Dennis Tuuri

all 150 books of the Psalms and Psalm 82 and the psalm we began our service with 149. These are part of the inspired words of God that we’re supposed to use in worship. And these are psalms that have strong implications and judgments against those who would strike out at God’s people and who would act in an evil way.

Today the sermon text is from Matthew chapter 2 and we’ll see an Edomite. Herod was an Edomite and we’ll see what we just sang of Herod trying to wipe out Israel in the person of Jesus Christ and as a result doing evil things in his reign.

Please stand. We’ll read Matthew beginning at chapter 2, verse one through about halfway through the chapter. Matthew 2:

Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king. Behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east, and have come to worship him.” When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. 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 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.” When they heard the king, they departed, and behold, the star which they had seen in the east went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy. And when they had come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary, his mother, and fell down and worshiped him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to him, gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Then being divinely warned in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed for their own country another way.

Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, “Arise, take the young child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I bring you word. For Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.” When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed for Egypt, and was there until the death of Herod, that might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet saying, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

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 2 years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, “A voice was heard in Rama, lamentation, weeping, and great mourning. Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted because they are no more.”

Now when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, “Arise, take the young child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the young child’s life are dead.” Then he arose, took the young child and his mother, and came into the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea instead of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And being warned by God in a dream, he turned aside into the region of Galilee. And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, “He shall be called a Nazarene.”

Let’s pray.

Holy Father, we thank you for your most wondrous word. We thank you for the gift of your Holy Spirit on the basis of our Savior’s work and our union with him. May the Holy Spirit, Lord God, be in our midst. Transform us by this word. Help us to understand what it says. Rejoice in the gospel in the midst of a very dark setting and then respond accordingly by the power of your Spirit. In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

So in 1973 the Supreme Court of the United States legalized essentially abortion on demand. So for this church began in the early 80s and every January on the Sunday closest to the anniversary of Roe v. Wade—this is the 35th anniversary—on Tuesday we have performed an anti-abortion liturgy of malediction.

Many churches in the last 20 years—not originally, but there’s a building movement in the last two decades—to celebrate what they call sanctity of human life Sunday. And that’s good. That’s great. We put a little different spin on it because what we’re trying to say is that the day of the Lord is the Lord’s day worship. God comes to judge his people from the church. He moves out to judge the world. The day of the Lord is a day of light and darkness. It’s gospel to those in Christ, but it’s certainly very bad news to those outside of Christ.

And what we are concerned about is the murdering of pre-born infants in the womb. That happens literally over 1 million children a year in our country, the land of the free and the home of the brave rooted in the scriptures. So we think it’s important to sound forth the warning to our culture to the rulers that God has allowed—that rather, they who have allowed this sin to go on unabated.

So we want to talk about this and we do it. We have this service that is a service of malediction. I mean, it’s a service of benediction at the end to his people. But there’s also malediction. Benediction is good words. Malediction is malevolent or bad words. And God, we think in the scriptures says that we should not—we should be horrified by the occasion of this Sunday, this 35 years of increased abortion on demand and what’s happened in our country.

Now, we’re going to pray that God’s judgments will be in the earth. We pray that we think constant of scripture. This last two weeks I taught Zephaniah to the Bible class at Kings Academy. And this verse particularly struck me. Zephaniah is even more the book of the Bible that talks about the day of the Lord even more than Joel. It describes the day of the Lord as decreation. And here’s in one verse what it says is the reason for this.

It shall—and this is Zephaniah 1:12—”And it shall come to pass at that time that I will search Jerusalem with lamps and punish the men who are settled in complacency who say in their heart, ‘The Lord will not do good, nor will he do evil.’” There is a practical atheism that’s described in this verse, as Donald Govan calls it in his text that we’re using this year at King’s Academy. A practical atheism.

They’re not saying the Lord doesn’t exist. They’re saying the Lord doesn’t exist for us. It’s not important whether the Lord exists or not because he’s not involved blessing and cursing in the everyday affairs of man. And we think it’s important to sound forth certainly every Lord’s day and in our lives that the Lord is actively involved.

But the evangelical church has for too many years said essentially the same thing that this verse says—that God’s judgments are not in the world and God’s curses aren’t coming down upon people that are evil. And that people like Herod, well, you know, you just want to be kind of nice and win them. But the Lord says something far different as we just sang in Psalm 82 and as we also sang from Psalm 149 and as we read the text of Herod and the slaughter of the innocent—so-called in the liturgy of the church, the massacre of the innocents.

We see the kind of horrific evil that exists and that comes to pass specifically because people are complacent. They engage in practical atheism. God is not in all their thoughts. Psalm 10. It’s a warning to us.

I might return to this theme of practical atheism in a few weeks and, you know, kind of shake us to the timbers and make sure we’re not doing the same thing and make sure that we’re understanding that God is actively involved in our lives. He’s the one that brings blessings and cursings and he is judging us in relationship to our commitment and consecration to Jesus and following him.

So since 1973, many babies have been killed. Babies have been killed before they were born. And this is because our rulers, our judges, but not just the judges. It’s because our rulers have sinned. The Supreme Court made this decision. But since then, legislatures in the states and the national legislature have not actively pursued the end of abortion. And I don’t care if it’s politically practical or not.

Wilberforce in England is the model. Every year he tried to get the slave trade ended. And I am ashamed that we don’t have a consistent witness in the federal and state legislatures every year to warn the rest of the legislators that God’s wrath is upon them for allowing this kind of wholesale slaughter.

