Have you ever been struck by the beauty of God's creation that it caused you, that it drew you to worship Him? We used to camp in the summer near Bend, Oregon at the base of Mount Batchelor at a lake called Elk Lake. And right next to that lake was another lake called Hosmer Lake. And this lake was fly fishing only and it had Back in the 50s, they had stocked the lake with Atlantic salmon. So it was unique for that area because it had a thriving population of Atlantic salmon. And then it had brook trout, and rainbow trout, and bull trout, and all the rest of the native fish. But the unique thing about this lake is that it was only five feet deep. It was just channels. And it was filled with reeds, so it had tons of vegetation. So it was a fish's dream paradise, but it was also a fisherman's paradise. And I remember one evening, at the evening, there would be a large hatch of an insect that the trout love. It's a species of mayfly, but it's a particular big one. And it's like the trout getting a steak. They're thrilled about this thing. And so they just go crazy. They're feeding everywhere. And this is a great opportunity for a fisherman like me, who's not very good. But at that time, they don't care. They'll eat anything. And so we're getting fish after fish, and it's catch and release. And I remember the sun is setting. I'm looking at Mount Batchelor. It's crimson orange, and it's reflected on the water. And my friend had just caught this beautiful brook trout, which if you've ever seen a brook trout, they have these almost fluorescent pink spots all over them. It was just my majestic and I I put my pole down and I just begin to praise God. That was all that could come out of me was praise and glory and wonder at the beauty of God's stunning creation. Over my desk in my office, Grace Brock, she drew me a picture of a trout and on that it has a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins. I want to read that because he rejoices in the beauty of God's creation. It's called Pied Beauty. He says, glory be to God for dappled things, for skies of couple color as brinded cow, for rose moles all in stipple upon trout that swim, fresh fire coal chestnut falls, finches wings, landscape plotted and pieced, fold, fallow, and plow. And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim, all things counter, original, spare, strange, whatever is fickle, freckled, who knows how, with swift, slow, sweet, sour, a dazzle, dim, he fathers forth whose beauty is past change. Praise him. You see, he's looking at all these different things in God's creation that are just a marvel. The dapples on a trout. Even the way that a cow looks. And all of the tackle that comes with the tradesman and his work. And he just praises God. The wonder and beauty of creation causes us to praise the One who has made it. No doubt if you jogged your memory, you could recount hundreds of times when you have done the same. There is just something about the beauty and the grandeur and the greatness of creation that calls us to praise our Creator. And in truth, God uses His creation sometimes as a guide to draw us to His light. And that is what we see in our story from Matthew 2 today. The light of God's creation draws the wise man from the East to the light of the world. But it was the Word of God that finally led them to the child Jesus. Chapter 2 of Matthew gives us a contrast of two ways to respond to the newborn King. Two ways to respond to the Messiah. And the first we see today in the response of the wise men. Drawn as they were by the light, they love the Messiah and so they respond in worship. And next week, as we bring this chapter to a close, we'll see a much different response as Herod, who hates the newborn king, tries to have him killed. These two responses are indicative of every human response. Either you love him, and you are led to worship him, or you hate him, and you want to suppress the truth, or you want to kill him. But how? How does Jesus draw those who love him to his light? What we find is that God draws them to His Son by His creation and by His Word. So let's read together Matthew 2 beginning in verse 1. Because Jesus is the light of the world, we must point the nations to Him through His creation and through His Word. So let's read together. 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. And 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. This is the word of the Lord. Amen. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we do give you thanks for this portion of your word, and we ask that you would draw us to worship your son, the Lord Jesus Christ, as we come through your word and by your spirit to behold the majesty and glory of the dawning of the light. And so we pray, Father, that as we open this portion of your word, that you would give us eyes to see. For we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. So, in verse 1, Matthew lays out for us all the facts about Jesus' birth. He was born in Bethlehem in Judea under Herod, when Herod, which history knows as Herod the Great, was king. And sometime after the child is born, wise men from the east come to Jerusalem to visit the newborn king. And they inquire about the newborn king, and their inquiries reach the ears of Herod and the ruling religious elite in Jerusalem. And that causes quite a stir. Matthew says they were troubled, meaning that the news caused them acute emotional distress or turbulence. You have to