Missing! Part 1

The love of God, secondly, does not eliminate the attack of the enemy. The promises of God, thirdly, do not lessen the responsibility of the believer. The will of God and the love of God and the promises of God which lead us to a closeness with God and then closeness to God we would think would never mean blood, sweat, toil, tears. Surely for the godly life would be good.

Look here. You are in the middle of my will. Now run for your lives. If you're like me, you know that what Stephen just said is true. Your salvation didn't result in an end to your difficulties. The Christian life is not always easy for us and life certainly wasn't easy for the author and founder of our faith, Jesus Christ himself.

We'll see that today. Stephen's in a series called Beyond Bethlehem. Today, he completes a message he began yesterday entitled Israel's Most Wanted.

Stay with us. What happens next in Matthew 2 is the fulfillment of three prophecies and this is where I wanted to get to. They are among the few clues and insights we have into the boyhood of Jesus. Now verse 13 sets the stage for the first of these three prophecies we'll cover together.

We'll simply call this escape into Egypt. Matthew chapter 2 verse 13. Now when they had gone that is the Magi they've left behold an 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.

See once Herod realized the Magi had gone back a different way he would only assume that they had warned the parents as well of this one born king of the Jews. So in the middle of the night get up Joseph which meant Joseph didn't finish his sleep. Get up get your family ready. Mary hurry get Jesus dressed. Get out the door.

The aorist tenses of these verbs indicate quick single actions in the middle of the night. Get up get dressed. Get out. Run. Flee. You don't have time Joseph to pack that cart with furniture you've carefully made from scratch. Mary you don't have time to gather all the clothes. You're gonna have to leave the crib.

You gotta run. Where are we going? Egypt. Another country.

You'll hide out until I tell you. Verse 14 said Joseph got up and took the child and his mother while it was still night and left for Egypt. He remained there until the death of Herod. He was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet out of Egypt I called my son. In other words the evil and the hatred of Herod and his murderous attempt to catch and kill the Christ child were given a peek behind the blood sweat toil and tears at the sovereign control of God. And guess what.

The evil cruel insane paranoia of Herod is actually used to fulfill the predictions of God's word and the purposes of God's will. Don't miss it. This is a hard path. Fortunately they'll have money for the trip from the gold that had just been given them. But little else. Ever taken your family on a trip. How much should you prepare. How much time did you spend packing one suitcase per person.

Good luck with that. My wife and I traveled to foreign countries like Minnesota France Austria England. Talk about thinking through the packing process that we did the traveling dates and the schedule.

So much preparation money. We got it. Passports got them itinerary got it.

Tickets got them. Carry ons yep. Bags were putting on got those two the right thing to read on the journey where we're going to land the whole thing and even a little pack of gum if I remembered to take care of the popping in our ears is that big Boeing 777 ascends. We get to pick the time of our departure. We know where we're going to land. We know where we're going to spend the night. It's all mapped out.

That's how we do it. That would certainly be God's will as far as I'm concerned. Slip into the middle of God's will for Joseph and Mary. No time for any of that. No map. No choice of departure. No time to pack.

They left everything but what they could wear and carry. In fact in verse 13 the word for flee in your English Bible Joseph flee is from the Greek word fugo which gives us our transliterated word fugitive fugitive in other words Joseph take Mary and Jesus and run for your lives. You are Israel's most wanted. Why.

Because Herod wants to kill your little boy. So where do we run. Egypt. The grammar in this text indicates that their flight is the beginning of action that is to be continued. In other words they were not to stop for very long until they reach the safety of Egypt and beyond the reach of Herod from Bethlehem to the border of Egypt was about seventy five miles going into the country. Perhaps Alexandria we're not told where there's a large Jewish population would be another hundred miles.

Joseph is not given any specific address. He wasn't told there'd be anybody waiting for them when they arrived where they would be staying not even directions for the safest route. Just. Run. In the middle of the night. Now wait.

Wait a second. God could have protected Joseph and Mary and Jesus in that house right under the nose of Herod. He could have struck every soldier dead when they came across the threshold. He could have performed some kind of miracle so that they never saw the house like you know the stories of Bibles smuggled in the communist guards never saw them he could do that kind of event or exercise couldn't he.

