June 30, 2000

• Luke 1:67-80 Zachariah's Song - Davidic & Abrahamic Covenants

  

  Zachariah's Song of Salvation: Introduction

  Luke 1:67-80

  Luke 1 verses 67 to 80, it's the final portion of the first chapter.  It is known as the benedictus of Zachariah because the Latin word for "blessed" is benedictus.  And it's just gotten to bear that name through the years.  It is Zachariah's praise to God. As we look at Zachariah's praise to God, we are struck by a couple of notes in this song of praise.  There is a reference in verse 69 to David, and there's a reference further down in verse 73 to Abraham.  And there's a reference down in verse 77 to the forgiveness of sins.

  Zachariah in his song of praise here is linking what is unfolding before his very eyes.  He is linking it to very specific covenants given in the Old Testament, a covenant to David, a covenant to Abraham, and a covenant about the forgiveness of sins known as the New Covenant presented in Jeremiah 31.  We can divide Zachariah's praise then into those three parts.  Part of it deals with the fulfillment of the Davidic Covenant, part of it deals with the fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant, and part of it deals with the fulfillment of the New Covenant.

  All three of those covenants are what we would call "salvific" or salvation covenants, saving covenants.  That is they have to do with blessings that come by salvation.  No one will experience the fullness of the Davidic Covenant apart from salvation.  And everyone who is saved will participate to one degree or another in the fulfillment of the Davidic Covenant.  No one will enter in to the full blessing of the Abrahamic Covenant apart from salvation and all who believe will to some degree enter in to the fullness of the promises and blessings of the Abrahamic Covenant.  And no one will either experience the Davidic Covenant or the Abrahamic Covenant if they don't experience the forgiveness of sin provided in the New Covenant.

  So these are covenants which have to do with salvation.  The Davidic Covenant is universal, insofar as it relates to the universal and eternal rule of Jesus Christ.  The Abrahamic Covenant is national, insofar as it deals primarily with promises made by God to Israel for blessing.  And the New Covenant is personal, in that it deals with how God works for the forgiveness of sin in the life of an individual.  The Davidic Covenant, universal; the Abrahamic Covenant, national; the New Covenant, personal...they're not exclusively that but that's the main feature of those covenants and we'll watch them unfold when we get in to the text.

  So this is a very critical text.  And for Luke it's essential that he have this here that it be included for the purposes that the Spirit of God is directing Luke because the flow that he begins is the flow of the story of salvation.  But Luke wants to be sure that no one assumes that this is something new, that this is something that just dropped out of heaven.  Not at all, this is something that fulfills something very old.  Luke wants us to understand that the coming of the forerunner, John the Baptist, the coming of the Messiah, Jesus, inaugurating the fulfillment of God's promised redemption is the fulfillment of Davidic covenant, Abrahamic covenant and New Covenant features.

  Luke is putting this here at a very appropriate place, including this great benedictus by Zachariah so that we understand that Christianity is not an aberration, it is not a Judaistic heresy, as it was thought to be, it is not some new religion but rather Christianity, the coming of Messiah and His work is the fulfillment of Davidic promise, Abrahamic promise and the promise of a New Covenant. 

  In the Old Testament there basically are six covenants.  You hear a lot of talk about covenant theology, and there's much discussion about what are the covenants.  To put it simply, I choose to believe that the covenants are those covenants which the Bible calls covenants.  I'm not real anxious to invent a covenant that the Bible doesn't identify as such.  As you begin to read the scriptures, God continually refers to Himself as a covenant-keeping God.  Repeatedly God's faithfulness to His covenant is reiterated.  We remember the wonderful words of Jeremiah, "Great is Thy faithfulness."  And over and over again Scripture talks about God being faithful to His covenant, to His irrevocable promises which He made.

  And He made several.  There are six specific covenants in the Old Testament.  The first one that you run in to in the Old Testament would be the covenant that God made with Noah.  He made an irrevocable pledge to Noah that He would never again destroy the world by water.  And He set a rainbow in the sky as a symbol of that irrevocable promise.  In the end when the world is destroyed, it will be destroyed not by water but by fire.

  Then the next covenant that I would mention to you is a covenant that God made with Moses in Exodus.  He gave the Law and that's what's called the Mosaic...the first is the Noahic Covenant, the promise of God to Noah, irrevocable promise that He would never destroy the world by water.  Then comes the Mosaic promise in which God gives His Law and promises obedience will bring blessing and disobedience will bring punishment or cursing.  That is God's irrevocable promise and it is still true.  You obey God's law, you will be blessed.  You disobey God's law and you will be judged.

  There's a third covenant that I would mention, it's a Priestly Covenant.  It's given in Numbers chapter 25 and in that God pledges irrevocably to grant to His people Israel a priesthood.  That is irrevocable.  There will be a priesthood given to the people Israel and in the end, of course, even in the Millennium there will be a priesthood as the prophets indicate.

  So you have the irrevocable promise that God gave to Noah, He won't destroy the world.  An irrevocable promise that God gave to Moses, obey His law you're blessed, disobey, you're cursed. And an irrevocable promise given in Numbers 25 to the people that there would be a perpetual priesthood right on in the final and glorious kingdom of the Messiah.

  Now those three promises are not salvation promises.  They are not means of salvation are not inherent in them.  Salvation is not an issue with Noah, it's not an issue with Moses because you can't be saved by the law.  It's not an issue in the priestly covenant as well.

  The other three covenants which would be the Abrahamic Covenant, Davidic Covenant and New Covenant, are what we call salvific, they have components that are connected to salvation.  The Davidic Covenant can't come to pass until there is salvation.  The Abrahamic Covenant can't come to pass until there is salvation.  And the New Covenant is a covenant of salvation which effects all the rest because until you come to the salvation provided in the New Covenant, you can't receive the benefits of the Abrahamic or the Davidic covenants.  Now that's a summary and we'll kind of look into the pieces of that as we work through this tremendous passage of Scripture.

  I'm saying all of that because I want you to understand that this is not just a song of praise sort of pulled out of the air, this is a major connecting point to the Old Testament to demonstrate that the...what is unfolding as Luke begins his gospel, as God steps into history, as Gabriel announces the birth of the forerunner of the Messiah and to Mary the birth of Messiah, as miracles occur, miracles of conception in Elizabeth, miracle of a virgin conception in Mary, as God speaks and God sends angels and God does miracles and the great plan of redemption as to its fulfillment is being launched, it is very important that we understand that this is not new, but this is the fulfillment of something very old...the fulfillment of the Davidic promise, the Abrahamic promise and the new promise of Jeremiah 31. 

  So there's tremendous theological content in this passage  and we're going to see how the praise of Zachariah falls into those three parts.  The first part deals with Davidic fulfillment, the second part deals with Abrahamic fulfillment and the third part deals with the fulfillment of the New Covenant. And I'll go to each of those covenants, explain them to you and show how this connects.  It's very important because it shows that Christianity, the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ and what He did was the fulfillment of everything promised in the Old Testament.

  Now, let's go back to the narrative for a moment.  The story is pretty simple to hear.  A simple couple really by the name of Zachariah and Elizabeth.  He was a priest and, of course, they were unable to have children, barren all their life somewhere maybe in their seventies.  The angel Gabriel appears and it says they're going to have a son and this son is going to be the forerunner of the Messiah.  A little while after that Elizabeth becomes pregnant.  And, of course, she's bearing this great son who is going to be the forerunner of the Messiah.  And the angel Gabriel comes back and comes to a virgin Mary in the city of Nazareth, a simple little village in Galilee and he tells her without the aid of a man but by the work of God a child will be created in her womb who will, in fact, be the Messiah Himself, the Redeemer, the Savior of the world. 

  Now at the last passage we looked at, verses 57 to 66, John the Baptist was born.  So you have the fulfillment of the first promise of Gabriel that Elizabeth and Zachariah would have a son and it's fulfilled.  When we get to chapter 2, of course, the promise to Mary will be fulfilled and we'll look at the birth of Jesus.

  It's after the birth of John then that we find ourselves in verse 67.  For all the nine months of Elizabeth's pregnancy, her husband Zachariah has been deaf and mute.  He's been unable to hear and speak and that because God judged him.  God literally, miraculously silenced the man and made him deaf for nine months because of his unbelief.  It was a chastening.  All that time, we saw last time, he was communicating by writing things on a wax board.  But at the birth of his son the chastening ended, and verse 64 says, "When John was born his mouth was at once opened, his tongue loosed and he began to speak in praise of God."  Nine months of pent-up praise and finally God miraculously opened his mouth and the praise gushed out of his mouth.  We don't have to wonder what the praise was because it's given in verse 67 and following.  And he may have said other things, this may not be all of it, this may well be the first thing he said, it may be something he said later.  But this is the praise of God and it is unmixed praise.  There is nothing in here about judgment.  There's nothing in here that's negative.  It is just unmixed praise.

  This is a reasonable response to what's going on.  This isn't just a baby born to a barren old couple, they couldn't have children ever and they certainly couldn't have children at that age unless God intervened miraculously.  So this is an incredible thing just from the human side because they're no longer without a child, not only a child but an heir and all of that.  So it's a marvelous thing because a son is born.  It's a more marvelous thing because it's miraculous to this old couple.  But there's something even more marvelous than that, and that is that the son being born signals the coming of Messiah which signals the coming of redemption to Israel, salvation, the Redeemer and therefore the fulfillment of Davidic, Abrahamic and New Covenant promise.  Consequently this is a time for praise, this is a time for praise.  And the praise of Zachariah isn't about a barren father or about a barren mother having a baby, it's not about an old man and an old woman having a baby.  It's not about removing the stigma of barrenness.  It's not about adding joy to the family.  It's all about covenant fulfillment and that because it is redemption that is coming.  The forerunner will announce the coming of the Savior who will deliver and rescue Israel and fulfill God's covenants.

  Such songs of deliverance occur in the Old Testament.  We shouldn't be surprised about songs of salvation.  We're going to be singing them forever.  Go to Revelation 5 and take a glimpse of heaven.  John was given a picture of heaven.  He was allowed to see heaven firsthand in a vision. And what did he hear?  He heard them singing, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain."  And it says they were singing a new song, Revelation 5:9.  It was the song of salvation.

  God's people through all of redemptive history and throughout all of eternity are going to sing the wonders of God's saving power.  We're not surprised then that Zachariah, knowing that the birth of this little boy John, whom he may have been holding in his arms when he offered this praise, certainly it indicates that he speaks in the first person to him in verse 26, "And you, child," so it's very likely that he has the little baby in his arms as he spoke these things, he realizes that this little baby, John, is the forerunner of the Messiah, that Mary who's been living with them for three months is to be the mother of the Messiah, therefore redemption is near.  He speaks of it in verse 68 as if it already happened...He has visited us, and accomplished redemption.  So Zachariah knows what's going on here.  He knows his son is the forerunner.  He knows Mary is pregnant with the Messiah.  He knows that it's only a matter of time till the child, the Messiah will be born, just a few months, and then some years until He grows...and maybe, just maybe Zachariah is even young enough, though in his sixties, seventies, or maybe even eighties, he might be around to see the Messiah establish His Kingdom.  This is all great stuff.  And he also knows that this is the fulfillment of Old Testament promise.  As I said, this is a Jewish man, not just a Jewish man but this is a man who is expert in the Old Testament, this is a teacher, he's a priest.  What do you think priests did?  Well, they made sacrifices when they went to Jerusalem.  Four weeks a year they were in Jerusalem doing that, the rest of the time they were in the hill country around Judea in his little village and he was the spiritual counselor and the teacher of the Old Testament.  He was the one who explained the issues of the Scripture to the people and who helped them understand their problems in the light of God's revelation.  And so he knew his Old Testament, he knew Davidic promise, he understood Abrahamic promise and he understood the New Covenant.  And so he breaks forth in a form of praise that links up with those great promises of God.  This then is a very, very important portion of Scripture.  

  Verse 36 says there was a prophetess, this was at the time when Jesus was taken to the temple, there's a prophetess there whose name was Anna, and she's identified there as the daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher, she was an older lady, advanced in years.  She had lived with a husband seven years after her marriage and like most girls probably was married around 13 or 14 so when she was just 20 or so her husband died and she's a widow to the age of 84.  So she's been a widow for 60-plus years.  She never left the temple.  All during the time of her widowhood she stayed in the temple, serving night and day with fasting and prayers.  She gave herself to the religious service of Israel there, did whatever she could and fasted and prayed for all those years. 

