Sermon Tone Analysis

Christmas is a time of memories.

There are important things to remember in life.

Christmas is a season to remember some of those key things.

We will be looking at a different Thing to Remember throughout the Advent season.

Today we will be remembering Hope.

Is there any hope today?

1000 Fresh Illustrations (Illustration 18 > Prayer)

Robert Preston Taylor had reason to pray.

During World War II, he served as a chaplain in battle, participated in the Bataan Death March and spent more than three years in a Japanese prisoner of war camp.When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, they also dropped bombs on Manila, where Taylor was stationed.

He was part of the Bataan Death March, in which only 4000 of the 80,000 that began it, survived.

During the march, the prisoners were forced to walk 55 miles without food or water.In the POW camp, worship, including burial rites were outlawed, but Taylor continued to minister.

When the guards discovered that Taylor was smuggling supplies in to the soldiers they put him in a 4-by-5-foot bamboo cell to live, where he had to compete with the mosquitoes and maggots for space.

They left him there for two months.

Taylor prayed, “Lord, if you still have a purpose for me, let me live.”

On one of the few occasions his captors let him out of the box, he leaned on a bamboo stick to support himself and quoted scripture to the troops.

When he asked the POWs to bow for prayer, the guards threw him back into the box.

Taylor was near death.

For those soldiers, for Taylor, there was no hope.

The Japanese were brutal.

People today may think there is no hope.

The passages for today are from the gospel of Luke.

Open to Luke chapter 1 with me.

We will begin reading in verse 5.

The Setting

Zechariah and Elizabeth

Zechariah - The Lord has remembered

Elizabeth - promise-keeping of God, but barren

Temple as described by Josephus - … wanted nothing that could astound either mind or eye.

For, being covered on all sides with massive plates of gold, the sun was no sooner up than it radiated so fiery a flash that persons straining to look at it were compelled to avert their eyes, as from the solar rays.

To approaching strangers it appeared from a distance like a snow-clad mountain; for all that was not overlaid with gold was of purest white - R. Kent Hughes, Luke: That You May Know the Truth, Preaching the Word (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1998), 19–20.

Zechariah as Priest - 1 of about 8,000, served 2-one-week periods.

56 priests chosen by lot each day.

As he offered the incense, Zechariah was praying

Is there any hope?

Altar of incense and Holy of Holies before Him - God’s presence…?

Left- table of shewbread - God the provider and sustainer of His people

Right - golden candlestick - God the Light and guide of his people

White-washed tombs

Barrenness of his wife’s womb and unanswered prayers… Was there any hope for this nation which looked so good on the outside, but inside was corrupt?

Yet, he prayed…

And then…

There is Hope!

God hears!

Zechariah’s name should have been reminiscent, along with the items before him in the temple.

God hears!

It had been 400 years, but God is at work!

The Hope of a Son

A joy

A Nazirite

Full of the Spirit

Restoring People

Preparing the Way for the Lord!

The Hope of the Lord, the Savior!

Hope Requires Faith

Lack of Faith and Hope Does not Stop God!

The POW’s began a prayer vigil, praying for their Chaplain around the clock for two weeks.

God answered their prayers and Taylor recovered.In a chapel service at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary on November 9, 2000 Brigadier Gen. Jim Spivey, a church history professor, told Taylor’s story to challenge the student body.

He said, “Taylor’s recovery became a symbol of hope throughout the camp.

They saw God answered prayer in the miracle of his recovery, and a revival broke out in that POW camp.”Sometimes

God is honored by keeping His people from suffering.

Other times His is honored by sustaining them in their suffering and inspiring others to greatness because of it.

Remember: There is Hope!