Birth and Early Life (2)

In introducing the birth of Christ, we're looking at the gospels of Mark or Matthew and Luke, the two gospels that really talk about the birth of our Savior, and we're seeing things chronologically in sequence. And these are very familiar stories. We obviously hear them to some degree every year, and so it's not that the Scripture record is foreign to us. So what I want to do is just try to pick out some of the highlights and some of the maybe less obvious details, things that we may not have recognized while at the same time telling the story as well. Last time when we looked at the birth and early life of Christ, we looked at the announcement of the angel to Mary and what that entailed in Luke 1, and then we looked at the announcement to Joseph also in Matthew 1, and then we began talking about last time the actual birth of Jesus in Luke 2. We dealt with the time of Jesus birth, which we saw according to the historical references that are made, really was in 4 to 5 BC, and the only reason you have Christ being born 4 or 5 years before Christ was because of a later change in the Roman calendar. The place of Jesus birth, that's where we're going to start tonight. So if you have your place in Luke 2, we're going to talk about the place of Jesus birth. Verse 2, or verse 1 says, in those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken to the entire Roman world. This was the first census that took place while Cerenius was governor of Syria, and everyone went to his own town to register. Now this census, as it's called in the NIV, the King James says everyone went to be taxed, and that really is the idea, at least in Jewish culture, it really was a census, it was a Roman census, and it was done in the Roman world for two reasons. One reason was to enroll people for military service in the Roman army, and the other was to enroll them for taxation. Now Jews were exempt from service in the Roman military, and so that didn't apply to the Jews, however, the taxation did. Now this is one place where you can find in the Bible that God used taxes to accomplish his purpose and his will. I don't know if there's another example in human history, but this is one where certainly it's true. God really moved, and you can see the providence and sovereignty of God in this. God really moved the whole Roman empire, the decree of the most politically powerful man on earth. God used to move the whole empire so that he could accomplish what the Old Testament had prophesied about the birth of his son. The Old Testament had prophesied, and Micah chapter 5 verse 2, but now Bethlehem Ephraeth, though there'll be the smallest among the thousands of Jews, yet out of thee, out of thee, shall he come forth, that shall be a ruler for me in Israel. The one who comes from ages past, from eternity past, the Messiah is the birth of the Messiah's prophesied there, and it's prophesied to be in Bethlehem. Well, as we've seen before, Mary and Joseph are in where? Nazareth. Let's take a look to the map. I think we have the map next, don't we? Remember Nazareth is way up here in Galilee. Bethlehem is way down here. So Mary is growing close to the time to deliver the baby, and they're 90 miles away from Bethlehem. And so God moves a whole Roman Empire to pronounce this census to be taken so that as was Jewish custom, the Jews had to go to their household of their fathers to enroll in this census. And of course, as we know, Joseph and Mary both are from the household of David, and so they traveled together as Jews typically would, and this map may not be quite correct, yet typically they would go across the Jordan River down Peria, back across, and then to Bethlehem, where they will, the city of David, the city of their ancestors, where they will enroll for this census. So God moves in a sovereign way to make sure that the place is exactly what he wants it to be. Now, I have some pictures of Bethlehem to show you. This is the current pictures, present day pictures, an aerial view of Bethlehem, and then let's move. This is a sheep fold. This is the sheep fold, sheep pins in those days would be set up with rocks, and there would be a door, an entrance by which the shepherd would sit or lie at night and guard the door. Jesus speaks about that in John chapter 10, the entrance to the sheep fold, and the good shepherd would be willing to give his life for the sheep. This is the picture that he would have in mind. Of course, the picture near Bethlehem because that's where the temple sheep, the sheep that were used for temple sacrifices, were typically grazed. This is a church, church of the nativity. It's a church built by the Roman Empire. Soon after Constantine became the ruler, this is the inside of it, and let's go on to the next, which shows some of the mosaics that date back, this is under the present floor, date back to the early church. 