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. 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. But 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. Read that far in God's word. Can a bad year ruin your Christmas? This is a quiz for you as a Christian, a Bible-thinking Christian, because the true answer is no, a bad year cannot ruin Christmas. In fact, if you believe that some suffering or some difficulty just before Christmas or at any time during the year leading up to Christmas could ruin your Christmas, you have completely forgotten the message, the size, and the power of Christ's coming. Christmas is impervious to tragedy. Christ engulfs and redefines anything that we suffer. You can't have your Christmas ruined if you're thinking biblically about it. I can prove this from this passage we studied today. The history of Christmas, the history of the coming of Jesus into the world began with what some have called the slaughter of innocence. I assume that it stood out to you in what we read together that he killed Every baby boy, two years old and under, it's called the slaughter of innocents, innocent children. Here it is in Matthew chapter two in scripture. But it continued with the slaughter of the innocent John the Baptist in chapter 11. And it ends, of course, as you know, with the slaughter of the innocent one himself, Jesus Christ, at the end of the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 27. Of course, he rose again, and so we have victory. The Christmas story leads to Good Friday and Easter. It leads to his resurrection, his ascension, his promise to come again. But God sympathizes with his people when we suffer. He sympathizes with victims, and he also judges the agents of violence. God gives us in this passage perspective. It brings us to our main point you'll see in your bulletin. Our Father in heaven fulfills what he promised in protecting his children through the coming of his son. For what things can we trust God? Number one, for salvation through the coming of his son, verses 13 and 14. Number two, for fulfillment of God's good intentions in the coming of his son despite the bad intentions of men, verses 15 to 18. And third, we can trust God for ongoing protection for all of his children through the coming of his son, verses 19 to 23. So our first point then for salvation through the coming of his son, we can trust God our father. As I said earlier, back in verse 12, the wise men were warned in a dream to avoid Herod's murderous plot by taking a alternate route back home to their home country. Then in verse 13, the start of our study, an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, flee to Egypt and remain there until I tell you. This is heavenly intel to provide protection for Joseph and his family, of course, aimed at Jesus, who was the target of Herod. In verse 14, the godly man, Joseph, did exactly as the angel had told him to do. The angel provided good intelligence, good instructions for saving and safety for Joseph, the child Jesus, who's mentioned that way again and again in our passage, the child, and his mother, Mary. God's greater purpose is revealed already in these first two verses by guiding his son, Jesus, through guiding his earthly father, Joseph, not to have death as a baby, but rather to have later death as a man by the cross. This was God's plan to give us salvation. It's not to just give us a cute baby, but to give us salvation through him who became a man and our Redeemer, Jesus himself later. taught about this in his teaching and preaching ministry. He taught about how much God the Father values us, which is our first point, salvation through the coming of his son. He values us so much he would give his son. This is how Jesus put it in Matthew 10, verse 29. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your father. Fear not therefore, you are of more value than many sparrows. We read the story about Jesus, and you might conclude that, well, that's special because Jesus is the eternal son of God. Of course, God the Father would send special intel through angels to protect his life when he's in Egypt, needs to go to Egypt. But our Father would also protect us, and he does so, for salvation has come to us through the same Jesus. That's the lesson, that he would send his son to die in our place. It brings us to our second point, for fulfillment of God's good intentions in the coming of his son, despite the bad intentions of men, verses 15 to 18. We see from verse 15 that Joseph and the baby Jesus and Mary remained exactly where the angel had instructed Joseph to remain as long as the angel told him to remain there. Joseph was good at taking instructions. And that obedience, remaining for the little family, continued until the threat was gone. Well, when did the threat get gone? When was it released? When was the threat passed? it's when Herod died, and not until then. Herod remained a threat as long as he was alive, as long as he was in power, as long as he could issue commands to kill people. So in God the Father's good design, what was the greater reason that Joseph was guided into Egypt with baby Jesus? It's in order to show God's intention to provide a safe pathway into exile and a safe pathway back out of exile. Here he quotes