Today we're turning to Luke's Gospel, Chapter 1. Luke's Gospel, Chapter 1, we'll begin our reading in the verse 26 of the Word of God, this chapter, Luke Chapter 1, and we'll begin our reading at verse number 26. The Word of God says, and in the sixth month That is referring to the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy. In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God onto a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph. of the house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her and said, Heal thou that are highly favored. The Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favor with God. And behold, thou shalt conceive in thy woman, bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest. And the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David. And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee. Therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. Behold thy cousin Elizabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren. For with God nothing shall be impossible. Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her. And Mary arose in those days and went into the hill country with haste into a city of Judah, and entered into the house of Zacharias and saluted Elizabeth. It came to pass that when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leapt in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost. And she spake out with a loud voice and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For though, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leapt in my womb for joy. And blessed is she that believed, for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord. And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. He hath regarded the lowly state of his handmaiden, for behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. For he that is mighty hath done to me great things, and holy is his name. And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation. He has showed strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seats and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with good things. and the rich he has sent empty away. He has holtened his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy, as he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed forever. And Mary abode with her about three months, and returned to her own house. We'll end there at verse 56. And we'll pray before we bring the Word of God to our hearts. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank Thee that there is coming a day when Christ shall return to this world. We praise Thee, O God, for the great and glorious day that is still before us, when all the nations of this world and all the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. We bless Thee that we're on the right side, those of us who are saved. We're on the right side, we're on the Lord's side. And Lord, we're waiting with anticipation, with, oh God, expectation, with gladness within our souls that Christ is soon to come. And we praise Thee that this old sinful world will be no more and we shall ever enter in. to be with thee. Bless us as we meet around thy word. Lord, speak to us, challenge us, encourage us. Lord, whatever the need would be today, may our hearts be filled with gladness and joy, even as we meet, O God, together around the open word. We offer prayer, praying for the help of thy spirit, for both preacher and hearer alike. Fill me with thy spirit, I pray. For I offer prayer in and through the Savior's precious and all-glorious name. Amen and amen. As we approach the time of year when we remember the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ, and whenever that great event is at the very forefront of our minds, I find myself directed to this portion of God's Word in Luke's Gospel, chapter number 1. Within this chapter, we have the details of two miraculous births that were going to take place in the land of Israel. For 400 years, heaven had been silent, but now in the space of just six months, two unique personalities are about to step onto the stage of Israel's history. and of the history of the world. Both of these personalities had miraculous births, miraculous circumstances surrounding their births. The first birth was that of John the Baptist, miraculous in the sense that his parents Zacharias and Elizabeth were well on in years, Elizabeth beyond the years of childbirth or childbearing, and yet John comes into their home and into their family. What a miracle his birth was. But a greater birth was about to take place six months after his birth, and that was the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a birth that is connected with a young Nazarene girl, a girl called Mary. She's been chosen by God to be the mother of the Christ child. The details of how that comes to pass and how Mary comes to be informed of the news is recorded for us in the verse that we began our reading in this afternoon, in the verse number 26. There's Penman, the inspired Penman, Mark, tells us that a heavenly messenger In the form of Gabriel the archangel is sent by God from heaven to speak to Mary. This is