In his sermon 'The Birth of Jehovah is Gracious,' Peter Allison explores the biblical narrative surrounding the birth of John the Baptist, emphasizing the significance of his name, which means 'Jehovah is gracious.' The sermon highlights the prophecy of Zechariah, John's father, who, upon regaining his speech, praises God for fulfilling His promises and raising a 'horn of salvation' to deliver His people. This salvation, long promised through the prophets since the foundation of the world, is expounded by Allison as a victory over the world, the flesh, and Satan. The sermon discusses the three parts of Zechariah's song: the promise, fullness, and purpose of God's salvation. It describes how God's covenant with Abraham and the prophets foretold the coming salvation through Jesus. The sermon underscores the idea that God's salvation aims to enable believers to serve Him without fear in holiness and righteousness, ultimately for God's glory. Allison calls for empathy among believers, urging them to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep, reflecting on Elizabeth's journey from barrenness to joy. The sermon concludes with a prayer, thanking God for His prophets and the great salvation accomplished in Jesus Christ.

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, and immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, praising God.

Then fear came on all who dwelt around them, and all these sayings were discussed throughout all the hill country of Judah. 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 Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied saying, Blessed is the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited and redeemed His people, and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David, as He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets, who have been since the world began, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us, to perform the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember His holy covenant, the oath which He swore to our father Abraham, to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life. 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 day springed from on high has visited us, to give light to those who sit in darkness in 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 until the day of his manifestation to Israel." May God be praised in reading and hearing of His Word. Heavenly Father, oh how we thank you for your word and for your salvation. We ask that you would open our eyes and our heart, That this which we have heard before, you may teach us through it. I ask, Lord, that you would also sanctify these sinful lips, that they might proclaim your riches in your glory. In Jesus name, Amen.

Elizabeth's time came for her to be delivered and she brought forth a son, a son in her old age, well advanced in years, both she and Zechariah. We and Zachariah. And so would have begun some years of work, of less sleep than she was used to, of chasing after a little one running around her house as an old lady, an old woman. But this was an occasion of joy. All the neighbors and her relatives were rejoicing with her.

She has been given a son. She who was barren now has a son. Everyone is friendly with her, rejoicing with her, as they should have. We are to rejoice with those who rejoice. So it's good that all these people were there rejoicing with her.

But remember, this was one who had been reproached. This is the one who, When she was given a child, she said, God has looked on me to take away my reproach. She hid herself five months in her house until, until she was five months after she was pregnant. She had not been friendly, or I should say all her neighbors had not been friendly with her before. That's the other side of that command, we're to rejoice with those who rejoice, but we're also to weep with those who weep, or to share in their sorrow.

That's what empathy is. It's not just looking down at somebody in the well of despair, in trouble, and saying, well I hope you get better. But to truly weep with those who weep is to get down there with them. And experience their sorrow together with them. To walk with them through it.

That's weeping with those who weep. They are rejoicing here with her as she rejoices. Let's not forget to weep with those who weep. All Those years of her barrenness, when she had no children, when she was praying to the Lord like Hannah, year after year, crying out to the Lord for a son, for a child. Where were those people then?

Were they reproaching her or weeping with her, sharing in her sorrow, bearing it with her? Proverbs says that the poor is hated even of his own neighbor, but the rich has many friends It's easy to rejoice with those who are rejoicing There are sometimes I suppose that jealousy and envy can keep us from truly rejoicing. But generally it's easy to rejoice with those who rejoice. But it's a little bit harder to enter into other people's sorrows and to weep with those who weep. To get down with them and experience with them the pain that they are enduring.

At his circumcision, which would have been eight days after he was born, they were going to name him after his father, but Elizabeth said no, no, his name was to be called John. Well, the people that were there with her didn't believe her. I don't know why they didn't believe her. Can you imagine being, rejoicing with a couple And the mother, who was just given birth eight days ago to this son, tells you the son's name and people say, no, no, that can't be, that can't be. So They appeal to Zechariah.

But they make motions. They didn't talk and ask him. They made motions as if he was deaf. Otherwise if he wasn't deaf They could have just asked him what his name would be, but Luke says that they made motions to him. They signed to him what his name would be.

