The Biblical Account of Christ’s Birth

Transcript

GRM 924
The Biblical Account of Christ’s Birth
12/19/2004
Matthew 1-2
Gil Rugh

Turn in your Bibles to the Gospel of Matthew. I want to talk to you about the biblical account of the birth of Christ today. These kinds of things are very much in the news. Two of the current news magazines, Time and Newsweek, have as their cover story matters related to the birth of Christ. This is a normal event at this time of year. The Time magazine cover story is entitled “Secrets of the Nativity: Why the Story of Jesus’ Birth Inspires so much Scholarly Interest and Faith.” I thought it was interesting that they would write why the birth of Christ inspires so much scholarly interest. It is one of the most worthless articles I have ever read. It is so poorly done and poorly written and poorly reasoned, that it does not bode well for the future of this magazine if this is the best they can do. I’m not talking about just unbelief; it is just poorly done from an unbelieving viewpoint. Usually, I like to read articles that I don’t agree with and mark them, I didn’t even mark this article, it is so disjointed. So don’t bother. Then again, it’s their view, even if they don’t believe it. But it’s poorly done, very poorly done.

Newsweek magazine has an article entitled “The Birth of Jesus, Faith and History: How the Story of Christmas Came to Be.” This is an article that is better written than the other. Don’t want you to understand me to be saying this one is presenting a more biblical view because this is not presenting the biblical view either. But it does at least acknowledge that there is a viewpoint that believes the Bible. Although it goes on to assume that that’s just a matter of faith, those who really examine the facts would be opposed to that. So that’s why the birth of Jesus from Mary to the manger, how the gospels mix faith and history to build a Christmas story and make the case for Christ. You’ll note that they mix faith and history, but for them what is of faith is not faith in historical facts. Faith is just you choosing to believe what is a myth, and there is some history perhaps. Hard to sort out what is and what is not.

Part of what was of interest to me in this article was a poll that Newsweek magazine took. This is not a poll of a Christian organization; this is a poll of this magazine. The Newsweek poll found that 84% of American adults consider themselves Christians. You have a point of contact with people that you work with, meet—84% of the people in this poll claim to be Christians. A good place to start out is, are you a Christian? No, I’m a Muslim. Well then, you’d probably follow a different line. But 84% of the people would probably say, yes, I am. That’s interesting, so am I. How did you become a Christian? Well, I was born a Christian, my parents had me baptized. Oh really? Well, I became a Christian in a little different way, I became a Christian in the way the Bible says you become a Christian and there you go.

Eighty-two percent of American adults see Jesus as God or the Son of God. This doesn’t mean 82% are saved, but in their poll 82% said they thought either Jesus was God or the Son of God. Seventy-nine percent say they believe in the virgin birth, 67% think the Christmas story from the angels’ appearance to the star of Bethlehem is historically accurate. We do have some foundations to begin and enter into a conversation of the gospel with the people we have contact with. Sometimes we’re embarrassed because we think no one believes this. But if the Newsweek poll is anywhere near correct, the bulk of people that you talk with, you do have foundation to begin with. If you believe in the virgin birth, and 79% say they do, why do you think Jesus was virgin born? Well, He was the Son of God. Why do you think the Son of God had to come to this earth and live and suffer and die? We have many opportunities.

Sadly, the article does not go on to deal with these people as rational people. But others, though perhaps fewer in number, are equally passionate about their critical understanding of their faith and basically this article would be holding to the side of those who really deal with historical facts and just don’t believe things. It doesn’t matter, you know taking polls doesn’t matter how many people. If 99% claim to believe the facts of the Bible, it would just show that only 1% are really scholarly and examine the history accurately.

They quote one man in the very next paragraph who has written a book, and that makes you an authority, a 2003 book, nonetheless, which argues that the nativity narrative can be seen as Christian responses to the birth stories of pagan heroes like Alexander the Great and Caesar Augustus. Literary efforts depicting Jesus as a divine figure in the way that the Greek, Roman listeners and readers would understand. If we dissect the story, the article goes on, with care, we can see that the nativity saga is neither fully fanciful nor fully factual. We now are going to do away with that 69% that believe that the biblical narrative and all the facts are historically accurate, we just go on to say if we dissect the nativity saga, we can see it is neither fully fanciful. Which means what? It’s not 100% fanciful, but it’s a lot fanciful. It’s not fully factual. It’s a mixture of the fanciful and the factual. The 69% who believe it is factual just are not scholarly, they don’t know how to deal with history, they don’t know how to deal with historical facts. That’s all right, you can believe whatever you want to believe. That’s one thing religion does, it gives you the right to believe Br’er Rabbit is your god. I mean is that fanciful? There are people who worship rats, there are people who worship snakes. Why not Br’er Rabbit? Don’t say that I encourage that, that was an illustration.

