"Zechariah's song"
Luke 1:57-80
Preached by Bart Erlebach on 22nd December 2024
Scripture
57 Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. 58 And her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. 59 And on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child. And they would have called him Zechariah after his father, 60 but his mother answered, “No; he shall be called John.” 61 And they said to her, “None of your relatives is called by this name.” 62 And they made signs to his father, inquiring what he wanted him to be called. 63 And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And they all wondered. 64 And immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, blessing God. 65 And fear came on all their neighbors. And all these things were talked about through all the hill country of Judea, 66 and all who heard them laid them up in their hearts, saying, “What then will this child be?” For the hand of the Lord was with him.
67 And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying,
68 “Blessed be 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 from of old,
71 that we should be saved from our enemies
and from the hand of all who hate us;
72 to show the mercy promised to our fathers
and to remember his holy covenant,
73 the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us
74 that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies,
might serve him without fear,
75 in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
76 And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
77 to give knowledge of salvation to his people
in the forgiveness of their sins,
78 because of the tender mercy of our God,
whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high
79 to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
80 And the child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance to Israel.
(ESV)
Generated Transcript
When it was time for Elizabeth to have her baby, she gave birth to a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the lord had shown her great mercy and they shared her joy. On the eighth day, they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him after his father, Zacharia. But his mother spoke up and said, no. He is to be called John.They said to her, there's no 1 among your relatives who has that name, then they made signs to his father, to find out what he would like to name the child. He asked for a writing tablet. And to everyone's astonishment, he wrote. His name is John. Immediately, his mouth was opened and his tongue sat free, and he began to speak praising god.
Order neighbors were filled with awe and throughout the hill country, the Judea people, we're talking about all these things. Everyone who heard this wondered about it asking, what then is this child going to be? For the lord's hand was with him. His father, Sakariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied. Praise me to the Lord, the god of Israel, because he has come to his people and redeemed them.
He has raised up a home of salvation for us in house of his servant, David, as he said to his holy prophets of long ago. Salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us. To show mercy to our ancestors 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 a child grew and became strong in spirit and he lived in a wilderness until he appeared publicly to Israel. Thank you, Yasmin. Apologies about that, but thank you. Let's pray, as we come to God's word, let's pray. Heavenly father, we thank you, that you are a speaking god, and that as we read the Bible, you are speaking to us.
And so we pray you'd help us to be ready to listen, father that you would by your spirit help us to understand your word, help us to get to grips with it, to know what you're saying, and then help us to respond in our hearts and with our lives ready to obey you. Oh, man. Well, we're in a little series that we're doing, little Christmas series called songs for Christmas. And we're doing that because at the beginning of Luke's gospel, there are, several songs that are written. It may not be that the people actually sang them, but they're written as poetry.
That various people wrote and spoke because of the birth of Jesus. And so we saw last week Mary's song after she met with Elizabeth and she knew she was gonna give birth to Jesus. She sang and we heard that, preached on last week. This week, we're looking at Zechariah's song that we've just had read next. On Christmas Day, we're gonna see the the angels song, and then Next Sunday on Newell is gonna be preaching for us on Simyan's song.
Now we thought last week, there are some songs that you can sing along with that we were encouraged to sing no matter how we're feeling, no matter how life is going. Some songs you can sing along with with full heart, full, full voice. It was good to hear you singing this morning. The songs we were singing, it was good to hear people could sing them with full voice. But there are some songs where you hear them and you want to join in with them, but you can't really because they're not really your song.
If you've seen England play, in a football match or rugby match. Maybe you've seen them play against Scotland. And at the beginning of the match, you've got the national anthems. You've got the English national anthem, which is okay, isn't it? I mean, it it's it's not rousing as such.
And then, the Scottish team seeing flower of Scotland. And that is a song when I've heard I mean, I've not heard it live, but when you hear it on the TV, at a rugby match, the crowd singing flower of Scotland. And I'm listening to that, think, I wanna sing that song. That's the song I wanna sing. No.
No. This is god save our gracious king. I wanna sing o flower of Scotland. The way they sing it, the passion they sing it with. And yet, of course, there's the realization.
They're singing it against me, really, well, not me personally, obviously, but against the English. But you kind of go, I wanna sing that song, but it's not my song. That's their song. And I wonder with, the song, with Zechariah's song, whether we can feel that a little bit. Maybe you're from a background where you sang or or said some of these songs early in Luke, you know, as part of church services.
