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This morning, we return once again to Luke's gospel, so if you will take your Bibles and turn there, Luke chapter one, we will be examining verses 34 through 38. Let me read the text to you; and as you will see, I have entitled my discourse to you this morning, "The Miraculous Virgin Birth of the Lord Jesus Christ." Luke one, beginning in verse 34,

"Mary said to the angel, 'How can this be, since I am a virgin?'

“The angel answered and said to her, 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy child shall be called the Son of God.

"'And behold, even your relative Elizabeth has also conceived a son in her old age; and she, who was called barren is now in her sixth month.

"'For nothing will be impossible with God.'

"And Mary said, 'Behold, the bondslave of the Lord; may it be done to me according to your word.’ And the angel departed from her."

I must say that I cannot add even a fraction of insight into how such a marvelous conception occurred. Where scripture is silent, so we must be silent. And God tells us here that, essentially, the Creator became the creature. How do you explain that? By the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit, the Son of God also became the Son of Man in the womb of the virgin. What was Spirit took on flesh. I can't even comprehend this. And it's for this reason that Matthew Henry said, quote, "The God who took a motherless woman out of the side of a man, took a fatherless man out of the body of a woman."

We're even told in Philippians chapter two, beginning in verse six,

"...although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,

"but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.

"Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."

I find it interesting that the Holy Spirit did not inspire the gospel writers to write some kind of a lengthy defense of such a miraculous claim. In fact, Matthew simply states it as a matter of fact in one verse, Matthew one verse 18. Here's what he says, "Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: when His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit." That's it. If we look into the Old Testament, we see the promise of the virgin birth. The first prophecy concerning the virgin birth would actually be recorded in Genesis 3:15 that's where God curses the serpent, saying, "'I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed.'" And there, God declares that the progeny of Eve and those of Satan would actually be at war with one another. Satan's seed, of course, refers to unbelievers. In fact, Jesus addressed this in John 8:44, and says, "'You are of your father, the devil.'" And Eve's seed, of course, refers to Christ and his children - believers, those who are in Christ. And it's interesting, the word "seed" can be singular and therefore refer to an exclusive, one-of-a-kind, glorious person, obviously pointing to none other than the Lord Jesus Christ himself, a marvelous prediction of a coming Messiah. And while normally, a woman's seed is planted there by a man, not so with Mary. Instead, the Holy Spirit impregnates her with the seed of divinity. And the two seeds will be in constant war with one another, and who will triumph? Well, the text says, in Genesis 3:15, as it goes on, it says, "He," referring to Christ, "shall bruise you on the head," referring to how Christ will inflict a fatal blow, he will destroy Satan. "And you," referring to Satan, "shall bruise Him on the heel." In other words, you will cause Christ to suffer, but you will not destroy him.

So the seed of Adam and Eve looked beyond their immediate progeny to a child that would be both God and man; and clearly the fulfillment of this prophecy can be seen elsewhere in Scripture. For example, in Matthew one verse 20, we read,

"...behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, 'Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for that which has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.

"'She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who will save His people from their sins.'

"Now, all this took place that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled saying,

 'Behold, the virgin will be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,' which means 'God with us.'"

The prophet to which he refers here, of course, is Isaiah and that's Isaiah seven and verse 14; a prophecy that was predicted some 700 years before it happened. And there we read, "'Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel.'" The Hebrew term for virgin, "ʿalmâ" is one that denotes a young woman that has never had any sexual relations. And notice the text also says, "she will call His name Immanuel, meaning God with us." And the Old Testament repeatedly promised that God is going to be present with his people to secure their destiny by the covenant promises that he has given them. In fact, the tabernacle - well, actually the tabernacle and then later on the temple - were intended to be symbols of the divine presence of God. The term for tabernacle actually is "mishkan," and it comes from "shakan," which means "to dwell" or "to rest" or "to abide." And from that root, we get the term "shekinah." You're familiar with the shekinah - the glorious, ineffable, dazzling light of the presence of God when he would materialize himself physically from spiritual form. And so we get that term shekinah from that. again, referring to the presence of God's glory.

