Well, we've had a number of readings,
which you will probably have appreciated, followed really
the Lord Jesus Christ in the New Testament as, first of all,
the Lord spoke to Mary, and then of course to Jacob, And then
we have the occasions when he was born, where he was born.
And then finally, of course, those words in John's gospel
that spoke so beautifully of the Lord as being the word and
the light. But we mustn't forget that, of
course, the Lord Jesus was spoken of in the Old Testament. And
many people perhaps fail to realize the wonderful significance that
that was because it really is very confirming for us to know
that those things which were written in the Old Testament
weren't just stories they weren't just fables in actual fact those
things which were prophesied came to pass now the Bible of
course as we have it is the oldest book in the world again people
often tend to fail to realize the significance of that and
it was the first part was written three and a half thousand years
ago by Moses but Moses referred in those writings to a period
1500 years before that so you can see it traces the time right
back many many years and Recently, and over recent years, there
have been many archaeological discoveries to prove the ancient
character of the Word of God and how it did run back so many,
many years. So it's not something which has
just suddenly occurred. It has been established for these
thousands of years. We might say, well, there was
no special mention about Jesus spoken of in the Old Testament,
not actually as a name. But he was spoken of in prophecy. And the first time he was spoken
of in prophecy is in the early chapters in Genesis, to be precise,
chapter 3 and verse 15. And that was after a very sad
occasion which had occurred. And the sad occasion was that
when Adam and Eve, who of course God had created, and placed in
the Garden of Eden, that perfect environment, and God had told
them what they could do and what they couldn't do, the same as
God tells us today what we can do and what we can't do in the
Bible. And Adam and Eve, and Eve in particular, she listened
to the words of the serpent, Satan, who convinced her that
in actual fact she could disobey God. God had told them they weren't
to eat of a particular fruit, of the tree, and that tree was
called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And they were
forbidden to eat of that, but Satan wanted to make Adam and
Eve disobey God. So of course he came and he planted
a question and he said, hath God said? Now that's a technique
which he still uses today. He still comes and says to us,
well, has God said? and many people don't believe
what God has said but the Bible does tell us what God said and
the Bible is true and we should never think well it's irrelevant
I can do what I want to do it's not very important it is of course
very very important that we do listen and do obey the word of
God so what occurred Adam and Eve they disobeyed God and they
ate of the fruit and the effect of that was that sin, sin of
course is the disobeying of God, sin entered into the world through
that very, we might say, simple occasion. But it was of course
a very tragic occasion, it was a terrible occasion. And why
was it terrible? Because what Adam and Eve had
done, they brought sin into the world, whereas before there was
no sin in Adam and Eve, they enjoyed the Garden of Eden, Lord
came and talked with him every evening and now you see they'd
sinned and that was to cease and so it was a very sad time
and sin then entered into the world and the world of course
was cursed and that's why we have thorns and thistles and
all those things growing up and That sin passed upon everyone
who is born into this world. So we are all sinners. And that,
of course, is something we should not turn away from and think
something which is irrelevant. So what had Adam and Eve done?
They'd sinned, and now you see they did not enjoy the companionship
of God, who used to come and to talk with them. Well, the
Lord was very merciful. God is very merciful. He's still
very merciful today. And he came to them in the garden
of Eden. They hid. They didn't want to
be found out what they'd done. And sometimes today we might
perhaps hide and think we don't want to be found out things we
have done. But what happened was God knew
where they were. And he called out. And eventually,
of course, Adam and Eve came to him. God asked them what they'd done,
and they had to confess. They tried to blame it on the
other. Eve tried to blame it on Satan, and Adam blamed it
on his wife. But they couldn't really blame
it on anybody, because they'd sinned themselves. And that's
the same for us today. We can't blame it on anybody
else. If we have sinned and disobeyed the word of God, we are to blame. We can't blame other people. And so there was this occasion,
and the Lord spoke a wonderful promise. Perhaps it's not simple
to understand, but I'll read it, what the promise was. The
promise was, I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and
between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head, and
thou shalt bruise his heel. Now, what that was was a prophecy
of Mary, going to have a baby who was to be the Lord Jesus
Christ. And he would indeed bruise the
head of Satan. And that was so true many, many
years later. It was many years before that
prophecy came to pass. Now, 800 years after Moses had
written the first books of the Bible, Isaiah wrote the words
which we have on our hymn sheet. And they say, therefore, the
Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive
and bear a son and shall call his name Emmanuel. And that was,
in fact, 700 years before it came to pass. So we have wonderful
prophecy and that's not the only one we have not time this afternoon
to go through the many references in the Old Testament which speak
so clearly of the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ they speak
of the place where he would be born the conditions that he would
be born in they're all spoken of clearly and this again is
very confirming to us to believe therefore that what we have in
the Bible is true you imagine going back 700 years from now
to kind of 1300 or so and those things which are spoken then
coming to pass after all this time people would say well wasn't
that wonderful wasn't that amazing well it was wonderful and it
was amazing that those prophecies which had been spoken of so clearly
came to pass in exactly the same way that they've been prophesied.
And we read some of those pieces in the Word of God this evening.
So we should be very thankful to know that we have the true
Word of God. But we should also realize that
because it's the true Word of God, we can't say, well, I'm
not going to take any notice of it. It's not relevant to me,
but it is relevant to all of us. And it is very important.
