Matthew chapter 2. I'm going
to try to keep this brief, but we still have to read the text
to make it make sense. Look at verse 1. Everybody is
familiar with the story. This is the birth of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Matthew chapter 2 verse 1. 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, saying, where
is he that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star
in the east, and I come to worship him. When Herod the king had
heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. When
he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people
together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born.
unto him in Bethlehem of Judea. For thus it is written by the
prophet, And thou, Bethlehem, in the land of Judea, art not
the least among the princes of Judah. For out of these shall
come a governor that shall rule my people Israel." That is a
quotation out of Micah 5.2, that's where they got that from. Then
Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, inquired of them
diligently what time the star appeared. And he sent them to
Bethlehem and said, go and search diligently for the young child.
And when you have found him, bring me word again that I may
come and worship him also." Anybody believe him? He wants to kill
Christ. That's what he has purposed to
do up to this point. And at the end of this story,
after he finds out that he's duped by the wise men, after
two years goes by, he sends his soldiers down to Bethlehem. And
he kills every child, every male, age of two and under because
he wants to wipe out the Christ. And when he's asking them, when
did the star first appear? He's trying to do some quick
math because it's going to take these wise men some time to get
from the east all the way over to Jerusalem. So, he's like,
okay, he's like if the star first popped up when the Christ is
born and it took you all two months to get here that means
that he's a male, he's in Bethlehem, and he's under two months old.
I know exactly who I have to kill. Verse 9, When they had 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. When they saw the star, they
rejoiced with exceeding great joy. were coming to the house
they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down
and worshipped him. And when they had opened their
treasures they presented unto him gifts, gold, and frankincense,
and myrrh. And being warned of God in a
dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into
their own country another way." And when they were departed,
behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream,
saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee
into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee 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
into Egypt, and was there until the death of Herod, that it might
be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying,
Out of Egypt have I called my son. Now this story focuses on
three major characters. You have the king, and that is
not Herod. That's Christ. The wise men call him the born
king. He's the king that is born, king
of kings and lord of lords. And what's interesting is that
while obviously he is the child in this story, there's also a
type of Christ in this story. It's a story about Christ, and
there's a type of Christ in the story, and that's the star. It's
the star that appears to these wise men. You have the king,
and then you have the would-be king. That's Herod. He represents
the natural man. Wants to be king, but he's not.
And then you have the wise men, and they represent every believer. So quickly, let's talk about
Herod. Herod's theme is he hates Christ
and he wants to kill him. Like I said, he is the natural
man. If you want some history about Herod, it's this. So Herod
was a guy who always thought that people were conspiring against
him. And at one point in his life, he thought his wife was
conspiring against him, so he had her killed. And then a little
while later, he thought his sons were conspiring against him,
so he had them killed. And it's interesting because to have his
sons executed and to put them on trial, he had to get permission
from Caesar, Octavian. And Octavian gives him the permission.
He says, yeah, sure. If you want to kill your kids,
have at it. And then Octavian makes this very famous quote.
He says, it's much safer to be Herod's hog than to be Herod's
son. He was pointing out Herod's religious
hypocrisy. Herod would have considered himself
a very devout Jew. He was always washing his hands
according to the law. He was always observing the feasts according
to the law. He would never go near a piece of pork. It was
unclean. And he would consider himself
a very devout religious man, but he didn't think a thing about
murdering his entire family. He was a cruel, wicked, evil
man that hated God, and he was a complete and utter hypocrite,
and he's just like you and me. That's every man by nature. That's
what you need to know about him. And this thing, this scheme that
he concocts, this scheme to kill the Christ, this is incredibly
wicked, but it's wicked on a couple of interesting levels. Number
one, it's wickedly ignorant. Ignorant. Here's why. Herod thought
that the Lord Jesus Christ was going to come and he was going
to take his throne from him. He was going to set up an earthly
kingdom and he was going to kick Herod off his throne and he was
going to rule over physical Israel. And that's what all the other
Jews believed too. ones who the Lord did not reveal Himself to.
They all thought that Christ was coming, Messiah was coming,
and He was going to ascend to the throne. He was going to reunite
Judah and Israel and they were going to be the most powerful
country again. And this was all going to be an earthly reign.
That's not why Christ came. And he told Pilate this, he says,
my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world,
then my servants would fight that I should not be delivered
to the Jews. But now is my kingdom not from hence. He's saying,
if my kingdom were here on this earth, my angels would be down
here and they'd be wiping every one of y'all out. My kingdom
is not of this earth. He didn't come to set up a physical
kingdom on this earth. He came to set up a spiritual
kingdom and to usher his people into that kingdom. was doing
all this in wicked ignorance. But I want you to think of the
wicked ignorance of the natural man in hating Christ. Why does
he hate Christ? Why does the natural man hate
God? He hates God for one reason because God is sovereign. He
is in control. He rules and reigns over all
men. And whether a man will be saved or not is completely and
utterly up to Him. And God, Christ cannot be manipulated
in any way, shape, or form. And the natural man hates that.
