Let us take our copy of the scriptures and turn to Luke chapter 1. We'll read verses 26 through 38 of Luke 1. Let us hear the word of God. Now in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph of the descendants of David. And the virgin's name was Mary. And coming in, he said to her, hailed, favored one, the Lord is with you. But she was greatly troubled at this statement and kept pondering what kind of salutation this might be. And the angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. And he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will have no end. And Mary said to the angel, how can this be since I am a virgin? And the angel answered and said to her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. And for that reason, the holy offspring shall be called the Son of God. And behold, even your relative Elizabeth has also conceived a son in her old age, and she who was called barren is now in her sixth month. for nothing will be impossible with God. And Mary said, Behold the bondslave of the Lord, be it done to me according to your word. And the angel departed. The word of the Lord, you may be seated. Let's bow in prayer together, shall we? Our Heavenly Father, As we join together in the study of your sacred scripture, we're mindful of the fact that in everything that we do, it is before the face of God. But especially as we come before you, Father, and as it were, sit at your feet, For the words that we hear this day, as from this book we call the Bible, are nothing less than your words. And so, Father, as we read the scriptures together and exposit them and seek to apply them, we recognize that it is you who is watching over your word to perform it. that, Father, your Word will never return unto you void without accomplishing the task unto which you have sent it, whether that be for blessing or not. And so, Father, as we come to this sacred text, there's a great ring of familiarity with it which can be at times somewhat dangerous, for we can assume Or we can just coast, if you will, through the profound truths that are taught there. Father, may it not be so with us, but instead, Lord, may you open unto us and to our hearts and to our minds and to our very souls fresh insight into what it is that we are reading and studying and preaching this day. For it is nothing less than the mystery of the Incarnation, an absolute unique event, one of a kind, never to be repeated. And so, Father, as we deal with this scripture, may we also see its importance. May we see, Father, how this is the linchpin, the key to our being rescued from the fall, our Father being conformed to the image of one who is holy, righteous, and good in sanctification, that we, Father, might be they who have a mediator that would intercede for us ceaselessly, one who would be qualified to be a blood sacrifice once for all time, that we who were far off might be reconciled unto you. the holy Lord of the universe. And so, Lord, won't you cause us to search these scriptures together? And in the process, in every step of the way, may it be an act of worship, an act of submission unto you, an act, Father, of glorifying and praising your name in the midst of it. May it be an act, Father, of seeing how we should be devoted to that which is above all, and be done with the lesser things of this world. Father, won't you be glorified in it all, in Jesus' name, amen. Well, the title of the sermon this morning, A Holy Son Conceived of a Virgin. As we deal with this text that is before us, We see that we're picking up here after the initial phase of the actions that took place in the breaking of the silence by God. You'll recall that there were over four centuries where God was silent. But here we see in the opening verses of this chapter that God sent Gabriel to a priest. who was offering incense on the altar of incense. That altar of incense, remember, was the times of prayer where the priest would lead and the people would be outside praying. And the smoke of the incense, like a sweet smell going before into the Holy of Holies and before the God and the Shekinah, glory of God, the prayers would go forth. And so we realize that it was at that time when Zechariah, the one who would be father to John the Baptist, was doing just that, leading, and he was chosen, here one time in your lifetime you could do this. And here providentially God chose this man at this time to be there offering incense and prayer. And he said, he appeared to Zacharias and said, your wife Elizabeth will have a son, you and your wife. And that Johanan or John will be his name. and that he will be the prophet who will go before the Most High. And if you read in Isaiah 40 describing the one before whom this prophet John goes, Isaiah 40 says he goes to prepare the way of the LORD, all caps L-O-R-D, Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh or Yahweh if you will. This is the one before whom he goes. Well here we see the LORD. become incarnate in the verses we deal with today. And so the messengers sent by God, beginning here in verse 26. So it's assumed that we know that Elizabeth, this woman advanced somewhat in years who is now with Zacharias expecting a child, expecting a son, the angel tells us. In her sixth month, in that month, the angel of God, the messenger of God is sent to, well, not just anywhere and not just anyone, but we see here that it's a time where God's promises and God's providence come to a head, if you will. This is a place that's unexpected. It comes to Nazareth. In verse 26, it says, Galilee, a city in Galilee named Nazareth. Later on in the Gospels, you'll hear the leaders of the nation say, can anything good come out of Nazareth? And