A Journey to Jesus (Part 1 of 2)

Music Music The Star of Bethlehem was more than a cosmic wonder. Its presence actually convinced wise men from the East to take a long journey.

Today on Truth for Life Weekend, Alistair Begg explains who those sojourners were and how their journey to Jesus reveals what God's ultimate purpose is for men and women from every nation. Music Matthew 2, verse 1. Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?

For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him. When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him in Bethlehem of Judea, For so it is written by the prophet, And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah.

For from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word that I too may come and worship him. After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way.

Amen. Well, I gave a title to our study this morning, simply A Journey to Jesus. Here we have the record as given to us by Matthew of the arrival of the magi—the magi, a word that is translated variously here in our text, the wise men. And it is the record of how they had made a journey to seek out the one who was born the King of the Jews and found themselves face to face with the Lord Jesus. Now, the whole purpose of God is to bring men and women face to face with his dearly beloved Son, so that we then may come to know him as a Savior, Lord, and friend.

And that's why in the Bible we read consistently of those whose journey to Jesus was life-changing, whether short or long. Now, that may help us to understand just why it was that so far away from these events in Jerusalem, something was brewing, if you like, in the hearts and minds of these people. There they were, the three kings, as Hopkins gives them to us in his Christmas carol. It was a wonderful Christmas carol but full of a lot of things that we can't be confident about. Now, for example, we have no way of knowing whether they were kings. And there's no way of knowing that there were actually three—the fact that there were three gifts. They could have all brought the same gifts. There could have been twelve of them all bringing the same gift. We don't know that either. We don't know what their names were. I think James Taylor, in his little song Going Home by Another Way, helps us a little more.

He begins his song, Those Magic Men, The Magi. Some people call them wise. Or Oriental. Even kings. Well, anyway, these guys. I like that. These guys.

Who were these guys? There's so much mystery that surrounds it, and yet there is so much clarity that is given to us which takes us, you know, into the realm of conjecture. For example, even in the carol that we have just sung, we have these men bowing at a manger bed, when clearly, as the text makes clear, they were some distance now from the manger, and it's highly unlikely that this little boy, who was close to two years of age, would have actually been snuggled up in a kind of manger scene. Anyway, I don't want to disavow you of all your happy thoughts and feelings about, and you're feeling bad now because you gave one of those dreadful Christmas cards to people with the kings on the front. But that's okay.

You can fix it next year. I want to just make three simple observations. I'm not going to delve into this text in the way that we've done before. I want just to consider with you what I'm going to refer to as an unexplained compulsion, and then an unexpected destination, and then what we might refer to as an unrestrained reaction—an unexplained compulsion. We're not told what compelled these individuals to make the journey that they did. I'm thinking now about an inner compulsion. I'm thinking about that which is going on inside of a person. The Bible says, you know, who knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of a man that is in him? And so, it is difficult for us to say just exactly what it was that moved them and drove them in terms of internal conviction and compulsion.

What we do know is what we're told, and that is that they had a fascination with the cosmos, such was their background and their setting, and their interest in this star as it is referred to. And if I may say, I take this as a miraculous phenomenon provided by God for a specific context involving these individuals. I know what is written about the, it could have been this, and it could have been that, and it could have been the next thing. It's all very interesting.

But it doesn't add anything, at least for me, for my simple mind, to the story. I see it much along the lines of the shining light that was brighter than the noonday sun, to which Saul of Tarsus refers—that it was a light shone on me that was just made a radical impact. So, you know, pursue it as you wish, but I'm thinking that this particular phenomenon provided by God was in order to guide them on their way.

We're told that. Who are these individuals? Strictly speaking, they're not astrologers, nor are they astronomers. I think the best thing we could say about them is that they are scientists in the best kind of science. They are scientists, if you like, with a theological bent, with a philosophical interest. They're scientists along the line of, for example, Sir Isaac Newton. If you read of Newton, you know that he was a godly man.

He was devout. He was interested in the Bible and concerned how it would be that his own convictions regarding faith would then manifest themselves in his scientific investigations and discoveries. And these particular individuals, along those lines, were apparently combining their interest in, if you like, the cosmos with a knowledge that they had received from somewhere of messianic expectations, so that because of the way their minds worked, they saw that the movements of the spheres were directly related to events that took place on the earth, so that these cosmic manifestations governed in their minds or at least influenced human life and history. Now, we needn't step back from that unduly, because God, giving to us by way of creation a revelation of himself, uses creation in order to guide and to direct our steps. The psalmist tells us that the heavens declare the glory of God, that the firmament shows his handiwork. So here are these individuals gazing up, as it were, into the skies.

