July 23, 2025 • 16 mins
The divine origin story of Jesus unfolds in Matthew 2, revealing how God orchestrated seemingly chaotic events to fulfill ancient prophecies and establish His Son as the true King. Like a masterful chess player, God moves each piece precisely where it needs to be, regardless of how puzzling it might appear to human observers.
The narrative introduces us to the Magi—wise men from the East whose knowledge comes from an unexpected source. These kingmakers from Babylon had studied Daniel's prophecies for centuries, watching the skies for the prophesied sign. When they finally witnessed the special star, they embarked on a journey that would terrify King Herod and set in motion a series of events that perfectly aligned with scriptural promises written hundreds of years earlier.
The chapter reveals fascinating historical connections most readers miss. The Magi found Jesus not in a manger but in a house, likely when he was between one and two years old. Their gifts—gold for kingship, frankincense for worship, and myrrh foreshadowing death—funded the family's escape to Egypt, fulfilling Hosea's prophecy, "Out of Egypt I called my son." Each seemingly random turn—from Bethlehem to Egypt to Nazareth—accomplished precisely what prophets had foretold.
Pastor Brandon unpacks the powerful spiritual principle embedded in this narrative: God's sovereignty operates regardless of our understanding. The divine plan rarely follows the straight lines we expect, yet accomplishes exactly what God intends. When life's journey takes unexpected turns, remember Jesus' origin story—what appears chaotic to limited human perspective is actually the perfect unfolding of God's masterful design. Can you trust Him even when the path forward seems unclear? The God worthy of our worship will always be bigger than our understanding.
Contact us-
Ask a Question
Send Encouragement
Take a Next Step-
SOAP Bible Study Method.
Bible Reading Plan.
Free Weekly Newsletter.
Socials-
Facebook.
Instagram.
X.
YouTube.
The More We Dig. The More We Find.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, hello everybody .
Welcome back to the BibleBreakdown podcast with your host
, pastor Brandon.
Today, matthew, chapter 2.
And today's title is the King'sOrigin Story.
The King's Origin Story.
I don't know about you, but Ilove superhero movies.
I love the Avengers, dc, I loveall the things, and one of my
favorite kind of movies is theOrigin Story and a lot of them.
(00:23):
They will have this movie whereit talks about how the
superhero came to be, and thatis what we're going to see a
little bit of in today's chapteris.
We've already seen how Jesus isthe rightful king, and now
Matthew is going to share withus how this king came into the
world, and I can't wait to shareit with you.
There's a lot of connections,and even a connection to Daniel
(00:44):
of the Old Testament, and so, ifyou have your Bibles, want to
open up with me to Matthew,chapter 2.
While you're doing that, ifyou're new around here, take
just a moment to like, share andsubscribe to the YouTube
channel and the podcast.
Make sure you leave us afive-star review on the podcast
it really does help and makesure you're going to the Bible
Breakdown Discussion on Facebook.
Bible Breakdown Discussion onFacebook.
There's an amazing group ofpeople doing a wonderful job and
(01:05):
, as always, the more we dig,the more we find.
Well, if you were with usyesterday, we talked about the
overall idea of the Gospel ofMatthew is that Jesus is the
King, king Jesus, and that's thegoal of Matthew, because, as we
were talking about the fourGospels, that three of them are
(01:25):
similar and one of them is verydifferent.
Matthew, mark and Luke arecalled the Synoptic Gospels and
by synoptic, if I can say thatright, what those mean is
similar.
They tell the narrative ofJesus' life.
John was more focused on themessage of Jesus' life, but then
(01:46):
, within the three, luke waswritten primarily to the Gentile
world.
Mark was written really moreabout the acts of Jesus and it
was, you know, kind ofghostwritten, you know, in a way
by Peter.
But Matthew was primarilywritten to the Jewish nation,
and one of the many reasons whyis because during the time it
was written there was anincreasing divide happening
between the Jewish nation andthe Gentile nation and a lot of
(02:08):
the Jewish Christians even hadbeen thrown out of the
synagogues.