ask yourself, why would that be? Why is it that news of the King of the Jews, and King of the Jews is a code word, it's when the Jew hears that, they think Messiah. Because the King of the Jews is David. David is the king par excellence. And they are waiting for a son of David, who's going to be the anointed, that's what Messiah means, who is going to sit on the throne of his father David. So when they hear King of the Jews, they think Messiah. But they're troubled? They're troubled that news that the king has been born? Weren't they waiting for the Messiah? And the answer is, well, yes and no. It's a bit complicated. Some didn't want to upset the delicate power between Romans and the rulers. They have this very delicate balance of political power. Herod is tenuously holding on to his kingship over Israel under Roman rule. He's been granted some authority, but he's got to maintain that relationship. News of a king? This is not going to go well with Caesar, right? Caesar is Lord. So Herod is troubled. And the rulers, the religious rulers, well, you know, they would really like the Messiah to come from their own ranks, you know, for equality assurance purposes, to make sure that they get the right one. You know, they have their own design for the Messiah. They want him to be like this. He's going to do this. So they're a little skeptical because they didn't know about it. You know, they didn't know who is this newborn king. So this troubles all of Jerusalem. And I want you to notice one thing. The Magi don't ask, where is the one that will become the king of the Jews? But they say, where is the one who will be born King of the Jews? Nobody conferred kingship on Jesus. He has that by divine right. He was born King of the Jews. But now these men show up from the Far East, probably Babylonia, and the text says, wise men, and indeed for what they are doing, we may consider them wise, but the word is used elsewhere in Acts 13 as a magician. The ESV translates this as a wise man because the study of stars, astronomy, and the interpretation of the stars, astrology, were the same disciplines in the ancient world. We don't think of our NASA star explorers as astrologists. Those are kind of the kooks down at the card reading place or whatever. But in the ancient world, they were combined together. The person who studied the movement, the laws of the stars, was also the one that discerned and interpreted the message of the stars. And so they were considered these wise men because they knew the messages of the stars. But certainly Israel doesn't take them to be wise men. I mean, these are Gentiles. These are pagan idolaters. These are not the covenant people of God. And they're inquiring about the Messiah. And this might be the most distressing part. This might be what troubles the rulers of Jerusalem more than anything. What are these Gentiles inquiring about our Messiah? They have interpreted a message in the stars and come to see what it is all about. The tradition typically calls these kings. We read from Isaiah 60 earlier that kings were going to come and offer gifts, so it makes sense. We don't have any historical reason to think that these are kings, but the early church liked to call them three kings. And why three? Well, gold, frankincense, and myrrh. We don't know if there were three. There could have been 20. It just is in the plural. We know it's more than one. More than one wise man came and offered gifts to the newborn king. Many scholars look for historical answer to what the star that is that led them to Jerusalem, to the King of the Jews. I'm not so concerned about tying down the specifics. That doesn't matter to me as much. But in 7 or 6 BC, there was an alignment of Jupiter, which was called the King Star, and Saturn, which was called the Sabbath Star. So you can see how these wise men might conclude that the king and the Sabbath Jew, king and Jew, king of the Jews, how they came together, they might interpret that as being a omen that there is a new king in Jerusalem. But the specifics are not really important as the idea that lies behind them. Matthew is alluding to the predictive prophecy of another pagan wise man, Balaam. Balaam prophesied in Numbers chapter 27 verse 14, he prophesied that a star shall come out of Jacob and a scepter shall rise out of Israel. You see, God is using the natural phenomena of his creation to draw these pagan Gentiles to come and worship the king of the Jews, his son. One scholar suggests that since the early church was at a pitched war with astrology, would its writers have honored astrologers if something like this had not actually happened? You see, Matthew paints these men favorably, but all throughout, even as we get to Acts and the same word, magi, is used, they are not painted favorably. They are looked down upon as magicians who rely upon messages from the star merely. But these are commended for their wisdom, and I think rightly so. And I think that it points to the historicity of the event that it actually took place. But what's going on here? There are two things I want to draw out for you. God does use means to draw people to himself, including his creation. Romans 1 teaches us very clearly that what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them for his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. That's Romans 1 19 through 20. God's creation renders all of mankind without excuse. They know that there is a God, and that He