  And what was on her heart all those years?  What was she waiting for?  What was she praying for?  Verse 38, "That very moment she came up, began giving thanks to God," that's when she saw the Messiah, the child who had been brought to the temple, the same one, of course, that Simeon had seen earlier in that same passage.  "When she saw the baby and she realized this was the Messiah, she gave thanks to God first of all.  Secondly she became a witness to what she had seen, she continued to speak of Him to all those...look at this...who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem."  Believe me, there were a lot of Messianic Jews at that time.  They were looking for Jerusalem to be rescued.  They were looking for Jerusalem to be delivered.  They were waiting for the Messiah to come...400 years they have been waiting, since the Old Testament closed.  You know how the Old Testament closed?  Last book, Malachi, last chapter, here's the promise, "The Sun of righteousness...the Messiah...will arrive with healing in His beams."  That's how the Old Testament closes.  The Messiah is coming, He's going to come like the sun comes up in the dawn and sheds the warmth of its light across the earth...so the Messiah will arise and send His healing beams across the earth. And so the Old Testament closed with the promise of the...of the dawning of the Messianic day, the Messiah would come like the sun rises in the morning and cast His healing beams across the earth. 

  Four hundred years though and no dawn of Messiah, 400 years and no Savior, 400 years and no Redeemer, 400 years and terrible bondage under the Greeks, terrible bondage under the Romans, terrible oppression.  Four hundred years of being hated, 400 years of being oppressed, 400 years and no deliverance, no salvation.  But Luke is telling us 400 years is over and salvation is coming and it's coming, first of all, with the forerunner John who will point to the Messiah Jesus who is in fact the Redeemer.  The salvation of God was about to come.  The dawn was about to break.  The Sun of righteousness was about to rise with healing in His beams.  The light was almost ready to come to end the long night of darkness. 

  And Zachariah knew because the angel had told him.  And he had told Mary and Zachariah was now aware of the whole plan.  And so this is what he says, "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited us and accomplished redemption for His people, and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of David, His servant, as He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old, salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us, to show mercy toward our fathers, to remember His holy covenant, the oath which He swore to Abraham, our father, to grant us that we being delivered from the hand of our enemies might serve Him without fear in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days.  And you, child," he looks right at the little baby, John, "will be called the prophet of the Most High for you will go on before the Lord to prepare His ways, to give to His people the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God with which the sunrise from on high shall visit us to shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace."

  What a hymn of praise that is.  It's all about the salvation of God fulfilling the promise to David, the promise to Abraham and the promise of New Covenant forgiveness.  The story of Jesus is a story of salvation.  The Magnificat of Mary looked at individual salvation, "my soul exalts the Lord...my spirit rejoiced in my Savior."  The Magnificat of Mary looked at individual salvation, the great praise, the benedictus of Zachariah looks at collective salvation.  He sees the fulfillment of Davidic promise which is universal, the fulfillment of Abrahamic promise which is national, and both being fulfilled through the personal promise of the New Covenant.

  So his whole song is a song of redemption.  It's a song of salvation.  That's the only way to understand it and he sees it in his Jewish perspective with his Jewish eyes in the framework of Jewish theology as the fulfillment of Davidic, Abrahamic and New Covenant promise.

  Let's look a little bit at the opening of this praise.  Verse 67, his father, Zacharias, the father of the newborn little baby John, was filled with the Holy Spirit.  Just a note here, we've seen that now...this is the third time, first of all back in chapter 1 verse 15 it said that John the Baptist would be filled with the Holy Spirit while he was still in his mother's womb.  Now why did he need to be fulfilled...filled with the Holy Spirit in his mother's womb?  Because later on he made a silent prophecy, or a silent declaration, verse 41, "The babe leaped in her womb when Mary came."  There was John the Baptist inspired by the Holy Spirit to make a prophetic kick, if you will...a prophetic jump, affirming from the womb that indeed the child of Mary was the Messiah.

  Then we saw that Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit in verse 41, "And immediately she cried with a loud voice and also spoke the Word of God a blessing on Mary and on her child."  Now here Zacharias is filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied saying... 

  So in each case the Spirit of God came...came in a unique way filling the little infant in the womb, and using the infant to make a physical confirmation of the fact that Mary's child was indeed the Messiah.  The Spirit filled Elizabeth and out of her mouth came the Word of God blessing Mary and the child.  Here He fills Zachariah and out of his mouth comes the very Word of God.  It said he prophesied.  Please notice that being...prophesy  doesn't mean to predict the future.  It simply means to speak before.  It's the Greek word that means "to speak before."  I'm doing it right now in the simplest sense, I'm standing and speaking before you.  He spoke before those who were around him.

  His words were influenced by the Holy Spirit, that's why he was filled with the Holy Spirit so that what he spoke was the Word of God.  And this is what he said, "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel."  He's...he's talking about the God of Israel, the God of the Old Testament, Jehovah. And he blesses the God of Israel. That's a very common way to introduce thanksgiving in praise.  You find that all through the Old Testament...Blessed be the Lord God of Israel...Psalm 41:13, Psalm 72:18, Psalm 106:48, 1 Kings 1:48...Blessed be the Lord God of Israel.  He is blessing the God of Israel.  Again I say, this is not something foreign to Israel, this is not something foreign to Old Testament truth, this is something connected to it, indivisible from it.  He rightly viewed the plan of God as unfolding out of Old Testament promise to the nation Israel.  God is the God of Israel, and salvation...Jesus said in John 4:22...salvation is of the Jews.  The whole of salvation has come through Israel.  Romans 9, Paul says, "Of Israel is the covenants and the promises and the law and the Messiah."  All of it came through Israel, the adoption, everything God funneled through Israel.  It wasn't that Israel was the end, it was that Israel was the means to the end.  Through Israel came the Messiah.  Through Israel came God's law, God's promises, God's covenants, all of it.  It was the God of Israel who uniquely used Israel as a witness nation to reach the world. 

  Blessed be the Lord God of Israel...why is he blessing God?  Why does benedictus, the Latin word for blessed, why is he blessing God?  "For He has visited us."  Now he knew what was going on.  God had visited him, sending His angel, sending His Word, working miracles, two miracles of conception and a miracle of silence and then a miracle of speech in his case.  By the way, that little phrase "He has visited us," that again shows how Jewish Zacharias was.  That is an Old Testament phrase.  The Old Testament makes much about divine visitation, about a divine visit, a visit from God. Sometimes for judgment as in Exodus 32:34 you have God visiting for judgment.  On the other hand, in Exodus 4:31, Ruth 1:6 and other places you have God visiting with grace.  But he is simply saying, "God has visited us."  This is heaven come down, the supernatural has invaded the natural.  God is at work.  This is a common Old Testament expression.  In the New Testament it's used only by Luke and once in Hebrews.  We're not surprised by that, Hebrews 2:6, because Hebrews is a book written to Jews and has very familiar Jewish expressions.  God has visited us and this time it's not for judgment, this time...look what he says..."He has visited us and has accomplished redemption for His people."

  Now he hasn't seen this redemption yet.  Not yet, I mean, the baby is just newly born in his hands here and this baby is the forerunner of the Messiah who is not even born yet, let alone having achieved His deliverance.  But it's so sure, he's so certain of it because the miraculous has confirmed that God is at work, the angelic has spoken on behalf of God.  He knows that redemption is nigh.  It's all about redemption.  Luke's gospel is all about redemption.  In Luke 21:28 Jesus says, "Your redemption draws near."  We already saw in 2:38 how they were looking for redemption.  In the very last chapter of Luke, verse 21 of chapter 24, the disciples were saying, "We were hoping that the Messiah was going to redeem Israel."  The whole of believing Israelites, in fact the whole of the nation of Israel were waiting for the Sun to rise with healing, they were waiting for the Messiah, the Deliverer, the Redeemer, the Savior.  They were looking at it politically. They were looking at the Messiah to come and destroy the Roman power the way that God had destroyed the Egyptian power and released the people from bondage, set them free to prosperity and the fulfillment of all promise.  They were looking for the Kingdom in which the Son of David would rule the whole world and rule it forever. They were looking for the fulfillment of Abrahamic promise, blessing and blessing and blessing and blessing.  So they were looking at it externally.  And they really weren't aware of the fact that they weren't going to be able to have, even though the Messiah came, they weren't going to be able to have the fulfillment of the Davidic, or the Abrahamic covenant unless they came through the New Covenant; unless their sins were forgiven.

  And so, that's why John preached repentance.  He preached the necessary personal salvation provided in the New Covenant as preliminary to experiencing the fulfillment of the Abrahamic and Davidic covenants.  Sadly, they didn't accept that, they beheaded John and executed the Messiah and still therefore not having come by the New Covenant have not received the blessings of the Abrahamic and the Davidic promises.  But at this time Zachariah has no way of knowing what's going to unfold and so he is ecstatic.  He is alive at the time of redemption.  He is alive at the time the day dawns, the Messiah, the Sun of righteousness rises with healing in His wings, or His beams.  He is there at that moment alive, and get this...he is the father of the forerunner.  Pretty exciting day.  He's visited us and He's accomplished redemption for His people.  He knows God well enough to know that what God starts He finishes and he speaks as though it's already taken place.  The birth of John then signals the visitation of God to rescue His people, to buy them back, to pay the purchase price to deliver His people.

  By the way, take some time this afternoon to read Psalm 106.  It's a Psalm in celebration of God's redemption of Israel from Egypt. And it's really what they saw as to be repeated in the future. It's a great Psalm of how God redeemed Israel from Egypt and it was sort of...that Psalm was sort of the background of the way they thought it was going to happen when it happened again.  When Messiah came they were expecting maybe that God this time would part the Mediterranean if He had to to rescue His people. 

  Now how is God going to do this?  Well, Zachariah knows how He's going to do it because he knows what the angel told him, he knows what the angel told Gabriel, what the angel told Mary, I should say, because he's talked to Mary.  Mary's been living in their house for three months.  He knows what's happening.  He knows what Gabriel told him, what Gabriel told Mary and he knows that God is going to bring redemption, verse 69, "Because he has raised up a horn of salvation for us."  He knows that.  This is the Messiah, the horn of salvation.

  In Psalm 18:2 it says, "The Lord is the horn of my salvation."  The Lord is the horn of my salvation.  Now what is he talking about here?  What is this horn thing?  Is this a trumpet?  No, it's an animal horn.  It was a common Old Testament expression, very common, you find it many places.  Taken from the animal kingdom, a horn spoke of power, power to conquer and power to kill.  When large animals go to battle, they go to battle using their horns, the large powerful beasts conquer and kill with their horns.  So the horn became the symbol of conquering, killing power.  And that's the way they viewed the Messiah.  The Messiah is going to come and conquer and destroy the enemy and set His people free.  He's going to be the great deliverer, the great rescuer.  You see that horn concept, as I said, in many places in the Old Testament.  At Deuteronomy 33:17, Joseph is being spoken of here and he speaks of Joseph as a firstborn of his ox, majesty is his and his horns are the horns of the wild ox, with them he shall push the peoples all at once to the ends of the earth.  So they saw like this great ox, lowering its horns and just driving people out.  And that's how they viewed the coming of Messiah.  He would come and with great power like a massive formidable animal, literally drive the enemies out and destroy them and rescue God's people.  This is what thrilled him, their impending deliverance.

  In Hannah's great song of salvation, 1 Samuel 2:10, "Those who contend with the Lord will be shattered, against them He will thunder in the heavens.  The Lord will judge the ends of the earth and He will give strength to His king, He will exalt the horn of His anointed."  And again the power or the prowess to conquer and destroy was like a great beast's horn. And that's how they viewed the great conquering power of the anointed of God, the Messiah who would come and push His enemies to the end of the earth with destruction.

  Jeremiah 50 verse 34 says, "Their Redeemer is strong."  And it takes a strong redeemer to let Israel out of Egypt, it takes tremendous power in the future, they knew, to destroy their yoke of Rome and to break the bondage of oppressive nations. 

  So he's excited.  The horn has come.  The great, strong, anointed of God, the Messiah, the great Savior, the great Deliverer, the Great Conqueror, the great rescuer has been raised up.  Boy, this is the greatest moment in the history of Israel.  This is the greatest moment, the culmination of all of redemptive hope and anticipation.  And there is Zachariah, this non-descript, plain vanilla, run-of-the-mill, common village priest at the center of this unfolding, miraculous saga.

  Luke, by the way, is particularly concerned that we understand Jesus as the Savior, rescuer, Redeemer.  He speaks of Jesus as Savior, or saving some 30 times, many more than all the other gospels.  Sums it up in Luke 19:10, "The Son of Man has come to seek and save that which was lost."  The theme of Savior, rescuer, deliverer, redeemer looms large in Luke's wonderful gospel.