And so it's possible Matthewwas inspired of the Holy Spirit
to write this narrative becausehe was no longer allowed to go
into the synagogues and tell thenarrative of Jesus, which is a
lesson all of itself thatsometimes bad things happen that
create really good things.
And so we have this inspiredgospel because of this need to
(02:30):
tell the narrative of Jesus andwe also talked about how Matthew
comes out swinging In chapterone he just lays it out there
and literally it's like he'swaving the papers in his hand
and he says at the very least,jesus is the rightful king of of
the earthly kingdom, and hesays he was from Abraham, which
is the seed of promise, and he'salso from David, the, the royal
(02:53):
line.
And so, before we even get intotalking about anything else,
chapter one proves that at leasthe has a claim to the earthly
throne.
But then he spends chapter 2through 28 talking about how he
is so much more than an earthlyMessiah he's the King of Kings
and the Lord of Lords.
Well, now, here in chapter 2,he's going to give us the origin
story of how Jesus came to be,and so I want to read this and
(03:17):
we're going to stop along theway and just celebrate the
goodness of God's word.
So if you're ready, here we go.
Matthew, chapter 2, verse 1,says this Jesus was born in
Bethlehem in Judea during thereign of King Herod.
About that time, some wise menfrom the eastern lands arrived
in Jerusalem asking where is thenewborn king of the Jews?
(03:38):
We saw his star as it rose, andwe have come to worship him.
King Herod was deeply disturbedwhen he heard this, as was
everyone in Jerusalem.
He called a meeting of theleading priests and teachers of
religious law and asked when isthe Messiah supposed to be born?
In Bethlehem, in Judea.
They said, for this is what theprophet wrote.
(03:59):
And you, o Bethlehem, in theland of Judah, you are not least
among the ruling cities ofJudah, for a ruler will come
from you, who will be a shepherdto my people, israel.
When Herod called for a privatemeeting with the wise men, he
learned from them the time whenthe star first appeared.
Then he told them Go toBethlehem and search carefully
(04:20):
for this child, and when youfind him, come back and tell me
so that I can go and worship himtoo.
After this interview, the wisemen went their way and the star
they had seen in the east guidedthem to Bethlehem.
It went ahead of them andstopped over the place where the
child was.
When they saw the star, theywere filled with joy.
They entered the house that'simportant to remember and saw
(04:44):
the child and his mother Mary,and they bowed down and
worshiped him.
And they opened their treasurechest and gave him gifts of gold
, frankincense and myrrh.
And when it was time to leave,they returned to their own
country by another route, forGod had warned them in a dream
not to return to Herod.
So pause, a lot just happenedthere.
Let's break it down.
So you've got these wise menother translations would say the
(05:07):
magi who appear out of nowherefrom the east, and they know all
of this about Jesus, about thecoming Messiah, and it just
terrifies Herod.
And so who's Herod?
Who's the wise man?
All of this?
Well, here's the thing Duringthe time, during the time the
Romans had conquered everybody Imean, they were in charge but
(05:30):
then what they would do is theywould set up puppet kings who
had authority, as though theydid everything Rome told them to
do.
And so King Herod is in place,but he's in place as kind of a
puppet king underneath Romanauthority, and he was a very
brutal king.
He killed a lot of people,killed a lot of his own family
members.
He was just a very, very brutalguy.
And now, out of nowhere, herecomes these Magi.
Now, who are they?
Well, the Magi were part of agroup of people in Babylon that
(05:54):
were called the Kingmakers.
They were advisors to the king.
Well, how did they know aboutthe Messiah?
They knew about him because ofDaniel, like that, daniel, the
Old Testament.
So, to do a little historylesson, back during the time of
Israel, they were in 70 years ofcaptivity and they were sent to
Babylon.
And while they were there, aguy named Daniel was there.
(06:17):
He didn't want to be there, buthe grew where he was planted
and God gave him the spiritualgift of being able to interpret
dreams.
Well, he continued to interpretdreams for the kings and all of
this, and so he was eventuallyput over all the kingmakers, all
of the people who had thisquote, unquote supernatural
power, and they would advise theking from the gods, all this
(06:37):
kind of stuff.
