Christmas: How is God speaking to Man? Isaiah 9:6, Hebrews 1:1-4
Isaiah 9:6 · Roger Henderson · Dec 22, 2024
Specials, No. 02
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261937438166

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Well I get the privilege of doing the Christmas message this year. So my thought was, actually I had this thought in the past time, so I had some old thoughts and I kind of repackaged them and hopefully this will be instructive. And actually I've incorporated some things I've learned from Romans 10.

So anyway, my first chart here, this time of year we think about, I can remember back before being a believer. When Christmastime came along, for some reason, we went to church occasionally. I was baptized into church, but I wasn't a believer. I didn't know the Lord Jesus. But I thought Christmastime was a special time, so I ought to do something about that. So I would go out of the house, get in my father's car, lock the doors, and just sit there and pray or do something. And I felt I was getting closer to God. nothing much happened. It took 10 years or longer before I ever trusted in the Lord Jesus and my Savior. Maybe 15. It was a long time in my 30s, much like Mike.

So this message is about how is God speaking to man? So the interesting point is The whole question of God and man, since God is our Creator, is about God being interested in us. We love because He first loved us. It's not so much, well, I've got to figure out God. No, God knows about you. He loves you. And He has a plan for every man and every woman in this world.

So, some questions that we could ask in this light. So the first question is, how did God speak to man in past times? And we have his word, we have the Bible, we'll look at that a little bit. How did God speak to man at Christ's birth? We also have some good scriptures on that, very appropriate for this time of year. And then the last area, how is God speaking to men and women today in soon to be 2025? How is he speaking to man?

So let's get into that. So the Hebrews passage is very instructive here. God after he spoke long ago to the fathers and the prophets in many portions in many ways. So let's just kind of look through that. So God spoke long ago. And it's actually, the verb actually, it's an aorist. It was a point in time. He spoke factually to man. And it was long ago or in times past.

So literally you could say God spoke to the Father by means of the prophets in times past. And the prophets here, you know, I struggled a little bit with that. Is that just the name prophets in the Old Testament or could that be expanded? It looked like to me that was anyone, any man that spoke God's word, that could be Moses, etc. So any godly man who spoke God's word in his direction could be in this category.

So the two descriptions here, the message was in many portions, literally bit by bit. And the second part of that is in many ways. In dreams, we saw dreams, we see visions, we see face to face. That's the way we see God speaking to man in times past.

So let's look at this. Let's look at just several of the named prophets here. So if you think about it, the prophets, as we looked at in our Micah class, they spoke a long time ago, right? In terms of Christ's birth, they spoke 700 years before the birth of Christ. Pretty incredible.

And one of the passages, the one that Ryan read here, Isaiah 9.6, for a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us, the government will rest upon his shoulders, and his name will be called.

I'm going to stop there. I put a comma there, I added a comma. Some translations have wonderful, this is sort of an interesting point. There's actually five names. He's called Wonderful in other passages, so it's Wonderful is a name for him, Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. So actually five names there, as best I can tell. Let me know if you think differently.

And then Micah, we'll be studying this soon, actually not until January. We didn't time our class to align with the Micah passage. But in Micah 5.2, but as for you, Bethlehem, Ephrathah, too little to be among the clan of Judah. from you one will go forth from me to be ruler of Israel. His going forth are from long ago from the days of eternity." Just incredible verses. So that's the prophet speaking a long time ago.

So what about at Christ's birth? So we have quite a bit of information. You look in Matthew. Well, first of all, you look at all the prophecies. There's tons of those. And then we see those repeated in the New Testament. But actually, Matthew and Luke, the first chapters there, are very instructive. So we look at those quite a bit. So we actually have The men and women God spoke to by angels, the ones I'm going to cover today are going to be Zacharias, Mary, and Joseph. Pretty familiar passages, I think we've probably heard them so many times, they're kind of in our minds and our hearts.

