Mary’s Poem of Praise

And it came to pass that when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped 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 lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped 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. So the Bible doesn’t explicitly say it, but we think by this time probably Mary is expecting, although she is just barely because the angel has just met with her, and at that point she had not yet conceived Jesus in her womb. And so she is just now expecting a baby.

Elizabeth is six months along, but notice how the child in Elizabeth’s womb, John the Baptist, he reacts to that news. I don’t claim to understand exactly what’s going on here, but one thing we can say for certain that the identities of this baby in Mary’s womb and of this baby in the womb of Elizabeth are not just clumps of cells, they are actual human beings with identities that are reacting to this news.

And the Lord identifies them as such. And that’s a good lesson to us. It’s amazing that there are people who claim to believe the Bible who try to defend the idea of killing a baby in the womb. You can’t do that. It’s indefensible from the text of Scripture. So we go down to verse number 46, which is our text, and so Mary is with Elizabeth at her house in Judea, and Elizabeth has just reacted to seeing Mary.

And verse 46, Mary, it seems kind of spontaneously kind of no doubt led by the Spirit of God, goes into a praise, and it’s written poetically. You know that because of the structure of this praise of Mary. And I’ll show that to you in just a minute. And Mary said, verse 46, 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 has put down the mighty from their seats and exalted them of low degree. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away. He hath holpened his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy as he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed forever.

Let’s pray together. Our fathers, we look at this passage of Scripture. Lord, we just acknowledge that, first of all, that this is your holy word. These things that Mary spoke, spoke prompted by the Spirit of God. We pray that you would make them, you would cause them to be profitable and helpful to us this morning. And Lord, guide us in our study. We pray in Jesus’ name.

Amen. Now, as you can see with Mary’s prayer, as I mentioned, there’s elements of poetry here. Even the first line, My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior. That parallel repetition. That’s Hebrew poetry. It doesn’t sound like English poetry, but that’s what it is. So this is a common thing you see whenever someone is filled with the Spirit of God and that is they are speaking by the Spirit of God, especially in the prophets of the Old Testament.

This is often the way they speak. And so this is why we call it that. And so note one thing, though, is that Mary says very little about Jesus in this speech of hers. She doesn’t say very much at all about Jesus. She says a lot about the Lord and what he’s doing. And one thing she says very little about, she says nothing about Jesus directly, and one thing she says very little about is herself.

In fact, look at the first verse, verse number 46, and Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord. This whole speech that the Lord prompts in her is not about Mary at all, and not for certain, for sure not about the Virgin Mary. Mary was not a perpetual Virgin. At this point, Mary was a lady who had not known a man. After Jesus was born, she has a husband just like all of us carry on in our life in the human way.

And so we call Mary the Virgin Mary. She’s not that. She was at this moment, and that’s it. And this prayer is not about, or this praise, rather, this word of praise is not about Mary at all. She wants to exalt herself, and it certainly was not her intention to exalt herself. She says the opposite. She wants to exalt God through this word of praise. In fact, there’s nothing in these several verses that we’ve looked at that in any way indicates that Mary is anything other than a regular, fallen human being.

There’s nothing in this passage that indicates by Mary’s own testimony that she’s sinless or in any way different than any of us. That is a tradition that’s been added to Scripture that is unsupportable by Scripture. Just read the words of Mary, what she says of herself. Read the words of a young lady who has a heart for God. And she says in verse 46, my soul doth magnify the Lord.

So I would say any attempt to magnify Mary in this event of the birth of Christ is misguided. It’s not intended to magnify Mary, although Mary is certainly set apart by virtue of being the mother of Jesus. However, this is not intended to magnify her, but magnify the Lord who brought it to pass. Mary, I think, in fact, because remember, there’s further history of Mary after she has Jesus and she raises Jesus and she’s at the cross and then she’s also after the cross, after Jesus ascends, she’s with the early disciples before Pentecost.

She’s there. You know what she is at that point? She’s not really any longer the mother of Jesus. What she is is a disciple of Christ. She is a believer because at some point she had to go from the mother of Christ to the one who needed Christ. I don’t know exactly how that happened, but it definitely had to happen. And I think it started right here when she begins to magnify the Lord.

Look at verse number 47. And she says this, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior. You know what’s amazing is we’ve been, of course, we’ve been following little Tater Todd, Anna’s baby to come, and also Andrew and Joanna, they’re out of town, but Joanna’s expecting a baby now. We’re going to have, hopefully, a stage full of kids. Miss Beverly, you better take your vitamins because we’re going to have a stage full of kids.

