"'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.'" These verses describe for us what we often call the virgin birth. The fact that Mary had no relations with a human at all prior to the conception of Jesus in her womb. She conceived in her womb of the Holy Spirit. And this is made clear in the words that were promised by the angel Gabriel to her. Because Mary asked a very natural, sensible question. You're telling me I'm gonna have a son, I'm gonna bring forth this son, call his name Jesus, and so on and so forth. But she said, how shall this be? Saying, I know not a man. How can this happen when I am not and have not been with any man? Very legitimate question. A very sensible question. And of course the angel gave her the answer. "'The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, "'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.'" This is a statement of the virgin birth of Jesus. A doctrine that is despised, a doctrine that is denied even by church men, It's denied by all sorts of people for various reasons. The chief of those reasons being, this is impossible. People don't walk on water, for example. The Bible says Jesus walked on water. People don't walk on water. Jesus made a man who was blind from birth to be able to see. That doesn't happen in natural life. This is against nature. So therefore, people will say it didn't happen because it can't happen. The same with the virgin birth. There couldn't be a birth of a child to a woman without the involvement of a human being. a man to be the father of that child. It doesn't happen, it can't happen, therefore they say, I don't believe it happened. And what they're doing in all of those cases is leaving out one thing, and that's God. That's the answer. They're leaving God out of the equation. They've completely removed the possibility of anything supernatural. And we know that in many quarters, not only ecclesiastical, but secular belief in the virgin birth has become really unfashionable. People will say, well, biologically such a birth is not possible. And science will teach us that there cannot be such a thing. Though isn't it interesting that the same science will tell you that a boy can be born in a woman's body and so on? I mean, people will use science and talk about science when it suits them. But this is what people will tell you. This is a scientific impossibility. A woman cannot have a child without the involvement of a human father. But that's leaving God out of the equation. People go through the Bible, and they will say, this miracle, that miracle, the other miracle that the Bible talks about, it's humanly impossible, therefore, I don't believe it. Someone said, people go through the Bible, they look at the person of Christ, and they tell us that there is no supernatural deity there, he's not God. They look at the sinless life of Christ, and they'll tell us that there's no such thing as purity, somebody being totally sinless, and they leave out the possibility of supernatural involvement. They'll go through the works of Christ, the supernatural miracles of Christ, and they'll say that they don't believe them. They'll go through the words of Christ. They'll say that there's no supernatural wisdom in those words. They'll tell us there's no supernatural atonement in the death of Christ. There's no cleansing power in the blood of Christ. There's no such thing as a resurrection because people don't come back from the dead and so on and so forth. And all of this is to take God out of the equation. I make no apology for telling you that I believe in the supernatural, and I believe in a God who is a supernatural God. And I believe in a supernatural Savior, a Christ who had a supernatural conception, a supernatural birth. He lived a supernatural perfect life. He died a supernatural death. He rose again in a supernatural resurrection, and he will furthermore be coming again in a supernatural fashion at the second advent. People will say, even today, this morning, coming up to Christmastime, how shall this be? Or they'll change it to, how could it be? How could you have a virgin birth? But those who challenge the doctrine of the virgin birth are challenging the supernatural nature of our God, the fact that he is almighty. And wasn't that something that the angel said here in this very passage, that with God, nothing shall be impossible? Isn't that what the Bible teaches? With God, nothing shall be impossible. And that's what we have to believe, and it is what we believe. And that's Luke chapter one, verse 37, by the way. Because the angel went on to talk about the birth that Elizabeth would have. She would conceive a son. She would bring forth a child. The difference being, that God turned back the natural, in the case of Zacharias and his wife Elizabeth, so that they could actually have a child by natural generation. John the Baptist was not virgin-born. There's nothing to suggest that Elizabeth was a virgin when she gave birth to John. But nevertheless, in relation to that, the angel said, Verse 37, for with God nothing shall be impossible. And that's what you and I have to believe. And we might lift this even to a higher realm, in a sense, or to a different realm, and say there's somebody who's such an awful, wicked person. It looks like there's no way on this earth that they will ever change, that they will ever be saved, that they will ever go to heaven. They're so far gone. But