then, Matthew quotes Hosea, Hosea 11 verse one, out of Egypt I called my son. That's a reference back to the original Exodus. So how does that connect? You have to follow Matthew's logic here. The Exodus of baby Jesus from Egypt reminds us of the ancient exodus of God's people out of Egypt, and it should. Because both events, Jesus coming safely up out of Egypt and God's people coming up out of Egypt, show the same saving purpose of God. The redemption of God's people in the great exodus pointed ahead to the true permanent redemption of God's people through Jesus' death and resurrection. Jesus couldn't die as a baby. He needed to die in exactly the way the scriptures pointed for him to die to satisfy divine justice. So both events show the saving purpose of God our Father. The ancient exodus is only possible because of the anticipated coming of Jesus. That's a retainer to wait until Jesus actually pays for the sins of the people who are stuck in the slavery of sin in Egypt. It's anticipated coming of Jesus, and then Jesus coming, needed for him to come back up out of Egypt as a child, and then to come up out of death itself through his resurrection. But back to our story here in Matthew 2, now verse 16. How did Herod react when instead of Herod tricking the wise men, it ended up the wise men tricked Herod? The trickster got tricked. How did he react? We're told in scripture how Herod reacted with two words in verse 16. You find them? Became furious. This is what you don't want. You don't want the murderous King Herod to become upset as he had earlier been troubled. You don't want him to become furious because you tricked him. He was furious enough to order a very deadly mass murder. He sent an order. You can blame Herod for this because scripture tells us who gave the order. It was Herod. He sent an order to kill all the baby boys, two years old and younger. Why? Why two years old and younger? Because that was the timeframe that the wise men revealed to be the birth of this Christ child, this newborn king, this threat to Herod the king. Anyone called king other than Herod is a threat to him. His bad intentions were seen back in verse four when he assembled the chief priests and scribes to ask them, and then it's seen again in verse seven where he summoned the wise men to Herod to find out when and where the Christ child was to be born, and he used all that information from the chief priests and the scribes and the wise men to calculate, let's just be doubly sure and take every child two years old and younger and kill them all. Is that not terrible? It disturbs us. It ought to. And then in verses 17 and 18, Matthew says it reminds him of something, because it ought to remind all of us of something. Here he again quotes the Old Testament, this time from Jeremiah 31, 15, about Rachel weeping for her children. Rachel refusing to be comforted because her children were no more. Rachel, of course, the wife of Jacob, the great patriarch, third in line after Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, right? So Rachel is buried near Bethlehem, where these children are being slaughtered in our story. It's as if Rachel is saying something, because it sounds familiar. We're in this again, the whole grief and hopelessness of a slaughter of innocents. In a figure of speech, Jeremiah had equated the name of the patriarch's wife, Rachel, with the very land of God's promise. So when Matthew picks up Jeremiah's word picture about Rachel weeping for her children, Matthew's now applying it to the slaughter of these baby boys, which of course was targeted at Jesus but missed. And once again in Bethlehem, there's grief. Once again in Bethlehem, there's hopelessness because of Herod's violence. The answer to hopelessness in Rachel's day and the answer to hopelessness in Matthew's day is to turn to God and trust in God's plan and to rely on God's good intentions, even in the middle of a terrible slaughter. Whatever it is that threatens to ruin your Christmas, to ruin our hope. is something that is dwarfed by God's good intentions. God's life-giving intentions always overpower the life-ending intentions brought on by man's evil plans and Satan's designs. Despite the bad actions of Herod here, God is fulfilling an intricate plan that saved the children through all ages who would believe in Jesus, the Christ child. God's good intentions are always carried out to bless his people, to save his people, to redeem his people, to judge his enemies and our enemies. You might still be troubled. You might ask yourself, rather simplistically, why didn't God physically save those innocent baby boys in Bethlehem? Can't get over that. The answer is because God had bigger plans, better plans, bigger than we could ask, bigger than we can think, bigger than we can imagine, and it better be big because that's a lot of bloodshed of innocent little boys. It is that big. It is that big. Paul wrote it this way in Romans 8 31, if God is for us, who can be against us? The God who can raise the dead will take care of justice in the case of each of those baby boys. We don't weep unconsolably for the children of God who are under attack, whether it's the ancient children being slaughtered in Bethlehem or whether it's our missionaries or those in other countries