He says, that's out of my control. That means I don't have a choice.
And that's true, you don't. You don't have any control and
neither do I. And the man says, the problem
then is the sovereignty of God. The sovereignty of God is the
barrier to my salvation. It is not. The barrier to a man's
salvation is the man. what it says in Mark 16, 16,
it's a very simple statement, "'He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned.'" Sovereignty
of God has never held any man off from Christ. The only barrier
that stands there is the man himself. He will not come to
Christ. He cannot come. He will not come. He will not take His rightful
place as a sinner before God. He will He will not beg for mercy. He cannot believe and He doesn't
want to. The barrier to a man's salvation is the man. What does the sovereignty of
God do though? It breaks down the barrier. The sovereignty
of God is that arm of absolute barrier breaking. And He reaches
across and He destroys the barrier and He grabs the man, the man
that would not come, that could not come, that would not bend
the knee and He drags him to Himself with His full permission.
where that is exactly what the man wants because He gives him
a new heart and He causes him to believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. The sovereignty of God and salvation, the thing that
men hate about Him, it's the only thing that will save you. Not only was this wickedly ignorant,
this is wickedly foolish, Herod said, I'm going to kill the Christ.
That's my purpose. This was foolish because the
Lord Jesus Christ reigned over Herod long before Herod was ever
born and long before the Lord Jesus Christ ever came into this
world. And there was absolutely nothing Herod could do about
that, just like every other man. He hated the Christ. He came
up with this scheme. He concocted this great scheme
to kill him. And the whole time he thought he was going to do
damage to God. But at the end of the day the only person he
did any damage to was himself. And I thought of Paul on the
Damascus Road. The Lord said unto him, he said,
I am Jesus who thou persecutest. It is hard for thee to kick against
the pricks. He said, Saul you think you are
persecuting me. You think you're persecuting
my church. You think you're doing me some harm. You can't hurt
me. You can't hurt my church. The
only person you're hurting so is yourself. Think about kicking
against pricks. Think about taking your shoe
off and your sock off and kicking a thorn bush. You going to do any damage
to that thorn bush? going to tear your leg up, that's what
you're going to do. And when men war against God all they're
doing is doing damage to themselves, they're not doing any damage
to God at all. And if you want to see the complete and utter
sovereignty that Christ had over Herod and He has over every man
it's this. This thing that Herod did he
concocted this scheme to kill the Christ which is wicked and
which is evil. But when he did that he was doing nothing more
and nothing less than the will of God. Now I want to be as clear
as I can be on this. What Herod did was wicked. Herod
did it because that's exactly what he wanted to do. Herod is
held responsible to that to this very day, and he is held accountable
even now if the Lord didn't save him. And he did it all according
to the purpose and the will of God, just like every man does.
God is sovereign. man is responsible." And that
just is. And somebody says, I need an
explanation for that. Read Romans 9 tonight you'll find the only
explanation there is. God is sovereign and man is responsible. He was doing exactly what the
Lord had purposed him to do. I find it interesting that star
didn't lead the wise men immediately to Bethlehem. That star appeared
to them to the east, where did it lead them? To Herod. was the Lord who brought Herod
in the mix. Why did He do that? Why did He allow Herod to concoct
this wicked scheme? What purpose was being dealt
with here? Look at verse 14, your text. Speaking of Joseph, when he arose
he took the young child and his mother by night, and deported
into Egypt. And he was there until the death
of Herod, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of by the Lord
by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son."
That is a quotation from Hosea 11.1. Why did the Lord do this? Why did He purpose Herod to interject
Himself in all this and allow Him to concoct this scheme to
kill the Christ? It seems like it caused so many
problems. It didn't cause any problems at all. He was simply
fulfilling the will of God. The Lord said there has to be
a mechanism to get My Son down to Egypt because Hosea 11.1 says,
I have to call Him out of Egypt. And since it is written in the
book it has to happen. So what is the mechanism? Herod
you are up. sovereign over everything. If you want to see the premium
the Lord places on the Scriptures. All this happened, all this happened
simply because Hosea 11 and 1 had to come to be. Everything in
this book it must come to pass, and folks it has already come
to pass because God said it, and God can't lie. Now, these wise men, who are
they? going to walk you through a couple of different scriptures,
but I'm just going to tell you about this. So, here's the biggest piece
of information we get about these wise men. They are from the east,
right? They are over in the east country.
