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Examining the Virgin Birth (Selected Scriptures) John MacArthur · THE BELIEVER'S CHURCH | Let’s Build Our Faith Together

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: I'd like to invite you to take your Bible. This
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: morning as we look together at the birth of Christ,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: we're going to consider several passages and so just have
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: it ready. You can follow along as we go from
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: place to place and consider the meaning of the birth
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  Speaker 1: of Jesus Christ. History has revealed some interesting births. some
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  Speaker 1: amazing births, some miraculous births. In the Old Testament and
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  Speaker 1: New Testament, some rather spectacular men were born in rather
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: spectacular fashion. I think, for example, of the birth of Isaac,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: born to nearly 100-year-old barren parents who were laughing at
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  Speaker 1: the thought that a barren wife could give birth at
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  Speaker 1: that age. And Isaac became the fulfillment of the Abrahamic
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: covenant in its first great step. I think of the
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  Speaker 1: amazing birth of Samson, the wife of Manoah was barren.
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  Speaker 1: Her womb by God's omnipotent hand was opened up to
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  Speaker 1: give birth to a child who could turn a lion
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  Speaker 1: inside out, who could kill a thousand men with the
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  Speaker 1: jawbone of an ass, and who could pull by his
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: own strength an entire temple down from its top to bottom.
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  Speaker 1: I think of the birth of Samuel to the barren
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  Speaker 1: Hannah whose womb the Lord had shut. And in Providence,
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  Speaker 1: God opened her womb and she gave birth to that
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  Speaker 1: unique prophet, priest, and anointer of kings, one of the
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  Speaker 1: great men of all time, Samuel. I think of the
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  Speaker 1: birth of John the Baptist to Zachariah, a humble priest,
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  Speaker 1: and to Elizabeth who was called barren. But in old age,
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  Speaker 1: by a miracle of God, was given a child who
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  Speaker 1: turned out to be the greatest man who had ever
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  Speaker 1: lived up until his time. Miracle births. So shocked and
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  Speaker 1: unbelieving was Zachariah at the thought of Elizabeth bearing a
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  Speaker 1: son that God took away his ability to speak. And
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  Speaker 1: he had to endure her entire pregnancy without being able
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  Speaker 1: to tell anybody that at last his wife would have
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  Speaker 1: a child. Miracle births. There have been also in history
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  Speaker 1: some astounding births, not miraculous, but nonetheless amazing. In the 1930s,
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  Speaker 1: there was the birth of the Dionne quintuplets and received
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  Speaker 1: international attention. Five children born at one time to the
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  Speaker 1: same mother. More recently, we have had further quintuplets, and
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  Speaker 1: in 1973 in Colorado were born the Stanek sextuplets, six babies.
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  Speaker 1: But there has never been as unusual a birth in
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  Speaker 1: the human world, the non-miraculous world, as that of little
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  Speaker 1: Louise Brown, 5 pounds 12 ounces, born to John and
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  Speaker 1: Leslie Brown of Lancashire, England on July 25, 1978. Oh,
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  Speaker 1: God has miraculously reversed barrenness in the past. God has
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  Speaker 1: opened closed wombs. God has even allowed man to give
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  Speaker 1: birth to multiple children, but for the first time, God
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  Speaker 1: permitted a baby to be born which was conceived outside
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  Speaker 1: the human body. Little Louise Brown was the test tube baby.
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  Speaker 1: As a result of 12 years of research, the mother's
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  Speaker 1: egg was fertilized outside the mother's body. I understand mineral
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  Speaker 1: oil is used as a conductor for that. It was
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  Speaker 1: the mother's own egg and it was the father's own sperm,
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  Speaker 1: conceived in a test tube, then placed back into a
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  Speaker 1: prepared uterus to be carried until birth. Well, it's amazing.
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  Speaker 1: It's not miraculous. But the world has made a monumental
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  Speaker 1: issue out of this. The world has made us to
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  Speaker 1: think that this was some abnormal birth and in most
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  Speaker 1: senses it is not abnormal. First of all, conception occurred
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  Speaker 1: as conception always occurs by the male seed fertilizing the
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  Speaker 1: female egg, and that is exactly the way that conception occurred.
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  Speaker 1: Birth occurred according to normal procedure. The mother gave birth
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  Speaker 1: to the baby in just the normal way. The only
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  Speaker 1: difference was the location of the original conception was different.
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  Speaker 1: But the process of birth was identical to what all
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  Speaker 1: births must be in the human realm, the male, the female,
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  Speaker 1: the seed, and the egg. Science, you see, desperately wants
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  Speaker 1: to create on its own. Science desperately wants to give
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  Speaker 1: birth on its own because men, more than anything else,
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  Speaker 1: want to be God. And men today are claiming that
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  Speaker 1: we can do it. We don't need to do it
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  Speaker 1: in the prescribed manner. And there is a developing science
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  Speaker 1: now known as parthenogenesis from two Greek words, parthenos, virgin, genesis,
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  Speaker 1: to begin, or birth. Birth by virgin, literally virgin birth,
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  Speaker 1: that's parthenogenesis. And through laboratory experiments, We have found that
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  Speaker 1: there is the ability to create parthenogenic life or virgin-born
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  Speaker 1: life on lower levels of life form. For example, we
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  Speaker 1: know that honeybees, the unfertilized eggs, develop into the drones
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  Speaker 1: or the males. We know that artificial parthenogenesis has been
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  Speaker 1: successful with the unfertilized eggs of silkworms since 1886. Since 1900,
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  Speaker 1: Morgan and Mead first started the eggs of sea urchins
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  Speaker 1: and marine worms to developing by placing them in a
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  Speaker 1: saline solution or seawater. Pincus in 1939 and 1940 was
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  Speaker 1: able to produce several rabbits, all of them female, through
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  Speaker 1: chemical and temperature effects on the egg without the introduction
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  Speaker 1: of any sperm from a male rabbit. And so there
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  Speaker 1: is claim today in science that parthenogenetic birth can occur,
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  Speaker 1: that there can be such a thing as virgin birth.
