Lie #4: Jesus Has A Dark Side Part 1

Study the life of Jesus do not accept any supernatural vendors of virgin birth of Christ is dismissed as these people. Jesus was his real father to see why there is no secret. Stay with us church in Chicago this morning to win with Dr. Sir, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line pastor Luther, why do some theologians these days denied the virgin birth date.

I think you've already answered your own question is because people don't want to believe in the supernatural. They don't believe in miracles. They come to the Scriptures with their minds welded shut, unwilling to believe what the Scripture actually teaches.

Despite the fact that we have very good historical evidence. Let me give you another lie that many people believe it is believed by some in the Muslim community that Jesus was not even crucified.

These are the kinds of lies ideal within the book, slandering Jesus six lies. People tell about the man who claimed he was God's an important book so that you understand what's happening in society. It'll be a blessing to you and to your family for a gift of any amount. It can be yours. Here's what you do go to RTW offer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337 and now we go to the pulpit of Moody church where I talk about an idea that arose in mythology that Jesus had a human father and I point out why believing the Scriptures is much more plausible. Let's listen to what, if everything that you knew about Jesus was wrong, exposing the greatest cover-up in history those of the taglines of the book the Jesus papers so many books are being written today about Jesus.

It's hard to keep up with them but I was in the Los Angeles airport about a month ago and I saw the book there and I had read about it earlier and so I decided to buy a copy and read it on the plane from Los Angeles to Chicago. The author, who is one of the co-authors of the book holy blood, holy Grail says that Jesus was crucified, but he survived the crucifixion. He was taken and he was put in that cool to man there and the tomb he revived and then he went to Egypt to live out the rest of his life there in a monastery. He also says that there are some Jesus papers that he has seen in Jerusalem that he wasn't able to translate.

He was shown them only very briefly and these Jesus papers apparently say that there was a man who claimed to be the son of God, but wouldn't you know it.

He said he was the son of God. Only in the sense in which others are also the son of God. So these are the Jesus papers that are going to expose the greatest cover-up of history when we do with all vast well. The book is based on all kinds of marginal unprovable assumptions imaginations and all of the eyewitness accounts of the New Testament are basically discounted. You know it's like something somebody being in an accident and they sell what evidence do you have that this happened or that happened but we have five or six witnesses were there who sought well yeah but let's find some other witnesses that weren't there and let's find what they have to say about it.

We have a strong rope not just a thread but a rope that goes right back to the historical Jesus, and you can pull on that rope you can push on it you can do whatever you like and it will not break because it is woven with so many different strands. Imagine in the New Testament. We not only have Matthew Mark Luke and John. But we have two brothers of Jesus two half-brothers of Jesus June and James, they wrote books and what they wrote. Can be corroborated by even secular history.

In some instances. Another thing about this book is that it uses the Bible whenever it fits its theory. In fact, it will go into the meaning of Greek words and and look at the text very carefully if it thinks it supports the basic imaginary thesis, but will disregard the Bible when it comes to all of the other important matters. I think it's important to say that there are many books that are written and you can describe it this way. They begin with the imagination what they imagine.

And then they say.

Possibly this could be true possibility leads to probability and then they say. Suppose it is true. And by the time you get to the end of the chapter. It is true, which is something like this if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and lays duck eggs, it's obviously a camel you civil pastor Luther why are you preaching on that this morning. Well, you're in the middle of the series, actually beyond the middle of a series entitled the Jesus deception lies that are being told about the man who claimed to be the son of God.

And this happens to be.

Message number four I believe it is number four. But the reason I'm bringing these messages is not because I've run out of things to preach on the reason I'm doing that is to inspire confidence within US sense of deep satisfaction that the evidence for Jesus is compelling and overwhelming. That is the evidence for the traditional Jesus. I know that the Bible is self affirming. When you introduce people to it. They when they begin to read it. They are often converted. I heard a marvelous story this past week in Dallas of a man who began to read the Bible and was converted from Islam. In fact, maybe next week I'll tell you that remarkable story. It has inherent power, but at the same time these books that are being written that cast doubt upon the Scriptures we need to have some understanding of them. We need to realize where the people are coming from because I want you high school students and college students and business people, and no matter what your work is, no matter where you find yourself, to know that when we when we talk about the Bible where holding a book that not only we believe because it's in the Bible, but we actually believe it because it is in point of fact, true, and I want you to have that confidence as you hold the Bible in your hands a more serious attack against the Christian faith comes from another book the Jesus dynasty by James table or he's the University of Chicago, a great scholar a great archaeologist and he would indicate that Jesus has a dark secret. Before I tell you what that secret is in his book the Jesus dynasty. He denies the virgin birth and writes and I quote the assumption of the historian is that all human beings have both a biological mother and father and that Jesus is no exception. That leaves two possibilities. Either Joseph or some other unnamed man was the father of Jesus. Now your member.

