I know you have scientists experimenting with all kinds of genetic engineering today, but this fact remains true. No woman has a child without a man. I’ve often smiled when I’ve looked down and heard people say they struggle to believe in the virgin birth. They say it’s a struggle for them, how do you think it was for me? Welcome to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith, I’m David Peck, and Colin, so Joseph’s fiancé comes to him and says, I’m going to have a baby, and he had no part in that. He had absolutely no part in it, and of course that is the miracle of the virgin birth. But what extraordinary faith he had, and what obedience he had. The angel gives him the special word that he is not to put Mary away, because God is doing something, and so this man has to persevere through all the difficulties that he must have felt internally, and experienced perhaps externally, in order to be faithful to what God was calling him to do. Well obviously Joseph’s been dead for quite some while now, but if he was around today, how do you think he would respond if someone said to him, I have a hard time believing this virgin birth thing? Well he would be the very best witness we could call, wouldn’t he? And that’s the point of the story today, as we go into another first person, eye view version of the Christmas story. What a great witness he is to the great thing that God is doing in stepping into the world in Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary. So today we’re in chapter one of Matthew’s Gospel, so I hope you’ll join us as we hear Joseph’s story. Here’s Colin. Well it really is wonderful to be here, you know John and Simeon have told me about what a wonderful group of people you are, they really enjoyed their time down here with you. Of course I’ve been in heaven with them for the last two thousand years, you understand, although we don’t count time like you do. By the way that is where I got this accent, though I’m sure that John and Simeon told you the same thing. By the way I took the opportunity of having a look at some of the tools you have in Home Depot. I tell you, the chippies in my day could not have imagined the tools that some of you have in your homes. I tell you, if I could travel back to the first century and try and describe to some of my old mates some of the stuff that you’ve got there, your skill saws and your cordless drills, I’m telling you, they would not be able to conceive of what I was describing to them. And by the way, if I was to tell you about heaven you’d have the same problem. But I want to tell you that what’s there is as real as the stuff in Home Depot, and it lasts for much longer. Anyway, I’ve got a marvellous story to tell you today, because I had a ringside seat for the greatest event that has ever happened in the history of the world. Now as I tell you my story, you’ll understand that there was a lot of travelling involved. And I’m told that there are some children in the service today, so you might be interested as we go through the story to add up the number of miles that Mary travelled. And if you can add it up, you might like to tell me afterwards how many you think it really was. Well now of course you all know that I was the one who was pledged to be married to Mary. I knew that she was the one for me from the first time that I saw her. What I didn’t know was that she had been chosen by God to bear the child that had been promised to the world since the beginning of time. The first thing you need to know about Mary’s child is that his birth had absolutely nothing whatever to do with me. You see, for us, the union between a man and a woman was sacred. It was to be kept for marriage. You know, there’s a purity about the union of one man and one woman in marriage that isn’t found anywhere else. I know a lot of folks in your day have lost sight of that, and I tell you from up there we see the pain and the insecurity that comes as a result. Of course we never faced the pressure that some of you younger folks are facing through all the advertising that assaults your mind every day. But I can tell you that I have no regrets about the choice that we made. And if you choose to obey God in this matter, you will have no regrets either. I had kept myself for Mary, and Mary had kept herself for me. And that’s why, you see, I was completely devastated when she came to me with the news that was to shatter our entire world. I don’t know if you remember how she started the conversation, and I can’t imagine the trauma that it was for her to begin to try and tell me. All I remember is that she said the word pregnant, and when she said that word I just about went through the roof. She said it wasn’t like I thought. And she had some story about an angel appearing to her, but I wasn’t able to listen to any of that. I couldn’t take it in after I’d heard that word. It would take an angel to make me believe what you’re trying to tell me, I said to her. I may have lived 2,000 years ago, but that doesn’t make me naive nor foolish. I know that no woman has a child without a man. I know you have scientists experimenting with all kinds of genetic engineering today, but this fact remains true. No woman has a child without a man. So I’ve often smiled when I’ve looked down and heard people say they struggle to believe in the virgin birth. They say it’s a struggle for them, how do you think it was for me? You may think you’re more sophisticated in your scientific age than we were, but I tell you no one in human history ever had more problems over this issue than me. Put yourself in my position, what would you have thought? Well all I can tell you is that I was absolutely distraught. My dream of a wonderful marriage had in a moment become a nightmare. Of course there was no way that I could go forward with the marriage. How could I do such a thing with one who had betrayed my trust, at least that’s how I saw it at the time. I still loved her, I still cared for her, I didn’t want to hurt her, but moving ahead with the marriage was simply not an option for me. And that was when she told me that she thought the best thing to do was for her to go away. She had a cousin, Elizabeth, who lived about 70 miles away in Judea. I think I should go there for a while, she said, and then she was gone. My world was absolutely shattered. One minute I’m on the brink