Session 9 – Lesser-Known Women of the Bible; Elizabeth: Brent Johnson, 12/08/24

Women lesson 9
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[00:00:00] Welcome. Uh, today we're still in our series of lesser-known women of the Bible. Thank you for coming, so that you know a little bit more about some of the women in the Bible. Um, so like Mark, I get some messages every once in a while, and partic- particularly from Mark Lanier. He'll send me some messages.

Uh, he sent me one, uh, back in November and he was talking about teaching for class, that he would not be here. David Fleming's also not gonna be here. They're both in Yarnton, which is, uh, in Oxford in England. Um, I'm wearing the Yarnton Manor sweater today in honor of them being there and me being here teaching with you.

Okay. Thank you. Oh, you- you're welcome. [00:01:00] Uh, let, let me just hold down the fort here, okay? We'll, we'll be fine. Uh, but seriously that, that was just a joke. Uh, but seriously, he did, uh, ask me, he said, "For Christmas, hey Brent, let's teach on, like, Mary or Elizabeth." And so I was trying to think, you know, which one might be better for me to teach.

And so, uh, what piqued my interest was Elizabeth because I thought of the two, she's probably a little lesser known. I mean, both, both of them are known, we just don't know much about them. You know, there's some particular points of them, but not a lot. And so I thought of the two, uh, Elizabeth we know even less than Mary, especially if you're Catholic, 'cause Catholics are really into Mary.

So there's, there's a lot going on there. Uh, so I wanted a little more of a challenge, so I, I chose Elizabeth. Uh, the other thing about Elizabeth is that we have this in common. We are... We both love the hill country. She's from the hill country and I love the hill country. In fact, in Luke 5 it says, "In those days Mary arose and went to...

went with haste into [00:02:00] the hill country, into the town of Judah, which she was going to meet Elizabeth," her relative. Uh, the third thing is that Elizabeth is a woman in the second chair. She's not a leader per se. Uh, we have talked about some women who were leaders, but in this case she was, uh, a support group and not only her role was support, but the child that she was bearing would become a support for the main leader, Jesus.

And so John, the one she would carry and give birth to and give life to and bring up, educate and prepare, he would be preparing the way of the Lord. Uh, in Isaiah it says this, as Elizabeth was probably remembering some of those prophecies from Isaiah as she was hearing of her new birth and responsibility, uh, this is what it says in Isaiah, "A voice cries in the...

A voice [00:03:00] cries," and this is what it says, "in the wilderness: prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill will be made low; and the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places will be plain or smooth.

And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. From the mouth of the... For the mouth of the Lord has spoken." I love this verse. I love John the Baptist, and so I love the opportunity to talk about Elizabeth, who will bear John, who has the responsibility of kind of being the executive pa-, uh, executive pastor of Jesus's Christ's ministry.

Um, it's kinda what I do for Mark. I'm kind of the director, executive, uh, whatever, to take care of the details, and Mark is the leader and we, we and I particularly am thankful for him and for his ministry. So these are some of the reasons that I've chose [00:04:00] Elizabeth and there's one more reason that we'll get to a little bit later of why, of something that we have in common with Mary.

So let's get to the text to look at what we do see in the Bible about Elizabeth in Luke chapter 1. He's the one that talks about Elizabeth. He's giving a little bit of the backstory on the Gospel of Jesus, the good news of Jesus, and he says, "There was, uh, in the days of Herod," so he's establishing a time presence, timeline, uh, "the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias," or for us in English, Zachariah, "of the division of Abijah.

His wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth." And they were both righteous. So both Zechariah and Elizabeth, uh, the married couple, they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and the [00:05:00] statutes of the Lord. Wouldn't that be nice for someone to say that about you?

That your reputation was such that you were known. They probably had a little more limelight because they were both in the, the, the, the pri- the priestly tribe of Levi. Uh, particularly for Elizabeth, she was of the descendants of Aaron. Uh, so that might have helped a little bit people paying attention.

But even though people are paying attention to you, doesn't mean they're going to see the hope- things that you hope that they would and come to the conclusions that you hope they would based on the way you're living your life. But they apparently, even though they were not perfect, uh, we see some great remarks concerning their lives and how they lived their lives.

But here's the other side of the coin. They had no child because Elizabeth was barren, and both of them were advanced in age. So this is a double whammy for them, and the point is they're still living and doing the right thing, even in spite of very obvious and [00:06:00] frustrating troubles that are going on in their life.

So moving on to verse eight, it says, "Now while he was serving," this is Zechariah, "as priest before God, when his division came on duty." Remember, he was of the division of Abijah, and I'm not gonna get too deep into that, although I spent some time researching and learning it. Uh, that's the great thing about teaching this class, is the research and learning.

So I'm probably the best student. If y'all were here two weeks ago, David Fleming taught on King Vashti or Vashti. Um, he had a lot of information. Do y'all remember that? That was a ton. I was like, "How does he remember all of that?" And that's just the benefit of being able to teach because, uh, anytime Mark asks, I always wanna say yes, because I know I'm going to learn whether you get anything out of it or not.

But I'm sure y- all the stuff we talked about, you gotta grab a couple of things. But I was very impressed with David Fleming and all that great information from someone that is so lesser known in scripture. It was a, a great lesson. So, uh, [00:07:00] here, uh, the, the division of Abijah, it turns out that since Zechariah was of the descendants of, uh, in the Levite tribe, he was a priest.

And as a priest, they were set in, like, 24 sections, so 24 different divisions. He was in Abijah, the eighth division, and so there were two times a year that he was definitely on call having to serve. And then within his division, they cast lots to know who would be doing exactly what, but they knew what division would be working at that particular time of the year.

