Please turn in your Bibles again to the book of Luke, and I'll be reading verses 57 through 80. And most of our focus will be on verses 68 through the end of the chapter, which is the Song of Zechariah. Hear God's word. 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. They rejoiced with her, and on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they would have named 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 upon all their neighbors. And all these things were talked about throughout 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 he 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 of our days. And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way. to give knowledge of salvation to his people and 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. Amen. Let us pray. Our Father, that you have visited and redeemed your people. Lord, it is such a great blessing that we might know salvation, that we might know that you have saved us from the hand of our enemies, and especially from the hand of the last great enemy, death itself. Lord, we praise you. And we ask, as we turn to your word, that you would put your word in our hearts, and Lord, that we might see Jesus, and that we might rejoice in the work of Jesus, that we might be saved from our sins, and that we might know peace with God forevermore. In Jesus' name, amen. Now, think about the Jewish people at the time of Jesus' birth. It had been some 400 years since the last prophet came to the people. It had been a silent time from God. And except for a brief and really tumultuous time under the Maccabees, the Jews had been under foreign rule and occupation First they remained under Persian rule for about 150 years after Nehemiah returned to rebuild Jerusalem. And then when Alexander the Great conquered the Persians, they were under the Greeks. And the Greeks set up Greek schools. They desecrated the temple and the altar. They forced Greek ways of thinking and the Greek language. And eventually, the Greeks were conquered by the Romans, and then the Jews were under the rule of the Romans. And at the time of Jesus' birth, they were ruled by Herod, who was an, well, he was from Edom, an Edomite, I guess you would say. And he was essentially a puppet king under the rule of Rome. And the point is, The people longed for the promised Messiah to come and set them free, to restore them to greatness, to banish the rulers that had oppressed them. Luke tells us of one widow, Anna, who was 84, who had not departed from worshiping, fasting, and prayer in the temple, perhaps for some 60 years, waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem. This was the spirit of the age in that place to look for redemption. And, you know, if we go back 1,500 years before Christ, we find another time in Israel's history when the people longed for a Redeemer. to take them out of slavery in Egypt. At that time, God sent Moses to lead the people out of slavery and into the promised land. And it's interesting what the people said when Moses and Aaron came and explained to them that God had spoken to them. God heard their affliction, that God was going to save them. In Exodus 4.29, it says, then Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the people of Israel. Aaron spoke all the words that the Lord had spoken to Moses and did the signs in the sight of the people. And the people believed. And when they heard that the Lord had visited the people of Israel and that he had seen their affliction, they bowed their heads and worshiped. And the key phrase here, the Lord visited his people. It means he came to personally rescue them. He performed miracles. He led the people in the wilderness. He gave them his word on Mount Sinai. When it says he visited his people, it means that he attended to them personally. And this is, God didn't stay at a distance. He didn't say, OK, Pharaoh, zap, and the people are free. No, God came down and personally led them by the pillar of fire and the cloud of smoke. And we go back to Zechariah. Zechariah begins his prophetic song, blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people. Zechariah is telling us that God is there in a personal way. He has seen the affliction of his people. He is personally attending to their great need, their need of salvation from sin, their need of redemption. And amazingly, the Greek word for visited has precisely the same meaning as the Hebrew word for visited in Exodus. It is no casual visit. It is a personal attending to the needs of his people. Something big is happening. bigger than the Exodus, and Zechariah has been given a front row seat. Zechariah was a priest, and this means he was of the tribe of Levi, and specifically he was a descendant of Aaron, the first priest appointed by God. It was the role of the priest to perform the duties of worship in the temple. The priests oversaw the altar of sacrifice. They attended the showbread and the incense in the holy place of the temple. And once a year, the high priest entered in to the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement." It tells us in Luke 1, verse 8, while Zechariah was serving as priest before God. When his division was on duty, according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by lot, that is by chance, to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And this was no little matter, perhaps a once in a lifetime opportunity. Zechariah was to burn the incense. Now the incense represented the people's prayers going up to God, to be heard by God. And this is why in verse 10, it says the whole multitude of the people were outside praying, because this was the very hour when the incense of the