Road to Bethlehem—the Forerunner

Rehoboth Beach - erosion of waves

In a similar way, doubt can erode our faith in God.

- gradually, like the continuous wave action on the sand

- or suddenly, like a raging Nor’easter that carries off half the beach in a night

Doubt happens when God’s ways don’t mesh with our expectations

- when His plans don’t jibe with our plans

- when God is silent at a time when we are crying out for Him to do something, to say something

- and then when He does something, it isn’t what we expected Him to do

Doubt is a big part of the Christmas story

- Mary - How can this be, since I am a virgin?

- Joseph - How can she be pregnant?

- the forced journey to Bethlehem - why, God?

- When Herod slaughtered the innocents, both Mary and Joseph must have had their doubts about their future security

One character in the Christmas story whose life begins and ends in a struggle with doubt - John the Baptist

- at the beginning of his life, his father doubted the word of God

- at the end of his life, John himself doubted whether Jesus was really the Messiah

Read Luke 1:5–7

In the time of Herod king of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron. Both of them were upright in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commandments and regulations blamelessly. But they had no children, because Elizabeth was barren; and they were both well along in years.

Zechariah and Elizabeth were upright in the sight of God

- they were believers, and that showed in their obedience to Law

- BUT (v. 7) - they had no children

- in those days, children were regarded to be the typical sign of God’s blessing on a couple

- here was a couple w. no children - they had been childless for many years

- they had prayed for children (v.13), but God hadn’t answered their prayer, and now they were old

- did that mean that God had not heard their prayer?

- did that mean God had no blessing for them?

- No, God had something special planned for them.

- We need to remember that when we don’t think we are being blessed, or when we don’t think God is hearing our prayers, maybe God is just getting us ready for a greater blessing than we could ever have anticipated.

Luke 1:8-11 Once when Zechariah’s division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And when the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside. Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense.

When does God speak to us?

- not just during times of prayer and meditation!

- often he chooses to reveal himself to us while we are in service.

- Moses - while he was herding sheep

- Nehemiah - while he was serving as the king’s cupbearer

- disciples - while they were mending their nets

- so our prayer should be: “Lord, give me an alertness to your presence while I am going about my daily routine because that is often when You want to reveal yourself to me.”

Luke 1:12-17 When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John. He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth. Many of the people of Israel will he bring back to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

Now here is a great thing—God sends an angel from heaven to Zechariah to assure him that his prayer is going to be answered and that he is going to have a son. And not only that, but he reveals specific details about what kind of son he’s going to be.

1. his name - John, which means God is gracious

2. he will be a joy and delight to his parents

3. many will rejoice because of his birth

4. he will be great in the sight of the Lord

5. he will be specially set apart for God’s service

- he will never take wine or other fermented drink - Nazirite (Num. 6)

6. he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from the womb

7. he will bring back many Israelites to the Lord their God

8. He will go before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah

- Elijah was the “prototype” of all the OT prophets

9. he will turn the hearst of the fathers to their children

10. he will turn the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous

11. he will make ready a people prepared for the Lord

- he was to be the forerunner of the Messiah

What a tremendous blessing this child would be!

But look at Zechariah’s response:

Luke 1:18 Zechariah asked the angel, “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.”

Q. Why did Zechariah doubt Gabriel’s words?

A. Because he was looking at his own circumstances

- how can God do this? I and my wife are too old to have children.

- he was limiting God’s power

- whenever we focus on our circumstances, we take our eyes off God.

Q. Could God enable an older couple to have children?

A. Yes - what about Abraham and Sarah in the birth of Isaac?

- whenever I take my eyes off God and forget his character and his ability, I will be overcome by the weight of my circumstances.

Luke 1:19 The angel answered, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news.

Whenever God speaks to us, it is GOOD NEWS. Even when it might seem like bad news to us, a word from God is always good news, because God is good.

But the angel continued in verse 20:

And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their proper time.”

There’s a fine line between doubt and unbelief. Doubt is when we can’t understand what Go is doing or why He is doing it. Oswald Chambers has said “Doubt is not always a sign that a man is wrong; it may be a sign that he is thinking.” So experiencing doubt is not necessarily wrong.