And Daniel continued to worshiponly Yahweh, but they couldn't
deny he was connected to God.
And so he was over all of thesekingmakers.
Well, as Daniel got older, hestarted receiving visions of his
own and he wrote them down inwhat we now have as the book of
Daniel.
And so when the people leftcaptivity, went back to Israel,
(06:59):
a book of Daniel would have beenleft for the kingmakers,
because they would have reveredhim as a very powerful leader
and for the next 500 years theyread the book of Daniel because
Daniel, who had been right somany times, had prophesied that
one day a king would be bornfrom the book of Daniel says the
ancient of days, and so theywould have continued to read for
(07:21):
500 years the book of Daniel.
And then, one day, becausethese would have been polyistic
astrologers, they were lookingup into the heavens and they saw
a star that shined a little bitdifferently in the
constellations and it fit thedescription of what Daniel had
said.
And so, since they trusted thewords of Daniel, they would have
gotten permission from theirking, traveled along the Silk
(07:43):
Road, the king's highway, allthe way over to Jerusalem, and
basically would have said Idon't know if they had a copy of
Daniel or not, but basicallywould have said hey, listen,
we've been reading your guyDaniel.
And he said the king's born,where is he?
Can you imagine how justabsolutely frantic that would
have made the nation?
And it did, as you can tell.
And then they went and theyfound where they were at which,
by the way, it says that theywere in a house, which would
(08:06):
have meant that this point thatJesus was not a newborn anymore,
possibly between one and a halfto two years old and they
presented him with gold,frankincense and myrrh.
Now, why did they do that?
Well, gold number one was oneof the most primary gifts you
gave a king.
You ever been going to buysomething for somebody and you
don't know, so you just givethem a gift card, because
(08:26):
everybody loves a gift card.
Well, gold was kind of the samething for a king.
If you didn't know what to givea king, you gave him gold.
So that was first for hiskingship.
Frankincense was used a lot intemple worship, so it was a way
for them to show homage andworship to him.
And the third one was myrrh,which had medicinal quality but
was primarily used also toembalm people.
(08:47):
So it would have been a way forthem to say may your rule last
beyond your life.
And so it was very kingly gifts, which also, as a side note,
many scholars believe that, atleast the gold, was most likely
used by Mary and Joseph to fundtheir flight to Egypt we're
about to read about.
So all of that is why that's soimportant.
(09:08):
Okay, here we go.
Verse 13,.
Let's pick it back up.
After the wise men, the peoplefrom Daniel, were gone, the
angel of the Lord appeared toJoseph in a dream.
Get up, flee to Egypt with thechild, and Now pause again.
Why would they have done that?
Well, other than Jerusalem, thehighest concentration of Jewish
(09:32):
people at the time was in atown just outside of Egypt.
So what he was doing is he wassaying go to the other
collection of Jewish peoplebecause there's safety there and
he's not under the jurisdictionof Herod.
So he wasn't sending him likein the middle of nowhere, he was
sending him to a safe haven inanother place.
Verse 14,.
That night, Joseph left forEgypt with the child and Mary,
(09:53):
his mother, and they stayedthere until Herod's death.
This fulfilled what the Lordhad spoken through the prophet I
called my son out of Egypt.
Herod was furious when herealized that the wise men had
outwitted him and he sentsoldiers to kill the boys in and
around Bethlehem who were twoyears old and under.
Based on the wise men's reportof the first, or the star's
(10:14):
first, appearance, herod'sbrutal action fulfilled what God
had spoken through the prophetJeremiah.
A cry was heard in Ramah,weeping and great mourning
Rachel weeping for her childrenrefusing to be comforted, for
they are dead.
Now pause.
Now I think it's worth sayingthat one baby dying is too many.
Right, it's a tragedy, but forwhat it's worth.
(10:35):
I know sometimes we don't havecontext and so we have things in
our head and you may have thispicture in your head of hundreds
and hundreds of babies beingslaughtered, and that would be
terrible as well.
But according to census at thetime and mathematicians who do
all the things, this wasprobably between 20 and 30
babies who died.
