Alright, go ahead and take your Bibles and turn with me to the book of Matthew. We're going to be starting over tonight in Matthew and just reworking from chapter 1, verse 1. No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. I know we have obviously been going through Matthew for a while now, and so we are currently in this book, but today is Christmas Day and we are thinking about the birth of Christ. And so it's been a while, or it had been a while since we had kind of touched on the narrative in Matthew. So I started to look through Matthew again and study the narrative here. To be honest with you, it kind of pulled me back a little bit prior to the birth and the lead up to the birth. And then I had a lot of focus on Israel's history leading up to the birth. Tonight, we're going to talk about the miraculous birth of our Lord, the miraculous birth in Bethlehem there, but we're going to do it from a little different perspective. Now, Brian actually preached a sermon two years ago that kind of touched on some of this. He dealt with a lot of Old Testament passages looked at the persecution of Israel and of the Davidic line and how close sometimes they came to extinction from a human perspective. This might be called part two of that a couple of years later, if you will. We're going to be looking at that a little bit, but more from a little different perspective, and I'll explain more here in a moment. Let's begin by reading verse 18. Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife. for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel. Which means, God with us. We'll stop there for the evening, or at least for the moment. Now, the birth of Jesus is miraculous. Brian and Todd, I thought, gave us two wonderful sermons Sunday, outlining the incomprehensible truth of the hapistatic union, the miracle of the God-man, God's 100% humanity and 100% divinity in the person of Jesus. There, of course, is also the miracle of the virgin birth, which was necessary for Jesus to be born without original sin, without the sin nature passed down to every other human being through the sin of Adam. The text here in Matthew, it actually draws our attention, I think, to another miracle in the birth of Jesus that we might not connect initially. And that is the birth or the miracle of the birth being from the line of David. And that line still being intact at the time of Jesus' birth. And even more broad, that miracle being that the nation of Israel still being in existence at that point. Now, I know today has probably been a busy day for everyone, and you might still have some things going on after church. You probably have family still around. So, to be honest up front, I don't plan to preach a full, in-depth sermon tonight. But I do want to take some time to walk through some of the history of Israel, especially that period of time between the end of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New Testament, that 400 years basically, or a little bit over 400 years between the close of the Old Testament and the opening of the New Testament. And those years are most commonly referred to as the silent years because God was silent during that time. He was not giving any revelation to the nation of Israel or anyone else during that time. But aside from the tribulation period, still yet to come in the future, Satan was perhaps at the height of his attack on Israel and the coming of the Messiah during those 400 plus years, during those silent years. And yet, God was still reigning, and God was still working things out according to His will and His promises. Now, the destruction of the nation of Israel has been the desire of Satan since the Garden. the destruction of the seed specifically, the seed of the woman. To destroy the seed of the woman promised to destroy Him, right? And that desire has primarily played out in His efforts to destroy Israel because it is through her, through Israel, that God promised a perpetual rule and kingdom in the son of David. Chapters 12 through 14 in the book of Revelation actually detail the dragon or Satan's constant attempts to destroy Israel and the male child that she would bear, the Messiah. The first six verses of chapter 12 actually give a very brief description of the troubles of Israel prior to the birth of Christ due to that dragon, due to Satan. And the Old Testament is full of these examples. It must be noted now, so much of Israel's troubles have been because they failed to trust in Yahweh. And they failed to follow His word in their failure to trust. But nonetheless, Satan has been at work against them for a very long time. Just beginning in Egypt, and then in the Exodus, we know of the troubles that Israel had, that the people of Israel, the Jews, had in their time there in Egypt, and then as they began to try to leave Egypt in the Exodus there, the problems in leaving Egypt, and Egypt's attempts to destroy them as they left. Of course, the wandering in the wilderness, much of their own doing, but that whole generation died out save for a couple of faithful men. The whole book of Judges later, or nearly the entire book of Judges, is a picture of just Israel being unfaithful, but being attacked and being taken captive into foreign lands over and over and over, or being subject to rule of foreign kings, foreign rulers. But then God was faithful to them, and He would deliver them over and over again. Specific to David, as the nation began to come out from under those judges and had a king for themselves, the Old Testament outlines Saul's repeated attempts to murder David. Davidic covenant had not yet taken place, but God's plan was going to be for