Alright, good afternoon everybody. I know Luke 2 seems very iconic to be reading today.
I mean it is Christmas just in a couple of days. Luke 2 is a chapter that we can all
look to in the Bible that really emphasizes and points out the importance of what we are
celebrating for Christmas. We've been singing Christmas songs for the last couple of weeks
and you know we'll be singing Christmas songs hopefully all the way through the new year.
Amen, I agree. I love Christmas music as we just heard this morning. You know Christmas
music doesn't need to just be sung on Christmas. I mean the hymns aren't to be sung all the
time. Sing songs, hymns, and spiritual songs. I personally have been going through a lot
of struggles this week and maybe I saw a lot of you and you know what's kept me going through
a lot of it? Singing the Christmas songs. Singing Christmas music brings me joy with
all the problems in our life, in our families, in our work, with loved ones and all these
problems. When you sit there and sing songs about Jesus Christ's birth in this world,
it should bring nothing but joy to our hearts. Now what is the title of this message this
afternoon? The title of this message simply is Christmas the Virgin Birth. Seems pretty
simple. That's what we're here to celebrate, right? As Christians. But you know what? The
world. What is the world celebrating today? December 25th. I mean today is not December
25th but what do they celebrate on this day? They're celebrating Santa Claus. They're celebrating
summer solstice. They're celebrating the end of the harvest. They're celebrating gift giving.
They're celebrating all manners of things that are not that important at all. Gift giving
is nice. I'm not saying don't give gifts. Celebrating the harvest to come. That's nice.
But celebrating Santa Claus, we're not going to get into that for the sake of time. Santa
Claus is something we as Christians do not adhere to. Sorry children, I don't know if
you've ever been told this, Santa Claus is not real. But I love you and I want you to
know that. Jesus Christ is real and He loves you. So that's what we are celebrating as
Christians. Understand this. The world is out focusing on all manners of things when
we should be focusing on what the Bible emphasizes. Luke chapter 2 is the third of the four gospels.
Every beginning of every gospel tells us of Jesus Christ's birth. Mine is Mark. Mark goes
straight into the life of Jesus Christ. But Matthew, Luke and John tell us of Jesus Christ's
birth in this world. And not that long ago, a couple of weeks ago, I preached a message
on the topic of the burnt sacrifice. I believe that we need to emphasize in our gospel presentations
Jesus Christ's burnt sacrifice. How that He died and went to hell to become the substitutionary
atonement. He died for our sins in every sense of the word. Not just physically. That is
what you need to believe to be saved. The bodily death. The bodily burial and the bodily
resurrection. But not only was He dead physically, He was also dead spiritually. The Bible says
Acts 2 31, He seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of Christ that His soul was
not left in hell. This message is not about the burnt sacrifice. That was another message
for a different time. The second doctrine that I believe we should emphasize in our
soul-winning presentation is the virgin birth. Now I will say this. It doesn't seem like
we have a problem with that when we go preaching the gospel. Usually when I give my gospel,
I ask people, after they understand the penalty for sin, I say, what did God do for sinners
like us so that we do not have to go to hell? Then I explain to them who Jesus is, get into
the deity of Christ. But not only that, I usually just emphasize, do you understand
then that Jesus Christ was born of the virgin and came into the world? And 99% of people
understand that and they say yes. So you don't need to park it on that note once they understand
that. But I do believe we need to tell people the importance of the virgin birth. The virgin
birth is underemphasized, not only in our gospel, but you go all year long hearing all
manners of subjects, all manners of principles and doctrine, and we should preach the whole
entire counsel of God. I'm not sitting here and saying we shouldn't, but the gospel four
times tell us about the virgin birth. This is a critical, essential doctrine to our faith
as Christians. We are known as independent, fundamentalist Baptists, and fundamental to
our faith is the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. It is very important, I do not believe you
can be saved and not believe this doctrine. It's not possible. How? Why do I say that?
Can't someone be saved and accept what the Bible has to say on this matter, on that matter?