Now, once again, any baby beingslaughtered is a tragedy, but
(10:57):
to get a proper context, itwouldn't have been hundreds, it
would have been 20 to 30, whichis still 20 to 30 too many.
All right, let's finish up thischapter, verse 19,.
When Herod died, an angel of theLord appeared in a dream to
Joseph in Egypt.
Get up.
The angel said take the childand his mother back to the land
of Israel, because those whowere trying to kill the child
(11:17):
are dead.
So Joseph got up and returnedto the land of Israel with Jesus
and his mother.
But when he learned that thenew ruler of Judah was Herod's
son, archelios.
He was afraid to go there andthen, after being warned in a
dream, he left for the region ofGalilee.
So the family went to live in atown called Nazareth, and this
fulfilled what the prophets hadsaid he will be called a
(11:39):
Nazarene.
Wow, what an interesting storythat is full of so many
different twists and turns thatif you didn't know the rest of
the story, you would think well,that just sounds like chaos.
I mean, this is just there.
Can not afraid to say, I'm notafraid to say, I'm not afraid to
say doesn't look like chaos toGod.
(12:12):
Just because we don't see whatand understand what God is doing
doesn't mean that God isn'tdoing something.
If you think about it, if youhad have stopped the story when
Joseph, mary and Jesus are inEgypt, you would have thought
God, what are you doing?
I mean, I thought that Ithought Jesus, this baby here.
(12:33):
I thought he was supposed to bethe Messiah.
How can he be the Messiah whenwe're in Egypt?
How is, how is this possible?
Well, keep going.
And then they start going backto, you know, bethlehem, and
they have to go to Nazareth,probably thinking well, there
there goes, that that was theplan.
But I guess not even thoughactually that was the plan the
whole time that we don'tunderstand always the plan of
(12:56):
God.
But the plan of God was for himto be born in Bethlehem
fulfilling a prophecy, but thento grow up in Nazareth, also
fulfilling a prophecy, but thethe the point from point A
rather to point B wasn't astraight line.
It went through all kinds ofthings and I have no idea how
(13:17):
and why God does the things thathe does.
And if someone tells you theyknow they'll lie to you about
something else.
God is beyond finding out.
The Bible says that thefoolishness of God is wiser than
the wisdom of men.
However, what I do know is Godhas never made a mistake.
God is not sitting up in heavengoing well, they didn't do what
I thought.
So let me see if I can figurethat out.
Anybody who ever tells you thatthere are varying degrees of
(13:40):
God's will and that he doesn'treally know what's going to
happen and so if you take awrong turn he's got to figure it
all out again, dare them toprove that in scripture, what I
see over and over and over again, that what looks like chaos is
actually God's plan, and so Iwant to give you this
encouragement, but also give youa challenge today.
And here's the encouragementGod doesn't make mistakes, he
(14:03):
knows what he's doing, and itmay not look like it, but our
job is not always to reason why.
Our job is to say yes, sir.
So here's the challenge.
Are you struggling with thattoday?
Are you struggling because youreally thought God should do one
thing and he did another?
You really thought God couldand it'd been a really good idea
(14:26):
for God to do this over here,and instead he did that over
there.
And now you're just like God.
I don't understand you and Idon't you know.
Can I tell you there's going tobe many times in our lives when
we're not going to understandGod, and I don't you know.
Can I tell you there's gonna bemany times in our lives and
we're not going to understandGod.
And can I tell you that's agreat thing.
I want to serve a God that isbigger than my brain.
I want him to blow my mind,because if he can fit inside my
brain, he's not big enough.
I need him to be bigger than me, and so can I tell you that
(14:50):
that doesn't mean that it stopsus from asking questions.
It's just helping us to becomfortable with hard questions,
to realize I don't have to knoweverything.
I just need to know enough tomake a good decision.
Can you trust God even when youdon't understand?
Because chapter two tells usthat there's going to be many
times when it's going to looklike God made a wrong turn
somewhere.
Actually he's doing exactlywhat he wants to do.
(15:14):
Let's pray together right now,god.
Thank you so much for today.