prayers of the people was being burned. And we know that Zechariah was clearly praying himself. And we know that he was praying for a child. And we know this because the angel Gabriel appeared to Zechariah. And he said, do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard. And your wife, Elizabeth, will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great before the Lord. and he must not drink wine or strong drink. And he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb. Now that's quite an announcement, that your child will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from the womb. And we see that multiple answers to Zachariah's prayer. Elizabeth will bear a son. The angel has his name, John. The angel tells Zachariah it will be an occasion of great joy. He says, many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great before the Lord. In verse 116, says, and he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. Okay, so this is a special occasion, and this child will be a great child. Gabriel is telling Zechariah, you know the prophecy. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers. Malachi chapter four, verse five and six. And Zachariah, I'm sure knew this prophecy. And so he knew that this was the coming of the one to prepare the way of the Lord. The day of the Lord is here. Redemption has come. Now it's interesting. I don't know how you don't believe an angel, but Zachariah did not believe. And so he was struck dumb until the baby's birth. And so he had, and the scripture indicates that he couldn't hear either. So he lived in silence. And he had nine plus months of silence to consider the angel's words. And what's more is Mary herself came to visit Elizabeth when Elizabeth was six months pregnant. So Zachariah had been through six months of silence. And Mary and Elizabeth, I'm sure, compared notes. And she stayed in Zachariah's home. So he knew, he knew this was the time of the coming of the Lord. that God had blessed Mary to give birth to the Messiah. Now, eventually, John was born. And it tells us in verse 59, on the eighth day, they came to circumcise the child, and they would have called him Zachariah after his father. But his mother answered, no, he shall be called John. And what does the father have to say? His name is John. And immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, blessing God. And it says that Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit. In other words, whatever Zechariah is about to speak is God's words, inspired through the Holy Spirit. And this brings us to Zachariah's inspired song. And I want to consider this briefly in three points. The purpose for which God visited his people. And remember visited is a very special word. The means by which God would accomplish his purpose. and the results of God accomplishing his purpose. And so firstly, we consider God's purpose. And we look at verse 68. 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. God visited and redeemed his people. You know, redeemed is one of the beautiful themes in scripture. On the surface, the idea of redemption is to make a purchase. But in scripture, the idea is to buy back out of destruction. And thus, it can be translated ransom. To be ransomed is to be saved out of destruction. All people were brought into sin and misery by Adam's sin. Romans 5.12, therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, So death spread to all men because all sinned. And so we must not pretend that sin is anything less than complete destruction. Death spread to all men through sin. And we can't undo sin. We can't just do a little better this week, or even a lot better, and erase the guilt and the corruption that sin wrecks on the human soul. You know, it's not too hard to look around and see the consequences of sin. Murder, broken relationships, enmity, strife, neglect, loneliness, malice. Sin wrecks the human soul. And thereby, sin wrecks the purpose for which God created the human soul. Romans 3.10. None is righteous, no, not one. No one understands, no one seeks for God. All have turned aside, together they have become worthless. You know, I've probably read those verses, well, probably hundreds of times. And I probably need to read them hundreds more. That it might sink in to my heart, that by sin I have become worthless. Not a little less valuable, but completely without worth. Now I have a question. Did God see my worthlessness? Absolutely he did. But the second question is, but is he going to leave you and me in our worthless condition? And the answer is absolutely not. The very birth of the Messiah to come would mean that God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. As we have observed, You know, it's not that we can give anything to God. It's not that we can come and say, okay, God, I'm going to give myself to you. I'm going to obey. I'm going to be a better person. I'm going to live like a Christian. We can't give anything to God. But God gave everything to us. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. In other words, God gave an infinite, a gift of infinite price to redeem what was worthless. God visited his people. In Exodus, God saved his people from temporal slavery. but here in the coming of Christ, God would redeem his people to eternal freedom from the slavery to sin and death. And so this is redeemed. Redeemed is to be rescued from absolute desolation in order to belong to the one true and living God. You know, I love the way Corrie Ten Boom says it. She says, We live as beggars, but we are king's children. And that's true. Psalm 44, verse 26. Rise up, come to our help, redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love. This is the psalmist's prayer and our prayer. Back to verse 68. Luke 1, verse 68. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people. Two very significant words. And has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant, David. Now, I have to ask, what does it mean that God raised up a horn of salvation? There is some disagreement on this. I think it's very clear what God is saying. God instructed that the altar of sacrifice in the temple be fitted with horns. Horns on the four corners. And for every sacrifice, and you can read through Leviticus, the priest sprinkled some of the blood on the horns of the altar. This is where the justice of God's judgment took place, on the horns of the altar. The blood of death, of the sacrifice of an animal was required because sin requires death. You know, you may remember in the time of King David, David's son, Adonijah, tried to steal the kingdom from Solomon, who was the right, rightly deserved the throne. And when he was, well, when it was found out, he went to the altar and he grabbed onto the horns of the altar. And he said, I want, I'm not going to let go until Solomon says he won't take my life. You see, Adonijah went to the horns of the altar to seek protection, to seek justice. Now, it didn't work for him. He was a traitor. And so he died right there. And this leads me to another question. Do we want justice from God? You know, I've often heard, don't ask God for justice, ask God for mercy. Well, we need to be a little careful here. It is absolute mercy that God gave Jesus to die in our place, to take the penalty for our sin, to cleanse us white as snow, to give us the righteousness of Christ, But it is justice we receive in God's final judgment. Hebrews 9.27, it is appointed for man once to die. And after that comes the judgment. In this judgment, we will receive only justice. And by God's grace, justice will demand will demand that we be acquitted of all guilt, of all sin, of all charges, because we will have the righteousness of Christ. Salvation must be by absolute justice. At the judgment, all who belong to Jesus by faith will be covered by the blood of the Lamb, and that blood will declare that the penalty has been paid and Christ's righteousness imputed. You know, I first came to really understand this, that we must face judgment, I'm sorry, face justice in judgment and only justice in the works of Horatius Bonar. He writes, hear the word of the Lord concerning this, finished work. Christ died for our sins. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many. He gave himself for us. He was delivered for our offense. He gave himself for our sins. Christ died for the ungodly. He hath appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And we just read about that in Hebrews. Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh. Christ has suffered for sins, the just for the unjust. His own self, in his own self, he bore our sins on the tree. You see, Horatius Boner writes, these expressions speak of something more than love. Love is in each of them, the deep true love of God, but also justice and holiness, inflexible, inexorable adherence to God's law. All of these statements have no meaning apart from law. Law is the foundation, the pillar, the keystone of the universe. But their connection with law is also their connection with love. For as it was law in its unchangeable perfection that constituted the necessity for the surety's death, So it was also necessity that drew out the surety's love, that is, Jesus, and gave also glorious proof of his love who made him to be sin for us. And so, you see, the horn of salvation is God's absolute justice in the heavenly places where the blood of Christ is sprinkled for the complete remission of all our sins. Yes, praise God for His mercy, His mercy in sending Jesus Christ. But we must demand not mercy, but absolute justice, which in Christ yields an absolute acquittal and thereby eternal life. This is the heart of the gospel, that God has raised up for us a horn of salvation. The very place where God's wrath is carried out on sin is the very place where we are eternally acquitted and welcomed into his presence. This is the purpose of God. This is the purpose that Zachariah set forth at the very beginning of his song. And so secondly, we consider the means by which God will accomplish his purpose of redemption. In verse 72, it says, to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant. So that is for God to show the mercy promised to our fathers. The oath that he swore to our father Abraham And then down in verse 76, Zechariah speaking of his son John. And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way, 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. God has never left his people lost and on their own. He is continuously given his covenant promises so that his people might know that they are never alone. God will never leave or forsake those whom he loves. And he assures us with his covenant promises. You know, I said a moment ago that in judgment we must receive only justice. But in God's love, we receive his tender mercy. Where does salvation come from? It comes from God's tender mercy. That is his compassion, whereby he will not leave sinners to the consequences of their sin. Salvation is rooted in mercy, by which, you know, it's some amazing pictures of God's mercy. He will wipe away every tear from our eyes. We are saved by God's mercy, whereby the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit counseled together to provide salvation through God the Son. God the Son taking on human flesh, and even in a very humble condition, in a humble place. Micah 5.2, but