The King Preserved by Providence

Well, if you recall, last week we stood in Bethlehem, in the place where the child was with the

Magi who had come from the east, brought there by God, who had given them direction, had given them light, who had led them to Christ, and as they entered into the house, they, coming into the presence of the

King of kings and Lord of lords, had but one response, and that was to fall down and worship

Him. A beautiful scene depicted for us in the

Gospel of Matthew, however, even in the midst of that scene, Matthew is preparing us and showing us that the coming of Christ doesn't produce the same response in every person.

We are and were given the truth that all people respond. We saw three very definite responses that identify all of mankind in that situation.

We saw that Herod was disturbed and Jerusalem was troubled.

Of course, we saw the Magi rejoice, and then we saw the priests and the scribes, the ones who had the information, the ones who should have known that they did nothing.

They made no response. And the reason that we want to bring this in, again, is because it's not just a feature of the opening chapter of Matthew.

This is not just something that Matthew arbitrarily includes, but it is a truth that we will see demonstrated as we move throughout the

Scriptures. Christ is never merely noticed.

Christ is either adored, He is opposed, or people seek to ignore

Him. Men bow down before Christ, or men turn away from Christ, or men seek to destroy

Christ, but no one comes before Christ and walks away unchanged.

And so when we get to this next section in Matthew chapter two, beginning in the 13th verse, we will see that the joy will quickly turn, that the worship of the

Magi, the response of the Magi, the beauty and joy of the Magi experience gives way to danger.

And these gifts of worship left at the feet of the King of Kings quickly turns to the threat of violence.

This child who had been adored by foreign dignitaries now has to be carried away because a wicked king.

Seeks to destroy him. But the story is not here just to show us that the opposition begins, the story is there to show us something greater.

Because even in the midst of the opposition, what we will see Matthew bringing into this, our understanding is that all of these things happen to take place so that Scripture might be fulfilled.

Just a few moments ago, we heard from the passage in Hosea. Again, Matthew reminds us and we will see that this is done so that the word may be fulfilled.

Matthew teaches us that neither Herod's rage nor Israel's sorrow nor Joseph's fear nor Nazareth's obscurity can derail the plan of Almighty God.

That there is nothing that we can do or that they could do that will change these promises because the promises of God, as we discussed in our

Sunday school time this morning, are built on the truth that God is immutable.

And immutable doesn't just mean that He does not change, it means that He cannot change.

And because He cannot change, He is not fragile and neither are His promises, neither are

His truths, neither is His provision, neither is His providence.

Leon Morris notes that Matthew consistently emphasizes that the outworking of the divine purpose is accomplished in Christ.

That all of what we have seen from Genesis through to this point are fulfilled in Christ.

And so as we walk through this text, we will see that God preserves His King and fulfills

His word. And we'll see three truths here. We will see, first of all, that the

King of Kings is protected even in exile. Secondly, we will see that the

King is opposed by the world and when we say world here, we mean the worldly system of opposition, that which opposes

God. And finally, we will see a King prepared in humility.

And through all of this, there's one singular theme that runs and it's a singular theme that runs throughout all of scripture and that is

God sovereignly accomplishes His redemptive purposes.

Regardless of the situation, regardless of the circumstance, regardless of the darkest night,

God moves to accomplish His will. So I would invite you to turn with me to Matthew's gospel if you have not already done so.

Once again, we will be in the second chapter beginning in the 13th verse. And having found your place, please stand in reverence with me for the reading of God's holy, inerrant, infallible, authoritative, sufficient, complete, and certain word.

Our text again begins in the 13th verse, reading from the 13th verse of Matthew chapter two, following through the 23rd verse, we read these words.

Now, when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream saying, get up, take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him.

So Joseph got up and took the child and his mother while it was still night and departed for Egypt.

And he remained there until the death of Herod in order that what had been spoken by the

Lord through the prophet would be fulfilled, saying, out of Egypt, I called my son.

Then when Herod saw that he had been tricked by the Magi, he became very enraged and sent and slew all the male children who were in Bethlehem and all its vicinity from two years old and under according to the time which he had carefully determined from the

Magi. Then what had been spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled, saying, a voice was heard in Ramah, weeping, and a great mourning,

Rachel weeping for her children, and she was refusing to be comforted because they were no more.

