As you will have gathered by now, the character from the Christmas story I want us to consider this morning is one of the less popular characters of the story, none other than King Herod. And I've been reading just this last week a little bit of the history of King Herod. I won't bore you with a lot of it, but for those of you who like history, you might find his story quite interesting, but it's particularly interesting that although he's despised today, largely because of what he does in the passage we just read, he was actually despised in his own day as well, particularly by the Jewish people that he was ruler of. by a very long and convoluted story which I won't share. King Herod had become king of Judea and liked to be known as king of the Jews but his people didn't respect him very much because as far as they were concerned he wasn't a Jew himself. King Herod had come from a place called Idumia and many years previously, about a century or two before, his family had become Jews. They weren't naturally ethnically Jewish, but they had adopted the Jewish religion. But for many, that wasn't really good enough. And they were not pleased to have this fake Jew, as many of them saw him as ruler over them. And so Herod had to wrestle with this. for much of his rule of Judea. And you might know that he did many building projects, and some of those were in part to try and appease the Jewish people. He built the temple, which was the temple that Jesus himself was to enter a few decades later. And in these ways, he sought to win the approval of the Jewish people, but didn't quite achieve it. But what I want to consider this morning is the character of King Herod, because really today he's not known for his great building projects, which were great. Some of his buildings are still standing to this day. But what he's known for is the heinous crime the evil acts of the slaughter of the innocents and that is what he's known for and that's the reason why you don't see many baby Herods out there. Do you know any Herods? No, because not many people want to call their children Herod for the same reason they don't want to call their child Adolf or Judas or something like that. And we read what he did in verse 16 of the chapter we read. It says, then Herod, when he saw that he was deceived by the wise men, was exceedingly angry. And he sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its districts from two years old and under, according to the time which he determined from the wise men. But we kind of missed the point. if we just simply put Herod into the category of tyrant, he was an evil, wicked man, like Hitler, like Stalin, like Pol Pot, like Vlad the Impaler, or whoever else. If we just put him into this kind of category of wicked, evil man, then we're in danger of not learning the lessons of Herod's life for ourselves, because really, Herod was not so different from any of us. Perhaps he went further than any of us have or will do, but he had the same sinful heart. that we all have. And what I'd like to do this morning is kind of peel back the layers of King Herod, like an onion, and then peel back the layers to see what drove Herod to do this terrible thing, this unimaginable thing. We can scarcely imagine why some people choose to murder anyone, let alone infants. But what took Herod to that point? How did he get there? And as I say, let's peel back the layers to learn for ourselves. Because Herod didn't wake up one morning as a murderer. It didn't just hit him and he become that just by itself out of nowhere. No, he sowed seeds by his choices which eventually reaped this act. which we have read about. Let's take one step back before he committed this horrible thing. Look again at verse 16. It says, then Herod, when he saw that he was deceived by the wise men, was exceedingly angry. Herod was exceedingly angry. That's the first deeper layer behind his murder. Herod reaped murder because he sowed anger. Now, I'm fairly confident nobody here in this room has committed murder. Not 100% confident, but pretty confident that nobody has committed murder. But we've all been angry, haven't we? We all know that feeling of anger. Sometimes it's righteous and just. But more often than not, it's not, is it? We are hate-filled towards other people. And what did Jesus say? Jesus said if anyone is angry with his brother or sister without a cause, then he is in danger of judgment. Because Jesus knew, of course, that anger is the root of murder. Anger, when it's full-grown, leads to murder. And yet sometimes we don't treat anger with the seriousness that we should. I remember a story of a lady who once came to a preacher, and she had a short temper, but she tried to defend her angry outbursts to the preacher. And she said, oh, there's nothing wrong with losing my temper. I blow up. And then it's all over. It's done. It's finished with. And the preacher replied, well, so does a shotgun. And look at the damage that that causes. You see the point. Anger may just come and go in a moment, but it can produce terrible effects in our lives and in the lives of others. Someone else once said, getting angry can sometimes be like leaping into a wonderfully responsive sports car, gunning the motor, taking off at high speed, and then discovering the brakes are out of order. That's what anger can be like. It takes us captive. and we say things and we do things that afterwards we regret. The lesson is beware anger. Learn from Herod. Learn from what he did and watch anger in your life. Don't just excuse it as just a small fault. It does more damage than you can imagine. But simply saying, don't get angry, watch your temper, isn't really enough, is it? That doesn't really get deep enough. There are more layers. Why do we get angry? Why is anger such a powerful emotion? And we can dig deeper into Herod's heart. Let's look at what it said again in verse 16 before he got angry. It says, then Herod, when he saw that he was deceived by the wise men