Well, good morning. Join me in
the Gospel of St. Luke, Chapter 2. Such an exciting
chapter. We spent a long time in Chapter 1. Chapter 2 just has the Gospel
practically every line, every page, every verse. In chapter 1, we spent a lot
of time looking at the things that the Lord had arranged for
the birth of John the Baptist and our Savior, and the things
concerning that, and all the particulars around that. And
now we have the actual particulars of the actual birth of the Lord
and it just struck me the eternal providence that was involved
in the whole thing and people just kind of have a random view
of things a lot of times and the Lord just created the world
and then you just kind of let it go and he just is in a reactionary
mode but we find out from the very beginning that everything
is according to his purpose. The world is here for the purpose
of redeeming the church. There's no other reason for it
to be. And as we look at eternal providence
as it relates to the Savior, here as we get into chapter two,
let's just read the first few verses here of chapter two of
Luke. And it came to pass in those
days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all
the world should be taxed. That word is not like we would
think of a taxes like pay your taxes on April 15th. It's actually
a word that means to register, to enroll. It was kind of like
David says, I wonder how many people I have in my empire. Let's
count them and name them. So it's a word that kind of means
to enroll or register. They probably did get taxed as
a result of that. They got taxed for everything
else. Remember Matthew the publican. His job was to collect taxes
for the Roman Empire. So anyway, and this taxing was
first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria, and all went
to be taxed, everyone to his own city. And Joseph also went
up from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth unto Judea to the
city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of
the house and lineage of David. To be taxed with Mary is a spouse's
wife being great with child. And so it was that while they
were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.
And she brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling
clothes, laid him in a manger because there was no room for
them. in the end. So we're going to kind of focus
on that little bit there today. There's just a ton in there. The providence of God just struck
me. When Solomon was blessing the
temple, he said, blessed be the Lord that hath given rest And
here is the rest being born. The rest unto his people Israel,
according to all that he has promised, there hath not failed
one word of all his good promise, which he promised by the hand
of Moses his servant. Well, what did Moses record for
us in Genesis 3.15? The seed of the woman is going
to bruise or crush the head of the serpent. Galatians 4.4 says,
when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his son
made of a woman made under the law. And many such things we
find is that, but If we just think about the Roman Empire,
you know the Roman Empire came into being a long time before
Christ was died. I think Pompeii came in and conquered
Jerusalem in 60 BC, something like that. It became an official
Roman province. Just because they were extra
tough, Or was it because of what was written in Daniel chapter
7? This fourth empire came into being and during that time the
Savior was going to appear. a horn of salvation raised up
in the house of his servant David as he spoke by the mouth of his
holy prophets which have been since the world began." chapter 1 of Luke, verse 69-70. We read that. The day spring
from on high has visited us, as it was written from chapter
1, verse 78. the fulfillment of the angel
Gabriel from the father to Mary. And as we look at the Romans,
they came into being and Caesar, it was put in his heart to tax
his empire, to enroll his empire, to register them, to count them
up, and cause them all to go to their hometown, the city of
their ancestors, to be enrolled. That caused Joseph and Mary to
travel to Bethlehem, the city of his ancestors. In Luke 1, verse 30, the angels
told Mary to fear not, for thou hast found favor with God. Behold,
thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt
call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall
be called the Son of the Highest. The Lord God shall give unto
him the throne of his father David, and he shall reign over
the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there shall be
no end. All these things written in the
Old Testament, prophesied of, the Roman Empire brought into
being to bring all these things together at this particular point
in time, what the Lord calls the fullness of time that had
come. for his son to come. In this chapter, as we get into
chapter 2, he is called the consolation of Israel. He is called the light
of the world. And the glory of thy people Israel. We know that they are not all
Israel, which are of Israel. from Romans chapter 9 verse 6. There's a person named Simeon
here. He came to the temple waiting
for the consolation. He came waiting for the Lord. And the Lord promised him that
he would not see death until he had seen the Lord's Christ. I really appreciate what Norm
said. I can't remember if it was a Sunday or a Wednesday.