I was going to look at the shepherds and the magi, but I decided, I got to 28 charts and I said, I better stop. They want to go home at some point, right? So I decided not to do the shepherds and the magi. It's good to read that. So we're going to focus on the angels. Actually, it's only going to be one particular one, it looks like. Well, I can tell. So we're going to look at Zacharias, Mary, and Joseph here. All right, so let's start out. Before I do that, here's a verse that kind of puts it in context, if you will. Back to Hebrews again. We didn't read this one. Hebrews 2, 2A.

For if the word spoken through angels proved unalterable, now like Weiss here he says, for in view of the fact, so if is a sense or a positive statement, for in view of the fact that the word spoken by angels was steadfast. or literally, authentic, it was proved sure.

So what the angels, they spoke the true word from God to man. They were sent by God for a purpose to communicate what he was planning to do about the birth of Christ. And the verses we'll look at shortly here. So at the birth of Christ, God used angels to communicate His plan.

We're going to see two instances of face-to-face. You might argue one might be a vision, but the more I looked at it, I don't think it's a vision. Two face-to-faces, that's a word, and then one in a dream. I can't tell you why He did dreams and face-to-face. I'm not sure I didn't go down that path. Interesting stuff, though. So let's start out.

Zacharias. So Zacharias, he was a priest and it was his time, if you read the context, it was his time to be in the temple, the altar of incense. So he was there and it says, an angel of the Lord appeared to him standing to the right of the altar of incense and Zacharias was troubled when he saw the angel and fear gripped him. So we're told later, this angel is identified, this angel of the Lord is identified as Gabriel later on. So the angel says, Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your petition has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son. You will give him the name John, and we know from other passages John the Baptist. For he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He will drink no wine or liquor. He will be filled with the Holy Spirit while yet in his mother's womb.

And he goes on and says, and he, John, will turn many of the sons of Israel back to the Lord their God. And it is he, John, who will go forth as a forerunner. before Jesus Christ and the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous. So we see the thrust here is that John the Baptist is going to be a forerunner. He's going to come before Christ. He's going to be chosen by God with the Holy Spirit. We were talking today in Sunday school. This is your Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are really Old Testament, right? Because he says he's given the Holy Spirit especially for a special purpose to communicate about the Lord Jesus coming.

But here's the problem. Zacharias has got a problem here. Okay. So you probably scratched your heads like I did about this verse many times. So Zacharias not unusually says, how do I know this for certain? For I am old, and my wife is advanced in years." And I like to say he played the old age card.

I don't know, it just hit me, I was looking at that. But you know what's interesting, he doesn't, for whatever reason, imagine yourself, you know if you're in front of someone who has the authority and power, in this case it's an angel who's been sent from God, he's going to tell them that in a second.

Isn't that enough? He wants to know, I want to know for certain. Well I'm here telling you, it's for certain. So it seems, and he is judged for that apparently, we'll see what his punishment is, but he's judged for that. He said, it sounds a little harsh to me, doesn't it? No, I don't know. How will I know for certain? Well, I'm here.

So here's what Gabriel says. Gabriel's maybe a little hot under the collar. I don't know if he can say that or not. He says, I'm Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God. I've been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. Pretty stern statement. And then he says, well, here's what's going to happen.

And behold, you shall be silent, unable to speak, until the day when these things take place, because you did not believe my word. So that's the key part. He didn't really believe him. And that's made it hard to get from the text, but the angel says, you didn't believe me. So we trust him. Trust God's word here. Which will be fulfilled in the proper time.

So then we have, it's down in verse 24 and 25 it says, and after these days Elizabeth became pregnant and said, this is the way the Lord has dealt with me in the days when he looked upon me with favor, to take away my disgrace among men. Okay, so that's Zacharias. So let's go on to Mary. So the background here, again, we're going to see what I would call a face-to-face again. We start off, again, it's Gabriel in this case, the angel Gabriel. And this is all in Luke, Luke chapter 1.

I just have the verse numbers on the side there. The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, the descendant of David, and the virgin's name was Mary. So it's just like the angel walks in the door. And coming in, so the angel walks in the door.