  So, I want you to understand the Jewish perspective here as we approach it.  Now just briefly we'll look at the first of the three covenants, and I'll just barely introduce it to you because there's so much thrilling truth in it.  The first covenant that Zachariah saw being fulfilled is the Davidic Covenant...the Davidic Covenant, because immediately in the middle of verse 69 he links the horn of salvation, the Messiah, he says, "God has raised up to accomplish redemption, He's visited us, He's accomplished redemption, He's done it by raising up a horn of salvation for us in the house of David His servant as he spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old."

  Now he knew that the Old Testament promised that the Messiah would be in the line of David, that the Old Testament writers had clearly laid out that the Messiah would come from the Davidic line, that He would bear the royal blood of David's family.  So as Zachariah launches his praise for the redemption and salvation of God through Messiah, he goes back to the fact that this is a fulfillment of the great covenant God made with David.  How does he know that?  Because he knows the Messiah is going to be born in the house of David.  He knows that He's going to be born as a seed of David.  How does he know that?  There's only one way he could know that.  How does he know that?  First of all, he knows it because it's the promise of God from way back from the prophets of old, its always been the promise of God that the Messiah would be David's greater Son.  He knows it that way.  But secondly, this is indication to me, positive indication that he knew Mary was also a descendant of David.  He would have had to have known that.  And how would he have known that?  Well, Mary had been living there for three months, she must have told him.  Her genealogy isn't given until the third chapter.  Joseph's genealogy is given in Matthew chapter 1 and Joseph descended from David.  Joseph, who later became Mary's husband, was in the line of David and even though he wasn't the physical father of Jesus because Jesus was created by God in Mary's womb apart from a man, Joseph still as the physical...not the physical father of Jesus, but the legal father of Jesus passed his royal right to Jesus because an adopted son would bear that right. 

  More importantly, Mary passed the actual royal blood to Jesus because she was also in the line of David.  That must be true.  Zachariah says that this horn of salvation which he knows is the Messiah, which he knows is in Mary's womb because the same angel told her that told him about John, he believes that she is carrying the Messiah and when he says that this is the horn of salvation in the house of David, His servant, he is affirming that this mother is in the line of David.  He didn't have any knowledge that she would ever even marry Joseph.  She wasn't married to him yet even though they were betrothed.  He couldn't have known whether Joseph would marry her or not.  And he did know that the child was already there and planted there by God and whatever blood that child had was the blood of Mary which he sees as the lineage of David.  This affirms then that Mary was of David's royal seed as well.  Psalm 132:17, Messiah is called the horn of David...the horn of David...the horn of David.

  And we know the Messiah would come from David's line, back to verse 32 chapter 1.  The angel Gabriel says to Mary, you're going to have a son, His name is Jesus which means Jehovah saves, the Savior.  He will come as Savior, Redeemer.  He will be great, He will be called the Son of the Most High and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David.  So again we know that this Messiah would be born in the line of David.

  Now what is the Davidic Covenant?  Second Samuel 7, David wanted to build a temple for God and God didn't let him do it, so God really created a huge disappointment in David's mind.  But God is very gracious to David.  He took away one thing, didn't let him build Him a temple.  But He gave him something else.  He gave him something quite wonderful, verse 12, "When your days are complete, you lie down with your fathers, I'll raise up your descendant after you who will come forth from you and I'll establish His Kingdom. He'll build a house for me for My name and I'll establish the throne of His Kingdom forever."  Whew!  Now I think there was a near fulfillment in Solomon, but Solomon's kingdom wasn't forever.  It talks about Solomon in verse 14 and verse 15, but down in verse 16, again it reiterates, "Your house, Your Kingdom shall endure before Me forever, your throne shall be established forever."

  In this wonderful prophecy here, God promises to David a son, Solomon, who will establish a kingdom and God will be a Father to him, verse 14, and if he sins God will correct him and all of that.  But God not only promises Solomon and a kingdom, but a greater Son who will have an eternal Kingdom.  This is the Davidic Covenant.  You won't find the word "covenant" here, but you will find the word "covenant" in 2 Samuel 23:5, that's why we know it to be an actual covenant.  Here are the last words of David, the last words of David, 2 Samuel 23 and in verse 5 he says, "Truly is not my house so with God, for He has made an everlasting covenant with me?"  That's the Davidic Covenant.  And what did it promise?  It promised an irrevocable pledge that God would raise up a Son out of David's loins who would have an eternal Kingdom...an eternal Kingdom.

  That has to be the Messiah.  Over 40 Old Testament passages are directly related to 2 Samuel 7, over 40 of them.  Look back at that promise that the Messiah will have a Kingdom that is everlasting and universal...universal and everlasting.   That was the Davidic promise.  In the future, one of David's sons would come and He would establish a Kingdom that is universal and everlasting, that's the Messiah.

  As I said, 40 passages refer back to that.  Perhaps the most familiar one, you'll recognize it immediately, Isaiah 9:6 and 7.  Isaiah 9, the promise of Messiah, "A child will be born to us, a Son will be given to us and the government will rest on His shoulders," the government of what?  The government of everything.  "And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.  There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace."  In other words, He will rule everywhere, universal, "On the throne of David and over His Kingdom to establish it with justice and righteousness from then on and forever more the zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this."  There's Isaiah referring to the fact that Messiah will be born, He will be born a man, a child, a Son, but He will be the universal ruler, He will also be the Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace, His Kingdom will know no end and no bounds.  That's the Davidic promise.

  The point?  The promise was this...some day a Son of David will come as Messiah and He will deliver you and establish a Kingdom over the entire world that will last forever.  The Jews had waited and waited and waited, been oppressed and oppressed and oppressed and oppressed and oppressed.  Long after 2 Samuel they had felt the oppression of hateful nations, hostility.  They're still feeling it...still feeling it, going through the horrors of the Holocaust, they still feel, even today, hostility and the hatred of nations around them breathing fire down their necks at all times, waiting, waiting, waiting for the Kingdom in which their Messiah will rule universally and forever.

  Well Zachariah says it's about to dawn.  The forerunner's here, the Rescuer, the Messiah is coming.  It's about to happen, it's about to unfold.  And as I said, he probably hoped that he would be alive to see the Messiah establish the kingdom, but as I said earlier, they couldn't receive the benefits of the Davidic kingdom and they couldn't receive the benefits of the Abrahamic Covenant unless they accepted the terms of the New Covenant which was personal repentance and the forgiveness of sins.  And they didn't accept that.  In fact, they beheaded John and executed Jesus.  And so they've yet to receive the Davidic promise or the fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise and can't till they meet the terms of the New Covenant.  But Zachariah didn't know that.  All he saw was this was the launch point of all that David was promised.  Now there's much more to say about the Davidic Covenant, but that's for next time.

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  Zachariah's Song of Salvation: The Davidic Covenant

  Luke 1:67-80

  This song of praise by Zacharias stops us in our tracks.  We can't proceed through the story any further until we get a grip on the content of this psalm, this hymn of praise.  It's too critical.  With the Holy Spirit inspired genius that only a Bible writer can have, Luke--the very, very careful historian--stops us in the narrative and takes us back to the Old Testament and ties us in to three great covenants there by giving us this psalm, this song of salvation uttered by the lips of Zacharias. 

  It is a monumental moment in the unfolding of the continuity of redemptive history.  The coming of Jesus connects specifically to the Old Testament.  It is the completion of all Old Testament promise, all Old Testament covenant, all Old Testament hope.  It is the completion of the true religious of Judaism.  It is the fulfillment of the greatest promises of God.  In fact, Zacharias in this psalm of praise sees the coming of Messiah as the fulfillment of the three great covenants that involve salvation in the Old Testament, the Davidic Covenant, the Abrahamic Covenant, and the New Covenant.

  In verse 69 he mentions the house of David.  In verse 73 he mentions the earth to Abraham.  And in verse 77 the knowledge of salvation that includes the forgiveness of sins.  Those are references to the Davidic Covenant, the Abrahamic Covenant, and the New Covenant.  In other words, Zacharias knows what is happening.  And this comes, this great psalm of praise, immediately after the birth of his son, John, which is discussed in the immediately preceding passage.  When that little baby boy was born to his wife, Elizabeth, both of them in their seventies, maybe even in their eighties, never having been able to have a child, miraculously they were able to conceive and now the child is born who is to be the forerunner of the Messiah, who is to prepare the way of the Lord, who is to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and turn the people back to God to get them ready for the arrival of the Savior, the Son of the Most High, the Messiah, the King. 

  With the birth of that son, Zacharias, that priest, that Old Testament expert who spent most of his time in the Old Testament, most of his time explaining its significance to the people in the little village in the hill country of Judea where he served as a priest, Zacharias knew what was going on.  He knew that all Old Testament promise was about to be fulfilled.  He knew that his son was the forerunner of the Messiah and the Messiah couldn't be far behind.  And he already knew the mother of the Messiah was pregnant, namely Mary.  She had just spent three months in their home.  He knew the Messiah was coming and with the Messiah would come all the fulfillment of Davidic promise, all the fulfillment of Abrahamic promise and all the fulfillment of the New Covenant of Jeremiah 31. 

  This was that for which every Jew had hoped and dreamed.  This is that for which those looking for the redemption of Jerusalem, as mentioned in Luke 2:38, had hoped for so long.  This is that for which an old lady named Anna had 64 years spent in the temple praying and fasting that this would happen.  This was the coming of the Messiah.  This was the dawn of redemption.  This was fulfillment of Davidic and Abrahamic and New Covenant promise.  This was the great monumental high point in the saga of God's redemption promised to and through His people Israel.

  Mary's praise was personal.  She was praising God for sending her a Savior.  She was praising God for what He was going to do personally in her life and the lives of others.  But Zacharias doesn't give us a personal song, he gives us a song that is as broad as the stream of redemptive history, embracing all those who will come to know God through the means of salvation provided in the Savior.  This is transitional, from the Old to the New.  The three Covenants, as I said, are the theme of his great psalm.

  There are three other covenants in the Old Testament mentioned as such.  There's the Noahic Covenant, a Covenant God made with Noah, never to destroy the world again by water.  There is also a Priestly Covenant in the Old Testament that God would provide for Israel a perpetual priesthood.  And there is also the Mosaic Covenant, that is the law of Moses by which God expressed His moral and ceremonial requirements.  Now we know that those are not saving covenants.  The Noahic Covenant had no saving component.  The Priestly Covenant had no saving component.  And no one can be saved by keeping the Mosaic Law.

  The people knew that.  But there were covenants that embraced salvation.  The promise of God to Abraham would only come true through redemption.  The promise of God to David would only come true through redemption.  And the New Covenant WAS the Covenant that brought salvation, that opened the door to the fulfillment of both the Davidic and the Abrahamic Covenants.  So this is a monumental moment and Zachariah, that old priest, knew it.  And he also had it reinforced by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and he launches his praise being filled with the Holy Spirit in verse 67, he prophesied, or speaks, saying, "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel for He has visited us and accomplished redemption for His people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us."

  Notice how he talks about it in the past tense, as if it has already happened.  Well, in a sense, it has because the child, John, has just been born.  In fact, this may well be on the very day of his...on the very day of his circumcision, eight days after his birth which is described in the prior passage.  And Zacharias knows that this son is to be the forerunner of Messiah, great in the sight of the Lord, filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother's womb, etc.  And with the birth of that son he knows God has begun messianic fulfillment.  So he launches into this great benedictus, the Latin for blessed...blesses God for visiting and bringing redemption through the horn of salvation which is a reference to Messiah.  The horn of salvation, "horn" being that notation from the animal kingdom that speaks of power, killing power as well as power to move and push and power of authority, expression for power to conquer...a common one in the Old Testament used here to describe the Messiah Himself.

  "He says that the coming of the horn of salvation is...verse 69...in the house of David, His servant, as He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old."  Why does he bring that in?  Because this is the fulfillment of Davidic promise, the Davidic Covenant.  He knows what every Jew knew that the Messiah would come in the royal line of King David and would restore the kingdom, the great kingdom of David.  David was the great king.  David was the righteous king.  David was the defining king, the king who was God's king, the king who established the great kingdom which began to decline through his son and certainly didn't exist in his predecessor Saul.  By the time Solomon got done with David's kingdom, it had been split.  By the time the split kingdom disappeared, everything was gone.  But the great apex was the kingdom of David.  And they longed for the restoration of the greatness of the Davidic kingdom when Messiah came.  And the Jews all expected that to happen.