if we were to study our scriptures and they asked elsewhere, they said, does a prophet ever come out of Galilee? No prophets ever come out of Galilee. They were wrong. There was one. and fascinating that he was one who would show forth a type of Jesus the Christ as prophet. You see the prophet who came from Galilee was a man named Jonah. And Jonah was from Galilee and he was one who didn't go to Israel to prophesy. He was sent to the enemy. to the Assyrians in Nineveh. They were the ones who were rampaging the northern kingdom and ultimately would defeat it and carry those 10 tribes away and deport them. And so they bring their people in, and those left, they would intermarry, and you have what would end up being the Samaritans. And so you see here, after all of those events, we've got the angel coming here to this most unexpected place. and in a most unexpected time. It says over in Galatians chapter 4 that God sent forth his son born of a woman in the fullness of time. Now as we're going to unfold this we recognize that this is in covenant fulfillment. And you say, well which covenant? Was it the Davidic covenant? Yes. Oh, okay. Well, that was a thousand years before. Keep going. It was also in fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant. But it was also in fulfillment of, it says in that same text of Galatians 4, born under the law that he might redeem us from out from under that law. And that we might have the Spirit of the Son, whereby we cry unto the Father as he does, Abba, Father. And so there's a complete reconciliation, you see, in him. And it goes all the way back to a covenant that took place in the garden. For it was there in Genesis 3.15 that God actually is speaking to Satan, the serpent. And he says, the seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent, but in the process that serpent will bruise the heel, or actually it's the same word, crush the heel of the seed of the woman. That was understood as the one who would finally bring an end to everything that had to do with darkness, and the kingdom of darkness, and to Satan, and to sin, and to death, the one who would finally deal its death blow. And certainly it was about that, the seed of the woman. But it's strange that it's worded that way. Now, by the way, I've, you know, there are those who would say, well, see, here's the first indication of a virgin birth. Because it says seed of the woman, it always says seed of the man. And it normally does, that's true. But as I've researched it more, there were a couple other places that it said the seed of Sarah. And it said the seed of Hannah. It's interesting, though, that in the Magnificat, that's the part you have in your sermon notes, that Mary sang forth, I guess you would say. A lot of it is parallel to the prayer of Hannah, the mother of Samuel. But anyway, we're getting ahead of ourselves. So an unexpected place, an unexpected time of darkness. What do you mean darkness? Rome ruled. They were under the iron boot of Rome. And so here they are, a people who are a servant people in their own land, yes, but almost like, not quite, but almost like in Egypt. And so the place unexpected, and the time unexpected. And so Mary here in verse 27 is the one to whom he came. Now, look at her qualifications. Why would he come to her? Well, you said she had the name of the sister of Moses. That's not much qualification. You find in the Gospels there are several women who are named Mary. It was a popular name. And Miriam, in other words. But there was something else. She was betrothed, it says here. She was a virgin who was betrothed to a man who was in the line of David, and this man's name was Joseph. And the qualifications are that he was of the proper descendants, and she was too. They were betrothed. Now you know betrothal. All of you have studied betrothal, right? I bet you have not. And recently I've been doing some more reading in the Biblical Archaeologist Review and other places like that. And they've uncovered some things near where they found the Dead Sea Scrolls about weddings and betrothal. And you say, please share it with us. OK, I will. And that is, first of all, the betrothal could last a year. Secondly, the betrothal could take place as early as age 12 of the young lady, but usually somewhere between 12 and 15, the older brides. And so there would be the betrothal of a young woman. So this is a young, this is probably a teenager, surely, and she's fairly young. And she's betrothed to this man Joseph. Now by the way, I've also heard that Joseph was probably an old man, probably died early and all that sort of thing. The problem is with that, that usually those betrothals are with a young man who wasn't that much older than the young lady. They were almost always put together for a reason, and here's the reason, and this is pertinent for our study, and that is the line that would be joined. And if you have a young lady who's of the line of David, and you have a young man who's of the line of David, and there they are to be married, you see, here are people who are to be qualified, but it's most important here for our purposes, she's also a virgin. They've not yet been married, they're betrothed. And so here you have Mary, the Virgin, who is sent, has this angel who shows up to her. Now, by the way, you notice on your bulletin, you know, Emma did a great job of picking out an illustration for that. No wings. You don't find wings mentioned on angels. That may be a small thing to you, but it's big to me. Anyhow. And the angel comes to her as a messenger from God, and this is what he says in verse 28. Notice in verse 28 he says, the angel having come to her said to her, rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you, blessed are you among women. I don't like the translation. I know what's in most. Did you know that in 28 and in 30, you've got the word, or it's cognate for grace, used three times? Grace to you, Mary, is the idea. Grace is given, shown to you, Mary. And then in 30, Mary found grace in the eyes of the Lord. You get the difference. It's not just a greeting, it's not just, you know, hail favored one. Favored, yes. It is God has shown forth unmerited, undeserved, unearned favor upon you that you should be privileged to be the mother who would fulfill the covenant promise going all the way right after the fall to now, you're the one that God would bless with bearing this child by this miraculous way, and that is by way of a virgin conception, without a human father involved, in other words. He will be legal, we'll deal with that next time, but he will be the legal adoptive father, yes, Joseph will be, but not the biological father. And so the grace you've received is what he's giving you. You know what, here you have the seed of the woman. He will be descended from her, but not descended from Joseph, just the legal heir of Joseph. But that's important, isn't it? And by the way, you look at the opening verses of Matthew, verse 1 of chapter 1. You find that it says the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham, working backwards. And so the son of David, we've already talked about as being in the line of David, and also the son of Abraham. In Genesis chapter 12 verse 3, also in 2218, it says that in your seed, and it makes the point of saying Singular, in your seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed. Do you remember Jonah? What was unique about him of all the prophets? He was not sent to Israel. He was not sent to the people of God's covenant people. He was sent as a missionary to the enemies. This one who was born in Galilee, or will, or excuse me, conceived in Galilee and will return there, a light to the Gentiles. all nations. And so you found grace in the eyes of the Lord. In other words, it's a gift. And that's why he says here in verse 30, do not be afraid, Mary. Now what would she have to fear? Well, let's see a few things. Number one, They're not married. Number two, if you tell everybody that you're a virgin, and yet you're carrying a child, what will most of the people think of you? You're lying. Understandably so. Because never before has it been thus, and never after shall it be thus, that a child is born of a woman in this way. Well, what else is there to fear? Not just rejection and the off-scouring of the society, but also rejection by your betrothed. But what are we forgetting if we talk in those ways? We're forgetting who's in charge. That's what I think the angel's getting at in part. God is the one who sent me. God is the one who has it all well in control. And so God says, do not be afraid. Okay, so don't be afraid. Why? First of all, because it is God's purposes being worked out right here in this way. That's the number one thing. We have a lot to learn from that, don't we? God's purpose is being worked out. Don't be afraid. Secondly, the idea it's God's power at work in the midst of all of this. Mary's not the one causing it to be so. It's not her power. Just like you and I, it's not be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. It's his power. But thirdly, it is God's presence with her. And so those three things are there why she should not be afraid. And so the Lord is with you, he says. Blessed are you among women. So there is a greeting and there is the fact that she found grace in the eyes of the Lord. She wasn't, and I'm going to have to deal with this in a moment, but it's not that she was sinless. You ever heard that? People saying she was sinless? Or have you ever heard people say that she was, you know, had an immaculate conception of how she came into the world? Or that she was, you know, she remained perpetually a virgin even though of all the other children that were born? Or you have various things that are taught in the Roman Church. I mean, I think you've all heard of them. And you see, this is not saying that. this is getting at the point, she didn't deserve this. It was a gift. It was a blessing of God. And so as we move into this, verses 31 and following, we see, secondly, what and who are the blessings that the angel is referring to. In verse 31, behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a son. and shall call his name Jesus, or Yeshua. He will be great, he will be called the Son of the Highest, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." Notice, no end, forever, I emphasize them on purpose. And so when we're looking at this, what is the big miraculous thing? It's mentioned, it's described here, but there's also, it's also prophesied, you could say, in Isaiah chapter 7, verse 14. All of you know this and are familiar with it, I'm sure. It says there, behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son. And we'll find this in Matthew, and it says, and you shall call his name Immanuel, that is to say, God with us. Now in that statement, we have a lot assumed. lot of information that's revealed to us. And that first of all, that it is the Virgin who is conceiving. Not the Virgin and her husband or lover or whatever, but it's the Virgin's conceiving. And secondly, that it is Emmanuel, that is to say God with us. So the one who is to be born of her is indeed the one who is God incarnate. Now think for a moment of what it's getting at here as it says, he's the son of the highest. The Lord God will give him his throne of the Father David. So we have all kinds of scriptures that would refer to this and our time is fleeting. Let me just say this. Look at Isaiah chapter 11, Isaiah chapter 9, look at Psalm 22, look at Psalm 45, you know, look at Daniel chapter 7, all kinds of places in the Old Testament. It prophesies that there will be this Messiah who would come, who would come forth, and who would sit upon the throne of David. 