Lest I forget, I bring you greetings
from your assistant pastor. The last thing before we left
Ashland, Henry said, now you be sure and say hello over there
to my friends. Doris chimed in, me too. They love you and I do too. I'm grateful for this fellowship
here. It's a joy to be here. Turn back now in your Bibles
to Luke chapter 1, and let me introduce this message
this way. If I went down to the ocean with
an eyedropper, now y'all know what an eyedropper is, that's
that little glass tube with the rubber squeezy thing on the end
and you You know, you use it for putting drops in your eyes
or nose or whatever, but you just squeeze in liquid and then
you let it out a drop at a time. If I had an eyedropper and assuming
that I had a big enough container and I went down to the ocean,
how long do you think it would take me to empty the ocean one
drop at a time? You say, well, you're not going
to live long enough. And you're right. Ten lifetimes,
a hundred lifetimes, I don't suppose a thousand lifetimes
that I could ever empty that ocean. Not with an eyedropper. Well, this fall, sometime, I
don't remember the exact date when I first heard the gospel
preached. sometime here soon it's going
to be in the 25th year. Now, I know that's not very long
compared to some of you. Some of you have heard it longer
than that. And yet, I confess that, you know, it's getting
to seem like a long time, 25 years. And what I realized about
that is that in all those years, what I have learned of the Lord
Jesus Christ, of all that I have seen in the Word regarding the
Lord Jesus Christ in all of those years, is very much like if we
took all that I have seen and heard and compared it to what
is yet to be seen in this Word, it would be a great deal like
comparing one of those drops to all the seas of the world. And I suspect if I asked these
fellows who've been here a long time, Henry, are you up to two
drops yet? I'm not even, I haven't even
milked that one drop yet. No, sir. Ed, have you got to
the second drop yet? No. We've not even begun. to
commence to begin to see anything yet. And the proof of that is
that in eternity, which is not ten lifetimes or a thousand lifetimes,
it's infinite lifetimes. Do you know that won't be long
enough to look into this and see all that is here to be seen
of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ? Oh, we got a lot to look forward
to, don't we? You know, a precious jewel, if
you take a diamond or a ruby or whatever, when they cut it,
I don't know much about this, but I know when they cut it,
every cut reveals a facet, they call it. That's a new surface
or flat surface of the jewel. And each of those facets, if
you take and hold it to the light, is going to magnify that jewel
in some way. And as we turn in God's Word,
just like you turn that jewel to look at it, as we turn in
God's Word, if every moment that we turned in the Word, we saw
something new of the Lord Jesus Christ, if we saw a new facet
every moment, do you know that eternity wouldn't be long enough
to see all the facets that are to be seen. This precious jewel,
the Lord Jesus Christ, has infinite facets. And this morning, this
morning, all I want us to do is, by God's grace, is, you know
what happened to me? I think he showed me a facet
I'd never seen, and I hope I can show it to you. By God's grace,
I hope we'll just turn, and you'll see one more facet of the glory
of the Lord Jesus Christ. I pray that God's Holy Spirit
will show us all this morning. I had Sam read the first 25 verses
of Luke chapter 1, and we're going to pick it up there and
go through the next 10 verses. And as you heard Sam read in
Luke chapter 1, we have the obvious story of the promise and the
conception and the birth of John the Baptist. That's what Sam
read, isn't it? Gabriel came and promised John
the Baptist to his father and his mother, and that's what's
revealed here, and that's so obvious. Now, the problem is
that several denominations have taken this account that we just
read, and they've made Mary into an idol, haven't they? They worship
her. And I guess I just never thought
about it until I went to Mexico the first time and found out
the reality of this. They have cathedrals there that
dwarf this building, dwarf the biggest building in this town,
I guess, church building. And they have statues in there
of Mary. Now, they have statues of one
they call Jesus there, too. They have statues of Mary and
you see people, you know, you say now you're overstating it,
Bob, to say they make Mary into an idol. Oh, no. You watch them. These poor folks come in there
and they get down on their hands and knees and they kiss the feet
of that idol. And they light candles and lay
their little eggs and pesos up there. And in holidays, they
take those statues up and take them out through the streets,
and the people rush up and bow down before those. Now that's
making Mary into an idol. And old denominations have done
that. And I want to say this right out. Mary was not here,
and Mary is not now, and Mary never will be. a rival of the
Lord Jesus Christ. She's not his rival. You know
who she is? She's his mother. She's his mother. That's who she is. She's the
Mary. I mean, she's the mother of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And as a woman, she was greatly
blessed of God. I wouldn't deny that. The scripture
says that here. She was greatly blessed of God.
