Open your Bibles, if you would, to Matthew chapter 2. Would you stand with me for the reading of God's Word, please? This is God's holy, inerrant, inspired Word. 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 in 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. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God will stand forever. Let's pray. Father, as we continue in this Advent season, considering You sending Your Son for us, we come to a difficult passage fraught with fear and pain. Father, I pray that You would help us in these next few minutes as we consider this passage, the wrath of Herod against Your Son. I pray that You would minister to us, help us to understand what is written here, and by Your Spirit drive it into our hearts that Jesus, Your Son, might be glorified that we might be built up. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. The wise men from the East, a very interesting group in their own right. who were these wise men and where in the East and how did they know and all of that is a very interesting topic to discuss, very important and has a lot of meaning on its own right. But when these magi, these wise men from the East came and visited, they did so because they were seeking Him who had been born King of the Jews. And they were excited, and they brought gifts, and they traveled from afar, and they bowed down and they worshiped Him, and all that we read in that passage. And yet, the news of the birth of one who was born King of the Jews wasn't universally well-received, particularly when you consider how Herod, the King of the Jews, received that message The beautiful scene of gifts and celebration and worship is about to be interrupted by the wrath of Herod. And so, as we look today, we are not considering the Magi, we're considering not their response to the news of the one who's been born King of the Jews, but rather the response of Herod and his wrath, his anger, his fury, his murder. as he takes that news very badly. And so, we want to work through the rest of this chapter and consider the things that Herod did and the things that came upon Jesus and His family. First of all, we see a flight to Egypt. In verse 13, after the Magi were warned in a dream not to return to Herod, to go a different way, they departed to their own country by another way. Verse 13, now when they had departed, behold an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, rise, take the child and his mother. and flee to Egypt and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child to destroy him.' And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, out of Egypt I called my son." So God takes it upon Himself to send an angel with a message of warning to Joseph of what Herod is planning to do, that Herod the king has been offended by the birth of another king of the Jews, and he will seek to kill him. And so, Joseph, you need to wake up, you need to take your family, and you need to flee for safety. Keep them safe until Herod is himself gone, run away from Herod. Fascinating about this is, there are a number of things fascinating. One is how often dreams occur in this chapter alone. In this chapter and the one before you have a pile of dreams, messages from God where He is speaking very often by means of an angel and very often to Joseph himself. And here we have a situation where Joseph is asleep. The danger is happening. He doesn't even know it's happening. And this angel comes to him and speaks to him and tells him, it is time to get up and flee. You're going to have to run for safety. Now, you can imagine what that would be like. You can picture the scene. Joseph is, you know, normal night's sleep, and it's interrupted by this angelic messenger, and the news is urgent. The message is get up and leave right now. Don't dawdle. Don't get everything in order and then eventually when you're all ready and got everything moving in the right direction, then take your leave and go at that point. No, that's not what he says. Rise and take the child and flee to Egypt. And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed. So he left right away. Now, of course, we could see that it would be a safe thing for Joseph and his family to get out of town since the baby Jesus, the one born King of the Jews, is now not just known to the shepherds in the area, not just known to Mary and Elizabeth and a few other people, no, magi are traveling from afar to come visit him, coming into town in their procession. And now it is becoming better and better known. In fact, word has gotten to Herod himself as those magi went to Herod to ask him. And Jesus' life is in danger. And so, he's told to flee, and of course, fleeing to Egypt, you know, maybe we're not aware of what was going on in those times, but Egypt was a very common place for Jews to flee to when they were in danger. It's been suggested that there was a huge population of Jews living in Egypt at this time, and so it wasn't as if Joseph and Mary went to a foreign land that was unknown where they had to learn a new language, and boy, no one's ever been here before. No, there were perhaps hundreds of thousands of Jews in Egypt at this time, and so they probably went to their own little enclave and probably lived in a Jewish neighborhood and all that kind of stuff. They were sent away to Egypt to hide, to flee, to be safe. What's fascinating to me when I read this is not just the dream, not just the angelic message, not just that Joseph immediately obeyed while it was