Thank you. Good morning. Let's open our Bibles this morning to Matthew chapter 2. And let's do a little interpreting. We sang that song again, angels we have heard on high with that Gloria in excelsis Deo. What does that mean? Glory to God in the highest. So there's your interpretation of the Latin. Also, let me ask you to remember to pray for Scotty Rackley, a missionary to Madagascar. He has medical issues that he has to, is gonna have to for about the next year be seen to by doctors and what, he has to have his esophagus stretched. Somebody else around here does that, but he has to do, was gonna have to do that periodically for about the next year. And they don't have a place to do it in Madagascar, so they're going to have to move to South Africa for about a year or a little more in order to get that done. Remember him, if you would, in your prayers. Matthew chapter 2 and verse 1. Now, when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he that is born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born. And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judea. For thus it is written by the prophet, And thou, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, art not the least among the princes of Judah. For out of thee shall come a governor that shall rule my people Israel. Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, inquired of them diligently what time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and search diligently for the young child. And when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also. When they had heard the king, they departed, and lo, the star which they saw in the east went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down and worshipped him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts, gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way. And so if you'll keep your Bible open, please, to this passage. I'm going to speak for a while this morning on the subject, three Christmas gifts. Verse 11 said they presented unto him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh, three Christmas gifts. Now, Father, we're grateful that the Lord Jesus came and that he lived a sinless life and then died on the cross for our sins and rose again three days later. Now, please, I pray, help this morning as I endeavor to preach your word. I pray that the Holy Spirit will speak to hearts. I pray for anybody who does not know Jesus as Savior. who's with us this morning. I pray that you'll draw them to Him, help them to come to Him and trust Him and be saved this morning. And I pray that you'll bless the Word of God to the hearts of your people. Please help now, I pray in Jesus' name, Amen. one of the most familiar scenes associated with the christmas season is that of the wise men coming to pay homage to the lord jesus christ uh... and yet in reality this is probably not as much of a christmas scene as we generally think it is uh... now what i mean is this Every Christmas scene, manger scene, they call it a crash, but every manger scene that I've ever seen, which had these wise men displayed, showed them together with the shepherds around the manger in the stable with the baby Jesus lying there receiving worship. This, however, is not the way it happened according to the information that were given in this passage of scripture that we read this morning. It appears that this event occurred not on the night of Christ's birth, but several weeks and probably several months later. In the first place, Jesus was not in the manger in the stable any longer when the wise men came to Him. Verse 11 says, and when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary, his mother. And so he was in the house. Apparently, Joseph and Mary had gotten a house to live in in the town of Bethlehem by the time the wise men got there. So this indicates that sometime had elapsed since Christ's birth. A second thing that may suggest that this event took place sometime after Christ's birth is the fact that over and over again in this account, Jesus is referred to not as a babe, but as a young child. For example, you see it in verse 8. You see it again in verse 9. You see it again in verse 11. Young child, young child, young child. And so that may indicate, and I'm very well aware that a baby could be called a young child, but it does seem significant when taken in connection with these other things that he's not called a babe in the passage. And then a third thing that suggests that Jesus was several weeks or months old at the time that these wise men came is the fact that later in the chapter, now we didn't read this part, but you find it in the latter part of this chapter, when wicked King Herod gave orders to his soldiers to kill all the children in the Bethlehem area, thinking that if he had all of them killed, he'd catch Jesus among them. The age at which he started killing the children was two years old. He told his soldiers, every child two years old and younger, kill them. And so then, this story of the wise men coming to worship Jesus may not have occurred exactly at Christmas time, as we've generally assumed. But whether it did or whether it didn't, whenever it occurred, it's a marvelous story that illustrates the recognition that Jesus received as to who and what he was, even as a small child. And so I want us to notice these first 12 verses of Matthew chapter 2 this morning, and I want to point out several scenes in this story of the wise men who brought the three Christmas gifts to the Lord Jesus Christ. The first scene to which I call your attention in verses one and two is the inquiring wise men. It says, now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, Behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he