Morning, brothers and sisters. You seem so far away.
First of all, I want to thank you for the prayers that I know you prayed for us when Barb and I, the Bermans, and the Fredericks were in Beaver Falls. We were very blessed and very helped because of them, so thank you.
I’d like to read some Scriptures. We are going to be in Luke Chapter 1—Luke Chapter 1, the Gospel of Luke—starting with verse 5.
There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abijah.
His wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.
And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.
But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both well advanced in years.
So it was, while he was serving as priest before God in the order of his division, according to the custom of the priesthood, his lot fell to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord.
And the whole multitude of the people was praying outside at the hour of incense.
Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing on the right side of the altar of incense.
And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him.
But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your prayer is heard; and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John.
And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth.
For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink.
He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb.
And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God.
He will also go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”
I need to read one more verse:
And Zacharias said to the angel, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is well advanced in years.”
Then verse 23:
So it was, as soon as the days of his service were completed, that he departed to his own house.
Now after those days his wife Elizabeth conceived.
And then verse 57:
Now Elizabeth’s full time came for her to be delivered, and she brought forth a son.
When the neighbors and relatives heard how the Lord had shown great mercy to her, they rejoiced with her.
So it was, on the eighth day, that they came to circumcise the child; and they would have called him by the name of his father, Zacharias.
His mother answered and said, “No; he shall be called John.”
But they said to her, “There is no one among your relatives who is called by this name.”
So they made signs to his father what he would have him called.
And he asked for a writing tablet, and wrote, saying, “His name is John.” So they all marveled.
Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, praising God.
Then fear came upon all who dwelt around them; and all these things were discussed throughout all the hill country of Judea.
And all those who heard them kept them in their hearts, saying, “What kind of child will this be?” And the hand of the Lord was with him.
Now his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied. We want to go to verse 76:
And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Highest;
For you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways,
To give knowledge of salvation to His people
By the remission of their sins,
Through the tender mercy of our God,
With which the Dayspring from on high has visited us;
To give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death,
To guide our feet into the way of peace.
So the child grew and became strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his manifestation to Israel.
Let’s pray.
Lord, we do want to thank You this morning for the table that we all shared in. We want to thank You that You, our God, have given to us the Savior, Jesus Christ, and He bore away all our sins. You spared nothing to bring us to Yourself.
Lord, even in these Scriptures, we see how You were preparing the way for us to have that Savior. We ask that You will open the Word to us and speak to us in the way that You want to speak to us. Talk to us in a way that focuses our life, changes our life and our outlook on things, and helps us in doing Your will for what we have left in our life here. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
I guess you can tell that my subject is going to be about John the Baptist. The reason John the Baptist is on my heart is because we have been talking about the coming of the Lord again and being ready for the coming of the Lord.
It made me think this: the Lord sent a forerunner before He came the first time in a man, John the Baptist. I have been wondering if the Lord will send a forerunner before He returns—not a person, but a generation. A generation much like John the Baptist in everything that John the Baptist is, fulfilling the ministry of being a voice crying in the wilderness, as spoken of in Isaiah 40.
Could the generation that brings in His coming likewise be set apart completely to God and bring a message of repentance and righteousness? Repentance and righteousness have not really been talked about in a long time.
In our generation, the generation in which we live, you dare not talk about repentance. I am not just talking about the world, but Christians in general. Even when we share the gospel, sometimes there is no talking about repentance. It is just, “Receive, accept Jesus,” and no repentance.
We see the mercy of God, but we do not always see the righteousness of God. So I wonder if this might be the case: a generation being made like John the Baptist.
There have been great movements in the time since Christ came. We had the great Reformation. In two years, it will be five hundred years since the Ninety-five Theses. That is an incredible thing. The Ninety-five Theses were a liberating thing, saying that there is corruption in the church and asking, “How do we get back? How do we get out of that?” We look to the Word of God.
