and I'm sure from wherever you have come from, you've experienced Christmases in different ways with different traditions. Some of the traditions are good and a blessing to us, and some of the traditions have moved far, far away from God and his word, sadly. One of the traditions we have in England is something called the Christmas pantomime. The Christmas pantomime. It's a piece of light-hearted theater. Shakespeare wouldn't appreciate it. There's no depth there. There's a lot of fun. It's usually a fairy story. And there's nothing remotely religious about it. I don't know quite how it came about, other than the fact that people like to please themselves at Christmas time. People like to put themselves as being the king of Christmas. And often what happens within these plays, within this theater, the fairy story is about good overcoming evil. And there's a lot of audience participation. And when the bad character comes on, the audience will boo and they will hiss. And so the good person will be there, and the bad person will be coming to do them a misdemeanor, and the whole audience will be going boo, boo, hiss, hiss, and they've alerted to the fact that the bad person, the bad guy has arrived. Herod is the bad guy of today's reading. Herod was the bad guy of 2000 years ago. But back in those days, nobody would have jeered or hissed at Herod. Because unlike a snappy retort in the theater between the bad guy and the audience, it would have been off with your head or worse. to criticize Herod would probably have meant death. And so this morning we're concentrating our thoughts in that passage in Luke, sorry, the passage in Matthew that we've just read. Matthew and chapter two, and so I'd encourage you to have your Bibles open there on that page. Now this Herod is not to be confused with others in the Bible. The others in the Bible were all his offspring, his children, his grandchildren. And Herod is only really mentioned in this one chapter of God's word. And we don't know much about him from the Bible. but the historians of the time and the history books of the time are full of stories and history about Herod. Now Herod in many ways is the central character of this chapter two. By that I mean he is mentioned nine times in this chapter and yet we don't remember this chapter as the chapter about Herod, do we? We remember this chapter as being the chapter where the wise men came, where the magi came in. And yet in reality, the main character, the main influence, the main person who runs through this chapter two is Herod. And it got me wondering, why is this the case? And I came up with a few ideas. We don't like negative things, do we? We like to concentrate on the positive. I think in some cultures and in some situations, we like the negative and we like moaning, but generally speaking, we don't like the dark. And just like a pantomime, just like a piece of theater, just like a movie or a film, apart from Turkish ones, we want to see good overcoming evil. Turkish movies all end in sadness and tears and unhappiness. It's their culture. But generally speaking, we like to see the good overcoming the evil and there being a happy ending. But I think in reality, the real reason, one of the real reasons we shy away from looking and thinking about Herod is the fact that he represents something that makes us feel very uncomfortable. He points to our sinful selves. And sometimes when we read God's word, it's like looking in a mirror. And looking in the mirror of Herod is not a pleasant thing to do. But Herod is here. Herod is in this passage. And so rather strangely, and I did not advertise this fact, today's sermon is gonna be about Herod. And you're probably thinking, great, we're going to leave depressed. We're concentrating on the negative. We're looking in that mirror. We'll be looking at this passage and we're looking at under three in three sections. It breaks down quite neatly from verses one to 12 versus 13 to 18 and versus 19 to 23. And that's kind of how we're breaking up just to help your memories and help us follow this through. We have three main points. The first passage, the first bit we're looking at under the heading Herod's fear. The second part we're looking at under Herod's fury. And the third part we're looking at is Herod is finished. So fear, Fury and finished. And when Matthew put his, I wrote here, put his pen to paper, he didn't put his pen to paper. They didn't have pens 2000 years ago like we know them. He'd have had a quill and it'd be writing out like that. But as he put his quill to parchment, everyone would have known about Herod. Everybody would have known the backstory. And as we look through these headings, what I want to do is from the historic records, give us a bit of detail, give us a bit of narrative that will help us not only understand the story, but will help us to really understand the application of what's going on here. So firstly, Herod's fear, looking at these verses one to 12 in this