Why the Nativity

The speaker discusses the significance of the nativity and the birth of Jesus Christ. They explain that the nativity is a special birth that brought salvation and is celebrated at Christmas. The speaker emphasizes the importance of defending the belief in the virgin birth of Jesus Christ, as it is a central aspect of his divinity. They also mention that Jesus was both fully human and fully God, which is a concept that is difficult for humans to comprehend. The speaker refers to the Gospel of Matthew as an apologetic book, written to defend the belief that Jesus is the King of kings and Lord of lords. They mention that there were rumors during Jesus' time that he was an illegitimate child, but emphasize that these claims are slander and not true. The speaker concludes by discussing the royal lineage of Jesus, explaining that while Joseph was not Jesus' biological father, he legally adopted him, giving Jesus the right to the throne of David. Just go through it one time, last verse. Last verse? Yeah. Amen. Thank you for that special. If you have your Bibles this morning, turn to Matthew chapter 1. Matthew chapter 1. I think in 30-some-odd years of preaching Christmas messages and stuff, I don't think I have ever used Matthew chapter 1. But we're going to look at it today. And we're looking all this month on Sunday mornings and Sunday nights at why the nativity. And when we think about why the nativity, we have to understand what does nativity mean? Nativity simply means birth. But we're not talking about a nativity, a birth. We're talking about the nativity, the birth. And so we're talking about the special birth of an individual. When we talk about the nativity, it focuses around what we call today Christmas. And of course, the very first part of Christmas is Christ. The second part of that is Mass, which actually is literally a masculine sound. Christ the man. But it's also the shortened form of Mass where we come together to worship and celebrate Christ. That's what Christmas means. And as we look at this season and we come to this, basically what we need to understand is that the nativity is a special birth that brought salvation that we celebrate as Christmas commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ. And so when you narrow that down even more, what we find out is is that really the nativity in Christmas is a story or a study of salvation and the gift that God has given to us. When we study the Bible, you cannot help but find all the way beginning in Genesis 3, verse 15 is the first mention of this Messiah, this first mention of a man that would be born of the seed of a woman. And you go all the way through the Bible and every single book of the Bible mentions something about Jesus Christ. It's all there all the way until we finally get to Revelation. And at the end of Revelation when all of this sin has been taken care of, all of the evil and the wickedness is gone, it says now John looked up and he saw Jesus Christ and he saw descending a new heaven and a new earth. And that's what we're looking forward to. That's what we are anticipating. And as we study this and we look at this life of Jesus Christ, God throughout Genesis all the way to Revelation is supernaturally, sovereignly working and orchestrating every single little detail of the birth of Jesus Christ His Son. And the Christmas story is filled with all of these human profiles and personalities that God used in order to bring about His will. And that ought to be fascinating to us because why? We're human beings. And guess what? God still today uses human beings to supernaturally, sovereignly bring about His will in the world today. So therefore, why the nativity has to do with an old question that was asked of Jesus Christ in Matthew 22 and verse 42. Jesus said, what think you of Christ? Whose Son is He? And they say unto Him, the Son of David. We've been talking about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We've been looking at a series of messages that I entitled, Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand. And we've really been focusing in on the sermon that Jesus Christ preached in Matthew 5-7. And as we've been looking at that, one of the things that you ought to understand, and you should be realizing right now, when you look at all of the book of Matthew, Matthew is really a Gospel that is what we know in educational circles as an apologetic book. What do we mean by apologetic? Matthew was not apologizing for Jesus Christ. What apologetics means is from the Greek word apologia, which means to give a defense. And so what we have is Matthew has literally wrote his book in defense that Jesus Christ is King of kings and Lord of lords. There's been two major problems and arguments and scandals that have come through all of our history for the last 2,000 years. One deals with the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. Was Christ really born of a virgin? The second one is did Jesus Christ really die and was buried and rose again from the dead? And both of these questions are two very serious questions that Satan is using today to cause doubt in many people's minds and leading people away from the church. And so Matthew actually writes his letter and he begins with proving that Jesus Christ in defending that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin. You go all the way over to the end of Matthew and he finds that Matthew ends with proving that Jesus Christ died, was buried, and rose again. And then he does all of these other things in between of proving that Jesus Christ was truly God and truly man. And so he uses this word apologia. We get it out of Peter where Peter said, but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you the reason