400s or so. This is in the basement. If you go to the church and the nativity, you will go down into a basement area, and this area right here, supposedly in a rocky outcropping cave, is supposed to be the place where Jesus was born. One last view of it, a little bit more a little closer, you say, wait a second, what happened to the cave? Look at it. And you'll find this all over Israel where pretty much the Roman Catholic church has built these huge cathedral and churches over places that were supposedly sacred sites, and really have made them into monuments. And so it doesn't look anything like what it would have looked like, obviously, at the time of the birth of Christ. You say, well, does anybody really know that this was the birth place of Jesus? Well, the historical testimony goes back to the time of Jerome, who lived in the late 300s, early 400s. It goes back pretty far. So, you know, it's better than me going over there and trying to figure out where it was. The testimony goes back pretty far to this location, and it may well be the place where Jesus was born. We don't really know for sure. That's not really critical that we know that, obviously, which is interesting. The humble circumstances, let's talk a little bit about the humble circumstances. The place is Bethlehem. Jesus is born in humble circumstances in verses 7 and 8. You can see when the time came, she wrapped him in cloths, placed him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn. I don't want to get into all the historical detail here about what the inn was like. There's a lot of controversy about that, whether or not it was kind of a hotel type of thing that we would have today or whether or not it was more like a house in our day. Some believe that the manger was actually indoors in a house where animals were kept in homes, which was typical of that time, but there's a lot of controversy there, and I'm not going to try to settle that tonight. There was no room for them in the place where they would normally have stayed, and so they lay Jesus in a feeding trough in a manger where the animals would have fed, which indicates the very humble circumstances in which he was born, which, again, highlights the truth of Paul's statement in 2 Corinthians chapter 8 and verse 9. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, speaking of his standing in heaven, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich. Now obviously that's talking about the incarnation, the coming of Christ to the earth, but Paul in that verse states it in terms of leaving richness and coming to poverty, and that's obviously seen in the very birth of Christ, and then also in verse 8 in the sense that the news is shared with shepherds that are living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks. Isn't it interesting that the news of the coming of the Son of God, who would be our Savior, the Messiah, the long expected Jewish king, is announced to shepherds. It is not announced to even priests in the temple, it is not announced to the political rulers to King Herod or to Caesar Augustus or whoever, it's announced to the lowly shepherds, and shepherds in that they did not have a very good reputation, so very interesting introduction of our Lord to this world, indicating that God's sense of values are not ours. If we had scripted the entrance of the Son of God to planet earth, we probably would have written the story much differently. It probably would have looked and sounded like something Hollywood would produce, but certainly this is the way God chose it to be. One other thing I'd like to say about this very familiar narrative, very familiar story, and that is the presence of the angels. Of course, the angels appear and tell the shepherds about the birth of Christ, and great company of them in verse 13 appears, and by the way they said, the Bible never says they sang, it says they said this, glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men on whom His favor rests. It's interesting that angels are very prominent in the life of Christ. They appear at His birth, they appear at the temptation of Christ, and angel strengthens Him after the temptation. They appear in the Garden of Gethsemane with His agony in the Garden, and angel is there to strengthen Him. The angels appear, of course, at the resurrection to announce the resurrection. They appear at His ascension when He goes back into heaven, and they will appear at His second coming. Angels are very active in the life of Christ, an interesting scenario. That is the story of the birth of Christ, obviously there's a lot more there, but it's a very familiar story. Any comments or questions there on these verses in Luke? Yes, Walt? Well, that is one of the ways in which it is dated to the year 4-5 BC, somewhere in that time frame, because it talks about this was the first census that took place when Carineus was governor. Carineus was governor at two different times. We know when it was, and so we know that the census took place sometime in his first time as governor, and that narrows it down some. One of the other ways that we can kind of narrow it down is the death of Herod the Great. Herod the Great died in 4 BC, so we