In Scott Brown's sermon titled 'Your Ruler and Your Shepherd,' he explores Matthew chapter 2, emphasizing the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies through the birth of Jesus Christ. Brown highlights the wise men from the East, who, guided by a star, come to worship Jesus, acknowledging his kingship. He contrasts their faith and worship with Herod's fear and rage, which leads to a massacre of infants in Bethlehem. The sermon underscores God's sovereignty over historical events, geographical locations, and celestial phenomena, asserting that God orchestrates all things according to his perfect plan. Brown emphasizes that God's rulership as demonstrated through Jesus is both authoritative and shepherd-like, offering care and guidance to his people. The sermon illustrates Jesus' early life, marked by a flight to Egypt and a return to Nazareth, fulfilling various prophecies and depicting the challenges faced by Joseph and Mary. Brown encourages the congregation to trust in God's authority and providence in their own lives, drawing parallels between biblical events and personal experiences.

Matthew chapter 2. Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, Behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east, and have come to worship Him. When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, He inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.

So they said to him, in Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet. But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, and not the least among the rulers of Judah. For out of you shall come a ruler, who will shepherd my people Israel." Then Herod, when he had secretly called the wise men, determined from them what time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem and said, Go and search carefully for your young child. And when you have found him, bring back word to me, that I may come and worship Him also.

When they heard the king, they departed, and behold, the star which they had seen in the east went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy, and when they had come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down and worshipped him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to him, gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Then, being defiantly warned in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed for their own country another way. Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, arise, take the young child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I bring you word, for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.

When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt. And was there until the death of Herod that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt I call my son. Then Herod, when he saw that he was deceived by the wise men, was exceedingly angry, and he sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its districts, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, A voice was heard in Rama, lamentation, weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted, because they are no more. Now when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, Arise, take the young child and his mother, and Go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the young child's life are dead.

Then he arose, took the young child and his mother, and came into the land of Israel. But then when he heard that Archaelit was reigning over Judea instead of the father Herod, he was afraid to go there, and being warned by God in a dream, he turned aside into the region of Galilee, and he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth that might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets. He shall be called a Nazarene. Thank you Lord for your Word. In Jesus' name, Amen.

What would your life be like, moment by moment, if you believed with all of your heart that God's plan was working perfectly according to his timetable? What if he was in authority over all the kings and all the economies? And what if he was in charge of all the stars and all the times and all the seasons? And What if he was in charge of all the stars and all the times and all the seasons? And what if he was in charge of where you were born and where you traveled and where you grew up?

Well, that's what you get with Matthew chapter 2. But you get much more than that. You really get a picture of the sweep of history and God's perfect grasp of everything. For example, this passage takes us back to the prophecy of the war against the seat of the woman in the days of Adam and Eve. It takes us to the book of Numbers.

It takes us to the book of Judges, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Hosea, and Micah. So in this chapter, you get a sweep of all of history and the center of all of history, the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and His birth in Bethlehem. So that's where we are. There are so many applications of this chapter that I hope we'll be able to somehow grasp. So, so far in the first two chapters of Matthew, he has been carefully building a case to connect the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ with all of the prophecies of the Old Testament and he's saying he's been saying over and over again this is that and in chapter 1 he does that he does that over again.

This name, the very name of Jesus, is that which was prophesied. This genealogy, this line, this, the Lord Jesus, is the result of that. And now when we come into chapter two, we find the same thing. That Matthew is going to great length to say this is that, this is that, and he doesn't stop because he's going to continue on with the coming of John the Baptist in chapter 3, and he'll say this is that which is prophesied by the by the prophet Malachi. And so, so Matthew is just continuing to prove all these points by using various proofs from Old Testament prophecy.

And while he was emphasizing the humiliation of Joseph and Mary in chapter 1, he emphasizes the obedience of Joseph and the humiliation of Christ. So Matthew is building a case to demonstrate over and over again that Jesus Christ is the Son of God And that he is the ruler who is also a shepherd. I've titled this sermon, A Ruler and a Shepherd, because I think in this passage you get both of these. You get a picture of his rulership from the days of Adam and Eve up until this time, and you also get the details of how he shepherds his people and how he takes care of his people Israel. And so this chapter though, it teaches us something about the universe in which you live, and even the historical moment that you exist in now today.

And it's this. Your family, your job, your house, your financial condition, your problems, your sins have one purpose. And they stand as a witness that God is in control. That he is a ruler and he is also a shepherd. It would be helpful if your ruler was also a shepherd, and it would even be more helpful if you knew that your ruler was a good shepherd.

And that's what Matthew is proving as we continue on in this study. Now, God is, there are a number of things I want us to really get here and I'm going to click a few of them off before we get into the text. First of all, God is not reacting to events. He's orchestrating events And Matthew chapter 2 totally destroys open theism, which says that God is reacting. God doesn't know exactly what's going to happen.