So the rulers are responsible for this. The United States legislature should remove this issue from the Supreme Court. State legislators could do what I think Alabama may be doing now and they’re going to—there’s a law introduced there to say the federal government has no jurisdiction over us in terms of whether we allow abortion or not. We’re going to punish abortionists and if the federal government doesn’t like it, we’re willing to—if necessary—secede from the union.

Now, I know that there are strange people that want to secede from the union and I’m not advocating that. But I am saying, think about it. Is it worth seceding from the union to be able to have the civil governors in your state bring proper biblical punishments against murderers and to stop murder? How much are we committed to the nation as opposed to obedience to God and recognizing his judgments upon us as a people?

Now, I think we can do a lot of things short of seceding, but I’m just saying don’t be shocked. Understand it as kind of a call for you to sort of evaluate your priorities. How important is the killing of over 1 million pre-born babies this last year in America to you?

So the Lord God wants to wake us up. One reason is people don’t believe that God judges today—that God judges. No, the evangelical church is the judgment of God is Old Testament. New Testament—it’s all, you know, we’re all sweeter than Jesus and nicer than him and there’s no judgment. Well, that’s the reason why judgments come upon a people. One reason why we allow abortion is because we don’t really believe that God judges today. And many people don’t obey his laws anymore.

Related to this is the whole idea of God’s laws, something a duty to be kept. So that’s where we’re at.

Our proper response to this is multifold, of course. But liturgically, we think it’s quite important to understand that the worship service of the church and specifically the prayers of the church that ascend and worship before God changes the world. That our response is not to go out and, you know, execute abortionists ourselves. That’s the job. God explicitly says that’s the job of civil magistrates. God’s wrath is upon men that take to themselves, you know, the execution of abortionists and take the law into their own hands. God is quite clear that’s not the proper response of the church.

But the proper response of the church, God says over and over again, including the psalms that we sang this morning, is to worship him. And in the context of that worship, exercise the two-edged sword that’s in our hands to bring judgment upon the nations. Well, how does that work? The nations aren’t here. We pray to God. God hears those prayers and executes warfare against his enemies and those that would kill all these children.

In the scripture text here in Genesis 3:15, God has placed antithetical warfare between the two seeds. That’s the big picture. As what we see today is nothing less than the two-seed warfare that has been going on in this world since the fall of man. God went and he said, “I’ll put enmity, hatred between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed, the satanic seed.” In other words, Herod is seen as Satan, a seed of Satan striking out at the seed of the woman. And in part of that way, he strikes out is slaughtering the children the same way Pharaoh struck out at God and at the image of God through the murdering of children in Egypt. The same way Herod strikes out.

So, it’s the two-seed warfare. It’s what’s been going on for 6,000 years. It’s been won definitively by the Lord Jesus Christ. And the weapons that we’re given in the scriptures to wage warfare is to sing the praises of God. The Psalms tell us to engage in prayers that ascend to his throne to blow the trumpets of God’s word and the preaching of the gospel and its implications for this sin as well as other sins. And God says that will produce change in the world. No, not it’s not magic, but it energizes the army of God to go out and be active in their prayers and in their deeds of kindness to the fatherless in the name of Jesus Christ.

So, I’ve got a little sketch on your outline in Roman numeral 2 going from Genesis 3:15. Kind of got a little overview there of—and we won’t go through this—but in Revelation this two-seed warfare is described liturgically in the worship services of the church and I’ve got designations there on particular texts in Revelation that talks about this, but basically what the scriptures describe is there’s this army from the east. Well, the east is the sun rising. The army of the sun rising comes out when the bowls are poured out and when God’s trumpets are blown that army goes out to meet a frog demon army. And so there’s this warfare that goes on.

Well, we’re the army of the sons of the east. Jesus is the one that comes from the east. He’s the son that rises. That’s us. We’re the army of God. And we do combat with the frog demon army. Those who are of the seed of Satan, who strike out at little children who hate children, who hate Jesus Christ, who hate the church, and hate a Christian culture. And we combat them. And the primary way we combat them in the book of Revelation is we meet an assembly and worship and ask for God’s judgments to fill the world. And this changes the world.

So Jesus Christ in Revelation comes to wage this warfare, but he comes in relationship to the prayers of God’s people. So in Revelation 9:13, for instance, the sixth trumpet unleashes this effectual army of prayer. And I—we won’t spend time looking over the book of Revelation today—but that’s the imagery throughout Revelation. That our proper response is liturgical warfare at the mount of assembly.

You know, dispensationalists are so taken up with Armageddon and some kind of physical place and the Russians and the Jews and the Christians and all this stuff. But Armageddon just means the mount of assembly. Har—mount Megiddo assembly. And so the mount of assembly, the worship services of the church are the place where this liturgical warfare happens. And that’s what this church has believed and practiced since our beginning.

We see in Acts 12:5 that Peter, for instance, is delivered from prison and death through the prayer warfare of his people. And part of that is in Revelation 6, the saints pour forth imprecatory prayers. They cry, the martyrs cry, “How long, O Lord, before you avenge us against those that killed your saints?” So, we could say, you know, how long—the church prayed—will you be before you kill Herod? And it wasn’t very long. It was really quite short a time. Well, that’s the same thing we’re doing. We cry out with loud voices today, praying that God brings his particular judgments on the old world. It is judged and removed via prayer and then through God’s people acting on the basis of that prayer throughout their lives.

