Mary’s Visit to Elizabeth

After Mary found out that she was going to bear the Messiah, she went to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who was also pregnant.

And Elizabeth's baby responded to Mary's voice. Today on Renewing Your Mind, we return to Dr. R.C. Sproul's verse-by-verse sermon series from the Gospel of Luke. And the message today will remind us that God's supernatural hand directs times, places, and babies.

Here's Dr. Sproul. This morning now we're going to continue with our study of the gospel according to St. Luke. We're still in the first chapter, and I will be reading from chapter 1, verse 39 through verse 45. 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. 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. Then she spoke out with a loud voice and said, "'Blessed are you among women. Blessed is the fruit of your womb. But why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy. Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told her from the Lord.'" Again, we've heard this morning part of that account that Luke is giving us of the life and the ministry of Jesus.

Luke gives us more information of the infancy of Jesus than any of the other gospels. And this visit of Mary to Elizabeth is a part of that account that is there for our instruction and for our edification. So I pray that this morning we will receive these words of the Lord in our minds and in our hearts. Last week we looked at Mary's response to the announcement that Gabriel had given to her about the miraculous birth that she was about to have and the conception of the Son of God in her womb. And we mentioned that last part of her response where she said, "'So let it be unto me even according to thy word.'" And we saw that that was not so much an imperative that the angel from the presence of God was obligated to obey, but that Mary was expressing her own submission to the announcement that she had received. And in that announcement, Gabriel had told her that Elizabeth was already in her six months of that child that had been conceived through the power of God in her womb.

And so we pick up the narrative this morning immediately after the conclusion of the visitation of the angel to Mary, where we read, "'And Mary arose in those days, and went into the hill country with haste to a city of Judah.'" Mary couldn't wait to speak to Elizabeth and tell her what she heard from that angel about that she was going to conceive the child that would be the Messiah and she knew already that part of this unfolding drama was also taking place within the life of Elizabeth. And in the womb of Elizabeth at this very time was a six-month-old unborn child who would be the herald of the King, John the Baptist, who like the prophet Jeremiah in the Old Testament would be sanctified while he was in his mother's womb. Now I'm not going to turn this into a sermon on abortion, but I can't just pass over the reality of what's taking place here when Mary visits Elizabeth. And we have a response to her presence not only from Elizabeth, which we'll consider, but also from this unborn child whose first testimony to Jesus, his first heralding of the King takes place before he's even born.

One thing I'm sure of is that this time six months into her pregnancy the child that Elizabeth was carrying in her womb was alive, was human, and was a person. Now those three things are extremely important as we consider what I believe is the greatest ethical crisis that has ever visited the United States of America, far exceeding the moral travesty of slavery, is the wanton destruction of unborn babies to the tune of one and a half million every year in this nation with hardly a peep out of the church. And you hear the rhetoric. I hear the rhetoric. I hear people say a woman has a right to her own body.

Have you heard that? Maybe you say that, God forbid, because there are two things I want to observe just quickly in passing. The first instance that an unborn child in the womb of a mother is not part of the woman's body. It may be in the woman's body, but it is not the woman's body.

And the clearest evidence that we have to distinguish individual human beings in our society today is the evidence of DNA. And the DNA code of an unborn baby is different from every DNA cell in the woman's body. The other one is that the woman has a right to her own body. My rights, whatever rights I have, end where yours begin.

And your rights with me end where my rights begin. And a mother may have the legal right in the United States of America to destroy that unborn child, but where did she ever get the moral right to do it? I've spent my entire adult life studying the things of God, and I am by no means infallible as you all know. But if I know anything about God, if I know anything at all about God, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that He hates abortion. You know, in Roe v. Wade at the time, the big argument was there was no evidence that there was life in the womb that was being destroyed. That was before DNA made it very clear that that is human life. Well, we didn't have to wait for DNA.