So from this, we can glean that the virgin's baby was to be the shekinah, the true tabernacle of God that would dwell amongst men; a god man who would replace the temporal, impersonal tabernacle and temple, and would instead dwell amongst men in visible flesh and blood; shall we say, a tangible incarnation of God for all to worship. And it's astounding to think about it, the Holy Spirit impregnated young Mary with the very substance of deity, whatever that is - some divine matter beyond our ability to comprehend. And conjecture from fallen minds about such a sacred, ineffable union would only tarnish its glory. This is a mystery known only to God, and so we must leave it there. And as I think about it, even human conception is beyond our ability to comprehend when you look at all that happens and how much more the union between the triune Creator and his creation.

Another Old Testament passage that makes an indirect reference to the virgin birth is found in that great messianic psalm, Psalm two, actually in verse seven, and there we read about the relationship between the Father and the Son planned in eternity past that would ultimately be realized in the incarnation of Christ. There we read, "'I will surely tell of the decree of the LORD:'" - this is the Son to the saying to his Father - and "'He said to Me, "Thou art My Son, today I have begotten Thee. Ask of Me, and I will surely give the nations as Thine inheritance, and the very ends of the earth as Thy possession."'"  Beloved, think about this, who but God could make such a promise? And who but the Son of God, with his very essence, could possess the very ends of the earth? Only the one born of a virgin, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, as we come to the text this morning, I've divided it into three categories that I hope will be helpful to you. We're going to see Mary's humble request. Secondly, God's glorious response, and then finally, Mary's willing reaction. Now you will recall earlier in Luke one, in verse 31 we read this, "'And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end.'" Now this leads to our first point in the little outline, and that is Mary's humble request; notice verse 34, "Mary said to the angel, 'How can this be, since I am a virgin?'" That is a very fair question, is it not? Now, unlike Zacharias' response to the angelic announcement that his barren and elderly wife would have a son, remember what he said? "How will I know this for certain?" In other words, "I don't believe this, you're going to have to prove it to me." This isn't what Mary did at all. Mary's response was one of believing faith. But she also needed some legitimate clarification, because she tried to figure out, "Okay, now, how is this going to happen? How can this be since I am a virgin?" She is mystified. Remember now she's probably 13 years old, 12 to 13.

Verse 35, "The angel answered and said to her, 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God.'" In other words, your conception will result from human, I mean, from divine, not human action. Now I'm sure, as she's hearing this, she's thinking, "Okay, yeah, that clarifies it all, I get it." Obviously not, she still has many questions. You know, as I think about this, we have much to learn from this young lady. And one of the things that I thought about is that God is more concerned about our faith than giving us all the answers. There's so many things we just don't understand right. In fact, I've often said when it comes to all of the major doctrines of Scripture, I don't understand them. And you talk to me about God speaking things into existence, sorry, I'm out of there. Can't understand that. And on and on it goes. And what we learn here is that he requires us simply to believe and to humbly submit. And bear in mind there has been no revelation or miracles in 400 years, and except for Gabriel's appearance to Zacharias to announce the pregnancy of his wife, Elizabeth, that she would bear John the Baptist, there hasn't even been an angelic appearance in 500 years. The last time that happened was with the prophet Zechariah. And Mary probably didn't know about Elizabeth's pregnancy, because we see that the angel had to tell her about it here in verse 36, so naturally, she has some legitimate questions, but she isn't demanding a sign. So for Mary to learn she would become pregnant while still a virgin was just inconceivable.

So we move from Mary's humble request to God's glorious response. And technically here, and I debated whether I'd share this with you because I don't want you to get lost in some of these technical things, but I find it fascinating - and I would share it with you -  the answer that God gives her, through his servant Gabriel here in verse 3,  is in the form of what's called a synonymous parallelism. This is a literary device that we see used in Scripture, where a second line or a second clause repeats the idea of the first, but with different words, and so this helps underscore the profundity of what is being said. So in this text the Holy Spirit, the phrase "the Holy Spirit" is paired with "the power of the Most High," and the phrase "will come upon you" is paired with "will overshadow you," or overshadow could be translated, "cover you." And the term "overshadow" from the Greek verb, "episkiazō" is used by the gospel writers elsewhere to describe the glory cloud - that shekinah glory of God - that encompassed Peter, James and John in the account of the Transfiguration. For example, in Matthew 17, beginning in verse five, we read that, "while he," referring to Peter - Peter's waxing eloquent here on do we need to build a tabernacle and all this, remember that whole story? - "...while Peter was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them." There's the same term. The term literally means "to encompass" or "to surround." And metaphorically, it denotes the idea of influence. So "...a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud said, 'This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!'" In between the lines, I'm kind of hearing him say, "Peter, why don't you shut up, all right, I want you to listen to him." And, "When the disciples heard this, they fell face down to the ground and were terrified." As we would all be.

