right. I trust that you still remember what Paul uh uh
29:43 taught us about blamelessness in in Philippians 2. The other phrase u that
29:49 need explaining is in verse 15. He is never to take wine or other fermented
29:54 drink and throughout his life John the Baptist would abstain from alcohol.
30:01 Why again didn't Jesus and his disciples drink wine at the lot at the last supper? The answer is based on a
30:08 prohibition in numbers chapter 6 where men or women who want to consecrate
30:14 themselves to God, they must abstain from all forms of alcohol. And actually,
30:20 so here actually the angel was quoting from numbers uh 6:3.
30:25 So I know there goes our wine. Okay. And let's get on with the next part of
30:32 our text from um um from verses 8 to 23
30:37 part 4. And I and I label it as doubt. And we shall see Zechariah's reaction to
30:42 the angel's pronouncement. As I said, he didn't exclaim, "Wow, God has answered my prayers." Instead of joy
30:50 and gratitude, he expressed doubt that he and his wife could have a son. And he
30:56 found it hard to accept what the angels what the angels said. Verse 18. How can I be sure of this? I'm an old man and my
31:03 wife is well along in years. He cited old age as an insurmountable
31:10 factor. Now, what he was trying to tell the angel is, well, even if God were to open
31:17 my my wife's womb, I'm already so old. I don't think I still have I still have
31:24 what it takes to to to perform, you know, if you know what I mean. Okay,
31:32 I said just now that Zechariah knew his Bible well, but he has forgotten about
31:39 Genesis 21 when God made it possible for another very old couple, Abraham and
31:45 Sarah, to have a son Isaac. And because of his lack of faith, angel Gabriel
31:51 struck him dumb. From verse 20, from verse 20, he will lose his power of speech for nine months until the baby's
31:58 birth. Can you imagine the husband not being able to speak for nine whole
32:03 months? I know he's smiling now.
32:09 There will be no squabbbling between husband and wife and the wife will win all the arguments.
32:19 The wives will love that. But seriously, seriously, there are
32:25 times when speaking less is a good thing. Okay, I'm serious about this. There are
32:31 really there are times, in fact, more often than not, speaking less is a good
32:36 thing. Anyway, the lesson for us here is that we must not doubt God. Don't question
32:44 God. Doubting God is a dumb thing. if you can
32:49 forgive the pun. The opposite of doubt is faith and faith
32:55 is a quality that God values highly. Jesus says in Matthew 196:26,
33:02 "With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."
33:09 Doubting God is like saying, "With God, some things are not possible."
33:16 In the rest of part four, uh you find in verse 21 the worshippers outside in the
33:21 courtyard waiting for Zechariah to come out. And why were they waiting? Because it was customary for the priest after he
33:28 performed his duty inside the holy place to come out and pronounce a blessing from God on them. Much like the the
33:36 benediction we have at the end of our service. But when Zechariah emerged from the
33:42 temple building, he couldn't utter a single word. Our old priest
33:49 did try to use uh as is recorded he did try to use sign language to tell them
33:54 what happened inside but I'm not sure how successful he was. Now if you know
33:59 the game sherets the person who invented sherets must have gotten the idea for
34:04 the game from from Luke chapter one and I have played charitates before it is not easy uh to act out a given phrase
34:12 and it wasn't easy for for Zechariah either for example how do you make use
34:17 signs to tell people I've just seen an angel
34:22 you know maybe like that they would think you've seen a
34:31 Nevertheless, those people outside the worshippers,
34:36 they realized that Zechariah had just had an supernatural experience.
34:42 Something happened inside the temple. They could tell possibly because of a kind of glow on Zechariah's face or
34:49 maybe he was very good at charits. Now at the end of the day uh after he
34:54 finished his duties, Zachariah went home from verse 23. His wife must have been
35:00 baffled why the husband couldn't speak a word. Although not recorded here, I guess it
35:06 was another round of chariots for Zechariah in front of the wife. And also I guess that night he must have
35:14 tried to get intimate with the wife. How do I know?
35:19 9 because nine months later, baby John was born. Simple as that.
35:24 You may also wonder if he if he has lost his his his power of speech, how did he
35:30 get his wife interested? Well, I figure you don't really need a
35:35 spoken word in that department, do you? But let's not get there. I think we have children in our midst.
35:42 Now we have gone through our text part by part uh from devotion to to disappointment from deliverance to
35:48 doubt. And coming to the last part of our text I titled it as delight. Uh it
35:53 is it is is a nice ending to the account of Zechariah because the tone here is one of joy and elation.
36:00 Elizabeth did get pregnant from verse 24 exactly as the angel had said and as
36:06 mentioned briefly earlier he she was overjoyed because God had favored her and taken away her disgrace.
