The Silence is Shattered 6 th December 2015 1 Please have your Bibles opened firstly at Malachi chapter 4 verses 1-6 and then Luke chapter 1 verses 1-25 You can take notes on the sermon outline in your bulletin. Let s pray first for understanding of God s Word Intro Have you ever wondered why God doesn t answer your prayers? Why He seems not to be acting in your life? Why He remains silent? Why He delays? I m sure the people of Israel wondered the same thing? They had to wander through the wilderness of Sinai for 40 years before they finally gained access to the Promised Land the journey could have been over in a week but it took 40 years! And the same thing happened when the people of Southern Israel Judah were kicked out of their land - and sent to Babylon in exile They spent 70 years wondering if they would ever return to the temple of Jerusalem And then after 70 years they were allowed back to Jerusalem and they rebuilt the temple! Page 1 of 11
In both cases: God promised they would enter the Promised Land and He 2 promised they would return from exile but it happened in His time! We have enough evidence in the OT to know that when God says something will happen - it will happen! And as we come to our two passages today Our first passage is from chapter 4 of the last book of the OT the book of Malachi the prophet who prophesied about 420BC And our second passage is from Luke chapter 1 which is set in a time period just over 400 years after the prophet Malachi. In the Book of Malachi chapter 4 in verses 4 and 5 Malachi gives this message from God using the MSG translation: [Powerpoint 1 Elijah coming] 5-6 But also look ahead: I m sending Elijah the prophet to clear the way for the Big Day of GOD the decisive Judgment Day! He will convince parents to look after their children and children to look up to their parents. If they refuse, I ll come and put the land under a curse. Who s Malachi talking about? because Elijah the prophet lived in the 800s BC way before Malachi lived? So Malachi must be talking about another future prophet like Elijah that God will send Page 2 of 11
3 And this future Elijah the prophet - has a special job to clear the way before the Big Day of God Judgment Day when God will make everyone give an account of their obedience or disobedience towards Him And this future Elijah the prophet will convince parents to look after their children and children to respect their parents Now that wouldn t be a bad thing today would it? But for 400 years - between the time of Malachi and the time of the book of Luke God has remained silent No more messages from God - and no more messengers from God! Just silence! Silence is good sometimes That s why a man s best friend is a dog! So for 400 years God remains silent - and generation after generation of Israelites are wondering if God s forgotten that He was going to send another prophet like Elijah and they are wondering about all of God s promises? They re asking themselves didn t He also say He was sending a Messiah? Someone who would save His people - and be an everlasting King - and be known as the Prince of Peace? They re asking themselves where is this promised prophet? Where is this promised Messiah? Page 3 of 11
Pretty much like us today asking ourselves why isn t God acting in this world? 4 Why does He seem to be silent? When is Jesus coming back again like He promised? Then according to Luke - suddenly the silence is shattered Luke tells us about events 400 years after Malachi around about 4BC about 2019 years ago! And Luke puts pen to paper And he explains how God s silence is shattered So let s spend a little time exploring What God s Message is after all this time of silence Then let s look at the Messengers involved Then finally we ll see how it applies to us today The Message From verse 1 of Luke chapter 1 we can see that the message Luke has is a fulfillment of what God promised [Powerpoint 2 The Message v1, 3, 4] It literally means that the collection of information from scripture and history - that Luke will present in his message will be so complete it will be so easy to believe! Not only that Luke says in v3 his account of things has been carefully investigated and presented in a very logical order Page 4 of 11
And most importantly in v4 - the message he writes will bring absolute certainty 5 of its truth - to the man he is writing to Theophilus [Powerpoint 3 v19 good news] And when we get further into the chapter in verse 19 when Luke is talking about the angel Gabriel passing on a message from God to the priest Zechariah the angel says this message is Good News The Greek is εὐαγγελίζω which means literally Good Message It s where we get our English Word evangelize from Evangelize means telling people the Good Message! So it s fair to say that the message that Luke is about to tell in his book is fulfilling God s promises, it s accurate, it s in a logical sequence and most importantly it s a Good Message! The Messengers We can also learn a fair bit from the Messengers involved in these passages too: Especially when we look at what their names mean! [Powerpoint 4 Malachi and Elijah] Malachi s name means: my messenger and that s exactly what Malachi is he s God s messenger bringing God s message that there will be a future prophet who will be like Elijah and he will get people ready to face the Lord Then there s Elijah himself his name means My God is Yahweh. And Elijah indeed was a great prophet in the OT who stood up for the one true God Yahweh Page 5 of 11
against all the false prophets and false gods worshipped in the surrounding 6 nations And then as we hit Luke s book [Powerpoint 5 Luke] Luke s name means: light-giving and that s exactly what his book does it gives light to people living in a dark, sinful and broken world and Luke introduces people to Jesus the light of the world who brings people out of the darkness of their sin Luke talks about eye-witnesses in v2 that s where he has got some of his evidence for his message from eye-witnesses who walked and talked with Jesus and experienced Jesus teaching and power and miracles! If you ask any policemen or judge or barrister evidence from eye-witnesses is the best evidence! And Luke also got his message from servants of the Word in other words people who served God by taking His Word to surrounding nations like Missionaries -and we know from other parts of the Bible that Luke travelled with the apostle Paul on some of his missionary journeys so Luke would have received such wonderful teaching from Paul - to write his message And what are we to make of the person Luke is writing to? [Powerpoint 6 Theophilus] Page 6 of 11