  Now let's go back to that original Davidic Covenant.  II Samuel 7 is one of those most monumental of all chapters in the Old Testament. David the king is in his house and he's in comfort because he's got a strong military position and the enemies are resting.  It's kind of a strong position in a cold war kind of thing and he's very comfortable and he's got this incredible palace.  The palace of David was quite remarkable.  And David's looking around at his palace and he says, "You know, I'm in this palace and God's in a tent," because the Ark of the Covenant was still in the tabernacle, there was no temple.  And he was concerned that he had a house, a palace, and God was in a crummy tent that had been around for a long time and had been basically torn down and set up and torn down and set up and torn down and set up enough that it was pretty...pretty dog-eared and threadbare. 

  So he went to Nathan the prophet and he had a conversation.  He said, "Now I dwell in a house of cedar, the Ark of God dwells in a tent. This isn't right."  And Nathan thought it was a great thought and the implication was, I'm going to build God a house, I'm going to build God a greater house than I have, I'm a man, I have a house of cedar, God is God, He deserves something better.

  So, Nathan says in verse 3, "Go do all that's in your mind for the Lord is with you."  Well the problem with that was Nathan hadn't checked in with God, he exercised a little independent authority and told David that that was a great idea, when, in fact, he hadn't sought the Lord at all. 

  "So it came about in the same night the Word of the Lord came to Nathan."  Nathan comes to him that very night...God comes to him that very night and says, "Say, Nathan, there's another message that I need you to give to David than the one you gave him.  You go say to My servant, David, 'Thus says the Lord,' this time.  'Are you the one who should build Me a house to dwell in?'"  Come on.  "You're a man of blood, a man of slaughter, a warrior, I'm not going to give you that privilege.  I have not dwelt in a house since the day I brought up the sons of Israel from Egypt.  Even to this day I've been moving about in a tent, even in a tabernacle.  Wherever I have gone with all the sons of Israel that I speak a word with one of the tribes of Israel, which I've commanded to shepherd my people Israel saying, 'Why have you not built Me a house of cedar?'  Am I asking for a house of cedar?  Am I unhappy with My tent?  Now therefore, thus you shall say to My servant, David, 'Thus says the Lord of host, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep...David, you remember, was a shepherd...that you should be ruler over My people Israel and I've been with you wherever you've gone and have cut off all your enemies from before you and I will make you a great name like the names of the great men who are on the earth.'"

  David, you're going to have a great name.  And indeed he does to this day.  You're going to be famous.  You're going to be world famous and all of that.  "I will also appoint a place for My people Israel, I will plant them."  I'm going to make your name great, I'm going to give your people, the people of Israel a great land.  I'm going to plant them in that land.  I'm going to bring them to a place where they'll never be disturbed again, nor will the wicked afflict them anymore as formerly.  This is the Davidic Covenant.  I promise a great nation.  I promise a perpetual name of David.  I promise the land and you'll be in it and you'll be at peace and there will be no conflict and your enemies will not move against you.  That's what I promise.

  Verse 11, "Even from the day that I commanded judges to be over My people Israel, and I will give you rest from all your enemies, there's coming a time of peace."  He's talking about the great Davidic kingdom.  "And the Lord also declares to you that the Lord will make a house for you."

  You want to make a house for the Lord?  I'm going to make a house for you.  And what He means here is not just a building, but a massive sphere of rule.  I'm going to bring you a kingdom, David, I'm going to bring you a kingdom.  I'm going to bring you a kingdom of peace, a kingdom of tranquility, a kingdom where you're no longer at the assault point from your enemies, where no longer those who hate you will persecute you and oppress you and afflict you.  I'm going to bring you a kingdom of rest and peace in your own land and you're going to be planted and you're not going to be disturbed.  But I'm not going to let you build Me a temple.

  Verse 12, "When your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers...when you die...I'll raise up your descendant after you who will come forth from you and I'll establish his kingdom.  He'll build a house for My name."  Now that was whom?  Solomon, his son.   He's going to build that house.  And the Solomonic temple was a wonder of wonders, of course.  "And he will build a house for My name."  And then you go from a near fulfillment to a far one, "And I will establish the throne of His kingdom forever."  This is one of the wonderful things about prophecy.  It talks about a near fulfillment which is sort of like a small preview what is to come, and a far fulfillment. 

  Let me tell you something about Solomon's kingdom.  He did build a house, but it wasn't forever.  The Solomonic temple doesn't exist.  The Babylonians reduced it to dirt, to rubble.  It doesn't exist.  In 586 B.C. the Babylonians demolished the Solomonic temple.  Solomon's kingdom didn't last forever.  As his life went on, which was a life of sin, the power of the Davidic kingdom even though Solomon was rich and God made him rich because God blessed him in spite of himself, his sin began to eat away at the greatness of that kingdom and it diminished and diminished and diminished until at the end of Solomon's life the great kingdom of Israel, the great Davidic kingdom split.  He literally...he literally brought it to an end and the northern part became the kingdom of Israel, and the southern part, the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, constituted the kingdom of Judah. 

  Solomon by his iniquity literally split the Davidic kingdom, it didn't last forever, it just lasted for his life time.  And then you have the divided kingdom which lasted for a little while until the northern kingdom became so idolatrous and so sinful that God sent the Assyrians in 722 B.C. and literally swept the northern kingdom away into exile from which they never returned, which left the southern kingdom.  But by the time you get to 603, 597 and 586 the southern kingdom is destroyed at the hands of the Babylonians.  They're swept away and you have no kingdom in Israel at all, none.

  So when he's talking here that the Lord is going to give him a son who will establish the throne of His kingdom forever, it wasn't Solomon.  So you go from the near fulfillment, Solomon did build His temple, to the far fulfillment of an eternal kingdom.  Solomon is referred to in verse 14 as one who will be a son, but commit iniquity, be corrected.  But verse 16 refers to the Messiah who will establish a kingdom enduring forever with a throne established forever.  So God said to David...It's a nice gesture, David, I really appreciate...or Nathan, you tell David it's a nice gesture, I really appreciate you want to build Me a house, you're not going to do that, I'm not letting you build Me a house.  I'm going to take that away from you, I'm going to give you something better, I'm going to build a house for you.  I'm going to build a house, that is to say I'm going to extend your kingdom through your son, Solomon, and even beyond that, I'm going to bring a greater Son will establish your name and your kingdom forever.  And He was talking about the greater Son of David, not Solomon but Messiah.

  The Jews understood this as the Davidic Covenant.  The word "covenant" is not used there, but it is used in 2 Samuel 23:5 and in 2 Samuel 23:5 you have this word, "For He has made an everlasting covenant with me."  That's the last words of David.  David refers to that as the Davidic Covenant, ordered in all things and secured.  David said God has made an irrevocable, inviolable covenant with me to give me a greater Son who will establish an eternal Kingdom.  This is the Davidic Covenant.  It is irrevocable.  It is eternal.  There will be a King out of David's line who will reign forever.

  There are at least forty Old Testament passages directly connected to these verses.  There's a parallel presentation of the Davidic Covenant in 1 Chronicles 17 verses 4 to 15.  There's an explicit reference to the Davidic Covenant in Psalm 89 verses 30 to 37.  And the promise was that there would come one out of the loins of David, one in David's line, the seed of David, and God protected the Davidic line through some marvelous, marvelous providential and miraculous means.  God protected the Davidic line so that all the way down to the time of Christ the Davidic Line is still pure.  And Joseph is in it, and Mary is in it, and Jesus is truly by blood and right to rule a Son of David.

  They knew this was going to come.  The Jews knew it.  In Isaiah chapter 9 they knew a child would be born, a Son would be given, the government would rest upon His shoulders that that messianic government of the whole world, not only Israel, and He would be the wonderful counselor, mighty God, Prince of peace and of the increase of His government there would be no end...of His peace there would be no end, and it would be on the throne of David, Isaiah 9:7.  Psalm 2 says He will come and He will rule the nations with a rod of iron.  Zechariah said He would descend at some point to establish His Kingdom on the Mount of Olives and He would from that point establish a rule over the world.  It's repeated over and over in the Old Testament.

  I think of Psalm 110, "The Lord said to My Lord," that is the Father says to the Son, "Sit at My right hand until I make Thine enemies a footstool for Thy feet, The Lord will stretch forth Thy strong scepter from Zion saying, 'Rule in the midst of Thine enemies.'"  The Davidic promise said this, there will come a great King who will establish a Kingdom forever, a Kingdom of peace, of righteousness, of safety, of protection.  We will be in the land and we will be preserved in the land, protected from our enemies in the land from which the great King will rule over the entire world. 

  That's the Davidic promise.  And it's all over the place in the Old Testament and Zacharias knew what was happening.  The forerunner of the Messiah had been born just a week earlier and he knew that Mary was pregnant with the Messiah and all of the Davidic promise was about to burst into fulfillment.  The great universal promises were about to come to pass.  Zechariah 14:9 says it this way, "And the Lord will be King over all the earth, in that day the Lord will be the only one and His name the only one."  That's the summation of the Davidic Kingdom.  The Lord, the Messiah will be King over the earth...a literal earthly messianic Kingdom established on the earth.

  Zachariah was excited about this with all those who had been looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.  He was thrilled about it.  He expected it to come immediately.  What Zacharias didn't know is that...was the Messiah would come, the Messiah would be a King...when Jesus was asked by Pilate are You a King?  He admitted He was.  The King would come, He did have the power to establish His Kingdom, but He didn't establish it.  Reason--because the subjects of the King rejected the King.  And they culminated with this public outcry, "We will not have this man to rule us."  We don't want Him as our King.    They killed the King, no Kingdom. 

  But that doesn't change the promise of God.  That doesn't change the irrevocable promise of God because the scriptures tell us that the King will come once more and establish His Kingdom.  Zacharias couldn't have seen that gap.  Like anybody, he didn't understand all of the nuances of prophetic fulfillment.  He could never have anticipated that the long-awaited Messiah would be rejected by His people, that as John puts it, He would come unto his own and His own would receive Him not.  He could not have anticipated that they would wind up along with the Romans, executing the King.  He could never have imagined anything but other than the King would come, that He would overthrow Rome, that He would bring peace and prosperity to Israel, that He would destroy any hostile enemies and that He would rule the world and of the increase of His government there would be no end and He would rule the world with peace and righteousness.  That's all he could have expected.  The Davidic Covenant was universal.  It covered the whole world in the rule of Messiah.

  In the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24 and 25. the disciples said to Jesus, they were in the same situation Zacharias was and everybody else, they said to Jesus...Jesus and the disciples were sitting near Jerusalem and He was pointing to the temple and He says..."See the temple," they're looking down at the glorious Herodian temple that had replaced the Solomonic temple and Jesus says, "I've got to tell you about that temple.  There's not going to be two stones stacked up.  That temple is going to be flattened...flattened."  And they're in shock. 

  Now we could understand if you went over to Caesarea and flattened the Roman garrison, that's our building, that's the core of the worship of God, supposedly, that's our building.  What do You mean?  And when the Messiah comes, doesn't He exalt Israel?  You don't come and destroy the temple which is the symbol of the whole nation and its religion. 

  They didn't get it.  So they were saying to Him then, "Then what are we supposed to look for for Your ascendancy?  When are You going to ascend and rule?  What signs shall we expect?  We don't get it."  And even after His death and resurrection, it's recorded in the first chapter of Acts, they said to Him, "Will You at this time bring the Kingdom?"  They had no way of knowing anything other than that the Messiah will come, fulfill the Davidic Covenant, establish the Kingdom in Israel, take David's throne, rule over Israel and the world, bring a Kingdom of peace.

  And the disciples were confused to the very end.  And even after, of course you remember, the Messiah died, they were scratching their heads and trying to figure this out.  And later on when the apostles were preaching the gospel to the Jews, the Jews were saying, "This can't be the Messiah, it didn't go the way we thought."  And they had to preach on things like why Jesus must have suffered and died?  So they thought the Davidic Covenant meant He'll sweep in, knock off the Romans, conquer all our enemies, establish His authority, rule with a rod of iron the whole world.

  Well He will...He will, but not until they accept Him as the King.  Zechariah tells us, the prophet, that "Some day they will look on Him whom they've pierced, mourn for Him as an only Son, and then a fountain of cleansing will be open to Israel."  Literally, God will open the heavenly flood gates of saving grace and wash the nation Israel.  And at the time when they embrace their King, they will then receive their Kingdom.  And if you follow the flow in the New Testament, Romans chapter 11 Paul says there's coming a day when Israel will be saved and grafted back in to the trunk of blessing, using a sort of an agriculture metaphor.  When that happens, then the Kingdom comes.