still dark and took his family, not just that the family had to travel down to Egypt, but that it had a prophetic purpose. We read there in verse 15, they remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, out of Egypt I called my son. Out of Egypt I called my son. Well, if you want to flip back in your Bible to Hosea chapter 11. Isaiah is the head of the major prophets. Hosea is the head of the minor prophets. So maybe that will help you as you're flipping back. If you get to Daniel, you've gone one book too far. You get to Hosea and you look at Hosea 11 and verse 1, and sure enough, there we find the words that Matthew quoted for us. When Israel was a child, I loved him. and out of Egypt I called my son." So there's the quotation. Sure enough, Matthew knows what he's talking about. He's referring to the Old Testament. He quotes it correctly. But that raises a lot of questions for us because when you read Hosea 11 and verse 1, it doesn't read like prophecy. It doesn't read like the prophet is saying, thus says the Lord, there will come a day when I will call my son out of Egypt. That would be prophetic in the normal sense. We would understand what that means, but that's not what he says here. He says, when Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt, I called my son. If we continue reading in verse 2, maybe it'll help us to understand what's going on. The more they were called, the more they went away. They kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols. What's Hosea talking about? Hosea is referring to past historical events that from the point of Hosea who was contemporaneous with Isaiah, The Exodus was long past, was centuries in the past, and God is reflecting back and He's saying, out of Egypt I called my son. He saved Israel out of Egypt in the book of Exodus, brought them into the wilderness, gave them the law, and then eventually brought them into the land. That's the story of the Exodus. So Hosea here is reflecting back on the story of the Exodus. Why is it that Matthew would choose to refer to that quotation from Hosea chapter 11, that quotation about an historical event and say that it was prophetic? Well, long story short, if you think about what happened with the nation of Israel, those called my son by God in this passage, what happened when he called them out of Egypt? They never actually left Egypt. I mean, sure, physically, they went across the Red Sea. Physically, they crossed the boundary into Sinai, into the peninsula. Physically, they traveled around for 40 years within the wilderness, and then physically, they entered into the land. But what about in their hearts? Did they ever truly leave the idolatry of Egypt behind? No, they kept showing evidence by the fact that they were worshiping the Baals, offering sacrifices to idols. Even at the very moment where you think it would be the greatest revival in Israel, when the nation was gathered around Mount Sinai and Moses, the representative is up on the mountain receiving the very Word of God. At that very moment where they knew what was going on, they had seen the miracles bringing them out of Egypt. They could see the lightning, they could hear the thunder, they could see the clouds, and all that was going on at Mount Sinai. That very moment, you would think it would have been the best prayer meeting ever. That the entire nation of Israel would have been on their knees just waiting. Moses is fasting, we can fast. Moses is up there by himself, we can wait for God's Word. Let's just sit here and pray. Let's just anticipate. But of course, that's not what happened. It's not the greatest prayer meeting that ever happened. In fact, quite the opposite. You have the incident of the golden calves where they gather together and they confront Aaron and they say, we need a visible representation of a God to bow down to. Make us gods that we can worship. And so Aaron gathers together the earrings and all that gold and he puts it in and he fashions this calf that they can bow down and worship. So they enter into idolatry at the very moment Moses is receiving the law. Did they ever leave Egypt? Not really, not really. They bring Egypt with them everywhere they go. You see the idolatry pop up again and again and again. What Matthew is alluding to here is that Jesus, now located in Egypt, will be called out and it will be done right. that whereas the nation of Israel, the Son of God, was called out of Egypt but kept wanting to go back, kept longing for the days when they were back in Egypt and things were easy. They brought with them the idolatry and all of that of Egypt. Egypt never left their hearts. Matthew is saying, but when Jesus comes out, there will be no Egypt in His heart. He will do it right. He will come out and he will accomplish the purpose for which I sent him. And that's what's in the heart of the words that we read there in Matthew chapter two and verse 15. Out of Egypt I called my son. Yeah, I did this once before, but it needed to be done right. I'm doing it right now. Israel failed in that. Jesus will not fail in that. And so, they fly to Egypt. The family runs down to Egypt, and it wasn't just a flight in the night. It wasn't just out of panic and trying to go to a safe place. It was by design, and it was by God's design because He was going to create a second Exodus. one that would be final, one that would be full and complete, one that would be holy and pure in Jesus, unlike the one that came before. And so they flee to Egypt. And then we move on