Sermon Tone Analysis

Announcements

Are there any announcements?

Praise God for the wonderful Christmas Eve Service!

Judy has felt that her season of teaching Bible study has come to a close.

She needs to be at home with Ernie.

Please pray for them.

Next week, Patti Pointer will be stepping into teach Bible study next week along with Brent Knowles, and Micheal Swenson as needed.

So please, be praying for this transition for everyone.

Introduction

Well Good morning church and merry Christmas!

We made it through 2021 and are pressing into 2022.

And although 2021 was full of blessings and struggles, we should set our minds upon Jesus in 2022!

Because He is coming quickly!

Here at FCC we worship God in Spirit and in Truth one verse at a time, one book at a time!

We are currently in between books and will be starting a new book soon.

Today, I would like to pick up, where we left off.

It was the birth of Christ

So let’s open our Bible’s up to Matthew 2.

Read Matthew 2:1-12

Prayer

Lord Heavenly Father, we come before you with grateful hearts and minds that are turned toward heaven and we ask for you to fill us with your Spirit as we open your Word.

We thank you for everything that you have given and that you are coming quickly!

So please Lord, meet us where we are at and speak to us.

Help us not be hearers only, but to be doers of your Word.

Minister to those that are not with us and those who have joined us online this day!

In Jesus Name we love you!

Last week we learned that Bethlehem is tow words:

Beth- House

Lehem- Bread

Thus we get Bethlehem that means that house of bread andJesus said this:

Herod – Herodes – “heroic”.

The name of a royal family that flourished among the Jews around the time of Christ.

The Herods were Idumean or “Edomites”, who married into the Jewish race.

They were not pure Jews.

There are four different members of this family mentioned in the Bible, but this was the patriarch, known as “Herod the Great”.

He was born around 74 BC.

He was appointed “king” of Judaea in 39 BC by the Roman Senate at the request of Mark Antony.

He was considered skilled in war, wise, but also very suspicious and cruel.

He married a Jewish wife, but because of his suspicions he eventually had her and her two or three sons killed.

Emperor CaesarAugustus (Gias Octavius) that we spoke of last week reportedly said it was better to be Herod’s pig than his son, for his pig had a better chance of surviving in a Jewish community.

His bloody reign, high taxes, and love of Roman customs alienated him from the Jews, but he tried to make them happy with great building programs at Jericho, and Caesarea, including the remodeling of the Temple (known as “Herod’s Temple).

He died at age 70 in the year 4 BC, which means that the birth of Christ had to have occurred no later than 4 BC.

Wise men- magos- n. — any person well respected in the pagan world for their knowledge in the (occult) arts; especially astrology, medicine, and dream interpretation.

a magus

the name given by the Babylonians (Chaldeans), Medes, Persians, and others, to the wise men, teachers, priests, physicians, astrologers, seers, interpreters of dreams, augers, soothsayers, sorcerers etc.

the oriental wise men (astrologers) who, having discovered by the rising of a remarkable star that the Messiah had just been born, came to Jerusalem to worship him

a false prophet and sorcerer

Scholars are torn over exactly were these magi came from.

There are generally two views.

Persia which is modern day Iran

Or The Orient

Among them was Simon of Samaria (Acts 8:9), whom tradition and history have come to refer to as Simon Magus because of his “practicing magic” (Greek, mageuō, derived from the Babylonian magus, singular of magi).

He is known as Simon mangus

The Jewish false prophet Bar-Jesus was also a sorcerer, or “magician” (Greek, magos).

These magicians were despised by both Romans and Jews.

Philo, a first-century b.c.

Jewish philosopher from Alexandria, called them vipers and scorpions.

But the construction here in this text the magi from the east (the word literally means “from the rising” of the sun, and refers to the orient) who came to see Jesus were of a completely different sort.

Not only were they true magi, but they surely had been strongly influenced by Judaism, quite possibly even by some of the prophetic writings, especially that of Daniel.

They appear to be among the many God-fearing Gentiles who lived at the time of Christ, a number of whom—such as Cornelius and Lydia (Acts 10:1–2; 16:14)—are mentioned in the New Testament.

So, it is important church for us to remember that these wise men were somehow influenced by Judaism and were Gentiles.

The plural subject of that sentence tells us there were more than one.

Were there two?

Were there twenty?

We don’t know.

Well then, where do we get three?

This tradition comes from the three gifts mentioned in verse 11, the logic being that if there were three gifts there must have been three men.

These are Gentile men, not Jews.

The tradition that there were three comes from the three types of gifts they brought.

The Scriptures don’t tell us how many there were.

There were at least two and perhaps as many as a dozen.

Some even say this is where the tradition was started to give gifts on Christmas

When these magi, however many there were, arrived in Jerusalem, they began asking, “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews?”

The Greek construction (saying is a present participle emphasizing continual action) suggests that they went around the city questioning whomever they met

Note, they were Gentiles that came to worship the King of the Jews!

What we see here in this text is a contrast of comparison of two Kings church.

What King do you worship?

Matthew makes our decision rather easy, doesn’t he?

Do you want a madman or the Messiah?

Do you want a man who would order the massacre of innocent children (v.

16)

Or a man who would open his arms to children and lay down his life for the less-than-innocent of the world?

Do you want a ruler who rules by force, aggression, and cruelty or a ruler who rules by love, compassion, and the cross of his own sufferings?

Do you want a man who slaughtered the last remnants of the dynasty that ruled before him, put to death half of the Sanhedrin, killed 300 court officers, executed his wife and mother-in-law and two or three sons, and as he lay dying arranged for all the notable men of Jerusalem to be assembled in the Hippodrome and killed as soon as his own death was announced, so the people might weep instead of rejoice on the day of his death?

Do you want him for king?

Or do you want the One who when reviled did not revile in return, who when he suffered did not threaten but rather bore our sins in his body on the tree (see 1 Peter 2:21–25)?

Whom do you want?

We see the arrival of Jesus and the Wise Men

We see the indifference or the agitation of Herod and his men

Troubled-tarassō- to agitate, trouble ,to cause one inward commotion, take away his calmness of mind, disturb his equanimity, to disquiet, make restless, to stir up, to trouble, to strike one's spirit with fear and dread

I think it is important to see here as the leader goes, so goes his followers church.

All of Jerusalem was troubled and the sad thing is these were Jews

These were the religious folks of the day

It is clear that Herod was not a Bible scholar so he sought out those who were:

Chiefs Priests

Scribes- The scribes or “teachers of the law” especially knew their stuff.

They spent all day meticulously copying the Holy Scriptures, word by word, line by line.

They were professional Bible scholars and teachers.

Lets face the facts, good leaders always surround themselves with people that know more than they do.

Herod asked them where Jesus was to be born church and notice that there is no delay, the scholars did not need to spend more time in the word, they answered the question rather rapidly:

They didn’t have to open to Micah to know because they knew there Bibles