But he didn't. He chose to protect them by the very ordinary and on miraculous system. By means of flight not this means this means the will of God meant hardship and suffering but he would sustain them through it. The message was delivered to them supernaturally no question. The word of God arrived in dreams the word of God has arrived to us in this book that you hold in your lap and his spirit through our conformity to the word that we have provokes our hearts and our minds as we take steps in obedience to him we don't get all the answers we don't get enough information that we'd like to have but we have enough light for the next step and even they are taken with timidity at times.

So you need to understand that the father did not do something for the son and his mother and stepfather that he withholds from you. Now I got to stop here for a minute and tell you the medieval church in fact earlier than that couldn't imagine this would be the will of God. This isn't the way it works and so the apocryphal writings compiled legends about their journey to Egypt and their stay in Egypt.

It sort of clarified for our thinking that certainly Joseph and Mary wouldn't be punished for obeying God. You know for people who follow God the road levels out and so they crafted all these legends all these myths mysticism like one legend where it said that Mary and Jesus needed a place to sleep one night and they sought refuge in a cave. It was so cold this legend says that the ground was covered with frost a little spider recognized Jesus and wished so much that he could do something to keep him warm that he spun his web across the entrance of the cave so thick that it hung down like a curtain and the cave became warm and cozy.

That's Charlotte's Web. That's not the Bible. Other legends record that they're traveling and as they travel the animals all kneel as they pass them. The legend of them coming to a grove of fruit trees and is too high and Jesus commands those trees to bend over where Joseph can pluck the fruit and then he commands a spring of water to come from the roots of that tree so they can be nourished.

I mean this is more like a triumphal entry. This is a holiday trip. Water food on command nice animals accommodating animals in fact there is one legend that Mary was having trouble sleeping one night and an angel came and played hymns on a violin.

That's what we would expect. Their stay in Egypt is riddled with myths and legends like the one where Mary is washing the swaddling clothes of the baby Jesus. He's not wearing swaddling clothes at this point but never mind that. She hangs him out of the line to dry and a demon possessed boy comes by touches some of the clothing and is instantly exercised. A number of accounts of Jesus's bathwater which according to the Apocrypha was especially powerful. His bathwater healed a princess of leprosy and healed anybody who came in contact with it and even early on in these apocryphal writings Mary is sort of at the gate. They come and intercede and she allows them to come and Jesus performs the miracle.

According to the legends Egypt was a vacation. Every need was instantly filled and met and suffering and hardship were eliminated not only in their lives but the lives of everybody around them. Little Jesus performed miracle after miracle after miracle after miracle. Listen we're clearly told in John's gospel that the turning of water into wine at the wedding feast was the very first miracle Jesus performed. The first one the R.K. Simeon the beginning of the attesting signs. This was the one. This was the first one where he began to demonstrate at age 30 as he announced began to announce who he was. This was one of those attesting miracles.

This was proof it's time now. And so he performs this first miracle. For now there are no special miracles to turn Egypt into paradise. Ladies and gentlemen God has never promised to turn your Egypt into paradise. This is not paradise. And all the people said.

Amen. The escape of Joseph and Mary and their little toddler from Bethlehem that night their long journey to Egypt was the same kind of journey that every other ordinary family would have had to endure. There are no angels playing on violins. There are no bowing animals.

There are no trees bending over. In fact their journey was all the more difficult. They are Israel's most wanted I can imagine Joseph every other minute looking behind him to see if the soldiers someone from Herod is coming I would imagine Joseph and Mary imagined the sounds of hoofbeats over every hilltop. They couldn't stop rest any longer than they had to or they could allow themselves their hearts never really stopped beating all the way to Egypt and I believe they were along the way saying to one another in their hearts.

Why. What did we sign up for God's angel told them a little bit. This is going to be the fulfillment of my word verse 15 out of Egypt.

I called my son. This is this is the fulfillment of one more prophecy that would authenticate the Messiah. God said he'll come out of Egypt and now Egypt becomes their hiding place until Herod dies. Let me pause long enough to tell you that Jesus is is becoming than a picture of Israel's calling from that same country. Israel was often spoken of as the sons of God or even the son of God. Hosea 11 verse 1. So the son of God will illustrate Israel's deliverance.

But there's even more to that. Jesus Christ will not only illustrate Israel and their deliverance he will illustrate the deliverer. You remember there had been another deliver this one born in Egypt. He had also avoided a death warrant by the king who commanded that all the Jewish baby boys be what killed murdered.

