Matthew chapter 1. Now, Matthew
chapter 1, Charles Spurgeon once said that it's wise to deal with
that which the world is thinking of and considering at the time.
And I agree with him. We all know that this is not
the actual time or season of our Lord's birth. And this all began with Roman
Catholicism Now, Jesus is not the reason for this season, no
matter what anybody says. Catholicism and capitalism are
the reason for this season. But we're going to look at and
glory in and hopefully worship our Lord for coming to this earth
to be born, bone of our bones and flesh of our flesh. Verse
1 begins, The Book. of the generation of Jesus Christ.
The book. That's Bible. Biblia. The book. This is the only one. The book. God's Word. This is the book of God's will. God's mind. God's purpose. All that God purposed to do.
The reason He created this world. All knowledge and wisdom is found
in this book. And this book speaks of Jesus
Christ. He's the word, isn't he? He's
the subject of the book. He's the word made flesh. Don't
you love the book? I love this book. Don't you?
Abraham Lincoln was a man of great wit and wisdom and he once
said when someone asked him to give a book review, a book, he
read that book and afterwards he said, this is the kind of
book you'll like if this is the kind of book you like. Meaning,
if you love God, if you love the truth, if you love God's
Son, this is the kind of book. This is the book. The book says,
the book, what is this book about? Rather, who? The book of the
generation of Jesus Christ. Generation. That word is Genesis. That's the word. That's the word. That's what it means. The generation
of Jesus Christ. Genesis. Just like the whole
book begins with Genesis. Well, what is the book speaking
of? Jesus Christ. The generation of life. Life
was generated. Genesis chapter 1, in the beginning
God created the heavens and the earth. Well, John 1 says, the
Word was made flesh. He is God. Without Him was not
anything made, it was made. So, Jesus Christ was in the beginning. And all the way to the end of
this, of the book. Revelation 22, 22. Right? The last verse is the end. So
he's the beginning, he's the end. He's first, he's last. He's
in everything in between. And God wrote this book concerning
his son. Your son. It says the generation
of Jesus Christ. Our Lord in Him was life. Now He said, as the Father hath
life in Himself, so the Son. Now listen to 1 John. This is,
I love this. 1 John. That which was from the
beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes,
which we have looked upon, our hands have handled of the Word
of life. The life was manifested. In Him we live and move and have
our being. You know, people say these things
like, God is a great part of my life, or Jesus. You know,
if everyone lives and moves and has their being in Him, you're
alive because God who is life, Christ who is life, gives you
life. He gives you life. He sustains
your life. Every human being, He sustains
our life. This is the book of the generation,
how life was generated, but more importantly, how eternal life
is given. How? Jesus Christ. He let the
Son have life. So, this is the book. The book
of who He is, and why He came, and what He did, and where He
is now. The heritage now, we read all
of those names and you recognize some of them, didn't you? Wonderful name, names we esteem
highly like Rahab. Only a fellow sinner would esteem
Rahab highly. But this was our Lord's, this
is our Lord's family tree. And it only can truly be said
of Him. He is the tree of life and everyone
comes from Him. It all began with Him. I got
on that ancestry, you know, everybody wants to find out that they're
Irish or something like that. And I did. I've got lots of those
pagans in my...heathens in my... But our Lord gave this family
tree of His, all these names, and if you know them, Abraham, Jacob, Jacob have I
loved. Oh, happy to see that, the God
of Jacob. And Judah, far from being a perfect
man, Judah was a sinner. And he and Tamar, his daughter-in-law,
played the harlot. And he went in under her and
had two children. Well, wicked as it was and evil
as it was, God used that. They were in God, Christ's family
line. See how everything works together
for good for God's people. Verse 1 begins with the son of
David, doesn't it? It begins by telling him, Matthew
is the book of the king. And Matthew begins and ends this
way. Christ is the king. And it all
ends with Him hanging on the cross. It doesn't end there. With Him hanging on the cross,
His name is written above His head, Jesus of Nazareth, King
of the Jews. So, our Lord is the coming King. Born the King, we sang, of angels. and men and devils. He's the
king. So David, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob,
Judah, Tamar, verse 5, didn't you recognize that name? Boaz. From Rahab. Boaz is Rahab's son. Boaz, the kinsman redeemer, that's
the Lord Jesus Christ. And then Ruth. Ruth is the grandmother
of David, the great-grandmother of David. Are you in His family
tree? Are you in Christ? Well, here's
how you can know, alright? Salvation is to be found in Him,
the Tree of Life. Here's how you can know. Every
one of these people have something in common. They're sinners. And this is who Christ plainly
tells us. His genealogy tells us this man
is a friend of sinners. This man came. God sent him in
this world to save sinners. And everybody in his family was
sinners. Are you? Are you? I hope so. I don't hope you sin,
but I hope you know you're a sinner. So Christ Jesus is faithful.
