A Birth Foretold - Part B

So yeah, there's been some unusual and amazing births, but none like this unique virgin birth. This is not somebody parthenogenetically produced.

This is not some quasi-natural experiment and reproduction. This is the God-man conceived by the Holy Spirit. He came upon Mary. He enabled her virgin womb to produce that single-celled zygote to develop into an embryo encased in embryonic fluid, become a fetus, become a child, grow up, die, rise. This is the Holy Son of God.

The miracle of Christmas began even before that first Christmas morning when Christ was born, nine months before, in fact. And today on Connect with Skip Heitzig, Pastor Skip examines the uniquely miraculous way in which the Son of God was conceived. We're glad you've joined us today. Connect with Skip Heitzig exists to bring more people into God's family and connect listeners like you to His unchanging truth. That's why we make teachings like this one today available to you and others on air and online.

If they've helped you connect with Christ today, would you consider giving a gift to help others around the world connect with Him in the same way? Just call 800-922-1888. That's 800-922-1888. Or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. That's connectwithskip.com slash donate. Thank you. Now, let's get started.

We're going to Isaiah 7 today as we tune into Skip's teaching. Caesar Augustus imposed what he called the Pax Romana, the Roman peace, which means that for nearly 200 years there was economic growth and cultural growth with military stability. Do you know that during that time there was almost no military conflicts whatsoever because of the Pax Romana? Not only that, but Rome built a road system around the world, 250,000 miles of roads, 50,000 of which were paved.

Many can still be seen today. So people could now travel freely with their ideas and have military guards ensuring their safety along the way. So now the gospel is in the most precise language ever, under the most ideal circumstances ever, with people who are hungrier than ever, going to places more freely than ever. It was the fullness of time. Isaiah the prophet. I've had you turn to Isaiah chapter 7 in your Bibles. The prince of all the prophets.

I call him that because he is quoted more than any other Old Testament prophet in the New Testament, 21 different times New Testament authors quote Isaiah. He gives us a prediction 700 years before the birth of Christ, of the birth of Christ. And here's what I want you to see from this single verse as a meditation before we take the Lord's Supper. When Jesus Christ was born, God was giving us three things. He was giving us a sign. He was giving us a son.

He was giving us a savior. Let's look at Isaiah chapter 7 verse 14. Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign.

Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel. First of all, the text tells us that God gave us a sign. The Lord himself will give you a sign. The word sign means in Hebrew a signal, a mark, a token, or you could even translate it a miracle. The Lord himself will show you something, a miraculous token, a sign. I see the Old Testament prophecies of Jesus like road signs.

By the way, there are hundreds of them. It's like road signs on the road telling you that something is coming down the road. Whether it's a sign that tells you the name of a city that you'll be going through if you keep driving or you see a picture of a restaurant and food or a place that you're going to go to if you see a picture of a restaurant and food that is promised to be served, you see on the road sign something that is coming. And Matthew, when he writes of the birth of Jesus Christ, refers to this road sign of Isaiah. Matthew writes in chapter 1, so all of this was done, that's the birth of Jesus, all of this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, that's Isaiah, saying behold the virgin shall be with child and bear a son and they will call his name Immanuel which is translated God with us. Now allow me to just unravel the context a little bit. I always like to make sure you understand the text in the context around it. And I'm doing this because if you were to just read this chapter, you might scratch your head and say, I get the fact that a virgin is going to be with child, which is miraculous certainly, but I really don't see reading the chapter how this has much to do with Jesus who will be born in Bethlehem later on.

So let me just paint the picture for you. This chapter, chapter 7 of Isaiah, is about Isaiah the prophet approaching the king of Jerusalem of Judea at the time. His name is Ahaz. Ahaz is worried the day Isaiah comes to visit him.

Why is he worried? Because there are three nations above him that are bearing down on him politically, militarily. The first is the kingdom just to the north of Jerusalem, that's the kingdom of Israel under the leadership of a king by the name of Pekah.

