How Shall I Know This?

Luke 1:1-25

God is a great communicator – but He hasn’t spoken to His people for 400 years.

For 400 years, God has been mute. Silent. Quiet.

Imagine living 400 years with hearing from God, without knowing His will for the nation, or for your life. 400 years would be at least 40 generations, (and that’s assuming 100 years as a generation.) (Gen 15:13-16.)

The reason God has been silent is because Israel has been ignorant. God will not continue to speak to a people that ignores what He has to say. During the last 400 years, since the rebuilding of the Temple at Jerusalem under Zerubbabel, God has let the people speak to themselves rather than Himself.

And they have. They have become VERY wise in their own eyes. Having FINALLY left idolatry behind, they have embarked on a new path of priestly direction which has seen the emergence of a ruling class of Sadducees and Pharisees and Scribes. By their accumulated ‘wisdom’ from their study of the oral traditions the people have been ruled. They have seen themselves conquered and ruled by the Greeks, under Alexander and through Antiochus Epiphanes, and they have successfully revolted, led by a passionate band of rabbis known of as the Maccabeans from 167 – 160BC, which was followed by the Hasmonean and then the Herodian dynasties under Rome. During this last century AD came the rise of the Sanhedrin, the supreme court of the Jews, the repository of all knowledge. Through all of this God remained silent. The High Priest of the Jews was now appointed by Rome, not God.

(It is interesting to remember Israel had been in exile in Egypt 400 years, isn’t it?)

Now God speaks. Who does He speak through, and who does He speak to?

God speaks through an angel, (Gabriel,) to a humble priest experiencing the greatest day of his life – having been selected by lot to burn incense in the Holy Place in the Temple. All his life Zacharias had waited for a moment like this. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity most priests never experienced. Then God made the opportunity even greater by breaking His silence.

-Pastor Bill