that, and there was no way that David was going to die as the anointed king. But again, those repeated attempts of Saul to murder David and rid David of being in his way, being on his throne, taking the throne. Later, his own son Absalom tried to do the same thing. After the kingdom split, after Solomon After His rule, the northern kingdom, they had a long line of wicked, illegitimate kings, and they were nearly destroyed, and eventually taken into exile through the Assyrian conquering of them. But not to be outdone, that southern kingdom was soon taken into exile as well by Babylon, after three different waves of defeat and captivity. Ultimately, Jerusalem in that last wave was destroyed and nearly every Jew was forced out of the Promised Land and taken into captivity. It was a dire, dark time for the nation. While in Babylon, the book of Esther details Haman's attempts to annihilate the Jews even there, right? And then the post-exilic prophets tell of repeated attempts on the lives of those exiles who returned to rebuild the temple along with the attempts of their enemies to have those Persian kings put an end to them and to put an end to that rebuild under threat of death often by those Persian kings as they would write to a Persian king in power to tell lies on these trying to rebuild this temple and hope that these Persian kings would then turn on the Israelites. Now, those are just a few examples. I don't even think we can call that a quick overview of the Old Testament examples where Israel suffered greatly and faced either annihilation or a complete and permanent removal from their land from a human perspective prior to the coming of Christ. Nor is that an exhaustive list. There are other examples that we can derive from the Old Testament. It's just a few highlights, if you will, Now, I think we're relatively familiar with those accounts, but if you do want a fuller description of them, like I said, Brian had preached a sermon, and it's titled, Not Even the Half of It, back in December of 2021, which touched on many of those and highlighted a couple of more. I'd highly recommend you go listen to it. It was very good, very well done, very informative. But we won't touch on any more of those specifics tonight. Now through all of that, all of the Old Testament, all of those incidences, Israel was preserved, right? They continued. The line of David specifically as well. And we end the Old Testament in the book of Malachi where that remnant had returned from the promised land. The remnant which had returned, though, had not returned altogether faithful. The books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and certainly Malachi detail major heart issues among the people of Israel as the Old Testament closes. In fact, Malachi ends with a promise by God of His coming, but also a warning for Israel. Malachi states in chapter 4, verse 5, "...remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules which I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel." Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes, and he will turn the hearts and fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction. Yet, the people are still in the Promised Land, as we in the Old Testament, having rebuilt the temple under the leadership of the faithful men, really, at the end of the Old Testament after they've gotten back from exile. And that is, again, where the Old Testament ends with them mostly free of persecution. So what happened between Malachi and Matthew? How did we get to this chapter, this point in Matthew, and how did the nation of Israel get to this point, and what did they face during that time? Well, as H.I. Ironside puts it, the Old Testament closes with the people of the Jews partially restored to their land, but under Persian dominion. The New Testament opens with the same people greatly multiplied and dwelling in the same country, but under a Roman sway, and yet with an Edomite vice king exercising jurisdiction over part of the land. He goes on to say, in many other respects, circumstances had undergone a marked change, and generally for the worse. And I think as we open the New Testament, as we begin to read of the state of Israel, they are in a worse place as a nation. These silent years, they really break down in several different ways, but there's a couple different eras, so to speak, during this time. In that first era, it lasted the longest. During that first era, the time period the Jews were led, they were led by high priests, high priests there of Israel, and generally they enjoyed peace and independence overall. Under the Medo-Persian and Grecian reign, the rule of Israel was generally entrusted to those high priests and that line traced down through Joshua, who returned from captivity with Zerubbabel. These were priests who were legitimate high priests, as the bloodline goes. They were not priests who eventually were like those in the days of Jesus who had gotten that title by bribery or by political gain. Now, some of these priests were godly, but some were very wicked. In fact, most were wicked during that period of time. There was one godly man by all accounts, and his name was Jedua. And he was said to be spotless. That was his reputation. It is this priest who is said to have recognized Alexander the Great. I think you've heard this story, but he's the one that recognized Alexander the Great as the one prophesied by Daniel there to end the Medieval Persian Empire. This priest is said to have met Alexander as Alexander was on his way to lay siege to Jerusalem. He showed him the prophecy there of himself in Daniel, and this led Alexander to declare that he