Now, I’ve got some a bunch of texts here. I’m not going to go over these either, but they’re, you know, the question is, okay, so the Psalms had imprecatory prayers. Imprecatory prayers means prayers that imprecate, that ask God to judge and in a negative way bring temporal judgments upon people. So that’s a prayer of imprecation and the question is well that’s Old Testament but is it New Testament and I think if you look at these texts that I’ve listed for you you’ll see that it is very much New Testament.

We are in Revelation 2:6 to hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans in Galatians 1:7-9 Paul says twice that there are people that he prays would be cursed who preach a different gospel let them be accursed, let them be accursed. That’s cursing from a New Testament saint.

In Galatians 5:12, Paul uses more colorful language to say that he wishes those that try to circumcise God’s people and bring a bondage upon them themselves would be cut off or castrated. So Paul uses strong language. He was not nicer than Jesus. He was just like Jesus. In Revelation, Jesus is described as the lamb, but the wrath of the lamb is described in Revelation as well against God’s enemy. And it’s certainly against people that for money and hire destroy the innocent of the land, the abortionists in our day and age.

2 Timothy 4:14 Alexander the coppersmith did me much harm. May the Lord repay him according to his works. Now that’s a prayer. Lex talionis—the law of the talent—eye for eye tooth for tooth. Paul prays that Alexander the coppersmith would receive temporal judgments the way he struck out at God’s people and at God indirectly through striking out at Paul. May he receive judgment upon himself in the same way he was bringing judgment upon Paul. So there’s Paul with an imprecatory prayer in the New Testament.

And as I said earlier, we have the saints who were martyred in the book of Revelation, the worship of the church. And in the context of that worship, the cry goes up to Jesus. How long before you avenge our deaths?

So we’re not to take vengeance ourselves. Romans 12:19 says, but it immediately says, give room or give place to wrath. Or for God’s vengeance. Vengeance is mine. God says, “Don’t take it to yourselves, but vengeance is mine. I will repay.” So, the point isn’t that vengeance is God in the New Testament. The point is, you do not take vengeance into your own hands. God goes on to describe the civil magistrate who is the one to properly bring his vengeance against people.

Now, if they won’t do it, he does. I’ve been amazed at times over the course of raising five kids, how often I’ll fail to spank them, but the Lord God then will. They’ll fall or trip or—he—well, he’ll take up my job if I’m negligent at it. And the same thing’s true in our day and age. If the civil governor won’t do it, God will certainly do it. And we pray that God would bring temporal judgments against abortionists today and against the rulers who allow this to go on.

So, there is a New Testament basis for praying that God would bring his judgment. When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, Martin Luther said, you know, by implication, when we pray that God’s kingdom might be established or made manifest—past—we’re also praying for the destruction of every other kingdom. We’re not praying for one kingdom amongst a bunch of pluralistic kingdoms. We’re praying for one kingdom to have dominion in this world. And by doing that, we are praying imprecatorily, we could say, against every other kingdom that raises itself up against the Lord Jesus Christ.

So this service that we do is emphatically biblical and in fact emphatically what we are supposed to do.

In Psalm 97:10, we are told this, “Ye love the Lord, hate evil.” Okay? And the implication is the evil one. Not just the sins they do. You hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, but you’re supposed to hate the Nicolaitans because they’re the ones doing it. There’s no abstract sin thing going on there. There are people. And you know, if we love Jesus Christ—is the point—and we love his children and we love his people, if you love your wife. If somebody comes and tries to harm her, attack her, or kill her, you’re to hate that person and you are to defend your bride. The same thing. That’s because we defend the bride of Christ. Our love for Jesus Christ in some degree is what motivates and animates hatred against his enemies. And we can say that hatred against the enemies of Christ are an indication of our love for Jesus Christ as well.

So God says we’re an army of prayer. And God says that when we pray in church, things change in the culture, not magically, but covenantally and in some mysterious ways. And then in also some very practical ways. As we pray this way, it tells us how we’re supposed to think about things. And it gets us involved in the fight. And we’re to pray that God will punish murderers. Punish murderers. That’s what we’re supposed to pray. And that’s what we’re going to pray today.

Now, I want to look at Matthew 2 now in relationship to this.

So that’s kind of the general setup in terms of what we’re doing here today, what we’re commemorating, how we think abortion is to be fought. And in the calendar of the church, the slaughter of the innocents is usually one of the last days of December, but about the same period of time. And as we read those wonderful Christmas stories and Jesus coming, we have this little story here of the slaughter of the innocents. And I do think that there’s gospel in this story that is not evident, that is not quite on the surface, but is rather obvious and I think it’s important for us to see it.

So let’s look at Matthew chapter 2. Have your scriptures open please and we’ll look at this text a little bit. And what I’m going to talk about is you know first of all overarching this story is the relationship of Jesus Christ to Moses. So what’s being—what’s going on in this text in a big way is that Jesus is Israel but Jesus is also tracking the life of Moses, right? Because I mean, after all, we’ve got a wicked, evil ruler killing babies. And after Moses was born, a wicked, evil ruler was killing babies.

Jesus was rescued from that wicked, evil ruler. And Moses was also rescued from that evil, wicked ruler. Jesus had to flee for that rescue. His parents took him away. Moses had to flee Egypt when Pharaoh was going to kill him as an adult man, right? And then Jesus comes back after the threat is over. And in very dramatic—if you look at the story of Moses coming back and stuff, you’ll see almost verbatim identification between that story and this one. When that Pharaoh dies that’s seeking—searching seeking out Moses’ life—then he comes back.

