What is this thing called the virgin birth about the virgin birth? It's a major doctrine of scripture. I'm getting Thomas sweat ready for his ordination and Today we spent about two hours quizzing and going back and forth and You know just talking about it demonstrating and so what is this thing about the virgin birth you've heard of it most of you been in school or if you've been in school and say the Bible much and You know that the virgin birth is a serious major foundational Doctrine of scriptures not just a fringe Doctrine or so one of those out there that maybe you may disagree with people on or can agree to disagree This is something you can't really agree to disagree on this is something taught going back as far as we know the first century And I'll give you some of that information there liberals have always disputed the birth of That what happened around the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ that is what the gospels? Say about the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ If they deny that he was virgin born Which by the way, and I believe Jesus was virgin born, but that makes him unique don't you think yeah? It does yeah, does it make him only begotten? For God's love the world he gave his That means unique nobody else like there's no there was only one Person that became the God man Yeah, when asked Peter Matthew 16 who do men say that I am thou art of Christ the son of the living God there's only one of only one of Muhammad was not one No shin to priest ever was one no other maha. No other Indian Hindu was one there's only one son of God and a uniquely born so he was virgin born Which is supernatural the bible just states it as a fact doesn't try to really prove it tonight I'm going to go into some reasoning for it But where does that go back to is in isaiah if you got your bible may want to refer to this may not to isaiah We write it up here for you Alright, right a few things. I'm going I'm going old-fashioned. This is normally I do the TVs and stuff I'm gonna switch up on you It'll switch up you say I'm sure glad we have TVs because I don't like the old-fashioned way well This is the old way your teacher taught you how to read and write was on chalkboard as this 714 says wherefore as says therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign Give you a what? sign A sign is something abnormal, an omen, something out of pocket, something different. A sign, when you see it, you'll know it's not coincidence. You'll know that this is it that I was talking about when I gave you this sign. Therefore, the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel. Some things in there that right away raise your eyebrows a virgin shall conceive now Virgins conceive all the time That would not be a sign Virgins conceive all the time, right? They get married virgin. Virgins get married. And after they get married a while, they conceive, and they have children. That's not a sign. That happens all the time, everywhere, all over the world. So this must be something different than just a virgin conceiving in a normal way. Something different is at least animated there. I believe there's a necessity for Jesus to be born of a virgin. Now, what I mean by born of a virgin is, of course, what, let's see, why don't we have Brother Jeffrey Larson, by the way, good to have you home, Jeffrey Matthew 1.22.23. Isaiah 714 is their old testament passage about 700 years before the fact that that that alone That alone is big You can't predict something's going to happen tomorrow next week we couldn't even predict the election and Yet Isaiah writes something almost 700 years before the happening varies with a lot of specificity a lot of specificity as we'll talk about okay louder That's interesting because Isaiah 714 says it he should be caught his name should be called manual, but does not interpret it The best way to find out what scripture means is by other scripture So if I don't have to leave the bible and I can take the bible interpreting itself that that's that's rock-solid That's foundational solid that's not a baptist interpretation of Methodist Lutheran Presbyterian That's not some some scholar that is and that's the book for everybody to see that's the way it is So it says that his name would be called Emanuel, but in the new testament That's what he's quoting there in Matthew chapter 1 verse 22 23. He's going back to Isaiah 7 14 and He's saying his name should be called manu which being interpreted is God with us I looked it up this afternoon the word means is the word in Greek theos most of you know that's a word for God so it's God with us theos with us the deity of Christ is Ironclad from one end of the Bible to the other It's iron-clad the drove witness going to want to try to tell you that the deity of Christ is a fictional doctrine man-made doctrine