"1 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod,Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2 and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”3 When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:6 “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’”
7 Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. 8 He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”9 After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. 11 On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. 12 And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.13 When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”14 So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt,15 where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.”
16 When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi." New International Version
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| "When King Herod heard this he was disturbed..." |
- His more popular brother had a drowning "accident" in a shallow pool.
- He had his wife strangled when she was accused of adultery.
- He executed two of his sons who were falsely accused of plotting against him.
- He executed another son days before his own death because he was the one who framed the other two.
- He had nobles arrested with the intent of having them killed when he passed away to ensure that people would mourn on the day he died. Thankfully someone released them.
Caesar was quoted to say that it was better to be one of Herod's swine than to be one of his sons. Herod did whatever he could to get power and then to keep power. Power, and the honor he associated with it, were what he craved. That brings us to our spiritual truth for today. Pursuit of our own desires can poison our spirits to the point that we can miss what God is doing; it can even cause us to work against Him.
We've talked a little about the Israelites, their deliverance from slavery, and their journey to the Promised Land, but there's a story we skipped over that I want to go back to. Right before the scouts left to...well, scout...we find an event concerning Moses' sister and brother, Miriam and Aaron. Before we read, remember that this event happens after God uses Moses to do all kinds of amazing things in Egypt. It's after God tells Moses to part the Red Sea. It's after Moses spends weeks on a mountain talking face to face with God writing down the commandments. Let's pick up the story line in Number 12:1-15:
1 Miriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses because of his Cushite wife,for he had married a Cushite. 2 “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses?” they asked. “Hasn’t he also spoken through us?” And the Lord heard this.
3 (Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.)4 At once the Lord said to Moses, Aaron and Miriam, “Come out to the tent of meeting, all three of you.” So the three of them went out. 5 Then the Lord came down in a pillar of cloud; he stood at the entrance to the tent and summoned Aaron and Miriam. When the two of them stepped forward, 6 he said, “Listen to my words:“When there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, reveal myself to them in visions,
I speak to them in dreams.7 But this is not true of my servant Moses; he is faithful in all my house. 8 With him I speak face to face, clearly and not in riddles;
he sees the form of the Lord.
Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?”
9 The anger of the Lord burned against them, and he left them.10 When the cloud lifted from above the tent, Miriam’s skin was leprous—it became as white as snow. Aaron turned toward her and saw that she had a defiling skin disease, 11 and he said to Moses, “Please, my lord, I ask you not to hold against us the sin we have so foolishly committed. 12 Do not let her be like a stillborn infant coming from its mother’s womb with its flesh half eaten away.”13 So Moses cried out to the Lord, “Please, God, heal her!”14 The Lord replied to Moses, “If her father had spit in her face, would she not have been in disgrace for seven days? Confine her outside the camp for seven days; after that she can be brought back.” 15 So Miriam was confined outside the camp for seven days, and the people did not move on till she was brought back.
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| "Miriam's skin was leprous..." |
One of the entries in my study Bible said that Miriam probably saw Moses' marriage to a "foreigner" as a threat to her status and ambitions. Big sister wanted to boss around baby brother. The fact that her name was first could mean that she was the one who started the family feud, and could be the reason that she was punished and not Aaron. If this is all true, and it makes since that it would be, Miriam was putting herself first. Her ambition caused her to go too far. Her ambition caused her to slander Moses, which also slandered God in the process. To us, it may seem that God's response was too harsh. But what else was God to do. Here we have a member of Moses' family defiantly calling Him out and disrespecting God in the process.
There are other instances in the Bible of people looking out for their own interests and completely missing what God is doing. Look at King Saul in 1 Samuel 13. Look at Ahab and Jezebel in 1 Kings 18. Look at Jonah in Jonah 1. Look at Judas in Matthew 27. Look at Ananias and Sapphire in Acts 5. When we trust ourselves more than we trust God, when we crave the things that we want more than we crave Him, it can get dangerous. We lose sight of what is important. We fight for what we think we need. We don't trust that God's will for our lives is good enough.
I'm going to meddle a little bit now, and some of you aren't going to like it. It's easy to read these stories and misapply them. We're not kings. We're not killing people. We're not prophets who are disobeying a direct order from God. But Jesus intimates that it's not just the wrong that you do, it's also the condition of your heart. Not only should we not commit adultery, we should not even lust. Not only should we not commit murder, but we should not even hate someone. Think back to the last church business meeting, or deacons meeting, or church planning meeting, or back room church discussion. Why did you take the stance that you did? Did you vote against the church doing something because it was wrong, or because YOU didn't want to do it? When you confronted the minister with your disagreement on an issue, did you spend as much time in prayer seeking God's will as you did grumbling about how you did't like it? The truth is, there are a lot of little King Herods running around our churches saying things like, "We've never done it that way.", "I want to do it this way.", and "That's not how we do things here." Don't get me wrong, sometimes pastors and minister make mistakes. Sometimes we need godly men and women to helps avoid making mistakes. But here's a secret that might surprise you; many ministers are guilty of disobeying God because they don't want to fight with their church members. They feel the Spirit prompt them to do something or lead in a certain direction, and they don't because they don't want to reenact taking the hill at Iwo Jima in their church. You see, you may not be the King Herod that kills baby boys, but you might be one that kills the movement of God in your church. And to my fellow ministers, be Moses, Elijah, Peter, and Paul. Risk it all for His glory. Don't let fear keep you from following Him.
Let's take our little King Herod and place him on our table. Stick him in the back and let him remind us to not let our own desires and ambitions blind us to what God is doing. I hope I see you tomorrow.
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| Day 12 - King Herod |
*All scripture taken from the New International Version
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