So there is this rather obvious correlation. If we know our Old Testament, we know the story of Moses and we read this stuff about Jesus, it’s rather obvious. And of course, the Gospel of Matthew will go on to have Jesus in the wilderness, the way Moses led the people into the wilderness, then he comes out and then he gives sermons from a mountain. So, it’s all about Moses these first few chapters and it’s this connection between Jesus and Moses.

So, that’s the overall sort of story here. And I want to talk about several specific things based on this text. First is evil. There are evil people in the world. There were then, there are now. And evil people need to die. Now, we hope they repent, but either way, they’ve got to die. That’s what the scriptures say. It’s worthy of death what they do. And Herod is one of these evil guys.

You know, people debate whether this really happened. Well, there’s no historical accounts they say of Herod doing this. So, you know, maybe it didn’t really happen. Well, part of that probably is the fact that his primary historian, Josephus, is Jewish and doesn’t want to support Christian history. But another aspect of this is that you know how many babies died? Well, the early church used to say 14,000 to 20,000. But you know it’s likely that in a city or a town, a village like Bethlehem and its districts, there were nowhere near that many babies 2 years old and younger. And so modern—you know, many people think the number is not just modern but the reformers—that probably the numbers are more like 40 or 50 or something like that, a small number.

And in the history of this particular Herod—now Herod’s kind of a family name and other Herods will happen. He’s going to die right away, but there’s other Herods that a different Herod kills John the Baptist, for instance. But in the history of this particular Herod, this is small potatoes. It doesn’t make the front page of the news. This guy was a master of assassination. That’s what he did when he got placed in office. Remember, he’s not a Jew. He’s an Edomite, the perpetual enemy of the Jews. And he’s placed as king over Israel by Caesar.

And when that happens, one of the first things he does is he knocks off the Supreme Court, the Sanhedrin, the 70. He kills a bunch of them so he can exercise power. He kills off, you know, at least we do it a little more civilly these days. You know, the fella in Pakistan just fired them all. But Herod, you know, he kills them all, most of them. He assassinated his mother and her mother. And he killed a couple three of his own sons. Okay. On his deathbed, the last thing he did was he said, “Go and kill all these members of the—I don’t remember the ruling class people.” He ordered a whole bunch more political assassinations. This guy was bad to the bone. Okay? He was bad. He’s evil. He’s wicked. And wicked people like him need to die. And we got to get that straight in our minds that it was a good thing to wage war against off Hitler and to put him to death. And it’s a good thing to wage war against Osama bin Laden and seek his death.

You see, now that’s that’s one response we’re supposed to have to this story. Evil exists and evil exists and does horrific things and Herod was that kind of evil guy.

Secondly, there’s the real massacre of children going on here and whether it’s 40 or whatever it is, the imagery on the front of your orders of worship today with—you know, this has been a tremendous source of inspiration for painters over the years over the last two millennia. and you have various depictions and that’s good because the picture sort of helps us to realize how horrible it is for people to go in armed soldiers rip two-year-old sons out of their mom’s hands and kill them. So there are these children being put to death and what do we think about that? What do we think about a god who allows these kids being put to death?

And then of course there’s Jesus here is kind of the center of what’s going on in the narrative.

So let’s look at this text and I want to point out a few things that aren’t necessarily obvious. I read verse one because one of the things I think we’re supposed to take away from Matthew 2 is a comparison or a contrast rather between Herod and the Magi. Look at verse one. After Jesus is born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem. Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east and have come to worship him. And then Herod the king heard this. He was troubled in all Jerusalem with him.

So we have Bethlehem of Judea. Herod the king. Behold wise men from the east come to see him. So the behold there draws our attention to these wise men who walk into the picture. It’s like look—in better translation be look—exclamation point. Got Herod the king in Jerusalem but look—Wise men come from the east. And what are they? So they’re put in juxtaposition—is the point here in verse one—to Herod. So we got Herod and we got the wise men. And who are the wise men? Well, we know that they’re the ones who desire what? To come worship. And as the story and the narrative goes on, what do they do? They bow down and worship him when they see him. Right?

So we’ve got wise men representing worshippers of Jesus Christ. And in contrast with those wise men, we’ve got King Herod who claims who feigns to worship Christ, but his whole intent is to destroy Christ. Okay, so we’ve got this juxtaposition of this evil Herod and the godly magi who seek to worship Jesus Christ.

And then, you know, the story goes on. We’ve talked about this in the last couple of weeks, the next few verses. And then in verse 13 is when the narrative kind of starts to build up and we’ve got three sections then in the next few verses all that end with the prophecy. So something happens, prophecy is fulfilled. Something happens, prophecy is fulfilled. Something happens, prophecy is fulfilled. A very detailed, carefully written narrative.

Now when they had departed, behold, look, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. And if you look down let’s see, if you look down at verse 19 now, When Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt. So, you see, it’s parallel. You got these two accounts. There’s a center one at a different fulfillment. These two start exactly the same way. An angel appears to Joseph and in both cases, Joseph is very obedient. He does what they tell him to do.

The angels say, “Go to Egypt.” Well, Egypt, why Egypt? Well, it draws this connection and it says the text will go on to say that it’s to fulfill the prophecy. Out of Egypt, I’ve called my son. So, but see, it sort of sets it up for us, right? He is fleeing for protection to Egypt. Moses had to leave Egypt for protection. Okay? Herod is striking out like Pharaoh struck out. So what do we—what does this tell us? What it tells us is that Israel has become Egypt, right? In terms of this narrative structure, that’s what’s going on.

