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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.