Luke 1 records three examples of speaking for the Lord. The first one is Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist; the second is Mary, the mother of the Lord Jesus; and the third is Zachariah, the father of John the Baptist. When Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, she lifted up her voice with a loud cry and said to Mary, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And how can this be, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby leaped in my womb with exultation. And blessed is she who believed, because there shall be a completion of the things spoken to her from the Lord” (vv. 42-45). Although Elizabeth’s word is short, it is very sweet and rich. Her blessing by the Holy Spirit reveals that the Savior in His humanity is the “fruit” and in His deity is the “Lord.” She recognized the fruit of Mary’s womb as her Lord, and acknowledged the deity of the Child to be born of Mary (Psa. 110:1; Matt. 22:43-45). How different is this kind of speaking from the so-called outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the tongue-speaking in the Pentecostal movement! Most of their tongue-speaking is, “My people, the time is short! Behold, I come quickly. There will be an earthquake in such and such a place, and the whole city will go into the ocean!” They speak this kind of word because these are the words they receive all the time. They are always listening to these words; therefore, when they receive the so-called outpouring of the Holy Spirit, they spontaneously speak these words. None of them can give a concise word of revelation as Elizabeth did.
Next, let us look at Mary’s speaking. Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has exulted in God my Savior; because He has looked upon the low estate of His slave. For behold, from now on all generations will count me blessed; because the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is His name; and His mercy is unto generations and generations to those who fear Him. He has done mighty things with His arm; He has scattered those who are proud in the understanding of their heart. He brought down potentates from thrones and exalted the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He sent away empty. He has succored Israel His servant to remember mercy, even as He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed forever” (Luke 1:46-55). Mary’s word is not too long, yet it is very rich. Almost every sentence is quoted from the Old Testament. She put crucial points from the Old Testament together to produce a psalm of praise. Doubtless, she must have been very familiar with the Old Testament. Not only so, she must have been well exercised in it. With such a person who is full of God’s word within and well exercised in these words, God’s word will flow out from within him as soon as the Holy Spirit is poured out. If today the Holy Spirit is poured out upon you as He was upon Mary, I am afraid that you will not be able to speak the same words as Mary did because you lack God’s word in your daily life.
Lastly, let us take a look at the long psalm of Zachariah. When Zachariah was filled with the Holy Spirit, he prophesied, saying, “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, because He has visited and accomplished redemption for His people, and raised a horn of salvation for us in the house of David His servant, even as He spoke through the mouth of His holy prophets from of old—salvation from our enemies, and out of the hand of all those who hate us; to show mercy to our fathers, and to remember His holy covenant, the oath which He swore to Abraham our father, to grant us that, having been delivered out of the hand of our enemies, we might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days. And you also, young child, shall be called a prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare His ways, to give knowledge of salvation to His people in forgiveness of their sins, because of the merciful compassions of our God, in which the rising sun from on high shall visit us, to appear to those sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace” (vv. 68-79). After reading this portion of the Word, we will realize that for anyone to speak such a long psalm he must be very familiar with the Bible!