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  Speaker 1: The problem is that it is biologically impossible to reproduce
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  Speaker 1: on the human level. What can be done at that
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  Speaker 1: low level of life? Animal life and even below animal,
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  Speaker 1: a complexity of animal life could never be done on
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  Speaker 1: a human level. There's a mad effort today to clone,
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  Speaker 1: which is nothing but parthenogenetic effort. And from all that
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  Speaker 1: I can understand from talking to scientists here in our
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  Speaker 1: own church who are involved in genetic research, that's pure
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  Speaker 1: science fiction. Far too complex as a human being to
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  Speaker 1: produce such a thing. But you know, it's amazing how
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  Speaker 1: people want to undo the uniqueness of Christ, to undo
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  Speaker 1: the uniqueness of the Scriptures. And even when men don't
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  Speaker 1: know they're doing it, Satan is feverishly at it. The
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  Speaker 1: Bible tells us that Jesus was born of a virgin,
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  Speaker 1: a virgin who had no knowledge of a man sexually,
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  Speaker 1: a virgin who never had had a relationship with a man,
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  Speaker 1: gave birth to a child. That is a miracle of God,
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  Speaker 1: the greatest birth miracle that ever happened, and science cannot
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  Speaker 1: duplicate it, cannot be done. Let me take it a
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  Speaker 1: step further. Even if a human-level parthenogenesis could occur, and
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  Speaker 1: it couldn't, but if it could, the case of Mary
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  Speaker 1: bearing Jesus would be an impossibility for this reason. Geneticists
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  Speaker 1: have demonstrated that human beings, as other mammals, have two
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  Speaker 1: X chromosomes in the female and an X and a
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  Speaker 1: Y chromosome in the male so that the male always
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  Speaker 1: determines the sex of the child that is born. A
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  Speaker 1: female with two X chromosomes, a male with an X
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  Speaker 1: and a Y. When an unfertilized egg cell parthenogenetically reproduces,
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  Speaker 1: it will only reproduce the same sex because without the
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  Speaker 1: introduction of the male, it could not produce the male.
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  Speaker 1: The point being this. that even if you want to
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  Speaker 1: try to explain the virgin birth of Jesus Christ parthenogenetically,
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  Speaker 1: Mary would never have produced a son, she would have
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  Speaker 1: produced a daughter. Couldn't be done. When Mary gave birth
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  Speaker 1: to Jesus without a father and He was a son,
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  Speaker 1: God for once and for all was saying there is no,
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  Speaker 1: there never will be any scientific explanation for this. This
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  Speaker 1: is not an issue of science. This is the miraculous
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  Speaker 1: hand of God. Since the human male determines the sex
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  Speaker 1: of a child, it is obvious that the sex of
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  Speaker 1: Jesus' human nature was determined by the direct miraculous act
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  Speaker 1: of God on the body of Mary, not by some
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  Speaker 1: quirk of science or some strange occurrence, rare and undefined.
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  Speaker 1: He was God the Son, not God the daughter. So
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  Speaker 1: I agree. There have been some amazing births in human
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  Speaker 1: society just on the human level. There have been some
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  Speaker 1: miraculous births as God has overridden the natural deadness of
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  Speaker 1: a womb and brought to bear a child. But none
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  Speaker 1: of these things can in any sense measure up to
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  Speaker 1: the uniqueness, the incredible quality of this birth. When the
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  Speaker 1: Bible says that Christ was born of a virgin, when
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  Speaker 1: it tells us that Jesus had no human father, there
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  Speaker 1: is nothing in history like it. There is nothing in
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  Speaker 1: divine activity like it. He was not born of a
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  Speaker 1: barren woman whose womb was opened. He was not born
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  Speaker 1: as some parthenogenetic process. He was born of a woman
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  Speaker 1: who never knew a man and who yet bore a man.
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  Speaker 1: An impossibility every way you look at it. Jesus Christ
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  Speaker 1: in His birth stands unique in all of human history.
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  Speaker 1: It's amazing to me that the virgin birth is so
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  Speaker 1: flagrantly denied. The latest survey of Protestant seminaries in America
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  Speaker 1: indicates that 56 percent of seminary students believe in the
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  Speaker 1: virgin birth. That's all. The rest who will populate our
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  Speaker 1: pulpits will continue the lie that Jesus Christ was not virgin-born,
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  Speaker 1: that the New Testament doesn't tell the truth. That's one option.
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  Speaker 1: That's the overriding one. You can't believe what it says
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  Speaker 1: when it says a virgin birth. The other, that Jesus
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  Speaker 1: was the son of Joseph, or worse, of some Roman
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  Speaker 1: soldier who had a love affair with Mary. You know
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  Speaker 1: that even the Jewish leaders of the time of Jesus
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  Speaker 1: didn't believe in the virgin birth, and that's a sad
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  Speaker 1: thing because they should have. Many rabbis had taught that.
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  Speaker 1: Many had. Many of the rabbis had taught that Jesus
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  Speaker 1: or that Messiah would be virgin born. And many rabbis
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  Speaker 1: had taught that the Messiah would be God as well.
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  Speaker 1: But when it came to the day of Jesus, they
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  Speaker 1: were secularists. And for many of them, they were not
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  Speaker 1: committed that the Messiah would be virgin-born or that the
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  Speaker 1: Messiah would even be God. In fact, when Jesus came
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  Speaker 1: along and said He was the Son of David and
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  Speaker 1: the Son of God, they said He was a blasphemer.
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  Speaker 1: They were convinced that their Messiah would be a member
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  Speaker 1: of the line of royalty, a son of David, but
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  Speaker 1: nothing more than that. Oh, there were a few among
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  Speaker 1: the people who believed He would be God, no doubt.
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  Speaker 1: And a few who believed perhaps a virgin birth would
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  Speaker 1: be the way in which God would enter the human world.
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  Speaker 1: But most were skeptics. And most of them mocked Jesus.
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  Speaker 1: And most of them sort of denounced Him. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: if you want to look at an interesting approach to it,
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  Speaker 1: in John chapter 8 and verse 41, they said to Him,'.
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  Speaker 2: We are not born of fornication.' And the implication is
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  Speaker 2: no matter what you say about us, we're not as
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  Speaker 2: bad as you are, you illegitimate son.
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  Speaker 1: You see, they had twisted the whole story of Jesus
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  Speaker 1: to make Him a bastard child, make Him one who
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  Speaker 1: was born illegitimately. They even said in verse 48, you're
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  Speaker 1: a Samaritan, which denies the fact that He would have
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  Speaker 1: been the son of Joseph and Mary. They call him
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  Speaker 1: a half-breed. And maybe in John 8, 1 to 11,
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  Speaker 1: this conversation came up because you remember He forgave the
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  Speaker 1: woman taken in adultery and they might have kind of
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  Speaker 1: turned their conversation this way because they felt that He
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  Speaker 1: was defending the woman taken in adultery because He was
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  Speaker 1: defending His own heritage. And so there were many in
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  Speaker 1: that day who mocked and blasphemed against His name and
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  Speaker 1: denied the fact that He could possibly be the Messiah
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  Speaker 1: or in fact that the Messiah would be one so
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  Speaker 1: born of a virgin. That was not something they would accept.
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  Speaker 1: They thought they had all the answers about where the
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  Speaker 1: Messiah would come from. In John 6, 42, some of
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  Speaker 1: them said, is not this Jesus the son of Joseph,
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  Speaker 1: whose father and mother we know? How is it then
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  Speaker 1: that he saith, I came down from heaven? Some of
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  Speaker 1: them thought he was the son of Joseph and Mary.
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  Speaker 1: Some of them thought that he was just a normal child.