deserves their worship. Calvin calls this a sense of divinity. But Paul puts it in Romans 1, sinful men suppress that truth. They know that there is a God, but they try not to know that they know that there is a God. They're working hard to suppress the truth that they know. One professor used an illustration of a beach ball. If you're in a swimming pool and you have a beach ball and you try to submerge it, its natural tendency is to want to come up to the surface. Like you're straining and you're holding it down and it wants to pop back up. That's the unrighteous suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. It comes out everywhere. You can't deny the fact that there is a God and that He is worthy of worship. So we know that men hardened and dead in their sins suppress the truth, refusing to worship and give thanks to God. So then the question is, well how then do these pagan astrologists, how can they look at creation, determine that the stars are telling them to go to Jerusalem, and then worship the king who was born? How can that happen if they're suppressing the truth and unrighteousness? And the answer the rest of the scripture provides. You see Jesus in John chapter 6 verse 44 says, No one, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. You see, these pagan Gentiles, they don't come just because they use their natural reason to discern that some message in the stars is telling them that there's a king of the Jews. They come because they are drawn by the Father to come and worship Jesus Christ. What is it then that draws them to Christ? Well, it's the grace of God, of course. But He does so using means that are familiar, that they are familiar with, His creation. The stars, they study them. They know them. They're familiar with them. But He uses that to draw them to Himself. And these men are not reasoning, they're not using their natural reason which is under the effects of sin to reason towards God. But God is drawing them using His means, the creation. And secondly, the fact that God has drawn them becomes even more apparent when you set their response right alongside the Jews, or the Herod and the religious leaders. How do they respond? You see, these pagan Gentiles, they respond by being drawn to worship Christ. But those who are closest to Jesus, the leaders who know the scriptures, how do they respond? Well they're troubled, and we'll see next week that Herod tries to kill the newborn king. This contrast Matthew is bringing out, he's showing us that those who are drawn to his son, those who are drawn will come and worship him, but those who are not will hate him. and try to kill Him. It's a contrast between those who love the Son and those who hate Him. Between those who worship Him and those who will seek to have Him killed. And sadly, it is the insiders, the leaders of Israel that end up hating Jesus. And in the case of this text, have nothing to do with Him. But meanwhile, pagan Gentiles have traveled a great distance to come and fall before Him and worship Him. and offer him costly gifts. And these Gentile wise men teach us an important lesson regarding nature. All creation around us bears witness to the God who has made all things. And everyone knows this. But only those who are called to see that creation draws us to worship Christ. Here, the hardened heart of the religious leaders betray them. They see the star, but they're not drawn to worship God. This is why you, beloved Christian, can make use of the creation, letting it lead you to worship God, the divine Word by which all things were made. Whereas the hard-hearted sinner around you may only see a sunset on a mountain while fishing. You see the wonder and splendor of your Creator and it draws you to worship Him. This is why somebody can look at the same thing and have two wildly different responses. One can be led to praise and worship and one just sees rocks and trees and stones. We'll see in a moment that nature is not sufficient on its own to lead you to Christ, but nature coupled with the Word of God can lead the believer to a fuller, deeper experience of God. Too much of our lives are spent in front of a screen. Get off the phone and get outside and revel in God's creation. Go fishing with Glenn. I guarantee you, you will praise God at the end. Your hands might be cold, your feet might be cold if you're ice fishing, but you will glory in God's creation if God has drawn you to His Son. Then creation is a wonderful means of glorifying the Creator. If not, it's just rocks and trees and stones and it will avail you nothing. Calvin called the creation the theater of God's glory. Creation can be a means that God uses to draw you to worship His Son. But this also goes for our witness. Use the creation to draw others to Christ. Many, like C.S. Lewis, were won over to theism before they came to embrace Christ. Lewis describes the stabs of joy that haunted him since he was a little kid, seeing the little terrarium that his brother made on the tin lid and just being filled with joy, not understanding it, not knowing that it was drawing him to God, but it was. Listening to Wagner. I don't know how that could ever lead him to God, but somehow it did. Norse mythology. These things that are a part of God's creation led and prepared him to come and worship Jesus Christ. And so in our apologetic efforts, we ought to make use of all the tools in our toolbox. All truth is God's truth. And all of creation is his