Isaiah 7 verse 14 says this,
Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold, a virgin
shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. with us. That verse is repeated
over in the Gospel of Matthew, the second chapter, or the first
chapter of the 23rd verse. Right after we are told his name
shall be called Jesus, for he shall save his people from their
sins. And a virgin shall conceive. He shall be called Emmanuel,
God with us. Profound truth in passage of
Scripture. One other I think I'll read,
it comes to my mind, is 2 Corinthians 4. For we preach not ourselves,
but Christ Jesus the Lord, verses 5 and 6. who commanded the light to shine
out of darkness, the God of creation, has shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, to give the
knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. What a great mystery. A mystery
that never gets old to me. And without controversy, great
is the mystery of godliness. God was manifested in the flesh. In the Gospel of John, the fourth
chapter, we're told that God You may not know this, probably
some of you have been here long enough to hear me say this. When
we all get to heaven, those who are going, the only God you're
going to see is going to be the one with nail stars in his hand
and his feet and his side. This is a great mystery, that
God was manifest in the flesh. Someone asked me this week, Pastor,
are you really as excited as you seem to be when you're preaching? I am. I've been excited about
this for over 68 years. I was excited at five years old,
preaching and praying with my pet goat. I was excited when I walked the
fields in Lois, Kentucky, and preached to cattle, excited in
the woods preaching to the trees, exciting when we moved to Warren,
Michigan, and in that big Parsons, I set up chairs in the basement,
empty chairs, and we had church. It was glorious. Some people
were converted there as I preached to those empty chairs. And at
the close of the service, we would stand and sing, just as
I am, without one plea. And many were converted. I'm excited today, even more
excited, because God seemingly has even given me more insight
to this great controversy. than it was when I prayed for
my little goat at five years old. But even then I had a consciousness
that there was a God and that He was great and that He had
condescended. I would memorize John chapter
one, in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God.
I'd throw in a hallelujah every once in a while. And the eternal
Word became flesh. Think about it. and tabernacled
among us. I was excited to proclaim his
name in the State Senate 10 years ago. I was excited in the House
of Representatives in Lansing, excited to take his name to Washington,
to the floor of the Congress, excited to tell addicts and harlots
and snaky religious Pharisees that God has come to earth to
save us from our sins. I want you just to think about
this, that God who was in the beginning, the God who created
the heavens and the earth, the God who is spirit became flesh
and tabernacled among us. I have goosebumps right now. not to spy out our sins, but
to deliver us from our sins. And from sinking sands, He's
lifted me. With tender hands, He's lifted
me. From shades of night to planes
of light, O praise His name, He's lifted me. Has He lifted
you? What a great God He is. Here
is the loftiest theme. Here is unspeakable greatness. Now I know that satanic powers
this morning in this place will attempt to keep you from getting
this, that the God of creation has come to earth to save harlots
and drunkards and addicts and Pharisees who have totally lost
their way. What a glorious truth it is.
Just this fact ought to cause a hallelujah to roll in your
soul. God has come to earth on purpose, for a purpose, to save
you from your sin. You see, this is the loftiest
of things. Here is unspeakable greatness.