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  Speaker 1: And what in the world are people saying he came
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  Speaker 1: from heaven for? Where did that stuff come from? But
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  Speaker 1: the implication here is that maybe some of them expected
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  Speaker 1: the Messiah to come from heaven. Go over to chapter 7, verse... Well,
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  Speaker 1: the whole section, really, verse 27, nevertheless, we know this
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  Speaker 1: man from where he is, but when Christ comes, no
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  Speaker 1: man knows from where he is. In other words, some
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  Speaker 1: of them said, oh, he's a child of fornication. Some
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  Speaker 1: of them said, no, he's just the son of Joseph
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  Speaker 1: and Mary, plain old ordinary stuff out of Nazareth. And
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  Speaker 1: some said, well... He can't be the Messiah. We know
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  Speaker 1: where He's from. The Messiah is going to come from
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  Speaker 1: where we don't know. And others said, yes, from heaven.
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  Speaker 1: And so there was all this ambivalence about who He was.
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  Speaker 1: Same thing today. Fifty-six percent of the seminary students say
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  Speaker 1: He was virgin born. The other forty-four percent don't know.
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  Speaker 1: Fifty-nine percent of the people surveyed in the major denominations
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  Speaker 1: of our country say He was virgin born. Forty-one percent
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  Speaker 1: say they don't know. William Barclay, one of the great
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  Speaker 1: Bible commentators of our era, just died last year, said
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  Speaker 1: the virgin birth doesn't matter. It's not important. A pastor
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  Speaker 1: in our own area of a large church has said
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  Speaker 1: in print, personally, he said, I don't understand the virgin birth.
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  Speaker 1: I'm not convinced it's something you need to preach on. Listen,
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  Speaker 1: I don't care how many people think Jesus was virgin
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  Speaker 1: born or don't think. No major doctrine of Scripture has
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  Speaker 1: ever been established by majority vote. In fact, if everybody
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  Speaker 1: voted against it, then I would just quote the Bible,
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  Speaker 1: Romans 3, 3 and 4, let God be true and
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  Speaker 1: every man what? A liar. Turn with me to Matthew
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  Speaker 1: 16 for a moment and I'll show you what the
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  Speaker 1: problem is. There's a reason people can't accept the virgin
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  Speaker 1: birth of Christ. There's a very clear reason. There's a
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  Speaker 1: reason people don't know who Christ is. They don't understand
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  Speaker 1: His deity and His humanity for a very obvious reason.
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  Speaker 1: Jesus is conversing with His disciples in Matthew 16 and
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  Speaker 1: in verse 13 He asks them a very specific question.
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  Speaker 1: When Jesus came into the borders of Caesarea Philippi, He
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  Speaker 1: asked His disciples saying,' Who do men say that I,
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  Speaker 1: the Son of Man, am?' Now that's a fair question.
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  Speaker 1: He says,' I' d like to know popular opinion about me.
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  Speaker 1: Who do people think I am?' And they said, Verse 14,'
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  Speaker 1: Some say that thou art John the Baptist, some Elijah,
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  Speaker 1: and others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.' Now notice
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  Speaker 1: that they all had a human answer. They all say
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  Speaker 1: that you're either John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, or one
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  Speaker 1: of the prophets. Nobody ever saw the deity of Jesus Christ,
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  Speaker 1: you see? This was a question they never could handle.
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  Speaker 1: They couldn't handle his birth. They couldn't figure out the
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  Speaker 1: whole thing about Nazareth and Joseph and Mary and all
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  Speaker 1: of this kind of thing. And no doubt when Joseph
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  Speaker 1: would disclaim being the father and they would hear the
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  Speaker 1: story of the virgin birth, they would conclude, well, he
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  Speaker 1: was an illegitimate son born to some Roman soldier or
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: some Greek merchant traveling through Nazareth or whatever else. They
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  Speaker 1: just couldn't handle the virgin birth, and they couldn't handle
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  Speaker 1: the deity of Christ, so their answers were always that
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  Speaker 1: He was a man, a ranking man, but nonetheless a man.
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  Speaker 1: And so Jesus pursued it further in verse 15. He
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  Speaker 1: said unto them, but who say ye that I am? Obviously,
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  Speaker 1: there's more to this than they know. Can you take
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  Speaker 1: it a step further? And Simon Peter answered and said,
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  Speaker 1: Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
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  Speaker 1: You see, the part that men never recognized was the deity,
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  Speaker 1: and that's the part that Peter saw. Thou art the Christ, yes,
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  Speaker 1: you are the human Messiah. You are the anointed one.
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  Speaker 1: You are the promised son of David. But more, you
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  Speaker 1: are the Son of the living God. And then Jesus
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  Speaker 1: introduced the problem in verse 17. Jesus answered and said
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  Speaker 1: to him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and
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  Speaker 1: blood hath not revealed it unto thee but my Father
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  Speaker 1: who is in heaven. Now stop right there. The only
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  Speaker 1: way that Peter or anybody else will ever know the
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  Speaker 1: deity of Jesus Christ is by the divine revelatory act
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  Speaker 1: of God. You see it? So man, if he fuddles
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  Speaker 1: around with his science and fuddles around with his human
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  Speaker 1: philosophy and piddles around with his religion, is always going
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  Speaker 1: to come up short. He's going to come up with
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  Speaker 1: Jesus as a great teacher, a great leader, a prophet
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  Speaker 1: of God, or whatever, but he'll miss the fact that
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  Speaker 1: he is the son of the living God because flesh
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  Speaker 1: and blood does not reveal that. That's the whole point.
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  Speaker 1: So we're not surprised when the world today full of
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  Speaker 1: skeptics and atheists and agnostics and religious liberals wants to
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  Speaker 1: deny the deity of Jesus Christ because that's been going
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  Speaker 1: on all along. We're not surprised when they want to
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  Speaker 1: immediately deny its corollary, the virgin birth, because the virgin
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  Speaker 1: birth and the deity of Christ are inseparable. Listen, if
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: Jesus is God, then He must be born of God.
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  Speaker 1: Joseph a man and Mary a woman cannot produce God.
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  Speaker 1: can't be done. God alone can be born in this
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: world by His own power, not by some human agency.
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  Speaker 1: So if we're going to deny the deity of Christ,
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  Speaker 1: naturally we'll deny the virgin birth and conversely if you
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  Speaker 1: deny the virgin birth, you will deny also the deity
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  Speaker 1: of Jesus Christ. It is ludicrous to say, yes, I
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  Speaker 1: believe He's God, He just wasn't virgin born. Well then
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: there's no way He could be God apart from being
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  Speaker 1: conceived by God Himself. So I want to talk to
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  Speaker 1: you this morning about the virgin birth. And I want
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  Speaker 1: to show you why we believe the virgin birth, why
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  Speaker 1: we believe He was born of a virgin, conceived in
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  Speaker 1: Mary by God Himself, the Holy Spirit. First, I want
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  Speaker 1: to talk about the foundations of the virgin birth. the
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  Speaker 1: foundations of the virgin birth. There are three. Number one
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  Speaker 1: is the Old Testament record. Turn to Genesis chapter 3
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  Speaker 1: verse 15, the Old Testament record. The virgin birth isn't
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  Speaker 1: some Johnny-come-lately thing that popped up in the New Testament.