So the the song last week, Mary's song is known as the Magnificate. Maybe you you sang that 1 or said it in in your in your childhood in church when you were there. And maybe you said or sang the Benedictus, which is this 1, Zechariah's song. But I don't know about you, but I sort of feel the song that we had last week, Mary's song is 1 that we can sing a bit more with full heart. You go, yes.
Okay. My my soul glorifies the lord. My spirit rejoices in God, my savior. He's been mindful, and so on. You kind of feel, yeah, I can sing that 1.
Zekariah's song though. Is that your song? Is it my song? It feels it doesn't feel quite so much like it is. Praise me to the Lord, the god of Israel, because he's come to his people and redeemed them.
Is that our song? Sort of sort of half and half. Feels like it might be, but it's it's quite Israel focused, isn't it? Is that your song? Is that my song?
I want you to see by the end of this sermon, hopefully, that this can be your song. You can sing it, but it will take a little bit of thinking about it. I don't know whether you were prepared for that just before Christmas that you actually gonna need to think about the passage, you kinda got lots else on your mind, you're hoping for an easy Sunday. Well, we're gonna have to think about this 1. But if you do, and if we do engage with it, you will see, yes, you can sing this song.
Okay. We need to know the context of the passage. What's going on? The context is the other miraculous birth. There are 2 miraculous births at the start of Luke's gospel.
Of course, you've got Jesus's miraculous birth, that Mary, though a virgin, gave birth to Jesus. And that is the big, miraculous birth, of course, that we're gonna celebrate at Christmas, but there is the other miraculous birth, which happens before Jesus' birth. Which is the birth of John, John the Baptist. I don't think they named him John the Baptist at the start, but that's what he became known as, isn't it? And that was the miracle birth, not because Elizabeth, his mother was a virgin, but because she was old, because she was an older lady who was past the age of having children.
And the announcement was not made to her that she would have a baby. It was made to her husband, Zechariah. Zekariah, who was a priest, was working at the temple. And he'd been chosen to go into the very heart of the temple. It was done by lot, and he was chosen to go right into the sanctuary.
The inner sanctuary, and he met an angel there. He told him that Elizabeth would have a baby, and they were to name him John, and said more about who this baby would be. But we're not gonna spend too long on that. Yeah. We're gonna have a baby, and then we're gonna call him John.
And sure enough, that is what happened. But Zechariah in the sanctuary talking to the angels said, how can this be? I'm old. My wife is old as well, or to put it more delicately, as it says in our translation, my wife is well along in years. We're too old, he's saying.
And because of that, the angel says, basically, do you know who I am? I stand in the presence of god. I was sent to give you this message, but because you did not believe it, you're gonna be dumb. You're not gonna be able to speak. You're gonna be mute.
And he was. For 9 months unable to speak. And then at the beginning of our passage, the baby is born. Verse 57, when it was time for Elizabeth to have her baby, she gave birth to a son. And it seems like the neighbors then get very involved.
I don't know if you spotted that in the reading. The neighbors all seem to get very involved in this. They hear about the birth and they get very excited, which is lovely. They're rejoicing with Elizabeth. That she's given birth.
And then you come to the naming part. And everyone goes to Elizabeth. We see, and and says, well, what are you gonna name this baby? Elizabeth quite rightly says, we're gonna name him John, which is in obedience to what the angel had said. But the neighbors aren't happy with this, and they're not gonna take Elizabeth's word for it.
So they decide to signal to John, it says, I'm not sure why they were signaling. He was mute, not deaf. But anyway, they decide to signal to him what name do you wanna call this child. And he writes down his name is John. And at that moment, his mouth is opened.
Filled with joy, he praises God, and he praises God in the words of this song. And the question on everyone's lips was, who will this child be? Who's he gonna be? And in answer to that, Zekariah gives this song verse 67. Onwards, it starts verse 67.
His father, Zekariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied. Now that's important. Zachariah is filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesize. And what does he say? Well, he doesn't begin by saying, thank you god that I can speak.
It's been 9 months not being able to talk. He doesn't begin with that. And he doesn't begin with thank you god that we've had a child. We've not been able to have a child. Thank you that we were able to have this baby.
