Sermon Tone Analysis

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

But then Zechariah questioned the angel.

How shall I know this?

His answer was this: Luke 1:19-20

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 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

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

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.