[00:00:06] You're listening to Theology and Apologetics with Thomas Fretwell, bringing theology to life.
[00:00:12] So if you remember last week, we're still going through Life of Messiah, number 16 now we're looking at Herod and the Magi today.
[00:00:19] Last time we've been looking at the young life of Jesus. You don't get much about the young life of Jesus in the Gospels.
[00:00:26] We saw his circumcision on the eighth day, and we saw when Mary and Joseph named him Jesus in obedience to the angel.
[00:00:33] And then we saw a number of other Old Testament regulations that he fulfilled.
[00:00:37] We noted that Jesus was born under the law, and therefore he had to fulfill the law.
[00:00:42] Mary and Joseph took him to the temple to present him before the Lord and to offer the sacrifice for the purification.
[00:00:49] We saw all of those things. And then I shared with you that usually when you offer your firstborn to the Lord,
[00:00:55] you'd pay a redemption price as they called it, five shekel redemption price, which was part of the law.
[00:01:00] But yet we noted that Mary and Joseph, there's no mention of them paying that in the text.
[00:01:05] And my conjecture was that if you read on, although there was a five shekel redemption price for firstborn sons,
[00:01:13] firstborn of the lambs, there was an exemption. You didn't have to pay a firstborn for the lamb,
[00:01:18] because that lamb would then be used as a sacrifice on the altar.
[00:01:21] And my argument was basically that I think this is a picture of Jesus because he obviously was,
[00:01:26] he calls himself the lamb of God, and he would become the ultimate blood sacrifice for the sins of the world.
[00:01:32] And I think it's a hint there in his young life that was the situation.
[00:01:35] And then if you remember, we met those two wonderful characters in the temple courtyards, Simeon and Anna.
[00:01:42] These two saints advanced in years, it says, one of them probably over 100 years old, but just faithful to the end.
[00:01:49] Simeon, that righteous man, remember, it said he was righteous, just, devout,
[00:01:53] and looking for the consolation of Israel full of the Holy Spirit serving there.
[00:01:58] And you remember, he saw the Messiah, the Lord had promised him that he wouldn't die until he'd seen the Messiah.
[00:02:02] And he sees Mary and Joseph bringing the baby Jesus in.
[00:02:05] He runs over, takes him in his arms, and then starts to bless and praise the Lord.
[00:02:09] It's a wonderful scene.
[00:02:11] And then also we have Anna, the prophetess there.
[00:02:14] So she sees this all going on, and she's also faithful.
[00:02:18] It says she never left the temple serving night and day with fastings and prayer.
[00:02:22] Just a life lived in self-sacrifice and dedication to the Lord.
[00:02:26] And she also got the privilege, the blessing of being able to just see the Messiah before she died.
[00:02:32] That was a wonderful episode.
[00:02:33] We looked at that last week, but now we're going to just pick up where we left off in Matthew chapter 2.
[00:02:39] So let's pick it up, Matthew chapter 2.
[00:02:41] We were in Luke last time, so now we're jumping over to Matthew,
[00:02:44] because chronologically this is the next part of the story that we have here still in Jesus' young life.
[00:02:51] So Matthew chapter 2, verse 1.
[00:02:55] It says,
[00:03:18] Now,
[00:03:19] Now, why are they called that? There's lots of reasons.
[00:03:22] If you look at this during my study, I think I was almost nauseated by the amount of sermon titles that were wise men.
[00:03:28] Why are they wise? Because they still seek Jesus.
[00:03:31] Okay? And there were so many titles that I tried to stay away from those kind of cliche sermons.
[00:03:35] But it's absolutely true if you want to make a point about it.
[00:03:38] But we'll look at the actual proper reason why they're referred to as the wise men as we go through this.
[00:03:43] But notice it says,
[00:03:46] Now this is interesting. How long after Jesus was born?
[00:03:49] Actually, we learn from the text this could have been up to two years after Jesus was born.
[00:03:53] So this is referring to a vent in his younger life.
[00:03:56] So we see something about his birth.
[00:03:58] We see something about his eighth day.
[00:04:00] We see something about the 40th day, like just over a month old.
[00:04:03] And now we see something about a couple of years old.
[00:04:05] And next time in a couple of weeks, we'll see something about when he's a young boy.
[00:04:09] And that's all we get about this.
[00:04:11] But notice again, we have this historical marker.
[00:04:14] And I keep drawing out these historical markers because they make us aware that this is happening in real history of the world.
[00:04:21] And I believe that the authors put them in there for that reason.
[00:04:23] It says the days of Herod the Great.
[00:04:26] Do you remember Herod the Great?
[00:04:28] We spent a bit of time in one of our introduction studies looking at this man.
[00:04:32] So I won't give you huge amounts of detail, but we'll just recap briefly.
[00:04:36] Caesar Augustus, who was the Caesar at the time,
[00:04:38] he made that joke that he said it's safer to be Herod's pig than it is to be his son.
[00:04:43] And he's obviously making a joke because Herod killed quite a few of his sons.
[00:04:47] He was clever.
[00:04:48] He was an engineering genius.
[00:04:50] He was cunning.
[00:04:51] He was politically savvy.
[00:04:52] He was also paranoid and ruthless at the same time.
[00:04:56] He was always worried about an insurrection, about someone stealing his throne to the point that he killed three of his own children because there were rumors they might be thinking about that.
[00:05:05] He also killed his favorite wife, Miriam, the last princess of the Hasmoneans.
[00:05:10] He killed her because he got wind that she was up to something too.
[00:05:13] And she probably never was.
[00:05:14] But that's the kind of guy that he was.
[00:05:16] And it's important to understand that when we get into this story about what happened in Bethlehem.
[00:05:21] We need to understand Herod because of that.
[00:05:23] Herod was also responsible for much of the kind of landscape that we're familiar with.
[00:05:28] He built fortresses and palaces around the Roman Empire, really.
[00:05:33] Hideouts, locations.
[00:05:34] Remember that famous Masada, that palace built on top of the mountain.
[00:05:38] And these were all so that if something happened, again, he was a paranoid man, he'd have a place to escape to.
[00:05:43] They were always very well stocked.
[00:05:44] He could survive there for a huge amount of time.
[00:05:47] In Israel today, the Western Wall.
[00:05:49] You've probably seen pictures of the Jewish people when they pray in front of the Western Wall.
[00:05:53] That Western Wall is, in fact, the Herodian brickwork, the still last bit of the wall that Herod built to retain the Temple Mount.
