The Gospel of Luke: Big Doors, Small Hinges

Transcript

JRNT 57
May 19, 2024
The Gospel of Luke: Big Doors, Small Hinges
Luke 1:8-12
Jesse Randolph


Thirty years ago, D. James Kennedy wrote a book titled “What If Jesus Had Never Been Born”? The book, while admittedly dabbling in the hypothetical, gives a fascinating if not startling look at what our world would look like if the Savior of the world had not in fact come into the world. As Kennedy points out, had Jesus not arrived on earth and taught what He taught about humility and selflessness and sacrifice and forgiveness and mercy and compassion, our world would look drastically different. Our relationships would look different, marriages would look different, workplaces would look different, parent/child relationships and other authority structures would look different. Without the teachings of Jesus undergirding them, governments and laws would look fundamentally different, as would certain societal structures and institutions which we tend to take for granted like hospitals or orphanages; and the church, what's that? There would be no such thing. Then we move over to the sphere of arts and literature, think of all that would be missing had Jesus not come into the world. DaVinci's The Last Supper would have never been commissioned. Michelangelo would never have painted the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel. Handel would have never written The Messiah. John Newton would have never written Amazing Grace. Of course, John Bunyan would not have written The Pilgrim's Progress. It's a similar story when we move over to the worlds of scientific learning and academia. In a world without Jesus and His teachings the foundational beliefs of certain scientific luminaries like Copernicus and Francis Bacon would have crumbled, while Christian universities like Oxford and Cambridge and Harvard and Yale (yes, they were one day Christian universities) would have never been founded.

Then bringing it much closer to our context here in a Christian church, imagine how different the world's religious landscape would look had Jesus never come to earth. With no message of the cross and that message that we are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, with no message of what has already been done for us and accomplished for us, we would inevitably and naturally go back to our works-based ways. We of course would still be aware that God exists and we would still suppress the truth of our knowledge of that God in unrighteousness, as Romans 1 says, but without ever learning of the One named Jesus who was born and who lived and who died and who rose we would default to our default setting of just attempting to do better and to try to do harder. We would be stuck in this cycle, this hopeless cycle of works righteousness and we would be suckers for dead moralism. But here's the thing, because we are so sinful and because we are so wicked and because we are so blinded by our pride, we would never be able to recognize that no amount of works that we could ever do would ever be able to merit us favor with an infinitely Holy God.

Well, praise God that Jesus did in fact come into this world and Jesus as He came didn't come to mold the modern system of medicine or to inspire artists or to charter colleges. Jesus didn't come into this world to transform the culture or to save society or to reform morality. Jesus didn't even come into this world to create a new religious movement. No. Jesus came to this earth plain and simple to save sinners so that we who would believe upon His name might secure and share in the hope of eternal life. Though God, He was born of a woman and as the One who created all things He stooped to enter into His creation. Though He eternally lives, He came to this earth to die, and He did so because of His infinite and unparalleled and unfathomable love for us wretched sinners though we are. Jesus really came into this world, Jesus really arrived, Jesus really was born and born to die.

Well, speaking of the birth of Christ and Jesus coming into the world, as we turn back to the Gospel of Luke this morning, we are back to the days and the events leading up to the birth of our Lord in Bethlehem. Now as we started to work through last week, Luke's Gospel doesn't start with Jesus' birth, Luke doesn't take us into the delivery room with Mary and Joseph there. Instead, Luke starts with the birth of Jesus' forerunner, His predecessor, John the Baptist. Really taking it back a step further he begins with John the Baptist's parents, an Israelite priest named Zacharias and his wife, Elizabeth. We met Zacharias and Elizabeth last week as we worked our way through Luke 1:5-7 in a sermon that was titled The Darkness Before the Dawn. There in that passage we learned about King Herod, that would be Herod the Great, and his tyrannical rule over Judea. We learned about Zacharias and his wife who were both of the priestly line of Aaron and who were both godly and devout and righteous followers of Yahweh and who, as we saw in verse 6, though they were both righteous in the sight of God and though they were walking blamelessly in all the commandments and righteous requirements of the Lord, they had not been blessed with a child, as we see in verse 7, on account of Elizabeth's barrenness.