know that putting those two things together, it had to be somewhere between 4 and 5 BC that Jesus was born. By the way, we talked a little bit last time, I don't want to get into this in any death, but we talked a little bit last time about whether or not December 25th is the actual time of his birth, and there are lots of controversy there, a lot of arguments on both sides, but there can be a good argument can be made for the historical veracity of December 25th. And it all has to do with Jim Bolton gave me an article on this last time. It was very fascinating. All has to do with being able to figure out when Zacharias served in the temple, and the Bible tells us what tribe he was from, what house he was from. You can go back to the Old Testament and figure out which month that particular group of priests would serve in the temple, and so from that you can figure out when he stopped and when he went back home, when Elizabeth probably got pregnant, at least within a week or two, you can figure that out, then you can figure the six months till Mary went to see her, and if you figure all this out, it would end up being in late March, and nine months from then would be late December. And so a very good case can be made for December. There are those who say, ah, that's all the Roman or the pagan holidays and so forth. Well, they may happen to fall at the same time, but there can be a very good historical case made for the birth of Christ on December 25th or thereabouts. Okay, anything else about the birth of Jesus before we talk about the next event? Okay, verse 21, the next event is the circumcision and naming of Christ. On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise him, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he had been conceived, just a couple of quick things there. One, the circumcision of Christ at age eight days old, which was typical for a Jewish boy, would identify him and solidify his connection with the covenant people of God, Israel. It would solidify his connection as a Jew. He was one of the covenant people, and then the naming of Christ, the name Jesus, which as we saw last week means savior, Jehovah saves, would identify the purpose of his coming. And so his identification with the people of Israel and the purpose of his coming to be the savior are indicated here in this ceremony when he is eight days old. Next event is the presentation to the Lord in Luke chapter 2 verses 22 to 38. Verse 22 says, when the time of their purification, according to the law of Moses had been completed, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. Now there are two things going on here. This would happen when the baby was 40 days old, so approximately six weeks of age. When the baby was 40 days old, according to the law of Moses, two things would happen. One of them was a purification ceremony, which is referenced here. That was to have Mary offer sacrifices to make her ceremonially clean once again after the birth of a baby. A woman was rendered ceremonially unclean. In other words, she could not go to the temple. And so these sacrifices fulfilled the requirement of the law of Moses for her to once again worship in the temple. But then there's a second thing going on and that's the presentation of him to the Lord that's mentioned in verse 22 and then referenced in verse 23, a quote from the Old Testament, every firstborn male is to be concentrated to the Lord. In the Old Testament, every firstborn son initially was to be given to the Lord to serve in the temple as a priest. But then God chose a tribe to do that and instituted in the law of Moses since the tribe of Levi became the Levitical or the priestly tribe that the firstborn son would then be redeemed. In other words, you would take him to the temple, offer sacrifice and buy him back as it were. And in that sense, he would be presented into the Lord. And that's what's happening here in this passage. The interesting thing about it in verse 24 is that they offer a sacrifice of a pair of doves or two young pigeons quoting Leviticus 12, which if you go back to Leviticus 12, you find that's the lesser of two sacrifices that could be offered. You could offer a goat or if you were too poor, you could offer the birds. So that again indicates the poverty, the humble, lowly home into which Jesus was born. God is not concerned about riches. God is concerned about character. And we've already seen from looking at the response of both Mary and Joseph, their character certainly was of a godly nature. And that's what God is concerned about for the placing of his son in a home. Okay, that's the presentation to the Lord. But there's a couple other things that happened here while they're at the temple, two people come up to them in the temple. One of them is Simeon. One of them is Anna. And there's a great story here. I don't want to get into the details. But Simeon, the Bible says, was a righteous and devout man waiting for the promise of the Messiah for him to see the Messiah. By the way, I did have a map up there. Did