2 Samuel chapter 7 is the one that is the Davidic covenant, and there he says, "...one of your own line, of your own seed, David, will sit upon your throne, and of his kingdom there will be no end." So what he's saying here is the time, the moment, the person, the promise's fulfillment has arrived. Now notice it's not saying will arrive later on and last temporarily. It says that time has come. He's here. Furthermore, as we look at how, he describes how the process will take place. He says, you shall conceive in your womb and bring forth a son. Verse 32, he will be great. Verse 33, and he will reign over the house of Jacob. Verse 34, Mary asked the logical question. I'm a virgin, how can this happen? I don't understand." Now, obviously she did not know all of Old Testament scripture, do you? She had, no doubt, been taught Torah. She had been taught the writings, she did sing the Psalms, no doubt, and she did know many of the prophecies, probably. But this part had slipped her attention, her notice. And that is that a virgin would give birth to Messiah. And so when she asked, how can this be since I'm a virgin? She's saying, this is something that in the history of humanity, I'm expanding. In the history of humanity has never occurred. How is this going to happen now? Now, the preparation is to receive this message, and the messenger gives it. And he says in verse 35, the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the highest will overshadow you, and therefore also the Holy One who is born will be called the Son of God. Do you recognize the language? If you were to return to Genesis chapter 1, let's do that. Genesis chapter 1, verse 1, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep. All right, you ready? Next step. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, let there be light. And there was light, etc. Now notice here that we have God, who is the one who created the heavens and the earth. The word that's used there for God is Elohim. Elohim is a plural ending. You hear that im or in in Hebrew, that's always a plural. Well, it's here a plural. It says Elohim created the heavens and the earth. And it says the Spirit of God. Now notice we're talking about God, but we're talking about his Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God hovered over the waters. And so that when God spoke his word, the event occurred. You got that much? Back up with me now, not to confuse too much more. All of you know, I went through it a bit in Sunday school, so they're fresh on it, John chapter 1. It purposely begins with these words that we just read. In the beginning, And three times it uses the verb, an imperfect of the verb to be, was. In other words, if you were to literally translate that verb three times using one verse, short verse, he was and was continuing to be. And it says in the beginning, was and was continuing to be the word. And the word was and was continuing to be, what's the next part? with God. That means eye to eye, face to face, equality. And the word was and was continuing to be God. In his essence, in his being, God. Now we have two persons of the Godhead that are obviously distinguished, not separated, in Genesis 1. And here we have two persons of the Godhead also distinguished in John 1. And it goes on to say in John 1, and we don't have time to go too far with this, and it is to say, nothing that was created or that exists was created apart from the word. Now, the word, that's a strange way of saying things. In other words, that which is a communication of the fullness of the one who is speaking. And so in verse 14 of John, it makes it clear. Are you with me? And it says, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld his glory, the glories of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Now we know who the Word is, the Son. And so when we look at what's happening here, how is this to occur, Mary asks. And he says, the power of the highest will hover over you, just like we see there in Genesis chapter 1. And he says, that which is conceived of you will be the Son of God. You know, when you think of the Son of God and you think of the offspring here is spoken of, do not misunderstand, and this is why we went to great lengths in Hebrews, this is not the beginning of the existence of God the Son. Notice how I worded it. The eternal Son of God. Remember that we see in scripture even there in John 1, in the beginning was and was continuing to be. In creation he was already there. We looked at Colossians 1 last week. Remember that? It says, he was the one who by whom, through whom, and for whom all things were created. We saw also that the pre-existence of the Son was indicated in everything we found in Hebrews. That, behold, in the volume of the book that is written of me, and behold, a body you have prepared for me. In other words, He was in existence long before we ever had the body that was created at that time in Mary. And so we have in Mary a human nature, a body, and a reasonable soul that is human, that is there, created at the time of this incarnation. But the one who comes into, is incarnate at that time, is God, the Eternal Son. Let me give another verse. Write it down. I gave it last week. You'll remember it this time. John 17, verse 5. In that high priestly prayer, Jesus