They quote the Nicene Creed which is a very good creed, and it gives an accurate statement. For us men and for our salvation Jesus came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Ghost and of the virgin Mary and was made man. They go on to explain why Matthew and Luke in particular, even though they didn’t get it right, are trying to present as facts of history certain fanciful ideas--like the virgin birth, like wise men coming to worship the baby, like angels announcing a birth, like Jesus was conceived of a virgin without a human father. These are all fanciful things mixed in. The origins of the nativity story are much murkier than the accounts of Jesus’ adulthood. Where did the details of miraculous conception, of birth in Bethlehem, of stars in the sky, shepherds in the night, wise men on a journey come from? Apparently not from Jesus. They come and say later accounts don’t deal with the virgin birth, so what Matthew and Luke wrote about the virgin birth must not be true. They also go on to say since Matthew and Luke don’t write the same things, they both must have made up their own stories. They don’t deal with any other historical accounts this way.

I want to give this man credit, not much but some. He does acknowledge that his options and the options presented by others to the biblical account are just speculation. Such speculation can be only that—speculation. Because we’re going to set aside the only historical documents we have, let’s see what we can come up with. If you were not born of the parents that you were born from, if you were not born in the place you were born, what are the alternatives? Think about it. There are limitless, I mean if your parents aren’t your parents, and your birthplace is not your birthplace, what are the options? Hmmm, let’s see. Well maybe I was born of so-and-so and maybe I was born there… I mean you could just speculate, speculate, speculate. Yet it’s given some credibility as being more believable and surer than the historical documents we have. It’s amazing. If we dealt with more ancient history this way we would have no ancient history, because we would have to discard the only documents we have and then let’s see what speculation leads us to. Maybe there never was a Caesar Augustus. Furthermore, maybe there never was…………. Maybe we never had a Civil War, and we’ll go back even earlier. Maybe……… Where does it end? That’s the way they deal with the biblical account.

But the value of speculating, they say, it’s interesting chiefly for the window it opens on the veracity of early debates over Jesus. It’s valuable to speculate because it helps you understand why there are such strong feelings over the birth of Jesus. I failed to get the connection. It helps us to ????up fanciful ideas about historical facts because it helps us understand how strongly people hold to historical facts. It makes no sense to me. I can’t read you the rest of the article, I’ll get worked up and I won’t get my sermon done. You can read the Newsweek article, at least it gives you an idea of how unbelievers are dealing with the account today. They will make reference at least in that, to certain factual truths.

In Matthew chapter 1, we’re not going to be able to deal with the account of Matthew and the account of Luke. They’re not conflicting accounts, they are differing accounts. We are pleased when we find two writers from ancient history who write about the same event. We don’t have to say the first thing we have to do is throw out one. The first thing we have to do is examine and make sure that they are from that time, and then we say we can learn from them both. Oh, but they didn’t both write about it at the same time and the same way and include the same events. That’s all right, that will help us to learn more. Who said that Matthew and Luke had to write the exact same thing? I mean we’re glad they didn’t write the same exact thing, then we wouldn’t have needed both accounts. Does that mean there is a conflict? No. One thing Matthew is doing is writing to present Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, the King of the Jews. That pervades his writing. Luke will write to present Jesus Christ as truly man. Matthew will open with the birth of Christ, His supernatural character, show that mighty men in the earth came and worshipped Him and gave Him gifts. Luke will write of Jesus the man and the lowly shepherds came and honored and worshipped Him. Why is there a conflict in that? We’re writing in two different time periods. Luke will write about events concerning the coming birth of Christ and also events of the night of the birth of Christ. When Matthew writes, he’ll write about events that took place months later. Neither one of these articles make any attempt, they make one reference to a scholar that does say these two accounts can be harmonized and they are complimentary, not contradictory. But there is no real attention given to that possibility.

The gospel of Matthew opens up in chapter 1 with a genealogy. We say wonderful. The first 17 verses basically give a list of names. We usually start reading with verse 18 because what are you going to do with that. But you understand the genealogical line of Jesus is essential because He is indeed the person the Bible presents Him to be. His genealogy shows Him to be in the line of Abraham through David through Solomon. It starts out in verse 1, the record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham through David that you have to have the line come. Then you unfold, let’s start with Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac….., and you move through the major persons in the line of Christ. You come to David in verse 6, of course you have to be of the line of David to be in the kingly line. You’ll come down then to Joseph. Jesus gets His legal right to the throne because of His father Joseph, who goes back to David through Solomon. Now Mary went back to David as well but she went back to him through a different son. He didn’t get His legal right to the throne through His mother, but He did get His physical connection back to David through His mother.