We have had all sorts of big movements: the Great Awakening in the 1700s; the return to the Great Commission in the middle to latter 1800s; the deeper-life movement and the Keswick movement in the late 1800s; the Azusa Street revival and the Holy Spirit being poured out in 1904; and probably the last big movement was the Jesus movement in the late 1960s.
All of those were recoveries of truth—recoveries of something that had been lost. Maybe it was the power of the Holy Spirit, the Scriptures, the authority of the Scriptures, or the calling of God for us to go out into the world and make disciples.
But I think the last generation before the Lord comes will not be a recovered truth. I think it will be a shining forth of the righteousness of God to man, that man might repent. They might see the righteousness of God and fall down before Him, saying, “I’m undone.”
To do that, it has to be a work of God. It can only be a work of God.
When we look at John the Baptist, he was the forerunner of Christ. He came before Christ. He made the way for Christ to come onto the scene. He prepared the hearts of the people so that they might be ready to receive Christ.
Could this also be the ministry of that last generation—to make the way for Christ’s return in that same way? There might be a generation like John the Baptist.
That is really what is on my heart: John the Baptist and what this generation might look like. We might see what God is really after in the last times.
But there is no John the Baptist without a sovereign work of God. Yet there is a generation that gives birth to John the Baptist. Brothers and sisters, this is what I want to speak about today. I do not want to touch on John the Baptist as much as the generation that gave birth to John the Baptist, because I think that is a really, really big deal.
A lot of times we wait for some sovereign stirring of the waters, like the man at the pool of Bethesda. We are waiting for God to do something to stir up that pool, and then we all jump in and follow through it. But He does not always stir up the waters. Sometimes He starts with a couple of people, or with a group of people, and that begins a whole movement.
Look at Abraham. We were speaking of Abraham this morning. Out of him came the father of many nations. Out of his obedience to God speaking to him, and God appearing to him, a whole people of God came forth.
Or consider Hannah in 1 Samuel. She cried for a child and said, “If You give me the child, I’ll give him back to You.” Out of that child came the movement that brought in the king. From that one person came that thing.
Samson’s parents were the same thing. We got the judge from Samson’s parents. Now we have Zacharias and Elizabeth, people crying to God for life. But there is something different here than with the others.
It says about Zacharias and Elizabeth that they were old. It does not just say they were old, but barren. Zacharias even says, “We’re well advanced in years.”
It is an amazing thing, and it really shows the sovereignty of God, that out of an old, barren couple comes John the Baptist. An old, barren couple brings forth John the Baptist.
Once you understand the promise about life, you find it working in two generations. You find it working in the generation of Elizabeth and Zacharias, and then you find that life borne out in John the Baptist.
This morning, I would like to concentrate on the generation of Zacharias and Elizabeth. Again, as I said, they were old and barren.
I do not know how you feel about your own lives as Christians, but how many of us were in the Jesus generation? If we were in the Jesus generation and were saved during the Jesus generation, that makes us old. No matter how you look at it, we are old. If we were saved in the 1960s, that was like fifty years ago. That is a long time, right?
You remember getting saved. We were so full of life, sharing with everybody and doing this and that. Then we come to this time of our life. I do not know how you look at yourself, but how many of us look at ourselves as being old and barren?
Is life coming out of me? Is life being reproduced through me? What is that? How is it?
We can feel sorry for ourselves and go in the tank, saying, “I’m just playing the season out.” You know what I mean by that. You come halfway through the season, and you know you are not going to win the championship, so you just play it out.
When you play a season out, how much enthusiasm do you have? Quite a bit, right? No, because you are just trying to make it through. It is tough slogging, isn’t it? You are just trying to make it through.
But Zacharias and Elizabeth are not playing it out. Zacharias is a priest. If you look in the Old Testament, the Levites only worked from twenty to fifty, and then they could retire. They had their 401(k)s going and went to Florida to do the things that Levites do when they retire.
But the priests were there forever. There was no retirement age for a priest. I think that is a very significant thing, because all of us are called to be priests. In being called to be priests, there is no retirement age. We are priests for life.