But I'll tell you what. She was nonetheless in need of
salvation, as any woman in this building or any woman in this
town. By birth, she was a sinner, just like all women in this world. And in Luke chapter 1, we have
revealed at the same time that Mary is foretold that she will
conceive and give birth to Christ, we're foretold how God saves
sinners. That's the facet here. It's a
clear description of Gabriel coming and promising Mary, you're
going to have a child. His name's going to be Jesus,
and he'll be born. But at the same time, it's a
picture of how God saves sinners. How he saves Mary, and how he
saves every one of us who is saved. Now let's look at verse
26, and you follow with me. In the sixth month, the angel
Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee named Nazareth. Now you say, what's the six-month
mean there? Well, that just means that in the six months of her
expectancy, she was six months pregnant when the Lord sent Gabriel
down. After Gabriel was sent to John
the Baptist's mother and father, Elizabeth, and then God, in the
six months of that pregnancy, he sent Gabriel to Mary. Now,
it just as easily could have been three months or nine months
or seven months. I don't know why. I'll tell you
what it tells us, though. You know what? In due time, God
sends a messenger to every one of his people. Is it not true
for you, those of you who know him? Did he not in due time? I don't know whether it was the
third month, the fifth month, whatever it was, but he did send
a messenger to you, didn't he? Some right early and some later.
But in due time, he does send a messenger to every one of his
people. He sends someone to preach the
gospel to his sheep. He's going to cross the path
of every one of his children with his word. And let me tell
you this, you're not sending angels anymore. If you think
he sent an angel to you, uh oh, I'm sorry. You know why? He's
got somebody better than angels now. In this town, he's got Paul
Mahan. I'll tell you what, if we somehow
got word out this morning, Gabriel, the angel Gabriel's coming down
to Central Baptist Church. I'll tell you what, I don't care
if there's a race in Martinsville or not, we wouldn't have been
able to get coming in the back door from Farron. We couldn't
have got here in three days. They'd have been piled up here.
The other day in USA Today, they had this humongous crowd of people,
and you know what they were looking for? They, some girl had said
she saw the Virgin Mary reflected in the window pane of this building. And there must have been a hundred
people standing there going, you know, waiting on her to show
up there. I'm sorry now. God Almighty's
not sending angels anymore. He's not sending Mary. He's got
a preacher of the gospel. He's got a man. He's using men
in our day to preach the gospel. And Paul Mahan's that man in
this place, and if you won't hear him, you're not going to
hear from God. In Ashton, Kentucky, it's Henry Mahan. And if you
won't hear him, well, you'll just go without hearing him.
But he's not going to accommodate you because you want to see some
silver-winged creature come down here or whatever they look like.
He doesn't need them anymore to do his bidding. He's got men.
And I tell you, I'd rather hear, I'd rather hear Paul Mahan than
the angel Gabriel. You know why? Gabriel never once
has entered into this salvation. Now, what the scripture says,
angels have desire to look into this. Your pastors looked into
it right well, I might say. Every time I've ever heard him
preach the gospel, he's looked into this. He knows what he's
talking about. He's entered in. And God sends
his men to preach his word, and this is interesting. Do you notice
where Mary was? Why wasn't she in Jerusalem?
Why wasn't she in Cairo or some big city? No, she was in Galilee
in a little old dumpy town named Nazareth. Didn't they later say,
what good thing can come out of Nazareth? Let me ask you,
where's Rocky Mountain? Somebody, where's Ashwin? Somebody
says, where are you? And at work all the time they
say, where's Ashwin? And I go, well, let's see, you go east
on 64, I don't know, if you're not going there, you can't get
there. Rocky Mountain, if you're not coming here, you're not going
to get here. You may go through Roanoke, you may go through Charlotte,
Greensboro, I don't care what you're going to do, but you're
not coming through Rocky Mountain unless you're coming here. Because it's nowhere. But it suits God's purpose. He's
not going to accommodate Roanoke. If they want to hear the gospel
there, they're going to come to Rocky Mount. And in that day, God sent
his messenger, he sent Gabriel down to this dump, Nazareth,
because he had some of his sheep down there. And I'm not saying,
I misspoke there. I love Rocky Mount. I love Iceland. It's a better place to live than
Roanoke or Lexington or any of those towns, as far as I'm concerned.