Now this morning as we continue in our study of Luke's Gospel, we're going to work our way through the next few verses of this text which are still focusing on the events leading up to the birth of John the Baptist who would in turn be the forerunner to Christ coming into the world. With the Lord's help we're going to get through five verses this morning. If you are not there already, I'd invite you to turn with me to Luke 1:8 and we'll read all the way down to verse 12. Luke 1:8-12, God's Word reads, “Now it happened that while he was performing his priestly service before God in the order of his division, according to the custom of the priestly office, he was chosen by lot to enter the sanctuary of the Lord and burn incense. The whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of the incense offering. And an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing to the right at the altar of incense. And Zacharias was troubled when he saw the angel and fear fell upon him.”

If you've been with us on Sunday evenings of late in our sermon series through the book of Esther, you've heard me mention a couple of times now and it's really a paraphrase of a quote from Warren Wiersbe that “big doors swing on small hinges.” In our Sunday evening context, I've made that observation to point out how God, though unnamed in the book of Esther, was clearly working in and through the various individuals in details and events recorded in that book. Well that same idea carries over into the portion of Luke's Gospel that we'll be in this morning, as God was about to providentially swing open this massive door, namely His Son's arrival into the world, and He was going to do so through a series of smaller circumstantial hinges, each of which played a part in this world-shaping, history-changing, eternity-impacting event known as the incarnation.

The title of this morning's message is Big Doors, Small Hinges, and if you are taking notes, we have three points, three hinges if you'd like, that our text is going to turn on. First in verses 8 and 9 we're going to have Priestly Duty, second in verse 10 we're going to have Prayerful Devotion and then third in verses 11 and 12 we'll see Prophetic Dread. So Priestly Duty, Prayerful Devotion, and then Prophetic Dread. We'll start with our first hinge, that of Priestly Duty in verses 8-9. It says, “Now it happened that while he was performing his priestly service before God in the order of his division, according to the custom of the priestly office, he was chosen by lot to enter the sanctuary of the Lord and burn incense.” We're sort of starting mid-thought here, the “he” referred to of course is Zacharias. We saw last time in verse 5 that Zacharias was a priest, an Israelite priest, a descendant of Aaron and of the division of Abijah. Not a descendant of Abijah, I took about ten minutes to explain that last time, but of the division of Abijah. Here we see “Now it happened,” verse 8. Now let's stop right there with those few words, “Now it happened.” That's an interesting selection of words there by Luke because Luke certainly knew, as we all know, that nothing just happens to happen. There is no such thing as chance or circumstance in a world designed and upheld by an all-wise, all-sovereign God. You didn't bump into that friend at Scooter's last week, God designed that it would happen that way. You didn't get into a car accident years ago, no God providentially arranged each and every detail associated with the collision of those two vehicles. You didn't fall into the job you now have, no God lined it up for you. You didn't marry the wrong person no you married the right person as indicated by the two names on the bottom of that marriage certificate. God doesn't deal in chance. God is sovereign, God deals providentially. Things don't just happen in the abstract, rather they are brought about by the sovereign and providential hand of Almighty God, including the events that we are now going to work through in the Gospel of Luke. All that to say that when Luke here says in verse 8, “Now it happened,” he is operating from the assumption that what he is about to record was brought about by God's sovereign decree and purposes, including what we see next.