He not only knows what is happening, he ordains everything that does happen. And so, and God is not subject to the politicians, he's not subject to geographical barriers, He's not subject to celestial movements of the stars. He does his own will, his own way, and in his own time. And that's proven over and over again here. I want you to see the characters that are in Matthew chapter 2.

First of all, you have the Magi, you have Herod, you have the priests and the scribes, you have all Jerusalem, you have the babies, and of course, and the killers of those babies, And you also have Joseph, who's taking his family. So Joseph and his wife and his child. So those are the basic characters that exist in this chapter. There are five messianic prophecies that are fulfilled in this chapter. And all these five are fulfilled in his infancy.

There are over 300 prophecies of the Messiah in the Old Testament. Here are five that we'll be dealing with this morning. Notice there are a number of responses of those characters that I mentioned. Herod has a certain response. We'll get to that later.

The chief priests and the scribes have a certain response, the Magi have a certain response, and Joseph has a certain response. We'll get to those responses later. There are also four geographical locations and one celestial situation that are brought into the storyline. Each of them are fulfillments of prophecy. They're fulfilled in historical moments and geographical coordinates, Because the Christian faith is a real faith.

It happens in history on a real planet that was really created by God, that was inhabited by real people like you and I. We're not figments of one another's imagination. Neither is the Bible, neither is Jesus, and neither are the prophets. And so these four geographical locations are Bethlehem, Egypt, Ramah, and Nazareth, and the celestial phenomenon is the star. So in the heavens, on the earth, this passage just covers so many different kinds of issues of life and how we understand the world and how we understand history and geography.

It's important to know geography. It's important to know history. And here, Matthew is playing the role of master historian to help every little child and every person in the world to understand history it's important you understand history and Matthew is playing that role for us in fact RT France the the commentator says this is a geographical apologetic and it is and when you read it you see it so Matthew is is being very methodical to show how each one of the prophecies is fulfilled in the infancy of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pick up the story, Mary and Joseph are now in a house. Are now in a house.

And verses 1 through 6 we find this first segment, if you have an outline in front of you, this first element of the proofs is found in the wise men who are looking for the king of the Jews. And this is the first fulfillment, the first of five fulfillments that we'll review here this morning. But you, Bethlehem, Ephrathah, verses 1 through 6. Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the King, behold wise men from the East came to Jerusalem saying, where is he who has been born the King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east and have come to worship him." So what we find in these first six verses are a number of markers in time and in geography.

The first sentence is filled up with historical coordinates. There are seven historical elements just piled upon one another. There's Jesus' birth, there's the town of his birth, there's Bethlehem, there's Judea, there's the king, Herod, there are wisemen, and there's a star. And this is very significant, even in our own day, because there are those who pretend to be Christians who want to spiritualize the whole Bible. And they want to say that it's a spiritual truth, but it's not historically or geographically reliable.

Matthew actually doesn't believe this at all. In fact, there's a great debate raging even today by our friend Ken Ham particularly who is actually kicked out of a homeschool conference series because he warned the conferees that there was somebody in the convention that was actually teaching that Adam was a mythical figure and that everything in Genesis is mythological but only has spiritual meaning. But it has nothing to do with real people or real geography or real events. And so, kin Ham was thrown out of this homeschool conference series there's a man who's created a great business developing large homeschool conferences using a great spectrum of speakers you know over a hundred speakers all the way from people who believe that Scripture is the Word of God, every part of it, to those who do not. So Peter Enns, who is the president of the BioLogos project, It's a home school curriculum to teach history.

And he was recently, a couple years ago, he was thrown out of Westminster Seminary for his heretical views of the Bible. But he set loose in the home school to teach children, to give parents these curriculums. Parents were so hungry to get their hands on a curriculum. And so Ken Ham took exception to it and warned his audience and was kicked out as a result of his view of Genesis and of the whole Bible. But here, what we find Matthew doing is affirming the historical nature of spiritual truth, that spiritual truth happens in the Context of history and geography.

It's real. It was real and what? Comes afterward is real as well. So we come to Herod This this wicked king we come to the Magi. We know very little about the Magi.

And we won't spend much time trying to figure out, speculating who the Magi are. Nobody really knows who the Magi were. And you can read commentators and they have pages on it. And at the end of it, they say, well, we're actually not sure. Were they Jewish proselytes?

Were they from the Jewish dispersion? Or who were they? Were they idolaters? But We don't know their names. We don't know how many of them are.

And we don't know what they rode on. People think they rode on camels and that they're three kings of Orient R. Well, that's all mythology. So the Bible actually just says that they were wise men. But there are lots of people we don't know very much about in Scripture.