[00:06:01] That is all it is.
[00:06:02] But this marker also gives us some clues to dating.
[00:06:05] It says Jesus was born in the days of Herod.
[00:06:09] Now, we know historically that Herod died in 4 BC.
[00:06:13] So that gives us something.
[00:06:14] Jesus had to have been born before 4 BC.
[00:06:16] So the AD 1 that we have is not quite right.
[00:06:19] But with data from Luke, we can be pretty definite that Jesus was born in either 6 or 7 BC.
[00:06:25] I won't go through all the technical details, but that's pretty definite.
[00:06:28] It was either 6 or 7 BC.
[00:06:31] So it says,
[00:06:31] Magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem saying,
[00:06:34] Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?
[00:06:37] For we saw his star in the east and we've come to worship him.
[00:06:41] So Magi from the east.
[00:06:42] They came to Jerusalem looking for the king.
[00:06:44] Now, it's reasonable to assume if you are visiting a foreign country,
[00:06:50] where would you go to find the king?
[00:06:52] You'd obviously go straight to the palace, wouldn't you?
[00:06:54] That would be the most reasonable explanation.
[00:06:56] And that is what the Magi do.
[00:06:58] However, this is not a usual king that we're dealing with here.
[00:07:01] But that's what they did.
[00:07:02] And they ended up finding Herod.
[00:07:04] Herod did call himself king of the Jews.
[00:07:06] And that's an issue that comes up here.
[00:07:08] Their intention, it says, they were coming to worship the king.
[00:07:13] Now, you don't often worship kings.
[00:07:15] You do homage and you pay respect to earthly leaders.
[00:07:17] But these people were actually coming to worship a king.
[00:07:20] So that tells us that they knew something about the Messiah, this other king,
[00:07:24] this king of the Jews that was a little different than earthly kings.
[00:07:27] They had an understanding of his divine nature at this point.
[00:07:31] So who were these mysterious people who came from the east?
[00:07:34] And when you see the term east in the Bible,
[00:07:36] it's usually referring to the Mesopotamian region.
[00:07:38] That's kind of Persia, Babylon or Iraq and these areas to that sort of place.
[00:07:44] You can read a lot of church history.
[00:07:46] You'll find that the tradition has them as three in number.
[00:07:49] They even give their names, Melchor, Caspar and Balthazar.
[00:07:53] It's just tradition.
[00:07:54] There's no evidence for any of those things.
[00:07:55] They're most likely wrong.
[00:07:57] We have the famous We Three Kings, the hymn, don't we?
[00:07:59] That we sing at Christmas time.
[00:08:01] But if you read the Bible and be accurate,
[00:08:04] the Bible never says that there are three kings.
[00:08:06] People assume three because you have the three gifts.
[00:08:08] So that's the idea where they get the three from,
[00:08:10] the gold, frankincense and myrrh.
[00:08:12] But it never actually says there were just three people.
[00:08:14] And it never calls them kings.
[00:08:16] They're not kings, they're magi.
[00:08:18] And that's something very different.
[00:08:19] So who were the magi?
[00:08:21] And this is interesting to follow.
[00:08:23] I know we've probably done this a little bit at Christmas time,
[00:08:25] but we'll get into it again this morning.
[00:08:27] So the magi were in fact an ancient Persian priesthood
[00:08:31] from the Parthian Empire.
[00:08:33] They were, it was a, magi is a Persian word originally.
[00:08:36] And you do find them talked about in the Bible.
[00:08:38] In Jeremiah 39, verse 3, it says this,
[00:08:42] Then all the officials of the king of Babylon came in and sat down at the middle gate.
[00:08:48] Negal Sar-Iza, Samgar Nebu, Sar-Sakim, the Rab Saris, Negal Sar-Iza and the Rab-Mag.
[00:08:57] And all of the rest of the officials of the king of Babylon.
[00:09:00] Now, most of those are titles.
[00:09:02] Particularly that, that guy at the end, Negal Sar-Iza, who is called the Rab-Mag.
[00:09:05] The Rab-Mag means, Rab means chief basically.
[00:09:08] So that means he is the chief magus.
[00:09:10] He is the chief magi.
[00:09:12] So he was the head of this priesthood.
[00:09:13] That's what that word basically means there.
[00:09:15] It was originally a Persian word.
[00:09:17] Here we see it being referred to the Babylonian wise men.
[00:09:20] Because if you remember, you had the Persian Empire,
[00:09:23] then that kind of, the Babylonians took over and they absorbed all of the wise men.
[00:09:27] And you had the Babylonian wise men.
[00:09:29] Now, the Magi of Babylon are quite legendary in literature,
[00:09:32] in historical literature for their pagan ways basically.
[00:09:35] They were heathen physicians.
[00:09:36] They used to do very unusual surgeries mixed with kind of magic and all sorts of weird things.
[00:09:42] They were priests.
[00:09:43] They were the learned men, the astrologers.
[00:09:45] All these kind of disciplines that the priests did in those days in these empires.
[00:09:50] And it's said that there was a very evil line of men descended from them,
[00:09:54] of which Haman from the Book of Esther is in fact one of them, interestingly enough.
[00:09:59] But with that background, it's very unlikely that any of them would be coming to worship the king of the Jews.
[00:10:07] That's the unusual part of this story.
[00:10:09] We kind of miss it because we're so used to telling the story.
[00:10:12] But you're reading this with first century eyes and you see these hereditary Persian pagan priests
[00:10:18] coming to Bethlehem seeking out the king of the Jews to worship him.
[00:10:22] That's an unusual thing that's happening there.
[00:10:23] So we must ask then why and how and who are these people?
[00:10:28] And the most likely explanation for this is again biblical history.
[00:10:33] If you remember when the Babylonians took over, when they conquered that area,
[00:10:38] there's a story, we have a whole book actually called the Book of Daniel that deals with this.
[00:10:43] Often what they would do, the Babylonians, is they would take the cream of the crop of the nation that they've invaded
[00:10:48] and they would bring them into their own empire.
[00:10:50] They would give them positions and power.
[00:10:52] It was a way to make sure that you didn't get revolts and things like that.
[00:10:55] And we have the story, one of those people that they took was a young Jewish prophet called Daniel.
[00:10:59] And he had three friends, if you remember, that they took to the Babylonian empire.
[00:11:04] And Daniel, the whole story, he was faithful to his God, he prospered.