being persecuted today. Actually, we weep for Herod. Actually, we weep for the persecutors in all of those countries. We weep for those who have to face God with blood on their hands. Because God can reverse the damage that Herod caused for every single one of those baby boys. God raises the dead and God can judge Herod for his actions. And his response to Herod will be just. It will satisfy the matter. We would all be satisfied if we see how God handles it in the end. But the opposite is also true. In the case of Jesus, it's Herod versus Jesus, right? We studied that in the first 12 verses of our chapter. Two kings, a tale of two kings, Herod versus Jesus. We've covered Herod just now, but what about the opposite in the case of the baby Jesus? He's in danger, and God rescued him there. He's in danger again later. You see, after Jesus had grown up to become a man, and Jesus taught and preached, he was a wonderful rabbi, filled with mercy and love for people, true teaching, filled with grace. After a while, Jesus was arrested, he was put on trial, he was beaten, he was led away to be crucified. While he was being led away to be crucified, there were women in Jerusalem meeting Jesus on the road and crying for him. It's a pitiful scene. We might cry for the baby boys. We might cry for Jesus, a man on his way to be crucified. They were crying for him, and he stopped. And he turned to the women. In Luke 23, 28, he said this. Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. Do not weep for Jesus, though he's being led away to be slaughtered, to be crucified, the innocent one to be slaughtered. Why? What's the truth in Jesus' statement to the daughters of Jerusalem? It's the same truth that Matthew's saying to us about the baby boys that still trouble us. Because God has a plan in mind. He has an eternal plan in mind. Get with the bigger plan, see the larger picture. Jesus, who's being led away to slaughter, the innocent to be slaughtered, will soon be victorious. Don't weep for him, he's the victorious king. The resurrection victory of the Son of God means there's no need to weep for Jesus. There's no need to weep for any of God's children. God can reverse death, and he's done so in all of our cases who trust in him. He can wipe away every tear from our eyes, the tears that have us compassionate for those ancient baby boys. God's power secures God's plans for us in our day, in our case, in our year. We can trust God fully despite whatever attacks Satan and others may bring against us, against God, against his church. But even if we lose baby boys in a mass slaughter, we have God and grief draws us closer to him, draws us closer to one another. Dr. J. Gresham Machen, the founder of our denomination, wrote this. Has it never dawned on us that God is valuable for his own sake? If we value God for his own sake, then the loss of other things will draw us all the closer to him. This is our second point. How can we trust God? For what things can we trust him? For fulfillment of his good intentions in the coming of his son, despite the bad intentions of men. If it's true, the infant Jesus in his day. It's certainly true today in the full flower of the Church of Jesus Christ around the world. Brings us to the third and last point for what things can we trust God. Thirdly, for ongoing protection for all his children through the coming of his son. Verse 19, now we fast forward to the moment when Herod died. He was already old in that story, don't know quite how many months it took, but after that, Herod died. Remember from verse 13 that the angel had promised to tell Joseph when it was safe for Joseph to continue, to come out of hiding in Egypt and come back, come back to the land, come back to Israel, back to Jerusalem, the vicinity of Bethlehem. Upon the death of Herod, it became safe for Joseph to bring the Christ child, Jesus, up out of Egypt as prophesied. And so the Lord's angel reappears in another dream to Joseph, all the way down in Egypt. It's showing it's not just the God over Israel, but it's the God over all the nations, over all the world. Angel appears to Joseph in Egypt, in a dream, and gave new instructions to Joseph. There's new intel. We have it on good authority, heaven itself, that Herod has died. So now, you can have new instructions. Last time, verse 13, the angel gave the instruction to flee to Egypt. This time, in verse 20, it's literally the reverse of the previous instruction. Gave Joseph the opposite. Verse 20, rise, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel for those who sought the child's life are dead. Then in verse 21, does Joseph say, nah, that's okay, I kinda like it down here in Egypt, we've settled in, thank you very much. I don't know if I want to chase all around the world instructions from heaven through this angel in a dream. Maybe it's true, maybe it's not true, maybe we should just stay put. No, no, none of that. Joseph, he obeyed. We have a whole separate verse to tell us how he responded, verse 21. He rose and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. There's absolutely no variation from the instructions. Exactly according to God's word through the angel messenger is what Joseph did. He left Egypt, he returned to the land of Israel with the baby Jesus, praise