And it is true there are some doctrines that are hard and you have to take study to get
into and to figure out, but the virgin birth is essential to our faith. No one can sit
here telling me that they believe in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ,
and that he wasn't born of a virgin. That does not make any sense. That is not what
the Bible teaches. The virgin birth is critical. We know that the Bible teaches my sheep hear
my voice and a stranger they will not follow. Don't let anyone ever tell you that the virgin
birth never physically took place. The doctrine of the virgin birth is under attack today
whether you know that or not, and we're going to go into the defense, the explanation of
why we celebrate Christmas, the virgin birth. Understand this, that the virgin birth has
been prophesied from the beginning. This isn't a New Testament teaching. This is not
something obscure. This is not something that is hard to understand. Oh, the Bible has clearly
taught this all the way from Genesis. You don't need to turn there, but this is referring
to the prophecy of Jesus Christ to come, and this is found in Genesis 3, 15. It says,
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed,
and it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Now, let me tell you this,
when it says the woman's seed, you know, I'm not necessarily an anatomy, a science of anatomy,
a woman does not have seed. A woman has egg, so therefore this is referring to a special
event in history. You can interpret this to say that the woman is mankind. You know,
believers in the Lord Jesus Christ are known as the bride of Christ, so it's not necessarily
that the woman is specifically talking about Mary, it could just be talking about mankind.
The seed, Jesus Christ was most mentioned in this world as the son of man, though he
is the son of God, he also was the son of man. But I believe that when we look at Genesis
3, 15, this is specifically talking about Mary herself. It says,
This is what the Bible teaches all the way. Like I said, this is not obscured, this is
not hard to understand. Everyone knows of the story of Christmas. Everyone, even people
who don't celebrate the virgin birth, that celebrate Santa Claus, that celebrate the
inter solstice and things like that, know of the teachings of Christmas. What does the
word Christmas mean? Christ mass. Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ, the mass, the assembling
of us, gathered together, the celebration of Jesus Christ's birth in this world. And
we just heard it said earlier this morning, and I agree, we don't know Jesus Christ was
born on December 25th. As a matter of fact, it was very unlikely that he was born on that
day. But there are so many days in the year that we can choose to celebrate this day,
and we choose it to be December 25th. But not only that, a big important aspect
to the virgin birth, in my opinion, has to do with believing miracles.
Do you not understand that the creator of the universe who made everything
can fight through the laws of science and physics and go against what we
look at in the observable universe and make a miraculous event happen,
make a sign or a wonder as the Bible term uses a lot.
The world today, as we progress and get closer to the end times, will
more and more downplay the miracles of the Bible. This miracle
is one of the biggest miracles that we can look at to prove not
only Jesus Christ's deity, but salvation for us as believers in him.
What do I mean by that? We'll turn it if you would to 2 Timothy 2.
Like I said, the world is going to, in the end times, get less and
less believing in miracles. Where you are in 2 Timothy
chapter, I'm sorry, 3, 2 Timothy chapter 3, verse
2, the Bible reads, For men shall be lovers of their own selves,
covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to
parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce
breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those
that are good, traitors, petty, high minded, lovers of pleasures
more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying
the power thereof. From such turn away, for of this
sort are they which creep into houses and the account of silly women laden with
sins, led away with divers lust, ever learning and never able
to come to the knowledge of the truth. There are people today who
professingly say that they are Christians, they believe in the death, burial,
resurrection of Jesus Christ and do not believe in the physical virgin birth.
Like I'm going to show you, this isn't obscured, this isn't
hard to understand. The Bible clearly teaches that a virgin will be
with a child. We saw earlier in Genesis that the woman doesn't have a
seed, man has seed, woman has an egg. If you don't know, ask your parents. But outside
of that, this is what the Bible always taught. So why are people
less and less likely to believe in a miracle? Understand this, as you
read your Bible, it's going to seem like there's a miracle on every single page, which is
arguably so. If you open your Bible, you're seeing all these miraculous events, Moses
parting the Red Sea, you know, God flooding the earth and all
these other crazy things that people would look at and say, there's no way this really happened.
By faith we understand that things are, which appear to be.
We only know that the earth is some 6500 years old because by faith
we believe the words of his Bible. By faith we understand the miracles that are
explained to us in this book. And less and less are people believing in miracles
today. It's not often that miracles happen all the time. We do not believe
as the apostles were able to lay hands on people and heal the sick. I'm not saying
we can't pray for sick people to feel better. That's a miracle. There are times in
hospitals where doctors at unexplained events of why people get healed of certain
sicknesses, diseases and all sorts of manner of things. We believe in miracles as Christians. And
this time of year, Christmas, people who aren't even professing to believe in the
Bible, believe in miracles. So we should emphasize more the miraculous
event of the virgin birth. Turn if you would to 2 Peter. We see another example
in 2 Peter. And while you turn to 2 Peter, I'm going to quote from you from
Jude 1 17. It says, Beloved, remember ye the words which were
spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, how that they told you
there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lust.
