Live with Lon-God's Plan of Salvation - Part 1: The Virgin Birth and Switching Races

Well, hello everybody.

So nice to have you back with us for Live with Lon. And as you know, we've been going through the Gospels together. We just began last week. And that's our plan to march through the Gospels together. And if you missed our message from last week, a little bit of introduction, as well as some words about fulfilled prophecy and the power of fulfilled prophecy, it'll really encourage your faith. I urge you to go back and listen to last week's message. Today, we're going to go on and we're going to talk about the virgin birth. And remember, we agreed last week that we're not going to do a tall Bible study and we're not going to do a grande Bible study. We're going to do a venti Bible study and praise the Lord.

That's what I have with me for you today. But before we dig in, I think we're all aware of the coronavirus issue and what's going on, not just here in America, but around the world. And it is I mean, I don't even have a word for it. Overwhelming, discouraging, depressing, scary, I don't know that all those words apply. And yet we remember that our God is in complete control.

And although we don't know why God has determined that he would do this at this time, he is our God and he doesn't make mistakes. But we need to pray. We need to bring our fears.

I need to bring my fears. We need to bring our discouragement. We need to bring our concern and we need to lay it before the Lord Jesus. So I want us to take a moment before we dig in the word and let's quiet our hearts and lay our cares at the foot of the cross. Let's bow our heads together. And let's take a moment to bring all of our anxiety, all of our care, the wonderful song, bring to the mercy seat.

Leave it there. Never a burden he cannot bear. Never a friend like Jesus. So, friends, let's take a moment and bring all those burdens and anxieties to the Lord. And let's give them to him, and let's leave them at the foot of the cross with his help. So, Lord Jesus, for all of us, this is a very scary time in our lives and in the history of our country and our planet. And, Lord, there is reason for us to be concerned for older loved ones, for children with disabilities and adults with disabilities to whom we know, for our relatives and our friends and our co-workers and even for ourselves. And, God, I want to thank you that we have the absolute confidence that you are in charge, that this is not an accident, what is happening to our world. And, Father, even though we do not know why you are doing this or what your ultimate plan is, Lord, we submit to you our fears, our anxieties, Lord, our concerns, and, Lord, change our hearts.

Change our hearts. Lord, change us from praying, Thy will be changed to Thy will be done. But we do ask for mercy, Lord. We ask for mercy for our world. We ask for mercy for our nation. We ask for mercy for our aging parents or our children with disabilities or our friends and neighbors and ourselves. Dear Jesus, we ask you to stop this plague, the way you stopped the plague in David's time, by simply saying the word. Or, Lord, to stop it by helping us discover quickly something that works against this virus and reduces its danger. Oh, Jesus, we come to you. We have no strength against this virus, as Jehoshaphat prayed. Neither know we what to do, but our eyes are upon Thee.

2 Chronicles 20. So, Jesus, please intervene and have mercy on us, Lord, both personally and as a human race. And we wait upon Thee, dear Jesus. And we ask all of this in Jesus' name. And all of God's people said, Amen.

Okay, so we'll leave the coronavirus to the Lord. And now we will dig in to His word. I want to talk to you today about the virgin birth. And the virgin birth is found, the description of it, in two passages in the Gospels, in Matthew's Gospel, Chapter two, and in Luke's Gospel, Chapter one. So why don't we begin by reading those two passages? And I'm reading, of course, from the New King James version of the Bible.

But you can use any version that you'd like. But I'd recommend bringing a Bible to these studies so that you can follow along. So here we go. Right now, we're in Matthew Chapter one, actually. I said two, but I meant one. Hey, hey, we're live. You know, that happens.

Okay, here we go. Now, the birth of Jesus Christ was like this. After his mother, Mary, was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, that is, sexually in marriage, she was found to be a Christian. She was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit.

And Joseph, her husband, being a just man and not wanting to make a public example out of her, was minded to put her away secretly. But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bring forth a son, and you shall call his name, Jesus. Jesus' name comes from the word Yeshua, comes from the Hebrew word meaning salvation.

You will call his name Jesus, for he will save, there's the connection, his people from their sins. Now, all of this was done, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet Isaiah, behold, the virgin will be with child, and will bring forth a son, and they will call his name, Emmanuel, which is translated, God with us. Then Joseph, being aroused from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took Mary as his wife, and did not know her sexually till she had brought forth her firstborn son, and he called his name Jesus. Now, we go to Luke chapter one, where we have also the virgin birth described to us, and here we find it in chapter one of Luke's gospel, verse 26. And in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin, betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary. And having come in, the angel said to her, hail, highly favored one, the Lord is with you, blessed are you among women.