contrived doctrine But it is not it's everywhere it screams out everywhere. I just was reading this afternoon I read Colossians a couple times, and it said by him were all things created Nothing was made it. He didn't make it Whoa that sounds like God to me because the Bible says in Genesis 1 1 in the beginning that God created the heavens and earth. So if you just put all that together, interpret Bible, interpret Bible, we're going to say Jesus Christ, when he walked this earth, was a creator of all that is. And by him, he spoke everything that ever, ever will be, ever has been, or ever has been. He spoke into existence. No wonder the demons ran up to him and fell down on the ground and says, huh, huh. We know who you are well. What are you doing here? Well? Are you here to torment us before the time? Oh, please don't send us into the abyss so send us into them send us in them hogs over there They were one thing you learn by the the encounters in the new testament of demons and Jesus is they were in submission to him They were submission to nobody else there is submission to him and they were fearful and The coming consequences that he was he was going to put upon them because someday he will cast them into the lake of fire They knew what was coming and they have feared him so his deity is just everywhere. It's everywhere Let's see Brother Jeffrey now might be a little hard on you, but I expect a lot Stand up speak out brother unless you unless you're in pain First Peter 2 22 first John 3 5 miss Molly remember that first John 3 5 tell him to do that after because he can't remember to them in a row, but it was a first Peter 2 22 Okay, speaking of Jesus Who did while my Salomon said he'd do no sin right no guile in his mouth, okay? How about first John 3 5? Pretty straightforward right second Corinthians 521 There are many other references like that. I just want to give you a taste of it to tell you I'm not making this up, okay? Jesus Christ is portrayed in the new testament in the bible as a sinless son of God Who did no sin? And he when he died on the cross he did not die for his sins not one time does it say that? But many times it says who died for our sins He died for your sin. He didn't have to die for his sins there were no sins So he had he did die for our sins, so you say what in the world's this got to do with the virgin birth? We're going there. We're going there. You know the bible has a phrase called son of man son of God You're for years. I was confused by that Son of man can anybody see this one? Okay, good It's a language idiom. In essence, what it means is son of man means representative of man. Jesus was called the son of man. One of his favorite name, by the way, for him is called the son of man. He was representative of man. You know, Adam represented us to sin, to death, to destruction and eventual hell if you don't get saved, right? Christ represents us to God. Christ reconciled God to us and us to God Whereas Adam so so if you're still if Adam is still your father You're going to go where? That Adam Adam I believe Adam got saved now don't get me wrong But we're where the sin will take you your inheritance which is a sinful nature Which is sin not only do we sin, but we have a sinful nature and I'm saying even if you didn't say you still have a sinful nature And so we there's nobody from the first Adam ever going to go to heaven without going through the Bible calls the last Adam Which is the Lord Jesus Christ so as Adam represented you to death so Christ will represent you to life That's pretty well discussed in Romans chapter 5 pretty carefully discussed. He's considered the Son of Man, the representative of man. But over and over in the Bible, he's considered the Son of God. And I talked to Joe Witness one time, and he said, now one place in the Bible is Jesus referred to himself as the Son of God. That's just wrong. But I can tell you, and this is a complete list here, the devils refer to him as the Son of God. The centurion at the cross said truly this man was the son of God, representative of God. The demons referred to Jesus as the son of God. The angel that came to Mary to tell her what was going to happen referred to this one that was to be born through her as the son of God. Martha at John 11 when she came out to meet Jesus she acknowledges that he is the Christ the son of God the Ethiopian eunuch when Philip was talking to him, and he says I was preventing me from being baptized and not to prevent you confess that Jesus Christ is the son of God And on and on in other places, and I don't need to go any further because that's enough one or two is a plenty But so the son of God is important these two titles are important He represents us as a son of man, and he represents God as a son of God. So he can reconcile us to God, and God to us, all in one