The virgin birth is crucial. We don’t have time to go into the details of the virgin birth, we’re not going to attempt to. But you just note verse 11. Josiah became the father of Jeconiah. Jeconiah was a king. Jeremiah the prophet uses a shortened form of his name, Coniah, as we do with names. People call me Gil instead of Gilbert, so Jeremiah calls him Coniah instead of Jeconiah—same man. In Jeremiah chapter 22 verse 30 God speaks through Jeremiah and pronounces a curse on Jeconiah and all of his descendants. None of his descendants will ever sit on the throne of David and prosper. If Jesus were a physical descendant of Jeconiah, He is under the curse of Jeconiah. The virgin birth becomes crucial to Jesus being able to fulfill the promises given. You think we’re at a dead end, how will the Messiah come in the proper line with the curse of Jeconiah. Seems like the line has come to an end, except Jesus gets His legal connection through His legal father, Joseph. But He is not a physical descendant.

The virgin birth is announced in verses 18 and following, and the promise given. You know I’m amazed at the number of articles that write they want to do away with anything supernatural connected with the birth of Christ—the virgin birth, the involvement of angels, and on it goes. Why do we even talk about God if we don’t believe God could do things above or beyond the natural. We couldn’t have a virgin birth because that doesn’t happen, it’s not scientific. In other words, the only things that can truly happen are the things that can be demonstrated in time and repeated for our observation and confirmation. In other words, if there is such a thing as God, He’s just a little more powerful man. But He’s limited to the bounds of what we call the natural. Because as soon as anything supernatural is recorded as having been done by Him, it has to be discarded. Now I agree, it cannot be subjected to scientific verification, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. We’re talking about God. By very definition God is beyond the natural, so that He would do something supernatural. Does that mean we ought to just believe the fanciful, we must believe in light of the evidence that we have. I believe the scriptural evidence does indeed support and confirm the reality of what is written here.

It said twice, verse 18, that Mary was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit, and the end of verse 20, the child who has been conceived of her is of the Holy Spirit. He came, verse 21, to save His people from their sins. His people refer to the Jews. The rest of scripture makes clear, as well as the Old Testament scripture made provision going back to the Abrahamic Covenant that that salvation would encompass Gentiles as well. The focus in Matthew is Jesus Christ is the King of the Jews, it focuses on His provision of salvation for them.

This is in fulfillment of Isaiah 7:14, prophesied hundred of years before Christ. The virgin shall be with child, shall bear a son, they shall call His name Immanuel which translated means God with us. Now if you read some of the articles, they’ll say well the Hebrew word translated virgin in 7:14 doesn’t mean virgin, just means a young woman. Matthew was using the Greek translation of the Old Testament done roughly 200 years before Christ was born. That’s just a mistake because there they use the Greek word virgin. So really what Isaiah was talking about wasn’t the virgin birth of Christ, so Matthew was just trying to make the accounts mesh, so he used an inaccurate translation and just supported what he wanted to get across as a myth. Well, you can believe that if you want, the fact is, and you ought to understand if you believe that the Holy Spirit of God directed Matthew that the word for virgin in Matthew 1:23 is the Greek word that means virgin. There’s no debate about that. The Spirit of God did say that this was a fulfillment of Isaiah 7:14. Now if you don’t believe the Bible, that’s your prerogative, but that doesn’t mean what the Bible says is fanciful. If what it says is not true, not accurate, and it’s fanciful, then it’s not really worth a lot of study. I am amazed at the number of people who are “scholars” who want to spend their life. Maybe there are people who spend their life studying Peter Rabbit, getting their PhD in Peter Rabbit. If they do, and I’m not criticizing those who get into literature, please. I want to do more with my life than being an expert in the fables. I mean if this is not the Word of God, I don’t really want to spend the time explaining why it’s a myth. I guess that’s part of being a scholar—devoting your life to that which does not really matter.

We have the virgin birth. If you don’t believe the virgin birth, you don’t believe the Bible. If you don’t believe the virgin birth, Jesus is not who He claimed to be. Oh, Jesus didn’t claim to be virgin born, Matthew claimed that Jesus was virgin born. Well, if you’re going to throw away the gospel writers, just what do you know about Jesus Christ? I mean we have to discard the records because they are not reliable. So why are you bothered with Jesus Christ to begin with? If this is just fanciful, and the miracles—why would you believe the miracles if the miracle of the virgin birth is unbelievable? If the miracle of the angels announcing the birth of Christ is unbelievable, why would you believe that Jesus ever did a miracle? You just have the New Testament written by liars, why bother? Well, they weren’t truly liars, they were writing literature of their day. Okay, so they were writing what was recognized as myths. You know some people like to study the myths of the day, and there is some value in learning how they wrote literature of that day, I guess. But don’t find that Jesus Christ is anyone significant, anyone important. Paul said that if Jesus Christ has not been raised from the dead, we are of all men most to be pitied. You know what Paul says? If you are believing this as historical fact and it is not, you are pitiful. Well, that’s true. If you are believing this and it’s not true, you are in a pitiful condition. You’re staking your hope for eternity on a myth. Many people are doing that, but I believe the Bible is true and history supports it. They don’t offer historical facts that demonstrate the Bible is in error, but they choose not to believe.