And it's fascinating, beloved, think about this, where else in Scripture do we read about the Spirit of God performing an act of creation through his overshadowing presence? In the creation account, Genesis one and verse two, "The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep," and catch this, "the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters." "Moving" is a term in the original that carries the idea of hovering over something suspended in air, that's hovering over; and though the earth could not support any kind of human life form, or any kind of terrestrial life for that matter, we see that the Spirit of God exercised dominion as he "hovered" over it, which indicates both his protective power as well as his - the creative force, if you will - of his presence. The Psalmist speaks of this in Psalm 104, verse 30, he's referring to the beasts of the earth and animals both large and small. And he says, "You send forth Your Spirit, they are created; and You renew the face of the ground." And Job says in chapter 33 verse four, "'The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life." And dear Christian, was it not the Spirit of God that raised you from spiritual death to spiritual life in the miracle of regeneration? Indeed, it was. Titus three, beginning of verse five, "He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the watching of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ, our Savior." Oh my, dear friends, the mystery of the new birth, in my mind, it even exceeds the miracle of the virgin birth; an unfathomable mystery that Jesus even likened to the wind that blows in John three eight, he says, "'The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.'"

If I can camp on this for a moment, because it's so precious to my soul. A 17th century Scottish pastor by the name of David Dixon, who, by the way, preached 27 sermons on regeneration in a town called Irvine, which resulted in a mighty work of the Spirit in that realm; he defined regeneration this way, quote, "Regeneration is the work of God's invincible power and mere grace. Wherein, by His Spirit, accompanying His word, He quickeneth a redeemed person lying dead in his sins, and reneweth him in his mind, his will and all the powers of his soul. Convincing him savingly of sin and righteousness and judgment and making him heartily to embrace Christ in salvation and to consecrate himself to the service of God in Christ all the days of his life." My my; bear in mind the effectual call of regeneration can be seen all throughout Scripture. In fact, it's pictured in the future regeneration of Israel, where the Spirit of God is going to breathe life into the valley full of dry bones - remember in Ezekiel 37, which is also just a stunning picture of man's depravity. Before we come to Christ, we're nothing but but dead, lifeless bones unable to respond to anything; but in Ezekiel 37 and verse 12, we read that God promised, "Behold, I will open your graves and cause you to come out of your graves, My people, and I will bring you into the land of Israel," and then in verse 14, "and I will put My Spirit within you, and you will come to life, and I will place you in your own land," and so forth.

Now my point with these examples is simply this, even as the Spirit of God moved over the formless, uninhabitable creation in order to bring life - and even as the Spirit gives life to all that lives, and even as he causes us to be born again - he also overshadowed the virgin Mary to create the incarnate Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. And through Christ, we have eternal life; an amazing thing to comprehend. Moreover, I must add this, it was the Spirit of God that protected and empowered Jesus in his humanity, during his life and ministry on earth. Jesus was perfectly obedient to the Father's will. Why? Well, it wasn't because he availed himself of the resources of his intrinsic glory. No, if his obedience was empowered by his nature, how can we not having a divine nature obey the commands to be like him? It would be impossible. What we must understand is that Jesus lived out his life and his divine calling by the power of the Holy Spirit. He was Spirit empowered. He was the spirit-anointed Messiah from the very beginning. Isaiah 11, beginning in verse one, "Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit." Now catch this, "The Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and strength, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD." And likewise in Isaiah 42 beginning in verse one, "'Behold, My Servant, whom I uphold; My chosen one in whom My soul delights. I have put My Spirit in Him.'" And after Jesus was tempted by the devil, Luke says in Luke four and verse 14, that he "returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee." And then you will recall he entered into his hometown synagogue on the Sabbath, and here's what he said recorded in Luke four beginning in verse 17, "And the book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. And He opened the book and found the place where it was written, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me.'" And of course, that offended all of them and they tried to kill him. So indeed, beloved Jesus was born of the Spirit.