And we should be very thankful we do have the Word of God to
read, which tells us all we need to know with regards to this
life and all we need to know with regards to our eternal life. Well, what happened was those
things which have been prophesied came to pass. Jesus of course
was born in precisely the same place and in the same way as
we've read this evening and he was the Son of God. He was the
second person in the Trinity and as you read the Word of God
you will find several references in the New Testament that the
Lord Jesus was indeed the creator of the earth and of course today
most people perhaps don't believe that the world was created well
the word of god tells us it was created and jesus it was who
was the creator and of course we need faith to believe such
a great truth the same as atheists need faith to not believe in
god and we need faith to believe in god But what a great blessing
it is when God gives us that faith to believe in God. And so Jesus was born into that
manger in Bethlehem. Now, what was the purpose of
his being born? What was the purpose? Well, first
of all, mankind had sinned and were alienated from God. They
were separated because of their sin. And how were they to be
brought back to God? How were they again to enjoy
union with God? Something had to be done. The
Lord Jesus Christ, the second person in the Trinity, the eternal
God himself came into this world, was born in this world with the
one purpose to bring his people back to God to bring his people
into that pure state and that pure state of course was and
is that all their sins would be taken away all their sins
would be paid for you see sin had to be atoned for had to be
paid for how was it to be paid for there was a debt to pay everyone
who has sinned has a debt to pay And how are they going to
pay it? You see, normal currency is not
acceptable. It doesn't count. What currency
was to be used? Well, amazingly, the currency
was the Lord Jesus Christ would come and die and in dying give
himself for payment. He paid what we refer to as,
the Bible refers to as a ransom we all know what a ransom is
I'm sure when someone is kidnapped and the kidnappers they ask for
a ransom so that person might be released well there's a ransom
on our heads and a price has to be paid for our release a
price has to be paid to make us free and how is that to be
paid? the only way it can be paid is
by the Lord Jesus Christ, by someone living a perfect life. See, no one else has or ever
will live a perfect life. And therefore, the price they
could offer would not be acceptable to Almighty God. But the Lord
Jesus Christ, he came and he lived the perfect life. He did
not sin. There was no sin. And therefore,
he was able to pay that price And the price that was required
was his death. You may say, well, why was that?
Well, we can go back again, go right back to Genesis, the same
time, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, when the Lord then made
clothes for Adam and Eve. And those clothes were made of
animal skins. And what did that signify? It
showed that the animals had been slain, they died, the blood had
been shed and that picture is carried right through the Old
Testament and then into the New Testament on this glorious occasion
the Lord Jesus Christ came and he died, he gave himself, he
shed his blood to take away the sins of his people. Now every
one of us here tonight or this afternoon need to have that blood
of Christ applied to us because if we are under the blood then
we are eternally safe we need that redemption and the bible
tells us without shedding of blood there is no redemption
we could not be redeemed we could not be brought back to god the
lord jesus christ very gloriously died that death to take away
our sins and of course through dying he conquered death sin
and hell and then he rose from the dead a conqueror over sin
death hell what a wonderful conqueror we have to think that the lord
jesus christ therefore he then came and paid the price for our
sins and then after those 40 days he rose from the earth to
go into glory and there he is seated today there to intercede
for us as we pray then to God today. You know, you can't come
and just pray to God because God is holy and we are not. But we can pray to God because
of the Lord Jesus Christ, because he intercedes for our prayers.
He takes our prayers and he presents them to his father so that our
prayers are therefore accepted. So the great question for us
all is how Are we to be saved? How are we to be saved? The Bible
tells us clearly, and remember what I've said, the Bible's true,
no doubt about it, and therefore there are those who are saved,
saved from what? Saved from ending up in hell,
ending up in that place far off from God, they will never see
God, and there they are, forever and ever in eternal misery saved
from that it's a great thing to be saved from isn't it how
we all need to be saved from that if we're not that's the
situation and it's a terrible thing but if we are saved how
are we to be saved well to ask God indeed to come to him seeking
that we might have faith to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ he has
died for us. We all need that individual personal
knowledge that Christ has died for us because then if we have
that knowledge what has occurred what has occurred as we read
this this evening the light shines the light from God shines into
our heart and shows us what we really are by nature such a great
sinner and what a wonderful savior we have in in gloriously coming
to redeem our souls to set us free so that when we come to
die through his death we will go to heaven to be forever with
the lord well what is the result this verse that we read together
or we have in this kimshi it says and bear a son and shall
call his name emmanuel what does emmanuel mean Well, we're told
in the first chapter of Matthew, verse 23, Immanuel is God with
us. And so if we are saved, that
means if we are born again in the spirit of God, then God is
with us. And God will always be with us
through our life and through eternity. So what a wonderful
thought it is to realize that we are one of those whom God
is with. And what does it mean? This means
it's a fulfillment of the Bible truth and the prospect of eternity
in heaven with Jesus. So let's realize that as we celebrate
the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, it wasn't just some haphazard
occasion. It had great importance and it had great value. because
if there had been no birth, there would have been no life, there
would have been no crucifixion, there would have been no death,
there would have been no ascension, no resurrection, no ascension,
and no intercession for us, and also no glory for us. So as we think on these things
at this time of the year, and it's good to remember the birth
of the Lord Jesus Christ and how very important and how very
relevant it is for all of us and to trace it back to realise
that everything in the Word of God fits together. There's nothing
missing. It's all there, a complete picture. And may we praise God today and
every day for His unsearchable gift of the Lord Jesus Christ.