Jesus has to leave Egypt the same way Moses had to get out of dodge. And then Jesus comes back to Israel—back to Egypt—and everything’s safe again. And so Moses got to go back to Egypt when that Pharaoh was dead. And what are they both going to do? They’re both going to lead their people out of Egypt. So in Jesus’s case, it’s not geographic Egypt, but it is spiritual Egypt. They’ve apostatized and they’re now the persecuting thing. This will come to a conclusion, of course, when Jesus is crucified.

It’s interesting when the text says that Herod was seeking to destroy him. That word destroy him. That’s only used one other place in Matthew and it’s at the end where the chief priests and scribes are seek to destroy Jesus and they crucify him as a result. So there’s this connection between Herod and the chief priests and scribes. The whole nation has become Egypt. And so it’s striking out at Jesus Christ.

Verse 14, when he arose, he took the young child and his mom by flight and departed for Egypt and was there until the death of Herod that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet saying out of Egypt I called my son. So there’s this great connection to the Moses narrative and if we had the time we could open up Exodus and look at the specific details more specifically in the Septuagint—the Greek version of the Old Testament—but there’s these absolutely clear to anyone who knew the Old Testament the connection between this narrative and what’s going on with Moses. And that’s important for us to understand. And that’s kind of the point of the story why it’s included here and what God is doing providentially fulfilling these things.

By the way, remember that when we went through the four distinctives of Advent and life on the cross—past, future, in and out—Matthew is this first gospel and here we have it fulfilled. We’ll see it two more times in the next few verses. Fulfilled, fulfilled, fulfilled. So, it’s got a past look and the past perspective in this section focuses on Jesus as new Moses—new Moses.

Then verse 16 starts the second narrative. Now 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 are in Bethlehem in all its districts from two years old and under. So you know he is a big target to get you know the small thing he’s looking for one baby. He goes after him up to the age of two. So he expands his anger causes him to act in proportionately out of degree in terms of age and also in terms of district, he doesn’t go after Bethlehem. He goes after the whole district. This guy’s evil. He is real bad. And you’re supposed to just hate this man in your heart. And you’re supposed to be praying that he’ll die as this story unfolds.

From 2 years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the wise men, then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, “A voice was heard in Rama, lamentation, weeping in great mourning, Rachel weeping in her for her children, refusing to be comforted because they are no more.”

Now, we normally think of that as the weeping of the moms in Bethlehem. And it may have some reference to that, but he’s citing here a scripture from Jeremiah 30. And what’s going on there is Rama is a place Rachel’s buried at Rama. And Jeremiah says that as the people of God are taken off into exile, they go through Rama, Rama is a staging point to either kill them, send them off to, you know, that version of the gas chamber, whatever it was. You know, there was a staging point there at Rama. And so Rachel’s weeping for her children in the direct implication from Jeremiah—you know, Rachel had a child she up for—but that’s how it’s being described. It’s being described as all Israel is going off into exile. They are no more the people of God.

Now, Jeremiah 30 is followed by Jeremiah 31. And Jeremiah 31 is all about the new covenant, right? That’s what those verses about the heart of stone, heart of flesh—that’s where those are. And so, the fulfillment of the prophecy may have more to do with Jesus leaving and going into exile, so to speak, in Egypt than it does the crying for the little children. I know it’s kind of hard for us to see that imagery, but if we take the citation from Jeremiah seriously, I think we’re sort of led in that direction.

Now, again, that’s important. I think these children are in heaven, but more explicitly, what the text is telling us here at the center of the slaughter of the innocent narrative. This is the second section, the center of it. This prophecy is one of hope. It’s one of gospel because we know that where it’s taken from—the rest of the song—the last verse of the song is God will lead back a people. They’ll come out of exile. They’ll be restored, you see, and Jesus will be brought back. And when Jesus comes back, it’s a picture of the restoration. It’s a thing of joy.

So, in the midst of this, the very account of these babies being killed there, there is gospel implied to it that no matter what wicked evil people do to stop things, God’s preserving his son. You know, it’s interesting because God is preserving Jesus from being killed. And I know this is a little hard to—it’s a stretch for us emotionally. We don’t like to think this way, but in the providence of God, there’ll be no other male babies from Bethlehem that could claim to be Jesus. And at this time in covenant history they were expecting Jesus and other people knew—like the priests and scribes knew—Bethlehem’s the place of birth. So in a sense he’s also protecting Jesus in terms of being the sole son of David born in Bethlehem at this time.

So the point here is that it’s awful, horrible, wicked and we hate it and we weep for those children. And that’s alluded to but I think the bigger picture of this particular fulfillment prophecy is return. Remember Jesus is going to lead back his people in the person of who he is. He’s Israel into the promised land. And there’s a greater Exodus to come, right? When Jesus on the mount of transfiguration, he talks about this. I have an Exodus to do. Jesus—this is a prefigurement of the destruction, the actual destruction of Jesus. Now, not just planned, but actually carried out in his crucifixion. But the gospel is through that very mechanism, Jesus will return, bring restoration, and bring about the new creation.

So, there’s gospel in the middle of this very sad story and there’s hope for us recognizing that even the most horrible wicked events in history are overseen by God and the end result of them is the furthering of his purposes. He uses sin sinlessly to affect his purposes.