We find Zacharias functioning as a priest. He is still in that priestly ministry, taking his place where he is supposed to be. He is not dormant, so to speak. He is not just sitting on the edge and saying, “Well, I’ll go to the prayer meeting, but I never pray,” or something like that. He is actively involved in his ministry.
Whether it is there at the temple in Jerusalem or where he goes home, he is still a priest, and he functions as that priest.
Then it says that the lot fell to him. In other words, there was something that he had to do. If you remember, Proverbs says that the lot is in the lap of the Lord. The outcome is in the hands of the Lord.
The lot fell to him. So we have this choice of a vessel who is old and barren, and yet God chooses this vessel for this particular thing.
He has a visitation from an angel. In other words, a word comes from heaven to him. We could even look at this as a prophetic word.
When we talk about a prophetic word, some of us think of future-telling and stuff like that. But really, a prophetic word is God speaking right to us. We know it is God speaking to us. In this case, it is saying something for the present, though there is something in it for the future. The whole thing is the speaking of God.
There are different words in Greek for “word.” There is one that means the written word; there is one that means the conceptual word, logos; and there is one that means the word spoken for the now, rhema. What we have here is a rhema. A rhema comes right to Zacharias.
This prophetic word comes to him, and he hears that word. That is good. He is old, but he can hear the word. That is good, right?
The word contains two things. First, a son—a generation—will come forth from him. Secondly, it declares the things that will happen to this son. In Luke 1:13-17, we have this wonderful prophecy of what John the Baptist is going to be like.
You would think Zacharias would say, “Hey, this is really cool, Lord.” Then this is what I think a lot of us do: we get a word from the Lord, and then we wait for the Lord to perform it.
How do we wait for the Lord to perform it? A lot of us are waiting for Him to do something. But when the Lord speaks a word and says, “This is the word for you,” He will perform it, but there is something for you to do in that word also. There is a part for you to play, just like there was a part for Zacharias to play.
Zacharias had a little doubt. Because of that doubt, he was made mute, and most people say he was made deaf and mute. They made signs to him because he could not hear, and they gave him paper because he could not communicate to them.
If we are people who simply say, “Okay, the Lord’s coming, so we’ll just wait for the Lord to come,” then we are not proactive, are we? We are not waiting in a proactive way. We are just sitting on our seats waiting for something to happen, waiting for the stirring of the waters.
How much can we learn from Daniel? In Daniel 9, while he was in Babylon, he was reading Jeremiah. In Jeremiah 29, and in other passages, God said, “You are going to be here seventy years. After seventy years, I am going to bring you back home. I am bringing you back to Jerusalem.”
Daniel discerned that the seventy years were coming to an end. What did Daniel do? Did he just sit there and rejoice, “Oh Lord, thank You that the seventy years are coming to an end”? No. If you read Daniel 9, Daniel begins to pray.
I do not know how many years it was until the people went back. It could have been five, two, or ten years. I do not know. But Daniel was praying. The first thing he asked was, “Forgive us. We really blew it. We come to You and want full cleansing from our sins.” Then he prayed, “Take us back.”
Remember, there was quite a fight over this. Gabriel was stopped for twenty-one days before the answer really came. What was Daniel doing during those twenty-one days? I am sure every day, three times a day, as Daniel did, he prayed. He opened toward Jerusalem and prayed.
I am not saying he prayed twenty-four hours a day, but in his prayer times, every time he came to those prayer times, he prayed for the Lord to bring those people back.
Another thing is that Daniel never went back. You ever think about that? Daniel never went back, but it did not stop him from praying for those who would go back.
Daniel was probably taken when he was twelve, thirteen, or maybe ten years old. They were there seventy years. What did that make him? Old. Older than me. Eighty or maybe ninety years old—I do not know—but he was praying. He still had that priestly ministry in his heart, carrying it out so those people could be brought home.
Zacharias also had a part to play. You might say, “Well, you can’t talk and you can’t hear.” Gee whiz, have you ever had laryngitis? Do you still pray with laryngitis? How do you pray? Quietly. That is right. Amen. Quietly.