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  Speaker 1: It isn't something added years later. The virgin birth is
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  Speaker 1: in the oldest... the first book chronologically, the record of the
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  Speaker 1: oldest period of human history. Genesis 3.15, now in Genesis
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  Speaker 1: chapter 3, Adam and Eve have taken of the fruit
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  Speaker 1: of the knowledge of good and evil and they have fallen.
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  Speaker 1: Sin has entered the world and God is bringing judgment
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  Speaker 1: to bear. And in verse 14, He brings His judgment
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  Speaker 1: to bear upon Satan the serpent. And the Lord God
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  Speaker 1: said to the serpent, behold, thou hast done this, thou
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: art cursed. Above all cattle and above every beast of
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: the field, upon thy belly shalt thou go and thus
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. Now,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: the curse expands itself directly to Satan in verse 15.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: I will put enmity or antagonism or opposition between thee
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: and the woman. In other words, there is going to
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: be antagonism and antipathy and animosity and war between Satan
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: and the woman. We don't know what woman yet until
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: we go further. Between thy seed and her seed. Now
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: there is only one woman who ever lived in the
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: history of the world who had a seed. Anybody knows
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: the seed is in the man, not the woman. And
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: that's never said anywhere else in the Bible. In the
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: very same book of Genesis, you come into chapter 12,
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: and you find it talks about Abraham and his seed.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: The Bible always recognizes the seed is in the man.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: Only one time in all of the annals of the
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: Word of God is it ever said that a woman
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: had a seed, her seed, and that's an indication of
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: something special. Satan is going to be an antipathy against
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: the woman's seed. That which Satan produces will mitigate against
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: the seed, and it'll all ultimately, of course, come to
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: a final battle, and it says, He shall bruise thy head.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: In other words, the seed of the woman will destroy
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: the head of Satan, and thou shalt bruise His heel.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: And we know what the story is. On the cross,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Satan could apply a bruise to Christ, but it only
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: bruised His heel, where at the same time Christ was
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: dying on the cross, He was rendering the crushing blow
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: to the head of Satan. Now, we know who the
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: seed of the woman is. It's Jesus Christ. And the
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: very fact that it says her seed is a Genesis
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: chapter 3 prophecy of the virgin birth of Jesus Christ.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: A woman doesn't have a seed. But here is God
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: the Holy Spirit laying out the foundation of the virgin
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: birth in the third chapter of Genesis, the only time
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: in history the seed was ever in the woman. And always,
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: from here on out, it is always spoken of as
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: His seed, His seed, whenever progeny is spoken of, whenever
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: somebody's Family is spoken of, never her seed. That's the
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: only place it ever happens in the whole Bible. And Christ,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: the Messiah, the seed of the woman is set against Satan.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: Look with me at Isaiah chapter 7. And again, we
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: see the Old Testament record laying the foundation for the
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: virgin birth. In Isaiah chapter 7 verse 14, now listen,
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: this is most important. Therefore the Lord Himself shall give
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: you a sign. Now a sign is something that points
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: to somewhere. A sign is something to get your attention,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: to show you something greater. You see a sign that
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: says Los Angeles, you know you're coming to the place.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: The place is always greater than the sign. There's always
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: something beyond what the sign is, and yet the sign
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: must be unique. It must be very easily identifiable. If
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: you were driving somewhere and all you saw was a
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: sign that said, city limits. It wouldn't help you much
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: if you didn't know what city. When God gives signs,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: they are very specific, very particular, and we find that here.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: So there's a sign. What is the sign? The virgin
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: name Immanuel. Now listen, some people say the word Alma
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: just means a young girl. The liberals say it's just
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: a young girl. A young girl will conceive and have
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: a son and name him Immanuel, for all we know
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: it could be the mother of Immanuel Kant. or Emmanuel
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: Escobedo or anybody else. People say, just a young woman
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: who's conceiving and bearing a son. Listen, beloved, if this
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: is just a lady having a baby, that's no sign.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: Lots of ladies have lots of babies. And lots of
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: them have named him Emmanuel. That doesn't prove anything. What
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: kind of a sign is that? You can't take the
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: word Alma here and make it mean anything but virgin.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: The word Alma only appears nine times in the Old
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: Testament and eight times of its nine appearances. It must
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: demand pure virginity. The translation is right. The virgin shall conceive.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: And I want you to know virgins don't conceive. And
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: watch this one. Further, a virgin shall bear a son.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: I want to tell you something very interesting. You notice
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: what it says here. The virgin shall conceive. That's not
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: a verb. That's an adjective. It literally translates the pregnant
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: virgin shall. shall bear a son. Now people have said, well, okay,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: we'll allow the word virgin, the virgin conceived, but at
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: that point she stopped being a virgin. That isn't what
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: the verse says. The already pregnant virgin bears a son.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: You see the point? A virgin bearing a son? Impossible.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: That's the sign. When you see a virgin bear a son,
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: then you have met her seed, and then his head
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: is about to be bruised, and his name shall be
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: called Immanuel, which the New Testament says means God with us,
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: you see. That's the sign. That's the sign. It's a
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: fantastic thing. The literal Hebrew is, Behold, the pregnant virgin
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: is bearing a son, and she calls his name Immanuel.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: That's the sign when you see a pregnant virgin bear
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: a son, and even after the son is born, she
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: has never known a man. Then you take note, if
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: the child's name is Immanuel, that is the one who
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: will come to bruise the serpent's head. Prophecy of the
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: virgin birth. And by the way, in Matthew chapter 1,
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: we have the divine interpretation of Isaiah 714. And the
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: angel of the Lord came, and the angel of the
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: Lord interprets Isaiah 714. And what does it say? Verse 21,
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: she shall bring forth a son, shall call his name Jesus,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: for he shall save his people from their sins. Verse 23,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: the virgin shall be with child, shall bring forth a son,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: shall call his name Emmanuel. There's the quote. This whole thing,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: verse 22 says... that it might be fulfilled which was
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: spoken by the Lord through the prophet. The Lord spoke
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: it in Isaiah 7.14, and the angel interpreted it here,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: and he uses the word virgin here, which is parthenos,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: and parthenos can't mean anything but virgin. In 1 Corinthians 7,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: Paul contrasts virgin from the word wife. It means virgin,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: one who has known only sexual abstinence. She was a virgin.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: She was a virgin when she conceived and she was
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: a virgin when she gave birth. God wanted it well
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: known that this was His Son, not the son of Joseph.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: And Joseph knew it. Joseph was shocked that his beloved,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: betrothed Mary, whom he knew to be so pure and
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: so good, would be pregnant. Listen, in Jeremiah 31, 22,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: there's a fascinating verse that says this. The Lord hath
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: created a new thing in the earth. It's a prophecy.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: The Lord hath created a new thing in the earth.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: What is it? A woman shall encompass a man. Never
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: happened in history. And the rabbis said this. The rabbis
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: interpreted that verse this way. Quote, Messiah is to have
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: no earthly father. The birth of Messiah will be without defect.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: The birth of Messiah will be like that of no
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: other man. One rabbi said, the birth of Messiah will
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: be like the dew of the Lord as drops on
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: the grass without the action of a man. So the
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: Old Testament laid it out. Virgin birth. Virgin birth. Secondly,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: I believe that the foundation of the virgin birth is
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: not only the Old Testament record but the doctrine of
