Good morning and welcome to our study of the women in the Bible. As we dig into each of these remarkable women and their stories, I think you’ll find that even though they lived thousands of years ago, they have much in common with women of today. For they share the same struggles, triumphs, joys, and sorrows, that we all experience as women of God. So let’s start with Elizabeth. One of the greatest heroines of faithfulness and obedience the Bible has to offer.
Elizabeth is only mentioned in the first chapter of Luke. But even the little written tells us some amazing things about her great faith in God. Coming from a very prominent family descended from the line of Aaron, she married Zacharias, a priest from the division of Abijah. And Luke tell us that both Elizabeth and Zacharias were, “righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all of the commandments and requirements of the Lord.” (vs. 6) Yet even with their upstanding status before God they had no children, for Elizabeth was barren.
Year after year Elizabeth and her husband prayed for a child. And year after year their prayers went unanswered. Having struggled with infertility myself, I know how hard, painful, and confusing it can be waiting on God. Yet as the years passed and she grew older, even in her waiting, we are never once told that Elizabeth gave up on God or on her life serving Him. Instead she continued walking in obedience and trusting in whatever plans He had for her life.
And as He so loves to do, God rewarded Elizabeth’s faithfulness when at the age of around 60, she became pregnant with a son. Not just any son, but the promised messenger of God who would proclaim the soon to be born Messiah and prepare the way of the Lord! (Isaiah 40:3-5, Malachi 3:1) Because of her great faith and obedience God not only blessed Elizabeth with a child, through her, He fulfilled a promise made to Israel hundreds of years before her birth. Isn’t that just like God! He loves to bestow upon His children blessings far greater than we could ever imagine!
Obedience is a theme running throughout the story of Elizabeth. Her entire life she was faithful to the Lord, no matter what. When her baby was born, the tradition of the time was to name the first male child after his father. But obeying what an angel had told Zacharias, she named him John. (vs. 13, 59-60) And in great joy she cried out, “This is the way the Lord has dealt with me in the days when He looked with favor upon me, to take away my disgrace among men." (vs. 25), “Elizabeth was rejoicing in more than just the fact that she was having a baby. She was rejoicing over the fact that even though she had lived with the sorrow of barrenness for many years—even into her old age—it turned out that God had bigger plans for her than she or anyone else could have imagined. It turned out that she held a very privileged place in God's providential history.”....bethanybible.org
Are you in a season of unanswered prayer, stuck in God’s waiting room? Ask yourself these questions. Am I praying with persistence? When I pray is it with the intention of God’s will being done? Am I trusting in His perfect timing? While I wait am I still walking in faithful obedience? Will I accept His answer even if it’s no? And finally, will I remember to bless and praise the Lord when He does answer?
God has great and wonderful plans for everyone who, like Elizabeth, live in faithfulness and obedience. And all He asks is that we trust in His goodness, His love, and His perfect timing. His promise to each of us is this, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” So trust God and His perfect plan. For one day we too will be greatly rewarded for our faithful obedience. And we can join Elizabeth in joyfully saying, “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what had been spoken to her by the Lord.” (vs. 45)
