Luke 1:78

Luke 1:78

We are at the last part of Luke chapter one. Zacharias is continuing his praise to God and his description of the work that would be done by his son, John the Baptist. Zacharias was praising God for the remission of sins and for the salvation that God would bring through Jesus Christ. He said in Luke 1:78-79, "Through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high has visited us, To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace." Sometimes people portray God as a God of judgment with thunderings and with the fire of recompense to shower upon sinful mankind. But anyone who presents such a picture of God had better beware that they do not neglect to give the proper emphasis to the mercy of God. God is merciful. He does not bring His judgments when He could bring them. God is a God of tender mercy and of great compassion. He has an eternal storehouse of mercy that He offers to every sinner. To be merciful means to not bring judgment even when it is deserved, and God is merciful. He withholds His judgment much longer than any human would, in order to give ample and abundant opportunity for people to experience His mercy through Christ. Man is perhaps most like God when man is merciful, because God is the source of all mercy.

God is also the source of spiritual life. Human beings were not meant to have physical life only. They were also made for spiritual life. Physical life will last only a few years, but spiritual life will last forever. In order for someone to receive spiritual life, they must be enlightened. God cares about those who are in spiritual darkness. He reaches out to them to bring them to the light. One of the greatest miracles that takes place in the world is the miracle of a soul that finds light when once it sat in darkness alone. What does the world need when it sits in darkness and sin? It needs the light of Christ to shine into the hearts of men.

According to Luke 1:79 God gives "light to those that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death." Death is a horrible thing to those who have no hope beyond the grave. To those of the world, one of the worst things that can happen to them is to face death. The last enemy of mankind is death. But the promise of the gospel in Jesus Christ takes the last and the worst enemy of mankind and obliterates it. Jesus died for the sins of the world, but the grave could not hold Him; and He promises eternal life to all who believe in Him.

But before we enter into eternal life, there are other blessings and rewards for believing in Him. The last part of Luke 1:79 says, "to guide our feet into the way of peace." For many people in the world, there is no peace. People are too often at war in their hearts and in their minds. Jesus said that one of the signs of the times would be that people would cry out, "Peace, peace," but there would be no peace. "There is no peace, says my God, to the wicked." The most important thing to finding peace is to find peace with God. Romans Chapter 8 says "we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Jesus said to His disciples, "My peace I give unto you." There is no greater peace than to know that God loves you, that Jesus died for you, and that you will be with Him forever.

Zacharias said in Luke 1:79 that God was bringing salvation into the world so that human beings could know "the way of peace." You can never know the way of peace as long as there is the barrier of sin separating you and God. The remission of sins through Christ is the critical foundation to knowing the way of peace. Some people are at war in their soul because of their resistance to God. Some people are troubled by a guilty conscience. Some people are inconsistent at applying the principle of forgiveness to the world around them, and they are easily full of bitterness and anger, and they also fail to walk in the way of peace. But thank God that there is a way of peace, and that we can know it through Jesus Christ.

One last thing is said about John the Baptist in the book of Luke before he fulfilled his ministry as the forerunner of Christ. Luke 1:80 says, "And the child grew and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the desert until the day of his showing unto Israel." Jesus said that John the Baptist was the greatest man of all humans that were born of a woman. Therefore, it’s important to look at John the Baptist to both understand the kind of person that he was and to understand how he became that kind of person.

The development of John the Baptist from a child to an adult was much more than just his physical growth. He developed in both body and spirit. Both the physical and the spiritual were a part of who he was and what he became. If you want to live life the way that it was meant to be lived, then you must understand that you are incomplete unless you are developing spiritually as well as materially. What kind of person that you are is much more important than what material things you have acquired. Jesus said, "A person’s life does not consist of the things that he does possess." Some people are adults but they have not even begun becoming the person that they ought to be or that they could be, because they are not on a path of spiritual improvement through God and His Son Jesus Christ.

