Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everybody and welcome to today's episode of
Walk With Me.
I am your host, jj.
It's so good to have each andevery one of you here.
It's so good to see each andevery one of the downloads and
all of that, and I reallyappreciate how much you guys are
sharing and liking and evensome of the emails and stuff
(00:21):
that I get.
Now let me rephrase that I likeall the emails.
Even you guys choose not to beless friendly, I suppose.
But here's the thingInteraction is interaction.
So I enjoy those emails, evenif I have to go back and forth
with you and I say have to as ifit's some great torture.
(00:43):
But no, it really is a joy tome and I enjoy answering
questions and, matter of fact,today's episode is based on a
question.
So, uh, thank you each andevery one of you.
If you have questions orcomments, uh, go ahead and you
know what to do.
Go ahead and hit me at the walkwith me.
Bible study at gmail.
(01:03):
Walk withestudy at gmail.
Walkwithmebiblestudy at gmailaddress.
If you do not want your name tobe mentioned so far and I'm
okay with this only one personhas requested their name to be
mentioned that's okay.
But if you don't want your nameto be mentioned, do not put it
in the subject matter in thesubject line.
(01:25):
If you are okay with your namebeing mentioned, for whatever
reason, put your name in thesubject line so I know to
address you directly.
Thank you so much for oursponsors.
Thank you so much for True BossLyricists sending us the intro
and outro music.
I'm waiting for some more.
(01:46):
Whenever you are ready, sir,I'm willing this time to.
I mean, I love your music, so Ijust I hope that I can get
something else from you.
Big shout out to Bryson Gray.
If you don't know who that is,look him up.
He's not a sponsor, but I'mjust saying big shout out to him
.
Big shout out to our othersponsor, exquisite Creations.
(02:07):
We are on a journey.
Big shout out to our new LLC.
I said I was going to mentionthat a few weeks ago.
We are now a part of Iron GateMinistries and that is big, big
news.
I am very excited to see whatGod has in store for us.
(02:28):
Thank you all.
Thank you all.
Thank you for your love andsupport and just doing the will
of God.
Thank you so much.
We're going to get into ourlesson today, our episode today,
as it were, lesson today, ourepisode today, as it were, and
(02:50):
it really has to do with onecentral tenet of what we
consider Christmas worship.
And one of the things aboutcrafting a great story is that
you weave a lot of threadstogether and it makes a nice
story.
And as long as you don't pullat any of the threads, the story
sort of stays intact.
(03:11):
But sometimes if you pull at astory, it starts to unravel.
Sorry about that, folks.
And this is the same way wehave with our Christmas story
that if you pull that one of thethreads, the thread starts to
unravel.
(03:31):
So we are going to talk abouttoday, for just a short time,
this Christmas story that wefind so entertaining.
Now I'm going to touch on a fewthings and maybe we'll come
back to them in another episode.
But once you pull on thisthread, you can't put it back in
(03:55):
this way bread, you can't putit back in the sweater.
Now one of the things we want totalk about is the fact that the
way we celebrate Christmas atthis moment is not biblical.
Now, I know you think I'm goingto talk about December 25th.
No, I mean, we can.
It's another bread that we canpull out, but we're not going to
(04:19):
go for something so obviousbecause we know there's no
shepherd in the world that'sgoing to be outside during that
time of year.
Okay, that's fine.
However, what we do want to talkabout is this nativity scene.
This is it.
We want to talk about thenativity scene today.
Maybe next week, if you guysstill send me questions about it
(04:42):
.
We'll keep going along withsome of our Christmas traditions
that are really anti-biblical.
I know that's a hard word.
I know that we've been kind ofgroomed and conditioned that
this is supposed to be a joyfulthing.
We've been kind of groomed andconditioned that this is
supposed to be a joyful thingand there's so much
quote-unquote joy wrapped aroundthe season.
(05:03):
There should be joy wrappedaround the season, but not the
commercial aspect that we have.
And I feel the opinion this isjust my opinion, the opinion,
just my opinion I believe thatthe reason why people generally
(05:26):
feel so down around the holidaysand feel so, uh, morose and,
you know, self-harming sort ofway, um, is that you kind of
lost the idea of the reason whythe season happened and so
celebrating it in that way sortof gets you in trouble.
And now, when faced with theconsequences of that.
There's no answer and this sortof leads some people down a
(05:50):
dark spiral.
But what we're going to talkabout today and forgive me for
rambling a bit we're going totalk about today are the three
wise men.
That's right, three wise men.
Once you begin to pull at thatthread, everything begins to
fall apart and sometimes we justaccept these things, um, we
(06:17):
just accept them as traditionaland we accept them because we've
seen so many nativity sceneswhere you know mary and joseph
and standing around with thethree wise men and they got
frankincense and her and they'rekneeling and you have some
shepherds standing over in thecorner looking confused and
sheepish.