to see what Herod is going to do, and you know the story. Beginning at verse 16, then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah. A voice was heard in Ramah. weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children. She refused to be comforted because they are no more. On the face of it, one of the single darkest moments in all of the Gospels, that King Herod, this ruthless, dangerous, powerful tyrant who was known to have killed three of his sons, two of his wives. He wouldn't shed a tear at killing small children of strangers. And so, since he can't ascertain where the baby Jesus is, and since he knows roughly how old the baby Jesus is, He just decides to kill everybody in that group, in and around Bethlehem. Scholars, of course, try to estimate how many boys that would have been, maybe a dozen, maybe as many as 30, murdered because they shared the same birthplace and the same age with Jesus. What an evil, wicked, wicked man. And so, Matthew here tells us this story and then refers back to Jeremiah. This word spoken in Jeremiah 31 and verse 15, thus says the Lord, a voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children. She refuses to be comforted for her children because they are no more. Jeremiah's…this verse from Jeremiah is brought out about Rachel's weeping, her sorrow for her children. Rachel, of course, the favorite wife of Jacob, She didn't bear the majority of the sons, but she was his favorite wife, and she's pictured here weeping. Of course, even at the time of Jeremiah's writing, she's been dead for centuries already, but she's pictured as weeping over the children of Israel being taken into captivity. being taken away. They've already been slaughtered in war and there's been terrible tragedy and now they're taken away into captivity and here you have this voice crying, weeping over the loss of her children. Of course, it's picturing Rachel as actually doing this and now Matthew picks up that same language and talks about the death of these boys in Bethlehem and refers back to that passage in Jeremiah 31. It makes sense. It's a mournful, sorrowful dirge. But when you go back and read Jeremiah 31, you see that verse 15 doesn't really fit into Jeremiah 31. The Jeremiah 31 is a joyous passage. For example, verse 3, God says, I have loved you with an everlasting love. You hear the encouragement, the joy that would be connected with that? Verse 7, sing aloud with gladness. God is exhorting the people to rejoice over His love for them. It's a joyful passage. It's a joyful chapter. Verse 10, he who has scattered Israel will gather them and will keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock. God is promising he's going to take care of his people. It's a joyful passage. And in verse 13 of Jeremiah 31, he says, I will turn their mourning into joy. I will comfort them and give them gladness instead of sorrow. It's a joyful passage, almost universally it's a joyful passage about the blessings that God pours out upon His people, about how He will keep His covenant with them, that yes, He scattered them, but He will gather them back in, and He will shepherd them as only God can. He will tend them, He will care for them, and so they should sing with gladness. He has turned their mourning into joy. He has comforted them. He's taken away their sorrow and given them gladness. It's a joyful passage. It's a wonderful passage, and right smack in the middle of it is our verse 15. But even the next verse, 16, we read, thus says the Lord, keep your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears. There is hope for your future. joyful, joyful, joyful, joyful, Rachel's terrible sorrow. But don't weep, joyful, joyful, joyful," is the rest of the passage. But Matthew, reflecting back on the events in Bethlehem, reflecting back on the senseless murder by Herod, calls to mind these verses, this passage, not only because They're fitting words for a dirge. But because he wants us to understand that we are reading this terrible, tragic, awful passage in a book that's called a gospel, a good news, that there is tragedy and there is horror that happens in Bethlehem. And we shouldn't rush past it. We should feel the pain of it. And as we're feeling the pain of it, we need to understand that it is a moment in the midst of all of the joyful and wondrous workings of God to bring about salvation for sinners. That as bad and as painful, and it is bad and it is painful, it is horrific, it is terrifying what happens in this paragraph. But the glory of the wondrous gift of salvation far outshines it and far outweighs it as Jeremiah continues on. After the words of this dirge about Rachel weeping for her children are no more, the Lord says, keep your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears. There is hope for your future. I think this passage reminds us of the brutal, terrible, and painful realities of this world from which sinners need to be saved. He paints with vivid colors the worst. And then he saves people from that. This passage is awful. This passage is painful. But I can hear the words of God in verse 16 of Jeremiah 31. Keep your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears. There is hope for your future. Christian, there's a point of application right here. There's a distinction between the way Christian deals with sorrow, the way a Christian deals with pain and loss that is different from the way a non-Christian deals with sorrow or with pain and loss. The Christian can look at that sorrow