The Resting Place

Strength Perfected In Weakness

• Ben and Logan Robbins • Season 2 • Episode 9

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What if the place you feel most unable is the very doorway God chose for His kingdom to enter? We sit with Luke’s opening chapters and watch heaven subvert expectations: a barren couple called righteous, a priest silenced into faith, a teenage virgin overshadowed, and unpolished disciples commissioned to change the world. The theme running through every scene is startlingly consistent—power arrives where human strength runs out.

We talk about the prayer Jesus taught and why daily bread is the antidote to anxious futures. From there, we trace how comfort limits our witness. If everything you attempt can succeed without God, don’t be surprised when you rarely see what only God can do. That’s why acts of faith feel risky: praying for the sick, starting the work you can’t fund, telling the truth that could cost social approval. Dependence isn’t a feeling; it’s a structure where, unless God fills it, it fails.

Zechariah’s temple encounter becomes a map for wounded hope. These were prayers no longer prayed, dreams shelved to survive the ache. Gabriel’s announcement meets a heart formed by years of quiet obedience under loud cultural shame. We reframe his silence as mercy—space where disappointment can’t derail promise—and celebrate Elizabeth’s simple confession: how kind the Lord is; He has taken away my disgrace. Their son, John, trades prestige for the wilderness so he can become a clear voice that points to Jesus. That exchange didn’t happen in a vacuum; it was forged in a home that learned to hear from and follow God's whispers over public opinion.

We explore the law of divine restriction—how God sometimes withholds good to grow capacity for great. Think Rachel and Samuel: adversity as careful gardening so the gift can be given back to God without being lost to ego. Then we turn the lens on us: where is your contradiction—obedience without visible fruit, faithfulness with delay? Don’t flee it. That is often where revelation waits. Ask again for the prayer you buried. Build the space He actually asked you to build, then leave room only He can fill. 

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SPEAKER_03:

Hi everyone, I'm Ben.

SPEAKER_00:

And I'm Logan, and we're the Robins.

SPEAKER_03:

Welcome to the Resting Place podcast. We're gonna go back today. We have been in Luke 1 and 2. I think since when? October? At least, probably. At least October. So probably the last is that a quarter? Is that a whole quarter of the year that I've been hammered on this? That is a quarter of the year. My God, look at me. I'm teaching in quarters. Um we have been in the story of the incarnation in Luke 1 and 2 uh for the last several gatherings. And we're gonna go there again today. And I know next week we have our Christmas party. Are we making that an ugly sweater, Christmas party?

unknown:

I'm wearing one over here.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, Gina's wearing one. Bethany, are you gonna wear one for us? It's not a requirement. Lou, you got one you can wear? You got an ugly Christmas, Christmas sweater you can wear for us? I've got clothes. Okay, good. Good. I I want to see it. I'm gonna go get one specifically for the for the for the party. Really, it's because I want to go get one. Um not necessarily that we're having a a Christmas party. I just enjoy uh Christmas clothes. All right, I'm gonna read something from our book, Beginning to Pray, from page 33. Anthony Bloom, Father Anthony Bloom, Archbishop Anthony Bloom. He's an archbishop. Um and he says this, you probably remember two passages from St. Paul where he says, My power is manifest in weakness. So the last thing I taught before I launched into the incarnation was his power being made manifest in our weakness. That actually launched me into teaching on incarnation was his power being made manifest in our weakness, using the story of Mary being incapable of having a child, and his power being made manifest in her incapability of manifesting the thing he was wanting her to manifest. So he's wanting her to bring a child into the earth, and she's unable to do so, and his power was made manifest inside of her inability. This is how the economy of heaven works. This is how it works. This is how heaven manifests itself. He fills the thing that is incapable of producing what he's wanting to bring to the earth. And as a result of him filling the thing that's incapable, or the person or the effort or fill in the blank, he fills the thing. He fills the individual, he fills the endeavor, he fills the business, he fills the fill in the blank. And as a result of him coming and manifesting himself inside of that, his power is then made manifest inside of our weakness, and he brings to pass or brings into reality the thing that he's been trying to get into reality. Does that make sense? He's wanting to make Jesus manifest in the earth. So he has to go find someone that can manifest Jesus. The issue is Isaiah and several others prophesied that a virgin would give birth. So he's got to go find a virgin. So he goes and he finds Mary and says, Hey Mary, you're incapable of doing the thing that I'm asking you to do. It's perfect. It's literally perfect. I'm asking you to do something and you're incapable of it, and it's literally perfect because this is how heaven comes to earth every time. Anytime. Oh, Jesus. So Jesus taught us to pray. What we call the Lord's Prayer is actually the Apostles' Prayer. That's how it should be labeled in the scripture. It should be the apostles' prayer or the believer's prayer as opposed to the Lord's Prayer. The Lord's prayer is actually John 17. That's actually the Lord's Prayer. Launching into seeing how Jesus prayed, that's the Lord's prayer. The apostles' prayer is what we call the anyway. That's a quibble that I have, and I learned that from Damon. He has quibbles with everything, and I somehow uh gravitate towards that because I also have quibbles with most things. Um lest we make a kerfuffle. I just wanted to say kerfuffle. Um, it's a good word, it's not used enough, and it's a good word. Kerfuffle is a good word. Um so Jesus teaches the apostles to pray. And he says this our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. The thing he's teaching them to pray is, Father, bring your kingdom into the earth. And he teaches them, and everything builds off of that. So the way that you bring the kingdom into the earth is not to get too far ahead of yourself. Don't future trip. Give us this day our daily bread. Don't future trip. You start to future trip. This is why Jesus would constantly say, be anxious for nothing. I think, I think anxiety is the one socially acceptable sin in across the entirety of the church. It's okay to be anxious. When Jesus did not give us a suggestion to be anxious, he gave us a commandment not to be anxious. And the entirety of his ministry is an example of how to avoid anxiety. The entirety of his teaching is an example of how to avoid anxiety, how to not avoid it, but how to overcome anxiety would probably be a better way to say that. But he says, Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. Okay, that builds off of what I'm just saying because this. These men were incapable of doing the thing that Yeshua was going to ask them to do in a short time. Build the church. What's that? Affect whole regions with the glory of the Lord. Okay, how? Make disciples. What, huh? Go into all the earth, spreading the gospel. Okay, how are we gonna do this, Jesus? We're not capable of doing this. We're not educated enough, we're not theologians, we're not you can go down the Rolodex and find reasons why each of them should have been disqualified, and even while they're with Jesus, they disqualified themselves. Half of them are fighting all the time, half of them are wanting to kill whole villages with fire, half of them, one of them's stealing everything. He ended up killing himself because he betrayed Jesus. But Peter's denying Jesus around the fire when his testimony could have freed Jesus. And he's teaching these men to position themselves for the glory of the Lord to fill them and then cause his kingdom to be manifest in the earth through their weakness, not through their ability, through their weakness. And we've been taught our entire lives to lead through strength. We've been taught to lean on our strength, to go to do the thing that we're we're naturally inclined to. And there's some of that that's good and right, but we stop short of putting ourselves in the uncomfortable position of positioning ourselves to either have him fill what we're doing or who we are, or we'll fail. We stop short in an area called comfort, or uh I'd rather say false comfort, where we can lean on our own strengths, our own personal, our own personality, our own skills, our own ability, our own, hey, I'm pretty solid. I think I can just stop here and we'll be okay. And there's an extra step that the Lord requires of us in order to manifest his kingdom. And that extra step is that we position ourselves, that he come or we fail. That he fill us, that he fill the thing that we're doing that we believe he's asked us to. One of the, okay, so there's I'm getting off track, but this is we're gonna take this road for just a second. One of the things that Damon always teaches is we we build something, then we ask him to fill something he never asked us to build. That's not what I'm talking about. I always have his voice in the back of my mind saying, hey, you're building something, he never asked you to build it, and you're begging him to fill it. Okay, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the Lord gives us an assignment, and we stop short in that assignment, in that we go as far as our skill can take us, and we go no further. We take no further risk, we take no further chances. We don't position ourselves to fail if he doesn't come. We position ourselves to be as successful as possible inside of our own effort, which is good and right being successful through it. Does take effort. It's not by effort, but it does take some effort. There's some effort that you're gonna have to put into things. You're gonna have to give it the the uh, you know, the older folks would say the old college try. We're gonna give it the old college try. I say that all the time because I'm basically a compatriot of Lou in my mind. Um, that's how that Lou, we're we're the same age mentally, I feel like, sometimes. You're just smarter than I am. Um and we stop short in the area of saying, hey, if he doesn't come, and his strength isn't made manifest here, this whole thing's going under. This whole thing will go under if he doesn't come.

SPEAKER_02:

And this is why most never get to experience the Lord's power working through them.

SPEAKER_03:

One of the one of the one of the really obvious um ways that we can gosh, why am I talking about this? One of the really obvious ways we can st we can um one of the really obvious examples we can talk about is the ministry of healing. We can pray for it, we can ask the Lord to do it, but if you never stretch your hand out to pray for the blind, you'll never see the blind be healed. If you never stretch your hand out and put them on blind eyes and command them to open up, you'll never get to experience life coming back into that eyeball that was useless and dead. You'll never get to see it. You'll never get to watch somebody begin to hear where they couldn't hear. You'll Jesus, you'll never get to watch somebody's strength and vitality come back into their spinal cord as they're getting up. Ah man, as they're getting up out of their wheelchair, you'll never get to experience that if you don't position yourself to fail. Because really, what I'm doing every time I do that is I'm positioning myself to fail, unless his power invigorates what I'm doing. And it's the same in business endeavor, it's the same in church planting, it's the same in fill in the blank. If we don't position ourselves that way, we don't get to see his power fill the thing we're doing, and we don't get to see heaven come where he's asking us to bring heaven into earth. So the scary part about this whole thing is you have to position yourself to look like a fool. You have to. That's how it works. You have to. It's not optional.