These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the
spirit. When people try to downplay the miracles in the Bible, avoid them.
Do not fellowship with them. I'm talking even someone who says they're a
Christian. If they're not believing in the concepts of the Bible of miracles,
there is something you should be worried about with them. And 2 Peter
2, I'm sorry, 2 Peter 3 is a parallel passage
to Jude. And it says in verse 1,
This second epistle, Beloved, I now write unto you, in both which I stir
you up your pure minds by the way of remembrance, that you may be mindful
of the words which were spoken before of the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us
the apostles of the Lord and Savior, knowing this first, that there shall come in the
last days scoffers walking after their own lusts, in saying, Where
is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continued as they
were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant
of, that the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth
standing out of the waters and in the waters, whereby the world that then was
being overflowed with water, perished. But the heavens and the earth which are now
by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire
against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. The word
of God is how we're even able to understand all these miraculous
events. The Bible is telling us that more and more people are going to be like, Well, where is the sign of his coming?
Where is the second coming of Jesus Christ? That's not going to happen. That's just a myth. That's just
a fairy tale. That's a message for another time, the second coming of Christ. Oh, and don't mingle
your bones about it. It's happening. He's coming for his own to save us
from this wicked and adulterous generation. But nevertheless, not
only that, people are going to downplay when people tell you about the virgin birth. And like I started
off by saying, the virgin birth is under attack. Maybe we don't hear that a lot here
because we're Bible believing Christians. And when we hear the Bible say that a virgin conceived, we
believe that. Period. Is the King James Bible what you guys are all holding? Because that's the Bible
that I'm holding. And the Bible says virgin. So what do I mean by that?
There's a doctrine out there of groups of evangelicals, of liberal Christians, of Hebrew roots
types, of Jewish people who are ultimately trying to say that the prophecies
made of the virgin never meant virgin. It meant a young maid.
Where did they get this from? Did they get that from the King James Bible? Why?
I am not a Hebrew expert, and I'm not going to sit here and try to break apart the parts of speech
of the Hebrew word, I think it's amah and bella, which has to do with a
young maiden and a virgin. But I will venture to say this. In researching this subject,
I wanted to know and to be ready to give an answer to anybody that asked me of the hope of the reason
that was in me, with meekness and fear, to defend the doctrine of the virgin birth.
When someone approaches you and says, in the Old Testament, in Isaiah 7, when they're
quoting, a virgin shall conceive, that's written in Hebrew, and that Hebrew word
should be young maiden. It should be translated as young maiden. Why then
did the men of God who were inspired by the Holy Ghost write down virgin? Well, number one,
because God preserved his word. We understand that. But number two, you've got to understand,
like I said, not being a Hebrew expert, the nuances in the language of Hebrew, it was
culturally expected of a young woman to be a virgin.
If someone, if I walked up to you and said, here's my 13 year old little
sister, you should expect she's a virgin because God commanded women
to be pure unto their wedding day. So even if that Hebrew word meant young maiden in
English, a better way to say that would be virgin. So that's what the Bible meant
in Isaiah 7. I'm not saying it should have been young maiden. Obviously, it should have been virgin.
But what I am saying is that when people try to come at you to question your King James
Bible and to say young maiden should be there, not virgin, you need to rebuke them sharply
and say, no, the Bible is emphasizing the virginity of Mary herself.
If you don't know what virginity is, ask your parents. It's ultimately that before a man
and woman come together and consummate their marriage, that is before that,
you should be known as pure on your wedding day. That is your virginity. So turn
of view into Matthew 1. We can see an example of this in Matthew 1, because like I said, the Bible
is emphasizing this doctrine. The Bible said in Genesis 3 about this doctrine,
the Bible teach in the beginning of every gospel, the virgin birth minus Mark.
But Mark is emphasizing something different. It's not that it's not referred to
or understood. It's explaining a different aspect to Jesus Christ's ministry on this earth.
Because like I was saying before I go into this, I believe we need to incorporate the virgin birth
more into our gospel presentation. What does the word gospel mean?