Then the third narrative very much like the first. Now when Herod was dead behold an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt saying take the young child. Joseph in Egypt dreams—I talked about this at communion table a while back—but you’re supposed to be thinking about that too. We won’t bother to get sidetracked, but that’s there. And he says, the angel says, “Arise, take the young child and his mom and go to the land of Israel for those who sought the young child’s life are dead.”

See, so this why land of Israel? Why that specific place? Because it’s this restoration. It’s coming out of the wilderness. It’s coming back into the land. Israel’s being restored. And as I said, where it says those who sought the young child’s life were dead. Same way in Exodus 4:19, we read the same thing that Moses gets to go back because those that sought Moses are dead.

Then he arose, took the young child and his mother and came into the land of Israel. So he says it twice, wants us to notice it. Israel is being restored.

But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea, Judea is the south. Instead of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And being warned by God in a dream, he turned aside into the region of Galilee. And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophets. He shall be called a Nazarene.

Now, the Nazarene thing is difficult and complicated. I’m not getting into it, but you don’t have to understand that part to understand the imagery that’s happening here. Herod—Herod’s tyrannical son is reigning after his father died. Judea is in the south. Galilee in the north is controlled by a different son of Herod, Herod Antipas, and he was more tolerant. Okay, so he’s still under a Herod, but it’s a more tolerant Herod. But the fear of the successive seed—now being the seed being Archelaus. That fear is used by God to affect something that’s been described in these same narratives we’ve been reading at Christmas time. And it’s going to bring to pass the fulfillment of Isaiah 9:1. Those that walk in darkness have seen a great light. Galilee was the place where a whole bunch of Gentiles were. It was up in the north. It was actually called Desire of the Nations.

And at this time in history, you know, there’s a whole bunch of Gentiles. So, you know, we’ve read recently in the narrative of the gospel, the birth accounts. Jesus is taken to the temple for dedication. Simeon says, “A light to lighten the Gentiles. The Gentiles, the Magi come, Jesus lightens them with his light over his house.” And now in a broader sense, the light is going into Galilee. God’s purposes are being fulfilled, folks. That’s the point here is that this is gospel. And it’s gospel that directly affects us.

The light of Jesus Christ, the savior of the world, has come and is shining now in the north amongst the Gentiles. And why is this? How does God work out this thing that he’s doing? He works it out through fear. He works it out through Joseph being too afraid to go to Judea and taking the child. So, he wasn’t thinking about prophecy fulfillment. He’s just trying to do what he’s supposed to do next, protect his family. But because he does that, fatherly duty. And because God is using sin sinlessly in another wicked, evil Herod, the end result is God’s gospel is going to the Gentiles. God’s savior goes to Galilee. And there’s where his bulk of his ministry will be.

So you see, we have this story that certainly connects with the slaughter of the innocents that we think about and pray would cease on anti-abortion day of the Lord. And so it’s a motivation to us to think of these babies and to be moved toward action to do what we can to help them and that involves several things. But in the broader context, it tells us no matter what men are doing, whatever what the wicked seed are attempting to do, the Lord God is sovereign in the affairs of men is affecting his decree.

I mean, for instance, I don’t know about whether this is accurate, but John sent me a link late last night to an article and I there’s copies of this graph out in the foyer. Maybe some of you picked them up. I’m sorry I didn’t have it stapled to your outlines. But you know, it’s a very interesting graph. You know, we have to pull back from the immediacy of the moment and look at what’s happening. This is how many babies per thousand are aborted. Okay, so this is like a rate. This isn’t total numbers. It’s like how many babies out of, you know, so many pregnancies get aborted. And you’ll notice that before Roe v. Wade happened, you already had a whole bunch being aborted. Okay, the graph looks like it’s probably about 15 per thousand. 15 per thousand. And at the peak after Roe v. Wade in the ’80s and then maybe another peak in 1990, well, it gets up to not quite double that, 30. So, abortions double after Roe v. Wade. This murdering increases, but the church wakes up and you know the first few years of Roe v. Wade, the church was deadly silent on it.

But then, you know, people started having sanctity of human life Sunday. Then people started getting involved in crisis pregnancy centers, Christian action councils, people started getting involved to try to save babies and they do it through service. They do it through prayer. Paedocommunion starts to begin to develop in a set of reformed churches, feeding God’s children, not cutting them off from the table. And what’s interesting is we’re going down, down, down. In 1990, one in three pregnancies resulted in abortions. And now it’s one in five. 25% decline in abortions. You see? What’s happening? Well, I think that what we’re doing is effectual. I think that the church cries out to God in worship, gets involved in action, politically and benevolent action, and the end result is the reduction in abortions.

And I can see a day where because this issue has become clearer to us, the 15 in a thousand who are being killed and nobody much cared or knew in the years leading up to Roe v. Wade, by the time we’re done here, we’re going to be a lot lower. We’re going to be close to zero in a thousand. So now, you know, if you have these children being killed, I’m not trying to say it’s a good thing, but in the providence of God, he uses sin sinlessly, and the end result of this story will be better than its beginning. We won’t go back to Roe v. Wade because now we’ve got all kinds of people, millions of people in this country who have been forced to think about it because of the spike and have come to the conclusion it’s not just some inconvenient thing that a doctor should lose his license for or be thrown in prison for. He should be executed for killing somebody. That’s where we’re headed and we’ve never been there. Wait, not in modern—in the last century at least—America’s never looked at it that way.

