Back to Bethlehem – Part 1

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It's active now through December 31st. To give a special year-end gift, go to ptv.org slash donate or follow the link in our show notes. Now here's today's podcast from Pathway to Victory. Hi, this is Robert Jeffress, and I'm glad to study God's Word with you every day on this Bible teaching program.

On today's edition of Pathway to Victory. This is where we see Joseph and Mary. Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor Dr. Robert Jeffress. You know, every year at Christmas, the world pauses to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.

But often the busyness of this holiday season distracts us from its true meaning. Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress takes this opportunity to reflect upon the remarkable birth of Jesus and the beauty of God's plan to redeem mankind. Now here's our Bible teacher to introduce today's message.

Dr. Jeffress. Thanks, David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory. This month, we're giving our complete focus to the centerpiece of our faith, the Lord Jesus Christ.

He is always the perfect topic and especially so as we prepare for the Christmas celebration coming just a few weeks from now. Before we get started with our study, I'm excited to let you know that the brand new Pathway to Victory daily devotional for 2025 is in-house and ready to send to your home. This devotional has become a wonderful tradition at Pathway to Victory, and I have to say this edition is the most beautiful one we've ever published. It's more than 500 pages in length, leather-bound, and includes a reading for every weekday of the coming new year.

Now here's the best part. The Pathway to Victory daily devotional is yours when you give a generous gift toward the Light the Darkness matching challenge. This arrangement not only gives you access to the devotional, but your generous gift is automatically matched and doubled in size because of this matching challenge. Your $100 gift becomes $200. A $500 gift becomes $1,000.

A $5,000 gift would be matched until it becomes $10,000. And on it goes. When you give generously, you empower Pathway to Victory to inspire people around the world to follow Jesus Christ, the Light of the world. I'll share more details later in today's program, but right now it's time to turn our attention to the Word of God. We're looking at Luke chapter 2 where we find the familiar story of our Lord's birth. I've titled my message, delivered in April, Back to Bethlehem.

I have some breaking news for you. Only 258 shopping days left until Christmas. Now just saying that in jest, I can tell sends panic throughout the congregation. I mean, you can't help but fast forward to December and trying to navigate through the crowded malls and the unending Christmas parties and being together with those family members with whom there's a strained relationship. I mean, no wonder by the time December 25th finally rolls around, we're all fatigued and tired of Christmas.

I think about the story of the little girl who was learning to pray what we call the Lord's Prayer. One night her dad walked past the bedroom, the door was opened, he saw his little girl kneeling by the bed and praying the Lord's Prayer and he heard her say, and Lord, forgive us of our Christmases as we forgive those who Christmas against us. Maybe you feel like you've been Christmas against by the time Christmas finally arrives.

You know, it's trite, but it's nevertheless true. So many times the distractions of the holiday season cause us to lose sight of what Christmas is really about. The entrance of the Savior of the world into the world. And that thought gave me a little bit of comfort when I was preparing this week's message. You know, in our study of Luke, we've come to Luke chapter two, and I have to admit to you, I wasn't that excited about this week's message.

Not because of the content, but because of the timing. I mean, don't you kind of need to have a little chill in the air, need to have the lights, the decorations, the holiday music to get in the Christmas mood to really appreciate Luke chapter two? And yet I want to suggest to you today that perhaps the best time to look at the story of Christ's birth is not around the holiday season when it gets lost with everything else.

But perhaps the best time to examine what this story really is about is a day like today. And so today, I'm going to invite you to take your Bibles and turn back to Luke chapter two as we take a journey back to Bethlehem to talk about the most important birth in human history. Now, I want you to think of Luke's account of this birth as a play in three different acts. This is a three-act play, and it begins act one, not in Bethlehem, but it occurs hundreds of miles away from Bethlehem in the seat of world power. Then it wasn't New York City or Washington, D.C., the seat of world power was Rome.

The story begins, you know it well. Now, it came about in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. This was the first census taken while Kyrenius was governor of Syria. Now, why does Luke give us all of this historical background? Remember, he was writing this as a letter to a man named Theophilus, lover of God, probably a recent convert. And he was trying to show Theophilus that the story of Christianity is not rooted in fantasy or fable, it is rooted in historical fact.