But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the

Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt saying, get up, take the child and his mother and go into the land of Israel for those who sought the child's life are dead.

So Joseph got up, he took the child and his mother and he came into the land of Israel.

But when he heard that Achilles was reigning over Judea in place of his father

Herod, he was afraid to go there. Then after being warned by God in a dream, he departed for the district of Galilee and came and lived in a city called

Nazareth so that what was spoken through the prophets would be fulfilled. He shall be called a

Nazarene. Almighty God, our great father, our sovereign

Lord, our gracious master. Lord, we thank you for your word, we thank you for the truth that it reveals about your son.

We thank you that in your word, you demonstrate that from the very beginning of his life, you are guiding, directing, protecting, fulfilling, accomplishing your plan.

Lord, we confess that we often struggle in our lives and in our infinite, I mean, in our finite, limited knowledge to see your purposes when life is difficult.

Yet this passage, these truths remind us that even in the darkest moments, you still are working according to your perfect wisdom.

Lord, we pray that you open our eyes to see Christ clearly today, that we are guarded from indifference and unbelief and that our hearts are opened, that we may worship him as the true king.

Father, we pray that your spirit would work in us, granting us faith, faith in your providence, joy in your salvation, and that we would live for the glory of Jesus Christ.

Father, we ask all of these things in the precious name of our Lord and Savior, King Jesus. Amen.

You may be seated. So Matthew, again, begins in picking up where he has left off, immediately following the visit of the

Magi after they had departed. Once again, we see an angel coming to visit

Joseph. And I would remind you of the significance here where, again, for 400 years, heaven has been silenced.

And now we've had an angel that has come to him, not only telling him to take Mary as his wife because the child was conceived of the

Holy Spirit, but also to let him know that there is immediate action that needs to be taken, that is direct, that is necessary.

The angel did not come and say, hey, Joseph, it may be a good idea if when you guys wake up in the morning, you know, get your bags packed, get everything settled, get it all straight, arrange some nice hotels along the way, make sure you've got your three -day stay picked out so that you're exactly at the spot you wanna do and then take a nice vacation.

We see a sense of urgency in the words, get up, take the child, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you.

And what interesting words dealing with the reality that we have the promised king who has arrived.

The child has been born, the proclamation has been made by the angels to the shepherds. Prophecy has shown who he is.

People have come and worshiped at his feet and yet the order is not take him to the king and present him in triumph, saying here is the one who was born the king of kings, the king of Jews.

The command is take him, get out, flee, and go where?

To Egypt. Don't stay.

This is Christ as this target of hostility, the purpose that he is given is that Herod is going to search for the child for the purpose of destroying him.

Oftentimes we are maybe surprised that this would happen, but if you go all the way back, we're told all the way in Genesis chapter three, verse 15, when we're given this promise of this child that the seed of the woman would crush the seed of the serpent.

So the serpent should raise, we should expect enmity, we should expect conflict.

In church we're surprised sometimes when conflict arises, we're surprised sometimes when the enemy fights back, but the reality is the enemy is going to fight back.

But what we should see here in this passage is that the providence of God preserves the king, he preserves the promise, he preserves the reality of what the work is that Christ has come to do.

And if he goes through such great lengths to preserve this, to ensure that the promise of salvation comes to fruition in this manner, we should take great courage, we should take great encouragement from this.

Even in the middle of infancy, the world hates the

Savior, the world turns against the rule of God.

But even as the threat arises, even as the threat begins, God's hand is already moving, we see him already speaking, already before Herod can give his directions,

God is already governing. Herod's plotting, and while Herod is busy plotting,

God is busy moving. Notice the repeated expression that Matthew uses here, the child and his mother.

Get up, take the child and his mother. So Joseph got up, took the child and his mother. It's not just this accidental repetition, again, the child is the one to whom the attention is drawn.

Joseph is not told to preserve his household, but specifically to take the child and his mother.

Everything in this passage revolves around Christ. Christ is central. He didn't say,

Joseph, get up, take your family and flee. And then repeat that Joseph got up and took his family and fled.