you, O Bethlehem Ephraith, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler. in Israel. So what would cause God the Creator to humble himself to such lowly conditions? Well, his steadfast love and his tender mercy. In Hosea, the Lord laments the trials of judgment that his people must go through. Hosea 11.8, God laments. How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Adamah? How can I treat you like Zebulun? My heart recoils within me. My compassion grows warm and tender. God knows that his people must go through judgment. and yet his heart is full of compassion. And you can sense the motivation of love in God's heart. You know, in Exodus 33, 19, God says, I will make all my goodness pass before Moses and will proclaim before you my name, the Lord. And I, and I'm, If you look in your Bible, I'm going to change the translation slightly here. In the ESV it says, and I will be gracious, with whom I will be gracious. And I have changed that to I am gracious. In other words, that first verb, to be gracious, is a perfect, complete verb. I am gracious to those with whom I will be. And there the verb is an imperfect, meaning it's something that God will accomplish at some point in the future. I am gracious to those whom I will be gracious. You know, when I read that verse, well, lots of times for most of my life, it almost sounded arbitrary. Well, I'll be gracious to whoever I'll be gracious to. But that's not the intent of this verse. The intent of this verse is to communicate intentionality to those whom God will be gracious. He is gracious. He has a specific plan, a specific purpose to be gracious. It's intentional. It's not arbitrary. And the same thing with the next clause. I show, not I will show, I show mercy, with whom I will show mercy. Those to whom God will show mercy, He shows His mercy. God accomplishes His purpose, motivated by His great mercy, whereby He provides forgiveness of sins through a Redeemer, pay the terrible price of death in the place of we who are rebellious, sinful people. Now, finally, I want to consider the end result of God accomplishing His purpose, and the end result is peace. Verse 79, Zechariah continues, 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 that is the end of the gospel. Peace with God. You know, there was a time when God was leading his people out of Egypt, and he was, well, he was up on Mount Sinai for 40 days, and the people of Israel despaired. They made a golden calf, and they worshiped that golden calf, and they said, this is the God who brought us out of Egypt. Didn't make God very happy. And God came down and he told Moses, I'll tell you what, here's the plan. I'm gonna send you up to the promised land and I'm gonna send my angel with you, but I must not go up in the very midst of you lest I destroy you. And Moses pleads with God that he might and the people might receive grace. In other words, Moses is saying, you know, to go up and have the promised land, but not have you with us, that's nothing. And that's true for us. Even if we were to have paradise and yet not have God, we would have nothing. And yet, To have God is to have everything. In other words, God is going to take us to himself. He is going to take us with him into paradise. He will dwell among us. He will be our God and we will be his people. God does not operate from a distance. God visited his people to provide redemption. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God. You see, this ties back in the very reason why we must receive only absolute justice in judgment. Our conscience is clear. The price has been paid. There's not sin left hanging around someplace. It's gone. Jesus paid the price once for all. There is no sin, no guilt, no shame left. And therefore, God will dwell with us. He's not gonna send us to paradise. He's gonna take us there personally. God visits his people. in their need. Verse 74, that we being delivered from the hand of our enemies might serve him, and here's the key phrase, without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. It is because of justice that we can serve the Lord without fear, with clear hearts, in holiness and righteousness. It tells us that our justification, our peace with God can never be disturbed. It is permanent. Let me just conclude with this. You know, I think about John the Baptist. His father was Zechariah, who heard all these things, who knew all these things, who said this prophecy. You know, I can picture the talks between father and son. As Zacharias says, you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare His way, excuse me, to give knowledge of salvation to His people and the forgiveness of their sins. And this is where I learned that John the Baptist's message was one of grace. For he was sent to give knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of sins to God's people. Repent. Why? Because the kingdom of God is at hand. And that means the king is at hand. And that means the day of forgiveness by a merciful God is here. Now the final question is this. Has this knowledge come to you? Has the gospel penetrated your heart so that you might have peace with God forevermore and thereby have peace with your neighbor and thereby serve the Lord without fear? This is the gospel. This is God's purpose. The means of completing his purpose through a redeemer in the end is peace with God. Amen. Let us pray. Our Father, Lord, it is a blessing that you have visited us personally, that you attend to your people, that you redeem your people, that you paid the terrible price to pull us out of destruction, that we might belong to you for all eternity. In Jesus' name, amen. And all God's people said, Amen.