not Gabriel's first visit to earth, but rather it is his third. He has already visited Daniel in the days of Daniel the prophet. Over there in Daniel chapter 9 in the verse 21 we find that Gabriel is sent by God to speak to Daniel. Gabriel also has been sent already in this chapter, chapter 1 of Luke's gospel, and the verse number 19, he has been sent to the man who has been fulfilling the priestly office, the man by the name of Zacharias. And the angel answered and said unto him, verse 19, I am Gabriel that stand in the presence of God, and I am sent to speak unto thee, to show thee these glad tidings. But on this occasion, when he comes to speak to Mary, Gabriel is not sent to some royal palace in Babylon, neither is he sent to the temple precincts in Jerusalem, but rather he is sent to an insignificant, poverty-stricken, backward, outlying city of Israel to the west of the Sea of Galilee, to a city called Nazareth. Sent there by God, he comes with a message. the message that the long-awaited Messiah is about to enter into the world. Luke tells us that trouble and fear fills Mary's heart. That is her first response to this announcement, that she would conceive in her womb the very Christ child. And yet, though perplexed by that news, Mary humbly submits herself to it, declaring in verse 38, behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word. Here's a woman who gladly submits to the will of God within her life. I suppose we could make application there. Of course, we can gladly submit to God's will in our lives when that will brings us into times of wealth and times of prosperity, times of fruitfulness within our ministry. But it's more difficult to submit ourselves to God's will when we find ourselves on beds of sickness. When troubles in the home, troubles in the marriage, whenever there's financial restraints and constraints on our lives, when it seems to be that there's barrenness, it's more difficult to submit ourselves to the will of God then. And yet here's a young girl, some believe only in her early teens, a young girl who submits herself to the will of God. Now while she converses with the angel Gabriel, Mary is told by Gabriel that her cousin Elizabeth is with child. This is communicated to Mary for a specific reason. You see Mary could have very easily thought that she was hallucinating. When she met the angel Gabriel, I'm sure she had to pinch herself as she thought about this high honor that was going to be bestowed upon her, that she was going to become the mother of the Christ of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And so this fact that Elizabeth is now pregnant, something again that is outstanding, is given to Mary in order that she might then attest to the truth of all that she has been told about her pregnancy, her miraculous pregnancy. She's going to be able to attest to the fact that all that she's been told is true. And so the natural response of Mary is to leave Bethlehem behind or leave Nazareth behind and to make her way to the hill country. where Zacharias and Elizabeth lived. She does it to affirm the veracity of all that she's been told about herself and about her cousin Elizabeth. She's just been told that something impossible is about to happen. Frankly, something that is unimaginable is going to take place in her life. She's going to become the mother of the Messiah. She's going to bear the very holy offspring of God. She's going to, as it were, be moved upon by the Holy Spirit, and that holy thing in her is going to be called the very Son of God. And it's going to happen while she's still a virgin. This is a miracle. This is miraculous. This is something that has never happened before in this world and will never happen again. And so, as I said, the natural response is for her to leave Nazareth behind and to make her way to a city of Judah. It is a journey of some 75 to 85 miles. Three to four days it would have taken her to get to the homestead of Zacharias. as a custom of the day was when Mary arrives, she salutes Elizabeth, her cousin. Now we must not think when we read the words salutation or saluting, we must not think that that simply refers to the raising of a hand to the brow as what a soldier would do when they meet or salute a superior officer. That is not the saluting that we have referred to in this portion of God's Word. Rather, the saluting process would have been a lengthy process. It would have involved, first of all, the embracing of someone, and then there would have been the kissing of that individual, and then in some form of dialogue, a blessing, conversation would have been had. Some Bible commentators believe that this salutation would have lasted two to three hours. News would have been brought. And as a result, people informed of all that had been happening in their lives. This is all that is contained within the salutation. Now we know that words were expressed in the salutation because of little details that we have here in the chapter. Verse 41, we read there, Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary. She heard. There are words that are being spoken. Verse 45, Elizabeth again, she speaks off the salutation