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: the Trinity. I think the doctrine of the Trinity lays
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: the foundation also for the virgin birth. Let me show
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: you what I mean. In Deuteronomy 6, 4, and 5,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: you have the great statement of Israel. Hear, O Israel,
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: the Lord our God is one Lord, right? And we
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: know that God is one, right? Just one. Hear, O Israel,
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: the Lord our God is one Lord. And the Old
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: Testament and the New Testament ring again to say, Thou
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: shalt worship the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind,
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: and strength. In other words, all our worship is to Him.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: He allows no other gods, no other idols, no graven images.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: We worship the one true God. And that is reiterated
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: all throughout the Scripture. In fact, thou sayest thou believest
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: in one God, thou doest well. The devils also believe
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: and tremble. Even the demons know there's only one God.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: There are people who try to teach there are three
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: gods and so forth. There is only one God, only
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: one God, Now listen to me. If God calls all
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: of us to worship only Him all the time, then
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: He'd have to be one. If there were three gods,
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: as some have taught throughout history, then we'd have to
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: worship all three of them, so we'd give a third
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: of our worship to each of them. But that's not
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: what the Bible says. If we're to worship God at
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: all times with all our worship, then He must be
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: one God. And yet, the Bible says He's three persons.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: In Genesis 1.1, it says, in the beginning God, and
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: it uses Elohim, not El. Im in the end of
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: the Hebrew word means plural. It says in the beginning God, plural.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: And later on in verse 26, let us make man
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: in our image. God sees Himself as a plurality. When
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: God was calling Isaiah, God says, whom shall I send
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: and who will go for us? And then God tells
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: us how many are in His trinity. When He says, holy, holy,
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: holy is the Lord of hosts. Thrice holy because thrice persons.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: In Isaiah 48, 16, you hear the pre-incarnate Christ say this,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: and now the Lord God and His Spirit have sent me.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: Isaiah 48, 16. In Matthew 3, 17, Jesus is being baptized.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: The Father says, thou art my beloved Son in whom
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: I am well pleased. The Son is being baptized. The
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: Spirit descends as a dove. In 2 Corinthians chapter 13
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: and verse 14, the benediction is the grace of the
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: of the Holy Spirit. You have the Lord Jesus Christ, God,
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: and the Holy Spirit. In Matthew 28, the end of
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: the Great Commission, we find, Go ye and teach all nations,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: and the Holy Spirit. From cover to cover of the Bible,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: you find the same three persons in the one God.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: It's a mystery. People say it's like an egg. It's
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: three in one like an egg, yolk, white, and shell. No,
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: it's not like an egg. People say it's like H2O.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: It's steam, ice, and water. No, it's not like H2O.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Others say it's like light. It has radiation, heat, and illumination. No,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: it's not like light. It's just like what it is,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: and it's not like anything. Listen, God is one God
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: and yet three persons. Now listen, if Jesus Christ is God,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: then the virgin birth occurred and the incarnation is real.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: This is the logical extension. If the second person of
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: the triune God enters the world, then it is God
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: who bears God into this world, not man. Not man.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: You can't have God produced from two human beings. So
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: the Old Testament demands a virgin birth and the Trinity
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: demands a virgin birth. Thirdly, Messianic prophecy demands it. Look
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: at Isaiah 43. I'm just going to go through it rapidly.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: We could spend weeks on Isaiah 43, a phenomenal chapter.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: But I want to show you something. This is one
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: of the chapters in the middle section here of Isaiah
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: where God keeps reiterating His nature and His character. It's
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: a great experience to read in the 40s chapters of
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: Isaiah because they talk so much about God's nature. But
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: I want you to see something fascinating here. In Isaiah 40,
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: verse 11, I want you to see a messianic picture here.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: Here's God talking, and all through this section He talks
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: about Himself.' I, even I, am the Lord, and beside
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: Me there is no Savior.' And the verb isn't even there.'
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: Beside Me, no Savior.' Now the point of the verse is,
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: God is the only Savior. Beside me, no Savior. You
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: know what it says in Matthew 1.21? You shall call
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: His name Jesus, for He shall what? Save His people
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: from their sins. You say, wait a minute. God says
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: He's the only Savior, and yet God says this is
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: the Savior, which is tantamount to saying this child is God.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: You see? You see? Look at verse 14,' Thus saith
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: the Lord your Redeemer.' Stop right there. God says, I'm
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: your Redeemer. I'm the one who redeemed you. In Hosea
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: He says it again,' I will redeem them from death.'
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: God is the Redeemer. And yet in Galatians 3.13, the
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: Spirit of God says, Christ has redeemed us. If God
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: is the Redeemer and the only Redeemer, and Christ is
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: the Redeemer, then Christ is God. You see? That demands
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: a virgin birth. And God is intolerant of anybody taking
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: His place. So if He gives the right of Saviorhood
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: and redemption to somebody, it is only an extension of
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: His own persons. Look again at verse 15. I am
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: the Lord, your Holy One. He alone is holy. He
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: is the Holy One. And yet again, when Christ was born,
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: He is called that holy thing. And the epistles tell
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: us that He was without spot and blemish, that He
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: was without sin, that He knew no sin. Listen, if
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: God alone is holy and Christ is holy, then Christ
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: is God. And if Christ is God, then He was
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: born of God, not of Joseph and Mary or of
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: some Roman soldier. Look again at verse 15. It says,
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: I am the Lord, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: God is the Creator, and yet in John 1, 1
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: it says, In the beginning was the Word, and the
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: Word was with God, and the Word was God, and
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: all things were made by Him, and without Him was
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: not anything made that was made. If God is the
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: Creator in Isaiah, and Christ is the Creator in John 1,
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: then Christ is God, and that demands a virgin birth.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: And further in verse 15, he says, I am the
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: creator of Israel, your king. He is the king. And
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: yet in Revelation, it tells us that Jesus Christ is
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: king of kings and Lord of lords. He is God.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: In Deuteronomy 6.13, it says, Thou shalt worship the Lord
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve. And yet
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: God Himself says in Hebrews 1.6, And again, when He
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: brought forth the firstborn into the world, He saith, And
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: let the angels of God worship Him. If Deuteronomy 6
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: says God is only to be worshiped, and Hebrews 1
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: says worship Christ, then Christ is God. Look at Isaiah 45.23.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: Great statement. I have sworn by myself, the word has
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: gone out of my mouth in righteousness and shall not return,
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: that unto me, says God, unto me every knee shall bow.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: God says every knee will bow to me. And in
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: Philippians chapter 2, it says that God highly exalted Jesus
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: Christ and gave Him a name above every name, that
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: at the name of Jesus every knee should what? Bow.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: He's God. You look at chapter 42 of Isaiah and
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: verse 8. This will sum it up. It says this,
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: verse 8,' I am the Lord, that is My name,
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: and My glory will I not give to another.' God says,'
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: I will never give My glory to another.' And yet
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: in John 1, 14 it says,' And when we saw Christ,
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: we beheld His.' What? Glory. Don't you miss the point, people.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: Jesus is God, and that's the crux of Christianity, and
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: that's the heart of Christmas. God entering the human world.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: That's the foundation of the virgin birth. Messianic prophecy, the
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: doctrine of the Trinity, and the Old Testament record. Now
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: let me take you to a second major point. In
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: addition to the foundation of the virgin birth, I want
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: to mention very briefly the fallacies about the virgin birth.
