<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Newington Three Angels Church

Eric Walsh

Myth or Miracle: The Virgin Birth

We have a good bit to cover and we need to get through this.

I want to remind you again, prayer meeting on January 1st.

We have a special prayer meeting, so don't miss it.

Our scripture reading was taken from Isaiah 7 and verse 14.

The scripture says, Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign.

Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel.

Our message this Sabbath is entitled Myth or Miracle, the Virgin Birth.

Father God, we thank you for this opportunity to study your word.

I ask Lord once again that you just make me a nail on the wall, a rusty, sorry nail, Lord, but upon that nail I ask that you hang a portrait of Jesus Christ.

I don't need to be seen or heard today, Lord.

And I ask this, Lord, by the power of your Holy Ghost, the Lord who would leave this place refresh, renewed, and Lord ready for the year that is coming ahead.

So 1 of the great tenets of Christianity, 2 of the great tenets really of the life of Christ hang on either side of his life.

On the front end is the incarnation of Christ.

The idea that in the birth of Christ, it was a divine being, 100% God, but also 100% man.

If that divine birth does not happen, that miraculous birth, I should say, does not happen.

It's amazing how it dovetails into our children's story so perfectly today, and we didn't talk, so that's good.

If that doesn't happen, none of the rest of the story of Christ can happen.

On the back end is the resurrection of Christ.

So at first it is Christ coming in human form, God coming in human form, and on the end it is his resurrection, his regeneration after he has paid the price of sin with his own death.

To get this, there's a great historian that the Bible uses.

In fact, he is 1 of the few Gentiles, non-Jews, who writes in the Bible, and that is Luke.

He is a physician and an amazingly accurate historian as we're gonna talk about.

Luke 1 26 says, and in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city of Galilee named Nazareth.

Now to make this clear, Gabriel is 1 of the highest of angels in heaven.

He is sent to give a message, and all through the Bible he gives messages.

You can go back to the book of Daniel as well.

Now, what we know about Nazareth from the Bible is that it was not Beverly Hills.

It was so rough that when 1 of the disciples found out that Jesus was from Nazareth, he said, wait a minute, can anything good come out of Nazareth?

Nazareth was 1 of them places where when you parked your car, you put your windows up and locked the door.

And I want you to know it doesn't matter how rough your surroundings, God visits everywhere.

Verse 27, Gabriel goes to a virgin, a spouse to a man, meaning she was engaged to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary.

The Bible now begins to make the case repeatedly that Mary was a virgin.

Notice just in passing and it is an accepted thought.

Verse 28, and the angel came in unto her and said, Hail thou that art highly favored.

So Gabriel comes, he starts speaking to Mary and he says, you're highly favored, the Lord is with you, you're blessed are you among women.

Verse 29, and when she saw him she was troubled at his saying and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.

Mary, 1 of the things that the Bible really points out about Mary here is Mary is humble.

The reason I believe she's chosen to be this special vessel is because she's not vaunted and puffed up.

Since the time of Eve, as I'll show you, every woman who understood the prophecy of Genesis 315 hoped that she would be the 1 that would carry this child.

Verse 30, the angel said, unto her fear not, Mary, for thou has found favor with God.

And notice the angel calms her fears, don't worry about it.

You have found favor with God and behold, you shall conceive in your womb and bring forth a son and shall call his name Jesus." Jesus in the Hebrew is Yahshua.

It is the same word as Joshua of the Old Testament.

I was preaching in Michigan recently and a young man came in from, on the campus of Michigan State University, a young man who did not believe in God, but he had this event that had shaken him so much that he came, He got the flyer for the meetings and came into the meeting.

And he came in and he said, my name is Joshua.

And I said, do you know what your name means?

I said, did you know it's the name of Jesus?

He looked at me and he said, I'm 20 years old and no 1 ever told me that.

This is a special name here given because it means God will save.

Verse 32, He shall be great, speaking of Jesus, 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 what?

No end." and this takes you back to Daniel chapter 2, when the statue, when the image is erected that Nebuchadnezzar sees, and a rock is cut out without hands and smashes that statue and forms a kingdom that will never end.

To any reader who had read Daniel, they would understand that this Jesus was that rock.

Then said Mary unto the angel, how shall this be, seeing I know not a man?

Mary said, wait a minute, this all sounds good, but I've never been with anybody in any way that would allow me to have a child.

Now some of the modern translations actually say here, How can this be seeing I have no husband but you don't have to have a husband have a child You have to have been with a man to have 1 now There are there's a very strange weird 1 in a trillion chance that a woman could have could have a child without a man It's I won't get into it, but you'd have to have a it would be a genetically identical to the woman It couldn't be a male child.

So that's not what's being talked about here.

How shall this be seeing I know not a man?

And remember, Luke is the great historian.

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." What a powerful passage of Scripture.

There's a few things in it that you ought to look at.

When you go back to Genesis chapter 1, the Bible says, speaking of the earth without form and void, it says, and the Spirit of God moved upon the waters.

Something was going to be created that was unique.

And that's why the only place you really find in the Bible, you have this phrase, that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.

And behold, thy cousin Elizabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren.

So the Bible gives you the first normal, the way that most of the time these miraculous births are, we talked about the children's story.

Isn't it interesting we had 2 cousins being dedicated today?

Elizabeth wasn't able to have children, and she did.

But you contrast that miracle with this 1, where Jesus is going to be born to a woman who's never been with a man.

And it says, and the 6 months with her, who was called barren.

And then Luke says this, Luke 137, for with God, nothing shall be impossible.

Back to Menu

Myth or Miracle: The Virgin Birth

Transcript

Sponsor

Recorded

Sound Doctrine