He said, that's something that every elect person of God can
say. They'll not see death until Christ
has been revealed to them. He'll not lose a single one.
All that the Father gives him shall come to him. This chapter gives indisputable
evidence that Christ was made of a woman, made under the law, They went to Bethlehem and then
had that baby, and then eight days later they circumcised him. And they went to the temple and
offered their sacrifice. And when they had performed all
things according to the law, then they went home. So he was
made of a woman, made under the law, and of the prophetess. that we find in this chapter,
spake of Christ, and she says, to all them that looked for redemption
in Jerusalem. They attended the Passover feast
every year, it tells us in this chapter, according to the law. Can you imagine just for a second,
Christ going to the Passover feast every year, and this is
about me. This is what I'm going to do.
This picture's me. Knowing full well the purpose
of it, that he was going to lay down his life, a ransom, an atonement. the grace of God was upon him,
it says. And he, as a child, he said,
I must be about my father's business. So it wasn't like he got to be
a full grown man and then said, okay, I guess I'll be a minister
now and a servant and go about doing moral good things and healing
people. From the time he was, before
he was born, I just loved what, I was reading Matthew Henry's
commentary and he said, Try to imagine the ancient of days becoming a child of time. The everlasting father becoming
an infant. So, there's plenty of things
to ponder. in this chapter. Jesus coming
to save his people from their sins. The redemption of the church. It tells about his exhibition
of knowledge and interchange with the religious experts. And
later on we find they said, how does he know all that stuff?
He's from Galilee. The Galilee are kind of scum.
We don't really have a lot to do with the Galileans. They're
kind of crude and vulgar. Their language is bad. They're
not very knowledgeable. How does this man know Scripture? Where did he go to school? He
didn't come to Jerusalem and go to the college of whatever. But it says he increased both
in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man, both
of whom he represented perfectly. So to begin our study in Luke
chapter 2 today, that's kind of our introductory remarks there
about all the things that we're liable to run into and not an
exhaustive list by any means, but some of the main things that
we would hit in this chapter. But I wanted to look today to
causes to consider a few things regarding the circumstances that
we're reading of in the sovereign purposes of God and bringing
them about according to his perfect will. And now Then as now we might take the,
in taking the short view, we might consider many of the things
which God brought to pass mighty inconvenient for us. I think
that all the time. And as we view things from our
human perspective and base our, if we look at it from our finite
human understanding of time and purpose, It's just a constant
task for us to say, Lord, align my mind according to thy will,
and not the other way around. Now the Romans, nobody likes
to be conquered. If somebody came in and conquered
us today, we'd just be mighty upset about it. And we would
just fail to see God's hand in that, probably. These folks have been conquered
like four times. They are vassals of the Roman
Empire as we speak. And they've been given a level
of certain level of independence religious wise. They were under
Roman law and certain things that had to do with the Jewish
law and religion. They were allowed to conduct those things according
to their, as long as they paid up on time and didn't cause trouble,
they were kind of allowed to do what they wanted. But they
were, They were subjects of the Roman
Empire. Paul said, I am a citizen of Rome. And God brought that about. He brought
that Roman Empire about. I don't know how many people,
thousands of people were killed in their conquest of the known
world at the time. to accomplish the purpose of
God. And other things that it's just too numerous or to even
imagine all the things that went on for God to bring about his
purpose of having Caesar be in charge and saying, okay, everybody
go to their hometown and enroll, get registered, get signed in. But he did that according to
his purpose. People are always trying to inflict
their views of how things should be on God. His ways are higher
than our ways, and He doesn't answer to us. But He did it. Nothing was done in secret. God
announced in advance everything that would come about to fulfill
His almighty purpose in the redemption of the church. We read from Genesis
3.15. We read from Genesis 1. In the
beginning, God created the heaven and the earth, and the earth
was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of
the deep. The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters and
God said, let there be light. The light overcoming the darkness
and the void and the disaster. The fallen Adam, which brought
the resulting spiritual death and the need for a Savior as
detailed in chapter 3. as recorded by Moses, the remedy
that God provided, the promise of a Savior. I'll put enmity
between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed.