His name is Theophilus not much is known about him but he s Greek and has 7 some sort of official standing as Luke refers to him by the title Most excellent Theophilus And we also know that Luke wrote a 2 nd book to Theophilus the book of Acts. With these 2 books in his hot little hand Theophilus has the most wonderful and powerful message from God which he can share with others and we have it in our hot little hands today! What s also interesting is that the name Theophilus means: Friend of God So it s like, Luke has written this book for everyone who is a friend of God! [Powerpoint 7 Zechariah/Angel/Gabriel] What about the other messengers in these first 25 verses of Luke s book? Well we have Zechariah he s a priest in the temple and his name means Remembered by God And Zechariah has certainly be remembered by God because he and his wife are old and have not been able to have a baby but God has remembered them and heard their prayers (v13) and has sent an angel to tell Zechariah that he will indeed have a baby boy! Remember the word angel means messenger of God and the angel s name is Gabriel which means man of God isn t it amazing how all the characters names in Luke s message - mean something important? Gabriel s the same angel who we find in the book of Daniel and the same angel who will appear to Mary in our passage next week from later on in Luke 1! Page 7 of 11
The news that Gabriel brings to Zechariah is that, he and his wife Elizabeth will 8 have a baby boy called John [Powerpoint 8 John] And John s name means God is a grace giver Wow! Let s remind ourselves what grace means: God s underserved favour a free gift from God God s grace has several layers here: Firstly it s God s grace that Zechariah and Elizabeth are granted a child in their old age Secondly it s God s grace that John will be given the job of preparing people to meet another special baby we ll talk about next week that s baby Jesus God s beloved Son And thirdly it s God s grace that John will introduce the people to - the object of grace itself and that is Jesus who is God s grace in human form sent to earth to die for people s sin so they can have forgiveness and raised to life 3 days after His death to offer people eternal life [Powerpoint 9 Elizabeth] We haven t mentioned Elizabeth that much yet her name means oath or promise of God and remember how Malachi promised that God would send a prophet like Elijah well here s where the oath or promise comes in Page 8 of 11
9 The Son that Elizabeth and Zechariah will have this baby John he will be that future prophet Elijah that Malachi said God would send God s promise will be fulfilled after 400 years when Elizabeth gives birth to baby John who is like Elijah the prophet [Powerpoint 10 John/Elijah] How do we know John is this prophet Elijah? Well first off we know John looked like Elijah - they both wore animal (camel) hair and a leather belt (2 Kings 1:8; Matt 3:4; Mark 1:6) John preached like Elijah they both preached regardless of the potential personal consequences (1 Kings 18:17; Matt 3:7-8 and Mark 6:19-28 and Luke 1:17) And most importantly Jesus says John is the future Elijah that Malachi was on about (Matt 11:14; 17:10-13 and Mark 9:13) [Powerpoint 11 Aaron] Just a final mention on Zechariah and Elizabeth s family background they are both from the priestly tribe of Israel the Levites and they are descendants of Aaron the first High Priest of Israel and Aaron s name in Hebrew means lightbringer the same meaning as Luke s Greek name! If you re not blown away by the names in these passages you should be it s not a coincidence that they are rich in meaning Page 9 of 11
Application for us 10 [Powerpoint 12 Application 1] So what can we learn from our two passages today? How can we apply it to our lives in 2015? I want to leave us with 3 applications today: 1) God works in his own timeframe not ours. When He makes promises He keeps them and He doesn t necessarily do it in the timeframe we expect and He achieves His purposes in His own remarkable ways. He remains silent for 400 years and then fulfils His promise to send a prophet born from an old couple like Zechariah and Elizabeth. It s reminiscent of how God kept His promise to Abraham and Sarah that they would have a son! They had to wait a long time. So if you re here this morning thinking God is not listening, He s not acting, He s silent. Remember the lessons from the Bible God will be break his silence and when He does - the silence will be shattered in a mighty way - when He s ready! It s kind of ironic that when God does break his silence in sending the angel Gabriel to Zechariah Zechariah doesn t believe the angel - and so Zechariah is made silent! [Powerpoint 13 Application 2] 2) The people in Luke s time were waiting for the promised prophet and promised Messiah God answered when the time was right. In the same way - we re waiting for the Messiah to return and we can be confident He will return when God s time is right Page 10 of 11
[Powerpoint 14 Application 3] 11 3) Like Theophilus whose name means Friend of God we are friends of God and we have God s truth in our hands. How will be respond today: a. Will we respond like Zechariah who didn t quite belief it? b. Will we respond like Elizabeth and be thankful for God s grace and tell people what God s done for us in Jesus c. Will we be like angel Gabriel and evangelize with the Good News the Good Message as it were d. Will we be like John God s grace giver and prepare people to meet Jesus and tell them about God s grace - this time of year is a great time to prepare people to meet Jesus as we celebrate His birth and God s amazing grace in the free gift of Jesus e. Will we be like Luke the Light Giver and tell people about Jesus the light of the world the one who was born to overcome darkness in this world and bring people light and life! Let s pray Page 11 of 11