SPEAKER_02:

Otherwise, nothing changes.

SPEAKER_03:

And he has to go find someone else that's willing to position themselves, to look like a fool, in order to do the thing he asked us to do. You probably remember two passages from St. Paul where he says, My power is manifest in weakness. Weakness is not the kind of weakness which we show by sinning and forgetting God, but the kind of weakness which means being completely supple, completely transparent, completely abandoned in the hands of God. I like that word supple. It's like a piece of leather that's been worked through to the point that it's soft to the touch and completely malleable. And you can turn that piece of leather into a bag, you can turn that piece of leather into a chair, you can turn it into car interior, you can turn that into whatever it is the hands of the maker decide to turn it into. Goes through a process to get to the place of being supple, but that's I think a really, really good word picture. Completely transparent, completely abandoned in the hands of God. And here, watch this. This is the piece that I'm that I'm hitting on right now. We usually try to be strong. We usually try to be strong and we pres Oh, this is this hits me right between the fore right between the eyeballs on my forehead. We usually try to be strong and we prevent God from manifesting his power. We usually try to be strong and prevent Yahweh from manifesting his power. Luke one. We'll start in verse five. When Herod was king of Judea, let's try that again. Hooked on phonics worked for me. That Brian Regan skit. Hooked on Ponics, work it for me. Oh, Brian Regan is still really funny. He still really is. There's a show called Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, and it's uh Seinfeld just driving old cars and picking up other comedians, and they have conversations. And Brian Regan has an episode on there. You can find it on YouTube. It's one of, if not the best episodes of the whole show. Go find that. It's very funny. Brian is just a comedic genius. Um, when Herod was king of Judea, there was a Jewish priest named Zechariah. He was a member of the priestly order of Abeah, and his wife, Elizabeth, was also from the priestly line of Aaron. Now that's important. Zechariah was a member of the member of the priestly order of Abeah, and his wife was also from the priestly line of Aaron. They were priests, the children of priests. Now, interestingly enough, in a little bit of my study uh coming into this weekend, uh Matthew Henry made a really interesting point about Herod, king of Judea. And he was an Herod was an Idommean, I think that's how you pronounce it, Ida mea. I do Ida mea, I think. I'm enough of a redneck, I'm probably doing it wrong, but he's an Idamean, Idu M-E-A-N, Ida mean, and he took over as regent of Judea as a result of being a proselyte to the Jewish religion. Although he observed no religious uh you know function and no religious order, he did that in order to be able to take over the regency of the Judean area, right? So, what had fully happened at this point in the Jewish culture is the scepter had completely left Judea. Judah, the region King David came from, the scepter had left Judea and had created the perfect environment, the prophesied environment that the Messiah might come. This had to happen in order to fulfill prophecy. There had to be a foreigner sitting on David's throne. There had to be a foreigner sitting on David's throne in order to create the perfect environment for the Messiah to come. So there was a buzz in the Judea, in all of Israel that is the Messiah coming could now be the prophesied time that we might see our salvation come. And Zechariah would have been no different, Elizabeth would have been no different. They would have been part of the priestly order that would have been expecting the coming of the Messiah. There would have been a real expectation at this time that God would finally come and manifest Himself after 400 years of silence. Maybe now is the time that he'll send our promised salvation. Zechariah and Elizabeth were, they were righteous in God's eyes, careful to obey all of the Lord's commandments and regulations. They had no children because Elizabeth was unable to unable to conceive, and they were both very old. So let's go back through that. When Herod was king of Judea, there was a Jewish priest named Zechariah. He was a member of the priestly order of Abeah, and his wife Elizabeth was also from the priestly line of Aaron. Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous in God's eyes. That's an important observation, and we'll come back to that. They were righteous in God's eyes. Careful to obey all of the Lord's commandments and regulations. They had no children because Elizabeth was unable to conceive. And they were both very old. One day, Zechariah was serving God in the temple, for his order was on duty. This is verse 8, we're going into nine, was on duty that week. Now, it's so interesting. His order was on duty that week. When the priestly line of Aaron had multiplied to the point that there were too many priests to minister at the tabernacle, David broke up the priestly line of Aaron into 24 courses. Those 24 courses were then each given a week to minister at the tabernacle. You each get a week to minister at the tabernacle, then you go home to your own synagogue. But you get a week to come to the holy place and minister before the holy of holies. And most priests, there were so many priests at this time of the priestly line of Aaron, there were so many at this time that they were casting lots. You'll see in a moment, they're casting lots to see who gets to go in and burn incense before the Ark of the Covenant. Who gets to go into the Holy of Holies and burn incense, right? Who gets to go do this, right? And it's thought that most priests would get to burn incense in the holy place one time in their life. They'd get to go in one time. Was this is it? This is some some would get more, obviously, if we're casting lots. Somebody gets lucky and maybe he gets three. Maybe he gets three shots at it. Um, but they're the thinking was that usually you're gonna get about