Pharaoh this king had ordered the killing of all Jewish males. Moses was hidden away by his quick acting parents and eventually led the people out of bondage. But this deliverer according to Hebrews Chapter 3 is the greater Moses. They both came out of Egypt.

They both lead their people out of bondage. But the deliverance of Moses was temporary and insufficient. The deliverance of Jesus Christ is eternal and sufficient. If you go back to Matthew 2 verse 16 you have the second prophecy that is about to be tragically fulfilled. The text says 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 and all its vicinity from two years old and under according to the time which he had determined from the Magi then what had been spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled.

A voice was heard in Ramah weeping and great mourning Rachel weeping for her children and she refused to be comforted because they were no more. Now the actions of Herod defy our imagination. He's around 70 years of age here. He's diseased crippled. He's infected with untreatable diseases. In fact the historians record during his lifetime that if his intestines were rotting from the inside out his bodyguards had to rotate frequently because they could not bear the stench of even being around him. His physicians couldn't heal him. The warm baths he ordered couldn't soothe him. His body is covered with ulcers his legs too swollen. Physicians say his ankles were nine inches around but he will not leave his throne even though he knows his death is imminent.

He grasps his power. He is frankly the perfect picture of depraved stubborn mankind that will not bow until the day they die or even after it's too late. One of his final orders is to round up hundreds of prominent Jewish citizens. They are arrested.

They're placed in the arena. Soldiers are told to feed and give them water but to keep them alive but keep them locked in. He ordered his troops that on the day he died these Jews prominent Jews were to be killed. His command to survive the centuries he said and I quote when I die the Jews may not mourn me but by the gods they will mourn. For now there's great mourning in Bethlehem.

Historical demographers estimate that there were probably 30 or more children under the age of two in Bethlehem and surrounding areas during and in this century. Instead of the religious leaders and the rabbis all rushing the Bethlehem to crown the young Messiah as their king the soldiers of Herod have stampeded into the village of Bethlehem and the surrounding areas taking little boys from their mother's arms and putting them to death. Rachel is weeping. She is weeping for her children. This represented all Jewish mothers who wept over Israel's great tragedy in the days of the deportation. This is a quote from from Jeremiah they wept as their little ones were taken away. That then is the foreshadowing of the mothers in Bethlehem in this region who will weep over the massacring of their little boys.

But don't miss this. Herod's crime is even more wicked because he knew the little boy he was trying to kill was the king of the Jews the Messiah then Herod died. By the way just to close up that one loop his sister and her husband were supposed to be the ones to signal the soldiers at the arena to begin killing the prominent Jews but instead they went personally and opened the doors of the arena and allowed the Jews to go free and I couldn't help but think of that irony when the final Antichrist is killed the Jewish nation will be fully free.

Now we have one more prophecy to fulfill. I'm going to call this next prophecy we're going to wrap it up fairly quickly here but we've seen the escape into Egypt and that prophecy verse 15 we have a bloodbath in Bethlehem and that prophecy verse 18 and now we have what I'll call for our outline simply nobody's in nowhere because that's who they were and that's where they were living. I'm going to come back to this by the way in detail as we talk about where they were living. We're going to deal with Nazareth the upbringing of Jesus and what it meant to be raised.

I've already entitled the study parenting the perfect child and I don't have any illustration I can think of on the planet. There are none but I want to explore with you his upbringing in Nazareth. Now now let's just find out how they got there. Notice verse 19. But when Herod died behold an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said get up take the child and his mother and go into the land of Israel. Now that sounds familiar doesn't it. Again in the middle of the night poor Joseph can't get a night's sleep.

Here it comes again. Well the difference in this text is the lack of urgency. It was a dream. He could finish his sleep. There's no need to flee. No need to run. No need to panic. No need to hide.

No need to fear. In fact notice the reassuring message the angel delivers at the end of verse verse 20. He tells him for those who sought the child's life are dead interesting we don't have time it's plural it isn't just Herod it's somebody else maybe many others who wanted him dead. They're all gone.

They're dead now. Now the text tells us verse 21. So Joseph got up and took the child and his mother and came into the land of Israel. So he's headed there. Now something happens that strikes his heart with fear. When he heard that our Kelly us was reigning over Judea in the place of his father Herod he was afraid to go there. Why not.