You see, Christianity does not deal with trifles. Like the eagle,
it does not talk for flies. Just think about it. The manifestation
of God in human flesh. Try to get everything out of
your mind. Just think about this. The God who one morning, when
there was no morning, when he was by himself, stepped out into
eternity. The God who said, let there be,
and it was so. That God has condescended, has
come down to this earth to save you, poor sinner. To justify you. What an awesome
thought it is. The manifestation of God in human
flesh. This is no molehill of discovery. This is awesome. This is great. Let me say it again. God is a
spirit, but God has taken a body. God has come down to earth. What a stoop! When the woman
was caught in adultery, the Bible said, and she was brought there
by the Pharisees and thrown at Jesus' feet, the Bible said,
he stooped down. It wasn't his first stoop. He
stoops down to so many, and one day he was born in a stable in
Bethlehem. What an awesome thing it is. And since we are celebrating
a religious holiday, most of us, I almost said heliday, it
can be that too, religious holiday, then I will take advantage of
it and call to your remembrance that what this is about is not
Santa Claus and gifts and Christmas parties. This is supposed to
be a celebration of this great fact and this great truth, that
the great eternal Spirit and Creator became flesh and walked
among us. How awesome is that? You see, this is no rippling
creek of dogma, but an ocean of thought. This is no single
beam of light, but a sun shining at its strength. This is the
most extraordinary doctrine that was ever declared in human hearing. God manifests in the flesh. I just can't get over it. I don't
want to get over it. God manifests in the flesh and
oh, He came to me. Oh, He came to me when I would
not come to Him. He came to me. I'm getting excited. This is either the most astounding
of shams or the most amazing of revelations. God coming to
earth. All you have to do to be amazed,
you who are Christians here today, all you have to do to be amazed
is to think about it just a little bit, what you've thought this
morning, done today. The ungratitude, the sins that
you've committed and thought, and just consider this, He came
down here to save you. What an awesome thing. Here it
is. God was manifest in the flesh. Are you getting it? God was manifest
in the flesh. I mean, God saw you in the hood.
God saw you in the crack house. God saw you shooting up. God
saw you in bed. God saw what you was doing. God
saw all of that. And sin was piling up, yours
and mine, piling up. Thank God worse sin did abound,
grace did much more abound. Think about this. The infinite God who fills all
things, who was and is and is to come, The Almighty, the Omniscient,
the Omnipresent, actually condescended to veil Himself in the garments
of inferior clay. He made all things and yet He
took the flesh of a creature into union with Himself. The
God-Man! The God-Man walking the Judean
acres. There was no way for you to save
yourself. No way. You couldn't produce
a righteousness that God would accept. How on earth is man going
to go to heaven? How on earth can it ever be? There's only one way. God has
to do something. That's why I'm always saying
salvation is of the Lord. If you get this, if you get this,
you'll have salvation by grace. God didn't come down here to
do something or other in some way or other that affects maybe
someone. God came down here on a definite
purpose. God is not a failure. Whatever
he came to do, he did at Calvary. He himself said, this whole thing
is finished. It's done. It's no light matter
that God has come to earth. Think about it. The one who made
all things, the infinite was linked with the infant and the
eternal was blended with mortality. God, man, the God-man. Oh, how the angels must have
gathered in crowds from within the gates of Pearl, that they
might behold him whom heaven could not contain had come to
earth. He who found accommodation in
a stable with Joseph and Mary. Oh, this is wonder of wonders.
God in human flesh, God over all, blessed forever, became
one with a newborn babe which slept in a manger where the oxen
fed. Now isn't that something? Isn't that something? God Almighty,
the great Creator, blended Himself with a human being and was born
in a stable in Bethlehem. Glory to God in the highest! Goodwill toward men. Think of
it. God of miracles. and man of sufferings,
son of the highest, and yet a man of sufferings, a man of sorrows,
acquainted with Greece, the Bible says, who walked on the billows
of the obedient sea, and yet he owned not a foot of land in
all Judea. Isn't that something? He fed
thousands by his power and was faint and weary. He sat at the
well and cried, give me a drink. He cast out devils, but was himself
tempted of the devil. You see this God man, do you
understand what's going on here? He is weaving a robe of righteousness
that fits you. a robe that will be imputed to
you and accredited to you, where there will be no condemnation
to you, because you stand before Him righteous. in this robe of
righteousness. He healed all manner of diseases
and was himself exceedingly sorrowful, even under death, the Bible says.