He said, take the child and his mother and flee.

And we see again in verse 14, the same thing we saw earlier in chapter one,

Joseph quietly, calmly, directly, immediately doing what

God has commanded. He doesn't argue. He didn't ask for a sign.

He didn't say, well, let's wait a couple of days, make sure this thing doesn't blow over. He gets up, he takes the child and he moves.

Matthew Henry says that those that would make sure work of their obedience must make quick work of their obedience.

A few weeks ago, I told you delayed obedience is simply disobedience.

It's just disguised. Joseph doesn't delay.

God gives him a command and he responds. The destination of Egypt makes some sense.

Commentators note Egypt has been a place of refuge for Jews in times of distress.

There were large Jewish communities in Egypt at the time of Christ, but this is not practical information.

This is not just a convenient location. This, as Matthew points out to us, is done for a purpose, verse 15.

It was done so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled.

In the original context in Hosea, Hosea is talking about Israel itself, all of Israel.

And he's talking about God calling Israel out of, when Israel was a youth,

I loved him and out of Egypt, I called him. This reference goes back to the

Exodus that God had redeemed his people from bondage, that he called them out of Egypt as his covenant son.

So why does Matthew apply it here? One of the beautiful things that prophecy does, and we should all understand prophecy in scripture, it always has an immediate context.

When prophecy is given in scripture, it always ties to something then, but it also points to something later.

We spent a lot of time when we were in the book of Exodus talking about types and shadows and the way scripture points us forward.

What we see here is Jesus being the true son. Israel was the covenant son.

But if you'll recall, Israel broke the covenant. Israel failed.

Jesus, the true son, the faithful Israel, the one in whom the calling of Israel reaches its fulfillment, will not fail.

Israel was rebellious. They were stubborn. They were unbelieving. They were brought through the sea, into the wilderness, yet they grumbled.

They tested God. They turned aside. We just got through looking at all of that.

But God, Christ, would not fail. He was the obedient son.

He is the faithful servant. He is the one in whom all of scripture is fulfilled.

The one who will accomplish in righteousness what covenant

Israel could not accomplish in weakness and in sin. Leon Morris helpfully points out that Matthew sees scripture as fulfilled in Jesus in such a way that the divine purpose running through all of scripture finds its fulfillment in him.

Calvin similarly helps us understand that the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt was a figure of the greater deliverance that would be manifested.

Pink writes that in Christ, the history of Israel is recapitulated so that what was true of the nation in the shadow is true of Christ in fullness.

This is the teaching that comes from us out of the book of Matthew. One of the great things that Matthew accomplished in his gospel is demonstrating for us over and over and over and over that Christ was the fulfillment of all of these things.

Matthew is not misusing or misquoting Hosea. Matthew is viewing the writing of the prophet

Hosea through the lens of Christ. Just as we should read scripture through the lens of Christ.

Just as we should view the world through the lens of scripture. And as we do so, we see the beauty in what

God has done, the truth and what he has provided, the faithfulness in which he has moved all of history.

It's an amazing truth and a glorious reality of redemptive history.

Not just that redemptive history itself exists, but that God stepped into redemptive history by taking on the form of a servant, humbling himself, the

Lord Jesus Christ becoming fully, truly man, yet remaining fully, truly

God. He didn't just enter into the story.

He gathered the story to himself. He's not a side note, he's the point.

There is no other figure in the line. He is the one, think of it this way.

As we study through the passages in Exodus, we saw that the Exodus itself pointed to Christ.

We saw that if you continue studying, you see that the time in the wilderness points to Christ. You study the sonship of Israel, you see that it points to Christ.

You see that all of redemptive history, as we began in Genesis, moved through the books of history, moved through the prophets, moved through the

Psalms, moved through the wisdom literature. As you move through all of these things, you see that Christ is, all of these things is moving in that direction.

And it doesn't mean abandonment. Listen, there is an exile, but not abandonment.

That even in the midst of the exile, that the son was in Egypt, but that didn't change him being the son.

He was in another country, but that didn't mean he was no longer king of kings. This morning, as we worked through the question in our catechism conversation, one of the things that we talked about was the reality that the immutable, unchangeable nature of who

God is brings into this reality that there is objective and subjective truth, and that regardless of what we think, objective truth doesn't ride in us, but in Christ, in God.

