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Bro. Bill Nichols
We're going to primarily be looking at Luke 1 and we'll pick up on verse 30. But before we do that, there's a question that I would like to pose that I actually did last Sunday. Why is the virgin birth necessary?
And there are a couple of answers. One answer is to fulfill the prophecy in Genesis 3 .15. And also a later one given to Isaiah. So that's one of the reasons that a virgin birth is necessary. We're actually following a different line of thought.
We're following a different thread than either one of these threads. Before we begin, let's pray. Most gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for giving us this time and this place to come together to study your holy word, to find out what things you have in store for us this morning, for the Holy Spirit to translate and to make clear all of the things that you wish for us to know.
Bless us and keep us and go through the services this morning. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. So, we left some things undone or unfinished last time. We did talk about a scarlet thread and in fact we related that to Rahab and the fact that she hung that scarlet thread on the wall of her, on the wall of the city, on her window to create a safe haven for her and her family, at least those that remained inside.
And it is that scarlet thread we're chasing down this morning. Then we come to another passage. This is in 2 Samuel 7, I'm sorry, 2 Samuel chapter 7 verse 1. And it came to pass when the king sat in his house, and the Lord had given him rest round about from all of his enemies, now this is King David that we're talking about, that the king said unto Nathan the prophet, See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwelleth within curtains.
And Nathan said to the king, Go, do all that is in thine heart, for the Lord is with thee. Or so Nathan thought. And it came to pass that night that the word of the Lord came unto Nathan, saying, Go and tell my servant David, Thus saith the Lord.
And then he goes on for about six verses describing some things. Basically, what is revealed in the next six verses is that David will not be allowed to build the house for the Lord. The reason is not given here clearly, but it's given very clearly in 1 Chronicles chapter 28 verse 2.
Then David the king stood upon his feet and said, Hear me, my brethren and my people. As for me, I had in my heart to build a house of rest for the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and for a footstool of our God, and hath made it ready for the building.
But God said unto me, Thou shalt not build a house for my name, because thou hast been a man of war and has shed blood. So God would not allow David to build the house. But he would set up David's seed to rule the kingdom after him and to allow that seed to build the house.
So now we're going to go back to 2 Samuel chapter 7. Now we're at verse 12 where we're going to pick back up. And this is what Nathan is telling David will happen. And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up my seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom, and he shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
Now, if you don't study this passage very carefully, and if you don't have knowledge of the events that take place between the time of David and the birth of Jesus, you'll make the same mistake Satan did.
And you will think that this seed is Solomon. Does anybody know who actually built the temple? King Solomon built the temple. And Satan, like all of us, thought that he was referring to Solomon and his seed.
But he's not. He's referring to David and his seed. One of which is Solomon, and the other one, well he's got, David's got lots of other sons. So, if you're not very careful, you will focus your attention on Solomon and his descendants, rather than Nathan and his.
But I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself. Let's go back. And I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. And I will be his father, and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rods of men and with the stripes of the children of men.
Now, is that talking about Solomon? You don't have to answer that. If the seed of David referred to here had been Solomon, then he would have committed iniquity. And he would have been chastened with rods of men and stripes of children of men.
But this seed did not commit iniquity. He did, however, bear the chastisement for our iniquity. Go with me now, and everybody go here, to Isaiah 53 verse 1. Who hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?
For he shall go up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He hath no form nor comeliness, and when we see him, there is no beauty that which should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our grief, and cured our sorrows. Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. And the chastisement of our peace was upon him. And with his stripes are we healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way.
And the Lord hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all. Now you know who that is. That's Jesus. And Jesus did not commit iniquity. He wasn't. But he was subjected to the rods of men and stripes. He was punished.
He suffered, but not for his own sin, for ours. It was all part of the plan that was in place from the very beginning. Established way before the Garden of Eden. Established before the creation. Established already when Adam fell, and Eve along with him.
And man fell. And it was prophesied in Genesis 3 that the seed of woman would be the vehicle by which redemption occurred. And that seed of woman trails all the way from Adam through Abraham, through David, not through Solomon, but through Nathan.
We'll get there in a second. But he goes on to say in Samuel 7 .15. But my mercy shall not depart from him. Now who's he talking about now? Who is Nathan telling David about now? He's telling him about his seed, Jesus Christ.
His mercy will not depart from him. As I took it away from Saul, whom I put away before him. And thine house, he's talking about David now. And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established forever before thee.