Reading on in verse 8 and into verse 9 it says, “Now it happened that while he was performing his priestly service before God in the order of his division, according to the custom of the priestly office.” With those words Luke is taking us right into the heart of what priestly service looked like in Jerusalem at this time. Now to set the scene by many estimates, and we went into this last time, there were some 18,000 priests living and serving in the region of Judea in these days. And with 24 divisions of priests under those 18,000, and 18,000 divided by 24 you get somewhere around 750 priests per division, meaning though you divided into 24 divisions there are still very large divisions—750 priests per division. Now pertinent to our text each individual division of priests, no matter where they lived and ministered and served through the year, what would happen is they would gather twice per year in Jerusalem for two separate one-week periods to offer their service in the temple. And that service could take on a number of different forms. Some of the priests who came to Jerusalem during their one week were serving at the temple gates, some were performing temple music, and some of course were slaughtering animals for temple sacrifice. But bringing it back to Luke 1 here and zeroing in on Zacharias, this was one of those weeks, as the scene is being set, where his division, the division of Abijah was on duty to serve in the temple. Note how simple and ordinary and routine Luke's choice of words here is in verses 8-9. He says that Zacharias was performing his priestly service and that he was doing so in the order of his division, and he was doing so according to the custom of the priestly office. There really is nothing extraordinary or sensational being described here by Luke. His language is actually quite understated, and intentionally so because, as we're going to see, this scene is but a smaller hinge being turned by God as He accomplishes His broader purposes of introducing His Son into the world.

So as that detail settles and as this hinge turns, we come to the second half of verse 9 and here the scene begins to escalate, and the narrative starts to accelerate. Look at the middle of verse 9 where Luke says of Zacharias, “He was chosen by lot to enter the sanctuary of the Lord and burn incense.” Now we're going to take some time to work through this to make sure we're getting all the meat off these bones, but for starters look how Luke says that Zacharias was chosen by lot. Now on first read we might think that this is recording some random happenstance or circumstance, but we know that is not true. Let's dig a little deeper. What were lots? How were lots cast? What did the casting of lots accomplish? Well, lots were multi-sided stones of some sort and when they were rolled or tossed or thrown, it was taken to be an indication of providential timing and divine direction or divine choice. We see the practice of casting lots mentioned throughout the Old and the New Testaments. We think of Jonah, Jonah 1:7 where the sailors cast lots to see who had brought the storm upon their ship. Or we think of the Roman soldiers in Matthew 27:35 where they cast lots for Jesus' garments. Or we think of Acts 1:26 where the remaining eleven apostles cast lots to see who would replace Judas.

Even more relevant to our text, though, would be going all the way back to the days of King David. If you go with me over to, I Chronicles 24, we were here last week as well, this is a full thousand years before the days of Zacharias. We're going to see that the casting of lots was one of the ways that the allocation of priestly service responsibilities was divided up. I Chronicles 24, we'll pick it up in verse 3. Look how this describes the casting of lots to allocate service responsibilities by priests. I Chronicles 24:3 says, “And David with Zadok of the sons of Eleazar and Ahimelech of the sons of Ithamar divided them according to their assignments for their service. And more chief men were found from the sons of Eleazar than the sons of Ithamar, so they divided them thus. There were 16 heads of fathers' households of the sons of Eleazar and 8 of the sons of Ithamar, according to their fathers' households.” 16+8=24, that's how we get our 24 divisions. “Thus, they were divided by lot, the one as the other, for they were leaders for the sanctuary and leaders for God, both from the sons of Eleazar and the sons of Ithamar.” So that's one example of how lots were cast to divide up priestly responsibilities. One chapter later, I Chronicles 25, we learn that musicians in the temple were also given service assignments based on how the lot was cast. Look at I Chronicles 25:8, it says, “They cast lots for their responsibilities, each alongside the other, the small as well as the great, the teacher as well as the pupil.” One chapter later, I Chronicles 26, we're told that gatekeeping responsibilities within the temple were also divided up by lot. Look at I Chronicles 26:12, it says, “To these divisions of the gatekeepers the chief men were given responsibilities like their relatives to minister in the house of Yahweh. And they cast lots, the small and the great alike, according to their fathers' households for every gate.”