I’m looking forward to it, but Anna’s had a lot of morning sickness and day sickness and afternoon sickness. She’s had a lot of that, but at this early in the stage, so in verse 38, Mary had just been informed that in the future she would conceive Jesus in her womb. And then in verse 39, the Bible says, Mary arose in those days and went into the hill country with haste.

So basically she got the news, maybe the next day she went to her mom, her dad, I guess, I’m reading between the lines here, and said, hey, I heard Elizabeth’s having a baby. I want to go see Elizabeth. And they say, okay, you’re gone. And so she travels a few days maybe from Nazareth to Judea, several day journey. So she’s expecting at this point at most maybe a week, I’m guessing.

She’s probably not sick. In fact, she probably has no, at this point, no physical indication that she’s expecting at all. The only information she has at this point is probably the angel. She probably isn’t sick yet. You say, well, Mary wasn’t sick when she had you. I don’t know that. I think she probably was, just like everybody else. But that’s beside the point. At this point, she probably has no indication physically that what the angel has said to her has already come to pass.

And she walks in, she sees Elizabeth, and of course she sees the reaction of Elizabeth. And then in verse 47, she reacts with joy. Okay, so follow me. So in all likelihood, there’s nothing in her body to say that this has actually happened. So she has taken all the information she’s been given about her conception of Jesus by faith. Just like Joseph did, right? Except Joseph had to carry it all the way through.

In fact, as far as Joseph knew, he accepted the miraculous conception of Christ by faith for good. Mary at least knew that she was pure and had never been with a man. She knew that. Joseph didn’t. So there’s faith involved in every step of this. But Mary is exercising faith here because she doesn’t have any proof yet that this has actually happened. But yet she’s rejoicing. You see, the whole basis of this poem, if you will, of Mary’s praise is faith.

She’s rejoicing in faith in something that she’s been told and she has embraced the words of God by the angel that this is going to happen even though probably there’s no indication of it yet in her personally to know that it’s actually true. Yet she’s rejoicing. She’s rejoicing by faith because faith brings joy. Faith brings joy. This is a key element that’s connected together in Scripture. Joy by faith.

You see, Mary is rejoicing in something, the fact of something, that is not seen as yet. Yet she accepts it. She’s embraced it and is fully convinced of its truth though it hasn’t been fully realized yet. And that causes her joy. That causes her joy. And you know, so much of the Christian’s joy, so much of your joy and my joy that God intends on us to have does not come from our material possessions or our wellness in body.

And we’re glad for all of that. It doesn’t come from favorable circumstances or good fortune in our life. Although those things bring us some measure of happiness, we know that’s tempered. God reminds us to temper that joy with the reality that those things are temporary and fleeting and they can leave just as soon as they came. But he wants us to set our heart and our joy on things that are mostly unseen as yet.

You know that? That’s the great source of the Christian’s joy. Is not the things which are seen, but the things which are unseen. Look if you would at 1 Peter chapter 1. Don’t lose Luke, we’ll come back here in just a second, but look at 1 Peter chapter 1. This is clearly articulated in 1 Peter. 1 Peter chapter 1 verse number 7. The people to whom Peter is speaking in chapter 1 verse 7 are not people who have material and temporal things in which they can rejoice.

In fact, they’re under a trial of affliction. They’re suffering. Verse 7. That the trial of your faith being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. You know sometimes we think we know what persecution looks like. You know in other words people say mean things about you or you know you might get a fine or you know even jail or whatever, but it goes a lot deeper than that throughout history.

have had their worldly goods all confiscated, all of them. Many times their very family forsakes them for Christ, for Christ. And many times that affects their health. You say well God, would God let somebody get sick because of persecution? There are many, many cases of people sitting in prisons whose health failed them for their faith in Christ. Those are not reliable things to get joy from. Permanent joy.

That’s the case of these people. But Peter says this, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. Notice what he says in verse 8. Whom, speaking of Jesus, having not seen, ye love, in whom though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. They don’t see Jesus.

They’ve never seen Jesus. Their faith has never come to realization before their eyes, yet they’re rejoicing. Joy by faith, yet believing, ye rejoice. Yet believing, ye rejoice. Maybe this is why so many Christians lack joy. Is that our faith, or maybe our sight, is resting on things that are temporal rather than our faith embracing the spiritual and eternal realities that have been given to us in Christ.