And that was a six-month run. So every six months, twice a year, you were definitely on and had to do different things. And so that's kinda what that means in regard to his priestly responsibility. Um, and that was according to the custom of the priesthood, chosen by lot to enter into the temple and to burn incense.

That was his particular job at this point. And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside of the hour of incense. So understand this, as a priest, uh, a priest would do this. They [00:08:00] had to go in and swap out the candles all the time 'cause what do candles do? Y'all are so smart. Yeah, they burn down, they go out, and you gotta fill 'em back up with oil, the ones that have oil and the little wicks.

Uh, otherwise, I don't know if they had wax candles then. I'm not too up on the culture of exactly what they were doing. But they had to replace all this oil, for sure, and, uh, they had to burn incense. And the incense was this idea of the prayers going up to heaven. So it was a visual symbol of what we're doing mentally in our prayers.

And so for them, it, it was a bigger deal and probably a lot more organized, their prayer. We at Champion Forest, we, we have prayers. Like d- today in the service, I prayed. Did y'all pray with me? We didn't ring a bell. We didn't light any candles. We didn't have any incense and visual cues of all that stuff.

Uh, we didn't read the prayer. Uh, usually our prayers for Baptists we're much more extemporaneous than liturgical groups who would have, uh, a lot more of those other elements, which I [00:09:00] find to be intriguing, interesting, and very helpful, I think. Uh, and so I, I really enjoy that part, and maybe we don't do it enough as, as Baptists.

But, um, they would gather together in a time of prayer, and then they would have the priest lighting the incense and, uh, like a, a special time. It's almost like a service for prayer. And so, um, good opportunity for them. Something that we could probably take note of. In fact, let me just give you a little commercial.

Every first Saturday of the month, we meet for prayer over in the chapel, uh, our chapel here at Champion Forest. The first Saturday of every month, we meet from 8:00 in the morning to 9:00, which means, yep, you gotta get up, throw something on, and come and spend some time praying together. And so we had about 40 in there the other day, um, praying as a church, and it was a great opportunity.

We didn't light any candles, although we could have done that. Uh, a great time for the church to come together and pray. And so that's something for you to consider if you wanna be a little more [00:10:00] involved in some spiritual things, um, as the Lord leads. A good opportunity for you to come and be a part of that.

Uh, so that's what they were doing. This was a time of service, and Zechariah was there, uh, being a part. So that's a little bit of the backstory of where we're going with Elizabeth. And we're gonna hear a little bit about Zechariah 'cause that helps us to look at Elizabeth. So there are three things in our roadmap of where we're gonna go today.

So the first thing we're gonna look at is Aaron, the tribe of Aaron. Then we're gonna look at the fact that Elizabeth was barren. And then the last thing, that God sent her on an errand. All right, so Aaron, Baron, and errand. We're gonna, we're gonna go through this. So easy to remember and, uh, there's plenty of things we're gonna be talking about on each of these, so maybe just pick one to focus on 'cause there's just too much otherwise.

It'll just be too much for you. Uh, don't try to gather everything. And the errand will lead to our own en- encouragement to be on our errand, and that's what Mark calls points for home, and we'll certainly end [00:11:00] there with some application points because that's the reason that we come, hopefully, is to find out how we can respond and act as a result of hearing all these things.

All right, so we're gonna start with Aaron, which I found very intriguing, very interesting, and this is a very big part of Elizabeth's life. I'm gonna jump back to where Mark Lanier left off last week, where he talked about the, uh, he was talking about in Egypt, when the Israelites were in Egypt, and the two midwives, Zipporah and Puah, were asked to kill the Israelite babies because they were becoming the, the, the tribe of Israel, the group of Israelites were becoming too big to manage, be managed by the Egyptians.

And so they were asked to kill, but the lesson ye- last week was that they heroically went against their command, instead chose life, which allowed the birth of Moses. So with Moses, we wanna look at him today with his sister and his brother [00:12:00] or his kinsmen, depending on how you understand that translation, of Miriam, his sister.

She was the one that when Moses was in the basket that, uh, came when Pharaoh's daughter-- found the basket, came to the Pharaoh's daughter and said, "Hey, I can hook you up with someone who can feed him and take care of him," uh, through these early years and was able to do that. That was Moses' sister. And then Aaron comes into the picture, particularly as Moses was picked or chosen to lead the Israelites out of Egypt.

And what does Moses say? "I don't talk very good. I'm not, uh, gonna be a very good leader. Uh, find something else for me." And God said, "Nope. You're my leader. Get used to that. But your brother Aaron, uh, he can speak, and we will employ him." And in fact, he becomes the priest, the high priest of the tribe of, or, or the whole nation of Israel, and, uh, his lineage will then kind of take on that.

And so that's what we're gonna look at, the, his priestly lineage that will eventually get to Elizabeth. So he was in the [00:13:00] tribe of Levites, so was Moses, so was Miriam, that whole family. They were all Levites. So they were a part of this priestly clan. Uh, and then Aaron, particularly his lineage, would be of the high priest, so all of his descendants would be priests.

Now, not every descendant would be a priest, but all the priests would be a descendant. Does that make sense? Okay, see, I told you it's complicated. So he's, he's the high priest, and remember that Elizabeth is of the tribe of, uh, of Aaron, the lineage of Aaron. And so the Levites and the priests, they were involved in the tabernacle particularly.

Uh, we won't go into the detail, but they... If, if they... The priests were the ones that were doing the sacrifices. They were the intermediaries between God and man. They were revealing God. In fact, in this particular instance in Egypt, God would speak to Moses, Moses would talk to Aaron, and Aaron would speak to the people as the priest, uh, between God and the people.

And so [00:14:00] if you weren't a priest, you could be of the Levites. The Levites were the worker bees. They were the ones that took care of business. They carried the, the tent pegs and the, the, the, the tent coverings, and they would set it up, build it, and they would tear it down, and fold it back up, clean it up, and move it along.