And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God, and behold, you will conceive in your womb, and bring forth a son, and shall call his name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom, there will be no end. Then Mary said to the angel, how can this be, since I do not know a man? And the angel answered and said to her, the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore also, the Holy One who was to be born will be called the Son of God.

For with God, Gabriel said, nothing will be impossible. And Mary said, behold, I am the maid of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to your word, and the angel departed from her. Wow, what two great passages of Scripture. And isn't it interesting that the angel told Joseph in Matthew's Gospel, don't be afraid. And he told Mary in Luke's Gospel, don't be afraid.

Because friends, that's the most common phrase in the Bible that God uses when he addresses us as human beings, as his children in Christ. He says to us more than any other single thing, do not fear, do not be afraid. When it comes to the coronavirus, do not fear. When it comes to the world looking like it's all falling apart, do not fear. When we've lost our job and we don't know how we're going to take care of our family, do not fear. When it comes to people all around us doing social distancing and or whatever they're calling it now, do not fear. Do not fear because I, the Lord, am with you.

And I, the Lord, have this whole thing under control. Do not fear. And we have to simply believe, God, it's hard not to fear because when things are scary, we're humans. But Jesus again and again says to us, do not fear.

I got you and I got this. And that's exactly what he said to Joseph. That's exactly what he said to Mary. Do not fear, Joseph, to take this woman as your wife. Don't fear the rumors. Don't fear the gossip. Don't fear the the the what other people are going to say. Don't fear. And he said to Mary, Mary, don't fear the fact that people are going to ostracize you and look at you as though you were a prostitute or a woman with cheap moral values.

Don't fear. God says, I got it and I'll take care of you. So Mary is told by Gabriel and an angel, we don't know if it was Gabriel, told Joseph that Mary was going to have a child that was going to be conceived in her womb by the Holy Spirit. And I love the fact when Mary says, how can this be?

For I've never known a man sexually. I love the fact that Gabriel doesn't try to really explain this to her. She wouldn't understood and we wouldn't understand either. This is a supernatural birth. I love the fact that when Mary said, how can this be? I love the fact that the angel said very simply, the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high.

God will overshadow you, Mary. That's all you need to know. You don't need to know how it works. You just need to know that this is from God and he is going to take care of it. Much like so often when we say, God, what's going on? God says you don't need to know all the details.

If I explain them to you, you wouldn't even understand it. Just trust me. I got it. And that's what he says to Mary. Now, we commonly refer to this as the virgin birth because Mary here says, I'm a virgin in Luke's gospel.

I've never known a man. And there are people and we're going to talk about this, why it's right that the translation is correct. Virgin. But, folks, there may be many, many people who don't want to believe in the virgin birth, but there can be nobody who says that the Bible doesn't claim a virgin birth for the Lord Jesus Christ.

If they don't want to accept it, that's fine. But please don't tell me the Bible doesn't proclaim that. The Bible proclaims it clearly in both gospels, Matthew and Luke, and claims that it is a fulfillment of one of the 30 some messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. Isaiah Chapter seven, where Isaiah says the virgin in Hebrew, not a virgin, not just anybody, but the virgin, the one God has picked out. The definite article is used on the word virgin, the virgin. And Matthew's gospel says the virgin because it was Mary picked out from time immortal that God had in mind. The virgin shall conceive and have a child. Now, let's talk about this a little bit, because if you've done any reading at all among scholars or whomever, you've probably run into this, that they will claim that the word that is used here in Isaiah Chapter seven, the word Alma in Hebrew does not mean virgin and rather it means young woman or maiden, and that it was a twisting of that prophecy by the apostles to make a virgin birth happen. And in a moment, we're going to talk about why the virgin birth is so important.

But let's just first talk about is that what the Bible predicted and what it claims for the Lord Jesus? Well, let's talk about Isaiah Chapter seven, the word Alma there, translated virgin, is a word that comes from a Hebrew root alam, which means to be hidden or to be concealed. And and it's referring to a woman who's been hidden or concealed sexually. It's very interesting also in classical Greek that this root word was used also to apply to ships. And the very same route talking about a ship that was a virgin ship, that is, it had never sailed before. This was its maiden voyage. And this is what the Bible claims for Mary, that she had never had sexual relations.