chapter two. The wise men, we know these wise men well, and we think of them as the three kings from Orion are bearing gifts. We travel so far, we don't know if there was three, there was three gifts. No mention of them being kings, but it rhymes a bit better. We don't know exactly where they came from. We actually know very little about them. Other than they were on a mission, they were on a task. Somehow, possibly through God's word that was left in Babylon, definitely through the coming of the star, definitely through God's working, they were on a mission to find the King of the Jews. They knew something special had happened. They knew something had remarkable happened. And if they had have come from Babylon, they'd traveled over 800 miles, at least a 40-day journey. And they arrive in Jerusalem. Now, I'm thinking it's quite strange here, isn't it? They'd been following a star, the star had been taking them, and then suddenly they slip off to Jerusalem. And I think at the last minute, rather than focusing on God's guiding them, they thought, oh, the king must be in the capital. Let's go there. We don't know that, but that's where often things go wrong, isn't it? When we move away from God's word and we lean on our own understanding. Anyway, they end up in the capital, they go into the capital, and they're probably expecting some sort of great celebrations going on and great excitement around the capital because the king of the Jews, the new king of the Jews has been born and life is going on but normal. And they come and they're asking the question, where is he who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and we've come to worship him. And they were coming because this is good news. They were being led by something special. It's not every day a star announces a birth of a king. In England, the best they get is someone coming out and blowing on a trumpet and saying, hail ye, hail ye, at such and such a time, so and so was born. We've never had any stars appearing for our kings and queens in England. I know there's some presidents around the world who would like stars to appear for them, but it hasn't happened, has it? This in the history of mankind is the only time that I know that this has ever happened. But the reaction wasn't celebration and rejoicing. When Herod heard this in verse three, he was troubled and all Jerusalem with him. Fear fell on Herod. Fear fell on Jerusalem. And we have to ask ourselves a question, why? Why was this reaction? There was good news. This King of the Jews had come. There was good news. Why was it? Some 30 years earlier, a young, ambitious Herod secured the title, King of the Jews. That was his title. He got that title from Rome. And even though he was not a proper Jew himself, He was given the title King of the Jews. He was born in 73 BC. And when we're talking BC, we're going backwards with our numbers, yes? So the numbers are gonna get smaller as he gets older. It's a bit strange, but that's the way it's gonna work. So he was born in 73 BC. His father was not a pure Jew. His mother was an Arab. And if we were doing pantomime, and if we were in Israel, and we mentioned the word Arab, there'll be hisses, and there'll be booings. How can this man be a king of the Jews when his mother is an Arab? But he was. His father served Icarus, one of the two princes, and they were struggling to become kings of Judah. and the one that his father backed became successful and became the king. And Herod's dad was rewarded by his faithfulness to this king, and he became a regent and a Roman citizen. And in reality, Herod's father was the real power behind the throne. And because he had real power behind the throne, and because of the day and age it was and the corruption that was there, he got his son a good job. Now that sounds quite familiar, doesn't it? In the culture and the context of where we are here. Anyway, the son was given a good job, an important role, and he was given the governor of Galilee. But Herod was more ambitious than his father. He did not just want to serve a king like his father. He wanted to be the king. He wanted to be the king. This was his life plan. This was like his, what he was striving for. This is what motivated every breath that sort of he took. And as we look in the history books, we realize that in 43 BC, an opportunity came. There was an uprising. Two of the nephews of the old king were trying to take him from the throne. And Herod defeated them. Herod became the hero. And at the moment of becoming the hero, he then married the daughter of the king. And he was sneakily working himself in to claiming the throne. There's a top Roman official, Mark Antony came along and Herod did some major sucking up to him. and through telling him all manner of wonderful stories about himself and belittling other people, he managed to get himself the title Tekrat of Galilee. And the old king was just sidelined and Herod was brought to the fore. In 73 BC, after much underhand