Now it doesn't say exactly, but the word that's used for death when it says in verse 22 earlier in this chapter when Gabriel struck Zechariah with being dumb, not mute, not able to speak. That word can mean mute. It can also mean death and it can mean deaf and dumb. In fact in the New Testament it's used about half the time to mean deaf and half the time to mean dumb, slightly more to mean dumb. But it can mean either thing, either, or it can mean both.

And so it's very possible that Zechariah was both deaf and dumb, that he couldn't hear and he couldn't speak. Now the text here talks about only his tongue being loosened and him being able to speak. And it talks when he was struck dumb, it's he went out and he motioned for the people and he couldn't say anything to them. He couldn't give them the blessing. So the text never says anything about his hearing being restored or him losing it, other than this one place here where the people are signing to him.

So we can't say for sure, this word could just mean mute, but it's possible that he was both deaf and dumb. It may have been that he was hard of hearing being old and advanced in years. He might have been hard of hearing before He lost his ability to speak for nine months. Whatever, the people are signing to him. And so he asked for a tablet to be brought.

Something that was probably coated in wax that he, with a stylist, could make an impression upon. And he wrote, his name is John. His name is John. His name is John. His name already was John.

The angel Gabriel had named this child before he was even conceived. Just like Gabriel gave the name for Mary's baby as Jesus, John wrote his name is John. Meaning it's an Old Testament name, and it means Jehovah is gracious. There are several number of people in the Old Testament, the Bible records, who had this name of John, or its Hebrew equivalent, Johanan. And it means Jehovah is gracious.

Jehovah is gracious because John came to proclaim to Harold Jesus, Jehovah saves and his salvation. And so Zechariah is now moved as soon as he makes this announcement or writes that announcement, he's then moved by the Holy Spirit and he prophesies. He prophesies. He prophesies about Jehovah's salvation, this salvation that his son would be the forerunner for, the herald for. His song has three parts here, the promise of God's salvation, the fullness of God's salvation, and the purpose of God's salvation.

The promise of God's salvation, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel. He has raised up a horn of salvation for us As he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets who have been since the world began. This salvation that John was coming to proclaim was a salvation that had been promised since the foundation of the world. There God had sent His prophets since the foundation of the world. That's right, there have been prophets promising God's salvation since the foundation, since the world began.

Other New Testament writers say the same thing. Peter in his sermon on Solomon's porch after healing that lame man, he says he refers to the message God spoke through His holy prophets since the foundation of the world. And Jesus spoke of the blood of all the prophets shed from the foundation of the world. Yes, there were prophets, because prophets have been martyred since the foundation of the world. God said that all the blood of the prophets shed from the foundation of the world would be required of that generation.

From the blood of Abel to Zechariah. Now Abel was a prophet. Hebrews 11 tells us that through faith, even though he is dead, Abel still speaks. But even before Abel, in the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve were cut off from fellowship with God and driven from the Garden, God promised that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. By faith Abel offered an acceptable sacrifice to God.

How did he know? Because the Word of God came to them, and by faith he believed it, he acted upon it, and he offered an acceptable sacrifice to God. Then there was Enoch, who walked with God. And it was not because God took him. And about seventy years after Enoch, God raised up Noah, a preacher of righteousness.

And God promised Noah that he would never again destroy the earth by a flood. And inherent in that promise is a promise to restrain sin so that God would never have to destroy the earth by a flood. Because God wasn't saying he was going to change his standard of justice. When he told Noah he would never destroy the earth again, he wasn't saying, well, I'm going to just be more blind to the sin that's in the world. But rather, it was a promise that he would restrain the sin so that it would never get to the point where his justice would demand that the world be destroyed with a flood.

And to achieve that, God instituted civil government. It was to Noah that God said, whoever sheds man's blood by man, shall his blood be shed. That is the purpose of the civil magistrate, to bring God's wrath on those who do evil so that wickedness is restrained in the land and the land never becomes like it was in the days of Noah, where the imagination of everyone's heart was only evil continually. After Noah was Abraham. Abraham was probably born within 50 years or so of when Noah died.

Abraham is called a prophet in Genesis. And to Abraham God promised three basic things. So we've moved two thousand years here from the creation of the world to Abraham. God promised that his descendants would be God's own people. God promised that Abraham's descendants would be his own people, and that they would be very numerous.

Genesis 12 and 17 have those promises. That they would be as the dust of the earth. That they would be as the stars of the heaven in Genesis 15. Now this was fulfilled in Moses' day. Moses told the people that today you are as numerous as the sand, as the dust of the earth, as the stars of heaven.