And so that was the whole tribe of Levi. So of the 12 tribes of Israel, Levi was one of them, and the Levites were the ones that took care of that. They were the tribe that did not have any land. All the other tribes had land al- appointments that they-- allotments that they would eventually get in the promised land, which would be Canaan, which is where they're heading here.

Uh, but the Levites would never get any land. They would live among the people, and they would be the priests of the people, and that, that 10% that the rest everybody else was giving, the Levites would live off of that, kinda like I live off of your 10% as a pastor of the church, something like that. Okay. So the Levites.

And then eventually when the temple was built, the Levites continued serving, and they were in the temple that Solomon built, and then it was refurbished and torn down and rebuilt, [00:15:00] uh, a couple of times, and they were-- they would work in there until Jesus came and He abolished the temple. It was no longer needed, and the Levites and the high priests no longer needed.

But up to that point, and, uh, all the way back until Aaron's birth, that's where the responsibility is. And so this is the family tradition, if you will, that Elizabeth is born into. Uh, I wanted to say one other thing about the Levites. When Moses went up to get the Ten Commandments and he was gone for longer than they wanted, what did they build?

What? So you do know. Yeah, the, the calf. Oh, you cheated. Yeah, they built the golden calf because they went... They were drifting back to the ways of worship of what? Where they had come from, the Levites, right? I mean, sorry, the Egyptians. Uh, not the Levites. The Egyptians. They had drifted back to the worship the way that they were worshiping.

And so, uh, Moses came down, and he was so mad and, uh, threw the, the tablets down and asked who would come and bring justice [00:16:00] for the Lord in this situation where they had gone against God. And so the Levites were the ones that came ahead and took the sword and killed a lot of the Israelites as judgment for their bad decision.

So sometimes decisions that we make, uh, do have bad consequences. Uh, in this case, the Levites were a part of that clan, and that has helped to better establish them as this priestly group. You know, maybe they felt like they were a little better than everybody else because they were the, the priestly clan.

So we see that, uh, Zechariah was a priest. There where I highlighted it there, and that the daughters of Aaron were the des- uh, Elizabeth would be the descendants of the daughters of Aaron. And so they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and the statutes of the Lord.

So th- we know that they were barren. We know they were old. Anyone identify with that? We know some people, but yeah, we won't point any fingers. But there, there's [00:17:00] some difficulty there. In fact, uh, this past weekend or this past week, there were a lot of Christmas parties. As a senior adult pastor is something else, another hat that I wear, um, I get to go and connect with my groups, my senior adults at their Christmas parties.

So I've had a lot of food. I've dragged my wife with me. Holly, where'd she go? Oh, there, she's over there. Um, we went to a lot of Christmas parties, um, this week, and I enjoyed very much getting to visit with people and eating their food. A lot of good food. And, um, a- as a result of being there, uh, th- we were talking about old age and the difficulties thereof.

Sometimes we get into those modes where we complain about the reality of the situation. So I'm not saying y- you should ignore it. It's real, and we have to face it. These people, Zachariah and Elizabeth, were both not only, uh, old and the difficulties of that, but a whole life of not being able to have children, which was a big deal and a shame.

And as a result, um, they had it difficult, and yet what are [00:18:00] they doing? They're doing the right thing. They're, they're coming to church every Sabbath. They're serving in their allotted time. They're signing up to do what they're supposed to do. And when it's difficult and they're frustrated and they're sad, they're still getting up and doing what they can.

Now, I'm not saying they were there every time. I'm sure they got sick and had to sit out every once in a while. But this is a great example of something that we should pick up on, um, of a lesser-known woman in the Bible, Elizabeth. She was of a priestly clan. She took it seriously. She was very religious.

She did what she needed to do and did not make excuses. So that's the first thing, Aaron. Second thing is barren. So we know that they had no child because Elizabeth was barren, and they were advanced in years. And so like I said earlier, that is kind of a double whammy. In scripture, we have a lot of, a lot of ladies in scripture who were barren, and God used them in special ways.

Elizabeth, that we're [00:19:00] talking about today, is one of them. Another one is Sarah Abraham's wife. Uh, we have Rebecca. We have Manoah's wife. She would eventually have Samson. Uh, the Shunammite woman who didn't have children, and Elisha came and blessed her with a gift of having a child. She was able to bear a child.

Uh, Rachel of the, uh, 12 tribes of, of Israel, and then Hannah, uh, before that, where we ha- or sorry, after that, where we have, uh, several different women who were barren. All of these women would eventually have children and a special dispensation, uh, with and of that child. And so it's just very interesting as you read scripture, just because you're barren, you don't have children, doesn't mean that eventually you will and that God is, is going to bless you.

Uh, but if you want children, of course, that's what you want to happen. And so that's the fourth thing that I have in common with Elizabeth, is that I and my wife, Holly, we endured a time of [00:20:00] infertility. And so I thought it would be better to have Holly to come up and share, just take a few moments to share a little bit about our infertility journey because it's something that is real that a lot of people have to deal with.

Or I say some people, I shouldn't say a lot, that some people have to deal with, but that we don't talk a lot about. And I thought this lesson today opened up the opportunity, uh, to-- for you to meet my wife, Holly, if you've not already. Uh, we've been married for 30 years. 30 years. Um, uh, her dad's a pastor, so she's like in a priestly clan, so we're kinda like Elizabeth and Zachariah.

And for, for a time we were barren, if you wanna use that word. It's, it's a ugly word. But, um, Holly, would you just take some-- a moment and just kinda share a little bit about our journey? Yes. And he, he asked me, "How long do you think you'll need?" And I was like, "10 minutes maybe." And then this morning when I woke up and I just had all these things flooding through my mind and I started [00:21:00] making notes and notes and I thought, "Oops, you might be quick on your errand."