not. I'm sorry. Let's go back. Sorry, Greg. Just to show you that Bethlehem and Jerusalem are very close. Only about five to six miles apart. So the go to Jerusalem is not a hard journey. So they would have gone to Jerusalem. They're in the temple. Simeon, this elderly man comes up and the Holy Spirit has led him. The Bible says to Mary and Joseph at just the time they're bringing Jesus into the temple courts. And he recognizes this is the Messiah. And he says, now let me depart in peace. I've seen the salvation of the Lord. And then he gives this prophecy about Jesus. And what he will bring by way of salvation to the Jews. And also that a sword will pierce Mary's own heart and soul. And at this time, there is another woman, another person, a woman named Anna, an elderly lady who comes up and recognizes because of what's being said that she is seeing the Messiah. And she goes and tells people in the city of Jerusalem that the Messiah has come. The reason why those two people are significant. They're not significant really to anybody. Not, not, you know, in the city of Jerusalem or in the world at large. But the reason they're significant in the biblical story is that they represent a small remnant of people who were truly looking for the Messiah in Old Testament terms. They were not looking as most Jews were just for a political deliverer from Rome. These two people were looking for the one who would come to be the Savior, the one who would redeem their people. They understood the Old Testament prophecies. They understood what to look for. And they recognized that when Jesus appears in the temple, it's really fascinating insight into a probably a very small minority of people who understood what the Old Testament prophecies really were. Okay, so that's the presentation of Lord in the temple. He's 40 days old at this point, six-week-old baby. Comments, questions about that event in our Lord's life. The next event that takes place then is back in Matthew chapter 2. So if you'll locate Matthew 2, and you might want to hold your place in Luke, because we'll come back there in a little bit, Matthew 2, the visit of the wise men. Matthew 2, verse 1, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem. Now who were these people? Who were these Magi? Well, it's difficult to ascertain their identity for sure, but it is quite possible that the identity of these men, they were astrologers. Now not astrologers in the sense of some kind of pagan occultic practice, but men who studied the heavens, they were from the east, possibly from Persia. Let's look at the map here. Here's Jerusalem, so Bethlehem is close. There are two suggested locations where these men came from. They came from the east. This is east this way. Some say they came from the Arabian area, the Arabian desert. Others say they came all the way from Persia, and more likely they did come from Persia because it took them quite a while to get there. The timing of things, the age of the children that Herod kills when he recognizes when the Magi saw the star, and he kills all the children two years and under, indicates they came from quite a distance. So they may have come from Persia. There are some who believe that these astrologers who studied the heavens actually were oriental king-makers, that they were responsible for installing the kings in Persian Empire. For that reason, they were very interested in the Old Testament prophecies about the king of the Jews, and recognized that they needed to come visit this king of the Jews. Now how did they know about him? How did they know about Jesus, the coming of the king of the Jews? Bethlehem star. Have you seen the video? Well, there is a good, an excellent DVD that Jim Simmons has let me borrow about that, and it is fascinating. But probably, even beyond the star, we'll talk about the star in just a moment. Probably even beyond that, is there a link with Persia and anything in the Old Testament? Is there anything reabell there? Daniel? Okay. Daniel was in Babylon. Oh, can we go back to that map? Thank you, Greg. Good man. Daniel was in Babylon in this area. So in all likelihood, these men may have, and there were still, by the way, a lot of Jews who lived in this area of the world. Remember who took over from the Babylonians, the Meads and Persians, right? And so Daniel actually lived into the Persian period, but there were Jews who were still in this part of the world because it was a Persian king who allowed the Jews to come back to the land of Israel, but not all of them did. Remember someone else in the Old Testament who lived into the Persian period? A woman? Esther, yes, Esther. So there were still Jews, Mordecai, Esther, others who still lived in this, they, they no doubt gave awareness of these Old Testament prophecies, the prophecies of Daniel, for instance, Daniel 9, which laid out the coming of the Messiah and so forth. So it's very likely that the Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah would have been well known in Persia. And these men who made it their