He's doing exactly what hewants to do.
Let's pray together right now,god.
Thank you so much for today.
Thank you, god, that you arewiser than us.
Lord, if I'm honest, I'll admitthat there's been many times
when I've been confused by yourways.
I don't understand, I don't getit and if I'm really honest, I
would say sometimes, god, Idon't like it.
But I'm so thankful that you donot require my permission.
(15:36):
All you require is my obedience.
I pray you will help me to obeyyou in all things and to trust
you in all things, because yourword promises that we can be
confident that you, who began agood work within us, will
continue to complete it untilthe day of Jesus Christ, we
trust you and we love you.
In Jesus' name, we pray amen.
You know what God's word saysin Matthew 28, verse 19,.
(15:57):
It says all authority in heavenand on earth has been given to
me.
Go, therefore, and makedisciples of all nations.
That's my prayer for me and foryou.
I love you.
I'll see you tomorrow forMatthew, chapter three.
Well, hello everybody .
Welcome back to the BibleBreakdown podcast with your host
, pastor Brandon.
Today, matthew, chapter 2.
And today's title is the King'sOrigin Story.
The King's Origin Story.
I don't know about you, but Ilove superhero movies.
I love the Avengers, dc, I loveall the things, and one of my
favorite kind of movies is theOrigin Story and a lot of them.
(00:23):
They will have this movie whereit talks about how the
superhero came to be, and thatis what we're going to see a
little bit of in today's chapteris.
We've already seen how Jesus isthe rightful king, and now
Matthew is going to share withus how this king came into the
world, and I can't wait to shareit with you.
There's a lot of connections,and even a connection to Daniel
(00:44):
of the Old Testament, and so, ifyou have your Bibles, want to
open up with me to Matthew,chapter 2.
While you're doing that, ifyou're new around here, take
just a moment to like, share andsubscribe to the YouTube
channel and the podcast.
Make sure you leave us afive-star review on the podcast
it really does help and makesure you're going to the Bible
Breakdown Discussion on Facebook.
Bible Breakdown Discussion onFacebook.
There's an amazing group ofpeople doing a wonderful job and
(01:05):
, as always, the more we dig,the more we find.
Well, if you were with usyesterday, we talked about the
overall idea of the Gospel ofMatthew is that Jesus is the
King, king Jesus, and that's thegoal of Matthew, because, as we
were talking about the fourGospels, that three of them are
(01:25):
similar and one of them is verydifferent.
Matthew, mark and Luke arecalled the Synoptic Gospels and
by synoptic, if I can say thatright, what those mean is
similar.
They tell the narrative ofJesus' life.
John was more focused on themessage of Jesus' life, but then
(01:46):
, within the three, luke waswritten primarily to the Gentile
world.
Mark was written really moreabout the acts of Jesus and it
was, you know, kind ofghostwritten, you know, in a way
by Peter.
But Matthew was primarilywritten to the Jewish nation,
and one of the many reasons whyis because during the time it
was written there was anincreasing divide happening
between the Jewish nation andthe Gentile nation and a lot of
(02:08):
the Jewish Christians even hadbeen thrown out of the
synagogues.
And so it's possible Matthewwas inspired of the Holy Spirit
to write this narrative becausehe was no longer allowed to go
into the synagogues and tell thenarrative of Jesus, which is a
lesson all of itself thatsometimes bad things happen that
create really good things.
And so we have this inspiredgospel because of this need to
(02:30):
tell the narrative of Jesus andwe also talked about how Matthew
comes out swinging In chapterone he just lays it out there
and literally it's like he'swaving the papers in his hand
and he says at the very least,jesus is the rightful king of of
the earthly kingdom, and hesays he was from Abraham, which
is the seed of promise, and he'salso from David, the, the royal
(02:53):
line.
And so, before we even get intotalking about anything else,
chapter one proves that at leasthe has a claim to the earthly
throne.
But then he spends chapter 2through 28 talking about how he
is so much more than an earthlyMessiah he's the King of Kings
and the Lord of Lords.