They are putting together the pieces of the puzzle in their own mind. And if the general perspective is accurate—namely, that these individuals hailed from, in modern-day geography, Iraq, or in ancient geography Persia or Babylonia, or even possibly Babylon, the city of Babylon itself—then that will help us at least to get an inkling of how it might be that out of that kind of context they would have this kind of interest that this compulsion would begin to form within them. Because, you will remember, that it was to Babylon that Daniel and his friends were taken when the invasion had come and hauled away many of the brightest and the best and put them in captivity. In that environment, you will remember, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, along with Daniel, were then re-schooled, they were reprogrammed, they were reeducated, they were renamed. And coming out of that process, Daniel emerged as essentially the brightest of the group. And when we read that in the book of Daniel, we realize that he was head and shoulders above his peers in being able to interpret dreams and to explain riddles. And in that great scene, he explains to Nebuchadnezzar, who had been destabilized by this vision that he'd had of a kind of crumbling kingdom that was impacting him dreadfully, and Daniel had explained to him that the God who created the cosmos was the God who was going to set a king on the throne.

That king would rule over an everlasting kingdom. And Daniel, you see, brought to that his own knowledge of the Bible, his own knowledge of the Old Testament—after all, being brought up as a Jewish boy within the home. And his mom and dad presumably must have wondered, What in the world will have happened to him now that he's been taken away? They've reeducated him. They've given him another name. They dress him in different clothes.

He's no longer in the safety and the security of the world that we created for him. But Daniel was able to draw on that which had been given to him in his boyhood. And he knew the oracle of Balaam, which in part conveyed the fact that a star shall come out of Jacob and a scepter shall rise out of Israel. And so, when he spoke in his day, he spoke concerning these things.

Well, you say, So far, so good. But that was a long, long time before these fellows arrived on the scene. Because Daniel was, what, six hundred, six oh five B.C. Yes, but, you know, things have a way of lasting a long, long time, don't they? Well, so you think about the impact of what Daniel and his friends had done, and the lingering aspects and benefits of that in the kingdom.

I actually was allowing my imagination to wander, and it is just my imagination. I was wondering whether there was actually a course being offered in the University of Babylon at the time of these magi and that they had been part and parcel of it. They were dealing in contemporary studies, but they said, you know, we're going to offer this course once again.

It's called The Science, The Sovereignty, and The Signs of Daniel and Their Contemporary Relevance. And perhaps they signed up, and they paid attention. And perhaps that was part and parcel of what triggered it for them. Of course, they wouldn't have been in the class themselves. There would have been others there. It's hard to imagine that they were the only ones who understood these matters. How do we come to this inner compulsion, then, that causes them to take the coalescing of these notions of messianic expectation and cosmic interplanetary activity and say to one another, You know what? I think we should follow the star. And some say, Well, we don't know where it's going to take us. Yes, but I think it'd be a good idea to go.

Everybody else stayed at home. What's happening here? You see, God is a great God. God is seeking worshippers. God is able and willing to employ all kinds of situations, circumstances, signs in order to move those upon whom he has set his love in the direction of his dearly beloved Son. And what you really have here is God accommodating himself to these individuals' scientific quest, their intellectual curiosity, at the same time their limited understanding.

You see, when a journey towards Jesus begins, it may begin way, way, way far away from Jesus as the person. It may begin not with a star in the sky, but it may begin with a blood test report. It may begin with the achievement of a great objective that held such amazing prospect, and yet when taken hold of, there was nothing actually there.

It was like grasping a bubble. God uses all kinds of things, creates within man an inner compulsion. Unexplained. Secondly, in the text itself we realize that they arrive at what we can legitimately refer to as an unexpected destination.

An unexpected destination. Right up until this week, I have always imagined that the wise men rolled into town, as it were, and headed immediately for Herod's palace. And that may well be the case.

But as I read it again, I realized it is possibly not the case. Because they're not summoned until verse 7. Now, of course, they could have been present, gone away, and were resummoned. Of course, this is not a main or a plain thing. But it is equally possible that what had happened was they had arrived now in Jerusalem, and their presence would have been felt, and their inquiries would have been reported, and the word would have reached the royal court that there were a group of folks here, magi, and they're going around the Jerusalem, and they're asking, Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?

They've got some story about a star that they've been following for quite a while. Response to this on the part of he who is the king, King Herod, who has been put in position by the Romans—although he is not from the line of David. He is Idumean. He's paranoid. He's already had one of his wives killed, a couple of his children too.

He's not a person to be toyed with. He lives in the fear that accompanies such paranoia. And as a result of that, when he hears this, Matthew tells us he was troubled.