that is born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. And so these wise men came from the east, inquiring, about the king whose name, now his name is not given in this passage, but his name is the Lord Jesus Christ. Now a couple of questions we need to answer concerning these wise men. First of all, who were these men? Now, the Bible calls them wise men. It says there in verse 1, Behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem. Wise men. You may have heard them referred to as magi, but the Bible here refers to them as wise men. Now, the wise men were actually a particular, specific cast of people. The scripture says that they were from the east, Now, if you have maps in the back of your Bible, as I do, and you look at one of those maps, and find Jerusalem, and then go due east from there, it will take you to the area which had formerly been the Babylonian Empire, and then after that, the Medo-Persian Empire. Now in both of these empires there had been a specific group of kingly advisors known as the wise men. Nebuchadnezzar when he was the king of Babylon if you read the book of Daniel you'll see that Nebuchadnezzar had this group of advisors called wise men and in fact Daniel was one of those. The Medo-Persian Empire conquered Babylon and under the Medo-Persian empire there was a group called wise men who had so much influence that for a time no one could be made king without the approval of these wise men. Now one of the things that these wise men did was they made a study of ancient prophecies. Now two things are significant about this fact as relates to our text passage. Number one, they would have associated the coming of the Jewish Messiah with some kind of supernatural manifestation of a star One of the ancient prophets who in fact was from the East according to Numbers 23 and verse 7 was a man named Balaam. Now Balaam had made this prophecy concerning the Messiah In Numbers 24 and verse 17, he said, And so then these wise men would know from what Balaam said there, that the king, the one that would bear the scepter in Israel, there would be some kind of an association with a star because he said there shall come a star out of Jacob. And then secondly, they would have known the approximate time that the Jewish Messiah was to come from studying the prophecies of Daniel. In Daniel chapter 9 we have the prophecy known as the prophecy of the 70 weeks and if you study that out what you'll find is that from the time that the king of Persia gave the decree allowing the Jews to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem until the official presentation of the Messiah of Israel would be 483 years. So these wise men would have been in a spirit of expectancy and in a spirit of anticipation as the time of Daniel's prophecy drew near and because they associated the Messiah's coming with a star based on Balaam's prophecy when God calls them to see a supernatural star in their eastern country They knew that this was God's way of telling them that the Messiah had come. And so that's who the wise men were. Second question, why did they come to Israel? Well, the latter part of verse 2, they tell us that they came to worship this one born King of the Jews. They came to worship Jesus. Now get this thought in your mind. These wise men came to Israel for one reason and one reason only and that is because that's where Jesus was and they wanted to come to Jesus. Now here's the application. These wise men came to Jesus. Wise people still come to Jesus. You know, I get a little bit amused at people who think they're too intelligent to trust Jesus Christ. Let me tell you something, dear friend. Intelligence won't keep you from Christ. Intelligence will move you toward Christ. And wise men still come to Jesus. And so then we see the inquiring wise men. The second scene to which I call your attention in verse three is the indignant king. Verse 3 says, When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. Now there are several kings in the Bible, all of the same family, that were named Herod. This particular one in this passage is the one known as Herod the Great. I always appreciate the humility of all these guys that call themselves the Great. I mean, just go back in history and you'll find person after person, you know, Herod the Great, Alfred the Great, the Pope's Leo the Great. All these people are the gradual of that kind of humility. Well, this guy, Herod the Great, he was an Idumean, an Edomite, who had been given the throne of Judea by Caesar Augustus, the emperor of Rome. Now this man, Herod, was one of the most vile men on the face of the earth. He was a sex pervert who was guilty of incest. He was a jealous, insecure, power-mad tyrant. He was a vicious murderer who killed anyone that he thought might challenge his tyranny. Just to give you a description of his character, or lack of it, He killed several of his wife's relatives and finally killed her as well. You say, well, I can understand that. But at any rate, that's what he did. He killed several of his own sons. This led Caesar Augustus to say that he'd rather be Herod's pig than to be his son. When he knew that death was approaching, he gave orders that leading citizens be killed when he died so that there would be mourning rather than rejoicing, because he knew when he died, everybody's going to be happy he's gone. So he figured if he killed a bunch of their relatives, that would cause them to mourn. When he died, or when they thought he died, he had stopped breathing, and the court attendants cheered. They thought he was dead, but when they cheered, this caused him to rally, and he lived