And the truth of the matter is, whether it's believed or not believed, Christ is still king of kings.

He doesn't need you to acknowledge him as Lord. And I'm gonna tell you something.

Many of us have been in churches where we've been told, just make Jesus king of your life.

Just make Jesus Lord of your life. Let me help you, if you've not heard this before. He doesn't need your permission.

You can't make him Lord and king of your life. Because believer or unbeliever, he is king.

He is king. Now, you acknowledge him, you submit to him, but you aren't making him anything.

He already is king. You see, when we begin to try to make him something, that begins to take the matters into our own hands, versus his.

And as we study, anytime things are in the hands of people versus in the hands of God, we will make a mess of it.

I can promise you, left to our own devices, none of us, none of us pursue him.

Circumstances are difficult, but God's word is being fulfilled. I can only imagine being in the situation of Mary and Joseph.

Think about the turmoil that has become their life. All of a sudden, they've got plans, right?

They're gonna get married, things are looking good, and then an angel of God appears and begins to deliver messages.

And now, the place where they envisioned themselves to be is no longer the place in which they are.

To be sure, when they were there in Bethlehem, they probably thought, you know, we'll stay here, we'll settle down.

Obviously, they were in a home at this point. That's based on the word of God, not some conjecture of my own.

It said that they went to the house where the child was, not to the stable, not to the manger, to the house.

I'll get off my soapbox now. But the truth of the matter is they had begun to settle their lives.

And then, this call to go.

It's interesting that if we think about this, this is not the first time we see in Scripture where someone is settled, someone is there and God calls.

Go all the way back to Abram, right? Abram's in the land, minding his own business, he's built a successful life for himself, he's in his 40s, he's got a wife, he's got all the property and stuff he wants, he's got sheep, he's got cattle, he's got all of these great things.

God says to Abram, get up, go. And he doesn't even give him the courtesy of saying where he's going, he just says,

I'll let you know when you get there where you're gonna be. And yet, he responds.

Sometimes obedience takes us into hard places. Sometimes faithfulness to God does not lead us into comfort, it leads us into difficulty.

One of the greatest things that people fear is the unknown. One of the greatest challenges that people face is the unknown.

But the truth of the matter is, is that often we are called into a place that feels more like midnight than public triumph.

And often we see this as evidence of God's absence.

The reality though, is it could not be further from the truth. For the believer, in the midst of experiencing these things, the providence of God is always leading.

Even when you think it's not. Even when you think it's silent.

Even when you think it's dark. Even when you think it's difficult. God is still moving.

God is still there. Christ is sent to exile in Egypt.

Mary and Joseph uproot their entire life around this child and they obediently go to where they have been told to go.

Because the hand of God is on the child of God. You and I are also children of God.

As those who believe, we are His. Now I do not want you to misunderstand me and I do not want you to mishear me because there is enough confusion in the church today regarding this understanding because many people take it to mean, well,

I can't be touched. That everything I touch is gonna turn to gold.

I'm gonna prosper. It's gonna be amazing for me. I'm never gonna have any heartache or disappointment or challenges or difficulties because I came to Jesus and I was told if I come to Jesus, it'll all be okay.

And I wanna assure you, it will ultimately. That don't mean today or tomorrow.

That all being okay is the future. The here, the now, the reality is you may suffer.

You may go through trials. You may go through difficulties but the hand of God is still upon you.

The providence of God is still with you. And we find comfort in the fact that we aren't alone.

That even as an infant, our Lord and Savior was moved to a place where his family probably didn't really wanna go.

Yet they obediently wit. And then we move into verse 16.

And what was already dark begins to get even darker because we see the actions of Herod.

We see that this wicked man who learns that he has been tricked by the

Magi becomes very angry.

Bethlehem and Jerusalem are not that distant from each other. So the expectation would have been for the

Magi to relatively quickly return. But of course, as time passed and as we read from our scriptures last week in verse 12, that the

Magi were warned in a dream not to return to Herod. They departed for their own country by another way. They never returned to Jerusalem.

And Herod becomes enraged.

The word here conveys furious anger.