It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. And
unto Adam, in Genesis chapter 3, verse 21, unto Adam and his
wife did the Lord God made clothes of skin and clothed them. Made
coats of skin and clothed them. And now thousands of years later,
in time as we understand it, by the direct providence of the
working of Almighty God, the Roman Empire is here, as revealed in Daniel
chapter 7. And he was a captive in Babylon
at the time. So he probably thought, well,
this is inconvenient. But you know what, he had faith
in God, and prayed to God, and he said, whatever your purpose
is, I'm here, and I'd like to know more, and God revealed to
him things. But even after it was revealed
to him, he says, well that made my head hurt. So Daniel saw in this vision,
not only the empire to come, but most importantly, He saw
one like the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven, the
Ancient of Days, it tells us in Daniel 7 verse 9 through 13. The Son of Man. The Lord had revealed to him, born in subjection to the Roman
Empire at the time the Lord caused to be counted
as a tributary to the very Caesar whom God had put in control and
placed in his heart and mind to command to cause the census
of his empire. It's just like Norm was teaching
us. Well, God put it in the heart
of a Persian king to say, okay, it's time for you to go home
and rebuild the city and the temple. He didn't come up with
that by himself. God directed him to do that. So this Roman Empire as it grew
until it encompassed what was considered in the scriptures
here, it talks about the world. It's talking about the Roman
world at the time because it was fairly inclusive of most
everything. It included Judea, Syria, far
north into Europe, down into Africa, according to the providence
of Almighty God to accomplish His purpose. And so Caesar fulfilled
what God revealed and foretold by His servants, the prophets. Again, in Luke 1, verses 68-70,
it says, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He hath visited
and redeemed His people, and hath raised up a horn of salvation
for us in the house of His servant David, as He spake by the mouth
of His holy prophets, which have been since the world began. The
house of David, the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, that's
what it says here in chapter 2, Joseph went up from Galilee out
of the city of Nazareth and to Judea and to the city of David,
which is called Bethlehem because he was of the house and lineage
of David. And Bethlehem is not there by
accident. Bethlehem, the translation of
that is house of bread. I know you all know that. And it was foretold in Micah
5.2, thou Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the
thousands of Judah. I think I read where the population
of Bethlehem at the time would be like around between two and
500, a small a small place, probably about
doofer size, maybe, or some small town. Even though thou be little
among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee, out of the smallest
thing, an unimportant seemingly place, shall he come forth unto
me that is to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been
from old, from everlasting. Micah 5.2. Bethlehem had been
revealed by God in types and shadows of the coming Redeemer. If you turn over to Ruth chapter
1, and I think Norm went through this book of Ruth part here a
little while ago. Ruth had a lot of things happen
to her in a brief amount of time. They were in Moab and her husband
died, then her two sons died. Verse 16 of chapter 1, and Ruth
said, Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following
after thee. For whither thou goest, I will
go. And whither thou lodgest, I will
lodge. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. That's
the words of one of her daughters-in-law, Ruth, to Naomi. Naomi was the one that had the
husband that died, and the two sons. And she said, I'm going
back home. There's nothing for me here.
