Sermon Tone Analysis

Luke 1:54,55

A Mother’s Song: God is Merciful to Us

 

/And Mary said…/

/“He has helped his servant Israel, /

/remembering to be merciful /

/to Abraham and his descendants forever, /

/   even as he said to our fathers.”/

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od is mindful of us.

God is mighty for us.

God is merciful to us.

These three truths constitute the message of Mary’s song.

That she was worthy of God’s choosing is revealed in her theology.

While we could not hope to compose a systematic theology from that which is revealed concerning Mary’s faith, we do know her views concerning the Lord God.

She saw God as mindful of His people.

The God whom Mary served and worshipped was omniscient; He knew all things.

She glorified a God who is sovereign.

We observed this truth in an previous message.

Her God was omnipotent; He was all mighty.

Likewise, we explored this aspect of Mary’s God in a message delivered earlier.

This God whom Mary magnified in her soul was also a merciful God.

The evidence of His mercy is seen in the fact that He promises to intervene for the sake of His people and in the fact that he has fulfilled His promises.

God Promised Great Things for Israel — Mary spontaneously broke forth in song when Elizabeth praised her obedience to the will of God.

Throughout Christendom many worshippers recall the blessing which Elizabeth pronounced on Mary, but few remember that the blessing was founded upon the fact of Mary’s faith in the promises of God.  /Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished/ are Elizabeth’s joyous words.

This is a point too critical to pass over quickly, for Mary will conclude her own hymn of joy focusing on the impact of one man’s faith.

Mary begins her recitation of divine blessings for the Jewish people by looking to Abraham.

That she should do so is both sensible and appropriate.

Though one could say that perhaps Adam or Seth or Noah would qualify, Abraham was in a very special way the first person to whom God spoke plainly of the rich blessings which would one day come to all the earth.

In saying this I take nothing away from the comforting promise which was pronounced in the even as God cursed the serpent after the Fall.

While cursing the serpent God spoke those words of hope we know as the protoevangelium.

/I will put enmity/

/between you and the woman,/

/and between your offspring and hers;/

/he will crush your head,/

/and you will strike his heel/.

[*Genesis 3:15*]

 

*The seed of the woman* (for that is the literal translation of the Hebrew which is here translated *her* (*offspring*)) could presumably apply to any child born of woman.

Noah was clearly blessed of God and the proof of that blessing is that he was delivered through the flood.

God likewise blessed Noah’s sons, giving them the command to be fruitful and to increase in number, filling the earth [cf.

*Genesis 9:1*].

Tracing the narrowing lineage of the Anointed One of God we see the prophecies concerning Him pass through Abraham; and here is where Mary begins her song

Ishmael was the son born of Hagar, the natural woman and the servant of Sarah.

Abraham loved that Ishmael and begged God to permit Him to be the child of promise through whom a multitude would come.

God, however, rebuked Abraham and pointed out that he himself would sire a son by Sarah and through that son would come great blessings to all mankind.

God called Abraham while he was worshipping pagan gods in Ur.  Abraham obeyed God and journeyed to Canaan where God again made promises to him concerning his seed.

Among the promises which the Lord God made to Abraham was the promise, /To your offspring /[lit.

*seed*]/ I will give this land/ [*Genesis 12:7*].

Later, when his nephew Lot chose to move toward Sodom, Abraham again received the divine promise of a child.

/Lift up your eyes from where you are and look north and south, east and west.

All the land that you see I will give to you and to offspring/ [lit.

*seed*] /forever.

I will make your offspring /[lit.

*seed*]/ like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring /[lit.

*seed*] /could be counted/ [*Genesis** 13:14b-16*].

Later, God again promised Abram that He would give him a child … a child from his own body [*Genesis 15:4*], and from this child would come descendants as numerous as the stars [*Genesis 15:5*].

At this point is a significant truth which is too easily overlooked.

/Abram believed the //Lord//, and He credited it to him as righteousness/ [*Genesis 15:6*].

Literally, *Abram said “Amen” to God*.

God made a covenant with the old man and confirmed the promise.

Yet more years passed and in the natural course of things the promise was impossible to fulfil.

Abram was an old man of almost one hundred years of age, and his wife Sarah was over ninety.

Yet the Lord God promised Abram /your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac.

I will establish My covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him/ [*Genesis 17:19*].

Isaac was born in the course of time and he also enjoyed the blessing of God.

Of his sons, Jacob was chosen by God to continue the blessing.

Fleeing from an enraged brother and travelling to Paddan Aram where he was to take a wife, Jacob dreamed of a stairway to heaven.

At the head of the stairway stood the Lord God addressing the scoundrel Jacob.

/I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac.

I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying.

Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south.

All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.

I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land.

I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you/ [*Genesis** 28:13b-15*].

The promise continued to grow ever more specific, narrowing the focus to Judah.

/The sceptre will not depart from Judah,/

/nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,/

/until he comes to whom it belongs/

/   and the obedience of the nations is his/.

[*Genesis 49:10*]

Balaam, a powerful and notorious prophet for hire was engaged by Balak to curse Israel.

He was divinely kept from performing his occult trickery and kept from pronouncing a curse on the chosen of God.

In fact, though Balaam endeavoured strenuously to curse Israel he repeatedly blessed the people of God until at last he served as God’s prophet.

That prophecy is found in the Book of Numbers.

There the errant prophet foresaw the rise of Messiah from Judah.

His words are an eerie echo of Jacob’s words of prophecy which we just saw moments ago.

/I see him, but not now;/

/I behold him, but not near./

/A star will come out of Jacob;/

/a sceptre will rise out of Israel./

/He will crush the foreheads of Moab,/

/the skulls of all the sons of Sheth./

/Edom will be conquered;/

/Seir, his enemy, will be conquered,/

/but Israel will grow strong./

/A ruler will come out of Jacob/

/and destroy the survivors of the city/.

[*Numbers 24:16*]

 

The plot narrows when David and his descendants revealed as God’s choice to be in the lineage of the Anointed One of Israel.

/The LORD swore an oath to David,/

/a sure oath that he will not revoke:/