Today on Growing Through Grace. Now we live in a world like many in Zacharias' day that they scoffed. Zacharias was no longer in their company, but now he was convinced of what God had promised. And he's got a little John DeVactus in his arm, J.B. I love growing in your grace. You are your end on me. And all that I do want, love will keep me strong. I love being in your grace. You're listening to Growing Through Grace with Pastor Jack Abilon of Morning Star Christian Chapel in Whittier, California. It's good to have you with us, and we appreciate you tuning in. We'll get back to our study in Luke 1 verses 57 through 80, as Pastor Jack finishes up the account of the birth of John the Baptist. Our teacher will then move on to Luke chapter 2, as we move on to the glorious, long-awaited birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Here's Pastor Jack with our next installment. In Genesis 22, so Abraham was 125 years old. God repeats that promise to him when he was willing to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. And by now, young Abraham has grown into a man of tremendous faith, even believing if he had to offer his son to the Lord, who had no children, and God made this promise of having kids that God would have to raise him from the dead. But one thing for sure, God couldn't fail, because God said so. And so, God spoke to them in Genesis 22, and he said, "I'm going to bless you and multiply you and your descendants, like the stars of the heaven, the sands of the sea, and your descendants will possess the gates of your enemies. And you, all of the nation of the world, will be blessed because you have obeyed my voice." And God made that promise again and again to Abraham that he could rely upon the Lord. God is always eager to encourage our faith. If you watch Abraham's progression, it started kind of slow, to kind of come out of the land so quickly, diverted, and got there finally 75 years old. So I guess it would be 50 years between the first promise in Genesis 12 and the second one in 22. After all, God had initiated with Abraham, it always starts with him. But with each passing day, at least for the people of John the Baptist's day, I think the people were losing hope. They hadn't heard from the Lord in centuries. The promise of a Messiah seemed to be, you know, more isolated than ever. But I'll tell you, one guy who began to believe it again was Zachariah's. Nine months of, you can't speak, visit of an angel, the miracle that he was watching before his eyes. And he now opens his mouth and he says, you've made these promises through the prophets. Since the world began, he promised to deliver us from our enemies and to be gracious and to remember you're covenant and the oath that you've made to Abraham. You've done everything you're going to, you've set. And he just, he's at rest. He's at rest. He believes in them. So, hey, we're living in the last days. Church is running around going, Jesus is coming. You look around and go, where is he? Well, I don't know. But he's coming. And the way it looks these days, it seems to be shortly. I don't know if you know this, at least from a biblical standpoint, but there is no one Bible verse that needs to be fulfilled before the Lord can return. Nothing. There's nothing that you'd say, well, the Lord, you know, maybe after these things were taken place, no, everything is done. Everything that needed to be in there is done except for his coming. So, now we live in a world like many in Zacharias' day that they scoff. You know, second Peter writes about the scoffers and those days of the Lord's coming. Zacharias was no longer in their company. He might have joined them before. But now he was convinced about God had promised him. And he's got little John the Baptist in his arms, J.B. But he is convinced now that Lord's promises is something that he can count, which is when Paul wrote to chapter 10 of the Reheapers and said, let's hold fast the confession of our faith without wavering. He is faithful to promise. If you could leave here this morning, just convince that that Bible in your hand can be counted upon. You'll do fine. You really will. God can be counted upon. So often we speak of his return. We're not so eager about it because somehow it just kind of gets pushed to the back of our minds. I know when I was a young Christian that's all we talked about. Maybe today. Maybe today. And then you got tired of maybe today. Maybe this year. Maybe in my lifetime. Well, I don't know when he's coming, but I tell you what, Zacharias was ready. God had promised. He says as he goes on in verse 74, to grant us that we, being delivered from the Hanabram means might serve him without fear and holiness and righteousness before him all of the days of our life. This deliverance from our enemies is real. Imagine coming to the Lord and now being able to live your life without a fear and knowing that God is going to give you victory and make you holy. The word holy just means singularly devoted, if you will. His name is on your cup. Your His cup. And righteous. That which God accepts. Sometimes we hear from folks that they go, "Oh, we love the Lord." And then you look at their lifestyle and go, "Really?" Because a person that loves the Lord shouldn't live that way. But, you know, that's not my call. That's beyond me. I can't see their hearts. God sees the heart. But I do know this, when the Lord moves into your heart, he'll change you and enable you to serve him. And in your life will be different than it was. Love me, as I've loved you, abide in my