Where thou diest, I will die, and there will I be buried. The
Lord do so unto me, and more also if thou, if aught but death
part thee and me. And when she saw that she was
steadfastly minded to go with her, then she left speaking unto
her. And so they too went, until they
came to Bethlehem. And it came to pass, when they
were come to Bethlehem, that all the city was moved about
them, And they said, is this Naomi? And she said unto them,
call me not Naomi, call me Mara, for the Almighty hath dealt very
bitterly with me, if she only knew. I went out full, and the Lord
hath brought me home again empty. Isn't that kind of what the Lord
does to us? We kind of go out full of ourselves, and when He
gets us down to empty, then we go to Bethlehem. Why then call you me, Naomi,
saying the Lord hath testified against me, and the Almighty
hath afflicted me? So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law
with her, which returned out of the country of Moab, and they
came to Bethlehem in the beginning of the barley fest. the harvest
of barley. Now, years ago, when we were
studying John, we kind of went through the history of barley
and noted that barley is the first crop. It's the first grain
to ripen. It comes on one to three weeks
ahead of the regular wheat crop. So it's the first fruits of the
harvest. And it's kind of the lower grade
quality of wheat, barley is. As a grain, it's not the most wonderful, pure, white,
defined flour that we read about. But we find a lot of sacrifices
in the Old Testament required barley. And we find it here that they
come to the house of bread at the time of the barley harvest. And we'll look into that a little
bit more later. It says, And by God's mercy, Ruth came to
Bethlehem, the house of bread, to be redeemed by Boaz, her near
kinsman. A picture of the Lord our Redeemer,
as Norm brought out. And then as we go up to chapter
3 of Ruth, in verse 9, it says, and he said, as Boaz is speaking
to Ruth, who art thou? And she says, I am Ruth, thy
handmaid. Spread therefore thy skirt over
thy handmaid, for thou art a near kinsman. And he said, blessed
be the Lord. Blessed be thou of the Lord,
my daughter, for thou hast showed more kindness in the latter end
than at the beginning. And as much as thou hast followed
not the young man, neither whether rich or poor. And now, my daughter,
fear not. I will do to thee all that thou
requirest. For all the city of my people
doth know that thou art a virtuous woman." That's how the Lord sees
us. He sees us without spot, without
wrinkle, and He does everything required for us. to redeem us. The same as Boaz does for Ruth
here. And now it is true that I am
thy near kinsman and how be it there is a kinsman nearer than
I. Chapter 4 verse 13 We've gone through that little segment where
you had to go and talk to the other person that was the nearer
kinsman and say, do you want to make any claim? And when they
didn't, he said, I'm going to exercise the near kinsman claim
then. And in chapter 4 verse 13, so
Boaz took Ruth and she was his wife. And he went in unto her,
and the Lord gave her conception, and she bare a son. And the woman
said unto Naomi, Blessed be the Lord, which hath not left thee
this day without a kinsman, that his name may be famous in Israel.
And he shall be unto thee a restorer of thy life, and a nearer sure
of thine old age for thy daughter-in-law, which loveth thee, which is better
to thee than seven sons have borne him. Now Naomi took the
child and laid it in her bosom, and became nurse unto it. And
the women, her neighbors, gave it a name, saying, There is born
a son to Naomi, and they called his name Obed. He is the father
of Jesse, the father of David." And you'll find that lineage
here in chapter 3. If we went over to chapter 3,
it goes through this part here and it gives the lineage. Luke takes it all the way back
to Adam. He's the son of man. If we go
over to Matthew chapter 1, it only goes as far as Abraham where
the covenant of promise was. It's interesting, but they both
list in chapter 3, verse 31, which was
the son of Melia, which was the son of Menan, which was the son
of Metathah, which was the son of Nathan, which was the son
of David, which was the son of Jesse, which was the son of Obed,
which was the son of Boaz. which was the son of Salmon,
which was the son of Nahasson. And in Matthew chapter 1, it
says, Boaz begot a son by Ruth. It mentions her name. So quite a story there as we
see the Savior being taken back to Bethlehem. The very roots
of David. The very roots of the horn of
salvation. The house of bread. You know, we use barley flour when we make
the unleavened loaf for the Lord's Supper. Because I think it symbolizes
more the right conditions of things.