John MacArthur points out that the depth of Herod's rage and the way in which it overtook him.

You see, becoming enraged is not a slow boil. Becoming enraged is when you recognize something and you explode.

The truth is, we know a good bit about Herod from history, but we know a lot from the word of God.

We know a lot just from these passages we have in front of us. We know that Herod was a suspicious man.

We know that he was threatened or felt threatened even by an infant.

He was violent. He was cruel. He would murder his rivals.

He had killed members of his own family. In fact, Herod's cruelty was so bad that it actually became proverbial, that it became part of wisdom literature and a manner in which you would be referred to being this type of cruel.

He was the kind of man who, as we see, would massacre children, children, children out of fear for his own throne.

He went, and we see in scripture that he sent and slew all male children in Bethlehem and in the vicinity.

Now, Bethlehem was not a large place, and so the numbers of these children may or may not have been large, but even if one fell, it was one too many.

Every single child was precious, and every single home touched by this would have been devastated.

No parent measures grief statistically. To every family involved, there was unspeakable sorrow.

This passage is one of the clearest, most concise revelations in scripture of what worldly power does when it is threatened by the reality of Christ.

Herod here is, quote unquote, at this point, the king of that area, and by such, the king of the

Jews. However, this is not a thing that is limited to a ethnic group. This is a response from the world.

This is the kingdoms of the world lashing out. This is the kingdoms of the world not reasoning, not investigating.

This is the kingdoms of the world destroying. It is the nature of fallen humanity when we are confronted by the rule of God.

In order to preserve the false power, the kingdoms of the world are willing to sacrifice the innocent to preserve themselves, and brothers and sisters, it hasn't changed.

But beyond that, as much of a tragedy and travesty as that is, as much of a heart -wrenching reality as that is, the truth is that that is each of us.

If you're sitting here today and you're a Christian by the grace of God, the only reason that's not you is by the grace of God, and you may remember a time when it was you, when you would destroy whatever it took when you were confronted by God to preserve yourself, the you that you wanted to be.

Listen, this is not historical curiosity around a man.

This is a picture of our heart. If you throw a

Christmas pageant and you include the role of Herod, even though he shouldn't be, but you do, no one wants to be

Herod, because we know Herod is the enemy. But the truth is we are all

Herod before saving grace.

We resist, we want autonomy, we want self -rule, we want our throne without interruption.

This is why there is no neutrality. There can't be neutrality.

The truth of the matter is this. If you aren't acknowledging

Christ as king in your life, again, you're not gonna make him king, he's already king, but if you're not acknowledging him king, if you're not submitting to him as king, then what you're doing is declaring yourself as king, king of your life, king of your world, king of yourself.

You're declaring yourself Lord. We do that because, well, we don't wanna submit.

We certainly don't wanna bow. We don't want to humble ourself. We would rather rage.

We would rather fight than submit.

But Matthew shows us that even this tragedy is a fulfillment of Scripture.

And because it is the fulfillment of Scripture, it brings to point one of the hardest truths that we must deal with.

These are the questions that people confront us with. The quote itself is from Jeremiah 31, verse 15.

And in Jeremiah's own context, in what Jeremiah is immediately talking about, he is looking at the grief of Israel in exile.

Rachel there was the symbolic mother weeping over Israel as the children were taken away.

The grief of God's people reverberated throughout history. Matthew Henry comments that this was lamentation and mourning and great mourning, and the language that emphasizes the depth and bitterness of the sorrow.

The mothers refused comfort because the children are no more, the wound is real, the pain is not minimized.

But seeing that it is part of redemptive history, that it is part of this movement, that it is part of this fulfillment, becomes extremely important.

You see, Jeremiah 31 doesn't end in tears. Jeremiah 31 actually moves from tears to hope.

Just beyond the passage that Matthew cites here, it says, restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears, for your work shall be rewarded and there is hope for your future.

Then a little later in the chapter, we come to this text.

I will forgive their iniquity and their sin.

I will remember no more. The sorrow of Bethlehem, although it was real, although it was painful, was not permanent.