of a beautiful marriage, and the next I’m sitting in my woodshop alone. The strangest thing to me at that time was that while I was in an absolute panic over all of this, Mary had a radiance about her. In all the trauma of what she was trying to tell me, she was not filled with shame, but with joy. And that was something I just could not begin to understand. Then one night, I had an experience unlike anything else that ever happened to me in all of my life. An angel of the Lord appeared to me in a dream. Now by the way, I notice there’s a lot of talk about angels in your country today. Most of it, of course, is wild speculation, you do know that, don’t you? I find it interesting, you might be interested to know this yourselves, that it was precisely the same in my day. In fact, from the end of the period when the Old Testament was written up until my generation, there was all kinds of wild speculation about the activity of angels. Most of it was sentimental nonsense. The fact is, you never heard more from people who knew less. Let me tell you something worth remembering about angels. Angels are servants of God. Angels have the ministry of glorifying the Lord Jesus Christ. So the best way to be discerning when you hear stories about angels is to ask this question, has this activity led people to think more or less of Jesus Christ? That’s how you discern the activity of angels. If it hasn’t led a person to think more of Jesus Christ, it isn’t the activity of an angel, or at least not the kind of angel you want to be associated with. You’re listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith, and today we’re hearing Joseph’s story. That’s one of our series, Christmas Stories, where we look at the events of that first Christmas through the eyes of those who were there. Like today, we’re hearing Joseph’s story, but also Mary, the angel Gabriel, and even King Herod. And don’t forget, if you ever miss one of our messages, you can always come online to openthebible.org.uk. There you can catch up or go back and listen again to any of the messages that have already been broadcast. You can also find the messages as podcasts, if that’s a better way for you to catch Pastor Colin Smith’s messages. And you can find the podcast on any of the regular podcasting sites. Just search for Open the Bible UK. Back to the message now. Here’s Colin. I’m here to tell you that an angel of the Lord appeared to me in a dream. And this is what he said. Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son and you, he said that to me, you are to give him the name Jesus. I woke up in a cold sweat. This was unlike any other dream I had ever experienced before. I knew beyond all shadow of doubt that God had spoken to me. And then I began to think about the scriptures. By the way, that’s a sure way of testing when you think that God may have spoken to you. If God has said something to you, it will always fit with the scriptures. And after that dream, verses that I had read in the synagogue came flooding back to my mind. Isaiah, for example, it said this, 800 years before my time, a virgin will conceive and give birth to a son. And Isaiah said they will call him Emmanuel, which means God with us. It was staggering and overwhelming beyond words for me to consider that what he had said so long ago had actually happened. Well, the following morning I knew what I had to do. I headed straight south for Judea. I don’t think I had ever traveled 70 miles so fast. I could not wait to take her in my arms and to tell her what had happened. The more I thought about it over that journey, the more staggering it became to me. Our little lives had been caught up in the sweep of God’s saving purpose for the whole of the human race. Our little home was going to be the place where the child promised to the world would be born, and the calling of my life was to be the guardian of the Son of God. Mary had spent three months with Elizabeth, and by the time we returned, she was beginning to show. That was the beginning of our married life together, though we both agreed that we would not consummate our marriage until after the child was born. Well, we were beginning to settle into a new life together in Nazareth when a herald arrived in town with a proclamation from Rome that the new government had an initiative. You’re always skeptical when the government has a new initiative. It’s still the same, is it? Well, we were too, and sure enough, it was bad news for us. The entire population had been ordered to return to the town of family origin to reger for a census that they decided they wanted to take. Can you imagine it? It seemed that everybody was on the move, a road’s absolute chaos, families with carts and animals moving, all that they owned in every conceivable direction. I could hardly believe it. Mary was nearly due, but when the Romans gave orders, there were no exceptions, so I saddled up the donkey, and the two of us headed south on the road to Bethlehem, my hometown, another 70 miles. Of course, you get all sentimental about the donkey. You should try riding on a donkey, and then imagine doing it for 70 miles. Then try and imagine doing it at the advanced stage of carrying a child. I don’t know how she managed it, but she did. It was on the journey that it dawned on me that even this was part of the plan of God. You know, hundreds of years before, the prophet Micah had spoken of a ruler who would come out of Bethlehem, not Nazareth where we’d been living, but Bethlehem, my town of family origin. It was years since I’d been in Bethlehem, and I would never have dreamt of going there if it had not been for the decree. Think about this, God put it into the mind of a European dictator, who neither knew him nor believed in him, to issue a decree that resulted in us going back to my hometown where a prophet 700 years before said that this child would be born. It’s amazing. Bethlehem is a tiny place, of course. Even Luke says that there was no room at the inn, that’s what he means. There was no room at the inn, and all that was left for us was the shelter of a cave, and that was where he was born. Can I describe the joy of that moment to you? Some of you have been present at the birth of a child, and you know what it is like. I was the first to hold him in my arms. My hands brought him into the world. I was the first one to