The Star of Bethlehem (Matthew Chapter 2 - Part 1)

So this evening, we're going to continue with Matthew chapter two. So go ahead and turn there, Matthew chapter two. So this is the Christmas theme. Last week, we talked about the divinity of Christ. Two weeks ago, the kingship of Christ.

So this will be Matthew two. This is the visit of the Magi or the wise men. And we'll talk about that, get into what all that means. So let's listen along to Matthew two, one through 12.

The Visit of the Magi and the Fulfillment of Prophecy

Now, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the King, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem.

Where is he who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East and have come to worship him.

When Herod the King heard this, he was troubled and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.

In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet but you Bethlehem in the land of Judah are not the least among the rulers of Judah. For out of you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.

Then Herod, when he had secretly called the wise men, determined from them what time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem.

Go and search carefully for the young child. And when you have found him, bring back word to me that I may come and worship him also.

When they heard the King, they departed. And behold, the star which they had seen in the East went before them till it came and stood over where the young child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy.

And when they had come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary, his mother, and fell down and worshiped him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to him, gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Then being divinely warned in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed for their own country another way. Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream.

Arise, take the young child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I bring you word. For Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.

When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt and was there until the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet.

Out of Egypt I called my son.

Then Herod, when he saw that he was deceived by the wise men, was exceedingly angry, and he sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its districts from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the wise men.

Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet.

A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, weeping, and great mourning. Rachel, weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted because they are no more.

Now when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt.

Arise, take the young child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel. For those who sought the young child's life are dead.

Then he arose, took the young child and his mother, and came into the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea instead of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And being warned by God in a dream, he turned aside into the region of Galilee.

And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets.

He shall be called a Nazarene.

The Star of Bethlehem and the Identity of the Wise Men

Now this idea, this just occurred to me. Am I dreaming this or was it like a year or two ago, they were saying, hey, the star of Bethlehem is gonna be visible from this date till this date. Does anyone remember that?

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, good. I'm glad I got someone because I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine that. Yeah, I don't know how they figured that, but something happens in the sky every so many years and they labeled it the star of Bethlehem.

Whatever it was, I didn't see anything too special up there. So I'm pretty sure that wasn't the actual star of Bethlehem. So, okay. So we talked about two weeks ago, Christ the King, and then last week, his deity.

And all of this should be, it should cause us to see Jesus for who he really is. He is Lord. And as Lord, we recognize who we are. We are his servants. So Matthew chapter two, verse one begins. Now, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the King, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem.

So we have the birth of King Jesus, and then we have this statement, Herod the King. As you probably know, you can't have two kings in the same area. That just, that doesn't work. They come into conflict with one another.

So Jesus, at this point in Matthew two, he's already been born. Matthew says, Jesus was born where? In Bethlehem? Everyone knows that. But he says what? Bethlehem of Judea. So Bethlehem means house of bread, but he's careful to point out that this is Bethlehem of the South, of Judea, because there was another Bethlehem in the North, about 200 kilometers north near the Sea of Galilee.

So this is Bethlehem of Judea. It's about six miles outside of the capital city, Jerusalem. So that's where Herod is. He's ruling, and he's in Jerusalem. Six miles away in this smaller town of Bethlehem, this is where Jesus is born.

Okay, so what's significant about Bethlehem of Judea? When the Jews heard of Bethlehem or thought of Bethlehem, what would come to mind? David. Okay, David. This is the birthplace, or at least the hometown of David, who was Israel's greatest king.

Also, there was a prophecy that when the Christ would be born, he would be born in Bethlehem. And remember, he's the son of David, so there's those similarities. Next, who are these mysterious visitors?

They are called what? Now, depending on what translation of the Bible you use, they're gonna be called something different. So what do you have in your Bible? Wise man probably is what most translations say.

Does anyone have anything different? There's a note. Okay. It says magi. Okay, magi. So the King James Version of the Bible will call them magi. I'm not sure if there's any other translations that call them that, but magi, wise men, we'll talk about that more in a second.

It says that they came from the east. So I always wondered how they determined this. You see the map in the back. Every map of the world is laid out the same way. You have China and Australia, and that's east.