one opportunity to go into the holy place and burn incense. I thought that was really interesting. Um, and a beah that Zechariah was a part of was the eighth course. So there's 24 courses. A beah is the eighth course, so Zechariah, his priestly order was of the eighth that would be in order, so they'd go in order, and the eighth, they were of the eighth, uh, they were of the eighth course, and it was their week to be at the to be at the uh the holy place. One day Zechariah was serving God in the temple, for his order was on duty that week. As was the custom of the priests, he was chosen by lot to enter the sanctuary of the Lord and burn incense. While the incense was being burned, a great crowd stood outside praying. Can you imagine the excitement this man had? He's very old, and this is very likely his first opportunity to burn incense before the Lord in the holy place. Golly. He had to I mean, if I'm sitting here thinking about it, this is the priestly order, this is kind of the pinnacle of what they do. They burn incense before the Lord in the holy place. This is the pinnacle of his profession. And he's finally getting to go to the place that he's been wanting to go since he was a child in synagogue school. He's being educated in the way of the priesthood, and he's dreaming about burning incense before the Lord. This is the pinnacle of the priestly order. We're burning incense before the Lord in the holy place. As was the custom of the priest, he was chosen by Lot to enter the sanctuary of the Lord and burn incense. While the incense was being burned, a great crowd stood outside praying. While Zechariah was in the sanctuary, an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing to the right of the incense altar. Zechariah was shaken and overwhelmed with fear when he saw him. But the angel of the Lord said, Don't be afraid, Zechariah. God has heard your prayer. God has heard your prayer. I want to open it up and show you something. In Dr. Simmons' translation of this. These are prayers being answered that he has not prayed for quite some time. Zechariah was not currently praying for a child because it would have been impossible for him to have a child at this point because his wife was past the age of being able to bear a child. She was barren, she was barren, she's unable to have a child. Secondly, she's now too old to have a child. It's doubly impossible. So I'm sure that they were praying for it when they were first married, and then for the first several years of their marriage, they're continuing to pray for it. And as she's aging, they're continuing to pray for the Lord to give them a child. Why are they continuing to pray for the Lord to give them a child? It's much different in that culture than it is in our culture. Childbearing is much different in that culture than in our culture. It was viewed as a great blessing from the Lord to have children. Children were seen as a great blessing from Almighty Yahweh. And being barren, this is so interesting. Being barren, both Matthew Henry and Adam Clark agree. They said almost the exact same thing about barrenness. They said that it would have been, that it would have been not just a disgrace to not be able to be, not be able to have children. It would have been a sign of the displeasure of the Lord, and the one who was not able to conceive would have been considered to be guilty of a great secret sin. They would have been judged guilty by everyone around them through their inability to have children. But what does Yahweh say about them? Luke, who through his own confession was very meticulous and putting together his order of the gospel, he says, he says it this way. Having carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I also have decided to write a careful account for you, most honorable Theophilus, so that you can be certain of the truth of everything you were taught. He's meticulous in gathering information, and he says this about them. It would have been as though they were outcasts inside of their own community. Elizabeth comes around and all the women whisper. I'm sure there were women that would have nothing to do with Elizabeth because she was unable to bear children. And can you imagine for a moment with me the tension that that would put these two in? We're careful to obey all the Lord's regulations. We've searched ourselves, we have, we're not, we're imperfect, we fall short, but we're always endeavoring to come up to the calling that the Lord's given us. And we're still unable to conceive why is Yahweh displeased with me? Can you imagine the tension that this would put them in? They're fine. Compounded by the fact that they were raised in priestly households. So this sort of thinking would have been in their subconscious. It would have been part of them from the time they were old enough to start to observe what was going around in the world around them. There are some studies that show your subconscious starts teaching you how to act from the age of six months old and onward. And even younger, some say younger, your brain starts to figure out what's socially acceptable and not socially acceptable from the time that you're an infant unable to move. You start to observe things and the social norms of things. So their subconscious would have been fully trained in this sort of thinking, and their thinking would have been, Yahweh is displeased with me. And generally, someone who's unable to be, someone who's unable to bear a child would be guilty of a great secret sin, but I can't find secret sin in my life. Can you imagine? Can you imagine the kind of tension that puts you in? I can't find a secret sin, so why is he so pissed off at me? Why is he so mad at me that I'm unable to bear a child and I've got no guilt before the Lord in my own heart that I can find? And they're praying the prayers of David Search me, O Lord, know my ways, purge me with hyssop that I might be clean. And they're going through the Psalms and praying these prayers constantly. I'm sure they prayed those prayers on a daily basis. Search me, know my ways, cleanse me of all unrighteousness, bring me into a place of holiness before you so that you