And I was kind of thinking, you know, you look at what's been written about the nation of Israel, they were much about spectacular things. Just think about the burning bush, think about all the hundreds of different things. They were about spectacular, awe-inspiring things happening. So that's the way God communicated it seemed with Israel. And He still was doing it at this time period.

And coming in He said to her, greetings favored one, the Lord is with you. And Mary, but she, Mary, was perplexed at the statement and kept pondering what kind of salutation this was. The angel Gabriel said, do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God, and behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great, and we will call the Son of the Most High. and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. He will reign over the house of Israel forever and his kingdom will have no end. Now Mary, she seems to have an objection here, but the angel doesn't call her out for this.

It seems to me this is an honest question because Mary's thinking, she says, well how, he just told her she's going to have a baby. But she's thinking, I've never been with a man, I don't, That doesn't happen that way. I know you're an angel. You're pretty smart, but it doesn't happen that way to my knowledge. It's an honest question. I'm a virgin. I haven't been with a man. It can't happen that way. He's going to say, well, it's going to happen that way, which is pretty cool.

So the angel Gabriel said, the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. And for that reason, the Holy Child should be called the Son of God. And Mary said, Behold, I skipped a couple of verses in there. Behold, the bonds of the Lord may be done to me according to your word.

So she had a question which seemed to be an honest question. And he didn't take that as being unbelief. Okay, that's Mary. Let's go on to Joseph. Okay, so the birth of the birth of Jesus was this fallen now This is in we go to Matthew now first chapter of Matthew isn't interesting first chapter of Luke first chapter of Matthew have most information When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together She was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit and Joseph Her husband being a righteous man not wanting to disgrace her a plan to send her away secretly So I guess this wasn't the first time this ever happened, that a girl might be pregnant and not married. I mean, you know, it happens, right?

So that was apparently the usual practice. And he said he was a righteous man, so he didn't want to make a big deal. He didn't want to embarrass her. But his mind is going to be changed here. But when he had considered this, now in this case, is going to be in a dream.

The angel of the Lord in a dream, it says in the text, I didn't exactly state it, Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife For the child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And I kind of tried to bold that blue a little bit and that's a cool word in the Greek called ek, out of as a source. So the child is out of a source of the Holy Spirit. Pretty amazing.

Many, many confirmations about this is God in the flesh, God and man, the God man, the God child. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from his sins. One of the many, one year I did a study, this is back with Courtney many eons ago, 40 years ago at Bellevue, whenever it was, a long time ago. I did a study on, where it says, Jesus will save us from his sins. We look in the Old Testament, New Testament, there's an awful lot of verses that talk about that. This is one of the ones.

He will save his people from their sins. Okay, going on, still in the dream. This took place, that was spoken, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bear a son, and they will call his name Immanuel, which translated means God with us. So Joseph awoke from his sleep, and it is the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took Mary as his wife, but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a son. and he called his name Jesus.

Great stuff, great stuff. Okay, so now, just a quick, this is supposed to be a quick overview again. Maybe it's a bit much. So basically what I want to do here is just kind of review. So, you know, God had a message for Zacharias. He had a message for Mary and a message for Joseph. So again, his message for Zacharias was that he was going to go before. He was going to be a forerunner to the Lord Jesus Christ. He was going to turn Israel back to the Lord. So he was much about preparing the way for the Lord.

Whereas Mary, he had to explain to Mary what was going on. I mean, if she didn't have some information, it would be pretty terrible. So he talks about the virgin birth, how that's possible, how it will happen. And he talks about how the Lord Jesus will be given the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. And he goes on and then he kind of closes that about how it's going to happen.

The power of the Most High will overshadow you. And it comes down to the fact that it's God with us. He'll be called the Son of God, which is God with us. I was kind of struck that he tells Joseph the same thing about God being with us. And he says to Joseph, do not be afraid to take Mary, your wife, for the child who has been conceived in you is, again, of the Holy Spirit as a source. And he goes on, and he ends here, you will name him Immanuel, God with us.