would never allow Jerusalem to be touched as long as he reigned, as long as he had power. Now, that's great, but Alexander's rule was pretty short. He died at a young age of 33, and his death caused pandemonium, as you could imagine. In the aftermath of his death, because the Jews supported one of Alexander's generals over another, Palestine and Jerusalem specifically became a war zone. The shunned general Ptolemy and his son Soter, they sieged and they sacked Jerusalem. They came in on the Sabbath and they massacred many of the inhabitants just out of vengeance. They deported thousands more from Egypt. Those deported Jews actually fell in love with Egypt and Greek culture. According to Ironside, they were responsible for almost completely annihilating the ancient Jewish faith, just as they got inebriated, basically, with that Egyptian and Greek culture. But war between these two generals, it continued, and it lasted for five years. And it left the land of Israel about ruined by the end of it, completely crushed. This was just a taste, though, of the destruction and danger which would come for the Jews before Jesus was born, and during that time, those 400 silent years. Ultimately, around 300 BC, that Greek Empire was divided between Alexander's four generals. General Ptolemy, who I mentioned a minute ago, was given rule over the area that Israel was located. He was given rule over Egypt, Palestine, Libya, and Arabia. While there was a period there around 215 BC where the Jews in Egypt and Alexander were persecuted intensely, Jews in Palestine were not so greatly persecuted after this takeover by Ptolemy for nearly a century. They had kind of about a hundred years of peace. That said, they were constantly in the middle of war between the kings of the north and the kings of the south. They were kind of a buffer state in the middle of everything and just war around them in the middle of everything. They never sided with any king at that point, but no matter who won, history tells us the Jews lost, basically. They were never on the right side because they didn't have a side, and so all sides were against them. War and looting were always in their midst. They had little to no national history during this time, and they were constantly occupied by foreigners. Yet, they remained a people by the grace of God through that. And by the end of this period, Israel was in disarray, especially the priesthood. In fact, the last priest who obtained priesthood by inheritance was a man by the name of Onias III. But there was great strife and great warring even amongst the Jews over the priesthood by this point. This period lasted from roughly 430 BC, where they were ruled by the high priests, the date that Malachi was written, until about 170 BC. That's kind of the time period that the high priests had primary rule in Israel. So about 250 years of being led and ruled by high priests, and while they, again, experienced great hardship during this period of time as a people, as we've kind of touched on already, this suffering that they were going to go through, it really was just beginning. In 175 BC, a man by the name of Antiochus Epiphanes began his rule. He was a wicked man who brought the most bitter persecution to the Jews that has ever come to this point in their history. Only the reign and persecution by the Antichrist himself, as promised in Revelation, will surpass this persecution that Antiochus wrought on Israel during his 11-year reign. In fact, he was meant to be a picture of that future Antichrist. Satan's persecution and attempts to destroy Israel intensify primarily through one man in him prior to that first coming of Christ. And He will once again intensify those efforts prior to the second coming of Christ through one man, the future Antichrist. So we kind of have a parallel in a sense here. Now the tyranny of Antiochus over Israel was bad enough to begin with. It didn't start out, it wasn't good to begin with. But about 171 BC, three or four years into his reign, he invaded Egypt. A report of that invasion was given to Jerusalem, and there was a report in there that he was actually killed. Well, because of his tyranny and because of how much the Jews disliked him for obvious reasons, there was said to be great rejoicing among the Jews, especially there in Jerusalem. News of this reaction, though, in Jerusalem over his supposed or assumed death, it eventually made its way to Antiochus because he was not dead. And after he heard about it, it sent him into a fury. In his rage, he left, took his armies like a flood through the land of Palestine and into Jerusalem where he took the city, he laid waste to it, and it was said that over 40,000 Jews were slain in three days. Then another 40,000 were taken from their homes and led into captivity. It is during this time that Antiochus forced his way there in Jerusalem into the holy of holies of the temple. He carried off anything of value inside, he destroyed the books of the law, and he erected an altar, an idol altar, on the holy altar where he sacrificed a pig and sprinkled a mixture of blood and flesh all over the temple, defiling the temple in a way that we can't even comprehend. Less than two years later, he sent an army back to Jerusalem in a fit of anger after being defeated by Egypt again, shamefully. And this army slew thousands more men, took more women and children captive, setting houses and the walls of Jerusalem ablaze before he left. And to make matters worse, he then passed a law called the Act of Uniformity, which compelled everyone in his dominion, which obviously were the Jews as well, to worship his gods and defy all others. This