Christmas: The Miracle of Pregnancy in a Teenager Who Loved God

By Julio Severo

2,000 years ago, teenage pregnancies normally occurred within marriage. Mary’s case was problematic because while she was engaged to Joseph, God sent an angel to her to say that she had been chosen to be the mother of Jesus Christ.

It was not a prophetic message for a future pregnancy. As soon as Mary said “yes” to God’s choice, she became pregnant. And she was about 14 years old, by the Christian tradition. Even a few years ago, marriage and pregnancy at that age were not a rarity. My wife’s grandparents married at the age of 14, in a Lutheran church.

The problem, in Mary’s case, was that her pregnancy happened directly from the Holy Spirit, leaving Joseph with several suspicions against her. After all, what is the groom who would calmly accept the bride to explain to him: “Dear, as Jews, we practice sexual abstinence until the official wedding date, but God decided to get me pregnant and I accepted it. Now, I’m pregnant. Isn’t it a blessing?”

I don’t know Joseph’s exact reaction, but I doubt he was happy. In this situation, Joseph could adopt two attitudes: Reveal to everyone that Mary became pregnant without him, outside of marriage, thus exposing her to public shame and dishonor, including punishment, or a secret separation.

The Bible says that he chose the second option.

“Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘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 shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’” (Matthew 1:18-21 ESV)

It took the supernatural visitation of an angel to convince Joseph that Mary had not betrayed him by sleeping with any other man. The angel made it clear to him that Mary’s pregnancy was really God’s work. Joseph believed the angel’s word and welcomed Mary into his home.

But the Talmud, a document that contains Jewish traditions outside the Bible, has another version, which is much more malicious. The Talmud says: “After she had been driven out by her husband and while she was wandering about in a disgraceful way she secretly gave birth to Jesus.”

The Talmud, written by religious Jews who hated Christianity, makes it appear that Mary became pregnant after being expelled by Joseph and living on the street.

If Mary had become pregnant outside of marriage in Greece, Italy or in any pagan country 2,000 years ago, there would not be too many problems. But unlike pagan societies, Jewish society had strict moral laws.

I don’t understand the reasons why God decided to put a teenager in such a dilemma, but who am I to question His wisdom? He always knows what He does, even when we don’t understand.

Today, Mary’s dilemmas would not be less. Modern laws, created largely by socialists, flood adolescents with comprehensive immoral sex education, including all kinds of birth control devices. The message is clear: They can have sex at will, every day, every week, every month. Teenage sex is not a crime. What is considered a crime is getting married and getting pregnant in adolescence.

If Mary lived today, her case would end at the Children Protective Services, which could decide on an abortion for her, as every pregnancy of a girl aged 14 or younger is presumed to be the result of rape. Joseph, as a man of legal age, would be arrested as a rapist.

Both the teenager Mary and the man Joseph were God-fearing and followed God’s guidelines for sex, marriage and pregnancy. But such obedience from them would now place them in direct conflict with the modern socialist laws that dominate society.

Mary would be placed in the custody of the socialist State, which would totally reject a “pregnancy of the Holy Spirit,” treating such pregnancy instead as a “venereal disease.” And Joseph would be arrested for “rape” of a teenager.

These are socialist laws made many times by depraved men in the Brazilian Congress. Men who do not hesitate to sexually abuse teenage girls. In fact, in the 1990s, in the middle of Collor’s right-wing administration in Brazil, I was walking through the corridors of the Brazilian Congress and my friend pointed out the pimp that brought teenage girls to representatives and senators.

He told me that everyone there knew about this crime, but nobody did anything.

In modern socialist society, adolescent Mary would have a lot of freedom, but only for depravities. She could use contraceptives and no law and the Children Protective Services would bother her. She could attend sexual binges, and the Children Protective Services would not bother her.

However, if she chose the decent path and, as a teenager, decided to marry and become pregnant, the Children Protective Services would intervene without fail to cause serious problems for her and her baby.

However, God is not absent when great state, religious and even demonic powers try to prevent God’s will.

God’s angels and their supernatural interventions are above the Talmud and its anti-Christian prejudices.

God’s angels and their supernatural interventions are above socialist tendencies, even when enshrined in law, which oppose teenagers who choose the right sex life through marriage and pregnancy.

I don’t know how many teenagers there are today who love God to the point that they would say “yes” to a divine mission that is rejected by a society that rejects God and His purposes. I only know that when they say “yes,” the angels take action. Miracle after miracle happens.

If it had depended on the Children Protective Services and their draconian socialist laws in favor of free sex among teenagers, but against teenage marriage and pregnancy, the first Christmas would never have happened.