I don't want to go to Atlanta. No siree. I like Ashen. God's
blessed us with a good place to raise our children, hadn't
he? I know you may think you've got problems in your high school
here, but you ought to see what's going on in San Francisco. I
thank God he's put us where we are. Look at verse 27 here. To a virgin, espoused to a man
whose name was Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin's
name was Mary. Now, Mary was a spouse, and that
means she was promised. She was engaged to Joseph. And if Gabriel were to appear this
morning, it wouldn't be as good as if your pastor were here.
Not at all, it wouldn't be. Because you see, what's being
said here is that While Mary was a spouse to Joseph, and God
sends his messenger to his people, you know who they are? Some of you I've never met. I
don't know whether you're his people or not. But I know this. If you are, he's going to send
somebody to preach the gospel to you. Absolutely, he's going
to do that. He's going to do it. You know
why? Because before the foundation of the world, before Adam and
Eve were ever born, Do you know what he did? He said, I'm going
to start with Adam and Eve, and I'm going to make all these people.
And I'm going to have mercy on that one. I'm going to have mercy
on that one named Henry. I'm going to have mercy on that
one named John. I'm going to have mercy on that
one named Mary. I'm going to have mercy on that one named
Sam. Darn it. What? He said, I'm going to have
mercy on them. And do you know what he did to guarantee that?
He said, I'm going to promise them to my son. I'm going to
engage him. This is an arranged marriage.
He said, you will be married, and I'm going to espouse you
to my son. And I'll tell you what, God doesn't
go back on his promises. And every one he chose, in due
time, he sends somebody to let them know they're engaged, to
show them who their husband is. And then in fact, they're going
to be married, and that right soon. And is it accidental here
that this fellow's name was Joseph, to whom she was espoused? No. You know why? Because Joseph
is a picture. You go back in the Old Testament, you know who
Joseph was? Joseph was the beloved son of
his daddy. There was 12 boys and he was
the favorite. And the one to whom we're espoused
is God's favorite, his son, his only begotten son. And old Joseph
in the Old Testament, you know, he came out of his daddy's house
and they threw him in a pit, didn't they? And then they threw
him in a dungeon. He descended into the king's
dungeon. only to be lifted out of there and made king of Egypt.
See a picture of Christ there? The one to whom we're espoused
came down from glory from the right hand of God the Father
as his beloved son. And I tell you, he went in the
pit for us. He was crucified in our place. And God's raised
him up. You know where he is now? He's sitting at God's right
hand. And that's who Mary, Mary was espoused to Joseph and you
and I are espoused to Christ. Whom Joseph was a picture. There's
more here than meets the eye, isn't it? Verse 28, And the angel
came in unto her, unto Mary, and said, Hail, thou that art
highly favored, the Lord is with you. Blessed art thou among women. Now, I think I can lay the ax
to this whole business of elevating Mary into an idol
or a rival of Christ with this simple thing. If I said this
this morning, now y'all listen to me. I believe you can rejoice
in what I'm getting ready to tell you. If Gabriel came here
this morning and stood where I stood, if he said this, anybody
in here who thinks they could respond with, yeah, that's me. See if there's anybody in here
who could respond this way. Mary, hail. You are highly favored, and the
Lord's with you. Blessed are you among women." Mary, your last name's Parks. Could you not go, God has highly
favored me. He's with me. Oh, I'm blessed
with God. Couldn't you say that? If I just
changed the name to Roberta or Sherry. Or if I made it some
man's name. If I said, John, you're highly
favored of God. God's been with you. You're blessed
of God. Could we not all, anybody who
knows Christ, could we not go, Amen. Amen. And that's all that
happened here. God came, sent a messenger to
this girl to tell her, God's highly favored you. And he's
with you, and he's going to bless you. And I tell you, every believer
to whom God reveals his son, that's what he does. He sends
a messenger to tell you that. That's what he does. You see
verse 30 then? Or verse 29, I'm sorry. And when she saw, and notice
that word him is in italics. It didn't have anything to do
with seeing Gabriel. It's when she saw. Y'all remember
when you saw, when the light came on and you went, Oh, I see
him! I see! I see! Some listened to
the gospel for years before they ever went, I see. Ron and Trish
sat in the back of 13th Street for 22 years listening to the
gospel. And then one day they said, I
see. I see. I see. And you see, when
Mary saw, I have no doubt she was raised in a proper family.