We dealt with this briefly last time, the philosophical circle.

Miracles can happen because they never happened and therefore there can't be any miracles which is of course circular reasoning buddies going on the assumption that it's not possible for God to have done something unique in the coming of Jesus. So he writes that this idea of humans being fathered by God's is quite common in Greco-Roman culture. He goes on to say that followers of Jesus invented these stories to honor Jesus and promote his exalted status. Interestingly, listen to this concession, he says. Granted, both Matthew and Luke include dreams and visions of angels, but the core of the story itself is that of the man who discovers that his bride-to-be is pregnant and knows that he is not the father. It has a realistic and thoroughly human quality to it. The narrative despite its miraculous elements rings true. Thank you, but not true enough for him to believe it.

He asks one of the virgin birth stories were created not to present Jesus as the divine Greco-Roman style hero, but to address a shockingly real situation. Mary's pregnancy before her marriage to Joseph and he goes on to speculate that possibly the father might be Pantera a story that dates back to 178 more than 100 years after the time of Jesus, a great philosopher by the name of Celsus wrote a book against Christianity in which he relates a tale that was circulating that Mary was pregnant by the Roman soldier Pantera so James table or made a trip to Germany, where apparently this Pantera is buried and I to try to find that real father of Jesus. So that's where were at. He saying that Jesus is a dark secret. Now I know that there are other things that he says about Jesus.

The dynasty and all, which is also false, but we can't go into that today.

I don't mean to imply that if you were conceived out of wedlock that you have a dark secret. By the way, because after all their people whom God uses mightily.

Just the other day I discovered that someone is a great Christian leader was actually conceived out of wedlock. God loves you as much as he loves all those of us who were born into into families. Just know that that you received and welcomed in love and God has a plan for your life but in the case of Jesus.

It would be a very dark secret because what it means would mean is that Jesus was not claimed to be, and unable to do what the New Testament says that he can do you see the virgin birth in the New Testament is is very different from pagan mythology. All I know, it's true that Zeus apparently was the father of the gods and father of people. Plato supposedly there was a legend was fathered by the God Apollo Alexander the great.

His mother became pregnant when she swallowed a pomegranate separate sector in the list could go on but you look at the New Testament. Are you telling me that the writers of the New Testament would borrow these ideas from pagan pathology at their most degrading point in Greek mythology, the gods were like humans full of lusts and jealousies and arguments and wars and in all of the other thing that has nothing to do with Christianity. You read the accounts of the New Testament and they are a Bay holiness, God is not involved in a sexual relationship God is doing a miracle for a very specific purpose. It's hard for us to believe that that Alexander the great's mother became pregnant and the way in which I described, because number one it has the ring of legend and number two Alexander the great was a sinner. He was a great man, but he was a sinner. He was one of us completely in the case of Jesus. It is so entirely different.

Yes indeed, he is man but is also God and you think of the miracles that he did the claims that he made and then in retrospect now we can look back at the resurrection of Jesus, and we can see what all that means and and Shirley. We understand that he was virgin born and I might say today had to be virgin born the necessity of the virgin birth, I want you to take your Bibles for a moment and were going to turn to two passages today.

The first is Matthew chapter 1 Matthew chapter 1 and we will see the virgin birth, described, and later on I'm going to give you the purpose of the virgin birth and will see why it is absolutely necessary for us to understand its significance. I'm going to jump right into the text in Matthew one, verse 16.

This is a genealogy and sometimes genealogies aren't very interesting, but it says in verse 16 and Jacob, the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born who is called Christ.

Of course, in this culture. The genealogies were always male so-and-so begat so-and-so males and in Greek. That little preposition of whom can be either feminine or masculine in English that's not so. We use the word whom, and it's a very same word whether it refers to a man or a woman, but in Greek it happens to be different than that the femininity or masculinity is determined in that little word whom and there in the text in chapter 1 verse 16 it says Mary whom that phrase is famine while breaking all preincident Matthew wants us to understand very clearly that Joseph is not the father of Jesus, but rather Mary is the mother of Jesus, whom, of whom Jesus was born, but he did not have an earthly father. Now you remember the story of the angel. It says in verse 19. Her husband Joseph, being a just man before they came together. It says in verse 18, she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit, verse 19, Joseph wonders what to do an angel comes to him and says in verse 20 Joseph son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

She will bear a son, and you will call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. By the way, Jesus lives up to his name. You see, he's the Savior.

It means the Lord is salvation, not everybody lives up to his name. There was a cemetery in which set on the tombstone sacred to the memory of Methuselah six months. He didn't live up to his name Methuselah you know is the man who lived the oldest. It's amazing how many names we don't live up to.

But Jesus lived up to his name.