with respect to, sorry, verse number 44, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears. And so there is the allusion, there is the thought that words are being expressed. The spoken word is given. The greeting of Mary to Elizabeth causes John the Baptist to leap within her womb. It is a reminder to us all that even children inside the womb, they are aware of that which happens outside of the womb. John the Baptist hears the salutation and his leaping within the womb is an affirmation that all that his mother is saying is prophetically and is true. It is a sign, it is a seal. He literally is prophesying within the womb. Don't forget that John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Ghost from the womb. That's a miracle. Here's a family, Zacharias, Elizabeth, John the Baptist, all filled with the Spirit of God. Elizabeth, she speaks to Mary, she informs Mary of the happenings inside the womb. And then she makes the following joyous pronouncement, having herself been filled with the Holy Ghost. She says in verse number 42, among women, blessed is the fruit of thy womb." Verse 45, "'And blessed is she that believeth, for there shall be performance of those things which were told her of the Lord.'" What Mary sees in the six-month pregnancy of Elizabeth, what Mary hears with respect to Elizabeth's pronouncement, even the expression of joy from John the Baptist from inside the womb. All of these three strands, these three strands, they are brought together that enables now this young woman from Nazareth to accept all that God has communicated to her through the angel Gabriel is true. I am going to be the mother of the Son of God. But what I want you to note today is Mary's response. This simple uneducated village maiden from Nazareth. She becomes a podest. And she begins singing a composition. She begins singing a song that had never been heard of until that very moment of time. And it is that composition, it is that song, it is that sonnet that I want us to consider over the next two weeks. as we come to remember the one who came into this world and who came down from earth to heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ. The title to the twofold message is simply Mary's Song. Mary's Song. I want you to notice one main truth today concerning Mary's Song, simply the activity she involved herself in, the activity that Mary involved herself in. With all of her doubts now being erased, and all of her questions to some degree having now been answered, and her faith having now been settled, Mary now breaks forth into singing. Verse 46, and Mary said, my soul doth magnify the Lord. Here's a woman who has mastered the art of praise. Here's a woman who has mastered the art of worship. We don't find her here complaining about the rumor and the counter rumor that is sure to occur because of her unplanned pregnancy. She doesn't murmur about the difficulties and the sleepless nights that she's going to have to face as a new mother with the coming of the Christ or a child into the home. No, rather we find her bursting out into song and into praise. She sings. She sings a song. Singing is an act by which the soul renders homage to God. It is an act by which the heart adores God. We find that the morning stars sang together and the sons of God shouted for joy on creation's morning. We find that the children of Israel, they sang when God overthrew their enemies in the Red Sea, according to Exodus chapter 15, verse 1. We find that David encouraged Asaph and his brethren to sing whenever the Ark of the Covenant was brought into the Holy City, according to 1 Chronicles 16, verse 9. We read that heaven's inhabitants today, they sing the song of Moses and of the Lamb. according to Revelation 15 verse 3, singing, an expression of joy, an expression of homage and adoration to God. In James 5 verse 13, we are given the following counsel. Is any among you afflicted? Let him pray. Is any merry? Let him sing sounds. Singing praise is the appropriate response for an individual who is of a merry heart and of a merry constitution. The natural expression of the heart, the heart naturally gives utterance and then to its joyful emotions in the activity or in the singing of songs, the singing of praise, of thanksgiving to God. And here Mary expresses her own joy as she sings this very song. What a model this young Nazarite girl is. She speaks or she hears a word from the Lord, she believes it, she submits herself to it, and then she praises God for it. I asked you this morning or this afternoon, are you a singing saint? Have you anything to praise God for? As we come out into the closing weeks of an old year, have you anything to praise God for? Now for some, 2019 has been a very difficult year. Family members have been taken from you by death. Sickness has been an ever-present visitor within your family circle. Troubles have abounded. Disappointments have been many. Progress in the Christian life has been slow. And yet I remind you that even in the midst of all of these things, God's grace and God's strength has brought you safely to this hour, to this Lord's day, still trusting, still depending on your