I might add in Luke three and verse 22 we read that, "...the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form like a dove, and a voice came out of heaven, 'You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased.'" And Peter said to Cornelius in Acts 10, verse 38, "'You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power." O, child of God, don't miss this: in his humanity, the eternal Son incarnate accepted the role of living out a life totally dependent upon the Spirit's resources - that which the Spirit would provide - and while the Spirit provided nothing to his deeds, he contributed everything to his humanity. And what we must realize is we have the same supernatural, spiritual enablement available to us; the same divine enablement that was available to Christ.

Now back to God's glorious response to Mary's humble request. Verse 34, "'How can this be, since I am a virgin?' The angel answered and said to her, 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason, the holy Child shall be called the Son of God.'" Notice, "holy Child," unlike every other depraved child that has ever been born, Jesus was fully human yet sinless from conception. So therefore, indeed he was, and he is the Son of God. He is, by nature, the perfectly holy Son of God himself; God the Father. In fact, in Hebrews one, in verse three, we read that he is "the radiance of God's glory and the exact represent representation of His nature." And in John one and verse 14, we read, "and the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth."

My friends, remember this when you look at a nativity scene and you see baby Jesus in the manger. Philippians two, as we mentioned earlier, beginning in verse six, "...although He existed in the form of God, [He] did not regard equality with God to be a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking on the form of a bond servant and being made in the likeness of men." I must say, every night when I hit the little switch to turn on the light for this - we have a very large white nativity scene in our front yard - and every time I turn it on, a lot of times when I go out and I look at it, these are the things that go through my mind. It's overwhelming, isn't it? I mean, you can't even begin to plumb the depths of all that happened at the birth of Christ. And it's sad that nativity scenes are essentially outlawed in our public domain - public property - which is frankly, a testimony to the godless paganism that has plunged our country into a giant septic tank of every imaginable form of wickedness - satanic wickedness - resulting in the wrath of divine abandonment on our country.

So, "'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you...'" but notice what the angelic messenger says next, "'And behold, even your relative Elizabeth has also conceived a son in her old age; and she who was called barren is now in her sixth month.'" Elizabeth, we believe, was related to Mary through Mary's mother. You know, this had to have been a shock to Mary. It's like "What? My old relative Elizabeth is in her sixth month?" This is why the text says, "Behold," it's like, "I want you to look at this!" Think of what a wonderful word of encouragement this would have been to her. Talk about a way of strengthening her faith, this was just a gracious sign that came from the Lord. And I'm sure, in her mind, and maybe someday in heaven we can ask her, but in her mind, I have to think she's thinking, "Oh, my! God is up to some amazing things here, some miraculous things, even with Elizabeth and now with me, somehow I'm a part of this plan." And then the angel says, "'For nothing will be impossible with God.'" You know, it's easy for us to affirm that with our lips and yet doubt it in our heart, is it not? I mean, think how often we have lingering doubt when we pray to God. Down deep, we're thinking that'll never happen. And think of our weak faith when things don't go our way, and we unwittingly believe, "Well, God must not be at work here, because he surely can't be accomplishing things that are above my pay grade." I mean, we, we subtly can think these things and think about all the prophetic promises that God has made. "I'm not sure. I'm not sure he's gonna...I mean, I think that's just hyperbole." Think of the Lord's return as King of kings and Lord of lords. Think of the reality of heaven, the reality of hell. I mean, you have to ask yourself, "Is God unworthy of my trust? Is God unable to accomplish His good pleasure apart from my support and my approval? Is God incapable of fulfilling all of his promises to bless those who trust and obey his word and his will? I like the way Spurgeon put it regarding prayer, he says, "What is prayer but the promise is pleaded. A promise, the raw material of prayer, prayer irrigates the fields of life with the waters which are stored up in the reservoirs of promise."

So indeed, nothing will be impossible with God. And Mary really needed to hear this from the angel; as we all do. We all need to be reminded of this. And no doubt Mary even remembered what happened, recorded in Genesis 17 and 18. Remember when Sarah was eavesdropping on the three angelic messengers, one of which we believe was the Lord Jesus, the pre-incarnate Christ. She's eavesdropping on the conversation they were having with her husband Abraham, and they told him that she would have a son. Remember that? And she laughed to herself, saying, "After I become old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?" And the Lord asked Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh?" Now you can imagine she's behind the curtains thinking, "whoa." Of course, she denied it, the text says, because she was afraid. I guess so. But the Lord knew what she was thinking. I mean, imagine that, and told her what she was thinking. So Sarah must have been terrified. And then the Lord said, in Genesis 18:14, "Is anything too difficult for the LORD? At the appointed time I will return to you, at this time next year, and Sarah will have a son." I would imagine Mary remembered that.