canvas. And the order, the symmetry, the beauty, all of it tells a story of God's glory. So use it to draw people to worship Christ. Because Jesus is the light of the world. We must point the nations to him through his creation and also through his word. You see, nature is not enough to draw men to Christ. It's enough to render them without excuse for that, but it's not enough to save them. For that, they need special revelation. And for that, they need the Word of God. And this text illustrates this so beautifully. Notice in verse 2, the wise men come to Jerusalem from somewhere in the east, probably modern-day Iraq, Babylonia. And they have to go all the way around, all the way down in this big crescent. Just to get to Jerusalem is in months, many months. But they can't go all the way. They don't know how to narrow their search down to find the King. Jerusalem is a natural starting place and a fitting place to find a king, but the religious elite, they know exactly where the king is to be born. They know because it has been entrusted to them, the oracles of God, the covenants. They are keepers of the Word of God. And they have a ready response to the question, where is the newborn king? Bethlehem, for so it is written. And here they refer to Micah chapter 5 verse 2 and 2 Samuel chapter 5 verse 2, which both are quoted in verse 6. The last line of Micah 5.2 is not quoted, and instead they supplement it with a line from 2 Samuel, also 5.2. For from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. That's from 2 Samuel. The other part, Bethlehem and the land of Judah are by no means least among you, among the rulers of Judah. And so they determined that the Messiah, the newborn King, would come from Bethlehem. To understand nature properly, you need the Word of God. The Word of God is what interprets the world, our place in it, and our duty before God. The Word of God is absolutely foundational to finding Christ. And so, with the help of the star, General Revelation, And the word interpreting the star, the special revelation, they make their way to the house where Jesus is. And when they find the child, they fall down and worship Him. And notice, Matthew's very clear, they worship Him. They don't worship Him and Mary. They're not offering Mary worship. It's very clear. They worship Him and Him alone. And then they offer Him costly treasures of gold and frankincense and myrrh. I don't think we need like the early church to allegorize these things. I think what the text is pointing us to is just the costly sacrifice, the costly offering that they give to this newborn King. Now, we have already noticed how God used His creation to draw these men to the light of the world. And now we see that it is His Word that brings them to His Son. The Word of God draws them to the Divine Word, the Lagos. But again, I want to draw out two things from this. First, notice that just having access to the Word of God does not guarantee that one will be drawn to the Son. The religious leaders know the Word of God. They have it hidden in their heart. And yet, they don't come to the Messiah. The chief priests were made up almost entirely of Sadducees, while the scribes were Pharisees. And these two groups hated each other. Vehemently hated. This is nothing like Presbyterians and Baptists. This is like I'm not walking on the same street as you. And they don't get together or have contact at all. So some wonder, why are they together in this? And many think that this is Herod's doing. You see, Herod was a wicked despot who had used the priesthood as political chess pieces. He had taken a high priest down and put somebody else who was going to be more favorable to him. And he had done this over and over again. He had even had his two sons and one of his wives killed because he thought they were conspiring against him. And so many scholars think that Herod says, if I get just the Sadducees, they'll lie to me. If I get just the Pharisees, they'll lie to me. But if I get them both together, I'm going to get the truth. So he gets both of these enemies together, and he determines from them, where is this newborn king supposed to come from? Where is the Messiah to be born? And then after that, he takes aside the wise men to report what they find because he wants to go and worship them. And of course, worship is a euphemism for kill them, kill him. Worship is something that Herod is not really familiar with. But it is a stark contrast that Matthew is drawing our attention to. But I think the Apostle John put it best. John 1 verse 11 he said he came to his own and his own people did not receive him but to all who did receive him who believed in his name he gave the right to become children of God who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God and Why do these people who have the Word of God, who have been entrusted with the oracles of God, why are they not drawn to worship the Messiah? Because they have not been born of God. Because God has not drawn them to the Son. So just having the Word does not guarantee that you will worship Christ. The long expected Messiah is here and they don't have any zeal like the zeal that drove the wise men to travel such a long distance. How could they read the scriptures and not believe? I think Paul in 2 Corinthians 3 describes this saying, to this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts. But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. We talked of this