God. That is something to praise God for, that you're still going on. Are His mercies, mercies which are new every morning, not something to lift your heart in thanksgiving today for? Is it not the case? Is it not the fact that you're still a child of God, eternally united to Him, united to the One who can never cast off His child, not sufficient grounds for you to sing a song to Jehovah? That's why we sang the psalm, sing a new song to Jehovah. Oh, there's something for us to sing about, even with all the varying circumstances of life, even in the valley, even in the valleys of life. We need to be a singing people. In Acts chapter 16, Paul and Silas, they find their singing voices when their circumstances were bleak. Think of them having been beaten. despised by those in Philippi, beaten, thrown into the innermost part of Philippi's jailhouse, confined to chains. They're awaiting to appear the magistrate in the morning to hear what fates will await them, whether they're going to even live or die, and what do we find them doing at the midnight hour? They were singing praises unto their God. They had much to sing about. but sang they did or sing they did. Is there someone here and then you're in the dark night of life's experience? Difficulties are abounding. It seems to be that there is no light, no hope. And yet, thank God, I read in Job 35, verse 10, that God gives his children songs in the night. Fanny Crosby, she took that little phrase and put it into one of her great hymns. He giveth me songs in the night, redeemed. Redeemed. Redeemed by the blood of the lamb. Redeemed, redeemed, his child and forever I am. Songs in the night. Songs in the night. And here's a girl, and you can imagine all that's going to happen, the whispers behind closed doors. The despising of the girl as she goes back to Bethlehem. Can you imagine her? She can't hide her pregnancy anymore. Who's the father? What are the circumstances of it all? And yet, despite all that is ahead of this young girl, she still sings. She still sings. Because the spirit of Christ is in her. What did Christ do with all that lay ahead of him? At the cross, the shame, the despising, all the things that were going to be said about him. He saved others, himself he cannot save. What did he do before he even went into Gethsemane's garden? It says they sang a hymn. He went singing to the cross. Christ went with joy to the cross, the joy that was set before him. He sang in the night. Can we not sing in the night? Here's a girl. She's going to sing. Oh, may God turn our hearts to sing in the night seasons. I want you to notice then a few general things about her singing. I want you to know, first of all, that her singing was personal. was personal. Look at verse 46 with me, please. And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord. I point you in the direction of the possessive pronoun my, my, because it highlights for us the personal nature to this sonnet. My soul doth magnify the Lord. And then if you go into the very next verse, you still find again the personal nature to this song again. Highlight it for us again in the words. And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior. Three times the word my, this possessive pronoun my appears. The personal nature of this very song, it continues right down to the verse 50. She speaks about what God has done for her and how God has shown her mercy. And then she goes out into the history of Israel. We'll think about that some other time next week. We'll think about it. But she begins on a personal note of praise. This is what God has done for me. This is what God is to me. He is my Lord. He is my Savior. He has regarded me in my lowly state. He has shown me mercy. He has done mighty things for me. This is my God. This is what God has done for me. Now she sings it when Elizabeth is present, but she does not ask Elizabeth to join her. This is not a duet. This is a solo. She wants to express her own thoughts when she magnifies the Lord. This is something that is personal to Mary. She's speaking concerning the child that is now within her womb. This young woman, she knows the God of Israel in a deeply personal way. This is not something that is abstract. This is not something that is beyond, she knows no personal experience about. No, rather this is something that is so personal to this young woman, and therefore she speaks about my soul, my spirit, my Savior. He's my Savior. Let me ask you today, do you know the Savior? Do you know God in a personal way? I'm not asking you, do your parents know Him? I'm not asking you if you've read about others who know Him in a personal way, but have you experienced, do you know Him personally? Have you seen Him intervening into your home and your family in answer to prayer? As you come to the close of 2019, are you able to say that you've walked with God this year? that you fellowship with God, that you've communed with God, that God has spoken to you, that God has drawn near to you, that God has given you strength and His peace and His grace? Do you know God in a personal way or is it all intellectual, is it all abstract? To know God, this is life eternal, that