The other thing is that he could not hear. What was the last thing he heard? This prophecy about John the Baptist. What do you think was going on in his head during all that time?
I think the Lord stopped him from hearing anything else because He was saying, “Zacharias, I want you to really hear this. I want you to really understand this. I want to really have hold of you.”
We are such an information generation. I hate to say this about me, but how many times do I check the news on the internet in a day? Probably three or four times. Sometimes you hear something new, but you get on all these tangents, and you are not hearing what really is the important thing.
I think the Lord stopped up Zacharias because He said, “I want you to concentrate on what is important. This is it for right now. This is it for nine or ten months. This is My focus for you. Let this lead you in your prayers.”
We have been talking about passing a torch. How does this relate to passing a torch, especially for the generation that is supposed to be passing the torch?
We have a part in forming the new generation. Do you understand that? We have a part in forming that new generation. It is not a heavy-handed thing. We have a part, and we need to find out what that part is so that we can do it, just like Zacharias.
Elizabeth had a part in the same way. Remember, she hid herself for five months. What was she doing for those five months? I am sure part of it was thanking the Lord: “Oh Lord, thank You for giving this life.” But she was hidden.
For the generation that gives birth to John the Baptist, there is a lot of hidden ministry here, a lot that is not seen outwardly. It is not something we parade around and say, “Yeah, we’re doing this. Hey, yeah, we’re doing that. We got this.” No, no.
It is bringing it to the Lord. It is not bringing it to the world, or even necessarily bringing it to the rest of the church. It is bringing it before the Lord because that is what the Lord has for us. The Lord says, “You bring it to Me, because I am the One with whom you have to do, and I am the One who carries this out. I am the One who brings forth life.”
Remember, they were barren. This life was brought forth by God—not immaculately, but just like Abraham and Sarah, who were beyond bearing. It is the same thing: “I’m old and barren. I can’t give forth life.” Then all of a sudden the Lord says, “Oh yeah, you can’t, but I can. I’m bringing forth life, and you have a part in this.”
What was the promise? What is the will of God for this new generation, for this John the Baptist? I put it as a new generation because I am looking forward. I am looking forward to the Lord coming back, and I hope I really am looking forward to it.
There were four things prophesied. First, in Isaiah 40, John the Baptist was to be a voice crying in the wilderness. This prophecy comes after Hezekiah had shown everything to the Chaldeans, and Isaiah told him that they would one day take it away.
Second, Luke 1:15 says that neither wine nor strong drink would touch his lips. In other words, he was going to be a Nazarite. Not merely a Nazarite who makes a vow for a time, but a Nazarite for life.
Samuel was a Nazarite for life; his mother gave him to God. Samson was a Nazarite for life. I believe our Lord Jesus Christ was a Nazarite for life—set apart wholly to God.
Third, John would come in the spirit and power of Elijah: a prophet. Fourth, he would be filled with the Holy Spirit.
What about the generation that brings forth this life? What do they do? That is what I really want to focus on this morning. What is it for us to do? How do we bring forth this life? How do we bring forth this generation?
The first thing is that he is supposed to be a voice—the voice of one crying in the wilderness. How does a voice get its voice? The Word. That is right.
We need to pray that they, first of all, can hear the voice.
Remember Samuel. Samuel did not recognize the voice, and yet he became one of the greatest prophets of the Old Testament. He had to be schooled in how to recognize it. He went to Eli three times, thinking his mentor was the voice. Finally, Eli discerned what was happening and said, “Speak, Lord.”
We need this generation to come up able to distinguish the voice of God, even from the voice of their teachers. We can take the voice of a teacher over the voice of God because we are familiar with a teacher and have a high view of that teacher. Sometimes that takes away from hearing the real voice—the voice of the Lord.
We need to pray, “Lord, acquaint these brothers and sisters, this new generation, with Your Word. Give them a hunger for it.” As Peter says, hunger for the sincere, pure milk of the Word, by which you are able to grow in the knowledge of God and grace.