we say to that, for with God, nothing shall be impossible. The Lord is able to do great things. He's able to do all things that are in keeping with his nature. There are things that God can't do. He can't lie. Because for God to lie would be to deny His nature, and if He lied, He would no longer be God. But we say, generally speaking, with God, nothing shall be impossible. Now, if there's no virgin birth, we have to think about the alternative. If Jesus was not born of a pure virgin, therefore He did not inherit sin, then we have to look at what that implies. What's the alternative to believing in the virgin birth? There was a moderator of the Presbyterian Church of the USA, his name was Mark Matthews, and he made a rather caustic remark about the rejecters of the doctrine of the virgin birth. This is what he said, quote, they are no doubt rationalists, direct agents of Satan. If they want to fight God, and if this doctrine of the virgin birth is the battleground, then when we have finished with them, if they have any conscience at all, We hope that they will leave the visible ecclesiastical organization and go into the world, into the synagogue of Satan and stay there. For they assuredly have no place in the real church of Jesus Christ. And of course, we could apply that also to these so-called LGBTQ plus friendly churches. They're not churches. They're not churches. Those that are so-called ministers of those churches, they're not ministers. God is not within a million miles of those places, because all that they believe and teach is contrary to God's own revealed Word. People now will say the virgin birth is not essential. There used to be a bishop in the Church of England. I've talked about him before. His name was David Jenkins. He was the Bishop of Durham in the northeast of England. Every time Christmas came around, he used the opportunity to attack the virgin birth. Every year. He would go on the media around Easter time and he would attack the resurrection of Christ. He said that the resurrection was nothing more than a conjuring trick involving bones. Now that's blasphemy of the worst order. He has since died. He's gone to his reward. I know one thing. If he did not repent of his wicked views, then he's in the very hell that he didn't believe in. To reject the virgin birth is to say that Mary was unchaste, that she was not a pure woman. She was not a woman of integrity. If she was found with child before ever being married, then she was unchaste. She was an adulteress. And, of course, under the law of the Jews, one who was espoused to a husband, it was a form of engagement, she would have to make vows to her future husband. They were just as binding as the actual marriage vows themselves. And as an espoused woman, if Mary was expecting a child by any other action than that of an act of the Holy Spirit, she was an adulteress. Now you think about this, the implications of that. That our Savior would be brought into the world because of an act of adultery. But that's what's involved if you reject this great doctrine. I'm here to tell you that the virgin birth is an essential tenet of the Christian faith. You cannot be a Christian and not believe in the virgin birth. You cannot be a gospel minister and not believe in the virgin birth. It's impossible because of the implications for the person of Christ. To reject the virgin birth is to imply that our Savior was and illegitimate. The word that the Bible uses for that is the word bastard. Joseph never, you will notice, claimed to be his father. But rather, when he found that Mary was expecting a child, his thought was to put her away privily. So then, who was the father of Jesus? The only logical answer to that If you reject the doctrine of the virgin birth, it's that somebody was involved in this who covered over his actions with a cloak of anonymity. An unnamed person who was involved in this. If you reject the virgin birth of Christ, you're going to have to say that the Lord Jesus was a liar and that he was an imposter. He wasn't the Son of God at all. He claimed to be, didn't he, the only begotten Son of God? That's what he said. He claimed to come from above. That's what he said in the book of John a number of times. I was sent into the world by the Father. That means he was somewhere else before he was sent. This is what he said. Now, how could he be the son of God when in reality, according to these blasphemers, these modernists, he was the illegitimate child of a fallen woman? Many years ago, there was an American theologian by the name of Nels Fehr. F-E-R-R-E with an acute above the E. Here's what he said. And you know, it's hard to read this without feeling you want to wash out your mouth afterwards. Here's what he said. Mary, we remember, was found to be pregnant before her engagement to mild Joseph. Nazareth was hard by, that means located beside, a Roman garrison where the soldiers were German mercenaries. Jesus is also reported throughout a continuous part of the history of art. It is claimed to have been blonde. He had blonde hair, according to this guy. This is supposedly unnatural for the Mediterranean countries where the same tradition started and was continued. Hence, Jesus must have been the child... Jesus must have been the child of a German soldier. After all, the claim develops, such is the experience of many girls who were near to military camps. His great genius, His spiritual