It was heard the gospel, but one day when the messenger came,
she saw, she saw, and she saw. She was troubled at his saying
and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.
Now, what this is saying here is that not only was it not normal
for even in this time and day, not only was it Not normal for
an angel, but even a man would not have spoken to this young
woman like this. Men did not just go up and speak
to young women. But there's a lot more to it
than just somebody stooping to speak to her. And there's something
in that. The Lord stooped to speak to
us. Who are we? We certainly don't deserve his
condescending grace. Believers realize that it's not
deserved that God should condescend to speak to the likes of us.
And when the gospel is first preached and we first hear, does
not the holiness and the righteousness of Christ that we see have the
same effect it had on her? It scared her. It scared her. She went, If he is righteous
and holy, what does that make me? Doesn't not the righteousness
and the justice of God Almighty, when we first hear the gospel,
go, oh my, I'm in a mess. I got a problem. My sin is ever
before me. The ways the believers have expressed
that through the scriptures are plain. And so you see her reaction here
is is normal. She's saying, how could holy
God highly favor me? How could God be with me, a sinner? Didn't, which of the apostles
wasn't one to jump out of the boat? Christ came into the boat
and he said, get away from me. I'm a sinner. Oh, I shouldn't
even be in your presence, Lord. And the sinner first knows the
troubling fear of conviction, guilt before God as a sinner.
And then and only then comes the comfort of the good news.
Anybody who's not been troubled before the Lord, I'm not real
sure they know much about his grace and goodness and mercy.
Here's verse 30, look next. And the angel said unto her,
Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favor with God. Notice
the messenger knew her name. Isn't that wonderful? I tell
you, if you ever hear him speak to you, you know it's by name,
don't you? I tell you, Paul doesn't have
to stand up here and go, Danny, you know when it's yours, don't
you? Yeah. You know when it's yours. Yeah. And whether it's the, whether
it's the conviction of sin or whether it's the joy of salvation,
redemption in Christ. Oh, you didn't have to go stand
up. Oh, you know, you know. And Mary knew here, he calls
by name. He calls by name. Because God
knows his sheep, every one of them. As a shepherd knows the
sheep of his flock. And then the messenger gave Mary the same
two things that God's Spirit gives every believer. Now I want
you to rejoice this morning. If you've experienced this, this
ought to be great joy to you. God's messenger gives two things. And he does it every time he
gets up to preach. Two things. There's a promise and a person.
Now, the promise. Turn to Genesis chapter 8. Turn
over there. He said to Mary, he gave her
a promise. He said, Thou hast found grace with God. In the
verse we just read. And every believer has this precious
promise that we've found grace. And in Genesis 6 here, We're
going to find out that Noah is troubled. And do you know what
he's troubled about? He's troubled because God has
come to Noah and said, Noah, he said, I've had enough of this
world. I'm plum fed up with it. You see down here in verse five
of chapter six, he says, and God saw the wickedness of man.
And I'll tell you what, Noah lumped himself right in there
as he should have. We shouldn't read this and go,
boy, they were really wicked back then. If we'd have lived in Noah's
day, we'd have been right in the same boat. We'd have been
right here with him. God saw the wickedness of man
was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts
of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that
he'd made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.
And the Lord said, I'm going to destroy a man whom I've created
from the face of the earth, both man and beast and creeping thing
and the fowls of the air, for it repents me that I've even
made him. You know, he said, no, I have reason to be afraid.
He said, no, I've had enough, and I'm going to make it rain.
Noah goes, what's rain? He said, I'm going to send a
flood. I'm going to cover the whole earth with water and drown
not just every man, but every creature and beast. I'm going
to destroy it all. Now, if God Almighty said that
to me, I believe He'd have my attention. Nah, not really. You know why? He says it every
day in the scriptures that nobody seems afraid nowadays, do they?
No, God Almighty's got to come with a messenger to wake up our
heart, to turn the light on, to say, I need to be afraid.