And in the west, you have the United States, and then Hawaii, and then it just goes to the other side of the map. And in the middle, you have Africa. So when we talk about Israel, Jordan, Iran, Iraq, those countries, what do we call it today?

We call it the Middle East. And if you look at a map, and the Jews thought, many of the Jews thought that Israel was the center of the world. It's not exactly the center, but it's pretty close if you look at a map.

So when it says that the wise men came from the east, it's talking about the east from the perspective of Judea. So east of that, they probably came from where? What do you think? Where do they come from?

Did you have any notes or ideas in your mind? What have you heard in the past? Where did they come from? China? Okay, yeah, when we talk about the east today, that's what you would think of. But remember, it's not necessarily that far east.

It doesn't tell us where they came from. So I guess in theory, they could have come from China. Anyone else?

Joyce. My notes say they were probably from Mesopotamia.

Okay, Mesopotamia. Ancient of ancient Babylon. Okay, so that's ancient Babylon. And the other theory is the land of Persia. So if you think of today where Iraq is, that's Mesopotamia, Iraq and Syria, that's where the Babylonian Empire was.

And then east of that was Persia, or today we call it Iran. So Iraq, Iran, Persia, Babylon, it's probably in that area that they come from. Here's why that's important. We can't say for certain, but they seem to know something about this star and the significance of it.

God does tell them, communicates to them in a dream. So did God tell them ahead of time? We don't know. It doesn't really tell us. Here's the best theory. It's really an educated guess. But you remember Daniel the prophet.

Remember we talked about this in chapter one, how Daniel gave that prophecy of the 70 weeks and he gave the timeline of when the Christ would be born. Well, Daniel was taken captive to where? Babylon, right?

And he gave that prophecy in Babylon. And Daniel was the king, or not the king, he was the prince. He was in charge of a certain group of men that were considered wise men. So the theory is that when Daniel was in Babylon, he gave these prophecies and it was kind of passed down from generation to generation.

And the people who had that information, Babylon was conquered by the Medes and the Persians. So all the way down to these men, the song says three kings. They weren't kings, they were basically astrologers.

So they saw something in the sky, perhaps God told them, but the theory is that they had this information that originated with Daniel the prophet. That's our best guess. So these men are most likely astrologers.

When you think of astrology, what do you think of? Probably not Christian men who are seeking out Jesus Christ. Astrology today has different connotations, but what is astrology today? Fortune telling.

Fortune telling, study of the stars. Yeah, typically these would be people who read their horoscopes and find out what each star or constellation means. And they kind of live their life, not based on the scripture or based on the leading of the Holy Spirit.

They sort of set their life based on what the stars are saying. Of course, are the stars really saying anything? I think it's people that are saying that, but anyways. That's not what the wise men were.

They weren't astrologers in that sense, but they were very knowledgeable about the stars. Okay, so what about this other term, magi? What does that bring to mind? Magic. Magic, right? So a magician. And that's, again, the King James Version, calls them magi.

So the Greek word magos, basically wise men is a translation. Magi is a transliteration where you take the Greek word and just bring it straight into the English language. So magos becomes magi. So basically we're seeing that they're astrologers, magicians, and again, this just doesn't sound right to us.

Like these are not people who would be seeking Christ. Another definition for the term magos or magi would be a sorcerer or a false prophet. So again, there could be a lot of confusion surrounding these terms.

So no pun intended. I think we need to get, based on the story, based on what we do know, I think we need to give these men, we need to give them the benefit of the doubt. So what do you think they were?

Wise men, magi? They were educated men who knew. Yeah, scholars. Educated men who knew that something major had happened. Okay, so I think it's wise, no pun intended, to give the magi the benefit of the doubt.

Genesis 1 verse 14 says, "'Then God said, let there be lights "'in the firmament of the heavens "'to divide the day from the night "'and let them be for signs and seasons "'and for days and years.'". So at least you have this verse of scripture saying that God, at times, will use the stars for a sign.

And the word for sign can also be translated miracle. I say all of that to say this, I think the Star of Bethlehem was a miraculous event. I don't think it was the constellations aligning just perfectly, although I guess that's possible.

I think this is a miraculous event. So those men may have been watching. They knew the general time period based on Daniel's prophecy. So when they see the star, they know, okay, now's the time. We've been hearing about this all of our lives.