Zechariah starts with the big picture. This is what god is doing. This is the big picture of what god is doing, and everything is coming to a climax now. God had made promises right from the start of the Bible, right from the beginning. And Zechariah knew now is the moment where god is gonna keep his promises.
And if you could pick out 1 word from the song to summarize what it's all about, I think the word is salvation. And I say that because it is a word which is repeated through the song. So if you've got it in front of you, I'd encourage you to have it in front of you. You can see it in verse 69. It says he raises up a horn of salvation for us.
Verse 71, salvation from our enemies. And then verse 77, to give his people the knowledge of salvation. This is what fires up Zechariah. He says God has promised salvation, and salvation is what he's gonna come and do. Now there are some words I think people today, those not in the church, people today will associate with sort of fanatical Christianity, the kind of American TV evangelist sort of Christianity.
People can be very wary of that. I know I have been in the in the past. There's good reason to be wary of it in some ways, but I think there are some words that can get associated with that, like born again. Or salvation, or there can be other words as well, evangelical, that kind of thing. Now, those words actually aren't bad words.
They're all good words, but they can kind of get taken up in a kind of that American evangelist kind of way that people get put off by it, and maybe they do get put off by the word salvation or by Christian saying, have you been saved? And we have to say sometimes those kind of fanatical kind of ways of doing things can put people off. But actually, what you need to do, if you, if you're questioning, you know, what's Christianity all about is to go, well, don't go by that. Go by what the Bible says. Go by what god says.
What's it actually all about? What's Jesus coming actually all about? And god uses the term, salvation through Zechariah. Zechariah used it 3 times. He says, actually, it's about salvation.
It is about being saved. And actually, if you're skeptical, if you're not a Christian this morning and you're thinking about these things, I want you to see what's the world like around us? If you're wary of that word, salvation, just think about the way the world is at the moment. You think, oh, do we need saving? Look at the world.
Look at the news headlines, things that have gone on even over this last week. Think about the way the world is, the wars that there are in the world, the suffering that there is, suffering in this country as well in people's lives. Don't you think actually we need something. We need something to change. We need something better.
And we, we often look to people to be saviors. We'll look to politicians. We'll look to other people. And we put our hopes in them to be the rescuer, to be someone who will do something for us to change things. And when they don't, we get fed up with them, and we want to replace them, and we want someone else, whether they weren't the person, there must be someone else.
We need something, and god says, yes, you do. You need salvation. You need a rescuer. And god provides that rescue. And he does so at Christmas.
And Zechariah was getting excited. Because he was saying salvation is coming. Now, there are 2 aspects to this salvation that we're gonna look at. Now, just to let you know where we're heading, there are 2 aspects to this salvation. We're gonna look at both aspects, and then we're gonna look at we'll look at the first 1, then we're gonna look at the second 1.
And then we're gonna look at them both together. Now, I say that to you. It's sort of mapping out where we're heading, because I know if I say to you, we've got 2 parts to this. As we get towards the end of the second part, you're gonna think, well, we're nearly done. And you're going to think it's time for packing away and that kind of thing.
But actually, there's a little bit more. Alright? So that's just to warn you. Yeah. We're going to think about the first bit, second bit, and then we're going to think about both bits.
Alright? There's a bit of putting for you at the end of the summer, as Peter K would say. So we're gonna think about the first bit first, salvation. Salvation from enemies is the first part. Let's go through the verses together.
So salvation from enemies, verse 68 to 75. Have a look at the verses, but it would really help you if you can follow them through because I'm gonna go through Okay? So if you've not got the passage open in front of you page 1027, have a look through it. And I want you to see verse 68 to 75. The big theme there is salvation from enemies.
Verse 68, Praise be to the lord, the god of Israel, because he has come to his people and redeemed them. Okay. Keep kind of keep a finger there or something there. Just straight away, I want you to see, this feels very Israel focused, doesn't it? Praise be to the lord, the god of Israel.
He's come to his people and redeemed them. First 69, he has raised up a horn of salvation for us. A horn that is a symbol of power, symbol of strength. So he's raised up a horn of salvation for us. In the house of his servant David David was the great king, of Israel.
God has raised up the horn of salvation as rescue on the way. Verse 70, as he said through the prophets, as he said through his holy prophets long ago. Notice that just as a little aside, that says god speaks through the prophets. Always good just to spot these things where where the bible is saying that you do know that the bible is god's word. It's god speaking.