The good news, right? We understand that. Is the gospel just the death,
burial and resurrection? This is the gospel according to Matthew,
the book of the generation of Jesus. And then it lists this huge genealogy, right? But notice
what it says in verse 18. Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this
wise, when as his mother Mary was a spouse to Joseph, before they
came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. First mention of her
virginity. It says that Joseph, her husband, being a just man and not willing to
make her a public example, was minded to put her away privately. Pause there
really quick. In the Old Testament, people who want to try to justify divorce and remarriage
like to always try to strain and enact and swallow a camel and do divorcing a woman
or a man for any cause. The Bible says, Jesus Christ reiterates this in the New Testament,
only if it be for fornication
can this be done. Because of the hardness of your hearts did God write this in the law.
Because man was going to do this with or without God's permission. He's giving them an allowance
only if it be for the form of fornication. What is fornication? That is when a woman
is with a man outside of marriage. So obviously when Joseph
noticed he's a just man, was willing to put Mary away privately,
he was doing the right thing. He was under the impression that Mary was not a
virgin. He was wrong. But nevertheless, he was, as the Bible records him,
a just man trying to do the right thing. But what does it say after? But while he thought on these things,
behold, the angel of the Lord appeared on him in a dream, saying,
Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that
which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a
son and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people
from their sins. Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken
of the Lord by the prophet, saying, here's the quote that is found in the Old Testament in
Isaiah 7. It says, Behold, a virgin shall be
with child and shall bring forth a son and they shall call his name Immanuel,
which being interpreted is God with us. And Joseph being raised
from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord offended him and took unto him his wife and knew her
not. That's the second outside reference to her virginity after that
passage in Isaiah and knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn
son and he called his name Jesus. So the Bible, if you're trying to get
into a grammatic or if you're trying to get into an argument of word usage of
whatever that Hebrew word is, it mentions twice she knew not a man and he
knew not Joseph till he brought forth her firstborn son Jesus.
So the Bible is clearly emphasizing she was a virgin period. She
was not just a young maid, though she was a young maid, she also was a virgin. This
is what the Bible is teaching us. And this is critical. This is important. Why?
Back to miracles. Hello? Never in the history of mankind has any
woman who's been a virgin had a child. Impossible. Physiologically impossible.
Not possible. With God, all things are possible. And not only that, it was prophesied
of the Savior to come through this event, the virgin birth. This is critical. This is
important. But go back, if you went to Luke. Luke 2 is where we
started this past week through this sermon, right? But Luke 1 shines a little bit more light on
this subject as well. Earlier we heard brother Ryan talk about how Sam Gipp and some weird
ruckmanites trying to teach that Jesus Christ was to be called Immanuel and not Jesus.
That's blasphemous. For there is none other name given among men whereby we must be saved.
That name is Jesus Christ. That was given to Joseph before he was conceived and said that
in Luke 2. Not Immanuel, Jesus. Not Yeshua,
Jesus. That name that's associated to salvation was given to him before
he was even born. This was predestined of him all the way from the beginning.
He was from the beginning and he's also going to the end.
And I'm going to go into that. But I want now to see Luke chapter 1.
Verse 26. The Bible reads,
And in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God into the city of Galilee
in Nazareth to a virgin, a spouse to a man whose name was Joseph
of the house of David. And the virgin, the virgin's name was Mary. So
twice it just called her a virgin. And the angel came in unto her and said,
Hail thou that art 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 has found favor with God. I'm going to pause here really quick
and I'm going to point out two things. Notice in verse 28 it says,
Thou art highly favored. And then it says, Blessed art thou of women.
And then in verse 30 it says, Thou art favored. God favored Mary.
And we're going to get more into the aspect of Mary herself and how she was a good godly
woman. God didn't just choose a heathen, a horrible person,
an unsaved person. God chose a saved Christian, a saved woman
who is pure, who is good. She was a sinner. I'm not saying she was without sin,
but I'm saying she was a good woman. That's why she is well favored of God.
God looked down in heaven and chose Mary. This was foreordained.
God knows the beginning from the end. He knew who he would pick and he picked Mary.
And notice what it says. And behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth a son
and shall call his name Jesus. Once again, his name would be 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 forever
and of his kingdom there shall be no end.
It keeps going and says, Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be?
See, 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.
And behold, thy cousin Elizabeth, she had 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. And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Be it unto
me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her. So why does the Bible keep emphasizing
her virginity? Because we need to know that this was a miraculous
event. This was preordained. Genesis 3, Luke 2, Luke 1,
Matthew 1. And then you can see in John 1, In the beginning was the word and the word was
with God and the word was God. And in verse 14 it says, And the word became flesh.
