Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. If you were going to categorize Herod, how would you categorize him? I mean, he's a despicable human being no matter how you kind of look at him, no doubt about that. I would categorize him with one word, pride. Herod is proud.
And in fact, it's my, in my estimation, that's why he's in the birth narrative. Herod is to show man for what man is. He's proud. He's really proud.
In fact, if you think about it from that point of view, is there anything on earth that has ever been as destructive as pride? Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana.
Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. It's Christmas time. So you have your stuff done. Everything's finished. Shopping, wrapping, baking, cooking, traveling.
You're all ready. See for you, you always think about all these things that you have to get done because it's Christmas time. For me, it's different than it is for you. For me, the situation is it's Christmas time. What am I going to preach on? I mean, we do the same thing over and over again.
Now, not necessarily wrong with that, but, you know, after you hear yourself talk for all these years, it's just like, OK, here we go. We're going to do a sermon on, well, let's do Mary or let's do Joseph. The shepherds are always good. We could do the angels and they have the wise men, even though they didn't come at Christmas time.
They did eventually come so we could always use the wise men. So I had to think about that and this week and I was trying to think about, you know, who would I do this on? Which one of them? I mean, if you think about them, Mary, Joseph, shepherds, wise men, angels, they're all uplifting. They're all wonderful. They're all nearly heroic characters. But the more I thought about it, there is one character in the birth story of Jesus that you probably never even heard a sermon on at Christmas time. There's one character that shows up in the birth narrative and yet no one ever preaches on him. There's one character that is not exactly heroic, even though his name means hero. His name is Herod.
And that's what I'd like to talk about this morning. I'd like to talk about Herod, or is known as Herod the Great. Dean Frere, 19th century British scholar, wrote this about him. He said his whole career was red with blood and murder. Deaths by strangulation, deaths by burning, deaths by being cleft asunder, deaths by secret assassination, confessions forced by unutterable torture, acts of insolent and inhuman lust. In fact, the survivors during his lifetime were even more miserable than the people that he killed.
That's Herod. Herod the Great, he murdered his wife. He murdered his mother-in-law. He murdered his brother-in-law. He murdered three of his sons. At one time, he murdered 36 Levitical priests at the same time. He had 10 wives.
All of them were miserable. And yet he was called Herod the Great, the king of Judah. By the way, he's not Jewish. His father was Idumaean. His mother was the daughter of an Arab sheik.
But he reigned as king for 37 years. And so I'd like to talk a little bit about Herod this morning. So open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 2. Matthew chapter 2.
And we can read about Herod. Starting in verse 1. Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, Magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem saying, Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star in the east and have come to worship him. And when Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, all Jerusalem with him. And gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah would be born. And they said to him in Bethlehem of Judea, for this is what was written by the prophet. And you Bethlehem land of Judah are by no means least among the leaders of Judah.
For out of you shall come forth a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. And then Herod secretly called the Magi and determined from them the exact time the star would appear. And he sent them to Bethlehem and said, Go and search carefully for the child.
And when you have found him, report it to me so that I too may come and worship him. Now over to verse 13. Now, when they had gone, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, Get up, take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him. And so Joseph got up and took the child and his mother while it was still night. And he left for Egypt and he remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken of by the Lord to the prophet out of Egypt, I've called my son. And then when Herod saw that he had been tricked by the Magi, he became very enraged.
And he sent and he slew all the male children who were in Bethlehem in all its vicinity from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from Egypt from the Magi. And then what had been spoken of through Jeremiah, the prophet was fulfilled. A voice was heard in Rama weeping in great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children.
And she refused to be comforted because they were no more. And when Herod died, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, Go, take the child and his mother and go into the land of Israel for those who sought the child's life are dead. So Joseph got up and took the child and his mother and came to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father, Herod, he was afraid to go there. And then after being warned by God in a dream, he left for regions of Galilee and he came and he lived in a city called Nazareth. This was to fulfill what was spoken of through the prophets, that he shall be called a Nazarene. That's a very familiar story to us. But the thing we never often think about, we always give the Magi all the ink here, all of what the Magi did. But I would like to talk a little bit about how important Herod is in this narrative. There's some interesting observations noticed on verse two when the Magi come and they are the kingmakers from Persia.
And I've said this in the past. I don't want to get you're upset with your nativity scene. They always rode horses. They didn't ride camels.
OK, so they don't. They don't come on camels. They came on horses. They're called kingmakers and they come and they ask this question, where is he who has been born king of the Jews? Put yourself in Herod's spot.
What? Who's king of the Jews? Me. I've been king of the Jews for 37 years. This is the year, by the way, that he dies. I've been king.
What do you mean? Where is he that is born king of the Jews? You know, when people had talked like that with me, I killed them. I had sons I killed. No one's going to take the throne away from me. This is my throne.
I got it. Notice in verse three, it says, when Herod the king heard this, he was troubled. The word means disturbed. He's very upset.