He spoke through the prophets. That's what he did. It wasn't just the prophets speaking. They weren't just clever people, wise people. This is god speaking through the prophets.
Verse 71, salvation from our enemies, from the hand of all who hate us, to show mercy to our ancestors 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. You know, it's their strong theme of this is salvation from enemies. There's a reference back to the promises to Abraham. And in those promises to Abraham, god promised to Abraham that that for his for Abraham and his descendants, he says whoever curses you, I will curse. In other words, Abraham, and your descendants, I'm on your side.
I fight for you. If anyone curses you, I'll curse them. And what are they rescued to do to serve god? That's what he rescues people for. That's what he did in the old testament, what he does in the new testament, to say, actually, he rescues people so that he can serve god in holiness and righteousness.
So do you see here the salvation is salvation from enemies, and it feels quite Israelite in tone. Okay? Now I don't know about you, but I'm slightly unsure at this point whether I can sing that song. Is that my son? Is that your son?
Feels like someone else's son. And then we can wonder, did Zekariah get this right? Was he right? After all, at the beginning of Luke's gospel, you start with Israel, the nation is under Roman occupation. It's under the oppression of Rome.
And at the end of Luke's gospel, they're still under the oppression of Rome. Was Zechariah right? Was god coming to redeem his people? Save them from their enemies? Well, we need to remember this is a prophecy, Zechariah spoke, filled with the Holy Spirit.
This was a genuine prophecy. So having raised the question, we're gonna leave it for a few moments. We'll come back. We'll come back to it at the pudding. Alright?
It's all very food focused this morning, Okay. We'll come back to it. Secondly, what's the second part about? Okay. We're just gonna shelve that for a moment.
Come back to it. Second part. Salvation from sins, salvation from sins, verse 76 to 79. And, this certainly feels like we're getting into a song that we can sing. Alright?
Yeah. Salvation from sins. Okay. We can sing that 1. We're more comfortable with that.
It's like you're at the rugby match and sweet Caroline comes up on the on the beginning. You're singing along with that. Yeah. I can sing that 1. I know that 1.
Sweet Caroline, I can sing it. In fact, our danger probably with this bit is that we're so familiar with it. We're not that clued up as to what we're singing, a bit like those people singing sweet caroline. Why are they singing a song about someone called caroline? No idea.
But they're familiar with it. So they'll go along with it, and we'll sing it. We feel like we can do that. So with this bit, we're into a bit we're familiar with. Yes.
We can sing this. Salvation from sins. Let's see it in the verses. Verse 76. And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the most high.
Okay. So this is talking about John now. Zechariah's son, John. It's gonna be a prophet. Now, Gary Wright, quite rightly said last week, that is a big deal.
That we've got a profit now. They haven't had a profit in Israel for hundreds of years. It's been silent from god for hundreds of years. And now, we've got a prophet. God speaking, and John is gonna be that prophet.
He says for you will go on before the lord to prepare the way for him. This is a prophet who's coming before the lord god is gonna come. This is in fulfillment of a prophecy in Isaiah. Isaiah chapter 41 you may be familiar with may not be, but it says in Isaiah 40, a voice of 1 calling in the wilderness prepare the way for the lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our god. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low.
The rough ground shall become level, the rugged places are plain, and the glory of the lord will be revealed. And all people will see it together for the mouth of the lord has spoken. So this is saying 1 will come who will prepare the way for the lord. And what do you expect after that person has come that the glory of the lord will be seen will be revealed that people will see the glory of the lord. John, the Baptist comes.
What do you expect after that? The glory of the lord. And that's what we see in the person of Jesus. The glory of the lord coming. How does John prepare the way?
He prepares the way verse 77 to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of sins. This is salvation from sins. Salvation, not from something outside you, not from the enemies outside you, but from the enemy inside you, from your sins. And you see, here's an important realization that we need to have the thing that we need saving from more than anything else is ourselves. We're very quick, aren't we to lay the blame on, for our problems on a whole load of things.
We can blame it on all kinds of things. We get the badness that we see in our own lives. We blame all sorts of things. We blame tiredness. We blame other people.
We blame our upbringing. Blame our genetics. When actually the big problem is us, the way we react. It's our anger. It's our impatience.