can be pleased with me enough that I can have a child. And the angel shows up and has the nerve to say, The prayers you have been praying have been answered. What prayer? What prayers that I've been praying? I've not prayed prayers in years at this point. I'm so old at this point that I've given up on the prayers that I have been praying. That's where he was sitting. He prayed these prayers with all his heart for years. And then when it was impossible for it to come to pass, he would have stopped. It's not like he's out there, it's not like he's out there grinding every day, still praying the give me a child, give me a child, give me a. He had come to terms with, and you can see it in his reaction, he had come to terms with the fact that he was gonna serve his God regardless of whether or not he was given a child. And it looks like he was not gonna be honored with a child, so he was gonna bear the disgrace of having no children and continue to righteously observe all the commandments of the Lord to the best of his ability. This man was full of a level of integrity that is hard to imagine. Faithful to continue to do all the Lord commands, even though the one thing his heart desired was not being granted to him. And it looked like it was Yahweh's fault that was happening. And I want to tell you Yahweh was in it. I'm gonna get ahead of myself, I'm gonna keep reading. Don't be afraid, Zechariah. God has heard your prayer. Your wife Elizabeth will give you a son, and you are to name him John. You will have great joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the eyes of the Lord. He must never touch wine or other alcoholic drinks. He will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before his birth. Which is all right. That's exactly what happened. Which is unbelievable to me because the Holy Spirit's not yet available. That gift is not yet available, and the Lord's jumping the shark and saying, Hey, we're gonna make this available to your boy even before he's born. And he will turn many Israelites to the Lord their God. He will be a man with the spirit and power of Elijah. He will prepare the people for the coming of the Lord, he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and he will cause those who are rebellious to accept to accept the wisdom of the godly. Zechariah said to the angel, now this is how we know Zechariah was had resigned himself to his fate of never having a child. This is how we know. Zechariah said to the angel, How can I be sure this will happen? I'm an old man now, and my well my wife is well along in years. And we know what happens next. The angel, then the angel, I love his response. Then the angel, oh, then the angel said, I am Gabriel. I stand in the very presence of God. Man, you know you messed up. Here's there's there's the old uh redneck comedy tour, blue-collar comedy tour where they would do that whole segment, Here's Your Sign. This was Gabriel saying to him, Here's your sign, son. I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of Yahweh. Here's shut up. Um it was he who sent me to bring you this good news. He's so offended that Zechariah's unable to get on board. Well, Gabriel, you hadn't had your whole life turned upside down by Yahweh's displeasure against you your whole life, and been taught by everybody around you that Yahweh's so displeased with you and you must have some secret sin. And you better repent, Zechariah, or you're never gonna have a baby. And Zechariah, I don't understand what's so wrong with you that you can't have a baby. You seem to be righteous. You must be sinning in your heart, Zechariah. You must be full of pride. You must be full of arrogance before the Lord, Zechariah. And any time that he went to do something righteously before the Lord out of a pure heart, it would have been judged as it would have been judged as pride and arrogance. And everybody that looked at him was dissecting everything he did, trying to tell him why he couldn't have a baby. And Gabriel's offended that this man who has been so browbeaten for the entirety of his priesthood would say, I don't know if this can happen, guys. Yahweh's so displeased with me, I must be hallucinating. It's the incense, I'm hallucinating. I don't think I can believe this. And I've heard ministers give Zachariah a bad rap. I don't think those ministers have had to deal with the level of adversity this man had to deal with. Otherwise, they'd shut their mouths. The amount of judgment that this man sat under from the entirety of his priestly order, his entire life, would have caused him to look that angel in the eye and say, I don't think I can do it. It would have been so beaten into him that this was Yahweh's judgment against his arrogance, his pride, his self-absorption, whatever it may be. And he's doing the best he can to have a pure heart before the Lord. I can't imagine the tension he was under. And Gabriel is offended that he's unable to believe. And we sit here in judgment of the man and think, well, my God, if the angel Gabriel showed up to me, I'd sure get on board with it and I'd be shouting hallelujah and running a lap around the holy place and saying, Yes, Lord, I receive. No, you wouldn't. You're a liar. You know how I know you're a liar? You can't even get on board with the word of the Lord having experienced no adversity in your life. And you're telling me a man who's seen nothing but adversity, nothing but exclusion, nothing but judgment, and hearing the word of the Lord, his first result ought to be yes and amen. I think his first result was to measure what was being said to him, and rightly so. He didn't want to put his heart in position to be destroyed one more time. I don't got it in me. I'm old, my wife is old, this can't happen, I'm hallucinating. And I've heard, I've heard, listen, I've heard ministers destroy this man's character over this, and they don't have a thimble of the character that Zechariah had. Righteous before the Lord, doing his best to serve a God who he believed was judging him, and he couldn't figure out why. I stand in the very presence of God. It was he who sent me to bring you this good news. But now, since you didn't