You know when we look at the
gospel narratives, we're going to be looking at Matthew chapter
2 today. We see how history in the proper
context, which is in the context of the gospel, and how God saves
sinners, how it's a beautiful thing. But without that, it's
an ugly thing. If you look at the history of
man, somebody said the history of man is written in blood because
of the hatred, the warfare, the poverty, and all that's the result
of sin that was brought in by Adam. We're all sinners, and
I say often there's only two types of people in this world,
sinners lost in their sins and sinners saved by grace. And we're
all getting through, but we know it's by the grace of God that
we manage. And we see here what we call
God's providence. And I love to talk about God's
providence, because that means God's the governor of this world.
He's in control. He's on the throne. He's working
all things after the counsel of his own will. And no matter
what evil and wicked men and women try to do, it's not going
to stop God's purpose. And boy, don't we see this in
Matthew chapter 2. The title of the message is,
Wise Men Seek Christ. And that's the greatest wisdom
of all. That wisdom is the gift of God. That wisdom is something
that we don't have by nature. 1 Corinthians chapter 1 talks
about that, the foolish and the wise. And those who are wise,
they seek Christ and they find Him in the glory of His person
and the power of His finished work. And look here at Matthew
2. This is the story of what we
call the wise men, what the world sometimes calls the magi. You've
heard that? You know, that's a word that
actually means something like mysticism or magic. And they're
not magi. They weren't mystics and magical.
They were wise men. And they had the gift of wisdom
from God. And so it says in verse 1, it
says, Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, In the
days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the
east to Jerusalem." First of all, Jesus was born in Bethlehem
of Judea, just like the Old Testament prophesied. We read about that. Micah chapter 2 mentions Bethlehem
Ephratah. Ephratah was another name for
Bethlehem. And there were two Bethlehems.
There was one in the tribe in Zebulun, but this is the one
that was prophesied that the Christ, the Messiah, would be
born. Bethlehem of Judea. And this
distinguishes him from any other supposed self-proclaiming Messiah
that came from anywhere else. And we're going to see how Herod
asked the question, where was the Messiah to be born? And they
said in Bethlehem. And you know what the word Bethlehem
means? It means house of bread. Another
alternative name for it is house of flesh. And isn't that appropriate?
Because our Savior was born in the house of bread and he's the
bread of life. And it also means house of flesh. He's God manifest in the flesh. So we see there, the word made
flesh dwelt among us. And of course that was necessary
for him to be our surety, having our sins charged to him before
the foundation of the world and the everlasting covenant of grace.
It was necessary for him to be our substitute, to come in time
and take our place. That's what Christ did when he
was born of the virgin. He united himself, his deity,
with sinless humanity so that he could walk this earth under
the law. We mentioned that last week.
Made under the law. All of our salvation conditioned
on him. And he was a substitute. That's
what substitution is. I'll never forget when I first
saw my father-in-law's Bible. He had the word substitution
written just about at the top of every page. Because that's
the heart of the gospel. And it was, and it is. So Christ
had to be a proper, able substitute. And in order to do that, he had
to be born in Bethlehem. He had to be born of a woman.
He had to be made flesh. And the reason that was is because
the goal that he had in his work was redemption. He redeemed us
from our sins. He didn't try to redeem us. We
read about that last week. His name shall be called Jesus,
for he shall save his people from their sins. The Bible's
clear on that. There's no if there. There's
no provision of salvation if we do certain things, which the
Bible says we cannot and will not do if left to ourselves.
None good, no not one, none that seeketh after God. And so here
it says that he was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod
the king. Now what's significant about
Herod being the king? Well, the king of Judah was to
be from the house of Judah. He was to be a Jew from the house
of Judah. Jacob said that back in Genesis
49. It was revealed the scepter would
not depart from Judah until Shiloh come. That's Christ. a Jew, he
wasn't from the tribe of Judah, he was an Edomite, he was a descendant
of Esau, but he was put in place by the Roman Empire, by Augustus
Caesar, and he was proclaimed to be the king of the Jews, and
he called himself Herod the Great. Now isn't that a testimony to
the natural pride of man? And he had a lot of political
power. But what you see here in Herod being king, here the
Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah, who was prophesied way back in
Genesis 3, the Messiah who was purposed before the world began,
and who was prophesied in Genesis 3.15 to be the seed of woman,
who was prophesied in Genesis 3.22 to be the substitute, the
lamb, the bloodshed, that person, When he came into the world,
look at the state of Jerusalem, of Judah, of Israel at that time. It was pitiful. It was a dry
area. It was down. They were conquered
under the Roman Empire. The kingdom was divided. The
northern kingdom was already long gone, the ten tribes there. But even the southern kingdom
was in pitiful shape. And I thought about this because
that indicates that the fallen condition of man by nature. That's right. And all of us,
not just the Jews. Paul wrote in Romans 3 and verse
9, are we better than they? Are the Jews any better off than
the Gentiles as far as salvation goes? As far as a right relationship
with God? As far as being righteous, are
the Jews any better off? No, we're no better than they.
