God Prepares the World for Christmas

A tourist was staying overnight in a little outback country town. And he joined a small group of men sitting out in the front veranda of this corner store in the country town. They're all just, you know, sitting back, sitting back relaxing, and he came and he sat amongst them and he sat and he sat and it was dead quiet. It was complete silence. And so he tried to strike up a conversation, but he got no response.

So he asked the question to the guys: is there a law in this town against talking? No, replied one old bloke. There's no law against it. We just like to make sure it's an improvement on the silence. Silence.

For some people it's a terrible thing. You might know some people that just get so agitated and so restless when there's silence in the car. They just need to talk. You might know some people that do that terrible thing called the silent treatment. Some spouses here are nodding their heads.

The silent treatment. Who hasn't enjoyed being on the receiving end of that one? Silence is terrible. It leaves you feeling isolated. It leaves you feeling lonely.

It leaves you feeling confused, craving for attention, craving for relationship. Silence is terrible. Have you ever felt that isolation from a friend that wasn't happy with you? From an ex-girlfriend or a boyfriend? Do you feel maybe something like that this morning?

As we're approaching Christmas this morning, we'll be looking at events that took place just before the birth of Jesus. We'll see how God dramatically broke the silence. A silence that had lasted for four hundred years. And you thought that the silent treatment that you're having is bad. Four hundred years of silence.

And we'll see that when God broke His silence, He was preparing for the coming of His Son. He was preparing the world because the eternal and the divine was about to descend to the earth to reveal the greatest and the best news that the world has ever heard. If you have your bibles with you, let's open to Luke. And, you know, we've been dealing with Luke for a while now, for two months, so we just love Luke. And we're going to be looking right at the start of Luke.

Luke chapter one. Luke one, and we're going to read from verse eight. Once when Zechariah's division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, he was chosen by lot according to the custom of the priesthood to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And when the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled worshippers were praying outside. Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him standing at the right side of the altar of incense.

When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. But the angel said to him, do not be afraid, Zechariah. Your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John. He will be a joy and a delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth.

For he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth. Many of the people of Israel will he bring back to the Lord their God, and he will go on before the Lord in the Spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. Zechariah asked the angel, how can I be sure of this? I'm an old man and my wife is well along in years.

The angel answered, I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you His good news. And now you will be silent and not be able to speak until the day this happens because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their proper time. Meanwhile, the people were waiting for Zechariah and wondering why he stayed so long in the temple. When he came out, he could not speak to them.

They realised he had seen a vision in the temple, for he kept making signs to them, but remained unable to speak. When his time of service was completed, he returned home. After this, his wife Elizabeth became pregnant, and for five months remained in seclusion. The Lord has done this for me, she said. In these days, He has shown me favour and taken away my disgrace among the people.

Now hold your finger there while we turn to another chapter, another section in the Bible called Malachi. Malachi, and it's just before Matthew, so it's just before the New Testament, and we're going to be reading from Malachi four, verses five and six. The last verses of the Old Testament. Malachi four, verses five and six. God says, see, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes.

He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, or else I will come and strike the land with a curse. I don't know if you picked it up, but there's some definite correlations between Malachi and our reading in Luke one. Malachi was the last prophet of God. It's also the last letter or book that is written in the Old Testament. It's the latest one, and it was written four hundred years BC.

Four hundred years before Christ. Malachi was speaking in a time of scepticism. He was speaking in a time when almost everyone had given up hope of ever realising the coming of God and the coming especially of the Messiah, who would lead them out of suppression by the authorities, suppression by other countries and nations that had taken control of Judea. It was a time where people had given up on their faith and were speaking against God. Malachi writes in Malachi 3:13-15, you have said harsh things against me, says the Lord.

Yet you ask, what have we said against you? You have said it is futile to serve God. What did we gain by carrying out His requirements and going about like mourners before the Lord Almighty? But now we call the arrogant blessed. Certainly, the evil doers prosper, and even those who challenge God escape.

Malachi was written before Jesus came. And it was also the last voice of God to be heard in the nation of Israel. For four hundred years, nothing was heard. Imagine that. Imagine four hundred years.

Four hundred years ago was almost the time of the Reformation. Four hundred years ago is a long time if you consider how many inventions have come in the last hundred years. Four hundred years is a long time. For four hundred years, there was silence. Feelings of isolation, of confusion grew among the Jews between the closing of the Old Testament and the opening of the New.

During those four hundred years of silence from God, it took its toll. People had been turning away from God. There were kings that had risen up from surrounding nations who ruled over the people of God. These kings suppressed those people. They murdered those people.