It's not the end of the story, there is restoration. So he doesn't say just to notice that it's fulfillment and just to notice that it is reality, that it was there, that this was part of what was spoken, but more than just what was spoken, the truth of what that leads to, the truth that it is there to show that even the sorrow in this world was being gathered into God's redeeming purpose, that it serves as part of redemptive plan.

Listen, there is likely not a person in here who grief and sorrow has not touched at one point in our lives.

And it becomes very easy at those points to question and to wonder and to see senselessness.

It becomes very difficult, especially in the moment to see God moving.

But listen to me, take courage. From the truth that God is moving.

He's got much, much bigger picture of things going on.

Here, even with this travesty, God is moving. Spurgeon reflected on this hostility and remarked that the dragon stood ready to devour the child.

That's where we are. Don't mistake it, the serpent is here.

The same serpent in Genesis is here, ready to move. He's working through Herod.

He says to Herod, Herod, prepare, take out these children, end the threat.

To Herod, it's a temporary threat of a worldly thing. To the serpent, it's a much greater picture.

The kingdom of darkness, the dragon of darkness, the serpent recognizes this threat, and yet even in the midst of knowing the threat and seeing the threat and recognizing the threat, he cannot overcome.

He cannot prevail. The child is preserved.

The rage of the king is real, but the rage is not ultimate.

MacArthur noted that the massacre at Bethlehem represents the beginning of the intensified warfare between the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of the world.

Later on in John's letters, his pastoral type letters that we see later in the

New Testament, we read where he talks about not loving the world. That world is the same system that we're talking about right here.

This kingdom of the world. This warfare continues throughout

Christ's life, throughout Christ's ministry. We will see it as we study not just the

Gospel of Matthew, but as you read any of the Gospels, you see it surface in plots and accusations and rejections and betrayal, culminating in the crucifixion.

But even that doesn't defeat the plan of redemption it merely plays into exactly the plan of God.

You remember in Acts chapter four, somewhere around the 28th verse, the disciples were talking and they basically, they're praying actually, they're praying after being chastised.

And they are thanking God for these men who doing all of these wicked things, crucified

Christ on the cross, and in so doing accomplished

God's plan that he had the whole time. Listen, we will never have an answer to every question.

We live in a world where evil is real, where cruelty is real, where sorrow is real. This passage doesn't say to us, hey, everything's gonna be sunshine and roses.

It's not asking us to deny the pain of life. It's not asking us to walk through life and go, you know what,

I'm a child of God, I'll never hurt. I'll never have pain.

Even when challenges come, they don't affect me. That's not reality people. That's not what scripture is asking you to do.

God never expects that. That's why he's given you all these brothers and sisters. What it teaches us though, is that even the entry of Christ into the world didn't remove the affliction.

But it also demonstrates that grief doesn't exist outside of the providence of God.

I'm gonna repeat that. Grief doesn't exist outside of the providence of God.

It's not as if God took his finger off of things and something happened that he was unaware of.

And I know that becomes challenging in many aspects, but at the end of the day, it should also be very comforting because it reminds us that he is still in control.

Listen, no tear falls beyond his knowledge. Listen, do you really think you can shed a tear without him knowing he knows how many hairs you got on your head?

Some of us it's much easier to count than others, but he still knows. No evil overturns his purpose.

The tears of Rachel are heard. Listen, that doesn't make every providence easy.

That doesn't mean you can walk out of here going, my preacher told me today, I never got anything to worry about. Everything's gonna be awesome.

I'm gonna go open up my mailbox tomorrow. All my problems are gonna be solved because there's gonna be whatever I need right there in it. No, there will be times when you will question, times when you will not understand, times when you will see this providence demonstrated and it will not be easy, but it does give us solid ground.

Here's why it gives us solid ground, because we know evil's not sovereign. We know Herod wasn't sovereign.

We know that the serpent isn't sovereign. We know that death isn't sovereign. We do know that God is sovereign.

We know that God is sovereign. And far from what the cynics would make that it is a truth and a blessing beyond measure.

Because when I know and I'm reminded and I am sure and I am certain and I can see that God is sovereign, that makes whatever happened to me part of His plan.

And it might hurt and it might be full of challenges and deal with sorrow, but it's not meaningless because it's in His hands.