John the Baptist grew in spirit. We are talking about the principle of continuous improvement. The way to become a better person is to always look for ways to improve. Let everything that you experience be a learning experience, and then you will never fail. Everyone is heading in a certain direction spiritually speaking. Just as the body can be built up with the right amount of exercise and diet, so too can the spirit. The spiritual food of the Word of God can help to strengthen your life. Without it, you will grow weak spiritually. Jesus said, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word of God." Through prayer and meditation and applying the principles of the Word of God to your daily life, you can grow spiritually. By using a small amount of faith in your daily circumstances, your faith will get stronger because through experience you will find that God keeps His promises, and you will be able to have even more faith and confidence in Him next week or next year for the next challenge He brings your way.

It is said of John the Baptist that he "was in the deserts until the day of his showing unto Israel." John grew up in the less populated areas of Judea. When God chose the forerunner to Christ, God did not go into a palace to find royalty and power and God did not go into a religious organization to find the leader of an organization. But God went to a deserted area and chose someone who had little contact with the metropolitan centers of society. What benefit could there be to not being involved in the cultural structures of the world?

For one thing many people are corrupted by other people who are around them. Humans learn behavior and ways of thinking from other humans. We are social creatures. We tend to conform to the structured societies around us. Some of the conformity is good because it helps create a law-abiding society. But some of the conformity is bad. Too many people have been led astray by bad influences with whom they had too close of a contact. The Bible says, "Be not deceived, evil communications corrupt good manners." Wordsworth wrote, "The world is too much with us, great and small." One of the reasons that John the Baptist became great was because he learned how to avoid the corrupting influence of the world. The Bible says, "Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good," and it says, "Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind."

In Luke chapter one we were told a good deal about John the Baptist because he was the forerunner of Christ. John came before Christ. For the rest of the book of Luke we are going to be told much detail about the Christ. We will learn much more about Jesus than we did John because Jesus is more important. John will fade out of the picture, and Jesus will take the preeminence. This should happen in our lives also. If we are going to be a testimony to the world, we must talk less about ourselves and more about Him who died for us. If we are going to live life the way that it was meant to be lived, we should try to make sure that we are not praised for what gets accomplished, but that God gets the praise and the glory.

Luke 2:1-5 says, "And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria. And all went to be taxed, everyone into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; because he was of the house and lineage of David; to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child." Four times the word "taxed" or "taxing" is used in these verses. The Romans had become very good at organizing the taxing of the peoples they had conquered. To support their armies and their building programs they had to tax extensively, and this was the ultimate taxation without representation.

We know that the Jewish people did not like being taxed by the Roman government. That’s why the publicans, the tax collectors of whom Matthew was one, were so much looked down upon. The greater is your tax burden, the fewer are your freedoms. In the history of the human race many governments have crossed the line of that which is acceptable to the populace and have eventually been overthrown by the oppressed who could stand for no more, thinking that a new government would be better than one that was no longer capable of understanding what had been done to the people by over-taxation. It has happened before and it will happen again.

But believers are called to view the oppression of governments in a different way than the people of the world. Instead of over-throwing the government under which you live, you usually have the option of moving to a different country if the one where you now find yourself does not please you. But while you are where you are, you should faithfully obey the laws of the land. Rom. 13:1 says, "the powers that be are ordained of God." Rom. 13:6-7 says, "For this cause pay you tribute also: for they are God’s ministers… Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor."

In other words, God uses those in authority in order to bring into the lives of believers the things that are the will of God. Jesus was born in Bethlehem according to the prophecies of the Old Testament, but it only happened that way because God moved in the hearts of the unbelieving rulers of the Roman Empire to declare a taxation that all the world should be taxed. Because Joseph and Mary were obedient as citizens in the Roman Empire to be faithful to the will of the government, they also found the will of God. There are legal and lawful ways of pleading one’s cause with the government, but rebellion is never the will of God.

The Bible says in Luke 2:6-7, "And so it was that while they were there, the days were accomplished that he should be delivered. And he brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn." What a contrast between the life of Jesus Christ, the eternal King of creation, and the rest of the world! We work and strive and plan to live in the best home that we can afford; and there is nothing wrong with that. One day by the blessings of God we will live in the mansions of heaven and walk on streets of gold. But the king of glory was born in a barn.

There was no room for Him in the inn. This is the question that you must answer: do you have room for Jesus?

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