No bones about it. This is what the Bible claims. Now, there's lots of other words in Hebrew the Bible could have used if it simply meant young woman. It could have used Isha, which just is a general word for a woman. It could have used Yalda, which is a word for generally a younger woman. It could have used Not-Ra, which is a word for a maiden or Betulah, which is a word for a marriageable age young woman.

It could have used any of those words, but it chose Alma, a woman who had been concealed and hidden from sexual behavior. And we know that that was the interpretation of the rabbis before Jesus came into the world, because we have a translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint. The Septuagint was a translation into Greek of the Old Testament done in Alexandria, Egypt, around 200 B.C. And the reason it was done was because Alexander the Great had swept through the whole Middle East and most of the known world. And with him, he brought the Greek language and the Greek language became the lingua franca.

It became the language of commerce and trade as a result of these conquests of Alexander. And so fewer and fewer Jews even spoke Hebrew conversationally or Aramaic conversationally because they spoke Greek instead. And so in an attempt to get the Old Testament into the hands of more Jewish people who could understand it, there was a project around 200 B.C. to translate the Old Testament into Koine everyday Greek. And we call this the Septuagint. It's very interesting that in the Septuagint, this Hebrew word Alma is translated by the Greek word Parthenos, which means virgin. There are other words in Greek also that could have been used if all it meant was a young woman. In Greek, we could have used the word Kyria, which means a young woman. You could use the word Nianis, which means a young woman. You could use the word Gunika, which means a young woman.

But none of those words were used. The word Parthenos, the word for virgin, is used by the translators at 200 B.C. So we know that at 200 B.C., the rabbis and the Jewish leaders understood this word Alma to mean virgin. You say, well, what happened? How come it down now today we're hearing people say it doesn't mean virgin?

Folks, this is polemic. After Jesus was born of a virgin and after that became a major verse that people like Paul would use to to prove, among other messianic prophecies, that Jesus was the Messiah. The Jewish leaders wanted to change that and to take the word Alma, the virgin connotation away and just simply put in a young woman. But that is not how they understood it at 200 B.C. And I'm here to tell you that's not even how they understood it in the time of the New Testament. The word Alma meant and the word Parthenos, which translates it, meant virgin.

You say, how can you be so sure that? Well, I can because I can take you to Acts chapter 21, verse nine, where Paul is on his way to Jerusalem and he stops by to meet with Philip, the evangelist. And listen what the Bible says in verse nine, Acts chapter 21. It says, Now this man, Philip, who lived in Caesarea, had four daughters who were virgins, Parthenoi, Parthenos, the Greek word for virgins. Same word used to translate Alma and the Septuagint. You say, yeah, but maybe there it just meant young women. You know, folks, why would you say that a man had four daughters who were women?

That makes no sense. If they're daughters, of course, they're women. Why in the world would Luke write down now he had four daughters and they were women? Luke, of course, they were women. The only reason for him to write something like that, if all Parthenos men is women, that's crazy. But if Parthenos means virgin, then to say that Philip had four daughters who were Parthenoi virgins.

OK, well, now that adjective makes sense. So there is no doubt at the time of Jesus and four centuries before this prophecy in Isaiah Chapter seven was talking about not just a virgin, but the virgin who was named Mary that God picked out before time began to bear the Lord Jesus Christ. We say, Lon, OK, I understand what you're saying, but listen, why is this so important? I mean, look, that would the really important part here is that Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead and went back to heaven and he's coming back to get us. I mean, if the virgin birth didn't really happen, I mean, it's not that big a deal. Right. Wrong. It is a huge deal, my friends, the virgin birth.

And let's let's talk about why. Romans Chapter five, one of the greatest chapters anywhere in the Bible, talks about what happened when Adam and Eve sinned. And I want to read to you several verses there.

You may be familiar with these, but maybe not. It says Romans Chapter five, verse 12, therefore, by one man, sin entered the world. Now, who would that one man be, according to the Bible? Well, Adam, of course. Therefore, as by one man, sin entered the world and death by sin. There was no death before Adam disobeyed God and thus death spread to all men, because in the sight of God, all sin. Adam was the head of a race of men. We find this very clearly explained in First Corinthians 15. There are people who are in Adam and there are people who are in Christ. There are two races that God sees among the human race. And you're either in one or you're in the other. You're either in Adam or you're in Christ. Every one of us is born in Adam.

And when we are in Adam, everything our federal head, Adam did, good or bad, is imputed to us as his descendants, as members of his race. I often compare this to Jimmy Carter selling the Panama Canal. The president of the United States is the federal head of America.