life. Don't grow weary and well doing. You'll see him, you'll reap if you don't think. Just, he's coming. We're right. We're looking for him. Truly, those that are saved from their enemies will serve the Lord and that look back. I remember those folks in John 6 when Peter and the boys and there was a ton of people following Jesus. And they didn't like what he had to say. They quit. "I can't buy this." And Jesus had to Peter or to the disciples. "You all want to believe too?" I don't know if he said, "Y'all, I'm pretty sure." I'm not sure what that is. Well anyway, are you leaving too? And it was Peter who said, "Lord, where can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We're with you all the way from this day forth." In the Old Testament, serving the Lord could be provoked by fear. I mean, think about it. The high priest went into the holy of holies with a rope around his legs. And Bill bells around his waist because he was going into God's presence just once a year, shaking. Sometimes maybe his heart was wrong, he died. There's no more bells. You got to pull them out and send in the assistant high priest, I guess. No, not me. They walked the earth open up and eat the centers of the Lord's ways. They watched people struck with leprosy. Some died suddenly. No man. I'll get in line just to serve the Lord out of fear. But now, look, God's forgiveness through his son removes the anxious fear. And his love produces the commit. It's his love which draws us in. And so we read here that the Lord has delivered us so we could serve him without fear. Verse 76. And now we turn to John the Baptist. And you, child, will be called a prophet of the most highest or of the highest. And you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways and to give knowledge of salvation to his people. By the remission of their sin. So, Jesus is the preeminent one, but John's birth will have actually little significance above everyone else's work. Not the fact that he was tied to this calling that God had given him. And he is called a prophet of the Lord here. He's the last Old Testament prophet. He goes before the Lord to prepare his ways. Jesus is called here, by the way, the Lord. Notice, he goes before the Lord. So, before the highest. Jesus is called the Lord. And John's message was pretty simple. Get ready. The Lord is coming. Gabriel had told Zacharias what his son's future would be. And notice, Zacharias is all in now. He believes everything he hears. Verse 77 says to give knowledge of salvation to his people. And that knowledge is that they will be saved through the forgiveness or through the remission of their sins. John had one message. Here's the message, repent. Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. John baptized people with a baptism of repentance. John literally did this. There's a Savior coming. You have to be ready to meet him by acknowledging that you're a sinner. So, even when Paul showed up in Ephesus in Acts chapter 19, years later, he ran into some believers. And he said, you know, as they began to talk, what baptism are you aware of? And they said, well, we were baptized of John's baptism. And Paul said to them, John was baptizing with a baptism of repentance, telling the people they should believe on him that was to come, whose name is Jesus Christ. We're told in Luke, I think it's chapter 7, we'll get there eventually. Where the people gathered to John's baptism, and we read all the people listen to him. Even the tax collectors, they justified God being baptized by John, but it was the Pharisees and the lawyers who rejected the will of God for themselves. And they refused to be baptized. They refused to repent. They refused to acknowledge their sin. So, here is the ministry of John. You're going to go tell people that they could find salvation with God and they're forgiven of their sin by turning their hearts and their faith to Jesus Christ. That's going to be the call. And when Jesus showed up on the scene, John pointed him out, and he said to his disciples, you better just follow Jesus now, because I have to decrease and he has to increase. Notice in verse 77, salvation is the forgiveness of sins provided through the work of Christ, the one who is coming, can't work your way into heaven, this was a gift. Turning back to Jesus' work to end, he says in verse 78, "Through the tender mercies of our God, with which the day's spring come on high has visited us to give us light to those sitting in darkness in the shadow of death to guide our feet into the ways of peace." Salvation by God's mercy, the day's spring. It's a word for the rising of the sun. Sometimes the dawn, Jesus being the light that springs up to those who are sitting in darkness and death and unbelief, to give them the ways of peace. Now, one of the angels were so excited to tell the shepherds the way of peace had come. Things that belong to your peace. When Jesus walked over the city of Jerusalem, he said, "You know, in this your day, the things that belong to your peace were given to you, but your eyes have been hidden from your eyes because of really you and those. God wanted to bring peace. God still wants to give people peace." We read in verse 80 that the child, John the Baptist, then grew and became strong in spirit, went out to the desert until the day of his manifestation to his. John would spend the next 30 years out of the limelight being prepared for a very short ministry reign. Paul would spend years out of the limelight when we have forgotten saved, preparing for the work that God planned for him to