We're all in the same boat together, naturally. We're sinners who
need salvation by grace and there's not one person on this earth
who needs more grace than what I need or you need. It's common
to all of us. And so when Christ came into
the world, he came into a sinful world. And the Bible says he
came to save sinners. Jesus Christ came to save sinners.
And it says here, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem. Now these wise men, you know,
we always try to, as best you can, try to put tradition and
mythology out of your mind on these things. There's nothing
that says these were three kings. You know, we used to sing that
song, we three kings of Orianor, tried to smoke a rubber cigar
and all that stuff. Try to put that out of your mind.
Because there's nothing here that says they were kings. They
were wise men. There's really nothing here that
says there were three of them. Most people say there are three
because of verse 11, which says there are three gifts. And so
they think about it. And I've talked to you about
this before, and you all have heard this. They didn't come
to the manger to see the infant Christ. It was probably many
months later, even maybe as much as two years. And you can determine
that because you remember Herod, he wanted to have the firstborn
in Bethlehem killed two years and below. So he had in his mind
this happened two years before. But anyway, these wise men came
from the east. They probably came from somewhere
around Babylon. And if you want to know what
a wise man was, you remember back in the book of Daniel, the
king, he had a group of wise men who would advise him. And
you know who was one of those wise men? Daniel. A man named Daniel who knew the
Lord, who knew the gospel. In fact, Daniel at one point
in time was kind of like the head of these wise men. Now that
was somewhere around 400 years before this event. But you know
what? Daniel preached the gospel when
he was in Babylon. And there was another prophet
that did. Now he preached mainly to the Jewish captives, and that
was Ezekiel. So the gospel was in Babylon.
And when you know about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they preached. So somebody says, well, where
did these wise men hear about Christ? And I heard a preacher
say one time, well, God just zapped them. No, God doesn't
just zap you. I believe that it was from that message that
Daniel and Ezekiel preached. And you know, as I said, Ezekiel
preached mainly to the Jewish captives. You know, not all the
Jewish captives left Babylon and went back to Judea, went
back to Jerusalem. Some of them stayed in Babylon.
And if there was any of the remnant there, they preached the gospel.
And I believe these wise men heard the gospel from Daniel
and men like that, and then over the years, it was passed down.
And you know, God had a people among the Gentiles now, didn't
he? Did scripture say that? Yes, it does. So how did these
wise, we don't know for sure how they heard it, but I suspect
that if you trace the history of it, that's it. And they go
down from there. So these wise men, God sent them
a star and that would lead them to where the Christ child was,
the young child. And you know, I was reading the
lesson that Brother Jim Byrd had on this and he made this
point and I like this. He said, you know, a lot of time
in the Bible, God's preachers are compared, are typified by
stars. If you look in the book of Revelation,
now when I say star, I don't mean like a movie star or a star
performer or anything like that. They're lights that point to
Christ. And that's what I'm doing this
morning. I'm pointing you to Christ. And when these men, when
Randy and Jim and Mark and Robert get up here and preach and teach,
what are we doing? We're pointing you to Christ.
That's the kind of star that we are. We're not pointing to
ourselves. And so here's this star pointing
these wise men to Christ. And that's the point of this.
And so Daniel, or these wise men rather, that knowledge was
handed down and hundreds of years later, these wise men were inspired
by the spirit, these wise men who knew the gospel. They were
appointed and guided by this star that God sent to find the
Savior. Look at verse two, he says, saying,
where is he? Now this is what Herod, asking
the wise men, where is he that is born King of the Jews? For
we have seen his star in the east, or this is the wise men,
they came and asked, where is he that is born King of the Jews?
For we have seen his star in the east and are come to worship
him. Well, that's why the Holy Spirit
inspires any sinner to go to Christ. To do what? Not to bargain
with him, not to negotiate the terms, not to hear him say, I
will if you will, just simply to worship Christ. And you want
to know something that you already know? That's why we're here this
morning. We're here to worship Christ.