How much do you know about Melchisedec? He's a figure that just comes out of nowhere. How much do we know about Job? We have a book written by, he's apparently one of the earliest writers, but we don't know much about him. We don't know very much about Jethro.

He just appears. We don't know that much about his religion. We can speculate and write about it but it's the same thing with with with an agile we they're from the east we know that and and we know that we know that they brought gifts and we know what they were and we know that they worship there are a number of things that we do know They seem to have a spurious religious background, but we don't know very much about it, really, with certitude. But when the Wisemen arrived, they were asking a question all over Jerusalem, all over town. And the Greek construction is that they were asking, almost like they were going from person to person, spreading this question around and causing all kinds of tumult.

And the question was, where is he who has been born king of the Jews? And that's the question that gets Herod's heart pounding because he's paranoid and he understands that there can be trouble in the kingdom and he doesn't want any of it in his kingdom and he especially doesn't want any new king to show up and upstage him and that's his primary concern. And then there's this worship that happens we've seen his star in the east and have come to worship him. We know the motives of the wise men they came to worship the coming Savior, and they came to ascribe worth to Him. That's what worship is.

It describes someone who's falling down and prostrating themselves And even kissing the hem of the garment, it indicates a great, intense focus on a person and the worship of that person. Here we've gathered here today for worship, and it's always our prayer that there would be such a sense of awesomeness in our coming before God that even as we gather there's a sense of sobriety and joy at the same time and that we're here to to have a time of sober focus on God, God Almighty. That there would be a sense of the majesty of God as we come together. We try to encourage people, come, get all your arrangements set before you come, so that you're not running back and forth to the bathroom and doing all kinds of things come ready come ready to worship and come and give all of your focus there and not try to get too distracted about things your children will be there with you and you will help them to focus and worship as well and that will be also part of your worship and your sanctification as you help your children worship as well but here the Wiseman they came to worship God they came to bow down they came to express their gratitude and their love for the work of God in history.

And notice that their worship would cost them a great deal. They were on a great journey. What did their faith cost them? It cost them perhaps months of their lives, perhaps enormous amounts of resources in order to come and worship this king. Because worship is costly.

Perhaps it cost them all they had. We know that they came and out of their treasures they laid them out and gave them. They left them on the table there for the Lord Jesus Christ and his family. And J.C. Ryle said, we read of no greater faith than this in the whole volume of the Bible.

That's what he says about the wise men. We know of no greater faith. They left their homeland, they brought their wealth, and they laid it down. And they risked their lives, as we know from the story. Now when men worship God, one thing we learn is that kings tremble.

It's so important that the church is a worshipping church. When the church is not a worshipping church, the kings of the earth do not tremble. But they will tremble if the church is the church and does take its resources and its lives and lay them down in worship. And that's what causes disturbances in the hearts of kings. True worship always disturbs kings.

We should just understand that. We should be mature about this world. And it because true worship upends authority. It takes man off of the head of authority and puts him underneath a greater authority. Way back in the days of the Scottish Reformation, Sammy Rutherford wrote a book called Lex Rex, Law is King, Because the kings of the earth began to believe that the king was law.

And so he wrote a book. I actually have a copy, a first edition copy of that book, that was written in 1644. It was a capital crime to carry the book, the very book that I have in my library. Because to say that the law is over the king is very disturbing to kings. And so this is what was happening at the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Magi came and they said, there's a coming King, where will he be born? And the kings of the earth trembled at that time. So Herod is troubled and we did not sit well with him and but wasn't just all him just Herod all of Jerusalem was troubled with him in verse 3 you know we become troubled when we think we're losing something when our power our money our our respect are threatened and that's And we are no different than Herod. I would just like to suggest, you and I are no different than Herod. When the kingship of Jesus Christ is confronted, when it confronts us, we are disturbed.

Because our authority is being disturbed. And so this is just very common with people who are confronted with Jesus and the Word of God. People who are confronted with Jesus often get a very uncomfortable feeling. They feel that He will deprive them of some good thing. That Jesus will somehow not allow you to have a certain pleasure that you want.

That he'll deprive you of a joy, a trip, a relationship, something. And so people reject Jesus because they think that they have a greater joy than the one that he has for them. And so Herod is disturbed, but his disturbance turns into an uncontrollable rage that drives him to murder a number of people. He was a murderer anyway. He murdered one of his wives, his wife Marianne.

He murdered a couple of his own sons, so he was really no respecter of persons at all. But Herod, he consulted two groups, the chief priests and the scribes. Those were two separate kinds of religious leaders in Israel. And so the high priests were there to consult the people on difficult matters in the same way that we found instructed in Deuteronomy that if the people had a difficult matter too difficult for themselves to finally solve, to bring it to the priests, and then they would give a ruling and then they would have to abide by the ruling because their ruling was based on their understanding of scripture. So here, Herod is doing sort of what people did.

