Too many moving parts this morning. Alright, I'm going to now recite the creed or read the creed. Some of you might already know this and this is where we have been and where we're going as we look at these statements of faith. So, the Apostles Creed states, I believe in God the Father Almighty. Creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended to hell the third day. He rose again from the dead. He ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From there He will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, and the word Catholic there means universal, that is, the true believers everywhere. The communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. We are today focusing our attention on the words of the Creed which speak of our Savior and say, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. Two weeks ago we talked about the identity of Jesus as Savior, Messiah, the only Son of God, our Lord. But this One who is exalted, this One who is above all, is the One who in great mystery was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. The virgin birth of Jesus is true, and it is vital for our faith. And I hope to show that to you this morning. The virgin birth is true, and it is vital to our faith. First of all, the virgin birth is true. Our Christian faith is a historical faith. It's also a supernatural faith. But those are not mutually exclusive. God, who is above and beyond the rules of nature, still works within nature and yet is able to do that which is miraculous. Our God has done something amazing in providing for us a Savior. When we think about the virgin birth, we are not talking about just adopting some religious myth that was in existence at the time. We're not talking about the virgin birth simply being a metaphor for Jesus' purity, as some people would say today. This truly happened. And it happened as prophesied. I remember years ago when I worked for another church, I remember visiting a man, and we had witnessed to this man a number of times already, but I remember on this visit with this man, he said that he was almost ready to accept the faith, the Christian faith, at least on an intellectual level, but his one thing that he just couldn't get, and that kept him from believing the Christian faith, was the virgin birth. Now for me, that was actually very illuminating. Because I grew up in church and I heard this truth expressed long before I even knew what a virgin was. I heard this truth expressed. And so it was just part of the framework of what I grew up with. But for someone that has no church background, the fact, for you to say that it is a fact, that the Son of God was born of a virgin? That is a truly remarkable and extraordinary statement to make. That is something that is, on a natural level, difficult to believe. And yet this is exactly what the Scripture declares. We're going to turn to a few passages this morning, so stay with me. Or if you can't find them quickly enough, just look intelligently at the page that you're on and pretend. But we're going to go now to Isaiah chapter 7. Isaiah chapter 7. Isaiah chapter 7. And I want you to see that the virgin birth of our Savior actually was prophesied many years before our Savior was even born. This is a passage that perhaps, or a verse that you might hear spoken of near Christmas time, for good reason. But Isaiah chapter 7 and verse 14 in particular therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." this prophecy that there would be a virgin that would conceive. That in itself seems absolutely incompatible. Virgin and conception? How does that work? And yet God Himself said that He would send this sign. And the son that would be born would be called Immanuel. Now we know, I think, what Immanuel means. Immanuel means God with us. So this would be a virgin who actually bears in her womb God with us. In fact, the result of this virgin bearing the child would be the birth of that child, which would be God with us. That was predicted back in Isaiah chapter 7. Hundreds of years later, this would be fulfilled in time, in historical time and actual space. Not outer space, but time-space, within the reality that is tangible and touchable. We read earlier about the angel's announcement to Mary that she would have this child. In fact, the angel would say that she would bring forth a son and call his name Jesus. This one Jesus, as we looked at 2 weeks ago, the name Jesus means Savior. The one who is Jesus would be great, and He would be called the Son of the Highest. The Son of God. God the Son. And the Lord would give Him the throne of David, which means that He would be the Messiah. Jesus Christ the Lord. Of course, Mary naturally wonders how this can possibly be. She is, after all, a virgin. How is it that a virgin could conceive? And yet the angel did not back down, but instead said, essentially, this is going to be something supernatural. The angel does not go into the details of it, but simply says, the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you. This was a supernatural conception. This is not a natural conception. I think it's helpful for us, just for a moment, to think about what other faiths or other belief systems think that we believe. and what other faiths believe. So, if you think about old school Mormonism, Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, they actually believe the old school teaching is that Elohim came down and had literal physical relationships with Mary that produced Jesus. That is not what the Bible teaches. If you are talking to Muslims today, they have a very hard time thinking about this virgin birth. Because in their mind, to say that Jesus is the son of God at least implies something wrong or immoral about God. God the Father. Of course, they only believe in one God, in one person within the Godhead. And so if you talk with them about the virgin birth, you