Now let's notice carefully you'll call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken, behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, which means God with us. I know that if you're here today in your Hebrew scholar you might come to me later and say will the word all not in Isaiah 714, which is quoted here really means young woman and that's right. It means young woman is used. However, almost exclusively for young unmarried women, but it is young woman and the Septuagint translation, which is 200 years before the time of Christ, which Jesus may have used in some locations, which is a Greek translation of the Hebrew does use Parthenon from which we get the Parthenon Parthenon so I should say which means exclusively virgin. And that's the Greek word that's used here. Remember the Old Testament written in Hebrew, the New Testament written in Greek, so regardless of what Isaiah 714 means Matthew understood it to mean a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, but the question is why. Why couldn't Jesus have had Joseph Ora Pantera as his father. The angel that comes to Mary in Luke chapter 1 gives us the answer and will not turn there. I have another passage in mind for you but it says very clearly there.

The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born within you will be called a holy son of God. Jesus had to be conceived miraculously so that he would not have a sin nature so that he would be born in such a way that he would be preserved from original sin preserved from every taint of sin and maybe the blessed Holy Spirit of God use that which Mary as a mother would supply for the child Jesus may have looked like his mother Mary.

But Jesus looked like Joseph, it was because God just chose to make it that way.

That which was conceived in Mary had to be perfectly and completely holy and sinless, and that's why Jesus was born of a virgin, will you know my friend.

I need to confess that there is a great deal of controversy regarding the virgin birth. There are those who believe that Mary made no contribution to the life or the body of Jesus, but rather it was entirely done by God created within her. What we do know is this Jesus was absolutely sinless and he had to be in order to be our Redeemer. What a Savior we have, you know this gospel that we proclaim is so important to us that we are dedicated to getting the gospel of Jesus Christ to as many people as possible running to win is entirely funded by people like you. Those who believe in our ministry. Those who rejoice in the way in which the gospel is presented and were so glad to be able to report that because of people like you. Your prayers and your gifts, that running to win is now heard in at least 20 different countries of the world. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

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Thank you so much you are not just supporters. You are those who stand with as you are partners in this ministry investigate becoming an endurance partner go to RTW offer.com. Click on the endurance partner button or if you prefer, call us at 1-888-218-9337 thanks in advance for helping us. It's time again for you to ask Pastor Luther a question about the Bible or the Christian life. A listener named Pierce got in touch with us and that he wants a book review from Pastor Luther. He says I'm concerned about Dan Brown's new book the lost symbol. Brown talks about Freemasonry and seems to include many Gnostic ideas in his book. What do you think about his views will that of course is a long story.

Thank you so much for asking me about it. Just the other day in an airport. I saw the book for sale. The lost symbol. I didn't buy a copy and I don't intend to read it, but one of the books by Dan Brown that I did read is of course the da Vinci code as a matter fact I wrote a book against the da Vinci code entitled the da Vinci deception so I'm well aware of the way in which he promotes his ideas. Now, even though I've not read the lost symbol. I can tell you in advance that what Dan Brown probably does is to use some ancient documents and give them credibility.

That's of course what he did in the da Vinci code. In fact, he gave the Gnostic Gospels so much credibility more credibility than those of the New Testament. The second thing that he will do is to read into those documents. Things that aren't even there and make assumptions. He will have dots that seem to connect even though there is no real connection and then what he does is of course been a very wonderful exciting story, so we must be very careful word about the Gnostic Gospels the Gnostic Gospels were written by people who believed that they could harmonize Greek mythology. In Greek philosophy with Christianity in order to give their ideas, credibility. They wrote their documents attributing them to the apostles so you get the gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Philip, but everyone knows that their fraudulent documents and if you've ever read them. You'll understand why we know that they are fraudulent. They have no such things as the earmarks of actually being historical now for all of those reasons we need to remember that if we want to find real history, we have to go back to the Bible and when we do that we discover in the New Testament stories about Jesus that have all of the marks of being authentic and historical their references to times and places in rivers and cities and people. And when you read it you know that your reading something that is true. Well my friend you may or may not read of the lost symbol.

I have no plans to read it. But this much I know that the word of God stands sure and whatever Dan Brown says must be judged by what the Bible has to say. Have a good day all day thank you Pierce for your question.

Thank you Dr. Luther for those perspectives. If you'd like to hear one of your questions answered. Go to our website@rtwoffer.com and click on ask Pastor Luther or call us at 1-888-218-9337 that's 1-888-218-9337 you can write to us at the running to win 1635 N. LaSalle Boulevard Chicago, IL 60614. The sinful nature we all share was never passed on to Jesus so he could then be the perfect sacrifice for sin. Without that perfect sacrifice. None of us has a prayer of seeing eternal life with the father. Next time, unwilling to win more on slandering Jesus and live the truth of the virgin birth really matters. Thanks for listening.

This is Dave McAllister running to win is sponsored by the teacher