  Turn in your Bible to Revelation chapter 19, here is where that moment is described.  When you come into Revelation 19, you come to the return of Jesus Christ, His Second Coming.  Israel has seen their Messiah, they have believed.  By this time, 144 thousand Jews are preaching the gospel all over the world.  The book of Revelation tells us two Jewish witnesses in Jerusalem will have such an impact that a great portion of the city of Jerusalem repents and turns to believe the gospel.  An angel is flying through the sky preaching the gospel in the mid-heavens so that the gospel is literally being preached all over the face of the earth.  People are being converted.  At this point Israel is saved, that's when Zechariah's prophecy is fulfilled, "They look on Him whom they've pierced, they mourn, they repent, they embrace Him, they're saved."  And at that point we come to the response of the great King when people have acknowledged Him, verse 11 of Revelation 19, heaven opens, a white horse and Him who sat on it called Faithful and True, and that is He is faithful and true to His promises.  He is King.  He will reign.  He comes this time in righteousness.  He comes to judge and make war on all the ungodly in the world.  His eyes are like a flame of fire.  He has many crowns, again speaking of His royalty.  He has a name written on Him which no one knows except Himself.  I can't tell you how many times people have asked me what that name is. 

  Verse 13, He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and that's to speak of the battle and the bloodshed that's going to occur when He comes and judges the ungodly.  His name is the Word of God.  The armies in heaven clothed in fine linen, white and clean, following Him on white horses.  Out of His mouth comes a sharp sword.  He smites the nation.  He rules with a rod of iron.  He treads the winepress of the fierce wrath of God.  On His robe, on His thigh is a name "King of Kings and Lord of Lords."  And that is when He comes in glory, out of heaven, to establish His Kingdom.  It is an earthly Kingdom described in chapter 20.  He takes hold of Satan, binds him for the thousand-year period, that's why it's called the Millennium, Latin for thousand.  He throws Satan into the pit or abyss for that period of time of His rule, establish His thrones, verse 4, and they sat on them, this would be the saints.  The Apostles are said to be each given a position over the twelve tribes of Israel in another place of Scripture.  There is an exaltation of those who had been martyred and they live, verse at the end of verse 4, "And they reign with Christ for a thousand years."  So that is the establishment of His Kingdom, it is still future, it hasn't happened but it will because the Word of God is irrevocable.  The gifts and callings of God are without repentance, as it says in Romans.

  So the Messiah will come.  But Zacharias didn't realize there would be two thousand years between His first coming and Second Coming.  He didn't know that, he couldn't have known that.  He was so thrilled and so excited to see Davidic Covenant fulfillment.

  Go back to Luke chapter 1 for just a moment.  It says that He is coming in the house of David, His servant, as He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old."  I want to give you just a quick rundown.  There are literally hundreds of Old Testament scriptures that speak about the future Davidic Kingdom, literally hundreds of them.  And I would suggest to you that there is a...there's a chart or a listing in the MacArthur Study Bible called "Isaiah's Description of Israel's Future Kingdom."  and just in the book of Isaiah there are hundreds of references to the future Kingdom, as well as in Ezekiel, as well as in Daniel, as well as in other places, Micah and many other places.

  Let me tell you just what Isaiah says about it, and I'll just...I won't give you the scriptures, but here's just a list of what Isaiah says about the character of the Messiah's Kingdom when He comes to rule on the throne of David in Israel and over the world.  The Lord will restore the faithful remnant of Israel to the Land to inhabit the Kingdom.  The Lord will defeat all of Israel's enemies, providing protection of His people.  In the Kingdom Israel will enjoy great prosperity of many kinds.  The city of Jerusalem will rise to world preeminence.  Israel will be the center of world attention in the Kingdom.  Israel's mission in the Kingdom will be to glorify the Lord.  Gentiles in the Kingdom will receive blessing through the channel of faithful Israel.  Worldwide peace and righteousness will prevail in the Kingdom under the rule of the Prince of Peace.  Moral and spiritual conditions in the Kingdom will reach their highest plain since the fall of Adam.  Governmental leadership in the Kingdom will be superlative with the Messiah heading it up, the perfect dictator who is righteous and true.  Humans will enjoy long life.  Isaiah says if you die at 100 you die as a baby.  Knowledge of the Lord will be universal in the Kingdom.  The world of nature will enjoy a great renewal.  A lion will lie down with a lamb and children can play with a poisonous snake.  Wild animals will be tame in the Kingdom.  Sorrow and mourning will not exist in the Kingdom.  An eternal Kingdom as part of God's new creation will follow the millennial Kingdom and the King will judge overt sin in the Kingdom and He'll judge it swiftly.

  That's the Kingdom.  And it is the Kingdom on which the Covenant of David is fulfilled.  God said to David, "I'll give you a King, one of your descendants, who will reign in a Kingdom of peace and righteousness and that will be forever."

  By the way, you'll be there.  You say, "What if I'm dead?"  You remember those people in white linen, those folks coming out of heaven in white linen on white horses that I read about in Revelation 19?  That's us returning with Christ.  If we're with the Lord when He comes back to establish His Kingdom, we're coming with Him.  He comes with His saints, the Scripture says.  We'll come back.  And you say, "Well what will be our nature in this Kingdom?"  Well it will be on earth, the earth will be renovated, it will be changed, as I pointed out with those passages in Isaiah and others.  It will be returned to a sort of Eden-like condition.  We'll come back.  There will be people still alive on the earth at that time, still in their physical form, they haven't died.  And when Jesus comes back to set up His Kingdom, He's not going to kill the righteous, the sheep are going to go into His Kingdom, in Matthew 24 terminology.  So He comes back, He establishes His Kingdom on earth, there are still living saints.  All the ungodly are destroyed, the living saints then go into the Kingdom.  Israel has been saved.  The saved Israel goes into the Kingdom along with Gentiles who believe and are saved during the time of the Tribulation.  But we come back, as well, as glorified saints, then having our resurrection bodies.  We will interact with the living saints on earth, similar to the way the angels have interacted with saints in redemptive history.  As Gabriel came from the presence of God and had a conversation with Elizabeth and later had a conversation with Mary, so we'll be able to interact and converse with the people on earth.  We'll assist Christ in the rule of His Kingdom, as will Israel and as will the saints on earth.  So together we'll be the church triumphant, I guess you could say, and the church militant still alive on earth ruling with Christ.  All believers of all ages will be collected into that Kingdom.

  In fact, the imagery of Revelation in part describes this as a bride.  The whole...the whole of all redeemed humanity will ultimately be contained in the bride of Christ that will occupy the bridal city, the New Jerusalem, which hovers over the earth during the Kingdom and from which we will go back and forth to do whatever the Lord wants us to do here on earth during that millennial time.  We'll all be there, some alive at that time who come to Christ during the Tribulation, but those of us already with the Lord will return to reign with Him.

  Well, Zacharias...you've got to realize, I mean, this is it, folks, this is the greatest moment of redemptive history, this is the apex of everything.  And now the forerunner to the Messiah has been born.  The Messiah is already conceived by God in the womb of this young thirteen-year-old virgin girl.  And the Messiah will soon be born and it's only a few years and I guess Zacharias and Elizabeth must have had a conversation like...You know, we better start eating healthy, you know, because we're already seventy and we've got to live long enough for this deal to start...hoping they could be around when the Messiah really nailed it and established His Kingdom, they wanted to be there for what they thought would be the overthrow of Rome, the destruction of all the enemies.

  Now look at verse 71 and we'll close at this point.  What did they expect to happen in the Davidic Kingdom?  "Salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us."  That's right out of Psalm 106:10.  It's exactly what was promised.  When the Messiah comes and establishes His Kingdom, what it means is salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.

  You see, they thought, first of all, the Messiah would come and knock off the Romans.  They were weary of the hostilities and the assaults and the attacks and the oppression and the murderous intent of Gentile nations against them.  They wanted their independence.  They wanted their freedom.  They wanted the pagans out of their land.  They were tired of the Roman idols desecrating their land.  They were tired of the Greek occupation.  And then they got rid of the Greek occupation for a little while through the Maccabean Revolution and then the Romans came and reintroduced their idolatrous institutions into that land and took away their right to rule and their religion, their freedom.  Not only did they have Romans but they had Edomite kings.  What could be worse than having an Edomite as your king, the Herods.  They felt that when the Messiah comes He's going to establish the Davidic Kingdom and He will rule and all enemies will become subject to Him as He establishes the Kingdom of peace all over the globe.  They were excited.  This was a great moment for Zacharias and everybody else who knew what was going on. 

  But it wasn't just the fulfillment of the Davidic, in verse 72 he adds this, there's something else, "He's coming to show mercy to our fathers and to remember His holy Covenant, the oath which He swore to Abraham, our father."  He realized that this was not just Davidic fulfillment, this is Abrahamic fulfillment. 

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  Zachariah's Song of Salvation: The Abrahamic Covenant

  Luke 1:67-80

  Redemptive history is reaching its great high point, its great apex.  Why did God create?  Why did God create the universe?  Why did God make the earth, the theater of the universe?  And why did he put mankind on a stage?  What is this all about?

  Well, the answer is, to put it simply, God created the universe as we know it, the physical universe as we know it, created the earth, put man on it in order that He might redeem a bride for His Son.  In order that He might bring to glory a redeemed humanity.  It was an expression of His love to give to the Son a bride, a bride who, in effect would radiate the Son's glory, would serve and praise Him and worship Him and adore Him forever and ever and ever...which is exactly what all redeemed people will do.  God will bring us to glory for the praise of His Son forever. 

  Now in order for God also in gathering a bride for His Son, to put Himself on display, God allowed sin to enter into the picture.  When creation occurred, the garden was a perfect environment, it was without sin, without corruption, without decay and without death, but into the perfection of that creation came sin.  Sin came in the form of a fallen angel by the name of Satan.  Lucifer's sin came, of course, in the case of Adam and Eve who believed the lies of Satan, disobeyed God and plunged the entire human race into depravity and sinfulness.  And thus God began to reach out and save sinners.  God created the universe to put His creative powers on display.  He created the universe to demonstrate a perfection of life and a joy that the creature could have with the creator.  He created the universe also to allow for fall and sin so that in response He could demonstrate the attributes that can only be demonstrated in an environment of sin...mercy, grace, compassion, forgiveness.  We would never know that about God if it were not for the fact that there is sin in the world.  And so, God allowed sin to come into the world and then began to put His grace and compassion and mercy and forgiveness on display and sought to redeem sinful man and to reshape sinners into a bride for His Son.

  Now obviously the apex of this whole redemptive plan is when His Son comes into the world to die in the place of sinners.  He comes into the world, first of all, to live a perfect life for 33 years so that a perfect life of righteousness which He lives could be put to your account and mine.  And then He died on the cross in our place.  So He lived a perfect life which is given to us.  He died on the cross bearing our sins.  On the cross God treated Him as if He had lived our life and by grace He treats us as if we'd lived His.

  The apex of redemptive history is the coming of Messiah.  He comes and provides a sacrifice by which righteousness can be granted to sinners at any point in redemptive history...Old Testament and New Testament, from the beginning of God's redemptive to the end.  The Savior came to live a perfect life, came to die, came to rise again to provide the sacrifice for sin and it would pay the penalty for the sins of all who would ever believe throughout the whole drama of redemption.

  The Jews have been waiting for the Messiah to come.  They've been waiting for Him to come and establish the Kingdom and give them their land.  They have been waiting for Him to come and show the mercy of God, bring forgiveness of sins and all of that.  Zacharias was one of those Jews who along with others, as chapter 2 verse 38 says, were looking for redemption to come, were waiting for redemption.  When was Messiah going to come?  When would God provide the final sacrifice?  When would God save His people Israel?  When would the Savior arrive?

  Here was this common, ordinary garden-variety priest who gets a visit from an angel out of the presence of God named Gabriel to tell him that not only is the Messiah coming but before the Messiah is coming a prophet to announce the arrival of the Messiah like a press agent, like a herald.  And not only that but, Zachariah, he was going to come in your life time and not only in your life time but he's going to be your son.  The angel Gabriel brings a message from God that you and your wife Elizabeth who have been barren, now in your old age God's going to allow you to conceive miraculously and your son is going to be the forerunner of the Messiah.  And Zacharias knew that.  I mean, it was spelled out in absolutely crystal-clear terms back in chapter 1 that he would come, he would be great in the sight of the Lord, he would be filled with the Holy Spirit, he would turn back many of the sons of Israel to the Lord their God.  He would go as a forerunner before the Messiah in the spirit and power of Elijah and he would make a people ready for the Lord.

  So, they knew exactly who this child was.  And they knew that Mary was pregnant with the Messiah because she just spent three months with them.  Zacharias gets it.  He understands this is the high point, the apex of redemptive history.