believe what I said to you, you will be silent, unable to speak until the child is born. For my words will certainly be fulfilled at the proper time. You will be silent, unable to speak, and I've heard ministers, including Pop, teach that Zechariah had to be silenced until he could come into agreement with the word of the Lord because his mouth was the only thing that could abort what the Lord wanted to do. I think there's some I think there's some application there, but I don't necessarily know that I agree with that. I think Zechariah was so soaked in disappointment. I think he was so soaked in disappointment and the judgment of everyone around him that the Lord needed to give him space to meditate on the word of the Lord until the word of the Lord came to pass. I think Zechariah was more full of faith. I think he was more full of faith than we give him credit for. I read this, I was studying yesterday, and I kind of got mad for Zechariah. All these years we've been talking bad about this man. And I saw, I saw what this man had been through and the trial and the trial, the contradiction, the stress, everything, the judgment, everything that had been cast against him. And when Gabriel came and said, You're going to have to now be silent, Zechariah, I think this. I think Zechariah only knew disappointment, and he wasn't going to allow disappointment to impact what the Lord was doing. So he said, I see your disappointed heart, and I'm going to have to silence that disappointment because I'm bringing fullness of joy. The angel of the Lord says, You have to be silent, for my words will certainly both be fulfilled at the proper time. Meanwhile, the people were waiting for Zechariah to come out of the sanctuary. Watch this. Wondering why he was taking so long. Wondering why he would did he die? Did the judgment of the Lord finally catch up to him and he's being judged for the secret sin in his heart? That would have been the whisper. Not, not in my mind. Someone's in there. In my mind, it's so foreign to my mind. My mind is like, there's something's going on. The Lord is moving. He's had a vision. He's got caught up into the third heaven. Something has happened. Maybe he's having a vision like Ezekiel did, and he's dumbfounded and has to lay on his side for the next year. I don't know. Something crazy has gone on with this man's time in the holy place. Of course, the Lord has manifested himself to him. And these people are outside completely opposite. His secret sin finally caught up to him, and the Lord finally judged him. Finally, judgment has come to the house of Zechariah. He's deserved it all these years. I always knew he was prideful, and finally, the Lord has killed him for his pride. That would have been the overarching thought of everyone outside. And meanwhile, the angel is announcing to him that your wife is going to give birth to what Jesus will call the greatest man ever born of a woman. The contrast is mind blowing to me. Meanwhile, the people were waiting outside for Zachariah to come out of the sanctuary, wondering why he was taking so long. When he finally did come out, he couldn't speak to them. Then they realized from his gestures and his silence that he must have seen a vision in the sanctuary. When Zechariah's week of service in the temple was over, he returned home. Soon afterward his wife Elizabeth became pregnant. The shock here Good Lord, for that poor woman. The shock for this poor woman. She's already gone through menopause. This is not a thing. She's she's she's no longer got her her monthly period, she's no longer able to bear children. She's just totally over it, and all of a sudden. In and of itself. Oh man, soon afterward his wife Elizabeth became pregnant and went into seclusion for five months. This is her confession. How kind the Lord is, she exclaimed. How kind the Lord is, he has taken away my disgrace. The unanswered cry of her heart had finally been answered, and her response was, He's so kind. Golly, not why'd it take so long? Not why did it have to be this way? Not why when I'm an old woman and this is going to be extraordinarily challenging. This woman had to be so full of vitality because when Mary comes into her home, she jumps up and says, I picture her kind of like an old Pentecostal, just jumping at the drop of a hat and shouting. And her response to the Lord giving her what she had asked for and stopped at. The what's profound about this to me is they stopped asking. They weren't currently asking. These prayers had been unanswered, and they tucked them away on the shelf as this is not going to get answered. Accepted it. Culturally, children go ahead Yeah, exactly, exactly. We're not good enough. We're going to leave it there. Culturally, children were seen as a blessing from Yahweh. If children were viewed that way by their culture, how would being childless or barren then be viewed? Both Adam Clark and Matthew Henry agree that being unable to bear children would be seen as a major disgrace. It would be seen as a sign of the displeasure of the Lord, and a person who was unable to conceive would be seen as being guilty of a great sin. Being childless would have been seen in a similar way as disease was seen in that time. We can see this when the disciples say to Jesus, Who sinned that this man was born blind, him or his parents? Neither, but that you would see the glory of the Lord made manifest in his life, that was Jesus' response. But it would have been viewed in a very similar way, in the same way that leprosy and blindness were viewed as judgments of God against a household for great sin, being barren would have been considered the same thing. It would have been a disgrace to the woman and to the woman's parents. It would have been a disgrace to the man and his parents. The entire family would have been disgraced by their inability to bear a child. So we find here a great contradiction. And what have I been saying for six months? Damon has always taught us, what has he always taught us? Revelation is found in the middle of two seemingly contradictory truths. In the middle of two seeming contradictions, you find revelation. And I've been saying for six