Destination-Driven Dreams, Part 3

God's will is a mysterious thing. In fact, trying to figure out His plan for our lives can feel like assembling an impossible jigsaw puzzle.

We hold the tiny pieces in the palm of our hand, waiting for clarity to come so we can punch them together and see the complete picture. Well, today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll brings clarity to this mysterious topic. He's teaching from Matthew chapter two. In this passage, we observe Joseph in the middle of a sensational visit from an angel. Chuck titled today's message, Destination Driven Dreams.

After the wise men are gone, an angel of the Lord appears to Joseph in a dream. Get up! Flee! Get away from Bethlehem!

Be on your way! So it's in the middle of the night. That's when you get dreams. And he says, get up! Get up, Joseph!

Flee to Egypt with the child and his mother. The angel said, stay there until I tell you to return because Herod is going to search for the child to kill him. Middle of the night, Joseph is awakened and he hears something he'd never sort of say he never dreamed he would hear before. He never imagined.

And now he's told, get up, get out. That night, you haven't respected Joseph maybe until now, but look at this. Here's a man who's married a woman who is pregnant and he can never fully explain it to anyone else how God did that.

To this day, we can't explain it. It's a miracle, that baby in her womb. And he's willing to marry her while she's three months pregnant and then they go all the way to term and only after six months she has the baby and all the neighbors are talking. We've all talked about that.

We've imagined that. He's willing to go through that. And now they're finally in a place where the child is beginning to grow and the Lord says, get up, go to Egypt. I take it that he's never been to Egypt before. The Lord often leads us to places we've never been before. He says, go to Egypt, take the child and his mother.

By the way, Matthew is very careful. It's never your child with your wife. It's her with her son and you because he has nothing to do with the child biologically. So it says, take the child and his mother and stay there until I tell you to return. Here's the reason why.

Look at this. That night Joseph left for Egypt with the child and Mary his mother. His wife hadn't had the dream.

He had the dream. Mary, Mary, get up, get up, get the baby. We got to get out of here.

What? Get up. She gets up.

She prepares the baby for travel. I take it they left some things in a hurry and they're on their way. While you may be impressed with Mary for getting up right away and trusting her husband and going, I'm impressed with Joseph. He got it. There's not a resistance. There's not an argument.

There's not any wrestling. Let's go. God says this, let's go. They didn't go to Egypt licking their wounds. They went to Egypt trusting God even though it was a sudden quick decision and a big one. So that night they left.

They stayed there. In fact, it fulfilled what Hosea has written in chapter 11 verse 1. You'll see the words, I called my son out of Egypt. Matthew lifts that verse out of Hosea 11 one and says that fulfilled that prediction.

But he's not through. So they're in Egypt. We don't know how long. We don't know what they did. Probably they used the gold from the Wiseman's gift to finance the trip.

They would need money for food. Maybe he was able to buy another beast to ride on so they could make the travel on four legs instead of their own. And they made their way to Egypt. I should add that Herod threw a fit. Verse 16, he was furious when he realized a wise man had outwitted him and he sent soldiers to kill all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under based on the wise men's report of the star's first appearance.

Remember my last message when I spent time on verse 7? He wanted to know specifically when the star first appeared because Herod is doing the math. He's figuring how old the child is now. So that's why he kills them two years old and younger. He had figured the baby Jesus, the Savior, the King of the Jews must be that age. So he kills all the boys that age and younger. Now there's another dream that appears to them in Egypt.

Look at this. Look at verse, oh I forgot the fulfillment of the prophecy. Look at Jeremiah's prophecy verse 18. He mentions that that comes from Jeremiah 31 15.

Check it for yourself. Matthew applies what happened when Herod slaughtered the children with that verse of Scripture. Now look at the next verse 19 when Herod died. You think God doesn't know what's going on on earth?

He doesn't need the evening news. He knows exactly what's happening. He has a timetable and a plan unfolding and his will is being done cutting through all of the garbage of our times. He's carrying out his plan and so Joseph and Mary have no way of knowing Herod died.

They're involved in the lifestyle of Alexandria or wherever they landed in Egypt. And so the angel appears in a dream. Look at it. It says to Joseph, get up. He's heard those words before, hasn't he? Get up. Take the child and his mother back to the land of Israel because those who were trying to kill the child are dead. Don't you love it?

Joseph got up and returned. May I add a thought here? So did Mary. It's easy to forget, isn't it? Especially if you're not married or maybe have never been married. It's easy to forget what a oneness there is between husband and wife. You live together, you think together, you pray together, you plan together, you cooperate with God's will together. Very important that you remember that and if you choose not to do that, don't get married.

Stay single. But if you marry, there is a union. The very first wedding ceremony, God says, for this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and listen to this, and shall be joined to his wife.

It's the word for gluing, bonding. Shall be bonded to his wife and the two of them are one flesh. I love to read at wedding ceremonies where I am officiating the words of the late Peter Marshall who said, marriage is not a federation of two sovereign states, it is a union. Domestic, social, spiritual, physical. It is a fusion of two hearts, the union of two lives, the coming together of two tributaries which after being joined in marriage will flow in the same channel, in the same direction, carrying the same burdens of responsibility and obligation.