of hope that is in you with meekness and fear. And what really got on my heart and what really came to my mind this year is how many of you that have been in church for long periods of time, if someone asked you during this Christmas holiday about the virgin birth of Jesus Christ, how many of you could defend that? How many of you could open up your Bible and defend that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin? And we have heard the Christmas story over and over and over, right? And we have a lot of knowledge about that, but the problem is is that the church and Christians today are not able to give a good defense of why we believe what we believe. We just simply say, well, brother, so-and-so taught us this, or we learned this, or we heard this, right? And the world does not care what you think or what your opinion is or what someone else taught you. They want to see the results. They want to see the proof. And so these series of messages that we're going to look at from the Gospel of Matthew is going to be here to defend this idea that Jesus Christ was pained and all of this slander was even there during His ministry. All of these lies and accusations was even around while Jesus Christ was born, while He was being raised, and all through His ministry. And so Matthew defends this. You say, what kind of slander was going around? I don't know if you've read or if you Google very much about Christmas or Jesus Christ and the birth of Jesus Christ, but even in the days of Jesus Christ, there was a lot of rumors and stuff that Jesus Christ was actually an illegitimate child. You'll find out if you study, you'll find out that they say that Jesus Christ was actually the son of a Roman soldier that ended up raping Mary, and they had this child that was there. And you can go from that to many other types of arguments and different words and different things that is there. But the problem is that it's all slander. It's not true. And it takes away, and it's very important, does it really matter if Jesus Christ was born on a virgin or not? The main thing that matters is that He died for my sins and rose again, right? That's the important part. And unfortunately, a lot of us Christians take that fault. But it is very important because see, Jesus Christ could not have died and paid for sins unless He was virgin born. And so as we look at this and we see this today, I want us to understand that this is what makes the nativity, this is what makes Christmas so very, very special and fascinating. Because Jesus Christ throughout His entire ministry claimed to be virgin born, and in order to claim that, it had to be upheld 100%. Jesus Christ was 100% human, but Jesus Christ was also 100% God. You say you can't take two 100%'s and have a 100%. Two 100%'s make 200%, right? I know enough about math to figure that out, but guess what? We're not God. And so Jesus Christ was 100%. He was fully man, but yet He was fully God. And it's a concept that we have a very hard time wrapping our minds around. Because when I look at myself, I am not 100% Haines and 100% Taylor. No, my father was a Haines. My mother was a Taylor. They married. I'm not 100% Haines and 100% Taylor. I'm actually 50% Haines and 50% Taylor. And so it decreased, not increased. But that's what makes God special. Because He can do things that doesn't make sense. He can do things that we don't necessarily understand. And so we come to Matthew, and Matthew is fixing to defend this. Matthew is fixing to prove to us why it was important and how can Jesus Christ be 100% human and 100% God all at the same time. And so it all begins with a royal lineage. A royal line. In the first 17 verses of Matthew, and we're not going to read all of these, but I want you to understand in Matthew 1 and verse 16, notice what it says, And Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ. Notice that word there of who. In the Greek, and this doesn't mean anything to you, but in the Greek it is a feminine word. In other words, it is not referencing that Jesus is the child of Joseph. It is a feminine word, and the only feminine person in that verse of Scripture is who? Mary. And so Jesus Christ came from Mary, not born of Joseph. And so that is a very thing that we need to understand this morning. What we need to understand is that Jesus was Joseph's child legally, but not by birth. In other words, Joseph became the adopted father of Jesus Christ. And when the Jews adopted a child, that child all of a sudden gets the right to have everything that the father has. Every bit of his inheritance. Every bit of his possessions. Everything of his family all the way back. And so it's very important that we understand that legally, Joseph adopted Jesus Christ. And so that gives him automatically the right to the throne of David. You say, how in the world does that give him the right? Well, notice what it says in Luke 3 and verse 23. And Jesus Himself began to be about 30 years of age, being, and notice the parentheses there, as was supposed the son of Joseph, which was the son of Pele. Now notice what's happening here. Jesus was considered by everybody. We don't have Scripture that tells us. As a matter of fact, John says, if he wrote down everything about Jesus' life, all of the libraries in the world would not be able to contain the amount of material. We don't have the ceremony where Joseph goes down and legally adopts Jesus Christ as his son. But we do have Scripture after Scripture that everyone in that region, everyone that knew Joseph and everyone that knew Jesus, guess what? They accepted the adoption. They accepted this relationship. He was not the physical son of Joseph, but he was the adopted son. He was considered by everybody to be the son of Joseph. Now