man showed no mercy. History tells us that man, woman, child, young, old, rich, poor, they all suffered if they did not follow this law. And those discovered observing the Sabbath, they were burned alive. Josephus wrote of that time that the Jews were under this law, they were whipped with rods, their bodies torn to pieces, and then eventually they were crucified. It was during this time that Israelites were at their lowest. The odds of their survival were very low, humanly speaking. At the peak of this tyranny and this persecution of God, He granted a measure of mercy to preserve His people and His promised Messiah. A man by the name of Mattathias, you likely have heard the surname given to him, Maccabeus, meaning the hammer of God, enters the picture. He was an older man who refused to bow the knee to Antiochus or his gods. And as he stood one day, many devoted Jews began to follow him against Antiochus and his decrees and his tyranny. Mattathias did not see much of this resistance due to his old age, but his five sons, led by Judas, his middle son, picked up that mantle and led Israel against Antiochus. Judas led Israel in victory after victory, which threw Antiochus into a fury again. Eventually, he sent his greatest general and half his army to completely destroy and annihilate the Jews. It was said that the first battle between this general of Antiochus, he had an army of nearly 50,000 men who marched on Jerusalem. Judas could only muster an army of about 6,000 men. So you've got 50,000 versus 6,000. Yet, the Jews emerged victorious. The Syrian army retreated, but they added forces, and about a year later, they marched back on the Jews with a force of about 65,000. Judas had gained some followers, but he still only had an army of 10,000, so still a vast difference. Yet once again, the Jews were triumphant. And less than a year later, Antiochus suffered a horrible death, and thus ended one of the greatest immediate threats to Israel in her history. Now you would think, this Oberwith, him dead, The Jews would have some peace. They would be able to get on with their lives, so to speak, and not have so much trouble. But unfortunately, war did not end with the death of Antiochus. For the next 20 years, the Jews remained on the defense as they were the center of attack after attack until finally in 143 BC, they did gain independence. This was due in large part because of a treaty that was struck between them and this new up-and-coming world power, Rome. Over the next 75 years, though, dissension between the Sadducees and the Pharisees, those two leaders, two religious leaders or groups of leaders there in Israel, continued to escalate and draw the people of Israel farther and farther away from God and deeper and deeper into tradition or Greek culture. Political jockeying among the Jews, desiring that title of high priest that began to grow during this period of time. Rome began to appoint kings over Judea as well. The alliances formed and destroyed among those wanting to be high priests and wanting to be king dominated Israel from about 80 BC until the New Testament narrative begins. That created more war. and more destruction in Jerusalem and the surrounding area of Judea all along the way. Now, it was during this time that an Edomite named Antipater gained influence with Caesar, and he was named the procurator of Judea. He then named one of his sons, Herod, to be the governor of Jerusalem. Now, we know this Herod to be known as Herod the Great. After the death of his father and brother Herod the Great, He began to rise in power due to his keen political abilities, and he was actually given the title of King of Judea in 40 BC. Now just prior to him being given that title, Herod had escaped a death sentence at the hands of the Sanhedrin court. He escaped two more separate attempts to have him murdered by the hands of rivals trying to gain power there in Judea. Herod was brilliant by all accounts, but paranoia dominated in his life and in his mind and paranoia of him specifically losing his title and losing that power, his perceived power, and his paranoia led him to madness almost. It also led him to put to death another rival after he was given the title of king, as well as his uncle and his brother-in-law, And then his bloodlust kind of reached a climactic point and paranoia where he eventually murdered his wife and three sons. He did this because he thought they were a threat to his crown. He ordered the death of his sons and wife around two years, roughly two years prior to the birth of Jesus, which would have likely fallen in the same calendar year that the angel of the Lord came to Zechariah to announce the birth of John the Baptist. And so we find our way back to the New Testament. We find our way here in Matthew 1.18 with Herod the Great holding the title of King of Judea. As Matthew wrote about the birth of the King Jesus, It's hard to imagine He didn't do that with all of that background, especially during those 400 silent years, kind of in His mind or on His mind. In those first 17 verses of Matthew, He's already laid out the Davidic credentials of Jesus' genealogy, and we know Jesus to be of the line of David. There's no question about that. That had been preserved by the sovereign and supernatural will of God. He then writes of the miraculous conception of the Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit and the assurance to Joseph here that Mary had been faithful despite being pregnant and not by Joseph. Now look, as we get here and as we read this and we see this, there are several truths that we have to point out. Jesus had to be born, right? He, as the promised