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: You know, there are always efforts by Satan to discredit Him.
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: They come in two kinds, denial and counterfeit. This is fascinating.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: Throughout history, Satan has always tried to deny the virgin
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: birth on the one hand. There have always been people
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: who deny it. Nels Ferre, a very well-known philosopher, theologian
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: of sorts, has written a book called The Christian Understanding
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: of God, which is a non-Christian misunderstanding of God, but
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: nonetheless In this book, he claims that Jesus is not
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: the natural son of Joseph, but the illegitimate child of
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: a Roman soldier who had a love affair with Mary.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: This is common. The rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar has
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: the lead song sung by Mary Magdalene say it over
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: and over again. He's a man, just a man. He's
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: a man, just a man. He's a man, just a man.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: That's always where the attack comes. Always at the point
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: of deity and at the corollary of the virgin birth.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: And they've always said, you know, Nazareth was located on
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: the main highway between Jerusalem and the Phoenician cities of
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: Tyre and Sidon. It was full of Roman soldiers, full
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: of Greek merchants. It was notorious for corruption. It was
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: notorious for vice and prostitution. And Nathanael himself even said,
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? And
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: out of that kind of a tradition grew what is
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: known as the Pandera or the Panthera tradition that a
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: soldier named Pandera lay with Mary and produced a child.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: You know where that first came? In 6th century and
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: then repeated in 11th century Jewish writings that by the
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: 6th and the 11th centuries the Jewish people were still
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: trying to get rid of Jesus Christ and they came
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: up with that tradition. And out of that grew another one,
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: that there was a Joseph Pandera who was married to
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: Mary But a neighbor named Jachanan came in when Mary
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: was having her period and separated from Joseph. He came
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: in and the night she thought it was Joseph and
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: so he lay with her, Jachanan did, produced the child.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: She never knew the difference. Joseph did, stayed around until
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: the baby was born and then took off. The purpose
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: of such blasphemy is to make Jesus illegitimate. It's to
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: make Jesus kingly right, null and void. It's to remove
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: His divine nature. This is always the attack. Hugh Schoenfield
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: in the Passover Plot, which masquerades as scholarship, has claimed
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: that Jesus is the natural son of Joseph and Mary.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: He takes another approach, but he says he was nothing
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: but a master conspirator who thought he could be the
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: Messiah and so purposely tried to fulfill the Messianic prophecies.
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: And Schoenfield's entire approach is to remove the threat of
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: deicide from the Jewish race. In other words, he is
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: so burdened by the fact that they were guilty of
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: crucifying the Son of God that in order to get
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: rid of that problem, he just eliminates the fact that
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: Jesus is the Son of God. So it doesn't matter
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: if you kill him. He was a master conspirator who
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: was trying to pull a hoax. Denial. Schoenfield says, and
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: I quote, There was nothing peculiar about the birth of Jesus.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: He was not God incarnate, and no virgin mother bore him.
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: The church in its ancient zeal fathered a myth and
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: became bound to it as a dogma. End quote. The
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: question is, do you trust the Bible or do you
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: trust Hugh Schoenfield? Another man writing, a man named Bosluper,
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: who's written a lot of critical stuff on the virgin births,
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: he says the virgin birth is a myth, but he
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: says that's okay. The virgin birth is a myth in
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: the highest and best sense of the word. The highest
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: and best sense of the word. What is that? That's
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: that sort of heilige schichtelichte. That's that super duper stuff,
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: you know. You people who are German know what I'm saying.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: Schoenfield says the virgin birth story takes the reader out
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: of this world of sober reality into the world of
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: fairy tale, and he charges that the evangelicals have applied
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: to their eyes the fairy dust of faith. Bishop Robinson
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: said it's a story on the level of an Andy
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: Capp comic. But he says that's okay because Andy Capp's true.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: He's true in our imaginations, and so is the virgin birth.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: What kind of gobbledygook is that? A virgin birth in
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: my imagination is nothing. A Christ without a virgin birth
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: would be another man, and another man is going to
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: start another philosophy, and if that's true, we're doomed. So
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: Satan denies it, but he's smart enough to know that
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: some people won't buy that, so he just counterfeits it
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: in other places. And you know, we've got so many
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: virgin births all over this world, you couldn't count them? Really,
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: the claims are ad infinitum ad nauseum. They're all over
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: the place. Almost every major religion in the world's history
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: has had some kind of a virgin birth attached to
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: it to try to be a satanic smokescreen away from
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: the reality of Christ. For example, I told you a
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: few weeks ago about the fact that the Greeks used
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: to teach that Dionysius, the great Greek god, the lord
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: of the earth, was born to Semele. And Semele, as
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: his mother conceived without ever seeing Zeus, who was his father,
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: somehow she was impregnated by a miracle. I've told you
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: about Semiramis, the wife of Nimrod, who gave birth to Tammuz.
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: Semiramis is the high priestess of all the cults of
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: the world, all the false religious systems. And she gave
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: birth to Tammuz. The story goes she did not have
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: the impregnation by her husband Nimrod, but rather she was
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: conceived as a result of a sunbeam. Now that legend
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: passed into all the cultures. In Egypt, the legend of
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: Semiramis and Tammuz comes out as Isis and Osiris. In India,
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: it's Isi and Iswara. Did you know there's the same
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: mother cult thing in China called Qingmu, the holy mother,
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: and holds a baby in her arm? It's all over
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: the world, the counterfeit of the virgin birth of Christ.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: It's been around for centuries. In Phoenicia, it was Ashtaroth
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: and Baal as the child. In Greece, it's Aphrodite and Eros.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: Even in the ancient Sumerian and Akkadian cultures, there is
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: a record of a Tkulti Ur II in 890 B.C.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: who supposedly was created in his mother's womb by the gods.
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: So the Sumerians and the Akkadians and the Greeks and
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: the Egyptians and the Chinese and everybody's got one. It
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: may be interesting for you to know that King Sennacherib
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: claimed to be virgin-born. I don't know if you've ever
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: read about the birth of Buddha, but that's really one
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: for the books. This is what his mother said, quote,
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: a noble elephant. Now you get the picture. A noble elephant.