I might also add earlier in that text, in Genesis, in chapter 17, you know, God told Abraham that Sarah would have a son. And even Abraham said in verse 17, "Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, 'Will a child be born to a man 100 years old? And will Sarah, who is 90 years old, bear a child?'" And then it's interesting, in verse 19, God said, "'Sarah, your wife, will bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; and I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.'" You know what the name "Isaac" means? It means "he laughs." An appropriate reminder to Abraham of his initial faithless reaction to God's promise. Beloved, never laugh at what God has promised. Never doubt what he has promised. Mary did not laugh, but she wondered, and appropriately so; and after the angelic explanation of how it was going to happen, she heard him say, "For nothing will be impossible with God."

I'm reminded of what Job said in Job 42 verse two, "'I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted." Isn't that a great text? And Jeremiah 32 verse 27 "Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh, is anything too difficult for Me?" Another example I think about in Mark 10, remember the passage, the rich man comes and, you know, he just couldn't get rid of his wealth and and Jesus was telling the disciples how impossible it was for a wealthy person to enter the kingdom of God.  Wealthy there, it's not talking about necessarily just financial wealth, but it's the idea of a person that feels like they're self-sufficient. And especially in those days, a wealthy person could purchase more alms, and they believed that the more alms they could purchase, the higher the probability that they would be able to kind of buy their way into heaven. And you will remember that Jesus says, "It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." You know, through human effort and all of that type of stuff. And you will recall that at that point, the disciples were astonished when they heard this because they're realizing that there is nothing that we can offer to God. It's solely a work of His grace. And they said this, "Then who can be saved?" And Jesus said in verse 27, "'And looking at them, Jesus said, 'With people it is impossible; but not with God; for all things are possible with God.'" By the way folks, remember this when you're praying for your lost loved one who is living in rebellion, those times when you feel like it's just hopeless; nothing is impossible with God. And beloved, never forget that God is omnipotent. His power has no limits.

One final example, if you will bear with me, because again, this is just so precious to me, as I was thinking about it, if you go to the first part of the book of Deuteronomy, Moses gives a historical prologue of of God's gracious and miraculous acts of deliverance with the Israelites in the wilderness wanderings from Horeb to Peor, and even protecting them from the fierce giants that lived in the land of Canaan in that day. And you can read about how the Lord helped them defeat the giant Emim. In Hebrew it means "the terrible ones." These were massive people, also the Anakim, which were giants that lived around Hebron and Philistia; they were also regarded as the Rephaim, which was a race of giants, essentially, that lived in that area. And in Deuteronomy three and verse 11, we read an, "Og," that's a great name, "Og king of Bashan." I mean, when you hear that name, you know he's got to be a bad guy, right? "Og king of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaim," the race of giants, "Behold, his bedstead was an iron bedstead; it is in Rabbah of the sons of Amman. Its length was nine cubits, and its width four cubits by ordinary cubit." In other words, his bed was 13 and a half by six feet, a pretty big bed. And Moses goes on to extol just the unrivaled, infinite power of God. And finally, he says in Deuteronomy three and verse 24, O Lord GOD, You have begun to show Your servant Your greatness and Your strong hand; for what god is there in heaven or on earth who can do such works and mighty acts as Yours?" And the answer is, none. We all need to remember this great truth and rely upon it in our life. Trust God to do his work, in his time, in his way, for nothing will be impossible with God; and precious little Mary embraced this with her whole heart, did she not?

And this leads us, finally, to Mary's willing reaction, "And Mary said," verse 38, "'Behold, the bond slave of the Lord; may it be done to me according to your word.' And the angel departed from her." Now, you have to think about what would have been going through her mind. Don't you know she's thinking, "How am I going to tell this to Joseph? How am I going to explain this? How am I going to explain this to everyone who will see that I'm pregnant and assume that I've committed adultery, a sin worthy of stoning." But somehow she sealed all of that out of her mind, and she just simply trusted the Lord to do what he pleased. "'Behold, the bond slave of the Lord; may it be done to me according to your word." If I can make this real practical, dear Christian, never let the rightness of what you do be determined by the quality of response it might elicit. I mean, that's what politicians do. That's what immature, weak, compromising, chameleon, faithless Christians do. Always do what God has clearly commanded, regardless of how other people might perceive what you have done. Focus on God's approval, not man's. That's why Paul said in Galatians 1:10, "For am I now seeking the favor of men or of God?" talking about a compromised gospel, "Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ."