saying He came into this world to save sinners. That's why the
Father sent Him. Well, verse 18 tells us of His
birth. Now, the birth of Jesus Christ
was on this wire. Now, this is amazing. Every birth
is amazing. The birth of any child. There's
so much of it. So many children are born that
we lose sight of the miracle that is childbirth. I got the
privilege of being there when our child was born. It's just an amazing thing. It's a conception, you know,
a seed and an egg get together. Who does that? God does that. Life comes from the Lord. A great
incomprehensible mystery. God was manifest in the flesh. God, whose spirit became a man. God joined his Spirit, His Holy
Spirit with the body of a human being. God made. A child is born,
Isaiah said, a child is born, a baby was born, but the Son
is given. The eternal Son of God, Proverbs
8 speaks of Christ being with Him in the beginning. And I love
this verse in Proverbs 8, it says, His delights were with
the sons of men, rejoicing in the habitable parts of the earth. In other words, He came to this
earth in a body, many times. Now here's something that I'm
going to try to, or I'm going to tell you, I'm not even going
to try to explain it. But He had a body, He assumed
a body many times before he entered the virgin's womb. You know that? He appeared to
Adam and Eve. He appeared to many throughout
the Scriptures. He appeared to Abraham and Sarah. They knew it was the Lord in
it. A glorified body. He appeared
to Jacob. He wrestled Jacob down on the
ground. That was the Lord Jesus Christ. He appeared to Gideon.
under an oak tree, appeared to Manoah. Manoah saw him. No man has seen God the Father
whose Spirit at any time but the only begotten Son, which
is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. Manoah saw God. He said, I'm
going to die. I've seen God. He saw the Son of God. God said,
let us make man in our own, what? Image. And when Hebrews 1 begins,
it says Christ was the express image of God. Now what kind of
body did he have before he came here? I think it, well, now,
what did he do with that body when he entered into the virgin's
womb? When he died and arose, he was
back in that glorified body. And yet it's the body he assumed
on this earth. A body has self-prepared me.
It has scars in it. Explain that with me. I can't. No one can. Amazing, miraculous. Darius, remember when the three
Hebrews were in the furnace? What did King Uriah say? I see
four walking loose, and the fourth is like the Son of God. You saw it. So a body was prepared
for him, made of a woman, made born of a woman, made of a woman,
made under the law, the seed of Abraham. Abraham, a man, flesh
and blood, bone of our bones, flesh of our flesh, a man. I
love this thought, we should take great comfort and get great
peace from the fact that our God became a man. He never, scriptures, Hebrews
says, He's touched the field of our environment, tempted at
all points like as we are, yet without sin, but He knows our
frame. That's why He's so merciful.
That's why He's so gracious. That's why He's so full of compassion. He was compassed with this same
infirmity. He created a body weak compared
to His glorified body. A body subject to time, and not
time, but subject to this earth. It needed to eat. A man eating
and drinking and walking and working and laughing and crying. He had parents. He grew up under
parents. He was a perfectly submissive
son. Were his parents sinners? Yes,
they were. Were they wrong? Yes, they were. Was he submissive
and obedient? Yes, he was. A child, a boy, a young man,
full of all the, I mean, touched with all these things that we're
touched with, joy, pain, sorrow, tempted and awful. He knows our
frame all right. He assumed one. I remember well,
and these young people in here may think this, that your parents
don't understand you. They just don't understand me.
I remember getting in my... I had a St. Bernard and he was
big. He was almost 200 pounds. We had him a house, like a small
house personally. I'd get inside that house with
him, put my arm around him. They just don't love me. My parents
don't understand me. They just don't understand what
I'm going through. Yes, they do. They were just
like you. They were children just like
you. We'll say it's worse now. No, it's not. Everybody, everything's
the same. But our God became man. He understands us better than
we understand ourselves. So He's so full of compassion
and love and understanding. Born of a woman. Born the poorest
of the poor. Our Lord was born the poorest
of the poor to identify with the poorest person on this earth.
Blessed are the poor. Infinite condescension. He who
was rich, we just don't know until we get there how rich he
is, was and is. He that was rich yet for our
sake became poor that we through his poverty might be made rich. Identified with us as low, lower
than the lowest. Why? Well, He's showing us. Well, He did this as our substitute.
This is the second Adam from above. But He's showing us that
low is not really low. See, things are not as they seem.
