Christmas P3 Radio Broadcast Wednesday 12/25/2024

Classic Christianity – Christmas P3 (12-25-24)

Mary, The Virgin, Was With Child Through The Power of the Holy Spirit

Imagine the Truth of this. Can you imagine the TRUTH of this, and how most would NOT have believed Mary until much later? God prophesied this to happen, yet people overlooked the details back then, and overlook the details even today. Understanding the virgin birth is key for us today for us to understand the spiritual birth that those of us who are born again of the Spirit, now have Jesus living directly in us. Let’s read Luke 1:26-38 together:

~ In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin pledged in marriage to a man named Joseph, who was of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. The angel appeared to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”

Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. So the angel told her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Behold, you will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever. His kingdom will never end!”

“How can this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God. Look, even Elizabeth your relative has conceived a son in her old age, and she who was called barren is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.”

“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it happen to me according to your word.” Then the angel left her.

~ “So it says here that she was pledged to marry a man named Joseph who was a descendant of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. And an angel went to her and said greetings you are who are highly favored the Lord is with you. And Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of a greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son. And you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, his kingdom will never end. How will this be? Mary asked the angels since I’m a virgin, very practical question, isn’t it? In other words, you’re telling me I’m going to have a child? How’s this gonna come about? I’m a virgin. How am I gonna have a child? It’s a very practical question. She was in saying, I don’t believe this can take place. I don’t believe you know, I don’t believe you with all of this. This is an impossibility. She would just gonna say, how you gonna bring this about? Pretty good question isn’t it. I think I might have a tendency to want to ask myself, how are you going to bring this about? And he said, The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God. In other words, you are going to be impregnated by the seed of God Himself. God is going to make, bring about this birth, God is going to in some supernatural way, impregnate you with his seed, and you’re going to bear a son, that will be the Son of God, on the physical level, he will be the Son of God, at the same time, he will be the son of Mary, that is showing true deity and showing true humanity. But all of this is of the Spirit of God. Now again, were you born physically, by the Spirit of God, no, you are born, as it says, physically, by the plan of your mother and dad, very natural birth seed implanted by a physical act. We were all born the same way of the seed of your father, who brought life. But every one of us then are going to have the capability now of being born again of what? the Spirit of God. Now when Jesus was born, he was born physically by the seat of God, and he was also born spiritually, if you want to say that he was already alive spiritually, that Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, is the Spirit that raises you and me from the dead spiritually. We were not born physically of God, we were born of our mom and dad, but we must be born again spiritually, and that is by God, and by God alone, two births, and he talks about that in the third chapter of John.” ~ Bob George

~ Welcome to Classic Christianity Radio with Bob George. As we celebrate the Christmas season together, we are reminded of God’s greatest gift to you in Me, His Son, Jesus Christ, we are told in the scriptures for God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. It is our prayer at Bob George Ministries that you would accept God’s gift of eternal life and know how much you were deeply loved by God. Go to BobGeorge.net online to find out how you can grow in your relationship with Jesus Christ. We have many books, CDs, and other teaching materials available for your personal growth as you discover more about God’s unconditional love and forgiveness for you. Let’s now join Bob as he presents practical biblical insights as he helps people experience a life of faith, hope and love in Jesus Christ.