Now I'm going to close this morning with a digression that I think will be helpful to you, because what I want you to see is how much Satan hates everything that we have just examined, and how he tries to counterfeit what God has done to lead people astray. So I'm going to give you some historical background demonstrating all of this; and especially demonstrating Satan's massive campaign to counterfeit the virgin birth, which I might say is another proof of its veracity, because whenever I see Satan attacking something, I know that that is going to be truth, because he is the father of lies.

1656 years after God created Adam, according to the genealogical record, we see that he destroyed the entire world with a flood. The conservative estimate is that about 7 billion people were living by the time of the flood. He destroyed all of them, except eight people who found favor in the eyes of the Lord that was Noah, his three sons and wives -Noah and his wife and three sons and wives. And what we see is that Adam actually sees the world into its ninth generation. And so he died like one generation before the flood, and he longed to see righteousness and longed for Satan to be defeated. I mean, you know, I'll soon be 74 and I'll tell you, I am so fed up with seeing what Satan has done, I'm ready to go home now. Don't worry, I'm not suicidal, but you understand what I'm saying. Imagine if you live like 900 years of this. Oh my.

Well, 100 years after the flood, Satan tried to establish an earthly kingdom through a man named Nimrod, who was Noah's great grandson. You read about this in Genesis 10; and he was really a foreshadow of the coming Antichrist. And this happened in the land of Shinar, which is modern day Iraq, the same region of the Garden of Eden, in the land of Mesopotamia. It was in this Tigris and Euphrates River area that the first battles on Earth were fought between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan - the kingdom of darkness, the kingdom of light. And again, we read about the land of Shinar in Genesis 10. And this is where Nimrod tried to establish Babel. The Hebrew form of the name Babylon. And in Genesis 11, we read about the Tower of Babel, which would have been a ziggurat, a stage tower erected to facilitate idolatry, and on top of those towers, and others built like it that we are aware of, through archeological record, on top was the sign of the zodiac, where the priests would chart the stars to supposedly gain spiritual and prophetic insight. History reveals that Nimrod had a wife named Semiramis. She was a wife and a priestess. And as it goes, which is myth and history and legend, all of these types of things, supposedly Semiramis was in a tower, and a sunbeam came through a hole in the wall and impregnated her, and she conceived and bore a son by the name of Tammuz. And in the Old Testament, Israel was later rebuked for worshiping the Queen of Heaven, the goddess Ishtar. Read about that in Jeremiah 44 "and her son, Tammuz (Ezekiel 8:14). And of course, this included worship of that just involved the lowest, most detestable, gross forms of immorality. And by the way, Tammuz supposedly was killed by a wild boar, and later on he was resurrected, and so on and so forth; so you have these counterfeits of a virgin birth, of the death of a son and of a resurrection, and all of these crazy things.

And what you see is that in Babel, originally, you have a mother/son fertility cult worship. And there are undeniable parallels. I'll give you just a little bit of this in a moment, but undeniable parallels of modern Roman Catholicism that worships Mary, they call the Queen of Heaven and her son, the Lord Jesus. So because of the original tempt of Satan to establish himself in an earthly kingdom there at Babel, and because of the exceedingly vile form of idolatry that that was practiced there in Genesis 11, we read how God confounded all of the languages of these worshipers and scattered them to the ends of the earth. And so out of the Tower of Babel, the complex of all pagan religions were originally spawned. And we see elements of this everywhere. It was like a virulent virus that spread their blasphemous idolatries all around the globe. And naturally, they took with them all of the things that they believe, with respect to Semiramis and Tammuz, the mother/son fertility form of worship. And again, this is a combination of myth and legend and history, all of which points to the name Semiramis, thought to be the wife of Nimrod.