(06:38):
But we are not reallyunderstanding why this could not
have happened this way.
We're not understanding thatthis sort of thing is one of the
main problems, why in your mindthings couldn't have happened
this way, and it sort of castsdoubt on the entire reason of
(07:01):
Jesus coming and therefore onChristianity itself.
It's sort of a it's kind of asituation where we used to talk
about in computer programmingwhat's called a cascading
failure, where if you miss aproblem in the computer line we
use to write basics, you miss aproblem in one of the
(07:23):
programming lines and you put ago-to in it, it would literally
cause that problem to cascadedown further and collapse some
of the other programs and thenyou'd have just a whole problem
with the program.
You wouldn't even know where tostart.
So this is a cascading failure.
So let's talk about what wehave.
(07:46):
The three wise men could nothave possibly been in that
manger, and Jesus wasn't in thatmanger when they met him.
Well, when he received thegifts from him.
And to find this out we onlyhave to go to Matthew, chapter 2
(08:16):
and just kind of use our brainsa little bit.
So let's start at Matthew,chapter 2, where it talks about
the wise men from the east.
Now, how far east did they comefrom?
There are people who say theycame from as far away as India.
One narrator said they camefrom China.
One said they came from what isnow known as Afghanistan.
Either way, that's coming fromquite a far ways off, especially
(08:40):
if you're coming by camelCamels are not the fastest
animals in the world.
So we're going to start offreading verse 1 out of chapter 2
.
Now, jesus was born inBethlehem.
Okay, we got that.
Okay.
And in the days of Herod, theKing.
Behold, there came wise menfrom the east to Jerusalem.
(09:01):
Now, if you just use that verseright there, just take one
verse you would think that theyarrived when Jesus was born,
exactly the day he was born.
However, if you read furtherwhich is true in most biblical
or what is called a churchology,christianology, tradition If
(09:25):
you read further, you begin todebunk your own theory.
Because these wise men camesaying where is he that was born
king of the Jews, born king ofthe Jews?
For we have seen his star inthe east, which means these guys
(09:49):
saw the star where they were,in the east.
And in the way when you say theeast, you're thinking the
orient, you're thinking youknow're modern day korea,
singapore and all these placeswe call the east, even as far
west as india.
Everything west of india iswhat we call middle east, not
the east.
So it's important to understandthe terminology.
(10:11):
We have seen his darn east andhave come to worship him we
inherit.
The king heard these messages.
He was troubled and calledJerusalem with him.
We have gathered all the chiefpriests and scribes together.
We demanded of them whereChrist should be born.
Please understand I am readingfrom the king's version, but I'm
just sort of abridging it justfor time.
And they said unto him InBethlehem of Judea, but it is
(10:38):
written by the prophet and now,bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
art, not the least among theprinces of Judah, out of these
shall come a governor that shallrule my people.
So they're telling you, they'reconfirming that, yeah, jesus
was born in Bethlehem that wejust read, and he sent them by
(10:58):
them.
We're talking about the wisemen.
Go to Bethlehem, searchdiligently for this kid and when
you find him, bring me, tell mewhere he is, and I'll come and
worship him alone.
And so they heard the king andthese wise men.
They left and they saw the staragain.
Which same star which they sawthe star again, which same star
(11:19):
which they saw in the east.
And the star actually wentbefore them.
So it literally traveled beforethem until they came and stood
over where the young child was.
Now I'm going to say somethinghere.
There are some, there are some,um, there are some bible
scholars that I will give anounce of belief to is that that
(11:44):
star was the devil.
It wasn't an actual star, itwas actually lucifer, because he
is also referred to as a goodmorning star.
He's also referred to as anangel of light.
He is referred to as themorning star.
It's also referred to as anangel of light.
It is referred to as this, andwe have never seen a star
actually travel with someone.
(12:05):
But a devil will travel withyou.
Now, I don't know if that's thecase, or was it a star as a
star that you and I would know?
It's very difficult for a starto travel with someone and then
sit on top of a building.
So this is what, and the reasonwhy there are people who think
(12:28):
this is the devil, because ofwhat happens next.
Alright, so when they saw thestar, they rejoiced, but they
see it with great joy.
But here's the thing it said itstood over where the young
child was, not where the infantwas, not where the newborn was.
(12:49):
The writers of the Bible werenot illiterate when the young
child was, and when they saw thestar, they rejoiced with
exceeding great joy.
Now I want to stop right hereand I want to go back to the
story of Moses, because thereare some similarities here.
When Moses was in the land ofEgypt, there was not a decree
(13:15):
that all children two years ageand under should be killed.
Why?
Because, again, one of thempesky prophets went out there
and told them that a child wasborn that will lead the people
out of camp.
One of them pesky prophets wentout there and told everybody
what God told him to say.