His name is mentioned here, but we're not going to read the whole chapter. So the kingdom of Israel and above Israel, the kingdom of Syria with the headquarters in Damascus, it's a problem now, it was a problem then. So you have Israel and Syria both joining forces to fight an even bigger bully north of them called Assyria. And so these two northern kingdoms have formed a coalition to fight against the Assyrians and they asked Judah to help them in the coalition. Ahaz said, no way, I don't want to fight the Assyrians.

So these two guys say fine, then we're just going to attack you. So what King Ahaz does, he's panicked. He sends a bribe of money up to Assyria to have them attack those two intermediate bullies.

Follow so far? You take care of them and then I'll be fine. Well, just then God sends Isaiah the prophet in and Isaiah says, don't worry about Israel and Syria, they won't be a bother to you. In a couple years time, they won't even be on the map, they'll be taken captive by the Assyrians.

Don't even worry about them. And then while Isaiah is in the presence of the king, he says this, hey king, ask the Lord for a sign. Go ahead, ask him for a sign.

Any sign at all, in heaven above or down on the earth, just ask him for a sign. And the king acts real pious, goes, I'm not going to ask the Lord for a sign. I'm not going to test the Lord. Now what he really meant by I'm not going to test the Lord, because that sounds really pious.

I know people like that. They say stuff like that, I'm not going to test the Lord. What he really meant, translation is, I'm not going to trust the Lord.

Because he's already proved that he doesn't trust the Lord by sending money to the Assyrians saying, I trust you to take care of my problems more than God to take care of my problems. So Isaiah comes back at him, he goes, okay, you don't have to ask for a sign, God will give you a sign anyway. But not just a sign to you that your problems are going to be taken care of, and they will, but a sign for the entire house of David, for all of you down here in Judea and Jerusalem, a miraculous sign, a virgin will conceive and bear a son, and they will call his name Immanuel.

And then he walks out. 700 years later, Matthew in looking at the birth of this boy in Bethlehem says, that's the road sign that has happened in our recent days. This is that which was spoken of by the prophet. These are signs, God gave us a sign. I don't know if you've ever considered the signs that the prophecies of the Old Testament are to people in general.

But evidently, God wanted to make sure that there be none of this nonsense of people saying, well, you know, people have different beliefs, they believe in this person or that religion, and everybody has their own belief system. God wanted to make sure that people knew exactly who the one he was sending to the world would be precisely by giving them signs in advance. So Isaiah predicts his birth 700 years before his birth takes place. The prophet Micah predicts that he will be born in Bethlehem 720 years before he's born in Bethlehem. Hosea the prophet says at some point he will arise out of Egypt, which he did. He moved down to Egypt with his parents and then came out. And then not one, but several prophets said that the Messiah will come forth to the nation out of Galilee, which he did.

He was raised in Nazareth of Galilee. So you've got sign after sign after sign that Jesus fulfilled. There are, as I said, hundreds of them. Why is this important?

It's important because if you were to look at the 26 or so other books in the world that claim to be scripture by different religious systems, that's their holy book, there's something absent from them all. Fulfilled prophecy. It's not there. You don't have detailed predictions made that actually happen so you have a track record of accuracy.

You don't have them. So whether it's the Upanishads or the Vedas or the Sutras or the Quran or the Confucian text or the Book of Mormon, they do not have fulfilled prophecy. The Bible has tons of it. Tons of it.

A few years ago, the National Enquirer, you know that wonderfully accurate magazine that you see when you stand in line at the grocery store, they had an article called Modern Day Prophets and they took movie stars and rock stars and sports stars and they asked these luminaries to make predictions of what would happen, anything they wanted to, but make a prediction of what will happen in the next six months. So 61 different predictions were made in this article of what would happen in the next six months by these stars. You know how many of them happen? Zero. Not a single one.

Not a nicht zilch. The Bible has hundreds of them. They're called signs. God gave us a sign. Not only did He give us a sign, He gave us a son.

That's what the text tells us. Therefore, the Lord Himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son. Now this is quite a sign, right, for a virgin to conceive. When the ultrasound of a virgin girl reveals there's a pregnancy, that's some kind of sign.