[00:11:07] And if you remember the story, it even says at one point that the king of Babylon was so fed up with all of his wise men,
[00:11:13] they couldn't interpret his dreams or tell him what he wanted to know,
[00:11:16] that he said, I'm going to kill you all unless you can tell me the dream.
[00:11:18] And none of them could.
[00:11:20] However, Daniel was given the interpretation.
[00:11:22] So Daniel, in fact, saved the life of all of the wise men of Babylon.
[00:11:25] And it also says in Daniel 2, verse 48,
[00:11:29] Then the king promoted Daniel, gave him many gifts and made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon
[00:11:34] and the chief prefect over all the wise men of Babylon.
[00:11:39] So Daniel was, in fact, made the Rup, the chief magi.
[00:11:44] He was put as the head of this historically pagan hereditary priesthood.
[00:11:49] And it's most likely that Daniel, the faithful prophet, taught a number of these priests about the coming Messiah.
[00:11:57] And even after his days, we still see there's obviously still a sect within that group that are waiting for the Messiah.
[00:12:04] And these are the people who we see traveling now to Bethlehem,
[00:12:08] these faithful priests who had probably got saved and under Daniel's ministry and are there because of Daniel.
[00:12:14] And that's amazing, really, as you trace that history through the centuries, still having an impact.
[00:12:18] And they are the wise men who come to worship the Lord.
[00:12:23] Now, it's also the picture that we often have, the Christmas card picture,
[00:12:27] like a nice hill, three camels, three wise men, and they're on their way, that sort of thing.
[00:12:31] That is most likely not the situation that we have going on here.
[00:12:36] Three old guys on camels wandering in the night on their own into Jerusalem.
[00:12:41] The position of the chief magi was an extremely high ranking official.
[00:12:46] At many times, the emperor, even the emperor had to get the chief priest, had a lot of sway.
[00:12:52] He was almost up there with the leader.
[00:12:54] He was a high ranking official from a neighboring empire, a hostile empire,
[00:12:58] an empire that was actually at war with Rome.
[00:13:00] They were fighting over territory at this time.
[00:13:02] And he crosses into their border.
[00:13:04] It's quite an aggressive act that we see going on here.
[00:13:06] It's not just three men on camels by the cover of night coming in.
[00:13:10] It's probably more that he had quite a sizable entourage with him.
[00:13:13] They had servants with them to carry all this treasure, camels and things to sleep, tents, servants.
[00:13:19] It would have been quite a big situation.
[00:13:22] And then to come up to the now reigning king of the Jews in his palace and say,
[00:13:27] where is the real king of the Jews?
[00:13:30] You'd have to be quite confident of your position to say that.
[00:13:33] And if these are high ranking officials from the Parthian Empire, they would have been quite confident
[00:13:38] because they were actually pretty powerful at this days.
[00:13:40] And Herod was trying to keep the peace with them on the borders all the time.
[00:13:44] That's the story that we have going on here.
[00:13:46] So it's actually a very tense situation.
[00:13:49] And most of Jerusalem would have been aware of it.
[00:13:51] These people would not have been unnoticed.
[00:13:52] Everyone would have seen why they're a neighboring foreign hostile empire encroaching in our territory
[00:13:59] without announcing themselves.
[00:14:01] And they march straight into the palace and make an insult to king.
[00:14:04] And Herod's not the sort of man who accepted insults well.
[00:14:07] He'd usually kill you.
[00:14:08] If it was just three old guys, they probably would have been killed for that immediately on the spot.
[00:14:13] But because they're high ranking officials from the Parthian Empire, he has to be a little bit more diplomatic.
[00:14:18] And he claims to be interested in what they're saying.
[00:14:22] We'll see what happens with that.
[00:14:24] So they say to him, we saw his star in the east and we have come to worship him.
[00:14:30] So this king, remember that they're saying this to the person who calls himself king of the Jews.
[00:14:35] But now they're telling him that there's another king of the Jews.
[00:14:38] And this king has got celestial stars.
[00:14:40] He's got signs in the heavens announcing his coming.
[00:14:43] And we've come to worship him.
[00:14:45] You know, you Herod, we're against you.
[00:14:47] We're fighting over land with you in different areas.
[00:14:50] But we've come to worship this other king.
[00:14:52] You imagine Herod's head.
[00:14:53] A man who's pretty suspicious about these sorts of things.
[00:14:56] As this is going on, Herod is getting very worried.
[00:15:00] These foreign dignitaries are coming, insulting him without really worrying about it.
[00:15:04] And at the same time, telling him something that is happening within his jurisdiction that he doesn't know about.
[00:15:09] You'd imagine he did not like that one little bit.
[00:15:12] So it says in verse three, when Herod the king heard this, he was troubled and all Jerusalem with him.
[00:15:19] Gathering together all the chief priests, the scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born.
[00:15:24] So he was troubled.
[00:15:26] Classic understatement there.
[00:15:27] I would imagine internally he was raging at this point.
[00:15:31] But he had to keep his composure because it was a public setting in the court.
[00:15:35] But it also says all Jerusalem was troubled with him.
[00:15:38] And most likely that's because, like I said, this massive party of people coming from the neighboring empire would not have been unnoticed.
[00:15:44] Everyone, the people, small town, you see something happening, word spreads.
[00:15:48] And you also know that they're not Jewish people here.
[00:15:51] They're not the Romans.
[00:15:52] So that actually spells trouble.
[00:15:54] Herod's rage is fairly bad.
[00:15:57] Like if Herod gets mad, they're going to suffer the people.
[00:16:00] So you'd imagine Herod was worried and all the people of Jerusalem were troubled about this too.
[00:16:04] What was going to happen?
[00:16:05] So Herod, he gathers together the Pharisees, the scribes, all these people, and he asked them, where is the Messiah to be born?
[00:16:12] And you notice the king of the Jews here is equated with Messiah.
[00:16:16] Those two words are used interchangeably here.
[00:16:19] And Herod asked the scribes and the scribes, in fact, go to the scriptures and they go to a verse, Micah 5-2.
[00:16:26] Let's read it, Micah 5-2.
[00:16:27] We've looked at this a little already in our other studies, but it says,
[00:16:30] But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah.
[00:16:35] From you one will go forth for me to be a ruler in Israel.
[00:16:39] His goings forth are from long ago from the days of eternity.
[00:16:42] So we get this prophecy here.
