Luke 1:38  :

Mary said, “Behold, the handmaid of the Lord; be it to me according to your word.”

In my culture, it is difficult to completely understand the significance of this willingness that Mary had. I am not convinced I have a full understanding of it, but I would like to talk about what I believe is true about this.

Mary lived in a very strict Jewish culture. Girls were given to their husbands well in advance of their wedding day. We know from other verses that Mary was already given to her husband. There were plenty of reasons why Mary may want to protest this thing that God decided to give to her. Again, we see something that may appear like a curse from God rather than a blessing. It is amazing to me that Mary's heart was ready to fully accept God's plan for her life. It is easy for us to get focused on our circumstances and forget that, when we follow God, He is responsible for our wellbeing. Mary took the words of the angel and believed that God was able to do what He says and her faith was immediately put into action in her response.

Mary understood that she was a servant of God and that the best thing that anyone can do is to do exactly what God wants. God is our creator and He knows exactly why we were created and what we are here on earth to do. I am pretty sure that, up to this point, Mary had no idea that her purpose in life was to bear the Son of God. That's how it is with us many times. We often don't understand our current circumstances and wonder what our purpose is in it. Sometimes, God has not revealed His purpose in us yet. I learn from this piece of history that the best thing for us to do is to be ready when God does finally tell us what He wants us to do for Him. When He does, we should be ready to respond just like Mary did.

Luke 1:34-37  :

Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, seeing I am a virgin?”

The angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore also the holy one who is born from you will be called the Son of God. Behold, Elizabeth, your relative, also has conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For everything spoken by God is possible.”

Here we have the first person to question the virgin birth. When we don't understand something, it's OK to ask God. Just because we don't understand doesn't make us faithless. Gabriel explains to Mary that the Holy Spirit will be the Father of her child. This is more supernatural history and one of the many popular things to deny about what the Bible says. Obviously, the God who made the world can cause there to be a virgin birth and we are able to believe this because God has made it clear to us.

The angel explains to Mary that she is not the only one to whom a miracle is occurring. I think this helps Mary to remember that this kind of activity is not unusual for God. Finally, notice the last thing Gabriel says here: "For everything spoken by God is possible." This is where Western culture has departed from its former way. Slowly, we have begun to think that it is possible for God to make a mistake when He speaks. We start by not believing that God spoke the world into existence the way He said He did, and we continue as we don't believe that God spoke a virgin birth into existence, and ultimately we deny that God would speak and raise the dead.  Just think of all of the things that the Bible says clearly that our culture is challenging and you can see that we are failing to believe that everything spoken by God is not only possible, but must happen.

We are not to believe in all supernatural stories. We are to believe the word of God and He can do anything, including the supernatural by the power of His word.

I want to draw your attention to some of the detail that Dr. Luke provides here. He tells us that this message came to Mary when Elizabeth was six months pregnant. He also tells us that Elizabeth was a relative which informs us that John the Baptist and Jesus were closely related. The angel us tells another important thing. He refers to John the Baptist as a conceived "son." It's hard to call "a thing" someone's son without intending to refer to it as a person. This is one more evidence that, in Heaven, a person starts being a person at conception.

Luke 1:32-33  :

He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. There will be no end to his Kingdom.”

I believe it is clear that Gabriel is talking about the future here. The simple fact is that Jesus has not been King of Israel yet. Some people try to spiritualize this part of the Bible. I would like to explain why I don't think that is an accurate reading of this passage.

The main reason why I don't think that this is spiritual or symbolic language is because it is part of a prophetic message, parts of which have already taken place. We can tell something about the message by looking at the part that has happened and see whether it was physical or not. Jesus was actually born physically, so we can see that this part of the message was physical even thought it does have a spiritual part. Likewise, it is safe to conclude that the angel was speaking in the same way as he continued his message to Mary. It wouldn't be logical to spiritualize or make symbolic the last part of the message spoken in a historical narrative to an actual historical figure in the past. I believe that an attempt to read it this way only makes it more confusing. I believe that the reason we have this problem is that there are people who would like to justify their hatred of Israel.

The simple fact is that Jesus is to become a King on earth as He already is in heaven. If that were not the case, how would the Lord's prayer ever be fulfilled? Is it possible for God not to answer the prayer of the Son of God? The clear picture here is that we are currently in the middle of a prophetic period. Prophesy is still taking place and we will see Jesus become King someday and He will remain King forever.