We're gonna go and we're gonna see what's happening. Dad.

Jesus' birth must have meant an awful lot to them because they traveled from afar, as the psalm tells us. Yeah. But they also had very expensive gifts to give to the king. Right. And traveling the way they did, they were susceptible to bandits, any kind of people that would take advantage.

Right. So I gotta think that whoever they thought Jesus was, they thought he was very important, a very important king. Right.

Right. And if you do go back to Daniel's prophecy in Daniel chapter nine, he talks about the king, or the prophecy talks about the most holy, and he will usher in everlasting righteousness. So it's my personal opinion that they understood something about the Christ child and his deity.

I guess I can't prove that, but I think that they had to have known this is more than just another king being born. I think we can agree on that. All right. So verse two, it says, they get to town, they arrive, and they ask the question, where is he who has been born king of the Jews?

So you get the idea. They come into town and they start asking everyone they come across, people walk by them, they get to an inn, whatever, and they're just asking people, hey, where is this child? Where is the newborn king?

And I wonder what their response was. I think the people are like, what are you talking about? What newborn king? So we're here to worship them. Where can we find your king? And based on everything we read from Matthew's gospel and Luke's gospel, it seems as though the people, the Jews, really have no inkling of what's going on.

So their reaction has to be one of confusion. Why are you here? Have you ever read this and got that sense? Because you don't see any real anticipation from the people. There's no response. Yeah, we've been waiting for him.

He's born in Bethlehem. Now, even when Herod finds out, he has to call the scholars together of Israel, and they have to tell him. So nobody has any idea of what's happening, but these men do. And that's kind of a sad commentary on the Jewish nation, that they really didn't know what was happening.

They had to be told by men from Babylon or from Persia. And again, based on Daniel's prophecy, they would have had at least the general time that this would have happened. But if the religious leaders of Israel had been aware of, do you think they were aware of Daniel's prophecy?

Yeah, they were, but they obviously didn't hold it in too high of a regard. They obviously weren't teaching it. So how do we know that? Because the majority of people had no clue. You know, I think that's true today.

The Bible has so much to say, and there's so much to say even about Christ in his second coming, but the average person is pretty much oblivious to it. Even a lot of people in churches really don't know a whole lot about Christ and his second advent.

So I think it's the same thing then and today. The average believer, how much do they really get about Bible prophecy? See, it's easy for us to kind of look back and with 20, 20 vision, we see what has happened.

Why didn't they know? Why didn't they expect it? Yeah, but most Christians today probably, and every Christian today has a Bible, right? And most Christians today are not familiar with Daniel's prophecy.

So how much less familiar were the Jews who didn't have personal Bibles? So somewhat speculation, but that seems to be what's happening. So the Jews were like anyone else today. We all have our own lives.

We have our own issues to deal with. We get caught up in the busyness of life. How much time do we really devote to the study of Bible prophecy and the expectation of what God is gonna happen at any given point?

How much time does the average believer spend in that? Not much. And if they're not hearing it preached in church, they're probably not getting it hardly at all. So the Jews, if they weren't getting it from the leaders of their synagogue, they would have been completely in the dark.

You know, Jesus says it's gonna be that kind of a situation before he returns at his second coming. In Matthew 24, 38 and 39, Jesus says when he returns, it'll be like the days of Noah. It says, for as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark.

And they did not know until the flood came and took them all away. So also will the coming of the son of man be. So people are just gonna be living their lives. Everything will seem normal, just like 2000 years ago, the Jews that are just living their life, just another day.

And then Jesus shows up and that changes everything. So it's gonna happen like that again. All right, any questions or comments so far? So we don't wanna be clueless like they were, okay? But I think most people are.

Worship, Fear, and the Kingship of Jesus

So the wise men show up and start asking around, where is this king who has been born? And they say, for we have seen his star in the east and we have come to do what? To worship him. That is a passage that supports the deity of Jesus, why?

Because only God is worthy of worship. So they come and when they do see him, they do bow and they do worship him and Mary and Joseph and they seem to receive this worship. On the other hand, in those days, kings were worshiped as gods.