And every one of us, including the preacher here, we ought to
pay, Lord, wipe everything else off of our minds and focus our
attention on Christ. Let me hear about who he is in
the glory of his person. I love to tell the story. I think
we're going to sing that today. The story of our Savior. And
I love to talk about his birth. I said last week, we don't know
what day he was born. And I really don't care what
day he was born. I know it was a day. I know it
was in time. The Bible says in the fullness
of the time, God sent forth his son made of a woman, made under
the law. I don't believe it was December
25th. And we do celebrate it. We celebrate it that day, but
celebrate it on December 26 too. We celebrate his birth, his life,
his death, his burial, his resurrection, his intercessory work. It's the
whole work of Christ. And that's what these wise men,
they wanted to worship him as the Lord God of salvation. And they speak of Christ, who
is the very wisdom of God. That's why these are wise men.
It's not because they looked into crystal balls or they foretold
the future. They knew Christ. The Bible says
that Christ is our wisdom. That he is the very wisdom of
God. Because he is the supreme answer
to eternity. He is the supreme answer to the
problem and the cure of sin. What's our problem? Three-letter
word, sin. We're all going through, in some
forms, or not all of us right now, but we all go eventually,
if the Lord lets us live long enough, we go through physical
problems. Well, they're the result of sin.
The body is dead because of sin. You say, well, I'm not dead yet,
but you're dying. And the older you get, the closer you get to
that death. This body is dead because of sin. But it goes on
to say this, and here's our hope, the Spirit, the Holy Spirit,
is life, life everlasting, life eternal, spiritual life, because
of righteousness. And where am I gonna find righteousness?
I need some wisdom there. Because I don't have it by nature.
And the Bible tells me that Christ is the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believe it. It tells me that as sin hath
reign unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness
unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. That's the wisdom of
God, how God can be just and justify the ungodly. Is there
any greater wisdom than that if you know the answer to that?
And we know it's in the glorious person and finished work of Christ.
Well, the Bible tells us. that he is our wisdom, he's our
wisdom, he's our righteousness, he's our sanctification, he's
our redemption. And we tell people that all who
are wise, by revelation from God, and that's what it takes.
These wise men didn't come on their own. They didn't just wake
up one morning and say, well, I think I'll go find the Savior.
No, it was a revelation from God. And if you know Christ,
and you know the wisdom of God in him, You know the wisdom of
what we are by nature. It takes a wise person to really
understand that. Do you know that? I mean, I know
everybody will say, well, we're all sinners. But they don't know
how much of a sinner we really are until God reveals it to us. That's why it takes the work
of the Holy Spirit to convict us of sin because we don't believe
on Christ without Christ. Think about it. And I've often
said this, you know, how do we measure goodness? How do we measure
righteousness? If we measure it, as they say,
horizontally, meaning as we compare to one another, do you know when
it comes to salvation, when it comes to eternal life, when it
comes to a right relationship with God, it's foolish to measure
goodness horizontally. We've got to measure goodness
as it pertains to God. And if you ever do, by revelation
from God, under the conviction of the Spirit, that's a wise
person. Now you may still do a lot of
foolish things, I know I do. But in this matter of the gospel,
and what I am in God's sight, He's granted me the wisdom of
the ages, just like these three wise men. I could be riding on
a camel right with them. And that's what it is. And that's
no boast, because that wisdom humbles us. That wisdom comes
from God. And if it weren't for God's grace
and revelation, we wouldn't have that wisdom. He gives us the
wisdom of righteousness. Righteousness can only be found
in Christ, it cannot be found in us. Don't fool yourself, don't
be a fool. God's made us wise unto salvation. And that means this, my only
hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.
You know, a lot of people sing the wise hymn, but they're still
foolish to the wisdom of God. Don't do that. They've been made
wise to the reality of righteousness. They've been made wise to how
God saves sinners. And that's why they wanted to
come and to worship Him. That's what wise people do. They
want to find Christ. They want to hear of Christ.
They want to worship Him. Look at verse 3. had heard these things, he was
troubled and all Jerusalem with him." Now here's Herod, he's
on the throne. He's virtually usurped the throne. He has no godly right to be there.
