SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/26/2019
10:44 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 “The Return to Nazareth”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
2:19-23
Message of the verses: “19 But when Herod
was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt,
saying, 20 "Arise and take the
Child and His mother, and go into the
land of Israel; for those who sought the Child’s life are dead." 21 And he
arose and took the Child and His mother, and came into the land of Israel. 22 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 by God in a dream, he
departed for the regions of Galilee, 23 and came and resided in a city called
Nazareth, that what was spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, "He
shall be called a Nazarene.’”
We
will begin today to look at the fourth and final prophecy found in the 2nd
chapter of Matthew in our lesson for today.
I
am going to give you a quote from Antiquities
written by Josephus and if you’re reading this in the morning I hope it is
after breakfast: Herod “died of this,
ulcerated entrails, putrefied and maggot-filled organs, constant convulsions,
foul breath, and neither physicians nor warm baths led to recovery.” I suppose that this is a rather fitting end
to a man who probably did little good in his life, and did much harm in his
life as we have seen a small portion of it in our study of Matthew’s second
chapter. His eldest son, Archelaus
prepared an elaborate and costly funeral that this son, his successor had for
him, and “five days before his death Herod, by permission from Rome, had
executed another son, Antipater, because of his plots against his father”
writes John MacArthur.
Let
us look at Matthew 2:13 “13 Now when
they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream,
saying, "Arise and take the Child and His mother, and flee to Egypt, and
remain there until I tell you; for Herod is going to search for the Child to
destroy Him.’” We see from this verse
where Joseph had a dream in which an angel told him to take his wife and Jesus
to Egypt, and now in verses 19-20 “19 But when Herod was dead, behold, an angel
of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, 20 "Arise and
take the
Child and His mother, and go into the
land of Israel; for those who sought the Child’s life are dead."’” MacArthur writes “The fact that the angel
spoke of ‘those who sought the Child’s life’ indicates that Herod was not alone
in his plans to destroy ‘the Child’ were themselves now ‘dead.’
Joseph
was instructed to take his family back to Israel, but not any particular part
of Israel, so when he found out that Archelaus, Herod’s son Joseph to them back
to Nazareth. Joseph seems to be doing
the right thing as we will learn that this actually fulfills prophecy.
Yesterday
my wife and I listened to Luke chapters one and two as this is the best gospel
to hear the Christmas story. Luke leaves
out that Joseph and Mary and Jesus went to Egypt, and it kind of caused me to
get mixed up about it and so I prayed about it that God would make it clear in
my heart as to what I heard in Luke’s account:
“39 When they had performed everything according to the Law of the Lord,
they returned to Galilee, to their own city of Nazareth. 40 The Child continued
to grow and become strong, increasing in wisdom; and the grace of God was upon
Him” (Luke 2:39-40). I suppose that the reason that Luke left the
part about going to Egypt was due to the audience that he was writing to. At any rate I believe that the Lord has made
this all clear to me.
There
is more violence to be written about both Herod, and also Archelaus, but I
believe we have heard enough for one day, so I will leave that until tomorrow.
Our quotation from “Love in Action” is
from 1 Samuel 22:2.
Everyone who was in distress, everyone
who was in debt,
and everyone who was discontented.
12/26/2019 11:25 AM
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