And the setting for this story is something everyone was well aware of when Luke wrote this letter. 60 years earlier, Luke reminded Theophilus, 60 years earlier, Caesar Augustus, the Roman emperor, had issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire world for the purpose of taxation. Now, let's talk about Caesar Augustus for just a moment. Did you know this is the only time he's mentioned in the Bible?

But he's a well-known figure in secular history. Now, Caesar Augustus was his title. Caesar, his position as emperor. Augustus was his chosen name.

It means venerable, the venerable emperor. His real name, his birth name, was Octavian. Now, we know about Octavian from secular history. He was the grand nephew of Julius Caesar. And when Julius Caesar was assassinated, he left his kingdom to his grand nephew, Octavian. Octavian ruled Rome from 27 B.C.

until A.D. 14. He did a number of notable things. He's probably best known for establishing the Pax Romana, the Roman peace throughout the world. But as often happens, this successful ruler began to believe his own press clippings. And so he gave himself another title, Pontifex Maximus, highest priest.

And he commanded that the entire kingdom begin to engage in emperor worship. Now, this was Caesar Augustus. And at this particular time in history, the government in Rome faced a very familiar problem. They were spending more money than they were taking in.

Sound familiar? Have you ever noticed how government, when that happens, they never think about cutting expenses? The knee-jerk reaction is what Caesar Augustus' reaction was.

Let's raise taxes. And so in order to tax the world, to tax the empire, there were no IRS computers back then to track people down like dogs and make them pay. No, instead, if you were gonna get tax money from people, you had to know who the people were. So he had to have them registered in order to be able to tax them.

Now, the Roman government was very methodical in how they were gonna conduct this census. The head of each household would go back to the place of his birth where the family records were kept in order to register for the census. So if you were a head of household and you lived in Nazareth, but were born in Jerusalem, you'd go to Jerusalem. If you lived in Jerusalem, but were born in Nazareth, you'd go the opposite direction. And this is where we see Joseph and Mary, this couple we met last time.

Joseph was the head of the household. And so he was commanded to go to the place of his birth. He lived in Nazareth, but he was commanded to go to his birthplace, which was Bethlehem. Look at verses four and five. And Joseph also went up from Galilee.

Wait a minute. Galilee's in the north. Bethlehem's 80 miles to the south. What do you mean he went up from Galilee?

He's talking about the elevation. Even though Galilee was in the north, if you traveled southward, you were really going up in elevation as you came toward Jerusalem and Bethlehem. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, that's up in the north, down to the south, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, in order to register along with Mary, who was engaged to him and was with child. Remember last time, the angel had just come, Gabriel, to Mary and said, you're going to give birth to the Savior.

Now we've skipped about eight or nine months. And now at this point, Mary is pregnant, very pregnant, and they're on their way to Bethlehem. Now the question is, why does Luke refer Mary as the one who was engaged to Joseph? Remember the angel told Joseph what had happened and told him to go ahead and marry Mary. The fact was they had been betrothed, engaged, but once Joseph got the word, he took Mary as his wife. Why does Luke now, nine months later, say they were simply engaged?

I think the reason is found in Matthew 1.25. Remember the Bible says that Joseph kept Mary a virgin until she gave birth to a son. Even though by this time they had gone through the marriage ceremony, they were still living like an engaged couple. They had not had a sexual relationship and would not until Jesus was born. That's why he refers to Mary as Joseph's fiancé rather than wife. Now the question comes up, why did Mary go with Joseph to Bethlehem?

The law only required Joseph to be the one to go to Bethlehem. Why would Mary, about to deliver a child, ride on the back of a donkey for 85 miles down to Bethlehem? Well, I think there are three reasons.

The first reason is the obvious reason. Because she was so close to birth, Joseph didn't want to leave her by herself. Second reason is Mary had been the subject of some very vicious rumors about her pregnancy. Remember the story was going around that Mary's pregnancy was not divine.