We think that 28 people dying was bad. This happened regularly. Yet God was about to speak. Luke opens his recording of Jesus' life and he shatters four hundred years of silence. He shatters four hundred years of silence. He begins his story precisely where Malachi left off.

The final words of the Old Testament say that a prophet like Elijah was going to come, and that he would turn the hearts of fathers to their sons, and sons back to their fathers. He would come to prepare the way for God to come. He would prepare the way for the coming of the Lord. And so Luke begins his Gospel account with a majestic announcement of the angel Gabriel to Zechariah, the elderly priest. The angel says, you and your wife are going to have a son.

His name is going to be John, which means gift of God. He will be the one who turns the heart of fathers to their children, and he will prepare the way of the Lord. He was to be the fulfilment of Malachi's prophecy. Luke reveals this continuity from the closing of Malachi to the opening of a new chapter beginning with John the Baptist, the new voice of God. A Jewish woman was considered to be cursed by God if she wasn't able to give birth.

It was a terrible thing in those days to not have children. So after conceiving, Elizabeth says, wow. This is certainly not from me. We've been trying for years and years and years. This is not from me.

It's God who has miraculously done this for me. She says, in these days, He has shown His favour and has taken away my disgrace among the people. How they had prayed for a child. How they had longed and waited on God and said, God, please, if it's Your will, we just want a child. And we hear in verse 25 and in other places that they didn't stop praying.

But the people considered Zechariah and Elizabeth disgraced by God. But suddenly, but suddenly, that silence is broken. And Zechariah, just doing his regular thing, going to the temple, doing his priestly duties, is met by an angel. And in verse 13, the angel says, your prayer has been heard. Your prayer has been heard.

Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son. What a perfect gift. The angelic announcement was also an announcement to the entire world, to the entire nation of Israel, that God was about to do something. Imagine that: no prophetic voices, nothing. Nothing.

Quiet silence. And now this amazing miracle happens. The gift of God, aka John, was not only for Zechariah and Elizabeth. It was an announcement to the whole world that the birth of Christ was about to take place. God's plan was starting to happen again.

It was very much alive. You know, it's so hard for us to follow God, to depend on Him, to trust in Him when He is silent, isn't it? It's easy. It's easy when things are going well. It's easy when you have good friends.

Lots of them. It's easy when you have a good healthy marriage, a good relationship with a boyfriend or a girlfriend. It's good. Your heart is glad. God is praised in your life.

The difficulty comes when it's impossible to see the hand of God. It's in times like these that all you can do is trust in the character of God. There's nothing else that you can pick out from your situation that you can say, this is God and He is doing this in my life. All you can do in that moment is know and hold on to the fact that you know that the character of God is good. That He is powerful, and that He has a plan.

Silence tests the faith. In many ways, the hardest part of Job's troubles, if you know the story of Job, was that God for such a long time did not answer him. For such a long time, these terrible things just kept piling up, keep piling up. And now Zechariah and Elizabeth, they go through this long silence, this barrenness. And I'm sure you know of people that haven't been able to have the joy of having a child even though they try so hard.

It's enough to test even the most resilient faith. According to God's pronouncement, they were faithful and they were obedient. It wasn't because they were living in sin. It wasn't because they had done anything wrong. They were faithful.

They kept worshipping God. They kept giving everything they had to Him, but nothing happened. I think there's something in here for us to think about. God wants us to know how much confidence these two people had in God despite having no apparent, ostensible reason for having that. They kept persisting.

They kept knocking on that door even though all hope had passed. They were old now. There was no hope for them, they thought. They no longer believed that they could have a son, but they remained faithful to God despite the silence. Friends, the silence of God and that moment of waiting is not easy.

Don't trust anyone who says it is easy. The wilderness is not a comfortable place. But remember that God continues to work in that silence. God doesn't take a vacation. God doesn't take a break.

As Luke opens his Gospel, he relates God's preparation for the coming of Jesus and he relates that to the personal activity in Zechariah and Elizabeth's lives. We're able to see that God was not only moving among the nations. We heard in Daniel 7, when we were looking through that a few months ago, that a man, a son of man would come and he would lead the people of God back to God. He would stand in the presence of the Ancient of Days and that he would receive all authority under heaven and earth. There was an expectation that the Messiah was going to come in the Jews' understanding.

And John mentioned that his Jewish friend, even to this day, believes that the Messiah is coming. They believe that He is about to come. But Luke here reminds us that God is in preparation. And so God is not moving just among the nations. He's active and involved in the personal lives of the faithful as well.

Luke reveals the personal nature of God's work as it is seen in the lives of these two people. And I want us to take note of something significant in the following verses. Look at verses 5 and 6. It says, in the time of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah. His wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron.