months now, in the middle of the contradictory places in your life where you can't seem to understand why this has gone the way that it has gone, because you have done your best to position yourself, to be faithful to the word of the Lord. In that place, life is found. There's a life that is a life that Jesus calls life and life more abundant. I've come to give you life to the full. That's how Dr. Simmons says it. The old King James says life and life more abundantly. The old church used to sing a song more abundantly, and you sing it right now, I'd probably run. In the middle of the contradiction, we find life. That's where Yahweh's waiting for you. That's where Yahweh is waiting for you. In the middle of the I don't understand why this has gone this way. In the middle of that place is where you find Yahweh. And our avoidance of those places have caused us to miss him. Our avoidance of the I don't understand. It's positioning yourself in vulnerability and weakness that allows us to find him because I don't understand at all why this has gone the way that it has gone and why it's doing what it's doing. I don't understand. I don't get it. Why has it gone on so long? Why hasn't it stopped? Why has this it's beyond my control to do anything about it? I can't do anything about it. It's genetic, it's whatever it is. I can't do anything about it, and I hate it. Where's Yahweh in all of this? You'll find him there. You'll find him there, Zachariah, and he's waiting to take away your disgrace. So we find here a great contradiction. Two righteous ones who were being judged by everyone around them as being guilty of a great sin and unworthy to have children. You know what Dr. Simmons says in verse 36 of Gabriel's visit to Mary as he's declaring to her she's gonna bear the Messiah, she's gonna bring the Son of God into the earth. You know what Dr. Simmons says? Your cousin Elizabeth, the barren one, is in her sixth month. That would have been what everyone called her. The barren one is giving you permission to bear the Messiah. The barren one has become pregnant, and because the barren one became pregnant, you're now able to do something that you should be unable to do. I've already touched on it, but Zechariah and Elizabeth were raised as priests. They were the children of priests, and Zechariah inherited his priesthood from his father. And Yahweh was looking for someone to bear a messenger. Oh man. He's looking for someone that can raise a messenger that can prepare the way for his son. He's looking for someone that can raise the man that he can send Elijah to rest on. I heard Damon say recently that he believes Elijah's a spirit even more than Elijah was a man. He's gonna be one that the spirit and power of Elijah will rest on. That's who your son's gonna be, Zachariah. He's gonna be one that's gonna be so great that Jesus will say again of him, There's never been a man born, there's never been a greater man born of a woman than this man. Oh. He's gonna be the first one who can look at one and say the fulfillment has come. No one else was capable of seeing what John saw until John saw it. You're gonna have to raise a messenger who's able to look at the systemic religion of the day and while honoring your heritage, look at it and say, This is not sufficient for me to be able to do what I'm called to do. So I'm gonna do something unheard of, and I'm not going to inherit my father's priesthood. I'm gonna do something different. I'm gonna go to the wilderness because if I inherit my father's priesthood, what's going to happen is that sort of thinking will disqualify me from me, hallelujah, from being able to look at the one that I'm supposed to be able to look at and say, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Yahweh needed a man who had been forged in adversity to be able to raise a son who could look at Jesus and say, He's here. Because no other priest was able to do it. No synagogue leader was able to do it. None of the other priestly order was able to do it. John in the river looked at Yeshua and said, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. After doing the ministry of preparation, of baptism to remove sin. John looks at the John looks at the priest that gets sent to him from Jerusalem and said, Who told you, brood of vipers, to run from the judgment to come? You know, the judgment to come was Yeshua finishing the law. They had so married themselves to the law that John says, There's one coming to finish the thing you worship. You no longer worship Yahweh, you worship the, you worship the law and the sacraments of the law. They have become your idols. And you now have to you know you now need to repent of your worship of that sort of thinking. You've got to come out of it. And if you won't, Jesus is gonna finish that thing, and you'll be so offended you'll want to crucify him. And John looked at that and was able to say, I reject, I honor my heritage, but I reject the pieces of that thinking that will not allow me to fulfill what Yahweh's put on my life? What kind of man would be able to raise that kind of man? That's where my head went next. What kind of man is able to raise one who's content to wear camel's hair, eat locusts and wild honey, and live in the wilderness when he could have been in the temple and wealthy? The priests were massively wealthy. They were the wealthiest class inside of Israel. He gave up great riches, great wealth, great comfort, and great prestige. Can you imagine how prestigious he would have been inside of the priestly order had he stayed the one who was born after they were unable to have a child? He would have been the prodigy inside of the priestly order. The prodigy inside of the priestly order looks at the priestly order and says, Your way of thinking is not sufficient to usher in the Messiah, so I reject that, and I'm gonna go somewhere else so that I can be forged into the kind of man that can bring the Messiah. Hallelujah, that can prepare the way for the Messiah's public ministry. What kind of man, Lou, has to be what kind of man is able to raise that kind of man? And he would have had to have divorced himself from other people's opinions.