We understand that this doctrine is critical. So that's one revenue
that people try to downplay the truth
of Mary's virginity. But there's another revenue of people
who are trying to destroy this doctrine. And that's going to tell that this ultimately
comes from Judaism. And that's saying that Mary was not a virgin,
but she was a whore. She was an adulteress. She was a fornicator.
She was a horrible, bad person. And this basically comes from the
Talmud. There are other people who believe in this blasphemous, wicked truth or
what they believe to be fact. The Bible clearly emphasizes that Mary was
a virgin. Here's an example of what the Talmud teaches on this. Because like they said,
the first revenue they want to attack the virgin birth has to say, well, it wasn't a virgin. It was just a young
maid. But then the second revenue of them attacking this doctrine is saying, well, she was an adulteress.
She was a fornicator. Don't take my word for it. Don't
just take me as some author of final truth. Go to Wikipedia. Go to your
sources. Fact check me. Go to the Talmud. Pick it up. Read it. See
what it says. And I never read the Talmud, mind you. I'm not going to say, oh, why are you going to tell us
about the Talmud? You never read it. Well, I read about the Talmud and about it, it talks about what it says.
One of the things it says, for instance, this is from Wikipedia. It says,
Jesus was depicted as the result of an affair between his mother Mary and a Roman
soldier. He said she was convicted of adultery and had a child by a
certain soldier named Pantera. Tiberius Pantera could have been serving
in the region at the time of Jesus conception. It could have been that there was a guy named
Tiberius Pantera. Both the ancient
Talmud and medieval Jewish writings and sayings reinforce this
notion, referring to Yeshua ben Pantera, which translates to Jesus
son of Pantera. The hypothesis is considered unlikely by mainstream
scholars, given that there is little other outside evidence supporting that Pantera
paternity outside of the Jewish text. The Jews are after
the deity of Jesus Christ. The Jews, if they want to, they don't believe
Jesus Christ to be the Messiah. They don't believe him to be the Christ. So how do they
They call his mother a whore. They look at these passages. They look at Isaiah 7 and they
say, you know what? That was young man. That wasn't virgin. And then they look at the actual event
of Mary having Jesus and they say, she was with
a Roman soldier. Why? Why would the Jews do this? You know, you
got to understand that the Jews seek after a sign, right? But there shall no sign be
given, except as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so
shall that sign be given unto them. So with that being said,
why would they do this? Why are they trying to downplay the virgin birth? They don't want Jesus to be their
savior. Elsewhere in the Bible says we will not have this man to rule over us.
So other cults believe this, not necessarily in
what they say is adultery with Mary, but other cults
are trying to undefy Christ. Jews are the first ones. Muslims do the same
thing. They don't believe Jesus Christ was God. They believe he was a prophet. What
do the Mormons believe? He was not God. He was the son of God in the sense of he was a created thing
of God, that he is brothers with Lucifer, you know, Jehovah's Witnesses.
And notice the Muslim faith have to have an outside literature to tell them this, right?
The Mormon faith has to have another outside literature to tell this. Jehovah's Witnesses just don't want to
believe this, so they just make it say something else. They believe, as it says in John 1
1, in the beginning was God, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
They're trying to say, well, that Word was a God, referring to him being less deified,
that he was actually Michael the Archangel, and so on and so forth. Like I'm saying, this
doctrine does not just attack the virgin birth, it attacks the deity of Christ.
We just heard a message this morning about Jesus Christ's humanity and deity,
and I'm going to show us some importance to understanding that
Jesus Christ was fully God and fully man, and that it was
preordained of him to come into the world to be the Savior of the world. The Bible teaches that he
was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Earlier in Matthew 1,
what did it call Jesus? It says, Immanuel, God
being with us. What did it say in Luke 1? It said he is the Son of
the Highest, referring to the Son of the Father. We understand the Trinity, that
the Trinity teaches that there is one God made up of three people,
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one.