Oh that's great counsel. You're not ready for that, you're not ready for marriage. Marriage means you do that with one another. So there's no battle with Mary. He married her not knowing all the details and she marries him, trusting him to guide the family and he does that. So she believes him, he says we've got to leave, we've got to go back, so they go to the land of Israel.

Now here's where things get a little squirrely. Look at verse 21, Joseph got up, Mary is with him, they get the baby ready, they leave Egypt, they make that long trek back to Israel. Now where would you go if you returned to Israel?

You'd go to where you were before, right? Which is Judea. But there's a problem, because with the death of Herod, one of his three sons, Archelaus, was provided the larger portion of his inheritance, which means Samaria and Edomia and Judea. The problem with Archelaus is that he's cut out of the same piece of soiled cloth as characterized his father. He is as wicked as his dad, not uncommon, like father, like son. He's never broken. His dad never disciplined him or taught him to do what is right.

His dad's too busy doing wrong. So suddenly when Joseph gets close enough for the scuttlebutt to come down the caravan trail and he gets word regarding life in Israel, especially around Jerusalem and Bethlehem, he hears, you know, Archelaus is now the new ruler. Oh, wait a minute. Archelaus?

Look at what it says. He got up and returned to the land of Israel with Jesus his mother, but when he learned the new ruler of Judea was Herod's son, Archelaus, he was afraid to go there. So what does he do? He waits on God. Rather than just plunging into it and putting his child at risk or his wife, because Archelaus is anti-Semitic to the core, he waits. And we read then, after being warned, here it is again, in a dream. So they spend the night on the way and in the middle of the night he gets another dream. And he left for the region of Galilee because he was warned in a dream not to go where they had been. So the family went and lived in a town called Nazareth.

And we are. Isn't it great how the story ties together? I love it when it's all woven and the tapestry pulls together in this beautiful fabric of meaning and significance. That's how they come back to Nazareth. Or they could have been left in Egypt for a long time. No, they couldn't because the prophets had said, look at the last line, he will be called a Nazarene.

I feel like giving you an assignment, but you would be frustrated if I did. You find where that's found in the Old Testament. It isn't there.

So I'll save you the look. I know, I've been looking. And my search found that not only from the scriptures, but also from books that I checked, there's never a mention in the Old Testament of he shall be called a Nazarene. But Matthew says the prophets said he would be called that. Prophets plural. So the Bible contradicts itself. Let's go on. No, that's what a cynic would say.

There's a reason for this. Not everything spoken by the prophets is written in the New Testament. Okay? For example, just as our Lord taught us, we read in Acts chapter 20, it's more blessed to give than to receive. I'm wanting to find that verse. Hmm. It's somewhere in the book of Acts.

That's your challenge to find it when you get home. But you've heard it. It's more blessed to give than receive like our Lord taught us. But the problem is nowhere in the Gospels does the Lord teach that. So how could he say the Lord taught it if it's not there? Because many things the Lord said are not recorded in the Gospels, but he still said it. A number of things the prophets wrote do not find their way into the Old Testament, but they said them.

And they were passed down through godly parents. I found the verse. Acts 20 verse 35. I wouldn't have been able to sleep tonight if I had not been able to find that verse, and I'd have had another wild dream about something else.

Anyway, 2035. So where does that leave us? What does this have to say to us? Don't you wonder when you get through a passage like this?

What about the will of God and us? This is my favorite part of a message. Unfortunately, some people leave before they get to hear it, all right?

Let's go to them. There are three points I want to make here. Verses 13 to 18, remember?

Joseph is told to get up and go, get out of town because Hera is going to kill the children. Here's the first principle. Sometime God's will is sudden and quick. I would call this learning the discipline of trusting. I've been led to do some things quickly. Not many, but sometime the Lord makes it clear, do this now. Don't wait. Let's say I should talk to one of our children about something that's going to be dangerous for them. There's no time to wait. They're leaving. I may not see them for a long time. Tell them now. Say it now, and I will quickly move into that. I have to trust the Lord to use the words even though they're decided quickly.

Whatever may be your situation. Remember the Lord tells Joseph to pull up stakes and go now, and he got up that night and left. Sometime God's will is sudden and quick.

The discipline of trusting. Now the next time, verses 19 to 22, remember the Lord tells Joseph to pull up stakes in Egypt and go back to where they were. So he's on his way to Israel and he realizes that there's another beast ruling the throne there named Archelaus, and he's surprised and confused.

So let's go with that. Second, sometimes God's will is surprising and confusing. I admit that. It's called the discipline of waiting. You get to where the Lord led you and you get confused because things are very, very different. It wasn't as you thought they would work out.

Maybe it's very difficult, not just different. And you're surprised, you're confused. So like Joseph, you wait. Lord, I know you led me here. I'm not going to doubt in the dark what you gave me in the light.

I'm going to trust you to guide me. God answers prayer one of three ways. Yes, no, or wait. It's easy to confuse a no with a wait or a wait for a no. So in this case I'm suggesting that the Lord told Joseph to wait.

