Psalm 86

"All the nations you have made will come and worship before you, O Lord; they will bring glory to your name."

{Psalm 86:9} (NIV1984) 

We ask the question, ‘How did the wise men know that the new star signified the birth of the King of the Jews?’ The answer is: ‘God revealed it to them, so that they would come and worship His Son.’ The wise men were foreign men from a far away land, who received special revelation from the Living God, who made all the people of the world. 

May we never forget that the Lord is the Creator of all people, and all nations. He loves all the people of the world! God’s people have a long history of thinking that God loves them because they are so special (see Romans 11). We forget that God loves us because He is special! He is the One who loved us while we were His enemies. He is the One who sought us out, and spoke gentle Words of life to us! He is the One who seeks worshipers who worship Him in spirit and truth (Jn 4:23). He will have worshipers from every nation, every tribe, every language, because He made them all.

If we are discouraged over the lack of true worshipers in our land, then let’s be encouraged by the story of the wise men, and let us have the attitude of the worshiper who wrote Psalm 86.

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Revelation 12

 "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."

{Ephesians 6:12} (NIV1984)

The Christmas story as told by Luke and Matthew, is a wonderful story of a loving God, worshipful people and obedient and joyful angels. The only wickedness that can be found is in the man named Herod, yet the rest of the story is told in Revelation 12. 

This chapter leaves no doubt that the dragon is Satan (vs.9), and that the baby is our Lord Jesus (vs.5). John has been given a glimpse into the spiritual world, the heavenly battle that moved onto earth. This battle between Michael and his angels, and Satan and his angels, has moved to earth and it is real! We can forget this truth as we live physical lives in a physical world. If we can’t touch it or quantify it we don’t believe that it exists, yet the spiritual world is real, angels and demons are real, and our Lord inserted Himself into this spiritual battle fought on earth and won the decisive battle Himself (Heb 2:14). 

Paul reminds all Christians that behind all the wicked people is a spiritual enemy, and that we need to arm ourselves with the spiritual weapons that we need for victory. Weapons like, truth, righteousness, the gospel, faith, salvation, the Word, and prayer. May we pick these weapons up today and stand firm against our defeated, yet vengeful, enemy.

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Jeremiah 31:7-17

 "Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: “A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”

{Matthew 2:17,18} (NIV1984)

As I watched several interviews with parents of the little school children who were killed last week, this verse kept coming to my mind. There is nothing anyone can say to those parents that will comfort them, and there was nothing anyone could say to the parents of these small children who were murdered in an attempt to kill our Lord. 

The Holy Spirit revealed to Jeremiah that mass murder of Jewish children would take place in the future, that the mothers would be left alive to grieve. We are not to understand this prophetic fulfillment as if God said it would happen and therefore it must happen. Rather we understand this to be one of many cases where the Living God who holds time in His hand, sees clearly what wicked men will do, and tells His prophets to write it down so that people everywhere will glorify God, and put their trust in Him, because He alone has told us what will take place before it happens. We wonder where God was. He was there, working His wonderful plan of salvation, while wicked men used vile methods to oppose His righteous rule over their lives. 

This wickedness seems too much to bear, but if we read Jeremiah 31, we will read that the LORD will turn mourning into dancing. Only the LORD, the Living God, the Ancient of Days is able to do this great work and so, in spite of the wickedness around us, the darkness we see everywhere, we will draw close to Him.

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Micah 5

 

‘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 be the shepherd of my people Israel.’

{Matthew 2:6} (NIV1984)

The chief priests and teachers of the law knew that God would anoint a man to be the king of the Jews. They knew the Scripture in Micah 5 that described this Christ (anointed one) as coming from ancient times and old origins, which meant that this ruler would be God Himself (Isa 43:12,13). Despite this knowledge, and the clear fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies by Jesus’ birth and childhood, they rejected Jesus as the Christ.

Despite the miraculous signs that accompanied the ministry of Jesus that proved He was God, they made a decision to have Him put to death (Mt 27:1), and then mocked Him, and told Him they would only believe that He was the King of Israel if He came down off the cross. 

These are the men who were in charge of the spiritual life of God’s people; they were the ones who had the God-given task of leading the people in faithful worship until the Christ came to deliver them. How did they end up in this wicked situation? They rejected Him as ruler of their lives! May we remember that the baby Jesus was born the King, died as the King, rose as the King and ascended to be the King of Kings. May we submit to His righteous rule in our lives this day. May we obey everything He has commanded.

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Daniel 3

 "On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him…"

{Matthew 2:11a} (NIV1984)

Objections immediately arise if I make the statement, “to worship is to bow down”. Yet the Ten Commandments clearly link worship and bowing down. Satan understands the link, because he tempted our Lord by offering Him the kingdoms of the world in exchange for our Lord bowing down and worshiping Satan. Daniel 3 demonstrates to us that the three friends of Daniel believed in the link strongly enough to die for not bowing before an image of the king of Babylon. 

The Bible is full of examples of men and women bowing down and worshiping God. This link creates a problem for us in Canada in 2012, simply because we don’t bow or curtsy to anyone. The spiritual truth hasn’t changed, but our cultural situation has changed. This makes it difficult for us to know whether or not we are bowing down before God or bowing down before Satan. Sincere worshipers of the Lord Jesus Christ will make the effort to determine whom they bow to, simply because they desire to worship God and only God. 

To help us in this search, note that our Lord and the three friends of Daniel told their tempters that they would not serve anyone except God. In our society, built on the rights and powers of the individual, we do not bow to anyone, but we serve many. May the example of the wise men remind us to draw near to God and serve Him only!

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