Hanukkah and the Messiah p. 3 The Forerunner of the Messiah p

John the Baptist (John the Baptizer)

Luke 1:17 (NASB) "It is he who will go as a forerunner before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, TO TURN THE HEARTS OF THE FATHERS BACK TO THE CHILDREN, and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous, so as to make ready a people prepared for the Lord."
The word “forerunner” is also translated as one who will “go before” the Messiah in this announcement to John’s father. John the Baptist is to be the one who comes onto the scene of the nation of Israel to go before the Messiah, to prepare the way for His coming, and to announce His arrival.
Matthew 11:11a (NASB) "Truly I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist!
This amazing tribute of John the Baptist was given by Messiah Jesus near the end of John’s life. Sadly, few believers know much about John the Baptist; if this man was so praised by the Lord we should know at least some things about who he was and what he did so that we will better understand the greatness of this man in the eyes of the Messiah.
Each of the following seven points must be covered briefly which means much material will have to be left out.

His Parents: Zacharias (Zechariah) and Elizabeth.

“Zachariah means ‘Jehovah remembers’” and “Elizabeth means ‘the Oath of God.’ Put the two together and you have: ‘God remembers His oath.’” (Arnold Fruchtenbaum, Life of the Messiah Teacher’s Electronic Edition, p. 43)

Luke 1:5-23
v. 5: this is Herod the Great who was given the title of king by the Romans in 40 B.C.
Zacharias was a common priest, not a High Priest. He was from the hill country of Judea (Judah); in other words, he was a country man and not a man of the big cities like Jerusalem. The hill country rises some three thousand feet above the Mediterranean.
Today this area is the southern part of what is incorrectly called the “West Bank” to avoid the connections with the nation of Israel. The northern part is ancient Samaria.
v.5: He was a priest and Elizabeth was from a priestly family in the line of Aaron, the first High Priest of the Tabernacle (in about 1440 B.C.) who was the older brother of Moses. “of the course of Abijah”: According to the Jewish historian Josephus the priesthood, under King David and then King Solomon, had been divided into 24 “courses” of service (1 Chronicles 23:6, 24:7-18.)
v.6: Zacharias and Elizabeth were not sinless. What this means is that they offered the required sacrifices and lived in obedience to the commandments and ordinances of the Mosaic Law and thus their sins were covered.
v.7: they were childless and now well advanced in age beyond the years of childbearing (see v.18). This was considered a great tragedy in these times and some even considered it a judgment of God for sin. They had prayed for years and years for a child and it must have seen as if God was not going to answer. Yet, this failure of a positive answer to their prayers in their timing did not stop them from being faithful to the Lord (v.6).
I doubt seriously if they were still asking the Lord for this as we will see in the response of Zacharias to the angel. They probably had erroneously come to the conclusion that it was no longer possible: but the God of the impossible was about to answer their prayers (see Luke 1:37). Part of preparing the way for the Messiah was this conception of John by the intervention of God for it come six months before the miraculous conception of Messiah Jesus.
Vv.8-10: There were so many priests that a man would serve in his order only two weeks a year, one week at a time. To go into the Holy Place and serve before the Altar of Incense was something that a man did only once in a lifetime. It was by the providence of God that Zacharias was chosen to perform the service on this particular day in history!
I am confident that a priest would practice this action of burning incense on the Altar many times, but one can well imagine his nervousness for it had to be performed inexact compliance with the Mosaic Law.

His Prenatal Prophecy

Luke 1:11-17
v.11-12: According to Jewish beliefs, if an angel appeared on the right side of the Altar of Incense it meant the priest had done something wrong and that the angel was the angel of death. In other words, he thought he was going to die (A. Fruchtenbaum, ibid. p.44). Little wonder that “fear gripped (or suddenly fell on him, wrapping around him) him”!
v.13-14: these are the first spoken words from God in over 400 years; the first after the close of Malachi.
“your petition has been heard”: what prayer petition? One for a child: “your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son.” That son’s name was to be John (in Hebrew Yochanan meaning “Jehovah is gracious” or “the Lord has shown favor”). Perhaps it can be said too that Zacharias was also praying for the coming of the Messiah and he is told his son is to be the one who goes before to prepare the way for the coming Messiah.

F. B. Meyer in John the Baptist writes this to us:

We can believe in the wonder-working power of God on the distant horizon of the past, or on the equally distant horizon of the future; but that He should have a definite and particular care for our life, that our prayers should touch Him, that He should give us the desire of our heart—this staggers us, and we feel it is too good to be true.
(Meyer, F. B. (Frederick Brotherton) (2012-05-12). John the Baptist (p. 27). Kindle Edition.)
There is another lesson here we do not want to miss: God always is perfect in His timing and plans. We may not understand delays but remember: God’s delays are not always His denials!
15: John would have special requirements from birth. The prohibition on alcohol connects John with being a Nazarite (see Numbers 6:1-4).
Zacharias prophesied many things about his son John in this passage. This passage reveals how much the father of John knew his Scriptures for he refers to them over and over either directly or indirectly. The most significant for John is verses 76-77.