The winds and the waves obeyed. All the elements acknowledged
him as deity. He was tempted in all points,
such as we are. Oh, the word was made flesh. Spirit has not flesh and bones,
he said. Reach out and touch me. Wasn't
that something? I'm not a spirit, I have a body. Reach out and touch me. He's still giving that invitation
today. Are you here? Reach out and touch
him by faith and trust him. Here is God in human flesh, here
is the God-man. The scripture says, we beheld
his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,
full of grace and truth. Here is a mystery beyond all
comprehension, the union of the divine and human in the Lord
Jesus. I was studying last night, and
I remember as a boy I just didn't get it, and now I understand. It's not gettable, really. It's
too glorious. I used to try to figure this
out. Now, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit,
and yet I would hear messages that Jesus was God. So I don't understand it, me
neither. But I do believe it. He was the God-man. Oh, and now
man may go up to God, now because God has come down to man. That
was the only way that we were going to make it. The only way
we were going to go up to God is for God to come down to us.
This is a great mystery. Great because it centers in God.
Let me tell you this, if you don't start off with God, I heard
a preacher for almost 35 minutes today, Everything he said was
conditional upon man doing something Here's what you need to clearly
understand that salvation is by God and God alone Whether
it's initial you being reconciled and coming to faith in Jesus
Christ or your daily walk Let me tell you this if he doesn't
keep you you won't be kept You're a wild ass is cold. They can't
be tamed. I But there's a mean cowboy who
came to town who can ride and tame those brucking broncos. The Lord Jesus Christ invaded
history. Sinners in God. Make sure your
message, whatever your religion is, make sure it's sinners in
God. Not in man, not in man's works, not in the baptismal pool
or the sacraments, but in God. God did something. Preacher this
morning was talking about the conditional promises. I'm not
standing on conditional promises. I'm standing on the unconditional
promises of God. God said, I will do this. What
a great thing it is for God to become one of us in human flesh. And I said to myself last night,
why didn't he choose a seraphim or cherubim? And I thought of
what the psalmist David said, what is man that thou art mindful
of him? Why didn't he consider the angelic
messengers all shiny and bright? What is man? Who are you? Who am I that God would think
of me? That I would be in God's plan
and purpose. Some folks get mad about that.
That God has a plan and purpose, and that he's carrying out his
purpose. I get dancing happy and I can't dance. Yesterday in my study, Miss Pam
was gone speaking somewhere here in Pontiac, so I was there by
myself. I could shout, and I did. Hallelujah! Praise God! I had church yesterday all by
myself, just getting ready to speak to you. Enjoying God, blessing
God, saying glory to God. Thank you, Lord, for saving my
soul. Thank you, Lord, for making me
whole. Thank you, Lord, for giving to
me salvation so rich and free. How marvelous it is. Without
grace, you're just a lost person trying to go to heaven on your
own works. It won't work. It just won't
work. What a marvel. He did not take
upon him the nature of angels, the Bible says, but he took upon
him the seed of Abraham, a worm, a worm. In the Bible, there's
not nice things said about us. Maggots, totally depraved. You know where God finds all
his kids? On the dung hill. That's where God finds his kids.
All of them are on the dung hill. You know what you're doing today
without Christ in this life? You're rolling around like a
tumble bug, a piece of dung. Everywhere you go. Did you get
polo shirts for Christmas and designer jeans? Do they still
have designer jeans? I don't know, but my girls used
to ask for those things. All of those things are nothing. When it's time for you to die
and stand before God's judgment throne, will you stand in Christ
complete or will you stand alone? That's the great message today.
He took upon Him the nature of a man. Behold, with astonishment,
a worm is preferred over angels. The mystery is the greatest of
all because it is so nearly connected with our eternal redemption.
There could have been no putting away of sin by a vicarious suffering
if God had not become incarnate. Somebody had to take our place.
Somebody had to stand in our room, in our stead. Sin cannot be removed except
by an atonement. And whoever does the atonement
has to be one of like nature to those who have offended the
justice and law of God. You see, you and I are lawbreakers.