He's kind of paranoid. So gathering together all the priests and scribes, he said to them, where's the Messiah going to be born? And notice they say to him in Bethlehem.
Now, here's what's interesting. The Magi came from hundreds of miles away. It took them a long time to get there. The child was born about six miles from where Herod was. It's a two hour walk.
But he didn't even make the walk on his own. He decides he's not going there. It's right down the road. And so notice what he says in verse seven. Then Herod secretly called the Magi and determined with them the exact time the star appeared and he sent them to Bethlehem. He said, go and search carefully for. Notice not the king. The child. Go and search carefully for the child.
And when you find him, report to me that I too may come and worship him. Now, you know the story. What is Herod's reaction to the birth of Jesus Christ? Infanticide. We have no idea how many baby boys were executed.
Every baby boy, two years old, killed them all. Now you see why people don't really preach on Herod much. If you were going to categorize Herod, how would you categorize him? I mean, he's a despicable human being no matter how you kind of look at him. No doubt about that.
But if I were going to categorize him, I would categorize him with one word. Pride. Herod is proud.
And in fact, it's my in my estimation, that's why he's in the birth narrative. Herod is to show man for what man is. He's proud. He's really proud. In fact, if you think about it from those point of view, is there anything on earth that has ever been as destructive as pride? You start thinking about what pride does.
T.S. Eliot said most of the trouble in the world is by people wanting to be important. That's what pride does. And when you think about it, pride always hurts people.
Always. Pride always hurts people. How many apologies were never spoken? Because of pride.
How many compliments were never given? Because of pride. How many broken hearts and broken marriages and broken children come at the expense of pride? You see, pride in itself, this is what Herod represents. When you think of pride, pride is the essence of sin. Remember Lucifer?
This great, beautiful star of the morning. And then you realize when he writes in Isaiah 14 that five times he said what? I will sit on the holy mountain. I will be like the most high.
I will. Ezekiel 28 tells us because he looked at himself and what did he feel? Pride. It's the essence of sin. When he went to the Garden of Eden and he talks to Eve, what does he say to her through the serpent? If you eat this of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will be what?
Like God. It's pride. That's what Herod represents to us in this narrative. He represents pride. You see, pride is something that comes natural to us. We're proudful.
We do so many things because of our pride. When I was young, I would say I was about 10 years old up the road from where I lived. They decided to do construction at St. Gregory's Church, and they were building a new convent for the nuns to stay in. And in Pennsylvania, you have real basements under your home. And so you have to dig the basement out and then you have to put the floor down and the wall is up and then you build the house on top of the basement.
And so when they dug the basement out for the new convent, they had this enormous pile of dirt off to the side. And as a typical 10-year-old boy when we had all kinds of extra time in our hands, we decided that would be a great place to play. And so we started playing. We played all afternoon. I don't remember too many things except that it was difficult.
I probably had my shirt ripped, pants probably ruined, probably got some scratches. You see, we played a game called King of the Hill. You play King of the Hill.
Now, the whole point of King of the Hill doesn't have any rules. The King of the Hill is one guy stands up on top of the hill and he's the king. Then everyone else tries to climb the hill. Now, you climb the hill at all costs, no matter what it takes. And then what you do is you eventually get up and throw the king off the hill and then you're the king of the hill until they come up and throw you off.
And we must have done this like all afternoon. But you know, for most people it's not a game. King of the Hill is not a game at all. People always get hurt.
You don't do it on hills, you do it in classrooms or boardrooms or bedrooms. But it's pride. It's what comes natural to us. You see, if you want to be king, someone's going to get hurt.
It's always the way it works in life. That's what the essence of pride is like. No wonder the Apostle Paul said in Romans 12, he said, Do not think more highly of yourself than you ought to. He warns us about this.
G.K. Chesterton said this, How much larger your life would be if you could only become a little smaller in it. That's the essence of this. Herod represents us. He represents what human pride is like. He's the worst of us when it comes to this.
But he's just like us as well. I want you to go with me and see what God thinks of pride. Go with me to Proverbs chapter 8. Proverbs chapter 8 and verse 13. Proverbs 8 and verse 13. Solomon writes first the principle, the fear of the Lord is to hate evil.
That's what we should do. If you fear the Lord, you hate evil. But notice what he says then. Pride and arrogance and the evil way and the perverted mouth and then God is speaking. And what are those last two words of the verse? I hate. There are not a lot of things in the Bible God will say I hate. But he hates pride. He hates pride. You see, he finds no room for pride at all.
But he's not done even there. Go with me to Proverbs 16. Proverbs 16. Verse 5. Proverbs 16 and verse 5. Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord as surely he will not go unpunished. Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord.
He not only hates it, he said it's an abomination to be proudful. And then he goes on and it's not an idle threat. He said as surely he will not go unpunished. What's God saying? I'll get you. I will.