have to realize that in many of their minds, they're assuming something happened that was somehow immoral. As I mentioned also before, when you talk with a Muslim person and they ask you, is Jesus God? From their framework, they're almost asking, is Jesus God the Father? And so you have to understand that when you're talking with someone across that belief system. Because of course we believe that within the being that is God, there are three co-equal and co-eternal persons, namely the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But within the Muslim framework of belief, there's only one person in God. And the greatest sin within Islam is actually the sin of shirk, which is to add or associate anything with God. That is, in the thinking of many Muslims, the unpardonable sin. In fact, there is a surah in which the father is said to be speaking to Jesus, and the words that are put into the father's mouth are, did you ever tell people to worship you and your mother in abrogation of me? Which, again, points to a possible misunderstanding that Muhammad himself had about the nature of the Trinity. Because Muhammad may have believed that Christians thought the Trinity was God the Father, God the Mother, and God the Son. But just all of this to say that when you're talking across belief systems and you say the truth of Scripture, it may not immediately be understood by the person that you are speaking to. Yet the scripture does tell us that this One that would be born of the Virgin is the Son of the Highest. He is also the Savior, and He is also the Messiah. Of course, this would be fulfilled. We remember not only the words that the angel spoke to Mary, but the words that the angel spoke to Joseph. So let's jump ahead to Matthew chapter one to look at those words. Matthew chapter one and verse 18. Matthew one and verse 18. And here the scripture says, now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows. After his mother, Mary, was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. And notice how specific and intentionally that is stated. She was found with child of the Holy Spirit. This was not Joseph's child. This was not Mary sleeping around with other people. This was a child, she was with a child of the Holy Spirit. Then Joseph, her husband, being a just man and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly. Obviously, as she begins to be visibly pregnant, he would have had questions about this. The immediate assumption would be that she had been unfaithful because he knew that he hadn't been sleeping with her. So here she comes back from her sister Elizabeth's house, visibly pregnant. Obviously, he would think that she was not faithful to him. And it's in those conditions where he's thinking about not making a big deal of it, but simply putting her away privately, breaking off that betrothal, privately, secretly. While he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you, marry your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. So we have this emphasized again. And she will bring forth a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins." So all this was done, here's our connection to the Old Testament. So all this was done, it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophets, saying, Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall call His name Immanuel, which is translated, God with us. That in itself would have been enough for us to recognize the supernatural nature of this birth and the fact that it was a virgin birth, but then the scripture emphasizes it even more with the next two verses. Then Joseph, being aroused from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took to him his wife, and did not know her, did not have relations with her, until she had brought forth her firstborn son, and he called his name Jesus. There could be no doubt Even after they were married, he abstained from relationships with her until after Jesus was born. If that were not enough, we actually see evidence of the virgin birth, the fact that Joseph was not the human father back earlier in Matthew chapter 1 and verse 16. As we're given the genealogy of Jesus, we find it coming right to Joseph. And Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called the Christ. Now, there's a difference if you look at verse 16 and how it's expressed, versus everything that came before. If you even look one verse earlier, Eliud begat Eleazar, Eleazar begat Matan, and Matan begat Jacob. But you get to verse 16, Jacob begat Joseph, but then it doesn't say that Joseph begat Jesus. It actually says, he was the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called the Christ. And so, this is what Holy Scripture tells us. that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Ghost, and He was born of the Virgin Mary. This is the clear teaching of Scripture. Now we understand that when the Bible talks about Jesus being conceived by the Holy Spirit, this is not saying that this is the point at which He came into existence. We know that as we compare scripture with scripture. We look at John chapter 1 verse 1. In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God. So Jesus has always existed. But then you look later in John chapter 1 and it tells us, and the Word became flesh. This becoming flesh is that mysterious, supernatural, conception by the Holy Spirit, virgin birth of our Savior. And this is what Holy Scripture teaches. So, the virgin birth is true. But I want you to also be reminded that the virgin birth is vital. That this truth is vital. that we cannot simply say, well, it doesn't really matter what you believe about this, we all kind of have the same faith. It's absolutely vital for our faith. Years ago, there was a prominent and popular Bible teacher out of Michigan. And he put together a number of videos, and even some of my friends in pastoral ministry were using