We blame all sorts of things, but Jesus didn't come to rescue you from your family or from your work colleagues or from your spouse. He didn't come to rescue you from from any of those that he came to rescue you from your sin, because your biggest problem is you. And that's what he came to rescue you from, your sin, your wrongdoing, your rebellion against god, your self centeredness, selfishness. He came to rescue you from your sin. And John's job was to prepare people to say you need to be forgiven and forgiveness is possible.
How? Well, when he was when he saw Jesus, John the Baptist when he'd grown up on the banks of the journey. He saw Jesus, and he said, look, the lamb of god, who takes away the sin of the world. He points to Jesus and he says, he is your way to be saved. He is the sacrificial lamb, who will be sacrificed, will die on the cross for you so that you can be forgiven, so that you can have salvation from sin.
And we need to see this is all because of god's mercy, verse 78, because of the tender mercy of our god. And Zechariah then points to Jesus. He doesn't spend long actually talking about John. He spends more time talking about Jesus. Jesus being this light that will dawn.
First 78, 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. Jesus sees this light coming into the darkness, the darkness of sin to bring light to those in the shadow of death, that's us. Was watching, James Acaster, the comedian, 1 of his stand up shows at the end of it, you gotta watch it for it to make sense, but he ends the show by saying death comes to us all. It's not a hilarious line, is it? But there you go.
You gotta watch the show to understand it. He ends with death comes to us all, and that is true. We live in the shadow of death, but the light has come. Jesus has come. To bring salvation from sin, and so that we can have life forever.
He shines light into the darkness. And notice Zacharia finishes by saying, to guide our feet into the path of peace. So 1 of the commentators just noticed that notice Zechariah included himself in that. It says, I need this. I need this peace with god.
I need this light in the darkness. Zechariah included himself. And that's true for us. Do you realize that you need this light? You need forgiveness of sins.
We all do. If you've not yet taken hold of it, will you do so? That we need this salvation? So there is the salvation from sin. Zechariah saw this is what was gonna happen, and our hearts should be warmed by this.
This is what Christmas is about. This is what we're celebrating that salvation from sins. Is possible for us. And as I've said, if you're not yet a Christian, this is available for you too, if you will come to Jesus. It's what Jesus came to achieve.
It's what we sing in Carol's. When we sing Hart and Harold's angels sing, we sing Hart and Harold's angels sing, glory to the newborn king, peace on earth, and mercy mild god and sinners reconcile. That's what we're celebrating. This is the salvation we all need. And for all of us, we need the truth of this salvation to permeate our lives, because you can know it and not know it.
Like, you can know that Christmas is on Christmas day is Wednesday. You can know that But you don't really know it, really know it, until you're taking action about it, until you're doing something about it. You can know it and not know it, can't you? So too with the gospel, with this salvation from sin, We can know we're forgiven through Jesus, but yet we can still live lives where we're filled with guilt. We can know, for instance, that through forgiveness of sins, we can be children of god.
That's who we are if we're Christians. And yet we can live our lives as if we're orphans in fear. You see, we don't know it until we're living out of it. Until we're living on the platform of it, until it's a reality that changes our thoughts, our attitudes, our feelings. We all need to know salvation from sins is something that needs to permeate every part of our lives.
So we need to learn to sing along with Zechariah about the salvation of sins. Salvation from enemies is harder to sing, salvation from sins is more of a sing along, isn't it? So there are the 2 things. Salvation from enemies, salvation from sins. Now we're going to think about both of them.
Because it does feel as you look at them like first 1, slightly harder to sing along with, second 1 much easier to sing along with. What do we do with them both? Because both are in this prophecy. Well, where are we by the time we get to the end of Luke's gospel? Now we're not gonna read our way right the way through it.
Let's just skip to the end, shall we? So would you turn to Luke chapter 24? Luke chapter 24, page 10 62, page 10 62, Luke 24, Jesus has died, risen to life again and is now meeting with his, followers. And what does he say to them? Verse 46.
This is what is written. The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead, and on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations beginning at Jerusalem. Okay. So what's Jesus saying there? He talks about which of these things?
Well, clearly, he's talking about forgiveness of sins. Salvation from sins. He says, that's what's been achieved. He had to suffer. He had to die.
