EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/16/2026
8:18 PM
My Worship
Time
Intro to PT-1“God’s Revelation to Zacharias”
Bible
Reading & Meditation Reference:
“Luke
1:5-14, 18-25”
Message of the verses: “5 ¶ In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was
a priest named Zechariah, of the division of Abijah. And he had a wife from the
daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. 6 And they were both righteous before God,
walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord. 7 But they had no child, because Elizabeth was
barren, and both were advanced in years. 8 Now while he was serving as priest before God
when his division was on duty, 9 according to the custom of the priesthood, he
was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. 10 And the whole multitude of the people were
praying outside at the hour of incense. 11 And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord
standing on the right side of the altar of incense. 12 And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him,
and fear fell upon him. 13 But the angel
said to him, "Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard,
and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. 14
And you will have joy and gladness, and
many will rejoice at his birth,” “18 And Zechariah said to the angel, “How shall I
know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.” 19 And the angel answered him, "I am
Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to
bring you this good news. 20 And behold,
you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take
place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their
time." 21 And the people were
waiting for Zechariah, and they were wondering at his delay in the temple. 22 And when he came out, he was unable to speak
to them, and they realized that he had seen a vision in the temple. And he kept
making signs to them and remained mute. 23 And when his time of service was ended, he
went to his home. 24 After these days
his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she kept herself hidden,
saying, 25 “Thus the Lord has done for
me in the days when he looked on me, to take away my reproach among people.’”
Now as has been my custom I will quote from John
MacArthur’s introductory comments so that we will have an idea of where we will
be going as we look at these verses.
“The opening of Luke’s narrative
finds Israel in the midst of a long night of spiritual darkness. The nation’s history had been marked by
blessing and cursing, faithfulness and apostasy, obedience and rebellion. But all through the centuries—from the call
of Abraham, the father of the nation, to the 400 years of bondage in Egypt, the
forty years of wandering in the wilderness, the conquest and occupation of
Canaan, the chaotic days of the judges, the zenith of Israel’s power and glory
under David and Solomon, the captivity and dissolution of the northern kingdom,
the seventy-year and subsequent return of the southern kingdom, and the period
of Gentile domination culminating with the nation’s subjugation to Rome—what sustained
the faithful, believing remnant was the hope that one day light would break
through the darkness. In Luke 1:78-79 Zacharias
expressed the fervent desire of those who feared God that the ‘Sunrise from
on high’ (the Messiah) would come and dispel the spiritual darkness that had
held the nation in its grip for so long.
“Zacharias undoubtedly had in mind the promise God had
made four centuries earlier through the prophet Malachi: ‘But for you who fear My name, the sun of
righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and
skip about like calves from the stall’ (4:2).
The prophecy looks forward to the coming of the Messiah, the Lord
Jesus Christ, who will deliver all who savingly believe in Him from the
darkness of sin (cf. Isa. 9:2; Matt. 4:16; Luke 2:25-32; John 1:5; 8:12;
12:35-36, 46; Acts 26:18; Eph. 5:8; Col. 1:13; 1 Thess. 5:4-5; 1 Peter 2:9; 1 John
1:6-7). Further, the Savior and Deliverer
who was to come would be God Himself according to Malachi’s prophecy it would
be ‘the Lord, whom you seek, [who] will suddenly come to His temple’ (3:1).
“The Old Testament, then, ended with the most
positive, hopeful promise. The sun of
righteousness would arise, and His glorious light would dispel the spiritual
darkness that engulfed the people. But
just as the darkness is deepest just before dawn, so also the four centuries
since Malachi’s day had been the darkest time of all for Israel. The Jewish people had sunk deeper and deeper
into apostasy. The nation had abandoned
the Old Testament truth that salvation is by faith alone (Gen. 15:6; cf. Rom.
4:3, 9, 20-22; Gal. 3:6) in favor of salvation by legalism, self-righteousness,
and meritorious works. Their religion
consisted of empty, self-serving (cf. Matt. 23:5-7) ritual that could not save
(Rom. 3:20) and drew the Lord’s scathing rebuke (cf. Deut. 9:4; Isa. 29:13; 64:6;
Jer. 12:2; Matt. 23:27-28; Mark 7:6-7; Luke 15:15). As the apostle Paul sorrowfully concluded; ‘For
I testify about them [the unbelieving Jews] that they have a zeal for God, but
not in accordance with knowledge. For
not knowing about God’s righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they
did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God’ (Rom. 10:2-3). In the face of such hypocrisy, God had
remained silent; He had not communicated with His people through prophet,
revelation, or miracle during the four hundred years since Malachi’s day.”
I guess what staggers my mind is the
mention of 400 years and the reason it does that is because our country is not
near at all to that many years.
2/16/2026
8:52 PM
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