That’s why the Lord tells us to set our affection on things above, not on things on the earth. Because that’s where our joy comes from, no matter what is happening around us. And you can see Mary doing that. Mary rejoicing by faith. Notice she says in verse 47, back in Luke 1, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior. Let’s put this to bed once and for all.

She calls God her Savior. She needs a Savior. She is in need of salvation. She is not sinless. She recognizes with her own mouth that God needs to save her. She must have his salvation. So that doctrine is not supported by scripture. She recognized God as her Savior, showing she needed salvation. Look at verse 48. For he, that’s a God, hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden.

For behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed, the low estate of his handmaiden. This is a feature that you see throughout this story of the incarnation of Christ. God condescends to the lowly. You see it with Mary, because she’s a poor young lady from a mean place, Nazareth. It’s not anywhere on the map you’d want to be from. That’s where she lives. She’s not anybody with any kind of clout or honor or money or anything like that.

The Lord then, after Jesus is born, the Lord announces the birth to shepherds. Do you know what shepherds, we think of shepherds as we who do not hang around livestock, and those of you that have know this better than anyone, but we live in a world where we don’t hang around livestock. We think our meat comes from the grocery store. People that actually take care of livestock, especially in this time, were not highly regarded.

They literally lived with animals. You think about having a dog or a cat in your house. They lived in the fields, in the open air with animals. This is not where anybody wants to live. These are the lowly. They were dirty. They couldn’t shower. Their friends were animals. To those people, that is who the Lord chose to announce the birth of Christ to, and He ignored everyone who had honor.

He ignored Herod. Herod only heard about it through the wise men. Not only that, but when Jesus was born, the great condescension of the Son of God, He was laid where? In a manger. They weren’t even where people dwell. They were in a place where animals dwell. Put in a feeding trough, not in a palace. In all of these ways, you can see it in probably some others, you can see the Lord condescending.

Choosing on purpose to interact with and associate with the lowly of the world for the birth of the most important person that’s ever lived. God Himself come in the flesh. In this very concrete way, we know in principle that God has a fondness for the lowly. That’s something that’s seen in scripture. But in the incarnation, we see that demonstrated. The Lord really does. Not just says, oh yeah, I like people who are lowly.

No, He does that. But in the incarnation, He actually puts feet on that statement, on that principle. Listen to these verses. You know these verses. Job 22 verse 29. When men are cast down, then thou shalt say, there is lifting up, and He shall save the humble person. Psalm 138 verse 6. Oh, the Lord be high, yet hath He respect unto the lowly, but the proud He knoweth afar off.

Proverbs 3 verse 34. Surely He scorneth the scorners, but He giveth grace unto the lowly. Isaiah 2 verse 12. For the day of the Lord of hosts shall be upon everyone that is proud and lofty, and upon everyone that is lifted up, and He shall be brought low. Matthew 23 verse 12. And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased, and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.

James 4 verse 6. But He giveth more grace, wherefore He sayeth, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. I want to tell you something. If you want to be on God’s good side, humble yourself. Humble yourself. Now humility of oneself does not primarily deal with others. Humility is not about what others think of you. Humility is about what you think of you. That’s what humility is.

And you see it in Luke chapter 1. Mary is not just using spiritual sounding language when she describes herself as a person of low estate, verse 48. She’s not just using spiritual sounding language when she describes herself as a person of low degree, or a person who is hungry, in verse 53. No, she’s actually, she really does believe herself to be lowly. She really does believe herself to be unworthy.

You see, Mary recognized that. That’s really the key to what humility is all about. Humility is not about saying the right words to sound humble, but to being truly persuaded of your low estate. Now the truth is that is not something that comes easily or naturally to us, does it? It really isn’t. This is the opposite of the high, the mighty, verse 52. She mentions the mighty, pulling the mighty from their seats.

The proud, mentioned in verse 51, scattered the proud. It’s the opposite of someone who is self-righteous, who is self-satisfied, who is self-sufficient, who is rich, verse 53. The rich, yet sent empty away. You see, those people that she describes here, the rich, the mighty, the high, the proud, the self-righteous, those are the ones who were disdained to associate with the lowly people that are the centerpieces of this story, people like Herod.

But there were, were there not, there were people who did indeed associate with these lowly people and events that were men of high degree, like the wise men, traveled from far, came with expensive and pricey gifts to give to Jesus. They came into where the lowly Jesus was, probably a very humble dwelling in Bethlehem. Zechariah and Elizabeth were people of some honor, being the family of priests.

