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. Christmas hymns and Christmas carols. Singing is a joyous highlight of Christmas. When we sing the songs reserved for this season, we remember past Christmases, and we remember the events in Bethlehem at that first Christmas.
Hi, I'm Nathan W. Bingham, and welcome to the Christmas Eve edition of Renewing Your Mind. The singing of songs in celebration of the incarnation of Christ is not the invention of recent centuries, but goes all the way back to the first Christmas, even before that first Christmas, when our Savior was still in the womb of Mary. And today, you'll hear Luke's account of Mary's visit to Elizabeth, and Elizabeth's response was to sing.
Here's Dr. Sproul. 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. And 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. 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 fetus is in the woman's womb in her body, but it is not part of her 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 the 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? You know the reason why government exists in any nation at all? The raison d'etre for government historically under God primarily is to protect, to sustain, and to maintain human life.
And when a government willfully fails to do that, it has not only become pagan, it has become demonic. Now that's my opinion. Yes, I am a trained theologian. That's my vocation.
That's my education. 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. If you've had one, it's a grave and heinous sin, but not unforgivable. If you've assisted in it or encouraged it as a man, you are in profound need of the forgiving grace of God which is available. Don't try to excuse it. Don't try to rationalize it.
Get it forgiven and stop this practice. 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?
It comes 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 that are included in Luke's account of the infancy narratives of Jesus. The five songs are these, 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 Nectamites, 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, 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 Scripture as 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 who played the harp and flute. As for Zillah, she bore Tubalcain, an instructor of every craftsman in bronze and iron, and the sister of Tubalcain was Nama. Now it's as Lamech said to his wives, but what he did was he sang to his wives, and this is the first song recorded in the 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 avenged 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. And 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, His triumph 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. This was a great hymn. And you go 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 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 told that when the kingdom of Christ is consummated, He will give to His people a new song.
Well, 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, well, what are you doing here? I can't believe you're gracing my house, that the mother of my Lord should come to me. Like Elizabeth, may we have mouths filled with praise to God for the coming of the Messiah who came to make His blessings flow far as the curse is found. This is the Christmas Eve edition of Renewing Your Mind.
I'm your host, Nathan W. Bingham. Not only can we lose sight of the true meaning of Christmas due to the hectic nature of this season, but also because we can be more influenced by Christmas movies than the Word of God. We trust that these sermons from Luke are helping inform your thinking about the coming of Christ and by God's grace, conforming your thinking to Scripture. To aid you further, until tomorrow, you can request R.C. Sproul's complete overview of Luke's Gospel when you give a year-end donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org or by using the link in the podcast show notes. You could use this hardcover commentary for your devotional reading in 2025 or as a resource so you can dig deeper in your Bible study. When you give your gift at renewingyourmind.org, we'll also send you Dr. Sproul's Christmas devotional, The Advent of Glory. You'll have it ready for next December or as a gift for a family member or friend. Speaking of gifts, it's not too late to order a last-minute gift subscription to Table Talk magazine, our monthly devotional and Bible study magazine. Visit givetabletalk.com and once you gift one subscription, you can get up to nine more at a 50% discount. That's givetabletalk.com. Have a blessed Christmas Eve and join us tomorrow, Christmas Day, as we consider the birth of Christ here on Renewing Your Mind.
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