Here you see it right here in this text. A living human child, not yet born, whose heart is beating, whose brain waves are circulating, recognizes the presence of Christ while this unborn baby is still in his mother's womb. And he leaps in the womb for joy. I can hear people say, nah, come on, she's six months pregnant. It's just a baby kicking.

It's just quickening. But the Word of God says that when Mary came here, Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and that this response of the babe in her womb was a supernatural one. Again, it happened when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary that the babe leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.

Well, after she's filled with the Holy Spirit, what does she do? If you're a Roman Catholic, you may say what she did was that she sang part of the rosary. We've already seen Ave Maria, which simply means, hello Mary, Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. That was the greeting from Gabriel, but then it goes on now from Elizabeth, blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. Does that sound familiar to some of you from a Catholic background, from the rosary?

Sometimes from here. Where Elizabeth, though, is not praying a prayer, what she's doing is singing a song. This is the first of like five songs. This song of Elizabeth, the Magnificat, the Song of Mary, the Benedictus, the Song of Zacharias, the Gloria in Excelsius, the Song of the Angels on Christmas Eve, and the Nuch Domitas, the Song of Simeon, when the baby Jesus is presented at the temple. And I want us to be careful as we go through these things in the text that we take note of the content of these songs.

These songs are glorious. They are majestic, and their content is so enriching that as we meditate on them, it can change our lives. Now, in the past times I've asked the women of the church to memorize the Magnificat. How many of you have ever done that?

Ladies, let me see your hands. Come on, some of you have. You must have quit this church and gone somewhere else.

I'm not going there anymore. The guy makes us memorize the Bible. Alright, well, I have a dream, and I have a challenge for the ladies of St. Andrews that between now and next Sunday you memorize the Magnificat. And if you do that, you will never regret it, and the words of that Song of Mary will come to your mind over and over and over again.

And by the way, there's nothing wrong with the men memorizing it as well because it is wonderful, but it has a particularly stirring influence on the souls of women who take the time to learn the Magnificat. Now, throughout sacred Scriptures I mentioned, there is a place where music is referenced. There are songs that are recorded, particularly throughout the Old Testament, and the beginning of it is very early. It's found in the book of Genesis, in the fourth chapter where we get the genealogy and the family of Cain who killed his brother Abel. We read in chapter 4 of Genesis, beginning at verse 19, the history of Lamech, who is one of the descendants of Cain, and we read this, and Lamech took for himself two wives. The name of one was Ada. The name of the second was Zillah, and Ada bore Jabal. He was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. His brother's name was Jubal.

Now, listen to Jubal. He was the father of all of those who play the harp and the flute. This, Randall, was the first chief musician in history.

You are a descendant of Jubal, which makes you a child of Cain, which is nothing to boast about. He was the father of all who play the harp and flute. As for Zillah, she bore Tubal-Cain, an instructor of every craftsman in bronze and iron, and the sister of Tubal-Cain was Naaman. Now it says Lamech said to his wives, but what he did was he sang to his wives, and this is the first song recorded in Scripture.

Listen to this song. Ada and Zillah, hear my voice. Wives of Lamech, listen to my speech, for I have killed a man for wounding me, even a young man for hurting me. If Cain shall be avenge sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-sevenfold. This is called Lamech's sword song, in which he celebrates his own violence, his own vengefulness toward someone who had insulted him, and he killed him. I mention that for this reason, that not all of the songs that are recorded in sacred Scripture are good songs. Some of the songs that we read of in sacred Scripture are bad songs. They're arrogant songs.

They're destructive songs. You know, had Lamech written his song in the twentieth century, it wouldn't have been called a sword song. I know what the title of the song would have been. He would have recorded it under the title, My Way. I did it my way.

I slaughtered those devils that insulted me. Songs communicate so much, so many bad ideas, so many arrogant ideas, and yet at the same time they can be used of God to elevate the soul to the highest levels humanly possible. Even Plato understood in ancient Greece that one had to pay attention to the music that the youth were listening to because Plato observed what a powerful impact the music that was popular in the day had upon the young people.