So that's interesting, those are interesting historical details about how lots were cast in the days of David, back in the earlier temple days to see how assignments would be meted out. But again, we have to remember these are all being cast under the sovereign and providential direction of God. That's why it says in Proverbs 16:33, “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every judgment is from Yahweh,” meaning, back to the Gospel of Luke here, when Luke says in Luke 1:8-9 that “it happened that Zacharias was chosen by lot,” what he is not saying is that this was some instance of arbitrary happenstance. Rather, what he is affirming here is that Zacharias was instrumentally chosen by lot, meaning the lot was the means by which Zacharias was chosen immediately, ultimately, he was sovereignly chosen by God for that role at that time.

Now as we read on verse 9 note that it says that Zacharias was “chosen by lot to enter the sanctuary of the Lord and burn incense.” Now these again are very specific terms with a specific meaning given in a very specific context, and with a little hard work and some exegetical elbow grease we can make out what is happening here. For starters we need to figure out what Luke means here when he says that Zacharias was chosen by lot, and I have it in my LSB to “enter the sanctuary of the Lord.” Now for anyone here who has their NASB or an ESV maybe, you have that there as what? The temple of the Lord, right? You have it there in verse 9 as he “was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense.” I have to say that this is an instance where I really appreciate the translation decisions of the LSB translation committee. See, there are two different Greek words used in Luke's Gospel which in translations like the NASB and the ESV are both translated with one English word, temple. There are two Greek words, but those two translations will bring it down to one word, temple. But in context it is clear that Luke uses one of those Greek words for one purpose. For instance, he uses one Greek word to talk about the temple building in the precinct as a whole. That's how he uses the word in Luke 2:46 where Jesus' family finds Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions. He is talking about the whole temple there. That's also the word Luke uses in Luke 4:9 involving Satan's temptation of Jesus where he, Satan, says to Jesus to stand on the pinnacle of the temple and cast Himself from there if He is the Son of God. But there are other places like here in Luke 1: 9, where Luke is using a different Greek word to describe the inner sanctum of the temple, not the temple precinct or building as a whole, but rather some sliver or section of the temple like the Holy Place or the Holy of Holies. All that to say I appreciate what the LSB translators have done here, because rather than assigning a single English word, temple, to describe two different Greek words they have actually given two different English words to mash the two different Greek words. So, in the LSB the temple precinct, the building as a whole, will be called the temple but then when you get into individual components and parts and sections of the temple it will use the word sanctuary to define something more specific and focused.

Enough with the LSB sales pitch, back to our text. Verse 9, Luke here records that Zacharias was “chosen by lot to enter the sanctuary of the Lord.” Now what we need to do now is drill down a bit deeper to figure out what this sanctuary, or you have it as temple of the Lord, actually was. This is where I'd like to use visual aids in my preaching but I'm going to do my best with words to paint the picture of what is happening here. When we think of the temple of Zacharias' day, that is the first century Jewish temple, we can think of it essentially as being divided up into three major sections. First would be the outer courtyard, then as you passed in from the outer courtyard, you'd find the Holy Place and as you kept going through, through the veil or the curtain, you'd be in the Holy of Holies. Those are the three major sections of the first century temple—the outer courtyard, the Holy Place, the Holy of Holies. Now some of this will sound familiar to you if you've persevered in your Bible reading in February and made it through Exodus and Leviticus. But that first area, the outer courtyard, that's where there was the bronze altar on which animal sacrifices were performed, that's where the burnt offering was made, that's where there was the laver, the washbasin for the priest to cleanse himself after sacrificing animals, making that burnt offering. That's the first section. Then there is the second area, the Holy Place. In this second area, the Holy Place, you would have the table of showbread and the golden lampstand and the altar of incense and then there is the third area, that would be the Holy of Holies. That's where the ark of the covenant resided, and it was here where it was viewed as God's glory being present and on display in the Holy of Holies. So, when Luke here is describing Zacharias as having been chosen by lot to enter the sanctuary of the Lord which of those three areas is he referring to? The answer is #2, he is talking about the Holy Place, which here is translated as the sanctuary of the Lord. Zacharias wasn't allowed to go into the third place, the Holy of Holies. Only the high priest was allowed to do that, and even then, the high priest was allowed to go into the Holy of Holies on only one day of the year, the Day of Atonement where he would go into the Holy of Holies and sprinkle blood on the mercy seat to atone for the sins of the Israelites. Now though Zacharias was not allowed to go into the Holy of Holies, section #3, priests like Zacharias, more ordinary priests, they were allowed to go to that place just outside the Holy of Holies, namely the Holy Place where they would burn and offer incense. In this sense, this Holy Place was the holiest place that a priest like Zacharias would ever access or get into.