This message is in three parts. We've had the prophets talking about the birth of the Lord Jesus. We've had the angels appearing to Zacharias and Mary and Joseph. So now we move on to the third part of this. How is God speaking to man today? So 2025 is around the corner, right? About a week or so, we're gonna be there. So how is God speaking to man today? So, wonderfully, we have that information in our Bibles, it's right there. But sometimes, you know, it's amazing how it may be overlooked, or not understood. Okay, so let's start out. So back to Hebrews again, the second verse in chapter one.

In these last days, in these last days spoken to us in his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the world." So let's just look at that. Last days. So what are the last days? You know, days in Scripture is a whole topic unto itself. I believe this one, and I'm interested in your comments, I think this is right. It's a period from Christ's birth to the end of the present heavens and earth. So that's a discussion unto itself. And you'll see in the last days, terrible times will come. It's used, and I think Peter uses it in other places, in the last days.

In the last days, this is how God's going to speak to man. God has spoken to us, and the word His has been added, so it's literally, God has spoken in Son. And I think that really is focusing on the character and the essence of Jesus Christ. He's spoken in His Son, in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's how He's spoken to us.

Okay, so let's go on. So the second part of the verse. Now the second part into verse three are all about these marvelous attributes of our Savior. Just the most incredible, just a list, if you will, of these incredible attributes. whom he appointed heir of all things, all things fall under his authority, through whom he made the world, all things came into being through him. We continue on next, I'm just going to read the bullet points here, which is basically the verse repeated again.

He is the radiance of his glory and the exact representation of his nature. If you've seen me, you've seen the Father, he said many times, he's God in the flesh, He upholds all things by the word of his power. When he made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. So I kind of did this for context. After declaring his first part, he makes a statement about who he is. So let's carry on here.

Okay, but what's interesting is, in Christ's time face-to-face with man on this earth, there came a point, prior to the cross, He made kind of a startling statement, which seemed kind of contradictory. In John 16, 7, He says, But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the Helper, the Holy Spirit, will not come to you. But if I go away, I will send Him to you. Pretty interesting one.

So Christ was speaking face-to-face. Wouldn't it be nice if we just had Christ around all the time with me, 24-7? But that wasn't His plan or purpose. That wasn't what He was going to do. He says, first of all, just kind of repeating, it's to your advantage. It's advantageous if I go away. Secondly, if I don't go away, the third person of the Trinity, God the Holy Spirit, is not going to come. But if I go away, Christ is going to send them to us.

Pretty amazing. This whole passage in John 14, 15, 16 are all just really marvelous verses. So the Holy Spirit is going to come when Christ goes to be with the Father. But today, so now that's happened, right? That's transpired. Christ went to the cross, the Holy Spirit's come. So the Holy Spirit today is at work. It's kind of interesting, we got into that discussion in Sunday School a little bit.

The Holy Spirit was at work in times past in the Old Testament, He's at work today. And His ministry, He has a two-fold ministry. He has a ministry, okay? He has a ministry to believers, and that's who he spoke it to. He spoke it to the disciples there, or the saved. He also has a ministry to the unbeliever, or sometimes in the Bible it's called the world.

So, at this point, when I'm preparing my lesson, I said, okay, where do I go? Do I want to give a description? Do I want to have column A, unbeliever, column B, believer, and I go back and forth, back and forth? Or, why don't we just study the real thing? Let's just study a believer. Let's just look at that. We'll just do believer. Ain't like you study a counterfeit. Do you look at the counterfeit all the time or do you look at the real dollar bill? Let's look at the believer. Let's do that first. There's plenty to say about the unbeliever. There's plenty of words, plenty of things to caution men not to be unbelieving. But let's just look at the believer for now. So the question is, what does it mean to be a believer?

And maybe you're here, maybe you've come to church different times, and you've been asked that question, are you a believer? And you, well, yeah, I read what it says. I've read your doctrinal statement. I've read what it says in your flyer. Yeah, I'm a believer. If you're listening, you've got to scratch your head and say, I don't think they got the point. OK. So the question is, if a believer has to believe in something, right? That's by its very nature. So who or what am I to believe in?

The Bible doesn't mince words here. It doesn't say you've got option A, B, C, D. It says you're putting all your eggs into one basket. You know, like you play in the stock market, it says diversify, diversify, diversify. In the Christian life, it's specify, specify, specify.