person. It took upon him the form of a servant, was made in likeness man, and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. It's called theologically incarnation, the incarnation, God becoming man so that he could represent us to God. He could die for us, take all that sin that accumulated and take it upon himself and pay for it justly and honestly. See, God will not do anything if it's not just. All sin had to be paid for. If that wasn't so, God would be an unjust judge. He'd be like the devil. But he had to, sin had to be paid for. Every cuss word, every vile thing that anybody's ever thought or done had to be paid for with a just recompense. Christ did that. And now because he did that, now he can offer salvation as a free gift. And because he paid for it, you can. People say, why is it that you Baptists are so big on not being saved by works? Because it insults what Christ did. Christ paid for my sins. He died for my sins. He is a propitiation for my sins and not for mine only, but for the sins of the whole world. 1 John chapter 2. And if I don't believe that, I just got to be denying what the book says. It was big enough. It was enough. The blood of Christ was enough. When he said it was finished, the transaction was done. The purchase had been made. Whosoever now believes in him, repents in faith, is saved. Amen. Some places it says, whosoever believes in him. Some places it says, whosoever repents. It's one coin, two sides. Repentance is not a work. It is a change of mind. Faith is not a work. It is a change of mind, really. It's a change of mind from unbelief to belief. Okay, it's not works or repentance and faith Biblically is represented as what's required to be saved repentance and faith in Christ Jesus Do you tonight believe that Jesus died for your sins was a representative that was sent? To take away your sins and you and childlike faith you say well. I don't have a whole lot of faith well It don't take a lot of faith to get saved Don't take a lot of faith takes enough faith to touch God And to say I believe Lord help thou my unbelief So I say all of this so far because I'm leading up to what the virgin birth is all about and and why it's important we had the virgin birth read Jeremiah chapter 22 of Jeffrey Larson verse 29 and 30 Now look don't do it yet Told you I was gonna be hard on you now. Just trust man It's talking about a king of Israel king of actually Judah named Jecon. Ayah you Jeconiah was part of the Davidic lineage to the kingdom the king remember when God told David Through you I'm gonna have a there'll always be a son of David sent on the throne of course eventually Going all the way up to Jesus was part of that Jesus was of the son of David. It's promised God keeps his promises Well this Jeconiah He was up. You know the devil's tried to destroy what? Let me go back Genesis chapter 3 verse 15. You know the fall happens the serpents cursed to crawl on his belly and Etc and and God tells them God tells the woman he says your seed is Going to crash the serpent's head his and the little ears of that serpent like this Notice I didn't do this here. I'm getting ready for it to go Well How do you kill a snake? You don't grab his tail. You got to cut his head off. And even crushing it's better. I know you like that, brother. So he said, I believe the devil lifted his ears up if he had them. And he listened to that going, crush the head. He's no fool. From that point on, he tried to destroy the line. He had Cain kill Abel. That'll do it because when you kill Abel then you only got Cain, and it's a polluted line How's God going to go around that? Then you have the angels in Genesis chapter 6 verse 5 maybe 4 or 5 the angels came into the women of men and tried to I believe Defile the lineage of man the DNA pool in the lineage that was being set up here For the Christ to come the seed of the woman I wonder then he had then he had the people the pre-flood get so wicked so vile that even God himself said I'm sorry I even made him I want to wipe him off the face of the earth oh But I'm going to save eight people well He saved of those eight people. I believe there were four women and And the Satan goes who I got close I got down to four women if I can get rid of that last woman. I'm free Because it's the seed of woman not of man There's something big there Early early early early early on revealed it was going to be the seed of woman That was going to destroy the serpent. Do you agree with that? Okay, does that have something to do with a virgin birth? So he began to try to pollute the line get them to pollute the line get them to sin so much That God would would cut it off somehow, but you know what you can't outsmart God No power against God. There's no weapon formed against God there Satan being made of God how foolish it is to think you can out think the one that