Just a few verses later (Luke 1:34), Mary expressed honest doubt when the angel announced to her that she was going to have a child. She said “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” And she was not punished or disciplined by God for expressing that doubt. Because her attitude toward God came through a few verses later, when she said “I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said.”

But unbelief is when we simply refuse to believe God’s Word. You see, doubt is rooted in the intellect; but unbelief is rooted in the will.

And, evidently, Zechariah’s doubt had crossed over the line into unbelief—the angel said “you did not believe my words, which came from God and will come true at the proper time. So you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens.”

Unbelief limits our usefulness to God. Here was Zechariah, serving as a priest. What good is a priest who can’t talk? He couldn’t share with them the details of his vision. He couldn’t pronounce the priestly benediction on the people. He couldn’t teach them the Word of God.

God dealt with Zechariah’s unbelief with loving discipline. He set him aside, and silenced him. Zechariah had no alternative but to be still and know that He is God.

Whenever we express unbelief, you can be sure that God will discipline us.

Now I want us to skip over all of the details of John’s life and go to the very end, to Luke 7. Here we find John in prison. He has been put there by Herod Antipas, because he had the audacity to denounce Herod for marrying his brother’s wife Herodias. Josephus tells us that John was held in the fortress of Machaerus, which was about 5 miles east of the Dead Sea in what is present day Jordan.

So here was John, a rugged outdoorsman, languishing in a dark, stifling cell. He has been called by God to preach and to herald the coming Messiah, but now he has been silenced. He was a man of action but now he finds himself in chains and confined in a narrow prison cell.

You can imagine that he must have had all sorts of questions raging in his soul. “Why am I here? What is God doing? What is God’s plan for me? And what is Jesus doing? Why doesn’t he come and free me? After all, the Scripture says that one of the things that the Messiah will do when he comes is to set the prisoners free. Well, I’m a prisoner. Why doesn’t Jesus set me free? Unless…maybe he’s not the Messiah? Perhaps I’ve been wrong about him all this time?”

John needed answers. The cold fingers of doubt were creeping into his soul and starting to strangle his faith. The circumstances of his life were weighing him down because they were not unfolding the way he had expected them to.

Perhaps that is happening to you right now. You find yourself, like John, in something of a jail cell. Life doesn’t seem to be working out the way you had anticipated. There’s pain and uncertainty. You begin to lose your confidence in God.

And whenever that happens, we begin to question God’s sovereignty, His goodness, His wisdom. But look at how John handles it (v. 18):

Calling two of (his disciples), he sent them to the Lord to ask, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?”

When you have doubts in your soul, do what John did—ask God to show Himself to you—to make himself real to you. And then watch for what He does.

v. 20…

When the men came to Jesus, they said, “John the Baptist sent us to you to ask, ‘Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?’”

At that very time Jesus cured many who had diseases, sicknesses and evil spirits, and gave sight to many who were blind. So he replied to the messengers, “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.”

Notice what Jesus did NOT do. He did not condemn John for having these questions. He did not give him a sermon, or a lecture. He did not judge him or criticize him or scold him. But neither did he step in to miraculously release John from prison. He didn’t change John’s circumstances; he just gave him a new perspective in those circumstances.

He just lovingly said to the messengers “Go back and tell John what you have seen and heard me doing. And remind him that the things that I am doing are precisely what the Scriptures say the Messiah will do when he comes.

You see, Jesus was taking John back to the fundamentals. He was taking him back to the Word of God and showing him how Scripture was being worked out in actual fact. Showing him that God was in control, and that God’s plan was on track. And this is exactly what John needed.

When we are lost in the fog of spiritual doubt, we often lose sight of reality. And we need to go back to the Scriptures, back to the fundamentals, back to the truth about God’s sovereignty and God’s love.

God does not always change our circumstances. John never was released from that awful prison. And ultimately, he had his head chopped off at the request of Herod’s wife. Pretty ignominious way for a great man to die!

And yet, after John’s disciples had left, Jesus said this to the crowd (Luke 7:28)

Luke 7:28 I tell you, among those born of women there is no one greater than John.

He was a man with doubts, yet Jesus said he was the greatest man who ever lived.

John took his doubts to Jesus.