The first Christmas, with a teenage girl giving birth to baby Jesus, was a miracle.

This miracle continues today to challenge the minds of those who do not understand or accept how God can impregnate a teenager when socialist laws are so clear that this kind of marriage and pregnancy is a “disease” or even a “crime.”

Portuguese version of this article: Natal: o milagre da gravidez em uma adolescente que amava a Deus

Source: Last Days Watchman

Recommended Reading:

Insane reaction from the left against abstinence message from Brazil’s Bolsonaro administration to teenagers

Joseph, Mary and Jesus. God did not make easy for Joseph. But He gave him dreams that saved his marriage

Three-year-old twin girls are killed by state criminal neglect after Child Protective Services removed them from their biological parents

Why Judge Silas Malafaia?

By Julio Severo

The name of Silas Malafaia, a famous minister who is the founder and president of Victory in Christ Assemblies of God in Brazil, has been involved days ago in an alleged scandal of “money laundering,” as if he had business with corrupt individuals with the intent of getting deliberately dirty money.

Silas Malafaia

The scandal has even been “reported” in Charisma, the biggest Pentecostal magazine in the world. Sadly, the famous American magazine sided with the view of the secular media, which is persuaded that Malafaia is involved in corruption.

Malafaia, who is so prominent in Brazil that he has already been interviewed in 2011 by the New York Times, one of the biggest U.S. newspapers, explained that there was no money laundering. Famous Brazilian journalist Reinaldo Azevedo, whom I disagree strongly on homosexual issues, wrote that what the Brazilian federal police did to Malafaia was illegal by including his name just because he received a donation from an individual involved in the federal investigation.  

Even son, many Protestants do not want give Malafaia the benefit of the doubt. Others have just labeled him guilty and convicted, because he received a voluntary donation from a source involved in corruption.

Now, does it mean that if I receive a major donation from a sorcerer or a member of the Mafia, that I have culpability in all of its crimes? Of course, not. A sorcerer and a member of the Mafia are free to come to me, hear the Gospel and give a donation, and I am free to accept or not such donation.

Jesus’s parents, Joseph and Mary, were poor and accepted a major donation from a group of sorcerers and astrologers who came because they were trying to understand God’s signs. Joseph and Mary were free to accept or not such donation. But they accepted, and the major donation was exactly what they needed to cover high expenses for an international trip to flee for Egypt and stay there for some time.

God could have sent gold directly from the sky to Joseph and Mary. But He chose to use sorcerers. Instead of letting Joseph and Mary have the sacrifice of fleeing for Egypt with a baby to escape King Herod, God could have eliminated the bloody king, who was determined to kill baby Jesus. But God did not eliminate the child-killing king.

Or, instead of sending sorcerers, He could have sent Jewish prophets and priests. But there were not anymore prophets in Israel and the priests were corrupt. They were corrupt knowing God’s Word. The sorcerers who made the donation to Jesus showed an open heart that God used. They were not Jewish. They were corrupt, but they did not know God’s Word the Jewish priests knew.

Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary, of J. D. Douglas, says: “The MAGI from the east mentioned in Matt. 2:1 (magos G3407) were high-ranking Persian priests expert in ASTROLOGY and other occult arts.”

Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary, of Chad Brand, says in the entry “magi,” in reference to Matthew 2:1: “Eastern wise men, priests, and astrologers expert in interpreting dreams and other ‘magic arts.’”

To earn money at the expense of astrology and occultism is, in the Bible, sheer corruption. In the case of the magi in the Bible, they earned much money. They had gold.

It not common to see wealthy sorcerers giving a donation of gold and jewels to a poor family who worship God. But God works wonders!

Jewish theologians did not know how to recognize God sending baby Jesus. Therefore, they could not help his needful parents. God needed to bring sorcerers and astrologers from far away to supply the necessary resources. It is not by chance that He is called God of impossible. In fact, He works impossible things. What eyes have not seen and what human minds have never imagined, this is what God does.

God used those sorcerers in that determined time, and after this they were never heard of again.

Some theologians today, who follow a heresy called cessationism, would doubt dreams and revelations from Joseph and Mary, with angel visitations. And if Joseph and Mary said, “God confirmed the dreams and revelations by bringing Satanists to give us a donation of gold!” cessationist theologians would say: “It is confirmed! All of this is from the devil! Everything: your dreams, revelations and angel visitations.”

God has no partnership with the devil, but when God commands, even the devil obeys. When God instructs, even devil’s servants obey.

Only God knows how the wealthy sorcerers got their gold, but one thing is sure: sorcery and honesty do not walk hand in hand! In contrast, sorcery and corruption are always partners.