Whatever he does, we as American citizens are stuck with it, good or bad. Frankly, I didn't want to sell the Panama Canal. I like the Panama Canal. I wanted to keep the Panama Canal. Doesn't matter.

If Jimmy Carter sold it, I have to live with that. Well, in the same way, those of us who are members of Adam's race, he is the federal head of our race. If he sinned and brought death upon himself, he brought death upon his whole race. That is exactly what the Bible is saying. Sometimes this is called the doctrine of original sin.

But don't let that confuse you. All it means is that everybody who is in Adam dies. And that's what the Bible goes on to say. Listen, death reigned from Adam to Moses and from there on. That point is made because between Adam and Moses, people didn't have specific laws of God to break like Adam had. God said don't eat. That was a specific law Adam made. Until Moses is given the law, there were no rules for people to break. And nevertheless, people died anyway, proving that people don't die because of what they do.

They die because they're in a race where death rules everyone in that race. Now, Romans five goes on for it by one man's offense, meaning Adam, many die. Then it goes on to say verse 18. Therefore, by one man's offense, Adam's judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation from a holy God. Verse 19 for as by one man's disobedience, Adam, many were made sinners. Folks, the Bible is clear in Romans Chapter five and in other passages that when we come into this world as members of Adam's race, we come into the world as sinners in the sight of a holy God and with a death penalty on us, condemnation on us as members of his race. Now, the Bible also says in First Corinthians 15, there's another race. People can be in Adam, which is where we start.

Everybody starts there or we can be in Christ. And this race gets all the benefits of what its federal head did. Jesus Christ.

I didn't say we get any of the disadvantages because our federal head in Christ didn't do anything to disadvantage us. What he did is he brought life. So as an Adam, all die. Romans Chapter five. So in Christ, all shall be made alive. Praise the Lord. First Corinthians 15. So salvation, my friends, among other things, is a matter of changing races.

You don't do it. God, when you trust Jesus and what he did on the cross, moves you from Adam's race into Christ's race. And therefore, you are no longer responsible for all of the disadvantages Adam purchased for you when he disobeyed God. We are now credited with all the advantages that our Lord Jesus Christ, the risen Lord of glory, purchased for us on the cross. Can I get a hallelujah? Come on now. Praise the Lord.

Right. But in order for Jesus to establish a new race, he could not have been originally from Adam's race to start a new race. He had to be something Adam wasn't, which is sinless.

And this is what the virgin birth is all about. It's about creating a body for the Lord Jesus Christ, a real human body, but one that did not have the sin nature that every member of Adam's race inherits. All of us inherit that sin nature that Adam purchased for us when he disobeyed God. And Jesus, what does Hebrews chapter four say? Was tempted in all ways like we were, but without sin, without sin. And that's why his death on the cross is efficacious for us, because it's not just some other sinner dying on the cross. It's the sinless son of God giving his life in place of our life, substitutionary atonement. He atones for us by being our substitute on the cross.

But to do that, he has to be sinless. First Corinthians five says Christ, our Passover is sacrificed for us. Jesus was the ultimate Passover lamb. And remember what God said about the Passover lamb. When I see the blood on the doorpost of that Passover lamb, I will pass over you in judgment. However, the Passover lamb had to be blemish less if it had blemishes of any kind, a broken leg, you know, a broken back. I don't know, whatever.

And I'm missing. He couldn't be the Passover lamb for your family. Your family had to have a perfect lamb because the Passover lamb is symbolic of the ultimate Passover lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ, who had no blemishes at all. But to live a sinless life, he could not have the Lord Jesus, a sin nature. Nobody with a sin nature can live a sinless life.

No one. I mean, with a sin nature, we've already sinned before we even know what sin is. As little children telling our parents no and disobeying and all kinds of things. Jesus, the only way he could be the sinless lamb of God was to be born with no sin nature. A real human body. Yes, but no sin nature. And the only way for that to happen is he could not be in Adam. He could not be part of Adam's race.

And this is the whole beauty of the virgin birth. God made a body for the living son of God, the second person in the Godhead. But it didn't have a sin nature so he could live a sinless life so he could die on the cross as a blemish this lamb. So that when he rose from the dead, he established a new race so that when we move to that new race, we're not accountable to God for what Adam did, but for what Jesus did. And his blood covers us from God's judgment. And as in Adam, all die. So in Christ, all shall be made alive. Venti, praise the Lord.