And so Herod had the sameproblem that these pharaohs had.
(13:42):
Herod was looking at the ideathat some kid was born that was
threatening his power supply.
So the next thing he did wasthat's right, he had people
killed.
I'm trying not to get ahead ofmyself, because that's the one
really important thing that Iwant to discuss.
(14:04):
And when they came into thehouse?
Now we're in Matthew, chapter 2, verse 11.
When they came into the housenot the manger, not the barn,
not the inn they came into thehouse, they saw the young child,
not the infant, not the baby inswaddling clothes, but the
(14:28):
young child with Mary, hismother, and fell down and
worshipped him.
And when they had opened theirtreasures, they presented unto
him gifts gold and frankincenseand myrrh and being warned of
God in a dream that they shouldnot return to Herod, they
departed into their own country,which means they were not in
Judea, they were not in Israelto begin with.
(14:49):
They departed into their owncountry.
And when they were departed,behold, the angel of the Lord
appeared to Joseph in a dreamsaying Arise, take the young
child and flee into Egypt.
Didn't we just talk about that?
Flee into Egypt and be thereuntil I bring you word, until I
(15:09):
tell you to come back.
Go there and stay until I bringyou word, until I tell you to
come back.
Go there and stay until I getyou know, sent for you, for a
parent will seek a young childto destroy him.
And basically he went downthere and he stayed until the
parent died.
And this also was to fulfillanother one of those pesky
prophets running around sayingout of Egypt, I have called my
(15:32):
son.
So now herod got into a positionwhere he saw that he was being
mocked with the wise man becauseyou know, hey, I'm just going
to go back the other way.
Let this idiot keep looking forthis guy who's going to
threaten his power.
That has nothing to do with me.
Wise man said you know what'snone of my business that, but
(15:55):
you know what?
I'm going to worship this Godbecause this is the true God.
So when Herod saw that this washappening, he was really angry,
and what he did was he sent theword out to kill all the
children.
(16:18):
And verse 16, very importantfrom two years old and under,
according to the time, which hehad diligently inquired of the
wise men.
Herod knew that when these guyshad come, they started out when
they saw the star.
And the star happened whenJesus was born and it took them
(16:42):
a long time to get there.
They didn't get there.
I know, in today's day and age,we think of our cars, we think
of planes, we think of trains,we think of, oh my God, it takes
so long to get from Texas toNew York.
Oh wow, it really takes 10hours by plane, oh my.
(17:03):
Or it takes five hours by plane, oh my, it takes three days by
car, oh my, the same journeywould have taken six months by
horse, by camel.
Oh, you're talking about awhole different story.
No, we're talking about atleast a year's worth of travel,
(17:28):
from the time that wise men leftthe east and got to Jerusalem
or to Bethlehem, and some Biblescholars say that it was closer
to two years.
And Herod knew right away whenthe wise men turned around and
left and went back to thecountry, because that's how he
(17:49):
reacted that day.
He didn't allow that to thefester.
He just went off on thiskilling spree to kill all the
children two years old andyounger.
And this was, this was what wasfulfilled by the prophet
Jeremiah saying in verse 18, inRamah, there was a voice, heard
(18:12):
a lamentation, sweet and greatmourning, rachel weeping for her
children and would not becomforted because they are not.
So, no, the wise men did not,did not show up at the manger.
And once you, once you put onthat thread, you begin to
(18:34):
question A lot of differentthings.
Yes, true, the baby was Wrappedand laid in the manger.
This is true, but that's whatit said, the but, however, baby
wasn't born in the manger, babywas placed there.
And no, the wise men did notarrive on Jesus' birthday.
(18:59):
They arrived about I mean, frommy best estimate, from about a
year and a half to two yearslater, based on the travel speed
of the camel, closer maybe to ayear and a half.
And it was.
It took Herod that long to findout that the wise men went back
(19:21):
a different way.
And they knew.
Here's the funny part the wisemen knew they were wise, that
Herod was watching the way theycame, and they knew, because God
(19:42):
told them One of the wisestthings we can do is listen to
when God is warning us not tosaying it.
One of the wisest things we cando is pay attention to that
voice that some people like toclown a little bit, and I get it
, but pay attention to when thatvoice is telling you that you
(20:04):
should maybe take anotherthought about what you're about
to do.
And you and I, we all know thatwhen you're about to really lay
into your loved one forsomething that they did, you get
that little bit of stop sayinghey, if you shouldn't say it now
, maybe you shouldn't, maybe youshouldn't deal with it that way
(20:28):
, why don't you?
And by this time we're so angry, we're so hot headed that we
kind of get lost in the sauce,so to speak, and we just open
our mouth and just let it fly.
This is not how we're supposedto be.
We're supposed to listen to theSpirit of God when he tells us
to not do something or to dosomething.