The world continues to cry out for peace on earth and looks for a world leader to come and make sense of everything. Many attempts to bring men into power that seem to fit this need have already taken place and all have or will fail even though they may seem to be doing well for a time. There is a King coming who will not fail to stay King and keep peace on earth. I'd love to talk for a long time about what this kingdom will be like when we have this heaven on earth. The Bible indicates that animals will no longer fear mankind and I believe we may go back to being vegetarian ourselves (yes, we were before the flood). War will completely stop and bad people will be caught immediately. Everyone will know God's law in their hearts and won't need to go learn it because God will make it known in people's consciences. Israel is to be where Jesus stays and Christians will already be living with Him because Jesus promised to take us out of here before the time of severe trouble and punishment.

An American military leader recently tried to argue that Christians who think this way are dangerous to the current peace efforts on earth. It was reported that Christians think that there will be war for 1000 years. Nothing could be further from the truth. Christians believe in peace for 1000 years as Jesus reigns without any war at all. We are at odds with any peace that leaves Jesus out of the picture, however! Some horrible things must take place before this happens because men refuse to accept their God, but that is not what we focus on as Christians. It is just a true warning about the future for those who don't believe. We look for peace, hope and joy in the future because it is my future and everyone's who believes in Jesus today. Jesus has promised to come back and has been gone a long time. Could it be that today is the day?

Luke 1:31  :

Behold, you will conceive in your womb, and bring forth a son, and will call his name ‘Jesus.’

There are a couple of things I would like to point out about this verse that the angel Gabriel spoke to Mary.

First, notice that God never shies away from predicting the future. I want to bring this up because this is something that man cannot do. One of the biggest evidences for the validity of the Bible is the fact that it is continually predicting very specific things about the future that actually come true.

It is logical to expect that if the God who made the universe is really speaking through the Bible, that it would have no trouble speaking about the future and that's exactly what we find. This prophesy of Gabriel was to happen very soon compared to many of the prophesies found in the Bible. In fact, some of the prophesy that Gabriel talks about in this chapter hasn't even happened yet, but this verse has already happened.

Second, notice that God brings up the subject of the womb. As I was growing up I thought that this was kind of weird, but now I can see why this is so important. Today, in my culture, people attempt to force their minds to think that "that conceived thing" in the womb is not even a person. The Bible is clear that it is a person. We will also be finding out more about that as we go along. Already, we have read in the prophesy to Zacharias that John the Baptist would have the Holy Spirit from the womb, and now we read this. Notice that we haven't even got out of Luke 1 before we have a couple of discussions about abortion. This is a very, very serious issue right now. There is no shame in voting based on this issue alone! Why, because murder is not something that an elected official should approve of. If that child in the womb is a person, then killing it is murder. That's why abortion is such a big issue to those who are Biblically minded.

It's a good thing that the unwed mother of Jesus decided to go with God on this one and allow Jesus to be born don't you think? This birth became the source of a great deal of shame among her peers as you might imagine. It continues that way today as people disregard supernatural history in favor of their sinful lifestyles. We are all very grateful that Jesus born to remove our sinful lifestyles that were leading us to a rightful death.

Luke 1:28-30  :

Having come in, the angel said to her, “Rejoice, you highly favored one! The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women!” But when she saw him, she was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered what kind of salutation this might be. The angel said to her, “Don’t be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.

It is interesting that when the angel appeared to Mary she didn't think to herself, "of course, God sent His angel to recognize my good works and to give me special favor." Instead, she "considered what kind of salutation this might be." I think that Mary was aware that she was a sinner just like everyone else. How could it be that she could have found favor with God?

I think that those who have favor with God realize that it isn't because of what they have done. Those who have favor with God know that it is because of God and not because of themselves. There is, however, a thing that God gives us the power to do that, when we do it, it pleases Him. Let's look at Abraham:

Genesis 15:1-7  :

After these things the word of Yahweh came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Don’t be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.”

Abram said, “Lord Yahweh, what will you give me, since I go childless, and he who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?” Abram said, “Behold, to me you have given no seed: and, behold, one born in my house is my heir.”