Now, when the Bible teaches us that he is the Son of God, he was not just the Son of God
being that he was born into the world, born of the Virgin, had no earthly
death. He was the Son of God in multiple ways, one of which that we just saw was the
reference to Psalms 2 in the future New Testament, saying that he's seen this before,
speaking of the resurrection, was begotten from the dead. He was begotten
physically in this world. He was begotten being brought back from the dead because he died for our sins,
and in other ways, he is known as the Son of God. That thing shall be known as the Son of
God. Does that mean he was not the Son of God before? Daniel 3 talks about
there was a man in the fiery furnace that looks like the Son of God.
Even Nebuchadnezzar knew there was the Son of God. Jesus
wasn't born yet, but he knew there was someone known as the Son of God, referring to his
deity. And I will say this, turn if you went to Isaiah 7, because like I said,
I keep mentioning this passage. Isaiah 7 clearly teaches us
that the prophecy of what is to come, Jesus Christ's divinity.
And notice what it says in Isaiah 7, verse 14, it reads,
Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign, once again a miracle,
behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call
his name Immanuel. That's just the Hebrew way of saying Immanuel, it's the same word,
God being with us. And turn it in three words to Isaiah 9, look at
verse 6, it says, For unto us a child is born. This was
quoted in Luke 2 that we started. Unto us a child is born, unto
us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall
be called Wonderful, Counselor, the mighty God,
the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. The Bible is telling us that
that child that came from Mary is the mighty God. Now don't get
confused when it says the everlasting Father. Too much today there's confusion on this subject
and especially in our church and in our, not this church, but in our movement, people trying to
say that he is the Father. This isn't saying he is the Father, he is the everlasting
Father. How? How does that make sense that he is the everlasting
Father? And there are other ways to explain this, but I will emphasize this. Who created the
world? God, right? In the beginning, God created the heaven
and the earth and the earth was without form and going, right? And God said let there be light,
right? The Word of God. We understand that God created the world, the Father created
the world through his Word, through Jesus. Jesus Christ is
the Word of God. So you can see that if Jesus Christ created everything,
he's the everlasting Father. He's also son to the Father, but
he is Father of creation. He created everything. This is an
emphasis that people lose with the subject of Isaiah 9, 6. He's not
the Father, he is an everlasting Father. And there are other ways to understand that.
Just don't get confused of him when you hear people saying that, oh, he is the
Father. He is the Son and he always been the Son and he will always be the Son. He is the
same yesterday, today, and forever. We understand that. But not only that,
Micah 5, if you would, turn to Micah 5. This is a minor prophet. A lot of people
have problems finding Micah. It's after Jonah. I don't know if it's before Jonah.
Joel, Jonah. And you have Micah. Micah 5 teaches in
verse 2. But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, thou be little among the thousands
of Judah, yet out of thee shall come forth unto me that is to be ruler
of Israel, who's going for that then from old, from everlasting.
Jesus Christ is the eternal Word of God, the eternal Son of God, always was
God, always is God, always will be God, always is the Son, always will be
the Son, and always is going to be the Son. He is the Alpha and the Omega. He's the beginning and
he's the end. He is from everlasting and he will go into everlasting. You and I have been created.
Jesus Christ has never been created. Now, nevertheless, it was, how is it
that if he was never created, he came into the world? We just heard earlier,
you know, it says, great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifested in the flesh.
I can understand this. We cannot understand this. How can the potter, how can the
glaze into the potter? Why has thou made me thus? Am I to go up to God and tell him,
demand him to explain to me the Trinity and nuances and the depths of eternity?
I will find out when I go to heaven. But even then, I had an origin. I was created.
Jesus Christ was never created, though he did come into the world to be the savior of the world,
because there is one mediator between God and man, and that is the man Christ Jesus.
We get it, David, the miracle, the virgin birth, critical,
essential, fundamental, something we need to hammer down, not just Christmas
Day, but throughout the whole year. Every time we preach the gospel, God was
born into the world of the virgin. Do you believe that? Okay, next point. Then we go into
the plan of salvation, and so on and so forth. But let me tell you this. If there's a group of people
who are trying to underemphasize the virgin birth, and they're trying to undeify Christ,
the unfortunate thing, there's a flip to that coin. There's another group of people who are
trying to deify Mary herself. I remember earlier I said
Mary was a good godly Christian woman. God chose Mary.
Sorry, excuse me.
God chose a godly good Christian
woman to be the mother of Jesus, not the mother of God.