They brought difficult matters to the priests And also then there were the scribes. And the scribes were mainly Pharisees. They were very conservative. They held a literal interpretation of scripture. But what we find is that while Herod was highly disturbed and very enraged and waging war against the seat of the woman.

The chief priests and the scribes seemed more to be indifferent. They understood the scriptures, but they didn't seem to have anything to do with the movements of their feet. They did not go seek to find this one who was being born. They knew where he was going to be born and they told Herod where he was going to be born, but they really didn't care about him. In fact, we find later that it wasn't that they were just indifferent, they actually hated the Lord Jesus Christ, which tells us indifference really isn't, it's just a nice word for hatred.

Indifference toward the Lord Jesus is nothing less than war with him. Because there are really only two camps. There are only light and darkness. There are only sheep and goats. There's the broad road and the narrow road.

That's all there are. And there's really no indifference. You either are a hater of God, you might call it indifference, you might say, I am an agnostic or something like that. Well, it's actually, that's just a circumlocution, that's just code for hatred of God. And so, in contrast, you have the Magi.

They had knowledge, but they also had a heart to worship. They came and they looked and they worshipped. We know that even the demons believe and they shudder. So believing in the way that the scribes and the Pharisees and the chief priests believe doesn't really mean anything because even the demons believe. The scribes and the Pharisees brought the knowledge of God that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, but they were just like the demons actually.

They were posing as religious people. And so what we find is because Jesus crosses up their pride and their hypocrisy and their covetousness, their surface indifference turns to rage and they end up crucifying the Son of God. So While the Magi are rejoicing, Herod is gnashing his teeth. Different people are responding in different ways. Remember at the beginning I said you can look at this passage from how different people respond.

So, in sorting that out, you have Herod who responds in rage. You have the priests and the scribes who are responding like the demons. They know, they know, but they're acting very cool about it. And then you have the Magi who are rejoicing. They are rejoicing because there's a shepherd and a ruler over Israel that is coming second Samuel 5 to we find we find this this prefigurement in Micah chapter 5 to we read but you Bethlehem if Ratha through though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to me, the one to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are of old, from everlasting." So now this is the first fulfillment, the wise men looking for the King of the Jews and they find the birthplace because of Old Testament prophecy in 2 Samuel and Micah chapter 2.

That's scene 1 in Matthew chapter 2. Scene 2 is the star marking the location. This is the second fulfillment, that a star shall come out of Jacob, verses seven through twelve. And Herod commands the wise men, in verse seven, to do something. Then Herod, when he had secretly called the wise men, determined from them what time the star appeared.

And he sent them to Bethlehem and said, Go and search carefully for the young child, and when you have found him, bring word back to me that I may come and worship him also. Ah, yes, Herod, the serpentine, the snake, the devil, the serpent of old, waging war against the seed of the woman, The great liar and the father of lies is pictured here. And he is now lying to the people of God in order to destroy the Son of God. And the kings of the earth are no friends of the Gospel, typically. We have found that in history from time to time God blesses nations with godly kings.

It happens so rarely for some reason. But this is God's sovereign hand. Herod is afraid of the throne of David, that it might dispossess him and rule over him. And so he's lying about his intentions. And he says that he is wanting to worship the king also, which really informs us of the importance of what David said, put not your trust in princes.

Put not your trust in princes. You know, there's such an allurement of those in power to get next to them, to sit at the table. But typically those who try to sit at the table end up dining of the same poisons at the table. And so Herod was spewing out those poisons. Fortunately, the wise men were wise.

And they went another direction. And they did not obey the civil magistrate in this situation. And that's a whole long discussion about when it is appropriate to defy the civil government. Because there are times when it is appropriate to defy the civil government and so that's what we see here the star was placed in the firmament was it was it was it Was it part of the natural celestial movements? Was it something special?

What was it? In Numbers chapter 24 is the prophecy here out of the Pentateuch. A star shall come forth. This is the fourth oracle of Balaam verse 17 and numbers 24 I see him but not now I behold him but not near a star shall come out of Jacob a scepter shall arise out of Israel and batter the brow of Moab and destroy all the sons of Chumal. And Edom shall be a possession.

By the way, Herod was an Edomite. And Edom shall be a possession. Seir also his enemies shall be a possession. While Israel does valiantly, out of Jacob one shall have dominion and destroy the remains of the city." This is a prophecy of things close by and far away. The prophecy was There was a pre-fulfillment and then a final fulfillment here.

Was it a comet? Was it an astronomical pattern of Jupiter and Saturn in the constellation of Pisces in 7 BC that came and rested above the house. Was it a nova? Was it a stellar explosion that lasts a few months? That was Johannes Kepler's opinion, that it was a nova, an explosion in the heavens that unusually rested upon this geographical location.