The verb actually means he was inwardly shaken, and he was upset. Well, after all, if you think about it, if this was to take hold, if this notion was to spread, if there were to be an uprising, then his own position would be in jeopardy. So he needs to get to the bottom of it and assembles all the chief priests and the scribes of the people, verse 4.

His question is straightforward. I need to know where the Christ was to be born. He's not asking the question, Do you think there's going to be a Messiah? Does anyone have any ideas about the possibility, the idea of a Messiah coming? No.

No, no, no. He says, I need to know where the Messiah is to be born. How do we know the answer to this?

Well, the fellow said, it's straightforward. Micah gives us the answer with a little piece of 2 Samuel thrown in there in Bethlehem of Judea. This is what was anticipated by the prophets.

Quite interesting, isn't it? That the star could get them so far, but it couldn't get them all the way there. Yeah, whatever started you off on your journey, or wherever you are on your journey—if you tell me you had a dream or something happened like that—I'll know whether God is at work in it, if and when he brings you to the Bible and brings you to his Son. If he doesn't bring you to the Bible and bring you to his Son, then it's probably more to do with pizza the night before than it is with any kind of divine intervention. Because the purpose of God, the Spirit of God, is given to God's people to draw God's world to God's Son.

That's how it works. So the star may lead them along the way as it does, accommodating himself to their scientific endeavors, but eventually it brings them here. And the answer that is to be found is the answer that is found in the Scriptures and the answer that is given by the people who know. These are the theological scholars of the day. These are the ones who study the law of God. And they are the ones who give a definitive answer.

Now, don't let's miss the contrast that is here. Here we have these fellows that we're regarding as kind of theological scientists, who are arriving with a great concern to get an answer to this search. And here in the precincts of the palace, we have the scholars. And the scholars don't seem remotely concerned about it. The scientists, if you like, care, but they don't have the answers. The scholars have the answers, but they don't care. The magi travel eight hundred miles in search of an answer. The scribes aren't interested in going six miles down the road to Bethlehem to meet the answer. What does this tell us? Well, it tells us a number of things, but at least this. The fundamental mistake for these individuals—the theological boys, the biblical boys—the fundamental mistake lay in confusing a knowledge of the Scriptures with saving faith in the one of whom the Scriptures speak.

Okay? So the fact that we know certain things about the Bible, the fact that we may become orthodox in our convictions regarding things, that we may be able to answer questions by going chapter and verse to somebody who says, Well, where was this Messiah supposed to be born? Well, we can say with the scribes, Well, it was in Micah chapter 5 and verse 2, in Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it was spoken, and so on. The people say, What does that mean to you?

I say, Well, nothing much. Oh, you mean you know all the answers, but you've never met the answer? That's what we find here. The contrast between knowing about the Savior and actually knowing him? That's an eternally significant distinction from part one of a message titled A Journey to Jesus.

You're listening to Truth for Life Weekend with Alistair Begg. If today's message has left you wondering about whether or not you've met the answer to whom Alistair referred, we want to invite you to learn more about what it means to follow Christ. Go to truthforlife.org slash thestory where you can watch a helpful video presentation that explains how Jesus' death on the cross frees us from sin and grants us salvation. If you're a regular listener to Truth for Life, you know our goal is to provide you with clear, Christ-focused Bible teaching every day of the year.

The reason is we believe scripture is the very Word of God and that its truth is unchanging and without error. And it's our passion to proclaim this message as far and as wide as possible. It's also our desire to provide you with books that will help you and your family grow in your faith.

So today we want to recommend to you a book that will give you a fresh focus for 2021. It's called Exploring the Bible Together. It's a family devotional that takes you through selected readings from Genesis all the way to Revelation in one year.

Now don't let that intimidate you. This scheduled plan only calls for reading a few verses each day. This is perfect for parents who are busy but still want to lead the family in quality time in God's Word each day with minimal prep. Find out how you can request your copy of the book Exploring the Bible Together today by either tapping on the image you see on the mobile app or by visiting truthforlife.org. Finally, I want to extend to you a warm invitation to join Alistair Begg on Christmas Eve. Alistair will lead a Christmas Eve worship service live from Parkside Church on Thursday, December 24th. This is a wonderfully moving service that includes scripture reading, carols, and a time of reflection by Alistair. You can watch it online at truthforlife.org, live, or on our YouTube page, or through the Truth for Life channel on all streaming TV devices. Learn more at truthforlife.org.

I'm Bob Lapeen. Thanks for joining us today. Be sure to listen again next weekend for the conclusion of our message titled Journey to Jesus. We'll find out what happens when the wise men finally arrive at their destination. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living.