And yet, so what I’m saying is that people who are people of honor, people with money, people with means, people who have CEOs of companies and business owners and people and politicians and people who are esteemed by others can absolutely, can absolutely be recognized by the Lord, but they must humble themselves. And they must, they must recognize, despite their position, they must recognize their low estate. And then the Lord responds to that.

He gives grace to the humble. You know, I think that sometimes we as, as God’s people, or maybe even broader, in a broader way, we as human beings, we like to think that somehow it’s possible to be humble before God while not also being humble before men. But you can’t be proud and arrogant before men while at the same time being humble before God. It doesn’t simply pick and choose the time it manifests itself.

If a person is humble, they’re humble at all times. And if a person is proud, he’s proud at all times. To be proud before men is to be proud before God, whatever our religious sounding words might be. You see, often on the subject of humility, our character is demonstrated before men. And the Lord uses men to humble us. And the way we respond to men, be it humble or be it proud, however we respond to men, shows what we truly are in our character.

And the one reason we, one reason we respond so negatively to men when we are treated with humility is that we lack humility. We really don’t view ourselves lowly. We say we’re humble before God, but we’re showing we’re not truly humble because of the way we’re acting toward men. Humility is a good thing to have in your home. It’s a good thing to have in your workplace.

It’s a good thing to have among your friends, among your family. It’s a good thing to have among your children. It’s a godly character that draws God’s attention. This drew the Lord’s attention to Mary. She was convinced of her low estate. Notice verse 50. And His mercy is on them that fear Him from generation to generation. Not just humility, but also fear. You want to get God’s attention?

Fear God. Because God’s mercy is always available. It is enduring forever to those that fear God. It’s that stout-heartedness, the opposite of fear of God, that runs the fear of God, the mercy of God out and causes God to deal with us harshly, that rebellious nature of us. Notice it’s a principle because it says in verse 50, His mercy is on them that fear Him from generation to generation.

This is a principle by which the Lord deals with men. He extends His mercy to those that fear Him. Look if you would at verse 51. I love this, verse 51. And He has showed strength with His arm. He had 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 has showed strength with His arm.

Now the arm in scripture, especially the right arm, or the right arm that is outstretched, you guys have read your Bible through over and over and over, you’ve come across that terminology, right? God’s arm, His right arm, the right arm of His strength stretched out. Like when He led the children of Israel across the Red Sea, the Bible says He stretched out His arm. In other words, it’s a symbol of power, Your right arm.

When men do arm wrestling, they use their right arm generally, right? They’re showing their strength. In other words, as the man’s arm, so is the man’s strength. That’s the way arrogant men think. Maybe it’s just because I can’t win an arm wrestling match, probably. But the arm is a symbol of strength in scripture just like it is today. Look at Luke 151 again. He has showed strength with His arm.

Notice the word strength in that verse, strength with His arm. Now I want to read a couple of verses to you. In fact, let’s go there. Isaiah 52, let’s go there real quick. Isaiah 52.

Isaiah 52. Verse number 10. Now this is one of many passages that talk about the arm of the Lord. I just want to kind of lead you through a couple of verses. Isaiah 52 verse 10. The Lord hath made bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations. Now notice this. And all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God. So God pulls His sleeve up and says, I’m about to do something by my power.

And everybody’s going to know it. Everybody’s going to know it. What I do in my power. You see that’s what He’s saying, right? He’s going to roll His sleeves up and show everybody something done by His power. Look at chapter 53. Verse number 1. Now you know Isaiah chapter 53, right? Who hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? That’s pulling up the sleeves right there.

So 52 10 and 53 1 are in the same context. The Lord is pulling His sleeve up and He’s showing His arm. His power. All the ends of the earth are going to see it. What is that? Verse 2. For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant. You notice Mary in her word of praise says the Lord is showing the strength of His arm in what she says.

Here the strength of the arm, the arm in this case is talking about Christ. He is the arm. Listen to this verse. Romans 1.24. But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. You see the Lord Jesus Christ is Himself the power of God. And He is the demonstration of God’s power that the Lord wants to show throughout the whole earth.

Look at Psalm 98 and this is where we’ll end. Psalm 98. Psalm 98. Mary says the Lord showed the strength of His arm. Psalm 98 verse 1. Sing unto the Lord a new song for He hath done marvelous things. His right hand, there it is, there it is. And His holy arm hath gotten Him the victory. You see this? Who is the arm? Jesus is the arm.