And yet in God's providence, God put him there. And it was
for God's purposes, wasn't it? And when he heard that these
guys came from the east to seek the king of the Jews, You know,
when Herod took that title, King of the Jews, you know who gave
that to him? In history, it says Augustus Caesar did. He said, well, you're going to be
King of the Jews. And of course, as I said, he became Caesar's
puppet. But these guys are seeking King
of the Jews. I imagine he wanted to say, well, here I am. But
he didn't say that. He was troubled. Apparently he
let his trouble be made known because it says here all Jerusalem
with him. I don't know how the word got
out. I'm sure the king may have said something. It may have been
his worldly wise men that did it. But he was troubled because
now he's got a rival. Somebody wants my throne. And
of course we know that Christ did not want that earthly throne.
His kingdom was not of this world. Just like the temple. He wasn't
a priest in that earthly temple. He's the heavenly temple and
priesthood. And it says, look at verse four,
and when, let's read a few verses here. When he had gathered all
the chief priests and the scribes, this was his elite, his advisors,
of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be
born. He said, where's the Messiah to be born? And they said unto
him, in Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet,
and thou Bethlehem in the land of Judea are not the least among
the princes of Judah, for out of thee shall come a governor
that shall rule, and some translations translate that word rule as feed
my people Israel. And what's amazing about this
is they quoted scripture. They quoted Micah chapter five
and verse two, talking about the Messiah coming out of Bethlehem
Ephratah. And so they knew the scriptures,
but they missed the point. They missed the message. And
when I read that, I thought about John chapter five, where Christ
was standing before the Pharisees. In verse 39, he says, you do
search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal
life. They are they which testify me. So these priests, these scribes,
they knew their Bible, but they didn't know Christ. And isn't
that true of so many people today? They read their Bibles, they
quote it, they memorize it, they study it, Some even write commentaries,
but they miss Christ and the main message of the word of God.
And what does that tell you? For any of us to be made wise
unto salvation, it's got to be revealed. God has to reveal. The revelation of the gospel
of God's grace in Christ is as much a matter of God's sovereignty
as electing grace before the foundation of the world. And I believe, I honestly believe
this, I'll say this, I believe anyone who's really interested
in finding the truth will find it. Now why do I believe that? Because I believe if you're really
interested in finding the truth, God has made you so. You know what I'm saying? Now
I know people, a lot of people say they're interested in finding
the truth, But the problem is, when they see it in the scriptures,
they either don't understand it or just flat out deny it.
I mean, I've had THDs, you know what a THD is, don't you? I don't
have a joke for it, it's just Doctor of Theology. In seminary,
you'd show them scripture. And I had one tell me one time,
he says, I know it says that, but I just don't believe it.
What do you do? There it is in black and white.
You know, people deny God's electing grace. Read in Romans chapter
nine. There was a famous so-called THD who wrote a book on that
and brought out in his book the very same objections that Paul
anticipated in that chapter, Romans nine, and didn't realize
he was doing it. You remember what Christ said
of the Pharisees, the blind leading the blind and they all fall in
the ditch together? Now, having said all that, I
know that I'm no better than those people. I certainly know
I'm no smarter than those THDs and all of that. They know Greek
and Hebrew and all of that. But God revealed it to me. Doesn't
that humble you? Think about all the friends that
you have, the family that you have who are religious but don't
know Christ, and God chose you. Now that's a humbling thing because
I know and you know that the reason he chose us was only because
of his sovereign will, his sovereign grace. It wouldn't because of
anything in us. So here's Herod, he said, I wanna
know where this messiah was to be born, this king of the Jews.
And so they read it to him, and then look at verse seven, it
says, then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men,
had a private consultation with them, inquired of them diligently
what time the star appeared, and he said to them, or he sent
them to Bethlehem and said, go and search diligently for the
young child, not a baby now, because he knew this child had
grown up a little bit. And when you have found him,
bring the word again that I may come and worship him also. Now
do you think Herod really wanted to worship him? Well, you know
better. He had no intention of worshiping Christ. His motive
was self-centered. And he saw Christ, he saw this
young child as a rival. and he wanted to kill him. And
of course, in the next lesson, we'll read about that, where
the Lord protected his son, because he had a plan already in motion
to save his people from their sins. But the point is this,
even in youth, Christ was hated by his enemies. Herod, like all
enemies of Christ, he was inspired by Satan, who sought to stop
the progress of God's sovereign will that was purposed and planned
before the foundation of the world. Now what gives an individual
the idea that you could ever do anything like that? It's just
pride and unbelief. But you know what? Think of the
words of our Lord to Peter and the apostles. He said, upon this
rock, the rock of Christ, I will build my church and the gates
of hell will not prevail. Even in his youth, even in his
infancy, in his youth, the gates of hell could not prevail. You
know why? Because it's God's purpose that
all of his sheep, all of his elect come to repentance. that
they be saved, that this purpose be done. And the verse 90 says,
when they heard the king, they departed, and lo, the star, which
they saw in the east, went before them till it came and stood over
where the young child was. And then it says, and when they
saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. When they
found the Messiah, they rejoiced. Isn't that what you did? Isn't
that what I did? when God finally brought us to
see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. That's what
happens. We rejoice with exceeding great
joy. And no demon from hell, no king
in the earth can stop it. Because as I said, God's not
willing that any of his people should perish. Let's all consider
this. I'll consider it about myself.