  Now Zacharias at first didn't believe it so God miraculously made him deaf and mute. And so for nine months he hasn't been able to hear or say anything.  But upon the birth and circumcision of the son John, it says in verse 64, "At once his mouth was open and his tongue loosed and he began to speak in praise of God."  He had pent up for nine months with this desire to praise God for this incredible, incredible birth and finally when his mouth was opened he praises God.  Now there may have been other things he said, but one thing for sure he said is recorded in verse 67 and following.  This is what came out of the mouth of Zacharias.  Zacharias understood that and Luke didn't drop this passage in here whimsically, he didn't drop it in here because he thought it would make a nice balance for the narrative and slow things down a little bit.  He didn't drop it in here because he wanted to throw a hymn in the midst of the whole thing.  He put it here because it is absolutely critical material to link what's happening to the Old Testament.  Of course the accusation through the centuries of Judaism has been that Christianity is a heresy, Christianity is not true religion, Christianity is a form of false religion.  The fact of the matter is, Zacharias knew it, the Bible proves it...Christianity is the fulfillment of all Judaistic hope and promise.  The New Testament is the complete story begun in the Old Testament.  And this benedictus, this blessing, this song of praise or song of salvation by Zacharias ties to the Old Testament.  It makes the link for us.

  Now we've been looking at the...initially looking at this benedictus by Zacharias, what he said that day.  And I mentioned to you that it basically revolves around three covenants.  In the Old Testament God made some covenants, He made some promises that He pledged to keep.  There was the Noahic Covenant, He made a promise to Noah never to drown the world again.  There was the priestly covenant, He made the promise to Israel that there would always be a perpetual priesthood given to them.  He made the Mosaic Covenant which was a prescription of law given to Moses.  But there are three covenants that had as components as salvation.  You couldn't get saved in the Noahic Covenant, the priestly covenant or the Mosaic Covenant, those provided no means of salvation, no path to salvation and no promise of salvation.  The law...the Noahic Covenant promised only that you won't drown, it didn't say anything about the fact that you might burn to death.  The priestly covenant simply said there would be an available priesthood, it didn't say anything about who would be able to take advantage of it legitimately.  And the Mosaic Covenant didn't provide salvation, it only provided condemnation because nobody could keep the law therefore everybody was cursed.

  But there were three Old Testament covenants which God made that had inherent in them saving purposes...the Davidic Covenant, the covenant God made with David, the Abrahamic Covenant, the covenant He made with Abraham and what we call the New Covenant, the covenant which God made with Israel which is recorded in Jeremiah and Ezekiel and we'll look at that New Covenant in the next session.  But for Zacharias, he realized what was going on.  All the promises of the Davidic Covenant, all the promises of the Abrahamic Covenant and all of the anticipated promises of the New Covenant which had to do with changing the heart and the internal part and forgiving sin which was the entree to the fulfillment of Abrahamic and Davidic promise, he knew it was all hinged on Messiah.  It was all dependent on the Messiah.  It was the Messiah who could come and bring the Kingdom.  It was the Messiah who then would come and free the people from bondage and give them their land and their protection and the blessings of the Abrahamic Covenant.  It was the Messiah who would be the focal point of the New Covenant forgiveness that God would provide.

  So, these three covenants are the sort of the stanzas in his song of salvation.  The theme is salvation, we know from verse 68, "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel."  Zacharias filled with the Holy Spirit stands up and says...  Why?  "Because He's visited us and accomplished redemption for His people."  They associated the coming of John the Baptist with the coming of Messiah, rightly so, and with the coming of Messiah would come redemption.  And then he says the Messiah is none other, verse 69, than a horn of salvation for us.  A horn being a reference to animals, the horn was used for power and even to kill.  It was the formidable strength of the animal by which the animal was able to push and to destroy.  The Messiah will come with a push that will destroy the enemies of Israel and will free them.  And that's essentially what was in the Davidic Covenant because it says in verse 69, "This Messiah will come in the house of David, His servant, as He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old," and what will He bring?  "Salvation, deliverance from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us."

  We said that the Davidic Covenant was a promise to David by God that a Son would come out of David's loins ultimately who would rule in Israel and would rule over the whole earth and would rule forever.  It wasn't fulfilled by Solomon.  And, of course, after that the kingdom fragmented and split and today, of course, and for centuries and millennia three has been no real king in Israel.  But there will be a king.  God promised a greater son of David, somebody out of the Davidic line of David's blood would come to reign on the throne of Israel.  And from that throne would bring peace and prosperity to Israel, would rule with a rod of iron and His rule would extend over the whole earth.  This promise, by the way, was made in 2 Samuel chapter 7, repeated in 1 Chronicles chapter 17, repeated in Psalm 89 at the beginning of the chapter and the end of the chapter.  It is alluded to over 40 times in the Old Testament.  It is referred to in the statements of Isaiah 9:6 and 7, "Unto us a child is born, a Son is given and the government shall be upon His shoulders."  This is a ruler that is coming, a king.

  Back in Luke 1:31, when Gabriel was talking to Mary, told her she was going to be the mother of Messiah, verse 32 after saying you're going to bear a son name Him Jesus, He'll be the Son of the Most High, verse 32, "The Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David."  So the Messiah was to be the fulfillment of Davidic Covenant promise.  He will, verse 33, reign over the house of Jacob forever and His kingdom will have no end.  So He's going to come, He's going to reign, there's going to be an eternal kingdom, a universal and eternal kingdom.  And we saw that last time, that when the Messiah was to come He was to be the King, He was to set up His Kingdom on earth and it was to be an earthly Kingdom in Jerusalem where He would reign from Jerusalem over the whole world and with a rod of iron.  At the end of that Kingdom would come the new heaven and the new earth, the eternal state, but He would rule in that as well forever and that's why it can be said that His Kingdom though it changes from being temporal to being eternal is nonetheless a forever Kingdom.

  And what the Jews thought about when they thought about the Davidic kingdom was freedom from oppression, freedom from our enemies, that's noted in verse 71, free from persecution, hostility and hatred and deadly animosity which, of course, Israel has endured through all if its history, all of its history and endures even to this day today.  Israel, God's special people, obviously had been the special attack of Satan, the subject of Revelation chapter 12 describes that.  Satan has done everything he possibly could to accomplish genocide against the Jewish people, to try to wipe them out, to try to destroy the messianic line, destroy of the people of promise.  But he's been unable to do it because God has protected them to bring to fulfillment Davidic promise.

  So, the Davidic kingdom looked primarily at the rescue of Israel from all the rulers around them and over them so that they would have ruled on nation and that the Messiah would not only rule Israel but from Israel rule the world.  He would take over and rule everything.  He would be King of kings and Lord of lords to borrow the language of the book of Revelation.  Psalm 110 we noted talks about it.  Zachariah 14:9 talks about it.  And, of course, it's unfolded in Revelation 19, Revelation 20.  I also showed you last time some of the characteristics of the earthly millennial kingdom.  There are hundreds of verses in Isaiah that outline the details and the nature of that earthly kingdom.

  So Zachariah's participation was Messiah's almost here, that means the Son of David has arrived, that means the Davidic kingdom is coming soon.  Maybe even Zachariah could hang on long enough, though he was an old man, to live to see its inauguration.  He didn't have any idea that they would reject the King, they would crucify the King and the kingdom would be postponed and still has not yet come.  It will, but it hasn't yet.  But Zacharias assumed when the Messiah comes the kingdom comes and so he's exhilarated because he sees the one who is coming from the house of David, delivering them from their enemies and the hand of all who hate them.  Now the Davidic Covenant was universal, that He would be the universal King over the whole earth, reigning in the nation, in the land of Israel on the throne of David.

  Zacharias had a second hope.  He knew this too was connected to Messiah and this is Abrahamic Covenant hope.  The Abrahamic Covenant is one of those rockbed elements to biblical interpretation.  I know there are lots of people who come to church and all they want is a little fix on some thing in their life.  I'm not going to be able to address that today.  Some days we do that.  But what I'm going to address today is the rockbed foundation by which you can understand the whole of redemptive history and it's all bound up in the Abrahamic Covenant.  

  While essentially the fulfillment of the Davidic Covenant is universal, He will literally rule the world some day and it will be a world of believers and unbelievers during the Millennial Kingdom, the Abrahamic Covenant is national.  The Davidic is universal, the Abrahamic is national.  Let's look at the Abrahamic Covenant in verses 72 to 75.

  The intent of the Davidic Covenant was to deliver everybody in Israel from their enemies and set up the rule of Messiah.  The intent of the Abrahamic Covenant was to show mercy, verse 72, toward our fathers, to show mercy toward our fathers.  The fathers to the Jews were Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph.  And to remember where that first was launched, God's holy covenant, the oath which He swore to Abraham, our father, to grant us that we being delivered from the hand of our enemies by the fulfillment of the Davidic covenant, we've now been delivered from the hand of our enemies but now in the Abrahamic promise we can go ahead and serve God without fear.  Always we've served God with fear, always the Jew lives in fear, always the Jew lives in mortal fear of maintaining his own existence against all of the aggressive hostilities that surround his life.  But once Davidic promise is fulfilled and the Messiah reigns, fear is gone and we will serve Him, verse 75 says, in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days.

  The Davidic Covenant and the Abrahamic Covenant were connected.  The Davidic Covenant brought the rule of Messiah in Israel.  And the rule of Messiah brought the blessing that the Abrahamic Covenant promised.

  Now let's go back to the Abrahamic Covenant for just a moment.  It says in verse 72 there, "To remember God's holy covenant, the oath which He swore to Abraham our father."  Now it was about mercy, it was a covenant to show mercy.  The idea is that God was compassionate, God was merciful toward undeserving people and He made a covenant.  Now this mercy was, first of all, to Abraham and then repeated to Isaac and Jacob and Joseph and then extended to the nation of Israel and then extended through Israel to the world.  So when it says in verse 72 to show mercy toward our fathers, that's just where the stream of mercy starts.  That's the headwaters of the stream of mercy, certainly not the extent of it because it broadens through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, the people of Israel and the mercy of God towards sinners spreads to the world and that's why we're here today because we have received that mercy once given to Abraham.  And it all began with a covenant, a promise made to the father of the Jews, the father of the nation Israel...a man by the name of Abram who later had his name changed to Abraham once he received the covenant of God.

  Now at the time of Abram there was no such thing as a Jew.  There was no such nation as Israel.  That all started with one man chosen by God.  To understand the essence of the Abrahamic Covenant let's go back to Genesis chapter 12.  I find this to be  just a fascinating, fascinating account.

  Now just to give you a little bit of a chronology in the book of Genesis, Genesis starts out with the creation account, God's creation in six days of the entire universe.  It's followed up, of course, with the discussion of the life of man on the earth.  Chapter 3, man falls into sin.  It progresses from there to a destruction in the universal flood where God drowns the whole earth and saves eight people.  And the story of man progresses from the eight people rescued out of the Flood.  That's up through chapter 11.  All you have basically is the creation, the Fall, the Flood, the scattering of the nations.

  The first sort of individual history starts in Genesis 12.  And here's where redemptive history really starts.  It starts with a man named Abram.  The rest of Genesis goes Abram, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and they take up the next chapters till the fiftieth chapter which ends the book.  But let's begin with Abram because that's where the covenant was made.

  "Now the Lord said to Abram, 'Go forth from your country.'"  Now Abram lived in a place called Ur of the Chaldeans as noted in verse 31.  It was a typical pagan place and Abram lived there and God just plucked him up, just picked him out of the crowd for reasons, of course, good reasons, reasons that God knows.  He picked Abram.  He said, "Go forth from your country, from your relatives, from your father's house to the land that I'll show you."  We can assume that Abram had some kind of connection to the true God.  We don't know all about how that can be defined but we do know that Abram knew of the true God.  And so God came to Abram and says...I want you out of here, I want you to go to a place where I'm going to send you.  And then in verse 2 He tells him why.  "I'll make you a great nation."  This is...this is absolutely a unilateral promise.  He's not asking Abram to agree to anything.  He said, "I'm going to make you a great nation and bless you and make your name great and so you shall be a blessing and I'll bless those who bless you and the one who curses you I will curse and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."

  Get out of your country, away from your relatives, away from your family.  Go to this place I'm going to take you, which was, of course, the land of Palestine, as we know it.  And here's what I'm going to do, I'm going to make a great nation.  Out of your loins is going to come a great, great nation.  Now that was a problem because he and Sarah didn't have any kids.  Hard to have a nation if you don't have one.  Back in chapter 11 verse 30, "Sarai was barren, she had no child." 