See, this is where the Catholic Church messes this up. This is where people struggle
with this thought of Mary being deified. God never was trying to deify
Mary. And as a matter of fact, as you read and study your Bibles, he'll start to come to find out
that most times when Mary is starting to get exalted, she gets humbled really
quickly. Why? Because God was not trying to emphasize her. He was trying to
emphasize Jesus. But nevertheless, through the vessel of Mary, Jesus would still
come into the world. And she should be honored in praise. We should give reverence to Mary.
It should be that us, you know, Christian women and mothers should look to Mary as a role model.
There are some examples that some could say are bad examples of Mary, but nevertheless, I'm
a sinner. We're all sinners. But Mary was a good godly Christian woman, I believe.
But the Catholic doctrine of the
mediatrix is this. The mediatrix of all grace is the title that the Roman
Catholic Church gives to the Blessed Virgin Mary as the mother
of God. It includes the understanding that she mediates the Divine
Grace. In addition to mediatrix, other titles are given to her
in the church. Advocate, helper, benefactress. So like I said,
they are lifting her too high up on a pedestal. What does the Bible
say? I must decrease. He must increase. That was from the
words of John the Baptist, the greatest man who has ever lived. So with that being said,
why would they do this? And not only that, God commands us
to understand that He is a man. There is no goddess of heaven. There is
no queen of heaven. Pagans and people who believe in false
polytheism believe in goddesses and women God
figures. The Bible never says that. Well, He created man. In the lightness of man
created He, then in the lightness of man created He, Him. Jesus Christ was a
man. God, the Father, the Holy Ghost. Don't get
mixed up in Shekinah, glory and feminine attributes of God. That is not found in the Bible.
That is blasphemous and is not what the Bible teaches. But turn, if you would, to
Luke 11. You know, Mary needed a savior. She needed to
be saved from her sins. And when we see an example of her trying to get exposed to lightning,
notice what it says in Luke 11 27. It says,
And it came to pass, as he spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted
up her voice and said unto him, this is a woman speaking to Jesus, saying, Blessed
is the woman that bare thee in the past, was thou a son. And what was Jesus' response to this?
He tells them. But he said, Yea rather blessed are
they that hear the word of God and keep it. He's saying you're going to be more blessed than Mary was if you
keep God's word. If you love the Lord your God, love your neighbor as yourself.
And in doing this, you're going to be more blessed than Mary. It's not that Mary wasn't blessed. She
was blessed of God. We all know who Mary was because she was the mother of Jesus
Christ. Physically, not spiritually.
Mary and the other half siblings of Jesus came to him during his ministry
wanting to see him. And he says, Who is my mother? And who are my brothers and sisters? But he,
these that are here, hearing the word of God and doing his will. You know, it's too much
today that people are, the Catholics specifically, are trying to overemphasize
Mary. But not only that, turn if you went to Colossians.
Because this is what I was saying earlier about Jesus Christ is the creator.
Mary needed to be saved from her sins. And
like I said, we understand that Jesus created the world. Bible teaches us that
right here in Colossians 1 16. Notice what it says.
It says, For by him were all things created
that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether
they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created by
him and for him. Turn to Luke 3. All
things were created by him and for him. Notice we started in
Luke 2. We went to Luke 1. Now we're in Luke 3. Now,
Luke 3 is the genealogy of Mary. Matthew teaches us the genealogy
of Joseph. But was Jesus of Joseph? Was Jesus Christ
begotten by Joseph? Notice the King James Bible is always so carefully
to never call Joseph Jesus's father. It calls him the husband of Mary
of whom came Christ. But never was Joseph the father of Jesus.
And in Luke 2 where we just started, it told us that Mary tried
to call Joseph Jesus's father and he rebukes her even at 12 year old. He says,
We see not that I must be about my father's business, saying Joseph is not my
father, God the father is his father. And he needs when he's preaching the word of God, that's when he's doing
his father's business. But notice in the genealogy of Mary, the very
first thing in verse 23 says, And Jesus himself began to be
about 30 years of age, being as was supposed the son of Joseph.
Why did it? Do you have brackets as was supposed in your Bible?
Mine does. And there's a reason that's there. It's because it's emphasizing that Joseph is
not his father, as was supposed. But notice it goes from Joseph, which was the son of
Heli. Wait, didn't Matthew tell you that Joseph's dad was not Heli?