made you and That's what he thinks that's it by the way pride does that right? I'll make you think stupid stuff And the sin of Satan by the way is pride Lifted up he was lifted up with himself with his beauty with his intelligence with his ability I Can do this I can be like the most high no? But he's giving her a shot and so we see and I was seeing Isaiah. Oh go ahead. I'm Go ahead, Jeffrey. Would you please read those two verses? That was real bad. That was real bad because Jeconiah's seed was the lineage of Christ. I got him. Cursed Jeconiah Jeconiah was a bad guy is so bad it God said you're so bad not a not any of your seed or set upon the throne of David That's the king. It's the kingdom I'm just going to abbreviate okay Except for Luke. I mean I got a Luke 3 Matthew 1 we have two genealogies mostly some of you say I hate those genealogies and Well, boy, some of them are, but some of them I can't pronounce the names. But the genealogy is important here. And Matthew's genealogy comes down to Joseph. This is the legal genealogy. Christ the legal genealogy of Christ because this lit genealogy comes from Solomon David Solomon and Rehoboam and then goes on down to Jeconiah this was the lineage through Joseph of Christ through Joseph Christ okay get that now Luke here Is the lineage that comes down to? the son of Heli If you look at this closely, and I'm just not I'm not going to do that for tonight But if you look at it closely read some commentaries on it. It'll be explained it the It comes down and mentions Joseph Which is the son of Heli? The idiom is son-in-law, because this genealogy is Mary's genealogy. This is Mary's genealogy. Though it mentions Joseph as the son of Heli, which is the son-in-law of Heli, which was, guess what, her daddy. So what we see over here is, this is the legal over here. We have the physical. So over in Matthew, you see the legal line coming down from David, Solomon, Rehoboam. In Luke, it comes from David, Solomon to Nathan. Nathan did not have the promise, but he was part of the king. When the line the lineage of the king of David was to come this way Legally, and it came this way These both were sons of David Nathan was the son of David Rhea Rhea bow my son David, so these people Mary was part of the lineage physically of King David that's important to know that She had King David genetics and promise so did Joseph What happened the angel said? You're going to be you're going to conceive as a virgin of the Holy Ghost and Bearer son you're going to call his name Jesus who shall save the people from your from their sins and She was no dummy She was about 14, 15-year-old girl. And she had been around. And farm girls, you don't have to explain them the facts of life. And she's seen a lot of babies born, real rural people, seen babies born, probably been at the birth of a few babies, knew what was going to happen, all that. And so she's asked a common question. How can I have a baby without a man? That's like a duh. Nobody has ever in the history of the world had a baby without a man. It was an honest question. Always said, what's going to happen? What's going to be in you is going to be a holy seed of God, the Holy Spirit, going to come and birth. So Jesus had the legal stamp of approval and fulfillment the lineage of the King David coming down to the Messiah. He also had the body, he got his physical, which was also of the seed of King David, from Mary. This is the virgin birth. It also fulfilled the curse of Jeconiah. Jeconiah Did not none of Jeconiah's seed or children sat on the throne of David it fulfilled that And yet the same talk token didn't undo the Christ that was to come is this making sense to you It it it was like a two-in-one it it fulfilled God's Word in Jeremiah 22 29 30 and At the same time, it did not destroy the Messiah that was to come. But it did something bigger than that. It was bigger than the curse of Jeconiah that it overcame. It overcame the fact that the sin nature has always been passed down. Men, I know you're not going to like this, because you know I'm a tough one to women. But the sin nature where your children did not come from your wife, came from you. It's always attributed through the man all the way down That's why so-and-so begat so-and-so begat so-and-so begat so-and-so begat so-and-so the evil nature of man comes the evil nature comes through the man Not the woman That doesn't mean women don't have an evil nature we men know that We know they do That made Jesus the sinless son of God from this side. He became, because his sin nature doesn't come down through the woman, he was still able to maintain this. And from her, he inherited the son of man So for Mary is the son of man and from the holy spirit is the son of God the incarnation of two to one it says in Timothy without Miss without controversy great is the