most people thought, at least at the time of Jesus' birth, that He was the son, as I mentioned, of some illicit affair. But they called Him, even though they believed that He was the child of an illicit affair, they still called Him the son of Joseph. The son of Joseph. And so by the time we get to the end of this message, it's going to be really neat how God works and how the Bible works and how you can trust the Word of God and what the Word of God says. There was never really a question about who did Jesus Christ belong to. The question was always around who was His actual father. But they knew that Joseph was His earthly father. He was His legal father. He had adopted Him. Another passage of Scripture in Luke 4, verse 22, it says, and all bear Him witness and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth. And they said, is not this Joseph's son? And so again, the scribes and the Pharisees are questioning Him, but they're not questioning Him on the fact of Joseph being His father or not. That was established. And so we're given this genealogy of Jesus Christ. And that's what it says there in verse 1. And you could go through and look at all of these genealogies. How many of you have read Matthew 1 before? If you read through your Bible, you should have read Matthew 1. How many of us, and be honest with me this morning, because I'm going to be honest with you, how many of us typically get to these geology parts and we just kind of stumble through and read it as fast as we can because we can't pronounce the words, we have no clue who they was, right? And when you take a Hebrew name in the Old Testament and you give it a Greek translation of that, then you even get different spellings and different things, and so the pronunciation changes and it's like, who in the world are we really talking about, right? And how many of us sit down and take time to go and look up each one of these people and try to figure it out? We don't, do we? But it's very important. God didn't put genealogies in the Bible just to put genealogies in the Bible. They mean something. They portray something. And so as we find here, notice what it says in Matthew, and I'm not going to read all of this genealogy. You can go home and read it. I'm not going to read it, but I do want to pick out a few verses. And notice what it says in verse 1. The book of the generation of Jesus Christ. And then notice there's two phrases there. The son of David and the son of Abraham. Now that word genealogy is just a big, fancy word for meaning the birth. His heritage. In other words, this is a book that is going to explain the generations and the birth of Jesus Christ. Where did He come from? We live in a society today that people are getting more and more fascinating with their genealogy. Where did you come from? Where did you have it? At Ancestors.com and all these other DNA kits. You can take a DNA sample right quick, send it in, and within 30 days, they'll send you back the results and they'll tell you you came so much percentage from here and so much percentage of there and all of this information. And I don't know if it's true or not, but hey, we like it and we do it. It gives us something in the past, something in history to identify with. And so this is the birth, the generation of Jesus Christ. And He mentions two names there. Now let's jump down to verse 17. So all the generations from Abraham to David. So Abraham to David are 14 generations. From David until the carrying away into Babylon are 14 generations. And from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are 14 generations. He mentions three different time periods. And this is what's important. And I read this verse because you can go back and we'll look at it and we'll kind of break it up here in a little bit. But what it did, it made me have to go and study this genealogy. Because I kept looking at the thing that pops out to you is what? 14 generations, right? Three times it's always identically 14 generations. And so I went off on this study deal. What is the significance of 14 generations? I studied the number 14. I looked at generation gaps. I looked at all of this. And guess what? There's really no significance in the 14 generations. So what I had to do then when I couldn't find nothing significant in the Bible dealing with 14 generations, I had to look at the people that are mentioned. And all of a sudden when I started looking at the people, all of a sudden, three individuals jumped out of my Bible. And this is amazing. Two of them are mentioned in verse 1. The third one is not mentioned until later on down. But notice the first two. First of all, we have the son of David and the son of Abraham. Now these two are mentioned, and so I said, what is the significance with Abraham and David? Do you realize Abraham and David were the two men that God made a covenant with? And so notice the covenant with Abraham. Let's go back and look in the Old Testament in Genesis 12 and verse 1. It says, Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, from thy kindred, from thy father's house, into a land that I will show thee. And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee and make thy name great. And thou shalt be a blessing. And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse at thee. And in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed. See, God chose one man, Abraham. And He said, Abraham, leave your family. Leave everybody. And I am going to take one man and I'm going to make you a great nation. And notice what He says. Not only am I going to make you a great nation, but you are going to be a blessing everywhere that you go, right? And so man, everything it seemed, if you study the life of Abraham and the patriarchs, everything