Thy throne shall be established forever. Now we get to the problem. As you go from Solomon down through the kings of Judea, the succession of the kings that followed David was a dismal chain with only a few exceptions.
As the kings went from bad to worse, we encounter a man by the name of Jeconiah. Also known as Johannachan. Upon whom God finally pronounced a curse. That curse is in Jeremiah 22, verse 30. And it would be worth your time to go there.
Jeremiah 22, verse 30. Talking about Jeconiah. Thus saith the Lord, Write this man childless. A man that shall not prosper in his days. For no man of his seed shall prosper sitting on the throne of David and ruling anymore in Judea.
Well, did some of his sons rule in Judea? Yes, but they weren't prosperous. They were nothing but failures. And the Messiah did not come from his seed. Thus saith the Lord, Write this man childless. A man that shall not prosper in his days.
For no man of his seed shall prosper sitting upon the throne of David and ruling anymore in Judea. This created a grim and perplexing paradox. The Messiah had to come from the royal line. And now there was a curse on that very bloodline.
And we mentioned this last week. There must have been a celebration within the ranks of Satan's minions when that prophecy was revealed. Satan has won. The long scarlet thread has been broken. Or so they thought.
But there's a solution. The solution is revealed in the different genealogies of Jesus Christ recorded in the Gospels. Matthew, as a Levite, focused his Gospel on Jesus as the Messiah and presents him as the Lion of the tribe of Judah.
And thus Matthew traces the legal line from Abraham, as any Jew would, through David, and then through Solomon, the first surviving son of Bathsheba, and thus through Jeconiah and the blood curse, all the way to Joseph, the legal father of Jesus.
And that provided the legal basis for Jesus as the Messiah. But since Joseph was not the blood father of Jesus, then Jesus was not subject to the curse on the line that went through Jeconiah. On the other hand, Luke, as a physician, focused on the humanity of Jesus and thus presents him as the Son of Man.
Luke traces the bloodline from Adam, the first man, through David. And his genealogy is exactly the same up until now as Matthew's. But after David, Luke departs from the path taken by Matthew and traces the family through another son of David, the second surviving son of Bathsheba, Nathan.
That bypasses Jeconiah and the curse and carries it down through Heli, the father of Mary, the mother of Jesus. So, Jesus was of the blood of Mary, but not of the blood of Joseph. He was legally allowed to be king because he was the basically adopted son of Joseph.
But he was not the blood son of Joseph and therefore the curse on Jeconiah didn't relate to him. Now at the birth of Jesus, Satan realized that he was focused on the wrong thread. He was focused on the thread that went through Jeconiah and did everything he could to disrupt that line and it was the wrong line all along.
So now we are to Luke 1 .30. We've already talked a little bit about John the Baptist and his parentage and now we are switching to a new person. And the angel said to her, Fear not, Mary. So who's he talking to?
Mary, the mother of Jesus, soon to be. Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favor with God. And behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and he shall bring forth a son, and shall call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and he 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. Now that's the king that we're really talking about. And it emphasizes not just Jesus' reign during the Millennial Kingdom, which is going to reign for a thousand years, but all the way through an eternal permanency of Christ's rule over all.
Then said Mary to the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not, amen? Mary understood that the angel was speaking of an immediate conception. And let me say that again, because I don't want you to think I said immaculate conception.
An immediate conception. She knows that she is very quickly going to conceive a son. And she also knows that she and Joseph were still in the midst of a long betrothal or engagement period before the actual marriage and the consummation of the marriage.
Her question was born out of wonder, not out of doubt nor disbelief. So the angel did not rebuke her as he had Zacharias. Back in verse 20. Remember what happened in verse 20? Zacharias was struck deaf and dumb.
He couldn't speak and he couldn't hear. And so he couldn't pronounce the blessing that he was supposed to have done when he came out of the temple. Back in verse 20. The angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and 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 God. I took this from R .C. Sproul's series, From Dust to Glory. The angel reassures Mary by telling her the child will be conceived within her by the power of the Holy Ghost.
And he makes mention of a couple of comments. The word structure here is very similar to the open verses of the creation account in Genesis. In Genesis it says the Spirit hovered over the waters to bring forth life upon the opening of creation.
And here it says the Spirit will overshadow the virgin and bring forth life to her womb. So the same creation problem that brought life into the world is the agent by which life is brought into the world, the spiritual world.