You come to chapter 2, and I’m going to focus the rest of our time in chapter 2. Matthew records the coming of the magi, Greek would be the magoi. We’ve just carried it over into English and adjusted the pronunciation. Greek doesn’t have the soft “g” like we do, pronounced like a “j”—it’s magoi, but magi, we have the word here. These were significant men. They may not have been kings, but they were powerful men, influential men, important people. They come and offer worship and gifts fitting for a king. When Luke records his account, angels, the night Jesus was born, announced the birth of Christ to shepherds and they come and worship Him. For some reason people read these two accounts and say, oh they must be in conflict. Why? Why couldn’t there not be the fact that angels announced the birth of Christ to shepherds in the fields the night Jesus was born, and Matthew writes about Magi in the east who see a star and are told that announces the birth of the king of the Jews and several months later they turn up in Jerusalem looking for Him? They say, oh both can’t be true. In other words, shepherds couldn’t come and worship Him the night He was born, and magi from the East some months later worship Him too. I want to know why not. Why are the accounts contradictory? Why do we have to say well you know you can’t believe because they don’t say the same things. Why would they say the same things? I mean we don’t deal with history in this way. When you come to the Bible, you can just write it off because it’s a mixture of the fanciful and the historical. Since they claim to be scholars, we are blessed to have these scholars tell us what is fanciful and what is believable. The 69% of poor fools who believe it is all literal hopefully will get educated by the scholars. I’m not against scholarship, I think it is dishonest for the magazines not to represent scholars who support the biblical position. I don’t mind if they report on scholars who do not support, but I don’t think it’s honest not to represent the scholars who represent the majority and have scholarly reasons for doing so.

Chapter 2 of Matthew begins, now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem saying, where is He who has been born king of the Jew? For we saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him. Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem, one of the things you’ll learn if you read the news articles, Jesus probably wasn’t born in Bethlehem. He was born in Nazareth. They just made-up Bethlehem so it would look like He fulfilled the Old Testament prophecy. Says who? What’s the problem with being born in Bethlehem? There were other babies born in Bethlehem, why couldn’t Jesus be born in Bethlehem? Well, we just think they probably made it up. The historical record said He was born in Bethlehem. I know, but I’m a scholar and I think He was born in Nazareth. So, throw out all the historical records, Scholar Joe believes he was born in Nazareth. I mean what’s the point. I realize they say well Quirinius was governor, and he ordained a census under Roman authority and so Luke got it all fouled up because that census wasn’t done then. Quirinius did do a census, though, but he did it a dozen or so years earlier. Well, maybe he did, maybe he did a second. We don’t know. We just can’t cavalierly throw away everything because there are some things we don’t know about yet in the historical record as we have it outside the Bible. The Bible says He was born in Bethlehem, the Bible explains how the family of Jesus got from Nazareth to Bethlehem, and then from Bethlehem to Egypt and back to Nazareth. It gives the reasons and they all fit. But the more I can discredit the account of the biblical writers, the more I can discredit the authority of Scripture. It’s the only motivation.

He was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king. Can get confused on the Herods of the New Testament because Herod becomes the family name and is passed on. So different of Herod’s children were called Herod so-and-so or Herod Phillip, Herod so-and-so of so-and-so, Herod Antipas and so on. The family name is carried on. This is Herod the Great, this is The Herod, appointed by the Romans, king of the Jews in 40 B.C. This man is well connected, he gets appointed because of connections back into the Caesar’s family. He’s not even a Jew, he’s an Edomite, a descendent of Esau. But when the Romans say you’re king of the Jews, you’re king of the Jews because the Romans ruled. He was appointed in 40 B.C., formally given the title. I believe started a little earlier, but given the formal title king of the Jews in 40 B.C. He dies in 4 B.C. So, Herod the king is king, we note Jesus was born somewhere around 4 B.C., not later. We say well how can you be born 4 years before Christ if you’re Christ? Well because when they did the Gregorian calendar, they got it wrong. Give them credit, they got it pretty close. Our calendar is a little bit off, but Jesus would have had to have been born by 4 B.C. Some say 5 B.C., 4 B.C., somewhere at the end of Herod the Great’s reign. Incidentally, we talk about B.C., the last time when we were in Israel our guide, wanted to make a point that it is B.C.E., not B.C. B.C.E. is before the common era. Now I had to ask him, how does the common era start, because what they don’t want to do is have their calendar connected to Christ. We don’t want to talk about before Christ, so it’s not 4 B.C. anymore (and you read this in all current writings now), it’s 4 B.C.E. Because it’s 4 years before the common era, not 4 years before Christ. But how did they decide to start the common era when they did? Isn’t it silly? We have to understand it’s before the common era, but how did they start the common era? They start the common era with the birth of Christ. But it makes sense to somebody.