Also, Lord, help them discern Your voice. Help them in reading Your Word and in reading spiritual books, not just to latch onto a teaching, but to hear the voice of God in that teaching.
We are people who want to latch onto teaching. We need to discern the voice of God. I am not saying you cannot hear the voice in teaching. When I read The Normal Christian Life, the Word of God spoke to me through that book in a great, liberating way.
But we cannot simply say, “Okay, I’ll just read all these spiritual books.” You need to read the Word, and you need to be able to discern the voice.
That is one of the things the Pharisees did not do. They did not discern the voice. They had all these teachings and all these other things. When Jesus came and began to teach, people said, “He teaches as one with authority.” Why could they say that? Because they heard the voice of God in it.
In John 7, they sent men to take Him. The men came back without Him, and when asked why, they said, “Never a man spoke like this Man.” They heard the voice of God.
That is what we need to pray for: discernment of the voice of God. You need to discern the voice of God in the Scriptures. Read the Scriptures. By all means, memorize the Scriptures. By all means, pray, “Lord, help me hear Your voice. Help me discern it so that, when I read it, I can do Your will.”
Doing the will of God is not merely looking for things that say, “This, I’m going to do it.” You do the things that God is telling you to do as He reveals them to you.
Secondly, John was a Nazarite from birth. Nazarites are set apart—not set apart for nothing, but set apart for God. They are consecrated for God’s use, God’s will, and God’s purpose.
First, they are consecrated by God Himself. God had already set John apart. All of us have already been set apart. When we were born again, we were set apart for a purpose that God has for us.
The second half of being set apart is ours. Seeing that we are set apart, we begin to set ourselves apart also, by the grace of God. We need to pray for this generation that they can see themselves as set apart by God, set apart for God, and set apart for His purpose.
They should not merely be following a teaching: “I’ve got to do this or do that.” They need to see it. When we see things and begin to set ourselves apart, that is where life is.
We do not want to yoke this generation with legalism. We want them free to yoke themselves as they see fit. They come to Jesus as they see Him and yoke themselves to Him, just as He said:
Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
These brothers and sisters need to see that they are set apart. As the Word is revealed to them and God speaks to them, they begin to set themselves apart.
They begin to hear the Lord saying, “Don’t touch.” It is the Lord saying it, not me saying it, not some book saying it, but the Lord speaking into their lives: “Don’t touch,” or “Don’t go there,” or “Go here,” or “Do this.” They need to see that. That is how they are set apart.
Third, John would come in the spirit and power of Elijah. To understand the spirit and power of Elijah, you have to look at the generation from which Elijah came. Otherwise, it is meaningless. You might say, “Yeah, he did some miracles,” but you have to see what the Lord was trying to do through Elijah.
Elijah came from a very bad time, a time when Israel was apostate. They had left God and were doing all sorts of other things. They were worshiping the Baals. This is where Elijah stepped in.
His stepping in showed that there was a God in Israel. Remember Mount Carmel. They set up the two altars. Elijah told them to cry out, and they did all their things. He even dug around his altar and filled it with water.
He said, “May the God who answers by fire…” After they had worn themselves out, Elijah simply prayed, “Let the Lord show Himself.” He said that they had to choose whom they would worship.
In bold relief to all the worshipers of Baal, it became clear that it was not those gods helping them. It was the God of Israel, the God of Jacob. He simply called on Him, and it stood in bold relief to that apostate generation.
First of all, in Elijah there was no compromise. No compromise at all. He was not going to back down from anything because he knew the Lord was behind him. The Lord was the power behind him.
It was not because Elijah was some macho dude. He was a scared dude. Remember when he was running from Mount Carmel: “Oh, I’m the only one left, and they’re going to kill me.” Pretty macho.
But because he knew the Lord was behind him, he did not compromise. That is a big deal because in the generation in which we are living now, how much compromise is there? Even compromise concerning the righteousness of God in many issues that are before us today.