Behold, the word of Yahweh came to him, saying, “This man will not be your heir, but he who will come out of your own body will be your heir.” Yahweh brought him outside, and said, “Look now toward the sky, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” He said to Abram, “So shall your seed be.” He believed in Yahweh; and he reckoned it to him for righteousness.

Abram (later to be named Abraham) had no children much like Zacharias, but when God told him that he would someday have children too numerous to count, Abraham believed. Notice that God made him righteous even though Abraham wasn't righteous because of his good works. God clearly favors someone who believes what He says. This is such an important point that it is repeated three times in the New Testament:

Romans 4:3  :

For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”

Galatians 3:6  :

Even as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness.”

The third time that this is repeated is especially interesting for our discussion today. Listen to this:

James 2:19-24  :

You believe that God is one. You do well. The demons also believe, and shudder. But do you want to know, vain man, that faith apart from works is dead? Wasn’t Abraham our father justified by works, in that he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? You see that faith worked with his works, and by works faith was perfected; and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him as righteousness”;* and he was called the friend of God. You see then that by works, a man is justified, and not only by faith.

An interesting thing that I want to highlight is the order of events. Notice that in the first passage, Abraham heard that he would have many children and believed. Right at that point, God favored him and gave him righteousness. God favored the faith right away, but outwardly, the evidence of that faith had not been shown outwardly. That is what we see next in the James passage. Later, Abraham did have a Son and God told him to kill him as a sacrifice. This was the outward evidence of Abraham's faith as He had to believe that God would somehow keep His promise. Fortunately, the New Testament tells us what Abraham was thinking at that point:

Hebrews 11:17-19  :

By faith, Abraham, being tested, offered up Isaac. Yes, he who had gladly received the promises was offering up his one and only son; even he to whom it was said, “In Isaac will your seed be called”;* concluding that God is able to raise up even from the dead. Figuratively speaking, he also did receive him back from the dead.

Abraham believed that after sacrificing his son, that God would raise him from the dead in order to fulfill His promise.

The point I am making is that the outward evidence of Abraham's favor with God came after the favor. God favored first and then the evidence came. That is what we will read here with Mary. God has already found favor with Mary, but as we read on we will find out more about the faith of Mary. Feel free to read on in your Bible.

Luke 1:26-27  :

Now in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.

In only 26 verses, Luke records two angelic visitations. Just a reminder, these are historical accounts of supernatural events that were witnessed by people that Luke researched. Many scientists today deny such accounts on based on their own predispositions against accounts of the supernatural. I would like to take a bit more time to discuss the problem with this way of thinking.

It is important to remember that it is only false testimony that can affect the character of the witness. Until the witnesses testimony is proven to be false, the witnesses character should be considered good enough to consider. Scientists today are attempting to discredit witnesses based only on their belief in the record supernatural events. They claim that these events go against science because science is confined to the natural world. A significant problem with this partitioning of science is that it goes against two obvious things.

First, science is based on observation. Most scientists would agree with that statement, but when it comes to evolution, they say the opposite by limiting observed evidence to their definition of science.  They are saying, in the case of evolution, that observation must first be based on science.  Rather than allowing science to learn from observation, they stop learning by disallowing evidence. It shouldn't take long reading this paragraph to understand the madness that takes place when you trying to justify these two opposite positions. When someone promotes circular logic, the are often attempting to deceive the listener into believing something untrue.

Second, disallowing the supernatural breaks natural law. Most people know without going to school that there is a natural law of "cause and effect." We know based on our own lives that in order for something to happen, something bigger has to cause it. The thing that causes the the thing to happen is more greater than the thing that get's effected. When we are talking about evolution, we are talking about all of nature. This law of cause and effect would lead us to believe that if all of nature is the "effect", then cause and effect would tell us that something greater than nature had to cause it. If something "super" to nature caused it according to natural law, then I would have to say that belief in the "super" natural would be clearly scientific. Purposely avoiding a natural law in order to believe something you want to believe is not science, it's stubbornness.

We can sum this up by saying that the reason people put themselves through such logical misery in order to believe something as crazy as evolution, is because that way they can believe what they want to believe without having to worry about the facts and they can teach others to do the same.

There is another angel that fell to evil that is also willful and deceitful and he is called the god of this world, but those who believe in evolution will continue to allow this angel to do whatever he wants because they don't believe in him... yet.