All right, we’re talking about Herod the Great, he died in 4 B.C. We’ll leave him there. We’re getting to the historical setting. Herod’s the king, Jesus is born in Bethlehem. Magi from the east arrive in Jerusalem saying, where is he who has been born king of the Jews? We saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him. Who are the magi? We sing the song, We Three Kings of Orient Are, and it was centuries after the New Testament that they were identified as kings. People make a big deal of this, it’s not a big deal. They probably were not kings. Some say they were astrologers. They were probably Persians or Babylonians from that higher caste of wise men, may have been astrologers, we don’t know. But from those wise men. Daniel at Babylon was one of the wise men, the counselors to the king and so on. They are important individuals, they are men of status and wealth, they bring gifts to demonstrate their position, gifts worthy of a king as we will see. They said we saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him. Again, some people think by criticizing the songs that are sometimes sung, they have undermined the scripture. We sing We Three Kings of Orient Are. I don’t mind that song—I’d have to think about all the words so don’t hold me to it—but it doesn’t bother me that we sing they’re kings. We three astrologers of orient are, wouldn’t sound quite the same. Hard to get we three wise men are, but it doesn’t bother me. These three important men, but you understand they probably weren’t kings in our sense of the word. They probably didn’t follow the star as one of the songs tells us. They saw His star in the east and evidently God revealed to them the significance of that star, because the scripture does not through Old Testament prophecy. But God is going to speak to them again later in a dream very specifically. I assume God clearly revealed Himself to them, perhaps in another dream, so that they knew the significance of this star when they saw it. It indicated not that an important person had been born someplace in the west, but the king of the Jews had been born. So where do they go? They go to Jerusalem. That doesn’t mean they had to follow the star and the star stops over Jerusalem, because they don’t say we followed the star to Jerusalem. They said we saw the star in the east and evidently through special revelation they were told that marked the birth of Christ, king of the Jews. Where would you go to find the king of the Jews? Where would you go to find the President of the United States? Probably go to the Capitol, right, Washington? Where would you go to find the king of the Jews? Go to Jerusalem, it’s the capital of Israel. So here come these men.

How long did their journey take? It could have taken months, how many months we don’t know. Again, they got themselves ready, men of this position, traveling with this kind of wealth, probably traveled with some kind of entourage, servants and so on. Get everything ready, journey that distance and arrive in Jerusalem. Here we are, we’re looking for the one born king of the Jews. We saw His star; we want to worship Him. Amazing faith, amazing faith. They are settled, no doubt here. They don’t say the one who is born to be king of the Jews, the one who is born king of the Jews. He’s king by birth, we come to worship Him, where is He?

Verse 3, Herod gets word of this. When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem was with him. Now it doesn’t surprise us at Herod’s trouble, here you have marching in Jerusalem these men of some importance and distinction, and they begin to inquire around, where is the one born king of the Jews. This bothers Herod, you can understand it would bother Herod. He was a man who would tolerate no rivals. Two or three of his own sons he had executed, one of them within days of his own death because he thought that son said something indicating he thought he would succeed his father. Murdered his own wife, murdered thousands of other people. Ruled because he was well connected in Rome, and he could keep things under control in Jerusalem. He was a brilliant man. You can still visit the architectural remains of palaces and so on that Herod built. We don’t say when he was a vile and wicked man that he was not brilliant. Josephus, the first century historian, he lived in the first century, he was a Jew. He went over to the Roman side in 70 A.D. when the Romans were going to destroy Jerusalem, so then after that he could live with Roman support, and he wrote a history. He wrote some fanciful things as well, but he wrote a history of the time which is helpful. Josephus wrote about the last days of Herod the Great that I will euphemize some of this, one line in particular. After this the distemper seized his whole body. Herod in the closing period of his life was a model of misery, but he was a man determined he wouldn’t die. After this the distemper seized his whole body, greatly disordered all its parts with various symptoms. For there was a gentle fever upon him and an intolerable itching over all the surface of his body, continual pains in his colon, dropsical tumors about his feet and an inflammation of the abdomen and a putrification of his private parts that produced worms. Besides this he had difficulty breathing. He couldn’t breathe unless he sat up. I mean these kinds of things could be serious, obviously people today can have such a condition. You add all this to this miserable, wretched condition of this man—parts of his body are breeding worms and they didn’t have modern medicine like we have today. He had convulsion of all his members. The diviners of the day said and told him he was under punishment for having killed so many rabbis. Yet he struggles with his numerous disorders and the desire to live and hope for recovery, considered several methods of cure and he goes on to tell about the different things he pursued for cure. It was during this time here as he got near the end, within 5 days of his death, his son whom he had imprisoned whom he had formally declared would be his heir, his son heard a false rumor that his father had died so he said to the jailer, my father has died. Let me out, I’ll reward you when I am king. The jailer passed word to Herod that his son had said he was going to succeed him, so Herod immediately sends someone to the prison to execute his son. I mean a man in this condition doesn’t want anybody who might succeed him.

