Sermon Tone Analysis

*Introduction* – Some discouraged soul wrote the following limerick:

God’s plan made a hopeful beginning,

But man spoiled his chances by sinning.

We trust that the story

Will end in God’s glory,

But, at present, the other side’s winning.

Sure seems that way, doesn’t it?

But I have good news this morning.

In the end, God wins.

That’s the burden of the 2nd half of Mary’s Magnificat that we began week.

She magnified Him personally in Lu 1:46-50 – now prophetically (51-56) where God’s past acts form a pattern or model for ultimate fulfillment in Christ.

She enlarges God thru prophetic history.

Luke 1:51-55 revolves around 5 verbs describing God’s actions – He has shown strength, scatter the proud, etc.

All English version translate past tense, normal for the Greek aorist tense.

But these are prophetic aorists – meaning that while rooted in the past, they look to ultimate fulfillment in the future.

Mary sees God has modeled in the past where history is going ultimately.

And the child she bears is the key to a great consummation.

These verbs describe a reversal of all the havoc wrecked by sin on the human race.

Sin turned everything upside down.

That’s why it looks like the other side is winning at present!

But -- In the end, God wins – and He wins in spectacular fashion.

Peter notes in II Peter 3: 3) knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.

4 They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming?

For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.”

The world assumes things will never change.

But God is saying, “Get ready!

Reversal and restoration is on coming!”

*I.

Perspective Reversal – (God over man)*

Lu 1:51, “He has shown strength with his arm.”

Man reigns today.

God is mocked – His power denied; His salvation rejected.

Believers are considered fools, but the shoe will be reversed when He is revealed for all to see.

History – God has revealed His strength in many ways historically.

Who else could have created the universe?

Who else could have caused a worldwide flood?

Who but God could have created plagues that mocked all the pagan gods of Egypt to set His people free?

Who but God could have predicted the future time after time after time with absolute precision?

God has shown His strength constantly in history, but man prefers his own sufficiency.

Prophecy – But history is going somewhere, Beloved.

It is not meaningless.

Prophetically, God’s strength is ultimately be demonstrated in Jesus.

It is demonstrated there in two stages – His first and His second coming.

There is a dramatic preview at the cross.

Humanity mistakenly sees the cross as weakness and failure!

God’s perspective was prophesied 700 years before in Isa 52:10, “The LORD has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.”

Like Mary’s prophesy, this has both a near and long term fulfillment.

Think about it.

How is it that the whole world knows about the obscure death by crucifixion of one single man in history?

How did that happen?

It happened because it is the time and place where God bared his holy arm to provide salvation.

Yet most people choose self and deny the strength of God demonstrated at the cross to their eventual destruction.

But a day is coming!

The Bible describes it in Rev 1:7, “Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him.”

There will be no denying Him then or ever again!

Believers will be vindicated in dramatic fashion.

The Bible says that at that time “every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father.”

Rejecters from all time will forever removed, and God’s supremacy over man will never again be in dispute.

“It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God.”

In the end, God wins.

That’s why it is so important to magnify Him now, accepting Him by faith.

*II.

Moral Reversal – Humble exalted (Humility over pride)*

Second phrase Lu 1:51, “he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.”

Second phrase Lu 1:52, “and exalted those of humble estate.”

Today, it appears that those who are proud are winning.

Self-promotion is the way of the world we live in.

But God prizes humility.

He’s not into human ego!

History – God subtly illustrates this throughout history.

He consistently chooses the younger over the elder.

Abel and then Seth over Cain.

Isaac over Ishmael.

Jacob over Esau.

Moses over Aaron.

David over 7 older brothers.

There is a message there.

God exalts “those of humble estate.”

Perhaps no example is more compelling than Nebuchadnezzar.

This great king of Babylon was justifiably proud of the world power he built.

But He continually minimized God’s revelation.

Early in his career, in Daniel 2, he gets a prophetic dream outlining history.

When his own magicians could not replay and interpret the dream he threatened death.

But the young captive Daniel, still in his teens and attending the U. of Babylon, came to the rescue, interpreted the dream, crediting God.

What a privileged revelation!

And in Daniel 2:41, the king responds, “Truly, your God is God of gods and Lord of kings, and a revealer of mysteries, for you have been able to reveal this mystery.”

Sounds impressive, doesn’t it?

Except that Neb was simply accepting Daniel’s God as one deity among many.

Not nearly big enough.

Soon we find Neb building a model of his dream statue, with a face that looked suspiciously like his own, no doubt, and requiring everyone to bow down to it.

When 3 of Daniel’s Hebrew friends refused, they were thrown into a fiery furnace.

Amazingly they survived, and so we are told in Dan 3:28-30 that Neb blessed their God (note, not his, but theirs), and commanded that no one speak ill of that God.

He gave the boys promotions – but he didn’t yet get the picture.

God is trying; he’s not listening.

Fast forward 30 years.

Neb gets another dream.

The interpretation predicts that due to pride, Neb will lose his reason and live like an animal for 7 years.

God gives him a year to repent to no avail: Daniel 4:29, “At the end of twelve months he was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon, 30 and the king answered and said, “Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?”

No repentance, no change, no credit to God.

But these words were barely out of his mouth before Neb’s reason shut down.