Listen to the music of our age, and you'll learn something about the behavior of our age. We need to have music that praises God, that blesses God, that thanks God, that responds to God. We think of Exodus 15, one of the lengthier songs of the Old Testament after the people of Israel were released from bondage and rescued from the chariots of Pharaoh when Moses and the children of Israel were caught between Migdal and the sea, the sea in front of them, the pursuing chariots of Pharaoh behind them. They were completely helpless and were like lambs ready to be slaughtered, and Moses raised his arms and called upon God to deliver his people. And God caused this great wind to blow, and the Red Sea parted, and the children of Israel walked across on dry ground while the sea was being held back by this ferocious wind that God and His providence had ordained.

And as soon as they got to the other side, Pharaoh and his armies spewing out death went into the vacant portion of the sea with their chariots, and as they were in the middle of the Red Sea, that wall of water that the wind had been holding back suddenly collapsed again and drowned them. It reminds me of a story of the little boy who came home from Sunday school. His dad said, what did you learn about in Sunday school? Well, he said, my Sunday school teacher said that the Red Sea really wasn't a sea, it was the Reed Sea, and it was only six inches deep. And his father said, really?

He said, yes, that's what the critical scholars are saying. So he said to the little boy, what do you think of that? And he said, boy, Dad, God must be something.

He said, why is that? He said, he drowned the whole Egyptian army in six inches of water. This was the biggest moment of salvation in the Old Testament, celebrated in song. Moses said, I will sing to the Lord. He has triumphed gloriously.

The horse and its rider he has thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my song. He's become my salvation. He is my God, and I will praise Him, my Father's God, and I will exalt Him. The Lord is a man of war.

Yahweh is His name. Pharaoh's chariots and his army He has cast into the sea. His chosen captains are drowned in the Red Sea. The depths have covered them. They sank to the bottom like a stone, published by the Rolling Stones. This was a great hymn. And he goes through the Old Testament. I don't have time this morning to go through all the ones. Miriam echoes the same sentiment of the Exodus during the period of the Judges, the song of Deborah, the stars in their courses fought against the Sisera, the lamentation of David at the news of the death of Jonathan and Saul. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Tell it not in Gath.

Publish it not in Eskelon. The song of Hannah concerning the promised birth of Samuel, all the way to the book of Revelation where we're told that when the kingdom of Christ is consummated, He will give to His people a new song. We have five of them at the breakthrough of the New Testament, at the time of the advent of Jesus, His birth announced by a chorale from heaven and celebrated by the human agents under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, beginning with this simple couplet in metrical style. Blessed Mary are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And who am I? Says Elizabeth, I can't believe it. I can't believe that you're visiting me.

You would think she's the elder cousin. She's saying, what are you doing here? I can't believe you're gracing my house that the mother of my Lord should come to me. And as the Spirit moved Elizabeth to say those things, the same Spirit came upon Mary, and her response was a song, one of the greatest songs ever sung, the one that you are going to learn this week. And we hope you'll join us for that.

We look forward to learning that song. That's Dr. R.C. Sproul preaching at St. Andrew's Chapel here in Sanford, Florida. R.C., of course, shared that church for many years, and you can hear the love that he shared with the people. We're glad you've joined us today for Renewing Your Mind on this Sunday. I'm Lee Webb, and every time Dr. Sproul taught verse by verse through a book of the Bible, he went into great depth and detail.

Many of his series comprised 100 sermons or more. Those sermons are the basis of Dr. Sproul's commentary series that we have published, and when you contact us today with a donation of any amount, we will provide you a digital download of his commentary on Luke. You can make your request at renewingyourmind.org.

This is an online offer only, so let me repeat that. It's renewingyourmind.org. Well, you heard Dr. Sproul encouraging the ladies of the church to memorize Mary's song. We will study it next week as we continue this series, and I hope you'll join us for Renewing Your Mind. Amen. Amen.