Hello and welcome to our broadcast. We begin a new series today in the book of Luke. Lessons from Luke. Be sure and have your Bible ready if you can. The New Testament begins with what we call the four Gospels, that is, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Most of us could write a little bit about what we know about Matthew. We could write a little bit about what we know about John. But when it comes to Mark and Luke, I think that many of us would have a problem coming up with writing a page full of information about either one of those men. We're going to begin a series today concerning the book of Luke. It's a very interesting book. He has 50% more details in his book than any of the other three Gospels. He mentions 13 women in the book of Luke that are not mentioned in the other Gospels. There's more miracles than any of the other three. The events of Christ in his life, there are 29 things mentioned by Luke that are not in the other three Gospels. It is the longest of the four. It has 24 chapters. Paul the Apostle and Luke both wrote about one-third of the New Testament, and yet we could write essays on Paul, little is said about the man called Luke. Luke never mentions his own name. He was obviously a very humble person. And what he wrote covers a period of 60 years of history. And of course, history is his story, not Luke's story, but the Lord's story. The focus is all on Jesus Christ, and that is what the theme is on the book of Luke. The first four verses give us an introduction to the book, and it says, "...for as much as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us." He wants to talk about the things that they believed, even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word. So, Luke is saying, we were there, we saw the things that happened. And so, in verse three he says, it seemed good to me also, having had a perfect understanding, or complete understanding, of all things, from the very first, to write unto thee, most excellent Theopolis. Now, there's been much discussion about who Theopolis was, You'll find his name only mentioned one other time, and that is that you start the Book of Acts, and of course, Luke wrote the Book of Acts. The word Theopolis means friend of God, so if you're a friend of God, this book is for you. Now number four, it says that thou mightest know the certainty of those things wherein thou hast been instructed. And so it was important to Luke that we would understand that the things that we have been instructed in, that we would know the certainty of those things. Now the purpose of the book of Luke is found in Luke 1 and 77, to give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins. To give knowledge of salvation. Now there's the most important key here. The account begins in verse number five, the story starts, it says, there was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias of the chorus of Abia, and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. Now, the first person mentioned in the story is Herod. Herod was sent there by the Romans as governor of Judea, and he was an Edomite, which of course the Old Testament tells us they had been cursed by God. Well, for political reasons, Herod married a Jewish girl so he could be accepted by the Jews, but sometime later he drowned a high priest who happened to be his wife's brother, and then obviously she'd be a little bit upset about her brother being killed, so he had her put to death, and then he had her mother put to death, which would be his mother-in-law, and then three of her children put to death, of course his sons. The fellow was a maniac. Then, the worst of all things he did was he slaughtered all the children from two years of age and under in an attempt to kill the Christ child. Well, we don't want to spend too much time talking about him. The next person mentioned is Zacharias, and we could spend a long time talking about him. But it says here that he was a certain priest. That's interesting. The word certain, according to the dictionary, is having a complete conviction about something, confident, absolutely certain about something. Now, he was a certain priest. He came from an insignificant place. He's not living in Jerusalem. He's living out in the hill country. He's not going to be considered a big-shot priest. It's interesting, at that time there was 18,000 priests. in Israel, and in verse number five and six, out of all of the things that were happening, and all of the people that were making it happen, there was only a small remnant who really knew what was going on. Verse five says, there was in those days, there was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zechariah of the course of Baal, and his wife was the daughters, was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth, and they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, blameless." They're a very important young couple here. remnant, part of the remnant, part of the people who knew what was going on. Most of the people didn't have any idea what was going on. Well, here we have Zacharias. He has a wife named Elizabeth. Now, she is mentioned in seven verses in the New Testament, and all of them are in the book of Luke, and all of them are here in Luke chapter 1, verse 5. She's mentioned as one of the daughters of Aaron, That was a priest, so she was a daughter of a priest. In verse 7, it says, Elizabeth was barren. And then in verse 13, Zacharias was told that Elizabeth shall bear thee a son. Verse 24, Elizabeth conceived. We find out in verse number 36 that she is Mary's cousin, Mary, the mother of Jesus. And then in verse 40, Mary went to visit Elizabeth. And we read in Luke 1 and 41, Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost. We have here two, what would be considered at that time, insignificant people. To be insignificant is to be too small or unimportant to be worthy of consideration. We had a lot of churches like that today, that they're just insignificant. They're considered to be too small or unimportant to be worthy of