says, Father, glorify me with the glory I had with you before the world began. Mind-boggling. And so when we think of this incarnation, beloved, just remember what scripture says here. This is how he came into existence. In other words, or excuse me, in his humanity, how he became incarnate. Philippians 2 talks about it. And it says there in verse 5, had this mind in you, which is also in Christ Jesus, that although he existed in form as God, verse 6. Morphe is the word form. We get metamorphosized into form. It means the fullness of what it is to be that or be him. He existed as God. And he thought it not robbery and something to cling to, to humble himself and take on the form or add to himself the form also of a man. But for a particular reason, for the suffering of death, even death on a cross, And so, beloved, as we see Jesus Christ, the incarnation of God, the Son, and the birth of Jesus Christ coming forth, a conception here, coming forth, a number of things we need to understand. He came this way that he might be fully God and fully man. Fully God and fully man. We don't think in those terms, do we? We say, well, half and half, 90%, 10%, we just think in those terms, or is it just me? That a lot of us as humans, we just tend to do that. But here is the one who did not cease to be God, did not cease to exercise and have the attributes of God. For example, when people were thinking, this man's a Beelzebub. He casts out demons by the power of Beelzebub. Jesus knew their thoughts. And he responded to them, and he said, talks to them about Beelzebub. Can you imagine how unsettling that would be, by the way? Or he challenges the ones that were always testing Jesus were the Pharisees and the scribes, these chief priests. And they're always testing him, and Jesus says, I have a test for you. It says in Psalm 110, I give the reference, that's what he's referencing. He says, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. He said, if the Lord calls, you know, if Messiah is called Lord and he calls Lord, who do you think he is? And they didn't answer because they couldn't. Beloved, this is important to get the virgin birth for a number of reasons. Let me give you a reason that maybe didn't occur to you. His full humanity is necessary. That's why we went through that mediator thing. That Jesus Christ, remember he's sinless, here a sinless nature. We saw in Hebrews 4 that this is the one who it says he was tested in all points as we are and yet without sin. And therefore he is a qualified high priest and he can sympathize with our weaknesses. We have a sympathetic high priest and yet sinless. We also know he's sinless by the sacrifice he made. Remember what it says there in declaring who he is here in Romans 1-4. It says in Romans chapter 1, here's, go back to verse 3, here's the one born of the seed of David, and it goes on to say that he was crucified, but it goes on to describe what happened thereafter. It says he was declared to be the Son of God. by the resurrection from the dead. It explains that resurrection from the dead, by the way. It says he was raised by the spirit of holiness. You know what that means? That's the only place in the Bible it's worded that way. It doesn't mean holy spirit. It means he was raised by the spirit of holiness, put in another way, because he had no sin, because he's holy and righteous and good down to his soul, to his being, to every What do you want to say? There's no particles in his essence. Every aspect of him being sinless, death had no hold on him. Peter, as he's preaching at Pentecost, said as much, didn't he? He said, death could not hold him. And so, beloved, as we look here at this virgin conception of Messiah, of Jesus the Christ. It is absolutely essential for our salvation. Let me ask you something. In whom do you believe? Let me ask it another way. In Romans chapter 10, it says in that text, and in various others it uses, it quotes the same portion of Old Testament scripture, And it says there, you know, that if you believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved. Now, what did I leave out? If you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you'll be saved. Believing Jesus is Lord. Elsewhere in Romans it says, in verse 17 of that chapter 10, it says, whosoever shall call upon the name of the, it's a quote of the Old Testament, L-O-R-D, all caps, Yahweh, shall be saved. Who is it talking about in the context, both in Acts 2, as well as there in Romans 10. And by the way, you could go on to Ephesians, excuse me, Hebrews, and you find it in each place it's talking about confessing Jesus Christ as Lord. It means confessing Jesus Christ is Yahweh or Jehovah incarnate. Do you remember what Yahweh means? I am. aseity, the ever, the self-existent one, the only one who's independent. That's why in Hebrews 1 it says that he upholds all things by the word of his power, the Son. It's describing there in verse 1, 3, chapter 1 verse 3 of Hebrews. The I am has come incarnate to save you and me. Our faith We believe he is the Lord incarnate. In your Bible, in your New Testament, get on a computer. It's real simple to do with a computer. These days it's too easy. You don't have to dig it out as much. Go the old-fashioned way, just for the fun of it, and get a concordance. And look at everywhere it says, Lord, in the New Testament. And then, you know, dig a little and see how many times it's saying, Lord, about Jesus the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Almost always. And then look at how many of those are quotes of the Old Testament, Yahweh or Jehovah. I have a book written by Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield, some