He had to rise to life again. And now salvation from sins can be proclaimed to all nations, all people, not just to the Israelized, not to the Jews, just to the Jews, but to everyone. Go and tell them about salvation from sins. And we think, okay, that's salvation from sins. What about the other 1?
Salvation from enemies? Where are we on that 1? Where's the kind of Israelite kind of bit? Interesting. So Luke didn't just write 1 book.
He wrote 2 books. He wrote acts as well. That's the second book. So would you just flip over to the book of acts? I'll give you the reference page number.
Page 1092. 1092. Acts chapter 1 verse 6, And notice what Jesus' followers ask him. So this is, again, after Jesus has risen and but before he's ascended. So he's still with them.
Verse 6, then they gathered around him and asked him, lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel? Interesting, isn't it? Are you gonna do it now? You've done salvation from sins? What about salvation from enemies?
Are you gonna do that now? Are you gonna do the kind of Israel thing now? Notice how Jesus replies. He said to them, it's not for you to know the times or dates. The father is set by his own authority.
But you'll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes, and you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and some area and to the ends of the earth. In other words, Jesus is saying Hold on. That's salvation from enemies. Hold on. We're not quite there yet.
I found it really helpful when I was preparing for this, that in 1 of the books I was reading about, the passage with Zechariah's song, that the person writing it said, what you don't see in Zechariah's song, what's not so clear, is that the 2 salvations will require 2 comings of Jesus. So in Zechariah's song, he talks about 2 kinds of salvation, and they're gonna need 2 comings of Jesus to achieve them. Salvation from sins, happens through Jesus coming and dying. Salvation from enemies is gonna happen when Jesus comes again. You see, it's a bit like Zekariah, I don't know if you heard this illustration before when it comes to old testament prophecies, but it's like Zekariah's looking at a mountain range from the end.
So he just sees 1 mountain, but actually there are 2. There there are 2 peaks to it. He just can't see he just sees 1 mountain because he's looking at it from the end. Yeah? So he sees salvation from enemies, salvation from sins as being 1 mountain.
But if you look at it from the side, it's 2 mountain peaks. Yeah? And that's what we find as we go through Luke's gospel, as we go through acts. You see, actually Jesus came and achieved salvation from sins, that's the first peak. But salvation from enemies, that's yet to happen.
We're between the 2 peaks. Of the mountain, we're between Jesus' first coming and his second coming. And as you go through the Bible, what do you find by the end of the Bible, by the end of the book of Revelation? What do you find there? Future promise of god's people, not merely those who are Israelites by birth, but all god's people from all nations who have trusted in Jesus, living in what's described as the new Jerusalem, and that city is 1 that's described as having its gates permanently open.
Why are the gates permanently open? Because there's no enemies. They don't need to shut the gates. They don't need to defend the city from anyone because there are no enemies. That future city where all god's people will be will be 1 where there are no enemies.
There's no fear. There's no opposition. Now, that may not thrill you, although it should. It may not thrill you, but there are plenty of Christians around the world for whom that is a delight because they are facing incredible suffering for being god's people. And they are longing for the day when they will be in that city, where the gates never need to be shut, where they will be perfectly safe for eternity.
And if you've trusted in Christ, we will be there with them. See, Zechariah's prophecy is 1 that has been fulfilled and will be fulfilled. We're still looking forward to the salvation from enemies. It is yet to come. And what's our job now as we are between the 2 peaks of the mountain?
It is to go and proclaim salvation from sin, to go and tell people that through Jesus' first coming, we can be forgiven. All our wrongs can be dealt with. And we can come to god and have peace with him. And we look forward to that day when there will be salvation from enemies. So I think we can sing Zechariah's song.
I think we can sing all of it. The first half salvation from enemies, we've just got to remember that's future. But salvation from sin that has been achieved, and we can rejoice in it. So I think we can sing it, and I hope you will. Let me just lead us in prayer.
How many father we praise you for this prophecy of Zechariahs, and thank you that he spoke of salvation from enemies and salvation from sin. And we praise you that Jesus came and died for us so that we could be forgiven. And I pray, please, each 1 of us here would take hold of that promise and rejoice in salvation in peace with you. In god and sinners reconcile it. And father, we do look forward to, we long for the day, where salvation from enemies will be a reality, where we will be in that new Jerusalem.
Where there will be perfect peace, and there won't be fear of enemies. Are they help us to look forward to that day when Jesus will return?