agony and serene victory would thus be accounted for, for as far as the unusual conditions go, which gave him the chance to respond in an exceptional manner in the fullness of time. Such an interpretation has been made of his life, and who can deny that such a conjecture could be true?" Unquote. Now, that man is a lying child of the devil. That's what he is, or was. He's probably not still alive. He's gone to his reward. But what an awful thing to say about the holy, harmless, undefiled Christ who was, according to the Bible, separate from sinners and made higher than the heavens. According to this character, he was the illegitimate child of a German soldier. who impregnated Mary because of a military barracks that was nearby. What awful blasphemy. You know, that comes straight from the pit. That's where that comes from. That comes from hell itself. Only the devil would think up such a thing. And only one who's inspired by the devil would repeat it. Of course, having sworn at his ordination to preach the Christian gospel, men like this Nels Ferrer, have got such gall. Every time they enter the pulpit, they try to attempt to destroy the very tenants that they're under an oath to proclaim. Talk about perjury. These men who take these oaths to uphold a confession of faith that speaks about the person and work of Christ in biblical terms, and then they deny this faith with their tongues from their pulpits. They're perjurers. They're liars. They've no place in the pulpit. And as one said, no language could be strong enough to describe their base villainy. There was a contemporary of Spurgeon called Dr. Joseph Parker. He was the first minister of the City Temple in London. And he said this concerning characters like Nels Fair. Beware of such men. They're clever liars. They are swindlers who look too innocent to be quite guiltless. Harlings who hunger for pilf. Nay, the black indictment does not end there. They are killers of men, bandits who thrust weapons into souls and slay the young, the unsuspecting, and the frank. The man in the pulpit who insults the Bible upon which he lives and wriggles out of the professions by which he climbed to the pulpit, he dishonors. I charge him with worse crimes than those which blackened Barabbas or damned Judas Iscariot." And I say amen to that. What's the alternative to the doctrine of the virgin birth? What is the alternative to believing that Christ was born of a virgin? It's this kind of blasphemous nonsense. You can't have it both ways. Either Christ was born of a virgin, He was the pure and holy Son of God, He is our Savior, who made an atonement for us, which is atoning, or He was an imposter and a liar, and Christianity is a myth. has to be one or the other. Now there are a number of arguments that we can bring forward to establish the truth of the virgin birth of Christ. I want both this morning and again this evening in the will of God to look at some of these arguments that are irrefutable in my opinion. Let's think about the first one. The virgin birth I believe in It's very important because it was anticipated in the Old Testament. If you look at your Old Testament, you will see the words there that predict many things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. There are prophecies everywhere. When Jesus was asked about Moses, he said to the people in John chapter five that they have Moses, and that Moses wrote of me. So, if you think about that, Moses wrote of me. That means that Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy are all about Christ. If you go furthermore to Luke chapter 24, you'll discover that when Jesus talked to those two on the road to Emmaus, and then later that day to the eleven in the upper room, and expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself, The Lord did that because he is the subject of the sacred book. He is the topic that Moses wrote of. But not only Moses, the Psalms and the prophets, the entire Old Testament record is a confirmation of the truth of who Jesus is and what Jesus came to do. Remember when the story is given The account is given by the Lord Jesus in Luke chapter 16 of the rich man and Lazarus. Lazarus went to the bosom of Abraham, went to paradise, went to heaven. The rich man, however, died and went to hell. And the rich man, realizing what an awful place hell was, and having five brothers who were still alive on the earth, he asked Abraham to do him a favor. He said, would you send Lazarus to my five brothers and tell them not to come to this place? because I'm tormented in this flame." Basically, he's saying, I want you to send Lazarus as a missionary to my brothers and tell them they need to get right with God because I don't want them to come to hell. You know, the rich man in hell had more of a burden for souls than some Christians. Do you want to see people go to hell? Do you want to see your loved ones perish? Are those that you work with, are those that you are close with? And even those you're not close with, but you're acquainted with, do you want to see them lost? Oh, Father Abraham, if one went unto them from the dead, they would repent. This was in response to Abraham saying to the tormented rich man, they have Moses and the prophets. Let them hear them. And that's what I say to people who think they're going to convince people of the gospel by using apologetics only. If we could only get them all into a van or a car