So, you know, even in the midst of very difficult times and troubles, the Lord God is working out his sovereign will to affect his decree and to cause his kingdom to be made manifest.

Wicked King Herod tried to kill baby Jesus. To do this he killed other babies. Now I’ll probably have to do this another sermon—this particular next point—but Steve Samson sent me an article actually a lecture he gave recently—a talk—and it’s about the suicide of the West and people are starting to know about this. You know, Europe is being called Europa and London is called Londanistan or whatever it is. Why? To support the kind of system that they have in Europe with the kind of suicide birth rates not replacing themselves and only way to keep the thing going is to have a whole bunch of immigrants—immigration will have to rise like 70,000% to maintain the lifestyle of Europe based on their death. You know what their—how many babies they’re not having and the growing population.

Now, well, who are those immigrants? They’re Muslims. A lot of them are Muslims. So, we’ve got a strange thing happening. And why is it happening? Because people don’t have babies. That’s the biggest reason it’s happening. Well, that and the modern welfare state in Europe that’s developed as part of it, too. But for the most part, the West has lost its identity of who it is. It’s lost hope. And without hope for the future, you’re not going to have kids. You become selfish. You become inward grown. Why have kids? Kids are a pain in the neck. I raised five. It’s the most difficult thing I’ve ever done and I’m sure will ever do and it’s not over for me. It’s never over to watch your kids struggle financially or this or that or the other thing. It is hard. Who would want to do that? Only people who have optimism for the future and trust in the sovereign God and who step up and do their duty that God has called parents to do.

The West has lost hope and because of that it’s lost birth rate. Because of that it’s becoming ghettoized—in terms of a different culture. Now when you get all those Muslims in, you can either, you know, have war or you can accommodate yourself. And that’s what Europe’s doing is accommodating themselves. They’re becoming Muslim. You know, Stockholm syndrome—you know, kidnappers, they got somebody, they hold them for a year, two years, whatever, six months. There’s a psychological thing that happens where the people that are kidnapped have sympathy—start to develop sympathy for their kidnappers. That’s what’s happening in Europe. There’s a sympathy for the people that are coming in and radically changing their culture.

Another thing that happens is the culture becomes filled with self-hatred. Europe is filled with self-hatred. America, this is a tremendous concern to me. America is becoming consumed with self-hatred. Nothing we do is right. It’s always us that’s wrong in the world stage. There are politicians that say that now. There are ministers and important speakers who are saying that in our own confederation. Okay.

Now, there was a fella that wrote upon this thing, but he says that you know this kind of we can’t do anything right. We’re the problem. This is a stage of immaturity and teenagers just kind of go through this stage. They don’t have much to do with their folks for a while. A lot of them, you know, I don’t know if the church is right on, you know, and they sort of start to challenge everything. And you know, Roger Scruton—wrote about this—English philosopher guy—and he says that’s normally something you grow out of, but where you don’t grow out of it is in two places. One, in universities, they tend to remain self-hatred and promote it to the young because that’s what gives them agitation from the young people they’re teaching. And secondly, in a culture in decline that’s has no hope.

Yet, America in the West is becoming more and more involved in self-hatred and suicide. That’s what’s going on. That’s part of this whole abortion situation is that kind of horrific thing that’s happening.

Now, we as the church know what the answer to this is. We know that the answer to this is hope and optimism for the future. Point number five—when you’re outlining—the church in practical theism and optimism—be fruitful and multiply. This is not something that you just sort of do and it kind of becomes neat and cute to have babies. We have to remember who we are. We’re a people that look to the future and have children. Holy seed for God. That’s one of the main reasons why people are married. It’s not some kind of optional thing in the Christian life. I know people some people can’t have kids and I’m not saying you got to have as many as could possibly have. But I’m saying that a practical theism instead of a practical atheism says God is looking at you. He wants you to endure struggles and sacrifice and difficult times for the sake of raising a godly seed for him. He wants you to be filled with optimism. He wants you to look at Herod’s slaughter of the innocents and the slaughter of the innocents in America. Judicially innocent, of course, they’re not innocent in the eyes of God. Nobody is. We’re all born with the sin nature. But I think most these kids, all maybe all of them, most of them are in heaven. They’re martyrs. They’re little rose buds gathered by God. They’ll be okay. You know, it’s horrific that their lives aren’t brought to fruition here, but they’re going to be okay.

But God is—and so God is working in the context of this to work out his covenant promises and to have his people fill the world. So, you know, we’re to be people that are optimistic, that remember who we are. We look to the future with confidence. One end of the Bible to the other, the Bible is postmillennial. You can’t get away from it if you treat it honestly.

And this story today, one of the worst possible stories in the scriptures that bring us such horror. And yet, what’s happening? God’s people are being brought out of exile. Jesus is the new Moses. The Gentiles are getting the light of God. All because of the sin of man. God using sin sinlessly.

We’re to be an optimistic people. And that means you should have babies. You should have a lot. It was so neat today in relationship to this prayer of malediction that we’re going to do in a few minutes, and the soberness of some of the psalms we sang today of bringing God’s judgment—to see life in these two families this morning—children and to see the delight in your faces and mine and the elders of the church and these families that the Lord God has blessed them with the future they’re having kids for Jesus and practical theism means they’re going to raise them for Jesus that’s what we’re supposed to do as part of our proper response.

