Holy Spirit filled Praise
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If someone were unable to speak for 9 months, and could finally speak, what would they say? You and I could try to imagine this. 9 months of inability to speak would be, for many people, almost like pure torture.
If we suddenly became unable to speak, at first we may think of the inability to speak about things that were urgent or necessary. Not being able to tell someone they were in danger, or let someone know you needed help.
Certainly for those who are of a very sociable nature, being unable to speak and take part in a conversation would be a very difficult thing. Some of you may have witnessed this. When I was a boy, my great uncle Lawrence had a stroke and lost his ability to communicate.
When we went to visit him, he would try to tell us something. He would try to be part of the conversation. But all that would come out was a sort of stuttering sound, and there was no way to figure out what he was trying to say, except that in some cases you could get him to answer a yes or no question.
But this only worked for him to answer what you were talking about. If he wanted to communicate something he was thinking about and you couldn’t figure out what it was, he would keep trying to say something but again, just a stuttering sound, and the tears would start flowing down his face, and I remember as a boy having such a sadness and compassion for uncle Lawrence. Imagine having family coming to visit, in our case, we traveled an hour or so just to visit, and not being able to be part of a conversation.
When we observe someone struggling with the effects of a disease or other medical problem, we certainly can see the effects of the curse. When Adam and Eve sinned, evil and sickness entered the world. So when we have someone in our lives who can’t talk because of a stroke, or can’t remember because of dementia, or can’t get around because of some other physical issue, there is a sense of wrongness. We don’t like to see deformities or see a loved one suffer, and yet, when we really get down to brass tacks, as they say, all of this is due to the curse brought on the world through sin.
Sometimes the ailments people have are just inherited because of the curse. but sometimes people do suffer for their own sin, or as a consequence of their own actions. We do all sorts of things that harm our health or risk injury. So sometimes we must take responsibility for what happens to us. Now, we cannot always know this for a fact. Sometimes it is obvious when someone is suffering because of some action they took, such as a meth addict who loses their teeth and has other health problems.
But we cannot always be certain whether someone is sick because of something they did, or they are just subject to the curse. In fact, Jesus made a point of this with a blind man he healed. That particular blind man was blind from birth. Jesus made it plain that this man was not blind because of his sin or his parents sin, but so that God would be glorified when he was healed. So we should be careful not to judge those who are sick or hurting, since we cannot always know all the factors.
Certainly in the case of Zechariah, which we have seen, his lack of faith, which is a sin, was clearly the scriptural reason given for him losing his speech temporarily. In case you missed the sermon from several weeks ago, when we learned about Zechariah, let me give a summary.
Zechariah was a priest. He was advanced in years. Scripture says he was a righteous man. Remember that when scripture says someone is righteous or blameless, unless it is about Jesus, it does not mean perfectly sinless. Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth were both righteous, walking blamelessly. And they had no child, Elizabeth was barren.
Zechariah was a priest, and was serving in the temple when he had an encounter with the angel Gabriel. This angel told him that he and Elizabeth would have a son, and name him John, who would be great before the Lord, and filled with the Holy Spirit from the womb Luke1.16-17
And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God,
and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.”
But then Zechariah questioned the angel. How shall I know this? His answer was this: Luke 1:19-20
And the angel answered him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news.
And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.”
Now we move forward in the text to our main passage for today, and we find out the answer to our question, at least in Zechariah’s case, what would a man say who could suddenly speak again.
I wonder what uncle Lawrence would have said. Think of all the things he had wanted to say, how he had tears in his eyes from his inability to speak. What would he have said, if suddenly he had been able to speak again? And sadly, this did not happen.
But scripture does record for us what Zechariah said. And now we will see what this righteous man said, when he was first able to speak after 9 months of silence. It is the eight day after the birth of John, and last week we learned about the naming, and we will go back and re-read last week’s passage for the full context:
Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son.
And her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her.
And on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child. And they would have called him Zechariah after his father,
but his mother answered, “No; he shall be called John.”
And they said to her, “None of your relatives is called by this name.”
And they made signs to his father, inquiring what he wanted him to be called.
And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And they all wondered.
And immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, blessing God.
And fear came on all their neighbors. And all these things were talked about through all the hill country of Judea,
and all who heard them laid them up in their hearts, saying, “What then will this child be?” For the hand of the Lord was with him.
And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying,
“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people
and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David,
as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,
that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us;
to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant,
the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us
that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear,
in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins,
because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
And the child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance to Israel.