these videos as outreach and teaching things, and I did not have a good feeling about any of it. The author that put out these videos also wrote a book. The book that he wrote was titled Velvet Elvis. The author's name was and is Rob Bell. In Velvet Elvis, Rob Bell, who at that point was still professing to believe in the full statement of Orthodox Christian faith, who at that time would still have said that he believed everything that the Apostles' Creed and other early creeds stated. In that book, however, he compared Christian doctrine to a trampoline. And he suggested that certain doctrines, like springs, could be taken away and the Christian faith would remain intact. In fact, he even questioned the idea of having a Christian faith trampoline. If there's one spring that's so important that you take it away and the whole faith falls apart, then maybe it's not right to begin with. Just maybe. And in the book, he sowed the seeds of doubt on major doctrines of faith, but the one in particular that he used as he gave this trampoline analogy was actually the virgin birth. And Rob Bell would say this, he said, what if tomorrow someone digs up definitive proof that Jesus has a real earthly biological father named Larry. I don't know why Larry, but. And archaeologists find Larry's tomb and do DNA samples and prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that the virgin birth was really just a bit of mythologizing the gospel writers threw in to appeal to the followers of Mithra and Dionysian religion cults that were hugely popular at the time of Jesus, whose god had virgin births. In other words, he's saying, what if? Well, just imagine this thought experiment We find out that, yeah, there's definitive proof that Jesus had a human father. DNA testing proves it beyond a shadow of a doubt. Jesus had a human father, not conceived by the Holy Ghost, just a human father. But just what? Just imagine if that were the case. Bell would go on to say, I affirm the historic Christian faith, which includes the virgin birth, and the Trinity, and the inspiration of the Bible, and much more. But then he would go on to say, but if the whole thing falls apart when we reexamine and rethink one spring, then it wasn't that strong in the first place, was it? In other words, this idea of the virgin birth as one spring of many, of a trampoline, you can take it or leave it, the whole faith won't fall apart if you take it out. If your view is that the whole thing falls apart when you take that spring away, then you're probably the one that's in the wrong. You see, in doing this, Rob Bell, on one hand, professed to believe the Orthodox, historic, biblical Christian faith. And on the other hand, did everything that he could to undermine it. This is the reason why, even back then, when someone asked me if I had read the book, I said I had read enough of it to know that I would need to clean my shoes if I stepped on it. That's why I said that back then. Because this guy was spouting a whole bunch of nonsense. And he was a heretic back then and is now most clearly revealed to be a heretic today. The virgin birth is not just a spring that we can take away from the trampoline of Christianity and everything remains intact. The virgin birth is vital to our faith. I wanna talk about four ways in which the virgin birth is very vital to our faith. First of all, you might ask, why is the virgin birth, why is this doctrine of the virgin birth so important? It's important, first of all, because it is clearly communicated in scripture. It is clearly communicated in scripture. In other words, denial of this doctrine of the virgin birth is to deny the clear teaching of Scripture. Denial of the virgin birth is a denial of the truthfulness and the inspiration of Scripture itself. There are things in Scripture which well-meaning and faithful believers may come to different conclusions on. that may not be as clearly stated in Scripture. The problem, of course, is not the Scripture, it's us. But there are things which people may come to different conclusions on, and still be believers. Still be brothers and sisters in Christ. The precise nature of the relationship between man's will and God's will, election and predestination. We can come to different conclusions on that, and still be brothers and sisters. the end times, and when the kingdom comes, and what are the conditions that precede that, and how does that fit together? Premillennialism, amillennialism, postmillennialism. We can hold different views on those things and still be brothers and sisters in Christ. When it comes to the virgin birth, it's stated so clearly and reinforced so clearly that to deny it is to undermine the inspiration of Scripture itself. God, the Scripture says, cannot lie. Why can God not lie? Well, number one, He can't lie because He is holy and perfect, and that is contrary to His nature. Second, God can't lie because He just simply can't be deceived by anyone and pass on their deceptions. We may lie, maybe advertently or inadvertently. We might hear something that is untrue and pass it on to someone else. God will never be deceived. This is why Jesus would say of the Bible in John chapter 17 and verse 17, your word is truth. If we come to a doctrine so clearly stated as the virgin birth in Scripture, and say, well, maybe it's not true, what else are we going to say isn't true? We undermine the very nature of inspiration that this book is God-breathed. 