I would just want to submit to you that the language used in the text of the star does not fit the normal astronomical patterns of the stars in the heavens. Notice if you look at the various texts about this star, you'll notice that it was rising, that it was leading on, that it was coming to rest, and it was over a house. So I don't believe it was a planetary, a natural planetary constellation, but it was rather a miraculous star. Some believe that it was the brightness of angelic beings for different reasons but but imagine imagine if it was a star in the heavens it was I mean you know the moon is you know a 238, 000 miles away Jupiter's 5.9 million miles away well you know Saturn is 500 million miles away let's just say that it was Saturn that was over the house where you could not tell what house is it over you just can't you know you something that's me you know millions of light years you can't locate a house that way. So it has to be a star.

It was, and it hovered over the house. And there's some indication they actually sort of lost the star. God took it away for a period and then restored it and there it was, you know, over the house. This prophecy from Balaam who is a non-Israelite from the east, he's like the Magi. He also saw the star through the eyes of prophecy.

We don't know how well the Magi knew the Bible, but they knew this. And you know what's so remarkable about this is that this is the only text that's referred to. And this was brought out in our Bible study, I think it was Dan on Sunday, or Tuesday, mentioned this, that this is the only text that the Magi are referring to to find the star. Now, maybe there were more, it's quite likely, but let's just at least say this. They risked their whole trip on this one text in Numbers.

That's how much they believed in the authority and the perfection of the Bible. That every word of God is pure. That it's tried seven times. You can trust it. There's so much you cannot trust in this world, But there is one thing you can trust completely and the Magi stand as such brilliant examples of Trust in a line of scripture About a star And so they rejoiced.

And verse 11, they worshiped. They worshiped. You know, while we don't know about these men, I think we can at least say that God's people can be found in places you just would not expect. Because the Word of God is not chained, that's why. And right now we live in an era where the Word of God is so unchained because of the Internet.

On the one hand, how many evils and downfalls there are by the use of the Internet. On the other hand, there are people all over the world who are hearing the Word of God. And it is unchained in kind of a new way here in our own generation. And it's a blessing. But somehow, you know, like the Queen of Sheba, you know, who heard of the wisdom of Solomon, they brought gold and spices, but yet something greater than Solomon is here they bought gold frankincense and myrrh these three these three costly gifts and I my view is that these gifts they don't stand for anything except that they were just the fruit of what God had given these men, and they brought them.

Some say that the gold represents one thing and the frankincense represents another and the myrrh represents another. It's quite possible. But what we do know is they brought out of their treasures that God had given them in the land of their habitation. They brought what they had. That's what God desires of us, to bring what we have, to bring what we've been given.

Some have been given a little bit, some have been given a lot, but we should all bring what we had been given. And that's what these wise men did. They gave of themselves and then out of the abundance of God's gifts they gave and that's the pattern of giving. And then we find the And then we find the next scene, the third fulfillment of prophecy, the flight to Egypt. Out of Egypt I have called my son, Verses 13 to 15.

Joseph escapes to Egypt under the cover of night here in this section. Now, when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, take the young child and his mother, flee to Egypt and stay there until I bring you word, for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt and was there until the death of Herod that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet saying out of Egypt I have called my son." I love that phrase I'll tell you And it's such a helpful and prophetic phrase. And it really tells the story of the salvation of every individual who has ever trusted in Jesus Christ out of Egypt I have called my son well what we find here in verse 3 13 is is that they that Joseph and Mary they they they would flee and the word the Greek word that's used here is the word for fugitive, one who is escaping something. And so there's an escape here.

It was about 75 miles from Bethlehem to the Egyptian border, So they had a long walk ahead of them with their child. And it would probably require 25 or 50, maybe more miles, to find safety in Egypt. Egypt had become a haven of the Jews. And by 40 AD, there were approximately a million Jews living in Egypt. And of course this had started earlier because in the third century BC there were actual scholars in Alexandria who had drafted the Old Testament in the Greek language.

It translated from Hebrew to Greek, producing the Septuagint in the third century BC. So there were Jews in this area. There were people of like-mindedness in Egypt during this time. But we don't know very much about Jesus' stay in Egypt. The apocryphal writers have Jesus casting out demons in his diapers.

I mean, they have him making idols disintegrate as he walks along the Egyptian landscape. And this is just fanciful reporting. But Joseph and Mary, let's just be really clear about this. Joseph and Mary were refugees and they knew what it was like to live in a strange land. And we don't know if they were there a few months or maybe a few years, but they would have understood the commands of God to take care of strangers in a strange land and to entertain strangers because you know when you're when you're thrust out of your comfortable geography or your comfortable family life your occupations and your routines life life is in upheaval Some of you are experiencing this now.