Bob George 1:01
And so give a person the gospel I can remember my brother when I first came to Christ, I know I was obnoxious, probably was obnoxious before I came to Christ, but I was really obnoxious after I came to Christ. And man, you know, my method of operation was attack and and my poor family what they had to put up with and people it’s just unbelievable, because I wanted everybody to know this Jesus. I mean, I to me, I waited 36 years to know him and all of a sudden came to know him, couldn’t figure out why everybody didn’t want to know him. My brother had had an alcohol problem for many, many years. And it was through my dad’s death, it was through the time when my dad was dying of cancer, that God got my attention. And I realized in that period of time that my father was dying, and said, Someday I was gonna die. And you know, we don’t want to think about that either do we? It seems to me, when we start thinking about our own death, our mind wants to shift to some subject immediately went to war, think about that. But it forces you to see the reality of death. And I can remember during that period of time, how, when I came to Christ, and then I was sharing with my brother, and I shared with my brother, and my brother at that particular time, said, was an alcoholic. And, and, and he read, and he didn’t, he didn’t want to come to Christ. I asked him, Do you want to pray with Don, we’ll pray. And I couldn’t remember though. So thinking to myself, God’s Word does not return void. And I said, Dick, you may not be aware of the emptiness that’s inside of you today. But I can guarantee you that there will come a time in your life where that emptiness will be revealed to you. And what I want to know is when that occurs, do you know how to accept Jesus? And his comment to me, Yeah, you’ve come through loud and clear. A year later, saying, Lord, this is in your hands. A year later, my brother came to know Jesus as his Lord and Savior. That was 20 some years ago, never had another drink through his entire life. Not that he would had to go to meetings. He didn’t want it anymore. He didn’t need it anymore. He found his sufficiency someplace else besides a bottle. And he found it in Christ. And so folks, we keep wondering all the time, well, I’ve told you about Jesus and told you about Jesus, the seed has been sown, but until the soil is ready, it’s not going to receive that. But that’s okay. Because someday that soil will be ready. Sometimes it hadn’t been plowed enough. Sometimes you haven’t hit it enough problems in your life. Sometimes you just haven’t come to the end of yourself yet. You still think everything’s going okay. That’s okay. Sow the seed. Because we have a promise, that seed will not return void, that seed will remain in its condition until sometime at the soil is either right. And then you will see the acceptance go. So we’re dealing here with this babe of Bethlehem, not with just a nice story of a little baby, little baby. That’s a tender story. We can all get teary over that. But you’re dealing with a baby, who was God, that song that is very popular today, a new song that when Mary kissed her little baby, did she realize she was kissing the face of God.

So it says here that she was pledged to marry a man named Joseph who was a descendant of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. And an angel went to her and said greetings you are who are highly favored the Lord is with you. And Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of a greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son. And you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, his kingdom will never end. How will this be? Mary asked the angels since I’m a virgin, very practical question, isn’t it? In other words, you’re telling me I’m going to have a child? How’s this gonna come about? I’m a virgin. How am I gonna have a child? It’s a very practical question. She was in saying, I don’t believe this can take place. I don’t believe you know, I don’t believe you with all of this. This is an impossibility. She would just gonna say, how you gonna bring this about? Pretty good question in it. I think I might have a tendency to want to ask myself, how are you going to bring this about? And he said, The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God. In other words, you are going to be impregnated by the seed of God Himself. God is going to make, bring about this birth, God is going to in some supernatural way, impregnate you with his seed, and you’re going to bear a son, that will be the Son of God, on the physical level, he will be the Son of God, at the same time, he will be the son of Mary, that is showing true deity and showing true humanity. But all of this is of the Spirit of God. Now again, were you born physically, by the Spirit of God, no, you are born, as it says, physically, by the plan of your mother and dad, very natural birth seed implanted by a physical act. We were all born the same way of the seed of your father, who brought life. But every one of us then are going to have the capability now of being born again of what? the Spirit of God. Now when Jesus was born, he was born physically by the seat of God, and he was also born spiritually, if you want to say that he was already alive spiritually, that Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, is the Spirit that raises you and me from the dead spiritually. We were not born physically of God, we were born of our mom and dad, but we must be born again spiritually, and that is by God, and by God alone, two births, and he talks about that in the third chapter of John.

So even Elizabeth, it says your relative is going to have a child at her old age. And she who is said to be barren is in her six month for nothing is impossible with God. Mary’s answer was, I’m the Lord servant. May it be to me as you have said, and the angel left her. At that time, Mary got ready and hurried down to the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zacharias home and greeted Elizabeth. And When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled or controlled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice, she exclaimed, bless it, are you among women. And bless it is the child that you will bear. But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me that had to be revealed to her, Mary hadn’t said a word, but it had to be revealed to her. As soon as the sound of your greeting reach my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is She who has believed what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished. The Lord said it, Mary believed it, it came to pass. Now Mary’s comment back to that is the following. Mary said, My soul, excuse me, my soul glorifies the Lord. And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. And from now on, all generations will call me blessed. For the Mighty One has done great things for me, holy is his name. His mercy extends to those who fear him. From generation to generation. He has performed mighty deeds with his arm, he has scattered those who are proud in their innermost thoughts.