He did that to Mary. But after he does that, the next
thing he does is he comes with a promise. And you know what
the promise was to Noah? Right here in the next verse
8, he says, You have found grace in the eyes of the Lord. And
that's the promise. And do you see back in our scripture,
back in our text, in verse 30, he said to Mary, he sent, he
slew her with conviction, who she was and who Christ was. And
then the angel said to her in verse 30, don't be afraid, Mary,
for you found favor with God. This doesn't mean he exalted
her above other human beings, surely as the mother of our Lord,
that's a great honor. It's a great honor. It's a great
honor for this woman right here to be a pastor's wife. It's a
great honor for you ladies to sit here with elders in Christ,
with young men in Christ, with believers in Christ. It's a great
honor to be married to the Lord Jesus, to be in the family is
a great honor. Oh, how good our God is to us. He could have cut us off. He'd
give us what we deserve. It's been good to us. We found
grace in his sight. What a great promise this is.
He said to Noah, Noah, he said, the flood's coming. The overflowing
scourge of my raft is coming, Noah. But he said, it's not coming
near you. He said, because I got a promise.
You found grace in my sight. And he made that same promise.
And notice it was not a conditional promise. He didn't say, Noah,
if you'll build a boat, I'll spare you. No, he said, you found
grace, and by the way, you're going to build a boat. You're
going to build a boat. And then look at verse 30 here,
it says to Mary, you have found grace with God, I promise. And
it's not conditioned on her if. He didn't say, you'll find grace
if you'll have this child. No, he said, you found grace
and you will have a child. And to every believer, he says,
fear not. Because you found grace with
God. I promise. I promise. And then look next. It's not
just the promise. There's the person. The surety. The guarantee of the promise.
And that's in verse 31. He said, And behold, thou shalt
conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shall call his
name Jesus. And he shall be great, and shall
be called the son of the highest. And the Lord God shall give unto
him the throne of his father David, and he shall reign over
the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there shall be
no end." This is obviously a person, isn't
it? Isn't this a person? If she's
going to conceive, it's a person, right? If she's going to have
a baby, it's going to be a person, right? You say, well, who was
Noah's person? It was a picture of a person
called an ark. A boat that Noah was going to
make. That's where his redemption,
his salvation was. And the ark, the parallels here,
the ark was a great ark. It was as big as two football
fields. This is a big boat. This is a mighty ark. It was
the only ark. There was only one door in. And
once you got in, there was no way out. No way out. And by it, all who were going
to be saved were saved. There was no other salvation.
That ark was Christ. It was a picture of Christ. And
Mary here is promised a person. And you see what his name is?
The angel even told him the name. And when your pastor gets up
here, does he go, well, God is, whether it's, and listen, fellas,
I'm telling you, these, these guys on television, They don't
care whether his name is Allah, Muhammad, or you, they just all
want to get along, right? Is that what, is that what Gabriel
said to Mary? He said, well, you can call him
Allah, call him, call him whatever you want. No, he said, no, there's
only one savior, his name is Jesus, the Christ. And she described
him here, didn't she? I mean, didn't Gabriel describe
who it was? He didn't give her a choice. No, he's savior. He
shall save his people. He's God in human flesh. He's
son of the highest. He's the Son of God. He's the
High Potentate. He's the King of Kings. He's
the Sovereign Reigning Lord in Christ. He's world without end.
He's life eternal. He's the light of the world.
He's God with us. He's just not somebody who wants
to and can't. Man, he specifically told her
who this was. And your pastor, every time he
gets up to you, he tells you he's the God-man. He's the Sovereign
Reigning Lord. God in human flesh. God with
us. Preachers only have two tasks every time they get up here.
It's to give you the promise and then tell you who the person
is. So all of this, I'm just taking another in run to get
there a different way and speak a different scripture. He's in,
he's that, every, the promise is in every verse. And one day
you say, how in the world are we going to sit through eternity?
Is it going to be something new? Yeah. He'll take every word in
this book and show you the promise and then show you the person. Some guys out there, you know,
wore out with swimming and the ark goes by with, God loves you,
you've got a wonderful plan for your life. I've got a feeling
he doesn't see the plan. He doesn't think that's such
a great deal, does he? Huh? No, he's under the wrath
of God Almighty. The only ones saved that God
has a plan for are those in the ark. They were married to Christ. They give you a false promise. Their false promise is backed
up by a false person. If you're a false person, you
must let him do his will. The promise, you see, is conditioned
on if you'll let the person do something for you. And it's not
so with the promise in the person of God's true messenger. The
promise in the person of God's true messenger is not an if gospel,
not if you'll let God or if you'll do this or if you'll do that
or whatever. It's a shall gospel. Let me read this to you again.