We are to believe in a person, not a religion. So another question people ask you, what religion are you? Well, you know, some of us, if you're kind of a little bit gutsy, you say, well, I don't have a religion. I only have a Savior, or something to that effect. But the Bible is very specific. We're not believing in a religious system, we're believing in a person. And the person is the Lord Jesus Christ. And then you say, well, why do I have to do that? Why do I have to? No. And the scripture is very clear. Very, very clear.

It says, all men, mankind if you will, men and women, all men have sinned and are falling short of the glory of God. I kind of changed that a little bit because that's an action that's ongoing. Present tense, it's continually going on. Men outside of Christ are continually falling short. They don't get a little bit better one, they're not gradually going, I'm getting better, getting better, I'll get to my goal, whoop, I'm there. No, it doesn't work that way.

They're continually falling short, and they'll remain falling short until they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. But, let's look at how much God loved us. He loved us before we ever came on this planet. Let's go back, let's go way, way back, to eternity past. That hurts your head a little bit.

In eternity past, Hebrews, in the chapter, Hebrews 13, In eternity past, Jesus said He would lay down His life for the sins of all mankind, and God the Father said He would raise Him up again. So back in eternity past, God was solving this sin issue. So they already had decided that the Son would lay down His life and the Father would raise Him up again. So by Jesus' death, and He died, and we always point out two aspects here, for our sins and for its nature, pretty important.

So sin, really, sin is no longer the issue between God and man. So just if you're thinking here and you're thinking, well, so God is not interested, it's not that He's not interested in sin, it's that His Son has paid for that sin. That sin issue has been dealt with. So what is God interested in? He's interested in our belief, our understanding of who Christ is and what He's done.

We are to believe that we are sinners by nature and by deed, and there's a lot to be said about that. We've talked about that a lot, maybe in the last year. We sinned in Adam. When Adam sinned, we sinned, and the whole ramifications of that. So the big picture view, if you will, is that we do accept Jesus' payment for our sins. Don't try to be better. Don't try to be working, I'm getting better every day, and soon I'll get there. No, that's not, no. You have to realize you can do nothing. You have to put your faith totally in what Christ has done.

But you might ask, give me some more details. Is there more to be said about this? And there is. I struggle, what is God's methods, what is God's plan, what has He revealed about how an unbelieving world is to come to know Him? Are there verses or scriptures that talk to that, that I can read, that I can share with other people? And there are. One of the first ones is, and I kind of have an ABC here. I don't like A, B, C's or 1, 2, 3 because I think about refrigerator lists and I know that they're verboten here at Holly Hills. I can't have a refrigerator list otherwise Mike's going to come to my house and rip it off my refrigerator.

Anyway, so the first point or A point here is that in John 16, 8, and he, the Holy Spirit when he comes will convict or convince, we're going to talk about that more in a second, will convict or convince a world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. For today's message I'm just going to confine it to sin, and another day we can talk about righteousness and judgment. So Christ has gone back to the Father, right?

The Holy Spirit is in the world. We talked a little bit about His ministry to the believer. This is his ministry to the unbelieving world. He's out there convincing them, convincing them, and what's that about? The Holy Spirit is bringing the facts of our sin to light by use of a proof. He's proving to us, he's proving to us that we're sinners, in a sense.

That's what he's about. He's about that, and that's one of the most comforting things. Every person, every loved one that you care about, the Holy Spirit, this is a promise. This is a promise he's made. He's in the world. He's convincing them of their sin, proving that they're sinners.

I like what Macaulay said here in the last bullet here, the Holy Spirit is the source of conviction, the Word of God is a means of conviction, and the human messenger is the agent of conviction. So as we talk to relatives, as we talk to loved ones, as we talk to people passing by, we give them this wonderful message about the Lord Jesus. But there's more, more to be said. So that's the A. So here we go to the B. And B came along.