Um,

and, um, a lot of you know, excuse me, also that we have a little dog sitting business, so we keep dogs. Well, this morning I wrote out my notes and then I came downstairs and a dog had eaten my notes. So that's why I pieced it back together and took a picture of it, so that, that's why I'm, uh, gonna look down for a bit.

So, um, I wanna start by saying that my whole life I just wanted to be a mom

All these years later, and you still are emotional about that. But, um, I had a wonderful example of a mom. Still do. Thank, thank the Lord that she's still alive and doing well. Um, but that was what I wanted to do. Even when I was in college and people saying, "I'm s- you know, I'm studying to be a profession and, and be a [00:22:00] speech-language pathologist, and you're working to get a degree," all that was in my mind was, "What do you wanna do with this?"

Well, I wanna be a mom. And so when, um, that was not a reality for a long time, and, um, I could go into all the specifics of what happened when, um, but from the period of 1996 when we actually conceived on our own for the first time and then had a miscarriage all the way until the birth of our twins in 2003.

Um, so that's about a seven-year journey, and along that road, um, through... And people have their own thoughts of what you do for fertility. You know, trust God. God wants you to have a child, and you'll have a child. Everybody wants to put their two cents in and give you, give you their thoughts. We had some great advice from an- another couple that we went to church with who [00:23:00] also had experienced, um, infertility, and they told us the best advice, and it was, "Your decisions about your family and what God has for you is between you and Brent and God."

And so we took that to heart, and we pursued what we felt like was the road for us. Um, we... Through it all, you know, you look back and you think, "Okay, what, what was God's plan? What were the end results? Why did we experience this?" I thought that a lot of the time. Um, but there are times I can look back, and I can say honestly that I did not clearly see His hand, and there are times that are so specific.

For example, the first time I had a doctor in Dallas, Texas, and he was ready to send me on to a specialist, and he's like, "You need to see a fertility specialist." Well, I said, "Well, my husband's just accepted..." And he was a Christian doctor, and he... I said, "My husband just accepted a position at [00:24:00] a church near Atlanta, Georgia.

We're moving, so, like, well, I don't know what you're gonna do." And he looked at me so dead serious. I don't even know if you remember this. And he said, "If you could tell me that you were moving anywhere in the world," anywhere in America. Let me say America. "Anywhere in America, I would say please move to Atlanta, Georgia."

And he sent me to a doctor that he had done a r- rotation with or a fellowship with or something, and, um, he helped us pursue our road of, um, infertility. And, um, so as I walked the road, um- I, I will say, um, through not being able to get pregnant and them helping me get pregnant and then losing a child, um, all together in those seven years, we lost ten babies.

And the la-the last one actually was another natural pregnancy after our girls were born, um, which stumped me again. But, um, and our-- when, when we were pregnant with our [00:25:00] girls, we were pregnant with triplets, and we lost our triplet in the midst of that. And so every month, as I relate to Elizabeth and her longevity of what she experienced, 'cause she was way older than me.

But every month is a loss. Every month is like a death. And I, I heard someone say something one time. They said, "How can I miss someone that I've never met?" But that's the way it felt all the time, every year, every month. It just kept going. Um, and I had lots, you know, friends, your friends and your family and everybody's having a child.

And I'm sure Elizabeth was like, "Well, everybody has a baby." And in her day, it was really kind of part of a woman's duty. You know, they, they were expected to have a child, um, expected to carry on, um, especially a male child would be really important for them. So they were... As I [00:26:00] looked up what happened to women who-- Which I'm glad he put all those things up there, um, because I have studied and learned about all of them throughout the years of my own experience.

And, um, sometimes I felt like Hannah, you know, like a crazy person crying out to God and, and in depression. Um, sometimes it was calm and silence and just walking the road one step at a time. But, um, I felt that they, uh, had so much shame and so much that e-even it, when I studied, it looked, it looked like they're, they're not given a lot of attention, so they're not as important.

Um, and I think I would put that on myself, um, because, you know, I, I remember asking Brent, "What, what did I do wrong? Why me?" And, um, you know, this is a wonderful man, and he walked so graciously with me and through this, uh, together. [00:27:00] And he would say, you know, "Holly, not everything is a reason. We live in a, a fallen world, and as a result of sin, these kinds of things happen."

And so that I, I held onto that, but again, I felt, I felt stained. I felt like I couldn't do what I was created to do. You know? God created a woman's body to have a baby. I couldn't do it. And, um, I felt like I let him down because I couldn't give him a child, and it's heartbreaking. Um, so I just wanna say you may have experienced it, you may be experiencing it now, and you may know someone who has either walked or is walking that road.

So, um, I want you to, um, realize that sometimes we as Christians We, we wanna say something. We wanna try to say the right thing, and sometimes it's okay just [00:28:00] to be silent, and sometimes it's okay just to be there and be a, a listener. And I remember telling my dad one time, Mom wanted to come after I had surgery, and, and, um, I said, "She can come, but she needs to let me mourn, let me cry, and not try to fix it, and just to be there."

And I think Pastor Jarrett talks about the ministry of presence, just to be there. So probably people don't necessarily wanna hear, you know, all the Christian-y things that we sometimes wanna say in a moment of tragedy or difficulty. Um, I feel like Elizabeth is a great example because Brent has already pointed out in scripture that she continued to walk blamelessly with the Lord.

And so through my journey, about two years into this journey, I felt like I was at a crossroads. And it was like, "You can make a decision [00:29:00] to keep following Christ, keep following me." I felt like this was totally from the Lord. "You can keep following me, or you can go your own way, but you have to make that decision."