diplomacy, and what I mean by underhand diplomacy, I mean killings, gifts or brown envelopes under the table or bribes, shall we call them, and strategic marriages, he secured total control of the region and was announced as king of the Jews. Now he had a slight problem. The Jews didn't like him. It's slightly difficult to be a king of a nation of people who don't like you, but He was going to be the king. And even though the Jews didn't like him, they didn't like him. Some of them sort of got on with him, kind of. He practiced the Jewish religion, but he wasn't seen as a proper Jew because of his mother. And so what he did was he rebuilt the temple. He was amassed at this. He knew what he wanted and he would do whatever it took to get it. And so he built the temple and the temple that Herod built is said to be even more impressive than the one that Solomon built originally. And now if you go to Jerusalem, you still can see some of the slabs of stones that Herod had put down there 2000 years ago. And to suck up to the Romans, he made the taxes high. So he could collect lots of money for Rome. So he'd keep the Jews happy by doing things that they wanted. He'd keep the Romans happy by doing what they wanted. He did a lot of building projects, and through his building projects, he gained the title, Herod the Great. But Herod had a despotic rule. Great word. He was a tyrant. He was any of the modern day or old day tyrants you could have in your mind. He was like it. And he was fanatical about his own security because he was very fearful because the Jews didn't like him and he didn't want the Jews to kill him or take him over. So he had secret police. 2,000 years ago he instituted secret police. No telephone tapping in those days, but just busy neighbors who would tell what was going on, because if they didn't, off with their head. He had an army of 2,000 personal bodyguards. Now, I know that when some presidents travel, they have cars and outfields and things, but 2,000, that's a lot. That's a lot for those days. This was the kind of man he was and it was at that moment that this group of impressive strangers turn up from the east and Herod the Great, King of the Jews, his world is rocked when he hears the voice and the saying from these men, where is he who has been born King of the Jews? Absolute panic. For 30, 40 years, he's been working at this. Herod had no star to announce his kingship, plenty of murders, plenty of expense, plenty of marriages. His kingdom is shaking. He's afraid for his kingdom. His life work is at stake. All he is invested in is about to come crashing around him because there is the king of the Jews being born. Announced all those years away. And there's no surprise that people were troubled. They knew this meant trouble. They knew this was going to get messy. They knew what sort of man this was. There was no room for any other king because Herod was going to be the king no matter what. Have you ever asked yourself the question, why is Christmas being hijacked into something that's nothing other than about pleasure and enjoyment? If you ever ask yourself the question, why is Christ being pushed out of Christmas? And Christmas is about party. Christmas is about family. Christmas is about food. Christmas is about presents. Christmas is about holiday. Christmas is about anything other than Christ. And the reality is, we have a world full of Herods. We have a world full of Herods. They don't want another king because they want to be king of their life. And maybe that is where you are right now. And I can hear you in your mind saying, no, no, I am not like Herod. I've not killed to make my life plan. But friends, it starts small. You reduce your prayer time so you can sleep longer. And the king of sleep is beating the Lord Jesus Christ. You miss a Sunday service because you're going to study for your important exam, and yes, your exams are important, but what you're actually saying is, God, get out of my way. The king of studying, the king of education is on the throne. Or maybe you're not gonna get involved in Yahoo, but someone's just asked you to bring some money in for them and you don't ask any questions. And what you're saying is, the God of money has taken place of the King of the Jews. And no, no, you're not like Herod because you've not killed anyone for your life plan, but you would quite happily get married to a European girl or guy, so you get citizenship of that country. You'll cheat and steal to make sure you get through your education. And Yahoo, which leads to Yahoo Plus. You're promoting the king of your life. And that is not King Jesus. Is that where you are this morning? Because that's where the world is. That's why Christ has been pushed out of Christmas. Because we have a world full of herets. We don't want Jesus to steal our crown. We don't want Jesus to be number one in our lives. And we have to be careful for what we wish for. Because so often what we wish for is what becomes what we are