So you and I could not make atonement because we're not clean. We're
just lying Pharisees, those who say they are. We're dirty. We need a Savior. We need the God-man. The only
one that can save us is the God-man. He's the only one that can make
atonement. By man came death. By man also
must come resurrection. Jesus appears as man. to save
His people from their sins, by taking the sins of His people
upon Himself. Oh, church today, understand
it. Oh, my friend today without Christ,
let me explain it to you one more time. God-man, Jesus Christ,
died on the tree of the cross in the room, stead, and place
of poor sinners. Are you one he died for? Say,
well, I don't know. I'll tell you how you can find
out. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. I'm calling on you to trust Christ
today. What a wondrous sight was the
dying Redeemer. And this is where I got shouting
happy last night as I penned these words. O gaze again until
you can see it and see it clearly. Have you ever looked at one of
those pictures that when you first look at it, you really
don't see it? And maybe you've been going to
church for a long time. I'm telling you this, just gaze
upon that middle cross. Gaze upon that one who hung there. Think about the three hours of
darkness. What a wondrous sight was the
dying Redeemer. Why did God come to earth? If
you can save yourself by baptism, if you can save yourself by church
membership, if you can save yourself by good works, it's impossible. God came to earth because he
so loved you. that he gave himself on the tree
of the cross and gazed upon it till you see it. You say, well,
I don't know about that virgin birth. I just don't understand
all that cross and suffering. Get your head out of your belly
button, start to remember what you are, count your many sins,
name them one by one, and it'll surprise you what the Lord has
done. There is no greatness in heaven or earth if it's not here
in the bleeding flesh of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. There
is no greatness anywhere. There's nothing greater than
this. Do you hear me? There's nothing greater than
this. Over these many years, people
mockingly have said to me, you're still preaching the old story?
Yes, until hell freezes over. The old story of the shed blood
of Jesus Christ on the tree of the cross. All else is dwarfed into nothingness
in his presence. This is big, folks. This is bigger
than my mind can contain. The manifestation of God in Jesus
crucified. Drink deep into this. Don't take
a little sip and go home. Don't be thinking about what
you're going to do here at four minutes. Where you're gonna have lunch
today. That man on the middle cross was God in human flesh. Doing something for you that
you could not do for yourself. Making atonement for sin. If
you're standing at the foot of the cross, see all your sins
punished in the person of the incarnate God. And it won't be
long until you hear a voice saying, there is therefore now no condemnation
to those that are in Christ Jesus. How awesome it is to be able
to stand there and see the blood flowing down and know there's
no condemnations. Though our sins be as scarlet,
His blood washes us white as snow. Oh, there is a fountain
filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins, and sinners
plunge beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains. Hallelujah! Your heart will cry, away with
any self-righteousness as you stand at the cross. It always
amazes me. why people who profess to be
Christians don't want God to get all the glory. There's something
bad wrong inside of you if you don't want God to get all the
glory. He's going to get it. And there is nothing that would
anger God more, I said on Wednesday night, that I would rather stand
before God as a crack, heroin, whatever user, than a self-righteous
Pharisee. Don't want to stand before God
is either and I won't because there's no condemnation But if
I had to stand before God, I wouldn't want to stand there as a churchy
person Saying saying my church saved me My baptism saved me
my good life You know, I never hung out over there at that grace
gospel fellowship You know those people over there What ought
to excite you is this? I'm only a sinner saved by grace. That's what I ought to get excited
about. Just gaze and gaze until you
marvel at seeing God in Christ loving you. Satisfying His holy justice until
you see God in Christ being the propitiation for your sins. Propitiation, what a word that
is. God is the propitiation for my
sin. Propitiation, the appeasing factor. Oh, the greatness of this mystery.