I would have been too. You need to understand that our Kelly us is worse than his father. If you can imagine it. In fact he inaugurated his reign by killing three thousand Jews in the temple at Passover. His reign was so despicable that even Augustus the Roman emperor who was no saint himself banished our Kelly us after nine years of atrocities. So Joseph has every reason. I mean there we are traveling he has the reassurance he's headed back and suddenly he hears news maybe it's another traveler.

Somebody tells me you won't believe is on the throne our Kelly us. He's stricken with fear and God delivers to him a little more information. He's warned by God in another dream verse 22 the latter part. And he left for the regions of Galilee and came and lived in a city called Nazareth. In other words here's where you're going to live.

You pick is a large region there's a lot of real estate and you pick your little town wherever you want to be. And Joseph just so happened to choose Nazareth. And guess what. Verse 23 tells us this fulfilled what was spoken through the prophets. He shall be called a Nazarene. Nazareth was located about fifty five miles north of Jerusalem. I'll tell you at least this much today the inhabitants were known as uneducated crude historians living in that day called them rude and uncivilized.

It was an insignificant village. One day one of Jesus's future disciples would say how can anything good come out of there. This is not where you would expect to find God the son. But I want to say that because you need to understand the earthly origins of Christ are as challenging and difficult as you can imagine. An outdoor shelter for a birthplace. His parents have to run as fugitives run for their lives immigrating to Egypt and then having to move back and then moving into Galilee and locating in Nazareth.

They're going to live their lives for the next twenty nine years or so in normal challenging obscurity. Listen Jesus Christ became one of us. He's one of us. In fact I want you to understand when I say this he's he's actually more ordinary than any of us.

I mean he chose to come in as low as low could be in his humiliation and Joseph and Mary. I got to tell you what character right. What character what obedience what perseverance what confusion what pain what fear what danger what desperation as they clung to brief announcements without most of the details as they move from place to place to place to place. Let me quickly mention three thoughts and leave them with you as you think through them on your own. I've hinted at them and said them in other ways. Let me say them this way in principle form.

Number one the will of God does not circumvent the challenges of life. We would expect it to be that way. The road would level out. There would be downhill slopes right at the right moment.

And at the right moment as far as we're concerned instead it goes uphill. The love of God secondly does not eliminate the attack of the enemy. The promises of God. Thirdly do not lessen the responsibility of the believer. How easy is it to think the will of God and the love of God and the promises of God which lead us to a closeness with God and then closeness to God.

We would think would never mean blood sweat toil tears. Surely for the godly life would be good. Look here.

Here you have it. You have the beloved son. You have the God chosen mother.

You have the God appointed stepfather. They are surrounded by God's love. They are enveloped in his will. They are communicated to by his promises. You are fulfilling prophecies of old Joseph and Mary. Your life is a fulfillment of my promises to the world and what did they encounter. Blood sweat toil and tears. You are in the middle of my will. Now run for your lives. My hat is off to them.

I have come to greatly appreciate them because they would change everything. To obey God. One author I read recently said as he traveled in England he saw in a graveyard the tombstone of an old cavalier soldier who'd lost his property and then his life in fighting for the king. Veteran of many wars. Faithful he was a loyalist to King Charles. His epitaph read simply this. He served King Charles with a constant dangerous and expensive loyalty.

Isn't that good? What a great testimony for the Christian who allows the shadow of the cross to fall across his or her path. What a testimony of allegiance to serve our king with a constant dangerous and expensive loyalty no matter what the cost be it blood sweat toil and tears. I'm so glad you joined us today. This is Wisdom for the Heart the Bible teaching ministry of Stephen Davey. Stephen pastors a church here in Cary, North Carolina.

We've made it possible for you to get to know us better and access our many resources. The easiest way to do that is through our website wisdomonline.org. If you ever miss one of these broadcasts or want to access any of Stephen's messages we've posted them there so you can keep caught up. If we can assist you in any way our number is 866-48-BIBLE. That's 866-48-BIBLE or 866-482-4253. Give us a call any weekday and we'd be happy to assist you. Before we end our time for today, I want to remind you about our app. The Wisdom International app will work with your smartphone, your tablet, or a smart TV.

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