do. Moses would spend 40 years out of the Midian wilderness just waiting for the Lord to do something with him. Maybe God's had you out there for a while so that you'd be convinced of who he is. And I don't doubt that by the time John the Baptist ministry began, both of his parents were dead. They were already old to begin with. Now we have 30 more years of their life. So John grew up in the wilderness. His ministry was in the wilderness along the Jordan down by the Dead Sea. He will begin his ministry in chapter 3, verse 2. And he wouldn't have to wait long for the nation to come flocking to him and the word was out, the Messiah was coming. But look like I said, he's so diligent in setting the stage so that next we'll finally at least get to the fact that Jesus is born. And why are we reading all this? Chapter 1 verse 4. So that we can have our faith strengthened and we can believe in the Lord. There's a great verse in Psalm 22 verse 21 and it says that I may make known to you the certainty of God's word of truth so that you may answer with a word of truth or those who would be sent to you. In other words, God wants you to be certain of his word so when you talk to others you can just with great confidence say this is what the Lord has said. It's kind of what keeps us going, isn't it? It's why we're not talking politics from the public. We want you to be sure of the certainty of God's word. Chapter 2 verse 1, we continue with Luke. And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all of the world should be registered. And this census first took place while Chironius was governing Syria. You read these words and it came to pass in those days. Well, in those days, first century, Jesus' birth time, Rome ruled the world with an iron fist. In fact, the temple of Janis, who was the Roman god of war, they'd shut it down because there was no war anywhere. There was peace throughout the land. Well, peace, if you like, that kind of forced subjugation. Over 50% of the population of the world were slaves into the Roman Empire. It was a tremendously oppressive time. Politically, Rome's tyranny had caused great suffering. If you oppose them, it wouldn't be unheard of for you to be just put to death without kind of an appeal. It was a horrible, wicked ruler time, all of the military despots that kind of flexed their muscles to the herd of everyone in their path. From a Jewish standpoint, it was a time of great despair because the temple itself, the place where you were to go meet with the Lord and offer atonement for your sins if you will. The sacrifices were being run by Sadducees, who didn't even believe there was life after death. And the chief priest and all of his family ran that business as a business for the sake of profit. And so it wasn't a good time to be around. And remember, the Lord hadn't spoken to Israel in 400 years. To put that into perspective, the United States is 246 years old. So it had been 400 years since God had even spoken. These were really dark days. So when Luke begins with, it came to pass in those days, those days were not very appealing. It was hard to be God's people in this kind of life. But in those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus. He was the grand nephew to Julius Caesar. His name was Caius Octavius. They called him Octavium in the early historical books. He took the name Caesar just because of his uncle. But he later came up with the name Augustus. Up until this guy's rule, Rome was a republic. It was run by governors or imprimoders. But this guy wanted more power. And so he went to the Roman Senate and he said, "I want to have an empire. I want it to be the Roman Empire." And so they suggested, titled him, and said, "Well, we could call you dictator." And he said, "Yeah, that sounds too temporary." Or then maybe you could be the king. And he said, "No, that doesn't really say it all." And they settled for the word Augustus, which is a Latin word, which means send or summoned by the gods. And it was with his life that the worship of the Caesars as gods began in the culture. So this was not an easy time, if you will, to be alive. In these days, when a man who ruled the world saw himself as ordained by the gods, that he could give an order that would have to be followed worldwide, that he had mastery and power to do so. And he ordered that all of the world should be registered. We are told in verse 2 that this census took place while Chironius was governing Syria. And there were generations that, because of the archeological finds, if you will, that all the critics of the Bible could stand on was to use this verse and to say, "You know, we know that Chironius wasn't a governor until 6AD. We have proof of that historically. This was probably for BC or so. The Bible must be wrong." And they just hammered that away to challenge the faith of believers. About 100 years ago, about 80 years ago, archeological digs in this area discovered that Chironius was a governor twice. And they found coins that he ruled for the first time from 12 BC to 3 BC and then was re-elected back in 6AD. And so, again, the critics were wrong and the Bible is still okay. So go ahead and just read it. It's all right now. Critics. We read here, though, that verse 3, "They all went to be registered everyone to his own city." And so, Joseph, he went up from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth to Judea to the city of David called Bethlehem. He was of the housing of the lineage of David to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with Chiron. One thing for