And then we get to verse 19 and the thing changes once more. We see kind of this event move quickly here.

Herod dies. The angel appears to Joseph in Egypt.

Listen, there's a statement here that you need to recognize. Herod died, all

Herods die. All tyrants fall, all persecutors pass away.

All of our enemies, all of the enemies of Christ are temporary, they're fleeting.

They cannot last, they cannot stand. Well, I used to be an avid reader.

I love to read, I don't read nearly as much as I used to. But I never wanted to read the end of the book.

I wanted to figure it out, right? You got to figure out the mystery or whatever's going on in the book you're reading.

But brothers and sisters, read the end of the book. The triumph is real.

All things are passing away. Behold, I make all things new.

All the enemies, all the tyrants, all the Herods, they may rage, but breath in their nostrils is borrowed.

Power is lent. And they may terrify for a season, but they do not endure,

Christ alone endures. Christ alone lives.

This is how important the resurrection is. Because the greatest enemy that we could imagine as people has been defeated by the

King of Kings and Lord of Lords. That's why when

Paul writes, he asked the question that's asked earlier in scripture, death, where is your sting?

Where is your victory? You don't have one anymore because Christ has defeated it.

The angel says to Joseph, get up, take the child as a mother, go again into the land of Israel.

For those who sought the child are dead. And again, we see Joseph, verse 21.

So Joseph got up. You got to love Joseph. God sends the message,

Joseph responds. No bricks, no baseball bats, no beatings that need to continue until you get the message like it is for many of us.

God sends a message, Joseph simply responds. No fanfare, no desire for acknowledgement, no desire to be lifted up, he just obeys.

What a quiet and constant figure that reminds us that this man is not only a man in conviction around what he believes, but also in conduct.

He's convicted of the truth of God, so convicted that it moves him.

Are you? Are we? Then we see verse 22, which almost seems weird.

We see this thing, Joseph hears that Archelios was reigning over Judea in the place of his father

Herod. Archelios, much like his father, and even more so as the Herods grew, had a reputation for cruelty.

If you've never read the history, outside the extra -biblical history, you'll see just how nasty the

Herods were. Joseph had good reason to fear, but Matthew doesn't criticize

Joseph for this fear. He records it. He says it's not a fruit of unbelief.

This is not an example of Joseph, okay, well, we're not going to go there.

It simply says he was afraid. He had concerns.

Brothers and sisters, you may have concerns in your life. If you haven't, then you probably haven't been awake any of it.

Joseph receives the guidance. He's not panicking, he is just discerning.

God meets him in that place and gives him direction and tells him to go from where you are to the district of Galilee.

Now, I want you to notice that for the third time in this passage, in 10 verses, we come to another fulfillment statement.

Are you seeing the importance Matthew placed on this truth that Christ fulfills? Now, what we see is that there are no specific verse but notice what

Matthew says. He says, so that was what was spoken through the prophets, plural, repeatedly as we read scriptures, especially as we read the prophets and their prophecies concerning the

Messiah. What we see is a Messiah that is lowly, that is despised, that is rejected.

Although it's very odd that the Jewish people who grew up with these couldn't see that. Isaiah 53 clearly gives us this picture where he says he was despised and forsaken of men.

In Psalm 22, it speaks of the suffering of the righteous one as a reproach of men who was despised by the people.

Messiah wouldn't come in worldly splendor, the Messiah would come in a humiliation and Nazareth was that humiliation.

Listen, we don't really get it but the truth is Nazareth was obscure, it was undistinguished, it had literally no place.

In fact, if you think about it, Leon Morris pointed out that Jesus, if he had been noted as being

Jesus from Bethlehem, how many of you remember Bethlehem is the city of who? David, David who?

David the king, becomes a little easier to see it, right? The king of kings coming from a place, the city of king, of the king.

Yet the backwater town of Nazareth and the even backwater community of Galilee, a region of Galilee.

I mean, Nathaniel even tells us later, right? Can anything good come out of Nazareth?

Anything good, not just, man, I can't believe one thing good, like can anything good actually come out of that backwater town?

Calvin writes that this fulfilled the prophetic teaching that Christ would be of no reputation in the eyes of the world.