that Abraham touched, God seemed to bless, right? I mean, he ended up taking a lot and what happened? God was blessing them so much that the valley wouldn't even feed all of their livestock and everything. And so they had to make a choice. They had to divide and go out. And so all the way through, you see that God blessed Abraham. But there's something else that's there that we sometimes overlook. And He says, and I underlined it there, and in thee, Abraham, shall all families of the earth be blessed. You know why this is exciting? Because I'm an all family. I don't know Abraham. I'm not a Jew. To my knowledge, I don't have a Jew or a Hebrew person in my lineage, right? I am a Gentile through and through. I've got a Gentile father. I've got a Gentile mother. But guess what? Through Abraham, I as a Gentile am going to be blessed. That's the promise in Genesis 12. And so, man, this now gets exciting because otherwise, if I'm reading the Bible and I'm not a descendant of Abraham, who really cares if you're blessing Abraham or cursing Abraham, right? What are you going to do for me, right? We want to know how do we fit into this. And so the Old Testament would be an extremely boring reading of all of the promises and all of the things going on except for the fact that we realize that as a Gentile, God is working through Abraham to bless me one day. And so every time I read the Old Testament and I study the Old Testament, I read it looking at, guess what? It's going to affect me. This is going to happen and it's going to be a blessing. And so when you look at this, it gets really neat. And so you have a period of time that he mentions there in v. 17 all the generations from Abraham to David. And so he sets this time frame. What happened during the time of Abraham and David? It is the time known as the days of the patriarchs and the judges. Right? And so all of these patriarchs. Listen, why is that important? Because God started with one man Abraham. One man Abraham. By the third generation, his great-grandson had twelve sons. And them twelve sons became the father of twelve nations. We see one man, all of a sudden, three generations later, has now had the twelve fathers of twelve nations. Now it's getting pretty cool. And God takes them and what? They wind up in Egypt. And what happens in Egypt? Joseph saved all of them, but what happened? All of a sudden, a Pharaoh grew up that no longer remembered the God of Joseph. And he became afraid of these Hebrew people because why? God was still blessing them. Man, they're growing. They're multiplying. They're going to overtake us. Their possessions, their numbers are getting bigger. We cannot have this or we are going to lose our identity and our place. And so what do they do? They made them slaves. And God rose up a deliverer by Moses, right? And you go and what did Moses do? He led them. And we know that Joshua took over for Moses. And what did Joshua do? He led them into their own land. He got them in there and God won all of these battles for them. And so the time of the patriarchs and the time of the judges is really a nation of flourishing. It is a nation of victory. It is a nation of exciting. All of us love reading the book of Judges, right? You may get bored in Leviticus, but when we get to Judges, we get excited because we're introduced to men, ordinary people like Gideon, Barak, Deborah, Samson, these judges that God, when the people would mess up, He would send things on them because He said what? If you don't obey Me, I'm not going to bless you. And so He would send people in to persecute them. And what would they do? They would repent. And God would raise up a judge. And that judge would deliver them. And man, so all of this patriarch from the time of Abraham to David, we see the nation just growing until finally we get to David and what? He's a king. Saul was the first king, but God did what? He rejected him because Saul's heart was not with God. And so He raised up David. Remember, David was the youngest son of Jesse. And so we have the period from Abraham to David. And then, God made a covenant with David. You see, what happened with David, David was not the greatest guy, was he? He committed murder. He committed adultery, right? He had all kinds of problems, right? But here's the one thing that the Bible tells us is that David, even though he had all these faults and failures, David was a man that was after God's heart. And even though he would make mistakes and even though he would sin, David always would repent of that sin and come back to the Father, which was a major difference from King Saul. Because King Saul, when he was confronted, he didn't want to repent. He got mad. He got angry. And instead of trying to repent, he tried to kill the problem. He tried to get rid of what was bothering him and irritating him. And so we have these two individuals that are totally opposite. And so from David until Babylonian captivity, we have the period called the kings. And so these kings would come. As a matter of fact, because of David's wickedness, David's number one thing that he had on his heart was he wanted to no longer have God living in a tabernacle, but he wanted to build a temple right there in Jerusalem for God. But because of his sinfulness and his wickedness, guess what? God said you can't build Me a temple. But guess what? I'm going to allow your son to build Me a temple. And man, during the days of Solomon, Solomon was the wisest person that has ever lived according to the Word of God. And Solomon was the glory days of Israel. I mean, Israel grew. We read about Queen Sheba. You remember her? We hear about her in history and stuff a lot. Do you realize that Queen Sheba actually left and came to check out Solomon and what all he