Then he goes back to Jericho, and he decides to make provision in case he dies. He has all the most prominent men in Judaism gathered up and confined. Then he gives instruction to his sister, Salome, and her husband, Alexis, and he said, I know well enough that the Jews will keep a festival on my death. However, it is in my power to be mourned for on other accounts and to have a splendid funeral, if you will be subservient to my commands. Take care to send soldiers to encompass the men now in custody and slay them immediately upon my death. Then all Judea and every family of them will weep at my death, whether they want to or not. I mean that’s the kind of man you’re dealing with. I know people are going to want to have a party when I die, but I’ll fix it so every one of them has reason to cry. I mean the guy has gone bonkers, we would say.

When the wise men come into Jerusalem and start saying we hear the king of the Jews has been born, Herod doesn’t take this lightly. All Jerusalem is troubled with him. Why? This can only be trouble. Herod is a man who would think nothing of killing thousands of people. I mean he's going to have all the most prominent men in Israel rounded up to be murdered on his death, you think he’d have a problem with murdering a few thousand people in Jerusalem if he thought it would help secure his position? All Jerusalem trembles with him. All these things fit the history as we know it outside the Bible, consistent with Herod’s character.

He gathers the chief priests, the scribes, he wants to know from them where is the Messiah going to be born. They don’t have any problem with that. The Messiah is going to be born in Bethlehem because Micah the prophet wrote in Micah 5, and you Bethlehem, land of Judah, specifying it because there was another Bethlehem in another part of the land. But Bethlehem in the realm of Judah is by no means least among the leaders of Judah. For out of you will come forth a ruler who will shepherd my people, Israel. Micah’s prophecy goes on to say this is the one who lived in eternity, who will be born in Bethlehem. No doubt He’d be born in Bethlehem. Interestingly that’s what the Jewish leaders have to say.

Verse 7, Herod secretly called the magi, determined from them the exact time the star appeared. When did you first see this star, let’s get specific. His scheming mind is already at work. I’ve got to know how old this child is, I’ve got to narrow it down in case. He’s got Plan A, but Herod always had Plan B. Plan A is to send the magi to find Him, come back and tell him and he’ll kill Him. Plan B is if the magi don’t tell me I’ll know enough to do it on my own. Again, consistent with Herod. No problem, where will the Messiah be born? He’ll be born in Bethlehem. Now those who don’t believe the scriptures say naturally Matthew and Luke, they’re concerned about working it out so that Jesus of Nazareth looks like He was born in Bethlehem and can fulfill that. Well, if Jesus was a huckster, a liar, a fraud, that would be one of the alternatives. But you have to consider the other alternative, that the Bible will be correct, what the Bible says will be true; and He was born as the scripture says.

Herod sends the wise men on their way, you are familiar with the account, and he tells them, go search carefully for the child. When you have found Him come tell me, I want to come worship Him, too. What a liar. You know nobody cares that these men have traveled all the way from the east because the king of the Jews has been born. Herod cares, but for the wrong reason. Does he really think if the one born in fulfillment of the prophecy of Micah, the prophet, 700 years earlier has been born that he’s going to be able to kill him? I mean Herod takes the word of the Jewish leaders as truth, the word of the magi as truth. He will not murder all the babies in Jerusalem, only in Bethlehem. He really believes he can overrule God, and what God said 700 years earlier he can frustrate and keep from happening? A man in this desperate, wretched physical condition thinks he’ll be able to prevent God’s Messiah? I mean it’s almost unbelievable. But again, it’s clearly consistent with Herod’s character.

After hearing the king, they went on their way and lo and behold what happened? The star, verse 9, which they had seen in the east went on before them. So evidently this is the reappearance of the star. That’s why they don’t tell Herod, come out here, we’ll show you the star. If the star were still there, they would have known to bypass Jerusalem and go to Bethlehem. God had a purpose in them going to Jerusalem. We saw the star in the east, we knew that we ought to go to the capital of Israel, look for the king of the Jews who had been born. Now they leave Herod, start out toward Bethlehem and there’s the star again. Now again you read in these articles and Christians sometimes compound it because they try to explain, this is when Haley’s Comet appears, or this is when there was an alignment of certain planets, so it fits history. Forget it. This star will lead them to the right house in Bethlehem and you just can’t align the planets that way, even if you could get it over Bethlehem. The whole account of its appearance, its disappearance, and specificity all fit. So, the star appears, guides them to where they’re going. It was God’s intention they stop in Jerusalem. There are prophecies to be fulfilled here and Matthew wants to show all the details are significant.

But nobody cares so these men start off as they came into Jerusalem, just them on to Bethlehem. They come; they have great joy. Verse 11, coming into the house where they saw the child with Mary His mother. They fell to the ground, worshipped Him, they opened their treasures, they presented Him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. You know I have to say I am in awe of the faith of these wise men. They saw the star, God spoke to them in a dream or vision somehow, they make this long and dangerous journey, they come to Jerusalem the capital. There's no celebration going on. They inquire where the one born king of the Jews is. Oh yeah we’ve all been there to see…….. Nobody…. Herod gets word of their inquiries, and he wants to know, but he doesn’t know. Now they have come to Bethlehem, there are no parties and celebrations going on. They come into a house, now you’ll note not to the manger. I’m not attacking manger scenes, it is true that the Bible talks about shepherds coming and wise men coming but you ought to understand they didn’t come at the same time, they didn’t even come on the same night. The shepherds came and worshipped Jesus in the feeding trough, the manger. The wise men came and worshipped Him in a house because they come months after Jesus is born.