I can't tell you how many timesI've listened to God telling me
(20:53):
to hey, why don't you wait herefor a few seconds?
I have no idea what God justhelped me avoid, but I do know
when, sometimes, when I'veignored that voice.
The stuff has happened.
You know I've gotten into bikeaccidents, or you know things
have happened.
I got to work too early or toolate, or you know, and I got
(21:16):
into traffic or something likethat.
It doesn't have to be, you know, traumatic, but I may have
gotten into traffic and then Iended up late for work, when God
was telling me to leave early,so forth, and so on.
There are certainly lessons tobe gleaned even from this set of
scriptures.
Yeah, wise men did not show upon Jesus' birthday.
(21:41):
They did not see him in anymanger, they saw him in a house.
They saw him in Mary's house,joseph's house, and they were
already married.
And when they went back, theywent back a different way, and
that the amount of time was twoyears.
And it doesn't mention that thewise men stayed any length of
(22:03):
time.
Now I I would hope they didn'tdo what I refer to as turn and
burn, like they just came andgot brought to the other side.
I mean, I don't know, itdoesn't seem like they just came
and got lost and just left.
I mean, I don't know, itdoesn't seem like they did that,
but it also doesn't seem likethey stayed any length of time,
god may have actually warnedthem about to go back a
different way before they evengot to Bethlehem.
(22:24):
You know, because God knowswhat's going to happen.
You know what's going to happen.
I know what's going to happenif God tells us that this is
going to happen.
So just be aware that I meanonce you start pulling at that
prayer, you start thinking aboutwhy was the shepherds outside
in December and it's cold?
(22:45):
You know why is it?
You know why do we useChristmas tree, why do we use
Christmas lights and holly?
Why do we use all these things?
And you know there's lots ofscriptures we could talk about,
like Jeremiah 10.
We're not going to get into itbecause of time, but be careful
(23:06):
how you celebrate Christ'sbirthday.
Please understand that thereason why we celebrate
Christmas is not because youwant a new pair of shoes and you
want a new Xbox and things ofthat nature.
We are celebrating Jesus'birthday because that was the
day that our salvation plan wasfinally enacted.
(23:29):
The beginning of our salvationplan, or this chapter of our
salvation plan, was enacted.
The beginning of our salvationplan, or this chapter of our
salvation plan, was enacted.
In order for that to happen,jesus had to be following his
own rules and he had to have aministry.
(23:49):
He had to grow.
He had to be sinless.
He had to have a ministry.
He had to grow, he had to besinless.
He had to die.
For us, he was the lamb slainfrom the foundation of the world
and, as someone said in Matrix,it happened the way it happened
and it couldn't have happenedany other way.
This is why Now I'm not sayingplease understand, before we get
(24:13):
all off my email comments.
I am not saying do not givegifts.
That's not what I'm saying.
And if that makes you feel okay, that feels good.
Don't give gifts to the pointwhere you are financially
strapped.
(24:34):
That's not the reason why weare celebrating that.
His gift, his gift of his bloodfor our remission of our sins.
That's not why we'recelebrating.
What we're celebrating is thefact that we are now able to
water the water in the spiritand see the people of God, now
able to mourn the water and thespirit and see the people of God
(24:54):
.
Like I said, if you want togive gifts, that's fine.
We should also be celebratingour family.
We should be celebrating a newbeginning.
We should be celebrating a lotof these things wrapped up in
the Christmas season that havenothing to do with spending
money, nothing to do withthrowing up a bunch of
decorations that didn't worklast year.
(25:15):
We had to keep buying new onesevery year.
That's what the Christmasseason is really about.
It's easy to say peace, peace,peace for the season, and then
we go and we put our gifts infront of this idol tree.
So, that being said, that beingsaid, no, uh, you guys that
(25:40):
have asked me that that did nothappen.
The wise man came to a houseand jesus had to be somewhere
about a year, maybe as much as ayear and a half.
I love each and every one of you.
Thank you so much for yourinterest in this program.
(26:00):
You guys can listen to anyother podcast.
I've chosen a moment to listento this and I hope you're
notified.
I hope it answers yourquestions.
I hope that as you walk with meand as we go into a deeper
relationship with God, theknowledge of God, that you get
(26:20):
something from this.
And as you go out along the wayand you see somebody, you know
there's a lot of people outthere with big smiles.
I'm going to say this A lot ofpeople out there with big smiles
and people who are smiling onthe outside and dying on the
inside.
We don't have to look forsomebody who looks like they're
(26:41):
depressed and say I love you.
Just tell them.
Tell them that you love them,tell them that there's a better
way and you know the better way,and let God do what he does.
Alright, love each and everyone of you.
Hope to hear from you and again, welcome to the Bible study.
(27:03):
Email us at tom with commentsand questions.
I hope to see you on the nextone.
Love you all.
Bye-bye.