Now as far as what this offering of incense looked like in this Holy Place, practically speaking, we can't decouple what happened in the Holy Place from what was happening out in the outer courtyard where the animals were being sacrificed. See, in Zacharias' time there were both morning and evening sacrifices being offered out in the courtyard of animals upon that bronze altar every single day. I mentioned this last week, but priests during Zacharias' time, they weren't just doing what I am doing right now and reading Scripture and proclaiming Scripture, priests in these days were knife-wielding butchers and they were responsible for killing and filleting and burning up all the animals that were being sacrificed outside for the sins of the people. So, when a division of priests was on duty in a given week there would be an order of that division of those priests that were out in the outer court slaughtering animals morning and evening. Now bringing it inside God was so meticulous when He set all this up that not only were there to be sacrifices happening outside the temple in the outer courtyard, but then burnt incense was to be offered in this Holy Place inside. God even specified, I won't read through it all right now, but in Exodus 30:34-35 God even lays out the ingredients that were to go in the incense that would then be burnt up and offered as a pleasing aroma to Him. The idea behind this incense as the animals were being sacrificed, by the way, was that this sweet aroma of the prayers of the people were being lifted up as animals were being sacrificed for the sins of the people outside. So, the blood sacrifice is happening in the courtyard, the people's prayers are being received as a sweet aroma in the Holy Place, and the two really go hand in hand as worship was being offered in the temple.

Now someone might be tempted to think, Jesse, you've gone on and on and on about this. Big deal. The priests got to sacrifice incense. Whoop-di-do. Sweet smelling aromas are going into the divine nostrils, great. So what? I hope you are not thinking that. This really was a big deal. This was a very big deal because this would be a pinnacle moment in any priest's life because it represented his once-in-a-lifetime opportunity not only to burn incense and offer a sweet smelling aroma to God, but it was his one chance in his life to enter that Holy Place and get that close, only a veil was separating him, to the very presence of Yahweh. We have to remember there were 750 or so priests in each division, including the division of Abijah. With that many priests in any individual division, for any given priest it was not a given that their name would even be called once in his life. It couldn't be called twice, they were each capped out one time, but to be called for this task to go into the Holy Place and offer incense was a huge honor. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

So back to Luke 1, looking at that second part of verse 9 where it says he was “chosen by lot to enter the sanctuary of the Lord and burn incense,” the idea here is this is not by chance, this is not an accident. This is all according to the divine plan and purpose of Yahweh in this context as He is turning one of those big doors on a small hinge. This was a major moment in Zacharias' life, really the pinnacle of his priestly life and probably the high point of his life as a whole, to get into the Holy Place once in his life. Now another detail to pick up here, and I don't want to lose sight of this, is as he was going in for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, we can't forget back in verse 7 that he was advanced in years. He was old and aged, so if it wasn't going to happen now it wasn't going to happen ever for him.