We know at least 40 days after Jesus is born. That would be the minimum. How do we know that? I’m a scholar, I just told you. There has to be something more than that. You could question that on two accounts, I understand and don’t want to start an argument. Luke 2:24 says that when Jesus was presented at the temple when He was 40 days old and in fulfillment of the requirements of the law, His parents offered as sacrifice two pigeons. You were only allowed to offer the pigeons in place of the regular animal sacrifice if you were too poor to afford the animal. If the wise men had already been to worship Jesus, they would have given gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, and Mary and Joseph would not have been eligible to offer the gifts of poverty in sacrifice. So, we know more than 40 days have gone by since the birth of Christ because his parents offer the gifts of pigeons that you’re only allowed to offer when you don’t have any means to offer the regular sacrifice. That fits with Him being in a house. Will it explain and fill in all the details well how long did they stayed in Bethlehem? Why didn’t they immediately go back to Nazareth after the birth of Jesus? I mean it seems logical to me that if you’re moved to a strange town for a census, then a baby is born, you’d want to get home as soon as possible so I think…… What’s the matter? The only historical record we have tells us what happened. Because I can’t fill in all the gaps of the whys doesn’t mean that what is recorded is not true. Remember this is the family ancestral home of Joseph, according to Luke’s account. He is a carpenter; it may have been that the trip back was not wise to take at this time. For whatever reason, God kept him in Bethlehem for His purposes. That’s fine. Joseph is a carpenter, evidently got some work. We do know there was a large Jewish community in Bethlehem at this time. So, to say oh that just shows that the biblical account probably is not right, there’s nothing in conflict with historical facts here; so, I assume it’s true.

They give these gifts. Here are these men, can you imagine coming here to a home that would have to be characterized as lower class, poverty. Remember in light of their situation, in light of the gifts they offer they don’t have anything, the gift they offered at the presentation of Christ at 40 days. There’s nobody else that cares that Jesus has been born. Men come into this humble, lowly home, it’s not the manger anymore but it’s a lowly residence of two newlyweds who are poor and have a baby. They bow down and worship Him and open up these gifts suitable for a king and give them to them. You know you have to say you’d think they might have been scratching their heads saying you think this could be so? You think this is really the house? The star is there. You think this is really the baby? They didn’t seem to evidence any doubt. They worshipped Him and then God appears to them in a dream again and send them home. I take it these are genuine believers and would have been great evangelists in Babylon, Persia, wherever they were from.

God warned them in a dream, don’t go back to Herod. Now some people would say, well I would have thought Herod would have pursued them. Well, they wouldn’t need much head start to get out of Herod’s territory. Herod the king of Jews, that’s a magnificent title, but you understand he’s a nobody in the overall perspective. Rome ruled the world, and everybody is very jealous of their territory. Upon Herod’s death his kingdom is divided among his four sons and then one of his sons will be replaced by a Roman governor, the most familiar to us is Pontius Pilate. You remember the tension there was between one of Herod’s sons and Pilate, and they didn’t infringe on each other’s territory. So once the magi are out of Herold’s territory, he has no authority at all. It’s not surprising he’s not pursuing the magi; he doesn’t have any authority to pursue them outside his boundaries. Bethlehem is about five miles from Jerusalem, if you’re not familiar.

Now as soon as the magi are gone an angel appears to the parents, to Joseph in particular, and tells them to get to Egypt because Herod is going to look for the child; and this is urgent, go now. They have the means and money to go. Why? They’ve just received some magnificent gifts fit for a king that will fund their trip and stay in Egypt. Herold realizes the magi have pulled one over on him, but he has Plan B. Plan B is when did you see the star, so I know about when this baby was born. He is going to slay every male child in Bethlehem under two years of age. How old was Jesus? He was two. Well allow Herod some space, he’s not a man to make mistakes. So somewhere less than two years of age, but more than 40 days old is how old Jesus is. Maybe He’s a year old, we don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t have any idea. I can make my guesses like you can. Doesn’t change the account.

They take Him to Egypt, that fulfills another scripture—out of Egypt I have called my son. That’s Hosea 11:1. In verse 15 that’s a strange prophecy because that was talking about Israel coming up out of Egypt, the nation Israel when Hosea wrote it. But the nation Israel is also called God’s firstborn son on a couple of occasions in the Old Testament. Here the Spirit of God had a significance in Jesus Christ and pictured what would happen to Him.