And they are in the east when the star appears to these men.
Now, who are they? Well, I've heard a lot of theories
on that. But I listened to a message by
Henry Mahan recently and he took a stab at it and it was really
good. So, if you recall Abraham after Sarah died he had another
wife, Keturah. And this is what Genesis 25 says
about his children. It says, Then again Abraham took
a wife, and her name was Keturah, and she bare him Zimran, and
Jochshon, and Medan, and Midian, and Ishbak, and Shua. were all
sons of Abraham. And I had forgotten about this
passage of Scripture. If you had asked me a couple of weeks
ago how many sons did Abraham have I would have told you two,
Isaac and Ishmael. He had all kinds of sons. had
all kinds of grandsons and they had all kinds of sons. Now listen
to this, this is Genesis 25 verse 5, And Abraham gave all that
he had unto Isaac. But unto the sons of the concubines
which Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts and sent them away from
Isaac his son while he yet lived eastward, eastward toward the
east country. It's quite possible, and I'm
not saying this is definitely what it is, but it's quite possible
that these men were the great descendants of Abraham. And that
makes sense. How'd they know about the star?
How'd they know that the star would be in the sky upon the
birth of Messiah? Well, it's very simple. Abraham
told them. Abraham preached the gospel to his children, and he
told them about the star. He said, boys, when you see that
star, Messiah is born, you go and you worship. That's what
you do. And they told their children, and they told their children.
And 16 to 17 hundred years later, all of a sudden, there's a star.
Boys, it's time to go worship. But here's the spiritual significance
of this thing of the east. Listen to Genesis 3, 24. So he
drove out the man and placed at the east of the Garden of
Eden cherubims and a flaming sword which turned every way
to keep the way of the tree of life. Adam sinned, and through
his sin he separated himself from God. And the Lord lined
the east portion of that garden with cherubims, and he put a
flaming sword there that turned every direction, which was the
constant reminder to Adam, because of what you've done, you are
separated from God. Your sins have separated you
from God. This thing of the east has something
to do with sin and separation from God. Where were the wise
men when the star appeared to them? They were in the east. Where does the Lord always find
his people? He always finds them in the same
place in the East. In all their sin and all their separation
from God. And I think this is so important,
it's so beautiful. This star came to them where they were
at. were in the east. It's not as if they started looking
for the star. It's not as if they started asking questions.
It's not as if they turned everything around. No, it was this, they
were in the east. That's where the Lord's people
are in their natural hatred, in their sins, in their separation
from God. And in love and in grace, what
does He do? He comes to us where we are at in the east. And He
reveals Himself just like that star up in the sky. Now, When the Lord reveals himself
to a man, what does he see? What does he find out? First,
he finds out he's in the East. For the first time, a man finds
out that he's a sinner before God. My sins have separated me
from God. And this is the second thing
he finds out. He finds out that that star, that star is his only
hope. Now, I want you to listen to
this. This is Revelation 22, 16. The Lord speaking of himself,
he says, I am the root. and the offspring of David, and
the bright and the morning star." That star is Christ. Bright,
you know what that speaks of? It speaks of clear, shining,
and transparent. Who is he? He is the spotless
lamb. Jesus Christ, the righteous, the man who did no sin and knew
no sin, and always did those things that pleased his Father,
he's the bright star. And that word bright, it also
means just magnificent. in all his attributes, in all
his offices, as sovereign, as omniscient, as omnipotent, in
every aspect of his person is all magnificent. He is utterly
magnificent. He's the bright and he's the
morning star. And that word morning means early. What's it like outside
early, early in the morning, two or three o'clock in the morning?
It's pitch black. He is the star that shines in
the darkness. And the picture and the type
couldn't be any simpler. In all the darkness and the blackness
of our sin, Christ came to this world. He bore his people's sins
in his body, and just as that star was suspended between the
heaven and the earth, he suspended himself on a cross between heaven
and the earth, suffering under the wrath of God for his people.
And he took that darkness and that blackness, and he put it
away, and he brought us into the bright morning of favor with
God. That's the type. That's the picture
there. That's what's going on there. And when a man sees Christ,
when he has Christ revealed to him, when Christ comes to him
where he's at, this is what he sees. He sees, I'm in the east.
My sins have separated me from my God, but this it. That star
suspended between heaven and earth, that Christ on that cross,
that's everything in my salvation. That's all I've got. Now, a question. Where did this
star lead them? The star, which is a type of
Christ, led these men to Christ. I find that very interesting.
