It’s that time of year when we place special emphasis on our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Of course, believers worship and praise God all year long (every day is a day of Thanksgiving, not just one day in November), but Christmas is special to the hearts of believers.

This past Sunday, I preached on Mary and the angel Gabriel’s message he delivers to her: that is, she will be the one to bear God’s Son, whose name will be Jesus. She wondered how it would come about because she was a virgin who’d never had sexual intercourse with a man, and I stated in that sermon that science (naturalism) can’t explain the Virgin Birth; it is simply a miracle. Mary had never had sexual intercourse, and the laws of nature have nothing to say about how a child can be conceived in the absence of sexual intercourse.

Today, in-vitro fertilization (IVF) is a form of artificial insemination that doesn’t mandate sexual intercourse between two human beings. If we can believe in IVF as a legitimate procedure by which children are born, then it’s not all that hard to believe in divine means of conception by the Holy Spirit.

We’ve also been placing a special emphasis on truth, considering that famous apologist Ravi Zacharias has been in the news due to sexual allegations as well as academic fraud. Zacharias’s ministry, RZIM, has a lot of repenting to do — for it cannot claim to seek truth, then commit academic fraud without apology (for those who’re wondering, this doesn’t refer to a “defense” of the ministry and Zacharias’s wrongdoing, either). Universities, colleges, and bible colleges and seminaries should work to put an end to honorary doctorates and adopt honor labels that will force the credential-hungry to live and walk in truth.

I thought the Lord would allow me to pass by a sermon on Joseph, but He will not. In fact, events in the life of Joseph are central to the birth of Jesus because he was selected as Jesus’ earthly father, and his thoughts regarding Mary and her pregnancy could’ve derailed the entire plan of God regarding the birth of Jesus and the home into which He’d be born. We’ve studied Mary’s perspective, the woman who’d carry Jesus; it’s only fitting that we cover the male perspective with regard to Mary.

Science cannot explain everything, as it could not explain the angel Gabriel’s appearance to Mary; in the same way, science cannot explain how the Lord could know Joseph’s thought that Mary had been unfaithful — and send an angel to reveal to him the nature of Mary’s pregnancy. It’ll be another informative sermon about the extent of science and the even further-reaching nature of divine revelation (which, of course, implies the existence of the Divine).

We’d love to have you listen in as our recording goes live on Sunday. If you’ve been listening in to the sermons over these last near 5 months and want to let us know, please feel free to hit us up at the Contact page on the Main Menu. For those who want to reach out to us personally, please feel free to write us at essentialpastor@gmail.com and let us know you’ve been reading and listening to our sermons and Bible Studies.

We love you, pray for you constantly, and, if we don’t hear from you, want to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year (2018) in the Lord.

God Bless.

Pastor D.M. Richardson,

The Essential Church

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