Some of you have moved from far away lands, much farther than from Egypt. And sometimes you just think there is no place like home. There are times in your life when all of your props are kicked out from under you. Where all the things that you've trusted in, your reputation, your friendships, your network, you know the things you used to do, it's all kicked out from under you. And that's what was happening with Mary and Joseph.

I remember when we came here 23 years ago, I would turn to Debra and I'd say, Debra, I just feel like all my props have just been kicked out from under me. And so here we were with a little family. We had two children. At the time I was, I involved myself in starting a new company, starting a new church during that time and trying to raise my family. And I remember in this new company that I had, I think I was making $500 a month.

We had no health insurance and we lived in a dilapidated old house that had no heating and air in it. And we did that until we were able to do something different. And you know when you are a refugee, when you're when you have all your props kicked out from under you and everything is new, what must you do? Cry out to God. And I'm sure that's what Mary and Joseph were doing.

And what a blessing it is to come into a strange land though and find those who are entertaining strangers. Isn't that a blessing? And how helpful it is when a church is that way, When people show up and there's help and there's food and there's fellowship and there's laughter and all the things that God has so kindly provided. Let that be true of us here as Strangers join us with their props kicked out from under them trying to make a new life for themselves Trying to make a way for the glory of God Not knowing the future not knowing what will happen to them. I know I know in reality We're all like that in this room today.

You know when you think about this this flight to Egypt you know so they they they escaped I mean wasn't Christ strong enough to defend himself there in that town? He was the son of God. Where was God's power in this? Why did they have to leave? When should you flee?

Again, though he's omnipotent, he puts on frail humanity. And this is part of his humanity. He subjects himself to the conditions that are around him. And he doesn't overwhelm all of the difficulties that are surrounding him. You know, this is such our tendency.

We just want a miracle to overwhelm the problem. And we want God to do that. He didn't even do it with His own Son. He takes His Son out of heavenly glory and gives Him the emotions of men and women that grind at them. He gives them dislocation.

He gives them the threats of rulers and kings. He puts them in no account accommodations. That's what God did with his son. How much more do you think he would do it for you for his own glory? It's the foolishness of the cross that surpasses the wisdom of the wise, which is what one commentator said about this.

So I mean, I know people have thought, when's the right time to flee America or something like that? And we hear Mary and Joseph flew out of the promised land and we cannot say that there is just one way of looking at this because in other words one way is just to stay and expect God's intervention that's one way the other way is to flee but who can who can say which is which is the right way for any of us in some time in the future. We don't know. God often calls his people to stay, and he often calls his people to flee. And so there's not just one way.

Now, let's be very careful to make sure that we understand that Joseph received a word from an angel, he received special revelation to flee. So one should not just flee out of their own whim. That the Magi received the word from an angel. This was special revelation that These things were taking place so that prophecy would be fulfilled Their their lives were in jeopardy, but they weren't fleeing simply for their own comfort Sometimes martyrdom is better than flight Other times flight is better than martyrdom. Who can know when is your time or my time?

But flight might be necessary in certain circumstances to remove your family or yourself from certain situations. On the other hand, it might be right to stay to declare the glory of God in that time. And here we find, we find flight. And this is a fulfillment of prophecy, this flight and this return. Out of Egypt I have called my son.

This is delivered by the prophet Hosea 700 years earlier. Hosea 11.1. When Israel was a child, then I loved him and called my son out of Egypt. So the Egyptian release from captivity is a picture of this. It's actually a prefigurement.

The children of Israel coming out of Egypt is a prophecy of the Lord Jesus Christ coming out of Egypt. This is that. That's what Matthew is saying. And you know the story in Hosea that this prophecy comes from. The story of the husband and wife, Hosea and Gomer.

The context of Hosea is spiritual failure and unfaithfulness, where Hosea's wife, Gomer, is unfaithful to him, and she becomes a physical prostitute in the same way that Israel became physical harlots, or spiritual harlots. And Hosea is all about rescuing a bride out of harlotry. And Hosea is lamenting the sins and the downfall of Israel, that Israel has wandered and she needs to be restored. And she's a bride that needs to come back out of her harlotry. That's the whole context of this.

And so, when he says Israel is my son, Israel is national Israel, it's the people of Israel. Israel is my son coming out of harlotry. And Jesus is like Moses. Jesus is a prophet like Moses. And Jesus is calling, is coming out of Egypt.

The Exodus out of Egypt is a type of this return. Jesus is the new Israel. Israel, Israel, at this point in Israel is Egypt itself. It has become like Egypt. And Herod is doing what Pharaoh did.

And Moses is pointing to Christ. So Egypt is symbolic of bondage, of evil, and Christ leads his people out of Egypt. He goes down and he takes captivity captive and he sets his captives free and takes them out of bondage. This is the gospel. This is the gospel in the history of the children of Israel in Egypt And it's the gospel communicated right here in the gospel of Matthew.