[00:16:43] This is a prophecy, again, written hundreds of years before Jesus ever existed or was born.
[00:16:48] But it speaks of one coming from Bethlehem who will be a ruler in Israel and who is also eternal.
[00:16:56] His goings forth are from long ago, as that's how that is translated.
[00:16:59] So you have a prophecy here that speaks of the coming eternal messianic king who will rule Israel.
[00:17:06] And they know this. The scribes actually quote it properly.
[00:17:10] Now, the book of Micah is one of these unusual books that's a long time before the events we're looking at here.
[00:17:16] It's prophesying to the northern kingdom of Israel before they were taken into captivity by the Assyrians.
[00:17:22] And he's basically Micah the prophet's telling them things are going to get bad for you.
[00:17:26] Doom is coming because of your sin.
[00:17:28] The Assyrians are going to take you over.
[00:17:30] But he says, you still have a future because of my covenant.
[00:17:33] There is one coming from you who is going to rule over Israel when you are restored to your land.
[00:17:39] That's basically what we have here.
[00:17:40] But it says, one who will be a ruler in Israel.
[00:17:43] The divine nature of the Messiah.
[00:17:46] So he speaks of the future and the first coming and the second coming, if I could say it like that.
[00:17:51] The birth in Bethlehem and the future ruling in Israel in the same verse.
[00:17:56] Now, at the time, the prophet probably didn't realize there was 2,000 years at least in between those two events.
[00:18:01] We can look at that now and say that's true.
[00:18:04] But they didn't know that.
[00:18:05] And you find that a lot in prophecy.
[00:18:07] Hopefully, I've talked to you about that before.
[00:18:09] The prophets often speak of the first coming and the second coming within the same kind of prophecy.
[00:18:14] But we know that there is this gap in between.
[00:18:17] But we can also be assured, because everything happened about the first coming prophecy.
[00:18:22] Jesus was born in Bethlehem.
[00:18:23] Historically, we know that.
[00:18:25] We can be pretty sure that the second part is also going to come true.
[00:18:28] One day, Jesus will be a ruler and king of the world in that area and the whole world.
[00:18:34] But there's something else going on here that I find interesting.
[00:18:37] Two things happen that we see in this little episode.
[00:18:40] One, we see someone seeking the Messiah.
[00:18:42] And two, we see someone giving a correct scriptural interpretation of where the Messiah will be born.
[00:18:48] Now, two things, if you just list them like I have just done there, they both sound pretty good.
[00:18:53] You'd interpret that fairly positively.
[00:18:55] People are seeking the Messiah, and they're looking in the word of God.
[00:18:58] That's the right place to look, to find things out about the Messiah.
[00:19:01] But this is actually not what's going on here.
[00:19:05] You see, Herod is not seeking, he is seeking the Messiah.
[00:19:08] He's not seeking to worship the Messiah, though.
[00:19:10] He's seeking to kill the Messiah.
[00:19:12] That's the idea.
[00:19:13] It's the motivation behind his words that you need to look at.
[00:19:17] And secondly, the scribes do know the correct scripture, but they're not in any way interested in worshipping Jesus themselves.
[00:19:25] They know the Bible, maybe they know the word of God, they can give you the right verse,
[00:19:29] but they don't have the spiritual life or insight in order to understand what it's actually saying.
[00:19:33] And I think this gives us some very important lessons.
[00:19:36] You need to be very careful, just because you hear someone talking about Jesus,
[00:19:40] to assume that their motivations are in fact the same or what the Bible talks about.
[00:19:44] A lot of people talk about Jesus.
[00:19:46] 90% of what they say is completely wrong.
[00:19:48] Or a lot of people are talking about a Jesus or a person they've imagined in their head to be Jesus.
[00:19:53] It's not the Jesus revealed in the scripture.
[00:19:55] It's not the Jesus revealed by Micah 5-2, the ruler, the king, the coming one.
[00:19:59] It's not the Messiah.
[00:20:00] It's an imagination with their own heart, really.
[00:20:02] They make God in their own image.
[00:20:04] We see this all the time in our world.
[00:20:06] Even people who claim to be from the church stand up there in their religious garb and speak about Jesus,
[00:20:11] yet at the same time they're actually undermining the very Jesus that the Bible talks of.
[00:20:14] We see this all the time and you need to be aware of that.
[00:20:18] That happens.
[00:20:19] It's actually one of the devil's best tactics, I find, when you see this going on.
[00:20:24] But it's a warning for us.
[00:20:25] Just because someone can quote you a good Bible verse as well,
[00:20:28] doesn't mean that they're a follower of Jesus.
[00:20:31] It just means that they've memorized that Bible verse.
[00:20:33] And you see this here with the scribes and the Pharisees.
[00:20:35] They knew the right prophecy to go to.
[00:20:37] They told Herod the right answer.
[00:20:39] But they themselves were still spiritually dead in that regard.
[00:20:42] So that's just a lesson for us because quite often in a culture that's very Christianized, I see this quite a lot of the time,
[00:20:50] you almost become blasé with some of the things that we believe, some of the things that we're saying.
[00:20:54] And because of that, it's easy for someone to speak like they're a Christian.
[00:20:58] They might have been in church for a long period of time.
[00:21:01] They know how to act around Christians.
[00:21:03] They know how to do this sort of stuff in church.
[00:21:05] It doesn't mean they have spiritual life.
[00:21:07] It doesn't mean they're born again.
[00:21:08] You have to look at the fruit.
[00:21:09] You have to look at the motivation in their life to see whether they actually know.
[00:21:14] Because if you think about it, if you believe the Jesus of the Bible, that he is the eternal one, the king of all kings,
[00:21:20] he is the one who is going to rule the earth, then to any other response really, except to acknowledge he is who he says he is,
[00:21:27] is going to fall short of what he demands.
[00:21:29] And we're going to see this with the Magi when they actually do see Jesus as we get there in a minute.
[00:21:35] So let's jump to verse 7, please.
[00:21:36] Now remember, they're saying this to the ruler of Israel at that time, King Herod.
[00:21:43] And he was a man who had worked very hard to get that position.
[00:21:47] He'd been working the Roman angle for one time, ingratiating himself with Roman politicians.
[00:21:52] And you can go through the history. We have a lot of it written down.
[00:21:55] He spent a lot of time and effort doing that.
[00:21:58] He spent a lot of time and effort tracking down every conspiracy, getting rid of everyone who might challenge him.