And, and this is not knowing what's gonna come. This is not like, "Oh, I'm pregnant all of a sudden, and now I can have that experience." No. This was in the midst of it, and that's what I felt God saying to me. And I chose to keep following Him and to keep trusting Him, not knowing what the outcome would be.

And, um, you may be wondering, "Oh, did y'all ever think about adoption?" Yes. Adoption was on our radar. Um, but interestingly enough, not at the same time usually. Brent would be up for, "Really, let's look at adoption." I couldn't do it, Brent. I would be like, "Okay, maybe we can..." And he wasn't there. So we felt like that was not for us because of those reasons.

Um, and I also not just wanting to be a mom, and I knew I could love a child 'cause, I mean, I, I now have [00:30:00] spent a, a career of 30 years working with pediatric, uh, children with special needs, and I knew I could love children. It was I wanted to experience all of it, you know? I wanted to have that baby. I wanted to be pregnant.

I wanted just the whole experience, and that was really hard for me to relinquish. And so I just kept putting one foot in front of the other and seeing where God would take us. Um, so I'm grateful for those that are still walking this road, for someone like Elizabeth or women in the Bible who did continue to seek the Lord, serve the Lord, and walk with the Lord during those times because that is a wonderful example, like, like Brent said, to all of us, but especially to a woman walking the same road.

Um-

So how much time do I have then?

Um, so now [00:31:00] I'm just gonna give you a couple of things. I mean, I feel like you kind of get an understanding of where I was, what we've gone through. So I just wanna give you a couple of things of what I feel like that I took away from my experience, because I do feel like that God brings us through things for reasons, and I will not ever know all of the reasons, um, probably as I live this life.

But some of them, and one-- this is another time that I felt like God really spoke clearly to me. And in scripture, you know, it says children are a blessing. Children are a heritage from the Lord. So I mean, all I-- and I was like, "Well, I'm not blessed. I'm not..." You know, it's-- that's, that's hurtful. It's not only, oh, everybody around me is having a baby, and it wasn't that I couldn't be happy for other people, but as Brent would say, it just reminded me of what I didn't have.

And so it was, it was challenging. And, um, I was reading somewhere, and this came across, um, [00:32:00] the page that said, "Children are a blessing from the Lord, but they're not the only blessing." So if you know someone walking this road or if you have walked this road or if you can share with someone, um, this was huge to me, huge, that I could then focus on God's other blessings in my life, not what I didn't have, but what I did have.

And at the time, one of my best friends was walking through a divorce, so I had a wonderful husband. I had a wonderful family. I had a church family. Um, some of you... I don't see Mark Wilke here today. Some of you, um, even once we got pregnant with our twins, you walked through that with us in an amazing way, um, because I was on bed rest for over ten weeks, and people would feed us before we even had babies.

Usually, you bring food after the baby's born, but they brought it while we were in need. Um, so remember that, that there are many blessings that come from God, [00:33:00] and good and perfect gifts, gifts come from Him. So it doesn't mean that there were no blessings or that the fact that I didn't have a child, um, I wasn't blessed.

I was. Um, and then

I, I, I learned that we should not trivialize, I should not trivialize other people's pain, no matter what it was. And I think sometimes we, just like we sometimes wanna categorize sin, um, we sometimes categorize difficulties. Oh, well, yours is not as bad as hers. His is not as bad as yours. But pain is pain, and so if we're walking through pain, hurtful, whatever it is, it's hurtful to us.

It's meaningful to us at that moment, so we shouldn't trivialize whatever, what anyone else is going through. But we should support them, love them, and pray for them through it. And then to keep trusting and [00:34:00] keep following the Lord. And

This is not a negative focus because we walked so many years of experiencing what I would consider negative circumstances, but this is all to To just keep encouraging you, just as Brent said, um, that Elizabeth did and Zechariah, to walk blamelessly, to follow the Lord in all your circumstances. I think that's it

Oh, als-also I have a couple of resources that really helped me. So if you do know anyone, I, I will say that this is a ministry I never wanted to have. Anybody have one of those? You have a ministry you never wanted to have? Well, um, I do. And so through the years, I've had many, many, many people I knew, people I didn't know, "Hey, can, can I give someone your number because they're-- [00:35:00] they lost a baby.

Hey, can I-- can someone talk to you or can you pray for this person?" And I put them on a prayer list and he-help, help encourage them in their walk of this road, um, all the way to the point of, "Hey, you need to leave your doctor and go to a new doctor." Um, but there were a couple of books that really helped me, and one of them is called When Empty Arms Become a Heavy Burden, and the other one is called Hope Again.

And so, um, if you're interested, I can even have Brent send those, uh, with the authors out to you, um, in an email feature in the future. Thank y'all. Thank you.

So thank you, Holly, for sharing from your perspective and from my perspective, which I won't belabor, but as a husband, of course, I wanted children as well in, in our particular case. Not all husbands want children, I get that. Uh, but then also the hurt for your wife and wanting to help her that I was unable to do as well, uh, was very difficult.

[00:36:00] And so I imagine that Zechariah and for Elizabeth, uh, went through a lot of these, maybe from a deeper standpoint because of their culture and, uh, other things that are going on in their life or people that were around. Because like Holly said, a lot of times people who shouldn't even be having children all of a sudden are having children and, um, we're not.

And so, uh, very, very frustrating. And so the idea that last week, uh, it was Mark that talked about that often God works through the smallest things to accomplish His purposes. That's what we had to come to grips with, and then I added to that, uh, sometimes God works through impossible situations to accomplish His purposes, and that's not just because of, of, of infertility.

Uh, it's whatever it is that you're going through. And I know in a room this size, uh, there are a lot of people that are dealing with a lot of different things that you don't have control over, that you would love to change. You've have a PhD in prayer for that particular area, and you're trying [00:37:00] to figure out What's not working and why is it not working?