had done? I mean, all of these wonders of the world happened, a lot of them, during Solomon's reign. And so man, it was a time of glory, but it was also a very horrible time because the first king was rejected by God. David wasn't allowed to build the temple. Solomon was, but Solomon had a lot of problems with women. Wine. Right? And what happened? They ended up having two sons. And when Solomon died, them two sons ended up splitting the kingdom. And so they go from the glory days of Solomon to now the kingdom has been divided. And we find it's divided into Israel and into Judah. And a matter of fact, in Israel, there was not a single good king. Every king that came was evil, evil, evil. They did what they wanted to do when they wanted to do it. But the tribe of Judah, every so often, would pop up a good king. A king that loved God and sought the wisdom of God. And God would end up blessing them. And so they remained a part of the kingdom a lot longer than after Israel was taken into Babylonian captivity. And so He gives us this. Now here's the covenant with David that's important. 2 Samuel 1 v. 7 He says, Moreover, I will appoint a place for My people Israel and will plant them that they may dwell in a place of their own. Israel has never had a place of their own. Even though they started conquering it with Joshua, they never obtained everything. But now He tells David, I'm going to plant you. I'm going to make it your own. And you will have to move no more. Neither shall the children of wickedness afflict them any more as before time. And as since the time that I commanded judges to be over My people of Israel and caused thee to rest from all thine enemies, also the Lord telleth thee that He will make thee a house. And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, in other words, once your king's rule is over with and you have now died, you're sleeping with your fathers, notice what God tells them. I will set up your seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish His kingdom. And He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of His kingdom forever, and I will be His Father, and He shall be My Son. If He commit iniquity, I will chasten Him with the rod of men and with the stripes of the children of men. But, notice the but. Remember the contrast? But, My mercy shall not depart away from Him. As I took it from Saul, whom I put away before thee, and thy house and thy kindred shall be established forever before thee. Thy throne shall be established forever. This is the period of the monarchs. This is the period of kings. And He took the kingdom away from Saul. He gave it to David, but He makes a covenant with David and said I will never take it from your seed. Your offspring. Alright, so we're tracking a little bit. And the Jews would have readily understood this when they read the genealogy. They knew their genealogies. They knew what was coming up. But now we get to the exciting part. Because in verse 1, what did He mention? The generations of Jesus Christ, the son of David, and the son of Abraham. Two sons were mentioned, and both of them God made a covenant with. But we have a third period. We have a period of time from the time that they were taken into Babylonian captivity until the time of Jesus Christ, right? So here's where I'm going to show you the importance because it was no longer a covenant, but it was a curse. It was the curse of Jeconias. Now notice what he says in verse 11. And Josiah, which it says Josoas in the New Testament, but in the Old Testament, it's Josiah. So we know we're talking about the same person. And Josiah, which I will remind you was one of the good kings. He feared the Lord and obeyed the Lord. He had a son. And he beget Jeconias and his brothers about the time they were carried away to Babylon. Look at verse 12. And after they were brought to Babylon, Jeconias begat Salathiel, and Salathiel begat Zerubbabel, and so forth. Now here's what I want you to notice. Something that is very, very interesting. We see this name Jeconiah. Josiah begat Jeconiah. And Jeconiah begat so-and-so. Now there's something very interesting that happens. Now whose lineage are we looking at? We're looking at the lineage of Joseph. Right? Luke actually gives the genealogy of Mary and where she come from. And so when people say there's two different contradictions in the Bible, Matthew has this genealogy, Luke has this genealogy, there's contradictions, we can't believe the Bible, say hogwash. Matthew was the genealogy of Joseph and Luke is the genealogy of Mary. Now here's where it comes in that it's fascinating. Take your Bibles if you want to or follow along on the screen to Jeremiah 22 and verse 30. Because in Jeremiah 22 and verse 30 it says, Thus saith the Lord, write this man childless. Now we just saw that Jeconiah ended up having some children. Right? So it doesn't mean that he's not going to have offspring. What does it mean then? Well, look at what it says. A man that shall not prosper in his days. For no man, now look, of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David and ruling any more in Judah. You know who this is talking about? You can go back and read the rest of 22 later because I don't have time to go through it all, but guess who it's talking about here? Jeconiah. Jeconiah. And God said, you're childless. And basically what God is saying is that you will never have a child even though you are of the lineage of David. You are the grandson of Solomon. You go down through these fathers. Even though you have a right to the throne, you will never prosper at the throne. And guess what? None of your offspring ever will either. See, Josiah was a good king, but his son Jeconiah was not a good king. And God said, guess what? The