Hello everybody and welcome to today's episode of
Walk With Me.
I am your host, jj.
It's so good to have each andevery one of you here.
It's so good to see each andevery one of the downloads and
all of that, and I reallyappreciate how much you guys are
sharing and liking and evensome of the emails and stuff
(00:21):
that I get.
Now let me rephrase that I likeall the emails.
Even you guys choose not to beless friendly, I suppose.
But here's the thingInteraction is interaction.
So I enjoy those emails, evenif I have to go back and forth
with you and I say have to as ifit's some great torture.
(00:43):
But no, it really is a joy tome and I enjoy answering
questions and, matter of fact,today's episode is based on a
question.
So, uh, thank you each andevery one of you.
If you have questions orcomments, uh, go ahead and you
know what to do.
Go ahead and hit me at the walkwith me.
Bible study at gmail.
(01:03):
Walk withestudy at gmail.
Walkwithmebiblestudy at gmailaddress.
If you do not want your name tobe mentioned so far and I'm
okay with this only one personhas requested their name to be
mentioned that's okay.
But if you don't want your nameto be mentioned, do not put it
in the subject matter in thesubject line.
(01:25):
If you are okay with your namebeing mentioned, for whatever
reason, put your name in thesubject line so I know to
address you directly.
Thank you so much for oursponsors.
Thank you so much for True BossLyricists sending us the intro
and outro music.
I'm waiting for some more.
(01:46):
Whenever you are ready, sir,I'm willing this time to.
I mean, I love your music, so Ijust I hope that I can get
something else from you.
Big shout out to Bryson Gray.
If you don't know who that is,look him up.
He's not a sponsor, but I'mjust saying big shout out to him
.
Big shout out to our othersponsor, exquisite Creations.
(02:07):
We are on a journey.
Big shout out to our new LLC.
I said I was going to mentionthat a few weeks ago.
We are now a part of Iron GateMinistries and that is big, big
news.
I am very excited to see whatGod has in store for us.
(02:28):
Thank you all.
Thank you all.
Thank you for your love andsupport and just doing the will
of God.
Thank you so much.
We're going to get into ourlesson today, our episode today,
as it were, lesson today, ourepisode today, as it were, and
(02:50):
it really has to do with onecentral tenet of what we
consider Christmas worship.
And one of the things aboutcrafting a great story is that
you weave a lot of threadstogether and it makes a nice
story.
And as long as you don't pullat any of the threads, the story
sort of stays intact.
(03:11):
But sometimes if you pull at astory, it starts to unravel.
Sorry about that, folks.
And this is the same way wehave with our Christmas story
that if you pull that one of thethreads, the thread starts to
unravel.
(03:31):
So we are going to talk abouttoday, for just a short time,
this Christmas story that wefind so entertaining.
Now I'm going to touch on a fewthings and maybe we'll come
back to them in another episode.
But once you pull on thisthread, you can't put it back in
(03:55):
this way bread, you can't putit back in the sweater.
Now one of the things we want totalk about is the fact that the
way we celebrate Christmas atthis moment is not biblical.
Now, I know you think I'm goingto talk about December 25th.
No, I mean, we can.
It's another bread that we canpull out, but we're not going to
(04:19):
go for something so obviousbecause we know there's no
shepherd in the world that'sgoing to be outside during that
time of year.
Okay, that's fine.
However, what we do want to talkabout is this nativity scene.
This is it.
We want to talk about thenativity scene today.
Maybe next week, if you guysstill send me questions about it
(04:42):
.
We'll keep going along withsome of our Christmas traditions
that are really anti-biblical.
I know that's a hard word.
I know that we've been kind ofgroomed and conditioned that
this is supposed to be a joyfulthing.
We've been kind of groomed andconditioned that this is
supposed to be a joyful thingand there's so much
quote-unquote joy wrapped aroundthe season.
(05:03):
There should be joy wrappedaround the season, but not the
commercial aspect that we have.
And I feel the opinion this isjust my opinion, the opinion,
just my opinion I believe thatthe reason why people generally
(05:26):
feel so down around the holidaysand feel so, uh, morose and,
you know, self-harming sort ofway, um, is that you kind of
lost the idea of the reason whythe season happened and so
celebrating it in that way sortof gets you in trouble.
And now, when faced with theconsequences of that.
There's no answer and this sortof leads some people down a
(05:50):
dark spiral.
But what we're going to talkabout today and forgive me for
rambling a bit we're going totalk about today are the three
wise men.
That's right, three wise men.
Once you begin to pull at thatthread, everything begins to
fall apart and sometimes we justaccept these things, um, we
(06:17):
just accept them as traditionaland we accept them because we've
seen so many nativity sceneswhere you know mary and joseph
and standing around with thethree wise men and they got
frankincense and her and they'rekneeling and you have some
shepherds standing over in thecorner looking confused and
sheepish.