and that pain with open eyes, not having to ignore it, can take in the full brunt of the horror of that pain. and is able to deal with it because the Christian knows the great hope that is his in Christ. The Christian knows that God Almighty has promised that he is working all things together for the good of the Christian, including that horror somehow. And so the Christian can look with open eyes at the pain and with open, joyful eyes at the hope. and can deal with both. The person who doesn't have that hope in Christ dare not look too closely at the horror because there's no greater hope that makes sense of it. They don't have this hope of the future. They don't have the hope that God Almighty is at work in this situation. They don't have the hope that God can bring good and will bring good for the Christian even out of this horror. And so, not having this to look at, not having the hope to look at, they dare not look too closely at the horror either, lest they become needless, lest they despair. So Christian, don't be afraid to experience, don't be afraid to look with open eyes at that pain. Frankly, the better you understand that pain, the better you see it, the more that you see that, the better and more glorious is that hope of the future in Christ. Verse 19, we see the return to Nazareth. When Herod died, Behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt saying, rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel. For those who sought the child's life are dead. And he rose and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And being warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee. and he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, so that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, that he would be called a Nazarene." Here we have another angelic dream, another warning, and another prophecy fulfilled. When Herod dies, the danger is over. The Lord tells Joseph to bring his family back, and so he brings the family back. But Archelaus, one of the sons of Herod, was reigning in Judea, and so that would continue to be a dangerous place. So instead he fled and lived up north in Galilee, settling in Nazareth. So that's how you have the traveling, the journeys all happen here. But what's fascinating about this is not Not only the miraculous messages from God giving Joseph direction, that's incredible. Not only his obedience where he just does what he is told, but the fact that this all is to fulfill a prophecy that he would be called a Nazarene. Now, you'll notice that's not in quotes in your Bible, that's because there is no verse that says that in the Old Testament. So what is Matthew doing? Is he playing fast and loose with the text here? Well, no, Matthew doesn't do that. No biblical writer does that. But what does it mean that he would be called a Nazarene? Well, some, just briefly, some think this points back to Isaiah 11, verse 1, ìThere shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.î The word ìbranchî there sounds a little bit like this word ìNazareneî. I donít know. Itís a Hebrew. Of course, Isaiah is written in Hebrew. And Matthew is written in Greek and so they're saying this Greek word sounds a little bit like that Hebrew word, maybe. Some people think it might sound like the word for prince and so he's to be the prince. Well, maybe, I don't know. But I think, and I hold this loosely, scholars disagree and this is just my suggestion to you, that what is being said here is that he was to be called a Nazarene. one of those guys. Remember in Isaiah chapter 53 verses 2 and 3, 4, he grew up before him like a young plant. This is one of Isaiah's servant songs from 53, Isaiah 53, talking about Jesus. He grew up before Him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground. He had no form or majesty that we should look at Him, no beauty that we should desire Him. Verse 3, He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And as one from whom men hide their faces, He was despised, and we esteemed Him not. So the expectation by Isaiah was that when Jesus came, He would be not one held up, Not one put on a pedestal, not one to be admired, but he was going to be the kind of person to be overlooked, even despised. Of course, compare that with Nathanael's response to Philip in John chapter 1. Philip is telling Nathaniel first about Jesus, and this is the one that Moses wrote about. By the way, he's from Nazareth. Do you remember Nathaniel's words? Can anything good come out of Nazareth? That's a reference, I think, to Isaiah 53. He's from there? Are you kidding me? Nothing good comes from there. He's despised, he's rejected. And so I think that's what's going on here. The same sort of derision that happened in John chapter 8 when Jesus came under personal attack and after He had called out the Jews for acting more like the devil than Abraham, and they said to Him, we're not born of sexual immorality, we have one Father, even God. He was despised. They had ways to attack Him. He was looked down upon. Jesus, the Son of God, could have taken on flesh in any position. He could have come as anyone He pleased, someone who's rich, someone who's famous, someone who has power, someone who's comfortable, someone who's glorious to look at, and obviously God's chosen one. I mean, do you see the shoulders on that guy? Do you see how tall he is and that head of hair? That's not how he came. He came in humility, almost anonymously. There was no pomp, there was no fanfare, no palaces, he was born