Now putting ourselves in Zacharias' shoes or sandals for a moment, as his number has been called, as the lot has been cast, as it falls on him, picture what is going through his mind in this moment. He has been selected to perform a task that he has always wanted to perform but hasn't. He is about to go into a place that he has always wanted to go but hasn't. So how was all of this supposed to go? I mean, he had never been there before, it would only have come through word-of-mouth experience. What it would have looked like, we believe, is there would have been a signal given to Zacharias that it was his turn, his time to go into the Holy Place. He would likely gather some of the coals that were out in the outer courtyard area on the bronze altar where the animal sacrifices were being made, he'd put those coals in one of those divine utensils, one of those golden bowls and bring those coals into the Holy Place, and then he would find the altar of incense, an altar he had never seen before, it had only been described for him, he has never seen it with his eyes, and then with some sort of golden priestly utensil he would have taken some of the coals in that bowl and put them on the altar of incense. Then he would have received another signal that the moment had now come, the moment that Zacharias had literally been waiting for his entire life where he would take those coals, place them on the altar and then place that divinely decreed mixture of sweet smelling aroma on top of those coals, causing this cloud to arise and this fragrance to rise and spread throughout the Holy Place. Then likely what he would have done after offering the incense offering is he would have laid himself prostrate in prayer before the altar and then after some time he would get up and walk out. His once-in-a-lifetime job was now done. His red-letter day had come to an end, that was it. That was, to use our first heading here, his Priestly Duty.

Now if you are a note taker, we're going to move on to verse 10 and see the next hinge that is turning here is not just Priestly Duty, but now we're going to see Prayerful Devotion. Look at verse 10, it says, “And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of the incense offering.” So, Luke is setting up a contrast here. Zacharias is inside the Holy Place, the sanctuary of the Lord, preparing to carry out this once-in-a-lifetime priestly duty at the altar of incense, and now outside, here is the contrast, is this throng of people, this multitude of people gathered outside. So, Luke here is really panning out from inside the temple to outside to this scene that is developing. What we note here in verse 10 is that the people are described as praying “outside at the hour of the incense offering.” They were praying. Now a few things to note here about this devoted group of worshipers who had gathered outside to pray near the temple at this hour. First is this, we do know that at this time in Israel's history there were public gatherings of prayer happening in the outer court of the temple outside the actual sanctuary as sacrifices were being offered. In Isaiah 56:7 God Himself refers to the temple as “My house of prayer.” Jesus would later quote that line as He was driving out the merchants from the temple in His day. The parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector begins with these words in Luke 18:10, “Two men went up into the temple to pray,” showcasing the prayer that happened there. Acts 3:1 records that Peter and John were going “up to the temple at the ninth hour, the hour of prayer,” again, linking prayer to the temple in the days of Acts. We also know that the prayers that were happening at the temple were happening three times each day, and we know that the first and the third of those prayer times correlated with the morning and the evening sacrifices that were happening and the morning and the evening offerings of incense that were happening inside the Holy Place, meaning those who were outside praying were praying for all that was happening inside the temple. They were praying for the priest and his incense offering, they were praying so that as he got nearer and nearer to the presence of God, as he got close to that curtain separating the Holy of Holies that he would be safe. They were praying that the offering of incense would be received by Yahweh. And there are many who think, and I think it is a worthy thought, that they might have even been praying the psalms, specifically Psalm 141:1-2, which says, “Oh Yahweh, I will call upon You. Hasten to me, give ear to my voice when I call to You. May my prayer be established as incense before You.” All this to say what was happening outside the temple as Zacharias was inside the temple was this consecrated, devoted time of prayer.

Second thought on verse 10, and this is more of a theological point, but note how Luke's Gospel where at the very beginning of his Gospel here, note how it begins with praying happening at the temple. We just read it in verse 10, “they were praying outside the temple.” Now if you would, just indulge me by going over to Luke 24, the final chapter of Luke's Gospel. Luke 24, we'll start in verse 50, these are the last four verses of Luke's Gospel. We'll get here in half a decade or so. But we see something really interesting here. Luke 24:50, this refers to the ascension of our Lord. It says, “And He led them out as far as Bethany and lifting up His hands He blessed them. And it happened that while He was blessing them, He parted from them and was carried up into heaven. And they, after worshiping Him, returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple blessing God.” We have seen, I've laid it out in some of the introductory messages that Luke's Gospel was written by a Gentile, Luke, to a Gentile, Theophilus, but here what we see is that Luke's Gospel, we see this throughout, has some clearly Jewish undertones which we don't want to sweep aside or ignore. His Gospel, note, starts in the temple with prayer and it closes in the temple with praise. So, the chapters in between and the verses in between you could arguably say are how the people's prayers throughout the Gospel account are answered in the person and work of the Messiah, the Lord Jesus.