It was the result of a one-night stand with a Roman soldier named Panthera. And Joseph wanted to spare her all of this small-town gossip, so he took her with him. But the third reason that Mary went is perhaps the most important reason. About 700 years earlier, God had prophesied through a prophet named Micah these words found in Micah 5-2. But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah. From you one will go forth from me to be ruler in Israel.

His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity. God had predicted the exact place of the Messiah's birth. It would be in this little town of Bethlehem. So for that to be fulfilled, Mary had to go to Bethlehem to bring this thing to pass.

Bethlehem was such a small town, it wasn't even listed in the registry of towns found in Joshua 15 or Nehemiah 11. Now what I want you to think about for a moment is how God used natural events to bring about his supernatural plan. Think about this. With one stroke of the pen, Caesar Augustus, hundreds of miles away, the most powerful man in the world, with one stroke of his pen, he signed an edict that would have ramifications he could have never imagined. It would cause a man named Joseph, whom he had never met, to travel to a little village called Bethlehem, Augustus had never heard of, in order that Joseph's wife might give birth to the king of the universe. A king whose followers within just a few hundred years would topple the entire Roman Empire.

Isn't that an amazing thought? What I want you to see is God uses natural events to bring about his supernatural plan. You know, you open the newspaper today, turn on the television set, you think the world is spinning out of control. Terrorist threats, political upheaval, increasing tensions in the Middle East, we think the world is out of control.

It's not out of control. As A.T. Pearson says, history is really his story. It's the story of Jesus Christ. And as God said through Jeremiah the prophet, I am watching over my word to perform it.

Act one of this play began in Rome. Act two, we go to a small inn in Bethlehem. Look at verses six and seven. And it came about that while they were there, the days were completed for Mary to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and she wrapped him in cloths and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn. Isn't it interesting only two verses record the most important birth in history. Ken Guyer, a gifted author, in his book, Intimate Moments with the Savior, uses his sanctified imagination to paint a picture for us of what that experience must have been like.

Listen to this. By the time Mary and Joseph arrive, the small hamlet of Bethlehem is swollen from an influx of travelers. The inn is packed, people feeling lucky if they were able to negotiate even a small space on the floor.

Now it is late. Everyone is asleep and there is no room. But fortunately the innkeeper is not all about shekels and mites. True, his stable is crowded with his guests' animals.

But if they could squeeze out a little privacy there, Mary and Joseph were welcome to it. Joseph looks over at Mary, whose attention is concentrated on fighting a contraction. We'll take it, he tells the innkeeper, without hesitation. The night is still when Joseph creaks open the stable door. As he does, a chorus of barn animals make and respond with a note of the intrusion. The stench is pungent and humid, as there have not been enough hours in the day for the innkeeper to tend the guests, let alone the livestock.

A small oil lamp, lengthened by the innkeeper, flickers to dance shadows on the walls. A disquieting place for a woman in the throes of childbirth. Far from home, far from family, far from what she had expected for her firstborn. But Mary makes no complaint.

It is a relief just to finally get off the donkey. She leans back against the wall, her feet swollen, back aching, contractions growing stronger and closer together. Joseph sighs, dart around the stable, not a minute to lose. Quickly, a feeding trough would have to make for a crib. Hay would serve as a mattress. Blankets, blankets all his robe would do.

And those rags hung out to dry would help. A gripping contraction doubles Mary over and sends him racing for a bucket of water. A scream from Mary knifes through the calm of that silent night. Joseph returns breathless, water sloshing from the wooden bucket. Sweat pours from Mary's contorted face as Joseph, the most unlikely midwife in Judea, rushes to her side. The involuntary contractions are not enough and Mary has to push with all of her strength. Joseph places a garment beneath her and with a final push and a long sigh, her labor is over. The Messiah has arrived.

You know, I think C.S. Lewis had it right when he said, the greatest miracle of all time is not the atonement or even the resurrection. The greatest miracle is the incarnation, God becoming flesh. Max Lucado says it this way, stepping from the throne, God removed his robe of light and wrapped himself in skin, pigmented human skin. The light of the world entered a dark, wet womb. He whom angels worship nestled himself in the placenta of a peasant, was birthed into a cold night and then slept on cow's hay. An interviewer once asked the famed designer Versace if he believed in God. Versace responded, yes, I believe in God, but I'm not the kind of religious person who goes to church, who believes in the fairy tale of Jesus born in the stable with a donkey.