And that he told them that they were God's people, these descendants of Abraham. The Second thing that God promised Abraham was that a special land would be given to him in Genesis 13 and 15. God promised Abraham that he would receive the land of Canaan, all of it. And in the New Testament that promise is extended to the whole world. And that land came, that physical land came under full control of Abraham's descendants with David.

David was the warrior, the one whom the Lord taught his fingers to make war. The one whom the Lord prospered and blessed. Wherever he went, the Lord gave him victory, great victory. And he conquered that whole kingdom from the far north to the south, all the way down to the Red Sea. And then that dominion continued through Solomon's day.

The Lord gave him peace. Thirdly, God promised Abraham that through his seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed. And that promise is what Paul refers to in Galatians. That blessing, that seed was Christ. And it is in Christ that indeed all the nations of the earth are blessed through this horn of salvation that Zechariah said God had promised since the foundation of the world.

This promise that He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets. There have always been people Outside of Abraham who feared God, there is Job and his four friends. Three of his friends may not have always spoken rightly concerning God, but Job prayed for them and God healed them. These were people who feared God, his four friends that came. They were knowledgeable of the Word of God.

God has always had his prophets, both inside and outside of Israel. Otherwise, how would Job and his friends have known about God? God has always had His prophets. This promise of salvation has been since the very foundation of the world. What is this salvation that God has promised since the foundation of the world?

Well, Zechariah says it this way, to grant that we be delivered from the hand of our enemies, from the hand of those who hate us. He spoke by the mouth of the holy prophets, which have been since the world began, that we should be saved from our enemies, in the hand of those who hate us. That's the promise, we'll be saved from our enemies. He says God has raised up a horn of salvation. A horn is a symbol of strength.

It's not talking about that horn that you see around Thanksgiving sometimes that has a bunch of food flowing out of it that looks kind of like a hat almost. This is a horn like you see on a bull. This is a symbol of strength, of power. This is a symbol of an offensive weapon. That's how it's portrayed in the scripture.

You know, In Daniel you have these visions of rams and goats and horns and they are fighting and one breaks the other's horn symbolizing the defeat of one over the other, the victory of one over the other. This reference, this horn is a power. God is going to raise up a power that will defeat all of our enemies. This is the salvation that has been promised. What are our enemies that Zechariah says God will defeat, that we would be saved from our enemies?

Well, we can classify these enemies in three buckets, the world, our flesh and sanctum, the world. By the world is not meant the creation, the land, the hills, the grass, the gold that's in the hills and so forth. That's not what we mean by the world. By the world we mean, when we speak of it as our enemy, By the world we mean the ways and the powers of this age that are opposed to Christ. In that sense you might say it's very loosely the dominion of Satan.

Paul said to the Ephesians, you were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked according, following the course of this world, following the Prince of the power of the air, the Spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. You are following the world, you are following the Prince of the power of the air is a reference to Satan, the spirit that is now at work and the sons of disobedience. That's the world. So to be a friend of the world is to be an enemy of God. To be a friend of God means that we are an enemy of the world.

To be a friend of the world refers to who is our master and who is our first love. Who is our master? It's not To be a friend of the world isn't referring to our enjoyment of the beauty of creation, a wonderful sunset, the glory of the mountains, or the heavens. That's not what it means to be a friend of the world. It doesn't mean that we have gold or don't have gold.

To be a friend of the world doesn't mean that we have gold or don't have gold. To be a friend of the world is who is our master, who is our first love. We are not to love this world or the things that are in this world, The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. We are not to serve money. We can't serve God and man.

Rather we are to get and use gold as stewards for Jesus Christ. To see all that is in the world as belonging to Him and to be used for Him to be used as He would have it to be used to recognize It's not ours, but we're simply stewards of it. We simply have been entrusted with these things to use as the Lord leads us and guides us in His Word, to be used according to His commandments for His Kingdom. So this world is passing away and the lust of it. But Jesus told his disciples, don't be afraid because I have overcome the world.

This Jesus that John was coming to herald Zechariah says God has raised up a horn of our salvation Jesus has come and overcome the world And in Christ we too overcome the world In Christ our will is changed, our affections are changed. And we are enabled to relate to this creation in a very different way. We are able to relate to it as stewards. We are able to let it go. This is not where our home is.