We have another response the church has a warning response—again, this should probably be a whole separate sermon—but we do have an obligation to act as watchmen in Ezekiel 33. We’re to be the watchmen. We’re to cry out warning to people that are about to perish. We’re to reach out positively to those that are perishing. Proverbs, you know, rescue those that are being led off to the slaughter. That’s sinners who are because the state has not cut down temptation to them are being led to the slaughter. Moms are being led to the slaughter. Their babies are being led to the slaughter. I know they’re not perfectly innocent in this, but for the most part, we want to rescue moms and rescue babies to keep them from the delusions of this culture, the mad Herod serpent seed-like culture that wants to encourage them to abort their babies. We want to rescue them.

We’ve got a warrior in this army of rescuing moms and babies in our church. Sarah Prenis, who does such great work at the Crisis Pregnancy Center. I know a lot of you volunteer for that. Sarah’s very involved in that work. You young children, you can ask Sarah what you can do. You can pray for Sarah. You can ask her if she wants you to wash some diapers or something or some clothes. What can you do to help her out? Most of you kids are old enough to where you can help out. One of our obligations is to rescue those being led to the slaughter. And that means these mothers and these babies, and we can do it. That’s why we pray. We’re trying to rescue these people that wicked people like Herod are trying to dispatch. We want to rescue them.

So, we have an obligation to the victims, I think, is what I’m trying to say here. And then we have an obligation to our culture. The culture is stupid. We don’t know our Bibles well enough to see the fulfillment of prophecy in Matthew 2 and what it’s all about. But the world knows nothing about any of this stuff. Now, they’re culpable. They have enough knowledge where they’re held responsible. It’s our obligation. If we see God’s judgments coming upon our culture because of abortion, it’s our obligation to warn the culture. Don’t sin that way. If you do, God’s going to kill you. He’s going to bring judgments against you. We have an obligation to the culture to warn people. Now, you don’t want to do it ironically. You want to be careful in your speech, but you don’t want to be so careful in your speech that the warning isn’t given. Amen. Is that right? Yeah.

We don’t want to be so careful that we don’t give a warning to people about this particular sin as well as others. And then finally, we have an obligation to warn civil governors. You see, those judges on the Supreme Court, the ones who brought this to pass, those legislators who allow it to continue. God says, “If you don’t protect those people, I’m going to kill you. If you’re going to let abortionists kill little babies, then I’m going to strike out at you.” We have an obligation to warn the civil governors that God’s sword is raised over their heads and will come down in judgment upon them in his good time. We’re to warn them. And by warning them, we bring back a practical theism. They think God’s judgments aren’t in the earth. We tell them, “Yeah, they are. And here they come.” And then when they come they’re interpreted by us and we have this warning obligation to our culture to the civil leaders etc. And this is what we’re doing today. We you know are engaged in these warning obligations of the watchmen of Ezekiel 33.

And then finally we’re called to God’s—to a faithfulness to God and optimism. And as I said earlier there is good signs of what’s happening. More babies are being saved each year. We should have God in all of our thoughts and God’s kingdom is indeed growing.

Now, so what we’re encouraged to do today is pray—to speak. Use your voice. Speak to those that are considering abortion. Warn them that it’s sin before God and that God’s judgments are in the world. Pray. Use your voice today and in the rest of your lives to pray to God that he might rescue those that are being led off to the slaughter. Then third, act—deeds of kindness, working through pregnancy resource centers or whatever it is. Praying for Sarah, giving money to the PRC, playing golf for PRC, wearing a silly t-shirt that I do once a year for PRC. Whatever it is, do something. Give a nickel. You young children, give a little bit of your allowance to Sarah and say, “I want this to help save moms and save babies.”

Last night, as I was thinking about the sermon, I watched a show on Rudyard Kipling’s home. And in the show, they quote a poem of his called “The Glory of the Garden.” Some of you may know it. But you know, America was a garden and like Israel it’s become Egypt and we want the glory of the garden that he talks about—England back—and it comes back through work and it comes back through prayer. And Kipling talked about this and may the Lord God move your hearts with this poem. He says:

Our England is a garden that is full of stately views of borders, beds and shrubberies and lawns and avenues with statues on the terrace and peacocks strutting by. But the glory of the garden lies in more than meets the eye. For where the old thick laurels grow along the thin red wall, you will find the tool and potting sheds which are the heart of all the cold frames and the hothouses, the dung pits and the tanks, the rollers, carts and drain pipes with the barrows and the planks. And there you’ll see the gardeners, the men and apprentice boys told off to do as they are bid, and do it without noise.

For except when seeds are planted, and we and we shout to scare the birds, the glory of the garden, it abideth not in words. And some can put begonias, and some can but a rose, and some are hardly fit to trust with anything that grows, but they can roll and trim the lawns and sift the sand. Loam for the glory of the garden occupies all who come. Our England is a garden and such gardens are not made by singing oh how beautiful and sitting in the shade while better men than we go out and start their working lives at grubbing weeds from gravel paths with broken dinner knives.

There’s not a pair of legs so thin. There’s not a head so thick. There’s not a hand so weak and white nor yet a heart so sick, but it can find some needful job that’s crying to be done. For the glory of the garden glorifieth everyone. Then seek your job with thankfulness and work till further orders. And if it’s only netting strawberries and killing slugs of borders, and when your back stops aching and your hands begin to harden, you will find yourself a partner in the glory of the garden.

Last verse. Oh, Adam was a gardener. And God who made him sees that half a proper gardener’s work is done upon his knees. So when your work is finished, you can wash your hands and pray for the glory of the garden that it may not pass away. And the glory of the garden shall never pass away.

Let’s pray.