High is not high. Rich is not rich, as you know
it. Proverbs says, There is he that maketh himself rich, yet
has nothing. Someone said about a rich woman,
an unbeliever said, she's so poor all she has is money. It's
true. Someday it's going to be so much
paper to put the light of fire with. He's showing us that low
is not really low. High is not high, the way you
think it. Rich is not rich, the way you
think it. And beauty is not outward, it's
inward. Don't you love the thought of
our Lord making Himself to be what He was in every way, without
form, without company, poor. He chose His parents who were
poor, nobodies from nowhere. Now verse 18 says, before they
came together, meaning before the husband and wife were given
in marriage and came together in that physical union. Before they came together, she's
a virgin. And verse 23 says that. It says, A virgin, Isaiah 9,
7, 14, Behold, a virgin shall be with child and bring forth
a son. Call his name Immanuel. Virgin shall conceive. That's
not possible, you say. It's not possible. With man,
that's not possible. Is it? My God, it is. Not possible. Born of a virgin. Why is that important? You know
that there are few people who really believe that. It's absolute
necessity. If Christ isn't born of a virgin,
he's a man like we are, he's a sinner. There's no seed of
Adam, man in him. In fact, I had a preacher get
mad at me over this. I don't know why. But Mary's
egg did not contribute to his life. The seed of Adam is in her, isn't
he? She's not the source of his life.
He's the source of hers. He just borrowed this womb like
he borrowed the tomb to be born in. And this holy thing, the
angel said, that holy thing, never been one like it, is the
God-man. born of the Spirit of God, just
like the new creature in you. You had nothing to do with that.
We cannot create life in ourselves. We cannot give ourselves life.
This new birth is of the Holy Spirit. But this child in her
was Born of God, the only begotten, the only son of the Most High
God, born. He's the first born. He who had no beginning was born. And as we said, He came into
this world in that way because our life in this earth begins
with pain and bloodshed. and sorrow. And when he said
to the woman, Eve, in the beginning, our Lord is the one that said
thou greatly multiply thy sorrows in childbirth. How merciful and
gracious he was to come to a woman and be born of that woman and
be with her in that great pain and that sorrow. and gave birth
to Christ. And like he said in John, he
said that when a woman who's in pain and suffering and sorrow,
until that child is born and when that child is born, forget
it all, that pain and sorrow. Mary, try to imagine ladies,
those of you who had children, she gave birth to that child
in a barn with no help. No painkiller, nothing like that. Our God was with her. Away. That's the way He chose to come
into this world. He did. He's born of a woman
because there's no seed of man in Him. No sin. No sin. Now Mary did not remain a virgin. Is that clear from this? He said
he knew her not until he was born. She had other children.
Catholicism denies that. Well, it's not alright. It's
evil. They deny that because they worship
her. And you know, she's never called the Virgin Mary. Nowhere in the Bible is she called
the Virgin Mary. She's Mary, a virgin. It's not a title for her to hold
as a great badge of honor. Why was she a virgin? God kept
her that way. She's not the Virgin Mary anymore. She's Mary, a sinner, saved by
grace. She said that in her prayer in
Luke, didn't she? My soul rejoiceth in God my Savior. Christ came to save his mother. Born of a virgin. Now it does
say, go to Luke chapter 1 with me. This is the other account
of our Lord's birth. Luke chapter 1. Now I love Mary,
the virgin. I esteem her highly, more highly
than myself. She was a virgin. She was pure. She was kept and kept herself. Yes, Luke chapter 1. And she was chosen by our Lord. And I think it's fitting that
our Lord chose this virgin woman to be born of her, a pure woman.