That's a miraculous sign. A few years ago when Larry King was still working for CNN, he said, if I could interview a single person out of history, I'd want to interview Christ and I'd ask him a single question. Are you really virgin born? He said I'd ask him that because his answer would absolutely define history for me.

What did he mean by that? Well, Larry King is Jewish and he must know that the sign of a virgin birth was a sign given to the Jewish people. But if that really happened, if this really came to pass, it changes everything because this is a miraculous sign. No human has ever been or ever will be born without a father. Human birth requires a human source for a sperm to inseminate the egg of a woman.

But there's only one person who's ever been born without any contribution of a male and that is Jesus Christ. A virgin shall conceive. You see, this is why Joseph was having a tough time. This is why he was going, I don't get this. I know I didn't do it, but she's pregnant.

And there's only one way that can happen and he's just beside himself. That's why he had to get a special visit by the angel who said, Joseph, don't be afraid to take Mary to be your wife. The angel said for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. This is unique. This is singular.

This has never happened before nor will it ever happen again. This is a virgin birth. Now some of you may be predisposed with the scientific background to hear this and go, not so fast. You know, in science we have this phenomena called parthenogenesis. Some of you may have heard the term parthenogenesis where creatures are conceived asexually, that is without fertilization. It happens in certain insects and plants, lower life forms, lower invertebrates, honeybees for example. Their unfertilized eggs will develop naturally into the drone bee.

A silkworm since the 1800s, there's been an artificial parthenogenesis that has caused them to be produced. Even in recent years frogs and rabbits have been reproduced by parthenogenesis. So people go, ah see, this whole idea of the virgin birth is not so singular. Okay, good for you. But that does not explain human virgin birth.

Why do I say that? Because parthenogenesis can only reproduce genetically identical species. Frogs for example might be stimulated to reproduce but they will always be female frogs. In other words the offspring will always be genetically identical to the mother that laid the eggs.

Studies have shown, it's been done years ago by a group of scientists under the leadership of Gregory Pincus, he proved that if Mary had conceived parthenogenetically she would have had a daughter, not a son. But the sign will be the virgin will conceive and bear a son. The sign will be the son. Two chapters later Isaiah will expand it. Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. And so the prediction is a virgin will bear a son.

The first hint of this by the way, some of you will remember is Genesis chapter three. Do you remember the promise that God gave the woman? And that God pronounced on Satan and said the seed, he said to Satan, the seed of the woman will crush your head.

You read that and go seed of the woman? A seed doesn't come from a woman, it comes from a man. You're right, but this is a virgin birth. That which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.

So this is not parthenogenesis, this is a one-time miraculous deal where God entered the womb of a virgin woman as a single cell zygote to develop into an embryo, to develop into a fetus, to be born as a child. God gave us a sign, God gave us a son. And finally God gave us a savior before we take the Lord's Supper. Notice in verse 14, therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel. Now remember Matthew interprets what that means. Which is being translated God with us.

This baby is God with us. That's why he was never called as a name Immanuel. Somebody asked me last night, well why was he never called Immanuel?

Because it's a title, it's not a formal name. It's designating what his position would be. This is God who is with us. That's what the prophet is saying. And then I'll just remind you again of Isaiah 9.

I just quoted it. Unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given and his name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. In other words, there's going to be a child born miraculously of a virgin who will be the mighty God who will dwell among us. So this is the virgin birth. He is human because he came through the womb of Mary. He is divine.

He is God because he was conceived by the Holy Spirit. Some of you might be wondering something like, why are you doing this before we take communion? Why would you spend an entire weekend to talk about the virgin birth? Why is this so important? Here's why.

Hear me well. If there is no virgin birth, there is no hope. If you say, well you know virgin birth, you don't really have to believe in that.

Oh yes you do. Because without the virgin birth, there is no hope. Why do I say that? Because without the virgin birth, that means that Jesus was born like everybody else. And if Jesus was born just like everybody else, then he's not God. And if he's not God, then his claims are lies because he said he was God. And those people who wrote about what he said and what he did also said that he knew he was God.