livelihood to be interested in the arrival and the coronation of kings in this part of the world and who also studied the stars had some awareness and knowledge, maybe some expectation of the coming of the King of the Jews. But notice how they refer to this star in verse two. Where is the one who's been born King of the Jews? We saw his star in the east. So the star that they refer to is probably not an ordinary star. It is probably not some astronomical phenomenon, you know, some supernova and exploding star that appears in the sky, you know, there have been attempts made to try to identify this star with some astronomical phenomenon that was going on at the time. But they definitely refer to this star as his star and remember the star moves. The star serves as a guide and they make this long journey to Israel, show up in Jerusalem, asking where this King is and then when they are directed to Bethlehem, remember the star appears again and leads them to the place. So this is probably not a normal star. This is probably a supernaturally provided sign of some sort given directly by God to alert them to where the King will be born. Well, when they come asking about this King, look at Herod's response, verse three, when King Herod heard this, he was disturbed and all Jerusalem with him. Well, this is a normal reaction for Herod. Herod was murderously insane. I mean, the man was mad, so jealous of his own throne that he killed one of his wives and two of his sons because he suspected them of wanting to take his throne. So this is very much in keeping and when Herod gets upset about something, all Jerusalem gets upset. Everybody gets on pins and needles because what is he going to do? How is he going to react? And so that's why all Jerusalem was upset with him. Well, you know the story. He calls in the prophets or the chief priest rather and the teachers of the law and asks them, where is Christ going to be born? Why do you think he called in the chief priest and teachers of the law? They would know the Old Testament, right? Remember when we introduced the life of Christ, we talked about the scribes, teachers of the law, these were Old Testament scholars and some of them were Pharisees, some of them were Sadducees. They were in both major parties, but they were Old Testament scholars. And so if anybody knows, you know, if there is a place in the Old Testament that tells where this King of the Jews would be born, these guys would know that's why Herod calls them in. And guess what they do? They find it, don't they? Maybe they knew it right off the tip of their tongue, right off their mind. Maybe they knew it. Maybe they had to look a little bit, but they quote to him in verse 6, Micah chapter 5 and verse 2. We know where he's supposed to be born, Bethlehem. That's where it is. Now isn't it interesting? You've got men here who have a detailed knowledge of the Old Testament, but they don't believe that he's the Son of God. They don't believe he's really the Messiah. Okay? Nothing is followed through on by them, to our knowledge. There's nothing in the scriptures about them recognizing who he was. In fact, his chief persecutors during his ministry will be the chief priests and the scribes and the Pharisees. It is not enough just to have Bible knowledge. Bible knowledge alone will not make you Christ like, unless you let Bible knowledge, Bible knowledge is important because you can't become Christ like unless you know something about him. So you've got to know your Bible, but knowledge can puff up. Paul says something about that in 1 Corinthians 8, doesn't he? Knowledge can puff up. You can get knowledge and become very proud of your knowledge. And just, you know, I'm proud of what I know. That can happen. Knowledge is only valuable if it is translated into a hunger and thirst for righteousness and a passion to be like the one that we're learning about. And when knowledge if fuels that desire, then the more knowledge you get, the more you become become like Christ. Remember what Peter said in 2 Peter 3, 18, but grow what? In the knowledge of our Lord. Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The two go together. You can grow in knowledge of Christ, but at the same time be growing in the grace of character and becoming more like him. But knowledge must fuel a passion to be more like him or knowledge itself will just puff up and make you proud. You know, there are a lot of people that have Bible knowledge. You don't do a thing with it. You just sit in sour and soak. But knowledge fuel, fueling a desire to be more like Christ will drive you to be like him in every part of your life, which means you want to live for him, serve him. The holy life and all of that. These men evidently did not have that kind of passion and desire. Just one other thing I want to say about the visit of the wise men, you know the story of how they go and the star appears again. And verse 11 says, on coming to the house they saw the child with his mother Mary found down worshiping. When they came to Jesus, Jesus is