Wise Men Still Seek Him
Have you ever seen the bumper sticker, “Wise men still seek Him”? Well, I believe that the bumper sticker is still true today; wise men and women still do seek Him (Christ Jesus) today!
MATTHEW 2:1-12 – (READ) – (K.J.B.)
It is easy to be confused about the chronology of the events surrounding Christ Jesus’s birth. While MATTHEW 2:1 may appear to indicate that King Harold the Great tried to kill baby Jesus, during Mary and Joseph’s stay in a stable, in Bethlehem, the combined evidence points contrary. In MATTHEW 2:11, it says that the “Wise men”, saw Jesus, in “A HOUSE”(MATTHEW 2:11), not “A MANGER” (LUKE 2:12); that Jesus was a “YOUNG CHILD” (Strong Greek word # 3813), in MATTHEW 2:8, 9, 13, 14, 20, 21 and not a “BABY” (Strongs Greek word # 1025), as in LUKE 2:12-16). And that the order by King Herod, to execute all the male children, “TWO YEARS OLD AND UNDER”, was King Herod’s estimate of Jesus’s birth announcement, by the wise men. All these things together seem to suggest that some time had passed since Jesus’s royal birth in a manger and point to a time one to two years later.
* THERE ARE AT LEAST FIVE TRUTHS THAT MATTHEW 2:1-12 WANTS US TO SEE, CONCERNING CHRIST JESUS AND WORSHIP:
(1) Christ Jesus is the Messiah, “The King of the Jews”, and should be honored as such.
(2). Christ Jesus is to be worshiped not just by the Jews, but by all the nations and peoples of the world, as represented by the “Wise Men” from the “East”.
(3) God orders the universe to make His Son known and worshiped. This is His great goal in all things – that His Son be known and worshiped.
(4) Christ Jesus is troubling to people who do not want to worship him and brings out opposition to those who do worship and adore Him.
(5). Worshiping Christ Jesus means joyfully ascribing authority and dignity to Christ Jesus with sacrificial gifts. We have come to worship Him with our “Gifts”.
MATTHEW 2:1 – “Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem”.
These “Wise Men” were the priestly cast of the Persians and the Babylonians (Chaldeans), Medes, and others. These “Wise Men” were teachers and priests; known as the “Magi,” short for “Magicians,” and were from the “East”, that is, in the land east of the land of Judea.
Judea, at that time, was a buffer state between the sprawling “Roman Empire”, in the west, and the fabulous “Persian Empire”, in the east. The war between these two empires lasted 721 years and was THE WORLDS LONGEST HUMAN CONFLICT in human history. This war between the two empires was crippling and devastating. The real winners of this conflict between the Romans and the Persians were the Arabs. Within a few years, both once great empires were struck by the onslaught of Arabs, who inherited the energy that the two powers wasted on the conflict between each other.
King Herod (Herod the Great) was a descendant of Esau and, therefore, a traditional enemy of the Jews. He was a convert to Judaism, but his conversion was perhaps politically motivated. It was towards the close of his reign that these “Wise men”, from the east, came in search of the “King of the Jews”.
King Herod was a wealthy, politically gifted, intensely loyal, excellent administrator, and clever enough to remain in the good graces of successive Roman Emperors. His famine relief was superb, and his building projects (Including the Temple, which began in 20 BC), were admired even by his foes. But his draw backs was that he loved power, inflicted incredibly heavy taxes on the people, and in his last years, suffered from an illness that compounded his paranoia, and he turned to cruelty and fits of rage.
* WHEN “THE WISE MEN” WORSHIPED JESUS, IT WAS TO GIVE HIM SOMETHING – IT WAS NOT “EMPTY HANDED ADORATION”!
* WE SEE A WONDERFUL PATTERN IN THE “WISE MEN AND WOMEN” STILL TODAY:
THOSE WHO LOOK FOR JESUS – WILL SEE HIM.
THOSE WHO TRULY SEE HIM – WILL WORSHIP HIM.
THOSE WHO WORSHIP HIM – WILL CONSECRATE THEIR SUBSTANCE TO HIM.
* MATTHEW 2:8 – “And he (King Herod) sent them (The Wiser Men) to Bethlehem, and said, go and SEARCH DILIGENTLY for the young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word again, THAT I MAY COME AND WORSHIP HIM ALSO”.
* King Herod gave the “Wise men” some “Wise Advice”, that they should go to the city of Bethlehem and “SEARCH DILIGENTLY”, but King Herod should have taken his own advice also and personally seen the birthplace of the Savior of the world.