of you know of him. And it's talking about Jesus Christ as Lord and he goes through every single, this was old school, he died over a hundred years ago, 1921. So he went through every part of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, went all the way through to Revelation and checking all of these uses of Lord. The New Testament is full. of that use of kurios, Lord, for Jesus Christ. And this is the one, whoever lives, fully man and fully God, in order to intercede in your behalf, in your and mine. This is also the one who went to the cross. He didn't, God did not evacuate this incarnation at the time of the death on that cross. There at that crucifixion and suffering and death and everything, you have fully God, fully man, the one who was there. And you see the results. Our salvation is everlasting because of this incarnation we read about here. One last thing as we close. You know, the angel, the messenger of God explained to Mary, he said, even your cousin Elizabeth now is in the sixth month of her pregnancy, the one who was called barren. We don't know how old she was. She might have been a spring chicken as I grew up hearing people refer to folks that meant they were only 60 or 65. But the rejoicing part was, nothing's impossible for God. And he said, she's carrying a child. And what was Mary's response? Well, let's read it. In Luke chapter 1, verse 38, and Mary said, behold, that means, look, here I am, behold. the maidservant of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word." And the angel departed from her. The bowing to this very difficult thing that would be lifelong, but in the Magnificat she sings out, all generations to come, will call me blessed, because I was honored, in other words, to bear this miraculous child. We'll have to save talking about Mary more next time. But let me just leave you with a terrific summary of understanding the full deity and full humanity of Jesus Christ, and you must have both. Remember in 1 John chapter 4, beginning in verse 1 and going through verse 4, it talks about the spirit of Antichrist, and it says, the spirit of Antichrist, what is that? It's those who deny that Jesus the Christ, the Son of Man, has come in the flesh. I'll tell you a story about Corinthus next time, an old heretic. I'll tell you now, I've already started it. John the Apostle, it's written by Polycarp, one of John the Apostle's disciples, and he wrote, he was pastor ultimately in Smyrna, and it says that John was in a bath, you know the Roman baths, they had a public swimming pool, how's that? He was in a bath there in Ephesus, and it says that John came out of the bath, and he said, flee, flee before the wolves cave in on you. And Polycarp thought, what is my master doing now? He says, master, why? Why? And he says, Corinthus is in there, and surely God will destroy him. What did Corinthus not believe in? He did not believe in the full humanity of Jesus Christ. He believed in a Savior that only appeared to be a man, and that you had a bait and switch that took place at time of crucifixion, etc. Beloved, to make atonement for humanity took one who was fully human. For him to be the satisfaction for all eternity. and to be the one who would be fully qualified to be both God and man to mediate, he also had to be fully God. In Colossians 2.9, here's a verse that summarizes it for you. Remember this verse. I've said it many times. that Jesus Christ in him is the fullness of the Godhead. Understand what that's saying. The word pleroma in the Greek means the absolute maximum you could contemplate. The pleroma, the fullness of the Godhead in bodily form in Jesus Christ. is a description of the incarnate God, our Savior, and our Lord. This is the one in whom we believe. And this is the one in whom, and only in him, we are saved. And this is the one, by the way, who is our King. May God be glorified in His Word. Amen. Let's bow together in prayer, shall we? Heavenly Father, certainly for me, it almost makes your mind so boggled of what you have done, and call it speechless. Yet we bow before you now, as we've looked into the scriptures and looked at so many passages, and the word of you, O God, has been preached. and the truth that Jesus is Lord has been declared. Oh, Heavenly Father, how much clearer in all the Scripture for them to test Him, the Lord Jesus Christ, God in the flesh standing before them, Jesus saying to them, before Abraham was born, I am. And so it is, O Lord, we place our faith, knowing that there is no other name given among men by which we can be saved other than the Lord Jesus Christ. So we ask that for those of us who have confessed with our mouth and believe in our heart, confessed with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that God, you oh God, raised him from the dead, that we are saved. But for any of us who have had a heart that are not that you haven't done that heart transplant on, we pray that today is the day that is the heart transplant. But for all of us who have had that transplant, we might grow in grace and all the more give you the praise and the glory for what you have done in the second person of the Godhead who came in bodily form to live the life we could never live, perfectly without sin, to die the death that was due for us. Oh, might you be praised for it, we ask in Jesus' name, amen. I receive the benediction of the Lord. The peace of God which Jesus has bought for us, that passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in His knowledge and love. And of Jesus Christ our Lord, the blessing of God Almighty, and Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, may He be among you and remain with you always. Amen.