ye might know Him. the true and living God in Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. Paul said that I might know him and the power of his resurrection. Oh, that us as God's people, that we would get to know our God. Will it be when we get to heaven, it'll be as if we're meeting a stranger? Will it be whenever we go through the gates of pearl and our feet are found before on streets of gold and we're standing before the throne, will it be the case that we don't even know the one of whom we're supposed to be worshiping now? We were never acquainted with him really on earth. We were saved just as by fire. But did we walk with him? Did we talk with him? Did He speak into our souls and into our circumstances and into our trials and into our difficulties? Did He give us the promises to uphold us and to stay us in days of difficulty and trial? Did we know Him? Can we say, as Mary said of Him, He is my Savior, He's mine? We sing not Him, dear Savior, thou art mine. But is it true? Is He your Savior? Can you say, He is my Savior? I remind you today that the only song that is acceptable unto God is that which will issue from a regenerate soul, a song that is prompted by faith, a song that is sourced in love, and such was Mary's song. One preacher said, all believers of every rank and condition can attend to this work, this work of praising God. There are some things that you cannot do. But this one thing every gracious heart can do and should delight to do, namely, to magnify the Lord. To magnify the Lord. This is what she does. She says, my spirit or my soul doth magnify the Lord. It exalts the Lord. It's all about Him. It's all about the Savior. And so it's personal. Secondly, it's heartfelt singing. If you look again at the verses 46 and verse 47, you find that Mary employs her soul and her spirit in God, her Savior. She is a trichotomist. She believes in body, soul, and spirit, and she employs them. In the praise of God our Savior. Yes, she uses her voice. Of course she does. We have the words recorded. No doubt about it. And I'm sure it was like any mother's voice. A sweet voice. But she makes no mention of her voice. Rather, this song comes from deeper than the vocal cords. This voice comes deeper than the lips and the tongue. Rather, this song comes from deep within, from the soul, from the spirit, from the very innermost being of her, her constitution. It's coming from right within her. This is something that she hasn't been taught. This is something that is a well of joy springing up within her soul, every part of her being. This isn't lip service, brethren and sisters. This isn't going through the motions and picking up a hammock and simply singing God's praise. No, rather, this is flowing. This praise is emanating. It's radiating out of the very depths of her being, deeper than her mouth, deeper than her lips. Her soul and spirit is the place where this praise is flowing from. I love how one preacher put it. He said, Her whole inner being, mind, will, emotion, she sums it all up. All of her mental facilities, all of her emotional feelings, all of those elements of her being on the inside are called together like the instruments in a great orchestra that come together in a crescendo of praise. Oh, what pictorial language it is. every part of her being taken up with God. This is worship in its purest form. Notice what she says here, and my spirit, verse 47, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior. Now what did Jesus Christ say to the woman at the well concerning the worship of God? They that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. Here's a girl And she's worshiping the purest worship. She's worshiping in her spirit. Yes, folks, at times the mouth may not sing the praise, but the heart can still sing it. I speak about those times when it's difficult, and when the sorrow is real, and the troubles are difficult, And you don't even feel like singing, and yet there is this song. It's still there. It's in the spirit. It's there. I say that external worship, worship that is often shallow and simply superficial, is deemed in Scripture to be intolerable to God. In Matthew chapter 15, verse 8, the Savior spoke of worship, the worship of the hypocrite. He refers to it to be like the hypocritical worship of Isaiah's day. Matthew 15 verse 8, this people draweth nigh to me with their mouth, and honoreth me with their lips, but their heart, their heart is far from me. Is that you today? You've rendered praise to God, you've sang the hymns, you've enjoyed singing the carols, but is the heart far from God? Many people give mere lip service. There are times that I do. We sing the words within the hymn book, and yet our minds, our hearts, our souls, our spirits, they're not engaged in the worship of God. We involve ourselves in the external acts of worship. But do we ever render praise and worship that is acceptable to Him? For that to happen, the soul must be regenerated, the heart must be renewed, the spirit must be spiritually right before acceptable worship can come from our inner beings. I ask myself the question, what kind of worship did I render to God in this house today? I'm