(06:38):
But we are not reallyunderstanding why this could not
have happened this way.
We're not understanding thatthis sort of thing is one of the
main problems, why in your mindthings couldn't have happened
this way, and it sort of castsdoubt on the entire reason of
(07:01):
Jesus coming and therefore onChristianity itself.
It's sort of a it's kind of asituation where we used to talk
about in computer programmingwhat's called a cascading
failure, where if you miss aproblem in the computer line we
use to write basics, you miss aproblem in one of the
(07:23):
programming lines and you put ago-to in it, it would literally
cause that problem to cascadedown further and collapse some
of the other programs and thenyou'd have just a whole problem
with the program.
You wouldn't even know where tostart.
So this is a cascading failure.
So let's talk about what wehave.
(07:46):
The three wise men could nothave possibly been in that
manger, and Jesus wasn't in thatmanger when they met him.
Well, when he received thegifts from him.
And to find this out we onlyhave to go to Matthew, chapter 2
(08:16):
and just kind of use our brainsa little bit.
So let's start at Matthew,chapter 2, where it talks about
the wise men from the east.
Now, how far east did they comefrom?
There are people who say theycame from as far away as India.
One narrator said they camefrom China.
One said they came from what isnow known as Afghanistan.
Either way, that's coming fromquite a far ways off, especially
(08:40):
if you're coming by camelCamels are not the fastest
animals in the world.
So we're going to start offreading verse 1 out of chapter 2
.
Now, jesus was born inBethlehem.
Okay, we got that.
Okay.
And in the days of Herod, theKing.
Behold, there came wise menfrom the east to Jerusalem.
(09:01):
Now, if you just use that verseright there, just take one
verse you would think that theyarrived when Jesus was born,
exactly the day he was born.
However, if you read furtherwhich is true in most biblical
or what is called a churchology,christianology, tradition If
(09:25):
you read further, you begin todebunk your own theory.
Because these wise men camesaying where is he that was born
king of the Jews, born king ofthe Jews?
For we have seen his star inthe east, which means these guys
(09:49):
saw the star where they were,in the east.
And in the way when you say theeast, you're thinking the
orient, you're thinking youknow're modern day korea,
singapore and all these placeswe call the east, even as far
west as india.
Everything west of india iswhat we call middle east, not
the east.
So it's important to understandthe terminology.
(10:11):
We have seen his darn east andhave come to worship him we
inherit.
The king heard these messages.
He was troubled and calledJerusalem with him.
We have gathered all the chiefpriests and scribes together.
We demanded of them whereChrist should be born.
Please understand I am readingfrom the king's version, but I'm
just sort of abridging it justfor time.
And they said unto him InBethlehem of Judea, but it is
(10:38):
written by the prophet and now,bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
art, not the least among theprinces of Judah, out of these
shall come a governor that shallrule my people.
So they're telling you, they'reconfirming that, yeah, jesus
was born in Bethlehem that wejust read, and he sent them by
(10:58):
them.
We're talking about the wisemen.
Go to Bethlehem, searchdiligently for this kid and when
you find him, bring me, tell mewhere he is, and I'll come and
worship him alone.
And so they heard the king andthese wise men.
They left and they saw the staragain.
Which same star which they sawthe star again, which same star
(11:19):
which they saw in the east.
And the star actually wentbefore them.
So it literally traveled beforethem until they came and stood
over where the young child was.
Now I'm going to say somethinghere.
There are some, there are some,um, there are some bible
scholars that I will give anounce of belief to is that that
(11:44):
star was the devil.
It wasn't an actual star, itwas actually lucifer, because he
is also referred to as a goodmorning star.
He's also referred to as anangel of light.
He is referred to as themorning star.
It's also referred to as anangel of light.
It is referred to as this, andwe have never seen a star
actually travel with someone.
(12:05):
But a devil will travel withyou.
Now, I don't know if that's thecase, or was it a star as a
star that you and I would know?
It's very difficult for a starto travel with someone and then
sit on top of a building.
So this is what, and the reasonwhy there are people who think
(12:28):
this is the devil, because ofwhat happens next.
Alright, so when they saw thestar, they rejoiced, but they
see it with great joy.
But here's the thing it said itstood over where the young
child was, not where the infantwas, not where the newborn was.
(12:49):
The writers of the Bible werenot illiterate when the young
child was, and when they saw thestar, they rejoiced with
exceeding great joy.
Now I want to stop right hereand I want to go back to the
story of Moses, because thereare some similarities here.
When Moses was in the land ofEgypt, there was not a decree
(13:15):
that all children two years ageand under should be killed.
Why?
Because, again, one of thempesky prophets went out there
and told them that a child wasborn that will lead the people
out of camp.
One of them pesky prophets wentout there and told everybody
what God told him to say.