a few more days after that. He was a real reprobate. Herod had the character of Joseph Stalin. I don't know if you've studied about Joseph Stalin. Joe Stalin was so insecure and paranoid that he killed people who had been lifelong friends due to his suspicion. Somebody said, that the difference between Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin was that Adolf Hitler killed his enemies, Joseph Stalin killed his friends because he was just a paranoid, suspicious sort. Well, Herod was exactly that way. if you have that image of herod that picture in your mind uh... now here come these wise men and by the way there weren't just three you know i guess because there were three gilfs people got the idea there was three wise men three people coming in probably wouldn't have caused a lot of big stir bible students say that there were dozens and maybe hundreds of these men And here they come, coming into Herod's kingdom, asking where the newborn king is. Well, when Herod, who, remember, killed his own sons for fear they'd take his throne, heard of some new king, he became a stark raving lunatic. Now... As the wise men represent those who came to Jesus, Herod represents those who hate Jesus Christ. And may I point out that Herod's type is still around today. America's filled with them. But, friend, Herod had to die. I mean, he died just a few years after Jesus was born, four or five years after he was born, and he'll stand in judgment before the one that he hated, as will every one of his kinsmen in America today. And so then we see the inquiring wise men, we see the indignant king. The third scene to which I call your attention is the indifferent religionist, verse four. And when he, Herod, had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born and they said unto him in Bethlehem of Judea. Now notice These religionists, these chief priests and scribes, knew exactly where Jesus was born. They knew he was born in Bethlehem, which was six miles from where they were in Jerusalem. Think of this contrast. These wise men came hundreds of miles to get to Jesus. Meanwhile, these religionists wouldn't go six miles to get to him. What was their problem? They were indifferent. They had other things to do. They weren't going to waste their time going down to see Jesus. And there are a lot of people who, like Herod, are openly and outwardly antagonistic toward the Lord Jesus Christ, but Ladies and gentlemen, most of the people in America who will die and go to hell are not Herod types. Most of those who will die and go to hell will do so simply because they are indifferent They don't write letters protesting Christmas displays like the God-haters do. They just simply go about their business doing their own thing, indifferent to Christ's claims on their life. But when they die, They end up in hell because they didn't trust Christ, just like the Herods do. You know, Hebrews chapter 2 and verse 3 asks the rhetorical question, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? That's all you have to do. You don't have to be, you know, the worst person in the world if you simply neglect salvation. I mean, you just don't pay any attention to it. You'll go to hell. You won't escape. And so these indifferent religionists were of that type. The fourth scene, to which I call your attention, is the inspired prophecy. Verse 5, these chief priests and scribes said unto Herod, or is Jesus going to be born? "...in Bethlehem of Judea. For thus it is written by the prophet, And thou, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, art not the least among the princes of Judah. For out of thee shall come a governor that shall rule my people Israel." Now, these people knew where the Messiah was to be born because the Old Testament prophecy had told them, and they quote here Micah chapter 5 and verse 2. You know, I'm glad we have a Bible that we can trust. This prophecy concerning Christ's birthplace is just one of dozens of prophecies that had been foretold in the Old Testament that were fulfilled in Jesus Christ's first advent. This tells me that the Bible is the Word of God. Only God can foretell the future with 100% accuracy. And dear friend, if you've got a 1611 authorized King James Version, you can trust your Bible. Now, if you've got some other kind, I don't vouch for those, but if you've got the 1611 authorized version, you can trust that. People sometimes say, preacher, how can you say with such confidence and assurance that you know that you're going to heaven? I'll tell you how, because the Bible says so. 1 John chapter 5 and verse 13, these things have I written unto you that believe in the name of the Son of God, that ye may KNOW that ye have eternal life. And so the Bible says it, 75 or 100 years ago. There was a great Bible student named Robert Dick Wilson. He was a professor at Princeton and then later left Princeton and became a professor at the Westminster Theological Seminary. Robert Dick Wilson mastered 45 languages and dialects so that he could study every language the Bible was translated into down to 600 A.D. And his students told of how one day he came into his class and stood before them and he said to them, young men, I have studied the Bible in all of the languages into which it was translated down to 600 A.D. And he said, we live in a world where there are many things that I do not understand. But, he said, there's one thing that I can say with all confidence and with all assurance, and that is this, Jesus loves me. This I know, for the Bible tells me so. And so, the inspired prophecy. Then the fifth scene, which I call your attention, is the illuminating star. Verse 7, Then Herod, when he had privileged all the