mystery of Godliness God Theos was manifest in the flesh and Justifying the spirit seen of angels preaching Gentiles received up into glory obviously talking about Jesus Christ you know So let's go back to this lineage a little bit because there's a lot to be learned from these this this Genealogy you look in the genealogy of Matthew and you find four women mentioned, and that's highly unusual My wife in reading the genealogies of the Old Testament one day came to me, and she says I Mean the women don't even get an honorable mention She says we do all the work You know we birth them we feed them we change the diapers. I said that's the way I like it People ask me how many diapers did you change maybe one maybe two that was her job? Don't let her talk into anything else I said, when he's seven years old, he's mine. He's not yours anymore. Then you just leave him alone. From seven on, he's mine. But from up to seven, I really, you can have him. Now, you don't like that philosophy. It's fine. Have a different one. It worked for me. It worked for me. Separation of duties. So there's four women mentioned. I hate to say this two of those women in the lineage of Christ are Gentile Rahab the harlot, how would you like to have your last name harlot? and Ruth the Moabites Moabite people were bad people Moabite people we're talking about Balaam Moabites bad people But God allowed Ruth to be part of the lineage of Christ, a Moabite. God allowed Rahab, a Gentile, a harlot, to be part of the lineage of Christ. He also allowed another morally stained woman to be part of it. It's called Bathsheba. Here Bathsheba, unfaithful to her husband, an adulteress, She's part of it and another one about tamar these two were jewish tamar Tamar I had relationships with her father-in-law That's forbidden in the book of Leviticus penalty of s death Tamar part of lineage of Christ What I like about that is it shows that God can use anybody if they'll repent. God can use anybody if they'll repent. People tell me, I'm a preacher, you don't know how bad I've been. You don't know how much wickedness I've done. You don't know where I've been. I say, I don't have to know anything you've done. Don't want to know anything you've done because I won't forget it. Don't tell me. Tell God. And Jesus died for your sins, all of them. He died for you before. While you were yet a sinner, Christ died for you. And when he said he'd forgive you, he knew how many sins he had to forgive before you even thought about it, right? So you go to him and you ask him to forgive you. He means your past, present, and future sin. He'll forgive you, wash you white as snow. That's why it's an atrocity. Once you've been forgiven such a great load of sin to ever go back into it. Man Man, don't do that. Don't go back into the world Don't go back into what you've been saved from God did you such a big favor? How dare we insult his grace by going back into the things that he saved us from oh God forbid God forbid So this kind of tells you a little bit a Virgin shall conceive and bear a son Call his name Emanuel Which being interpreted? It's God with us. How could you know that? You can't know that nobody could know that nobody would have ever guessed this The liberals go nuts one of the liberals go nuts over the self supernatural It actually is something that nothing could it couldn't possibly happen unless God did it They just can't stand the fact that there is a God that is not impotent, but he's potent and powerful and can do anything Nothing is too hard for him And they just can't stand it. I didn't interview you I said this over and over didn't interview with a Jewish rabbi one time and He didn't believe anything in the old testament The radio was live was an 8-second delay now an 8-second delay is not much delay So whatever you say in 8 seconds is on the air, so he said you don't really believe all the miracles of Jonah Says, I don't understand you here. You are a Jew Don't believe in the suit don't believe in the miracles of the old testament here. I am a gentile My forefathers were were probably a sun worship and a moon worship and animal worship heathen and here my forefathers My father's were that your forefathers were followers of Jehovah God revealed on the dispensation of angels and yet you don't believe the supernatural and here I am I believe every miracle in the Bible and In fact, your God is a little small God, and I got a big God. Eight second delay. He let it go. He had a little button. He could hit and kill it. But he didn't. He didn't. He let it go. I don't know whether he was stunned at what I said or whatever the deal was. Now, let me give you, let me give you, you have your Bibles? I hope you have your Bibles. I can't write it up on here because I ate all my room up. But I can verbally quit it, and I'll close out with this thing about