And again, is that not where pride takes place in the innermost thoughts of man, we can look at pride in many, many ways. But in the final analysis, pride takes place in the innermost thoughts of our men of our being. Where we see pride manifesting itself is in the innermost part of our thoughts. And that’s why our thoughts are evidence of what’s going on inside. Where are our thoughts coming from? Are they coming from Satan that creates pride, or are they coming from God that creates humility? I think it’s an interesting thing that has she said that that this mercy has been extended, not to someone who is doing this or that but someone In a humble state of thy servant. And when we realize folks that it is pride that keeps us from coming to Christ, it is pride that keeps us from walking with Christ. Pride comes before the fall. Pride is always the reason for man refusing gifts. Why man refuses, the gift of God is his pride, who says, I don’t need God, I’m doing okay, on my own. I don’t need God, I don’t understand him, I don’t want to go, I don’t believe God, I don’t need him. I’m self sufficient. I know what I’m doing. I can do it alone. And you want to know something, folks, a man can continue that right up to the point if he’s fortunate enough to get sick enough that he’s going to die. And I say fortunate enough, because at least when you’re in that condition, you have an opportunity to ponder your condition, because you got a pretty good idea. I don’t think I’m gonna be here very long. Whereas if you get snapped off into the automobile accident, or something else, there’s no time for that. But if a person comes to that they realize something, you know, I’m not as strong as I thought I was. And you know, what, folks, is interesting how the world looks at things. The world looks at strength, I am a strong person. And you see that you take psychological tests, and they’ll come back and say, Oh, you’re strong and horseradish. And, and you’re weak and you’re this and this and this and this and this. And we come out and boy, if if we’re on that strong side, we say, See you there. I’m strong. And that guy, it’s weak. He’s a mess, but boy, am I strong. And you know what, folks? It’s the very opposite. That’s what I said. It’s like the song says, Let the strong say I’m weak. Let the let the poor so I’m rich. So we have everything reversed because and the reason that that we can say that I’m strong is because of him.

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Bob George 14:46
And you know, that’s why the Lord Jesus Christ through the Apostle Paul said, Rejoice in your weakness. Because folks when we come to realize that I don’t have any confidence in his flesh, this flesh of mine is cut is capable of doing nothing to please the God of this universe. Do we realize this? Flesh and blood will never inherit the kingdom of God. God never expects your flesh to behave never said it would never thought it could. And yet we walk around with confidence and how strong my flesh is, instead of saying, wait a minute, no, I don’t, I’m not going to rejoice. The strength of my flesh is what’s keeping me from dependency upon Jesus. And so we have to come to the realize that just as Paul said, I don’t have a confidence in his flesh of mine, nothing this flesh can do to please God. And so that’s where we come to a point of saying, Okay, I’m gonna rejoice in that. If a person gives the appearance or thinks that we are strong, recognize that’s deception. That’s deception. None of us are strong, we just think we are, what we really mean is we’re stubborn as a mule. That’s normally what a strong person is stubborn beyond measure, it’s called a strong person. What it means is, don’t confuse me with facts My mind’s made up. So what we have to do is to realize, wait a minute, that is not strength, that’s weakness. That’s, that is confidence in this flesh of mine, that I can manipulate things, I can cause things to happen. And folks, sometimes you look at the motive on that, and it’s not evil, a person’s got good intentions, their intentions is I want to make everything good. And I got the capability of doing it. And so we become control freaks. And we go out to try to control every circumstance in order to accomplish this so called good thing that I’m trying to accomplish. And we end up turning people off, turning people away, and ultimately building self confidence. Until we come to a point where we realized, wait a minute, nothing that I’m doing is working, then you come out with no confidence, now you’re ready for the Lord. And that’s what we talked about. So many times, when you get to the end of your rope, and people say I’m to the end of my rope, I say grease that sucker. Because when you get to the end of your rope, that’s where you’re gonna find Jesus. That’s when you’re going to realize I have no confidence in the flesh, and my strength is going to come from him, not from me.

And so everything is in reverse. From the way man looks at things, and the way that God looks at things. We give credence to the strong, but he says the strong is not strong. It’s those who recognize I have no confidence in this flesh. They’re the ones that are strong, and place their strength where it belongs, and that’s in his strength, not in mine.