line stops with you. The throne will not be promised to you. Now, listen, if Jesus Christ, and this is the good part, if Jesus Christ had been the real son of Joseph, according to this Old Testament prophecy, guess what? He would have never been able or recognized to sit on the throne. You get that? And so here in his lineage of Abraham and of David, and when you go and you lay side by side Joseph's lineage and you read Mary's lineage, guess what? You find the split came during this time. And Joseph had the legal right to the throne, but he was the offspring of Jeconiah, so he was not allowed to have the throne. Is it clicking with you? And so now look what happened. And so under this curse, and so God, how in the world can God give Jesus Christ the opportunity to sit on the throne? How can He accomplish this without Joseph having the actual blood of Jesus Christ? Well, guess what? Joseph gives us the royal lineage, but Mary gives us the royal blood. The royal blood. And that's where the next part of Matthew takes off to. Notice what happens. The royal blood in verse 18. And we're going to go through this very, very quickly because this is where I'm going to get into the messages and explain more in the upcoming days. Notice verse 18. Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise. Just let me point out something right here. That word birth in genealogy in chapter 1, verse 1 is the same exact word. One time it's translated generation. The other time it's birth, but it means the same thing. This is the genealogy of Jesus Christ. This is the birth of Jesus Christ. They're interchangeable. And notice this phrase was on this wise. When His mother Mary was a spouse to Joseph before they came together, she was found with child of who? The Holy Spirit. Now, this is very real because notice what very first thing He deals with in verse 8. Now remember, Matthew is defending that Jesus Christ was 100% man and 100% God. And he says He deserves the throne from Joseph, but there's this prophecy back in the Old Testament that says the descendants of Jechoanim cannot have a right to the throne even though they are blood related. They've got tainted blood and bad blood, so they can't have the throne, but on the sheet of paper, everything works out to where they can rule on the throne because they're still of the seed of David. And so He deals with the conception. He says now the birth of Jesus was on this wise. And so verse 1 through 17 deals with the human aspect of the genealogy of Jesus Christ. Verse 18 down through 25 deals with the divine side of the genealogy of Jesus Christ. When His mother Mary... Man, I wish I knew more about Mary. You know, there's hardly very little mentioned about Mary, and yet we have entire religions that worship Mary, the mother of Jesus. But there's very little said about Mary in the Word of God. And so notice what it says. And in order to understand this, and I wish I knew more about Mary, but here's what I do know that I can share with you today. This goes all the way back to Genesis 3 and verse 15. You remember when Adam and Eve sinned? And God was giving out the curses after He came to them? He turns to the serpent and He makes this statement, I will put enmity between you, Satan, and the woman. Alright? That word enmity means war. From this day forward, there is going to be a battle between Satan and women. Not women in general, but a woman. The woman. You see that? The tells us that that's one particular woman. The woman. Between your seed, and this is the weird thing, her seed. Now, I don't know a whole lot about biology and stuff, but I do know enough that I do understand that the seed, the offspring, comes from the father. The father has the seed and the woman has the womb. And you put the seed in the womb and you form a baby. But notice what God said here. God said it's not going to be the seed of the man. It's not going to be Joseph that's going to be the seed of the woman. That's Mary. Now guess what? There has not been in all of the years that the earth has been alive and human people have been alive, there is not one single person that came from the seed of a woman except one. One. And that's Jesus Christ. Every one of us, whether you know Him or not, came from a man. The seed came from a man. And so look at what He says here. And this is good. And this is why I love Galatians 4.4 this time of the year. Because Paul said in Galatians, he said when the fullness of time was come, God sent what? Forth His Son. Jesus Christ was not born of God. He was begotten of God. See, that's one of them King James words that's really important. It's different than being Daniel is born from me. Daniel is not begotten. But Jesus Christ was not born of God. He was begotten of God. And so look what He says. He says here in Galatians 4.4 when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His Son. He was begotten. Made what? Of a woman. Made under the law. Now listen, I was just getting excited all week as this was coming out, because if Jesus had had no human parents, then He wouldn't have been a man at all. Right? He wouldn't have been a man at all. However, because He had parents, because He had a human father that was not blood related, His blood was not painted by the sin of mankind. See, our sin nature is passed not through the womb. Our sin nature is passed through the seed. And so He got all of His humanness from Mary, but He didn't get His blood from Joseph. He got that from the Holy Spirit. Now look. And so look at verse 19. So what about Joseph? You know, what in the world? And we're going to look at Mary more later. We're going to look at Joseph more. You can look at the bulletin and see the dates and what time of the services I'm going to deal with them if