God in Christ. It's okay, it's okay with God
if I attempt to explain this to you every service. It's okay
with God. One thing I do know, and I know
this no matter who says it or what they say, I'm on the right page in preaching
Christ. I'm on the right page. I know
I am. Say, well, pastor, what would
make you think that? Well, this place. You know, if I'm not on the right
page, a million seven coming in in December, we better get
on the right page. And I don't know that we'll have
any multi-millionaires here today. I hope we do, but it'd be all
right. You see, we need this God of
wonder, this God who became flesh. Now
here's what I'm going to say to you. You guys can come. Next Sunday. That's December
17th. There's going to be water in
that pool over there. And that water is for all of
you who have never publicly confessed Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. We're going to have what is called
baptism and and here's what it's all about don't don't do it because
it's Christmas time and you're into the festive season and you
want to do it for mama or you mothers want your babies to be
baptized I won't be baptizing any babies Here's who I will
baptize. Is there someone who has never
said publicly in the waters of baptism, I'm trusting in that
one who was God in human flesh. who came down to this earth to
shed his blood for me, for the remission of my sins. And my
hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. This is a serious matter, to
confess Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. You know, pastor,
I was sprinkled by Father so-and-so when I was, you know, I was just
six months. All that happened to you at six
months is when that priest put water on your head is you got
mad and cried. That's all that happened. Or
old brother so-and-so baptized me when I was five years old
and I haven't been to church since then. No, no, I'm talking
about today, all my screaming and yelling and uncouth ways
and here telling you about Christ. In your heart, you almost jumped
when I jumped. You got excited when I got excited
about this wonderful truth that our God is a just and holy God,
and he is justifier of ungodly people like you and I, and he
did it through the cross. When we read over there in the
Gospel of John that God is a spirit, It goes
on to say, and they who worship him must worship him in spirit. You know, all you see up here
when I get excited, and the person who asked me that, I don't know
whether they're here today, but when you see me get excited up
here, this person said, Pastor, it's like something hits you.
Oh, something does hit me. You got that right. It's joy
unspeakable and full of glory. It's the grace of God. It's the
amazing grace of God. It's the wonder of the grace
of God that God loved me and gave himself for me. That's what
it is. And I worship God. You see, my
spirit can't take it. I have to let it out like a pressure
cooker. Then it kind of blows up. This
is so exciting, so exciting that God has come to earth. I'm going
to ask those of you who would like to follow your Lord in baptism
because you are a believer in Jesus Christ. I'm going to ask
you to come forward and stand here. Coming forward doesn't
save you, Jesus saves. But if you want to openly, and
I'll tell you this, if you know him, I don't care how bashful
you are. I don't care how backward you
are. I don't care how afraid of water you are. Greg's going
to help me. We won't let you drown. Some
of you, we may have to hold under a little longer because you've
been out there a while. But would you today confess Jesus
Christ? I just want to say to each of
you, first of all, what a joy it is to see you confessing faith. And who knows what God is going
to do with you. He saved you for a purpose on
purpose. Next Sunday when we go down in
the water, you won't come up any cleaner than you are right
now. What you are doing is professing
faith in that fountain filled with blood, in the blood of Jesus
Christ. You're trusting Him alone. You're
not becoming a part of this church in order to go to heaven. You're
coming here because you have a love for Christ and you want
to publicly say to everybody out there, there's about 15 of
you, I have trusted in Christ alone. And now he's going to
have something he wants you to do now that you're saved. And
something that you will want to do. I don't know what it is.
Wherever you are, whatever you do, God has brought you into
the church here for a purpose. And I hope you'll find that out.
And we're getting so big here. I mean, not big in the sight
of the world, but we have come from about 32 of us to where
we are now. here and we're going to have
those seven Sunday school rooms. Maybe I'll call you to be a Sunday
school teacher. Teach our our Children. We'll
try to get you equipped for that. I don't know, maybe a youth director. We're gonna have children's church
downstairs and youth activities and we're going to be used of
God to invade Pontiac, to turn Pontiac upside down with the
gospel of Jesus Christ in your such part. So we'll do that. So Miss Pam and the ladies department
will help you girls with what to wear next Sunday. No bikinis. And you guys are men's department
as well. Dress modestly, and that's what
the scripture says. Is any of you want to say a word
or are you good? Okay. All right, you can go back
and be seated. God bless you. See you next Sunday. All right, here's what we're
going to do. You know, one of the things I miss in the old
church in Kentucky, we used to go around when people would confess
faith in Christ and give him a hug and a shake. Maybe we'll
get where we can do that pretty soon and and be out of here. Amen. Alright.