SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/25/2019
11:17 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 “Intro
into the Virgin Birth”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
1:18-25
Message of the verses: “18 Now the birth
of Jesus Christ was as follows. When His mother Mary had been betrothed to
Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy
Spirit. 19 And Joseph her husband, being a righteous man, and not wanting to
disgrace her, desired to put her away secretly. 20 But when he had considered
this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying,
"Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for
that which has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. 21 “And she will
bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who will save His
people from their sins." 22 Now all this took place that what was spoken
by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, 23 “BEHOLD, THE
VIRGIN SHALL BE WITH CHILD, AND SHALL BEAR A SON, AND THEY SHALL CALL HIS NAME
IMMANUEL," which translated means, "GOD WITH US." 24 And Joseph
arose from his sleep, and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took her
as his wife, 25 and kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son; and he called His
name Jesus.”
When
we look mostly at the OT we can see some surprising births which I will just
name at this point and not really go into the details. Isaacs’s birth to Abraham and Sarah is the
first one I want to mention. Next Samson’s
birth came from his barren mother.
Samson’s birth to Hannah who was also barren until God opened her
womb. Next we see the birth of John the
Baptist which is described in Luke’s gospel, but none of these births, special
as they were can be compared to the birth of Jesus Christ which is described in
the verses we will be looking at in this second chapter from John MacArthur’s
commentary.
MacArthur
writes “Fantasy and mythology have counterfeited the virgin birth of Jesus
Christ with a proliferation of false accounts intended to minimize His utterly
unique birth.”
We
can be sure that all of the so-called virgin births that happened in the
so-called gods were thought up by Satan.
MacArthur adds “Science, like mythology, has no explanation for the
virgin birth of Christ. He was neither
merely the son of a previously barren woman nor a freak of nature. By the clear testimony of Scripture, He was
conceived by God and born of a virgin.”
As
the world continues to sink deeper in sin it is no surprise that many, even
so-called Christians do not believe that Jesus was virgin born conceived by the
Holy Spirit making Him 100% man and 100% God as the New Testament teaches. Even if we cannot totally understand the
virgin birth of Jesus Christ we should never ignore it for as stated this
confirms the deity of Jesus Christ. I
can’t understand how God created all that I see just by speaking, but I believe
it because that is what the Bible teaches.
Paul writes the following in Romans 3:3-4 “3 What then? If some did not
believe, their unbelief
will not nullify the faithfulness of God, will it? 4 May it never be! Rather,
let God be found true, though every man be found a liar, as it is
written, "THAT YOU MAY BE JUSTIFIED IN YOUR WORDS, AND PREVAIL WHEN YOU
ARE JUDGED.’”
The
Jews of Jesus’ day hated Him and probably thought that Mary becoming pregnant
with Jesus felt it was with a man, perhaps by a Roman Soldier living in
Galilee. The Jews demanded the death of
Jesus because He stated that God was His Father: “For this reason therefore the Jews were
seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath,
but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.”
Part
of Matthew’s gospel can be call “apologetic” and I am not saying that he was
making an apology for the gospel, but in the more traditional sense of
explaining and defending it against its many attacks and misrepresentations. We have pastors today who are call “apologetic”
that is defending the truth of the Bible.
I went to a church while living in Kauai whose pastor was an apologetic.”
We
will continue, Lord willing, to look at this introduction to the virgin birth
of Jesus Christ in our next SD.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I desire to make sure as best I can to talk
about the truths of the Scriptures that I study and put onto my blogs. One of the things that causes me to be angry
is when Pastors don’t believe that Jesus’ virgin birth was necessary.
My Steps of Faith for Today: There are things in the Word of God that humaningly
speaking are hard to believe or understand, and one has to be humble to take
the time to understand these things as best as one can, but belief is the key.
Today’s quotation from “Love in Action”
is from David Jeremiah’s thoughts on Genesis 2:24, which we looked at
yesterday.
“We have a phrase we use to describe
marriage. We call it ‘tying the knot.’ I once read a comment from a mountain climber
who said that the reason mountain climbers are tied together is to keep the
sane ones from going home. One of the
reasons God ties the knot in marriage is to keep us from running away when the
going gets tough. Where there is this
kind of commitment, the Christian family can truly be an encouragement zone.”
11/25/2019 11:56 AM
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