Announcing the Messiah
12/25/22
Luke 1:39 NKJV
Now Mary arose in those days and went
into the hill country with haste, to a city
of Judah, 40 & entered the house of
Zacharias & greeted Elizabeth. 41 And
it happened, when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, that the babe leaped in her womb; & Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.
42 Then she spoke out with a loud
voice & said, “Blessed are you among women, & blessed is the fruit of your womb!
43 But why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy. 45 Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of
those things which were told her from the Lord.”
Note that it says she spoke out with a LOUD voice. That often happens with preachers & prophets/teachers when they are speaking the word of the Lord, the HOLY Spirit empowers them to speak it out LOUDLY!
And Elizabeth proclaims just as Mary needed to hear it, “why is it granted that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” Can you imagine how much this encouraged Mary who no doubt everyone in Nazareth was talking about?
Then Holy Spirit comes on Mary too & she proclaims...
The Song of Mary. 46 And Mary said: “My soul magnifies the Lord, 47 And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. 48 For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant; For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.
Indeed, all generations have called her Blessed, 2000 years later!
49 For He who is mighty has done great things for me, & holy is His name. 50 And His mercy is on those who fear Him from generation to generation. 51 He has shown strength with His arm; He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. 52 He has put down the mighty from their thrones,
& exalted the lowly.
Rabbi Jonathon Cahn, I just saw this week with Amanda Grace talking about how the cross & resurrection brought about the destruction of the worship of ancient gods who had controlled much of the world at that time. Suddenly god & goddess worship were not as popular, no more offering children to Molech & Baal, to Innana [Venus, Ishtar, (where we get Easter from), Astarte, Aphrodite) ] see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inanna
But in a more personal way, God showed mercy to the poor & those considered “less than”. HE was the great equalizer! As it says in Galations no more Jew nor Greek….no more male of female,
Galatians 3:28, NASB: There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
53 He has filled the hungry with good things, & the rich He has sent away empty. 54 He has helped His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy, 55 As He spoke to our fathers, To Abraham & to his seed forever.”
Again the Great Equalizer, makes no rich man above the poor man. Remember His mercy endures FOREVER. Then there is Zacharias speaking by the Spirit of God...And this should encourage us in this hour.
Luke 1:67-80 AMPC
“Blessed (praised, glorified) be the Lord, the God of Israel, because He has visited us & brought redemption
to His people, Now Zacharias his father was filled with the Holy Spirit & empowered by Him, & he
prophesied, saying,
“And He has raised up a horn of salvation [a mighty & valiant Savior] for us in the house of David His servant— Just as He promised by the mouth of His holy prophets from the most ancient times—
The word for salvation here is soteria – greek noun meaning rescue, or safety (physically or morally) –
deliver, health, salvation, save, saving.
[To David: 2 Samuel 7:12-16 AMP. 12 And when your days are fulfilled & you sleep with your fathers, I will set up after you your offspring who shall be born to you, & I will establish his kingdom. 13 He shall build a house for My Name [& My Presence], & I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14 I will be his Father, & he shall be My son. When he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men & with the stripes of the sons of men. 15 But My mercy & loving-kindness shall not depart from him, as I took [them] from Saul, whom I took away from before you. 16 And your house & your kingdom shall be made sure forever before you; your throne shall be established forever. ]
To show mercy [as He promised] to our fathers, & to remember His holy covenant [the promised blessing], Salvation from our enemies, & from the hand of all who hate us;
So God promised to remember His Holy Covenant, the blessings promised to Israel, & rescue from
their enemies, & from the hands of all who hate His people. The same is for us as grafted into Israel
– rescue from our enemies & the hand of all who hate us.
The oath which He swore to Abraham our father, To grant us that we, being rescued
from the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness [being set apart]
& righteousness [being upright] before Him all our days.
Rescued from our enemies that we may serve HIM without fear, & in Holiness – set apartness,
for all our days.
“And you, child, will be called a prophet of the Most High;
For you will go on before the Lord (the Messiah) to prepare His ways; To give His people
the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God,
So it is in this hour for those called to be like Elijah (John the Baptists) to go forth to share this knowledge of the Most High. To prepare His way in this hour also means partly convicting of sin. The role of the PRIESTS was to teach the difference between right & wrong. Not to cower in the corner only to hang out with the Lord, but to let others KNOW HIS WAYS. Yes we must set an example, but we must care enough about others who are also His creation regardless of their
behavior, enough to let them know His will for His creation. YES this must be done as LED by Holy Spirit in LOVE.
But you don’t shy away from praying in public if someone is in need. You
don’t allow yourself to feel ashamed in public if He is calling you to pray or do something foolish like dancing in the parking lot to Him like David, like running around in your undies for years like Isaiah, or cooking your food on dung like Ezekiel.