in a stable. He's raised in Nazareth, you know, Nazareth. He was unimpressive to look at. He didn't become a man who had the advantages that come with wealth and position and power or an attractive appearance. He took the form of a servant. He came like us to be one of us so that His ministry would be on our behalf as one of us. Hebrews says, we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin he came as one of us. As we talked about in Sunday school today, God the Son became like us in his humanity, weak and needy and vulnerable, in order that he might redeem those who like you and me are weak and needy and vulnerable. Couple of implications. First of all, this passage raises a question that we need to think about. If all Jesus came to do, if the one thing, the biggest thing, the primary thing, the only thing Jesus came to do to accomplish our salvation was to die for our sins, couldn't He have just died with the boys in Bethlehem? He was innocent. He was spotless. Couldn't he have just died in our place there with those boys? Why did he have to live another 30 years? Well, the answer, in short, is that he came not only to die to pay the penalty of death that comes with lawbreaking, he also came to obtain a righteousness to give to his people. Righteousness we could define as law-keeping. Law-keeping. And God the Son is obviously righteous in Himself, but in order to have a righteousness that could be credited to us, He had to obey and fulfill the law as a human. This meant He had to be incarnated as a human and then live righteously under the law as a human in our place. This way He would have obtained a righteousness that could be credited to men as He performed that righteousness as a man. He had to fulfill all righteousness. He had to live the life of a man in order to fulfill all the requirements of the law in order to be able to credit that righteousness to us so that we could receive its reward, which is eternal life. In other words, He not only had to pay the penalty. For our sin, He had to obtain righteousness to be able to give to us. And so, He lived a life of active obedience. That's the first implication. The second implication, much more briefly, God works deliverance for His people despite how it may appear. It looks like the family is fleeing in the middle of the night with their suitcase half-packed and half-dressed, and it looks like chaos. It looks like the people fleeing Vietnam trying to catch the last helicopter out. It looks like it's all just chaos, and they're barely surviving. And yet God is delivering his people. He is putting things into place that had been spoken of centuries before. It was all according to plan. It wasn't chaos. God works deliverance for his people despite how it may appear. And so, three points of application and then we'll close. First, take comfort from that fact. Take comfort from the fact that he works deliverance regardless of what it looks like. Because you and I are hindered, aren't we? We're hindered by our eyeballs. We're hindered by what we see. We look at the circumstances, we look at the relationships, we look at what can possibly be, because somehow we think we know what can possibly be. We look at what's out there, what's happening, and we think, oh, this is awful. Man, if I squeak through this, it'll be barely. It'll be like catching that last helicopter out of Vietnam. It'll be barely. and yet God is at that very moment working His perfect plan for your life. It doesn't matter what it looks like. It doesn't matter what the diagnosis was. It doesn't matter how things seem to be going. God is working His good purposes in your life, Christian. Take comfort from that. Secondly, take joy even in that situation. As you are God's child, He will work good in your life that will far outweigh the hard situations. Listen to that again. because the hard situation tends to shine more brightly in our eyes, tends to take the weight of our thought. As you are God's child, He will work in your life good that will far outweigh the hard situation. So you're looking at a situation, and boy, it looks heavy. What God is going to do is greater than that. You're looking at a situation in your life and it's even heavier than that. It looks harder than that. It looks worse than that. God is going to work something even better, of greater magnitude, good, than that is bad. So take joy in that. Listen to Paul's words in 2 Corinthians 4, so we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. As we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. Don't be afraid to behold the horror. the magnitude of that horror will be outweighed by the magnitude of the glory, though it be unseen. So take comfort, take joy, and then thirdly, take responsibility to do what He has told you to do in His Word. These circumstances were too big for Joseph to deal with, too big for this little family to deal with. And God was handling it, and God gave Joseph instructions in the midst of all this. And did you see Joseph's response? Again and again, he's asleep, he gets the dream. The angel tells him, rise, take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt. Verse 14, and he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt. How? As soon as he could obey, he obeyed. Likewise, verse 20, "'Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel.'" Verse 21, "'And he rose and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel.'" There's a one-to-one correspondence between the commands given and the obedience