It will never be the law and the burden of the law that will
lead a man to Christ. It will never be a man's sins
and the burden of his sins that will lead him to Christ. And
it will never be the natural things, the trees and the rivers
and those things that declare that God is, that he is infinitely
powerful and he should be sought. None of that has ever brought
a man to Christ. The only thing that will ever bring a man to
Christ is this, it's Christ. He's got to come to a man where
he's at and he has to reveal himself. And when he does, he
draws that man to himself. There's a statement that is made
in verse nine. It says, he went before them. The star went before
them, and if you want the totality of the gospel in three words,
that's it right there. Went before them. Think about
that. I was thinking about Abraham
and Isaac in Genesis 22. Abraham's just about to sacrifice
Isaac, and the Lord calls out. He says, Abraham, Abraham, stop.
And he shows him the substitute, that ram caught in the thickets,
but it's behind him. It's behind him. That ram had
been there the entire time. Abraham couldn't see it until
the Lord revealed it to him. He went before us. He has always
been our surety. He has always been the savior
of his people long before we could ever see it. You think
of the words that are used in the scriptures, he's the lamb
slain from the foundation of the world. Before one of his
people ever was brought into this world and they ever committed
one sin, there was already a slain lamb, there was already a savior
that had put away those sins. He went before us as our surety.
He agreed to be the surety of His people, that pact He made
with the Father before any of us ever existed in the human
realm. He went before us in His ascension. After He was resurrected,
He went back to His Father, and He told His disciples, I go to
prepare a place for you. And that's where He is right
now. He is seated at the right hand of His Father. He has prepared
a place for us. And right now, for all His people,
He pleads on their behalf, and I love saying this, He is not
pleading for mercy. He is pleading for justice for
his people, because he justified us. He pleads with his father,
and he says, you look them over. Look them over, and you just
deal in perfect justice with them. And you know what you'll
have to do? You'll have to save them. Your character will dictate
it, because I've made them completely and utterly acceptable before
you. I noticed this, when these wise
men came to the Lord Jesus Christ, they did this thing, they worshiped.
That's an interesting word. And I've thought about that quite
a bit over the last little while. What does it mean to worship
God? I want to worship God, don't you? And I'm not talking about
public worship. I'm talking about in the heart.
I want to worship God. What does that mean? And I used
to think it just had something to do with in your heart, falling
down before the Lord and showing him respect and adoration and
just admiring his attributes. And that's part of it. But there's
more. There's much more to worship
than that. And I think the most concise picture we get is the
leper from Matthew chapter 8. Listen to me up. Listen to this.
This is Matthew 8 too. It says, And behold, there came
a leper and worshipped him. I take that to mean that everything
this man does is an act of worship. Behold, there came a leper and
worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make
me clean. Well, there's the adoration and
the respect for his person, Lord. You're the Lord. I know exactly
who you are. You're the one who's in control.
You're the one who's beautiful in all your attributes. You're
the one who cannot fail. You're the Lord. That's the adoration.
That's the respect. But he didn't stop there. He
had a need. He said, I have to be made clean, and there is no
worship of God without having a need, a need for God to do
for you what you cannot do for yourself, which is make you whole,
make you sinless, and make you clean before God. And not just
that, he had confidence in the Lord's ability. He said, Lord,
if thou wilt, thou canst, you can. You can make me clean, I
have no doubt. There is no worship of God without
confidence in the ability of Christ. And he knew this, he
had no claims on God. He said, if you're willing. You
don't owe me anything. Those are all parts of worship
and God can't be worshiped without any of those things, without
missing one of those things. All right, let's talk about the
gifts. It'll be the last thing we'll go over. These wise men,
they brought three gifts, gold, frankincense and myrrh. And I'll
be honest with you, I struggle with that quite a bit because
these men came to Christ and they bought very precious and
very valuable gifts. When a sinner comes to Christ,
what does he bring? Do you bring anything precious or valuable?
When a sinner comes to Christ, all he brings is his sin and
his guilt and his shame and nothing more. That's it. And if you're
to bring anything else, you will be rejected. The theme of all
three of these things, this gold, this frankincense and myrrh,
all these items are very precious and they're very valuable. I
thought to ask this question, what does God find valuable?
What does God see value in? And I had a bunch of examples
I was going to give you, but we're going to have to speed through it. But
I came across this. This is Psalm 51, verse 16 and
17. It says, For thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give
it. Thou delightest not in burnt
offering. The sacrifices of God, that which God finds precious,
that which God finds valuable, are a broken spirit, A broken
and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. How does a sinner come to Christ?
He comes broken, and he comes in contrition, broken in spirit,
broken heart. None of it works. None of it's
good. I have to have a new one. We
come completely and utterly broken in all our guilt, in all our
sin, and you know what? In the eyes of God, that is precious. That is valuable. A center is
a valuable thing. It is a precious thing to him
because the center needs him. All right. Let's call it a day.
Y'all go home.