But we are also able to use these things as stewards for Jesus Christ. John wrote 1 John 5, 4, For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world, and this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? So that's the first enemy that Christ overcomes, this horn of our salvation, this power, this victory. The second one is our flesh.

This is a reference not to this necessarily this skin but it's a reference to our old nature. That which is that enmity against God. It's a reference to our sinful will that doesn't want to follow the will of God. It's a reference to our sinful emotions that love what God hates and hate what God loves. So our sinful emotions and pride, our sinful emotions that are sad when our pride is hurt, or happy when our ego is stroked.

It's this flesh, this old nature that is our enemy, that is at war with God. Paul describes this battle in Romans 7, For I delight in the law of God after the inward man, after the new nature, But I see another law in my members, Warring against the law of my mind, And bringing me into Captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. Oh wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death Zechariah proclaimed that day that his son is baptized that Jehovah has raised up a horn of salvation such that we will be saved from our enemies through Jesus Christ. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh and they are contrary to one another so that you cannot do the things that you would do. That's our enemy, this flesh that's at war with the Spirit.

Peter said, Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims abstain from fleshly lust which war against the soul. This flesh is our enemy. It wars against the Spirit. But praise and thanks be to God that He has raised up a horn of our salvation in Jesus Christ, we have victory. We are saved from this enemy too.

It is through the power of the Holy Spirit, living with us, that we are enabled, that we are empowered, that we live in the victory that Christ has won in His death and resurrection, that our very nature is changed, and that this flesh that wars against our spirit is defeated. But this flesh is also our body in that, when we speak of the fullness of this salvation that Zechariah promised, it does extend to this physical body. This body that you and I have, this temple of the Holy Spirit, this tent that has been corrupted by sin, that's not going to be that way forever. This horn of salvation that God has raised up will redeem even this body. Also, we have been saved in this hope.

This body is not unimportant. It will be redeemed, It will be restored, it will be glorified. It's very important. It's very important how we treat this body. Because it is the temple of the Holy Spirit.

And it will be redeemed. Many of Jesus' miracles were to heal people's physical disabilities and illnesses of leprosy, of lameness, not able to walk, not able to see, not able to hear. Many of Jesus' miracles were to demonstrate His power, His victory over the effect of sin in our bodies. And so Paul says, we've been saved in this hope. What hope?

The hope that our bodies will be made perfect. The whole creation groans as if in childbirth, under the burden of sinful flesh, under the burden of broken bodies. Part of the fullness of The salvation that John was to be the herald of is that we will be given new bodies New bodies freed from all the effects of sin upon them. And lastly, thirdly, Our enemies include Satan, the evil one. From the very Garden of Eden, God has promised that he would crush the head of the serpent.

This was done at Christ's first coming. At His second coming, Satan will be completely destroyed and cast into the lake of fire, along with Sheol in Hades. But in the meantime, even though Satan's head has been crushed, He walks about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. Yes, he has been bound and he is no longer able to deceive the nations, but he is still a mighty foe. But even here We are promised victory.

Resist the devil, James says, and he will flee from you. And we've been given armament by which, the armor of God by which we are able, through the victory that Christ has won, to defeat even Satan. And so the fullness of this salvation that Zechariah speaks of, that has been promised from the foundation of the world, extends to victory over the world, over our flesh and over Satan. We will be saved from our enemies, Zechariah proclaimed, and from the hand of all who hate us, to perform the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant. Now why?

Zechariah then tells us why. Why has God raised up this horn of salvation? Why has he promised this salvation? What is the purpose of it? Zechariah tells us the purpose of Jehovah's salvation.

It's in verse 74 and 75. To grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life." That's the purpose of Jehovah's salvation, that we might serve the Lord without fear in holiness and righteousness all the days of our lives. See all things, all things begin and end with God. He is the Alpha and the Omega. He is the first and the last, the beginning and the end.

He is the sovereign. He is the one who always was, who always is, and who always will be. He always was, He always is, and He always will be. See, our salvation is not ultimately about us. It's not.

It's not about us inviting Jesus into our heart. It's about us falling down on our faces before this sovereign Lord of Lords and King of Kings and crying out for His mercy that we might fulfill the purpose for which He made us, which is to bring glory to Him. Our salvation is about God glorifying Himself. God glorifies himself by showing his excellency, showing his attributes. He glorifies himself in loving a people who were his enemies.