was exceedingly angry. Matthew tells us why Herod was angry. He was angry because he was deceived by the wise men. Now sometimes, as I said, anger is justified. Sometimes we feel angry because someone has done something which is truly wrong. Jesus got angry on occasion and we call that righteous anger or righteous indignation. But Herod demonstrates here that his anger wasn't righteous indignation. It wasn't holy anger. His was purely selfish anger. And we know that because it says he was angry when he was deceived by the wise men. But do you remember what he had done himself? Just a few verses previously. If you don't remember, let me read them for you. Verse seven. This is after the wise men have come and have told him that this new king has been born. Then it says, then Herod, when he had secretly called the wise men, determined from them what time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem and said, go and search carefully for the young child. And when you have found him, bring back word to me that I may come and worship him also. Did Herod want to worship Jesus also? No, as we learn afterwards, the angel warned the wise men not to return back to Herod because he wanted to kill Jesus. And we saw in verse 16 what he did when he found he had been deceived. In other words, Herod wasn't a righteous person who hated lies. And that's why he was angry at the wise men because they had deceived him. That isn't what irritated Herod. What irritated Herod was that they had deceived him. That's what made him angry. That's the difference between righteous anger and unrighteous anger. Righteous anger is concerned with what offends God, what makes God angry. Unrighteous anger is concerned about us, what makes us angry. And Herod was simply concerned about himself. When it suited him, he would lie. When it suited him, he would bend the truth and flat out break the truth. But when people lied to him, he got angry. That's a very common reaction, isn't it? I don't know if you've ever noticed this with people. Some people who aren't honest, they're not honest people. But the moment you lie to them, they blow up. The moment you dare to deceive them, they can't take it. Herod was not just a liar, he was a hypocrite as well. So we see this deeper layer, this deception in Herod's heart. But you ask, well, why did he lie? Why did he lie in the first place? Why didn't he seek out the child to worship him? Why did he feel the need to lie? Well, again, we can dig deeper into the passage. Look again at verse four. This is when the wise men have first come to Herod. And in verse four it says, And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. So they said to him, In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet, But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are not the least among the rulers of Judah. For out of you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. Then Herod, when he had secretly called the wise men, determined from them what time the star had appeared. Now at first sight, that seems wonderful. Herod hears the news from the wise men that the new king has been born. And what does Herod do? He goes to the Bible. He goes and reads the Bible, and he finds out from the scribes and the chief priests where the Messiah, which the wise men had said had just been born, he sort of found out where the baby would be born. And this seems great, doesn't it? He was searching the scriptures. He was reading God's words. But why? Tragically, it's possible to do good things for bad reasons, with bad motives. And we can see why Herod was doing this. He wasn't doing it because he wanted to worship the newborn king. It wasn't because he wanted to understand God's word. It wasn't that he wanted to honour God. He was concerned. for his crown. He was concerned about his kingdom. As I said at the beginning, Herod spent much of his life seeking to win the approval of the people he was ruler of. He wanted desperately to be king of the Jews and to be seen as such. And when he heard that a new king had been born, the promised Messiah, he was afraid. He was worried because the people might love this child more than they loved him. They might follow the baby, this newborn king, and not him. You can see this in verse three. When the wise men tell him this new king has been born, it says in verse three, when Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. That's interesting, isn't it? If you read the Christmas story. you hear of people rejoicing when they hear this news. They hear about the newborn king, and Mary eventually rejoices. Elizabeth rejoices. John the Baptist in Elizabeth's womb rejoices. The shepherds rejoice. The angels rejoice. The wise men, we're told, when they see the star in verse 10, they rejoice. All this rejoicing when the newborn king is announced. But when Herod hears the news, he doesn't rejoice. He's troubled. He's afraid. He has exactly the opposite reaction. And this is where we come to the center of the onion that is King Herod. What was motivating him at the deepest level? Why was Herod afraid? Why was he troubled at this news? The reason he was troubled was because Herod's God was Herod and not God. That was Herod's fundamental issue. He was his own king and not God. He loved his own crown more than he loved God's. And this is what motivates everything that he does in this passage. He clutches at his rule. He clutches at his own authority like a drowned man, like a drowning king clutching his own crown. He is desperate to hold on to the authority and the power that he has over his own life. These other characters in the story, They aren't doing that. They rejoiced when the newborn king was born, because God was their king, not themselves. And this is why I say King Herod is not so different from any of us, because this is the fundamental problem of sin in our own hearts. We, like Herod, want to cling onto the crown of our own lives. We may not have a kingdom like Herod