Unless we repent, we are held in bondage to Egypt, to an abusive master, to Pharaoh, to Herod. But Christ leads us out of Egypt and gives us a new life in the promised land. And so here's this third fulfillment out of Egypt. I have called my son. Now when I read those words, I think of the bondage that I as a son was called out of so many years ago.

How thankful I am to have been led out of bondage by the Lord Jesus Christ. He went before me, He took me by the hand and He raised me up unto new life. I died with Him and I was resurrected with Him, just like He came out of Egypt. He came out, He came out, out of Egypt. I have called my son.

And then we come to the fourth fulfillment, Herod killing the male children. A voice was heard in Ramah. Verse 16, Then Herod, when he saw that he was deceived by the wise men, was exceedingly angry and sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and all its districts, from two years old and under, according to the time which had been determined from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, A voice was heard in Rhema, lamentation, weeping in great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted, because they are no more. With Herod we find a friend in Pharaoh who also killed the male children while Moses escaped in a basket.

This is repeated again. You'll notice a number of similarities. Jonathan Sides was telling me about some of them. Here's one of them. Next you have 40 days in the wilderness, 40 days of temptation, and there are a number of them we could pile them up but here is is a is an expression of the attempt the kings of the earth to wipe out the seed of the woman to destroy the gospel And what's happening in a physical plane is also happening on a spiritual plane.

The seed of the woman is hated by Herod and he desires to destroy that seed. Genesis 3.15 said, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed, and he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. That's what's happening here in this text. So in chapter four we see a direct confrontation between Jesus Christ and that great serpent, the devil himself. And So here we find ourselves being confronted with one of the one of the great genocides in history genocide of course is the extermination of a race or a religious group and we read in the news of genocides over and over again.

A brother prayed about one of them just this morning in the Ivory Coast. Genocides are part of the wicked operations of the kings of the earth to try to destroy the seed of the woman they never will succeed as Herod did not neither Neither will any of the genocides in our times succeed. The communists put to death maybe 38 million people in the first half of the 20th century, which makes Adolf Hitler look like small potatoes at six million six million Jews killed but we don't know how many were killed. There's a Byzantine liturgy that counts 14, 000 children. An early Syrian list says that there are 64, 000.

Coptic sources say it was about 144, 000 children. The Catholic Encyclopedia says Bethlehem was very small and maybe it was only between six and 20 children who were in that age category. There the region surrounding, we don't know how large the region was where this killing took place, We just don't know. But a voice was heard in Ramah. It's a quotation from the prophet Jeremiah.

Ramah is about five miles north of Jerusalem. And it was the place where the Jewish captives gathered for deportation. And Rachel is typifying Jewish mothers weeping for their children. Remember what Rachel once said? Give me children lest I die.

And she was buried very near to this location. But Matthew was speaking really of something different. If you read the whole context, you see that Jeremiah was speaking of something different here. That it wouldn't just end in weeping, but that there was more. But that this massacre would not cut off hope.

Because Jeremiah's prophecy in Jeremiah 31, go ahead and turn there, Jeremiah 31 verse 16, you'll find it's full of hope. Yes, it does contain this issue of the lamentations and bitter weepings of Rachel weeping for her children, but that's not the whole story. Verse 14, I will satiate the soul of the priest with abundance, and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness, says the Lord. Thus says the Lord. A voice was heard in Rhema, lamentation and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted for her children because they are no more.

Verse 16, Thus says the LORD, Refrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears. For your work shall be rewarded, says the LORD, and they shall come back from the land of the enemy there is hope in your future says the Lord that your children shall come back to their own border So this calamity was really to teach something greater, that there's hope. That even though so many died, there's hope. And that the work will be rewarded, that it will not be stuffed out, that the gospel will do its work that there is joy in the morning there might be weeping at night but there's joy in the morning this is the way that God has arranged all of history there's hope even when the kings of the earth try to destroy the church even when you're a vagabond even when you're a refugee even if even when all of your props are kicked out from under you, even when your children are killed, yes, there is hope. But there's only one reason for that hope, and that is because of the Lord Jesus Christ and his gospel.

That is the only hope. Hope in children is no hope at all. Hope in God and the gospel is hope, and it's true hope. And then we come to the fifth fulfillment. He shall be called the Nazarene, the final fulfillment in chapter 2.

Beginning in verse 19, but when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, arise, take the young child and his mother, and go to the land of Egypt for those who sought the young child's life are dead. And then there's a statement in verse 21 that I don't want to miss. Then he arose. Then he arose. If you look at verse 14, the exact same wording is used.