Third observation about prayer here in Luke 1:10, and I mentioned this in one of the first sermons in this series, Luke's writings, whether it is the Gospel of Luke or the book of Acts, are peppered with various different examples of prayer. What is really interesting in our context here is that oftentimes in Luke's Gospel specifically prayer is accompanied and followed by some form of divine revelation being given by God, like in Luke 3:21. That's the account of Jesus' baptism and it says, Luke 3:21, that “while He was praying heaven was opened.” Or in Luke 9:28-29, that's Luke's account of the transfiguration. It reads this way, it says, “Now it happened some eight days after these words that taking along Peter and John and James, He went up on the mountain to pray. And it happened that while He was praying the appearance of His face became different and His clothing became white and gleaming.” Or then there is the account of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane in Luke 22:41-43 and note this connection between prayer and divine revelation. It says, “And He withdrew from them about a stone's throw, and He knelt down and began to pray saying, Father, if You are willing remove this cup from Me. Yet not My will but Yours be done.” Then it says this, “Now an angel from heaven appeared to Him, strengthening Him.” Luke's Gospel in other words often associates prayer with being this prelude to divine revelation, as God, hearing the prayers of His people in turn acts.

That leads us into our third and final point for this morning. With Zacharias headed inside the temple, the Holy Place, with the prayers of the people being offered outside in verse 10, look what happens next in verses 11-12. It says, “Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing to the right of the altar of incense. And Zacharias was troubled when he saw the angel and fear fell upon him.” We've seen Priestly Duty in verses 8-9, we've seen Prayerful Devotion in verse 10, now in verses 11-12 we're going to see Prophetic Dread. That's the next hinge that turns in this account. Let's pick it up in verse 11 where Luke says in such a simplified manner here, he says, “And an angel of the Lord appeared to him.” So as Zacharias entered the Holy Place and the people of Israel are outside praying for him, it says “an angel of the Lord appeared to him.” This is very muted language by Luke here when we consider the magnitude of this moment. Remember, between the days of Malachi who wrote the final inspired book of the Old Testament, and the days of Zacharias in the early first century, over 400 years had passed since God had last audibly spoken or visibly appeared to anyone in Israel and during these 400 years of silence God wasn't speaking out of clouds or in visions or in dreams or through prophets or through angels. In the period of time recorded here by Luke priests like Zacharias had heard about angels, they had heard others speak about angels, maybe they had read about angels appearing in the books of Genesis or appearing to the patriarchs, appearing to the prophets or otherwise guiding the people of Israel back in the day. But there hadn't been a priest in hundreds of years who had actually encountered an angel. That all changes with the appearance of this angel in verse 11. With Zacharias seeing what he saw here the 400 years of silence were now over.

Now if I may, just a slight theological detour here but one I think is necessary, considering the increasingly anti-supernaturalistic times in which we live, lest there be any doubt in the room here this morning the biblical testimony regarding the reality of the existence of angels is clear. In Luke 2 an angel of the Lord appears to certain shepherds. In Matthew 1:20 an angel of the Lord appears to Joseph. In Acts 5:19 an angel of the Lord opens the door to a prison, freeing the apostles who had been imprisoned there. In
I Corinthians 4:9 Paul spoke of the ministry of the apostles of his day, having been a spectacle to, among others, angels. In Hebrews 1:4 the anonymous author of that book says that Jesus had inherited a more excellent name than the angels. In I Peter 3:22 Jesus is described as having gone into heaven after angels and authorities and powers have been subjected to Him. Jude 6 speaks of angels who did not keep their own domain, and those are only in the New Testament. I'm going to save my comments on a deeper dive into angels until some later weeks where we see more angelic encounters, but for our purposes here this morning the point is clear, that the biblical record is there that the angelic realm is neither made up nor mythical, it is real.