He's pure. And Joseph, remember, it read,
Joseph was a just man. His surrogate father, not his
actual father, his surrogate father he chose was a just man. His mother was a virgin. This
is his earthly parents. That's who he chose to come,
showing that this child is greater than they. He's just. He's pure. Luke chapter 1, look
at verse 46. Mary said, My soul doth magnify
the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior, for
he hath regarded the lowest state of his handmaiden. Behold, from
henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. I don't want to be guilty of saying anything about Mary that's
less than honorable. The Lord honored her. Scripture
says she was highly favored among women, not above them, but among
women. She was highly favored. God chose
her, didn't he? Chose her. And she said from
this, from his fourth generation, she'll call me blessed. She is
a blessed woman. A blessed woman. But now, she's
no more blessed. This Mary is no more blessed
than Mary Parks. You know that? We have several
maids in here in whom the Holy Spirit has come and Christ is
formed in them. She's no more blessed than Irene,
right? And Helen. And Sarah. And these
men in here. Everyone, male and female. The
Holy Spirit comes. We're highly favored among men
and women that God would choose us to put His Son in us and give
us life. You see? From henceforth, your
generation is called, me blessed. I'm blessed, just like her. But
let's not be guilty of, you know, because Catholicism worships
this woman. We don't do that. And yet we
highly esteem her. She's our sister. I love the
thought that Mary the former virgin and Mary the former harlot
were best friends. They were right there at the
foot of the cross. They were together all the time. And I
guarantee you, Mary the former virgin thought Mary the harlot
was better than she was. That's the grace of God. Because
both of them were virgins. See, Christ came to make a harlot
into a virgin. Holy, pure, spotless. He's able to present us spotless,
faultless before the presence of His glory. Christ came to
make sinners into virgins. That's what it says. Listen to
this in Revelation. I've got it written down here
somewhere. Now, Revelation 14. Listen to this. It says that
those that were with him, it says they were redeemed from
among men. They're virgin. All of them have
been saved. They've been washed. They've
been purified. Every single one of them will
be presented to the Father, dressed in white, to be married to the
Son of the Most High God. Isn't that something? And it's
of the Holy Ghost. And I thought about this. Oh,
may our Lord, may the Holy Spirit do so to all our young maids
and young men. May the Holy Spirit come upon
them and highly favor them. And may Christ be formed in them. And that's what I do. That's
what we do. We travail until Christ is formed
in you. Oh my. The Lord, look at verse
21. Look in our text. Now here's his name. Our Lord told Joseph to take
Mary as the wife, that which is conceived in her as of the
Holy Ghost. Now here's why he came. Here's his name and here's
his word. The angel said, she shall bring
forth a son. And I remind you, nowhere in
the Bible is Christ called the son of Mary. It says, She shall bring forth
a son to tell us that the child born of her was a male. But nowhere
is He called the Son of Mary, but everywhere is He called the
Son of God. Because He doesn't owe His existence
to Mary. She owes hers to Him. Is that
important? Or else we could worship her
the same as we worship. We don't worship the creature,
we worship the Creator. But, all right, the angel said
she shall bring forth a son. Whose son is this? It's God's
son. His only begotten son. And thou shalt call his name.
Here's what the angel told Mary and Joseph. Shall call his name
Jesus. Now, a couple, we did this, and
every one of you who were blessed with children, you did this when
you found out you were expecting. And the two of you got together
and what shall we call the child, didn't you? And you thought of
all these names. Well, let's name him after your
grandfather. Or let's name him after, you know, let's name her
after your great-great-grandmother. Or somebody you admire, you know,
you come up with a name. Or a name you just like the sound
of it. Don't we? You come up with a name. Well,
God chose this name for his son. In fact, Jesus Christ chose his
own name. The Holy Spirit chose this name.
God, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit got together and
said, what shall we call this child? And God said, Jesus. What's that
mean? Jehovah Savior. Savior. Jehovah Savior. He's the only one who can. Jehovah.
God our Savior. Call His name Jesus. The Old
Testament name is Joshua. You know anything about Joshua?
Go back and read. You'll hear about Joshua all
through the Old Testament. What Joshua can't come to do?
What kind of man was Joshua? You better fear Joshua. Joshua
in the Old Testament was a conqueror. Joshua in the Old Testament was
strong, the successor of Moses. He's the one that brought the
people into the promised land, wasn't he? Joshua. Joshua is
one that conquered every single foe of God's people. John, every
one of them. Joshua! You can't say that name
to Jews back then that inspired them with strength and courage
and adoration and admiration. Joshua! Yes, Joshua. They didn't name their children,
their sons, that too many times because they held that name in
such high esteem. Throughout the Scriptures, the
whole Old Testament speaks of Joshua. It says Joshua took the
land. Joshua conquered the people.
Joshua discomforted the Malachi. It sounds like Joshua did it
all by himself. Well, he did not. But this Joshua
did. It's because it says in verse
21, Thou shalt call His name Jesus, Savior, for He shall save
his people from this sin. Were you struck with me when
Brother Obi was going through Hebrews, how many times he said,
by himself? I wrote that down, John. I'm
going to preach from that. You can't preach from all the
verses that say that. There's too many of them. By
himself. Joshua did not defeat all the
enemies by himself. He had help. But our Joshua did.