that interests you or whatever. But what about Joseph? It says in verse 19, then Joseph, her husband... Now what's the difference between being a boyfriend and a husband? I can get out of a relationship with a boyfriend or a girlfriend. I can't get out of a relationship of a marriage. We can now, but it wasn't so easy back then and it's not God's desire to do that. But then look what He said. But then Joseph, her husband, being a just man and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privately. And so, notice a couple of key phrases because remember what it said about Mary? It said that Mary, on this wise, was a spouse to Joseph and then the phrase, before they came together. But it says here that they were actually Joseph was her husband. Two things have to happen in order for a marriage to be legal in God's eyes. There has to be a covenant, an agreement between a man and a woman that they are going to spend the rest of their life together. And the second part is there has to be a consummation. The coming of the two together to form that union and become one flesh. Two things are necessary. Now, then you've got to go into your state rules and your laws that God tells us to abide by. But all marriages have to have them two things. They have to have a covenant and they have to have a consummation. But notice, they had a covenant, but they hadn't had a consummation yet. He never knew her. He never knew her. And so look at what happens here. All of a sudden, we see this virgin birth as it's now confronted. It says they are married, but yet they never came together. And so now all of a sudden, Joseph is confronted with this thing. And we know that in the Bible days, he was not literally married to her, but he was betrothed. In other words, there was a betrothal period where they actually did the signing and everything of the legal part, and then they would take upwards to a year before they would actually come together and consummate the wedding. That was for several reasons. The main reason being is that gave ample time to find out if that woman had been faithful or not. Because you know I have not known this woman, and if I haven't done what I am supposed to do, then guess what? If she comes up pregnant, then she's lied. So they would take a year to let this play out. And Joseph says, I know I haven't been with her, but she's pregnant. And so he's confronted with this. And just put yourself for just a minute in Joseph's place. And it says the first thing it says about Joseph is what? He was a just man. Do you know what that word just means? It means righteous. In other words, he was a man of the law. And the law says if your wife, even in betrothal, if they got out of that deal, the deal had to be a written thing of divorce. That's why Jesus actually, the deal for divorce, is actually for during this betrothal period, if you found out your wife had committed adultery, you don't have to follow through with the consummation, and now's the time to get out. Because once you have consummated the wedding, you are now one flesh. And what God has joined together to let no man put asunder. And so he being a righteous man, he could do one of two things. He could have her killed, stoned according to the Old Testament law because he's a Jew. If a woman is in adultery, and there's proof of the adultery because there's a child, then guess what? He could have her stoned. That was his righteous deal. That's according to the law he would have been justified to do that. But Joseph didn't want to have her killed. He wasn't that hard of a man. And so what does it say that he did? He began to ponder. The other option is is he could just put her away. But there was two options to putting her away. One way, he could publicly humiliate her. I have been off building a home and a family for Mary. Now Mary has ended up pregnant and he could have told everybody and destroyed her reputation. Or he could have put her away silently and not said anything and the people would find out and they would know, but it wouldn't be because he humiliated her. Do you realize, and I'll preach for just a minute, do you realize every problem you have you can do the same thing? You can be righteous and just blow them apart. He could have. He could have had her stoned and made a public humiliation out of her. But what did he say? I don't want to publicly humiliate her. And so he's thinking about this. And notice what happened in verse 20. But while he thought on these things, I mean, he's pondering it, and apparently he goes to sleep. Behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream. Now this is not the dreams that we have. This is an appearance by God that comes through him. And so he goes to sleep. He starts dreaming. This dream now turns into a reality. Have you ever gone to bed with something heavy on your mind? Right? And man, you're struggling with it. Well, that's what Joseph did. And he wasn't dreaming about the situation. In other words, the angel came to him and it became a reality. And notice what the angel said. Joseph, thou son of David... Notice he reminds him. Joseph, thou son of David, you have a right to the throne! You are of the seed of David. Fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is what? Of the Holy Ghost. She's not pregnant by a human man. She has been impregnated by me, the Holy Spirit. Thankfully, Joseph's dream becomes this reality, and so the angel clarifies this. For that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. In other words, man, this is a great reality because He was virgin-born. There was no human father. He doesn't have sin in His blood. In this birth of God in human flesh, now He is 100% God, but He is 100% man. He is in a human body. And look at verse 