living for. And so often what becomes living for is what we're obsessed about. When Herod's mother had little baby Herod in her arms, did she think he was gonna turn into the monster? that he did. And when he was growing up, did he think that he would be able to do the things that he did? Probably not. But he got obsessed by being king. And it consumed his life. And the reality is from this text, we know that Herod knew there was to be a Christ because he's not told that this king of the Jews is gonna be Christ. But his question is, where will the Christ be born? He had knowledge. This guy knew stuff. This guy knew stuff and he had the truth, but he feared it. Interesting that, isn't that? Why do lots of people not open God's word? because they fear the truth. Well, lots of people don't come into church because they fear the truth. They may know it to a degree, but they fear it. And Herod's fear took him somewhere worse. What do you do with the truth? What do you do with the truth? Because fear, friends, can lead to freedom in Christ. But in Herod's situation, fear led to the second point, to Herod's fury. So we're moving on to that second part of the passage and you may want just to have you turn the page there so you're on the right page, verses 13 to 18. And as we think about Herod's fury, as we learn about King Jesus, what are we going to do about it? Because sometimes we can be fearful of it. But is your fear going to lead on to fury? Or is it going to lead on to freedom in Christ? The history books tell us that Herod's life was ruled by a paranoia, schizophrenia type situation. The ancient historians didn't use those words. He's been diagnosed recently with that illness or that condition, that situation. Whether that's exactly what was going on, but that's how he reacted. There was paranoia in this guy. and just as quickly as he could, be friendly with you to get what he wanted. If it was going the wrong way, it would be off with your head. The wife out of the 10, yes, not just one, one of the 10, and his best wife, the wife that he loved, was said to have loved the most, he killed. Because he thought she was conspiring against him. One minute, madly in love with her, the next minute, gone. Paranoid. As I said, by the time Jesus was born, Herod had ten wives. And these marriages, in the main part, were strategic in securing and keeping the kingdom. And history tells us that fear of losing his kingdom led him to all manner of wickedness. Josephus, who was a Jewish historian in the first century, tells us this tale of what was going on. There was an attempt at poisoning. Someone wanted to poison him. Possibly, understandably so. Not right. but understandably they didn't like this guy being around. And he got to hear this, and so he kills a brother, he kills three of his own sons, and he put to death his own wife, as I said. The high priest came up against him, and so he invited the high priest to what can only be described as a pool party. They went to the river Jericho, went to Jericho, went for a swim, went to have a nice time there. And as one modern-day historian says, they played a very rough game of water polo. And they drowned him. Total disregard to anything. He was going to be the king, no matter what the cost. No matter what got in his way, be it religious, be it his wife, be it his sons, be it his cousin, uncles, whatever, he would get rid of them. He killed several uncles and a couple of cousins. Caesar Augustus, the Caesar safely in Rome, said this about Herod. He said, I would rather be Herod's pig than his son. Now there's a double pun here. The Greek for pig is hus, and the Greek for son is husus. But the reality is, as a good Jew, he wouldn't kill a pig to eat it. But as a wicked king, he would kill his son. How warped is this man? And the news of this king of the Jews birth starts in fear and then overflows into a plan of self-survival and there's so many wicked plans it starts in secret. Verse seven, he summoned the wise men secretly to ascertain from them when the star appeared. Why was he worried about when the star appeared? Because that's when the king might have arrived. He wanted to know the age. He wanted to know the time. He wanted to find out where the baby was. And you can imagine him there in all his pomp and his regal things saying lovely things to these wise men. Surely the wise men should have scratched their heads. Why is he not coming along with us? What's going on? But he always had a silver tongue. He could get around these things and off they went. But as with all history, Herod forgot God's part in the plan. His idea was to kill this young vulnerable baby. And throughout this reading that Costin read for us earlier, you may have noticed, you might not, but four times it comes up like a chorus, written by the prophet, verse six, written by the prophet, verse 15, written by the prophet, verse 18, written by the prophet, verse 23. God is in absolute total control. And although Herod