Well, now, here in chapter 2,he's going to give us the origin
story of how Jesus came to be,and so I want to read this and
(03:17):
we're going to stop along theway and just celebrate the
goodness of God's word.
So if you're ready, here we go.
Matthew, chapter 2, verse 1,says this Jesus was born in
Bethlehem in Judea during thereign of King Herod.
About that time, some wise menfrom the eastern lands arrived
in Jerusalem asking where is thenewborn king of the Jews?
(03:38):
We saw his star as it rose, andwe have come to worship him.
King Herod was deeply disturbedwhen he heard this, as was
everyone in Jerusalem.
He called a meeting of theleading priests and teachers of
religious law and asked when isthe Messiah supposed to be born?
In Bethlehem, in Judea.
They said, for this is what theprophet wrote.
(03:59):
And you, o Bethlehem, in theland of Judah, you are not least
among the ruling cities ofJudah, for a ruler will come
from you, who will be a shepherdto my people, israel.
When Herod called for a privatemeeting with the wise men, he
learned from them the time whenthe star first appeared.
Then he told them Go toBethlehem and search carefully
(04:20):
for this child, and when youfind him, come back and tell me
so that I can go and worship himtoo.
After this interview, the wisemen went their way and the star
they had seen in the east guidedthem to Bethlehem.
It went ahead of them andstopped over the place where the
child was.
When they saw the star, theywere filled with joy.
They entered the house that'simportant to remember and saw
(04:44):
the child and his mother Mary,and they bowed down and
worshiped him.
And they opened their treasurechest and gave him gifts of gold
, frankincense and myrrh.
And when it was time to leave,they returned to their own
country by another route, forGod had warned them in a dream
not to return to Herod.
So pause, a lot just happenedthere.
Let's break it down.
So you've got these wise menother translations would say the
(05:07):
magi who appear out of nowherefrom the east, and they know all
of this about Jesus, about thecoming Messiah, and it just
terrifies Herod.
And so who's Herod?
Who's the wise man?
All of this?
Well, here's the thing Duringthe time, during the time the
Romans had conquered everybody Imean, they were in charge but
(05:30):
then what they would do is theywould set up puppet kings who
had authority, as though theydid everything Rome told them to
do.
And so King Herod is in place,but he's in place as kind of a
puppet king underneath Romanauthority, and he was a very
brutal king.
He killed a lot of people,killed a lot of his own family
members.
He was just a very, very brutalguy.
And now, out of nowhere, herecomes these Magi.
Now, who are they?
Well, the Magi were part of agroup of people in Babylon that
(05:54):
were called the Kingmakers.
They were advisors to the king.
Well, how did they know aboutthe Messiah?
They knew about him because ofDaniel, like that, daniel, the
Old Testament.
So, to do a little historylesson, back during the time of
Israel, they were in 70 years ofcaptivity and they were sent to
Babylon.
And while they were there, aguy named Daniel was there.
(06:17):
He didn't want to be there, buthe grew where he was planted
and God gave him the spiritualgift of being able to interpret
dreams.
Well, he continued to interpretdreams for the kings and all of
this, and so he was eventuallyput over all the kingmakers, all
of the people who had thisquote, unquote supernatural
power, and they would advise theking from the gods, all this
(06:37):
kind of stuff.
And Daniel continued to worshiponly Yahweh, but they couldn't
deny he was connected to God.
And so he was over all of thesekingmakers.
Well, as Daniel got older, hestarted receiving visions of his
own and he wrote them down inwhat we now have as the book of
Daniel.
And so when the people leftcaptivity, went back to Israel,
(06:59):
a book of Daniel would have beenleft for the kingmakers,
because they would have reveredhim as a very powerful leader
and for the next 500 years theyread the book of Daniel because
Daniel, who had been right somany times, had prophesied that
one day a king would be bornfrom the book of Daniel says the
ancient of days, and so theywould have continued to read for
(07:21):
500 years the book of Daniel.
And then, one day, becausethese would have been polyistic
astrologers, they were lookingup into the heavens and they saw
a star that shined a little bitdifferently in the
constellations and it fit thedescription of what Daniel had
said.