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17 tells us that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God. It is breathed out by God. All of it. And all of it is profitable. Doctrine, reproof, correction, instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, completely equipped for every good work. To deny the virgin birth is to undermine the very doctrine of inspiration, the very foundation of our faith, God's Word. Why is the virgin birth so important? Well, it's clearly communicated in Scripture, but second, it is quite simply the way in which God became man. It's the way in which God became man. Denial of the virgin birth undermines the very doctrine of the Incarnation. Rob Bell, in effect, in his book said, what do we lose if we lose the virgin birth? We lose Jesus. Because the virgin birth was the way in which God became man. The way in which the Word became flesh. The way in which the Eternal Son of God stepped into human history as Jesus, the Savior of the world. Denial undermines this very doctrine of the Incarnation and so many other things that go with it. Yes, it is a mystery. But it is true. First Timothy chapter three in verse 16 says, without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen by angels, preached among the Gentiles, believed on in the world, and received up into glory. Why is the doctrine so important? Because it's clearly communicated in scripture. Denial undermines inspiration. Why is the virgin birth, why this doctrine so important? Because it is the way in which God became man. Denial undermines the incarnation of our Lord. You don't have Jesus if you take away the virgin birth. Third, why is this doctrine of the virgin birth so important? Because the virgin birth united full deity with full humanity. Something mysterious happened in the Incarnation. God became man. You have one person with two natures. And it's not like mixing different colors and getting one new color. You have one person that has two natures. Two true, whole natures. Perfectly and eternally uniting those. As the one who is God and man, He is able, then, to be the perfect sacrifice. Because He, after all, is perfect. We'll come back to that in a moment. But as God and man, He is able to be that one mediator between God and man. The man Christ Jesus. The one who stands before God on behalf of His people, and before God's people on behalf of God, the one who is that perfect mediator. To undermine, to call this into doubt, is to undermine many doctrines, including the very doctrine of Christ's mediatorial office. Pleading for God to people, pleading to people for God. or pleading to God for His people. And so, this is why in Scripture we see that there is one God, and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. The one who is fully God, and fully man. But finally, why is the virgin birth so important? It's because the virgin birth produced a Savior without inherited sin. The precise way in which sin passes along from one generation to the next, we don't know all the particulars about that. There are different theories and there are different ideas that make sense, but it's a mysterious thing. What we do know is that in Adam all die. That when Adam sinned, his guilt and his nature passed on to us. And we ratify, or we say that we agree with Adam's decision every time we sin. But the fact that Jesus was virgin born skips that. Jesus is born without inherited sin. And this is what point is made in Luke chapter 1, when the angel speaks to Mary. When it says, the Holy Spirit will come upon you, the power of the highest will overshadow you, therefore also that Holy One who is born to be born will be called the Son of God. If we deny the virgin birth, we actually strike at the very doctrine of our redemption. We must have a Savior without inherited sin. If we have a Savior who is a sinner just like any of us, that is not a suitable Savior for us. And so this mysterious doctrine that seems like it's so lofty and so beyond our ability to understand, it is, but it's so practically important. Look with me, if you would, at 1 Peter 1. 1 Peter 1. You'll recognize this because I quote this in whole or in part each time we celebrate the Lord's table together. But 1 Peter chapter 1 verses 18 and 19. We read, knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver and gold from your aimless conduct. King James has vain conversation. Your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers. but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." Those words there about the purity of our Savior, the purity of His sacrifice, are vitally important. We cannot be redeemed by a sacrifice that is tainted by sin. But we were redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, who is that lamb without blemish and without spot. Hebrews 7 makes this same point. If you want to turn there with me, Hebrews chapter 7. Hebrews 7 makes this point a lot, but I'll just point it out in Hebrews chapter 7, verses 26 and 27. So such a high priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners. and has become higher than the heavens, who does not need daily as those high priests to offer up sacrifices, first for his own sins and then for the people's. Why doesn't he? Because he is not a sinner. He is the one who is holy, harmless, and undefiled. For this he did once for all when he offered up himself. The priests of the Old Testament would offer sacrifices acknowledging their own sinfulness. The fact that they had fallen short of God's standards. Before they then offered sacrifices on behalf of God's people. But Jesus did not need to do that. He was the perfect Lamb of God. He was the perfect Great High Priest. And so Jesus would offer up Himself. In this, Jesus is both the priest and the sacrifice. Both the priest and the victim. You take away the virgin birth of Christ and you have a Savior that has inherited sin. But no, brothers and sisters, don't be ashamed of this doctrine. It is the truth of God. And don't be ashamed of this Savior. Some Christians lately seem to whisper a little bit on a lot of different issues, but particularly some of the supernatural issues of our faith. No, no, no. We don't need to whisper this. This is true. It's vital. Embrace this truth in all of its mystery and embrace the Savior in all of His hope. Amen.