Now Zechariah speaks. Many refer to this as a song. In fact, there are 4 of what are referred to as songs in the entire account of the birth stories of John the Baptist and Jesus. A few weeks ago we looked at the Magnificat, which is latin for “My soul magnified the Lord”, this was Mary’s song, and today we look at the Benedictus, which means praise be, or blessed be. This is Zechariah’s song. But really it is more than a song, it is prophetic: Luke1.67
And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying,
Now, from this verse we can see once again the importance that Luke gives in his writings to the role of the Holy Spirit in these things. Before Jesus came, the Holy Spirit is only mentioned as having a role from time to time in history. But now believers, those who have put saving faith in Jesus for eternal life, have the Holy Spirit always, as a Helper. Jesus promised this, so we know it is true. And one of the roles of the Holy Spirit is to bring to rememberance things that have been taught regarding Jesus. Jesus said this about the ministry of the Holy Spirit. John14.26-27
But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.
Now, the reason I bring this up is because of what Zechariah is about to say. You see, in these verses of Zechariah’s prophecy, we see in verse 67 that he was filled with the Holy Spirit and that he prophesied. This means he was empowered to say these things by God himself. Remember the Holy Spirit is God just as Jesus is God and the Father is God. So Zechariah is being directly empowered by God to say these things.
Now, God is perfectly capable of putting words into the mouth of Zechariah and making him speak exactly what God wants him to say. However, it seems to me that when God uses someone like Zechariah, he is not simply making him a robot to recite something. Rather, the Spirit is enabling him to recall things he already knows and put them together in a meaningful way. Jesus said the Helper would teach you all things and bring to remembrance all that He had said to his disciples.
That seem to be how it works. Before he was stoned to death, Stephen gave a sermon, a proclamation. This is recorded in Acts 7. I recommend it to you for reading, for it gives us clues as to how the Holy Spirit works through believers. So Stephen is on trial so to speak, and he begins to preach. And he was filled with the Holy Spirit, and he recalls many things about Jewish history, the teachings of scripture, and so forth, to the point where his preaching of the truth about Jesus angers the Jewish leaders and they killed him.
Whenever I read Acts 7, I have to ask myself, did Stephen speak all of those things about the gospel having never heard them? Certainly not! He had learned all of those things. And the Holy Spirit empowered him to use the scriptures he knew in his speech or sermon.
And likewise, Zechariah’s song, the Benedictus, is full of scriptural allusions. Some scholars have found as many as 33 possible Old Testament references in this short recitation. I have a point to saying all this about the Holy Spirit and how people are typically empowered to remember and say the things that need to be said.
The normal course of the Holy Spirit empowering someone in the New Testament to speak is to use things that the person had already known. In other words, what you have learned is what the Spirit helps you recall, so if you want to be ready to give someone an answer for the hope you have, then you had better know scripture well so that the Holy Spirit can use you and empower you.
Would it make sense if Stephen had never known anything he said before that moment, and suddenly was saying things he never knew? How about Zechariah? Or any others among those who preached in the New Testament? Could Paul have preached so brilliantly at the Areopogus if he had not been so well versed in the Scriptures and taught about the gospel from Jesus himself?
The answer is no, the Holy Spirit empowered those people and used the knowledge they had learned already to great effect. So why is it that so many people think that they don’t need to spend time learning the bible, since they have the Holy Spirit? There have been, through all of church history, those who are called mystics in the Christian faith. They go not to scripture first, but they believe that all they need is the Holy Spirit. But how can they test the spirits, as Paul instructs the church, if they do not test it against scripture? What is the standard to test all things through if not the Bible itself?
And so many heretical cults have resulted from this attitude, that really the scripture is secondary in importance to the Bible, and we can listen to so-called modern day prophets and depend upon them to tell us things, cults such as Mormonism, and Adventists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses, all believe that something newer than the Bible can instruct them.
The Holy Spirit indeed is active in the church, but not in the way they would say, where they have prophets whose teachings are opposed to the Bible, but rather the Holy Spirit works just as Jesus said, to help believers remember the truths they were taught, and all of this must be constantly subjected to the scrutiny of scripture. And that includes anything you hear from this pulpit.
You should check whatever is preached here against scripture. If something is not in accord with scripture, throw it out, and if I speak anything against scripture, throw me out! But how can you know if what the preacher preaches is true, unless you look to scripture yourself? And how will you be able to share the faith with others if you have not grounded yourself in the scriptures so that you can enjoy the blessing of the Holy Spirit reminding you of what you have learned?