And if his claims are lies, then salvation is a hoax because the Scripture says the virgin born Son of God will come and die for sin and resurrect from the grave. We believe that to be true. It is a cardinal truth that we hold to. So this is the virgin birth. This is the God-man. As man, he's the perfect representative of us. As God, he's the perfect sacrifice for us.

So think of it this way. On the cross, Jesus' arms stretched out. Think of it as Jesus with one hand taking the hand of God the Father, and with the other hand, the hand of humanity.

And bringing them together, reconciling them over his dead body. Now the two that were distant can be one. Now there can be relationship.

Now there can be fellowship. So yeah, there's been some unusual and amazing births, but none like this unique birth, virgin birth. This is not somebody parthenogenetically produced.

This is not some quasi-natural experiment and reproduction. This is the God-man conceived by the Holy Spirit. He came upon Mary. He enabled her virgin womb to produce that single-celled zygote to develop into an embryo encased in embryonic fluid, become a fetus, become a child, grow up, die, rise.

This is the Holy Son of God. A generation ago, a woman who had tuberculosis went to her doctor. The tuberculosis was growing worse, and as some of you may know, tuberculosis was a pretty serious disease in those days to be treated, long-term treatment. So the cavity in the lung was, the tuberculosis cavity was growing and growing and growing, and her condition was worsening, but she was clinging to life. And she came in one day, and the doctors noticed something unusual, because she said, you know, I've been feeling nauseous.

I've been feeling nauseated lately. Is that normal? And they said, no, it's not normal. And so they were examining her, and they noticed that tuberculosis had stopped growing.

The cavity had stopped growing. And so a doctor said, run some tests on her. See if she's pregnant. She turned up pregnant, and the doctor wrote this.

The chest x-ray reveals that the growth of the tuberculosis cavity has stopped, and the reason is that her diaphragm is pushing up against her diseased lung to make room for the child that she bore. And the doctor concluded with these words, it was the child that saved her. It's the child that saved us. It's the virgin-born son of Mary, son of God, that came into this world to save us.

We celebrate that today. That's Skip Heitzig with a message from the series Jesus Hope Foretold. Find the full message, as well as books, booklets, and full teaching series at connectwithskipp.com. Hi, this is Pastor Skip Heitzig, and here we are ending 2023.

Hard to believe, right? But it's a time when many people review their giving in the past year and consider an end of the year donation. Well, in 2023, we have seen excellent growth in our media ministry, both in digital outlets and in reaching new cities with these Bible teachings. I'd like to invite you to be part of further expansion in this coming year. We've assembled a special resource package and a thank you gift for those who partner with us. I hope that will include you.

Here's the details. Over four decades of ministry, Pastor Skip has been able to invite some excellent speakers to fill his pulpit. We want you to hear some of these memorable messages from teachers such as Josh McDowell. God said, I want you to be able to in the 21st century and open your scriptures and have a confidence, thus saith the Lord.

It has not been lost. Also a part of this pulpit package, Dr. David Jeremiah. Jesus Christ shines in the world today by his reflection in the lives of his followers. Nobody's going to see Jesus if they don't see Jesus in us. If you can make an end of your donation of $100 or more to support this program, you will receive this pulpit package of 10 excellent messages on CD or by download. You will want to hear what Joel Rosenberg said about remarkable conversions in the Middle East. That's the kind of door that when you pray, Lord, I'd love to go build a friendship in the name of Jesus with a king and with a Muslim president.

Apparently God says yes to some of these prayers. The pulpit package containing 10 different speakers, giving full length messages to request your copy. Go to connectwithskip.com or by calling 1-800-922-1888.

That is connectwithskip.com or call 1-800-922-1888. We hope you'll tune in again tomorrow for Skip's message, His Life Foretold, about the purpose and passion of Jesus' life here on earth. You and I deserve death for the sins we have committed against a holy, righteous, perfect God. Jesus came to take that punishment to make his life a ransom for many. So he didn't come to meet your expectation. He came to end your condemnation. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the cross. Cast all burdens on his word, make a connection, connection. Connect with Skip Hyton is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.