may be the main character of this story, like the whole of God's word, the real one is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. and God was in total control, and we should be comforted by that. When we look around our own situations, our own situations in Cyprus, our own situations in the world, and we see what's going on, and we see the fury of the Chinese state against Christians, as we see the fury and the bloodshed of Boko Haram, As we see wickedness of evil men coming up against God, we can take this step back and remind ourselves God's in absolute control. Men will have their fears and men will have their furies, but God is on his throne. And God led the wise men to Jesus in a supernatural way. And God kept the baby Jesus safe in a supernatural way. The wise men were warned in a dream in verse 13, not to return to Herod, but depart to their own country by another way. And that's what they did. And Joseph was told to take his son to safety in Egypt. And that's what he did. And when Herod found this out, as we read in verse 16, then Herod saw that he'd been tricked by the wise men. he became furious and sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in that region who were two to three years or under, sorry, who were two years or under according to the time that he'd ascertained from the wise men. that the wickedness of this man is immense, that the wickedness of this man shocks us, that the wickedness of this man just, we think of those innocent babies being slaughtered. And incidentally, it's been blown sort of above all proportion. I did a little survey myself in the house and I asked the family, how many children do you think were killed? And I just want you to sort of think that question yourselves, because we often have ideas of hundreds or even thousands. The reality was it was probably around about 12. Just because of the demographic, just because of the area and the rest of it. And in actual fact, in the history books, this event isn't even mentioned. Because in sadness, this event pales into insignificance of the other wicked stuff that Herod did. This almost wasn't worthy being recorded that's how evil and wicked this man was and there he was in his way And you see, this shocks us, doesn't it? This shocks us because we think of a child's life being taken away. And the only motivation that he does it is because he doesn't want Jesus to be king. He doesn't want Jesus to be king of his life. He doesn't want anyone else to be in control of the situation. And all of us, we find that repugnant, don't we? All of us look at Herod and what he did and say that is evil. And yet we have to take this to ourselves and say, do we crown Jesus head of our lives? Because if Jesus is not head of your life now, you are like Herod in your heart. Now you may not, and you have not killed innocent children. But the underlying wickedness is the same. The underlying wickedness is Jesus is to be King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And you said, no, it is me. That's Herod. That's a Herod like attitude. And it's only the grace of God that stopped you from massacring innocent children. We thank God for his grace, don't we? because our own natural sinful default situation is to be king of our lives. And we see that in different ways. Pushing God out of your life in small ways can lead to bigger ways. It was Pastor Phil's children's talk, wasn't it? Do you remember it? The leopard. And they had the cute little leopard And everyone liked this little leopard and the elders, no, you shouldn't have that. Because little leopards become big leopards and big leopards kill. Little herons become big herons. Just a small lie leads to a bigger one. Just a small theft can lead to a greater one. And the question I want you to ask yourselves now is what price will you pay to keep yourself king of your life? What's too far on your radar? What's pushing out too far? Obviously we've got murdering infants over there somewhere. But just saying, I don't want you, God, is on that spectrum. As Jesus said to his disciples, what's the profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul or forfeits himself? Jesus came here to save people from their sins. And for many of you here, you know that Christmas message. You know that the Lord Jesus Christ is your savior. You are trusting in him. You know that your heart is naturally like Herod's and you know that you have a problem and you've confessed your sins and you're trusting on the Lord Jesus Christ to save you from your sins and to forgive you. And your fear has brought you freedom in Christ. But my fear is, my concern is, there are some of you here this morning, and although you are not bad in your own eyes, and although you're not bad in the standards of the world's eyes, you have rejected King Jesus. And as such, You are like Herod. The only thing that's stopping you from killing infants, as with all of us, is God's grace. So we've seen Herod's fear, we've seen