So Zechariah, filled with the Holy Spirit, draws on all his knowledge of scripture, and all his passion, and all of his observances of what has happened in the past 9 months, and all of his pondering as he worked out the message of Gabriel in light of the scriptures, and out of his mouth, when it was loosed after nine months of silence, pours out blessings to God.
“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people
and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David,
Now, if you care about the grammar at all, the scholars say that Zechariah is speaking in what is called the prophetic past tense. The prophetic past tense. In other words, he is speaking of something currently happening, or about to happen, but saying it as though it has already happened.
Remember, Zechariah has received word directly from God’s messenger, Gabriel, he has had time over 9 months to contemplate all of this in light of the prophecies, no doubt he has been looking over the scrolls to understand better, and now, empowered by the Spirit, he is confidently asserting that what is happening in Israel right now is the fulfillment of all of those prophecies.
The Lord God of Israel is to be blessed because he has visited and redeemed his people. Prophetic past tense. In other words, you can be sure that this has already been determined. It is just a matter of it playing out. He has vistied and redeemed. He has raised up a horn of salvation. The horn represents the strength of an animal. If you see an animal with horns getting ready to attack, you get out of the way. The horn of salvation is terminology that tells us that this salvation is not simply an escape, it is not simply a defensive maneuver, it is a salvation that results from God going on offense against that which holds people in bondage. What holds people in bondage? Sin. Ultimately, it is sin.
However, it also was people groups that were constantly throughout history at war with the Jewish people, and at times even holding them in captivity.
And how could the people be sure that this was going to happen? Luke1.70
as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,
The horn of salvation is the terminology of going to war. God was going to war against sin, against death itself, and against those who were against his people. This had been spoken of by many prophets. Now it would be proven by his son.
Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets,
but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.
What was promised through those prophets? What was God going to do for his people?
that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us;
to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant,
the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us
So God would remember his promised and his covenant to grant us
that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear,
in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
I love the end result. This is the great hope we have as believers. That we, someday, will serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness all of our days. How I long for perfect holiness!
That is one of the things I look forward to the most. I’m not concerned whether I will get to golf in heaven, or whether we will get to visit other planets, or whatever other questions people often come up with, what I look forward to is the perfection God promises to those in Christ, that someday, I will be perfectly holy and perfectly righteous, and will never sin again.
Now Zechariah speaks to the baby John: Luke1.76
And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
Here is the direct link being made between John and the Messiah, or the Christ. He is the one prophesied in Mal3.1
“Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.
John would prepare people to receive the ministry of Jesus. How? Luk1.77
to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins,
John baptized penitent people. He preached to them about sin, and baptized them into repentance. And this was the way he prepared for Jesus.
because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
Jesus in many places is associated with light. Light contrasted to the dark. The sunrise contrasted with the night that is just ending.
And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts,
“I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.”
Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
Jesus was transfigured and the scripture says he was light.
Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.
And finally, to remind ourselves that it is the advent season, let us close with that familiar passage, one of many of those prophecies Zechariah may have considered as he, in his Holy Spirit empowered proclamation, worshiped God at the celebration of the circumcision of his miracle child:
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.
You have multiplied the nation; you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as they are glad when they divide the spoil.
For the yoke of his burden, and the staff for his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian.
For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire.
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.
Indeed, Jesus brings light into a dark world. In our generation his light is still needed. Many around us do not know the light of Christ. They may not even be aware of the danger. They may not realize they are in the dark. So it is, that Jesus has charged his followers to teach the world about his gift.
The world must be told. Who will go? Will we say, as Isaiah did, here I am, send me? Will we take the faith-filled risk of sharing the gospel? Will we depend on the Holy Spirit to empower us to do the work He has called us to?
And yet, how can we expect the Holy Spirit to use us to share the gospel if do not know it well enough to share? How can we expect his empowerment to do this work if we are waiting for him to teach us, but we are unwilling to read the scriptures for ourselves, so that we may share it well with others? How can we expect the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father sends in Jesus’ name, to teach us all things and bring to our remembrance what He has said, if we have not learned what he has said?
You see, we cannot be satisfied that we know a few very basic things about the gospel and then just say, “the Holy Spirit will teach me”. We are to do our part.
God can bring people to salvation with sometimes only a little knowledge. But he charges those in the faith to ever be growing in grace, and this happens through the study and application of His word.
You are called this morning to action. You are either being called to faith in Christ, or, if you are in Christ already, called to a deeper faith and to action in learning more in order that you can share more confidently with others. You are to be zealous for what is good.
Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good?
But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled,
but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,
having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.
For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.