Baby, it don't get no better than that. This is why the virgin birth is central to our faith. If we give up the virgin birth, then the life of Jesus couldn't have been sinless. Then the death of Jesus on the cross couldn't have been redemptive. Then we don't belong to a new race and we are in Adam and we are destined to die. And there is nothing anybody can do about it. But that's not true because the virgin birth really happened.

All right. So, as I said a minute or so ago, a person may not believe the virgin birth, but there is no way they can claim that the virgin birth is not what the Bible claims. And can I show you one other little place where we get a little tinge of this? I'm in John Chapter eight, one of my favorite chapters in the Bible. And here Jesus is arguing with the rabbis about who is their father. And they say, Abraham's our father.

And listen, we're going to pick up at the very end of the argument, OK? Here's what we see. Jesus said to him or to them, rather. Jesus said, most assuredly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he shall never see death. And the Jews said to him, now we know you got a demon.

Now we know you're crazy. Abraham is dead and the prophets are dead. And yet you say, if anyone keeps my word, he shall never taste death. Are you greater than our father, Abraham, who is dead and the prophets who are dead? The rabbis say to him, who do you make yourself out to be?

That's the whole point, isn't it? And Jesus answered. He said, it is the father who honors me.

If I honor myself, it's nothing. Yet you do not know my father, but I know him. And if I say I don't know him, I'd be a liar like you. And then he says this. Your father, Abraham, rejoiced to see my day and he saw it and was glad. And then the Jews said to him, you are not even 50 years old and you've seen Abraham. And Jesus said before Abraham was, I am.

Now, that was their big fight, their big argument that they were having. And earlier in Chapter eight there of John's Gospel, when they were starting this argument, I love what happens. They said to Jesus, Abraham is our father. And Jesus said to them, if Abraham were your father, you would do the work of Abraham. But now you seek to kill me.

A man who's told you the truth. Abraham never did that. And they said to him, we were not born of fornication.

We have one father, God. Now, why did they say that to Jesus? We were not born of fornication.

Well, friends, this is a cheap slap. It's a reference back to the virgin birth, to the fact his mother wasn't married when she got pregnant. And that she had Jesus, in a sense, because of fornication and not because of being married to her husband because she was pregnant too soon.

The rabbis could count nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two. And that's why they say we weren't born of fornication like you were friends. This is a reference to the virgin birth that they understood Mary got pregnant before she'd had sex with anybody, supposedly. And it's a it's a slap at Jesus. But even here, we see a little sliver of the virgin birth that these rabbis understood that Mary was pregnant, not by her husband, but some other way.

Now, they didn't believe it was by the Holy Spirit, but we know that it was. OK, wow, that's a lot. So now we're to the end of our expositional study. So we need to ask our most important question. So are you ready? Here we go. Come on now.

One, two, three. So, baby, how sweet it is. OK, so you say long. Wow. OK, man, I think I got that.

You choked me with with the venti today. Enough theology. But I mean, how does this really relate to my everyday practical life? Well, much in every way, to quote the King James. Let me go back to Chapter one of Luke's gospel and read you what what Gabriel said. Now, listen, the Bible says and Gabriel said to her, for with God, nothing will be impossible. That was Gabriel's answer as to how this can be with God.

Nothing is impossible. This reminds me, of course, of the story in Genesis 18, where the three strangers came to visit Abraham. Remember, God had promised Abraham a son and Abraham had been waiting 25 years for this son through his wife, Sarah. And and they had not had a son. And so Abraham was ninety nine years old now. And and Sarah was 90. The point is the two of them having a baby was impossible, not unlikely or improbable.

It was impossible. So here come these three strangers. We learn later that two of them are angels who go on to Sodom and Gomorrah and destroy the city and save Lot.

But we learn the third one. The Bible calls the third visitor. Yahweh uses the tetragrammaton Yod Hey, Vov. Hey, the name of God himself. This was God taking on a human form to appear to Abraham, an anthropomorphic appearance of God. Was it the Lord Jesus was God? I don't know.

I don't know. But it was definitely the Godhead in this body. And and this person says to Abraham, I will return to you at this time next year and your wife, Sarah, will have a child. Now, where was Sarah all this time? We know where Sarah was. She was outside the tent eavesdropping.

Nothing strange. And so, yeah, that's where she was. And the Lord knew she was there. And when she heard this, she did what? What did she do?

We all know. What did she do? If you know the Bible, she laughed.