This was the heart of an obedient son, first time obedience to his father. So now Herod is dead, which just shows us that all the rulers of the kings of the earth will die. Nero, Stalin, Pharaoh, they're all dead. Where are they? They tried to stamp out the gospel, but they were stamped out.

Josephus says that Herod died with ulcerated entrails, putrefied and maggot-filled organs, constant convulsions, foul breath, and neither physicians nor warm baths could recover him. So he dies, but his oldest son, Archelaus, takes over. Archelaus was maybe not equally as brutal, but he had just killed 3, 000 Jews who were on Passover as pilgrims in Jerusalem. Joseph enters Israel and he hears that Archelaus is reigning over Judea in place of his father. Now, understand this, Herod dies, his kingdom gets divided between his three sons.

And Archelaus is in Judea, Herod Antipas is in Galilee. That's where Joseph says he's going to go. He doesn't want to go back to where this wicked son is. He went to where a more moderate son was ruling. And he settles in Nazareth.

Nazareth, Nazareth, shall anything good come out of Nazareth. That's where Jesus spends 90% of his life growing up in Nazareth, in this no-count town, a despised place, a place where you wouldn't want to go if you wanted to be successful in life. You would rather want to go to some hot place that's working well, where the people are well and the economy is well. It wasn't that way in Nazareth. Jesus did not go there.

But he shall be called a Nazarene. By the way, this phrase never appears in Scripture as we have it today. So, where did it come from? Well, there are a number of phrases mentioned in the New Testament that are not recorded in the Old Testament. In Jude 14 and 15, there's one.

The Apostle Paul in Acts 20 says, as the Lord Jesus said, it's more blessed to give than receive. Well, that's not recorded anywhere. It's not recorded in the Gospels that Jesus ever said that, but John said that if everything was recorded, the whole world couldn't contain it. So this is just one of those things that one of the prophets said it wasn't written down in the book that we have today. Can anything good come out of Nazareth?

Okay, let's get to some applications. I want to try to give you a few. Here's really the first application. It's really in the form of a question. Who are you in this story?

Are you Herod Who hates the gospel? Are you like the priests and the scribes who clean the outside of the cup, but inside you're full of dead man's bones? You're not alive at all, But you know the words, you're a church person, you're actually a very nice person. You might be a very successful person and do many things well and are appreciated by people in the community and they say, boy, he is such a good guy. That's like the scribes and the Pharisees.

Or are you like the wise men who worship? Or are you Joseph? Are you Joseph, the first time obedient son? We desire that our children obey the first time, But how about all of us before our Heavenly Father? Are we like Joseph, who immediately arise and respond?

So who are you in the story? That's one application. Here's another application. Considering compare the childhood and early life of Jesus with the lives of your own children and the lessons that there are to be learned. Jesus had faithful parents, Faithful and obedient parents.

They were created they were greeted by many unknowns. Their children grew up in a city that didn't produce much good. He made himself of no reputation. Now think about the the childhood of your own children, where they are. Think about the childhood of the Lord Jesus and His parents.

These things are examples for us. These are helpful things to teach us. God is orchestrating His plan for your family, even at this very moment. And you might say, can anything good come out of this family? Can anything good come out of the situation that we're in?

And the answer is absolutely yes, it can. And then a third application is this. It's about your soul. It's about your soul. Where are you now?

Are you in Egypt? Are you still in Egypt? Have you come out of Egypt? Come out of Egypt. Come, come and reject Pharaoh and his iron rule.

You know, come to the Good Shepherd where his burden is light, his yoke, it fits, and it works. And he's a good shepherd. He's a ruler, but he is also a good shepherd. He is a ruler and a shepherd. Are you still in Egypt?

Have you come out of bondage? Let it be true of all of us today that we can say in our hearts, out of Egypt I came with his son. Can you say that? Out of Egypt I've come. Come.

Come out of Egypt. He will shepherd his people Israel. And then finally I just want to leave you with this one thing. It's so evident in Matthew chapter 2 that God controls the stars, He controls the rulers, He controls the cities in which we were born. He controls the travels of His people.

And He controls the towns that they grow up in. He controls the entire flow of history. And he systematically is fulfilling all of his promises and his prophecies. And what that means is that God's plan for your life is working perfectly on his own timetable established in heaven. It means that the challenges and the difficulties that you're in the midst of now are all under his authority.

Not only are the economies of the world under his authority, but your economy is under his authority. He's in charge of the stars above your head. He walks with you and He talks with you in all the seasons of your life. And He is preordained where you were born and where you traveled and where you grew up and where you are right now. Amen.

Amen. Oh, Lord, we thank you for the detail, for the careful clarity that you've given to us in Matthew chapter 2 to declare your glory from one end of history to the other, from one end of heaven all the way down to where our feet are standing at this moment. How thankful we are that you are both a ruler and a shepherd of your people, Israel. Amen.