I got really excited about B. Romans 10.17 had become one of my new favorite verses. Listen to J. Vernon McGee. Every verse is his new favorite verse, right? That's the favorite verse. That's the last favorite verse. Anyway, this is a Weiss translation.

So we're talking about belief or faith, which are somewhat synonymous. So then, faith or belief is out of the source of that which is heard, and that which is heard is through the agency of the word concerning Christ. So let's look at that a little bit more. So faith and belief comes from the message heard from God.

And this is a huge point, because I kind of realized that I maybe had this wrong in my head. It's a message. It's a message we believe is key. Any old message won't do. There's a song, so and so won't do. Any old message won't do. It's a particular message.

So faith is based on the content of the message, not just hearing it. Unfortunately, I've explained to people the wrong way historically, and I'm sorry I did that, but I'm so thankful through this study it's in Hebrews, Romans, wherever we're at. Anyway, so faith is based on the content of the message heard. Once you've heard this message, the Bible says faith is possible. The message heard, according to the last part of this verse, is a word which is concerning Christ or is preached about Christ. The message heard is to be responded to by faith. Boy, to me this is just huge.

It's not this ocean of things. I don't have to believe an ocean of things about God. He wants me to believe one, there's one central thing He wants me to know. If I have doubts about God, have doubts about myself, what is the one thing God wants me to know? He wants to know this message about His Son, Jesus Christ. And we're going to talk, that's coming next. So what is this message that needs to be heard about Jesus Christ? And this is no new message, this is the one you've heard hopefully every day here at Holly Hills, every Sunday at Holly Hills. This message is the gospel.

And Paul thinks the gospel is so important that early on in Romans he tells us, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. Boy, that's just huge. So this message to be heard, this gospel message has power. When you believe the gospel, salvation can occur.

So now we're going to look at the gospel, 1 Corinthians 15. So this is a message heard. This is a message that you direct people to. This is a message that can save a man's soul. And the first verse of 15, it says, introduce it, it says, Now I, Paul, make known to you, brethren, the gospel, which I preach to you, which also you receive, and which also you stand.

So now we jump to verse 3, For I deliver to you as of first importance that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, He was buried He was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. and he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. So as before, I mentioned many times before, he got kind of like couplets. He died, validated by his burial. He was raised, validated by his appearance. And those are all verbs. They're all verbs. He died, he buried, he was raised, he appeared.

This is, and you think, that message is too simple. That can save my soul, that message? God says it does. It says it has power. You could read those words in a couple of seconds, or a minute maybe, but it's what's behind. Christ's death is a huge topic, right? We spend our entire lives understanding the implications of His death on the cross for us, for our sins. So I thought I'd end this. Let's just say, what's a believer's What has he attained? What can he rest in? What is a believer's life like? So I just started writing some stuff down.

And all of this you know, I didn't put the verses in, but you can get the verses if you want. First, a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ has passed out of death or separation from God into eternal life. Eternal life starts the moment you believe. All my sins, past, present, and future have been paid for. I'm now separated from my sins and the source of my sins, my sin nature. So that's kind of a positional statement. The next part is kind of the conditional part.

As I walk by the Spirit, I will not carry out the desires of the flesh or the sinful nature. I'm now in this living union with the Lord Jesus Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. Christ is my life. Just a wonderful thing. Not I, but Christ.

And then, how about my service to the Lord? We've been created in Christ Jesus for good works, which who prepared, I prepared beforehand, God prepared beforehand, so that we would walk in them. And then lastly, we have this wonderful blessing, and from Ephesians 1-3, I think it is, God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has blessed us with some spiritual blessing, with every spiritual blessing. in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

Just wonderful, wonderful things that a believer has. I would implore you, if something in this message caused you to think about, maybe you're confused about believing, ask. Ask your neighbor, ask your friend, ask somebody here. Anyway, I wish you a Merry Christmas, and let's just close in prayer.

Your Heavenly Father, we thank you so much, Lord. We thank you for the blessings we have in our Savior. Thank you for your word that presents clearly what our problem is and how you, through your love for us, have solved that problem, Lord. We thank you so much for our Savior and what he accomplished on Calvary. Amen.