He glorifies himself in giving up himself and offering himself, a sacrifice in our place. He glorifies himself by preparing for us his own special people who are zealous for good works. He raises up the wicked, He raised up the wicked that He might be glorified in them as well. His justice and His long suffering are glorified, Paul says. He's raised up the wicked so that he might be glorified in his wrath.

God has condemned sin in the flesh in order that the requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us. We don't walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. That's the purpose of our salvation. It's a salvation that Ezekiel proclaimed. So very beautifully in Ezekiel 36.

God said, in verse 22, Therefore say to the house of Israel, thus says Jehovah God, I do not do this for your sake, O house of Israel, but for my holy name's sake, which you have profaned among the nations wherever you went. And I will sanctify my great name which has been profaned among the nations. And the nations shall know that I am Jehovah, says Jehovah God, when I am hallowed in you before their eyes. For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land." Now why is God going to do this? For their sake?

Because they longed to go back home? No, He's saying, you profaned My name among all the nations, but I'm going to do this for My own name's sake. I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean. Sprinkling of water is referring to work of the Holy Spirit. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from your idols.

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you I will take the heart of Stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh I will put my spirit within you and Cause you to walk in my statutes and I and you will keep my judgments and do them and then you will dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers and you shall be my people and I will be your God and I will deliver you from all your uncleanness and I will call for the grain and multiply it and bring no famine upon you." Why is the Lord doing all this? He's doing it for His own name sake, for His own glory. I will put my spirit within you. I will cause you to walk in my statutes. And you will keep my judgments.

And you will do them." The mercy that Zechariah speaks of, that God promised through his prophets from before the foundation of the world, is that he would make to himself, he would glorify himself through his own special people who are zealous for good works. So in salvation it's not about telling people they need to be saved for their own good. It's about calling people to repent, to fall down on their face and ask for God's mercy, and ask that He might be glorified in their life. When we are led by the Spirit, when God sprinkles us with this water, and when He puts His Spirit within us, Then we have power from Him to live a victorious life, to overcome this world and its lust, to overcome our flesh, to overcome Satan. We have the power to keep His commandments.

And His commandments are not grievous, they are not burdensome, rather they are a delight. So I ask you this morning, are the ways of God a delight. Not just some of the ways of God, not just your favorite ways, but all of the ways. The ways that you understand their purpose and the ways that you don't necessarily understand their purpose. If some of his testimonies and precepts are hard for us, and some are, That's a sign of our flesh.

That's a sign that we are seeking to follow them in our own flesh by our own power, by our own strength. It's a sign that we are trying to keep God's law on our own, instead of in the Spirit. Our old nature has been crucified with Christ. Crucified with Christ. And the life that we now live in the flesh, we live by faith in the Son of God.

We live by faith in the Son of God, the power that we have comes from the Holy Spirit. That's like, That's not like soldiers following somebody where they have to use their own power to walk after the person they're following. And if they're too weak to follow, then what happens? They fall. But rather, you might think a better analogy is that of a train.

All the cars follow the locomotive not by their own power, but by the power of the locomotive. And their strength is that they are attached to the locomotive. And that's the picture the Bible gives to us of our connection to the Holy Spirit. These olive trees and this oil flowing into these bowls, continually supplying them. The Holy Spirit is the one who gives us the power to do this.

Under the power of the Holy Spirit. Zechariah declared that Jehovah, Jehovah would perform what he has promised. To raise up a horn of salvation for us so that we would be saved from our enemies and be able to serve the King of Kings without fear. Be able that we would have the power to do so, that it would be our delight, that it would be our joy, and that we would be enabled through the Holy Spirit to do all that God commands and calls us so that the Lord is glorified in our lives. May it be so.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for all of your prophets who from the foundation of the world have proclaimed your salvation, who have taught us your ways and your precepts, who have ministered to us, who have come alongside to bring counsel, to bring your word to us. Father we ask that you would sprinkle us with clean water, that you would complete and That you would complete and strengthen our faith. That we might live this life in this flesh by faith in the Son of God, and not in our own strength. For Father, we are not strong enough to do any of this. We are not strong enough to overcome the world, but You are.

And we are not strong enough to overcome our own sinful flesh, but you are. And we are certainly not strong enough to overcome the mighty foe, but you are. We praise and thank you for the great salvation that you have accomplished in Jesus Christ. In His name, Amen.