no longer in the manger. So forget all your Christmas cards and the lentility sets. The wise men were not there at the birth of Christ. The wise men came later. The shepherds were at the birth of Christ, but not the wise men. And remember when Herod decides, okay, they told me when they first saw his star and I'm going to figure out from that how what the age of babies I need to kill to make sure I get rid of him. He set the age limit at two. Now he may have been figuring a little high to make sure he got Jesus in his mind, but still that tells you some time has passed from the time the star originally appeared to them before they get to Bethlehem and they find Jesus and his family living in a house in Bethlehem. So this is sometime after the birth of Christ. We don't know exactly how Jesus was possibly up to two, maybe a little younger than that. Okay, comments, questions about the visit of the wise men. Yes. Is your ever been any one verse here to talk about? Maybe it's not really a star, as we see it, but some other special life because of your follow, as far as it would be to follow the star. Yeah. They eat nearly through that by the time they get to the day. The country travel pound and the only nighttime operation. They generally not town would have got to click. Right. I think you're on to something there, John, and I think it is. Could it just be a reference issue for you? Maybe it's interpreted in 11. You know, this color star is a lot. Right. If there's some some being or something. There's some indication it is a light in the heavens. So it's called a star, but again, it's not a normal star. It's not one of the stars that are typically in the heavens suddenly becoming brighter and being used at least it doesn't appear to be. It appears to be a supernatural light designed by God to be a sign and then it appears later and actually leads them. Now, whether or not it led them all the way from Persia is not indicated. So the indication that it was just for those that grew just for the wise men? Was the star just for the wise men? That appears to be what the text is telling us. It appears in the heavens that is their sign that the son of God or the prince of or the king of the Jews has been born and then they go to find out where he's been born. The star doesn't lead them from Persia because where did they go? They went to Jerusalem to find out where he was born. The star evidently appeared to show that he was born and then it vanished. And so they know he's the king of the Jews. Where do you go in Israel to find out what's going on? Well, you go to the capital. You go to Jerusalem. Where do you go? You go to the kings. They figure he's king of the Jews. Let's go to the kings house. You'll know something for sure. Well, they don't know Herod, obviously. But it is after they find out from the from the chief priest and scribes that he's to be born in Bethlehem as they're on the way to Bethlehem. The star appears again. This light from heaven appears again and actually directs them to the very house. So it's not like the star was directing them the whole way. It appeared once evidently vanished and then appeared again when they were on their way to Bethlehem. Maybe a year and a half, two years later. So it is a supernatural light from heaven. It is not a normal star and it doesn't stay up there glowing the whole year and a half or two years either. That appears to be what the text is telling us. Okay. All right, quickly the flight into Egypt. Matthew 2 verses 13 to 18. An angel warns Joseph in a dream. Take the child to Egypt. You got to get him out of here because of course now Herod is after him. He's going to come to Bethlehem and get him. And so they flee to Egypt. Isn't it interesting? You've got this very poor family and by the way, here's the map. They're in Bethlehem. They're going to Egypt, which is right down here. Okay, it's not even on the map, but it's down in that area. The arrow's pointing the direction. You have a very poor family, right? They couldn't afford the more expensive of two sacrifices in the temple. How could they make a trip to Egypt? It's a pretty expensive deal. The wise men brought very expensive gifts. Didn't they? Gold, Franken, Sitz, Mer. In that sense, God provided for them. Because remember, this is right after the wise men come, that they go. And so God provided for them to make that journey through, probably, at least we would expect, through the gifts of the wise men. And the Bible says that Herod comes down to Bethlehem and slaughters the children for night, over 16. What Herod realized had been outwitted by the Magi. He was furious. He gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem in his vicinity who were two years old and under. In accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. In other words, when he found out from the Magi, when did you first see this star? Then he figures from that backward and he figures, okay, if I kill all the boys two years and under, I'll get him. There's been a lot of debate about how many