Jesus Christ did, by Himself. Hebrews 1 says, when He had by
Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the
Majesty of God. He shall save. He shall save. That's His name. God named Him. When God named Him, it meant
something. He came to save. He came into this world to save
sinners. Did He? Isaiah said, He shall
not fail nor be discouraged, didn't He? He shall put away
sin. He shall. Not no ifs, ands, maybes,
or buts about it. No shadow of a doubt. Christ
came to save. You say, let's get back to the
birth. No. This is why He was born. He was born to live. He was born to save. He's born to bring in an everlasting
righteousness. He's born to die on a cross as
a substitute of His people. He's born to die. He's the only
Messiah. People talk about Messiahs. He's
the only one that came to die. I wish we had time for the next
chapter. I wish we could deal with that
whole chapter. But you know, when Christ came to this world,
thousands of babies died in His place. See, he didn't come to bring
peace, but it's over. Thousands of children died that
he might live, but I'm here to tell you he died that a people of no American number
should live. Do you not think that all those
babies that were slain are in heaven with the Lord? They gave
their lives for Him. And at the same token, every
single one that Jesus Christ died for lives for Him. He shall save. Who? His people. For the transgression
of my people. He shall save His people. Yes,
I'm going to say it loudly. Elect according to the foreknowledge
of God. Chosen, loved, predestinated,
He shall save His people from their sins. Our Lord was made of a woman.
He must be made more than that. He was made of a woman. And thirty-three
years later, hanging on the cross, this is our salvation. He was
made sin for us, His chosen, who knew
no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.
You know how few people are hearing that today? You know how few
people are going to hear about the cross on this day of Christ's
birth? His birth is pointless if He didn't die on the cross. He didn't come as an example,
though he was. He came as a substitute. Satisfaction. Substitution. That's the heart of the gospel,
isn't it? Blood. Blood. The birth of a child can't
save us. The death of the man on the cross
did. And that's why, you know, we
celebrate, we commemorate, we thank Him and worship Him for
being born in this earth, born as a man. But the thing that
we chiefly remember Him for, He said, this do in remembrance
of Me. This is what you do. This is
how you commemorate Me. This is how you honor Me. My
death. My death. He came to die. Because of sin. See? He came
to save His people from their sin. The wages of sin is what? Death. He came to save His people from
their sins. Now, are you one of His people?
Are you one of His elect? Are you? I talked about all these
sons of Jacob. It began with Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob. Are you Jacob? Has he wrestled
with you? Do you know your name? Are you a sinner? That's what
it came for. And so, verse 22, I close. It says, It says this, verse
22, All this was done that it might be fulfilled which was
spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall
be with child, shall bring forth a son. They shall call his name
Immanuel, which is being interpreted, God is with us. God with us. This was all done to fulfill.
God's Word. Everything that is written of
Him was fulfilled in Him. Everything written in the Law
was fulfilled by Him. All praise, honor, and glory
is due unto Him. Do you hear that? All written of Him was fulfilled
in Him. Everything written in the Law
was fulfilled by Him. And all praise, honor, and glory
is due unto Him. For of Him, through Him, and
to Him are all things. And call His name Immanuel. Jesus,
yes. We see, I love that Hebrew verse
that says, we see Him made a little lower than the angels. That's
glorious. That was glorious of Him. Infinite
condescension. You and I, we wouldn't die for
the likes of us. We wouldn't give our child. No, we wouldn't, but He did.
Infinite condescension. We see Him made a little lower
than the angels. Why? for the suffering of death. But now how do we see? Crowned
with glory. We're going to see a Lamb as
it had been slain. We're going to see His glorified
body. And every one of us are going to be spotless virgins
in His presence, to be married to the Lamb at that day. And
every one of us are going to be without spot and blemish.
Only one person in glory has any marks on His body. That's Christ. He has scars. And every one of us are going
to think, He's the most beautiful person here. Because by His stripes,
we're healed. So, Immanuel, if God be with
us, if God be for us, if God came down here for us, if He
came to save us, we're saved. If God be with us, who can be
against us? His last words were these before
He ascended up on high to His disciples. He said, Lo, I am
with you, even to the ends of the earth. God with us. He has called His name Jesus. Verse 25 says, He knew her not
till she had brought forth her firstborn son, and He called
His name. But the angels told him, Jesus. And here's scripture of all scriptures
in my mind, one of them. Without controversy, great is
the mystery of God's wisdom. God was manifest in the flesh,
justified in the spirit, seen of angels. They announced his
birth. Preached unto the Gentiles. Here we are talking about someone
who lived and died 2,000 years ago in a land you've never visited.
Believed on. Believed on in the world. I believe on Him, don't you?
I believe in Him and I believe on Him. I really do, don't you? and received up into glory. And
you know what? Everybody that believes on Him,
He's coming back for them. He said that. I go to prepare
a place for you. If I go to prepare a place for
you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I
am you may be with me also. Why? To behold His glory, the
glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace
and truth. Blessed be His holy name. Okay,
let's sing a closing hymn.