asking myself, as the minister, what kind of worship did I give to my God? Was it mere lip service? Or was mouth and lips and heart and will and emotions and mind and soul and spirit fully engaged? The psalmist said in Psalm 111, verse 1, praise ye the Lord. I will praise the Lord with my whole heart. in the assembly of the upright and in the congregation. Did I do that today? The psalmist, his prayer was that what he had rendered with his lips would be found to be acceptable before God. Yes, it was personal, it was heartfelt. Thirdly, it was intense. This singing, I derive the intensity of Mary's singing from a number of words. The first is the word magnify in verse 46. The Greek word is megalugo, megalugo. Translates to mean to enlarge, to magnify, to cause something to swell, to cause something to grow, to extend something, to extol. This magnifying of God is something that is swelling, uprising within Mary's soul like a pent-up volcano that's about to explode. Mega-lugo, not just lugo, but mega-lugo. And then she uses the word rejoiced in verse 47. This is another intense word within the Greek. It means not just joy, but exceeding joy, exceeding great joy. This is joy to the highest level that any finite being can experience on earth. Whenever you go back to the original, you'll find that these two words are found in the most intense form that they can be found. the strongest form that they can find, and as a result it speaks of the intensity in Mary's worship. A similar intensity ought to mark our worship of God. Now by intense, I do not mean loud. I don't mean loud. You'll remember whenever we spoke on worship many years ago now in the Doctrine of the Church, John Wesley gave advice to those who would sing the hymns of his brother Charles. One of those pieces of advice was this, sing modestly. Do not bawl as to be heard above or distinct from the rest of the congregation. that you may not destroy the harmony, but strive to unite your voices together so as to make one clear, melodious sound. And there's times that we think, well, in order to prove intensity, therefore, I need to be loud. Pot calling kettle black, I suppose. But there can be intense worship without the need for loudness and bawling. This is a congregation of people who are united together. And our voices should blend together. There shouldn't be one voice ahead of someone. You shouldn't be behind in the singing. You shouldn't be, as it were, louder than everyone else. But blending your voice together, the harmony in the singing is to reflect the harmony within the family. The world's worship is marked by loudness. I'm speaking, when I speak of intense, I'm speaking about worship that is passionate. Worship that is real. Worship that is heartfelt. Worship that is fervent. This is what we speak of. And where does such worship arise? How does it arise? Intense worship arises when we have a strong love for the one we come to worship. That's where it arises. My love, my worship is intense because my love for God is intense. And so, brethren and sisters, away with the lethargy. Away with it. and let our worship be enthusiastic, let it be with vigor, with fervency, with intensity. I tell you, the ungodly in their sporting arenas, the ungodly in their concert venues can sing lyrics that are meaningless with great gusto and intensity. They can sing it. Why then do we as God's children who have something to sing about and something that is worth singing about, sing with as much enthusiasm as a turkey has for Christmas. Oh, for a love for our Savior, to render praise and glory and worship to Him. Here's a girl and she's intense in her worship. Fourthly, and finally, her worship was biblical. Biblical. The song that Mary pours out of her soul and spirit contains numerous statements that we find in the book of the law, or the books of the law, the book of Psalms, and also from the Old Testament prophets. It indicates to me that she knew her Bible. Mary was familiar with the Old Testament Scripture, so familiar that verses of Scripture just came out of her. As she forms this praise, they just flow out of her. She knows her Bible that well. What a great testimony to her parents. We know nothing of them. All we know that her family is of the royal lineage. She's from the house of David, but we know that she knows her Bible. That was most likely down to her parents who had catechized her and instructed her. Mary had been raised to love the Bible and to memorize the Bible and to know it and to live it out in her life. And I would say to all parents of children in this house today, let me encourage you to get the word of God into your child's mind and heart. I care not about Christmas concert and getting the lyrics into their hearts concerning that and into their minds. Don't be worrying about that. Worry about getting the word into their hearts. and the gospel into their hearts, and the hymns into their hearts, and the carols into their hearts, and the songs into their hearts. Get these things into their hearts, so that they may not sin against God. And for you children who are learning the Bible in Sunday school, do not find it a drudgery, do