36:14 But it also says here that she spent five months in seclusion and she was
36:19 kept away from friends and relatives for a period of time. I'm not sure why. strange they you know
36:26 she she's kept in the house for for five months but if I'm very old and if my
36:34 equally old wife somehow gets pregnant I think I will also keep her out of your
36:39 out of sight from all of you because you'll be asking me a lot of questions
36:44 so Elizabeth was at home for a long for a couple of months in verse 58 when
36:50 Elizabeth eventually gave birth uh to her son all the neighbors and relatives gives shed her joy uh from verse 58
36:58 here. Imagine their their happy faces and 8 days later when Zechariah regained
37:04 his ability to speak he was he was full of praise to God uh from the last verse
37:09 in our text. This is an old uh painting from Russian
37:15 Orthodox tradition showing the birth of John the Baptist. But everyone here
37:20 looked very unhappy. The artists totally missed the feeling
37:25 of great delight that the Zechariah and Elizabeth must have felt. And not only
37:30 that, if I were to zoom in to the bottom part showing the midwife and the baby, she looks so sad and the infant looks so
37:38 angry. If you could call that an infant,
37:46 but people paint these kind of things. Now this picture uh from a more
37:52 contemporary source is much much closer to what actually happened when the mother is portrayed uh accurately as an
37:59 old woman but looking very contented and happy. In the last uh few verses there is uh
38:07 there was a minor incident when when the time came from uh for the 8-day old baby to be named and circumcised and some
38:15 busy bodies who were probably relatives of the couple in in suggested that the child be named Zechariah after the
38:21 father but Elizabeth insisted that the boy be named uh John.
38:28 I don't know how she knew, you know, that she was the the child supposed to be named John. And uh in verse uh 62
38:36 when they turned to Zechariah for confirmation, he wrote John and at that moment uh his power speech was was
38:44 restored to him and in this painting uh you notice that he wrote the Greek
38:49 names. Now this concludes the study of our text
38:54 based on this five-part uh structure. Now let's go beyond these verses and I
38:60 shall offer you some uh perspective that are not so obvious from the text
39:06 so that we can uh uncover u some of the hidden lessons.
39:11 And let me start uh with this let me start this last part of our sermon with
39:17 a somewhat curious question. Why did uh the angel punish Zechariah
39:25 for his lack of faith by taking away his power of speech uh for 9 months? Why was
39:31 he struck dumb for doubting? Now this question becomes more acute
39:39 when you consider what happened in the case of Mary when the angel appeared to her. She also expressed doubt but she
39:45 wasn't struck dumb. In Luke 1:34, she said to the angel, "How will this be since I'm since I'm a virgin?"
39:54 In the case of Sarah, it's even worse. In Genesis 18, when God told Abraham
39:59 that his wife would bear him a son, and when Sarah overheard the conversation, she laughed and said, "Will I really
40:05 have a child now that I'm old?" But she wasn't struck dumb. Zechariah asked,
40:11 "How can I be sure of this?" Mary asked, "How will this be?" Sarah laughed and
40:17 said, "Will I really have a child?" But only Zechariah was silenced. Why?
40:25 Now, the short answer is this. Very likely, uh, Zechariah's doubt was
40:30 much deeper than what's apparent in the text. There may be more that transpired between him and the and the angel inside
40:37 the temple. We will never know. But there is a deeper way of looking at this, a metaphorical way. Zechariah's
40:45 silence although imposed upon him can be viewed as a kind of a parallel or
40:52 analogy to God's silent which I talked about earlier between the time he spoke to Malachi and then to Zechariah lasting
40:59 400 years. Now, why do I draw a parallel between the two? It's like this. At the
41:05 end of Zechariah's silence, there was an there was this explosion of joy for his
41:10 family. And as described earlier, there was much rejoicing and happiness when baby uh John was born to Zechariah and
41:17 Elizabeth. To them, it was a it was a huge surprising gift from God. Now, my
41:23 wife and I, we were we were overjoyed when our daughter was born in 1995 and two years later, our son was born. We
41:29 were so very happy. But our joy cannot be compared to what Zechariah and Elizabeth experienced. Their joy was a
41:35 magnitude many many times greater than ours. And that's why when Zechariah
41:40 regained his speech, he burst out in praise to God as we saw at the end of our text. Now in the final verses of uh
41:49 Luke chapter 1 which is not part of our text we find what is commonly known as Zechariah's song where Zechariah began
41:56 praise to the Lord the God of Israel. In the same way at the end of God's 400
42:04 years silence there was also an explosion of joy in heaven and earth
42:09 when the baby when baby Jesus was born. It was great joy when the angel appeared before uh the
42:17 shepherds uh to announce Jesus' birth. He said in Luke 2:9, "I bring you good
42:23 news that will cause great joy for all the people." Christmas is not only about
42:28 the good news of God's grace. It's also about great joy. And after this angel
42:33 finished speaking, suddenly an angelic host appeared praising God. And Luke
42:40 described them as a great company of heavenly host. And it must have been a spectacular sight. Thousands and
42:47 thousands of angels praising God. Glory to God in the highest heaven and on
42:52 earth peace to those on whom his favor rests. Glory to God in the highest. And
42:58 we sang the Latin version that's now gloria in excelsis day. And this is from
43:03 Luke chap uh 2:14. It was a scene of massive celebration
43:10 and exuberant worship of God. And I hope this peril is now more apparent to you.
