ZACHARIAS’ PROPHECY

LUKE 1:68-75

68 "Blessed is the Lord God of Israel,

For He has visited and redeemed His people,

69 And has raised up a horn of salvation for us

In the house of His servant David,

70 As He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets,

Who have been since the world began,

71 That we should be saved from our enemies

And from the hand of all who hate us,

72 To perform the mercy promised to our fathers

And to remember His holy covenant,

73 The oath which He swore to our father Abraham:

74 To grant us that we,

Being delivered from the hand of our enemies,

Might serve Him without fear,

75 In holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life.

OBSERVATION:

This is such a great prophecy that I wanted us to see most of its content.

This was spoken by Zacharias the father of John the Baptist at his circumcision.

One of the most amazing things is that the prophecy speaks of things being done and yet Jesus is still not born.

As Zacharias speaks by the Holy Spirit, notice how often he speaks in the past tense.

God has visited and redeemed His people.

Has raised up a horn of salvation for us.

That we should be saved from our enemies.

Delivered from the hand of our enemies.

And Zacharias speaks of the relationship we could now have with God. That we can now serve God without fear. In holiness and righteousness before Him. Those phrases were outlandish to the Jewish ear; that we could have that kind of relationship with God. That we could actually be considered holy and righteous.

The essence of Jewish law was that man was not holy or righteous before God unless he kept a lengthy list of rules.

And serving God without fear was another concept foreign to the Jewish people.

We see the Bible from the other side of the cross. We see how things now fit together, but to the Jews who heard Zacharias speak, these were unusual words.

APPLICATION:

God has spoken through His prophets for thousands of years. And often, great spans of time have occurred between when God spoke and the fulfillment of His words.

As the time for Jesus drew close, we see God speaking as if salvation was already a reality. Because when God speaks, it is a reality. It may take us a while to see it fulfilled, but with God, it's done.

This is another reason we need to pay close attention to what He says about us and who we are because of our faith in Christ. What God says is reality, and if we will hold onto His words, we will see them come to pass in our lives.