And so Herod had the sameproblem that these pharaohs had.
(13:42):
Herod was looking at the ideathat some kid was born that was
threatening his power supply.
So the next thing he did wasthat's right, he had people
killed.
I'm trying not to get ahead ofmyself, because that's the one
really important thing that Iwant to discuss.
(14:04):
And when they came into thehouse?
Now we're in Matthew, chapter 2, verse 11.
When they came into the housenot the manger, not the barn,
not the inn they came into thehouse, they saw the young child,
not the infant, not the baby inswaddling clothes, but the
(14:28):
young child with Mary, hismother, and fell down and
worshipped him.
And when they had opened theirtreasures, they presented unto
him gifts gold and frankincenseand myrrh and being warned of
God in a dream that they shouldnot return to Herod, they
departed into their own country,which means they were not in
Judea, they were not in Israelto begin with.
(14:49):
They departed into their owncountry.
And when they were departed,behold, the angel of the Lord
appeared to Joseph in a dreamsaying Arise, take the young
child and flee into Egypt.
Didn't we just talk about that?
Flee into Egypt and be thereuntil I bring you word, until I
(15:09):
tell you to come back.
Go there and stay until I bringyou word, until I tell you to
come back.
Go there and stay until I getyou know, sent for you, for a
parent will seek a young childto destroy him.
And basically he went downthere and he stayed until the
parent died.
And this also was to fulfillanother one of those pesky
prophets running around sayingout of Egypt, I have called my
(15:32):
son.
So now herod got into a positionwhere he saw that he was being
mocked with the wise man becauseyou know, hey, I'm just going
to go back the other way.
Let this idiot keep looking forthis guy who's going to
threaten his power.
That has nothing to do with me.
Wise man said you know what'snone of my business that, but
(15:55):
you know what?
I'm going to worship this Godbecause this is the true God.
So when Herod saw that this washappening, he was really angry,
and what he did was he sent theword out to kill all the
children.
(16:18):
And verse 16, very importantfrom two years old and under,
according to the time, which hehad diligently inquired of the
wise men.
Herod knew that when these guyshad come, they started out when
they saw the star.
And the star happened whenJesus was born and it took them
(16:42):
a long time to get there.
They didn't get there.
I know, in today's day and age,we think of our cars, we think
of planes, we think of trains,we think of, oh my God, it takes
so long to get from Texas toNew York.
Oh wow, it really takes 10hours by plane, oh my.
(17:03):
Or it takes five hours by plane, oh my, it takes three days by
car, oh my, the same journeywould have taken six months by
horse, by camel.
Oh, you're talking about awhole different story.
No, we're talking about atleast a year's worth of travel,
(17:28):
from the time that wise men leftthe east and got to Jerusalem
or to Bethlehem, and some Biblescholars say that it was closer
to two years.
And Herod knew right away whenthe wise men turned around and
left and went back to thecountry, because that's how he
(17:49):
reacted that day.
He didn't allow that to thefester.
He just went off on thiskilling spree to kill all the
children two years old andyounger.
And this was, this was what wasfulfilled by the prophet
Jeremiah saying in verse 18, inRamah, there was a voice, heard
(18:12):
a lamentation, sweet and greatmourning, rachel weeping for her
children and would not becomforted because they are not.
So, no, the wise men did not,did not show up at the manger.
And once you, once you put onthat thread, you begin to
(18:34):
question A lot of differentthings.
Yes, true, the baby was Wrappedand laid in the manger.
This is true, but that's whatit said, the but, however, baby
wasn't born in the manger, babywas placed there.
And no, the wise men did notarrive on Jesus' birthday.
(18:59):
They arrived about I mean, frommy best estimate, from about a
year and a half to two yearslater, based on the travel speed
of the camel, closer maybe to ayear and a half.
And it was.
It took Herod that long to findout that the wise men went back
(19:21):
a different way.
And they knew.
Here's the funny part the wisemen knew they were wise, that
Herod was watching the way theycame, and they knew, because God
(19:42):
told them One of the wisestthings we can do is listen to
when God is warning us not tosaying it.
One of the wisest things we cando is pay attention to that
voice that some people like toclown a little bit, and I get it
, but pay attention to when thatvoice is telling you that you
(20:04):
should maybe take anotherthought about what you're about
to do.
And you and I, we all know thatwhen you're about to really lay
into your loved one forsomething that they did, you get
that little bit of stop sayinghey, if you shouldn't say it now
, maybe you shouldn't, maybe youshouldn't deal with it that way
(20:28):
, why don't you?
And by this time we're so angry, we're so hot headed that we
kind of get lost in the sauce,so to speak, and we just open
our mouth and just let it fly.
This is not how we're supposedto be.
We're supposed to listen to theSpirit of God when he tells us
to not do something or to dosomething.