Luke 1:21-25  :

The people were waiting for Zacharias, and they marveled that he delayed in the temple. When he came out, he could not speak to them, and they perceived that he had seen a vision in the temple. He continued making signs to them, and remained mute. It happened, when the days of his service were fulfilled, he departed to his house. After these days Elizabeth, his wife, conceived, and she hid herself five months, saying, “Thus has the Lord done to me in the days in which he looked at me, to take away my reproach among men.”

Have you ever been in a situation where it looked like you were the bad one but you were actually being good? This appears to be the situation that Elizabeth found herself in. I don't know for sure whether or not the neighbors thought that Elizabeth had done wrong and God was cursing her for it, but it is clear that Elizabeth felt disgrace from it. It is also clear that this disgrace wasn't from God.

I have to chuckle a little bit when I think of this scene. The people were gathered outside the temple waiting for Zacharias to come out from his meeting with God and possibly hear what God has to say. Zacharias takes too long and when he finally does come out, he can't say a thing, so he keeps motioning with his hands. You can almost see the people staring intently at his hand waving trying to figure out what happened, and Zacharias keeps motioning, but all they could come up with was that he had seen some kind of vision.

It is obvious that Zacharias lacked faith at this point, but Elizabeth believed that it was God doing this directly for her. Elizabeth obviously thought well of God; that He would care and that He would do something about it. That is really what God is like. Perhaps it was Elizabeth's faith that pleased God and caused Him to want to do a great thing for both of them. That is a very encouraging thing for couples who have a mismatch of faith in the family.

We should trust God and know that He has our best interests in mind. He will do good to us.

We find out a little bit more about Elizabeth as we read on, but it is clear that she was not a disgrace. Sometimes God does things differently than people expect. Sometimes the things He does look like punishment on the outside, but many times they are not as we read in the recorded history from the Bible.

Luke 1:18-20  :

Zacharias said to the angel, “How can I be sure of this? For I am an old man, and my wife is well advanced in years.”

The angel answered him, “I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God. I was sent to speak to you, and to bring you this good news. Behold, you will be silent and not able to speak, until the day that these things will happen, because you didn’t believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their proper time.”

For the last few days we have been going over the wonderful things that Zacharias was being told by the angel. Zacharias' response here demonstrates the depravity of humanity. Think about this for a moment.

Zacharias was visited by an angel in the temple of God after praying for who knows how long. Even with all of these obvious "signs" Zacharias still asks: "How can I be sure of this?" That is an amazing demonstration of faithlessness, but isn't that the way we are sometimes? Perhaps this explains why God had taken so long to answer. Read what James says about this:

James 1:5-8  :

But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach; and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, without any doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven by the wind and tossed. For let that man not think that he will receive anything from the Lord. He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

Faith is extremely important to God. We tend to focus on good works and think that God responds when we do good things, but God is very clear that it is faith that He wants from us. This means that He wants us to believe what He says and that's exactly what Zacharias wasn't doing here.

I want to make it clear that there is kind of healthy doubt. After all, Satan is angelic too and is not to be believed. This, however, wasn't what was bothering Zacharias. He was concerned about God's ability to make him have children, which represents a lack of faith in the supernatural power of God. This is an important thing to understand today this very kind of faithlessness is being practiced in the church concerning Evolution.

The Bible clearly states that God created the world in six literal days. The Evolutionary Model requires billions of years to get from molecules to man. Christian leadership today is questioning God's ability to create in six days because of an assumption that "facts" must modify our understanding of the Bible. The problem with this is that "facts" originate from the word of God according to the Bible. It is inconsistent to think that a fact would ever go against the Bible, leaving the Bible unharmed. I believe that this is what is fueling the atheist movement today. We should not be fooled into attempting to assume that there is any Biblical consistency with Evolutionary Model when the Bible has to be modified in order to do so!

Back to the story, Zacharias ended up getting a sign from God as He would be unable to talk until it happened. Let's not be too quick to ask for more signs. Let's start by reading and believing the signs that we have already been given. If God's people don't show respect for the word of God in regard to Evolution, it would not be inconsistent if God decided to "shut up" scientific discovery until our faith problem is dealt with.

Luke 1:17  :

He will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, ‘to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,’ and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to prepare a people prepared for the Lord.”