* GALATIANS 4:4 – “BUT WHEN THE FULNESS OF TIME WAS COME, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law”,
* GALATIANS 4:5 – “To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons”.
* GALATIANS 4:6 – “And because ye are our sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father”.
* GALATIANS 4:7 – Wherefore thou art no longer no more A SERVANT, BUT A SON; and if A SON, THEN AN HEIR OF GOD THROUGH CHRIST”.
* You see, almost 2,000 years ago, in “The Fullness of Time” – God’s perfect time – God the Father sent His Son into the world, that we might have life, that we might have abundant life, and that we might have eternal life!
*It was the “Day” (The Time) of “God’s Visitation” – when God was revealing Himself and the work of His sinless Son and Savior. At the end of Christ Jesus’ ministry, when He was riding a donkey, triumphant, into the city of Jerusalem, as a sign that He was the “King of the Jews” and “The Savior of the Jews and Gentiles”, He stopped and wept over the city and it says this, as the reason why Christ Jesus, wept over the city of Jerusalem:
* LUKE 19:42 – “Saying, if thou HADST KNOWN, even thou, at least in THIS THY DAY, the things which belong unto thy PEACE! BUT NOW THEY ARE HID FROM THINE EYES”.
* LUKE 19:43 – “FOR THE DAYS SHALL COME UPON THEE, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side”,
*LUKE 19:44 – “And shall lay thee even with the ground, and the children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; BECAUSE THOU KNEWEST NOT THE TIME OF THY VISITATION”.
* THE JEWISH PEOPLE, HAD MOSTLY MISSED THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BIRTH, THE LIFE, AND THE MINISTRY OF CHRIST JESUS – HIS TRIUMPHANT ENTRY – HIS DEATH AND RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION. IN 70 A. D. NOT ONE CHRISTIAN DIED IN JERUSALEM BECAUSE THEY DISCERNED “THE TIME OF GOD’S VISITATION,” BUT ONE MILLION JEWISH PEOPLE DIED IN JERUSALEM AND THEIR TEMPLE WAS DESTROYED – EXACTLY THE WAY CHRIST JESUS DESCRIBED!
*Also, both the people and nations, of Israel and the Gentile nations, are facing another day of “God’s visitation” – “The Second Coming of Christ Jesus” and I believe that God will once again weep over the unbelief and sin of the Jewish people but some of the Jewish people will finally find peace with God and the peace of God and depart out of Israel – to be protected at “Petra” and once again the Gentile enemies will be storming the walls but again in the “Fullness of Time”, Christ Jesus will descend from the sky, in a “Second Coming” and reign and rule in Jerusalem. Christ Jesus will destroy all of those, both Jew and Gentile, who do not put their faith and trust in Christ Jesus!
*But before the physical “Second Coming of Christ Jesus”, “The body of Christ”, which is made of both Jews and Gentiles, will be judged at “The Rapture of the Body of Christ (The Church)”, which will be judged at another “Day of God’s” visitation.
* MATTHEW 2:12 – “Being divinely warned in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed for their own country another way”.
The worship of the “Wise Men”, of Christ Jesus, was manifested in OBEDIENCE! They were OBEDIENT TO GOD, and this, of course, made King Herod (The government) very mad!
MATTHEW 2:13-18 – (READ) – (K.J.B.)
MATTHEW 2:13, 14 – From infancy, the threat of death hung over our Lord. It is apparent that He was born to die, just like all of us, but only at the APPOINTED TIME! And we, who walk in God’s will, will live this life – UNTIL HIS WORK IN US AND THROUGH US – IS DONE!
MATTHEW 2:15 – “And was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, out of Egypt have I called my son”.
Thus, another Old Testament prophecy became clothed with new meaning. God had said through the prophet Hosea, “Out of Egypt I called my son” (HOSEA 11:1). In the original setting, this referred to Israel’s deliverance from Egypt, at the time of the “Exodus”. But the statement is capable of a double meaning, and the Messiah’s history would closely parallel that of Israel. The prophecy was fulfilled in the Life of Christ by the return to Israel from Egypt.
When the Lord Jesus physically returns, at His “Second Coming”, to bring judgment upon the nations and reign in righteousness, Egypt will be one of the countries, sharing in the blessings of the “Millennial Kingdom” (ISAIAH 19:21-25; ZEPHANIAH 3:9, 10; PSALMS 68:31). Why should that nation, a traditional enemy of Israel, be so favored? Could it be a token of divine gratitude for its granting sanctuary to the Lord Jesus?