And so, since they trusted thewords of Daniel, they would have
gotten permission from theirking, traveled along the Silk
(07:43):
Road, the king's highway, allthe way over to Jerusalem, and
basically would have said Idon't know if they had a copy of
Daniel or not, but basicallywould have said hey, listen,
we've been reading your guyDaniel.
And he said the king's born,where is he?
Can you imagine how justabsolutely frantic that would
have made the nation?
And it did, as you can tell.
And then they went and theyfound where they were at which,
by the way, it says that theywere in a house, which would
(08:06):
have meant that this point thatJesus was not a newborn anymore,
possibly between one and a halfto two years old and they
presented him with gold,frankincense and myrrh.
Now, why did they do that?
Well, gold number one was oneof the most primary gifts you
gave a king.
You ever been going to buysomething for somebody and you
don't know, so you just givethem a gift card, because
(08:26):
everybody loves a gift card.
Well, gold was kind of the samething for a king.
If you didn't know what to givea king, you gave him gold.
So that was first for hiskingship.
Frankincense was used a lot intemple worship, so it was a way
for them to show homage andworship to him.
And the third one was myrrh,which had medicinal quality but
was primarily used also toembalm people.
(08:47):
So it would have been a way forthem to say may your rule last
beyond your life.
And so it was very kingly gifts, which also, as a side note,
many scholars believe that, atleast the gold, was most likely
used by Mary and Joseph to fundtheir flight to Egypt we're
about to read about.
So all of that is why that's soimportant.
(09:08):
Okay, here we go.
Verse 13,.
Let's pick it back up.
After the wise men, the peoplefrom Daniel, were gone, the
angel of the Lord appeared toJoseph in a dream.
Get up, flee to Egypt with thechild, and Now pause again.
Why would they have done that?
Well, other than Jerusalem, thehighest concentration of Jewish
(09:32):
people at the time was in atown just outside of Egypt.
So what he was doing is he wassaying go to the other
collection of Jewish peoplebecause there's safety there and
he's not under the jurisdictionof Herod.
So he wasn't sending him likein the middle of nowhere, he was
sending him to a safe haven inanother place.
Verse 14,.
That night, Joseph left forEgypt with the child and Mary,
(09:53):
his mother, and they stayedthere until Herod's death.
This fulfilled what the Lordhad spoken through the prophet I
called my son out of Egypt.
Herod was furious when herealized that the wise men had
outwitted him and he sentsoldiers to kill the boys in and
around Bethlehem who were twoyears old and under.
Based on the wise men's reportof the first, or the star's
(10:14):
first, appearance, herod'sbrutal action fulfilled what God
had spoken through the prophetJeremiah.
A cry was heard in Ramah,weeping and great mourning
Rachel weeping for her childrenrefusing to be comforted, for
they are dead.
Now pause.
Now I think it's worth sayingthat one baby dying is too many.
Right, it's a tragedy, but forwhat it's worth.
(10:35):
I know sometimes we don't havecontext and so we have things in
our head and you may have thispicture in your head of hundreds
and hundreds of babies beingslaughtered, and that would be
terrible as well.
But according to census at thetime and mathematicians who do
all the things, this wasprobably between 20 and 30
babies who died.
Now, once again, any baby beingslaughtered is a tragedy, but
(10:57):
to get a proper context, itwouldn't have been hundreds, it
would have been 20 to 30, whichis still 20 to 30 too many.
All right, let's finish up thischapter, verse 19,.
When Herod died, an angel of theLord appeared in a dream to
Joseph in Egypt.
Get up.
The angel said take the childand his mother back to the land
of Israel, because those whowere trying to kill the child
(11:17):
are dead.
So Joseph got up and returnedto the land of Israel with Jesus
and his mother.
But when he learned that thenew ruler of Judah was Herod's
son, archelios.
He was afraid to go there andthen, after being warned in a
dream, he left for the region ofGalilee.
So the family went to live in atown called Nazareth, and this
fulfilled what the prophets hadsaid he will be called a
(11:39):
Nazarene.
Wow, what an interesting storythat is full of so many
different twists and turns thatif you didn't know the rest of
the story, you would think well,that just sounds like chaos.
