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Articles 2014-2017
God initiated Heaven’s greatest visitation by sending the angel Gabriel to speak with a Jewish priest named Zacharias. The angel informed him that he and his wife Elizabeth would have a son, and they were to call his name John. But when Zacharias doubted the angel, Gabriel did not mince his words.
And the angel answered and said to him, “I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God, and was sent to speak to you and bring you these glad tidings. But behold, you will be mute and not able to speak until the day these things take place, because you did not believe my words which will be fulfilled in their own time.”
Gabriel spoke a disciplinary word. Why did the Lord have him do this? Since Zacharias and Elizabeth were righteous before God (Luke 1:6), they knew what it was to walk in relationship with Him. They loved Him and heard His voice. In other words, they were true children of Abraham; they believed in the Lord and He counted it to them as righteousness. Even though there were many Israelis who had walked in such faith with the Lord like Abraham had (Hebrews 11:12 - 13), there were also many who had not.
Yet this priestly believing couple had endured the trial of barrenness, a great reproach in Israel. God’s first promise of the Messiah, given in Eden was that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. But since barrenness would prevent a woman from participating in the birth of God’s Deliverer, it brought reproach.
And yet again and again God would supernaturally empower specific barren Israeli women to give birth (e.g., Sarah, Rachel, Rebecca, Hannah). And their children turned out to be key in extending His kingdom on earth. Now it was Elizabeth’s turn. Not only that, her son John would be filled with the Holy Spirit even from her womb.
When Elizabeth was six months into her pregnancy, the same angel Gabriel appeared to Mary. But when she questioned him how she could possibly bear a child since she was a virgin, the angel responded quite differently to her perplexity than he had to Zacharias.
And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God.
Mary would bear a son and God would be His Father! But why did the angel not have the same reaction to Mary’s questioning that he did to Zacharias’? Clearly, God expected more from one who had walked with Him for many years. It is His right to require more from some than He does from others. One obvious example is that teachers will be judged more strictly (James 3:1).
In God’s kingdom since each son or daughter is precious, His disciplines are uniquely designed and personal. The more He has revealed of himself to each of us, the more He expects us to live appropriate to what He has made known.
Again, the angel spoke.
Now indeed, Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son in her old age; and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren. For with God nothing will be impossible.” Then Mary said, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.
There is a Beatle song that says, “Let it be, speaking words of wisdom. Let it be.” But the Scripture says, “Let it be to me according to Your word.” My own opinion is that when Mary said these words, the Holy Spirit overshadowed her and fulfilled His word to her at that very moment.
Today as we stand before the Lord in a time of growing darkness across our land and at the same time recognizing our inability to change the nations, let us humble ourselves before Him and also respond to Him, “Let it be to me according to Your word for my life. Father, let me hear, respond, and walk in Your strategy for me.”
Now Mary arose in those days and went into the hill country with haste, to a city of Judah, and entered the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth.
“Elizabeth is in her sixth month? God has already been moving in Israel and I didn’t know it. I must hurry. I must arise quickly and participate with what He is doing apart from me.” At that time Mary got ready and hurried (Luke 1:39 NIV).
She wanted to be involved in what God was doing. And His activity in Israel had been occurring outside of her own experience. I am sure it is obvious that God’s work among the nations is greater than our own personal experience. His perspective is greater than ours, even that of all His people combined. What we are participating in is greater than what we can see with our limited vision. It is not that we should be conference chasers, or ministry chasers, running after every new voice that surfaces on the scene. But let us lift up our eyes to see beyond what we see so far, to what God might be doing outside our sphere of service. This is not the time to be “shifting into neutral” or thinking in terms of retiring from the field of battle. Let us rise up and run to our God, to His person and purpose.
So Mary:
…entered the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth. And it happened, when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, that the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.
God was arising among His people. If we had lived back then, what would we have expected Him to do while an evil empire was crushing the nations, even His own people? Of course, God acted in an extraordinary way. What He did changed history forever when He overshadowed a virgin girl and was born – a human infant. Who would have seen this coming; who would have figured it out on their own? Certainly, there were a few faithful ones – Anna and Simeon who recognized His work, His salvation (Luke 2:25 - 38). Also the shepherds with a little angelic help and the wise men accompanied by heavenly signs were enabled to acknowledge Heaven’s activity (Luke 2:8 - 19, Matthew 2:1 - 2). But clearly, the incarnation of Christ was Heaven’s greatest visitation.
At the same time, as a foretaste to Pentecost, Elizabeth, her husband Zacharias, and their son John were all filled with the Holy Spirit. And John even began leaping in his mom’s womb for joy.
But if the Lord began filling people with His Holy Spirit prior to the birth, death, and resurrection of His Son, what was the significance of the Pentecost experience as revealed in Acts Chapter 2? And what did Jesus mean when He said that the Holy Spirit was not yet given because He was not yet glorified (John 7:39)? Many books have been written and I am sure that many more will be as well on the significance of God’s action on that momentous day of Pentecost. This short article cannot even begin to adequately cover such an important subject.