SPEAKER_01:

That that was in his DNA to do what he did, but you say otherwise, who would want that kind of life?

SPEAKER_03:

Nobody. Nobody would do that. You know who did it? Someone who was raised by a man who had been judged by the priesthood his entire life. And when Yahweh finally answered his prayer, he taught his son not to listen to the whispers around him. You listen to that still small voice, son, and you follow what that says. And if they want to say you're full of a devil, let them say you're full of a devil. Every man's opinion be hanged, son. You be true to who Yahweh has called you to be. And he raised him in the way that he should go. He's the perfect example of Jesus saying, Fathers, raise your sons in the way they should go. Zechariah's the perfect example of that. Raise him in the way he should go.

SPEAKER_01:

And Zechariah is an example of a reformed man having gone through his trial of being unable to speak all that time. Most of that time.

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Most of it.

SPEAKER_01:

Always thinking in his mind. That's all he couldn't think.

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That's the kind of matter would find Jesus.

SPEAKER_03:

Spirit-filled man. Last thing I'm gonna say, and then I'll be done. Damon has a concept that he teaches, and I've heard him teach this for years. It's called the law of divine restriction. It's called the law of divine restriction. What do you mean? He always uses this example when he begins to teach about the law of divine restriction. He uses the example of Elkanah or El Kana, Rachel, and Panina. Rachel being Samuel's mother, and Panina being Elkanah's second wife. El Cana, Samuel's father in the Old Testament, Rachel, Samuel, Samuel's mother, and Elkanah, and uh Panina. It says this, that Panina had so Panina had so many children that she tormented Rachel because Rachel was unable to bear children. Now, what did I just say? Being unable to bear children would have been viewed as being guilty of some great sin. So Panina would have been seen as righteous, and Rachel would have been seen as unrighteous. And Rachel's misery caused El Cana to say to her, Am I not better to you than ten sons? But you never hear anything of Panina's children. You don't hear another verse in all of Scripture about the exploits and the deeds and the great the greatness of Panina's children. But Rachel's son became the most prominent judge in all the history of the judges in all of Israel, the one who crowned David to be king, the man who it was said of him that none of his words fell to the ground. That's what sort of greatness was supposed to come out of Rachel. And because that sort of greatness was supposed to come out of Rachel, Yahweh restricted her from being able to produce something until she was at a point that she could produce that greatness. He meticulously gardened her interior world to the point that she was able to go to the tabernacle and look drunk. Give me a son. And if you'll give me a son, I'll let you have him all his days. I just want to have a son. And Yahweh said, I've gardened your interior world with adversity to the point that you're able to hand everything that comes out of you back over to me. Now you're ready to give birth to the greatness that's on the inside of you. And I want to say he did the same thing to John's mother and father. He did the same thing to Zechariah and Elizabeth. I'm going to restrict you because what I have designed to come out of you is so great that I can't let it happen until I get you to the point that you're able to do what I've asked you to do. And the way that he always does this is through adversity. He uses adversity as a tool to garden our interior world to the point that it's able to give birth to the thing that he's designed us to give birth to. Does he send the adversity? No, not always. Does he use the adversity 100% of the time? 100% of the time he'll use it. 100% of the time he'll use it. 100% of the time. Well, how do you know that what the devil meant for evil, God has turned and used for good? What was supposed to kill me, God has turned and used for good. Yahweh was in the middle of their contradiction. Yahweh was fashioning and forming a man that could raise a son that could look a prestigious, a prestigious lifestyle, a prestigious life in the eyeballs and say, I think I'd rather go be covered in camel's hair. I think I'd rather go eat locusts and wild honey. I think I'd rather go be a desert father. I think I'd rather go be a mystic. Because the infrastructure you've got here is all wrong for me being able to make the announcement I need to make, so I'm going to go find an infrastructure that's capable of it. Last thing I'll say. I felt like I heard a whisper, and I feel like it's for my house personally, but I feel like it, I feel like it rings true for the resting place and for the families that are connecting. I felt like I heard the Lord say in 2026, He's going to remove your disgrace. Elizabeth said when her prayer was answered, the Lord is kind and has removed my disgrace. And I have to make my peace with the fact that this is never going to happen. And I feel like the Lord said in 2026, I'm going to start removing that disgrace from you. I'm going to start bringing to pass the things that I've said. Hallelujah, the things that I've said over you. I'm going to start to bring the, ah, man. I'm going to start to bring to pass the things that I've said over you. I'm going to start to bring these things to pass. I'm going to start to answer these prayers that you've prayed that you've just about given up on. The ones that you've said may never happen.