43:16 In other words, a period of silence and then an explosion of joy and an outburst
43:23 of praise to God. Now, amazingly, there is another peril
43:31 at work beneath the text. He has a second peril and it's something to do
43:36 with waiting and you must have experienced waiting and waiting for
43:42 something and the longer to wait the more intense is the is the sense of
43:47 anticipation and something like that happened while we were in Perth last month on the third
43:53 day of our trip. Uh we rented a car uh from Herz to to drive to this this place
43:59 called the Pinnacles to the north of the city and John gave me uh some very good
44:05 uh advice. Not John the Baptist, John Lim from the SS19 life group because he
44:11 he used to live in in Perth. Anyway, we wanted to drive to this place called the Pinnacle. We saw pictures of it on the
44:18 internet and we thought it'd be a good place, a nice place to visit. And I knew uh beforehand that it would take about a
44:25 two and a half hours drive to get there. Now even so we drove and drove
44:32 drove and drove because Australia is a big country with with a small population and outside the
44:39 cities uh is largely devoid of human habitation. And so we were on this
44:45 lonely country road with very few cars.
44:50 I didn't want to go too fast for a fear that the kangaroo may jump out from the bushes.
44:56 And so it was like driving forever. The lonely road was like endlessly long.
45:03 The mind kept thinking how long more to the to the destination. How long more?
45:09 And then suddenly lo and behold we were there.
45:15 the pinnacles, a stunning landscape
45:21 with yellow, literally yellow, a yellow desert sand and strange rock formations.
45:28 And when we got there, it was like, wow. It was unlike anything we have ever
45:33 seen. Certainly worth the long drive from Perth.
45:39 I'm not here on behalf of the Australian Tourism Board, okay?
45:44 But you should visit this place. We drove mile after mile
45:52 hoping to get to this destination. Similarly, Zachchariah waited year after
45:59 year hoping for a son. And he and his wife must have prayed and prayed for the
46:05 longest time waiting for God to grant them their the deepest of their hearts desires.
46:11 How long more, oh God? How long more? But as the decades rolled by,
46:18 they must have given up waiting for an answer from God.
46:23 God seems to have forsaken them. And then suddenly,
46:30 wow, a big wow. God remembered them and favored them with the with the precious
46:36 gift of a son. But where is the peril? You see, Zechariah's lifetime of
46:41 waiting, well, almost a lifetime of waiting, is analogous to the 400 years the
46:48 Israelites were waiting for God. Where is God? Where are his prophets?
46:56 They must have wondered at that time, how long more, oh God, how long more?
47:02 And as the centuries rolled by, they may have even given up waiting. God seems to
47:09 have abandoned them. And then and then suddenly at the right time, wow, the
47:14 biggest wow you can think of, God sent them the most precious gift of
47:20 his only son. And today, after 2,000 years of Christmases, since the first
47:26 Christmas, the wow factor is largely gone. But as we celebrate the birth of Jesus two days
47:32 from now, let let us all try to relive and to recapture the immense sense of
47:38 joy and praise that was evident around the time of the first Christmas. Let us approach the manger with a with a deep
47:46 sense of wow that God has given us this wonderful gift of baby
47:51 Jesus who came to bring us salvation and reconciliation with God. So that today
47:58 we have been given the right to be called sons and daughters of the most high. Remembering how Zechariah and
48:04 Elizabeth felt when they when their son was born. We need to react to the birth
48:09 of Jesus with an outburst of rejoicing and worship. Let us close in prayer.
48:18 Our father in heaven, we want to thank you for this text and may it remind us of the enorm
48:25 enormity of the gift of your son so that we may celebrate Christmas, this year's
48:31 Christmas with a double portion of joy and worship. And we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
48:40 Now, as we close with this uh closing final hymn, uh please rise. Um, you will
48:46 sing joy to the world. Uh, very popular Christmas carol, two days more to
48:52 Christmas. And I urge you to to let this sense of joy in your heart burst out. Okay, following the message. Christmas
48:59 is about great joy. And I urge you, okay, to to really worship God
49:05 with your heart joyfully. Okay.