Eventually I'll get you. Notice verse 18 of chapter 16 of Proverbs. Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before stumbling. God not only hates it, it's not only an abomination to God, but God says I'm going to get you for that.
It's always in God's timing, but he said I'm going to do it. You see, and it usually takes a long time because one of the worst things about pride, and I'm sure Herod had it too, if you know people that are proud, they don't know they're proud. Someone has said pride is the mask of how we mask all of our own faults. That's what pride does. People who are proudful don't even know they're being proudful.
Everybody around them knows. And the reason is because pride always hurts everybody. In Philippians 2, Paul said do nothing from selfish arrogance or empty conceit. In 1 Peter 5, 5, Peter wrote God is opposed to the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.
That's one of the things you see in the word of God, and that's part of the birth narrative. God hates pride. God loves humility.
And here's the issue for us. Pride comes natural to us. Humility is choice we make. Pride comes natural to you, but humility is a choice that you make.
That's what he tells us. Notice what happens when we're humble. Go to Proverbs 11. Proverbs 11 in verse 2.
God says this, when pride comes, then comes dishonor. But with the humble is wisdom. The first thing God says is, do you know what I'll give people that are humble? I'll give them wisdom. Now with pride they're going to get dishonor, but with humility they're going to get wisdom, he said.
That's going to come from me. Then look at Proverbs 15 and verse 33. Here he writes this, the fear of the Lord is the instruction for wisdom, and before honor comes humility. God says I'll give someone who is humble, I'll give them wisdom, and I'll give that person honor. This is coming from God.
He's not finished. Go back to the book of Psalms with me to your left, to Psalm 25 in verse 9. Psalm 25 in verse 9.
He said concerning this, verse 8 I'll pick it up. Good and upright is the Lord, therefore he instructs sinners in the way. He leads the humble in justice, and he teaches the humble his way. God says I'll not only give the humble wisdom and give them honor, I'll give them justice, but I'll also give them direction. I will lead humble people. This makes sense, because if you're not humble you'll never let the Lord lead you.
He said there is the difference, and the Bible is just full of quotes like this. Psalm 138, though the Lord is supreme, he takes care of those who are humble. Isaiah 57, God says I live with people who are humble.
Isaiah 66, these are the ones I look on with favor, those who are humble and contrite. That's what you have in the birth narrative. You have this king, Herod the Great is his name, and opposite this king you have this stable in Bethlehem, and this little baby born to two obscure people. The difference between human pride and true humility, that's what the birth narrative is about.
God says can I make this picture any clearer to you? I hate pride, and I love humility. That would mean that I would have to think about my achievements less and God's achievements more.
You have to do that. It means that I have to spend less time on my throne and more time at the feet of his cross. It means we have to spend less time bragging about our work and bragging about his work. See the Bible says something about you, you are valuable, but you're not invaluable. Only the Lord is that. I love what Jesus said in Matthew 11, he said, I am gentle and humble in heart. I want you to think about that for a moment, I am gentle and humble in heart. Would there ever be anybody else who ever lived who should be as proud as Jesus was? Anybody. You see when we talk about pride, is there anybody who ever lived that should be as proud as Jesus was?
No one. And Jesus says of himself, he said, look, I am gentle and humble in heart. He's made a choice, and I want you to show you how this choice works. Go with me now to Philippians chapter two, Philippians chapter two and verse three. And this really is about the birth narrative or the Christmas story.
This is what really happened spiritually there. Verse three says this, do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit. It's a commandment. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit.
Now I want to ask you, how much wiggle room does that verse give you? See, it didn't say some things, little things, a few things. We said do nothing.
There should do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit. Now you say, but I'm not like that. OK, let's see if you pass the test. Next part of the verse. But with humility of mind. Here we go. That's the humility.
Now watch. Regard one another is more important than yourselves. Does that describe you?
Is that you? Do you regard everyone else as more important than you are? And I don't mean like in this room.
Christians are really good on Sunday mornings in a house of worship. I mean, how about when you're at a restaurant? Do you regard the servers more important than you?
Really? Do you? You see, do you regard the guy who comes and mows your grass as more important than you are? See, you got to be honest here. He didn't say just a few people or regard people who really are more important than you. He said you regard everybody as more important than you. See, what does that take on your part? You have to choose to be humble.
You have to make a choice because this isn't natural and you know it's not. He said, do not merely look out for your own personal interest. You have to look out for the interest of others. You think about your life that way in everything you run into, no matter who you run into.
You see, that's what humility does. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts, or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called oneplace.com. That's oneplace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.
At that website, you will find not only today's broadcast, but also many of our previous audio programs as well. At Fellowship in the Word, we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible. We ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help this radio ministry continue its broadcast on this radio station by supporting us monthly or with just a one-time gift. Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word, 4600 Clearview Parkway, Metairie, Louisiana 7006. If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original format, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bill delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnola.org.
That's fbcnola.org. At our website, you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for, or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online, or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember, you can do all of this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt, thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word.
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