That Jesus is brought by the same spirit that brought life into the creation. So the spiritual life and the creation life has a connection. And finally the angel points Mary to Elizabeth as an example of God's supernatural power over the womb.
That's what R .C. Sproul said. So what he's telling Mary is look at your cousin Elizabeth. She is old and her husband is old and yet I gave to them a son. You have not known a man and I am going to give you a son as well.
Now there's a difference between Mary's conception and Elizabeth's conception. Elizabeth's conception, Elizabeth's conceived of Zacharias. Mary did not conceive of Joseph. What was in Mary was conceived of the Holy Spirit.
And it says here, verse 36,. And behold thy cousin Elizabeth, she also has conceived a son in her old age. And this is the sixth month with her who is called barren. For with God nothing is impossible.
The angel is assuring Mary that her conception was possible only by the action of the Holy Spirit. And that is to say with God. And that with God all things are possible. Nothing is too hard for God. It was not too hard for Elizabeth to have this child at an old age and Zacharias at an old age.
It was not too hard for Mary to have a child without having known a man. Any questions up until here? Any comments? Okay, so now Satan is going to change his focus. You know why? He realizes that he's on the wrong thread.
And we'll soon see Satan use Herod in his continuing attempt to destroy the Messiah. This time while Jesus is still an infant. And it's an attempt that will only succeed in fulfilling, I said here, two other unlikely prophecies concerning the Messiah and one, I think, almost as unlikely.
So to wind up, at least three prophecies. The first is in Hosea 11, 1. When Israel was a child, I loved him. And I call my son out of Egypt. That's the prophecy. When Israel was a child, I loved him and call my son out of Egypt.
Now that's not exactly clear. At least it's not exactly clear to me. Is it saying, Israel, my people? Or is it saying, Israel, my son? Is it talking about the people of Israel? All of Israel? Which all of Israel did come out of Egypt, right?
Because they were exiled in Egypt. Or was it his son that came out? Well, actually it's both. I don't know who said that, but I just want to repeat it. Actually, it is both. That's right. Let's go to Matthew 2, 1.
And we'll get that definitively explained to us by Matthew in his account of the birth of Jesus. Now, when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east.
By the way, does it say how many? Do you think it's three? How many think it's three? There's a song that's... In fact, we've got that listed on the song board out there. I just noticed that today. We three kings.
Was that the... You're playing that today? We three kings. That's perfect. I didn't plan that. I did go out and look out there when I walked by to see. It doesn't say three. It just says three wise men from...
It just says wise men from the east. We are so easily trained, aren't we? And once we're trained, we just can't help but say it. It doesn't say three. And they say, Where is he that is born king of the Jews?
For we have seen his star in the east, and we are come to worship him. And when Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all of Jerusalem with him. I'm going to read that last phrase one more time.
And all of Jerusalem with him. We're going to get back to that exact verse in a little while. I hope today. I believe we will. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded...
Now, this is Herod talking. He demanded of them where Christ was to be born. And they said, In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet, And thou, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, art not the least of the princes of Judah.
For out of thee shall come a governor that shall rule my people. So, okay, maybe it's three prophecies that the Messiah will come out of Bethlehem. Then Herod, when he had privately called the wise men, inquired of them diligently what time the star appeared.
Now, I've got a question to put up front. If you don't know the answer, it's okay. Why do you think he wanted to know that? He wanted to go get him. And he wanted to make sure he got him. And in the fulfilling of that, he's going to fulfill another prophecy.
Yes. He wanted to know how old he was, so he wanted to know how far back in history to go to destroy all of the men's children. And he got most of them, but not the one he was looking for. And the second question is, why did the wise men go to Jerusalem rather than directly to Bethlehem in the first place?
They're not very far apart. And by the way, all the prophets, all the people that he brought together to inquire about, they could have all gone to Bethlehem too if they wanted to. It was only a few miles away.
And they knew where he was going to be born. But they didn't go there. Okay. I want to tell you why he went to Jerusalem, because that's where the star took him. He followed the star. And the star took him to Jerusalem.
It didn't take him to Bethlehem. Could it have taken him to Bethlehem first? Yes, it could have. But then Herod wouldn't have known. And then the other prophecies would not have been fulfilled. It is all cooked into the plan.
I said this maybe to force Joseph and Mary to go to Egypt so that Hosea's prophecy could be fulfilled. We're going to come back later. When Herod the king heard those things, he was troubled, and all of Jerusalem with him.