rendered. That was Joseph's responsibility in the midst of all that. God was handling the big stuff. God was handling the tyrant Herod. God was dealing with all that was going on. Joseph's responsibility was to obey. And for you and for me, that is a message I think we need to hear. How many of our hard circumstances could be avoided or more easily navigated if we would just do the same as Joseph? How many times do we get ourselves in difficult situations and if we look back, you know, I got myself here. I'm the cause of this great difficulty. Yeah, it's awful and I don't like being in it, but I bear a whole lot of the responsibility for being here. Or a situation does arise in which you had nothing to do with it and it's awful. Okay, trust the Lord and obey Him in that situation. Of course, Joseph was getting his direction from dreams and angels speaking to him in his dreams and things like that. You and I don't receive God's Word that way. We have God's Word in written form that we meditate on, that we study, that we can read every day. We can open God's Word and see what He has to say for us. See what He has to say to us. See what instructions He has. See what encouragement He has. We have God's Word right here. We don't have to wait for some dream. We don't have to wait for some angel to speak to us. We've got it written right here before us. Let's read it. And having read it and having understood it, let's be encouraged by what it says and let's do what it says. So many people are waiting for a message from God about how they ought to live their life. Well, it's written right here. Have you done this yet? No. Why are you waiting for another message on top of that? God speaks to us from His Word. Let's take responsibility and do what He says. Let us not get swamped by the bigger picture of things beyond our control. Instead, let's do what God has told us to do in His Word. Joseph is impressive in this passage. Let's be obedient. Let's do what the Lord says for us to do and let's trust Him with the larger. We enter Advent season and we read this story and of course nobody likes to read the story about Herod killing the innocents there, the children, baby boys in Bethlehem. But God is working a bigger picture. That instance of what happened there in Bethlehem is a peek into what our world is like if we were to peel back the veneer of niceness. This wasn't a unique instance. This is the world we live in. It's the world we need to be saved from. This passage in this chapter tells us of God's redeeming work, that He was putting one piece after another piece, He was moving the family down here, He was doing something different there, He was at work bringing about the redemptive work of Christ for you and for me. So that Jesus would not only die, He could have died right there and it would have been all over if that was all that was needed, but no, not only His sacrificial death on our behalf, We need righteousness credited to us. And Jesus survives these threats and dodges the worst that Herod could throw at Him. And then He sidesteps Archelaus and the danger, the damage that Archelaus could have done. And He lives His entire life doing the same thing with temptation, denying temptation, obeying God, walking with God in obedience to the law for his entire life so that what he offers you and me is not only forgiveness of sins, though that's monumental, that he would give himself to pay the penalty for your sins, but that he gives us his own righteousness credited to us. What a blessing is the gospel. And so you and I, Christian, need not to shy away from, need not to wink at the horror. We can recognize it for what it really is. Because we have the hope of the future of what he is doing for us in Christ. That by faith in him, we will have peace with God for all eternity, be in His presence. And the evil world that we live in that has a veneer of nice on it at times, that veneer pulled back for just a moment in this paragraph about Herod and the children, that's really the world that we need to be rescued from. And we have that in Christ. Let's pray. Father, as we have covered these early years in the life of Jesus, they point us forward already to what He's gonna do. That if we were to continue reading this gospel, we would see Jesus facing temptation and honoring you in it. We would see Jesus dealing with people who come against Him with threats of violence or accusations against Him, and He stands strong. He walks with you. We would see him teaching his people. We would see him going to that cross. We would see him suffering and dying, but 30 years after this chapter, doing so in our place, bearing in his own body our sin. And we would see likewise. The death was not the end, the grave was not the final resting point, Just as you called him out of Egypt, you called him out of the grave. And in Christ, we get to have that same eternal life. Father, I pray that you would help us as we observe the horrors of life, sometimes personal and very near, sometimes quiet and private, sometimes global. May we as your children Take great confidence knowing that the weight of that horror will be outdone by the weight of glory that you are working. Father, we rejoice that we get to be your children and have such peace. We pray it in Jesus' name, amen. There's going to be a family up front who would love to pray with you at the end of the service, and I would encourage you about our evening service tonight at 6 p.m. Otherwise, God bless you all, and you are dismissed.