Um, the only solace that we have is that, one, God is at work and in spite of us and doesn't need us, but loves us and cares for us. So all that together, even in your pain and difficulty, uh, there are other things that are going on and, and we had to come to grips with that, that God is at work. Uh, whatever He has for us, we, we need to come to acceptance on that, and if He changes it later, that's on Him, but I can't live my life on what I get from God.

I need to serve God regardless of what is going on. And so a lot of people live in that barrenness, and I, I know it's difficult, but like Holly said, we don't-- Well, I said it. We don't talk about it much. And what Holly said is, if you wanna talk about something and particularly in that situation, uh, Holly's a great person to talk to.

Uh, I as your pastor of this class, uh, would love to visit with you on other things too. I have appointments with, with [00:38:00] many of you as you come in with dealing with different things. That's one of the things that I'm here for since Mark is not available usually during the week, um, that we're here for you in that regard and we want to walk with you just as several godly people walked with us through, um, difficult times.

It's so easy to look back on it for us because of our resolution. Not everything is resolved like that and nor is it expected to be, and we had to come to the conclusion that we would love and serve God no matter what this resolved to. So that is the first two things, Aaron, barren, and the last thing is Elizabeth's errand.

She was sent on an errand. That we all have in common with Elizabeth and Zachariah's life. We are all sent on an errand to serve the Lord, not because of what He's done for us, but because He created us to serve Him. So let's look at this last point as we wrap up today. We're doing great on time. Luke, uh, one thirty-nine through forty.

"In those days Mary arose," uh, who was [00:39:00] about to have Jesus in not too long, "and went with haste to the hill country, to a town in Judah." Why does she go so fast? Might have been because she was still in kind of a difficult situation because she didn't have social networks that she could put on, "Hey, everyone, it's okay.

God's the one that impregnated me. It's not Joseph, and so there's nothing shameful going on here." Uh, Joseph, on the other hand, was trying to figure out what to do. The angel explained, uh, "Leave her be. Everything's fine. Stay with her. Don't divorce," which I believe there's no reason for a divorce, that God can restore all things.

And, uh, in their situation, they came to a better understanding. But not everybody else would understand that, and so they had to live with that perceived shame. And going off to the hill country, probably a pretty good way to kind of relax and have a little bit of peace in your life, get away from your situation, and which we can't run from all of our situations.

I'm not suggesting that. But sometimes a retreat or a respite is a really good thing. And so with haste, she went to, uh, her relative Elizabeth, and she [00:40:00] entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth, which I think this picture says it all. If you could sum it up, it's a rendering. It's not a literal picture.

Uh, they didn't pose for this. But you can see all of these elements coming together. Um, a young lady, pregnant, not ne- necessarily wanting to be at that time, having to, to, to process and deal with that and the ramifications of that immediately, with an old person living with shame and frustration. Finally, that was resolved, but at the wrong time because of her age.

Imagine being at this age and now thinking, "I'm going to have to raise not just a child, but a son." And y'all know this is the son that, that wanted to live in the wilderness. He, he ate locusts and honey. He, he wore sackcloth and, I don't know, a rope for a belt or, or something like that. Uh, this is the probably the kind of the crazy kid that was, when he was growing up, was preparing for that by just running around being crazy.

Uh, we've kept [00:41:00] some puppies at our house that are crazy like that. And for, for them to come together in this moment and to have this love, fellowship, and camaraderie with one another in their very, very different situations, and yet God brought them together in a moment for these, just these months. Uh, I think she was there for maybe half a year or so, and enjoying this, uh, opportunity and, and what God taught them as they went through this process.

In other words, God put them in this situation with their difficulties. Um, God's doing the same thing with us, even through our difficulties. God is moving and working to put us in the right place around the right people, uh, for the right reason. It says that when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary as she came into the house, the baby within Elizabeth leaped in her womb.

Now, I've never had a baby in my womb. I've never had a womb, so then I've never had a baby in it either. So I wouldn't even know how that feels, and some of you do, and some of you don't. I know [00:42:00] some of you would love to have that feeling, and we're, we're praying for you and lifting you up as well. But for this situation, she knew the, the, the feeling was different than just the baby moving around, that there's something very in tune here that probably she had-- Elizabeth had been being prepared for her whole life of being sensitive to God.

And that's so important for us, that we need to take advantage of every opportunity to be fine-tuned, to be able to hear, to be receptive to the things of God so that when things are happening, and they're happening all the time, I think we miss so many of those opportunities. We just miss out on it 'cause we're not fine-tuned.

Uh, she had been, and now she is receiving. Uh, this meeting was not just a meeting of two ladies. It was a double meeting because both sons in the wombs were aware of what's going on, and as a result, they were interacting in, uh, some silent fashion. Um, so it, it's just interesting. This [00:43:00] picture really brought out an interesting thing that was going on during this particular meeting with this family or these two different families that were coming together at this moment.

Um, moving on, it says that Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. Now, this is a big deal, and I've talked about this a lot, and Mark has talked about this idea of the Holy Spirit. The way the Holy Spirit worked was very different in the Old Covenant, in the Old Testament, compared to the New Testament.

I think it might even been a little bit better in the Old Testament because it was a much more specific, and the idea or the, the way it worked is that the Holy Spirit would be put on a particular person for a particular reason or a project, a particular amount of time, and then it would be taken away once that project was done.

A good example would be a king. The kings were filled with the Spirit. The, the Spirit of God were on the kings of Israel. Not every king had the Spirit of God, but those kings had the Spirit of God. Now, not all of them [00:44:00] treated the Spirit the right way. There were a lot of evil kings. In fact, most of them were evil.

