Thank you. There are some people who try to make Christianity more palatable by taking away the supernatural elements, things like prophecies or miracles or angels, even the virgin birth.

Today on Truth for Life, we'll find out why a Christianity devoid of miracles isn't more believable. It's ultimately meaningless.

Alistair Begg is teaching from Chapter 2 in Luke's Gospel.

Well, this morning we sought to deal with the first five verses leaving behind in the section that we read verses six and seven. And while they were there, the time gave for her to give

birth, and she gave birth to her firstborn son, and wrapped him in

swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger because there was no place for them in the inn.

Now, of course, we recognize that behind the straightforward statement that we have just read

in those verses, there is a quite staggering announcement

which is in your Bible probably open to you. If not, you'll just need to turn back one page.

And that is the section that begins at the 26th verse, beginning in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God

to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin, betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David,

and this angel has come and has greeted her. You immediately find that when you move from the fourth

verse to the fifth verse of chapter one, those sights and sounds may on first reading provide,

at least for some of us, the cynics among us, we may find ourselves saying these provide more

of a basis for curiosity than they provide a

basis for certainty, because the whole balance of chapter one, reading into chapter two,

concerns these supernatural things. Let me just point it out to you. In verse 15 of chapter

one, introducing the Lord, and you will have joy and gladness, and many

will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great before the Lord. He mustn't drink wine or strong

drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb. When you go to the 35th verse, and the angel answered

her, when she says, and we'll come back to this, how is all this supposed to happen? The Holy Spirit will

come upon you, and the power of the most high will overshadow you. Supernatural. Verse 41. In the visit between Mary and Elizabeth,

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