One noteworthy element of that day however, was that the Lord came down upon a gathering of His people and filled them all with His presence simultaneously. This was more than simply filling singular individuals. The God of heaven filled His people and in that instant gave them corporate identity, something Paul would later refer to as the one new man (Ephesians 2:15; 4:8 - 16). While His living presence had always been the one ingredient identifying His people as unique from all other nations, from now on the corporate identity of His people would be international, breaking out beyond the borders of Israel. As the disciples prayed and worshiped in unknown tongues, the onlookers each heard them in their own diverse languages simultaneously. Egyptians heard of the wonders of God in Egyptian, Romans in their own language, etc. While the tongues were unknown to the believers, the bystanders were confronted with heavenly insights in a miraculous display of simultaneous multilingualism.
Surely Jesus had been correct. Prior to His resurrection, the Holy Spirit had never been given in this manner. One can only guess at what He was saying on Pentecost to those witnessing this amazing event. I think one element might have had something to do with His plan to arise from Israel into the nations and to fill the whole earth with His glory. But then as if that was not enough, He went and did the same thing again in Acts Chapter 10 among a house full of Gentiles. Peter could not even finish the message he was preaching. While he was still speaking, the whole crowd was filled with the Holy Spirit just like in Acts Chapter 2. These two crucial events reveal an unfolding strategy that humbles us to this day. Though I live many years later, many miles from Israel in the USA, I am a direct recipient of God’s merciful intent to arise starting from Israel into the ends of the earth.
So, looking again at Elizabeth. When she was filled with the Holy Spirit, she spoke out with a loud voice (Luke 1:42). Sometimes the presence of God necessitates volume. And sometimes it inspires activity that draws onlookers to wrong conclusions. In Acts Chapter 2 some in the gathering crowd accused the disciples of being drunk. What were the believers doing? Certainly they were praying and worshiping the Lord exuberantly in languages they did not understand. But what actions identify a drunk? For one, they tend to list, to stagger a bit. They also tend to not care what they look like or what they sound like.
Maybe we care about appearance too much. And maybe the Church is not as filled with God as we think. It is true that we have a theology about the necessity of being filled with the Spirit. But having a good theology does not mean that we are in fact overflowing with His presence. For example, Paul exhorted the Ephesian believers to be filled with the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18), even though they had surely been baptized in the Holy Spirit when they entered God’s kingdom. My conclusion is that God has called us to a lifestyle of seeking an increasing dynamic of Him in our lives.
When Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit,
…she spoke out with a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! But why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”
The Holy Spirit’s first words in Elizabeth’s mouth were about Jesus, about His lordship, and about His blessed arrival through birth. Indeed, God’s emphasis in the hearts of His people throughout Church history has consistently been the Lord Jesus Christ.
For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.
Elizabeth gained further insight. Her unborn child was expressing joy. How could John be filled with joy at the sound of Mary’s voice? He could not even breathe yet. But the scriptures inform us that fullness of joy is found in the presence of the Lord (Psalm 16:11). I guess that is true even in the womb.[26]
At this point, Elizabeth began to prophesy. What God had promised Mary would indeed come to pass. Mary’s response in prophetic song has become known as the Magnificat.
And Mary said: “My soul magnifies the Lord.”
To magnify means to make or declare great. When we view a far off object through a telescope, we bring it into distinct clarity. And it is the same when we can enlarge a very small cell through a microscope. Here is magnification. It is what we must do in our relationship with the Lord.
God must increase in our perspective when we worship Him. He also must increase in the perspective of others when we speak for Him. Our words should bring Him into greater clarity.[27] Our cities, our churches, and our nation need Him to become more evident among His people. And when we gather, our prayers and our prophecies should counteract the sense we all sometimes experience that He seems distant. What a blessing and also what a privilege it is when He empowers us to magnify Him in our midst, to see a little more clearly His goodness, His majesty. Indeed, like Mary, let us magnify the Lord. But let us also quickly learn that there is no technique we can learn to do so. We must simply learn to sit at His feet and wait upon Him.
And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.
God was Mary’s savior, and He is ours. To save means to make sound, to make whole. While we have been saved from our sins, He is still in the process of saving us, of making us sound, of conforming us to the image of Christ.
Mary was doing pretty well. The grace of God was on her life and she was walking with Him. But when He sent the angel of the Lord to her, and then overshadowed her by the power of the Holy Spirit, she stepped into the next phase of her destiny in God’s kingdom. And she immediately identified Him as her Savior, as the one making her whole.
We simply cannot be restored if we do not step into the next phase of God’s purpose. His hand is upon us. His grace is upon us. But where is He going, where is He taking us? All I know is that if I follow Him, He will conform me a little bit more into the image of His Son. We cannot be made whole by simply listening to someone preach a message, or by just praying. We must also respond to Him.