And what's really interesting, as many as 180 shrines dedicated to the goddess Ishtar have been documented in ancient Babylon, the idolatrous mother/son fertility cult worship can be seen virtually everywhere around the world. For example, in Greece, she became Aphrodite, Artemis Athena, Demeter, Gaia. In Rome, she was Venus, Diana, Minerva, Terra. In India, she was the goddess Devaki, and with an infant son, Krishna; and then there was Isee and the infant Iswara. In Egypt, we have the goddess Isis and son Horus. In Asia, they were known as Cybele, which "Cybele" means great mother, and the son Deus. And the Scandinavians called her Disa she's always pictured with a child. Ancient Germans worship the virgin, Hertha, and she's got a child in her arms. And on and on it goes. An ancient Sumerian and Akkadian myth inscribed on a wall says this, that Tukulti the second was created in his mother's womb by the gods. This was 890 BC.  And the ancient Assyrian king Sennacherib was supposedly conceived by the goddess of procreation. Buddha's mother supposedly saw a great white elephant enter her belly. The Hindus teach that the divine Vishnu was reincarnated as a fish, tortoise, boar or lion, and ultimately entered the womb of Devaki and was then born as her son, Krishna. Even the legend of Alexander the Great says that he was born of a virgin by the power of Zeus, through a snake that impregnated his mother, Olympus. And so it should be no surprise that the name, quote "Queen of Heaven," meaning "Mother of God" is still used by Roman Catholics to describe Mary. In fact, any honest student of Roman Catholicism will quickly see that the papacy and the Roman Catholic system is far more Babylonish and Jewish than it is Christian. And historically, we see that this Babylonish mother of harlots eventually settled in Rome; and when Constantine conquered Rome at around 300 ad, we see how that he mixed a perverted form of Christianity with the poison of Roman paganism. And even during that time, the Roman historian, Eusebius, a famous historian, a follower of Origin, began to teach that the church - the Roman Catholic Church - was the new Israel replacing, permanently, the Jew. In fact, Constantine made it a crime to even practice or convert to Judaism; and eventually, Constantine united the new Roman Empire with the new Roman Catholic church. And he did this in order to promote loyalty and unity within his citizens. And so this picture of Babylonian paganism and certain aspects of Judaism and a distorted form of Christianity became the Roman Catholic Church, and that was really the political glue that held the Holy Roman Empire together. And to this day, as you know, Catholics ultimately worship Mary, the Holy Mother, the Queen of Heaven. In fact, the coat of arms of Pope John Paul the Second bears the letter "M," which stands for Mary. And embroidered on the inside of his robe is the Latin phrase "Totus tuus, Maria," which means "Mary, I am all yours." And of course, history is replete with documented evidence of Popes being just notoriously evil. You read the book "Vicars of Christ - the Dark Side of the Papacy," by Peter de Rosa, a former Jesuit. And the same can be said of the. Roman Catholic priesthood, as we read constantly about the scandals.

Well, I just want to close then on a higher note; I wanted to give you a little bit of that history, but just a few thoughts on the incarnation of Christ. Beloved God's holy, infinite justice could not be satisfied apart from a holy and an infinite ransom, and that could only be through his provision of a remedy which was his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Our redemption required the work of a theanthropon - a God man - one who could supernaturally fuse together the human nature with the divine and form an indissoluble bond; a man who could suffer punishment only God can endure. And so we see that a perfect man had to die, but only God is holy. Human flesh had to go to the grave, yet only God could overcome the grave. And so God made a provision for his Son, the Lord Jesus, to come through the virgin Mary, to be the one who would make us - because he became flesh like us - make us to be partakers of the divine nature and grant us the indwelling Spirit. And so both the human and divine natures had to be woven together. As you think about it, how could he be our faithful high priest that could sympathize with our weaknesses had he not been fully human like us, yet fully God? How could Christ be our mediator, unless he could bridge the infinite chasm between God and man? How could Christ be our king, unless he somehow unites himself with us? How could he reign in our hearts, unless he was fully God? Well, dear friends, the Babe in the manger is the symbol of all of this. So remember this, this Christmas season, okay?  All of these great truths that in order for him to be both the Son of Man and the Son of God, Immanuel, God with us, he had to have been born a virgin; and may we rejoice this Christmas season knowing that God's holy and infinite justice was satisfied by the holy and infinite ransom of our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.

Let's pray together,

Father, we thank you for the eternal truths of your word. I pray that they will find lodging in every heart and that they will bear much fruit to the praise of your glory. And Father, if there be one who has never truly humbled themselves and come to genuine saving faith in the only hope of salvation through a trust in Jesus Christ, I pray that you will bring that conviction today, and that today would be the day that they would experience the miracle of the new birth. So for all of these things, we thank you. We give you praise, and we say even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly. Amen.