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: That's what's going on, you know, a block down the
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: road here, folks. It's not very far away. This is
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: what they believe. A noble elephant, white as silver and snow,
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: having six tusks, well-proportioned trunk and feet, blood-red veins, adamant
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: firmness of joints, and easy pace has entered my belly.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: End quote. Ten months later, Buddha was born. Hinduism claimed
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: that the divine Vishnu, who is the overarching Father God,
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: had seven reincarnations. He was reincarnated as a fish and
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: a tortoise and a boar and a lion, and finally
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: Vishnu reincarnated Himself in the womb of Devaki and was
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: born as her son Krishna. It's all over the place.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: In Greco-Roman mythology, the mother of Perseus conceived him by Jupiter,
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: and Jupiter never came near her. He just dropped a
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: golden rain shower on her. Alexander the Great claimed to
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: have been virgin-born when a snake got in bed with
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: his mother. In the pagan account of the birth of
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: Pallas Athena, who supposedly sprang out of the head of Zeus,
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: full-grown and full-armor. It's a good trick. But you see
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: all of the strange, bizarre myths that Satan has tried
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: to spawn as a smokescreen so you can't find the real. See,
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: Satan always counterfeits, you see. Always counterfeits. Those are the
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: fallacies of the virgin birth. Those who deny it, those
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: are counterfeited. But beloved, the facts are here. They're in
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: the Bible. And I don't know, but I'm convinced the
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: Bible is the Word of God after years and years
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: and years and years of study. And the more I
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: study it, the more convinced I am The virgin birth
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: is here. Let's go from the foundation and the fallacies
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: to the fact of the virgin birth. Luke 1, 26.
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: The fact of the virgin birth. I just want you
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: to see it. And then I'm going to close with
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: the favor of the virgin birth. But the fact, listen.
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: virgin espoused. And by the way, espousal or betrothal was
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: a nine-month-plus period of time. after a marriage was contracted
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: the consummation didn't occur for from nine to twelve months
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: and during that period of time was the testing time
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: of the purity of the of the wife in other
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: words if she were pregnant that would become manifest in
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: the man would know that he had a fornicating wife.
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: In other words, he was marrying this virgin on good faith.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: There weren't supposed to be too many loose virgins, or rather,
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: too many people running around who weren't virgins. I'll put
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: it that way. Because if you lost your virginity, you
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: also lost your life according to the legal law of Israel.
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: So in order to verify the purity of that wife,
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: when the contract was made, there was at least a
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: nine-month period so that if there was a child born
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: or if there was a pregnancy, they would know the
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: unfaithfulness of that woman. And then the marriage would be
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: off and they could deal with her the way Joseph
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: wanted to deal with Mary, remember? By killing her or
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: putting her away privately. So the point is there weren't
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: any shotgun weddings in Israel. There was a proving time.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: There was a testing time. That's one of the things
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: I think is a real curse in our society. We
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: have a way of legalizing fornication without any consequences. They
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: didn't have that. They gave that period. And so there
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: was this betrothal, this espousal period. Not the marriage itself
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: hadn't taken place. This is the espousal period. The contract
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: was signed, and now was the proving time. And they
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: were espoused. And the virgin's name was Mary. The angel
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: came unto her and said, Hail thou who art highly favored.
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women.
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: And when she saw him, she was troubled at his
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: saying and considered in her mind what manner of greeting
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: this should be. She was shocked by it. The angel
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: said unto her, Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: favor with God. And behold, thou shalt conceive in thy
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: womb and bring forth a son and shalt call his
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: name Jesus Christ.' He shall be great and shall be
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: called the Son of the Highest, and the Lord God
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: shall give unto Him the throne of His father David.' Boy,
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: she knew now He'd be the Messiah, and He'd be
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: the Son of God, and He'd be the Son of Man.'
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever, and
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: of His kingdom there shall be no end.' There's Isaiah 9,
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: as I read it earlier.' Then said Mary unto the angel,'
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?'
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: She had had no relationships with a man. She was
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: a virgin.' And the angel answered and said unto her,
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee. The power of
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: the highest shall overshadow thee. Therefore also that holy thing
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: which shall be born of thee shall be called the
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: Son of God. You can stop right there. Listen, beloved.
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: The virgin birth is taught here and it's obvious from
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: several points. Number one, the supernatural tone of the whole passage.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: Here is an angel. Here is the activity of God.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: Here is the Holy Spirit at work. God is doing
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: something marvelous. The fact that Mary was a virgin is
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: mentioned twice in this passage. That's clear here. And later on,
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: Joseph was so shocked because he knew she was a virgin,
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: he couldn't believe that this had happened. By the way,
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: I'll add this. The child is never any place in
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: all the record of Holy Scripture called the son of Joseph. Never.
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: This is not the son of Joseph. This is the
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: son of God. In Mary's magnificent beginning in verse 46,
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: she does nothing but glorify God. She never even mentions
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: the name of Joseph. He had absolutely no part. And
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: when Jesus was born, he knew also. He knew that
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: he was the son of God. When they found him
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: in the temple in Luke chapter 2, he said, I
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: must be about my what? Father's business. He knew who
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: his father was. And Joseph also, as indicated in the
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: Matthew passage, knew that this was not his son. The
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: facts are there, beloved. And maybe the greatest fact is this.
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: Somebody came to a Christian and said, what do you expect?
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: If I told you that a child had been born
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: in this city without a father, would you believe it?
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: And the Christian answered, yes, if he lived like Jesus lived.
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: To me, that's the greatest proof. The greatest proof of
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: Jesus' virgin birth is not the data surrounding his birth.
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: It's the life he lived afterwards that proved he was God.
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: There is no other explanation for one who lived as
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: He lived, taught as He taught, healed as He healed,
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: raised the dead as He raised the dead, cast out
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: demons as He cast out demons, died as He died,
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: rose from the dead as He did, ascended as He did,
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: is alive at the Father's right hand as He is,
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: and will return as He will. There is no other
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: explanation than that this is God in human flesh. And beloved,
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: if it's God in human flesh, then He was born
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: of God, not of man. And so we see the foundation,
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: the fallacies, and the facts, and we close with the favor.
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: You say, well, what does all this mean? Is it important? Yes,
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: it's important. Look at Galatians 4.4. I could show you
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: a dozen scriptures, but for time's sake, we'll take one.
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: Galatians 4.4. Listen to it. This is the application of
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: the virgin births. God has done us an inestimable favor.
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: God has benefited us. God has done something to our
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: advantage that is beyond description in the virgin birth. Listen
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: to what it says. But when the fullness of time
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: was come. Oh, listen, we could talk so much about that.
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: When everything was right, when God's clock hit the exact hour,
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: when all the parts of the puzzle came together, when
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: it was the perfect timing in the history of the
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: world and eternity, when the fullness of time was come,
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: God sent forth His Son. Beloved, who sent the Son? Who?
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: God sent the Son. God sent the Son. Made of
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: a woman. Not made of a man and a woman.
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: Made of a woman. The Son of God. Made of
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: a woman. Made under the law. In other words, He
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: fell into all of the human life. He came to
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: live according to God's prescription. And He did it, didn't He?