The New Testament tells us that Christ is the power of God which is what the arm illustrates. And it says God gets the victory by His holy arm. So God overcame, God gained the victory through what He did in Christ. So it made me ask this question as I was thinking upon this verse. What does victory look like to God? What is God overcoming? What is, you know, we think of victory in terms of the enemies, especially in the Old Testament.

Is victory simply the destruction of one’s enemies? Is that all that victory is as it’s described in Scripture? No way. No way. What did God overcome? What did He win the victory over? Listen to these verses. This is fantastic. John 16 verse 33. These things have I spoken unto you, Jesus says, that in me you might have peace. In the world you shall have tribulation but be of good cheer.

I have, what’s it say? Overcome the world. That’s a victory. First Corinthians 15, listen to these verses. This is 54 and 55 as well as verse 57. So when this corruptible shall I put on incorruption and this mortal shall I put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written. Did I just read that? I put it down twice. He says, but thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Here again, Jesus is winning a victory. In this case, the victory is over this wicked sin in our body. He has a victory. He has a victory. He has a victory. He has a victory. He has a victory. He has a victory. He has a victory. He has a victory. He has a victory. I’m going to read you this wicked sin in our body. First John 2, verse 13, listen to this, I write unto you fathers because you have known him that is from the beginning.

I write unto you young men because you have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you little children because you have known the father. I write unto you fathers because you have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because you have overcome the wicked one. Overcome. How, you know, young men, they think they boast in their strength. That’s what Proverbs says, young men boast in their strength.

But have you overcome that which Christ came to win the victory for? First John 4 says this, year of God little children and have overcome them because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. For whatsoever is born of God, overcometh the world. And this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Revelation 12, 11, and they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, talking about Satan, and by the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto the death.

When Mary said the Lord showed his strength by his arm, she’s talking about Jesus. She’s talking about that baby. And he didn’t come just to destroy his enemies back in Psalm 98. That’s where we are right now. Notice what it says, his right hand, verse 1, and his holy arm have gotten him the victory. The Lord hath made known his, what’s it say? Salvation. His righteousness hath he openly showed in the sight of the heathen.

He hath remembered his mercy and his truth toward the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. That’s talking about Jesus, brothers and sisters. This is God by his power exercising his strength not to defeat those who hate him, oh no, but to defeat and put down the thing, the enemy that was destroying you and that was destroying which was our sin and our transgressions.

God stepped on the scene, rolled up his sleeves, and made bare his arm, and that arm is Christ. And to that person who puts his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, by his faith he overcomes those things which are his enemies which will drag his soul to the lake of fire. Then that victory is given to him by the Lord Jesus Christ and what he did. He is the overcomer.

He is the arm of the Lord made bare. He is the one who gives us victory. Jesus Christ is the power of God unto salvation. He is the arm of the Lord and by his power he overcame those barriers to the salvation of mankind and by our faith in him he gives us the victory. Sin, death, Satan, none of those things win the victory. They are all put down because of Christ.

If you look at Psalm 98 to finish it says this, make a joyful noise unto the Lord. Look at verse 3, all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. Listen, when I read that you know what I think of? I think of missionaries. How are they going to know about the salvation of God? How are they going to know that God has made bare his arm and has won the victory?

He has dealt with the problem. He has destroyed the enemies of mankind, the enemy of the soul of man. How are they going to know at the ends of the earth except someone take it to them? Take this knowledge. So even missions is in verse 3, verse 4. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord all the earth. Make a loud noise and rejoice and sing praise. Sing unto the Lord with the harp, with the harp, with the voice of a song.

With trumpets and sound of a cornet make a joyful noise before the Lord the King. Let the sea roar and the fullness there of the world and they that dwell therein. Let the floods clap their hands. Let the hills be joyful together before the Lord. Notice this. For he cometh to judge the earth. With righteousness shall he judge the world and the people with equity. In this psalm, you know what you see?

You see the story of Christ from start to finish in how many? Nine verses. His arm is made bare. Christ comes. He by his power, the cross. He overcomes sin and destroys the devil and the very thing that condemns man before him. He rises in victory over sin and then he ascends to heaven and then he sends people to take that salvation all over the world. And when it’s all said and done, all these people are rejoicing.

That’s what we see in the middle of the psalm. And then we see him returning. This time not to save, but to judge. And so in Mary’s praise, maybe she didn’t really know what she was saying entirely. I don’t know. But in this praise of Mary, she indicates to us the great things that God’s going to do when he reveals his power through that baby that would be born from her.

Let’s pray.