Oh, virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel. The word virgin in Isaiah is interesting. There's two Hebrew words for virgin. Bethula, which means absolute, virgin, made, unable, to be like a ten-year-old girl. Is there a difference between a 10-year-old girl and a 14-year-old girl? Both of them are virgin. But what's the difference? One of them can bear children. The 10-year-old cannot. She's not ready yet. She's not developed to yet. She can't do it, but the 14 year old Oh, they can develop they can have children, but both of them can be virgin It uses the word Alma Alma is a word nine times the word Alma How do you find out a meaning of the word in the Bible you go wherever else in the Bible? It was it was translated everywhere else in the Bible that I was I looked them up today look them all up Everywhere else the word Alma was was used it was it meant a maiden a Which was a chaste virgin? but of marriageable age It's not accurate the bible is it said the behold the virgin conceived a virgin should conceive a barren son shall cause name Emmanuel down the road 700 years a Virgin is going to conceive Now for the use of word Alma it would have meant a virgin unable to conceive too young to conceive So it used the word, excuse me, it would have used the word Bethula. I'm probably confusing that. It would have used the word Bethula if it was a virgin too young to conceive. It used the word Alma, which was a virgin. By the way, the liberal translations all translate that word. They don't translate that word virgin, Isaiah 7, 14. They translate it young woman. Now in some degree, they're correct. It was a young woman. But they're incorrect because it doesn't convey the meaning of where he's going in the text. It wasn't just a young woman. Behold, a virgin shall conceive. I'm going to give you a sign. This sign he's talking about is not just a young woman conceiving, like I said earlier. That would just be everyday stuff. But if a virgin that was a young woman, marriageable age Concede and bore a son without a man that would be supernatural and the seed that she bore would be a manual Which would be interpreted? God with us the accuracy of scriptures is the more I study it I Just stand amazed in the presence of Jesus and as a ring Wow You say, well, Brother Bill, how can we know that word Alma, what it means? Well, go to the New Testament where it's quoted. He read it in Matthew chapter 1 verses 22 and 23. It says in verse 23, again in paraphrasing, similar to paraphrasing at least, it says a virgin. It uses the word parthenos. The word parthenos. Always, always means chaste woman, chaste maiden. So if you got any doubt about Alma in the Old Testament, you can clear all that doubt up by going in the New Testament. And the word that they used in the New Testament to translate Alma from Hebrew to Greek, they used the Greek word parthenos, which is always virgin. That's not enough proof you can go to a thing called the Septuagint which was translated The Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek in 250 BC. I believe it is The word they used because they translated the whole Hebrew into Greek the word they used in Isaiah 7 verse 14 for virgin they had to use a greek word for it guess what they use or thanos and So everywhere you look, it's consistent. Jesus Christ was born of a young woman that was a virgin of marriageable age. And it was a miracle, because he was born, not just anybody, but the Son of God and the Son of Man. It made the devil squeal. He lost. He lost. If you read first John, it says there, this is the purpose. I'm quoting. I'm not able to quote this exactly. It says, the purpose of the Son of God. You know, I quoted it better this afternoon. Basically, it's saying that the purpose of Christ was to destroy the works of the devil. First John. I think it's chapter 3. This purpose. One purpose of Christ wasn't just to purchase our sins that was a huge purpose to be our substitute to be our sacrifice Yeah, but isn't that another purpose and that was according to first John? Destroy the works of the devil look at me look at me The son of God came up and Unable to be stopped by everything he could throw at him and raise his foot above the head of the old serpent and Crushed his power over sin questions power over man questions accusing power as it were Glory to God hallelujah now we can go to Jesus and claim. I want his righteousness not my own Help us. Thank you for the virgin birth of Christ. Thank you for the Bible. It's absolute exactness in Jesus name Amen If you would like to know more about the Lord Jesus Christ, you may contact us at the church website, gospelbaptistchurch.com, or you can go to Facebook and type in Gospel Baptist Church Bonita Springs, Florida. Also, you could call the church office at 239-947-1285. Thank you, and God bless.