Go back to verse 31 and see what Gabriel said to her. See what
the messenger says. Behold Mary that shall conceive. Did she? Yeah. And then he said,
and bring forth a son and shall call his name Jesus. Did she?
Yeah. And he says, and he shall be
great. Did that Jesus become great? Oh yeah. And he shall
be called the son of the highest. He is. And the Lord God shall
give unto him the throne of his father David. Where's Christ
now? He's sitting on the throne at God's right hand. And he shall
reign over the house of Jacob forever. He is, isn't he? Oh, and by the way, is it because
you let him into your heart? Because you let him be your Lord
as well as your Savior? No, it's not him. It's shall. And you see, and of his kingdom
there shall be no end. You say, prove that to me, Bob.
Well, I tell you what, all the rest of these shalls have already
come to pass. I believe I can believe on the
last one here. If you can't believe on that
last one, it's only because you're blind. We have no sight, no heart. God's not given us the heart
to believe. Now, I'll rest in the promise of this person. And
you see verse 34 here, Then said Mary unto the angel,
How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? Now, I understand
something of Mary's amazement here. And you turn over with me to
Colossians 1. Let me show you a scripture here.
I can enter into Mary's dilemma here. She understood what the
messenger was saying. You all realize that? She understood
what the messenger was saying here, that there was going to
be new life in her, but it nonetheless was mysterious and amazing to
her as it is to all God's people who find new life in themselves. Did you hear that? It was no
more amazing to Mary And it ought to be to us, that there's new
life in us. And look here at Colossians 1,
verse 27. Look back up here at verse 25.
Wherefore, and put your pastor in here, wherefore I, Paul Mahan,
am made a minister according to the dispensation of God. Say,
he didn't come here by accident. God sent him to you the same
as God sent Gabriel to Mary. According to the dispensation
of God which is given to me, and you know why it's given to
him? For you. For you. I promise you Paul Mahan
doesn't do this job for his own sake. No pastor has ever been
paid enough to do what he does, to bear your burdens, to bear
the burden of this word to bear the responsibility of the messenger
of God Almighty. You carry this promise of this
person, you're carrying a load. So it's not for himself. He had
a good job on the railroad, had it pretty well made, but he came
here for you, to fulfill the word of God, to fulfill the promise
Even the mystery, and the mystery, this is a mystery now to Mary,
how this is going to be. Even the mystery which had been
hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to His
saints. How? By the preaching of the Word.
To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory
of this mystery among the Gentiles. Now listen, and the mystery here,
the amazing thing is, which is Christ in you. Listen, I don't
have any trouble with the Immaculate Conception. I mean, God Almighty,
who spoke the world into existence. He went like this with His hand
and spun the stars out in space, millions of them. Is there any
problem for Him to go marry you with a child? I don't have any
trouble on believing that. You know what's unbelievable
to me on His face value? He said, He's put Christ in me. Me, the vile, wicked, God-hating
sinner I am. Oh, how could I believe He's
done that for me? Only way is by His grace. He sent somebody to tell me,
and I believe it. By His grace. He had mercy. He didn't give me what I deserved.
He gave me Christ I didn't deserve. He didn't put me away. He put Christ away in my place.
didn't cut my throat and shed my blood, he killed Christ in
my place. Oh my. And listen, here's, I
can see Mary's not understanding, listen to me, this promise that
she's with child. You know why? Humanly speaking,
she hadn't done anything to be in this condition. Y'all understand
what I'm saying? She didn't do anything. She didn't
do anything. Now listen, here's where false
preachers and their converts usually go astray. They cannot
believe that there is any salvation apart from their doing something. That's why Mary deserves no praise,
no credit, no glory for burying the Lord Jesus Christ. She didn't
do anything. God did it. God did it. And we don't deserve
any praise, credit, or anything for salvation. God did it! He did it in Christ. You see,
the false preacher says, there can't possibly be any righteousness
unless I did something. Unless I balanced a scale out
or something. Their sin can't possibly be put away unless I
do something. Mary didn't do anything and neither
did we. Neither do we. The messenger explains how this
came to pass. I understand, don't you understand
this poor girl. poor young maiden, saying, How can this be? How
can this be? And God, in his mercy, explained
it to her. Look what he said to her. See,
in verse 34, she said, Then said Mary unto the angel, How can
this be? I know not a man. Here he explains,
And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall
come upon thee, the power of the highest shall overshadow
thee. Therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of
thee shall be called the Son of Now, let me give it to you. There's three things very briefly
here. Humanly speaking, this is how God brought his son into
the world. This is how he did it. He did
a miracle in this young girl. He just did it. Spiritually,
this is a picture of how God calls his people out of the world.