I mean, this is just there.
Can not afraid to say, I'm notafraid to say, I'm not afraid to
say doesn't look like chaos toGod.
(12:12):
Just because we don't see whatand understand what God is doing
doesn't mean that God isn'tdoing something.
If you think about it, if youhad have stopped the story when
Joseph, mary and Jesus are inEgypt, you would have thought
God, what are you doing?
I mean, I thought that Ithought Jesus, this baby here.
(12:33):
I thought he was supposed to bethe Messiah.
How can he be the Messiah whenwe're in Egypt?
How is, how is this possible?
Well, keep going.
And then they start going backto, you know, bethlehem, and
they have to go to Nazareth,probably thinking well, there
there goes, that that was theplan.
But I guess not even thoughactually that was the plan the
whole time that we don'tunderstand always the plan of
(12:56):
God.
But the plan of God was for himto be born in Bethlehem
fulfilling a prophecy, but thento grow up in Nazareth, also
fulfilling a prophecy, but thethe the point from point A
rather to point B wasn't astraight line.
It went through all kinds ofthings and I have no idea how
(13:17):
and why God does the things thathe does.
And if someone tells you theyknow they'll lie to you about
something else.
God is beyond finding out.
The Bible says that thefoolishness of God is wiser than
the wisdom of men.
However, what I do know is Godhas never made a mistake.
God is not sitting up in heavengoing well, they didn't do what
I thought.
So let me see if I can figurethat out.
Anybody who ever tells you thatthere are varying degrees of
(13:40):
God's will and that he doesn'treally know what's going to
happen and so if you take awrong turn he's got to figure it
all out again, dare them toprove that in scripture, what I
see over and over and over again, that what looks like chaos is
actually God's plan, and so Iwant to give you this
encouragement, but also give youa challenge today.
And here's the encouragementGod doesn't make mistakes, he
(14:03):
knows what he's doing, and itmay not look like it, but our
job is not always to reason why.
Our job is to say yes, sir.
So here's the challenge.
Are you struggling with thattoday?
Are you struggling because youreally thought God should do one
thing and he did another?
You really thought God couldand it'd been a really good idea
(14:26):
for God to do this over here,and instead he did that over
there.
And now you're just like God.
I don't understand you and Idon't you know.
Can I tell you there's going tobe many times in our lives when
we're not going to understandGod, and I don't you know.
Can I tell you there's gonna bemany times in our lives and
we're not going to understandGod.
And can I tell you that's agreat thing.
I want to serve a God that isbigger than my brain.
I want him to blow my mind,because if he can fit inside my
brain, he's not big enough.
I need him to be bigger than me, and so can I tell you that
(14:50):
that doesn't mean that it stopsus from asking questions.
It's just helping us to becomfortable with hard questions,
to realize I don't have to knoweverything.
I just need to know enough tomake a good decision.
Can you trust God even when youdon't understand?
Because chapter two tells usthat there's going to be many
times when it's going to looklike God made a wrong turn
somewhere.
Actually he's doing exactlywhat he wants to do.
(15:14):
Let's pray together right now,god.
Thank you so much for today.
He's doing exactly what hewants to do.
Let's pray together right now,god.
Thank you so much for today.
Thank you, god, that you arewiser than us.
Lord, if I'm honest, I'll admitthat there's been many times
when I've been confused by yourways.
I don't understand, I don't getit and if I'm really honest, I
would say sometimes, god, Idon't like it.
But I'm so thankful that you donot require my permission.
(15:36):
All you require is my obedience.
I pray you will help me to obeyyou in all things and to trust
you in all things, because yourword promises that we can be
confident that you, who began agood work within us, will
continue to complete it untilthe day of Jesus Christ, we
trust you and we love you.
In Jesus' name, we pray amen.
You know what God's word saysin Matthew 28, verse 19,.
(15:57):
It says all authority in heavenand on earth has been given to
me.
Go, therefore, and makedisciples of all nations.
That's my prayer for me and foryou.
I love you.
I'll see you tomorrow forMatthew, chapter three.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.