This is telling us that Joseph's father-in-law was Heli. That's
Mary's dad. Now it goes into a long genealogy list, and I'm not going to read,
but this also proves the young earth's creation. Because if you follow this genealogy from
Christ all the way to the end, you know what you're going to find? But the universe can't be millions and billions of
years old. It can only be as long as the age of these people. But notice at the very end in verse
38, it reads, which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth,
which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God. Now the
son of Adam, which was the son of God. I believe that when it talks about
Adam being the son of God, that is both physically and spiritually.
Why? Because Adam was the first man created. You can see how he's
a son of God. But not only that, I believe he was saved.
That he took, you know, sin entered the world by one man, but by one man all
were made righteous. That one man was Adam. Adam sinned, but I believe
that when God gave him those skins, the coats of the skins, that represented his
salvation. He understood that he needed to put on righteousness from God. That
symbolizes the sacrifice made for him. And I believe if it wasn't that immediate that he got saved,
he ended up getting saved. Why? Because he's known as the son of God, both physically and spiritually.
And who is Jesus Christ to us? He is the second Adam from above. So we
understand that song that we just sung this morning that Jesus Christ,
who, okay, Adam is the son of God. Wait, didn't we just say Jesus created all things?
So this is what Jesus meant when he told the Pharisees, why does David call him
Lord if he's his son? Because he's from everlasting. He's from the
beginning. He is the Alpha and the Omega. Jesus created Adam that
created Seth, that created Enos, and he goes all the way down and created Heliah,
that created Mary, that created him, or brought him into the world. Not created him, I'm sorry.
That brought him into the world. This is the miracle. Great is the mystery of godliness.
God was manifested in the flesh. How that is, when we see
God, I'll explain more clearly those things, but either way we believe these by faith. The miracle
aspects, the fundamental doctrine of the virgin birth. Mary needing a savior.
Don't lift Mary up too high, but women look to Mary as being a mother. That's a good
godly woman to look to to pattern yourselves after. What's the
conclusion of the matter? The conclusion of the matter is this. You know as New Testament
Christians, we are given two holidays as New Testament Christians. Number one,
the virgin birth Christmas. Number two, Easter, the death, burial, and resurrection
of God, Jesus Christ. Don't let anyone
tell you you're celebrating a pagan holiday on December 25th. Don't let
anyone tell you that Easter is a pagan holiday. You know the
Bible teaches in Colossians 2 16, let no man therefore judge you in meat,
or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the
Sabbath days. You know as a New Testament Christian we are given two holidays.
The birth of Jesus Christ and the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, which symbolizes also
his spiritual birth. I am made new because of his death, burial, and
resurrection. I am born again because he was brought back from the dead. Jesus Christ, the
savior of the world, came into the world. Let's never lose focus of that. Let's
never de-emphasize the virgin birth. Let's preach it all year long when we go out
preaching the gospel. Did you know that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin? Yep.
Anyways, go on with it. No one's going to argue with that. I've never had
anyone say, no, no, he wasn't born of a virgin. And if I ever do come to that, I'm going to go to
Matthew 1, and Luke 1, and Isaiah 7, and all these passages saying,
as he was. And we need to be ready ourselves to give answers to those. But after the
first and second admonition, we need to move on. So either way, I just want you
to know that celebrating the Lord's birth, December
25th, there's nothing wrong in the world with that. Don't let someone tell you, oh, that's a pagan
holiday. That's the winter solstice. That's horrible and wicked. You don't even know it.
That's not what I'm celebrating. I'm celebrating the virgin birth. Oh, don't celebrate
Easter because that was an ancient pagan fertility day. That's why we have eggs and bunnies
on that day. Well, the word Easter is found in my Bible, and the word Easter was actually
a very biblical scriptural term that simply just meant the death, burial, and resurrection, the
Passover. So once again, the virgin birth, let's emphasize it.
Christmas, the virgin birth, let's make sure we never forget to
give praise and honor to Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, for coming
and becoming the perpetuation for our sins, that we may be known the righteousness of God.
If I were to have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for
your word. Thank you so much for sending Jesus Christ into the world to be the Savior of the world.
Please help us throughout our weeks so that we can give you honor and praise and glory.
Not to get caught up in gifts, not to get caught up in other things that are not important. Let us
make sure we deny ourselves, pick up our cross, and follow you. It will be pleasing
in your sight. We want to help shine the light of your gospel to loved ones,
to friends, to family. We just want to make sure we're swept up in you, and in all things, acknowledge
you. He'll direct our paths. And let's have a good Christmas this week to give you
honor and glory. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.