and drive out to Kentucky and see the ark encounter, they'll believe on Christ. No, they won't. No, they won't. Is it nice? Is it good? Yeah, it probably is. I've never been there. But is that going to convince people to get right with God and make them think that the Bible is true? No, it's not. You know how I know that? Because there were those in the day of Christ, they saw the Lord doing miracles in front of them. They saw people who were lame able to walk. They saw the blind able to see. They saw Him raising the dead. Jairus' daughter, the widow of Nain's son, Lazarus, they saw it. Did they believe on Him? No, they didn't believe on Him. And the Bible talks about it, it says, neither did they believe in Him. though he had done so many miracles before them. And here it is, Abraham confirms that. They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them. If they can't believe what the Bible says, you're not gonna convince them any other way. That's the truth. Here you have this statement. Moses and the prophets. Why did he say Moses and the prophets? Because the whole Old Testament speaks of Christ. It confirms the truth. Whenever you see what the Bible says about the Lord Jesus Christ, it confirms, it anticipates his virgin birth. For instance, Genesis 3.15, it's called the Proto-Evangel. It's the first gospel promise. Genesis 3.15. These are words that the Lord spoke to the serpent, the old devil, after Adam and Eve had fallen. Listen to this. Genesis 3.15. The first gospel promise in the Bible. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. That's the devil's seed and the seed of Eve. It, that is the seed, it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. The seed is Christ. Christ would stomp on the head of the devil, but the devil would bruise his heel. He would have his way with Christ to an extent. If you see what the devil did when the Lord was tempted on the mount there, or when he was tempted in the wilderness, rather, and told him to go to the mountain and so on, Matthew chapter four, when the Lord answered the devil, every time he said, it is written, you know where he quoted from? The book of Deuteronomy. All three of the quotations are from Deuteronomy, and it is a fact confirmed by a book by Oswald Ellis that the book of Deuteronomy is one of the most attacked and discredited books in all of the Bible. It was one of the targets of the so-called higher critics and German rationalists. Why? Why were they so opposed to the book of Deuteronomy? Because of what it says about Christ. The seed of the woman, it's Christ, the seed of Abraham, the seed of David, and so on, these are all mentioned in Scripture. There is a special seed, there is a supernatural seed that would accomplish this bruising of the serpent's head. And that seed, the seed of the woman, is a virgin-born Savior. There are a number of references in the Old Testament that can only be references to the virgin birth of Christ. For example, there's one in Jeremiah 31, 22, and it speaks there about the Lord creating a new thing in the earth. A woman shall compass a man. And the new thing done by God in the woman compassing a man is none other than the virgin birth. Isaiah 7, 14, then. This is one of those that people called a Christmas text. You know, preachers, when it comes to this time of the year, evangelical preachers who believe in preaching on the incarnation on the nearest Sunday to Christmas, they go to these verses as their default position. I'm sure there's not a preacher that's been in the ministry for very long who hasn't preached at Christmas time on Isaiah 7, 14. Why? Because of the content. The Lord also shall give, the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold, a virgin, and again, the idea is of the virgin, a particular virgin, shall conceive and bear a son. and shall call his name Emmanuel." Now, this is a really important verse in the matter of the controversy surrounding the virgin birth of Christ. Critics, those who would sit in judgment on the word of God and sit in judgment on the doctrine of the virgin birth, will focus in upon the Hebrew word Alma. It's translated here, virgin. Behold, a virgin shall conceive. The word is Alma. In English, it would be A-L-M-A-H. They will say the proper Hebrew word for virgin is Bethula. And they will say that Alma simply means a young woman of marriageable age. Now let's look at this. And I know we're getting into technicalities here in terms of the language, but bear with me, because it's actually very simple when you study it correctly. The Lord knew, of course, because he knows everything, that wicked men would come and try to undermine the force of this Scripture. The Lord knew that men would even use this very Scripture to try to undermine the doctrine of the virgin birth. And so, if we look at this word Alma, it's translated virgin here, we have to understand that the Holy Spirit used that word seven times in the Old Testament. I'll just give you the list of these references. You can write them down if you want to, and you'll look up and see the word that's used there for virgin, the word translated virgin, rather. Genesis 24, 43. Exodus chapter 2 verse 8. Psalm 68 25. Proverbs 30 verse 19. Song of Solomon chapter 1 verse 3. Song of Solomon, chapter 6, verse 8. And this one, Isaiah 7, 14. Genesis 24, 43. Exodus 2, verse 8. Psalm 68, 25. Proverbs 30, 19. Song of Solomon 1, verse 3. Song of