So that doesn't necessarily prove that they understood the Christ child was divine. But again, in my opinion, I think they knew something about the deity of Jesus. Whatever the case, they're asking people about the birth of King Jesus.

And to the average Jew, the only king they knew was this other guy, six miles away. Well, actually the wise men come to Jerusalem. So that's where Herod is. The only king they know is Herod. Now, is Herod a Jew?

Was Herod, or let me put it this way.

Was Herod king of the Jews? No. Okay. He wanted that title to be his. Yep.

Herod was an Idumean. So he was a descendant of Esau, not Jacob. So Herod himself wasn't even Jewish. So he was not someone who would have been looking forward to the birth of the Messiah. Herod was a very wicked man.

Even secular scholars acknowledge some of the great things that Herod did, but he was known for his cruelty. I think he even had some of his close family members killed. He's one of these tyrants that's paranoid, that thinks his children, or someone's gonna take the throne from him.

So he just eliminates all his rivals. So when Jesus is born, of course we know the story. What does he do? He wants to kill Jesus. So he hears these rumors that men have come and they're looking for the king of the Jews.

So what does he do? Look at verse three. When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled. And that doesn't surprise us. But it says, in all Jerusalem was troubled with him. So the bottom line is, Herod sees Jesus as a rival.

So we understand why he's troubled about it. But why would the inhabitants of Jerusalem be troubled? Shouldn't they be excited? Shouldn't they be thrilled? When they hear that the king of the Jews has been born?

I mean, isn't this what they have been waiting for?

They thought the Messiah was gonna come as a king. Right. And not as an infant. Yep.

Right. Yeah, I mean, that's true. But he has to start somewhere. To me, you would assume that they would be excited about the news. So why weren't they excited? Does anyone have any theories?

Probably they were afraid they would be killed by Herod as well. Right.

That's what it is, I think. They all knew Herod in the way he was. So Herod is going to eliminate his rival. So they know he's going to react harshly. Also, if a new king has been born, whenever there's a transfer of one government to another, that always means warfare, bloodshed.

And then if a war broke out in Jerusalem amongst the Jews and Herod, that means the Romans could come in and crack down. So the people in Jerusalem, they're troubled because now everything is very uncertain.

People don't like uncertainty. People, even if they perceive, they think the government is bad and it's not working for them, they're gonna pick what they know over something they don't know. So anything could happen.

War could break out. Herod's gonna react in a bad way. So I think that explains why all of Jerusalem was troubled. They simply don't know what's gonna happen next. Verse four says, and when he, that is King Herod, had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.

So he hears the news and he wants to know exactly who is this kid? Where can I find him? So he inquires of who? The chief priests and scribes of all the people. And then they make reference to two verses of scripture.

This is the prophecy from Micah chapter five, verse two, which we looked at last week. But it's almost like a combination between Micah five, two, and second Samuel five, two. Second Samuel five, verse two says, you shall shepherd my people Israel and be ruler over Israel.

So that's the Lord speaking to David. And David's from Bethlehem. Micah chapter five, verse two says, but you Bethlehem Ephrathah or Ephrata, however you pronounce it, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to me the one to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from old from everlasting.

So there's two statements that kind of get mushed together. And they tell him, either way, the Christ will be born in Bethlehem. Again, we already asked what's significant about Bethlehem. Most people would recognize it as the hometown of King David.

David is what we would call a type of Christ. I remember we went through Exodus and Numbers and we looked at the different men who are types of Christ. To help you understand what that means, think of a prototype.

What's a prototype?

You develop something. What is it? It's like a sample or an example. An example, right.

But the real thing, which comes later on, is way better, right? So David, think of him as like a prototype of the Messiah. So David set a high bar. He's Israel's greatest king. So his son, the Christ, would be similar to David.

A prototype is similar to the final product. But the Christ is gonna be much, much greater. So when the anointed one took the throne, all the Jews had this in their mind that when the Christ comes, and yes, Janet's right, they did expect him to come.

They probably never thought about, okay, he's born as a baby and then how long do we have to wait? 20 years, 30 years. They probably didn't think of it that way. They're expecting him to show up and take the throne.

But this is the idea they had. He would drive out their enemies, drive out the foreigners, restore the glory to Israel under David and then some. So this is the common idea of what the Messiah would do.