Now, I understand why Herod was troubled. But why, and all of Jerusalem with him? Well, the answer is, I think, in the question, one, how many wise men were there? I will say this, there were not three.
There was probably a small army. Maybe a large army. These guys were kingmakers from Persia. They were left over from Daniel. And they were in the midst of a war, basically, between Rome and Parthenia.
And there was constant changes in leadership. And the people of Jerusalem probably thought, with this army that came, that there would be a retaliation from Rome. Okay. Back to Herod. And he sent them to Bethlehem.
And he said, Go, search diligently for the young child, and when you have found him, bring me word again that I may come and worship him also. Well, that's very deceitful. Just like his father, Satan.
Okay. Why did the wise men go to Jerusalem? Because God sent them. And when they heard the king, they departed, and lo, the star which they saw in the east went before them. So all of a sudden now, the star's taken them to Bethlehem.
Could have gone there to start with. Didn't. Didn't because God had a reason. So now the star leads them to Bethlehem. Till it came and stood over where the young child was. And when they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy.
And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary, his mother, and fell down and worshiped him. Who did they worship? Not Mary. Jesus. And when they opened their treasures, they presented him with these gifts.
Gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Three gifts. Three wise men. That's where it came from. That's where the number came from. It came from the gifts they bore. Why these gifts? Okay. You're right about that.
But the reason for the gold was the wise men knew that Jesus was to be the king of kings. They knew not to go back. They knew not to go back to Jerusalem and tell him. I think they were. What about frankincense?
Why frankincense? That's incense. That's what the priest burned on the altar. That was to emphasize his role as a priest. So this man is not only king, he is a priest. A priest and a king. And what about myrrh?
Myrrh was used for embalming. By any human measure, it would be odd, if not offensive, to present to the infant Christ a spice used for embalming. But it was not offensive in this case, nor it was odd.
It was a gift of faith. We don't know precisely what the wise men may have known or guessed about Christ's ministry, but we do know that if they were interested, they could find out because the Old Testament again and again foretold not only his kingship, but also his suffering and his death.
So the gift represents the future aspects of Jesus Christ. Okay, John, I can tell you for sure why they went back the way they went. Verse 12. And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way.
So God told them not to go back. Well, we don't know, but I think it was at this point rather than when they were coming in. But you may be right. It may not be. We're not told definitively. At least I haven't put my finger on it when the dream was.
And it doesn't matter. And that doesn't matter anyhow because of verse 13. And when they were departed, now we know when this dream occurs. And when they departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise and take the young child and his mother and flee to Egypt.
And be there until I bring thee word, for Herod shall seek the young child to destroy him. And he arose and took the young child and his mother by night and departed into Egypt and was there until the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled what was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son.
So Matthew suggests that Israel's sojourn in Egypt was a pictorial prophecy rather than a specific verbal one. These are called types and they're always fulfilled in Christ and they're always clearly identified by the New Testament writers.
So Matthew tells us what this prophecy was all about. It was all about Jesus. Out of Egypt have I called my son. That was the fulfillment of the second prophecy. And now the other prophecy from Jeremiah.
I'm going to read it. Thus saith the Lord, a voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel, weeping for her children, refused to be comforted for her children because they were not.
That was fulfilled when Herod, in his futile attempt to destroy Jesus back in Matthew 2 .16 said,. Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked by the wise men, see they didn't come back, was exceedingly wroth and sent forth and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem and in all the coast thereof from two years old and under.
So every child under two years old, every male son, it didn't say male, it said children. Ramah. Ramah. And Rachel. Ramah and Rachel. A voice, this is Jeremiah speaking, a voice was heard in Raham, lamentation and bitter weeping.
Rachel, I may have said Rahab, Rachel, weeping for her children, refused to be comforted for her children because they were not. Now, Matthew is going to clean it up for us. Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceedingly wroth and sent forth and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem and all the coast thereof from two years old and under according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men.
Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet in Raham. There was a voice heard, lamentations and weeping, and great mourning. Rachel, weeping for her children, and would not be comforted because they were not.
Yeah, she's the wife of Israel, I think, or Jacob. Is it Israel? Jacob was married to Rachel. But it is talking about the people. All the women of Jerusalem and Bethlehem were mourning because their children were taken away from them and killed if they were two years or younger in order to represent a group.
Just like Israel was used to represent both the people and the son, Rachel was used to represent both the woman that bore that one child and all the succeeding children. Okay? Okay, back to verse 38 of Luke.