Herod has all the male children in Bethlehem slaughtered under two years of age. Again, this is another reason that scholars say why we wouldn’t believe the biblical account. If Herod had done something that terrible there would be a record of it. Get serious. Do you think that every atrocity committed by Saddam Hussein has been recorded? I mean you’re talking about a man who has murdered two or three of his own sons, murdered his favorite wife, murdered thousands of people that he thought were a problem, murdered untold potential in his mind enemies. You understand Bethlehem was not Chicago. We’re not talking about a half million baby boys. This is what we would call a little burg, this is a little out-of-the-way town, Bethlehem, five miles from the capital. It’s no place significant. Most commentators estimate there might have been as many as 20 baby boys under two in Bethlehem, Jewish baby boys at this time. It’s not that oh 20, that’s significant. If one of those babies is yours that’s important. But let’s face it, in the career of Herod that he killed 20 babies, Jewish babies at that, in Bethlehem one night, it didn’t make Josephus whoopdedo. I mean a lot of things didn’t make Josephus. So that’s a reason to say it didn’t happen? It’s perfectly consistent with what we do have written in other places about Herod the Great's character and conduct. Nobody says oh I couldn’t imagine Herod would do such a thing. All they can say is we don’t see it written anyplace else. We believe in a lot of ancient history that we only have one source for it and we’re happy to have that source, any amount of light it shows. The account is very clear, and it does fulfill scriptures. Jeremiah prophesied. The ultimate, the Spirit says, realization of this was in what happened on this occasion.

Then after Herod dies, and they didn’t have to stay in Egypt long because we’d have been at the end of Herod’s reign, Joseph takes the child back. But he doesn’t go back to Bethlehem where he had settled and evidently set up some kind of semi-permanent residence. But he’s afraid to go there. That’s consistent. You know why? The worst of Herod’s sons is appointed ruler over the region of Jerusalem and Bethlehem and Joseph doesn’t want to go back under him because he is just like his father. In fact, he was so bad that in 6 A.D. the Romans removed him and appointed a governor. So now you have Herod’s realm divided into four, three of his sons and 1 Roman governor. The 5th of those Roman governors will be Pontius Pilate. Perfectly consistent that Joseph wouldn’t want to settle his family back in a territory ruled by Herod’s worst son, who might attempt to resume the search since he was of the character of his father. So that he’d go back to Nazareth is perfectly consistent.

Well, we think that he really never left Nazareth and the rest of it was just made up to make an interesting story. Well, if you’re going to deal with history like that you can throw out everything and say I don’t think what they said was history was really history. I think it happened like this. Anybody is free to write their own myths. We’ve got this even in our universities today where because of political correctness everybody is free to write their own history the way they would have liked it to be. But that doesn’t make it true. But the Bible is true. We have a Savior. He came to earth in exact fulfillment of so many Old Testament prophecies, we could do a series on them. The Spirit of God has directed that the recording of those things which are pertinent and necessary for us to know regarding that birth. Well Mark didn’t write about the birth; well John didn’t write about the birth. If all four gospel writers didn’t write about it, there must be a reason. The two that did were lying or writing a myth. I mean, where do you go with that. If we had only one who wrote about it, they’d say if two wrote about it we’d have confirmation. But since two wrote about it but not all four, but all four are complimentary. Doesn’t that make a better history since the Spirit of God is directing in the writing of it all instead of directing all four to write the exact same thing? Then people would say well see they just copied, one from the other. One made up a myth and the other three copied it. I mean you can’t live with people who don’t want to believe. It’s by faith we understand the worlds were created by the Word of God. It’s by faith that we understand. They’d say well then, it’s blind faith. No, nothing in this book is in conflict with history, nothing in this book is in conflict with science. It’s all true. Now there are certain things that are not scientific because God is a God who does the supernatural, does things beyond science. But that’s consistent. It’s amazing that it’s carried out and fulfilled in time and the fulfillment of prophecies given 700 years earlier. Micah was a contemporary of Isaiah. Isaiah gave the prophecy of the virgin birth; Micah gave the prophecy of what will happen Bethlehem in 700 years. Can’t deny that because we have supporting records of the accuracy of that prophecy and other manuscripts like the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures. All we can do is say that we won’t believe the historical records of those who were there when it happened who could demonstrate the fulfillment of those prophecies. In other words, there is nothing that could ever be done that would prove it to me. And so, the voice of Abraham from heaven is true, if they don’t believe Moses and the prophets they won’t believe even if one of you is raised from the dead.

Let’s pray together. Thank you, Lord, that we have a living Savior, that His birth took place exactly as it had been recorded, and it was exactly in fulfillment of the prophecies that you gave centuries earlier. His coming to earth was to be the Savior, to be the Lamb that you provided to be sacrificed to pay the penalty for the sins of mankind. And it happened exactly as you said. He was called Jesus because He was the one who would save His people from their sins. Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. Even at His birth there is the announcement of His sacrificial death. Lord, we thank you that we have been privileged to come to know and believe in this one who is the Savior of the world. We praise you in His name. Amen.