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Luke 1:37: For with God nothing shall be impossible. Mary's surprise and disbelief lay in the fact that God was to be made man, and that she should be the instrument whereby this would be achieved. The nation of the Jews two thousand years ago refused to believe it, and as a nation have refused to believe, ever since, that the event took place and could be ascertained by honest men at the time. What better hope is there of people living two thousand years afterwards being persuaded that these things are true? Well, there is much greater probability than many might imagine! People of average intelligence can be fully persuaded by the Word of God that they are true; that with God all things are possible (Mark 10:27). What men and women everywhere require in order to have faith is a thorough conviction that God is. We believe that there is one God and we must go on to believe that with God all things are possible. The being we thought was God could not be, were He unable to do the impossible. Moreover, the honest mind, as it turns to consider the Word of God, open to the light which God would give to us, is fully persuaded of the truth that God became man; that the Word was made flesh. Now it was necessary for God to become man in order to gain our salvation; nobody but God could work out our salvation. Consider the proportions of the task which had to be performed: God had to overturn a whole universe of evil before our souls could be saved. Colossal evil had come into the world, into God's creation, and how was it to be dealt with? We are all the victims of it, and many are willing victims. There is a delight in sin; a willing and wilful putting away of conviction and the light of God by the world at large. Even responsible human beings perform irresponsible acts; hence the world and all creation is plunged into depravity. And yet, in this very evil world most of us live tolerably comfortable and peaceful lives, for which we should thank God. If there were no God we would be in despair indeed, which is precisely the condition into which most of the world is travelling even at this moment. Even if there were no God to rescue us, no light at the end of the tunnel, no future for the human race, the very fact that we enjoy peace in some measure, with a degree of health and strength, with comfort of home and others to care for us, is plain proof that we who are only a sample of what goes on all over the world, despite the great evils, are an indication that evil does not absolutely reign in this world, that good is mightier than evil and that light will triumph over darkness at the end. How will God do this thing? The power of evil can only be broken down by the power of good, by deepest meekness and humility; suffering and bearing it until evil has done its utmost and its worst, and still cannot prevail against the soul. This is what lies behind these words, with God nothing shall be impossible, because God has set Himself to this task. Nobody but God was qualified to bear the evil, to turn its power upon Himself. In order to do this God had to be made man and enter into His own creation. This has been said before, but some of us are apt to forget the truth of such things and need to be reminded often. We must let God speak and let Him speak often; let Him say the same thing over and over again, until it enters into our very soul and becomes our life. God had to become man in order to destroy evil, to lift the burden from your soul and mine and open a way through death to eternal life. It was essential for God to deal with evil totally, and He could only deal with it totally by becoming man. He became man the only way He could, by being born of woman. There was no other way by which the eternal God could take on human nature but from human nature. He could not just assume the form of a man, even though He had often done that in Old Testament days. He assumed the form of a man when He came to speak to Abraham; He assumed the form of a man when He wrestled with Jacob at dead of night until the breaking of the day; He assumed the form of man on many occasions when He conversed with men. But He was not man; He only assumed the form of man! He was not capable of dying in the form that He took; He had to become man in order to die. Why could He not become an angel? He already was the archangel, but an angel cannot die; an angel cannot atone. Only a man can die; only as man could he bear the total evil of mankind and of all creation and open a way through death to eternal life. So He had to be born of woman; we should not be surprised at this because this is precisely what He said He would do, right at the beginning of the human race. The total population of this globe was just two people: one man, one woman; and God said in their hearing that the seed of the woman would bruise the head of the serpent which had brought sin and death into creation. And thou (the serpent) shalt bruise his heel. In effect, He was saying to the serpent, “You will slay Him by bringing all evil upon Him, but in slaying Him you will destroy yourself and bring to an end your own kingdom.” With God nothing shall be impossible; so He must become man, the seed of the woman. Why did He not become man from the beginning? Why wait through four thousand years of human history before becoming man? Was it not rather late in the day for Him to appear? No, it was not late in the day; it was the right time. The apostle Paul, writing to the Galatians, said that in due time the Son of God appeared. Again to the Romans, he said, In due time Christ died for the ungodly. In due time! that is at the proper time; the time when it would have been proved for over four thousand years that man, no matter what advantages were given to him, could not save his own soul; that he could not deliver himself from death; could not end the reign of sin. And so, after all things had been proved, at the very time which was proper for God to appear, we had these remarkable occurrences in Palestine. We have Zacharias, a priest of the Temple, performing his priestly duties, offering incense upon the golden altar; and the people waiting outside, not seeing what he was doing, but knowing by instruction what was taking place; waiting for him to return and pronounce a benediction upon them. He was delayed and they began to wonder what had happened inside; Zacharias did not appear for a long time and when he did he was dumb. He beckoned to them and they knew that he had seen a vision. An angel had appeared to him and told him he was to have a son whose name should be John, who should go before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah the prophet (see Luke 1:17). Now that was something that had been foretold too. The Old Testament was completed some five hundred years before Christ. Up to that time there had been a prophet in every generation from the time of Samuel, through the whole of the history of the Davidic monarchy and people of Israel. For hundreds of years Israel had never been without a prophet, from the days of Samuel until five centuries before Christ; and then prophecies suddenly ceased, ceased absolutely; the heavens were silent. No page of Holy Scripture was written for five centuries. The last prophet, under the name of Malachi, which means “my messenger”, wrote the short book which completes the Old Testament. Then there was this great time gap of five hundred years before ever angel appeared, or prophet arose, or any voice from God came from heaven. Five centuries