Luke 1, verse 38. This is Mary talking. And Mary said, Behold the handmaiden of the Lord. Be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her. Mary was in an extremely embarrassing and difficult position.
She was betrothed to Joseph and she faced the stigma of unwed motherhood. Joseph would obviously know the child was not his. She knew she would be accused of adultery, an offense punishable by stoning.
Yet she willingly and graciously submitted to the will of God. That's one of the reasons that she wasn't rebuked like Zacharias was. She just was in astonishment because she knew that she had known no man and therefore, biologically, humanly, she couldn't have a son.
And the angel assured her, This one is special. This one is conceived by the Holy Spirit. So she submitted to the will of God. And didn't. And he didn't submit. And Mary arose in those days and went into the hill country with haste into the city of Judah, into a city of Judah, and entered into the house of Zacharias and saluted Elizabeth.
And it came to pass, when Elizabeth heard the salutation from Mary, the babe leaped in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost. That is to say, her behavior was now controlled by the Holy Spirit who no doubt guided her remarkable expression of praise.
And not only Elizabeth's, but also her unborn son as well. Three months before the birth of the unborn baby Mary expressed his praise in the only way he could. He leaped in the womb. But Elizabeth could speak and she said, and she spoke out with a loud voice and said, Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.
And whence is this come to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? This praise, this is not in praise of Mary, but this is in praise of the child that Mary bore. Whence is this to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
It was an expression of Elizabeth's confidence that Mary's child would be the long hoped for Messiah. The one even David called Lord. Elizabeth's grasp of the situation was extraordinary considering the mystery that overshadowed all these events.
She greeted Mary not with skepticism, but with joy. She understood the response of the child in her own womb. And she seemed to comprehend the immense importance of the child Mary was carrying. All of this must be attributed to the illuminating work of the Spirit because Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost.
For lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb. The infant, like his mother, was Spirit-filled. His response, like that of Elizabeth, was supernaturally prompted by the Spirit of God.
And he spoke in the only way he could speak. And, by the way, that says a lot about how old you have to be to be cognizant of the fact that that person, that thing is alive. I didn't say that well. A baby six months old recognizes in his mother's womb that he is face-to-face, as it were, with God.
It says something about the importance of the child, the unborn child. It's not just tissue. That's as far as I'm going to go with that. And blessed is she that believed, for there shall be a performance of those things which told her from the Lord.
So, I think that's probably where we're going to stop today and we'll pick up. It's going to switch back from Jesus back to John and the rest of the chapter will be dealing more with John, the Baptist, than it is with Jesus.
But we will see a little bit more from Mary. And we will see one of the attributes of Mary was she was very humble. She was not at all prideful. And she herself recognized that she was not the object of the adoration.
She was subject to it as well. Any questions or comments? I think the wise men who are wise, I think they studied and I think they are aware of everything that was obvious in the Old Testament. I don't know how much they were guided by the Holy Spirit in ferreting out the details that were not so obvious.
They may have thought that the line of Jeconiah was going to produce the king. I don't know. But that's in the future anyhow. Well, that was in their past, wasn't it? Yes, I'm sorry. I said future, but it was actually in the past.
They knew to follow the star. They knew to follow the star. They knew there was something special about it. And it took them to the places that they had to go. I always wondered why it was that they went to Jerusalem, not to Bethlehem, if they were following the star.
And then you read it and say, well, after they got to Jerusalem, the star led them to Bethlehem. Well, why didn't it lead them there to start with? It would have left two major prophecies unfulfilled, that the sun had to come out of Egypt and that there had to be great mourning in Israel for the loss of all the children.
And all of that was baked in to the program from the very beginning. Everybody can see it and they don't follow it. And it's interesting that the star obviously moved. It took them to where, well, if it were just a star sitting there, you couldn't see it.
And if it were far away moving, you couldn't see the motion. In fact, they are moving. Every star that you see is moving very, very fast. But the only motion we see, we infer because it's the earth that's spinning and it looks like they were coming up in the east and going down in the west each day, but they're actually moving through the sky.
But they're moving so slow that the patterns that are shown in the sky don't change. The Big Dipper still looks like the Big Dipper like it did in Jesus' time because it hadn't had time to move very much, even at the great speeds that it moves.
Okay. There's a lot to wonder about. Most gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for this day and thank you for all the blessings that you've given us. Thank you for giving us this church and this family.
Bless us and keep us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.