In This Issue:
The Birth of Jesus According to Matthew
Bethlehem and Calvary
No Room at the Inn
Volume: 984 December 9, 2024
Theme: Baby Jesus
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The Birth of Jesus According to Matthew
Bill Brinkworth
Many in the world celebrate Christmas. People’s ideas of what happened at Jesus’ birth are often derived from artists’ renderings of the event or opinions, not the Bible’s words.
In Matthew 2, we see four areas where people who do not read the Bible for themselves err when they compare their knowledge of Christ’s birth to the biblical account:
- The wise men followed the star to find where the young child lay, not the shepherds.
“Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, enquired of them diligently what time the star appeared.” Matthew 2:7
“When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.” Matthew 2:9 - Jesus was a “young child” when the wise men visited Him, not a “babe” (Luke 2).
“… till it came and stood over where the young child was.” Matthew 2:9 - The wise men visited Jesus in the “house,” not the manager. When they saw Jesus, he may have been under two years old! That time is derived from when the travelers met with King Herod and when the leader ordered children under two to be killed.
“And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.” Matthew 2:11
Herod wanted the wise men to find the child and return, telling him where Christ was. He intended to have the child killed, perhaps because the prophesied King of the Jews would take away his reign as king.
God warned the wise men not to return to Herod. They did not, and the ruler was wroth. He was so angry that he had all the boy children under the age of two murdered. If Jesus was just born, why would the king slaughter all the children under two years old? It is quite clear from these scriptures that time had passed since the wise men saw Herod and that the child may have even walked to the door when the wise men visited.
“Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise men.” Matthew 2:16
- The Bible does not say there were three wise men. It states that their gifts included three different offerings: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Because these wealthy merchants traveled for long periods, they often traveled in large caravans for safety. There was more than one wise man because the scripture refers to them in the plural. There could have been three or thirty merchants. See Matthew 2:11 above.
One lesson that can be learned from Matthew 2 is not to formulate your “religion” from something someone painted or what someone else says. Read the Bible for yourself to know “thus saith the Lord,” not what man thinks.
“But refuse profane and old wives’ fables, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness.” I Timothy 4:7
Bethlehem and Calvary
Harry Todd
Once again, it’s Christmas time.
So you will go and buy a tree
And forget the tree of Calvary
Where Jesus died for you and me.
You will trim the tree so pretty
With lights that glow so bright,
But never think of Jesus
As being the Greatest Light.
You’ll give and receive gifts
From your friends and all,
Forgetting God’s only begotten Son,
The Greatest Gift of all.
You’ll remember Jesus the baby,
In the manger meek and mild,
But if He is not your Saviour,
Then He is just another child.
If you’ve not been to Calvary,
Christmas is a meaningless thing;
You just see the baby Jesus
Instead of the new born King.
If you’ve not been to Calvary,
This Christmas let it be
A time to bow at the feet of Jesus
Who gave His life for you and me.
No Room at the Inn
Author Unknown
“And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.” Luke 2:7
This world did not favor the Saviour. The prophecy in John 1:11 came true, “He came unto his own, and his own received him not.”
He was to be “… despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” (Isaiah 53:3).
King Herod tried to kill the baby Jesus. Pharisees sought to stone Him but did not (John 8:59). Furious townspeople of Nazareth tried to cast Jesus from a hill but failed (Luke 4:29-30). Herod and Pontius Pilate, rulers of the Jews, and a mob would combine to have Him scourged and crowned with thorns and then crucified. Indeed, “there was no room for them in the inn,” or anywhere in the hearts of so many people.
I wonder if the baby Jesus, pricked by the straw in that rough bed and wrapped in swaddling clothes, knew that there would be no room for Him in this wicked world.
When I was four years old, in a country church Sunday school, a man gathered us little ones around his knee in a class and taught us a lesson. On a colored picture card was a picture of Joseph, Mary, the Baby, and a donkey. The hay was all about Him. The text was “There was no room for them in the inn.” My young heart burned with an awful sense of the wickedness of mankind.
My sister and I had a little trundle bed which, in the daytime, folded up and rolled under Mother’s and Daddy’s bed. Everybody at our house slept in comfortable beds, but there was no bed for the Baby. What a wicked world it must be that has no room for their own Saviour.
Have you made room in your heart for Jesus, or are you also rejecting Him?
No beautiful chamber, no soft cradle bed,
No place but a manger, nowhere for His head,
No praises of gladness, no thought of their sin,
No glory but sadness, no room at the inn.
No sweet consecration, no seeking His part,
No humiliation, no place in the heart,
No thought of the Saviour, no sorrow for sin,
No prayer for His favor, no room at the inn.
No one to receive Him. No welcome while here,
No balm to relieve Him, no staff but a spear,
No seeking His treasure, No weeping for sin,
No doing His pleasure, no room at the inn.
No room, no room for Jesus,
Oh, give Him welcome free,
Lest you should hear at Heaven’s gate
”There is no room for thee.”