  So this is a pretty monumental promise and it's going to involve a conception miracle.  "I'm going to make you a great nation," and indeed that came to pass, obviously, the Jewish people are and have been a great nation.  "I will bless you," God says I'm going to bless you, I'm going to bless that nation and, "I'm going to make your name great." The Jewish people, believe me, they have earned a great name.  You could say they have earned a great name in medicine, you could say they've earned a great name in the arts, you could say they've earned a great name in education, you could say they earned a great name in literature, you could say they earned a great name in finance, you could say just about any category you want to say and pretty much Jews have earned a great name.  They are a quite unusual strain of homosapiens.  Whatever the genetics are that God made sure were in Abram have made a great contribution to this quite noble people among the peoples of the world.  And their name was great.  And their land has been the focal point of human history.  And even is today.  "And you will be a blessing and not only a blessing but in you...the end of verse 3...all the families of the earth will be blessed."

  This is quite a thing.  You're going to have...you're going to come...out of your loins is going to come an entire nation.  This nation is going to be a great nation. This nation is going to be a blessed nation.  This nation is going to have a great reputation.  This nation is going to be a blessing to others.  In fact, through this nation all the families of the earth are going to be blessed.

  This is the promise of the whole saving purpose of God...the whole thing is going to come through Israel.  The law came through them.  They were the writers of the Old Testament.  The prophets were Jews.  Everything...the covenants came to them, promises came to them, the adoption came to them.  They were the elect, they were the chosen people. And through them came the Messiah, He was born in the line of David.  Everything came through them.  That's why Jesus said in John's gospel, "Salvation is of the Jews."  He didn't mean it's only for the Jews, He meant it's through them...they have been God's divine conduit.  This was the promise of God.  A great nation, blessing, a great reputation, and through them the whole world would be blessed.

  But if you study the history of Israel, it didn't kind of work out that way.  Not all the time.  There were times of blessing, obviously there is inherent greatness.  There were times when they were a blessing to others...but the idea that all the families in the earth have been blessed through them has been in some measure without their cooperation.  Well all the families of the earth have been blessed through them because it is through them that we have the Old Testament and through the Jews that we have the New Testament.  It is through them that we have the gospel.  It is through them that we have the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ.  So it is true.  But they have not been able to join in on those blessings. 

  God has even protected them, "The ones who bless you I'll bless, the ones who curse you I'll curse."  God says I'm going to protect you. That's partly because God made a promise to do it and partly because He's going to perpetuate the people of Israel.  There's yet an unfolding plan for Israel and God protects them.  It's remarkable to me.  It doesn't matter what Adolph Hitler tried to do.  It doesn't matter what Joseph Stalin tried to do in committing genocide and exterminating the whole entire world of Jews.  It's not going to happen.  It's astonishing and an amazing thing from the human side, but not from the divine side.  God has preserved these people.  He's preserved them so carefully that in the end time in the book of Revelation, in the Tribulation time, the seven-year destruction before the return of Christ, God will select 12,000 Jews out of each of the twelve tribes, each tribe will yield 12,000 Jews who will become the 144,000 great preachers during that time of judgment.  Now they don't know what tribe they're of, but God knows...because the lines have been kept so pure through all these centuries.

  They haven't really enjoyed the fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise.  If you were talking to Zacharias that day and you say...Hey, Zach, how you guys doing on the fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise?  Would you say that your nation is a great nation?  That God is blessing you and making your name great?  And you're a blessing and all the families of the earth are blessed through you?

  He's say no.  They were hoping. Right now we're cursed, right now we're under judgment, right now we're occupied by the insufferable Romans.  Right now life is hard.  Right now it's difficult.  But the dawning of a new day is come because the forerunner to the Messiah has been born and the Abrahamic Covenant fulfilled, it must be on the horizon.

  Now turn to chapter 15.  The Abrahamic Covenant is reiterated in Genesis eight times...eight times...chapter 12, 13, 15, 17, 22, 26, 28 and 35.  But we're not going to look at all of those, so relax.  But Genesis...Genesis 15 verse 18, "On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abraham."  Now I want to stop you for a minute.  He announced the terms of the covenant in chapter 12, he actually made the covenant, as we will see next week, here in chapter 15.  The terms of the covenant came, the covenant was confirmed in chapter 15. And he says in verse 18, "On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abraham," that's why we know this is an actual covenant.

  Here's the covenant.  Now this goes beyond what was stated in the first terms of the covenant in chapter 12.  He says, "Your descendants...to your descendants I'll give this land."  Here's the component that's not in Genesis 12, "Not only a great nation, not only a great reputation, not only blessed and a blesser of others, not only through them will the families of the earth be blessed, this will be an immensely influential nation."  By the way, folks, the Jewish people are THE most influential people who have ever lived on this earth.  They are THE most influential people who have ever lived on this earth.  They are the writers of the Bible.  They are the prophets and the Apostles of redemptive history.  And that's what He meant by that great nation, with that great power to bless.

  But He adds here another component and this one's very, very pragmatic.  "I'm giving you a land," and let me tell you what the land is?  "It's from the river of Egypt, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates."  The river of Egypt would not be the Nile, probably, but be...there's a river on the north border of Egypt going from there north the land would go.  And it goes as far east as the river Euphrates, the Mesopotamian valley, the Tigris/Euphrates valley, clear through Arab country, far into that territory.  "The land of the Kenite, the Kenezzite, the Kadmonite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, Rephaim, Amorite, the Canaanite, the Girgashite and the Jebusite."  And by the way, how many of those folks have you met?  I never met a "nite" of any kind except an Israelite.  They aren't around anymore because God had no covenant to preserve them.  God says in the end it's all going to be your land, you're going to get all that land stretching all the way from the border of Egypt north and sweeping through that fertile crescent, probably the most valuable piece of real estate on the face of the earth, given its capability for growing things, its capability for producing oil and other natural resources.  God says that's your land, I'm going to give you that land.

  Well in the time of Zechariah they're sitting in Jerusalem and they're not really experiencing much of the benefit because frankly the Romans are ruling the whole land.  And before the Romans they had a little moment's breath, but before that it was the Greeks.  And before that it was the Medo-Persians, and before that it was the Babylonians.  And Zacharias had never seen anything that looked remotely like the fulfillment of this.  Neither has any Jew today.  In fact, you can't imagine all the Arab countries, Iraq, Iran and all the rest of them, marching over to Jerusalem and saying...We just read Genesis 15 and we'd like to turn your land over to you.  That's not going to happen.

  But that's the covenant and the covenant...the Jews saw that covenant as tied to the land.  And here's Zacharias in the midst of the Roman occupation, oppressed by these hateful Romans and their idols...they don't have the freedom and the blessing that they attached to the Abrahamic Covenant.  Now he hears the Messiah is coming, the Messiah's forerunner has been born and he understands what's happening.  Now this might be the time when Messiah comes, sets up the Davidic throne, takes over the rule of the land and then He will institute the conditions of the Abrahamic Covenant.

  Now go to 17 for a moment, chapter 17, because I want you to get the richness of this covenant because it's...it's so important.  Abram was 99 years old and the Lord came to Abram and said to him, "I'm God Almighty, walk before Me and be blameless.  I'll establish My covenant between Me and you."  Now it's an unconditional covenant, God's made it unilaterally and irrevocably, but its fulfillment is dependent upon obedience.  So He says I'm going to establish the covenant that I gave you, verse 2, "I'm going to multiply you exceedingly.  Abram fell on his face, God talked with him saying, As for Me, behold My covenant's with you, you shall be the father of a multitude of nations, not only are you going to be the father of a nation, Israel, but you're going to be the father of multitude of nations." 

  Do you realize that that's the problem in the Middle East today?  Everybody traces their lineage back to Abraham.  Abraham didn't think Sarah could become pregnant because she was 90 years old and had been sterile, or infertile all her life.  And so he got a hold of the handmaid, Hagar, and produced a child called Ishmael and Ishmael fathered Arabs.

  Later on, Isaac had sons, Jacob and Esau.  Esau sold his birthright.  God cursed Esau.  Esau then went and fathered the nations of the Middle East.  So Arab nations came out of Ishmael.  Arab nations came out of Esau.  But whether you're out of Ishmael or Esau, you can trace your lineage back to Abraham.  So while Israel feels that the rights of the land is theirs cause they're the sons of Abraham, so does the whole Arab world because they can trace their lineage back to Abraham and that's why you have this horrific conflict.  It's clear in the Scripture that God chose Isaac to be the line and not Ishmael.  And God had chose Jacob to be the line and not Esau, right?  But they're unwilling to accept that.  And so they all go back to Abraham.

  God says, "I'm going to let you father a multitude of nations, these Arab nations.  And I'll make you exceedingly fruitful, and I'll make nations of you and kings shall come forth from you."  And they have even today, still out of that line from Esau and Ishmael.  "And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you...listen carefully...throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant."  Now that's very important because now, all of a sudden, we've gone beyond the land, we've gone beyond temporal blessing, we've gone beyond peace in the land, not having a conqueror there or an occupying nation.  We've gone into something that is eternal here and these are the saving terms of this covenant.  In fact, it's an everlasting covenant to be God to you.

  You see, in the end what I want is your hearts, in the end I'm going to be your God.  Not only to you but to your descendants after you.  And I'll give to you and your descendants after you the land of your sojourners, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession...and then this...I will be their God.

  You're talking about something that's eternal.  If God is your God, that's an eternal relationship.  So God comes to Abraham in chapter 12 and says...You know, here are the sort of general outline, you're going to have a great nation, a great reputation, a great blessing, through you all the nations of the earth are going to be blessed, I'm going to add to that another component, I'm going to give you the land and I'm defining exactly what the land is and basically it embraces Eden.  It's sort of like paradise regained.  And in the Millennial Kingdom when the Lord restores the earth to an Eden-like condition after Christ returns and sets up His thousand-year millennial rule, that's when the fullness of the Abrahamic Covenant will be fulfilled and the Jews will have their land and their blessing and they will be a blessing to the whole world...the prophets tell us every Jew will have ten Gentiles hanging on his coat asking him to take him to see the Messiah. 

  So there will be...and they'll even be a great blessing to the whole world during the time of the Tribulation because when the 144,000 Jews are saved, they become the greatest force for evangelism the world has ever known and in a few years so many people are saved, according to that chapter, chapter 7, they can't even be counted.  Once Israel realizes who the Messiah is, looks on the One they have pierced, embraces Christ and is saved, then they're called to do what they were called to do in the first place, be witnesses to the true and living God and proclaim the message of salvation.  They'll do it with a force and a power, the likes of which has never been seen previously. They'll do that during the time of the Tribulation.  Then in the Kingdom, they'll continue to do that with people who are born during the millennial era and who are brought to the knowledge of the Messiah.

  Now go to chapter 22 for a moment.  Now God said to Abram, now called Abraham...All of this is going to happen, but you have to believe Me, you have to trust Me.  God in His wonderful sovereign power worked in the heart of Abraham's faith.  God came to test Abraham as to his faith, to make the point that God's promises come true where people believe in Him. 

  They had a child.  It was such an incredible miracle that Sarah couldn't stop laughing so she named him laughter, Isaac.  And the child grew and, of course, was the apple of his father's eye and all of that.  God came to Abraham in chapter 22 of Genesis, says, "Okay, I want you to take Isaac and kill him.  I want you to go up to Mount Moriah," you can go to Mount Moriah today, go to the Mosque the great Mosque on the temple mount.  Has a little opening you can look down and see what the Arabs will tell you is the original Moriah where Abraham was going to offer Isaac.

  So God says to Abraham, "Take Isaac up there and take some sticks and build an altar and you're going to make a sacrifice of Isaac."  Now, you know, Abraham could be scratching his head and saying...Why...I mean, we had a conception miracle, we went through all of this stuff, I've got a son, supposed to have a great nation, now I'm going to go up there and kill my son?  Jews don't...we don't believe in murder, it's forbidden.  Certainly we don't believe in killing our children.  How can this be?

  Well, according to Hebrews he was willing to do it.  He believed God knew what He was saying and never questioned God's Word.  And Hebrews tells us in chapter 12 that he believed that God could raise the dead.  I don't think he was going up the hill chewing his nails and wringing his hands and stroking his beard.  I don't think he was going up the hill fretting and fuming and fussing. I think he was going up the hill waiting to see a resurrection miracle because he understood the inviolability of God's promise and he understood that if God was going to ask him to take a life, God was going to have to give it back.  But the God who can bring life out of the womb of a dead woman, Sarah, dead as far as childbirth, could certainly bring life out of a dead body.  And so, according to Hebrews 12 he believed that God could raise the dead. And I think he went up there expecting to see a great miracle.  That's how strong his faith was.  And when he lift the knife to plunge it into the chest of his beloved son, he was anticipating a great resurrection miracle to occur.