Getting back to Luke's account here in verse 11, the angel who was standing there before Zacharias who was later revealed to be Gabriel is described here as “standing to the right of the altar of incense.” Not to Zacharias' right but to the right of the altar. Now some have suggested that there is some great spiritual or symbolic significance to the fact that the angel here is standing to the right side of the altar as opposed to the left side or dead center and perhaps his standing at the right side means he is in this place of authority or exaltation. I don't really see it; I don't think that's really even the point here. The major idea that is being stressed here by Luke is that what Zacharias saw was not an apparition, it wasn't a mere vision. Instead, this was an actual angel, and so real was this angel's actual appearance to Zacharias that he could pinpoint from memory exactly where that angel stood, namely at the right hand of the altar of incense, the right side of the altar of incense.



Then having encountered this angel, look at Zacharias' response in verse 12. It says, “And Zacharias was troubled when he saw the angel, and fear fell upon him.” Now Luke gives us two verbs there to describe the feelings Zacharias experienced when he saw the angel standing near the altar of incense. First it says he was troubled, and that verb means to throw into turmoil or confusion and then second it says that fear fell on him, the idea is that he was gripped with fear. Now if you have done any reading in the Old Testament, you know that whenever there is an encounter between a mere human and some divine representative of God, like an angel of the Lord, what that encounter produces in that human without fail is fear. That was true of Gideon and Manoah in the book of Judges when they encountered the angel of Yahweh, that was true of Daniel when he fell on his face in Daniel 8:17 when he encountered Gabriel. Of course, we can't forget Isaiah and his encounter in that heavenly throne room scene in Isaiah 6, and he is there, and he sees this seraphim and the seraphim we know are the burning ones, these angels of the Lord who refract the burning holiness of God. Isaiah in Isaiah 6:5 says, “Woe is me, for I am ruined, for I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, Yahweh of hosts.” That's just in the Old Testament, we could talk about John's vision on Patmos where he falls at the ascended Christ's feet like a dead man. But why is the question. Why such fear in the face of things or beings like angels, angels of the Lord? The answer quite simply is that any right minded individual, any clear-thinking human will, in the presence of perfect and infinite deity, come to the place where they feel the weight of their own weakness and unworthiness and guilt and corruption and their natural unfitness to stand before God. It's impossible not to experience those feelings when in the presence of deity.

That was Zacharias here as he is ministering in this Holy Place at this peak moment of his life, perhaps with this cloud of incense already starting to rise in the Holy Place. Righteous man though he was, verse 6, he came to realize how actually unholy he was. He is positionally righteous but in terms of who he was as a human being, he was unworthy, unholy, he was frightened, he was taken aback, he was troubled is the word here in verse 12, and then verse 12 also says “fear fell upon him.”

Well, this sets us up for another hinge that was about to turn as this angel that Zacharias encountered in this Holy Place was about to speak and calm Zacharias' fears. But we're going to have to wait until next week to get there.

Let's pray. Lord God we again express our gratitude and our thanks to You this morning for Your perfect plan of redemption, culminating in the death of Your Son the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross at Calvary. We praise You for Your willingness to have the blood of Your Son shed and for our Lord's willingness to have His own blood shed so that our sins could be forgiven and washed and cleansed and taken away. God, I pray that these truths about You sending Your Son into the world, what we are studying right now in Luke as we prepare through our study for the Christ's arrival, as we prepare to work through Luke and see where it culminates ultimately in our Lord's death on the cross and His resurrection and His ascension. God, I pray that these truths, though historic and though important to remember as intellectual data points would not stay there where we simply know more things and store up more things and can retain more things and talk about more things. But, God, I pray that the truths of Jesus' arrival, His birth, His incarnation, His death, His resurrection, His ascension, that that would be transformative in each and every one of our lives as we model godliness, as we live lives sold out for Jesus Christ, as we have an urgency about proclaiming the name of Jesus to those who have yet to give their lives to Him and believe upon His name. God, I pray that these glorious gospel truths that we have been reminded of this morning would move us and motivate us to live more faithfully for You. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.