A few months ago I had a passing thought – “You know, I’m 66 years old. I could go to a nice warm southern state and lay on a beach. To do so is a very acceptable practice in our society.” I wasn’t thinking in terms of a vacation, but of a lifestyle change. As I just considered the thought, something died in me. And I did not immediately understand what had happened, but then it hit me. We cannot retire from the kingdom. We can retire from a job but if we try to retire from God’s destiny, His hand on our lives, we will wither up and die on the inside. I am not speaking about whether we go to heaven or hell, but about our destiny in God’s emerging kingdom – where His will is done in our lives on earth as it is in heaven.
For those of us in our sixties, consider this possibility. If it took God thirty years to prepare His own Son for release into His earthly ministry, how long will it take for Him to prepare us? Does twice as long sound appropriate? This is not to denigrate any of our service for Him in our first sixty years. But maybe His work in us during those years have been preparatory for a season where He will reveal himself in and through us in ways we have never even dreamed of. The “retirement” years that many people dream about where they can “shift into neutral” may be the very times when God would start to arise seeking to draw from the depth of His work in their hearts. Take a look around. Where we are is not where we are going; but it is on the way. “Lord, take us on into the next phase of Your work among men in this generation.”
For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant; for behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.
Indeed, all ensuing generations have called Mary blessed. But I am sure she also bore a measure of reproach in the minds of some in her own generation who probably thought of her as having been morally loose. Imagine, pregnant before she was married! Yet she was the one; God had chosen her. This young one out of all the women throughout Israel’s history gave birth to the seed that crushed the head of the Serpent. What a blessing; what a calling it was that God had placed upon her.
For He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name.
Indeed, He had done great things for her. The Holy Spirit had overshadowed her; God had given her the privilege of bearing His Son. But at this point, Jesus was a mere embryo, an unformed Child in her womb. And yet she could say that God had done great things for her. But so much more was yet to be revealed. Jesus would take years to grow in wisdom and stature. And then as He came into full adulthood, she would be stretched again and again in her heart and mind concerning God’s purpose. Think of her grief at the cross and of her exulting joy in the upper room as she worshipped her now resurrected and glorified Son. The God of Israel had made himself known through her humble and offered life.
Can we say the same? God’s emerging kingdom in our generation is also very real but in many ways yet unformed. But we must follow Him; we must trust Him. We have been and we will yet again be stretched in our hearts and minds as He unfolds His purpose in and through our lives. God is bringing to maturity the body of His Son to the measured stature that belongs to the fullness of Christ (Ephesians 1:23). This as yet largely unformed but living body is being integrated by God and growing corporately in wisdom and stature into an expressed oneness of Christ, our head. Only God could produce such a work! Ecumenical and organizational Christianity is simply not sufficient for such a task. What God revealed in one nation through His Son two thousand years ago He intends to reveal in every nation across the earth through the corporate expression of Christ. The fact that He would call us to participate in such a glorious calling, even though we are in many ways yet taking baby steps should cause us to say along with Mary, “He who is mighty has done great things for me.”
And His mercy is on those who fear Him from generation to generation.
His mercy is on those who fear Him. When He unveils himself just a little in our worship, or through the teaching of the Scriptures, or through the kindness of one He sends across our paths, does He not increase in our vision? Is He not always getting a little bigger in our comprehension? And are we not getting a little smaller in our own thinking before Him? The truth is, He is actually far greater and more majestic than we have realized in the past or than we can appreciate right now. He is indeed awesome. And His mercy is on those who fear Him. So who would not fear Him? I think it would be those who are simply not paying attention.
Is it possible that the Lord could speak in our midst and yet some folks not notice – their hearts and minds being elsewhere? Could their inattentiveness be a defense mechanism to protect them from the unknown? When God is revealing new dimensions of His purpose, it can be intimidating. “I’m not sure I am up to this. I’m sure I will fall short of God’s best.” Well of course we will. The truth is, all of us have sinned. And all of us presently fall short of His glory (Romans 3:23). But we are being continually justified by His grace because of Calvary (Romans 3:24). Let us turn toward Him. Let us face the unknown. As He increases in our vision, He will draw us and empower us to greater responses. But our hope is not in how well we think we might or might not do, but in His mercy. His mercy is on those who fear Him.
Like Mary, we are looking forward to the increase of Christ in our lives personally, through us as we minister to others, and also among us corporately as He arises in these last days to make His mind more fully known through His people among the nations. Here is God’s work coming to fullness among the nations in order to make Israel jealous. Surely His work will succeed. Israel’s Messiah will be made known in the miraculous corporate expression of the singular mind of God’s Son through a diverse people filled with His Holy Spirit. Who is adequate for these things? Only Him.
Donald Rumble – March 2016
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1 Name : Jeff MillerClick to compress comments
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Time : 2016-03-15 06:36:28
Thank you for writing this. Good, meaty, challenging.
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