God. But a new problem developed. Surprise, surprise, we live in a broken world, don't we? One problem after another. The new problem developed in verse 22. Herod's dead, but who replaces him? A really good guy, right? No. The next earthly ruler who replaced Herod was also a ruler with bad intentions, to say it mildly. So Joseph feared going back to Judea. He did what he was told to do by the angel, but he had his own concerns. He had his own observations. He was developing a healthy fear of going back to Judea, and there was good reason for him to be concerned. After Herod's death, Herod's kingdom was split up into three parts. The new ruler over Galilee was this man named Archelaus. Do you know that Archelaus began his reign by slaughtering 3,000 influential people? The same idea from Herod. If there's anybody who could possibly be a threat to my kingdom, let's kill them. Archelaus adopted the same view and then some. 3,000 influential people who could potentially, any of them, be a threat to Archelaus or gather together and become a threat to Archelaus. That's how he started his rule. So, how is the baby Jesus supposed to be protected? Hey, Mr. Angel. You're sending us back to Israel. By the way, remember that Jesus does have the title son of David. He's the newborn king. He's literally the king of the Jews. All the Jews want there to be a king to rule, not Rome. And when that gets out, when that gets found, isn't Jesus a target still? Isn't he a target afresh, a target again? The answer to the concern. how the baby Jesus would be protected is the very same way that the baby Jesus was protected last time. This is a lesson for us. This is an important lesson for us. God the Father in heaven communicated again through an angel again to Joseph again. Verse 22, being warned in a dream, Joseph withdrew to the district of Galilee. Did you catch it? Another warning, in another dream, to Joseph with another set of intel and instructions, this time to go to Galilee. The angel has the plan, has the answer, has the safe route. Our last verse, verse 23, beautifully reminds us of the greatness of our Heavenly Father. This is not some chaotic scene where now there's this threat, now there's that attack, and the Father in heaven could barely keep up. He's sending angels and he's managing, and he somehow is keeping Jesus alive, but he can barely keep up. That's not at all the case. And verse 23 is so helpful to set our minds in proper thinking. God the Father had this planned all along. Don't you find that healing and hope-giving to your mindset on this? Verse 23, we are told that this series of violent and murderous kings, not just Herod, but Archelaus now too, was how Jesus ended up in the city called Nazareth, so that Jesus could be called a Nazarene. We just think of that so easily, and of course, yes, he's called a Nazarene. There's a lot of specific details that need to happen in a certain sequence for Jesus to be a Nazarene, a Neo-Nazareth, to be called a Nazarene. God, the Heavenly Father of Jesus, equipped Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus, with everything that Joseph needed in order to protect and take care of baby Jesus from one geographical point to another. God even filled Joseph with the required personal integrity, the required personal piety, the required personal wisdom, who receive those dreams as messages through an angel, messages from God himself that must be followed with exactness. Repeatedly, the Christ child was saved through God the Father and through Joseph's holiness. so that he could save us on the cross. I'm just saying that he obeyed the instructions. Of course, Joseph was a sinner in need of a savior just like Mary. What have we seen? Our Father in heaven fulfills what he promised in protecting his children through the coming of his son. For what things can we trust him? We saw in verses 13 to 14 the salvation through the coming of his son. We saw in verses 15 to 18 the fulfillment of God's good intentions concerning his son despite the bad intentions of men. And third, we saw the ongoing protection of his children through the coming of his son. So we have three applications to ourselves. Number one, we reorient our weeping. We reorient our weeping. In the message of Christmas, we're told to adjust our rejoicing, right? One of the classic first launching Christmas carols is joy to the world, right? It's how you kick off Christmas. Joy to the world. We should all be increasing our joy, right? We're told to adjust our joy. Well, the opposite is also true. In the message of Christmas, we're told to adjust our weeping. What causes you to weep? What causes right-thinking Christians to weep? Sin. Sin messes everything up. It's painful. It's destructive. Death. Death messes things up. We say farewell. We say goodbye. There's separation. There's grief. Removes people we love. But our God has conquered sin. Our God has conquered death in the resurrection of Christ. Sin is cleansed. Death is reversed. So what's left to weep for? For what do we weep at such an intensity that we could say with Rachel we refuse to be comforted? We only weep for those who don't know our Jesus. We weep for those like Herod who must stand before the judgment seat of Christ Jesus, the King placed on his throne