and you consider it about yourself. Think about all the mistakes
that you made, I made, and still make sometimes. Think of all
the foolish things we do. Think of all the foolish things
we said. And in our youth as believers, think of all the things
that we said wrong or had the wrong tone or the wrong approach. And you could beat yourself up
for years over that, couldn't you? I could. Even things I do
now. But here's the key. Here's the
comfort. Nothing we do, and this doesn't
excuse anything now. We ought to be wise, loving,
we ought to think before we act, all of that. Now, don't get me
wrong. I'm not saying that it's okay for us to go out and act
like a bunch of dummies, you know, or anything like that.
We should, we ought to grow in grace and knowledge and wisdom,
the way we treat each other, the way we act toward each other,
the way we operate in this world. But we do have this comfort that
nothing we do or didn't do can stop the will of God in saving
his people. I've talked to people when I
first was converted, and I could go back and say, well, if I had
to do it over again, I'd say it this way and not that way.
But I know this, if they're one of Christ's sheep, he's gonna
bring them to salvation. And I'm comforted by that. What
I'm saying is this, I'm comforted in the fact that I can't mess
it up. Because if I could, I would. That's why I'm a sinner saved
by grace. Well, look at verse 11. It said, when they were come
into the house, they saw the young child with Mary, his mother,
and they fell down and worshiped him. Now, notice who they worshiped. They worshiped the young child.
They didn't worship Mary. They didn't pray to Mary. They
didn't say, Oh, Holy Mother Mary, go to him for us. We're not to
worship and pray to Mary. Listen, I thank God for Mary. Don't you? She's blessed among
women. But I tell you what, she's no
better than the rest of us. She's a sinner saved by grace
in her magnificat, as they call it, her praise. She called her
son her savior. And the only one who needs a
savior is a sinner. Idolizing Mary, praying to Mary
or any saint, is idolatry. Mark it down. No more than idolatry. There's one God and one mediator
between God and men, and that's the man Christ Jesus. And he
alone is to be worshiped. He alone is to be sought after
and praised. And you know who knew that just
about as well as anybody? His mother Mary. She was not
the mother of God. God has no mother. She was the
mother of the human nature of Christ. And we've seen why he had to
do that, why all that happened. But that's the case. Now, there's
nothing in the Bible that says there's any spiritual significance
to the three gifts. Look, it says, they worshiped
him, and when they had opened their treasure, they presented
unto him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. I don't believe there's
anything, it doesn't state here that this had any significance,
other than to show their love and their devotion to the Savior.
These were expensive things back then. And we know that in the
Bible, in the Old Testament, gold represents his deity. Frankincense
is a plant that gives off, it's a resin, that gives off a strong
odor that is pleasant, like incense. And that could represent, or
we can take from that, the fact that Christ is a sweet-smelling
savor to God, his sacrifice in our place. And myrrh was a thing
that they used in embalming to preserve the body. So we can
look at that as the preserving power of Christ. He saves us,
he keeps us, he'll bring us to glory. And I don't believe there's
anything wrong with seeing the spiritual illustration in those
gifts. But to say this is what was intended,
I don't know, but that's okay. Everything about Christ, his
deity, his sacrifice and his humanity, the sweet smelling
savor unto God. were accepted by God in the beloved.
And then verse 12, it says, and being warned of God in a dream
that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their
own country another way. They knew they had to get away
from Herod. And so Herod said, well, come back and tell me so
I can, they didn't do that. They just left, because they,
God give them the wisdom not to fool that gentleman. So that's
the lesson, all right.