But the idea is that the, the Holy Spirit would be put upon the king to give them all the resources and the power, the wisdom needed in order to do their job. So that was their project, and then at the end of their king, um, the Holy Spirit would be taken away, uh, sometimes prematurely. For example, Saul, he was the king, the first king, and, uh, took it upon himself to be more than the king.

He wanted to be the priest, too, and took on some priestly responsibility that was unacceptable, and at that moment, the Holy Spirit was taken away from Saul. He remained king until he died. David respected him as a king without the Spirit of God, uh, until he, he died, and David was very respectful in that manner.

But, um, you see later on when David was king, who had the Spirit on him, you read in Psalm 51 his psalm of contrition and asking and begging for forgiveness. One of the things that he says [00:45:00] there is, "Please don't take the Holy Spirit from me." Because he'd seen what had happened, he realized he was in the same exact situation for a different reason.

And he was begging God to forgive him and not take the Spirit. That, that he knew he would re- remain king, but he wanted the Spirit of God because he was saying, "I want to be a godly individual. I wanna keep doing what God's called me to do. I wanna keep fulfilling your project the way that you want it, not the way that I want it."

And so, uh, that was the Old Testament way that the Holy Spirit worked. But then Joel, uh, talked about, and we're gonna read that scripture in a minute, but that in a new covenant, there would come a time when the Spirit would be put on everyone who received the Spirit. It was not just on one person at one time for a particular project, but it would r- come upon you, and you would live with the Spirit of God.

Just for the Old Testament people, thinking about that idea was probably amazing to them. Uh, and here we are living in, probably taking it for granted. [00:46:00] Um, she says that she explained with a loud cry to Mary. She says, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb." So two things, she was filled with the Holy Spirit.

She was prophesying blessings. These two were not, these two were not blessings that she was giving, but she was recognizing the blessing of what had happened, even though Mary had not yet even had a chance to tell her what? I'm pregnant. That, that news hadn't even got there. They couldn't send a telegram to get the message ahead.

She was coming in to visit. She walks in the door, she says, "Hello." John the Baptist leaps inside of, of Elizabeth, and Elizabeth's like, "Something is going on here." And then Elizabeth is filled with the Spirit, and she understands that whole Spirit thing because of her priestly clan that she was a part of.

And so now she as a woman has received the Spirit. Most of the time, the Spirit were on men, and they were leading out and doing things, and other people were in support roles. She was used to that. Uh, now she has the Spirit, and she also, uh, recognizes the, that the, not only is, is Mary pregnant, which [00:47:00] is great, and blessings on that, but that this is the Messiah, the one who was prophesied to come.

That up to this point, the last, uh, prophet, Malachi, 400 years had passed before this, the next and the greatest prophet would be John the Baptist, and now that was in her womb. So this is the, all the things that are going on in their mind and all that years of waiting. I mean, we thought seven years of waiting for children is a long time.

400 years, people dying and, and, and generations passing away, not getting to see the Messiah. The thing that they were knowing that was coming and waiting for, uh, was amazing. So here we have, um, Elizabeth prophesying for those things, so a woman prophesying, which is the Joel's prophecy coming true. "And it shall, uh, it shall come to pass afterward in the New Covenant that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh.

Your sons and your daughters, they will prophesy. Your old men," that's important, the old people, "will dream dreams. Your young men will see [00:48:00] visions," even to the point of the male and female servants, so everybody is everybody. "And these, uh, in these days, I will pour out my Spirit." So everyone will have the opportunity.

Not everyone will receive the Spirit. I don't wanna give that indication. Everyone does not, in the New Covenant, does not have the Spirit, but once you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, you don't have to pray for another receiving of the Spirit. You receive the Spirit then. That is salvation. Comes upon you in humility when you ask the Lord to forgive you for offending God, for doing the wrong thing or doing things your way, and then changing to do things God's way.

That is salvation. That's when the Spirit comes. And Joel, as the prophet, was telling people this, and they're hearing this, and they just, I just imagine wondering like, "That's crazy. I mean, how could the Spirit work like that? And how could everyone... Wouldn't that kinda be a little confusing? Is God gonna be able to handle that?"

I mean, I don't know what all they were thinking, but this was something to look forward to. Elizabeth is realizing this is happening right here, right now, and I am [00:49:00] ground zero. And, and she goes on as she's wondering of, and, and processing through this, "Why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?"

Why, why after years of shame and, and frustration, all of a sudden all these things and all these pistons are starting to work, all these things are coming together. Why me? Even in this moment, she's still, I think, being very humble. Uh, and she says that, uh, the baby ... She was telling Mary, "The, the baby in my womb leapt for joy, and blessed is she."

Now here's a blessing that she is giving. So she prophesied, and now Elizabeth is blessing. "And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord." Now this is a huge contrast to her own husband. Zechariah received a message of what was going to happen, and what did he do with that?

Did not believe. So here it is in, uh, Luke chapter one. It says, "And [00:50:00] there appeared to him an angel of the Lord," to Zechariah, "standing on the h- right hand, right side of the altar of incense. And Zechariah was troubled when he saw the angel and he fear fell..." I'm sorry. Uh, "And fear fell upon him. And the angel said to him, 'Do not be afraid, Zechariah.

In fact, your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son. And you will call his name John, and you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice in this truth.'" Now, we're gonna stop right here because there's an interesting phrase that's listed in here that is very confusing in our spiritual world, and that is, "Zechariah, don't fear.

I have good news. Your prayer has been heard." It almost, at a cursory just glance hearing, it almost sounds like God had not heard it and now letting Zechariah know that whatever was impending, impeding, keeping [00:51:00] that from going through, it has made it through. Now God heard what you said, and God can respond.

