Dr. Rick Mandl - December 21, 2020
Wise Men Still Seek Him
Devotional Manuscript: Wise Men Still Seek Him
Message By Dr. Rick Mandl, December 21, 2020, Eagle Rock Baptist Church
Recorded in Los Angeles, CA
Hey church family. It’s Christmas week. And just like a lot of things this year, your Christmas is probably looking a little different. Maybe there are friends and family you won't get to see in person. Maybe some of your favorite traditions need to be put on hold. At Christmas, we celebrate Jesus coming to bring hope and light to a dark world. At Christmas we remember that God didn't just watch our problems from far away; he sent his son. One of the things that helps me to remember those things is to read different parts of the Christmas story.
Recently I’ve been looking at the story of the wisemen or Magi, who came to worship Jesus. In most nativity scenes, you will find the presence of three wise men offering gifts to baby Jesus. The truth is that nowhere does the Bible tell us that there were “THREE” of them, but that number has been associated with them because of the three gifts that they brought, which were gold, and frankincense, and myrrh, We know that the wisemen were never at the actual manger (their visit came later), But they are included in the nativity scene because they are an important part of the Christmas story.
The first place where we see them associated with the Christmas story with which we’re so familiar is in Matthew chapter 2 where we read. . . . “After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, ‘Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.’” Matthew 2:1-2 (NIV) Those verses tell us that it was a star led them to Jesus. But why were they following a star to begin with? How did they know about the birth of this Jewish King?
The answer to those questions might surprise you. I mentioned that Matthew chapter 2 is the first place where we see the magi associated with the Christmas story with which we’re so familiar, but it’s not the first place where we see them in scripture. The first time that Magi are ever mentioned in the Bible is in the book of Daniel. Daniel was a Jewish exile who had been taken captive by the Babylonians. In Daniel chapter 2 and verse 48 we’re told that Daniel was placed in charge over all of the Magi in Babylon. Because Daniel was in charge over all the Magi, he would have had ample opportunity to tell them about God’s plan to one day send a Messiah to the Jewish nation.
We also know that many Jews remained in Babylon after the exile, and their teachings would have been passed down from generation to generation. These teachings came straight from the scriptures that Daniel and the Jews would have had in their possession (the Torah) along with the Book that Daniel, himself, wrote. Remember, the wise men were astrologers. They took their cues about life, death, the present, and the future from the stars. And these stargazers would compare what they saw in the sky with what they read in the Jewish scriptures. And so when they read in Numbers 24:17 that, “A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel,” it was clear to them that a Great King would come and be announced by the brilliant light of some type of an astronomical light.
But why did they follow this specific star…this specific light? The answer is found in Daniel 9:26 where Daniel foretold that the Messiah would come 490 years after the command to rebuild the Temple had been given. The wise men were able to calculate back and realize that this was the time on God’s clock for the Messiah to come. These men made a journey of several hundred miles all because they chose to believe God’s Word. It really wasn’t the star that led these men to Jesus; It was the Scripture - - - that led them to the star - - - that led them to Jesus.
The creation all around us tells us there is a God. The scriptures tell us who this God is and how we can get to Him. And Christmas time is a great time to reacquaint yourself with a story of a God who loved us so much, that he was willing to leave heaven and come to earth to rescue us. I pray that we’d hold that truth near and dear to our hearts . . . Amen
Recorded in Los Angeles, CA.
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