touch the gift of God. It was the strangest thing, being in the cave, just the three of us. The child who had been born, promised to the world since the beginning of time, and just the three of us knowing about it. At least that’s what it seemed until a group of shepherds arrived saying that they had seen that very night a company of angels in the sky praising God and telling them that a savior was born in Bethlehem. Now that he was born, I began to see the importance of the role that God had given to me as his guardian. Of course, my first responsibility was to find some proper accommodation. We decided to stay in Bethlehem for a while, and it was there on the eighth day that I had the immense privilege of naming him. There was no discussion about this. The angel had already made it clear in that original dream he had said you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. And so I named him, I named him Jesus, because I really had very little idea at that point as to what all this meant, he will save his people from their sins, though I see the glory of it now. But even then, it seemed to be a name full of hope and of meaning. And there was absolutely no doubt about why he had come into the world. He had come to save his people from their sins, whatever that meant and whatever that would involve. A month later, it was time for us to take him to the temple in Jerusalem. We were travelling for his mother and me, though this time it was just six miles into the city from Bethlehem to Jerusalem. Moses had given us a law that we should offer a sacrifice of two pigeons and that this was to be done just over a month after the birth of a child. So that’s what we did. We were just about through with the ceremony when an old man came rushing up to us. Never seen him before, never seen him since. But the old man asked if he could hold the child and Mary gave the child to him. And as he held the child, words began to flow from him. My eyes have seen your salvation, he said. Would you have prepared in the sight of all peoples a light to the Gentiles and a glory to your people Israel? I looked at Mary, she looked at me, who is this old fellow? We marvelled at what he was saying. The same God who had spoken to Mary through the angel and to me through an angel in the dream and had revealed himself through angels to the shepherds and had put it into the heart of an unbelieving dictator to call a census. The same God had answered the prayer of an old man who had evidently been praying for years that he would live to see the birth of a saviour. You’ve been listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and today’s message, Joseph’s Story. It’s part of our larger series, Christmas Stories, looking at the first Christmas through the eyes of some of the people who were there, Joseph, Mary, the angel Gabriel, and even King Herod. And if you’ve missed any of the series or if you’d like to go back and listen again, you can always do that by coming to our website, that’s openthebible.org.uk, there you can listen to any of our previously broadcast messages. While you’re there, I hope you’ll also take the opportunity of looking at some of the other resources we have at Open the Bible. There’s Open the Bible Story, which is a journey through the entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, always pointing to the person of Jesus Christ. Don’t forget also that our messages are available as podcasts. That may be a more convenient way for you to listen to Pastor Colin Smith’s teaching. Go to your regular podcasting site and search for Open the Bible UK. Also on the website and available as a podcast is Open the Bible Daily. Now this is a series of short two to three minute reflections based on the teaching of Pastor Colin Smith and read in the UK by Sue McLeish. And you’ll find that on the website and as a podcast. Open the Bible is supported entirely by donations from our listeners and we’re very grateful for that. And if that’s something you haven’t done up till now, but you feel you’d like to begin doing it, we have an offer for you this month. If you’re able to set up a new donation in respect of Open the Bible for the amount of five pounds per month or more, we’d love to send you a book of prayers. It’s called Valley of Vision. And Colin, how might we benefit from reading this book? Well, I think this is a book that will really help folks to pray. And you know, as a pastor over the years, I’ve found that that is a question that people want to ask more than any other. Quite often over the years, I’ve just said to people when there’s opportunity for an open conversation, hey, what do you want to talk about? And I’ve given some suggestions. And the most frequent question that I get asked is, can we talk about prayer? People want to know how to grow in our prayer lives. And the Valley of Vision is a collection of prayers that has come down through the centuries that are really, really helpful for stimulating prayer. They’re organised according to different parts of prayer, worship and praise, asking and interceding and also confessing. And just the richness with which they’re written. So I mean, here, for example, are a couple of lines out of one of the prayers for purification. Deliver me, O God, from attachment to things unclean, from wrong associations, from the predominance of evil passions, from the sugar of sin as well as its gall. Boy, now that would just make you think, wouldn’t it? There’s a sugar in sin as well as a gall and we need delivered from both. Well, you know, that’s just picking one little phrase out of this. It’s so rich. As you read through these prayers, you’ll find your own heart to be stirred and your own prayers to be stimulated. I find this book immensely helpful. It has helped Christians for generations and I think it will be immensely helpful to you. Well, we’d love to send you a copy of this book as a way of saying thank you for setting up a new donation in respect of Open the Bible in the amount of £5 per month or more. Full details of this offer on our website, openthebible.org.uk. For Open the Bible and Pastor Colin Smith, I’m David Pick and I hope you’ll be able to join us again very soon. If the Christmas story seems a bit sentimental to you, then you need to hear the rest of the story. Find out what you’ve been missing next time on Open the Bible.