[00:22:04] Own family, wife, it didn't matter.
[00:22:06] He killed them all if he thought they were going to take his throne away from him.
[00:22:10] So now someone's telling him there is another who's going to have his throne.
[00:22:13] And this is heaven.
[00:22:14] He is most likely already in his head scheming.
[00:22:18] I need to find this person and I need to kill them.
[00:22:21] That is Herod. That's what he did.
[00:22:23] Historically, we know that's how he would have been thinking.
[00:22:26] Verse 7.
[00:22:27] Then Herod secretly called the Magi and determined from them the exact time the star appeared.
[00:22:32] And he sent them to Bethlehem and said, go and search carefully for the child.
[00:22:36] And when you have found him, report to me so that I too may come and worship him.
[00:22:43] So Herod, unaware of what was happening, he wanted to get all the information he could from the Magi.
[00:22:48] So he calls them back secretly.
[00:22:50] Now I'd imagine he does this secretly.
[00:22:52] Firstly, to save himself some embarrassment.
[00:22:54] There's something going on in his empire that he doesn't know about.
[00:22:57] That's quite embarrassing if you're a strong ruler.
[00:22:59] Secondly, because he's probably, his motivation is not to find the Messiah and worship him.
[00:23:04] Remember, a lot of the world was looking for the Messiah at this time.
[00:23:08] So if he found the Messiah, he doesn't want people thinking he's found it and then everyone's going to worship him.
[00:23:12] He wants to kill the Messiah.
[00:23:13] So he wants to keep this secret.
[00:23:15] So he calls the Magi back secretly.
[00:23:17] And it's an interesting thought that because sin often has that effect, doesn't it?
[00:23:20] We like to keep it secret.
[00:23:22] You keep it in the cover of darkness when you're sinning personally or when you're sinning.
[00:23:26] When you have these kind of thoughts going on, it draws you towards the shadow.
[00:23:30] That's what it does.
[00:23:32] We hate the light.
[00:23:33] We love the darkness.
[00:23:35] That's often how it's described in the Bible.
[00:23:36] We see this going on here.
[00:23:38] The kind of narrative going on here.
[00:23:40] And he tells them to go and find the Messiah.
[00:23:43] And he says, when you find the Messiah, come back and tell me so that I too may come and worship him.
[00:23:48] As in, I'm a worshiper.
[00:23:50] I want to see the Messiah too.
[00:23:52] I want to worship him with you.
[00:23:53] Now, he has no desire to do that at all.
[00:23:55] His heart, like I said, is set on killing the Messiah as a rival to the throne.
[00:23:59] Verse 9.
[00:24:00] After hearing the king, they went their way.
[00:24:03] And the star which they had seen in the east went on before them until it came and stood over the place where the child was.
[00:24:08] And when they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.
[00:24:14] Now, I don't think they were really convinced by Herod's theater at all.
[00:24:17] But they needed that bit of information and they got it.
[00:24:19] So now they go.
[00:24:20] And they see this star again.
[00:24:23] They saw the star.
[00:24:24] Seen in the east.
[00:24:25] Now it's seen again.
[00:24:26] And it comes to rest over the house where Jesus was.
[00:24:29] So let's just talk briefly about this star.
[00:24:31] Some people may be thinking about that.
[00:24:33] What was it?
[00:24:34] Some have seen a kind of divine sanction for what we call Christian astrology.
[00:24:38] I read many articles on that.
[00:24:40] All of them absolute nonsense.
[00:24:42] That's nothing to do with the text.
[00:24:43] The Bible forbids astrology in the way it was used in the ancient world completely.
[00:24:49] That's not what the text is about.
[00:24:51] Many people have sought to go through the historical records and find some sort of cosmic event around this period like some meteor or something like that could be done.
[00:25:01] And then there's a few interesting theories on that.
[00:25:04] I don't however think that's really what the text is getting at here.
[00:25:08] It's best, and you've heard me say this, it's best when you're studying the Bible to always take the text in a straightforward manner.
[00:25:14] The plain reading of the text is usually the most sensible one to take.
[00:25:17] Unless there are indications otherwise.
[00:25:21] And I think here there are clear indications that this is not a literal star in our understanding of the term star.
[00:25:28] Think about what a star is.
[00:25:29] These massive heavenly bodies like this sort of burning ball of hydrogen and helium with a nuclear forge in its core that's giving off heat and light.
[00:25:37] You don't want that above your house.
[00:25:40] That wouldn't go very well for you if you had a nuclear forge just right above your house.
[00:25:44] The size of these things, obviously they're light years away.
[00:25:46] The sun is obviously our closest star, but many of them are bigger than the earth.
[00:25:50] Again, when they're up in the sky it doesn't help you locate a house.
[00:25:54] The ancients used to use the stars obviously for like compass directions and for tracking the seasons and things like that.
[00:25:59] But it doesn't give you a direct place across the world and up and down.
[00:26:04] The stars don't do that, and they can't.
[00:26:06] It's not like they can come and hover on a house, like I said.
[00:26:08] It's a nuclear reactor almost above your house.
[00:26:10] It just would not work.
[00:26:12] So when you read this story, there are five things about this star that made me think this is not a star in the sense that we, when we say that word.
[00:26:20] Firstly, it's called the personal star.
[00:26:22] It's given a personality in the sense that it's his star.
[00:26:25] It's the king of the Jews star.
[00:26:27] Second, it appears and it disappears.
[00:26:30] The wise men saw it once, it disappeared, and then they see it again after they've had this thing with Herod.
[00:26:36] It moves from east to west and it also moves from north to south.
[00:26:40] And eventually it hovers over one single house where the child is.
[00:26:43] Stars don't do that.
[00:26:44] No heavenly star ever could do that.
[00:26:46] So what is this?
[00:26:47] My belief is that this is actually the Shekinah glory of God.
[00:26:51] We've talked about that many times as we go through the Gospel.
[00:26:53] The Shekinah glory is the physical manifestation of the presence of God.
[00:26:57] It's the Shekinah glory that often appears as light.
[00:27:00] You remember, it is the Shekinah glory of God that led the children of Israel through the wilderness.
[00:27:04] Pillar of fire by night.
[00:27:05] That for me is the only really explanation that makes sense.
[00:27:09] It's quite a common viewpoint.
[00:27:10] I can't be dogmatic about it because the text doesn't specifically state it, but that seems to make the most sense for me.