One thing is for you, as a man or woman of God, to get involved in the business of sorcerers and take a part in their morally illicit riches. Other thing is for them to give voluntarily their gold as a donation to you.

Can you then accuse Joseph and Mary of involvement with sorcery, occultism, astrology and satanism just because they received gold from sorcerers?

If no one, for 2,000 years, has ever judged Joseph and Mary for receiving a major donation of gold from astrologers and sorcerers, why judge Silas Malafaia for receiving a major donation from a man involved in corruption?

Joseph and Mary were poor and they were not corrupt. You cannot say the same thing about the sorcerers and astrologers who gave them the major donation.

Malafaia has committed big mistakes in the past: he supported the election and reelection of Lula (the Brazilian Obama), in spite of all the clear evidence that Lula was pro-abortion and pro-sodomy. But today Malafaia has been a highly important voice against the homosexualist, left-wing and pro-abortion agenda in Brazil.

No one among Brazilian Christians has been so vocal and clear, in TV and radio shows and even in the hearings at the Brazilian Congress, on the defense of life and family as he is. He has become a symbol of pro-family counter-attack. All the Brazilian Left hates him. Therefore, it is not correct to judge him and convict him hastily, moved out of envy or religious hatred.

It is not prudent also to judge a Christian couple that, as Joseph and Mary, needs to receive a donation of gold from sorcerers and astrologers to escape persecution from a pro-abortion Herod and flee for an Egypt.

No one had ever given gold to the poor couple Joseph and Mary. Satanists were the only ones God used for such assistance.

God knows if it is right or wrong to accept a donation from sorcerers, astrologers, satanists and corrupts.

Only He is the Judge.

Joseph and Mary accepted a donation from corrupts, and God did not judge them for this. Jesus and his apostles never said that Jesus’s parents were involved in satanism and astrology just for accepting gold from corrupts.

The difference between Jesus’s parents and Malafaia is that Joseph and Mary were poor, and Malafaia is wealthy.

Yet, who are we to judge him because of a donation?

Portuguese version of this article: Por que julgar Silas Malafaia?

Source: Last Days Watchman

Recommended Reading:

Joseph, Mary and Jesus. God did not make easy for Joseph. But He gave him dreams that saved his marriage

Elijah: Strange Provision in a Prophetic Mission in the Political Realm

Joseph, Mary and Jesus. God did not make easy for Joseph. But He gave him dreams that saved his marriage

By Julio Severo

The correct way for people to be married is no sex and no pregnancy before marriage. But this did not happen in Joseph’s case — not because of his decisions or sexual impulses. He was not to blame.

His bride told him she was pregnant. And she said that God did it to her.

By the knowledge he had from the Scriptures, there was absolutely no case of God doing it to any woman in the Scriptures. If Joseph discussed it with theologians, they would assure him: “There is no Scripture support for a pregnancy by God. This goes against Scriptures!”

The sense of human righteousness would say to Joseph: “Your bride betrayed you! She could have chosen to leave you to have sex with another man, but she chose to do it while officially engaged to you! Betrayal!”

Any other man, with this sense of righteousness, would leave her and make sure that everyone learned about her infidelity and betrayal. After all, in a way or other he was also being humiliated by her “betrayal.”

Yet, Joseph’s righteousness was not grounded on human feelings. It was grounded in the Scriptures, in a righteous and merciful God.

“Her husband Joseph was an honorable man and did not want to disgrace her publicly. So he decided to break the marriage agreement with her secretly.” (Matthew 1:19 GWV)

“Joseph, chagrined but noble, determined to take care of things quietly so Mary would not be disgraced.” (Matthew 1:19 Message)

“Joseph, because he was kind and upstanding and honorable, wanted to spare Mary shame. He did not wish to cause her more embarrassment than necessary.” (Matthew 1:19 The Voice)

In Joseph’s mind, there was a sin: Mary pregnant outside marriage by other man. It was his moral right to bring embarrassment to her for what she did against him and his marriage. But he chose mercy in a situation involving sin.

In that time, women could be stoned by sex outside marriage.

What made him change his mind? Some powerful theological advice? No such advice would be available, because all theologians would agree that God was not involved in such pregnancy.

“While he was trying to figure a way out, he had a dream. God’s angel spoke in the dream: ‘Joseph, son of David, don’t hesitate to get married. Mary’s pregnancy is Spirit-conceived. God’s Holy Spirit has made her pregnant.’” (Matthew 1:20 Message)

When God’s Word and its official interpreters (theologians) seem not to have an answer for such dramatic situations, God speaks — in dreams, in visions and other powerful ways, even a voice. And God spoke to Joseph.