And as I explained last week, it's accurate in terms of Jesus in his second advent. He will defeat Israel's enemies. He will establish the kingdom, a glorious kingdom, even greater than David. So that is true.

And that's what the Jews expected. But if all the Jews knew that, that means Herod had to have some idea that that is what they expected of the Christ. So when Herod thinks about this, I mean, he's just planning and plotting and he's ready to eliminate Jesus straight from the beginning.

So Herod is what, a religious leader, a Bible scholar? No, he's a political ruler. You know how it is. Political rulers typically are not all that informed when it comes to what the Bible says. When they, I don't wanna be too harsh, but because that's not their job.

But sometimes when they quote the Bible or try to say something, they get it really wrong and take things out of context. So when Herod wants to know about the Christ, he has to defer to the experts. So verse four says, he gathered the chief priests and the scribes.

So these are the religious authorities in Israel. So who are the chief priests? What do you know about the chief priests? They were typically of one party. And what party was that? Pharisees. Okay. Remember, there's two parties, right?

Pharisees are one, and the other is the? Sadducees. The Sadducees. So the chief priests, they were the big shots. They were the temple hierarchy. They were typically Sadducees. The Sadducees, to help you understand who they were, they were sort of like the liberals of their day.

They denied the supernatural. They were rationalists. They were also political opportunists. They had no problem compromising to get what they wanted. The scribes, on the other hand, were of the other party.

And what's that? The Pharisees. So the chief priests were Sadducees. The scribes were typically Pharisees. And the Pharisees, they had their own problems. Typically, their beliefs were correct to a large degree.

However, they allowed tradition to overshadow the truth. So the scribes and the Pharisees were what we would call legalists. They thought that salvation came through the law of Moses, but they didn't really understand the law of Moses because it was all clouded through their tradition.

So they were professional scholars who spent their days studying the Jewish law. Here's the thing about the Pharisees and the Sadducees. While they didn't like each other, some 30 years later, they did find common cause.

They came together to oppose Jesus and his ministry. And here, straight from Christ's birth, what are they doing? They're informing King Herod about where Jesus was born. Now, I'm not saying they had sinister motives here.

I mean, I guess they don't really know what Herod is planning. So I'm not saying they're intentionally giving him the location so he can go kill Jesus. But on the other hand, they weren't completely ignorant of the way Herod was.

So it kind of makes you wonder. All right, so verse five, they said to him, that is Herod, in Bethlehem of Judea, that's where the Christ is to be born. For thus it is written by the prophet, that's Micah, but you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah are not least among the rulers of Judah, for out of you shall come a ruler who shall shepherd my people Israel.

Then Herod, when he had secretly called the wise men, he determined from them what time the star appeared. So they show up in town, they're asking all these questions. Word gets back to Herod, and he calls for the wise men to come to his palace.

So Herod consults the religious authorities. Now he meets with the magi. And notice the detail that he did this in secret. It says when, verse seven, when he had secretly called the wise men. So when people have secret meetings, I mean, that tells you something.

They don't want people knowing what's going on. And if they don't want people knowing what's going on, they're probably planning something bad. Something, yeah, it has a sinister feel to it. And of course, knowing the story, we know that's exactly what's happening.

So evil people, they plot their evil deeds in the shadows. Tyrants almost never come out and announce to the people, hey, this is what I'm about to do. Because if the people know and the people hear that, they might rise up.

So tyrants are evil, but they're not stupid. So he calls this secret meeting. And he doesn't want word spreading around that the Messiah had been born. I mean, word's kind of out already, but if this spread throughout the nation, the people could use this as an excuse to revolt.

Because Herod's not popular, the people don't like Herod. So if they hear the king of the Jews has been born, you know, Herod's just not leaving them any room to do anything. So he tells the wise men that, actually, I'm really excited about this.

Hey, tell me where the Christ child is. So what? What did he tell them? Yeah. That I may go and worship him. Another thing tyrants do, they have no problem lying. So Herod's plan is the same, and here's the thing.

Herod's plan to kill Jesus is the same exact plan that these men, the chief priests and the scribes, it's the same plan that they have 30 years later. To lay hold of the king of the Jews and to put him to death.