[00:27:17] That's my view on the star.
[00:27:18] Verse 10.
[00:27:19] When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.
[00:27:23] Now the appearance of the star at this time showed them the exact location and they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.
[00:27:30] There's a lot of kind of adjectives just piled upon each other there.
[00:27:34] Rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.
[00:27:37] The idea is this is not just your run-of-the-mill joy.
[00:27:39] This is not just happiness.
[00:27:41] This is not a strong emotion.
[00:27:42] This is something that is the highest expression of joy that could ever be expressed with language.
[00:27:48] And I think it's fitting that it is like that.
[00:27:50] You remember the angels when they appeared to the shepherds?
[00:27:53] They said, well, did they, how did they announce it?
[00:27:55] I bring you good news of great joy for all people.
[00:27:59] This is kind of the fulfillment, the beginning of the fulfillment of that.
[00:28:02] There, these Magi had come on a long journey from the east over now to Israel.
[00:28:07] Their pilgrimage was over.
[00:28:09] They'd found out where the Messiah was and the anticipation now of seeing the Messiah had this effect on them.
[00:28:16] Great joy, exceeding joy.
[00:28:18] And I like this.
[00:28:19] Now think about this too.
[00:28:20] In many ways, one of the descriptions of a Christian on this earth, of us, is that we are pilgrims.
[00:28:26] We are on a journey through this world in order to go to the next.
[00:28:31] John Bunyan's book, The Pilgrim Progress, makes a whole book on that.
[00:28:34] That's the whole point.
[00:28:35] And just like these Magi, quite often you have those moments, don't you, where you think about Jesus.
[00:28:41] The goal of our journey is really to see Jesus face-to-face.
[00:28:43] That's the ultimate end of our journey.
[00:28:45] That is what we are working towards as we go forward.
[00:28:48] And the reality of that should have the same effect.
[00:28:51] It should stir our souls.
[00:28:52] The anticipation of seeing Jesus should fill our hearts with exceedingly great joy.
[00:28:58] It did for the Magi.
[00:28:59] It should for us too.
[00:29:01] In fact, Peter speaks of something like this in his epistle.
[00:29:03] 1 Peter 1, verse 7, he says,
[00:29:06] So that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold, which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
[00:29:18] So that's the future event.
[00:29:19] And he says,
[00:29:20] And though you have not seen him, you love him.
[00:29:22] And though you do not see him now, but believe in him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.
[00:29:33] And in the context of the whole passages, he's thinking about that final day where he does get to see Jesus.
[00:29:38] The struggling of the journey is over.
[00:29:40] The hardships of the pilgrimage through the earth is over.
[00:29:43] And ultimately, all you're left with is exceeding great joy.
[00:29:48] And it's the spirit of God in you that will do that for you.
[00:29:51] And verse 11,
[00:29:53] And after coming into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell to the ground and worshipped him.
[00:30:00] And then opening their treasures, they presented to him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
[00:30:05] So they are led to the exact house.
[00:30:07] They enter and they see the child.
[00:30:10] It's not referred to as a baby anymore.
[00:30:11] They see the child here.
[00:30:12] And I think this is probably my favourite little verse in this whole section.
[00:30:16] They came into the house, I believe led by the Shekinah glory of God.
[00:30:19] And when they laid eyes on the child, Jesus, they fell to the ground in worship.
[00:30:26] They were immediately aware because they understood the divine nature of this child.
[00:30:31] They were immediately aware that they were in the presence of holiness.
[00:30:34] The Lord, the one who is high and exalted, as Isaiah said, lifted up above all things, the preeminent one, the one whose glory shines from him.
[00:30:42] They knew they were in the presence of the Lord.
[00:30:45] And their immediate reaction was to place themselves as low as possible to the ground.
[00:30:50] Because they're in the presence of the one who is so high.
[00:30:52] And that's an act of reverence that you do when you're in the presence of something like that.
[00:30:56] They fell to the ground and they worshipped.
[00:30:59] Almost instinctively, the text kind of says here.
[00:31:01] It's just what they do when they see Jesus.
[00:31:04] And it often makes me think that we could have that same reverence.
[00:31:07] Oh, that we would have that same understanding of Jesus.
[00:31:09] Yes, I know we don't see him physically, obviously, but we still have that expectation, that promise that we will see him.
[00:31:15] And through his spirit, we do still have that communion with him.
[00:31:17] And we should have the same response that when we think, when we see Jesus, it should cause us to fall to our knees and worship.
[00:31:24] Like the psalmist says, come, let us worship and bow down.
[00:31:27] Let us kneel before the Lord, our maker, for he is our God.
[00:31:31] And as I was saying earlier, I think there's really no other response.
[00:31:35] If the God you actually worship, the Jesus, the Christianity you hold to, has a proper understanding of Jesus, of who he is, he is the Lord, high and lifted up, exalted.
[00:31:46] Yes, he humbled himself, put on human flesh, but he's still the Lord.
[00:31:49] It should provoke this same response in us.
[00:31:53] And I think part of the problem is, like I said, we're so casual with Jesus many times in a Christian culture that we don't think of him like this.
[00:32:02] Often we relate to him more in a kind of friend who's above us in some ways.
[00:32:08] And yes, Jesus is our friend and we have a personal relationship with him in that way, but it's a way bigger picture than that.
[00:32:15] And you can learn from these wise men here.
[00:32:17] They see the child.
[00:32:19] And this is, I'm talking under two years old child when I say that.
[00:32:23] And even that, they bow to the floor and they worship him.
[00:32:27] How much more should we worship him now?
[00:32:29] Having known about what his life was going to do, having seen what he did on the cross for us, having seen the Lord glorify him through the resurrection,
[00:32:36] having him send his spirit to dwell in us, give us that down payment that one day we will be glorified with him.
[00:32:42] We have so much more that we understand than even the Magi did here.
[00:32:45] Way more.
[00:32:47] And yet, sometimes I wonder whether we worship in the same way.
[00:32:51] And that's just a challenge for all of us in our own personal spiritual walks as we read these things.
[00:32:56] But it must have been a very beautiful scene.
[00:32:59] If you could imagine it.
[00:33:00] Remember, Mary and Joseph were poorest of the poor in Israel.
[00:33:03] They were a poor Jewish family, basically.
[00:33:06] And they were young.
[00:33:07] They were 16, 17, around that sort of age at this time.