Joseph did not understand why only his bride was chosen to get pregnant outside marriage by the Holy Spirit. Obviously, no one else would believe it, perhaps even with the assistance of a dream.

Of course, the followers of Jesus would believe, because they had contact with the same Holy Spirit who had impregnated Mary. They had dreams, visions and supernatural gifts from the Holy Spirit. When theologians are unable to explain what God does, the Holy Spirit explains. And often He does not explain why and how, but only that it was God.

God could have sent his angel to Joseph to say: “After your marriage to Mary, I want you to live in abstinence for some months, because the Holy Spirit will impregnate her.”

Of course, Mary would also need a dream or vision to confirm such humanly ridiculous declaration. Such arrangement (a divine pregnancy after marriage) would spare Mary and Joseph public embarrassment and would greatly facilitate the maintenance of their sexual and religious reputation.

Yet, God chose not to spare her and him. Now, this was only between God and both of them. No one else would understand it. Even theologians in their time would not understand it, because there was absolutely no Scripture support for it.

God did not make easy for Joseph and Mary. If He had let them choose if they wanted or not an embarrassing pregnancy outside marriage, they would answer NO. They would ask God for a non-embarrassing way.

But the total choice was His, and their only answer should be: to accept His supernatural interventions, including angel visitations and dreams.

When they did not understand, they let God speak. And He did. And they listened.

Yet, there are no theological dreams. They are from God, not theology. Later, after the birth of Jesus, Joseph had a dream telling him to flee for Egypt. (See Matthew 2:13) He fled with Mary and boy Jesus and saved His life. But if he had consulted the Bible for literal direction and advice about fleeing for Egypt, he would never do it. Why? Because there are many Bible passages where God commands not to flee for Egypt.

So in an attempt to conciliate his personal dream with the Bible, Joseph would never flee for Egypt. Evidently, his case was prophetically in the Bible, but there is no evidence that in that time Joseph understood it.

Joseph had and accepted the dreams not to produce new doctrines, but to save first his marriage and later his son.

Dreams are not to produce new core doctrines, but to guide men and women who believe in the Bible how to save their lives, marriages, jobs and other people.

If Joseph had depended only on the literal teaching of the Scriptures, which were silent on his particular case, or on their official interpreters (theologians), he would have left Mary.

But a dream changed his life. A dream saved his marriage. A dream helped him save baby Jesus. God’s strategy is often to confront enemies. David, with God’s assistance, did it to Goliah. In contrast, God wanted Joseph to flee to a nation He had told often to Israel: Do not flee to there!

Dreams do big miracles when the individual receiving them has his mind and heart filled with God’s Word.

If he were a non-theological unbeliever, Joseph would say, “God saved my marriage from a problem He himself provoked!” He would add: “Instead of provoking problems, God should have given me houses and riches.”

If he were a theological unbeliever (a modern cessationist), he would have rejected dreams, visions and Mary and her pregnancy by the Holy Spirit. If a woman said to a cessationist that that she received an angel visitation, he would send her to a psychiatrist. Thank God, Joseph was not a cessationist!

Evidently, Joseph would have loved if God had told him: “I will give you a major government job!” After all, God is powerful and can give powerful blessings.

And if Mary were a modern woman and the angel had given her an opportunity to choose between a high-paying job and a pregnancy, she would choose the first option, and both she and Joseph would jump for joy!

Yet, there was no dance in the case of Joseph, who did not understand what was happening. He loved God’s Word. And he respected Word’s masters (the Jewish theologians). But all of them were not enough to explain the strange events in his life, especially the very strange pregnancy of his bride. To go through his hard times, he chose to give preeminence to Word’s God and His dreams.

The God who helped Joseph with a dream promised to help people in our last days with the same supernatural resources:

“And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams” (Ac 2:17 ESV)

“In the Last Days,” God says, “I will pour out my Spirit on every kind of people: Your sons will prophesy, also your daughters; Your young men will see visions, your old men dream dreams.” (Ac 2:17 Message)

With such resources, the impossible becomes possible and a prophetic God, with his prophetic plans, makes himself available to save your life and marriage.

Without dreams, it would have been impossible for Joseph to marry Mary.

His walk by faith with dreams from God is an example to everyone who love Jesus.

Portuguese version of this article: José, Maria e Jesus. Deus não facilitou para José. Mas Ele lhe deu sonhos que salvaram seu casamento

Source: Last Days Watchman

Recommended Reading:

Elijah: Strange Provision in a Prophetic Mission in the Political Realm