Messiah, had to be born also of a virgin. from the Davidic line, and he had to be born in Bethlehem. If these things had not happened, any of them, then God would be a liar. Because those things were foretold and promised by God Himself. And I hope we have seen, just working through that brief history of how incredible it was that this could have even happened, given the constant threat to the Jews, either being removed completely from Palestine, making the birth in Bethlehem impossible, or their complete annihilation, making the birth impossible altogether. And we can see then why, when we get to this passage here in Matthew, we see Herod, in chapter 2, we see Herod trying to find Jesus and put Him to death. Herod's background, his paranoia, again, peeking here, the idea of this new king coming in to take his power, threaten his power. Now, Herod had been raised as a practicing Jew, at least outwardly, and by all accounts, he continued to practice that as an adult. So when the wise men come to him and ask, where is he who is to be born king of the Jews? Herod's question, then, as he goes to the scribes and the chief priests, where the Christ was to be born, should not be shocking. Herod knew the prophecies of the Messiah. There's no reason to believe he didn't. He knew the Messiah was prophesied to be king of the Jews. And so if this Messiah had been born, then his time and his power would have been immediately in question, right? He had no interest in giving up his power to anyone, including the Messiah. Which is why after being fooled by these wise men, not going back to report where the Messiah was, Herod issued an order to kill every baby boy in Bethlehem, two and under. He's trying his best to get rid of this rival, what he thinks to be a rival anyways. Of course, Herod couldn't prevent the coming of the Messiah, nor could he prevent his reign had the Messiah chosen to take the throne at that time. And so we see one more great act of preservation here in Matthew of the Messiah by God. As Joseph and Mary, they flee to Egypt until God ends Herod's life a couple of years later. All of this, we see the miraculous nature of the birth of Christ and His preservation, the preservation of Israel, the preservation of the line of David. And finally, I think we can also see and know why the Jews were expecting and hoping for a military Messiah when Jesus came. From the time that that small remnant of Jews returned from Babylon until the day that Jesus was born, the nation had gone through a steady decline. They were war-torn, and they were at the constant whim of power-hungry priests, kings, governors, and even queens, all trying to either seize control of Israel or destroy the Jews out of pure evil. Even worse, they were completely devoid of spiritual leadership. There were moments where they almost ceased to exist due to that heavy persecution. Yet God, in His mercy, preserved them through all of it so that His promises concerning the Messiah would hold true. The priests, both Pharisees and Sadducees, at the time that Jesus was born, they were all vying for power and influence over the competing sect. The Sadducees, they didn't recognize a large portion of God's Word as they only recognized those first five books, and they were mostly concerned not with the Word of God, but with living extravagant and materialistic lives according to Greek culture. The Pharisees, on the other hand, had developed so many legalistic and extra-biblical traditions that they didn't know where God's Word ended and their Word began. So they just demanded that their Word be followed despite what God's Word said or didn't say. And neither party, Pharisee nor Sadducee, was looking for the Messiah. They were no different then in many ways than Herod in their lust for power and influence, and these were the people leading Israel. Yet looking one more time here in our passage before we end, we see Joseph given this promise by this angel in verse 21. She will bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins." Joseph is given the reason for the coming of the Messiah here. He had come to save His people from their sins. The Messiah had come as much more than a military leader. The people of Israel, they needed a Savior, but not from Rome. They needed one from their sins. And so the miracle of the virgin birth of the God-man had come despite all the efforts of Satan to prevent it. And as we consider this miracle today and we celebrate it with family and friends, let us not lose sight of the reason that Satan tried over and over and over to prevent the birth of our Lord. It wasn't because he was scared of some small baby in a manger. It was because he knew that Jesus, that baby, would grow to destroy him. Some 33 years later, Satan would think he had won the war against Jesus as Jesus hung on the cross. But instead, Jesus was guaranteeing Satan's doom at that moment. And for all who placed their faith in Him, He was guaranteeing our greatest victory as well. And that is the purpose of Christmas. That is what we celebrate as we celebrate His birth, as we think on this. We see the miraculous preservation of the Messiah, of Israel, of God's promises. We see it all the way through the New Testament. We see it in those silent years. We see it after He's born. We see He came for one purpose there to save us from our sins. We celebrate that. We thank Him for that tonight. I pray that everyone's had a good day today. I know that was a little bit shorter, a little bit different than what we normally do. I hope it was informative. I hope that it was enjoyable. And I hope that we've gained something from it tonight. But stand with me.