I can't tell you how many timesI've listened to God telling me
(20:53):
to hey, why don't you wait herefor a few seconds?
I have no idea what God justhelped me avoid, but I do know
when, sometimes, when I'veignored that voice.
The stuff has happened.
You know I've gotten into bikeaccidents, or you know things
have happened.
I got to work too early or toolate, or you know, and I got
(21:16):
into traffic or something likethat.
It doesn't have to be, you know, traumatic, but I may have
gotten into traffic and then Iended up late for work, when God
was telling me to leave early,so forth, and so on.
There are certainly lessons tobe gleaned even from this set of
scriptures.
Yeah, wise men did not show upon Jesus' birthday.
(21:41):
They did not see him in anymanger, they saw him in a house.
They saw him in Mary's house,joseph's house, and they were
already married.
And when they went back, theywent back a different way, and
that the amount of time was twoyears.
And it doesn't mention that thewise men stayed any length of
(22:03):
time.
Now I I would hope they didn'tdo what I refer to as turn and
burn, like they just came andgot brought to the other side.
I mean, I don't know, itdoesn't seem like they just came
and got lost and just left.
I mean, I don't know, itdoesn't seem like they did that,
but it also doesn't seem likethey stayed any length of time,
god may have actually warnedthem about to go back a
different way before they evengot to Bethlehem.
(22:24):
You know, because God knowswhat's going to happen.
You know what's going to happen.
I know what's going to happenif God tells us that this is
going to happen.
So just be aware that I meanonce you start pulling at that
prayer, you start thinking aboutwhy was the shepherds outside
in December and it's cold?
(22:45):
You know why is it?
You know why do we useChristmas tree, why do we use
Christmas lights and holly?
Why do we use all these things?
And you know there's lots ofscriptures we could talk about,
like Jeremiah 10.
We're not going to get into itbecause of time, but be careful
(23:06):
how you celebrate Christ'sbirthday.
Please understand that thereason why we celebrate
Christmas is not because youwant a new pair of shoes and you
want a new Xbox and things ofthat nature.
We are celebrating Jesus'birthday because that was the
day that our salvation plan wasfinally enacted.
(23:29):
The beginning of our salvationplan, or this chapter of our
salvation plan, was enacted.
The beginning of our salvationplan, or this chapter of our
salvation plan, was enacted.
In order for that to happen,jesus had to be following his
own rules and he had to have aministry.
(23:49):
He had to grow.
He had to be sinless.
He had to have a ministry.
He had to grow, he had to besinless.
He had to die.
For us, he was the lamb slainfrom the foundation of the world
and, as someone said in Matrix,it happened the way it happened
and it couldn't have happenedany other way.
This is why Now I'm not sayingplease understand, before we get
(24:13):
all off my email comments.
I am not saying do not givegifts.
That's not what I'm saying.
And if that makes you feel okay, that feels good.
Don't give gifts to the pointwhere you are financially
strapped.
(24:34):
That's not the reason why weare celebrating that.
His gift, his gift of his bloodfor our remission of our sins.
That's not why we'recelebrating.
What we're celebrating is thefact that we are now able to
water the water in the spiritand see the people of God, now
able to mourn the water and thespirit and see the people of God
(24:54):
.
Like I said, if you want togive gifts, that's fine.
We should also be celebratingour family.
We should be celebrating a newbeginning.
We should be celebrating a lotof these things wrapped up in
the Christmas season that havenothing to do with spending
money, nothing to do withthrowing up a bunch of
decorations that didn't worklast year.
(25:15):
We had to keep buying new onesevery year.
That's what the Christmasseason is really about.
It's easy to say peace, peace,peace for the season, and then
we go and we put our gifts infront of this idol tree.
So, that being said, that beingsaid, no, uh, you guys that
(25:40):
have asked me that that did nothappen.
The wise man came to a houseand jesus had to be somewhere
about a year, maybe as much as ayear and a half.
I love each and every one of you.
Thank you so much for yourinterest in this program.
(26:00):
You guys can listen to anyother podcast.
I've chosen a moment to listento this and I hope you're
notified.
I hope it answers yourquestions.
I hope that as you walk with meand as we go into a deeper
relationship with God, theknowledge of God, that you get
(26:20):
something from this.
And as you go out along the wayand you see somebody, you know
there's a lot of people outthere with big smiles.
I'm going to say this A lot ofpeople out there with big smiles
and people who are smiling onthe outside and dying on the
inside.
We don't have to look forsomebody who looks like they're
(26:41):
depressed and say I love you.
Just tell them.
Tell them that you love them,tell them that there's a better
way and you know the better way,and let God do what he does.
Alright, love each and everyone of you.
Hope to hear from you and again, welcome to the Bible study.
(27:03):
Email us at tom with commentsand questions.
I hope to see you on the nextone.
Love you all.
Bye-bye.
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