The angel continues his message to Zacharias and explains that his son is to have the spirit and power of Elijah. Elijah was a very well known and important figure in Israel's past. This is probably one of the best things a parent could hear about their son. Elijah single handedly destroyed the prophets of Baal after calling down fire from heaven to prove that God was the only true God. His heart was for God and God's heart was with Elijah. Elijah made rain stop and go and even raised the dead.

It is interesting that, even though these dramatic physical things are so amazing, God decides to focus this power through John on relationships. He was going to use John "to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just." That's quite a different emphasis than I naturally think in my Hollywood-special-effects culture. God is in this for relationships and this is a very important thing for us to understand about God.

Think for a moment about what is really valuable in life. Is it our effects or our relationships? We may feel bad if our car is crashed, but when someone in our family is sick or dying, it becomes extremely important to us. This world tries to get our focus off of what is truly valuable and, I have found, it does a pretty good job sometimes. As we study God's word, we should remember that relationships, not things and money, are what is really important and that is what God heals when we come to Him. These are the most important miracles in life.

Notice the emphasis on generational healing between father and child. It is so easy as a father to forget that the point is that we need to love our children. A great deal of harm is avoided by getting our eyes off of our own selfish vanity and getting back to doing whatever we can to help our children. It isn't love when we protect our image more that we lay down our own lives to take care of our children no matter how it looks. I think about men who are homeschooling their kids. I know in my heart they are doing what is right but I also see a great deal of ridicule in the world. This also applies when our children do something bad. It is an opportunity for us to train them, not to hid the problem so that our projected image isn't dammaged. Standing up for what is right is what John did well.

Employees, wives, and children have something in common; they have all been told by God to submit. Rebellion can be soft and deceptive but God knows it right away. John was to be able to detect this kind of rebellion and would call it as he saw it. This would eventually cause him serious trouble with "the authorities" who would try to claim that he was the rebellious one.

True rebellion is as simple as deciding to be disobedient. We are all disobedient at times and John was also to bring people back out of that disobedience through repentance and lead them right to the feet of their Messiah.

Luke 1:14-15  :

You will have joy and gladness; and many will rejoice at his birth. For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and he will drink no wine nor strong drink. He will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb.

It is so great to hear about a couple that suffered, prayed and waited that finally received more than they ever wanted. The angel promised, directly from God, that they would have joy and gladness and that their son would be one worth being very proud of.

I do want to emphasize two important things that we need to address today regarding these verses. Notice that one good thing about their son was they he would not drink at all. It is worth mentioning because many try to justify "strong drink" in church today. You can get good nutrition without it. You could drink unsweetened grape juice if you need to but in that day, there wasn't any refrigeration, so wine was needed for some in little amounts. It was a noble thing to not have to do it, but it isn't just that wine was not good. The real issue is that there is a replacement, and that is what is extremely important for us in the church today.

If you are struggling with an addiction, you are probably not addicted to the right thing. We should be addicted to the Holy Spirit and we do that by hearing and believing the word of God. More than just being addicted to this blog, you could read and study the Bible on your own. Let God's Holy Spirit speak to you and you will see why drugs are a pitiful substitution for the real thing.

Our minds were meant to be full, not empty. Our minds are reason engines that are designed to think not be dulled to senselessness. The Holy Spirit conquers the mind with the word of God and will fill you inside leaving little desire to be mindless as you consider the wonders of God in His eternal vastness. Just the consideration of the Creator here on earth can occupy the mind with wonders for a lifetime.

The second issue is the issue of when someone becomes a person. This is important because many people try to put away the guilt of abortion by saying that the child in the womb was not a person. Here we read that John was not only to be a person in the womb, but he was to be filled with the Holy Spirit from that point. This condemns America until it repents. We have played the role of hypocrite in that we have tried to say that all people are endowed by their Creator with rights while at the same time denying that the Creator has made it clear that the enwombed are some of those people.

I want to make it extremely clear, many Christians have had abortions and have repented of their sin. Jesus died for this as well as for every murderer or slander or sexual deviant that ever walked the face of the earth. That includes me too. I didn't have an abortion, but I did lash out in anger. I could have killed my own brother at that point and I wasn't even being deceived by my culture like those who have had abortions were. I did it willingly and was forgiven by the blood of Jesus Christ. We are all sinners and we have a Savior. That is the point, and because of this we all need to give up hiding our sin and start living by the power of the Holy Spirit and help as many others as we can in the joy of our salvation.