I'm not stupid. I can't believe that God with all the power that he has would have to have himself born in a stable. It wouldn't have been comfortable.

But that's the whole point, isn't it? That God was willing to give up the comfort of heaven. He and the person of his son Jesus was willing to come to earth, to be born in the most humble circumstances, and he came not to be worshipped, not at the beginning anyway. He came to be sacrificed for our sins. Paul said it this way in Philippians 2 in talking about Jesus Christ.

Although he existed in the form of God, he did not regard his equality with God a thing to be grasped, but he emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of men, and being found in the appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. The final act of this play occurs on a hill outside of Bethlehem. Look at verse 8. And in the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night. Many of us have been to this place, Shepherds Field, where this occurred. Now you have to know something about shepherds to appreciate what is going on here. Shepherds represented the lowest rung in the Jewish culture. Shepherds took care of dirty and smelly sheep. And because they did so, they were dirty and smelly themselves.

There was no sure deodorant back then to take the stench away. So if you were going to have a party, guess who you would never invite to your party? They never made it to any A-list parties, the shepherds. They were the outcasts of Jewish society. Isn't it interesting that God chose to make his announcement at the Savior's birth, not to the political leaders in Rome, not to the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. He chose to make this announcement to these smelly, dirty shepherds. Look at how it came about, verse 9. And the angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terribly frightened.

I would think so. Can you imagine out there in the darkness when suddenly Gabriel appears? And Gabriel said to them, do not be afraid.

Notice how that's his entering line every time he runs into somebody. Don't be afraid. They had every right to be afraid. For behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which shall be for all the people. For today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior who is Christ the Lord. Well, there were many babies probably born that night in Jerusalem, in all of Israel. So to be more specific, he gave this sign, verse 12. And this will be a sign for you.

You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. We're just getting started in this important study of Luke chapter 2. And please stay with us because David will explain how to receive the entire collection of unedited CDs and DVDs for this teaching series. It's called, Reigniting Your Passion for Christ. But first, let me encourage you with the wonderful report that Pathway to Victory is looking back on these last 12 months with a deep sense of joy.

Because we have witnessed a record-breaking season of growth. We've surpassed our goals in reaching more people than ever before through radio, television, the internet, and digital streaming platforms. As we get acquainted with thousands of new listeners, here's what I've discovered.

Pathway to Victory listeners are learners. Well, along these lines, I'm pleased to offer you the brand new Pathway to Victory Daily Devotional for 2025. This handsome leather-bound volume was written so that I could come alongside you every day in the new year as we walk together in faith. The daily devotional will be sent to your home when we receive your request, along with a generous gift toward the Light the Darkness matching challenge. In this arrangement, every dollar you give to Pathway to Victory will be matched and therefore doubled in size between now and the deadline of December 31st.

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Thanks, Dr. Jeffress. Today, when you give a generous year-end gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory, we'll say thanks by sending you the brand new 2025 Pathway to Victory Daily Devotional. Simply call 866-999-2965 or visit ptv.org. And when your gift is $100 or more, we'll also send you our current series called Re-Igniting Your Passion for Christ.

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That's P.O. Box 223-609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. I'm David J. Mullins. Join us again Wednesday when Dr. Jeffress concludes this important message titled Back to Bethlehem. That's right here on Pathway to Victory.

Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. You made it to the end of today's podcast from Pathway to Victory, and we're so glad you're here. Pathway to Victory relies on the generosity of loyal listeners like you to make this podcast possible. And right now, your special year-end gift will be matched and therefore doubled in impact thanks to the Light the Darkness matching challenge. Take advantage of this opportunity to double your impact before the deadline on December 31st. To give toward the matching challenge, go to ptv.org slash donate or follow the link in our show notes. We hope you've been blessed by today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.