[00:33:10] And you have these high-ranking, very wealthy, powerful foreign dignities from a neighboring empire that was also a very powerful empire.
[00:33:20] Strange people from another land now who have tracked them down to their little house where they are.
[00:33:25] And they come into the house.
[00:33:28] Whether they barged in or they were invited in.
[00:33:31] You just can't imagine the kind of tense environment that this would have been.
[00:33:34] And they come into the house.
[00:33:35] And then within a second of laying eyes on the child, they're all on the floor, paying respect to the Lord.
[00:33:40] Can you imagine Mary?
[00:33:41] What she must have been thinking at that time with her little baby at that time.
[00:33:44] It's a wonderful scene, really, when you think about it.
[00:33:47] But they were Gentiles as well.
[00:33:49] The Jewish Gentiles often didn't really do this with Jewish people at this time.
[00:33:53] But they see the Jewish Messiah and they worship the child.
[00:33:57] And in fact, they were the first Gentiles to worship the Lord.
[00:33:59] And we've already seen the first Jewish people to worship the Lord were the shepherds.
[00:34:03] Because you remember, when they had their announcement, they immediately went and found.
[00:34:06] And they were worshiping in that same way too.
[00:34:09] Here we see the first Gentiles.
[00:34:11] And this is a picture of his future ministry again we have here even in his birth.
[00:34:16] Because he's not just the king of the Jews.
[00:34:18] He's also the king of kings, the king of the world.
[00:34:20] And we have all those scriptures in the Bible that talk about that future time.
[00:34:24] When both Jew and Gentile together will stream up to the house of the Lord, bring their gifts to him and worship him.
[00:34:30] We have that in miniature here around his birth.
[00:34:32] But that is a picture of the future that one day will happen.
[00:34:36] It says then, opening their treasures, they presented to him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
[00:34:41] Now they brought offerings to the king.
[00:34:43] Now this was a common custom, in fact.
[00:34:45] If you were a dignitary from another land and you went to a foreign king,
[00:34:48] you would never come empty-handed, you'd always come with a gift.
[00:34:51] That was actually a common custom.
[00:34:53] It says they opened their treasures.
[00:34:55] And the text literally implies that they actually had a physical treasure chest with them.
[00:35:00] And they actually brought this treasure chest and they opened it.
[00:35:03] And again, I think about this.
[00:35:05] You'd imagine Mary and Joseph sitting there.
[00:35:07] They had to give birth to Jesus in a cave in the middle of the Judean wilderness.
[00:35:11] They've probably got no money at all now.
[00:35:13] They've been on a journey from their home for the last few however many months.
[00:35:16] Because of this census.
[00:35:18] And then these foreign people, very wealthy people come in and they bring a treasure chest to them.
[00:35:23] And just stick it in front of them.
[00:35:25] And they open it up and they start distributing these gifts to them.
[00:35:29] It's amazing.
[00:35:30] Now the gold, frankincense and myrrh.
[00:35:31] There's lots of speculation throughout church history.
[00:35:33] Why these exact gifts?
[00:35:35] We don't exactly know.
[00:35:36] We're not told why the wise men chose these gifts.
[00:35:39] But there is most likely a symbolism to them.
[00:35:41] Because the symbolism at this stage would come from the Old Testament.
[00:35:45] Gold in the Old Testament was obviously a symbol of kingship, of royalty.
[00:35:51] That's why kings have gold.
[00:35:52] It was a sign of wealth, obviously.
[00:35:53] A sign of power in these things.
[00:35:55] But often in the Bible, in the biblical sense, it was just a sign that you were a king.
[00:35:59] It speaks to us of the royal nature of Jesus Christ.
[00:36:02] Jesus is king.
[00:36:04] And we'd already had this hinted at, hadn't we?
[00:36:06] In Luke chapter 1.
[00:36:07] Remember, it says he will be great.
[00:36:09] This is the promise to Mary.
[00:36:11] He will be great.
[00:36:12] He will be called the Son of the Most High.
[00:36:14] The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, who has thrones.
[00:36:18] Kings have thrones.
[00:36:19] And he will reign over the house of Jacob forever.
[00:36:21] And his kingdom will have no end.
[00:36:23] He has a throne.
[00:36:24] He has a kingdom.
[00:36:24] And he has a reign.
[00:36:25] Jesus is king.
[00:36:26] That's most likely why he was given gold by the wise men.
[00:36:29] He is king of the Jews.
[00:36:31] The frankincense.
[00:36:33] Frankincense actually, in Old Testament symbolism,
[00:36:36] came to be associated with deity, with the divine nature.
[00:36:40] And why?
[00:36:41] Because you remember our study when we looked at the tabernacle and the temple?
[00:36:45] They had that altar of incense that was right before the Holy of Holies.
[00:36:49] You'd have the Holy of Holies with the veil and the Ark of the Covenant behind it.
[00:36:52] And right in front of it, you'd have the altar of incense on the outside.
[00:36:55] The priests would have to bring the incense and they'd burn it on the altar there.
[00:36:59] One of those things that they would burn would be frankincense on that incense.
[00:37:02] And then no one else was allowed behind the curtain.
[00:37:05] Except the high priest once a year.
[00:37:07] And that's where the presence of God was, above the Ark of the Covenant, the Shekinah.
[00:37:10] But the incense, when it was burned every single day,
[00:37:14] it would waft underneath the curtain, seemingly allowed to just go into the presence of God.
[00:37:19] You see?
[00:37:19] So that's why frankincense was often associated with the divine nature.
[00:37:22] So this gift speaks to us of the deity of Jesus Christ.
[00:37:26] It says, again, remember Luke 2.
[00:37:27] Today in the city of David has been born for you a saviour who is Christ, the Lord.
[00:37:33] God.
[00:37:34] Jesus is the Lord.
[00:37:35] So we have Jesus as king and Jesus is the Lord.
[00:37:39] And then the myrrh.
[00:37:40] And myrrh is an interesting one.
[00:37:42] Because myrrh was a thing that was associated with embalming.
[00:37:45] Embalming the dead.
[00:37:46] And it speaks to us of the Old Testament of the death of Christ.
[00:37:50] The sacrifice.
[00:37:51] The fact that the saviour was, in fact, the lamb of God.
[00:37:54] The blood offering who was going to be sacrificed for the sins of the world.
[00:37:57] It's like a picture of what will happen to him in his life.
