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Hope SDA Church

Eric Walsh

Called in Darkness, Raised in Light

We'll get right into this our scripture reading This morning will be taken from Luke chapter 1 verses 5 through 7 Luke chapter 1 verses 5 through 7 And I will read this in your hearing.

The Bible says, There was in the days of Herod the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias of the course of Abia.

The course of Abia and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.

They were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.

And they had no child, because that Elizabeth was barren.

And they both were now well stricken in years.

And they were now both well stricken in years.

Our message this Sabbath is entitled, called in darkness, Raised in light.

Now, somebody might have to explain this clicker to me, because this 1 is not...

Because until we get this 1 figured out, I should have used mine.

All right, so we start with the story of John.

John the Baptist is 1 of the most important prophets in all of Scripture.

You can see from the passages here that even before he was born, God's hand was upon him.

The Bible says that his parents had no children and that his father was a priest and his mother was the daughter of the sons of Aaron.

So on both sides of John the Baptist's family, priesthood existed.

Verse 8, it says, And it came to pass that while he executed the priest's office before God in the order of his course, go to the previous slide up there, according to the custom of the priest's office, his lot was to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord.

The whole multitude of the people were praying without at the time of incense.

The Bible says in verse 11 that an angel appeared unto Zacharias and stood at the right side of the altar of incense.

When Zacharias saw him, verse 12, he was troubled and fear fell upon him.

But the angel said to Zacharias, Fear not, Zacharias, for thy prayer is heard.

And thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John.

And thou shalt have joy and gladness, and many shall rejoice at his birth.

For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord.

You can leave that slide that was up there.

For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink.

And he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb.

And many of the children of Israel shall turn to the Lord their God.

So the story says, the Bible tells us that Zacharias was performing his priestly duties in the sanctuary.

And while he's in there burning incense, he goes in and there's an angel standing to the right of the altar.

Even the fact that the angel is standing to the right is significant.

To stand to the right is a position of favor.

So the angel stood in a position to tell Zacharias, there's no reason for you to be afraid.

It says, but the angel said to him, fear not Zacharias, for your prayer is heard and your wife, Elizabeth, shall bear you a son and you shall call his name John.

The Bible says that Elizabeth and John's years were what?

In other words his wife had gone through the change years earlier.

In other words, she could not have a child.

Zacharias was an old man and between the 2 of them the chances that they would have had a child were slim to none.

What's crazy isn't that they have a child.

What's crazy in verse 13 is that the angel says your prayer is heard.

I can't imagine they were still praying for a child.

I want this to be the foundation of the time we're gonna spend together.

In other words, God was now delivering on a prayer.

When they had forgotten the prayer, God remembered it.

Sometimes we think that child is too far gone to come back to God.

You think that loved 1 has gone too far away from God to ever come back.

You think that marriage is too far gone to ever be restored, but I'm telling you, stay in prayer.

It says, listen, many, Verse 16, many of the children of Israel shall return to the Lord their God.

At the time of the writing of the story of John, when John was about to be conceived, Israel was in trouble.

If you study world history, you know that at this time, the Roman Empire ruled the civilized, quote unquote, civilized world.

In fact, the prophecies of Daniel chapter 2 describes Rome as legs of iron.

Because legs are the strongest muscles in your body.

You can stop with legs, But not only could Rome stomp you, they stomped you with iron.

They completely dominated whoever they subjugated and forced them to worship their false gods.

So now, all of Israel is beginning to implode because those who still claim to know God in Israel have become pharisaical.

The Pharisees and Sadducees have polluted the religion of God.

It's all about works now, all about pomp and fashion.

The very image of God in the religion of Israel has begun to snuff out.

In fact, the only flicker of light left on the entire planet are the few faithful left in Israel.

If we were to move down into the African continent, where there would have still been some faithful Jews in Africa.

That would have been the flicker because when you move around the world from Asia down into the Americas and around the world, the Incas, the Mayans, all of the other civilizations, most of whom were now heathen.

If you looked around the world, sun worship was the way of the world and it was this close to the entire world being snuffed into darkness, spiritual darkness.

That's why the Bible says in Galatians 4, 4, but when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son made of a woman made under the law.

Why did Jesus and John the Baptist as his forerunner, why did they come when they came?

They came at the exact time when if Jesus didn't show up, all righteousness on the planet.

It was the time when they had to step in and do something because the entire planet was going down.

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Called in Darkness, Raised in Light

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