They were Levites. They were God's holy line of priests. Both of them were upright, it says, in the sight of God, observing all the Lord's commandments and regulations blamelessly. And then it says in verses 24 to 25, this is what Elizabeth said. After this, his wife Elizabeth became pregnant and for five months remained in seclusion.

The Lord has done this for me, she said. In these days, He has shown His favour and taken away my disgrace among the people. Now why would someone who lived a blameless life, a life that was upright as the Bible says, a life that was obedient to God, feel disgraced at the same time as it says in verse 25? When they've done all that they could do. We often feel that way, don't we, during the times of silence.

The trouble is we see God moving in other people's lives. We see God doing amazing things in other people's lives and we are happy with them for what God is doing in their lives. But when it comes to us, it's so difficult to see. It's so difficult to feel that God is present. When a missionary called Dan Crawford was trekking through South Africa, some of the tribesmen said to him, are you angry?

Are you angry with us? And the astonished Crawford responded, no. Why do you ask? The villager replied, because you are so silent, came the reply. In our tribe, if a man is angry, he doesn't speak.

And that's why we think God is displeased with us because He is so silent. We know from experience that silence is not always golden. Being given the silent treatment by an angry spouse is terrible. When God doesn't answer our prayers, we question God. Notice even this blameless upright person, Elizabeth or Zechariah, they thought, you know, God wasn't pleased with them.

God was away from them. God was not going to answer their prayers. Zechariah asked the angel in verse 18, how can I be sure of this? I'm an old man and my wife is well along in years. Zechariah didn't believe.

Has that happened to you? Have you felt distant from God? Have you felt perhaps that at one time God was directing you in a certain way, trying to do things, change things in your life, leading you in a new career, challenging you in your walk with Him. Has God answered perhaps a desperate prayer in your life, but you failed to believe that He has answered it because you didn't understand how this fits into how you thought it would happen. The preparation God made for Christ coming is testimony to how God has prepared and is presently preparing for our future.

It's so easy to go back to those prophecies of the Old Testament. It's so easy to see God preparing the Jewish nation for the coming of Jesus. It's easy to see the fruition of a lifetime of silence in Zechariah's and Elizabeth's lives, but it's difficult to see the preparation of God in our lives. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10:13 that there is no temptation that has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful.

He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will provide a way out so that you can stand up under it. Zechariah is made mute because of his unbelief. He doesn't believe God has done this.

God has been silent for so long. We've never felt God very close to us. So he doesn't believe. And the angel says, because of your unbelief, I'm going to make you mute. When John is finally born, Zechariah speaks for the first time.

So this is nine months of silence. This is to stamp God's ultimate stamp of authenticity on this: this is a miraculous thing. Nine months, this man is not able to speak. When the day comes when John is born and they have to name the baby, and they name him John, the gift of God, he speaks. It says his tongue is loosened.

And the people are in awe. They are amazed. Okay. Fair enough. You know, Elizabeth could get pregnant maybe.

You know, there's a chance that this could happen. But a man who is mute for just this small amount of time, they could have said, oh, it's a stroke or whatever. For nine months, exactly the time from conception to birth, nine months, this man is mute and all of a sudden he speaks again. And then he breaks into this massive song of praise to God. Look at verses 68 to 80.

I'm going to read that to you because it sums up all of this story. Zechariah said, praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because He has come and has redeemed His people. He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David. As He said through His holy prophets of long ago: salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us, to show mercy to our fathers and to remember His holy covenant, the oath He swore to our father Abraham, to rescue us from the hand of our enemies and to enable us to serve Him without fear in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days. And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High.

For you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for Him, to give His people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins. Because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace. And John, the child, grew and became strong in spirit. And he lived in the desert until he appeared publicly to Israel. Those amazing words, verse 78: because of the tender mercy of God. This is a man who didn't have God, who didn't experience God for so long.

But now he experienced the tender mercy of God. And by this tender mercy, a rising sun will come from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death. To guide our feet into the path of peace. In that silence, in that darkness of four hundred years, the sun was rising. The sun was rising. Zechariah doubted God because of the long silence.

And because he doubted, he himself became silent. And during this time of silence, he came to understand that God was busy with something truly amazing, truly magnificent. The silence was being broken. The beauty of what God was preparing through this whole story was awe-inspiring. The people were in awe when this happened.

An old barren woman giving birth to a healthy baby boy. A priest of God struck mute by God, but suddenly nine months later able to speak again. God was not silent anymore. God wasn't angry anymore, it seemed. In fact, God seemed pleased.

He seemed happy. Why is that? Because something even more amazing was about to happen. Heaven and earth was being moved. Another boy would be born and he would be called Emmanuel.

God with us. God wasn't going to be silent anymore.