  At that very moment, according to Genesis 22, he raised his eyes...well go back to verse 12 for a minute.  God says, "Stop, don't stretch your hand against the lad and don't do anything to him. I know you fear God since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.  I know you believe Me.  I know you honor Me, you worship Me, you trust Me, you revere Me, you reverence Me.  So stop."

  "Then Abraham raised his eyes and looked and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns.  And Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the place of his son."  Substitute.  "And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-jireh, the Lord will provide."  The Lord will provide a sacrifice. That's a great statement, isn't it?  The Lord will provide, the Lord will provide.  "And it's still called that to this day," says Moses as he writes.  "In the mount of the Lord it will be provided."  The Lord will provide.

  So he thought he was going to see a resurrection but rather he saw a substitution.  And the Lord wanted to show him that if you'll go all the way with Me to the end, I'll provide what's necessary...I'll provide a substitute.

  "Then the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven," in verse 15, "and said, 'By Myself I have sword,' declares the Lord, "because you've done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son because of your great faith, indeed I will greatly bless you, I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of heaven and the sand which is on the seashore."  In other words, that's metaphoric for a huge, massive number of people.  "And your seed shall possess the gate of your enemies.  Your seed in the end will conquer and in your seed...here it is again, verse 18...all the nations of the earth shall be blessed because you have obeyed My voice."

  So, Genesis 22, one of the most dramatic moments in all of redemptive history, one of the dramatic...all time dramatic moments of the Bible, confirm...that dramatic moment confirmed the Abrahamic Covenant.  And it was confirmed by the faith of Abraham.  Abraham was going to believe God.  God had graciously produced that faith in his heart and he was willing to believe.  God says...that's all I need to see, that's all I need to see, I don't ask for the life, I'll provide a sacrifice.  That was a preview of the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who would die in the place of sinners.

  So, Genesis then lays out this covenant.  Now let me just kind of sum it up for you.  The covenant God made with Abraham and repeated to Isaac and repeated to Jacob and it's referred to eight times in Genesis, was unilateral, that is it was God who made it, didn't ask somebody else to commiserate with Him.  It was irrevocable, it will come to pass.  And that's why there are still Israelites and aren't Perizzites and Hivites and Jebusites and Amorites and Girgashites.  And eternal, its components are eternal and he repeats that several times and that involves the forgiveness of sin.  You can't have an eternal relationship with God, you can't have eternal blessing from God unless you have forgiveness and salvation.

  So it is a unilateral, irrevocable, eternal saving pledge, promising...here are components...a great nation, a nation that would be blessed, a nation that would possess a great land in which they would experience blessing and protection.  A nation then that would become the source of blessing to every nation in the world.  And a nation that would receive divine mercy through redemption provided by a substitute redeemer.  That was in the covenant...that was in the covenant.

  And the covenant was unconditional in the sense of ultimate fulfillment that there will be salvation.  The nation Israel will be saved.  There will be a kingdom of blessing.  They will occupy their land and be protected and blessed in that land and they will become that millennial blessing to the world where the whole world will be hanging on the coats of the Jews saying...take me to the Messiah, teach me the knowledge of God.  They will become that.  It is unconditional.

  But, it is conditioned on the fact that it requires faith.  Before God can bring it to pass, He has to grant to Israel the faith to believe. They have to respond to the truth with faith.  When Jesus came, they didn't.

  Now Zacharias expected the Messiah, Davidic Kingdom...Messiah, Abrahamic fulfillment.  It didn't happen because they wouldn't come to Him.  They wouldn't acknowledge Him as king.  They wouldn't believe.  They wouldn't accept Him.  And so the promises of Abraham were postponed.  As to the nation Israel, the promises of David were postponed.  Both will come together in the Millennial Kingdom.

  The Davidic Covenant has to do, first of all, with Israel and secondarily, we all get involved cause all believers of all ages will be in the Kingdom.  The Abrahamic Covenant was promised particularly to Israel but we all get in on it because part of the Abrahamic Covenant was that through the Jews, through Abraham's nation, all the families of the earth would be blessed.  So there are elements of the Abrahamic Covenant that passed to all of us.  In fact, the Abrahamic fulfillment is in the Millennial Kingdom and we'll all be there.  So I'll enjoy all the fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant, along with converted Jews who have come to know their Messiah.

  And in the truest sense, Christian people today are sons of Abraham.  Now I want to show you this.  I want you to turn to Galatians chapter 3 and I'm going to do this as quickly as I can.  It's very necessary.  Galatians chapter 3 and it kind of pulls everything together for you.  Now we go in to Galatians 3 down to verse 6, and the Apostle Paul says this, "Abraham believed God."  Boy, we know he did.  He went up on the mountain, lifted up the knife ready to kill his son because he believed God.  God told him to do it and he was ready to do it.  "He believed God," that was an evidence of his true faith in God.  "And it was reckoned to him as righteousness."  When God saw his faith He gave him righteousness.

  Now the question comes, whose righteousness did He give him?  Well he didn't have his own righteousness because he was sinful like all the rest of us.  He gave him His own righteousness. God literally gave Abraham His righteousness.  What do you mean?  He gave him the righteousness of Christ.  He put the perfect life of Christ to Abraham's account, even though Christ hadn't yet come and lived and died and raised from the dead.  It was still in God's economy where there is no time, an event already done and already accomplished and therefore the righteousness of Christ was granted to Abraham and God treated Abraham as if he had lived the perfect life of Christ. And he treated him that way because he believed.

  Then verse 7, "Therefore be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham."  Now if you believe, if you believe in the gospel, if you believe God as He's revealed in the scriptures, and you've embraced Christ, you are a son of Abraham, a son of Abraham in the category of faith.  You're in the line of faith.  You have the same kind of faith that Abraham had.  You're not a Jew, you're not in the line of Abraham ethnically, racially.  You're not in the line of Abraham socially.  But you are in the line of Abraham spiritually because you, like Abraham, believe God and receive righteousness reckoned to you.  That's how verse 8 says, "All the nations are blessed in Abraham."  Verse 9, "So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer."

  So all believers, Jew or Gentile, are going to receive the same Abrahamic blessing.  What is it?  Righteousness imputed to you because you have believed.  Abraham is not my father racially.  He's not my father ethnically.  But he is my father faithfully in the fact that I followed his faith...I followed his faith.  I believed and righteousness was credited to my account, as it was to him.

  Now turn to Romans chapter 4 and we'll do two passages in Romans to sum it up.  Romans 4 you can read for yourself, it's a lengthy passage, I don't want to go through all 25 verses here.  But the first part of the chapter talks about Abraham in terms very much like Galatians 3.  It tells us, verse 12, that Abraham who received circumcision in verse 11, and the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also follow in the steps of faith of our father, Abraham.  So Abraham is the father not only of circumcised people, that is racial, ethnic Jews.  But he's also the father of those who have his faith, even if they're uncircumcised, namely Gentiles.  So all of us receive the benefits and the blessings of the Abrahamic Covenant in the Millennial Kingdom.  We've already received some of the blessings of the Abrahamic Covenant because the gospel has come to us, Scripture has come to us through Israel.  We've already been blessed by the nation Israel because we have an Old Testament, we have a New Testament and the truth of the gospel has come, the Messiah has come. But the fullness of Abrahamic Covenant promise comes to pass in the Millennial Kingdom and we'll be there as well because we are righteous by faith, not by works, not by keeping the law, not by circumcision...the same way Abraham was.

  So Abraham becomes then the father of all who believe in the spiritual sense.  Now a lot of people say at this point...Okay, then that means the church is the new Israel, we're the new children of Abraham and the Jews rejected Christ, they crucified the Messiah and they want nothing to do with Him still and that's the end of them.  And we have taken their place.

  That is a traditional covenant amillennial etc. viewpoint, that Israel is now set aside as an entity as a nation.  In fact, at a conference in Europe, one of the well-known Bible teachers whose name you would know was asked in a panel discussion, "What is the significance biblically of the existence of the people of Israel today?"  And the answer was, "It has no biblical significance whatsoever." 

  That's wrong. God wouldn't perpetuate and protect His people clear down to this age unless He had something in mind for them.  And that's exactly what He promised to do and they have not been set aside.  And to show you that, turn to Romans 11.  We enter in to Abrahamic blessing by faith, but that doesn't cancel the Abrahamic Covenant.  It is irrevocable and it is eternal.  Romans 11 and again this is a pretty lengthy chapter, but let me just give you some highlights.

  You know, chapter 10 ends, Israel's been disobedient.  Verse 21, God says about Israel.  "You know, all day long I stretch out My hands to a disobedient and obstinate people."  They don't want to...they don't want Christ, they refuse Christ, they reject Christ.  They want nothing to do with Christ.  I mean, you've got a Jewish synagogue a half a block down the street and we're the enemy to them.  They don't want to accept Christ, they're not interested in Jesus Christ.  They're offended by Him.   They're just permanently appear to be disobedient and obstinate. 

  So is that the end?  Chapter 11 verse 1, "I say then, God has not rejected His people, has He?"  And then me genita(?) in the Greek, the strongest negative there is, "May it never be, no, no, no way, impossible, can't happen."  No He hasn't set them aside because He made a promise to Abraham which was irrevocable and inviolable and eternal.  And it had to do with a nation, not just anybody and everybody.

  Verse 2, "God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew."  He has not.  Don't you remember the story of Elijah?  Elijah goes to God...I...only I am left, nobody left, just me, just me.  And what was God's response, verse 4?  What was the divine response?  "I've kept for Myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal."  You're wrong, I've got 7,000 people in Israel who are a remnant of those who believe.  That's God's gracious choice.

  Now verse 11 says, "I say then, they didn't stumble as to fall, did they?  May it never be."  Sure they stumbled.  Sure they've fallen into sin.  Sure they've experienced the cursings that were promised to them if they did.  Sure they've experienced the punishment of God. They did stumble but they didn't completely fall out of God's plan.  May it never be.  "Rather by their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make them jealous."

  Now all of a sudden we all own the God of the Old Testament and they're jealous of Gentiles.  We have a relationship with the God of Israel that they don't have.  Verse 12 says, "If their transgression has become riches for the world," in other words, they rejected Christ so He turned to the Gentile world to become His witnessing people.  "If their sin became riches for us, if their failure became riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their fulfillment be?"  That's what I told you earlier.  If their failure has produced such riches and such conversion, and the development of the church across the face of the earth, imagine what's going to happen when they finally believe.  And they finally believe and 144,000 of them are literally used to bring more people to Christ, so many they can't even be counted.  More than any other time in the history of humanity.

  Sure, they were...they were the true branches of the Abrahamic blessing.  And verse 17 says they were broken off and Gentiles, the church, a wild olive were grafted in.  And you became partaker of the rich root.  What's the rich root?  Abrahamic blessing, Abrahamic blessing, salvation, forgiveness, mercy.  "But don't be arrogant," verse 18, "don't be arrogant.  Branches...verse 19...were broken off, you were grafted in."  Quite right, they were broken off for their unbelief and you stand by your faith.  "But don't be conceited for if God didn't spare the natural branches, neither will He spare you."  Church, you better be careful how you view yourself.

  And then in verse 24, well verse 23 at the end he says, "God's able to graft them in again," and He will.  If you were cut off, "For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree and grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, the Abrahamic Covenant, how much more shall these who are the natural branches be grafted in to their own olive tree?"

  Listen, God is going to put them right back in.  God's going to save Israel.  God is going to save Israel.  Verse 25, "I don't want you to be uninformed, brethren, of this mystery, I don't want you to miss this, hardening has happened to Israel only till the fullness of the Gentiles has come in...only till the Lord has gathered His Gentile church...just until that time, then...verse 26...thus all Israel will be saved."  Verse 27, "This is My covenant with them when I take away their sins."  And verse 29 says, "This has to happen because the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable."

  So the Abrahamic Covenant, Zacharias anticipated it was going to happen immediately.  It didn't because they rejected the Messiah. It will happen.  It will happen.  It will happen and Israel will be saved and Israel will be blessed and the whole world through them will be blessed and that's going to occur when they're saved at the time of the Tribulation and then they're going to enjoy the benefits of the Abrahamic fulfillment and Davidic fulfillment through the whole of the Millennial Kingdom.  And we'll all be there enjoying our part in the Davidic promise, the rule of Christ over the universe and our part in the Abrahamic promise, the unlimited blessing of God and goodness of God poured out on His people during that period of time.

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