That is not what's being said here. I think Mark has talked a lot about the name Zechariah, Zakar, which is Hebrew, and I'm not a Hebrew scholar. I'll do more Greek than Hebrew, and I don't do that much Greek. But the idea is that, uh, God will respond. God listens. God hears. And that he will-- The idea here with, with Zakar is that God will respond in the way that he is ready to when the time comes, and this is the time that has come.

God is going to respond. It's not an acquisition, uh, between I prayed and now I'm gonna keep praying until God finally hears me, and then when he does, then he can respond. God hears and is aware. God hears our prayers all the time. He does not miss anything. And usually, it's possible, but usually, we're not doing things that are keeping those prayers because there's a lot of grace that goes in with that.

The Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ both are interceding for us in our prayers. So [00:52:00] even if you are praying wrong, the, the, the right prayer will get to God. The problem is sometimes our attitude in it, and those are things that God will bring about in your life to make changes in order to have the right attitude.

Uh, but don't get hung up on this idea. This is, uh, another contrast to this. Zakar, God listens, and here God has heard you. It's more poetry than it is an explanation of how prayer works. It is not an explanation of how prayer works. I just wanna bear that out. Um, he goes on, the last part of this in Luke, uh, talking about Zechariah's response.

"For he will be great." He's hearing this. Zechariah hears that his son that he's gonna have after not having, "will be great before the Lord. He must not drink wine or strong drink. He will be filled with the Holy Spirit," the more of the Spirit, "even from his mother's womb," which we've already seen that, "and he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God."

Any priest would love hearing this. This is right along the mission of what [00:53:00] he wants to happen. I'm sure that he's excited about hearing this, but he does not believe this is actually going to happen, and that's the frustrating part. "And he will go before him," the, the son, "in the spirit and the power of Elijah," who was a great prophet.

Moses and Elijah are two of the greatest prophets, um, of the Old Testament. So this is all resounding with what Zechariah believes and is, is hoping for. "And turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just." All these things he would love to happen. "To make ready the, the Lord for a people prepared.

To make ready for the Lord a people who are prepared." So that's what John the Baptist is gonna do, and we could do a whole lesson on you should be prepared and, and do what the God wants. But the contrast is that Zechariah did not believe it, and what was his, uh, curse as a result? He couldn't speak. You know what?

He couldn't hear either 'cause l- earlier-- later on when they try to communicate to him about what they're gonna name the son and, and Elizabeth says, "We're [00:54:00] gonna name him John." And they go, "Nobody else in your family's named John. Why would you do that? Let's go to the husband and find out what's going on."

They have to make signs to him. He could not hear as well. He was totally shut off because of his, of his disbelief and almost mocking God with what God said. Don't do that. Be listening for God. Don't do anything that would cause yourself to be cut off from God. He was cut off in a very physical and obvious way, and then when he made the signs back to say, "Yes, we will name him John," his hearing and his speech all came back, and God rectified that.

And so that's an interesting part of this lesser-known woman's story. Zechariah said to the angel, "How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years." Um, he says, "The angel answered him, 'I'm Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God. I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news.

And behold, you're gonna be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place [00:55:00] because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.'" Underline that, "They will be fulfilled in their time." A huge contrast between, um, Mary and Joseph and Zechariah. You wanna stay on the Mary/Joseph side.

You do not wanna stay on the Zechariah side. In this story of lesser-known women, this is a great takeaway, which brings me to our takeaways that we'll hit real quick. First thing is that there is assembly required as a Christian. Hebrews 10 says, "Assemble together. Come together in fellowship with each other.

Encourage one another to love and to good deeds. Be there when we hurt," and that is extremely helpful. That we're also priests ourselves. Uh, she was-- Elizabeth was in a priestly clan. Now we are all able to be priests, that we don't need a priest to get to God. Uh, First Peter 2:9, we hear Peter telling us that we're a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that he possesses us in a particular [00:56:00] way, that you may declare the prayers of him who have called you-- uh, praises out of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

That's why we do what we do because God has saved us and pulled us out of darkness. Now we serve him with gladness in our heart. Again, we serve him, not what he-- w- want him to do for us. We serve him at his pleasure. Uh, and then we wanna be a blessing to other people, and that's what Holly talked about. In Second Corinthians it says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, the God of all comfort, who comforts us all of our afflictions so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction."

In other words, sometimes we get afflictions for the reason that one day we're gonna be prepared to help other and comfort them in that same situation. We've gone through the learning process, and now we're gonna pay it forward, and Holly and I wanna be a part of doing that as well. To do that with comfort and, uh, with which we ourselves were comforted by God [00:57:00] himself.

Um, and then the first part of this, uh, prophecy from Joel, and we talked about that earlier. "You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel," God says, "and that I am the Lord your God, and there is none else." God says, "I am at work, and I've got a plan. I'm gonna do something. In this case, I'm gonna bring my spirit to everyone who, who needs it and who wants it and who, who, who wants to be forgiven and to get it, and that'll be in the New Covenant."

But God says, "You should know that I am in the midst of Israel. I am in the middle of everything. I am here, and I am gonna work through it. I'll be there for you." Elizabeth's response, "Thus the Lord has done for me in the days when he looked upon me to take away my reproach among people." Elizabeth had a great response for what God was doing.

She believed with faith, and she was not caused to be mute. So no excuses is another takeaway for us as we look at this idea that Mark really stressed last week, and that is to trust and obey. Those are your takeaways, [00:58:00] and we looked at the lesser woman, Elizabeth, today. A lot of great things that we can take home from her.

Our Heavenly Father, as we leave here today, we're thankful that you are at work and that even in our difficulties and our frustrations that you have something going on. I pray that you would cause us each in a very significant way this week just to pause and to hear what you're saying and to what you're doing and let us readjust and move forward as we serve you with a thankful heart.

We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.