And so she says here that the Mighty One has done great things for me. His mercy has extended those who fear him from generation to generation. And he has performed mighty deeds with his arm, he has scattered those who are proud in their innermost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones, but as lifted up the humble, he has filled the hungry with good things and he has sent the rich away empty. Isn’t that the way it is. Look at what Solomon said he had everything. Everything. He says a wealthiest man probably that ever lived on the face of the earth. He had everything that the world says if I could just have that, oh, man, would I be happy? He had the how many wives? 700 wives. Now you talk about activity. I mean, he had activity. Did it satisfy? No, he had all the wealth of the world is satisfied. No, he said it’s all vanity. But the flesh keeps saying oh man, that’d be great. No, said it wouldn’t be great. The more that you’d indulge your flesh, the more your flesh once Have you noticed that? It’s like a friend of mine said one time your flesh is like a goat. It’ll eat anything you give it and it’s never satisfied. The more it gets, the more it wants. It’s like someone asked Rockefeller one time how much money would it take to make you happy? So just a little bit more. And that’s the way it is, just a little bit more. And so we have to realize that folks that this flesh of ours is always in contrast to the Spirit and the Spirit is always in contrast to the flesh, they are never in harmony with one another. And our flesh always is demanding something that is totally contrary to the Spirit of God. And we have to that way deny that flesh. Now what does that mean? Recognize it is not telling me to do any good thing, even though it sounds like it is a good thing. It’s what enables us to realize that if I’m going to walk on the face of this earth, then in dependency upon Jesus, that that is not a natural thing to do. To walk in dependency upon Jesus is not natural. What is natural is to walk in dependency upon my flesh. Now, as I’ve said before, guys, you have the law of gravity, you get under the law of aerodynamics, and get in an airplane. And while you’re under that law of aerodynamics, you’re flying. So marvelous way to travel. But if you decide, I don’t think this law of aerodynamics is what it’s all cracked up to be, I think I’ll step out and get a breath of fresh air. Now, if you choose to get out from under that law of aerodynamics, you do not choose to come under the law of gravity, it is a byproduct of your choosing not to be under the law of aerodynamics, you don’t choose to come under it, you come under it automatically. And you step out of that airplane, and the law of gravity takes over immediately and you are going to make one big splash on the ground, you don’t choose that it’s a byproduct of not choosing to remain under the law of aerodynamics, you and I do not choose to follow Satan. That is a byproduct of choosing not to follow God. You and I do not choose to give in to the flesh. It’s a byproduct of choosing not to be led by the Spirit. And so don’t think I’m choosing this, I’m not choosing, it’s what I’m choosing is Lord, I’m choosing not to be controlled by your life. The minute that choice is made, you’re under the control of the enemy of your soul.

And that’s why we’ve talked about folks whose only two areas of control in this world, no man is out of control. You hear a guy say I was out of control means that before you were out of control, you thought you were in control, right? And if I didn’t think I was in control, how could I ever say I’m out of control. And I got news for you, you have never been in control. And you’ve never been out of control, you’ve just been under control. There is no such thing as you as a puny little man, ever being in control, or out of control, just under control. We are either under the control of Satan, or we’re under the control of God. Those are the only two controlling factors in his world. And the only way that you and I, the only thing we need to do to be under the control of the evil one is to choose not to be controlled by God. There is no choice. Now, when Christ comes to live within us, He came to give us life, and then to live as He intended man to live. And that is allowing God to be the resource of all of your information. To renew your mind on truth. You don’t have to choose how you act. When you have truth. Your action is a byproduct of what you believe in. If I believe that it is beneficial for me as a child of God, not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together, not to forsake getting together as we are doing with other Christians. If I believe that is beneficial, and efficiencies that’s beneficial then I don’t have to choose well, I guess should I go to church or shouldn’t I go to a you know, man, I want to go I want to get together not just to come here but I want to go be with some Christians. Why? I believe what the scripture says it’s beneficial not to forsake the assembling of yourselves together. That’s that’s a choice that I make not a choice to go but a choice Now that I’ve learned something, I have learned that it’s beneficial for me not to forsake the assembling of myself, together with other Christians. And so guys, we’ve got to understand the simplicity of this, that Christ has given us the ability through him living in us to teach us truth, and let that truth set us free. Because when I know truth, I’m going to act upon truth, and therefore will be acting in accordance with God’s will, instead of acting in accordance with the will of my own flesh.

Well, let’s go on it. Then he says, He has helped his serves servant Israel remembering me to be merciful to Abraham and to his descendants forever, even as he had said to our fathers, and it said Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months, and then returned home. We all know then the rest of the story that there was in chapter two in the days of Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. And it says this was the first census that took place while Marius was governor of Syria. And so everyone went to his own town to register. So Joseph went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea in Bethlehem, the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David there again, stating that, and he went there to register with Mary who was pledged to be married to him, and was expecting a child. And while they were there, the time came for the baby to be born and she gave birth to her firstborn son, and she wrapped him in clothes and placed him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.

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