Solomon 6, verse 8. Isaiah 7, verse 14. Professor J. Gresham Machen, who was a mighty man, the founder of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church when it was a decent church, he commented on this in his scholarly work which is entitled The Virgin Birth of Christ. Quote, as a matter of fact, there is no place among the seven occurrences of Alma in the Old Testament where the word is clearly used of a woman who was not a virgin. Another, by the name of Professor Willis Beecher, confirmed that there is no trace of the use of Alma to denote anything other than a virgin. Professor James Orr, another giant, his book on the virgin birth of Christ confirms this. The objection from the meaning of Alma was, as we learn from Justin Martyr, Aragon, and other church fathers, one that was urged by the Jews against the Christian interpretation of the passage from earliest times. But it may fairly be replied now as it was then, that if this word does not necessarily bear this meaning of virgin, it may and it usually does bear it. In fact, In all the six places besides this passage where the word occurs in the Old Testament, it may be contended that this is the meaning. Martin Luther was so confident that the Hebrew word Alma meant virgin. that he actually made a challenge to people, which was, if a Jew or a Christian can prove to me that in any passage of Scripture Alma means merely a married woman, I will give him 100 florins, although God alone knows where I will find them. Classic statement. In Isaiah 7, 14, As I've said, there is a definite article prefixed to Alma. It is THE virgin. That's a literal reading of this verse. Behold a virgin. It's THE virgin. A particular one is in mind. It is individualizing it. It's specializing it. The virgin here is, from God's point of view, THE virgin in contradistinction to all other virgins in the world. It's a particular one. And this virgin, when you read about it in Isaiah 7, 14, and that's confirmed, of course, by the New Testament Scripture, it could be none other than Mary, the one to whom the angel said, as we noted in Luke 1, verse 28, "'Hail, thou that art highly favored. "'The Lord is with thee. "'Blessed art thou among women.'" Notice it doesn't say, "'Blessed art thou above women.'" It says, "'Blessed art thou among women.'" Mary herself was a sinner. She confessed it. She said, my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior. There's more I could say about this, but many eminent Hebrew scholars have confirmed this interpretation. And the fact of the matter is Alma means a pure virgin. Incidentally, the word Bethulah The other word that could have been used for virgin in the Old Testament, it was used of Rebecca in the book of Genesis, but the Holy Spirit had to guard her reputation by not only using bethulah in the Hebrew, but then adding these words, neither had she known any man. In other words, he's guarding her reputation. Using bethulah as the word for virgin was not enough. to suggest that she was a pure virgin, whereas Alma does refer to a pure virgin. There are many verses to which we could quote, or to which we could refer, but there's no doubt that when you have the light of the New Testament shining upon the Old Testament, and many of these anticipations of the Lord's coming, it gives us tremendous light. This prophecy in Isaiah 7, 14 was a foretelling of an incarnation of Emmanuel, God with us. It was by a supernatural medium, the virgin birth. You look at the New Testament and what happened when they took the Lord Jesus to the temple. Mary and Joseph. In Luke chapter two, verse 28, it records, that in the temple, the old priest there, Simeon, he took the babe Christ in his arms, he blessed God, and then he blessed Joseph and Mary, and finally, he addressed certain words to Mary herself in verses 34 and 35. And I don't think it should be lost sight of that he did not address words to Joseph. He addressed the words to Mary. Because the words didn't apply to Joseph. What were those words? Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel, and for a sign, a sign which shall be spoken against. Here we have this reference to the sign again. I show you a sign. That's what was said in Isaiah 7, 14. The mother and the sign go together. And that sign is twofold. It is a virgin birth and an incarnation. That sign, the virgin birth, Simeon said, is one that will be spoken against. And boy, is that true of the doctrine of the virgin birth. It has been spoken against in the most awful way. But it is a doctrine and it is a truth. that is most definitely anticipated in the Old Testament. But secondly, and we must be very brief here, the virgin birth is something that was affirmed by the New Testament. When you read the New Testament, and I believe them to be supernatural records, they themselves, these scriptures, testify to the virgin birth. Take the words of Matthew. We read them earlier on in our Bible reading. We don't have to repeat them now, but it's very clear that on at least two, if not three occasions here, reference is made to the purity of Mary. It says here very clearly, before they came together, verse 18. Again, when you come down the chapter It mentions this scripture in chapter 1, verse 23, which is from Isaiah 7, 14. A virgin shall be with child. A virgin. And then, in the aftermath of this, when Joseph saw the dream and it was all confirmed to him, it then says, he