If you turn over to John chapter 6. As we look at Bethlehem, the
house of bread, Ruth coming there at the barley harvest. In John
chapter 6, in verse 8, they have this multitude of people
there that have showed up to hear the Lord One of his disciples, Andrew
Simon Peter's brother, saith unto him, there's a lad here
which hath five barley loaves and two small fishes, but what
are they among so many? Jesus knew that the bread of
life was, that there was enough to go around. Jesus said, make
the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the
place, so the men sat down and number about 5,000. We were just
talking about maybe if we had the 200 people, 270 something,
just fill this place up. Imagine 5,000. That's a lot of
folks. And that was just the men. They
apparently didn't count the other ones. And Jesus took the loaves,
and when He had given thanks, He distributed to the disciples,
and the disciples to them that were set down, and likewise to
the fishes, as much as they would. And when they were filled, He
said unto His disciples, Gather up the fragments, that nothing
be lost. And they filled 12 baskets with
the fragments of the five barley loaves which remained over and
above all that they had eaten. There was enough and more. Where
sin did abound, grace did much more abound. And then he takes that picture. People come to him and say, boy,
I want some more. Where's the next free handout?
We want some more of that free bread. So if we skip down to
verse 31, he says, you know what? This
is just physical bread that we're eating right now. It's a picture
of the bread of life. I'm the bread of life. And they said, we'd like to be
able to make this bread, instant bread. What can we do to work
the works of God? And he says, you know what? The
work of God is not producing free bread. The work of God is
causing you to believe in whom he has sent. And so in verse
31, they said, as a counter, our fathers did eat manna in
the desert. As it is written, he gave them
bread from heaven. Jesus said unto them, Verily,
verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from
heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.
For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven and giveth
light unto the world. And they said unto him, Lord
evermore, give us this bread. And Jesus said unto them, I am
the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never
hunger. He that believeth on me shall never thirst. But I said unto you, you've seen
me and believe not. All that the Father giveth me,
they're gonna come for the spiritual bread. All that the Father giveth
me, they're gonna come to me and I'm not gonna cast them out.
I'm the bread of life. Later on in Luke, the 22nd chapter,
he took a loaf of that unleavened bread when he was having his last supper
with his disciples. He took that and again he referenced
himself as that bread of life and the spiritual sense of it.
Not that The bread itself had a magical spiritual quality to
about it that if they took of it, it would have magical qualities. He said, it's a symbol. He gave
thanks and break it. Gave unto them and said, this
is my body which is given for you, this do in remembrance of
me. It's a symbol that he was the bread of life, that he was
sent down from heaven. due in remembrance of me. And
so as we're in Luke chapter 2, Mary and Joseph travel to Bethlehem,
the house of bread, to give birth to the bread from heaven. What a beautiful spiritual picture
that the Lord brings to us. And it's been there all along.
He's told people about it. all the way back from, Ruth is
a fairly old book, from Genesis on, Micah chapter five, verse
two. This is where it's going to happen.
And the people knew it. They said, well, where's the
Lord supposed to be from? And they said, well, the prophets
said Bethlehem. That's where the Savior is. Not
Nazareth. I think a little later on we
see Philip and his brother. Hey, I found
the Messiah. Oh yeah, where? He's over from
Jesus of Nazareth. He says, can any good thing come
out of Nazareth? That's not where the Savior is
supposed to be from. He's supposed to be from Bethlehem. How can the Messiah be from Nazareth?
That's not correct. And he said, come and see. He couldn't see for him, I think
is the point. He had to see the Savior for
himself. His brother couldn't see it for
him. I've seen him. I believe you have to, you have
to see for yourself. So we're going to stop there
and we're going to look at this a little bit more. The next time
we're together, probably be a few weeks, I think, but the scepter
shall not depart from Judah nor a lawgiver from between his feet
until Shiloh come. And we find that, sure enough,
the scepter has departed from Judah. And Shiloh, he's there. And the people said, we have
no king but Caesar. So stay tuned for next time.
Thanks for your attention. And always be free.