That's right. She's like, I'm my being so old and and my Lord Abraham being so old, we're going to have a baby. We're going to have the sound of a baby in our tent. And she laughed. And and the Lord came out and and confronted her and said, Sarah, why did you laugh? And she said, I didn't laugh. She was scared. And the Lord said, oh, yes, you did.

You did laugh. And then he says this to her. He says, Sarah, is anything too hard for the Lord? Wow, that beautiful is anything too hard for the Lord. Jeremiah 32.

I am the God of the universe. The maker of all mankind is anything too hard for me, the Lord says. And Gabriel here says, for with God, nothing is impossible. And Jesus himself said, the things which are impossible with men are possible with God.

While the virgin birth, among many other things, is a wonderful example to us, that we should never, ever say anything is beyond the capacity of our living God to do. He can inject himself into this world any time he feels like it. And he can do anything he wants to spend the laws of nature. Make the sun stand still for a day. Make an ax head float. Open up the Red Sea for the Israelites to march through. Have Jesus walk on the water. Raise Lazarus from the dead.

The on and on and on and on. He can do it all. And this has much to do with our lives because so often, friends, we know this in our head theologically, but so often we live like we don't believe it. We limit God. We place restrictions on him and what he can do and can't do, what he will do and what he won't do. In our puny minds, before we ever even give him a chance to show us what he might want to do, Ephesians Chapter three says God can do exceedingly abundantly more than you can ask or even imagine.

Folks, I can imagine a lot. And the Bible says God can do more than that easily. So this means that we need to be very careful that we don't come to God having already put our artificial limits on what we think he will and won't can and can't do. We need to come to God with a completely open slate. Psalm 78, verse 41 says that the Israelites, after God opened the Red Sea and brought manna from heaven and brought water from a rock and dropped quail all over them. And all of this stuff had the ground open up and swallowed Dathan and Abiram. They still did not believe God and they pained.

They hurt him in his heart. God is insulted by our unbelief after he's done so much for us and it hurts him to see us limiting him. So does this have practical ramifications for us?

Of course it does. It means whatever we need, whatever problem we've got, we come to God and we don't put limits on him. We say, oh, God, please intervene. Do do something miraculous here, Lord. Do something even if it looks impossible, God. And if you say no, you don't want to. I'll accept that. But only because it's your will.

I'm not going to decide that you're not going to do this or you can't do this. Jeremiah 33 three. This has been one of my favorite verses in my life. Call unto me and I will answer, sayeth the Lord. And I will do great and mighty things for you that you know not if you don't come already presuming I can't do. Call unto me and I will answer you and I will show you great and mighty things that you know not. Let's pray and with our heads bowed and our eyes closed for a minute. You know, I can't imagine that every one of us here, especially those of us who know Christ, don't have something that we're praying about or something that we're worried about. That looks the odds look terrible and the obstacles look huge. And we're tempted to say, oh, God, with those obstacles and I I'm not even going to ask you for it, Lord, because I don't even don't. Friends, don't do that.

Don't do that. Let's take a moment and let God be God. Exceedingly abundantly more than we can ask or think, I will show you great and mighty things that you know not. So let's take a moment and give God these things with no limits, no predetermined decisions about what he will and won't do. And let's just leave him free to be God, whether he answers this week or this month or next year. Let's let him be God.

Take a moment and do that. Lord Jesus, thank you for our lesson on the virgin birth today. Thank you for teaching us that with God, nothing is impossible, is anything too hard for the Lord. The things that are impossible with man are possible with God. And Lord Jesus, I pray that you would make us the kind of folks who come to you with all of the limits removed, Lord, with all the boundaries removed of our own puny wisdom and just allow you to be God. As the Bible says, help us to simply stand still and see the deliverance of the Lord. Help us to stand still and let God be God. Be still and know that I am God. And Lord, if you decide to say no to us, we will accept it as part of your divine plan.

But God, let that be the only reason for which you are forced to say no, not because of our own belief. So, Jesus, we lay before you. Our troubles, our cares, our worries.

Remind us what you said. Encourage our faith. Call unto me, says the Lord, and I will answer you and I will show you great and mighty things that you know not. May that be the way we live. In Jesus' name, we pray.

And all God's people said, Amen. OK, next week, same time, same place, Live with Lon. And we're going to continue in our study of the gospels. And can't wait to see you next week. And I hope this week, Jeremiah 33-3. Call unto me and I'll answer you and I'll show you great and mighty things you know not will be your life first. Not just this week, but the rest of your life. God bless you.