You think of gay marriages and things like that. I would probably get arrested if people listened to this tape, huh? Who is standing for truth? Or are we saying, “No, this is just the way the world is. Things have changed. Truth has changed”?
No, it has not. Truth has not changed. The truth is that God has not changed and will never change. It is eternal.
Elijah was whole. He was a whole man, and he was wholly God’s in what he did.
Our prayer for this generation should be, “Just like Elijah, prove them. Prove this generation.”
A lot of times we pray for the protection of this generation. In some ways, we are doing a disservice, and we are not really praying rightly. We need to be corrected a little bit in that. We pray, “Save them from this and save them from that.”
Remember when Jesus prayed for Peter? He said, “Peter, you are going to deny Me three times.” But He did not say, “I’m going to pray that you won’t.” Satan demanded to sift Peter like wheat, but Jesus did not say, “I’m going to pray that he won’t.”
He said, “I have prayed for you.” What did He pray? “That your faith faileth not.”
“I’m going to let you go through the sifting like wheat. I’m going to let you deny Me. But My prayer is that, in going through these things, your faith will not fail. When you are converted, when you return, strengthen your brothers.”
That is a powerful prayer, isn’t it? It is a prayer of letting Peter be proved.
These brothers and sisters need to be proved. They need to be proved by being thrown into circumstances, just as Elijah was thrown into circumstances. They have to be there. That is what will strengthen them. That is where God becomes real to them.
We need to pray that God proves them and that they come out as silver is refined and as gold is refined:
I will refine them as silver is refined,
And will try them as gold is tried.
Then, from the deepest part of their being, the Christ-life comes forth—strengthened, shining in its glory, so that other people can see.
God alone strengthened Elijah. When he was running away, he was fed by ravens. One time an angel came, cooked him a cake, let him sleep, then cooked him another cake and gave him water, strengthening him for what he was supposed to do.
When Elijah got to the mountain, he was able to discern and recognize God. He recognized that God was not in the earthquake, the fire, or the wind, but in the still, small voice.
This is what we need to pray for this generation—the generation that will bring in Christ. We need to pray that they can say, “It is not the big show of things, but I discern the voice of God in my circumstances, and I know the help of God in my circumstances.”
Filled with the Spirit: we are not asking for an experience for them like we did in the charismatic movement. “Oh, you’ve got to be filled with the Spirit.” Remember that?
Filled with the Spirit—what does that mean? It means fitted. Fitted for their mission. Fitted for their ministry. Fitted for the conflict they will face.
That is what we need to pray for: “Fit them, O God. As You bring them into these circumstances, fit them. Do not let these circumstances be in vain. Use them to fit them for the things You are doing, the things You want done.”
That is how we should pray for this generation that is coming up. But there is more than just praying for them. To bring forth life, Zacharias and Elizabeth had to do something. They readied themselves to bring forth the life of John the Baptist.
Because I have had children, I can say that I know what it is like to have children, but I do not know what it is like to have children. You know what I mean? Only my wife really knows what it is like to have children. I know what it is like to raise children, but my wife really knows.
To bring forth a child, there must be—and there will be—in this generation of old and barren people, a sanctifying work in them. There will be a sanctifying so that life can be brought forth.
Life has to be narrowed, and life has to be focused, for this life to come forth in the next generation.
You ladies remember when you were with child, and how your life changed. All of a sudden, you did not do things you used to do all the time. You set yourselves apart to bring forth that child.
I remember my wife had gestational diabetes. My wife loves fruit. She loves fruit. She does not care much for whipped cream and things like that, but put a strawberry in front of her—just put a strawberry on the table, and do not turn your head because it is gone.
For the health of the baby, when she found out she was about four months along, she could not have fruit. For five months, she went without fruit. That was a sanctifying work: “I’m setting myself apart to bring forth this life. I will not do certain things.”
Restaurants now have warnings about drinking wine when you are pregnant. If women smoke, when they find out they are pregnant, they stop smoking. What are they doing? They are sanctifying themselves to bring forth that life.