took unto him his wife, and verse 25 of Matthew 1 says, and he knew her not. That is in a carnal sense, till she had brought forth her firstborn son. If words mean anything, this is a confirmation that the birth of Christ was a virgin birth. There was no human involvement as a father of Christ. But Luke's gospel tells us the same thing. And these passages, if you take them together and study them carefully, they're not, as some critics have alleged, contradictory, but complementary. There's no question about that. Matthew's account is told to us from the standpoint of Joseph. Luke's account is from the standpoint of Mary. But the language in both of these narratives is so unmistakable, it's so unequivocal, it's so conclusive, that if you accept these two records, Matthew and Luke, it confirms the doctrine of the virgin birth. People don't have the right to sit in judgment on the Scriptures. You know, you hear people all the time when they're talking about the Bible, alleging that the Bible, well, it's written down by men and there are contradictions everywhere. The problem is they can never really show you any. They tell you about all the contradictions in the Bible, but they can't show you any. Certainly not any that can't be explained by a rational mind. But if you go to Luke chapter 3, and with this I will finish. You've got another Scripture that supports the doctrine of the virgin birth. It affirms the doctrine, really. And it is the account, in the midst of a genealogy, in Luke chapter 3 and verse 23. It's interesting to read this, that Luke inserts here what we would call in English a qualifying clause. Being, let's read the verse, Luke 3, 23. And Jesus himself began to be about 30 years of age, being as was supposed. See those words in parenthesis, those words in brackets? As was supposed. This is a supposition that everybody made. Oh, he was born illegitimate. He didn't have a father. That's what people thought. That's what they supposed. But the Holy Spirit puts this in very deliberately, this qualifying clause, as was supposed. This is what people thought. But they were wrong to think that, because Luke's gospel itself confirms two chapters before. In the words of the angel to Elizabeth, with God, nothing shall be impossible. You know, when you think about the Lord Jesus and his youth, in Luke chapter two, we find him in the temple. He's hearing and asking questions from the doctors of the law. He gets separated from his parents, his earthly parents, for three days. They're looking everywhere for him. They can't find him, and then finally, they found him, and he was in the temple. And immediately, Mary begins to chide Jesus. She says to him, Son, why hast thou dealt thus with us? What are you doing? Why did you do this? Why did you leave us? Why did you become separated from us? Behold, listen to this, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. Now, there's no doubt that Joseph acted the part of a father to Jesus. He would have worked along with him in the carpenter's shop. He would have been his guardian. He would have been, as we would say today, his stepfather. But Mary said this, and the 12-year-old Jesus didn't let it lie, because here's his answer. Why have you sought me? wished you not, did you not know that I must be about my father's business, capital F. You see that? This is a gentle rebuke of Mary. Mary says to Jesus, your father and I have been looking for you. He says, I must be about my father's business. He's reminding her, Joseph may be my earthly guardian, I'm subject to him in a human sense. And the scripture after that confirms it. He went down to Nazareth and was subject not only unto her, but unto them. So he respected Joseph's position. He respected him as his stepfather. He respected him as his guardian, but he didn't believe that he was his father because he wasn't his father. And the Lord Jesus knew this. Doesn't this tell us Doesn't this imply that even the 12-year-old Lord Jesus believed in the virgin birth? He believed in the virgin birth. He knew that he didn't come from an earthly father, because he's talked about his heavenly father. This was his origin. He wasn't the son of Joseph, he was the son of God. And this is something that we must continue to affirm. It is so important that we hold to what the Scripture says, and not what we think it ought to say. Many years ago, someone gave me one of these little adages, one of these little sayings. I like those. This book will keep me from sin. Sin will keep me from this book. I like that. There's another one that I was told by somebody when I was a child. Go buy the book, B-U-Y, and then go buy the book, B-Y. Go buy yourself a Bible, and then go buy the Bible, because the Bible is the Word of God. And it's that which gives me the authority this morning as a minister of the gospel to say the Lord Jesus Christ is the virgin-born, pure and holy Son of God. He was not born of natural generation. That which was conceived in Mary was of the Holy Ghost. We have a pure and sinless Savior. If Christ is not virgin-born, what does it mean? It means that He is just like the rest of us. He has inherited Adam's sinful nature. Therefore, He's immediately disqualified as a Savior. He can't even save Himself, let alone save us. If He's a sinner, how can He save sinners? No, He's not. He's separate from sinners. He's higher than the heavens. He is the pure and holy Son of God.