So Herod and his ilk, I mean, him and the chief priests and the scribes, you know, they're a match made in, well, not heaven,.

But they have a lot in common. Yeah, Larry. I was just thinking about, so what happened before Christ began his ministry was that period of time called 400 silent years. So there had been no word from God for 400 years.

So just as in the days of Noah, you know, they were doing what they wanted to do because nobody was telling them that they were wrong, that they were sinning, and I have a cross reference from verse four, the chief priests to 2 Chronicles 36, 14.

Moreover, all the leaders of the priests and the people transgressed more and more according to all the abominations of the nations and defiled the house of the Lord, which he had consecrated in Jerusalem.

Okay. So they were doing their own thing.

Yeah, after 400 years, they start to wonder, yeah, God's not speaking anymore. Nothing's really happened. We've heard about the Messiah who is to come, but, you know, my parents' generation hasn't seen it.

My grandparents, I haven't seen it, you know. Yeah, after a certain amount of time, people go in that direction of unbelief and just kind of forget about it. Daniel, again, you had Daniel's prophecy. Daniel was in Babylon.

Remember, we broke the prophets into three groups, before the exile, in exile, and then after the exile. Daniel was in the exile, and he gave the time period, 483 years, once the wall gets rebuilt, 483 years until Messiah comes.

So they have that information. And then after the exile, who's the last prophet, last book of the Old Testament? Malachi. So Malachi gives the last prophecy about, you know, Elijah shall come, who was, that was fulfilled to some degree in John the Baptist.

But yeah, 400 years of silence, people forget all about it. And now we've had, what, 1 ,900 years, 2 ,000 years of silence. So if they forgot after 400 years, how much more have people forgot after 2 ,000 years?

Yeah, yeah, well, I wasn't gonna point out, you know, all the parallels, but I figured you could. Yeah, nothing new under the sun, as I always say. So Herod's plan is to kill the baby Jesus, and the chief priests and the scribes, 30 years later, that's what they do, and they're successful.

So to lay hold of the king of the Jews, to put him to death, what was the reason? It's the same reason for both. Herod wanted to hold on to his position of power and authority. The scribes and the chief priests, what did they want?

They wanted to hold on to their position of power and authority. So thinking of that, what's the takeaway? I think you see two attitudes reflected in this passage. King Jesus is born. Some people are excited about it, the magi.

They're excited, and they come to worship him. The others, though, are troubled. So that's the same thing today. When you hear about Christ and his second coming, there are some people who are excited about it and are looking forward to it.

There's other people that, well, either don't believe it, or if they hear about it, they're very troubled by it. But with these two groups, the wise men were humble. Herod, he's proud. Herod cares about himself.

Scribes, chief priests, they care about themselves. The proud are always looking out for themselves. They refuse to submit to the kingship and the lordship of Jesus. Why? Because they want to be in control.

They wanna be in control. They don't want Jesus to have his rightful place where he is king and he is lord over all. So what then is, we have to ask, what is our attitude towards the Lord and his word?

Are we humble? Are we willing to accept it when we hear about these things? Do we say, amen, and I wanna see this? Or are we proud and we just want to oppose it because we're trying to hold on to what we got?

I've heard, and I think there's some well-meaning people who say this, but sometimes people say, well, I don't want Jesus to come because I wanna see this happen and I wanna retire and I wanna do this.

And I don't want Jesus to come because I have my own plans. Well, if you've ever said anything like that, you need to rethink that attitude. But you could just ask somebody, is Jesus the Lord of your life?

Is he sitting on the throne? Are you willing to worship him? The Magi, they were willing to travel from whatever, Persia, Babylon, risk their lives, make that journey to worship Jesus. Compare them with King Herod who's sitting on his throne and he's just gonna oppose this no matter what.

So is Jesus the Lord of your life? Is he sitting on the throne? Or are you trying to stay on the throne and control things? I'll close by reading verses nine through 12, which is where we will Lord willing pick up next week.

And the wise men heard what Herod said and they departed and behold the star which they had seen in the East went before them till it came and stood over where the young child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy.

And when they had come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary's mother and fell down and worshiped him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to him, gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Then being divinely warned in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed for their own country another way.