Herod's fury, and lastly we see that Herod is finished. God's prophecies will come true. Every single last one. God's story is the story of history. It's his story. The history books are full of Herod's death. Joseph said this about his death. He was paranoid. He was worried that nobody would mourn about his own death. And the reality was he had right to worry because they were preparing a party. They were just waiting the day. Joseph went on to tell that he spoke to his sister Salomon and said to her, look, I want you to arrest all the Jewish leaders in the land, imprison them in the Hippodrome, just below the palace. And she said, okay, I'll do that, but why am I doing it? And Herod said, you're doing it because the day I die, I want you to kill all those leaders. And the reason I want you to kill him is I want people to be mourning and not rejoicing. Even in his death, he was planning the wickedness of wickednesses. Herod died in Jericho after excruciating painful, petrifying illness of uncertain cause. Joseph states that the pain of his illness led him to attempt suicide, but his cousin stopped him. I wonder if it was out of mercy, or whether they just thought he should suffer a bit more. But all the power of this man, all the scheming, all the efforts to keep the kingdom, and he's dead. He's no longer king of the Jews. And as far as I can tell, Herod died, unbelieving, unforgiving, and eternally will be paying the price of being king of his own life. And this is a tragedy, friends. If you are living for anyone other than King Jesus, your end will be like Herod's. Now, I'm not saying that you will have an excruciatingly painful death. That's not the big deal. Herod's painful death is not the big deal. The big deal is where he is now. He is in the eternity of hopeless punishment. He pushed King Jesus away. He pushed God away. And God is saying, stay there and suffer there for eternity. What he's wished for has come true. God's left him. God's word talks about hell as being a place of utter darkness, resembling the hopelessness of it. And I can imagine that King Herod, King of the Jews, whatever title he's taken there with him, is there thinking. If only. If only. if only. The baby Jesus was saved. God looked after the baby Jesus, his own son. And nothing is going to stop God's plan. And if we move on 30 years from this narrative of the Christ's birth, we look at the inscription on the top of the cross, at Calvary, We see the Lord Jesus Christ, not as a baby, but as a grown man who's never sinned. And above his head is a title. This is the King of the Jews. Herod could not kill Jesus. Others tried to kill him, but they could not. In fact, Jesus' life could not be taken from him. Jesus gave it up. Jesus gave up his life's work when it was finished. He took the sins of his people upon himself. He took the punishment that we deserve, that darkness of hell, that eternity of being cast away from God, that endless torment the Lord Jesus Christ took upon himself. And the King of the Jews is alive now and sat at the right hand of God. And the King of the Jews is interceding for his people Right now. And like I said, as far as I can tell, Herod died unbelieving, unforgiven, and will be eternally paying the price for being king of his own life. The frightening reality is unless we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as our savior, unless we are trusting on the King of the Jews' sacrifice that he paid with his own lifeblood on the cross, we will be eternally paying the price for being king of our own lives. The question is this, are you going to leave here as Herod, saying, I'm going my way, doing my thing? Or are you going to embrace the good news of Christmas? That Jesus came to this world to save his people from their sins? For some of you this morning, you know that. You are his people and you've been saved from your sins. The Herod in your life has been dealt with by the Lord Jesus Christ's precious blood. God has dealt with your fear. God has dealt with your fear. And God is making your finish better than your beginning. Friends, let God deal with your fear. Let God deal with your fury. And let God make your finish be better than your beginning. Our beginning is sin. Our end can be in the Lord Jesus Christ if we trust in him, if we call upon his name. We shall be saved. But friends, if you don't, your end will be as your beginning in sin. And the wages of sin is death. Not just the painful death of Herod, but the eternal death of being punished for one who said, I am king of my life. Let us look to the cross. Let us look to Jesus. Let us not just see him as that baby. Let's see him as that triumphant king of the Jews who came to save his people from their sins. Amen. I just want you to personally take a moment because it's a huge question we've been asking you. It's bigger than who you're going to get married to. It's bigger than what occupation you're going to have in the future. It's a question of your eternity.