of silence after many centuries of God speaking; and this was the last thing that God said through the prophet Malachi in the last two verses of the Old Testament: Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. This is the promise of John the Baptist's coming, which is another way of saying that he shall speak peace, and declare the coming of the Messiah. So John the Baptist came in the spirit and power of Elijah the prophet. Some people will say that Elijah did not come; it was John the Baptist. Then the Lord Jesus says (Matthew 17:12), But I say unto you that Elias (Elijah) is come already, and they knew him not. Anyone who knows how prophecy is delivered and how prophecy is to be interpreted and understood, will know clearly and plainly that, although prophecy is couched in such terms and comes by such a method, it can only be received in the end by faith, and not by sight. There were many who heard John the Baptist and witnessed the great forerunner of the Saviour, preparing the way for the coming of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords; God become man. John did not look like a courtier. “What went ye out into the wilderness to see?” says Christ; “A man clothed in soft raiment?” Why! you find such in kings’ palaces; but here is a man who came in rough garments of the skins of animals, girt around the middle with a leather girdle; a strange man who did not look as though he belonged to this world at all. Yet John the Baptist was a fitting herald for One who was about to come and be despised and rejected of men. If someone invented a story about God becoming man, it would have been different from what we find in the gospel of Luke, or any of the other gospels. He would have been born in a king's palace with a golden spoon in His mouth. He would have been heralded by men who were sent out with the usual panoply of royalty, in garments of silk and of gold, with trumpets blaring before them and a proclamation being made that a Son had been born, who was God Almighty. But God does not do things like that; you cannot sound a trumpet before God in that way. God, who has no competitor for His glory, only seeks His own glory in ways which will accomplish His purpose, and that purpose is to destroy evil by drawing upon Himself all evil. Therefore we perceive the wisdom of God, that John the Baptist should have been foretold and been expected for five long centuries; that eventually he should come and not be believed; that the One he announced should be born six months after him. He should not be believed either; He would be despised and rejected, because the only way by which evil could be overcome in you and in me, and by which we can overcome sin and death, is faith; believing, that “with God all things are possible”. God just does not lift sin away from us and say, “Now you are all forgiven of your sins.” Before sin can be forgiven, you must come for forgiveness; you must believe in forgiveness; you must believe in that colossal act by which God overthrew sin and death for you. Sin has to be overthrown in you; the love of it; the love of this world. You have to be turned away from yourself and all that that means. By nature we are totally depraved; by nature not one of us is righteous, no not one; we are become altogether unprofitable. “There is none that doeth good, no not one,” says the scripture, and that verdict is true. This is the evil which God has set Himself to deal with to bring about transformed lives. “Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” "We have to believe." "And what will believing do?" “Believing will save your soul; that's what believing will do!” “What! just believing?” “Yes, just believing.” “Believing what?” “Believing the testimony that God has given of His Son, and that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself.” And that is the salvation which He brings to you; salvation which cleanses your soul, gives you eyes to see, ears to hear and hearts to understand; takes away the darkness, and lets the light pour into your soul so that you see things you have never seen before. Things become plain which before were a mystery, as everyone testifies who has come by this road and has believed in the Saviour. Why should you not believe? The story of the virgin Mary giving birth to a son was true; without the intervention of a married husband. The Saviour was virgin born! Is that a story that anyone can believe? Yes indeed! Millions have believed it and still believe it. Some of the greatest of mankind have believed it; not that that makes it more veritable because great men believe it. Ordinary men and women believe it; boys and girls have believed it. God has shaped their minds and brought them into contact with the truth that, after all, if God was to be born of woman it must have been a miracle. It was said from the very beginning, some four thousand years earlier, that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head to bring to nothing his empire of sin and darkness; therefore it must happen sometime or other that God was to be born of woman, conceived by the Holy Ghost. Mary said, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? And the angel replied, 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. And behold, thy cousin Elizabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren. He was to be the prophet, John the Baptist, and so the angel spoke of the lesser to Mary that she might be convinced of the greater. She knew all about Elizabeth, about the fact that she and her husband were childless and very old, too old to have a family; yet now it was six months with her who never had a child, never could have a child. “For,” said the angel, “with God nothing shall be impossible.” Mary bowed her head and said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. There is no more sublime utterance or act of faith than that which was performed at that moment by the simple Jewish maiden we know as Mary. She bowed her head before the decree of God and said, in effect, “Let this impossible thing be done to me and through me.” The more we consider it, the more magnificent is her utterance; the more sublime her faith; the more wonderful that she should ever have believed that such a thing could take place, and that she had not been dreaming. Such is faith which believes in the God with whom all things are possible; and that applies to your every day life. The problems you have to face may be very great, but are nothing like the problem which was presented to Mary, that simple Jewish maiden who believed that all things were possible with God. All things are possible for you too; in the blessing of God there is nothing He cannot do for you; nothing He will not do that will be for your good and, more than any thing else, He will do this thing for you, which was otherwise impossible because of your sinfulness and disobedience. He will not only provide us with a Saviour, but He will bring us to the Saviour; and He will save our guilty souls, not when we die or after we die, but here and now. He transforms us and makes us new creatures in Christ Jesus, for “with God all things are possible.” Do you believe the promise that God has made in His Word (Matthew 11:28-29)? Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. Rest in Him by faith; believe that Christ has died for you; believe that He is your Saviour. Give yourselves to Him, even as your heads and your hearts are bowed before Him, for with God, nothing shall be impossible. Amen

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