sure, this Roman power was so absolute that even Joseph and Mary in their condition, hers nine months pregnant, could not get out. You know, you couldn't get a pass. You couldn't get out from under this. Joseph was forced to make an unplanned trip, a very arduous journey with a very pregnant espoused wife, forced by one guy in Rome who could have cared less about you or your life. He was just in charge. He had absolute power. And you stand back and you don't see it in the story. In respect that Joseph and Mary may not have fully understood it, but looking back, we say, well, of course this had to happen because the Bible said Jesus had to be born in Bethlehem. And there was no way you're talking a nine-month pregnant woman into traveling from Nazareth to Bethlehem just to make that so. That's 80 miles from Nazareth down to Judea to Bethlehem where David was born. If you go on our trip to Israel, we make this trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem, pretty windy road in a bus in three and a half hours all along the border with Jordan. Mary and Joseph, if they had a donkey, because they were poor, and if they can't travel on the Sabbath and if they make nine or ten miles a day, which would be a lot, would take a week and a half to get here. Imagine you nine months pregnant on the back of a donkey. I can't imagine sitting on the back of a donkey having eaten a burrito. You just don't want to be on the donkey, do you? So this is a horrible deal. I mean, this couldn't be worse, right? It was rough country. If you've been to Israel, you know, there are steep hills that surround Bethlehem. There's lots of rocky kind of outcroppings. Certainly not, you know, advisable in your ninth month. But on the other hand, here's this absolute law and you have to obey it, and the trip has to be made. I don't know what Joseph and Mary, I mean, their teenagers are saying to one another about this guy in Rome or how much complaining they're doing. I would be making plenty of complaints. I'm sure that you would as well. But that was the earthly perspective. Everything's against me. How could this be? This is the worst timing in the world. But all you have to do is go up a little bit and look at it through God's eyes and he's moving a wicked guy's heart who thinks he's got it all in control just to have his way, just to be sure that his word is accomplished. From his viewpoint, his vantage point, you know, God's the divine travel agent, isn't he? He is moving heaven and earth so that one little child in Mary's womb can be born in Bethlehem. 700 years earlier, before this edict of Caesar, God had made an edict through the prophet Micah. He had said in chapter 5 of the book of Micah, verse 2, "Though Bethlehem is small amongst the thousands of city that are in Judah, yet out of Bethlehem will come him who will be a ruler in Israel and whose going forth have been a bold and will be forever more or forever lasting." God had made a promise where his son was to be born. He didn't want anybody to miss that. But like I said, there's no way that you're going to move Mary there unless something happens that she can't avoid. And so God had it all planned and everything was in his hand. And here's a pretty good glimpse for you and for me on how God rules and the affairs of men unnoticed by all except who had spiritual eyes and say, "Well, the Lord's in charge. I don't know what God is up to, but I know he does all things well. Nothing slips through his hands. He'll do what's right." And to be honest with you, looking at our society today, that's my only hope. That God knows what he's up to because God knows I don't know what he's up to. But he does all things well. That unfortunately is all that we have time for today, but we'll pick up the balance of Luke chapter 2 verses 1 through 20, the next time we're together. This has been the second part of a three-part study taught by Pastor Jack Abeland. If you'd like to get the entire message, we do have that available for you. All you need to do to order, simply contact us and ask for study number 42-38. And it's always helpful for us to know the radio station that you're listening to. So be sure to mention those call letters when you get a hold of us. And here in the month of June, we're offering in the MP3 format. The Old and New Testament of Pastor Jack's verse-by-verse study through the entire Bible at a special bundle price. With over 1,000 studies to listen to, this would make a great gift for anyone on your list, or even yourself. So if you'd like to walk with Pastor Jack through the entire Old and New Testament in this MP3 format, you can order this resource or get today's study by dialing our toll-free phone number, at number 866-88-Grace. That's 866-884-7223. You can also order by mail, just address your letter to Growing Through Grace, P.O. Box 1954, with your California 90609. Or you can get this resource and many others on our website at GrowingThroughGrace.com. That's GrowingThroughGrace.com. And if you're ordering by phone, just remember that our Growing Through Grace office hours or Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific time. And that does finish up our time for today. We invite you to plan on joining us next time as we'll continue working our way through the Book of Luke. Until then, as you daily walk with our Lord Jesus Christ, may you continue to grow in His grace. Growing Through Grace is a listener-supported ministry, brought to you by Morningstar Christian Chapel in Whittier, California. A Calvary Chapel Outreach. (gentle music)