earlier when I said that creation, or what's called general revelation, is not enough to draw someone to Christ. What draws someone is the Spirit of Christ. He sometimes uses His creation as a preparatory work, but He always includes His Word. word is used to effectually call someone to faith. So while there may be lots of ways that the Spirit is at work in a person's life preparing them to come through a star or the beauty and grandeur of creation, sometimes it's not always good things. Sometimes God brings people through adversity, through hardship, through fear of death, and that prepares them to worship. But He always, He always uses His Word. No one comes to Christ apart from the reading, but especially the preaching of the Word. Paul in Romans 10-11 answers why some Jews, and especially the religious elites, rejected Jesus the Messiah. Because the early church scratched their head over this too. How is it that somebody was so eager? They sang, come, O come, Emmanuel. They sang that. They waited for the Messiah. And then when He came, they killed Him. How can that be? Paul is wrestling with that question in many of his writings. But what he makes abundantly clear is that faith comes from hearing. And hearing through the Word of God. He says in Romans 10, 17. And again in Galatians 3, 2. Let me ask you only this. Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law? Or by hearing with faith? Again in verse 5, "...does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith?" We are people of the Word. Specifically, we are hearers of the Word. For that is the means that God has chosen to speak to His people. Going back to that question, how is it that some hear and don't believe? I'm sure all of you have experienced this. The same message that causes your heart to soar, that fills you with joy as you rehearse the gospel to yourself. And then you go and you try to explain that to your neighbor, or your friend, or your family member, and they scoff at you. And they reject the message, and they say, we're so much more evolved than that. You're on the wrong side of history. And you think, how can they reject this precious message? Paul deals with that question repeatedly, and the answer is that God has not called them to hear. Only those sheep who the Savior gave his life for, only those hear his voice and come. They come because they're drawn to the light, while others in fear of the light turn away, loving the darkness instead. But because we do not know who those sheep are, We spread the message far and wide, like a man sowing seed. Some fall on paths, some get snatched up by the bird, some grows a little bit and then gets choked out, but some falls on good soil and it bears fruit. But we don't know who those good soils are. So we spread seed. We proclaim the good news. We don't worry about the preparation. That is the work of the Spirit. We can't do anything about the type of soil. What this text has clearly illustrated for us today are the three ways that God reveals himself to us. In creation, the theater of God's glory reveals to us His eternal power and His divine nature. But to understand creation and our place in it, we need two other forms of revelation. We need the special revelation of His Word. There God reveals Himself more clearly through the prophetic witness and more fully in His Son, the light that has come into the world that enlightens everyone. But even the Word, even the precious Word of God can be rejected and maligned and become useless if it does not come with the Holy Spirit's internal witness. The Spirit draws the wise man through creation, a star, through the prophetic Word to worship the Son. The Spirit is the reason Gentiles, the nations, are drawn to His light. While the religious elite reject Him. They remain in darkness. Because as Paul said in 2 Corinthians 3, 17, the Lord is the Spirit. And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled faces, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. If you are here today, and you can sit under the preaching of the Word, and not be drawn to worship Christ, then it may be, as Paul continues in chapter 4, Verse three, even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. But my prayer is that this Christmas season you may be drawn by the internal witness of His Spirit through His creation and through His Word to worship the Son. And if you are moved to worship Jesus, than that you recognize every star, every rock, every tree bears witness to the Creator. So I hope that you make use of all the ways that God has revealed Himself to us in general and in special revelation by the power of the Spirit in you. See, Jesus is the light of the world. We must point the nations to him through his creation and through his word. Amen? Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for the wonder and grandeur of your creation which everywhere exclaims how great you are. It moves us to worship you. And yet there are those who it doesn't move. They see rocks and stones and they don't see the creator and they suppress the truth. Open their eyes. Oh Lord that they may see your glory. And for us who have been drawn by your Spirit to worship your Son through your Word, we pray that we would inhabit that Word. That we would use these two books, the books of your creation and the books of your special revelation, to draw the nations to worship your Son. For He is the light of the world. We pray this in His name. Amen.