There must be a sanctifying work in us: a putting aside of the pleasures that we may have. I put a little note here: a pinching of peripheral desires and worldly pleasures. Putting a kink in the hose—pinching it.
The focus is on the child coming forth. It is not about me anymore. It is not about my rest and my pleasures: “I need a rest. I need to do this.” No. I am consumed with bringing forth a child. So there must be a work of sanctification.
When a woman is with child, there can be a craving for good things and a real disdain for other things. A smell can make you say, “Oh, get the thing out of here.” Or there can be a craving. Remember the old thing about pickles and ice cream? You would have thought someone would have made pickle-flavored ice cream, but they did not.
Secondly, the burden is to grow. If the burden is not growing, what has happened? There has been a miscarriage. This burden has to grow. It has to be seen all the way through.
If God has given us a burden for this generation, then we should pray it through. We cannot just say, “Okay, we’ll pray a couple times,” and then that is it. We see it all the way through.
The child is developing. It gets bigger. It puts pressure on you. It gets heavier.
I had to sell raffle tickets at a football game on Friday, and I saw a lady who was great with child. Great with child. I said, “What are you doing?” She said, “Next week.” That is the way she said it: “Next week.” It was heavy.
As the life gets near, the burden gets heavier and heavier and heavier. We should notice that. We should notice that life is increasing.
I remember when my wife was pregnant with my youngest, Jamie. A couple of other ladies were pregnant at the same time and due around the same time. There was just the noticing.
I remember being with one woman whose baby was really kicking, but Jamie hardly kicked at all. We wondered what was happening. Should that not be normal? We went in, and there was something that they felt needed attention. If they had turned her, she would have been strangled, but the Lord brought the birth prematurely.
The whole thing is the noticing. I am aware of life that is growing. Because I am aware of life that is growing, I am going to try to meet the needs of that life that is growing—the life that is going to be birthed.
When that burden is growing, we desire to see it through to the end. We want it to be birthed. We do not want it just to keep growing in us. We want the burden finally to end, and the burden ends when that life is brought forth.
Finally, we need a capacity to bring forth that life. In the days of Zacharias and Elizabeth, there was no C-section, no Caesarean. You had to have the strength to push that life forth.
We, as the generation that pushes that life forth, need to be strengthened in the inner man. We need to be walking in the Spirit. We need to have the cross applied to our lives so that this new life can come forth and this generation can be about what it is supposed to be about.
We are not let off the hook. We are to walk as those who walk in the Spirit. We are to be strengthened in the inner man. The old man is crucified, and the old man is to be put to death daily. Otherwise, we will not have the strength to bring forth that life.
Then we have to parent. Once that baby is born, we need to parent.
In parenting, that means this: number one, we need to love that generation. We need to nurture it.
There is a Scripture in 1 Thessalonians 2. This is Paul. I never thought Paul was a nurturing guy. When I first read Paul, I thought he was so full of himself, so tight and high-strung. But listen to Paul talking to the Thessalonians:
For you yourselves know, brethren, that our coming to you was not in vain.
But even after we had suffered before and were spitefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we were bold in our God to speak to you the gospel of God in much conflict.
For our exhortation did not come from error or uncleanness, nor was it in deceit.
But as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, even so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God, who tests our hearts.
For neither at any time did we use flattering words, as you know, nor a cloak of covetousness—God is witness.
Nor did we seek glory from men, either from you or from others, when we might have made demands as apostles of Christ.
But we were gentle among you, just as a nursing mother cherishes her own children.
So, affectionately longing for you, we were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives, because you had become dear to us.
For you remember, brethren, our labor and toil; for laboring night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, we preached to you the gospel of God.
You are witnesses, and God also, how devoutly and justly and blamelessly we behaved ourselves among you who believe;
as you know how we exhorted, comforted, and charged every one of you, as a father does his own children,
that you would walk worthy of God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.
Parenting: that should be our role as this new generation grows. We should be caring for this generation as it grows up, having affection for it—nursing like a mother, admonishing like a father.