21. And she, Mary, shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call His name Jesus. You know what Jesus means? Matthew tells us, He shall save His people from their sins. Jesus. Jesus. He says the Bible is very careful of never naming Joseph as a father. Read the Gospels. Not one single time. He is always the son of Joseph, but when it talks about His physical birth, it always goes back to Mary. And even here, what? She shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call His name Jesus. That's the reason He came, isn't it? He came into this world so that what? We can be saved. As a matter of fact, the apostles in Acts 4 and verse 12, when they were defending salvation, they said neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby what? We must be saved. There is not another person that can die for your sins because everyone is sinners. The only person that can give you salvation is Jesus Christ because He's fully God. But He's also fully man. So He's able to die in your place. So here's the connection. Look at verse 22 and 23. Now all this was done... Now, the angel's dream stopped. If you look there, you'll see the quotation marks end in verse 21. This is Matthew now defending, apologetically, given a defense of what the angel said. And so now all this was done that it might be what? Fulfilled, which was spoken of the Lord by the prophets, saying, verse 23, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and she shall bring forth a son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is what? God with us. Jesus' name means He saves His people. Emmanuel is God came to us. When we couldn't go to God, God sent Emmanuel. He came and dwelt with us. See, when we sing about Emmanuel, that's what we're saying. We don't have to get to God. God came to us. And so He came in the form of Jesus Christ. Now look at this. We're fixing to wrap things up. Therefore, in Isaiah 7.14, here's what He's quoting. Therefore, the Lord Himself shall give you a what? A sign. How will we know who the Messiah is? How will we know who the Messiah is going to be? Well, I'm going to give you a sign. And it's going to be an easy sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive. There's only been one virgin that has ever conceived. And that is Mary. And she shall bear a son and shall call His name Emmanuel. Now, He defends and He gives what's there. But then notice the very last part in verse 24 and 25. The consummation. Then, she is already pregnant. She's already impregnated. She's well on her nine months to be married. And now the angel comes and tells Joseph it's not from another man. She hasn't cheated on you. This is from the Holy Spirit. So then look at what Joseph does. Then Joseph, being raised from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him and took unto him his wife. Guess what? They are now together. They're together. It's no longer betrothal. It's now marriage. He kept her. He didn't put her away. He didn't have her stoned. He married her. But look at what verse 25 says, "...and knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son and called His name Jesus." They were the only couple that I know of that's ever lived together that wasn't lying when they said they're not having relationships. They had the wedding, but Joseph never touched Mary in a physical way until after the baby was born. And then we know he did because Jesus had many brothers and sisters. And so Joseph and Mary had children, but not until after Jesus Christ was born. The two greatest lenders of Jesus Christ, Matthew deals with the first one here, was Jesus Christ really born of a virgin? And the second one he deals with at the end of the Gospel, did Jesus Christ really die and rise from the dead? And Jesus was none other than God in human flesh. And Matthew tells us right here in chapter 1 that He came to dwell with the sick and heal them. You go through to Matthew. Matthew shares all of these miracles of Jesus reaching out. What did He do right before He preached His message? He was healing everyone that came to Him in Matthew 4. He was healing everybody. He came for the sick in order to heal them. He came to dwell with demon-possessed individuals in order that He might liberate them. He came to the poor in spirit as we saw in His message in order that He might bless them. He came to the care-ridden to free them from care. He came to the lepers to cleanse them and make them whole. He came to the diseased to cure them, to the hungry in order that He might feed them, to the handicapped in order to restore them. But most of all, His name was Emmanuel. He came to dwell with the lost in order that He might seek and to save them. He came as Emmanuel in order to be Jesus. Emmanuel. God is with us. Infinitely rich, He became poor. 2 Corinthians, Paul says, listen to this, for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor that you through His poverty might be rich. So we stand for a verse of invitation. Let me ask you a question. What are you willing to do for and with Jesus Christ? What are you willing to do with Jesus Christ? You cannot be saved, because salvation is not possible unless you believe that Jesus Christ was virgin-born. What are you going to do with it? You've got the information. Matthew's laid it out for us. He defended it. He has an earthly Father by adoption, by legally, but He has the blood of God in Him. And so He was able to die for us. And He says, Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. If you believe that Jesus came, that He was fully God and fully man, He died for your sins, was buried and rose again, thou shalt believe it in your heart and confess it with your mouth and thou shalt be saved. As we sing what hymn this morning. Let's preach 435.