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: The Son of God, made of a woman, was made
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: under the law. He came not to destroy the law,
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: but to fulfill the law. He came not to break
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: the law, but to keep the law. He came as
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: a law-abiding human being, and yet He was God the Son. Beloved,
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: the virgin birth is in verse 4. God sent forth
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: His Son, made of a woman. The reason for the
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: virgin birth is in verse 5. Why? Here's the purpose clause.
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: In order to redeem them that were under the law,
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: that we might receive the adoption of sons. There's a
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: negative and a positive. To redeem us from sin, that's
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: the negative. To make us sons, that's the positive. To
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: save us from judgment, to bring us to sonship. To
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: redeem them that were under the law. What does it
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: mean to be under the law? I'll tell you what
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: it means. If you're under the law, beloved, you're cursed. Why?
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: Because being under the law means that you are required
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: to keep the law. And you know as well as
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: I do that you can't, right? The law of God
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: you cannot keep. If you've ever lied in your whole life,
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: you violated the law of God. If you've offended in
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: one part, you've broken the whole law, the Bible says.
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: You are every human being born into this world is
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: demanded to keep God's law. And when you break God's law,
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: you come under the curse. You come under the judgment.
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: You come under the fire of God's wrath. There's no
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: hope for us unless someone redeems us. Someone buys us out.
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: Someone rescues us. And that someone had to be one
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: of us and yet beyond us to reach down and
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: pick us up. And so He was virgin born first
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: to redeem us. That's talking about His humanity. He came
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: as a man and you say, how did He redeem you?
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: By paying your penalty, right? Jesus was born made of
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: a woman. There was a humanness there. He was a
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: human being in order that He might die for human beings.
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: If He was to be a substitute for us, He
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: had to be one of us. And so He goes
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: to the cross and He pays the penalty and He
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: takes all the fury of God's judgment. He takes all
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: the wrath of God upon Himself. He bears all of
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: God's judgment. And in so doing, He rescues us from
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: having to take that judgment. When you put your faith
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: in Jesus Christ, you can be redeemed from under the
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: law because He's paid the penalty. The law demands death.
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: The wages of sin is death. Christ paid the wages.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: I was listening to a tape. Marv Rosenthal was sharing
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: a wonderful illustration of this. He said there was a
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: group of pioneers coming across America on the prairies. And
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: as they were moving between two mountains in this one area,
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: they saw a prairie fire coming at them. And of course,
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: those were just devastating and deadly. High winds were blowing
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: the fire furiously at them. They could see the smoke
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: and the flames moving their way, and they were panicked
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: because they had no way out. They couldn't go to
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: either side, and they couldn't escape fast enough in the rear. Finally,
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: the wagon master ran to the rear of the last
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: wagon and furiously began to set a fire in the rear.
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: And he got it started finally with the help of
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: some others, and the same wind that blew the fire
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: toward them started blowing that fire away from them. And
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: as the fire away from them began to move, they
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: backed their wagons up onto the place that was burned
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: behind them. And finally, they were on the already burned part.
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: And as the fire finally caught them, of course, that
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: part being burned, it went right around them and passed
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: them by. And somebody asked them later on how they
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: escaped the prairie fire, and they said it was easy.
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: We just stood where the fire had already been. And
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: that's the way it is at the cross of Christ.
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: That's the place the fire has already been. And if
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: you stand there, you can be redeemed from the consequence
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: of the law, you see. The second part of it
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: is not negative but positive. He was man to die
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: as man to redeem man. He was God in order
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: that He might bring us to the family of God.
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: Adoption comes from the divine side. He had to be
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: God to bring us into God's family, you see. He
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: had to be God to have the right to say
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: we could be a son. And so as sons of God,
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: we come into the adoption that gives us the inheritance.
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: So two sides. Negative, He redeemed us from the law. Positive,
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: He made us sons. Don't say the virgin birth isn't important.
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: Virgin birth is absolutely important. If there's no virgin birth,
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: then Jesus isn't God. If Jesus isn't God, then we
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: are not redeemed, and we are not His sons. But
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: if Jesus is God, then He is virgin-born. And if
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: He is virgin-born Son of God, then He can go
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: to a cross as man and pay our penalty, and
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: He can come to us as God and make us
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: His sons. You see? That's Christmas. Not all the rest
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: of the stuff. Not Santa Claus, Christmas trees, bells and packages.
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: God incarnate, that's Christmas. If you don't know that and
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: you don't know Him, you don't have any Christmas. You
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: just think you do. Let's pray together. Father, thank You
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: for our time this morning, for clarifying again in our
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: minds the meaning of this season of the year. Lord,
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: we thank You for the Tremendous truth of the virgin
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  Speaker 1: birth of Christ. Oh God, our hearts go out to
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  Speaker 1: these folks that are with us this morning because we
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  Speaker 1: know in our midst are some dear, precious people whom
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  Speaker 1: you love with an everlasting love, who are beloved to
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  Speaker 1: those perhaps sitting around them, but they don't know Jesus Christ.
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  Speaker 1: To them, Christmas has no meaning at all, really. It's
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  Speaker 1: another excuse to celebrate, maybe. Another time to be together
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  Speaker 1: with people they love, but ultimately it has no meaning
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  Speaker 1: at all. Lord, I pray today that this might be
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  Speaker 1: the day they open their heart and invite Jesus Christ in.
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  Speaker 1: While your heads are bowed just silently in your heart,
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  Speaker 1: I want you to kind of examine your own life.
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  Speaker 1: Is Christ alive in you? Have you been redeemed from
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  Speaker 1: the consequence of sin? Have you been made a son
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  Speaker 1: of God, adopted into His family? You can be just
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  Speaker 1: by asking. It's a gift. That's what Christmas is all about.
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  Speaker 1: And the greatest gift you could receive this Christmas would
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  Speaker 1: be the gift of salvation. the gift of forgiveness, the
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  Speaker 1: gift of sonship, the gift of redemption. Pray a simple prayer,
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  Speaker 1: won't you? Lord Jesus, I receive the gift. I receive
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  Speaker 1: the salvation you offer. Redeem me from my sin. Make
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  Speaker 1: me a son of God. Will you pray that prayer?
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  Speaker 1: I hope you did. Some of you have already done that.
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  Speaker 1: You can thank God for the salvation you already have. Father,
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  Speaker 1: even as we anticipate the wonder of tomorrow, as we
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  Speaker 1: enjoy it with those we love, we pray, Lord, that
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  Speaker 1: we might never lose the real meaning for one moment,
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  Speaker 1: but that ever and always we might have hearts filled
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  Speaker 1: with thanksgiving for the wondrous gift of Jesus Christ, in
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  Speaker 1: whose name we pray.
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  Speaker 2: Amen.
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  Speaker 1: You've been listening to John MacArthur, Bible teacher with grace
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  Speaker 1: to you. For free access to all of John's lessons
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: and a listing of study Bibles and books available for sale,
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: visit Grace2U' s website at gty.org. John MacArthur and Grace2U reserve
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  Speaker 1: all copyright protection under applicable law. Our copyright policy is
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: available at gty.org, and it includes instructions for and limitations
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  Speaker 1: on duplicating this digital file.