Paul spoke to Timothy and said, “You followed my teaching,” and all these things. We are supposed to pass the values of the new life to the new generation, not merely by word.
As John says, we do not love in word only, but in deed and truth. We should pass on the values of the kingdom of God and the life of Christ to this generation as it is being formed. As we go out into the world, we should pass that on by our own being, by what we should be.
Brothers and sisters, I am going to close now. What happened in the end? When we read Luke 1:56 and following, we find that Zacharias is no longer mute. By “dumb,” I do not mean stupid. He can speak now.
What do we find him doing? Because these things have happened and the life has come forth, we find him praising God. He is just praising the Lord. That should be our lot too. As we see these things, we praise the Lord for what the Lord can do. It is not about us.
He is no longer deaf. He is hearing again. He is not just hearing teaching; he himself has been able to discern. During those nine or ten months, I think he became better able to discern the voice of God.
Everybody was saying, “Hey, he should have the name Zacharias,” and there was commotion. What did he say? “His name is John.”
Elizabeth said, “His name shall be called John.” Zacharias was more adamant: “His name is John.” That is it. No further discussion. He had heard the Word of God.
Third, his faith had been invigorated. Brothers and sisters, for those of us who are older, how many of us need our faith invigorated? How is faith invigorated? Is it not by seeing the answer to our prayers? Is it not also by seeing the fruit of God through the labor He has given us to do?
Finally, it says that the child grew. Because of the ministry of the generation before, the child grew strong in spirit.
He was in the desert, which is the place of proving. Every time you hear of being in the wilderness—Israel went into the wilderness to be proved; Jesus went into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, to be proved.
So John was proved in the desert until the day he was manifested to Israel. There will be a day when the ministry this generation is supposed to do will be ready and prepared. That voice crying in the wilderness will be heard by all and will cause many to respond in those days.
This is our time. We have to consider it like that. We cannot just say that we are playing out a season. We have not been called to play out a season. We have been called into a victorious season because Christ has won a great victory.
But that victory has to be played out, and we have a part to play in it. It might be in the background, and it is to be in the background for a lot of us. But that is what it is, and we are to embrace that.
For this generation to have the fruit it is supposed to have, we have to play our part. I think that is what God is calling us to do.
We are not to let life be miscarried. How many times have things come from times when we thought there had been a movement of the Spirit—personally or corporately—and we dropped the ball after a few weeks?
If the Lord is coming back, these are serious things. The Lord wants to come back, and He wants that vessel that is going to be that forerunner. We need to be praying for that, even if we are not that vessel.
“Oh, where is the glory for me?” The glory is the birth. That is the glory. The glory is that Christ comes back and that we share in His glory.
Brothers and sisters, I know I did not really talk about John the Baptist, but I did talk about the generation before him. Without that generation before, there is no John the Baptist.
God entrusted that generation to bring forth John the Baptist. It was a sovereign work, but He entrusted it to people who were what? Old and barren.
How great is our God, that He can bring life from those who are old and barren. We are past the time of this, but called into it anyway. Is that not wonderful? Is that not a wonderful thing to think about? Then let us embrace this.
Let’s pray.
Father, we want to thank You that You sent Your Son once to die for us, but He is coming back again to judge the living and the dead.
Lord, we want to be those that bring Him in. We want to have our part in that. We are asking You to reveal to us what our part is.
Lord, if this is the generation—if this new generation is a generation that needs to be doing Your will—help us to do our part so that this generation can be raised up. Even if it is not the generation, they still have something that You have for this generation to accomplish: a witness, a testimony of Christ, of the life of Christ in them, that resonates in the world and in the church.
Oh Lord, bring light through them, I pray, into their own generation. For us, Lord, help us to be those who help them bring forth the life that is in them.
Lord, do not let us play through the season. Help us to be active in it, Lord, we pray. Forgive us where we drop the ball, and help us stand up now. Help us stand back into the game by Your grace. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.