children are involved in this slaughter. Bethlehem was a very small village. Estimates are maybe somewhere between 10 and 20. I mean, who knows? But still, it was a horrible, horrible tragedy for this city. This little village of Bethlehem. Okay, that's all I'm wanting to say there. Any comments or questions about the flight into Egypt? What Herod does? It was and the prophecy is quoted in verse 18 from Jeremiah. Voices heard in Rama weeping and great morning, great you're weeping for children refusing to be comforted because they are no more. That prophecy in Jeremiah's gospel has to do with Babylonian troops coming in and slaughtering children in Jerusalem, but it is used by Matthew to refer to this. And Matthew does that several times. He'll use prophecies and apply them to current situations even though in the original prophecy they didn't apply to that situation. There are several occasions of that. By the way, it's one of the most interesting studies. If you really want to get deep into some new testament studies is Matthew's use of the Old Testament. There have been books written on that. And his interpretation of Old Testament prophecies is very interesting. There was a prophecy at Jeremiah 31-15 about this which is quoted here. Okay, let's talk about the return to Nazareth in verses 19 to 23 and also Luke 239 which just indicates that they after Jesus after they had fulfilled everything that was to be done for Jesus in the law they went back to Nazareth. Well, Luke doesn't tell about the flight to Egypt, but Matthew does. And Matthew records in verses 19 to 23 that after Herod died the angel said, okay, it's time to go back to the land of Israel. But they start back to the land of Israel and they find out that Herod's son Archelleus is king. And when they found that out they said, oh, we're not going to go back to Bethlehem. And so they go back up probably the way of the kings, a major trade route up the Mediterranean coast back to Nazareth. By the way, Archelleus was just as fearsome as his father Josephus, the Jewish historian tells us that when Archelleus was made king just so that people would recognize he was going to be like his daddy. He had 3,000 Jews killed at his coronation just so that people would recognize I'm a tough guy. You're not going to get by with anything with me. So he inaugurated his reign with a massacre of 3,000 people. So Nazareth is the place where Jesus will grow up and spend his childhood. That takes us to Luke chapter 2, verse 40. And I do want to touch on this. Luke 2 and verse 40 is the verse, the one verse that summarizes the boyhood years of Jesus until he was 12. Okay, we've had a lot of information about his birth and the flight to Egypt and so forth. But now when they go back to Nazareth the story of the gospels fast forwards and in one verse you've got 12 years or 10 years summarized. It's Luke 2, verse 40. And the child grew, verse 39 says he returned to Nazareth, verse 40. And the child grew and became strong. Okay, there's physical growth. He was filled with wisdom. There's mental growth. And the grace of God was upon him. There is spiritual growth. That's all we know about Jesus between age 18 months to two years and age 12. Now typically this is what would happen for a Jewish boy, a Jewish young man, a young boy would be taught by his mother until age 5. From ages 5 to 10 a Jewish young boy would go to synagogue school. And he would memorize the first five books of Moses, the Torah. Starting with the book of Leviticus. Can you imagine H5 starting to memorize the book of Leviticus? Okay, that was synagogue school. Lots of things you could surely imagine. No doubt he played with other children. No doubt he had a normal but perfect childhood. No doubt he spent a lot of time outdoors and learned about nature. A lot of things would that would form his illustrations and references later in his ministry that awareness and growth and understanding of his father's world would know that have started in those those years. But this is all we really know is that he grew in these areas between those ages until age 12. And it is now eight o'clock by that clock. And so we're going to stop there before we get into the next story of when he actually turned 12. But before we leave any questions about the account up to this point. Okay, we will come back next week to talk about one little snapshot we have of him at age 12 and then fast forward again to age 30. That's it. Okay, we'll talk about that little snapshot next week. Let's pray. Thank you Lord for our time in the word tonight. We pray that all that we see about your hand of providence moving history along all that we see about the giving of your son into this world and the way in which you sent him what was important to you and what was not important to you. May these glimpses of the coming of your son embed themselves in our hearts and minds and form in us your value system and your perspective so that we may be more like you and understand how to live like the Lord Jesus. Pray in his name. Amen.