consideration. Well, it's interesting when this whole story begins here in the book of Luke, the Lord uses somebody that is insignificant. but they were not insignificant in the eyes of God. They were part of a very small remnant in Israel at that time in the age of apostasy who knew what was going on as far as spiritual things were concerned. Very few people did, very few people do today. Verse six, it says they were both righteous, that is, they were doing what was right before God. Second, it says they were walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. A commandment is what we're supposed to do, an ordinance is how we're supposed to do it, and being blameless is simply not being accused of doing something that is wrong. Well, we have these two seemingly insignificant people, and verse 7 tells us they had no child. because Elizabeth was barren and they were now well stricken in years. They had no child. Now for a woman in Israel, that was a stigma. Rachel, you remember, she said, give me children or I die. Hannah, she was also barren. Well, they both prayed, and the answer to their prayer was not no, it was not now. And we need to just realize that God is never late, but he's never in a hurry. He's going to do what he's going to do when it will glorify God. Well, the story begins here in verse number eight, and it says, it came to pass that while he, that is Zacharias, executed the priest's office, before God in the order of his course, according to the custom of the priest's office, his lot was to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord. Now, a lot of information here. came to pass while he executed the priest's office. We mentioned already that there was 18,000 priests in Israel at that time, and they would get to serve in Jerusalem two weeks in a year. Well, his term came around here, and he was no doubt quite excited that he was gonna be able to go and do this, The Bible says he executed his office in the order of his course. And then it says, according to the custom of the priest's office, his lot was to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord. Now, they chose this out of 18,000 priests who would go in and actually burn incense in the Holy of Holies here, This was done by lot, and your chances of getting to do this were usually pretty slim at 18,000. Well, nothing happens by chance with God, and so it was His lot to go in there and to burn incense. And so now we find him in Jerusalem. He's come in from the hill country. No doubt he is feeling pretty intimidated as he goes through this situation. And in verse 10, the focus turns to the multitude. It says, the whole multitude of the people we're praying without at the time of incense. Now here we have the multitudes going through the motions, but you need to understand that God has not spoken to his people for 400 years. We have 400 years of silence. between the last book of the Old Testament, which is Malachi, and what we're reading about here. And so, the multitudes are going through the motions, but as we mentioned, God has a remnant, and they're very, very few, but they're there. And the Bible says in verse 11, and there appeared unto him, that is Zacharias, an angel of the Lord, standing on the right side of the altar of incense. All of a sudden, now again, Zacharias would have been somewhat nervous about what he's doing here, but all of a sudden, after 400 years of silence, there appeared unto him an angel of the Lord." Interesting! An insignificant priest from the hill country, not one of the big shots in Jerusalem, and there, after 400 years, an angel appeared unto him on the right side of the altar of incense. Well, I don't know what that would do for you, but I know what it would do for me, and I know what it did for Zacharias. We find him out of his comfort zone. It says here in verse 12 and 13, and when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled. and fear fell upon him. But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias, for thy prayers heard, and thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John. Now after all these years, 400 years, he gets to talk to this angel, and the angel talks to him, and he says, you're gonna have a son. Now, it says he was troubled, verse 12. It says, fear fell upon him. Then in verse 13, the angel said unto him, fear not, Zacharias, thy prayer is heard. Now, what does mean troubled and fear? Those are unpleasant emotions. And it's interesting that that word fear is used 18 times in the book of Luke. We'll look at it as we go through those different verses. And so, he says, thy prayer is heard. Now, he has been praying for Elizabeth that she would have a son. There's an impossible situation here. They're both old, they are past the time of having children, and it is to this faithful leader from the hill country that the angel appears after 400 years and says, your prayer is heard. Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John. Well, let's get back to the fact that he's having an unpleasant emotion, and I think I would too. However, let's not be too hard on him. Gideon had that situation, Isaiah, and Ezekiel, and Daniel, and John in the book of Revelation, they all stood in fear. In fact, it says in Revelation that John fell on his face as a dead man when he stood before God. And keep in mind that John had been with Jesus just prior to that, and now here's Zacharias. He hasn't heard anything from anybody in heaven for 400 years, yet there he is, faithfully doing what he is supposed to be doing. Well, We change from these unpleasant emotions to pleasant emotions. It says here that the angel says, thou shalt have joy and gladness and many shall rejoice at his birth. Well, we're going to pick it up here in our next broadcast. And we will also have a look in our next broadcast at some lessons that we can learn. These things happened unto them, the Bible says, and are written for our admonition. So we will try to keep up with lessons from Luke as we go through this book. Be sure and tune in for our next program.