wise men, inquired of them diligently what time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and search diligently for the young child, and when ye have found him, bring me word again that I may come and worship him also. When they had heard the king, they departed. And, lo, the star which they saw in the east went before them till it came and stood over where the young child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. the illuminating star. Now, here's another mistake that we often have had in our minds. Most people have the wrong idea about how these wise men were guided. If you think like I thought, used to think, then you had a picture in your mind of these wise men traversing across the desert with a star up here and they're following that star. That's not what happened. according to the passage here. What happened was they saw the star in the east which told them that Messiah was in Israel and so they naturally then simply went to the capital, Jerusalem. When they got to Jerusalem, they learned from the Scriptures, from Micah 5 and verse 2, that he was to be born in Bethlehem. So they started to Bethlehem. And when they started toward Bethlehem, the star that they had seen in the east reappeared and guided them to the exact place where the Lord was. Now, obviously, this was some kind of a supernatural star. There'd be no way for a star, you go outside tonight, look up, none of those stars will ever, would you ever be able to follow until it stands over some particular house, because you wouldn't know it so far away. This was a supernatural manifestation. But they followed God one step at a time. And as they followed each step, God led them the next step. Now, He still does that today. If you want God's guidance, then do what you already know He wants you to do, and He'll give you more, you see. That's the way He guides. The sixth scene that we have here are the illustrative gifts, verse 11. And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down and worshipped him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. These wise men brought three specific gifts to Jesus. And each of these gifts illustrate one of the offices that Jesus filled. They brought gold. That illustrates the fact that Jesus was king. Gold was tribute given to a king. And so they gave him gold because he's the king. Secondly, they gave frankincense. The frankincense illustrate the fact that Jesus is God. In Exodus chapter 30 verses 34 through 38 the Jewish people were commanded that frankincense be used as one of the basic ingredients in the incense offered to God on the Old Testament altar of incense. Now you read that passage you'll find that no other incense could be made like that. That was God's and only God's. And so they brought frankincense, illustrating the fact that Jesus was God. And then thirdly, they brought myrrh. Myrrh illustrates the fact that Jesus is the Savior. Myrrh was a spice that was used, among other things, for embalming people. In fact, in John chapter 19, verses 38 through 40, it tells about Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus taking the body of Jesus from the cross and embalming it, getting it ready for burial. And it points out that one of the things that they used was myrrh. That myrrh simply indicated the fact that Jesus would one day die on Calvary's cross for your sins and mine, that he would be buried and that he would rise again three days later. Illustrative gifts. And then finally the last scene to which I call your attention is in verse 12 and there we see the improvised journey. And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way. These wise men, Herod, had told them, now when you find that king, come back and tell me so I can go worship him. Yeah, right, Herod. And so the Lord instructed them, don't go back to Herod, don't go back through Jerusalem where he is. So they went back to their country another way. Now, Whenever one meets Jesus, he leaves another way. on new year's day nineteen seventy six i'm moved to memphis tennessee i was eighteen years old uh... i was about as well as one could be at the time sometime during the month of february uh... went back home for a weekend and uh... saw my friends and went with my friends and did what we did, but then I went back to Memphis. I was going to a college there. I attended one semester and that was enough for me. learned everything they had to offer. And so, but on March the 24th of that year, I trusted Jesus Christ as my personal Savior. On the basis of Romans 10, 13, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. uh... my brother had been witnessing to me for two or three years and he took the bible that night i asked him to uh... and he took the bible showed me that i was a sinner well i didn't have any argument about that showed me that because i was a sinner if i died in my sin i'd spend eternity in hell because the wages of sin is death and that includes the second death which is the lake of fire uh... he showed me that jesus had paid that day up but i'll order when he died on the cross of calvary took my son's in his own body and died for them was buried in rose again three days later and then he showed me romans ten thirteen for whosoever shall call upon the name of the lord shall be so you've got and that night i called upon the lord as best i knew how and trusted him as my personal savior Now, the next time I left Memphis and went back home, I went another way. I never had been the same before, you see. And when you meet Jesus, He always sends you away another way than you were when you came and met Him. If you've never trusted Him as your Savior, I hope that today you'll come to Him and be saved.