He was where he should have been, but the details are not yet worked out. I'll guide you through that. Here's the third and maybe the most important because it applies to most of us. Verses 22 and 23. Remember the Lord led the little family to Nazareth.

You know what? You won't read anything more of Jesus in Matthew's gospel till he's a 30-year-old man being baptized by John the baptizer. Between his very, very, very small childhood and age 30. Silent years. Probably was a carpenter like Joseph, but they were years spent on obscurity away from the activity of life, away from any role of leadership, probably trained in the synagogue schools or at his mother's knee.

We do know from Luke 2 that at age 12 they went to the temple and he showed himself to be beyond his years, came back and all that. That's the only little glimmer. So let me give you the third principle. Occasionally God's will is mysteriously mundane. Mysteriously mundane. I call this the discipline of accepting. I'll spell it out and I'm through. You may have been very significant in a role you once filled, but now the Lord has clearly led you to this place where you are in life where no one is asking for your presence, your message, your leadership, your decision.

Life's kind of gotten mundane. You may very well be right in the center of his will. Jesus was for 28, 29 years. Lived in Nazareth. No record here or in any other part of the scriptures tells us of anything significant that happened. In fact, later when he came from Nazareth, one of the disciples said, can anything good come out of Nazareth? It's a backwater town.

There's a garrison there of Roman soldiers and some said that the baby Mary had came from a Roman soldier. Another lie. But there he lives, putting up with neighbors who saw him as an illegitimate son, dealing with people who saw him as nothing more than the kid who played with their kid or the young teenager who grew up in the carpenter's shop or the one who built the cabinet for their kitchen. Pretty simple life.

If you're there, accept it. Hudson Taylor knew the testing that tempers the steel of the soul. He settled with his little family in the east end of London. Outside interests lessened. Friends began to forget them. And five long hidden years were spent in the dreary streets of a poor part of London, where the tailors were shut up to prayer and patience. Yet within those hidden years, with all their growth and testing, how could the vision and enthusiasm of youth have been matured for the leadership that was to be? Faith, faithfulness, devotion, self-sacrifice. Unremitting labor, patient, persevering prayer became their portion. But more, there is the deep, prolonged exercise of a soul following hard after God. The gradual strengthening here of a man called to walk by faith, not by sight. The unutterable confidence of a heart claiming to God and God alone, which pleases him as nothing else can.

Listen to this. As the years of obscurity progressed, prayer was the only way by which the burdened heart could obtain any relief. And when the discipline was complete, did you hear the word?

The discipline of accepting was complete. There emerged the China Inland Mission. At first only a tiny root, but destined of God to fill the land of China with gospel fruit. That is where Hudson Taylor learned the discipline of accepting God's will. Prepared him for the loss of more than one wife in the cold, barren wastelands of China.

The first to go into China with the message of the gospel was prepared in the mundane condition of a poor section of London. One man writes, in every life there is a pause that is better than onward rush, better than hewing and mightiest doing. Tis the standing still at sovereign will. There's a hush that's better than ardent speech, better than sighing or wilderness crying. Tis the being still at sovereign will. The pause and the hush sing a double song.

In unison, lo and for all time long, oh human soul, God's working plan goes on, nor needs the aid of man. Stand still and see. Be still and know. Please bow with me. Wherever you find yourself, may the discipline necessary for that time become yours.

Think about your situation. You may be in a discipline of trusting God since he brought you here unexpectedly or where you are in life. It may be a discipline of waiting on God because it's confusing and surprising.

It may be a discipline of accepting God's plan. As the mundane days stack into weeks and months and years, be still and know that he's God. Thank you Father for all you teach us in the disciplines of life, including the discipline of delay.

When you put us on a shelf, you set us aside and you have us wait and wait and learn and grow. To be prepared for what it is you have for us in our later years. Guide us Father, clearly in your will. And may we seek that and not our own will. For your glory and for the glory of Christ.

In whose name we pray, everyone said, Amen. Knowing God's will is an essential part of the Christian life, but following or trusting God's will is equally important and sometimes even more difficult. You're listening to Insight for Living and the Bible teaching of pastor and author Chuck Swindoll. To learn more about this ministry visit us online at insightworld.org. Perhaps today's message has motivated you to take your next steps in your spiritual walk.

You're ready to trust God to work out his purposes in your life. Well, Chuck has written a helpful book on this topic. It's called Perfect Trust. In this brief classic, he has written chapters on trusting when we're troubled and trusting God for the impossible. To purchase Chuck's book called Perfect Trust, go to insight.org slash store. In addition, Chuck has written a brand new commentary that complements our year-long study in Matthew.

In fact, because of its scope, it comes in two hardbound volumes. It's called Swindoll's Living Insights Commentary on Matthew. These two books include verse-by-verse insight from Chuck, along with charts, maps, photos, key terms, and articles as well. It's a must-have for pastors, teachers, and anyone who wants to know more about the Bible. To make your purchase of Swindoll's Living Insights Commentary on Matthew or Chuck's popular book called Perfect Trust, visit our online store or call us.

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