Physically, it's how he brought his son into the world. Spiritually,
it's how he brings his people out of the world. That's the
facet here. That's the picture. And there's three things. Turn
over to John 16 with me. There are just three little short
points, and we'll be done. Number one, in our text it said
that, And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost
shall come upon thee. Now, anybody in our day watching
this foolishness on television who thinks that the Holy Spirit
of God Almighty is called down with the waving of hands, or
banging a bunch of tambourines and shouting and carrying on
and acting the fool, or by speaking in gibberish. God's Spirit is
not called that way. No siree. He comes to those to
whom he sent, and he comes where he will, he comes when he will,
and he comes to whom he will. And here's the proof of it. You
see, if he came down because we beckoned him, we called him,
then we deserve some credit for his coming, wouldn't we? That's
not how it is. You see in John 16, verse 13,
how be it when he, and this is our Lord telling his disciples,
how be it when he, the Spirit of truth has come, he'll guide
you into all truth, for he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever
he shall hear, that shall he speak, and he'll show you things
to come. He shall glorify me, Christ said,
not himself, for he shall receive of mine and shall show it unto
you. And that's what God's prophets are doing. They're bringing you
the promise and the person under the power of God's Spirit. And
that's how he makes it happen. And he needs no invitation. He
overcomes all resistance. He sets apart. He reveals the
truth. He comforts. He glorifies Christ.
And he resides forevermore in the children of God. And that's
the first thing that all believers have that happen to Mary. The
Holy Spirit's going to come on you. And the second thing, do
you see it here? The second thing that happens,
it says here, is that, and the power of the highest shall overcome
you. Christ overshadows. His power
overshadows or overcomes our will. He makes our will His will. And the other thing, thank God
for this, His blood overshadows our sin. And Mary, I'm telling
you, she needed to have her sin overshadowed just like you and
I. Yeah, when the blood was shed, it covered our sin. And then
here's a third thing. It says that, how's this all
happened? Therefore, also that holy thing
which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. That
holy thing which God has put in all his children when they're
born again is Christ the righteous, the perfect Son of God. See these
three things, the Holy Spirit comes on you, you get understanding,
the light comes on. You find out your sin is put
away, it's overshadowed by the blood of Christ. And then you
find out that the righteousness that you need before God, He's
put in you. In Christ the righteous. He's
put it in you. This holy thing in you is Christ. And before God, our sins are
overshadowed, and by Christ we have a perfect righteousness.
And again, These three things did not occur based on or conditioned
upon anything Mary did. Listen to me. It's not the Holy
Spirit comes if you call him down. It's not Jesus died for
all the sins of all men if you invite him in. It's not Jesus
will save you if you make him your Lord. It's not an if salvation. It's a shall salvation. Look
at it. Here it is again in verse 35.
And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost what?
shall come upon thee, and the power of the highest shall overshadow
you. Therefore also that holy thing
which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." And
that's, listen, that last little phrase, he shall be called God,
called the Son of God. Most of these false preachers,
you can identify them just this easy. Just give Jesus a big hand. They don't know him as the Son
of God. They don't know who they're talking about. When your pastor
gets up here, it's the living Christ. There's reverence in
his voice. We're proclaiming a glorious
person, God's own son. And it's not if, it's shall.
It's shall. This is a sure salvation. And
this is a magnificent picture of how God saves his people.
In Christ, it's a sure salvation. And I promise you, I'd a whole
lot rather hear Paul Manion preach a thing Gabriel. So Paul knows
what he's talking about. He knows who he's talking about.
Gabriel would reverence our Lord. He'd reverence our Lord. He surely
would. But he's not entered into it
like your pastor. Your pastor knows who he's talking
about. He surely does. May the Lord
bless his Word. Let's stand and sing a couple
verses of 216. A couple verses of 216 and we'll
be dismissed. I found it myself. If you consider what He truly
wishes, look to the Lamb of God. Look to the Lamb of God, look
to the Lamb of God, for He alone is able to save you. Look to the Lamb of God. When Satan sent out his sail,
Look to the Lamb of God! You made a great sail over all
he sailed, Look to the Lamb of God! Look to the Lamb of God! Look to the Lamb of God! For He alone is God, you.