So David went & brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom to the city of David [Jerusalem] with rejoicing; & when those who bore the ark of the Lord had gone six paces, he sacrificed an ox & a fatling. David danced before the Lord with all his might; David was girded with a linen ephod. So David & all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting, & with the sound of the trumpet ~
2 Samuel 6:12-15
Isaiah 20:2 Wycliffe version
2 in that time the Lord spake in the hand of Isaiah, the son of Amoz, & said (at that time the Lord spoke to Isaiah, the son of Amoz, & said), Go thou, & unbind the sackcloth from thy loins, & take away thy shoes from thy feet. And he did so, going naked & unshod.3 And the Lord said, As my servant Isaiah went naked & unshod, a sign & great wonder of three years shall be on Egypt, & on Ethiopia; (& the Lord said, My servant Isaiah went naked & without shoes for three years, as a sign & a great wonder to Egypt, & to Ethiopia;)
Walking around in your undies was shameful in those days & still is.
Contradictions in Scripture: Sin By Command – Food Cooked on Human Dung
September 18, 2013 in Contradictions In Scripture, Sin By Command
Another example of “sin by command” is found in Ezekiel 4:12.
12. “And you shall eat it as barley cakes; and bake it using fuel of human waste in their sight.”
Human waste was considered unclean, and eating food cooked on human waste was something no Israelite should do. Yet here the LORD commands Ezekiel to do this! Ezekiel protests and gets the LORD to substitute cow dung for human dung (Ezekiel 4:14-15,) but this does not change the fact that the LORD seems initially to have commanded Ezekiel to sin.
The word for dung here is the Hebrew gelel, which is used only four times, and seems to indicate a ball of dung. This word we cannot confirm is unclean, but we do know that there is uncleanness that comes from humans from Leviticus 5:3.
3. Or if he touches human uncleanness—whatever uncleanness with which a man may be defiled, and he is unaware of it—when he realizes it, then he shall be guilty.
This verse indicates that to touch human uncleanness is to become guilty. The verse does not clearly say that dung is human uncleanness, but this seems clear from Deuteronomy 23:12-14.
12. “Also you shall have a place outside the camp, where you may go out; 13. and you shall have an implement among your equipment, and when you sit down outside, you shall dig with it and turn and cover your refuse. 14. For the LORD your God walks in the midst of your camp, to deliver you and give your enemies over to you; therefore your camp shall be holy, that He may see no unclean thing among you, and turn away from you.
Moreover, to be defiled in this way was considered sin, as is made clear from Leviticus 5:5.
from:https://precepts.wordpress.com/2013/09/18/contradictions-in-scripture-sin-by-command-
food-cooked-on-human-dung/
Continuing in Luke...
“With which the Sunrise (the Messiah) from on high will dawn & visit us, To shine upon those who sit in darkness & in the shadow of death, to guide our feet [in a
straight line] into the way of peace & serenity.”
The Sunrise from on High reminds me of Malachi…
Malachi 4:1
“For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace, & all the arrogant (proud, self-righteous, haughty), & every evildoer shall be stubble; & the day that is coming shall set them on fire,” says the Lord of hosts, “so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.
2 But for you who fear My name [with awe-filled reverence] the SUN of RIGHTEOUSNESS will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go forward & leap [joyfully] like calves [released] from the stall.
The Lord is about to visit us again in His earthly temple ( our bodies) & to empower us to go through this time of temptation & war. He has said to me HE will break every chain. His
army will be strong & MIGHTY in the power of their LORD. Just as He was empowered before the cross, we will be empowered to go through these turbulent times.
Years ago, I had a dream that I was on a hill that was snowy, and I kept slipping, but I finally reached the top, and when I reached the time the land was flat for as far as I could see, and it was all snowy, covered all over with snow, like you would see, may be in Iowa in the middle of winter in the middle of that plane was what looked like an old farmhouse. And suddenly Jesus appeared in the grove of many colors and tall as the house
& he swept into it more like through it, because he is spirit.
I knew the house stood for the church.
The child continued to grow & to become strong in spirit, & he lived in the deserts until the day of his public appearance to Israel [as John the Baptist, the forerunner of the Messiah].
Ancient Mysteries of the Essenes by Ken Johnson is a new book I received but have not read
much of it yet. But there is an audio on blogtalk radio of Josh Peck & Ken Johnson talking
about the Essenes & was John the Baptist an essene?
https://www.blogtalkradio.com/skywatchtv/2021/09/23/josh-peck-dr-ken-johnson--lost-prophecies-of-qumran-part-1
A few days later after posting this, I saw that Tim Sheets spoke on these very verses from Mary's prophecy for his Christmas message, & it is excellent.
Priscilla Van Sutphin