[00:38:00] So many times we've seen, through this introduction in Luke,
[00:38:03] the emphasis on the lamb of God.
[00:38:05] Remember those shepherds that first had the appearance of the angels.
[00:38:09] They were the ones who were raising the temple lambs that would be used in the sacrifice.
[00:38:13] That's why they were first told about the real lamb of God.
[00:38:16] Myrrh speaks to us of Jesus as the sacrifice.
[00:38:19] Jesus is king.
[00:38:20] Jesus is Lord.
[00:38:21] And Jesus is also the lamb of God, the saviour of the world.
[00:38:25] Verse 12, it says,
[00:38:27] And having been warned by God in a dream not to return to Herod,
[00:38:30] the Magi left for their own country by another way.
[00:38:33] The Magi were worshippers of God.
[00:38:35] They had come and they bowed down before this future king.
[00:38:38] And this then led to voluntary acts of giving as part of their worship.
[00:38:43] And then we see one final act of obedience from these strange visitors from another land.
[00:38:47] They had the spiritual insight to heed a divine warning from God not to return to Herod.
[00:38:54] Because I'd imagine if they didn't turn, if they didn't have good news for Herod,
[00:38:57] things could have got really tense.
[00:38:59] Everything could have gone pretty badly.
[00:39:01] So they heed that warning and they leave the country another way.
[00:39:04] They do not return to Herod.
[00:39:05] We'll see Herod's response to that next week.
[00:39:07] He's not happy about that.
[00:39:09] But for now, the Magi leave.
[00:39:12] And when I stand back and look at just these 12 verses,
[00:39:14] this story for me is a reminder, ultimately,
[00:39:17] that the anticipation of seeing Jesus should fill us with great joy.
[00:39:22] And if it doesn't,
[00:39:23] now I understand it's not going to be every second of your life.
[00:39:25] I'd be realistic with what I'm talking about.
[00:39:28] But even through all of those hard times, the believer, the one who was actually walking with the Lord,
[00:39:33] should have that anticipation, that expectation, that excitement that gets you through this pilgrimage on this earth.
[00:39:40] You should have that understanding that when you see Jesus, like the Magi did when they walked in and they fall to the ground and they worshiped because they knew he was the high and exalted one.
[00:39:48] Like cultural Christianity will never give you that.
[00:39:51] Cultural Christianity is probably the worst thing, actually.
[00:39:54] What a way to take the power and the beauty out of Christianity to simply have a bland so-so religion that has no impact in your life.
[00:40:01] You can get rid of that in the church, really.
[00:40:03] We need to see the King high and lifted up for what he is, and that will give us that excitement, that great joy.
[00:40:10] That is the only thing that will do it.
[00:40:12] Many of you may have seen that Tim Keller died this week.
[00:40:15] Tim Keller was the Redeemer Church man, founder of the Gospel Coalition.
[00:40:19] He was a church planter, writer.
[00:40:20] He wrote that famous book, The Reason for God.
[00:40:22] Very good apologist in many ways.
[00:40:24] He had a massive impact on many people's lives.
[00:40:26] He's had cancer for a few years.
[00:40:28] He's been fighting it.
[00:40:29] But he died just a day or so yesterday or the day before, I believe.
[00:40:33] But his son, Michael, Michael Keller, who runs all his social media stuff, has been sharing some of the last events of his life through it.
[00:40:40] And he shared one statement just on the day that he died, really.
[00:40:45] This is Tim Keller's, some of his last words.
[00:40:49] He said, I'm thankful for all the people who've prayed for me over the years.
[00:40:53] I'm thankful for my family that loves me.
[00:40:55] I'm thankful for the time God has given me.
[00:40:58] But I'm ready to see Jesus.
[00:40:59] I can't wait to see Jesus send me home.
[00:41:03] That's a man who has that excitement, walking in, seeing Jesus, falling to the floor.
[00:41:09] And you can sense that he's at the end of his life now.
[00:41:11] His pilgrimage is over.
[00:41:13] He just wants to go and see Jesus.
[00:41:15] A cultural Christianity will never bring that.
[00:41:17] It's only a real relationship with the Lord that will do that.
[00:41:21] That's the first reminder.
[00:41:22] The second is the story is a reminder that the only fit response to such a king is to bow down and worship.
[00:41:29] It's the same kind of thing, but related very much to understanding who the king is.
[00:41:34] And finally, it's a reminder that part of our worship to him during this pilgrimage period will be to give him gifts, offer ourselves to him.
[00:41:43] And the Bible actually says that what he wants from us is not really, in any sense, our intelligence or all these things that we puff us up with our pride.
[00:41:53] He doesn't want our wisdom.
[00:41:54] He doesn't need our resources, anything like that.
[00:41:56] But what he does want is ourselves, to present our bodies as a living sacrifice to him that he may use for his purposes, for his kingdom.
[00:42:06] And the reason why quite often we live in that area of Christianity that stops us from entering into the full power of it is because that's the part we're unwilling to maybe fully do.
[00:42:16] Because we like that autonomy over our own lives.
[00:42:19] But actually when we have that, there's many different reasons.
[00:42:22] We all do it, me included.
[00:42:23] Everyone does that to a degree.
[00:42:25] But when we actually have that in many ways, that's a lack of trust in the Lord.
[00:42:30] Because it's basically saying that, no, I want to make my own plans.
[00:42:35] But the real attitude should be, we're willing to go on that long journey with him.
[00:42:41] The anticipation of seeing him trumps anything else that we may be able to build or do ourselves in this world.
[00:42:46] And that is our ultimate goal.
[00:42:47] That is why it says, fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith.
[00:42:52] So that's my three points from this little portion of text.
[00:42:55] Yes, ultimately we do this so that we may be able to tell the message that the Savior has come.
[00:43:01] That is it.
[00:43:02] And he is coming again.
[00:43:03] They're the two ends that we tell.
[00:43:05] One day he will rule as king.
[00:43:07] And next week we'll look at how Herod responds to all of this.
[00:43:11] Amen.
[00:43:12] You've been listening to Theology and Apologetics.
[00:43:14] This podcast is supported by your generous donations.
[00:43:17] To help us continue to bring you great content, please visit our Patreon site at patreon.com slash theology and apologetics.
[00:43:25] If you've been blessed by this podcast, please leave us a review and remember to connect with us on social media.
[00:43:30] For more resources, please go to theologyandapologetics.com.
[00:43:34] Thanks for listening.