through God the Father. We're not people who refuse to be comforted. We're the people who refuse to be dismayed. God rest you merry gentlemen. Let nothing you dismay. Remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas Day to save us all from Satan's power when we were gone astray. Oh tidings of comfort and joy quoted right out of Christmas Carol we sing every year. We reorient our weeping and do not allow dismay to enter. according to the coming of the Christ child. Number one, we reorient our weeping. Number two, we deepen our trust in our Father. We deepen our trust in our Heavenly Father. We have the final victory over evil and sin and death. This slaughter of the innocents, this killing of these baby boys that all evil men and women have been able to deal out through the history of the world. We have the final victory. We have to stop living by our own set of expectations that's a small subset, a very narrow case study. We have to live by pure trust in the great big vision of God our Father. God doesn't follow our own assumed outcomes for each mini story. God's not comfortably predictable to us. that if you follow Jesus, everything lines up. There's no suffering, no difficulty, no pain, no loss, no death, no funerals. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. We have learned, despite all that, to rest and trust in our Father's care, even when we're not informed about what our Father is doing. What's He doing? We're not know what He's doing. We're not sure we like how He's doing. We're not sure we like the timing of it. And God, our Father, knows what he's doing. He didn't slip up, he never has. He's caring for you wonderfully, beautifully. It's exquisite how he's caring for us. Trust him deeper. A poet wrote about knowing that our Father in heaven desires our salvation and safety by writing this. Lord, I crawled across the barrenness to you with my empty cup, uncertain in asking any drop of refreshment. If only I had known you better, I would have come running. and with a bucket. We don't bring God into our own court of judgment and start to question why God let bad things happen to me or to people that we know, people we love. Why God let those baby boys die? He better give me a good answer. We don't call God into our courtroom and question him. Instead, we bring ourselves into the realm of the promises that God our Father has made, promises that God our Father has kept, and we trust in His full plans. The God Almighty is the one who prophesied He would send His Son and did send His Son. The fulfillment of that promise at Christmas carries us. It causes us to trust bigger in the promises of our Father. We ought to trust exactly when things seem to go haywire. Even when it's shocking, like slaughter. Baby boys being extinguished? And while that was happening, God was rescuing Jesus, who would rescue us. The lesson is clear, trust in God the Father because of his promise of protection that stands. And third and lastly, anticipate the last Christmas. You're studying the first Christmas. And it's Christmas here recently, right? We anticipate the last Christmas. The same Jesus who came as a baby is coming again in resurrection power and great glory. He came, he conquered, he's coming again. All things will be set right. If you're still troubled about these baby boys, wait. Anticipate the last Christmas. You will understand, we will all understand. We'll be in awe at the beauty and glory and wonder and justice. that God enacted regarding that crime too. All things will be dealt with in such a thorough and satisfying way that we will be in awe of His righteousness, in awe of His holiness. All of us will agree thoroughly with all of God's actions through all of church history. All of us will have our mouths drop open with awe at how He finishes up my story, your story, our stories. All of them end wonderfully. We are living inside of the yet unfinished unfolding of story after story. We can't see the end of our story with our physical eyes, but the celebration of Christmas is the celebration of the arrival of the hero of our story. He has come. He already paid for all our wrongs. He's ascended to heaven. He's making a home for us. He promised to come again. In the meantime, we have his word, have his spirit, have each other. celebrate annually the arrival of the hero of our story. May the world never cease to celebrate Christmas annually until the last Christmas to give proper homage to our hero the best way we can for the one who came for us. The last chapter of history is not yet written. The last Christmas hasn't yet happened. God writes the last chapter, which will be forever. He came and he's coming again. Let me end with the last two stanzas of one of our Christmas carols. I'm not ending the service with it, You listen to these words. As with gladness, men of old, last who stands us. Holy Jesus, every day, keep us in the narrow way. And when earthly things are past, bring our ransomed souls at last, where they need no star to guide, where no clouds by glory hide. In the heavenly country bright, need they no created light. Thou its light, its joy, its crown. Thou its sun, which goes not down there forever. May we sing hallelujahs to our King. Let's pray. Father in heaven, reorient our weeping.