did, we might not have an actual palace and actual people to rule, but we all like, deep down, to have authority over our own lives, don't we? We don't like it when God tells us to do things we don't want to do. And when we're like that, are we any better than Herod was? Herod's great fear was losing his autonomy, losing his power over his kingdom and his own life. And we can be the same as well. It's interesting as well, did you notice when it says in verse three, it says, when Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. Now, I don't think that means that every single individual in Jerusalem also was troubled, because we know a little bit later that there was Simeon, for example, and Anna, and there were a few people who were looking forward to the new king. But what that verse tells us is many, many, many people in Jerusalem didn't rejoice at the news. They were troubled with King Herod as well. And the same is true today. We often say, don't we, that there was no room for Jesus in Bethlehem. And for so many, there's no room for Jesus in their lives today. And this verse is also true. All Jerusalem was troubled when they heard of this newborn king. And many people in our society today are troubled when they hear there is a king and his name is Jesus. And that's the choice we all have to make at this Christmas time. Who is your king? Who has the crown in your life? Is it yourself or is it Jesus? Are you like Herod or are you like the wise men? Herod clung to his crown and he did great evil as a result. The wise men, as it were, laid their crowns at Jesus' feet, almost literally, as they gave him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. There's one last application I want to make from this, and let me remind you again of that story we shared with the children earlier about that captain fighting with the lighthouse. That was a battle that captain was never gonna win. If he had continued on his course, devastation and destruction awaited him. And the same is true for us as well. If we continually ignore God in our life, then there is nothing but destruction awaiting us. It's a battle we cannot win. Herod discovered that the hard way. Herod tried to destroy all the babies in the surrounding area. He tried to rid himself of this potential rival to his throne. But all he did was actually make Jesus all the more unique, all the more special, because no one else would have been born in Bethlehem at that time after Herod did that evil act. Only Jesus. There was nothing Herod could do to prevent God's plans. Did you even notice actually in verse 18, in verse 17 it says, then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet saying, a voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children. In other words, Long before Herod was born, long before these events happened, God already knew it was going to happen. There's no way Herod could second guess God. There's no way we can second guess God. So what's the point fighting with him? What's the point battling him? when he's always going to win in the end. Far better to bow the knee, far better to surrender to him. This evening, I want to look at the exact opposite of King Herod. As we look at Philippians chapter two and we learn how Jesus left the glory of heaven and came to this earth. And it's quite amazing, really, when you compare the attitude of Jesus to the attitude of Herod. Herod clung to his crown. Jesus, as it were, relinquished his crown. We're told that he didn't consider equality with God something to be clung to, to be grasped. He was God. He is God. but he lay aside his dignity and became a man and became a servant. Herod clung to his power. Jesus sacrificed it. Herod clung to his life and lost it. Jesus gave his life and gained it. And in Philippians 2, it says, let this mind be in you. That was also in Christ Jesus. Don't cling on to your life. Don't cling on to your own power. Don't cling on to your own kingdom. It will never succeed in the end. But give your life into Jesus' hands. Relinquish your power into his loving hands. and you will discover life in all its fullness. Could talk more about that now, but I'll save that for this evening. But I wonder, who are you more like this evening, this morning? Are you more like Herod, clinging to your crown, or do you have a mind like Christ, who relinquished it for the good of others? We'll talk more about that this evening, but right now we'll close with our final hymn. And it's a hymn rejoicing in the King, that is Jesus. Number six in our carol sheets. Hark, the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn King. Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled. So let's stand and sing number six. ♪ O'er the land of angels sing ♪ ♪ Glory to the newborn King ♪ ♪ Peace on earth and mercy mild ♪ ♪ Love and sincere concern ♪ ♪ Joyful all ye nations rise ♪ ♪ Join the triumph of the skies ♪ ♪ With angelic hosts proclaim ♪ ♪ Christ is born in Bethlehem ♪ ♪ Hark the herald angels sing ♪ ♪ Glory to the newborn King ♪ ♪ Christ by highest heaven adored ♪ ♪ Christ the everlasting Lord ♪ ♪ Late in time behold him come ♪ ♪ Lost without a virgin's womb ♪ ♪ Well in flesh the Godhead see ♪ ♪ Well in blood with deity ♪ ♪ Jesus, a brave man to dwell ♪ ♪ Jesus, our Emmanuel ♪ ♪ Hark the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn King! ♪ ♪ Hear the herald prince of peace, and the Son of Man! ♪ ♪ And life to all he brings ♪ ♪ Drifts with him in his dreams ♪ ♪ But he makes his glory known to all the world ♪ ♪ Born and ran, though all may die ♪ ♪ Born to raise the sons of life ♪ ♪ Born to give their servant life ♪ ♪ Hark, the herald angels sing ♪ ♪ Glory to the newborn King ♪ nations, God, keeps thee in us by the bone. Christ, the Lord, at our great sin, proves in us thy servitude. ♪ Thou display thy saving power ♪ ♪ Proving nature thou withstore ♪ ♪ Thou in mystic union of joy ♪ ♪ Thine to us, our God to thine ♪ ♪ Long may our hope endure ♪ Glory to the newborn King.