Spurgeon captures the wonder saying that he who made the stars was content to dwell in a carpenter's home and Pink notes that from the beginning, the path of Christ was one of humiliation, setting before us the lowliness of the

Redeemer. Nazareth is not an embarrassing footnote.

It is actually a theological signpost. It tells us that the way of Christ is a way of humiliation before exaltation.

The king becomes lowly. The Redeemer comes despised.

The Savior enters fully into the condition of those whom he came to save.

To truly understand a man, it has been said that you need to walk a mile in his shoes to truly serve as the

Savior and Redeemer of humanity. Jesus had to become like those whom he came to save.

How comforting, how comforting. But the one who saves you understands all of your trials, your pains, your sorrows, your challenges, your difficulties.

We can't walk into a situation and go, Jesus never could understand this. I can't tell you how many times

I've been in a scenario where someone asked me a question and the only response I can give is, I don't know because I don't understand.

I've never been where you are. And even when you have been where someone is, you still don't have all of the same pieces that they have with all of the same backdrop.

And that can be a thing that makes you feel alone when dealing with a problem, when going through a situation, but Christ understands.

He didn't remain far above us, he came near to us. He walked the path of reproach.

He knows what it meant to be dismissed, underestimated, rejected. So as we take a look at this entire passage, the whole message here is unmistakable.

Jesus faces hostility, he faces suffering, he faces danger, he faces exile, sorrow, humiliation, he's hunted, mother weeps, family flees, a child grows up in obscurity and through all of this,

God is fulfilling his word and preserving his king.

Herod plotted, God warned, Herod killed, God preserved, Herod died, Christ lives.

Egypt, a place of bondage at one point becomes a place of refuge. Rama's weeping is set again within a larger promise.

Nazareth becomes the place where prophecy is quietly fulfilled, the hand of God moves.

It matters because the child preserved is the Christ who will go to the cross. This hostility that surfaced in Herod's enraged event, is that same that will mature in the leaders of Israel.

The rejection that began in his infancy will culminate at Golgotha.

The world will seek to destroy him, to crucify him. The enemies of Christ can not triumph over the plan of Almighty God.

Spurgeon said, the enemies of Christ may plot, but heaven rules.

And so the question again, is not merely what happened to Jesus in his infancy, it takes us right back to the same question that we've had over the last few weeks.

What will you do with this king? How will you respond?

How will you answer? Will you be the Herod resisting because you want your own throne?

Will you be troubled but unmoved? Informed but unwilling?

Or will you bow before him in worship? Jesus was not preserved for Jesus' sake.

He was preserved for ours. If Jesus had have been preserved for Jesus' sake, then

Golgotha would not have happened. Calvary would not exist.

He was preserved to live the life of obedience that we have not lived.

To die the death that we each deserve to die and to triumphantly rise.

This is the true son, the promised king, the redeemer of sinners. And our right response is faith, is worship, is obedience and trust.

So I invite you, bow before this king. Trust in the providence of God.

Rest in Christ. The one who was preserved for our salvation.

And remember, this king who was carried into Egypt, who was spared from Herod, who was raised in Nazareth, who now reigns at the right hand of the father, is the same one to whom which every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that he is

Lord to the glory of God the father. And I love the way that Paul writes it, where he says to those on earth and to those under the earth.

In other words, to those who believe and those who disbelieve, every knee will bow to this king.

I invite you to bow now. Let's pray.

Our most merciful and gracious heavenly father, we have but one word, one response to the gift of Christ into this world.

One response to the truth of this plan of redemption and that is thanks and praise and worship and adoration.

We glorify you that no power of man, no darkness, no weapon, no anything could prevail against Christ.

Father, we ask because we are still in desperate need of a continual reminder to trust in your sovereign providence when we face trials, when we face uncertainty, or that we would have courage, that we would be granted courage to follow

Christ faithfully, even in this world that opposes, that our lives would proclaim that we submit to Jesus as king, that our lives and this church is faithful to the gospel, that we live in joyful expectation of that day when every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is

Lord to the glory of God the father. We ask all of these things in the blessed name of our

Lord and our savior, Jesus Christ, to whom we simply bow as the king of all kings.

ask all of this in his precious name, amen.