not find it a task, do not find it a toil, but rather find it as a delight to your soul, because it'll first of all, those scriptures will make you wise onto salvation. and having saved you, they will guide you into the safest path that you'll travel through this sin-cursed and blighted world. Permit me very quickly to highlight just a number of the biblical references in Mary's song. Mary starts out verse 46, My soul doth magnify the Lord and It is an echo of what we find in Psalm 34, verse 2 and 3. My soul shall make her boast in the Lord. The humble shall hear thereof and shall be glad. O magnify the Lord with me. Let us exalt his name together. Verse 46, she says, My spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior. It is an echo of the words that we find in Isaiah. 45 verse 21, there is no God else beside thee, I am a just God and a savior, there is none beside me. Then verse 48, for he hath regarded the lowly state of his handmaiden. These echo the words of Hannah that we have in 1 Samuel 1 verse 11, O Lord of hosts, thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and forget not thy handmaid, but will give unto thy handmaid a man-child, Mary's words concerning her low estate, mirrors that which we find in Psalm 136 verse 23, who remembered us in our low estate, for his mercy endureth forever. Verse 48, when she says, behold, from henceforth all generations call me blessed. These are the echoes of the words of Leah that we have in Genesis 30 verse 13. Happy am I, for the daughters will call me blessed. Verse 49, for he that is mighty hath done great things. Echoes of the words that we find in Psalm 126 verse 3. The Lord hath done great things for us whereof we are glad. And then in verse 49, holy is his name. She quotes directly from Psalm 111 verse 9. Holy and reverent is his name. The Psalms. the book of Genesis, Isaiah, she brings them all together and she sings a song to Jehovah. Just four verses, but in them we find a girl well acquainted with the Old Testament. She unfolds it as she sings, and as she does so, she shows her familiarity with the scriptures as she applies them to her own situation. I asked again, myself, ask yourself the question, how well do I know the Bible? How well do I know the scriptures? Oh, I know the book of John, and I know the book of Mark, and I know the book of Romans, but do you know what it says in Zephaniah? Do you know what the Bible says in Haggai? Do you know what the Bible says in Hosea? Do we know what the Bible says in Micah? Do we know the Bible? Cover to cover. Mary knew her Bible and she didn't even own one. I would hardly think she owned one. She knew it, and here we are in the 21st century, and we can go into our homes, and there's probably five or six Bibles lying in our homes. We have the Bible, and we don't know it. She most likely hadn't a Bible, and yet she knew it. What an indictment to us. Oh, for a renewed appetite in the Word of God, not only that we would know it, but that we would live it and employ it in our praise and employ it in our lives and in our circumstances. Here's a girl, and her singing, it's personal. Here's a girl, it's intense, her singing. Here's a girl, it's biblical. Here's a girl, It's God word. Here's a girl and her singing is marked by humility. The lowest state of thy handmaiden. There is where we want to end today. Next week we've considered the content of her song. What does she sing about? What does she sing about in the home of Elizabeth? You can read it, study it out for yourself. The great things concerning her God she sings about, and they are things that we can sing about. May God place such praise in our hearts as we consider the Savior, the Messiah, the Christ who came, and all that he accomplished for us by his coming into the world. And if you know Him not as your Savior, will you leave this place saying, He is my Savior, my Lord, He's my God. And from this moment, I will live to praise Him. May God bless His word to our hearts for Christ's sake. Let's bow our heads in prayer, let's pray. Oh God, our loving Father, we learn much from this young girl from Nazareth. You learn, dear God, that at times our worship is poor, mechanical. It certainly does not come from deep within. Oh, that thou wouldst inflame love for thee. Then as we employ the words before us upon the page, may they be but the reflection of our heart's condition, the emotion of our soul, as we sing thy praise. Help us, dear Father, to blend our hearts and our voices together in praise to our God. Heal the heaven-born Prince of Peace. Heal the Son of Righteousness, light and life to all He brings, risen with healing in His wings. Oh, may today those who know not Thee as Savior, may they come to know Mary's Savior, We thank Thee that a Savior was sent, and a Savior died and rose again. May our hearts think upon Him, and may we not be caught up in this crazy materialistic age in which we live. May our thoughts focus upon our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Bless every family, and may our hearts be encouraged as we leave this house today, for we offer prayer in and through the Savior's blessed name. Amen and amen.